More Things Jellyfish

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http://www.ntt-kanagawa.com/camera/enosui/jellyfish.html

Chill With a Jellyfish, Rent a Pup: Japanese Pay Big for Stress Relief

By Anthony Faiola
Washington Post Foreign Service?Monday, June 5, 2006; Page A01


ENOSHIMA, Japan -- As dusk draped this seaside town in darkness, Ikiko and Kuniyo Hirutani prepared themselves for the unknown. Tonight, they would sleep with the fishes, and both had come prepared -- with sleeping bags and pillows.

The sisters were there with 30 other stressed-out women, ages 28 to 57, seeking inner peace through communion with marine life. For about $120 each, they joined in Enoshima Aquarium's overnight relaxation program -- including a 45-minute session in which the women massaged their arms and legs in a room lit mostly by ghostly, biofluorescent jellyfish swaying gracefully to New Age music.

Before midnight, the sisters tucked themselves inside sleeping bags splayed in front of a vast aquarium wall. They gazed for hours as soothing sea creatures of every size and color glided through the cool blue. "I feel totally relaxed," Ikiko, a 30-year-old apparel company manager from Tokyo, said before she nodded off. "It's like I'm floating, like I'm in the tank with them. Reality feels so far away."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/04/AR2006060400834.html

http://www.enosui.com/

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Northern Kentucky aquarium rivals Chicago's famed Shedd
Sharks, penguins, jellyfish await in Cincinnati suburb
June 25, 2006

BY TAMMY STABLES BATTAGLIA

The Newport Aquarium's exhibits are on par with the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. The exhibits are just as colorful and creative. The jellyfish in six tanks in the dimmed Jellyfish Gallery dwarf Chicago's single jellyfish tank. And although it may not be as big, the Newport Aquarium presents exhibits just as well, if not better in some cases, than the Shedd.

In fact, none of us could remember ever seeing such a lively bunch of penguins.

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060625/FEATURES07/606250509/1032/FEATURES

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Bay and beyond
Clear your head. Gape at the view. Get some exercise. Change your scenery. Meet some creatures. You're in the Bay Area, after all.
 
Thursday, June 22, 2006



Monterey Bay Aquarium More than 350,000 sea creatures inhabit 100 permanent galleries and exhibits. Highlights include the Outer Bay galleries, devoted to the mysteries of the open ocean; a three-story kelp forest; a sea otter exhibition; and a walk-through shorebird aviary. "Jellies: Living Art" features living jellyfish on display, with art and installations by Dale Chihuly, David Hockney, Ernst Haeckel, Roger Brown and others. "Sharks: Myth and Mystery" includes nearly two dozen living species and the rich cultural traditions they inspire. "Vanishing Wildlife: Saving Tunas, Turtles and Sharks" features a new window gallery that looks into the aquarium's million-gallon "Outer Bay" exhibition. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. daily. Monterey Bay Aquarium, 886 Cannery Row, Monterey. [phone].

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/06/22/NSGNVJEQRR1.DTL&type=travelbayarea


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Endangered orcas return with 2 babies

By Lynda V. Mapes
Seattle Times staff reporter


ASTRID VAN GINNEKEN / CENTER FOR WHALE RESEARCH

An orca calf, one of two born recently, swims alongside its mother in the San Juan Islands this month. Federal officials are working on a plan to protect 2,500 square miles of orca habitat.

The endangered orca whales of Puget Sound have two new babies, bringing the southern resident population to 89....

More babies could arrive this summer. Some years have brought a boomlet of as many as seven calves. Two calves is about average, but the number is particularly heartening this year because of the recent commitment to restore their numbers.

Orcas are at the top of the marine food chain, and have large, complex brains. The Puget Sound orcas have a unique greeting ceremony, and the matrilineal pods have languages all their own. They feed about half the time — but also indulge in all kinds of play: chasing, splashing at the surface, breaching, fin slapping, tail lobbing, head standing, rolling over other animals and playing with objects, including kelp and jellyfish.

