Sitting in a meeting with the teams from the Fresh Water Research Centre and the Endangered Wildlife Trust, the last thing I thought I would be asked was “do you think you can document us doing a fish relocation project”? Well lions, buffalo, elephant, wild dog even penguin these we have all been involved with, but fish have never crossed my mind. A few weeks later we found ourselves in the middle on no where following the banks of one of the last truly wild rivers in Southern Africa, in search of a few hundred fish to relocate. 

To be honest, we had to see it to believe it, herding fish along rivers and tributaries, as if we were an R22 helicopter performing aerial acrobatics with kudu or gemsbok during a mass capture operation in the Kalahari. It was spectacular to see a group of conservationists herding fish downstream into capture nets to save their species. 

Once captured the teams move the fish from the alien infested lower reaches of the river into containers and on to the back of off road vehicles which set off towards the upper reaches of the river or its source. This region of the river was specifically chosen for its ecological integrity, as well as the presence of bass barriers, ensuring invasive fish are unable to reach the vulnarable species by swimming up stream. 

It was discovered that bass (invasive fish) were unable to swim up stream over water falls or cascades higher than 1 meter, thus earning them the name “Bass Barriers”. So when once we had found a prestine ecological area to release the indigenous fish, far above the “bass barriers” each fish was checked by hand so as to ensure we were not accidently releasing invasive fish into this safe haven we had created for these species. 

We find it important to remember that conservation is people-based, without the efforts of people from around the globe we would not have wild places, flowing streams, vibrant oceans, or efforts to rewild areas for future generations. So with this in mind, we asked the team what water meant to them.