Man o’ war invasion is ‘like nothing we’ve seen before’

THOUSANDS of highly dangerous Portuguese man o’ war ‘jellyfish’ are continuing to arrive on the coast of West Kerry in what is now amounting to an unprecedented invasion.

The creatures, which deliver an excruciatingly painful and potentially fatal sting, have been washing up on the Kerry coast since early October. Initially, only isolated sightings were recorded but since then the numbers have increased alarmingly.

On Sunday we counted 114 man o’ war on Béal Bán strand, where they were blown ashore by a stiff northerly breeze. A multiple of that number would have drifted onto rocks along the north of the peninsula and the number still in the sea around West Kerry can only be imagined.

Marine biologist Kevin Flannery told The Kerryman he had never before heard of man o’ war arriving in such numbers on the coast of Ireland. “Thousands of them are washing up on the shore and there has to be millions of them in the sea around the coast,” he said.

Kevin said man o’ war frequently turn up in Irish waters, particularly in the autumn, but they have been relatively rare. “You’d often have fishermen reporting a sighting of one or two man o’ war, or the odd one would turn up on a beach but there has been nothing like the phenomenon we have had this year,” he said.

The current man o’ war invasion extends from Cornwall in Britain to Wexford and around the west coast of Ireland as far as Mayo.

“I thought they would have disappeared by now,” Kevin said, adding that it was worrying that the man o’ war are still ‘fresh’ when they come ashore. He explained that if the float bladder is well inflated and looks fresh, the man o’ war is probably still alive and extremely dangerous. However, even when dead they can still deliver an extremely painful sting from the blue tentacles curled up under their float bladder. When the man o’ war is in water these tentacles typically extend for 10 metres or more and even a detached tentacle will sting.

Kevin said that while the extraordinary number of man o’ war arriving on our coast this year is being associated with global warming, the simpler and more realistic explanation is that they were blown here from the Azores by the persistent southerly winds around Storm Lorenzo.

Although man o’ war breed in warmer latitudes they can easily survive in the water around Ireland and Kevin noted that, from his observations, they seem to seem to last longer in turbulent water.

While the ‘invasion’ persists swimmers and surfers are being advised to stay out of the water but that didn’t bother Paul McCarthy of Ballyferriter as he set out to go kite surfing in Smerwick Harbour on Sunday. Paul has been stung before by a man o’ war and said it felt like a red hot poker but that wasn’t enough to deter him from going barefoot on Béal Bán as he headed for the sea.

Photos by Declan Malone One of the more than 100 Portoguese man o’ war that washed up on Béal Bán strand on Sunday. RIGHT: Despite the danger, barefoot Paul McCarthy wasn’t put off kitesurfing at Béal Bán. He has been stung by a man o’ war before and said it felt like a red hot poker.