Best Practice Guidelines for Diving & Snorkelling with Handfish

The Best Practice Guidelines for Diving and Snorkelling with Handfish is a collaborative initiative promoting ethical diving with threatened and vulnerable handfish species in Tasmania.

These guidelines were developed by Tasmanian divers/snorkelers and scientists to highlight and minimize impacts to endemic and critically endangered handfish. The purpose is to:

• Create awareness/stewardship and best practice recommendations for diving with handfishes
• Safeguard handfish by minimising disturbance

Key Messages

1. Know your handfishes! Be aware of handfish species, sites, habitat, and key breeding times
2. Maintain good buoyancy. Handfish live on the seafloor and can easily be disturbed by divers, snorkellers (& boaters)

Specific recommendations

Download the Guidelines

Please download the trifold brochure here:

Contributors

Neville Barrett, Tyson Bessell, Ella Clausius, Karla Dutton, Patrick Eberhard, Dane Jones, Olivia Johnson, John Keane, Tim Lynch, Caroline Mason, Pete Roberts, Jane Ruckert, Janet Rutherford, Jemina Stuart-Smith, Matt Teston, Brad Turner, Benita Vincent, Tasha Waller, and Lincoln Wong,

Funding & support

Funding has been provided by the Australian Government (Oceans Leadership Package), as well as supported by the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, Tasmanian Government, Tasmanian Mermaids, Go Dive, Tasmanian Divers Group, Tasha Waller - Immersed Images, Tasmanian University Dive Club, Scuba Diving Tasmania, Matt Testoni Underwater Photography, and Benni Marine Designs.