URG Bulletin - Spring Edition 2025
- URG NSW
- Sep 1
- 10 min read
Underwater Research Group of New South Wales
Presidents Slate
Hi all,
After a short break in the Bulletin, it’s great to be writing again and sharing some highlights from the last three months of diving, research and general club antics.
First up, applause for the crew taking part in the Weedy Sea Dragon Search at Bondi. Four weedies found in one double-dive, an effort that definitely tops the tally since the storms of 2022.
Hats off to Hatty and John Swift for scraping off more seagull pooh than seems fair on a Friday morning, while Pete McGee fended off amorous cuttlefish and returned with a triumphant report. Many thanks to everyone logging new data into sea dragon search. Proof that citizen science (and a stubborn sense of adventure) gets results.
It hasn’t just been sea dragons keeping us busy. We’ve had members travelling as far as the Solomons, exploring everything from time machines and traditional bamboo dance, to 30-degree diving and a few coral surprises some happy, some less so. The wrap-up from John Swift is a reminder of how diving and discovery go hand in hand, wherever you’re lucky enough to visit the tropics.
Back closer to home, the Sydney Harbour Fishes guide is out which an impressive effort with contributions from our members' photographs. Whether you’ve clocked up thousands of dives or just started photographing the local wrasse, you’re now officially part of the marine science record. The power of citizen science at work, thanks to the Australasian Fishes project and iNaturalist.
On the club front, we’ve kept a steady run of general meetings and guest speakers going. From seahorse conservation, cheers to SIMS and Mitchell Brennan, to Nathalie Coy's Posidonia seagrass research and John Turnbull’s 50-year Shiprock survey, it’s been a banger season for club learning and marine research. If you missed these talks, check out the links in this bulletin and make sure to drop by for the next one Netflix shark explorer Aliah Banchik on the 10th offers proper entertainment and marine science in one package.
Celebration is also due to our recent award win. We got granted $1,000 in Blue Ocean / Valery Taylor award to keep the boat afloat. Plus a shout-out to Reka for helping Sarah by inspiring thousands of school kids on shark conservation at the Maritime Museum. This is exactly the kind of thing that makes our club unique.
Looking ahead, the Go Diving Show is about to hit town, plenty more boat dives are planned, and boat handling lessons remain resolutely open to any who fancy a try. The Forster trip in September still has one spot left and will definitely be a bit of spring magic.
Thanks for making URG what it is. Whether through science, stories, photo submissions or just rocking up for a dive, the club runs on member energy. Looking forward to seeing you at a meeting or out on the water.
Cheers,
Duncan Heuer
Weedy Sea Dragon Search – Bondi
By Pete McGee - URG Sea Dragon Champion
The URG boat left Balmoral in Sydney Harbour on a warm, sunny morning. A slight delay due to a thick layer of seagull pooh being removed from the boat by Hatty (convenor) and Swifty (first mate), did not damped spirits as we cruised towards the Heads for a memorable double dive at Bondi. Also, on board this Friday was Dave, Eric, Peter Barfod and Pete McGee.
North Bondi was a target site for a URG weedy hunt. The site was a well-known location for weedy seadragons prior to the massive storm events of 2022. Since then, however sightings had been rare. In fact, Seadragon Search data had only 1 entry. A male with eggs seen in Sept 2023. Hatty rounded South Head heading south to Bondi. The sea was calm and sun warm us as we huddled close to the skipper. We dropped anchor at North Bondi headland over the rocky reef in about 15m of water. Peter went down first to check the anchor was set. I followed him and found a giant cuttlefish shadowing him what seemed to be lusty intent. Not sensing the love, Peter swam off unaware. The jilted cuttlefish then turned to me, briefly engulfing my camera strobe with its legs, before rejecting me.
Peter and I swam SE towards the sandline. The viz was good, possibly 10m, however water movement on the bottom was kicking up fragments of decaying weed and sand. At 19m we found our first weedy. A joyous moment. Then minutes later another as we moved deeper. Then another and finally another. In total we found 4 weedies while only covering about 150m!
A highly successful expedition. Later we would find that each was a new individual for the Seadragon Search database. North Bondi is a terrific dive site. As we moved into shallower water the rocks were covered in colourful sponges and ascidians, with many crevices to investigate.
