Posted by Brad on December 06, 2002 at 18:43:55:
In Reply to: I was thinking about what a Marine Reserve might look like in a while... posted by seahunt on December 06, 2002 at 10:17:48:
Your story is fascinating! i have often wondered what it would be like to be at all of my favorite places hundreds of years ago...
If i may?
Every kelp bed is alive with activity! Constant splashes everywhere you look! Kelp bass flipping out of the water, splashing the surface, dorsals tearing thru the kelp strands, huge boils and mounds of water from broad tailfins grabbing forage fish on the surface. So many kelp bass in the forest that they must feed as a pack, collectively to survive.
Just outside the kelp line, 8 mature kelp bass staging... assembled in a pattern formation exactly the same as a kelp frond, heads pointed down, spaced out, angled the same as kelp plant in repose, waiting...
a school of top smelt happens by...
they wait until the precise second and burst into action!
after the feeding, they deliberately reassemble into the pattern of a drifting kelp frond and wait until the next school of forage passes by....
when there were great numbers of kelp bass in the forest, they would hunt collectively. As their numbers decreased over the years they abandoned their collective hunting techniques and have become solitary hunters.....
This fundamental change in the behavour was driven by one little fishing trip at a time....