EGZOTİK BİR TÜR OLAN DENİZ SALYANGOZU BALIKÇILIĞININ TÜRKİYE’NİN KARADENİZ KIYILARINDAKİ TARİHSEL SERÜVENİ

The sea snail is an invasive exotic marine organism that subsequently entered the Black Sea ecosystem. After adapting to the Black Sea ecosystem, it gradually spread all over the Black Sea coasts as from 1969 and became a dynamic stock in the coastal benthic in the 1980s. The first scientific study was carried out between 1969-1973 by the ‘Meat and Fish Institution, Fisheries Institution Directorate’ on sea snails in the Black Sea coast of Turkey. A seafood exporter company with the invitation of Japanese experts to Turkey started the first commercial fishing of sea snails, which is quite economical due to the increasing demand of foreign markets, along the Black Sea coast of Turkey in 1983. First of all, these experts informed on the importance of snail fishing and how to catch to small-scale fishermen in the Samsun region where the snail population is densely distributed. It was taught to the artisanal fishermen how to catch the snail on the shores of Samsun with the algarna. Official catch data for sea snails were first published by the State Institute of Statistics in 1986. In addition, snail fishing first entered on the fisheries circular in 1986 in terms of fisheries management. In 1984, processing industry was born with the first export-oriented sea snail fishery and became an important sector. In the early years, fishing was mostly concentrated in Samsun shelf region and the Eastern Black Sea (Trabzon) coasts, but after the 2000s, interest in this fishery started to increase gradually in all fishing localities along the Black Sea coast. While the number of fishermen catching sea snails was 45 in the first records of 1986, this number increased to 735 in 2017. Undoubtedly, over the years, many coastal fishermen have turned to this fishery due to factors such as the very high level of exploitation of the sea snail stock, the absence of market problems, and the purchase guarantee. In this way, it has become a remarkable fishing method and an important source of income for small-scale fishing communities in terms of socio-economic. In addition to this, with the expectation of fishermen for more catch-more income, this profitable fishery has brought along many illegal fishing activities.