REEF in Puget Sound - Citizen Science Underwater

By Janna Nichols

I'm a diver. Yes, one of those crazy types you see at local beaches throughout Puget Sound, carrying about 100 pounds of equipment and plodding carefully down into the frigid 45 degree water for roughly  an hour of intense wildlife viewing. In spite of the challenges, I am hooked. It's like birding. Underwater. With fish.

Fishwatchers, by the way, are very similar to birdwatchers - getting caught up in finding new species to add to their life lists. For instance, the colder winter months are the ideal time to find the oh-so-cute-but-no-bigger-than-your-thumbnail Pacific Spiny Lumpsucker in shallow eelgrass beds throughout Puget Sound. The name alone is hard to resist.

But while I'm down there enjoying myself, I, along with hundreds of other Pacific Northwest divers, am gathering important data that will go into a publically-accessible online database, housed at www.REEF.org.

A growing number of divers in the Pacific Northwest have been conducting REEF surveys on their recreational dives since 1997, and have done over 14,361 surveys.  Talk about dedicated citizen scientists!

Divers are taught how to identify local fish accurately through classes, self study, and most recently through REEF-sponsored 'Fishinars': fun, interactive and informative fish ID webinars that are free and  open to the public for teachers, students, landlubbers and divers alike.

Then divers take this knowledge into the water and identify all the fish, and a select set of invertebrates, they see on their dives. Each species sighted is assigned one of four abundance codes. Other important information is noted: location, current strength, time of day, visibility, depth, bottom time, habitat type, etc.

The data is submitted online through www.REEF.org, error-checked, and then passed into the database.  That's where you come in. It's right there for you to use 24/7!  For instance:

• Want to know what's seen off your neighborhood beach?
• How about getting the scoop on rockfish populations in Puget Sound?
• Need some subject material for a school report or a class lesson plan?
• Want to know the difference in a given species' population between 'then' and 'now'?
• Need some data to assist you in your communications with Puget Sound policy-makers?
• Want to become a better-informed citizen or consumer of local seafood?

More and more divers are getting involved by conducting REEF surveys - and if you're a diver we welcome you to join us. And if you're a tried-and-true landlubber, we also welcome you to join this active, enthusiastic group by becoming a REEF member (it's free), and by using the data.

More information about REEF's Volunteer Survey Program can be found here.

The REEF database can be accessed here.

You can sign up for Fishinars here.

Janna Nichols is the Outreach Coordinator for the Reef Environmental Research Foundation.

You can reach her by email here.