Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday.
Speaker 1: Time for an older episode of the show. This one
Speaker 1: originally aired June. It's the interview that we did with
Speaker 1: the marine researcher and conservationist Christine Figner. A lot of
Speaker 1: it's about sea turtles. Yeah, just a fair warning though
Speaker 1: that there is some some graphic content in here concerning
Speaker 1: sea turtle conservation and some bad things happening to sea turtles,
Speaker 1: So just a heads up that that's coming. But still
Speaker 1: great episode and not highly recommend it. Welcome to Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind, production of My Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and we've got
Speaker 1: a really great interview to share with you today. This
Speaker 1: is with Dr Christine Figner. Uh So, as a way
Speaker 1: of introduction, Dr Christine Figner is a marine conservation biologist
Speaker 1: and science communicator who has been really successful on social media.
Speaker 1: Sometimes known as the Sea Turtle straw Lady, she has
Speaker 1: raised global awareness of the issue of ocean plastic pollution
Speaker 1: and has been studying sea turtles for over fifteen years.
Speaker 1: You might have seen her in a viral video moment
Speaker 1: where she was she and her research team were removing
Speaker 1: a plastic straw that was lodged in a sea turtles nose,
Speaker 1: and of course that video triggered a lot of thought
Speaker 1: about what is what is the effect of, say, single
Speaker 1: use plastics such as plastic straws in on marine life.
Speaker 1: Christine Today is a is a science communicator who uh
Speaker 1: speaks at events about her sea turtle conservation work, fighting
Speaker 1: plastic pollution, and empowering women in science. In eighteen, Time
Speaker 1: Magazine honored her outreach and advocacy efforts by naming her
Speaker 1: a Next Generation Leader. As Director of Science and Education
Speaker 1: for the US based Footprint Foundation, she travels the globe
Speaker 1: educating people about the effects of plastic pollution on our
Speaker 1: environment and human health, and inspiring people to reduce their
Speaker 1: use of plastic. She's also the co founder and scientific
Speaker 1: lead of a community centered, grassroots conservation organization in Costa
Speaker 1: Rica that is researching and protecting sea turtles. Christine's overall
Speaker 1: goal is to reach as many people as possible with
Speaker 1: her message to eliminate plastic from our environment, save sea
Speaker 1: turtles from extinction, empower women in science, and make our
Speaker 1: planets safer and healthier for wildlife and people alike. So
Speaker 1: that's just a really fun chat. Let's go ahead and
Speaker 1: dive into it. Let's get into some gnarly uh facts
Speaker 1: and stories about sea turtles. We have all sea turtle
Speaker 1: questions for you here today that we may ask you
Speaker 1: whale stuff too, because you were you were also originally
Speaker 1: interested in cetations, right, Yeah, somebody did the homework on me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I became a marine biologist because I love humpbag whales.
Speaker 1: Oh did you happen to read the story of supposedly
Speaker 1: a man off the coast province town It was a
Speaker 1: lobster diver reported that he was temporarily swallowed by a
Speaker 1: humpback whale. Do you believe it's true? Creepy and funny?
Speaker 1: Is that allegedly it's the same guy that like a
Speaker 1: few years ago, survived airplane crash in Costa Rica, one
Speaker 1: of the few survivors. Wow you about having more than
Speaker 1: one life? Yeah? Well wait, so do you have any
Speaker 1: reason to be skeptical of the story or do you
Speaker 1: think it's plausible that he did go into the humpback
Speaker 1: whales mouth and then was spit out. I think that's possible.
Speaker 1: I don't think it was swallowed. I just think I
Speaker 1: mean not swallowed all the way right, So I think probably.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you've ever seen humpbag whales feeding, right,
Speaker 1: so they kind of have those bubble curtains and then
Speaker 1: they just go in and just like open their mouths
Speaker 1: wide just to like, you know, swallow the largest quantity possible.
Speaker 1: And if you happen to just be there. But I'm
Speaker 1: sure that w I was like, oh my god, what's
Speaker 1: that in my mouth? Is just like wrong place, wrong time. Huh. Well,
Speaker 1: we just we just jumped right into it. Maybe we
Speaker 1: should back up and uh and actually get officially started. Um.
Speaker 1: So one place we do like to start here is Christine.
Speaker 1: Can you just introduce yourself to the audience, stating your name,
Speaker 1: your title, as well as any key affiliations or employers
Speaker 1: organizations that you want right up there at the top
Speaker 1: with your ID. Yeah, my name is Christine figure. I
Speaker 1: am I Trade the marine biologist, and I have been
Speaker 1: working on the interface between conservation and applied signs for
Speaker 1: about more than fifteen years now, mainly with sea turtles,
Speaker 1: but also with cetaceans a wells and dolphins. And right
Speaker 1: now I am running a small community based grassroots organization
Speaker 1: in Constrica that is protecting sea turtles. And I'm also
Speaker 1: the director of science and Education for the US based
Speaker 1: Footprint Foundation, which is we're trying to convince peop well
Speaker 1: to reduce their use of plastics. So that's pretty much
Speaker 1: me and I'm nutshell. I guess. So you mentioned that
Speaker 1: you were originally interested in cetations before you got into
Speaker 1: sea turtles as a research area. What how did you
Speaker 1: How did you make that leap? And I guess you
Speaker 1: can back all the way up to cetations if you want. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I in my teens. You know, we're usually
Speaker 1: people are obsessing about boy bands. I guess I'm not
Speaker 1: going to say which one was popular during my times
Speaker 1: because that would review my age, I guess um. But
Speaker 1: instead of that, I was actually collecting, you know, posters
Speaker 1: and articles and other stuff about whales and dolphins. And
Speaker 1: I particularly loved hum big whales. So I I played music.
Speaker 1: I played the guitar, and I sing and I always thought,
Speaker 1: you know, it would be so cool to study the
Speaker 1: songs of humping whales. You know, it's kind of a
Speaker 1: cultural thing, and it would have combined a lot of
Speaker 1: my interest into like this one thing. But then I
Speaker 1: happened to have the chance to go to Constrica on
Speaker 1: a sea turtle or into a sea turtle project when
Speaker 1: I did my master's into a leather back project, very specific,
Speaker 1: and I totally fell in love with that type of
Speaker 1: work because it's super hands on. I don't think there's
Speaker 1: that many you know jobs as a wildlife biologist where
Speaker 1: you can be with such a large animal, you know,
Speaker 1: for extended times in the natural environment without having to
Speaker 1: you know, tranquilize them or restrain them even in any
Speaker 1: shape or form. And it was so impressive, just like
Speaker 1: the environment. Right, So, you're on these tropical beaches, have
Speaker 1: this incredible you know, biodiversity all around you. You have
Speaker 1: the jungle right next to you on one side, and
Speaker 1: you have you know, the vast ocean on the other.
Speaker 1: You have this incredible night sky over your head, and
Speaker 1: then you just you know, walk, you know, kilometers and
Speaker 1: hours without end on the beach just to find this
Speaker 1: like one track that leads up to the verm, up
Speaker 1: to the vegetation and you hope that the turtle is
Speaker 1: still there. And then once you see the turtle, it's
Speaker 1: just you know, they're real life dinosaurs if you think
Speaker 1: about it, right, they have been around for hundred on
Speaker 1: a hundreds, but definitely more than a hundred million years,
Speaker 1: especially leather bags, which are like the oldest lineage of
Speaker 1: sea turtles that we still have. And when you just
Speaker 1: sit next to them, they're massive. I mean, they're absolutely gigdentists.
Speaker 1: And you can see them, you know, using their real
Speaker 1: flippers just like hands, digging their acts chamberers squeezing out
Speaker 1: the eggs, creating a new generation. And yeah, I totally
Speaker 1: I was totally in awe and I just thought, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is like the coolest thing I've ever done in
Speaker 1: my life. And that is just how I fell in
Speaker 1: love and just stayed with it. Wow, you know, speaking
Speaker 1: of just how long sea turtles have been around, Um, well,
Speaker 1: what is it about the sea turtle that has enabled
Speaker 1: it to survive while so many other marine reptiles have
Speaker 1: gone extinct? Like what is what do you think is
Speaker 1: a winning design of the sea turtle? You know, that's
Speaker 1: that's a really good question. And I don't think we
Speaker 1: have like a definite answer. I think, especially in evolutionary biology,
Speaker 1: we always make very many intelligent guesses. But of course,
Speaker 1: at one point there were a lot more sea turtle
Speaker 1: species than there are nowadays. As so we are down
Speaker 1: to seven, seven extent species. And if you look at
Speaker 1: the seven species right now, it's really interesting because they
Speaker 1: all have similar ecologies to certain degree because you know,
Speaker 1: you can find them in usually warmer waters because the
Speaker 1: active therm, so that means they cannot regulate their own
Speaker 1: body temperature, so that means they have to get an
Speaker 1: outside source to really you know, get their metabolism going.
