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NESP MB Project A10 - Conservation of handfish and their habitat

Created 23/06/2025

Updated 23/06/2025

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This record provides an overview of the scope and research output of NESP Marine Biodiversity Hub Project A10 - "Conservation of handfish and their habitat". For specific data outputs from this project, please see child records associated with this metadata.

Spotted and red handfish are critically endangered. Prior to 2019, this project commenced a scientifically robust monitoring program to track conservation trajectories and performance of recovery plan actions across all known sub-populations of Spotted Handfish. An innovative geo-reference photographic method provided both capture-mark-recapture information and sub-population fish densities as a proxy for abundance. Collecting this data was a crucial first step for a future project of targeted placement of artificial spawning habitat (ASH) and to determine minimum population size to inform sustainable capture of brood-stock for captive breeding. From 2019-2020, the project was extended to include Red Handfish. In accordance with the signed Handfish Recovery Plan, this project will conserve Red and Spotted Handfish through various direct conservation actions guided by research. This includes replanting of the degraded plastic artificial spawning habitats (ASH) with a re-designed array of ceramic units, assessment of taut eco-friendly moorings in critical spotted handfish habitat, genetic and capture mark recapture studies for both species, a population viability analysis (PVA) and performance assessment of management actions. The project will also continue a captive breeding project with industry, and engage with the broader community through talks, outreach and publications and re-establishment of the handfish recovery team.

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Additional Info

Field Value
Title NESP MB Project A10 - Conservation of handfish and their habitat
Language eng
Licence Not Specified
Landing Page https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/9a5bad19-a613-4a67-819d-4aa1159737ff
Contact Point
Australian Ocean Data Network
Tim.Lynch@csiro.au
Reference Period 01/03/2016 - 30/12/2016
Geospatial Coverage
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors
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  "type": "Polygon"
}
Data Portal Australian Oceans Data Network

Data Source

This dataset was originally found on Australian Oceans Data Network "NESP MB Project A10 - Conservation of handfish and their habitat". Please visit the source to access the original metadata of the dataset:
https://catalogue.aodn.org.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/csw/dataset/nesp-mb-project-a10-conservation-of-handfish-and-their-habitat