Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My
Speaker 2: name is Robert Lamb, and this episode of Stuff to
Speaker 2: Blow your Mind, we're going to be chatting with Jasmine Graham,
Speaker 2: a shark scientist and author of Sharks Don't Sink. This
Speaker 2: is a great book and it is out right now
Speaker 2: in all formats, So I encourage you if this interview
Speaker 2: grabs you, if the subject matter grabs you, and especially
Speaker 2: if you're interested in sharks, this is definitely some great
Speaker 2: summer reading for you, so pick up a copy, especially
Speaker 2: if you are going to go out to the beach
Speaker 2: or in any way experience the ocean this year. So
Speaker 2: without further ado, let's dive right in. Hi, Jasmine, welcome
Speaker 2: to the show.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: The new book, Sharks Don't Sink. Adventures of a Rogue
Speaker 2: Sharks Scientist is out in digital, physical, and audio formats.
Speaker 2: I really enjoyed. It's a science book about sharks, but
Speaker 2: it's also a social advocacy book and a personal memoir.
Speaker 2: So I wanted to ask you. I'm going to ask
Speaker 2: you about all of these aspects, but I guess the
Speaker 2: best place to start is the simple question, how did
Speaker 2: you become interested in shark biology.
Speaker 3: I was always very interested in the ocean, and I
Speaker 3: grew up fishing with my dad and come from a
Speaker 3: fishing family, and so the ocean was always part of me.
Speaker 3: I didn't really think much about sharks. I wasn't one
Speaker 3: of those people that was afraid of them. I wasn't
Speaker 3: super obsessed with them as a kid. They were kind
Speaker 3: of just animals that existed. But whenever I was in
Speaker 3: college working on my marine biology degree, I met a
Speaker 3: professor who studied sharks, and I started talking with him
Speaker 3: and doing some research with him, and they kind of
Speaker 3: fell in love with sharks. I did a lot of
Speaker 3: different marine science research while I was an undergrad, but
Speaker 3: I just kept coming back to sharks because I just
Speaker 3: think they're so cool. They've been here so long, they
Speaker 3: have such neat adaptations, and I've always been someone that
Speaker 3: roots for the underdog, and they're very misunderstood, so I've
Speaker 3: always enjoyed working with them.
Speaker 2: Now. In the book, you discussed the challenges and limitations
Speaker 2: of the academic world. I think a lot of us
Speaker 2: outside of academia only have like a surface level understanding
Speaker 2: of things like publish or perish, And so I might
Speaker 2: ask you to discuss that a little bit for everyone.
Speaker 2: But also, you know, I think it's easy for us
Speaker 2: outsiders to think about science and research as being well, okay,
Speaker 2: this is like a pure logical thing, and we let
Speaker 2: ourselves forget that we have all these issues of politics
Speaker 2: and discrimination very much in play in that world as well.
Speaker 2: What are the challenges facing up and coming research scientists
Speaker 2: and scientists of color in particular.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting that you point out this perception that
Speaker 3: science is objective and without bias, and that's how science
Speaker 3: should be in its purest form. But obviously science is
Speaker 3: conducted by human beings, and human beings all have biases,
Speaker 3: We have flaws, where illogical sometimes, and so I think
Speaker 3: it's really hard for people in the science field, not
Speaker 3: just people outside of the science field, but even people
Speaker 3: in the science field to come to terms with that
Speaker 3: that this area of research that we do, you know,
Speaker 3: we do the scientific method and all of that, and
Speaker 3: we like to think of ourselves as being objective. It's
Speaker 3: really hard for us to admit that our biases come
Speaker 3: into play in our scientific research. But that's something that
Speaker 3: we have to deal with because We've seen science be
Speaker 3: used for some really terrible things. We've seen science be
Speaker 3: used as an excuse for genocide. We've seen science create
Speaker 3: atomic bombs. We've seen science do all sorts of really
Speaker 3: not great things. And so we have to recognize that
Speaker 3: we have this responsibility as scientists to try to be objective,
Speaker 3: but recognize that we are not entirely objective, and so
Speaker 3: we have to be critical of how we think, how
Speaker 3: we interact with each other, and all of those things,
Speaker 3: everything to who gets to present to the scientific conference
Speaker 3: or who gets to work in somebody's lab, or who's
Speaker 3: invited to speak at this university, all of that has
Speaker 3: bias associated with it, and so we have to work
Speaker 3: really hard to be responsive to that. What that looks
Speaker 3: like in terms of scientists from marginalized communities, it often
Speaker 3: looks like not getting as much mentorship opportunities. It looks
Speaker 3: like not being in the club, you know, like a
Speaker 3: there's a clear these are the cool people in science,
Speaker 3: and we all hang out together and we all talk,
Speaker 3: and then there's outside ring of people trying to get
Speaker 3: into the cool club, into the inner circle, as it will,
Speaker 3: And so those in the inner circle have to be
Speaker 3: really mindful of those who are outside the circle trying
Speaker 3: to get in and making sure that they're accessible pathways
Speaker 3: to that. Because science and academia the way that it's
Speaker 3: set up, has a lot of potential for gatekeepers to
Speaker 3: solely decide who gets accepted into a PhD program, who
Speaker 3: gets published. We have this idea of peer review, which
Speaker 3: is really great if you assume that your peers are
Speaker 3: objective and going to be fair and just. And yes,
Speaker 3: there are a lot of people that give fair reviews,
Speaker 3: but there's a lot of people whose reviews are biased.
