Scientists have alarmed that jellyfish swarms are spreading like forest fire starving out food fish, injuring swimmers, overloading the nets and capsizing fishing boats and clogging the pipes to power plants and nuclear vessels. Swarms that sometimes cover hundreds of square miles recently have been reported in many of the world’s prime vacation and fishing destinations.
The National Science Foundation states that the fear is that warmer waters, overfishing and pollution are depleting other species while giving jellyfish the habitat they need to thrive. In the Lowcountry, swarms tend to show up in the midsummer heat, when bathers flock to the beach.
Pearse Webster, a South Carolina Department of Natural Resources marine biologist, does near-shore trawls in the spring, summer and fall each year for the SEAMAP-SA Coastal Survey. In trawls this spring from Georgia to Charleston they catch after huge catch of cannonball jellies. At times the numbers reached a point of overwhelming what we could handle with our nets.
