WEDNESDAY, 15 FEBRUARY 2006: The Department of Environmental
Affairs and Tourism, as one of the members of the newly
established South African Disentanglement Network, will
participate in a two day workshop from 16-17 February 2006,
focusing on how to efficiently and safely disentangle whales
and monitor scientifically entanglement rates of whales
in South African coastal waters. Other partners involved
in the South African Whale Disentanglement network are the
Dolphin Action & Protection Group, The Sharks Board
NSRI SAPS Divers, Border Police, Mammal Research Institute
and the Table Mountain National Park.
South Africa has developed as one of the whale watching
areas of the world. Its policy regarding the utilization
of its whale resources is to reserve these exclusively for
non-consumptive use, namely boat- and shore based whale
watching. Whale watching has grown tremendously in South
Africa and is regarded as one of the eco-tourism priorities.
Increasingly on an international level, entanglement of
whales is becoming an area of concern.
In South African waters, the main entanglement challenges
of large whales existing at present, are entanglement in
rock lobster ropes and buoys on the west and southwest coasts
and entanglement in shark gillnets on the KZN coast.
In September last year (2005) scientists and divers from
the department, with officials from the National Sea Rescue
Institute (NSRI) and SA Police Services have saved an entangled
Southern Right whale. The 8 metre whale was entangled with
7 large rock lobster buoys and ropes in the False Bay area
The buoys and ropes were removed by cutting the ropes with
departmentally designed and produced knives, specifically
for such purposes. The operation lasted for approximately
3 hours.
A Whale disentanglement expert from the Center for Conservation
Studies in the United States of America, Dr Bob Bowman,
will the main speaker at the workshop and will also give
volunteers practical instruction on the second day.
Members of the media are invited to attend the practical
training sessions on 17 February 2006, Marine Research Aquarium,
Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Sea Point,
CAPE TOWN at 08h30. |
