
Imagining the Jellyfish Apocalypse - Hooke
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/01/listening-to-jellyfish/546542/?single_page=true
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nradov
I've been out on boats in Monterey Bay (northeast Pacific Ocean) about once a
month for the past 15 years and this year the population of sea nettle
_Chrysaora fuscescens_ jellies has been higher than ever. Sometimes they were
so thick that it looked like a carpet on the water surface.

This past summer I spent a week in western Greece and they had a huge bloom of
mauve stinger _Pelagia noctiluca_ jellies. We could barely go in the water.
According to the locals they had never seen so many before.

Those are just anecdotes and could be caused by random fluctuations, but it
does seem like something is really changing.

~~~
madaxe_again
I’ve seen similar in the gulf of Thailand, the Adriatic and the South China
Sea this year - locals all saying it’s totally unprecedented, and that it’s
almost all they’re catching.

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madaxe_again
You don’t have to imagine it - you can already see it.

I spent a month in Antarctica earlier this year, travelling from East
Antarctica around the Ross shelf to the peninsula and beyond - and the
ecosystem is seriously sick. Marine biologists on the expedition were almost
panicking.

Antarctic waters have warmed sufficiently for vast numbers of jellies and
salps to multiply - and these guys eat krill and plankton.

This is problematic as krill and plankton are fundamental to Antarctic food
chains - penguins, seals, whales - all feed on both almost exclusively - and
salps and jellies are inedible for these species, meaning that they are
literally starving.

Adelies, Chinstraps and Gentoos were all seen not moulting yet vomiting bile -
this usually only happens during moult while the penguins starve as they can’t
enter the water - but now they’re starving no matter what. Kings and Emperors
were seen in significant numbers well outside of their usual range, suggesting
they’re travelling farther afield to find food.

This talks about a particular colony of Adelies having a disastrous season,
and they posit krill fishing as a reason - but it likely has more to do with
invasive species disrupting the food chain - expect to see papers on the
subject some time next year.

[https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/scienc...](https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/science-
environment-41608722)

~~~
nonbel
Your source says:

"It was caused by unusually high amounts of ice late in the season, meaning
adults had to travel further for food.

[...]

WWF says a ban on krill fishing in the area would _eliminate_ their
competition"

Not that I find that any more trustworthy than your post, but it pretty much
claims the opposite explanation (you claimed warmer waters lead to more
jellies which eat the krill).

~~~
madaxe_again
There’s a delay between observed phenomena and the literature being updated -
hence I surmised there’ll be papers published on the topic next year.

~~~
nonbel
No, there is no delay in publication.

[https://www.nature.com/news/does-it-take-too-long-to-
publish...](https://www.nature.com/news/does-it-take-too-long-to-publish-
research-1.19320)

While that source says the opposite, I presume there will be papers published
in the future that agree with me. Yes, this is a joke post meant to point out
how silly using that source was for you.

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skc
Perhaps we should be working harder at finding an industrial use for these
creatures.

~~~
cglace
I remember reading about an industry that is starting up for
fishing/processing jellyfish.

[https://www.postandcourier.com/food/can-s-c-stomach-a-
jellyf...](https://www.postandcourier.com/food/can-s-c-stomach-a-jellyfish-
industry/article_f593610a-e47f-5cb5-bcf4-cb320e37079d.html)

~~~
hinkley
Can you make fish pellets or pet food out of it?

~~~
pvaldes
> 95% water

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pvaldes
The article claims that Jellyfish are eyeless. This is false in this case.
Irukandji have 24 eyes. Of those, four are bigger with well developped lenses
and even a sort of iris, and are known to be able to see enough to navigate
around obstacles. They can even rotate those eyes to focus on their target and
can see humans swimming also. Cubozoans are ancient creatures, very
interesting and much different to other jellyfishes.

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FrozenVoid
Related: [https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/03/150313-oceans-
ma...](https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/03/150313-oceans-marine-life-
climate-change-acidification-oxygen-fish/)

------
pvaldes
> Berwald travels to Spain’s Murcia region and takes us to the Mar Menor
> lagoon, which had become so jellified in 2002 that “you couldn’t drive a
> boat through the water

Well, this is overstatement.

~~~
madaxe_again
You ever had to unclog an engine’s water intake after it’s rammed full of
jellies? No overstatement.

~~~
pvaldes
The real problem with El Mar Menor is not jellyfishes, is artichokes (and too
much people). Motor boats in the shallow lagoon damaging the bottom seaweeds
should be forbidden directly. They have the entire Mediterranean Sea for
sailing. No reason for damaging more the fragile and unique ecosystem in the
inner lagoon.

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jcoffland
What a waste of adjectives not to mention logic or reason. The author should
sit down with _On writing well_ and have a good long concentrated read.

> ecological collapse will spawn nothing new. No Boschian hellscape of strange
> and shuddering hybrids will emerge. Environmental disaster is fundamentally
> uncreative.

The only evidence we are provided to support this claim is that due to a lack
of fossil records we don't know how many jellyfish existed in ancient seas.

~~~
rblatz
I was interested in the story, but the writing lost me too.

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golergka
What an awful article on such an interesting theme. Why do journalists so
often start the text with some personal anecdote, either about themselves or
about a person of interest in the story? I didn't click the link to read about
the author or jellyfish researcher; I wanted to read about the damn jellyfish.

~~~
jandrese
It's the human interest factor. The idea is that people will pay more
attention to a problem if they can put a face on it, otherwise it is too
abstract and you lose half of the readers outright.

