Latest / Saving the World From Bad Ideas / Bad Idea #28 “JAWS- aka sharks are dangerous” with Arzucan -Zuzu- Askin

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Bad Idea #28 “JAWS- aka sharks are dangerous” with Arzucan -Zuzu- Askin · Saving the World From Bad Ideas

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We had sharks on planet Earth before the North Star existed.
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These are really ancient predators in many ways like
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modern dinosaurs. We've single handedly managed to
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reduce our populations to the point of some of them not going
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to not being around in the next decades.
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When I dive with some of the sharks here that are critically
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endangered, I think OK, my grandkids might not get to see
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this. If you know, we don't do the
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work now in the next 10 years. Welcome to saving the world from
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bad ideas. I'm Mark Linus and I've had a
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few bad ideas in my time. I used to go out in the night
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time to destroy GMO crops and I also posed nuclear power.
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But then when I looked at the science I found I got it wrong.
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Oops. I've learned the hard way that
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none of us are right all the time.
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So now I'm here to challenge the assumptions that we all too
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often take for granted because the future depends on us getting
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it right. Hello and welcome to saving the
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world from bad ideas. Today I'm talking with Azukan
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Askin AKA Zuzu who's an incredible conservation
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scientist currently working in the Maldives on shark
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conservation with an NGO she Co founded called Miyagu.
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Susan, I won't go through your whole CV because it would take
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pretty much a whole hour, but you know the best bits.
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I think you're a National Geographic Explorer, a graduate
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of Oxford University's Seascape College Lab HSE Class 4
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commercial diver. I don't even know what that is,
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but it sounds impressive. Anyway, that's just a few
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things. Susie, welcome to the show.
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Hi, Mark, It's good to be here. Good to see you again.
1:27
Yeah, you too. You too.
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So I guess the, you know, we, we with the show, we do a bad idea
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and you're combating the bad idea and I guess the most
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obvious bad idea with sharks, which is your, you know, the
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main thing you work on is that is that they're scary.
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And I guess, you know, there's nobody better really I can think
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of to to teach us a bit more about why sharks are, I don't
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know, maybe they're a a not scary and BA critically
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important part of the, you know, the the marine ecosystem.
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Apparently I was doing some research on this.
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Fear of sharks actually has its own word, Galleophobia.
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You know this right, And I'll bet you do.
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So tell us a bit. Give us give us like the basic
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grounding on on sharks, shark life, as it were.
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The idea that sharks are scary is actually one of the biggest
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challenges that I face in my work as a shark conservationist
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because most people, the second I say sharks, they don't want to
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hear about their ecological importance or that some species
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are critically endangered. They just hear, Oh my God, big
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scary monster. I work and dive with sharks
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pretty much every day, including large sharks like tiger sharks,
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which are classified as the most scary, more dangerous sharks by
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some people or by media. But the reality is the complete
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opposite of what you would see on TV or in shows or even how
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the media reports. We jump down to dive with 10 to
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20 tiger sharks at one time every single day.
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And we are literally circled by them continuously during our
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dives. And there's not a not a single
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moment generally when it's when it's scary.
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And when I say we come close, we come, you know, this close to
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the sharks sometimes and it's just a normal day at work.
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It's what drew me to the Maldives, actually, because
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Maldivians are probably, I might be biased, but the best shark
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divers on the planet, I haven't been anywhere else where people
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are this happy and comfortable with them.
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I mean, a lion would not let you do what a tiger sharks you do in
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the water this close. But yeah, it is a pretty, pretty
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big, pretty resilient. That idea that seems to make its
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rounds through society across the world and is very, very hard
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to combat. So we work hard on on fighting
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that every day by bringing people in the water with them
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and by busting all these misconceptions.
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And our guests always come with their own misconceptions.
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And you know, before the dive freaking, they have a million
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questions. What if I do this?
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Will the shark eat me? And we're like, no, don't worry,
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we do this every day. You will not be eaten, we
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promise. You haven't.
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You haven't had anyone eaten yet, right?
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No, no, there are a few people I'd like to beaten by a shark,
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but no, we haven't had anyone. Yet.
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And I said like, has anyone even been bitten?
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I mean, are there any, I mean, the tiger sharks are, you know,
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pretty serious predators, aren't they?
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So you can't, you know, you don't mess about with them.
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But what, what's the actual relative, you know, relative
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risks that people are running, diving with them?
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We haven't had a tiger shark fatality in the Maldives yet,
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unlike any other place around the world.
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There's a few contributing factors to this.
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One is that most Maldivians eat fish three times a day and the
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islands are made of sand. So all the organic waste that we
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generate is thrown into the sea and has been for hundreds of
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years. Now.
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If you imagine hundreds of islands with, you know, a
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population of several 100,000 people that all eat fish, that's
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a lot of fish waste that goes in the ocean daily, which means a
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lot of food for scavenging predators like sharks.
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Tiger sharks are actually quite lazy.
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They prefer to scavenge over, you know, actively spending
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energy and hunting. And why run and swim after a
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fish when you can just stop by a local harbor where the fishermen
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discard fish every day? You know, in the hundreds of
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kilos? I actually think think it's the
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fault of Jaws the movie, but what was it sometime in the 70s?
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Certainly you you weren't born then.
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I was just about born. And I do remember seeing it and
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being absolutely terrified. And I think the strap line was
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don't, don't you'll never go in the water again or something
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like that. I mean, not really a great
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participant for for marine conservation.
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Actually, I found out the the guy who wrote the book, the
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original Jaws book, Peter eventually, it was called, died,
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died a few years ago, spent his the rest of his life pretty much
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campaigning in favour of sharks because he realized he'd done
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this awful this and Spielberg as well.
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We made the movie that they basically destroyed, you know,
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people went out killing sharks. You know, it was, it was the
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absolute opposite of what you actually want people to know
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about sharks, wasn't it? I mean, do you, do you still, do
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you still look back on Jaws as being a, as being a, you know,
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an important, important moment in, in this issue?
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Absolutely. It's it's sort of the biggest
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contributing factor to why there is this mass hysteria and panic
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around the world with regards to sharks.
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I mean, you have many countries like Australia, for example,
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that have shark control programs or shark safety barriers, you
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know, so the whole idea is keeping sharks away from people
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in the water and like barricading or seemingly
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barricading parts of the water off.
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But the reality is, you know, you never fully enclosing a
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space. So the animals are still
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obviously coming close to shore because that's what they do.
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It's where they live. And it's something that I find
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really fascinating is the contrast between the Maldives
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and other countries. So I think the Jaws effect
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hasn't really reached the Maldives in the same way.
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And I think it's because sharks are so common here that people
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didn't, didn't buy into that monster image because they see
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sharks everywhere. You go to any local island, any
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harbour, you're going to see, you know, either a large shark
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or, or a small shark and generally in very large numbers.
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And so for the people here, it's just a it's a cool movie that
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they watch, but it it hasn't sort of tapped into that primal
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instinct of fear because it's something they already know.
