I have Roy Mulder, President of the Canada Marine Environment Protection Society and an underwater Videographer/Photographer, on the program to tell us how he and 100-150 SCUBA divers got 30 dive sites protected by the government. He also chats about how others can do the same. Oh, and we talk about Sea World and Roy's work with the World Cetacean Alliance.
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Welcome to the speaker for blue podcast session 137. What's up everybody welcome back to another wonderful episode today is interview Wednesdays it's our new frequency change and format change we've got an interview with Roy Mulder who is a Canadian activist I guess you would call them marine conservationists who has done a lot of work out in BC to protect local areas for dive sites in rockfish sites and wolf field sites and it's been really cool to chat with him and we're going to talk about all of what he's done as a non-government organization and non-government person which is very odd in normal circles so it's really interesting to actually talk to him about all his work that's what we're going to talk about on today's episode of the 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 just discovered periscope and might be slightly addicted and drew Lewin. Hey everybody welcome back to another exciting episode of the speaker for blue podcast your voice for the ocean I'm your host Angela and founder speak up for blue dot com marine ecologist and self-proclaimed ocean printer that's right I'm an entrepreneur where everything I do is to protect the ocean it's sort of like a social enterprise type thing social entrepreneur anyway welcome back to the show this is our new second I guess podcast or episode from our new format and frequency we're going to do three podcasts episodes a week the first one we're going to come up with some kind of special one will be on a Monday interviews on the Wednesday and then of course ocean talk Friday on Fridays with with Nathan Johnson. Today we have an interview as I mentioned earlier with Roy Mulder and Roy is a it's so hard to to categorize him as one thing because he does everything he's an entrepreneur to really start off the thing and in a marine conservationist and enthusiast his his business on where he earns his primary income is as a videographer a photographer and he specializes in underwater photography and underwater videography does a great work if you've ever seen his images we'll put a link to his Facebook page and Facebook profile where he shows some of his images and they're just phenomenal phenomenal images these are professional these aren't just an amateur these are professional videos and images and we'll put a link on the the the the show notes which is going to be speak up for blue dot com forward slash session 137. Talking with Roy was was amazing because I wanted to have him on the show for a long time and I didn't just because of for for specific reasons I didn't want to really want to talk about now but he's done an amazing he's had an amazing career in marine conservation and what's what's interesting is he's not a scientist by education he knows a lot about the ocean a lot perhaps more than I do in in those specific areas because he's such an enthusiast and he's in the water all the time more than like I'm jealous as the amount of times he's in the water diving and really going in and diving really as he's talked about in the interview really brought him to protect the ocean he saw the degradation that was happening saw the changes that were happening to the ocean and he actually came out and wanted to protect it and normally when you come to protected areas and protection of species and habitats it's usually done by government however Roy decided to go another route him and his colleagues underwater council of BC British Columbia here in Canada on the west coast they came up with their own way of protection and in fact their work inspired the government to put in some conservation areas some rockfish conservation areas and he tells you how that happened you know and how that progressed into organizations the marine life sanctuary is organization where he's a board member the Canada marine environment protection society where he's the president and a board member the he was part of the underwater BC underwater council he's been a lot of formed a lot of work and he's he's been a part of a lot of organizations that have helped locally to do marine conservation to protect what's important to him and his colleagues and he's actually gotten some some fisheries and oceans Canada scientists on board as well and that's helped enact these local marine conservation areas and what's interesting about that for me is the fact that he brought it to the government his him and his organizations brought it to the government and now it's their conservation areas and hopefully eventually they'll be better protected like he said in his interview they're not fully protected but they're better than nothing but he did this as a citizen right perhaps you can call him a citizen scientist or citizen conservationist he's a marine enthusiast he's a diver and a lot of those divers want to protect they love diving specific areas because of the the features in those areas he doesn't want to see those go he talks a lot of these interviews about glass reef sponges or glass sponge reefs which are very unique areas and BC is one of the only places where you can actually dive on those reefs because normally they're really they're really deep and he's there to protect them he's there to look after them this is amazing stuff and this is stuff that we want to we want to help him get the word out of what he's doing because to see if that can be duplicated in other places you know this sort of this sort of thing I know everybody's different and everybody has their own way but the way he's done it has just been fantastic and it hasn't been overnight it's taken years and years and years to get a lot of these wins and a lot of frustrations a lot of setbacks however he's seen a lot of wins and recently he's had two wins and we're gonna talk about that in this interview and I don't want to really kind of spoil it right now because I want him to talk about it in the interview it's near the end of the interview but listen to the full interview listen to where he was in his life how that changed as he went diving out in BC and what he's learned from from his his activities and his experiences and how he's continued his passion is just allowed him to continue to keep to keep pushing keep pushing the boundaries and keep getting stuff done it's very inspiring to be honest as someone who's a scientist and a conservationist I really respect what he's done and what he continues to do and I think a lot of people who aren't scientists will also be inspired by his story and what he's what he's been able to accomplish and what he's gonna be able to accomplish in the future so listen to the interview enjoy it I will talk to you right after here's Roy Mulder enjoy the interview hey Roy how's it going welcome to the Speak Up for Blue podcast thanks nice to be here it's nice to be here we've been friends online for a very long time I would say what three four years now and I guess it's a long time in an internet age but this is the first time we've actually spoken so it's it's nice to meet you face-to-face over Skype yeah yeah it's a totally totally different level of interaction than just the straight social media Facebook posts yeah absolutely absolutely so the reason why I invited you on the show today is because you are very active in marine conservation and you it's it's kind of interesting because most of the guests that we have on here are also active but they're also science they have a science background you don't have a science background but you're still very active you're active in a lot of different different organizations which we're gonna get to and you're also active in sort of the conservation world in terms of really advocating for protection of sponge reefs and specific areas that you dive on especially and you you film and and take photos fantastic photos and film of these areas and we get to see them all the time and we really get to fall in love with those as well so before we get into all that's really why I want to have you on the show just to talk about that kind of stuff plus your Canadian so it's nice to have that Canadian vibe as well but before we get into that why don't you just tell the audience who you are and what you do well I guess first and foremost I've been somebody who's been diving for a very long period of time so that's kind of where my my true connection to the water started really really early on I've been a diver since I was you know 17 kind of thing and I've been doing it for 42 years now so right on I kind of fell in love with the ocean and it's it's something that's became a passion and as I did it that's how I got dragged into the conservation because when you you know diving and all of a sudden you see schools of fish and then there's individuals and then there's none it kind of gives you gives you kind of the fire in your belly to want to go out there and do something about it and see that you know things restore themselves again and it's been quite the experience to see that because I've seen some horrendous things in my lifetime and that's a not that great great a period in time so that's that's kind of where I got involved but it was certainly the diving that got me involved the protection aspects started with we started a program for diving warring boys so in the dive boats were going over they could tie off to a boy and didn't drag their anchors and create arm to grief and that's kind of where it all started out then we said well we should see if we can protect this reef and so so many years later I can say that some of those areas are protected now to some degree anyway right saw the fruits of our labors so now there's so many questions I want to ask in that the first is a great description by the way the first is when you you you mentioned you you've seen some pretty horrific things diving I want people to get a perspective of maybe an example of what those are because the reason being is Tom Guro who's a coral reef biologist down who grew up in Jamaica has dove on Jamaican reefs all his life and he talks about how you know this is back in the 50s and 60s he talks about how you know people growing up myself yourself who go maybe diving in the tropics now are not seeing the same reefs that he's seeing because they've changed so much talk about an experience that you've seen that has changed so much or that you saw that you like you said was a horrific to watch just give people perspective of what's happening especially in Canadian waters I think I dive the east coast and the west coast okay and so each one kind of has its own things going on and I guess if you're talking about the east coast of Canada when you're out there I mean I did an expedition out there about three years ago and we dove Labrador Newfoundland and Nova Scotia okay and in that period of time of diving and we're in the water you know almost daily I saw a sum total of one pod and that you know given my history and I know my history of fishing I used to be there and everything to actually be diving on the east coast of Canada and seeing one pod was just phenomenal and the worst part was the place we found it was in an abandoned lobster trap and we set it free and so you know when you have that kind of experience because I know the history of the Grand Banks fisheries that was one of the biggest was the biggest fishery in the entire planet and through mismanagement we watched it totally disappeared and so we have to ask ourselves what we learned through that so fast forward I'm on the west coast and I was diving out here when I came out here first in 1989 that's when I started diving that the west coast and I saw you know you would see schools of rockfish even locally kind of thing you know you always a member of the reef environmental education foundation and we used to do like abundant studies of reef fish and what we saw and over the you know scant 26 years that I've been out here I've watched those schools of fish go down to single fish to none and so we're talking very short periods of time and you're talking rockfish here a rockfish a yellow-eyed rockfish will live to 120 years old I mean these fish are human left to their own devices but unfortunately due to a human serum timely demise is a lot less and then as you do this you start recognizing that there's no place for them to go there are no protected areas there you know they are limited degrees of protection but full protections are scant few few and far between so it's and and this is a situation that we've been facing for a long time I mean we can look we can go back to like over 30 years ago when you know Fred Chan was talking about putting in re-protected areas and we're still I think he named 29 sites but we never saw that happen no so you know I think that what really connected me to the ocean was actually physically being there seeing what was going on seeing that there was a distinct need for us to do something about it and then I got involved with various different groups like the underwater council of British Columbia which was a diving group which led on to where I am now as president of the Canadian Marine Environment Protection Society which is a national Canadian charity and then I got involved with reviving the Marine Life Sanctuary Society at BC who has the can be distinguished as the only group or the first group to create a fully marine protected area in saltwater in Canada and that was wow the first and that was over 20 years ago and I hate to say we're at 20 years later we protect 1.3% of our ocean which isn't embarrassment for a country of our size no absolutely absolutely and and we discussed this before is there are the tools that allow us to do it it's whether the politics will allow that to go on and whether it'll go on on properly you know it's interesting how you went when you when you first started to sort of discover the degradation especially of the rockfish and you started to see all those rockfish kind of go down from schools of fish to almost individuals why did you think of marine protected areas first and I asked because we had this discussion just before we started recording where a lot of people who may not have a science background generally connect with iconic species such as whales such as sharks such as turtles individual species and what happens they tend to want the protection of those into individual species and maybe they don't find marine protected areas as attractive why did you think that first how did you sort of hear of of marine protected areas and how why did you sort of go towards that route instead of going towards the iconic species I'm just I'm just curious well I think I think it was largely due that the the motivation and the agenda was diving really right so what we wanted to do is we wanted to have places that we could go scuba dive and see the same creatures over and over again because like if you go down and see a wall feel it's really cool to see a wolf you know these these species that often have them many of them are territorial so you'll see the same one for like 15 years kind of thing right we thought well if we keep this one little area here at least protected then at least we'll see those same species over and over again and the rockfish are very territorial as well many of them so they'll be sticking around as well so we said this could work and and the way it worked out was really interesting because we decided to focus on one individual like DFO so that's fisheries and oceans Canada right at the time it was Dick Carson he was the western regional director of DFO and we heard he was a diver so we got a hold of him and said why don't you come out for a scuba dive one afternoon we'll take you to our mooring boys which by that time we'd actually gotten as far as physically installing these mooring boys there was no designation in Canada for dive mooring boys so we put it under a private buoyed okay zig nation and that's how we did it since then we're now on the hydrographic surveys and everything else we've taken much further since then but in its inception it was just virtually a private buoy that we took them on right and so we took Dick Carson down and we took him for a scuba dive and he went wow this is a really cool idea and I can really see that as a tourist site within you know spitting distance of Vancouver it makes a whole lot of sense to have some protection for this yeah said okay where else would be a good area in the west coast to do this so we identified 30 sites and that's how it all began we had it started as 30 sites we we had to go through GIS we had to geo locate them and make sure that that you know that they were all you know within in the ranges of the charts and where they wanted to go with it and that's where it all began and then I was actually there for the day that they announced the rockfish conservation areas and we ended up those areas all became rockfish conservation areas but rockfish conservation areas don't really protect everything and they still allow a lot of other things they allow saining they allowed crabbing there's so many other things they still allow so the rockfish still really aren't that safe in those areas yet at least it was something and and it was it was one of those moments where you know you work you do these meetings for several years we had to talk to the sports fishing advisory board explained to them why we even wanted to do it what you know it could affect them that sort of thing and this is how the whole thing went and part of why I do what I do is because I've had some empowering experiences and I've watched things work out we shut down an entire illegal fishery in the process we were saying well can we protect wolf fields like you talk about going back to what you talked about let's pick a nice charismatic individual species to dive or wolf fields are really cool things and when DFO went back to their books they realized that the only way you can catch a wolf feel is as a bycatch that's the only way to legally catch a wolf field and then we said well how come I can go down to the restaurants in downtown Vancouver and they have a healthy wolf fields in these tanks on display and they said you're right those must be illegally caught wolf fields so we inadvertently shut down an entire legal fishery just not what the way we wanted to do what we did so you never know do this stuff sometimes you know you get those breaks and you get those wins and you just have to you know recognize that things don't always come for where you want them that's amazing so how many of you were there on this council this is all through the diving council at the time yeah this was the underwater council BC were probably in the day were probably maybe a hundred hundred and fifty divers and did everybody put in the work to install the buoys and and and put in the work to advocate for for these protected areas or these these conservation areas that's right so we worked as a group we had you know our own installation team because you're talking you know tricky installations with boys we we created a standard design with a two-tire float radar deflector we had a complaint from a voter that his boat was getting scratched so we put a thing on called a baker bumper because his name was Baker and it's been interesting so we've been you know working with like the maritime museum for example they supplied us with some ships to bring divers out to the sites and work on the boys that sort of thing there's still an ongoing thing I mean that was I don't know that started about 18 years ago and they're still in the water now they're still being maintained and so you know it's interesting you say this this really excites me it really does I didn't know the the extent of what you guys went through it's always that's why I want to have you on because I know getting it right from your mouth is would be more interesting than reading it on a document but I have questions for you like you know it's funny because when we talk about protected areas or conservation areas or whatever you want to call them you always think well okay government has to put them in place and government has to sort of initiate the process and we have to put pressure on the government to say okay this is a good area but this seems like you guys had the plan you guys said well yeah we're gonna put a buoy system in here to protect rockfish protect the wolf field because we like this this you know recreational diving area you know this is this is special to us it's a good tourist but like you said it was right on the coast of Vancouver people will probably come a lot especially in Vancouver they tend to be more outdoorsy and it just it just seemed right and you went to the government like a great strategy by the way by bringing out the the director who I mean you got a matter everybody in DFO loves the ocean loves the water you know we all love it there you say why were there yeah and and it's interesting so so like it's interesting that you guys brought it up and you guys brought it to their attention because a lot of people wait for the government to do it for them and complain when oh well this area is not protected this area is not protected but like you said it may not have been perfectly protected but there was something there something recognized by the government results all the work that exactly and you guys did and it was probably a lot of work but you guys did it and now it's it's it's protected and that's that's phenomenal like that is something that not many people I don't think any people knew it was possible you know because you're always talking and it was on a local area like local level and and then you had 30 other sites that were scattered how far north did it go those 30 sites up north and went up by Browning Passage up that way as well yeah so quite quite a bit up north we said north we we we did our best to include as many areas that were dive sites that were important to divers in BC and we knew who they were because we're the under what accounts course is a hundred hundred and fifty of you everybody's gonna have their own say referee so we kind of had a really good idea where that went and you know that sort of methodologies the way you really want to go I mean we're still doing it I mean we're doing you've probably been following me on social media and we're doing very much the same thing with that only we've gotten a lot more sophisticated now now we've got bathymetric mapping side scan sonars we're forming three-dimensional maps of the bottom we're doing temperature logging studies you know and this is all on our own dime so to speak and we're coming away with some really really good information and consequently what happens is now we're in a very good bargaining