BERKELEY – Jellyfish have been a growing issue in shore communities lately, but a group of environmentalists and divers have learned a way to prevent the problem – but they need your help.
The idea is simple – disrupt the life cycle of the bay nettle so that it never makes it to adulthood.
The process is hard – scraping the polyps from all docks and artificial material throughout entire lagoon areas.
Paul Bologna, a biology professor and the Director of the Marine Biology and Coastal Sciences Program at Montclair State University, gave a presentation at a meeting of Save Barnegat Bay. It was the culmination of a multi-year experiment called Stop the Sting, and they learned quite a bit.
“We usually think of adult jellyfish as a problem, so we don’t think about their earlier life cycle,” he said. There’s good reason for this. Little is known about the early stages of most jellyfish breeds.
We do know that bay nettles reproduce sexually, which creates polyps that attach to other objects in the water, he said. However, the polyps can reproduce asexually. “They clone themselves like crazy.”
One jellyfish could lead to thousands if left unchecked, he said.
“We could draw every jelly out of the bay and they’ll all be back the next year” because of the way the polyps reproduce, he said.
The proliferation is also due to development on the water. Lagoon areas in particular are breeding grounds. There are many bulkheads and docks where the polyps can attach. Lagoon water is still, which leads to poor water quality, which makes fish weaker and easier for the adult jellies to prey upon.
One of the ways scientists know that jellies thrive around development is because of Superstorm Sandy, Bologna said. The population was brought much lower after the storm wrecked docks and other construction. As people have been rebuilding, so too have the numbers of jellyfish been increasing.
The idea, then, is to strike at the jellyfish while they are in the vulnerable polyp stage, attached to things like docks and bulkheads.
The Berkeley Township Underwater Search and Rescue squad is a team of divers who are deployed for emergencies like a boat capsizing. They were instrumental in going door to door in the Berkeley Shores neighborhood to get permission from homeowners to clean their docks and bulkheads.
The polyps are too small to see with the naked eye. In order to be sure to clean them off, they had to be washed off with a high-pressure water hose or the dock had to be scrubbed manually.
Not everyone in the neighborhood allowed them to work on their property, so sometimes the impact was negligible. If one person let their dock get cleaned, but their neighbors didn’t, they didn’t see a big difference.
However, there were a few areas where a better percentage of residents allowed the dive team to work. Water was sampled here, and the polyps were counted. They saw a drastic reduction in the number of polyps, Bologna said. In 2022, after the first cleaning, they found zero polyps, for example. They compared this to a control group in Forked River that had no cleaning, in which the number of polyps were much, much higher.
Paul Bologna teaches people at a Save Barnegat Bay meeting about efforts to stop the life cycle of bay nettle jellyfish. (Photo courtesy BTUSAR)
The problem was that they didn’t see much of a hit in the number of adult jellies that year. Bologna said that probably means that the adults were coasting in from other lagoons where the homeowners didn’t allow the docks to be scrubbed.
Another problem might be that the polyps could be attaching to algae, which is something they learned from a separate project in the Metedeconk River, he said.
The project was funded through the State Department of Environmental Protection through partners Save Barnegat Bay and the Berkeley Township Underwater Search and Rescue.
Bologna also thanked a student of his, Anthony Tamberelli, who spent three and a half years working on this project.
How Can You Stop Jellyfish?
The dive team and environmentalists want to educate shore residents on what they can do to stop jellyfish from proliferating.
One thing they can do is to take floating docks or any other temporary structure out of the water over the winter. This will kill any polyps that are attached and hibernating.
You can scrub your bulkhead or dock once in May and another time in September or October.
Bologna suggested a ban on fertilizers would decrease the algae in the water and give the polyps less safe places to grow.
Craig Elliot, chief diver, urged people to educate themselves on the Stop The Sting project at btusar.us/ There’s an instructional video online. Then, after learning about it yourself, tell your neighbors, because it’s more effective if everyone does it.
He said none of this would be possible without the countless hours that the 40-plus members of the dive team have contributed over the years. The group also had to design and manufacture their own equipment for some of the work.
Carl Mattocks, captain of the dive team, thanked all of the community members who invited them to work on their property.
During the study, the dive team was only allowed to work with individual homeowners due to the funding. However, now they are more able to work with marinas and yacht clubs, he said. Anyone interested in more information can reach out at president@btusar.us.
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