re. Mauve Jellyfish

[Marineboy]

I picked this thread up off from Stewy at the Treehouse . . . . "A jellyfish invasion has wiped out Northern Ireland's only salmon farm, killing more than 100,000 fish.
BBC NEWS | Northern Ireland | Jellyfish attack destroys salmon"

Apparently the salmon did not die from being stung, but from oxygen deprivation - they suffocated. According to Glaucus, the swarm covered an area of 10 square miles to a depth of 35 feet, with an estimated density of 600 jellyfish per cubic metre. Reports also suggested that boats had difficulty motoring through them! I guess a concentration like this simply stripped the oxygen from the water to such an extent that it proved fatal to the captive salmon. Another of natures many surprises that we simply could not forsee.

[m1.carson]

Hi marineboy,

Wouldn't have thought it was oxygen deprivation per se, more that the salmon couldn't breath jellyfish, I still can't understand, if it was ten purple miles of the stuff how no-one saw it coming.

Any cheap salmon on the market yet.

Max.

[Jim Greenfield]

This is a colossal aggregation of these jellyfish. They are quite beautiful things when you see them underwater but whatever you do, don't touch them. Their sting is dynamite! My daughter was stung on the leg by one when she was seven years old and still had the scar fifteen years later. Many beaches are closed on a temporary basis each summer in the Med. when these things appear. Until recently they didn't have a common name but "Mauve Stinger" now seems to be generally accepted. I don't know if I'm allowed by the mods to point you at my web site where there is a picture. If not acceptable please delete the post (I would post a pic here if I could but have never been able to work out how to do this)

Jim Greenfield

[zan]

My understanding was that the cages got clogged up with jellyfish and stopped the water flow through to the fish, which suffocated as a result. I guess there must have been a lot of jellyfish in the cages too...

just my 2 cents

Zan