The whales are back! Writer Hedda Mittner
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n a time filled with so much bad news, the good news is whale season has officially started.
Not only has there been an increase in whale sightings reported on social media, but our very own whale crier, Bravo Sobazile is also back on his post to raise the alarm on his kelp horn when whales have been spotted from the shore. “Our town has been a lot busier over the past three weekends,” says Frieda Lloyd, manager of Cape Whale Coast Tourism. “We are definitely seeing an increase in domestic travel and out-of-towners with holiday homes are escaping to Hermanus for weekends. There has been an uptick in retail trade and restaurant deliveries, and many visitors are going hiking or looking for whales. Bravo has reported some good sightings.” With our local whale-boat and shark-cage diving operators still unable to leave the harbour under the current Level 3 lockdown regulations, however, it is impossible to know how many southern right whales have made the annual migration to Walker Bay this year. Dr Els Vermeulen, Research Manager of the Whale Unit of the University of Pretoria’s Mammal Research Institute, based at the Hermanus Whale Museum, says she is hoping that the aerial survey conducted annually in October will shed more light on recent findings. After a bumper year in 2018, the whale count for last year’s season again revealed a decline in the numbers of especially single males. According to Els, this is a trend that has become more pronounced since 2009. By analysing the data of whale tissue, the latest research results have shown that the isotopic composition of the southern right whales’ diet has changed over the past two decades. “What we can confirm now is that the whales have shifted location in order to source food. The reason for this change in their feeding grounds could be due to various factors such as climate change and
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www.thevillagenews.co.za
24 June 2020
This exuberant photograph of a breaching southern right whale was taken off Gearing’s Point last week. PHOTO: Paul Michael Wronsley
over-fishing.” Els says that because of the whales’ deteriorating physical condition due to a lack of food, they may not all be strong enough to complete the full migratory journey. It also affects reproduction and whereas cows were calving every three years prior to 2009, they are now only giving birth every four to five years. Females migrate from the freezing waters of the Antarctic in order to give birth in the warmer waters around our southern coastline because that gives their calves a better chance of survival. During the years when they are not reproducing, however, the need to conserve energy might also lead to a lack of motivation to undertake the long journey. Boat-based field work, including satellite tagging, has had to be put on hold due to the Coronavirus pandemic. This makes it difficult to determine how many southern right whales are out there at the moment, says Els. “If they are not coming close to shore, we may not be able to see them from land. So it’s hard to predict what kind of whale season we’ll have, but we are not expecting another ‘baby boom’ like in 2018, when we saw a record number of cow-calf pairs.” Wilfred Chivell, founder of the Dyer Island Conservation Trust (DICT) and CEO of Marine Dynamics and Dyer Island Cruises, which offer sharkcage diving and whale-watching tours respectively in the Gansbaai area, says the Coronavirus pandemic has had a double impact on them. “The income from our commercial enterprises is what funds the trust’s research and conservation efforts,” he says. “But with 85% of our clients
being international tourists, everything has come to a standstill. Not being able to go out to sea every day means that for the first time in 15 years we have not been able to keep up our daily monitoring. That is a lot of lost data.” With fewer sightings of southern right whales and great white sharks over the past few years, Wilfred says that fortunately the humpback whales seem to be doing well. “We are very blessed in this region as whale watchers could be lucky enough to see three different whales in one day, including humpbacks, southern rights and Bryde’s whales.” Although they have been able to keep up their conservation work with the African Penguin and Seabird Sanctuary (APSS), another of DICT’s projects, Wilfred says there is much more that needs to be done to protect our marine life. “But, for that, we need the tourists,” he says. Eco-tourism plays a vital role in both the conservation and economy of our region and local operators are living in hope that the government will be putting measures in place to open up tourism as soon as possible. It has been reported that plans are afoot to allow for domestic tourism very soon and international tourism by September. These plans include a host of Covid-related rules and regulations to ensure the safety of tourists and locals. What is for sure, is that seeing a whale breach on a clear and balmy winter’s day is just what one needs to lift the spirits and forget about the Coronavirus for a while.
Overstrand muni manager cleared of allegations Writer De Waal Steyn
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find no basis to support the allegations of misconduct levelled against the municipal manager, Coenie Groenewald and accordingly recommend that the allegations be dismissed.” These were the findings of Adv Pieter Schalk Bothma in an investigation that was launched after a complaint was lodged in March by resident Anton Kruger, who is the administrator of several public participation sites on Facebook and a member of a group calling itself LiberTAS (Transparency, Accountability and Sustainability). At a special council meeting convened on 9 March, it was unanimously recommended by all parties that while council found no evidence to support the allegations of misconduct by Groenewald, in the interest of openness and transparency a special investigator would be appointed. The complaint alleged that, in accordance with the municipality’s Unauthorised, Irregular or Fruitless and Wasteful Expenditure Policy, Groenewald had “demonstrated poor judgement” in awarding a turnkey property development tender to the value of R600 million to construction group ASLA Devco, after the tender had initially been awarded to M5 Developments by the municipality’s Tender Adjudication Committee in 2007. The complaint further stated that ratepayers’ money was spent wastefully in defending this decision in the ensuing court cases in both the Cape High Court and the Supreme Court of Appeal, both of which found against the decision made by Groenewald to award the tender to ASLA. In addition, LiberTAS argued that the appeal emphasised “how bad Groenewald’s judgement was” and that it was only done to “clear his name” at the expense of ratepayers.
The group further stated in its complaint that it wanted to know how much money had been spent on legal fees and demanded that Groenewald should reimburse the municipality. In his report Bothma stated that the finalisation of this investigation was delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic, but that he had met with Groenewald on 12 June. “I have, however, not had the benefit of meeting with Kruger, or any other officer of LiberTAS, nor have I received any further submissions on their behalf,” said Bothma. He listed more than 10 separate occasions between 14 May and 10 June on which he had tried to arrange meetings between him and Kruger. On 10 June he was informed that LiberTAS no longer wished to meet with him, but that written submissions would be done. No submissions were received. Bothma further stated in his report that the tender litigation appeared to have been a dispute between M5 and ASLA and that the municipality should be commended for the role it played in concluding a memorandum of understanding aimed at ameliorating any adverse effect the prosecution of the appeal may have had on the implementation of the tender. The dismissal of the allegations against Groenewald comes shortly before the municipal manager’s retirement at the end of October this year. The name of the preferred candidate to replace him will be announced at the council meeting on 24 June. A total of 28 applications were received for the position and after screening, three were invited to attend the evaluation and interview sessions for the post. One candidate withdrew from the interview session. Mayor Dudley Coetzee is expected to conclude the terms and conditions of employment with the candidate in due course.
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