Mehmet Özata spreads out colorful fish skins on a small table near the port of Alanya in southern Turkey.

Red, blue, yellow, grey.

The Turkish engineer presents what he believes to be the solution to a catastrophe: leather made from puffer fish, which are a nuisance not only in Turkish waters.

The hare's head puffer fish in particular has spread throughout the Mediterranean.

He eats his way through the local stocks - and obviously has a fine palate.

The puffer fish makes use of the squid, crabs and shrimp in the fishing nets in particular.

He often leaves behind destroyed nets and fishing hooks.

According to estimates, it causes a loss of two to five million euros for Turkish fishermen every year.

The fish came from the Indo-Pacific with the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and is able to spread so well in the Mediterranean because it has no predators.

Global warming and the rise in temperature in the Mediterranean have also meant that fish have been able to reproduce better.

It is not fished commercially either.

The puffer fish is poisonous.

Tetrodotoxin, which it carries in the liver, paralyzes the muscles and can sometimes be fatal to humans.

The closer you get to the Suez Canal, the denser the population becomes.

The Turkish fishermen therefore share the problem with many Mediterranean countries.

The Turkish government is also trying to do something to counteract the situation and has been offering premiums on the different types of puffer fish for a few years.

There are currently 12.5 Turkish lira per fin of the hare puffer fish - that's around 70 euro cents per specimen.

Fisherman Mehmet Gökmen, who has been casting his nets off Alanya for 40 years, finds far too little.

The work isn't worth it for that.

The economic crisis in Turkey and the associated increase in the cost of living and energy also weigh on the fishermen.

Ekin Akoglu, a marine biologist at Odtü University in Ankara, is also critical of the bonus system.

In Cyprus, for example, a similar incentive system has been in force for more than ten years, with significantly higher premiums per fish.

However, nothing has changed in the proportion of puffer fish in the catch, says Akoglu.

There is no reliable estimate of the total population of fish in the Mediterranean.

But once such an invasion has taken place, it is almost impossible to reverse, he says.

The marine biologist therefore believes that there can only be two solutions to the plague: either a natural predator appears, as in the past with other plagues - or there is a way to commercialize the catch of the puffer fish.

The poison of the fish can be used for pharmaceutical purposes.

Or you're after your skin, like the engineer Özata.

Puffer fish leather is significantly more resistant

Ever since he heard about a girl in 2019 who had a finger amputated after being bitten by a puffer fish in the sea off Mersin, Özata has wanted to help solve the plague.

He has already subjected the treated fish skin to numerous tests in the laboratory.

The leather has good properties.

In dangerous situations, the fish inflates to a multiple of its own body size and forms a thick bladder on the lower body.

A cow cannot do that, which makes puffer fish leather significantly more resistant, says Özata.

So far he has processed them into purses and bags.

For a bag he needs about seven of the fish, which are pulled out of the water with an average length of 30 centimeters.

He gets the skins from fishermen like Gökmen and he always pays a bit more than the state premium.

Gökmen himself says that with three helpers he can catch around 100 puffer fish an hour.

For a good 20 years he has been pulling the puffer fish out of the water involuntarily, says the 55-year-old.

No major buyer has yet been found for the products made from puffer fish skin, but there are contacts with the Russian and Arabic markets, says Özata.