12/8/2005

How do you tackle an invasion of giant jellyfish?

Try making sushi
Tokyo—THEY are called echizen kurage and they sound like monsters from the trashier reaches of Japanese science fiction. They are 6ft wide and weigh 450lb (200kg), with countless poisonous tentacles, they have drifted across the void to terrorise the people of Japan. Vast armadas of the slimy horrors have cut off the country’s food supply. As soon as one is killed more appear to take its place.
Finally, the quarrelsome governments of the region are banding together to unite against the enemy….The problem has become so serious that fishery officials from Japan, China and South Korea are to meet this month for a “jellyfish summit”…..rather than just complaining about jellyfish they are eating them. Jellyfish are an unusual ingredient of Japanese cuisine but are much more prized in China. Coastal communities are doing their best to promote jellyfish as a novelty food, sold dried and salted. Students in Obama have managed to turn them into tofu…more…

I was watching NHK’s Morning News and they said damn things’ combined weight in a net full of these monsters was more than their boat. Each jellyfish is the size of a washing machine. Last year fishermen tried to market them with not much success—-way too much supply compared to demand. Who wants to eat jellyfish more than once a week? And who else besides Japanese and Chinese eats jellyfish?

In the past, the monsters never showed up in consecutive years However, now this has been a yearly problem in the fall every year since 2002. ..The last time the jellyfish turned up along Japan’s coast for a second consecutive year was in the years 1995 and 1958. It looks like Japanese overfishing and global warming has made the Sea of Japan aka the East Sea* into the Sea of Jellyfish.

*That’s the Korean name and there’s a local pissing match over the naming rights.