Somewhere in the Comoran twiligth of the depths, the proto-amphibian, pre-terrestrial hearts beat on, thumping the slow rythm of eons. But I was back in Manhattan. Back from the Comoros at the beginning of February, 1988. A well dried Christmas tree still stood brightly decorated on a bureau in my apartment. An amaryllis, that failed to bloom over Christmas, had since flourished and withered. A month's worth of utility bills, Time Life Books, and junk mail had piled up outside my door. "Gandhi", my Colombian Red Tailed boa constrictor, was hungry after a month's fast, and the clown trigger fish in my 150 gallon marine tank was gobbling the last flakes of Tetra Marin dispensed from a Lazy-Susan automatic feeder poised above the tank.

              I needed some "decompression" time to recover from jet lag and our struggles with the sea and the cage before getting in touch with New York Aquarium. Instead, I called Arn Neis at E.T Browne, our communications center, briefed him on the latest trip, and asked that he call Lou Garibaldi at the New York Aquarium with the update.

              During my absence, Lou Garibaldi had been officially appointed Director of the New York Aquarium. Within a few days, I mailed him and all other members of our coelacanth group a quick account of the cage search. Lou called me at once, wondering why he hadn't heard from me sooner. He had been questioned by Zoo board members about the Bemis coelacanth specimens and didn't know anything about them. He'd also been surprised that Jack Musick picked up the two remaining coelacanth specimens from '86 without consulting him. Apparently, Lou had not returned Arn Neis' call.

              The gist of his message was not critical of me or the expedition. On the contrary, he said the board respected people with "dreams," and referred to the work of William Beebe, whose bathyscaph dives in the Thirties opened the depths of the ocean to human exploration. The board, Lou said, was now fully behind the project. That was good to hear, for the board of the New York Zoological Society also operated Wildlife Conservation International, one of the most diversified conservation operations ever created, with well heeled projects operating around the world, including the St. Catherine's Island Endangered Species Sanctuary on the inland waterway in Georgia. Our conversation concluded on a high note.

              But the optimism was short lived. I soon learned that Dr. Hans Fricke, who had filmed coelacanths from a submersible in the spring of '87, had aggressively attacked our project at the 68th annual meeting of the American Society of Ichthyologists & Herpetologists. This theme was continuing during lecture shows, and through virtually every other forum and medium he could access. News of this reached me through Dr. Bemis and Lou Garibaldi. How bizarre, I thought naively, that Dr. Fricke should use the platform his pictures had given him to attack other groups interested in the coelacanth. His idea was that we were driving the coelacanth into extinction!

              I was upset. At the risk of sounding self-serving, I'd been a conservation film maker and contributor since my teens, long before it became the "in" thing it is today. Besides, with much of my generation, I'd always been a good student of issues and often an activist. I'd worked hard in college against the nuclear arms race- even co-founding the one Yale organization dedicated to that purpose. I'd participated in civil rights demonstrations and done my share of protesting the war in Vietnam. And now this charge? What was going on?

              Lou called back. Malcolm Browne, a science writer for the New York Times, had called him for comments on the Fricke charges. Browne was preparing a piece on the controversy. I went over our position with Lou, for I thought the Fricke arguments were extreme. I asked Lou if he wanted me to talk to Browne. There was silence on the line. Lou had a different agenda, which I wouldn't find out about for another week.

             The next day, the Times article appeared, giving the Aquarium position, then slamming the Explorers Club hard as if we were a bunch of fools. I was not mentioned by name. The implication was that the E.C. was charging people money to go to the Comoros to fish for coelacanths, a kind of commercial adventure. Most damning of all was a headline, taken from a magazine called International Angler, which called for a monster hunt in the Comoros in the name of the Explorers Club. I had never seen this before. It seemed to be a sensationalized reworking of the internal E.C. announcement I had sent, on Michael's advice, to that "newsletter" in Florida--back when we were trying to recruit volunteers for winter '88 trips to prolong an active capture presence and improve our odds. If only I'd had a chance to explain this to Browne before his piece came out. I sent a letter to the editor of the Times, that was published sometime later in a toned down version. A cartoon appeared with the letter showing a coelacanth biting on a hook baited with dollars!

