Imagine this, you're at a beautiful beach, Manly Beach in Australia, and it's the first time you're there and you're enjoying the beach, you're enjoying the Australian weather here in the winter in January. And you're swimming in the water and you're having a good time. All of a sudden, this dark cloud starts to approach you, like in the water, not from above, but in the water. And you don't know exactly what it is, but it's kind of moving around
in a mysterious way. And then all of a sudden, the lifeguards call you in. It's like, come on in. Everybody needs to come in. Everybody needs to get out of the water. There's a danger in the water. What are your thoughts on that? That's what we're going to talk about this blob, this mysterious blob. It was actually a bait ball. Not just one, but three bait balls that combine into one to make one hell of a large bait
ball. And we're going to talk about that on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Let's start the show. Hey everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. This is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, and what you can do to live for a better ocean by
taking action. And today we're going to be talking about quite a large bait ball that formed close to shore on a popular beach in Australia called Manly Beach. We're gonna talk about why this could have happened and why people were told to evacuate the water to get to safety. We're gonna talk all about that on today's episode. Before we do, if you are here to find out more about the ocean, you can do that by not only listening to this episode and other episodes on the podcast, but
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Eastern every day. You'll get access to Ocean News, our latest episodes, video and audio, as well as jobs. If you're looking to build your career, you can get job ads in there as well. All right, let's get to the episode. This is a really interesting one. It's a fun one, really. I want to kind of give you a fun one because we've been talking a lot about some serious issues in conservation, and I want to talk to you today about the bait ball that formed off
of Manly Beach at the beginning of January. that kind of scared a bunch of people. There were some reactions on TikTok and some reactions online that people were like, what is this blob? It's really weird. It's moving interestingly in interesting patterns, just a lot like a flock of birds, you know, when they come in and there's like 1500 birds in one flock and they're all moving together in unison. And
then you're wondering how do they do that? Well, there's science that goes into that, but there's a reason why they're coming into a bait ball is to protect themselves from other predator that are gonna come and eat these fish. By themselves, they are vulnerable. As a big school of fish, they are not so vulnerable. So we're gonna talk a little bit about that and what happened. So it's really interesting in terms of what happened. So swimmers were ordered out of the water as a rarely seen natural
event, swamped Aussies beaches in Manly Beach. So the swimmers were ordered out of the water as a rarely seen Natural event swamps Aussie Beach, which is a which is Manly Beach. And so it's basically a massive like three large school of fish Basically a bait ball when when fish are schooling and they're separated there They have their distance together and there are predators in the water They get nice and close and form what we call a bait ball their bait for the predators, right?
and so that you will it'll all come together and and then the predators will swim around, they'll make this big ball and then the predators will start to swim through the bait ball and try to eat as many fish as possible. These fish are really tightly squeezed so maybe some of them on the outside will be injured, maybe they're not but the ones that are inside are probably the best to survive, that have the best chances of surviving this bait ball. Sometimes
the bait balls are all done, there's only a couple fish left, if any. Other times, the predators just go away, because they had their fill of fish, and they can just move on. But that's essentially what a bait ball is, and it's a really interesting phenomenon that goes on in the ocean, and you get to see a lot of different predators, which is why people were evacuated. They were evacuated because these predators come in, and you can have a drone And
the person who caught it was like, this is amazing. This is what you see on National Geographic, on the BBC, on these documentary channels that are on these channels that have these documentaries on the ocean where you see these bait balls and all the fish that are going through the seabirds that are diving in trying to catch as many fish as possible while this bait ball is around. It's a really cool phenomenon. It's something that I think people
were like really enjoy to see. And to see it that close, Doesn't happen often and because these bait balls are usually in the open ocean Why they're in so such a shallow water. I don't know there could be a number of different reasons It could be that the fish were brought in for
their food for their prey could be plankton It could be smaller fish. They could be coming in to swim a lot of these Smaller fish will come to the shallow waters for refuge against their larger predators But if there's enough of them, they might come in they might attract the predators to come to the shallow waters to get their prey and and to eat their prey as they move along on their own way
for the rest of the day. This is kind of a cool thing to see, but it's very, very rare because you don't wanna get clipped or you don't wanna get involved. You don't wanna be in the middle of it and by accident get bitten by a predator or hit by a fish or by a dolphin or tuna. There's some big predators out there
that can cause a lot of damage and you wanna be out of the water when that happens. So obviously the lifeguards were saying, yeah, it's time to evacuate the water and get out because this is something that is, you know, a pretty cool thing to see, but you don't want to be a part of it by any means. So this
is kind of cool. A lot, a lot of researchers were asked to be on, like, I didn't see any articles where the researchers were talking about it, other than the fact that these bait balls attract a number of different predators. So obviously to get it for people to get out of the water so that they're safer, but really cool thing to see. And the person who got the drone said, hey, this is like footage of a lifetime to get from a drone operator.
And I think, The cool part of this entire process is that the fact the drones are driving people to the beaches to see what's in the water. I think it's cool. It really gets our curiosity going. It gets people to explore. It gets people to see what's out there, get different visuals of the ocean and of like beaches like Manly Beach and to be able to help people. as they go along, they'll be able to say,
hey, there's something coming and you need to see it. Because sometimes when you're in the water and you're seeing it at the same level, you may not see what's coming. And so it was kind of cool that there was somebody with a drone to be able to say something or to be able to record it and to be able to see a bait ball and everybody was safe. So obviously a good story. This is kind of a cool thing. Obviously not good for the prey, but this is life in the ocean. It can be harsh sometimes for
the lower end of the food web. But anyway, I thought this was cool to share. I hope you enjoy it. I thought it was a really cool story to tell and it really shows what happens in the ocean, especially when it comes close to that human barrier where we get to see it up close and we don't have to go out on a boat to be able to see it for all those people who get seasick. So I thought it was kind of cool. So that's it for today's episode. I hope you enjoyed it.
I want to share kind of a fun story and kind of a neat story. Obviously not fun for the prey, but you know what? That is life. You know, that's what happened. So if you have any questions or comments, put them in the comments below. If you're watching this on YouTube or on Spotify, and if you're listening to this through your favorite podcast app, just hit me up on Instagram at
how to protect the ocean. That's at how to protect the ocean. And of course, if you're watching this on YouTube and you want to see more, hit that subscribe button and that notification bell so you don't miss any of our other episodes that we put up Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. And I want to thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I am your host, Andrew Lewin.