Jellyfish invasion threatens fishing industry in Japan

Nomura's Jellyfish picture on flickr by kurtasbestos

Nomura's Jellyfish picture on flickr by Ron's photo

Researchers are warning of a potential and catastrophic invasion of Giant Nomura’s Jellyfish (Echizen kurage in Japanese) in 2011 and say it could ruin the Japanese fishing industry.

These giant jellyfish are clogging up their fishing nets and at the same time poisoning the few fish they catch with the toxicity from their poisonous tentacles. Some of these are known to reach up to two meters in width and weigh up to 220 kilograms.

This is costing the fishing industry millions of dollars in valuable labor time wasted emptying out their overloaded nets. These fishermen are destroying their nets in the process of earning a living instead of catching fish they catch these slimy horrible jellyfish.

Scientists are madly researching for a way to eradicate this mysterious jellyfish explosion from the waters of Japan. Officials are banding together in an attempt to eradicate them.

No one appears to have an explanation for this exploding invasion although some blame the heavy rain flooding from the rivers, while others blame the growth of plankton.

Attempts to eradicate the giant jellyfish


Many boats have installed a web type thing with metal wires installed inside the net to cut the jellyfish up. Although scientists are doing tests in their laboratories and they find that instead of killing them this could make the problem much worse. They are still trying to work out if this is creating more instead of less.


Jellyfish cuisine

Japan is well known for their great cuisine. Although in this case they are trying to promote these giant jellyfish onto their plates in an attempt to eat their way to eradicating them.

The community is banding together to find different creative ways to serve them up to their clientele.