Children Education

The Orca Foundation reaches out into the local community once a week, by taking some of the 6,500 school children from Plettenberg Bay on educational dolphin and whale watching trips.

Visiting volunteers and researchers spend time with the children, teaching them about conservation and facilitating fun learning games and other activities, like beach clean-ups and adopt a penguin schemes.

The aim of the programme is conservation through education. By making the children conservationists, they are then able to educate their own friends and families, and protect their future.

Information Boards

One of the major causes of the decline in fish stocks in South Africa, as well as many countries around the world, is a lack of compliance by the resource users. This is often a result of a lack of knowledge regarding fishing regulations and an inability to identify different species. This may be partly overcome by bringing this knowledge to the attention of the public through the placement of information boards at popular fishing spots.  

Researchers of the O.R.C.A. Foundation have developed information boards displaying national fishing regulations, as set by the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Chief Directorate Marine and Coastal Management. Information on the boards includes minimum legal sizes and daily bag limits for each of local linefish species, as well as colour pictures of these species for easy identification.

Information board

The boards are strategically placed at access points to fishing spots within Plettenberg Bay, including central beach launch site, Cape Nature Conservation jetty and Poortjies on the Keurbooms River, Robberg Nature Reserve car park, Robberg five, Beacon Island rocks and Lookout rocks, to catch the attention of all resource users at these locations. Information displayed on these boards is intended for the benefit of all recreational, subsistence and sport fishermen, to help increase awareness of the need to conserve natural resources and increase compliance with fishing regulations.

Information board at Poortjies on the Keurbooms River

The boards were developed by the O.R.C.A. Foundation, and are supported by Cape Nature Conservation, the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity (SAIAB) and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

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