"These are wonderful creatures to have in our neighborhood," Balcomb said. "It is really important that we have animals that keep on reproducing. This is the generation that is going to make the recovery, if it is going to happen."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003082490_babywhales24m.html




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Vamizi does it in Mozambique

From sea-fresh sashimi to a spectacular coral reef, a new luxury eco-lodge in Mozambique has the Sven and Nancy seal of approval, writes Rhiannon Batten
26 June 2006

My own magic Vamizi moment, however, came when I was out diving with Paulo, one of the island's divemasters. I spotted a translucent, saucer-sized jellyfish heading towards us and pointed it out. Paulo reached out and cupped it, upside down, in his palm before passing it to me. Jellyfish stroking not being a regular hobby, I was unsure whether I should follow suit but went with instinct and let its body rest for a slimy moment in my fingers, before casting it gently off and watching it pulse, spectre-like, into the light overhead.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/travel/story.jsp?story=696403
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Smashing ... and a hard act to follow

TIM MARTAIN
28jun06

PART theatre and part freak-show, the latest production to hit the Backspace Theatre is intended to provoke thought, laughter and -- hopefully -- nausea.??A Girl and Her Squid, performed by Bridget Nicklason-King and Samora Clark, is the quirky story of a girl who has a peculiar fetish for glass and her pet jellyfish who likes sticking things into himself.

During the performance, Nicklason-King takes a nap on a bed of broken wine bottles and eats a light bulb for breakfast.

And Clark swallows a sword, hammers nails up his nose and squeezes his entire body into a hollowed-out television set.
And there is no trickery involved, these stunts are for real...

http://www.themercury.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,19613555%255E3462,00.html

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1. Jellyfish "Invasions"

33 Stung During Jellyfish Invasion

POSTED: 8:42 am HST June 20, 2006
UPDATED: 7:32 am HST June 21, 2006

HONOLULU -- Water safety officials issued a box-jellyfish alert for Tuesday and Wednesday.

Lifeguards found about 300 box jellyfish along Waikiki Beach on Tuesday. Officials posted warning signs at Waikiki Beach.

Thirty-three people reported being stung to lifeguards by 2:30 p.m.

The invasion of jellyfish was expected to peak on Wednesday, officials said. Now, they said it appears that the bulk of the monthly invasion happened on Tuesday.

Jellyfish usually invade the south shores when they mate, seven to 10 days after a full moon.

http://www.thehawaiichannel.com/news/9399269/detail.html

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Vacationers beware: Armies of jellyfish on way to northern shores (Israel)
 
Hundreds of jellyfish sighted Sunday floating near Acco and Nahariyeh shores. Suggestion for the stung: Rub with sand and rinse in seawater ?Joel Beno
 
Going to the beach? Be advised that hundreds of jellyfish have been sighted in recent days floating near the Acco and Nahariyeh shores. And not just any jellyfish, Mediterranean jellyfish (rhophilema nomadica) - the ones with the sharpest sting.
 
Professor Ehud Spanier, head of the Haifa University's Department of Maritime Civilizations and Leon Recanati Institute of Maritime Studies, toured the length of the coast in the western Galilee region of Israel. According to him, western winds and currents headed towards the beach may cause the jellyfish to drift ashore, to areas rife with bathers.
 
Jellyfish generally appear in June and disappear in August. Another wave appears in January or February and disappears in April. According to Snapier, jellyfish may get sucked into ships that take in seawater to balance the ship's weight on the water; when the ships dock, the jellyfish are released near the shore.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3267714,00.html

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Japan must fight giant jellyfish invasion

The Yomiuri Shimbun

This is the 22nd installment of the fifth "Planning National Strategies" series, which examines the current state of affairs facing Japan as a maritime nation.




For the past few years, massive schools of giant Echizen jellyfish, also known as Nomura's jellyfish, have been reported at a number of coastal areas. The plague that occurred in the summer of 2005 was particularly serious.

Early on the morning of July 20 that year, Shinichi Ue, a professor of biological oceanography at Hiroshima University's Graduate School, was awakened by a student knocking on his cabin door on board a training ship as it made its way through waters off the Tsushima Strait.
"Doctor, there's trouble! The sea is full of jellyfish!" the student shouted.

Ue rushed up onto the deck, to find the Toyoshiomaru surrounded by a swarm of pink jellyfish. The ship plowed its way through a shoal of behemoth jellyfish for three hours before their numbers thinned out, he recalled.

At that time, 300 million to 500 million Echizen jellyfish were flowing into the Sea of Japan from the Tsushima Strait every day. After moving northward through the Tsugaru Strait, the jellyfish swam into the Pacific Ocean, ringing the coast of the nation. During their seagoing voyage, the jellyfish grow up to 1.5 meters in diameter and 200 kilograms in weight....

