A Plane Dropping Fish Out Of Its Belly Is Something You Have To See To Believe

A video that got over 1 million views in a month on Facebook is sparking some heated conversations all over social media. From it being the “cruelest thing they’ve ever seen” to “sure, 95% of them survived but 5% didn’t, what about them?” many people are not happy with what they saw.

Fun fact: We stock many of Utah’s high-mountain lakes from the air. The fish are tiny — anywhere from 1–3 inches long — which allows more than 95% of them to survive the fall. #Utah #TroutTuesday pic.twitter.com/kotDe91Zzw

— Utah DWR (@UtahDWR) August 21, 2018

Well, this was in fact a conservational undertaking by the state of Utah to do some good. Trying to re-stock a remote mountain lake with trout, they found that this was a lot less stressful for the fish than hauling them in containers for hours through rocky mountain roads.

In an all encompassing response, one Facebook user made a great point:

Looking at this you can see cruelty and whatnot, but in the natural order of things, a much greater percentage of these fish would be kaput if left to their own devices.

The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, which carried out this operation, is happy with their results and the mode in which they accomplished it.

Wildlife officials in Utah have been stocking their remote mountain lakes by dropping fish from airplanes since 1956. | UDWR

All in all, it’s still a very unique experience to see this happening. Especially from the angle that it was presented.