Speaker 3: They see somebody's name and they say, I don't know
Speaker 3: that I trust that person just based off of their name,
Speaker 3: if it's a name that sounds feminine, if it's a
Speaker 3: name that sounds quote unquote foreign. You know, I've had
Speaker 3: people that are in different countries trying to publish work,
Speaker 3: and they complain a lot of times that they get
Speaker 3: really unfair peer reviews that basically imply that because they
Speaker 3: are from a country in the global South, their science
Speaker 3: isn't as credible as somebody from Europe or North America.
Speaker 3: And so that's something that we struggle with. So those
Speaker 3: are just a few examples, but there's lots of areas
Speaker 3: where bias can creep in, and because we like to
Speaker 3: think of ourselves as objective, sometimes we choose to ignore
Speaker 3: those things and kind of stick our head in the sand.
Speaker 3: But we have to really confront it in order to
Speaker 3: make sure that science is actually objective and equitable.
Speaker 2: And just thank you for walking us through that. Could
Speaker 2: you talk a little bit about Minorities in Shark Sciences
Speaker 2: or miss how this came together, what sort of work
Speaker 2: it's doing, and where you'd like it to go in
Speaker 2: the future.
Speaker 3: Minorities in Shark Sciences is four years old, so we
Speaker 3: were founded in June of twenty twenty. We actually met
Speaker 3: each other on on Twitter, me and the other three
Speaker 3: co founders, and we really wanted to create a sense
Speaker 3: of community. That's what it started out as. We want
Speaker 3: to create a sense of community where people feel like
Speaker 3: they belong in science, where people are able to build
Speaker 3: their science identity in a place where they feel that
Speaker 3: the rest of their identity can come along and they
Speaker 3: don't have to leave it at the door in order
Speaker 3: to be accepted. And so that's sort of where Minorities
Speaker 3: in Shark Sciences came from. Since then, it's grown to
Speaker 3: be so much more than just community. It's grown to
Speaker 3: be this sort of wave of change in marine science
Speaker 3: and shark science in particular, where we were astounded at
Speaker 3: how many people you did an open call of who
Speaker 3: is trying to get into shark research or marine science
Speaker 3: and feels like they are the first or the only
Speaker 3: person like them in the room, come and join us.
Speaker 3: Five hundred people responded. That's a lot of people. And
Speaker 3: so having this movement build of Okay, now we have
Speaker 3: a responsibility to all of these people who are sharing
Speaker 3: their stories, who are pointing out these issues, who want
Speaker 3: support in their universities, in their academic institutions, in their
Speaker 3: organizations to bring these issues to the forefront, because what
Speaker 3: we found is that a lot of people have been
Speaker 3: experiencing these things and have been trying to draw attention
Speaker 3: to them individually. And it's a lot of Oh, I
Speaker 3: think you're imagining that they maybe don't mean that you know,
Speaker 3: all of these sort of but but but but but
Speaker 3: and so that could be really frustrating to have people
Speaker 3: not believe you whenever you're trying to address something. But
Speaker 3: you can ignore one person, you can maybe ignore two people,
Speaker 3: ignoring five hundred people saying the same thing. That's really
Speaker 3: hard to do, so you got to stick your head
Speaker 3: pretty far in that's sand. And so that's sort of
Speaker 3: what this movement has become is giving voice to people
Speaker 3: who haven't been able to have their voices amplified before,
Speaker 3: doing cutting edge research and making sure to elevate people
Speaker 3: who are doing research that maybe wasn't being respected before
Speaker 3: and being able to amplify that work and bring attention
Speaker 3: to it with this collective power that Myths as an
Speaker 3: organization has built. And then also getting to bring more
Speaker 3: people into the fold, making sure that more people get
Speaker 3: into that inner circle, providing the mentorship experiences. So we
Speaker 3: do mentorship experiences, we do professional development workshops, we help
Speaker 3: people build skills, all of these sorts of skills that
Speaker 3: you don't learn in school but people expect you to
Speaker 3: magically know how to do. And then also getting internships
Speaker 3: and fellowships and things like that, while eliminating the financial
Speaker 3: barrier associated with that, because that's been a huge problem
Speaker 3: in the past. Is this pay to play where you
Speaker 3: have to pay someone to go work for them, which
Speaker 3: exists in marine science and is super common. But if
Speaker 3: you went to pretty much any other field of career,
Speaker 3: if you say wanted to go intern at Google, it
Speaker 3: would be absurd for you to pay to intern at Google.
Speaker 3: Google would pay you to intern at Google. But in
Speaker 3: marine science, for reasons, lots of reasons, it's flipped where
Speaker 3: the expectation is you're going to pay for this, and
Speaker 3: so that makes it really hard for people to access
Speaker 3: those experiences. But they need those experiences to get the job,
Speaker 3: to get in that inner circle, to meet those people,
Speaker 3: and so MISS is all about eliminating those barriers introducing
Speaker 3: young people to marine science. In the ocean. Early on,
Speaker 3: we serve what we call kada gray. So we're really
Speaker 3: interested in bringing everyone in and making everyone feel connected,
Speaker 3: whether that means they want to be a scientist or
Speaker 3: they want to just advocate in their everyday lives. We
Speaker 3: want to make sure that people have access to the
Speaker 3: information about what's going on in our ocean ecosystems because
Speaker 3: it affects all of us.
