Three Cairns beaches have been closed after surf life savers found deadly irukandji jellyfish in the water this morning.
Palm Cove, Clifton Beach and Trinity Beach are all closed to swimmers. The irukandji, which we’ve reported on extensively this stinger season because they appear to be multiplying in genuinely horrific quantities and at speed, are small enough to fit through the gaps in stinger nets. Which is where they were found this morning: inside the nets. In the only place that’s supposed to be guaranteed jellyfish-free. That’s where they were.
Irukandji are also the world’s most venomous box jellyfish, and are responsible for killing at least two people in recent history and causing truly horrible reactions in many others.
North Queensland Lifeguard Supervisor Jay March said that the sudden influx of the murderous lumps of phlegm was to be expected, thanks to strong northerly winds. The beaches will remain closed until life savers decide it’s safe to go back in the water. March told the Cairns Post:
“We’ll see how we go today. I don’t think the weather is changing too much, but we’ll reassess it tomorrow morning.”
All of this follows an official confirmation of irukandji at Fraser Island, much further south than they ought to be. The spiteful baggies are usually found north of Mackay, but irukandji expert Professor Jamie Seymour, who caught the specimen at Fraser, told the ABC in an interview a couple weeks ago that they’ve been moving south for a while now. When asked if the jellies’ migration to more crowded waters had anything to do with climate change, Seymour responded:
“Oh, absolutely. Because the water temperature has increased, it allows them to go further and further south.“
So not only are we polluting the earth and making it too hot for our species to survive on land, man-made climate change is also filling our waters with see-through ballsacks that want to kill us all. Wonderful! What a wonderful time to be alive.
Source: Cairns Post.
Image: Getty.
