Following sharks

PLETTENBERG BAY NEWS - Sharks, they go to special places.

They go to special places over and over again, says Justin Blake, of Rockhoppers, an NPO (non-profit organisation) he started to support the work of giving information to the public about these animals, raising awareness and educating people and providing skills to kids to get them excited about the ocean.

Blake, who lives in Cape Town, mainly gives talks - "everything I do is around talks".

"We have projects in Plett, Cape Town and Mozambique.

"We work collaboratively with a number of organisations, like many of them attending the Plett Ocean Festival and Marine Science Symposium.

Healthy oceans
"The idea is that sharks will create these healthy oceans for us: they maintain balance. The oceans heals itself.

"All we have to do is allow that healing and that comes through collaboration, whether through Shark Spotters, keeping people safe, or any other organisation.

"So it's everybody's job to do this work. To bring people together at this symposium - it is an amazing way for people to feel galvanised and feel a part of a community doing this kind of work," says Blake.

It has become a routine for him.
"Summer and winter, we follow these sharks. They go to the same places. They go to these special places for a special reason. Those places are important places."

Plett, and specifically Robberg, is a special location, one of the unique locations in the world that are vibrant, healthy.

"There's food, breeding grounds for whatever reason and they need it for a certain reason.

"Shark science finds those places for us," says Blake of his passion now, using that information to connect audiences and local people in certain areas and outside those areas.

Responsibility
"The hope is that we can involve more people in ocean conservation - which is everyone's job. It's not a scientist's job. It's the responsibility of every single person on the planet to consider when washing stuff down their drains, buying sustainable, recycling - all of these aspects.

"The idea is to connect these people with animals. The crazy lives that they live, in the hope that, because we are a little bit more connected to them, we think about them in our day-to-day lives," says Blake, a marine biologist who studied at Rhodes University, moving from small fish into the marine environment - and then sharks, whose journeys he has followed for the past 14 years.

Follow a white shark filmed with a remote underwater video set-up.