Sardine Migration - Scuba Diving & Photography. Durban, South Africa

“There really was a feeding frenzy going on. Alfredo was waving his video camera and screaming underwater from excitement. David Doubilet was carrying two cameras and his assistant chasing after him with two more. Jan, David, researchers were shooting along and I have surfaced seven times to change cameras, film and air tanks - this was what we all wanted.

The wait paid off and indeed, it was preparation for the event to come. Without the wait and the doubt, and the long into the night speculations, the stories by the fire and field cooked meals, the emotion, the drama and the jokes - the Sardine Run will be just another event - however it is not. It is a life cycle of short duration that is worth every moment and deserves to be experienced."

What in the world would possess a fish only 10" long to travel 1,000 miles from Cape Agulhas (just south of Cape Town) due northeast to Durban?

Not one but millions of sardines make this trip through treacherous ocean currents along a rugged coastline while avoiding dodging flocks of birds numerous predators such as, game fish, Cape fur seals, thousands of Common and Bottlenose dolphins, sharks, fishing nets and underwater photographers as well.

Why?

Marine science does not have a clear answer to this phenomenon, nor have I any answers, despite the fact that I was "hunting" them, photographically speaking, for 23 days along the Wild Coast; the Eastern Shore of South Africa.

Every winter from the last week of May through early July (winter in the Southern Hemisphere), this parade of millions of sardine, named "Sardinops sagax" or Pilchards, is taking place along the KwaZulu Natal on the East Coast.

Pilchards, or sardines, are commonly found in enormous shoals on the west coast of California (Monterey canneries), South America, Japan, Australia and of course South Africa in the Indian Ocean.

In South Africa, the main spawning grounds are on the Agulhas banks off the Southern Cape coast, where the adults gather for a prolonged breeding season through the spring and early summer. Their eggs are simply released into the water, fertilized and left to drift off in the open ocean. A benign ocean current carries most of the developing larvae westwards and northwards into the productive waters along the West Coast, Atlantic Ocean.

Therefore, the spark and entry of large shoals of Pilchards into the waters of southern KwaZulu Natal during the winter month, remains an unexplained phenomenon!

What is understood so far about the behavior of the South African Pilchard Stock is that the large bulk is found in the cooler water of the Atlantic Ocean off to the west of the Cape. However, each winter a small segment of the stock (small, yet in thousands of tons or millions of individuals) move eastward up the Wild Coast and the Indian Ocean. One apparent reason is that the Pilchard along the Wild Coast are found also in the cooler counter current that penetrates up the east coast as a narrow band between the rugged Wild Coast and the warm, south-flowing Agulhas Current.

The eastern bound shoals of Pilchard pursue a migration of about 1,000 miles northeast from the spawning ground at the Agulhas bank until the current reaches the town of Durban. By Durban, the current turns east, heads out deep into the Indian Ocean's high seas and disappears and the sardine along with it.

Because the shoals of Pilchard become concentrated into a narrow inshore band in the cool water, schools of marauding predators, fishermen, divers, adventure seekers and photographers quickly locate the shoals and the feeding frenzy begins.

Sharks, such as the Bronze Whaler (copper), Dusky and Black Tip, join the game fish such as shad, garrick and geelback. Not be excluded, marine mammals like Humpback whales, Minke, the Cape fur seals, and thousands of Common and hundreds of Bottlenose dolphins are seen in hot pursuit of the reflective mass of pilchards. As the sardines are driven to the surface, Cape gannets, cormorants, terns and gulls, plummet out of the sky to pillage from above.

Close by, the sound of roaring dinghy engines carrying their screaming and excited clients, join the party by "dumping" divers, with or without their cameras, into the water to witness one of Mother Nature's most fantastic and dramatic events underwater...

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All photographs by Amos Nachoum. Copyright © 2002. All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is strictly prohibited.