Bluebottle jellyfish stings thousands on Queensland coast

Thousands of people were stung by bluebottles on Queensland’s Gold and Sunshine coasts over the weekend as weather drove a wall of jellyfish onto the shore.

Surf Life Saving Queensland said over 2,600 people received treatment at the weekend. Bluebottle stings are painful but typically not life-threatening.

Unusually strong winds pushed the jellyfish colonies towards beaches.

Conditions eased on Monday but remnants of the bluebottle armada (the correct term for a bunch of bluebottles) still dot the beaches and more than 200 people were treated for stings, mostly at the Sunshine Coast.

About 13,000 stings were recorded in the past week - three times more than in the corresponding period last year.

The latest figure for the weekend is almost double initial estimates released by Surf Life Saving Queensland and includes people treated by council lifeguards.

Across Queensland, but mostly in the south-east, 22,282 people sought treatment for bluebottle stings between 1 December and 7 January compared with 6,831 in the same period last year.

Bluebottle jellyfish colonies appear like blue-tinged sacs which measure up to 15cm (6 inches) long. People can be stung in the water or on the sand.

The stings are typically mild and can be treated with ice or hot water, however, some people had required treatment by paramedics at the weekend, Surf Life Saving Queensland (SLSQ) said. The number of those cases was not recorded.

The jellyfish activity forced the closure of busy beaches.

That was a “hell of a lot” of people stung, Australian Marine Stinger Advisory Service director Lisa-ann Gershwin said.

“That is unusual,” she said. “The numbers I have seen published are 25,000 to 45,000 per year for the whole of Australia.

“Those figures, the 22,282, are for about five weeks and that’s just one teeny tiny smidgin of Australia, so that is a lot."