Elsewhere John, Dave and Eric had been exploring the shallower areas while large schools of one-spot pullers and yellowtail surrounded them. A fantastic first dive. After throwing up a few options we headed to South Bondi for the second dive in search of grey nurse sharks. Although none of us had dived the site before, Hatty was able to drop anchor close to the sark overhang. The water here is considerably shallower making it a good second dive location. The wind and swell had started to come up and underwater there was significant surge. Unfortunately, no GNS were found but the group did find port jacksons, wobbegongs, a number of tropical species and a range of temperate water species.
Photos are taken from the day.
The Solomon’s Time Machine
By John Swift
Ever travelled on a Time Machine to see huge schools of Jacks and some local lads
performing traditional dance, played on bamboo instruments with thongs. Plus a trip to a
burial island ( Scull Island) for the local island chiefs, well I have and it was fantastic.
The ”MV Solomons Master” was our time machine and we were on a ten day liveaboard trip
from Honiara to Munda in the Solomons Western Province. With three dives per day and four
meals per day, yes an early breakfast at 6.30 AM just to get you started, it really was a full
day.
It was my first trip back to the Solomons in 15 years and I expected to find a greatly changed
country, but on the surface it seemed much the same, there were a few more cars in Honiara
and it was busier, but on the small islands all was much the same, with extremely friendly
people that seem to smile all the time.
The MV “Solomons Master is a luxurious dive vessel, set up for 16 divers and with the same
number of crew to assist. Meals were delicious and varied, really a dive holiday to appreciate.
But under the water it was a bit different, there were 30 x 30 dives, that’s 30 deg. C from the
surface to 30 metres deep, that’s at least one deg. C more than a decade and a half earlier.
Barracuda Point on Mary island still has schools of Barracuda and Jacks, but on some dive
sites the Coral was dead and covered with marine growth. The other divers on the boat
probably didn’t realise what had happened, as they hadn’t seen the Solomon’s in all their
glory.
Did I enjoy myself YES, would I go again, in a Flash. The flight from Brisbane to Honiara is
3 and a half hours and your Visa is issued on arrival. It’s a trip back in time and to be
savoured, by the lucky.
Field Guide to Sydney Harbour Fishes
By Thomas Mesaglio
Back in 2022 a team of Australian fish researchers published a comprehensive list of all known fish
species from Sydney Harbour (DiBattista et al. 2022). This list provided an update to a 2013
publication (Hutchings et al. 2013) and revised the total number of species for the harbour from 586
up to 675. The amazing increase in knowledge provided by the 2022 list was thanks in large part to
the tremendously successful citizen science project Australasian Fishes
(https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/australasian-fishes), an initiative created and managed by
Australian Museum fellow and previous fish curator Mark McGrouther and hosted on the platform
iNaturalist. Since its inception in 2016, over 14,000 observers ─ including anglers, snorkellers, divers,
commercial fishers, and beachcombers ─ from across Australia and New Zealand have contributed
434,000+ records of fishes spanning more than 3,500 species, including thousands of important
discoveries such as range extensions, new ecological interactions and relationships, and even
undescribed species. Crucially, many fish experts from institutions around Australia and overseas
dedicate their time and expertise to help identify these records and maintain high data quality.
Several years on, we saw a great opportunity to not only update the Sydney Harbour fish list again,
but to also compile this information into a comprehensive resource that would allow divers, anglers,
and other marine enthusiasts to identify the fishes they find in Sydney Harbour, and also engage the
public and inspire people to become more interested in the amazing fish diversity that can be found
on their doorstep. And so the idea for the Field Guide to Sydney Harbour Fishes was born. Our team
of authors ─ Thomas Mesaglio, Mark McGrouther, Joseph DiBattista, John Sear, Yi-Kai Tea, Amanda
Hay, Harry Rosenthal, Erik Schlögl ─ represented a wealth of knowledge on fishes from Sydney
Harbour, and with grant support from Blue World and the Australian Museum, we produced a 750+
page print field guide to every known fish from Sydney Harbour.
Our guide revised the total number of fish species from the harbour even higher, up to 704 species,
with almost all of the 29 additions thanks to discoveries made through Australasian Fishes. Most
importantly, the guide was fundamentally built around this amazing citizen science community: we
used more than 2,500 high quality colour photographs from 367 iNaturalist contributors ─ including
many members of the Underwater Research Group of NSW ─ to illustrate the guide, including
images representing the only known photographs of those species published anywhere online. This
book is truly a testament to the invaluable contributions being made by citizen scientists to our
understanding of Australia’s rich fish diversity. Whether you’ve been diving and photographing
fishes for two decades or you’re a citizen scientist who only just picked up an interest in fishes last
week, everyone can contribute to our collective fish knowledge. So head out into the water,
photograph as many fishes as you can, and upload them to the Australasian Fishes project on
iNaturalist; you never know what amazing discovery is just around the corner.
