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What is ethical seafood, and why the way fish are treated could change how you eat forever · How To Protect The Ocean

• 0:00
  Are fish treated well, that's gonna be the topic of today's episode.
• 0:03
  Have you ever thought about the welfare of fish either in wild caught
• 0:07
  fisheries or aquacultured fisheries?
• 0:09
  Not a topic that we think about often.
• 0:11
  We also think about the welfare of like us as seafood eaters and sustainable
• 0:15
  seafood eaters, and making sure that we're eating the right seafood and
• 0:17
  making sure that some of those fish are not being exploited and being sold
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  fraudulently, having, Hey, I want to eat sea bass, but it's actually tilapia.
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  Or I want to eat tuna, but it's actually a shark that has a lot of carcinogens in it.
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  There's a lot of stuff that goes around the seafood industry, and
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  we gotta make sure that we are treating these animals properly.
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  So we're gonna talk to Wasim Imam, who is the founder of the Ethical
• 0:39
  Seafood Research Organization.
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  You can find more information@ethicalseafoodresearch.com.
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  We're gonna be talking to him about the welfare of fish.
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  Let's start the show.
• 0:49
  Hey everybody.
• 0:50
  Welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
• 0:53
  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, Marine biologist and science communicator
• 0:56
  here to tell you what's happening with the Ocean, how you can speak up for
• 0:59
  the Ocean, and what you can do to live for a better Ocean by taking action.
• 1:03
  And on today's episode, we're gonna be talking about the welfare of.
• 1:06
  Fish, because that's something that we don't talk about on this
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  episode a lot because I think when people think of fish, they just
• 1:11
  think about food, like fish is food.
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  That's how we think about it.
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  We catch fish whenever we really see fish, unless it's at an
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  aquarium or in your own aquarium.
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  You look at it and you're just like, it's on a plate.
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  You know?
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  If I look up salmon and I look up on the internet, I Google search it.
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  You're gonna see salmon on a plate.
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  You're gonna see how delicious salmon is and how you can, you know, different
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  ways of cooking and all the different recipes, but you're not really gonna
• 1:32
  see a lot of salmon just underwater.
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  But we don't think of how they feel that they feel pain, what they
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  have to go through in their lives.
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  Mother nature can be quite cruel to fish, especially schooling fish, or
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  they're getting eaten by a lot of different predators And so forth.
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  When we talk about how humans interact with fish, a lot of times
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  welfare is not really brought up in the regular conversation because
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  we just think of them as food.
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  We don't think that they feel pain, but they do.
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  Welfare needs to be addressed.
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  And I have on the podcast today, Wasim Imam, who is the founder
• 2:00
  of Ethical Seafood Research.
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  He talks about his life growing up, wanting to be involved in Marine
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  conservation, then finding just a different path, going all over
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  the world for schooling and stuff, including Canada, here in Toronto,
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  not far from where I grew up.
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  And being able to start an organization because you know, you want to
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  make sure that there are some set standards and people are following
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  the set standards on fish welfare.
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  And so I think it's really important to have that conversation.
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  So was is here to talk about that.
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  So here is the interview with Wassam, talking about ethical
• 2:30
  seafood research and fish welfare.
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  Enjoy the interview and I'll talk to you after.
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  Hey em.
• 2:35
  Welcome to the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
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  Are you ready to talk about the welfare of fish?
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  Yes.
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  I'm really excited about this.
• 2:44
  Yeah, I've been waiting for this for a while now since we touched base.
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  Absolutely.
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  I'm super excited about this.
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  This is, uh.
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  Is it a subject matter that we don't go into often on this podcast?
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  And I think it's, it's kind of a bit of a shame that we don't, because it's
• 2:56
  something that we need to talk about more.
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  We're gonna be talking about fish welfare and looking at the fish and ethical
• 3:01
  seafood and all that wonderful stuff.
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  Uh, And so there's gonna be a lot of questions, but before we
• 3:06
  get into all of that, well see.
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  Why don't we, uh, talk about a little bit about you.
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  Why don't you let us know about who you are and what you do?
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  Yeah, absolutely.
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  Yeah.
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  So, and I actually, that's exactly why I'm excited about this because
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  I appreciate that this is not the typical topic from what I've heard
• 3:20
  of your previous, uh, episodes.
• 3:22
  Right?
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  So thank you for having me.
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  So I'm an aquatic ecologist.
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  Uh, everything I've ever done has involved fish in one way or another.
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  I, uh.
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  Uh, then got into fish welfare, uh, a bit by chance.
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  I'll talk about that a bit later on.
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  But, so I now describe myself as an aquatic ecologist by trade,
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  but a fish welfare researcher.
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  And I'm also the founder and executive director of a small non-profit called
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  Ethical Seafood Research, where we advocate for improving the welfare
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  of, uh, aquatic animals in the food system and the aquatic food system,
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  obviously, uh, particularly in Africa.
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  But we do have operations and projects outside of that as well that I can
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  touch upon, uh, during the call, uh, during the, uh, recording.
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  Very nice, very nice.
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  This is, uh, this is really cool because, you know, you don't meet
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  a lot of people who are involved in welfare of fish, especially, you know,
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  there's welfare of like, zoological animals, you know, animals that
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  are, that are in zoos and things.
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  I know there's a, a huge, huge area of interest in, in that respect.
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  Um, but when you, we looking at fish, we look at, you know, obviously we look
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  at especially from farm fish and, and, and, uh, wild seafood, wild caught fish.
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  Uh, you know, there's, there's also worries about pain and, and,
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  and worries about how they're raised and, uh, how they're caught.
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  And of course, uh, so it's, it makes sense.
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  Uh, right.
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  But let, I want to go back a little bit further.
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  Before you got into this, as you said, you kind of came by happenstance
• 4:46
  in, in terms in, into this field.
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  What originally drew you to being interested in, in fisheries or
• 4:52
  even just in the Ocean in general?
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  Yeah, so my origin story as they call it, um, I was working with the,
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  so I did my undergrad in Canada.
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  Uh, one of my many nationalities is Canadian, so I, uh Oh, nice.
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  Where from?
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  Uh, Toronto.
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  Oh, I, that's like, I'm right by you.
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  Like I was, I live in Burlington, so I grew up in Toronto.
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  That's awesome.
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  Oh, so actually Burlington is one of the places I did work
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  on Fish with the Great Lakes.
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  Uh, yeah.
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  Inland, yeah.
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  The Leland Waters.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah, exactly.
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  Yeah.
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  Nice, nice.
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  So that was another place where I cut my teeth a bit.
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  Yeah.
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  I was working with the Ontario Ministry of the Environment
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  in Otoko, if you know Right.
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  I know exactly where that office is.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  So during, during my undergrad, I did like the co-op program, uh, okay.
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  The metal science and my third co-op placement.
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  I was with the ministry there and I was, uh, my title was Biomonitoring
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  Technician, so I would be going out with the senior biomonitoring
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  technician and well, by monitoring scientists, I guess it was called.
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  And, um, I was helping him collect samples of fish from D. Areas of Ontario to sample
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  to, to sample levels of contaminants and Right, that informs the, what used
• 5:58
  to be called the sport fish guide.
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  Uh, like contaminant, guider.
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  It tells you like the safe levels to eat of, um, you know, fish caught from
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  this area, uh, for pregnant women, for children, for older folk And so on.
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  And it was my first time ever really being out in aquatic environment,
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  like on boats, maybe for like true Canadians, like where they grow up,
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  like hunting and fishing and stuff.
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  It's not that like exciting, but for me it is like a new comer to Canada.
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  It was a completely new thing to me, you know?
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  Uh, so being out like in the field, uh, like working with fish,
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  really, I just loved all of that.
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  Right.
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  But on top of that, I started realizing just how vulnerable fish were, you know?
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  Mm. Uh, so we, you know, my, we would wanted just a sample of 20 or
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  30 juvenile fish, but, you know, by staining we were catching like hons.
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  And as my boss was trying to like, get the sample perfect, I was just trying
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  to save all these fish that I was like, they're gonna die unnecessarily.
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  And then I started realizing just how, you know, fish in inland water especially are
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  so at the mercy of like human activities and how we have the ability to like, over
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  exploit the o Well, I mean, obviously I took it to the next level of oceans,
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  but just in general, um, freshwater fish to me seemed very vulnerable.
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  You know, that Yeah.
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  Water levels, uh, they, they're at the mercy of the water levels being mm-hmm.
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  Enough, they can't, they don't always have huge distances that they can escape,
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  you know, natural fluctuations And so on.
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  Whereas, you know, birds can fly or mm-hmm.
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  You know, land animals might have.
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  Obviously I'm simplifying things, of course, but course that's kind what got
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  me thinking like, oh God, you know, these animals are actually quite vulnerable.
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  Yeah.
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  And for my, for my masters, And then did another project where I
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  looked at the movement behavior of tilapia through McGill University.
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  They had a research station in Uganda.
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  Yeah, I, I tracked the telemetry, I using telemetry.
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  I tracked the movement behavior of tilapia there, which is something that no one's
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  done or no one had done at the time.
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  And I just loved this idea of radio tags and discovering like, you know,
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  the innate movement patterns and stuff about species you don't know about.
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  And from there I continued to that.
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  I worked for the FAO for a bit, um, uh, fisheries in aquaculture,
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  like sustainability and like at a policy level, global.
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  But I didn't, I didn't enjoy that work too much.
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  I got funding from in Canada to.
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  Do a PhD. So you're working for the FAO but still went while living in Canada.
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  'cause I know FAOI always assume it's in Europe or like in in
• 8:18
  Rome or something like that.
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  It's, it is.
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  Exactly, exactly.
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  I see.
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  But you did it from, from Canada?
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  No, I actually had to move to Rome.
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  Oh, you had to move to Rome.
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  Okay, cool.
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  So, and even the funding that I got, the NC uh, like PhD funding.
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  Yeah.
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  They, I, they allowed me to take it anywhere.
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  So I took a to Scotland And so Cool.
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  And I did a PhD there with uh, uh, with a group that had, was looking
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  at aquaculture and my supervisor there told me, Hey, have you thought
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  of animal welfare or fish welfare?
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  And I was like, no, I don't really know what that is.
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  And that's kind of what got me into this.
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  So we can talk about that.
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  But I was just giving you a high level sort of like I love it.
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  Overview of my journey.
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  Yeah.
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  Well I mean it's very interesting 'cause like you did a lot of traveling.
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  What made you first come to Canada to do the, do the undergrad at
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  u at University of Toronto, UFT.
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  Yeah, so my dad, uh, wanted to come to Canada from like, when I was
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  young, and he said to me like, you know, that's where the future is.
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  You know, I was in high school in England, I was in the uk and um, okay.
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  It just, you know, Europe was always seen as like kind of still a bit,
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  you know, struggling in the past, whereas the future is North America
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  and there's like opportunities ing.
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  Okay.
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  Yeah.
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  And I think that there is a lot of truth in that, to be fair.
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  Uh, you know, especially at the time, so when I moved to the UK for high school,
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  it was the same year, same month, same, same week as nine 11, and you can Oh, wow.
• 9:36
  Yeah.