              Bit by bit, I got the picture of what had happened. While in the Comoros, the year before, Hans Fricke and his French colleague, Raphael Plante, had met up with Professor Eugene K. Balon, an ichthyologist on sabbatical from Ontario's University of Guelph, and editor of the respected science journal, Environmental Biology of Fishes. Dr. Balon was in the Comoros looking into matters coelacanth with his wife, Christine Flegler-Balon and Michael Bruton, Director of the JLB Smith Institute of Ichthyology in Grahamstown, South Africa--a museum and research center named after the original "discoverer" of the coelacanth. One evening, while sitting in a restaurant in Moroni together with the South African camera crew of Mike and Sharyn Vincent, the seven of them decided to form a group to save the coelacanth, which they had decided was on the verge of extinction. They called themselves the Coelacanth Conservation Council or C. C. C. whose initials, cleverly read the same in English or French. The essentials of their position were set out in a paper titled "A Fiftieth Anniversary Reflection on the living coelacanth Latimeria chalumnae: some new interpretations of its natural history and conservation status" which appeared in the winter of '88. I summarize their arguments as follows:

1) The Comoran fishermen are switching from their traditional cotton fiber lines to monofilament in order to catch more coelacanths.
2) A coelacanth fisheries has developed in the Comoros, driven by the government bounty and the rewards offered by groups such as the E.C., while before 1953, coelacanths were "generally released" when they were caught, as they were considered poor eating due to their oily flesh.
3) The annual catch rate is rising rapidly as a result of these new methods and rewards. Indeed, in 1987, 12 coelacanths were caught instead of the usual 5-6.
4) While in the past only large specimens were caught, now more and more juveniles are being pulled up, indicating that the overall population is declining.
5) There is a "brisk trade" in coelacanth specimens, including a thriving black market. (In a subsequent conversation, Dr. Balon mentioned that a Japanese businessman offered $7 million for the spinal fluid of a coelacanth, because, given the                         great age of the coelacanth as a species, its spinal - or more accurately notochord - fluid, through a sort of magical reasoning, was thought to enhance longevity.) The "rhino horn syndrome," was at loose in the Comoros.
6) The coelacanth cannot survive being caught. But if an aquarium should succeed in keeping one alive, there will be a run on the fish by all aquaria, forcing its extinction.

At the time, I thought I'd better respond to these arguments one at a time:

1) The charge that Comoran fishermen were switching to monofilament in order to catch more coelacanths, could not be substatiated. Fishermen I interviewed claimed they preferred the traditional homespun fishing-line because it is heavier and holds the bait down in the current better than monofilament for bottom fishing. Plenty of coelacanths have been caught on traditional line--as well as sharks and marlin weighing hundreds of pounds and with a hell of a lot more fight than old fourlegs. Fishermen were switching to mono as a result of creeping modernization: the recent availability of plastic line versus the cost and effort of producing the traditional line.The gradual changeover had nothing at all to do with catching more coelacanths.

2) As to the coelacanth "fisheries," quite simply there were no "coelacanth fisheries" in the Comoros. I learned that the hard way, believing there were special coelacanth fishing grounds and perhaps dedicated coelacanth fishermen, but finding instead that the fishermen who'd caught coelacanths were simply fishing off their villages for their nightly fare. A few times a year they'd pull up a coelacanth instead. Doling out rewards or bounties doesn't change a thing. Before 1953, I learned in interviews with Comorans, coelacanths were not "generally released," though not preferred, they were eaten along with everything else a fisherman was lucky enough to pull from the sea. Why else was the "first" specimen Hunt "discovered" bound for the marketplace?

3) What about the catch rate rising? That was damning news indeed. But it didn't make sense. Twelve fish in 1987? Our very generous reward was in place throughout 1987, but only the December 27th catch came our way. What happened to the other eleven fish? The disposition of coelacanth captures is not difficult to determine for anyone actually in the Comoros. There were the two fish Dr. Bemis bought in Moroni. And there were two more available in the government freezer on the island of Anjouan, but those may even have been left over from the year before. With our fish that's a total of five. Assume a few more catches were intercepted by individuals to sell on the "black market." That's eight fish for both islands including the hypothetical "black market specimens". In other words the '87 catch rate was within the range of averages for yearly accidental by-catches since the early fifties when the recording began. The C.C.C. group were there in the spring of '87. It's unlikely that black marketeers were writing them catch statistics from the Comoros at the end of the year. How did the C.C.C. get twelve fish for '87? Did they make a mistake? The C.C.C later revised its '87 catch number to five!

