In a big problem for fishermen and bathers, the appearance of hareheads in the Greek seas evolves. The invasion of this alien species into Greek territorial waters may have been known since 2013, when it was first identified, but what is now causing greater concern to the general public is the increasing attacks on bathers, even Attica.
The six species of Greece
In Greece six types of rabbit heads have been recorded, with one of them considered toxic and a strong recommendation to citizens not being consumed.
1.Common Rabbit Head: This fish has a long body, the color of its back is in shades of blue and has a few spots.
2. Rabbithead: It is the most common species that is widely found in the Greek seas and what there is a strong recommendation not to be consumed as it is toxic. It has many dark spots and a silver sideline.
3.Castanoorachus Rabbithead: Its back is brown, its belly is light in color and its wings are yellowish.
4. Suez Rabbithead: The body of this species is smaller than the rest of the species and on the sides has dark spots.
5. Short-headed quadrant: This species differs a lot from the rest as it has a short fat body and rounded head. Dark spots exist in this too.
6. Nanolanchocephalus: It's the very small kind of fishhead. His body is particularly thin and lives near the bottom.
Where the hareheads came from
Rabbitheads are fish of the family Tetraodontidae, known internationally as pufferfish or toadfish. The most known most problematic species, is the second named Lagocephalus sceleratus. This species invaded the Mediterranean via the Suez Canal, and has now spread to many regions of Greece.
The presence of this species is strong mainly in southern and eastern areas while it appears to be expanding more and more.
Why is he dangerous?
The rabbithead, according to the Greek Biodiversity Field Guide, should not be consumed. His body may contain tetrodotoxin, a powerful neurotoxin that can cause severe poisoning or death. The toxin is often found in organs such as liver and gonads, but may also exist in other tissues while it can cause numbness, dizziness, weakness, difficulty in speech or movement, vomiting, diarrhoea, paralysis and in serious cases respiratory failure or death. Symptoms may occur from a few minutes to a few hours after consumption.
Their sale is illegal
In the European Union, fish products derived from poisonous fish of the families Tetraodontidae, Molidae, Diodontidae and Canthigasteridae should not be placed on the market. Rabbitheads belong to the family Tetraodontidae.
What to notice fishermen and bathers
Fishermen, if faced with a harehead, should follow certain safety steps. At first they should not consume him as he is toxic. Also, don't put him on the market for sale or give him to anyone else. Due to the toxin present in his body, he should not be cleaned or processed with other catches. Fishermen should not catch him with bare hands as he has very strong teeth. It's not a few times that hareheads have been recorded on video cutting whole pieces of soda cans. And finally, it should be recorded and sent the photo to appropriate platforms.
As for bathers, if they see a rabbit's head, they should not try to touch him and they should keep a safe distance from him. If they find him dead on a beach, they should find a way to remove him from the spot without touching him and carrying him to a point where no animal can eat him.
What to do if you get bitten by a rabbithead
The Greek Red Cross, on the occasion of the ever-increasing presence of the harehead in the Greek seas, informs citizens of the dangers posed by this species of fish and provides useful instructions of First Aid in the event of a bite injury.
The rabbithead contains strong neurotoxin (tetrodotoxin), which makes its consumption extremely dangerous. Because toxin distribution varies, no part of the fish is considered safe for consumption. Although the bite of the rabbit's head it is not toxic, its particularly strong jaws, which resemble a beak, can cause severe injuries and severe bleeding.
The Health Section of the Greek Red Cross recommends:
• Direct wound cleansing with plenty of running clean water and soap. Do not use local antiseptics without a doctor’ s instructions.
• Apply constant pressure with clean gauze or cloth clean. If the bleeding is intense, maintain constant pressure on the wound, keeping the limb up.
• Look for medical help, the bite wound will need specialized care, tetanus serum, perhaps stitches if the wound is deep.
• If the incident occurs in a remote area or the bleeding is intense, citizens should immediately call EKAB (166) or the European
Emergency Number (112), providing appropriate First Aid until specialist assistance arrives.
Invasion and attacks
As the invasion of this alien species has been known since 2013, when it was first spotted in the Greek seas, what causes greater concern to the general public is the increasing attacks on bathers, even in Attica. From Crete to Dodecanese this year from Saronida to the coast of Kavouri, Voula, Vari and Vouliagmeni, the problem seems to be getting bigger and bigger, as they are mentioned.casesattacksfrom hareheads to bathers, with fish beating or biting and chasing (!) swimmers.
Incidental attacks with wild bites and even blows on the feet of the bathed by hareheads have recently been reported in Old Phocaea, Saronida, Varkiza, but also elsewhere, except for the Aegean islands in which they have appeared for years. Last Saturday, bathing in Varkiza was injured when a harehead bit him in the tibia - swimming up to 20 points of water - while incidents of wild bites on buttocks and genitals have been reported, with some ending up in the hospital (in Asclepieio Voulas this particular case) and a large number of them not being reported-recorded, as the injury is not serious.
Scientists say that the rabbithead--the six species ofthat we have here in Greece - it has begun to change behavior, forming herds and seeking aggressive food without showing fear, due to the fact that in practice it has no natural competitors and spreads without resistance to the Greek seas.
