Blog

The first talk in the Garden Route on rabies in Cape Fur Seals, was presented by Chanel Visser at the Knysna Yacht Club on Tuesday evening the 29th. South Africa (and Namibia) are making history with the first ever cases of rabies in ocean dwelling mammals. The talk by Senior Marine Field Ranger at Cape Nature and marine stranding expert answered countless pertinent questions on this outbreak. Raising awareness at talks like these about the vital steps that can be taken to protect oneself is a key aspect of her work. Rabies in Cape Fur Seals was first noticed four years ago when a few seals demonstrated unprovoked aggression. This virus, a wild strain possibly originating in Namibia, is endemic...

Tuesday evening saw an enlightening talk by Mark Dixon – founder of Strandloper Project – at the Knysna Yacht Club. The Idyllic, on-the-water setting, lended itself wonderfully to his talk on ocean plastic waste, and their devastating effect on the coastal ecosystem. The audience was enthralled. “I’ve learned so much this evening!” remarks a spectator, keen to get involved in conservation efforts and make a difference. From its small beginnings in January 2018, the Strandloper Project – a volunteer based NPO – has reached great heights. A growing team of citizen scientists do some outstanding, and much needed work along the coastline of South Africa. They focus on mapping ocean plastic waste, as well as Abandoned, Lost, or Discarded Fishing...

We’re excited to welcome a new volunteer to our team! Gabriela Guberman will be joining us as a photographer and storyteller. She will be documenting our talks – as well as covering our research expeditions to share our work with a wider audience. With a passion for everything related to the ocean, as well as a love of writing and photography, Gabriela will craft captivating stories to raise awareness about the Knysna Estuary. She is looking forward to sharing the ground-breaking research that is being done in this area with others, hopefully inspiring conservation through her work. As an outdoor enthusiast, Gabriela spends most of her time surrounded by nature, and is often in the water. She is an avid...

Andrew Meiklejohn – Masters Candidate Rhodes University, Department of Icthyhology and Fisheries Science The final two samples for my master’s were made up of the second seine net sample set and second beam trawl sample set. Seine netting is a method of sampling used to target a wide variety of fish in shallow water habitats of estuarine systems. The use of a beam trawl is a new method of sampling in the Knysna estuary, it has however been used in other South African estuaries. Beam trawl sampling allows better targeting of early juvenile fish species. It was hypothesised that a large number of fish species would be present in this summer sample set as well as a large number of...

Teachers who have knowledge of a topic teach with confidence and, conversely, are not confident in their teaching with content which they are not familiar. In South Africa, education research has shown that unfamiliarity in environmental content knowledge is a problem as for many teachers this content is new (having not been exposed to it in the previous schooling and tertiary education systems). To take this one step further, international studies have shown that: “Concurrent with the need to understanding the complex content, is establishing pedagogies that support the designing of teaching and learning in an interactive, learner-centered way…”(Unesco 2014).  That is, the methods of teaching affect the way in which the content is understood and learnt. To address these...