Can Dolfins stun fish with sonar?
Submitted by iana on Sun, 2011-02-27 21:22
I was down at Woodman point jetty this morning, and wittnessed natures breakfast time. A pod of Dolfins had herrings balled up under the jetty. every now and then a herring would dart out from the school, skipping across the surface, jumping out of the water in meter jumps, or swiming on their sides in circles, as though their brain control for swiming had gone out of wack.
These fish were picked off by the Dolfins, diving terns, shags and cormorants and or common seagulls. Given a few minutes the herrings that were missed seem to recover. I wondered if these fish had been dissabled by the Dolfins sonar.
Is this a regular event at the jetty? did anyone else on the forum see this, as there were plenty of others wittnessing the event.
honsu chin
Posts: 2086
Date Joined: 20/09/05
Not the sonar....
You'll find its actually the dolphins action of their tail thats used to stun the fish for a while. What they do is charge into the herring but turn at the last minute and whack their tail. Whack it hard enough it sends a pulse of water (kinda like EMP). This knocks the fish around hard enough they loose their sense of direction temporary. Hence why you see the odd one swim out to the open in a weird manner and gets taken.