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Bait Ball in Australia Surprised Beachgoers at Manly Beach · How To Protect The Ocean

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  Imagine this, you're at a beautiful beach, Manly Beach in Australia, and
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  it's the first time you're there and you're enjoying the beach, you're enjoying the Australian weather
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  here in the winter in January. And you're swimming in
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  the water and you're having a good time. All of a sudden, this dark
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  cloud starts to approach you, like in the water, not from above, but in
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  the water. And you don't know exactly what it is, but it's kind of moving around
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  in a mysterious way. And then all of a sudden, the lifeguards call you
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  in. It's like, come on in. Everybody needs to come in. Everybody needs to get out
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  of the water. There's a danger in the water. What are your thoughts on that? That's
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  what we're going to talk about this blob, this mysterious blob. It
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  was actually a bait ball. Not just one, but three
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  bait balls that combine into one to make one hell of a large bait
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  ball. And we're going to talk about that on today's episode of the How to Protect the
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  Ocean podcast. Let's start the show. Hey
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  everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm
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  your host, Andrew Lewin. This is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you
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  can speak up for the ocean, and what you can do to live for a better ocean by
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  taking action. And today we're going to be talking about quite a large
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  bait ball that formed close to shore on
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  a popular beach in Australia called Manly Beach. We're gonna talk about why this
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  could have happened and why people were told to evacuate the water
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  to get to safety. We're gonna talk all about that on today's episode. Before we
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  do, if you are here to find out more about the ocean, you
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  can do that by not only listening to this episode and other episodes on the podcast, but
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  there as well. All right, let's get to the episode.
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  This is a really interesting one. It's a fun one, really. I want to kind of give you a fun one
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  because we've been talking a lot about some serious issues in conservation, and
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  I want to talk to you today about the bait ball that formed off
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  of Manly Beach at the beginning of January. that kind of scared a
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  bunch of people. There were some reactions on TikTok and some reactions online that
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  people were like, what is this blob? It's really weird. It's moving
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  interestingly in interesting patterns, just a lot like a
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  flock of birds, you know, when they come in and there's like
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  1500 birds in one flock and they're all moving together in unison. And
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  then you're wondering how do they do that? Well, there's science
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  that goes into that, but there's a reason why they're coming into a
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  bait ball is to protect themselves from other predator that
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  are gonna come and eat these fish. By themselves, they
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  are vulnerable. As a big school of fish, they are not so
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  vulnerable. So we're gonna talk a little bit about that and what happened. So
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  it's really interesting in terms of what happened. So swimmers
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  were ordered out of the water as a rarely seen natural
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  event, swamped Aussies beaches in Manly Beach. So the swimmers
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  were ordered out of the water as a rarely seen Natural
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  event swamps Aussie Beach, which is a which is Manly Beach.
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  And so it's basically a massive like three large school
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  of fish Basically a bait ball when when
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  fish are schooling and they're separated there They have their distance together
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  and there are predators in the water They get nice and close and form what
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  we call a bait ball their bait for the predators, right?
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  and so that you will it'll all come together and and then the predators will
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  swim around, they'll make this big ball and then the predators will start to swim through
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  the bait ball and try to eat as many fish as possible. These
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  fish are really tightly squeezed so maybe some
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  of them on the outside will be injured, maybe they're not but
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  the ones that are inside are probably the best to survive,
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  that have the best chances of surviving this bait ball. Sometimes
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  the bait balls are all done, there's only a couple fish left, if any. Other
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  times, the predators just go away, because they had their
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  fill of fish, and they can just move on. But that's essentially what a bait
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  ball is, and it's a really interesting phenomenon that goes on in
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  the ocean, and you get to see a lot of different predators, which is why
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  people were evacuated. They were evacuated because these predators
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  come in, and you can have a drone And
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  the person who caught it was like, this is amazing. This is what you see on National Geographic,
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  on the BBC, on these documentary channels that are on these channels that
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  have these documentaries on the ocean where you see these bait balls and all the
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  fish that are going through the seabirds that are diving in trying to catch as
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  many fish as possible while this bait ball is around. It's
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  a really cool phenomenon. It's something that I think people
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  were like really enjoy to see. And to see it that close,
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  Doesn't happen often and because these bait balls are usually in the open ocean Why
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  they're in so such a shallow water. I don't know there could
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  be a number of different reasons It could be that the fish were brought in for
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  their food for their prey could be plankton It could be smaller fish. They
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  could be coming in to swim a lot of these Smaller fish will
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  come to the shallow waters for refuge against their larger predators
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  But if there's enough of them, they might come in they might attract the predators to
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  come to the shallow waters to get their prey
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  and and to eat their prey as they move along on their own way
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  for the rest of the day. This is kind of a cool thing to see, but
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  it's very, very rare because you don't wanna
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  get clipped or you don't wanna get involved. You don't wanna be in the middle of
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  it and by accident get bitten by a predator or hit by a
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  fish or by a dolphin or tuna. There's some big predators out there
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  that can cause a lot of damage and you wanna be out of the water when that happens. So
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  obviously the lifeguards were saying, yeah, it's time to evacuate the water and
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  get out because this is something that is, you know, a
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  pretty cool thing to see, but you don't want to be a part of it by any means. So this
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  is kind of cool. A lot, a lot of researchers were asked to be
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  on, like, I didn't see any articles where the researchers were
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  talking about it, other than the fact that these bait balls attract a
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  number of different predators. So obviously to get it for people to
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  get out of the water so that they're safer, but really cool
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  thing to see. And the person who got the drone said, hey, this
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  is like footage of a lifetime to get from a drone operator.
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  And I think, The cool part of this entire process is
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  that the fact the drones are driving people to the beaches to see what's
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  in the water. I think it's cool. It really gets
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  our curiosity going. It gets people to explore. It
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  gets people to see what's out there, get different visuals
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  of the ocean and of like beaches like Manly Beach
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  and to be able to help people. as they go along, they'll be able to say,
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  hey, there's something coming and you need to see it. Because sometimes when you're in the water and
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  you're seeing it at the same level, you may not see what's coming. And
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  so it was kind of cool that there was somebody with a drone to be able to say something
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  or to be able to record it and to be able to see a bait ball and everybody
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  was safe. So obviously a good story. This is kind of a cool thing. Obviously
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  not good for the prey, but this is life in the ocean. It can be harsh sometimes for
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  the lower end of the food web. But anyway, I thought this was cool to share.
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  I hope you enjoy it. I thought it was a really cool story to tell
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  and it really shows what happens in the ocean, especially when it comes close to
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  that human barrier where we get to see it up close and we don't have
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  to go out on a boat to be able to see it for all those people who get seasick. So I thought it
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  was kind of cool. So that's it for today's episode. I hope you enjoyed it.
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  I want to share kind of a fun story and kind of a neat story. Obviously not
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  fun for the prey, but you know what? That is life. You
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  know, that's what happened. So if you have any questions or comments, put them
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  in the comments below. If you're watching this on YouTube or on Spotify, and
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  if you're listening to this through your favorite podcast app, just hit me up on Instagram at
• 8:12
  how to protect the ocean. That's at how to protect the ocean. And
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  of course, if you're watching this on YouTube and you want to see more, hit that subscribe
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  button and that notification bell so you don't miss any of our other episodes that we put
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  up Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. And I want to thank you so much for joining me
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  on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I am your host, Andrew Lewin.