Red and Ziebell's handfish are small cryptic fish that don’t move much and are difficult to find. There are two known populations of Red handfish in south-eastern Tasmania, and Ziebell's handfish have not been seen for over ten years. But how do we know there are no other populations out there? While we can’t say […]
We caught up with Katherine Richardson, a local Tasmanian writer, who is putting together a children's book on Red handfish. Katherine – tell us a bit about yourself! I grew up in Campania, which is a little country town just past Richmond. I went to the local primary school and I had some really fantastic […]
We caught up with Helen O'Neill - a research assistant at CSIRO. Helen is involved in a number of projects including the Australian National Fish Collection, developing and populating fishIDER (a bilingual web-based fish identification tool to improve fish identification skills and monitoring capacity in Indonesia), and, of course - Spotted Handfish monitoring. Background: tell […]
Our Red Handfish IMAS/CSIRO PhD student, Tyson Bessell, is incorporating a genetic component into his research. Under the direction of expert geneticists, Dr Sharon Appleyard (CSIRO, Hobart) and Dr Carolyn Hogg (University of Sydney), he will be looking at several key areas, including: Characterising gene regions in Red Handfish Assessing whether we can use non-harmful […]
We'd like to introduce you to a student studying spotted handfish reproductive behaviour at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (University of Tasmania) and CSIRO, within the Marine Biodiversity Hub in Hobart. Meet Alex Hormann: I grew up in Texas in the US, right next to the Gulf of Mexico so I was always on or under the […]
We'd like to introduce you to a student studying the impacts of boat moorings on spotted handfish and their implications for the conservation of this species. Meet Lincoln Wong: Lincoln is a PhD student with the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies at the University of Tasmania, and also works with researchers at CSIRO and […]
In what is a super positive step for red handfish conservation, we'd like to introduce you to a new PhD student at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies at the University of Tasmania, Tyson Bessell! Tyson is already familiar with handfish - having worked on spotted handfish for his Honours project. Tell us a […]
We recently heard about some young Tasmanians taking things into their own ‘hands’ by doing their part to help conservation of Australian wildlife – including red handfish. A keen and motivated wildlife warrior Danny Rumsby (grade 5) came up with an idea to make badges to raise awareness for endangered Australian species – and of […]
We were lucky enough to film this Red Handfish hanging out in Frederick Henry Bay (SE Tasmania) recently. This individual was about 7cm long, and didn’t seem to mind some seaweed to the face (or being covered in sand!). Handfishes don’t have a swim bladder - which most fish have and use to help keep […]
The Handfish Conservation Project brings together various individuals and organisations in a collaborative effort to conserve three Critically Endangered Handfish species in Tasmania. The research priorities of the Project will be under the directions of the National Handfish Recovery Team (NHRT), which was formed in 2014. The members of this team include relevant experience from […]
