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

Great white sharks could soon appear in UK waters – they may already be here. It’s good news, explains explorer Steve Backshall, but try telling people that

The hysteria that will follow a certain record of a great white here will set back shark conservation here (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

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.