Fish kills leave Kenya’s Lake Victoria farmers at a loss, seeking answers
KISUMU, Kenya — It is a little past 5 p.m. at the lakeside city of Kisumu, in the western part of Kenya. An hour later, the sun sets over the sprawling Lake Victoria as far as the eye can see. Wisps of gray clouds are infused with the sun’s amber rays, which reflect off the lake in a bedazzling shimmer. The scene is captivating, but a faint stench lingers in the air. That stench, to many cage fish farmers, is a painful reminder of the extensive losses they suffered in November 2022 due to fish kills. A report commissioned by Kenya’s State Department for Fisheries, Aquaculture and the Blue Economy estimates that cage farmers in different sections of Lake Victoria, particularly Kisumu and Homa Bay towns, lost more than 900 million shillings ($7.2 million) to fish kills in 2022. While the scientists Mongabay speaks to attribute the fish kills to a combination of natural phenomena and climate change, the fish farmers are wary of those explanations, saying the deaths could be a result of po