On the 27thJuly, Living Seas Hong Kong participated in ReefCheck 2014, here is a quick report of our day out.

於7月27日，勃勃海洋参加2014年度香港珊瑚普查。

We departed Wong Shek Pier, at 9:30am heading for two dives sites, firstly to Crescent Island for a fun dive followed by a dive at Port Island for the reefcheck survey.

 Crescent Island itself it located in the far North East of Hong Kong and is just outside the Yan Chau Tong Marine Park.  Port Island is located near the mouth of  Tolo Harbour.

Unfortunately, given the heavy rain over proceeding days the visibility was poor, around 2m and at times less, never the less we were able to enjoy our diving and to be able to record a number of different fish species over the 100m transect.  Here is a record of the fish we managed to identify, in descending order of frequency:

1. Damsel (mostly Neopomacentrus bankieri)
2. Numerous small wrasse (some different species including Moon wrasse) **
3. Copper sweeper (Pempheris oualensis)
4. Banded Goby (Amblygobius stethophthalmus)
5. Cardinalfish (Apogonichthyoides niger)
6. Butterfly fish (2 species, Chaetodon sp)  **
7. Sargeant Major (Abudefduf bengalensis)
8. Sandperch (Parapericis sp)
9. One very small grouper **
10. One cleaner wrasse (prob Labroides dimidiatus)

The fish listed in bold and with ** are species that we were looking for (indicator species),  other indicator species (such as snapper, sweetlips, moray eels, groupers) were missing.   There were no large fish spotted and a lack of diversity.  Happy to see the butterfly fish, and the cleaner wrasse was a surprise.

The corals were very good, both in terms of coverage and diversity, however this was surveyed by a different group.

It was a fulfilling day, unfortunately the water conditions probably limited our success in spotted species, but from this quick look there is a long way to go before Hong Kong’s marine diversity and especially its fish stocks recover.  

The results for the 2014 Reef Check survey can be found here:
(English) http://www.afcd.gov.hk/english/conservation/con_mar/con_mar_cor/con_mar_cor_hkrc/files/Summary_2014_Eng.pdf

2014 年度香港珊瑚普查報告(中文) http://www.afcd.gov.hk/tc_chi/conservation/con_mar/con_mar_cor/con_mar_cor_hkrc/files/Summary_2014_Chi.pdf

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