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Noise that irked Fla. town came from fish[Black Drum]
NY Times ^ | 07 Apr 2008 | Nonny de la Pena

Posted on 04/08/2008 10:34:17 AM PDT by BGHater

"Eerie Thumps Haunt Some Cape Residents," a headline in The News-Press of Cape Coral, Fla., said. "Noise May Cost City Big Bucks."

It was the end of January 2005, during the spawning season for a fish appropriately called the black drum. Nightly mating calls were at a crescendo. But no one living in the area seemed to realize the din was of aquatic origin.

The retirees who had come to spend their winters relaxing on the gentle estuaries and canals of the Gulf Coast in Florida blamed the municipal utility system. They were pushing the City Council to pay an engineering firm more than $47,000 to eliminate the noise reverberating through their homes.

Then James Locascio, a doctoral student in marine science at the University of South Florida, rescued the city from financial folly. After reading the newspaper article, Locascio called a council member just hours before a vote to appropriate the money. He explained that at 100 to 500 hertz, black drum mating calls travel at a low enough frequency and long enough wavelength to carry through sea walls, into the ground and through the construction of waterfront homes like the throbbing beat in a passing car.

"Black drum have taken a liking to the canal system in Cape Coral," Locascio said. "Their nightly booming is like a water drip torture that lasts for months."

At first residents wouldn't buy it. "The most vocal and persistent complainers said that there was no way a fish could produce a sound that could be heard inside a house," he recalled.

(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...


TOPICS: Miscellaneous; US: Florida
KEYWORDS: fish; florida; sound
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-Snicker- Of course it was a Drum fish, just be happy it wasn't a trumpet fish.

Btw, yes, trumpet fish are real. No sound :(

1 posted on 04/08/2008 10:34:17 AM PDT by BGHater
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To: BGHater

Ha.

Inter species jealousy on th epart of the vacationers.


2 posted on 04/08/2008 10:39:14 AM PDT by fishhound (Boycott the Olympics in China.)
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To: BGHater

Ya don’t suppose that booming sound they make might be why they are called “drum,” do you?

Could have been a clue.


3 posted on 04/08/2008 10:39:20 AM PDT by No Truce With Kings (The opinions expressed are mine! Mine! MINE! All Mine!)
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To: BGHater

Oh, carp!..................


4 posted on 04/08/2008 10:39:35 AM PDT by Red Badger ( We don't have science, but we do have consensus.......)
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To: BGHater
Be glad it wasn't a tuba fish.

Or a calliope fish.

Can you tune a fish?

5 posted on 04/08/2008 10:40:15 AM PDT by Izzy Dunne (Hello, I'm a TAGLINE virus. Please help me spread by copying me into YOUR tag line.)
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To: BGHater

Dat's a big ol' fish.

6 posted on 04/08/2008 10:41:46 AM PDT by martin_fierro (< |:)~)
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To: martin_fierro

Dat’s a big ol’ UGLY fish.


7 posted on 04/08/2008 10:43:25 AM PDT by bigfootbob
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To: BGHater

Yum.....


8 posted on 04/08/2008 10:45:33 AM PDT by Vaquero (" an armed society is a polite society" Heinlein "MOLON LABE!" Leonidas of Sparta)
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To: BGHater

Ha! Complaining about the Drum fish.

Living in Cape Coral is like living in your worst condo association with 100,000 senile retirees!


9 posted on 04/08/2008 10:46:39 AM PDT by poobear (UAN)
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To: BGHater

10 posted on 04/08/2008 10:46:42 AM PDT by traumer
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To: BGHater

11 posted on 04/08/2008 10:47:44 AM PDT by dead (I've got my eye out for Mullah Omar.)
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To: BGHater

An interesting bit of trivia from the article:

“Herring release bubbles from their anus in a “fast repetitive tick,” which Joseph J. Luczkovich, an associate professor of biology at East Carolina University, says is referred to as the “herring fart.”

This little factoid could be very useful at your next cocktail party.

~</;o)


12 posted on 04/08/2008 10:47:45 AM PDT by EggsAckley
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To: Vaquero

When I worked in Cambridge MA. The smelt would come up the Charles River around this time of year.

There were a lot of them. They would line the rivers’ bank with silver going about 3 feet out.

If you had a net you could probably catch hundreds of them, although I would not want to eat one coming out of that river.


13 posted on 04/08/2008 10:49:10 AM PDT by shineon
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To: Izzy Dunne

” Can you tune a fish? “

Adjust the scales.


14 posted on 04/08/2008 10:50:58 AM PDT by Humble Servant ( Keep it simple - do what's right.)
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To: Izzy Dunne
Can you tune a fish?

No.

You can Tune a piano...but you can't Tuna fish.


15 posted on 04/08/2008 10:52:59 AM PDT by Bloody Sam Roberts (A couple of pints and a package of crisps....ahhh. Life's good.)
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To: BGHater

Another example of how these immigrant “entitled to everything” geezers have screwed up what was a pretty nice swamp.


16 posted on 04/08/2008 10:59:02 AM PDT by San Jacinto
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To: BGHater; girlangler

I just love it!!!

Ping girlangler.... we should set up another program (like the one to rid Colorado rivers of the wrong trout) to rid their canals of these awful fish.... wonder how much we could get paid? We probably should work in the winter, don’t you think?


17 posted on 04/08/2008 11:01:57 AM PDT by Grammy
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To: EggsAckley

I can do the same thing in the bath tub, but I wouldn’t demonstrate it at a cocktail party — except under relatively rare circumstances.


18 posted on 04/08/2008 11:02:02 AM PDT by San Jacinto
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To: BGHater

Those catfish can sure growl a big rooooooowwwwwwwwwwwww. < /s >


19 posted on 04/08/2008 11:02:10 AM PDT by weegee (March 18th, 2008 Obama~"I did NOT listen to the sermons of that man, Jeremiah Wright...")
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To: EggsAckley

Are you hard of herring?


20 posted on 04/08/2008 11:03:09 AM PDT by weegee (March 18th, 2008 Obama~"I did NOT listen to the sermons of that man, Jeremiah Wright...")
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