Speaker 2: That's awesome. Now, getting I guess more into sharks again.
Speaker 2: You spend a great deal of the book discussing the
Speaker 2: elegance of sharks. You know from broad strokes about their
Speaker 2: appearance and evolution to biological specifics and species level details.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm not going to ask you to go
Speaker 2: through all of that here. I encourage listeners to go
Speaker 2: check out the book. But in brief, why are sharks
Speaker 2: such an evolutionary success story? Why have they done so
Speaker 2: well and why have they changed so little?
Speaker 3: That's a great question and something that we as evolutionary
Speaker 3: biologists are really interested in, and we don't have all
Speaker 3: the answers. But something that's really unique about sharks is
Speaker 3: that they've been around on this planet a really long time.
Speaker 3: And when I say a really long time, I mean
Speaker 3: before the dinosaurs, before we had trees, before Saturn had
Speaker 3: its rings. This we're talking four hundred million years of time,
Speaker 3: which I think is really hard for us to grasp
Speaker 3: as human beings who have been on this planet for
Speaker 3: a blink of an eye. But they've been here and
Speaker 3: pretty much not changing that much. The same basic body plan,
Speaker 3: same basic in the time that dinosaurs became chickens. Because
Speaker 3: closest relative to dinosaurs a chicken, it's pretty wild to
Speaker 3: think that sharks kind of looked the same and we
Speaker 3: went from a dinosaur to a chicken and the same
Speaker 3: amount of time, and so it's it's really cool, but
Speaker 3: it's also something that makes it really alarming when we
Speaker 3: think about losing them at the rate that we're losing them.
Speaker 3: So they've survived every mass extinction event thus far. Supervolcanoes,
Speaker 3: meteor showers, you know, all of these ice ages, all
Speaker 3: of these things that other organisms didn't survive. They survived.
Speaker 3: But we're in the sixth mass extinction that's driven by people,
Speaker 3: and they're dying at an alarming rate, which we should all
Speaker 3: be concerned about because we don't know what the world
Speaker 3: looks like without sharks. Sharks have been here so long
Speaker 3: that we don't even know what happens to an ecosystem
Speaker 3: when they're not there. We have no idea what the
Speaker 3: consequences of that are. And it's also really upsetting to
Speaker 3: think that we as a species are more damaging to
Speaker 3: the marine environment than super volcanoes and meteor showers. That's
Speaker 3: pretty bad, and we need to start thinking about how
Speaker 3: we live sustainably, how do we coexist with all of
Speaker 3: these creatures that are here inhabiting the planet right now,
Speaker 3: because we just got here and we might not last
Speaker 3: very long if we keep going the way that we're going,
Speaker 3: and so That's something that I think is really important
Speaker 3: to think about. And sharks have all of these really
Speaker 3: cool adaptations that we can really learn learn from. I mean,
Speaker 3: Michael Phelps had a whole swimsuit designed like the skin
Speaker 3: of sharks, and it was actually so effective that they
Speaker 3: banded in the Olympics. Like, just by copying how a
Speaker 3: shark's skin is designed, you increased your speed so much
Speaker 3: that it was banned at the Olympics. That's wild. Like
Speaker 3: nature has some really cool ways of figuring out how
Speaker 3: to solve problems, and sharks have really solved a lot
Speaker 3: of them. And so we can learn a lot from sharks,
Speaker 3: but not if they're not here.
Speaker 2: You talk about sharks as k selected animals rather than
Speaker 2: are selected animals, and how that plays into their vulnerability.
Speaker 2: Can you can you walk us through that real quick?
Speaker 2: What does it mean to be a K selected organism?
Speaker 3: Sure? So, when we think about the term k selected,
Speaker 3: and that's a term that's been used for a long time,
Speaker 3: people are starting to transition away from it, but I
Speaker 3: think it's really good for this concept. You have an organism,
Speaker 3: think like a sequoia grows for a really long time,
Speaker 3: gets really big, and that's that's great, you know, lives
Speaker 3: a long time, super long life, which is a strategy.
Speaker 3: And then you think of like a mosquito that lives
Speaker 3: and dies pretty much within a couple of days. And
Speaker 3: so you are comparing those two things, and it's not
Speaker 3: that one is more effective. Mosquitos, you know, are effective
Speaker 3: at existing. Sequoias are effective at existing until you introduce
Speaker 3: something like people and all the things that we do
Speaker 3: that causes these things that are supposed to be living
Speaker 3: a long time to not live a long time. And
Speaker 3: so these these case selected organisms are their strategy is
Speaker 3: live a long time, produce a lot of young over
Speaker 3: a long period of time, not just you know, put
Speaker 3: all of your eggs in one basket right at the beginning.
Speaker 3: When we have mosquitoes and things like that, there are
Speaker 3: selected they don't live a long time, but they have
Speaker 3: a lot of young in that amount of time. And
Speaker 3: that's fine. Whatever strategy works until you start cutting down
Speaker 3: sequoias before they get to live their full life and
Speaker 3: reproduce as much as they should have if they live
Speaker 3: their full life. Same thing for sharks. It takes sharks
Speaker 3: a really long time to mature. So you think about people,
Speaker 3: we're also long lived don't reproduce very much. If we
Speaker 3: all died before we hit twenty years old, think about
Speaker 3: how many of us wouldn't have had children. Think about
Speaker 3: what that does to the population we're supposed to live.
