Jellyfish Population Booming and Frustrating Beachgoers

Posted on August 5, 2008

There seem to reports of jellyfish problems around the Globe. There may be giant Jellyfish in the Sea of Japan but smaller ones are causing a problem even in the U.S. Beaches in the Northeast have been suffering from a jellyfish invasion. CBS News reports that thousands of competitors in the recent New York City triathlon were stung by jellyfish in the Hudson Bay.

"We were here a few weeks ago and there were a lot of jellyfish. We didn't even go in the water. It was horrible," one teen told CBS News correspondent Susan Koeppen.

And with thousands being stung by jellyfish this summer, lifeguards at Long Beach are armed with spray bottles filled with alcohol and water to take away the pain, says Koeppen.

"We didn't get these a lot years ago," says Chief Lifeguard Paul Gillespie, "but now they're, we're getting, the frequency of them a lot more. ... We've had some of them that were just (so) tremendous that we have to come and pick off the beach."

It's not just beaches seeing a problem, Koeppen points out. "During the recent New York City triathlon, thousands of competitors were stung by jellyfish in the Hudson River.

Here's a video from CBS that blames things like global warming, pollution and over-fishing on the global jellyfish problem.


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