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December 3, 2013

Meet the Perch

© Jan Kohout

 

The perch is originally a freshwater fish, found in lakes and streams, but since it’s very euryhaline, which means it can adapt to a wide range of salinities, it can also be found in brackish waters. Found both in Europe and Asia, this fish has also been introduced in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

The Baltic Sea perch lives around the Finnish archipelago and in the Bothnian Sea. It is a predatory fish that can vary a lot in size (max. 60 cm). In the Baltic it can grow to a considerable size due to a diet that consists of Baltic herring and other small planktivorous fish.

Oceana came across these fish in the port of Malmö, Sweden, where our divers were cleaning up the sea bottom on the first day of this year’s expedition. As you can see in this video, the port really needed a good cleanup!