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Wander the world: West Coast Fossil Park takes you back in time · Wander the World with Pippa Hudson

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  Speaker 1: Now this week in Wonder the World, we're not only
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  Speaker 1: traveling in kilometers, we're also traveling back in time, way
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  Speaker 1: way back in time, because we are taking you on
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  Speaker 1: a visit to the West Coast Fossil Park to look
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  Speaker 1: at South Africa through a different lens, the lens of
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  Speaker 1: what it looked like millions of years ago. The park
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  Speaker 1: is located about ninety minutes drive from the city up
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  Speaker 1: the West Coast, of course, and it is home to
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  Speaker 1: one of the world's richest fossil deposits. The remains of
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  Speaker 1: animals have been found there which roamed this region five
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  Speaker 1: million years ago, and they include everything from giant, short
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  Speaker 1: necked giraffes to saber toothed cats to the ancestors of
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  Speaker 1: modern elephants and hippos. This park offers a rare chance
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  Speaker 1: to step into an ancient landscape and contemplate the remains
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  Speaker 1: of the past and think about how dramatically our environment
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  Speaker 1: has shifted over the millennia. Now to guide us through
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  Speaker 1: this fascinating window into the past, it's a great pleasure
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  Speaker 1: to have with us by a zoom. Pepahrhoff, who is
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  Speaker 1: manager of the West Coast Fossil Park and Peppa, it's
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  Speaker 1: great to have you on the show today.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome, Thanks so much. It's a wonderful to have this opportunity.
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  Speaker 2: We really appreciate it.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you our great pleasure to have you with us,
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  Speaker 1: and thanks for opening our eyes to this. I have
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  Speaker 1: to start by saying, unfortunately I have never visited the park,
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  Speaker 1: so I am coming to this as a first time visitor,
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  Speaker 1: just like many listeners will be. PIPA. What makes the
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  Speaker 1: West Coast Fossil Park such a unique and important site?
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  Speaker 1: Can we talk about the sort of geographical and historical
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  Speaker 1: context before we talk about what is there today?
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  Speaker 2: Yes, so it is one of the richest fossil sites
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  Speaker 2: of this age. You mentioned it average age of five
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  Speaker 2: million years in the world, so it's one of the
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  Speaker 2: most one of the richest fossil sites in the world
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  Speaker 2: for that age. And what it has that is really
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  Speaker 2: advantageous is that it's very accessible to the public by
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  Speaker 2: the public because you know, it's not it's only one
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  Speaker 2: hundred and twenty kilometers from Cape Town. And also very importantly,
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  Speaker 2: it's part of the school curriculum, so we present activities
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  Speaker 2: that you know that helped teachers what they would normally
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  Speaker 2: teach in the classroom, bring their children to see the
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  Speaker 2: real thing. Because what we did when we opened the
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  Speaker 2: park in nineteen ninety eight we left the big bones.
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  Speaker 2: You mentioned that animal agiant. It's a short nick longhound
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  Speaker 2: giraffe called Asiva there and it's got huge bones. And
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  Speaker 2: we left those bones in the ground in the particular
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  Speaker 2: dig site that we opened up then, specifically for our
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  Speaker 2: visitors to see the bones in the ground exactly as
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  Speaker 2: they were buried five million years ago. So you know,
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  Speaker 2: there are not many places you can go to see that.
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  Speaker 1: You remarkable opportunity and as you said, just an out
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  Speaker 1: doorstep outside of Cape Town. What fascinates me so about
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  Speaker 1: your story is how these fossils were discovered, because I
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  Speaker 1: understand that in fact, this entire discovery and the site
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  Speaker 1: and the existence today of the Fossil Park owes its
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  Speaker 1: existence to mining activity as far back as the nineteen fifties.
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  Speaker 1: Is that correct? Yes?