Speaker 1: So that means you find them in tropical waters subtropical waters,
Speaker 1: and they're all coming onto the beach to nest. But
Speaker 1: then if you look at that diet, and I think
Speaker 1: that is really the key is you know, how they diversified.
Speaker 1: It's really over the over the access of the diet.
Speaker 1: So we have very specialized species such as the hawks
Speaker 1: bill or the leather bags. Of the hawks bill feeds
Speaker 1: mainly on sponges. The leather bag feeds mainly on jellyfish.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's another really cool thing if you think
Speaker 1: about how large that animal is that feeds on an
Speaker 1: animal that's just barely you know, anything other than water. Um.
Speaker 1: Then we have green turtles that are as adults that
Speaker 1: these mainly herbivorous, so they're very different in their you know,
Speaker 1: trophic niche as we would say scientists. So that means,
Speaker 1: you know, they have very different diet and that is
Speaker 1: probably the the secret to their you know, coexistence, that
Speaker 1: they're not competing with each other for resources. And the
Speaker 1: other thing is, see, turtles are incredible resilience. So I've
Speaker 1: never met um animals that are so resilient. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've seen so many turtles that have suffered incredible injuries
Speaker 1: literally you know, amputations of limbs or really crazy damage
Speaker 1: to their to their shell, and they still able to survive,
Speaker 1: and not just survive, but you know, still kind of
Speaker 1: go with their biological program go and nates come up
Speaker 1: to the beach and lay their eggs even though they
Speaker 1: might have literally no real flippers anymore, or massive slashes
Speaker 1: in their carapace. I mean, I've seen really really sad things.
Speaker 1: But it also makes me think, wow, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: you're really resilient, so that means things might not face
Speaker 1: you as much as others. And they're also pretty widespread, right,
Speaker 1: So that means we have really settled and almost all
Speaker 1: tropical waters. So um, even if maybe one population might
Speaker 1: go extinct, they are probably able to repopulate, you know,
Speaker 1: into in from that population into other areas again. And
Speaker 1: that might have been you know, the secret of why
Speaker 1: they were able to survive so long, because they were
Speaker 1: probably able to first of all, migrate into into other
Speaker 1: places if if things became inhabitable or were able to
Speaker 1: you know, diversify that diet over the course of millions
Speaker 1: of years. And it seems also be the body plan
Speaker 1: that they have seems to be really successful. Right. So
Speaker 1: I don't know if everybody knows that, but turtles, not
Speaker 1: just sea turtles. Um. Their shell is actually made from
Speaker 1: their rip catche that merged together. So the single rips
Speaker 1: it's kind of you know, became bony and just like yeah,
Speaker 1: became the shell. So the shell is actually the vertebra
Speaker 1: and the rips and everything else like your shoulder blades
Speaker 1: and everything moved inside. So they have created this incredible armor.
Speaker 1: I mean, in German, if you translate like turtle, it
Speaker 1: actually means shielded toad because they habits like shield and protected, right, um.
Speaker 1: And that means, of course that once sea turtles have
Speaker 1: reached a certain body size, there's not that many natural
Speaker 1: predators that are actually able to eat a turtle, right
Speaker 1: So right now, I mean, we're taking like humans aside
Speaker 1: at this point, but if you're talking about natural predators,
Speaker 1: it's really only about you know, the animals really strong
Speaker 1: mandibles that can crack that shell. So that's the tiger shark,
Speaker 1: the j jack wires, and it's crocodiles that might be
Speaker 1: able to really eat an entire turtle. I mean, they
Speaker 1: might be able otherwise to take like a bite out
Speaker 1: of flipper, but that's not the less just pipe with
Speaker 1: all the fat and all the all the meats, it's
Speaker 1: all inside of the shell, right, So correct me if
Speaker 1: I'm wrong. But I believe there's still some mystery about
Speaker 1: the sort of step wise evolutionary process that led to
Speaker 1: the turtle having a shell? Isn't there? Because I think
Speaker 1: I was reading that um, it's sort of hypothesized that
Speaker 1: maybe a middle stage was first you had some kind
Speaker 1: of lizard like creature that had a wide, large rib cage,
Speaker 1: and then maybe in between it had a body plan
Speaker 1: that was sort of like you would see with models
Speaker 1: of the Ankleosaurus where they're sort of plates all over
Speaker 1: the back and then over time those plates fused. Is
Speaker 1: that sort of in the right direction. Yeah. I mean
Speaker 1: I'm not an expert on like you know, the paleontology
Speaker 1: I think, or like the actual um evolution of of
Speaker 1: like the body plan. But what's interesting if you just
Speaker 1: look back, for example, or even just look at the
Speaker 1: lad back. So we have seven species as I set,
Speaker 1: and six of them all belong to the height shell
Speaker 1: turtles um, so it's kind of the same group. And
Speaker 1: then we have the leather back turtles, which are their
Speaker 1: own lineage, and leather bags actually look a lot more
Speaker 1: like the you know, the the older lineages as well,
Speaker 1: because they have a reduced carapace. So leather bags are
Speaker 1: pretty much named because they have a soft shell, so
Speaker 1: they do not have those bony plates. Um. If you
Speaker 1: look at it at a skeleton of the leather bag,
Speaker 1: you will not exactly see what I just said where
Speaker 1: the grips have grown together, so it's it's more like
Speaker 1: cartilage um um. And parts of it is it's just
Speaker 1: like a reduced shell. And our colon, for example, which
Speaker 1: is one of the you know, first sea turtles that
Speaker 1: that we've known of from the fossil finds looks a
Speaker 1: lot like leather bags, so they have you know, they
Speaker 1: have some type of shell, but it's more a reduced shell.
Speaker 1: And also I think and other fossil finds, you can
Speaker 1: see that certain sea turtles, for example, had a like
Speaker 1: a stronger plastron which is like the belly part of
Speaker 1: the shell, so as you know, um, like kind of
Speaker 1: a reinforced carapace which is the upper part of the shell,
Speaker 1: and vice versa. So it might have been like different
Speaker 1: pressures for example, of where your natural predators came from.
Speaker 1: So if you were mainly you know, attacked from the bottom,
Speaker 1: maybe it was you know, advantageous to have you know,
Speaker 1: a kind of reinforced shield on your belly rather than
Speaker 1: on your back or vice versa. So you don't know.
Speaker 1: But that's, like I said, that's the intelligent guesses that
Speaker 1: you have may have to make about evolution and why
Speaker 1: certain things developed or weren't successful in the end. Excellent.
Speaker 1: So I'm not going to ask basically three questions at
Speaker 1: the same time, but they're very they're very simple and sudden.
Speaker 1: They all kind of float together. So, um, how many
Speaker 1: of the seven extant sea turtle species, have you observed
Speaker 1: in the wild, which ones do you work with the
Speaker 1: most and do you have a favorite. So from the
Speaker 1: seven I have seen in the wild six and missing
Speaker 1: the flatback turtle. So we have two species which are
Speaker 1: considered endemic, which means they're only found in a very specific,
Speaker 1: very limited geo geographic range, which is first of all,
Speaker 1: the chemp stradily turtle, which can be mainly found or
Speaker 1: solely found in the Gulf of Mexico. And then there's
Speaker 1: the flat back turtle, which is pretty much found in
Speaker 1: the waters around northern Australia or between Papa Papua New
Speaker 1: Guinea and and in Australia they but they nest mainly
Speaker 1: on the north shore of Australia, so I haven't seen
Speaker 1: that one yet. That is really um my last one
Speaker 1: that I'm missing. I do work mainly with the species
Speaker 1: that we have in Costrica where I'm based. So the
Speaker 1: species I started with is the leather back turtle, but
Speaker 1: we're also getting you know, a lower number of green
Speaker 1: turtles nesting in the Caribbean as well as on the
Speaker 1: leather back beaches. I've worked on in the Pacific and
Speaker 1: then for my PhD, I really extensively studied olive red lace,
Speaker 1: which is one of the smallest ecs. And then right now,
Speaker 1: since last year, I just initiated a larger hospital project,
Speaker 1: which is also the same beach where the leather bags
Speaker 1: are nesting. So always got some but now we're really
Speaker 1: focusing on, you know, monitoring the hospital population which is
Speaker 1: not nesting exactly at the same time than the leather backs.
Speaker 1: And well, my favorite one, heads down leather bags. I mean,
Speaker 1: I hate to say it, and everybody that disagrees with me,
Speaker 1: they're just wrong. Um, just because leather bags are just incredible.
