The Spot the Jellyfish citizen science campaign

This Spot the Jellyfish citizen science campaign kicked off in June 2010. The campaign, which is currently coordinated by Prof. Alan Deidun, Malta’s Ocean Ambassador and member of the EU’s

Ocean Mission (Mission Starfish), from the Oceanography Malta Research Group within the University of Malta, has received thousands of jellyfish reports from the public, all of which have been validated along technical grounds and published spatially online on the campaign’s website. All validated submitted reports can be viewed online on a summary map which depicts jellyfish occurrence and distribution on a spatial and temporal scale. This makes the campaign the longest continuous-running national jellyfish spotting campaign within the entire Mediterranean Basin, representing a priceless example of a national marine monitoring platform.The campaign is supported by the International Ocean Institute (IOI), the Malta Tourism Authority (MTA), Nature Trust (Malta), the EkoSkola network, BlueFlag, Friends of the Earth and Sharklab, with the MTA sponsoring the design and deployment of the campaign’s trademark seaside panels.

Since the inception of the Spot the Jellyfish campaign, the public submitted thousands of jellyfish

reports, which are being assessed from a scientific/technical perspective so as identify trends and

links with environmental parameters and are also being plotted on map of the Maltese Islands for

the benefit of all sea users. Nine new jellyfish species, previously unknown from Maltese waters,

including alien species such as the nomadic jellyfish and Australian spotted jellyfish, as well as other

non-alien species such as the crystal jellyfish and the compass jellyfish, have been recorded since the

start of the same campaign, bringing the total number of gelatinous species known from Maltese

waters to date to over 40. Data emerging from the Spot the Jellyfish campaign has been coupled

with similar data being collected in Italy, Tunisia and Spain through the MEDJELLYRISK project

(funded through ENPI-CBCMED) so as to forecast the appearance of future jellyfish blooms along the

regional coastlines in question (https://www.mdpi.com/1424-2818/13/6/274/pdf ).

More importantly, from an ocean literacy point of view, the Spot the Jellyfish has managed to inspire

thousands of schoolchildren (through school visits), stakeholders (e.g. fishers, beach life guards, boat

owners, long-distance swimmers, kayakers, free-divers, snorkellers, spear-fishers, etc) and members

of the public in general through its continuous outreach campaign, which is viral online through

social media accounts and animation clips (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1WXnvmsjCU ).

The campaign was featured as an example of citizen science good practice on EuroNews Green

(https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/02/22/creating-sea-change-why-ocean…-

key-to-protecting-our-marine-ecosystems ) as well as in The Guardian newspaper

(https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/03/it-looked-like-an-a…).