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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of

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Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick,

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Speaker 1: and we've got a really great interview to share with

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Speaker 1: you today. This is with Dr Christine Bigener. Uh so

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Speaker 1: as a way of introduction. Dr Christine Figner is a

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Speaker 1: marine conservation biologist and science communicator who has been really

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Speaker 1: successful on social media. Sometimes known as the Sea Turtle

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Speaker 1: straw Lady, she has raised global awareness of the issue

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Speaker 1: of ocean plastic pollution and has been studying sea turtles

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Speaker 1: for over fifteen years. You might have seen her in

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Speaker 1: a viral video moment where she was she and her

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Speaker 1: research team were removing a plastic straw that was lodged

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Speaker 1: in a sea turtles nose, and of course that video

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Speaker 1: triggered a lot of thought about what is what is

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Speaker 1: the effect to say single use plastics such as plastic

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Speaker 1: straws in on marine life. Christine today is a is

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Speaker 1: a science communicator who uh speaks at events about her

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Speaker 1: sea turtle conservation work, fighting plastic pollution, and empowering women

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Speaker 1: in science. In eighteen, Time magazine honored her outreach and

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Speaker 1: advocacy efforts by naming her a Next Generation Leader. As

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Speaker 1: Director of Science and Education for the US based Footprint Foundation,

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Speaker 1: she travels the globe educating people about the effects of

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Speaker 1: plastic pollution on our environment and human health, and inspiring

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Speaker 1: people to reduce their use of plastic. She's also the

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Speaker 1: co founder and scientific lead of a community centered, grassroots

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Speaker 1: conservation organization in Costa Rica that is researching and protecting

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Speaker 1: sea turtles. Christine's overall goal is to reach as many

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Speaker 1: people as possible with her message to eliminate plastic from

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Speaker 1: our environment, save sea turtles from extinction, empower women in science,

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Speaker 1: and make our planets safer and healthier for wildlife and

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Speaker 1: people alike. So that's just a really fun at Let's

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Speaker 1: go ahead and dive into it. Let's get into some

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Speaker 1: gnarly facts and stories about sea turtles. We have all

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Speaker 1: sea turtle questions for you here today. We may ask

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Speaker 1: you whale stuff too, because you were You were also

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Speaker 1: originally interested in cetations, right, Yeah, somebody did the homework

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Speaker 1: on me. Yeah, I became a marine biologist because I

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Speaker 1: love humpback whales. Oh did you happen to read the

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Speaker 1: story of supposedly a man off the coast province town

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Speaker 1: who was a lobster diver reported that he was temporarily

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Speaker 1: swallowed by a humpback whale. Do you believe it's true?

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Speaker 1: Creepy and funny? Is that allegedly it's the same guy

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Speaker 1: that like a few years ago, survived airplane crash in

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Speaker 1: Costa Rica, one of the few survivors wow about having

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Speaker 1: more than one life. Yeah? Well wait, so do you

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Speaker 1: have any reason to be skeptical of the story or

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Speaker 1: do you think it's plausible that he did go into

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Speaker 1: the humpback whales mouth and then was spit out. I

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Speaker 1: think that's possible. I don't think it was swallowed. I

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Speaker 1: just think, I mean, not swallowed all the way right,

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Speaker 1: So I think probably. I mean, if you've ever seen him,

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Speaker 1: big whales feeding, right, so they kind of have those

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Speaker 1: bubble curtains and then they just go in and just

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Speaker 1: open their mouths wide just to like, you know, swallow

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Speaker 1: the largest quantity possible and if you happen to just

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Speaker 1: be there. But I'm sure that way I was like,

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Speaker 1: oh my god, what's that in my mouth? Is just

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Speaker 1: like wrong place, wrong time? Huh. Well, we just we

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Speaker 1: just jumped right into it. Maybe we should back up

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Speaker 1: and uh and actually get officially started. Um, so one

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Speaker 1: place we do like to start here is Christine. Can

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Speaker 1: you just introduce yourself to the audience, stating your name,

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Speaker 1: your title, as well as any key affiliations or employers

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Speaker 1: organizations that you want right up there at the top

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Speaker 1: with your ID. Yeah, my name is Christine Siginger. I

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Speaker 1: am I Trade the marine biologist, and I have been

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Speaker 1: working on the interface between conservation and applied signs for

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Speaker 1: about more than fifteen years now, mainly with sea turtles,

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Speaker 1: but also with cetaceans and wells and dolphins. And right

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Speaker 1: now I am running a small community based grassroots organization

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Speaker 1: in Constrica that is protecting sea turtles. And I'm also

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Speaker 1: the director of science and Education for the US based

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Speaker 1: Footprint Foundation, which is we're trying to convince people to

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Speaker 1: reduce their use of plastics. So that's pretty much me

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Speaker 1: and I'm nutshell. I guess, so you mentioned that you

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Speaker 1: were originally interested in cetations before you got into sea

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Speaker 1: turtles as a research area. How did you How did

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Speaker 1: you make that leap? And I guess you can back

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Speaker 1: all the way up to setations if you want. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean I in my teens. You know, we're usually

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Speaker 1: people are obsessing about boy bands. I guess I'm not

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Speaker 1: going to say which one was popular during my times

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Speaker 1: because that would review my age, I guess um. But

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Speaker 1: instead of that, I was actually collecting you know, posters

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Speaker 1: and articles and other stuff about whales and dolphins, and

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Speaker 1: I put particularly loved hum big whales. So I I

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Speaker 1: play music. I played the guitar, and I sing, and

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Speaker 1: I always thought, you know, it would be so cool

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Speaker 1: to study the songs of hump big whales. You know,

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Speaker 1: it's kind of a cultural thing and it would have

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Speaker 1: combined a lot of my interests into like this one thing.

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Speaker 1: But then I happened to have the chance to go

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Speaker 1: to Costrica on a sea turtle or into a seaturtal

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Speaker 1: project when I did my master's into a leather bag project,

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Speaker 1: very specific, and I totally fell in love with that

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Speaker 1: type of work because it's super hands on. I don't

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Speaker 1: think there's that many, you know, jobs as a wildlife

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Speaker 1: biologist where you can be with such a large animal,

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Speaker 1: you know, for extended times in the natural environment without

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Speaker 1: having to you know, tranquilize them or restrain them even

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Speaker 1: in any shape or form, and it was so impressive,

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Speaker 1: just like the environment. Right, So you're on these tropical beaches,

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Speaker 1: have this incredible you know, biodiversity all around you. You

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Speaker 1: have the jungle right next to you on one side,

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Speaker 1: and you have you know, the vast ocean on the other.

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Speaker 1: You have this incredible night sky over your head. And

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Speaker 1: then you just you know, walk, you know, kilometers and

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Speaker 1: hours without end on the beach just to find this

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Speaker 1: like one track that leads up to the verm, up

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Speaker 1: to the vegetation, and you hope that the turtle is

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Speaker 1: still there. And then once you see the turtle, it's

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Speaker 1: just you know, they're real life dinosaurs if you think

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Speaker 1: about it, right, they have been around for hundred on

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Speaker 1: a hundreds, but definitely more than a hundred million years,

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Speaker 1: especially leather bags, which are like the oldest lineage of

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Speaker 1: sea turtles that we still have. And when you just

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Speaker 1: sit next to them, they're massive. I mean, they're absolutely gigdentists.

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Speaker 1: And you can see them, you know, using their real

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Speaker 1: floppers just like hands, digging their ex chamberers, squeezing out

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Speaker 1: the eggs, creating a new generation. And yeah, I totally

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Speaker 1: I was totally aw and I just Okay, this is

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Speaker 1: like the coolest thing I've ever done in my life,

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Speaker 1: and that is just how I fell in love and

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Speaker 1: just stayed with it. Wow. You know, speaking of just

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Speaker 1: how long sea turtles have been around, Um, well, what

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Speaker 1: is it about the sea turtle that has enabled it

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Speaker 1: to survive while so many other marine reptiles have gone extinct?

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Speaker 1: Like what is what do you think is the winning

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Speaker 1: design of the sea turtle? You know, that's that's a

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Speaker 1: really good question, and I don't think we have like

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Speaker 1: a definite answer. I think, especially in evolutionary biology, we

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Speaker 1: always make very many intelligent guesses. But of course, at

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Speaker 1: one point there were a lot more sea turtle species

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Speaker 1: than there are nowadays. As so we are down to seven,

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Speaker 1: seven extant species. And if you look at the seven

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Speaker 1: species right now, it's really interesting because they all have

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Speaker 1: similar ecologies to certain degree because you know, you can

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Speaker 1: find them in usually warmer waters because the active therm,

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Speaker 1: so that means they cannot regulate their own body temperature,

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Speaker 1: so that means they have to get an outside source

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Speaker 1: to really you know, get their metabolism going. So that

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Speaker 1: means you find them in tropical waters subtropical waters and

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Speaker 1: they're all coming onto the beach to nest. But then

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Speaker 1: if you look at that diet, and I think that

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Speaker 1: is really the key is you know, how they diversified.

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Speaker 1: It's really over the over the axis of the diet.

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Speaker 1: So we have very specialized species such as the hawks

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Speaker 1: bill or the leather bags. Of the hawks bill feeds

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Speaker 1: mainly on sponges, the leather bag feeds mainly on jellyfish.

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Speaker 1: I mean, that's another really cool thing if you think

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Speaker 1: about how large that animal is that feeds on an

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Speaker 1: animal that's just barely you know, anything other than water. Um.

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Speaker 1: Then we have green turtles that are as adults at

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Speaker 1: least mainly herbivorous, so they're very different in their you know,

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Speaker 1: trophic niche as we would say scientists. So that means,

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Speaker 1: you know, they have very different diet and that is

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Speaker 1: probably the the secret to their you know, coexistence, that

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Speaker 1: they're not competing with each other for resources. And the

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Speaker 1: other thing is sea turtles are incredible resilience. So I've

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Speaker 1: never met um animals that are so resilient. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I've seen so many turtles that have suffered incredible injuries literally,

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Speaker 1: you know, amputations, of limbs or really crazy damage to

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Speaker 1: their to their shell, and they're still able to survive

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Speaker 1: and not just survive, but you know, still kind of

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Speaker 1: go with their biological program go and mates come up

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Speaker 1: to the beach and lay their eggs, even though they

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Speaker 1: might have literally no real flippers anymore, or massive slashes

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Speaker 1: in their carapace. I mean, I've seen really really sad things,

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Speaker 1: but it also makes me think, wow, yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: you're really resilient, so that means things might not face

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Speaker 1: you as much as others. And they're also pretty widespread, right,

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Speaker 1: so that means we have really sea turtles and almost

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Speaker 1: all tropical waters. So um, even if maybe one population

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Speaker 1: might go extinct, they are probably able to repopulate, you know,

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Speaker 1: into in from that population into other areas again. And

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Speaker 1: that might have been you know, the secret of why

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Speaker 1: they were able to survive so long, because they were

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Speaker 1: probably able to first of all, migrate into into other

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Speaker 1: places if if things became inhabitable or were able to

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Speaker 1: you know, diversify that diet over the course of millions

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Speaker 1: of years. And it seems also be the body plan

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Speaker 1: that they have seems to be really successful. Right, So

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Speaker 1: I don't know if everybody knows that. But turtles, not

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Speaker 1: just sea turtles, Um. Their shell is actually made from

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Speaker 1: their rip cache that merged together. So the single rips

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Speaker 1: it's kind of you know, became bony and just like yeah,

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Speaker 1: became the shell. So the shell is actually the vertebrate,

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Speaker 1: and the rips and everything else like your shoulder blades

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Speaker 1: and everything moved inside. So they have created this incredible armor.

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Speaker 1: I mean, in German, if you translate like turtle, it

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Speaker 1: actually means shielded toad because the habits like shield and protected,

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Speaker 1: right um. And that means of course that once sea

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Speaker 1: turtles have read to certain buddy size, there's not that

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Speaker 1: many natural predators that are actually able to eat a turtle,

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Speaker 1: right So right now, I mean we're taking like humans

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Speaker 1: aside at this point, but if you're talking about natural predators,

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Speaker 1: it's really only about you know, the the animals really

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Speaker 1: strong mandibles that can crack that shell. So that's the

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Speaker 1: tiger shark, is the j jack wires, and it's crocodiles

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Speaker 1: that might be able to really eat an entire turtle.

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Speaker 1: I mean they might be able otherwise to take like

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Speaker 1: a bite out of flipper, but that's not the delicious

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Speaker 1: pipe with all the fat and all the all the meat,

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Speaker 1: it's all inside of the shell, right, So correct me

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Speaker 1: if I'm wrong, But I believe there's still some mystery

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Speaker 1: about the sort of step wise evolutionary process that led

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Speaker 1: to the turtle having a shell? Isn't there? Because I

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Speaker 1: think I was reading that, Um, it's sort of hypothesized

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Speaker 1: that maybe a middle stage was first you had some

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Speaker 1: kind of lizard like creature that had a wide, large

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Speaker 1: rib cage, and then maybe in between it had a

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Speaker 1: body plan that was sort of like you would see

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Speaker 1: with models of the ankleosaurus, where they're sort of plates

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Speaker 1: all over the back, and then over time those plates fused.

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Speaker 1: Is that sort of in the right direction? Yeah? I

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Speaker 1: mean I'm not an expert on like, you know, the

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Speaker 1: paleontology I think, or like the actual um evolution of

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Speaker 1: of like the body plant. But what's interesting if you

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Speaker 1: just look back, for example, even just look at the

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Speaker 1: leather back So we have seven species, as I said,

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Speaker 1: and six of them all belong to the height shell turtles. Um,

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Speaker 1: so it's kind of the same group. And then we

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Speaker 1: have the leather back turtles, which are their own lineage,

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Speaker 1: and leather bags actually look a lot more like the

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Speaker 1: you know, the the older lineages as well, because they

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Speaker 1: have a reduced care place. So leather bags are pretty

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Speaker 1: much named because they have a soft shell, so they

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Speaker 1: do not have those bony plates. Um. If you look

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Speaker 1: at it at a skeleton of the leather bag, you

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Speaker 1: will not exactly see what I just said where the

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Speaker 1: grips have grown together, so it's it's more like cartilage

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Speaker 1: um um. And parts of it is it's just like

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Speaker 1: a reduced shell. And our colon for example, which is

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Speaker 1: one of the you know, first seat riddles that that

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Speaker 1: we've known of from the fossil finds, looks a lot

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Speaker 1: like leather bags, so they have you know, they have

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Speaker 1: some type of shell, but it's more a reduced shell.

