Vic Peddemors

Dr Vic Peddemors leads the Shark Research Group for the New South Wales Department of Primary Industry, providing scientific leadership for the group’s research and advisory effort.
Vic has over 25 years scientific research experience in Antarctica, Australia, England, Holland, Mozambique and South Africa. His research interests cover a wide range of marine apex predators, but have inevitably had an over-riding theme of ensuring human impacts on their populations are sustainable. At the NSW DPI, Vic is also responsible for the scientific component of investigating and managing shark attack and mitigation of these traumatic events. In this role, he has participated in the updating and development of the NSW Shark Incident Response Plan and liaises between the various agencies when investigating shark attacks in New South Wales waters.
During the course of his career, Vic has pioneered the use of technological advances in his shark research, whether it be through software development for photo-identification of individual sharks, testing of the world’s first electronic shark repellent, the potential use of magnets to reduce shark bycatch in fisheries, or the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) in marine wildlife surveys. His experiences have highlighted the requirement to ‘think outside of the box’ when it comes to developing new strategies in dealing with human-shark interactions, whether it be in protecting humans from sharks or sharks from humans.