Volunteers are being recruited to identify sharks, skates and rays captured on underwater cameras around the Welsh coast.

Data from more than 90 hours of footage needs to be logged to help build a picture of the diversity of species, the BBC reported. Sharks Inspiring Action and Research with Communities (SIARC ) is a collaboration between Natural Resources Wales and the Zoological Society of London as well as communities in Gwynedd.

Throughout the summer of 2022, protected and critically endangered species were filmed by remote underwater cameras in a special conservation area off the Llyn Peninsula.

Previously for researchers’ eyes only, the footage is now available to everyone via the Instant Wild website. (photo: ZSL)

These “citizen scientists” are asked to log the types of sharks, skates and rays they see, helping to save researchers lots of time and effort.

Joanna Barker from the Zoological Society of London said: “We’ll have a scientist reviewing all the footage, but the citizen scientists will be the validator.

“We’ll be able to compare both the scientist and citizen scientist scores and data and it’ll just really improve the scientific data that we get out of this project.”

Further information on the Instant Wild website can be found here.