Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
But didn't human error capsize this ship?
The worst part of this "invasion" is that the species isn't really tasty at all. Not to mention that every part of this particular jellyfish contains toxins. Every touching the top of the jellyfish will result in temporary numbness.
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.
Capsizing Jellyfish: The Hentai
This message was brought to you by Sarcasm and Troll Feeders United (STFU)
The boat turned turtle off the coast of Chiba, which is a Japanese port, rather than the coast of China. TFA did mention that the jellyfish's breeding location is off the Chinese coast though.
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
"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."
Hey there! FlashMob4Jellyfish is using Twitter
WhN? 2day. Where? Sea of Japan. What? Jam as many of us into
a fishing net and capsize the boat.
4:48 PM Oct 9th from ocean
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.
'When conditions are right, jelly swarms can form quickly. They appear to do this for sexual reproduction.'"
Perhaps genetic experimentation to produce K.Y. Jellyfish would aid this.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
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...
Please help metamoderate.
It's the feed. Ever eaten rabbit? A wild rabbit has a taste that is very distinctive. Farm raised rabbit has a rather soapy taste, so I won't eat it. The only difference is, wild rabbit eat what wild rabbits are SUPPOSED to eat - green vegetation. Farm raised rabbits eat prepared feed, which includes anti-biotics, possibly hormonal growth accelerators like they use for cattle - whatever the eggheads believe will grow the most meat for the least money. Farm fisheries are the same. It's near impossible to duplicate their natural diet, and if you could duplicate it, they would be far more expensive than wild fish.
Diet has everything to do with the flavor of the meat.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
I thought it sounded kinda small for a commercial vessel.
It was a Chibi-trawler.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
> As opposed to what? Cloning?
Well, yes, actually. Jellyfish reproduce both sexually and asexually.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
As opposed to what? Cloning?
No, as opposed to swarming for some other reason such as protection from predators, attacking Japanese fishermen, or as part of their agile software development process.
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.
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.
I am totally unsurprised by this development after reading about the 5 species that seem to be trying to take over the earth article at Cracked.com.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank