A fish believed to be near extinct was rediscovered by shark fishermen off the coast of Madagascar. The coelacanth, with a history going back 420 million years ago, is referred to as the “four legged fossil fish” and is alive and well in the Indian Ocean. The coelacanth shared the earth with the Dinosaurs.
A report by Mongabay, a US-based non-profit conservation and environmental science news platform, states that the deep sea fish hunters were responsible for the appearances of the coelacanth over the decades. In fact, the first living coelacanth was caught in 1938, when a group of fishers set gill-nets off the southwest coast of Madagascar in deeper waters.
The increasing demand for shark fins and oil have prompted hunters to fish in deeper waters, leading to the discovery of the rare species on the coasts off South Africa, Tanzania, and the Comoros Islands. This species lives in undersea canyons at depths between 100 and 500 metres.
Coelacanths “belong to an ancient group of fishes whose origins can be traced back 420 million years. They have eight fins, large eyes and a small mouth, and a unique pattern of white spots allowing each fish to be individually identified. They weigh up to 90 kilogrammes and give birth to live young after a gestation period of 36 months,” Mongabay News notes.
The critically endangered West Indian coelacanths caught off the shores of Madagascar are especially under threat, the authors of the South African Journal of Science article say. Andrew Cooke, Michael N. Bruton, and Minosoa Ravololoharinjara write that “The jarifa gillnets used to catch sharks are a relatively new and more deadly innovation as they are large and can be set in deep water.”
They warn that “There is little doubt that large mesh jarifa gillnets [one of two sizes of gillnets] are now the biggest threat to the survival of coelacanths in Madagascar. The nets are set in deep water, generally between 100 m and 300 m, within the preferred habitat range of coelacanths, and, unlike trawl nets, can be deployed in the rugged, rocky environments which coelacanths prefer.” They go on to say that the nets would be undetectable to the fish which have poor eyesight and in fact may even be attractive to them as they tend to be baited with smaller fish.
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