Killing not Catching Fish

March 2006 to May 2007





Dissecting a fish from Lake Bunyoni at Edirisa, Kabale, Uganda.



See link to: http://www.edirisa.org/?blog_start=98&blog_end=105


KILLING NOT CATCHING FISH





Oh! How soon one can become used to anything! And I am not here talking about the torture of human beings, although this may well apply. It is just the little matter of killing live fish. One does not kill dead fish and this is not a tautological mistake on my part. In order to make myself understood in these African countries I am visiting, I have to explain to the catchers of fish, that I want them alive, so that I can kill them.Dead fish are rejected. Live fish are killed. QED.

It all started as I was celebrating my 65th birthday in the mists of a Scottish farm. No fertilizers, organic husbandry, non-organic-food-animals kept until they died of old age, the equivalent of a perpetually hot Aga stove in the kitchen, lots of lovely books to read and fresh air to inhale. I was farm-sitting for friends.Other friends who live nearby had come to visit and I was happily telling them about my proposed trip through Africa. James looked at Alison and Alison looked at James. I know James can be called a 'mad scientist' because he has spent all his adult life looking at fish parasites whilst getting a doctorate, but I did not know quite how hard the bug (oh dear!) had bitten. The outcome of the looks was that, in the UK, there are 21 known and identified fish parasites. In the whole of Africa (you can work out the relative proportion in size), only 2 such parasites have been recorded. Yes, only two!!!! Ehm, this is a challenge..James and his colleague Andy appeared a few days later with a little salmon fingerling and delicately showed me how to cut out the gills and fins. I did not take in all the intricacies of being a super-trained scientist, but was willing to muddle along.

The last year has certainly been a muddle, but I think I am beginning to get the hang of it..The first 'hang' one has to get is to know how to carry large quantities of laboratory alcohol in small and large phials in a rucsac designed to hold enough things for independent living for two years. Then there is the very useful and expensive stainless steel dissecting kit with tweezers, two sizes of blade-holders and endless large and small dangerous replacement blades, scissors, laboratory tape, other mysterious implements, label stickers, pens and plastic bags. Well, we scientists (!) have to be equipped..It is only while I was in Ethiopia that the posting back of the samples began to be difficult. Someone had the bright idea of banning liquid through the post.something to do with high-jacking in the air.

In Agadir, my first stop, I enthusiastically went to the beach and employed boys to catch some rock-pool fish for me. They expertly killed the poor victims and the dissecting and labeling was done! Easy!!

The next fish-dissecting stop was Nouakchott in Mauritania. The Atlantic beach was a good 4km from the town and I had no idea of when the boats come in. By the time I got to the sea, the market had already been closed. All along the beach were hundreds of 'dead' deep freezers. They rusted in the salty air, piled next to each other in untidy heaps amongst rotting and disintegrating boats. But they were actually 'alive'. Each seemingly badly leaking and rusted deepfreeze was filled with ice and fish. These fish would be hauled out when the need arose.usually early the next morning when the market opened. I decided to take a walk along the beach. Bliss! Totally 'deserted' and full of the promise of the desert to come. In the distance I could see a European woman, her guard and two lovely dogs approaching. We exchanged hellos as we passed and a few steps further, both turned back to look at each other and she then spoke and said that I should be careful, as therewere robbers in the dunes. So I turned around and we walked back together. Anne is German and worked for her Embassy. The upshot was that I returned to her home where I was royally entertained with good German fare and looked after for the rest of the day.

After weeks of local dishes and dusty abodes, to come to a 'western' house with marble floors, pets, rows of books and videos, was a luxury! Later, when we went to the very busy fish market, I was already suffering a bit from heat-stroke, so not concentrating very hard. Anne and her servant enthusiastically bought fish with bright eyes and I hurriedly dissected. Later I was gently informed by those who know (mad scientists?) that the gill and fin samples were too old and that the parasites, it there were any, had already died. So, the only answer is to kill the fish myself..

There are not many pools with fish in the desert, but there is the Niger River! It was near the end of the dry season and the river was very low. It starts in the forests of Guinea and flows in a north-easterly direction into Mali where it changes course near Timbuktu and then goes southwards through Nigeria and ends in the Atlantic Ocean in the Niger Delta area where there is oil and unrest. I think the two go together.