China's cool stance on the problem stems from the fact that it has suffered little damage to its fishing industry from jellyfish, and that jellyfish are, in any case, a common Chinese delicacy. Tongchuan Aquatic Market, Shanghai's largest marine wholesale market, has about 2,000 outlets, complete with a "jellyfish street" lined with dozens of jellyfish shops. These shops display parts of several types of jellyfish, such as Echizen jellyfish. As evening nears, the street is thronged with shoppers, who pay about 25 yuan (375 yen) for 500 grams of Echizen jellyfish.

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20060625TDY03003.htm

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http://images.thetimes.co.uk/TGD/picture/0,,249231,00.jpg

China Dam Blamed For Surge In Jellyfish

Researchers in Japan have concluded that a surge in the number of giant jellyfish off the Japanese coast is a result of a hydropower dam in China.

The Mainichi Daily News reported that researchers from Japan's National Institute for Environmental Studies have suggested that construction of the Three Gorges Dam in China, the world's largest hydropower dam, is responsible for the explosion of the jellyfish population. The jellyfish have a negative effect on the Japanese fishing industry.

Nomura jellyfish, typically found in Japan, measure up to one meter in diameter and can weigh as much as 200 kilograms.
One of the breeding areas for the jellyfish is near the mouth of the Yangtze River, near Shanghai. Construction of the dam is thought to have reduced the production of silicon, which is necessary for the breeding of phytoplankton, the newspaper said.

Researchers plan to examine the relationship between the dam construction and the jellyfish over the next three years.

http://www.playfuls.com/news_001250_China_Dam_Blamed_For_Surge_In_Jellyfish.html

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3. "New Jellyfish Problem Means Jellyfish Are Not the Only Problem"

May 21, 2002
New Jellyfish Problem Means Jellyfish Are Not the Only Problem

By OTTO POHL

ORT DOUGLAS, Australia — When Robert King climbed back on the boat after snorkeling off the Great Barrier Reef here on March 31, he knew something was wrong. "I don't feel so good," he said, rubbing his chest.

He had been stung by a jellyfish, and his condition deteriorated rapidly. By the time the emergency helicopter arrived, he was screaming in agony; a few hours later he was in a coma, eyes frozen wide, bleeding into his brain. He never regained consciousness.

Mr. King, 44, from Columbus, Ohio, was the second person in Australia to die this year from the sting of a species of jellyfish, Carukia barnesi, found only in Australia and never before known to be fatal. More than 200 other victims went to hospitals, several times the number in a normal summer season here.

In many places around the world, jellyfish populations are sharply increasing, stinging more people and wreaking economic damage. While in some areas the increase appears to be part of a natural cycle (jellyfish populations are declining in some other areas), scientists have noticed an overall upward trend. And they suspect that human activity is to blame.

...Australia was stunned into action by the two deaths, which officials fear could hurt tourism. "No one cared until someone died," said Dr. Seymour, a member of a hastily convened commission.

http://www.hawaii.edu/ur/newslinks/nyt/nyt052102.htm

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Boy's death from box jellyfish 'avoidable', says expert

March 24 2003

A seven-year-old boy's excruciating death from a box jellyfish sting near Cairns was preventable, a stinger expert said today.

Jareed Crook was swimming in unprotected waters at Wongaling Beach south of Cairns yesterday when he swam into the highly poisonous jellyfish.

Witnesses said he was dragged screaming from the water by his grandfather to find marks from the animal's toxic tentacles across his body.

Box jellyfish can grow to be as big as a basketball, have 60 long tentacles and can have enough venom to kill 60 adult humans.

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Worldwide deaths and severe envenomation from jellyfish stings

Peter J Fenner and John A Williamson



We have collected worldwide information about jellyfish and their stings since 1990, through personal communication with members of the International Consortium of Jellyfish Stings (ICJS), 1 investigating reports of serious jellyfish stings heard on the "grapevine", and travelling in areas of chirodropid (multitentacled "box" jellyfish) distribution. Annual reports of our data have been published from 1991 to 1993.

In Australia, particularly on the east coast, up to 10 000 stings occur each summer from the bluebottle (Physalia spp.) alone, with others also from the "hair jellyfish" (Cyanea) and "blubber" (Catostylus). More bluebottle stings occur in South Australia and Western Australia, as well as stings from a single-tentacled box jellyfish, the "jimble" (Carybdea rastoni) (personal data) .

