Life has gotten away with me – hence my hiatus from the blogging world. But I’m back, with an itch to write and report. So down to business:
A Nomura's jellyfish off the coast of Japan. Getty Images file photo, courtesy www.cnn.com.
There have been two coastal appearances of enormous animals in recent weeks, both which usually stick to deeper waters. In Japan, 6-foot jellies are wreaking havoc on the fishing industry; in San Diego, Humboldt squid are following their prey into the shallows and taunting scuba divers.
I suspect – and this is just a novice hunch – that we humans have something to do with it. Changing ocean currents due to changing global temperatures could be bringing the giants too close for comfort; or perhaps overfishing has depleted each species’ prey populations in the deep, so the animals have no choice but to come searching for food off the coast.
The Humboldt squid, courtesy www.octavarius.com.
As a marine educator, I’m constantly confronted with the question, “Why should I care about the ocean?” These stories of mass migration give a simple answer by illustrating the direct effect that humans can have on the marine environment – and, in turn, the impacts that animals can have on humans. If our actions change the ocean, then the ocean will change us, whether it be via crashing supplies of fish, massive changes in temperature due to shifts in currents, global oxygen depletion caused by negative affects on algae growth, or deep-sea monsters rising to the surface and altering the way we live.
That is why you should care – if not for the sake of the ancient species here long before us, then for what will happen to us in the end.
