Greece’s mussel harvest wiped out by warming seas

THERMAIC GULF - When Anastasios Zakalkas pulled up the ropes of his mussel farm in the Aegean Sea last month, the devastation was clear: the lines were not heaving with molluscs as they should be at harvest time but were instead filled with cracked, empty shells.

It is the second time in three years that record sea temperatures have hit the mussel harvest in northern Greece, where farmers said they saw a 90% drop in the 2024 catch. Next year will be a dud too, Zakalkas said, because all the seed for the coming season also perished.

"The destruction we suffered (for next year) was 100%," 35-year-old Zakalkas said aboard his fishing boat on a balmy morning in late October. "We don't know how we'll make a living in the new year. Our main and only job is mussels," he said. Like other Mediterranean countries, Greece is particularly susceptible to climate change, which this...