Travel news: Frantic tourists assess jellyfish health risk while swimming | Nature | News

The location, developed by an organization in southeast France, permits holidaymakers on the Mediterranean coast to report any jellyfish sightings they arrive throughout. The expertise then cross-references the info with satellite tv for pc observations to register the sightings.

Final weekend, it obtained a report 10,000 visits per day as guests to the Mediterranean’s seashores each recorded sightings of the creatures and appeared to see if there have been many close to to the place they had been hoping to take a dip.

Developed by an organization within the French tech hub of Sophia Antipolis, the tracker reveals bathers inexperienced, orange and crimson pictograms to spotlight the placement of jellyfish.

Most sightings are from the coast between Menton and Marseille in France – a well-liked vacation spot for vacationers through the summer time season.

Antoine Troullier, an engineer on the firm Acri-ST, mentioned sightings had shot up in current weeks however warned that it was most certainly resulting from extra bathers visiting the shoreline somewhat than an explosion of jellyfish.

He instructed French information web site 20 Minutes: “Proper now, we now have 100 sightings a day, however fairly just because there are extra folks going to the water’s edge.”

He added: “Everybody advantages from being knowledgeable.”

Various European international locations have famous an increase in jellyfish numbers in current weeks.

In Spain, authorities have linked greater than typical temperatures to the return of jellyfish to heat waters round Malaga.

There have additionally been warnings in current days that the heatwave presently gripping the UK might carry extra of the creatures to the British Isles.

Britons have been warned to maintain an eye fixed out for big Portuguese man o’struggle jellyfish as they head to the seashore this weekend, The Mirror reported.

The creatures have an extremely highly effective sting that may trigger agony to anybody who will get caught by one of many big creatures.

The jellyfish can develop tentacles of as much as 160ft – equal to the scale of 5 double-decker buses.

Whereas sightings within the UK are uncommon, with simply 62 reported prior to now yr, windy climate and powerful tides can wash them up on Britain’s seashores.

Nonetheless, Mr Troullier argued that the rise in jellyfish numbers was not resulting from hotter sea temperatures.

He mentioned: “I will bust a fantasy, these jellyfish like deep, chilly water.

“Their proliferation is just not linked to local weather change, even when it performs a task on their predators, however extra to the climate. We aren’t on the identical time scale.”