Successful Rescue of the Redfin Fish

In a successful rescue operation, more than 4 500 Critically Endangered Tradouw redfins (Pseudobarbus burchelli) were translocated to safe locations in the Barrydale area. 

The Department of Water and Sanitation put on hold planned maintenance activities at the gauging weir on the Huis River so that CapeNature could perform the rescue. CapeNature has been monitoring the Tradouw redfin population for some years and this helped with the selection of three release sites. 

Redfins were known to already occur at the two chosen sites on the Huis River. The third site, a dam on the farm Joubert Tradauw, was included in order to establish a refuge population of the species in case of any environmental disaster affecting the Huis River. 

Threats to the river include over-abstraction of water, siltation, nutrification and pollution. Prior to the rescue operation, a temporary barrier of sandbags was established at the pool above the gauging weir. Staff from Grootvadersbos Nature Reserve and the Grootvadersbos Conservancy assisted CapeNature faunal ecologists with netting, transporting and releasing the fish.

The rescued fish were of all size classes, from hatchlings to breeding adults. By the end of the rescue operation only small numbers of redfins were captured at the gauging weir pool, suggesting that most of the fish had been removed. While it is inevitable that some fish will be lost during the maintenance operation, it is likely that the work will have a long-term benefit for the redfins by deepening the pool and increased habitat for the fish.