In Bamako, a bustling city on the Niger River, I investigated the possibility of getting fresh fish. It was blisteringly hot, but if one ventured towards the river, it was as though a little cool air came from there and created a bit of relief in the adjacent plant/garden supply enterprises or the modern luxury hotels and government offices. However, the river itself was a green sludge as far as one could see and I wondered how the plants could survive being watered from this mess, let alone how fish could exist in it. Needless to say, I found not a sign of fish.

The magical village of Mopti, lies on the Niger River where the Bani River joins it. It is known as the 'Venice of Africa' and the low-lying area around the town is flooded during the rainy season, which means that it becomes a major rice-producing region. Here the river had had a chance to recover a bit and the low water table meant that it was reasonably clear in its centre although the shores were polluted by the endless clumps of people washing clothes, washing themselves, defecating or just swimming to stay cool. I had a 'guide' called Sec and we spent many a hot day in the middle of the river. It meant getting a 'pirogue' (dug-out longboat) to take us to some of the exposed islands and to then jump, clothes and all, into the fast-flowing waters to cool down. Total madness! You do not see locals doing it! Of course I ended up days later with heat-stroke, which was a good excuse to have rides on bullock carts in the sandy plateau of the nearby Dogon Country where there are no fish, just an impressive escarpment for miles with hidden wells supplying the extraordinary villages with water.

However, I had managed to get some fish from the Mopti market and local fishermen and we went to post these precious samples at the one and only Post Office. At 4.30pm, when it is advertised to close at 5.30pm, the PO was deserted. We asked around and were pointed in the direction of a man having his shoes polished in the road. He was the postmaster and he kindly returned to deal with our parcel. Much fussing later, it was 'in the post'. Sadly, this or a subsequent posting from there never reached Stirling University, where the scientists were too busy to do analysis and were waiting for a foreign (South African) scientist to come along and do some work on them. But they were happy to receive whatever I sent.

In Mopti I had decided that it was really not worth a few days' ride in the desert to go to Timbuktu just so that I could say that I had been there. I did not go to Petra in Jordan for similar reasons..how cussed can one be?! I had seen and stayed in many mud-houses and admired many mud-mosques and was not in the mood to be a tourist. Instead, I hired a whole boat to myself for four days. Well, there was Sec and the owner and his son (to bail out the water) and an assistant to cook. These boats normally do not move unless they have at least 50 passengers on board. We noisily putted down the river, although it felt like we were going up-river as we were traveling in a northerly direction after all. We ate and slept on the shore and could buy fresh fish and occasionally a live fish for dissecting from the local fishermen. Every year these people move their abodes down the shoreline as the river empties.

We entered the great Lake Debo, where the now-exposed sandbanks made for very tricky maneuvering of this large boat. But jumping into the water in all one's clothes to push it free when we got stranded was part of the fun.

Throughout my travels so far I have been in awe of the many and varied ways employed to catch the wonderful gift of fish. Here on the Niger, I could watch for hours as the large round nets are expertly thrown onto still waters; the lead weights drop down and one anxiously watches to then see the net being hauled in as a container for whatever had unsuspectingly been grazing below. The fact that there is sometimes nothing, does not make the fishermen despair. The process is just patiently repeated. However, what the local Niger fishermen do, to assist them in their timeless livelihood, is to find any bushy branches (about 2m long?) which are strategically 'planted' in a large circle in the shallow banks of the receding river. In the desert such branches are very scarce, but, once in place, the fish tend to gather there to nibble at the bark or feed on anything the river throws at this obstruction. Voila! A fish-rich area from which to catch fish. Needless to say,we had some good fresh samples to dissect.

In their make-shift hamlets I watched the women fold a small fish (about as long as my hand) sideways and then spike the tail with its very firm and sharp side fin so that it ended up in a shape like a paisley design and could be dried and sold in that way. Watch this space for that fish to appear again in Ghana! The men, when not fishing, were engaged in pouring molten lead into deep pencil-thick holes made in a container of fine sand. This was 'spiked' with a thin reed, and when cool, an oblong piece of heavy metal with a pierced centre became a fishing net weight.

