I went out last night to join the Venice Oceanarium‘s Grunion Run Party at the Venice Breakwater. The grunion are apparently abundant in the South Bay and their unique mating ritual brings them up on the beach during full moons on spring and summer nights, allowing them to be easily observed and even picked up. They’re supposed to be good to eat too, though most see it as more trouble than it’s worth to scale so many of them for such little meat. I went out at 11 p.m., when the party was starting and after 20 minutes they started popping up on shore one or two at a time. There they flopped about as they did their thing before being washed back to sea by the next big wave. It was a fun thing to see and the sizable crowd that turned out was very entertained. More can be learned about grunions and the specifics of their spawning practices here.
A whole new image for Venice Beach!