Russ Zimmer

@RussZimmer

MONMOUTH BEACH - Boaters on the Shrewsbury River found 45 clinging jellyfish just off their dock Saturday afternoon, another sign that the venomous creatures packing a painful sting might be here to stay.

After a morning on the river, Emily Sgro, 19, her boyfriend and her parents returned to the dock behind the Sgro family's home on Columbus Drive when she spotted one of the distinctive, inch-wide invertebrates. Then another. And another.

She began scooping them out of the water with a plastic cup — "Everyone thought I was crazy" — and within half an hour they had a cooler with nearly 50 jellyfish.

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"(Emily) said she saw one and I didn't believe her at first, but she immediately got a cup and scooped it out of the water," said Brian Miller, Sgro's boyfriend. "From there, I kid you not, we had a cooler full of 45 these jellyfish — dime-sized, X-marked jellyfish. We were baffled by how many we were finding."

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The potent neurotoxin released through the tentacles of the clinging jellyfish, a new entrant to New Jersey waters, is being blamed for the hospitalization of a 20-year-old Lincroft man last week.

“I thought I was going to die," stinging victim Matt Carlo told the Asbury Park Press. "That's how much pain I was in.”

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The Press forwarded details and photographs of Saturday's encounter to Paul Bologna, a jellyfish expert and director of the Marine Biology and Coastal Sciences Program at Montclair State University, as well as the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.

The specimens appear to be clinging jellyfish, Bologna said Monday afternoon. An NJDEP spokesperson said the information would be passed on to researchers.

This particular species of jellyfish is native to the Pacific Ocean but has been found in Massachusetts's Cape Cod region for 100 years.

The clinging jellyfish — so named for how it clings to marine vegetation — is generally found in shallow, calmer waters. It does not thrive near ocean beaches because of the wave action.

Bologna and his research partner Jack Gaynor, a molecular biologist at Montclair State, first suspected that clinging jellyfish had invaded Jersey waters when a Brick man fished one of the Barnegat Bay earlier this month.

After reviewing the pictures from Monmouth Beach, Gaynor said he was "99 percent certain" that the creature was a clinging jellyfish, but only DNA testing could confirm that.

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If it is — Bologna said they are picking up specimens for testing from Monmouth Beach Tuesday morning — then this might be confirmation that the clinging jellyfish is now a permanent inhabitant of the estuary, Gaynor said.

“The fact that we're seeing such large numbers kind of suggests that maybe the population we're seeing is already resident,” he said.

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Larry Hajna, NJDEP spokesman, said the department plans to expand monitoring of this jellyfish species.

There are no state-approved swimming beaches on the Shrewsbury River, but Hajna acknowledged that people are in the water for recreation.

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Sgro and Miller, however, won't be among those.

"I don’t think we’ll be going tubing for most of the summer," she said. "We'll still use the boat, but I don’t think we’ll be going in the water."

“I can’t go in (the water)," the 20-year-old Miller said, chuckling. "I’m too scared.”

Gaynor concurred, saying the effects of the sting — muscle seizures, cramping, intense pain — are "pretty scary" and "people should really be careful to avoid them."

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If you are stung

Citing an article in the Russian Journal of Marine Biology, the NJDEP recommends these three guidelines if you are stung by a clinging jellyfish:

1. Avoided any further contact with the jellyfish and carefully remove any remnants of the tentacles from your skin, but do so without directly touching them with your fingers — by using latex gloves, for example.

2. Rinse the sting site with fresh water and then again with an alcohol solution. An alternative is to use a 1-to-1 mixture of sodium bicarbonate and water. After rinsing, seek medical attention.

3. If the symptoms or pain are severe, don't wait — seek medical attention immediately.

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Russ Zimmer: 732-557-5748, razimmer@app.com