Urban Development Helped Fuel Turkey’s ‘Sea Snot’ Invasion
Industrialization and population growth in the Istanbul region is being blamed for a slimy outbreak of marine mucilage, threatening sea life in the Marmara Sea.
Urban development and unregulated industrialization around Istanbul are being blamed for a slimy outbreak of mucilage in Turkey's Marmara Sea.
Photographer: Yasin Akgul/AFP via Getty Images
Just an hour by ferry from the crowded center of Istanbul, the Princes’ Islands are typically thronged with visitors in the warmer months of the year. But this spring, the beaches and harbors of this island chain in the Marmara Sea received a particularly unwelcome guest: a thick layer of marine mucilage, a gelatinous organic substance vividly known as “sea snot.”
The gluey microorganism blanket has spread across much of the Marmara, an inland sea connecting the Black Sea to the Aegean; underwater, the mucilage is clogging fishing nets, smothering corals and other marine life, and posing a serious threat to the marine ecosystem as well as Turkey’s fishing and tourism industries. One major culprit, experts say, is something that’s also visible from the Princes’ Islands: a line of dense urban development, stretching along the horizon as far as the eye can see.