Latest / How To Protect The Ocean / Madagascar Environment and Shark Science with Dr. David Ebert

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Madagascar Environment and Shark Science with Dr. David Ebert · How To Protect The Ocean

• 0:00
  Have you ever wondered how sharks get discovered?
• 0:03
  Now, I'm not talking about just, you know, regular sharks, like
• 0:05
  your great whites, your makos, your bull sharks, your tiger sharks.
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  Those are like sort of the iconic sharks.
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  Those are like the popular kids in class type of sharks.
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  But these are the sharks that are really unknown because they've been lost or
• 0:17
  they haven't been seen in a long time.
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  But it's important to know if they've gone extinct or if they're still around.
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  And to be able to say, Hey, there are actually a lot more sharks than the
• 0:25
  sharks that we talk about or we see in documentaries and in movies all the time.
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  It's important to know the diversity because it's important to know how
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  far they each stretch out in terms of shape, form, size, look, different
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  adaptations, and so forth, and even different depths within the ocean.
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  Well, today on the podcast I have Dr. David Ebert, who is my co-host
• 0:42
  for the Beyond Jaws podcast.
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  He's here to talk about his trip, recent trip to Madagascar, where he
• 0:47
  went to look for lost sharks, and we're gonna talk to him about his journey.
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  It's gonna be a lot of fun.
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  I can't wait to start the show.
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  So let's start the show.
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  Here we go.
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  Hey everybody.
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  Welcome back to another exciting episode of the Head to Protect the Ocean podcast.
• 1:02
  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where
• 1:04
  you find out what's happening.
• 1:05
  At the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, what you can do to live
• 1:08
  for a better ocean by taking action.
• 1:10
  I have a special treat for you today because this is an episode that we are
• 1:13
  going to show on Beyond Jaws podcast.
• 1:16
  So if you haven't heard of Beyond Jaws, I do a separate podcast.
• 1:19
  I co-host it with a friend of mine, Dr. David Ebert.
• 1:22
  Who I actually met during an interview for this podcast a number of years
• 1:25
  ago, and we got along so well even before and after we did the podcast.
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  We actually recorded, we actually talked about an hour or two
• 1:32
  before and after the podcast.
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  We spent, you know, about like four hours on the call just to talk about
• 1:38
  everything, talk about science, talk about sharks, talk about sports and
• 1:41
  football and all this kind of stuff.
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  And it was a lot of fun and we just got to be friends over that time and
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  we decided, hey, you know what's.
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  Start a podcast on sharks because Dave is a shark biologist and he
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  is someone who's very into finding lost sharks and discovering sharks
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  that people don't really know about.
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  These are like smaller types of sharks, so they may not look like your typical shark.
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  They might be a skate, they might be a stingray.
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  They might.
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  Be a manta ray.
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  They might be a chimer, like a ghost shark, or they might be a deep sea shark,
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  like a goblin shark or a sleeper shark, and like all these different types of
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  sharks that are out there that we just don't know, which is why I love the
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  show all the Sharks on Netflix because we were able to see so many different
• 2:20
  types of sharks and shapes and sizes and.
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  Different types of adaptations and colors, of course, which were
• 2:26
  really cool to see during that show.
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  Well, Dave's, that's his life.
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  Dave is there to discover sharks.
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  He's discovered and named over 50 different types of sharks over his
• 2:35
  career, and he's here to talk about a project, a recent trip that he
• 2:38
  went to go to Madagascar, Africa to be able to look for specific sharks.
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  Now, did he find some, did he not?
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  We're kind of keeping that a little bit of a secret because we're
• 2:46
  gonna be showing it on his show.
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  At Lost Shark Guy on his YouTube channel, and I wanted to kind of give
• 2:52
  you a perspective of what it's like to look for lost sharks, and it's
• 2:56
  probably not your typical way when you think about someone going into
• 2:59
  the field and looking for lost sharks.
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  It's very different than going out at sea all the time and looking for a needle in
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  a haystack because the ocean is so vast.
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  It's so big.
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  It's so deep.
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  It's very difficult to just go fishing for it or seeing it as
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  bycatch, although that has happened.
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  We saw that on alien sharks.
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  On Discovery Channel is some of his graduate students of the past, and
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  so I think it's important to talk about how Dave finds lost sharks
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  in a lot of these countries and how he prepares for a trip like this.
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  This is a series of trips that he's done over the last three years with help from
• 3:28
  the Save Overseas Foundation that provides the funding for this type of work.
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  And he talks about that and we're gonna talk all about that.
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  On today's episode, so here's the interview with Dr. David
• 3:37
  Ebert, talking about discovering Lost sharks in Madagascar.
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  Enjoy the interview and I will talk to you after.
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  Hey everybody.
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  Welcome back to the Beyond Jaws podcast.
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  We're gonna be doing something a little different today.
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  We're having Dave Ebert as our guest on the podcast today because he just
• 3:52
  came back from an incredible trip where he was looking for lost sharks.
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  It's one of his trips that he does every year.
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  Seems like for the last couple of years.
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  Uh, and we are gonna talk about.
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  Some of the things he's gonna tease, some of the things that he may or
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  may not have been like searching for and may or may not have found.
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  We're gonna talk a lot about sort of what it's like to go into a country like
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  Madagascar, where he went and what it was like to, you know, go into the fish
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  markets and look for these lost sharks and engage with the local community.
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  It's gonna be a great episode.
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  Let's get started with the show.
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  Hey everybody.
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  Welcome back to another.
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  Citing episode of the Beyond Jaws podcast.
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  I am your co-host, Andrew Lewin, here with my co-host Dr. David Ebert.
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  But today's a little different 'cause.
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  Dave is our guest today.
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  So Dave, welcome to the Beyond Jaws podcast.
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  Are you ready to talk about lost sharks?
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  Absolutely Andrew, and thanks for, thanks for inviting me on the show.
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  Isn't it great when you have like a podcast to yourself, like you're Oh yeah.
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  You just be, you're like, Hey, can I just be the guest?
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  Yeah.
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  We're gonna talk about my trip.
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  Absolutely.
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  Because this is what people wanna know and people wanna know about your trip, right?
• 4:58
  Well.
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  Exactly.
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  And plus it's easy to book me.
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  We're doing this like, just to let people know, like the, the day that
• 5:06
  we're recording this is on Thanksgiving, Canadian Thanksgiving, uh, so it's,
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  it is like I've had the day off.
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  I had a little break with family stuff 'cause we did our Thanksgiving yesterday.
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  Dave's like, Hey, you wanna get together?
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  Let's talk about it.
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  I'm like, absolutely, let's do it today.
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  'cause we actually have some time to relax.
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  And for all those who you don't know, some of the, some of you who have been
• 5:24
  guests on the podcast know that when we record the show, we record a show.
• 5:27
  And it's usually like, you know, 30 minutes to an hour, sometimes
• 5:30
  a little longer, but afterwards.
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  And before Dave and I talked probably for like two to three hours.
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  So it's, it's been a long haul already.
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  We've already been talking for an hour.
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  We're getting into the episode.
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  We'll probably talk for a little bit after that.
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  Uh, but that's the experience you get as a guest on this podcast.
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  For any of you who have either been on it or watch this or want to be on in
• 5:49
  the future, uh, that's what to expect.
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  So just to let you know that.
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  But regardless, Dave, uh.
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  You are, you just came back from an incredible trip to Madagascar
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  looking for lost Sharks.
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  Can you talk a little bit, just set it up.
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  This has been a bit of a series.
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  We've been doing the videos on Lost Shark guy on, on YouTube.
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  We'll put the link in in the show notes.
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  Can you just talk about sort of your journey throughout this whole process
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  and how you ended up in Madagascar?
• 6:15
  Yeah.
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  Well, I gotta start off saying that the really the, the big thanks
• 6:19
  goes to the Save RCS Foundation.
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  Which is, I have a Keystone grant from, it's number 5, 9 4, and they've
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  been, they've been s spectacular with the supporting this and the projects.
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  The project's really been to raise awareness of these lost sharks and
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  these are species that haven't been seen in decades, you know, some
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  in a century or more sometimes.
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  And it's also also just to raise awareness of even of species of, of species that
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  people don't think about as sharks.
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  Yeah.
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  Things like the white shark, tiger, shark, you know, the
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  high profile, charismatic ones.
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  People know popular, the popular ones, but all these other ones, people
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  don't think about, especially in these, you know, a lot of these, uh,
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  developing countries like Madagascar.
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  And so the project I've been working on with, uh, the Save RCS Foundation
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  with their support has been to go to different location every year.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  We start off, two years ago, we went to, uh, south America, to Ecuador and Peru.
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  Spent spent, you know, spent few, several weeks there just traveling through,
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  looking for some different shark species.
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  Yeah.
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  Made a lot of great contacts there.