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Speaker 1: And also I think and other fossil finds, you can

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Speaker 1: see that certain sea turtles, for example, had a like

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Speaker 1: a stronger plastron which is like the belly part of

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Speaker 1: the shell victually as you know, um like kind of

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Speaker 1: a reinforced carapace which is the upper part of the shell,

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Speaker 1: and vice versa. So it might have been like different

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Speaker 1: pressures for example, of where your natural predators came from.

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Speaker 1: So if you were mainly you know, attacked from the bottom.

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Speaker 1: Maybe it was you know, advantageous to have you know,

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Speaker 1: a kind of reinforced shield on your belly rather than

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Speaker 1: on your back or vice versa. So you don't know.

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Speaker 1: But that's, like I said, that's the intelligent guesses that

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Speaker 1: you have may have to make about evolution and why

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Speaker 1: certain things developed or weren't successful in the end. Excellent.

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Speaker 1: So I'm not going to ask basically three questions at

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Speaker 1: the same time, but they're very they're very simple and sudden.

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Speaker 1: They are kind to flow together. So how many of

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Speaker 1: the seven extant sea turtle species have you observed in

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Speaker 1: the wild, which ones do you work with the most,

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Speaker 1: and do you have a favorite? So from the seven

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Speaker 1: I have seen in the wild six and missing the

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Speaker 1: flat fact turtle. So we have two species which are

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Speaker 1: considered endemic, which means they're only found in a very specific,

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Speaker 1: very limited geo geographic range, which is first of all,

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Speaker 1: the chempstradilely turtle, which can be mainly found or solely

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Speaker 1: found in the Gulf of Mexico. And then there's the

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Speaker 1: flat fact turtle, which is pretty much found in the

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Speaker 1: waters around northern Australia between Papa Papua New Guinea and

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Speaker 1: and in Australia they but they nest mainly on the

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Speaker 1: north shore of Australia, so I haven't seen that one yet.

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Speaker 1: That is really, um my last one that I'm missing.

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Speaker 1: I do work mainly with the species that we have

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Speaker 1: in Costrica where I'm based. So the species I started

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Speaker 1: with is the leather back turtle, but we're also getting

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Speaker 1: you know, a lower number of green turtles nesting in

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Speaker 1: the Caribbean as well as on the leather back beaches

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Speaker 1: I've worked on in the Pacific. And then for my PhD,

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Speaker 1: I really extensively studied olive red lace, which is one

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Speaker 1: of the smallest species. And then right now, since last year,

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Speaker 1: I just initiated a larger hospital project, which is also

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Speaker 1: the same beach where the leather bags are nesting. So

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Speaker 1: you've always got some, but now we're really focusing on,

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Speaker 1: you know, monitoring the hospital population, which is not nesting

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Speaker 1: exactly at the same time than the leather bags. And well,

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Speaker 1: my favorite one, hands down leather bags. I mean, I

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Speaker 1: hate to say it, and everybody that disagrees with me,

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Speaker 1: they're just wrong. Um just because leather bags I just incredible.

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Speaker 1: I mean they really they they just constitute so many

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Speaker 1: or like they have so many super a littles about them.

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Speaker 1: I mean, they are the species that are distributed the widest.

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Speaker 1: So we're still talking about an active them animal, right,

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Speaker 1: an animal that is in fear not able to regulate

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Speaker 1: their body temperature. But you will find or you can't

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Speaker 1: find leather blacks in waters that are substantially colder than

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Speaker 1: what the perfect temperature would be for them. Right, So

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Speaker 1: our populations in Costa Rica, depending which side of the

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Speaker 1: coast on they feed either in front of Nova Scotia

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Speaker 1: in Canada, Wales, England, also in the North Sea, so

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Speaker 1: recently there was actually stranding in Denmark um and then

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Speaker 1: the ones that have nesting on the Pacific side they

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Speaker 1: are usually going down to Peru, which are also pretty

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Speaker 1: cold waters. And how they can do it is, you know,

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Speaker 1: they have really found a way of first of all,

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Speaker 1: maintaining their body temperature, the core temperature steady. So they

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Speaker 1: have this like incredible fatty layers. It's almost like a

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Speaker 1: winter coat that keeps them warm and insulated. But then

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Speaker 1: of course they don't have it on their flippers, but

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Speaker 1: they do have it around the esophagus, so that's really cool, right,

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Speaker 1: So that means even when they like swallow their prey,

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Speaker 1: which might be colder than their core temperature, it prevents

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Speaker 1: their core body temperature from dropping. And then it is

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Speaker 1: you know, first, of course it's a large animal, so

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Speaker 1: they have a better surface to volume ratio. It's it's

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Speaker 1: it's a term, it's called the gun to thermi um.

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Speaker 1: You know that it's just like you don't lose as

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Speaker 1: much heat over your surface just because you're large. And

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Speaker 1: then also because your flippers of course are exposed, they're

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Speaker 1: not having this fetty tissue. And in theory, you know,

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Speaker 1: all that blood that circulates, the warm blood goes out,

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Speaker 1: would cool down, go back, but no, they have this

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Speaker 1: countercurrent system where you know, the warm blood that comes

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Speaker 1: from the body is actually warming up the cold blood

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Speaker 1: that comes back from the flipper without losing the heat. Right,

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Speaker 1: So they're pretty much just like pass it on to

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Speaker 1: the blood that goes back into the body. And then

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Speaker 1: the last thing that is actually a little bit more

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Speaker 1: recent is that some scientists just discovered that the bags

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Speaker 1: are able to produce a certain amount of body heat

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Speaker 1: through digestion, so they made them swallow temperature pills um,

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Speaker 1: you know little devices that can literally measure the different

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Speaker 1: temperature while they were going through the digestive track, and

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Speaker 1: they're like, wow, okay, you're digesting and you're actually producing here.

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Speaker 1: That's pretty amazing. So you know the limitations of what

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Speaker 1: we know about active therms and it's pretty it's pretty incredible.

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Speaker 1: I mean, other bags are just wow, mind blown. Would

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Speaker 1: would that last fact mean that it's not actually such

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Speaker 1: a strict dividing line between warm blooded animals and cold

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Speaker 1: blooded animals? But more question of degree this is this

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00:18:37,760 --> 00:18:40,240
Speaker 1: is a good question. Some people have argued that leather

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Speaker 1: bags might be not as you know, strictly active therm

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Speaker 1: as we would have categorized them. But then, of course

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Speaker 1: where do you draw the line? Right? Scientists like to

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Speaker 1: have drawers where you can like stuff things into and

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Speaker 1: it's just like, okay, you have this, but not that.

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Speaker 1: And I think sometimes, you know, especially when you think

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Speaker 1: about how evolution happens, it's just not that clear and cut.

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Speaker 1: So in talking about the leather back, you were mentioning

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Speaker 1: that it has a self warming throat. When you look

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Speaker 1: inside their mouth, it does really look like a horror show.

348
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Speaker 1: They have these uh, these spikes so what's going on

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Speaker 1: with all that? What does what does that tell us

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Speaker 1: about the lifestyle of the leather at sea turtle. Well,

351
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Speaker 1: I mean you just have to think about, right, you

352
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Speaker 1: are a leather back turtle, You're swimming underwater, and you

353
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Speaker 1: are trying to eat this very deliberate thing, what is

354
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Speaker 1: a jellyfish, But you also don't want to swallow the seawater, right,

355
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Speaker 1: So it's not like you're wanting to eat seawater all

356
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Speaker 1: the time, you know. So you're taking a bite and

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Speaker 1: you swallow the jellyfish. You swallow the seawater, but before

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Speaker 1: you maybe we shouldn't say swallow, so you kind of

359
00:19:45,440 --> 00:19:48,000
Speaker 1: take it into your mouth, but before you actually swallow it,

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Speaker 1: you want to get rid of the sea water. And

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Speaker 1: so that means you also do not want to get

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Speaker 1: rid of the jellyfish though, But it's so you know,

363
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Speaker 1: sliming glibbery that there's a good chance it would go

364
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Speaker 1: out if it wouldn't be for those spines that a

365
00:19:59,760 --> 00:20:02,520
Speaker 1: cut during the entire mouth down all the way down

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Speaker 1: to the aesephagus. Actually, other sea turtle species have those

367
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Speaker 1: spines as well, they're just not so like in the

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Speaker 1: mouth cavity already, so it's usually just like the aesephagus

369
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Speaker 1: that is having those um But yeah, and in the

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Speaker 1: ladder bag, it's right behind the mandibles. It's where it starts.

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Speaker 1: So it looks at one of those alien mouth that

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Speaker 1: you know that I think that pretty typical I feel

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Speaker 1: in science fiction movies. But it's really about and they're

374
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Speaker 1: all pointing towards the stomach, and that means it's really

375
00:20:30,000 --> 00:20:32,080
Speaker 1: kind of meant to, you know, for the jellyfish to

376
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Speaker 1: get stuck in it, and they are able to extract

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Speaker 1: the water, usually through their nostrils, so there's a connection

378
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Speaker 1: between the mouth cavity and the nose um so they

379
00:20:40,800 --> 00:20:43,280
Speaker 1: don't even have to open the mouth and then they

380
00:20:43,320 --> 00:20:45,480
Speaker 1: just collect the jellyfish and then they just swallow it

381
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Speaker 1: without all the seawater. That's amazing. So what does it

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Speaker 1: mean to specialize in eating jellyfish? Like, what kind of

383
00:20:53,040 --> 00:20:54,840
Speaker 1: niche is that? Is that the kind of niche where

384
00:20:55,240 --> 00:20:58,320
Speaker 1: you're getting more prey and it's easier to get or

385
00:20:58,400 --> 00:21:00,560
Speaker 1: is it the other way around? What does that mean

386
00:21:00,600 --> 00:21:03,880
Speaker 1: to you? Well, I mean, we don't know of how

387
00:21:03,920 --> 00:21:06,880
Speaker 1: it started right to just see what it is right now,

388
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Speaker 1: But the thing is the sort of leather backs feed

389
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Speaker 1: in areas where there's a high density of of of jellyfish,

390
00:21:14,240 --> 00:21:17,040
Speaker 1: so that means the energy that it takes for them

391
00:21:17,080 --> 00:21:20,040
Speaker 1: to get to those jellyfish is not as large. We're

392
00:21:20,080 --> 00:21:22,439
Speaker 1: not as big, and they're obviously able to still fatten

393
00:21:22,560 --> 00:21:26,080
Speaker 1: up enough to produce their eggs or have enough energy

394
00:21:26,160 --> 00:21:29,880
Speaker 1: to you know, do their large migrations. And it's really

395
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Speaker 1: funny if you ever get a chance to to watch

396
00:21:32,040 --> 00:21:34,440
Speaker 1: some of those videos that were filmed in Nova Score

397
00:21:34,440 --> 00:21:36,639
Speaker 1: in front of Nova s Kotia, it is really you know,

398
00:21:36,680 --> 00:21:38,639
Speaker 1: the leather bag just swimming through the water and just

399
00:21:38,760 --> 00:21:43,959
Speaker 1: like eating one eating another one do like these you know,

400
00:21:44,160 --> 00:21:47,879
Speaker 1: large groups of jellyfish. Um, it's just they have to

401
00:21:47,920 --> 00:21:50,359
Speaker 1: eat a lot, so it's pretty much you know tons

402
00:21:50,440 --> 00:21:53,600
Speaker 1: probably um go on so many parts of their of

403
00:21:53,640 --> 00:21:56,960
Speaker 1: their body weights in order to to to sustain themselves

404
00:21:57,040 --> 00:22:00,480
Speaker 1: and even you know, have more to do all of

405
00:22:00,520 --> 00:22:02,800
Speaker 1: those things that they need to do to reproduce. But

406
00:22:03,600 --> 00:22:05,960
Speaker 1: that is probably one of the reasons they're not nesting

407
00:22:06,119 --> 00:22:09,680
Speaker 1: every year. So females skip usually one or two seasons

408
00:22:09,680 --> 00:22:12,120
Speaker 1: in between so they have enough time to fetten up

409
00:22:12,560 --> 00:22:15,400
Speaker 1: use all the follicles and then make the migration back

410
00:22:15,480 --> 00:22:18,840
Speaker 1: to to the nesting beaches. That that eating behavior kind

411
00:22:18,840 --> 00:22:20,639
Speaker 1: of reminds me if you ever saw the episode of

412
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Speaker 1: The Simpsons where Homer goes to space and the ends

413
00:22:23,040 --> 00:22:26,639
Speaker 1: up eating the potato chips floating in zero G. Yes,

414
00:22:26,720 --> 00:22:31,840
Speaker 1: that is very accurate. Actually, maybe not as crunchy, but

415
00:22:32,080 --> 00:22:42,160
Speaker 1: the um. Yeah. So I guess backing up a little

416
00:22:42,160 --> 00:22:46,000
Speaker 1: bit to just sort of generally about sea turtles, what

417
00:22:46,080 --> 00:22:49,760
Speaker 1: do you think are the biggest public misconceptions about sea turtles.

418
00:22:50,400 --> 00:22:53,200
Speaker 1: I don't know if there's as many misconceptions about sea

419
00:22:53,240 --> 00:22:57,720
Speaker 1: turtles this for example, about dolphins, um or sharks. I

420
00:22:57,760 --> 00:23:00,679
Speaker 1: think people like sea turtles because they're cute. What I

421
00:23:00,680 --> 00:23:04,159
Speaker 1: always find very interesting is that people really don't like

422
00:23:04,280 --> 00:23:07,920
Speaker 1: reptiles in general. So, you know, snakes and crocodiles people

423
00:23:08,000 --> 00:23:12,280
Speaker 1: usually associate with evil. They have an evil look. And

424
00:23:12,320 --> 00:23:16,000
Speaker 1: I always have to laugh because sea turtles are also reptiles.

425
00:23:16,040 --> 00:23:18,000
Speaker 1: It's just that they seem to be a little bit cuter,

426
00:23:18,400 --> 00:23:23,160
Speaker 1: or considered a little bit cuter than in other animals. Um.