4) What about the change in the age of the caught specimens?--more juveniles being caught? In the freezers of the Comoros, I was struck by the exact opposite. All the specimens we saw were mature. In fact, the catch records, for what they were worth, listed only three coelacanths 50cm and under caught in '73,'74, and '76. Where did the C.C.C get their statistics on juveniles? And how exactly would a greater percentage of juvenile catches show a declining population?

5) I wouldn't call an annual accumulation of freezer burned "Cairo Mummies" in the iceboxes of Moroni and Anjouan a "brisk trade" in coelacanth specimens. Some of those fish looked as though they had been there for years. As for the "thriving black market", as mentioned earlier, what there was of a black market was simply a case of "entrepreneurs" - of which there were definitely one or two (including a white mercenary) -intercepting by-catches before they reach the government freezers. At the same time the "brisk trade" idea was being promoted by the C.C.C., I learned that coelacanths were being eaten on Anjouan because the Ministry of Production took so long to reward the fishermen who happened to catch them over there. It's not hard to see how a local "businessman" could step in to fill the void. In these circumstances of supply exceeding demand, that Japanese magnate certainly didn't have to pay $7,000,000 for his "youth fix." All he had to do was pay someone's air fare and hotel bill to stick around the Comoros for a fresh catch and then offer the ministries the going rate of $2,000. It's not a "rhino horn syndrome" because there is no evidence that demand for coelacanths leads to their being caught, unlike what happens when poachers are induced to go after rhino.

6) Whether or not a coelacanth could survive capture remained a complete unknown. Several professional fish physiologists, whom I consulted, saw every reason why, with the proper handling, it would indeed survive capture--a view strongly supported by J.L.B. Smith's widow, Margaret. The C.C.C. was entitled to its own view, on which as a matter of fact, it later equivocated. Dr.Fricke actually gave a recipe--very similar to our own--for bringing a coelacanth to the surface with a minimum of stress.

            The argument about all the aquariums in the world converging on the Comoros was more interesting. We had worried about a less exaggerated form of that ourselves. It was not until after we had tried, that I realized how costly and difficult a task this was. But if one aquarium succeeded there would be others. However, the likely outcome might be that aquarium ventures would be forced by costs and international conservation opinion to become cooperative and scientifically valuable in the way that zoos had been regulated following the controversy surrounding the Giant Panda leasing programs. It seemed likely that controls and restrictions would quickly arise. I didn't see a long term threat to the coelacanth from aquaria. In fact, I saw some hope for the species in maintaining a captive population with breeding as an ultimate objective. If, however, a more efficient way of catching coelacanths were devised, this argument would become a concern. I was not blind to that possibility. This was and remains the most complicated of the issues.

             The position of J.L.B. Smith, the "discoverer" of the living coelacanth, and his wife Margaret remained instructive. Smith came to deplore the policy of rewarding Comorans for catching and turning over dead coelacanths to their government. He estimated that the entire population of coelacanths in Comoran waters might be no more than a few hundred. In this view, he had no way of knowing that the rewards do not actually increase the catch rate. That requires first hand experience in the Comoros, something that Smith's one day visit did not provide. However, in a 1956 letter to the London Times, Smith remained staunchly pro-capture stating:

To my mind, apart from seeking other areas
where coelacanths may live, the chief problem,
to whose solution all energies should be directed
is that of catching a few live coelacanths
without unduly endangering the probably precarious
continued existence of these Comoran survivors of
this incredibly ancient line.

              Even after J.L.B. had passed on, Margaret Smith gave an impassioned version of his view in a 1970 Oceans magazine article on the coelacanth:

... J.L.B. still had one more dream. He wanted
to see a live coelacanth in an aquarium. He wanted
the people of the world to have the fantastic
privilege of looking through the window of the
aquarium and seeing a fish swim past that was
almost the double of our remote ancestor with
which it shared the Devonian waters. To see a
living coelacanth swimming around in an aquarium
would be like taking a time machine back to 300
million years ago.

               Indeed, Margaret Smith wished to involve herself in a live coelacanth capture effort. She had been personally involved in both the 1938 living coelacanth "discovery" and the 1952 "discovery" of the living coelacanth's "home" waters in the Comoros. Now she would say:

All good things go in threes, so let us hope
that my third will be a live coelacanth.

             Sadly, she would never live to see that happen.