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  And in fact, the first, uh, we on, on my YouTube channel, uh, at Lost
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  Shark Guy on YouTube, the series, uh, searching for Lost Sharks Extinct
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  or Live, the first four episodes are up, and the, the episodes two
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  to four really focus a lot on.
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  Some of the South American species there and some of the species
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  that have been been, uh, uh, we went looking for and mm-hmm.
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  One, case one we didn't find, um, uh, but it has a whole story there.
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  And they're all, they're all short, like 10 minutes plus or minus a
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  few minutes if you, so it doesn't take up a big chunk of your time.
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  Yeah.
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  And then, um, and then last year we went to an amazing trip.
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  We went to, first we went to Darwin Australia up in the Northern Territory.
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  Uh, looking for river sharks.
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  Then from there we went on to Timor.
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  Lessie, just an incredible place.
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  And if you don't know where Timor-Leste is, it used to be called East Timor.
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  Go look at a map.
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  This place is like, yeah, almost no one knows about it out unless you live in
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  Australia or that part of the world.
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  It was just one of the most.
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  Unbelievable trips I've ever had.
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  And we're gonna be having an episode of that, uh, coming out here in the, in
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  the fourth, coming in a few months now.
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  And then from there, we went all the way through Indonesia,
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  starting in the, in the east.
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  Went through several places.
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  Ended up in far western Indonesia, again, highlighting a lot of speed,
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  new species there, uh, rare species.
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  Um, and the, and the cool thing with, with that, with this series,
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  and of course this, this year we went to Africa, went to Madagascar.
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  Uh, but I'm working with people in country.
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  That are basically a lot of young, early career students, uh, uh,
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  conservationists, uh, researchers.
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  And so it's kind of, it's been really neat working with these young people.
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  They're kind of passing along what I know, you know, passing my knowledge onto
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  these young people in these countries.
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  If you're basically the next generation, it'll be, you know, taking the torch.
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  You know, in the coming years.
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  Yeah.
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  And a lot of these, you know, most of these people are all like,
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  just really top-notch people.
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  And I hope if you've been following the series, we've had, most of
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  'em have been on the podcast here.
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  And so if you have a chance, like be sure to check in, you know, follow
• 9:20
  the podcast, check out the series, and then you can, you can follow
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  these other, these people out on their social media platforms as well.
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  And uh, so that's been really kind of another gratifying part
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  to me is just to be able to.
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  Work with a lot of these young people in these different countries
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  and you'll hear, hear about some of the people in Madagascar now.
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  Uh, that I had a chance to work with this year.
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  And, uh, so anyway, check out that series, uh, on the YouTube channel and,
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  uh, and you find out more about it.
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  And of course go to the Beyond Jaws 'cause you can hear most
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  of those people speaking there.
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  Um, and it's a, it's a phenomenal series.
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  Like I know we're biased, but it's, it's fun because it gives
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  you a, a taste of what you do in terms of searching for lost sharks.
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  A lot of, a lot of people and certainly myself, when I heard, you know, before
• 10:04
  I knew who you were, like before we met and stuff like that, I, I started to, you
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  know, do some research before you came on the podcast for the first time, and.
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  I was like, oh, how do you search for lot sharks?
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  Do you go out to sea all the time and, and like, go to these TRAs?
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  Because I saw Alien Sharks.
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  You know, when, when the Discovery channel had some of your students on
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  there at the time and, and I was like, oh, this is kind of an interesting way.
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  Like, but it's gotta be like, you know, you're looking for a needle in the
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  haystack here we're talking about the ocean and a lot of times deep sea ocean.
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  So how do you find these sharks?
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  But you know, when you, when you came on, we talked about it a lot and you've
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  really shown me, especially through these, these videos that, like the series that.
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  You know, searching for a lost shark is a lot like, uh, you know, really getting
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  into, diving into the communities of where they, you think these lost sharks have
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  been found or have been seen in the past.
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  And talking to fishing communities, talking to locals, and getting
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  to know them and building those relationships, like that's a,
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  that's a huge part of what you do.
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  And I think do, do you find, when, when people talk to you about the
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  work that you do, do you find that's the biggest surprise that they have
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  when they find out that that's how you find a lot of these lost sharks?
• 11:09
  Yeah.
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  Well a lot of 'em have, people have no, unless you're in the field, have no idea.
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  There's all these different shark species out there and they have no, almost no
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  idea that these things have, in some cases been, been, uh, been missing.
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  Right.
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  Um, you know, and, and I, and the thing is this was, you know, I finally, I
• 11:25
  used to do some of these different like alien shark series and for
• 11:28
  Shark Week and for Nat Geo and BBC.
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  And one of the things with this one, I wanted to be able to tell my story.
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  You know, the way I wanted to do it without, you know, editors and
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  corporate people telling, well, we need to do this, we need to, we
• 11:41
  need to have a flying white shark.
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  Which, you know, if anybody's, if you know, most people won't, but if
• 11:46
  you've worked in any of these shows, there always comes that one part.
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  When you're doing like a show, when they're doing a show prep or the
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  story prep, they'll say like, okay, now when does a white shark come
• 11:55
  into the, come into the episode?
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  And I'm like, well, there's no white shark in the episode.
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  Um, you know, and they're like, oh, well I don't know if we'll
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  wanna do this episode then.
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  So.
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  That's the nice thing about me.
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  I've had the freedom to kind of like, I'm telling my story and I've
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  had, you know, it's been great.
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  It's been really good.
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  Just for people know, like with this journey I've been on, I mean, two people
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  have been just invaluable, has been Denise Sotomayor is a young Peruvian journalist,
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  filmmaker, uh, underwater cinematographer.
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  She's been with me on these journeys the last three years,
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  filming, filming these things here.
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  And then of course, Andrew, you've been.
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  Invaluable editing this stuff here.
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  'cause I have no idea what I'm doing.
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  Editing.
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  I can, I can do the story, I can go through all the film clips, but, but I,
• 12:37
  I, um, thank God I got you to do the, uh, do the editing on this whole thing.
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  Um, and, uh, but, but, but both Denise and Andrew have been just
• 12:45
  invaluable in this whole thing.
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  And, and even Denise.
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  'cause Denise has had to go through these different adventures with me.
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  And in the last three years we've had like, well, let's see.
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  We've had coups, political assassinations, oh man.
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  Near, nearly getting eaten by crocodiles.
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  Um, it's been, it's been kind of fun.
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  It's been interesting.
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  Let's just say, yeah.
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  It's been very interesting and Andrew's sitting back there in Toronto going, oh,
• 13:07
  wow, that's, that sounds kind of exciting.
• 13:09
  Yeah.
• 13:11
  You know, well, I think, I think it also, it, it speaks to the, um,
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  some of the dangers of the world.
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  You know, like, like a lot of the times, you know, for me, I don't think I've ever.
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  Uh, thought when I was growing up through, going through my undergrad,
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  going through my graduate studies that I would ever work in a country, uh,
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  that I didn't necessarily consider, you know, quote unquote safe.
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  You know, where I could do field work and I wouldn't be, other than the sort of
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  the, um, the dangers of the environment that you're working in, you know, on a
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  boat or at sea, you know, when you're doing field work that I never had, I
• 13:45
  never thought about, you know, different like the politics of a country or
• 13:50
  some of the emerging issues that are happening within, within countries.
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  You know, as you mentioned some of those, so.
• 13:56
  A lot of times you don't think about the dangers that the people,
• 13:59
  the, some of the people who you mentor are in just doing their work.
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  Mm-hmm.
• 14:04
  You know?
• 14:04
  Yeah.
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  And that, like, that's, it's, it's scary when you think about it.
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  I've, I've definitely been, um, you know, been educated through what the
• 14:12
  work that you do and other people have done over the years of how dangers it
• 14:15
  could be, uh, in a lot of these places, and how some people who live in certain
• 14:19
  countries have to be more careful in how they go about their business and go
• 14:24
  about their science, because it could be.
• 14:26
  Misconstrued as, you know, interfering with other maybe, you know, not so great
• 14:32
  activities going on in that country and that their, their lives could be
• 14:36
  put at risk, you know, in that kind.
• 14:38
  Exactly.
• 14:38
  I mean, they're, and, and again, you know, this, I, you know, I, I don't share a
• 14:41
  lot of stuff on air or publicly because, 'cause my colleagues that are in the,
• 14:46
  still in those countries could be at risk if I shared a lot of more, exactly
• 14:49
  more detail on things I experienced.
• 14:51
  You know, if it's just me.
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  And once I, you know, because I'm, I leave, I'm outta the country.
• 14:55
  It's like, you know, I'm a little more open.
• 14:57
  But if I got friends, colleagues there, collaborators, I, I
• 15:00
  gotta be careful what I say.
• 15:01
  'cause I don't want them to suddenly become a, get a target on their back.
• 15:05
  Mm-hmm.
• 15:05
  Some, some guy who's left, who's left the country now.