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But for the rest of the world, that movie really tickled that
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very primitive part of our human brain that is scared of of the
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unknown and that is scared of big predators.
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And that's something that's to, to some degree really edged into
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our DNA. You know, it's something that's
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really hard to overcome for most people that obviously don't
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interact with sharks ever. And whatever the first thing is
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you hear about an animal is the thing that you're going to
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remember. You know, it's the same with
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bears or wolves. Many people fear them.
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They're like, oh, my God, if I see a bear while hiking, I will
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be so terrified. But then, you know, people that
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live in forest areas or areas with wolves and bears, they're
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like, well, yeah. I mean, it's a, it's a wild
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animal. It's going to do what any wild
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animal does, as do lions, as do elephants.
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Elephants are way more dangerous than sharks.
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You know, an elephant will actually actively charge you,
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trying to hurt you. A shark, if that comes close,
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isn't actively trying to hurt you.
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It's either, you know, mistaking you for prey or coming to check
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you out and being curious. I've worked, you know, in the
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Maldives sort of over, you know, a span of time myself.
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I was originally hired by then President Mohamed Mashid in 2009
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as climate advisor. So I worked a bit with his
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government. And I think one of the best
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things they did was, I think it was in 2010, they they did a
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shark fishing ban for the whole country and just declared their
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whole EEZ a shark sanctuary. Tell us.
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Tell us what impact that's had on shark populations.
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For the time especially, it was a revolutionary move.
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It was the second shark sanctuary in the world after
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Palau, and to this day the only shark sanctuary at national
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scale within the entire Indian Ocean region.
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Just below us is Chagos Archipelago, the British Indian
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Ocean Territory. That's also a shark sanctuary,
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but it was just declared as a no take zone.
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So any form of sort of fishing, including sharks, is prohibited.
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Whereas the Maldive Shark Sanctuary is very specific for
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sharks. And what that did was create a
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safe haven within the region. I mean, I call it the Galapagos
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of the Indian Ocean because it is, if you look northeast,
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southwest of us, everyone is fishing sharks with the
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exception of Chagos. But Chargos is an is a military
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base. It's not in fully inhabited
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country in the same way, right? And, and that means that it's a
9:19
really important place to ensure the survival of a lot of shark
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species for the next decades to come, especially many of the
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critically endangered species like great Hamid sharks,
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scalloped Hamid sharks, oceanic white tip sharks, some of the
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ocean giants that people, you know, travel the world to see
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and experience. And we're one of the places that
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doesn't fish them. So it really, it was a big
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symbolic gesture. But also for the populations of
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sharks back then, it meant that they were able to bounce back.
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And the numbers at the time were still higher than in other
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countries because the Maldives is a relatively small country
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that never had like massive industrial fishing in the way
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we're used to in other parts of the world.
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But now as a shark sanctuary, it meant that shark populations
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really had a chance to, to bounce back.
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And we see that on dives, you know, you go on a channel dive,
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you see hundreds of grey reef sharks.
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You come to formula. Our resident tiger shark
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population is almost at 300 Id'd individuals.
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It's the largest tiger shark aggregation in the world
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confirmed to date. And you go to any other islands,
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you know, you have leopard sharks in abundance, tiny reef
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sharks popping all over the places.
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It's, it's shark, it's a shark heaven really in many, many
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ways. So it's a remarkable place for
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for wildlife. Yeah, I mean, it was one of the
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things that I really remember just walking down a Maldivian
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beach and you'll see these little pup reef sharks, I guess
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black tips probably. And, you know, they're just a
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few feet offshore. They're, you know, fins are
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above the water and they they're so cute.
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They're like literally like, like little, you know, they're
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like dog pups. They are so cute on there.
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Super cute and they're everywhere.
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You know, it's kind of, it's like we would have birds in the
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trees. Maldives Islands just have baby
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sharks and the lagoons. And so Baby Shark will set me
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off, you know. Then you have like stupid SOG in
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your head for ages. Speaking of which, haven't you
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got a program called Mama Shark? Yes, so last year.
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You last two was 1. It's my favorite project I've
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done to date. So last year we launched A
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collaborative project between Yard or NGO and two of the local
11:23
dive centers here in Formula to conduct the world's first free
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swimming ultrasound scans on tiger sharks.
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So normally to to scan the pregnant moms, you have to catch
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them and hook them, which is a very stressful process for the
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animal. But because of how sort of
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gentle the sharks are here and how accessible they are, we
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brought over a collaborator from the US, doctor James Slikowski,
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who has a very special ultrasound unit.
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And that's basically wireless underwater.
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So we don't need to be tethered to a cable up up on the boat
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upstairs. And yeah, basically we, it was a
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Cal ultrasound and a modified underwater housing.
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And we scanned as many of the pregnant female sharks as we
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could possibly do within the time frame that we had.
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And we confirmed that over 90% of the girls that we scanned
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were pregnant, which makes formula also the first confirmed
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to station ground for the for tiger sharks in the region.
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Very exciting. And I definitely had a moment
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where I cried underwater when I had one of the scans up, when I
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was holding the screen. And the shark we scanned was
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about four meters long. And the pups that we got on
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screen captured, they were 10 centimeters.
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They were this big. And I was underwater like in my
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mask going, Oh my God. You know, it gets so emotional
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because many of the sharks, I mean, I've only been, I first
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came here almost four years ago, but you know, some of my
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colleagues and friends and dive guys on the island, they've been
12:47
here for over a decade and they know a lot of the sharks by name
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and they know them all. They've watched them over the
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years. So to see a friend almost and be
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pregnant and to confirm that scientifically, it was a very,
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very exciting project for all of us.
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Yeah, I think I think this has to be the coolest project we've
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ever heard about on the show. Don't you agree?
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Producer Rob? Yeah, he's he's giving us a good
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a grin. So, I mean, and also it's it's
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been you published a paper in Frontiers and Marine Science in
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the Scientific Journal. We do, yeah.
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Yeah, which I was looking at. Tell us that I don't understand
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how you ultrasound scan a shark. I mean, do you need to does the
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probe actually need to be in in contact with them?
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And these are free swimming, tiger sharks, large creatures
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swimming around in the ocean. Like literally.
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How do you do this in terms of the logistics?
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Yeah, it's not as complicated as it would sound.
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So how the diving here in Fumala is set up is that the tiger
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shark dive happens at the at the harbour entrance, which is where
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the fishermen historically and actually still to the state,
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dump their fish waste. And what the dive guides have
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started to do over the years is to take some of the tuna heads
13:55
and hide them under rock piles, which brings us sharks in that
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are coming in anyway. And then the sharks circle
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around the rock pile and they sniff the rock pile and where
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they're occupied sort of sniffing the rock pile, trying
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to find where the where the scent is coming from.
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They're relatively still. And it gives us a few seconds to
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just hold the ultrasound probe up to their belly.
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If we can touch the belly, we get a deeper scan.
