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What Happens to Fish When Our Pills Reach the Water? · How To Protect The Ocean

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Welcome back to another episode of the Ocean Leader Podcast,
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the podcast that helps you get your ocean project to the next level,
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to be successful, and to have a great ocean impact.
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I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. I'm the Ocean Communications Manager
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at Pisces Oceans because the Ocean Leader Podcast is a Pisces podcast.
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Today on the podcast, we have PJ Swieswerda of Gotham Whale.
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Now, if you don't know what who Gotham Whale is or what Gotham Whale is,
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it is an organization that works to find out what like research,
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monitor, and help marine mammals in New York City Harbor.
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What? Marine mammals in New York City Harbor?
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Isn't it polluted? Not anymore.
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And the whales have come back because the menhaden,
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the fish have come back, and we have seen.
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An amazing community just grow back to the health and ecosystem that
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it was pre-industrialized era.
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And New York has helped do that by cleaning up its harbor,
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by cleaning up its rivers and the Hudson River and the harbor And it's been amazing
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to see. And Gotham Whale was born out of that.
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And its founder, Paul, started this,
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and his his story is absolutely amazing.
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And I think what happens when we become ocean leaders,
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we become
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so focused in on our own story that we sometimes lose that inspiration because we're
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stuck in a part of our growth of an organization or of an ocean project.
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And we we have to look outside for more inspiration.
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And Paul Swierswerda's story is an inspirational one.
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And you know, working in the aquarium field at in in Boston at
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the New England aquarium and in New York City aquarium.
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For over 40 years combined, and then he retiring,
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and then starting an organization like Gotham Whale is absolutely riveting.
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But I I don't want to tell you that all the details because his son,
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PJ, is here to tell his father's legacy of starting Gotham Whale and just
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who he was as a person, being inspirational and also inspiring people to come out.
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And monitor whales as part of a citizen science program.
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You're gonna find out about Gotham Whale.
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You're gonna find out most importantly about the man who started it,
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Paul Swieswerda and you're going to love this story.
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I hope it helps inspire you get out and participate either for Gotham Whale
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or for another citizen science project that you are close to,
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or even your own project and help develop your own.
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project as an ocean leader and as an ocean project so you can have more
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of an ocean impact. So here is PJ Swieswerda talking about the ~ legacy
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of his dad Paul and Gotham whale.
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Enjoy and I'll talk to you after.
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Hey PJ, welcome to the Ocean Leaders podcast.
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Are you ready to talk about the legacy that is Gotham?
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Yes, I am very ready and love talking about Gotham Wheel and love talking about
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the the legacy that my father created and then ~ I was fortunate enough
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to watch develop and ~ s see what it it it it balls into.
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I love it. I think this is a really interesting perspective because you know,
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this is what we call the Ocean Leader podcast.
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We talk a lot about ocean leaders,
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but a lot of times we talk to the ocean leaders,
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you know, who started things and who are running things.
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You have a really interesting perspective in that you saw your father,
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an ocean leader within himself,
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be able to work at an aquarium for his entire you know career.
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You watch that growing up as a kid.
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Have a lot of stories which will get into,
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you know, of you being watching him at the aquarium and visiting him
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at the aquarium to through with his job.
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And then he starts Gotham Whale.
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So I I I would I'm really interested in getting your perspective,
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what that looks like from someone who's not in the in the business or
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who wasn't in the business and looking from the outside in to be like,
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this is really cool. Like we're starting to see all these whales,
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and we're starting to see like all these marine mammals were tracking them.
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and and to watch your dad kind of build that into this legacy that we
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now have for in Gotham Whale in New York City is absolutely amazing.
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So I'm looking forward to really diving into this story because
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it really gives people a different perspective of what it's like to look
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at how ocean leaders kind of develop from it from you know within a family
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and and see how that is with your with your dad.
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So let's start, you know, kind of from the beginning.
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You how long did your dad work at the at the aquarium,
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at the New York Aquarium?
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The New York aquarium, I believe it was 20 plus years.
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I'm not exactly sure how many,
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but it was 20 plus in New York and then 20 in Boston.
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So it was, you know, a split.
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Wow.
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So ~ it's very interesting, like you said,
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for me to be an observer watching this whole journey and what you know what came
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out of it. And then, you know,
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from a layman's point of view,
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not being in the ~ scientific or the the marine biology and
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Dad could tell you the the Latin names of different animals,
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where ~
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Right.
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I'm unfortunately I I cannot. But
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Yeah.
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he was very knowledgeable and ~ it all started,
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you know, if you turn the turn the clock and the watch back,
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is ~ watching Jacques Cousteau,
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you know. So he was inspired by Jacques Cousteau like many other
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~ marine scientists and marine biologists back in that era,
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where
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Mm-hmm.
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Jacques Cousteau was
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exploring the underwater world.
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And, you know, we what he'd watch them on TV.
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And, you know, I can have vague memories of,
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you know, him watching those shows and getting inspired.
