If you have spent any time this summer swimming at Cape Charles Beach, you may have noticed that there have been little or no sightings of jellyfish (bay nettles). Scientists say they may be more scarce this year than ever before.
Bay Nettle (Image courtesy of Virginia Institute of Marine Science)
Denise Breitburg, a senior scientist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC), says multiple factors resulting from this summer’s rain are probably contributing to the scarcity of nettles. Fresh water runoff has lowered salinity below levels that nettles can tolerate–it also hinders their ability to reproduce. Over several decades, rising water temperatures have reached levels that are also harmful to jellyfish.
Environmentalists worry that their absence could throw the ecosystem out of balance.While it may sound like a crisis, the head of the jellyfish program at Horn Point, Dr. Raleigh Hood, thinks it may be just a cycle.
“We don’t have any evidence to suggest that there’s links between year to year in terms of population size. as far as we know, the population we have this year and how big it will be next year are largely independent of each other,” Hood said.
Nioaka Marshall says
September 30, 2018 at 4:38 pmSexual harassment is illegal. I do not care how good a cop Marc Marshall was or wasn’t. In a work environment, especially, you just can not tell jokes of a sexual nature. As a police officer, Marshall should have known this better than anyone. There is a time and a place for everything and on the job is not the place.
Nioaka Marshall says
October 1, 2018 at 12:36 amThis was meant to be posted on the article about Marc Marshall.
Nancy says
October 1, 2018 at 11:41 amNioaka, I agree that sexual harassment is intolerable. Would you please state where you heard that the former police chief sexually harassed someone?
Per meeting minutes and recordings of Town Council meetings, Marshall was put on paid administrative leave pending an investigation. A few weeks later his employment was terminated per his contract with no official cause given. The Town of Cheriton has stated over and over that they cannot comment because the whole thing is a personnel matter. However, when Councilman Travis resigned his seat at last Wednesday’s meeting, his letter of resignation stated that part of why he quit is due to the handling of the Marshall situation. He stated that no investigation was ever done. Why? If Marshall was harassing someone, it should have been investigated.
All of the available meeting minutes and recordings are available here: https://www.cheritonva.com/2018-meeting-minutes-and-recordings/
Space Star says
August 20, 2019 at 12:06 pmIt’s wonderful that you are getting ideas from this article as well as from our discussion made
here.