Clearing bass opened eight more kilometres of river for a tiny endangered fish

A critically endangered fish the length of a finger has more of the Breekkrans River than it did three years ago. Mongabay reported on October 28, 2026, that the Breekkrans River Restoration Project has been removing invasive spotted bass from the upper river each southern summer since 2023. Jeremy Shelton, of the Freshwater Research Centre, said the work, with nets and other fishing gear plus a downstream barrier, extended the doring fiery redfin's habitat from about 2 kilometres to about 10.

Before the bass were cleared, the redfin were stuck in a bass-free stretch of about 2 kilometres. Shelton said the Breekkrans holds the largest remaining population, probably a few hundred adults, and that another river still has the species only in very low numbers. Martine Jordaan, a faunal ecologist at CapeNature, said spotted bass were put into the system in the late 1930s for angling and stopped only at barriers such as waterfalls. She said every native fish in the treated stretch increased its range once that predator was taken out.

The project is a partnership of the Freshwater Research Centre, CapeNature, and the Fynbos Fish Trust. The gain is those 8 kilometres and the ranges Jordaan described. It is not a claim that bass are gone from every Western Cape river.