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Nature
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SA And Vietnam To Sign Rhino Horn Education Deal
20 Aug 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 2 Comments
At last the South African government is taking a firm stance on educating countries in the Far East that rhino horn doesn’t cure ailments like erectile dysfunction.
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National Geographic’s 2012 Traveller Photo Contest Winners [GALLERY]
17 Aug 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
The winners of the 24th annual National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest have just been announced. These images were chosen from more than 12 000 entries submitted by 6 615 photographers from 152 countries!
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This New Loch Ness Monster Photo Is Apparently “The Best Ever” [PIC]
16 Aug 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 5 Comments
Has the Loch Ness monster finally been caught on camera? Well, George Edwards from Scotland certainly thinks so! The monster hunter has spent the past 26 years searching for Nessie. He now claims to have taken the “best picture ever” of the beast, after dedicating 60 hours a week to his quest.
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Discovery Channel’s Shark Week Gets “Impossible” Shot Of A Great White Attack [VIDEO]
14 Aug 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
To get the “impossible shot” – a bird’s-eye view of a Great White launching an attack from below – Andy Casagrande and his team headed to an area in the vicinity of Gansbaai, in the Western Cape, that has a healthy Great White population.
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Company Develops Waterless Fracking Technique
31 Jul 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 4 Comments
The controversial technique of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in its current form, may soon become a thing of the past. A company is busy guarding some rather interesting patents that promise to pave the way for safe fracking.
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Government Quietly Withdraws Silly Proposed Changes To Weather Law
31 Jul 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 1 Comment
The Department of Environmental Affairs has decided to withdraw its proposed changes to South Africa’s weather service legislation after they came to the realisation that they were being silly, but mainly because they were unconstitutional.
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Genius Gorillas Effortlessly Dismantle Poacher Snares
25 Jul 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 2 Comments
Like so many of their human counterparts who have become fed-up with inadequate safety and security measures, mountain gorillas in Rwanda have taken matters into their own hands, literally. It recently came to light that juvenile gorillas had been seen dismantling complicated ensnarement devices, with their bare hands.
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Massive Underground Water Supply Found In Namibia Could Last For Centuries
23 Jul 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 2 Comments
A newly discovered water source in Namibia could supply half of Africa’s driest sub-Saharan country with water for 400 years. The body of water, known as an aquifer, flows under the border between Angola and Namibia.
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In Mourning: Dolphin Carries Dead Baby For Days [VIDEO]
18 Jul 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
A mourning ritual that is rarely seen, and even more rarely captured on camera, will raise further questions about whether dolphins understand the concept of death.
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Footage Of SA Tourists Trapped In Lesotho Snow Over Weekend [VIDEO]
17 Jul 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
A major rescue operation on Sunday saw 41 people trapped on the Butha Buthe Pass en route to Afri-Ski and the Oxbow Lodge, in Lesotho, brought to safety. Check out video footage inside.
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Human Kleptoparasitism, Or, People Stealing Food From A Pride Of Hungry Lions [VIDEO]
10 Jul 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 3 Comments
Have you ever been so hungry that you could steal food from a pride of 15 hungry lions? No? Me neither. But for a couple of chaps north of our border it’s common practice. Click through for the sweat-inducing how-to video.
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Cape Of Floods [GALLERY]
09 Jul 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Heavy rains and winds lashed Cape Town and its surrounds over the weekend, causing widespread damage and havoc for residents. As of this morning, disaster response teams had assisted 2 566 people in the flood-stricken areas with social relief.
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Japanese Parliamentary Panel: “Fukushima A Man Made Disaster”
05 Jul 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
A Japanese parliamentary panel has said in a report that the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant was “a profoundly man-made disaster”, and that the disaster “could and should have been foreseen and prevented”. The report also blamed cultural conventions and a reluctance to question authority.
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Local National Geographic Documentary Lures Baboons With Food [VIDEO]
03 Jul 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 5 Comments
The seaside town of Pringle Bay in the Western Cape is outraged at a National Geographic documentary that used food to lure baboons to a specially modified and fully furnished cottage in the area. The cottage is part of the Cape Hangklip Hotel, and the television series, Big Baboon House, raises ethical questions.
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SA Government Receives R25 Million Donation For Wildlife Crime Fighting
27 Jun 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
The Department of Environmental Affairs (read: the South African government) has welcomed (obviously?) the Council of the Global Environment Facility’s approval of R25 million worth of funding aimed at strengthening the current wildlife forensic capabilities in South Africa. The donation will help combat wildlife crimes like rhino poaching.
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Construction On The Kruger National Park’s First Luxury Hotel Set To Begin
25 Jun 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
The issue of the construction of a luxury hotel development in the Kruger National Park was discussed at length on 2oceansVibe last year when the weighty issue of hotel development in the Kruger National Park became public knowledge. The first of these developments, to be built near the Malelane Gate, the most convenient entrance from Johannesburg and the airport in nearby Nelspruit, is finally about to get underway.
