In the early morning of November 27th, 1989, President Ahmed Abdallah Abderemane of the Comoros, then in power for eleven years, was assassinated. First reports had him blown up in his bedroom by an anti-tank gun during an unsuccessful attack on the Presidential Palace by would be revolutionaries. But later, a different story emerged.

            The president, it was told, had fallen victim to his own security forces headed by Bob Denard, the French mercenary. Apparently, being maintained in power by a group of mercenaries had proved embarrassing to the President on his numerous trips abroad. France and a reform minded South Africa were threatening to discontinue subsidies to the Comoros if the President didn't clean up his own backyard. Denard's security contract was coming up for renewal, and the President wished to use this occasion to make a different security arrangement, perhaps with a legitimate French based outfit. Denard got wind of the plan and launched a "pre-emptive strike."

            Denard and two of his "officers" entered the Presidential grounds--no problem for them as they were the chiefs of security. A Presidential body guard was immediately killed. According to this version, Denard presented Abdullah with a new contract for his signature. When the president refused, a commotion ensued outside the Palace which Denard used as further evidence to support his claim that his services were necessary. But Abdallah was adamant about not signing and a scuffle broke out in the office. The President may have reached for a secret gun kept in a drawer. He was killed on the spot by either Denard or one of his officers. Denard then triggered a sequence of phoney attacks on an army barracks to make it seem as if a coup had been attempted but successfully suppressed. Now fully in control of the Comoros, Denard allowed for apparent power to pass to the head of the supreme court as called for by the Comoran constitution.
             France and South Africa were not satisfied with Denard's "official" version of events. They again threatened to withdraw subsidies if Denard and his mercenaries did not leave the Comoros. France took further steps, moving a Foreign Legion contingent from the island of Mauritius to it's naval base on Mayotte, in preparation for an armed invasion of Grand Comoro Island. Denard set up defensive positions throughout the island. But before the invasion took place, a deal was struck. Denard and his mercenaries pulled out, loading their loot aboard several C-130 Hercules transports. Denard wound up somewhere in South Africa and later France, writing his memoirs. He was charged in France with the killing of the Comoran president, but not convicted. Denard had left Supreme court justice Said Mohamed Djohar as provisional President of the Comoros. A sequence of violently contested elections followed, finally legitimating Djohar's position.

             In the midst of this confusion, both the Toba Aquarium Expedition and Hans Fricke's Jago submersible dive team arrived in the Comoros and set about their work- more or less in the same place off Singani!

            The Japanese team was indeed well equipped. In addition to the pressurized tank, they had a remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV), coelacanth traps, and specialized Filipino deep hand line fisherman who supposedly could fish circles around the Comorans. But the ROV suffered in the stiff Comoran currents. Coelacanths didn't bother with the traps, and the fishermen only caught rudis. At one juncture, Comorans towed a coelacanth they had caught up to the huge mother ship. It was still alive, but the Japanese would not take it on board for fear it would die in their hands. The most curious development took place when the Fricke dive team placed a sign in one of the Japanese traps on the bottom with the curiously worded statement: "Coelacanths. Let them where they are." Behind the scenes, the Germans raised a commotion in the scientific community to block the Toba effort. At this stage, the Japanese issued an invitation for me to join them on their ship, but I declined to be used in that way. It was too late. Even New York Aquarium, in the throws of politically correcting its name to The Aquarium for Wildlife Conservation, joined the effort to block Toba. Their main sponsor, Mitsubishi, withdrew funding, and after completing some ecological surveys, they had to leave the Comoros empty handed. I knew the feeling.

           Not long after these events, I received a letter from Peter Harding, Bill Carlson's replacement and the new operations officer at the American Embassy in Moroni. Mr. Harding said that there had been a state department inspection of the Embassy Warehouse, and he regretted to inform me that they were not permitted to keep "third party" supplies there. Would I please make arrangements to move our equipment.

           So that was it then. We would have to pullout. The whole American supporting cast of our local effort had already left the Comoros: Charlie and Elka Hortoland, Bill Carlson, Mombassa, even Karl Danga was now gone in anticipation of a full ambassadorship from Washington. I answered that I would make other arrangements for the gear, but I had to stall for a while as I figured out the next move.

           It would cost Lou Garibaldi as much to bring the transporter home as to buy a new one, so he concurred with my newly hatched plan to move all the gear to the C.N.D.R.S.--the National Scientific Research Center--and set it up there. That's if I could get Shakur and the director to go along with the idea.

