It is fine, beautiful, shiny, it likes warm water and feeds on other fish. For ten years, we have seen it in the bay of Marseille. Since man is not a fish, he is not interested in him, except when he is wearing shiny objects.
Since the beginning of February, the Calanques National Park has been reporting the presence of barracudas off the coast of Marseille. More precisely, “barracudas in numbers”. Its name seems less familiar than that of the cod or the wrasse, yet it has been swimming with us for around ten years. The warmer the water, the better he feels. Should we be worried about our calves this summer?
“Before, the water was too cold in Marseille for this species. In 2010, barracudas had already been seen off Catalans beach. The sea temperature is increasing, there are more and more of them” worries Didier Réault, president of the Calanques National Park. These new species risk harming local species. We must preserve their habitat, monitor water quality and better manage fishing areas.”
Shiny, metallic, the barracuda takes on the appearance of a ray of sunlight to deceive its prey • © JEAN-MICHEL MILLE / BIOSPHOTO
Rays appear in the bay of Marseille, plants and algae too, when the heat is very high. There are two types of barracuda. The becune, present here, and the great barracuda, in the tropics. Not to be confused.
Very different from its tropical cousin
Would this big fish be as hot as a jellyfish? Or greedy for swimmers like a shark? No way. He is harmless and we are not interested in him. Its tropical cousin operates in another category. “With 2.50m long and a maximum meter here, the barracuda becomes much more dangerous, nothing to do with our Mediterranean barracuda”, notes Thierre Thibaut, professor of marine ecology at the University of Aix-Marseille. This researcher emphasizes that he does not see an increase in this species.
“I have more appetite than a barracuda”, sang Claude François. Of course, fish eat their fellow fish. Plus, he has teeth, but so do we. If we really want to make it worrying, we can say that it is one of the “super-predators”, like a wolf, like a lion, it is at the top of the food chain.
A giant barracuda in Florida. • © MICHAEL PATRICK O’NEILL / MAXPPP
The barracuda feasts on small fish, not Marseille tourists, at least such an attack has never been reported to the scientific world. Despite their harmless appearance, the wolf (fish), amberjack and denti are also super-predators.
With the barracuda’s bad reputation aside, we can say that its presence in the Gulf of Genoa was established more than 100 years ago. His presence is a good sign. It means that the surrounding environment and ecosystems are healthy. There is an expression that says “When the grouper goes, everything goes”. “This expression can absolutely be applied to the barracuda,” according to Eric Charbonnel, scientific coordinator of the Pmarine arc of the Blue Coast.
They live near rocky rises, their presence is evidence of the good health of the ecosystems • © Eric Charbonnel / Parc Marin de la Côte bleue
The barracuda moves a lot, it likes to swim on the Cassis side as well as on the Blue Coast side. “This fish is present from 0 to 100 meters depth. It is indifferent to man unless he carries something metallic on him. The barracuda likes shiny things, it can circle around us if the we wear a watch, for example, or a diving regulator.”
Eric Charbonnel calls himself a “fishmonger”, or rather a fishmonger scientist. He emphasizes the harmless side of this long fish: “It is pretty, very spectacular, with metallic reflections which help it blend in with the sun. It goes unnoticed by other fish”. The barracuda hunts in open water, offshore.
“We observe small and large ones (between 60 centimeters and one meter long)“, but we don’t know where the means are. In ports, we sometimes see small juveniles. They look like Bic pens, it’s very beautiful”.
We won’t give any recipes here but “you can eat it”assures us the academic Thierry Thibaut, it’s good, and even very good. Professional fishermen know this well. Once again, the discourse differs for the giant cousin of the tropics. Depending on the size of the fish and where it is caught, a toxin, ciguatera, can cause food poisoning.
2024-02-24 21:10:23
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