Next week Cannes, the French town famous for its film festival, will erect booms and nets to try and protect bathers from the nasty, but rarely fatal, sting of the invaders.
Spanish authorities recently deployed a fleet of 40 fishing boats to catch the jellyfish, which despite their name are a kind of giant plankton, before they reach beaches on the popular Balearic Islands. Each boat is being paid about £480 pounds a day to protect swimmers from 'banks' of Pelagia noctiluca.
Last June, lifeguards in San Antonio, Ibiza, dealt with 152 cases of jellyfish stings. Josep-Maria Gili, research professor at Barcelona's Institute of Marine Sciences, predicts this summer will see another serious invasion.
"Conditions in recent years have been ideal - very mild and with little rain and with unusually warm sea temperatures," he said. "People have been really enjoying it, but these are perfect conditions for jellyfish."
Scientists believe the rise in jellyfish is proof of a radical, and possibly irreversible, change in the ecology of the Mediterranean. In the past, large plagues of jellyfish only appeared once every 10 or 12 years and stayed for about four years, but vast plagues of jellyfish have been in the area for the last eight years.
Some experts think the change is due to a rise in sea temperatures linked to global warming, while others blame overfishing of natural predators like bluefin tuna and turtles.
And some people (like me) figure that it's from both global warming and overfishing of predators...
Related article from June 13th:
"EU bluefin tuna fishing ban for Mediterranean"
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