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  And I'm from the Middle East originally, so like Right.
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  I got used to some really, like, I don't, I don't think this is
• 9:42
  a different than your audience.
• 9:44
  No, but I mean, you're not used to Yeah.
• 9:45
  It, it, it, it forms who you are because these are like the, the, the, you know,
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  I think that's what, that's what gets left out of a lot of, um, you know,
• 9:55
  people discuss when we discuss Marine, Marine biology or anything Marine
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  conservation related, is we, we leave out what's happened to people throughout.
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  You know, throughout their lives, you know, we are impacted by
• 10:06
  what's happening in our lives.
• 10:07
  Like the people right now, in many places around, especially here in
• 10:10
  North America, we are impacted by decisions made by the US government.
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  Right now, whether we agree with them or not, we are impacted.
• 10:17
  Like there are people whose jobs in the states are impacted by what all
• 10:22
  the cuts that are happening at Noah.
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  And so it, it definitely shapes where we're gonna go, where we're
• 10:27
  gonna live, how we're gonna be treated when we go to certain places.
• 10:30
  Um, you know, you going to the UK from the, from the Middle East, um, and what
• 10:34
  country you, are you originally from?
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  Egypt.
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  So Egypt, right?
• 10:38
  Yeah, like very well educated, you know, like a great, like
• 10:41
  in Egypt, like they, they have like, you know, stable structure,
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  like, you know, history, culture.
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  You go to the, you go to, uh, a place like the UK.
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  During nine 11, you probably could have come to any place like even the US or
• 10:53
  Canada, And then you're looked differently and you get treated differently.
• 10:56
  Absolutely.
• 10:56
  Absolutely.
• 10:57
  You know, and not by, I mean, you were in high school, like,
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  you know, you didn't do anything.
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  Parents came over for, for what you say is like a better life,
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  And so you get impacted by that.
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  So yeah, never leave that out of your story because that's who you
• 11:08
  are, are and what you've become.
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  You know what I mean?
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  Totally.
• 11:12
  Now did like, but actually Andrew, sorry to interrupt you.
• 11:15
  Yeah, go ahead.
• 11:16
  Just on that note, I do remember, and I always tell this anecdote because
• 11:19
  it, it stayed with me for so long.
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  Like, I came back to the UK for Christmas and I went back to, uh,
• 11:24
  Canada after my first semester or term.
• 11:26
  Mm-hmm.
• 11:27
  Uh, university.
• 11:28
  And I had a PR card.
• 11:29
  Right.
• 11:30
  So I was Yeah.
• 11:30
  Yeah, of course.
• 11:31
  A resident and the border guard in Canada, I don't even, what do we call them?
• 11:34
  Like the customs officer Yeah.
• 11:36
  Yeah, exactly.
• 11:36
  Like the guy said to me, welcome home, sir. And I was like, what?
• 11:40
  Oh my God.
• 11:40
  Like that just felt like already a huge difference, Yeah.
• 11:43
  Yeah.
• 11:43
  You know, and that always build part of this kind of like, feeling like
• 11:47
  you're part of something and you don't have to prove who you are.
• 11:49
  You can look like anything.
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  And especially Toronto, right?
• 11:51
  Like, uh, yeah.
• 11:52
  Well, Toronto's so multicultural Yeah.
• 11:54
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 11:54
  Yeah.
• 11:54
  Sorry I cut you off, but you were gonna say something.
• 11:56
  Well, what I was gonna say is like, you know, as you grew up in that like, you
• 11:59
  know, in the UK in high school and, and you're like, did you, did you still have
• 12:04
  that interest, you know, for, for oceans, like you must have had like for freshwater
• 12:08
  or oceans to come to UFT to do a degree.
• 12:12
  Did you, was that the purpose?
• 12:14
  Like you were coming like, you know, like you go to from the UK to Canada
• 12:17
  to be like, okay, this is what I want to do with, you know, better place.
• 12:21
  As you mentioned, like this is like going to North America for a better place.
• 12:24
  Were you always interested in oceans or, or aquatic life even in high school?
• 12:30
  So I actually think that came a bit later and sometimes I, I do regret just
• 12:34
  that it took me that long for the, you know, penny to drop, let's say, right?
• 12:37
  Because biology was always my favorite subject, but you know, I didn't follow.
• 12:42
  What I liked as much as what I was good at and what I was really good at was
• 12:46
  business studies somehow, like I excelled anything to do with business, like
• 12:50
  that was my top, top subject in the uk.
• 12:53
  So I thought, oh, well, you know, making money is good.
• 12:55
  And I was just thinking about that.
• 12:56
  I didn't, I wasn't really in tune with my interest per se.
• 13:00
  Mm-hmm.
• 13:00
  And then, And then when I actually moved to Canada and I realized that
• 13:02
  management, business management was like an actual very mathematical,
• 13:06
  very like financey, like I just didn't like it at all when I started and I
• 13:10
  picked up the prospectus and I started thinking, well, what do I actually like?
• 13:13
  And I'm like, mm-hmm.
• 13:14
  I've always liked sciencey subjects and sort of animals and, uh, biology.
• 13:19
  And so, and it seemed like a no-brainer to change to environmental science with
• 13:23
  a focus on, um, environment, uh, like the aquatic, uh, aquatic domain especially.
• 13:28
  And then co-op shifted me very much in that direction.
• 13:31
  Yeah.
• 13:32
  Interesting.
• 13:32
  So that's kind of where I was a bit late in that sense.
• 13:34
  You know, like, was it Yeah.
• 13:35
  Yeah.
• 13:36
  What I truly liked.
• 13:37
  Yeah.
• 13:38
  And, and I think that's, I think it's a great part of your story
• 13:40
  too, because like, you know, you, you change, you, you realize, you
• 13:43
  try something out in university.
• 13:45
  You, you, you literally go across Ocean, Ocean to go try something in university
• 13:49
  and you realize, well, hold on a second.
• 13:51
  I don't like this.
• 13:52
  You know, I'm not, I'm not, this is, this is not what I really wanted to learn.
• 13:55
  Absolutely.
• 13:55
  And, And then you switch.
• 13:57
  That's a big decision to do as a young man, like going into a, a new
• 14:02
  country, new university and you're like, what the hell am I going to do?
• 14:05
  And then you find out, hey, I've always loved science.
• 14:07
  Like let's do it.
• 14:08
  And you, and you graduated and, uh, was this the program?
• 14:11
  You go, you went, you went into this, uh, you got a bachelor of science,
• 14:13
  but um, you went into environmental science and international development.
• 14:17
  That's a, a different, that's not your traditional like science.
• 14:21
  You know what you would think when people say, oh, you'd
• 14:23
  graduated with a science degree.
• 14:25
  International development's a big part of, of science, but not a
• 14:28
  lot of people put that together.
• 14:29
  What did you transfer into that program right away?
• 14:32
  Like that's what was interesting.
• 14:33
  And then, and why?
• 14:35
  Yeah.
• 14:35
  So I, I think I was okay.
• 14:37
  Do you know what I did more credits.
• 14:39
  I think you only have to do 20 credits to actually get a degree.
• 14:42
  Yeah.
• 14:42
  I did like 23 or 24 credits.
• 14:44
  Gotcha.
• 14:44
  I just loved studying so much when I was at UFD that I kept, I kept
• 14:49
  taking like six courses every semester just 'cause I was That's modules.
• 14:53
  Yeah.
• 14:53
  Not easy to do.
• 14:54
  Six is not easy to do.
• 14:55
  It's a lot of work.
• 14:56
  Exactly.
• 14:57
  But also like, just, um, the idea that they have, like in the summer you can
• 15:01
  take stuff and like, you know, and there was no limit, uh, per se, as long
• 15:05
  as you're keeping on top of things and electives is something that I really
• 15:09
  loved about, uh, north America, that we don't have any uk uh, we didn't have,
• 15:13
  you know, some of my friends there couldn't take all these electives.
• 15:15
  I just like taking random stuff.
• 15:17
  Anthropology, linguistics.
• 15:18
  Mm-hmm.
• 15:18
  Stuff that really shaped, shaped me, I think actually.
• 15:20
  Absolutely.
• 15:21
  How I looked at things, but Um, so I actually took like
• 15:25
  enough courses for three majors, but I could only declare two.
• 15:28
  So I declared international development and environmental science, but I
• 15:33
  did also do a whole major in French just 'cause I was like kind of
• 15:36
  obsessed with French and Awesome.
• 15:37
  Uh, that, that didn't, and you're in Canada, you might as well, right?
• 15:40
  Exactly, exactly.
• 15:41
  So that, that was a really, really, really nice, uh, part of the experience.
• 15:45
  Um, So environment international development is.
• 15:49
  It was, when I looked at prospectus, I just thought, this is really, I, I
• 15:52
  always wanted to work for the UN and like, kind of do international type
• 15:55
  stuff because I traveled a lot as a kid.
• 15:57
  You know, I was an expat in most places.
• 15:59
  I was born in Saudi Arabia to Egyptian parents.
• 16:02
  So like we had an expat community there already.
• 16:04
  And I just imagined that's, that would be my future.
• 16:07
  And you know, like international development spoke to me, I think.
• 16:10
  Gotcha.
• 16:10
  But when I kind of started taking the courses, I realized it's gonna
• 16:14
  be hard to find a job or like easily, you know, there's a lot of, um,
• 16:18
  also it's like the kind of thing where you're learning about like.
• 16:21
  Poverty in places and you're learning about problems, but it's not always
• 16:25
  solutions and it's a lot of sort of Right.
• 16:27
  It could be heavy.
• 16:27
  We've try.
• 16:28
  Exactly, exactly.
• 16:29
  Be heavy.
• 16:29
  Whereas environmental, I loved environmental science because you
• 16:32
  know, if the soil is like, has issues, you remediated it, you move on.
• 16:36
  Yeah.
• 16:36
  Like that's, there are solutions that are concrete and I could
• 16:38
  get my head round those and I felt like I could make an impact.
• 16:41
  And of course climate change was all the rage.
• 16:43
  It still is, but like still is.
• 16:44
  Yeah.
• 16:44
  You know?
• 16:45
  Yeah.
• 16:45
  And I felt like that's something huge that we really need to do something about.
• 16:48
  And so anything within the environmental domain was, um,
• 16:53
  uh, really interesting to me.
• 16:55
  That's awesome.
• 16:56
  So, you know, you do this, this, uh, bachelor's, you start off with a master's.
• 17:00
  Is that what happened?
• 17:02
  Yeah, so I, uh, went, I got scholarship to do something called Erasmus Mond,
• 17:09
  which is for non-Europeans to come to Europe, uh, to do a two year degree.
• 17:14
  And it's always like a, something joined between multiple countries.
• 17:18
  So mine was France, which, which obviously leveraged my French, uh, English, uh, so
• 17:24
  uk, France, uh, Germany, and Portugal.
• 17:27
  That was the four countries that were part of the consortium where I did my masters.
• 17:31
  But I, for my dissertation or thesis, I did my project through McGill, uh,
• 17:36
  because I had a contact there in a Stewart Biology department, and, And
• 17:40
  then she had the field research station in Uganda was just, I was always like,
• 17:44
  um, I've always, I'm always someone who had like lots of interests in different
• 17:48
  things and different places and stuff.
