Huge jellyfish swarm wipes out fish farm

DUBLIN, IRELAND -- Billions of jellyfish in a dense school covering 10 square miles wiped out the entire population of more than 100,000 fish at Northern Ireland's only salmon farm, the business owners said Wednesday.

Managing Director John Russell said the Northern Salmon Co.'s dozen workers tried to rescue the salmon, worth about $2 million, but their three boats struggled for hours to push through the 35-foot-deep mass of jellyfish. All the salmon were dead or dying from stings and stress by the time the boats reached the two net pens last week, about a mile off the coast of the Glens of Antrim, he said.

Russell, who has worked at Scottish salmon farms and took the Northern Ireland job just three days before the attack, said he had never seen anything like it in 30 years in the business.

"It was unprecedented, absolutely amazing. The sea was red with these jellyfish and there was nothing we could do about it, absolutely nothing," he said.