There’s something in the water (just don’t panic if it’s a great white shark)

The seas of the UK are home to more shark species than most Brits realise. There are 21 species that reside here, such as the giant but harmless basking shark, the glorious blue and the menacing looking (but shy) porbeagle.

However there are also other species recorded as unusual or “vagrant” visitors. In the vaults of the Natural History museum, I’ve been lucky enough to see the remains of the scalloped hammerhead washed up on a beach in the 1800s, and a pickled 300-year-old Greenland shark found in Northumberland.

The species that is missing is the great white. In records going back centuries, none have ever been caught in our waters. Either by hooks, nets or cameras. That is not to say they have never been here. They’re in the Med, and a female was caught in the Bay of Biscay in the 1970s; they migrate thousands of miles and could cover the 170 miles to Cornwall with ease.

At the same latitude on the other side of the Atlantic, they are well known. Tagged individuals have been followed as they cross the Mid Atlantic ridge headed in our direction… but for some reason, they veer off and head south. We have food in seals and tuna and the right water temperature, but for some unknown reason, they just don’t like to be beside the British seaside.

This summer, a research team is headed to British waters to try and get the first solid record of a great white in Blighty. At this I have to heave a hefty sigh. The distribution map of the great white already encompasses the UK, so a positive record will not noticeably affect scientific knowledge.

However, while it is – to my mind – inconceivable that a white shark has never swum through our seas, they are here so infrequently and so fleetingly as to be of no consequence. Like a rare bird that blows into the Scilly Isles sending Twitchers barmy, their stay is transitory, and they affect us and our ecosystems not a jot.

However, the hysteria that will follow a certain record of a great white here will set back shark conservation here. There have been half a dozen decent but unverified “sightings” over the years; and a thousand terrible ones (memorably, last year the Daily Mail reported a great white fin being spotted here, that turned out to be a sewage pipe.) The red tops love nothing more than a bit of silly season panic about killer wildlife. Everyone in shark conservation groans every time a basking shark appears in the Daily Star or Express having “terrified” a surfer here.

This fear-mongering, though, could not come at a worse time. Around the world, at least 250 million sharks are killed every year – many just for their fins. They are fast disappearing, leaving an imbalance in our seas. However on Friday, after more than a decade of campaigning by groups like Bite Back and Shark Trust, our King signed in to law the Shark fin bill, preventing the trade of detached shark fin and any product containing it in the UK.

It’s a big deal. It means that overloaded border officers – who have to sift through 60 tonnes worth of shark fin a year in search of critically endangered species – can seize any fins. It removes the “personal allowance” which enabled people to enter the UK with sacks of fins for personal usage. And it sets a precedent, that we in this animal-loving and wildlife-depleted nation value nature – and won’t be a part of trades that threaten the future of our seas.

If any evidence of a great white is found in our seas, then everyone will forget all that. Sharks in British waters will once again just be a reason for unwarranted fear; any desire to protect them overwhelmed by primal panic.