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But water also transmits part of the signal.
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So even if we're just within a few centimeters range of the
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animal, we still get a really good reading.
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And that's the joy of working on the water compared to land.
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Because on land you would definitely have to make contact.
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That being said, you know, there's a few sharks where the
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probe made contact. I think you'll see a video on my
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Instagram as well. And it's, umm, they really don't
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care. They're so occupied trying to
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find the tuna head in the rocks that it's very possible here.
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And that's because, you know, they're, they're well adapted to
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this form of diving, which has been happening for a relatively
14:52
long time. But also because there is that
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constant sort of provisioning, but unintended provisioning
14:58
through the discard of the fish waste.
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And we're actually planning phase two.
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So the dives and us that we worked with formula dives from
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Pelagic Divers and Miyaro are getting together now to plan the
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second stage of the of the project to do more scans,
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hopefully to be involving more dive centers as well.
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And we're very excited. It's it's a very cool, very big
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project that you know, we've all been dreaming about doing.
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And definitely one of the most exciting things to study about
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sharks is the pregnancies. And it helps a lot with busting
15:28
the big scary monster myth because an ultrasound image is a
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very relatable thing to most people on the planet.
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And when you display sharks as mothers, not just monsters, it's
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really an amazing way to connect people with the animal in a way
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that they have never, ever thought about before.
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You know, I say, oh, I'm going to show you an ultrasound image.
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And I show the scan. I don't always say what it is.
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And people are like, oh, that's so cute.
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What is it? And I'm like, oh, it's a tiger
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shark. And they're like, what?
15:55
Yeah, it's just like with your baby.
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It's just replace the baby shape with the shark shape.
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And so in terms of in terms of conservation and science
16:06
communication storytelling, I think this is also one of those
16:08
projects that has a has a big potential for shifting the way
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people see sharks through science and through data.
16:14
Yeah, I mean, you're absolutely right.
16:16
It's like sharks as mums with and and so they give birth to
16:20
live, live pubs, right. Tell us a bit more about how
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like just how gestation works in, in tiger sharks.
16:25
And you know, the, the females I believe, but I mean, they're,
16:29
they're hanging around extremely because it's safe.
16:31
It's a safe space and they get fed and whatever.
16:33
But like how? How does this actually work in
16:35
nature? Yeah.
16:36
I mean, we don't have a scientific confirmation yet of
16:40
why we have this large aggregation.
16:42
So there are, you know, several very obvious factors that we
16:44
just need to prove. I mean, one of them is the
16:47
geography and the sort of Geo morphology of the island and as
16:51
a pinnacle that rises from the deep.
16:53
So we have, you know, deep water, very new trend which
16:55
shorter with a lot of upwelling and downwelling, easy access to
16:59
large prey populations like tuna and other schools of fish.
17:02
And then we obviously have formula being one of the biggest
17:05
cities of the Maldives with 11,000 residents.
17:08
So that's a lot of fish waste going in the water.
17:10
So very steady food supply and food source, which obviously for
17:14
mothers that have high energy demands in that stage of their
17:17
life where they're trying to eat for two or in our case would be
17:20
for two. In that case, it's eating for up
17:21
to 40. It's the perfect place for
17:24
pregnant moms to come and come and hang out and constantly get
17:27
their sort of additional snacks and food supply.
17:31
But yeah, they carry for over a year or so, between 12 to 1415
17:38
months give birth to up to 4040 pups.
17:42
Generally speaking, the numbers vary from region to region and
17:45
from some of the studies. And then when they're born, they
17:48
come out as fully, fully baked little predators, ready to ready
17:52
to hunt, ready to be completely independent.
17:54
The mums don't look after their young, so they give life birth,
17:58
but they're not mammals. Basically, the eggs hatch inside
18:01
the uterus of the mother, and then there's pushed out and,
18:05
yeah, ready to roll. It's amazing.
18:07
We have sightings from fishermen from the northern central atolls
18:09
of pups about, you know, this big.
18:12
And it's amazing to see that they're born so ready for for
18:15
their bigger life in the ocean ahead.
18:17
What's When they're born, they're about half a meter long
18:20
or a bit longer. Generally around like 40
18:23
centimeters. That's when.
18:26
And is that the case for all all of the sharks that you see?
18:29
I've seen like these eggs, I think they used to be called
18:32
fisherman's purses or something. Yeah, purses.
18:34
Man, it's purse, that's it, that's it.
18:36
So some of them also have eggs as well.
18:38
Right, Yeah, yeah. So there's different forms of
18:41
reproduction. So there's viviperous, which
18:43
means live birth. There's Oval, viviperous, live
18:46
birth, birth through eggs. Oval is egg.
18:49
So there's also sharks that will lay eggs and then the the young
18:53
will hatch from the eggs. So basically they're offloading
18:56
that process that would happen on the inside to the outside.
18:59
Like leopard sharks, for example.
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They will do that. And we also have them in the
19:02
Maldives. They lay these cute little
19:04
pouches with the pucks that they attach to sort of rock or sand
19:09
or parts of the reef. And then there are sharks that
19:13
will eat each other in the mother's womb.
19:14
And only one pup per uterus Is balls like the sand?
19:18
Yeah, like the sand. Tiger sharks really.
19:20
Survival of the fittest even before.
19:22
That well, that sorry, that's, that's not cute at all.
19:28
That shouldn't be allowed eating each other as babies.
19:34
I'll tell you what I'd really like to hear more about.
19:36
It's like what the attitude just to sharks and the Maldives,
19:38
because I know you've, you've done a lot of research of this.
19:40
You spoke, you know, you live in a formula which is a local
19:43
island with 11,000 people, you know, fishermen, everyone there,
19:46
dive people and, and they, and also we, you know, we're both on
19:52
the same WhatsApp list of the Maldives Ocean Alliance.
19:54
Every now, every, every now and then it pings up that the
19:57
government's trying to reintroduce shark fishing or
20:00
they're trying to rescind the ban.
20:02
Most recently, I think they're trying to restart a fishery of a
20:04
particular shark called the Gulpa shark.
20:07
So tell us like how, what, what the situation is politically
20:10
with with shark fishing at the moment?
20:12
Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, there's no clear cut
20:15
answer to the Maldives perception of sharks.
20:18
I would say the general sort of the general consensus that, you
20:21
know, most people are really appreciative of the sharks and
20:23
value them. The dive community definitely
20:25
does. I mean, I don't know a single
20:27
dive guy that doesn't love sharks.
20:29
Forget about liking or enjoying diving them.
20:31
Love them. Most fishermen actually very
20:35
much respect them and understand their importance and also use
20:39
them as sort of almost collaborators in fishing by
20:42
following certain sharks or looking for certain species of
20:44
shark to find a specific fish that they're looking for.
20:47
But then of course, like in every country that has
20:49
predators, you're going to have human wildlife conflict where
20:52
the predators are perceived as a threat to, in this case,
20:56
fishing. In other countries, you know,
20:57
it's farming and there has been obviously because of the bounce
21:02
back of shark populations after the shark fishing ban, there is
21:05
this perception that the sharks have increased, which which they
21:08
have, but they're basically coming back to healthier levels.
