You ever been stung by a jellyfish?

[CatWoman]

:scared:

Jellyfish plague blamed on climate change


A plague of jellyfish along Europe's beaches has become the latest environmental hazard to be blamed on global warming.

Holidaymakers heading for Mediterranean beaches are being warned to prepare for an unprecedented invasion of the invertebrates whose sting can, in extreme cases, cause heart failure.

Oceana, which campaigns to protect and restore the world's oceans, attributes the rise in the number of jellyfish to a rise in water temperature because of climate change. It also highlights over-fishing of natural predators that feed on jellyfish, and pollution along the continent's coasts.

The group sent a research boat around Spain's coastal waters last month and concluded that many beaches are suffering an "invasion by this species".

Among the most notorious of jellyfish is the Portuguese man of war (Physalia physalis), whose stings can produce painful burns for bathers, and have even led to heart failure.


http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1217564.ece

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

1. Yes and it sucked.

One thing I have noticed this summer is an insane amount of moon jellyfish (they don't sting) off the coast of CT. There are millions of them around though.

[CatWoman]

4. I grew up on the Virginian peninsula

and we had tons of them.

the stinging type, at that!! :scared:

If you tried to knock or rub it off your body, all it did was disintegrate :puke:

[idgiehkt]

18. that's where I got stung, Virgina Beach

weird. Never been stung anywhere else.

[Reverend_Smitty]

2. There was always a ton of Jellyfish washing up on the shore...

when I was a kid...though I doubt the nasty deadly ones were around the Jersey shore. I almost touched one when I was really young but my mom picked me up just in time. I hear the stings are pretty nasty

[AirmensMom]

3. Yes, when I was little.

I don't remember it, though.

[SteppingRazor]

5. Yeah, on a canoe trip, once, I stepped out of the boat and...

one got all wrapped around my right foot. I got stung a few dozen times, the thing had to be scraped off with a knife, and my foot swelled up and turned purple. Were it not for the blinding pain, it would have been kinda cool.

[RebelOne]

6. No, but I stepped on a man o' war when I was a kid

on Miami Beach. I had just moved to Florida from Pennsylvania and I didn't know what those things were. Hurt like hell.

[seemunkee]

7. Yes, Lewes DE in June

They were bad and very few people were in the water. I was swimming along and one racked across my chest, just glad it didn't get me in the face. I've seen them there before over the years but nothing this bad.

[ChickMagic]

8. Yes

After a smallish hurricane, my dad took us to beachcomb at Matagorda Bay. The beach was
pink and purple with man o' wars everywhere. I thought they were balloons, so I started
running in my tennis shod feet popping them. My parents didn't stop me and my dad has
a master's degree in Invertebrate Zoology. I guess they thought I'd learn.

[NewJeffCT]

9. No, thankfully.

Luckily, not yet.

I saw a feature on the infamous box jellyfish a week or two back on one of those science channels, and now I fear going for a swim if I ever make it down to Australia…

[Avalux]

10. My daughter was when she was 6.

Stung her on the stomach - THROUGH her bathing suit. Very painful; like a burn with swelling. She still has a small scar from it.

[LadyoftheRabbits]

11. Yes

A few years ago I got stung first, off the NC coast, then (brilliantly) dad and I went back into the water and he got stung. Wasn't bad, though. Before I'd gone down to the beach I'd read that you're supposed to rub sand on the wound and that gets the nettles out. It worked, I think.

[fudge stripe cookays]

12. Yup. Padre Island, 1978. I was 12.

When we were there, SOMETHING was going on, as there were blue bubbles EVERYWHERE on the beach. Although you tried to avoid them, you couldn't completely.

This one's tentacles were mostly hidden in the sand, and a wave made the sand around my foot cave in. There he was.

NOT FUN!!!

[GalleryGod]

13. You surf. You get stung.

That's a yes.

[CatWoman]

17. charlie don't surf!!!

:D

[BreweryYardRat]

14. When I was very little.

Sucked-I seem to have blocked out most of the memory because of the pain.

[Karenina]

15. There were nets

around the swimming area (Chesapeake Bay) so we just got the pipsqueaks. Gathered in the palm there's no stinging sensation, so we scooped 'em up and heaved them at each other. :evilgrin:

[patricia92243]

16. Yes, and I was sick for a couple of days. The places on my leg where its

tentacle touched my leg took months to finally go away. I've never been back in the ocean since then - just to walk in the breaking surf.

[Mz Pip]

19. Something similar

Rubbed up against some fire coral when I was snorkeling in the Virgin Islands. Ouch! Really stung and left a burn like mark that lasted for a couple of days. Lot's of nasties in the sea. Lion fish, stone fish, rays, jelly fish. Lovely to look at but best to avoid.

Mz Pip
:dem: