I decided to switch up the format and frequency of the show. I will be posting 3 times a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday) to make room for some other things that will be happening with Speak Up For Blue.
Today, I chat about the story of tourists harassing baby seals at Children's Pool Beach in La Holla, California and the need for more people to speak up for animals!
Speaking of speaking up. I also talk about how I want to build a Speak Up For Blue Community online and they type of people that I would like to join.
Enjoy the Show and Happy Conservation!
Support the Podcast:http://www.speakupforblue.com/patreon
Shop for the Ocean:http://www.speakupforblue.com/shop
10 Ocean Tips to Conserve the Ocean:http://www.speakupforblue.com/wordpress/sufb_optinpdf
Show Notes:http://www.speakupforblue.com/session135
Welcome to the speaker for blue podcast session 136 Welcome back everybody. I hope you had a great weekend today Uh, we're gonna talk about a couple of things. We're gonna switch up the way we'd format the podcast for a little bit See if that changes it up a little just to switch it up on you guys. Keep it fresh We're also going to talk about some disturbing Video that we saw over the weekend at children's pool in lahoyo lahoyo beach, California And we're going to talk about what it means after that video What it means to become part of this speak up for blue community all now on speaker for blue podcast stay tuned Welcome to the speak up for blue podcast helping you get involved in ocean conservation And now here's your host. He still puts his hands in the air because he doesn't care Andrew luen Hey Hey everybody welcome back to another exciting episode of the speak up for blue podcast your voice for the ocean I'm your host angela and founder speak up for blue dot com marini colleges and self-proclaimed ocean Printer and today is monday. We are going to switch things up a little bit normally. I have five podcasts a week monday to friday and we have different for a while I was you know, I was making them a specific day monday would kind of be a random day Tuesday would be about the species we talk about new species and whatnot Wednesday would be interview wednesdays thursdays would be research thursdays and friday will be Uh sort of an ocean talk friday, which we'd have nathan johnson who is our blogger extraordinaire on speak up for blue and uh, we just kind of talk about the issues that and and the sort of articles that didn't get talked about during the week, but For now what we're gonna do is we're gonna switch things up a little bit and we're gonna switch things up Because speak up for blue itself is changing. It's it's model and how it functions and we need to One we need to produce less podcast during the week But continue with the great content just to accommodate the other portions of the of speak of blue And I will tell you all this in a couple of weeks During a podcast of how speak up for blue is going to change Uh, just depends on a couple of things, but we're kind of moving ahead with the formatting of the podcast just to incorporate those changes So, uh, it really just means that i'm gonna be providing better content But it'll just be all well same kind of content. I guess I always thought it was good content But really compacted into three episodes a week. So Monday will be I'm gonna talk about a bunch of different things Um, and then Wednesdays we're gonna have an interview on Wednesdays and then on friday, we're gonna continue with the ocean talk friday Now, uh, monday's I still think I will continue with some of the parts that we had on Tuesdays and thursdays Depending on what I find and how much time I have to prep and and so forth So I still want to incorporate the research projects I think I a lot of people like that kind of stuff as well as some other things maybe cover some species information and whatnot But we're gonna pack it all in to one episodes You probably will see a bit of a change in the format as I'm hoping to get some sponsors For this podcast it's kind of helped pay for the podcast and my time in producing it the equipment and so forth But um, really what I want to do is bring you um Businesses and products that have that are social enterprises. That's kind of the rule that I'm going to make Uh, they have to be social enterprise, so they have to produce more than just profit They have to want to have in their mission produce something that's good for the environment Um, or sort of the social good Uh in general, so we're going to be looking at products that are really good for the environment I'm hoping to get them as sponsors If you know someone who would like to become a sponsor of this show that meets sort of the Um, the purpose of this show where it's just protecting the ocean Uh and making people that we're protecting the ocean, please let me know you can contact me at Um, at well, just contact me on the contact page. Just speak up for blue Uh dot com forward slash contact Uh, or you can hit me up on twitter at uh at speak up for blue So it's really easy to to get a hold of me Uh, and I check it all the time. I'm a bit of a bit of a freak that way I check social media quite often during the day So Let's get started. Oh, I guess uh before I before I move on with the sponsors I want to let you know that the reason for the sponsors Like I said, I want to bring you guys products that are good for the environment I want to bring you information You do not have to buy this information or buy these products if you don't feel like you want to However, these products will help the ocean in some sort of way That's sort of my guide Like my guidelines and sort of my demands and bring it to myself in terms of bringing sponsors Um, I can get other sponsors that are really easy to get But they may not have to do with this mission of providing information or providing resources That will help you better protect the ocean. That is my purpose So I want to bring you sponsors and products that will actually bring you information on this product That will actually help you uh, get to that point So that's what we're going to be doing over the next few weeks So you may see a little bit of changes Um, and I don't want to make it look silly, you know, oversell or anything like that Or really commercialize but, um, you know, we do have to make money on this podcast And the way I want to make money really is not just to make money But my whole purpose in life is to protect the ocean Um, so if I can earn a little revenue as well Part of my business model as well as get people to protect the ocean, then I'm really happy Um, so far we've been really well with this podcast where we've been providing information On specific processes like recycling and reusing and all that kind of stuff Of of plastics and and and just stuff that you would normally not throw out in the recycling and put them in the recycling Uh, you know get into involved involved in that in a in a people who have been in countries where they didn't think their recycling was possible They actually went and searched and they found it and so forth So we've been regaining some really great feedback from this podcast And this is the reason why I continue so keep up with the feedback If you want to like I said if you want to contact me you can contact me at on twitter at speak up for blue Um, or uh, you can go on the show notes for this one the show notes will be speak up for blue dot com four slash session 136 and you can put a comment and let me know Uh, what you think of this episode or if you have any comments on that what we're going to cover in this episode and so forth Um, but anyway Hi digress. Let's get on with what we're going to talk about today Uh, today like I did what we already talked about what we're going to switch up on speak up for blue But what I wanted to talk about was something that's a little disturbing that I found on Uh, the internet I got it through one of my facebook feeds By the way, how many people use their facebook feeds to get news because I seem to be getting a lot of news out of there Recently and um, it's kind of cool. I guess in a way. I get a lot of one type of music or one type of of news that You know looking at facebook. That's what you get And as soon as you start like clicking on that type of subject matter all of a sudden you always get that same subject matter So a lot of my news is catered towards oceans Because I like a lot of things I have to do with oceans and conservation and so forth So I get a lot of that but let me know if you think if you if you actually get most of your news On facebook or do you actually go to news sites and so forth? Anyway, um, this one was a news off the cw Uh in the us. I assume it's a san diego channel. It says san diego underneath so I assume it This this whole thing occurred Uh in san diego and the video is titled on on youtube the video is titled tourist harass birthing seals and newborns Along the SD coast the san diego coast now obviously that's not a good thing And i've talked about this before on the podcast. I talked about one don't feed the animals and don't touch the animals like really Just leave them alone. Um, i've talked about when we've talked it's session like just over and over again constantly about how we shouldn't have marine mammals and captivity and so forth and we shouldn't be touching them we shouldn't we should leave them alone leave them be Let nature take its course of course if you see them in trouble Then you you know you can step in and call the authorities to to save them, but this story Didn't have to do with saving any seals. There wasn't a good news story. It was quite um Sad actually and and it made me very angry when I first saw it Came out last week march march 15th. So that would have been last Tuesday and essentially that it was um people Tourists there there's a complaint. So there's this there's this beach called uh, what's it called? It's called Children's pool. I believe lahoya's children's pool and we've talked about this before and I think it's the same beach Essentially, it's it's either called lahoya's children's pool or it's called a lot of people call it seal beach Now this beach has a history of controversy A lot of people i've been on this on this beach before a lot of people Um, you know, there's there's two sides of the story originally or two sides of of this issue of course that there is on many of them um the A while back the story that I've heard a while back The city got together some counselors got together and wanted to put a beach that was dedicated towards children to Encourage families to go to the beach and enjoy things for a safe place. The only problem was the beach They chose this children's pool beach that they named was really part of a um uh, what do you call it a hmm, anyway a place where seals actually went and um And kind of rested on land. Okay. I forget the actual term The scientific term unfortunately, uh, it's been a long weekend for me today this weekend. Anyway, um So that's that's what essentially this place is where they go and they