Now Kenya gripped by coelacanth craze

The coelacanth fish was thought to have become extinct some 65 million years ago. A discovery in 1938 off the east coast of South Africa proved this wrong. Now, a specimen of this 'extinct' aquatic dweller has been caught off Kenya's coast. John Kamau reports.

When the crew of a Kenyan trawler MV Venture II caught an odd-looking fish off the coastal town of Malindi they never realised they were about to rewrite history.

"It was just a strange-looking fish and we hadn't seen anything like that before," said Anwar Khan, who was present when the 77kg, 1,7 metre-long fish was netted. "Nobody thought it would be anything worth national curiosity."

In the event, the whole world was riveted by the catch. It was a coelacanth, a fish thought to have vanished some 65 million years ago until one was caught off the South African coast in 1938 -- earning it the nickname "the swimming fossil".

So little was the excitement after the fish was delivered to the cold storage depot of a coastal fishing company, Wananchi Marine Products, in May that it stayed forgotten for five months.

"The most surprising thing is that the coelacanth remained in virtual obscurity at the cold storage and nobody thought for five months what it was," said Ali Kaka, executive director of East African Wildlife Society.

Finally, a junior Kenya Fisheries Department official, Charles Oduol, spotted the strange fish and suggested the company display it during an agricultural show.

That is how it caught the nation's attention in September -- and that of President Daniel arap Moi, who ordered that it be taken to the National Museums of Kenya headquarters in Nairobi for safekeeping.

Although it was not big news for the media, the scientific world was jumping with joy.

"Only a few museums in the world have coelacanths and we are lucky to have one," says George Abungu, executive director of the National Museums of Kenya.

Kiogora Kigotho, a former University of Nairobi geologist, was intrigued.

"Coelacanths have been known from fossil records dating back more than 360 million years but they then disappear from the fossil records some 65 million years ago," he explained.

"It will be interesting to see its acquired uniqueness over time."

Scientists at the National Museums of Kenya department of ichthyology are working now on its preservation and officials of the Kenya Tourism Board say they want to use it as a tourist attraction.

"Once properly mounted and displayed it will catch the world's attention," said Raymond Matiba, chairman of the Kenya Tourism Board.

This is the first time the fish, regarded as a "living fossil", has been caught in East Africa. Conservationists are now investigating whether a colony of coelacanths lives in the Kenyan waters.

The first time a coelacanth was captured was in 1938 at the mouth of River Chalumna near East London. JLB Smith, who first identified the fish, mounted a search off the East African coast for more, but returned empty-handed.

In November 2000, a diving expedition led by scientist Pieter Venter filmed three living coelacanths in an underwater canyon off South Africa's north-east coast in the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park. The discovery confirmed a presence of this rare fish in this protected area.

When the team returned in May they spotted three coelacanths -- two of them previously unseen. One was about two metres long -- possibly the largest ever seen.

More underwater expeditions are planned for 2002 in South Africa.

The coelacanth has been spotted elsewhere since 1938.

In 1952 a fish regularly caught in the Comoros and known locally as "Gombessa" was identified as none other than the Coelacanth.

That year, the Comoros islands were identified as the home turf of the fish. This premise went unchallenged until the mid-1990s, when two were trawled off Madagascar. These, however, were thought to have been drifters.

Other coelacanth fish were sighted off the coast of Mozambique in the early 1990s.

And in 1997 and 1998, two were spotted off Manado Tua Island in Indonesia, thousands of kilometres east of the Comoros.

DNA tests indicated a new species.

One question that Kenyan marine officers want answered is whether the latest discovery is a new population of coelacanths, a new species, or a group of strays swept from the Mozambique channel in the supposed manner of the 1938 find.

"The best way to resolve the issue is to do a DNA test and we will know whether this is a new species or a drifter from the Comoros," says Ali Kaka.

DNA from the fish is being examined at the Max Planke Institute in Germany.

But speculation among Kenyan scientists remains high.

"Although coelacanths are known to live in depths of several hundred metres in the Comoros, accounts of shallow sightings have been rare and the Kenyan find may trigger interest in that it was found at a depth of 85 metres," says Luc Van of the National Museums of Kenya ichthyology department.

The Kenyan find is expected to start attracting the same scientific interest that was generated in South Africa last year.

Says Abungu of the National Museums of Kenya: "Scientists are definitely going to flock here to do a study on this catch." -- Gemini News

*John Kamau is the editor of Rights Features Service and a columnist with Kenya's Daily Nation