What are the peculiar phenomena? Interpretation by experts from the Chinese Academy of Sciences: A video of silver carp leaping over the river like boiling soup | Phenomenon | Strange
On June 14th, a short video titled "Fish Bomb Nest Under Yangsigang Bridge in Wuhan" quickly became popular on the internet. From multiple videos from different sources on the internet, it can be seen that there are many people fishing on the shore, and not far from the shore, a large number of silver carp have jumped out of the water, with a height of about 1 to 2 meters, as if the river is boiling. This unique scene has attracted the exclamation of photographers and many fishing enthusiasts. A large number of netizens enthusiastically discussed and speculated on the reason why silver carp jumped into the river. On June 15th, in order to verify the authenticity of this video, Jimu News reporters visited the scene and interviewed experts from the Institute of Aquatics, Chinese Academy of Sciences to interpret this phenomenon.
Screenshots of online videos
After a day, the river has already been pacified
According to the video description, this phenomenon occurred on June 14th near the Yangsigang Bridge. On June 15th, due to the lack of a specific description of the location, after repeated comparison of the video footage and searching in the surrounding area, the location was finally determined to be the Hongshan River Beach on Wujindi Avenue below the Yangsigang Bridge.
At the riverbank, two anglers carrying large bags of catch walked towards each other. The reporter presented a video and asked if they were aware of the incident. The angler stated that on the 14th, he was fishing here and witnessed this peculiar phenomenon, which occurred around 2 pm in the afternoon. "The front is the flood gate, and everyone is fishing there. Jumping fish happened nearby, and you can see it if you walk a few hundred meters ahead." The fishing enthusiast who was in a hurry to go home pointed out the way and hurriedly left.
The reporter continued to move forward according to the words, and soon discovered a flood gate, which was waterless. Continuing along the railing, crossing a patch of grass, we arrived at the riverbank where we saw people fishing along the shore. Although these anglers occasionally raise their fishing rods and there are many catches around them, the overall river surface is still calm, and no fish have jumped up, let alone the spectacular scene shown in the video.
Diaoyou analysis suggests that the most likely cause is carnivorous fish driving away schools of fish
Approaching the riverbank and arriving at the gate in the video, there are particularly many people fishing here. The reporter asked several fishing friends about the silver carp jumping over the river, and they all confirmed that it was indeed the case.
Mr. Zhang said that on the 14th, he was fishing here when he suddenly noticed many fish jumping out of the water. Soon, more fish were competing to jump. "From the gate all the way to the direction of the bridge, there were fish jumping in a wide area, which lasted for several minutes and felt like boiling water," Mr. Zhang said.
Fishermen near the gate
Another Mr. Zhu said that he didn't come yesterday and came today to try his luck. Unfortunately, he didn't see it. He said, "I have been fishing for fifteen years, and except for occasionally seeing similar phenomena in some lakes, I have never seen them on the river." Mr. Zhu's words also drew the agreement of his fishing friends, who have a fishing history of as little as three or four years, and even more than twenty years, all of which indicate that they have never seen such phenomena.
After discussing the reasons for this phenomenon, several fishing enthusiasts believe that it may be due to a school of carnivorous fish underwater that day, such as the silver carp, also known as the water tiger, which drove the silver carp school here. The silver carp, who had no way to escape, had to jump out of the water one after another, and the crowd of onlookers made them even more frightened, exacerbating the phenomenon of jumping into the river.
Expert: It may be related to the rapid changes in weather recently
So what is the real reason for silver carp jumping over the river? This reporter interviewed Guo Chuanbo, a researcher of the Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
After watching the relevant video, Teacher Guo stated that if he only inferred from the video because he did not watch it on site, this phenomenon is likely related to the rapid changes in weather recently. Due to the recent high temperature, rainstorm and frequent weather changes in Wuhan, it is easy to change the water environment in a short period of time, making the silver carp living in this environment have a stress reaction.
Silver carp have the habit of clustering, prefer jumping, and have high sensitivity, making them easily frightened. When a school of fish is affected by weather or related environments, at the beginning, several of the most sensitive fish will jump out of the water, and the remaining fish will start jumping one after another, similar to the "herd effect". After the chain reaction occurs, a large-scale phenomenon of silver carp jumping over the river is formed.
Regarding the fishing factor speculated by fishing enthusiasts, Teacher Guo stated that although this factor cannot be ruled out, it is unlikely. First of all, silver carp and chub fish live in different water layers. If chub fish drive away the group of silver carp through predation, it is unlikely to cause this persistent phenomenon. Generally speaking, if a silver carp discovers a school of silver carp, it will rush to prey at once without repeatedly driving them away, causing the fish to continuously jump out of the water surface. Therefore, this possibility is relatively small.
"Overall, this phenomenon is still quite common in the natural environment, but large-scale ones like this are indeed rare. This phenomenon does not require human intervention and will not have a significant impact on our lives." Teacher Guo said, "On the other hand, this is a good thing. This indicates that our ten-year fishing ban on the Yangtze River has indeed had a good effect, especially in the main stream of the Yangtze River where the recovery of fishery resources is quite obvious, much better than before. Of course, the recovery speed of different types of fish is also different, and silver carp, for example, recovers relatively quickly. In summary, this phenomenon is a normal natural phenomenon and has not had much impact on normal life."
