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Kayakers help save seal pups entangled in netting.

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A kayaker’s camera catches a rescue mission playing out in real time on Namibia’s coast.

In May 2019, footage emerged from the waters near Pelican Point, Walvis Bay, showing a small crew of kayakers sprinting across the sand after a herd of Cape fur seal pups, blue net in hand. The pups weren’t running from the kayakers out of fear alone — several were dragging discarded fishing line and netting that had cut into their skin and threatened to strangle or starve them. What plays out in the video is a quick, practiced rescue routine built by locals who’ve clearly done this before.

• Namibian kayaker Schalk Louw filmed and led the rescues, working alongside teammates Naude Dreyer and Francois, using footage later licensed through Newsflare.
• The team used a specially designed blue rescue bag net, sent by a friend in California, that lets a fleeing pup run straight inside before a built-in zipper is opened to expose its head for treatment.
• In one rescue Dreyer guided the net over a pup snagged in fishing line while Louw cut it free; in another, Francois used a Leatherman multi-tool after Louw’s line cutter couldn’t safely cut through line wrapped around a seal’s neck.

The Blue Bag Method

The technique on display is deceptively simple but takes coordination to pull off with a panicked, powerful animal. Pups scrambling toward the surf are funneled toward the open net bag, and once one runs inside, the team doesn’t have to wrestle a slippery, thrashing seal across open sand. “We got a net from a good friend in California to help aid us in our rescues,” Louw said. “We’re testing it out; it works well with small pups.”

With the pup contained, the rescuers unzip a panel near the front of the bag to reach the head and neck — the areas where fishing line and netting typically do the most damage. Louw described the first rescue captured on camera plainly: “In the video, Naude is using the net to catch a pup caught in a fishing line, and I used my line cutter to assist him and cut the pup free.”

Limitations of Current Technical Tools

Not every entanglement comes apart easily. In a second rescue, a pup had fishing line wound tightly around its neck, and Louw’s line cutter didn’t have the leverage to slice through it without risking a deep cut into the animal’s skin. That’s when Francois stepped in with a Leatherman multi-tool to finish the job.

“My line cutter could not cut through the line without using excessive force. Thankfully, Francois was there with his Leatherman, so he cut the lines off, and the pup was free to play again,” Louw told Newsflare.

That improvisation — reaching for a multi-tool when the purpose-built cutter falls short — is the kind of detail that separates a staged rescue from a real one. These are wild, strong animals fighting to get away, and the margin for error around a seal’s throat is thin.

Holding Down a Wild Animal

Once the netting or line is exposed, the rescuers have to physically pin the pup’s head and body still, and the footage makes clear that’s no small task. Cape fur seal pups are stronger than their size suggests, and the team applies real force to keep them from twisting free mid-cut. The payoff comes fast: as soon as the last strand is severed, each pup bolts straight back toward the ocean, seemingly unbothered by the ordeal seconds earlier.

The recurring problem behind all of it is discarded commercial fishing gear drifting along the Namibian coastline, where large Cape fur seal colonies — Pelican Point among the best known — make entanglement a routine hazard for young pups still learning to navigate the surf.

Louw and his crew didn’t set out to make viral wildlife content — they built a net out of necessity and kept refining it because the entanglements keep showing up on that same stretch of beach. As long as netting keeps washing up at Pelican Point, it sounds like Louw, Dreyer, and Francois will keep paddling out with that blue bag ready.