In the run-up to summer, information boards on jellyfish are being set up at Malta’s most popular bays and printed material is being distributed to scuba diving clubs and local councils in coastal regions as part of the Spot the Jellyfish campaign.

Talks on jellyfish will also be delivered on beaches in collaboration with the Malta Tourism Authority.

The campaign, which is coordinated by Alan Deidun, Aldo Drago and other staff at the Physical Oceanography (PO) unit at the University of Malta, relies on the collaboration of the public, seafarers, divers, and especially youngsters, to assist in recording the presence and location of different jellyfish using a reporting leaflet that can be downloaded from www.ioikids.net.

Reporting is done by matching the sighted jellyfish with a visual identification guide, giving the date and time of the sighting, and indicating the number of jellyfish seen.

Sightings can be reported online, or by sending a text message to 7960 4109, or an e-mail message to ioi-moc@um.edu.mt.

Jellyfish that are not featured on the leaflet should be caught and kept in a bucketful of seawater prior to sending an e-mail to Deidun at alan.deidun@um.edu .mt or the PO Unit on 2340 2844.

If this is not possible, photos of the jellyfish should be taken and sent to the PO unit.

A jellyfish identification manual in English and Maltese will soon be downloadable from the website of the Med-Jellyfish project http://jellyrisk/eu, in which the PO unit is also involved.

Throughout winter, divers and boat owners continued to send to the Spot the Jellyfish team numerous reports of the presence of non-stinging comb jellyfish and salp colonies, as well as stinging siphonophore colonies.

Currently, vivid blue by-the-wind sailor colonies are being beached along local shorelines.

The initiative, first launched in June 2010, is supported by the MTA, Nature Trust, Friends of the Earth, Sharklab, Ekoskola and the Blue Flag Malta programme.