• 17:50
  Yeah.
• 17:50
  Yeah.
• 17:51
  Well, I mean, it, it makes sense.
• 17:52
  You move around a lot.
• 17:53
  And then you're like, okay, you know, where am I gonna go to next?
• 17:56
  It almost feels like that's, you know, that's, that's what it feels like in
• 17:59
  terms of research, which is great for someone who wants to be interested.
• 18:02
  I, I think that it, you know, for me, I never traveled a lot.
• 18:06
  I always stayed in Canada, you know, when I did, when I did my masters,
• 18:09
  I, I, I traveled a little bit.
• 18:11
  Like I lived in the States a little bit, but I never really traveled to
• 18:14
  Europe or Africa or, or Australia or anything like that to do science work.
• 18:19
  Um, which, you know, and that's like, it's, it's tough 'cause like your
• 18:23
  comfort level may not be there, but if you're used to traveling, you're this
• 18:26
  used to living in different places, then you're a little bit more open.
• 18:29
  And, and what I like about that is the freedom to be like, all right,
• 18:32
  I have this question for science that I want to be able to solve.
• 18:35
  Where is the best place to do it?
• 18:37
  You know, so it, it, your field station might be, like you said, in Uganda or your
• 18:42
  field station might be back in, in Canada somewhere or, or in the UK or in Egypt.
• 18:47
  It just depends Right, totally.
• 18:48
  To have that open mind of like, I've lived in a bunch of different
• 18:51
  places, I know what to expect there.
• 18:54
  I can go in and have my own, you know, sort of cut my own teeth on this
• 18:57
  science, but also enjoy the adventure of going into a different place.
• 19:00
  Is, is great.
• 19:02
  Uh, now going to Uganda is a very interesting country because it's had,
• 19:07
  uh, you know, it's, it's social problems itself in terms of, I mean, I remember
• 19:11
  in their late nineties, early 2000 had, there was a civil war that broke out.
• 19:16
  How did, when you went there, was there, was there violence
• 19:19
  in certain parts of, of Uganda?
• 19:22
  So, you know, it's funny because as an Egyptian or someone originally
• 19:26
  from Egypt, you kind of grew up thinking that you're African and
• 19:28
  you're like, oh yeah, I'm African.
• 19:30
  But then when you go to real Africa, you realize that even
• 19:33
  they don't consider you African.
• 19:34
  Like everyone was treated you the same as like any other, like none.
• 19:38
  Right?
• 19:38
  None like Ugandan person.
• 19:40
  And, um, that was eye-opening.
• 19:42
  'cause obviously I just mentioned that it was like on the receiving end of
• 19:45
  racism in previous parts of my life.
• 19:47
  So suddenly it's like, hey, like can you guys make up your mind
• 19:50
  like, am I this or am I that?
• 19:51
  You know?
• 19:51
  But, um, but no.
• 19:53
  So Uganda, no, actually it felt extremely safe where I was.
• 19:56
  Um, I was in a small village by one of the satellite lakes, uh, near,
• 20:01
  um, it's called Lake Nabo Gabo, uh, it's just outside Lake Victoria.
• 20:06
  Uh, okay.
• 20:06
  So it, it was nothing at all.
• 20:08
  Like, um, what, what I had maybe imagined, uh, well, it was really uninformed.
• 20:14
  All of my, uh.
• 20:15
  Just like images I had in my head were uninformed, but Yeah.
• 20:18
  Right.
• 20:19
  The research station was very quiet.
• 20:20
  It was so tranquil by the lake.
• 20:22
  People were so nice.
• 20:24
  Uh, I just had a really good experience there and that's why I kind of wanted to
• 20:28
  do more stuff in Africa in the future.
• 20:31
  Oh, okay.
• 20:32
  Okay, cool.
• 20:33
  Uh, I was just looking it up as you were mentioning that.
• 20:35
  I was just looking, making sure that I, 'cause I know, I think I may have, I was
• 20:37
  thinking of Sudan when I was thinking of, of wars that happened, And so I think
• 20:42
  they were involved in some kind of way, but I don't know exactly how they were.
• 20:45
  So I don't want to misstep and say the wrong country.
• 20:49
  I thought, I thought you were refer, I thought you were referring to like, ID
• 20:52
  mean remember the last King of Scotland.
• 20:55
  Yes.
• 20:55
  You know?
• 20:55
  Yes.
• 20:56
  I think I was, I don't know a lot about the histories.
• 20:58
  I know like, uh, there was a war in 86 to 94.
• 21:02
  But I didn't know, like I I said the late nineties, so, um, I think there
• 21:06
  was, but I think that had to do with the, the Sudanese, uh, civil War.
• 21:09
  So Yeah.
• 21:10
  Yeah.
• 21:11
  But yeah, but it, regardless, I mean, you know, you never know.
• 21:13
  You never know what you're gonna expect in, in these countries.
• 21:16
  How did you enjoy staying there for your field season?
• 21:19
  Like what was that like?
• 21:21
  So, I was an eyeopener for sure.
• 21:24
  I'd never done tropical field work.
• 21:26
  Uh, yeah.
• 21:27
  Uh, and I, I suppose one thing I liked about it, you know, because in Canada
• 21:32
  and, and like Europe and stuff where I've done other stuff, like everything's
• 21:35
  so structured, you know, like health and safety, this like, kind of mm-hmm.
• 21:38
  You have a protocol, but like there, like you're kind of reacting
• 21:40
  to things on the ground that you haven't prepared for at all.
• 21:43
  And also no one really cares that much about certain things.
• 21:45
  They're like, you know what?
• 21:46
  You want this?
• 21:47
  Yeah.
• 21:47
  You want a sample, we'll get you this face.
• 21:49
  Yeah.
• 21:49
  Like, whereas like I would've had to, you know, go through,
• 21:51
  jump through all these hoops.
• 21:52
  Yeah.
• 21:52
  I think, I think it's also a lot more real in that sense, you know?
• 21:56
  Mm-hmm.
• 21:56
  Um, uh, I know course it taught me a lot about, um, how, you know.
• 22:02
  Well, we, I learned about all this fishery stuff, uh, but really seeing
• 22:07
  how the communities depend on that as a livelihood was, uh, really eyeopening.
• 22:12
  Yeah.
• 22:12
  And I can imagine how, just how big a problem it is.
• 22:15
  You know, what they call a tragedy of the commons.
• 22:17
  Like if it's not regulated, like everyone's just going to, I could
• 22:20
  see it in happening in, in real life that uh, if someone doesn't
• 22:24
  cash it, someone else will cash it.
• 22:25
  And, you know, everyone is sort of trying to provide for their
• 22:29
  families, um, in a subsistence way.
• 22:31
  Uh, yeah.
• 22:32
  So.
• 22:33
  It was a bit depressing.
• 22:34
  That part I would say.
• 22:35
  Yeah.
• 22:35
  Especially like the Nile Perch, you know how it was
• 22:37
  introduced to the Lake Victoria?
• 22:39
  Mm-hmm.
• 22:40
  I could see the effects.
• 22:41
  The, like, just the decimation of endemic populations in the Yeah.
• 22:45
  In the lake there.
• 22:46
  It's, it's one thing to hear about it, like through literature
• 22:49
  and through other people.
• 22:50
  It's another thing to see when you see like an invasive species or an introduced
• 22:53
  species come in and, and wreak havoc into a, a lake that, where you've heard
• 22:58
  so many things, like great things about, it's, it's, uh, you know, we see it in the
• 23:01
  Great Lakes here, uh, with the Asian carp coming in and you're just like, exactly.
• 23:06
  You know, they just destroy everything if they're in here.
• 23:08
  Um, And so you worry about that.
• 23:10
  But there's some, there's one thing in seeing it and there's one thing
• 23:12
  in just in hearing about it too.
• 23:14
  They're very, very different things.
• 23:15
  Um.
• 23:16
  Actually under, since we mentioned Burlington and the Great Lakes Lab,
• 23:20
  that is the one that is a project that I was helping them with in 2012.
• 23:24
  Halfway through my master's, I did an internship with someone called Sue Doka.
• 23:29
  I don't know if you know anyone from the group there.
• 23:31
  She used to be my boss.
• 23:33
  Really?
• 23:33
  No.
• 23:33
  We must have missed each other by like, we were in the same building.
• 23:37
  Oh, no way.
• 23:38
  I was, uh, in 20 12, 20 13, I was working for Nick Manta Ray.
• 23:46
  Yeah.
• 23:47
  Oh, no way.
• 23:47
  He was at ut he, he joined UTSC just as I was leaving Scarborough, right?
• 23:51
  Yes, yes.
• 23:52
  Yeah.
• 23:53
  Okay.
• 23:53
  That's hilarious.
• 23:54
  Yeah.
• 23:54
  H so hilarious.
• 23:55
  About 2012.
• 23:56
  Yeah.
• 23:56
  Yeah.
• 23:57
  Yeah.
• 23:57
  That's so funny.
• 23:57
  Yeah.
• 23:58
  Yeah.
• 23:58
  Small world.
• 23:58
  Yeah.
• 23:59
  So her and I, her and I, I helped her with a few reports, her and her like group
• 24:02
  at the time, like Erin and other people, but they had this project, uh, with Nick
• 24:06
  la I don't know if you know who that is.
• 24:07
  Yeah.
• 24:08
  Yeah, I know Nick.
• 24:09
  Yeah.
• 24:09
  And, and Aaron was like my office bait.
• 24:13
  Oh Yeah.
• 24:15
  I didn't realize you were there.
• 24:16
  Yeah.
• 24:17
  Yeah, Yeah.
• 24:17
  Yeah.
• 24:17
  I live like, like a stones throw away.
• 24:20
  Like I could I drive there like five minutes?
• 24:22
  Yeah.
• 24:22
  Yeah.
• 24:22
  Yeah.
• 24:22
  That's so funny.
• 24:23
  Amazing.
• 24:24
  Yeah.
• 24:24
  So I, I did a, a few months with them looking at like, uh, the carp.
• 24:29
  They had like a RA radio.
• 24:30
  Radio telemetry.
• 24:31
  No radio.
• 24:31
  No, it's acoustic telemetry project in Harbor.
• 24:34
  Right.
• 24:34
  And we're looking how to keep carp out of the, um.
• 24:39
  Main part of the lake, I guess.
• 24:40
  Yep.
• 24:40
  Using these gate, they had these gates that they could
• 24:43
  like open and close, I think.
• 24:44
  Mm-hmm.
• 24:45
  Mm-hmm.
• 24:45
  Oh God, it's taking it back.
• 24:46
  Yeah.
• 24:46
  Yeah.
• 24:48
  But it was carpet.
• 24:49
  That was a problem.
• 24:50
  And it still is.
• 24:50
  I right.
• 24:51
  Still is.
• 24:51
  I mean, it's still, there's still, um, you know, I think they found a
• 24:54
  few, but nothing, uh, like a major population or anything like that.
• 24:59
  I don't, I haven't kept up in the last few years, but I know they still do monitoring
• 25:03
  every year and there's boats out every year to make sure they, they catch 'em
• 25:06
  and, and grab 'em if they see them.
