{"id":464786,"date":"2025-10-01T03:58:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T03:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/464786\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T03:58:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T03:58:11","slug":"bluefin-tuna-feeding-frenzy-captured-on-film-off-alderney-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/464786\/","title":{"rendered":"Bluefin tuna feeding frenzy captured on film off Alderney"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Mr Purdie said the tuna rounded up the garfish they were hunting into large shoals, known as bait balls, and then charged into them. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It forced the bait balls to the surface and prevented them from escaping, he added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;This, in turn, attracts thousands of seabirds, including gannets and herring gulls, which swoop down to feed on the fish from above,&#8221; Mr Purdie said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He added the display was also a reminder of the ecological value of apex predators as the phenomenon gave seabirds from Alderney an opportunity to get the fish to feed their chicks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">They would otherwise have had to travel further afield.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Mr Purdie said bluefin tuna numbers were rising across the UK after being virtually absent in the 1990s, thanks to a recovery plan set up by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mr Purdie said the tuna rounded up the garfish they were hunting into large shoals, known as bait&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464787,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3847],"tags":[70,16,15,1717],"class_list":{"0":"post-464786","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom","11":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115296908412425911","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}