Jellyfish may look serene and beautiful from a distance, but anyone who has ever been stung by one of the pale pink organisms knows that they are dangerous and deadly. South Korea adds the description of “destructive” to that list, according to a new report published in the USA Today, which claims that the country’s “marine industries” lost some $300 million because of jellyfish in 2009. The losses are considerable and wide ranging, including everything from lost lives to a diminished productivity among fishermen. But now, South Korea is looking to fight back against the destructive parasites.

The battle will be waged by a new seek-and-destroy robot, which has the capability of shredding 2,000 pounds of jellyfish an hour. South Korean engineers are still working on the project – which has been dubbed as “the Jellyfish Elimination Robotic Swarm” – and the concept, due to its alarming and violent nature, may meet with some opponents down the road, both nationally and globally. However, considering the damage caused to the South Korean economy by jellyfish, the engineering team behind the robotic swarm will likely be able to meet their goal of getting the robots on the market by next year.

Of course, questions of endangerment and extinction come into the equation when anyone discusses a wide-scale destruction of a species, and the Jellyfish Elimination Robotic Swarm certainly has no qualms with wide-scale species destruction. The robot uses state of the art GPS and camera technology to seek out jellyfish swarms. Each robot groups with two others, motoring along on the surface of the water and collectively catching as many jellyfish as possible with underwater nets. The jellyfish who escape the nets will supposedly be shredded by a propeller, though it isn’t immediately clear where on the robot the propeller is located.

The robotic swarm will undoubtedly help South Korea, and perhaps other parts of the world, with their jellyfish struggles. And jellyfish problems are everywhere: just last week, a blooming swarm – “bloom” periods are reproduction times when each swarm seems to instantaneously multiply – clogged a nuclear reactor in Sweden, requiring the power plant to shut down for a day or so. Such inconveniences are made harder to deal with due to the dangerous nature of jellyfish as a species.

However, the Jellyfish Elimination Robotic Swarm is dangerous in and of itself, and could represent a threat to marine life or even to divers or other human presences if not effectively monitored. It has also been suggested that the robots could do further good by cleaning up trash, but engineers will have to make sure the device isn’t in constant destroy mode for it to be a viable commercial item.