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  Speaker 2: Correct, So they started mining actually in nineteen forty two,
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  Speaker 2: around about that time full phosphate, which has multiple uses,
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  Speaker 2: but the primary uses for fertilizer, and I think in
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  Speaker 2: the beginning fossils were found, but they weren't brought to
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  Speaker 2: the notice of any researchers. So the first scientific paper
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  Speaker 2: was only published in nineteen fifty eight, but thereafter you know,
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  Speaker 2: well over one hundred are probably close to two hundred
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  Speaker 2: publications now from people from different parts of the world
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  Speaker 2: because it's such a rich site. You know, there's so
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  Speaker 2: many different animals, and we tend to specialize when we
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  Speaker 2: do our research, so you'll get bird specialists, mammal specialists
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  Speaker 2: and so on. And it's a fairly small work global community,
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  Speaker 2: and we get to know who's an expert in which
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  Speaker 2: field within paleontology, and so we end up working with
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  Speaker 2: people from all over the world. And yeah, so it's
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  Speaker 2: and it's a favored site because the fossils are so
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  Speaker 2: well preserved and although a lot we're destroyed during due
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  Speaker 2: to the mining process, had it not been for the mind,
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  Speaker 2: we think the site wouldn't have been discovered because the
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  Speaker 2: bulk of the fossils are buried, you know, ten fifteen
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  Speaker 2: twenty meters below the surface, although we do have an
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  Speaker 2: archaeological site right on the surface, so dating back to
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  Speaker 2: seven hundred thousand years or so, documenting the early ancestors
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  Speaker 2: of the sand in this area. So yeah, it's a
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  Speaker 2: fascinating piece of ground that fortuitously has been opened up,
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  Speaker 2: and it's really opened up a window, if you like, Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: into the past.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, so much to follow up on here. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: what I'm hearing from you is, besides the visitor experience
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  Speaker 1: and the educational opportunities for teachers to bring school children through,
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  Speaker 1: this is still an active dig site where research continues
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  Speaker 1: and explorational fossil sites continues. At any given time, if
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  Speaker 1: one comes to visit, are you likely to see a
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  Speaker 1: team in action or is it only every so often?
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  Speaker 1: How regularly are they teams actually digging on site?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, not very regularly at currently for various reasons. But
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  Speaker 2: the plan eventually, hopefully is to establish some kind of
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  Speaker 2: a research institute here, multi disciplinary research institute based on
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  Speaker 2: this is a dream of mine actually, But whether I'll
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  Speaker 2: be around to see it happen, I don't know. Because
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  Speaker 2: I talk about the origin and evolution of the Burg River,
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  Speaker 2: which because the river, that Burg River, we think, based
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  Speaker 2: on Brett Hendy's research, used to flow through this area
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  Speaker 2: five million years ago and the sea levels have changed,
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  Speaker 2: you know, gone up and down over time, and that
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  Speaker 2: and the Burg River we think is at least one
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  Speaker 2: hundred and twenty million years old, so that to unpack
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  Speaker 2: that the origin and evolution of the Burg River from
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  Speaker 2: bedrock to present would be a magnificent, multi national, multidisciplinary
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  Speaker 2: research project to hang you know, lots of different research
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  Speaker 2: questions onto. So we're not tagging. There's a Sarah regulation
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  Speaker 2: that you have to leave fifty percent untouched, and our
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  Speaker 2: current dig site is protected by a temporary structure and
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  Speaker 2: we've dug as much as we're allowed to under that
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  Speaker 2: that particular structure. But last year one of our staff
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  Speaker 2: members who works in the you know, collecting wood as well,
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  Speaker 2: you know Roy Crons in the field here, he came
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  Speaker 2: across some fossil rhino burns pretty much on the surface
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  Speaker 2: and in a quite a different spot from where we're
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  Speaker 2: from where our and exciteds. So that's the next area
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  Speaker 2: that we're going to explore.
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  Speaker 1: That's exciting.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very exciting. Hopefully, I don't think it'll be
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  Speaker 2: you know, it'll be early next year hopefully with Professor
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  Speaker 2: Roger Smith, who's a colleague of ours from Musico, and yeah,
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  Speaker 2: he heads up our excavations in the fossil park. Because
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  Speaker 2: you must remember a lot of the research gets done
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  Speaker 2: on the collections, and the collection is housed at the
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  Speaker 2: museum in Cape Town, Musico, and so a lot of
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  Speaker 2: visiting researchers and you know, anybody who's doing research on
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  Speaker 2: these fossils takes place there on the collections. So because
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  Speaker 2: because lots of different questions are asked, not only what
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  Speaker 2: animal are you looking at? That's the primary research question.
