The SHOAL is the global ecosystem of partners and collaborators who work together to safeguard the health of Earth's freshwater habitats and conserve the most threatened freshwater species. As with a shoal of fish, the strength of the SHOAL lies with the number of partners all working together.
Blueprint for Conservation Action for 1,000 Freshwater Fishes
SHOAL's flagship initiative sets out a plan for how significant collaborative conservation effort can lift freshwater fishes and potentially thousands of other neglected freshwater species to a new elevated platform of conservation attention and greatly enhance freshwater conservation efforts globally.
Huge thanks to all of those who have already donated: they have been instrumental in helping us secure the preliminary funding of USD 15,000 that will help us launch the first part of the search for Colombia’s fat catfish. We are now looking to raise this to a total of USD 60,000 and we are calling on you to help bolster our funds to bring this remarkable fish to light.
Your donations will enable us to increase the scope and timeframe of the search of Lake Tota, facilitate the use of groundbreaking eDNA methods, and allow us to implement a conservation programme to bring the species back from the brink of extinction, should the search be successful.
Why is this exceptional species so fat? It’s one of the biggest mysteries in the world of freshwater fish. No other catfish has the bizarre fatty rings of tissue circling its body. And, with only ten specimens having ever been recorded, all of which are currently in terrible shape (see the photo above), finding the answers has so far proven impossible.
Help us bring clarity to the perplexing questions surrounding this species: donate today at the button below.
The Dumbéa River pipefish: a citizen science story
FOUND! The Dumbéa River pipefish: a citizen science success story
During the research for the initial Top 10 Most Wanted species, a 2020 recording of one of the species on iNaturalist forced us to reconsider one particular species. Turns out the Dumbéa River pipefish wasn’t a ‘lost fish’ after all!
To glean as much information as we could about the Top 10 Most Wanted species, we Googled each of the species. For the most part, there was barely any information about any of them – they have been seen so rarely, and often so long ago, that people just don’t know that much about them.
But for one of the original Top 10 species, there was some recent information. The Dumbéa River pipefish Microphis cruentus of New Caledonia had been recorded in the citizen science and naturalist social network iNaturalist in October 2020. And, sure enough, there were a couple of bright colour photos and a verification to prove the observation!
This made us sit up and take notice.
A species that a team of leading freshwater scientists had every reason to believe hadn’t been seen in well over a decade was right there on our screens, very much alive and not at all lost.
We got in touch with the man who observed the species – Damien Brouste, a passionate naturalist who lives in New Caledonia – and the man who verified the observation as a legitimate sighting – Valentin de Mazancourt, associate researcher at the French National Museum of Natural History.
Damien explained how he found the fish, with another New Caledonia resident, Nicolas Charpin: “We were looking for the pipefish at night, as during the day they hide in the vegetation bank. We were looking in a particular pool in the Ouenghi River and after maybe only five minutes we found some. I was really surprised to see the colours of the fish, as they are so bright. We didn’t find any more during the two hours of research following this find”.
“The Ouenghi River is a small river, around ten meters wide, that gently flows through pastoral land on the West Coast [of New Caledonia]. It is extremely clear, with around ten meters of visibility. The banks are two meters high, with lots of vegetation. The bottom is an alternation of rock and sand. There are a lot of shrimp in the river, even some good-sized ones. Juveniles may be a good food source for the microphis”.
Nicolas is an aquatic scientist who set up Vies d’Ô douce: ‘a non-profit association whose main objective is to promote the biodiversity of aquatic environments in New Caledonia’. According to Damien, Nicolas has spotted Microphis cruentus many times, and knows exactly where it can be found.
It’s incredibly exciting to learn that people are out there, spotting this species that was thought to be ‘lost’. This story has really highlighted how anybody can provide meaningful contributions to science.
On his experience using iNaturalist, Damien said: “iNaturalist is a fantastic platform to connect people. I’ve been in contact with many scientists because I take pictures of many things. I’ve had pictures published in a coral book and pictures published in a publication on pygmy grasshoppers. Those contacts gave me the opportunity to work on a scientific study of a New Caledonian snail for the French Museum”.
And Valentin was similarly effusive about his use of iNaturalist: “As an avid user of iNaturalist and a hydrobiologist, I am always happy to help identifying observations of freshwater animals, and this observation got me really excited, being a rare and endemic species that researchers from my lab are especially interested in. It’s always great to obtain such new data on these rare species and iNaturalist is an amazing tool to for this, as well as a great opportunity to get people involved in our research”.
We are looking forward to talking further with Damien and Valentin to see how this story may develop further, and excited for the results of Nicolas’ studies on the species. Watch this space!