Speaker 3: You know, roughly seventy eighty ninety some people live to
Speaker 3: be over one hundred years old, and you have time
Speaker 3: to have multi full children. Not if you die at
Speaker 3: twenty that's you don't have that opportunity, and so you
Speaker 3: can't replace yourself. And so that's what's happening with sharks
Speaker 3: is their strategy worked for a really long time until
Speaker 3: we had these other things come about that are now
Speaker 3: killing them and they're not living their full life expectancy
Speaker 3: like they should have, and so that's affecting everything. It's
Speaker 3: affecting how many young are in the next generation. It's
Speaker 3: affecting the health of those young because we also have
Speaker 3: things like maternal offloading, which is where a mother shark
Speaker 3: has so much toxins, think mercury, think all of those
Speaker 3: things in her body that it starts being detrimental to her.
Speaker 3: And the strategy for a case selected individual is I'm
Speaker 3: going to get rid of these toxins and my next
Speaker 3: litter of pups. I'm just gonna dump it all into them,
Speaker 3: and they might not survive, but I will keep living
Speaker 3: and I will have more pups. So I will make
Speaker 3: the sacrifice of these pups so that I can keep
Speaker 3: living and continue to have pups, which is a great strategy,
Speaker 3: except for if you then are always accumulating mercury and
Speaker 3: now all of your pups are not healthy and you're
Speaker 3: continuing to live and reproduce, but the pups that you're
Speaker 3: reproducing aren't as viable because they have all these toxins
Speaker 3: in them. And so those are sort of things that
Speaker 3: you don't start to think about until you kind of
Speaker 3: dive deep into the ecology and how sharks work. And
Speaker 3: that's sort of what I like to talk about in
Speaker 3: the book so that people can understand, hey, conservation of
Speaker 3: the oceans involves conserving sharks.
Speaker 2: I think are some of the most I guess winnable
Speaker 2: problems with shark conservation right now, like what are the
Speaker 2: areas where that are the most easily addressable that maybe
Speaker 2: we're not addressing yet.
Speaker 3: So fishing is a big problem we have overfishing, which
Speaker 3: is where they're taking more out of the population than
Speaker 3: can replace themselves. But then we also have by catch
Speaker 3: and by catches where they're not actually targeting sharks. Sharks
Speaker 3: are not the goal. Sharks are accidentally being caught. And
Speaker 3: so that I feel like is something that's we can address.
Speaker 3: Is it's not a matter of how do we feed
Speaker 3: these people, how do we make sure that these people
Speaker 3: have their economies stabilize. They don't actually want these sharks.
Speaker 3: They don't want the sharks. We don't want them to
Speaker 3: catch the sharks. This is a perfect way for us
Speaker 3: to come together and think how do we keep sharks
Speaker 3: out of your gear? And so that's a lot of
Speaker 3: what I start thinking about is bycatch reduction, how do
Speaker 3: we keep these species that people don't want. They don't
Speaker 3: want to eat them, they don't need them for anything.
Speaker 3: That's a huge problem where they're dying for no reason
Speaker 3: at all. We're not even using them. And so that's
Speaker 3: one area. Another area with overfishing is a bit more
Speaker 3: complicated but still doable, is how do we cut down
Speaker 3: on the amount of products that we need. So we
Speaker 3: think about squaling, squalling, and it's the oil in sharks livers.
Speaker 3: A lot of it's used in cosmetics and lotions and
Speaker 3: things like that. Whilst scientists have figured out a way
Speaker 3: to manufacture synthetic squaling, so we replace all of the
Speaker 3: squaling that's coming from sharks with synthetic. We've already cut
Speaker 3: out a good number of sharks deaths and so little
Speaker 3: things like that, simple switches that we can make in
Speaker 3: order to cut down on the amount of products that
Speaker 3: we use. I think people tend to focus on other
Speaker 3: people as a means to change. So we think about
Speaker 3: shark fin soup. That's what a lot of people like
Speaker 3: to focus on, is well, we need to stop the
Speaker 3: Asian people from eating shark fin soup. This is not
Speaker 3: an Asia problem. This is an everyone problem. And it's
Speaker 3: really easy for you to point at somebody else and say, well,
Speaker 3: it's their fault. We need to start thinking about what
Speaker 3: can I do, what can we do here to make changes.
Speaker 3: It's not about pointing fingers at people, and I think
Speaker 3: it's a very slippery slope. It's really easy to fall
Speaker 3: into racism and xenophobia and be like, these people that
Speaker 3: are not like me are the problem. Fishermen are the problem,
Speaker 3: Asian people are the problem, Indigenous people are the problem.
Speaker 3: It's never I'm the problem. We have to start thinking
Speaker 3: about how we are contributing to the problem, because we
Speaker 3: all are, and we can't just go pointing fingers at people,
Speaker 3: especially because the people that tend to have the fingers
Speaker 3: pointed at them are marginalized communities who don't have a
Speaker 3: seat at the conservation table when these discussions are going on.
Speaker 3: It's really easy to blame someone when they're not there
Speaker 3: to defend themselves, and so I always like to tell
Speaker 3: people just be mindful of that when you're starting to
Speaker 3: think about conservation, start with yourself first before you start
Speaker 3: pointing fingers at other people.
Speaker 2: Now in the book, you bring up the topic of
Speaker 2: beach renourishment. Is this something that threatens sharks in the wild.