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  Um, and so like, and if anybody, you know, most people don't know, but
• 15:13
  I'm, all I'm gonna say is like, if you follow any international news
• 15:16
  and stuff, you'll know Madagascar.
• 15:18
  About two days after I left, they had a. Some civil unrest there,
• 15:22
  and I think they've, they're on their third, third president now.
• 15:25
  The last few weeks since I left, and um, so there's stuff going on there, but
• 15:29
  anyway, but there's a lot of, there's a lot of other challenges you meet
• 15:32
  too as well when you're, when you're working a lot of these places or, and
• 15:35
  I, I try to convey that, but, you know, you got things like your working areas
• 15:39
  that it's difficult to get around.
• 15:40
  Madagascar, it's, it's definitely hard to get around.
• 15:43
  The roads are not really very good.
• 15:46
  You know, you basically, the best thing to do is hire somebody just, which what
• 15:49
  we did and just who's basically a driver of the vehicle just takes you, yeah.
• 15:52
  To some of these remote spots and um, you know, like people ask me, I think
• 15:58
  you'd even did early on, like, well, how do you find all these weird lost sharks?
• 16:02
  And it's like, well, 'cause I'll go places most people won't go.
• 16:05
  'cause if it's, you know, if it's easy to get there, you're probably not
• 16:08
  gonna find anything too exciting if you really have to work to get there.
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  Your chances are finding something pretty, pretty exciting goes way up
• 16:17
  and um, you know, what gives you that motivation to do that though, right?
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  Because like, I, I get it.
• 16:23
  Like I get that and it makes sense that a lot of places that are more remote,
• 16:27
  uh, you know, you find, you find those sharks, uh, whether you have to find it by
• 16:31
  land or you have to find it by sea or an island, you know, whatever that might be.
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  Ha.
• 16:36
  Have you always had that motivation to go that little extra mile to say,
• 16:39
  Hey, I wanna find these, these sharks.
• 16:42
  Yeah, I, yeah, I mean the whole, as I've kind of mentioned a few episodes, the Lost
• 16:46
  Shark thing kind of evolved over time.
• 16:48
  I didn't just decide I was gonna go find these lost sharks, but, but I
• 16:52
  have, I had that sort of explor gene and I've always had it right, and I've
• 16:55
  just wanted to go, and it's a curiosity too, like I wanted to go find things.
• 16:59
  I wanted to learn as much as I can about.
• 17:01
  All the different sharks and when, and just everybody know that when I say
• 17:04
  sharks, I'm talking about the rays.
• 17:05
  Yeah.
• 17:06
  Bat toys.
• 17:06
  All sharks.
• 17:07
  The ghost sharks.
• 17:07
  That's everything.
• 17:08
  They're all sharks.
• 17:10
  Thesal.
• 17:10
  Bris.
• 17:10
  Yeah.
• 17:10
  And yeah.
• 17:11
  And Ians.
• 17:12
  Yeah.
• 17:12
  And what, what really kind of the whole lost shark, uh, guy thing started back
• 17:18
  in the eighties when I was, even though I didn't call it that, but I would
• 17:21
  go off into the, you know, places.
• 17:23
  And at that time, nobody had really ever been to Namibia, even
• 17:26
  though people lived in Namibia.
• 17:27
  Mm-hmm.
• 17:28
  That nobody ever gone exploring the sharks there.
• 17:30
  I'd go off there and, and I'd, I'd be gone a couple of months and I'd
• 17:33
  come back with just wild things.
• 17:36
  I didn't know what to make at 'em.
• 17:37
  And fortunately I had a Professor Leonard Kanu, who had a broad knowledge
• 17:42
  of all kinds of, all things shark.
• 17:44
  And he'd see things I'd bring back.
• 17:46
  He'd tell me like, we haven't seen this in a hundred years.
• 17:48
  We haven't seen this species in 80 years.
• 17:51
  And I was like, well, that's kind of cool.
• 17:52
  So that only like a little bit that only inspired me to go, yeah.
• 17:56
  To go more, uh, to keep going.
• 17:58
  And so I went to a lot of places, and again, one of the, one of the
• 18:02
  things when you go to these places, I, you know, another question I
• 18:04
  get is like, well, aren't, aren't you worried about the sharks?
• 18:07
  And I'm like, sharks are like so far down on my list of things to be worried about.
• 18:11
  Um, you know, when you've, when I've, yeah.
• 18:13
  You know, I've been in places, and this was years ago,
• 18:16
  especially when I was young.
• 18:16
  I'm a little.
• 18:17
  There is this thing about age and wisdom for your young people listening.
• 18:20
  It really does.
• 18:22
  It is because when I was young, I You think twice?
• 18:24
  Yeah.
• 18:24
  When I was young in my twenties, I was like, sure, let's go do whatever.
• 18:27
  You know?
• 18:27
  And you didn't think about, you know, some of the, some of the realities of stuff.
• 18:32
  Yeah.
• 18:33
  Um, but, you know, civil unrest was a big thing would come up.
• 18:37
  Um, you know, you had different, you know, I'd been in some places
• 18:40
  where their coups took place where.
• 18:42
  Yeah, the government was, I literally was like there.
• 18:44
  And there be, people are like shooting at each other and stuff, and things don't
• 18:46
  even think about, um, when you, you're also in areas in, especially when you,
• 18:51
  when you, you're in areas in, in Africa when you, where you did your PhD mm-hmm.
• 18:54
  If you went to Namibia or, or other countries, adjacent
• 18:57
  countries to there where poverty was extreme in a lot of places.
• 19:02
  Just the fact of your personal, like the, the, your team and the people who
• 19:05
  are going with your personal safety can be at risk in a lot of these places if
• 19:09
  you're not, um, aware of what Oh, yeah.
• 19:12
  What you're going into.
• 19:13
  Right, right.
• 19:14
  You gotta be aware of stuff like, and like Namibia, when I used to go back
• 19:17
  there, we just take, me and my friend Paul Callie were both grad students.
• 19:20
  We just took off and went.
• 19:22
  There was just no, it was a little different.
• 19:24
  Other places we go to you, you, I always tried to, I learned early
• 19:27
  on to like work with local people.
• 19:29
  Where you could, uh, because a lot of times there's language barriers and
• 19:32
  stuff, but yeah, when you go to these, you go to these different places like,
• 19:36
  you know, Madagascar, you know, you go to these, some of these remote villages and.
• 19:40
  These little kids, you know, they've, they've never seen a white guy before.
• 19:43
  Literally.
• 19:43
  Yeah.
• 19:43
  Yeah.
• 19:44
  A white guy.
• 19:45
  A white guy with blue eyes especially.
• 19:47
  Yeah.
• 19:47
  Um, you know, and you just got these little kids follow you around there and
• 19:49
  just like, you know, kind of like you're, they're curious and you're curious.
• 19:53
  Of course.
• 19:53
  Then after a few minutes they, they're like, Hey, maybe this
• 19:56
  guy has some money sitting.
• 19:57
  They're begging for money from you.
• 19:58
  Yeah.
• 19:59
  And um, one of the things just kind of a pro tip.
• 20:01
  Never give money out.
• 20:02
  When you're traveling these places, you might feel like you want to but don't.
• 20:05
  It's, it'll go, it won't go, it won't end well for you in a lot of those places.
• 20:09
  Right?
• 20:09
  Yeah.
• 20:09
  Once you, once you start pulling out that wallet or putting
• 20:11
  that money, it's all gone.
• 20:13
  Right?
• 20:13
  It'll go bad.
• 20:14
  Yeah.
• 20:14
  So you don't wanna do that, but, but you know, you go through these places,
• 20:17
  you know, and you know, you, like, you, you know, you have a country,
• 20:20
  you know, like Madagascar, you know, you got like, illiteracy is about 70%.
• 20:25
  A lot of the country doesn't have much in the way of like, uh, electricity.
• 20:29
  Mm-hmm.
• 20:30
  Or, or clean water, certainly by Western standards.
• 20:33
  And, um, um, but you know, you still, but you know, you find some
• 20:38
  of the nicest people, you know, you go in these places, of course, you
• 20:41
  know, and they're like, you know, they're, they're often, they're very.
• 20:44
  You know, they'll show you around stuff and of course there they
• 20:46
  speak Malagasy or French, neither two languages I don't speak.
• 20:50
  Right.
• 20:50
  And, uh, but yeah, work again, this is where coming and working
• 20:52
  with, um, local people and, and in this case, in Madagascar, I
• 20:55
  was working with, uh, uh, wildlife Conservation Society people, uh, WCS.
• 21:00
  These are, uh, some of the people, uh, Rhett Bennett, who's South
• 21:03
  African, who's been on the podcast.
• 21:05
  Yep.
• 21:05
  Some, some of the people work for him.
• 21:07
  'cause Rhett's sort of the Western Indian Ocean Regional director for, I
• 21:11
  apologize, I'm not getting your title correctly, but regional director there.
