- During the annual “hareed” festival in the Farasan Islands — an archipelago in the Red Sea off the coast of Saudi Arabia — hundreds of people run into the water to catch parrotfish, which aggregate there annually since time immemorial.
- Science cannot yet explain this annual phenomenon, but there are clues in traditional ecological knowledge and cultural history, a new op-ed explains.
- “Only by weaving [traditional] knowledge together with science can we begin to understand what we are trying to protect,” the author writes.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
“Al Dhiwaini!” HRH the Prince of Jazan called in the traditional way that spurred hundreds of people to sprint toward the water, carrying around nets and shouting.
Standing on the shores of the Farasan Islands, I watched participants in the annual parrotfish festival pull fish from the sea en masse, with catches reaching up to 78 kilograms (more than 170 pounds) of parrotfish per person. Known locally as hareed — or generally as longnose parrotfish (Hipposcarus harid) — the scale of extraction immediately triggered my instincts as a scientist, as the question asked itself: How is this sustainable? How do the fish keep coming back, year after year?
But in that moment, there was nothing to do except run into the water, follow the fish, and give myself over to the thrill of it.
From a time before living memory, the people of Farasan have followed the moon to this annual aggregation, a phenomenon so unique and described as the fish swimming willingly to their deaths; the fish seem almost to be waiting to be caught. As a Saudi marine biology Ph.D. student, I know how much of the Red Sea remains scientifically uncharted, and this festival is exactly why science and traditional ecological knowledge must be woven together to manage marine systems.
When I asked locals where they believed the fish were coming from, many answered confidently: “These fish have traveled far and wide, all the way from India.” When I posed the same question to marine ecologists, the answer was equally confident: Hareed do not migrate anywhere close to those distances.
Most reef fishes spend their adult lives close to home, even if they may disperse hundreds or thousands of kilometers as larvae carried by ocean currents. Marine ecologist Dr. Renato Morais notes that if the hareed were truly arriving from India or Pakistan, they would need to travel more than 4,500 kilometers (almost 2,800 miles) of shallow coastline. While some reef fishes — including snappers, groupers and jacks – are known to move a few hundred kilometers, no parrotfish species is known to undertake migrations anywhere close to that scale.
“Based on the best science available, it would be very surprising [and a] unique situation if hareed are found to indeed migrate over thousands of kilometers,” Morais said. One of the only studies of the phenomenon notes that dissecting 10 fish from the festival revealed no signs of the stress of migration. Here, in the gap between those two truths, is where the most interesting science lives.
A few days earlier my colleagues and I received word that the hareed had arrived. We packed a car, drove the length of the coast, and boarded the ferry to Farasan: Spontaneity is a requirement when following natural phenomena. The aggregation follows the lunar calendar, beginning the day after the full moon and lasting for five days, while the public festival is held on the weekend closest to the event, usually in the weeks between late March and early April.
I arrived at the beach on festival morning with six years of studying climate change and human impacts on the ocean, and with that came the biased instinct to probe for signs of population decline. The fish may well be declining: While the event has existed for centuries, formal municipal governance began just 22 years ago. Now, fish are herded into large holding cages over the first four days and released for the public celebration on the weekend. It is worth asking: Has this shift in method obscured what the population looked like a generation ago?
The more controlled and regulated nature of the event today could be concealing just how depleted their stocks have become over time. Dr. Morais points to a concept known as hyperstability, in which dense and predictable aggregations can mask broader population declines. Catch rates remain high because fish continue gathering in the same place, even as overall abundance falls.
“It is currently impossible to say if the hareed could be exhibiting hyperstability,” Morais cautioned. Determining that would require independent estimates of population size both around Farasan and throughout neighboring regions. Yet the possibility is not far-fetched, as it has already been documented in another large parrotfish species, the bumphead parrotfish (Bolbometopon muricatum) in the Solomon Islands.
These are speculations, and I hold them loosely. The fishermen I spoke with described the festival as fixed and certain: “It’s a fact of life, as the tides rise every morning, the hareed come every year,” one participant said. I’ve learned to check myself when that instinct to override local knowledge kicks in: Scientists rarely know more than the people whose lives are interwoven with this ecosystem intimately, every single day.
One of the central unanswered questions is why the fish gather in such large numbers. Here, spawning remains the leading explanation, as was proposed after observing ripe ovaries in dissected females, and Morais notes that reproduction is the most common driver of large fish aggregations and seasonal movements. Yet, year after year, hareed gather at Al-Hasis Beach, a location that lacks fundamental characteristics associated with reef-fish spawning sites. The area is shallow, sheltered, far from the reef edge, and experiences relatively little water movement.