Speaker 1: I mean they really they they just constitute so many
Speaker 1: or like they have so many superlatives about them. I mean,
Speaker 1: they are the species that are distributed the widest. So
Speaker 1: we're still talking about an active them animal, right, an
Speaker 1: animal that is in fear, not able to regulate their
Speaker 1: body temperature. But you will find or you can't find
Speaker 1: leather blacks in waters that are substantially colder than what's
Speaker 1: the perfect temple there would be for them. Right, So,
Speaker 1: our populations in Costa Rica, depending which side of the
Speaker 1: coast on they feed, either in front of Nova Scotia,
Speaker 1: in Canada, Wales, England, also in the North Sea, so
Speaker 1: recently there was actually stranding in Denmark um and then
Speaker 1: the ones that have nesting on the Pacific side, they
Speaker 1: are usually going down to Peru, which are also pretty
Speaker 1: cold waters. And how they can do it is, you know,
Speaker 1: they have really found a way of first of all,
Speaker 1: maintaining their body temperature, the core temperature steady. So they
Speaker 1: have this like incredible fatty layers. It's almost like a
Speaker 1: winter coat that keeps them warm and insulated. But then
Speaker 1: of course they don't have it on their flippers, but
Speaker 1: they do have it around the eas aphagus, so that's
Speaker 1: really cool, right. So that means even when they like
Speaker 1: swallow their prey, which might be colder than their core temperature,
Speaker 1: it prevents their core body temperature from dropping. And then
Speaker 1: it is you know, first of course it's a large animal,
Speaker 1: so they have a better surface to volume ratio. It's
Speaker 1: it's it's a term, it's called the gun to thermi um.
Speaker 1: You know that it's just like you don't lose as
Speaker 1: much heat over your surface just because you're large. And
Speaker 1: then also because your flippers of course are exposed, they're
Speaker 1: not having this fetty tissue. And in theory, you know
Speaker 1: all that blood that circulates, the warm blood goes out,
Speaker 1: would cool down, go back, but no, they have this
Speaker 1: countercurrent system where you know, the warm blood that comes
Speaker 1: from the body is actually warming up the cold blood
Speaker 1: that comes back from the flipper without losing the heat
Speaker 1: roster there pretty much just like pass it on to
Speaker 1: the blood that goes back into the body. And then
Speaker 1: the last thing that is actually a little bit more
Speaker 1: recent is that some scientists just discovered that leather bags
Speaker 1: are able to produce a certain amount of body heat
Speaker 1: through digestion, So they made them swallow temperature pills, um,
Speaker 1: you know, little devices that can literally measure the different
Speaker 1: temperature while they were going through the digestive truck and
Speaker 1: they're like, wow, okay, you're digesting and you're actually producing here.
Speaker 1: That's pretty amazing. So you know the limits nations and
Speaker 1: what we know about active therms, and it's pretty it's
Speaker 1: pretty incredible. I mean, other bags are just wow, mind blown.
Speaker 1: Would that last fact mean that it's not actually such
Speaker 1: a strict dividing line between warm blooded animals and cold
Speaker 1: blooded animals, but more question of degree. This is this
Speaker 1: is a good question. Some people have argued that leather
Speaker 1: bags might be not as you know, strictly active therm
Speaker 1: as we would have categorized them. But then, of course
Speaker 1: where do you draw the line? Right? Scientists like to
Speaker 1: have drawers where you can like stuff things into and
Speaker 1: it's just like, okay, you have this, but not that.
Speaker 1: And I think sometimes, you know, especially when you think
Speaker 1: about how evolution happens, it's just not that clean cut.
Speaker 1: So in talking about the leather back you were mentioning
Speaker 1: that it has a self warming throat. When you look
Speaker 1: inside their mouth, it does really look like a horror show.
Speaker 1: They have these, uh, these spikes. So what's going on
Speaker 1: with all that? What does what does that tell us
Speaker 1: about the lifestyle of the leather act sea turtle? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean you just have to think about it. Right,
Speaker 1: you are a leather back turtle, You're swimming underwater and
Speaker 1: you are trying to eat this very glibbery thing, what
Speaker 1: is a jellyfish. But you also don't want to swallow
Speaker 1: the sea water, right, So it's not like you're wanting
Speaker 1: to eat seawater all the time, you know. So you're
Speaker 1: taking a bite and you swallow the jellyfish. You swallow
Speaker 1: the sea water. But before you or maybe we shouldn't
Speaker 1: say swallow, so you kind of take it into your mouth,
Speaker 1: but before you actually swallow it, you want to get
Speaker 1: rid of the sea water, and so that means you
Speaker 1: also do not want to get rid of the jellyfish though,
Speaker 1: But it's so you know, sliming glibbery that there's a
Speaker 1: good chance it would go out if it wouldn't be
Speaker 1: for those spines that are covering the entire mouth down
Speaker 1: all the way down to the aesephagus. Actually, other sea
Speaker 1: turtle species have those spines as well, they're just not
Speaker 1: so like in the mouth cavity already, so it's usually
Speaker 1: just like the aesephagus that is having those um But yeah,
Speaker 1: and in the ladder back it's right behind the mandibles,
Speaker 1: it's where it starts. So it looks at one of
Speaker 1: those alien mouth that you know, with that that are
Speaker 1: pretty typical, I feel in science fiction movies. But it's
Speaker 1: really about and they're all pointing towards the stomach, and
Speaker 1: that means it's really kind of meant to, you know,
Speaker 1: for the jellyfish to get stuck in it and they
Speaker 1: are able to extract the water. Usually through their nostrils,
Speaker 1: so there's a connection between the mouth cavity and the
Speaker 1: nose um, so they don't even have to open the
Speaker 1: mouth and then they just collect the jellyfish and then
Speaker 1: they just swallow it without all the sea water. That's amazing.
Speaker 1: So what does it mean to specialize in eating jellyfish?
Speaker 1: Like what kind of niche is that? Is that the
Speaker 1: kind of niche where you're getting more prey and it's
Speaker 1: easier to get or is it the other way around?
Speaker 1: What does that mean to you? Well, I mean, we
Speaker 1: don't know of how it started right to just see
Speaker 1: what it is right now. But the thing is sort
Speaker 1: of leather backs feed in areas where there's a high
Speaker 1: density of of of jellyfish. So that means the energy
Speaker 1: that it takes for them to get to those jellyfish
Speaker 1: is not as large We're not is big, and they're
Speaker 1: obviously able to still fatten up enough to produce their eggs,
Speaker 1: will have enough energy to you know, do their large migrations.
Speaker 1: And it's really funny if you ever get a chance
Speaker 1: to to watch some of those videos that were filmed
Speaker 1: in Nova Score in front of Nova Kotia, it is
Speaker 1: really you know, the leather bag, just swimming through the
Speaker 1: water and just like eating one eating another one do
Speaker 1: like these you know, large groups of jellyfish. Um, it's
Speaker 1: just they have to eat a lot. So it's pretty
Speaker 1: much you know, tons probably um son so many parts
Speaker 1: of their of their body weights in order to to
Speaker 1: to sustain themselves and even you know, have more to
Speaker 1: do all of those things that they need to do
Speaker 1: to reproduce. But that is probably one of the reasons
Speaker 1: they're not nesting every year. So females skip usually one
Speaker 1: or two seasons in between so they have enough time
Speaker 1: to fatten up, use all the follicles, and then make
Speaker 1: the migration back to to their nesting beaches. That that
Speaker 1: eating behavior kind of reminds me if you ever saw
Speaker 1: the episode of The Simpsons where Homer goes to space
Speaker 1: and the ends up eating the potato chips floating in
Speaker 1: zero G. Yes, that is a very accurate Actually, maybe
Speaker 1: not as crunchy, but definitely um yeah, thank so. I
Speaker 1: guess backing up a little bit to just sort of
Speaker 1: generally about sea turtles, what do you think are the
Speaker 1: biggest public misconceptions about sea turtles. I don't know if
Speaker 1: there's as many misconceptions about sea turtles. This for example,
Speaker 1: about dolphins, um or sharks. I think people like sea
Speaker 1: turtles because they're cute. What I always find very interesting
Speaker 1: is that people really don't like reptiles in general. So
Speaker 1: you know, snakes and crocodiles people usually associate with evil.
Speaker 1: They have an evil look. And I always have to
Speaker 1: laugh because seatotles are also reptiles. It's just that they
Speaker 1: seem to be a little bit cuter or considered a
Speaker 1: little bit cuter than and other animals. Um. I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't know much about, you know,
Speaker 1: the ecology of sea turtles, for example, that sea turtles
Speaker 1: have to breathe air, so they're you know, having lungs
Speaker 1: just like us. UM, that they're really highly migratory, so
Speaker 1: it's not like they're, you know, just hanging out in
Speaker 1: front of the beach and then they're coming back. I
Speaker 1: think there's just a lot of information that is not
Speaker 1: known to the general public. I think that's other than
Speaker 1: misconceptions that I can think of, like out of the
Speaker 1: top of my head, I was in preparation for you
Speaker 1: coming on the show. Here, I was listening to Kara
Speaker 1: Museums interview with you on So You Want to Be
Speaker 1: a Marine Biologist podcast, which is at Marine Bio Dot Life,
Speaker 1: and I was fascinated by your descriptions of the are
Speaker 1: a batta, So I was wondering, could you tell our
Speaker 1: listeners what the arabata is and what it's like to
Speaker 1: witness it and study it. Yeah. So, um, from all
Speaker 1: the sea turtle species, is only two species that engage
Speaker 1: in that what we call the aribada behavior. Arii bada
Speaker 1: is from the Spanish word for arrival, and it is
Speaker 1: pretty much describing a synchronized mass nesting. So the olive
Speaker 1: redley and the camps really the two smallest species are
Speaker 1: the ones that do nest in those synchronized mass nestings,
Speaker 1: which usually happened in the case of olive relea is
Speaker 1: at least about once a month, and then depending if
Speaker 1: which season it is, you have like larger atibadas or
Speaker 1: smaller atibadas. But the really large adibadas can have up
Speaker 1: to half a million females, so you just have to envision.
