About Fenua FINdex
A conservation-technology project turning more than a decade of shark research in French Polynesia into a living, growing index of individual sharks.
What's in the name
In Tahitian, fenua means the land — home, the place you belong to. FINdex joins fin and index: a living catalogue of dorsal fins. Together: a homegrown index of the sharks that belong to these waters.
From nursery lagoons to a digital catalogue
Since 2013, the Physioshark program — led by Professor Jodie Rummer at James Cook University with long-term collaborators in French Polynesia — has studied newborn and juvenile blacktip reef sharks in the nursery lagoons of Mo'orea. Season after season, researchers have recorded, measured and photographed the island's youngest sharks.
Those years of work created something rare: an archive of annual photographic collections and field logs reaching back over a decade, including hundreds of sharks known since their first weeks of life.
Fenua FINdex is the next step. Published research has confirmed that each shark's dorsal-fin pigmentation is a reliable natural ID. By combining that archive, AI-assisted matching and observations from the community, the project aims to recognise individual sharks throughout their lives — no capture, no tags, just photographs.
The official project
“Fenua FINdex: Using digital ecology and citizen science to support blacktip reef shark conservation”
« Fenua Findex : Écologie numérique et sciences participatives au service de la protection du requin à pointes noires »
The project is supported by the IUCN BESTLIFE2030 programme (project FP-8040), co-funded by the European Union, and is developed by researchers at James Cook University and IREMP with long-term collaborators in French Polynesia.
The journey
Milestones
2013
Monitoring begins
Physioshark starts systematic monitoring of Mo'orea's blacktip reef shark nurseries.
2016
Photo archive
Annual photographic collections of juvenile sharks begin, building the future catalogue.
Published
Fin-ID validated
Peer-reviewed research confirms dorsal-fin patterns reliably identify individual blacktips — 928 sharks catalogued.
Funded
BESTLIFE2030 award
The IUCN BESTLIFE2030 programme backs Fenua FINdex (FP-8040), co-funded by the European Union.
Next
Platform launch
Data governance, the shark catalogue and the public sighting portal are in active development.
Part of the Physioshark program
Fenua FINdex is the citizen-science and digital-ecology arm of Physioshark — one of the world's longest-running studies of free-ranging blacktip reef sharks. It stands on Physioshark's field seasons, datasets and community relationships, while building a public-facing platform of its own.
Visit physioshark.orgWhere the project is now
Fenua FINdex is funded and in its build phase. The team is finalising research agreements, data governance and the technology platform. The public catalogue and online submission portal will follow — in the meantime, sightings are welcome by email.
Contribute a sighting