WEBVTT - From the Vault: Sharks Don't Sink, with Jasmin Graham 0:00:06.120 --> 0:00:08.000 Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My 0:00:08.119 --> 0:00:10.560 name is Robert Lamb. We're out this week, so we 0:00:10.600 --> 0:00:12.920 have a vault episode for you. This is going to 0:00:12.920 --> 0:00:16.400 be Sharks Don't Sink with Jasmine Graham. This was an 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:20.319 interview episode that originally published seven sixteen, twenty twenty four. 0:00:20.760 --> 0:00:22.360 It's a fun chat. Let's jump right in. 0:00:26.040 --> 0:00:29.760 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:35.800 --> 0:00:37.400 Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:40.000 name is Robert Lamb, and this episode of Stuff to 0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:43.520 Blow Your Mind, we're going to be chatting with Jasmine Graham, 0:00:43.560 --> 0:00:48.400 a shark scientist and author of Sharks Don't Sink. This 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:50.560 is a great book and it is out right now 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:54.200 in all formats. So I encourage you if this interview 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:57.760 grabs you, if the subject matter grabs you, especially if 0:00:57.760 --> 0:01:01.160 you're interested in sharks. This is only some great summer 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:04.040 reading for you, so pick up a copy, especially if 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:05.840 you are going to go out to the beach or 0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:09.760 in any way experience the ocean this year. So without 0:01:09.760 --> 0:01:15.679 further ado, let's dive right in. Hi, Jasmine, welcome to 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:16.000 the show. 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:18.120 Thanks for having me. 0:01:18.640 --> 0:01:21.680 The new book Sharks Don't Sink Adventures of a Rogue 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:25.560 Sharks Scientist is out now in digital, physical, and audio formats. 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:29.360 I really enjoyed it. It's a science book about sharks, 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:32.960 but it's also a social advocacy book and a personal memoir. 0:01:33.280 --> 0:01:35.400 So I wanted to ask you. I'm going to ask 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:37.560 you about all of these aspects, but I guess the 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:41.319 best place to start is the simple question, how'd you 0:01:41.400 --> 0:01:43.399 become interested in shark biology? 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:47.280 I was always very interested in the ocean, and I 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:50.280 grew up fishing with my dad and come from a 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:53.360 fishing family, and so the ocean is always part of me. 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:56.840 I didn't really think much about sharks. I wasn't one 0:01:56.880 --> 0:01:59.480 of those people that was afraid of them. I wasn't 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:01.920 super obsessed with them as a kid. They were kind 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:05.680 of just animals that existed. But whenever I was in 0:02:05.760 --> 0:02:09.440 college working on my marine biology degree, I met a 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:13.160 professor who studied sharks, and I started talking with him 0:02:13.280 --> 0:02:15.920 and doing some research with him, and they kind of 0:02:15.919 --> 0:02:18.240 fell in love with sharks. I did a lot of 0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:22.080 different marine science research while I was an undergrad, but 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:24.400 I just kept coming back to sharks because I just 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:27.680 think they're so cool. They've been here so long, they 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:31.440 have such neat adaptations, and I've always been someone that 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:35.200 roots for the underdog, and they're very misunderstood, so I've 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:36.679 always enjoyed working with them. 0:02:37.200 --> 0:02:40.519 Now, in the book, you discussed the challenges and limitations 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:43.160 of the academic world. I think a lot of us 0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:46.400 outside of academia only have like a surface level understanding 0:02:46.400 --> 0:02:50.920 of things like publish or perish, and so I might 0:02:50.960 --> 0:02:53.320 ask you to discuss that a little bit for everyone. 0:02:53.320 --> 0:02:56.320 But also, you know, I think it's easy for us 0:02:56.320 --> 0:02:59.400 outsiders to think about science and research as being well, okay, 0:02:59.400 --> 0:03:02.639 this is like a your logical thing, and we let 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:05.359 ourselves forget that we have all these issues of politics 0:03:05.400 --> 0:03:08.560 and discrimination very much in play in that world as well. 