427
00:23:23,200 --> 00:23:26,160
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people don't know much about,

428
00:23:26,320 --> 00:23:28,960
Speaker 1: you know, the ecology of sea turtles. For example, that

429
00:23:29,000 --> 00:23:31,720
Speaker 1: sea turtles have to breathe air, so they're you know,

430
00:23:31,800 --> 00:23:37,480
Speaker 1: having lungs just like us. Um that they're really highly migratory,

431
00:23:37,600 --> 00:23:39,400
Speaker 1: so it's not like they're you know, just hanging out

432
00:23:39,440 --> 00:23:41,200
Speaker 1: in front of the beach and then they're coming back.

433
00:23:41,680 --> 00:23:45,639
Speaker 1: I think there's just a lot of information that is

434
00:23:45,680 --> 00:23:48,280
Speaker 1: not known to the general public. I think that's other

435
00:23:48,359 --> 00:23:52,200
Speaker 1: than misconceptions that I can think of, like out of

436
00:23:52,240 --> 00:23:55,399
Speaker 1: the top of my head. I was in preparation for

437
00:23:55,440 --> 00:23:57,320
Speaker 1: you coming on the show here. I was listening to

438
00:23:58,480 --> 00:24:01,280
Speaker 1: Cara Museums in be with you on So You Want

439
00:24:01,320 --> 00:24:04,960
Speaker 1: to Be a Marine Biologist podcast, which is at Marine

440
00:24:04,960 --> 00:24:08,360
Speaker 1: Bio dot life, and I was fascinated by your descriptions

441
00:24:08,440 --> 00:24:11,399
Speaker 1: of the auto bada. So I was wondering, could you

442
00:24:11,400 --> 00:24:14,560
Speaker 1: tell our listeners what the arabada is and what it's

443
00:24:14,600 --> 00:24:18,520
Speaker 1: like to witness it and study it. Yeah. So, Um,

444
00:24:18,560 --> 00:24:21,719
Speaker 1: from all the secretal species, there's only two species that

445
00:24:21,800 --> 00:24:25,520
Speaker 1: engage in that what we call the adibada behavior. Aribada

446
00:24:25,720 --> 00:24:29,920
Speaker 1: is from the Spanish word for arrival, and it is

447
00:24:30,080 --> 00:24:34,920
Speaker 1: pretty much describing a synchronized mass nesting. So the olive

448
00:24:34,960 --> 00:24:38,120
Speaker 1: redley and the camps retally the two smallest species are

449
00:24:38,160 --> 00:24:42,040
Speaker 1: the ones that do nest in those synchronized mass nestings,

450
00:24:42,080 --> 00:24:44,639
Speaker 1: which usually happened in the case of olive release at

451
00:24:44,720 --> 00:24:49,160
Speaker 1: least about once a month, and then depending if which

452
00:24:49,200 --> 00:24:52,160
Speaker 1: season it is, you have like larger audibadas or smaller

453
00:24:52,160 --> 00:24:55,600
Speaker 1: audi badas. But the really large audibadas can have up

454
00:24:55,640 --> 00:25:00,479
Speaker 1: to half a million females. So you just have to envision. Uh.

455
00:25:00,800 --> 00:25:02,800
Speaker 1: Of course, it's not like it's all happening in one night,

456
00:25:02,840 --> 00:25:06,439
Speaker 1: so it's usually over the course of or to seven days.

457
00:25:06,880 --> 00:25:10,000
Speaker 1: But it's usually even if in Austria. Now in Lost

458
00:25:10,080 --> 00:25:12,760
Speaker 1: kast Rica, which is our largest adivada beach, it's about

459
00:25:12,760 --> 00:25:16,120
Speaker 1: a six kilometer beach, but the synchronized mass nesting only

460
00:25:16,160 --> 00:25:20,359
Speaker 1: happens about less than a kilometer, right, So you have

461
00:25:20,400 --> 00:25:23,320
Speaker 1: to envision once the adivada starts, it is that if

462
00:25:23,359 --> 00:25:26,320
Speaker 1: somebody blows a whistle and all of a sudden, you

463
00:25:26,480 --> 00:25:30,160
Speaker 1: have all these females that had already been gathering right

464
00:25:30,200 --> 00:25:32,479
Speaker 1: in front of the shore. They are all coming up

465
00:25:32,480 --> 00:25:36,560
Speaker 1: together and start their nesting program. Right, It's like a

466
00:25:36,600 --> 00:25:38,800
Speaker 1: little computer chip. It all kind of looks the same.

467
00:25:39,200 --> 00:25:42,160
Speaker 1: So they come up, they start digging, they start laying

468
00:25:42,200 --> 00:25:44,359
Speaker 1: their eggs and start camouflage and they do their little

469
00:25:44,359 --> 00:25:47,200
Speaker 1: really dense and then if and it's just they crawl

470
00:25:47,320 --> 00:25:52,119
Speaker 1: over each other. It smells horrendous because they dig up

471
00:25:52,240 --> 00:25:56,439
Speaker 1: old nests that have been decaying, so it's really really disgusting.

472
00:25:56,480 --> 00:25:59,159
Speaker 1: They throw sand in your face when you're trying to

473
00:25:59,200 --> 00:26:02,040
Speaker 1: do something. If you forget your backpack somewhere, there's a

474
00:26:02,080 --> 00:26:04,320
Speaker 1: good chance and one of the females just gets stucks

475
00:26:04,359 --> 00:26:06,480
Speaker 1: with her flipper and just like drags it down into

476
00:26:06,480 --> 00:26:10,919
Speaker 1: the water. It's just insanity for like four or seven nights,

477
00:26:11,840 --> 00:26:14,439
Speaker 1: and then it's gone. And you wouldn't even know that

478
00:26:14,480 --> 00:26:16,600
Speaker 1: this just happened if it wouldn't be for you know,

479
00:26:16,680 --> 00:26:19,600
Speaker 1: usually the vultures and dogs that are digging up nests

480
00:26:19,640 --> 00:26:22,359
Speaker 1: and you see all these you know, little white have

481
00:26:22,480 --> 00:26:25,280
Speaker 1: pieces which are all egg pieces on the beach and

482
00:26:25,280 --> 00:26:28,639
Speaker 1: it's still smells a little bit funny, but that is

483
00:26:28,640 --> 00:26:31,720
Speaker 1: what the nativada is. It's it's absolutely impressive. I would

484
00:26:31,760 --> 00:26:34,160
Speaker 1: say if you ever get a chance to see one,

485
00:26:34,920 --> 00:26:38,760
Speaker 1: definitely do it. Now that the rotten eggs, of the

486
00:26:38,800 --> 00:26:41,879
Speaker 1: decayed eggs that are being dug up, now are those

487
00:26:42,119 --> 00:26:46,200
Speaker 1: the percentage of eggs that are just always lost generally,

488
00:26:46,280 --> 00:26:48,480
Speaker 1: because I understand there's I've seen it broken down to

489
00:26:48,480 --> 00:26:50,240
Speaker 1: where like there's a certain percentage of eggs they just

490
00:26:50,320 --> 00:26:52,399
Speaker 1: never hatch and remain in the ground. And then you

491
00:26:52,440 --> 00:26:54,720
Speaker 1: get into the survival rates for each stage of the

492
00:26:54,760 --> 00:26:58,480
Speaker 1: sea turtle. Yeah, okay, so there's with the adivada, it's

493
00:26:58,600 --> 00:27:00,639
Speaker 1: it's a little bit more complicated it. Let's say that

494
00:27:00,680 --> 00:27:04,760
Speaker 1: way because you have so since it's happening every month,

495
00:27:05,320 --> 00:27:08,480
Speaker 1: and the nest usually needs about forty five to fifty

496
00:27:08,480 --> 00:27:12,040
Speaker 1: five days to incubate, So that means if you are

497
00:27:12,160 --> 00:27:14,720
Speaker 1: one of the very first females that are coming up

498
00:27:14,760 --> 00:27:18,560
Speaker 1: in adibada number one, let's say, then this nest that

499
00:27:18,720 --> 00:27:22,520
Speaker 1: is late at that day has to actually survive to adivadas, right,

500
00:27:22,520 --> 00:27:24,640
Speaker 1: it has to survive all the females that are coming

501
00:27:24,680 --> 00:27:27,480
Speaker 1: after her, and then in thirty days it has to

502
00:27:27,520 --> 00:27:30,480
Speaker 1: survive the next adibada up until it has incubated enough

503
00:27:30,560 --> 00:27:34,239
Speaker 1: to hatch. So those nests are not super likely to

504
00:27:34,280 --> 00:27:38,800
Speaker 1: survive in certain times of the year, especially also because

505
00:27:39,359 --> 00:27:42,560
Speaker 1: there is you know, there's a super high density of nests.

506
00:27:42,600 --> 00:27:46,280
Speaker 1: So um, it means it's it's um Yeah, like one

507
00:27:46,320 --> 00:27:50,640
Speaker 1: square meters has a ton of nest really way too many,

508
00:27:50,720 --> 00:27:53,639
Speaker 1: and so that means there is a lot of microbiota

509
00:27:53,920 --> 00:27:55,560
Speaker 1: on the beach you kind of like I always think

510
00:27:55,600 --> 00:27:58,879
Speaker 1: of a compost, because the sand even on Atibada beaches

511
00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:02,760
Speaker 1: is not really sad, it's more like soil um. And

512
00:28:02,840 --> 00:28:07,560
Speaker 1: so you know, the bacteria of course are affecting first

513
00:28:07,600 --> 00:28:10,520
Speaker 1: of all the supply of oxygen that the eggs are having,

514
00:28:10,800 --> 00:28:13,960
Speaker 1: and of course they're also you know, infecting the eggs

515
00:28:13,960 --> 00:28:16,720
Speaker 1: and just like you know, doing damage in other ways.

516
00:28:17,240 --> 00:28:19,960
Speaker 1: And then the other thing is of course that the heat.

517
00:28:20,200 --> 00:28:23,360
Speaker 1: So unfortunately and a lot of the Adi Bada beaches

518
00:28:23,880 --> 00:28:26,080
Speaker 1: there are in areas where we already have a lot

519
00:28:26,080 --> 00:28:30,640
Speaker 1: of problem with high temperatures because of climate change, and

520
00:28:30,760 --> 00:28:34,439
Speaker 1: so the rising temperatures are pretty much lethal. Um. So

521
00:28:34,520 --> 00:28:37,080
Speaker 1: that means the incubation temperatures way too high for any

522
00:28:37,119 --> 00:28:42,040
Speaker 1: egg to survive. So in Austria now um during dry

523
00:28:42,040 --> 00:28:46,560
Speaker 1: season these incubate. Just the hatching success of the nest

524
00:28:46,600 --> 00:28:49,800
Speaker 1: that have survived till the end it's only about fiftent

525
00:28:49,880 --> 00:28:51,800
Speaker 1: I think, which is very very low, one five, so

526
00:28:51,840 --> 00:28:54,600
Speaker 1: it's it's not very good. And then of course it's

527
00:28:54,760 --> 00:28:59,000
Speaker 1: very difficult to quantify of how many eggs or nest

528
00:28:59,080 --> 00:29:02,040
Speaker 1: from the initially eight ones actually even making it to

529
00:29:02,120 --> 00:29:06,200
Speaker 1: that point. And I mean there's this one thing that

530
00:29:06,320 --> 00:29:08,680
Speaker 1: is also contributing to it. In Austinal at least there

531
00:29:08,800 --> 00:29:12,400
Speaker 1: is um. I think the world only legal egg harvests,

532
00:29:12,960 --> 00:29:15,720
Speaker 1: So the village is allowed in the first seventy two

533
00:29:15,720 --> 00:29:19,680
Speaker 1: hours of each Adibada to harvest as many nests pretty

534
00:29:19,720 --> 00:29:23,000
Speaker 1: much as they're able to. Um. They're justifying it with

535
00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:25,560
Speaker 1: the fact that hey, those nests would have the lowest

536
00:29:25,640 --> 00:29:28,760
Speaker 1: chance of survival anyways, so we're just kind of taking

537
00:29:28,800 --> 00:29:32,840
Speaker 1: them and selling them to the markets where people still

538
00:29:32,840 --> 00:29:36,000
Speaker 1: want to buy secret likes. It is a little bit controversial.

539
00:29:36,080 --> 00:29:37,480
Speaker 1: I don't know if you want to go into that,

540
00:29:37,560 --> 00:29:40,240
Speaker 1: but that is happening as well. So that means and

541
00:29:40,320 --> 00:29:43,320
Speaker 1: of course if you would collect data on it, it

542
00:29:43,400 --> 00:29:48,160
Speaker 1: doesn't it it is totally um. Yeah, it's going because

543
00:29:48,240 --> 00:29:50,160
Speaker 1: you don't know, you know what would be if they

544
00:29:50,200 --> 00:29:53,480
Speaker 1: would lend those nests in the sand now in Costa

545
00:29:53,560 --> 00:29:56,840
Speaker 1: Rica aside from the dogs that you mentioned, what what

546
00:29:56,920 --> 00:30:01,160
Speaker 1: other mammals are getting in on the feast here? Yeah,

547
00:30:01,240 --> 00:30:03,880
Speaker 1: So in Austria now thinks it's pretty developed. It's really

548
00:30:04,040 --> 00:30:09,240
Speaker 1: the dogs, the vultures, mammals, raccoons, squatties which are the

549
00:30:09,320 --> 00:30:13,320
Speaker 1: raccoon family more than anything. But we do have also

550
00:30:13,480 --> 00:30:16,520
Speaker 1: an Ali Bada nesting beach which is in a national

551
00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:20,240
Speaker 1: park in Santa Rosa, and they actually have jaguars on

552
00:30:21,640 --> 00:30:24,880
Speaker 1: and the ati vada there is just because also, I mean,

553
00:30:24,920 --> 00:30:28,120
Speaker 1: just because you have the synchronized mass nesting, that doesn't

554
00:30:28,120 --> 00:30:31,160
Speaker 1: mean all of your olive really turtles are also engaging

555
00:30:31,200 --> 00:30:34,920
Speaker 1: in that nesting behavior. There's some plasticity, and some females

556
00:30:35,000 --> 00:30:38,160
Speaker 1: nest solitarily, just like any other turtle species as well.

