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The Tanganyika sardine is known as kapenta or matemba in
This fish is caught at night using kapenta rigs; these rigs use LED lights or
''IRIN Africa''. In order to maintain the kapenta population certain countries have made it illegal to fish for kapenta in shallow water (less than 20 metres), as the kapenta breed in this shallow water, and have introduced licences to control and monitor fishing.
Kapenta is usually dried in the sun on a clean surface such as concrete slabs, rocks or netting. Drying on racks gives the best results. Drying takes one day or more, depending on the weather. Unfortunately, the kapenta season coincides with the rainy season when the fish congregates, and sundrying may not always be possible, causing post-harvest losses. These losses are mostly economical as lower-quality dried fish fetches a lower price. In the worst case the dried fish is used as chicken feed. Salting before drying is a solution: kapenta is salted at a ratio normally of 2.5 kg per 30 kg (1 lb per 12 lb) of fish, and dried in the hot Zambezi Valley sun. It is a highly important staple, providing refrigeration-free protein to people of Africa. A cup of dried kapenta will feed a family. Dried kapenta is preferred to the slightly bitter dried
Zambia
Zambia (), officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central, Southern and East Africa, although it is typically referred to as being in Southern Africa at its most central point. Its neighbours are t ...
, Malawi
Malawi (; or aláwi Tumbuka: ''Malaŵi''), officially the Republic of Malawi, is a landlocked country in Southeastern Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the west, Tanzania to the north and northeas ...
and Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and ...
(a related but different fish known as dagaa or ndaga is ''Rastrineobola argentea''). Kapenta is two species ( Lake Tanganyika sardine, ''Limnothrissa miodon'' and Lake Tanganyika sprat, ''Stolothrissa tanganicae''), both of which are small, planktivorous, pelagic
The pelagic zone consists of the water column of the open ocean, and can be further divided into regions by depth (as illustrated on the right). The word ''pelagic'' is derived . The pelagic zone can be thought of as an imaginary cylinder or w ...
, freshwater clupeid
Clupeidae is a family of ray-finned fishes, comprising, for instance, the herrings, shads, sardines, hilsa, and menhadens. The clupeoids include many of the most important food fishes in the world, and are also commonly caught for production of ...
originating from Lake Tanganyika in Zambia. They form the major biomass of pelagic fish in Lake Tanganyika and Lake Malawi
Lake Malawi, also known as Lake Nyasa in Tanzania and Lago Niassa in Mozambique, is an African Great Lake and the southernmost lake in the East African Rift system, located between Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania.
It is the fifth largest fr ...
, swimming in large schools in the open lake, feeding on copepods and potentially jellyfish. Their major predators are four species of ''Lates
''Lates'' is a genus of freshwater and euryhaline lates perches belonging to the family Latidae. The generic name is also used as a common name, lates, for many of the species.
All species are predatory, and the Nile perch (''L. niloticus''), in ...
'' which are also endemic to Lake Tanganyika, and are related to (but not the same as) the Nile perch
The Nile perch (''Lates niloticus''), also known as the African snook, Goliath perch, African barramundi , Goliath barramundi, Giant lates or the Victoria perch, is a species of freshwater fish in family Latidae of order Perciformes. It is wi ...
in Lake Victoria. All of these pelagic fish have suffered from overfishing in the last two decades.
''Limnothrissa miodon'' has been successfully introduced in both natural and artificial African lakes. Large kapenta fisheries now take place in the Lake Kariba
Lake Kariba is the world's largest artificial lake and reservoir by volume. It lies upstream from the Indian Ocean, along the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe. Lake Kariba was filled between 1958 and 1963 following the completion of the Karib ...
(Zambia/Zimbabwe) and Cahora Bassa
The Cahora Bassa lake—in the Portuguese colonial era (until 1974) known as Cabora Bassa, from
Nyungwe ''Kahoura-Bassa'', meaning "finish the job"—is Africa's fourth-largest artificial lake, situated in the Tete Province in Mozambique. In Afr ...
(Mozambique
Mozambique (), officially the Republic of Mozambique ( pt, Moçambique or , ; ny, Mozambiki; sw, Msumbiji; ts, Muzambhiki), is a country located in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi ...
