(20 Sep 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Cape Town, South Africa – 19 September 2024
1. Various of a man feeding a seal on a walkway at Kalk Bay Harbour
2. Seal roaring
3. Various of Robin B Smith playing with his dog on Kommetjie Beach, near where he was almost attacked by a rabid seal
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Robin B Smith, resident of Kommetjie:
“So we retrieved our kit and we got up and it chased us all the way through right here to the edge of the channel right back into the shallows and came and repaired the nets and left it for about forty-five minutes or so. Couldn’t see any side of it, went back in. Man we dropped the third net and out from underneath the boat it came and this time it was seriously aggressive. It grabbed the net as we dropped it, we pulled it back and it then came for us. We had to literally then again ram it off with a paddle and we gave up. That was the last day’s fishing. I stopped fishing then but there was something wrong.”
5. People watch a seal climb atop the wall on the main pier at Kalk Bay harbour
6. Various of seals resting
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Gregg Oelofse, City of Cape Town Coastal Manager:
“We’re not really sure where the infections started. What we do know is that around two and a half years ago we picked up this increased aggression in seals around people particularly. We had a number unprovoked seal attacks on people and that increased dramatically and we’ve been monitoring that closely and we were trying uncover what was the cause of that. We really didn’t think much about rabies because there’s been no global incidents of rabies in marine mammals before so that kind of ruled it out. Then in May this year we tested four seals for rabies because of particular circumstances and out those four, three came back as positive for rabies.”
9. Seal resting at Kalk Bay Harbour
10. Man interacting with a seal in Hout Bay Harbour
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Gregg Oelofse, City of Cape Town Coastal Manager:
“Looking backwards the first positive test we have for rabies goes back all the back to August 2022. So rabies in Cape Fur Seals has been around for a couple years already. Where it’s started we don’t know to be certain. How it’s going to roll out and play out in the population we’re also not sure.”
12. Various of seal on pier in Hout Bay Harbour
STORYLINE:
Scientists in South Africa say they have identified an outbreak of rabies in seals that is believed to be the first time the virus has spread in sea mammals.
At least 24 Cape fur seals that were found dead or euthanized in various locations on South Africa’s west and south coast had rabies, state veterinarian Dr. Lesley van Helden said.
Rabies, which affects mammals and can be passed to people, is almost always fatal once symptoms appear. Rabies spreads via saliva, usually through bites but also sometimes when animals lick and groom each other.
The virus has long been seen in wild animals such as raccoons, coyotes, foxes, jackals and in domestic dogs. But it had never been recorded spreading among marine mammals, van Helden and other experts said this week.
The only other known case of rabies in a sea mammal was in a ringed seal in Norway’s Svalbard islands in the early 1980s. That seal had likely been infected by a rabid arctic fox, researchers said, and there was no evidence of rabies spreading among seals there.
Scientists are trying to work out how rabies was passed to the seals, whether it is spreading widely among their large colonies and what can be done to contain it.
Experts said there were still many unknowns.
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