Fuvahmulah Thresher Project
A highly collaborative multi-year research effort to study and document Fuvahmulah's unique population of endangered pelagic thresher sharks (Alopias pelagicus).
Why the pelagic thresher?
A.pelagicus is currently listed as Endangered by the IUCN. Exhibiting K-selected life-history traits, threshers are particularly vulnerable to fisheries pressure. High post-release mortality rates combined with a high percentage of Alopiidae in global shark catches, have contributed to estimated population declines of 70–80% since 1950. Despite this, the ecology of pelagic threshers remains poorly understood, particularly in the Indian Ocean, limiting the development of effective regional management strategies. Given the proximity of Fuvahmulah to one of the world’s largest shark-fishing nations, addressing this knowledge gap represents a critical ecological and fisheries priority, as identified by the CMS Shark Advisory Committee.
Fuvahmulah represents a rare and critical opportunity to address these knowledge gaps, as it is the only documented location in the Indian Ocean supporting a population of pelagic thresher sharks that regularly engage in cleaning behaviour.
How we do our research
Deploying multiple 'Eyes-on-the-reef' camera systems across the Atoll in combination with environmental loggers, we've been able to collect fine-scale spatiotemporal data on the presence/ absence, behaviour and habitat use of our threshers. Our cameras are set on a time-delay setup, recording from dawn till dusk to collect the full dial visitations. These methods were originally created to capture oceanic manta rays, but, we have repurposed them for threshers! This data collection has been ongoing since 2021 and thus represents the largest continuous research effort the pelagic thresher across the whole Indian Ocean.
Our vast dataset is the result of years of collaboration between multiple parties, dive guides, NGO's, and local stakeholders.
Future work
Despite having an extensive dataset of over 3.9 million images, 1,400 hours of footage, and a slue of environmental metadata, there is still so much more to learn!
Thus far a majority of our work has revolved around data collection, but now with the creation of the FTP, we are dedicating much more time, effort, and energy to crunching the numbers and starting to answer some of these very important question regarding this animals ecology and conservation.
Currently we are working with out in-field scientists to try and turn this project into a PhD program, facilitating wider engagement with the global shark community.
Keep up to date
If you'd like to keep update to date and informed about the thresher research we are conducting go follow "@Fuvahmulahthresherproject" on Instagram. There we post monthly updates of thresher numbers around the island as well as some other interesting information!
We also post regular video's explaining some of the science in greater detail so everyone can learn about what we're doing here in Fuvahmulah.
