'Jellyfish cemetery' at Armier

Marianna Galea Xuereb

Jul 21st 2009, 17:21

Apart from educating Joe public, how about trying to establish a turtle colony at say, Gozo’s Ramla l-Hamra or some other place where turtles used to breed and ensuring that nobody except trained conservationists steps there and that no artificial night time lights are allowed to affect the chosen area? Of course we will need to convince others to donate turtle eggs and fund such a project.

Adrian Borg

Jul 21st 2009, 14:13

This is all Gonzi's fault! *tongue in cheek*

John Pace

Jul 21st 2009, 09:43

I am very sorry but I really must make this comment .
Yes WE ARE the problem for these jellyfish invasions . It is all down to bad parenting o worse still an inexistent sense of civic duty by us all .
Some years ago , I was on the Gozo ferry and this young kid finished eating his '' SNACKS '' plastic packet . Much to my amazement , this kid once he realized that the packet was empty, completly disregarded the small metal bin in his proximity , and promptly threw the plastic bag into the sea ! Worse still.. his Maltese( English speaking) father ( who should have had the decency of AT LEAST correctiong his son, totally ignored his child 's IGNORANT action . ( ''Il-hanzir taqtaghlu rasu hanzir jibqa '')!
Really preposterous , because JOE PUBLIC who ASSUMES he is intellegent and above the local 'low class scum,' is in fact the reason why Malta is suffering from this problem !
Sewwa jghid il Malti, ''L-esempju ( HAZIIN ) , ikaxkar .

Look live jellyfish thanks to JOE PUBLIC !

Keith Goodlip

Jul 20th 2009, 19:06

This was also the case yesterday in Little Armier

Fabrizio Gatt

Jul 20th 2009, 13:03

Grab 2 and get 5 free. Nuqqas ta fkiren hawn. Ax kieku ma narmux plastic bags ġol baħar ma jahsbuhomx jellyfish u jikluom

Eric Camilleri

Jul 20th 2009, 12:59

Part 2 of 2
Mr “joe public” was obviously free to set up at the very back of the whole footprint or else at the small patch to the left hand side of the rock / concrete platform. Left with no option but to repack our “unbranded” umbrellas we accepted the fact that Armier was a Private Beach and forked out €15.00 for a “grid” at the beach front, so neither our "youngest nor our eldest" could get hurt or lost. The customer care staff were all foreigners and their three word language was limited to Umbrella-Deckchair-Euros. It seemed that by mistake our attendant also forgot to give us a receipt but understandably it did not register in his 3word language. Talking of stings, I found time to make some calculations counting deckchairs and umbrellas clogged around me and the sum circled around a modest €1,500 for a single Sunday afternoon. I say one heck of a sting !

Eric Camilleri

Jul 20th 2009, 12:46

Part 1 of 2
The biggest "Jellyfish" at Armier is the permanent steel pipe structure erected just below the sandy beach surface and covering 90% of the beach area. As a "joe public" I thought Armier was a public beach but I was wrong. The bedded steel structure is made of heavy duty 2.5" steel pipes beautifully interlocked into a grid pattern of approximately 4m x 4m. At each grid intersection props a vertical pipe of the same diameter, elegantly blossiming with removable large thick quality wooden "operator" umbrellas (obviously decorated with specific advertisiment Brands), leaving no inch uncovered or unshaded. Such was the shade cover that there was a sense of cold, dew, micro climate notwithstanding the summer heat outside the perimeter of this Armier Private Beach. The operator carefully carpetted the whole footprint with his deckchairs, making the whole area a NO GO for any unfashioned umbrella, unsporting chair or towel laying.

Nicholas B. Dougall

Jul 20th 2009, 11:02

The issue of the net always seems to crop up and no one seems to realise its implications. If nets are installed, with strong currents (such as those that washed up the jelly fish in armier), matters will only be made worse. When the jellyfish become trapped in the netting, they will break up and their 'stingers', which are microscopic will pass through. The result will be that of a giant pulp, invisible to the naked eye in the water which will still sting and cause harm to swimmers.
All this was tried in Australia with the above disastrous results. the ONLY solution to this problem is the limit of overfishing and to save as many turtles as possible as these eat the jellyfish and contain their numbers. Unfortunately we caused this problem with our irresponsible actions and we are now paying for it!!

Jamie Frendo

Jul 20th 2009, 09:51

OK we all know of the horrible Jellyfish that are practically making our shores unsuitable for swimming however there are a few solutions to this the first and foremost would be to stop the overfishing on and off our shores that's the main reason we get too much jellyfish as there are no natural ways of controlling them anymore no fish = more Jellyfish and the other thing is would a small net around the most popular swimming areas with holes to small in them to harm fish not be able to be set up at least only for the summer months??

Jonas Thor

Jul 20th 2009, 08:57

Why is it a national secret about jellyfish invasions at swimming beaches. It is very rare that you will see anything in the news media about this. I guess you have to pay for this public information. It appears to be another tourist sting operation as usual.

James Green

Jul 19th 2009, 23:42

Do people still manage to make it to Armier in spite of the atrocious 'road'?
What vehicles are they using?

Ernest Vella

Jul 19th 2009, 21:21

good, less in the sea...thanks for the strong winds...lets make a jelly fish free zone our island...pick as much as you can