MOSSEL BAY NEWS - On Saturday, 28 January, masses of red bait flushed onto the shoreline of the Mossel Bay around Point. This beach is the one of the main attractions in the Mossel Bay area.
The Oyster Bay Reserve was requested by the Mossel Bay municipality to send their community teams to assist in collecting the red bait to clear the beach area before the start of Dias Festival celebrations. The red bait had already started to rot since the weekend and was therefore secreting a horrible stench around the beach area, affecting the restaurants adjacent to the paddling pools.
The community teams started collecting the red bait, placing it into garbage bags supplied by the Municipality, which enabled disposal of the offensive waste. The community teams were headed up by the newly appointed community rangers and staff from the MEP estuary project. With the help from other MEP volunteers, Michael Sheppard and Craig Viljoen, the paddling pool at the Point was drained to clear out the rotten mass. The continuous rain since last Wednesday, did not make matters easier.
The red bait was possibly dislodged during the high sea swells that were experienced in previous weeks. The broken mass floated and washed up on the rocks around the Point, smothering the inter-tidal zones with a rotting mass. It is not a first time occurrence, as similar masses of red bait have been washed up on the shore from either swells or work on the pipelines.
Red Bait is a type of sea squirt which lives in dense beds on rocky reefs. Fisherman use red bait to lure fish with. Red Bait plays an important role in the marine ecosystem, as it makes food available for other organisms from plant plankton and debris.
The biggest problem with the red bait being flushed ashore is that, apart from the horrible smell, it contaminates the water, leaving fish and other marine organisms to die. Close to the pool, the soil also started to turn a greyish black colour due to anaerobic conditions killing off other marine life.
The collective effort from various parties involved in the cleanup operation worked wonders, although the paddling pool at the Point has been drained and kept dry for a few days to flush out the stench and other toxins.
- Mossel Bay Advertiser
No comments:
Post a Comment