Speaker 1: I of course, it's not like it's all happening in
Speaker 1: one night, so it's usually over the course of or
Speaker 1: to seven days, but it's usually even if in Austria.
Speaker 1: Now in lost Kastrica, which is our largest adivada beach,
Speaker 1: it's about a six kilometer beach, but the synchronized mass
Speaker 1: nesting only happens of about less than a kilometer, right,
Speaker 1: So you have to envision once the adivada starts. It
Speaker 1: is that if somebody blows a whistle and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, you have all these females that had already
Speaker 1: been gathering right in front of the shore. They are
Speaker 1: all coming up together and start their nesting program. Right,
Speaker 1: it's like a little computer chip. It all kind of
Speaker 1: looks the same. So they come up, they start digging,
Speaker 1: they start laying their eggs and start camouflage, and they
Speaker 1: do the little really dense and then if and it's
Speaker 1: just they crawl over each other. It smells horrendous because
Speaker 1: they dig up old nests that have been decaying, so
Speaker 1: it's really really disgusting. They throw sand in your face
Speaker 1: when you're trying to do something. If you forget your
Speaker 1: backpack somewhere, there's a good chance and one of the
Speaker 1: females just gets stucked with her flipper and just like
Speaker 1: drags it down into the water. It's just insanity for
Speaker 1: like four or seven nights and then it's gone, and
Speaker 1: you wouldn't even know that this just happened if it
Speaker 1: wouldn't be for you know, usually the vultures and dogs
Speaker 1: that are digging up nests and you see all these
Speaker 1: you know, little white have pieces which are all egg
Speaker 1: pieces on the beach and it's still smells a little
Speaker 1: bit funny, but that is what a adi bada is.
Speaker 1: It's it's absolutely impressive. I would say, if you ever
Speaker 1: get a chance to see one, definitely do it. Now
Speaker 1: that the rotten eggs are the decayed eggs that are
Speaker 1: being dug up. Now, are those the percentage of eggs
Speaker 1: that are just always lost generally, because I understand there's
Speaker 1: I've seen it broken down to where like there's a
Speaker 1: certain percentage of eggs they just never hatch and remain
Speaker 1: in the ground. And then you get into the survival
Speaker 1: rates for each stage of the sea turtle. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so there's with the adivada, it's it's a little bit
Speaker 1: more complicated, let's say that way, because you have so
Speaker 1: since it's happening every month and the nest usually needs
Speaker 1: about forty five to fifty five days to incubate, so
Speaker 1: that means if you are one of the very first
Speaker 1: females that are coming up in Ariivada number one, and
Speaker 1: let's say then this nest that is laid at that
Speaker 1: day has to actually survive to adivadas, right, it has
Speaker 1: to survive all the females that are coming after her,
Speaker 1: and then in thirty days it has to survive the
Speaker 1: next adibada up until it has incubated enough to hatch.
Speaker 1: So those nests are not super likely to survive in
Speaker 1: certain times of the year, especially also because there is
Speaker 1: you know, there's a super high density of nests. So
Speaker 1: m it means it's it's um yeah, like one square
Speaker 1: meters has a ton of nest really way too many.
Speaker 1: And so that means there is a lot of microbiota
Speaker 1: on the beach, kind of like I always think of
Speaker 1: a compost, because the sand, even on Audi Bada beaches
Speaker 1: is not really stand it's more like soil um And
Speaker 1: so you know, the the bacteria of course are affecting
Speaker 1: first of all the supply of oxygen that the eggs
Speaker 1: are having, and of course they also you know, infecting
Speaker 1: the eggs and just like you know, doing damage in
Speaker 1: other ways. And then the other thing is of course
Speaker 1: that the heat. So unfortunately and a lot of the
Speaker 1: ali Bada beaches there are in areas where we already
Speaker 1: have a lot of problem with high temperatures because of
Speaker 1: climate change, and so the rising temperatures are pretty much lethal. UM.
Speaker 1: So that means the incubation temperatures way too high for
Speaker 1: any egg to survive. So in Austria now um during
Speaker 1: dry season, these incub like just the hatching success of
Speaker 1: the nest that have survived till the end, it's only
Speaker 1: about fiftent I think, which is very very low, one five,
Speaker 1: so it's it's not very good. And then of course
Speaker 1: it's very difficult to quantify of how many eggs or
Speaker 1: nests from the initially late ones are actually even making
Speaker 1: it to that point. And I mean there's this one
Speaker 1: thing that is also contributing to it. In Austinal at
Speaker 1: least there is um I think the world only legal
Speaker 1: egg harvests, so the village is allowed in the first
Speaker 1: seventy two hours of each adibada to harvest as many
Speaker 1: nests pretty much as they able to UM. They're justifying
Speaker 1: it with the fact that hey, those nests would have
Speaker 1: the lowest chance of survival anyways, So we're just kind
Speaker 1: of taking them and selling them to the market where
Speaker 1: people still want to buy secret likes. It is a
Speaker 1: little bit controversial. I don't know if you want to
Speaker 1: go into that, but that is happening as well. So
Speaker 1: that means it of course if you would collect data
Speaker 1: on it, it doesn't it It is totally um, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's going because you don't know, you know what would
Speaker 1: be if they would lead those nests in the sand
Speaker 1: now in Costa Rica aside from the dogs that you mentioned,
Speaker 1: what what other mammals are getting in on the feast here? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so in Austria now thinks it's pretty developed. It's really
Speaker 1: the dogs, the vultures, mammals, raccoons, quati which are the
Speaker 1: raccoon family more than anything. But we do have also
Speaker 1: an Aribada nesting beach which is in a national park
Speaker 1: in Santa Rosta and they actually have jag wires on
Speaker 1: man and the at vada there is just because also,
Speaker 1: I mean, just because you have the synchronized mass nesting,
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean all of you olive. Really turtles are
Speaker 1: also engaging in that nesting behavior. There's some plasticity and
Speaker 1: some females nest solitarily, just like any other turtle species
Speaker 1: as well. So I mean most beaches have olive really
Speaker 1: nesting year round, and almost every single night you have
Speaker 1: like one or two turtles, and so that olive really
Speaker 1: population is sustaining a pretty large jaguar a population in
Speaker 1: in in nun sat In Santa Lsa National Park, because
Speaker 1: you know, they can just patrol just like we do,
Speaker 1: the waterline up and down, and when the rest turtle
Speaker 1: coming out, they're not super fast on land, and the
Speaker 1: jaguar just grass them, drags them up to the vegetation
Speaker 1: and then as you know, it depends if they have
Speaker 1: babies or not, but it takes about two to three days,
Speaker 1: so that turtles gone and then they start hunting again.
Speaker 1: M So all kinds of questions are running through my
Speaker 1: mind about this. So first of all, I apologize if
Speaker 1: you alluded to answers to either of these already. One is,
Speaker 1: do we have any idea what the queue is that
Speaker 1: triggers all of the turtles to come up onto the beach,
Speaker 1: because you said they gather offshore and then at some
Speaker 1: point they all just start coming in waves. Do you
Speaker 1: do we know why that happens or what causes it.
Speaker 1: So I mean the why there is some hypotheses. One
Speaker 1: of them is a predator prevention strategy, so that you
Speaker 1: pretty much just as when you're nesting, you're trying to
Speaker 1: overwhelm any potential predator. Uh. And then when the babies
Speaker 1: are hatching, since they're all hatching at the exact same time, right,
Speaker 1: so you have to think about half a million nests
Speaker 1: or even if it's just a few hundred thousand nests
Speaker 1: hatching at the same time, that means there's millions of
Speaker 1: millions of babies that just you know, scramble to make
Speaker 1: their way to to the ocean. So again, you know,
Speaker 1: if your predator, you can eat one or two or
Speaker 1: three or even more, but it's not going to be
Speaker 1: all of them. So it's it's a pretty pretty good
Speaker 1: predator prevention strategy. So that's the why. Possibly the how
Speaker 1: that is actually a question that we have answered it
Speaker 1: to a certain degree. Um, so we know that it
Speaker 1: has something to do with the lunar cycle, so that
Speaker 1: is pretty much solid. We know that for decades already,
Speaker 1: and it depends a little bit on the synchronized mass
Speaker 1: nesting beaches. So we have the Yeah, the majority of
Speaker 1: the beaches actually in Central America, So Mexico has a
Speaker 1: really large one, Costa Rica has a large one, and
Speaker 1: they're like smaller ones in in in Panama and in
Speaker 1: in Nicarago as well, And it depends a little bit
Speaker 1: of which beach we're talking about. What the lunar cycle is.
