Simon J Pierce is a

marine biologist Marine biology is the scientific study of the biology of marine life, organisms in the sea. Given that in biology many scientific classification, phyla, family (biology), families and genera have some species that live in the sea and others th ...

and conservationist known for discovering, studying, and protecting large marine animals such as

whale shark The whale shark (''Rhincodon typus'') is a slow-moving, filter-feeding carpet shark and the largest known extant fish species. The largest confirmed individual had a length of .McClain CR, Balk MA, Benfield MC, Branch TA, Chen C, Cosgrove J, D ...

s and

manta ray Manta rays are large rays belonging to the genus ''Mobula'' (formerly its own genus ''Manta''). The larger species, '' M. birostris'', reaches in width, while the smaller, '' M. alfredi'', reaches . Both have triangular Pectoral fin#AnchPect ...

s. He is the co-founder and principal scientist of the

Marine Megafauna Foundation The Marine Megafauna Foundation (MMF) is a Marine biology, marine biology research and Conservation biology, conservation nonprofit known for discovering, researching, and protecting large marine animals including whale sharks, manta rays, sea t ...

. Pierce has developed several

non-invasive A medical procedure is defined as ''non-invasive'' when no break in the skin is created and there is no contact with the mucosa, or skin break, or internal body cavity beyond a natural or artificial body orifice. For example, deep palpation and pe ...

research techniques for endangered species, such as developing photo-identification with computer image analysis and artificial intelligence to track populations of whale sharks and other species of marine animal. These techniques have been incorporated into

Citizen Science Citizen science (CS) (similar to community science, crowd science, crowd-sourced science, civic science, participatory monitoring, or volunteer monitoring) is scientific research conducted with participation from the public (who are sometimes re ...

projects, including Sharkbook, the global shark monitoring database, as well as other MMF projects such as

Manta Matcher Manta Matcher is a global online database for manta rays. It is one of the Wildbook Web applications developed by Wild Me, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization in the United States, and was created in partnership with Andrea Marshall of the Mar ...

. He led the conservation assessment on whale sharks for the IUCN Red List in 2016, which resulted in the whale shark’s global protection through an Appendix I listing on the UN Convention on Migratory Species in 2017 and then led the firs
IUCN Green Status conservation assessment on whale sharks in 2021
Pierce is a

wildlife photographer Wildlife photography is a genre of photography concerned with documenting various forms of wildlife in their natural habitat. As well as requiring photography skills, wildlife photographers may need field craft, field craft skills. For example ...

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Pierce, Simon J Marine biologists Marine conservation Underwater photographers New Zealand scientists New Zealand biologists University of Queensland alumni Year of birth missing (living people) Living people