AfricanDiver.com

The SA blog awards is a showcase of the very best of South African blogs.

We will endeavour to bring South African bloggers to the forefront of peoples attention, both locally and internationally, increasing exposure for South Africa’s great bloggers; and in the end reach out and touch people who are outside the realm of blogging and have them discover what they are missing.

The 2010 SA Blog Awards is scheduled for its annual process of nominations and voting this year are as follows:

• Nominations Phase:2nd August 2010 to 27th August 2010
• Voting Phase: 1st September to 17th September 2010
• Winners announced on 25 September 2010 at the annual awards ceremony provisionally at the One & Only hotel, Cape Town.

Please click here and have a look at rules with which the awards will be run this year.

Click here if you would like to nominate AfricanDiver Blog

An adult humpback whale beached in Ballito on Saturday, the KwaZulu-Natal Sharks Board said.

The whale was partially decomposed when it washed up on Boulder Beach, said operations head Mike Anderson-Reade.

He estimated that the whale had been dead for about four days, and presumed it died of natural causes. It had not yet been removed.

The board warned surfers and swimmers to stay away from the water as it determined the presence of intense shark activity because of bite marks on the carcass.

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Cape Town - A whale that became entangled in a 40-metre nylon rope was freed on Saturday afternoon near Gordon’s Bay in a meticulously planned rescue operation.

Employees from the department of environmental affairs, with the support of the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI), used sharp knives to cut free the one-year-old southern right whale, which presumably became entangled on Friday afternoon at Hangklip.

The crew of a boat in False Bay saw on Friday night how the whale was hitting the water with its tail and realised it was in distress and was probably tangled.

“But it was nearly dark and we decided to only go out the next morning,” said Mike Meyer, a spokesperson of the department for environmental affairs’ branch for oceans and coast, on Sunday evening.

“All along the coastline there are fish nets in which whales can become entangled. When a whale swims into a net, it starts turning round and round in an attempt to free itself. But that is actually the worst thing it can do because then it becomes more entangled.”

Infection

According to Meyer, a rope like that usually caught on the thin part of the tail, in front of the tail fin.

Often, as was also the case with this whale, there was a buoy attached to the rope. If an entangled whale was not helped, it could die eventually.

“The rope cuts into the animal’s flesh and it leads to infection.”

“The buoy keeps the animal on the surface of the ocean and prevents him from feeding and eating properly.”

“As this whale was helped within a day, he was not injured too badly,” Meyer added.

Officials from the branch asked the NSRI, tourist boats and other boats to look out for the whale on Saturday morning.

After they established that it was near Koeël Bay, NSRI volunteers took three members of the branch in NSRI boats to the whale.

Quick operation

They herded the whale to calmer waters in Gordon’s Bay.

They could then throw a kedge anchor on a rope toward him so that it could be fixed to the rope on his tail. Two buoys were tied to the rope so that the whale would remain on the surface.

Then they switched off the boat’s engines and carefully approached the whale. They pulled the rope toward them and carefully cut it off with sharp knives.

The rescue operation took about 30 minutes.

By Hunter Atkins

You could be eating shark meat and not even know it.

South African fish shops are selling unlabelled or mislabelled shark products, which poses a threat to these endangered species and the unaware shoppers, according to the WWF’s Southern Africa Sustainable Seafood Initiative (SASSI).

“We are getting more and more reports of fish shops selling products with strange sounding names like sokomoro and ocean fillet. (Some are) common or even made-up names that most consumers won’t recognise,” said John Duncan, a programme officer for the initiative.

Referring to the latest name on the market, sokomoro, which is another name for the shortfin mako shark, Duncan added, “Retailers are purposely mislabelling these species and lying about their origins because they know shark is unpopular with consumers.”

The shortfin mako is listed as “vulnerable” by the World Conservation Union. In addition to depleting the shark population, selling shark meat poses dangers to consumers with certain allergenic or religious food restrictions.

There are no regulations in South Africa to keep retailers from selling shark under different names like gummy, lemon fish and ocean fillet, a few of “thousands and thousands” of common names used to mask fish, according to Duncan. An exotic sounding name like sokomoro is just as mysterious.

“If you wanted to, you can call it peanut butter,” he said.

It is not illegal for retailers to sell shark, and concealing the identity of shark products has advantages. Selling shark under a different name gives fishers a way to catch and sell more sharks than the legal limit in a given year.

Mislabelling also attracts shoppers who normally avoid buying endangered animal products.

The anonymous meat can also make up shortages of a popular item that is similar, like swordfish. This was the justification put forward by Sidney Fishing director Sidney Moniz, whose employees at the Fish 4 Africa in Woodstock gave inconsistent answers about sokomoro yesterday.

One vendor said sokomoro was a fish from Spain and another vaguely described its origins as “from the coasts”. One manager said the shop carried, “no fish from Spain, as far as I know”.

Most shortfin mako are snagged near Japan when long-lining for tuna according to Duncan.

“I’m not sure if they knew it was from the shark family,” said Moniz, who added he was embarrassed, as he wrestled with reasons why the shop would be selling unlabelled fish. He said it was possibly done to bolster swordfish shortages or could have been a mistake because shark is difficult to distinguish off the bone.

“A big problem for me in the recent economic recession has been all these guys shipping these substitute fish,” Moniz said. “I didn’t even know it (sokomoro) was on the endangered species list. It’s not even a big portion of our business.”

Duncan said the SASSI programme was lobbying for government and NCIS standards to develop a list of acceptable trade names. For now he said a good policy for consumers is to avoid buying a product if they do not know what it is.

Source can be found here

In the months before handing over control of MCM to the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF), the Department of Environmental Affairs spent R144 000 on 402 Bafana Bafana soccer jerseys for MCM staff using LRF funds! That worked out to R358 a jersey!

What makes this spending spree even more criminal is that since DAFF took control of MCM on 1 May, it has emerged that within 15 days of the financial year, MCM has no more money for any further fisheries research surveys for the 2010 season. This means that critical annual surveys for hake, pelagics, lobsters, mackerel, abalone etc are not going to take place. It is also apparent that MCM has no funds for any significant compliance strategy.

At least we know what MCM’s previous leadership under Mayekiso and then Razeena Omar (the Acting DDG of MCM) considered a priority. After all why spend any funds on fisheries management when you can spend it on Adidas Bafana Bafana soccer jerseys!

A surfer survived a shark attack in the sea off Port Alfred on Tuesday, police said.

Brendan Denton, 35 was surfing with a friend at East Beach at 10:30 when the shark attacked him about 100 metres from the shore, said Captain Mali Govender.

“He suddenly felt something pulling him underwater,” said Govender, who spoke to him in the Port Alfred Hospital afterwards.

“He thought it might be his friend playing the fool with him.”

The second time it happened, he turned around and saw his feet in the shark’s jaw.

Denton wrestled with the shark and it let go of his feet, but it grabbed hold of the leash attaching his ankle to the surfboard and started swimming out to sea with him in tow.

He released the leash and when the surfboard popped out of the sea three metres away a few moments later, he was able to get back on it and paddle to safety.

His friend and other surfers, who had heard his screams and splashing, helped him to a doctor.

Govender said Denton’s injuries looked serious.

When she asked him how he was doing, he told her he was “okay”.

As he was wheeled into theatre for surgery, she told him she could see his feet. He replied he could not feel them.

Govender described the water at East Beach as “very murky”.

“You normally get sharks in water like that,” she said, adding that the National Sea Rescue Institute had since closed the beach.

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