Hundreds of pufferfish have washed up along the False Bay coastline this week, and the cause is still unknown.
About 80 dead fish washed ashore in Simon’s Town on 30 March and over 100 more in the Muizenberg area on 31 March. The City of Cape Town is urging residents not to handle the pufferfish, and to keep pets from them as the fish contain toxins.
Picture: Flickr Commons / Sally Taylor
‘The City will keep on monitoring the beaches in the Far South in the coming days and will remove the fish, should more wash ashore,’ the City added according to Cape Town Etc.
Pollution and an algae bloom have both been ruled out as possible causes for the deaths.
A similar incident occurred in Cape Town in 2021. At the time, head of education at AfriOceans Terry Corr told IOL the cause might have been sewerage being pumped into the ocean.
‘If we think of all the load shedding that has just been concluded, when the power is off huge quantities of ‘treated’ effluent water is discharged through a number of outfalls,’ Corr said. ‘I believe this water could be getting pushed back to shore by the gale-force winds we have been having here in False Bay.’
Pufferfish have an uncanny ability to swallow huge amounts of water (and sometimes air) and blow up to deter predators.
The toxin found in these fish, tetrodotoxin, can be lethal to most predators. It is fatal to humans when consumed. The toxin in one pufferfish is enough kill 30 adult humans, according to National Geographic.
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