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  Speaker 2: You want to identify who's who in New Zoo before
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  Speaker 2: you can build up a you tell picture of what
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  Speaker 2: life was like here. So but then really very very
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  Speaker 2: interesting research builds up on that basic information, you know,
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  Speaker 2: the taxonomic information, because you want to know, for instance,
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  Speaker 2: we've got three different species of elephant that co existed here,
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  Speaker 2: and you know, first a question would be how on
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  Speaker 2: Earth could the environment support three different species of elephant
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  Speaker 2: at the same time time? Yea. And a fascinating bit
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  Speaker 2: of evidence regarding the vegetation what it used to be
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  Speaker 2: like here five million years ago comes from the tiniest
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  Speaker 2: part of the plant that can fossilize, and that is
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  Speaker 2: the pollen. Pollen grains you know, that are microscopic. They
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  Speaker 2: can preserve extremely well under the right conditions, and we
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  Speaker 2: have clever paleonologists who can study them and identify them,
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  Speaker 2: and so based on the fossil pollens, it has been
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  Speaker 2: deduced that the climate and vegetation was very different here
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  Speaker 2: five million years ago. It was warmer and wetter, so
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  Speaker 2: it was more subtropical. Sure, so they were treat you know,
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  Speaker 2: it was forested with lots of different palm trees and
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  Speaker 2: yellow woods and things like that. But in amongst those
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  Speaker 2: fossil pollens is the earliest, some of the earliest evidence
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  Speaker 2: for fain boats in this region and grasses. So that's
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  Speaker 2: telling you that the warm, wet conditions we're changing to
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  Speaker 2: the cooler, dryer, Mediterranean type conditions that we live with today.
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  Speaker 1: At that point. Yeah, it's a fascinating window into history.
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  Speaker 1: I just want to say in case anyone is coming
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  Speaker 1: into this conversation midway, that our guest fire Zoom is Perhartoff,
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  Speaker 1: manager of the West Coast Fossil Park and talking to
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  Speaker 1: us about some of the absolutely fascinating research that continues
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  Speaker 1: around the fossil finds which have been found in this area.
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  Speaker 1: But Pepa, let's just shift the conversation a bit to
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  Speaker 1: the current visitor experience for somebody coming in as a
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  Speaker 1: lay person out of curiosity rather than scientific curiosity. I've
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  Speaker 1: already heard from several listeners who've been and really enjoyed it.
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  Speaker 1: Johann said he visited in twenty nineteen and found it
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  Speaker 1: very interesting, and saying she always takes visitors to the
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  Speaker 1: Fossil Park that displays are so informative, the guides who
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  Speaker 1: present the dig site are wonderfully knowledgeable and enthusiastic, and
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  Speaker 1: she says, congratulations to you and your teen Allan also
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  Speaker 1: writing in to say I've been to the Fossil Park.
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  Speaker 1: We were so surprised. It was the most interesting tour,
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  Speaker 1: very tastefully upgraded and fascinating history of the Burg River estree.
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  Speaker 1: So there we go, three listeners, all giving you a
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  Speaker 1: thumbs up, Papa. For the sake of those who've never
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  Speaker 1: been before, can you tell us a little bit about
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  Speaker 1: the visitor experience for somebody who come as a curious tourist.
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  Speaker 1: What can they find?
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  Speaker 2: Yes, which is the bulk of our visitors by the way. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: So we're open from Tuesdays to Friday to Tuesday to Sunday. Sorry,
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  Speaker 2: and the tours start at nine o'clock, where when we're
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  Speaker 2: really busy. Otherwise ten o'clock and the tour takes you
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  Speaker 2: to the dig site where you can see it's primarily
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  Speaker 2: the remains of there's at least twelve individuals these siva theas,
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  Speaker 2: these rather huge. They weighed up to two thousand kilograms.
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  Speaker 2: They're not they're not ancestral to the modern giraffe. They
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  Speaker 2: relations they were within the giraffe family. They became totally extinct,
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  Speaker 2: the Siva theas. So the tour takes you to the
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  Speaker 2: dig site and then you can do the museum, which
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  Speaker 2: is it's a beautifully exisit. This has all been done
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  Speaker 2: with lottery funding. By the way, the new visitor center,
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  Speaker 2: we were very fortunate to get significant funding in twenty
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  Speaker 2: ten and the new visitor center opened in twenty eighteen.
