Great white sharks could soon appear in UK waters as researchers head to Cornwall in search

Great white sharks could start appearing off the UK coast as they migrate north from the Mediterranean in search of seals, research has said.

Chris Fischer, founder of Ocearch, said other populations of great whites his organisation has tracked have tended to move northwards in search of food.

“We believe they should be moving up past Brest [in Brittany] and Cornwall,” he told The Times.

Ocearch, which collects ocean data to help scientists, plans to come to Britain next summer in the hope of finding great whites.

Cape Cod, a peninsula in Massachusetts, US - next to the island where the film Jaws was shot - has seen its great white population grow over the past few decades.

The iconic sharks, revered and feared for their success in hunting and razor-sharp teeth, had been virtually non-existent there prior to the 1970s but their numbers have ballooned since.

Scientists say they have been drawn there by an increasing number of seals, whose numbers have also increased due to federal protections designed to protect them.

But one expert has poured cold water on the suggestion that great white sharks could be found in the UK next summer.

Gregory Skomal, a marine biologist whose new memoir Chasing Shadows traces great whites’ revival along the US eastern seaboard, said he would be “surprised” if any were found.

“There’s no documented white sharks off Cornwall,” he said. “They should be there but they are not and we don’t know why.”

There are great whites in the Mediterranean, although their numbers are low and relatively little is known about them or how they ended up there.

A 4.5m long female was caught off Capo San Croce in eastern Sicily, Italy, in 1908.

Great whites, the largest predatory fish on Earth,  can be found throughout the world’s oceans, mostly in cool waters close to the coast and are often spotted near South Africa, other parts of Africa, California and New Zealand.

Scientists say they are found all over the world because they have no problem migrating long distances in search of prey.

On average they grow to around 4.6m long although some have been measured at 6m - around half the length of a bus.