Alichia Nortje is the Aquarium’s Assistant Marketing Manager. She is often tasked with the challenging job of co-ordinating our mascots, Silver the Shark and Terminator the Seal.
Today, South Africa is celebrating National Women’s Day, a public holiday to honour the softer but by no means weaker sex of our society. The Two Oceans Aquarium plays host to some interesting divas, both in and out of the water, and we thought today was a good day to share some interesting facts about our resident ladies.
MJ, Kay, Jess, Bagel and Nasa are the five female ragged-tooth sharks which dominate the I&J Predator Exhibit. These girls are at the top of the food chain, with MJ being the largest of the sharks, weighing well over 150kg.
Another grande dame on display in the same exhibit is Yoshi, our loggerhead turtle. Yoshi has been with the Aquarium for 13 years. Not bothered by tipping the scale at 150kg, she adores feeding time, and tries to push her way through to the divers when she spots the I&J lunch box.
Ivan is both elegant and beautiful and stands almost 91cm tall. Named before blood tests could confirm her gender, Ivan is our king penguin who joined the Aquarium in December 2008. She is originally from the National Zoological Gardens of South Africa in Pretoria.
Then there is Zuki, our feisty African penguin ambassador. She keeps visitors entertained with her antics in the Kelp Forest Exhibit and enthrals school children who visit our discovery centres.
The day-to-day activities required to keep the Aquarium in tip-top shape certainly demand getting your hands dirty, and the women in our underwater world are by no means shy. The curatorial team, which cares for our plants and animals, consists of almost 50% pure girl power!
These women are passionate, caring, motivated and extremely hard-working. Claire Taylor is our assistant curator. Besides managing the curatorial team, she works with the injured seals in the harbour. These seals often have some type of strap or noose cutting into their flesh, mainly around their necks. Nearly every day, Claire snorkels beneath the piers where the affected seals are and snips off the offending ropes, wires and fishing lines.
Other divas in the curatorial team include senior aquarist Andrea Hindley, who checks the water quality in all the exhibits on a daily basis and looks after the coral exhibit. She also manages and maintains all the dive equipment from buoyancy compensators to demand valves and cylinders.
Hayley McLellan is our senior bird trainer – her charges are 19 penguins, two African black oystercatchers, as well as various other birds in the Sappi River Meander, including common moorhens, bulbuls, canaries, and wagtails. Hayley is also the chairperson of our Green Team, which is tasked with ensuring that the Aquarium minimises its impact on the environment wherever possible.
Maresia Haasbroek looks after all the plants and fish in the Sappi River Meander. Before opening time, Maresia can often be seen in waders, trimming back the plants in the middle and lower reaches of the exhibit’s river portions. Maresia is also a valued member of the Green Team and is passionate about ensuring that Aquarium staff get into the spirit of recycling.
Our resident nurse is Ruth Wright, who takes care of all the animals in quarantine. Some of these animals might be sick or are undergoing a quarantine period before they are introduced to exhibits.
Tersia Greenstone, whom some of you might have met online through Houdini aka Jabulani, the octopus, looks after the I&J Predator Exhibit, the giant spider crabs and some of the other displays in the Oceans of Contrast: Atlantic Ocean Gallery. Tersia was a volunteer with us for quite some time before joining the permanent team.
Having completed three months as our first trainee aquarist, Mildred Tyali was appointed as a permanent member of staff in 2005. Mildred looks after the culture lab as well as the juvenile ragged-tooth shark exhibit, three lobster exhibits and the Knysna seahorse, cuttlefish and snipefish exhibits in the Oceans of Contrast: Atlantic Ocean Gallery.
And last, but by no means least, Natasha Townsend holds the administrative fort and is the glue of the curatorial team. She not only assists our curator, Michael Farquhar, but also supports and assists the entire team of 19.
We’re proud of our women of wonder (WoW) and salute them this Women’s Day!
Dads and kids can bring their favourite women to the Aquarium today to give them a chance to soak in all the energising oestrogen. Our Take 4 special – where two adults and two children (between 4 and 13 years) pay only R200 to get into the Aquarium – is valid today (and over weekends and school holidays), so why not take this opportunity to spoil the wonderful women in your life?
