Latest / How To Protect The Ocean / All The Sharks, filming, science, and stories from the field

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All The Sharks, filming, science, and stories from the field · How To Protect The Ocean

0:00
Imagine competing against other scientists, underwater camera divers,
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and all sorts of people who have made it a career to dive underwater.
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Looking for specific animals with only a few tanks of air, certain
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amount of time during the day.
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Raging currents and giant predators around every corner.
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My guests today are Dr.
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Chris Malinowski and Dr. B Brendan Towar.
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They did exactly that as a part of Netflix series, hit series.
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All the sharks, and trust me, they're behind the scenes stories will.
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Definitely surprise.
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We're gonna be talking about their personal journeys of going from scientists
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to advocates in a way, and trying to find that line where they can still
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speak well about the unbiased science, but also advocate for the environment.
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It's something that a lot of scientists go through, including myself, trying
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to figure out where they should be along that line, and this is a really
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interesting conversation that I had.
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On this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
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Let's start the show.
1:02
Hey everybody.
1:02
Welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
1:05
I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find
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out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean,
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and what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action.
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On today's episode, we have two special, special guests.
1:16
They are from the hit series, all the sharks, where people would take tanks,
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four tanks a day for eight hours in different places around the world, and
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they would compete to take pictures of different species of sharks, each worth
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different points in different places.
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So a tiger shark in the maldive is worth three points because they're
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found all over the place, and when they go to the Galapagos, they're worth a
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lot more like maybe 60 or 75 points.
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I forget the number exactly.
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But they are worth a lot more because they're rare in those areas and these
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divers, underwater photographers and underwater videographers,
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scientists, conservationists, science communicators, are all up to compete
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against with four prize where they can give money towards charity.
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This was a reality show like we've never seen before.
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The one thing I love about this reality show is it showed the diversity of sharks.
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We got away from just tigers, bulls, great whites, thresher sharks, all
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these different types of sharks that we see over and over and over again
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on different types of like shark weeks and shark fests and so forth.
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It's always good to know those stuff, but after a while we kind of just think
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those are the only sharks that are around or people who aren't familiar with it.
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Don't really get to know a lot of the other sharks that are around.
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And we saw wgan sharks, we saw old silky sharks.
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We saw cat, leopard cat sharks in South Africa.
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We saw all these different types of sharks.
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Rare as well as interesting looking sharks.
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And we really got to see the passion of the scientists that were on here,
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including Chris Malinowski and Brennan Tower, who are here to discuss.
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Their experience with all the Sharks.
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Also their career and how they got to on all the Sharks, like what it was like,
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what they were worried about, what they wanted to make sure they got through,
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how they were happy with the way that they did the show, like the producers
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and edited the show and the way they looked when they came out of the show.
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It was really well done.
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You know, obviously I have a video that I'll link to in the show notes where,
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you know, I talked about how much I loved this show and it was just nice
3:12
to be able to get Chris and Brendan.
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I had Aaliyah on the Beyond Jaws podcast with Dave Ebert and then I
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was able to get Chris and Brendan.
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Chris just got married.
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They both came in from the field like over the summer that they were there a lot.
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And so it was just great to be able to be a part and get to hear
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their part and their story behind the scenes of all the Sharks.
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So it was great to hear it.
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I'm happy that you get to listen to this interview.
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Enjoy this interview with Chris and Brendan and I'll talk to you after.
3:38
Hey Chris.
3:39
Hey Brendan.
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Welcome to the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
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Are you ready to talk about all the sharks?
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Absolutely.
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Absolutely wonderful.
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Excited for it actually.
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Wonderful.
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Right on.
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I'm super pumped because this is something that we've been wanting
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to do for quite a long time.
3:55
Uh, when all the sharks was released in the summer, uh, you guys were
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in the field doing your science work, and so it's always difficult.
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We have to talk about, we have to talk to production companies, I think of
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getting people to be like, look, we have scientists who actually work in the field
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in the summers and they need to stay in the field, and they can't do press
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when you release it in the summer, so we'll have to talk to them about that.
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Well, so I, I actually had to write into the contract that I needed to be back by a
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certain date because I had a field season to get back for, so that wasn't there.
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The actual.
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An actual consideration.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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I love it.
4:29
Well, this is great.
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I'm, I'm super happy to have you, to have you on because, um, you know, this
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is something that I've been wanting to have you guys on for a while.
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We've been talking for a while, back and forth, uh, a lot of cool things that
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happened to you guys over the summer.
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Chris, you got, you got married, which is awesome.
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Uh, and yeah, that's fantastic.
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Um, so we're going, we're gonna talk a lot about all the sharks and, and
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how that whole production works.
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We had Leon earlier in the summer, and she talked a little bit about, you know, what,
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well, she talked a lot about what she did.
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Uh, and, uh, I wanna get your guys' take, you know, we're not gonna, there's
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still people who are watching this show, so we're not gonna say who won, right?
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But we can say that you guys did pretty well, right?
5:08
You guys went pretty far.
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So we'll just go as, as that.
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But I don't wanna say too many people that you know who won and who not.
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You gotta watch the show on Netflix.
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All the sharks.
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But I wanna get to know, not just your, the, the whole production thing, but
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I want to get to know your experience, not only in, you know, all the sharks,
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but you know, how you became scientists and what really got you into scientists
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and how this show has potentially changed your way of viewing how you do
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science communication in the future.
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So that's what we're gonna be talking about today.
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We're gonna talk about all sorts of things, so I'm super excited.
5:40
But before we do, I wanna get to know you guys a little bit more.
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So Chris, could you just let us know who you are and what you do?
5:47
Well, kind of like you, Andrew.
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I grew up far removed from the ocean in, uh, a state called Wisconsin.
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Very northern part of the United States.
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And what, what state is that?
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You've passed through it before on your way, on your way up
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to Canada, I'm sure of it.
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Yeah.
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Um, but you know, I mean, I think, I didn't know what marine biology was
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when I was younger, but I had this fantasy of what I thought it was.
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Right.
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And, and so I. I grew up just trying to figure out what I wanted to do.
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I knew that I loved to be outside.
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I knew that I, I loved to splash around the ponds and, and lakes and,
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and try to basically, um, figure out what my, my curiosity was.
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And I go out there looking for frogs, looking for lizard,
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looking for fish, whatever.
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Um, and so sort of as I progressed through school, through, through my, my career,
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I stayed that track quite, quite firmly.
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I, at some point during undergrad was pre-med and thought maybe I'd go the
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medical route, but I always had Biology corn center to what I was interested in.
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And I had an internship working on, um, and, and fish ecology in
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the Great Lakes Lake Michigan in undergrad, which then I took a job
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in doing that after I, I graduated.
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So that really sort of like got me interested in.
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Understanding in that case, invasive species impact on native fish
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populations, um, was a big one and continues to be in the Great Lakes
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as it is in the marine environment.
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Mm-hmm.
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And so I follow that path.
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I had an incredible advisor then that really got me hooked on fish ecology.
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And my background is, by the way, even though we're talking about sharks,
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my, my background is very broad.
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I'm, I consider myself more of a marine biologist fish ecologist.
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Right.
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Um, and I dabble in a lot of different things under the umbrella of sort
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of conservation human impacts.
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And so I started following that, that path I think in at some point.
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And I can remember a few instances during, especially my undergraduate, um, part of
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my education where I just really started to see some things going on around me.
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Um, you know, roads being constructed, forest being torn down, um, pollution
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that you could very readily see.
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And I really started to question what our impacts were on the environment.
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And that's really what.
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Uh, inspired me to follow the path that I'm on, and I've never really
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been able to figure out exactly what my focus and ecosystem has been.
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So I've done wetland research, I've done great lakes research.
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I've spent a lot of time now in my, uh, master's, PhD, um, and beyond in, in
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the marine world working on big fish.
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Uh, my PhD work was on Goliath grouper, which of course I worked
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around sharks most of the time I was working with that species.
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So it was a pretty easy segue into my, um, my current role, um, where the
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last three to four years, I've been running a shark lab now, so I've sort
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of done a lot of different things.
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Um, but it's always core and center on, on marine conservation especially.
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Yeah, that's, it's, it's, it's super interesting.
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I wanna dive in a little bit more, but Brendan, let's get
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to know you a little bit.
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Why don't you just let us know who you are and what you do and sort of
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how you got into this whole game.
8:45
Yeah.
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Um, well my name's Brendan Towar.
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I'm, uh, I'm currently a postdoc out at Scripps Institution
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of Oceanography, um, at UCSD.
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So I'm in San Diego.
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Love it out here.
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Um, I'm from Kentucky.
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Alright.
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Chris, couple Midwest guys.
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One of the same,
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what state is that?
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Um, so yeah, pretty similar like, you know, from a landlocked state.
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Um, did not grow up on the ocean, at least in the early years.
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In like early middle school.
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My mom moved to Florida and so then I started spending summers, spring
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breaks, Christmas breaks, all that along the Gulf Coast and Pensacola Beach.
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Um, and I was already swimming all the time and fishing all the time.
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And so when she moved to Florida, that all just kind of took the next step
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and I was doing that in the ocean, fishing off the kayak and Right.
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Um.
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You know, fishing off piers a lot too.
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There's a big Pensacola beach fishing pier.
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Um, and so I just became more and more familiar with life in our oceans.
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Had a lot of really great, you know, firsthand encounters with wildlife.
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Um, definitely I caught a few sharks early on.
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Um, and I, I'd see how people would interact with wildlife as well.
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You know, like on slow days on the fishing pier there, people sometimes
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pull up shark suckers, which are really cool fish that attach to, to
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big animals in the ocean like sharks and get a free ride and a free meal.
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Um, and people would catch these shark suckers and pull 'em up on
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the pier and then stick 'em against the flagpole at the end of the
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pier, and they just dry out and die.
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And, you know, you, you start to see stuff like that when you're like 12,
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13, you're like, man, I don't know that, that's like, that's not right.
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Like, why are, why are we treating other life on our planet in this way?
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Um, and so I guess I, I kept fishing.
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Um.
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For a while, you know, my fishing ethics changed a lot over the years
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from like fully catch and release to then fishing only to eat fish.
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Um, and I've definitely, I've gone even further that direction over the years.
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Now I do more like, I much prefer underwater photography or spearfishing.
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Um, but all that continued and, and led me into a career in biology.
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Had some great professors in undergrad.
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I went to Furman University in South Carolina, um, and one in particular
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got me really into wildlife ecology and management through a program in
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New Mexico called the Wild Semester.
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So I actually worked with him on Mountain Lions looking at Mountain Lion ecology.
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Um, a lot of camera trap work and looking at their kill sites.
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We had a, a couple animals collared and so Nice.
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You know, he, he dropped me off at a wildlife refuge in
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the middle of New Mexico.
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I was probably 19.
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Yeah.
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Um, he dropped me off.
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I got a Chevy Blazer from the Fish and Wildlife Service and a
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trailer, and I was just there for like two months, three months.
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Basically looking at all the kill sites, like looking at all the GPS points of
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mountain lions from the night before, and then in the morning going and
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finding the places where they'd killed something and breaking every rule, like
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crawling up to a dead animal killed by mountain lion in the last 12 hours,
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dear God, by myself, taking samples of the, of whatever it was, identifying
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it and looking at prey habitat use.
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So it, yeah, weirdly enough, all those skills and all those tools that
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I've built out there in the desert, looking at mountain lions, a lot of
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those same questions you can apply to sharks and so I knew that whole time.
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This is fun, but I'm not, not into the mosquitoes.
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I'm not that interested in the desert.
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Um, I gotta get to the ocean as soon as I can.
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Um, love it.
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But it, it made me, you know, a lot of, again, a lot of the same issues apply
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that face big terrestrial predators.
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Um, you know, whether that's wildlife conflict with people or
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what, whatever else, there's so many hunting and fishing, all these things.
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Mm-hmm.
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Um, and so that it really made me interested in management and the, the
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intersection between like wildlife ecology and management and how humans
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interact with the natural world.
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And so that's really guided all the research I've done in the marine
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environment, um, on sharks ever since, you know, primarily looking at bycatch.
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Um, my master's was on deep sea bycatch mortality, uh, lots and
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lots of time spent in The Bahamas.
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Um.
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I'm studying everything from like shallow shark species in the
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mangroves to some really cool deep sea species Cuban dogfish and guer
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sharks offshore, like 800 meters down.
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Um, and so that's really, that's continued.
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That led to a PhD at Florida International, uh, focused
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on silky sharks primarily.
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Yeah.
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Um, and that was a perfect segue into my postdoc here at Scripps where I,
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the first year was looking at silky shark population structure in the
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Pacific, um, kind of split between Scripps and the Nature Conservancy.
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Yeah.
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Um, and working with an RFMO, the, the Inner American Tropical Tuna Commission.
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Um, and then since then, the next postdoc is looking at, uh, toxins in commercially
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important seafood in Southern California.
