Internet broadcast of 'extinct' fish is abandoned

Wildlife authorities have stopped a South African deep sea diving expedition which planned to broadcast pictures of a giant fish on the internet.

Officials have refused to say why they ordered the dive to be abandoned.

But some live images of the man-sized coelacanth, once thought to have been extinct for 70 million years, have already been beamed out.

Authorities in KwaZulu-Natal's Sodwana Bay are expected to carry out a survey of the area before allowing any more activity which could disturb the population of the fish.

Divers had been filming at depths of more than 100 metres where they can only spend 12 minutes at a time before having to surface.

One wildlife official said: "There is a lot of money involved in finding the coelacanths, so things are bound to get a bit cloudy."

But Pieter Venter, who is leading the dive team said: "We are sport divers, and we believe we have been stopped unfairly through the intervention of commercial diving groups with a definite financial interest in stopping us."