Holy Cow! Harry's book has been published.

As most project Journal readers know, I have been writing bio-blurbs of project participants for some time. To date we have featured almost 50 project participants over the years and will continue to do so. The Journal has also highlighted significant project discoveries, observation statistics, important project information and updates.

My New Year’s resolution for 2023 was to write a self-published book on the background of the Australasian Fishes Project and citizen science. I was successful in meeting my goal, by publishing on Amazon, Holy Cow! I am a Citizen Scientist. It is 197 pages of often humorous information about today’s Golden Age of Scientific Discovery, the role of citizen science in professional science and features bio blurbs of many familiar Australasian Fishes project members and contributors. Of course, there’s a bit of personal information about me, and the road I travelled to reach citizen science, with plenty of wrong turns, detours and flat tyres.

For any participants interested in how the project was envisioned and originally organised by Mark McGrouther and friends, this book will provide valuable insight into the early days of Australasian Fishes and its growth over time. The book contains numerous examples of information about development and achievements of Australasian Fishes to date and some possible directions I hope the project may take in the future.

Finally, the book provides insight and tips for those wanting to start up their own citizen science project, from lessons learned from watching Australasian Fishes grow and mature over time. It is a significant project we can all be extremely proud to help to support, and which I am proud to highlight in this book. In some ways, it is the story of all of us in the project. It has also served as the background to presentations I have made at local Sydney dive clubs, and I would be happy to present to any groups interested.

The book is available in paperback and Kindle versions and can be found at Holy Cow! I am a Citizen Scientist.

This journal post was written by Australasian Fishes member, Harry Rosenthal.