Poisonous Jellyfish Plague invades Mediterranean beaches
Pastor Dale Morgan
Poisonous Jellyfish Plague invades Mediterranean beaches*
By Rupert Neate
Last Updated: 6:59PM BST 23/06/2008
Mediterranean costal resorts are going into battle against plagues of
jellyfish, whose painful sting could ruin many summer holidays.
Next week Cannes, the French town famous for its film festival, will
erect booms and nets to try and protect bathers from the nasty, but
rarely fatal, sting of the invaders.
Spanish authorities recently deployed a fleet of 40 fishing boats to
catch the jellyfish, which despite their name are a kind of giant
plankton, before they reach beaches on the popular Balearic Islands.
Each boat is being paid about £480 pounds a day to protect swimmers from
'banks' of Pelagia noctiluca.
Last June, lifeguards in San Antonio, Ibiza, dealt with 152 cases of
jellyfish stings. Josep-Maria Gili, research professor at Barcelona's
Institute of Marine Sciences, predicts this summer will see another
serious invasion.
"Conditions in recent years have been ideal - very mild and with little
rain and with unusually warm sea temperatures," he said. "People have
been really enjoying it, but these are perfect conditions for jellyfish."
Scientists believe the rise in jellyfish is proof of a radical, and
possibly irreversible, change in the ecology of the Mediterranean. In
the past, large plagues of jellyfish only appeared once every 10 or 12
years and stayed for about four years, but vast plagues of jellyfish
have been in the area for the last eight years.
Some experts think the change is due to a rise in sea temperatures
linked to global warming, while others blame overfishing of natural
predators like bluefin tuna and turtles.