The last two weeks have been a bit of a roller coaster for Ocean Conservation Namibia. We had known for a while that Antoine's time in Namibia was coming to an end. The Sea Shepherd had arranged for Antoine to go back to his other home, The Ocean Warrior, which is currently docked in Singapore. The crew is preparing for a campaign in Peru to create and guard a newly established Marine Protected Area. We are excited for Antoine, but also very sad to see him go. We will miss him a lot and we are making plans to bring him back as soon as possible. We need him at Pelican Point, our work is not done yet. He will remain an essential member of OCN and he will be involved with all future strategies and campaigns.  

In the meantime, Denzil is stepping in big time and we started the week on a high. Naude and Denzil caught 7 seals on Monday, and we finally caught JULIUS! He had caused us sleepless nights. He had been evading capture for a long time, hiding in the middle of the seal colony, and racing back to the water as soon as he spotted us. But persistence paid off: we caught him, cut him free, and he will get to live a normal and hopefully long life. We will post the video later this week, as soon as we are done editing. 

We try our hardest to catch as many seals as possible. We don't always win. On Sunday, when Naude went out to Pelican Point with his son Dylan, they came across an entangled baby seal who unfortunately did not make it. He was heavily entangled in a piece of cable, and the weight of the entanglement had choked him. As much as we prefer to share videos with happy endings, we decided to publish a video after all to remind everybody that the problem is real and ongoing. 

Namibia continues to be affected by Covid-19, but schools have opened up and our region is no longer on lock down. We can start looking into public awareness campaigns to teach children and adults about the consequences of ocean pollution. A few weeks ago, Naude's and Katja's kids were invited to be part of a New Zealand production called Kea Kids News. They acted as news reporters and they interviewed Naude about seal rescues. It came out really well, and even little Scooby makes a guest appearance. Here is the link.

We are very excited to announce that our new nets have been manufactured, they are on their way from to Namibia. A big thank you goes out to our generous donors who are making all of this possible. Hopefully the nets will arrive soon, our current one has done us very well and deserves retirement. We will always keep the old, original net. One day, we will put it in an exhibition about disentanglements. 

Thank you very much for supporting us!

Katja & Naude & The OCN Team