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:13.239 What are the challenges facing up and coming research scientists 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:15.040 and scientists of color in particular. 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:19.600 Yeah, it's interesting that you point out this perception that 0:03:19.680 --> 0:03:23.640 science is objective and without bias, and that's how science 0:03:23.680 --> 0:03:26.520 should be in its purest form. But obviously science is 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:30.200 conducted by human beings, and human beings all have biases, 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:36.160 we have flaws, we're illogical sometimes, and so I think 0:03:36.160 --> 0:03:40.160 it's really hard for people in the science field, not 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:42.080 just people outside of the science field, but even people 0:03:42.080 --> 0:03:45.080 in the science field to come to terms with that 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:49.400 that this area of research that we do, you know, 0:03:49.440 --> 0:03:51.680 we do the scientific method and all of that, and 0:03:51.720 --> 0:03:54.240 we like to think of ourselves as being objective. It's 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:57.560 really hard for us to admit that our biases come 0:03:57.600 --> 0:04:02.080 into play in our scientific research. But that's something that 0:04:02.120 --> 0:04:06.000 we have to deal with because we've seen science be 0:04:06.160 --> 0:04:09.720 used for some really terrible things. We've seen science be 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:12.960 used as an excuse for genocide, We've seen science create 0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:17.200 atomic bombs, We've seen science do all sorts of really 0:04:17.400 --> 0:04:21.840 not great things, and so we have to recognize that 0:04:22.360 --> 0:04:26.200 we have this responsibility as scientists to try to be objective, 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:31.600 but recognize that we are not entirely objective, and so 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:34.440 we have to be critical of how we think, how 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:37.200 we interact with each other, and all of those things. 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:42.760 Everything to who gets to present to a scientific conference, 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:45.760 or who gets to work in somebody's lab, or who's 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:49.680 invited to speak at this university, all of that has 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:52.599 bias associated with it, and so we have to work 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:57.159 really hard to be responsive to that. What that looks 0:04:57.200 --> 0:05:00.640 like in terms of scientists from marginalized communities, it often 0:05:00.680 --> 0:05:05.520 looks like not getting as much mentorship opportunities. It looks 0:05:05.640 --> 0:05:09.800 like not being in the club. You know, there's like 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:13.120 a there's a clear these are the cool people in science, 0:05:13.160 --> 0:05:14.880 and we all hang out together and we all talk, 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:19.279 and then there's outside ring of people trying to get 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:23.760 into the cool club, into the inner circle, as it will. 0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:27.400 And so those in the inner circle have to be 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:30.080 really mindful of those who are outside the circle trying 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:32.960 to get in and making sure that they're accessible pathways 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:36.600 to that. Because science and academia the way that it's 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:39.960 set up, has a lot of potential for gatekeepers to 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:46.160 solely decide who gets accepted into a PhD program, who 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:50.320 gets published. We have this idea of peer review, which 0:05:50.360 --> 0:05:54.040 is really great if you assume that your peers are 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:58.600 objective and going to be fair and just. And yes, 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:00.800 there are a lot of people that give fair reviews, 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:03.560 but there's a lot of people whose reviews are biased. 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:08.880 They see somebody's name and they say, I don't know 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:13.200 that I trust that person just based off of their name. 