Michel Keijman reports on a stunning African cichlid that’s a perfect aquarium fish but facing a perilous future.
HOW OFTEN DO we read and hear about humanity destroying nature? When such anthropic damage occurs, not only forests disappear, but also the rivers that flow through them, along with all of the fish they sustain. This article is about one such fish that, if nothing is done about its turmoil, could find itself extinct in the near future.
Limbochromis robertsi has an extremely limited distribution, occurring perhaps in only two locations in Ghana. In the westernmost part of the country, in some small streams in the Ankasa National Park where the fish was once known to roam, recent studies have failed to show that it still exists there at all.
The second scattering area is near the town of Kyebi (also called Kibi and located between the Atewa Range Forest Reserve and Apedwa Forest Reserve, beside the Kwahu Plateau), where they were found in three small rivers (the Black, White, and Red Krensen rivers). The situation over there has not improved either. Both locations belong to the Birim River system, a tributary of the Pra River.
A fish in jeopardy
At Kyebi, the situation for Limbochromis is alarming. If illegal gold mining operations aren’t not stopped soon, the ever-shrinking population there will die in the foreseeable future. The gold miners have been moving further and further north, following the catchment area of the Black Krensen. This is because they need water to wash the earth that contains the precious minerals they are looking for, but this polluted water is eventually discharged back into the river, which is home to fish species that have evolved to, and depend on, crystal-clear conditions.
Limbochromis robertsi lives now in the Black Krensen, specifically in the upper reaches of what was once a beautiful jungle stream. In addition to enduring contaminated water, banks that were once completely overgrown with riparian forest have almost completely disappeared due to deforestation and agricultural activities. Limbochromis robertsi originally occurred at different altitude levels of the Black Krensen, but can no longer be found in areas
below an elevation of 320m. To compound matters, there have been further threats in the emergence of predatory and competing species that have penetrated to this height.
As a result, the habitat has become a lot smaller. it was already limited, because the spe
