Dr. G. Allen breaks World Record Fish Diversity count!

Gerald R. Allen, Ph.D. is an internationally renowned authority on the classification and ecology of coral reef fishes of the Indo-Pacific region.

Known to friends as Gerry, he says he is “definitely old school” in his approach to science, spending more time in the field than behind a desk looking through a microscope.
Over a career spanning 40 years, he has accumulated more than 12 years on various expeditions to all the world’s tropical seas and has logged more than 8,000 hours of scuba diving. Dr. Allen has authored 33 books and more than 400 scientific publications.

He received a PhD in marine zoology from the University of Hawaii in 1971, studying the classification and biology of anemone-fishes as the subject of his thesis.
Dr. Allen served as Curator of Fishes at the Western Australian Museum for 25 years, retiring in 1998. He now works as a full time consultant for Conservation International conducting marine biological surveys, primarily in Southeast Asia. He still maintains a rigorous research program and is also an avid underwater photographer.

It was during one of the CI marine surveys in 2001 that Dr. Allen broke his record of fish diversity by counting 283 different species of fish during one dive. That dive was conducted in front of Sorido Bay Resort and added 80 species of fish during one dive to the previous record of 203.

Since Papua Diving was founded (1993) we have been working in the field of conservation. Before any other we worked on educating the local Papuan people about the importance of stewardship, protecting nature, harvesting instead of exploiting.

Last Friday 05/04/12 was a day we will long remember.
We asked Gerry who dives with us regularly if he would be willing to dive the 2001 record site (our house reef) again and count the fish diversity to find out how the reefs have withstand the 11 years passed.

We hoped our conservation efforts would show. They did, Dr. Allen dove along Cape Kri ending at our Sorido Bay Jetty. A 1,5 hour dive with about 30m visibility and no current. The count was conducted in a depth range from 2-42 m and delivered the stunning number of 374 different species.

A new WORLD RECORD count!


This means his former Cape Kri count got beaten be 91! species and proofs that the reefs around our resorts are the best in the Raja Ampat and that our efforts in actively protecting them for over 18 years pays off.

The latest number recorded by the CI (Conservation International) team are:

• 2209 Fish species in Indonesia
• 1656 Fish species for the Bird’s Head region
• 1459 Fish species in Raja Ampat

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