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Announcing Shoal’s first corporate partnership: OASE lead the way
Shoal is excited to announce OASE as our first significant corporate partner. OASE – one of the world’s premier indoor aquatics suppliers – have shown leadership and a real commitment to freshwater species conservation through partnering with us, and have established a precedent for how corporations can help stem the tide of freshwater extinctions.
Over the coming months, OASE’s support will broadly target Shoal’s work across five continents and in 15 countries. More specifically, it will contribute to the search for Colombia’s fat catfish, one of the Top 10 Most Wanted species in our Search for the Lost Fishes programme. An expedition team will head out to Lake Tota, northeast of Bogota, in December to start the search.
Mike Baltzer, Shoal’s executive director, said: “This is an exciting, watershed moment for freshwater species conservation. OASE is a leader and innovator in the aquarium hobby, and by partnering with Shoal, they have shown their commitment to face the challenge with us to finally tackle the freshwater species crisis so neglected and overlooked until now. We hope they will be first of many and will help create a tsunami of global support across the hobby”.
We caught up with their OASE’s CEO, Thorsten Muck, to learn more about what this partnership means to them.
Why do you see Shoal as a natural fit for a partnership with OASE?
At OASE in everything we do, we make maximum environmental responsibility and sustainability a priority.
Our products are adapted perfectly to the biology of the water, run especially energy efficiently and are manufactured in the most environmentally friendly way possible.
For example, our aquariums can be individually adapted to the natural habitats of their residents.
That’s why we’re pleased to now be an official partner of Shoal.
We believe in the importance of accelerating and intensifying action to save the most threatened fish and other freshwater species.
What do you hope OASE and SHOAL will achieve together?
Every fish species that doesn’t go extinct and every species rediscovered is a win.
We hope to assist Shoal in the best way possible with species conservation. Not only financially, but especially by drawing attention to this important mission.
OASE is sponsoring Shoal’s first Search for the Lost Fishes expedition, to search for the mysterious fat catfish in Colombia’s Lake Tota. Can you say a little about your hopes for this expedition?
Of course, we hope that the expedition will be successful and that the mysterious catfish will be found.
OASE is very proud to be able to help this exciting work to look for a remarkable fish that hasn’t been seen since the 50’s.
We hope it’s found so that the populations can be boosted and the species can be given a second chance at survival.
But above all, we hope that the expedition and the accompanying communication will bring more attention to species conservation.
OASE are a market leader in indoor aquatics, and, by partnering with SHOAL, have become a pioneer in corporate conservation of the most threatened freshwater species. As the biodiversity crisis becomes more acute globally, how do you picture corporations rising to the challenge of helping with the solutions?
As one of the world’s most successful suppliers in indoor aquatics, we feel it is OASE’s duty to support organisations like Shoal.
Shoal unites many strategic partners who fight together for the protection of species.
We believe that this kind of cooperation has a great chance of success in species conservation and therefore find Shoal particularly worthy of support.
What message do you have to other corporations thinking of getting involved in conservation?
Do it! As a company, we have a duty to make a social and ecological commitment.
Of course, we should be careful not to engage in greenwashing. Sustainability and species protection is too important not to take it seriously.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank OASE for their support, and to commend them in showing conservation leadership across the aquarium hobby sector. We are looking forward to achieving great things together for the future of the planet’s freshwater species.
Annamite barb – Chrysteena Garcia
