Ireland: Stinging jellyfish wipe out entire fish farm

Last update: November 21, 2007 - 6:31 PM

DUBLIN, IRELAND - The only salmon farm in Northern Ireland has lost its entire population of more than 100,000 fish, worth about $2 million, to a spectacular jellyfish attack, its owners said Wednesday.

The Northern Salmon Co. Ltd. said billions of jellyfish -- in a dense pack about 10 miles square and 35 feet deep -- overwhelmed the fish last week in two net pens about a mile off the coast of the Glens of Antrim, north of Belfast.

Managing director John Russell said the company's dozen workers tried to rescue the salmon but their three boats struggled for hours to push through the mass of jellyfish. All the salmon were dead or dying from stings and stress by the time the boats reached the pens, he said.

"It was unprecedented, absolutely amazing," Russell said. "The sea was red with these jellyfish, and there was nothing we could do about it, absolutely nothing."

The species of jellyfish responsible, Pelagia noctiluca -- popularly known as the mauve stinger -- is noted for its purplish nighttime glow, and swarms, or shoals, of them are not uncommon.

They are known for stinging bathers in the warmer Mediterranean Sea. Until the past decade, the mauve stinger has rarely been spotted so far north in British or Irish waters, and scientists cite this as evidence of global warming.

Russell said the company, which exports to France, Belgium, Germany and the United States, is likely to go out of business without emergency aid from the British government. "It's a disaster," he said.

ASSOCIATED PRESS