Marine Wildlife!

A while ago, I bumped into some brilliant marine wildlife videos and made a post about it (here). On further searches, I discovered even more great videos from BBC that gave incredible insights into marine biology. The video below contains another spectacular capture of the giant "bait balls" (a term by fishermen) that attract countless varying predators. Once again, I am amazed by the technology used to capture this with crisp clear audio and video.



It is interesting to note that fishes form bait balls as a giant defensive formation to intimidate predators but it does not seem to effect tunas, birds, or sharks. I wonder which predators the formation does ward off or perhaps it is just not very effective anymore. The second video provides not only further additional insight on the great underwater food chain but also focuses on some specifics about sharks.



It is amazing how the ecosystems work as seen in the video. The concept of fishes aiding sharks by clearing fungal infections shows how intelligent ecosystems can be. I'm surprised the fishes did not fear becoming dinner and helped the sharks in close proximity instead. Many people also mentioned it must of took the camera man a lot of guts to capture a video that close but I am not sure if that was just an automated video capture or was it done by a live person. If it was done by a live person then that is truly one brave diver doing an extremely wild job working with thousands of sharks.

Commercial Fishing?

Both of these videos displays insights into fishing with the traditional rod and line. Although commercial fishing generally uses giant nets these days, the rod and line approach still holds a measure of effectiveness.

The first video places emphasis on how effective this ancient technique of fishing is and how fishing overall is impacting the environment. In the second video, it was mentioned that they managed to catch around 20 tons of fish with some fishermen pulling up to 15 fishes per minute.





I always though that the giant net fishing ships were dominant but given these insightful videos, I am not so certain about that anymore. In the first video, it was stated that the type of tuna they were fishing could reproduce fast and bounce back.

I wonder how global fishing with many different types of fish is impacting the marine ecology though.

Nature in Action!

This is "Bait Ball Feast" and "Underwater Armageddon" by BBC. Such an incredible view into marine wildlife during a feeding frenzy. I am also amazed by the technology used to capture this footage in crystal clear resolution with excellent audio. I, for one, shall be keeping a closer eye on BBC's videos.






Another one from BBC about ants creating a lifeboat. This is an impressive display of the hive like intelligence seen from ants. It is a sight to see how all the ants work together in creative ways to protect their queen. I wonder how long an ant can survive under water given the number of them that were in the bottom of the lifeboat.