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Silhouette with a slime carpet: Istanbul has a problem
Photo: Anadolu Agency / Getty Images
A slime plague in the Sea of Marmara off Istanbul has alarmed the Turkish authorities, including President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
"We will save our seas from this slime catastrophe," said Erdogan at the weekend.
He had instructed the Ministry of the Environment to coordinate how the plague was to be combated.
Environment Minister Murat Kurum announced a disaster management plan.
The slime called "red of the sea", a product of the excretion of some algae, has spread to an unprecedented extent in the affected area this year.
The viscous gray matter also spread to the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea.
The waters are connected by the Sea of Marmara.
According to experts, untreated waste that ends up in the sea is one of the causes of the plague.
The rise in water temperatures due to climate change also plays a role.
The slime not only makes bathing impossible.
Fishermen cannot cast their nets, otherwise they will be useless.
The Turkish marine biologist Ekin Akoglu said the slime also has negative consequences for organisms that live on the sea floor - such as mussels, whose growth is slowed down.
Even soft corals, covered in slime, could not fulfill their actual task of filtering water.
In the long term, the negative impact on zooplankton, on which many fish feed, is particularly fatal.
If its amount decreases, the fish populations would also decrease.
The biologist Bayram Öztürk from the Turkish Foundation for Marine Research even warns of a "mass extinction" of marine life.
In the short term, the mucus can be removed mechanically, says Akoglu.
In the long term, however, in addition to a global climate policy, better processing of wastewater is needed in Turkey.
sms / dpa / Reuters / AP