21:12
But there's the perception that there's too many sharks and
21:14
depredation is increasing. So sharks biting off or
21:18
completely taking away the catch of fishermen as they're fishing.
21:23
So there are some groups that are feeling like sharks maybe
21:27
should be fished again because there's so many and they either,
21:29
you know, don't like them because of the depredation or
21:32
because they feel, well, if there's so many, we should
21:34
benefit from them commercially. Then there's also a very large
21:37
number of people that understand that shark fishing in any form
21:40
wouldn't be wouldn't be good for the country.
21:43
Galba sharks are an interesting case.
21:45
So they're a deep sea shark species that, you know, most
21:48
people have never heard about. They're very beautiful, big
21:51
green eyes, very long brown, slender bodies.
21:54
But they have incredible characteristics much more
21:57
similar to mammals than to sharks or other fish.
22:00
So they take up to 20 years to mature before they're able to
22:04
reproduce. It's a very long time.
22:06
And they only produce like 2 to 3 pups every few years, you
22:11
know, whereas fish, they'll lay thousands of eggs and have
22:13
thousands of offspring. Sharks, you know, between
22:16
between 10 to 100 pups. And then in the case of gulpus,
22:20
you have those characteristics that make them really vulnerable
22:22
to fishing because if you catch them before they're 20 years
22:25
old, that's one less mother that can reproduce, right?
22:29
And, and if you start catching them in large numbers, they're
22:32
not going to be able to bounce back fast enough because of how
22:35
slow they reproduce. And the Galpa shark fishery here
22:38
actually collapsed based on the fishing data that we have
22:42
available, which is not much. And it was, yeah, it collapsed
22:48
to the point that the liver oil export stopped.
22:50
And then shortly after the the shark fishing ban was seduced.
22:54
You said about liver oil experts.
22:55
So why were why were these sharks being fished at all?
22:58
And so this was previous to the 2010 ban, Gulpa sharks were
23:02
targeted, that's the species for this particular product, liver
23:04
oil. Yes.
23:06
Uh, so gulpa sharks or many deep sea sharks in general have very,
23:09
very large livers that take up the majority of their body
23:12
cavity. And that the liver has a very
23:16
sort of thick viscous oil that can be extracted by boiling the
23:20
liver. And historically in many island
23:23
nations, that liver oil was used to varnish boats.
23:25
It's very waterproof, Pretty, pretty remarkable stuff really.
23:29
And so you have old photos of Dhonis in the Maldives being
23:32
painted with this liver oil to be waterproof.
23:35
It was also used for medicinal purposes, wound healing
23:39
especially. And the liver oil exports in the
23:42
Maldives only really started because Japanese buyers started
23:45
to show interest. But now globally, the demand for
23:48
liver oil is going up primarily for biomedical research
23:53
vaccines. So liver oil is found in a lot
23:54
of vaccines and beauty products as a sort of additive and yeah,
23:59
the luxury cosmetics industry. Vaccines, right, that's it.
24:03
I'm anti vax in that case. If you have to use shark Cliff
24:05
or I mean, presumably there's alternatives to all these
24:09
things. You don't need to paint your
24:11
Dhoni boats in the Maldives with shark liver oil.
24:13
Now there'll be synthetic incentives and there is for for
24:15
everything. I mean, you've seen this for you
24:17
know all. So tell us, tell us why, like
24:20
why this is coming back up as a as a commercial opportunity in
24:26
this, in this in the eyes of some fishermen.
24:28
There's there's multiple theories.
24:29
I mean, one of one of the theories that I hear a lot from
24:33
the local community is that, you know, this is a part of a
24:36
political campaign promise to the communities in the north
24:40
that had shark fishing. And then when shark fishing
24:42
stopped, basically didn't have an income replacement like big
24:46
tourism. So communities that ended up
24:48
losing out because of the shark fishing ban, at least
24:51
economically. But then it's also, you know,
24:56
the global context of of some of the demand for these products
24:59
really increasing in the Maldives as an ocean nation
25:02
wanting to maximize its marine resources, which is fish and
25:06
fish out wildlife. But you know, from for many
25:09
countries that have such large stocks of fish, that's what
25:13
powers the economy. And here it's very much the
25:15
same. So there's this idea that by
25:18
bringing back galba shark fishing, it can be a form of
25:20
fishing that doesn't hurt tourism because it's, you know,
25:23
not a species group that is targeted by tourists.
25:26
There's a deep sea shark and it's a way to bring income back
25:30
to some islands that would benefit from shark fishing.
25:33
The catch is that A, it wouldn't be very long lasting.
25:36
It would collapse in a few years if it takes off at all, given
25:39
that the numbers are so low. But B is that the method used is
25:42
basically deep set long lining or baited hooks.
25:46
And that would also 'cause all of the other shark species that
25:50
we do, you know, have tourism with, like hammerhead sharks,
25:53
tiger sharks, thresher sharks to also be caught.
25:56
But that's something that most people aren't aware of because
25:59
they hear deep sea shark fishing and they're like, Oh yeah, that
26:01
doesn't concern us. It's fine because most people
26:04
don't care about deep sea sharks, unfortunately, because
26:07
they don't have a day-to-day interaction or relation with
26:10
them. What's the Maldives like to
26:11
work, you know, for you as a as a woman as well, You know, do
26:15
you have to is it quite, it's quite conservative.
26:17
Some islands. I don't know what formulas like
26:19
I've not I've not been there. But you know, is is it
26:22
challenging? Is it tough or is it is it
26:24
generally pretty relaxed? It can be challenging.
26:27
I mean, I grew up in the Turkish culture, so I'm a lot more
26:31
diffused to Islamic values and customs than some of my
26:36
colleagues that didn't have much connection with the religion
26:38
prior. But of course, on the local
26:40
islands, we tend to dress a bit more modestly, like shoulders
26:44
covered, knees covered when possible.
26:46
We're only really in swimwear on the boats.
26:48
And it's always funny because when the tourists come, they
26:50
hope to lie on the beach in a bikini.
26:51
And then we're like, oh, sorry to deliver the bad news.
26:54
It's not something we do on this island.
26:56
Some local islands have bikini beaches set aside for tourists.
27:01
I mean, I'm not going to lie, it's hard being a woman anyway.
27:04
Maldives has it's very hard sides, but it's also got it's,
27:07
it's very good sides. I feel, for example, is much
27:10
more safe here than in other countries I've worked in.
27:13
I can, you know, walk out at night.
27:14
I can walk around by myself. Maldivian men generally tend to
27:19
be more reserved, so you won't really be hassled or haggled on
27:23
the street as a woman or touched by someone overtly in public,
27:26
which is something that, for example, happens to me in Europe
27:28
all the time. And then once you know people in
27:32
the community, they really sort of embrace you.
