After a long and difficult battle between environmentalists and the fish cage companies, the fish cages will finally be removed from Eilat at the end of the month. 

Zalul, founded in 1999 to save and protect the Red Sea and has since expanded to include all of Israel's sea and rivers, led the fight the past 10 years to remove the polluting fish cages from the sea.

 

The fish cages caused an enormous amount of damage to the delicate and unique coral reefs of the Red Sea. 

Over the last 20 years, fish farms in the northern Gulf of Eilat have bred fish in cages in the sea, raising approximately 2,500 tons of Denis fish annually. 

The fish farms consumed around 5,000 tons of food annually, which was discharged directly into the sea. This enormous amount of food, some of which cannot be digested by the fish, combined with the natural fish secretions, caused thousands of tons of waste contamination to the sea every year.  Approximately 97% of the nutrients and nitrates released into the Bay originated from the fish cages.