If people, in 20 years times, are going to be worried about stings requiring hospitalisation from swimming at, say, my beloved Noosa Heads, it will be pretty bad for tourism.
From the Guardian:
Twenty-two people have been hospitalised this summer with Irukandji stings – which are so severe they can cause brain haemorrhages and a debilitating sensation of impending doom, known as Irukandji syndrome....
....the potentially fatal Irukandji stings – especially near Queensland’s Fraser Island – are sparking the most concern.
Prof Jamie Seymour from James Cook University said the density of Irukandji, a species of box jellyfish, and the rate of stings had been steadily growing in southern Queensland as sea waters warmed.
“We published a paper some years back looking at Irukandji syndrome in Queensland and we had a look at the number of stings,” he said. “Fifty years ago the southernmost sting for Irukandji was in the Whitsundays, and now the southernmost sting is Mooloolaba beach. And if you look at the number of stings at Fraser Island, they are steadily increasing. More and more animals are getting down there....
“In Queensland alone, we put more people in hospital due to Irukandji stings than shark attacks, crocodile attacks and snake bites combined. This is something that we need to address now. I can see a time when we have to shut major beaches on the Sunshine Coast. It is going to happen.”
He added that the current spate of stings at Fraser Island was due to “a perfect storm” of conditions: warmer water, more Irukandji and more people in the ocean during the Christmas holidays.
“You have hot water down there which is 29 or 30C, which is unheard of,” he said. “The animals love that sort of thing. The people being stung are on the western side of Fraser Island, where it is nice and calm, and this has coincided with the Christmas break where you have more people in the water.”
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