Fears over unexplained deaths of Lake Victoria fish

Arusha. Worries are growing over mysterious deaths of fish in Lake Victoria reported in all the riparian countries. Stocks of dead fish have lately been reported floating on waters of the lake shared by Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya.

“It is mysterious to see a large number of fish dying,” said Mr Oburu Odinga, a Kenyan member of the East African Legislative Assembly (Eala).

He told the virtual meeting of the House that it was high time the unexplained deaths were investigated so that its source got known.

He said the most dying fisheries are the large-sized Nile perch. Cases of dead marine creatures have been reported in the three riparian states.

“Fisheries is the economic lifeline of the communities living around the lake but Nile Perch are dying,” he said.

Mr Odinga said he could not rule out pollution of the freshwater lake by toxic wastes from the expanding towns as the cause for the latest crisis.

He added that the 69,000 square kilometre water body in Africa - has lately been subjected to toxic effluents from the surrounding towns and cities. “Pollution could be one cause of the death of fish in large numbers. But we are yet to establish the real cause,” he explained.

The pollution aspect, he insisted, also raises concerns on the safety of the delicacy locally consumed and also exported to markets abroad.

The decimation of the fisheries has apparently led to panic among the lakeside communities in whose survival is threatened.

The crisis is more noticeable on landing sites in Nyanza and Western regions in Kenya, Mwanza in Tanzania and the shoreline near Entebbe in Uganda.

At the Philemona landing site in Mwanza, the local fishermen are reported to have seen dead fish floating close to the shores.

There had been reports which attributed the death of the marine creatures to a drop in oxygen in deeper layers.

Nile Perch, for instance, is sensitive to a change in oxygen levels and is adversely affected when oxygen levels go below two milligram per litre of water.

However, other Eala members who spoke partly attributed the calamity to increased effluents from both the industries and homes.

Lake Victoria was also suffering from an array of environmental problems, including proliferation of invasive weed called water hyacinth.

The pollution linkage corroborates with a warning issued by scientists in 2017 that the lake was under threat due to overfishing and pollution.

Habit Mohamed Mnyaa (Tanzania) said the shared lake was also grappling with a rising number of fatal accidents.

He told the House that about 5,000 lives are lost each year in the lake and its adjacent water bodies from the accidents.

He called for firm coordination among the East African Community (EAC) partner states in enhancing surveillance against accidents and environmental hazards.

He said more navigation equipment should be provided so as to save the lives of people who die yearly from boat accidents.

Ms Fatuma Ibrahim (Kenya) said Lake Victoria Basin Commission (LVBC) should be given legal instruments to address a host of challenges facing the water body.

A lake-wide fish stock assessment carried out in October last year indicated that Lake Victoria fish stocks was 2.68 million tonnes in 2019 from 2.21 million tonnes in 2018.

In 2018, the Lake Victoria Fisheries Organization (LVFO, an EAC institution, raised a red flag over fish catches’ decline in Lake Victoria between 1999 to 2011.

Between 1999 to 2011, the fish biomass in the vast water body dropped from 1.3 million metric tonnes to 0.8million tonnes in 2010/2011.