• 25:08
  But I, they haven't seen too, too many things.
• 25:10
  They've, they've, they've sampled with like EDNA and stuff and have
• 25:14
  found, you know, some samples of, of some that are, that are there.
• 25:17
  The good, not the good ones, so, okay.
• 25:20
  'cause there's like Asian carp that are okay.
• 25:22
  There's, And then there's invasive Asian carp And so there's two,
• 25:25
  there's a bunch of different species as you know, in there.
• 25:27
  And so, um, they, they continue to monitor them.
• 25:30
  But even common carp is like Rick has re wreaked haik and Oh Yeah.
• 25:34
  'cause they're so destructive, right?
• 25:36
  When they eat, they eat everything.
• 25:37
  And so they're so destructive that they can, they can really take away habitat
• 25:42
  pretty quickly if they go through.
• 25:44
  Um, Asian carb just seemed to be a little bit more efficient at it.
• 25:47
  And so, um, you know, common carp is still, still bad, but they can, I,
• 25:51
  I don't think they're as bad as what we're expecting Asian carp to be.
• 25:55
  Yeah.
• 25:55
  And there's so many rivers and streams that they can reproduce in Um, so it
• 26:00
  could be, it could be quite, you know, quite concerning, you know, in terms
• 26:04
  of that, in invasive, uh, species.
• 26:06
  But Yeah.
• 26:07
  Yeah, of course.
• 26:07
  Now you're taking me back.
• 26:09
  Now.
• 26:11
  I know that word for a while.
• 26:11
  Uh, no, but that's awesome.
• 26:14
  So, so like, And then you go, you know, you, you do the work in, in
• 26:18
  Uganda, um, and was that at, when you were at University of Sterling?
• 26:22
  No, that was when you were at McGill.
• 26:23
  That was, yeah, that project was through the McGill Research Center.
• 26:27
  Gotcha.
• 26:27
  Called Lauren Chapman from there.
• 26:29
  I dunno if you know anyone Yeah.
• 26:30
  From there.
• 26:30
  Yeah.
• 26:31
  Oh, you know, no, I don't know anybody from there, but I've heard of it.
• 26:33
  Yeah.
• 26:33
  Yeah.
• 26:33
  Okay.
• 26:34
  Yeah, so she's an inland freshwater person too.
• 26:36
  And she had someone called Beth who was working with Okay.
• 26:40
  Also Canadian.
• 26:41
  She's now a Virginia Tech, I believe.
• 26:43
  Okay.
• 26:44
  And Um, So from there, I, well, after that I got the FAO work, so
• 26:48
  I came back to Canada for a bit.
• 26:50
  I was applying for jobs and it was mostly consulting work that I was getting.
• 26:52
  Yes, yes.
• 26:53
  A lot of consulting.
• 26:54
  Yeah.
• 26:54
  Yeah.
• 26:55
  I didn't wanna get to consulting, you know, like, uh, like the big Yeah.
• 26:58
  Yeah.
• 26:59
  Sort of environmental services And so on.
• 27:01
  So when the FAO thing came up, I was like, yeah, definitely it was a consultancy.
• 27:05
  But, um, right.
• 27:06
  It took me to headquarters for a year and a bit.
• 27:09
  Uh, I did different roles there, uh, with fisheries, uh, mostly.
• 27:14
  And then I joined the, uh, so do you know, like RF os, how they work, right?
• 27:18
  Yes.
• 27:18
  I guess Yeah.
• 27:18
  Yeah.
• 27:19
  So I'm used to people who actually don't know anything about my field.
• 27:21
  Yeah.
• 27:21
  So like, I have to like.
• 27:23
  Recalibrate be like, no, Andrew actually knows a lot about this.
• 27:26
  Well, why don't, but why don't you just tell the audience like what it stands for.
• 27:30
  'cause 'cause we've talked about it on the podcast before, but just to make
• 27:33
  sure that they completely understand It's like regional or MF fishing management.
• 27:37
  Yeah.
• 27:37
  Organization, Yeah.
• 27:38
  Yeah.
• 27:39
  So the, the whole, all of the Seas, oceans of the world are divided into
• 27:43
  areas by the UN and or by other bodies.
• 27:46
  And they're all managed by these organizations that are responsible
• 27:50
  for kind of making, like bringing countries members, states of
• 27:53
  that region together to mm-hmm.
• 27:55
  Make decisions about, mostly about fisheries.
• 27:57
  Like how, like safe levels to catch of different, um, stocks.
• 28:02
  And they kind of help mediate between countries a bit.
• 28:05
  Um, yeah, the majority of them have a lot of issues because countries
• 28:09
  just don't agree on so many things and there's no real stuff.
• 28:13
  Yeah, exactly.
• 28:13
  Holding them like accountable is also very hard.
• 28:16
  Like you can't force 'em to No, um, stick to their promises.
• 28:20
  Um, So I worked in the RFMO, I actually worked in two RMOs, one in, in Thailand,
• 28:25
  well, the one for Southeast Asia.
• 28:27
  Uh, the coordinating body for the Southeast Asia was called.
• 28:31
  That was, uh, actually that was before my masters.
• 28:34
  Uh, but I worked after my master's in the Mediterranean one called
• 28:38
  the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean, GFCM, uh,
• 28:41
  which is by the way, the worst managed body of water in the world.
• 28:44
  Uh, ironically or un ironically, I don't know.
• 28:47
  Yeah.
• 28:48
  Yeah.
• 28:48
  Terrible, terrible.
• 28:49
  Yeah.
• 28:49
  So much missed much management.
• 28:51
  Actually, Spain and Italy used to be, I still, I believe they still
• 28:53
  are the worst culprits, right.
• 28:55
  For like over fishing and just, um, even Marine pollution and a bunch of
• 28:59
  stuff and discarding fishing gear.
• 29:02
  Yeah.
• 29:02
  Um, they're like kind of, it's a bit of wild west in some areas.
• 29:05
  Well, and it's also, it's like there's no, I just discovered this recently.
• 29:08
  I, I didn't know a lot about the Mediterranean in terms of
• 29:10
  management, but there's no like.
• 29:13
  Yeah.
• 29:13
  You know how every other country has like an exclusive economic zone?
• 29:16
  Yeah.
• 29:16
  There's really no exclusive economic zone.
• 29:18
  'cause there's so many countries that are there.
• 29:19
  Exactly.
• 29:20
  All of them overlap.
• 29:21
  So it's pretty much just like treated as international waters.
• 29:25
  So you can do whatever you want and there's nobody there to help you.
• 29:28
  And hopefully the High Seas Treaty that just came in recently, as
• 29:31
  of this recording, like this past weekend, hopefully there's gonna be
• 29:35
  some management coming from there.
• 29:36
  And those countries can agree, but Absolutely.
• 29:38
  It's, it's a, it's a mess in there.
• 29:40
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 29:41
  So one of the things that I was sort of marginally involved in, but like that
• 29:45
  was the, all, all like the talk of the town when I was at the FAO was the port
• 29:50
  state measures agreement, which was gonna basically 'cause, you know, IUU
• 29:54
  fishing, I, I guess I have to define that.
• 29:56
  Illegal unreported, unregulated phishing.
• 29:59
  Um, like so much of global fishing goes undocumented and unregulated.
• 30:04
  And that's a problem obviously for the UN and for just trying
• 30:07
  to manage fisheries globally.
• 30:09
  Um.
• 30:10
  They were, they were very excited about this idea that if all the ports around
• 30:15
  the world signed up to the agreement that they'd have to, you know, make sure that
• 30:20
  everything that comes in is documented.
• 30:22
  That would be a way, you know, to combat IUU fishing.
• 30:25
  So, 'cause nothing can be landed as long, if you can't land it, then it can't,
• 30:29
  you know, that's kind of solving it at, not at source, but at like, you know.
• 30:32
  Yeah.
• 30:33
  So a source because Yeah.
• 30:35
  Yeah, to come in Yeah.
• 30:36
  Yeah.
• 30:37
  So that was, and I think that got ratified, but then somehow I
• 30:41
  haven't heard about it since really?
• 30:43
  Uh, which is an indication that probably it didn't end up having
• 30:46
  impact should have had, or maybe not enough countries ratified it.
• 30:50
  Um, just, I mean the High Sea Treaty was another one, but, um, that's a different
• 30:54
  ministry, uh, a different organization.
• 30:56
  Is that Uner?
• 30:57
  Uh, or is it the, uh, I'm not sure who age is that.
• 31:00
  Okay.
• 31:01
  Yeah, I'm not sure it might be, no.
• 31:03
  Okay.
• 31:04
  Yeah, I, no, just remembered that poor state measures 'cause it was
• 31:06
  like everyone was so excited about it.
• 31:08
  But, you know, a lot of the UN stuff is like that I think on paper And then
• 31:11
  in theories it's all very nice, but like, like SDGs is so nice, beautiful
• 31:16
  poetically kind of meaningful, but you know, we just kind of crap all over that.
• 31:22
  Don not we, but like, you know.
• 31:23
  Yeah, no, I get it.
• 31:24
  Like, look, you're preaching to the choir here because, you know, I, I've said
• 31:28
  this for years where it's like when you have international agreements like this,
• 31:31
  it's, it's, uh, they're nice to have and there are certain countries who will
• 31:35
  follow it and they take pride in following it and they, they, they take pride in
• 31:38
  getting it and or being a part of it.
• 31:40
  And then if they don't.
• 31:42
  You know, they get, they get embarrassed because of it.
• 31:44
  And so some countries work on, I don't wanna get embarrassed, so
• 31:46
  I want to be able to keep this.
• 31:48
  And other countries now these days seem like, well, you know, I don't
• 31:51
  want to, I don't even care about it, you know, or I'll pull out of it
• 31:55
  because we don't wanna be when we want.
• 31:57
  But others were like, I'll be a part of this if you let me do this.
• 32:00
  It's a little bit of a negotiation tactic, you know, for cer for certain times.
• 32:03
  So they become important, but there's definitely a game to
• 32:06
  be played, uh, with those.
• 32:08
  And, and enforcement is never easy, especially in international waters.
• 32:13
  So that could be a difficult, that could be a difficult thing.
• 32:16
  A hundred percent.
• 32:17
  Yeah.
• 32:17
  Yeah.
• 32:18
  Yeah, I think we could have a whole Oh, a hundred.
• 32:20
  Yeah.
• 32:20
  Yeah.
• 32:21
  Yeah.
• 32:22
  Absolutely.
• 32:23
  Absolutely.
• 32:24
  Uh, but like, like, so what after FAO, you know, you, you
• 32:27
  start, you kind of come across.
• 32:30
  Like welfare fish, right?
• 32:31
  Yeah.
• 32:32
  Um, And so how did that all come about?
• 32:34
  How did that cross your, like cross your, your, your life I guess?
• 32:38
  So there was these, a group, uh, at the University of Sterling in Scotland.
• 32:41
  They had a project from the British Council and the department, what
• 32:46
  used to be called the Department for International Development in the uk.
• 32:48
  Now it's been like, uh, combined with, uh, foreign, foreign and commonwealth office.
