Cape Flats Dune Strandveld - Wolfgat - Cape Town

Wolfgat Nature Reserve is a coastal

nature reserve A nature reserve (also known as a wildlife refuge, wildlife sanctuary, biosphere reserve or bioreserve, natural or nature preserve, or nature conservation area) is a protected area of importance for flora, fauna, or features of geological or ...

Mitchells Plain Mitchells Plain is a large township located within the City of Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa and situated about from the Cape Town city centre. It is one of South Africa's largest residential areas and contains multiple smaller suburbs ...

False Bay False Bay (Afrikaans ''Valsbaai'') is a body of water in the Atlantic Ocean between the mountainous Cape Peninsula and the Hottentots Holland Mountains in the extreme south-west of South Africa. The mouth of the bay faces south and is demarcat ...

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 South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

. This conservation area consists of of endangered dune vegetation and majestic limestone cliffs, extending along a portion of the False Bay coastline. The

Cape Flats Dune Strandveld Cape Flats Dune Strandveld is an endangered vegetation type. This is a unique type of Cape Strandveld that is endemic to the coastal areas around Cape Town, including the Cape Flats. Habitat ''Strandveld'' means “beach scrub” in the Afrikaans ...

vegetation in this reserve contains over 150 plant species. These include evergreen shrubs, flowering succulents, arum lilies and a variety of daisy species. Birds such as

kelp gull The kelp gull (''Larus dominicanus''), also known as the Dominican gull, is a gull that breeds on coasts and islands through much of the Southern Hemisphere. The nominate ''L. d. dominicanus'' is the subspecies found around South America, par ...

s and

black oystercatcher The black oystercatcher (''Haematopus bachmani'') is a conspicuous black bird found on the shoreline of western North America. It ranges from the Aleutian Islands of Alaska to the coast of the Baja California peninsula. The black oystercatcher ...

s nest here. A major threat to the reserve is the invasive alien ''

Acacia cyclops ''Acacia cyclops'', commonly known as coastal wattle, cyclops wattle, one-eyed wattle, red-eyed wattle, redwreath acacia, western coastal wattle, rooikrans, rooikrans acacia, is a coastal shrub or small tree in the family Fabaceae. Native to Au ...

'' (“rooikrans”) tree. This weed has spread across large parts of the coastline, smothering and killing local vegetation and upsetting coastal ecosystems. Wolfgat Nature Reserve is managed by the city of Cape Town, in partnership with the local communities of

Khayelitsha Khayelitsha () is a township in Western Cape, South Africa, on the Cape Flats in the City of Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality. The name is Xhosa for ''New Home''. It is reputed to be the largest

and

Mitchell’s Plein Mitchells Plain is a large township located within the City of Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa and situated about from the Cape Town city centre. It is one of South Africa's largest residential areas and contains multiple smaller suburbs ...

. The name ''Wolfgat'' means "wolf cave", and refers to the

brown hyena The brown hyena (''Parahyaena brunnea''), also called strandwolf, is a species of hyena found in Namibia, Botswana, western and southern Zimbabwe, southern Mozambique and South Africa. It is the only extant species in the genus ''Parahyaena''. It ...

or ''strandwolf'' which existed here until the 19th century. An ancient fossilised den of this species was discovered here in the 1960s and the stretch of coast was named after this discovery.

References

{{Cape Town, natural Nature reserves in Cape Town Protected areas of the Western Cape

See also

References