Watch the Running of the Grunion
Are you looking for something different to do at night? Do you find yourself terribly bored between St. Patrick’s Day and Easter? Then watching the running of the grunion’s for you.
A lot of people think grunion are urban myths like “snipes” of the eponymous hunt, which is a hoax perpetrated upon the hapless. But grunion are real, and between March 19 and 22 you can watch them wriggle to the shores to lay their eggs.
The California Grunion are known primarily for their unique spawning behavior, in which the fish come ashore at night during high tide for approximately four consecutive days following a full or new moon. The females ride waves to shore and use their tails to dig a hole in the sand to lay the eggs. Spawning generally lasts less than 30 seconds. Place your own joke here.
Females lay between 1,600 and 3,600 eggs during each spawning session. Watching this process has become a local tradition for many generations of residents and promises to be a surreal experience for the uninitiated. The best place to see the grunion is the ocean side of the Belmont Shores peninsula.
