Environment
Slimed
From the NY Times:
BARCELONA, Spain — Blue patrol boats crisscross the swimming
areas of beaches here with their huge nets skimming the water’s
surface. The yellow flags that urge caution and the red flags that prohibit
swimming because of risky currents are sometimes topped now with blue
ones warning of a new danger: swarms of jellyfish. Skip to next paragraph
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Jellyfish at the Institute of Marine Sciences in Barcelona, Spain.
Jellyfish have recently been turning up in places where they once were
rarely seen, scientists say. In a period of hours during a day a couple
of weeks ago, 300 people on Barcelona’s bustling beaches were
treated for stings, and 11 were taken to hospitals.
From Spain to New York, to Australia, Japan and Hawaii, jellyfish are
becoming more numerous and more widespread, and they are showing up
in places where they have rarely been seen before, scientists say. The
faceless marauders are stinging children blithely bathing on summer
vacations, forcing beaches to close and clogging fishing nets. But while
jellyfish invasions are a nuisance to tourists and a hardship to fishermen,
for scientists they are a source of more profound alarm, a signal of
the declining health of the world’s oceans. Read
on.