• 32:53
  So it's called the Foreign Commonwealth Development Office now.
• 32:56
  Okay.
• 32:57
  But used to be separate department or ministry, as you might call it.
• 33:00
  And um, they had funding for two years to try out this project in Egypt.
• 33:07
  Um, it was an Institute of aquaculture at Sterling.
• 33:10
  Yeah.
• 33:10
  And, um, they hadn't done anything in Egypt before, but the idea
• 33:14
  was very, very like kind of.
• 33:16
  You know, kind of experimental, but exciting.
• 33:18
  So there's something called behavioral fever, which is like the, the
• 33:22
  phenomenon that fish that are sick.
• 33:24
  Of course fish are exothermic, so they, they can't control the temperatures,
• 33:27
  but just like reptiles and amphibians And so on, they've been known to seek
• 33:32
  out warmer waters when they're unwell.
• 33:34
  So it's like a, a thermo regulation or kind of a fever, um, right.
• 33:39
  Behavior.
• 33:40
  Yeah.
• 33:40
  So they kind of Yeah.
• 33:41
  Yeah.
• 33:41
  Be more comfortable.
• 33:42
  Exactly.
• 33:43
  And actually if in experimental setups, if you give fish that, um, thermal
• 33:48
  gradient to choose from, and, uh, they're sick and you, well, you infect them.
• 33:53
  They do recover faster in the presence of the thermal gradient.
• 33:56
  And so we know that that is a concept that works in, at least
• 33:59
  in theory and in experiments.
• 34:01
  But we were thinking can we apply that to a Latino sort of low intensity aquaculture
• 34:06
  system as a way to help fish recover, you know, without using medicines And so on.
• 34:11
  Obviously it was very ambitious, so we tried to recreate these
• 34:15
  thermal gradients in ponds in Egypt.
• 34:17
  Mm-hmm.
• 34:17
  That was a project that I was part of, so it was called, um.
• 34:21
  Uh, well, it was called Bolty Egypt, the official name.
• 34:24
  Okay.
• 34:24
  Very long name, but like, kind of behavioral prophylaxis as a way of
• 34:28
  like improving health and welfare, sustainability, blah, blah, blah.
• 34:31
  But the part that I was focused on, my supervisor said to me, why don't you
• 34:34
  go assess the welfare of fish in this, in these ponds and like, come up with
• 34:38
  recommendations and like a protocol for how to assess welfare better.
• 34:41
  And I was like, welfare, animal welfare.
• 34:44
  I didn't know anything about it.
• 34:45
  So.
• 34:45
  Right.
• 34:45
  I started reading about it and I was like, ah.
• 34:47
  'cause you know, it used to be something like very veterinary.
• 34:50
  Mm-hmm.
• 34:50
  From the veterinary world or from, uh, you know, uh, terrestrial livestock.
• 34:55
  Uh, uh, and like you said before, pets, um, wild animals.
• 35:00
  It was like, like I just, I knew the term, but I didn't really know what it meant.
• 35:03
  But, you know, I, I realized it was whole fields of research showing like
• 35:09
  the five domains and the five pillars and all the famous for assessing it.
• 35:13
  And how do you know if animals are doing well?
• 35:16
  And I realized that fish welfare was like growing in, in, in, in, um.
• 35:20
  People are more and more interested in it, and I could see more funders
• 35:24
  also being interested in this area.
• 35:26
  So I was like, huh, maybe it's actually a good opportunity.
• 35:28
  So, uh, yeah, through through the research, I, you know, started thinking
• 35:33
  about tilapia, which are very neglected.
• 35:35
  Uh, well that's a word that is now bandied about, like the, there was no protocol
• 35:40
  for how to assess the welfare of tilapia.
• 35:42
  No one really knew what the behavioral needs were.
• 35:44
  We're still slowly starting to know more and more, but they are one of the
• 35:47
  species that are farmed in the greatest numbers in the world and consumed as
• 35:51
  well, Um, So through that actually, And then after that, I. I was encouraged
• 35:59
  by a funder to basically start my own organization in Egypt because they were
• 36:03
  like, Hey, actually this is right after COVID where there was a lot of funding.
• 36:06
  The stock markets were doing amazing.
• 36:08
  A lot of these foundations had like, they were flush with cash, and someone was
• 36:11
  like, Hey, how do you feel about like, you know, trying to start up your own thing?
• 36:15
  And I, it wasn't my dream of mine, but I could see a gap and
• 36:19
  I thought, well, I'll try it.
• 36:21
  And mm-hmm.
• 36:22
  I guess we tried to, we'll start with a small project, a scoping study, and
• 36:26
  from there on it just kind of grew.
• 36:28
  Um, I can talk a bit more about that, but I was just sort of giving it high level.
• 36:32
  Well, yeah, I mean, it, it's, it's interesting because obviously, you
• 36:35
  know, you look at the, what you mentioned as the, the basic project,
• 36:39
  looking at how, you know, fish will take care of themselves throughout,
• 36:44
  you know, a water column or whether, whether they're in an aquaculture
• 36:47
  facility or whether they're in the wild.
• 36:49
  They have to, they have to survive.
• 36:51
  Right.
• 36:52
  And a lot of times when we look at fish.
• 36:54
  We just see fish.
• 36:55
  We see them either as seafood or we see them as like a cool looking fish, but
• 36:58
  we don't often, uh, see their character.
• 37:02
  Like even in an aquarium, you can look at a fish, but you'll
• 37:05
  see probably a school of fish.
• 37:06
  You may not see one unless they're really big, like a grouper or something.
• 37:09
  You won't really see their personality or their characteristics, even though
• 37:13
  each fish has their own personality or characteristics, whether it's
• 37:17
  the how they, how they demonstrate it in a school of fish, how they
• 37:20
  demonstrate it as an individual.
• 37:22
  They all have their own unique kind of characteristics, just as, as
• 37:24
  I discovered as any animal does.
• 37:26
  Right?
• 37:27
  Uh, you look at a zoo, they all have their own, their own characteristics
• 37:30
  and they have their kind of funny quirks and, and things like that as they're
• 37:33
  influenced throughout their life.
• 37:34
  Like for instance, I was doing the podcast for the Toronto Zoo
• 37:37
  here at, at, uh, during COVID.
• 37:40
  And one of the things that I learned is that their, their head gorilla, like
• 37:43
  their troop leader, gorilla Charles, who was like a, a 25-year-old silverback,
• 37:48
  or even older, sorry, older, he was maybe in his like forties or fifties,
• 37:52
  silverback, like big gorilla, you know, like can pretty much rip somebody's
• 37:56
  arms off if the, if he really wanted to.
• 37:58
  And he was afraid of frogs, like fully afraid of frogs, you know, like
• 38:03
  wouldn't let the troop go near a frog because like, he was afraid of it.
• 38:07
  And so, like, you know, they all have this characteristics, but when we look
• 38:10
  at fish, like we could look at a whale and we can see the characteristics.
• 38:13
  Like we look at an orca and we're like, oh wow, these are really intense.
• 38:15
  We look at fish, we don't see that, you know, we, we don't like, and
• 38:19
  this is anybody, not just scientists, but we look at them and they're just
• 38:21
  like, you know, they kinda look not dead in the eyes, but they don't
• 38:23
  look like they're looking at you.
• 38:24
  They don't look like they're really engaging with you.
• 38:27
  And, and especially like a fish like tilapia, which we
• 38:29
  normally just see as seafood.
• 38:30
  Like you see, like they have to take care of themselves.
• 38:33
  They have to survive from a very basic level.
• 38:36
  And so their welfare is, as a survivor is gonna be important.
• 38:40
  If they're sick or hurt, they're gonna want to go to a place
• 38:43
  where they feel comfortable.
• 38:43
  Like we go to, we go to bed if we have a flu.
• 38:46
  If they're sick, they need to go get warm, like you mentioned, so
• 38:49
  that they can get better again.
• 38:50
  Now, whether the warm allows them to heal or whether the warm
• 38:54
  allows their body not to worry about one more factor as the cold.
• 38:58
  Yeah.
• 38:58
  And then they can actually allow it to heal, like allow the rest of the
• 39:01
  body to, to do what it needs to do.
• 39:03
  Is, is another thing, which I'm sure is, is probably published on
• 39:07
  and And so forth, but going into welfare is a really interesting idea.
• 39:11
  As you mentioned, you were like, I'm not a vet, you know, why would I go, you know,
• 39:14
  first, when you first think about why would you go, as you started to do this
• 39:18
  project more and more, did you, like, did your mind open up a little bit more to.
• 39:24
  Uh, to like the world of welfare of fish and like, and where was it going?
• 39:29
  Like what questions were you developing as you started to continue to do your,
• 39:34
  your PhD and even after, when you looking at welfare of fish or just in general?
• 39:39
  Yeah.
• 39:40
  I just wanted to mention though, about this behavioral fever thing.
• 39:42
  Unfortunately, the project was actually like a huge failure.
• 39:45
  No, just because like, oh, no.
• 39:47
  Yeah.
• 39:47
  'cause we tried to like design these greenhouses, like above parts of the pond.
• 39:51
  Yeah.
• 39:51
  And we thought, well definitely like, you know, like a tarpon
• 39:54
  in kind of like a cover, right?
• 39:55
  It or polyethylene?
• 39:57
  Sly, sorry.
• 39:58
  Like it was gonna definitely warm up the pond.
• 40:00
  Like that's how of course, you know.
• 40:01
  But then actually for some reason the data loggers that we use.
• 40:04
  Like consistently showed cooler.
• 40:07
  Maybe it was just like where the water level was in comparison to the height
• 40:10
  of like, there was a whole kind of physics and dynamics, like thermodynamic
• 40:14
  stuff that we did not study before.
• 40:15
  We kind of assumed we, we did pilot it, but for some reason we were
• 40:18
  just running behind schedule and we kind of just, you know, these things
• 40:22
  always go like as research things.
• 40:23
  It happens Yeah.
• 40:24
  Yeah.
• 40:25
  So until now I don't actually know what that would look like
• 40:28
  in a true agriculture setting.
• 40:29
  Of course.
• 40:29
  Just to be, to be fair.
• 40:31
  And you said something else about welfare.
• 40:33
  I was gonna say.
• 40:33
  Yeah.
• 40:33
  So, uh, a big part of my work now these days is on slaughter.
• 40:38
  How to slaughter fish better, how to reduce the suffering of fish at slaughter
• 40:42
  in, in the context of aquaculture.
• 40:44
  Um, you know, where large numbers are being caught or harvested as they say.
• 40:49
  And, um, you know, it still shocks me because obviously I know because I've read
• 40:54
  literature that the fish are suffering, uh, well take, get taken out of water.
• 40:58
  And I think most farmers are, people who work with fish know, but the fact
• 41:01
  that the fish don't make any sound.
• 41:03
  Makes it hard, like if you're slaughtering what I've seen a cow be slaughtered,
• 41:07
  uh, in like Islamic ritual style.
• 41:10
  Mm-hmm.
• 41:10
  Like this is horrible.
• 41:11
  Like anyone can see iss horrible, like the cow is trying everything to escape.
