The Fishy Smiths

by Mike Bruton

  Margaret Smith with a lizard in Mozambique in the 1940s. She loved exotic animals.

  Back in Grahamstown after the 1956 expedition to the Seychelles, Margaret set about illustrating their vast collections of fishes, many of them new to science. She co-authored a book on the Fishes of the Seychelles with JLB, producing a phenomenal 938 illustrations, of which 344 were in full colour. Many of these excellent illustrations were used in later editions of Sea Fishes. Margaret also co-authored and produced 233 new colour paintings for Fishes of the Tsitsikamma Coastal National Park (Smith & Smith, 1966), as well as figures for JLB Smith’s articles on fishes in the 1960s in the Standard Encyclopaedia of South Africa, Animal Life in South Africa (edited by Sydney Skaife) and the Afrikaanse Woordeboek. One of her first major solo works was the description and illustration of the common marine fishes of South Africa for the Ensiklopedie van die Wêreld (MM Smith, 1975).

  The Smiths’ commitment to their science, as evidenced by their tireless exploration of the East African coastline, enduring months of almost intolerable living conditions and often putting their lives at risk, resulted in a rich haul of material that would enhance fish collections in South Africa and become the basis for a range of future publications.

  1Weinberg (1999) incorrectly states that Margaret first learned to scuba dive in Hawai’i at the age of 60.

  CHAPTER 14

  Bombing and poisoning fishes

  Effective but controversial short cuts

  EARLY IN his collecting career, JLB Smith decided that the most effective way of collecting fish was to bomb them. Though he could swim, he never learned to snorkel or scuba dive, unlike Margaret and William, but contented himself with gazing at underwater life through glass-bottomed buckets while he ‘blasted’ the reefs.

  ‘Having selected an area I would go off with explosives in a small boat and examine the bottom through a glass-bottomed bucket. … there is nothing more wonderful and exciting as treasure after treasure comes aboard, some quite new to African seas, many new to science. … But we got results, wonderful results, thanks to explosives, thanks to Messrs. African Explosives and Chemical Industries, who have kindly provided this means, covering our work for many years’ (Smith, 1958a).

  JLB Smith preparing explosives for bombing fishes on an expedition to Xai-Xai in Mozambique in 1946.

  In a 1953 popular article on their fish collections at Pemba Island, north of Zanzibar off the coast of Tanzania, he writes:

  ‘We made a rapid survey up and down this channel. Through a glass-bottomed bucket, the steeply sloping coral-clad banks clearly showed teeming fish-life, clouds of flashing fingerlings and the stealthy shadows of their larger brethren coming and going. I had a wonderful view of a large shoal of grotesque Unicorn-fish, their quaint horns and white-edged tails clearly visible, swimming in a level sheet some fathoms down.

  ‘Soon I found a place where a spur of the island broke the surface and formed a wide eddy. Watching through the glass [glass-bottomed bucket] I sent down a large bomb with 25 seconds of spitting fuse. We shot off over the edge of the shallows and waited – 20 … 25 … BOOOOOM! – off she went; a few seconds and up boiled the big hump of dirty water, and then a shout from the boys, for up came the fish – fish of all kinds, big and small, shining and sparkling in gorgeous hues, rolling in the boiling foam. … On this brief intense voyage there was no leisure and little sleep, but my exhaustion was tempered by the wealth we had blasted from Pemba’s coral-clad reefs, privileged as we were to be the first to bring them to the light’ (JLB Smith, 1955b).

  JLB’s explosives were sometimes used to frighten away dangerous animals. Once, off Tekomaji Island near Palma in northern Mozambique, he and his two assistants were precariously perched in their tiny wooden dinghy when they were suddenly surrounded by six giant hammerhead sharks. Smith nonchalantly chased them away by tossing small homemade bombs at them. On another occasion in the same area he once found himself staring into the slit eyes of a giant shark in shallow water, with no explosives handy:

  ‘I had just got off a hump into thigh-deep water when suddenly the wind dropped, the water smoothed, and I found myself literally face to face with a blunt-nosed brute of a shark – a good seven feet long. We faced one another for a split second, then I found myself back on the rock in the middle of the channel, with no clear recollection of whether I had run, jumped or flown there.’

  Smith had managed to obtain permission from the Portuguese colonial authorities in Mozambique to use explosives (and poisons) to catch fishes. This he considered necessary as nets are useless over coral and rocky reefs, and many fish species are not attracted to bait, whereas explosives and poisons allowed him to catch even the smallest, most secretive species.

  ‘There are many places in the sea where fishes live in numbers where you cannot fish with lines, use nets, or even poison. In deep reefs and among coral heads where fierce currents rage, there is only one method for the scientist – explosives’ (Smith, 1958a).

  He further justified the use of explosives as follows:

  ‘Practically every fish in the sea must die a cruel and violent death – that is nature. But it is ludicrous to suggest that fishes have any fear of explosives – they cannot have. I have thrown dummy bombs with fuse attached, and watched – fish do not flee from these in fright, instead hundreds come round and snap at the stream of shining, dancing bubbles of gas. When a real bomb is used, the fish do not even move away, they continue swimming, quite unconcerned, then in a fraction of a second they are dead, without pain or fear, a wonderful end for any creature. I wish I could count on one like that’ (Smith, 1958a).

