Latest news with #FalseBay
Yahoo
5 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
2 people rescued after float plane crash off Lasqueti Island, B.C.
Two people were safely rescued after a float plane crashed in False Bay on the west side of Lasqueti Island, B.C., Thursday morning, according to officials and a witness who assisted with the rescue. Al Bajec, owner of Lasqueti Island Hotel and Pub, was making coffee just after 9 a.m. when he says he heard the float plane coming in. The plane, which Bajec believes belongs to Telus, comes every Thursday to drop off a couple of workers on the island, which is located about 70 kilometres northwest of Vancouver. Bajec said that on Thursday, it appeared to be coming in at a lower angle, but was otherwise normal, with relatively calm waters. "When it hit the water, it just went right in the water and just flipped," he said, describing the plane flipping over its front. Bajec said he and a friend rushed down to the dock and got in his boat, while another friend who was set to go fishing was already on the water. The boat that was already on the water got to the plane first and pulled the pilot and passenger, who had already escaped the submerged plane, out of the sea. "They have no scratch or nothing. They just have a little bit of hurting on their eyes because of the gas on the water, but that's it. The rest — everything's fine. They're in good shape," said Bajec. He said he used his boat to pull the upside-down plane to the dock, where he tied it up. According to Capt. Pedram Mohyeddin with Maritime Forces Pacific, the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Victoria, got a report a little after 9 a.m. that a float plane had overturned. Two vessels were deployed — RCMSAR 59 based in Deep Bay on Vancouver Island and a Canadian Coast Guard Motor Life Boat based at the French Creek station in Parksville. A Cormorant helicopter was also deployed from Comox. Mohyeddin said when the crews arrived in False Bay, civilians had already rescued the two people, who were brought back to Parksville on the coast guard boat. B.C. Emergency Health Services said an air ambulance was sent to Lasqueti Island, but it ultimately wasn't required. Telus confirmed by email that an accident occurred, and that the pilot and passenger were unharmed. The company spokesperson said Telus was investigating the incident, but didn't respond to follow-up questions from CBC News to clarify whether the company owned the plane and what sort of work was being done on the island. The federal Transportation Safety Board confirmed it had been notified of the crash, but hadn't determined on Thursday whether a full investigation would be launched, saying there were no plans to deploy investigators to Lasqueti Island. Bajec said there appeared to be spilled fuel in the spot where the plane flipped, but he didn't smell it around the dock where it was tied up. He said spill equipment had been put in the water around the plane.
CBC
5 days ago
- General
- CBC
2 people rescued after float plane crash off Lasqueti Island, B.C.
Two people were safely rescued after a float plane crashed in False Bay on the west side of Lasqueti Island, B.C., Thursday morning, according to officials and a witness who assisted with the rescue. Al Bajec, owner of Lasqueti Island Hotel and Pub, was making coffee just after 9 a.m. when he says he heard the float plane coming in. The plane, which Bajec believes belongs to Telus, comes every Thursday to drop off a couple of workers on the island, which is located about 70 kilometres northwest of Vancouver. Bajec said that on Thursday, it appeared to be coming in at a lower angle, but was otherwise normal, with relatively calm waters. "When it hit the water, it just went right in the water and just flipped," he said, describing the plane flipping over its front. Bajec said he and a friend rushed down to the dock and got in his boat, while another friend who was set to go fishing was already on the water. The boat that was already on the water got to the plane first and pulled the pilot and passenger, who had already escaped the submerged plane, out of the sea. "They have no scratch or nothing. They just have a little bit of hurting on their eyes because of the gas on the water, but that's it. The rest — everything's fine. They're in good shape," said Bajec. He said he used his boat to pull the upside-down plane to the dock, where he tied it up. According to Capt. Pedram Mohyeddin with Maritime Forces Pacific, the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Victoria, got a report a little after 9 a.m. that a float plane had overturned. Two vessels were deployed — RCMSAR 59 based in Deep Bay on Vancouver Island and a Canadian Coast Guard Motor Life Boat based at the French Creek station in Parksville. A Cormorant helicopter was also deployed from Comox. Mohyeddin said when the crews arrived in False Bay, civilians had already rescued the two people, who were brought back to Parksville on the coast guard boat. B.C. Emergency Health Services said an air ambulance was sent to Lasqueti Island, but it ultimately wasn't required. Telus confirmed by email that an accident occurred, and that the pilot and passenger were unharmed. The company spokesperson said Telus was investigating the incident, but didn't respond to follow-up questions from CBC News to clarify whether the company owned the plane and what sort of work was being done on the island. The federal Transportation Safety Board confirmed it had been notified of the crash, but hadn't determined on Thursday whether a full investigation would be launched, saying there were no plans to deploy investigators to Lasqueti Island. Bajec said there appeared to be spilled fuel in the spot where the plane flipped, but he didn't smell it around the dock where it was tied up. He said spill equipment had been put in the water around the plane.
