Scuba divers’ and snorkelers’ interactions with Cape fur seals have been in the spotlight recently in light of proposed legislation that would limit us to keeping a distance of more than 30 metres from any group of 50 or more seals. We wrote about the proposed legislation in detail, and one of the alternatives we suggested to an outright ban on approaching seal colonies and haul out spots was the introduction of a seal diving code of conduct.
We prepared something similar for scuba diving with broadnose sevengill cowsharks in False Bay. The idea is to draw up a set of guidelines that will ensure the well being of the species we’re diving with, and the safety and enjoyment of the divers.
Here’s our seal diving code of conduct. We’d love to hear your comments and suggestions. Is there anything we’ve left out?
We are visiting the seals in order to see them in the water. Under no circumstances will we land on their colony, climb onto the rocks from the water, or otherwise harass them on land.
We won’t try to chase the seals off their haul out spot or colony into the water by clapping, shouting, or otherwise creating a disturbance when we approach. If the seals want to get into the water to play (which they often do), they will.
Seals will interact with us if and when they want to. We won’t use toys such as bits of rope to attract seals to us in the water so that we can photograph or examine them. This teaches seals to identify human-manufactured materials as playthings, and will lead to more entanglement of curious young animals in plastic waste.
We won’t try to touch the seals, and nor will we encourage them to interact physically with us by offering them parts of our gear or other items to chew on. (We recognise that they may do this anyway, but we will not encourage it.)
We use no bait or chum in the water around seal colonies (or anywhere else, unless we have a permit to do so). Apart from it being illegal, it could potentially modify the seals’ behaviour around humans, and may attract charismatic marine megafauna other than the species we’re visiting the area to dive with.
We treat the area all around a seal colony as a no-wake zone. This means the boat engine speed when moving around there is just a little more than an idle, but enough to move forward. When approaching the area, we will slow down well in advance in case other operators have a buoy, divers and/or snorkelers in the water. We recognise that the ocean does not belong to us, and that others have as much right to be at any particular location as we do. This, and concern for vulnerable water users and seals on the surface, informs how we use our boat in the vicinity of a seal colony.
Diving and snorkeling with seals is great fun and a privilege that we have as water users. We’d like to see it appreciated as such, and hopefully this will inform how we interact with these puppy dogs of the ocean.
Proposed changes to the National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act (no. 10 of 2004) will limit scuba divers’ and snorkelers access to Cape fur seal colonies. The proposal was brought to our attention by Georgina Jones (for which we thank her!). Unfortunately the timeline for comments is extremely limited: we must submit written responses to the proposal by 30 April, which is this coming Thursday.
Proposed legislative changes with respect to Cape fur seals
The primary change that will affect us as scuba divers and snorkelers is that we will no longer be allowed within 30 metres of a Cape fur seal colony. This will mean that we cannot approach the colonies at Duiker Island in Hout Bay and at Partridge Point in False Bay. Furthermore, it may mean that we cannot even drive the boat through the gap between Duiker Island and the mainland. Boat routing around the Partridge Point colony will also be affected. Fortunately we don’t do any recreational diving around Seal Island in False Bay, so we don’t need to worry about that!
The Government Gazette outlining the changes is long (288 pages) and you can download it in its entirety here, but I have snipped out the relevant sections. The first is the definition of “harrassment” from page 88, which in point (f) relates to all seal species and states that one may not “approach a colony closer than 30 metres”.
Definition of harrassment (click to enlarge)
The second relevant section is on pages 260-261 as they specifically apply to Cape fur seals. Note that the second last bullet point (on the second page, page 261) prohibits “harassment” of seals, which is defined above.
Cape fur seals regulations (click to enlarge)Cape fur seals regulations continued (click to enlarge)
Why we object to the proposed legislation
Cape fur seals (Arctocephalus pusillus pusillus) are not endangered. In Namibia they are hunted, but in South Africa hunting of seals was stopped years ago. They are classified as “Least Concern” on the IUCN Redlist, which states that
Due to their large population sizes, the global Cape Fur Seal (Afro-Australian Fur Seal) population appears to be healthy, and the subspecies should both therefore be classified as Least Concern (LC).
