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Why Sea Cucumbers Matter More Than You Think · How To Protect The Ocean

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  One of the most important animals in the ocean is something most people never even
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  think about, and we're removing it faster than almost anything else in the world.
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  This is the How to Protect the Ocean podcast, your weekday ocean news update.
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  If you've been following me at all for the last couple of months, you've noticed
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  that I've been doing, like theme weeks.
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  So every week, there's an interview on the Friday, and I take that interview, and I
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  break down the interview so that I prepare you for the interview by doing four solo
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  episodes, Monday to Thursday, every week.
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  This week, we're gonna do something different.
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  We're gonna go back to old school How to Protect the Ocean podcast,
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  where it's not really gonna necessarily gonna be themed week.
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  It's just gonna be stuff that I really found interesting and
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  it's gonna be five solo episodes.
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  So Monday to Friday, you're gonna get different episodes, probably
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  about 10 minutes long or so
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  but just covering stories that I find interesting that I
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  wanted to kinda update you on.
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  I'm gonna have more interviews coming soon.
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  I'm conducting two this week.
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  We're gonna go back to our regular programming of four solo episodes
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  with an interview on the Friday.
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  I I hope you enjoy this.
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  Let me know what are you liking.
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  I'm looking forward to doing more of the theme episodes.
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  But for now, we're just gonna try to switch it up and go a little assorted.
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  It's an assorted week this week.
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  And today, we're gonna be talking about sea cucumbers.
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  And today's episode answers really one simple question.
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  Why should anyone care about sea cucumbers?
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  That's really the question that I think a lot of people are Because, you know, when
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  you look at a sea cucumber, it doesn't look the most appetizing, let's just say.
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  It looks like a massive worm.
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  They come in a variety of colors, right?
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  They come in black, they come in pink, they go white, they're gray, they're blue.
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  Like, they come in a lot of different colors, but they als- often have,
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  like, detritus all over them.
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  They're part of the echinoderm family, like the starfish family but
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  they don't look anything like a starfish from what you would think.
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  A starfish looks like a star.
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  It has, like, the five sort of limbs, and it looks kinda cool
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  and just kinda cool to pick up.
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  And you have sea stars as well, which have more than five limbs,
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  but they look like starfish.
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  When people say starfish, they look like, "That's really cool." But sea
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  cucumbers are very different but they're very important in the marine ecosystem
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  cause they're, they just pick up stuff.
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  They're detritus eaters, meaning they just kinda pick up anything
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  that's on the ground that they can eat on the ocean bottom, and
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  they're kinda really important.
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  And so I want to kinda cover this 'cause there was a recent article on Mongabay
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  News, which we love Mongabay News here on the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
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  And so I want to cover one of these.
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  The article's looking at how these animals are decreasing because of fishing,
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  'cause people are eating sea cucumbers.
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  Yes, people eat sea cucumbers, even though they look a little different.
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  So we're gonna talk about that today because I think it's really interesting.
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  I am a big echinoderm fan, so I love starfish, I love sea stars, I love,
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  sea urchins, I love sea cucumbers.
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  I think they're all very, very interesting.
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  It's kind of an interesting thing to cover sea cucumbers because of the
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  fact that they are in demand right now.
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  And we have to look out at what's happening, right?
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  Because what's happening to them tells us a lot about how the ocean actually
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  works and how it starts to break down.
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  And so I think that's what we're gonna be talking about today.
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  A new study highlighted by Mongabay is raising concerns about the
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  global trade in sea cucumbers.
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  Because like I said before, demand is rising, and prices are so high for these.
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  And harvesting is happening much faster, and then many of the populations
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  can recover for sea cucumbers.
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  These animals are being collected across tropical regions, often with
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  weak monitoring, limited regulation, and in many cases, illegal trade.
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  When you are capturing these things, it's not like regular fisheries where
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  you put a pole, a rod and pole, or you have a net and you try and pick them up.
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  You can just go diving and just pick them up.
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  They're not gonna run from you.
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  They're not gonna sit there and bite you.
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  They're not gonna cause any harm.
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  You have, uh, gloves on.
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  You just pick them up, put them in your net, and you can collect a bunch of them.
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  You do have to be careful because if you kill one of them, they
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  release, like, this toxin out.
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  It's a deterrent to do that.
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  You do have to be careful.
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  But it's really easy to just go snorkeling or go free diving or even go scuba
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  diving and just pick up as many as you can because a lot of times when you see
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  one, you're gonna see a bunch of them.
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  They're not easy to spot, but I'm sure these fishers are going out
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  and they're finding them pretty quickly because it's easy to do that.
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  Most of them are dried and sold as a luxury food product.