Speaker 1: For Ostinale, it is usually the week before new moon.
Speaker 1: So that means that is a pretty good indicator that
Speaker 1: I would say probably of the time is giving you
Speaker 1: a good idea of when the stutifada is going to happen.
Speaker 1: Whereas in Escobia, I think it also happens sometimes like
Speaker 1: a week before full moon. So um, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: exceptions always exist in Oustinal as well, but usually the
Speaker 1: indicator is new moon. And then what we don't know though,
Speaker 1: is so you can see already, you know, let's say
Speaker 1: it's like about a week before new moon, and you
Speaker 1: see already in the wives, you know, thousands of turtles
Speaker 1: just swimming, the heads are bobbing up, and you just think, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: it's going to be happening every every moment now. But
Speaker 1: we don't know is what is the actual whistle that
Speaker 1: I've talked about, you know, what is it really that
Speaker 1: says it is now and not tomorrow and not yesterday,
Speaker 1: but exactly now, and that we don't know. So they
Speaker 1: have been you know, kind of hypathities such as maybe, um,
Speaker 1: the females are having some type of pheromone that they're
Speaker 1: releasing and if it reaches a certain concentration that might
Speaker 1: be triggering it. But we don't really know. We really
Speaker 1: don't know. The other thing I was wondering was, um,
Speaker 1: do we have any indication whether the incredible density of
Speaker 1: the nesting is Is that totally natural or when I
Speaker 1: see something like that, I would kind of wonder, is
Speaker 1: that's something that could be caused by I don't know,
Speaker 1: changes that are going on, like anything that humans do
Speaker 1: would drive that sort of incredible density. Do do we
Speaker 1: know anything about that? Yeah, well, it's not that we
Speaker 1: have like solid data, so I would say probably not
Speaker 1: human cost. What I would say, though, is that we
Speaker 1: are really curious a scientist to study the evolution and
Speaker 1: the progression of Aribada nesting beaches because Austin now actually
Speaker 1: has a village for more than a hundred and thirty years,
Speaker 1: so that means there's really good historical data of you know,
Speaker 1: when they started to have an actual synchronized mass nesting,
Speaker 1: because it's not that they always had one, you know,
Speaker 1: so it started at some point um and it's still there.
Speaker 1: But and that's more or less. My personal hypothesis is
Speaker 1: that I really think adri Bada beach choose a kind
Speaker 1: of getting going extinct at one point if you would
Speaker 1: let them take the natural core is because it is
Speaker 1: a solid it's a series over use of the beach, right,
Speaker 1: you have so much nest and you can see from
Speaker 1: the studies at austeonalis well like the hatching success just
Speaker 1: over twenty thirty years, just like it's consistently decreasing. And
Speaker 1: if you would just let the beach do what it
Speaker 1: would usually do, or like the turtles to what they
Speaker 1: usually do, the hatching success right, which is probably be
Speaker 1: zero at one point, so there would be no next generation.
Speaker 1: But I mean, I have the suspicion it's really hard
Speaker 1: to prove that the you know, the egg harvest is
Speaker 1: probably are it officially keeping that beach alive, you know,
Speaker 1: because it is raising the hatching success to at least
Speaker 1: the level there is still babies, but it's very low
Speaker 1: so that actually might be detrimental to the population later
Speaker 1: on because maybe they would have already looked for another
Speaker 1: beach right at this point. What makes me think that
Speaker 1: is is that we have two new beaches now that
Speaker 1: weren't Atibada beaches before that. Now, in the past i
Speaker 1: would say six seven years, have started to have synchronized
Speaker 1: mass nest things and they are getting more and more.
Speaker 1: In the beginning it was like one per year, and
Speaker 1: then it was like three, and I think the last
Speaker 1: one was like almost eight synchronized mass nestings and one
Speaker 1: of them which is and it's getting bigger and bigger
Speaker 1: as well. So I think that's you know, there's a
Speaker 1: natural life cycle to an auti bata, which which logically
Speaker 1: it makes sense, right if you if you over use something,
Speaker 1: then at one point there is nothing more left, like
Speaker 1: when you over use the soil for plants or else,
Speaker 1: and so you have to look for something else. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it will be really interesting to kind of study that,
Speaker 1: you know, how new synchronized mass nesting beaches are developing,
Speaker 1: how long they really stay like that and until the
Speaker 1: turtles move on somewhere else, and also what triggers it, right,
Speaker 1: because if it would be really some kind of mechanism
Speaker 1: that is just going over the next generation. That would
Speaker 1: be I mean Olive Ridley's reach sexual maturity with about
Speaker 1: fifteen to twenty five years. So that's a lot like
Speaker 1: feedback cycle, you know too if you think about it's
Speaker 1: so maybe it's something else. So can you explain how
Speaker 1: temperature plays a role in the development of sea turtle
Speaker 1: eggs and then and then how does climate change impact
Speaker 1: this process? Yeah, so temperature in the life of sea
Speaker 1: turtles is super important, as we already talked about it.
Speaker 1: You know, they needed to warm up their body. But
Speaker 1: the uther cool thing is that the sex of sea
Speaker 1: turtles is determined by the incubation temperature. So that means
Speaker 1: they do not have sex chromosomes as we humans have
Speaker 1: for example, So you know usually it's x x and
Speaker 1: you become female biologically, or it's x y and you're
Speaker 1: male biologically. And in sea turtles is actually the second
Speaker 1: third of the incubation time. That's where higher temperatures are
Speaker 1: leading to more females gradually. Of course, it's not like
Speaker 1: a switch and it's all females or males, and cooler
Speaker 1: temperatures are leading to more males. So in English at
Speaker 1: least they have this you know, hot chicks and cool dudes,
Speaker 1: and if you want to remember how that is. Interestingly though,
Speaker 1: it is not the same in all turtles, since turtles
Speaker 1: it's exactly that, but there's other turtle species, freshwater turtles
Speaker 1: and tortoises that actually sometimes have two peaks. So it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of middle temperature produces more males and
Speaker 1: like really cool and really hot temperatuicuely to females. There's
Speaker 1: all kinds of variation within that group of turtles, but
Speaker 1: the anti turtles, it is that, and that of course
Speaker 1: means nowadays, where we are having rising temperatures because of
Speaker 1: climate change, in a lot of places, we are overproducing females.
Speaker 1: So there's beaches where we have pretty much almost d
Speaker 1: females that we're producing. So there's some status. It really
Speaker 1: depends on which region you're looking at and what species.
Speaker 1: But that is like you know, one male to nine females,
Speaker 1: or even worse worst case scenarios than that, which might
Speaker 1: not be a problem right now because like I said,
Speaker 1: it takes a while till they reach sexual maturity, but
Speaker 1: one they have reached sexual maturity and if population sizes
Speaker 1: are already small, it might be just not enough males
Speaker 1: around to fertilize the females and eggs. So that is
Speaker 1: really concerning UM. And in that sense, and some of
Speaker 1: the you know, conservation measures that we have, as for example,
Speaker 1: that we're shading our nests in order to you know,
Speaker 1: artificially increase the amount of males that we're producing, just
Speaker 1: to counteract a little bit those those impacts that climate change. UM. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's causing. UM. I had a question. I want to
Speaker 1: come back to something you said earlier about the resiliency
Speaker 1: of sea turtles and you mentioned mentioned like missing flippers
Speaker 1: and injuries that that they have survived. I was thinking
Speaker 1: about this recently because I got to snorkle in in
Speaker 1: now among some green sea turtles and I got to
Speaker 1: observe them there, and there was one in particular, and
Speaker 1: you know it was I kept seeing it because it
Speaker 1: had a number tag on its shell and it was
Speaker 1: missing a front flipper. And every time I would see it,
Speaker 1: I would I would marvel at it because I and
Speaker 1: then I would ask questions in my head. How I
Speaker 1: was wondering, like, this is a turtle that has that
Speaker 1: has been injured and then has been re released or
Speaker 1: is this just how resilient they are that it could
Speaker 1: sustain an injury like this survive And you know, I
Speaker 1: mean how does I guess? They just have questions about
Speaker 1: just just how they managed that. It seems like I know,
Speaker 1: if I lost a limb in the ocean, I would
Speaker 1: just be dead. Uh, how does the sea turtle pull
Speaker 1: it off? Yeah? So I think they have incredible healing powers.
Speaker 1: So just like what I've seen. For example, I remember
Speaker 1: one particular leather bag that came with absolutely horrible cuts
Speaker 1: from she must have gotten somehow entangled in fisher nets.
