Coelacanth: Conservation

Summary: Join Kiersten as she talks about the conservation status of the coelacanth and how we can help!

 

For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean

 

Show Notes: 

https://www.iucnredlist.org

“Coelacanth: A Living Fossil From Eons Past (2023 Update),” by Lance Wilkins, Call Outdoors, https://www.calloutdoors.com

“Coelacanth, the Famous “Living Fossil” Fish, Gets Endangered Species Act Protection, Scientific American, March 29, 2016. Https://blogs.scientificamerican.com.

“Ghost fish: after 420 million years the deeps, modern gillnets from shark fin trade drag coelacanths into the light,” by Tony Carnie May 12, 2021. Mongabay, https://news.mongabay.com

 

Transcript

(Piano music plays)

Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.

(Piano music stops)

Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. 

This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it.

This episode concludes the coelacanth and the tenth thing I like about this animal is their conservation. Maybe I need to re-word that statement. I don’t like the fact that coelacanths need conservation, but it’s an important topic and we’re already working on protecting them for future generations.

One of the questions that might have popped into your head when you saw the title of this episode, is do coelacanths really need conservation efforts? I mean they live so deep in the ocean and they’ve been alive since before the dinosaurs, how could they possibly need conserving?

Well let’s talk about that.

The answer to the first question is yes, but really that’s the answer to every animal on the planet these days, but that’s a whole other topic.

Coelacanths, both the African and the Indonesian populations, do need conservation efforts. The main reason is that they are incredibly long lived animals. Recent research has shown that they may actually live 100 years or more. And, while this is exceptionally cool, it can also mean that they are slow to increase their population. Coelacanths don’t reach sexual maturity until somewhere between 35-50 years. That means they have to live at least that long before they can create more coelacanths.

The latest population numbers for Latimeria chalumnae, the African coelacanth, is estimated at just around 250 to 500 individuals. Latimeria menadoensis, the Sulawesi coelacanth, is estimated at somewhere around 10,000 individuals. We have to take the numbers with a large grain of salt because counting coelacanth individuals is extremely tricky due to the fact that they live in extremely deep waters.

Both species are listed on the IUCN Red List. This is the list that organizations all over the word use to determine what kind of protections should be developed for various species of wildlife including animals, insects, and plants. The African coelacanth is listed as critically endangered and the Sulawesi coelacanth is listed as vulnerable.

Beside the fact that they reproduce so slowly what other threats are modern coelacanths facing?

Those of you that are loyal listeners can probably guess what I’m about to say, human activity. Yes. This species that is older than a dinosaur and survived a planetary extinction event is losing its battle against humankind. I find that I have no words to portray how very sad this makes me. 

Ever since the coelacanth was rediscovered in 1938, fisherman have taken advantage of scientific interest in them. Selling them for research purposes really hit its stride after the 1980’s. Before then, fisherman often just threw them back and if the coelacanth was lucky they might have survived the pressure changes of the water. But, once scientific interest in studying the coelacanth boomed in the 1980’s, fisherman began trading them for payment or other things the fishermen needed with interested scientists. 

A coelacanth can be caught fairly easily with a small, primitive boat and a long fishing line. They don’t struggle much when you pull them up and native fisher’s knew just where to look to catch them. To encourage fishermen to stop catching coelacanth, they were provided with more seaworthy boats so they could venture farther out to sea to catch other types of fish, which also took them away from the coelacanths favorite habitat. This worked well until the boats fell into disrepair and then fishermen fell back to their old habits that they could practice using their simpler boats. 

Today coelacanths must avoid two separate deep sea fishing industries.  One is the oil fisheries. This industry looks to capture large fish for the use of their oils. We have a lot of fish oil in various items that we consume, vitamins and supplements, cosmetics, and dog food just to name a few. These oils have to come form somewhere. If you can catch large fish you can use fewer of them to harvest what you want. The problem with this is that taking only a few individuals from a slow growing species greatly impacts their reproductive abilities. We’re not catching coelacanths to use in the industry, they taste terrible, but they are getting caught in the nets that fisherman use to catch the other fish. This ancient fish has become bycatch of the modern day fishing industry.

Another industry threatening the coelacanth, as well as another beautiful creature of the deep, is shark fin fishing. Shark fin soup is considered a delicacy in China and it used to be only for the very wealthy, but when the economy boomed for the middle class in China they all wanted what only the elite rich could previously afford. Shark fin soup was one of those items. Fishing for sharks skyrocketed. It is essentially illegal now but it still goes on and it is one of the most barbaric fishing industries human participate in. The sharks are caught and hauled out of the water. Fisherman only get paid for the fins themselves, so they slice off the sharks dorsal and pectoral fins, then toss the sharks back into the ocean where they are left to die a slow painful death. 

Now that we have successfully depleted the oceans of a healthy population of fish, the fishing industry is diving deeper to catch sharks that live on the same waters of the coelacanths. They are using gills nets, a fishing device that is outlawed by many countries, to catch these sharks. Well, coelacanths are the same size as the sharks and they are getting caught in these gills nets along with the sharks. 

In 2014, a method of deep water release was proposed and attempted to re-release bycatch coelacanths back into their deep sea habitat. A hook and a weight was connected to the coelacanth which was supposed to release as soon as the fish hit the bottom of the ocean in their preferred habitat. We’re not really sure how it worked out because their is no data available, but it doesn’t sound like the kind of idea that would work well. 

On the bright side, coelacanths were given protection under the Endangered Species Act in 2016. This allows United States authorities to prosecute any one illegally trading or trafficking in the coelacanth items. It also often encourages other countries to look at what they can do to help as well. Once the Sulawesi coelacanth was discovered, the Indonesian people fully embraced their ancient resident. Many islands have taken to educating the locals about what a coelacanth is, and pride at living with and protecting this ancient animal is high. 

The coelacanth is also protected under CITES and an area off the coast of Tanzania was declared a protected marine park in around 2019. The Tanga Coelacanth Marine Park limits fishing within its boundaries, but of course illegal fishing continues. 

What can we do to help the coelacanth? Currently their are no organizations set up to gather funds to protect the coelacanth, but the best way to save them is to get the word out about them. These are some of the absolutely coolest animals out there, so tell everyone you meet about the coelacanth! Write your biology class paper on the coelacanth, paint it in art class, have a T-shirt printed up with its cute little face, and recommend this podcast on the coelacanth to everyone you know. The most powerful tool we have right now to save the coelacanth is awareness. Help me make sure this animal survives longer than the human race.  

Thank you so much for joining me on this deep sea adventure with the coelacanth! It’s been quite a ride and we’re all better for having taking it. 

 

If you're enjoying this podcast please recommend me to friends and family and take a moment to give me a rating on whatever platform your listening. It will help me reach more listeners and give the animals I talk about an even better chance at change. 

 

Join me in two weeks for our second misunderstood animal series on Ten Things I Like About. I don’t want to spoil the surprise, but I’ll give you a hint. Scales and rattles.   

 

(Piano Music plays) 

This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, piano extraordinaire.