Dragons of Sydney
The Dragons of Sydney Program is led by our URG Seadragon Champion. It is a collaboration between scientists from UTS, volunteer divers from URG NSW and supporting organisations including SeaDragonSearch.
Seadragons are beautiful, unique fish living exclusively along the southern coast of Australia. They are the koala of the ocean!
During the storms of 2021 and 2022 a large number of weedy seadragons washed up dead on the shores of NSW. Our club is supporting vital research to understand if the populations are recovering from this event to help inform conservation efforts.
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Being involved in this program is easy. You can dive with us and participate in surveys, you can share photos about your encounters of Weedy Seadragons with us, and you can share historical or current information about where you have sighted seadragons. This will help you contribute to tracking these unique animals and supporting efforts to conserve them.
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SeadragonSearch.org is a community-based research initiative with a mission to collect data about wild seadragon populations across Australia through underwater photography.
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Have you taken a photo of a weedy seadragon? URG encourages our divers to share any photos they take of the weedy seadragons with this project.
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Your photos can be used to identify individuals so that we can understand:
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How long do seadragons live?
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How far are they capable of moving?
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How are their populations being impacted by changing ocean conditions?
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How resilient might seadragon populations be to the aggregate effects of such stressors?​
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Despite being such amazing fish, very little data exists about where their habitats are (and have been) across NSW, and whether their populations are increasing or decreasing.
In collaboration with scientists at UTS, the club is gathering information on both current and historical data about where weedy sea dragons are (or have been) found in NSW, and whether the number of dragons sighted has reduced since the storms of 2021 and 2022.
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Do you have dive logs or a good recollection of how many seadragons you have seen at various dive sites in NSW?
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Regardless of whether you still dive, we would love you to participate in our survey (use the button below):