Post Overview
Michael Edmondstone
June 9th 2021
Conservation, Fish, Interview, Lost Fishes, Stories
Searching for the fat catfish with Dr. Ian Harrison
by Michael Edmondstone
Dr. Ian Harrison, Steering Committee for the Freshwater Fish Specialist Group of IUCN’s Species Survival Commission, has been instrumental in giving us expert advice and guidance on the fat catfish, and he will be involved in the expedition to try and find the bizarre-looking species that he once described as: “the closest a fish could get to the Michelin Man”. It won’t be the first time he’s visited Lake Tota with the aim of rediscovering this species: back in 1999, he was involved in another expedition to the lake, which was abruptly cut short due to concerns about guerrilla activity in the area.
We sat down with him to learn more about this very strange fish.
“The expedition was in collaboration with the American Museum of Natural History in New York, the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogota, and a local environmental organisation in Colombia, CORPOBOYACA, who have offices and laboratories on the lake shore.
“At the time, there was a lot of guerilla activity in the area: mainly the FARQ. My colleagues at the university had notified them of our intentions and had received their permission to work there. I was told that some members of FARC were quite hospitable to the Universidad Nacional, because of its role as a public serving university”.
How did the expedition go?
It went OK, but we had problems that meant we had to finish early. On the second day, we met this fisherman who some of the other team members were nervous about. He was asking lots of questions, and with three visiting North Americans, we knew that would attract attention. The team were nervous that he would pass information to another guerrilla group in the area. The lake is a crater lake and, where we were, there was one main road in, so it would be easy for anyone to set up a roadblock and make it difficult for us to leave, or even kidnap us. We left early, after three days, instead of staying for a full week. Plus it got really rainy, so it was difficult to do any work.
The good side is that the environment agency there: CORPOBOYACA, and the local police were extremely helpful. They let us sleep in the CORPOBOYACA field station, and provided us with boats and police security.. We got incredible help from the university, the local people were extremely friendly and helpful, and the first couple of days went really well , but then we hit the problems with security and weathers. We didn’t have enough time to find the fish.
Why do you think the fish wasn’t found?
In three days you can barely get things going. If we could set some gill nets around the edge of the lake and do a deeper water trawl, it may have helped. We were also only working on one side of the lake and it’s a pretty big lake: we probably only sampled something like 10% of it”.
What makes you think it might be found this time around?
“We didn’t get the time before, and that’s the key thing. The university has gone back but they haven’t really had significant time to monitor fully. The eDNA would be extremely helpful: the main challenge with that is getting the baseline sequence for this species, the reference to really understand what you’re picking up. One could pick up DNA of the other catfish that live in the lake”.
Do you think it’s still there?
I don’t see why it shouldn’t be – there’s as much reason to think it is there as not. The main reason is competition from introduced trout, which is a real risk. But we know so little about it and if it tends to live in the deeper parts of the lake, there’s a good chance it could still be there, as trout probably don’t go to the deeper parts of the lake. There was a potential sighting of it in the early 1980s, when divers thought they’d seen it, which was after the trout were introduced.
There are so many cases with fish where they don’t get seen for a long time, and the reasons why people think it’s no longer there aren’t fully compelling, and then they get sighted again. Which is not to say that we shouldn’t take their risk of extinction as very serious; but it does mean that we really need to look carefully for them before we give up on them. Because once we do that, we are closing the door on any other conservation effort.
Why do you think it has the bizarre fatty rings?
There have been a tonne of hypotheses, and when we first went on the expedition it was in large part to try to find some living fat catfishes and get them into an aquarium and study them. To try and find out why it has these rings.
Some people have suggested the fat could be for buoyancy regulation, but I don’t really see how that would work. I’ve also read it’s a temperature thing, as the lake is cold, but fish generally don’t thermoregulate. It may due to what they are eating, which creates large amounts of fat, which creates a reserve for them, and if there’s not a lot of food in the lake, this could be an adaptation. But other species live in the lake, and they don’t do that.
There are lots of speculations, but that’s all they are – speculations – and that’s why it would be so neat to get hold of it and try to understand the physiology.
What would be the best thing to do if it was found?
If it’s found, then the lake will become an AZE (Alliance for Zero Extinction) site for a start, setting it up as a conservation priority area. There would then be reason to work out whereabouts the fish lives in the lakes, and how threatened is it from the presence of the trout, or from other threats. It gives reason to be more careful about managing the lake; for example there is a lot of agriculture around the lake, which has risks of fertiliser runoff. Ultimately, it would mark the lake as a place with a unique species. And if we could set up a conservation breeding programme, that would be really excellent.