Daily Mirror
15-07-2025
- Sport
- Daily Mirror
Scotland star Huw Jones' route to the Lions that began with Cape Town school job
Huw Jones is in pole position to wear the No 13 jerset for British and Irish Lions this weekend as the Scotland star realises a dream having been overlooked by academies before a Cape Town gap year ignited his dream When Huw Jones was in his late teens he admitted that being a professional player "wasn't realistic" - more than a decade later and he's reached the pinnacle of British and Irish rugby. The Scotland centre had long been tipped to make the squad and, unlike some of his new team-mates, his path to getting to the present day was not a well trod one. Unlike the usual club into age grade representative rugby into an academy pathway Jones found himself as a school in Cape Town on a gap year. The Glasgow star is among those from the never ending production line that comes out of Millfield School in Somerset. It's rugby exports include Chris Robshaw and Mako Vunipola but Jones knew the professional career wasn't on the cards at 18. Rather than going to university he opted for a gap year in one of the world's most picturesque locations. At the south end of South Africa would prove kind to Jones. A family friend hooked him with a job in a school. He signed up to play club rugby with False Bay in 2012, two years later he was playing in the Varsity Cup. Those exploits grabbed the attention of the Western Province. Jones' upward trajectory then saw him playing for the Stormers, rubbing shoulders with Springbok icon Siya Kolisi. It's just over 10,000 kilometres from Edinburgh to Cape Town but Jones' family tree meant he could always represent Scotland and so the call came. The 31-year-old, who had passed every challenge that had come his way, quickly took to international rugby. He enjoyed a stunning strike rate in the early days. He scored twice on his home debut as the Scots were edged out by Australia. Two memorable tries in 2018 secured a historic win over England. Jones though hasn't endured a career without its dips and challenges. He failed to make the squad for the 2019 Rugby World Cup. His defence was questioned and during Dave Rennie's spell as Glasgow boss Jones was having to try and master the art of fullback having been pushed out of the centres. A change in the coaching box though saw Jones recapture his best form alongside Sione Tuipilotu. That partnership has blossomed and the duo are first choice for Scotland and so the 'Huwipilotu' bromance nickname was born. Jones' try-scoring habit is firmly back. He now ranks as the most prolific Scot who doesn't play on the wing or at fullback. His club exploits have made him a league champion with Glasgow and, despite Jones' wholesome reaction at being selected for the Lions, few were surprised he got the shout. He told the Lions' website: "A lot of it is down to timing and being on form at the right time, and fit at the right time. I feel really thankful to the medical team, to the coaches who have been selecting me for the last couple of seasons that I've got myself into a position to be fit and play well to put myself in that picture. 'It's the pinnacle of rugby for me. I am a rugby fan, I grew up obsessed with rugby. I've been watching the Lions for years and years, those have been my rugby heroes, my whole life. To now be named in that squad, it's such a special moment for me.' Ireland's Garry Ringrose is out of the First Test this weekend with concussion and it has left Jones as the out and out frontrunner to wear No 13 and he's already shown an appetite for tries - crossing the whitewash three times already.
Yahoo
03-07-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
This was the best place on Earth to see great white sharks—then they vanished
Built like a torpedo with rows of terrifying 2.5-inch teeth, the world's largest predatory shark is an intimidating sight. So intimidating that some might think an ocean without great white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) would be a good thing. But their loss causes a ripple effect that transforms the entire ecosystem. A new study in Frontiers in Marine Science shows what happens when sharks vanish. Seal Island, off South Africa's False Bay was once a great white hotspot—one of the few places on Earth where the sharks could be seen surging out of the water to capture prey. 'It was air Jaws,' says marine ecologist Neil Hammerschlag, executive director of the Shark Research Foundation Inc. and a coauthor on the new study. 'I don't think there's anything more remarkable in nature than seeing a 2,000-pound great white flying out of the air with a seal in its mouth.' When the predators disappeared, researchers and conservationists pointed fingers at both encroaching orcas and humans as the culprit. But Hammerschlag and his colleagues, who began studying the ecosystem around the island in 2000 long before the vanishing, saw some surprising changes. Twenty years ago, Seal Island was 'the greatest place on earth to see great whites,' recalls Hammerschlag, who also serves as president of Atlantic Shark Expeditions. Around 2010, white shark numbers around False Bay started dropping off, and the decline got steeper from 2015 on. By 2018, the great whites were gone. Exactly why the sharks vanished remains a mystery. 'The departure of the white shark is really open to discussion,' says Greg Skomal, a shark biologist with Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries who wasn't involved in the study. Some suggest the animals fled because killer whales moved in. Orcas can kill a shark in minutes by precisely carving out its nutrient-rich liver. Hammerschlag thinks humans could also be to blame, as nearby shark nets kill 'somewhere between 25 and 30 great whites a year.' Even a small loss can drive the population into decline, he says, because great whites become sexually mature late in life—males in their 20s and females in their 30s—and have small litters of up to 12 pups. (A baby great white shark led scientists to a huge nursery near NYC.) Sharks are thought to keep marine habitats healthy by removing weak and sick animals from the food chain and keeping things in balance. But proving these impacts in a real-world habitat this is challenging. 