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And then I can also remember, you know,
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his dive watch. And that's where I go to,
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you know, this precious thing called time,
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you know, what you do with your time.
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And what my dad decided to do with his time was invest in ~ learning about
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the oceans and the creatures in it.
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And
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At
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that time the Boston aquarium was being built.
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And so it was very convenient.
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And maybe by divine intervention,
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it just ~ attributed to the fact that he showed up there and said,
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How do I get involved in this?
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And ~ that developed into a career,
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but also just being around that environment.
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Mm-hmm.
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it's it's amazing to see what grew out of it.
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I love that. I love that story.
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Did he go to school for marine biology or was this something where
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he learned through experience?
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It's it's it's all through experience.
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He he does he did not have a degree in it.
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it was all self taught
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Crazy. That's awesome.
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and ~ it was self taught by ~ also again being in that environment and then
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Yeah.
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then mentors and other people in the field that coddled
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him into different ~ aspects of this is the way you should go.
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And you know,
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Mm-hmm.
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one of them, ~ one of the stories that I do remember was Doc Edgerton.
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And so I don't know if you're familiar with Doc Edgerton.
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He's the flash photographer guy that,
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you know, took all sorts of pictures of ~ bullets going through apples
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and what have you. And so
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Okay. Right.
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it was, it was ~ he developed ~ Flash Alley.
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And my dad went to Flash Alley at MIT and just by hanging around that
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environment, got to meet Doc Edgerton and became not a ~ understudy,
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but
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He he observed the fact that my father was interested and he led him into this world
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of ~ Flash Alley and you know,
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that inspired my father at a young age to say that he was on the right track.
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That's unreal. So how old did you think he was at this at this time?
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I
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I'd say he was probably in his early twenties.
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Yeah.
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That's so cool. That's so cool.
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So he's just following these different paths.
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Like people are telling him, like,
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hey, go follow this person or go talk to this person.
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You should check out this area of of study.
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And and he was just taking it all in like a sponge.
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Absorb yeah, absorbing it like a sponge and then also,
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you know, taking it upon himself to understand what he could learn out
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of it and understand how he could ~ build off of it.
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And you know, hard work pays off is
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Yeah.
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you know the motto. And he would go to the aquarium starting as a volunteer
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and that got him to a job and he used to say that he worked up to middle management,
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you know, worked
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Yeah.
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his way to worked his way to the middle.
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And then ~ after 20 years, moved down to New York and built off his career
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in a different angle that went to different places ~ around Europe.
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So he was doing like European ~ conferences and
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Wow.
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learning
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learning about accreditations for aquariums throughout
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Right.
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~ throughout the world and how they did their exhibits.
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So that
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Mm-hmm.
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learning curve was something that,
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you know.
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He was fortunate enough to be around and and build off of.
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amazing what kind of of like day-to-day activities would he be doing would
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he be helping creating the the exhibits and the in the habitats or would
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he be more managing like the people that are that are around that how would
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all that work
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From from my memory, it was a a bit of both.
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And so, you know, it was it was people skills and managing people,
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but also developing new cutting edge exhibits,
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you know, so you know, building the exhibits to,
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you know, have for the public so they could ~ appreciate and learn from what they
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were trying to ~ depict on what the exhibit was supposed to be behind.
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You know, so there was one exhibit that I do remember.
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Which was a a a tidal tidal wave pool where it was
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Yeah.
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just ~ waves coming crashing into the into the rocks and all sorts
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of anemones just flapping back and forth and you know,
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it's creating an environment that is real life.
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And so to
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Yeah.
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get to get the technology to do that back in that era was again cutting edge
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and trying to f trial and error,
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figure these things out and work through the bugs.
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And and you and it's a it's a mi I feel like it's also,
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and you can correct me if I'm wrong,
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it's a mix of the knowledge that you that he accrued throughout,
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you know, knowing how the physics works in in terms of how like the
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the the waves would come in and go out,
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but also how to construct these these things as well.
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So there's like a construction background as well as the knowledge of
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the physics of the oceanography,
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and and that's what he's been pulling in all this way.
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Was like was he handy that way in terms of of like he can make a lot
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of stuff and then can in like construction?
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He wa he was handy in that way,
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but he was also handy in getting the right people to do the right things.
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So, you know, so you know,
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back then there was different materials,
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you know, acrylics were just coming out.
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Mm-hmm. Yeah.
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So there was
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all sorts of ~ he started ~ a side business,
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which was ~ something that I was affiliated with,
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which was called Aquatic Associates.
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And so
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Okay.
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what we would do is we would go around to different ~ different restaurants or
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~ dentist offices that would have
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Yep. Yep.
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displays. And my father knew how to care for the animals,
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you know, the the fish with diseases and what have you,
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Mm-hmm.
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but
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also he knew how to build the exhibits.
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So it was something that he would ~ bring that knowledge to that aspect
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Yeah.
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of how to build fish tanks. And so building fish tanks meant,
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you know, what type of glass or acrylics
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Yeah.