• 41:14
  Right.
• 41:15
  Um, and most other land animals, but fish just kind of flap about.
• 41:19
  I know.
• 41:19
  Still like if you're informed it's not nice to see, but Right.
• 41:23
  Um, the, the lack of sound sort of just doesn't resonate with
• 41:27
  us as humans where we mm-hmm.
• 41:28
  We think sound, sound must mean suffer or sound suffering has to be Yeah.
• 41:33
  Vocalized, right?
• 41:34
  Yes.
• 41:34
  So that's just something I thought of as we were saying that.
• 41:36
  Um, but then I kind of, you, you actually asked me other questions, so
• 41:40
  maybe we can go back to those Yeah.
• 41:42
  Yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 41:42
  Well, I guess like, as you start, just as you make these observations, um, when
• 41:47
  you're, you know, you, you, you finish off your PhD, you start to get more into this,
• 41:51
  this sort of welfare field of, of fish.
• 41:56
  Like, what was the, what was the next step?
• 41:58
  Like what, what kind of questions arose after your PhD on the welfare and, and
• 42:04
  I guess did that, was, is, are those the questions that led you towards.
• 42:09
  You know, ethical seafood research.
• 42:12
  Yeah.
• 42:12
  So, uh, I work with A NGO called Aquatic Life Institute.
• 42:16
  I'm not sure if you've heard of that.
• 42:17
  I've heard of that.
• 42:18
  Yeah.
• 42:19
  Yeah.
• 42:19
  So they are US based, but actually their md their managing director is,
• 42:23
  uh, Canadian from, she lives in bc. Uh, she, I think she also went to UFT and
• 42:29
  did an environmental science background.
• 42:31
  Probably Yeah.
• 42:31
  Yeah.
• 42:33
  Uh, and Um, So I worked with them for a couple of years, and that was my first
• 42:37
  time in an NGO I'd worked in the un.
• 42:39
  I worked in a government in Canada.
• 42:40
  I worked in a government in uk.
• 42:41
  I worked at like, um, research settings, but never in NGO.
• 42:46
  Um, maybe just like small contracts.
• 42:48
  I, I even worked for the European Parliament at some
• 42:50
  point, but not like, oh, wow.
• 42:51
  Yeah, that was a really fun, uh, role.
• 42:54
  Um, but I. You know, I guess I just learned about how NGOs work, and
• 42:59
  especially these like smaller NGOs or, or charities where it was like, you
• 43:04
  know, they all had fancy titles and a fancy website and like fancy, like even,
• 43:08
  you know, fancy branding and stuff.
• 43:10
  But then like, when I actually started working for them, I was like, oh, you
• 43:12
  guys are just a bunch of people, like normal people, like, like, like me.
• 43:16
  You know, like, and I realized just how accessible it was to do something similar.
• 43:20
  And that was always in the back of my mind.
• 43:22
  I'm like, well, I could do something like this and I think it'd be fulfilling
• 43:25
  'cause I was passionate and driven.
• 43:27
  Uh, but there's nothing as like fulfilling as you, you, you are
• 43:33
  working for yourself and like trying, you're having mission, you're mission
• 43:36
  driven, I guess is the word, right?
• 43:37
  Yeah.
• 43:37
  Like the, so that's was back in the back of my mind.
• 43:40
  I was like, I think I could, I think this is my calling ready to do.
• 43:44
  To pursue my own passion, uh, in a, in a format of an organization.
• 43:49
  But I also started realizing just yeah, like how neglected the field was, how much
• 43:55
  suffering happens, and, uh, that there were technological solutions available.
• 43:59
  We could do something about it.
• 44:00
  So like what they say track, they call it trackability.
• 44:02
  So I think we can actually address that issue.
• 44:06
  Uh, so the scale was large, the collectedness was big, and, uh, there
• 44:11
  was something we could do about it.
• 44:12
  And then that appealed to me.
• 44:14
  So I don't know if you're aware, I guess I'm referring to a framework
• 44:18
  that belongs to the effective altruism movement, and that's the people who
• 44:21
  fund most of our work and Oh, okay.
• 44:24
  Most of the work of organizations like ourselves, such as Aquatic Life Institute.
• 44:28
  So the, the, that's a movement that came out of Oxford
• 44:32
  University's philosophy driven.
• 44:34
  How do you do the most good in the most efficient way?
• 44:38
  And um, they managed to convince a lot of tech bros to part ways with a
• 44:43
  lot of money, uh, because they kind of like this idea, uh, this framework.
• 44:48
  And, and, and because of that, well our farm animal welfare is one of
• 44:52
  the areas that they care about.
• 44:54
  Normally it's just very neglected, like underfunded.
• 44:56
  But because right, they do the, they do the math and look at how many, like
• 44:59
  shrimp, for example, shrimp welfare is now receiving millions if not more.
• 45:04
  It's crazy 'cause you never would've thought of shrimp and
• 45:07
  welfare goes in the same sentence.
• 45:09
  Right, exactly.
• 45:10
  So that's kind of just serendipitous at the time that I was doing that research.
• 45:14
  Yeah, it was, people wanted defund that work.
• 45:17
  So yeah, it was opportunistic, but also I think it just made
• 45:20
  sense on many levels to me.
• 45:22
  To answer your question.
• 45:23
  I was trying to be brief, but then like, since I started talking about
• 45:26
  collectedness, I'm like, well, I might as well mention the movement
• 45:28
  and like the framework and stuff.
• 45:30
  Yeah.
• 45:30
  Hey, this is a podcast.
• 45:31
  Nothing is a brief on, on this podcast.
• 45:33
  I am guilty of that myself because I talk a lot once, one of the
• 45:37
  reasons why I started this podcast.
• 45:38
  So no need and worried about being descriptive 'cause
• 45:41
  that's what we're here for.
• 45:42
  We want to, we wanna learn about that.
• 45:44
  Uh, so, so tell me how ESR came about, like ethical seafood,
• 45:47
  uh, research came about.
• 45:48
  Yeah.
• 45:49
  So my supervisor, uh, was always used using this word, responsible
• 45:54
  aquaculture or like, Yeah.
• 45:55
  Uh, ethical.
• 45:57
  Like he obviously he wasn't a big, uh, fan of sustainable because he just
• 46:01
  lost meaning over the years, right?
• 46:03
  So the word ethical comes from him very much him saying like, you know, yeah,
• 46:08
  we can do things sustainably, but.
• 46:10
  Is it ethical to farm in this way?
• 46:12
  Or, you know, when you think about the ethical dimension, I was like, huh.
• 46:15
  Interesting.
• 46:16
  Um, not, I don't mean it in the same way as like, you know, uh,
• 46:20
  pita, like, or Peta, like the Yeah.
• 46:21
  Yeah.
• 46:21
  Yeah.
• 46:22
  I, I just mean it in like a more, it's not like an activism kind
• 46:25
  of thing where you're protesting.
• 46:27
  Right, right.
• 46:27
  Exactly.
• 46:28
  Like, we just ask people, even farmers, like your average farmer,
• 46:31
  like, do you think it's right to treat animals in this way?
• 46:34
  Not in an aggressive, sort of accusative way.
• 46:35
  Right.
• 46:35
  But once you actually talk to them about, like, the suffering, they're like,
• 46:38
  yeah, you're, you know, you're right.
• 46:39
  I don't need to kind of throw them around if I can.
• 46:43
  Well, and or they tell you, well, I wish I could do it differently,
• 46:45
  but, you know, this is like, we're faced with these constraints.
• 46:48
  We don't ever go in there.
• 46:49
  Well, I think too, like what seems like one thing that gets, that gets me too
• 46:53
  is a lot of times when, uh, you speak to farmers or like, say a union of farmers
• 46:59
  or even fishers and things like that, a lot of the time there has been, I
• 47:03
  wouldn't say like scientific research.
• 47:05
  But there's been sort of like generational research, like among
• 47:09
  farmers and fishers that look at what's the best way to, you know, kill
• 47:15
  the, the, the animal for the food.
• 47:18
  Right?
• 47:18
  And a lot of them don't want the animals to suffer.
• 47:20
  You know, they have, uh, if not a spiritual, but more of an ethical
• 47:25
  approach to it where they're doing what they can, even though they're
• 47:27
  killing an animal, they're doing what they can to, to make it the fast thing.
• 47:31
  Now, I am not in this, this genre or this field, so I don't know if that holds
• 47:36
  true for everywhere, but there's a lot of people who do, who do care about that.
• 47:41
  Um, and I think it's, it's interesting 'cause I'm, I'm sure a lot of the
• 47:43
  conversations have come with like, we tried this way, you know, decades ago And
• 47:47
  then we, now we try it this way 'cause it seems to be better and maybe they
• 47:51
  don't know the scientific part of it.
• 47:54
  Right?
• 47:55
  Absolutely.
• 47:55
  So that's where, that's where you come.
• 47:57
  I agree completely under like your average.
• 47:59
  Farmer, your average fisherman or fisher folk or fisher person, whatever
• 48:03
  wants to do right and do better.
• 48:05
  And um, you know, when you don't shame them into it is you can have
• 48:10
  a very nice conversation about how things can be done differently and
• 48:13
  in a way that also doesn't hurt them Um, So I agree completely on that.
• 48:18
  I was just going to say about, uh, yeah, so then the word for.
• 48:22
  The word seafood obviously is self-explanatory.
• 48:24
  And research is, I just thought of like, I set it up as a consultancy,
• 48:28
  you know, carrying out research to answer those questions because
• 48:30
  I saw it as a niche or a gap.
• 48:32
  Um, yeah, ba based on my skillset at the time.
• 48:35
  Uh, I didn't imagine to go down that, down the non-profit route, but
• 48:39
  the problem was that there wasn't that many people who wanted to like
• 48:42
  hire a consultant to work on that.
• 48:45
  You know, there was so few contracts coming our way or
• 48:47
  like it was a bit limiting.
• 48:49
  So I thought, well maybe if we move towards donations, can we get
• 48:52
  people to sympathize with fish in a way, or like fish and farmers?
• 48:56
  'cause using what they call the one welfare approach, like, yeah, we're
• 49:00
  helping farmers, we're helping fish, we're helping the environment all in one.
• 49:04
  Like it's a win win win, a triple win Um, so can we get people to
• 49:09
  support that cause and it's something.
• 49:10
  Mm-hmm.
• 49:10
  I have to say that I'm still and haven't gotten answered to yet
• 49:13
  because we've only really pivoted to.
• 49:16
  Being a full-blown, um, charitable entity, uh, less than a year ago.
• 49:22
  And for now it's working out.
• 49:23
  But, you know, just have to, I had to shift gears 'cause I'd never, I,
• 49:26
  I, you know, I didn't know anything about running a charity really.
• 49:29
  Um, but, but the consulting idea came from when I was in the European Parliament.
• 49:34
  So I was with the fisheries committee there and I was with a team that
• 49:38
  commissions, they have a budget that they have to spend every year
• 49:40
  to commission, like, studies to be carried out by consultants.
• 49:44
  And I was reviewing these, uh, contracts or like the reports that would come
• 49:48
  in and I would, you know, sort of review it and, um, summarize it for the
• 49:53
  parliamentary committee to like, um, not vote on, but kind of, uh, give feedback
• 49:59
  and if they want changes to be made.