              I presented an account of our expedition and my own arguments in a letter to Professor Balon, who forwarded it to Michael Bruton at the J.L.B. Smith Institute in South Africa. However, none of the issues were addressed in the response. Instead, Dr. Balon courteously offered to publish non controversial parts of my expedition account in his C.C.C. newsletter. I was very respecful and appreciative of that. In my view, the real threat to the coelacanth was in the waste of the accidental by-catches.

          But the biggest issue of all was Dr.Fricke's position on coelacanth capture. I watched from the sidelines as a testy exchange of letters flew back and forth between William Conway, Director of the New York Zoological Society, Lou Garibaldi, Director of New York Aquarium, and Hans Fricke. Dr. Fricke claimed he could have easily captured a coelacanth with his submersible in '87, but declined because he recognized their delicate conservation status. Yet there was no trace of capture equipment, such as a life support tank, in pictures of the submersible Geo's mothership, Metoka, a sailboat with very limited deck space. Furthermore, the letter we had seen before his arrival stated explicitly that no capture would be attempted. It seemed that the decision not to capture had been reached before the Fricke Group made observations of the coelacanth's delicate conservation status. And what about that letter Michael had seen in Moroni back in '86: the request for a coelacanth specimen from the same Max-Planck-Institut that now was joining in the condemnation of specimen acquisitions? It had to cross my mind that we were being used as scapegoats to raise funds for someone elses agenda! Furthermore, crying "coelacanth extinction!" could help the directors of the C.C.C. eliminate research competition from capture programs such as ours. Once the C.C.C. had scared everyone else away from the "brisk trade" in coelacanths, they began quietly removing the frozen specimens of annual catches that were piling up in the freezers of Moroni and Anjouan for their own research projects. In 1990-91, specimens made their way to Dr. Fricke at the Max-Planck-Institut, Dr. Bruton at the J.L.B. Smith Institute, and Dr. Balon at the University of Guelph. Speimens which could not be cajoled from the Comoran government were purchased outright. To help justify this contradictory behavior, it was rumored that Dr. Bruton of the J.L.B. Smith Institute wrote letters to outside scientists actually soliciting requests for coelacanth tissues. In 1991, the C.C.C. executed its coup de grace, proposing that it alone control the distribution of all coelacanth material from the Comoros, a strategy that had already come to pass in fact, if not in policy. The group did succeed in an important gesture. It got the coelacanth placed on Appendix A of the Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species (C.I.T.E.S.), as a severely endangered species which could not be sent out of the country of origin without special permits. Though based on the false premise that such trade was a threat to the coelacanth, this listing would raise the coelacanth's profile in important ways- though it made it difficult for members of the C.C.C. to get specimens out of the Comoros! The C.C.C. would continue to dominate coelacanth affairs for the next few years- with some important contributions, including a book wrap up of the recent raft of papers with an attempted listing of all coelacanth catches to date. The group petered out, after a couple of burps, in the early 90's, with Dr. Fricke's Dive Group going its own way and performing virtually all pioneering in vivo coelacanth research.

               As a result of the coelacanth connection, both Dr. Bemis and Dr. Musick were eager to join the Explorers Club. (Curiously, Jack Musick also became a director of the C.C.C!) I wrote a letter seconding Bemis' application to the E.C. As the storm of controversy broke in newspaper pieces around the world, rather reminiscent of Smith's flap in '53 but with the issues skewed differently, Dr. William E. Bemis totally disappeared from view. David Wilkinson, his sponsor at the E.C., had placed "ten unreturned calls to him." Willy had gone underground, apparently afraid to peek above the ramparts until his tenure at the University of Massachusetts was secured. The only well known scientist to directly support our position in print, was the erstwhile boy wonder, John Mckosker from the San Francisco Academy of Sciences and Steinhart Aquarium- the very fellow I'd been asked to conceal our project from! In an interview with Malcolm Browne, the same science writer at the New York Times who reported Dr.Fricke's position, he said in Oceans magazine:

"For one thing, no one knows how many coelacanths there are, but there must be quite a few. I estimate that in modern times, between two hundred and four hundred coelacanths have been caught off the Comoros. The contention that they cannot be kept alive is nonsense. Many sharks have been captured at depths greater than 500 ft. and have been kept alive in aquariums. It's also completely off base to call the coelacanth an endangered species until some realistic survey can be made. We haven't even sampled the waters off Mozambique, where they also may be found."

