There are a lot more Cape Fur Seals in Namibia than in South Africa - but South Africa has a much bigger human population and even bigger fishing industry, which is never good for ocean rubbish and seal entanglements. We have been planning a trip to South Africa for a long time, but Corona related travel restrictions have made it very difficult for us to cross borders. We were busy enough with our own seal colonies anyways, and our South Africa plans were postponed several times. Until we were introduced to "Frida".

We heard about this entangled Cape Fur Seal from Paul, a concerned Cape Town resident. He had seen Frida several times in Hout Bay, she seemed to have a piece of blue plastic string around her neck, as per Paul's photo below. 

In Cape Town, most seal rescues can be done with a long pole and a hook. Seals are well habituated and local rescuers can get close enough to use their rescue hook. But Frida wasn't having it, she clearly had trust issues! She would not allow anybody near her to save her from suffocating. 

The OCN rescuers are used to the cold shoulder treatment - Namibian seals never allow us close enough to use the hook, and we are used to improvising a lot, and we have our brilliant seal rescue net!

So we connected with local seal rescue activists from Cape Town and asked for permission to try our luck, and a few days later, we jumped on a plane and started searching for Frida. We could not believe our luck when we actually found her on day 2 of our Cape Town mission. We did what we do best and we rescued her not only from one, but from TWO entanglements! We are busy with the rescue video and we will share it with you as soon as we have uploaded it. 

Frida was not the only reason for our Cape Town trip. We often communicate and exchange rescue tips and advise between seal rescue and rehab stations. We used our Cape Town time to connect with the awesome people from Hout Bay Seal Rescue Centre, Cape Town Two Oceans Aquarium, Sentinel Ocean Alliance and SeaSearch, the South African counterpart to the Namibian Dolphin Project. 

Thanks to our well supported fundraisers, we were in the position to donate our rescue net to the Hout Bay Seal Rescue Centre. We did a few rescues together with their volunteers, today's Youtube video shows our very first two rescues with them. The net will hopefully help with many of their rescues in the future. 

Naude and Antoine did a scouting trip up the west coast, there are a lot of entangled seals, but unfortunately the area is restricted and we need to get permits first to be allowed to do rescues. We are working on it, and thanks to this trip we have now made contact with the right people. 

In the meantime our Namibian seals were guarded by Wally, Kat and Denzil. They successfully continued their Pelican Point Patrols and removed many entanglements.

It was a very busy and inspiring week. We are not ready yet to talk about some of our future plans, but if you have heard of Precious Plastic before, you might have an idea where we are headed. If you have any experience with it - please reach out! 

Thank you for supporting our work. OCN would not be here without you. 

Naude & Katja & The OCN Team