Beyond the Aquarium
Curious Fish Behavior
on Cape Cod Beach
This morning, Cape Cod Instagrammer dapixara posted a video of hundreds of fish washing up on Nauset Beach on Cape Cod. They were still alive and flopping around on the beach. Understandably, people wanted to know what’s happening here.
After seeing the video, Aquarium biologists confirm this is Atlantic menhaden, a type of herring. There have been large schools of them all summer on the Atlantic side of the Outer Cape. The most likely reason for this unusual behavior is that the fish are evading a predator, like bluefish.