How To Protect The Ocean
SUFB 059: Divers and Snorklers Take Part In The Great Victorian Fish Count
This week's news have been fairly depressing, so I thought it would be good to share a great citizen science program called the Great Victorian Fish Count. It's a program where Scuba divers and Snorklers count fish species to help researchers monitor changes in fish populations in and around the coast of the Province of Victoria.
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Show Notes:
http://www.speakupforblue.com/session59
Welcome to the Speak Up For Blue Podcast, Session 59! Calling all divers, calling all divers and snorkelers, it's the Great Victorian Fish Count in Australia. Time to get going and get your count, get your fish count on! Welcome to the Speak Up For Blue Podcast, helping you get involved in ocean conservation. And now, here's your host, he just discovered periscope, and might be slightly addicted. Andrew Lewin! Hey everybody, welcome back to the Speak Up For Blue Podcast, your voice for the ocean. I am your host, Andrew Lewin, founder of SpeakUpForBlue.com, marine ecologist and self-proclaimed oceanpreneur. And I am in a much, much better mood than the last few days. If you've been listening to the podcast the last three days, you've known that I was not proud of it, or I didn't want to do it, but I had to put out some bad news that's been happening in the ocean this past week or week and a half. And it just got to me, yesterday I was on a bit of a rant because, you know, you just get frustrated at this kind of stuff. But today, we've got a little bit more of an action thing, especially if you're in Australia or you're Australian, and you're around the Great Province of Victoria. There is a big fish camp going on, and they're urging all divers and snorkelers to take part in this fish camp. I'm going to tell you all about it and how you can get involved in just a sec. But before I do, there are more ways than just being out in the ocean, because I know not everybody that can be out in the ocean and do fish counts, but there are more ways to protect the ocean. And one way that we've offered through SpeakUpForBlue is to go to our store, our online store, SpeakUpForBlue.com/shop, and you can buy merchandise that will help protect the ocean in two ways. So you can buy shirts, you can buy travel mugs, stay-at-home mugs, iPhone cases, and so forth. They all have different saying on it. So the one way you can protect the ocean or raise awareness about ocean issues is by wearing the t-shirts or using the items that will actually spark a conversation. I have a t-shirt called Keep Calm and Conserve the Ocean, which is on the SpeakUp for Blue Shop. And I've had people come up, when I wear it, I have people come up and say, "Hey, nice shirt. I really like it. What's it all about? How do I conserve the ocean?" Or, "Is it too late for me to conserve the ocean?" Or things like that. And they're asking me, "Well, what is the state of the ocean? Are we in trouble? I keep hearing all this bad news." So it starts a conversation, which is fantastic. The other thing that it does is as soon as you buy an item right away, the revenue that we generate from the item after cost, which is usually about five bucks an item, will you go towards our partner organization, which is Sea Turtles Forever. Now Sea Turtles Forever is run by its president, Mark Ward, which I've gotten to know in the last few years. And we're actually going to partner up on more things in the future, including projects. Just by the way, the money that we give them is not going towards SpeakUp for Blue. But we're going to partner, because this is our social enterprise. This is my social enterprise where I want to help out. So we're going to partner in complete projects together. And I think it's going to be a lot of fun. They need a lot of work done because they're a small organization. They don't have as many resources as they would like, and we're going to help them. So not only we're going to help them financially through our community together, but we're going to help them through projects in 2016, which is going to be super fun. I can't wait for that to happen because I like doing science. I like doing conservation, really get my hands in on it and hopefully maybe travel there and do a video from there to profile what we're doing at SpeakUpForBlue.com. But anyway, so what they do is they go out, Sea Turtles Forever, what they do is they go out, they go to Central America, they protect Sea Turtle nests from poachers that allows the Sea Turtles to not only nest, but that allows the hatchlings to get back into the ocean and hopefully reach sexual maturity to reproduce themselves and then come back to those beaches and then just let that life cycle continue and continue over generations. That'll allow more Sea Turtles, the organization, Sea Turtles Forever actually helps those local communities who are used to poaching those eggs to convert their business to an ecotourism