The swarm of jellyfish which appear every year off the coast of Haifa took Haifa University marine researchers by surprise this year – the jellyfish are “monster-sized,” researchers at the University of Haifa’s Leon H. Charney School of Marine Sciences said last week.

“Overall, this is the summer bloom of jellyfish that we anticipate, but there’s a slight difference in the size of jellyfish — on average, they’re bigger this year than in other years,” Professor Dror Angel of the University of Haifa said.

According to Angel, the reason for the unusually large jellyfish is the gishmei bracha Israel was blessed with this past winter.

“We had a very rainy winter this year, and the runoff that reached the sea provided a lot of nutrients that contributed to the formation of the jellyfish bloom,” Angel said. “The nutrients feed the algae; the algae bloom and are eaten by small plankton herbivores, and these are then eaten by the jellyfish.”

“We haven’t identified human-driven factors, like pollution, which could also be affecting the blooms. “At the moment, we think natural phenomena have more of an impact than human effects.”

Jellyfish stings are often a minor nuisance for beachgoers although, in rare instances, the stings can cause severe pain and even death.

At times jellyfish pose a threat to Israel’s power supply by getting sucked into power stations, which utilizes seawater for cooling. Thousands of jellyfish had to be cleaned out of the power station in Ashkelon two weeks ago, according to a Channel 12 News report.

The report added that the jellyfish did not cause any damage and were transferred to designated tanks.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)