Research from over a decade ago pointed to the possibility that,
with rising global temperatures, an increasing human population
and rampant overfishing, jellyfish were positioned to take over
as a dominant inhabitant of the world’s oceans. But proving that
hypothesis has been tricky, and some in the scientific community
say there’s not presently enough evidence. First of all, there’s
a lack of baseline scientific data. For many years, and in most
parts of the world, jellyfish were regarded as a nuisance,
clogging fishing nets, power plant intake pipes and beloved
scenic shorelines. They were not valued as something to be
counted, quantified or even monitored. Secondly, the lifecycle
of most jellyfish is not well understood. These creatures are
known to arrive in blooms – populations can boom and bust over a
period of years leading to the possibility that, anecdotally, it
may appear that there are more of these creatures in the water
than in previous years — and that may well be the case — but
that doesn’t me