We never know what to expect. Each day is different. Some days, we find only a few or no entangled animals, on other days we catch up to 31, our current record from August 2021 at Cape Cross. The sheer amount of entangled seals on those days is overwhelming, and a rescue becomes almost just a number. 

Yesterday's rescue was not just a number, not just a quick "catch and cut" rescue, it is the new leader of intense rescues. It took the team 45 minutes to remove two large steel hooks from a big seal's mouth. Rescues around the face are problematic, the seal's head needs to be exposed to reach the hook or other entanglement, and we have to work very closely to very sharp and dirty teeth. It took three rescuers to keep the seal still, only one rescuer could work on the hooks at a time. When the hooks were finally removed, all our legs and arms had cramped up. 

For the team, it is an extreme trust exercise for the guy working at the seal's mouth, he needs to rely 100% on each and every rescuer. It's situations like this why we decided to not work with volunteers for now :-)

We are not done with the final edit of the video, we have 50GB of footage from just this one rescue, but the video will be uploaded to social media as soon as we can. 

We are slightly concerned about the amount of premature and fully mature seal pups we are seeing on the beach. It is hard to tell if we are dealing with another mass die-off like last year. So far, the situation looks less severe than 2020. To a certain extend, premature birth is a natural occurrence and seen every year, but we are keeping a close eye on the situation.

Early births also impact our rescues. Some of the newborns might be strong enough to survive, and we cannot risk their lives by disrupting their habitat, even if it means we have to turn down a rescue. Newborn Cape Fur Seals cannot swim, and if the whole group of seals run towards the water, the pups lose their protection from predators like jackals and sea gulls. We are extra careful when we approach a group of seals to make sure there are no live pups around. We know that most pups are unlikely to survive, they are simply too early in the year, but we do not want to be the reason why they do not get a fair chance of survival. 

We are anxiously waiting for the arrival of our plastic shredder, extruder and injector. As soon as our machines have arrived, we will get started on turning actual and potential entanglements like fishing line and fishing nets into usable items for the Namibian community. It is very new territory for us, we cannot wait to share first results of our recycling project. 

Thank you to all of you who have tuned in for our Q&A, and special thanks to Denzil for summoning all his courage to talk in front of a huge audience. We enjoyed chatting to our awesome supporters from all over the world.

Please always feel free to send us questions via email, we will try our best to get to them. 

Thank you!

Naude & Katja & The OCN Team