'These kinds of ecosystem effects are very difficult for us to tease out because they require long-term data sets,' says Skomal. In False Bay, Hammerschlag's and his colleagues partnered with an ecotourism company, allowing them to spend 'full days on the water, 200 days a year.' The team collected over 20 years of data, from before, during and after the great whites' disappearance. 'We saw things happen that we'd never expect,' Hammerschlag says. Broadnose sevengill sharks (Notorynchus cepedianus) suddenly appeared—sometimes as many as 15 in one day. These animals usually hang out several kilometers away in kelp beds, which offer protection from great white attacks. 'From nothing to double digits. It's just mind blowing,' he says. The Cape fur seal (Arctocephalus pusillus pusillus) population also increased. Safe from the threat of sharks, seals were rafting—floating in groups, like a living raft—and going after the cage divers' bait. 'That would have been suicide just a few years earlier,' he says. Both seals and sevengills were on the menu for great whites, so it made sense to see their numbers rise. But Hammerschlag and his colleagues also wanted to find out if the populations of animals that seals and sevengills eat had changed, too. Luckily, scientist Lauren De Vos had installed cameras in 2012 to get a snapshot of fish populations at the time for another study. Hammerschlag's team followed the same method—even down to borrowing the same equipment. As expected, the new data showed a decline in seal prey like anchovies and Cape horse mackerel and sevengill prey, such as smoothhound sharks and pyjama catsharks. This zigzag of impacts—white sharks vanish, their prey increases and, in turn, the animals they eat declines—suggests this isn't caused by problems like pollution or development. 'If habitat destruction was occurring, you would think everything would go down,' rather than some species declining and some increasing, Hammerschlag says. But the study numbers don't reflect that. The small area of False Bay, with relatively few species, made figuring out some of these food chain impacts easier. 'Hammerschlag has that connectivity mapped out because he knows what eats what,' says Skomal. The more species in an ecosystem, the more difficult it is to map the food chain and track the impacts when an animal is lost. Establishing the relationships between animals in a broader area, like the Gulf of Maine, which has hundreds of species, would be much harder, he says. (Cape Cod may have the highest density of great white sharks in the world.) Scientists in South Africa have noticed great white shark population changes in other ecosystems, too, and researchers believe the factors driving these changes are similar to the ones cited in False Bay. Shark behavioral ecologist Lacey Williams has seen 'pretty significant changes' in Mossel Bay and Plettenberg Bay, or 'Plett.' In Plett, shark appearances used to be 'random,' she says. Then around 2022, locals started noticing the sharks 'in a very predictable spot' around Robberg Peninsula. Before long, the sharks started arriving later in the season and then sightings dwindled. In Mossel Bay, great white sightings stayed relative steady until around 2021 but have declined since then. In May 2022, drone footage emerged of two orcas killing a white shark. 'That was really the beginning of the significant changes of white sharks in Mossel Bay,' she says. Last year, the cage diving company that Williams works with saw 'less than one handful' of sightings between April and December, she says. South Africa's white shark population had already been declining 'prior to the arrival of these two very famous, sexy scapegoats,' Williams says. 'The orcas are like pouring kerosene on an already burning bonfire.' Human have driven the broader declines too, she says. Long line fisheries have targeted demersal sharks—that live just above the seabed, like critically endangered soupfin sharks (Galeorhinus galeus) and smooth-hound sharks—for decades. These species are a key food source for white sharks so removing them has a ripple effect. As in False Bay, shark nets are another concern. Many people mistakenly believe that these form a barrier to protect swimmers from sharks. 'It doesn't really protect people from anything,' says Williams. 'The only thing it really does is kill wildlife indiscriminately.' Although there's no silver bullet, potential solutions include Shark Spotters, drones, and SharkSafe BarrierTM technology. This magnetic device, which imitates kelp forests, seems to deter white sharks. These systems are expensive, but the investment is worth it, says Williams. 'If we don't have an ecosystem, we're going to lose tourism.' It currently seems too early to tell how the decline in white sharks in Mossel Bay and Plettenberg might impact the wider ecosystem. 'It's worth looking into, though,' Williams says. 'I think it's safe to say we'll see changes.' Back in False Bay, one possible outcome of all of these shifts is that seals and sevengills might run out of animals to eat. Could the ecosystem collapse? It's too early to know. 'That would be the next question,' says Skomal. 'Is it too many seals?' Today, great whites' incredible aerial displays are a thing of the past at Seal Island. 'You'd never know this was a great white hotspot,' Hammerschlag says. For him, seeing how the whole ecosystem has changed shows the importance of enforcing shark protections and using non-lethal methods to protect beachgoers from shark bites. 'We can't change the orcas' behavior,' he says, 'But we can stop the netting program. That's kind of archaic.'