business, which is a much more sustainable business not only environmentally, but economically for them as well. It actually lasts longer, the more Sea Turtles are around, it's proven that the more money that comes into the local community, which is great for them. They end up in sync with the nature and they want to protect the Sea Turtles because it's their lifeblood now, right? So it's actually worthwhile. They also have created this innovative tool to sift out and clean up microplastics from beach cleanups, which is a very daunting and terrible thing to do when you're just picking up microplastics by itself just with your hand. It's almost impossible to get them all up. So they've created this tool to actually sift through the sand, get the microplastics out of the environment, which can get into animals, it can kill them in more ways than one. And it's just, it's horrible. So they actually come together and they actually help these, they actually help this beach cleanup process. And it's gotten so successful that Oregon state governments have actually used them in their, are you starting to implement them in their beach clean up process. So state of Oregon has used it. I think, I think they're talking to us as New Jersey to help them with their beach cleanups and it's just going to grow and grow and grow, but this is a small organization and they need our support. I'd like to support them. I think it's a great organization. They're a charitable nonprofit organization and it's just wonderful. So as a speaker for Blue Community, I think we can pull together by these items, raise awareness and help sea turtles forever. So let's get, that's it for that. Let's get into today's episode because this is kind of a fun thing to do. If you're a snorkeler or a diver and you are in and around Australia or you live in Australia, specifically in Victoria, and if you're not familiar with Australia, which I am not familiar with the complete geography of Australia and kind of know where, I know where Sydney is. It's on the lower southeast corner of, of, of Australia. Victoria is a province just below just south of Sydney for what it looks like on the map that I'm looking at. It's basically the capital I'm assuming is Melbourne. I hope if my Australian friends and listeners want to correct me, please do. But it's just a small province down in the south. But it is doing this large Victorian, or what they call the great Victorian fish count. It happens every year. They get volunteers that are scuba divers and, and snorkelers and they all go into the water and they have these protocols that they use, I assume, the article that I read didn't really go into that. But they do these fish counts. And the important thing that they do these fish counts for is they monitor fish. They see new fish coming in that have not, you know, been seen by a lot of people on a regular basis or that have been seeing in other places in Australia, but not specifically in Victoria. They've seen those fish come and go. They monitor them. They monitor the size of the populations. They look for declines. They look for increases in population size. They look for increase not only in abundance, but in size and biomass by estimation. So this is a great way. It's a great citizen science program where people can get involved and they can really understand nature. They get a better understanding for nature. Now, normally when you're a diver or snorkel, you go in and you look for fish. You want to see fish. You may want to see stingrays. You may want to see some sharks. You want to see species that you recognize so that you can say, Hey, I actually saw that. But when you do these kinds of dives or these kinds of snorkel trips, you're looking for things that you don't normally see. And it really adds to the experience when you're diving. And I like seeing certain things like when I dive, I remember diving off the coast of Jamaica, Port Antonio, Jamaica, and it was just great little reef. It was like a little canyon. It was quite abundant for a reef that I've seen. I haven't seen many reefs. Of course, I didn't see the reefs of past, which were a lot more diverse and plentiful. But when I saw it, it was just great. I remember coming up on this sponge, I was swimming upwards on an incline a little bit. I look under, I kind of go upside down. I look into the sponge and there is this great little shrimp, crab shrimp, whatever you want to call it. It's a type of shrimp. And I see in the aquarium industry quite a bit. And I just saw it there and it had its pincers up and it was ready to fight me. And obviously I wasn't going to touch it or I wasn't going to touch any part of it. But it was just kind of cool to see it. And it's something that other divers didn't see and they didn't even know about. And it was just one of those things that I like to see because it's something you don't expect to see all the time. So that's what happens on these citizen science stress when you're looking for things that you