WALVIS BAY – The Walvis Bay lagoon was a hive of activity as local residents today flocked there to collect their day’s meal when hundreds of fish washed ashore.
Schools of juvenile mullets and a few Bronze whaler sharks washed out in the morning. This is the third time this year that fish washes ashore at the lagoon.
Word of the latest shoal spread like wildfire at the town as men armed with buckets and fishing nets took to the lagoon, while women brought along the top of their laundry baskets to catch and collect fish.
Others were just there to observe the phenomena from their vehicles, or to take pictures with the dead sharks.
“It’s our lucky day. At least we are benefiting from our fish too. It’s not every day that we can buy fish any more. It has become expensive,” some of the women said while collecting the tiny fish with their hands.
However, some of them doubted that they would be able to go home with full buckets due to the size of the fish.
“Either way, we also collected and ate them the last time, and nothing happened to us”, one of the ladies explained.
According to Tuziziy Tuombale, the phenomenon is nature proving to be in existence, while another resident warned against eating sharks.
“They are not poisonous, just high in mercury and not good for your health”, Shetu Hambala said while commenting on New Era’s social media pages.
Amon Haukongo, however, said this always happened when Walvis Bay receives rain.
Meanwhile, fisheries biologist Dr. Anja Kreiner warned residents that they should be cautious as it is not known why the fish washed ashore.
“One should definitely not just eat these because there might be a toxic bloom. It is possible that it could be low levels of oxygen, and therefore they should rather wait to see what exactly caused it, “she said.
Members of the Namibia Dolphin project also collected samples of the dead fish for further testing to see what exactly caused the walkout.