AFTER vigorous participation by environmentalists and volunteer divers, the Montego Bay Marine Park’s annual fish count was completed last week.

The activities began on Friday, July 19, with an educational seminar.

“What we’ll do is a pre-test, which means, people take a little test to see how many fish they know. Then, we’ll go through the ‘how to identify fish’ course, (followed by) a test,” explained the Montego Bay Marine Park’s science officer, Andrew Ross, before activities got underway.

The western city’s Marine Park has been counting its fish population for the last four years, but the activity has been taking place in other parts of the island well before that.

Developed by the Reef Environmental Education Foundation (REEF) in 1992, the Great Annual Fish Count began when marine biologists and environmentalists saw the need to raise awareness among the diving community and the wider public about marine habitats, while monitoring trends in fish development.

“Basically, they wanted a way of tallying fish, (a way of) getting scientifically valid information (while giving) an opportunity (to recreational scuba divers) to do something,” Ross said.

After meeting initial resistance from the scientific community, he added, REEF found a way around the problem.

“(REEF) devised a method whereby you can use recreational scuba divers to give you valid information of fish populations in a given area,” the science officer explained.

Under REEF, volunteer divers and persons who snorkel, are trained annually to identify and document fish diversity and population trends in marine sanctuaries and coastal waters.

The data is collected using an easy, standardised method called the Roving Diver Technique. Aside from the ability to scuba dive, the only other tools necessary for this exercise are an underwater slate and a pencil.

And although he said the process is quite easy, Ross emphasised that volunteers “need to already know how to be a scuba diver.” This is because the activity is available only to divers who have a minimum of 10 logged dives, or have dived at least three times with a local instructor/dive-master over the last six months, with an unlogged claim of 10 dives or more.

The information gained from this year’s fish count in the western city’s waters, will be first tallied by the Montego Bay Marine Park, and then sent to the base. There, it will be fed into a computer with all the other counts from around the world.

An enthusiastic Ross pointed out that one advantage of the activity is its ability to give the trends in fish sanctuaries.

“I can look and say, ‘well, we found this many of this type of fish last year, but we found this kind of fish this year.’ That means this is happening or this might be happening or there is possibly something problematic going on,” he said.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Great Annual Fish Count.