Speaker 3: Beach renourishment is something that's really interesting because as we
Speaker 3: have people living on coastlines, we have kind of two
Speaker 3: I guess groups of people living on coastlines. We have
Speaker 3: people who are living on the coastlines because they don't
Speaker 3: have anywhere else to go. And we have people that
Speaker 3: are living on coastlines because they want beachfront property and
Speaker 3: they want to look at the ocean. And so these
Speaker 3: are two groups of people that are often in conflict
Speaker 3: with each other because there's the people that have the
Speaker 3: beachfront property, have money and power, and the people who
Speaker 3: do not and are there because that's where they've been pushed.
Speaker 3: Thinking about Indigenous communities in Louisiana, a lot of Indigenous
Speaker 3: communities got pushed to Louisiana and those parishes that are
Speaker 3: coastal that are now going underwater, and that is not
Speaker 3: where they intended to be, that is not where their
Speaker 3: native lands are, that is where they were pushed. And
Speaker 3: then we have people you know that want to come
Speaker 3: and live in Miami and you know, have their beaches
Speaker 3: and stuff. And so we have to think about this
Speaker 3: from like two perspectives because there are reneurishment things where
Speaker 3: we're trying to keep land available for people who have
Speaker 3: nowhere else to go. And that's one issue, and there
Speaker 3: are lots of ways that we can think about, how
Speaker 3: do we keep people where they are, how do we
Speaker 3: help them decide where they want to go and give
Speaker 3: them a place to go if that's what they choose
Speaker 3: to do. Then we have this other group of people
Speaker 3: who are like, I want white fluffy sand in a beach.
Speaker 3: That is a different situation, and that's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 3: Just to clarify. That's what I'm talking about when I
Speaker 3: talk about renourishment projects being a problem renourishing a beach
Speaker 3: because you want your nice beach. You're a hotel, and
Speaker 3: your private beach is disappearing. That's do we need to
Speaker 3: do that? I don't know, that's debatable. And so we
Speaker 3: have this issue where we put this fake sand or
Speaker 3: not fake sand, but sand that's not supposed to be
Speaker 3: there in an area where the ocean wants to move it,
Speaker 3: like mother nature has decided this beach ink won't be
Speaker 3: here no more. And when mother nature decides something, it's
Speaker 3: really hard to counteract that, and you need to have
Speaker 3: a really good reason for doing that because it's going
Speaker 3: to be really expensive and it's probably not gonna work,
Speaker 3: or it will work, and it won't last very long.
Speaker 3: And so what we have, like in Myrtle Beach where
Speaker 3: my family is from, is we have these hotels and
Speaker 3: these owners of beachfront property saying, well, my beach is
Speaker 3: disappearing and that's a natural process, but we're trying to
Speaker 3: stop it for economic reasons, and we put this sand
Speaker 3: here and then a hurricane comes, like Hurricane Ian came
Speaker 3: and they had just done a beach y nourishment project.
Speaker 3: Guess we're all of that sand that they spent millions
Speaker 3: of dollars putting on that peachment. Whoop, the mother nature
Speaker 3: took it away. Mine. No, not supposed to be here.
Speaker 3: But where does that sand go? It gets dumped off shore,
Speaker 3: it covers up reefs, it covers up sea grass beds,
Speaker 3: it covers up all of these habitats where fish are living,
Speaker 3: and all of the sand just this whole beach just
Speaker 3: shifted into the water. And that's where we have an issue.
Speaker 3: Is the ocean giveth and the ocean taketh away. Like
Speaker 3: you can put all the sand there you want to.
Speaker 3: If the ocean does not want that sand to be there,
Speaker 3: it is not going to stay there, and it's got
Speaker 3: to go somewhere, and that somewhere is often covering important habitats.
Speaker 3: We have fishermen that I've talked to that say, immediately
Speaker 3: after a storm, after a renewished area gets swept away,
Speaker 3: they can't catch fish. And that's just terrible because that
Speaker 3: means all of these where do all these fish go?
Speaker 3: All of these fishermen that are relying on this, all
Speaker 3: of these communities relying on this for food, it's gone.
Speaker 3: They can't access it until the sand starts moving further
Speaker 3: and further offshore, which who knows how that's how long
Speaker 3: that's going to take. And so these are things we
Speaker 3: have to take into consideration. We make these decisions as
Speaker 3: humans because we are part of the environment. The environment
Speaker 3: is part of us. Every decision we make has an
Speaker 3: equal and opposite reaction. So we need to be making
Speaker 3: decisions based on necessity, not on I want my beach
Speaker 3: to look at ice.
Speaker 2: Now, coming back to just sort of like the character
Speaker 2: of Sharks, the being in the water with sharks. You know,
Speaker 2: the book is coming out in the summer, this episode
Speaker 2: is publishing in the summer. A lot of people are
Speaker 2: getting in the water. Sometimes people are getting in the
Speaker 2: water maybe in the vicinity of sharks for the first
Speaker 2: time or for the first time in a while. Do
Speaker 2: you think there are key things that like the average
Speaker 2: person getting in the water with the sharks might need
Speaker 2: to learn about them or unlearn about them, Like what
Speaker 2: do folks often just maybe not seem to understand or
Speaker 2: need to understand a little better before they get in
Speaker 2: there with them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's just a lot of fear surrounding the ocean
Speaker 3: and sharks in particular. And I mean, there are tons
Speaker 3: of people that will not get in the ocean because
Speaker 3: they are that afraid of sharks. And I mean I
Speaker 3: can give numbers and figures and statistics, and maybe that
Speaker 3: affects people, maybe it doesn't. You have this fear that's
Speaker 3: been built by years of watching these shark movies and
Speaker 3: hearing these news stories and all of the sensationalized things,
Speaker 3: and that's something that takes time to get over. And
Speaker 3: I think some of the best ways to overcome that
Speaker 3: is to do it you just exposure therapy, get in
Speaker 3: the water, see that you're fine, and then you're like, Okay,
Speaker 3: that wasn't so bad. I'll go a little deeper next time.