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Tiffendell Ski Resort To Finally Be Sold In “No Reserve” Auction
25 Jun 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
More than a year after 2oceasnVibe first covered the story about South Africa’s only ski resort going under the hammer, the resort will finally be sold in a “no reserve” auction on July 12 this year. Now you can really own it. Auction Alliance didn’t crack the nod for this one, so expect everything to be above board.
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Chad Meihuizen: Extreme Endurance Running In Aid Of Alzheimer’s
22 Jun 2012 by Seth Rotherham / 4 Comments
Chad’s father passed away last year. He had suffered from Alzheimer’s, and his deterioration into dementia was quick and incredibly painful. Chad’s father spent the last six weeks of his life in hospital, and Chad spent every one of those days at his side. In the end, he suffered more than any person deserved. Chad’s […]
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Fruit And Veg City Responds To Public Outcry Over Selling Endangered Fish
21 Jun 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 7 Comments
Fruit and Veg City has been taking a social media lambasting from irate consumers that caught the fresh food retailer selling endangered fish species in a few of their stores. Debate was intense, with both customers and Fruit and Veg City getting in on the action. The retailer has since issued an official statement detailing how they plan to handle the situation of endangered fish “slipping through their nets”.
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R40 Million Worth Of Rhino Horn Seized In Huge Sting
04 Jun 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 2 Comments
More than R40 million worth of rhino horn, as well as elephant tusks and leopard skins were seized in two operations in Gauteng last week. Both operations are linked to a 40-year-old KwaZulu-Natal man, who was arrested, along with six foreigners, during the operations.
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David Attenborough Narrates Tortoise Mating A Shoe – With Support From Cameron Diaz
30 May 2012 by Seth Rotherham / No Comments
David Attenborough recently visited the Graham Norton show, and shared the stage with the likes of Cameron Diaz. Norton played a clip of a tortoise making sweet love to a shoe (we won’t mention the brand of the shoe, as we wouldn’t want to offend) and asked David Attenborough to narrate that particular miracle of […]
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Vodacom Office To Get Largest Array Of Solar Panels On A Building In Africa
29 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Vodacom announced a short while ago that their Century City office would from August boast the largest array of solar panels on a single building in Africa. Nearly 2 000 mono crystalline solar panels will cover the 3 600m² roof of the building, it said.
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Germany Eclipses Solar Power World Record
28 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
This will surprise you. On Friday and Saturday, German solar power plants produced a record 22 gigawatts of energy – the equivalent output of 20 nuclear plants running at full capacity. The country is already a world-leader in solar power, and hopes to be free of nuclear energy by 2022. After the Fukushima nuclear disaster last year, Germany decided to abandon nuclear power, and immediately closed eight plants.
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Clifton Trawler: Grounded On Purpose?
14 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 11 Comments
Various officials are currently meeting with the South African Maritime Safety Authority (SAMSA) to establish a salvage operation for the stranded trawler on Clifton’s First Beach. A source familiar with the maritime industry believes it’s quite unlikely that the vessel wouldn’t have known what it was doing, and that fog would not have played a role in the grounding.
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It’s Official: Table Mountain Confirmed As Fifth Of Seven New Wonders Of Nature
03 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 2 Comments
Remember last year when Table Mountain was voted in as one of the seven new “wonders of nature” after an extensive international voting competition run by the Swiss New7Wonders Foundation? Well an international audit has just confirmed the award, making the title official, but what does this mean for Slaapstad and our tourism industry?
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Salome The Cheetah Gives Birth To Three Cubs
03 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Late yesterday afternoon, you may have been alerted to the fact that we had found out that Salome the cheetah from the Hoedpsruit Endangered Species Centre was due to give birth to her first litter of cubs at some point during the following 24 hours. Her first cub was born at approximately 19h20 last night. Click through for more.
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Lion Bone Trade On The Rise
02 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
South Africa’s next poaching epidemic could emanate out of the trade in lion body parts. Lion bones are being used as a replacement for tiger bones to concoct traditional Asian medicines like tiger brew wine because of the demise of the region’s tiger populations. Lion are already being poached in the northern section of the Kruger National Park.
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Yosemite Range Of Light, The Most Beautiful Time-Lapse Of The Park Yet [VIDEO]
30 Apr 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
At the tender age of 18, photographer Shawn Reeder won a trip to Yosemite National Park and promptly fell in love with its “beauty and awe”. Since then he’s been compiling wonderful, high-definition footage which he has finally deemed ready to share with the world.
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Brazil’s Congress Approves Contentious New Forest Laws
26 Apr 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
The Brazilian Chamber of Deputies has approved contentious new legislation that eases rules on how much land farmers must preserve as forest. Environmentalists are up in arms, and say the new forest legislation will be a disaster, and lead to further destruction of the Amazon.
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Cape Town To Hire More Spotters In Wake Of Fatal Shark Attack
25 Apr 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
In the wake of the tragic death of 20-year old Capetonian bodyboarder, David Lillienfeld last Thursday, the City of Cape Town has agreed to implement a shark spotting programme at Kogel Bay, where the young man lost his life.
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