Page 69 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - August/September 2017

Global Jellyfish Crisis in Perspective 69

Global Jellyfish Crisis in

Perspective

Continued from Page 65

The past few years have brought a reprieve from
Nomura’s blooms, but the years of high
abundance provided a sobering window into
what a jelly-dominated future might look like.
It’s easy and compelling to draw a direct
link from human activity to increasing jellyfish
populations. In their blind simplicity and
poisonous beauty, jellies are hailed to be
unstoppable in the face of ecological
destruction. Recent reports of jellyfish blooms
have closed beaches in the Mediterranean and
clogged power plants in Sweden, feeding the
prevailing impression of a dystopian, gelatinous
future for marine environments. But how much At the same time, if jellyfish populations really The white abalone was the first
science is there to back up this seemingly neat are increasing, Japan’s response to giant invertebrate to be listed under the Endangered
cause-and-effect relationship? jellyfish blooms might provide an example of Species Act in 2001, but it should have been
how to increase the economic benefits of sooner. Its California population collapsed
As it turns out, not nearly enough.
In 2012, a task force of international jellyfish relative to their costs. The jellyfish task almost two decades before it was listed, not long
jellyfish experts evaluated the scientific force suggests finding ways to transform over- after a commercial fishery for the shelled
evidence behind the theory that jellyfish blooms abundant jellies into an ecosystem service. Even mollusk opened in the 1970s. The species still
were increasing as a result of global temperature if jellies never become a culinary delicacy, a hasn't recovered, largely because males and
changes. What they found, first and foremost, jellyfish economy may be the only way to adapt females of the sedentary abalones need to be in
was a lack of information. Jellyfish are to balance out the negative impact of booming close proximity in order to reproduce—a
notoriously difficult to study, blooming populations. difficult task when there aren't many abalones
unexpectedly in inaccessible corners of the sea. out there in the first place. Scientists are making
attempts to help the population through the use
The data that were available suggested a more
complicated story, in which jellyfish blooms On a recent trip to the Seattle Aquarium, I stood of aquaculture.
occur in waves that coincide with natural inside a tunnel-shaped tank of moon jellies. As
fluctuations in the environment. While there was the jellies revolved around me, arching over my Blue Whales
a slight upward trend of blooms in recent years, head then descending to my feet, I watched their The largest of the whales, scientists
that increase was within the normal range of appearance shift. They transformed with each estimate that there are between 5,000 and 12,000
variability. change in angle and light: now round, now blue whales throughout the ocean today.
The group didn’t reject the jellyfish- mushroom-shaped, now translucent, now Whaling greatly depleted their population in the
climate link, but they suggested that there might glowing. Jellies can squeeze their boneless early 1900s. Although commercial whaling
bodies through impossibly tiny openings or join doesn't occur today, blue whales are still killed
be other explanations for the increase in jellyfish
abundance. For one, human activities occupy an their expanded bells to cover vast stretches of by getting caught in fishing gear, or from ship
ever-increasing portion of the ocean. Fish farms ocean. At different stages of their lives, they can strikes.
and power plants are multiplying along be stationary anemones or free-floating sacs.
coastlines, and commercial fishing vessels are Man-made plague or natural oscillation, Right Whales
responding to decreased fish stocks by economic burden or business opportunity— The rarest of all the large whales, there
improving fishing equipment, traveling to new jellies have a remarkable ability to shift are three distinct species of right whales—North
areas for fishing, and harvesting new species. depending on how you look at them. As we head Atlantic, North Pacific and Southern, all of
These activities could bring humans into more into an uncertain environmental future, jellyfish which are endangered. It's estimated that only
provide a much-needed reminder of both the around 450 North Atlantic right whales remain
frequent contact with jellies, increasing the
visibility and economic cost of jellyfish blooms perils of shifting ecosystems and the importance after being hunted for their oil and baleen for
even without any increase in the frequency of of perspective. [] generations. As with blue whales, the two
the blooms themselves. On the other hand, the primary threats to right whales today are ship
jellyfish-climate narrative tends to stoke media ENDANGERED OCEAN ANIMALS strikes and entanglement with fishing gear. New
attention, feeding the perception that blooms are shipping regulations in the waters off New
England, including speed limits and
increasing when, in reality, they’re just getting Hawaiian Monk Seal
more coverage. The Hawaiian monk seal is extremely recommended routes, are thought to be helping
In the meantime, the jellyfish-climate endangered, as is the only other remaining monk this species begin to recover.
story takes a simplistic view of a diverse group seal species—the Mediterranean monk seal.
of organisms. Only a few of the ten thousand Sadly, the third monk seal species, the (Continued on Page 72)
species of jellyfish have been involved in the Caribbean monk seal, is already extinct. Threats
blooms that have been documented. The number to the Hawaiian monk seal include entanglement
of many other jellyfish species are stable, with fishing gear, lack of food, loss of breeding
decreasing, or simply too elusive to count. areas due to erosion, and disease. In the
Lumping all jellies under the nuisance banner Mediterranean, coastal development and human
ignores those species that are less able to thrive interactions can displace the seals from their
in the face of human disturbance. Ultimately, habitat. People have also hunted them for their
long-term data collection is the only way to oil, and to reduce competition with our fishing,
separate perception from reality. The jellyfish as monk seals eat commercially important fish
experts’ work emphasizes the need for concrete and other animals. Monk seals are incredible
data, rather than neat anecdotes, to back up divers, reaching depths of more than 200 feet
predictions for the future of gelatinous and staying under for up to ten minutes.
zooplankton. White Abalone