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  Speaker 2: So there's a there's a shop, a very nice restaurant
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  Speaker 2: which we've outsourced to eat fantastic food there, and then
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  Speaker 2: three levels of exhibition space coordinated by Joane Duggan, so
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  Speaker 2: that within the museum you get a pretty good idea
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  Speaker 2: of what the fossils, the story that the fossils tell us. Now,
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  Speaker 2: I have to just remind us all now that without
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  Speaker 2: fossils we would know nothing about the past. Past life
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  Speaker 2: on this planet. They literally are the only key to
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  Speaker 2: helping us out understand how life has changed through time
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  Speaker 2: on this planet. And I think that's that's really undervalued
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  Speaker 2: because we're curious by nature and we luckily we are
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  Speaker 2: interested in where we've come from and so on. But
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  Speaker 2: if there were no fossils, we wouldn't have a clue. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: kids wouldn't know about dinosaurs, you know, so a lot
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  Speaker 2: of thrill and curiosity would be missing. Yeah, so they're
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  Speaker 2: really important, and it's a remarkable thing that that that
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  Speaker 2: burns and teeth and pollens and such like can actually
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  Speaker 2: become fossilized. The visitor experience.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I was going to ask you about accessing
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  Speaker 1: that that experience in terms of fees. I understand there's
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  Speaker 1: no entrance fee per se, but then once you're inside
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  Speaker 1: the facility, there are different options depending on what you
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  Speaker 1: want to do. Is that correct?
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  Speaker 2: That's correc So we've just introduced a combined ticket if
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  Speaker 2: you like, that enables you to do both the museum
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  Speaker 2: and the and the dig. Otherwise, it's broken down according
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  Speaker 2: to whether you're adult, a senior student, or a child.
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  Speaker 2: And we're told our fees are very reasonable I don't
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  Speaker 2: have them right in front of us.
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  Speaker 1: I've got I've got your website open in front of me,
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  Speaker 1: and the museum access fifty rand with a tour one
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  Speaker 1: hundred rand, and it's it's a reduced rate for pensioners,
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  Speaker 1: for children, for students, et cetera. But I also noticed
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  Speaker 1: reference to cycling and walking trail access. So if somebody
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  Speaker 1: wants to come and have a sort of more active
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  Speaker 1: physical experience, have you got dedicated cycling and walking roots
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  Speaker 1: mapped out?
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely, really nice. The longest one is ten klong, the
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  Speaker 2: shortest is three and it takes you through. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: it's quite strange because it's an old mine, but and
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  Speaker 2: you'd think it would be pretty uninteresting and you know, disappointing,
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  Speaker 2: but it's been superbly rehabilitated. That was one of the
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  Speaker 2: commitments that the mine ended up in the hands of
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  Speaker 2: bh B Bulletin, and they had to address social, financial,
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  Speaker 2: and environmental responsibilities, which entailed rehabilitating the landscape, and ulla
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  Speaker 2: environmental services did such a good job that the mind
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  Speaker 2: got an unqualified closure certificate after ten years of rehabilitation.
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  Speaker 2: So most people were coming into the visitor center, actually
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  Speaker 2: they don't realize it was an Old Mind because it's greens,
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  Speaker 2: very green, so these trails go through the Old Mind landscape.
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  Speaker 2: There are some no go areas where the fossils potential
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  Speaker 2: fossil sites are because the entire site, which is given
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  Speaker 2: one hundred tiers, is now a National Heritage Site. So yeah,
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  Speaker 2: and then just for everybody's interest, the park Run has
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  Speaker 2: just started. We had our first outrun on Saturday and
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  Speaker 2: we've had very We've had fantastic feedback on that and
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  Speaker 2: from now on every Saturday eight o'clock the park.
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  Speaker 1: Run definitely one I'll have to add to my bucket
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  Speaker 1: list to come and do in the future. Papa, thanks
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  Speaker 1: for tipping us off about that, and thank you so
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  Speaker 1: much for doing such a wonderful job, not just to
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  Speaker 1: explaining what there is to be visited, but why it
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  Speaker 1: matters so much. We do need to wrap up here,
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  Speaker 1: but I just want to point listeners to your website
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  Speaker 1: Fossilpark dot org dot z, which has got all of
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  Speaker 1: the visit of information and lots of resources for teachers
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  Speaker 1: linked to the educational program as well. So if you've
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  Speaker 1: got a youngster in the house who's kicking their teeth
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  Speaker 1: and board in the holidays, perhaps point them to that
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  Speaker 1: site to have a look at some of the worksheets
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  Speaker 1: to be explored, and more importantly, if you can pop
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  Speaker 1: them in the car and take them for a visit
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  Speaker 1: to the West Coast Fossil Park. Papaharov, manager of that park,
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  Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us today and wishing
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  Speaker 1: you a very successful busy festive season and all the
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  Speaker 1: best for twenty twenty six to you and the.
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  Speaker 2: Team, Thank you so much, and the same to you
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  Speaker 2: and your team, Thank you.
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  Speaker 1: For joining us. A great pleasure to have papahrav with
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  Speaker 1: us from the West Coast Fossil Park