In the West African countries I visited, fish is a major source of protein and because of the dwindling supplies in the world, they will have to be extensively farmed in future. This is where James and Andy and their research come in. If fish need to be managed, then there will no doubt be times when the parasites on them, will need to be controlled. Knowing about such things and being able to identify them, will, one hopes, one day save supplies. In the mean time, it is fun trying to discover new parasitic species.. Or at least that is what I think I am helping to do.

Burkina Faso is also in the desert but there is no river in Ouagadougou. I just like saying the name of its capital city where I spent many happy hours swimming in a hotel pool. Chlorine is not conductive to fish life.

In Togo, I was staying in Lome, the capital city, which is on the Atlantic Ocean. My hotel was across the road from the palm-tree fringed beach. I am not so sure about the last sentence. I try to avoid clichés, but how does one otherwise describe rows of palm trees lining the area between the road and the beach? And should I say 'sandy beach'? Does that convey more than just 'beach'? Can a beach be anything other than 'sandy'? Writing can become an exercise in semantics.One can spend some very profitable hours sitting on the beach and just observing the catching of fish as done by the locals. And when I say locals, I mean a group of about 40 men all intent on hauling in one net only. This operation is repeated all along the African coast and I never tired of watching the process. A long net of about half km. long with a depth of about 3m and with weights below, is carefully loaded on a boat and then taken out to sea from which it is slowly dropped into the water. The one end with its long rope is secured by the many men on the beach who then wait for the boat to make a large circle before it lands back on the beach about 200m further on. This process can take up to an hour. When the tail ropes are then taken over by the other half of the men, the process of hauling in this very long and bulky net starts. With rhythmic singing and chanting, the net is slowly pulled ashore. I tried to help pull and it really is very hard work! Once you are at the end of the line, you get a chance to have a breather as you walk back to the sea and rejoin the row of pullers. Does this remind you of the competitive tug-of-war done at many a local British sports-day? Except that this is not for fun and is much harder work and lasts for easily an hour. Women meanwhile carefully pull the emerging net into a line along the beach so that it does not get entangled. There are about 5 men deep into the waves who make sure that everything goes smoothly and I used to watch with awe as they disappeared into the foaming mass and never seemed to want to re-emerge. But then, suddenly, far from where I last saw them, a black dot would appear and I could then mark the progress of the net.The two rows of straining men on the beach would slowly start to get closer to each other. This would be the sign for the women who sell water and snacks and the women who would buy and sort out the fish to start appearing.When the catch is finally exposed on the beach, much activity and seemingless complete disorder erupts. But they know what they are doing and the fish are soon sorted and sold. I have seen with dismay how such a very complicated and person-involved operation has resulted in just a small pile of wriggling, panting fish. How can those people possibly take home enough profit for the day?

My seemingly mad request for different species, which I buy and then promptly return minus gill and fin, usually creates a large crowd of intense viewers. Everybody wants to make sure that I have a clean surface, that the fish is firmly held down for killing and that the bottle of laboratory liquid is upright and open for receiving the sample. They are impressed.

In Lome I also went to the fish market near the vast container port which imports mainly second-hand cars from Europe and sells them to most of the Western Sahara countries. But the authorities would not allow me to 'buy' the deep-sea fish I longingly looked at. One has to have a licence.

In Lome's polluted inner-city lakes, there are a few places where fishermen actually catch small fish. I suspect these are covered in parasites, but will probably never know whether my sample did have anything to show.

However, up in the western mountains of Togo I became excited about getting some fresh-water fish. I had seen some and knew they were there; caught in smallish ponds near irrigated fields. My ever-patient 'guides' were happy to try and catch them for me. I had strained my back and was taking it easy. The boys set off with a net as it was becoming dusk. I doubt that it was a butterfly net although this is the area where the demands of tourists mean that the lovely butterflies, for which the area is famous, is systematically being denuded of them. Talk about killing the goose that lays the golden egg!Dark hours later, wet and tired, they returned without a catch. I'm afraid fish are wilier than they thought! But the gesture was greatly appreciated.