• 21:15
  Um, but like Christelle who's, uh, worked with her.
• 21:17
  And I apologize, I'm not pronouncing your last name, Christelle,
• 21:20
  because, um, I cannot possibly begin to pronounce it correctly.
• 21:24
  So, um, but you'll, we're gonna have her on the podcast here early next year.
• 21:28
  And so people get a chance to hear her story.
• 21:31
  Um, but she has a master's in marine science and she's, uh,
• 21:34
  um, uh, was just invaluable.
• 21:37
  Being able to get around knew, knew, knew where to go.
• 21:39
  We had a few of other people, a few of her colleagues there, a
• 21:42
  young guy named, liked his name's, like that's how you pronounce it.
• 21:46
  And, uh, he was great.
• 21:48
  Likable guy.
• 21:49
  Likable guy.
• 21:49
  Took us around all the fishermen.
• 21:51
  Another, another guy down the south that was up in the north of the noisy bee area.
• 21:56
  Down in the southwest.
• 21:57
  Another, uh, good friend of hers, Piero, who, uh, who uh, went to the
• 22:01
  university, uh, with Christelle, uh, took us around, took us to some just
• 22:05
  really remote villages that you just, you know, they were not easy to get to.
• 22:10
  Mm-hmm.
• 22:10
  In fact, one of the ones we went to.
• 22:12
  They were fish, they were catching deep sea sharks out there, which ended up being
• 22:15
  like one of the highlights for the trip.
• 22:18
  Um, just seeing these, some of these deep sea sharks, including, we got
• 22:21
  a, we got a new record of one of one ray, a new ray for, uh, Madagascar.
• 22:25
  That's awesome.
• 22:26
  Which is amazing.
• 22:27
  And then, and the other thing, they catch, um, sealants there, if you,
• 22:31
  if you don't know what seal cans are, they catch sealants there.
• 22:35
  And I didn't know they went that far south.
• 22:36
  Yeah, they're, yeah.
• 22:37
  Well, they didn't, yeah, they, they, the first ones came in in 1995.
• 22:41
  Right.
• 22:41
  And, uh, the fishermen knew all, but one thing the fishermen knew
• 22:44
  like, yeah, that's a big deal.
• 22:45
  You know, we don't see really this all the time.
• 22:47
  Yeah.
• 22:48
  We don't, they're not really great eating, but we catch 'em and Yeah.
• 22:50
  And stuff.
• 22:51
  So, um.
• 22:52
  Uh, so yeah, I, I'm sure if I would've given 'em some money, they
• 22:55
  probably would've caught one for me, but I really don't have any
• 22:57
  reason to want to get a sealant.
• 22:59
  Right.
• 23:00
  Um, but they caught some really other really interesting species, like some
• 23:03
  guer sharks and just some other deep sea squa OIDs, which are really where
• 23:08
  I, I I see those deep sea things that you get pretty fascinated by 'em.
• 23:11
  Yeah.
• 23:11
  Um, but, you know, it was a, it was, it took, you know, every day it was a couple
• 23:14
  hours just to get down to this place.
• 23:17
  You know, you go there, you see, like you, you pass a lot of the rivers and stuff.
• 23:20
  You see like people using the rivers, they're in their, they're, they're
• 23:23
  bathing, they're getting drinking water.
• 23:25
  There's cattle, there's wildlife in there.
• 23:28
  It's just, I mean, not the most hygienic place you'd wanna be, right, right.
• 23:32
  To get water.
• 23:33
  Um, but, but you see those types of conditions because that's, that's
• 23:36
  the only place there's, there's no real running, running water anywhere
• 23:39
  else and, uh, and everything.
• 23:41
  So it's kind of, I, I think another thing too, you ask.
• 23:45
  I like experiencing that stuff for myself firsthand.
• 23:48
  I mean, most people sit, you really get to see the world that way.
• 23:50
  Yeah.
• 23:50
  You see what's happening in these countries, right?
• 23:52
  You see a part of the world that 95% of the world never, of the, I say what
• 23:57
  95% of the western world doesn't see.
• 23:59
  Yeah.
• 24:00
  You know mean we hear about, but sometimes we don't hear about the right things.
• 24:03
  Like we hear about like the popular stuff that's happening such as like these
• 24:06
  riots and stuff, but you never really hear about the innards of like what?
• 24:11
  Goes on in the country on a day-to-day basis, what it's like, how the
• 24:13
  people, you know, how they're living, all that kind of stuff, right?
• 24:16
  Yeah.
• 24:17
  And Mo and most of those people are just trying to get by, just, you know, yeah.
• 24:19
  You know, go out, you know, provide for the FA family and you see these people
• 24:22
  go out, you see these fishermen go out and these just little dugout canoes.
• 24:25
  Right.
• 24:26
  Don't even look seaworthy.
• 24:28
  And yet these guys are just amazing.
• 24:30
  You watch 'em just, they, they got, they got these homemade sales and they
• 24:33
  can, I'll be posting some of this stuff.
• 24:35
  I've posted some already, but I'll be posting more stuff in the coming
• 24:38
  weeks on my social media, particularly Instagram and I, and I'll try to
• 24:42
  post some of my channel as well.
• 24:43
  But you just see these people out there, just like out there fishing
• 24:47
  and they're absolute mariners.
• 24:49
  Yeah.
• 24:49
  Uh, these guys out there and, uh, they'll go out there and just,
• 24:52
  and they go out at night sometimes and they'll fish for whatever.
• 24:55
  You know, sometimes 7, 8, 9, 10 hours out at sea and they just, they seem to
• 25:00
  know how to navigate because they're, they go, sometimes they'll go out.
• 25:03
  Fairly far out.
• 25:04
  Sometimes they'll be out for a couple of days.
• 25:06
  Mm-hmm.
• 25:06
  And I just don't know.
• 25:07
  I'm just like, I just can't believe they're even being
• 25:09
  able to navigate out there.
• 25:10
  But they're very good mariners.
• 25:12
  In fact, one, this one village we went to down the southwest was
• 25:15
  pretty remote place we went to.
• 25:17
  Funny story is, um, we came walking up over the dunes sand dunes from
• 25:22
  the village to the beach where the boats where they come in and
• 25:25
  land and they came over the dune.
• 25:27
  There's these little kids with homemade surfboards outta wood.
• 25:33
  The tree home made surfboards outta wood.
• 25:35
  Yeah, I mean, I mean it sound, it literally, they just some,
• 25:39
  some trees they chopped down.
• 25:40
  They made these little surfboards, nothing fancy.
• 25:44
  And they were literally like surfing.
• 25:46
  I mean like some were boogie boarding, but some were just
• 25:48
  popping up and standing up surfing.
• 25:51
  These were incredible kids.
• 25:52
  Like 5, 6, 7, 8 years old, maybe 10.
• 25:55
  Yeah.
• 25:55
  And they were surfing and just in the surf, like the
• 25:58
  shallow waves kind of thing.
• 26:00
  Yeah, well some of those waves were like three, four foot,
• 26:03
  so they weren't backed out.
• 26:04
  Yeah.
• 26:04
  So it's pretty big for a five or 6-year-old too.
• 26:05
  Yeah.
• 26:05
  I sent, sent, I, I sent, I sent a thing to, uh, I sent, I, I, I took,
• 26:09
  I took some video and I sent it back to my buddies in Santa Cruz, Neil
• 26:13
  Berg and, and, and a couple other guys that, Hey, check this out.
• 26:18
  These guys are here.
• 26:18
  Gonna give you some competition, these little kids.
• 26:21
  Wow.
• 26:21
  That was one of the, but that's the kind of thing like you.
• 26:24
  I, I just, I, I get me excited kind of seeing something like that.
• 26:28
  Like for sure.
• 26:28
  Who would ever think these guys would be thinking about surfing?
• 26:31
  Yeah.
• 26:32
  And what inspired I, what inspired these kids to pick up a board,
• 26:37
  to make a board to surf on.
• 26:38
  Because they don't, I wonder if that's just like a, like a generational thing.
• 26:42
  Like a traditional thing that people do as ways to enjoy the coastline
• 26:46
  and just enjoy the day, right.
• 26:48
  Uh, yeah.
• 26:48
  I mean, I think by the time these kids get to be 12, 13, 14,
• 26:52
  they're, they're going out fishing.
• 26:53
  They start, yeah, they working the fishing.
• 26:55
  So these are these, I say these kids were a little young, not quite, yeah.
• 26:58
  Age Well.
• 26:59
  'cause I think once they hit 12, 13, 14, they're.
• 27:02
  They're working in the fishing business pretty much.
• 27:05
  So these, that's why these kids were like really young and they're just playing
• 27:08
  like most kids, young kids would do.
• 27:10
  Yeah.
• 27:10
  Just playing around and having a, having a really good freaking time out there
• 27:14
  and stuff, and then wondering who the hell the sky is with, you know, coming
• 27:18
  around asking, coming around here, like asking questions, talking to their
• 27:22
  parents about different sharks and Yeah.
