Australian Sailing have partnered with PhD candidate, Jemima Beddoe, to assist with collecting marine mammal sighting data for her project titled Biodiversity Assessment of Marine Mammals in South-eastern Australia. We are asking all clubs in Victoria to get involved with this project.

Jemima, in collaboration with the Marine Mammal Foundation (MMF) and RMIT University, is creating a comprehensive marine mammal distribution database. There is a distinct gap in knowledge of the Victorian waters. At least 32 marine mammal species are known to inhabit the Victorian coastline, however 48% of these are classified as ‘data deficient’ making the creation of accurate conservation management plans extremely difficult. This is something Jemima hopes to change.

Jemima looks to employ many different scientific techniques to collect this data, one being the use of citizen science reports, and this is where we wish to see all Victorian yacht clubs get involved. We are asking for every club to encourage their members to report all marine mammal sightings whilst out on the water. This is a simple process, members just need to upload sighting information (include GPS location, type of animal and number of animals) to MMF’s easy-to-use reporting system TrakMM. Link provided here: https://www.marinemammal.org.au/trakmm

What you can do to get involved:

1. Send this article to all the registered members at your yacht club, encouraging members to report all their marine mammal sightings to the MMF reporting system, TrakMM.
2. Print and display the attached project summary poster in your club to raise awareness about this project.
3. If your club has any dedicated long-distance voyages planned, register them with MMF as they will give you a dedicated datasheet for easy reporting on the trip.
4. If you wish to get involved further or discuss other ways of getting involved in the project, get in contact with Jemima via jemima@marinemammal.org.au.
    

We appreciate your commitment to improving the research and conservation of Victoria’s marine life. This is an amazing opportunity for Australian Sailing to get involved in marine mammal protection.

Jemima will be attending the Australian Sailing 2022 Club Conference so please feel free to ask her any questions on the day. Jemima and the MMF team are also available to come present at clubs to raise further awareness and provide marine mammal education. If this is something your club might be interested in, please contact Jemima.