Oiled Penguins Find Refuge at SAMREC
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Alerted by Rainer Schimpf of Ocean
Messengers we rushed down to SAMREC
on Saturday 24 July to see the latest oil covered penguin patients
being admitted to the facility – 3 in total that were picked up along
the wild side close to Willows.
That the purpose made SAMREC
facility is impressive and instills
confidence in one that any marine life admitted here will be well
looked after is a given. The welcome is always friendly and open, the
facility well laid out and the area to treat marine life clean and
functional.
The penguins admitted to the facility are first weighed, placed in a
dark container in a warm room and hydrated and fed before the clean up
begins. This is done to ensure that the animal is well equipped to
survive the cleaning process which normally begins two days after
admittance.
The penguin on the left
is the oiled penguin. The penguin on the right is provided for
comparison.
The three penguins can expect to spend a minimum of 6 weeks at the
SAMREC facility whilst the oil is removed and they are nursed back to
health.
The establishment of the SAMREC facility within the bounds of the Cape
Receife Nature Reserve was done in terms of the EIA granting the
building of the Coega harbour and in conjunction with guidelines from
SANCOB.
Much speculation abounds around how these 7 penguins became so badly
(90%) oiled with fingers being pointed at the Port Elizabeth harbour
tank farm, a passing oil rig and ‘undercover’ work at the port of Nqura.
Environmentalists are up in arms regarding the proposed Coega IDZ Marine
Pipeline servitude pointing out that the beach at the proposed area is
a recognized breeding ground for turtles, the islands a breeding area
for Southern Right and Humpback whales and the habitat of Whale Sharks
and White Sharks – both of which species are Cites protected and red
listed.
With the ever mounting environmental degradation from the BP Oil Spill
in a ‘first world’ country, environmentalists are questioning our
‘emerging economies’ ability to manage this sensitive area in a proper
manner.
As Rainer says; “It is now definitely time to call Coega enemy No 1 and
set a priority to make Transnet and Portnet aware that we as South
African and Port Elizabethans have had enough of that nonsense. Oil
anywhere you look in the Algoa Bay, environmental neglect, no
environmental protection and worst – they don’t care!
It is time to face reality and see that further development in this
area and in the sea areas around the St Croix Island will do enormous
financial harm to Algoa Bay. Tourism will suffer and animals will
become extinct.
Ocean Messengers opinion is we should step forward and initiate an
investigation through the UN about the threat created by proposals such
as the Coega one for Oil refineries and pipelines within such delicate
marine environments.
After the FIFA World cup the eyes of the world are still focused on
Port Elizabeth, sadly Transnet and Coega are apparently not aware of
this.
Ocean
Messengers is determined to alert the world about
oil in the Bay,
penguins being killed, whales forced away and the destruction of turtle
nesting grounds.”
Making the almost secretive dealings easier of businesses that have the
potential for vast negative impact on our environment as well as the
potential to destroy a large part of the tourism market is the
‘infighting’ and ‘manipulation’ of facilities and organisations
established to protect our sensitive environment.
The reliance of these facilities and organisations on funds from the
very same businesses that commit ‘environmental sin’ is surely not a
healthy situation. I, for one would feel far more comfortable if such
organisations relied solely on money from vast numbers of the public.
A couple of the questions
that bother me are:
- Why does SANPARKS choose to transport Algoa Bay Penguins to
St Francis to be rehabilitated? - Why does Transnet pay a million rand towards establishment
of the 8 million rand or so SAMREC facility and then ‘work to make it
redundant’? - Why do we hear rumours of an undersea pipeline already
established within the Nqura harbour? - Why do I recall seeing, hearing and smelling thousands of
penguins on St Croix 20 years ago and now struggle to see any when
sailing past? - Why has the seal population dropped at the same time?
- Why am I hard pressed to observe, as in the past, hundreds
of sharks in the shark alley between St Croix and Brenton Islands? - The appearance of oil on our beaches is not a normal thing
that has occurred often in the past, so why is it happening all the more
frequently now?
The sad truth of the matter is that very soon Algoa Bay will have lost
the penguins, the seals, the gannets and birds, only for the dolphins,
sharks and whales to follow soon thereafter. For 20 years now the trend
has been a downward one in terms of marine life populations and I, for
one, think we may have passed the point of no return.
Port Elizabeth Budget Accommodation
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