In what was probably the largest Thanksgiving feast this week, a swarm of billions of jellyfish attacked a salmon farm in Northern Ireland yesterday and ate $2 million worth of fish. Jellyfish and slime are taking over the oceans, just as Dr. Jeremy Jackson always warns. Billions of jellyfish feasting on more than 100,000 salmon, just another shifting baseline.
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Jennifer Jacquet is a Ph.D. candidate with the Sea Around Us Project at the UBC Fisheries Centre. She works closely with Dr. Daniel Pauly, who coined the term Shifting Baselines, the syndrome on which this blog focuses.
Josh Donlan is a conservation scientist and a Visting Fellow at Cornell University. He often hides out in the backcountry of the Teton Mountains, pondering bygone giant beavers and ground sloths. He also is also the founder and Director of Advanced Conservation Strategies and has a habit of restoring remote islands.
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November 27, 2008: Jennifer Jacquet gives the talk "Why Consumers Alone Can't Save Our Fish" at 1pm at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, B.C.
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Jellyfish Thankful for Salmon Farm
Category: Losing Track
Posted on: November 22, 2007 6:57 AM, by Jennifer L. Jacquet
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Environment
Comments
That is distinctly scary: like science fiction or a biblical plague.
Do you have a new banner today? The font looks like Gill Sans.
Posted by: Milan | November 22, 2007 7:41 AM
Mind, Cardigan Bay and the Irish Sea have long been a good hunting ground for jelly lovers like Mabel http://www.aber.ac.uk/~dbswww/prospective/seaturtles_latestnews.html
Is the latest swarm a sign of possible "trophic cascade" in this area, or is it just one of those things - what do you think?
Posted by: Gav | November 22, 2007 11:04 AM
As a former Jellyfish researcher, and a current fisheries scientist, I should point out that the fish weren't eaten, but succumbed to the stings and mucus that large blooms will inflict. Pelagia noctiluca is a very small animal by jellyfish standards (Typically a few cm across the bell, up to 10cm) and like most jellyfish, they are planktivores. Having been stung by this species as a graduate student, I can imagine that the effect of so many would have given the fish no chance of survival. In our changing ocean ecosystems, jellyfish blooms are certainly an increasing hazard worthy of study,but talk of 'feasting on' salmon conjures up B-movie images that detract from the real threats. Sorry to be a stickler! :) Keep up the good work.
P.S. - At the 1st International Conference on Jellyfish Blooms in Gulf Shores, Alabama, in 2000, we discussed the word "Smuck" as the proper collective noun for jellyfish :)
Posted by: Jonathan | November 22, 2007 11:15 AM
Finally, a simple solution to the problem of open net fish farming!
Posted by: Lucas | November 22, 2007 12:00 PM
Jonathan. Good point. Feasting they were not. I should have said 'attacking' but I got hung up on the Thanksgiving theme. We have a new student with the Sea Around Us Project who will be looking a lot at jellyfish blooms globally so I should have more details about increases soon! As for the banner, yes it is new and indeed replete with Gill Sans. What do you think?
Posted by: Jennifer L. Jacquet | November 22, 2007 10:05 PM
Oh, that's really cool. I'm glad there's more folks looking at it these days, as it's a really important field. Feel free to send them my way should they want to bounce any ideas around. I'm not sure if you the administrator can see the email addresses, but I'm at Simon Fraser!
Posted by: Jonathan | November 22, 2007 10:35 PM