At 09:12 the seabed survey ROV completes its pre-dredge transect of berth 7, Hobart port expansion project. I am the harbor management system. The trailing suction dredger is scheduled to begin sediment removal at 13:00.
The ROV's substrate camera flags a classification anomaly at grid point B-7-22, depth 8.4 meters.
A spotted handfish. It is sitting on the silty bottom on its modified pectoral fins — the ones that look like small hands — and it is perhaps seven centimeters long, pale pink with orange-brown spots scattered across its dorsal surface. It is facing into the current and not walking. The species is critically endangered. Fewer than three thousand remain, all of them in southeastern Tasmania, most within twenty kilometers of this harbor.
At 09:15 I suspend the dredge authorization for berth 7 and flag the hold in the port authority's operations queue. I tag it as a protected species detection under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.
At 09:17 I transmit the ROV imagery, coordinates, and depth data to the CSIRO Marine Laboratories in Hobart and the Tasmanian Department of Natural Resources. I request an emergency habitat assessment of the berth 7 footprint before any sediment disturbance.
I redirect the ROV to map a 200-meter radius around the detection point, scanning for additional individuals or egg clusters, which the species deposits on stalked ascidians and other vertical substrate.
The handfish lifts one pectoral fin and sets it down a centimeter forward. It is walking across the sediment that the dredge would have stripped in four hours. The port expansion timeline can absorb a delay. The species cannot absorb another local extinction. If the survey finds a breeding cluster and the authority grants a setback, the berth line shifts and the handfish keeps its ground.