REEF is proud to announce Janet Eyre as our 2016 Volunteer for the Year. Janet has been a REEF member since 2002, and she is one of REEF’s most active surveyors. She is a Golden Hamlet member and to date has conducted 1,612 surveys (and counting!).

Janet spent her early years with REEF climbing the ranks of surveying in the Tropical Western Atlantic and Hawaii. In recent years, she has been instrumental in REEF’s expansion efforts to the tropical Pacific, including the South Pacific and Central Indo-Pacific regions. She is a Level 5 Expert Surveyor in all four of those regions. She has also conducted surveys in our Tropical Eastern Pacific region, and Janet participated in our REEF Expedition to the Azores Islands last summer to assist with our expansion to the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean. She has participated in 18 REEF Trips and several Advanced Assessment Team projects.

Janet’s expertise in tropical Pacific fish taxonomy rivals any academically-trained scientist. She has documented over 2,000 fish species in her REEF surveys, and 1,478 of those species have been in the tropical Pacific regions. She holds the record for the most fish seen on one REEF survey: 260 species in 73 minutes at the dive site “Edy's Black Forest” near Waigeo in Indonesia.

Janet volunteers countless hours helping REEF staff create new survey and training materials, and she assists with the error checking and quality control of topical Pacific surveys. She is looking forward to working with our staff on developing the next region for the Volunteer Fish Survey Project, the Indian Ocean and Red Sea.

Janet loves to find new-to-her species, which, after all the surveys in the different regions of the world, is getting harder and harder. She gets particular satisfaction finding undescribed species. In 2015 her quest for getting a fish named after her finally became a reality when she found an unidentified goby in Fiji. It was later described as Eviota eyreae, Eyre's Dwarfgoby.

Janet spends about 100 days a year diving (or traveling to dive). When she is home, she splits her time between San Francisco and Nantucket. We are so grateful for Janet’s enthusiasm and dedication to REEF and our mission. Janet - thank you and congratulations!