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:15.880 If it's a name that sounds feminine, if it's a 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:20.599 name that sounds quote unquote foreign. You know, I've had 0:06:20.640 --> 0:06:24.360 people that are in different countries trying to publish work, 0:06:24.440 --> 0:06:26.440 and they complain a lot of times that they get 0:06:26.560 --> 0:06:30.760 really unfair peer reviews that basically imply that because they 0:06:30.760 --> 0:06:33.000 are from a country in the global South, their science 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:37.320 isn't as credible as somebody from Europe or North America, 0:06:37.839 --> 0:06:40.960 and so that's something that we struggle with. So those 0:06:40.960 --> 0:06:44.400 are just a few examples, but there's lots of areas 0:06:44.440 --> 0:06:47.080 where biased can creep in, and because we like to 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:49.960 think of ourselves as objective, sometimes we choose to ignore 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:52.080 those things and kind of stick our head in the sand. 0:06:52.480 --> 0:06:55.320 But we have to really confront it in order to 0:06:55.440 --> 0:07:00.080 make sure that science is actually objective and equitable. 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:04.120 And us thank you for walking us through that. Could 0:07:04.120 --> 0:07:07.120 you talk a little bit about Minorities in Shark Sciences 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:10.720 or miss how this came together, what sort of work 0:07:10.720 --> 0:07:12.360 it's doing, and where you'd like it to go in 0:07:12.400 --> 0:07:12.840 the future. 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:18.880 Minorities in Shark Sciences is four years old. So we 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:22.240 were founded in June of twenty twenty. We actually met 0:07:22.280 --> 0:07:25.320 each other on Twitter, me and the other three co founders, 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:28.600 and we really wanted to create a sense of community. 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:30.840 That's what it started out as. We want to create 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:33.720 a sense of community where people feel like they belong 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:36.680 in science, where people are able to build their science 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:40.960 identity in a place where they feel that the rest 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:43.280 of their identity can come along and they don't have 0:07:43.320 --> 0:07:45.840 to leave it at the door in order to be accepted. 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:50.280 And so that's sort of where minorities and shark sciences 0:07:50.720 --> 0:07:55.400 came from. Since then, it's grown to be so much 0:07:55.440 --> 0:08:00.320 more than just community. It's grown to be this sort 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:04.240 of wave of change in marine science and shark science 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:09.120 in particular, where we were astounded at how many people 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:13.120 you did an open call of who is trying to 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:16.240 get into shark research or marine science and feels like 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:19.880 they are the first or the only person like them 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:23.880 in the room, come and join us, and five hundred 0:08:23.920 --> 0:08:28.000 people responded. That's a lot of people. And so having 0:08:28.080 --> 0:08:31.880 this movement build of Okay, now we have a responsibility 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:34.360 to all of these people who are sharing their stories, 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:39.280 who are pointing out these issues, who want support in 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:45.000 their universities, in their academic institutions, in their organizations to 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:48.440 bring these issues to the forefront, because what we found 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:51.520 is that a lot of people have been experiencing these 0:08:51.559 --> 0:08:55.240 things and have been trying to draw attention to them individually, 0:08:55.840 --> 0:08:59.760 and it's a lot of oh, I think you're imagining 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:03.760 that they maybe don't mean that, you know, all of 0:09:03.800 --> 0:09:06.320 these sort of but but but but butt and so 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:08.920 that could be really frustrating to have people not believe 0:09:09.000 --> 0:09:14.319 you whenever you're trying to address something. But you can 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:17.800 ignore one person, you can maybe ignore two people, ignoring 0:09:17.880 --> 0:09:20.800 five hundred people saying the same thing. That's really hard 0:09:20.840 --> 0:09:23.240 to do. You got to stick your head pretty far 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:25.880 in that sand. And so that's sort of what this 0:09:26.000 --> 0:09:30.160 movement has become is giving voice to people who haven't 0:09:30.480 --> 0:09:35.000 been able to have their voices amplified before. Doing cutting 0:09:35.080 --> 0:09:38.480 edge research and making sure to elevate people who are 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:43.800 doing research that maybe wasn't being respected before and being 0:09:43.840 --> 0:09:46.760 able to amplify that work and bring attention to it 0:09:46.840 --> 0:09:51.000 with this collective power that Myths Is