The Cape South Coast stretches
from Hermanus to Knysna. To get there...
take the breathtaking Garden Route.
The Garden Route unwinds itself
along the coastline, from Heidelberg
to the Tsitsikamma Forest ...


Aerial surveys starting back in 1969 marked St Sebastian Bay as the most important nursery, and seemed to have
formed the last stronghold of the species off the African coast.

As the whale population increased the calving whales spread out from this bay to De Hoop and other areas of the
Southern Cape Coast.
Witsand is a beautiful small village that lies on St Sebastian Bay.

The locals have a great love for the magnificent creatures that visit them every year and are especially proud
of the whale calves.

(Courtesy Peter B Best of the Mammal Research Unit and the Whale Unit of the South African Museum in Cape Town)

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St Sebastian Bay on the Cape South Coast is by far the most important nursery area for Southern Right Whales
on the African Coast.

In a recent aerial survey (October 1999), a total of 126 adults and 107 calves were counted at
St Sebastian Bay
and off
De Hoop. This total constituted 61% of all the calves seen between Nature's Valley and Muizenberg.

It is probable that this may be the
largest assemblage of Right Whale cow-half pairs in the world, with the possible
exception of the Peninsula Valdes region of Argentina.