Stop Reading If You Plan on Eating Fish Tonight

Yesterday, employees at a fishery in Turners Falls fell into an 18-foot tank of fish feces - barramundi feces, to be exact.

How does that happen? The AP explains, "The workers became trapped for 45 minutes after a bracket holding a plastic filtration pad collapsed as workers stood on it to clean the fiberglass tank at the Australis Aquaculture fish farm."

That's a lot of fish feces. A rescuer called the excrement "slimy and heavy."

You never see that sort of thing in an aquarium, but a fish farm is efficient (say that ten times fast!). Barramundi is actually hot stuff as far as fish go. The Globe magazine did a cover story on it, which you can see on the official Australis website. The article has pictures of the tanks and makes it easier to conceptualize the incident.

The barramundi is an Australian fish, and the name means "fish with big scales" to the aborigines. Only in Western Mass, the name will change to "fish with big poop"!

Big fish, big poop. Cover image of the Globe Magazine piece.