• 50:01
  And I, and I started seeing that, like I could be on the other side preparing
• 50:05
  those reports, and I thought that's what would be more interesting for me.
• 50:09
  Uh, and I con I started contacting people who, um, the consultants that I was seeing
• 50:15
  their names and like, Hey, you know, my contract here is running out soon.
• 50:18
  You know, I'm really keen to do, to get into the kind of work that you're doing.
• 50:22
  What would be an entry path into that?
• 50:24
  And yeah, one of them told me like, you have to set up your own
• 50:26
  entity because much easier to apply for grants or contracts register.
• 50:31
  So that's, Yeah.
• 50:31
  Not as registered, like independent consultant, but you have like
• 50:34
  this nonprofit Absolutely.
• 50:36
  Yeah.
• 50:37
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 50:38
  So that's where the, the, the idea of registering came And then the name
• 50:41
  came from like kind of being inspired and also thinking it was a niche, but
• 50:45
  then actually transitioning to not applying for those kind of contracts.
• 50:49
  But actually going after like donations is something that came only a year ago.
• 50:54
  'cause we set up in 2021 originally.
• 50:56
  Right, right.
• 50:58
  So now, uh, you know, now that you've been running for, what, five years now, say,
• 51:02
  um, as we, as we just moved into 2026, uh, you, you seem to have done, like you have
• 51:08
  a lot of, you have had a lot of projects, um, you know, and, and from all over the,
• 51:14
  seems like all over the world, uh, which is, which is great, Um, So can you talk
• 51:19
  a little bit about some of the projects that you have worked on, even just from
• 51:24
  a, an overview standpoint, just so people can get a perspective of what, you know,
• 51:30
  what kind of animal welfare are you looking at and, and, and what other people
• 51:34
  are looking at to get your services.
• 51:37
  Cool.
• 51:37
  Yeah, of course.
• 51:38
  So I always say when I give presentations in conferences, I always say like, you
• 51:43
  know, we are, you know, a nonprofit advocates for improving fish.
• 51:46
  Well, uh, animal aquatic, animal welfare, blah, blah, blah.
• 51:49
  And then I always say like, three through three key pillars.
• 51:52
  Obviously research is in our name, but we also do like training and education.
• 51:57
  That's always like the backbone of anything we do.
• 51:59
  We're trying to improve practices.
• 52:01
  So there's always a lot of, you know, training workshops
• 52:05
  being held in the background.
• 52:06
  And then, um, more and more now we're doing policy work, but, or
• 52:11
  like, sort of governmental, um, like high level work with the government.
• 52:15
  So, um, uh.
• 52:19
  We helped.
• 52:20
  One example is we're a bit opportunistic, I should say this, uh, just to be clear.
• 52:25
  So, you know, if there's an opportunity there, we'll seize it.
• 52:27
  And we were invited by the government in Zanzibar.
• 52:30
  I was living there at the time.
• 52:31
  So Zanzibar is a semi-autonomous island.
• 52:35
  Uh, a group of islands Archipelago off the coast of Tanzania.
• 52:39
  And uh, I was there in 2023 in January to March on uh, some kind of residency.
• 52:47
  And I formed a relationship with the government there, the Ministry
• 52:51
  of the Ministry of Blue Economy and Fisheries, they call it.
• 52:54
  And they invited me.
• 52:56
  They were like, Hey, we need a new aquaculture strategy.
• 52:58
  Do you think this something you can help me with?
• 53:00
  And I'm like, help us with.
• 53:02
  And obviously it wasn't something that I'd done, but I was like,
• 53:05
  right, well, well, I'm sure I can.
• 53:07
  So I went away, applied for funding.
• 53:09
  I, you know, talked to some consultant friends of mine, uh, you know,
• 53:12
  together with a. The best way of doing it, and sure, sure, sure enough,
• 53:16
  we went away and, uh, delivered it in, in, in collaboration with them.
• 53:20
  And that now that's been adopted as official strategy for the islands for the
• 53:25
  next, well, it was 2025, adopted, so 2038.
• 53:28
  So this is 13 year strategy, and that will determine the
• 53:32
  direction that the islands go.
• 53:34
  Now this is because they're really keen to exploit the blue economy.
• 53:38
  All of Africa and many developing, uh, regions, you know, are, are keen like,
• 53:43
  you know, blue economy, blue economy.
• 53:45
  The World Bank pushes hard on like blue economy.
• 53:48
  Um, but uh, actually when we were carrying out the stakeholder
• 53:53
  consultation and developing the strategy, we realized that Zanzibar is
• 53:57
  very well suited to seaweed farming.
• 53:59
  They already do a lot of seaweed and moving it to fish.
• 54:02
  Farming doesn't make sense because all the species that they would farm
• 54:05
  would be for export, not for food security or for sub sub subsistence.
• 54:09
  So actually.
• 54:11
  If it wasn't through fisheries, it was gonna be, um, like they could
• 54:17
  already meet their needs for protein through wild caught fisheries.
• 54:21
  So it didn't make sense for them to be doing too much, uh, fin fish
• 54:25
  farming of, you know, low cost species.
• 54:28
  So seaweed makes more sense.
• 54:30
  It's a lower entry point.
• 54:32
  They're already doing it.
• 54:33
  Their environment is well suited and it's much better for the environment as we know
• 54:37
  it employs women and, um, younger people.
• 54:40
  And, um, it can be beneficial, uh, on a number of levels.
• 54:45
  So that, And then that kind of opened up a whole new work stream for us on
• 54:49
  seaweed, which I never anticipated.
• 54:51
  Like, when should a government invest more in seaweed and when should
• 54:55
  invest more in finfish farming?
• 54:57
  And that's one of my main projects for this year to look to work with economists
• 55:00
  to answer those questions, um, using a whole bunch of different models And so on.
• 55:05
  Uh, because I think often governments push.
• 55:08
  Because that's just like the fashionable thing to do.
• 55:10
  Like yeah, let's hunt fish Yes.
• 55:12
  But without actually studying whether environmentally it's
• 55:14
  the best use of their resources.
• 55:16
  Mm-hmm.
• 55:17
  Uh, are they, do they have the right infrastructure?
• 55:18
  And if they do seaweed well, it can be profitable and it could be successful.
• 55:23
  Yeah.
• 55:23
  Uh, well and good for, and better for the environment too,
• 55:26
  depending on what you have.
• 55:27
  'cause like, you know, I have heard of, of, of studies looking at.
• 55:31
  Seaweed being, uh, cultured over seagrasses and that affecting the
• 55:36
  seagrass beds, uh, even though it does well for the seaweed, but the seagrass
• 55:39
  beds aren't getting the light that they need and they end up suffering.
• 55:42
  Um, but also when you have, uh, aquaculture fish, aquaculture,
• 55:46
  you know, sometimes it's not as profitable for the whole time.
• 55:48
  And, uh, there's like, grease is going through some problems right now with
• 55:51
  abandoned, uh, fish farms And so forth.
• 55:54
  So there's always problems.
• 55:54
  I didn't know that.
• 55:55
  There's always, yeah, there's always, uh, issues when when you look at, um,
• 56:00
  how things are managed within a country, how, how the regulations are set up,
• 56:03
  and you don't want to just exploit something for the sake of exploiting
• 56:07
  when it may not be best for, for that.
• 56:09
  And it's good to have, you know, uh, people like yourself and, and, and
• 56:12
  the people that work with you at, at ethical seafood, uh, research because,
• 56:16
  you know, it's, it's, you wanna make sure you're doing it properly.
• 56:19
  You know, obviously the, the, the money has to be there.
• 56:21
  The revenue has to be there, has to support jobs, but it also has
• 56:24
  to treat the con, the, the, the country and the, and their coastal
• 56:27
  areas or their lakes like properly.
• 56:29
  Right.
• 56:29
  And I think that's, uh.
• 56:31
  That's what's best about having, you know, someone like yourself and, and uh, e Sr
• 56:34
  there to be like, oh, this is what we do.
• 56:36
  Like, this is what we're looking out for you as well, you know, as, as, uh, as
• 56:40
  your people and, and the environment.
• 56:42
  And so, yeah, that's definitely what we're trying to do.
• 56:45
  So, Andrew, I realized that I went off a, on a bit of a tangent on seaweed 'cause
• 56:48
  I'm like getting more options Yeah.
• 56:49
  Yeah, of course.
• 56:50
  No worries.
• 56:50
  Yeah, no worries.
• 56:51
  I guess the part that I really wanted to mention is that what differentiates
• 56:54
  us, I think, from others in the space is that we're very much like on the ground,
• 56:58
  we have our teams on every country that we operate in, we're far, we're focused.
• 57:03
  We're actually trying to work with the people who are closest to the fish.
• 57:05
  We're not like the policy stuff is like secondary, but really our
• 57:08
  bread and butter is that we're like, I work with aquaculture experts,
• 57:12
  they've all studied aquaculture.
• 57:13
  They understand exactly how to farm fish in the best way.
• 57:16
  And um, you know, so I think we go in there from a technical perspective
• 57:21
  or we're vet veterinarians as well.
• 57:22
  Right.
• 57:22
  So, um, Yeah.
• 57:24
  Yeah, that's, I think really our bread and butter is producer facing.
• 57:28
  Yes.
• 57:29
  Yeah.
• 57:29
  Small scales of systems, farming, uh, right.
• 57:32
  Oriented.
• 57:33
  Yeah.
• 57:33
  That's all I want.
• 57:34
  Yeah.
• 57:34
  Very much like, very much community focus, you know, like
• 57:37
  in helping the community as well.
• 57:39
  Um, And so sometimes, like you said, it might be fish that might help, or it might
• 57:42
  be seaweed or it might be something else.
• 57:44
  You never know.
• 57:45
  Um, and I think that's, that's really great.
• 57:47
  What's, uh, so for, for the organization, obviously a, a, a fairly new organization,
• 57:51
  um, what are you, what are your hopes in the, in the future, like to direct
• 57:56
  this organization and where do you hope that, that you can be, um, uh, like best
• 58:02
  helpful, you know, for, for communities and, and countries And so forth?
• 58:07
  Like, what do you have on the horizon or what are you hoping
• 58:09
  to accomplish on the horizon?
• 58:11
  So seaweed was a big one definitely for us.
• 58:14
  Uh, that that came, kind of came outta nowhere.
• 58:15
  That I'm really not sure.
• 58:17
  Well, I think the sky's, the sky's the limit in terms where we can
• 58:20
  go, just because there's so much excitement and funding thrown at that.
• 58:24
  Um, but I, it's a bit of a learning curve for me because I actually don't
• 58:27
  know too, too much just about how, like, it is quite, it's actually
• 58:30
  quite a, a whole field in itself.
• 58:33
  You know, I know a lot about animals, but I don't actually know too much about the
• 58:37
  botanical aspect of that, unfortunately.
• 58:39
  Yeah.
• 58:39
  Yeah.
• 58:40
  So that's, that's becoming bigger, uh, aspect of our work.
