Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Wildlife Management Flying fish.

Hello.

Here are 2 recent studies which show that the dispersal fish eggs by birds is not a myth.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/fish-eggs-can-hatch-after-being-eaten-pooped-out-ducks

https://www.pnas.org/content/117/27/15397

A+

I've ran across that also so I would have to say "never say never" is very true.

So THAT'S why they're called "crappie"!

Interesting. Thanks for the link.

Looks like more testing is needed. They tested only two species of carp eggs, Common Carp and Prussian Carp. Did you know that Prussian Carp can survive being out of water for 24 hours?

Here are a few key points that I took away from the article:

1) ALL eggs were passed within one hour of the forced feeding except for one Common Carp egg that was passed 4-6 hours post feeding.
2) Intact eggs that survived the trip through the gut were placed in FIAP Proficare©K30 1,5% solution for 15 min to counter fungal infection during incubation. (Do you think that will happen in the wild?)
3) Only 0.2% of the Common Carp eggs and 0.1% of the Prussian Carp eggs were viable
4) Those eggs were placed in an environment where water would flow over and around them, different than what would happen in a pond or lake.
5) After all that and the unnatural treatment that the eggs received, only 1 Common Carp egg hatched and 2 Prussian Carp hatched.

They say that they handled the control eggs and the eggs collected from the Mallards the same. That means that they also treated the control eggs with a fungicide. ALL the control eggs died from a fungus infection. What would happen to the eggs if they did NOT treat them with a fungicide?

Since all but 0.2% (that is two tenths of one percent) of the eggs were passed within an hour of being eaten, what is the possibility of them being deposited in another body of water?

Could it happen? I think I have a better chance of winning the Powerball Lottery than this happening in a pond. Now that is just to have the egg hatch. What percent of fish hatched in a BOW survive to reproduce?

Yes, it's very low percentage. But Mother Nature plays the lottery millions of times every day.

As of 2018 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/faf.12270

Note that articles posted by azteca are from 2020. The great thing about science is that new information can change our understanding of things. Still more research to do, but very interesting, and cool!

and this one from 2019 https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ecy.2774?af=R