Communities are recruiting volunteers to help identify rays, skates, and sharks seen through underwater cameras on Wales' coast. According to the BBC, there is a need to log information generated from 90 hours' worth of footage to develop a comprehensive picture of the species' diversity.
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The SIARC Project
The SIARC, which stands for Sharks Inspiring Action and Research with Communities, is a collaborative project shared by the Natural Resources Wales, Zoological Society of London, and other Gwynedd communities.
According to Yahoo! News, critically endangered and protected creatures were caught on camera by remote underwater devices in a particular conservation site in the Llyn Peninsula. This took place throughout the summer of the year 2022.
While the footage used to be strictly for the researchers' viewing, it can not be accessed by anyone through Instant Wild.
The said "citizen scientists" are requested to document the observed shark, ray, and skate types. This, in turn, reduces the effort and time shelled by the researchers.
Joanna Barker of the Zoological Society of London mentions how a scientist will check the entire footage. However, citizen scientists will serve as validators.
This way, they can compare scores between citizen scientists and the scientists. This will, in turn, boost the scientific findings of the project.
Jakes Davies is the SIARC's project coordinator. He grew up in the Llyn Peninsula and helped set up underwater cameras.
With help from fishing crews, Davies got to find the liveliest areas. Thanks to the footage, a previously unknown world got seen.
Davies notes that whenever they mention that they are studying sharks, several are surprised by how sharks dwell on Wales' coast. The said place, however, indeed hosts over 25 various species of shark. It holds one of the world's rarest sharks, the angel shark, and one of the largest, the basking shark.
Be it intrigued by conger eels or crabs that tussle along with sharks, the SIARC has delivered remarkable sights to the general public. With the project, researchers how to generate a vivid scenery of the life brewing under the sea.
A Volunteer's Marine Spirit
One of the volunteers, Matt Thompson, has been documenting wildlife through the Instant Wild app for a decade now. He notes his desire to spot an angel shark, which is what the project is about, as such species are rare. He expresses how he will be surprised to spot one and how he will be excited to spot a basking shark.
He also notes that there are still other things to see that can maintain interest. Any ray, skate, or shark spotted in the footage is bound to be intriguing.
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