                    The rest of the scientific community, particularly the fish people, came neatly into line behind the C.C.C position. For example, veteran American coelacanth researcher Keith Stuart Thomson had taken part- indirectly- in the most elaborate coelacanth fishing operations ever conducted prior to our own. At Yale University in June of 1966, the same month I graduated from that institution, Dr. Thompson performed his work on the first frozen specimen to reach North America. As late as 1986 he wrote:

"My own private dream is to catch a live specimen, get it quickly enough to a cooled and pressurized tank to stabilize it, and fly it back to the laboratory."

                   But by '89, Thomson, who had never actually been to the Comoros, was saying something else. At the conclusion of an often intelligent book, "Living Fossil, the Story of the Coelacanth," Dr. Thomson, paraphrasing the C.C.C. arguments in a syrupy Sermon on the Mount for fishes, sarcastically mocked the E.C. expeditions, attacking both our purpose and the "Explorers" who carried them out. What was Dr. Thomson's recipe for the coelacanth? He recommended a total ban on artisanal fishing in the Comoros. However, according to his plan, scientists like himself would be permitted a few well coordinated coelacanth "culls," snatched by submersible from the depths. Ottoman, whose life depended on the sea, might just as well have suggested a total ban on all scientific coelacanth research, while Comoran fishermen would be allowed to go out from time to time to cull a few for their own sustenance! This patronizingly scientistic vision of coelacanth affairs, was admiringly parroted by several reviewers of his book who didn't know any better.

                    All this back and forth on the coelacanth brought one burning question to the forefront of my attention, the assumption that underlies the debate: What exactly is involved in our wanting to conserve a species? The coelacanth presents the ironic paradox of being a creature thought to have been extinct--at which time no one gave a hoot about it--then found to be still living--at which time we all want furiously to conserve it. What's going on here?

                   I do not believe the usual argument that animals or anyone else have intrinsic "rights" that we are duty bound to respect. If that were the case we wouldn't slap mosquitoes. "Rights" are proffered by us to each other and the rest of the living world as part of the way we grant value. They are anthropomorphic conventions, albeit useful ones. There must be deeper explanations and the ones I subscribe to are threefold. First, the concern for preserving plants, animals, and lands apart from their having a practical use to us is an aesthetic concern. It is the same concern that we have for preserving a great man-made work of art, only now as the world closes in on itself, more and more we see nature as the artist and its works as the canvass. Second, this aesthetic concern for the living world may partake of a broader more genetically based affinity for life, which Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson calls "biophilia." This urge, born of millions of years of living in close proximity to nature, now expresses itself in the conservationist's urge. Third is a purely emotional element:: a sensitivity to loss. When there is something we like we don't want to lose it. It is in these three overlapping senses that conservation participates in the ethical. And thus having once found the coelacanth we have both an aesthetic and an emotional desire, an ethical imperative that he not slip back into fossilized oblivion. We do not mourn the dinosaur's passing and we did not fear for the coelacanth until we found he was still with us. And so it is with the rest of the creatures we know from our own time.

                  What was missing, in both the attacks on us and in my sometimes trivial retorts, was the case for our program. Our plan had three elements: science, exhibition, and conservation in place. The scientific part of our program, beyond the analysis of the frozen specimens, was to permit long-term study of a captive specimen under controlled conditions. There is much for science to learn in this way about the feeding, metabolism, habitat tolerances, and behavior of the coelacanth--including, ultimately, breeding behavior. Most of this information is necessary for a sound coelacanth conservation plan. In fact, it is useless to discuss coelacanth conservation seriously without knowing about these things. The mastery of techniques for reviving and maintaining caught coelacanths are also necessary to ensure a "lifeboat" conservation strategy. This is a procedure where numbers of the animals can be removed from their endangered habitat and moved to safer natural environments and/or to captive breeding programs. While captive breeding programs are certainly a ways down the road for coelacanths, about whom so little is known, there has to be a starting point for the effort. That point, I reasoned, should not be when there are only five left in the wild! The lifeboat conservation strategy, as mentioned before, has been and is used for many endangered species. The American bison, for example, largely avoided extinction through a breeding population maintained by the New York Zoological Society, then later re-introduced to the Great Plains. The California condor, at one point down to 9 birds, was spared extinction through a captive breeding life boat strategy at the San Diego Zoo. The Arabian Oryx so survived. The list goes on. As Lou Garibaldi put it, the "coelacanth may need us as much as we need it."

