Vol.4, No.6A, 57-61 (2013) Agricultural Sciences http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/as.2013.46A009 The jellyfish fishery in Mexico Juana López-Martínez*, Javier Álvarez-Tello Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas del Noroeste, S.C. (CIBNOR), Unidad Sonora, Campus Guaymas, Guaymas, México; *Corresponding Author:
[email protected] Received 26 April 2013; revised 26 May 2013; accepted 15 June 2013 Copyright © 2013 Juana López-Martínez, Javier Álvarez-Tello. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Com- mons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ABSTRACT ure 1), because some species secrete painful neurotoxic, even deadly, venom. Globally there has been a slight Jellyfish has been captured in Asia for 1700 increase of individuals in this group of organisms during years, and it has been considered a delicacy. the last decades [1], but in some countries as Australia, Since the 70s important jellyfish fisheries have jellyfish is considered a plague, so in response the gov- developed in several parts of the world, with ernment developed programs to control them. Among the catches increasing exponentially, reaching possible causes of the increase of jellyfish population, an 500,000 tons per year in the mid-nineties. In increase in water temperature due to global warming Mexico, only the cannonball jellyfish Stomolo- [2,3], reduction of predators by overfishing, and water phus meleagris is captured commercially. Most pollution [4,5] have been mentioned. Waste discharge of the capture of this jellyfish species is ob- into the sea, and in general, the increment of pollution in tained within the Gulf of California, specifically in the state of Sonora.