Winter in Africa can get cold. Very, very cold. But when the Namibian Coast experiences East Weather, our temperature change over night. The infamous East Wind brings a lot of heat, sand and dust along, and our seals do not like it at all. They are irritated and spend more time close to or in the water, and they make our rescues harder. As our Corona lockdown continues, we have nothing better to do than seal patrols anyways, and we still managed to catch 81 seals in July. 
Amongst the usual amount of fishing line, fishing net, fishing hooks, garment and packing strap, we found a new entanglement: party balloon ribbons. Here is the link to our rescue video
Namibia has a very low population density, we do not often find party supplies like this set of Happy Birthday Balloons. As beautiful as it is to see helium balloons fly up into the sky: what goes up, has to come down. In this case, it nearly killed an innocent seal who probably mistook the shiny ribbon for fish. 

We also have some devastating news to share. The area where we have joined a local soup kitchen to provide meals to people in need has burnt down a week ago. Nobody knows how the fire at Twaloloka started, but it could have easily been caused by a candle or gas burner as the area does not have electricity. 175 shacks burned down, a small child lost his life. The Namibian People showed great compassion and empathy and we are happy to report that Ocean Conservation Namibia have been part of the country's efforts to care for roughly 500 people who lost all their belongings. 

Last but definitely not least: some of you might be aware that Namibia has an annual seal "harvest" when an unspecified number of seals gets slaughtered to control the seal population and to use seals as resource for bone meal, leather and seal oil. The seal cull is always secretive, no statistics are given out by the responsible ministry. We can normally tell when it has started because we see a massive increase of seal numbers at Pelican Point,where the seal cull does not take place. This year, due to the economic situation, it looks like the seal cull might have been cancelled or at least very delayed, it is no longer economically viable. 

THANK YOU for your ongoing support!

Naude & Katja