The best place to encounter Cape fur seals is in proximity to a breeding colony (such as Duiker Island in Hout Bay) or haul out spot (such as Partridge Point in False Bay). The largest breeding colony is Seal Island in False Bay, and recreational diving and snorkeling is off limits there owing to the white shark population that feeds there, primarily in winter. Restricting access to 30 metre wide areas around these colonies will not improve the lot of the seal populations in any way.
Fishermen frequently have an adversarial relationship with seals (Shaughnessy & Kirkwood). Allowing scuba divers and snorkelers to approach seal colonies in the water enables them to observe any abuses that may be perpetrated on the seals by water users who do not appreciate the seals’ presence. It also provides a means for monitoring and reporting the impact of plastic pollution on the animals, which may be significant. Loops of plastic from bait boxes, shopping bags and from six packs of canned drinks pose a risk to these curious mammals, who get their heads or flippers stuck inside the plastic loops. This causes slow and painful damage to the animals as they grow.
There is no indication that activity by snorkelers and scuba divers causes the seals any distress or leads to harmful behaviour modification that could impact individual seals’ chances of survival (Kirkwood et al 2003). Seals are curious and friendly, and frequently and willingly approach people in the water in order to interact.
If conducted sensitively, trips allowing visitors to experience Cape fur seals have great conservation value, not only encouraging awareness of seal conservation issues, but also of species that prey on and are preyed upon by seals, and of issues of plastic pollution in the marine environment.
The monetary value of Cape fur seals as a tourism resource is also significant and contributes to South Africa’s tourism sector. In addition to snorkeling and scuba diving trips, run by a number of operators, there are seal viewing boats (which sometimes pose a significant danger to snorkelers and divers in the water, but that’s another story…) operating out of Hout Bay, which bring thousands of visitors, mostly tourists, to see the colonies each year.
As both Duiker Island and Partridge Point are located close to shore, restricting boat movements around them may force watermen to use less safe routes up and down the coastline, and force them further out to sea than they would otherwise choose to venture in order to avoid the seals.
(It is in fact not clear to me whether Partridge Point, which is a resting or haul out spot rather than a breeding colony, will fall under the proposed legislation, but Duiker Island in Hout Bay certainly will, as will Seal Island in False Bay.)
How we think seals need to be protected
A more impactful (sorry, hate that word) way to protect seals from perceived harrassment would be to enforce a Code of Conduct for seal tourism operators. This would prohibit landing of people on a seal colony by tourist operators. The use of toys such as bits of rope to attract seals in the water should also be prohibited. Teaching seals to identify human manufactured materials as playthings will only lead to more entanglement of young animals in plastic waste. Strict boat speed limits should be enforced around seal colonies and haul out spots. Finally, no bait or chum should be permitted to be used by operators, even if it is kept on the boat and trickled over the side or held inside a glove and not given to the seals.
How to submit comments
If you enjoy snorkeling and diving with seals and want to be able to share that with friends and family in the future, or have a business that profits from seal trips, or if you like to win photography competitions with pictures of seals chomping at your dome port, this means you have a vested interest in the legislation that has been proposed.
The quickest way to comment is to send an email to nmbedzi@environment.gov.za with your comments or objections. Feel free to use any or all of the ones we have listed above. Please do this now!
Contact details to submit comments (click to enlarge)
Operators who do white shark trips and turtle nesting tours in Sodwana should also consult the proposed changes carefully, because they may impact their operations as well.
While we’re down in the Antarctic with Google, they have also provided an interactive map of Shackleton’s Endurance mission of 1914 that gives an excellent idea of the distances covered, and includes both recent and historical photographs.
It’ll be quite a long while (a lot of lottery plays!) before we can afford to go to the Antarctic, and the continent might be much changed by global warming by the time we get there, but in the mean time there’s Google…
Heinrich learned to scuba dive recently, and on his final Open Water dive at Duiker Island in Hout Bay, he brought along his Go-Pro camera. He edited together some footage from that dive, and is generously allowing us to share it here.
