Fish School

Image by Bedwetting in AustraliaI love this. Researchers from the Queensland Department of Primary Industries & Fisheries are teaching Murray Cod fingerlings how to recognise the bad guys in the wild. It might seem like the sort of thing that you’d expect the baby fish to have an instinct for, but there are now so few of the fish in our river systems that they need a bit of help when they make the move from research facility to river.

The scientists are releasing a fear hormone into the water at the same time as they show the fingerlings predator. In just a few days the young fish have learned to associate predators with fear, which will hopefully give them a survival edge when they graduate out of the tank.

Once widespread throughout the mid-altitude sections of the Murray-Darling Basin, Murray Cod (Maccullochella peelii peelii – how cool is that name!?) are now listed as threatened. Overfishing on a huge scale (sorry – fish pun), habitat destruction through sedimentation, altered river flows and the removal of structural woody habitat (old logs and snags, etc) have resulted in tough times for the Cod. It seems a bit sad that science needs to step in to fix another human mess, but if it works more power to their fins! No word yet on whether the fish have been taught to recognise anglers.

Check out this news story for some footage of the wee codlets.