The point is that as they are reduced - disappearing, it is the right word - its predators, the rabbithead tries - with great success - to spread everywhere, shallow and deep, attacking everything that moves. Literally, since it has greatly reduced the population of fish that filled the Greek seas. It prefers warm waters, which is why Crete has the biggest problem, but it has now expanded throughout the country, from Thessaloniki and Alexandroupolis to Peloponnese, from Alexandroupolis to Evia and Attica, from Rhodes, Serifos and Limnos to Corfu.
But why? THELagocephalussceleratus, such as its scientific name, is a foreign species that does not belong to the Mediterranean, since it is found in the Indian and Pacific ocean and mainly in the Red Sea. In our seas it appeared after the landing of the Suez Canal in 2001 and its expansion in 2015. Little by increasing temperature, little by little overfishing that has reduced the populations of his enemies and the harehead, who lives up to 100 meters deep, usually in coastal, shallow waters, spread everywhere.
It is a fish of the family quadrants and puffer fish that swell when they feel in danger, it has four strong teeth like a beak that cut like a razor. In its internal organs it contains a poisonous toxin, tetradotoxin (TTX), which is highly toxic and, if consumed, leads to painful death. By last year 28 attacks were recorded, some of which involved finger mutilation. Only one of them was in Greece. After the investigation followed dozens of bite attacks in island mostly Greece and Attica.
‘ATM’ of the sea
The rabbithead has no natural enemies and attacks all species. It feeds on shrimp, crabs, cephalopod eggs, squid and other small and larger fish, while it loves cuttlefish, octopus and lythrins. They are insatiable fish and cause damage to the nets and the general equipment of fishermen, since they either rip them or eat hooks (!) by devouring the catch. And that's not all. Marine areas such as that of the Saronic that fishermen called caressing "ATMs" due to the lythrins and other expensive fish they were given, are now deserted, with only the inhabitants of the hareheads.
Only from the damage to fishing gear and catches caused by hareheads, is it estimated that the average loss suffered by the Greek fisherman - according to his researchHellenic Maritime Research Centre- It's over 6,000 euros a year. This is also one of the most important reasons why the government is considering in all seriousness the possibility of "notifying" hareheads. The plan wants fishermen to be subsidized at a price of 6 euros a kilo as an incentive to raise hareheads and lead them to extinction. This programme has already run pilots in Crete and the Dodecanese.
Similar is in progress in Cyprus. The Cypriot Government, aiming to catch 125 tonnes of harehead from the coastal areas of Cyprus, has subsidized fishing for this fish. The price the Cypriot government gives for the harehead pound increased from 3 euros last year to 4.8 to today.
The harehead fishing is also subsidized in Turkey, where fishermen are funded to deliver as much quantities as they can, with the country's universities investigating fish toxins. Similarly research into how and if the harehead's toxin could be used (or isolated) is also being done in Egypt.
In our country, however, a very innovative research programme is also running, based on the Lagomeal research programme financed by the European Union. Its purpose is to establish scientifically whether and how tetradotoxin can be removed from the harehead for the production of feed.
The scientists of ELKETH, along with those of the "Democracy" and other cooperating bodies (IMBBC HCMR), went the program‘Lagomeal’of the EU one step more, since they have come up with how safe fishmeal can be produced by the harehead.
3,500-year-old inheritance lost
"The question is not whether hareheads bite bathers and if we see phenomena of panic and terror on the coast," says the research director of the Marine Research Institute "Archipelago",AnastasiaMillium, which points out that "the world must understand that in the Aegean there were 3,500 years of the same species of fish, which means that the Mediterranean peoples feed on the same species as our ancestors, these fish. This changes violently now with man-made intervention."
The hydrobiologist explains that "more than 1,000 foreign species have invaded the Mediterranean. As “Archipelago” has its own “observatory” and its own information network, its scientists see how quickly the historical destruction of marine biology is developing. We keep finding new species. For example, a few days ago we found a new slug, which is small and does not directly threaten fish species, but disrupts the local ecosystem. More generally the Greek seas have been dismantled, not because of climate change only, but mainly because of man-made intervention." Man-made intervention means uncontrollable shipping activity, with ship ballast not being controlled before being emptied into new seas without intermediate stops, but also mainly overfishing.
"The fish have a natural control mechanism of the habitat in which they live. That is why we have an obligation to protect the natural predators of the harehead and to restore the health of the seas," says Mrs. Indeed, while in the early years there was... despair, since there was only a record of a harehead part of a species' diet and it was about killing by a caretta-caretta turtle. Out of ignorance, fear, and malice however the caretta-carettas were discouraged from approaching coastal areas or fishing areas.
Today we know that in the natural enemies of the harehead ishunter(there is also a photograph of the scientists of Archipelagos, in which a hunter has 10 hareheads in his stomach), but alsoswordfishandshark. The most... Earth species belong to thesargarWhich can consume the harehead.
"A good idea, then, is, instead of subsidizing only the hunting of this fish, to subsidize the possibility of fishermen not coming out to fish, in order to combat theoverfishing. To give nature time to heal so that no species that the fisherman lived from, but the consumer had them in his diet. Because overfishing has contributed to emptying our seas from the species that could limit the development of the invaders." It is shocking, however, that of the 15,000 Mediterranean species, more than 1,000 are "invaders", foreign and expansional species.