Dragon Net: Search For Our Exclusive, Elusive Water Wonders
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday August 11, 1998
They can be "leafy" or "weedy" but, of whichever type, seadragons are in need of more care and protection. And a Sydney green coastal group has invited divers to provide a map of how and where they exist as a first step to ensure their survival.
Yesterday, the Marine and Coastal Community Network launched "Dragon Search" in a bid to establish the prevalence and type of seadragons in our waters.
Seadragons of the weedy type are known to exist in Sydney Harbour, on the northern beaches and on the South Coast of NSW.
Later this week Canadian biologist Dr Amanda Vincent will talk to the Federal Minister for the Environment, Senator Hill, about measures the Federal Government can take to protect seadragons.
Dr Vincent spent part of the late 1980s diving in Sydney Harbour and other parts of Australia, monitoring the seadragons.
Seadragons, unlike seahorses, exist only in Australian waters.
"Take a seahorse and stretch it out a little bit and add lots of frilly appendages and you get a seadragon," Dr Vincent said.
About 30 to 40 centimetres long, the "weedy" seadragon, with its "paddle-like" colourful appendages has been sighted several times before in Sydney Harbour and around the northern beaches.
The "even more spectacular leafy dragons" have green and longer frilly appendages. Dr Vincent describes it as looking like "a bush that went mad".
It is still not known if the leafy dragon is present in NSW, although it exists in South Australia. This is one of the things Dragon Search is hoping to accomplish.
"There are rumours of sightings [of the leafy dragon] here so one of the missions is to get us to confirm or negate these rumours," Dr Vincent said.
The coastal group is calling on all dive clubs to start looking for the dragons, to take photos of them, to find out where schools of the fish are and to continue to monitor them, once they discover them.
"We know very little about these species and really will benefit enormously from information the public can provide," Dr Vincent said.
She said the project would encourage Australians to take an active role in marine conservation.
"It is easy for Australians to become blase about marine life because it really is remarkable on a global context," she said.
Once an idea of the population patterns of the fish was known from the surveys, governments would have a better idea of how to protect the dragons - They are protected in NSW by legislation.
There was some exporting of the dragons, mostly for aquariums, and there might be some illegal export to Asia, where seahorses and dragons were used in traditional medicine and just for curiosity, Dr Vincent said.
After public appeals yesterday, calls were coming in from across the State on sightings of seadragons.
© 1998 Sydney Morning Herald
Share This