“If I looked at it today, I would say that it has the beauty of the angel shark,” said Juan Vilanova y Piera, a 19th century Spanish geologist and paleontologist, about this animal, half ray, half shark. angelote (Squatina squiatina), the most endangered fish on the planet, which has chosen the canary waters to save itself from extinction, at a time when it is not known for certain how many specimens remain in the oceans, but it is known that in recent decades it has disappeared from the waters where it used to be seen during the 20th century: the Mediterranean and the Atlantic coast from Norway to Mali.
It can reach 2.5 metres, where its flat shape stands out with a wide and thick body, which gives it a face that is both friendly and dark, making it look like a creation of the Canarian painter Néstor de la Torre or any other creator who imposed on it the curse of not being a shark or a ray.
It is brown and grey, like the sand found underwater at depths of between 15 and 150 metres, where it spends most of the day. Its head is oval and its eyes, without eyelids, are located on the dorsal side. The mouth is protractile and is located at the terminal base with a jaw full of small, sharp teeth. Also notable on its flat trunk are its elongated, triangular pectoral fins.
It is a solitary and carnivorous species that bases its diet on flatfish and other benthic species, even hunting manta rays, crustaceans and mollusks. In addition, surprisingly, there have been cases in which specimens with birds in their stomachs have been analyzed.
It is an ovoviviparous species that lays between 7 and 25 offspring, depending on the size of the female. The gestation period can be up to 10 months, except in the Canary Islands, where it only takes 6 months. At birth, the offspring reach 25 centimetres and their main food is the yolk of the egg from which they hatch.
The Canary Islands offer them a refuge that is not free of threats. The waters where they usually live, calm unless they are accidentally stepped on, and they would not protest with anything more than a bite, are Playa de Las Teresitas, where the largest breeding ground currently exists, the island of Fuerteventura or to the northwest of the island of Gran Canaria, in the area of Guguy, 2.7 kilometres from where a future national park is planned and also the construction of a fish farm; a fish farm, which for the environmental organization Greenpeace, “would be lethal for the fragile angel shark, in an area that is also declared a Biosphere Reserve.” The global project Angel Shark Projectwith which Greenpeace works closely in the Canary Islands, contacted the islands’ divers to try to monitor this species, which is difficult because it always likes to be under underwater sand. With the data collected, a database was compiled over the years. Traditional fishermen claimed to have seen some specimens in La Aldea de San Nicolás, at about 5 metres.
“Guguy is an ideal habitat for angel sharks because it has sandy bottoms at the depths in which they move,” Greenpeace Gran Canaria activists told this newspaper.
“Industrial aquaculture poses a major threat to the biodiversity of our seas and oceans; they are factories for producing carnivorous fish. The creation of these macro-marine farms leads to the degradation of ecosystems: the fish they breed have to be fed with other fish and fishmeal, thus contributing to overfishing and the destruction of habitats and marine species,” the group warns. “We do not want this model that puts the planet, people and animals at risk.”
Source: www.eldiario.es
