Citizen science PIT tagging in the Murray–Darling Basin

This report presents the outcomes of a pilot citizen science initiative designed to assess the feasibility and value of involving community members, particularly recreational anglers and First Nations groups, in Passive Integrated Transponder (PIT) fish tagging across the Murray–Darling Basin (MDB).

The project had four specific objectives;
1. Establish a collaborative project framework by defining roles and responsibilities among key partners, including research institutions, community organisations, and technical providers.
2. Identify and engage targeted community groups to co-design and participate in training workshops that introduce fish tagging techniques and ecological monitoring.
3. Develop and deliver structured pilot community workshops to test training methods for ethical and accurate PIT tagging and data collection and assess volunteer participation.
4. Identify key benefits and challenges of involving citizen scientists in PIT tagging and evaluate the pilot program’s outcomes and scalability.

Three structured training workshops were conducted in Deniliquin, Mildura, and Swan Hill. These sessions demonstrated strong community interest and engagement in river management activities and scientific research with collaboration across partner organisations CSU, OzFish and Karltek. Workshop participants successfully practiced PIT tagging techniques, with tagging accuracy exceeding 85% on first attempts and improving over time.

Community interest in fisheries research within the Murray–Darling Basin (MDB) was strong, with workshops showing that structured training, local engagement, and visible outcomes can enable meaningful citizen science participation. A key outcome was recognising that community members are important local knowledge holders, capable of identifying region-specific fisheries and river issues suitable for citizen-led research. Effective engagement should begin by listening to community priorities and working collaboratively with scientists to co-design solutions. While PIT tagging may interest some communities, it must be balanced against other locally identified priorities such as water quality monitoring, fish habitat restoration, and invasive species management. Establishing partnerships, both within project teams (e.g., OzFish, CSU, Karltek) and with communities, was a strength of this initiative and could be built upon to generate locally relevant research ideas.

Citizen science may strengthen PIT tagging activities in the MDB by expanding data coverage (through more tagged fish) and integrating local knowledge. Long-term success depends on addressing sustained participation, training and overcoming regulatory permitting challenges, while broader rollout across the MDB will require co-ordination, consistent funding, operational PIT infrastructure and consistent government support. CSU is developing a scientific paper using a mathematical model to evaluate tagging scenarios, incorporating angler interest, tagging accuracy, workshop outcomes, and environmental insights from existing government and research-led projects to guide future efforts.