The Rumours and Spurious Sightings of a man-sized simian creature inhabiting the forests and mountains of Mugla escalated to frenetic levels in 2024.

They called him Green Paul, he was said to feed on cats and stork eggs; grainy photographs existed of this creature clambering up the Eucalyptus trees in a tatty khaki coloured thong armed with a green river reed to frighten the adult storks.

Rumours of where this creature came from are plentiful, but the most plausible is a holiday maker who vanished in 2020 whilst trying to organise boat hire for his family, the tale goes that when payment was being made the booking agent took his name, as Green Paul and couldn’t stop laughing, the laughing became infectious and within seconds the whole Harbourside was in stitches, the poor man couldn’t take it and ran off into the thicket. The alarm bells started to ring when his friend Blue Dom returned pissed to the hotel, and the family realized he hadn’t.

 Years later, the markets and Tat shops of Akayaka were doing a roaring trade of Green Paul merchandise; the “Turkish Loch Ness Monster”. The Stork poking photo transferred onto fridge magnets, mugs, dream catchers, t shirts and those crudely fashioned coconut men. 

When the storks migrated Green Paul was said to watch cautiously from the reeds during the day time, emerging under the cover of darkness to snare a dozing cat, but in reality, No one really knew.