Ocean News

The Save Our Seas Shark Centre hosted it’s 3rd successful School Holiday programme. The Spring School Holiday programme ran from the 28thSeptember to the 2 October. We reached a total of 55 children from the ages of 4 – 18years old. On Monday we had a group of 30 children from…

Earlier in the year the IUCN published their findings that almost a third of open ocean sharks are threatened with extinction. Many people find sharks scary, but the prospect of an ocean without sharks is even scarier. Sharks are apex predators and as such play a vital role in the…

Apologies for my recent slacking on the news blog front: I’ve been busy writing up the latest findings of the SOSF silky shark project, which of course will be made available in good time. Having only just arrived this morning at our research facility in the Red Sea to continue…

We need to put our fear of sharks into perspective. Yes, occasionally a human dies as a result of a shark "accident" but this does not make them man-eaters seeking out humans at every available opportunity. In fact, sharks should be the ones scared of us. Every year an estimated…

The winner of the Seas the Day competition was announced yesterday at the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival. Congratulations to Alishia Hemingway and Mike Masson who created the winning entry in this year’s Seas the Day Short Film Competition. "Side Dish" was selected as the overall winner of this year’s…

12 days and counting until European Shark Week! And what a great week it’s shaping up to be. Shark supporters in fifteen European countries are coming together to show their support for sharks and to ask for more protection. We already know about events in Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece,…

Let’s face it, we don’t often hear someone say "I love sharks!" or "Since I was 5 years old I’ve been obsessed with sharks," but then again the group of people we interviewed for our latest video aren’t normal people. They’re shark scientists. They work with sharks on a daily…

European Shark Week is fast approaching and it presents a unique opportunity for people across Europe to demonstrate their support for shark conservation and effect change. Most European shark populations are declining from overfishing. One-third are threatened with extinction. The EU ban on “finning” – slicing off a shark’s fins and…

The Save our Seas Shark Centre in Cape Town proactively participated in National Coastal Clean-up week, which is linked to International Coastal Clean-up Day from the 14-18 September. In partnership with Ocean Conservancy South Africa, the City of Cape Town and Metrorail, a total of 220 enthusiastic learners from grades…

In our new episode of The Riddle Solvers, we find the following riddle in an ancient journal. Teeth can tell you stories, they’re full of many clues, Of how a creature lived and how its jaws are used. Your riddle is to find a tooth, this shall be your test.…

Manta Rays and whale sharks have been somewhat scarce at Hanifaru for the last 10 days, with a combination of rough seas, low plankton concentrations and neap tides the likely culprits for their absence. After a few weeks of thick clouds and torrential rain, the sun is now finally beginning…

This week we announced the three finalists in our Seas the Day Short Film Competition. Here they are in no particular order. Finalist No 1: Why Should They? was produced, shot and edited by Ed Watkins. It was lensed on a RED ONE in a 2hr shoot, and cost $35…

Having just published the previous post, I am grieved to learn that on August 31st a large female white shark (4.37m) weighing 900kg was caught in a shark net off Zinkwazi beach on the KwaZulu Natal coast of South Africa. Only two days later a second female white shark (3.95m)…

One of the more significant pieces of news over the past few days is that a potential ban on bluefin tuna fishing in Europe is seeming significantly more likely than it has in the past few years. Bluefin tuna have been subject to incredibly intense fishing pressure, leaving many with…

Shark Lullaby Click on this arrow to hear The Shark Lullaby, the first recorded song for our upcoming Riddle Solvers episode: The Shark Riddle. We are very excited about working on a program about sharks with the Save Our Seas Foundation. And we plan to make a shark program like…