• 27:24
  You know, they're kind of like, yeah, I see these things all the time.
• 27:26
  What's the big deal?
• 27:27
  You know?
• 27:27
  Yeah.
• 27:28
  And, uh, uh, so I kind of, uh, so it was just.
• 27:31
  Yeah, that's one of those things like I, you know, we did get some film of
• 27:34
  that and I hope we get the episode up.
• 27:36
  We'll be able to show a little bit of these kids surfing
• 27:38
  if it, how it comes out.
• 27:39
  I mean, I can't, the little video I took didn't look that great,
• 27:43
  but hopefully Denise has some little better footage of it.
• 27:45
  But it's just, yeah, it's one of those like slice of life things you don't
• 27:49
  even think about amongst in this, in this kind of part of the world.
• 27:53
  Like these guys were actually got surfing on stuff and so
• 27:56
  anyways, that was kind of neat.
• 27:56
  That's awesome.
• 27:57
  That was kind of a neat little story.
• 27:58
  Oh yeah.
• 27:58
  That was kind of a neat little story.
• 28:00
  Um.
• 28:01
  Yeah, it was, it was, it was interesting.
• 28:03
  We went there, there was like three species I had on my hit list to go find.
• 28:08
  We found two.
• 28:09
  Well, I was gonna, I was gonna ask just before you go into that.
• 28:11
  Yeah.
• 28:11
  The preparation.
• 28:12
  When you go to a country like Madagascar, first of all, you
• 28:15
  know, like why Madagascar?
• 28:17
  Like, what, what made you want to go, like, you know, you've been to Ecuador
• 28:22
  and you've been to Perdu, Peru, you've been like, over the last few years,
• 28:25
  especially through these, these, uh, SOF uh, s let's say, overseas.
• 28:30
  Overseas.
• 28:30
  Um, and you, you've, you've gone to Darwin, East Timor, you
• 28:35
  know, Indonesia, like Jakarta, uh, and now you're Madagascar.
• 28:39
  So like what, uh, what was it about Madagascar.
• 28:42
  That, was it the actual species that you were looking for?
• 28:44
  Like what makes you get interested in like where these species kind of
• 28:48
  come on your radar, where you're like, Hey, I'm gonna look for this one.
• 28:52
  I, well, part of it is, uh, part of what the project I wanted to
• 28:55
  highlight different parts of the world.
• 28:57
  Okay.
• 28:58
  Uh, partly Madagascar came about because I've been to all of the
• 29:01
  other Eastern, a East African countries from Kenya to South Africa.
• 29:05
  The Mauritius Sey shell.
• 29:07
  Those Western Indian Ocean places.
• 29:08
  I've been to all of those countries, you know, I mean, okay.
• 29:11
  I haven't been to like Somalia, but that wouldn't really be a safe place to go.
• 29:14
  Right.
• 29:15
  You still have Sudan right now.
• 29:16
  Stuff have to look at where you're going.
• 29:17
  Yeah.
• 29:17
  You know, so I mean, there, there is a, there is a point where you're like,
• 29:20
  that's not gonna, that would not end well for me to go to like Somalia right now.
• 29:23
  Mm-hmm.
• 29:24
  Um, but, uh, um, but I hadn't, I hadn't been there before.
• 29:28
  I kind of, it's one of those places.
• 29:30
  Sounds kind of exotic.
• 29:31
  Yeah.
• 29:32
  And so I wanted to check it out and so I, and so I, so yeah, I
• 29:35
  thought, oh, this would be good.
• 29:36
  I knew, and I knew of a couple species there that haven't been seen in a while,
• 29:40
  and I thought, let's go check it out and just go check it out firsthand.
• 29:43
  I knew it was gonna be a bit of a tough from talking to
• 29:45
  people that have been there.
• 29:46
  I knew it was gonna be a bit of a, of a rough, of a rough trip.
• 29:50
  Just 'cause it was just rough in that.
• 29:52
  Yeah.
• 29:52
  There's not like a lot of amenities there.
• 29:54
  I mean, we Right.
• 29:54
  You know, we, we, we do what we can and uh, and I was glad I went, you know, I
• 29:58
  said it was, it was the landscape and everything was nothing like I expected.
• 30:03
  Um, you know, spoiler alert, if you've watched the movie, the animated movie,
• 30:06
  Madagascar, it's kind of a lush, jungley area that's not Madagascar.
• 30:11
  It's, it's very Oh, interesting.
• 30:13
  Very arid, very uh, uh, I was there in the dry season too,
• 30:17
  but it's just very, very dry.
• 30:20
  Uh, a lot of dust sand blowing around.
• 30:23
  Interesting.
• 30:24
  Very, yeah, very arid.
• 30:25
  Not, not, not at least the parts I was at.
• 30:28
  And again, it is a big country.
• 30:29
  It's, I think it's one of the biggest islands.
• 30:31
  Biggest islands in the world.
• 30:32
  In the world.
• 30:32
  Yeah.
• 30:33
  Top, top five maybe.
• 30:34
  But, but yeah, it was nothing like, I thought it wasn't this
• 30:36
  lush jungle area and stuff.
• 30:38
  And, um, so, but again, I kind of, few people kind of gave me a heads up,
• 30:43
  but yeah, if you've seen the cartoon, the animation's, nothing like that.
• 30:47
  It's not like that.
• 30:47
  Trust me.
• 30:48
  Yeah.
• 30:49
  I kept joking about looking, looking for, uh, Alex the Lion and, you know, uh,
• 30:53
  uh, Morty and, and Melman and everybody, but, uh, no, no such luck over there.
• 30:58
  Um, but they have, but they do have like a high, they have a
• 31:01
  lot of endemic species there.
• 31:03
  Yeah.
• 31:03
  Of actually one of the, uh, one of the, uh, um.
• 31:06
  Species I've described from there, uh, uh, the Malagasy guitar fish, uh, arterio
• 31:11
  betas, Andy Saban, I, um, is in depth.
• 31:15
  It's only known from Madagascar and there's a few other species.
• 31:18
  In fact, you know, one of the, one of the ones I was looking for, it's only
• 31:21
  known from Madagascar, and I'm not gonna give it away now because we're gonna
• 31:24
  do a special right thing on this one.
• 31:27
  Um, but it was a, uh, um.
• 31:29
  Uh, it's a species that hasn't been seen like in over a hundred, a hundred years.
• 31:34
  And so we went to see if we could find it and, uh, we'll let you know
• 31:37
  what kind of luck we had with it.
• 31:38
  But there's a, there's a couple others there, there's some other
• 31:41
  species that, you know, haven't been seen in 30, 40 years.
• 31:44
  We, you know, we, we looked for and, uh, uh, you know, thought we had a chance for.
• 31:49
  Then there's another, another, there's another species that hasn't been seen.
• 31:53
  In almost a hundred years either.
• 31:54
  So we went for, I knew of like, said a few of them there that I thought would
• 31:58
  be good targets to go find and then to say we found a stingray that hasn't never
• 32:03
  been reported from Madagascar before.
• 32:05
  We, I'm gonna have more information on that later.
• 32:07
  Sorry to leave people a little bit of a mystery here, but there's, there's
• 32:11
  some of these things are gonna be really a big deal when they come out.
• 32:13
  And so we're gonna do a separate, I'll do a separate, uh, show.
• 32:15
  We're actually gonna do a, one of the, uh, uh, uh.
• 32:19
  Searching for lost sharks.
• 32:20
  Episode is just gonna be on these species we went searching for.
• 32:23
  Yeah.
• 32:24
  Um, but I said we found some other, some other species that
• 32:27
  were really some deep sea stuff that were really exciting to find.
• 32:31
  Uh, we found three species of gulp sharks, which was super, super interesting.
• 32:35
  Yeah.
• 32:35
  Um, probably the other thing we had to do, I met, met just an amazing
• 32:39
  woman down there, Stella Mont.
• 32:41
  Who runs the, who's the founder and runs the, uh, Madagascar
• 32:44
  Whale Shark Foundation project.
• 32:46
  Oh, cool.
• 32:46
  Hope I got that right, Stella.
• 32:48
  And, uh, yeah, Stella's another one we're gonna, I wanna have on the show.
• 32:51
  Um, she's actually from Belgium and she, um, but she spends part
• 32:54
  of the year in, in, uh, Madagascar.
• 32:57
  Up in noisy B um, studying the whale sharks up there and
• 33:00
  the whale sharks congregate.
• 33:02
  Oh, cool.
• 33:02
  At times of the year up there.
• 33:04
  And um, of course, you know, my, the running joke with me is if
• 33:07
  you don't wanna see whale sharks, just have Dave go show up there.
• 33:11
  You can go to the most, you can go to the most abundant
• 33:13
  whale shark place in the world.
• 33:14
  Just have Dave show up and they're all gone.
