The Dyer Island Nature Reserve Complex is a protected area off the coast of

Gansbaai Gansbaai (Dutch/Afrikaans for "bay of geese," sometimes referred to as Gans Bay or Gangs Bay) is a fishing town and popular tourist destination in the Overberg District Municipality, Western Cape, South Africa. It is known for its dense populatio ...

in the

Western Cape The Western Cape is a province of South Africa, situated on the south-western coast of the country. It is the fourth largest of the nine provinces with an area of , and the third most populous, with an estimated 7 million inhabitants in 2020 ...

, South Africa. It consists of 3 islets, namely Dyer Island, Geyser Island, and Quoin Rock that lies 25 kilometres away from Dyer Island, off the coast of Quoin Point Nature Reserve and

Agulhas National Park The Agulhas National Park is a South African national park located in the Agulhas Plain in the southern Overberg region of the Western Cape, about south-east of Cape Town. The park stretches along the coastal plain between the towns of Gansbaai a ...

. Combined, Dyer Island and Geyser Island are a designated Ramsar site. Dyer Island is the largest in the group of islands, and lies about offshore from Gansbaai and

Danger Point Lighthouse Danger Point Lighthouse is a lighthouse on the southern point of Walker Bay, near Gansbaai, in South Africa. It is a white octagonal masonry tower that has been in use since 1895. History Bartolomeu Dias originally named Danger Point ''Ponte ...

. It is home to a declining colony of

African penguins The African penguin (''Spheniscus demersus''), also known as Cape penguin or South African penguin, is a species of penguin confined to southern African waters. Like all extant penguins, it is flightless, with a streamlined body and wings sti ...

( individuals in 2015). Geyser Island is a smaller island nearby and is home to around 60,000 brown fur seals. The shallow channel between the two islands is popularly known as Shark Alley. The reserve cannot be accessed by the general public.

History

The original name of Dyer Island was (Island of wild creatures), so named by Portuguese seafarers in the 15th century. It is named after Samson Dyer, an emigrant from the US to the

Cape Colony The Cape Colony ( nl, Kaapkolonie), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope, which existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when it united with t ...

in 1806, who lived on the island collecting guano, which he sold to mainlanders as

fertiliser A fertilizer (American English) or fertiliser (British English; see spelling differences) is any material of natural or synthetic origin that is applied to soil or to plant tissues to supply plant nutrients. Fertilizers may be distinct from ...

. In 1988, the two islands were named individually as Provincial Nature Reserves. And in 2019, the two islands were designated as a Ramsar site.

Biodiversity

The reserve is home to a number of threatened species. It is home to 48 bird species, of which 21 species breed here. There are 26 species of fish found in the surrounding waters, including the endangered

Galjoen The galjoen, black bream, or blackfish (''Dichistius capensis'') is a species of marine fish found only along the coast of southern Africa from Angola to South Africa. Galjoen is the national fish of South Africa. Distribution and habitat Th ...

Birds

* African penguin *

African oystercatcher The African oystercatcher or African black oystercatcher (''Haematopus moquini''), is a large charismatic wader resident to the mainland coasts and offshore islands of southern Africa. This near-threatened oystercatcher has a population of over ...

Antarctic tern The Antarctic tern (''Sterna vittata'') is a seabird in the family Laridae. It ranges throughout the southern oceans and is found on small islands around Antarctica as well as on the shores of the mainland. Its diet consists primarily of small fis ...

* Arctic tern *

Bank cormorant The bank cormorant (''Phalacrocorax neglectus''), also known as Wahlberg's cormorant, is a medium-sized cormorant that is endemic to Namibia and the western seaboard of South Africa, living in and around coastal waters; it is rarely recorded mor ...

Cape cormorant The Cape cormorant or Cape shag (''Phalacrocorax capensis'') is a bird endemic to the southwestern coasts of Africa. It breeds from Namibia south to southern Western Cape. In the nonbreeding season, it may be found as far north as the mouth of t ...

Caspian tern The Caspian tern (''Hydroprogne caspia'') is a species of tern, with a subcosmopolitan but scattered distribution. Despite its extensive range, it is monotypic of its genus, and has no accepted subspecies. The genus name is from Ancient Greek ' ...

Common tern The common tern (''Sterna hirundo'') is a seabird in the family Laridae. This bird has a circumpolar distribution, its four subspecies breeding in temperate and subarctic regions of Europe, Asia and North America. It is strongly migrator ...

* Crowned cormorant * Swift tern * Hartlaub’s gull * Leach’s storm petrel * Roseate tern *

Sandwich tern The Sandwich tern (''Thalasseus sandvicensis'') is a tern in the family Laridae. It is very closely related to the lesser crested tern (''T. bengalensis''), Chinese crested tern (''T. bernsteini''), Cabot's tern (''T. acuflavidus''), and elega ...

* White-breasted cormorant

Fish

* Galjoen *

Great white shark The great white shark (''Carcharodon carcharias''), also known as the white shark, white pointer, or simply great white, is a species of large Lamniformes, mackerel shark which can be found in the coastal surface waters of all the major ocean ...

Mammals

* Cape fur seal

References

{{Reflist Ramsar sites in South Africa