Ocean News

Last month Dr Leonard Compagno and Lesley Rochat attended the Ocean Film Festival in San Francisco, USA. While Lesley promoted the SOSSC educational and awareness initiatives, Dr Compagno made contact with many fellow scientists.  Whilst at the Moss Landing Marine Labs in Montery Bay, Dr Compagno, Dr Dave Ebert, and…

Morne Hardenberg, representing the Save Our Seas Shark Centre, in Kalk Bay  South Africa, was initially enjoying his second diving exp

Sixty six grade 2 & 3 learners visited the Shark Centre on the 01 April – April Fools Day.  Much fun was had by the children and Verona. When the Grade 3 children were asked to give ways in which they could take responsibility for saving our sharks, Verona found these…

The London Aquarium (LA) is in a fantastic location at the very heart of London and receives hundreds of thousands of visitors every year, including school groups on a daily basis. LA is committed to marine conservation, running its own projects and also putting a lot of effort into educating its…

Majestic blue sharks off Cape Point. Photo Morne’ Hardenberg Tuna fishermen have been reporting loads of blue sharks (Prionace glauca) off Cape Point, South Africa. Morne’ on behalf of the SOSSC and Shark Spotters went to investigate and dive with these cobalt-blue sharks. What he saw both mesmerized and disgusted him.…

A bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas) named Nyami nyami (after the Zambezi river god) grabbed media headlines a few weeks ago because it set two records: namely she is recorded as the world record (4 m) size bull shark and secondly because she was caught in an estuary 400 km further south…

We have initiated a new research project focused on a population of sevengill sharks (Notorynchus cepedianus) in False Bay, South Africa. We are evaluating the population structure of these sharks in an aggregation site and documenting social behaviour using underwater observations documented by video and photography. This project forms part…

It has been announced that SOSF’s Rethink the Shark has won the Best Advertising/PSA/Promo award in the Best of Category Awards ahead of this year’s International Wildlife Film Festival, the world’s longest running wildlife film festival which takes place in Missoula, Montana next month. Riddle in a Bottle, produced by the SOSF supported…

This would be a great opportunity to introduce a coupe of bright young ladies who have been working for the CEI Shark program since January this year.  They are part of the Bahamas Environmental Steward Scholarship (BESS) program which is run by the Cape Eleuthera Institute in collaboration the Bahamas Reef Environmental…

Wow – its been a long time since I last posted – the very end of November last year in fact.  The intermediate months between then and now have seen huge numbers of happenings at the cape including our first greater hammerhead and bull shark during the winter sampling season,…

As you know, I use a variety of direct and indirect observational techniques to study bull shark behaviour and ecology in Fiji. One is feeding acoustic transmitters to the sharks and then let them be picked up by listening stations placed on various sites on the southern coast of Viti…

So it’s our penultimate day here in the states, tomorrow we’re homeward bound. Today myself and Tom spent the day with Mahmood Shivji, filming and photographing his projects at the Guy Harvey Research institute. By all accounts today could very easily have been a complete disaster. I’ll explain why. Upon arriving…

It generally seems to happen that just as you’re getting comfortable in a place, and really getting to know the people you’re working with, its time to move on again. I’m very lucky in that I get to travel to a lot of amazing places around the world, visiting and…

MARINE  & COASTAL EDUCATORS’ WORKSHOP The  education team, Verona  Smith and Michael Carnegie, started the new year on the 11 January 2009  by attending the MARINE & COASTAL EDUCATORS’ WORKSHOP in Mossel Bay.  This was an opportunity to network with other conservation educators and to learn from them.  This was…

I am delighted that Lesley, a raggedtooth shark, named after me, who was caught on the 15 March 2006 and satellite tagged and released, was recently re-captured. She was one of many sharks tagged as part of the Save Our Seas Foundation M-Sea Programme, a unique shark conservation programme initiated…