When working with animals and understanding how they move and live, researchers often use photo identification as a tool. Every single organism on the planet has something that is unique about them, like the spots on a leopard and the dorsal fins on dolphins. On land, this has been a major tool to see how READ MORE
Winter has arrived in Plettenberg Bay, and with winter comes the Humpback whales and Southern Right whales. We also see different types of birds, like the albatrosses, Petrels and Skuas that comes closer to shore. The most stunning one is the albatross that glide through the air in a magical way.
At the Siyakula pre-school the children both learn and play a lot. After their break they will have some kind of activity, it´s everything from singing and dancing, to football and obstacle courses. Lately we have been playing a ball game called the “tunnel”, where the children stand in a line and send a ball READ MORE
In the ocean we have some of the smallest organisms like bacteria, and the now largest living animals, the whales. The ocean is full of life. When looking at a water sample under a microscope the sample will have a great deal of microorganisms moving around. All of these small organisms are referred to as READ MORE
Even though whales have been spotted from land, on Saturday afternoon we were thrilled to have our first close encounter on two Southern Right whales at Keurbooms River Mouth. When the Southern Right whales leave the Antarctic waters for the warmer Atlantic and Indian Ocean waters they want to shed their skin. They do so READ MORE
What’s a marine protected area (MPA)? Are all MPA’s the same? Do they actually work? The definition of a protected area from IUCN is: ‘a clearly defined geographical space, recognized, dedicated and managed, through legal or other effective means, to achieve the long-term conservation of nature with associated ecosystem services and cultural values’. A marine READ MORE
The first humpback whales have been seen in the Plettenberg Bay area. They are on their migration up north towards the breeding ground in Madagascar. The whales that pass early through our bay are normally the males that want to get to the breeding ground first and wait for the females. After them comes the READ MORE
With our (ORCA Foundation and Ocean Blue crew) next visit to the Siyakula pre-school our lesson will be about animals and where on earth they live. It teaches them the English names of the animals and where the countries are on the map compared to South Africa. Having volunteers and township tour guests coming from READ MORE
How long does animals live? This is a hard question to answer, since it depends on which aspect we are talking about. Is it how long most of them live or how long they can live? We also need to compare living in the wild or captivity. Just like humans live to different ages, so READ MORE
Bottlenose dolphins that play along the beach line are sometimes predictable in their behaviour. When a set of big waves comes in towards the beach they will surf in on them and breach out the back of the wave. This is a stunning sight, every time.