In An Unnatural Order we described how the Cape fur seal originated in the Cape, where 85% of the offshore islands are situated. Due to over fishing, sealing and banning, these colonies became extinct and seals fled north, to be further driven off the few islands off Namibia, until forced onto the mainland where currently 80% of all pups are born. One in four pups are caught by jackals and this has resulted in jackals’ numbers increasing due to the seal pup feed, disturbing even further nature’s natural balance. Not only do they have to contend with the marauding jackals, but human culling of seals on the mainland have forced the seals to flee north, with the newest and fastest growing seal colony, Cape Frio, being very close to the Angolan border. The further north seals are driven to escape government marine conservationists and scientists, the closer they get to the equator where they are unable to survive warm tropical weather and water. So one could say that the government, unchecked, is in fact driving the species to extinction.
We now describe how, in a previous unspoiled state, there existed a seal utopia on an island of 507 hectares, off Cape Town. This beautiful paradise, now lost, teemed with a rich wild life consisting of mostly seals and some sea birds. It was named Robben Island (Seal Island).
Today, because of government and Marine and Coastal Management (MCM) policy, there is not one seal left on Robben Island. Over-fishing and Apartheid style forced removals drove them from their historical breeding sites, causing the seals to become 'second rate citizens' - scavengers on their natural habitats.
There is a parallel: Established in the 1920s, the vibrant multi-cultural community at Sophiatown, Johannesburg, was a thorn in the side of the Apartheid-government. Not only did it prove that various races could live side-by-side in harmony, it was also a freehold township, which meant that it was one of the rare places in South African urban areas where blacks were allowed to own land.
Sophiatown was also the centre of a black cultural revolution. It was here that the most important developments in indigenous jazz took place and the products of Sophiatown included jazz masters such as Hugh Masekela, Jonas Gwangwa and Abdullah Ibrahim (then known as Dollard Brand), the poet Don Mattera, singers like Dolly Rathebe, Dorothy Masuku and Miriam Makeba and artists such as Gerard Sekoto.
In support of their ideology, the Apartheid government enforced the relocation of Sophiatown residents. Families were forcibly removed from their homes, their possessions loaded on the back of police trucks and dumped in Meadowlands in Soweto. Many formerly prosperous people were thus impoverished. Over the next eight years the vibrant Sophiatown was flattened and removed from the maps of Johannesburg to make way for a low-cost residential suburb for whites only, created by the policy of Apartheid. A Machiavellian touch saw Sophiatown renamed Triomf - Afrikaans for "triumph."
History has a way of repeating itself and the S.A. government, in the guise of Nature Conservation, saw fit to apply this model to South Africa's seal population, enforcing their removal to awash rocks, unfit for breeding, while proclaiming as exclusive 'bird islands,' the seals' historical breeding sites. These included 11 islands around which walls were built to prevent the seals from returning there. The seabird droppings, guano, were considered a commercial money spinner.
But back to Robben Island , which was later to become an island prison for opponents of the Apartheid state and was, for 26 years, the home of the most famous political prisoner of all, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. The island was proclaimed a world heritage site, a wild life reserve and a protected seal island.
Sadly, today there is not one seal left - they have all been chased off the island and have had to seek refuge elsewhere. Robben Island became a centre of tourism, weekend weddings, an upmarket fundraising venue and the like. Furthermore, having driven the original seal colony from their historic breeding site, MCM saw fit to introduce twenty three species of non-indigenous mammals while Tahrs on Table Mountain were being shot, for the very reason that they were not indigenous!
The banning of seals from Robben Island is apparently illegal, but nobody seems to want to do anything to stop it. A letter from Francois Hugo of Seal Alert-SA to the UNESCO World Heritage committee elicited no reply.
Then in a magnanimous gesture, Seal Alert-S.A. was eventually informed by the Chairperson of the Robben Island Committee, Ahmat Kathrada, as well as Herman Oosthuizen, the MCM scientist most closely involved with seal issues, that the seals could have 40% of the western coastline of Robben Island. Would they allow Seal Alert-SA to re-introduce the seals which had for so long been banned, in an attempt to get re-colonization going and thereby restoring the natural order? Oh no, that would be going too far. It had to be a natural process. “If it happens, it happens.”
It has now been two years and still no seals have returned to the island, a strange phenomenon, considering that there is plenty of fish around it.
Could it be that the seals are in fact being prevented from re-colonising the island? It is a fact that conservation authorities are chasing seals off and away from all the other islands. Why would seals breed on a small rock to the north, and in the waterfront, and 20km to the south at Hout Bay but not repopulate Robben - if not disturbed? Dead and shot seals wash ashore onto the island, why not alive seals trying to repopulate? So many questions …...
Snout decided it would investigate and so we contacted Herman Oosthuizen
who strongly refuted the fact that there were walls built around islands in order to keep the seals off. He also re-iterated that the seals could return to Robben Island but that it had to be a natural process. “The seals must decide,” the gentleman said.
But the intrepid Google Earth had another story to tell. There are clearly walls built around some islands as captured by their eye-in-the-sky. Vondeling and Dyer are just two of them. So somewhere something was wrong. Could there be a misunderstanding?
Snout e-mailed Herman Oosthuizen the following questions:
1. Are there any walls on the S.A. islands: Dyer, Vondeling and Marcus?
2. Could you please list which islands are protected under the ACT ?
3. Are the seals allowed to re-populate those islands?
4. What is MCM policy with regard to seals re-populating Bird Island, St Croix, Seal Island, Dyer, Robben, Dassen, Vondeling, Malgas, Marcus ?
To date there has been no response to our repeated enquiries.
