Toxic fish with human-like teeth are invading Greece just as tourist season gets into full swing.
The silver-cheeked toadfish is a torpedo-shaped species with prominent, razor sharp teeth.
As well as having a vicious bite, it contains a powerful neurotoxin called tetrodotoxin, which can cause heart and lung failure, making the fish unsuitable for human consumption.
Silver-cheeked toadfish (Lagocephalus sceleratus) usually inhabit the Indian Ocean.
However, the fish are believed to have travelled up the Suez Canal and into the Mediterranean, attracted by warming waters.
Fishermen in Greece are now getting cash payouts to catch the fish migrating north into the Mediterranean Sea due to climate change.
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Authorities say the fish have not been sighted in bathing areas at Greek island resorts.
But in recent weeks, the fish have wreaked havoc for fishermen off the coast of Crete and several other islands, chomping through nets.
‘It’s got to the point where we might go out fishing one day and then spend the next three days fixing our nets,’ Giorgos Kyriakakis, of a Cretan fishermen’s association, told Greek public broadcaster ERT on Friday.
‘They eat our catch and damage our nets — that’s very costly,’ he added.
The invasion prompted Cyprus to launch a similar catch program earlier this year.
Starting Friday, Greece’s government is offering €5.33 per kilogram for catches of the fish, which is normally found in tropical waters.
It is the first time that such a measure has been taken in Greece, Agriculture Minister Margaritis Schinas, a former European Commission vice president, said ahead of the programme’s launch.
The fish – a member of the puffer fish family – will be frozen and incinerated at local government facilities, Schinas said.
He added that the measure would likely be expanded from the currently affected areas to all Greek waters.
Public concern has been stoked in Greece by videos posted online by fishing crews, showing the fish sinking their teeth into soda cans or pieces of wood.
An elderly Greek woman was bitten by a pufferfish last week and required stitches to the wound.
She was injured while swimming off a beach in the coastal resort of Varkiza, near Athens.
The fish lunged at her without provocation, according to local media reports.
The Greek Red Cross has issued a public health warning about the fish, outlining first-aid protocols for bleeding caused by potential bites and warning of the deadly neurotoxin in the fish’s organs.
Nota Peristeraki, an pufferfish expert from the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, said ‘if you see it approaching you, you really need to avoid it’.
‘Some attacks have happened when people have tried to feed or touch the fish. There have been a couple of cases of people losing a finger or a toe,’ he told The Telegraph.
However, these incidents are rare. ‘You are more likely to encounter a shark,’ he added.
Authorities and businesses on the island of Crete have cautioned against overreacting to the fish’s offshore presence.
‘The presence of these fish in the Mediterranean has been known for years,’ a statement issued on Friday by 16 medical and tourism associations on Crete said.
‘There is, however, no ‘invisible’ or imminent danger to bathers. Marine predators do not threaten the safety of visitors and residents,’ it said.
‘Exaggeration is often a feature of public debate.’