‘Talking fish’

Thursday, 16 September 2010

COURTESY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF FISHERIES, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Forget Dr Doolittle and the horse whisperer, the Department of Fisheries is presenting Miles Parsons as Western Australia’s very own fish eavesdropper at its Sounds off the Sunset Coast public event at its Naturaliste Marine Discovery Centre at Hillarys.

In his presentation, Miles will reveal that fish use an amazing variety of sounds such as clicks, whistles and croaks when threatened or to attract a mate. For example, fish such as the male haddock ‘serenade’ spawning partners producing a repertoire of calls to impress them. Others such as mulloway will use their croak-like fishy sirens to attract females to their underwater lairs.

Using hydrophones – underwater microphones – Curtin University lead researcher and marine scientist Miles listens in on fish like mulloway “vocalising” when they aggregate to spawn. Miles’ work has been carried out in conjunction with colleagues at the Department of Fisheries and has been funded by the Fisheries Resource and Development Corporation (FRDC) and the Western Australian Marine Science Institution (WAMSI).

The initial research looked at how picking up the mulloway’s croaks – produced by vibrating its sonic muscle against its swim bladder– can be used to pinpoint their breeding grounds and the number of fish assembling in the Swan River. Now he’s embarking on a new program expanding on mulloway research, but also seeing if other WA species like dhufish and snapper ‘vocalise.’

“We’re building on what we’ve done before, especially for mulloway which we know are a very vocal fish,” said Miles. “And the ultimate goal is to be able to give actual estimates of the number of fish that are spawning.

“With dhufish on the other hand we don’t know much about their spawning habits at all. But there’s evidence they may have the physical capability of producing noise when they spawn.

“If we could record them making those kinds of noises, it would allow us to pinpoint where they spawn and how they’re spawning, and possibly use that to monitor the levels of spawning going on – critical information to manage fishing them sustainably.”

Sounds off the Sunset Coast takes place at the Department of Fisheries’ Naturaliste Marine Discovery Centre at Hillarys on Wednesday, 22 September – 6.30 to 8.30 pm. Members of the public are invited to RSVP by Monday 20 September to michelle.youngson@fish.wa.gov.au