We’re joining forces with the Tas Scuba Diving Club who have organised a long spine urchin (Centrostephanus rogersii) cull event at Fortescue Bay on Sunday 27 November! We all saw the impacts of overgrazing from these longspine urchins when we dived here on womens dive day, and this is your chance to do something about it and help save the kelp!
The longspine urchin is expanding its presence on the east coast of Tasmania creating expanding overgrazed barren patches of reef. Research by IMAS shows us that removing the urchins by culling will allow regrowth of the algae and invertebrate life pretty quickly! But the cull needs to be thorough, systematic and sustained, this is beyond one person or a small group – SO this is where you come in!! Dive clubs and groups in coordinated efforts like this can join forces and use our numbers to make a difference together!
IMPORTANT: you need to be able to tell the difference between the habitat killing longspined urchins (Centrostephanus rogersii), and the native urchin as we don’t want to go around killing any of the urchins that are looking after our reef!
Fortescue Bay is a great place to start being easily accessible from the shore which is perfect for us to run shore dives! The target area in Fortescue Bay is circled in the image provided by Tas Scuba Diving Club below, a stretch of shore about 600m long comprising of expanding patchy incipient barrens in depths of 5-15m and extending to the right of the boat ramp.
Any questions – please let me know!
Everyone is welcome! Whether you snorkel, SCUBA dive, or free dive come along and have a chat and help out on Sunday the 27th of November at 9am at Fortescue Bay Boat Ramp. If you need gear please meet us at the TUDC sheds at 7:00am to collect gear!
TUDC will be supporting this event by allowing TUDC members free gear hire for this event, you just need to register through this page. We’ll supply gear, tanks and good vibes, just bring yourself and a tool to cull urchins!
YOU will need to organise your own:
- Urchin culling tool – urchins can be culled by breaking their test (the round exoskeleton/shell bit the spines are sticking out of), so any tool that works to safely do this! You can use an ab tool, long dive knife, or even a crowbar! Just be careful not to spike yourself on those long spines!
- Other dive gear that’s not included: Please BYO wetsuit/drysuit, booties, fins, mask, snorkel, gloves, etc.
| Dive Coordinator | Shenae Willis |
| Dive Qualification Required | Open Water |
| Meeting Location | Dive Shed (40 Olinda Grove, Mt Nelson) |
| Dive Cost | 0 |
| Day or Night Dive | Day Dive |
| Number of Dives | 1 |
Refunds
Refunds are at the Dive Coordinator's discretion however the following guidelines apply to normal events:
Cancellation where a replacement diver is found: 100% refund
No show or cancellation with less than 48 Hours notice: 0% refund
Cancellation with greater than 48 Hours but less than a week's notice: 50% refund
Cancellation with greater than a week's notice: 100% refund