Spanish Beaches Invaded by Plague of Poisonous Jellyfish
Pastor Dale Morgan
Jun 9, 5:53 AM EDT
*Spanish Beaches Invaded by Plague of Poisonous Jellyfish*
By DANIEL WOOLLS
Associated Press Writer
MADRID, Spain (AP) -- What do tourists and jellyfish have in common?
They both love warm water and proliferate along Spanish beaches in the
summer.
And that's bad news for Spain, the world's top tourist destination after
France.
On Friday, the government approved a plan to create an armada of
recreational boaters to spot the stinging blobs and summon help.
"The important thing is that anybody who comes to the beaches here in
Spain should know that a serious plan is under way to keep this from
being a problem," said Josep-Maria Gili, the biologist coordinating the
project.
Spain's Mediterranean waters are home to half a dozen kinds of
jellyfish. Some areas have seen an exponential rise in jellyfish
populations, called a bloom. Last year the proliferation was so bad in
parts of Spain's Catalonia, Valencia and Almeria regions, some beaches
had to be closed for a few days.
Scientists blame the problem in part on overfishing, which has sapped
stocks of natural jellyfish predators like tuna and turtles, and of
small fish that compete with jellyfish to feed on plankton.
Another factor is global warming: jellyfish are drifting close to
beaches more frequently as decreasing rainfall causes a drop in cooler,
freshwater runoff from rivers - a natural barrier for the creatures,
said Josep-Maria Gili, a marine biologist coordinating the project.
"The fact that jellyfish make it to the coast is a sign the sea is
sending us about how badly we treat it," said Gili, who works at the
Barcelona-based Institute of Sea Sciences, affiliated with Spain's top
research body, the Superior Council for Scientific Research.
"It is like a symptom of how we have changed the sea more than we
thought," he said in a telephone interview.
The project, approved at a Cabinet meeting, targets specific areas
including Catalonia in the northeast and the Balearic islands in the
Mediterranean, then spreads to other regions, Environment Minister
Cristina Narbona said Friday.
It calls for recruiting volunteers - recreational boaters and anglers -
to watch out for schools of jellyfish and call a toll-free number to
authorities on land when they see a large group floating close to a beach.
Municipal authorities would then dispatch staff in boats to scoop up the
jellyfish and dispose of them properly by letting them dry out. A
freshly dead jellyfish can still sting, and so can a severed tentacle.
"You can't just throw them in a garbage can," Gili said.
Joaquin Such, director of a marina in the resort town of Altea in the
Valencia region, said he has been contacted to try to round up a posse
of jelly fish surveillance skippers and will hold his first meeting with
them on Saturday.
Such said the plan is a good idea but doubts he will get more than 15
takers.
"In summer this is a real sacrifice. You go out boating but if you see
jellyfish you have to go through the whole procedure," Such said from Altea.
Ricardo Aguilar, a biologist with the ecological group Oceana, said the
plan is like "using a mosquito net against malaria."