00:00These creatures have been appearing all around Tasmania's southeastern coast.
00:08They're not jellyfish, but a type of zooplankton called salps.
00:13I've just never seen or heard of anything like this anywhere near here.
00:18I mean, this is epic.
00:20They don't sting and are quick to multiply.
00:23Because salps can grow up to 10% of their body length per hour,
00:30and they go through two generations in a day.
00:33So, like, if one is born at, like, right now,
00:3712 hours from now it's going to be a parent,
00:39and in 12 more hours it's going to be a grandparent.
00:42Salps pop up every year or so, but rarely in these numbers.
00:47Aquaculture, agriculture,
00:49all these sources that are putting nutrients in the water,
00:53it reaches, shall we say, a tipping point.
00:56And I think that's what we're seeing is this tipping point
00:59that's driving phytoplankton or plant plankton
01:03to bloom into these super abundances,
01:06and then the salps are consuming the phytoplankton.
01:10But there's a dark side.
01:12Salps store toxins if they're feeding in polluted waters.
01:17When something eats them,
01:19then that animal basically gets a toxic bullet
01:23because it's taking on all the toxins
01:26that are stored in the tissues of the salp.
01:28We've seen many, many, like, you know, dolphin strandings
01:32where the dolphins' guts are full of salps,
01:35and we've seen fish kills, massive fish kills.
01:38The salps won't be around for long,
01:40as the blooms only last a few weeks.
01:43But beachgoers might want to prepare
01:45the jellyfish that can sting you,
01:47which are known to flourish after salps have been in the area.
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