Poisonous-And When?

Which Pacific Fish Are

FISH - POISONING, recently tragically high-lighted by the 5 deaths on the island of Beqa, in the Fiji Group, is an ever-present risk in the islands of the South Pacific.

The Fiji Islanders are mainly sea faring folk and fish, particularly daniva, which are easy to catch, are their daily diet. Yet they seem to adopt a nonchalant attitude towards fish-poisoning. This may be through ignorance, necessity, or mere fatal ism.

Many other stories of fish-poison ing have been brought to light through the Beqa incident. On ex amination of them, it does not appear that the manner in which the fish are caught has any signific ance; even when the poisonous weed, duva, is thrown into the water to stupefy the fish. The Fijians eat fish caught in this way without any ill-effects. Fish killed by dynamite or a bomb made from a Chinese cracker, are killed by blast; which does not render them poisonous.

Mr. C. G. Smith, Overseer of parks and gardens, Suva, has volunteered the following informa tion, which might prove a step towards the prevention of fish poisoning among the islanders.

Mr. Smith is part-Tongan and

was born and brought up in Hapa’i in Tonga. He and his forefathw were great fishermen. As a smc boy he used'to go spearing danii among other fish. Both his fath and his grandfather, warned hr about the poisonous type of danv'i They told him how to distinguii the occasional poisonous ones fro*, among the thousands of others. TI poisonous type is deadly.

The ordinary daniva, a sardin. type of fish, of which there j three varieties, he said, has seas

nning evenly from its head to its 11. The poisonous type has some the scales running from head to il and some in the reverse direc m.

Mr. Smith and other Tongans to 10m this story had been handed wn by their ancestors, always rew out this type and never took ; risk of proving whether the odd iled fish are poisonous or not. n support of this test one thing s very significant; and a factor ; fishermen made good use of; len a catch of daniva is laid out the beach or on the grass, flies irm around and settle on the i. But they avoid the oddly led fish like the plague and give m a wide berth.

Ir. Smith fishes a great deal with Fijians, especially those from Lau Group. When the Beqa soning occurred he asked them sther the Fijians took any pre- Mons or knew of these simple ications of poisoned daniva. The wer was that they did not. None them had heard of them. It is, refore, most unlikely that the a villagers knew of the precau i. There is a belief that the iva become poisonous at the ig of the balolo; some of the ans give it credence and others lot; most of them take the risk. poisonous davina had been :ed unwittingly at the Beqa t, just a few would have been igh to do the damage. They Id have been cooked with many ;rs in leaves and contaminated whole lot. It is an interesting it that the village dogs, who fled up the uncooked entrails, more quickly than the villagers. ie warning handed down to Mr. th by his Tongan ancestors is ently not widely known. But, if lould be proved to be true, on itific examination of the oddly 3d fish, that this is a deadly mous type, then lives of iders can be saved. This could chieved by the wide publication he two methods of identifying

poisonous daniva.—Contributed.