Dance dead

From May 5-7 every year is the migratory season of sardines. billions of children form horrible " storms " in the ocean off the coast of south Africa. This dance is also a banquet of sharks, whales, dolphins, otters, gongs, crazy birds, vultures . and humans!

It was awful: at a depth of 10 meters, in the giant blue ' sardines ' cloud , I was alarmed by millions of small fish because the dolphin's pursuit rushed from people in all directions to find a place. hide. They stabbed into the armpits, back, thighs . scattered like being sprayed by an extremely powerful cock. In June 2002, Tony White, my friend, an underwater photographer, had been snapped by a shark by his arm as he crept between the sardines that were being traced from every direction. I tried to wade away with real kicks.

While the dolphins were gullible, their mouths filled with fish, from the sky hundreds of orange-colored daddies flocked to the south of the Atlantic like torpedoes, also . all over! Like a black river, sardines move towards the Indian Ocean with an average speed of 2-5km / hour at a depth of not more than 70m. The reason for this strange migration? Temperature problem. Indeed, sardines who prefer to live in waters with a temperature of about 14-20 ⁰ C. 17 ⁰ C are ideal.

In the summer in the south (from November to February each year) sardines flourish along the west coast of South Africa and extend to Namibia, because of the cold water flow of Benguela. From the other side of the east coast, the Mozambique waters or Aghulas conveyed from the Indian Ocean temperatures higher than 20 ⁰ C so they could not stand it.

From May onwards the situation is reversed. As the southern winter approached, the sardines had to leave the west coast and the Cap region to reach the provinces of Cap Est and Kwazulu - Natal on the east coast, with more pleasant waters. They rise to the surface to eat plentiful plankton.

A journey full of calamities: every year the sardines are brutally murdered! Because everyone is waiting for the sardines season to come! According to South African biologists, there are 23,000 wide-mouthed dolphins that 'follow' them! Thousands of sharks, several hundred whales and black-backed dolphins also stick. In the sky, hundreds of thousands of crazy birds eagerly follow. On the ground are each group of penguins to follow until Durban.

Also to mention the hairy sea lions, the most gluttonous even though they have filled their stomachs! And people are also 'making money' . 100,000 tons per year, if not including many other tons, they have to use bulldozers to get rid of them! Being washed away by water or other cruel species, the dead sardines flock to the coast of Kwazulu-Natal. The coast disappeared under the knee-high body of fish, black! Local people call it 'sardines fever'. Some people bring buckets to contact a few still fresh and bring them to eat, trampled on the iridescent fish color .

The migration pathway of sardines (Photo: TTO)

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