METRO
Shell to ‘blast’ South African coastline in search of oil during whale season
Shell is set to spend the next four months searching for oil and gas along a virtually untouched South African coastline.
The million-pound company plans to look for fossil fuels underneath the sea along the Eastern Cape’s Wild Coast – a stretch of land aptly named for its untamed wilderness and lack of major industrialisation.
But Shell’s ships will have to conduct three-dimensional seismic surveys to do this, using underwater explosions to record ground vibrations which can indicate what natural resources lay beneath.
Environmentalists worry the sound of these explosions, usually created with airguns, will leave marine life ‘panicked and damaged’.
This is particularly worrying given that Shell’s ships – appointed Shearwater vessels – will start their surveys on December 1, during whale season.
Southern right and humpback whales migrate to southern Africa’s warmer waters between June and December, to mate and rear their calves.
Shell’s disruptive surveys will begin just as whale families start making their way back to icy feeding grounds in Antarctica this year. This prompted more than 100 activists, including Extinction Rebellion Cape Town and Oceans not Oil, to protest the plan last Sunday – when Shell’s ship, the Amazon Warrior, arrived in Cape Town’s harbour.
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