Speaker 1: Luckily she was freed, maybe by the fisherman themselves, but
Speaker 1: it was just a nasty cut all across, like the
Speaker 1: soft part of her shoulders. It was bleeding, it was
Speaker 1: in facted. She was really smelling as well. It was
Speaker 1: pretty disgusting. And um, so sea turtles don't nest just
Speaker 1: once proced us. They usually nest, you know, in the
Speaker 1: case of leather bags on average about five to seven
Speaker 1: times and have very distinct rensting intervals. So I know
Speaker 1: in other bags it's about ten days. So that means
Speaker 1: I knew already. Okay, you know, she will come back hopefully,
Speaker 1: and so you know the next time she came back,
Speaker 1: I kind of had some antibiotic appointment that I was,
Speaker 1: you know, trying and had like an antibotic pill that
Speaker 1: I just broke open and tried to like clean it
Speaker 1: a little bit. Um. But the interesting thing was really
Speaker 1: within the ten days that she came back, the wound
Speaker 1: already had pretty much clothes. I mean, it was just like,
Speaker 1: you know, pretty deep, and you could see, you know,
Speaker 1: it was like through the fat layer and you could
Speaker 1: see things that I, I think you're not supposed to
Speaker 1: be seeing. Um, Yeah, And it is just so impressive
Speaker 1: of how quickly in ten days, you know, the whole
Speaker 1: thing had already pretty much closed. And yeah, she had
Speaker 1: an ugly scar, but she's definitely able to to live
Speaker 1: or in the other Like another example is that I
Speaker 1: saw a female that came up onto the beach. So
Speaker 1: I caught her in the process of just walking up
Speaker 1: on the beach and she was dragging something behind her
Speaker 1: and you know, it looked like fishing net, but I
Speaker 1: wasn't sure, so I kind of went closer, switched on
Speaker 1: my light and what I saw I was, Yes, it
Speaker 1: was fishing net, but she also pretty much dragged her
Speaker 1: dead leg that was literally just hanging on on like
Speaker 1: one ligament, totally blown up, and oh, I mean the
Speaker 1: whole net, like the whole fishing I had already cut
Speaker 1: through the entire bone um, and she was pulling, you know,
Speaker 1: this dead leg on that ligament and there's like a
Speaker 1: huge bulk of fishing line behind her and she was
Speaker 1: still nesting. I mean, I mean, this is just mind blowing,
Speaker 1: right if you think about it, It's just like, Okay,
Speaker 1: she's probably in pain, she is in the process of
Speaker 1: losing an entire flipper, but this urge to come onto
Speaker 1: the beach to still reproduced is so big. And I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure that she survived, quite honestly, because I mean,
Speaker 1: what Scott it. I had already closed, so I just
Speaker 1: kind of the fishing gear um. And then you know,
Speaker 1: I could tell that she kind of flinched when I
Speaker 1: was trying to touch the one ligament. So what I
Speaker 1: did is because I didn't have anything, you know, I
Speaker 1: didn't want to cut through it, so I just took
Speaker 1: like one little piece of fishing eye and just like
Speaker 1: pretty much did a tourney catch, just like you know,
Speaker 1: try to find it off from all but supplying Oubrey
Speaker 1: would just fall off eventually. But yeah, it gets scory.
Speaker 1: One of the things I saw when we were coming
Speaker 1: in here. I know you've talked before about the the
Speaker 1: incident with the straw and the turtles nose, but one
Speaker 1: of the ones I saw was a a video you
Speaker 1: had uploaded where you were trying to remove a fishing
Speaker 1: net from a turtle's neck and that it had cut
Speaker 1: in all around the neck. I think was it a
Speaker 1: leather back or um that was an olive red lame
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah, it was exactly in front of us,
Speaker 1: you now, so that one of those synchronized mass inesting beaches.
Speaker 1: And yeah, that wasn't very typical. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't always have the chance to film everything that
Speaker 1: we see because you know, sometimes for me it's more
Speaker 1: important to actually you know, release them and not thinking
Speaker 1: about it. They can obously filment um. But yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a very typical side unfortunately. I mean this one was
Speaker 1: a little bit worse because it was around her neck.
Speaker 1: A lot of times it's you know, it's the flippers, um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean usually what all you can do
Speaker 1: is like you know, relief what she has and then
Speaker 1: just hope that the wounds will pretty much heal themselves,
Speaker 1: which usually they do um because it's even not that
Speaker 1: easy to kill a turtle. So we had another case
Speaker 1: where I was called in UM and there was a
Speaker 1: turtle on the beach that had been what we don't
Speaker 1: know what came first, but dogs were around her, had
Speaker 1: pretty much attacked her, had eaten into her body cavity,
Speaker 1: so from you know when you have the heads and
Speaker 1: the shell, so like the soft pipe is the shoulder pipe,
Speaker 1: and so the dogs had just taken out of it.
Speaker 1: She was in a really bad shape, like way worse
Speaker 1: than Yeah. I did not think, Okay, I can just
Speaker 1: throw her in the water and she's going to be fine.
Speaker 1: So I contacted the vets that is close by, But
Speaker 1: of course the veterinarians are usually not specialized in reptiles,
Speaker 1: so reptiles are very specific. Which even when we talked
Speaker 1: about you know, like in the aftermath of turtle straw
Speaker 1: videos like why didn't you take it to a vet?
Speaker 1: Why didn't you like anesthesize the turtles? It is actually
Speaker 1: not that easy and pretty dangerous to anesthesize the reptile
Speaker 1: because the actual therm and like how the metabolism works.
Speaker 1: More times than not, you might actually end up killing them.
Speaker 1: So you know, um, you have to really find a
Speaker 1: vet that knows how to dose everything to not kill them.
Speaker 1: And most of the times they would also opt to
Speaker 1: not do it and rather do whatever they need to
Speaker 1: do um without yeah, tranquilizing or anesthesizing the animal, just
Speaker 1: because it is so dangerous. And then of course, you know,
Speaker 1: you go to the vets that is actualized for cats
Speaker 1: and dogs and you're like kind of like, hey, I
Speaker 1: have this tea turtle and he was like, yeah, that
Speaker 1: is like, oh god, she needs to be euthanized. And
Speaker 1: then it was really interesting because we had to look
Speaker 1: up in the internet how to euthanize the turtle and
Speaker 1: it is really I mean m First of all, it's
Speaker 1: you can use a toxine that we didn't have at hand,
Speaker 1: so we had to find pretty much like other ways
Speaker 1: of how we could you know, humanely euthanize that turtle
Speaker 1: because I had seen it already when poachers, um, you know,
Speaker 1: try to to take the meat of turtles or the
Speaker 1: eggs that are still in in inside of the overducts.
Speaker 1: They a lot of times don't even bother killing the turtles.
Speaker 1: So they hack off the flippers and then they kind
Speaker 1: of cut out the plastron, you know, the belly pipe
Speaker 1: and just opened the turtle. And that turtles fully conscious
Speaker 1: in a life. And I have seen turtles that had
Speaker 1: literally no organs left anymore besides the lung and the
Speaker 1: heart because the meat was taken, the export taken, and
Speaker 1: the hat was still beating. I mean, it's it's absolutely
Speaker 1: it's it's it's really really sad and really impacting to
Speaker 1: see that. So we had this turtle we needed to euthanize,
Speaker 1: and I mean the only way of how. When I
Speaker 1: was talking to two best we're like, well, you have
Speaker 1: to drill a hole into her head and you make
Speaker 1: sure that you really hit the brand as quickly as
Speaker 1: possible so you know, she goes quickly and doesn't feel
Speaker 1: anything anymore. So it was a little bit traumatizing for
Speaker 1: all of us, I can tell you that. But yeah,
Speaker 1: because we had to find, like, you know, a drill somewhere,
Speaker 1: it was, Yeah, it was not a dosn't thing that
Speaker 1: we we had to do them, but it shows you
Speaker 1: a lot about resilience and also you know of how
Speaker 1: they work and how they yeah not die, I guess
Speaker 1: that quickly. So you're talking about the the idea of
Speaker 1: the sea turtle being attacked by dogs, um or even
Speaker 1: by humans. It makes me realize the question that apologies
Speaker 1: if this is a very dumb question. So we have
Speaker 1: experience with some terrestrial turtles like the box turtle that
Speaker 1: can fully retract inside the shell. Is that not Is
Speaker 1: there any kind of retraction defensive capability and sea turtles
Speaker 1: or can they partially do that or not at all?
Speaker 1: Or what? This is a really good question. I don't
Speaker 1: think it's a dumb question at all, because it's one
Speaker 1: of the most identifying features of sea turtles that they
Speaker 1: can not retract the limbs into the shell. So they
Speaker 1: can kind of pull their head in a little bit
Speaker 1: like in the case of example, green turtles um, but
Speaker 1: not really. So it's not you know, like this typical
Speaker 1: image that you have where they just like disappear into
Speaker 1: their shell. They can't. So the reason of why that
Speaker 1: is is, first of all, they have their shell has
Speaker 1: become very streamlined in in the course of evolution, so
Speaker 1: they're like super hydrodynamic um which also decreases the space
Speaker 1: inside of the shell. If you think about like these
Speaker 1: high domed tortoises for example that we have on land.
