It was a highly productive year with some great results and some amazing observations recorded.

In 2024 we conducting eleven Marine Life Surveys covering areas in the Eastern waters,  we initiated these marine life surveys back in 2021 and we now have four years of data. This is a citizen science initiative with a formalised process to record what marine life are found at different dive sites in Hong Kong.

This year we surveyed 11 different dive sites in the Eastern waters of Hong Kong, as illustrated with the following map.

If you would like to see a complete map of the sites we have surveyed.
https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=19pBnfgCRq3X9DarA5Vsk2nKvaCk6j10&usp=sharing

2024 was a very productive year, with more that 2,100 observations recorded and a record number of species seen, photographed and recorded.   The following charts shows the number of  Living Seas species by date and dive site.

Dive sites within Port Shelter area of Sai Kung continue to show exceptional marine biodiversity, with Basalt Island yielding some amazing observations this year.  The results continue to support that areas such as Basalt Island, Sharp Island and Bluff Island need more protection from harmful human activities.  Harmful activities include overfishing, ghost nets, poor anchoring and marine litter.

A quick look at a few of our marine dive days this year.

The team from our May 19^th survey dive to Basalt, with hand signal for ghost pipefish, an  exciting first time observation on our survey dives.

The July dive and the first time we dove on the Western side of Tsim Chau island in Tai Long Wan. Gloomy conditions with rain, but some first time sightings of blackspotted pufferfish, blue spotted wrasse, it was also of interest that we found an extensive area of seaweed.  The fact that the seaweed continued to thrive into warmer summer waters, was of particular interest to researchers at HKU.

20^th October Survey dive, yielded some surprise results, with two unusual trevally sightings, and some first time sightings of special damselfish at Sharp Island. We get surprises everytime we go underwater.

Watch this space for more updates coming.

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On the 17th December 2022, we published our initial survey results.  

Overall to date we have a recording of 157 species observations, in 10 dive sites, and with a total of 16 dives. The range of species recorded was from 13 (at the Yacht Club in Causeway Bay), to 97 different species at Basalt Island.

These surveys point towards key sites that we believe need to be better protected. Along with other groups in Hong Kong and the international goal to protect 30% of seas from overexploitation and damage, we would like to see additional Marine Protected Areas setup in Hong Kong.

The following image shows the dive sites that we have surveyed.  (click here to access directly : https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=19pBnfgCRq3X9DarA5Vsk2nKvaCk6j10&usp=sharing 

A summary of our summary report can be downloaded from this link.

Living Seas Marine Life Survey – summary report

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The teams of three worked together and one of the team would be responsible to take photographs for a post dive species verification, as needed.

A report will be produced with the findings from the day. We aim to make this a resource for the diving industry as well as to document species diversity changes over time at different locations.

Living Seas Hong Kong plan to conduct further surveys in different dive sites, and are keen to get Hong Kong divers involved, send us a message at get_in_touch@livingseas.hk

A few photos from the survey to give you a flavour.

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