A Painfully Early Arrival for a Summer Nuisance
- added July 22, 2008
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- mundosanto
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- Environment (5509)
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A wonder to biologists, a killer in a Sherlock Holmes story and a notorious pain to people they touch, jellyfish have always been a blobbish summer menace to swimmers, fishermen and little children’s curious fingers.
But this year they have been even more of an annoyance than usual, arriving early and perplexing fishermen and beachgoers from Toms River, N.J., to Long Island and beyond. Biologists have several theories about why the jellyfish, particularly one breed, the lion’s mane, have turned out about a month before they are usually seen here.
On Sunday, scores of jellyfish were waiting at dawn when nearly 3,000 athletes jumped into the Hudson River for the swim portion of the New York City Triathlon.
“I thought the water was radioactive or something,” said one competitor, Melanie Klesse, 24, who said she was stung on the elbow.
One triathlete, a 32-year-old man, died after being pulled unconscious from the river on Sunday, but autopsy results were inconclusive Monday.
Dave Grant, the director of the Brookdale College Sandy Hook Ocean Institute, said he knew of no documented fatal sting from a lion’s mane. (The jellyfish were discovered to have murdered the unfortunate Fitzroy McPherson in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Adventure of the Lion’s Mane.”)
Kenneth W. Able, director of the Rutgers University Marine Field Station in Tuckerton, N.J., said the early arrival could have something to do with recent winds from the south that blew away the sea’s warmer surface water, allowing an upwelling of cold water, which the lion’s mane loves.
Edward Enos, the superintendent of the Aquatic Resources Division for the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., said conditions may have been perfect for an unusual number of baby jellyfish, called polyps, to survive.
“It’s nature,” Mr. Enos said. “It’s like some years you have beautiful, big blooms of dandelions in your yard, and sometimes not.”
But this year they have been even more of an annoyance than usual, arriving early and perplexing fishermen and beachgoers from Toms River, N.J., to Long Island and beyond. Biologists have several theories about why the jellyfish, particularly one breed, the lion’s mane, have turned out about a month before they are usually seen here.
On Sunday, scores of jellyfish were waiting at dawn when nearly 3,000 athletes jumped into the Hudson River for the swim portion of the New York City Triathlon.
“I thought the water was radioactive or something,” said one competitor, Melanie Klesse, 24, who said she was stung on the elbow.
One triathlete, a 32-year-old man, died after being pulled unconscious from the river on Sunday, but autopsy results were inconclusive Monday.
Dave Grant, the director of the Brookdale College Sandy Hook Ocean Institute, said he knew of no documented fatal sting from a lion’s mane. (The jellyfish were discovered to have murdered the unfortunate Fitzroy McPherson in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Adventure of the Lion’s Mane.”)
Kenneth W. Able, director of the Rutgers University Marine Field Station in Tuckerton, N.J., said the early arrival could have something to do with recent winds from the south that blew away the sea’s warmer surface water, allowing an upwelling of cold water, which the lion’s mane loves.
Edward Enos, the superintendent of the Aquatic Resources Division for the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., said conditions may have been perfect for an unusual number of baby jellyfish, called polyps, to survive.
“It’s nature,” Mr. Enos said. “It’s like some years you have beautiful, big blooms of dandelions in your yard, and sometimes not.”
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- mundosanto
- 2 months ago
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