Beachgoers heading into the water in New Jersey this weekend are being urged to use caution after clinging jellyfish were spotted in rivers and bays up and down the shore, from Cape May all the way to Sandy Hook. The creatures are notoriously hard to spot, but their sting can be severe enough to send a person to the emergency room in considerable pain, and experts are now sounding the alarm.
Marine experts say this is the first clinging jellyfish bite reported in the state in several years. The incident happened along the water near Mantoloking, where a reporter spoke with a local marine biologist about the renewed concern. The species was only first discovered in New Jersey back in 2016, and experts say its population has grown noticeably this year.
The victim of the recent sting was a 6-year-old girl named Amelia. Her mother described how, on Sunday morning, the family was swimming out in the water the way they always do when the child suddenly began screaming that it hurt. She was grabbing at her chest as the pain set in, with no obvious sign at first of what had caused it.
What made the case especially alarming was how slowly the injury revealed itself. The family did not see a bite or a sting at the moment it happened, but over the course of about five hours the spot turned into a welt, with bruising and a rash, and the pain simply would not go away. The lack of an immediate mark is part of what makes these stings so difficult to identify.
Not knowing what had hurt her daughter, the girl's mother, Juliana, shifted into higher gear and began doing her own research. That search led her to Dr. Paul Bologna of Montclair State University, described as the prominent local expert on clinging jellyfish and invasive species in New Jersey, who has been studying the creatures and their spread along the coast.
Bologna explained how the stings tend to happen. During the day, he said, the jellyfish hold on to the algae and the grass and other vegetation in the shallow water. Someone walking from the beach into those shallows can pass right through that growth, disturbing or scaring the tiny animals, and that is often the moment when a person ends up getting stung.
The expert took the news crew into his lab, where he and his team are studying the very small creatures up close in an effort to better understand them. The young girl's family, meanwhile, decided to share what happened to make other families aware that clinging jellyfish are present in many coastal waterways right now, urging parents to watch for the symptoms, especially if a child complains of mysterious, debilitating pain after being in the water.
There was some reassuring news to go with the warning. The girl took about four days before she started feeling like herself again and could return to school, and she is now said to be making a full recovery. The lingering pain and the slow appearance of the welt, her family noted, were what made the episode so frightening before they understood the cause.
Experts add that the clinging jellyfish are typically found in the inner coastal waterways, the bays and the rivers, rather than out along the open ocean, where the crashing waves would simply tear them apart. Because the creatures cannot tolerate heat, scientists say they should begin to die off as those waters warm over the coming weeks, which is expected to ease the risk by later in the season. For now, officials are urging families spending time in New Jersey's rivers and bays this weekend to stay cautious, warning that the hard-to-see jellyfish can deliver a sting painful enough to require medical attention.