Mysterious noise irking Tampa residents may be fish mating loudly

Residents of Tampa, Florida have reported hearing strange noises coming from the bay for years, and now scientists believe it may be fish mating — very loudly, according to reports.

The deep, vibrating sound has been plaguing residents since at least 2021, prompting several calls to police, according to WTVT. But the most unnerving aspect has been not knowing the source of the racket

Local scientist James Locascio was tasked with getting to the bottom of the mystery, and has identified the sound as black drum fish mating underwater.

“This is a pretty uncommon phenomenon,” Locascio told The Washington Post. “All these people are surprised by it because it’s not well known.”

Residents had long speculated the origins of the sound before they enlisted Locascio, who agreed to investigate if they could cover the costs for recording.

They launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for a study.

“It seemed a little bit silly for me to be pursuing this so doggedly,” Sara Healy, the fundraiser’s organizer, told WaPo. “But on the other level, this is something that’s important to the community.”

Locascio, a fisheries program manager for the Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium in Sarasota, said he plans to place the equipment underwater to confirm his hypothesis.

“It’s a low frequency sound, and so they travel much better and go further distances, and they go through dissimilar media more efficiently,” he told WVTV.

The mating sound travels through the ground, possibly explaining how residents living more than a mile from the water can still hear it, he explained.

Black drum fish produce the bass-like sound by moving their muscles against their swim bladder, Locascio told the Washington Post.

The scientist completed his dissertation on the black drum fish in 2005 at the University of South Florida College of Marine Science. He used his underwater acoustic recordings to help solve a similar sound mystery for residents in Cape Coral and Punta Gorda — about 100 miles south of Tampa.

Around this time last year,  Punta Gorda officials confirmed to residents a strange sound many had reported was coming from black drum fish “during spawning season,” in the city’s canals, the Miami Herald reported.