The ocean is never at rest. Water comes and goes with the tides, the waves and the wind. Like the waters they call home, the wild animals that the Two Oceans Aquarium is privileged to work with also come and go. Here's a reflection on some of the ocean ambassadors you came to know and love in M-Net's The Wild Ones, and what has happened to them since filming was completed.

Yoshi the loggerhead

Yoshi, the huge loggerhead sea turtle featured in the title sequence of The Wild Ones - Aquarium: An Aquatic Life is no longer at the Two Oceans Aquarium - she was released on 16 December 2017, after the filming of the series.

She was fitted with a satellite tracker, and we've been following her movements along the African west coast. She is already cruising past Central Africa - you can follow Yoshi's journey too!

Mike de Maine

Mike was the Aquarium's Technical Manager during the filming of The Wild Ones, overseeing the largest of our construction projects - the new I&J Ocean Exhibit, the renovations of the Predator Exhibit and the redesign of the Kelp Forest. With these major projects completed, Mike has moved on to even bigger things and serves as a consultant for aquarium exhibit design globally. Unlike Yoshi, we were unable to satellite tag Mike.

Lady the moray eel

The honeycomb moray eel, Lady, who welcomed our visitors to the Aquarium since 1999, continued to struggle with health difficulties and in March 2018 our team of animal and medical experts made the difficult but necessary decision to euthanise him. Lady (who as it turns out was actually a male eel*) was already a fully grown adult when he first arrived at the Aquarium, and with a lifespan very rarely exceeding 30 years, his old age inevitably caught up with him.

More than 8 million people would have seen Lady at the Aquarium - he was a true ocean ambassador. Thank you for sharing your incredible life with us, Lady.

*You might hear or see Lady referred to as a female on The Wild Ones and our older blog content. Moray eels display no external signs of their sex, and it wasn't until the postmortem that we learned that "she" was, in fact, a "he".

Ragged-tooth sharks

Since the return of the ragged-tooth sharks to the Aquarium, four of the nine newcomers have been returned to the ocean - Samtu, Judd, Jeff and Buck. The release of these sharks is nothing alarming. Like humans, each shark has its own personality and temperament - it takes time to get to know them and sometimes a shark simply shows too much aggression, curiosity or "friskiness" to be suitable for a long-term stay in captivity. None of our sharks are ever kept for more than a few years, allowing them to return to the wild to reproduce, so it is a normal part of our operations to rotate out the least suitable sharks and try to acquire more docile ones.

Paper nautilus

The paper nautilus filmed in The Wild Ones, unfortunately, did not survive for long - but at two weeks, this is the longest a paper nautilus has ever survived in captivity to the best of our knowledge. Little is known about the paper nautilus - it is a pelagic animal from warm waters, so by the time this one washed up in a tidal pool in the Cape, it was already far out of its comfort zone and already facing severe stress. 

This paper nautilus gave us the chance to study its species further, and the improvements we were able to make to artificial diets and habitats for it will certainly improve future research efforts. Aquarist Krish Lewis recounted some of the behaviours observed - such as using its tentacles to lure food in, and a resting behaviour that suggests it might attach itself to jellies or fish for a "free ride".

Turtle hatchlings

None of the turtle hatchlings (except one, who enjoys flipper massages too much) seen in The Wild Ones remain at the Aquarium. After their successful rehabilitation, 27 of them were successfully released into the Agulhas Current, along with Yoshi in December 2017. In fact, we already have our hands full with this year's batch of stranded hatchlings!

Ayoba and Michelle broke up

We are certain that many of you will be devastated to hear that Michelle and Ayoba are no longer an "item". Ayoba has found himself a mate, Gaia, another young African penguin. Michelle has been relegated to the role of "side-chick" (which is apparently the correct penguin lingo).

Seeing something else that leaves you with a burning question? Want to know more about the Aquarium and its animal inhabitants? Get in touch with us on any of our social platforms - or pay the Aquarium a visit and chat to an aquarist in person.