Peter is a conservation biologist with interests in marine and freshwater systems. He focuses on the collection of life history and ecological information to guide the management and conservation of biodiversity and assess population status and extinction risk. He has a background in fish biology, fisheries bycatch mitigation, and fish conservation, particularly in relation to the chondrichthyan fishes (sharks, batoids, and ghost sharks), from freshwater systems to the deep-sea. He has extensive experience in undertaking national, regional, and global extinction risk assessments for the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

Peter's current research in northern Australia focuses on the management and recovery of threatened species, in particular sawfishes and river sharks. He has delivered a number of projects under the Australian Government's National Environmental Research Program (NERP) and National Environmental Science Program (NESP) aimed at driving conservation action and policy. Globally, Peter is contributing to the IUCN Species Survival Commission Shark Specialist Group's Important Shark & Ray Area (ISRA) project.

Peter also has an interest in monitoring and managing threatened shorebird and terrestrial bird species.

Current HDR Supervision

Julia Constance (PhD; Charles Darwin University): Movement ecology of threatened river sharks (Primary Supervisor)

Adriana Gonzalez Pestana (PhD; Charles Darwin University): Marine protected areas for shark conservation: from Australia to the Latin American Pacific (Primary Supervisor)

Benaya Simeon (PhD; Charles Darwin University): Examining catches of threatened rhino rays in western Indonesia to inform conservation planning (Primary Supervisor)

David Drynan (PhD; Charles Darwin University): Technical measures to mitigate shark bycatch in commercial fishing gear, assessment of the effectiveness of time/area closures and Regional Fisheries Management Organisations (RFMO’s) in achieving shark bycatch reduction (Associate Supervisor)

Emily Taljaard (PhD; Charles Darwin University): Mitigating threatened species gillnet bycatch in northern Australia (Associate Supervisor)

Annmarie Fearing (PhD; University of Southern Mississippi): Assessment of genetic diversity in Largetooth Sawfish Pristis pristis (Associate Supervisor)

Bryan Huerta (Masters; University of Southern Mississippi): Molecular identificaton of guitarfishes sold as 'pez diablo' (Associate Supervisor)

Sam Amini (Honours; Charles Darwin University): Multi-marker insights into kinship in critically endangered largetooth sawfish (Pristis pristis) from the Daly River (Associate Supervisor)