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Scientists Says Jellyfish Are Taking Over the Oceans
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Karla Cripps reports at CNN that a combination of overfishing, warming water, low oxygen and pollution are creating perfect conditions for jellyfish to multiply. "The jellyfish seem to be the ones that are flourishing in this while everything else is suffering," says Australian jellyfish researcher Lisa-ann Gershwin. In 2000, a bloom of sea tomato jellyfish in Australia was so enormous — it stretched for more than 1,000 miles from north to south — that it was even visible from space. While most blooms are not quite that big, Gershwin's survey of research on jellyfish from the last few decades indicate that populations are most likely on the rise, and that this boom is taking place in an ocean that is faced with overfishing, acid rain, nutrient pollution from fertilizers and climate change, among other problems. This past summer, southern Europe experienced one of its worst jellyfish infestations ever. Experts there have been reporting a steady increase in the number of jellyfish in the Mediterranean Sea for years. With more than 2,000 species of jellyfish swimming through the world's waters, most stings are completely harmless, some will leave you in excruciating pain, then there are the killers. There are several species of big box jellyfish that have caused many deaths — these include chironex fleckeri in Australia, known as the "most lethal jellyfish in the world whose sting can kill in three minutes. "Just the lightest brush — you don't even feel it — and then, whammo, you're in more pain than you ever could have imagined, and you are struggling to breathe and you can't move your limbs and you can't stop vomiting and your blood pressure just keeps going up and up," says Gershwin. "It is really surprising how many places they occur around the world — places you would never expect: Hawaii, Caribbean, Florida, Wales, New Caledonia, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, India ... as well as Australia.""
Time to dust off that recipe for sesame jelly fish with chili sauce.
Many endangered species, such as sea turtles, eat jellyfish.
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
Slashdot headline 50 years from now:
"Scientists Says Turtles Are Taking Over the Oceans"
(The typo is intentional, because even in 50 years, /. will still lack quality control.)
"It is really surprising how many places they occur around the world — places you would never expect: Hawaii, Caribbean, Florida, Wales, New Caledonia, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, India ... as well as Australia.""
No, places I would never expect would be Kansas, Siberia and the middle of the Sahara. If cable television has taught me anything, it's that the sea is out to kill me. If I can smell saltwater in the air, I'm expecting some explosion of deadliness.
Capital letter for genus, lower case for species. Like Homo sapiens. Not "Homo Sapiens" or "homo sapiens". The two parts of a species name should also be italicized (i.e. Chironex fleckeri). Although it's a little technical, it's not a hard rule to remember when using species names.
Can't we find a use for them? As soon as capitalism gets to work on them, they'll be goners too.
Let's hear it from greedy fisherman and their right-wing supporters, who think it's humanity's God-given right to rape the oceans and trash the food chain upon which everything depends... human greed will do us in for sure, because it overrides even the survival instinct.
I've seen Google Maps. My car is "visible from space."
Put the territory under some sort of corporate or government control and let the employees in charge of the territory use deadly force to stop the poachers. Works quite well in Africa where their game reserve rangers can put a .308 through you quite legally if they catch you hunting endangered species.
As long as you don't mind being one of those species. Sure. Guess what: your species depends on its environment to a greater degree than others like cockroaches or jellyfish.
In my country, terawatt globes are reserved for police helicopter chases and warning sailors of hazardous shoals. This is despite the fact that practically every living creature there can kill you in under three minutes. Our primary spoken language is screaming.
http://www.27bslash6.com/halogen.html
Yes, it means shit changes. Species go extinct. Other species move in to fill a niche when condition change. That's how life works.
Preserving the status quo, and attempting to freeze the environment in a particular point in time, is futile and shortsighted.
Right, so we might as well just take every fish that we possibly can out of the ocean. A fishing net that can hold 14 747s is not big enough, we need larger nets so that we can also mistakenly catch whales, sharks, rays, dolphins, turtles, etc. Because that's how life works, being caught in a gigantic net when you're not even being hunted. We should also speed up production on more boats that can catch 3,000 tons of tuna in a single trip, because the ocean can totally sustain a tuna fleet like that. I mean, who cares if the boat catches and kills tons and tons of other species that they just get rid of, those things shouldn't have been swimming near the tuna, right? Who cares if Japan is allotted 6,000 tons of bluefin tuna to catch in a year (they only need that boat to make 2 trips, then they can relax!), but instead they catch between 12,000 and 20,000 tons? That doesn't affect me! I don't give a shit if my grandchildren ever taste tuna! They'll be happy with their peanut butter and jellyfish sandwiches. This doesn't make me angry because I know that Japan isn't alone in these practices, so I can't blame them. Hell, the Pacific bluefin tuna stocks are down 96%, you know what that means? Yeah, baby, we still have 4% left! Go get it! In the recent catch 90% of the fish were juveniles who had never reproduced. You know what that means? Last generation, fuckers! Get it while you can! We need to get that boat that can catch 3,000 tons at once out there to finish off those cocky fuckers, what with their "waaa, I'm the top of the food chain" bullshit.
This is exactly the way the world works - people discover fishing, they discover nets, build boats, and entire villages, cities, and countries survive because of the plentiful fish that the ocean provides. Then we build a fishing fleet bigger than the world has ever seen, take everything we possibly can out of the ocean in order to get the high-dollar stuff we're after, leave nothing for the local communities, and they can all go fuck themselves because this a fucking dynamic planet. I'm right there with you, pal.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Lobster used to be prisoner food, until someone got the bright idea to use the newly available railroad to sell canned lobster to inland dwellers who didn't know better and considered all seafood a delicacy.
Foie gras used to simply be a kosher source of cooking fat (since lard isn't kosher). It wasn't until the French gourmands elevated it to a delicacy.
Build ships which vaccuum up jellyfish, puree them, and use the proteins as feed stock for 3D printing of food. The stingers can get filtered out, or just left into the low-grade product used in prisons and orphanages.
I'm sure that Red Lobster can come up with some clever marketing term for this stuff. After the actual lobsters, cod, and king crabs die off they'll have plenty of motivation.
Interesting Geek-culture historical note: In the 1973 movie "Soylent Green," the titular product is supposed to be made from krill scooped from the oceans. The underlying horror of the movie isn't that the crackers are made of dead people, but that the ocean ecosystem has collapsed due to pollution. The movie also has Edward G. Robinson bitching about how the greenhouse effect has made it hot and damp year-round.
Last year I got stung by a fairly common benign species of jellyfish called a blue bottle in the surf on a hot summer's day swim.
I came up to the surface with the thing about a meter in front of me and immediately tried to escape. The tentacle wrapped around my left arm from my knuckles to the armpit, across the chest and onto the right are and, somehow, on my right left.
The Lifesavers (clubbies) saw the whole thing as I got out of the surf two of them helped me over to the clubhouse and doused me we very hot water. Over the next three hours I had icepacks all over me and a nurse debated whether I would go to hospital as I just hung onto consciousness due to shock. The pain was astounding, my glands were inflated and later it felt like my testicles had been massaged by a hammer. I had welts on my arms for a couple of weeks from the sting. A year later I am still pulling stingers out of my arms which come up as painful little pimple like things that bleed and take about two weeks to heal (I'm looking at three now).
That's "a fairly common benign species of jellyfish".
My ism, it's full of beliefs.