  The powerful pressure wave produced by an underwater explosion stuns or kills fishes without damaging them unduly, and causes them to float to the surface, where they can easily be collected. Smith had studied explosives and poisons after the First World War and had an above-average knowledge of these deadly methods, but he does not elaborate on this knowledge in any of his publications. He blasted thousands of fishes out of the water and even hoped to catch coelacanths in this way (Smith, 1956, 1968a). He not only detonated explosives in midwater but also on coral reefs.

  ‘To get the fishes from the coral heads, explosives provide a short cut. The blast breaks open the coral, kills or stuns the fishes and causes a current to boil upwards and carry them to the surface, where they float for a time’ (Smith, 1951).

  Smith even persuaded the Portuguese authorities to store large amounts of dynamite that he had somehow managed to post to them in Mozambique. In a letter dated August 1953, Mario Emilio Azinhals de Melo, Chief of Staff, Quartel General in Lourenço Marques, informs him, ‘I beg to inform you that I have already received the explosives, which you mentioned in your letter dated 11th August, and they have been stored in the Lourenço Marques magazine at your orders for the period for which you think it is necessary’. But this arrangement would go sour; he later heard from the Portuguese authorities that they had destroyed his valuable hoard of dynamite as, not surprisingly, it was considered to be a hazard! (Rhodes University Archive).

  In his Preface to the 1949 edition of The Sea Fishes of Southern Africa, Basil le May recalls the use of blast fishing during a fish-collecting expedition at Inhaca Island in 1946:

  ‘We had been given permission to drop some hand-grenades over the sandstone ledge, which shelved perpendicularly for about fifty feet, at the southern end of the island and where numerous fishes of many colours glided but would not take bait. Professor Smith and I were ashore and Mrs. Smith and Francis Spence cruised up and down in my father’s motor boat ready to net the dazed fish. After the first grenade, several fish came up and those within reach were recovered. Suddenly, in great excitement Professor Smith told me to jump in and get “that Aurora borealis” – or so the name sounded to me. As I had just been discharged from the Army, I was used to travelling light and was reluctant to dive in, in my only khaki shorts and shirt. When I explained my predicament to Professor Smith he said, “T
ake your clothes off!” To this I replied, “What about your wife?” and without hesitation he answered, “Don’t worry about her, science comes first!”. I duly jumped in and caught the fish, but while attempting to hand it to Professor Smith it recovered and swam away!’ (B le May, 1949).

  In his notes on ‘Underwater explosions’ in the introductory chapters to The Sea Fishes of Southern Africa, Smith (1949) again justifies the use of explosives:

  ‘But recent carefully controlled experiments have yielded rather surprising results in the matter of submarine explosions. It has been found that a blast of such intensity as to disable a submarine has no effect on fishes more than 200 feet away, and that Mollusca such as oysters more than 50 feet away from the explosion centre are apparently unharmed. It is curious that the effect is the same whatever the amount of explosive employed, for there is little difference in general effect on marine life whether 10 lbs. or 2,000 lbs. of dynamite be detonated. A shock powerful enough to be felt on a boat 10 miles away had no observable effect whatsoever on fishes only 25 feet away from the explosion.’

  Later, Smith (1959, 1970) tried to convince his readers and marine conservationists that using explosives does no permanent harm to the marine environment:

  ‘In recent times, several persons in prominent positions have made public statements indicating the use of explosives in killing fish as cruel or otherwise to be deprecated. There is a good deal of sentimental misunderstanding about this matter, especially on the part of those without actual experience. Apart from my own widespread experience and experiments, extending over many years, scientists in the USA have investigated the various aspects on a considerable scale. It is quite incorrect to state that the method is cruel. There is no anticipation whatever on the part of the fish and death is instantaneous and certainly painless. The killing range of the detonation in the sea is surprisingly limited for fishes of ordinary size, for it has been shown that those more than 80 yards [about 73 metres] away from even an enormous explosion are rarely affected. As far as my observations go, the use of explosives in the sea apparently works no permanent harm. On investigating areas which I had bombed in various parts of East Africa, the fauna was found to be completely regenerated after a lapse of one or more years, with much the same order of population as initially.

  ‘It is my considered opinion that in the hands of a competent and experienced scientist this is one of the most humane as well as one of the most efficient methods of securing valuable specimens without any permanent harm to the fauna. Not only does this method secure easily and in perfect condition, fishes that cannot be got by any other means, but it rapidly gives qualitative and quantitative information about fish populations that would be difficult to acquire by any other method in even far greater time. The chief drawback lies in the use of explosives by unskilled persons of low mentality, for disastrous accidents result, but it is only where authorities are lax, or where there is no prohibition, that such persons secure explosives.’

  In High Tide he repeats these comments, adding, ‘No purely Museum scientist is in any position to express views about this matter …’ (Smith, 1968b).

