When is the next jubilee in mobile bay
Alabama’s first jubilee of the summer occurred June 12 on Mobile Bay’s Eastern Shore. With flounder, shrimp, blue crabs and other tasty critters flopping around in the shallows near Point Clear, many collected coolers full of seafood, while others went home with citations from Alabama game wardens.
A jubilee is a rare natural phenomenon in which weather, water and tidal conditions push oxygen-depleted water toward the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay. It corrals helpless sea creatures in the shallows against the shore, and Eastern Shore residents have long spread the word when jubilees occur. People flock to them to fill coolers using gigs, cast nets and their hands.
Following the June 12 jubilee, during which several people were issued citations by conservation enforcement officers, officials with the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (ADCNR) reminded the public that jubilees are not free-for-alls and they are not fish kills, either. Most of the critters caught up in a jubilee swim or scuttle away no worse for the wear once oxygen levels return to normal with a shift in tide or weather conditions.
Regular Alabama size, season and bag limits will continue
Jubilee 2024
- Robert St. John says when fish, shrimp, and crab head to shallow water in search of oxygen, coast residents head to the shoreline in search of supper.
When I was a kid, there always seemed to be chaos surrounding the scramble to get ready for Sunday School. It’s hard to recall exactly what created the disorder, but I remember always having a hard time finding my “Sunday shoes.” One would think that an item of clothing worn once a week would have a permanent storage spot, but that was never the case. While the shoe scramble was underway, the television in the den— still left on from earlier episodes of “The Three Stooges” or “My Favorite Martian”— was blaring in the background. The theme song to “The Gospel Jubilee” rang throughout the house, and is still on a loop in some type of Happy Goodman time warp in the back of my brain all these years later.
I never sat down to watch the show, but the show’s opening track seemed to be the official soundtrack of the Sunday morning scramble. I have no idea what time “Gospel Jubilee” aired on our local station, but I suspect it was whatever time Sunday School was set to begin, which meant we were late and still had to
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It’s a phenomenon that happens in only two places—Mobile Bay and Tokyo Bay Japan. Hundreds of fish and shellfish washed ashore, just waiting for anglers’ nets to snatch them up.
You might know a jubilee as an important anniversary, or something more Biblical—but on the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay, they’re a valid reason for coming to work late each Summer.
Read on for an introduction to the wonderful world of jubilees and the delectable seafood that follows.
What is a Jubilee—the basics
A jubilee happens when pockets of deep, salty, oxygen-poor water in Mobile Bay are swept upwards with the rising tide. As the tide comes in, fish that can’t swim over those pockets of water are swept ashore, too.
Since the water is low-oxygen, the fish are stunned and not moving around much. In fact, you’ll often see them breaching the surface to get oxygen from the air. That’s when locals swoop in, gathering up fish and shellfish by the bucketful.
Here’s a short list of species you may see in a jubilee, according to the Alabama Cooperative Extension (ACES):
- Flounder
- Stingrays
- Eel
- Blue crab
- Shrimp
- Bay
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Events
Estuary Education
Introduction
Although jubilee events may occur in other areas of the world, Mobile Bay is probably the only body of moisture on Earth where this phenomenon occurs regularly each summer and where jubilees are fairly predictable. Students will investigate what causes a jubilee event and how it affects animals that exist in the bay.
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Objectives
Students should understand that:
- Examine estuaries as being part of important biological, chemical, and physical cycles such as food webs, nutrient cycles, and hydrologic cycles.
- Explore how estuarine ecosystems are affected by changes in global systems and cycles such as climate and weather cycles.
- Lesson is aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and California state standards (see page 5.)
Overview
Grades: 9-12
Length: 1-2 class periods
Estuary: Weeks Bay NERR, Alabama
Topics: Liquid Chemistry, Weather and Climate, Ecosystem Interactions and Dependencies, Phenomena
Lesson Materials