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So focused on DDT and PCBs.
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So similar to lots of overlap with Chris in all these weird ways.
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Um, but you know, you, you bounce all over the place.
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There's nothing boring about this career.
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But it's actually pretty insane.
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And Brendan, I can talk at some point about how we got to know each other, but
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it's the same kind of parallel story that a lot of people tell, a lot of people that
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get into marine biology don't end up Yeah.
14:10
Or, or, sorry, don't start in, in origin of the ocean.
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They just have this fantasy and they, they kind of live it out and figure out
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what that is throughout their career.
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'cause working in the Great Lakes, same as Brendan, I was doing fish
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ecology stuff with a lot of the same gear that I ended up applying to then
14:25
my masters when I got to The Bahamas.
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Um, and a lot of the same questions applied, and then I went back from my
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postdoc, um, at, at Purdue University after my PhD and applied a lot of the
14:35
same things that I learned from freshwater to marine, back to freshwater again.
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So it really, um, you know, the questions, I'm always a very
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question oriented person, right?
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Because like at the end of the day, you can ask very similar
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questions in different places.
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Well, and and that's what a, that was my next question to both of you.
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Um.
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And, and Chris, we can start off with you in terms of what, what is, what are
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the, the, I know it probably changes as you evolve as a scientist, but for
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now, like what is your driving question?
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You know, you've, you've, you've investigated multiple realms.
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Um, Brendan, you have two.
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What's your, and, and especially looking at predators, um, what's your
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driving question that, that allows you to experience all these different, uh,
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investigations and realms and science and realms, like fresh water and, and
15:22
salt water to like, continue to drive?
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Like, I wanna know more about this question, but maybe with different species
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or maybe in a different environment?
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It's a great question and I, when I reflect on that and which I
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do often, it really comes down for me to living in a healthy,
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sustainable world ecosystem, right?
15:42
So trying to, asking questions surrounding.
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What makes a healthy ecosystem?
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What is a baseline that we can, that we can compare to?
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Do we have a good baseline?
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Do we need to develop that baseline in order to compare?
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Um, and those sorts of questions can be asked in terrestrial marine and
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in fresh water aquatic environments.
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You know, what, what has been introduced to this environment that has changed it?
16:06
Um, a lot.
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You know, I've done a lot of work with invasive species.
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I've done work with pollution.
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Um, my PhD was all, um, on mercury toxicity and how does that
16:13
impact the health of an animal?
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And then how do you scale that up?
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How does that affect the population?
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How does that affect the ecosystem?
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And so you can kind of tackle these questions from different avenues.
16:23
Right.
16:23
Um, you know, overfishing iss a big one.
16:26
I know Brendan, uh, focuses on that a lot for his work.
16:28
Yeah.
16:29
And, and as a i, but also in species like the Goliath grouper that up until
16:34
recently was closed to, to fishing.
16:37
What is the cause of their population changes?
16:39
Early on, we know it was overfishing, but then it's habitat loss and
16:42
destruction and it's pollution.
16:44
Um, so oftentimes we can point to what the major impact is, but then there's
16:49
multiple other ones that trail from there.
16:50
And trying to get back to some equilibrium.
16:53
But we can live sustainably within our environment, but also we're
16:57
stewards of the environment.
16:59
We don't own it.
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We're part of it.
17:00
Right, right.
17:00
And, and we need to also, um, we have the responsibility to manage
17:04
ourselves is really what we're managing.
17:07
And to do that responsibly, but you need to understand the baseline ecology,
17:11
um, side of things from an animal in order to then build that up to
17:15
ecosystem to how we, how we manage it.
17:17
So, um, I think I've answered your question, but generally those are
17:20
the sorts of things that I think about as healthy ecosystems and
17:23
how do we, how do we understand it?
17:24
How do we get there?
17:25
That's amazing.
17:26
And Brendan, how about yourself?
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Same question to you.
17:29
Yeah, very similar.
17:30
I think I've, uh, I think because of.
17:34
My start as a fisherman.
17:36
I think that's all.
17:37
Fishing has always been the focus.
17:39
Mm-hmm.
17:40
Um, you know, the main mission being sustainable fishing.
17:44
Um, so I'm, you know, I'm not anti fishing by any means.
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Um, but if we could find the balance that Chris is talking about, where
17:50
we've got health ecosystems that support people and allow for abundant
17:55
wildlife, you know, that's, mm-hmm.
17:57
That's the dream.
17:58
And if you start there and work backwards, what's the information that
18:02
you need in order to achieve that?
18:04
And so, for me, again, I think like the, the personal experiences
18:09
really drove this early on.
18:10
Like, bycatch seemed like an issue that we could really focus on with a
18:15
lot of people in agreement that we can get rid of it, you know, like mm-hmm.
18:19
Nobody likes catching the wrong species.
18:22
Right.
18:22
It takes up time, it ruins your gear, you know, it's, you're not gonna eat it.
18:27
There's no point.
18:28
And so when I learned, I, I saw that firsthand growing up.
18:32
You know, like you're fishing for.
18:34
Whatever it is.
18:35
Like the slot limit red fish on the flats in Pensacola, and you catch
18:40
something outta season and you throw it back and you're like, well, I
18:43
didn't wanna ruin that animal's day.
18:45
You know?
18:45
Right.
18:45
And sometimes it doesn't make it, sometimes it dies because you caught it.
18:48
Yeah.
18:49
And when you then extrapolate that out to the enormous scale at which fisheries
18:53
take place globally, and you're like, man, we're killing so many sharks in
18:56
particular, um, and marine mammals and all these species that aren't well
19:00
suited to being caught in large numbers.
19:03
Mm-hmm.
19:03
And they're dying accidentally.
19:05
No one wants this to happen.
19:06
How can we solve that problem?
19:08
And then as you go back, you're like, all right, well, we need
19:11
to know where these sharks go.
19:12
Where do they spend time?
19:13
What are the places Yeah.
19:14
Where we should be protecting them?
19:16
How do they react when they're caught on a hook?
19:18
Why?
19:19
Mm-hmm.
19:19
Why do some species die when others don't?
19:21
Then you get, like, you can get really, really fine scale.
19:24
And, and I did in some studies getting down into the physiology of it.
19:28
Um, and then, you know, you're always like zooming in, zooming out, maybe one.
19:32
One year you're focused on blood chemistry and physiology to figure out like, how can
19:37
we predict mortality in this one species based on how long it's on the hook.
19:42
Yeah.
19:42
And then the next year you're looking at like extinction risk criteria across
19:47
all these species in the Caribbean.
19:49
And so it's, it's, it's been challenging for me and still is,
19:53
I think, to find exactly where my knowledge and skills like best apply
19:59
to solve some of these problems.
20:01
Um, I'm definitely still in the early career stage where I'm still trying
20:05
to accumulate lots and lots of tools.
20:07
Um, but looking forward, I'm much more now than ever trying to think
20:11
about how I can apply the things I've picked up to have the most impact,
20:16
um, for the benefit of the animals and people and, and fisheries as well.
20:20
I love it.
20:21
I love it.
20:21
Those, those challenges that Brendan speaks of.
20:24
I, we, we talk about this a lot and, and trying to figure out how to
20:28
navigate this space that we're in.
20:29
I mean, it's literally like, like Brendan, I'm, I'm having
20:32
some, uh, some conservation, you know, minded issues right now.
20:36
Like, you know, it almost becomes this, this all encompassing thing
20:39
that you can't sleep you, because we're, we're putting all of our energy
20:41
and effort into these questions.
20:43
Of course.
20:44
And then at the end of the day, what actually moves the needle, you know,
20:47
um, it becomes a major challenge.
20:49
'cause we could have all the science in the world and then oftentimes we have way
20:52
more than we need to make good management decisions, but then you have to start
20:55
playing this politics game or this, or in the case that we might talk more about
20:59
today, maybe it's storytelling that, that we need to delve more into because, um,
21:04
you know, science is one major component of this, um, this puzzle, this challenge.
21:07
But there are so many other things that I think we're both
21:10
exploring in early career science as early career scientists now too.
21:14
Yeah.
21:14
Yeah, I think, I think that's really interesting.
21:16
It's just, it's funny, we're on the same wavelength here because, um, I was gonna
21:19
ask, my next question was gonna be like, you know, once you get the science and
21:22
you understand the, you know, whatever scale you're at, whether you're looking at
21:26
blood physiology or whether you're looking at ecosystem dynamics, is the goal,
21:31
what's the goal of doing the research?
21:33
Obviously it's to get that understanding and to get, uh, a complete understanding
21:36
of what the, of what the topic is.
21:39
But is there, when you look at conservation as a whole, 'cause both
21:41
of you're quite conservation focused, is there, uh, is the goal of each
21:46
research paper, not only to answer the question, but also to help drive policy?
21:52
Like, are you working with nonprofit organizations or policy makers
21:58
to be like, Hey, what do you, what information do you need?
22:01
I'll go, I'll go, like, I have the same question.
22:04
I'll go find it in this study.
22:06
Like, are, is that the goal or is that even now, like, now that you guys are,
22:10
have been in, in the, in the game for a little bit and you're like, okay.
22:14
Like, I, I wanna do more.
22:16
I want my study to have more of an impact than it already has.
22:20
How do I do this?
22:21
Is that where you're at?
22:21
Or like, is, is policy?
22:23
Are you, are you looking at policy?
22:25
Are you looking at, you know, you talked about politics, uh, talk
22:27
about science, communication.
22:29
Like where, like what avenue are you at?
22:31
And, and do you find this happening with other colleagues of yours?
22:35
I'm happy to answer that first, but I've got an answer for that for sure.
22:39
But I, I don't wanna keep talking first before Brenda.
22:41
Oh yeah.
22:41
We'll, Brenda, I feel like I, we'll go Brendan.
22:44
This Brendan, did you wanna respond to that first or do you want me to go?
22:47
Sure.
22:48
I'm excited to hear about your experience with Goliath Gruber.
22:51
I assume that's what you're gonna Yeah, but I'll, I'll start it off.
22:54
It's an easy one for me 'cause I've been in that Good job.
22:57
Perfect.
22:57
Yeah.
22:57
Well that's, it's a perfect case study and yeah, this exact
23:00
question, but I would say I've gone,
23:06
I've always struggled, I think with being motivated by doing
23:09
conservation, relevant work.
23:11
Or work leading towards sustainable fishing.
23:15
I think as a grad student, especially early on, it's very easy to see a
23:21
potential project, realize you can get funding for it, you can do it
23:24
in the right place, and you just, you hit the ground running so fast.
23:27
Mm-hmm.
23:28
You do it and then you publish it, and then you're like, well, two
23:32
years later, what has this done?
23:34
Really?
23:34
I don't know, you know?
23:35
Right.
23:35
Like, did I achieve my initial objective?
23:38
That's really hard to say.
23:40
You might put a tiny piece of useful information out there
23:43
if the need arises for it.
23:45
Like I'm thinking, my masters was all on discard mortality of these deep
23:49
seed bycatch species, and the shark I focused on, well, a couple of 'em,
23:53
but the main one was a Cuban dogfish.
23:56
It's the number one bycatch species in a couple of fisheries among Dogfish
24:01
in the southeastern United States.
24:04
Now there's a discard mortality rate based on a long line capture scenario.
24:10
Has anyone used it?
24:11
No.
24:12
Mm-hmm.
24:13
Mm-hmm.
24:14
It's there.
24:14
If someone wants to use it, if someone ever does like a stock
24:17
assessment for Cuban Dogfish in that region, I'd assume that they would.
24:22
It's been used in other studies to inform this general problem
24:26
globally of deep sea shark bycatch.
24:28
But I, it's very difficult to pinpoint, like, I, I asked this question, I
24:33
answered it to the best of my ability, and now it's achieved this thing.
24:36
And so I think now I'm trying to come at things from the opposite direction
24:42
of like, if you wanna inform the policy of some fishery management council,
24:48
go to their meeting this year, see what their research priorities are.
24:52
I promise they've published them in some convoluted PDF somewhere.
24:57
Find that PDF and, and read it.
24:59
And then say like, Hey, I'll, I'll answer this question that you guys need.
25:03
'cause nobody's got enough time and, and funding.
25:06
So if grad students can.
25:08
There.
25:08
I think that's a missing connection in a lot of cases.
25:10
Yeah.
25:10
Where like those management bodies need to almost put out a call every year of
25:15
like, we'd love for people to tackle these questions and we've got all this
25:18
data, but that's almost a whole job that someone would have to create, you know?
25:23
Um, in a way.
25:24
Yeah.
25:24
Co completely agree.
25:25
I mean, it's, it's definitely needed.
25:27
Um, and it's something you'd learn.
25:28
I completely agree.
25:29
Like when I did my master's, you know, I never thought about any
25:32
kind of implications afterwards or how it would be used afterwards.
25:35
I was part of a larger project like in at, for World Wildlife Fund, so that was
25:38
just where my project was, but I didn't, I didn't know what was gonna happen next.
