Have you ever seen a sign that reads Caution – Jellyfish may come out? When you step on the Eil Malk Island, such a sign will be waiting for you because thousands of jellyfish will be waiting for you in the salt water lake in the middle of this island.
I know jellyfish are not many of your favorite creatures, but I think jellyfish are very misunderstood creatures. Jellyfish are organic creatures that have no heart, brain or lungs and are 95% water.They are thought to have existed for five million years. That means they are older than us or even the dinosaurs. It would be wrong to think that a creature that has managed to survive for so long is just water. Yes, they don’t have a brain, but in fact, their highly developed nerve systems are spread all over their bodies, so we can call it a floating brain. Another meaning of this is that jellyfish can feel.They can react when you touch them or when danger occurs. They even dance to impress their mates. So if you see a jellyfish washed ashore while walking on the beach, you can help it return to the sea instead of stepping on it.
After knowing a little bit about jellyfish, I want to talk about the Jellyfish lake in Palau. When we arrived at the island of Eil Malk with a 30-minute boat ride from the island of Koror, I did not think that there could be a lake full of jellyfish in the middle of the island. Although Palau is a collection of islands, it has more than seventy lakes. After about a 10 minute walk into the interior of the island, we come across a huge lake. The lake is not connected to the ocean now, but it is thought to have been connected to the ocean a long time ago. This explains the presence of jellyfish. So how is it still salty? The island is made up of a large amount of limestone and the limestone allows small amounts of salt water to pass through.
I immediately jumped into the lake, but guess what is not in the lake? Jellyfish… Someone who saw my desperation pointed with his finger to the middle of a lake and said that I could see jellyfish there… I immediately started swimming… As I swam, I started to see little by little jellyfish and soon I was swimming in the middle of hundreds or even thousands of jellyfish.
The natural question that immediately comes to mind is, what if I touch it? This lake is a utopia for jellyfish, because they have no natural enemies. Therefore, since they are never threatened, their defense mechanisms have become blunted and lost over time. Just as there is no need for soldiers in a peaceful world.
I said they have no natural enemies, but we do. The stress we create on nature and the global warming we are experiencing as a result increased the amount of heat in this lake, and in 2020 there was a serious decrease in the jellyfish population. The Palau Government immediately decided to close the lake as a precautionary measure and the lake was closed to visitors for 2 years. It is now open to visitors again, but the pressure of global warming continues.
If you go to Palau, this is a natural wonder that you must see. But if we don’t change our way of life and continue to keep our pressure on nature in this way, maybe after a while these landscapes will only remain in photographs…
Peace be with you
