Thousands of jellyfish wash up on Georgia shoreline

TYBEE ISLAND, Ga. — Thousands of cannonball jellyfish washed ashore Friday on Tybee Island and other Georgia beaches.

The smack of jellyfish was several yards across and went along the entire coast, the Savannah Morning News reported.

“It was a little intimidating, honestly, because I’ve never seen that,” Jodi Moody said. “And I do walk at the beach pretty frequently for years now, and had not seen that.”

The jellyfish species is a common sight, just not in such exponential numbers, WSBTV reported.

“It happens every year, maybe not as concentrated in one single area as that,” Shawn Gillen, Tybee Island city manager, told the Savannah Morning News. “They wash up on the beach and they get stranded there and become food for the birds and the crabs. And then the next tide will wash them out or they’ll get buried in the sand. We just let nature take its course.”

Cannonball jellyfish, the most commonly found jellies on the southeast coast, are typically found in estuaries and salt water. They do not sting but they carry a toxin that can cause heart problems or an allergic reaction in people and animals, according to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

They do not swim. Rather they float along where the winds and tides take them. A strong wind Friday pushed them ashore. They were also found along other Georgia beaches, state officials said.

“It’s just a regular occurrence,” Tyler Jones, a spokesman for the Department of Natural Resources, told the Morning News. “It isn’t like a sign of the apocalypse or anything.”