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were coming out. So that that was
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very interesting back then to be an observer like myself in my background
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of like to build things and carpentry and,
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you know, I fit well with that.
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And then I was a hired hand in in
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Yeah.
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But I mean like and that's during the time like I was a I'm a I
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was a marine hobbyist for quite some time,
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like probably from like the mid-2000s till the mid-2017s.
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And you know, it it the the amount of knowledge that people accrued over that time
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of of how to bring in like marine tanks and and how to take care of corals
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and the lighting and everything.
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But your dad had all that knowledge from like the beginning,
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like from like for 40 years. He was ~ he had that knowledge.
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So he had that one up on people.
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Like if I were at a dentist, I was a dentist,
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I'd be like, yeah, I'm bringing in the the the crew that you know is
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is at the aquarium, like the big aquarium knows how to handle the animals,
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knows how to build it right. I mean,
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that is credibility to no end.
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Like the guy that that's on the forefront of creating these things
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and making sure they work at at like large scales,
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because these aquariums are like the,
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you know, the
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The the the Boston aquarium probably turned into the New England aquarium
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and the New York aquarium. These aren't little aquariums,
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these are full scale public aquariums,
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like amazing displays, you know,
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world renowned. And like you said,
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going to different conferences and stuff.
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That's pretty cool. Before you started working with your dad,
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did you often visit him at work?
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Like, were you one of those kids who are like,
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I want to go see dad? I want to go see what he's doing and maybe look around
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at some of the some of the exhibits and
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He'll take you around, maybe do a little behind the scenes tour.
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So that was my childhood is I was fortunate enough to
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Yeah, I can imagine.
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be around that environment where going behind the scenes and him being
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a teacher would be something that,
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you know, we were ~ fortunate enough to have for friends in
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the neighborhood of hey, let's go see,
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you know, Paul's dad at work. And I was I don't want to say ignorant,
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but I wasn't really
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understanding the magnitude of it,
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you know,
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Mm-hmm.
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that it was just dad. It wasn't
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Yeah.
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it wasn't, you know, he did his thing and my friends thought it was interesting,
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but ~ he would bring them in and we would go behind the scenes and
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he would show them how the mechanics work of the plumbing
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Yeah.
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and those type of things. And then also educate about the animals on what they
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do and how they live.
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That's amazing. And I could I could completely see that too.
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Like that's that's your dad. So that's just dad.
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Dad's doing his work. That's what you know he does.
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That's you know, it's like when they ask actors what their kids think
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of them being in in these movies and stuff.
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They're like, no, they don't care that I was in a movie.
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They just think I'm mom, I'm dad.
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Like that's that's what they that's what they think.
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It's the same kind of thing. But your friends are probably like,
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this is really cool. We get to see all this,
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all this mechanics behind the scenes and these animals,
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and we get to see them up close.
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That that's a pretty I I could I could completely see.
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how that happens. Now, as you kind of grew older into into your teenage,
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were you born in in in Boston or were you born in New York?
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Born in Boston.
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I was born in Boston, born and raised in
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Maldon Mass, my the house my father grew up in and ~ yeah,
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Okay, cool.
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and you know, his his parents bought it and I'm still living here myself now,
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so it's now I'm
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Okay.
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raised raising my kids here and it's it's
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Nice.
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it's beautiful.
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I can imagine. Now when he moved to New York,
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were you already old enough to like be out on your own at that point?
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In a way. Yeah.
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~ yeah, yeah, I mean, by by default,
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you know, so he you he had to go where the work was and I was just
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Yeah.
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getting out of high school and so it was something that ~ just transpired that yeah,
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I was on my own.
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Okay, and then so you get into the construction side of the business
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and you see him, ~ I assume you're visiting you guys are visiting each other
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and you're seeing what he's doing in New York.
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And how different was it for you at that age to kind of see him and what he's doing
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in New York and all the different things he's doing there compared to what
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he was doing in Boston?
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So it's it's similar to the cities,
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right? So he used to say that Boston was a cute little city.
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And in
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Ha ha ha.
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in New York is New York. I mean,
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Yeah.
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it's it's a big city, big dreams,
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Right. Right.
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right? So
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~ it's it was a whole different animal,
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no pun intended, with ~
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Right.
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the fact of much bigger scale,
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much bigger opportunities. ~ you know,
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one of the opportunities was to
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go and ~ go to Alaska and and get a get an exhibit
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for the aquarium which was a walrus.
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You know, so he he went on an ex expedition to,
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you know, bring back a walrus.
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And you know, this was something that the the the aquarium made s
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all sorts of ~ arrangements and
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Yeah.
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and you know brought the animal back and had it in display and there's a whole
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you know, stories behind, you know,
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Course.
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I d I don't know the name of the of the ~ of the walrus,
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but there was,
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Mm-hmm.
