Good news from our brand new plastic recycling workshop: it's working! We have successfully shredded and melted a few kilos of old discarded fishing net and fishing line and extruded it into beautiful multifunctional plastic beams. Our machines were designed from Precious Plastic blueprints in the Netherlands. Denzil has taken charge of "Ocean Plastic Namibia" (OPN) and he has worked overtime to transform plastic waste into a valuable resource. We have a lot to learn, but we are very proud that we are finally attacking plastic pollution BEFORE entanglements from those old fishing nets can happen.

Seal rescues will almost come to a standstill between November and early January, we will use the downtime to focus on recycling. We will start with simple items like clipboards for school children, but we are known to be industrious and committed, we are not setting ourselves any limits :-)

We have done close to 600 seal rescues this year. Breeding season will start very soon and we can no longer disturb seal colonies during this important time. We would either put the newborns at risk to be exposed to predators like birds and jackals after their moms have fled into the ocean, or the little ones would be forced into the water before they are ready to swim and they would drown. There are already a lot of stillborn and premature birth happening. So far, it does not seem to be as severe as last year when we faced the mass die off, but it is too early to rule it out. We keep on monitoring and we are in close contact with our scientist friends from SeaSearch in Cape Town who are reporting similar numbers. Whenever we are able to do a safe rescue without endangering others, we will of course go ahead and do our very best to help the animal in need. 

We have enough seal rescue videos on our hard drives to keep our Youtube channel and social media going until the new rescue season starts in 2022. We want to make sure we continue to reach people all over the world to showcase the impact of plastic pollution on innocent wildlife. Entanglements do not stop just because we can't get to them. 

We will be involved with a satellite tagging project for an acoustic study about underwater vocalisation between seals facilitated by the Namibian Dolphin Project. We will do the catching and immobilising of seals and assist with the fitment of satellite tags. Hopefully we will learn more about our seals' daily movement and behaviour.

Our full feature "Cutting The Line" documentary on OCN and seal rescues is also progressing nicely - the team from Now Now Media is back in Walvis Bay to film final scenes and interviews. We are on track to have it published in the first half of 2022. We do not know yet where and when it will be published, but you will be among the first ones to find out! 

As always - thank you for your incredible loyalty. Your positivity and faith in us keep us motivated on difficult days when we have tough rescues and we doubt the meaning of everything we are doing. 

Thank you. 

Naude & Katja & The OCN Team