Hermanus Whales

31/10/2024

Rare sighting of the endangered spotted by moving from the New harbor in the direction of Hermanus.

Humpback dolphins are South Africa's most endangered marine mammal with only 500 left in the wild.

Read more about the efforts to save the Indian Ocean Pacific Humpback Dolphin here https://bit.ly/4f4uH1h:

11/10/2024

2024 annual SRW survey completed:
The total count resulted in 199 females with a calf and 16 adults without a calf seen between Nature's Valley and Muizenberg. The graph shows how these numbers compare to the past 43 years - if extreme cycles continue we can expect less SRW along our coast next year.
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11/10/2024

Stunning calm cruises this morning, following the whales. A lively calf was leaping out of the water for pure joy with whales in all directions.

Video credit Whale Watchers Hermanus

04/10/2024

Iconic V-shaped blow of a Southern Right Whale.
Oh.. how we will miss this sight!

But today is classic in more ways than one, with good weather & good whales🐳🐳

Whale Watchers Hermanus encountered this mating group on their morning trip!

02/10/2024

Whale Watchers Hermanus had a special visitor on their trips yesterday when a curious white southern right calf stayed around their boat for a long time before slowly swimming away, leaving the cameras clicking!

Whale Watchers Hermanus
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11/09/2024

Southern Right Whales playing at Gearings Point yesterday making most of the strong winds and choppy water.
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Photo Credit: Martin Etsebeth

01/09/2024

Jumping for joy!
Lovely Southern Right Whale breach captured by crew member Damian during a Whale Watchers Hermanus trip.

30/08/2024

Southern Right Whales are oblivious to the stormy weather when they are engaged in a mating group.
Then again, that is the reason why they migrate to these waters and they will not let anything stop them..

Plenty of mating groups of up to seven males and one female can be seen everywhere.

04/08/2024

More an more Southern Right whales are moving into our waters daily.
This beautiful animal was seen from a boat based whale watching vessel a week ago.

22/06/2024

With more & more southern right & humpback whales arriving, whale-watching trips are becoming super exciting.
Lots of seals swimming around the boat today and an unexpected humpback whale breach !
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Whale Watchers Hermanus is running June Special at a 50% discount.
Join them on a fine weather Sunday whale watching boat trip at 9hr /11hr/14hr
WhatsApp call: 082 931 8064
or book online: https://www.hermanuswhalewatchers.co.za/

17/06/2024

There was a wonderful sighting on the Whale Watchers Hermanus trip today when three southern right whales swimming next to the boat were joined by a pod of bottlenose dolphins!
The many kiddies on the boat shrieked with excitement!💙🐳🐋🐬🐬👩‍🍼🧑‍🙆‍♂️💁‍♂️-
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Whale Watchers Hermanus

16/06/2024

Thus far the windless long weekend bestowed amazing whale sightings on the visitors showing off all 3 of the whale species: SouthernRight- Humpback- & Bryde's whales.🐬🐳🐋
We also spotted large pods of common dolphins just off the New Harbour.
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Whale Watchers Hermanus

14/06/2024

About 700m into the nature reserve between Vermont and Hawston there is a dead whale beached onto the rocks. Local scientists, the municipality, and the national department DFFE have been notified as part of the Greater Overberg Stranding Network,
This whale that was found floating dead at sea, and died due to entanglement. The NSRI kindly removed the ropes and brought them ashore, and the carcass washed up in the Whale Coast Nature Reserve. It is a sub-adult, male humpback whale.
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15/05/2024

