The Aim of the Project

Dear Sea Lovers / marine enthusiasts,

In recent years, there is an increase in the jellyfish blooms in the Mediterranean and Black Sea due to the changes in climate and food chains. Furthermore, the new alien jellyfishes, like “Lessepsian species” that entered to our seas via the Suez Canal causes current and important problems in the Eastern Mediterranean Basin. This jellyfishes and gelatinous organisms clog fishing nets and damaging our fisheries. On the other hand, some venomous species may cause nuisance to bathers and especially they may become a real health hazard for babies and elderly individuals. So, this has a negative impact on tourism. It is known that, thousands of people both in Europe and in our country are hospitalized due to jellyfish sting, in recent years. Therefore, our foundation has started a new programme to learn and understand abnormal jellyfish blooms, outbreaks and their negative impacts on our coasts and to move the subject to a scientific platform and to guide the decisions makers. This programme is also in coordination with CIESM Jellywatch Programme. However, the data on the Turkish coasts are collected by our foundation. The gathered information is aimed to be published in scientific journals with the cooperation of amateur and and professional scientists. The obtained data will be used definitely with the permissions of data collectors. Essentially, this is a project adapted to our country, called “Citizen Science” in European countries, which aims to collect data for social benefits by an easy and inexpensive way. A photograph of jellyfish or another organism you photographed with your mobile phone could be common and unimportant for you but it may have an important scientific meaning for oceanographers and marine biologists.

Therefore, your support to our project contributes to the accumulation of knowledge of marine species in our country, the understanding of the effects of alien species and in brief, social benefits. You can help us by checking the species information on the project website (www.yayakarsa.org) or the poster of jellyfish and other gelatinous organisms. For this, you can send your photos and descriptions to our e-mail (denizanasi@tudav.org; tudav@tudav.org) or fill the form in our website yayakarsa.org. Also our website automatically catches your contributions to hashtag #yayakarsa on twitter and instagram. Thanks in advance for your help, please don’t forget not to recognize the comments without scientific knowledge. Knowledge benefits and finds its place in society by producing and sharing.