Date: December 9, 2006 4:12:59 PM
I'am writing this from the NEW Cape Fur Seal Rescue Centre
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 quicktimeplayer