Hi from Cape Town, South Africa

[FEROXED]

Hi everyone.

My name is Russ and I live in Cape Town, South Africa. My wife Barbara and I have been diving and filming for the past 20 years or so and are in our late, .... late 50's

We are passionate about ocean conservation and spend most of our time traveling and filming in underwater and topside environments, as we build our 6K and 4K film stock library.

We currently have over 900 dives each, 800+ of which, were made with our current filming gear, which consists of a 4K Blackmagic Production Cinema Camera, 6K RED Dragon and a number of GoPro's.

We have been fortunate enough to film in many amazing ocean and topside environments in South Africa, Mozambique, Botswana(topside only), Maldives, Madagascar, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, USA, Equador, Costa Rica, Dominica, Truk Lagoon(Chuuk), Red Sea, Mauritius, Seychelles and more.

We dive with Scubapro MK25 and S600 reg sets, Aqualung Rogue lightweight BCD's, Suunto D4i integrated Computers and Seawing fins. Our underwater filming gear consists of Nauticam Housings, Dive and See 7" monitors, Keldan lights, plenty of other odds and ends,... and a whole lot of overweight (140+kg) issues at the airports

, not to mention all the Lithium batteries that result in us spending plenty of one on one quality time with airport security.

We have found many answers on this ScubaBoard forum in the past and are happy to start sharing our knowledge and hopefully assist in some way.

Can't wait to chat

 

[Compressor]

Welcome to ScubaBoard @FEROXED. Thank you for joining our forum.

 

[drrich2]

Hello, and welcome. I have a question based on your locale. South Africa is internationally famous for great white shark observation; cage dives, boat trips, breaching great whites attacking seals, etc... Some time back, I read that there'd been a big decline in GWS numbers there - maybe due to orca predation scaring them off, but bottom line, the numbers had dropped.

Where do things stand now?

Quick Googling for reference: From Phys.org 11-17-20:

Orcas blamed for disappearance of S.Africa great white sharks

"The vanishing of great whites from the coastal sites False Bay and Gansbaai had previously been blamed on illegal hunting and overfishing, among other causes.

But the results of a study conducted by a government-appointed team of nine local and international experts suggest that orcas could be the culprits, after a pair of killer whales was first sighted in the area in 2015.

The researchers said they "found some evidence for a causative link between the appearances of a pod of orcas that had specialised on preying on white sharks".

The number of great whites in the area is not known, but spotters initially reported steep declines in 2017—then an extended absence."

 

[FEROXED]

Hi drrich2

Not good news I'm afraid, to the best of my knowledge, there have been no GWS sightings in this area over the past 18 months or so. Not sure if one should be blaming the Orcas though, as there is a lot of uncontrolled commercial fishing going on off shore and while the GW is supposedly protected, no other sharks are. My thinking is that if the Orcas were to blame, then the Whale populations would have dwindled or move off too, but they have not. As far as I know, shark fining activities are not being monitored at all, and it is taking place on a big scale, it is not even illegal in South Africa.

A friend of ours, who hads been studying the GW's in the Cape are, noted that the population in 2019 was possibly less than 500 sharks and at that point, based on her research, she felt that it was an unsustainably small community. The cage diving industry seems to have come to a grinding halt as a result of the GW disappearance too.

Our "local" GW shark populations were satellite tracked to be traveling as far as Northern Mozambique and half way across the Indian Ocean to Australia, so they could have been wiped out anywhere.

Cheers
Russ

 

[tridacna]

Hi Russ,

As someone who grew up diving in False Bay (and the Atlantic seaboard), I find that information so depressing. It’s odd, GWs were never an issue to us divers in the late 70s and 80s. Then chumming started and GWs were all anyone talked about if you told them you were a diver. Question: What is controlling the seal population if the apex predator is gone?

 

[Tripp]

Welcome to ScubaBoard! Glad to have you aboard!!

 

[FEROXED]

Hi tridacna and Tripp
Thanks.
Not sure about the seals, but initially the 7Gills were seen around seal island, once the GW's had gone, but even they seem to be scarce now and there have been few to no sightings of them in Shark Alley for the past year or two. I suppose the Orcas still eat seals.
Cheers
Russ

 

[tridacna]

Hi tridacna and Tripp
Thanks.
Not sure about the seals, but initially the 7Gills were seen around seal island, once the GW's had gone, but even they seem to be scarce now and there have been few to no sightings of them in Shark Alley for the past year or two. I suppose the Orcas still eat seals.
Cheers
Russ

Those 7 gills were brilliant to dive with. Enormous sharks that would follow you and look for molluscs and crabs when you turned a rock. We couldn’t afford cameras back then. The kreef at Oudekraal used to provide us with pocket money!

 

[tridacna]

Russ, which shop do you dive with? I’m wondering who’s left. There was a shop in Sea Point I used across from the Adelphi Shopping Center. And Pisces near Simonstown. Miss the diving…

 

[BoltSnap]

Hello Russ and welcome to SB!!!

We are actually neighbors!! You can walk out of your house and walk straight north and you will arrive at my front door in few months in Tripoli, Libya

I look forward to your contributions in video and I am sure that I'll learn a great deal from you.

P.S. You have yet to dive and make videos in Libya.