557
00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:42,000
Speaker 1: So I mean most beaches have olive really nesting year

558
00:30:42,080 --> 00:30:44,240
Speaker 1: round and almost every single night you have like one

559
00:30:44,320 --> 00:30:47,440
Speaker 1: or two turtles, and so that olive really population is

560
00:30:47,480 --> 00:30:51,400
Speaker 1: sustaining a pretty large jaguar population in in in nun

561
00:30:51,440 --> 00:30:54,800
Speaker 1: sat in Santa Rosa National Park because you know, they

562
00:30:54,840 --> 00:30:58,000
Speaker 1: can just actually patrol just like we do, the waterline

563
00:30:58,160 --> 00:31:00,520
Speaker 1: up and down and when the rest two look coming out,

564
00:31:00,720 --> 00:31:03,560
Speaker 1: they're not super fast on land, and the jaguar just

565
00:31:03,680 --> 00:31:06,520
Speaker 1: grasped them, drags them up to the vegetation and then

566
00:31:06,960 --> 00:31:08,800
Speaker 1: as you know, it depends if they have babies. Or not,

567
00:31:08,880 --> 00:31:11,160
Speaker 1: But it takes about two to three days, so that

568
00:31:11,160 --> 00:31:14,480
Speaker 1: turtles gone and then they started hunting again. M So

569
00:31:14,880 --> 00:31:17,080
Speaker 1: all kinds of questions are running through my mind about this.

570
00:31:17,200 --> 00:31:20,080
Speaker 1: So first of all, I apologize if you alluded to

571
00:31:20,120 --> 00:31:22,560
Speaker 1: the answers to either of these already. One is, do

572
00:31:22,640 --> 00:31:26,600
Speaker 1: we have any idea what the queue is that triggers

573
00:31:26,720 --> 00:31:28,840
Speaker 1: all of the turtles to come up onto the beach,

574
00:31:28,840 --> 00:31:32,080
Speaker 1: because you said they gather offshore and then at some

575
00:31:32,160 --> 00:31:34,480
Speaker 1: point they all just start coming in waves. Do you

576
00:31:34,600 --> 00:31:37,440
Speaker 1: do we know why that happens or what causes it? So,

577
00:31:37,600 --> 00:31:41,000
Speaker 1: I mean the why there is some hypotheses. One of

578
00:31:41,040 --> 00:31:44,560
Speaker 1: them is a predator prevention strategy, so that you pretty much,

579
00:31:44,640 --> 00:31:47,880
Speaker 1: just as when you're nesting, you're trying to overwhelm any

580
00:31:47,920 --> 00:31:51,200
Speaker 1: potential predator. Uh. And then when the babies are hatching,

581
00:31:51,320 --> 00:31:53,680
Speaker 1: since they're all hatching at the exact same time, right,

582
00:31:53,720 --> 00:31:56,080
Speaker 1: so you have to think about half a million nests,

583
00:31:56,120 --> 00:31:58,520
Speaker 1: or even if it's just a few hundred thousand nests

584
00:31:58,920 --> 00:32:01,440
Speaker 1: hatching at the same time time, that means there's millions

585
00:32:01,440 --> 00:32:04,440
Speaker 1: of millions of babies that just you know, scramble to

586
00:32:04,520 --> 00:32:07,120
Speaker 1: make their way to to the ocean. So again, you know,

587
00:32:07,200 --> 00:32:09,239
Speaker 1: if your predator, you can eat one or two or

588
00:32:09,280 --> 00:32:11,880
Speaker 1: three or even more, but it's not going to be

589
00:32:11,920 --> 00:32:14,120
Speaker 1: all of them. So it's it's a pretty pretty good

590
00:32:14,320 --> 00:32:20,400
Speaker 1: predator prevention strategy. So that's the why. Possibly the how

591
00:32:20,760 --> 00:32:23,800
Speaker 1: that is actually a question that we have answered to

592
00:32:24,240 --> 00:32:27,560
Speaker 1: a certain degree. Um so we know that it has

593
00:32:27,600 --> 00:32:29,440
Speaker 1: something to do with the lunar cycle, So that is

594
00:32:29,440 --> 00:32:32,600
Speaker 1: pretty much solid. We know that for decades already. And

595
00:32:33,080 --> 00:32:36,160
Speaker 1: it depends on a little bit on the synchronized mass

596
00:32:36,200 --> 00:32:39,840
Speaker 1: nesting beaches. So we have the Yeah, the majority of

597
00:32:39,840 --> 00:32:42,320
Speaker 1: the beaches actually in Central America, so Mexico has a

598
00:32:42,320 --> 00:32:44,880
Speaker 1: really large one, Costa Rica has a large one, and

599
00:32:44,920 --> 00:32:49,040
Speaker 1: they're like smaller ones in in in Panama and in

600
00:32:49,040 --> 00:32:53,120
Speaker 1: in Nicarago as well, And it depends a little bit

601
00:32:53,120 --> 00:32:57,280
Speaker 1: of which beach we're talking about. What the lunar cycle is.

602
00:32:57,360 --> 00:33:00,880
Speaker 1: For Oustinale, it is usually the week before our new moon.

603
00:33:01,560 --> 00:33:04,000
Speaker 1: So that means that is a pretty good indicator that

604
00:33:04,040 --> 00:33:08,120
Speaker 1: I would say probably of the time is giving you

605
00:33:08,200 --> 00:33:10,480
Speaker 1: a good idea of when this studibad is going to happen.

606
00:33:10,560 --> 00:33:13,640
Speaker 1: Whereas in Escobiya, I think it also happens sometimes like

607
00:33:13,680 --> 00:33:17,800
Speaker 1: a week before full moon. So um, yeah, I mean

608
00:33:17,840 --> 00:33:20,480
Speaker 1: exceptions always exist in ospinal as well, but usually the

609
00:33:20,480 --> 00:33:24,080
Speaker 1: indicator is new moon. And then what we don't know though,

610
00:33:24,160 --> 00:33:26,120
Speaker 1: is so you can see already, you know, let's say

611
00:33:26,160 --> 00:33:28,320
Speaker 1: it's like about a week before new moon, and you

612
00:33:28,400 --> 00:33:33,000
Speaker 1: see already in the wives, you know, thousands of turtles

613
00:33:33,000 --> 00:33:36,280
Speaker 1: just swimming. The heads are bobbing up, and you're just like, okay, okay,

614
00:33:36,360 --> 00:33:39,600
Speaker 1: it's going to be happening every every moment. Now, what

615
00:33:39,720 --> 00:33:42,320
Speaker 1: we don't know is what is the actual whistle that

616
00:33:42,360 --> 00:33:44,560
Speaker 1: I've talked about, You know, what is it really that

617
00:33:44,600 --> 00:33:48,120
Speaker 1: says it is now and not tomorrow and not yesterday,

618
00:33:48,160 --> 00:33:52,440
Speaker 1: but exactly now, And that we don't know. So they

619
00:33:52,440 --> 00:33:56,360
Speaker 1: have been you know, kind of high paclity, such as maybe, um,

620
00:33:56,400 --> 00:33:59,480
Speaker 1: the females are having some type of pheromone that they're

621
00:33:59,480 --> 00:34:02,800
Speaker 1: releasing and if it reaches a certain concentration that might

622
00:34:02,840 --> 00:34:06,560
Speaker 1: be triggering it. But we don't really know. We really

623
00:34:06,560 --> 00:34:09,680
Speaker 1: don't know. The other thing I was wondering was, um,

624
00:34:10,160 --> 00:34:13,880
Speaker 1: do we have any indication whether the incredible density of

625
00:34:13,920 --> 00:34:17,680
Speaker 1: the nesting is is that totally natural or I When

626
00:34:17,680 --> 00:34:19,440
Speaker 1: I see something like that, I would kind of wonder

627
00:34:20,080 --> 00:34:22,680
Speaker 1: is that something that could be caused by I don't know,

628
00:34:22,800 --> 00:34:26,239
Speaker 1: changes that are going on, like anything that humans do

629
00:34:26,360 --> 00:34:29,920
Speaker 1: would drive that sort of incredible density. Do we know

630
00:34:29,960 --> 00:34:32,839
Speaker 1: anything about that? Yeah, well it's not that we have

631
00:34:32,960 --> 00:34:37,399
Speaker 1: like solid data, and so I would say probably not

632
00:34:37,920 --> 00:34:40,920
Speaker 1: human cost. What I would say though, is that we

633
00:34:41,920 --> 00:34:45,120
Speaker 1: I really curious a scientist to study the evolution and

634
00:34:45,200 --> 00:34:49,320
Speaker 1: the progression of Atribada nesting beaches because Austin now actually

635
00:34:49,360 --> 00:34:53,280
Speaker 1: has a village for more than a hundred and thirty years,

636
00:34:53,680 --> 00:34:57,200
Speaker 1: so that means there's really good historical data of you know,

637
00:34:57,320 --> 00:35:01,080
Speaker 1: when they started to have an actual synchronized mass nesting,

638
00:35:01,120 --> 00:35:03,600
Speaker 1: because it's not that they always had one, you know,

639
00:35:03,719 --> 00:35:08,000
Speaker 1: so it started at some point um and it's still there.

640
00:35:08,840 --> 00:35:12,120
Speaker 1: But and that's more or less. My personal hypothesis is

641
00:35:12,160 --> 00:35:15,640
Speaker 1: that I really think adri Bada beach choose a kind

642
00:35:15,680 --> 00:35:18,600
Speaker 1: of getting going extinct at one point if you would

643
00:35:18,640 --> 00:35:21,400
Speaker 1: let them take the natural course, because it is a

644
00:35:21,440 --> 00:35:24,279
Speaker 1: solid it's a serious overuse of the beach, right, you

645
00:35:24,320 --> 00:35:27,120
Speaker 1: have so much nest and you can see from the

646
00:35:27,160 --> 00:35:31,040
Speaker 1: studies at austeonalis well like the hatching success just over

647
00:35:31,120 --> 00:35:35,120
Speaker 1: twenty thirty years just like it's consistently decreasing, and if

648
00:35:35,160 --> 00:35:37,879
Speaker 1: you would just let the beach do what it would

649
00:35:37,960 --> 00:35:40,080
Speaker 1: usually do, or like the turtles to what they usually do,

650
00:35:40,760 --> 00:35:43,520
Speaker 1: the hatching success right which is probably be zero at

651
00:35:43,520 --> 00:35:46,960
Speaker 1: one point, so there would be no next generation. But

652
00:35:47,600 --> 00:35:49,640
Speaker 1: I mean, I have the suspicion it's really hard to

653
00:35:49,680 --> 00:35:53,719
Speaker 1: prove that the you know, the egg harvest is probably

654
00:35:54,360 --> 00:35:58,320
Speaker 1: are it officially keeping that beach alive, you know, because

655
00:35:58,320 --> 00:36:01,080
Speaker 1: it is raising the hatching success to at least the

656
00:36:01,200 --> 00:36:03,759
Speaker 1: level there is still babies, but it's very low. So

657
00:36:04,320 --> 00:36:06,880
Speaker 1: that actually might be detrimental to the population later on

658
00:36:06,960 --> 00:36:09,520
Speaker 1: because maybe they would have already looked for another beach

659
00:36:09,640 --> 00:36:13,440
Speaker 1: right at this point. What makes me think that is

660
00:36:13,440 --> 00:36:16,080
Speaker 1: is that we have two new beaches now that weren't

661
00:36:16,080 --> 00:36:19,360
Speaker 1: Ali Bada beaches before that. Now, in the past i

662
00:36:19,400 --> 00:36:21,960
Speaker 1: would say six or seven years, have started to have

663
00:36:22,040 --> 00:36:25,600
Speaker 1: synchronized mass nest things, and they are getting more and more.

664
00:36:25,840 --> 00:36:28,799
Speaker 1: In the beginning it was like one per year, and

665
00:36:28,840 --> 00:36:31,719
Speaker 1: then it was like three, and I think the last

666
00:36:31,719 --> 00:36:34,440
Speaker 1: one was like almost eight synchronized mass nestings and one

667
00:36:34,480 --> 00:36:36,480
Speaker 1: of them which is and it's getting bigger and bigger

668
00:36:36,480 --> 00:36:38,120
Speaker 1: as well, So I think that's you know, there is

669
00:36:38,160 --> 00:36:40,399
Speaker 1: a natural life cycle to an auti bada, which which

670
00:36:40,719 --> 00:36:43,839
Speaker 1: logically it makes sense, right if you if you over

671
00:36:44,040 --> 00:36:47,320
Speaker 1: use something, then at one point there is nothing more left,

672
00:36:47,360 --> 00:36:50,280
Speaker 1: like when you over use the soil for plants or else,

673
00:36:50,360 --> 00:36:52,879
Speaker 1: and so you have to look for something else. So, yeah,

674
00:36:52,880 --> 00:36:54,880
Speaker 1: it will be really interesting to kind of study that.

675
00:36:55,040 --> 00:36:58,520
Speaker 1: You know, how new synchronized mass nesting beaches are developing,

676
00:36:58,880 --> 00:37:01,640
Speaker 1: how long they really stay like that and until the

677
00:37:01,719 --> 00:37:05,319
Speaker 1: turtles move on somewhere else, and also what triggers it, right,

678
00:37:05,440 --> 00:37:07,880
Speaker 1: because if it would be really some kind of mechanism

679
00:37:07,960 --> 00:37:10,399
Speaker 1: that is just going over the next generation, that would

680
00:37:10,440 --> 00:37:14,200
Speaker 1: be I mean Olive Ridley's reach sexual maturity with about

681
00:37:14,320 --> 00:37:18,440
Speaker 1: fifteen to five years. So that's a lot like feedback cycle,

682
00:37:18,520 --> 00:37:21,040
Speaker 1: you know if you think about it. So maybe it's

683
00:37:21,040 --> 00:37:25,160
Speaker 1: something else. So can you explain how temperature plays a

684
00:37:25,280 --> 00:37:27,399
Speaker 1: role in the development of sea turtle eggs and then

685
00:37:27,560 --> 00:37:30,760
Speaker 1: and then how does climate change impact this process? Yeah,

686
00:37:30,800 --> 00:37:34,759
Speaker 1: so temperature in the life of sea turtles is super important,

687
00:37:34,760 --> 00:37:36,560
Speaker 1: as we already talked about it. You know, they needed

688
00:37:36,600 --> 00:37:39,279
Speaker 1: to warm up their body. But the unequol thing is

689
00:37:40,000 --> 00:37:44,279
Speaker 1: that the sex of sea turtles is determined by the

690
00:37:44,400 --> 00:37:47,959
Speaker 1: incubation temperature, so that means they do not have sex

691
00:37:48,040 --> 00:37:50,920
Speaker 1: chromosomes as we humans have, for example, so you know,

692
00:37:51,040 --> 00:37:54,840
Speaker 1: usually it's x x and you become female biologically, or

693
00:37:55,080 --> 00:37:58,799
Speaker 1: it's x y and your male biologically. And in sea

694
00:37:58,840 --> 00:38:02,640
Speaker 1: turtles is actually the second third of the incubation time.

