The dive at Callantsoog was certainly not the first for 19-year-old Ruben Vermeule from Borssele, a village in Zeeland. He has already dived in various places in the Netherlands and tries to spot as many fish species as possible on every trip, with the aim of one day seeing all Dutch fish.
He records his adventures in videos that he shares on social mediato make others aware of underwater nature. “Many people think that hardly anything lives underwater in the Netherlands,” he tells NH. “They think it’s all a grim mess. I want to break that image.”
On the road unsuspectingly
Two weeks ago, Ruben received a message from one of his followers – jokingly called the ‘fish mafia’ – asking if he wanted to go on a submarine into the North Sea. The plan was simple: as usual, film and cross off some well-known fish species.
But things turned out differently. At the end of the dive, about 20 kilometers off the coast of Callantsoog, the young Zeelander saw a fish that he had never seen before in the Netherlands. “We were almost at the anchor when we spotted the animal,” he says. “I looked at it and thought: this looks a lot like a fish I already know. But until then I had only seen it in the Canary Islands.”
Ruben captured the fish on camera, but did not immediately realize how special his find was. “When we got back to the boat, I didn’t actually say anything about it. I thought to myself: ‘I must be wrong, it must be wrong’.”
‘Leaped for joy’
Still, the animal remained in his thoughts when he looked at the images again at home. He decided to share them within his network, where there was soon agreement: it had to be the ringneck bleeder, a species that mainly occurs in the warmer waters of southern Europe.
When nature conservation organization RAVON confirmed last night that it was indeed a fish species that had never been seen in the Netherlands, the Zeelander could not believe his luck. “I went completely crazy and jumped for joy. It’s just very special.”
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