Many fish species have strange behavior, rotating themselves like a tornado: What do they signal?

The details surrounding the incident of many species of fish suddenly swirling near the coast of Florida (USA) are becoming increasingly strange.

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) last week received reports of "unusual behavior of about 40 species of fish", specifically they were spinning and many fish were dead. In Among them is the sharp-toothed sawfish, which is in danger of extinction.

The cause of this is currently unknown. NOAA said it will launch an emergency response effort this week to try to save fish species, especially sharptooth sawfish. This is the first time in the US there has been such a response effort.

Here is a video of the fish's strange behavior:

This situation gets even stranger when researchers try to look at some common reasons. Fish do not suffer from infectious diseases or infections; Other factors such as oxygen levels, salinity, pH and water temperature are not to blame, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC). Other toxins are also found in water. People have also monitored the behavior of birds but have not found any correlation. Therefore, scientists ask people to record videos of the strange behavior of fish species, if they see them.

Currently, other estimated reasons are that there may be toxins in the water due to a type of algal bloom that is harmful to the nervous system of fish but has not yet been detected. There is also the theory that changing ocean temperatures are affecting fish, and that fish spinning and dying could be a sign of times of very high temperatures to come.

Samuel Daniel

Update 02 April 2024