Today, freshwater ecosystems across the globe are reeling from the loss of one of their own.

#toosoon

At 5PM GMT, the news broke that Catherine Betta-Jones had died peacefully in her coin jar surrounded by close family and algae.

Born to humble beginnings near the banks of the Chao Phraya river in Bangkok, she led a life of intrigue, tragedy and ultimately redemption.

At an early age, she was traded by her mother into the Betta Black Market for a dime’s worth of street-grade crystal beta-blockers. She escaped a life of slavery by stowing away in bottle of nam pla, cased and labeled for shipment to the U.S. It wasn’t long before the promise of fame and fortune had her hooked into the degrading L.A. scene of failed auditions and slippery casting couches. She was able to gain some notoriety for her extra work in a few of Hollywood’s aquatic blockbusters, but before long she was washed up and hopeless. She turned to the bottle and a life filled with blackouts and broken dreams. Ultimately it would be her triumph over addiction and depression that led her from whoring in the sewers of East L.A. back to the Thai streets of her youth in pursuit of her life’s passion: Ban beta-testing by bringing better Betta data to both branches of Bankok’s Betta Behavior Bureaus (which she helped co-found in 2012).

She had no children, or siblings, but is survived by a grateful public who knows her work helped make the world a Betta place.

Eager to break into the salt-water scene she compromised her value system to get bit parts for non-union wages. Fearing for her own salinity, she left L.A. just before the release of Finding Nemo.

Goodnight Sweet Princess