Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Good Year for Jellyfish Predicted

Swimming in the Chesapeake this summer? You may come across a sticky -- and stinging -- sensation.

This summer, as temperatures rise, so might the probability of encountering sea nettles -- the species of jellyfish most abundant in the Chesapeake Bay, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration oceanographer Chris Brown. Brown helped develop a sea nettle probability map that projects the likelihood of a sea nettle outbreak in a given area of the Bay.
...
If the thought of getting stung still makes you feel like jelly, play it safe and check out the forecast map.
I was going to say I had seen little evidence of Sea Nettles on my personal stretch of the bay, but then I remembered seeing a few last night, that looked like they had been sucked up by "Location X" and spit back out the "Pez Dispensers", somewhat the worse for wear.

A couple of weeks ago I was at a dock party on St. Leonards Creek on the Patuxent River, and the nettle were already pretty large and abundant. The things grow so darn fast when conditions are good that we could have a bad infestation before we know it.

1 comment:

  1. Very early I agree. My daughter was swimming in front of our house just by Broomes Island and she came out crying that she just got stung. I didn't believe her at first but they are there, big and ugly! We recently read about nets to spread on the beach to keep a safe zone which we are looking into now. What's the summer without the kids having the river!?

    ReplyDelete