Can Sound Save a Fish?

April 27, 2017 • by Marc Airhart

Gulf Corvina look pretty ordinary—they're a couple of feet long and silvery. Yet the sounds they make—when millions get together to spawn—are a kind of wonder of the natural world. It's also why they are in danger.

Illustration of people in a boat with a microphone dangling in the water and a group of fish emitting waves of sound

Gulf Corvina live in only one place in the world—the Gulf of California. A decade ago, the Mexican government asked marine biologist Brad Erisman and his colleagues to study the Corvina. They were worried that heavy fishing might cause the population to collapse. When Erisman put a microphone in the water for the first time, he was blown away by the sounds he heard.

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