an organization has built, 0:09:51.600 --> 0:09:54.080 and then also getting to bring more people into the fold, 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:56.720 making sure that more people get into that inner circle, 0:09:57.280 --> 0:10:01.440 providing the mentorship experiences. So we do mentorship experiences, we 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:05.040 do professional development workshops, We help people build skills, all 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:07.320 of these sorts of skills that you don't learn in school, 0:10:07.360 --> 0:10:09.719 but people expect you to magically know how to do 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:15.000 and then also getting internships and fellowships and things like that, 0:10:15.679 --> 0:10:19.120 while eliminating the financial barrier associated with that, because that's 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:21.440 been a huge problem in the past. Is this pay 0:10:21.480 --> 0:10:24.440 to play where you have to pay someone to go 0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:27.560 work for them, which exists in marine science and is 0:10:27.640 --> 0:10:31.920 super common. But if you went to pretty much any 0:10:32.000 --> 0:10:36.480 other field of career, if you say, wanted to go 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:40.320 intern at Google, it would be absurd for you to 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:43.120 pay to intern at Google. Google would pay you to 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:47.040 intern at Google. But in marine science, for reasons, lots 0:10:47.040 --> 0:10:50.640 of reasons, it's flipped where the expectation is you're going 0:10:50.720 --> 0:10:52.439 to pay for this, and so that makes it really 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:56.480 hard for people to access those experiences. But they need 0:10:56.520 --> 0:10:58.760 those experiences to get the job, to get in that 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:02.199 inner circle, to meet those people, and so MISS is 0:11:02.240 --> 0:11:06.240 all about eliminating those barriers introducing young people to marine 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:09.720 science and the ocean early on. We serve what we 0:11:09.800 --> 0:11:14.040 call Kada gray, So we're really interested in bringing everyone 0:11:14.120 --> 0:11:17.160 in and making everyone feel connected, whether that means they 0:11:17.200 --> 0:11:19.960 want to be a scientist or they want to just 0:11:20.040 --> 0:11:23.520 advocate in their everyday lives. We want to make sure 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:26.640 that people have access to the information about what's going 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:29.400 on in our ocean ecosystems because it affects all of us. 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:33.640 That's awesome. Now, getting I guess more into sharks again. 0:11:34.720 --> 0:11:36.880 You spend a great deal of the book discussing the 0:11:36.880 --> 0:11:40.040 elegance of sharks, you know, from broad strokes about their 0:11:40.040 --> 0:11:45.559 appearance and evolution, to biological specifics and species level details. 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:48.360 You know, I'm not going to ask you to go 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:50.920 through all of that here. I encourage listeners to go 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:54.480 check out the book, But in brief, why are sharks 0:11:54.520 --> 0:11:57.200 such an evolutionary success story? Why have they done so 0:11:57.360 --> 0:11:59.640 well and why have they changed so little? 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:04.160 That's a great question and something that we as evolutionary 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:07.720 biologists are really interested in, and we don't have all 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:12.760 the answers. But something that's really unique about sharks is 0:12:12.880 --> 0:12:16.160 that they've been around on this planet a really long time. 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:18.480 And when I say a really long time, I mean 0:12:18.760 --> 0:12:23.120 before the dinosaurs, before we had trees, before Saturn had 0:12:23.120 --> 0:12:26.240 its rings. This we're talking four hundred million years of time, 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:28.400 which I think is really hard for us to grasp 0:12:28.400 --> 0:12:30.440 as human beings who have been on this planet for 0:12:30.480 --> 0:12:34.320 a blink of an eye. But they've been here and 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:39.720 pretty much not changing that much. The same basic body plan, 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:45.679 same basic in the time that dinosaurs became chickens. Because 0:12:46.040 --> 0:12:49.560 closest relative to dinosaurs a chicken, it's pretty wild to 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:51.520 think that sharks kind of looked the same and we 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:53.960 went from a dinosaur to a chicken and that same 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:58.800 amount of time, and so it's it's really cool, but 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:02.840 it's also something that makes it really alarming when we 0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:05.560 think about losing them at the rate that we're losing them. 0:13:06.080 --> 0:13:10.679 So they've survived every mass extinction event thus far, supervolcanoes, 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:15.719 meteor showers, you know, all of these ice ages, all 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:20.560 of these things that other organisms didn't survive, they survived. 