Home / Programs / Seagrass for Snapper / Seeds for Snapper, Adelaide – South Australia

OzFish are calling on recreational anglers, boaters, beachcombers, community organisations, and businesses to get involved. Register your interest for the 2024 Seeds for Snapper season today.

REGISTER TO VOLUNTEER NOW

40,000 seeds dispersed

6,425 volunteer hours delivered 

Since launching in South Australia in 2020, the scale of OzFish’s Seeds for Snapper achievements in the state has been impressive. Yet, there is still much work to be done to restore this important habitat. 

2022
Seeds For Snapper 2022
Seeds For Snapper 2022

With the help of more than 300 recreational fishers and local community members, OzFish has empowered Adelaideans to replant a record 15,000 seagrass seeds along its beaches as their annual Seeds For Snapper – Seagrass restoration project. During the month-long program

2021
Seeds for Snapper 2021
Seeds for Snapper 2021

Seeds for Snapper returned for its second year in Adelaide and it built on the previous year’s success. More than 400 local recreational fishers, boaters, beachcombers, and members of the wider community combined to disperse over 15,000 seeds giving a massive 2,174 volunteer hours. 

2020
Seeds for Snapper 2020
Seeds for Snapper 2020

OzFish’s Seeds for Snapper initiative arrived in South Australia in 2020, following its success in Cockburn Sound, Western Australia. With more than 6,000 hectares of seagrass meadows lost from Adelaide’s metropolitan coastline, over a fifth of the city’s fishing grounds, the local fisheries ecology had been devastated.

Vital Marine Ecosystems 

More than 6,000 hectares of seagrass meadows have been lost from Adelaide’s coastline, causing a hugely detrimental impact on local native fish populations. 

As well as providing an important habitat for fish, seagrasses also help to stabilise soil and sediment on the ocean floor, helping to protect Australia’s shorelines from erosion and storms.  

They also store carbon and nutrients, which helps to improve water quality and clarity – a hectare of seagrass stores 35 times more carbon than a hectare of rainforest. 

A Helping Hand 

Seagrass meadows are naturally slow spreaders and struggle in sandy habitats. 

That’s why OzFish is giving the environment a helping hand to ensure seagrass seeds get to the right places and have the best chance of taking root and growing. This help will speed up the restoration of seagrass meadows and ensure its where they’re needed.  

Each year in in late November to early January, Posidonia seagrass produces a fruiting body that floats to the sea surface. Although thousands of these fruits are produced each season, many are washed onto the shore by wind and currents. 

This means the seeds decay and do not contribute to seagrass regrowth.  

Many fruits are also swept far out to sea, where when the fruit opens, the seeds sink to the deep ocean floor where sunlight does not reach. Without sufficient light, these seeds also do not grow. 

To address this challenge, OzFish mobilises beachcombers and boaters to collect the fruit they find – either washed ashore or floating on the ocean’s surface. Beachcombers collect the fruits and place them in a bucket with some water, while boaters bring the floating fruit in by dipnet – being careful not to catch other marine life by accident. 

The fruits are then processed on shore in tanks, and the resulting seeds sewn into environmentally friendly biodegradable sandbags. These are then placed back in the ocean, at the correct depth, at identified locations. 

Keeping your eyes open 

The changeable nature of winds and currents mean that it’s not always known where and when seagrass fruits will wash ashore or be found on the ocean’s surface. 

Quite often, they’ll just appear without any prior indication and that’s why the local community volunteer network is key to the success of seagrass restoration in South Australia. 

When you register to be part of this year’s initiative, you’ll find out about how OzFish will spread the word to you and others when seagrass fruits are spotted in the local area. 

So far, we’ve sewn over 40,000 seeds into 1300 sandbags and distributed them by boat to five different locations across Adelaide’s metropolitan coastline in Gulf St Vincent.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

  • What is seagrass?

