WG 003: Working Group on Mapping the Harmful Jellyfishes (2012-2017)
 

Jellyfish, the term here refers to the marine animals from the Phylum Cnidaria, mainly the groups of scyphozo-, hydro-, cubozo- and staurozo- medusa. Jellyfishes have been causing problems worldwide, including in the tropical West Pacific region. Jellyfishes can cause problem by toxic sting or massive blooms. The sting by some jellyfish species can be serious, and even be fatal to the beach swimmers, such as those by the box jellyfish and several others that have led to tens of fatal records. More jellyfish species, however, instead of directly harming people with toxins, cause problems to the human society by massive blooms either clogging seawater intakes of power plants or damaging fisheries by impacts on the commercial landing or destroying fishing gears. Notwithstanding the harms of these jellyfishes, we are still lacking of the quantitative statistics of their occurrence or population data, which are necessary for the history analysis and trend projection to design appropriate combating measures. This has impelled the current proposal. For this, a regional effort is highly in need both because of the issue's wide distribution and to share the knowledge and outcomes gained through the study.

We still lack of informative studies on jellyfishes in the WESTPAC waters