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you know, we they had a baby walrus at New York and that was a big famous story that
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~ you know, my dad was affiliated with where like you just mentioned,
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there were there were different people that wanted to see the walrus and
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was big ~ it was big public publicity.
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Mm-hmm.
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And so
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there was a lot of people interested in it and some some actors and
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you know those things that wanted to come by.
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And that
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yeah.
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was something that my dad was also very good and personal with
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is bringing whether it's teachers or kids or actors
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and sports ~ sports personalities into
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Mm-hmm.
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the the environment so they're comfortable.
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You know, some ~ there's a story of Bobby Orr coming into Boston and
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Nice.
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Everybody, you know, people are very familiar with Bobby Orr and
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It's a legend.
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other peop
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he's a legend. So ~ he toured Bobby Orr and and his family behind
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That's so cool.
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the scenes and and showed them,
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you know, what the exhibits were and how they worked to keep him out
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of the public so he wasn't bothered by,
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you know, the public. And that's one of the stories that,
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you know, resonated with me.
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~ that I ended up reaching back out to Bobby Or because he wrote my dad a
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a a note saying, you know, thank you so much for the tour,
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very educational. You know, if there's anything I can do for you.
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So I reached out to him when my dad was was was passing to try to lift
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his spirits up to have Bobby call him and talk to him.
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nice.
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it it was a debacle.
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Ha ha ha.
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I i it was a debacle because I set him up to think that it was somebody else because
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I wanted to surprise him.
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Right.
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And so he thought it was Roger Payne.
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And I don't know if you're familiar with Roger Payne.
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I'm not I I've heard the name before but I don't know where he's from.
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So Roger
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Payne, and this is where the stories in in my association with a lot
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of ~ the history, Roger Payne is the the the man who you know recorded
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the song of the humpback. And that album went into National Geographics and became,
18:49
Right. Yes.
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you know, super famous. And is it's ~ amazing how,
18:56
you know, Roger Payne, I was talking to him in the last ~ year of my dad's life.
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And
19:03
unfortunately the same thing for Roger.
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Roger passed the same same year,
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Mm.
19:07
and I was talking with him about this film that ~ came to across my table,
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which got me inspired to, you know,
19:16
storytell and get into film aspect with Rand Levy's film Ocean Angels.
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So Ocean
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Mm-hmm.
19:23
Angels is my dad is an ocean angel,
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Roger Payne, and then this woman,
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Fiona Middleton, that plays the violins to ~ to seals.
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And so that's
19:32
Mm.
19:33
a very interesting aspect of communication between ~ animals and humans
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is the way I
19:39
Yeah.
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I put it out there. Yeah.
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That's amazing. That's awesome.
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But I mean, like to have that,
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you know, that impact on somebody like a a person like like Bob Yore,
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to for him to say, Hey, yeah, I'd I'd love to reach out to him and talk
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to him and stuff, like that shows the the level of of ~ you know,
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personability that he had with people to to have them remember.
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I mean, Bob Yore probably met a lot of people,
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you know, throughout his life.
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And here he is, like, you know,
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talking to him however many years later,
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being like, Hey, yeah, like to to lift his spirits and you know.
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however it went, it doesn't matter.
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The fact that like it
20:14
Exactly.
20:14
just goes to show, you know, that is is amazing to have that that
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you know that impact on somebody,
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you know, just from a tour in an aquarium.
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People just think, well, it's just a regular tour,
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but he no, he remembers that. And I think that that brings about,
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you know, kind of like that legendary aspect,
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that legacy aspect of people remembering you the way you the way you were.
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~ and and that's it's it's really interesting to to see that.
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A thousand percent.
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That's what I ~ loved watching.
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I I loved watching that happen in front of my eyes.
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And you know, that's something that you realize as a son that,
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you know, your father being an ocean angel,
20:53
but not so much that hype, but just the humbleness of,
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you know, somebody like Bobby Orr or you know,
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these these different people like I think there was another one,
21:04
Javi Kaitel, you know. So he interacted with Hav Javi
21:06
Mmm. Wow.
21:08
Kaitel.
21:09
at one point.
21:09
Yeah.
21:10
And, you know, it wasn't about the pictures and getting like,
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hey, I'm with this guy. It was
21:15
No.
21:15
it was all business, you know,
21:17
respectful and and that goes a long way.
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And
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Yeah.
21:21
what I also noticed ~ watching my dad work was he would
21:27
do that with anybody, you know,
21:30
kids on a boat. You know, if there was any slight interest in the ocean,
21:35
he would be right there to say,
21:37
Yeah, this is that, and that's a humpback,
21:39
and this is he he was a teacher.
21:41
And
21:42
Yeah.
21:43
you know, we we interacted with this this ~ this woman from Geneva,
21:47
Switzerland, who had never seen a whale before.
21:51
And
21:51
Mm.
21:51
this really, you know, hits home on the fact that I watched this right
21:56
in front of my eyes. Me and my dad and her talked that she came from Switzerland
22:02
wanting to see a whale in New York because she heard about it.
