NWU researcher warns of pollution threat to Vaal River aquatic life

North-West University researcher, Professor Wynand Malherbe, has flagged the surging  Vaal River pollution as a critical threat to the region’s aquatic biodiversity.
Malherbe has been studying the ecological health of the river in the Vredefort Dome area.
He says that although animals are still surviving at the river, the abundance of invertebrates and fish has decreased.
He says an urgent action is needed to address this pollution before the ecosystem collapses.
“There’s a lot of man-made and anthropogenic effluent that enters the river, which is one of the main causes, I feel, of this decrease in biodiversity and decrease in abundances of fish. I have to say, we still find big fish. If you go fishing, there’s still a lot of bigger fish, and there’s still recruitment, a lot of juveniles in the system, but there’s definitely cause for concern and something that we can’t let it completely collapse before we pay attention to it.”
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