Recollections of the Past 30 years pursuing Coelacanths
Jerome Hamlin, creator dinofish.com
In 1984, I volunteered as a photographer on a Beluga whale capture expedition undertaken by New York Aquarium. The aquarium had been displaying belugas for years and had made substantial progress with a breeding program. Now they needed a couple more. At that time, only the first hints of opposition to displaying cetaceans in captivity had arisen. Almost everyone was fascinated to see whales swimming behind glass walls or performing astonishing feats of intelligence interacting with their trainers. In Churchill, Manitoba, there was an established technique for capturing young Belugas. They were separated from their pods by Native Americans driving outboards, and then corralled into the shallows. Once on stretchers, they were moved to a holding tank and observed for several days to monitor their health and stability in captivity. If all looked good, the young whales were carefully placed in transport crates with life support, which were then loaded on a charter aircraft for a flight back to New York. A few observers from other aquariums had been along on the trip. I had off handedly asked them what the most challenging animal would be to capture for an aquarium. They said the coelacanth. I had of it before. The coelacanth was: a prehistoric fish found (quite a while ago) alive, living off Africa. Now that would be an interesting project.
The Explorers Club Flag
1985, August. I’m in the Ecuadorian Andes, on the side of a very nasty volcano which is perpetually erupting. I had had a call from someone at the Explorers Club. I’d been a member since 1969. They needed a volcano expert for a proposed trip to Ecuador- to collect rock samples. I had made a film about a volcanic eruption in Iceland back in 1973. In the Club’s Roster, I had listed myself as interested in the subject. In the roster, my name was next to that of Haroun Tazieff, perhaps the most preeminent volcano expert in the world. The problem was he lived in Paris and I was only a few blocks away. So I got the call. Now, on the wet snowing slag heap slopes of Sangay, spewing its bursts of molten rocks skywards at fixed intervals, I watched for my chance. Thump, a hefty chunk impacted the downslope of the ravine next to us, and I ran for it before the next burst. My climbing gloves sizzled around it. Now we had the “hot rock” for Lamont -Doherty Earth Observatory in New York. “Sample collecting” was fixed I my brain. I had felt like an astronaut on the moon.