• 58:44
  Um, we haven't talked about it at all the, in our, uh, chat today,
• 58:49
  but, uh, caviar farming is something that I've also seen received.
• 58:53
  Actually, when you're talking earlier about like the zoo, for some reason
• 58:57
  I started thinking of like sturgeon and like, yeah, I was watching.
• 59:00
  That's big out here.
• 59:02
  Yeah, huge.
• 59:02
  I was watching some videos of like these, like stirs, like the baby
• 59:06
  sturgeon being released and I was like, mm-hmm man, if enough people saw
• 59:09
  just like how amazing these fish were.
• 59:11
  Like the caviar industry is actually responsible for a
• 59:15
  fair bit of cruelty really.
• 59:16
  And it's something that mm-hmm.
• 59:17
  I published about in the last couple of years and I have a
• 59:21
  ongoing project with someone from UBC, animal Welfare Department.
• 59:24
  Um, well, she's a graduate from there.
• 59:27
  Um, we like interviewed producers to see how we can do things better.
• 59:31
  Interesting.
• 59:31
  It is not a huge area of workforce us it's just something I came to mind Yeah.
• 59:34
  Yeah.
• 59:34
  When you were talking, um, other, I guess we have a, um, we're trying to work with
• 59:41
  governments to develop codes of practices on farm fish welfare, uh, in Africa.
• 59:46
  So we have the Kenyan government invited us to develop one for them,
• 59:50
  which would be something that will voluntary, but we believe that
• 59:54
  the industry will, uh, sign on.
• 59:57
  Uh, but that's kind.
• 59:59
  You know, so Africa, the thing about African aquaculture is it's
• 1:00:01
  the fastest growing in the world.
• 1:00:03
  So part of our focus to work there was that we get in there mm-hmm.
• 1:00:06
  For like all these like, bad practices that we see in salmon farming
• 1:00:10
  and all that gets like embedded.
• 1:00:13
  So through things like the code of practice, through early training, through
• 1:00:17
  steering the industry, you know, towards good technologies from the get go, I
• 1:00:22
  think we can do, have, have impact.
• 1:00:25
  So I'm excited about this approach of like, you know, working, uh,
• 1:00:28
  trying to incorporate high level, uh, approaches, not just, you
• 1:00:32
  know, farmer work as I mentioned.
• 1:00:34
  Um, what else am I excited about for this year?
• 1:00:37
  I'm writing a book on, uh, like, like academic book.
• 1:00:40
  Yeah.
• 1:00:40
  I was to write that.
• 1:00:41
  Yeah.
• 1:00:41
  So I guess on a personal level that could, it's always interesting because
• 1:00:44
  you end up absolutely loads Yeah.
• 1:00:46
  Yeah.
• 1:00:47
  Yeah.
• 1:00:47
  Cool.
• 1:00:48
  It, it kind of adds to, to your credibility, right.
• 1:00:51
  As well as, as someone who's in this space and helping out countries and not
• 1:00:55
  only part of an organization, but you know, putting your words to paper and,
• 1:00:59
  and teaching other people as, as well.
• 1:01:01
  So I think, think that's, yeah.
• 1:01:02
  That's fantastic.
• 1:01:04
  And Andrew actually, sorry, the Humane Slaughter project I mentioned earlier,
• 1:01:07
  like yeah, if we can, if we can find or like refine a protocol, just even
• 1:01:12
  just for like using ice as a ice slurry to like immers fish quickly
• 1:01:17
  emerge fish after taking out water.
• 1:01:19
  Yeah.
• 1:01:19
  In like the most humane way possible.
• 1:01:21
  If we can perfect that and, you know, adapt it so that people can use it
• 1:01:25
  easily, I think that could reduce a lot of suffering in a low cost, high impact way.
• 1:01:29
  So I'm very excited about the trials that are, are ongoing.
• 1:01:32
  Yeah.
• 1:01:32
  And that we'll continue to go on this year.
• 1:01:34
  So that's another thing that I see on the horizon.
• 1:01:37
  Sorry, I cut you off Yeah.
• 1:01:38
  Yeah, no, no, I, I mean that's great 'cause I was just about to just say thank
• 1:01:41
  you and everything, but that was awesome.
• 1:01:42
  I'm glad you told me about that.
• 1:01:44
  Um, 'cause it's just the different ways that people are thinking about
• 1:01:46
  making sure that we're treating the animals more humanely, you know?
• 1:01:50
  And, And so, you know, aquaculture as we know is, is one of the fastest
• 1:01:54
  growing, uh, fisheries in the world.
• 1:01:56
  Um, you know, it's, it's slated to, uh, if not already, uh, you know, serve
• 1:02:01
  about 50% of the population, like world population, uh, probably more than that.
• 1:02:05
  In, in, in coming.
• 1:02:06
  As you mentioned, African, African countries are probably the
• 1:02:09
  biggest, the biggest growth of, of aquaculture in the continent overall.
• 1:02:13
  Um, And so it's, it's very interesting to be able to, to talk to you,
• 1:02:16
  uh, today about this with semen and, and be able to, you know,
• 1:02:19
  enlighten us on this type of work.
• 1:02:21
  You know, I'd love, I know we are, we kind of covered a lot today and, and,
• 1:02:25
  and a lot of different things, but I'd love to invite you back on to talk about
• 1:02:28
  specific projects and, and dive deeper into it, um, into the science and just
• 1:02:32
  to kinda give people a perspective of, of the type of research that's that's
• 1:02:35
  going on and, and how it, it it ties to.
• 1:02:38
  Helping community because I find with, with, with conservation, it's
• 1:02:42
  really managing communities, right?
• 1:02:43
  Absolutely.
• 1:02:44
  And, and it's a big part of that.
• 1:02:45
  Absolutely.
• 1:02:46
  And, um, because we do a lot of the disturbance, so if we're gonna do a
• 1:02:48
  lot of the disturbance, we need to be managed, we need to do it right.
• 1:02:51
  Um, it's great to have yourself and, and your team, uh, to be out there and, and
• 1:02:55
  helping, um, you know, countries who are potentially new to this, uh, different
• 1:02:59
  types of, of, of, uh, farming or just, you know, welfare of, of animals in general.
• 1:03:04
  Be interested and, and work with your, your organization to help out.
• 1:03:07
  I wanna thank you for your work, but I also wanna thank you for coming
• 1:03:09
  and sharing your story with us.
• 1:03:11
  I really appreciate that and I'm always happy to come back
• 1:03:13
  and talk to your audience.
• 1:03:14
  It's been really, really, uh, a joy, uh, as always to talk
• 1:03:18
  about our work and to share.
• 1:03:19
  I just wanted to say, uh, Andrew that personally, you know, like when
• 1:03:22
  I saw this like title of speaking up for the blue, I was like, ah,
• 1:03:26
  yeah, is, is our work a good fit?
• 1:03:27
  But I still want to like, kind of go for it.
• 1:03:29
  I'm like, well, you know, absolutely.
• 1:03:31
  You know, it's not Ocean.
• 1:03:32
  Absolutely.
• 1:03:32
  It's not necessarily like, you know, the sexy Marine biology stuff, but it's
• 1:03:35
  important and it's an important part of the debate and we're trying to get
• 1:03:38
  ourselves out there in different circles.
• 1:03:40
  Go ahead.
• 1:03:40
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:03:42
  It's, it's one of those things where, um, you know, people are always asking.
• 1:03:46
  You know, people are always asking about it.
• 1:03:47
  And, and although it's not like the major topics of, of today in terms of like,
• 1:03:53
  you know, like you said, being sexy, like climate change and things like that.
• 1:03:56
  But it's something that we have to identify.
• 1:03:57
  It's not just all about, you know, the major impacts that are, that
• 1:04:00
  are, uh, hindering us, but it's also making sure that we're treating the
• 1:04:03
  animals properly in whatever we do.
• 1:04:05
  You know, whether it's through experimentation, whether it's through
• 1:04:08
  aquaculture, whether it's through wildlife caught fisheries, um, you know, the,
• 1:04:12
  the, the less impact we have, the be, you know, more humane impact we have,
• 1:04:17
  the better, you know, and I think that's a, that's a huge, uh, aspect to, uh, to
• 1:04:21
  discussing and talking about the Ocean.
• 1:04:23
  So I wanna thank you so much for the work you do and of
• 1:04:25
  course, coming on the podcast.
• 1:04:27
  Em, it's been great to have you on.
• 1:04:28
  Thank you so much.
• 1:04:29
  It's really been a pleasure.
• 1:04:30
  Yeah.
• 1:04:30
  Thanks again.
• 1:04:31
  Thank you.
• 1:04:31
  Was for joining us on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
• 1:04:35
  It was great to have you on.
• 1:04:36
  It was great to have a great conversation on ethical seafood, ethical
• 1:04:39
  treatment of seafood in particular.
• 1:04:41
  So fish welfare, it's not a conversation that we talk a lot about.
• 1:04:44
  It's a conversation that we should talk more about and I think
• 1:04:46
  when that conversation arises, a lot of people think of like.
• 1:04:49
  Activism and advocacy, but there's a lot of science that can
• 1:04:53
  go into this type of research.
• 1:04:54
  Even like within the aquaculture industry, there's fish feed
• 1:04:57
  that you have to look at.
• 1:04:57
  How is the feed created?
• 1:04:59
  Like how is it made?
• 1:05:00
  Where are the fish that are caught to make that fish feed?
• 1:05:02
  Are they being fished sustainably?
• 1:05:03
  Are they being treated properly?
• 1:05:05
  And the same with the fish in aquaculture pens, the same with the fish.
• 1:05:08
  Wild caught.
• 1:05:09
  Are we doing what we can to reduce the amount of pain, reduce the
• 1:05:13
  amount of problems that we are having on the Ocean and on that
• 1:05:16
  particular fish that's being eaten.
• 1:05:17
  So it's a very interesting field of study, one that doesn't get
• 1:05:20
  talked about a lot, and I'm so happy to have Wassim on the podcast to
• 1:05:24
  be able to talk to him about it.
• 1:05:25
  So super happy that he's here.
• 1:05:27
  I'd love to hear what you have to think about.
• 1:05:29
  Fish welfare, do you care?
• 1:05:30
  Do you not care?
• 1:05:31
  What do you care about in terms of fish welfare?
• 1:05:33
  Love to hear your thoughts.
• 1:05:34
  Let me know in the comments below if you're watching this on YouTube
• 1:05:36
  and if you're listening to this on your favorite podcast app.
• 1:05:38
  On the audio part, love our audio listeners because that's
• 1:05:41
  the first thing I did when I came in to the podcast industry.
• 1:05:44
  I was dealing with audio and I still love my audio listeners.
• 1:05:47
  You can go to speak up for blue.com/feedback.
• 1:05:51
  That's speak up for blue.com/feedback, and you can either put in a voice note
• 1:05:56
  or you can write your thoughts down and I will get to read them and maybe
• 1:05:59
  share them later on if you so desire.
• 1:06:01
  But I wanna thank you so much until then for listening to this episode of
• 1:06:05
  the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
• 1:06:07
  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin from the True Nor Strong and free.
• 1:06:09
  Have a great day.
• 1:06:10
  We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.