RESEARCH Overview The ORCA Foundation offers a unique learning experience for volunteers who are passionate about the marine environment. It will allow you to make valuable contributions to increased knowledge, awareness and conservation efforts while supporting applied marine research. As part of our comprehensive volunteer programme, you will regularly receive the opportunity to assist our […]
May research blog: The elasmobranch egg case project continues to progress smoothly. Despite having dropped our surveys to only once a month, we still haven’t been able to totally process through our backlog, though we are steadily moving through it. There will be a big celebration once we have conquered the mountain of egg cases! […]
Exciting times……. March research blog The elasmobranch egg case project has been progressing business as usual this month, although we are not able to process the egg cases fast enough to make up for the backlog of egg cases from the November to January period. In light of this, and that we have a year’s […]
Our first research blog for 2017!!! The ORCA Foundation team has hit the ground running this year, busy both outdoors and in! Despite the volunteer program being closed for a number of weeks, ORCA staff maintained the elasmobranch egg case project. Surveys were continued, and egg cases were collected. Now with the volunteer program back […]
August research blog We have exciting news on the elasmobranch egg case project! After 7 months of surveying beaches we have finally collected a different egg case! Generally, we will collect egg cases from 6 different species: Dark Shyshark, Leopard Catshark, Puffadder Shyshark, Pyjama Shyshark, St Josephs Shark, and the Twineyed Skate. Finally, we can […]
Blacktail – abundant, ubiquitous, and hermaphroditic! Anglers and visitors to the underwater world in our beautiful Plettenberg Bay may be familiar with a fish called blacktail Diplodus capensis, though perhaps the name dassie or Cape white seabream is more familiar. This is an oval-shaped fish which is primarily silver in colour with a black patch […]
Mussel-ing in on our coastline! Mussel is the common term for a variety of fresh and salt water clams or bivalve molluscs. Bivalves, as the name may suggest, are enclosed by two shell halves, and mussels are no different. Most of the species to which the term mussel applies have shells where the length is […]
Not one, but three, abalone species in Plettenberg Bay! If someone mentions abalone, it brings to mind one specific marine gastropod mollusk (sea snail) species Haliotis midae, also known as perlemoen. In fact, in Plettenberg Bay, there are 3 abalone species living in intertidal and subtidal waters. The most well-known abalone species is perlemoen, while […]
![March_Ready_for_the_boat_trip[1]](http://orcafoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/March_Ready_for_the_boat_trip1-e1460024946565-200x200.jpg "Research Blog- March 2016")
March 2016- Research blog Looking back on March it seems that although Minke may have spent a lot of time in the office working on project proposals the rest of the ORCA team has been busy! During March the ORCA team collected 398 egg cases, though 374 came from Nature’s Valley beach! So after 2 […]
February research blog. Well February has seemed to just fly by and Minke Witteveen, the new researcher who joined the ORCA Foundation, has been busy settling in and getting ready for a jam-packed and exciting year ahead! We officially started a project collecting elasmobranch egg cases in collaboration with Lisa Schroeter from ELMO (ELasmobranch Monitoring […]