Speaker 1: And then the other thing is is that the main locomotive,
Speaker 1: like the own main engine, are the front flippers, right,
Speaker 1: so they have you know, they it's almost looks like
Speaker 1: like an airplane. The why how they like kind of
Speaker 1: go through the water or like flying like birds that
Speaker 1: are kind of flapping, you know, their power strokes with
Speaker 1: both flippers. But that means they're um that chest muscles
Speaker 1: have grown so large that they have taken up a
Speaker 1: lot more space than in other turtles. And that is
Speaker 1: also one of the reasons that they can't retract it
Speaker 1: into their shell anymore. And now in terms of just
Speaker 1: sort of the general temperament of the sea turtle, um,
Speaker 1: do you do you find that like different sea turtle
Speaker 1: species or even individuals have different demeanors or some shire
Speaker 1: around human divers or snorkelers for example. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: there's definitely a difference between species. So olive redleys and
Speaker 1: leather bags are seldom ly face, especially if we're talking
Speaker 1: about mass nesting turtles. So if you have solitary nesting
Speaker 1: turtles a little bit more skittish. Um. But the leather
Speaker 1: bags and olive redleys are really kind of like, I
Speaker 1: don't care so you can handle them while they're nesting.
Speaker 1: So they're in this like you know, supposed to be
Speaker 1: nesting trends that really kind of you know, they're only
Speaker 1: concentrating of dropping their eggs and and and anything that
Speaker 1: happens around them, they really don't seem to notice. But
Speaker 1: in the case of hawk spills and greens, both of
Speaker 1: those turtle species as super skittish, so it comes you know,
Speaker 1: even when they come up, even when they're already dropping
Speaker 1: the eggs, which you know supposedly there in the nesting trends.
Speaker 1: The protocols that we have in place usually means, okay,
Speaker 1: if you're not able to you know, really carefully collect
Speaker 1: eggs or whatever, better, don't touch them. Let they do
Speaker 1: their thing, and then we're going to collect the data
Speaker 1: so you know, we don't disturb the actual egg laying process.
Speaker 1: And then of course within individuals. UM, when we were
Speaker 1: doing especially the olive redly sampling, I always felt that
Speaker 1: smaller turtles were way more feisty than like the big
Speaker 1: big ones. Um. Maybe it had something to do with
Speaker 1: you know, being more edgile because you were smaller. I
Speaker 1: don't know, it's sometimes had seemed to have something to
Speaker 1: do of how high the temperatures were. So you know,
Speaker 1: if you grab a turtle that maybe has just woken
Speaker 1: up and hadn't had time to really go to the
Speaker 1: surface and sun basketball to really kind of wake up
Speaker 1: and get their metabolism going, um, there might be a
Speaker 1: little bit more sluggish. Then if you have one turtle
Speaker 1: that has been already you know, absorbed all the heat
Speaker 1: energy and the muscles are all ready for action, and
Speaker 1: then they start fighting you when you have them on
Speaker 1: the boat. Now, I realized there's a lot to unpack
Speaker 1: with this question, and I think we've touched on it
Speaker 1: a little bit at least already in the conversation. But
Speaker 1: what are the biggest threats to see turtles today and
Speaker 1: and and what is the current state of turtle conservation?
Speaker 1: What are the most important things we we are doing
Speaker 1: to help them and can do to help them? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so first up, I think we have to say very
Speaker 1: clearly that all sevency turtle species are considered endangered in
Speaker 1: one shape or form. I mean this like you know
Speaker 1: the I U C N that is um cur writing
Speaker 1: the red list of endangered species as having certain categories
Speaker 1: and different sea turtles species, and even different within the species,
Speaker 1: different populations have sometimes different status is but I think
Speaker 1: as a generalizing term, they are all somehow endangered um nowadays.
Speaker 1: And then if we think about the threats, it's just
Speaker 1: it's not just one. I think it's pretty much the
Speaker 1: exact same ones that when we talk about our ocean
Speaker 1: in general, it's exactly the same things that are also
Speaker 1: endangering sea turtles. So, of course the biggie is climate change.
Speaker 1: So we already talked about temperatures that are super important
Speaker 1: to sea turtles, and so rising temperatures are creating you know,
Speaker 1: issues with the yeah, overproduction of females. But the other
Speaker 1: biggie is also um sea level rice, so we have
Speaker 1: nesting habitat that is disappearing because sea levels are rising
Speaker 1: and nesting beaches are disappearing. Then the big category that
Speaker 1: is next is of course ocean pollution, and there we
Speaker 1: can talk about oil spills that are happening way too
Speaker 1: frequently and it's not always at the press reports about it.
Speaker 1: We can talk about the not so visible pollution through
Speaker 1: fertilizers and pesticides that comes from our agriculture, agricultural activities
Speaker 1: on land that leads to diseases such as fiber public puloma,
Speaker 1: which is kind of a virus disease that causes really
Speaker 1: crazy tumors, and sea turtles um. Then of course plastic pollution,
Speaker 1: So every single species of sea turtles has been documented
Speaker 1: to have ingested plastic already. Um A lot of times
Speaker 1: when we have dead turtles, we cut them open, they're
Speaker 1: just full of plastic. Interesting fact, the first ingestion of
Speaker 1: plastic and sea turtles was actually found in letter backs.
Speaker 1: So the first paper that was published on that was
Speaker 1: published in the nineteen eighties, and then the same author
Speaker 1: actually went back to all records from like I think
Speaker 1: the six season seventies to see for evidence if somebody
Speaker 1: else had been recording plastic, and they did find that
Speaker 1: even before that time, people had already found plastic in
Speaker 1: in in sea turtles, in leather bags specifically. And then
Speaker 1: the other thing, of course, is over exploitation. So in many, many,
Speaker 1: many developing countries in Asia, Africa, South America, Central America,
Speaker 1: people still take sea turtle eggs because they believe either
Speaker 1: they're better than chicken eggs or they believe it's a
Speaker 1: type of natural Viagraah, So older men try to increase
Speaker 1: their sex drive by yeah, by by eating sea turtle eggs.
Speaker 1: But there's also still a culture around consuming sea turtle meat,
Speaker 1: especially the meat of green turtles lets. You know, dates
Speaker 1: back many many centuries to sailors and other seafares that
Speaker 1: love taking turtles because they're just there's amazing protein source
Speaker 1: and turtles don't need much so they don't need much water,
Speaker 1: they don't need much food, but to keep them alive
Speaker 1: sometimes you can tie them outside of the boat and
Speaker 1: when you need one, you just slaughter them and then
Speaker 1: you have fresh meat. And then um, the other one
Speaker 1: is the in the exploitation range is the sea turtles
Speaker 1: shell trap, which is affecting especially hawks bill turtles, so
Speaker 1: tortoise shell I think you might have seen the pattern.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, it's for for jewelry, for or for forum
Speaker 1: for glasses, for reading glasses and els. Um. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: also long history. And then of course the other biggie
Speaker 1: is um over fishing. So industrial fishing just doesn't just
Speaker 1: you know, catch target species, but has an incredible amount
Speaker 1: of bycatch what we call incidental takes. So it's species
Speaker 1: that were not meant to be fished, but end up
Speaker 1: in those nets or on those lines as well. And
Speaker 1: since sea turtles, like I said, already need to breathe
Speaker 1: air um, they're actually sometimes a lot of times not
Speaker 1: able to surface and drown on those nets and and
Speaker 1: we it's really it's an overwhelming number of turtles that
Speaker 1: die every single year in fishing operations, and it is
Speaker 1: really sad, especially when you think about over exploitation it
Speaker 1: needs in turtle shell and also in in um in
Speaker 1: the fishing lines. Is that you know, there is a
Speaker 1: very low chance for babies to survive. But once you've
Speaker 1: reached a certain size as a sea turtle, there's really
Speaker 1: not that many natural predators. And since it takes such
Speaker 1: a long time for a seaturtle to reach sexual maturity,
Speaker 1: each individual is so valuable to the population. And it's
Speaker 1: exactly those individuals that die, you know, when you want
Speaker 1: to have meat, when you want to have turtle shell,
Speaker 1: or if you have bycatch. Now, when you mentioned the
Speaker 1: effects of of plastics on sea turtles, with the human
Speaker 1: activity that causes this primarily be the high volume use
Speaker 1: of single use plastics or other things too, or what
Speaker 1: do you think is the you know, the day to
Speaker 1: day human activity that contributes most to that in the ocean.
