Are you interested in life under the sea? Would you like to join the Kangaroo Island Reef Watch program and learn more about the local fish and reef communities and help us to monitor their condition in the future?
Reef Watch is an environmental monitoring program run by the community and coordinated by the Conservation Council of South Australia. The Reef Watch program gathers and disseminates quality information on the status of our marine environment. This information is collected by marine scientists in conjunction with the help of hundreds of volunteers. This information is then used by Reef Watch to increase community and government awareness of marine environmental issues.
A number of sessions are run on Kangaroo Island each year. During the sessions volunteers learn a variety of skills such as:
- How to identify common fish species, mollusks and sea grasses and how to measure them along underwater transect lines by snorkeling.
- How to assess the health of reefs and identify common species including turbos, seas stars, urchins, barnacles and limpets.
Above right: Volunteers monitoring an inter-tidal reef at Browns Beach, Kangaroo Island.
Contact
Martine Kinloch, Coast & Marine Project Manager, KI NRM Board, ph: (08) 8553 4312
Daniel Brock, Coast & Marine Biodiversity Officer, KI NRM Board, ph: (08) 8553 4313