OCEAN GATE – A group of beach lovers learned how to prevent the proliferation of jellyfish in the Toms River.
Scientists and members of the Berkeley Township Underwater Search and Rescue met at the Wildwood Avenue pier to demonstrate how they’ve been cleaning docks and other objects in the water. The polyps of the bay nettle jellyfish attach to these solid objects throughout the colder months. Cleaning the polyps off disrupts the life cycle and leads to fewer jellies in the river and lagoons the next season.
The Ocean Gate Social Club hosted the event, offering donuts and coffee. Members watched from the pier as Lauren Bunn and Dogan Mazur took to the cold water with brushes and demonstrated cleaning the pier.
Carl Mattocks, captain of the BTUSR dive team, then showed a few people near land how to do sweep the dock with long-handled brushes. The group has been cleaning docks in Berkeley for a few years now, and have seen it making a difference.
The dive team asks for permission and then goes property to property, cleaning the docks. However, if you allow your dock to be scrubbed, but your neighbors don’t, it doesn’t have as much of an impact on the nettle population.
Paul Bologna, biology professor at Montclair State University, catches a lion’s mane jelly in the Toms River. (Photo by Chris Lundy)
That’s why education at events like this are so critical, Mattocks said. They have statistics proving that the effort is working. They just need a larger buy-in from the community to make a bigger impact.
Teaching dock owners what they can do is another step in the right direction. Brushing is a simple way to lower the numbers of bay nettles.
Paul Bologna, biology professor of Montclair State University, suggested that if you have a floating dock or a personal watercraft, you should pull it up out of the water at the end of the season. That will provide less surface area for polyps.
The bay nettle’s polyp form attaches to solid objects throughout the winter. It can clone itself, placing duplicate after duplicate on a pier. Just one of them can become hundreds.
Wood on piers used to be treated with creosote, but once the environmental impact of that became known, vinyl became more common. The polyps like the vinyl more than the toxic creosote.
Jellies thrive in lagoons because they are not as healthy as other bodies of water. Lagoons around here are mostly man-made. Water becomes stagnant with nowhere to go. The oxygen level in lagoons is lower than in the open ocean, which means that their prey can’t get away as quickly, Bologna said.
Dogan Mazur cleans the underside of Ocean Gate’s Wildwood Avenue pier. (Photo by Chris Lundy)
“We’re never going to get rid of them,” he said of the nettles, but it could make the difference between seeing one versus seeing 50 during a single beach trip.
He caught a lion’s mane and a cone jellyfish that were floating around the pier. He said the lion’s mane wander around this area in early spring and then are out to sea in the summer. Good thing, too, because they can grow to be about 6’ around.
John Wnek, a conservationist who crafted curriculum for the Marine Academy of Technology and Environmental Science (MATES) said students are experimenting to see if the nettles have a preference of one material over another. That could save time, allowing scrubbers to focus on certain areas.
Ocean Gate’s beach on the Toms River is a model swimming beach, said Wnek. The water flushes better than other beaches so it’s healthier. Therefore, it’s important to keep it healthy.
For more information, visit stopthestings.com.
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