Durban – An observation flight to the Eastern Cape waters towards the end of last week revealed that although water visibility was still discoloured in many areas, sardine-related activity was spotted in Port St Johns.
KwaZulu-Natal Sharks Board acting head of operations Greg Thompson said that the observation flight was conducted on Thursday.
“From Virginia to Port Edward, all is still fairly quiet, apart from a few Bottlenose dolphins and a few scattered gannets. The water visibility is still discoloured in many areas, which does hamper spotting,” Thompson said.
He said the area between Mzamba and Grosvenor was also quiet but as they got to Lupatana, there were two groups of common dolphins about 1km offshore, swimming north. Each group consisted of about 400 animals.
The Waterfall Bluff area was also quiet with just a few gannets scattered in the area.
When they got to Mboyti, they started seeing the first signs of sardine-related activity with about 600 common dolphins spread out in small groups all the way through to Poenskop, just north of Port St Johns. There, they came across a moderate to fresh offshore crosswind that made it extremely difficult to spot activity.
The water visibility started to improve just north of Port St Johns, and as they headed towards Umngazana the sardine-related activity started to increase along with numerous groups of common and Bottlenose dolphins spotted, Thompson said.
“The sardine pockets started becoming more frequent with shoals on the surface scattered right out into the deep ocean.”
“Then off Rame Head, we had in excess of 15 shoals of sardines all accompanied by dolphins. The activity continued off Hluleka where we had scattered pockets as well as two very large shoals of sardines with shark activity. There was a huge pod of about 1 000 dolphins feeding. This activity stretched to as far as you could see offshore.”
Thompson said that they turned around at Hole in the Wall and there was still activity as far south as they could see. “The last stretch was very active and the visibility was very good.
“These indications are all positive that the sardines are making their way up from the Eastern Cape towards KwaZulu-Natal. Taking into consideration that most of last week’s activity was much further south than spotted on Thursday flight, it seems that there has already been a considerable surge north of these fish.
“There is a possibility that the predicted cold front this weekend is pretty well-timed. A cold front can often enhance the movements of the shoals and cause them to move inshore and north at a rapid pace,” Thompson said.
“But there have been many occasions in the past when predictions and opinions have been totally incorrect. These fish can move through very deep water or in discoloured water which we are experiencing currently, out of sight of most of the predators and arrive in KZN without warning. Then there is always the possibility that they can continue moving north in deeper water and that we don’t get to see them at all.”
Thompson said their next flight to East London was scheduled for Thursday, May 26, but that would depend on the prevailing weather conditions.
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