Fisherman Garry Goodyear says he was shocked when he hauled up this creature in his nets on a recent turbot fishing trip off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. (Submitted by Garry Goodyear)
A fisherman got quite the fright recently when he hauled in a strange creature with his catch.
Garry Goodyear, from the town of Templeman, N.L., on the north side of Bonavista Bay, was fishing for turbot on the Grand Banks last week.
He said the nets were down about 460 fathoms deep — more than 800 metres — and when the crew hauled them up later that afternoon, they all got a shock.
“We’re hauling away, and by and by, I seen this coming around the roller. I said, ‘Good God! What in the heck was that?'” Goodyear said.
“I’ve never seen nothing like that before!”
Goodyear said no one could immediately identify the strange creature. (Submitted by Garry Goodyear)
Goodyear said he went to grab the nearly metre-long fish and didn’t know what to do with it.
“I thought it was a platypus, because he had that big snout on it,” he said.
“It looked like he had wings, and his nose was, it was almost like rubber. I guess it was like cartilage.”
Goodyear said no one on board could identify the dead creature.
“I brought it into the fish plant, to the wharf where we offloaded, and nobody in there knew — haven’t seen it before,” he said.
Goodyear took some photos and later posted one on Facebook, to see if anyone could identify the creature.
Goodyear, who also appeared on the television show Cold Water Cowboys, says he’s never seen anything like this creature before. (Garry Goodyear/Facebook)
“I found out that it was a long-nosed chimaera,” he said.
“We didn’t know it had a spine with venom in it. It was just another fish to us … and we were handling that with bare hands!”
While he’s come across some strange fish throughout his days on the water, Goodyear said this one takes the cake.
“No, I haven’t seen nothing like that. To tell you the truth, I don’t want to see much more!”
‘They’re really fascinating,’ says DFO scientist
Carolyn Miri, a marine biologist with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in Newfoundland and Labrador, said chimaeras are cousins to sharks and skates.
“[They] actually are cartilaginous fish. So all of it is made of cartilage — like the bridge of your nose,” she told CBC Radio One’s On The Go.
“It doesn’t have a skeleton made of bone, like we do.”
Carolyn Miri, a marine biologist with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in Newfoundland and Labrador, is pictured in a file photo. She says long-nosed chimaeras are a fascinating, deepwater species, not often seen in the province. (Jane Adey/CBC)
Miri said the ancient fish is considered a deepwater species, which can be found in the 200- to 1,000-metre range, but it can go down as far as 3,000 metres below the water’s surface.
“It is rarely seen by Newfoundlanders and Labradorians,” she said.
“Because of their deepwater habitats … we actually don’t know very much about their biology, their life history and their behaviour.”
Miri said “chimaera” is a Greek word meaning mythical monster. She said it’s aptly named, because it does appear to be some sort of cross between a bird and a dinosaur.
“It has a long, pointy snout. Its green eyes are bright neon, which gives you that surreal or monster effect to it,” she said.
Miri says long-nosed chimaeras, like the one pictured, have tooth plates in their jaws used to crush crabs, shrimp and other prey on the ocean floor. (Submitted by Garry Goodyear)
She also pointed out the pair of pectoral fins on the sides of the fish, just behind the head.
“Those are heavily ribbed fins. So they actually look like feathered wings of a bird,” Miri said.
Adult chimaeras can reach up to a metre-and-a-half long, she said, and they have tooth plates in their jaws.
“They crush crabs and shrimp, and any other hard-shelled prey that they can get their jaws around on the ocean floor,” Miri said.
She said this fish likely died, as many do, while it was being hauled from the water.
“With the water pressure change, when a harvester is retrieving his or her gear, that often causes lots of deepwater animals to die on the way up to the surface of the ocean,” Miri said.
She said it’s a good thing it had perished before the fisherman hauled it onto his boat.
“It does have a long, sharp spine … and that could inflict a bad injury if the animal was alive and flailing, thrashing about,” she said.
“But even with a dead animal, people need to be super-careful, because of that long spine. It’s very sharp.”
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
