Species profile
Carcharodon carcharias
Great white shark
VU · Vulnerable — Vulnerable — high risk of extinction in the wild
About this species
Great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) is part of the curated SpeciesWatch catalogue and is classified as Vulnerable. Great white sharks sense the electric field of a fish's heartbeat from metres away using the ampullae of Lorenzini — jelly-filled pores on the snout. The overall trend remains uncertain or is not applicable, so it should not be inferred from a small number of observations.
Habitat, behaviour and ecological role
This profile associates the species with marine, coastal, pelagic. These labels summarise environments used during different stages of its life rather than drawing an exact range boundary. They can breach completely out of the water when hunting seals, and their bite force exceeds two tonnes. Its anatomy and behaviour are responses to those environments, while movement can connect distant places requiring different forms of management.
Why this species is at risk
The white shark's ancestors were swimming alongside dinosaurs, and the species has changed little in millions of years. The catalogue records 3 principal pressures for this profile: Bycatch, Finning, Trophy fishing. They should not be treated as isolated causes. Habitat change, exploitation, pollution, disease and climate stress can reinforce one another, while the importance of each pressure varies between regions and through time.
Conservation outlook
Fishery management needs enforceable limits, more selective gear, bycatch reduction and coordinated compliance across jurisdictions. Actions need long-term monitoring and revision as evidence changes; a positive intervention in one place does not by itself represent recovery across the species.
Editorial review: 2026-08-21
Threat factors
Known occurrences
Dots are georeferenced occurrence records from OBIS (marine) and GBIF (global), not individual animals and not a complete range map. Up to 500 recent API results are cached; the profile renders at most 500 points.
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