This is a project page for divers to add images of seadragons photographed at specific locations in South Australia.

Community-based seadragon research has been undertaken in South Australia since 1995. The Dragon Search program commenced in SA at that time, and later expanded to 4 other States, with the support of numerous government agencies, NGOs, and dive businesses.

Citizen-science based research and monitoring projects on seadragons remain active in SA, and across southern Australia. The SA projects are supported by natural resource management agencies within South Australian government.

During the original Dragon Search program, which ran for more than 10 years, thousands of sighting records were collected by divers, snorkelers and beachcombers across southern Australia. The data in the detailed forms were digitised and databased. From those records, more was learned about seadragon distribution across the full geographic range, relative abundance, behaviour, breeding, habitats, mass strandings and other aspects of the life history. The Appendix below provides more information.

Individual seadragons can be identified from facial patterns (Connolly and Melville 1998) and other features, and Dragon Search SA has developed a reliable set of visual markers, first used in our pilot project at Rapid Bay that began in 2013 and expanded in the ensuing decade. Individual seadragons have been recognised for around a decade, based on first and last sighting in our record set. The project also provides information about site association, breeding timing and frequency in individual animals, body damage to individual seadragons (including regrowth of "leaves"), movements between habitats, and other observations over time. A report summarising some of our results from 2013 to 2019 is available, and the 2020-2022 report is in progress.

Dragon Search SA's iNaturalist project started in 2019, and aims to expand upon the pilot project, and also add seadragon images from other locations in SA. Divers are able to add both historic and recent images to this project, so that individuals can be identified over space and time. Eventually, the project may expand to other States of Australia, and some project contributors in SA are now being trained in the method of seadragon ID, using the robust set of markers developed by Dragon Search.

It is hoped that the current project will also help to support our proposed "Adopt A Dragon's Lair" program in regional areas of South Australia, over the long term. Seadragon habitats are changing over time, and nearshore populations appear to have declined since the 1990s, Seadragon conservation programs, including habitat restoration projects, will become increasingly important during the 2020s and beyond.

For the current record-collations project on iNaturalist, specific coordinates of the image data will be available to the individual photographers; the project administrator (J. Baker, who worked on the original Dragon Search program in southern Australia for 10 years, managed the Rapid Bay seadragon ID project 2013-2018, and manages the current Dragon Search South Australia project), Green Adelaide, and the Hills & Fleurieu Landscape Board of SA - formerly known as Natural Resources Management - who have part-funded our community project to monitor the seadragon populations over time, at various locations.

The metadata associated with seadragon imagery from this project page will also be available to other projects with approval of individual divers, who retain full copyright of their images.

Relevant data will also be available upon request to quarantine authorities in Australia, who help to protect seadragon populations from poaching and illegal export.

Appendix: Examples of reports from the first decade of the Dragon Search program in southern Australia are provided below:

National data: https://www.academia.edu/3732344/Dragon_Search_-_Public_Report._Summary_of_National_Seadragon_Sighting_Data_1990_to_2005

South Australia: https://www.academia.edu/3732371/Dragon_Search_-_Public_Report._Summary_of_South_Australian_Sighting_Data_to_May_2005

Western Australia: https://www.academia.edu/3732363/Dragon_Search_-_Public_Report._Summary_of_Western_Australian_Sighting_Data_to_September_2002

Victoria: https://www.academia.edu/3732382/Dragon_Search_-_Public_Report._Summary_of_Victorian_Sighting_Data_to_April_2005

New South Wales: http://www.reefwatch.asn.au/dragonsearch/nswnov00/nswnov00.html

Tasmania: http://www.reefwatch.asn.au/dragonsearch/tasapr02/tasapr02.htm less ↑