           In the fall of '90, I returned to the Comoros for two weeks. The place did not look good. Some of the hotels had shut down following the "coup" and still had not reopened as tourism had dropped to near zero. The economy, always weak, now appeared in a shambles. The new president was widely criticized for having too lame a hand at the tiller. But in Moroni, a satellite communications disk was under construction. The Japanese had kept to their agreement. At the Ylang Ylang hotel, CNN and other stations were now pipped in, and the staff spent most of their time watching TV. The Belgian manager, Monsieur De La Croix, had long departed to some Caribbean island hotel-resort complex, and at the Ylang Ylang, now under pleasant if inefficient Comoran management, service had reached a new low.

           I got the C.N.D.R.S. director's blessings for moving the gear to the museum. But my scheme was more elaborate than simply switching storage sites. I wanted to set up the equipment at the museum for the purpose of carrying on resuscitation attempts. In that way we would keep our project alive. It may have looked like we were being kicked out of the Embassy, but in effect we were establishing the first permanent coelacanth research facility in the Comoros!
All that was left of the Toba Aquarium visit was a giant tarpaulin on a trash heap behind the museum. Shakur and I determined a spot for the transporter and made arrangements for a house to be built around it. The new Embassy warehouse administrator, following Charlie Hortoland, was Art Delaminco, a Philippine married to an American, Donna, the new secretary to the first U.S. Ambassador to the Comoros, Kenneth Peltier. Art was a very agreeable character who had once worked for "Air America" the C.I.A's freight operation during the Vietnam War. He helped me arrange a flatbed truck to move the gear, but the truck never showed up--an ominous indication of its unreliability had we needed it to move a fish. In the end, Art's warehouse team moved the transporter and all life support gear with their bashe, that all purpose workhorse of the Comoros. A thatch house would be built around it.

           I spent another tasty Thanksgiving in the Comoros. Donna invited me to join the Embassy group at her house, the former residence of Charlie and Elka, where I'd spent January of '88 as my base for the cage search. There I met Pete Harding, an ex-Vietnam vet, a wild and free speaking Dennis Hopper act-a-like, now the Embassy's operations officer. Pete had just returned from Madagascar where he'd been collecting gems and making improved arrangements for the Embassy's security in the face of an impending Desert Storm up north in Kuwait. The Ambassador was there with his wife, both polished diplomatic socialites, who made the rest of us seem primitive. There also was David Black, the Peace Corps director and only holdover from my past visits. In contrast to our first meeting, David was the model of quiet sensitivity and paternal concern with his newborn child. During a polite dinner, he announced to me that the Japanese had failed to catch a coelacanth during their visit. I acknowledged his remark but let it go, not wanting to reopen that can of worms, the echo of his earlier remark, that the Japanese "knew how to do it" started bouncing around inside my skull. The Peace Corps in the Comoros had had its ups and downs. One popular volunteer had been expelled for smoking pot, another for riding a motorcycle without a helmet, and a third for having a torrid affair with a wealthy and predatory Comoran playboy. But the English lessons and other efforts had made a favorable impression.

          Three Japanese technicians working on the Moroni satellite communications dish were also staying at the Ylang Ylang hotel. At meal times they shuffled their flip-flops into the dining area and sat at a round table. Each would order a beer and smoke a pack of cigarettes while barely uttering a word one to the other. The meal would arrive, be consumed in silence, then they would shuffle back to their rooms. In this way the Comoros were being modernized. But why didn't these fellows speak? I presumed that their constant proximity had long since drained them of conversation. I felt that way about the fish. We each "knew" where we were coming from, and there was little more to say about it.

          When my two weeks on the excursion ticket were up, I had completed the set-up at the C.N.D.R.S. Everything was arranged and working. I briefed Shakur and Michel De San on resuscitation procedures. Michel was the European Communities aid officer to the Comoros. While the C.C.C. had been congratulating itself on elevating the coelacanth to level one on the C.I.T.E.S. endangered species list,- resulting in the accumulation of dead bodies from accidental catches in Moroni- it was Michel who had really made the difference. His team had placed anchored pylons about Grand Comoro and Anjouan Islands. These served as fish attractors (F.A.D. S. =fish attracting or agregating devices) to improve the off shore fishing for native fishermen. Small fishes schooled about the structures attracting larger tuna. As a result the artisanal fishing patterns had shifted from the shore fishing in the coelacanth's habitat area to offshore fishing about the attractors. While the overall catch improved greatly, the coelacanth was left alone. Coelacanth catch rates had dropped from six a year to two during the past two years. The fish's survival prospects, if ever in question, now seemed more secure. Once again, I left the Comoros not knowing what the future would bring. The first event was almost immediate.

          On December 31st, 1990, I had a bizarre message on my answering machine in New York. A mysterious woman was calling from Ireland who needed to hear from me immediately. Another message from the Explorers Club secretary apologized for giving my number out to this person, who had apparently been urgently insistent. As I was just installing a FAX machine in my office and the caller had given her FAX number, I responded in writing with a New Years' greeting the following morning. But she wanted to talk.

          I called Ireland. The woman was breathless, secretive, and very Irish. She was a gem dealer just returned from the Comoros where she and her partner, purportedly a financial advisor to the President, had met with him and learned that another Japanese group was arranging a contract with the government. The terms of the contract would give them exclusive ten year rights to the research of all flora and fauna in the Comoros, including the coelacanth- out to two hundred miles from shore. The woman was contacting me to see if we would make a better offer to the government, to out bid the Japanese. She had us in mind as partners in a new effort to capture a coelacanth for the Disney World going up in Europe. Let's beat out "Hirohito and Bismarck" - referring to Toba and Dr.Fricke, was her line.

          Faxes flew back and forth between us. I had to be careful. I could not take part in what might be perceived as a "King Kong" scenario to exhibit a coelacanth. Yet a Disney exhibit might be a valid medium for bringing the fish to world attention. And the latest Japanese move was serious. If what she said was true, that would be the end of our project, and the C.C.C.'s. What didn't ring true from the outset was that she said she got my number from Pete Harding in the Comoros, whereas I knew she had called the Explorers Club for it. While this was a trivial point, it put me on guard for other discrepancies in her story. The gist of her message was that we would have to act fast to raise a million dollars to offset the Japanese offer which she and her partner had temporarily forestalled. Was this another coelascam?

          I knew raising that kind of money as a bribe to the Comoran government was out of the question, but I decided I would put the matter to the rest of our Coelacanth network in the States. I contacted Willy Bemis, Lou Garibaldi, and Jack Musick. The first two did not respond, but Musick faxed a copy of my message on to Hans Fricke and Mike Bruton. Soon my New York Fax was alive with panicky messages from Germany and South Africa. The woman would not define her interests in the business, which I expected would be some kind of horrendous commission or outright partnership. But that was not the point. I knew this money would never be raised- by me or anyone else. Ironically, with my blessings, Hans Fricke activated his protest network in Japan, the same contacts used to undermine Toba Aquarium.
In the meantime, I found out from the woman that the group investing in the new contract was none other than the Japanese Coelacanth Mission, the same group that had been coming to the Comoros since the early eighties. Soon Hans Fricke had a number of Japanese scientific directors pleading innocent to the charges.

         I learned from Shakur in the Comoros, that the contract was indeed signed- her warning had been accurate- but without the exclusive clauses the Japanese originally wanted. It seems their plan was primarily to keep Toba Aquarium from butting in on them again rather than restricting other countries from investigating the coelacanth. I faxed that news around, and this latest crisis faded into the background, just another wrinkle in the long saga of the coelacanth.

          In the spring of 1991, I received an excited communication from Shakur. On May 7th, a coelacanth was caught off Hahaya by the same fisherman that had caught the monster creature of June 24, 1989. Shakur was alerted, but not as quickly as he might have liked. The museum bashe was without gas causing a further delay. Shakur gave instructions to activate the transporter, but the batteries were down and the charging connector clips had been stolen. All very Comoran. Nevertheless, Shakur reached the fish with the "interim transporter" and with some difficulty got it inside. For the first time a living coelacanth rode overland in a bashe from Hahaya to the C.N.D.R.S. in Moroni. The fish died soon after it was placed in the tank. The operation was too disorganized, and the fish had again been too long on the surface. Shakur would soon be leaving the Comoros for a job with The Voice of America in Washington D.C. Michel de San would also be leaving. The C.N.D.R.S. setup would be unmanned. Nevertheless, the account stimulated me to further action.

          In early June of '91, I attended the opening of the Hudson River Exhibit at "New York Aquarium." I introduced myself to someone, just for the sake of conversation, and soon found I was discoursing on the coelacanth with one of the new employees, a young PhD. in marine biology named Dennis Thoney. It turned out he was experimenting with deep water traps. Coincidentally, Dennis had been on Jack Musick's dissection team when our specimens were CAT scanned and cut up back in '87-'88 at V.I.M.S. He even had an article on coelacanth parasites coming out in E.K. Balon's new tome on the fish--in which Willy Bemis and Jack Musick were also published. I explained the current state of affairs with the coelacanth in the Comoros, and I could see I was beginning to catch Dennis' interest in reviving the project at the Aquarium. I let it go for the moment, awaiting his proposal.
          