The last training dive for my OWD. Amazing dive site with Seals everywhere you look. They are very playful and like to interact with divers. And by interact I mean biting… 😀
The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World – Carl Safina
The View from Lazy Point
The Carl Safina we (I) know and love – brilliant, lyrical, and wide ranging – returns with this book after his angry eulogy for the Gulf of Mexico (A Sea in Flames) after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. This book is a return to the style of his other titles, which you should read as a matter of urgency: Song for the Blue Ocean, Voyage of the Turtle, and Eye of the Albatross. If you had to choose one author to be your guide to everything that’s wrong with, and everything that’s hopeful about our blue planet, Carl Safina would be that writer.
Safina won the 2012 Orion Book Award for The View from Lazy Point, but not everyone loves his sometimes wordy style (channeling great American nature writers such as Henry David Thoreau), so he may be an acquired taste. If you like a bit of literature mixed in with your science, I think you’ll love Safina’s writing. At intervals he allows outrage or anger to break through into his reverie; an encounter with duck hunters near his home, for example, left me with my heart pounding.
Lazy Point is a promontory at the end of Long Island Sound, not that far from New York city. Just looking at the area on the map makes me want to go there – it’s in an area frequented by vast numbers of migratory birds and abundant fish species, with an intriguingly convoluted coastline. Safina owns a cottage at Lazy Point, and The View from Lazy Point is structured around the seasonal changes he is able to observe from this spot. The daily walks he takes on the beach with his dog reveal the changing landscape and its inhabitants as the year passes.
Safina is a fisherman, and mounts an impassioned (and relatively convincing) defence of the activity. He also admits that he struggles with it, which I found slightly reassuring. He has given up shark fishing (at least, he doesn’t keep the sharks he catches any more). I’ve struggled with his fishing narratives before; fortunately in this book he’s more concerned with food than sport.
During the course of the year, Safina also travels – to Palau, Alaska, Svalbard, Belize – seeking first hand the effects of climate change and pollution on the marine environment and the people who depend on it. He sees ice melting and coral reefs bleached and overgrown with algae. I didn’t realise the extent to which coastal communities (mostly on islands) are already having their lands inundated by rising sea levels, crops destroyed and homes flooded. The problems and challenges identified in this book are massive in scope, and probably the most important (self-created) threats humanity has ever had to contend with.
After all, only in the last few decades have we understood anything, really, about how the world actually works. … Consequently most of civilization remains uninformed about the two great realities of our existence: all life is family, and the world is finite. … What I’m saying, basically, is that in very consequential ways, our modes of conduct are so out of sync with reality that they’re essentially irrational.
His call to action is justified. You can read an interview with Safina here, and other reviews of this book at the LA Times and New York Times.
You can get a copy of the book here if you’re in South Africa, otherwise here or here. I think you should read it.
We have had great conditions for several weeks now, and had around 15 m visibility all of this week. The conditions are set to remain good for the weekend so best you come and dive while you can.
This weekend is going to be a little different and on Saturday we will dive Batsata Maze and Outer Photographer’s Reef. Sunday will be the something different day, and we will do a False Bay photo cruise. I have a bench that fits over the tank rack and makes for comfortable, dry seating and we will head off early and go to Seal Island, Strandfontein, Kalk Bay and Fish Hoek. We will look for dolphins, whales and sea birds and anything else interesting to photograph. If the weather is as good as predicted we may venture as far as Cape Point. For more details email, Whatsapp or text me.
Wishing Tamsyn a safe and awesome trip to teach in China for a year, and Christo and friends a good trip to the Red Sea… It brings back great memories!
I have an obsession with False Bay; our lives revolve around its moods, and we spend a lot of time around, under or on the waters of the bay. Tony’s business activities are affected by conditions in False Bay, but we also pay attention to the bay because it’s interesting to us. Life lived according to the rhythms of this beautiful body of water to me feels far more authentic and significant than a life lived according to the rhythms of my alarm clock and office hours.
I’ve been reading some things about the history of False Bay, and this book seemed to be the place to start. It was published in 1985 and is written a bit like a Lawrence G. Green book, but with (I think) slightly more attention to detail and accurate sourcing. There is a list of references at the back, but a lot of it is oral history that Tredgold gleaned from interviewing (then) elderly inhabitants of the settlements on the bay’s edge.
