Page 41 - World Aquaculture Magazine - March 2011

World Aquaculture 39
Trout farming In South Africa
Henk B. Stander,1 Khalid S alie1 and Danie B rink1
The trout sector has, to a large extent, pioneered aquacul-
ture development in South Africa. Trout were first brought
to South Africa in 1875 by A.R. Campbell Johnson who car-
ried a consignment of ova with him on a mail ship (Crass
1986). However, all the eggs were dead on arrival. Several
additional unsuccessful attempts to establish populations by
various individuals followed before John Clarke Parker, of
Natal, became involved in 1882. Parker’s determination was
fueled by his joy for fly fishing and, after a few attempts,
Parker succeeded on 10 March 1890 when the first trout
were hatched at Boschfontein. Within two weeks, more than
2,000 fry were beginning to feed.
At roughly the same time, in 1890, the Cape govern-
ment agreed to provide funds for trout importation and ac-
climatization. This led to the arrival of South Africa’s first
full-time hatchery supervisor Ernest Latour, a Frenchman,
who brought with him 60,000 ova from Guildford, Surrey.
Hatching was conducted at an old brewery building in New-
lands, Cape Town owned by Anders Ohlsson, a member of
the local Fisheries Committee. Latour seems to have been a
somewhat pig-headed man. Things were not to the French-
man’s liking at Mr. Ohlsson’s brewery, so he took the eggs
and dumped them in the Eerste River near Stellenbosch,
where it seems certain they all perished in the heat of the
Cape summer.
Owing to space limitations at the Newlands site, the gov-
ernment leased part of the farm known as “Jonkers Hoek”
in the valley of the Eerste River, 8 km from Stellenbosch,
to construct a trout hatchery toward the end of 1893. The
Cape government was now committed to trout acclimatiza-
tion and spent US$11,349 for that purpose over the next five
to six years. They employed John L. Scott from the Solway
Fisheries, Dumfries, to carry on Latour’s work. Scott built
the first permanent building at Jonkershoek Hatchery in
1894, a substantial masonry structure, which is to this day
utilized for hatching trout ova. In June 1895 at this facility,
Scott strip-spawned the first government supported South
African brown trout ova from imported fish held in ponds at
Jonkershoek. The first successful spawning of rainbow trout
occurred on 1 July 1899, two years after the eggs were im-
ported from Britain where the American species had been
bred in hatcheries for some years.
The Division of Aquaculture at Stellenbosch University
has been involved with the Jonkershoek Hatchery since 1986
and took possession and operational control of the hatchery
from the Cape government in 1989. Since that time, the Uni-
versity has maintained broodstock at the historic location as
part of a genetic selection program to improve the growth
rate and select for trout that will be more accustomed to the
local conditions. Currently, Stellenbosch University uses the
facility to maintain populations for genetic selection studies
and to conduct applied research on flesh pigmentation and
feeding efficiency.2
Current Status of Trout Production in South Africa
Although trout were introduced into South Africa for
sport fishery purposes in the 1890s as previously described,
commercial production only started in the 1960s. Produc-
tion has been fairly stable over the past decade, increasing
from about 1,000 t to 1,750 t/yr. Production amounted to
Trout Farmers busy with size grading of juvenile trout. (Picture
by Henk Stander).
Fig. 1. Trout market price history graph from 2001 to 2009.
(Henk Stander).