An amateur kayaker assures that the presence of these coelenterates is “abundant” between Playa Paraíso and the port of La Isleta in La Manga
The Mar Menor Monitoring Committee warned about it a few weeks ago and an amateur sportsman who regularly goes sailing in the southern basin of the lagoon has confirmed it. Jellyfish have returned to the Mar Menor this year after several years of absence. What no one imagined is the size that some of the specimens that are already drifting through the waters of the Mar Menor have reached.
Néstor Martínez, who is going out with his kayak these days to exercise, has been “astonished” when checking the dimensions of the ‘rizhostoma pulmo’ (the ‘white’ jellyfish) that he is observing, as corroborated by the photographs he has taken. Specifically, the immortalized specimen weighed several kilos and was taken ashore after picking it up at sea. According to Martínez, anyone who walks from Playa Paraíso to the port of the Isleta de La Manga, next to the southern margin of the Marchamalo gola, “will be able to see them in quantity.”
This year there are no anti-jellyfish nets planned
In principle, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Environment does not plan to install the traditional anti-jellyfish nets, but the deliberations of the Mar Menor Monitoring Committee in relation to a possible proliferation of jellyfish swarms could modify the initial decision.
And it is that the proliferation of jellyfish in the waters of the Mar Menor, mainly of the species ‘cotylorhiza tuberculata’ (better known as «fried egg») and ‘rizhostoma pulmo’ is cyclical, something that biologists and scientists have verified. However, what has caught their attention the most in recent years is the almost zero presence of jellyfish in its waters, with such a favorable breeding ground, theoretically, for their proliferation, due to the presence of nutrients. It should also be borne in mind that factors such as wind and sea currents can drag swarms from the Mediterranean into the Mar Menor at any time.
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