Durban - Sardines have been on the Southern African Sustainable Seafood Initiative (Sassi) orange list for the past year because there is concern over the future of the species.
The list comprises three score cards - green, orange and red - which advise consumers of the sustainability status of various seafoods to consider before deciding to eat them.
KwaZulu-Natal is famed for its amazing sardine run, when massive shoals move from the Eastern Cape coastline to the KZN coast.
Mike Anderson-Reade, head of operations at the KwaZulu-Natal Sharks Board, said sardine numbers were good last year, better than in previous years.
“There is some sardine activity around East London, but sardines are not expected along the coast of KZN until at least the second week of June,” he said.
He said the earliest sardines made it to KZN shores was May 28, some years ago.
Dr Sean Fennessy, the assistant director of the Oceanic Research Institute, said: “Scientists at the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries have put controlling measures in place for the main sardine fishery in the Cape to address the situation.
“The declining sardine population is not only due to fishing, though. Environmental changes have also played a role.”
Fennessy said most of the sardines that migrated to KZN in winter were not accessible to fishermen in the province. Often the sardines did not come close to the shore where they could be reached with nets. For these reasons, the catches in the sardine run have a limited effect on the total sardine population.
Pavitray Pillay, of the World Wildlife Fund and Sassi’s programme manager, said with the decline in numbers, there was no guarantee there would be a significant sardine run in KZN, but ideally consumers needed to heed the orange listing and not catch too many sardines.
“One of the primary reasons for taking this precautionary approach has been because of the decline in the abundance of sardines over the past 10 years,” Pillay said.
She said sardines were a complex species and their patterns were not completely understood. They can alternate years of large abundance with years of low abundance and this was also reflected in the changes in the annual sardine run.
“To up-list sardines to green would depend on the scientific evidence around whether this species is in recovery.
“At this stage, the trend is worrying enough for us to have listed it as orange. Sardines are also very susceptible to environment changes and climate change which can be another reason for the uncertainty in the fish stock status,” Pillay said.