22:05
And she's like,
22:05
Yeah.
22:06
This is what I want to do for my birthday,
22:08
is I want to see a whale. And she ended up seeing a whale,
22:12
a humpback. And she was an artist.
22:15
She drew a little skit sketch for me and sent it to me in the email.
22:18
We became friends. And now she's studying ~ sperm whales in in Greece.
22:25
You know, from that, from that
22:26
Unreal. Yeah.
22:27
experience to, you know, trajectory to ~ wanting to
22:32
do this as something that's in her soul.
22:35
Yeah.
22:36
just really ~ was something amazing to watch.
22:40
Can imagine. And and let's get into that because I think that comes more into
22:44
the Gotham whale ~ part of your of your dad Paul's life.
22:48
And after he retires, you know,
22:51
after 40 years of of an amazing career,
22:55
you know, meeting people, giving tours,
22:57
building exhibits, kind of growing up in a really pivotal time for public aquariums.
23:03
And and here he is, he's about to retire.
23:05
Did you think he was just gonna retire and just kind of relax for the rest
23:08
of the time, maybe tour, get some back back ~ back room tours of back behind
23:13
the scene tours of aquariums? Or did you had a feeling that he was going
23:16
to develop something like like Gotham Whale?
23:18
How do you been talking about it?
23:20
He he did not talk about it and from my memory of how it transpired was,
23:26
you know, he was at the retirement age.
23:30
He always had the knowledge of what he had built throughout his years
23:36
and he didn't want to let it go.
23:38
And so
23:38
Mm-hmm.
23:39
~ you know, he would do the what he started
23:44
out doing was observing the seals in the area and the seal population.
23:50
So it it all comes back to seals,
23:52
which
23:52
Yeah.
23:52
is interesting enough, you know.
23:54
~ and in the last year of his life,
23:57
we brought the story of the seal we had in our bathtub here in Malden Mass
24:02
to a children's book, you know,
24:04
to ~ tell that story with a voice because Cecil and Hoover,
24:10
Hoover was a talking seal, so it it does give these animals a little bit
24:15
of a voice to say that, you know,
24:18
~
24:20
generations can still talk. So there's a there's a seal in the aquarium
24:24
now in Boston, Chakota, which is a grandson of Cecil and Hoover that vocalizes
24:31
and says, How are you? So this is y you can't write this,
24:35
but I lived it, you know.
24:36
No. Yeah.
24:38
But so like I said, it all started with SEALs.
24:41
So he was from
24:43
What he told me is he was ~ observing the seal population in the area
24:48
and he wanted to start to track the seals.
24:50
So he aligned himself with the American princess and went out on some seal watching
24:56
tours, almost like the ~ the Audubon bird count.
25:01
So he would go out there and document the seals with different ~ people
25:05
on the boat to have them give information,
25:08
and then he also asked people in the community to come.
25:12
And say, what have you seen out there?
25:15
And
25:15
Yeah.
25:15
send it to me so I can document it.
25:17
And with his background, he could say that this is scientific.
25:21
Mm-hmm.
25:22
You know? So lo and behold, whales started showing up.
25:26
And with this knowledge of being in New England and knowing how
25:32
the whale watching and how whale observation up here in New England worked,
25:38
he said this is something we should pay attention to.
25:41
And so he started doing documentation,
25:45
which started the New York City ~ humpback whale catalog.
25:50
is amazing. Even this is the fact that you know humpbacks came back to
25:54
New York was huge at that time because they hadn't come,
25:58
you know, in a long, long time.
26:00
Like we're talking decades. when he started to see these humpbacks there,
26:04
what was like his like was he surprised?
26:09
Was he like once they came back,
26:11
he's like, okay, we got to look after these whales.
26:13
Like, you know, it was that was that
26:15
kind of a defining feature or was it the seals that led him to and then
26:19
the whales were there and then he started to look after the whales?
26:22
From you know, I from my recollection and from from my standpoint
26:27
is he was excited about the whales showing up,
26:31
you know, and
26:32
Right.
26:33
and then realizing that we have to observe this and document it.
26:39
And so when
26:39
Yeah.
26:39
he started documenting it, ~ you know,
26:42
there was I think it was three whales in two thousand nine and now we're
26:48
up to five hundred individual whales.
26:51
in the New York bite that we've observed with citizen science and then also,
26:56
you know, our affiliates, boat affiliates that we work with in the New York area,
27:01
New York, New Jersey. And Long Island.
27:03
That's amazing.
27:05
And Long Island.
27:06
And this was all before Gotham Whale.
27:07
Like this is all before he started the organization.
27:09
This is just on his own. This is what he was doing in his retirement.
27:12
Okay, so this is
27:13
Correct. Correct.
27:14
it started to kind of get his his his thoughts kind of going.
27:18
When did Gotham Whale come up?
27:21
When did that start, that idea
27:23
Bil believe
27:23
start to come?
27:24
it was two thousand eleven. Two thousand eleven.