25:43
I never asked the questions because that was more focused on just doing my
25:47
masters and doing that little thing.
25:48
And I think it would've been good if I started to like open, like,
25:52
and you're young, you just wanna do the work, but you gotta open your
25:54
mind a little bit and just be like.
25:56
What's going on in the world?
25:57
Why am I doing this?
25:58
Mm-hmm.
25:58
And just ask those overarching questions, those very high level
26:01
questions where you're just like, where is this gonna impact and how
26:04
is this gonna impact in the, in the real world after, after I leave?
26:08
Or, or, you know, is this gonna help somewhere in an island community or is
26:12
this gonna help somewhere in Canada or the US or in Europe or Africa or wherever?
26:16
Uh, and then be able to do it that way.
26:18
Um, but yeah, that was a fantastic, fantastic answer.
26:21
Chris.
26:21
I, I want to hear the, the Goliath grouper story because you, I, I assume you've
26:26
been working on that for quite some time.
26:28
Yeah, I, um, I think it's interesting the point that, that Brendan brings up.
26:33
'cause I think ultimately what we all want as scientists, as students, as
26:37
whatever, when we publish a paper, it's almost always aligned in a paper.
26:41
Like, you know, this, we're trying to push this towards management,
26:44
like management implications.
26:45
Yeah.
26:45
We all use these lines in our papers, but do they actually get used for that?
26:49
That direct, uh, management application, um, oftentimes, no.
26:53
You know, right.
26:54
A lot of times we put years of work into a paper and we're lucky
26:57
to have it read a dozen times.
26:59
You know, if, if you have higher impact work yeah.
27:02
It'll get cited a bunch.
27:03
Um, but that, that's the question.
27:06
Right.
27:06
And, um, in terms of like thinking about funding and projects, before
27:10
I get into goth grouper, that's always been a big question for me.
27:14
And when I was in my PhD, I applied for a lot of grants.
27:16
Mm-hmm.
27:17
Got good marks and didn't get funding for, for the big ones I
27:19
applied for mostly through Noah.
27:21
But what I was trying to do, and I think my, what I was missing then was I was
27:26
trying to take the project that I really wanted to work on and fit it into the,
27:29
into the mold of what they were funding.
27:31
Right.
27:31
And, and that you can be a good writer, have good questions, and oftentimes
27:35
it doesn't, doesn't quite make it.
27:36
So the opposite of that, that Brendan brought up is.
27:39
You know, you see what's being funded or you go to these meetings and then you
27:42
develop questions, projects around that.
27:44
Oftentimes those are probably, that's probably a better recipe for funding.
27:47
Um, just as an example with Goliath grouper, I never sought out to, to
27:52
keep working with, you know, large megafauna, um, charismatic species.
27:57
But it's kind of just been a path that I've followed.
28:00
And Goliath gruper to me, became such a, a giant in the, um, policy
28:07
conservation ecology world because we didn't know much about them.
28:11
Mm-hmm.
28:11
Um, a lot of contention around the species and big fisheries implications and, and a
28:17
lot of stakeholder involvement between the dive community, um, and, and fishermen.
28:22
Um, and, and I can give some examples, but, but to me, why I got so excited
28:27
and, and why I was worked so hard in my PhD was because it fit all of
28:30
these things that I was interested in.
28:32
And to Goliath group, it became the model organism, um, model
28:35
species for me to really.
28:37
Hone in on a lot of these questions that have plagued me my entire career.
28:41
And so I, I, I took that to task and did what I could and learned from
28:44
some two incredible, um, PhD advisors, Dr. Um, Felicia Coleman and Dr. Chris
28:49
Koenig, who were giants in the field.
28:50
Our giants in the field.
28:51
Yeah.
28:52
Um, and so to keep it brief, you know, what was really going on is the, they're
28:57
over fish to extinction and, um, to new extinction levels and, um, throughout
29:01
their entire range, right from, yeah.
29:03
Um, the Atlantic down, the Caribbean, down, um, all the
29:05
way from Florida to Brazil.
29:08
Theoretically to the west coast of Africa, even though, um, only
29:11
anecdotal, only anecdotal reports existed, they still occur there.
29:15
So this giant fish that forms these large fishing aggregations,
29:18
and we all know fishing aggregations often get fished down.
29:21
Um, and so they were targets of that.
29:23
And on top of that, they're large, they don't move much and they
29:27
have very high site fidelity.
29:29
So they're really easy to spear fish, really easy to target for fishers.
29:32
And they got, their levels got driven down.
29:34
Well, the work that Chris Konik Andia had done as I was leading into that lab
29:38
was they were basically discovering and working towards just understanding the
29:42
basic biology of this fish that almost nothing was known about before 1990.
29:47
And, and as that the population started to rebuild once they were completely
29:51
closed off, 'cause there was no sense in having a fishery for them anymore,
29:54
you got all these major conservation impacts that started coming in.
29:57
Um, you know, fishermen, um, disgruntled over catches being stolen, um, as
30:04
especially the larger adults off on reefs.
30:07
Um, you know, you have all the issues of habitat loss destruction.
30:10
They use mangrove habitats.
30:11
You've got, um, constant commission FWC meetings to talk about whether
30:17
or not to reopen this fishery that's been closed for 30 years.
30:19
So that's where I start to insert, I, I'm working on the population levels
30:22
of the, of these fish as they recover.
30:25
I'm looking at mercury toxicity, how that affects their, their, um, their
30:28
reproductive capacity, their, their individual health and population health,
30:34
and tying this all into management.
30:35
So, and then I'm also bringing these to, to commission meetings with
30:38
my advisors and we'd go in and we would, we would talk about the, the
30:42
biology of the animal that they can't withstand heavy fishing pressure.
30:46
But you've got all these voices coming in.
30:48
You've got, you know, fish, some very conservative fishing, um mm-hmm.
30:52
Members of the community coming in and saying, we need to call these animals.
30:55
We need to kill 'em.
30:55
They're ruining the reefs, they're stealing our catches.
30:58
And then you've got the dive community saying, we need these.
31:00
They're driving, you know, millions of dollars of revenue for our, for us.
31:04
And then I'm coming in as a scientist being like, okay,
31:06
how do you dance this line of?
31:07
Mm-hmm.
31:08
And I know, Andrew, you've talked about this before in, um, in an earlier podcast.
31:12
How do you dance this line as a scientist, staying unbiased,
31:15
but also speak up for science?
31:16
Yeah.
31:16
And that's really the direction that I found myself going
31:19
in more and more and more.
31:20
And we've written marine policy pieces.
31:22
We've written open letters to the commissioners.
31:24
I've met with individual commissioners to talk about the biology, how they
31:28
can't withstand catches, why all the misinformation being brought
31:31
to them by the public is untruth.
31:32
They're not destroying the reefs.
31:34
Yeah.
31:34
They're actually increasing diversity and abundance of other fishes.
31:37
Um, but these negative interactions that people have, just like they do sharks,
31:40
which is why that's such a parallel is the depredation issue going on with sharks.
31:44
And the keys right now is the same thing that I've been dealing with
31:47
Goliath Cooper my entire career.
31:48
Yeah.
31:49
And so trying to dispel misinformation, misperceptions, bring this to the
31:54
commission, write publications that deal with the policy pieces speaking
31:59
on top, on, on behalf of, um, you know, conservative management policies being
32:05
looking at the best available science.
32:06
'cause not all science is the same either.
32:08
Right?
32:08
Keep that in mind.
32:08
No, for sure.
32:09
Um, and, and so that, I found myself in the middle of that a
32:12
lot and, and trying to navigate where my energy was best suited.
32:17
So going to the commission meetings and giving talks there, it's been
32:21
good, but also exhausting and of, and oftentimes maybe not worth
32:25
the energy and effort that takes.
32:26
So I think as Brendan and I consider our path moving forward, um, and, and
32:30
other colleagues as well, and even in my position as director of research.
32:33
In conservation for Ocean First Institute, it's like, how much time do you spend
32:37
doing this versus that, versus education versus research, versus trying to
32:41
walk this tight policy line and not lose your credibility as a scientist.
32:45
And by the way, get into Netflix series and try to talk about science
32:48
and, and be a public communicator.
32:51
Trying to basically have this positive conservation impact going all these
32:55
different directions, like what is worth the energy and effort that it takes.
32:58
And it also reality tv.
32:59
Chris the Bachelor baby, we gotta get into the Bachelor.
33:03
That's the way you do it.
33:05
Love Island.
33:06
I think it's interesting because like, you know, the way, the way you just
33:09
talked about it and, and Brandon we talked, you guys have talked both
33:12
about this is you, you're one person trying to do all these one, all these
33:16
things like we're scientists, we study science, we study the ocean, we look
33:21
at trends, you know, whether they're positive or negative or, or just neutral.
33:26
That's what we're doing.
33:27
And here we are finding ourselves and doing, trying to, doing,
33:30
trying to do everything else.
33:31
And I think the biggest pushback, I know when I speak to scientists is there's
33:34
no financial incentive to do all this.
33:38
It's the passion that we have because of the way we grew up.
33:42
You know, bringing fishing, you know, Chris being around the Great Lakes and
33:45
seeing the changes that have happened.
33:48
This is what we care about.
33:49
I think we're very, it is a very different field when you go into wildlife, oceans,
33:54
whatever that might be compared to like maybe finance, where, you know, your
33:58
passion is really shown through, uh, this, in, in a way of like, we need to protect,
34:04
not try and make the most money possible.
34:06
It's, we need to protect, but you also have to do your basic job.
34:10
And sometimes that's just science.
34:12
It's considered science.
34:13
So it's, it's a very different thing that, because we always
34:15
just like, well, we gotta do this.
34:16
Like, we gotta help.
34:17
But it's, it's almost like.
34:19
There's a lot of organizations out there that, you know, they are,
34:22
they do amazing things with a small team, uh, just like Ocean First.
34:27
Uh, but they, you know, you can't do everything.
34:29
You know, you've gotta do what you can do because of a small team.
34:32
And, and, uh, and obviously I'm not picking on, on Ocean First, this is a,
34:36
this is nonprofits in any kind of wildlife management is, you can't do everything.
34:41
You can't do the, the science communication.
34:43
You can't do the, the lobbying or, or working with policy makers.
34:47
You can't, and doing the science and everything, it's
34:49
like, it's a hard thing to do.
34:51
And then getting funding to build an organization like
34:53
that is not, uh, easy as well.
34:55
It's, it's, it's a difficult thing to do.
34:56
So I think it's really interesting that we've identified that.
34:59
Um, but then we also do these things, which is like, kind of crazy, like
35:03
all the Sharks, you know, the, the Netflix special that both of you're in.
35:07
And one of the reasons why you're here is, is you, you do this as a,
35:10
like, what was the reason why you, like, were you approached to do
35:13
this and who was approached first?
35:14
And um, and like how did this all happen?
35:17
Well, first, first there are, well, I'll just add to the point
35:20
that you were just making, they're blurred lines between our personal
35:22
lives and our, and our work lives.
35:24
Absolutely.
35:24
And those, that is the biggest difficulty, I think, for any of us Yeah.
35:28
Is like, where do I draw the line with just OFI, ocean First
35:31
Institute and what I do personally.
35:34
Yeah.
35:34
And what's worth the effort and to continue on.
35:36
So that becomes the sort of exhaustion that happens.
35:39
Um, 'cause yeah, with, with, with limited funds and in small operations, you have to
35:43
limit what you're doing or you burn out.
35:45
And, and that's what we're all a victim of a lot.
35:47
Um, for sure for the show though, as, oh, go ahead Brendan.
35:51
I'll just add that we also have to be very careful with the line between
35:56
scientific credibility and then more advocacy style work, you know?
36:01
Mm-hmm.
36:02
And Chris and I come from, like, our academic training has been very parallel.
36:08
Like we've come from labs that are heavy on.
36:11
Um, you know, I'd say all of our advisors are like naturalists before anything else.
36:16
Like true I theologist type folks.
36:18
Yeah.
36:19
Um, and so we wanna stay true to the science at all times, but also like
36:25
at, at times, like Chris said, you do have to advocate for the science.
36:28
And so that's been a challenge as well, is trying to figure out
36:31
where our best place is among those different genres of, um, I guess
36:37
science or conservation more broadly.
36:39
And the Netflix show is, uh, that's a whole new, a whole new genre.
36:45
Yeah.
36:46
And so with that, well, it's kinda like reality tv if you really think about it.
36:48
It's, it's an absolute from a reality tv it was actually quite refreshing,
36:53
uh, from a reality TV perspective.
36:55
Uh, I thought that was cool, which I'll go to a bit, but Yeah.
36:57
Chris, sorry, go ahead.
36:57
I cut you off.
36:58
I apologize.
36:59
No, I mean, that's why these are fun conversations.
37:01
We've all got something to say.