don't expect to see and you find them and it's like this huge thing. So when you go on a dive now after you've done one of those fish counts, you might continue to do those fish counts if you want, or you might continue to look at little smaller things that are happening and see if you can find them. And I think that's one of those things that adds to the experience of diving. It's really one of those things where you're just kind of like, okay, now I'm getting into the ecology of diving. Not just the fact if I just dove on a shipwreck or I dove in this reef where I saw big fish and big sharks, that's great. That's awesome. But try and find a fish that's used to camouflage or try and find a more yield that's actually hidden in a crevice. Try looking for those things. Of course, don't go too close, but try looking for those things. That is where the experience of diving really comes into play. You start noticing more subtle things in the ocean. Plus you're helping out researchers, this is the researchers at University of Tasmania, you know, monitor the ocean. Monitoring the ocean is a huge task that requires a lot of money. And this is where citizen science and volunteers really comes into play because I know when I grew up, I wasn't the only person who wanted to become a marine biologist. There were a lot more people who wanted to become a marine biologist. They didn't do it because whatever happened, something happened where they decided to deviate from that dream or deviate from that goal and they got interested in other things, which is perfectly fine. However, now is their chance to be like, hey, I can still be a diver and work my bank job, or I can still be a diver and work my construction job. You can still work your career and still go diving and do fish counts and be a marine biologist, you know, for that specific time. The more you do it, the more almost accredited you become and the more of an expert you become. Maybe all of a sudden, as your hobby, you do do diving and fish counts, right? That's a can be an exciting thing. I know it's kind of geeky on people like what are you talking about, but it could be a very exciting thing. Plus you're helping out researchers monitor that part of the ocean, which is a daunting task to do when you only have a few people in a lab or a few people in a group, a research group that can't do it all. So that's what you get to do. So participating in citizen science groups, whether it be fish counts or whether it be a beach cleanup or anything like that or a beach monitoring thing, whatever you decide to do, do it, you know, whatever interests you, do it. If there's nothing, if there's a beach cleanup or there's no beach cleanup organization around you, check out the different organizations to find one or maybe go through an organization to organize one, volunteer to organize one or just organize one on your own. And then maybe it becomes a job. I don't know. You know, there's a lot of things that it can do. So you never know where life is going to lead you. Take those chances, especially when you're protecting the ocean, you can never go wrong. Okay. And there's a lot of trash on beaches. You can always do a beach cleanup. There's always going to be fish to count. All right. There's always going to be invertebrates to count. There's always going to be something to monitor. Check it with your local organizations, check with your local governments, research institutes, all that stuff, how you can volunteer, how you can get more involved. It is part of the ocean conservation process and it's a lot of fun. It is a lot of fun, okay, especially if you get to participate in one of these dives or snorkeling expeditions. It's a lot of fun. So anyway, that's it for me today. Just a reminder. If you want to do more or if you're not near a coast and you can't scuba dive or you're not near a coast and you don't want it, you can't go. So you can't go snorkeling. You can do something for ocean conservation by going to our store, online store, speakupforblue.com/shopshop. And you can buy an item. When you buy an item, you raise awareness for your raise awareness of for ocean conservation issues with the public because not a lot of people know about what's going on with the ocean. So it's important to do this. This is why I'm doing it and I'm wanting you to do it as well. Plus when you buy an item, all the revenue that we make after cost will go towards sea turtles forever. Great organization, not only helping clean up beaches of microplastics, but helping local communities convert poaching, protecting sea turtles into an ecotourism, sustainable business that will proliferate the sea turtle population, which will be awesome. So support our store or support our organizations by buying from our store, speakupforblue.com/shop. That's all for me today. You've been listening to the Speakup Blue podcast. My name is Andrew Lew, and tomorrow is Ocean Friday. It's going to be awesome. Happy Conservation. [music] [music] [music]