Ep 51 Inside the Hammerhead Shark Mystery | Dr Naima Andrea Lopez

Dr Naima Andrea López is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Marine Futures Lab at The University of Western Australia and a shark researcher specialising in the ecology and conservation of hammerhead sharks. Her research led to the identification of Australia’s southernmost known recurrent aggregation of critically endangered scalloped hammerhead sharks, found remarkably far south in Perth’s metropolitan waters. Using drones as a non-invasive way to study these animals, Andrea has spent years investigating when they arrive, why they gather and what their presence in southern waters could tell us about a changing ocean. She also leads Hammerhead Hub, a citizen science initiative connecting fishers, divers, drone pilots and other ocean users directly with hammerhead shark research.

In Episode 51 of Paramount Importance, Kurt Krispyn sits down with Andrea to explore the remarkable biology and conservation of hammerhead sharks. They discuss why hammerheads evolved their distinctive head shape, how scalloped hammerheads can dive beyond 1,000 metres and effectively “free dive” into cold, deep water, and why groups of juvenile scalloped hammerheads are now repeatedly aggregating off Perth.

Andrea also explains the evidence behind their southward range shift, why these coastal aggregation sites may be important for the species, and why numbers at known locations appear to be declining. The conversation explores fishing pressure, marine protected areas, gaps in species-specific catch data, the ecological role of large sharks, and the striking reality that scalloped hammerheads are critically endangered globally yet can still legally be caught in Western Australia.