As part of the commercial operations, the volunteers will be enjoying the opportunity to go whale/dolphin watching. They will be collecting information on sightings, weather conditions and also photographing animals for various government studies.
Our most recent addition to the ORCA Foundation/Ocean Blue family is the Planet Green Ocean Blue Carbon Neutral Program. This program links a re-aforestation project with the offsetting of carbon emmissions of individuals and businesses.
The tag and release fishing program is conducted on the Keurbooms river. It is a project that has been ongoing for 15 years. The target fish are the leervis or the garrick. They are one of the many species of oceanic fish that use river for the juvenile stages of their lives.
The ORCA Foundation is also aiming to monitoring the reefs around the Bay by doing dive counts.Fish will be counted along 6m x 50m transects every two weeks.These dives are conducted at the same time as the catch-per-unit-effort fishing.Three indicator species of fish will be counted mainly: Roman, Blacktail and Zebra.Over time the results will be compared from year to year to see if there is any significant difference in population densities of these species due to fishing pressure or any other outside influences.
Catch per unit effort Fishing hit rate and release fishing
The ORCA Foundation is currently developing a long term monitoring programme that will focus on fish species level indicators, including mean length, catch-per-unit-effort, stock density ratios and mean density, for assessment of the health of Plettenberg Bay. The monitoring study will be based on a previous study done by Rhett Bennett. during December 2006 and January 2007.
The Knysna Seahorse (Hippocampus capensis) is a very hearty animal and is very tolerant of changes in salinity and temperature. These animals are endangered due to lack of habitat. They are only found in the Knysna, Sedgefield and previously the Keurbooms estuaries, and are the only estuarian seahorse in the world. Since the floods of 2007, there have been no further evidence of there existance of the animals in the Keurbooms estuary.
The volunteers will be involved with monitoring the water quality on the Keurbooms, Piesang and Bitou rivers. They will be sampling the water to find various insects living in the water. These insects gives immediate indicators of possible problems with the river.
The ORCA Foundation has an aquarium that represents the fish life in the area. This is used in our education program for the school children. Volunteers will be collecting specimens, food and doing general maintenance of the aquarium.
Part of the conservation program includes keeping the bay in pristine condition. We assist Cape Nature and the Bitou Municipality by cleaning up and analysing the trash collected on the beaches and river areas.
The Orca Foundation is part of a volunteer community dedicated to marine conservation in South Africa, and like many conservation projects depends on the willingness of others to contribute their time and dedication to furthering the volunteer and conservation ethics that go hand in hand for a better future.
CONTACTS
MOBILE +27 82 880 2604
TEL +27 44 533 5083
FAX +27 44 533 5083
PO BOX 1812 PLETTENBERG BAY 6600
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