Sandbar and dusky sharks have been sighted around the Hadera power plant in recent years, in what the university’s scientists are calling a “legitimate and rare phenomenon.” This annual gathering is believed to be caused by man-made factors as well as the rising temperatures of the Mediterranean Sea.

A recent study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, found that climate change is steadily heating the Mediterranean Sea by 0.4 degrees every decade, making the region among the hardest hit in the world.

The university’s top predator team is working on how to protect this understudied and endangered shark population, which has already been depleted by over 90% since the 1950s.

One of the researchers described this spectacle a harbinger that “helps us assess what will happen to different species when waters elsewhere reach the temperatures we have here now.”

To view the shark congregation,  click here.