• 33:16
  No, you might see mannas, you're not gonna see.
• 33:19
  Yeah, exactly.
• 33:20
  You might see manna range, but you're not gonna see nail sharks.
• 33:22
  And just, just for those of you that have listened to, when I did, came
• 33:25
  back from Ecuador, we went out to a place called Eyelid, a plot looking
• 33:28
  for the, uh, sharkfin hound shark.
• 33:31
  And at the, went out there with uh, uh, uh, uh, Michelle Guerrero, who runs
• 33:35
  the, uh, uh, manta Trust, uh, Ecuador Manta Trust, uh, uh, group there.
• 33:41
  Yeah.
• 33:41
  And it's, it's like the biggest ban of.
• 33:44
  Congregation and whale sharks out there, and of course.
• 33:47
  No whale sharks there, but right after, like two days after I left there, all
• 33:51
  the, all the whale sharks showed up.
• 33:53
  So of course, and, and I've had several other experiences in Mexico and other
• 33:57
  places where like, oh, you're, no, you'll absolutely see him here, Dave.
• 34:01
  And they never show up.
• 34:02
  Yeah.
• 34:02
  So, so if you want to go see Whale Shark.
• 34:04
  Don't go with Dave.
• 34:05
  Yeah, exactly.
• 34:06
  Like I, I will, I will say Stella did warn me, she said, I'm probably a little early.
• 34:11
  They probably won't see him, but Right.
• 34:12
  You still had to go make out and go make an effort out there and go see him.
• 34:16
  Of course, of course.
• 34:16
  Beautiful day, you know, beautiful day out in the water.
• 34:19
  Beautiful day to see whale sharks.
• 34:20
  Beautiful.
• 34:20
  Yeah.
• 34:20
  But they just, just weren't around.
• 34:22
  We, we did see whales though, which was kind of cool.
• 34:24
  That's cool.
• 34:24
  Humpbacks, humpback whales, and I think minky whales.
• 34:27
  There's another one we saw.
• 34:28
  Oh, that's cool.
• 34:28
  Saw some other stuff.
• 34:29
  Some dolphins.
• 34:30
  So we saw some other.
• 34:31
  Other stuff and, uh, I had a great time.
• 34:34
  It was really awesome.
• 34:34
  And, and, uh, there'll be, we'll feature some of that stuff in there, in, in the
• 34:38
  episode of course comes up of course.
• 34:39
  And then they say Stella will be on the show here, probably early in the new year.
• 34:43
  Yeah.
• 34:43
  Talk about her program.
• 34:44
  So, well, so we had some just to say before you go on, just to say, you
• 34:48
  were talking about the, the size of the islands and, and, and I looked it up.
• 34:52
  Um, thanks to chat GPT, uh, and it's, and Madagascar is the fourth largest
• 34:56
  island at 587,000 kilometers squared.
• 35:00
  Borneo the third, uh, new Guinea is the, the second, and Greenland is, uh,
• 35:05
  it blows everybody outta the water.
• 35:07
  Like 2 million.
• 35:07
  Yeah.
• 35:08
  Although isn't Australia considered an island?
• 35:11
  I, I, I thought Australia was considered an island.
• 35:13
  Yeah.
• 35:14
  So I think Australia would probably be the biggest if
• 35:16
  you're, if you're including that.
• 35:17
  I don't know how it's though, it's considered a continent, so,
• 35:19
  oh, it says excluding continent.
• 35:21
  So maybe that's why this list.
• 35:22
  Yeah.
• 35:23
  But also just to let you know, in terms of.
• 35:25
  For those of you who want to know in the top 10, uh, Baffin
• 35:28
  Island, which is Canadian mm-hmm.
• 35:30
  Is up in the five, 500,000, uh, Sumatra, Indonesia, Honshu in Japan,
• 35:36
  Victoria Island, another Canadian, uh, great Britain, uh, obviously
• 35:40
  United Kingdom, and then Smer Island.
• 35:42
  Another Canadian island up in the, all up in the Arctic.
• 35:45
  So, uh, I had a feeling that, that's why I looked it up.
• 35:47
  I'm like, I, we should have a bunch of Canadian islands up there.
• 35:50
  Oh yeah.
• 35:50
  Go Canada, Greenland.
• 35:51
  Yeah.
• 35:51
  Go Canada.
• 35:52
  Indeed.
• 35:52
  Uh, Greenland is at 2 million, uh, kilometers squared over 2 million
• 35:56
  kilometers squared, so it blows everybody else new guinea's a second.
• 35:59
  It, it's at 785,000 kilometers square, so, okay.
• 36:02
  You know, kind of like bigger than everybody else, but, uh, interesting.
• 36:05
  Nonetheless.
• 36:06
  Yeah.
• 36:06
  So the fourth, fourth largest.
• 36:08
  Kind of a, kind of a funny story when I, when we were flying there, we, and I'd,
• 36:11
  I've, I've flown from South Africa 'cause we just, just so people know, like just
• 36:16
  getting to Madagascar is not an easy task.
• 36:19
  You had to, because I'm leaving from California.
• 36:22
  So it was like, you know, it's like 10 hours to London, then you gotta lay over
• 36:25
  in la You got a few hours in London, then you have another 11 hours to Johannesburg.
• 36:30
  Yep.
• 36:30
  You gotta stay overnight, then you gotta stay overnight.
• 36:33
  Then you have like another four and a half hour flight or so four hours to
• 36:38
  Madagascar and, uh, so it's, and and they only fly certain days of the week.
• 36:43
  So it's, it's not like an easy.
• 36:45
  Place to get to It is a, it's, it, I basically left on a Thursday
• 36:49
  and I got there on a Sunday.
• 36:51
  So just to give, just to give you a, a sense of couple
• 36:53
  of layovers here and there.
• 36:55
  Yeah.
• 36:55
  And all that kind of stuff.
• 36:56
  I, I think you could, I think you could go to Paris and then fly
• 36:59
  directly from Paris to Madagascar.
• 37:01
  Yeah.
• 37:02
  But I had, uh, I think you can.
• 37:04
  Yeah, you can.
• 37:04
  I think you can fly because they do have other airlines.
• 37:06
  I know you can fly from.
• 37:08
  The UAE and a few other countries.
• 37:10
  Yeah.
• 37:10
  But either way it's still like getting from California to there.
• 37:13
  It's a long haul.
• 37:14
  And um, it was kind of funny was I, I've kind of flown over Madagascar before,
• 37:19
  but when we kind of, we, because you fly out from, from South Africa and then
• 37:22
  when you, you fly and then you, as you approach Madagascar, you turn, you kind
• 37:27
  of had, in our case, we headed north and I kind of, I kind of, I was looking out the
• 37:31
  window and I kind of like, sort of knew.
• 37:33
  It was Madagascar, but just kinda asked the, uh, flight attendant, like, you
• 37:38
  know, Hey is, that's Madagascar there?
• 37:40
  And he goes, yeah.
• 37:41
  He goes, he wasn't sure, you know, he says, well, I'll, I'll ask the pilot.
• 37:45
  And so the pilot comes back and says like, oh no, it's the Chemours.
• 37:49
  And I'm like, I've flown over the Chemours before.
• 37:51
  They're kind of a speck, a couple of rocks in the middle of nowhere.
• 37:54
  Yeah.
• 37:54
  Yeah.
• 37:55
  And so I'm thinking, so the funny thing when I'm thinking to myself like.
• 37:58
  How does he not know?
• 37:59
  I go, if the pilot doesn't know, we could be screwed here.
• 38:04
  And, and, and so, and so when I got the noisy beat, the first thing I did
• 38:08
  is got on, got online with a friend of mine I went to high school with
• 38:10
  who used to be an airline pilot.
• 38:12
  And told a story and all she could do is like, send me back an LOL.
• 38:16
  Like laugh out loud.
• 38:17
  I'm thinking like, fuck, that didn't really help me too much.
• 38:19
  No, no.
• 38:21
  So that's hilarious.
• 38:22
  They prob they probably, they probably figured the, well I think
• 38:24
  she told me like she figured the flight attendant was probably
• 38:26
  busy doing flight attendant stuff.
• 38:28
  Wasn't really paying attention and Exactly.
• 38:30
  The pilot pro, the pilot probably just threw out something just thinking,
• 38:33
  ah, shut the passenger up or whatever.
• 38:35
  Just kinda like, yeah, we're over the Coors.
• 38:37
  That's just the Coors.
• 38:37
  Yeah.
• 38:37
  Well, I've, well, because I've flown, I've flown around that area quite a bit.
• 38:40
  It was probably in.
• 38:41
  Wasn't a great question for me to ask.
• 38:43
  I just was kind of curious.
• 38:45
  But you know, because you fly along for about a half hour, 45 minutes up
• 38:49
  along a coastline, there's nothing else out there in the Indian Ocean.
• 38:52
  Right.