27:35
And then once you're part of part of that group of people,
27:38
they really have your back. So for me, I have an amazing
27:41
group of friends and colleagues here and they really take very
27:45
good care of me. I think the challenge is more
27:49
sometimes the island fever with the cabin fever, you know, the
27:52
islands are small and you know, by the time you've spent a lot
27:56
of months here, you know every corner of the island and there's
27:58
only so many scooter drives. You can do it within a 10 minute
28:01
time frame before you go, OK, maybe I need to go somewhere.
28:07
And then obviously the availability of fresh produce.
28:10
The islands are mostly sand. Not every island is able to grow
28:14
agriculturally. Formula is, but you know, the
28:17
greens and the fruits that we're used to at home and as easily
28:20
already available here or as affordable.
28:24
And being from the Mediterranean, I sometimes do
28:26
miss my selection of, of produce.
28:28
But then if I choose between having Peaches and, you know,
28:32
certain greens versus diving with sharks every day, I think
28:35
I'm going to give up the Peaches and go diving with the sharks.
28:40
It's basically tuna for breakfast, tuna for lunch, tuna
28:43
Curry for dinner, isn't it? I mean, do you, do you eat tuna?
28:45
Do you eat? Do you eat fish or I?
28:47
Learned to eat fish here. I wasn't eating fish at all back
28:51
home. I didn't like it as a kid.
28:53
It was always too fishy. And that's also the first thing
28:56
I learned in in the Maldivian language and the vehi was how to
28:59
say this is too fishy for me. But masada magada.
29:04
But now I eat fish. I mean if you are going to eat
29:07
fish, this is probably one of the most sustainable places to
29:10
do so because all the tunas pollen line court or we actually
29:14
eat a lot of other fish here in our household like Ruby, it's a
29:18
deep sea fish. And you know, the fisherman that
29:20
catches them is our captain or our captain's friend, and he
29:24
goes out with one, you know, 1 hook and line, goes out with his
29:29
little boat, catches it, comes back to the harbour and we eat
29:33
it within the like hour that it was caught.
29:37
So here I eat fish when I go home.
29:39
I probably wouldn't just because now I'm very spoiled and my
29:42
standard says fresh fish is very high.
29:45
My Maldivian colleagues don't eat it if it's not caught within
29:48
the last few hours. Like if the fish was caught in
29:52
the morning, they won't eat it in the evening.
29:53
They're like, no, that's already too old.
29:55
Really. I guess the, you know,
29:57
historically didn't have refrigeration.
30:00
Yeah, so it was always like you go to the harbour, they bring
30:04
the catch. The second they bring the catch,
30:06
which is generally before dinner time, you select your fish, the
30:09
guy's king for you, go home and put it in the pan, which is what
30:12
we do in most days here as well. You ever eat a Rolex sushi or
30:16
sashimi? Really, I don't like the
30:18
texture, it's too squishy. I was, I was recently with
30:24
Sylvia Earle at a meeting in Switzerland and she's, you know,
30:27
she's this great ocean explorer. For anyone who doesn't know, I
30:29
think she's just passed 90. She's had a birthday and another
30:34
and a, yeah, a National Geographic sort of heroine.
30:37
And she doesn't eat any fish. I mean, she's basically of the
30:39
opinion that we could stop all, all, certainly all commercial
30:42
fishing in the oceans. And I have to say on a kind of
30:46
intellectual level, I I agree with that.
30:48
And it sounds like you probably do, too.
30:49
I mean, it's different than maybe island nations where it's
30:52
such an integral part of the culture and livelihood for so
30:54
many people. So I'm a bit torn on that.
30:57
I mean, should people like in in other countries?
30:59
Should our listeners buy Maldivian tuna?
31:02
It's a good question. I mean, ethically, you know, I
31:05
was a vegetarian for for many, many years prior to that I was
31:08
vegan. I still struggle a lot with
31:10
eating fish. And I definitely can't watch it
31:13
being killed. Like when I'm on the boat and
31:14
the guys catch one that they're going to take home for dinner, I
31:17
look away when they, you know, have its last seconds.
31:21
But then in terms of sustainability, for some
31:24
countries, it would be way more detrimental environmentally to
31:27
not eat fish than to eat what they catch.
31:30
Like for the Maldives to substitute the tuna, you know,
31:34
and the Ruby and other things that they catch locally with 1
31:36
hook in line, one pollen line to substitute that for, I don't
31:40
know, Brazilian grown soy from the rainforest that gets shipped
31:43
here, you know, sent here by cargo ship, which, you know,
31:48
aside from the damage to the rainforest is also a lot of fuel
31:51
and a lot of other production costs.
31:53
So it's a hard 1. I don't think there's a
31:55
one-size-fits-all approach. I do think large scale
31:58
industrial fishing should be stopped globally because it's
32:03
unsustainable. And it's, you know, not just on
32:06
an environmental level, also on a human level with the amount of
32:11
catches felt, with the amount of sort of human trafficking
32:15
involved and all the, the fuel costs and all the international
32:19
sort of legal implications that come with that.
32:23
I think the, the way forward is to do sort of what the Maldives
32:26
does, which is only artisanal fishing, only pollen line
32:29
fishing. And even their industrial fleets
32:31
here are, you know, men with one pollen line and it just happens
32:35
to be 20 of them on the back of a boat.
32:37
It doesn't. No way or shape or form compared
32:40
to the scale of anything else that happens around the world.
32:43
Yeah, that's a very different picture to the, you know, the
32:46
industrial krill Fisher in the Southern Ocean, which is a
32:48
complete, complete abomination, which we're going to be
32:50
campaigning on soon. And also, I think, you know,
32:54
pursaining and, you know, fish aggregated devices, all the, I
32:57
mean, it's, it's the absolute textbook unsustainable industry,
33:01
which increasingly we just don't need.
33:03
I mean, there's all sorts of alternatives to fish products
33:05
now, including hopefully cell culture for people who really
33:07
want bluefish, tuna, you know, that won't have these, these
33:11
incredible animals won't have to be taken out of, won't have to
33:14
be taken out of the oceans. And, you know, as somebody who's
33:16
been, you know, I've been diving in the Maldives and snorkeling
33:19
and you, when you see them alive, you think these are.
33:22
These are just incredible. Animals.
33:25
We had a guest once who saw a tuna on a dive, and he genuinely
33:28
was convinced it was a shock because it was so big.
33:30
And we're like, that was a tuna. It's really we're like, yeah,
33:33
it's like, it's huge. I'm like, yes, if you don't
33:35
catch them young, they can grow to enormous sizes.
33:38
You just got back from Tonga recently.
33:40
I think you actually was Speaking of Sylvia.
33:42
Earl, what you on a boat in Tonga with Sylvia and various
33:46
other people doing something with Wales?
