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Jellyfish Migrating Further North
Nov. 18th, 2009 09:31 amExcerpts from MSNBC.com on Jellyfish Migrating:
The Japanese fishermen want help getting rid of the jellyfish, but this problem is beyond the scope of what governments can do. Between the increase in jellyfish foodstuffs because of pollution and overfishing creating a more predator-free environment, people's actions have combined to create this situation.
Effluents washing off land and into the water happens all over the world, in part because of general lack of concern or control over fertilizers, waste processing/treatment, proper land management ("wild" and "domestic"), causing some life forms to increase wildly and others to suffocate or die from chemical burn. The oceans are treated like crap and are full of people's crap, and now it's come back to bite them.
Want to solve the problem of too many giant jellyfish? Or stop the dead zones in places like the Gulf of Mexico from growing? Stop polluting and stop overfishing.
The gelatinous seaborne creatures are blamed for decimating fishing industries in the Bering and Black seas, forcing the shutdown of seaside power and desalination plants in Japan, the Middle East and Africa, and terrorizing beachgoers worldwide, the U.S. National Science Foundation says.
A 2008 foundation study cited research estimating that people are stung 500,000 times every year — sometimes multiple times — in Chesapeake Bay on the U.S. East Coast, and 20 to 40 die each year in the Philippines from jellyfish stings.
In 2007, a salmon farm in Northern Ireland lost its more than 100,000 fish to an attack by the mauve stinger, a jellyfish normally known for stinging bathers in warm Mediterranean waters. Scientists cite its migration to colder Irish seas as evidence of global warming.
Increasingly polluted waters — off China, for example — boost growth of the microscopic plankton that "jellies" feed upon, while overfishing has eliminated many of the jellyfish's predators and cut down on competitors for plankton feed.
...
It was a good living, they said [Japanese fishermen], until the jellyfish began inundating the bay in 2002, sometimes numbering 500 million, reducing fish catches by 30 percent and slashing prices by half over concerns about quality.
Two nets in Echizen burst last month during a typhoon because of the sheer weight of the jellyfish, and off the east coast jelly-filled nets capsized a 10-ton trawler as its crew tried to pull them up. The three fishermen were rescued.
The Japanese fishermen want help getting rid of the jellyfish, but this problem is beyond the scope of what governments can do. Between the increase in jellyfish foodstuffs because of pollution and overfishing creating a more predator-free environment, people's actions have combined to create this situation.
Effluents washing off land and into the water happens all over the world, in part because of general lack of concern or control over fertilizers, waste processing/treatment, proper land management ("wild" and "domestic"), causing some life forms to increase wildly and others to suffocate or die from chemical burn. The oceans are treated like crap and are full of people's crap, and now it's come back to bite them.
Want to solve the problem of too many giant jellyfish? Or stop the dead zones in places like the Gulf of Mexico from growing? Stop polluting and stop overfishing.
