Aerial views & the Treasure oil spill...

... click on the thumbnails for a larger picture

	This is the spot where the Treasure sank on 23 June 2000. The light green patch in the foreground is part of the superstructure of the sunken ship, just below the surface. Small amounts of oil were still bubbling up on 5 July. The line which moors the Pearlfish, the vessel from which the salvage divers are operating, onto the Treasure can be seen
	The oil stretches westwards over the ocean as a light sheen (5 July). The Pearlfish, in the foreground is moored to the sunken vessel. Further away, Kuswag 2 sprays dispersant onto the new oil, reducing, but not eliminating the problem
	One of the 10 m by 10 m hatch covers from the Treasure; four of these drifted ashore on beaches along the coastline north of Cape Town
	Apart from a light sheen, Cape Town harbour was clear of oil by 5 July. Lion's Head and Signal Hill are in the background; the centre of Cape Town is just behind the harbour; the N1, the national road to Johannesburg, runs to the bottom left hand corner; the rest of the foreground is the industrial area of Paarden Eiland, the daily crisis management meetings take place in the building in the bottom right hand corner
	The standard classic view of Table Mountain, with Devil's Peak to the left and Signal Hill to the right.
	The University of Cape Town is the cluster of buildings nearest the far end of the wing. The Avian Demography Unit, which developed this website, is in the top right hand corner of the campus. The big highway is the N2, along which Peter, Pamela and Percy and thousands of other penguins travelled to Port Elizabeth.
	Dassen Island, looking south. Table Mountain can be seen on the horizon. 12 000 penguins were evacuated from the island over three days
	Dassen Island, from the east. A gravel road links the lighthouse complex to House Bay, on the right. In 1900, more than a million penguins bred all over the island. When numbers decreased, mainly due to egg collecting, a low wall was constructed around the island to keep the penguins near the shore, to make egg collection easier. Most of this wall is visible in the picture
	House Bay, Dassen Island, after the evacuation. This is one of the main landing beaches for penguins, and large groups of birds can usually be seen loafing at either end of the beach

 

Office Avian Demography Unit
Enquiries/More Information: adu@maths.uct.ac.za
Posted on the 05-July-2000