Two entrepreneurs in Antalya are preparing to use the balloon fish in the leather industry with the “Alanya Balloon Fish Research and Development Project” (ABAP).
Entrepreneur Taner Okan Acar and Mehmet Ozata prepared ABAP, which will allow the skin of the poisonous balloon fish to be used in the bag, belt, and shoe industry.
After obtaining legal permissions from the Mediterranean Fisheries Research, Production and Education Institute, two entrepreneurs tanning the skin of the fish they procured with herbal methods will bring the balloon fish, which damage the biodiversity in the sea and the fishing gear of the fishermen, into the economy.
Acar and Ozata applied for a Design Registration Certificate from the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office with the shoes, wallets, and belts designed from the skin of the fish.
“It will become a good industrial product”
Acar, one of the entrepreneurs, told Anadolu Agency (AA) that the idea emerged when he saw that the skin of the balloon fish they caught had an elastic feature.
Acar stated that they took action with his colleague Mehmet Ozata upon the increase of the problems caused by fish to fishermen and other marine species and the emergence of solution suggestions, “We made the skin of the fish usable in the leather industry. The processes of normal skin are not used in these fish. It deforms. We did tanning with the formula we created.”
Mehmet Ozata stated that the balloon fish’s skin is intact. Emphasizing that the fish’s leather pattern is different like fingerprints, it is included in the exotic leather class and said:
“With the implementation of the project, the balloon fish will become a good industrial product that can replace terrestrial game animals. In our first trials, shoes were produced from this leather. It can also be used as belts, wallets, bags, trousers, and jackets. We think that it will be a good job as an employment area. A serious trouble may come to an end, both because of the abundance of fish and the consumption of hunted fish. “
“There is great benefit in reducing the stocks in our seas”
Mediterranean Fisheries Research, Production and Training Institute Fisheries Technology Senior Engineer Merve Karakus said that a great progress has been made in the efforts to evaluate balloon fish as a material that will create added value in non-food use.
Stating that after the legal processes, they collaborated with two entrepreneurs to carry out processing and development studies on the skins of balloon fish, Karakus said, “The leather is processable in the studies. It is gratifying that the balloon fish, which should never be consumed as food but have great benefits in reducing their stocks in our seas due to their negative impact on the ecosystem, can be brought into the economy in this way.”
Professor Mehmet Cengiz Deval, Head of the Department of Fishing Technology at Akdeniz University Faculty of Fisheries, stated that the number of creatures consuming balloon fish as food is almost negligible.
Deval said, “If the idea of using the skin of the balloon fish in the industry is put into practice, it will ensure that the stock amounts in our seas are brought under control first and decrease in the process.”
Source: AA / Translated by Irem Yildiz