• 38:52
  'cause most, you know, like Mauritius s you know, if you
• 38:55
  blink your eyes, you pa you pass.
• 38:57
  Yeah.
• 38:57
  Reunion, you pass right over those places.
• 38:59
  But mad gas are you kind of hit.
• 39:01
  So yeah.
• 39:01
  Anyway, that was kind of a funny little story we're going into.
• 39:04
  Going into Madagascar, like, oh, this is gonna be interesting.
• 39:07
  That's, yeah.
• 39:07
  And if you're asking the question out there, and I know people
• 39:09
  are, it's a burning question.
• 39:10
  It's like, how is it flying around domestically in Madagascar?
• 39:14
  And that's like, so something, everyone that I'm sure wanna know, well just
• 39:18
  be prepared when you go there because.
• 39:20
  The flights can change quite rapidly.
• 39:22
  And thank God, like for Christelle, who was, uh, who was our, our, our company,
• 39:27
  us the whole way around there and thank, thank goodness we had somebody
• 39:31
  there because they would literally change the flights or cancel 'em.
• 39:34
  But they don't tell you you have to go online to find out
• 39:36
  if you still have a flight.
• 39:37
  So before you leave for the airport, you just go online to check?
• 39:42
  Yeah, like usually a day or two ahead of time.
• 39:43
  So you got time to contact them, contact 'em to say like, um.
• 39:48
  They'll get you in another flight, but you have to like check to see
• 39:51
  if you, if you still have, uh, if there's even a flight going.
• 39:55
  This is the domestic airlines, Madagascar Airlines.
• 39:57
  Right.
• 39:58
  So that was kind of a funny little, how did you find that out though?
• 40:01
  Did somebody tell you?
• 40:03
  Yeah, Christ did well, A couple.
• 40:05
  Yeah.
• 40:05
  Well, a couple people.
• 40:06
  RT Bennett kind of tipped me off before I went.
• 40:08
  Make sure you check the flights.
• 40:10
  I'm so used to like, you know, here if like you're flying it from the US
• 40:13
  or Canada or Europe, they tell you, they tell you, you get a little thing
• 40:17
  on your phone or something like that.
• 40:18
  We've rescheduled your flight or put you in a different flight.
• 40:21
  Yeah.
• 40:21
  Nothing there.
• 40:22
  You have to actually go online to check to see if you're even
• 40:25
  on the, uh, on the flight.
• 40:27
  Yeah.
• 40:27
  Or if there're, if there's even a flight going and like.
• 40:30
  Well, so she christelle tipped us off and that's we, 'cause she
• 40:33
  was on the same flight with us.
• 40:35
  So we'd go on there and we're like, there's no flight.
• 40:36
  There's just nothing there.
• 40:38
  Yeah.
• 40:38
  Your flight's just gone.
• 40:40
  It's not like we've booked you elsewhere.
• 40:41
  So you have to contact them and then get on another flight to um Right.
• 40:46
  And they'll put, they'll put you on a flight.
• 40:48
  Like I said, they're great as far as rebooking you, but you had to
• 40:50
  like, let 'em know that your flight had been canceled even though Yeah.
• 40:54
  Should have known so.
• 40:57
  Some of the, some of the funny thing, fun things about traveling a lot of
• 41:00
  these countries, um, different places because you get so used to a Western
• 41:04
  way, um, that when you go to these places, um, it's just really, it is
• 41:10
  just really, um, it's just so different.
• 41:13
  It's eyeopening.
• 41:14
  Definitely eyeopening.
• 41:15
  Yeah.
• 41:15
  It's, you know, in terms of what it does.
• 41:16
  Yeah.
• 41:17
  Yeah.
• 41:17
  And it's kind of, like I said, it's, I kind of like the challenge and stuff.
• 41:19
  It keeps, keeps me young, especially running around with all these like
• 41:22
  young grad students and stuff.
• 41:23
  Yeah.
• 41:24
  Uh, uh, early, early career conservation and research types.
• 41:29
  Yeah.
• 41:29
  That's, that's all good stuff.
• 41:31
  Ke keeps you going and stuff.
• 41:32
  I figure like, you know, that's why people ask me like, whatcha gonna retire?
• 41:34
  Like, why, why am I gonna retire?
• 41:35
  I get to travel and have all these fun adventures.
• 41:37
  You gets to all these wonderful things and, and discover more sharks.
• 41:39
  I think that's great.
• 41:40
  Yeah.
• 41:40
  Now let me, a, let me ask you this.
• 41:42
  Uh, you know, every trip, you know, you have a certain purpose.
• 41:46
  Um, and, and you know, you look at.
• 41:48
  What's a success and what's not a success?
• 41:51
  Would you consider this trip for what you were going to look for for lost Sharks?
• 41:56
  Uh, a, a success from one to 10?
• 41:59
  What would you consider like, it, it, it being as from like 10 to say
• 42:04
  like, everything is successful to, you know, one or like nothing went well.
• 42:08
  Uh, easily like a 9, 9, 5.
• 42:10
  I would.
• 42:11
  Okay.
• 42:11
  It was a good, it was a good trip.
• 42:12
  It was a good trip.
• 42:13
  I, I'd never been there before, so I had a lot of, so it was, there was a lot.
• 42:17
  It was so, it was, it was just a new big adventure for me and stuff.
• 42:21
  Yeah.
• 42:21
  I, I probably would've given it a 10, but the, the story for I, everybody
• 42:26
  told me like, just be prepared.
• 42:27
  You'll probably get some kind of a stomach.
• 42:30
  Bug while you're there.
• 42:32
  And I, um, and, and I was like, okay.
• 42:34
  So I, thankfully I got a prescription stuff of some, some stuff to take in case
• 42:38
  you get food poison, basically what it is.
• 42:40
  Yeah.
• 42:40
  I made it through all the way to the end of the trip.
• 42:43
  I apologize, Christelle, but the last day we're there, Christelle says that
• 42:47
  it, Denise and I says, Hey, why don't you come out with my husband and I will
• 42:50
  go out for a traditional Malagasy meal.
• 42:53
  And like every part of my body's saying no, but my lips
• 42:56
  were like, sure, let's go out.
• 42:59
  I tell you, it tasted really good.
• 43:01
  Going down, not good.
• 43:03
  Coming back, coming.
• 43:04
  The return, the return when it came back wasn't so good a few hours later.
• 43:08
  And, um, so that kind of like had to, I had to knock off a half
• 43:12
  a point and that was my fault.
• 43:14
  It was strictly, but I had to knock off a half a point just 'cause it was like.
• 43:17
  And it was like, and yeah, and just, just for, uh, uh, a pro tip, if
• 43:21
  you're traveling to these places, like go to your doctor and get like a
• 43:24
  prescription of like erythromycin, right.
• 43:26
  That stuff will, you know, your other stuff over the counter stuff, it's okay,
• 43:31
  but this stuff will just knock the shit out of what's ever in your stomach.
• 43:35
  And you believe me, you wanna have that, especially when
• 43:37
  you're, you wanna have that.
• 43:37
  Yeah.
• 43:37
  Especially when you're looking at, you have to get on a plane in like
• 43:40
  nine hours and fly for four hours.
• 43:42
  You don't, you do not wanna be like.
• 43:45
  No, heaving your guts out, so, um, no.
• 43:47
  Yeah, you definitely don't wanna do that.
• 43:48
  Yeah.
• 43:48
  So other than that little glitch, it was a, it was a great experience and
• 43:52
  I, as I tell people Andrew, it's like I wanted to travel the world from the
• 43:56
  time I was 10 and search for sharks.
• 43:59
  And I've been living the dream for over 40 years now.
• 44:02
  And yeah, the young people listening like.
• 44:05
  Have a dream, go for it.
• 44:07
  You know?
• 44:07
  Yeah.
• 44:07
  You're young once or, and I'm still, these challenges keep me young, even though I'm,
• 44:12
  yeah, well, well past my say thirties.
• 44:14
  It keeps me young and I do, I get, and you can tell, you know me long enough.
• 44:18
  I get excited about it.
• 44:19
  I get absolute, absolutely.
• 44:20
  I get excited now is when I was in my twenties to go in these
• 44:23
  adventures like this and just kind of to meet those challenges.
• 44:26
  I think reinventing yourself, always trying to meet, you know,
• 44:29
  keep, learn new skills and stuff.
• 44:31
  Keep you always, keep you young and if you start at a young age with that attitude,
• 44:35
  they'll carry a long way in life.
• 44:37
  And, and, um, anyways, it's like, just advice, like to pass, pass
• 44:41
  along to young people there.
• 44:43
  And, um, anyway, like, you know, watch out, watch.
• 44:45
  We'll have a a a, a YouTube channel episode coming up on this.
• 44:50
  With everybody.
• 44:50
  I'll be posting on my social media, particularly Instagram, but I'll be
• 44:53
  posting some of the other Facebook Yeah.
• 44:55
  And LinkedIn and some of the other stuff.
