By Rex Mphisa
SOME concerned Beitbridge residents have raised an alarm over numerous and almost permanent incidences of fish poaching at the town’s supplier dams.
A report to Ziyah News Network said the poachers have literally camped at the dams and cast nets across mass lengths and widths to catch everything.
“They splash and make noise driving fish towards their nets and are harrassing the fish in such a cruel way,” Gift Moyo, a resident.
He captured images of one of the suspected poachers using a makeshift “boat” to cast his nets on Dam One.
Beitbridge supplier dams are west of the border post past the town’s water purification plant for Dam One while Dam Two is almost a kilometre further.
All are “reservoir” bodies and depent on water extraction from the Limpopo River.
Moyo said the poachers have built “homes” around the dams and poach during day and night giving the fish no time to rest or grow.
“What is most surprising is that these poachers a a stone’s throw away from th National Parks and Wildlife Camp and it appears they are not even moved by that,” he said.
He claimed to have approached one of the poachers who bluntly told him to go whereever he wanted.
Catching fish with nets, particularly on an industrial or unregulated scale, is heavily discouraged and often prohibited because it is highly indiscriminate.
More often than not it catches young fish that are yet to realise full maturity and also traps eggs.
It causes severe environmental degradation, and leads to overfishing.
Unlike rod-and-line fishing, nets often trap unintended water life like crabs, frogs, destroy habitats, and create long-term imbalabce of nature apart from pollution.
Efforts to get comment from the Department of Parks and Wildlife were fruitless.
