Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Mobile Bay Seafood Jubilee

... is something I heard about while listening to the Gravy Podcast*.

It turns out that when conditions are right in a certain part of Mobile Bay, fish, crabs and shrimp will beach themselves on purpose, allowing residents to pick them up. No need to go out fishing when the fish come right to you!


All it requires is very little wind, hot weather and plenty of detritus in the water for the local bacteria to eat. These combine to use up most of the available oxygen and the fish and arthropods run for shore in search of breathable water. Crazy, no?

Since the seafood is still alive and no toxins are involve, it's all good to eat!

* - The Gravy Podcast is a decent one about cooking and the South. However, as it has a very PBS flavor, expect political silliness to pop in from time to time. This episode made sure to bring up racism and global warming climate change. I was a little disappointed that income inequality didn't make an appearance. After all, this was a podcast about seafood.

2 comments:

tim eisele said...

You're right that there is no need to bring up the influence of humans on this: The Mobile Bay Jubilee has been going on at a pretty constant frequency for as long as there has been anyone around to notice it.

It's basically a naturally-occurring seafood farm, with an automatic harvesting mechanism.

IlĂ­on said...

I think I know why there are no sea-gulls in the video taking advantage of the "
It's basically a naturally-occurring seafood farm, with an automatic harvesting mechanism" -- they are here in Ohio at the shopping mall parking lots.