50|50 Episode 23 Season 7: 21 July 2016

Wilde Bure: Seals

We have a rather comical water-dwelling animal we’d like to introduce you. The Cape fur seal, is an exceptionally lithe and fast swimmer with great stamina for long distance swims in the ocean where they hunt prey like fish, squid, birds or krill. Their agility is largely attributed to the fact that their limb bones are withdrawn into their bodies with just the flippers sticking out from their stream-lined forms. Kept warm by layers of fur and blubber, the Cape fur seal easily survives the icy waters around the Cape and can dive 400 m below the surface in pursuit of its prey using its huge eyes to both scout ahead and sideways at the same time.   For those lucky enough to live near the sea, this species is certainly no foreigner. They are for many, in fact, a common wild neighbour.

iSimangaliso National Park:

Once known as St Lucia, this ecosystem has made the news headlines many times over the decades when it comes to conservation value and the threats it’s facing, but its latest battles are being waged against both people with conflicting objectives and the harshest of climatic elements, drought. We travel to a place that was named “miracle and wonder” to find out if SA’s first ever declared World Heritage Site now under threat of drying up for good?

Wonderwêreld: Birds

The wonders of the world of birds are amazing enough with their bright colours and delightful songs, but this group of feathered friends also has a myriad interesting breeding techniques and clever parenting tricks. Tonight on Wonderwêreld, we learn more about the diverse strategies of survival employed by birds.

VeldFokus:

Creatures great and small and are on the hunt in tonight’s episode of VF, a honey badger sniffs out a tasty morsel, a Crab spider uses his invisibility cloak, while a group of giraffe turn their noses up at their usual leafy food.