just they just kind of lay out Right a hall outside. Thank you hall outside. So it's it's where they just haul out They just they just rest right because they're in the water all the time They want to come to the beach and they want to rest. Well There's also so so the beach is open to both seals and Children and families and parents and people right so you can go to and i've been on the beach before where i've seen Um, you know, I already got to see the seals sit with my children. We don't go near the seals We keep our distance. Let them do what they do best and just haul out and rest Right. That's what you want them to do. You don't want to you know, you want to teach your children let nature take its course Let nature do its thing and uh and just observe right that's what we do. I'm a scientist. I'm a person I'm a citizen of the ocean. I observe and that's what I want my kids to do is just observe If there's a seal in trouble or an animal ever in trouble, we you know do our best to help them Uh, but to be honest most of the time when they're not you just leave them alone That's the best thing you can do about and I teach my children the same thing Anyway a couple weeks ago. There was a disturbing video of kids throwing sand on these seals uh, and I covered that on one of the podcasts and It got me angry and it got a lot of people angry because these parents were right by these kids and these kids were like Making faces at and that's fine, but they were also throwing sand on it Right. They're getting close. They're running after them making them go in the water Now you gotta remember if you scare seal off a beach, it may never come back again And normally you're probably like well, it's just a seal. It'll be fine Whatever. Well, what if it defends itself? And it bites one of those children Then the parents are gonna get angry at the seal, right? That's what happens then they're gonna want the seals head on a platter That's what happens, but it's really goes back to the parents fault for allowing the kid to harass the seals So I did a whole podcast on that and I got pissed Right and a lot of people, you know thought I was I you know, I had a lot You know, there was there was reasoning behind there was a good rationale for me being pissed off And angry And a lot of other people were angry the fact that this was allowed to happen because it is illegal to harass a marine mammal in the us You cannot there's a marine mammal protection act and they will arrest you if you are caught Uh harassing these marine mammals now, unfortunately These the patrollers or the regulators cannot Uh enforce that all the time because they're not always there Uh, so The other half this story that came out. I know it's been a while it's taken a long while to get there But there happened at the lahoeil children's pool or seal beach And what happened was It's popping season So seals come to the shore to give birth to their pups So the actual beach is closed down. I believe it's from March to may I believe Let me see if they actually mentioned it in the article But there there's there's a specific few months where they actually closed down the beach And because it's popping season, so they don't want essentially what happens is the seal has its pup It is the pup will nurse off the seal Once it's ready to go into the ocean, they go both go back in the ocean and then they live their life, right? Uh Well, what was happening is this is also tourist season. It's March break here in Canada It's spring break down south and there are a lot of tourists in san diego right now Visiting the wonderful area of san diego lahoya enjoying the coast enjoying the water and so forth Well, unfortunately these tourists were ignoring the signs that were saying beaches closed for pumping season until may or whatever the time is And they went down the stairs. They went down to the beach. They went down to the area where these pups these some of them were day old pups Uh that were actually just kind of hanging out with their parents and feeding on their parents because they had to feed a lot To get the nutrients and to get the food they need to grow big uh and strong And these tourists were going down there's a video we're going to post it on speaker for blue Show notes speaking for blue dot com forward slash session 136 and you'll see how These seals and seal pops were being treated some people were petting the seal pups day old a day old seal pup They were petting the seal pups some people kept touching it want to take pictures with it selfies with it Trying to get a good pose so they're trying to handle the seals Trying to go after you know pet the seals seals We weren't having anything whether you got to remember these seals have just given birth They're a little vulnerable and they're trying to protect their pups, but they can't because there's so many people You know, there were there were some people who said they saw people throwing sand and harassing the seals These people shouldn't even be on the beach Right and the one thing I think they're now in the in the video There are a few people who are taking video and they're telling the person to get away the tourists to get away from the The seals that it's actually you know cordoned off and they shouldn't be on the beach So they're actually telling them, you know, you shouldn't be doing this. I don't know how many people were telling that But there were and I think we need you know, we needed more obviously You know the ocean conservation community needed more people to be like hey, you