When I dive I always take a camera with me. If I don't have
my camera I don't like to dive because that's the time where
you're going to see the mermaid riding the dugong chasing the
manta ray. My name’s Gina Mascord and I’m Fire Manager for
Gosford Hospital, Central Coast Health. I have thousand upon
thousands upon thousands of photos. Redmap is one of the
ways that I can use those photos.
So I started RedMap and it’s a citizen science project that
invites fishers and divers all around the country to send in
photos of species that they think or know are unusual for a
given location.
We can see things are changing. It’s wonderful to know that the
marine scientists are interested in what we’re seeing.
We’ll just go to Variety Bay, I think. Hopefully find something
to log.
And then that can then be useful for the studies that they’re
doing. My name’s Andrew Bain, I work in computer security but I
also do a lot of diving around Tasmania. I’ve been involved in
Redmap since around 2009 which is very early on. I think my
first report was an Eastern Rock Lobster that we saw at Bicheno.
So, as our environment changes, plants and animals on land and
in the ocean are moving north in the Northern Hemisphere and
south in the Southern Hemisphere. So, it’s really
important that we actually understand what’s changing, when
and where and how.
In the last 18 years, seeing the kelp forest disappear and seeing
urchin barrens appear is heartbreaking. It’s been the
saddest part of diving. We are reliant on our oceans. So, I’m
quite concerned that if the rest of the oceans have these things
happening to them as well, that communities aren’t going to be
able to go out and catch fish, that reefs are going to die, and
that’s terrible.
For plants and animals that are endemic to the Tasmanian coast,
there’s not a lot of options for them. So things like giant kelp,
they’re at their absolute limit for temperature tolerance and
they’re disappearing from all along our coast and of course
there’s no coastal areas between the bottom of Tasmania and
Antarctica.
So I really hope to see a turtle out there today.
Yeah, that would be amazing.
If we don’t, at least we can see a few of the target species for
Redmap. How often do I dive? Yeah, no where near as often as
I want to. If I didn’t have to come up to change tanks, I’d
probably be down there for hours upon hours at a time. Here at
Swansea Channel is one that, I’ve done this dive alone over
100 times. So, getting to know what species should be here and
what species are new to the area, it comes from that
experience. So, as far as Redmap, we saw the Black-spot
Goatfish, we saw quite a few Moon Wrasse, the Australian
Sawtail and there was quite a few Brokenline Wrasse.
So, fishers and divers can take a photo and they can send that
in via the smartphone app or the website. And that immediately
gets sent to the expert in Australia for that species.
Bryce and I have been friends for a few years now. We’re just
friends that go fishing sometimes.
Did you find anything? I’m a third-generation commercial
fisherman. I’ve loved the water since I was a little kid. It’s
always fascinated me. You know, I make my livelihood from the
ocean, so for me it’s important to know what’s happening in the
surrounding areas. Growing up on the water I’ve seen huge
changes. We’re getting a lot of different fish species. So, your
Kingfish, Snapper, we’ve caught Eastern Rock Lobster off the
bottom of Tasmania. It’s concerning as well as
interesting. So up until recently I had absolutely no
idea about Redmap.
So, can you see that fish? I reckon we should have a look at
that and see if it’s reportable for Redmap.
Yeah, commercial fisherman definitely should be looking at
using Redmap. It’s only going to, in the long run, help them
out, in understanding what’s happening in the ocean.
Around the world with a growing population there will be an
escalating demand for seafood, so it’s incredibly important
that we’re proactive about the management that we have in our
marine systems to try and maximise what we can sustainably
produce from those.
My motivation to do citizen science is, that’s what I wanted
to do. Because I didn’t keep going with the idea of becoming
a marine biologist, I’m an ordinary everyday person but I’m
pretty proud of the knowledge that I do have.
Scientific monitoring is very expensive. And it’s impossible
for Australia to have scientific diving teams all around our 30
or 40 thousand kilometres of coastline but we’ve got almost
four million recreational fishers. A heap of commercial
divers, if we can harness just a small percentage of those
observations then how amazing is that?
I had my very young son at only a couple of months old out on
the boat with me as I was catching Rock Lobster, he needs
to learn how to do that but that can only happen if there’s Rock
Lobster there to catch.
I want to be able to look my kids in the eye and say I did
the best thing that I could at the time to try and help
understand what’s changing and tell people about it.