Sharks in Bulgaria

• Shark species recorded4 (1 resident, 3 rare visitors)
• ProtectionEU rules since 2007; Natura 2000 marine sites; Kaliakra reserve since 1941
• Most seen from the beachSpiny dogfish (rarely, in spring and autumn)
• Signature encounterDogfish in the turbot nets at Shabla and Kaliakra
• Incidents in the database0 recorded (none fatal)
• Water temperature6–8 °C in February, 24–26 °C in August

Where sharks live in Bulgarian waters, and why there are so few

The Black Sea is a strange place for a fish. It is an almost enclosed basin whose only link to the ocean is the Bosphorus, a channel less than a kilometre wide at its narrowest, and it receives so much river water from the Danube, Dnieper and Don that its surface salinity sits at 17–18 parts per thousand, half that of the Mediterranean. Below that fresh, light surface layer the water is dense, stagnant and, from about 150 m down, entirely without oxygen: the deep Black Sea is the largest body of hydrogen-sulphide water on the planet, and nothing with gills lives in it. Roughly nine-tenths of the sea's volume is therefore empty of fish, and the whole of the Black Sea's marine life is squeezed into a thin, brackish, seasonally cold lens on top.

That lens rules out almost every shark. The deep-water species that make up half of any Mediterranean list, the sixgills, gulpers, lanternsharks and catsharks of the slope, have no habitat here at all. The big pelagic sharks, blue sharks, makos and threshers, can physically swim in through the Bosphorus, and once in a long while one does, but the low salinity, the cold winters and the lack of their usual prey send them back out or kill them. What is left is the one shark that positively likes cold, brackish, shallow water rich in small schooling fish: the spiny dogfish, Squalus acanthias, which has been in the Black Sea long enough to form a stock of its own, with females that grow larger here than almost anywhere else in the species' range.

Bulgaria's coast, running from the Romanian border at Durankulak to the Turkish border at Rezovo, is the western shelf of this sea: a broad, gently sloping bottom of sand, shell and mud that stays shallower than 100 m for 20 to 50 km offshore, broken by the rocky capes of Kaliakra, Emine and Maslen Nos. Dogfish use all of it. In spring and autumn they move up onto the shelf and into water of 20–60 m, close enough to shore that anglers at Kaliakra and Sozopol occasionally hook one, and in winter and high summer they drop to the shelf edge, where the temperature is steadier. The southern stretch from Burgas to Rezovo, nearest the Bosphorus, is where the rare Mediterranean visitors are most likely to appear, because it is the first Bulgarian water they reach after the Marmara.

List of the different types of sharks in Bulgaria

This table is deliberately short. It lists the one resident shark, the three species with genuine records as visitors, and four sharks that appeared on the old version of this page and need correcting: two with old or unconfirmed Black Sea records, one that is doubtful, and one that is simply not there. Sizes are typical adults in this sea. The risk column is about swimmers, and for every confirmed species it is low. Bulgarians call a shark akula; the dogfish is the chernomorska akula, the Black Sea shark.

Species	Adult size	Risk to swimmers	Where in Bulgaria & notes
Spiny DogfishSqualus acanthias	0.9–1.5 m (3–5 ft); Black Sea females are the largest anywhere	Low	Whole Bulgarian shelf, 20–120 m; inshore in spring and autumnThe Black Sea's only resident shark. Harmless to swimmers; two mildly venomous dorsal spines that injure fishermen who handle it. Stock depleted and Endangered regionally.
Small-spotted CatsharkScyliorhinus canicula	0.6–0.8 m (2–2.5 ft)	Low	Rare visitor from the Marmara; southern coast toward RezovoEnters the south-western Black Sea in small numbers and has been recorded off Bulgaria a few times. A bottom-dwelling egg-layer, completely harmless.
Common Smooth-houndMustelus mustelus	1–1.5 m (3–5 ft)	Low	Rare visitor; occasional summer records on the western shelfA crab-eating houndshark with flat teeth. Recorded in the Black Sea sporadically; cannot bite a person seriously.
Common Thresher SharkAlopias vulpinus	3–5 m (10–16 ft) incl. tail	Low	Very rare visitor; offshore, late summerThe one large shark with genuine Black Sea records, decades apart, chasing anchovy schools in from the Marmara. Timid; never implicated in a bite.
Smooth Hammerhead SharkSphyrna zygaena	2.5–3.5 m (8–12 ft)	n/a	Historical Black Sea records near the Bosphorus; none confirmed for BulgariaListed on the old page. A Marmara stray at most; not part of the Bulgarian fauna.
AngelsharkSquatina squatina	1.2–1.8 m (4–6 ft)	n/a	Early twentieth-century Black Sea records; no modern Bulgarian recordA flat, ray-like bottom shark now critically endangered across Europe. Effectively gone from the Black Sea.
Longnose SpurdogSqualus blainville	0.7–0.9 m (2.5–3 ft)	n/a	Doubtful; Black Sea records are probably misidentified spiny dogfishA Mediterranean dogfish included on the old page. Not accepted as a Black Sea species.
Great White SharkCarcharodon carcharias	4–6 m (13–20 ft)	n/a	No record from the Black SeaHere to answer the question, not because it belongs. Never once recorded in this sea.

