Scientists feud over South Africa's missing great white sharks

60 Minutes Overtime South Africa's great white sharks mysteriously vanished. Scientists can't agree who, or what, is the culprit. .chip { background-image: url('/fly/bundles/cbsnewscore/images/chip-bgd/chip-bgd-60-minutes-overtime.jpg'); } By Anderson Cooper, Anderson Cooper 60 Minutes Correspondent Anderson Cooper, anchor of CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360," has contributed to 60 Minutes since 2006. His exceptional reporting on big news events has earned Cooper a reputation as one of television's preeminent newsmen. Read Full Bio Anderson Cooper, Aliza Chasan, Aliza Chasan Digital Content Producer Aliza Chasan is a Digital Content Producer for "60 Minutes" and CBSNews.com. She has previously written for outlets including PIX11 News, The New York Daily News, Inside Edition and DNAinfo. Aliza covers trending news, often focusing on crime and politics. Read Full Bio Aliza Chasan, Michael H Gavshon, Nadim Roberts April 12, 2026 / 7:17 PM EDT / CBS News Add CBS News on Google When great white sharks started vanishing from the coastal waters around Cape Town, South Africa, some scientists and conservationists were mystified.Those waters teemed with great white sharks when 60 Minutes correspondent Anderson Cooper went diving with the predators in 2010. The area was home to smaller sharks and seals that the great whites hunted, turning it into a hotspot. But just a few years later, the sharks started disappearing, confounding scientists and conservationists. South Africa was the first country in the world to protect great white sharks in 1991, but today, some are worried it will be the first to lose that population to local extinction. Photographer Chris Fallows, who shot some of the most iconic photographs of great white sharks, said he used to see 250 to 300 great whites a year there, but now there are none. The mystery of why they disappeared has fueled a bitter feud among scientists and conservationists who can't agree on who, or what, is the real culprit. "L...