When the question, “And what do you?” comes up at parties, Hannah Fraser has one of the best answers going. As Hannah Mermaid, she has been performing as a professional mermaid for nearly 20 years. But far from being a novelty performer, she has used her passion for mermaids to highlight important environmental and ecological issues and is always in demand as a performer, underwater model, conservationist, speaker, and artist. She has appeared in Oscar-winning documentaries and free-dived with some of the world’s most incredible animals. She also offers tuition and retreats on how to be a pro mermaid.

Fraser was born in England but raised in Australia and America and is the daughter of Andy Fraser, best remembered as the bassist in legendary ‘70s rock band Free. His daughter, however, got into a very different form of expression after seeing the 1984 fantasy romcom, Splash, when she was nine years old. The film centres around a guy (a young Tom Hanks) who falls in love with a mermaid (Darryl Hannah). Fraser was enraptured and made her very first mermaid tail. It was the start of a love affair that has never wavered.

Fraser’s love of mermaids led to a deeper connection with marine life, and she eventually became a conservation activist, working with groups such as Greenpeace to highlight the dangers and horrors of overfishing, shark culling, and more besides. She appeared in the Grammy-winning eco-documentary The Cove and has free-dived with various species of sharks to raise awareness of the senselessness of culling them.