Speaker 3: I'll go a little deeper next time. And once you
Speaker 3: get in the ocean, you discover all of these amazing
Speaker 3: things that the ocean has to offer. Once you start
Speaker 3: snorkeling and looking underneath the water and seeing all of
Speaker 3: these fish that are swimming around you and all of
Speaker 3: that stuff, hopefully the fascination with the ocean will start
Speaker 3: to outweigh that fear. And I like to kind of
Speaker 3: remind people we say things and our language affects people's
Speaker 3: perceptions and so you know, media all of that. Just
Speaker 3: being mindful of the way that we portray sharks. So
Speaker 3: saying things like shark infested waters, the waters are not
Speaker 3: shark infested. That's where they live. It's if anything, they're
Speaker 3: people infested, because we're the ones that aren't supposed to
Speaker 3: be there. You wouldn't say that the sky is bird infested,
Speaker 3: like they live there. That's where they are. And you know,
Speaker 3: the pictures that we choose to use when we have
Speaker 3: a story. I mean, someone will get nibbled by like
Speaker 3: a little tiny leopard shark and they'll be like shark
Speaker 3: attack off La Hooia Shores. It'll be like a great
Speaker 3: white shark. No, it was like the little tiny, two
Speaker 3: foot little leopard shark and the person needed a band aid.
Speaker 3: We don't need like this whole thing. And yes, there
Speaker 3: are people who have bites. They have negative encounters with sharks,
Speaker 3: it does happen. But we have negative encounters with all
Speaker 3: sorts of wild animals. They are animals. We have negative
Speaker 3: encounters with each other. We you know, it's it's a
Speaker 3: fact of life that if things are in proximity to
Speaker 3: each other, eventually there will be a negative encounter, and
Speaker 3: it's it's something that I hope that with the love
Speaker 3: of the ocean and this increased desire to be in
Speaker 3: the ocean, similar to how we still get in cars
Speaker 3: even though we know that we could get in an accident.
Speaker 3: That's because our necessity are a desire to get from
Speaker 3: one place to another quickly and not have to walk
Speaker 3: outweighs our fear of getting in an accident. And that's
Speaker 3: sort of where we're going with kind of exposing people
Speaker 3: to how cool the ocean is, how exciting it is,
Speaker 3: and then that fear is kind of downplayed a little bit.
Speaker 3: And am not saying that there's like a zero percent
Speaker 3: chance that you're gonna get bit by a shark. What
Speaker 3: I am saying is, wouldn't you rather experience this amazing
Speaker 3: thing rather than be cut off from it because you're
Speaker 3: afraid of this thing that's really not gonna happen happening.
Speaker 3: And I also like to remind people, like I work
Speaker 3: with sharks for a living. I'm like around them all
Speaker 3: the time, I'm touching them all the time, doing things
Speaker 3: that they don't exactly want, Like you don't like for
Speaker 3: your dentists to be in your mouth. You don't like
Speaker 3: for your nurse to draw your blood. You don't like
Speaker 3: these things. They're like good for you, and like the sharks.
Speaker 3: Don't understand that sharks can't think like people and be like, oh,
Speaker 3: this person's trying to help me. Look they're removing a parasite.
Speaker 3: How nice of them. They're like, ah, why are you
Speaker 3: touching me? Ah? And so I haven't had any issues
Speaker 3: with sharks. If I haven't, I have like way higher
Speaker 3: probability than the average person. So you're fine, Like you
Speaker 3: just walking in the water up to your waist, It's like,
Speaker 3: you're fine.
Speaker 2: So if chips are down. What's your favorite shark species?
Speaker 3: My favorite shark species is the bonnet head shark because
Speaker 3: they're adorable. It's also the first shark that I got
Speaker 3: to work with, and they were the first shark to
Speaker 3: be discovered to be omnivorous. So they eat plants and animals.
Speaker 3: Seagrass makes forty to sixty percent of their diet actually,
Speaker 3: which is pretty wild that this little shark is eating
Speaker 3: potentially more plants than they are eating animals and getting
Speaker 3: more nutrition from plants. And so, I mean that just
Speaker 3: goes back to how cool sharks are. We have this
Speaker 3: one dimensional view of sharks because you hear the word
Speaker 3: shark and you think great white jaws, mindless killing machine.
Speaker 3: But there's so much diversity that actually white sharks are
Speaker 3: the exception and not the rule. Most sharks are small.
Speaker 3: Most sharks are less than four feet long. A lot
Speaker 3: of sharks live in the deep sea. Some of them
Speaker 3: grow glow in the dark. Some of them have hammers
Speaker 3: for heads, some of them eat plants, some of them
Speaker 3: are pretty colors, some of them are filter feeders. It's
Speaker 3: just there's so much variety, and we're really doing sharks
Speaker 3: at disservice by only thinking of them in this one way.
