Pearl Mullet's Great Journey (Van, Turkey)

Hi everyone! This is my first post. Thanks for reading :)

a wonderful story from Turkey.

It is a fish that lives in Van Lake and migrates to fresh water by swimming in the reverse direction of the water like the salmon fish in Norway to reproduce in a certain period of the year.

There is only this closed basin in the world.(Van Lake, Turkey) It is 20 cm long and weighs 80-90 grams.

The pearl mullet is a species that lives in the highly carbonated waters of Van Lake, but it cannot reproduce there because of the salinity of the water, so it migrates through the lake’s tributaries to spawn.

They migrate to tributaries in mass groups in the spring. The salty and carbonated water of the lake does not allow this fish to reproduce. This is why pearl mullets empty the lake when the water reaches 12-13 centigrade and rush to tributaries.In order to reproduce and survive, they migrate upstream through the tributaries. They know that the tributaries are safe and clean; there are no humans there so they can lay their eggs there. In this way, they can survive.

They die if they suddenly transit from salty water to fresh water. They go to the tributary after balancing the salt-iodine balance. During this waiting process, they stop eating. They consume all their energy by traveling through the tributary. This is not the only difficulty; they have many handicaps in the natural environment.

There is a 70-80-meter-high mini waterfall here. Pearl mullets try to overcome these obstacles. The pearl mullet is approximately 20 centimeters in length. They try to jump four times higher than their size. All pearl mullets are here. Female ones will lay eggs, the male ones will follow them to leave milt and then baby fish will be born in a week. They will return to Van Lake within a month.

there is a lesson from this story.

Never give up!