It might be a delicious fish to tuck into but the red steenbras might disappear from our oceans and plates forever.

Bruce Mann, senior scientist at the Oceanographic Research Institute in East London, said the species - which can live for 33 years and attain a mass of more than 50kg - is now defined as a "collapsed population".

Mann said that, over the past 27 years, the commercial catch rate had shrunk by more than 90%.

For this reason, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Tina Joemat-Petterson intends adding the fish to the prohibited species list.

Draft regulations have been gazetted and public comment has been invited. Should all go according to the government's plan, the red steenbras and the copper steenbras will join the national fish, the galjoen, the Cape stumpnose and the swordfish on the list of fish that may not be caught.

The red steenbras is already on the World Wildlife Fund's red list. This means that people are advised not to eat it.

And this is also one of the reasons the fish does not feature on the menu of several national seafood restaurant chains and top Cape restaurants

"It is a delicious eating fish," said Mann. "But the red steenbras is one of our biggest and slowest-growing reef fish species.

"It has been under heavy pressure for the past century."

The fish used to be found off the coast from St Lucia in KwaZulu-Natal all the way to Cape Point in the south.

Now the population of red steenbras is largely restricted to areas off the Eastern Cape coast.