Preparations are gathering intensity ahead of Jizan's annual Parrot Fish Festival, which organizers expect to take place in early April. The occasion, one of the highlights of Jizan's cultural calendar, see hundreds of young locals launch themselves into knee-deep waters off the coast with hand-held nets as thousand-strong shoals approach the shore in what they describe as “a form of mass fish suicide”. The shoals approach the shore on a single day each year, which usually falls at the end of March or beginning of April, and provides easy pickings for anyone with a net. Fishermen gauge the approach of the date by distinctive odors emanating from the coast which they say originate from smooth coral branch eggs which are dispatched in one go on one night of the year. Locals say the odors were detected Thursday night. A notable feature of the parrot fish is that each shoal consists of females led by a single male who is said to jealously guard his troupe. Remarkably, when the male dies his place is taken by a female who changes color to that of a male fish and gradually turns into a fully-fledged male herself. So-named due to its parrot-like colors, teeth and beak-shaped mouth, the parrot fish is known locally as the “Hareed fish”, after the local area where it proliferates.
