The Times - UK (2020-12-03)

42 1GM Thursday December 3 2020 | the times

Wo r l d

An 81-year-old tropical reef fish off

Western Australia has been identi-

fied as the oldest known to science.

The midnight snapper, caught at

Rowley Shoals about 180 miles west

of Broome, was two decades older

than the previous record holder, a

Caribbean rockfish. A 79-year-old

red bass was caught in the same area.

They were among 11 fish older than

60 caught in a study investigating

how warming oceans will affect the

biology of reef fish, including their

lifespans and growth.

Brett Taylor, of the Australian

Institute of Marine Science in Perth,

who is leading the study, said: “Until

Australia

Bernard Lagan Sydney

Stuart Bee had spent a night in the

ocean clinging to the bow of his sunk-

en boat but he had one question as he

clambered aboard the MV Angeles.

“What day is it?” he asked Lacruis-

er Relativo, the container ship’s

second officer who had helped him

aboard. Mr Bee had just been found

in the Atlantic, 86 miles off Florida.

“I told him it’s Sunday, November

29, and I saw his eyes fill up with

tears,” Mr Relativo said yesterday.

“And he made the sign of the cross.

“I realised then that faith can move

mountains. I will remember that for

the rest of my life. It was a magic

moment.”

Mr Bee, 62, was found after an ex-

tensive air-sea search. He set out at

4pm on Friday but failed to return.

An alert went out on Saturday morn-

ing because he did not usually stay

out overnight.

His 32ft vessel, Stingray, which was

his home, suffered engine failure and

Have I lived well enough? Fears

of sailor as he prayed for rescue

began going down on Saturday night.

“I had been working on the engines,”

Mr Bee told the US coast guard after

his rescue. “There were squealing

noises and several parts I was work-

ing on. I was asleep when the water

gushed in the back and forced me up

the front.”

He swam through the boat’s for-

ward hatch and surfaced, treading

water in jeans and heavy work boots,

without his lifejacket or any flotation.

Mr Bee hauled himself on to the

last part of the boat still above water

— less than four feet of the bow. He

told Mr Relativo later that it was dark

but he found an inner peace as he

looked at the sky.

“He saw the moon,” Mr Relativo

said. “He told me that he thought

maybe that it was to be his last night

and that if it was, had he lived his life

well enough? He said he realised he

had a beautiful life, out there watch-

ing the moon on the open water.”

The captain of the MV Angeles

radioed the coast guard about

11.30am to report that Mr Bee was

safe. His niece, Lisa Bee, said that her

uncle was neither a boater not a fish-

erman, he simply lived on his boat at

Cape Canaveral.

Mr Bee said that before he was res-

cued he had been trying to reach his

emergency locator beacon to send

out a distress signal.

“I had attached it to a wall in the

middle of the boat,” he said. “Three

times I tried to swim down and get it

but I couldn’t reach it. I was getting

ready to go down a fourth time...

when I saw the cargo vessel.

“I didn’t have my glasses. I couldn’t

see if it was coming but I began wav-

ing, took my shirt off. It took half an

hour to get closer and then he sig-

nalled with three blasts of his horn.”

United States

Jacqui Goddard Miami

Stuart Bee, 62,

had found “inner

peace” by staring

at the moon from

his stricken boat

Snapper aged 81 is oldest tropical fish

now, the oldest fish that we’ve found

in shallow, tropical waters have been

around 60 years old.”

Marine scientists determine the

age of fish by studying their ear

bones, which have annual growth

bands that can be counted in much

the same way as tree rings.

“We’re observing fish at

different latitudes — with

varying water tempera-

tures — to better under-

stand how they might

react when tempera-

tures warm every-

where,” Dr Taylor said.

The 81-year-old fish,

right, was caught in 2016

— meaning that it was born

in 1935. Dr Taylor said: “It saw

the Beatles take over the world and it

was collected in a fisheries survey

after Nirvana came and went. It’s just

incredible for a fish to live on a coral

reef for 80 years.”

The midnight snapper, however, is

a whippersnapper compared

with Greenland sharks,

the oceans’ oldest fish,

which take 150 years

to reach sexual ma-

turity and live for

up to four centu-

ries. Researchers

used radiocarbon

dating in 2016 to

determine the ages

of 28 of the sharks

and estimated that one

female was about 400.

gs.

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Forest giants under

threat from fires

JADE CHARLIE; QUEENSLAND FIRE & EMERGENCY SERVICES

Brisbanerisbsbbanebaee

Fraser Island

Queensland

AUSTRALIA

100 miles

Coral

Sea

A

lmost half of

Fraser Island,

the Unesco

World

Heritage site

off Queensland, has

been scarred by bush

fires that now threaten a

prized stand of trees

thought to be a

thousand years old

(Bernard Lagan writes).

The fires, which took

hold in the more remote

northern part of the

75-mile island six weeks

ago, have surged south

to imperil the Valley of

the Giants, home to

some of the world’s last

and largest satinay trees.

Fraser, the world’s

largest sand island, is

home to an array of

wildlife including rare

marsupial potoroos and

wallabies, dingoes, and

350 bird species. It is

also known by the

Aboriginal name K’gari.

Annastacia

Palaszczuk, the premier

of Queensland, has

ordered an investigation

into the emergency

response to the fires,

believed to have been

started by an illegal

campfire. Queensland

Fire and Emergency

Services was given

responsibility for the

management of the

blaze last Friday. Before

that, Queensland Parks

and Wildlife had been

co-ordinating the

response. The inquiry

will “examine all aspects

of preparedness and

response to the blaze”.

The fire has destroyed

vegetation across more

than 315 of the island’s

640 square miles.

Superintendent James

Haigh, who now leads

the firefighting efforts,

told The Australian

there were 75

firefighters on the

island, along with 30

appliances and 21

firefighting aircraft,

including a Boeing 737

water bomber.

There are fears that

Australia as a whole is

facing another

catastrophic fire season

after suffering the

hottest spring on record,

with New South Wales

recording its hottest

November day, at 46.9C

in Smithville.

An inquiry has been

ordered into the

emergency response to

the blaze, which began

more than six weeks ago