37:02
Um, we, you know, Brendan and I. Made a decision to, after we had
37:08
been contacted by the producer of the show, um, we had both been interviewed
37:13
separately and, and together.
37:14
And we had a long deliberation after this.
37:17
'cause we, you know, we asked, it almost became our interview of 'em, right?
37:20
And that's how I, it felt, and I think that makes for a good conversation.
37:23
Part of why we trusted the producers on this, as they were willing to, um,
37:27
let us arrow out all of our concerns.
37:28
You know, Brendan and I, um, were very concerned with our,
37:31
uh, scientific reputations.
37:34
We're not quick to sign up for these sorts of things.
37:36
Um, but it was clear that they wanted two people with, you know, credibility
37:40
in the science field to be a part of the show, namely with their PhDs.
37:44
Hence our name, shark Docs.
37:45
We, we set ourselves apart with that, um, purposely.
37:50
And we wanted to bring that to the table, but we had to do it appropriately.
37:52
And we had to really figure out for ourselves how much we were
37:55
willing to, to put ourselves out there in this reality style TV show.
38:00
Um, and what that might mean for us personally, for our careers.
38:04
Um, it was a real consideration and, and a lot of it we doubted, right?
38:07
And, and we got this long contract that was basically a, a carbon, um, print
38:13
of what the Bachelor would see, right?
38:15
Mm-hmm.
38:15
You know, basically this very scary document saying We own you.
38:19
And, and we pushed back a lot.
38:21
We pushed back for, for a long, long time for, and not that we got a huge
38:26
amount of ground with it, but enough where we were comfortable, right.
38:28
Because it was, we were up against Netflix, right?
38:30
Yeah.
38:31
Um, but they've gotta protect their own too, and, and their production.
38:34
Yeah.
38:34
Um, concept.
38:35
So we, we understood that.
38:36
So we, we worked with it as much as we could.
38:38
Um, weren't really sure.
38:42
Up until, I think like weeks before, like what we were gonna do.
38:45
Like we literally didn't sign the contract till before, but, um, I, I think
38:48
we got, it was a week, A week before.
38:50
Before the first flight.
38:51
It was.
38:51
Yeah.
38:52
Yeah.
38:53
Did you guys, the flight, was that close, like you, like it was upcoming,
38:56
you're like, do we do, like, what was your biggest, um, like sticking
39:01
point of, of actually doing the show?
39:02
Like what was the big worry for you guys?
39:06
For me it was credibility.
39:08
Just like we're saying.
39:09
Yeah.
39:09
I mean in, yeah.
39:10
In our fields.
39:12
Your credibility is kind of everything.
39:14
Like your reputation is worth a lot.
39:16
And Chris and I are, we're still, I don't know, in the first third of our
39:21
career, maybe, um, maybe I still call myself an early career researcher,
39:28
so I don't know when that ends.
39:30
And it feels like, yeah, I think I'm, I'm teetering at the edge of that.
39:34
More than you're Yeah.
39:34
Just a few years ahead.
39:36
Yeah.
39:38
But it's still, it's, that's funny because like all of our friends
39:43
obviously are like senior people in their companies or whatever.
39:46
Meanwhile it's like, oh, I'm a postdoc at Scripps.
39:48
Like, yeah.
39:49
You know, uh, but like reality is I've been doing this same
39:53
job since I was like 19.
39:56
Mm-hmm.
39:56
You know, like it's, we have a lot of experience and we've invested
39:59
our entire lives into this career.
40:01
And so at a time when our careers are going well.
40:05
We're like, yeah, we're publishing, like we're hitting all the benchmarks
40:08
to, I don't know, a couple years from now in my case, like, I don't
40:12
know, maybe I want to be a professor.
40:14
Okay.
40:14
Three years from now, maybe that's attainable somewhere.
40:17
Yeah.
40:17
Do I wanna risk everything on?
40:20
Yeah.
40:20
Like some show that I have no control over.
40:23
Like they can just, for example, each, each place, right is three days
40:28
of filming from morning till night where you're searching for sharks.
40:31
And at any given time there's like multiple cameras on every team.
40:36
And so you're looking at just hundreds of hours of footage per location that get
40:41
whittled down to the 45 minute episode.
40:44
And so you can imagine the breadth of humanity that's experienced across four
40:48
teams and like eight weeks of traveling the world with one group of people.
40:52
Like imagine a family vacation going for eight weeks, you know?
40:56
Oh yeah.
40:56
You're people have very strong personalities.
40:59
Yeah.
41:00
Like interacting with other people, getting that everything's filmed.
41:03
Right.
41:04
And um.
41:05
And we just didn't know what this was gonna be.
41:07
This is also the first of its kind, right?
41:08
We like a reality show, competition show shark education, friendly.
41:13
Like everything they pitched to us we're like, sounds great.
41:16
Yeah.
41:16
But what, we have no example of what this is actually going to look like.
41:20
So we still in the end, had to take a massive leap of faith and trust
41:24
the producers and be like, okay.
41:26
And then Brendan and I were like, okay, we, we stay true to ourselves.
41:29
We don't try to act 'cause we're not actors, we're scientists, right?
41:32
And, um, and we just, you know, we're ourselves and we, we stick to within
41:37
guidelines of like, you know, trying not to lose our cool and, and, and all the
41:41
things we would do in our normal lives.
41:42
And I think that's what we, we stuck to and did very well.
41:45
Um, not that we didn't falter at times, but that was human,
41:49
you know, nature for us too.
41:51
Um, but at the end we stayed true to ourselves.
41:53
I think, you know, we didn't try to push any narrative or do anything,
41:56
um, and in, and in some ways it maybe made us less interesting on screen.
42:00
But that's what we are willing to do and that's what we, we stuck to.
42:04
Well, I'll tell you like the one thing that I, when I first heard about it, um,
42:08
was I was like, this is a reality show.
42:12
So is this gonna be like every other reality show where there's
42:14
like these storylines that plot you against each other?
42:18
You know what I mean?
42:18
And we're like, things can get, as we know from other reality
42:22
shows, things can get pretty nasty.
42:25
What I loved about this show, and I guess it's just the characters of the
42:29
people that were on this show, so like, just not only the both of you, but all
42:32
the other teams people look so nice and supportive, you know what I mean?
42:36
Like people, I don't know if that's how it, how it happened, but like I'm
42:39
sure there was a bit of competition 'cause like the whole point of the
42:41
show was to get as many pictures as possible of certain species
42:44
when you're in this different area.
42:45
So there's a bit of that competition where you don't want to tell, you know,
42:48
certain people where you're gonna go and all this kind of stuff, but like people
42:52
seem generally like happy to be there and it wasn't as if you're trying to, um.
42:57
Like there, there wasn't a part where you're not diving.
43:00
Like I think there was one part in the show where they showed you
43:02
guys all eating dinner together.
43:04
And at first I thought, oh, this is where it's gonna happen.
43:06
Like if it's gonna happen anywhere, this is where it's gonna happen.
43:09
But it was pretty cool.
43:10
Like it was pretty chilled out for a reality show and I
43:13
was like, this is really nice.
43:14
It's a, it's refreshing to have Rasha where the focus is literally
43:18
on all the sharks, like you guys going out and finding this.
43:22
Um, and I thought that was pretty cool.
43:24
Like, were you, after it was all said and done and you watched the show,
43:28
like did you have a chance to watch the episodes before it came out or did
43:32
you watch it like everybody else did?
43:34
Yeah.
43:35
Watch it like everybody else did.
43:36
At end of the day, we didn't know what to expect.
43:39
We didn't know how they were gonna, I know they were probably up and, um,
43:42
trying to do all the post-production and on a tight timeline, so they probably
43:45
didn't have a big gap between that.
43:48
And when it came out from what we gathered.
43:49
So, no, we didn't really know.
43:50
And, and, and you're right Andrew, I think like this could have gone
43:54
in a bunch of different directions.
43:55
Yeah.
43:55
But mostly like everybody got along very well.
43:57
We had fun together.
43:58
Yeah.
43:58
We're, we still have maintained friendships we're Yeah.
44:01
Doing some of these posts, um, show, um, events together, going
44:05
and doing Q and a's together.
44:07
Nice.
44:07
You know, Brendan's been pretty close with Randy on the west coast.
44:10
I've had Rosie Oh, nice.
44:11
Um, and MJ out here, um, out of the Miami area.
44:15
So we've done some stuff together and, and I, yeah, I think, you
44:17
know, we've developed relationships that'll, that'll probably last, you
44:20
know, forever, so That's awesome.
44:22
I think that was pretty cool.
44:23
But there was a lot of stuff that we filmed out at dinners doing
44:26
various things that would've been kind of cool for camera.
44:29
But I think, yeah, they stuck true to this being about the
44:32
sharks, not about the people.
44:34
And so I think, you know, one of the complaints I've gotten from people
44:38
is that they never really got to know us that well or any of the groups.
44:41
Yeah.
44:41
Which, okay, I can see that.
44:43
Fair enough though, because I, I think they had so much time and, and it really
44:47
highlighted the sharks and it wasn't about the people as much in the end.
44:50
And I think that's okay.
44:51
Yeah, and I think I, I, I agree.
44:53
I think I, I agree with the criti criticism that it wasn't a lot about
44:56
you guys, but it's also, it was like a six episode, you know, sort of arc.
45:00
So it's not as if it's goes on the other reality shows can go on for like,
45:05
you know, 20 episodes for all we know.
45:07
And so that's a, there, that's when you really get into the characters and,
45:11
and it's not all all about the 'cause.
45:13
I mean, if you did that with yours, it'd be, you know, in South Africa for
45:17
a long time, in Japan for a long time, which could have been really cool.
45:19
But I'm sure they had specific episodes to fit timelines into and, and so I
45:23
thought, I thought they did a great job.
45:25
I, I, I definitely, as you know, I, I spoke highly about it when I did
45:29
my first, uh, episode on it, and then I've been telling people all about
45:33
it, um, which I thought was great.
45:35
But like for you guys as scientists going through the process.
45:39
Traveling to all these different places.
45:41
Oh, well, I guess the first, did you know where you were gonna go?
45:45
Like, uh, like so you started off, uh, in, in the Maldives Not a bad
45:49
place to start off, let's be honest.
45:51
Like, that's a pretty cool place to go.
45:52
It was all right.
45:53
Yeah.
45:53
Did you know where you were gonna go next?
45:55
Like, did you know all the different regions where you were gonna go?
45:58
We didn't.
45:59
We had, um, I'd say two weeks before the first flight, we got
46:04
a list of possible locations.
46:06
Oh, okay.
46:06
'cause the, you know, the producers had our backs and wanted, they wanted
46:11
everyone to say good things that were like, relevant and accurate
46:15
and would help advance the story.
46:17
Yeah.
46:17
And so, but they also didn't want anyone to have a big leg up.
46:20
So they said, all right, here's whatever, 10 or 12 possible locations, like go
46:25
do your homework before we leave and once we hand you your plane ticket,
46:30
then you'll know where we're going.
46:32
Um, and so Chris and I, in true scientist fashion, we've got these
46:36
like enormous PowerPoints of like species ID for every possible location.
46:41
Even the ones we didn't go to.
46:43
Yeah.
46:43
We have a Google Earth file with like sightings locations of anyone
46:48
we've ever met who's like done a PhD at a particular place.
46:52
They're like, all right, here's a Google Earth file drop pins where you would
46:55
spend your time to find sharks and rays.
46:59
Um, phenomenal.
46:59
I think that was the, that's how we were able to, that's
47:02
how we were able to nerd out.
47:03
And, and Brendan, you had access to reef data too, so you
47:06
made like hotspot maps right?
47:08
Of like even more likely to find things in this area.
47:10
We had literally heat maps of that.
47:13
Yeah.
47:13
Yeah.
47:14
We use, we use the tools available to us.
47:16
The reef, uh, reef Environmental Education Foundation is one of
47:19
the two charities that we donated.
47:22
Uh, some money too.
47:24
That's awesome.
47:24
That's awesome.
47:25
I would say because it helped how we got the money.
47:28
Yeah.
47:29
But, uh, we got some money and half of it went to them and half went
47:32
to Ocean First and, and Perfect.
47:34
And the Reef database is publicly available.
47:36
Uh, you just have to request it, but it's got all this amazing citizen
47:40
science data around the world.
47:42
And so anywhere that they had data, we would Yeah.
47:45
Create hotspot maps.
47:47
Um, one that comes to mind is, is in the Gala Galapagos at Darwin.
47:52
And no surprise, the hotspot for everything was right at
47:54
Darwin's arch or Pillars.
47:56
Um, but it was, it was very helpful, like a combination of reading
48:00
all the papers for each location.
48:03
Mm-hmm.
48:03
And then the Google Earth file from all of our personal contacts and everyone else is
48:08
doing this too, in their own communities.
48:09
Of course.
48:09
Maybe it's more like.
48:11
The social media like Yeah.