need to get off And that I don't know how regulators use that like enforcement I don't know if there are people who are stationed at the beach all the time at all i'm looking into it to find out why This was allowed to happen why this happens all the time now of course you can't be at every beach and during a season like this It's difficult to be at every beach. However, it's nice to have citizens You know of the ocean people who love the ocean or people who love these seals To come and say hey get away from these seals do not touch them. They do not need to be touched Don't touch them Right, but there's no authority in that because they're not regulators so people can just ignore them and nothing will happen to them They catch them on video you send it to to no the the body in charge of the marine mammal protection act and maybe something will happen Uh, but it's not a big thing for a lot of like law enforcement so It comes down to one of those things where it's like what happens in those situations You know, do we like we have there there were people in the video who said they came back every year to san diego to watch the Seals interact with the pops and they said they love it. So they are good people They do not interfere. They look from a distance. There are even two girls young young women who were uh probably early 20s that were Interviewed and said how all these things are so cute You just want to cuddle up with them and and pet them and then they and then the the reports said well, you know better, right? And they said yeah, absolutely. We know better. We're not going to go near them. So they were joking about that's okay Don't go near them. They have common sense, but a lot of other people do not have common sense And I think that's what the problem is with with a lot of these people They just don't care all they care about is themselves Right all they care about are themselves they care about getting that selfie They care about getting that perfect picture that they can share off of social media and say saying hey I'm a douchebag and I just harass this pup or I harass the seals like look at my life and look how great it is Because I just took a picture near seo Now there's another side like just being a douchebag. There's a social side where it's like you're an idiot Right, you shouldn't excuse me. You shouldn't be doing that. You know you're douche you're douchebag It's what I call people. It's not really a nice name, but it's better than what I want to call them Uh, but you know, I think there's a lot of people out there that we need to speak up You know as a community and say hey wait a minute. This isn't right and before it becomes a video on news Station of saying hey, this shouldn't happen It should be Already taken care of you know where we have people down there saying hey, you know what? You shouldn't be doing this. This is actually illegal and you can't be on this beach Right, uh, and then you have a number or you have signs up there Saying how important it is not to touch the seals not to touch the pups to stay away from them Allow them to actually be there and allow them to nurse off their mothers And allow them to grow big and strong so they can go back in the ocean and start that life cycle of theirs Right, that's what we need to have at these beaches We need more information and we need someone to just be like hey, you know what that's not cool. You need to lay off And I've I know I've discussed this before and it might be repetition, but these videos keep popping up And it's during times when it's really important for these seals It's during times when they're popping and apparently according to to the the person the interview was A stranded animal hotline or person or I guess a rescuer at sea world I know people don't like sea world, but they do have a rescue branch And they said the worst thing you can do is harass the mother and the child If the mother gets too scared and feels that she has to withdraw from the situation She will go back in the ocean. She may never return that leaves an orphan seal Right or an orphan pup that needs to be taken care of it's not taken care of or not It's not if it's not taken care of by people like sea world or a few other Rescuers, it's going to die of starvation Which is the worst thing you can see happening. So you don't harass them Right because there are consequences to your actions Not only for you, but let's let's be honest from an ethical perspective. You cannot do this kind of stuff Right, this is just not right And it's up to us as a speaker from the community to let people know now. I know we can't be there all the time Right, maybe it's a citizen science project of a bit of enforcement and we do this kind of stuff You know, I don't know. Unfortunately, I don't live in your Seattle or sorry. It's not Seattle but San Diego So I can't be there all the time Right, but it's something that should be considered because obviously The the enforcement agencies that enforce this kind of marine male protection act can't be everywhere at once I'm sure their resources are limited at where they are But this needs to be addressed this cannot go on I mean if you look at sea lions and seals there they already have a tough job just to live on their own We've got changing water Heated water the their their prey are leaving or That being distributed elsewhere because of the hot water and the change in temperature and the change in the ecosystem So they are forced to have the change the ones that don't will die off and they have been dying off