{"id":2189323,"date":"2025-12-23T06:00:28","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T05:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/?p=2189323"},"modified":"2025-12-18T14:52:39","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T13:52:39","slug":"watch-hungry-gannets-performing-death-defying-perilous-dives-at-breakneck-speeds-to-catch-food-where-one-small-mistake-can-lead-to-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/watch-hungry-gannets-performing-death-defying-perilous-dives-at-breakneck-speeds-to-catch-food-where-one-small-mistake-can-lead-to-death\/","title":{"rendered":"Watch hungry gannets performing death-defying, perilous dives at breakneck speeds to catch food \u2013 where one small mistake can lead to death"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As summer approaches, gannets face a perilous challenge: their primary food source, sardines, migrate far out to sea off the coast of South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>When dolphins hunt sardines, their herding drives the fish toward the surface, creating a reachable target for gannets.<\/p>\n<p>The birds dive from above, taking advantage of the sardines trapped near the top of the water.<\/p>\n<p>The birds have flown hundreds of miles in search of a meal. Once they\u2019ve sited their target, they plunge from heights of 30m striking the water at 100km\/h.<\/p>\n<p>Every dive subjects them to enormous forces where the slightest miscalculation could be fatal.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Watch the breathtaking BBC Earth footage<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Torpedo Gannet Diving! | Nature's Great Events w\/ David Attenborough | BBC\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1Cp1n_vPvYY\" width=\"595\" height=\"335\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Sadly, as one gannet makes an error of judgement, it breaks its neck and sinks slowly down into a watery grave. Its chick, back on the colony, will most likely starve.<\/p>\n<p>This footage was originally filmed for BBC&#8217;s Nature&#8217;s Great Events, a six-part series that looked at the sardine run off the coast of South Africa.<\/p>\n<p><i>This <a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/birds\/gannets-hunt-sardines\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow external noreferrer\" data-wpel-link=\"external\">article<\/a> by Charlie Lyon was first published by Discover Wildlife on 22 November 2025.\u00a0 Lead Image: Cape gannets dive into a sardine baitball. Credit: Getty Images.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As summer approaches, gannets face a perilous challenge: their primary food source, sardines, migrate far out to sea off the coast of South Africa. When dolphins hunt sardines, their herding drives the fish toward the surface, creating a reachable target for gannets. The birds dive from above, taking advantage of the sardines trapped near the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1178,"featured_media":2205369,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/c02.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/62\/2025\/11\/GettyImages-89625329.jpg?w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6985,5],"tags":[3797,12661],"class_list":["post-2189323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-wildlife","tag-dolphins","tag-gannets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2189323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1178"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2189323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2189323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2205369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2189323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2189323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2189323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}