Paul Butcher

Since 2000, Pauls career has involved research into various components of the commercial and recreational fishing sectors, including the common themes and expertise I bring to the areas associated with teleost, elasmobranch and crustacean survival, welfare, age/growth, movement (tagging) and gear selectivity as well as marine parks (zoning, activity and visitor surveys, catch-and-effort data).

Paul is a Principal Research Scientist with the NSW Department of Primary Industries. Pauls career has included the successful development of expertise in the fields of gear testing (commercial and recreational fishing gears) and teleost, elasmobranch and crustacean survival, welfare, and movement (tagging).

Pauls current research program continues to involve a number of projects aimed at providing a scientific base for a bather protection program to minimise the risk of shark interactions/attack. The suite of projects includes (i) tagging and tracking technologies to provide knowledge about the spatial and temporal distribution of white, tiger and bull sharks, (ii) the development, testing and commercialisation of gears to catch (SMART drumline research), track (drone and satellite research and VR4G real time alerts from tagged sharks) or detect (eDNA) dangerous sharks in real time, (iii) determining the effective population size of white, tiger and bull sharks off Australia’s east coast, (iv) providing a scientific base for management options around stranded whale carcasses and (vi) testing personal protective devices such as wetsuits to minimise negative impacts of sharks bites.

Google scholar profile: http://scholar.google.com.au/citations?hl=en&user=s1yiJKIAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate