Elderly Woman Bitten by Pufferfish Prompts Greek Review of Bounty Scheme

An elderly woman required stitches after a silver-cheeked pufferfish bit her without warning while she bathed at Varkiza, a coastal resort near Athens, this week. The fish, Lagocephalus sceleratus, has razor-sharp teeth and carries tetrodotoxin, a neurotoxin that can cause cardiac and respiratory failure. It is completely inedible.

Nota Peristeraki, a specialist on the fish from the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, said swimmers should avoid the species if it approaches. She added that some attacks have occurred when people tried to feed or touch the fish, and that a couple of cases involved loss of a finger or toe. Greek fishermen report that the fish destroy nets and devour catches.

Each Greek fishing vessel suffers approximately €8,500 in annual losses and damage from the species, according to estimates cited in the reporting. Alexis Charlambakis, a Cretan fisherman, told local media that a bite from one of the fish will take a finger clean off. He described the species as the destruction of the sea and said the situation is dire for those in the profession.

Giannis Giankakis, another fisherman, said the fish is omnivorous and eats everything it encounters, noting it has no natural predators. Researchers have found remnants of fishing equipment inside the stomachs of captured specimens, Peristeraki said. The silver-cheeked pufferfish first appeared in the eastern Mediterranean in 2003 and reached Greek waters in 2005.

It has since spread westward toward Italian and Spanish coastlines, with particularly high concentrations around Crete and the Dodecanese Islands, including Rhodes. Cyprus pays fishermen to capture the fish and incinerates the haul as hazardous waste. Greek authorities are examining whether to introduce a similar bounty scheme.