Volunteers in St Francis Bay, a fishing town about 100km south of Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape, are making a big difference to their natural environment by turning their concerns into action.
A heritage centre was recently set up by residents to educate people, especially children, about protecting marine life. The centre also runs a programme about plant life for schoolchildren from disadvantaged communities. An indigenous community garden overlooking St Francis Bay is maintained by volunteers.
Just up the road is Ajubatus Marine and Wildlife Rescue, located at Seal Point lighthouse. Volunteers at Ajubatus are not a bunch of wild-haired greenies berating big business and development.
They have sought innovative ways to protect the natural environment. Rather than being provocative, they favour a proactive role based on education, clean-ups and rescues. Most of the time it is pollution, plastic refuse and discarded marine gut from fishing lines that are the source of distress for marine mammals and birds.
The centre’s stated mission is ‘to observe with keenness of eye, to assist where human intervention is the cause of distress and to conserve and protect all marine species along our coastline, acting with selfless devotion and ensuring that the dignity of nature is maintained to enrich the lives of all who visit our shores”.
Ajubatus was incorporated as a Section 21 company in December 2001 after a spate of marine mammal strandings. The public had expressed vociferous concerns over the lack of marine support services along the Eastern Cape coast.
Craig Urquhart and John Dyer, the principle founders, are justifiably proud of the role Ajubatus plays in completing the conservation puzzle. Urquhart explains: ‘Everyone in conservation was doing something, but no organisation was specialising in the capture, transport and relocation of marine mammals.”
When I refer to Ajubatus as ‘the missing link” in the conservation chain, Urquhart laughs and says he’s happy as long as there’s no reference to it being ‘the weakest link”. Ajubatus is certainly fulfilling a vital role in providing a service previously lacking in conservation. It enjoys a close working relationship with Marine and Coastal Management, the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism and Port Elizabeth’s Bayworld. All four organisations support each other.
The Ajubatus team consists of well-trained and experienced volunteers who cover some 350km of coastline in and around St Francis Bay.
Their first significant rescue came with some surprises. A large crowd of curious onlookers (and their dogs) gathered as a large 80-year-old loggerhead turtle was inspected on the beach. She was unable to dive because she had ingested plastic. When plastic gets wet it resembles jellyfish, the turtle’s staple diet.
Attempting to handle their rescue mission with professionalism, the volunteers inflated a water-skiing tube and covered it to transport the turtle. Bear in mind that Angie, as she was later named, weighed 60kg (and now weighs an astonishing 110kg). But, the foot pump wasn’t working and a rescue team member eventually blew up the tube by mouth.
Angie was then ready for inspection. A sport-fishing boat’s propeller had sliced off her front flipper, sliced her beak and blinded her in one eye. Angie now lives happily in the waters of the Bayworld aquarium in Port Elizabeth as her injuries would have precluded her from leading an active life.
Ajubatus usually handles two seal rescues a month. Add this up over a period of a year and a half and it totals a surprising 350 animals that may have died if it were not for the rescue team’s timely intervention.
As with all mission statements compiled by caring sorts, their mission is bigger then originally anticipated. So when they were asked to assist a wolf in Bloemfontein, they rose to the challenge and assisted. Domestic animals cannot be assisted as they are the domain of SPCAs.
Ajubatus, with Bayworld, has on occasion sent abandoned turtles to St George’s Hospital in Port Elizabeth for emergency treatment and the hospital staff are becoming accustomed to the sight of injured marine creatures being wheeled into surgery. St Francis of Assisi would have been proud.
Other important services Ajubatus renders include an annual bird count and monitoring the movements of ragged tooth sharks. Among the animals rescued on a day-to-day basis are buck, porcupines and bush pigs. On international coastal clean-up day in September, team members help local schools to clean up the beaches.
Animals become stressed when transported, so Ajubatus is planning to establish a self-sustaining treatment and holding facility at Seal Point lighthouse to enable prompt treatment of stranded and injured marine creatures. The proposed facility will include enclosures for marine mammals and birds.
Most importantly, the centre will perform surgery and accommodate a couple of overseas marine vets or scientists from time to time. Urquhart explains that there are very few marine vets in South Africa, because of limited opportunities. Overseas vets will be invited to participate and assist South African vets.
Ajubatus is run along business lines, although it is a non-profit organisation. Team members have established a coffee shop next to the Seal Point lighthouse, which is a tourist attraction and a national monument.
The centre has trainee eco-guides as part of an upliftment and job-creation programme. The guides take people up and down the lighthouse (their presence is reassuring when you are scared of heights). Tourists can also hire boats on the St Francis Bay canals.
Trainees are taught to bake under the learnership programme and their cakes are sold in the coffee shop. As part of its upliftment programme, Abujatus has also taken children to the Antarctic on the SA Agulhas to experience nature at its best.
Contact Ajubatus Marine and Wildlife Rescue on (042) 294-1671 or 082 890-0207