buzz
Can fish fall from the sky
Tim the Yowie Man
20 Australian Geographic
PHOTO CREDIT, TOP LEFT: COURTESY CENTENNIAL PARKLANDS. ILLUSTRATION BY BEN SANDERSAboriginal involvement in natural
resource management.
“The Gunditjmara people have this
really strong cultural association with
eels,” Jarod explains.
“They have efficient traps and have
been farming them for thousands of
years. The eels will be captured and
fitted with saddle-like satellite and
acoustic trackers. Each tracker will be
set to record an individual eel’s move-
ment for up to 18 months to create the
very first full picture of their migration.”
J
AROD IS KEEN to get his hands on
this information, not just because
it’s one of ecology’s big scientific
questions but also because it will help
future management of the eels, which
may become difficult as a result of
climate change.
“Eels of the Northern Hemisphere
have declined by almost 90 per cent in
the past decade, and that’s ‘our’ eels’
closest relative.
“Similar to the EAC, the Gulf
Stream helps these northern eels travel
to their spawning spots, and some
scientists have speculated that the
impact of climate change on the Gulf
Stream is disturbing the eels’ migration.”
Jarod says we’ve already begun to
see climate change affecting Australian
eels. “They wait until a wet year to
move through the stream or they can
move over land in wet periods. If we
have drier systems, the eels’ ability to
move will be impacted.
“You can get large landlocked eels,
which are usually the massive longfin
ones. Those guys live to be well over
50 because they never make it to the
spawning area.”
While travelling in the East Australian
Current, tiny immature eels transform into
juveniles known as glass eels.
I
T SEEMS THAT just about every
country pub has a barfl y who
remembers the day it ‘rained fi sh’.
The fi rst time I heard of this
phenomenon was in the 1990s at
the Royal Mail Hotel in Hungerford in
south-western Queensland, on the
New South Wales border. There a
local (yes, he was sober at the time)
captivated the bar with a yarn about
“the day it rained fi sh” in his home town.
“During the storm, I went outside
and there were fi sh fl apping around
on previously parched paddocks,”
he revealed. “The unsuspecting fi sh
must have been plucked out of a
dam or creek by a mini-tornado a long
way away.”
Dr Peter Unmack, an ichthyologist
at the Institute for Applied Ecology at
the University of Canberra, has also
encountered similar tales of fi sh falls
in outback Australia.
“When I go out collecting fi sh in
Central Australia, almost everywhere I
go someone claims they’ve seen a rain
of fi sh,” explains the self-confessed
fi sh geek.
“The fi rst thing I ask them is ‘how
many fi sh did you fi nd in your water
tank?’” says Peter. “And the answer is
always none. That’s because in almost
all cases I believe the fi sh actually
swam there.”
According to Peter, “When it rains
hard the land can quickly become a
shallow lake. And if you have enough
overland fl ow, some fi sh can swim
through it.”
Peter believes that most of the
fi sh spotted a er big rains in outback
Australia fi t the description of the
spangled grunter (Leiopotherapon
unicolor). It’s Australia’s most wide-
spread small freshwater fi sh species,
and is found in most waterbodies in the
continent’s northern two-thirds. “They
are extraordinarily good at dispersing
with an ability to swim a kilometre or
two in 20 minutes,” Peter says.“In addition, spangled grunters are
moderately capable jumpers, which
also helps them overcome any small
barriers,” Peter explains. “Their sud-
den appearance following rain once
gave rise to folklore suggesting they
were able to burrow and aestivate in
dry mud, but to date this has never
been documented.”
So, what about the tornado theory?
“To pick up a fi sh and move it in
a storm is pretty challenging,” Peter
says. “I’ve been on the other side of a
dam when a big willy-willy has come
across and there isn’t the slightestbit of moisture in it. To pick up water
and fi sh would take an extremely high
velocity of wind.
“Even if a fully blown tornado was
to form in outback Australia, anything
caught up in it is going to have the
hell beaten out of it,” Peter says.
“The power in those things is ridiculous- there’s so much debris a fi sh would
get pummelled by sand, twigs, dirt
and more.”
Verdict: It is possible for fi sh to
fall from the sky during a storm.
But it is extremely unlikely, especially
in Australia, where the types and
intensities of tornadoes are not the
same as those reported in some other
parts of the world.
AGSpend any time travelling in outback Australia and it w
be long before someone tries to convince you they d.NATURALIST, AUTHOR, BROADCASTER AND TOUR GUIDE Tim the Yowie Man
has dedicated the past 25 years to documenting Australia’s unusual natural
phenomena. He’s the author of several books, including Haunted and Mysterious
Australia (New Holland, 2018). Follow him on Facebook and Twitter: @TimYowieCan fish fall from the sky?
Spend any time travelling in outback Australia and it won’t
be long before someone tries to convince you they do.