0:13:20.920 --> 0:13:24.480 But we're in the sixth mass extinction that's driven by people, 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:28.199 and they're dying an alarming rate, which we should all 0:13:28.240 --> 0:13:31.360 be concerned about because we don't know what the world 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:34.320 looks like without sharks. Sharks have been here so long 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:37.680 that we don't even know what happens to an ecosystem 0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:41.360 when they're not there. We have no idea what the 0:13:41.400 --> 0:13:45.840 consequences of that are. And it's also really upsetting to 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:49.120 think that we as a species are more damaging to 0:13:49.200 --> 0:13:54.960 the marine environment than supervolcanoes and meteor showers. That's pretty bad, 0:13:55.240 --> 0:13:59.200 and we need to start thinking about how we live sustainably. 0:13:59.280 --> 0:14:04.480 How do we coexist with all of these creatures that 0:14:04.559 --> 0:14:07.120 are here inhabiting the planet right now, because we just 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:11.439 got here and we might not last very long if 0:14:11.440 --> 0:14:13.960 we keep going the way that we're going. And so 0:14:14.160 --> 0:14:17.760 that's something that I think is really important to think about. 0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:22.160 And sharks have all of these really cool adaptations that 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:25.440 we can really learn from. I mean, Michael Phelps had 0:14:25.480 --> 0:14:30.520 a whole swimsuit designs like the skin of sharks, and 0:14:30.560 --> 0:14:34.680 it was actually so effective that they banded in the Olympics. Like, 0:14:35.120 --> 0:14:38.560 just by copying how a shark's skin is designed, you 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:41.160 increased your speed so much that it was banned at 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:46.280 the Olympics. That's wild. Like nature has some really cool 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:49.240 ways of figuring out how to solve problems, and sharks 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:53.920 have really solved a lot of them. And so we 0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:55.840 can learn a lot from sharks, but not if they're 0:14:55.840 --> 0:14:56.240 not here. 0:14:56.640 --> 0:15:00.520 You talk about sharks as case selected animals than are 0:15:00.600 --> 0:15:04.960 selected animals, and how that plays into their vulnerability. Can 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:06.920 you can you walk us through that real quick? What 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:09.840 does it mean to be a case selected organism. 0:15:10.440 --> 0:15:14.359 Sure, so when we think about the term case selected, 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:17.520 and that's a term that's been used for a long time, 0:15:18.480 --> 0:15:20.680 people are starting to transition away from it, but I 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:24.680 think it's really good for this concept. You have an organism, 0:15:25.000 --> 0:15:28.880 think like a sequoia grows for a really long time, 0:15:29.280 --> 0:15:34.320 gets really big, and that's that's great. You know, lives 0:15:34.360 --> 0:15:39.160 a long time, super long life, which is a strategy. 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:44.520 And then you think of like a mosquito that lives 0:15:44.840 --> 0:15:48.880 and dies pretty much within a couple of days. And 0:15:48.960 --> 0:15:52.480 so you are comparing those two things, and it's not 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:56.360 that one is more effective. Mosquitos, you know, are effective 0:15:56.360 --> 0:16:02.120 at existing. Sequoias are effective at existing until you introduce 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:05.520 something like people and all the things that we do 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:09.720 that causes these things that are supposed to be living 0:16:09.760 --> 0:16:12.440 a long time to not live a long time. And 0:16:12.520 --> 0:16:18.560 so these case selected organisms are their strategy is live 0:16:18.600 --> 0:16:22.040 a long time, produce a lot of young over a 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:26.800 long period of time, not just you know, put all 0:16:26.800 --> 0:16:29.160 of your eggs in one basket. Right at the beginning. 