If you leaf through the advertising pamphlets in your local community newspaper, you’ll notice something telling. Only one supermarket might have snoek at R100 — and they’re small. Most are pushing R130 and beyond. What was once the “fish of the poor” is quietly becoming a luxury item.
Go down to Kalk Bay Harbour and you won’t see the familiar sight of snoek boats unloading their silver catch. There has been no real snoek season in False Bay. The action has shifted northwards, up the West Coast — and even there it is stop-start, with no heavy runs to speak of.
For many in Cape Town, snoek is not just another fish. It is tradition. It is protein. It is Easter pickled fish. And increasingly, it is out of reach.
Snoek (Thyrsites atun) has long been one of the most affordable sources of animal protein in the Western Cape. It fed working-class families for generations. Today, a single fish can cost as much as — or more than — a decent cut of meat.
As Easter approaches, many households worry whether they will be able to prepare pickled fish at all. Yellowtail is often used as an alternative, but catches of wild yellowtail have also been meagre. Farmed yellowtail is available in supermarkets, and while perfectly suitable for pickling, it does not carry the same wild, freshly caught heritage that many Capetonians cherish.
So what lies behind the decline?
1. Climate change and a shifting ocean
Snoek are a cool-water species, closely tied to the rhythms of the Benguela Current system.
Two major changes are at play:
• Rising sea temperatures are pushing snoek further offshore or into deeper, cooler waters. This makes them harder to access for traditional handline fishers who operate smaller vessels closer to shore.
• Disrupted upwelling cycles — driven by changing wind patterns — reduce the nutrient-rich cold water that feeds sardines and anchovies, the primary prey of snoek. Fewer baitfish means fewer snoek.
When the food web shifts, the predator shifts with it.
2. Genetic vulnerability
New research from Stellenbosch University suggests that snoek are not one large, well-mixed population as previously assumed.
Scientists have identified distinct genetic sub-stocks that do not freely interbreed. There is also evidence of a genetic bottleneck — reduced genetic diversity — which weakens the species’ ability to adapt to environmental stress.
In practical terms, if a local sub-stock near Cape Town is overfished, it may not simply be replenished by snoek from further north. Recovery becomes slower and more fragile.
3. Industrial by-catch
While small-scale fishers often carry the regulatory burden, a significant number of snoek are caught unintentionally by industrial hake trawlers.
Bottom trawling can:
• Damage marine habitats.
• Sweep up large numbers of non-target species, including snoek.
• Result in high mortality even when fish are discarded.
By-catch mortality is largely invisible to the public, but it has cumulative effects on already stressed stocks.
4. Policy and boat allocations
Recent decisions by the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) have reduced the number of permitted boats in some small-scale fishing cooperatives.
In certain West Coast towns, permitted vessels have reportedly been cut nearly in half. This creates a paradox: even when fish are present, there may not be enough legal boats to catch them.
The result is ongoing tension between large commercial operators and traditional small-scale fishers who historically supplied affordable snoek to local communities.
5. Habitat degradation
Pollution, coastal development, and pressure on kelp forests and inshore reefs have further degraded the ecosystems where snoek hunt.
There is also what marine scientists call “shifting baseline syndrome”: each generation accepts lower stock levels as normal because they never witnessed the abundance of decades past. What once would have been called a crisis slowly becomes business as usual.
What it means this Easter
Reports suggest that in some areas, individual snoek have reached prices of R300 to R350 this season. Some retailers are even importing the same species — known as barracouta — from New Zealand to meet Easter demand. It may look similar in the display fridge, but it is not a fish landed at dawn in Kalk Bay.
The West Coast picture: cautious hope
While the south has been quiet, the West Coast has shown patches of activity.
• Lamberts Bay has had some movement, though not a full “heavy run”.
• Velddrif / Laaiplek catches have been sporadic.
• Hondeklipbaai remains slow.
• Yzerfontein has seen quiet conditions with occasional landings.
In short, there are fish — but not in the numbers older fishers remember.
The tragedy is not only ecological. It is cultural and economic. Snoek is woven into the identity of the Western Cape. When it disappears from the harbour, it disappears from the table. And when the “fish of the poor” becomes unaffordable, something deeper than a market price has shifted.
The question is no longer whether snoek stocks are dwindling. The question is whether decisive action — on climate resilience, by-catch management, habitat protection, and fair allocation — will come in time to prevent this slow erosion from becoming permanent.