          June 14th, I accepted Eugene Balon's invitation to meet with him for dinner during his visit to New York for the 70th annual meeting of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists--the fish and reptile people--which was to be held at the American Museum of Natural History. When not editing his journal, Balon is an ontogenist specializing in the developmental processes of fishes. Our meeting was both "friendly and productive" as diplomats are wont to say when nothing much happens. Neither of us raised any points of the old controversy, but we exchanged much coelacanth information and gossip about the people involved. Surprisingly, I enjoyed my talk with him very much. I attended the meeting briefly. As I gazed about at the cast of characters in attendance my one thought was, "My God these people never left school!" The halls were filled with graduate student look-a-likes who had grown middle aged.

          Later in June, 1991, Shakur came through New York on a journalist's training program arranged by Ambassador Peltier. He was preparing for his new job. I met him at my apartment, along with Ian Tattersall, chairman of the Anthropology Department at the Museum of Natural History. Ian had done field work on lemurs both in Madagascar where the small primates are best known, and in the Comoros back in the seventies. Now he wanted to establish a conservation program there to protect the endangered Lemur mongoze known only from the islands of Anjouan and Moheli, both of which are undergoing rapid deforestation. I also took Shakur out to New York Aquarium to meet with Dennis Thoney. Dennis estimated a coelacanth could not survive in our transporter for more than a week. A much larger tank was needed. This meeting established the idea that New York Aquarium would write a proposal to fund a coral reef exhibit at the C.N.D.R.S. and send over a large prefabricated coelacanth holding tank. In this tank a coelacanth could be revived, studied and exhibited locally without the political problems involved with export.

         As the New York Aquarium developed its new proposal, I turned to setting down the events of the last several years in book form and so was set down much of what you have read so far. As this did not take all my time, in the winter and spring of '92, I fulfilled another plan by researching and establishing a state of the art Desktop Video Post production facility in the office in which I had once built robots and planned coelacanth searches. I was now in the video edit facility rental business.

         And as I was doing this, a strange obsession overtook me, a new twist in the coelacanth syndrome. The man at the local pet store began ordering exotic reptiles. Against these I had no resistance except the limits of my bank account, for each was in effect a tiny coelacanth I could call my own. It began innocently enough. I was charmed by the two monkey tailed skinks from the Solomon islands that were in the window. They would make a good household addition and didn't mind handling. But now who could resist the pair of Parson's chameleons from Madagascar, or the Albino Burmese Python? Yes. And the that other chameleon with the crest, the chamaeleo calyptratus. Yes. And the Leopard Gecko for the boy. Yes. And the Indian Star tortoise for Diana. Yes. The Pueblan milk snake was unbelievably beautiful. Yes. (It escaped after two weeks never to be found) The rainbow boa, yup. And those double crested Basilisks. Yes, all three. I'll convert my aquarium to a rain forest display with a waterfall. And the Matamata turtle for the pool beneath the waterfall. Yes, Yes, Yes. Biophilia? This was biomania! Our apartment teemed with rare, delicate semi-endangered life forms all here for "captive breeding programs!" And their food: king worms, crickets, butter worm grubs, wax worms, tinned iguana chow, pinkies--each wiggled, crawled or caked up in the kitchen between the juicer and the Cheerios box. Each animal had its own delicate regimen of feeding, of total herpetoculture, its own celebration of the life process. And all because I never caught a coelacanth!

         On the night of December 18th, 1992 I had a dream which put a cap on this madness. I dreamt the elements of a new robot design. Unlike previous dreams of inventions, this one still made sense when I awoke. I began constructing from plastic Tinkertoys and Meccano Erector sets model prototypes for a new kind of robotic platform that shifts its own center of gravity to assist in difficult terrain maneuvers. It would be a long road before the first full sized prototype was built. So after eight years I was back in the robot business as well. My life was cycling through again, the same themes: films, robots, wildlife coming back again, but this time I hoped on a higher level of organization and impact. I had resigned myself, at least in part, that my quest for the coelacanth might be over. But the coelacanth had taught me a long lesson of patience. And now with the new Aquarium proposal was it all beginning again? In the summer of '92, I received a letter from Mombassa in France. He said he was ready to return to the Comoros with me, and concluded his letter, "I am only listening to you." No, the chase was not over.

To be continued....

If you wish to join the growing list of those being advised of upcoming chapters drop me a line at: dinofish@cloud9.net