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of misconception about how plastic,
Speaker 1: first of all, ends up in our ocean and how
Speaker 1: plastic waste is created. It is very overwhelming of how
Speaker 1: much tons of plastic we are having each year, and
Speaker 1: it's increasing exponentially. So in just two thousand and fifteen,
Speaker 1: which is already six years back, we were already produced
Speaker 1: between four hundred and five hundred million metric tons of
Speaker 1: of of plastic each year, which good is mainly for
Speaker 1: food wrapping and packaging, and about forty are produced only
Speaker 1: for single use. Right, So you have this lyrical product
Speaker 1: plastic that can last for hundreds of years, and you're
Speaker 1: using it for the use of like literary seconds or minutes,
Speaker 1: and a lot of times, especially those single use plastics,
Speaker 1: are first of all, not recyclable at all, because there're
Speaker 1: two lights in the way of how you know, recycling
Speaker 1: is processed. But even if they were recycling recyclable, the
Speaker 1: reality is that only about four to nine percent of
Speaker 1: the plastic really gets recycled. So, you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of people feel good because it's like, hey, I recycle
Speaker 1: I'm not back, you know, I dispose of my trash responsibly.
Speaker 1: But the problem is most developing, as most developed countries
Speaker 1: are actually sending their plastic trash to developing countries. So
Speaker 1: the US, Europe, European countries, we're are sending our trash
Speaker 1: to Asia. Used to send it to China, but now
Speaker 1: it's going to Indonesia, to Malaysia, to other places which
Speaker 1: have not a great waste management program. And you know,
Speaker 1: since so little is really like you know, recyclable, it
Speaker 1: will end up in our oceans anyways. Right, So even
Speaker 1: you at home separated and you felt good about yourself
Speaker 1: because you did a good job, but in the end
Speaker 1: it will end up in landfills that might not be
Speaker 1: so well managed, even within the U. S. If you
Speaker 1: just think about you know, hurricanes, so you have an
Speaker 1: open landfill, you know, the next hurricane that kind of
Speaker 1: goes through, what do you think it's going to happen
Speaker 1: to your trash? You know, it's going to be ending
Speaker 1: up in the waterways, and eventually it will also end
Speaker 1: up in the ocean. So it's not just you know,
Speaker 1: cruise boats or container ships that are creating all the
Speaker 1: plastic trash or the people that visit the beaches and
Speaker 1: leave their trash behind. No, it's every single person in
Speaker 1: the world that is contributing to the issue. I want
Speaker 1: to make that very clear, because that's always the easy
Speaker 1: way out. But where people are listening, well, I'm not
Speaker 1: part of the problem. We're all part of the problem.
Speaker 1: And I think the other problem is it's like the
Speaker 1: convenience people are just so used to kind of rapid
Speaker 1: consumption of food and everything and beverages and um in
Speaker 1: the pandemic, now, you know, just the amount of takeout
Speaker 1: that has been probably um yeah, perpetuated because you know,
Speaker 1: everybody's at home and wants to still eat something from
Speaker 1: a restaurant. And so the style form containers, the plastic bottles,
Speaker 1: the plastic cups, the plastic cutlery, all of that needs
Speaker 1: to go somewhere, right, and uh yeah, it usually doesn't
Speaker 1: get recycled, and it will somehow end up in our
Speaker 1: environment in one way or another. So that means the
Speaker 1: only thing that we can really do is is really
Speaker 1: try to reduce our use of plastic as much as
Speaker 1: we can. And I'm not trying to say, you know, oh,
Speaker 1: we need all to be like completely plastic free, because
Speaker 1: that is it's a utopia that is not possible. I
Speaker 1: mean my computer that I'm using to speak to you
Speaker 1: right now, the you know certain things that I use
Speaker 1: for my science doctors that are using the syringer. It's
Speaker 1: just like, there's certain advantages you know of plastic that
Speaker 1: I think are super important for us as a species
Speaker 1: as well. But do we really need to use plastic
Speaker 1: for like, um, you know, to drink out of a
Speaker 1: cup where we don't even need, ah, you know, a
Speaker 1: straw in the first place. If if we're able to
Speaker 1: bloody people, we can just drink out of the cup.
Speaker 1: Or you know, if you're getting tag out, um and
Speaker 1: you have all your silver wet home, why do you
Speaker 1: need to get plastic cutler right? It's just it's so easy.
Speaker 1: I get it because you don't have to wash it up,
Speaker 1: you just throw it out. But there is a price
Speaker 1: to it, you know, there's always a price that somebody
Speaker 1: has to pay the price, and a lot of times,
Speaker 1: unfortunately it's the wildlife, um that is praying the price
Speaker 1: and not us. Is there anything else that you think
Speaker 1: would be really important to hit before we wrap up here?
Speaker 1: Very important? I don't know. I just you know, want
Speaker 1: to motivate people to really understand that there is a
Speaker 1: certain degree that we have a there's a degree of
Speaker 1: power that we have as consumer, right, So I do
Speaker 1: not want to try to fool you into believing that
Speaker 1: the consumers are the ones that are really, you know,
Speaker 1: having to carry all the responsibility for for example, of
Speaker 1: plastic pollution, it's really the large companies that are creating
Speaker 1: most of our our problem. But we can vote with
Speaker 1: our decision, like with our choices, right, So if if
Speaker 1: you spend your money with a certain company, you're voting
Speaker 1: for that money quite literally. So I just think we
Speaker 1: need to be more conscious about how we're spending our money.
Speaker 1: And I just always try to convince people just to
Speaker 1: consume less, just buy less crap, because it's just like,
Speaker 1: you know, I get it. Capitalism is trying to make
Speaker 1: you buy more and more and tries to, you know,
Speaker 1: make you believe that you need this newest thing. But
Speaker 1: it's it's you know, it's not true. It really isn't true.
Speaker 1: And I think we just need to be a lotte
Speaker 1: more conscientious of of our consumer behavior and then we
Speaker 1: just become better consumers. I think. All right, well, Christine
Speaker 1: thanks so much for chatting with us today and uh
Speaker 1: sharing all this great information about about about sea turtles.
Speaker 1: I feel like I learned to learned so much today
Speaker 1: about the about the seven sea turtles we still have
Speaker 1: as well as their you know, their their current plight.
Speaker 1: So I guess what one thing to ask would be
Speaker 1: if anyone out there listening to this, if they want
Speaker 1: to follow you and your work online, where can they
Speaker 1: go to do so? Where do you like to send people? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty active on Instagram, so I'm sea turtle biologists.
Speaker 1: Very easy if you guys want to check out my Instagram,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to create content about you know, sea turtles
Speaker 1: and about plastic pollution and just giving ideas of of
Speaker 1: of what's going on out in the field where I am.
Speaker 1: And that's definitely one way. And yeah, if you guys
Speaker 1: want to support my work, UM there is an app
Speaker 1: called milky Wire where you can become monthly supporters I
Speaker 1: think starting at like about three or five dollars, so
Speaker 1: literally just like as if you would invite me to
Speaker 1: coffee each month. And that is a huge difference because
Speaker 1: that is pretty much how we sustain our conservation efforts UM,
Speaker 1: which is paying my guys that are patrolling the beaches
Speaker 1: trying to keep the turtles safe from poachers and make
Speaker 1: sure that the babies have a good chance of, you know,
Speaker 1: having a good start in life. Yeah. I think that's
Speaker 1: probably the easiest way of connecting with me. Excellent, all right, Well,
Speaker 1: well again again, thanks so much for taking time out
Speaker 1: of your day to chat with us. This has been great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for having me. That's fun nerding
Speaker 1: out about turtles. All right. Thanks once more to Christine
Speaker 1: Figuring for taking time out of her day to just
Speaker 1: chat with us about sea turtles and sea turtle conservation.
Speaker 1: Uh that this was a real blast. And if you
Speaker 1: would like to to follow her on social media, uh,
Speaker 1: these are a few of the places you can end
Speaker 1: just in general on the internet. Here a few places
Speaker 1: you can go on Instagram. Uh, she is a sea
Speaker 1: turtle biologist. One word on Facebook, it is c F. Figener.
Speaker 1: That's f I g g e n e R. And
Speaker 1: on Twitter, uh, she is Chris Figners, So that's Chris
Speaker 1: C h R I S f I g g e
Speaker 1: n e R. And you can also go to her
Speaker 1: website which is Sea Turtle Biologist dot com and then
Speaker 1: the Coasts organization uh coasts dot c r on is
Speaker 1: the Instagram tag and you can uh that one is
Speaker 1: also connected to uh DR Figener's Facebook account. We're gonna
Speaker 1: go and close it out there, but if you want
Speaker 1: to listen to other episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
Speaker 1: you can find them in the Stuff to Blow Your
Speaker 1: Mind podcast feed with core science and culture episodes publishing
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Speaker 1: on Monday, and on Friday's we do a little weird
Speaker 1: house cinema. That's our time to set the science aside
Speaker 1: and just focus on a weird movie. Huge thanks as
Speaker 1: always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If
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Speaker 1: feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest topic
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