In South Africa’s Doring River the Clanwilliam sandfish (Labeo seeberi) was once a widespread detrivore that migrated between the mainstem of the Doring River to its spawning grounds in the river’s tributaries. It is now known as South Africa’s most endangered migratory freshwater fish. 

The dwindling of their numbers began in the 1980s when impassible dams drove the Clanwilliam sandfish from the Olifants River. Since then, their long journeys, though impressive in distance, have left them vulnerable to fragmentation, declining flows, and predation by non-native fish.  

PhD candidate Cecilia Cerrilla has taken up the reigns of this project at the Freshwater Research Centre carrying on the incredible work of Dr Jeremy Shelton to keep a close eye on the declining population. The Team has worked closely with MBZ to lay the foundations and what began with a grant to identify sandfish conservation needs and has now flourished into a large-scale rewilding and monitoring project.  

Though unusually low rainfall plagued the region, the team’s project was successful, achieving their largest single-year release with 3,000 fish, and recapture efforts retrieved an individual released in 2021/2022 proving the captive bred fish can thrive and reproduce in the wild. Furthermore, the drought revealed important information to the team about the Fishes’ drought behavior as they were revealed to potentially favour the larger Tra-Tra rather than the original Biedouw Rive.  

Cecilia Cerrilla and her team plan to follow schools and return to the Tra-Tra next year with a new generation of Clanwilliam sandfish. 2025 has brought two sets of fresh faces to the Doring River, a new guard for the species old legacy and perhaps also the start of a new one.