The Better Tasting Jellyfish Appetizer

Among the things that the bunnies will have to adapt to is the better tasting jellyfish appetizer.  Served everywhere in China, the best anyone has to say for it is that it is tasteless, somewhat like eating boiled rubber bands, but not so flavorful and twice as chewy.  Dano brings the bad news to Rabett Run.


Recently several news stories ran on an incident in Sweden that sounds like one of those old-timey “strange but true” titles: jellyfish clogging the water intakes of a nuclear power plant in Sweden. Just a strange news item, right? Well, no.

What does this incident with jellyfish have to do with the bunnies, anyway? The increasing incidents of jellyfish “invasions”, stings on beaches, and the fantastical occurrences in the Sea of Japan are indirect indicators of ocean health. And ocean health affects us all, even the tiny lagomorphs.

That is: the ecosystem processes that control jellyfish populations are out of whack. Predators that eat jellyfish are being “fished down” – humans are being forced to consume ocean protein farther and farther down the food chain. We can see increasing indications from space - DMSP and Suomi NPP photographs show vast armadas of fishing boats using lights to attract squid to nets. Just a generation ago these fleets were fishing for higher value fish but those fish are mostly gone now. What will the catch be when the squid are gone? Will it have to be jellyfish if the trend continues unabated? (Whether jellyfish have sufficient protein per unit area is another question) 

But let’s address the underlying issue – human population expansion and the need for increasing amounts of protein from the earth and oceans. Unfortunately, this pattern is all too common in the ecosystems on earth: a population of an organism increases in size and exhausts critical resources in an area, and the population crashes. Humans are increasing their global reach and will soon reach limits of key resources – especially water and soil. We know this because we think we do a pretty good job of being able to measure water withdrawals and soil loss.

We are beginning to see more studies attempting to quantify what such key resource shortages will be and when. More studies quantifying loss is good. But we haven’t begun to see good studies in cognitive research that quantify how scientists can make their findings compelling and actionable to the population at large. The bunnies have been discussing some of the latest research. What do they think? How do we transfer these findings into action for the public?

If not, expect a run on hot sauce, at least as long as the jellyfish last
.