A Dutch city makes a splash every spring with an unusual project to help its fish migrate. Thanks to a camera that streams live images of its river, internet users can signal any fish scale they spot with a virtual bell to open the lock and allow the animals to pass through. And it has become a global attraction.
Live images 24/7, suspense, weekly recap episodes of the best moments, and the jackpot of satisfaction each time a fish is spotted… All the elements are in place for one of the most captivating reality TV series. The prize? Not a fortune, but an ecological good deed. This is the concept of the ‘Fish doorbell’ (‘Visdeurbel’ in Dutch and ‘Sonnette à poissons’ in French), launched in 2021 in the city of Utrecht, the Netherlands.
On the website of the same name, internet users can observe the riverbed and press the virtual alarm every time a fish shows its scale for its moment of glory. This then alerts the person in charge of opening the lock that was preventing the fish from continuing their migration to another watercourse. A very simple ‘game,’ for a good cause.
A Global Enthusiasm
Indeed, every spring, thousands of fish swim in the canals of the city of Utrecht in search of a comfortable spot to lay their eggs. The problem: the locks block their path, especially since they are often closed, as boats rarely pass through the city during this season. The lock for the ‘Fish Doorbell’, Weerdluis, is also manually operated. To prevent the fish from being trapped for too long, which would make them easy prey for birds and other predators, two Dutch ecologists, Anne Nijs and Mark van Heukelum, came up with the idea of mobilizing internet users to alert the lock keeper.
And it works! The project fascinates hundreds of thousands of people around the world, who eagerly await the start of the season each year, much like the release of the latest Assassin’s Creed. As I write this article, 800 people are connected at the same time. Last year, the show attracted 2.7 million viewers, from the United States to Brazil and even New Zealand. The bell rang more than 40,000 times.
The fish horn even set one of its attendance records after being featured on the American talk show Last Week Tonight by John Oliver. R&B singer Mario was even invited at the end of the show to perform a love song to help the fish in the Dutch canal reproduce. « I was dying of laughter, » said the co-inventor of the Fish Doorbell to the Dutch channel NOS. Nearly 700,000 visits were recorded the day after the episode aired, four times more than usual.
Convinced Scientists
More than just a viral attraction and an act for biodiversity, the images collected by the ‘fish doorbell’ have helped better identify the species present in the country’s waterways, track their migratory behavior, and observe changes from year to year. Pike, bream, roach, yellow perch, and even eel are among the species familiar to the underwater cameras.
It is also a large-scale awareness campaign about the importance of fish for ecosystems and river cleanliness. « Fish inform us about the state of the water, » says Gijs Stigter, a member of the Water Council for the region. « The prosperity of certain species, like the pike, is a sign of clean and healthy water. We use this information to further improve water quality. »
So, fish are both engineers and web stars, endlessly awaited, according to the comments from fans of the fish lottery. « I’m going to have a hard time closing the fish site until I’ve seen one
Source: ouest-france.
