For one month every summer, a few hundred Victorians go diving with a pencil.
The Great Victorian Fish Count is the biggest citizen science event on this state's marine calendar, and the 2026 edition runs from Saturday 21 November to Sunday 20 December. That is about three and a half weeks away, which makes right now the ideal moment to sort out a slate, learn a handful of fish, and decide where you are going to dive.
The appeal is simple. You do a normal dive at a normal site. The only difference is that you write down what you see, and because you wrote it down, it becomes part of a dataset stretching back to 2002 that scientists actually use.
What It Actually Is
The count has been running since 2002, led by the Victorian National Parks Association through its ReefWatch program, in partnership with Museums Victoria, Parks Victoria, Coastcare Victoria, Redmap, dive operators and community groups.
The method is deliberately simple, because it has to work for hundreds of volunteers of wildly varying experience. You take a dive slate printed with illustrations of target species. You dive. You record how many of each you see. You note anything unusual that is not on the list. Afterwards the data is uploaded to the Atlas of Living Australia, where it joins two decades of comparable records.
That last part is what makes it worth doing. One person's count of fifteen scalyfin at Blairgowrie is a nice afternoon. Twenty years of counts from the same reefs, gathered the same way, is a record of how Victoria's fish communities are changing - which is exactly the kind of long-run baseline that is almost impossible to fund any other way.
What You Count
The survey targets 35 Victorian fish species, including 10 sharks and rays. These are not obscure specialists - they are the fish you already swim past. Scalyfin, morwong, leatherjackets, wrasse, Port Jackson sharks, banjo sharks, smooth rays.
The identification guides are the part worth downloading early. They illustrate male, female and juvenile variations, which matters more than beginners expect. Plenty of Victorian reef fish look like completely different animals depending on sex and age, and a diver who only knows the adult male form will undercount badly.
VNPA is candid about this being the hard part. Knowing a fish from a picture and recognising it in three metres of surge with a slate in one hand are different skills. They publish a Virtual Fish Count to practise against before you get in the water, and it is genuinely worth half an hour of your time.
Photography is encouraged. If you are unsure, shoot it and sort it out on the surface. A photographed record that gets confirmed later is far more useful than a confident guess.
You Do Not Need to Be a Scuba Diver
This is the most commonly missed point. Snorkellers count too, and in some ways they have the better end of the deal.
In the 2024 count, 38 coastal sites were surveyed at depths ranging from 2 to 35 metres. A great deal of Victoria's fish diversity lives in the shallow end of that range, over rocky reef, seagrass, sand and artificial structures like pier pylons. If you can snorkel comfortably at Ricketts Point, you can contribute real data.
There is also no formal training requirement. No course, no certification beyond whatever you already hold to get in the water safely. You need the ID guide, a slate, and a willingness to be honest about what you could not identify.
Where to Do It Around Melbourne
The count runs the length of the Victorian coast, but Melbourne divers are spoiled for accessible options.
- The piers. Rye, Blairgowrie and Portsea. Structure concentrates fish, depths are forgiving, and you can run a long, slow dive without burning gas. Blairgowrie in particular rewards slow observation.
- Flinders Pier. Western Port rather than Port Phillip, and the most reliable weedy seadragon site in the state. Different species mix to the Port Phillip piers, which makes it a valuable contribution rather than a duplicate.
- Ricketts Point. Shallow, snorkel-friendly, reachable on public transport, and holding an unreasonable number of species for somewhere twenty minutes from the CBD. Ornate cowfish, dragonets, scalyfin, morwong, Port Jackson sharks and banjo sharks all turn up.
- Jawbone and Point Cooke. Under-surveyed compared with the Peninsula, which makes records from here more valuable per dive. Point Cooke has seagrass threaded through rocky reef - good habitat variety in one dive.
- Mushroom Reef at Flinders. Considered the most diverse intertidal reef community in Victoria. Time it with a low tide.
All of these except the Peninsula piers sit inside marine sanctuaries, where fish are protected from fishing - so expect larger individuals and higher numbers than you would see on comparable unprotected reef. Our marine sanctuaries guide covers the access rules, which in short amount to: just turn up, no permit needed.
How to Join
There are two routes, and they suit different people.
Join an organised count. VNPA publishes a map of fish count dives happening around Victoria during the survey window, run by dive clubs, shops and community groups. This is the better option for a first count - you get briefed, you dive with people who know the species, and your data definitely makes it into the system. Dive shops around the Peninsula and Queenscliff typically schedule trips during the window.
Count independently. Download the ID guide, grab a slate, dive your own site, submit your data. Best for divers who already have a site they know well, and who would be in the water that weekend regardless.
For either route, the place to start is the ReefWatch page on the VNPA website, which carries the guides, the Virtual Fish Count and the dive map. If you would rather talk to a person, VNPA can be reached on 03 9341 6500.
Getting Useful Data Out of a Normal Dive
A few things separate a count that is worth submitting from one that is not.
- Go slower than feels natural. The instinct on a dive is to cover ground. Counting rewards the opposite. Most Victorian reef fish are cryptic, territorial and will let you pass without moving if you are not looking.
- Record zeroes. A species you looked for and did not find is data. Leaving it blank is ambiguous; writing zero is informative.
- Do not inflate the uncertain ones. If you are not sure whether it was a dusky or a red morwong, say so or photograph it. The dataset is more valuable honest than impressive.
- Note the conditions. Visibility and depth matter to how your count is interpreted. Two metres of visibility legitimately produces lower numbers, and that context is worth recording.
- Check visibility before you commit to the drive. Late November is when summer algal blooms start appearing in the bay, and a green-water day makes for a frustrating count. Our visibility guide covers how to read the conditions in advance.
Why Bother
Victoria's coastal waters are changing fast. The East Australian Current is pushing warm water further south, and species that had no business being here a few decades ago now turn up regularly. Kelp has retreated badly on some reefs. The Redmap project, one of the count's partners, exists specifically to track species appearing outside their historical range - and recreational divers are usually the ones who spot them first.
The count turns ordinary dives into evidence. You were going to be in the water in late November anyway. Taking a slate costs you nothing but a slightly slower dive, and the slower dive is usually the better one.
Dates and details can change. Check the ReefWatch page at vnpa.org.au for the current year's information before planning around it.