The corrections matter because the old list gave a false picture. The smooth hammerhead has a handful of historical Black Sea records, nearly all from the Turkish coast near the Bosphorus, and none that can be confirmed for Bulgaria; treat it as a Marmara animal that once or twice went too far. The angelshark was recorded in the Black Sea in the early twentieth century and has not been seen in Bulgarian waters for decades, which fits its collapse across the whole of Europe. The longnose spurdog, Squalus blainville, is a Mediterranean dogfish that is easily confused with the spiny dogfish, and the Black Sea records attributed to it are generally regarded as misidentifications. As for the great white shark, there is no record from the Black Sea at all, and the few claims of white sharks off Turkey's northern coast have never been substantiated. The same goes for the bull shark, the tiger shark and every reef shark: none has ever been recorded in this sea.

Where to see sharks in Bulgaria

Nobody comes to Bulgaria to see sharks, and no operator offers it. But there are places along the coast where you can see the spiny dogfish, alive or freshly landed, if you time it right.

• Cape KaliakraA 70 m limestone headland north of Varna, a nature reserve since 1941, with rocky reefs dropping into deep water close inshore. Dogfish move through in spring and autumn; divers exploring the caves and the Second World War wreck sites here have the best chance on the coast of meeting one underwater.
• Shabla and KavarnaThe northern fishing coast, where gillnetters set for turbot on the outer shelf. Spiny dogfish are the main bycatch, and the landing sites at Shabla, Kavarna and Balchik in April, May, October and November are the surest place in Bulgaria to see the species.
• VarnaBulgaria's largest port and the home of the Varna Aquarium, which has exhibited the Black Sea's fish since 1932, and of the Institute of Oceanology, which runs the national fish surveys. The Varna fish market sells dogfish, headed and skinned, when the boats have them.
• Sozopol and Cape Maslen NosThe old Greek town south of Burgas, with rocky islands and a small trawl and net fleet. Dogfish are landed here in the migration seasons, and Maslen Nos, the wooded cape to the south, has some of the clearest water on the coast for divers.
• Burgas BayThe largest bay on the Bulgarian coast, shallow and sheltered, with the country's main sprat and anchovy fishery. Where the bait fish go the dogfish follow, and shore anglers on the Burgas breakwaters occasionally land a small one in spring.
• Ropotamo reserve and PrimorskoThe Ropotamo river mouth, a protected wetland and Ramsar site, opens onto sandy shallows used by juvenile dogfish. The coast here is quiet, with long beaches and few boats.
• Tsarevo, Sinemorets and RezovoThe far south, on the edge of the Strandzha mountains and closest to the Bosphorus. This is the first Bulgarian water any Mediterranean stray reaches, and the coast where the rare catshark and smooth-hound records are most likely to come from.
• Golden Sands and Sunny BeachThe two big resorts. Not shark spots, but worth listing because this is where people ask: the beaches are shallow, sandy and patrolled, and no shark of any kind has ever been reported near a swimmer at either.

The realistic plan for a live dogfish is a dive at Kaliakra or Maslen Nos in May or October, when the animals are on the inner shelf, with the water as clear as the Black Sea gets. Failing that, a walk through the landing at Shabla or the fish market in Varna in the same months will show you the Black Sea's shark up close.

Best time of year to see sharks in Bulgaria

The Black Sea has a bigger seasonal swing than any Mediterranean coast, and the dogfish move with it.

• April to June: the spring migration. As the surface warms from 8 °C toward 18 °C, spiny dogfish come up onto the shelf behind the sprat, whiting and horse mackerel, and pregnant females give birth in the shallows. This is the peak season for landings at Shabla, Kavarna and Sozopol and the best window for divers at Kaliakra.
• July and August: the sea reaches 24–26 °C at the surface, but a sharp thermocline forms 15–25 m down and the water below it stays cold. Dogfish sit under the thermocline or move to the shelf edge, out of reach of swimmers and most divers. Cold upwellings occasionally bring 12 °C water to the beaches for a day or two.
• September to November: the autumn run. The thermocline breaks down, the fish schools move back inshore and the dogfish follow. October is often the clearest, calmest month of the year on the coast and the second-best time to see them.
• December to March: surface water falls to 6–8 °C, the coast is stormy and the dogfish stay deep on the outer shelf. Fishing continues on calm days, but sightings are rare.

Shark attacks in Bulgaria: what the record actually shows

There is no record, and there has never been one. The SharkSider database, which is reconciled with the International Shark Attack File and regional sources every week, contains no shark incident for Bulgaria, provoked or unprovoked, fatal or otherwise. The same is true of the entire Black Sea: in a sea shared by six countries and visited by tens of millions of holidaymakers every summer, there is no confirmed case of a shark biting a swimmer.

