It has become common to consider "invasive alien species" one among the five most important "direct drivers" of change in biodiversity and ecosystems worldwide. However, the sea snail, Rapana venosa, introduced to the Black Sea is not only an "alien" but also a resource and an animal with particular meanings from a Muslim moral standpoint. I employ a relational ontology approach to discuss how the sea snail's multiplicity interacts with concerns about "biodiversity," notions of nativeness, and material agency in enacting different sea snails and the relations among them. I demonstrate that the biodiversity perspective has had very little impact on enactments of the sea snail and has not absorbed concerns about "alien species." [Keywords: Biodiversity, natural resources, fisheries, relational ontology, value, Turkey, Black Sea]F o re i g n L a n g u a g e Tr a n s l a t i o n s :Multiple Sea Snails: The Uncertain Becoming of an Alien Species[Keywords: Biodiversity, natural resources, fisheries, relational ontology, value, Turkey, Black Sea][Keywords: biyocesitlilik, doga kaynaklar, balikcilik, deger, Turkiye, Karadeniz]Multiplos Caracois do Mar: A Emergencia Incerta de uma Especie Alienigena[Palavras-chave: Biodiversidade, recursos naturais, pescas, ontologia relacional, valor, Turquia, Mar Negro]...(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)"Invasive alien species" are one among the five most important "direct drivers" of change in biodiversity and ecosystems worldwide. This statement has, in many circles, become a truism in the years after it was first formulated by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (see, e.g., Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005), and is frequently repeated in academic articles and on posters concerning alien invasive species. However, in some cases, this truism is partly destabilized when the "alien" species in question is also a commercially significant resource.1 In this article, I focus on a case in Turkey where the management of the introduced sea snail, Rapana venosa, in the Black Sea had to deal with the dilemma of the sea snail being both a commodity and an alien species.The coupling of biodiversity and a concern with alien species seems to be taking hold in Turkey as in other countries. Turkey has followed the standard official procedures after they ratified the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in 1997. National reports and plans submitted to the CBD include discussion of "invasive alien species," while a draftof a new law on "Nature and Biological Diversity Protection" formulates additional, more stringent policies relating to "exotic" species. However, the sea snail in Turkey is not a stabilized, single object. For some Turkish marine scientists, the sea snail is an alien invasive species and so its stock should be exploited as much as possible. For other scientists, it is a resource to be managed as such. All are concerned about the supposedly harmful practice of dredging by which the sea snail is fished. Since the Turkish small-boat fishery for sea snails started in the early 1980s, management has wavered between different compromises. Many small boat fishers depend on dredging sea snails for their livelihood and, therefore, are not concerned about the newness of the sea snail to the Black Sea. The fishers and other people in the region consider the sea snail "unclean" for other reasons, namely its classification as haram according to Islamic dietary law.I use this case to examine the extent to which biodiversity "discourse" has been adopted in Turkey and how the biodiversity-inspired "alarmist" view on alien species interacts with the commercial and haram sea snails. One approach would be to consider the snail as a stable object which various groups value differently. However, building on a relational ontology approach, I want to argue that the snail is multiple (Mol 2002) and messy (Law 2004), and that considering it in this way allows us to better understand the peculiarities of how global concerns with biodiversity have resonated in Turkey. …