It’s essentially a colonial history of False Bay, with a view that history only started when the Dutch arrived in the Cape. There’s a brief section on the very early geological history of the bay, but not enough for my liking, and I would have liked to know more about the Strandlopers who frequented the area before the Dutch and British started stampeding around and shooting cannonballs at each other.
Tredgold devotes most of his attention to the history of Simon’s Town, Fish Hoek, Kalk Bay, St James, Gordon’s Bay and the Strand. False Bay was a very significant fishing resource right from the time of early Dutch settlement at the Cape, and up until about 1900 a significant amount of whaling was done in the bay, most of it from Kalk Bay. By about 1900 it wasn’t economically viable (too few whales) to run a whaling business inside False Bay any more. I found this remarkably sad – that already over 100 years ago humans had practically exhausted some of the marine resources available to them – but also heartening, given the generous numbers of whales that visit False Bay between June and November in the present day.
Despite the importance of the False Bay fishing opportunities, the focus in this book is on human history. The natural history of the bay is only mentioned insofar as it illuminates the activities of the humans in the settlements on its fringes. There are only two or three mentions of the False Bay white shark population: one is made as part of an account of Simon van der Stel’s visit to Seal Island in 1679. The men caught fish around the island, but sharks took many of them before they could be landed. Little did he know what a massive economic powerhouse the False Bay cage diving industry would be over 300 years later!
There are some interesting stories of some of the many wrecks in False Bay, but for more detail on the human aspect of those I’d suggest the Michael Walker booksHard Aground, Forgotten Shipwrecks of the Western Cape and Shipwrecks of the Far South.
This isn’t an easy book to get hold of – it’s out of print – but you can probably find a copy on Bid or Buy, which is where I found mine.
Andre happens to live high up above False Bay, with a magnificent view right across to the eastern side of the bay, weather permitting. Here’s Seal Island and a lone yacht, one Sunday in March.
Cranes and boats at the V&A Waterfront, half hidden by mist
The Freedom Swim series is a series of timed open water swims around the Cape Peninsula. Tony provided support to three swimmers who planned to complete the 7.5 kilometre swim from Robben Island in Table Bay, to Big Bay on the Blouberg coast. The day started extremely early, as I went to meet the swimmers at the V&A Waterfront at 0700 while Tony launched the boat at Oceana Power Boat Club.
Cape Town Stadium shrouded in mist
Once I’d collected the swimmers’ gear, refreshments and warm clothes, I went to meet Tony in Granger Bay. There was a thick mist over the Atlantic seaboard, and all the boats who were helping with the swim were drifting on the flat sea just outside OPBC. It took a long time, but when the mist started to clear we could see Cape Town Stadium looming over us.
Tony waiting for the mist to clear
We did a lot of standing by to stand by, and then we did some standing by. It was very quiet in the mist!
Other boats wait in the mist
At about 1030, after waiting for several hours, we got the go-ahead to set a course for Robben Island. Tony enjoyed testing the motors on Seahorse, as they’ve recently been changed. (And yes, we did get to the island first.)
Robben Island
The meeting point and start of the swim was Murray’s Bay Harbour on the eastern side of Robben Island. The swimmers were to start in two groups: the first swimmers would be in swimsuits (and Vaseline), and the second group, which included our swimmers, would be in wetsuits. We had numbers corresponding to our swimmers attached to the side of the console.
A blanket of mist below Table Mountain
I loved seeing Table Mountain from the sea. What I particularly liked is that the strip of mist below the mountain hid all signs of human settlement (including Cape Town harbour and the abominable Disa Park towers, but excluding the cable station), which let me imagine what this place might have looked like to early visitors to Table Bay.
Motoring out to Robben Island – looking back at Table Mountain
Tony provided support to some swimmers who participated in the Freedom Swim from Robben Island across Table Bay to Big Bay, on 3 May. We launched at Oceana Power Boat Club, and motored across to Robben Island when the mist cleared a bit, enjoying the excellent power to weight ratio that the boat now has thanks to the 60hp Mercury four strokes that Tony fitted recently.