27:26
Okay. And what like
27:27
And
27:28
what when he told you about it,
27:29
like what was his like almost like pitch to you?
27:32
Like how was he describing it to you?
27:34
It was not a pitch. It was like this is happening and I'm part of it.
27:38
And so ~ I attributed to like I said earlier,
27:43
it's it was his golf thing. It's like that's what he liked to do on the weekends,
27:46
Yeah, it's right.
27:48
and that's what he
27:48
liked to that's what he liked to do with his time is to be out on
27:51
the water talking about what is what was happening.
27:57
And what was happening to from his words is the waters were getting cleaner.
28:03
Because of, you know, the Clean Water Act,
28:05
the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
28:07
Now we have a lot of nutrients in the water.
28:10
We have a lot of ~ you know, fish activity and and all sorts
28:15
of nutrients coming into the water,
28:16
Mm-hmm. Right.
28:17
and it's not as polluted anymore because we're
28:19
we're observing the fact that what we are doing to our waters is
28:24
not the right thing. And so when we
28:25
Yeah.
28:25
start to pay attention to that,
28:27
good things come out of it.
28:31
Indeed. And you the Menhayden came back,
28:33
the the whales came back. And so tell us what Gotham Whale
28:40
is, because I think there's a lot of misconceptions of what it is.
28:44
It's not a a whale watching company or organization.
28:48
This is about what your dad was already doing.
28:51
It was, you know, measuring, monitoring,
28:54
looking after the local, not only just whales,
28:57
it was marine mammals altogether,
28:59
right?
29:00
Yeah, what Gotham Whale is, is it's it an organization that brings
29:05
in the community but also goes off of the science.
29:09
And so we have our head researcher,
29:11
Dr. ~ Danielle Brown, who's been observing these whales with my father as well.
29:17
And she's writing papers on her findings.
29:20
And so what she does is, you know,
29:22
puts the science behind all the ~ documentation that
29:28
our boat affiliates and our citizen science bring to the table.
29:33
And so what we do is we compile all that information and have it
29:38
be actual ~ data that we can have scientific papers written about.
29:44
And then also
29:45
That's incredible.
29:46
we're bringing education to the table where we want to bring
29:51
~ our knowledge of how we build a community in the classroom.
29:57
And so we're bringing a lot of this knowledge into the classroom
30:00
now with different programs we're developing.
30:03
So you're bringing it to shore,
30:03
not just it's not just out on the ocean,
30:05
you're bringing it to shore. When when he started Gotham Whale,
30:10
and I don't know if you have all the information,
30:12
because as I as you mentioned,
30:13
you're watching this from outside in and watching what your dad's doing,
30:16
and obviously you're talking to him on a fairly regular basis,
30:19
~ but like
30:22
Is this something where it's an organization where it was he called
30:25
it an organization, called it Gotham Whale,
30:27
had all these people work with him,
30:29
but he had to pay some of these researchers and he had to like do all this stuff.
30:32
Like how did it start? Did he get funding for this?
30:34
Like how did all that
30:36
There were
30:36
begin?
30:37
th it b it began with all volunteers,
30:40
which were all volunteers in this organization.
30:43
~ and then that does come with the the fact of volunteers ~
30:49
are doing their thing out of their goodness of their heart.
30:51
And, you know, ~ I can attest to the fact of,
30:54
you know, driving back and forth from Boston and and doing different table events
30:59
and different type of
31:00
Yeah.
31:01
~ you know, beneath the sea and all sorts of things down in New York.
31:04
And then that's
31:05
That's the love and the passion that comes out.
31:07
And that goes so far. And an organization we have to,
31:12
you know, depend on keeping the lights on and getting ~ getting membership
31:19
and people involved with ~ helping the organization grow.
31:24
And that's where we're at.
31:26
So it's memberships. ~ you probably get ~ some do you get like some affiliations
31:31
with some of your partners that that do the whale watching and and things like that?
31:35
And that's so that's all like donation based coming in through the organization.
31:39
Phenomenal. What and that's kind
31:40
Yep. Yep.
31:41
of a different way than a lot of organizations work because usually they
31:45
get grants and things like that.
31:46
This is off the people that are working that that want to
31:48
see this organization succeed.
31:50
They want to see more data, they want to see more scientific publications.
31:55
And and your dad was all a a part of this.
31:58
He was like managing all of this,
32:00
right? With with the he had a small team,
32:02
but he had like it was mostly him.
32:03
He had a small team
32:04
with a lot of ~ people that knew,
32:06
you know, different facets of how that those mechanics
32:10
Yeah.
32:10
worked. And, you know, but he was at the helm doing a lot of
32:14
the organizational ~ decisions and also how to delegate
32:20
to the right people to do the right things.
32:22
That is phenomenal. What like when you outside looking in,
32:27
you know, he's got the the marine bio like the he's got like
32:30
the marine biology background from the his own accessibility.