In Accra, the capital of Ghana, the local sea-harbour where the fishing boats come in proved a successful but sparse 'catch'. Its bustle and many shabby shacks covering whatever free space was available away from the piles of boats reflected the fact that this harbour was probably in existence during the 19th century when slaves were a major export and they were probably fed on fish, which was far more abundant in those days. I never returned to the harbour with its very popular backwater of small houses now renovated and lived in by artists, although I stayed in Ghana for many weeks.This gave the scientists a chance to replenish my scientific research supplies. Sounds so impressive! All it means is that I had decided not to take all the stuff they had originally given me, in my rucsac. Ingrid was left with extra supplies, but it was easier to just SOS James and the department would send a nice parcel via DHL. I moved hotels to be nearer the main DHL operations dept. Actually my excuse was that it was safer, closer to busses going north and easier to access the large internet café nearby. DHL informed me via my email that the parcel had arrived and I went with my passport, showed the latter to them and was instantly given the over 3kilo package. No sweat!

Months later in Addis Ababa, whilst I type this, I am still waiting for a simple parcel of a dissecting kit (value one pound/2$) to be released from Ethiopian Customs. Over two weeks later and the masses of paperwork has still to be dealt with. The Ethiopians like their paperwork and to send one from desk to desk to office to office. Kafka must have lived here at some time..

Travel in Ghana is easy and one just waits for a bus to fill up. Food is constantly available through enthusiastic vendors who come up to one wherever one happens to be; especially to ply their trade through the windows of the bus.

I preferred the calm of a long and quiet ferry ride through the man-made lake of the Volta River. We traveled for two days from the south to the north. Gratefully, even on the ferry one was being sold drinks and eats by travelers. Sometimes the ferry would stop at remote landing places and we would take the opportunity to have a walk on firm ground. I remember once reducing a small boy to tears as I approached with a smile. He was terrified. And then I realized that I was wearing dark glasses. After removing them, I was 'human' once again despite the white skin and he could follow us to a place where someone had caught some fish, one of which was still flapping its tail! Lake Volta might have some interesting parasites.

A few weeks later I was at the mouth of the Volta River. The estuary is flat and vast and I took a few taxis from the village where I was staying, to go past endless market gardens and swamps (as they call it) of rice. I eventually reached Keta where there is an old Portuguese slave fort, now badly in need of repair. It had been extensively damaged a few years ago when the whole area had suffered from unusually high seas, with many buildings in town completely destroyed. Although the optimistic guide was sure that he was showing me a wonderful relic, it was sad to know that hardly any tourists visit it. According to the register, I was the first person for over two months to sign the book. The Germans can always be relied on to be intrepid travelers. On the other hand, the off-shore fishing which I described in Lome, and which was no doubt used at the time of the slave transport, was in its closing stages. The catch was not large but my audience, as I now expertly cut the spinal chords of the fish, was enormous. A lone woman in this remote area was something to talk about. Especially when she appears with implements to die for and then returns the fish she has bought!

One morning early, having just arrived in the town of Kpong, I was looking for an elusive cup of Nescafe (the word 'coffee' is unknown) when a very kind woman took me into her room which she shared with her husband and 2-yr old daughter. She gave me hot water for a cup of tea. I became friendly and spent many happy days with the family, sleeping on the cement balcony next door. On the Sunday, after their Kingdom Hall meeting, we went to the nearby man-made Lake (supplies electricity to Accra) to have a pleasant boat ride and also establish the activities of the fish market. One could see the boats from afar as they negotiated the submerged trees where the whole village had once been. Apart from the usual Telapia, I managed to obtain one of those little fish with the deadly spikes which are dried after being spiked with their own fin. People say 'be careful', 'watch out', 'take care', and so on, but do we ever really listen? Think of how many times one has to say something similar to a child before the message is absorbed. Anyway, you can guess the rest. That deadly spike on top of the fish neatly penetrated the tip of my right index finger along the line of my nail. The poison made it swell and the pain was relieved by me dipping the finger into boiling hot water. A wonderful remedy! Don't worry, the fish was killed and a sample obtained.

These kind friends had brought me to the village on the shores of the Volta near its entrance into the sea. The father-in-law and his neighbour were negotiating for a piece of riverside where they were to develop a fish-farm. The total reliance in many parts of Africa on the Tilapia fish, demonstrates the need for the protein and food value of this very common fish. However, stocks are dwindling fast and it makes sense to start farming them in a scientific way. Hence the burgeoning fish-farming industry along the Volta river. Guess which scientists who have spent their waking hours working with farmed fish will be happy!

