From: sasealion@wam.co.za
Date: December 9, 2006 4:12:59 PM
Dear All Cape Fur Seal Supporters,
9 Baby Seals and 2 Weanlings in NEW Seal Centre, and good news,
more good news, and still more ....
I am writing this from the new Cape fur seal rehab centre.
Whilst the universe took 7 days to create. Thanks to you -
in 12 days we built a Seal-World. We emptied this 13 m
by 5 m room of its ships rubble that took 22 truck-loads to
cart away. Built two brick and concrete swimming pools (5m
by 2m) and two rockery/seal islands. Knocked down the far
wall and installed a roller-shutter door. Installed power,
lights and water. A sea-water pump.
May I ask you all to
send a short email thanking Oceana's CEO Andrew Marshall
(amarshall@oceana.co.za) and his factory
Manager at Hout Bay, Mr Deon van Zyl (dvanzyl@saseaproducts.co.za).
Since becoming aware of the seal entangled abroad one of
their trawlers (its was freed and safe) some weeks back, Mr
Marshall has been a CEO of outstanding concern for the
welfare of these seals, his manager van Zyl, responded
promptly and immediately and made the premises
available. As the largest fishing company in southern
Africa, we are indeed grateful to Oceana for letting us
have these premises "free of charge" indefinitely. This
is an incredibly positive benefit for the future
rescue and ultimate survival of this species. We
now have a nerve-centre for the seals.
Whilst construction was frantically underway, 7 pups and 2
weanlings were kept in the Beauty Without Cruelty - "Spirit
of Seal Supporters" catamaran on its trailers outside my
house and a further group of 4 from another colony were
kept in my back garden in a temporary holding tank. All 13
seals were desperate for their new facility. Sadly, two
very weak (the smallest) died.
Seal Alert-SA's informal seal stranding network covers 9
offshore seal colonies and pups were collected as far as
250km in either direction. As seen from the pic above once
seen only as fish-stealing "garbage". City Council refuse
workers who once used to discard these days old baby seals
on rubbish dumps, now assist Seal Alert-SA to recover them,
using even the garbage bag itself to hold baby seal until
Seal Alert-SA can make the pick-up.
Feeding time, which is every four hours is something else.
Carefully attention has to be made in who has been fed and
who has not. It can get a little confusing.
To give you some idea of how much is involved in each days
feed. 20 litres of mineral water and 20 kg of fish per day.
1200 heads and tails need to be cut-off each fish.
Preparing their feed requires 6 hours and feeding itself
takes another 6 hours. This is for just 10 baby seals, if
20 or 30 arrive this season, it doubles or trebles the time
involved. Then there is still Mumkin and the 15 weanlings
and the actual rescues, transport, etc, etc. My days start
a 4am and end exhausted at 11pm.
My immediate real concern for the centre, is the chill/cold
factor, created by the gale force winds. The roof
desperately needs to be repaired urgently to bring down the
internal wind factor. Funds are desperately short, but if
you can help here please do, as I am afraid without
sufficient warmth babies will suffer.
So now it is time to thank
each and everyone of you - for making this possible. You
are truly amazing people. The babies have their own pool
filled with sea-water, a rookery and plenty of good
sunlight and fresh air - (tummies are full and they love
it). We can handle about 30 in one pool, and we still have
the other pool for larger seals and their rehab. A place to
house our rescue craft of jetski's and rubber-duck. On
their and my behalf, my deepest, deepest thank you.
Much, much work needs to be done. We still need to paint
the centre, repair the roof and walls, install another
roller door for immediate jetski launching directly off the
pier and place a secure steel fence over the roof to
protect the facility and babies (in the meantime I have
hired an evening security-guard). I would like to
fence off this pier along-side (and with the pic on the
right) break the wall down and put a slip-way down into the
water. This pier would then be used for (second stage
rehab) and to disentangle seals. The rafts and Catamaran
boat will be used for final stage return to the
self-survival in the wild. So if you have any cash spare
after your Christmas spend, we really need it.
So whilst others run
campaigns costing over tens of millions rands or build
70 million rand office buildings or dont even know the
difference between Harp seals or Cape fur seals, Seal
Alert-SA struggles to raise 40 000 rand (6000 dollars).
With an annual budget of just 70 000 dollars - I save
over 1000 seal lives.
and now some more good news .....
Green Party MEP UK, Caroline Lucas reports back from her
meeting with the EU Commissioners. Could we please send her
a thank you (caroline.lucas@europarl.europa.eu).
Commissioner Kyprianou also responded officially.
From:
LUCAS Caroline
Sent: Monday, December 04, 2006 6:12 PM
Subject: Reply to your fax regarding Dr Lucas's meeting
Dear
Mr Hugo and Ms Botha,
I
am writing in reply to your fax dated 21 November 2006, and
to update you on the outcome of the meeting between myself
and Commissioner Dimas on the 8th
November.
During
the meeting it transpired that in principle there is no
problem in extending the EU ban to include Cape Fur seals.
However, the real problem, not just relating to Cape Fur
seals, but the seal hunting ban as a whole, is that the
Commission believes it will be difficult to get any
legislation passed as there is uncertainty over the legal
basis for a ban. Commissioner Dimas is well aware of the
issue surrounding the inclusion of Cape Fur Seals in the
ban, and is sympathetic to our cause. Our efforts must now
be concentrated on ensuring the Commission finds a
legitimate legal base. I met again with Commissioner Dimas
on November 30th and he assured me he was doing his best to
achieve this.
We
are still awaiting a date for the meeting with Commissioner
Kyprianou.
Best
wishes,
Caroline
Lucas MEP
and
still more good news .....
De Beers the largest gem diamond producer in the world, and
were 70% of the Cape fur seals in South Africa have
colonised on their land and a further 50% of the Namibian
Cape fur seals in Namibia equally occur, where clubbing of
baby seals has taken place for over 60 years. De Beers has
now commissioned Accountability to undertake a De Beers
Reputation Research and Seal Alert-SA has been asked to
partake in an interview involving 20 external stakeholders
which will hopefully guide this corporate giant in its
environmental (seal) policies over the next 2 - 5 years. My
60-minute conference call from the UK is scheduled for
Monday.
I will not send well wishes now, as I will be reporting
back again shortly. Earle Bingley has send out a lovely
voice-message (see attached) - Cape fur Seals - Merry
Christmas.
and
more news ....
http://allafrica.com/stories/200612080340.html.
My only concern with articles like this, is that although
there is overwhelming evidence of global warming, most
issues occurring today, can be traced back to a cause far
more obvious, greed and overfishing. Yet, not once is this
acknowledged and all blame directed
elsewhere.
Finally. From our eastern most seal colony, restricted to a
small awash rock (whilst 6 large islands nearby remain
banned in a bay once known as the "Bay of Seals"),over 200
baby seal pups (90% of them) washed ashore over 2 days (600
km away), and for the first time since the late 1970's
government mobilised the air-force to ferry the pups back
to the awash rock. A somewhat wasted exercise in that it is
unlikely that these pups will survive or be re-united (as
past experiences have shown), but at least it shows
government is changing its policy towards seals and at
least reacting to their seal crisis. A far simpler policy,
would be to unbanned the islands, and baby seals would
not then wash off annually from small restricted awash
rocks.
For
the Seals
Francois
Hugo Seal Alert-SA.
Earle's Christmas wish for the cape fur seal
babies SA
Earle's Chrismas wish for
the cape fur seal babies SA
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