17 Cape Fur Seal off Cape Town, South Africa have been confirmed with rabies. It is the first ever documented rabies outbreak in a marine mammal.
The waters off South Africa and Namibia are home to a variety of marine species but one of the most iconic and beloved of these is the Cape Fur Seal.
It is the region’s most common marine mammal, with a population of almost two million individuals. Now there is concern that the disease will spread to other species in the area.
I have now worked full time at Deep Sea Reporter for just over a year and the month of May has come around again and this year it has as usual been a month when the weather can cycle through 4 seasons in a matter of hours. But now it seems as if these rapid and sometimes extreme changes occur at anytime during the year
Kwanele Mbatha makes a living by subsistence fishing and guiding tourists along South Africa’s Wild Coast but this fragile ecosystem faces the threat of overfishing, damage from oil and gas exploration, mining and many other human activities.
The disappearance of Great White Sharks from False Bay, South Africa, attributed to various factors including predation by orcas, human activities such as longlining fishing targeting their prey, and the resulting decline in the shark population. The Shark Spotters team, responsible for monitoring the bay's waters, confirms the absence of Great Whites since 2019 and points to orcas as a contributing factor.