Buy your copy here
And check out their You Tube account
References
DiBattista, J.D., Shalders, T.C., Reader, S., Hay, A., Parkinson, K., Williams, R.J., Stuart-Smith, J. and
McGrouther, M., 2022. A comprehensive analysis of all known fishes from Sydney Harbour. Marine
Pollution Bulletin, 185, p.114239.
Hutchings, P., Ahyong, S., Ashcroft, M., McGrouther, M. and Reid, A., 2013. Sydney Harbour: its
diverse biodiversity. Australian Zoologist, 36(3), pp.255-320.
URG History in Photos / images
By Michael Abbott
Recap - Past general meetings - And why you should come along!
June: We had the pleasure of hearing from PhD Candidate and Project Manager at the Sydney Institute of Marine Science (SIMS), Mitchell Brennan who spoke to us about the Sydney Seahorse Project:
The White’s seahorse in an iconic and enigmatic fish found in the waters surrounding Sydney. Beloved by divers, the White’s seahorse captures the imagination and represents the beauty of our underwater world – being a particular highlight for SCUBA divers to see and photograph.
In recent years, White’s seahorse populations have declined dramatically due to habitat loss leading to the species being listed as Endangered. The team at the Sydney Seahorse Project, in partnership with the University of Technology, Sydney, Sydney Institute of Marine Science, New South Wales Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development, and the Gamay Rangers are actively aiming to protect and conserve this threatened fish.
This presentation by Mitchell Brennan, PhD Candidate and Project Manager, highlighted the research being implemented to recover wild populations including the use of “seahorse hotels” as an artificial habitat, the world-leading conservation-stocking program and habitat restoration. We also discussed the value that citizen science contributes to the monitoring of threatened species, how SCUBA divers can be involved.
July: Natalie Coy joined us from UNSW to discuss an upcoming project we will be partnering her on. The project focuses on improving the restoration of the endangered seagrass species, Posidonia australis, by studying its flowering patterns and environmental triggers.
In collaboration with the Underwater Research Group, she aims to gather key data on flowering and fruiting events to inform seed-based restoration strategies. Seagrass meadows play a critical role in coastal ecosystems, providing habitat for marine life, stabilizing sediments, and sequestering carbon, making their restoration essential for the health of our oceans and climate. By monitoring these events, we aim to improve seed collection and restoration practices, supporting the long-term recovery of seagrass meadows along the coast.
August: Our guest was John Turnbull, former URG president, returned to talk to us about his recently published paper on Shiprock. The research analyses over 50 years of records, most of which was collected by URG divers in surveys, dive logs and The Bulletin, to draw conclusions on how the marine community at Shiprock has changed over half a century. John outlined the winners and losers (fishes, invertebrates and algae) and present conclusions about the importance of citizen science. The paper can be read here: https://www.publish.csiro.au/MF/MF24259
Call outs
Shout out to Reka for assisting Sarah at Australian Museum to engage with thousands of kids about shark conservation
We won an award for URG at the Blue Ocean / Valery Taylor Awards to "keep the boat afloat" - We got $1000 to contribute to
Upcoming Events
Go Diving show 6 and 7 September and Spotashark and Sea Dragon Search have a stand along with loads of other cool things.
September General Meeting: Our guest this month is marine scientist and Netflix shark explorer, Aliah Banchik. In this talk Aliah takes you behind the scenes of All the Sharks—what it was really like filming with tiger sharks, scuba diving on camera, and racing around the world to find elusive elasmobranchs. But the spotlight doesn’t stop there. Aliah dives deeper into the world of rays—the flat sharks you don’t hear enough about. From giant oceanic mantas to walking epaulettes, she unpacks their evolutionary link to sharks, the threats they're quietly facing, and the surprising superpowers that make rays some of the ocean’s most fascinating creatures.
The event will be held at the Oaks Hotel, Neutral Bay from 6.30pm (upstairs at the Licensee Flat) on Tuesday . The event is free and open to all.
1 spot left for Forster weekend trip 20/21 September - contact Sarah if interested.
Dive Log and Oz Diver
Boat Dives
Boat dives are organised most weekends from the St George Motor Boat Club Marina in San Souci. Check https://www.urgdiveclub.org.au/dive-calendar and Facebook for dates and conveners to book onto dives.
Boat handling lessons.
Get in touch if interested
Editors Note
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Please check with the author informing them of your intention to republish their material, prior to publishing your article.
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