Recreation Department Director Dave Sniffen has found about a dozen Portuguese man-o-war jellyfish washed up at Fred Benson Town Beach.
Sniffen told The Block Island Times today, Sunday, Sept. 13, that people should swim at their own risk.
These jellyfish are venom-filled and can inflict painful stings in humans, leaving a welt that can last for days.
Sniffen said that the jellyfish look like a “small balloon floating” on the surface but warned that their “tentacles can be 20 or 30 feet long below them, and the tentacles are what sting. Even broken off tentacles can sting, and even dead ones on the beach.”