).
''Limnothrissa miodon'' is usually around 10 cm long, its maximum length is 17 cm. ''Stolothrissa tanganicae'' is smaller at 7 cm (maximum 10 cm).
Fishing
This fish is caught at night using kapenta rigs; these rigs use LED lights or kerosene lamps
A kerosene lamp (also known as a paraffin lamp in some countries) is a type of lighting device that uses kerosene as a fuel. Kerosene lamps have a wick or mantle as light source, protected by a glass chimney or globe; lamps may be used on a t ...
to attract the fish to the rig. A dip net
A hand net, also called a scoop net, is a fishing net or meshed basket held open on a rigid hoop, which may or may not be mounted to the end of a handle. A hand net with a long handle is often called a dip net. When it is used by an angler to ...
measuring roughly six metres in diameter and around 8 to 10 metres in length is then used to bring the fish up from anything from 40 metres (130 ft).
Sustainability
In recent years there has been a steady decline in the kapenta population."ZAMBIA: Lake Tanganyika fishing industry adrift"''IRIN Africa''. In order to maintain the kapenta population certain countries have made it illegal to fish for kapenta in shallow water (less than 20 metres), as the kapenta breed in this shallow water, and have introduced licences to control and monitor fishing.
Food
Kapenta is usually dried in the sun on a clean surface such as concrete slabs, rocks or netting. Drying on racks gives the best results. Drying takes one day or more, depending on the weather. Unfortunately, the kapenta season coincides with the rainy season when the fish congregates, and sundrying may not always be possible, causing post-harvest losses. These losses are mostly economical as lower-quality dried fish fetches a lower price. In the worst case the dried fish is used as chicken feed. Salting before drying is a solution: kapenta is salted at a ratio normally of 2.5 kg per 30 kg (1 lb per 12 lb) of fish, and dried in the hot Zambezi Valley sun. It is a highly important staple, providing refrigeration-free protein to people of Africa. A cup of dried kapenta will feed a family. Dried kapenta is preferred to the slightly bitter dried dagaa
The silver cyprinid (''Rastrineobola argentea'') also known as the Lake Victoria sardine, mukene,and omena (native language), dagaa (swahili language) is a species of pelagic, freshwater ray-finned fish in the carp family, Cyprinidae from East Af ...
from Lake Victoria, but poor people will buy dagaa because of its lower price.
In Zimbabwe, dried kapenta fish are shallow-fried with onions, tomatoes and groundnut powder. They are eaten with the traditional staple cornmeal dish called isitshwala or sadza.
Fresh kapenta is also packed in plastic pouches and frozen. Frozen kapenta is popular but more expensive than dried kapenta. Fresh kapenta is not sold in markets, except in fishing villages.
In the 1960s and 1970s, some fishery development projects experimented with smoke-dried kapenta, salted or not, but this never caught on.
Marinated kapenta can be made from kapenta fillets put in vinegar with salt and kept in a refrigerator. After two or three days the vinegar is discarded and the fish is quickly rinsed with clean water. Then the fillets are put in a mix of olive oil, vinegar, sugar, garlic, chili peppers, and much parsley or celery. After another two or three days in the fridge, the marinated fillets are ready to eat.
It is an important bait fish
300px, Feeder Goldfish are common baitfish.
Bait fish (or baitfish) are small-sized fish caught and used by anglers as bait to attract larger predatory fish, particularly game fish. Baitfish species are typically those that are common and bree ...
for the African tigerfish (family Alestidae
African tetras (family Alestidae, formerly spelled Alestiidae) are a group of characiform fish exclusively found in Africa. This family contains about 18 genera and 119 species. Among the best known members are the Congo tetra, and African tige ...
) and, although introduced in Kariba and Cahora Bassa, does not seem to have harmed the environment.
It is an important contributor to the economies of the areas it is caught in.{{cite web, last=Madamombe, first=Loveness, title=The economic development of the kapenta fishery lake Kariba (Zimbabwe/Zambia), url=http://munin.uit.no/bitstream/handle/10037/336/thesis.pdf?sequence=1, publisher=Norwegian College of Fishery Science, University of Tromsø, accessdate=22 May 2012
References