Thousands of fish are dying as the lake below the Lake Farm Centre in Port Elizabeth continues to dry up.
Local farmer Dudley Brown has lived near the lake his entire life and says it will be completely dry within two months if big rains don't come soon.
He says it's not fed by any natural water source and relies completely on in-flow from rainwater.
Brown says the last time the lake dried up was way back in 1992.
"It was so dry then you could actually walk through without getting mud on your feet. Then in 2012, it was completely the opposite and the level was so high that Lakeside Road had to be closed for six months."
Brown says as many as two-thousand dead fish, mainly carp, curper, black bass and barbel, have been retrieved and buried so far.
"The water is becoming stale and starved of oxygen and these dead and dying fish have become poisoned and are certainly not fit for human consumption - I strongly discourage anyone from contemplating eating them.'
The fish that are succumbing to the low water levels in the Lake Farm Lake are all 'alien fish' according to Brown.
"They were introduced when the lake eventually filled up again after 1992. It's up to us now as landowners in the area to ensure that when we reintroduce fish to the lake the same mistake is not made again and that we only stock it with indigenous species."
Picture credits: Frank Sanders and Garth van Niekerk
