Jellyfish clog waters for fishermen in Gulf of Mexico

[The Northerner]

(Reuters) - Last year it was oil. This year it is jellyfish.

Fishermen and shrimpers along the Alabama and Mississippi coasts say their efforts are being hampered by a blanket of jellyfish clogging the waters of the northern Gulf of Mexico.

A year ago the same fishermen were dealing with the after-effects of the BP oil spill, the biggest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

Tropical weather might have eased the congestion a bit, but marine experts say jellyfish-clogged waters could put a damper on fishing and shrimping into the winter.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/20/us-jellyfish-gulf-idUSTRE78J5PX20110920

[qb]

1. I suspect this will be an ongoing problem.

The 3D channel had a documentary about box jellyfish that now thrive in climate-induced dead zones after most other fish have suffocated.

Perhaps a similar thing is going on in the oil-poisoned gulf.

[Systematic Chaos]

2. Go go gadget Canfield Ocean!

:shrug:

[NightWatcher]

3. There's a shitload of them out here. A few shrimpers have had hard times with their nets

because the jellies clog the shrimpnets and weigh them down. I tried to get a pic but it didn't come out too well. I've been on board a ship off the Al coast of the Gulf for a week now and the place is lousy with the jellies.

The jellies usually flourish this time of year, but I heard another hypothesis posited for their numbers this year. The jellies compete with shrimp and other sealife for food and this year there aren't as many shrimp competing for the food, so the jellies are flourishing.

[Denninmi]

4. Do they "bloom" like plankton/algae?

I wonder if the Mississippi floods this year had any part in the jellyfish explosion? -- that must have put tremendous amounts of nutrients, especially and including fertilizers, into the Gulf.

[guitar man]

5. I for one welcome our new

Cnidarian overlords :silly: