In December 2023, a mature, male Blue Groper (Achoerodus viridis), a species of wrasse endemic to Australia, was illegally killed by a spearfisherman in Cronulla, Sydney. The spearfishermen was interviewed by Police and issued a serious fine for taking a protected species, in a no spearing area. This particular fish was thought to be “Gus” a fish well known to divers at Oak Park for the past 28 years, as a friendly “local” fish who frequently followed divers around, hoping for handouts of urchin or brittle starfish.  His loss created significant public outrage in the local community, even making the international news.

The community response was swift and vocal, with many calling for increased protection of blue gropers and other Sydney-area marine life. The topic of creating more Marine Aquatic Reserves was raised by many, including the local council, hoping to create more “No Fishing” protection zones along the Cronulla coastline and the nearby Hacking River.

Marine reserves are highly controversial in Australia, with discussions punctuated by significant vocal opposition from the sport fishing and spearing communities. Of course, there’s equally vocal support in the environmental and animal rights sector too.  To help cut through emotion and hyperbole, often scientific data is useful. This is where AirBuddy has made a significant contribution to the debate.

Since October 2017, there has been a citizen science project conducted at a  nearby marine aquatic reserve called Shiprock (Shiprock Aquatic Reserve (nsw.gov.au)). This 2-hectare site, located in Burraneer Bay on the Hacking River, was established to protect the biodiversity of fish and marine vegetation. Since 2017, 15 volunteer citizen scientists have been photographing the underwater world at Shiprock, posting almost 7,000 images of marinelife  found in the reserve, encompassing 411 different species (Shiprock · iNaturalist). This project is custom made for AirBuddy as it is near shore, necessitates heavy equipment to be carried up and down stairs and requires long periods observation underwater. I have personally recorded 3,854 of these images, exclusively using my AirBuddy, which allows me to spend hours underwater, with my camera, photographing the large and small creatures found in the reserve.

So, would creating  an additional marine reserve help the local fish population?  Of the 411 species observed at Shiprock, 204 species are fish alone. The rest includes corals, nudibranchs, crabs, sea weeds, etc. Using fish-only data found from another citizen science project called Australasian Fishes, of a nearby section of the Hacking River, over twice the size of Shiprock and including the Pacific Ocean shore, we  find that 44 citizen scientists have made 2,841 observations, recording only 165 fish species. Again, citizen scientists like me, using AirBuddy made at least 1,800 of these observations since October 2016.  While the area examined  is much larger than the area of the Shiprock marine reserve, and includes Pacific Ocean shoreline, this area only had 80% of the fish species found a few hundred meters away in Shiprock. The marine reserve  recorded 20% more fish species than a comparable nearby area.

This is a strong argument for establishing additional marine aquatic reserves in the area, protecting the local fish population from human predation.  While fish are only one dimension of the conservation of marinelife, the establishment of a marine reserve would clearly increase the wealth and diversity of many aspects of the marine environment, from sea slugs to corals. The data also illustrates some benefits of near shore underwater exploration, and I have made thousands of observations using my AirBuddy. It has allowed me to add many data points to increase our knowledge of the local marine environment.