A popular food fish is suspected of biting bathers. More than 40 fish attacks are reported from France. Is climate change to blame?
Hendaye – Fires, drought or heat waves: climate change is already showing its effects in many corners and ends. In the south of France, the high water temperature has now caused holidaymakers to be attacked by fish.
The main suspect is the gray triggerfish, which can be up to 60 centimeters in size, as the German Press Agency (dpa) writes. In the French city of Hendaye on the Atlantic, more than 40 swimmers were caught on Monday (8 August).
France: Fish bites are reported from several holiday regions
Bites have also been reported from Cannes on the Côte d’Azur or Saint-Tropez. Due to the high water temperature, the fish are expanding their hunting grounds and can reach the bathers’ toes.
- The gray triggerfish
- Nicknames: Hog Triggerfish; Mediterranean triggerfish
- Teeth: 22 strong, chisel-like teeth
- Size: Up to 60 centimeters tall and up to 6 kilograms in weight. On average about 45 centimeters long.
- Source: Fischlexikon/dpa
With its 22 teeth, the triggerfish can cause painful bite wounds. The bites of the fish, which are more aggressive in summer during the reproduction phase, are not really dangerous. The dpa reports.
28 instead of 22 degrees water temperature off France – that makes the triggerfish snappy
Normally the temperature of the water on the Mediterranean coast in France is around 22 degrees in August. However, values of up to 28 degrees are currently being measured here, as Samuel Somot from the National Meteorological Research Institute (CNRM) explained to the French daily Le Parisien .
The triggerfish was considered almost extinct in France in the last century. It is not yet known whether the high water temperature will also bring other sea creatures closer to holidaymakers. (Lucas Maier with dpa)
In Germany, bathers should be careful, because here flukes burrow into the skin unnoticed.
