Cormorant and Eel Struggle??

Question

I recently saw a cormorant at our local park. It dove pretty quickly, soon after it came up struggling with a large green eel. The thick 2' eel seemed quite determined to escape by thrashing and even wrapping around the birds neck! Still, after about 2 minutes the bird somehow opened it’s throat real wide and swallowed it down entirely... BUT the battle for life and dinner wasn't over yet! The desperate eel still was resisting and seemed to rise partly (I could see it come back out!) escaping the bird’s neck/stomach many times, only to be gulped back in. Watching the Cormorant contend with this monster was some sight! Eventually the uncomfortable cormorant swam away with what appeared to be the unfortunate prey frantically wriggling in its stomach!  

Sorry to digress, my questions are as follows... So can the bird really manage to digest that huge thing bones and all and how?? Does the poor eel (it was quite a bright/pretty green color) stand any slim chance of escaping (that thrashing, biting, etc.) the hungry birds stomach or is it destined to become food at that point?! 

I would think the eel’s slime acts as a protective coating and help it turn around in such stretchy/elastic surroundings too?

Thanks for all the feedback/info, have a good day!

Answer 1

Hi Kyle,

In general, once the fish (eel in this case) has gone down the throat there isn't much hope of it getting back out. There is always a chance for the fish to wriggle free before that has happened but most birds that hunt fish have developed mechanisms to help hold them in place while they eat them. Much of the time if a fish is larger than a mouthful the bird will make an effort to kill the fish in some way before eating it by stabbing it with its beak or beating it against a hard surface. If it does swallow the fish whole it will try to do this head first. Once the fish has gone down the throat the environment it finds itself in is very hostile to life. There is not enough oxygen for it to breath and the extremely low pH of the first chamber of the digestive tract will quickly disable the fish. Even if it lives for a little while longer it won't have much fight in it.

The eel's slimy coating may help it turn around and may even protect it for a short time from being digested but ultimately it will still be killed in the hostile environment inside the bird and consumed. Remember that these birds have evolved to eat this type of food and all fish have some sort of mucous covering to protect them.

Hope this answers your question!