How Citizen Science Can Set Your Dive Shop Apart by Tom Sparke

May 2026 Table of Contents
category: Business EDU (3 min read)

Every July, dive shops worldwide join REEF’s Volunteer Fish Survey Project, the citizen-science program behind one of the world’s largest marine-life databases.

by Tom Sparke, Communications Manager, Reef Environmental Education Foundation, FL

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THE OCEAN IS CHANGING faster than science can keep up. Species are shifting their ranges, populations are crashing in one bay and rebounding in another, and invasives are turning up where no one expected them. The people best positioned to notice, the eyes in the water, week after week, aren’t biologists. They’re divers and snorkelers. They’re your customers.

That is the simple, powerful idea behind the Great Annual Fish Count (GAFC).

Every July, dive shops worldwide join REEF’s Volunteer Fish Survey Project, the citizen-science program behind one of the world’s largest marine-life databases. Founded in 1993 by Ned DeLoach and the late Paul Humann, authors of the REEF Identification Books, the project has logged over 320,000 surveys from 17,000+ divers at nearly 18,000 sites from the Florida Keys to Pacific Northwest, Indonesia to Malta. The data inform state and federal agencies, marine park managers, and university researchers – all collected by everyday divers with a slate and a pencil.

For a dive shop, that’s a chance to place your charters and classes inside a much bigger story.

Why Host a GAFC Event?

Today’s diver wants more than a tour. A 2025 study estimated that roughly 70% of the world’s recreational scuba dives now take place within marine protected areas – a strong signal that divers actively seek out sites with a conservation story to tell.

Hosting a GAFC event, whether it’s a fish ID seminar, a group survey dive, or both, gives your operation an honest answer to a simple way for divers to give back to the ocean. In addition, surveyors come back eager to learn more, to compare lifelists, log new sites, and chase species they haven’t recorded yet. They become regulars who refer friends and treat your operation as more than a service.

For instructors and divemasters, the GAFC is a natural way to keep newly certified divers engaged. Once they learn the survey method, every dive becomes more interesting.

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That story plays well beyond your customer base. Local newspapers and visitor bureaus reliably cover GAFC events because the angle is genuine: real divers, real data, real fish. A single July event can introduce your shop to audiences traditional marketing rarely reaches.

Simple to Organize

You don’t need a marine biologist on staff. REEF provides online classroom materials, regional waterproof ID cards, underwater survey paper, and starter kits – plus free on-demand training through our Fishinar webinars. The method is simple: identify every species you see, assign one of four abundance categories, and submit when you get home. New surveyors are welcome from day one.

A typical GAFC event is an ID class followed by a group survey dive, but you can run just one or add a social component like a post-dive BBQ. Once you register, REEF will list your shop on REEF.org and share it through our network. The GAFC happens each July, but REEF surveys can be done anytime, anywhere.

The reefs your customers love are changing. The Volunteer Fish Survey Project gives them a slate, a pencil, and a way to be part of the record. The Great Annual Fish Count is where it begins.

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