The Run of the Grunions

By DANIEL WINSTON GATTO | Junior Reporter

It was 10 o’clock on a Saturday night when my dad and I arrived at Venice Beach. The glow of the nightlife was illuminating the entire area as young adults gathered at the vibrant bar scene. But not us, we had come to the beach to witness the Grunion run.

Now, the Grunion run is basically when a bunch of female Grunions (six-inch long fish) squiggle onto the beach to lay their eggs in the sand. When this happens, it is not a few hundred that come onto the beach, it is thousands of Grunions coming out of the water followed by the males who fertilize the eggs.

As we got closer to the shoreline the temperature dropped very quickly and we had to bundle up with extra jackets. Just then we saw a group of people huddled around a white canopy tent with some jars of something in the middle of them. We walked over and saw that they were hatching Grunion eggs. A man named Tim from Venice Oceanarium—who we called “The Grunion Master”—told us how he had harvested the eggs which were laid in the sand two weeks earlier and was now going to show us how he could help them hatch. He got some of the sand from a bucket next to him and mixed it with some sea water. We all watched for a minute and then suddenly baby Grunions started popping up like popcorn. To our amazement, they looked like tadpoles swimming for the first time around the jar.

After this we walked closer to the shoreline and saw that there were about 83 people on the beach all pointing their flashlights at the water looking for the Grunions. It was like a party on the beach. As each wave broke a couple of Grunions tried to wriggle into the sand to lay their eggs. Then all of a sudden hundreds of Grunions were splashing onto the beach. My dad and I had to back away, there were so many. This event only happens during a full moon and the new moon. Eventually they stopped coming in such numbers and by this time we were very, very cold and wet. So we decided that we had had enough excitement for the night so we said goodbye to the Grunion Master and left. As we left and walked through the Venice graffiti gauntlet we saw a shirtless old man spinning around in the dark skatepark who had no idea of the amazing act of nature going on just yards away from him.

All in all it was an amazing evening on Venice Beach under the cloudy night skies, but I do have one question: Why do they call it a “Grunion Run” when fish don’t have any legs?