Rain of fish: in San Francisco, anchovies fall from the sky directly onto the streets

Fish are falling from the sky in parts of San Francisco, and booming coastal anchovy populations are to blame. SFGate.

Photo: Shutterstock

Earlier this month, Reddit user sanfrannie reported that about a dozen silverfish "rained from the sky" on their friend's rooftop in Outer Richmond. Several other users commented on a similar incident - one person said he heard a whistling sound behind him and heard a hard slap before seeing fish scattered on a nearby road. Another commented that they were "nearly hit by a fish while waiting for a bus" at Castro, while a third person said he surmised that "a group of kids somewhere on the roof were throwing sardines down for a Tik Tok video" after seeing several fish falls on the pavement of Outer Richmond.

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Local fishermen and researchers blame the seabirds, who now have more fish and don't know what to do with the explosion of anchovy populations off the coast of the bay.

“From Half Moon Bay to Point Reyes, people tell me they've never seen bait this thick,” said Larry Collins, president of the San Francisco Community Fishing Association. “Just last week I heard stories from guys saying the water there was just covered with thousands of birds, and the birds were just sitting on the water with anchovies in their mouths because they couldn’t eat anymore.”

Jim Erwin, a former laboratory analyst with the San Jose Department of Environmental Services, wrote in a June 11 blog post for the UC Davis Laboratory of Otolith Geochemistry and Fish Ecology that "there has been a surge in the anchovy population in the Lower South SF Bay."

“Monthly totals for April and May were 29 and 52 respectively,” it said. — The total jumped to more than 2600 for June trawls. This is the second-highest monthly total we've ever seen."

Adam Ratner, associate director of conservation education at the Sausalito Marine Mammal Center, attributes the phenomenon to normal patterns of upwelling, a process in which cold, nutrient-rich water rises from the depths of the ocean, replacing warmer water at the surface.

“Water temperatures currently appear lower than normal, and this has provided much-needed food for creatures such as anchovies, seabirds and marine mammals,” Ratner said. “It’s unclear how long this cold water surge will last, and we know that with climate change, trends indicate warmer water temperatures will become the norm, but for now it appears to be providing additional support to fishing communities.”

The water this year is the coldest the local fishermen have seen in a long time, Collins says, and the anchovies are proof of that.

“Now there is a perfectly healthy ocean. I heard guys tell me about pelicans, that instead of diving to fill their mouths, they just slide on the water and stuff themselves with anchovies,” Collins said.

As for the rain of fish falling on city streets, birds like these pelicans are almost certainly to blame.

“Anchovies are in pretty good numbers right now, and they're pretty close to shore,” said Whitney Grover, interim associate director of the Golden Gate Audubon Society. “So we see a lot of these seabirds catch fish, and then if they fly back over land on their way to where they're going, sometimes they drop the fish.”

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Grover said some bird species, such as the bipedal cormorant, prefer to stay inland near freshwater lakes but will travel to the coast when there are plenty of fish to feed on. Brown pelicans also tend to fly long distances on daily foraging routes. Birds like these could explain why people have to dodge falling fish in areas like Castro.

“I saw them go to Ocean Beach and pick anchovies and then fly right over San Francisco and over the Castro to enter the bay,” Grover said.

The anchovy boom has also brought in a large number of marine mammals that feed on forage fish. So this is the perfect time to try whale watching.

As ForumDaily wrote earlier:

• Pisces are bees: Three judges in California said that bees can be legally classified as a type of fish.

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