48:12
Underwater photographer community or whoever it is for us, it's,
48:16
it's folks who are scientists.
48:18
Um, yeah.
48:19
But yeah, all those different layers come together.
48:21
So once you land in a place, you're like, all right, we've got three days.
48:23
The weather looks like this, the tides are at these times.
48:27
If we plan this out perfectly and everything goes well, then
48:31
we'll hit all these spots.
48:32
Yeah.
48:32
And the last day we'll spend, you know, just racking up these points that we
48:36
know are gonna be there the whole time.
48:38
And so every team would have their approach.
48:41
Um, and ours was informed by all of that information and like took
48:47
the scientific approach for sure.
48:49
But also just, I think what we did a really good job of was time management.
48:54
It, it really became a game of time management and budgeting
48:58
resources, whether that's bait time.
49:02
Yeah.
49:03
Air, air on, you know, your four scuba tank tanks, eight hours of air on what?
49:06
Four tanks?
49:06
Like that's, yeah.
49:07
That's what they gave you.
49:09
That's, that's, that's what I thought they could focus on a little more.
49:11
I it would've be cool if they had like a meat Yeah.
49:14
Of like how much air you have left and how much time that'd be, you know what I mean?
49:18
I may put that, put that, yeah.
49:19
Put that comment into the next season.
49:21
Right.
49:22
Yeah.
49:22
I would've loved to have seen that.
49:24
Yeah.
49:24
Well, I think the, the cool part for us that Brendan has, has described is
49:28
that we approach this like we would the field, field work as scientists, right?
49:33
So we, we strategize as much with as much time as we had, um, and really put a plan
49:38
together, and then we're willing to adapt when things would change as we always do.
49:42
So just being comfortable with, with, with changes being thrown
49:45
at us or, or issues or weather.
49:48
And, and yeah.
49:49
And then putting on these full face masks too, that we were wearing the
49:51
whole time talking about air consumption.
49:54
Yeah.
49:55
Well, they suck up air.
49:56
And so those are things Oh, interesting.
49:59
You have to, you have to start to apply to your, your strategy is like,
50:02
okay, we know we've only got so much bottom time now, which is different
50:05
than how we would normally be.
50:07
Yeah.
50:08
And just trying to figure that out.
50:09
And then having the four takes per day, the rules and the guidelines
50:13
that we have to stick to immediately.
50:15
Brendan and I both gravitated towards, oh, surface time.
50:18
What are people doing during their surface intervals when they have to off gas?
50:22
Oh, we're not taking a break.
50:23
We're gonna jump in the water and snorkel because we can do that.
50:26
And so we really started busting our butts and just with our time
50:29
management, figuring out the depths we wanted to go to early on.
50:33
And, and if going for more abundant or rare species first was always
50:37
sort of the, the big question.
50:38
And then it's like, yeah, oh, let's go into the shallows in our off
50:41
time and just time that really, well, okay, we got five minutes,
50:44
get back on the boat, get back in.
50:46
And we did that the whole time and that, and we started doing really well early on.
50:49
And then other people kind of picked up on our strategy and started to
50:52
sort of mimic that a little bit is, is kind of how we saw that going.
50:55
But um, generally that's just how we approached it.
50:58
We just worked our butts off and just worked.
51:01
We stayed wet the entire time that we could.
51:03
I, I love it.
51:04
I did, I did love your strategy, um, going into it because you, you guys definitely
51:09
had a good, I think it was you guys in the Maldives where it's like, okay, 'cause
51:12
though just for the audience who haven't seen it, I highly recommend you go see it.
51:16
But there were, uh, points awarded for every picture you get, uh, in
51:19
specific spots, but sharks in one spot, like say Tiger Sharks in
51:23
one spot might be a lower value.
51:25
Like in the Maldives, I think there were three points compared to like somewhere
51:28
in The Bahamas it might be worth.
51:30
Yeah.
51:30
Or Galapagos.
51:31
It might be worth a lot more.
51:32
'cause they're harder to find.
51:33
It was based on how much they see it, but it was, it was, it was your team that
51:36
said, well, look, they might only be worth three points in, in Maldives, but we know
51:41
we're gonna see a lot of them, so we're gonna take as many pictures as possible.
51:45
And you know, you ended up doing pretty well in that, in that first, in that first
51:49
one and, and because of that strategy.
51:51
So I just love it.
51:53
Uh, it reminds me of you guys the way your approach reminds me of that film,
51:56
the Martian, where Matt Dame's like, I'm gonna science the shit out of this.
51:59
Uh, you know, and that's essentially what you guys, it sounds like
52:02
what you guys did, you know?
52:03
And, and I think that's, uh.
52:05
I think that was, that's, that's pretty cool because that's what you do.
52:08
You look, you take like an analytical approach, look up databases, get
52:11
your networks, like find where you can go and what's gonna be there.
52:15
And then you have 12 and it gets to shrunken down to six or however
52:18
many, and you're like, okay, like let's go, let's go out and do this.
52:23
And then you guys did a lot.
52:24
Sorry, go ahead.
52:24
Oh, sorry.
52:25
And then from a diving perspective, you know, visibility currents, tide.
52:28
Yeah.
52:29
So then those are the things that you don't necessarily know and
52:31
you're researching a place you've never been without a dive guide.
52:34
The, the divers could be in the water with us, but they couldn't guide us.
52:37
So you're also navigating a place that you've never been.
52:39
You don't, you know, about this reef, but you don't know where to go.
52:41
And so they're misses in there, um, with that sort of thing.
52:45
Um, and some of that was, was stressful.
52:48
Like, and you're, you know.
52:50
Having a local guide who knows exactly where to expect the
52:53
raging current is pretty helpful.
52:56
And when you're, when you're diving an at hole in the Indian Ocean
53:01
at like the convergence point of major currents, yeah, that's great.
53:06
For lots of sharks and rays, you know?
53:07
Yeah.
53:08
That's also really challenging when you just hop in the water
53:10
and look around like, all right, where, you know, where do I find
53:13
the cleaning station with the thres?
53:15
It's like, and I don't think there's any two people like, or in terms of us, like
53:19
I would've, there's probably no one else I would've gone with over Brendan just
53:22
because I knew he was a good scientist and he is a shark biologist, um, much
53:26
more so than I am, and he's a good diver.
53:28
Like those, that combination is a winning combination, right?
53:31
I mean, you've gotta be a very experienced diver to go to the locations we did to be
53:36
able to do them well without struggling and, and to be able to stay focused
53:40
on the objectives while also diving like that's not to be taken lightly.
53:43
There was some very difficult conditions we were in.
53:45
Absolutely.
53:46
And, and that's what I was gonna ask.
53:47
I was, what I was wondering through watching this show is.
53:49
Did they, did the production company require a certain level of diving
53:53
or a certain number of hours?
53:54
Like did you have to have like your dive master or instructional, or did
53:58
you have to have like your scientific divers, like I know in the US they do
54:02
scientific diving, like the, was it the, the aaas SI think is, is the, the does
54:06
scientific diving, did you have to have a certain accreditation accreditation
54:12
for diving to even be on the show?
54:15
They definitely asked everybody for their level of expertise and
54:19
had some sort of a metric for that.
54:21
Um, I think everybody came in with something slightly different 'cause
54:24
like, okay, I think Brendan toot, I was, I was A-A-A-U-S is what it is,
54:28
American Science, a water science.
54:30
So I was that all through my PhD.
54:32
Um, and then that, but that ex that expires six months after course, you,
54:36
you don't keep, um, keep that up.
54:38
And so, um, yeah, I mean I think they used a loose justification for it.
54:44
Everybody had to be confident and say, you know, I'm, I'm confident diver.
54:47
Um, but there was.
54:49
Certainly various levels of, of yeah.
54:51
Experience and comfort in these different environments.
54:53
And, and again, other than like one little breath thing that we can't
54:58
figure out what happened to Brendan.
54:59
We, we think we have a reason Oh, right.
55:01
Why it happened to Maldi.
55:02
Yes.
55:02
But that was the only slight, which is almost nothing difficulty
55:06
we had in the entire time.
55:08
And that wasn't 20 feet of water.
55:09
There was no real risk there other than the tiger sharks.
55:11
Right.
55:12
Right.
55:12
I mean, well, I think that's the other thing too.
55:14
A lot of people would be like, well, yeah, you're diving and you're
55:18
diving in these amazing spots.
55:19
The cinematography was amazing.
55:20
Mm-hmm.
55:21
But you're also diving with sharks.
55:22
Like you have to be comfortable having, like, you guys had, what, how big were
55:26
the tiger sharks when, when you saw them?
55:28
They were what, 10, three and a meters?
55:30
Probably.
55:31
Yeah.
55:32
Yeah.
55:32
They're most, they're mostly, um.
55:35
Pregnant females, they get a lot of pregnant females in the
55:37
day, or females in general.
55:38
So they're definitely adult reproductively capable, um, sharks
55:42
and so they're all very large.
55:44
Yeah.
55:44
So you have to be comfortable with seeing those in the water.
55:46
'cause like everybody, it was really cool 'cause everybody who
55:49
saw, like all the divers who saw sharks, like, oh, I got a shark.
55:51
'cause they were so in tune to winning this contest.
55:54
But then like I, I've watched it with some people like, like, but that's a tiger.
55:58
Like that's a tiger shark in there.
55:59
That's a bull like in Bimini when, when you get like the bull sharks,
56:02
like there's bull sharks there.
56:04
Like, what are you guys doing?
56:05
Or there's like a hammerhead there.
56:06
But I thought it, it also showed.
56:10
That wasn't the focus of the show was being afraid of the sharks.
56:13
Mm-hmm.
56:13
Right.
56:13
There were a few spots where people were concerned and, um, there was, I, I
56:18
forget the, the, the name of the woman who had previously been bitten by a lemon
56:21
shark, uh, in, in bi Sarah, yeah, Sarah.
56:24
And then she did the brave thing of going back in, like even my anxiety
56:28
was up, you know, watching her go and being like, wow, that, that takes a lot
56:32
of guts to, to go back in after that.
56:34
I mean, obviously that's a, that's a very significant injury that she had.
56:38
And then to go back in, it was really cool.
56:40
But what the focus wasn't necessarily on how dangerous these sharks are.
56:43
The focus was like, oh, this is amazing.
56:45
I'm gonna get this many points.
56:47
Or what I loved is the diversity of sharks.
56:50
I don't think we've ever seen that on a, on a program in one program.
56:53
So one of the, one of the things, and I'll let Brendan add onto this, but you
56:57
know, we, we had two things going on.
56:58
You've mentioned before, Andrew, the Tiger shark was worth three points
57:01
in the Maldives, worth a lot more points and say Bi Eve or Galapagos.
57:06
Right.
57:06
One of the cool things.
57:08
In regards to that is that the, you know, a species that's circum,
57:11
tropical, you know, that you can see in all these different places.
57:14
It's cool.
57:15
We're dropping in here, we're dropping in there, we're seeing the same species, but
57:18
in a completely different environment.
57:20
Versus the other thing that you just brought up was the diversity of
57:22
sharks and a lot of endemic species that occur only in South Africa only.
57:26
Um, right.
57:27
You know, in this area, that area.
57:29
And so being able to see those things juxtaposed as scientists, especially
57:34
dropping in from one part of, uh, the world to another in rapid succession.
57:37
'cause we, we filmed all this in two months.
57:39
Like there was no break.
57:40
And I think people have asked that question.
57:42
So we were just dropping in from one extreme to the next.
57:44
Um.
57:46
And that, that to me was the focus.
57:47
Like there was conditions that were, you know, Brendan and I had discussions,
57:51
especially like South Africa of things being a little sketchy at times.
57:54
Low visibility white shark highway.
57:57
Um, so we, we had to make some of those.
57:59
I love that.
57:59
That was third.
58:02
I mean, they all, they all take part, but that was like, that
58:04
was like, it's white shark.
58:06
Like this is cold.
58:07
And then white sharks.
58:08
And then white sharks.
58:09
Yeah.
58:12
So we had to consider all that.
58:13
Like there's a healthy respect for, for the environment that we're
58:16
in sharks as part of that, the conditions a major part of that.
58:20
Um, and all that had to be taken into consideration, well
58:23
above some competition, right?
58:25
Our wives are not worth television.
58:28
And, and that was also a concession that we, you know, that we had.
58:31
So, yeah.
58:32
Yeah.
58:33
No, that's, that's amazing.
58:35
Go ahead.
58:35
Uh, Brendan, you were gonna say something?
58:37
I'm just, I, I completely agree.
58:39
We always had that at the forefront of our minds is like looking
58:42
after ourselves and the, the.
58:45
The teams in the water were so strong.
58:47
Like all the underwater camera operators are amazing.
58:52
Yeah.
58:52
And so on any given dive, you know, it would be the two teammates, the underwater
58:57
camera person, and then usually a local dive master who, like Chris said, is kind
59:03
of just hanging off in the background.
