The Spot the Jellyfish campaign launched last June has been recognised by global citizen science fora, such as the science for citizens blog http://www.scienceforcitizens.net/blog/2010/08/spot-the-jellyfish-here-or-in-malta/ which carried an extensive feature on the Maltese initiative.
Launched jointly by the IOI-MOC of the University of Malta and the Malta Tourism Authority, the campaign has received an average of four jellyfish sightings reports every day, for a total hovering around 300 reports, which referred to the sighting of nine gelatinous species. Of these, the mauve stinger Pelagia noctiluca made up for about 90 per cent of all reports received.
The organisers said that contrary to assertions from some quarters, the initiative was not devised to scare tourists away from local beaches so much so that a substantial number of reports were submitted by tourists and such jellyfish spotting initiatives were rife throughout the Mediterranean, the UK and the US.
The initiative’s operators were now bracing themselves for the fried-egg jellyfish qassata season, which normally falls towards September-October, coincident with the dolphin fish fisheries.
Beach visitors are being requested to measure the diameter of beached or collected specimens, besides reporting the abundance the species, which is innocuous and does not sting.
The Spot the Jellyfish initiative is coordinated by Aldo Drago with the technical and scientific implementation of Alan Deidun and staff of IOI-MOC.
It enjoys the support of the MTA, Nature Trust, Friends of the Earth, EkoSkola and the BlueFlag Malta programme.
The initiative follows a citizen science approach and relies on the collaboration of the public, mariners, divers, and especially the younger generations through their teachers and parents, by recruiting their assistance in recording the presence and location of different jellyfish through the use of a dedicated colourful reporting leaflet.
The leaflet is being widely distributed, and can be directly downloaded from www.ioikids.net/jellyfish, which is replete with snippets and anecdotes about different jellyfish species. With the support of MTA, large posters have furthermore been projected on boards along major bays on both islands.
The reporting is done by matching the sighted jellyfish with a simple visual identification guide, giving the date and time of the sighting, and indicating the number of jellies seen. Sightings can be also reported online or submitted through an SMS on 7922 2278, or email to ioi-moc@um.edu.mt. Strange jellyfish not included on the leaflet should be caught and kept in a bucketful of seawater prior to contacting IOI-MOC staff alan.deidun@um.edu.mt for retrieval to attempt a definite identification of the species. If this is not possible, photos of the same individuals should be taken.
So far, more than 200 records of different jellyfish species have been submitted by the public, and can be viewed online on a summary map http://193.188.45.233/jellyfish/stats.html which depicts jellyfish occurrence and distribution.