What science has confirmed, however, is the mystery of the hareed scent. This gathering takes place in the days immediately following coral spawning. What islanders long interpreted as the smell of the arrival of the hareed is actually the scent of coral spawn rising to the surface. It leaves a lingering, briny smell that drifts onto the island with the sunset breeze, announcing that the festival is near.
Many islanders actually know that the smell is coming from the coral “secretions” or spawning before science confirmed this link. Whether the two phenomena are connected remains unknown. It is possible that both respond to the same lunar cues. It is also possible that the fish derive some ecological benefit from gathering at this time.
Despite having grown up on the shores of the Red Sea, the festival itself remains unlike anything I have witnessed. A large, joyful event organized entirely around a natural phenomenon, bringing together not only all of Farasan, but the ferry we rode to the island was full of people of all ages from all around the region, wearing their best dress for this festivity.
At a time when urban communities feel incredibly disconnected from their natural surroundings, it was beautiful to witness a cultural practice moving in step with the tides and the moon. It’s a community celebration that only happens because the ocean allows it, and continues to happen for reasons science might not understand, but the people of Farasan do. Just like how they boast that no non-Farasani has ever won the competition of heaviest total catch at the festival.
We spoke with a boat operator who told us that the greatest mark of masculinity on the island used to be the length of your dive and the number of pearls you could surface with. He spoke of raising his children in and around the water, swimming through the archipelago’s islands. In the same breath, he also spoke of the dimming of the reef, how the corals have lost their color.
It is a story repeated all along this coastline, a now nearly global sentiment among those who have grown up by coral reefs. The 2018 IPCC report found that between 70% and 90% of warm-water coral reefs that exist today will disappear even if global warming is held to 1.5° Celsius (2.7° Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. There are none who will feel that loss more acutely than people whose lives and livelihoods are deeply entangled with these ecosystems. Studying the hareed aggregation, understanding it fully, and protecting it carefully is invaluable as we lose these ecosystems.
As the festival draws more visitors each year, and grows into a tourist attraction, the preservation of its history and significance becomes urgent. Mr. Ibrahim Muftah, a historian and the foremost expert on Farasani history, told us he realized too late how precious that history is, being a record of a place that has sat at the crossroads of so many rulers, cultures, and trade routes in a place genuinely unlike any other.
It is not going to be enough to invite scientists to this unique geography to preserve its history in papers. A place so steeped in culture, history, and local knowledge as the Farasan Islands deserves to center the voices of people like Mr. Muftah and the fishermen, whose knowledge is lived, remembered, and passed down. Only by weaving that knowledge together with science can we begin to understand what we are trying to protect.
The fish will return with the next full moon, drawn by forces we are only beginning to understand.
Whether they keep returning is another question.
Laila Shaaban is a Ph.D. student studying coral reef restoration at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia.
Editor’s note: The phrase noted at the start of this article, Al Dhiwaini (الضويني), is the call associated with the start of the Hareed Festival, and its exact meaning is not fully understood today. It may derive from the Arabic al-maḍnūn (المضنون), referring to something precious, coveted, or fiercely competed over.
Banner image: Evening at the annual Hareed Festival in the Farasan Islands, an archipelago in the Red Sea off the coast of Saudi Arabia. Image courtesy of Laila Shaaban.
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Citations:
Gladstone, W. (1996). Unique annual aggregation of Longnose Parrotfish (Hipposcarus harid) at Farasan island (Saudi Arabia, Red Sea). Copeia, 1996(2), 483. doi:10.2307/1446872
Spaet, J. (2013). Predictable annual aggregation of longnose parrotfish (Hipposcarus harid) in the Red Sea. Marine Biodiversity, 43(3), 179–180. doi:10.1007/s12526-013-0162-7
Green, A. L., Maypa, A. P., Almany, G. R., Rhodes, K. L., Weeks, R., Abesamis, R. A., Gleason, M. G., Mumby, P. J., & White, A. T. (2015). Larval dispersal and movement patterns of coral reef fishes, and implications for marine reserve network design. Biological Reviews, 90(4), 1215–1247. doi:10.1111/brv.12155
Hamilton, R. J., Almany, G. R., Stevens, D., Bode, M., Pita, J., Peterson, N. A., Choat, J. H., & Hood, L. (2016). Hyperstability masks declines in bumphead parrotfish (Bolbometopon muricatum) populations. Coral Reefs, 35(3), 751–763. doi:10.1007/s00338-016-1441-0
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