The Friends of Beware Reef group held its first community event for 2025 last Saturday night at the Marlo Angling Club, with the theme being ‘Fabulous Fish’.
The evening explored some of the fish activity along the local coast and inside Beware Reef Marine Sanctuary with 72 people attending this informative evening.
Local diver Holly Baird of the friends group started the evening with a vivid photographic presentation of the common fish species found in the local marine environment, including the wrasse, morwong and leatherjacket families as well as other unique, quirky fish species including the enchanting weedy seadragon.
Mike Irvine from Parks Victoria delivered an excellent presentation, detailing how multiple agencies formed a response team and dealt with an entangled humpback whale off the East Gippsland coast last year.
Mike supported his talk with a great slideshow along with photos demonstrating on how they managed the entanglement based on simulated training and marine mammal expertise.
The multi-day mission resulted in the removal of more than one tonne of commercial fishing gear from the distressed whale.
The final presentation of the night was from Kent Stannard, the founder of White Tag and Tag for Life shark tagging programs.
Kent gave the audience a better understanding of the silent and often misunderstood world of the Great White Shark.
Using satellite and acoustic tagging to collect data over many years, Tag for Life has given an important insight to shark movements in Bass Strait and beyond, including locating key nursery grounds for this enigmatic species. Other fabulous facts explained in Kent’s presentation included details of transit routes of sharks in and around seal colonies and the use of DNA to determine two distinct populations to the east and west of Wilsons Promontory.
Children of all ages tested their knowledge in Friends member Jenny Allitt’s famed curiosity quiz.
Points were scored for identifying marine artefacts including a dolphin skull, shark egg cases, sea urchin tests, fish swim bladders and a whale vertebra.
Some hardened marine professionals were stumped by some of the items on display.
The Friends of Beware Reef thanked the Marlo Angling Club for sharing their iconic venue and manning the bar for the event and Coastcare Victoria for supporting them in sharing the marine world with the community.
There will be another community event coming in the autumn, showcasing the regions’ Incredible Invertebrates. Please keep an eye on the Friends of Beware Reef’s Facebook page for information regarding this event.
