The tragic loss of Peter Timm, a name synonymous with coelacanths and conservation has shaken the diving, scientific and conservation community in South Africa and the world on June 18, 2014.

>Peter (51) and his buddy Adele Steegen (45) died in a diving accident while helping find research equipment that was lost during a research cruise in 58m depth of water off Umkomaas near Aliwal Shoal. The equipment, owned by the Oceanographic Research Institute, was being used to sample biodiversity on the seafloor, as part of a multi-institutional collaborative conservation research programme led by Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife. Peter was well known with his discovery of the South-African Coelacanths in Sodwana Bay in October 2000. Adele was the first SA women – and second women ever – who was able to share some ‘great moments’ with a Coelacanth, named ‘Grant’, on March 5, 2014 at a depth of 116 metres. Peter and Adele were also team members of the great international coelacanth dive expedition held last year.

They are gone now from this world – forever – but never to be forgotten. Coelacanths will always help us to remember their names!

Peter Timm and his team from TRITON Dive Charters & Lodge managed to film and photograph coelacanths in their natural habitat with special equipment in 2013. Their efforts were called Project Gombessa.

See more on Timm here.

Patricia Keech

Patricia Keech, author of the 2014 book, Bigfoot and Eastern Cousins, died in earlier in 2014. The information I have at this time is that Patricia Keech, 79, died March 18, 2014, in Creston, British Columbia.

I listed her book in “The Best Cryptozoology Books of 2014.”