Speaker 3: That would be like us thinking that all humans are
Speaker 3: I don't know, six ' five or like I don't
Speaker 3: know yao ming or something like that, like where they're
Speaker 3: not like, we're not all like that. We had a
Speaker 3: lot of varieties. Some of us have different hair colors,
Speaker 3: we're different shades, we're different sizes, we have different interests,
Speaker 3: and it would be doing humans a disservice to narrow
Speaker 3: us down to like one type of person. So we
Speaker 3: shouldn't do that to sharks.
Speaker 2: Now that you pointed out it. It does feel like
Speaker 2: even in like science reporting, a lot of times, like
Speaker 2: the shark diversity stories that kind of end up poking
Speaker 2: their head up or ones about like gnarly looking teeth.
Speaker 2: You know, it'll be like, oh, look at the goblin shark.
Speaker 2: It's it's gnarly looking, you know, and and maybe less
Speaker 2: so on Well, here's a shark that eats. It is omnivorous.
Speaker 2: So that's a great point. Now in terms of your research,
Speaker 2: what shark or race SPECIs are you working with the
Speaker 2: most right now?
Speaker 3: Right now, my work is mostly on understanding the effects
Speaker 3: of a harmful alcol bloom called Florida red tide on sharks,
Speaker 3: and so I'm doing that work here in Sarasota Bay
Speaker 3: and Tampa Bay, and so a lot of the sharks
Speaker 3: that I'm working with are black tips, black noses. I
Speaker 3: still am working with bonnet heads a little bit, although
Speaker 3: not as much. And then we have scalloped hammerheads and
Speaker 3: great hammerheads as well, and so those are the main
Speaker 3: species that I'm interested in working with right now. I
Speaker 3: still am a part of the sawfish research right now.
Speaker 3: Sawfish are experiencing a unprecedented die off in in the
Speaker 3: South Florida area where they're exhibiting this weird spinning behavior
Speaker 3: and washing up dead. We've lost quite a number of them,
Speaker 3: especially considering how small the population is already, because they're
Speaker 3: critically endangered, so there's not a lot of them, and
Speaker 3: so that's been a big concern, and so I've been
Speaker 3: kind of just helping where I can, giving my expertise
Speaker 3: where I can, since I have worked with them for
Speaker 3: a number of years. Because it's all hands on deck
Speaker 3: right now. No one knows why this is happening, how
Speaker 3: to stop it, what's going on, and so we're all
Speaker 3: just kind of lending support where we can. So that's
Speaker 3: sort of an ongoing side project of mine, built more
Speaker 3: out of necessity, where we're trying to deal with this unprecedented.
Speaker 2: Event now in the shark science is obviously they're going
Speaker 2: to be species that are hard to get to or
Speaker 2: rare in number, But in general, are there are there
Speaker 2: any shark species that are considered like understudied, not so
Speaker 2: much because of their remoteness, just because like we just
Speaker 2: don't know, don't don't pay as much attention to them.
Speaker 2: Are there any stories like that in the shark sciences?
Speaker 3: I feel like there are tons of understudied species, and
Speaker 3: you ask a different scientist and they will give you
Speaker 3: a different answer, like the I mean, there's so many
Speaker 3: species of sharks. There's about five hundred species of sharks,
Speaker 3: so we're not studying all of them. Some of them
Speaker 3: are in the deep c we can't get to them.
Speaker 3: Some of them are in areas where there's not a
Speaker 3: lot of support. So, as I mentioned, there are scientists
Speaker 3: in countries in the global South that are doing work,
Speaker 3: and that work is happening, but it's not making it
Speaker 3: into the mainstream publication system because of these biases that exist.
Speaker 3: So we have that issue where there are sharks species
Speaker 3: that are being studied by someone, but we don't get
Speaker 3: to hear about it that much because their work is
Speaker 3: being suppressed or undervalued. And so that's one thing. And
Speaker 3: then there's also some species that just aren't as glamorous,
Speaker 3: Like there are some species where people are like, ah, yes, whales, sharks,
Speaker 3: I will give money to fund ail shark research. If
Speaker 3: you're like, I want to study I don't know, the
Speaker 3: shy shark or something random, people are like, okay, you know,
Speaker 3: there's not as much flashy money people want to spend
Speaker 3: money on things that are cool and glamorous and they're
Speaker 3: like really excited about. People aren't really like investing as
Speaker 3: much money in sharks that are like just like super cash.
Speaker 3: So there's definitely like a not equitable distribution of funding,
Speaker 3: and so that also drives what people choose to study,
Speaker 3: because if they can't get funding to study that animal,
Speaker 3: then they have to go and try to study something else.
Speaker 3: And so there are some of the less charismatic i'd
Speaker 3: say shark species that are not being studied as much.
Speaker 3: But I mean there's also like tons of people that
Speaker 3: are working with sharks, but like I said, aren't making headlines,
Speaker 3: they're not making it into the mainstream. And so that's
Speaker 3: part of what MISS is trying to do is amplify
Speaker 3: the work that's being done on some of those lesser
Speaker 3: known researchers and areas where people are doing work.
Speaker 2: In the book, you write so passionately about like what
Speaker 2: attracted you to marine biology in the ocean, as well
Speaker 2: as the challenges you've faced. What advice do you have
Speaker 2: for any young people out there who maybe feel the
Speaker 2: same attraction to the ocean into marine biology and are
Speaker 2: considering a career in science.