  Needless to say, not everyone, this author included, agrees with Smith, as there is ample evidence to show that explosives can cause long-term damage to coral reefs. Robin Stobbs (1997) visited the sites off Shimoni near Kenya’s southern border in 1953, a year after the Smiths had dynamited extensively for fish in this area. The local fishermen showed him ‘numbers of clearly visible shallow craters which they identified as places where JLB had exploded charges the previous year’. It has been estimated that coral reef damage from explosive blasts may take up to 35 years to recover fully, as reef growth is a few millimetres annually. Yet JLB Smith states in Our Fishes, ‘In our work off East Africa I was able to visit and study exact spots where I had bombed a year or more previously. It was interesting to see that in each case the fish life had apparently returned to normal’ (Smith, 1968a). Smith, however, was not a diver and could not reliably assess the impact of his explosives in water deeper than a few metres.

  According to Margaret (SATV, 1976), JLB made cunning use of explosives, carefully studying the underwater terrain before deciding on the length of fuse to use. Their biggest enemies while using ‘bombs’ were birds and sharks, which quickly snapped up their prized specimens, and, in the case of the sharks, also exposed the divers to danger. He needed to make optimal use of their limited time over remote tropical reefs, and to efficiently winkle fishes out of deep crevices and coral heads. He did this with great success, and laid the foundation for the world-class fish collection that is now in the possession of the SAIAB. However, these methods are prohibited today.

  Using explosives was not completely safe and the research team experienced some mishaps, as JLB Smith was unquestionably a risk-taker. In a caption to a photograph taken during their 1951 expedition to northern Mozambique, he wrote, ‘Silhouette Island, where bombing fish caused an island to disappear’ (Barnett, 1953).

  Because of his lifelong struggle with ill-health, Smith developed a rather cavalier attitude towards his own mortality, which often also caused him to ignore the safety of others. On their 1951 expedition to northern Mozambique, while driving along a bush track between Mocimboa da Praia and Cabo Delgado, they unexpectedly encountered a large bush fire. Unable to turn around, they decided to drive through the fire. ‘Barnett and I sat on the gelignite to keep it down. … The last twenty or thirty yards, we dashed through an actual wall of flames’ (Smith, 1968b). Except for singed eyebrows, they survived unscathed but, when they arrived at Cabo Delgado, JLB inspected the heavy load of gelignite that they were carrying and remarked that ‘… it was strange we had not blown up in the heat and ragged bumping as we sped through the forest fire’ (Barnett, 1953). Smith often sat in a tossing boat with a pot of boiling water nestled on top of the open flame of his Primus stove while stores of paraffin, petrol and TNT lay nearby (Barnett, 1953).

  During this expedition they had another frightening experience, ‘Once we sat with half a ton of Ammon gelignite at the foot of the mast of our small motor vessel while a dry storm raged all round, the lightning almost continuous, and we discovered that the lightning conductor had been removed for painting, and not replaced!’

  But their most hair-raising experience took place at Aldabra island during the 1954 East Africa expedition:

  ‘In 1954 my wife, our fourteen-year-old son and I made a two thousand mile voyage in a fifty-foot motor fishing vessel from Seychelles through all the small banks and islands north of Madagascar to Mafia and Dar es Salaam. The first day out the sea was rough, and while lashing our explosives more firmly I was flung down a hatch on my back. It seemed like the end, as my legs were dead, but I slowly recovered, though with awful pain, and was able, with help at first, to do my bombing. … It was just on low tide, and we had only a short time. In the boat I had a hundred and fifty pounds of AE&CI Ammon gelignite. A fifty pound bomb was ready with a thirty-five second fuse. I was sitting on one fifty pound box and, having selected my spot, dropped the bomb, when my wife, a powerful oarswoman, rowed hard for the side. We moved only very slowly and then to our horror a sweep of the tide came round, scooping us back like a gigantic hand, right back to where the bubbles came up.

  ‘There was nothing we could do. Then it came, a terrible crash, I was whirled through the air, roaring water raged all round and I knew it was the end. The gelignite in the boat must surely have gone off with such a shock – anyway death that way was quick. But it did not and I was most annoyed that it was taking so long to die, for I went on struggling in the bubbling water. Suddenly my head broke through into the sun, I looked round, there was my wife, and our friend, clinging to the waterlogged boat – also still alive. I swam to them, grabbing and stuffing into my shirt pocket a lovely little fish, later proved new to science.

  ‘When I looked into the boat I saw to my amazement that the gelignite was still there … My wife and I looked at each other and
just laughed. It was incredibly comical to still be alive after all that. … Incidentally, after my return, it was found that my fall had broken one of my vertebrae – but it had healed itself. The fall had also dislocated something in my back that gave me pain. Not long after the Aldabra shock I suddenly realized I was free from the pain – the bomb had shaken the dislocation back into place, but I doubt whether this method is likely to become popular as a remedy for such complaints’ (Smith, 1958a).

  William (pers. comm., 2017) recalled this experience:

  ‘The whole trip was carried out with military precision. Sixteen-hour work days, every day, avoiding cyclones and reefs, and I watched in horror as the boat carrying both my parents was blown into the air by an underwater explosion when the current unexpectedly changed direction. There was 20 kilograms of unexploded gelignite in that boat! That was the day I nearly became an orphan.’