global warming, what global warming

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poor lil fishes........

 

 

Billions of jellyfish wipe out N. Irish salmon farmStory Highlights

Jellyfish came in 10-square-mile, 35-foot deep pack

 

Company boats couldn't make way through jellyfish to rescue salmon

 

Mauve stinger jellyfish normally found in Mediterranean

 

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DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) -- The only salmon farm in Northern Ireland has

lost its entire population of more than 100,000 fish, worth $2

million, to a spectacular jellyfish attack, its owners said Wednesday.

 

 

Farm-raised salmon swim in a pen off Norway.

 

The Northern Salmon Co. Ltd. said billions of jellyfish -- in a dense

pack of about 10 square miles 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 their way through the mass of jellyfish. All the fish were dead

or dying from stings and stress by the time the boats reached the

pens, he said.

 

Russell, who previously worked at Scottish salmon farms and took the

Northern Ireland job just three days before the attack, said he had

never seen anything like it in 30 years in the business.

 

" It was unprecedented, absolutely amazing. The sea was red with these

jellyfish and there was nothing we could do about it, absolutely

nothing, " he said.

 

The species of jellyfish responsible, Pelagia nocticula -- popularly

known as the mauve stinger -- is noted for its purplish night-time

glow and its propensity for terrorizing 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 bills its salmon as organic and

exports to France, Belgium, Germany and the United States, faces

likely closure unless it receives emergency aid from the British

government.

 

" It's a disaster, " he said.

 

 

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.

Confucius