• 44:57
  And I just wanna say one more time, just a huge, huge thank
• 45:00
  you to Save rcs Foundation.
• 45:03
  You guys have made this all possible, uh, with all your help for this thing.
• 45:08
  And, uh, um, just wanna thank people I mentioned Christelle, like
• 45:12
  Piero, um, Stella, and your group.
• 45:15
  Amazing.
• 45:16
  Um, sorry if I forgot anybody else.
• 45:18
  And Oh, also some of the fisheries ministers we met there.
• 45:21
  Amazing people.
• 45:22
  Really, really doing all their best they can do, you know, to help
• 45:26
  fisheries and sustainable Yeah.
• 45:28
  With sharks in Madagascar.
• 45:29
  And, uh, thank you all so much for the, for your, for your help in all this.
• 45:33
  Absolutely.
• 45:34
  If you wanna follow more, you can follow the episodes that we're putting
• 45:37
  up on Dave's, uh, YouTube page, uh, or YouTube channel that's at Lost Shark Guy.
• 45:42
  So if you just look up, I'll put the link in the show notes so you can take a look.
• 45:45
  Um, but you can always check that out.
• 45:47
  We put out, there's four episodes already out.
• 45:48
  The fifth episode will probably be out by January, I think, of 2026.
• 45:53
  Yes.
• 45:53
  Um, and, uh, and, and yeah, it's gonna be a lot of fun.
• 45:56
  We're we're heading into the time where he went, where Dave went to Darwin.
• 46:01
  East Timor, uh, uh, Jakarta, Indonesia, and, and some
• 46:06
  cool, some cool things happen.
• 46:07
  So, uh, definitely, uh, take a look at that and, uh, looking
• 46:10
  forward to seeing that.
• 46:11
  Subscribe to the channel.
• 46:12
  Uh, and you'll get, you'll get, uh, access to those, uh, mo those, those videos.
• 46:17
  Which are short, they're like YouTube style videos.
• 46:19
  So they're perfect for what you need.
• 46:21
  Um, and of course Denise went with you to take those videos for Denise, those trips.
• 46:25
  And Denise, I did not wanna forget Denise, that's Denise's.
• 46:27
  Alright, I got you.
• 46:27
  I so tomorrow.
• 46:28
  Thank you so much.
• 46:29
  Yeah, she's absolutely phenomenal.
• 46:30
  So she's been on the podcast before too.
• 46:32
  So anyway, Dave, thank you so much for, for sharing this with us.
• 46:34
  We look forward to hearing more about it through the videos on Lost Shark
• 46:38
  Guy, the channel, the YouTube channel.
• 46:40
  Uh, we wanna thank you for, for coming to the episode.
• 46:42
  Appreciate it.
• 46:42
  Okay, cool.
• 46:43
  Thanks.
• 46:44
  Thank you, Dave for joining us again on the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
• 46:48
  It was great to be able to show what we talk about on the Beyond Jaws podcast and
• 46:52
  now what we talk about on this podcast, to be able to show it on this one.
• 46:55
  And I think that's really important to be able to promote not only the
• 46:57
  different shows, but to show you that there's different types of stuff that
• 47:00
  we talk about now when we talk about a lot of the stuff on the Beyond Jaws.
• 47:03
  If you haven't heard it yet, I highly recommend that you go listen to it.
• 47:06
  It's very different than how to protect the Ocean.
• 47:08
  We talk a lot about.
• 47:09
  The careers of a shark scientist because one of the reasons why we
• 47:13
  do is one is to show how the career is not a straightforward path.
• 47:17
  Most of the people who have been on the podcast have been working in the
• 47:20
  field for a number of different years.
• 47:21
  Like it ranges from like five years as graduate students all the way to like.
• 47:25
  35 plus years, like what Dave's been working in.
• 47:27
  Greg Komal, Lisa Hanson, who's now retired, and so all these different
• 47:31
  types of people who are working in shark science who have worked in shark science.
• 47:36
  The idea is to show that the careers are not straightforward.
• 47:38
  They meander and give advice that everybody gives advice, you know,
• 47:41
  their own advice and what help them do the work that they do
• 47:44
  right now and over those years.
• 47:46
  So it's a lot of fun to be able to check that out.
• 47:48
  So I highly recommend that you go to Beyond Jaws.
• 47:49
  Check that out.
• 47:50
  You can go to speak up for blue.com/beyond Jaws to check out that podcast.
• 47:55
  In this episode, I wanted to show you something different
• 47:58
  because it was different.
• 47:59
  I told you it was gonna be different.
• 48:00
  When we think about going into the field and we look for lost sharks, we're
• 48:03
  not going necessarily on the ocean.
• 48:05
  We're going into fish markets.
• 48:06
  You know, Dave goes into fish markets, talk to local fishermen in
• 48:09
  the different places that he goes.
• 48:10
  Like even Madagascar, the fourth largest island in the world.
• 48:14
  You know, you have to travel to different places, remote places, and speak to
• 48:17
  people who have probably fished there all their lives to be able to say, Hey,
• 48:21
  what do you see on a regular basis?
• 48:22
  Do you see this fish?
• 48:23
  Do you not see this fish If you actually go to the lost shark guy or
• 48:26
  YouTube channel, and you can check that out, and it's shown us below.
• 48:29
  If you go and check that out, you'll see in the first couple of episodes,
• 48:32
  they had a number of different people that go around and they show
• 48:35
  posters of pictures of the shark.
• 48:37
  So the Adriana Gonzalez does, and the other Adriana, I forget
• 48:40
  her last name, I apologize.
• 48:42
  But they went around showing the pictures of the sharks to the fishermen who
• 48:45
  were like, oh yeah, we've caught that.
• 48:46
  Or It's been like 30 years since we caught that, or It's been 20 years
• 48:49
  since I saw that, or I just saw that the other day, or something like that.
• 48:52
  So they go around with pictures and they go around, speak to local fishermen
• 48:55
  and locals who've see this at the fish markets, who see this, that they catch on
• 48:58
  their boats or not catch on their boats.
• 49:00
  And it's a very important aspect of finding these lost sharks to
• 49:03
  make sure that it's like, Hey, if we see them at a fish market.
• 49:06
  Well, they've been discovered again, where did you find these?
• 49:08
  Where they've been?
• 49:08
  When was the last time you saw this?
• 49:09
  Or like when did you catch this fish?
• 49:11
  There's a lot of different things that go into it, and it's not
• 49:13
  like the perfect science, but it's something where you explore.
• 49:17
  And Dave always wanted to explore in his career and be able to travel and look for
• 49:21
  sharks, and he loves it, as he mentioned.
• 49:22
  You know, he's well beyond 30 years old and he still gets excited when
• 49:27
  he sees these sharks or when he goes on a trip like this to be able
• 49:30
  to discover some of these sharks.
• 49:31
  And I have to say that.
• 49:33
  When things went his way per se.
• 49:35
  I got a text and he was very happy with what he saw in certain situations.
• 49:39
  So, you know, it's a lot to look forward to.
• 49:40
  We will be putting the results of his trip on the Lost Shark Guy YouTube
• 49:45
  channel, so I highly recommend that you look that over the next year or so.
• 49:48
  It's gonna be a lot of fun to be able to see what he's been able
• 49:51
  to discover and what he's found.
• 49:53
  And then of course, his camera woman, Denise, she's been amazing
• 49:56
  in each one of these trips.
• 49:57
  They went to Peru, Ecuador a couple years ago, and then
• 50:00
  last year they went to Darwin.
• 50:02
  East Timor and Jakarta, Indonesia.
• 50:04
  And then this year they went to Madagascar.
• 50:06
  So a lot of really cool things and that's thanks to save our cease foundation.
• 50:10
  So we appreciate the funding that you're giving Dave to do this type of work,
• 50:13
  and I will highly recommend that you watch it and let me know what you think
• 50:16
  about discovering these lost sharks.
• 50:18
  So let me know in the comments below if you're watching this on YouTube,
• 50:20
  and if you are watching this or listening to this on your favorite
• 50:23
  podcast app, the audio version.
• 50:24
  Just hit me up on Instagram, DM me at how to protect the ocean.
• 50:28
  That's at how to protect the ocean.
• 50:29
  And if you wanna know a little bit more and you want to email me, you can do so If
• 50:32
  you go to speak up for blue.com/contact.
• 50:35
  And that'll go right to my email if you fill out that form.
• 50:37
  And if you want to know how to get ahold of Dave, it's at Lost Shark Guy
• 50:40
  on Instagram, but I'll put all his social media contacts in the show notes.
• 50:44
  So that's it for today's episode.
• 50:46
  I wanna thank you so much for joining us on today's episode of the
• 50:48
  How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
• 50:50
  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin from the True Nord Strong and free.
• 50:52
  Have a great day.
• 50:53
  We'll talk to you next time.
• 50:54
  And happy conservation.