The Hermanus Whales are well represented at

04/05/2024

27/04/2024

"A magnificent killer whale named Tahlequah
gave birth and caught the world’s attention.
Her calf died only thirty minutes after being born, each of those blessed minutes a sacrament to the progeny of love.
But the real reason journalists and photographers and millions of viewers followed this mother’s story, was her willingness to grieve unbidden, to become a thing utterly governed by kinship.
After a year and a half of growing this enormous life inside of her belly, and the immense feat of labor, and a half an hour of looking into one another’s eyes, Tahlequah proceeded to carry her dead baby on the tip of her nose for seventeen days, traveling more than a thousand miles all throughout the Salish Sea.
And some people think that grief is not
inexplicably beautiful. But perhaps it’s because those people (who are us people) no longer see grieving enacted publicly as a plea for sanity, as a way of feeding that which grants us life.
There was no real grieving at my mother’s funeral––
sniffling and shoving tears back up into our eyes, yes, but no keening. No collapsing into the bottomless cavern of one another’s trembling arms, no crying out into the insufferable heat of that late-summer day, and certainly no carrying my mom’s dead body as a holy procession all throughout the places she ever knew and loved.
So I continued to carry her mostly on my own.
I wailed in the privacy of my own home long after the funeral was over, with only the hurting eyes of my husband to behold me––a kind of holding that was never meant to be done alone.
I imagine that if killer whales were not endangered, Tahlequah would have swam those seventeen days with a grand procession of many other glistening, black and white giants all across the ocean.
Or perhaps she swam for one thousand miles
to personify the loneliness of her grief in a world spiraling toward oblivion.
And our savagery for not swimming alongside her; for taking pictures, for watching her exquisite ceremony on our little screens as if it were pure entertainment, as if that couldn’t be any one of us, carrying our dead children out into the dark and emptied streets."
From ‘The Progeny of Love' by April Tierney, Artwork by Lori Christopher 🐋
Story & Image: David Attenborough Fans.

20/04/2024

A female humpback whale had become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines. She was weighed down by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her to struggle to stay afloat. She also had hundreds of yards of line rope wrapped around her body, her tail, her torso, and a line tugging in her mouth.

This is her story of giving gratitude.

A fisherman spotted her just east of the Faralon Islands (outside the Golden Gate) and radioed for help. Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined that she was so badly off, the only way to save her was to dive in and untangle her…. a very dangerous proposition. One slap of the tail could kill a rescuer.

They worked for hours with curved knives and eventually freed her.

When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like joyous circles. She then came back to each and every diver, one at a time, nudged them, and pushed gently, thanking them. Some said it was the most incredibly beautiful experience of their lives.

The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth says her eye was following him the whole time, and he will never be the same.

May you be so fortunate...

To be surrounded by people who will help you get untangled from the things that are binding you.

And, may you always know the joy of giving and receiving gratitude.

Credit: Amazing Nature Pictures

20/04/2024

It is that time of the year so we appeal to all those who walk, fish, run, do clean ups etc on the beach to keep your eyes open. See more info below on what to do then please drop off at the # African Penguin and Seabird Sanctuary - APSS , the drop off point for Gansbaai, and the team will ensure they get to the Two Oceans Aquarium Foundation Two Oceans Aquarium. APSS Rescue line: 0725987117.

Once you have found a tiny turtle on the beach around the Cape Town coast, it needs rehabilitation.

The first thing to do is to remove the turtle from the beach and place it in a dry container where it cannot drown.

Keep it at room temperature to warm up slowly. These turtles are most likely suffering from hypothermia, which makes them weak; in most instances they are so weak that they cannot lift their heads.
Turtles breathe air, just like us, and if a turtle cannot lift its head out of the water, it cannot breathe and will drown.

As the winter months approach the incidence of turtle strandings increases. Juvenile turtles (mainly loggerheads) are swept down from the northern coast of KwaZulu-Natal (where they hatch) in the mighty Agulhas Current and are washed ashore by stormy seas. They are often in a weak condition, having been exposed to cold water and are suffering from dehydration.

The Aquarium rehabilitates these turtles in preparation for their release back into the warm ocean. The turtles range in size from 25g up to 80kg. Rehabilitation can last more than a year, depending on the needs of each individual, as some are not only suffering from hypothermia but are also injured and require treatment.

Lets save our sea turtles!!

