The Eels

Abstract

On the basis of extensive studies of the eels of southern Africa, Jubb (1961b, 1964a, 1967) concluded that eels will disappear from Lake Kariba within 10 to 15 years following the dam closure, since ‘mature eels will leave the lake for the sea, but small eels returning from the breeding grounds at sea will be too large to negotiate the mighty 420 ft. wall which is 700 miles from the Indian Ocean. Physical conditions in the area are not suitable for an overland route, and entry via the tail-race and turbines quite impossible’ (Jubb, 1960b, p. 119). Prior to the construction of Kariba Dam, numerous eels of the species Anguilla nebulosa labiata were recorded from the section of the Zambezi River which Lake Kariba now occupies (Frost, 1957a; Jubb, 1961a; Jackson, 1961b). General acceptance of Jubb’s (1964b) erroneous conclusions and pecularities in the distribution of eels in the lake observed later, had the unfortunate consequences that the existence of eels in Lake Kariba was not considered at all. The occasional eels caught by sport fishermen were explained away as survivors from the pre-dam period and because eels were rarely marketed, as local fishermen feared the snake-like creature, they remained unrecorded.

‘I think it physically impossible for any fish to get up the falls and rapids which would point to the fact that the species is not katadromous.’ P. I. R. Maclaren to Frost (1957a)

‘The “atlantic eel problem” was reopened by Tucker 1959, 1960), who believes that the mature European eels are physically incapable of swimming 7000 km to the Sargasso Sea to breed.’ E. M. Pantelouris et al. (1970)