59:05
Um, right.
59:06
They're there, but they're not able to guide you.
59:08
Um, and so a lot of this was, it wasn't just like me and
59:14
Chris relying on each other.
59:15
It would be like, yeah.
59:16
We felt a very strong bond with the underwater cameramen as well.
59:20
Um, because also in some of these places, you might not speak the same
59:23
language as the dive master, and so like, there's a communication barrier
59:27
and, and you're in a new place.
59:28
And so it's nice to be with that third person where like, you really,
59:32
you're doing it together and we, yeah.
59:34
We got better at this.
59:37
If any of them are listening, they're laughing right now because we were, we
59:41
were just absolute menas to them because we were like sprinting through, like we'd
59:46
swim an entire bay on scuba, hop out, drop the gear, get back in the boat, go swim.
59:51
You guys were like, I wanna win this.
59:53
Yeah.
59:53
Oh yeah.
59:54
We were, we were militant about it.
59:56
Yeah.
59:56
Whatever we were doing, they were working twice as hard.
59:59
'cause they're pushing a giant camera rig and trying to get, not only like,
1:00:03
they don't just need a photo, they need us in the frame with the animals
1:00:08
that's swimming away, you know?
1:00:10
And so I think we got better.
1:00:12
Hopefully they'd agree.
1:00:14
I think we got better at like trying to coordinate better with them.
1:00:19
Yeah.
1:00:19
Keeping, keeping the show in mind and what was needed for the show in mind.
1:00:24
Mm-hmm.
1:00:24
Whether that was like, you know, maybe we don't need to give an
1:00:27
underwater lecture at this site.
1:00:28
Maybe they just need like a short soundbite that wraps it up in a sentence.
1:00:33
Or if we position ourselves here, then they can get the shark with us behind it.
1:00:37
And so it was, there was like very much a team atmosphere,
1:00:41
at least within each boat.
1:00:43
Uh, yeah, as we went from location to location.
1:00:45
That's great.
1:00:46
And, and you probably needed that cameraman too, right?
1:00:48
To be like, I need you to get this shark, because let's be honest, like
1:00:52
they probably slowed a lot of the stuff down that, that you guys saw
1:00:56
when you were taking the photographs.
1:00:57
But that doesn't happen in the ocean.
1:00:59
Some of these sharks are moving quite fast.
1:01:00
If they see you, boom, they, they might be gone.
1:01:03
Uh, things happen a lot faster than we think when, when you're in the ocean,
1:01:07
uh, and when you see it on, on camera.
1:01:09
Yeah.
1:01:09
So that's, and that was a big thing too.
1:01:11
I mean, we're, we're in a competition.
1:01:12
We're like super hyper-focused on that, but at the same time, recognizing that.
1:01:17
We are here to produce a show, so we can't do one without the other.
1:01:21
Sure.
1:01:21
And and a lot of times, like you see something awesome and it'd be like,
1:01:25
we gotta get the cameraman over here.
1:01:27
'cause it's not that Brendan and I didn't separate at times.
1:01:29
Right.
1:01:29
We tried to stay close, but currents and, and yeah.
1:01:34
You know, um, wanting to explore and, and see things differently, you know?
1:01:39
Um, yeah, for sure.
1:01:40
And, and then also just the, in terms of how they did it, they also rotated
1:01:44
the production teams, the cameramen, they, they rotated in between the teams.
1:01:47
So that one team got stuck with the same group, our production
1:01:51
team the entire time, which I think also benefited, uh, the producers.
1:01:55
Right.
1:01:55
So again, for sure, they had to put certain people with us that wanted to
1:01:58
chase us for, for eight hours a day.
1:02:00
Yeah.
1:02:01
Yeah.
1:02:01
I was like, these guys are known.
1:02:02
They, we know what they're doing.
1:02:03
We gotta go after we were well known.
1:02:04
Yeah, yeah.
1:02:05
Yeah.
1:02:06
You're gonna have Olympic swimmers following you with, you know, just
1:02:09
to get to catch up to you guys.
1:02:10
Yeah.
1:02:11
Well even that's awesome.
1:02:12
It was a lot of fun.
1:02:13
A lot of fun with them too, because we almost had our own little side
1:02:16
games with them each day where their goal was to get shots of sharks with
1:02:21
us in the foreground that we didn't see or take pictures of, you know?
1:02:26
Right, right.
1:02:26
'cause like Chris and I talked about this in advance, like the team that we fear the
1:02:30
most in a competition like this would be if you took like two of these cameramen
1:02:35
and made them a team, and so Oh yeah.
1:02:38
Oh yeah.
1:02:38
Yeah.
1:02:39
Because they have eye.
1:02:40
Right.
1:02:40
They know what to what they're looking for.
1:02:42
Yeah.
1:02:43
Yeah.
1:02:43
Which is why when we, we were asked early on who we feared the most and or who we
1:02:47
thought would, would take the competition.
1:02:48
We, we said Dan and Sarah, and part of that for me is
1:02:51
Dan's a underwater cameraman.
1:02:52
We're like, yep.
1:02:53
He, he's got a lot of experience in the water looking for sharks.
1:02:56
We, we knew they were gonna be, you know, one of the top teams for sure.
1:02:59
Absolutely.
1:03:00
And the irony, the irony of how audiences feel about dam's, Dan's
1:03:05
camera work in those first few episodes.
1:03:07
It is.
1:03:07
Oh yeah.
1:03:07
I, I think it's really funny.
1:03:09
It, like, it's great comic relief, but Dan is actually a great underwater camera man.
1:03:15
Right, right.
1:03:16
'cause what happens when you're so hyper-focused on your, your
1:03:19
craft is that becomes your focus.
1:03:21
Whereas for us, we were, we're not underwater photographer, so
1:03:25
we were just clicking and shooting with our GoPro or whatever.
1:03:27
We didn't care how it turned out.
1:03:28
We just cared that we got the shot.
1:03:29
He's looking at lighting, trying to get a good, he's looking at lighting light.
1:03:32
We don't care about that.
1:03:33
We're here to win a show and not best picture.
1:03:35
Can you see it?
1:03:35
Can you see it there?
1:03:36
Yeah.
1:03:36
Okay.
1:03:37
Perfect.
1:03:37
Count that one.
1:03:38
That's good.
1:03:40
I love it.
1:03:40
Look, I have, I, you know, as I mentioned, I was a big proponent of the show.
1:03:44
Uh, I wanted to spread it around just even locally in, in my own city.
1:03:48
I have good friends of mine who have recently watched this, and
1:03:51
one of the, one of the, the, the young girl is watching it right now.
1:03:55
Um, hence why I'm not giving, we're not gonna do any kind
1:03:57
of spoilers, but they did.
1:03:59
I asked them, I said, if you have questions, let me know.
1:04:01
'cause I'm talking to two, two of the people who were on the, on the podcast.
1:04:04
So, uh, one, uh, uh, is is Evan, he's, he's, uh, an 11-year-old and he said, uh,
1:04:10
he want to know if the two of you were ever scared while in the water, whether
1:04:14
it be sharks or just in the water itself.
1:04:16
You, you dove in some pretty.
1:04:18
Beautiful places, but as you mentioned, some challenging areas.
1:04:21
You know, I remember Japan had the, the current, right.
1:04:24
That was like, that was crazy.
1:04:25
Even the host went in after to check it out and be like, yeah,
1:04:27
this is, this is pretty dangerous.
1:04:29
Were there, was there any part in like any of the, the, um, the, the
1:04:33
places where you were, uh, did the, were you ever scared at any point?
1:04:40
Credible?
1:04:41
There's one that comes to mind for me.
1:04:42
Yeah.
1:04:43
Uh, the, the first thing that jumped to mind was one particular shark, actually.
1:04:49
Um, and this goes back to the risk we were talking about earlier.
1:04:52
Like Chris and I have, there's, I don't know, there's a weird, there's
1:04:56
a weird trajectory that you take, I think in a career like this from
1:05:00
going, I find like students that you just get in the water the first time,
1:05:04
they'll hop in with a tiger shark and just think it's the most fun ever.
1:05:06
And they're not a, because they haven't seen what an animal like that
1:05:09
is actually capable of when it wants to, that there's not enough respect.
1:05:14
Mm-hmm.
1:05:14
And then.
1:05:15
It, it just changes throughout your career.
1:05:17
And I think both of us at this point are like, there's a
1:05:20
very healthy level of respect.
1:05:22
'cause when you see a tiger shark take down like three giant poly
1:05:25
balls, it's the amount of power some of these animals have is Oh yeah.
1:05:29
You cannot overstate like they can move.
1:05:31
Right.
1:05:32
We're nothing to them, you know?
1:05:33
Yeah.
1:05:34
They just don't choose to ever behave that way in normal circumstances with people.
1:05:40
Right.
1:05:40
Which is great for us as people who like to die with them.
1:05:44
But once in a while you find an animal that is not in good shape and
1:05:48
it's, you know, it's in dire straits.
1:05:49
And it, there's one, one Galapagos shark.
1:05:52
And just to be clear, this is after diving, we were, I don't
1:05:54
know, there were, we maxed out on Galapagos Sharks on every dive.
1:05:57
Like I think you did.
1:05:58
Yeah.
1:05:58
There's, there's 50 of 'em on every dive in the Galapagos and none
1:06:02
of them gave us a second look.
1:06:04
Right.
1:06:04
And then we were snorkeling around, uh, Darwin's pillars in the shallows.
1:06:09
We spent a lot of time snorkeling there and it was.
1:06:12
Just go like I, it's so beautiful.
1:06:14
There's so much life.
1:06:15
Yeah.
1:06:15
And it's really cool to see.
1:06:18
Like the, the hammerhead and the Galapagos are awesome when you're on
1:06:20
a wall and they're off in the blue, but then in the shallows around those
1:06:24
big kind of rocky outcrops mm-hmm.
1:06:26
They'll just come in and cruise in like threes and fours along the
1:06:30
sandy kind of sand rocky bottom.
1:06:32
Um, and they're in maybe 20, 30 feet of water and they'll turn and look up at you.
1:06:37
And so it's just a whole, it's a completely different perspective.
1:06:40
So we, yeah.
1:06:40
In all these places, we tried for points or not to just explore,
1:06:44
like, we'll never go back.
1:06:46
Mm-hmm.
1:06:46
And so we were doing that swimming around the island, and this one
1:06:51
Galapagos shark just started tracking us from the sea floor.
1:06:55
Um, and it had, it was very, like, it had a misshapen pectoral fin.
1:07:00
I think it had some trailing wire leader, like it had been caught,
1:07:03
maybe it hadn't been able to successfully catch prey in a while.
1:07:07
Um, it looked pretty emaciated and very banged up.
1:07:10
And it just tracked us in a way that.
1:07:12
The, you know, the hair on your neck stands up, you feel like a prey item.
1:07:16
Hmm.
1:07:17
Wow.
1:07:17
And it's very important, I think once you've been in the water
1:07:21
enough, you encounter those animals.
1:07:23
Yeah.
1:07:23
And then I think is when you're at like a healthy level of respect of like,
1:07:27
yeah, 99% of the time there's no problem here, but there's always the chance.
1:07:31
You never know what is in the water with you on a particular day.
1:07:34
And recognizing that animal as different from all the others,
1:07:37
we all got out and we moved.
1:07:39
Right.
1:07:40
And I think that's where like all the experience we've had comes into play.
1:07:44
And, and I just, anytime we talk to anyone like, or with the public, I just, it's
1:07:50
very important to emphasize like those scenarios exist, you know, and those, it's
1:07:56
good to know when to get outta the water.
1:07:57
So I was, yeah, I was shaken up a little by that animal.
1:08:00
I didn't wanna be in with them anymore.
1:08:02
Brendan and I both looked at, we both looked at each other and just
1:08:05
kind of like understood, you know?
1:08:07
Yeah.
1:08:07
Like, we're out, that we needed to get out.
1:08:09
And, and then in that same relative environment, the shallows is, and I
1:08:12
don't think the, the filming of that quite did it justice, but the massive
1:08:16
tiger shark that we encountered in, in about six feet of water in the Galapagos,
1:08:20
um, likely feeding along the shores.
1:08:22
And it came out in, you know, just head up on me.
1:08:25
Brendan was a little bit off to the side.
1:08:28
Um, and it really caught me by surprise.
1:08:31
Like, people don't regularly see tiger sharks in the Galapagos.
1:08:33
That's why there were a crap ton of points.
1:08:36
Right, right.
1:08:36
And we didn't, we didn't expect to, we, that's not what we were there looking for.
1:08:40
And all of a sudden, like, oh God.
1:08:42
So I had two things going through my mind.
1:08:43
One was like, oh crap.
1:08:45
Like that's a freaking massive tiger shark that was likely just feeding and, and
1:08:49
like this is a way different experience than the Maldives where they're.
1:08:51
Seemingly a bit more controlled.