                   Conserving coelacanths in the wild is a strategy that can be carried out simultaneously with the others. It is complex, involving not so much a reduction in demand for coelacanths--a demand I have argued does not affect the catch rate--but a shift in artisanal fishing patterns. That shift involves alternatives which cost money. Here, again, the "exhibit" coelacanth can contribute in a local display. Local displays might one day attract tourist dollars to the Comoros, like the game in the parks of East Africa or the giant tortoises and marine iguanas of the Galapagos draw tourist support for conservation. In this context, I have imagined that the Comoros and the coelacanth might become an African Safari extension, in the way that package tours to Ecuador add on an excursion to the Galapagos.

                   I considered the arguments of the C.C.C., well meaning as they might have been, to fall well short of their mark. In the years ahead, some of the differences would be resloved, and some of the combatants become friends. However at the time, they caused chaos in our ranks, a collapse of funding, and threatened to put to waste to thousands of hours of work.

                   First the chaos. A few days after the controversy broke in the New York Times, Josie Coy, our financial manager, and I were invited to have lunch with Lou Garibaldi at Garjulio's restaurant near the Aquarium in Coney Island, Brooklyn. Garjulio's had been Father George's favorite haunt. He had taken me and the E.C. coelacanth people to dinner there several times, remaining after we left to chat with his friends. In fact, I'd seen him for the last time at Garjulio's at our meeting the previous summer.Lou and Josie were making small talk, discussing T.V. sit-coms over appetizers, when suddenly Lou turned robotically in my direction and with a click a prerecorded announcement played in my ear. "Don't think that we're not grateful for all you've done at George's suggestion, but now that the Aquarium's involved, we must take control of the coelacanth project." I was so startled I could only reply rather feebly choking on a baked clam, "I'm sure the Explorers Club is also interested in maintaining its position in this project." A second click followed as Lou turned the conversation back to the sit-coms.Wow! What happened to "William Beebe?" Would the Aquarium try to brush us off? "At George's suggestion?" What was that supposed to mean? My God, was I now going to have to deal with the New York Aquarium as well as Dr. Fricke? It sure looked like it!

                   My response was to composed a lengthy letter detailing the history of the project, and placing the participants in proper perspective. Michael reviewed the letter and got me to tone down certain passages. I did not wish to over-react ,so I also ran it by the President of the Explorers Club, who gave the letter his blessings. The question was to whom to address it. Mailing the letter to Lou Garibaldi might have been insulting, as presumably he knew the history of the project, save for who had initiated it. Then too, Lou might simply file the letter and that would be that. And so might his immediate boss, Zoo director William Conway. The pre-recorded nature of the remark gave me the impression that it had been carefully thought out. Was director Conway trying to initiate a damage control action in the face of Dr. Fricke's charges? Was Lou trying to consolidate power as the new Aquarium director overturning our bilateral arrangement with George? No, I would send my letter directly to the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the New York Zoological Society, everybody's boss. I'd start at the top. The coup might even had originated there. In any case, it was time the Chairman be brought up to date on the whole project. I would give him a chance to arbitrate the issue of how the project was run. In fact, Lou's announcement may well have reflected a board position that my letter would now address. A copy would go to Lou. I wasn't trying to do anything behind his back.

                    Peter Stevens arrived in New York from Toronto for the annual E.C. dinner at the Waldorf Astoria. This is the dinner the Comoran Ambassador had attended the year before, an event well known for its exotic fare: puree of peccary feet, shark entrails and other bizarre hors d'ouvres. Anything not endangered is fair came for the banquet table. Ironically, from the C.C.C.'s point of view, the theme of the evening was conservation!

                  Over the weekend, I discussed the potential Aquarium "takeover" crisis with Peter. By now, Peter and I had paid too many coelacanth dues to be cut off by an uninformed bureaucratic decision. After all, we had just put our lives on the line for the fish in that cage. We agreed we would have to be able to proceed independently of the Aquarium if necessary. That meant we would have to establish our own technical gear for resubmerging a fish, equipment not from the Aquarium's budget and hence not under the control of the New York Zoological Society. Peter said if his finances permitted he would buy a separate transporter. We agreed for now that we would wire our own funds to our account in the Comoros for the building of a second resubmergence cage. A second cage would accomplish a double purpose. On the one hand, we would direct one of the cages to be taken to Anjouan, where Mombassa had a "relative" who could orchestrate a submersion program there. So our coelacanth catch coverage would be doubled. On the other, no one here would know which cage belonged to the E.C. and which to the NYZS. That way we could claim control of the fish if need be. Submersion attempts could continue if the NYZS caved in to the C.C.C. pressure. I believed these efforts important not just for our program but also for the future of the coelacanth. As for returning a captured coelacanth to the States, if the NYZS would not accept a stabilized fish, there was always John McKosker at Steinhart Aquarium in San Francisco.