over the past year So we need to make sure that all these natural processes happen naturally and none of them are are Are interfered with Right and you know, you have a problem with people touching other like a day old pup You know, I think it's a huge problem. You cannot just touch somebody with your bare hand. You don't know what you have on your hands Right These pups are very vulnerable right now You know, they were just born they're weak. They can't move fast They can't move away from you. And if you decide to touch them, what if you have something on the hand that there doesn't react well Right or what if they bite you? Right. What if they bite you or what do they have a disease? You don't know what seals have or sea lions have you don't know So why would you touch at one even touch in general and to touch it with your bare hand? It's the dumbest thing ever. I don't get fear on if you're young or old. Just don't touch them Leave them be do not feed them do not touch them. Let them have they can figure it out themselves They've been doing it for years and years and years Right. I know sometimes mother nature looks like she's harsh But there's a purpose for everything and you need to leave those seals and sea lions alone and animals alone in general Shouldn't be touching you should be observing right if the animal is in dire need Of help you call the right authorities. You don't touch them. You don't know what they're have on their skin Seals have been known to have some diseases that that can affect humans they're marine mammals Whatever there are a lot of diseases that affect them that can affect us and if you touch them and you get those diseases They may not be able to be treated right away because they're not used to you know happening in in humans So you got to be very careful to protect yourself protect the seals and just be ethical So that's all I want to say about that. I mean, I know it's it's a lot of repetition But this has to be said because it's still going on and I'm not blaming anybody who's listening in this audience But it's really just think about it when you're in those situations. Do you see someone to doing that? You got to haul her out and you got to stop them No violence, of course No really yelling but just educate them come over the positive area and say look This is what can happen if you harass or touch their babies And it can happen either to you or it can happen to them and you need to focus on that and focus on the positivity Educate them and just be like hey and if they become real douches and they just kind of blow you off call the authorities Right if they can't listen and they're still doing what they're doing call the authorities saying look There's a person here who's harassing a marine mammal We need to get on this. We need to get them off. I've asked them to stop I've educated on what we were saying and then we but he continues he or she continues to do it And then hopefully the authorities will come and they will give that person either a fine a ticket or arrest them or all of them, right? So that's all I have to say for that The other thing I want to talk about really kind of has to do with what we were just talking about That's what it's like to be what it means to be in the speak up for blue community I've mentioned this a lot over the past eight months and uh or nine months actually and You know, we've been we I want to build a community. I want to build a community speak up for blue community that Feeds off each other feeds off each other stories feeds off each other's work Feeds off each other's education articles that we find there's a reason why I'm on this podcast is because I see stories every day coming out that people should know about and not everybody knows about because the distribution doesn't get distributed of these papers or Research papers or articles don't necessarily get out to the masses or it's not the articles aren't explained well or they need further explanation or I could Expand on why this article is written and then or a particular article was written and I can share it with A podcast audience. It's why I started the podcast. It's why I'm working on getting on to youtube to offer some ocean use and awareness shows It's to get and reach the masses of information that I get every day And it's to build that community of people who are aware Who understand the salute they understand the issues and understand how to implement the solutions Right. We know the issues. We know the solutions. Let's implement them On on specific levels on different levels, right? But the big thing is is awareness So what I want to do is I want to build a speak up for blue community Right whether it be a group online whether it be people, you know, giving me feedback through the email list that we have Or go on the site and contact me through the site or on twitter or on facebook or wherever I want to build that speak up for blue community I want people to know what's happening if people are in the san diego area And they and they don't know that this is going on that this pumping season is going on and that people are harassing these pups Maybe after work they can kind of screws down there take a look at what's going on and educate some people on why they shouldn't be doing what they're doing Right or to or just talking to people who are watching the pups explain and what the process is what the life cycle processes Right because of what speak up for blue community is it's not just marine biologists They're not just this is what I envisioned. They're