In Memory of Professor Carolus Maria Vooren

IUCN SSC Shark Specialist Group | South America Regional Group | Member Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Setor de Morfologia/Pesquisa em Chondrichthyes, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande (FURG), Rio Grande, RS, Brazil.

Professor Vooren and Maria Cristina Oddone during his last visit to Laboratório de Morfologia II-Pesquisa em Chondrichthyes, at FURG, on May 3, 2019

Professor Vooren and Maria Cristina Oddone during a research cruise onboard the R/V ‘Atlântico Sul’ (FURG), observing specimens of Gurgesiella atlantica, on August 10, 2001

IUCN SSC Shark Specialist Group | South America Regional Group | Regional Vice-Chair Programa de Pós-Graduação em Sistemática, Uso e Conservação da Biodiversidade (PPGSis), Departamento de Biologia, Universidade Federal do Ceará (UFC), Fortaleza, CE and Laboratório de Ecologia e Conservação, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia Ambiental, Departamento de Engenharia Ambiental, Universidade Federal do Paraná (UFPR), Curitiba, PR, Brazil.

With great sadness, we share that last March 12, we lost one of our most committed researchers in fighting for chondrichthyan species conservation in South America. Professor Dr Carolus Maria Vooren was born in Rotterdam (The Netherlands) on November 14, 1941, and he passed away at the age of 79, on March 12, 2021, at his home in Rio Grande (Southern Brazil). Apart from being an outstanding professor and researcher in the field of elasmobranch fishes, he also became a pioneer in the studies of seabirds in Brazil. In the last two decades, he developed many activities that emphasized his strong determination to preserve Southern Brazilian elasmobranch species. It can be said that he devoted his last years to conservation and to how to put it in practice in an active and determined way so that the most threatened species could find a way to survive. He saw these species as evolutionary pieces, some of them from the Jurassic, which urged them to be respected, admired and preserved for future generations. Among his most beloved species were the demersal and coastal ones, like the Angel Sharks (genus Squatina), the Brazilian Guitarfish Pseudobatos horkelli and the Striped Smooth-hound Mustelus fasciatus. Professor Vooren participated very actively in many IUCN Red List of Threatened Species chondrichthyan species assessments, mainly for the Southern South America diversity hotspot region. He also was one of the leading specialists for the Brazilian Red List Assessments and was one of the Chondrichthyes taxon coordinators for some time. Professor Vooren was also one of the founding members of the Brazilian Elasmobranch Society (SBEEL).

Many of the present leading elasmobranch researchers in Brazil were once his undergraduate or graduate students, having definitely left his shark and ray conservation concerns in their hands now. He always approached oral or poster presenters with more questions than answers and often pointed to a different way of thinking or understanding morphology, biological process, fisheries, and many other topics. He published five books, 30 book chapters, and over 50 scientific papers with many of his students during his career. Professor Vooren retired in 2010 but kept his research activities until his health condition allowed, in the last months of 2020. In 2019, SBEEL, in partnership with the Brazilian National Plan of Action for Threatened Sharks and Rays Group and Technical Advisory Group (GAT), established that we would celebrate the Sharks and Rays National Day on his birthday date (November 14), as a tribute to his efforts towards elasmobranch conservation in the country. We will all miss him very much. Thank you for teaching us so much!

Professor Vooren and his youngest daughter Natalia, in Rio Grande, 1987.

Professor Vooren in his last online talk celebrating National Sharks and Rays Day (November 14, 2020)