ESC

Mexican Fish Orgies Are Deafening Dolphins

Fish these days up to no good. I remember a time when fish were a morally upright sort, just concerned with getting their son back from Australian fishermen and buying Krabby Patties. Literally 100% of my knowledge of fish comes from children’s cartoons. But apparently what fish today are up to isn’t suitable for a children’s cartoon, it’s entirely not safe for fish work.

The Gulf Corvina, a type of very fresh ceviche, get together once a year and have a massive fish orgy that’s so loud and rambunctious it can make a dolphin go deaf. I cannot imagine a fish orgy. The closest I can come is an orgy at a Phish concert; those hippie chicks like to get freaky.

Just how loud are these fish when they do the deep water nasty? According to The Guardian:

And when hundreds of thousands of fish get together to spawn once a year “the collective chorus sounds like a crowd cheering at a stadium or perhaps a really loud beehive”, said study co-author Timothy Rowell from the University of San Diego.

“The sound levels generated by chorusing is loud enough to cause at least temporary if not permanent hearing loss in marine mammals that were observed preying on the fish.

“These spawning events are among the loudest wildlife events found on planet Earth,” Rowell said, and “the loudest sound ever recorded for a fish species.”

I don’t know why these fish are getting so loud when they f**k, but it’s not doing their species any favors.

The frenzy sees all the world’s adult corvinas gathered in less than 1% of their usual home range for a few weeks.

During this time male corvinas emit calls that reverberate through the hulls of fishing boats and can be heard even above water – drawing in the fishers. Within minutes, a single boat with one net can harvest two tonnes of corvina, which can grow to about a metre (3.3ft) in length and weigh as much as 12kg (26lb).

A fleet of 500 boats nets as many as two million fish each spawning season, placing the species in peril.

Sure, we probably shouldn’t overfish the corvina, but if your main traits as a species are being delicious and incredibly easy to find and catch, well… maybe you deserve to be eaten. I’m just saying, they’re literally fish in a barrel.

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