16/03/2024

Stony Point Penguin Colony's boardwalk is officially open again !!Gates open from 8:00 - 16:30
🐧🐧See you soon dear feathered friends🐧🐧

Tariffs for Stony Point Nature Reserve
Adults: R30
Children: R20

20/02/2024

A big THANK YOU to Whale Expedition SA for hosting me yesterday on a whale watching cruise off Yzerfontein and Dassen Island on the Cape West Coast. Spectacular weather and sea conditions had us on 20-30 feeding Humpback whales about 8nm north of the island within 30 minutes of launching. Unlike the previous day these guys were feeding in small (very tight) formations of 2-6 whales, staying down for about 4 minutes. As I only “shoot for the pot”, i.e. only photograph flukes for Happywhale, I’m not posting the multitude of fluke images I collected yesterday. However, I’d like to highlight a favourite whale of mine, HW-MN0800704. This blubbery friend of the West Coast was first encountered off Cape Point, in that legendary supergroup feeding there on 15. January 2022. Including yesterday we have encountered this whale 13 times, with 10 of those encounters occurring during this current 2023/24 feeding season. First photographed this season on 4. November 2023, 5 days after the first feeding whales of the season were encountered, this animal has been around the west coast for 3.5 months and it’s unlikely that she/he will be checking out the icebergs, about 6000km further south, this summer. Assuming that this whale will join the rest of the migrants as they travel north to the breeding grounds from May/June onwards, that’s a spectacular saving of 12000km worth of energy! What a bargain!
And this doesn’t seem to be a new phenomenon as Ampersand, our west coast rockstar whale, has been recorded off the area for 3.5 months during the 2002/03 season and again for 4 months in 2022/2023!

Tons and tons of gratitude to everyone contributing flukes from the area to Happywhale. We are finally managing to get past the “introductory” pages of the book about these very special whales that was written a long, long time ago… Happywhale is effectively our Rosetta Stone…🐳🐋

Story &Photos : App

16/02/2024

16/02/2024

Hermanus you can proudly carry this bag.
Created & presented by locals

IPIC Shopping Centre Hermanus aka PicknPay
&
UP Mammal Research Institute Whale Unit

Pick n Pay launches‘Save the Whales’ reusable bag to raise funds to raise funds for the University of Pretoria's (UP) Mammal Research Institute (MRI) Whale Unit...

15/02/2024

BNO News: JUST IN: At least 13 killer whales are trapped in ice in northern Japan. Officials are unable to launch a rescue operation - NHK

BNO News: Update:- 6Hrs later: The killer whales are no longer visible. We might never know whether they survived.
Unfortunately, the area is covered in ice and orcas can hold their breath for only 15 minutes (1-5 minutes in normal dive patterns). At this point, they've also been trapped for more than 6 hours so they're probably in a poor condition.
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20/01/2024

Zero
I just had a conversation with the very dedicated conservationists monitoring the African oystercatcher and plover nests (they also put up the 'bird nesting area’ signs). The couple know in intimate detail the area from Sandbaai eastwards to the last rocky point before the lifeguard hut on Main Beach.
In the oystercatcher season so far there were:
7 breeding pairs.
8 breeding attempts
15 eggs laid
4 eggs hatched
0 chicks survived
At present 0 eggs and 0 chicks have survived.
It has been a highly trafficked area this holiday season with obvious impact on nesting success (not all of which is being blamed on human disturbance!).
The reason to write this however is that there is still hope!
It is very likely that breeding pairs of birds will have a second attempt just now, before the end of the breeding season. Visitors have largely left and I see it up to us now, the permanent residents, to give the nesting areas an extra wide berth, refrain from free-ranging your dogs etc. etc.
Everyone deserves a second chance!

Info

Images ©Keith Hamilton

30/10/2023

South Africa’s inshore Bryde’s whales are the country’s largest resident marine predator. Although they are baleen whales like southern right and humpback whales, they do not undertake feeding migrations but rather stay year-round in South African waters and feed mainly on sardine and anchovy. Bryde’s whales are identifiable by three distinct ridges on their rostrum and a tall dorsal fin.
University of Pretoria Mammal Research Institute Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of Pretoria Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, University of Pretoria