32:33
Like he's learnt that over 40 plus years being around a brown animals,
32:38
learning, soaking it all up. You are watching this develop as a child,
32:43
as ~ you know, early adulthood.
32:45
You you you you get your family of your own,
32:47
you're you know, he's got grandkids,
32:48
they're all watching this happen.
32:51
And you see Gotham Whale kind of get a a lot of notoriety in the business.
32:55
Like it's it's a very well-respected organization to this day.
32:59
Like what are your thoughts as a son on this,
33:03
like this entire sort of journey that he was on?
33:06
Like this is pretty incredible to build something that still continues
33:11
to impact people every single day.
33:16
It's ~ obviously it warms my heart to see what he has built,
33:22
but it also carries a lot of weight on how to,
33:25
you know, develop it into the the whole dream that he had,
33:30
you know, and what what the dream he had ~ I don't want to say died with him,
33:35
but it's also
33:36
Mm-hmm.
33:36
now up to the team and a lot of the community to to build it in
33:43
a in a in a aspect of where
33:46
we could go and how we wanna build it into something that is
33:51
an everyday ~ knowledgeable organization like
33:57
~ like many others that are out there.
34:00
Yeah, I can I can imagine. Now let me ask you this,
34:03
because I mean, he seems like a like your dad,
34:06
from what you've told me, seems like a very personal guy,
34:08
like a personable guy. ~ the team,
34:11
you know, ~ we we unfortunately we lost we lost Paul in in 2023.
34:15
~ the team that that was with him,
34:19
like they were with him for quite some time at Gotham Well,
34:22
I'm sure there were some people that that that came and and and went,
34:25
but there were the team that's with them,
34:26
they they must feel the the passion.
34:29
That he had for that. I mean, obviously,
34:32
this is a hard thing to get over.
34:34
He was the visionary, he was the person who had the drive and the motivation,
34:38
never stopped even in retirement,
34:39
which is which is pretty cool.
34:41
And if I'm looking at his age,
34:42
he was in his 80s as continuing on with this,
34:45
with this kind of thing. They're built different back then.
34:48
My dad was the same way. He retired very late.
34:50
what like the their thought process?
34:53
Do they feel a bit of motivation to?
34:57
continue his legacy in whatever way everyone decides to go.
35:01
But is that motivation there because of the impact that he had on on
35:06
the team as well, do you think from your from what you gather?
35:08
I would I would like to think
35:09
so. I mean the the he had that humbleness that we talked about and you know
35:14
he had that ~ that thing about him that people wanted to you know follow
35:19
his lead and you know unfortunately that that he's gone ~
35:23
Mm-hmm.
35:23
that doesn't die. I mean you still have that ~ that's one of the
35:28
the healing ~ properties that I'm going through with being involved in this is
35:33
Mm-hmm.
35:33
it's
35:34
It's something that's helping me be around that environment and feeding
35:37
off the fact of people love what my father did.
35:41
And so being around that environment is is giving me a leg up on,
35:47
you know, my healing too. So and then also,
35:49
you know, being around the water.
35:51
I mean, the w water has its healing properties and you know,
35:55
Absolutely.
35:56
just being out in nature is a whole nother facet that I'm learning about myself that
36:01
is something that is
36:04
I don't want to say untapped because,
36:06
you know, I think everybody can feel the,
36:08
you know, the ocean spray and feel better.
36:11
But ~ you know, it's not it's not new to anybody,
36:14
but I'm I'm encouraging, you know,
36:16
people to do the same thing. It's just get out on the water and observe
36:19
Mm-hmm.
36:20
what's around you and ~ good things will come out of it.
36:23
And and you know what's what's interesting too,
36:25
the history that your family has in Boston and now New York City.
36:29
Very big cities. You know, Boston,
36:32
you could almost say has a little bit more of that maritime connection,
36:36
you know, because of the, you know,
36:37
the history of the f and the fishers and stuff.
36:39
New York has that connection, but I feel like a lot of New Yorkers don't really
36:44
think of, you know, in the harbor outside of the harbor as
36:47
an environmental paradise to see whales and even to the people who live there.
36:53
I think it's it's it's really interesting to be in a in a in a such a
36:57
big city like New York City, one of the biggest cities in the world,
37:00
and to be able to go into schools and to be able to like kind of pull that
37:04
out of people and be like, hey,
37:05
by the way, yes, you're in a a very dynamic city.
37:09
It's it's it's huge, it's it's full of concrete,
37:12
and you know, it's there's there's some green spaces around,
37:16
but there's not a lot of blue spaces,
37:17
although there are a lot of blue spaces.
37:19
And if you start to look and how
37:21
Well, New York City has done as a city over the ~ last number of decades,
37:26
like like even the last hundred years,
37:28
to clean up the water and get it to a point where the whales are back,
37:32
the Medhaden back, the whales are back,
37:33
the seabirds are back, I'm sure the sea turtles are back too.
37:36
This is an incredible ~ area to be in in such a large city.
37:41
It's it's it's like this story within a story of this big city.