The fat catfish is truly one of the unsolved mysteries of the freshwater realm. Join us on the journey as we try to rediscover this Lost Fish, and try to figure out more about its bizarre appearance!
Post Overview
Michael Edmondstone
June 9th 2021
Conservation, Feature, Fish, Interview, Lost Fishes
Shoal and Re:wild launch ‘Search for the Lost Fishes
Colombia’s Lake Tota: home of the elusive fat catfish
By Michael Edmondstone
What do an Iraqi shrine, the Batman River, and a lake where Pablo Escobar once had a cocaine factory have in common? Shoal and Re:wild are today launching our flagship campaign Search for the Lost Fishes, and both of these locations were previously home to species from the Top 10 Most Wanted list.
Now, we plan to work with local teams to visit these places in the hope of rediscovering the fish.
These Lost Fishes haven’t been observed in more than a decade, but are yet to be listed as Extinct. There is reason to believe they are still out there, waiting to be found, and Shoal aims to help find them so that we may install a conservation programme to give them a second chance at survival.
In collaboration with Re:wild and the IUCN-SSC Freshwater Fish Specialist Group, we have identified more than 300 freshwater fish species that fit within the parameters of a lost species. From this master list, we have chosen an initial Top 10 Most Wanted species that will kickstart a multi-year campaign.
These ten species range from locations right around the world, from Colombia to Madagascar, from Vietnam to Papua New Guinea. Shoal will support and encourage expedition teams to work with local communities and experts to search in the habitats where the fish have previously been recorded, including some of the planet’s most far-flung freshwaters, from former war zones to the world’s highest lake, from a lake where Pablo Escobar once had a cocaine manufacturing plant, to an underground cavern underneath an Iraqi shrine.
But this is about much more than the expeditions Shoal is directly involved in: we’re calling on others to join the search and conduct their own expeditions to try and find these Lost Fishes. With expert input from Re:wild, we will publicise people’s stories of rediscovery and adventure as part of this shared campaign of hope and adventure.
The countries (in green) where the Lost Fishes have previously been recorded.
“The Search for Lost Fishes campaign is incredibly exciting,” said Mike Baltzer, executive director of Shoal. “While the project is driven by science and is aimed to give these species the best possible chance of survival, it also has a strong element of mystery and adventure about it. These species have amazing back stories, were all known from incredible locations and are still much loved by the local people. They are just as keen to find them as we are. Working with the local partners is a true highlight of the project”.
The first Lost Fishes expedition will be for the fat catfish. Shoal has secured preliminary funding for the search and it is planned to start in in Colombia over the coming weeks. It will involve using environmental DNA (eDNA) methods to detect whether the fish may still be in Lake Tota. The expedition team will sample the water, searching for traces of DNA left by the fat catfish. If the eDNA sampling comes back positive, conservationists will have proof that the fish still survives somewhere in the lake or nearby. The next step , if any DNA is found, will be to refine the search based on the location of the detected eDNA.
“If the fat catfish still survives, it will be one of the rarest fish in the world,” said Dr. Barney Long, senior director of conservation strategies, Re:wild. “There have only ever been 10 specimens found, so if the expedition does find the fat catfish, it would be hugely exciting. Also one question may finally get answered; why is it so fat? There is no other fish in the world like it and it has been one of the mysteries of ichthyology for years”.
Read about a previous expedition to find the fat catfish here.
Recent rediscoveries have fuelled hope that the species on the Top 10 Most Wanted Lost Fishes list will be found. The Dumbéa River pipefish was originally planned to be included on the list, but a sighting of the fish in New Caledonia, based on a single record on iNaturalist, a citizen science app, was recently confirmed by scientists. Damien Brouste, a naturalist and angler, became the first person with a confirmed sighting of the species in over a decade.
All things being well, some of these other elusive fish will be rediscovered. And, when they are, the real work of helping bring them back from the brink of extinction will begin.
The Top 10 Most Wanted Lost Fishes:
• Duckbilled buntingi in Indonesia
• Fat catfish in Colombia
• Spinach pipefish in Papua New Guinea
• Syr Darya shovelnose sturgeon in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan
• Annamite barb in Vietnam
• Haditha cavefish in Iraq
• Batman River loach in Turkey
• Titicaca orestias in Bolivia and Peru
• Itasy cichlid in Madagascar
• Leopard barbel in the Tigris-Euphrates river system in Eastern Turkey, Eastern Syria, Iran and Iraq
Shoal and Re:wild are asking anyone to contact them if they can sponsor or partner with us to undertake the expeditions and establish the urgent, vital conservation action these lost fishes need if they have survived.
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