                  After Lou's remarks, my loyalty towards the NYZS was put on hold, awaiting a response to my letter. In time, the Chairman of the NYZS called to thank me for the letter. We had a very general chat, which skirted the real issue. Lou called to discuss his comments. He was surprised I had gone straight to the top without talking to him first. He said that the history of the project discussed in my letter had been helpful. He'd been misinformed about its origins. His position on the conservation issue was that he would be morally obligated to assist if a fish was in one of our cages. With this I certainly concurred. Such a fish would be an accidental by-catch, and not to manage it with life support in some way, meant death. Our conversation concluded amicably enough, but the bond of enthusiasm and trust that once existed between us had been strained from both sides.

                 Late in the spring of '88, I met William Conway, the Director of the NYZS, at the opening of the new Central Park Zoo. His comments indicated ongoing confusion in the ranks of the NYZS. "Your letter was interesting," he said, adding, "I'm afraid the German's got us beat." For Conway, the coelacanth had become too hot for the NYZS to handle. Soon after, I gave an interview on the controversy to a reporter from Time magazine. This time the Aquarium had given them my name. I told the interviewer it looked as if the NYZS was out, but the E.C. was still in for passive catches. Yet in spite of the official posture, Lou Garibaldi, returning from a vacation in Bermuda, maintained his readiness to intervene with a catch for "ethical" reasons. Again, I felt his position made sense.

                In the Comoros, Charly Hortoland completed the new cage and assigned Mombassa the task of delivering it to Anjouan by boat and arranging the by-catch intervention program there. After doing all of that, Mombassa, always the opportunist, got into trouble. He agreed to take the baggage of a mercenary back with him on the ferry to Grand Comoro. The boat first went on to the French Island of Mayotte. Then, no sooner had "Momba" left port, than a French military helicopter from the naval base was buzzing his boat preparing to open fire. The ship turned back. Mombassa, it seems, had bags containing smuggled weapons. He spent two nights in jail on the island of Mayotte, until the U.S. Embassy stepped in and cleared his name. In spite of Momba's ordeal, the upshot was that we now had two cages for resubmergence, strategically located in the Comoros. And we could operate with or without the New York Aquarium.

              We had emerged from this fracas with cages in place on both Grand Comoro and Anjouan, the two known locations of coelacanth catches, and with the Aquarium's Director still willing to intervene on behalf of a catch. Never in the history of coelacanth searches had such an elaborate network, designed to operate over an indefinite time frame, been put in place. And it could operate by remote control from New York without the considerable expense of remaining on site in the Comoros!

              I was satisfied with the ingenuity of the approach. But I was also battle scarred and weary of the "coelacanth wars." They had all but taken the zest out of the project for me, when a most unusual letter reached me through the Explorers Club. It contained a poem written several years before by Francine M. Storey, the writer of the letter. She was responding to my own letter to the editor, that she had read in the New York Times. Her poem spoke understanding and perspective to a weary spirit in the spring of '88:

point your hands like a compass to down
and dive off the edge of madagascar
into the tea-warm indian ocean

as the fathoms widen before you
in a blue-green peacock's tail
elongate yourself like an eel
round and flat at the same time
then move your arms in great arcs
and descend along the path of broken sunlight

swim carefully through the hypnotizing seaweed
over the ragged battlements of tulip-colored corals
until at last, you pass
the ironwork of the continent
and you are below the world.

here where the sun is repulsed
by the fist of pressure
blind fish like beggars
wait for alms
and the sea is a buddha
silent and dark

no progression
no regression
fullness flatness of tides
the eye in the throat beats the time
when the pupil is ready
the teacher arrives
wait
for the coelacanth
fish of rounded gills and lobed fins
400 million years old
last inhabitant of the devonian sea

if he approaches
unseen
unheard
ask him

how did you survive?