695
00:38:03,360 --> 00:38:08,360
Speaker 1: That's where higher temperatures are leading to more females gradually.

696
00:38:08,400 --> 00:38:10,000
Speaker 1: Of course, it's not like a switch and it's all

697
00:38:10,040 --> 00:38:13,239
Speaker 1: females or all males, and cooler temperatures are leading to

698
00:38:13,400 --> 00:38:15,920
Speaker 1: more males. So in English at least they have this

699
00:38:16,000 --> 00:38:18,600
Speaker 1: you know, hot chicks and cool dudes, and if you

700
00:38:18,600 --> 00:38:21,960
Speaker 1: want to remember how that is. Interestingly though, it is

701
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:25,480
Speaker 1: not the same in all turtles. Since turtles it's exactly that,

702
00:38:26,080 --> 00:38:30,080
Speaker 1: but there's other turtle species, freshwater turtles and tortoises that

703
00:38:30,120 --> 00:38:32,520
Speaker 1: actually sometimes have two peaks. So it's like, you know,

704
00:38:32,719 --> 00:38:37,840
Speaker 1: kind of middle temperature produces more males, and like really

705
00:38:37,880 --> 00:38:41,319
Speaker 1: cool and really hot temperaturesly do females. There's all kinds

706
00:38:41,320 --> 00:38:43,720
Speaker 1: of variation within that group of turtles, but the anti

707
00:38:43,800 --> 00:38:47,960
Speaker 1: turtles it is that, and that of course means nowadays

708
00:38:48,040 --> 00:38:51,880
Speaker 1: where we are having rising temperatures because of climate change,

709
00:38:51,920 --> 00:38:56,680
Speaker 1: and a lot of places we are overproducing females. So

710
00:38:56,719 --> 00:39:00,040
Speaker 1: there's beaches where we have pretty much almost high you

711
00:39:00,160 --> 00:39:02,960
Speaker 1: present females that we're producing, So there's some status. It

712
00:39:03,040 --> 00:39:05,799
Speaker 1: really depends on which region you're looking at and what species.

713
00:39:06,320 --> 00:39:09,640
Speaker 1: But that is like you know, one male to nine

714
00:39:09,680 --> 00:39:14,360
Speaker 1: females or even worse worst case scenarios than that, which

715
00:39:14,560 --> 00:39:17,200
Speaker 1: might not be a problem right now because like I said,

716
00:39:17,239 --> 00:39:19,840
Speaker 1: it takes a while to the reach sexual maturity. But

717
00:39:19,960 --> 00:39:23,799
Speaker 1: once they've reached sexual maturity, and if population sizes are

718
00:39:23,840 --> 00:39:27,440
Speaker 1: already small, there might be just not enough males around

719
00:39:27,800 --> 00:39:31,200
Speaker 1: to fertilize the females and eggs. So that is really

720
00:39:31,200 --> 00:39:35,400
Speaker 1: concerning um. And in that sense, and some of the

721
00:39:35,480 --> 00:39:38,560
Speaker 1: you know, conservation measures that we have is for example,

722
00:39:38,600 --> 00:39:40,920
Speaker 1: that we're shading our nests in order to you know,

723
00:39:41,040 --> 00:39:44,960
Speaker 1: artificially increase the amount of males that we're producing, just

724
00:39:45,080 --> 00:39:50,000
Speaker 1: to counteract a little bit those those impacts that climate change. UM, yeah,

725
00:39:50,000 --> 00:39:52,319
Speaker 1: it's causing. UM. I had a question, you want to

726
00:39:52,320 --> 00:39:54,439
Speaker 1: come back to something you said earlier about the resiliency

727
00:39:54,480 --> 00:39:58,239
Speaker 1: of sea turtles, and you mentioned mentioned like missing flippers

728
00:39:58,280 --> 00:40:02,040
Speaker 1: and injuries that that they have survived. I was thinking

729
00:40:02,080 --> 00:40:04,799
Speaker 1: about this recently because I got to snorkele in um

730
00:40:05,640 --> 00:40:08,719
Speaker 1: in Mau among some green sea turtles, and I got

731
00:40:08,719 --> 00:40:11,360
Speaker 1: to observe them there, and there was one in particular,

732
00:40:11,440 --> 00:40:13,759
Speaker 1: and I know it was I kept seeing it because

733
00:40:13,760 --> 00:40:16,680
Speaker 1: it had a number tag on its shell and it

734
00:40:16,760 --> 00:40:20,120
Speaker 1: was missing a front flipper. And every time I would

735
00:40:20,120 --> 00:40:22,680
Speaker 1: see it, I would I would marvel at it because

736
00:40:22,719 --> 00:40:25,160
Speaker 1: I and then I would ask questions in my head how.

737
00:40:25,560 --> 00:40:27,759
Speaker 1: I was wondering, like, has this a turtle, I mean

738
00:40:28,080 --> 00:40:30,000
Speaker 1: that has that has been injured and then has been

739
00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:32,719
Speaker 1: re released? Or is this just how resilient they are

740
00:40:32,800 --> 00:40:36,600
Speaker 1: that it could sustain an injury like this survive And

741
00:40:36,760 --> 00:40:39,319
Speaker 1: you know, I mean how does I guess they just

742
00:40:39,360 --> 00:40:41,920
Speaker 1: have questions about just just how they manage that. It

743
00:40:41,920 --> 00:40:44,000
Speaker 1: seems like, I know, if I lost a limb in

744
00:40:44,080 --> 00:40:47,799
Speaker 1: the ocean, I would just be dead. Uh how does

745
00:40:47,800 --> 00:40:50,759
Speaker 1: the sea turtle pull it off? Yeah? So I think

746
00:40:50,800 --> 00:40:54,000
Speaker 1: they have incredible healing powers to just say what I've seen.

747
00:40:54,040 --> 00:40:57,080
Speaker 1: For example, I remember one particular level bag that came

748
00:40:57,120 --> 00:41:01,400
Speaker 1: with absolutely horrible cuts from she must have gotten somehow

749
00:41:01,480 --> 00:41:04,960
Speaker 1: entangled in fisher nets. Luckily, she was freed, maybe by

750
00:41:05,000 --> 00:41:07,280
Speaker 1: the fisherman themselves, but it was just a nasty cut

751
00:41:07,800 --> 00:41:10,920
Speaker 1: all across like the soft part of her shoulders. It

752
00:41:10,960 --> 00:41:13,640
Speaker 1: was bleeding, it was in facted. She was really smelling

753
00:41:14,400 --> 00:41:17,960
Speaker 1: as well. It was pretty disgusting. And um, so sea

754
00:41:18,000 --> 00:41:21,040
Speaker 1: turtles don't nest just once per season, so they usually nest,

755
00:41:21,360 --> 00:41:23,560
Speaker 1: you know, in the case of leather bags on average,

756
00:41:23,560 --> 00:41:29,520
Speaker 1: about five to seven times and have very distinct rensting intervals.

757
00:41:29,600 --> 00:41:31,799
Speaker 1: So I know in other backs its about ten days.

758
00:41:31,840 --> 00:41:34,200
Speaker 1: So that means I knew already, okay, you know, she

759
00:41:34,280 --> 00:41:37,160
Speaker 1: will come back hopefully, and so you know, the next

760
00:41:37,200 --> 00:41:39,560
Speaker 1: time she came back, I kind of had some antibiotic

761
00:41:40,160 --> 00:41:42,200
Speaker 1: appointment that I was, you know, trying and had like

762
00:41:42,239 --> 00:41:44,399
Speaker 1: an antibotic pill that I just broke open and tried

763
00:41:44,440 --> 00:41:46,640
Speaker 1: to like clean it a little bit. Um. But the

764
00:41:46,719 --> 00:41:49,440
Speaker 1: interesting thing was really within the ten days that she

765
00:41:49,520 --> 00:41:53,000
Speaker 1: came back, the wound already had pretty much clothes. I mean,

766
00:41:53,040 --> 00:41:56,239
Speaker 1: it was just like, you know, pretty deep, and you

767
00:41:56,280 --> 00:41:58,840
Speaker 1: could see, you know, it was like through the fat

768
00:41:58,920 --> 00:42:02,200
Speaker 1: layer and you could see things that I think you're

769
00:42:02,239 --> 00:42:05,719
Speaker 1: not supposed to be seeing. Um. Yeah, and it is

770
00:42:05,760 --> 00:42:08,640
Speaker 1: just so impressive of how quickly in ten days, you know,

771
00:42:08,680 --> 00:42:12,359
Speaker 1: the whole thing had already pretty much closed. And yeah,

772
00:42:12,400 --> 00:42:15,600
Speaker 1: she had an ugly sca, but she's definitely able to

773
00:42:15,719 --> 00:42:19,120
Speaker 1: live or in the other Like another example is that

774
00:42:19,239 --> 00:42:21,719
Speaker 1: I saw a female that came up onto the beach.

775
00:42:21,880 --> 00:42:23,960
Speaker 1: So I caught her in the process of just walking

776
00:42:24,040 --> 00:42:27,160
Speaker 1: up on the beach, and she was dragging something behind her,

777
00:42:27,480 --> 00:42:29,640
Speaker 1: and you know, it looked like fishing net, but I

778
00:42:29,640 --> 00:42:32,160
Speaker 1: wasn't sure, so I kind of went closer, switched on

779
00:42:32,200 --> 00:42:33,840
Speaker 1: my light and what I saw I was, Yes, it

780
00:42:33,920 --> 00:42:37,600
Speaker 1: was fishing net, but she also pretty much dragged her

781
00:42:37,760 --> 00:42:42,120
Speaker 1: dead leg that was literally just hanging on on like

782
00:42:42,280 --> 00:42:47,080
Speaker 1: one ligament, totally blown up, and oh, I mean the

783
00:42:47,080 --> 00:42:49,879
Speaker 1: whole net, like the whole fishing I had already cut

784
00:42:49,880 --> 00:42:53,040
Speaker 1: through the entire bone um and she was pulling, you know,

785
00:42:53,080 --> 00:42:55,360
Speaker 1: this dead leg on that ligament and there's like a

786
00:42:55,640 --> 00:42:59,360
Speaker 1: huge bulk of fishing line behind her and she was

787
00:42:59,360 --> 00:43:02,920
Speaker 1: still nest I mean, I mean, this is just mind blowing,

788
00:43:03,000 --> 00:43:04,880
Speaker 1: right if you think about it, it's just like, Okay,

789
00:43:05,120 --> 00:43:08,840
Speaker 1: she's probably in pain, she is in the process of

790
00:43:08,880 --> 00:43:13,040
Speaker 1: losing an entire flipper, but this urge to come onto

791
00:43:13,120 --> 00:43:16,359
Speaker 1: the beach to still reproduce. It is so big. And

792
00:43:16,560 --> 00:43:19,319
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that she survived quite honestly, because I

793
00:43:19,360 --> 00:43:22,200
Speaker 1: mean where it was cutted, I had already closed, so

794
00:43:22,280 --> 00:43:24,719
Speaker 1: I just kind of the fishing gear um, and then

795
00:43:24,760 --> 00:43:27,240
Speaker 1: you know, I could tell that she kind of flinched

796
00:43:27,239 --> 00:43:29,600
Speaker 1: when I was trying to touch the one ligament. So

797
00:43:29,640 --> 00:43:31,480
Speaker 1: what I did is because I didn't have anything, you know,

798
00:43:31,520 --> 00:43:33,160
Speaker 1: I didn't want to cut through it, so I just

799
00:43:33,200 --> 00:43:35,160
Speaker 1: took like one little piece of fishing eye and just

800
00:43:35,239 --> 00:43:37,279
Speaker 1: like pretty much did a tourney catch, just like you know,

801
00:43:37,360 --> 00:43:39,960
Speaker 1: try to find it off from all but supply and

802
00:43:40,000 --> 00:43:48,320
Speaker 1: out great would just fall off eventually. But yeah, it

803
00:43:48,440 --> 00:43:57,640
Speaker 1: gets scory than one of the things I saw when

804
00:43:57,640 --> 00:43:59,840
Speaker 1: we were coming in here. I know you've talked before

805
00:44:00,160 --> 00:44:02,719
Speaker 1: the incident with the straw and the turtles nose, but

806
00:44:03,000 --> 00:44:06,120
Speaker 1: one of the ones I saw was a a video

807
00:44:06,160 --> 00:44:09,040
Speaker 1: you had uploaded where you were trying to remove a

808
00:44:09,239 --> 00:44:12,879
Speaker 1: fishing net from a turtle's neck and that it had

809
00:44:12,880 --> 00:44:14,680
Speaker 1: cut in all around the neck. I think was it

810
00:44:14,719 --> 00:44:17,319
Speaker 1: a leather back or um that was an olive red

811
00:44:17,360 --> 00:44:21,480
Speaker 1: lay as well. Yeah, it was exactly in front of

812
00:44:21,560 --> 00:44:23,680
Speaker 1: us to now so that one of those synchronized mass

813
00:44:23,680 --> 00:44:26,160
Speaker 1: inesting beaches, and yeah, that wasn't very typical. I mean,

814
00:44:26,680 --> 00:44:29,040
Speaker 1: you know, I don't always have the chance to film

815
00:44:29,080 --> 00:44:31,320
Speaker 1: everything that we see because you know, sometimes for me

816
00:44:31,360 --> 00:44:34,200
Speaker 1: it's more important to actually you know, release them and

817
00:44:34,280 --> 00:44:37,080
Speaker 1: not thinking about it. They can obously film it. Um.