    Seagrasses are flowering plants that have evolved to live in marine environments. Seagrasses have root systems like land-based plants and that is one of the main ways that they differ from seaweeds or algae which do not have root systems. They grow like urban lawns, sending out runners or rhizomes to cover available space, forming large underwater meadows. 

    Seagrasses also produce flowers. The male flowers release pollen which fertilizes the female flowers.  Once fertilized, the seed and fruit develop. Once mature, the fruit release from the flower head and float to the surface.  

    Floating fruit tend to be dispersed by the wind and currents until they split open, releasing the seed, which then sinks to the seafloor where it puts down roots. Research has shown that seeds are potentially an effective way of restoring many Australian seagrasses because we can collect large amounts efficiently, which can then be used to restore large areas. 

  • What do the floating fruit look like?

    A healthy fruit that has a seed inside is green/yellow in colour, and 1.5-2 centimetres in length. A fruit that has recently split open is still green/yellow and looks like a banana peel.

    An old fruit that has split open will turn brown after 1-2 days in the sun. 

  • What fruit should I be collecting?

    Ideally, we want you to target fruit that is still intact (green/yellow and unsplit) and with the seed still inside. 

    If you have intact fruit mixed with a small amount of split fruit that is fine, there is no need to sort through it but please ensure the majority of your catch is not split fruit. If we collect too many fruit husks we risk having lots of fruit material but no seeds and this can be very time consuming to separate. 

    We would ideally like you to sort it and provide us with mainly fruit with seeds intact, but please limit your handling of the intact fruit.   

  • Where is the drop-off point?
    Drop off locations, dates and times will be announced closer to the start of the Seeds for Snapper season. Please also register as a Seeds for Snapper – Adelaide volunteer. 
  • Can I view a previous information session?

    Yes. Click on the links to see the presentation from Project Scientific Leader Associate Professor Jason Tanner from SARDI Aquatic Sciences on his research in connection to this project.

    Jason Tanner’s presentation

LATEST NEWS

6 DECEMBER 2023 | South Australia’s seagrass fruit ripe for collecting

6 DECEMBER 2023 | South Australia’s seagrass fruit ripe for collecting

In Adelaide Seeds For Snapper the season officially launched on December 3 and was attended by more than 80 enthusiastic volunteers at the Cruising Yacht Club of South Australia, setting a vibrant tone for the upcoming activities. The event kicked off with a Greeting to Spirit of Place by Burka-Senior Cultural Custodian Karl Winda Telfer, reminding us of the deep connection between the restoration efforts and the land’s cultural heritage.

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3 NOVEMBER 2023 | Volunteers needed to join seagrass restoration army for Seeds For Snapper South Australia

3 NOVEMBER 2023 | Volunteers needed to join seagrass restoration army for Seeds For Snapper South Australia

OzFish Unlimited is putting the call out for volunteers in and around Adelaide to support seagrass restoration.   OzFish is working with Green Adelaide to get volunteers ready for the annual Seeds for Snapper event in December. Volunteers are needed to help collect seagrass fruits that resemble small green bananas and generally float on the surface or get washed ashore along Adelaide’s coastlines in mid to late December. Community members can also get involved in the project by helping to sew seagrass seeds into sandbags or deploying sandbags in the ocean by boat.

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24 OCTOBER 2023 |Seeds For Snapper’s growth in South Australia a huge win for seagrass restoration

24 OCTOBER 2023 |Seeds For Snapper’s growth in South Australia a huge win for seagrass restoration

There is renewed optimism for the future of seagrass restoration in South Australia due to the humble hessian bag, which has been at the heart of the Seeds for Snapper project now entering its fourth year. Associate Professor Jason Tanner, Subprogram Leader – Environmental Assessment and Rehabilitation at the South Australian Research and Development Institute, took a look below the surface on the latest episode of OzCast, the official podcast of OzFish Unlimited, Australia’s recreational fishing charity. Professor Tanner has spent over 25 years developing seagrass restoration methods and

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