A Use for Jellyfish on the Costa del Sol?
Monday, July 14th, 2008A use for jellyfish on the Costa del Sol may have been discovered that could turn an annual menace for bathers along the many miles of beaches into a positive resource. My previous post on
Water Stealing on the Costa del Sol highlighted the problems with illegal wells and connections into the municipal water systems by some householders. Now I’ll look at an interesting discovery.
A recent study financed by Andalucia’s Technological Corporation has revealed that the numerous jellyfish which regularly descend upon the Costa del Sol’s coastal waters could actually be transformed into a highly useful fertiliser. The researchers from the University of Malaga along with those from the Oceanographic Centre set out to discover a way in which to exploit the annual nuisance to beach goers commercially.
Their idea behind the study is that if these jellyfish are here in their hordes, we might as well derive some benefit from them. The conclusion was that, being so rich in proteins, the jellyfish would be ideal to use as a fertiliser. They could even be processed to be used as dry food for animals.
Last year (2007), in incredible 16,000 kilos of the invading jellyfish were collected on Andalucia’s beaches. They cause bathers many problems with their stingers attached to long tentacles that catch unwary swimmers and give them anything from a nasty shock to quite severe stings that require medical treatment.
Picture by G J Allen
