Eye See Africa - Beautiful video showing the Cape Cross Seals in Namibia
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Cape Cross is a small headland on the Skeleton Coast of Namibia some 120 km north of Swakopmund. In 1486, the celebrated Portuguese seafarer and explorer, Diego Câo, erected a padrâo, which is a stone pillar topped by a cross, establishing his country's claim to the territory. He was searching for a sea route around Africa to India. The cross became a landmark and an important 15th century navigational aid known as 'The Cabo de Padrâo' and eventually Cape Cross in English. Many ships were wrecked on this barren Skeleton Coast over the 400 years after Cão landed.
It wasn't until 1884 that the first sightings of Cape fur seals were recorded off the coast of Southern Africa, substantiated by entries into the log book of the German cruise ship, the Möwe. When guano, the waste left by fish-eating birds used as fertilizer, was discovered in 1895, people began to settle in Cape Cross. Guano is an Inca word for a mix of eggshell, feathers, decayed corpses and bird excrement. It became so valuable, that it was called 'white gold' and to this day is harvested from platforms off Namibia's coast.
The coastline of Southern Africa is the only place in the world where you can find Arctocephalus pusillus pusillus, or the Cape fur seal, as they are more commonly known. They fight, mate, reproduce and fish in the Cape Cross Seal Reserve, home to the largest breeding colony of these seals on the planet, with at times up to 210,000 seals present during November and December.
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