Swarm of Giant Jellyfish Capsize 10-Ton Trawler

Hugh Pickens writes "The Telegraph reports that the Japanese trawler Diasan Shinsho-maru has capsized off the coast of China, as its three-man crew dragged their net through a swarm of giant jellyfish (which can grow up to six feet in diameter and travel in packs) and tried to haul up a net that was too heavy. The crew was thrown into the sea when the vessel capsized, but the three men were rescued by another trawler. Relatively little is known about Nomura's jellyfish, such as why some years see thousands of the creatures floating across the Sea of Japan on the Tsushima Current, but last year there were virtually no sightings. In 2007, there were 15,500 reports of damage to fishing equipment caused by the creatures. Experts believe that one contributing factor to the jellyfish becoming more frequent visitors to Japanese waters may be a decline in the number of predators, which include sea turtles and certain species of fish. 'Jellies have likely swum and swarmed in our seas for over 600 million years,' says scientist Monty Graham of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Alabama. 'When conditions are right, jelly swarms can form quickly. They appear to do this for sexual reproduction.'"

Comments

I don't mean to Troll

[Nerdfest]

But didn't human error capsize this ship?

Re:I don't mean to Troll

[OzPeter]

But didn't human error capsize this ship?

Another fine first post wasted by common sense and intelligence.

Re:I don't mean to Troll

[chriss]

In 2007, there were 15,500 reports of damage to fishing equipment caused by the creatures.

In other news: Last year several thousands of SUVs were damaged by children who, for some reasons, were not constrained by their parents to stay inside all the time and instead failed to stay at the proper speed to move smoothly with the traffic. Due to the excellent structural protection from the SUVs their drivers did not suffer major physical injuries.

Re:I don't mean to Troll

[OakDragon]

...I don't really think a 'joke' this obvious should be marked funny.

I mod something as funny so that others, who may have their thresholds set higher, can have a chance to read it. Is this not a good use of the +1 Funny?

Re:I don't mean to Troll

[RichardJenkins]

I am not usually the one to yell "Mods on crack!" but I don't really think an 'explanation' this obvious should be marked insightful. Nothing personal. ... unless somebody doesn't actually know that trawl is a pun on troll in this case?

Don't kill predators

[mangu]

If they are proliferating because of a lack of predators, we should probably go ahead and kill as many of these as we can to maintain a good ecosystem balance.

Wrong, we should stop killing predators. The seas have been overfished for too long, equilibrium is broken on so many levels that only true regulation and control of fishing will get any results.

After all, fishing is *so* primitive. Civilized people *grow* their food, hunter/gatherer economics are for barbarians.

Re:Don't kill predators

[Firkragg14]

If they didnt want to be eaten then why would they taste so good. Answer me that.

Re:Don't kill predators

[spitzak]

Um, "fresh" for fish means "not-frozen", and has nothing to do with whether it is farmed or not. I think the term you are looking for is "wild" or perhaps "not-farmed".

Re:Don't kill predators

[value_added]

So I wonder... would a farm rabbit raised on feed taste better if its diet were changed to something more natural say... a month or so... before it was killed?

Sure, but I don't know about a month.

Don't enjoy rabbit, so I'll pass on commenting. Chicken, on the other hand, if you feed one a steady diet of corn, you get golden-coloured and really tasty meat. Cows that are fed grass (as opposed to grain), give milk that tastes far better than what you'll find in the American supermarket aisles. The cheese made from that milk doubly so. The meat obviously is better too and priced accordingly.

It's a simple concept, really. Garbage in, garbage out.

Re:Don't kill predators

[Runaway1956]

Pigs have often been allowed to forage for mast, then penned up and fed corn and maybe some sweet feed for some weeks before slaughter. Remember that a hog is an omnivore, so free ranging hogs eat some really NASTY stuff!
Even today, farmers who slaughter their own hogs for private consumption will replace the commercially prepared feeds with corn.
Would it work for rabbits? Probably.

Re:Don't kill predators

[Brigadier]

I always thought it interesting that people think equilibrium is a ecosystem free of humans. Aren't humans a part of the ecosystem. True equilibrium is our food source dying, followed by world starvation. The environmental push has nothing to do with the environment but is in fact human preservation. Let's call it exactly what it is.

A much bigger problem

[Das Auge]

I saw a Nation Geographic (I think) special on this.

These jellyfish spawn off the cost of China, near Hong Kong. The increasing water temperature (since the end of the last ice age) coupled with the pollution that China dumps into the sea, has caused an explosion of the aforementioned animals. The jellyfish then float eastward, right into the Japanese fishing waters.

The Japanese have no real solution to this problem. Thy only thing they can do it try to kill as many jellyfish as they can (using bladed or hooked poles).

Here's when I venture into probably troll country: I'm okay with the affect the jellyfish are having. The way that the Japanese over-fish the oceans (not to mention killing whales), I'm okay with anything that slows them down. Now only if something could slow down the over-fishing done by the rest of the world. This includes the US, of which I'm a citizen.

I'm not a Green Peace lovin' (I hate 'em), tree hugging, nut job; but we really need to have some sort of international regulation (with punishments in the form of sanctions) on the fishing and care of the oceans. From over-fishing to habitat destruction (often a side affect of fishing) to pollution, we're well on our way to killing the oceans as we know them. Which will lead to the killing of our civilization as we know it. Not the end of it, mind you. Just the end of it as we know it.

Re:A much bigger problem

[maxume]

The best thing about good fisheries management is the increased harvests...

About time

[Anonymous Coward]

Good to see that the seas are fighting back at our rape of the oceans.
I, for one, welcome our Nemopilema overlord swarms reclaiming their underworld domain.
Why is trawling still legal? Are we only going to stop when there are no fish or reefs left?
Why are we still eating Tuna?
ICCAT

THANK GOD FOR CAPTAIN SLASHDOT!

[SuperBanana]

Perhaps they should make winches that aren't strong enough to capsize a boat. Just a thought.

WOW, I'm sure decades of fishermen haven't considered that. Thank god we have Slashdot.

"What capsizes a boat" is probably very complicated- how loaded is it with fish? How high are the seas? How much water and fuel does it have on board? How much angular momentum does the boat have? How much water resistance does the hull give?

It's probably possible or even normal to haul up a load that, if you kept it hanging out on the crane, would slowly cause the ship to heel over too far, but if brought aboard relatively quickly, wouldn't...

Re:I don't think we're ready for this jelly

[squidfood]

Wouldn't the proliferation at least help the predator population? At least they're less likely to go hungry.

Being able to eat jellyfish profitably (they are not very nutritious) is an adaptation a relatively small number of predators (in particular turtles, a very limited number of mostly non-commercial fish) enjoy; those predators are mainly limited by other factors (like habitat damage on beaches) - hunger isn't a main issue for them right now.

That's the thing about jellies; they're really the end of the food chain (despite being low down) so if they bloom, there's not much predator control to bring then in check.

Re:I don't mean to Trull

[uuddlrlrab]

I am not usually the one to yell "Mods on crack!" but I don't really think an 'attention grab' this obvious should be marked funny. Nothing personal...