1:08:53
And then the next part of me is like, I gotta get a picture of this.
1:08:55
This is worth a lot of points.
1:08:57
We still got a game to play here.
1:09:00
So we got a picture of that, had a moment with it and we got out too because that
1:09:04
was another one that was a bit off.
1:09:05
Um, and that, that scenario, it was like that shark was
1:09:11
just doing normal shark things.
1:09:13
It was entirely right.
1:09:14
It was us recognizing we are in this place where it doesn't expect us and it's
1:09:20
probably feeding, like probably hunting turtles or maybe maybe this fur seals
1:09:25
that are kind, there's a lot of bubbles.
1:09:27
The environment's very turbulent.
1:09:29
It was just like, this is the tiger shark was the most scarred up.
1:09:32
Shark I've ever seen.
1:09:34
Like it looked like it had been in some battles, this thing was gnarly.
1:09:37
Um, when I talk about it, I referenced Scar from Lion King.
1:09:40
Is it just looking?
1:09:40
I've been through some stuff and like, interesting.
1:09:42
And it was just a way different experience.
1:09:44
But yeah, again, it's that respect and that knowledge thing we're running like,
1:09:48
okay, well, and, and we're in one of the most remote places in the world, right?
1:09:51
Yeah.
1:09:51
Out in the middle of Ecuadorian Waters in the Galapagos.
1:09:55
And, um, you know, you don't wanna mess around in a place like that where
1:09:58
you're so far away from any absolutely.
1:10:01
Medical treatment if something does happen.
1:10:03
So, no, absolutely.
1:10:03
Yeah.
1:10:04
So yeah, I think, I think our experience, we, and I think the thing with the
1:10:07
experience in, in these areas too, um, there's never really a sense of panic.
1:10:12
It's kind of like, okay, now we, we can react to this and then figure out our
1:10:16
best path, but it's never a panic, right?
1:10:18
Yeah.
1:10:18
So that, so fear, I don't know if I would ever use the word fear, but
1:10:21
definitely like awareness and respect.
1:10:23
Yeah.
1:10:23
Um, to get out when it, enough to know to get.
1:10:26
Yeah.
1:10:26
Um, 'cause we also had some incredible, you know, experiences with other
1:10:30
things that were unexpected, like orcas and, um, humpback whales.
1:10:33
Yeah.
1:10:34
So we were known as the mammal people, and Dan made a comment, I think in the
1:10:36
last episode, like, oh, they're gonna get distracted by, by, you know, orcas again.
1:10:40
Like that, that's what we were known for.
1:10:42
And, and Herron Island, um, you know, these humpback wells that
1:10:45
were over wintering there in, in the, um, on, on the reef.
1:10:48
Brendan and I were able to head them up and this didn't make the
1:10:51
show, but we, um, we were able to swim right alongside with them.
1:10:54
We took time outta the day during the competition.
1:10:56
We're like, screw it.
1:10:57
This is again, once in a while, bucket list, just like
1:10:59
the orcas bucket bucket list.
1:11:01
So, swam along with two humpback wells for a while, just like we
1:11:04
did the orcas for like 30 minutes.
1:11:05
Um, yeah, a little, little, you know, the humpback wells was
1:11:08
its own beast of an experience.
1:11:10
Yeah.
1:11:10
Orcas.
1:11:10
We had a little baby and two likely females, um, come up and, and just.
1:11:15
Check us out for, I don't know.
1:11:17
I mean, it felt like 30 minutes, it might've been five minutes, but
1:11:20
it, it was like, doesn't matter.
1:11:21
Those were two experiences beyond the sharks that yeah,
1:11:25
I will never, ever forget.
1:11:26
And I was so happy to do it with Brendan too, in, in these places
1:11:29
because it was just awesome.
1:11:31
Yeah, no, absolutely.
1:11:33
That's, that sounds amazing.
1:11:34
That was actually one of my other questions was like, what was the
1:11:36
coolest thing you saw other than sharks?
1:11:38
Would you put those two experiences as probably the coolest things?
1:11:43
Oh, I mean, absolutely.
1:11:44
Brendan and I, we couldn't stop talking about the whales afterwards
1:11:47
and the producers like, stop talking about the whales, sharks, sharks.
1:11:51
And by the time we got to the Galapagos where we saw the orcas,
1:11:54
we were chasing a bait ball.
1:11:55
Um, and they happened to be there.
1:11:57
So we, we were, um, at Darwin because it's more likely to see whale sharks there.
1:12:02
That's why we both, you know, we know Dan and Sarah went there, that episode
1:12:04
two and gave up while we're, we're pretty confident that the reason the whale sharks
1:12:10
weren't there is because these orcas of the orcas, they were known shark predator.
1:12:13
Yeah.
1:12:13
Yeah.
1:12:13
And so, you know, we had an incredible time with 'em.
1:12:16
Um, I mean, there's nothing in the world more incredible than having these animals
1:12:23
that are the apex predators in the, in, in, in an environment, in an ecosystem.
1:12:27
Come and check you out within like a foot of you having a, a, a
1:12:30
juvenile, um, orca come and, and just having have a moment with you.
1:12:35
'cause they're looking at you just as much as you're looking at them in curiosity.
1:12:37
This is a while there.
1:12:38
They probably haven't seen a lot of people.
1:12:40
If, if any, your heart must have been beating out of your chest.
1:12:43
Beating out of our chest.
1:12:44
And, and you know that they can see that too.
1:12:46
They can feel that too.
1:12:47
They're like, yeah, this is pretty cool for us too.
1:12:49
And then mom comes up underneath from the depths of the blue,
1:12:52
like, okay, you guys are safe.
1:12:54
We won't do anything.
1:12:55
Yeah, we won't, we won't discipline, you know, our, our young here.
1:12:58
Um, but Brendan and I, we made the decision.
1:13:00
We saw these ORs we're like.
1:13:02
Once in a lifetime, man.
1:13:03
Like, I'm we're you got it.
1:13:05
We get in the water and we stay with it for quite a while.
1:13:08
Yeah.
1:13:08
So those are things I think, um, you know, we talk about being
1:13:11
scientists and in the field and stuff.
1:13:14
There's certain things where you just can't, you can't pay you enough.
1:13:17
No.
1:13:17
Not to be out there for these types of things.
1:13:19
Right.
1:13:19
Like, it's just, it's the memories that you'll have for, for life.
1:13:22
You'll be telling, you know, children and grandchildren and nieces and
1:13:25
nephews and everybody who you see like, yeah, I got to dive with
1:13:28
humpbacks and, and orcas and, uh, you know, orcas around a bait ball too.
1:13:33
That's pretty, that's pretty cool.
1:13:34
Even just being around a bait ball.
1:13:35
That, that was pretty incredible, uh, to be around.
1:13:39
So I just thought, uh, that was cool.
1:13:40
Now getting back to the sharks, like you guys got to see a lot of cool sharks.
1:13:44
What was your favorite, we'll start, Brendan, we'll start with you.
1:13:48
What was your favorite shark that you saw?
1:13:51
Favorite shark species would've been, I'd say this, South Africa
1:13:55
was the most surprising location for me because I'd never.
1:13:58
I've been to South Africa, but only diving in a place called Wan Bay, which
1:14:02
is like up in the northeastern corner.
1:14:04
And South Africa's really interesting because there's this warm water current
1:14:07
that comes from the tropics down along that, uh, eastern side of Africa.
1:14:13
So warm water coming down, and then cold water coming north from Antarctica.
1:14:17
And so you have so many different ecosystems in close proximity.
1:14:22
So even though I'd been there, I'd only been diving on like
1:14:24
clear, warm, tropical reefs.
1:14:27
So then when we get to Port Elizabeth, it's not that at all.
1:14:31
You know, it's like rugged coastlines, rocky reefs, bad visibility, cold water
1:14:39
that makes for very abundant marine life.
1:14:41
You know, it's just packed with nutrients.
1:14:43
There's animals everywhere.
1:14:44
There's penguins, there's also humpback whales, like right off the beach.
1:14:49
Um, there are obviously white sharks hanging out there.
1:14:52
Yeah, but the coolest for me, there were the endemics, like the little shy
1:14:57
sharks and cat sharks that don't occur anywhere else that are just so beautiful.
1:15:02
Um, and they were so interested in the bait that we were offering them, that
1:15:08
they'd come just out of the woodwork.
1:15:10
Like when you find them without bait their face into a ledge, you know, just kind
1:15:15
of hanging out quietly during the day.
1:15:16
Often stacked up like three to 10 in a pile.
1:15:20
Um, but as soon as there's a little bit of sardine oil in the water, they
1:15:26
smell it and they all come rushing.
1:15:27
And so then you've got just all these tiny little like one to two foot long catch
1:15:33
sharks and shy sharks cruising around.
1:15:35
Um, that's pretty cool.
1:15:36
And yeah, so for me, the leopard catch shark just absolutely beautiful species.
1:15:41
I think the cool, I mean, I love seeing it, but I think also it speaks to
1:15:46
the point of the show, like mm-hmm.
1:15:48
Sharing that species with people as a shark that.
1:15:52
I'd never seen a photo of, I probably didn't know it existed before going
1:15:55
there, and then suddenly we're bringing that to people on their couches in
1:15:59
a place like Wisconsin or Kentucky.
1:16:01
Um, you know, that is, that's pretty awesome.
1:16:04
Very happy with that one.
1:16:05
And I'll, I'll keep mine short.
1:16:07
I, I just, I feel like I answered this question differently.
1:16:10
Everyone, every time someone asked me, because I, you remember different
1:16:14
sharks that you've seen right?
1:16:15
Re remember different sharks.
1:16:16
Every, every place we went to had its own magical appeal.
1:16:20
I mean, we were going to some of the most biodiverse, many times protected
1:16:24
areas for sharks and rays on the planet.
1:16:27
So we're seeing the best of the best and it's really hard to compare and contrast.
1:16:31
So for me, yeah, I, I bring up South Africa quite often too because of all
1:16:34
the endemics, the puff had a shy shark was one I was really excited to see.
1:16:38
Um, and again, like Brendan said, a lot of times people
1:16:41
don't even know these are sharks.
1:16:42
I ones that I had never seen and I had only recently read about.
1:16:45
Right.
1:16:46
Um, as, as our, um.
1:16:48
Are planning into the trip.
1:16:49
So yeah, some of the animals that I would've never seen or knew existed as
1:16:53
much as that probably appealed to the public, also appealed to us as scientists.
1:16:56
Mm-hmm.
1:16:57
In, in this field.
1:16:57
And then, you know, as the wedge fish in, in, um, in Australia there's the, the wbe
1:17:02
I had been in Australia 20 years prior to, and then saw quite a few wabe gongs in a
1:17:08
completely different part of Australia.
1:17:09
And, and I think when, when Brendan found this one, the tased wabe gong
1:17:13
on our dive, I'm just, that I could have spent all day just there.
1:17:16
Right.
1:17:17
Um, just watching that, that little dude.
1:17:20
Um, and then, and then there's also the favorite dives and then there's
1:17:23
like the, the tiger shark and the Galapagos honestly was like a, as
1:17:27
kind of freaky as that experience was.
1:17:30
It was one of my favorite moments.
1:17:31
'cause it was so exciting.
1:17:33
It was a, a, a, you know, we're in a competition, so it's not just the
1:17:37
sharks, it's also like, oh my God.
1:17:39
Like this is where so many points, so your start heart starts racing because of that.
1:17:42
So that emotional attachment ends up being part of your experience.
1:17:46
On top of the fact that you're seeing cool animals in cool places.
1:17:48
So hard for me to answer that, but, um, no, for sure.
1:17:51
I mean, you guys got to like, every place that I kept hearing them say,
1:17:56
I was like, oh man, that is so cool.
1:17:58
Like, oh really?
1:17:59
Oh, that's awesome.
1:18:00
Like, it's, it's, uh, it's a, it's a trip of a lifetime.
1:18:03
Uh, an experience of a lifetime.
1:18:05
Let me ask you this.
1:18:06
When it was all said and done, after you had watched the show, I'm sure
1:18:09
a sigh of relief kind of came out 'cause you knew how it came out.
1:18:12
Uh, were you, were you happy with the way it turned out?
1:18:15
I should ask that first.
1:18:17
Um, I can start Brendan.
1:18:19
Um, yes.
1:18:21
I, I think ultimately we were, we were very pleased.
1:18:23
I was very pleased with the way the, the show came out.
1:18:25
I mean, two major goals, you know, for this one, have an adventure of a lifetime.
1:18:32
Yeah.
1:18:32
One of my best friends, like, there's nothing else that I could have
1:18:36
spent two months doing that would've probably been better than this
1:18:39
adventure that we were on together.
1:18:41
And then as a, as a second thing is the reason why we probably really did
1:18:44
it, especially in in our busy lives and careers, is we wanted to have
1:18:47
a, a bigger conservation platform.
1:18:49
You know?
1:18:49
Mm-hmm.