0:16:30.200 --> 0:16:32.640 When we have mosquitoes and things like that, there are 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:34.880 selected They don't live a long time, but they have 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:39.040 a lot of young in that amount of time, and 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:43.960 that's fine, whatever strategy works until you start cutting down 0:16:44.000 --> 0:16:48.480 sequoias before they get to live their full life and 0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:52.240 reproduce as much as they should have if they live 0:16:52.320 --> 0:16:55.920 their full life. Same thing for sharks. It takes sharks 0:16:55.920 --> 0:16:58.600 a really long time to mature. So you think about people, 0:16:58.640 --> 0:17:03.360 we're also long lived, don't reproduce very much. If we 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:06.760 all died before we hit twenty years old, think about 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:09.920 how many of us wouldn't have had children. Think about 0:17:09.920 --> 0:17:13.760 what that does to the population we're supposed to live. 0:17:14.200 --> 0:17:18.240 You know, roughly seventy eighty ninety. Some people live to 0:17:18.280 --> 0:17:21.760 be over one hundred years old, and you have time 0:17:21.960 --> 0:17:25.920 to have multiple children. Not if you die at twenty 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:29.200 that's you don't have that opportunity, and so you can't 0:17:29.240 --> 0:17:32.359 replace yourself. And so that's what's happening with sharks is 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:37.840 their strategy worked for a really long time until we 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:41.080 had these other things come about there now killing them 0:17:41.320 --> 0:17:44.439 and they're not living their full life expectancy like they 0:17:44.480 --> 0:17:50.360 should have, and so that's affecting everything. It's affecting how 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:55.800 many young are in the next generation. It's affecting the 0:17:55.880 --> 0:17:59.560 health of those young because we also have things like 0:18:00.200 --> 0:18:04.879 maternal offloading, which is where a mother shark has so 0:18:05.000 --> 0:18:08.359 much toxins, think mercury, think all of those things in 0:18:08.400 --> 0:18:12.000 her body that it starts being detrimental to her. And 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:15.960 the strategy for a case selected individual is I'm going 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:18.480 to get rid of these toxins and my next litter 0:18:18.520 --> 0:18:20.680 of pups, I'm just going to dump it all into 0:18:20.760 --> 0:18:24.160 them and they might not survive, but I will keep 0:18:24.200 --> 0:18:26.920 living and I will have more pups. So I will 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:30.680 make the sacrifice of these pups so that I can 0:18:30.760 --> 0:18:33.280 keep living and continue to have pups, which is a 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:39.080 great strategy, except for if you then are always accumulating mercury, 0:18:39.600 --> 0:18:44.040 and now all of your pups are not healthy and 0:18:44.200 --> 0:18:48.159 you're continuing to live and reproduce, but the pups that 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:52.000 you're reproducing aren't as viable because they have all these 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:54.560 toxins in them. And so those are sort of things 0:18:54.600 --> 0:18:58.320 that you don't start to think about until you kind 0:18:58.320 --> 0:19:02.440 of dive deep into theology and how sharks work. And 0:19:02.480 --> 0:19:04.840 that's sort of what I like to talk about in 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:09.800 the book so that people can understand, Hey, conservation of 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:21.640 the oceans involves conserving sharks. 0:19:22.680 --> 0:19:24.919 What do you think are some of the most I 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:29.760 guess winnable problems with shark conservation right now. What are 0:19:29.800 --> 0:19:33.159 the areas where that are the most easily addressable that 0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:35.520 maybe we're not addressing yet. 0:19:36.080 --> 0:19:41.720 So fishing is a big problem. We have overfishing, which 0:19:41.760 --> 0:19:45.439 is where they're taking more out of the population than 0:19:45.480 --> 0:19:48.520 can replace themselves. But then we also have by catch 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:54.520 and by catches where they're not actually targeting sharks. Sharks 0:19:54.520 --> 0:19:58.640 are not the goal, sharks are accidentally being caught. And 0:19:58.720 --> 0:20:02.440 so that I feel like is something that's we can address. 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:05.800 Is it's not a matter of how do we feed 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:08.240 these people, how do we make sure that these people 0:20:08.520 --> 0:20:13.000 have their economies stabilize. They don't actually want these sharks. 0:20:13.080 --> 0:20:14.879 They don't want the sharks. We don't want them to 0:20:14.920 --> 0:20:18.920 catch the sharks. This is a perfect way for us 0:20:18.920 --> 0:20:21.080 to come together and think how do we keep sharks 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:24.280 out of your gear? And so that's a lot of 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:28.120 what I start thinking about is by catch reduction, how 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:31.320 do we keep these species that people don't want. They 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:33.520 don't want to eat them, they don't need them for anything. 