818
00:44:37,120 --> 00:44:39,879
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's a very typical side unfortunately. I mean

819
00:44:39,880 --> 00:44:42,360
Speaker 1: this one was a little bit worse because it was

820
00:44:42,400 --> 00:44:44,319
Speaker 1: around her neck. A lot of times it's you know,

821
00:44:44,440 --> 00:44:48,680
Speaker 1: it's the flippers, um. But yeah, I mean usually what

822
00:44:48,800 --> 00:44:50,560
Speaker 1: all you can do is like, you know, believe what

823
00:44:50,680 --> 00:44:52,719
Speaker 1: she has and then just hope that the wounds will

824
00:44:52,719 --> 00:44:57,480
Speaker 1: pretty much heal themselves, which usually they do, um. Because

825
00:44:57,480 --> 00:44:59,840
Speaker 1: it's even not that easy to kill a turtle. So

826
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:03,440
Speaker 1: we had another case where I was called in um

827
00:45:03,480 --> 00:45:05,399
Speaker 1: and there was a turtle on the beach that had

828
00:45:05,440 --> 00:45:07,920
Speaker 1: been what we don't know what came first, but dogs

829
00:45:07,920 --> 00:45:11,160
Speaker 1: were around her, had pretty much attacked her, had eaten

830
00:45:12,080 --> 00:45:14,319
Speaker 1: into her body cavity, so from you know, when you

831
00:45:14,360 --> 00:45:16,600
Speaker 1: have the heads and the shell, so like the soft

832
00:45:16,640 --> 00:45:19,440
Speaker 1: pipe is the shoulder part, and so the dogs had

833
00:45:19,480 --> 00:45:21,480
Speaker 1: just taken chunks out of it, and she was in

834
00:45:21,560 --> 00:45:25,680
Speaker 1: a really bad shape like way worse than Yeah, I

835
00:45:25,960 --> 00:45:27,640
Speaker 1: did not think, Okay, I can just throw her in

836
00:45:27,680 --> 00:45:29,319
Speaker 1: the water and she's going to be fine. So I

837
00:45:29,400 --> 00:45:32,919
Speaker 1: contacted the VETS that is close by. But of course

838
00:45:32,920 --> 00:45:36,520
Speaker 1: the veterinarians are usually not specialized in reptiles, so reptiles

839
00:45:36,520 --> 00:45:40,480
Speaker 1: are very specific. Which even when we talked about you know,

840
00:45:41,000 --> 00:45:43,680
Speaker 1: like in the aftermath of Sea turtle straw videos, like

841
00:45:43,960 --> 00:45:46,480
Speaker 1: why didn't you take it to a vent? Why didn't

842
00:45:46,520 --> 00:45:49,600
Speaker 1: you like anesthesize the turtles? It is actually not that

843
00:45:49,719 --> 00:45:53,160
Speaker 1: easy and pretty dangerous to anesthesize the reptile because the

844
00:45:53,280 --> 00:45:56,880
Speaker 1: actual therm and like how the metabolism works, more times

845
00:45:56,880 --> 00:45:59,280
Speaker 1: than not, you might actually end up killing them. So

846
00:45:59,600 --> 00:46:02,839
Speaker 1: you know, um, you have to really find a vet

847
00:46:02,880 --> 00:46:06,359
Speaker 1: that knows how to dose everything to not kill them.

848
00:46:06,640 --> 00:46:08,880
Speaker 1: And most of the times they would also up to

849
00:46:08,920 --> 00:46:10,920
Speaker 1: not do it and rather do whatever they need to

850
00:46:10,960 --> 00:46:15,239
Speaker 1: do um without yeah, tranquilizing or anesthesizing the animal, just

851
00:46:15,280 --> 00:46:18,719
Speaker 1: because it is so dangerous. And then of course, you know,

852
00:46:18,800 --> 00:46:22,200
Speaker 1: you go to the VETS that is specialized for cats

853
00:46:22,239 --> 00:46:23,960
Speaker 1: and dogs and you're like kind of like, hey, I

854
00:46:23,960 --> 00:46:26,360
Speaker 1: have this tea turtle and he was like yeah, that

855
00:46:26,560 --> 00:46:29,279
Speaker 1: is like oh god, she needs to be euthanized. And

856
00:46:29,320 --> 00:46:32,160
Speaker 1: then it was really interesting because we had to look

857
00:46:32,239 --> 00:46:35,479
Speaker 1: up in the internet how to euthanize a turtle and

858
00:46:35,719 --> 00:46:39,520
Speaker 1: it is really I mean, um, first of all, it's

859
00:46:39,640 --> 00:46:42,040
Speaker 1: you can use a toxine that we didn't have at hand,

860
00:46:42,280 --> 00:46:45,520
Speaker 1: So we had to find pretty much like other ways

861
00:46:45,520 --> 00:46:48,840
Speaker 1: of how we could you know, humanely euthanize that turtle

862
00:46:49,320 --> 00:46:53,319
Speaker 1: because I had seen it already. When coachers, um, you know,

863
00:46:53,440 --> 00:46:56,000
Speaker 1: try to to take the meat of turtles or the

864
00:46:56,040 --> 00:46:59,520
Speaker 1: eggs that are still in in in inside of the overducts,

865
00:46:59,600 --> 00:47:01,960
Speaker 1: they of times don't even bother killing the turtles, so

866
00:47:02,000 --> 00:47:05,000
Speaker 1: they hack off the flippers and then they kind of

867
00:47:05,040 --> 00:47:08,680
Speaker 1: cut out the plastron, you know, the belly pipe, and

868
00:47:08,719 --> 00:47:12,000
Speaker 1: just open the turtle and the turtles fully conscious in

869
00:47:12,040 --> 00:47:14,920
Speaker 1: a life. And I have seen turtles that had literally

870
00:47:14,960 --> 00:47:17,560
Speaker 1: no organs left anymore besides the lung and the heart

871
00:47:18,320 --> 00:47:21,040
Speaker 1: because the meat was taken, the eggs were taken, and

872
00:47:21,080 --> 00:47:24,000
Speaker 1: the heart was still beating. I mean, it's it's absolutely

873
00:47:24,080 --> 00:47:26,640
Speaker 1: it's it's it's really really sad and really impacting to

874
00:47:26,680 --> 00:47:29,520
Speaker 1: see that. So we had this turtle we needed to euthanize,

875
00:47:29,600 --> 00:47:31,920
Speaker 1: and I mean, the only way of how when I

876
00:47:31,960 --> 00:47:33,920
Speaker 1: was talking to two vests were like, well, you have

877
00:47:34,040 --> 00:47:36,960
Speaker 1: to drill a hole into her head and you make

878
00:47:37,000 --> 00:47:39,400
Speaker 1: sure that you really hit the brand as quickly as possible,

879
00:47:39,800 --> 00:47:44,000
Speaker 1: so you know, she goes quickly and doesn't feel anything anymore.

880
00:47:44,520 --> 00:47:46,719
Speaker 1: So it was a little bit traumatizing for all of us,

881
00:47:46,760 --> 00:47:49,120
Speaker 1: I can tell you that. But yeah, because we had

882
00:47:49,160 --> 00:47:53,359
Speaker 1: to find, like, you know, a drill somewhere. It was. Yeah,

883
00:47:53,360 --> 00:47:56,120
Speaker 1: it was not a dosn't thing that we we had

884
00:47:56,160 --> 00:47:58,280
Speaker 1: to do them. But it shows you a lot about

885
00:47:58,360 --> 00:48:01,920
Speaker 1: resilience and also you know how they work and how

886
00:48:02,000 --> 00:48:06,200
Speaker 1: they yeah, not die, I guess that quickly. So you're

887
00:48:06,200 --> 00:48:09,040
Speaker 1: talking about the the idea of the sea turtle being

888
00:48:09,080 --> 00:48:12,600
Speaker 1: attacked by dogs um or even by humans. It makes

889
00:48:12,640 --> 00:48:15,160
Speaker 1: me realize the question that apologies if this is a

890
00:48:15,280 --> 00:48:18,640
Speaker 1: very dumb question. So we have experience with some terrestrial

891
00:48:18,680 --> 00:48:21,440
Speaker 1: turtles like the box turtle that can fully retract inside

892
00:48:21,480 --> 00:48:24,520
Speaker 1: the shell. Is that not Is there any kind of

893
00:48:24,520 --> 00:48:28,880
Speaker 1: retraction defensive capability and sea turtles or can they partially

894
00:48:28,920 --> 00:48:31,279
Speaker 1: do that or not at all? Or what? This is

895
00:48:31,280 --> 00:48:33,239
Speaker 1: a really good question. I don't think it's a dumb

896
00:48:33,320 --> 00:48:37,359
Speaker 1: question at all, because it's one of the most identifying

897
00:48:37,400 --> 00:48:40,920
Speaker 1: features off sea turtles that they can not retract the

898
00:48:41,000 --> 00:48:43,359
Speaker 1: limbs into the shell, so they can kind of pull

899
00:48:43,400 --> 00:48:45,640
Speaker 1: their head in a little bit like in the case

900
00:48:45,680 --> 00:48:49,919
Speaker 1: of example, green turtles um, but not really so it's

901
00:48:49,960 --> 00:48:52,080
Speaker 1: not you know, like this typical image that you have

902
00:48:52,120 --> 00:48:55,000
Speaker 1: where they just like disappear into their shell. They can't.

903
00:48:55,000 --> 00:48:58,080
Speaker 1: So the reason of why that is is, first of all,

904
00:48:58,719 --> 00:49:02,520
Speaker 1: they have their shell has become very streamlined in in

905
00:49:02,560 --> 00:49:06,680
Speaker 1: the course of evolution, so they're like super hydrodynamic um

906
00:49:06,719 --> 00:49:10,920
Speaker 1: which also decreases the space inside of the shell if

907
00:49:10,920 --> 00:49:13,720
Speaker 1: you think about like these high domed tortoises for example

908
00:49:13,760 --> 00:49:16,359
Speaker 1: that we have on land. And then the other thing

909
00:49:16,480 --> 00:49:21,160
Speaker 1: is is that the main locomotive, like the main engine,

910
00:49:21,800 --> 00:49:24,319
Speaker 1: are the front flippers, right, so they have you know,

911
00:49:24,360 --> 00:49:27,000
Speaker 1: they it's almost looks like like an airplane. The why

912
00:49:27,040 --> 00:49:29,880
Speaker 1: how they like kind of go through the water or

913
00:49:29,920 --> 00:49:32,080
Speaker 1: like flying, like bursting and kind of flapping, you know,

914
00:49:32,120 --> 00:49:35,680
Speaker 1: their power strokes with both flippers. But that means they're

915
00:49:36,400 --> 00:49:40,839
Speaker 1: um that chest muscles have grown so large that they

916
00:49:40,920 --> 00:49:44,080
Speaker 1: have taken up a lot more space than in other turtles.

917
00:49:44,080 --> 00:49:46,040
Speaker 1: And that is also one of the reasons that they

918
00:49:46,040 --> 00:49:49,040
Speaker 1: can't retract it into their shell anymore. And now in

919
00:49:49,160 --> 00:49:52,120
Speaker 1: terms of just sort of the general temperament of the

920
00:49:52,160 --> 00:49:55,360
Speaker 1: sea turtle, um, do you do you find that like

921
00:49:55,400 --> 00:49:58,719
Speaker 1: different sea turtle species or even individuals have different demeanors

922
00:49:58,840 --> 00:50:03,279
Speaker 1: or some shire around human divers or snorkelers for example. Yeah,

923
00:50:03,360 --> 00:50:06,640
Speaker 1: I mean there's definitely a difference between species. So olive

924
00:50:06,680 --> 00:50:10,399
Speaker 1: redleys and leather bags are seldomly face, especially if we're

925
00:50:10,400 --> 00:50:14,480
Speaker 1: talking about mass nesting turtles. So if you have solitary

926
00:50:14,520 --> 00:50:17,640
Speaker 1: nesting turtles a little bit more skittish, um, but your

927
00:50:17,719 --> 00:50:19,759
Speaker 1: leather bags and olive redleys are really kind of like,

928
00:50:20,440 --> 00:50:23,800
Speaker 1: I don't care, so you can handle them while they're nesting.

929
00:50:23,960 --> 00:50:25,640
Speaker 1: So they're in this like you know, supposed to be

930
00:50:25,719 --> 00:50:28,600
Speaker 1: nesting trends that really kind of you know, they're only

931
00:50:28,640 --> 00:50:31,840
Speaker 1: concentrating of dropping their eggs and and and anything that

932
00:50:31,880 --> 00:50:35,040
Speaker 1: happens around them. They really don't seem to notice. But

933
00:50:35,200 --> 00:50:37,719
Speaker 1: in the case of hawk spills and greens, both of

934
00:50:37,800 --> 00:50:41,279
Speaker 1: those turtle species as super skittish, so it comes you know,

935
00:50:41,320 --> 00:50:43,920
Speaker 1: even when they come up, even when they're already dropping

936
00:50:43,960 --> 00:50:46,880
Speaker 1: the eggs, which you know, supposedly the in the nesting trends.

937
00:50:47,120 --> 00:50:49,640
Speaker 1: The protocols that we have in place usually means, okay,

938
00:50:49,680 --> 00:50:52,760
Speaker 1: if you're not able to you know, really carefully collect

939
00:50:52,760 --> 00:50:54,920
Speaker 1: eggs or whatever, better, don't touch them. Let they do

940
00:50:55,000 --> 00:50:57,440
Speaker 1: their thing, and then we're going to collect the data

941
00:50:57,520 --> 00:50:59,600
Speaker 1: so you know, we don't disturb the actual egg lane

942
00:50:59,640 --> 00:51:04,319
Speaker 1: process as and then of course within individuals. UM, when

943
00:51:04,320 --> 00:51:08,000
Speaker 1: we were doing especially the olive redly sampling, I always

944
00:51:08,520 --> 00:51:11,960
Speaker 1: felt that smaller turtles were way more faisty than like

945
00:51:12,120 --> 00:51:15,799
Speaker 1: the big, big ones. Um maybe it had something to

946
00:51:15,840 --> 00:51:18,440
Speaker 1: do with, you know, being more edgile because you were smaller.

947
00:51:18,920 --> 00:51:20,960
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's sometimes also had seemed to have

948
00:51:21,040 --> 00:51:24,960
Speaker 1: something to do of how high the temperatures were. So

949
00:51:25,080 --> 00:51:27,040
Speaker 1: you know, if you grab a turtle that maybe has

950
00:51:27,160 --> 00:51:29,799
Speaker 1: just woken up and hadn't had time to really go

951
00:51:29,960 --> 00:51:33,239
Speaker 1: to the surface and sun basketball to really kind of

952
00:51:33,280 --> 00:51:36,759
Speaker 1: wake up and get their metabalism going, um, there might

953
00:51:36,800 --> 00:51:38,960
Speaker 1: be a little bit more sluggish. Then if you have

954
00:51:39,200 --> 00:51:42,239
Speaker 1: one turtle that has been already you know, absorbed all

955
00:51:42,280 --> 00:51:46,040
Speaker 1: the heat energy and the muscles are all ready for action,

956
00:51:46,120 --> 00:51:48,000
Speaker 1: and then they start fighting you when you have them

957
00:51:48,000 --> 00:51:49,880
Speaker 1: on the boat. Now I realized there's a lot to

958
00:51:49,880 --> 00:51:52,239
Speaker 1: impact with this question, and I think we've touched on

959
00:51:52,360 --> 00:51:55,239
Speaker 1: it a little bit at least already in the conversation.