33:48
Tell me more about that. Yeah, so I was invited to be one
33:53
of the lead scientists for a very special project in Tonga
33:59
with the humpback whales working together also with the Lord
34:02
Speaker of the Tongue in Government, Lord for Governor,
34:05
Doctor Sylvia Earl and then Keith Toughly who we all know
34:08
from Vilal Institute, who was the expedition lead for this
34:10
project. And it was a multi method sort
34:14
of research and storytelling initiative through which we hope
34:18
to raise awareness for humpback whales, their remarkable journey
34:23
of recovery, but also the upcoming challenges that are
34:27
still facing them. While also conducting data
34:31
collection on the local humpback whale populations of Tonga
34:34
through DNA sampling. So collecting water samples to
34:36
look at tiny bits of DNA shed by all living organisms to get a
34:40
baseline hopefully of the ecosystem there.
34:43
Collecting humpback whale skin samples, which was my favorite
34:46
part of the of the work. I love all those nitty gritty
34:49
bits to analyze a microbiome on the whale's skin.
34:53
So the tiny bacterial communities that live there,
34:55
which tell us a lot about their health, and also little bits as
34:59
a proxy of where they've been. And hopefully, if possible, also
35:03
to do a genetic analysis, so to be able to cross mesh DNA from
35:06
the skin samples, if possible, if the quality of the sample is
35:09
good enough with some of the photos and flu cuties that we've
35:12
collected to identify individual humpback whales.
35:15
So the idea was to contribute new knowledge and new data to
35:20
ongoing research efforts, but also hopefully to show the
35:23
viability of some of these really low cost methodologies to
35:27
study these amazing animals. We also did acoustic monitoring
35:30
to collect recordings of vocalizations.
35:34
And yeah, although it was an amazing project and it was an
35:37
honor to work alongside Sylvia, to spend so much time with her
35:41
to to share the waters with her and mostly really to learn from
35:47
her and from her wisdom. You know, she's overcome huge
35:51
challenges. So to be able to ask her the odd
35:53
question here and there and go, how did you do that?
35:56
What's the challenge? What's the key?
35:57
How do you do it was was amazing.
35:59
Yeah, I'm, I met Lord Fakafanua at New York Climate Week and we
36:04
we talked about you and the project and yes, Doctor Sylvia
36:08
will be has to be a guest on on the show pretty soon.
36:11
She's agreed. So it's only a matter of time
36:13
until we can pin her down because she's such a such a busy
36:16
person doing a. Busy lady.
36:20
But, you know, talk you, you talk about whales and sharks and
36:23
the crossover. What about whale sharks?
36:25
They're they're, you know, something that people go to the
36:28
Maldives to see. I've never seen one alive.
36:31
I thought I've never seen one at all alive or dead.
36:33
I mean, do you, do you see them? And tell us a bit about the
36:36
conservation work for whale sharks.
36:38
Yeah, so they actually were the species that brought me to the
36:41
Maldives back in the day, young in my younger days when I was a
36:44
master's student, I was in touch with the Maldives whale shack
36:48
research program that then provided me with a data set to
36:52
do my master's thesis. And then I came to the Maldives
36:56
to volunteer for them and spend some time in the wooden on the
36:59
boat with them as well. And now one of my best friends,
37:01
actually Chloe is sort of Co running all of the research
37:05
programs. So our group Miata doesn't work
37:08
on wheel shacks because it's not a predatory shacks.
37:11
So we really came up to fill that gap in the NGO landscape.
37:15
As you know, every big megafauna species has its own NGO.
37:18
In the Maldives, Manta Trust is the Mantas whale shark Program
37:22
is the whale sharks, Olive Ridley does the turtles, the
37:25
corals have a few groups. And then there wasn't a national
37:29
level NGO for predatory sharks. So everything that's not a whale
37:32
shark. And that's part of why Miyado
37:35
was founded and started. But the Whale Shark Research
37:39
program has been doing amazing, amazing research work here,
37:41
mostly in South Ahri for the for the initial years studying the
37:46
aggregation there, which is predominantly juvenile males.
37:50
And then since then they've branched out to other atolls and
37:52
islands as well. They regularly come to formula
37:54
every year to study the whale sharks here.
37:57
And we generally get large adult females, which we don't see very
38:01
often in other parts of the Maldives when we see how.
38:07
How big is large? Large, like fully grown, like
38:10
12/13/14 and plus meters, big whale sharks.
38:16
I had a dive with my colleague Ricky, and it was just the two
38:19
of us and we got surprised by a whale shark just under us.
38:23
And we looked at each other and we just couldn't believe it.
38:25
And that thing was almost the size of our entire house.
38:29
So incredible and just so big and makes you feel tiny and it
38:35
makes all your problems with tiny.
38:37
Yeah, and they just see plankton, don't they?
38:39
Yeah, filter feeding and. And I mean, they're not haunted
38:43
anywhere, presumably. So do they have conservation
38:45
challenges as well? Yeah.
38:47
The biggest conservation challenge is tourism, so the
38:50
amount of people wanting to swim with the whale sharks and the
38:54
amount of operators going to one specific whale shark and putting
38:59
all the guests in the water to swim with one whale shark.
39:01
You know, sometimes you have 2030 forty people in the water
39:04
at once. Vessel strikes, you know, they
39:07
feed on the surface, so they're very vulnerable to boats driving
39:10
over them and causing a lot of propeller injuries.
39:13
So that's a really big issue. There's like the majority of
39:17
whale sharks cited in South area at all at one point had
39:20
propeller strike injuries of different shapes and sizes.
39:24
But then also climate change, which, you know, we don't know
39:27
very much about, but how changes in the water temperature affect,
39:31
you know, plankton and all the other little things that they
39:34
eat, how that shifts around and if that means that they're going
39:38
to be going to other parts of the country to feed or to
39:42
reproduce, we don't really know. It's sort of one of the big, big
39:46
questions that was also still unanswered for many sharks.
39:48
Not just for the Sharks. What about?
39:50
What about great whites? You know, everyone's favorite
39:53
cute shark? Cute.
39:53
Cuddly. Type of shark.
39:55
I wish we had them here. I would love nothing more than
39:59
to be in the water with one. I mean, they're declining
40:03
globally at a very sort of fast rate, not as fast as some of the
40:08
other critically endangered species, but you know, South
40:11
Africa has lost its great wild shark populations.
40:14
Everybody likes to blame the orcas, but another very big
40:16
contributing factor is fishing. If you remove all the mid level
40:19
predators, there's not much to eat for the apex predators.
40:24
And that's the case globally with, you know, large scale
40:26
industrial fishing basically hoovering up everything.
40:30
You need big stuff in the water to sustain the really, really
40:33
big stuff up top in the food chain.
40:35
Why? What do great whites naturally
40:37
eat? Large fish are the sharks seals.
40:42
Yeah, yeah, there's a theory, isn't there, that orcas were
40:45
targeting them for their livers or something because they're
40:47
seeing great whites with bites taken out of them on the beach.
40:49
I mean, that that's true, right? But it's obviously not not not
40:52
an actual serious threat to their populations.