not just marine biologists. Not just scientists. They're not just conservationists. They're people regular people Awesome people who just care about the ocean whether they live on the coast or they don't they just care about the ocean They want to see good things happen with the ocean because they understand the ramifications of an unhealthy ocean Right and they understand The common sense needed in some people to actually act ethically towards animals and treat animals properly and understand animal rights and laws That's what I want to speak of for blue community to be I want them to be people who are constantly sharing different products that are Good for you that are good for the environment that won't harm the environment You know think about cleaning products and how bad those can be Right all those chemicals that are in this cleaning process All those chemicals are in those cleaning products and then they They're in you know, you put them in you clean your sink you clean your toilets you clean anything You clean your floors all that stuff all that gray water gets washed down through the toilets Through the showers through the sinks and it ends up into the environment But a lot of these chemicals aren't really able to be filtered out. So they end up in them Right so it becomes a big problem, but there are alternatives you can actually get Product cleaning products that are actually good for the environment and they don't provide those kind of Realitarian substances in the in the ocean in the rivers and the lakes Right they don't harm the fish. They don't harm the invertebrates. They don't kill off plants They actually help and you so products like these are ones that I want the speaker for blue community to be aware of So that they can find an alternative right an alternative brand an alternative product It doesn't matter and think about if we start changing those things If we start changing those things one by one little by little we start making a bigger and bigger impact That's what I want to speak up for blue community to do to strive to become a bigger to have a bigger impact on the ocean a positive impact on the ocean Right, that's what we really need to do. So that's what I envision the speak up for blue community to be And that's why i'm going to start some groups online Uh, whether i'm not sure what how to do that yet. Um, if somebody has a you know a Sort of a suggestion on what kind of software to use where should I go so I use social media? What have you I want to create those so I want you guys to be a part of that I want you guys to be a part of that process I want the audience members to be hey I want to be part of this community because I want to get to know who you are I want to get to know your reasoning behind it and I want to just get to know what you have in mind because Just me telling you what to do is not a good thing Right because I don't know everything. I want people like engineers I want people different professional backgrounds. Maybe like people who clean houses Know what's good and what's bad? What smells good? What's what's not good what they what's in these cleaning products like tell me Tell me about what are better? What's good? What's not? I want to know right so we can share with our community Right to see what are the best reviews? What are the best for the environment? You know what are the best methods or what are the numbers you can call in the san diego region to protect these animals Right to or get the better protection or get an enforcement officer down there to the handout tickets to really stop tourists from coming in And and doing what they're doing This is what I want to speak up for blue community to do So if you want to be a part of the speak up for blue community hit me up on twitter at speak up for blue Say yes, I want to be a part of this community. What can I do? Where can I go and I will let you know over the next week? I'll update you on through the podcast. So if you keep listening that'll be great as well And we'll just kind of continue this dialogue and whatever form we decide or whatever platform we decide to use Um, so there's a lot of things that you can do right? There's a lot of things that you can do and in the month coming We're going to be talking about different things that you can do to really make speak up for blue a voice And really speak up for that ocean. So I want to thank you to for listening to this podcast This was a very important one. It's going to lead to even more important podcast I want this monday to really be one about a way on these monday's these podcasts really be about awareness But also what we can do better what we can do that will help the ocean at home in politics or what have you? Right, um, we're going to be coming up with more informed Podcasts maybe this will be a little longer podcast maybe like 30 minutes or 45 minutes or so On a regular basis and of course on wednesday's we're going to have our interviews And then on friday's we're going to have a ocean talk friday and then of course keep an eye out for our youtube channel youtube.com Ford slash speak up for blue and uh or speak up for blue tv, I believe and we uh are going to be putting on some Some episodes of just ocean news just to kind of get people going so Keep an eye out for that and uh, we'll chat with you later Uh, you've been listening to speak up for blue podcast. My name is angelou and i'm your host Happy monday. I hope you have a great week and i'll see you on wednesday Thanks. Bye You You You You You (upbeat music)
