In Bygone Dives is an Australia wide project so you can contribute your photos from anywhere around the Australian coastline.
Sydney, NSW North Coast and Tasmania, are our current focus regions, so we are particularly interested in any photos from these regions.
However, we are likely to expand our focus to include other regions, so stay tuned, but we encourage you to add photos from your favourite dive sites at any time.
Sydney
Old Wife at Shiprock in 1998. Photo by Erik Schlogl. Licence: CC BY-NC
Sydney is a large city that stretches along an amazing coastline. However, as the population continues to grow, so do the pressures on the marine environment.
At the same time, some positive changes have occurred such as improved water quality and the introduction marine protected areas.
We are using old diving photos and videos to see whether the marine life of Sydney dive sites has also changed over this time.
To study these changes we are requesting that divers (like you) find and contribute old diving photos or videos
Weedy Seadragon being photographed in Sydney. Photo by Erik Schlogl. Licence: CC BY-NC
We are looking for photos or videos from these Sydney dive sites:
Shelly Beach & Fairy Bower
Camp Cove
Fairlight
Clifton Gardens
Gordons Bay, Clovelly Pool & Shark Point
Bare Island
Kurnell
Ship Rock
Even if you are new to diving, your photographs can help this research as we also need recent photographs to compare to.
Seal Rocks NSW
Diver with Grey Nurse Shark at Big Seal in 1986. Photo by Trevor Howard.
Seal Rocks, located on the Mid North Coast of NSW, is one of the largest Grey Nurse Shark aggregation areas in NSW. It is also where Valerie and Ron Taylor observed and documented Grey Nurse Sharks over many decades.
Valerie has generously donated her valuable photo collection to the Australian National Maritime Museum and we are gaining valuable ecological information from these old photos to quantify changes in the ecological community through time.
We need more photos from recreational divers to complement Valerie Taylor’s photos.
Do you have photos or videos at Seal Rocks from the:
1980s
1990s
2000s
2010s
& Now…
To contribute or for more information contact t.tisher@student.unsw.edu.au
Blue Groper and abundant fish life at Seal Rocks in 1984. Photo by Trevor Howard.
NSW North Coast
Kelp Forest (Ecklonia radiata) by John Turnbull. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA
Coffs Harbour to Tweed Heads
Although coral bleaching gets the most media coverage, warming ocean temperatures are also impacting many temperate marine species. Most visible is the loss of some of our amazing underwater forests such as Kelp (Ecklonia radiata), which has disappeared from much of the NSW north coast.
We are investigating the use recreational diving photographs and videos to track the timing and location of the kelp loss from the NSW north coast
We also hope to understand the southward range extension of tropical herbivorous fish, which may have contributed to the Kelp loss.
Stills showing the long-term loss of kelp from Northern NSW reefs (Source: Vergés et al. 2016, PNAS)
To capture these changes we are looking for photos, both old and recent, from Coffs Harbour to Tweed Heads
Tasmania
Trumpeter school swimming through a Giant Kelp forest by Joanna Smart.
Tasmania’s marine environment is home to an enormous variety of marine species, many found nowhere else in the world. The warm water of the East Australian Current heads down the eastern coast of Australia, meeting with the cooler, nutrient rich, and wild waters of the Southern Ocean. Tasmania’s west and north coast are influenced by the Leeuwin current that flows from Western Australia. This mixing of marine waters along the varied Tasmanian coastline, creates a range of ecosystems inhabited by a unique collection of marine species.
Project in collaboration with CMS and IMAS-UTAS
However, Tasmania’s marine waters are changing rapidly. The east coast of Tasmania is a global ocean-warming hotspot, warming at approximately four times the global average. This is significantly impacting the marine environment, causing the loss of iconic giant kelp forests. Many fish species, and invertebrates such as the long spined sea urchin, have also migrated south with the warmer waters, with over 70 new marine species recorded in Tasmania over recent decades.
Giant kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera) by Cayne Layton