The critically endangered seventy-four fish.
At a satellite event for the inaugural World Species Congress this week, Judy Mann told a story of hope about her favourite local fish — the critically endangered seventy-four.
With its pinkish head and belly, silver-yellow body and iridescent blue stripes, the striking seventy-four fish is endemic to South Africa and not found anywhere else in the world.
It reaches 100cm in total length, weighs up to 16kg and can live for over 20 years.
“Imagine that — a fish that is 20 years old,” enthused conservationist Mann, the executive of strategic projects at the Two Oceans Aquarium Foundation.
“One thing that is really important about this fish is that it exhibits spawning aggregation so, a whole lot of the fish get together on the Illovo Banks or the east coast of KwaZulu-Natal, and they spawn together in a big group,” she told the event, hosted by the Endangered Wildlife Trust and the South African National Biodiversity Institute.
In the 1910s, about 1 400 tonnes of seventy-four were caught each year. By 1923, that had dropped to about 600 tonnes. By the 1950s, less than 400 tonnes were caught and by 1985, the species had all but disappeared from the catch.
“If we think of the percentage of catch composition, in 1910, of all the different species caught, seventy-four made up about 70% of all the fish caught in the commercial line fishery. By 1995, it had almost disappeared completely,” Mann said.
Something needed to be done.
In the 1960s, the Oceanographic Research Institute conducted studies on the seventy-four and, in 1985, regulations were implemented. In 1992, those regulations were reviewed and in 1996 a stock assessment was conducted that indicated there was only 5% of spawning biomass — an indicator of the status of the stock and its reproductive capacity — left.
“We still had a problem. It was time to act,” said Mann.
In 1998, a moratorium was implemented that decreed that no one could catch seventy-four for 10 years. In 2007, that was reviewed, showing little sign of the species’ recovery. A further 10-year moratorium was recommended.
Between 2009 and 2014, the species was defined as critically endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List.
“In 2019, there was a rezoning of the Aliwal Shoal to close those spawning areas where they used to spawn. In 2019, new marine protected areas were proclaimed to protect the deeper reefs where the adults and juveniles live,” Mann said.
“Amazingly, in 2024, there is now a draft Red List assessment to take the seventy-four from critically endangered down to endangered. We are starting to see signs, after 10 years of the moratorium, of the recovery of this incredible species.
“Fishermen are saying now that they’re catching this fish when they catch on the deep reefs, over and over. And we’re also starting to see on our baited remote underwater cameras signs of seventy-four.”
Successful conservation action takes time, especially with slow-growing species such as the seventy-four.
“If we had not kept this moratorium of ‘stop catching this species’ for so long, we would never have recovered it … If fishermen had felt that they did not want to contribute to the recovery of the species, we wouldn’t have been able to do it,” Mann said.
“It takes well-enforced and supported marine protected areas. If we weren’t able to protect those breeding aggregation sites, we wouldn’t be able to protect this species. It takes good research … and ongoing monitoring for the long-term recovery of a species. And it takes passion — a group of people who really care and to keep going.”
‘Ocean is not too big to save’
In the past, there was a feeling that the ocean was so vast that it was simply too big to fail, Mann said. “We thought there were plenty of fish in the sea, we could just fish and fish and fish and it didn’t matter how much we took; there would always be more fish.
“We thought that the solution to pollution was dilution. We felt that we could just pump our waste out into the ocean and it would just disappear.”
This was the prevailing thought about the ocean for many years, she said. But the thinking is different now.
“A little while ago we were starting to think, ‘Oh my goodness, the ocean is so massively and fatally depleted, and it’s disrupted, and the ocean is too big to fix’ … There were a lot of headlines about how 75% of all predatory fish in the ocean were gone.”
Mann said there were concerns that there was so much pollution in the ocean, that it wouldn’t be able to be solved.
“There were huge concerns about ocean acidification and … people going, ‘Oh my word, it’s just so much of a problem, we don’t know how to solve it.’
“Now, we’re starting to realise that the ocean is so critical to our future, and to the future of our children, and that it’s too important to neglect. We cannot just pump into the ocean, we cannot just take from the ocean.”
People need to care for the ocean, she emphasised, “because, ultimately, the survival of people depends on the survival of the ocean”.
“Every second breath we take comes from the ocean; we need to protect the ocean as if our lives depend on it because our lives do depend on a healthy ocean”.