960
00:51:55,680 --> 00:51:58,640
Speaker 1: But what are the biggest threats to see turtles today

961
00:51:59,120 --> 00:52:02,319
Speaker 1: and when? What the current state of turtle conservation? What

962
00:52:02,400 --> 00:52:05,239
Speaker 1: are the most important things we we are doing to

963
00:52:05,360 --> 00:52:08,120
Speaker 1: help them and can do to help them? Yeah, so

964
00:52:08,280 --> 00:52:10,520
Speaker 1: first up, I think we have to say very clearly

965
00:52:10,560 --> 00:52:15,000
Speaker 1: that all seven sea turtles species are considered endangered in

966
00:52:15,000 --> 00:52:16,880
Speaker 1: one shape or form. I mean, this's like you know

967
00:52:16,920 --> 00:52:19,880
Speaker 1: the i U c N that is um cur writing

968
00:52:19,960 --> 00:52:24,200
Speaker 1: the Red List of Endangered Species as having certain categories

969
00:52:24,760 --> 00:52:28,880
Speaker 1: uh and different sea turtles species and even different within

970
00:52:28,960 --> 00:52:32,840
Speaker 1: the species, different populations have sometimes different status is. But

971
00:52:32,880 --> 00:52:36,240
Speaker 1: I think as a generalizing term, they are all somehow

972
00:52:36,320 --> 00:52:42,080
Speaker 1: endangered um nowadays. And then if we think about the threats,

973
00:52:42,320 --> 00:52:45,200
Speaker 1: it's just it's not just one. I think it's pretty

974
00:52:45,280 --> 00:52:47,480
Speaker 1: much the exact same ones that when we talk about

975
00:52:47,520 --> 00:52:50,960
Speaker 1: our ocean in general, it's exactly the same things that

976
00:52:51,000 --> 00:52:53,920
Speaker 1: are also endangering sea turtles. So of course the biggie

977
00:52:54,000 --> 00:52:57,680
Speaker 1: is climate change. So we already talked about temperatures that

978
00:52:57,719 --> 00:53:01,200
Speaker 1: are super important to see turtles and a rising temperatures

979
00:53:01,239 --> 00:53:05,760
Speaker 1: are creating you know, issues with the yeah, overproduction of females.

980
00:53:06,200 --> 00:53:09,480
Speaker 1: But the other biggie is also um sea level rice,

981
00:53:09,880 --> 00:53:13,680
Speaker 1: So we have nesting habitat that is disappearing because sea

982
00:53:13,760 --> 00:53:17,000
Speaker 1: levels are rising and nesting beaches are disappearing. Then the

983
00:53:17,000 --> 00:53:19,840
Speaker 1: big category that is next is of course ocean pollution,

984
00:53:20,120 --> 00:53:23,200
Speaker 1: and there we can talk about oil spills that are

985
00:53:23,200 --> 00:53:25,520
Speaker 1: happening way too frequently and it's not always at the

986
00:53:25,560 --> 00:53:28,759
Speaker 1: press reports about it. We can talk about the not

987
00:53:28,880 --> 00:53:33,480
Speaker 1: so visible pollution through fertilizers and pesticides that comes from

988
00:53:33,520 --> 00:53:38,880
Speaker 1: our agriculture, agricultural activities on land that leads to diseases

989
00:53:38,880 --> 00:53:42,600
Speaker 1: such as fiberprobic ploma which is kind of a virus

990
00:53:42,600 --> 00:53:47,360
Speaker 1: disease that causes really crazy tumors and sea turtles UM.

991
00:53:47,480 --> 00:53:51,000
Speaker 1: Then of course plastic pollution, So every single species of

992
00:53:51,040 --> 00:53:56,480
Speaker 1: sea turtles has been documented to have ingested plastic already. UM.

993
00:53:56,640 --> 00:53:58,680
Speaker 1: A lot of times when we have dead turtles we

994
00:53:58,760 --> 00:54:02,840
Speaker 1: cut them open that is full of plastic. Interesting fact,

995
00:54:03,120 --> 00:54:06,160
Speaker 1: the first ingestion of plastic and sea turtles was actually

996
00:54:06,520 --> 00:54:10,799
Speaker 1: found in leather bags. So the first paper that was

997
00:54:10,800 --> 00:54:13,680
Speaker 1: published on that was published in the nineteen eighties, and

998
00:54:13,719 --> 00:54:16,719
Speaker 1: then the same author actually went back to all records

999
00:54:16,760 --> 00:54:19,479
Speaker 1: from like I think the six season seventies to see

1000
00:54:19,480 --> 00:54:23,480
Speaker 1: for evidence if somebody else had been recording plastic, and

1001
00:54:23,520 --> 00:54:27,000
Speaker 1: they did find that even before that time, people had

1002
00:54:27,040 --> 00:54:30,080
Speaker 1: already found plastic in in in sea turtles in leather

1003
00:54:30,120 --> 00:54:33,600
Speaker 1: bags specifically. And then the other thing, of course, is

1004
00:54:33,640 --> 00:54:38,839
Speaker 1: over exploitation. So in many, many, many developing countries in Asia, Africa,

1005
00:54:39,200 --> 00:54:43,400
Speaker 1: South America, Central America, people still take sea turtle eggs

1006
00:54:43,440 --> 00:54:46,719
Speaker 1: because they believe either they're better than chicken eggs or

1007
00:54:46,760 --> 00:54:50,360
Speaker 1: they believe it's a type of natural viagraa so older

1008
00:54:50,360 --> 00:54:55,560
Speaker 1: men try to increase their sex drive by yeah, by

1009
00:54:55,640 --> 00:54:59,800
Speaker 1: by eating sea turtle eggs. But there's also still a

1010
00:55:00,040 --> 00:55:03,359
Speaker 1: ult you're around consuming sea turtle meat, especially the meat

1011
00:55:03,480 --> 00:55:07,399
Speaker 1: of green turtles, which as you know, dates back many

1012
00:55:07,440 --> 00:55:12,200
Speaker 1: many centuries to sailors and other seafares that love taking

1013
00:55:12,200 --> 00:55:16,000
Speaker 1: turtles because they're just there's amazing protein source and turtles

1014
00:55:16,040 --> 00:55:18,000
Speaker 1: don't need much so they don't need much water, they

1015
00:55:18,040 --> 00:55:20,600
Speaker 1: don't need much food. But to keep them alive sometimes

1016
00:55:20,600 --> 00:55:23,439
Speaker 1: you can tie them outside of the boat and when

1017
00:55:23,440 --> 00:55:25,400
Speaker 1: you need one, you just slaughter them and then you

1018
00:55:25,440 --> 00:55:28,840
Speaker 1: have fresh meat. And then um, the other one is

1019
00:55:28,880 --> 00:55:32,919
Speaker 1: the in the exploitation range is the seatootle shell trap,

1020
00:55:33,000 --> 00:55:37,719
Speaker 1: which is affecting especially hawks bill turtles, so tortoise shell

1021
00:55:38,080 --> 00:55:40,680
Speaker 1: I think you might have seen the pattern. Um yeah,

1022
00:55:40,880 --> 00:55:45,080
Speaker 1: it's for for jewelry, for or for forum for glasses,

1023
00:55:45,080 --> 00:55:48,800
Speaker 1: for reading glasses and else. Um yeah, that's also long history.

1024
00:55:49,360 --> 00:55:52,920
Speaker 1: And then of course the other biggie is um over fishing.

1025
00:55:53,239 --> 00:55:58,960
Speaker 1: So industrial fishing just doesn't just you know, catch target species,

1026
00:55:59,120 --> 00:56:02,879
Speaker 1: but how the incredible amount of bycatch what we call

1027
00:56:02,960 --> 00:56:06,400
Speaker 1: incidental takes, So it's species that were not meant to

1028
00:56:06,400 --> 00:56:08,880
Speaker 1: be fished but end up in those nets or on

1029
00:56:08,920 --> 00:56:12,000
Speaker 1: those lines as well. And since sea turtles, like I said,

1030
00:56:12,040 --> 00:56:16,400
Speaker 1: already need to breathe air, um, they're actually sometimes a

1031
00:56:16,400 --> 00:56:18,759
Speaker 1: lot of times not able to surface and drown on

1032
00:56:18,800 --> 00:56:22,960
Speaker 1: those nets. And we it's really it's an overwhelming number

1033
00:56:23,000 --> 00:56:27,279
Speaker 1: of turtles that die every single year in fishing operations,

1034
00:56:27,360 --> 00:56:30,560
Speaker 1: and it is really sad, especially when you think about

1035
00:56:30,600 --> 00:56:34,360
Speaker 1: overexploitation in needs in turtle shell and also in in

1036
00:56:34,600 --> 00:56:37,600
Speaker 1: um in the fishing lines. Is that you know, there

1037
00:56:37,719 --> 00:56:40,400
Speaker 1: is a very low chance for babies to survive, but

1038
00:56:40,480 --> 00:56:44,080
Speaker 1: once you've reached a certain side as a sea turtle,

1039
00:56:44,360 --> 00:56:47,440
Speaker 1: there's really not that many natural predators, and since it

1040
00:56:47,480 --> 00:56:49,440
Speaker 1: takes such a long time for a sea turtle to

1041
00:56:49,480 --> 00:56:53,920
Speaker 1: reach sexual maturity, each individual is so valuable to the population,

1042
00:56:54,200 --> 00:56:57,600
Speaker 1: and it's exactly those individuals that die, you know, when

1043
00:56:57,600 --> 00:56:59,200
Speaker 1: you want to have neat, when you want to have

1044
00:56:59,239 --> 00:57:02,719
Speaker 1: turtle shell, or if you have bycatch. Now, when you

1045
00:57:02,760 --> 00:57:06,440
Speaker 1: mentioned the effects of plastics on sea turtles, with the

1046
00:57:06,520 --> 00:57:10,280
Speaker 1: human activity that causes this primarily be the high volume

1047
00:57:10,440 --> 00:57:13,920
Speaker 1: use of of single use plastics or other things too,

1048
00:57:14,239 --> 00:57:16,680
Speaker 1: or what do you think is the you know, the

1049
00:57:16,760 --> 00:57:19,120
Speaker 1: day to day human activity that contributes most of that

1050
00:57:19,200 --> 00:57:21,640
Speaker 1: in the ocean. I think there's a lot of misconception

1051
00:57:21,720 --> 00:57:24,560
Speaker 1: about how plastic, first of all, ends up in our

1052
00:57:24,640 --> 00:57:28,280
Speaker 1: ocean and how plastic waste is created. It is very

1053
00:57:28,400 --> 00:57:32,040
Speaker 1: overwhelming of how much tons of plastic we are having

1054
00:57:32,160 --> 00:57:36,160
Speaker 1: each year, and it's increasing exponentially. So in just two

1055
00:57:36,160 --> 00:57:39,120
Speaker 1: thousand and fifteen, which is already six years back, we

1056
00:57:39,120 --> 00:57:42,240
Speaker 1: were already produced between four hundred and five hundred million

1057
00:57:42,480 --> 00:57:47,520
Speaker 1: metric tons of of of plastic each year, which good

1058
00:57:47,720 --> 00:57:53,800
Speaker 1: is mainly for food wrapping and packaging, and about produced

1059
00:57:53,880 --> 00:57:56,880
Speaker 1: only for single use. Right, So you have this lyrical

1060
00:57:56,960 --> 00:58:01,040
Speaker 1: product plastic that can last for high rids of years,

1061
00:58:01,080 --> 00:58:03,760
Speaker 1: and you're using it for the use of like literary

1062
00:58:03,800 --> 00:58:07,360
Speaker 1: seconds or minutes, and a lot of times, especially those

1063
00:58:07,400 --> 00:58:10,880
Speaker 1: single use plastics are first of all, not recyclable at all,

1064
00:58:11,040 --> 00:58:12,960
Speaker 1: because there are two lights in the way of how

1065
00:58:13,280 --> 00:58:17,600
Speaker 1: you know recycling is processed. But even if they were

1066
00:58:17,840 --> 00:58:23,200
Speaker 1: recycling recyclable, the reality is that only about four to

1067
00:58:23,400 --> 00:58:27,920
Speaker 1: nine percent of the plastic really gets recycled. So you know,

1068
00:58:27,960 --> 00:58:29,880
Speaker 1: a lot of people feel good because it's like, hey,

1069
00:58:29,920 --> 00:58:32,600
Speaker 1: I recycle, I'm not the back like you know, I

1070
00:58:32,680 --> 00:58:37,880
Speaker 1: dispose of my trash responsibly. But the problem is most developing,

1071
00:58:37,960 --> 00:58:42,000
Speaker 1: its most developed countries are actually sending their plastic trash

1072
00:58:42,320 --> 00:58:47,200
Speaker 1: to developing countries. So the US, Europe, European countries, we're

1073
00:58:47,200 --> 00:58:50,640
Speaker 1: are sending our trash to Asia. Used to send it

1074
00:58:50,680 --> 00:58:53,320
Speaker 1: to China, but now it's going to Indonesia, to Malaysia,

1075
00:58:53,520 --> 00:58:57,880
Speaker 1: to other places which have not a great waste management program.

