The six-day voyage earlier this month was part of state and Commonwealth marine parks monitoring including fisheries compliance. Marine ecologist for the Department for Environment and Water, Jamie Hicks, was thrilled to lead the expedition.“You really never know what you’re going to find when you deploy a camera in the ocean,” she said.
“It sounds really simple, but it does excite me every time. I’m always surprised by the diversity of marine life we have here in South Australia, we have some really beautiful species and high biodiversity, some of the species we have in South Australia are found nowhere else in the world so it is a really unique marine environment.” The scientists are yet to complete their analysis but so far the variety of fish included the knifejaw, swallowtails and spurdog sharks, gurnards and ocean jackets.Ms Hicks said the research focus was the transitional marine environment at depths of 40m to 150m, which is considered to be “the world between worlds, in between the shallow well-lit part of the ocean and the deeper, darker parts of the ocean, called the middle light zone.”
As marine science team leader Danny Brock explains, the expedition targeted an area where an Australian Marine Park national park zone abuts a state marine sanctuary zone in SA. “The zones afford the highest level of protection and are therefore areas of high conservation value,” Mr Brock said. “The aim of the expedition was to gather baseline biodiversity information on fish assemblages and habitats using baited underwater remote video systems and we were very successful in our endeavours, although there is still more than 50 hours of footage to undergo analysis.”State Environment and Water Minister David Speirs said the trip was the first in SA to use the hi-tech recording equipment such depths.“These two marine parks off western Kangaroo Island were of particular interest as they are important areas of deep water upwelling and support a range of marine life,” Minister Speirs said. The expedition was conducted aboard the Department of Primary Industries and Regions compliance vessel the FPV Southern Ranger.
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