The 18 month work contract, which is funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and CSIRO, will provide the first official reference of sharks and rays in Indonesia.

Mr White is recording the number of boats, techniques and the species compositions in five different landing sites between Jakarta and Bali.

As part of the program, Mr White is training local fisheries researchers about the biology of sharks and rays to continue the work after the project’s completion.

He is also collecting genetic samples and biological data, such as age, size compositions and reproductive biology of selected species in order to learn a about the sharks’ life cycles.

“Since April, the study has revealed some unusual specimens and more than 80 species of sharks and rays have already been identified,” said Mr White.

“This sampling may even reveal a number of new species.”

Mr White said catch rates and techniques seem to vary greatly between islands.

“Some fleets have 300 boats with up to 100 shark fishers, out at sea for anything from two days to four weeks and fishing in waters from ten metres to over 600 metres in depth,” said Mr White.

“Other fleets are smaller or more focused on other types of fishing.

“The different techniques result in the wide variety of species being harvested.”

Mr White said the genetic sampling could also highlight the distribution of certain shark species commonly found in Australia, particularly larger sharks that have wide-ranging territories in both countries’ waters.

The biological collected during the study will broaden the focus of his own research, where he is studying the biology of a shark and a ray species and the community structure of an embayment within the World Heritage Region of Shark Bay, Western Australia.