South African Shark Conservancy

Spent the last few days exploring the estuaries, learning all about the incredible fish species that call these waters home. Our team used line nets and purse nets to catch, measure, and release a variety of fish, giving us a hands-on look at the diversity in these ecosystems.

From casting nets at sunrise to measuring these fascinating creatures up close, each day was filled with excitement and discovery. Feeling grateful for the chance to contribute to research that helps protect these important habitats.

This data helps us better understand the delicate balance of estuarine environments, guiding conservation efforts and ensuring sustainable fisheries for the future.

Another week in the field and lab, diving deep into marine research 🌊. Our week started with snorkeling and fishing surveys. Then, it was back on land for some animal husbandry work—caring for the sharks that call our lab home. Finally we moved to sorting through dissection photos and data entry in order to update our data bases. Every piece of data counts! 🦈

Science in Action!!
We have been very busy these past few weeks doing some dissections on skates and sharks.
Looking at the stomach contents, liver weight etc. we then extracted some of the jaws to set and display in our education centre.

Today we put our sea legs on to take the boat out! Throughout the day we caught multiple different sharks and fish, including some dark shysharks (Haploblepharus pictus), puffadder shyshark (Haploblepharus edwardsii), pyjama catshark (Poroderma africanum), a soupfin shark (Galeorhinus galeus), and even a long-snouted African Spurdog (Squalus bassi)! Overall we had a very fun and surprising day with all the data we collected. Science, adventure, and conservation in action! 🦈

With perfect conditions yesterday our team headed out into the bay to do our annual receiver rollover!
A big thanks to and their crew as well as for the receivers!!

🚨🚨Big news alret🚨🚨
We are super excited to announce that Emy Cottrant has received her PhD after so much hard work and dedication! We are all so proud of you.

Congratulations Dr Cottrant 🥳

Some fishing in the New Harbour, the water was so clear you could see the sharks tasting your bait 🙈

There are always so many interesting creatures to be found on our rock shores.
Here are just 3 highlights from yesterday:

1 - A common octopus playing hide and seek

2 - A fiery nudibranch laying eggs

3 - The orange-clubbed nudibranch zooming around the rocks (a new species for our list!!)

It is always so cool finding new nudibranch species. Let us introduce you to them:
1: Four-coloured nudibranch (Godiva quadricolor)

2: Elegant nudibranch (Cratena sp.1)

3: Candy nudibranch (Cuthona specious)

4: Night sky nudibranch (Amanda armata)

It’s not every day you get to see an elephant seal on our local beach.
Meet Buffel, the new talk of the town.
He is a Southern African Seal that has come ashore to undergo his annual moult.

It is always a treat to get out of the lab and explore the beautiful rock pools!!!
This is just a glimpse into the amazing creatures we found while exploring…
Pic 1: Saddled nudibranch
Pic 2: White-tipped nudibranch
Pic 3: Fiery nudibranch
Pic 4: Warty pleurobranch
Pic 5: Cape silvertip nudibranch
Pic 6: Black nudibranch
Pic 7: Twin-crowned nudibranch
Pic 8: Sandy anemone
Pic 9: Cape rock crab
Pic 10: SASC team exploring

Merry Christmas to everyone celebrating this festive season🎄
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A really creepy creature for the shores!
This is a rocksucker that washed up outside our lab.
They have some really interesting looking teeth which they use to pry off pear limpets from the rocky shores.
They can reach up to 30cm in length and turn this reddish colour once they are dead.
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We recently spent sometime on a fishing trip to Struisbaai.
Our lines were busy, managing to catch a juvenile smoothhound, blue stingray, bull ray as well some dark shysharks and a leopard catshark.

We also picked up and measured an incredible amount of eggcases which were washed up on the beach! 153 were picked up in total and of that 124 of them were spearnose skate eggcases.
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Our team went to the other side of the bay to De Kelders for some eggcase surveys.
With the high tide not many of the small beaches were accessible but we still had a blast. We picked up as many eggcases as we could find as well as the rubbish that had also washed up.
While looking through the washed up kelp we saw a small spotted bush snake darting away as well as a blue headed agama.
All in all it was a successful day out in the field!
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🦈🦈🦈

PARTNER NEWS!

The overarching goal of the project which this campaign underwrites (set to continue until July 2025), is to secure effective protection of South Africa’s IUCN Red Listed threatened and endemic sharks and rays and builds on achievements of the first WILDTRUST Shark and Ray Protection project funded by Shark Conservation Fund (SCF) completed in July 2022.

None of this incredible and important work would be possible without our partnerships and collaboration, including the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE), Greenlaw, TRAFFIC, Stellenbosch University, Rhodes University, Sharklife and Geremy Cliff Consulting.

We are over a year into the project and are excited to announce that we have two NEW partners on board:

🦈 The Sharks and People Advisory Forum
We are proud to be supporting their engagements surrounding the complexities associated with KZN shark nets and drumlines and using the Forum as a platform to explore potential non-lethal alternatives to bather safety in KZN.

🦈 The South African Shark Conservancy
We are supporting The SASC in analysing BRUV (Baited Remote Underwater Video) footage in Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) managed by CapeNature, to enable us to find out more about sharks and rays, particularly those that are threatened and/or endemic, in these important and biodiverse MPAs.

Wildoceanssa

It was a busy day last week Friday! We had three big groups coming to our lab for a tour 🦈
It is always so much fun sharing our sharky knowledge to the public.
You can also join us for a tour at 10am and again at 2pm every weekday 😊
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Awesome photo of the lab

Hermanus moonlight sea view. 🌝

Some really interesting creatures washed up on the beach after the massive influx of freshwater after the heavy rains.
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After the very heavy rains, the floodwaters have washed lots of animals out to sea!
Our team went out onto the beaches this morning and came across two tortoises on Grotto beach. They were stuck in the reeds that had washed up on the sand. If you are out on the beaches please keep an eye out and give them a hand!

Luckily both tortoises were still alive and got some TLC before being released in the bushes where they belong.
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It’s a Friday update! We delivered a training session to Cape Nature Rangers today!!! First it was Nat delivering a presentation on Acoustic Telemetry and importance of tracking the fish movements, then Laila came into the spotlight covering in and outs of BRUV (baited remote underwater video) surveys! And last but not least it was Guy teaching the rangers about Estuarine Ecology!
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Our intern Hannah giving her last lab tour presentation.
Come join us for our next lab tours, every weekday at 10:00 or 14:00🦈

Book a tour on: +27 (0) 62 894 4313
See you there!
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