Greek Reporter.<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cIf it weren\u2019t my boat, I would have left this profession a long time ago,\u201d said Cretan angler Alexis Charalampakis, who spent five days fixing nets that had been pillaged by pufferfish.<\/p>\n
And other fish aren\u2019t the only ones that are being targeted by the toadfish, which boasts four fused teeth that it uses to chomp and tear prey like a sentient cigar cutter.<\/p>\n
Stingrays and other catches after getting ripped to shreds by the inflatable invaders. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n
A marine biologist opens the puffer\u2019s mouth to reveal its formidable dental hardware. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, an elderly Greek woman required stitches after she was bitten while swimming off Varkiza, a coastal hub near Athens. <\/p>\n
Meanwhile, previous studies have amassed bite reports encompassing multiple Mediterranean nations, including Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, Libya and Syria.<\/p>\n
One of the most frightening cases concerned an 8-year-old girl in southern Turkey who had her finger amputated while swimming.<\/p>\n
Unlike other invasive fish, it\u2019s inadvisable to bite back as the toadfish packs a powerful poison known as tetrodotoxin that can be fatal if consumed.<\/p>\n
Fisherman Alexis Charlambakis shows off two silver-cheeked pufferfish that he snagged in his net. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cTetrodotoxin causes muscle paralysis, blocks the nervous system, and can lead to death,\u201d said Stefanos Kalogirou, an associate professor at the Agricultural University of Athens.<\/p>\n
As such, European legislation prohibits seafood products from the family of fish from entering the market.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, eradicating the pufferfish plague is an uphill battle. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe work gets harder every year,\u201d rued 53-year-old fisherman Kostis Zavlakakis. <\/p>\n
Some anglers are calling on the Greek government to subsidize their blowfish-culling efforts \u2014 a program that\u2019s already in place in neighboring Cyprus \u2014 as an incentive.<\/p>\n
Coincidentally, raw pufferfish is considered a delicacy in Japan, where gourmands enjoy the slight buzz afforded by ingesting trace amounts of the toxin.<\/p>\n
Due to the dish\u2019s danger,\u00a0however, only licensed chefs are allowed to prepare it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"These fish are biting \u2014 and not in the good way. Officials warn that invasive, poisonous pufferfish are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":719513,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[18212,18211,4135,29283,79,201],"class_list":["post-719512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-animal-attacks","tag-fish","tag-greece","tag-mediterranean-sea","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=719512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/719513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=719512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=719512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=719512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}