1076
00:58:57,920 --> 00:59:02,320
Speaker 1: And you know, since so little really like you know, recyclable,

1077
00:59:02,720 --> 00:59:05,880
Speaker 1: it will end up in our oceans anyways. Right, So

1078
00:59:05,960 --> 00:59:09,120
Speaker 1: even you at home, separated and you felt good about

1079
00:59:09,120 --> 00:59:11,560
Speaker 1: yourself because you did a good job, but in the

1080
00:59:11,640 --> 00:59:13,800
Speaker 1: end it will end up in landfills that might not

1081
00:59:13,920 --> 00:59:17,160
Speaker 1: be so well managed, even within the U. S. If

1082
00:59:17,160 --> 00:59:19,520
Speaker 1: you just think about you know, hurricanes, so you have

1083
00:59:19,640 --> 00:59:22,440
Speaker 1: an open landfill, you know, the next hurricane that kind

1084
00:59:22,440 --> 00:59:23,760
Speaker 1: of goes through, what do you think is going to

1085
00:59:23,840 --> 00:59:26,160
Speaker 1: happen to your trash? You know, it's going to be

1086
00:59:26,480 --> 00:59:29,120
Speaker 1: ending up in the waterways, and eventually it will also

1087
00:59:29,240 --> 00:59:31,440
Speaker 1: end up in the ocean. So it's not just you know,

1088
00:59:31,760 --> 00:59:35,040
Speaker 1: cruise boats or container ships that are creating all the

1089
00:59:35,080 --> 00:59:38,000
Speaker 1: plastic trash, or the people that visit the beaches and

1090
00:59:38,080 --> 00:59:41,120
Speaker 1: leave their trash behind. No, it's every single person in

1091
00:59:41,160 --> 00:59:44,160
Speaker 1: the world that is contributing to the issue. I want

1092
00:59:44,200 --> 00:59:46,600
Speaker 1: to make that very clear because that's always the easy

1093
00:59:46,640 --> 00:59:48,680
Speaker 1: way out where people are just saying, well, I'm not

1094
00:59:48,720 --> 00:59:51,640
Speaker 1: part of the problem. We're all part of the problem.

1095
00:59:51,680 --> 00:59:53,680
Speaker 1: And I think the other problem is it's like the

1096
00:59:53,720 --> 00:59:58,360
Speaker 1: convenience people are just so used to kind of rapid

1097
00:59:58,480 --> 01:00:02,960
Speaker 1: consumption of food and everything and beverages and um in

1098
01:00:03,000 --> 01:00:05,960
Speaker 1: the pandemic, now you know just the amount of takeout

1099
01:00:06,520 --> 01:00:11,160
Speaker 1: that has been probably um yeah, perpetuated because you know

1100
01:00:11,240 --> 01:00:14,160
Speaker 1: everybody is at home and wants to still eat something

1101
01:00:14,160 --> 01:00:16,840
Speaker 1: from a restaurant. And so the style form containers, the

1102
01:00:16,920 --> 01:00:20,600
Speaker 1: plastic bottles, the plastic cups, the plastic cutlery, all of

1103
01:00:20,640 --> 01:00:24,200
Speaker 1: that needs to go somewhere, right And yeah, it usually

1104
01:00:24,280 --> 01:00:27,080
Speaker 1: doesn't get recycled, and it will somehow end up in

1105
01:00:27,080 --> 01:00:30,760
Speaker 1: our environment in one way or another. So that means

1106
01:00:31,320 --> 01:00:33,200
Speaker 1: the only thing that we can really do is is

1107
01:00:33,280 --> 01:00:36,360
Speaker 1: really try to reduce our use of plastic as much

1108
01:00:36,400 --> 01:00:39,080
Speaker 1: as we can. And I'm not trying to say, you know, oh,

1109
01:00:39,160 --> 01:00:41,840
Speaker 1: we need all to be like completely plastic free, because

1110
01:00:41,920 --> 01:00:44,920
Speaker 1: that is it's a utopia that is not possible. I

1111
01:00:44,960 --> 01:00:47,240
Speaker 1: mean my computer that I'm using to speak to you

1112
01:00:47,360 --> 01:00:50,200
Speaker 1: right now, the you know, certain things that I use

1113
01:00:50,280 --> 01:00:53,320
Speaker 1: for my science doctors that are using the syringdery. It's

1114
01:00:53,360 --> 01:00:57,120
Speaker 1: just like there's certain advantages you know of plastic that

1115
01:00:57,200 --> 01:00:59,800
Speaker 1: I think are super important for us as a species.

1116
01:00:59,840 --> 01:01:02,800
Speaker 1: Is well, but do we really need to use plastic

1117
01:01:03,040 --> 01:01:05,880
Speaker 1: for like, um, you know, to drink out of a

1118
01:01:05,920 --> 01:01:08,840
Speaker 1: cup where we don't even need, ah, you know, a

1119
01:01:08,920 --> 01:01:11,520
Speaker 1: straw in the first place. If if we're able body people,

1120
01:01:11,600 --> 01:01:14,240
Speaker 1: we can just drink out of the cup or you know,

1121
01:01:14,400 --> 01:01:17,040
Speaker 1: if you're getting take out, um, and you have all

1122
01:01:17,040 --> 01:01:19,240
Speaker 1: your silver at home, why do you need to get

1123
01:01:19,320 --> 01:01:22,560
Speaker 1: plastic cutlery? Right? It's just it's so easy. I get

1124
01:01:22,600 --> 01:01:24,080
Speaker 1: it because you don't have to wash it up, you

1125
01:01:24,200 --> 01:01:26,320
Speaker 1: just throw it out. But there is a price to it,

1126
01:01:26,600 --> 01:01:28,440
Speaker 1: you know, there's always a price, and somebody has to

1127
01:01:28,480 --> 01:01:31,560
Speaker 1: pay the price, and a lot of times, unfortunately it's

1128
01:01:31,840 --> 01:01:35,000
Speaker 1: the wildlife, um that is praying the price and not us.

1129
01:01:35,760 --> 01:01:37,760
Speaker 1: Is there anything else that you think would be really

1130
01:01:37,760 --> 01:01:40,640
Speaker 1: important to hit before we wrap up here? Very important?

1131
01:01:41,280 --> 01:01:43,120
Speaker 1: I don't know. I just you know, want to motivate

1132
01:01:43,200 --> 01:01:47,360
Speaker 1: people to really understand that there is a certain degree

1133
01:01:47,960 --> 01:01:50,560
Speaker 1: that we have as there's a degree of power that

1134
01:01:50,600 --> 01:01:52,560
Speaker 1: we have as consumer, right, So I do not want

1135
01:01:52,600 --> 01:01:55,440
Speaker 1: to try to fool you into believing that the consumers

1136
01:01:55,480 --> 01:01:58,480
Speaker 1: are the ones that are really you know, having to

1137
01:01:58,560 --> 01:02:01,760
Speaker 1: carry all the responsibility for for example, of plastic pollution.

1138
01:02:01,880 --> 01:02:04,960
Speaker 1: It's really the large companies that are creating most of

1139
01:02:05,080 --> 01:02:09,560
Speaker 1: our our problem. But we can vote with our decision

1140
01:02:09,600 --> 01:02:12,160
Speaker 1: like with our choices, right, So if if you spend

1141
01:02:12,200 --> 01:02:15,200
Speaker 1: your money with a certain company, you're voting for that

1142
01:02:15,280 --> 01:02:17,680
Speaker 1: money quite literally. So I just think we need to

1143
01:02:17,720 --> 01:02:20,280
Speaker 1: be more conscious about how we're spending our money. And

1144
01:02:20,320 --> 01:02:22,920
Speaker 1: I just always try to convince people just to consume less,

1145
01:02:23,160 --> 01:02:27,000
Speaker 1: just buy less crap, because it's just like, you know,

1146
01:02:27,960 --> 01:02:30,400
Speaker 1: I get it. Capitalism is trying to make you buy

1147
01:02:30,440 --> 01:02:32,880
Speaker 1: more and more and tries to, you know, make you

1148
01:02:32,920 --> 01:02:35,360
Speaker 1: believe that you need this newest thing. But it's it's

1149
01:02:35,480 --> 01:02:37,560
Speaker 1: you know, it's not true. It really isn't true. And

1150
01:02:37,600 --> 01:02:40,880
Speaker 1: I think we just need to be a lot more

1151
01:02:40,920 --> 01:02:45,920
Speaker 1: conscientious of of our consumer behavior and then we just

1152
01:02:46,480 --> 01:02:49,600
Speaker 1: become better consumers. I think. All right, well, Christine, thanks

1153
01:02:49,640 --> 01:02:52,400
Speaker 1: so much for chatting with us today and sharing all

1154
01:02:52,400 --> 01:02:56,480
Speaker 1: this great information about about about sea turtles. I feel

1155
01:02:56,520 --> 01:02:59,920
Speaker 1: like I learned learned so much today about about the

1156
01:03:00,080 --> 01:03:02,840
Speaker 1: the seven sea turtles we still have as well as

1157
01:03:02,840 --> 01:03:06,360
Speaker 1: their you know, their their current plight. So I guess

1158
01:03:06,360 --> 01:03:08,920
Speaker 1: what one thing to ask would be if anyone out

1159
01:03:08,920 --> 01:03:10,919
Speaker 1: there listening to this, if they want to follow you

1160
01:03:11,000 --> 01:03:13,840
Speaker 1: and your work online, where can they go to do so?

1161
01:03:13,920 --> 01:03:16,360
Speaker 1: Where do you like to send people? Yeah, I'm pretty

1162
01:03:16,400 --> 01:03:20,600
Speaker 1: active on Instagram, so I'm sea turtle biologists very easy.

1163
01:03:21,120 --> 01:03:23,240
Speaker 1: If you guys want to check out my Instagram. I'm

1164
01:03:23,280 --> 01:03:26,080
Speaker 1: trying to create content about you know, sea turtles and

1165
01:03:26,200 --> 01:03:30,280
Speaker 1: about plastic pollution and just giving ideas of of what's

1166
01:03:30,320 --> 01:03:32,760
Speaker 1: going on out in the field where I am. Um,

1167
01:03:32,840 --> 01:03:35,120
Speaker 1: that's definitely one way. And yeah, if you guys want

1168
01:03:35,120 --> 01:03:37,600
Speaker 1: to support my work, um, there is an app called

1169
01:03:37,640 --> 01:03:41,200
Speaker 1: milky Wire where you can become multi supporters I think

1170
01:03:41,200 --> 01:03:43,720
Speaker 1: starting at like about three or five dollars, so literally

1171
01:03:43,800 --> 01:03:45,680
Speaker 1: just like as if you would invite me to coffee

1172
01:03:45,720 --> 01:03:48,400
Speaker 1: each month. And that is a huge difference because that

1173
01:03:48,480 --> 01:03:51,640
Speaker 1: is pretty much how we sustain our conservation efforts, um,

1174
01:03:51,640 --> 01:03:53,840
Speaker 1: which is paying my guys that are patrolling the beaches

1175
01:03:53,880 --> 01:03:57,200
Speaker 1: trying to keep the turtles safe from poachers and make

1176
01:03:57,240 --> 01:03:59,440
Speaker 1: sure that the babies have a good chance of you know,

1177
01:03:59,520 --> 01:04:02,600
Speaker 1: having a good start in life. Yeah. I think that's

1178
01:04:02,600 --> 01:04:06,360
Speaker 1: probably the easiest way of connecting with me. Excellent, all right, Well,

1179
01:04:06,400 --> 01:04:08,640
Speaker 1: well again again, thanks so much for taking time out

1180
01:04:08,640 --> 01:04:11,040
Speaker 1: of your day to chat with us. This has been great. Yeah,

1181
01:04:11,040 --> 01:04:13,360
Speaker 1: thank you so much for having me. It was fun

1182
01:04:13,600 --> 01:04:19,040
Speaker 1: nording out about turtles all right. Thanks once more to

1183
01:04:19,160 --> 01:04:21,480
Speaker 1: Christine Figner for taking time out of her day to

1184
01:04:21,760 --> 01:04:25,400
Speaker 1: just chat with us about sea turtles and sea turtle conservation. Uh.

1185
01:04:25,520 --> 01:04:27,880
Speaker 1: That This was a real blast, and if you would

1186
01:04:27,960 --> 01:04:31,280
Speaker 1: like to to follow her on social media, uh, these

1187
01:04:31,320 --> 01:04:32,760
Speaker 1: are a few of the places you can end just

1188
01:04:32,840 --> 01:04:34,640
Speaker 1: in general on the internet. Here a few places you

1189
01:04:34,680 --> 01:04:39,320
Speaker 1: can go on Instagram, Uh, she is a sea turtle biologist.

1190
01:04:39,600 --> 01:04:44,120
Speaker 1: One word. On Facebook it is c F Figener. That's

1191
01:04:44,200 --> 01:04:48,080
Speaker 1: f I g g e n e r. And on Twitter, uh,

1192
01:04:48,280 --> 01:04:51,280
Speaker 1: she is Chris Figener, So that's Chris c h r

1193
01:04:51,360 --> 01:04:53,840
Speaker 1: I s f I g g e n e r.

1194
01:04:54,080 --> 01:04:56,280
Speaker 1: And you can also go to her website which is

1195
01:04:56,520 --> 01:05:00,880
Speaker 1: Sea Turtle Biologist dot com. And then the coast organization

1196
01:05:01,240 --> 01:05:05,440
Speaker 1: uh coasts dot cr on is the Instagram tag and

1197
01:05:05,680 --> 01:05:09,000
Speaker 1: you can uh that one is also connected to uh

1198
01:05:09,080 --> 01:05:12,840
Speaker 1: dr figeners Facebook account. We're gonna go and close it

1199
01:05:12,840 --> 01:05:14,320
Speaker 1: out there, But if you want to listen to other

1200
01:05:14,320 --> 01:05:16,800
Speaker 1: episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind, you can find

1201
01:05:16,840 --> 01:05:19,600
Speaker 1: them in the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed,

1202
01:05:19,640 --> 01:05:23,640
Speaker 1: with core science and culture episodes publishing on Tuesdays and

1203
01:05:23,720 --> 01:05:27,960
Speaker 1: Thursday's Artifact episode on Wednesday, Listener Mail on Monday, and

1204
01:05:27,960 --> 01:05:30,360
Speaker 1: on Friday's we do a little weird house cinema. That's

1205
01:05:30,360 --> 01:05:33,200
Speaker 1: our time to set the science aside and just focus

1206
01:05:33,280 --> 01:05:36,040
Speaker 1: on a weird movie huge thanks as always to our

1207
01:05:36,080 --> 01:05:39,480
Speaker 1: excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like

1208
01:05:39,520 --> 01:05:41,240
Speaker 1: to get in touch with us with feedback on this

1209
01:05:41,280 --> 01:05:43,760
Speaker 1: episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,

1210
01:05:43,840 --> 01:05:45,760
Speaker 1: or just to say hello, you can email us at

1211
01:05:45,880 --> 01:05:56,280
Speaker 1: contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff

1212
01:05:56,320 --> 01:05:58,520
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio.

1213
01:05:58,880 --> 01:06:00,880
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my heart Radio, this is the

1214
01:06:00,920 --> 01:06:03,760
Speaker 1: i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening

1215
01:06:03,800 --> 01:06:17,280
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.