40:55
It's true, but it's it's not sort of a giant population level
40:59
threat. I mean, two orcas can only eat
41:01
so many great white sharks, but large fishing feeds can take
41:04
out, you know, thousands, if not millions of smaller sharks and
41:07
hence remove the entire sort of food base layer that that these
41:13
great whites and other bigger predators depend on.
41:16
It's all linked to each other. You know you right.
41:18
So what? What's the population level
41:22
latest assessment of sharks globally?
41:24
Then I remember reading a paper and maybe science or something
41:27
that the shark population fallen by 90% or something really
41:31
depressing like and that was a few years ago.
41:34
What's the What's the latest data that you're seeing?
41:37
So there's been a 71% global decline in oceanic shark
41:41
populations. That's the overall, like, sort
41:44
of global population estimate if you look at specific species,
41:48
yeah, for some, it's up to 90 or again, over 90%.
41:52
Many, many species are now critically endangered, like, for
41:55
example, great hammerheads, scalloped hammerheads, oceanic
41:57
white tips. And some of these sharks have
41:59
had like local or regional extinctions of complete
42:04
population collapses, Like they're parts of the world where
42:06
oceanic white tips are thought to have declined by over 98%.
42:11
It's a, it's a serious, it's, it's crazy.
42:14
It's very crazy when you think about the fact that sharks has
42:16
been around longer than trees. The sharks are older than the
42:19
North Star. We had sharks on planet Earth
42:22
before the North Star existed. And now we've wiped out the
42:26
majority of them. You know, these are really
42:27
ancient predators in many ways, like modern dinosaurs.
42:31
And we've, we've single handedly managed to reduce our
42:34
populations to the point of some of them not going to not being
42:37
around in the next decades. And that's something I'm really
42:40
scared of. You know, when I dive with some
42:42
of the sharks here that are critically endangered, I think,
42:44
OK, my grandkids might not get to see this if, you know, we
42:48
don't do the work now in the next 10 years.
42:51
And that's pretty scary to think about.
42:53
So I try not to think about it too much.
42:55
But it is sad. It's very, very sad.
42:57
Yeah. Because there were sharks at the
42:59
same time as the dinosaurs. So they've been around for
43:00
hundreds of millions of years, right?
43:01
And the idea that they could cease to exist globally, some of
43:05
these species in, in, in, in a decade or two is, is frankly
43:09
doesn't bear thinking about. But I, I, I assume that things
43:11
are getting better, but it doesn't sound like it.
43:13
Is there. Like what, what can people do as
43:16
individuals? I'm, I don't imagine many
43:17
listeners to this show are sitting down to bowls of shark
43:21
fin soup, assuming that's still a thing.
43:23
Like what are, what are they? What can anyone do as an
43:26
individual? Yeah.
43:28
I mean, it completely depends what part of the world you live
43:31
in. If you live in Europe, the
43:33
biggest thing you can do is to support all the ongoing work to
43:36
stop shark finning and shark fishing in Europe.
43:39
Because most people don't know. But Spain and a few other
43:41
countries are some of the world's top exporters for shark
43:45
fins and shark meat. A lot of fish and chips.
43:48
In the UK is shark meat, a lot of fish and chips and.
43:54
I mean I try not to do fish and chips but like I thought it was
43:56
cod and haddock. How can it possibly be shark
43:58
meat? It's usually there's been AI
44:01
have to pull up the study for you.
44:02
There was a really amazing study showing that the a lot of fish
44:05
and chips in the UK is shark. It's just sort of smaller shark
44:08
species that are just classified as white fish.
44:12
Yeah, yeah. Like rock salmon, for example.
44:14
Like there's all these code words, but actually it's it's
44:17
shark flake. If you eat flake, flake is a
44:20
shark. Wow.
44:21
So I didn't know, I had no idea that Europe was was a was a
44:25
major villain on this. And that's something we should
44:27
we should definitely look into and campaign on for as as we
44:30
plan it. So the these shark sharks
44:33
targeted like directly purpose purposefully by fishing European
44:38
fishing fleets. Yeah, generally.
44:40
So particularly in Spain, they're targeted for fins and
44:42
meat and a lot of that can then get exported to Asia.
44:46
But also they end up a lot as bycatch, obviously, and then
44:49
still get processed pet food, cosmetics, fertilizer for your
44:54
garden and a lot of other everyday products that we take
44:57
for granted. Have shark.
44:59
There's actually a project I'm working on at the moment.
45:02
I run a a separate project to me out called Anthropocene.
45:06
So the human ocean and Anthropocene.
45:09
Yeah, it's a word play on the Anthropocene.
45:12
No, it's great. Now I like.
45:13
It Yeah. And the idea is to really show
45:16
how human societies intersect with the ocean, but in ways that
45:19
we don't normally think about. And, you know, since I love
45:21
sharks, very obviously, currently working on a little
45:24
bit of a project to highlight how humans and sharks intersect
45:28
in ways you wouldn't think. And I say to everyone I meet,
45:30
you probably have had a shark in your life today without
45:34
realizing either in your skin care, in your vaccine, on your
45:38
plate, in your cosmetics or in your garden and many other
45:41
things. So the key thing people can do
45:44
is depending on where they live locally, supporting any
45:47
initiative working for shark protection.
45:50
The best thing you can do is to support shark protection in your
45:52
country. And then the more countries we
45:54
can get collectively, the more power we have globally to check
45:59
your cosmetics for squalene, it's a shark derived ingredient.
46:02
And then if you have squalene, either swap your cosmetics or
46:06
message the brand and ask them to swap that for a plant based
46:09
alternatives. And then the same also checking
46:13
your pet food and lobbying your pet food providers to not have
46:17
shark because I don't really want to be feeding shark to my
46:19
cat or my dog and I. Had no idea that that pet food
46:24
would have shark in it or or anything else.
46:26
I mean I bought some plant based shower Jelly other I thought
46:29
why? Why would this be plant based?
46:30
Like what could it have in it? It's not a plant, but if you
46:33
need a non plant based one might have shark in it for goodness
46:35
sake. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
46:37
It's pretty. It's pretty crazy to think
46:38
about. Also, biomedical research.
46:40
A lot of sharks being harvested for Cancer Research, for
46:43
Alzheimer's Research. What's that about?
46:46
I don't get. I've never heard of this.
46:48
So because sharks are so ancient, you know, their DNA
46:53
and, and sort of their entire bodies are basically archives of
46:58
evolutionary information and evolutionary success and
47:01
resilience, really. And for the longest time, people
47:03
thought that sharks can't get sick or sharks can't get cancer.
47:07
And a lot of these beliefs, and mostly due to a lack of more
47:10
targeted science on these topics, led to sharks being
47:13
harvested and sort of being put under the microscope for some of
47:17
this research. There's, Yeah, a lot of research
47:20
into looking at shark cartilage, looking at shark liver oil,
47:25
looking at shark skin and the use of all of these products for
47:29
improving human health, sometimes also design and
47:32
engineering. So shark skin inspired a lot of
47:35
innovations in modern sort of air, air flights and airspace.
