Can I Eat the Sardines Washed Up on Gqeberha Beaches? A Food Safety View

By Mthokozisi Nkosi, MD, ASC Food Safety Consultants

This is a local precaution. It is separate from, though it sits alongside, a wider sardine mortality event under investigation along the Western and Southern Cape coast.

What happened in Nelson Mandela Bay

The municipality’s Beaches and Resorts Sub Directorate issued the advisory after large numbers of sardines began washing up along the Bay’s coastline.^[1][2] The affected stretch covers five popular beaches: 1st Beacon, Pollok Beach, Hobie Beach, Humewood Beach and Kings Beach. The public advisory is explicit: do not touch, collect, consume, sell or distribute the fish, and do not feed them to pets or other animals.^[1][2] If you see a significant accumulation of dead or dying fish, the municipality asks that you report it rather than handle it yourself, and keep children and pets away from the affected sand.

Why the warning is precautionary, not a confirmed contamination

In my practice, this is the principle I come back to with every food handler I train: when you cannot verify a food’s condition or history, you treat it as unsafe until you can.

That is what is happening here. The municipality has not said the sardines are confirmed contaminated with a specific hazard. It has said their exposure is unknown, and unknown exposure is reason enough to keep the public away from them.^[1][2] This is standard food safety logic, not an escalation. Any food with an unverifiable history gets rejected on the same basis, whether it is a delivery with a broken cold chain or, in this case, fish that washed ashore with no record of how long they lay exposed or to what.

What’s happening on the Cape coast

The Gqeberha sightings sit within a larger story. Since early August 2026, large numbers of dead and dying sardines have washed ashore along the Western and Southern Cape coast.^[3][4] The Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) has reported no new mass mortality incidents since 16 August 2026, which suggests the acute phase of the event may have eased, though monitoring and testing continue.^[3][4]

The leading suspect is pilchard herpesvirus (PHV). Around 75 sardines have been included in the PHV testing programme so far. Initial testing by the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity (SAIAB) and Rhodes University detected PHV genetic material in all 15 fish examined to date.^[3][4][5] Of those 15, ten fish collected during the mortality event had consistently high viral levels, while five fish caught alive and apparently healthy had varying viral levels.^[3][4] That second detail matters: PHV turning up in apparently healthy fish suggests the virus on its own may not be enough to cause mass die offs, which is why investigators are also looking at environmental stressors, including unusually cold nearshore water, low oxygen and enhanced upwelling.^[3][4] Harmful algae have not been implicated as the primary cause so far, though environmental conditions have not been ruled out as contributing factors.^[3][4]

The event also had a brief knock-on effect inland. Eskom reduced Koeberg nuclear power station’s Unit 1 to fifty percent output after a cooling pump automatically shut down due to a build-up of marine material in the seawater intake area. Eskom was clear that nuclear and operational safety were not compromised and that there was no impact on the electricity supply.^[6][7] It shows how far this event has reached, even where it has nothing to do with what is safe to eat.

Is canned pilchard or commercially caught sardine safe to eat?

Yes, on current evidence. DFFE has stated that PHV is a fish virus with no known risk to human health, and that its detection does not, by itself, mean commercially caught or canned sardines are unsafe to eat.^[3][4] The advisory in Gqeberha is about fish of unverified condition washing up on a beach. It is not a finding about the commercial sardine supply chain, which operates under its own catch records, cold chain and processing controls. I would not stretch this into a blanket reassurance about any specific product on a shelf, but the current regulatory position is that PHV detection alone is not a food safety verdict on commercially sourced sardines.

What food handlers and retailers should do this week

• Only accept fish from approved, traceable suppliers with clear catch or landing records.
• If you are unsure about a batch’s history, reject it. Unverifiable history means unsafe until proven otherwise, the same logic behind the beach advisory.
• Keep your cold chain records tight during this news cycle. Any borderline delivery is more likely to be scrutinised while this story is active. If your team needs a refresher on the underlying principles, our food safety training courses cover this in more depth.
• If your premises sits on the beachfront and staff see stranded fish, direct them to leave the fish alone and report the sighting to the municipality rather than clearing it themselves.

This is practitioner guidance, not a regulatory instruction.

How to report a sighting

If you see a significant accumulation of dead or dying fish on a Nelson Mandela Bay beach, report it to the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality rather than handling it yourself. The municipality can be reached on 041 506 1911, or through nelsonmandelabay.gov.za.^[8] Keep pets and children away from the affected sand while you wait for a response.

Frequently asked questions

Last updated: 28 August 2026.