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  And while that might sound like a niche issue, it's not really because sea
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  cucumbers are not just another species.
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  Sea cucumbers actually act like the ocean's cleanup crew.
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  They sit on the bottom of the ocean, the sea floor, and they process sediment.
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  So essentially, they will go through the sediment with their little filaments
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  that they have, and they go through the sediment, and they pick up all the stuff.
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  They recycle all those nutrients.
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  So all the stuff that goes in, all the crap essentially that is on the bottom
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  of the ocean gets cycled through the sea cucumber, and then it gets recycled
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  as nutrients, which is kinda cool.
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  And they help keep ecosystems stable.
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  So I think that's a really cool thing.
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  They're like a sanitation system or a recycling system.
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  So when you have sea cucumbers that go through an area, they will just kinda
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  go through any kind of, like, ammonia or anything that can cause ammonia, right,
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  as part of the nutrient cycle, and just kinda pick up stuff that gets bad.
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  Like, if you ever have an aquarium and you let all the fish poo and
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  everything else, like, sit on the bottom for too long, it breaks down.
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  It can turn into ammonia, you get what's called an ammonia bomb.
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  So all the ammonia stays underneath the sediment, and once that is released, you
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  can actually kill animals from that.
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  And so in the ocean, you can get the same thing, but these animals will
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  go through and they're the janitors.
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  They just kinda clean up the system and it's really cool that they do that.
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  So without them, the sea floor becomes a lot less healthy, and
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  nutrients don't cycle in the same way.
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  That can be a detriment to the ocean floor, the ecosystem and
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  over time, that affects everything from coral reefs to fisheries, and
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  that is something we don't want.
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  But this is the part that people miss.
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  The ocean doesn't run on the animals we pay attention to.
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  It runs on the ones we ignore.
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  So it doesn't run on, like, salmon.
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  It doesn't run on cod.
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  It doesn't run on whales.
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  I mean, they all help, and they all contribute in some kind of way.
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  Like, if you've ever heard of whale fall, where whales die, they go
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  to the bottom, they get eaten up.
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  But all those microbes, invertebrates like sea cucumbers and starfish and
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  crabs and lobsters and shrimp and all the different, like, worms that we see, those
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  are the ones we kind of ignore, and those are the ones that really help keep that
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  bottom clean, keep that ocean cycling.
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  And that's really important.
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  And when those species disappear, the ones that we normally ignore, the
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  system doesn't collapse all at once.
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  But it will, eventually.
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  It weakens slowly.
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  Now, I wanna interrupt just a little bit, 'cause if you're getting value from this,
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  Now, so the challenge of these sea cucumbers, this whole sea cucumber issue,
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  is that there's not a lack of knowledge.
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  We know these species are vulnerable, and we know trade is increasing, and we
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  know regulation is also inconsistent.
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  But the real issue is governance.
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  When you go back and look at enforcement, it's really difficult to enforce when
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  these sea cucumbers are found all over the place, especially in shallow areas.
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  So If I were somebody on a beach, and I went out snorkeling, just looking
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  at snorkeling, and I just grab like a net, like a bag that's in a form of a
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  net, and I just start packing them in.
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  And then I can go up into the forest, I can go up down the
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  road, and I can sell it to people.
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  It's really easy to do.
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  So it's difficult to enforce.
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  And so the real issue is what I say is governance.
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  There's a global supply chain.
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  So it's harvested in one region and sold in another and monitored
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  poorly across the entire system.
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  So the opportunity is clear.
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  We need better tracking of the supply chain, which to be honest, is with
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  a lot of these fisheries, right?
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  We need better tracking.
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  We need to track the entire supply chain.
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  And then when we are able to track the entire supply chain,
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  we need stronger enforcement.
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  And treating these species like critical infrastructure, not just seafood.
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  That's what we need to do.
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  We need to really realize that these species are very important to the ocean
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  and very important to the ocean mechanics.
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  And that's something that we need to start really thinking about the ocean in
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  general is we need to respect how the ocean functions and not just take what
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  we want and expect nothing to happen.
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  ' Cause the ocean doesn't collapse when the big animals disappear.
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  It collapses when the small invisible ones do.
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  And that's what we're starting to see, and we don't want this to happen.
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  So with that said, if you see sea cucumber on the menu, make sure it's
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  sustainable, make sure it's monitored.
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  Very difficult to do.
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  Hopefully, we can get to that one day because we know seafood
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  monitoring is a very difficult.
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  But in the meantime, pay attention, stay updated, and keep listening to
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  the How to Protect the Ocean podcast by hitting that follow button.
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  And I want to thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the
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  How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
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  Have a great day.
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  We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.