A whale shark is caught and jellyfish are infested...the heated East Coast

[Anchor]
Earlier, YTN reported that the East Coast fishing grounds map is changing rapidly due to changes in sea temperature.

Changes in East Coast water temperature are not just a matter of fish stocks.

Jellyfish infest in summer, sharks appear, and rare marine life never seen before is emerging.

Reporter Hong Sung-wook covered it.

[Reporter]
A big fish caught off the east coast in 2018.

It only appeared briefly on the water, but it's considerable in size.

It is a whale shark characterized by a white spotted pattern on a black background.

It is estimated to be 8 meters long and weigh more than 3 tons, and fishermen were returned to the sea because it was a rare creature prohibited from capturing.

"Good job, good job."The

whale shark originally lives mainly in temperate and tropical seas, and it was extremely unusual to appear on the east coast of Gangwon Province.

Since then, the water temperature on the east coast has risen slightly, leading to the appearance of jellyfish last summer.

Following Busan and Ulsan, the east coast of Gangwon-do was infested with jellyfish.

[Citizen who witnessed the sea fly / It means that the sea water has warmed up off Ulsan (last July).]

Jellyfish washed up on the beach not only in the middle of the day but also in the dark at night.

[Citizen who witnessed the sea fly / Off Gangneung (last July) You can drag the sea fly with a skewer.]

Jellyfish stings continued everywhere, and the problem didn't stop there.

Another uninvited shark.

Large sharks that have not been seen before in the East Sea's coastal waters have become more frequent.

In May, a 2.4-meter-long, 150-kilogram shark was caught in a net at the 1.4-kilometer sea of Oeongchi Port in Sokcho,

In April, a large blue shark with a body length of nearly 3m was caught.

Each local government had to work hard to come up with measures, such as setting up nets to block shark access to beaches.

[Lee Seon-gil / Researcher of the National Fisheries Research and Development Institute: I think they might have followed the turbulent fish species coming up to the east coast from far away in order to feed them]

Over the past 50 years, the global average rising temperature for sea temperatures has been 0.52 degrees.

On the other hand, the coastal waters of the Korean Peninsula more than doubled by 1.44 degrees, and the East Coast in particular rose 1.9 degrees, which is higher than this.

Fish species living in tropical seas, such as blue sea bream and swallow's bowfish, appear on the east coast, and the defense, which used to be mainly caught in Jeju, is now the main production area of the east coast.

The heated East Coast and marine ecosystem are rapidly changing.

I'm YTN's Hong Sung Wook.

Reporter for shooting
: Hong Do-young