Sardine frenzy hit the KwaZulu-Natal south coast on Monday as the tiny silver fish headed back home towards the Eastern Cape.
Mike Anderson-Reade from the KwaZulu-Natal Sharks Board said a huge crowd had gathered at Shelley Beach and that at least 150 baskets had been filled with fish.
He said although June and July were traditionally ”sardine months” in the province, over the past three weeks the fish were ”stopping over” at various places as they headed for the cooler waters of the Eastern Cape.
The sardines were a major tourist attraction and travellers from Germany and the United Kingdom had arrived to witness the ”run”.
”It’s amazing to see the spectacle of thousands of fish coming so close to the beach followed by dolphins and seabirds diving in after them,” he said.
People as old as 70 used anything to scoop up the fish ”from their dresses, to buckets, to their broeks”.
Anderson-Reade said last year’s run was exceptionally poor after the sardines encountered a warm patch of water near Port St Johns and refused to swim through it. – Sapa