Huge swarms of the Nomura jellyfish are threatening the livelihood of Japanese fisherman. These nasty suckers can grow up to 6ft in diameter and weigh up to 450 lbs and look like evil red-orange jello blobs. They easily get snagged in fishing nets and kill the little catch these fisherman are able to bring in.
This massive swarm is not local only to Japan, but is occurring thousands of miles off its coast. It has shut down desalination plants in the Middle East and Africa, killed off fishing industries and piss off beachgoers. This invasion used to be an every 40-yr occurance, but has slowly evolved into an annual event.
Why, you ask? Jellyfish steroids? Jelly take over? 2012 prophecy? Attack on Godzilla?
No..global warming. Warming of the oceans has allowed the jellyfish to spread and breed. Pollution also has increased the amount of plankton in the water, which provides even more food for these gelatinous bastards.
In Japan, these pests have cost the fishing industry upwards of ~$300 billion where upwards of 500 million of jellies have capsized boats from their weight in the nets and reduced daily catches by 30%.
Although scientists have shown a correlation between water temps and jellyfish population booms, there are other limiting factors such as food, currents and the temperature getting too high. One population decreased in the Bering Sea although there were record highs.
0 comments:
Post a Comment