The most intriguing of all the fish-catching methods I have come across, was here. Very early one morning, before sunrise, I accompanied the two men in a small boat to the sides of the slow-flowing river with its muddy bottom about 4m below. The boat-owner, a thin but sinewy 55yr old, stripped to his underpants and, at a certain spot, stopped rowing the boat and dropped anchor. He carefully positioned himself according to trees and other visible markers only he knew (preventing poaching was his main concern) and dropped into the water. After a long wait in which I thought he would never survive on only a lung-full of air, he emerged. He handed an old metal pipe, about 10-20mm in diameter which was crudely closed at one end, to his waiting companion. The latter let the water in this badly closed end run out, turned the other end into the boat and, amazingly, out dropped some fish! I was delighted. Fish cannot swim backwards, so once they had inquisitively enteredthe pipe lying in the mud, they were trapped. Our hero kept diving and retrieving many of his pipes. Some were 'lost' though and he suspected poachers. Others had not been found on his previous trip a few days ago and the fish inside had begun to rot. As always, I admire the ingenuity of whoever devised this form of fishing!

With Ghana a dream past, I flew to Sierra Leone.

Evy was working for an Environmental concern and it was a great delight to be living in their quarters where I could enjoy the banalities of making my own bed and helping with the cooking and washing up. The buildings are across the road from the sea! Endless beaches (OK sandy beaches with areas where vast amounts had been excavated for the building trade and which had left denuded areas of undermined buildings as a result) and 5 dogs to take for walks. Also the ever-fascinating scene of the orchestrated fishing activity I had been observing so often. With incredibly bad roads (well, if one is to spend all one's money on corruption and a civil war, there is nothing left for road-improvements) to negotiate, I was not in a mood to explore a country which was not very developed anyway and did not have a visible historical infrastructure like castles or museums outside Freetown. So I had a lovely time just being spoilt and deciding that the rainy season in West Africa is not the best time to explore. Anyway, as most people/authorities were constantly full of stories of border delays and bribes, I did not wish to just add to that in my attempt to travel down the west coast of Africa.

An air ticket to the eastern side of Africa from Freetown in Sierra Leone involves an overnight stop in Lagos. I had always said that I shall not visit Nigeria with its high and dangerous crime rate. Anyway, there is a lot of shooting going on in the Delta area and why waste time exposing myself to it? Coward!! Overnight, before buying the ticket, I decided to be more humble and give the Nigerians a chance. So I booked a ticket to Ethiopia, but with a one week stay in Lagos.

My humble apologies to the Nigerians. I had a fabulous week in Lagos and obtained some interesting fish samples. Some were via a cycle-taxi (the traffic is so dense that these cycles with truncated handlebars to negotiate the small spaces between cars is the only way to travel) and we went to various sites on the shores of the islands where tourists certainly never go and the initially suspicious fishing populations became very friendly. However, I would not venture there without a local to guide me! At one site a boy went wading in the polluted waters and threw his smallish round net repeatedly until he had caught two small fish for me.Another sample was obtained in the putrid town-scape of the slums and village on stilts of Lagos. We had spent a day exploring with people who could guide us and had authority, so I was delighted when someone produced a live fish. This was caught in the cleaner waters far from the stilt village as nothing could possibly live in these waters which are used as waste-bins and latrines for the thousands of water-born inhabitants. My West African sample of gills and fins was complete.

At some stage I had the most extraordinary letter from the Scientists' quarters. Their intern (?) from South Africa had had a chance to look at the stuff worth looking at and came up with a foreign language analysis as far as my limited understanding of Latin and scientific words is concerned. But it seems there were a few new ones.

Now for Ethiopia and the eastern side of Africa.

In a high, land-locked country like Ethiopia, one does not expect much fish. For certain tribes it is taboo to even think of eating fish and for the majority of Ethiopians, it is eaten only rarely if ever. However, one tries to find something to get the scientists interested.I only spent a little time on the southern shore of Lake Tana where the Blue Nile has its source, but it was possible to get some fish from the local fisherman. He was very suspicious, despite the fact that I paid full price and then returned the large, still-alive fish because I had only removed a small bit of gill. His argument was that he could not sell it like that... Logic is not a strong subject in Ethiopia.

