Only on the Garden Route are little critters saved by citizens coming out in force when they are needed.
Following May’s devastating rain, big starfish washed up on a Heads beach in Knysna among all the debris.
A post on social media saw members of the community flock to the beach to gently pick up the starfish and put them back in the water.
The same sort of thing happened in Mossel Bay when puffadders were washed onto beaches.
While I think they should have been washed away forever, snake catchers in the area collected those that had survived and put them back into their natural habitat, hopefully far, far away from urban areas.
Every year, from about March to July, hundreds of endangered loggerhead and leatherback turtle hatchlings wash ashore along the Garden Route and Western Cape coastline.
The tiny turtles hatch on the beaches of northern KwaZulu-Natal between October and December and are swept south by the warm Agulhas Current.
Many become cold-stunned, dehydrated and exhausted when they encounter the colder waters around the Cape and are unable to continue swimming.
These weakened hatchlings wash up on beaches from Plettenberg Bay westwards and require urgent rescue and rehabilitation.
This rescue effort is co-ordinated by the Turtle Conservation Centre at the Two Oceans Aquarium Foundation, which relies on a vast network of volunteers, conservation organisations and members of the public.
Before each stranding season, the aquarium visits Garden Route towns including Plettenberg Bay, Sedgefield and Stilbaai to train local communities, distribute rescue resources and strengthen the rescue network.
During the 2026 road trip, the team connected with an impressive 400-plus people and 73 organisations across the region, the Aquarium Foundation said.
This is real dedication for a little creature!
For beachgoers, the most important message is simple: Never put a stranded turtle back into the sea.
A turtle that has washed ashore is usually sick or exhausted and may drown if returned to the water.
Instead, rescuers who find them should place the turtle in a dry, ventilated container lined with a towel, and blow me down if there isn’t a dedicated Turtle Rescue Hotline on 083-300-1663.
The turtles are taken to the aquarium for care and ultimate release.
The latest rescue of Knysna dwarf chameleons on the Garden Route was especially heartwarming.
While the focus was on damaged roads and infrastructure, among the wreckage another rescue effort was quietly unfolding involving the region’s small, but famous little reptiles.
The Knysna dwarf chameleon is one of the Garden Route’s most distinctive endemic species.
Found only in the indigenous forests and well-vegetated gardens of the southern Cape, its range stretches from the Outeniqua and Tsitsikamma mountains to the coastal forests around Knysna.
The species is particularly associated with dense forest and thicket habitat, where it spends much of its life hidden among leaves and branches, but it is also found in suburban gardens.
As thousands of trees and branches were damaged or uprooted by heavy rain and gale-force winds during the recent storm, residents began discovering chameleons clinging to fallen vegetation, tangled in debris piles and exposed to danger during clean-up operations.
The George Herald community newspaper reported on what happened next and helped with awareness to mobilise troops to save the chameleons.
One of the busiest rescue operations took place in Blanco, George.
The community went out at night (May 28 and other nights) to find chameleons which were on fallen trees that had to be moved and chopped up as part of the mop-up operation.
At night, chameleons glow under UV, and it’s one of the only reliable ways to spot them, so the George SPCA called for donations of torches and UV lights to help spot the chameleons trapped in the debris.
“At night, UV lights help us spot chameleons hidden among the debris as their bodies glow under the light.
“Without these lights, many of them will never be seen in time,” they explained.
CapeNature recommended only chameleons found on fallen trees, broken branches or vegetation destined for removal be relocated.
Those still living safely in standing trees, shrubs or gardens were best left alone as chameleons were highly territorial and moving them could affect their chances of survival, even disrupting local populations, CapeNature said.
George animal advocate Donatella Pontesilli, who led the rescue operation there, said hundreds of chameleons were saved before broken vegetation was taken away or put through a wood chipper.
Pontesilli encouraged children in Blanco by offering a R10 reward for each chameleon found, along with hotdogs and sweets.
The little reptiles were caught using twigs, rather than hands, put in containers and then relocated to the Garden Route Botanical Garden in George.
Pontesilli explained that one chameleon was placed per tree.
In just one night on May 26, some 80 chameleons were saved with more than 100 people searching for them.
“It was a massive success and an amazing experience for all,” Pontesilli said, adding it was a wonderful platform to teach children about kindness and looking after nature.
About 400 chameleons were rescued from the Blanco dump site in George (before the wood chipper came along), while Pontesilli said she knew of 700 from the George area, but she estimated more than 1,000 were rescued by residents in George.
In many areas across the greater Garden Route area, there are still fallen trees waiting to be removed.
If you find a chameleon that has been displaced in the storm debris, the SPCA advises to pop it into its own separate box (one per box, to keep stress and injuries down) and bring it to their centre for care.
Call the Garden Route SPCA on 044-878-1990 or for after-hours emergencies, contact 082-378-7384.
I remember as a child growing up in the Natal Midlands there were always chameleons in the garden.
Those days have gone, which is why an initiative such as this is so admirable, lest we find one day that they are all gone.
