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The Jellyfish Apocalypse
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| SYSTEM-J |
As a kid I was always pretty unnerved by tentacled sea monstrosities and so this story has been making my skin crawl all day. Simply put: humans have been ing up the ocean's ecosystem for decades and as a result the planet's seas are being overrun by voracious colonies of poisonous jellyfish that can survive in ty conditions and are eating everything else in sight. They are now so numerous they are ruining fishing and tourism industries, blocking deep sea mining and causing nuclear reactors to shut down.
| quote: | | From the Arctic to the equator and on to the Antarctic, jellyfish plagues (or blooms, as they’re technically known) are on the increase. Even sober scientists are now talking of the jellification of the oceans. And the term is more than a mere turn of phrase. Off southern Africa, jellyfish have become so abundant that they have formed a sort of curtain of death, “a stingy-slimy killing field,” as Gershwin puts it, that covers over 30,000 square miles. The curtain is formed of jelly extruded by the creatures, and it includes stinging cells. The region once supported a fabulously rich fishery yielding a million tons annually of fish, mainly anchovies. In 2006 the total fish biomass was estimated at just 3.9 million tons, while the jellyfish biomass was 13 million tons. So great is their density that jellyfish are now blocking vacuum pumps used by local diamond miners to suck up sediments from the sea floor. |
http://qz.com/133251/jellyfish-are-...e-to-stop-them/
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/arc...re-taking-over/ |
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| Sushipunk |
We get the really fun stuff here. Taken from that first article you posted...
| quote: | Those swimmers are getting off easy, though. Residents of Australia and Southeast Asia share shores with the dread box jellyfish, whose sting “is the most explosive envenomation process presently known to humans,” wrote a team of scientists. Venom injected from its 10-foot-long tentacles ”turns the tissue into soup,” as one marine biologist put it, and causes the heart to seize. Death usually occurs within four minutes. In the Philippines each year, between 20 and 40 people die from box jellyfish stings.
Then there’s the Irukandji. The box jellyfish’s diminutive cousin, the Irukandji has mastered the closest thing to the perfect murder in the animal kingdom. Usually the size of a sugar cube, the Irukandji is hard to see, and its stinger leaves no trace. Around 10 minutes after contact, victims suffer everything from excruciating lower back pain to incessant vomiting to constricted airways and the “creeping” skin frequently associated with methamphetamine usage. Unlucky victims sometimes succumb to brain hemorrhaging, extreme high blood pressure or, in 30% of cases, experience some form of heart failure, according to Scientific American. And one out of five victims ends up on life support. “It’s difficult to know how many victims the Irukandji have claimed,” writes biologist Tim Flannery in a must-read piece, since “many deaths have doubtless been put down to stroke, heart attack or drowning.” |
:gsmile: |
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| Halcyon+On+On |
So, basically what you're saying, Stu, is...
BODY MELT? |
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| Sushipunk |
| quote: | Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On
So, basically what you're saying, Stu, is...
BODY MELT? |
:haha: |
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| FuzzQi |
| quote: | Originally posted by Sushipunk
:gsmile: |
That feeling when you realise the past few years you've tried to ignore this fact every time you go to the beach. :nervous: |
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| Sushipunk |
| quote: | Originally posted by FuzzQi
That feeling when you realise the past few years you've tried to ignore this fact every time you go to the beach. :nervous: |
Thankfully, they're usually only found further up north, and not all the way down here. Because those things. |
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| FuzzQi |
It's only a matter of time :nervous:
Also, Australian beaches.. Expectation:
Reality:
| quote: | Originally posted by FuzzQi
I've got my stinger suit just in case!
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This should be merged with the Australia sucks thread LOL |
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| OrangestO |
| quote: | Jellyfish continue to pop up in unusual places, and more often than not trouble is not far behind. Around 2000, the Australian spotted jellyfish was noticed in the Gulf of Mexico. It had presumably arrived in ballast water. These jellyfish can weigh up to fifteen pounds, and by August 2000 a plague of them covered around sixty square miles. Their consumption of fish eggs, fish larvae, and other plankton was far greater than could be sustained. They ate ten times more fish eggs than was typical for the area. And they had a sneaky way of catching plankton. They jellified the surrounding waters with a kind of foam that slowed the plankton down, making them easier to catch.
Then the Gulf experienced Hurricane Katrina and the oil spill of 2010. Fish and prawn numbers plummeted, but the Australian spotted jellyfish kept going from strength to strength. |
Interesting read. This is in my backyard. |
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| Lilith |
I think the Japs, Koreans and Chinese had some jellyfish recipes, could be one way of getting rid of them.
Read this earlier:
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/t...1018-2vs7v.html
Quite a disturbing point of view from a guy who did some open ocean voyages 10 years apart and the current observations are very disturbing. |
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| Sushipunk |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lilith
I think the Japs, Koreans and Chinese had some jellyfish recipes, could be one way of getting rid of them.
Read this earlier:
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/t...1018-2vs7v.html
Quite a disturbing point of view from a guy who did some open ocean voyages 10 years apart and the current observations are very disturbing. |
Damn, that sucks :/ |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by Sushipunk
Damn, that sucks :/ |
I was surprised because I had no idea you liked fish so much... then I read this:
| quote: | | What was missing were the cries of seabirds that surrounded the boat on previous voyages across the same seas. The birds were missing because the fish were missing. |
:p |
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| AlphaStarred |
| I like exotic jellyfish. But only when they're far away, deep in the ocean, or inside the aquariums. I don't like swimming in August and feeling the little ones brush against my skin, and keep thinking they're gonna nest in my head when I come out of the water. |
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