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:37.959 That's a huge problem where they're dying for no reason 0:20:38.000 --> 0:20:42.160 at all. We're not even using them and so that's 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:47.920 one area. Another area with the overfishing is a bit 0:20:47.960 --> 0:20:51.240 more complicated but still doable, is how do we cut 0:20:51.280 --> 0:20:56.880 down on the amount of products that we need. So 0:20:57.160 --> 0:21:00.520 we think about squalling squalling, and it's the oil in 0:21:00.640 --> 0:21:03.840 sharks livers. A lot of it's used in cosmetics and 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:07.679 lotions and things like that. Whilst scientists have figured out 0:21:07.680 --> 0:21:12.400 a way to manufacture synthetic squaling, so we replace all 0:21:12.440 --> 0:21:15.560 of the squaling that's coming from sharks with synthetic we've 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:21.239 already cut out a good number of sharks deaths and 0:21:21.280 --> 0:21:24.440 so little things like that, simple switches that we can 0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:28.240 make in order to cut down on the amount of 0:21:28.280 --> 0:21:33.000 products that we use. I think people tend to focus 0:21:33.119 --> 0:21:38.080 on other people as a means to change. So we 0:21:38.160 --> 0:21:41.760 think about shark fin soup. That's what a lot of 0:21:41.760 --> 0:21:44.679 people like to focus on, is well, we need to 0:21:44.720 --> 0:21:49.159 stop the Asian people from eating shark fin soup. This 0:21:49.240 --> 0:21:52.400 is not an Asia problem. This is an everyone problem. 0:21:52.480 --> 0:21:57.000 And it's really easy for you to point at somebody 0:21:57.040 --> 0:21:59.880 else and say, well, it's their fault. We need to 0:22:00.000 --> 0:22:02.560 start thinking about what can I do, what can we 0:22:02.680 --> 0:22:08.040 do here to make changes. It's not about pointing fingers 0:22:08.080 --> 0:22:11.360 at people, and I think it's a very slippery slope. 0:22:11.560 --> 0:22:15.600 It's really easy to fall into racism and xenophobia and 0:22:15.720 --> 0:22:18.280 be like, these people that are not like me are 0:22:18.320 --> 0:22:22.920 the problem. Fishermen are the problem, Asian people are the problem, 0:22:23.040 --> 0:22:26.520 Indigenous people are the problem. It's never I'm the problem. 0:22:26.840 --> 0:22:29.800 We have to start thinking about how we are contributing 0:22:29.800 --> 0:22:32.960 to the problem, because we all are, and we can't 0:22:33.000 --> 0:22:35.919 just go pointing fingers at people, especially because the people 0:22:35.960 --> 0:22:38.440 that tend to have the fingers pointed at them are 0:22:38.520 --> 0:22:42.080 marginalized communities who don't have a seat at the conservation 0:22:42.240 --> 0:22:45.080 table when these discussions are going on. It's really easy 0:22:45.080 --> 0:22:47.760 to blame someone when they're not there to defend themselves, 0:22:48.000 --> 0:22:49.840 and so I always like to tell people just be 0:22:49.920 --> 0:22:53.159 mindful of that when you're starting to think about conservation, 0:22:53.680 --> 0:22:57.399 start with yourself first before you start pointing fingers at 0:22:57.440 --> 0:22:57.960 other people. 0:22:58.680 --> 0:23:00.719 Now in the book, you bring up the topic of 0:23:00.840 --> 0:23:06.080 beach renourishment. Is this something that threatens sharks in the wild. 0:23:06.520 --> 0:23:12.439 Beach renourishment is something that's really interesting because as we 0:23:12.560 --> 0:23:17.160 have people living on coastlines, we have we have kind 0:23:17.200 --> 0:23:22.160 of two I guess groups of people living on coastlines. 0:23:22.480 --> 0:23:25.160 We have people who are living on the coastlines because 0:23:25.160 --> 0:23:28.000 they don't have anywhere else to go. And we have 0:23:28.080 --> 0:23:30.840 people that are living on coastlines because they want beachfront 0:23:30.880 --> 0:23:34.199 property and they want to look at the ocean. And 0:23:35.000 --> 0:23:38.640 so these are two groups of people that are often 0:23:38.680 --> 0:23:44.840 in conflict with each other because there's the people that 0:23:44.920 --> 0:23:49.480 have the beachfront property, have money and power, and the 0:23:49.560 --> 0:23:53.920 people who do not and are there because that's where 0:23:53.960 --> 0:23:59.040 they've been pushed. Thinking about indigenous communities in Louisiana, a 0:23:59.080 --> 0:24:03.440 lot of indigen and as communities got pushed to Louisiana 0:24:04.160 --> 0:24:07.840 in those parishes that are coastal that are now going underwater, 0:24:08.920 --> 0:24:11.719 and that is not where they intended to be, that 0:24:11.840 --> 0:24:14.560 is not where their native lands are, that is where 0:24:14.600 --> 0:24:18.200 they were pushed. And then we have people you know 0:24:18.600 --> 0:24:21.320 that want to come and live in Miami and you know, 0:24:21.440 --> 0:24:24.159 have their beaches and stuff. And so we have to 0:24:24.200 --> 0:24:27.679 think about this from like two perspectives, because there are 0:24:27.760 --> 0:24:33.040 renourishment things where we're trying to keep land available for 0:24:33.160 --> 0:24:36.879 people who have nowhere else to go. And that's that's 0:24:37.080 --> 0:24:40.439