Support for research on whales w.r.t. overlap with aquaculture and shipping in Saldanha Bay

Dear Christo

Thank you for sharing with us, we as the DEFF sub-contracted Dr Elwens services in March 2020 in the drafting of an entanglement guideline for the ADZ. We subsequently took his expertise and drafted a Departmental guideline attached here for your reference which was shared with the CF.

I think that this type of research is important for observing interactions of mammals in the bay as it relates to fishing and shipping concerns. From the guideline, one can see that interactions, as they relate to aquaculture, are of less of a concern in SA even though international literature may report interactions. The aquaculture industry has indicated that they have never had any interactions with mammals being entangled in ropes and the concern is more around the seals with regards to the finfish cages.

I would suggest supporting the aspects of the research for other industries however aquaculture interactions seem to be low based on the history of the industry in the bay.

Please note that the ADZ EMP requires us to monitor and record interactions with mammals and these are recorded in Monthly Farm Monitoring reports submitted by the farms to the ADZ ECO. We are also currently updating the incident and emergency protocols which covers these interactions in more depth.

Kindest regards

Michelle Pretorius