1:18:50
We continued to do things as shark docs after the fact, and, um, yep.
1:18:53
We encourage people to, to follow us and check that out because we're, yeah.
1:18:55
We'll put that link in the, to, in please do show notes.
1:18:58
Yeah.
1:18:58
We're continuing to build on that conservation platform,
1:19:00
which is one of our intentions.
1:19:02
We both do a lot of good work through our, um, our current positions in our,
1:19:05
in our jobs, but we wanted to have something different, and so for us,
1:19:09
this was storytelling in a way that we couldn't do it on our own, and
1:19:12
the whole edutainment sort of, yeah.
1:19:14
Concept that we've learned about, as, you know, feeding people
1:19:18
accidental knowledge when they're not expecting it, kind of a concept.
1:19:20
So I think we've just been really trying to figure out what our next move is
1:19:24
to, to keep building off of that, you know, the, the peak of the show and, and
1:19:29
probably like the excitement around it is starting to wane a little bit, but
1:19:32
we're trying to continue to build off of that and, and figure out, you know,
1:19:36
what else we can do to continue to, yeah.
1:19:40
Explore and really push positive conservation messaging as we both feel.
1:19:44
We have a lot to, to offer in that field.
1:19:48
How about you, Brendan?
1:19:48
Were you happy with the overall turnout and then your experience after?
1:19:54
Yeah, I was, you know, none of us knew, none of the contestants
1:19:58
knew during filming that this was gonna turn into a family show.
1:20:04
Um, it sounds like the producers had that in mind and it, it's a genius move.
1:20:10
You know, shark Week, shark Fest often have a lot of like more dramatic
1:20:15
scenes and some blood and stuff like that and it's scary for kids.
1:20:18
Yeah.
1:20:18
And so the folks at Netflix realized, like, you know, how great would it be for
1:20:22
families to be able to watch a show about sharks where they don't have to be afraid?
1:20:27
Where every encounter is positive and people are excited about it.
1:20:31
Yeah.
1:20:32
And so I. I didn't know that that was coming.
1:20:35
And so the response we've had from kids, like, like these kids that you
1:20:39
know, who are asking some of these questions, um, has just been amazing.
1:20:44
Like if, if we have a fan base at all, it's, it's like 11 to 13-year-old
1:20:50
boys who are just pumped about sharks and, and science and diving.
1:20:55
And, um, I think the, the current statistics that I've heard is that it
1:21:01
was number, the show was number one in Netflix, family in like over 50 countries.
1:21:05
Um, so if you had told mes that that's what would happen if we participated, or
1:21:11
like, if that's how good the show would do when we had that initial contract,
1:21:15
I would've just signed it on the spot.
1:21:17
Yeah.
1:21:17
You know, so, yeah, for sure.
1:21:19
Yeah.
1:21:19
We, I know different people have like different criticisms of
1:21:23
it, and a lot of 'em are valid.
1:21:24
Like we, yeah, you can, you can poke holes in anything but overall
1:21:28
like forest through the trees.
1:21:30
Incredible job.
1:21:31
We're so thrilled to have been a part of it.
1:21:34
Um, and hopefully this is just another like, contribution among all these
1:21:39
random things that we do that's on the positive side of the equation.
1:21:43
Would you do, would you both, uh, do show similar or other shows like
1:21:49
documentaries, uh, say like from Shark Fest or even Shark Week again or
1:21:56
something new, like do a television show again, but in like a different type.
1:22:00
Like if, I guess if all the Sharks asked you to do it again, would you do it again?
1:22:04
All the sharks, yes.
1:22:05
'cause now we want to, to trust the producers right.
1:22:07
To us.
1:22:08
I think it's gonna be more of the same.
1:22:09
Like, um, we're gonna be very carefully vetting any opportunity that comes our
1:22:13
way because we're not going to, of course I'm not, I don't wanna speak for Brendan.
1:22:17
I'm not gonna be quick to, to jump into something without
1:22:19
really understanding what it is.
1:22:21
Um.
1:22:22
And I'll take any role that's offered.
1:22:29
Yeah.
1:22:29
Right.
1:22:30
That is not the Yeah, right.
1:22:32
Well, if it's, well, if it's something that ridiculous like sharknato, you
1:22:36
know, that it's, oh, I think, you know, people know not to take it seriously.
1:22:38
It's this fine line between something that could be be real in something that's
1:22:42
not, that really, you've gotta be careful, you've gotta be careful with that.
1:22:45
So, yeah.
1:22:46
I mean, ultimately there's a major, um, the excitement that, that surrounded
1:22:51
this over a, a paper that, you know, I've published is way different.
1:22:55
Right.
1:22:55
Um, you just, you gain the attention of a whole new audience that you
1:23:00
wouldn't get in just the science field.
1:23:02
So I think things like this are necessary Yeah.
1:23:05
To reach a broader audience.
1:23:06
But again, it has to be done carefully.
1:23:08
And I think these, the, the producers of this show.
1:23:11
Did it Well, and, and I, I hope there's a future for this.
1:23:14
'cause I, I think, yeah, it was well received.
1:23:16
Um, but, you know, it's a, it's a game of, um, of money to a
1:23:21
lot of these major networks too.
1:23:22
And, and so if they can't, I don't know.
1:23:23
I'm, I'm hopeful that, that things like this, if not this show in
1:23:26
particular, uh, will have more seasons.
1:23:28
But I think they're going in a good positive direction that
1:23:32
both Brendan and I mm-hmm.
1:23:34
Can, um, align with.
1:23:35
I agree.
1:23:36
I was very, uh, relieved to see.
1:23:39
This show come out on Netflix.
1:23:41
They've had a couple of other programs, uh, that we will not be mentioning.
1:23:44
I've mentioned on this, on this program before that I have, you know, as
1:23:48
scientists, we haven't been, I haven't been very happy with in the past.
1:23:51
I can't speak for, for everybody, but, uh, I know other scientists who haven't.
1:23:55
Uh, and so it's nice to have something that's positive.
1:23:58
It's nice to have something family oriented, especially about sharks to
1:24:00
really change that narrative, especially for, for young kids about sharks and
1:24:04
really bring back that curiosity.
1:24:06
A lot of sort of like the voices that you guys were saying.
1:24:10
Uh, you know, every time you saw a shark, every time you see an
1:24:12
overhang or like, oh, this is cool.
1:24:13
I've never seen one of these before, and all this kind of stuff, I think.
1:24:16
That really helped bring that, it showed that passion that, that all
1:24:19
of you had, um, especially the two of you to, to be able to get to this.
1:24:23
And I think the strategy that you had, I think was fun.
1:24:25
'cause it really gamified it, you know, it showed that, yeah, this was
1:24:28
still a competition and uh, I thought you guys did, uh, a very good job.
1:24:33
Uh, everybody, all the contestants did a very good job at, at coming
1:24:36
around and getting the, the motion across that science is fun.
1:24:39
It's all about curiosity, it's about exploring, um, using that scientific mind
1:24:44
of yours and, and really getting into it, but also using that creative mind and, and
1:24:48
doing a big, like a, it is a fairly big production and so it's a really cool thing
1:24:51
that you guys got to do and I'm really happy you, you were able to do that and.
1:24:54
Being a part of a show that shows so many sharks.
1:24:56
I thought that was really cool.
1:24:57
So I appreciate all this and, and I'm, I'm not a shark scientist.
1:25:00
I do have another podcast beyond John.
1:25:02
We'll have to have you guys on individually get your full careers on
1:25:05
with, with, uh, David Ebert, um, who is someone that if, if, if they're having
1:25:10
another season, I don't know if they're having another season, that's the guy
1:25:13
you call because he knows where every shark is everywhere, so, absolutely.
1:25:17
You know, that's the Well, we're also scared of who else they would
1:25:19
bring in for a second season.
1:25:20
Somebody like him might be very dangerous to, to see the kids seen.
1:25:24
Yeah.
1:25:24
I had the same conversation with, with Mike Hit house and, um, Yas Papa too.
1:25:28
And I'm just like, if you guys were part of the show.
1:25:31
That's gonna be Oh yeah.
1:25:32
I told, I told David he was on there.
1:25:34
He goes, oh, he goes, he goes, if I could scuba dive like I used to,
1:25:37
he's like, I would be on that show in a second, you know, but he'd be
1:25:40
too busy, like identifying them all.
1:25:42
He'd be like going, he'd probably find a new species out there.
1:25:47
Exactly.
1:25:48
He wouldn't care about the competition anymore.
1:25:50
He's like, just get to these locations.
1:25:52
Yeah.
1:25:52
Every location he goes.
1:25:53
He is just, that's new.
1:25:54
I don't know what that is, but that's new.
1:25:55
I'm gonna tell you that.
1:25:56
Right.
1:25:57
I can see the, the, the cameraman just being like, I don't know.
1:26:00
I don't know what this is.
1:26:02
We'll just get shark.
1:26:02
So, we'll, well, you know, the quick work to, um, the quick work of the
1:26:06
production team too, keep in mind like all these, um, species that we identified
1:26:11
and had and had to get validated or verified, um, they were going off to
1:26:14
experts to, and turning those around.
1:26:17
In a very quick period of time.
1:26:18
So there was a lot of planning that went into that.
1:26:21
Yeah.
1:26:21
If we're gonna new areas and, and species that a lot of us had not
1:26:24
experienced and we had to get those like, oh, we think that's what it is.
1:26:27
We're sure that's what it is.
1:26:28
But they had to verify that to give us points.
1:26:30
So that was, it was a big job on their part.
1:26:32
And I did love the cards, like of the, the, the post editing, uh, team did the
1:26:37
cards of like showing what species is where it is and all that kind of stuff.
1:26:41
I thought that was, uh, that was really cool what they were able to do and,
1:26:44
and provide that educational source.
1:26:46
Don't tell 'em, but I still have a couple cards.
1:26:48
Oh, that's awesome.
1:26:49
That is so cool.
1:26:51
That is so much fun.
1:26:52
Right on.
1:26:53
Don't tell 'em I have those.
1:26:55
But guys, this has been fantastic.
1:26:57
It's really been fun to get to know you all.
1:26:59
I really appreciate you coming on and giving us your experience.
1:27:01
Um, and I just think it's, it's phenomenal.
1:27:03
I'd love to have both of you back on together individually to share the
1:27:07
science that you guys do, um, and get to know a little bit more about
1:27:10
that as we go, as we go forward.
1:27:12
So thank you so much for, for coming on the show.
1:27:14
Thanks for having us.
1:27:14
Awesome, Andrew.
1:27:15
Yeah.
1:27:15
Appreciate you.
1:27:16
You bet.
1:27:18
Thank you, Chris.
1:27:19
Thank you, Brendan, for joining us on today's episode of the How
1:27:21
to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
1:27:22
It was really great to be able to, you know, get a peek into
1:27:25
the journey and behind the scenes of a production like this.
1:27:27
This is something that is pretty new to a lot of people, including myself.
1:27:31
Not necessarily TV production, but also like looking at a reality show that has
1:27:36
a positive outcome that looks at positive things, and that is very challenging
1:27:40
from a diving perspective, I am not an experienced diver, to say the least.
1:27:44
I've gone diving a number of times, but I wouldn't say that I've seen a
1:27:47
lot of different scenarios like they did in these challenging waters where
1:27:51
there, you know, Japan was a lot of currents we saw in South Africa.
1:27:56
It was cold as well as the visibility wasn't that great.
1:28:00
As you can see, it was green water, but very productive as Brendan mentioned.
1:28:03
It was just really cool and I think something that we should all check
1:28:06
out sometime if you're divers and something to look out for if you're
1:28:09
a diver or scientist or underwater photographer, underwater camera person.
1:28:12
I would love to hear what your thoughts were about the show.
1:28:15
Did you love the content?
1:28:17
Did you love the diving experience?
1:28:18
Did you love the cinema photography?
1:28:20
Did you not like it?
1:28:20
Love to hear your thoughts.
1:28:21
Let me know in the comments below if you're listening to this on YouTube, or
1:28:24
you can hit me up through my email by going to speak up for blue.com/contact,
1:28:29
and then you can DM me on Instagram at How to Protect the Ocean.
1:28:32
And obviously I will have all the links so you can connect with Chris
1:28:35
and Brendan in the show notes.
1:28:37
So check those out and check out all the sharks if you have it on Netflix.
1:28:40
It's a really great show, a lot of fun.
1:28:42
Six episodes I binged in one night, and it was a lot of fun to see.
1:28:45
So that's it for today's episode.
1:28:47
Thank you again to Brendan and Chris.
1:28:48
We really appreciate you guys for listening to this and we'd love to
1:28:52
have you back for more episodes.
1:28:54
To learn more about the ocean, I wanna thank you for joining me on this episode
1:28:57
of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
1:28:59
I'm your host, Andrew Lewin from the True Nord Strong and Free.
1:29:02
Have a great day.
1:29:02
We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.