Today, 9 October 2019, I took a drive to the beach at St. Lucia with Petrus Bierpens pens of #BierpensTV and then walked to where the whale watching boats launch. It was such a beautiful morning, unfortunately my finances do not currently allow me the privilege of a camera to take some pics and upload them here. Any way on the way from Ingwe Beach to the beach launch location I walked along the estuary side and not the sea shore.
I was once again saddened by the mud flats full of flamingoes and a variety of fresh water ducks and other water birds in the space where we should be fishing the incoming tide. After the recent north east winds which blew the water from lake St. Lucia into the Umfolozi and Umzinduze river deltas, and this mornings calmness, the water in the St. Lucia Estuary Mouth area was flowing happily from South to North, returning into the lake systems north of St. Lucia.
Most folks have no idea of the vast volumes of water that the winds move around the St. Lucia lake system, or the scary figures of water evaporation which takes place on the surface of the waterways connected to lake St. Lucia and the St. Lucia estuary systems. When trying to explain how the St. Lucia estuary system should be functioning as a breeding ground for many marine fish species, the current situation confuses most folks, and they battle to understand the connections between water flow and phytoplankton as the primary food source at the extreme base of the food chain.
Phytoplankton does not do very well in standing water, and also prefers a mix of fresh or sweet water and sea or salt water. Phytoplankton is the primary diet of Zooplankton, and zoo plankton is the second tier in the food chain. So the fact that the St. Lucia estuary is closed, and there is no sea water mixing with the fresh water from the Umfolozi and other rivers in the Greater St. Lucia Wetlands Park, means that the base of the food chain within lake St. Lucia and the St. Lucia estuary system is dysfunctional and not really able to support the current biological load within the many different bio zones of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park.
Very few of the folks that I speak to here in the streets of St. Lucia actually connect the dots between the food chain in the estuary and the food chain in the terrestrial areas adjacent to Lake St. Lucia and the St. Lucia Estuary system, or the food chain on our offshore reefs which have just recently been included in brand new MPA's ( Marine Protected Areas )
Now that these new areas are protected to conserve our fish stocks, I am truly Confuckumalated, because there is NO mention of JUVENILE RECRUITMENT that I could find. Most of the fish species that these new legislations are attempting to protect are dependant on a functioning estuary for their breeding and the protection of their fry, before they are big enough to venture out into the ocean and populate our off shore reefs. Many of the reef fish in the new MPA's also consume biological bio mass connected to a functioning estuary such as prawns, crabs and the juvenile fish of many different species of fish and other marine species that breed and mature within the safety of the reed beds, mangrove swamps and other safe havens encountered in Lake St. Lucia, the St. Lucia estuary system and surrounding waterways.
So taking into account that there are no juvenile fish entering the St. Lucia estuary and lake systems, and that the ocean is not connected to the St. Lucia estuary system, you are truly wasting your ti me, effort and financial resources if you go fishing in the St. Lucia estuary
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