47:40
So my English has left me. I'm also being eaten alive by
47:43
this land shark. Yeah.
47:48
I mean, their evolutionary master sort of master creations.
47:52
So it's no surprise that we're looking to learn from them about
47:55
how we can heal and improve ourselves and be more resilient
47:58
to to changes in human society and human health.
48:02
Yeah, I mean for biomedical research, OK or whatever, you
48:04
know, maybe one or two sharks, I can understand that.
48:07
But you know, you don't need, you don't need to have a
48:09
population level impact for, for that kind of scientific
48:12
activity. So I I just can't see why that's
48:14
allowed to continue. And for the commercial shark
48:17
fisheries, I mean, they've just got, they've just got to stop.
48:20
And yeah, I think producer Rob, can you not if you think we plan
48:23
to campaign against shark fishing in Spain as well?
48:25
There's a, there's a, yeah, it's a fairly fervent nod.
48:29
So you consider that, consider that one of our future campaigns
48:32
as well. Can people donate to Miyagu and
48:35
help your work in the Maldives as well?
48:37
I mean, we are a small volunteer on NGO, so we welcome any
48:41
support. We do have a donation link on
48:43
the page. We also welcome if you don't
48:45
want to donate money, if you want to purchase equipment for
48:48
us, we also welcome that. If anyone's listening that is in
48:51
the biomedical field, you know, things like microscopes and lab
48:55
equipment are all things that are really hard to come by here
48:57
in the Maldives. And that make a big difference
48:59
for our work, but also for our abilities to teach because the
49:02
students don't always have access to some of these kits and
49:06
resources. If people want to come diving
49:09
with us and allow us to help them connect with sharks and
49:12
change their minds and show them how incredible the animals are.
49:15
And that's also something we always welcome either as
49:17
research volunteers or just as dive guests.
49:21
So I work very, very closely with a dive center called
49:23
Oceanic Nomad Divers who in formula.
49:25
So we do daily tiger shark dives and thresher sharks and other
49:29
amazing species of sharks as well.
49:31
So there's lots of ways to help and, yeah, highlighting the
49:36
importance of sharks and supporting, you know, shark
49:39
tourism, which keeps sharks alive, supporting that shark
49:43
sanctuaries like the Maldives and Palau and other countries
49:45
are being upheld. Those are a few big things we
49:49
can do, or anyone can do. Well, we'll put a link to Miaga
49:52
in the show notes and it's the this this threat to the gulpa
49:56
shark about restarting the fishery, though that is that
49:58
still a live issue. Can people sign a petition or
50:01
somehow make their voices heard to the Maldivian government
50:04
about that? Yeah.
50:06
So there's a petition coming out in partnership with Blue Marine
50:09
Foundation and Maldives Resilient Reefs on only one.
50:13
So that will be shared very shortly on our socials as well
50:16
that people can sign. And it's really a request to the
50:19
government to not introduce Culper shark fishing or any
50:22
shark fishing and to uphold the sanctuary here in the Maldives.
50:25
And then there'll be a few more campaign videos and infographics
50:29
coming out on Blue Moon Foundation Malnourished
50:32
Resilient Reefs and Mirrors pages as well.
50:35
OK. And what what's have you, have
50:37
you been out already diving today?
50:39
And are you you basically spent half the time in the water you
50:42
have? This morning, of course, give
50:45
us, give us. Just before we wind up, I want
50:47
to know what your what your day was like.
50:49
Get a sense of what it's like to live in one of these Maldivian
50:51
islands. Yeah, start the morning with a
50:55
cold coconut juice from my fridge, hop on my scooter, drive
50:59
to the harbour along beautiful palm fringed roads, hopped on
51:03
our Dhoni, which is a very traditional old Dhoni that was
51:06
handmade by its previous owner, made from wood with beautiful
51:09
carvings. We love her.
51:11
She's old, but she's beautiful. And a Dhoni, for people who
51:14
don't know, is a Maldivian traditional boat.
51:16
Yeah, it's a Maldivian boat. And then we went diving first on
51:21
the reef to look for thresher sharks, which are very beautiful
51:24
and elusive shark species. Then we had our tiger shark
51:27
dive. We only had 7 tiger sharks on
51:30
today's dive, which for formula is a quiet day.
51:33
We're much more used to having sort of 15 plus.
51:36
And then we went into the blue with our guests to allow the
51:40
sharks to come up under us and for them to see the sharks in
51:44
deep water environment as well. And then I got back home, fed
51:48
this little potato, the cat land shack, and now I have a few
51:54
hours of data analysis ahead of me before giving a guest
51:57
presentation about shark conservation, shark biology here
52:00
in the Maldives, and then preparing the underwater cameras
52:05
for tomorrow's surveys. Oh, wow.
52:09
Gosh, that is a big piece of kit, Yeah.
52:12
Big piece of kits. It's one of one of the few
52:14
cameras that we have in the team.
52:17
And then preparing for some of the next exciting research
52:19
projects, pairing equipment, storing samples.
52:23
We have a tiger shark poo sample in the freezer, which is a big
52:27
success. It allows us to look into their
52:29
diet. My dad laughs at me.
52:32
He says, is this your life now you just collect shark poo.
52:34
I say yes, I am living my dream. I get to collect shark poo.
52:41
Yeah, I know. I agree.
52:42
What's not to like? It sounds like you have a
52:44
miserable you're certainly having a miserable time of it,
52:46
so I can only commiserate with you.
52:49
And if you want a nice holiday, come and visit us in in grey
52:52
rainy Wales Happy. To Oh, but Wales has blue sharks
52:56
in the summer. It has blue sharks.
52:59
Yes, there's amazing opportunities to snorkel with
53:02
blue sharks in Wales. I actually never heard of blue
53:05
sharks so that shows how rignontal I am, but.
53:08
I'll send your details. Yes, do do I just you, you
53:14
haven't. You're doing an incredible,
53:15
incredible work with me argue. And you know, I've been
53:17
following your work with the multi social alliance for a few
53:19
years and I can't recommend it too highly to to our audience.
53:23
So Susan, just thanks again for for for sharing your time and
53:27
your expertise and your experience with us.
53:29
It's been it's been incredible. And we will put a link in the
53:31
show notes to to me argue so people can visit and anyone
53:34
who's yeah, anyone who's listening, don't worry about the
53:36
carbon. Literally, you should go to
53:37
visit, go to visit formula. It's spelled Fuva Mula for
53:42
because it's it's pronounced a bit more shorthand, but yeah.
53:45
And you will have the most most incredible, you know, shark
53:48
diving experience of that it's possible to have, I think
53:50
anywhere in the world. So, Suzu, thanks again.
53:53
The best. Thank you so much.
53:55
Thanks for having me and for your time and yeah, hope to see
53:57
you soon. Thanks so much for listening to
54:02
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54:06
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