The chirodropid Chironex fleckeri 3,4,8 is known to be the most lethal jellyfish in the world, 3 and has caused at least 63 recorded deaths in tropical Australian waters off Queensland and the Northern Territory since 1884.

http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/dec2/fenner/fenner.html

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2. "Global warming lends power to jellyfish"

Jellyfish Flourish As Water Warms

Global warming lends power to jellyfish


''There is evidence of jellyfish explosions around the world that appear related to the adverse impact of human activities, and those include global warming,'' said Sarah Chasis, the senior attorney for the New York City-based Natural Resources Defense Council.

Historically, Narraganset Bay was the northern limit of the combjelly, whose domain extends as far south as Argentina. Last November, combjellies were documented for the first time in Boston Harbor, although in numbers as yet too sparse to affect the harbor's ecology. But this is not the case in Narragansett Bay, according to Barbara Sullivan, an oceanographer from the University of Rhode Island who has been studying the organism for the last two years with a grant from the National Science Foundation. In Rhode Island, warmer water is changing the rules of who eats whom.

The combjelly's ability to reproduce is temperature related, and traditionally the animal's population exploded during the warmth of late summer and early autumn. But because the bay has warmed an average of 3.4 degrees during the past 20 years, the combjelly is now reproducing and ''blooming'' four months earlier, which enables the organism to gobble up the eggs and larvae deposited in the spring by spawning fish as never before.

''We have seen areas of the bay where these things have cleaned out everything edible floating in the water column,'' she said. One consquence has been the demise of the winter flounder population, although no one is ready to place the blame squarely on the combjelly. In 1982, approximately 4,200 metric tons of the flounder were landed in Rhode Island. In 2000, the most recent year for which state statistics are available, approximately 600 tons of the flounder were caught.

http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?ID=4003&Method=Full&PageCall=&Title=Jellyfish%20Flourish%20As%20Water%20Warms&Cache=False

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Underwater Robot Tracks Elusive Jellyfish

Bijal P. Trivedi
National Geographic Today
January 17, 2003

..."The nets would haul up fish and squid, which were all covered in a clear goo that we'd scrape off the top and throw over the side," Robison says.

Studying that transparent, amorphous "goo"—a puree of jellyfish and other gelatinous sea dwellers—provides clues to the nature of the undersea food chain. And the ubiquity of these creatures throughout the world's oceans makes them a silent sentinel of environmental change.

...And a tenfold increase in jellyfish numbers in the Bering Sea, also perhaps climate-related, has led observers to dub one area of the Alaskan peninsula the "Slime Bank."

"I was amazed by how many jellies there are," Robison says. "Just using nets, we've missed about one third of the animals in the oceans."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/01/0117_030117_tvjellyfish.html

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Jellyfish in the Black Sea

The effect of a jellyfish invasion on the Black Sea is one of the best documented examples of the far reaching economic and ecological consequences that can follow the introduction of an alien species into an environment favouring its almost unlimited expansion.

Mnemiopsis leidyi, a comb jellyfish, originates on the eastern seaboards of both North and South America. It abounds in ports and harbours, and is pumped in ballast water into cargo ships. These jellyfish can live for 3–4 weeks without food, by reducing the size of their bodies, so they can easily survive the 20-day voyage to the Black Sea. They were first found in the Black Sea, off the south-east Crimea, in 1982.

Damaging human activities — including overfishing, pollution, water extraction and barrages on rivers running into the sea — had set the stage for its entrance. Overfishing and eutrophication seem to have combined to remove top predators such as turbot, bluefish and monk seals and to cut the numbers of plankton-eating fish severely, opening up a niche for the jellyfish. Meanwhile plankton proliferated.

Hermaphroditic and self-fertilizing, the numbers of jellyfish exploded from 1988 onwards. The populations of plankton crashed as the invaders ate them. Fish stocks collapsed, partly because the jellyfish deprived them of their food and ate their eggs and larvae. The catch of the former states of the Soviet Union plummeted from 250 000 to 30 000 tonnes a year, and it was much the same story in Turkey. At least US$300 million was lost in falling fishery revenues between the mid-1980s and the early 1990s, with grave economic and social consequences. Fishing vessels were put up for sale, and fishermen abandoned the sea.

Source: GESAMP 2001b

http://www.unep.org/GEO/geo3/english/318.htm