Pacific Spirit Marine Institute
Monday, August 4, 2008
Jellyfish are taking over the oceans, or so it would seem. One reason there are so many jellyfish is because so many of their natural predators are dwindling.
There are 200 classified species of jellyfish. Some are as small as a fingernail and other can grow tentacles up to 100 feet long. Some studies suggest jellyfish, which aren’t fish at all, account for up to 1/3 of the all the world’s marine biomass, and their hungry, really hungry.
In 1989, the Black Sea’s population of an invasive jellyfish reached epic proportions they cased a total collapse of anchovies and sardines. The Jellyfish ate not only the fish but they ate the eggs as well.
Yikes!
In 2000 a bloom of Jellyfish in the Gulf of Mexico contained 5.5 MILLION jellyfish living in 57 square miles of the Gulf. Runoff from agriculture, sewage treatment plants and other things that cause ‘dead zones’ in the waters that kill off other fish are a boon to the Jellyfish that can thrive in oxygen depleted waters.
Rising ocean temperatures only improve the conditions in which the Jellyfish thrive.
Jellyfish are one of the oceans most understudied creatures. Moss Landing in California is one of the world’s leading Jellyfish research facilities.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium research Institute at Moss Landing uses a ‘remote Vehicle’ named The Tiburon to study jellyfish. The recently discovered Erenna Jellyfish lights up to possibly attract small fish to them so that they can dine on them. The Erenna jellyfish poisons it’s meal with little harpoons and then draws its meal into its mouth.
Scientists say there are yet more Jellyfish to be discovered.
With so much of the Jellyfish’s natural predators disappearing from the oceans, and so many dead zones expanding throughout our oceans it’s no wonder our oceans are being overtaken by the Jellyfish.
In a series of documentaries that examines freak occurrences in nature, a film called Nature Shock highlighted what happened to Japanese fishermen in the Tsushima Strait in August 2005.
This article in the Telegraph describes how in an effort to curb a ‘box jellyfish’ explosion fishermen in Japan unleashed what can only be described as a nightmare of hellish proportions.
The Japanese government commandeered a fleet of fishing boats dragging razor-sharp wire through swarms of Jellyfish. Scientists found trying to kill them only unleashed a breeding explosion. They are genetically programmed to ensure their survival by producing more offspring than normal when they are under attack. Large female box jellyfish that were captured were swollen with million of eggs, far more than they would normally carry. Males were carrying billions of sperm.
Irukandji jellyfish and box jellyfish have killed more people in Australia than great white sharks and crocodiles combined.
Labels: jellyfish
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Will Jellyfish and cockroaches eventually be the only things left on earth?
Monday, November 26, 2007
All is lost.
After swooping in and killing the entire stock of 120,000 mature salmon at the Glenarm Bay organic aqua farm belonging to Northern Salmon Company. Although this was a devasting blow, the company still had young salmon at Red Bay which would have reached maturity in autumn 2008. The company thought they may be able to hang on until then, but that is no longer the case. All is now lost.
The jellyfish took their plundering directly to the juvenile salmon aqua farm at Red Bay days later and wiped them out as well.
According to Mark McCaughan, the Chief Fisheries Officer, Department of Agriculture Northern Ireland “It’s an unusual natural phenomenon which is unprecedented in Northern Ireland.”
Nothing could have prevented the attack.
The jellyfish surrounded the salmon cages by the billions, blocking tide movement, the salmon were stung and asphyxiated. Dead dead dead. Now the 120,000 200 tonnes of mature salmon will be sent to Co. Meath to be incinerated presumably the same fate will meet the juvenile salmon from Red Bay as well.
The Queen’s 80th birthday party guests were served Glenarm salmon. It was said to be one of the highlights of her birthday banquet. The Glenarm salmon had been gaining world wide fans of the product said to be simply the best. The product was making great inroads toward placing Northern Ireland on the map with delectable food stuffs for export.
The density of the jellyfish was such that 3 boats sent by Northern Salmon Co. to attempt a rescue were unable to move through the billions of jellyfish. The attack lasted nearly 7 hours with the jellyfish covering an area in the sea of 10 square miles and they were 35 feet deep.
These jellyfish which are Mauve Stingers can grow to be 10cm in diameter.
Jellyfish have been creating more and more problems in the past few years. Scientists say millions of Juvenile jellyfish have been swept into unfamiliar neighborhoods by unusually strong Atlantic Currents maybe caused by the changing climate.
In 2005 a swarm of jellyfish collected in a Swedish nuclear reactor’s cooling system prompting the Oskarshamn plant to shut down one of its 3 reactors. The plant cools its reactors with water from the Baltic Sea.
In Orange County California Millions of jellyfish appeared as if by magic or as fire Capt. Jim Turner in Newport Beach put it “like Mary Poppins” in 2005 also. California jellyfish seam to be more laid back than their marauding cousins in the Atlantic.
The species that hit the California coast were ‘giant black jellyfish. Giant compared to what? They had a canopy about 3 feet wide, and their tentacles were reaching up to 12 feet in length.
At the time scientists had only even known of this species for about 10 years, so they took the opportunity to catch and study these guys. Dennis Kelly, head of the Marine Science Department at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, speaking in Californese said “This is probably a once-in-a-lifetime-like-thing.”
Japanese fishermen have been dealing with the Jumbo Jellyfish problem which started in 2002. Oddly there isn’t a culinary market for these Jumbo Jellyfish and one wonders why Japan hasn’t made an effort to turn peoples buns toward jellyfish on a kaiser roll instead of whale meat.
China has had its own problems with jellyfish invasions too.
Photo thanks and notes. Belfast Telegraph
Labels: Climate Change, aquaculture, jellyfish, nuclear, open water aquaculture
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Marauding Band of Jellyfish Wipes Out Entire Stock of Salmon in Northern Ireland.