Speaker 3: I would say, if you're considering a career in science,
Speaker 3: you should one hundred percent go for it and don't
Speaker 3: let anyone tell you that you can't do that, and
Speaker 3: don't doubt that you can. A lot of people think,
Speaker 3: you know, whenever I say, oh, I'm a scientist, people's
Speaker 3: first reaction, like nine times out of ten is oh, wow,
Speaker 3: you must be really smart. And that's because we have
Speaker 3: this perception that scientists are smarter than other people. And
Speaker 3: I'm gonna let you in on a secret. We are
Speaker 3: not any smarter other people. That is not true, because
Speaker 3: what does smart even mean. I don't know, Like I
Speaker 3: think there's a there's a famous quote and I can't
Speaker 3: remember who said it, but it was, and i'll paraphrase.
Speaker 3: Everyone is intelligent, but if you judge a fish by
Speaker 3: its ability to climb a tree, it will live its
Speaker 3: whole life believing it is stupid. And you know, we're
Speaker 3: not any smarter than anyone else. And so if you're like, oh,
Speaker 3: I want to do science, but I don't think I'm
Speaker 3: smart enough, throw that out, because let me tell you,
Speaker 3: there are some not why scientists out there, and some
Speaker 3: of them are like really high up their big shots,
Speaker 3: and they're they do some things that are illogical. So
Speaker 3: just because someone is a scientist doesn't mean they're smart.
Speaker 3: And so you shouldn't think like I don't think I'm
Speaker 3: smart enough to be a scientist. That's a myth. Scientists
Speaker 3: aren't any smarter than other people. I say, as a scientist,
Speaker 3: I can tell you right now I am not smarter
Speaker 3: than anyone else. And then people have this this fear
Speaker 3: of well, if I've become a scientist, I gotta do math,
Speaker 3: and math is scary. And I struggled with math a
Speaker 3: lot when I was in school. It was like my
Speaker 3: hardest subject and I actually had to get through some
Speaker 3: of my math classes. I basically was in my teachers
Speaker 3: class after school every day, getting tutoring to make it through.
Speaker 3: And so like, you don't have to be good at
Speaker 3: everything to be a scientist. All sciences is asking questions
Speaker 3: and trying to figure out the answer. That's all it is.
Speaker 3: People put all this flare and handwaving and whatever, and
Speaker 3: that's all it is asking questions trying to figure out
Speaker 3: the answers. You can do that now, and wherever you are,
Speaker 3: whoever you are, you can ask questions and try and
Speaker 3: figure out the answers. You can do science. That's all
Speaker 3: science is. Everything else is just flair. Doesn't matter what
Speaker 3: alphabet is after your name, doesn't matter. If you have
Speaker 3: a degree, doesn't matter, if you even know how to read,
Speaker 3: you can do science. I have seen children, toddlers do
Speaker 3: science where they see ants walking and they go, where
Speaker 3: are those ants going? And I say, I don't know,
Speaker 3: why don't you follow them and find out? And they
Speaker 3: will follow the ants and figure out where they're going.
Speaker 3: Guess what, that's science. They just did science. Can't spell
Speaker 3: their own name, but they did science, and so that's
Speaker 3: all it is. So don't be intimidated by it. Don't
Speaker 3: think that you have to be somebody special to do it.
Speaker 3: We're not special. We're just like anyone else people that
Speaker 3: do science. And if there's a scientist that thinks that
Speaker 3: they're special, they're just a little too over confident in themselves.
Speaker 3: They are not any more special than anyone else. So
Speaker 3: anyone can do science. Don't let anyone tell you that
Speaker 3: you can't.
Speaker 2: All right, well, this has been delightful. Before we close
Speaker 2: out here, remind everybody again that the book is out
Speaker 2: now in digital, physical, and audiobook. Right did you you
Speaker 2: read for the audiobook? Correct?
Speaker 3: I did? I did read for the audiobook.
Speaker 2: Awesome. So it's out in all formats. And then as
Speaker 2: far as Minorities and Shark Sciences goes, where can people
Speaker 2: go to learn more about MISS, to get involved with
Speaker 2: MISS or donate to MISS.
Speaker 3: Yes, So we have a website. It's Miss Elasmo dot
Speaker 3: org m I s s E l A s m
Speaker 3: O dot org. Elasmo short for alasmobrank which is sharks,
Speaker 3: skates and rays. So if you were wondering what that was, Elasmo.
Speaker 3: And we're also on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and
Speaker 3: LinkedIn so you can look us up there.
Speaker 2: Awesome. Well, thanks for taking time out of your day
Speaker 2: to chat with me here today.
Speaker 3: Thanks thanks for having me, Thank you.
Speaker 2: Thanks once more to Jasmine Graham for coming on the
Speaker 2: show again. You can pick up that book right now,
Speaker 2: Sharks Don't Sync. You can find it wherever you get
Speaker 2: your books, and it's available now in all fourmats. Thanks
Speaker 2: as always to the excellent Jjpossway for producing this show
Speaker 2: and if you would like to get in touch with us,
Speaker 2: if you have suggestions for future episodes of Stuff to
Speaker 2: blow your mind, comments on past episodes, or just any
Speaker 2: other comments you want to share with us well, you
Speaker 2: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your
Speaker 2: Mind dot com.
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