On 2nd of February 2014, during
early evening hours, a rare incident was witnessed on the sea beach of
Kadapara, at Kasaragod district of Kerala. This beach is situated on the
Arabian Sea in the west coast of India.
At around 4 O’clock in the early evening
hours, a huge quantity of fish were thrown on the Kadapara beach by the
recurrent rising high tide waves. According to the estimation, not less than a
ton (i.e.,1000 Kgs) of fish might have been thrown on the 1 KM beach of
Kadapra. The fish were alive after splashing out of the sea and spread on the
beach. It was an unexpected bonanza for the people strolling on the beach to
grab handful of fish as gift from the sea.
Fishermen hamlet rose getting the news and ran
for the effortless prize from the sea. They stacked fish in their gunny bags,
baskets and whatever they can to collect as much as until the last fish was
fished out of the beach. Eventually,
this was a rarest of the rare incident that had witnessed large quantity of
fish thrown out of the sea.
On earlier occasion fishermen had witnessed
collecting dead fish after the high tides left them behind on the beaches.
However, this rare incident happened first time on Kadapara beach.
Almost all the fish were of the same sizes.
That indicates these were from a large shoal that were probably schooling near
the beach and a part of the shoal got carried away by the waves and thrown on
the beach. The aggregations of fish that gathers
together in same locality in an interactive, social way are referred to as
shoal of fish. Whereas, the shoal becomes more tightly organized with the fish
synchronising with their swimming. So, they all move at the same speed and in
the same direction. This is called schooling of fish.
A fish shoal area can be as large as 500
meter, length, breadth and depth. Generally, these kinds of fish shoals are seen
under water in the high sea. In this
case, a shoal moving closer to the beach could be the exceptional one. But one
can not deny this kind of incident happening elsewhere too. It might just be
the lack of evidence or scientific reference that does not site them in
research record.
However, the reporting of this kind of incidence definitely
becomes a study point for the marine biologist to study the exceptional social
behaviour of the fish shoal and their schooling pattern that attracts them so
close to the beaches. Until then this remains rarest of the rare incidence. Yet,
it could be the interest of the marine biologist to take a note and ponder
upon.
