‘Twas a lucky day for tuna lovers’
Locals feasted on fresh tuna last week when large quantities of the fish washed up on a Plettenberg Bay beach.
About 200 frigate tuna ended up on Nature’s Valley Beach on 26 March during what is believed to be an annual occurrence.
Nature’s Valley Trust team believe the most likely explanation for the stranding is that a shoal of this fish had been chased by a large pod of dolphins during the late afternoon of 26 March.
It was spring high tide at the time and the team believe the fish were chased into the shallows and subsequently washed up on the beach.
The fish are about 30cm in length and are known to be the prey of dolphins.
The fish was quickly snapped up by locals.
This is the second mass stranding in Plettenberg Bay in recent weeks. Last month more than 11.5-million clams washed out on the coastal holiday town’s Robberg Beach. Marine experts believe the stranding was a result of strong Easterly winds which led to an upwelling below the surface resulting in the clams dislodging from their homes beneath the sand.
SANParks’ Kyle Smith, with the help of Nature’s Valley Trust team, undertook a survey and did data collection in an attempt to quantify the biomass of the washout. These results revealed that the extent of the washout was 5 875m². The average number of clams in the deepest section – more than a metre deep – was 35 300 per m³. The total number of clams in the entire washout was 11.5-million.
This created an enormous amount of protein for scavengers to feed on and left a stench across some parts of Plett.
Source: Knysna Plett Herald News