In the west of the country, is a large river, the Baro. It is the only navigable river in Ethiopia, but since the problems with the Sudanese and the great cross-border movement of refugees for over 20 years, all commercial traffic on the river has been suspended. Fishing is not a major occupation here although one does see a few fish for sale in the local markets. Only one live fish was seen the day we were searching, but that is better than nothing.

On the way to the Baro, our bus had to be accompanied by armed guards along a road for about 2 hours. At the police check-point by a bridge, we waited for enough vehicles to make up a convoy. All Government installations in Ethiopia are strictly off-limits to photographers. Even taking photos from afar of a scenic view with a bridge in the distance, is considered punishable. So anything remotely like a photo of a bridge from nearby is certainly not allowed. The soldiers were intrigued to have a female feranji off the bus. It gave a lift to the tedium of eating and sleeping under military tents, washing clothes and themselves in the river below and generally spending much time polishing their AK47s. No bandits had been seen or heard of for many months if not years. One of the soldiers had a camera with a new film in it!! What joy! All the soldiers wanted to be photographed with the feranji. A brisk trade in 'who is next?' to pose with me ensured. And of course,we were standing on the bridge and it was a great background.

While we waited for vehicles to join us, I climbed down the slope to the river to cool down. With bare feet in the water it was heaven! Suddenly I was aware of a strange tickling sensation and looked down to see many small fish nibbling at my feet. Shoals of little fish were milling around and it was no problem to find a disused plastic bag, lower it near my feet and slowly push my foot plus fish into it. I am no expert fish-catcher, but this was easy! After a few attempts a fish was secured. Back on the road to do the killing and dissecting, I asked the locals and soldiers for the name of the fish. They are not interested in eating fish and just could not bother to give such small vermin a name. So from now onwards, it is known as Hilda's Toe Sucker.

Trying to post the samples to the scientists was a new experience. Because of the total ban on liquids through the post, the Customs Dept. at the Post Office would not consider it. A few days later, I had to post some other parcels and happily showed another assistant behind a different desk the contents of the other parcels. She said I could seal them and then slipped the parcel with samples through at the same time. One can become devious when desperate! Amazingly, the parcel got through!

When Ingrid, Peter and Cathy were here during December/January 2006/7, we did a lot of traveling thorough magnificent countryside in the north of Ethiopia, but never stopped anywhere remotely near water with fish until the last day when we were relaxing by a crater lake. The African Rift Valley can produce some startling and unique environments. And where there once were active craters spewing lava, today they are filled with lakes and dense bush surrounding the steep sides. What intrigued me was the fact that there is no outlet, so that only rainwater determines the level and quality of water. The locals collect water and swim and wash clothes in it. But there were a few boats about and we were told that there were fish to be caught. How can a fish survive in such an oxygen-starved environment? We followed a rough, very indistinct path through thorny scrub and came upon some fishermen who had a live fish!! I determined to go back and get money and dissecting equipment from the vehicle and the others decided to see if they could go all the way around the lake.

Being greedy after a long spell of not having had any fish to kill, I dissected three, even though they were all Tilapia. At least I would have some samples to give them to take back to the UK without Customs problems. With the deed done, I was climbing up the slope to get to the path when three youths accosted me with a large bunch of Tilapia they had caught that morning. I tried to explain that I had already obtained what I needed, but the lure of a mysterious cloth parcel and a plastic bag of something else (phials of laboratory alcohol) was too much of a temptation. They must have prearranged it, because I was suddenly hurled upon the ground and, despite loud screams (someone tried to stop my excruciating howling but to no avail) they dashed off with all my arms' contents. The indignity of being mugged was worse than the few scratches and I was more upset at loosing the three samples than anything else. Nothing one could do about it. Later, when the others returned after getting equally scratched by the non-existent thorny path around the lake, we found another fisherman with a live fish. The photo shows me doing the deed without the impressively proper dissecting implements. One can always compromise.

This wonderful 'fish parasite' adventure will continue.Thanks to James and Andy!!

(Much later, I was sent an impressive PhD thesis by one of their students. All based on my samples. Very satisfying... But the most impressive to me was the fact that Hilda's Toe Sucker produced many parasites; Fame at last!)