Benefits of jellyfish blooms: perceptions of trawl fishers of the southeast coast of India

Remya, L and Saravanan, Raju and Thirumalaiselvan, S and Manojkumar, M and Kizhakudan, Shoba Joe (2025) Benefits of jellyfish blooms: perceptions of trawl fishers of the southeast coast of India. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of India, 67 (2). pp. 77-80. ISSN 2321-7898

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Abstract

Jellyfish have been considered a nuisance to fisheries since they are known to have adverse effects on the fishing operations of both mechanised and motorised crafts in many parts of the world. However, trawl fishers in the Gulf of Mannar are optimistic about better pelagic fish shoals during the peak season of Cyanea spp. in June to August. Therefore, personal enquiries were conducted to gather perceptions of trawl fishers in the Pamban Therkuvadi Fish Landing Centre. They observed jellyfish accumulations during the first few hauls, followed by a heavy catch of pelagics at 26-40 m depth off Mandapam. They also cited the occurrence of foraging fish shoals in jellyfish accumulations. The landings from mechanised fish trawls were dominated by bigeye scad (34%), barracudas (16%), round scads (12%) and Indian mackerel (3%) during the bloom period. The catch composition of finfishes was entirely different during the non-bloom period, as silverbellies, goatfishes, other carangids, especially trevallies, and pompanos, snappers, groupers, and lethrinids occurred more in the trawl landings.

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