With our upcoming Photographic Workshop based around capturing breaching Great White Sharks off Seal Island, we thought it would be a good idea to gain a greater insight into the conservation and research efforts which focus on these magnificent creatures. The following is the first of many guest posts from the Dyer Island Conservation Trust.
Welcome to our Volunteer/Intern blog
We have had and excellent group of volunteers and interns for the month of January stretching from all around the world. We can actually say it was the United Nations in Kleinbaai for this month. There was Noelle -USA, Blair and Ben – Australia, Uriel – Netherlands, Mairead – Ireland, David – UK, Nicole – [...]
Shark sightings
February 2011 has been an excellent month. We have encountered some spectacular white shark sightings and a drastic improvement on shark numbers from December/January. Interestingly, white shark presence has only been documented at Dyer Island and not in the normal shallow water reef system of Joubertsdam. The only female shark we saw in the shallows [...]
Inshore shark research – Shark Blog 7
By DICT’s Marine Biologist, Alison Towner Inshore shark research We have had a fantastic few months of tracking white sharks in Gansbaai. In September, we deployed two acoustic transmitters on to two 4m plus female sharks on the 3rd and 7th of September respectively. Without giving too much away, the results from following these sharks [...]
Live Streaming
Watch Dyer Island Conservation Trust’s LIVE from the Hermanus Whale Festival
DICT live streaming on Marine Big 5, posted with vodpod
Live streaming from the Hermanus Whale Festival
HOT OFF THE PRESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Marine Dynamics and Dyer Island Conservation Trust will be bringing you the event of the year straight to your PC! We will be broadcasting LIVE from the Hermanus Whale Festival 2010. We will be hosting an array of environmental speakers & biologists from around the world to discuss various ecological [...]
First Great White Shark tagged
by DICT’s Marine Biologist Alison Towner Much excitement at the moment! Under the guidance of Marine and Coastal Management (MCM) – Oceans & Coasts – we successfully tagged and tracked our first great white shark on the 3rd September 2010 at 10:30am. She was a 4.2m female (huge) and as we implanted the transmitter we [...]
Southern Right Whales
Southern Right Whales (Eubalaena australis) Southern right whales are large baleen whales. The average size of an adult is approximately 15 metres, but they do grow larger. These whales are filter feeders and they sieve copepods (small planktonic organisms) from the water using huge baleen plates, which hang from the roof of their mouth. This [...]
DOLPHINS
DOLPHINS Which species of dolphins do we find around Dyer Island ? There are 2 different species of dolphins which are regular visitors in our waters; the Humpback dolphin and the Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin. We have a resident pod of humpback dolphins (Sousa chinensis) around Dyer Island. These dolphins can be easily confused with the [...]
CAPE FUR SEAL
CAPE FUR SEAL ORDER: Pinnipedia FAMILY: Otariidae GENUS: Arctocephalus SPECIES: pusillus SUBSPECIES: pusillus The Cape Fur Seal breeds at > 40 colonies in southern Africa between Algoa Bay (Port Elizabeth) and baia dos Tigres (southern Angola), at mainland sites or on islands nearby the coast. There have been several new colonies established in recent decades. [...]
Dyer Island Blog #8 – 06 October 2009
Dyer Island Blog #8 – 06 October 2009 Major news the past few weeks in South Africa’s marine environment was the grounding of the bulk carrier ‘Seli 1’ shortly before midnight on Monday 7th September at Blouberg in Cape Town. This 29-year- old Turkish ship was headed for Gibraltar and was carrying 660 tons of [...]
