Hunter Marine Park: surveying life on the shelf

During August and September 2025, scientists are surveying life across the continental shelf of Hunter Marine Park. The three-week survey is supported with funding from the Australian Government under the National Environmental Science Program Marine and Coastal Hub.

At depths below 50 metres, cameras are capturing the wonderful world of fiddler rays, catsharks, Port Jackson sharks, hermit crabs, leatherjackets, lobsters, nannygai, bellowfish, serpent eels, sea whip, wobbegongs and snappers.

The survey is being undertaken by scientists and technicians from the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) at the University of Tasmania and the NSW Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development – Fisheries. They are using two kinds of camera systems to collect hundreds of hours of video documenting the park’s seafloor life and habitats.

The baited remote underwater stereo video, or stereo-BRUV, has a bait bag that is loaded with a kilogram of crushed pilchards and attached to a long pole. It is being lowered at 300 survey sites to record for 60 minutes to provide critical information on the size and diversity of fishes within the Hunter Marine Park.

The second camera system, the remotely operated vehicle (ROV), is being ‘flown’ by a pilot onboard the vessel who can see and respond to the video feed in real time. The ROV will be deployed 50 times along 200-metre transects, providing new information on the seabed habitats and fishes that avoid the stereo-BRUVs.

The survey is providing the first comprehensive look at the continental shelf region of the Hunter Marine Park at a scale suitable for improved management. The imagery will not only significantly improve our understanding of the biodiversity in the park but also the condition of its marine ecosystems.

Hunter Marine Park occupies commonwealth waters to the east of the New South Wales Port Stephens – Great Lakes Marine Park. It extends from mesophotic (mid-light) shelf waters out to the deep ocean and includes shelf rocky reefs and canyons. Its south-western edge is about 10 kilometres off Hawks Nest and its far north-eastern edge is about 105 km off Saltwater Beach.

Information collected through the survey will be provided to Parks Australia to support the development standardised monitoring approaches to inform their data-driven management of these marine parks. They need the information to answer questions such as what are the important natural values in the park, and which species, locations and platforms might support effective monitoring to detect changes in the condition of marine ecosystems.

The survey findings will also contribute to the development of a standardised, national monitoring system to support the evaluation of management effectiveness across the Australian Marine Park (AMP) Network, and the development of new network-level State of Marine Parks (StAMPs) reports to support an AMP management review.

The survey team will be interested to see the deeper, low-light, ‘mesophotic’ and rariphotic ecosystems. These ecosystems exist at 30–200 m depths and host a diversity of sponges, octocorals, and sea whips.

More information is available on the Marine and Coastal Hub website: https://www.nespmarinecoastal.edu.au/...