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Citizen science photographic identification of marine megafauna populations in the Moreton Bay Marine Park
Book chapter   Peer reviewed

Citizen science photographic identification of marine megafauna populations in the Moreton Bay Marine Park

Christine L Dudgeon, Carley Kilpatrick, Asia Armstrong, Amelia Armstrong, Mike B Bennett, Deborah Bowden, Anthony J Richardson, Kathy A Townsend and Elizabeth Hawkins
Moreton Bay Quandamooka & Catchment: Past, present, and future, pp.475-490
Moreton Bay Foundation Ltd.
2019
DOI: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.8085668
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https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.8085668View
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Abstract

Environmental Science and Management photo-id reef manta ray cetacean bottlenose dolphin humpback dolphin grey nurse shark
Marine megafauna such as cetaceans, elasmobranchs and sea turtles attract considerable public attention. Despite their popularity relatively little is known about their populations in Australia. This is due to inherent challenges faced in researching megafauna in the wild, including the difficulty of locating and tracking species, their often remote distribution and elusive nature. The advent of photo identification techniques and the engaging of citizen scientists have contributed to research outputs and increased general understanding of many marine megafauna populations. We present three case studies about how citizen scientists contribute to research in the Moreton Bay Marine Park: 'Project Manta', 'Grey Nurse Shark Watch' and 'Dolphin Watchers'. Based on our comparative assessment of the case studies we identify several benefits of using photo identification (photo-ID) techniques on marine megafauna for this region. These include: (i) the extra data provided by citizen scientists substantially increases research effort and coverage in time and space; (ii) citizen scientists are self-funded or funded through tourism programs and substantially reduce the costs of data collection for research while supporting local tourism ventures, (iii) citizen science programs help disseminate research results to participants through increased contact with researchers, thereby increasing public education outcomes, and (iv) citizen science programs have had tangible downstream outcomes for conservation efforts including participation in stakeholder groups, data being used for threatened species assessments, and monitoring of sick and injured animals over time. We identify several challenges with marine megafauna citizen science programs including: (i) raising awareness of projects and accessing photos, (ii) limitations of image-matching software, (iii) development of online database structures that are transferable across projects, (iv) maintaining engagement with public participants, and (v) long-term funding. We make recommendations to address these challenges and propose future directions to improve citizen science programs in the region.

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