37:46
And I think.
37:47
Your dad had the right idea, you know,
37:49
obviously. And it's it's it's it it's not only caught on while he was alive,
37:54
it's gonna continue to grow. ~ and and and PJ,
37:57
I would like, you know, I'd I would love to continue this story,
38:01
you know, in a in a year, maybe even in a year or two ~ you know,
38:05
from now, have you back on and really look at the direction that
38:09
the organization has chosen to to go in,
38:11
you know, as you go through this this healing process,
38:14
which I can't even imagine.
38:16
all the emotions that that you must feel and your family must feel around this.
38:20
But this is a true legacy as a marine biologist ~ that looks in from the outside.
38:26
It is something of a a wonder,
38:29
you know, to see someone build such a a really interesting organization
38:34
in such a large city. I didn't think it could be done.
38:36
I really, I really didn't. I'm sure a lot of us didn't.
38:39
And your dad proved everybody wrong,
38:41
which I'm very happy to say.
38:44
and I've been watching Gotham Whale for a long time and it's just so cool
38:48
to hear the story and to hear the passion your dad had and where it's where it's
38:53
gone and where it's gonna go with with you,
38:55
your family, the family that you have at Gotham Whale.
38:59
I think it's gonna be a a really,
39:01
really great story. And I would I would love to have you back on
39:03
to continue that that story.
39:05
I
39:05
w I would love to be back on and one of my dad's friends used to have a ~ a saying,
39:10
if it can't be done, we won't do it.
39:12
Yeah, that's true. I love it.
39:17
So yeah. Yeah.
39:17
I love it. No, wonderful
39:19
PJ to talk to you. Can't wait to talk to you more.
39:21
~ we'll definitely keep in touch over over the until the next time you come on.
39:25
but thank you so much for sharing this story.
39:27
This was this was great. It's it's our first guest story for the podcast,
39:31
and I think it's a great one to really see what ocean leaders are made of,
39:35
you know, in in and during this time and building some really creative things
39:38
and some really cool things. So thank you so much for sharing that story.
39:42
Thank you for having me on and I really appreciate it and ~ love to be back.
39:47
All right, perfect.
39:48
Thanks.
39:49
There you have it, folks. What a story.
39:51
I mean, just absolutely inspirational,
39:53
a phenomenal story because you don't get to see people starting
39:57
an organization these days without a PhD credential or a master's credential
40:02
or some kind of undergraduate in marine science or marine conservation.
40:05
You know, Paul was somebody who learned on his own through 40 years
40:11
of just being a sponge and interacting with other people and learning from them
40:16
and going to
40:17
You know, places all over the world in Europe and all going to Alaska
40:21
and and being able to understand the aquarium industry,
40:25
but also be inspired by the conservation of it all.
40:28
And during his retirement, the time he's supposed to rest,
40:32
the time he's supposed to play golf,
40:34
as PJ says, he his golf was marine monitoring.
40:37
And that's what he loved to do.
40:39
And that's what he did. And he's inspiring others to do it as well.
40:42
And unfortunately he's left us,
40:44
but he his his legacy.
40:46
Has continued on and it goes through PJ,
40:49
it goes through the staff and the and the board members at Gotham Whale.
40:53
And I'm looking forward to seeing the next stage of growth for Gotham Whale
40:59
in the future. And we're gonna have PJ back on when he's ready to talk about it.
41:03
~ and it's absolutely a phenomenal and inspirational story.
41:07
Gotham Whale, what first of all,
41:08
name is amazing, logo's amazing,
41:10
and the work that they do is absolutely amazing.
41:13
So
41:14
We are going to keep you updated on this story,
41:16
but I would love to hear what you think of Gotham Whale's story.
41:20
What do you hear of Paul's story and PJ coming on to talk about his father
41:24
and the legacy that he had to ensure that everybody else gets inspired as well.
41:28
Love to hear your thoughts. If you're on Spotify,
41:30
let us, you know, hit us up with a comment.
41:32
Or if you want to get hit us up on LinkedIn through our page at on LinkedIn,
41:36
just look up for Pisces Oceans Inc.,
41:39
or you can contact me directly on LinkedIn,
41:41
Andrew Lewin.
41:42
Thank you so much for joining us on today's episode.
41:45
It was such a treat to be able to have our first guest talk about somebody
41:49
who left such an inspiration for not only his son,
41:52
but the rest of the staff at Gotham Whale and the people who work along with him,
41:56
the volunteers and the citizen scientists.
41:58
it's just absolutely wonderful to be a part of that story.
42:01
~ and this is why I love podcasting so much and being able to have other people tell
42:05
their stories and their father's stories and and those legacies.
42:09
It's just wonderful. So thank you so much for joining us on today's episode
42:12
of Ocean Leaders Podcast. We appreciate you.
42:15
Don't forget to follow. ~ but thank you so much for joining us.
42:18
I'm your host, Angelo, and have a great day.
42:20
We'll talk to you next time in happy conservation.