Bait Ball in Australia Surprised Beachgoers at Manly Beach

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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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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

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how to protect the ocean. That's at how to protect the ocean. And

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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.