2024-08-02 04:01:19
He temperature increase of water due to climate change is favoring the multiplication of the fireworms in the Mediterranean, which now devour the fish that Alfonso Barone catches in his nets off the coast of Sicily.
These voracious predators thrive in the ever-warming waters of the Mediterranean. They resemble the centipede and they eat everything from corals to fish caught in fishing nets.
Alfonso Barone He pulls a long, red worm out of a mackerel. Its poisonous white hairs come loose very easily and the 34-year-old fisherman says he has been stung many times, including once in the eye.
At the same time that the fish get caught in the net, worms pounce on them.
“They eat the head, the whole body and gut it,” explains the fisherman as he collects a mangled sea bream off the coast of Marzamemi, a resort town in the southeast of the Italian island of Sicily.
The presence of fireworms is not new in the Mediterranean but they used to be less numerous and were only observed in Sicily during the summer.“With Climate change, the waters are warming and becoming an ideal habitat for these worms, which are more numerous from year to year and present throughout the year,” he says. Barone, who has been fishing since he was a child.
Half-eaten fish cannot be sold because fishermen have reduced the time their nets are immersed in the water, resulting in fewer catches. However, attacks by brown, green or red worms are not completely avoided.
“They used to eat around the 30% of the catch. Now, this figure has increased to 70%,” laments the fisherman.
Worms also migrate to new areas. According to the zoologist Francesco Tiralongo, who leads a project to study the phenomenon at the Sicilian University of Catania, cases have been identified in Calabria, in the south of Italia.
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2024-08-02 04:01:19