[BJ]

There are viable populations of sharks of various types still living in the Med including GWS. However it is a very deep sea and they tend to stay well away from the coast.
I recently had a tenant that was Maltese. He was in his early twenties but he had a collection of photographs he had taken of GWS landings, by fishemen, in Malta. They all looked quite sizeable.
I am reliably told that in the ’80s there was the case of holiday makers trying to save a stranded whale at Torremelinos. Their efforts to get it back out in deep water came to an end when the Guardia Civil turned up with a flat-top truck and a hi-ab. They had a well-prcatised plan. They took it off and when its remains were discovered later by Ian Ferguson, the guy who runs the Mediterranean Shark file, it was...a GWS.