No incidents are recorded in the SharkSider database for this country.

The explanation is biological rather than lucky. The only shark that lives here, the spiny dogfish, has a small mouth, blunt cutting teeth built for sprat and whiting, and a temperament that makes it flee from anything larger than itself. Its one real weapon is the pair of mildly venomous spines in front of its dorsal fins, which it uses by curling its body when grabbed, and the only shark injuries ever treated on the Bulgarian coast are the puncture wounds fishermen get from handling dogfish in the nets. The sharks with a genuine bite history, white sharks, tigers, bulls, makos and oceanic whitetips, either cannot live in the Black Sea or have never been recorded in it.

The general advice on avoiding shark bites is therefore close to irrelevant here, and the hazards that actually put Bulgarian beachgoers in hospital are worth listing instead: rip currents off the long open beaches near Varna and south of Burgas, the summer blooms of moon and barrel jellyfish, sudden cold upwellings that can shock swimmers, and, on the busy resort strips, jet skis and inflatables. Lifeguards on the Black Sea have never had to raise a shark flag.

Is it safe to swim in the sea in Bulgaria?

As far as sharks are concerned, entirely. A swimmer at Sunny Beach, Golden Sands, Sozopol or Sinemorets is in one of the few seas on Earth where the shark question can be answered with a flat no. The spiny dogfish, if it happens to be inshore, is a shy, bottom-hugging fish that a snorkeller might glimpse as a grey shape over the sand for a second before it is gone. It has no interest in people, and it is physically incapable of inflicting the kind of wound that larger sharks do.

The one situation in which a dogfish can hurt you is if you catch one. Shore anglers at Kaliakra, Burgas and Sozopol do occasionally hook them in spring and autumn, and the fish's reflex when handled is to arch its back and swing its spines into whatever is holding it. The spines carry a weak venom that causes sharp pain and swelling for a few hours. Hold a dogfish by the tail with a cloth, keep the back away from your arm, and unhook it with pliers, or better, cut the line close to the hook and let it go; the species is endangered across the region and Bulgaria's stock has not recovered from the fishing of the 1970s and 1980s.

Shark conservation in Bulgaria

Bulgaria's shark conservation story is really the story of one species. The Black Sea spiny dogfish was fished hard from the 1960s onward, first by the Soviet Union and Turkey and later by Bulgaria and Romania, for its meat, its liver oil and for export to western Europe. Landings across the sea ran to thousands of tonnes a year at the peak and then collapsed; by the 1990s the catch had fallen by more than 90%, and the Black Sea stock is now considered depleted. A shark that takes ten to fifteen years to mature and carries its pups for close to two years, the longest pregnancy of any vertebrate, cannot recover quickly from that kind of fishing, and it has not.

Since Bulgaria joined the European Union in 2007 its fisheries have been managed under the Common Fisheries Policy, which means the EU's finning ban and fins-attached rule apply, and through the EU Bulgaria falls under the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean, whose remit extends into the Black Sea. There is no targeted dogfish fishery in Bulgaria any longer; the species is taken as bycatch in the turbot gillnet fishery, which is itself tightly regulated with quotas, seasonal closures and minimum mesh sizes, and Bulgarian landings are now measured in tonnes rather than thousands of tonnes. The spiny dogfish is assessed as Endangered on the regional IUCN Red List for the Mediterranean and Black Sea, and the Bucharest Convention, signed by all six Black Sea states in 1992, commits Bulgaria to protecting the sea's biodiversity.

The habitat protection is better than the species protection. Cape Kaliakra has been a reserve since 1941, the Ropotamo river mouth and the Strandzha coast are protected, and Bulgaria's Natura 2000 network includes marine sites at Kaliakra, Emine-Irakli, Ropotamo and the Strandzha shore that cover much of the shelf the dogfish use. If you want to help the Black Sea's only shark, the simplest step is to release any dogfish you catch and to skip it on the menu. For the wider picture of why sharks like this one disappear, our guide to why sharks are endangered fills in the background.

Sharks in neighbouring waters

Bulgaria's shark fauna is the Black Sea's, and it changes completely a few hundred kilometres away. Turkey holds both shores of the Bosphorus and the Marmara, the corridor through which every Black Sea stray arrives, as well as the Aegean's sandbar shark nursery at Boncuk Cove. Georgia and Russia share the Black Sea's eastern and northern shelves and the same dogfish stock. To the south-west, Greece is where the Mediterranean list begins in earnest, with 33 species and a real great white history, and the Adriatic coasts of Montenegro and Croatia show what a Balkan shore looks like with full ocean salinity and deep water. Our sharks around the world index lists the other coasts we have covered.

Written and reviewed by

SharkSider Editorial Team

A small team focused on researching sharks and making marine biology easy to understand. Every page is reviewed against current species records and the SharkSider attack database, and updated when new incidents or research appear.

Published January 19, 2023 · Last updated September 21, 2026 · Incident data from the SharkSider attack database (0 records for Bulgaria, 0 fatal).