NVT December 2019 Highlights
December Highlights
A very Happy New Year to all!
December was a very busy time for the NVT team as we rolled out the holiday programme whilst still making sure our other projects kept going. Enjoy reading about all the fun times had over the festive season.
Moment of the Month
In August of 2018, Radical Raptors got in a Jackal Buzzard that had been shot they were able to rehabilitate the bird and soon released it back into the wild. That very same bird was sighted and photographed looking healthy and living its best life soon after. This goes to show how resilient birds actually are and what amazing rehabilitation work can do in giving an animal a second chance. Well done Radical Raptors!
We love partnering with Radical Raptors, not only do they perform world-class raptor rehabilitation, they also have one of the most educational raptor flight shows the NVT team has ever experienced. Drop on by and check it out. They also have a lovely owl shop with all kinds of wonderful treasures one of those is our own blend of coffee, Outeniqua Blue, which they now stock! Thanks, Radical Raptors for your amazing work and always supporting us in so many wonderful ways.
Conservation in Action
We got some awesome feedback on one of the fish Mark tagged during our August quarterly seine netting. The fish in questions was a White Steenbras, tagged in the Groot River Estuary which was caught in the Great Fish River – An impressive journey of 399km!
A sad story but also an educational one was the live stranding of a bottlenose dolphin calf on Nature’s Valley beach. Please call your local animal/stranding authority when unsure what to do in such a case. We love the goodness people can display in situations like these but unfortunately good intentions are not always enough to save a life. Depending on what is wrong with the animal, introducing it back in to its environment may cause more damage or even be fatal.
Ecological Research
Some exciting news on the shorebird front was the publishing of a paper in the Ostrich Journal on the African Black Oystercatcher, and we are super proud of Brittany, Bruno, Mark and Alan Lee on this accomplishment.
If you live on the Garden Route, the word “fire” raises some serious concerns, and rightly so given the impact in our region the last few years. Based on that, we are very proud of this new paper, just out, where our Programme Director, Mark Brown, collaborated with researchers at Nelson Mandela University to study the response of coastal thicket plant and bird communities to the devastating Knysna fires 2,5 years ago. The lead author Tiaan Strydom conducted this work as part of his MSc thesis through NMU, with Mark as a co-supervisor – we are very proud of Tiaan’s excellent work, that deepens our understanding of the impact fire has on local ecological systems. find a link to this interesting paper abstract here.
The team got their hard hats and running legs ready for the Annual December Kelp Gull chick ringing in the gull colony on Keurbooms Peninsula. An impressive morning of hard work resulted in 219 chicks being ringed.
As expected Marine debris was on an increasing trend during the season. The microplastics pilot project results were shocking: over 10 000 pieces of microplastic collected from the beach (only a section of the estuary beach) since the beginning of June. This project will be continued in 2020, sampling different sections of Nature’s Valley beach and some of the beaches in Plettenberg Bay.
The Levaillant’s Cisticola was the highlighted bird of the month.
Conservation Education
The closure of schools in the first week of the month gave the education team a bit of a breather before planning for the holiday programme. Things will kick off in the new year again once schools reopen.
Community Engagement
Some of the team attended a stakeholder event hosted by the Garden Route Environmental Forum in George.
A public beach clean-up took place along wreck beach in Plett as part of the partnership with Pick n Pay.
This year we had a fun-packed holiday programme for the young and young at heart with some awesome activities. On the programme were bird ringing, the amazing race, bird walk, rocky shores, the adventure race, a kiddies flower walk, the crafts day, Covie trail run, sandcastle competition and the triathlon.
On the Sandcastle competition morning, we conducted our eighth and final Pick n Pay People n Planet sponsored beach clean up for the year. Before the fun in the sand started we did a little bit for the environment – it is just sobering how much microplastics can be picked up on the high tide line. The litter collected was then used to decorate Sandcastles for the competition themed Dinosaurs.
Interns and Volunteers
We said a sad farewell to our two NMU interns Hannah and Aquila, who were part of the family for a year for their practical year. They contributed to NVT in a big way and will be missed very much.
Lovely Clarisse arrived with us on the last day of 2019, through a collaboration with Global Vision International (GVI) and will be with us for just over two months. We are so happy to have her here to assist us with our research and education work!
Support us!
We are currently out of stock of our Outeniqua Blue coffee due to your wonderful support over the holiday period. We will be receiving more stock soon but in the meantime, if you would like to grab yourself a bag of delight you can order online.
Share your wild stories with us!
Nature’s Valley Trust is turning 20 in 2020. As part of the celebrations, the Trust invites residents and visitors to share their stories and photos of special encounters with wildlife in Nature’s Valley and immediate surrounds.
The NVT plans to publish a collection of these stories in a booklet that celebrates the wild neighbours with whom we are privileged to share this special part of the planet. We are looking for a wide range of stories – funny, sad, and deeply connecting, that you, your family or friends have experienced in Nature’s Valley. Around the braai fires and at beach picnics people have shared their stories. We would like to widen the circle and the connection that comes from these encounters in Nature. All stories that you feel are special are welcome as long as they are actual experiences – from encounters with intriguing insects, snakes that surprised, fishy tales, the bush pig and buck patrols, birds that come for breakfast, gentle genets and of course baboon bravado. Don’t forget the ancient trees! Do you share your property with a `home’ tree that has hosted an entire wonderland for generations?
All stories will be treated with respect and the authors acknowledged. Don’t worry if you are not a writer we can help with edits. We may not be able to print all, but each story will be valued and captured as a record of important anecdotal experiences in the Valley. No stories will be printed without your approval of the final edits.
Join us in putting together a collection of special wildlife encounters that spread the awe, respect and the learning from nature. Stories, photos and queries can be sent to kim@greenaudits.co.za
Amazing Artwork!
We have several local artists who donate a percentage of their art to NVT’s conservation work. Please check out Jane Pitchford’s, Joni-Leigh and Halszka Covarr’s incredible artwork. These passionate local artists do world-class work, and support our cause – please consider supporting them.
Thank you.
Everyone at NVT would like to wish all our supporters the best for 2020. May the year ahead be an amazing one for all of you!
Kind regards,
The NVT team
ContactBank Details: Account name: Nature’s Valley Trust; Standard Bank Account # 001913859; Branch Code 004205. All donations are tax-deductible! Please use the name and erf number as a reference. Contact: 388 Lagoon Drive, Nature’s Valley, PO Box 230, The Crags, 6602 TRUSTEES: Chris van Melle Kamp (Chairman) PROGRAMME DIRECTOR: Dr Mark Brown CONSERVATION EDUCATOR: Kirwan Strydom CONSERVATION ECOLOGIST: Brittany Arendse CONSERVATION VOLUNTEER MANAGER: Kellyn Whitehead MARINE ECOLOGIST: Dr. Gwen Penry RESEARCH TECHNICIAN: Caitlin Judge RESEARCH TECHNICIAN: Chanel Hauvette WWF-SA CONSERVATION INTERN: Lauren Moriarty |