position when we're talking to DFO about you know if you want to protect this area we know it intimately we've got drop camera data we've got videography so I mean that's like a citizen science project that goes beyond almost you know and who do you get to do the work for you like all the bathymetry and even the GIS aspects is that all volunteer yeah we've got a gentleman by the name of Glenn Dennis and he's an electronic engineer he's he thinks outside the box more than anyone I've ever met my life he said he does my underwater video lighting systems if you see my video right yeah he's the one who's been designing a lot I'm his destructive tester and it's it's it's really cool and Glenn's actually he's he's actually a electronic engineer at Triumph I don't know if you know what Triumph is or no I'm not familiar with them okay they accelerate masons to three-quarter the speed of light oh wow oh so he knows what he's doing it's sophisticated stuff yeah you know he works in nuclear science so it's really interesting what him what he's done is this he's got this little 26-foot gangster and he found a way that he could get his depth sounder and linkage to his GPS using some software and hardware and there's the depth sounder sends out thousands of signals up and down up and down and it builds a three-dimensional map he mows the line he goes over top of the wreath yeah and he's designed to drop camera that he can now go down to a thousand feet wow with any truth the data and he goes down there to see where the sponges are he's gotten very good at determining where sponges reefs are because a lot of them they come around up wellings and you know it has a lot to do with the you know at the bottom the nutrients yeah coming up yep you have it all and he goes out every Saturday on his boat and rainer shine and he's out there mapping and mapping and mapping and then if it's within dive range we dive it and we documented but temperature loggers now I think we're up to seven sites right now that we've gotten them on yeah and we're actually getting a kind of a glimpse of every three hours in how sound at different depths and we're actually quite surprised temperature fluctuations we're seeing and over very brief periods of time right we're up for one year a data now so we've got a solid year of data so oh wow that is pretty cool that's that's fantastic I mean I mean just goes to show what a bunch of dedicated divers can do you know who really who really enjoy their their dive sites and it's like it's kind of like surfers and surf ride are working to you know make their serve their favorite surf spots you know protected so that they they don't have to you know swim in raw sewage and I'm sure it's same thing with with with divers right like yeah yeah who wants to swim in raw sewage yeah don't look the ocean all over the world it's everywhere yeah and and I think it's I think it's interesting because you really get these this this sort of like interest group that that really plays into that and says hey no no we're actually gonna do something about it and we're gonna monitor it's gonna be it's almost like it's your sound like it's how sound right it's like that's your area and you guys know it probably better than any scientists out there because you're in it not only are you taking samples and you know tracking temperature and looking at the bathymetry and and finding finding spundries but you're actually in the water documenting it you can probably identify the individual wolf field that you see you know and it's just and and it's just phenomenal that you know this this area and now you know as someone who wants this kind of thing you know as a citizen of Canada we want and and just a citizen of of of I call myself like a citizen of the ocean right because I want to see ocean protected how do you duplicate this effort in other areas because like I said you can only do so much it's a local effort it's a very defined effort you know it's a lot of work in that effort in that in that area how do you duplicate that or can you duplicate that in other areas and how do you do that whether it be interest groups or just coastal people say along the West Coast let's just say like how do you talk to other people this is where the organizations come in you can do way more as a group of people than you ever can do as an individual right and so you identify the right individuals to work together and cooperate towards doing that so what we do like I'm with Marine Life Sanctuary Society is one of the organizations I work with and what we do is we have a thing called the beach interpretation program so what we do is we go into a community coastal community and we bring a bunch of divers and we we do this all by the books so we get collection permits and permits to put it back again and we go to the beach and we have a bunch of beach interpreters and they could be academics so they could be young green biology students they could be just people like me who know a lot about the ocean yeah they could be we've got guys like Rick Harbo one of the top fishery scientists from Parks Canada is now retired he likes to remember what the fish are called yeah you know this is this and so we go to the shoreline and we get community groups to come to the shoreline and we send divers out who do some collecting they bring it back we have these large tanks and then what we do is we have fresh salt water circulation in them we have biologists so the animals are looking stressed they immediately go into a container and go back out again right and we say okay this is a sea star it's you know and it's called an a kind of germ this is how it eats this is how it reproduces and we talk about things and we and we thought we do this program for kids we thought oh this is gonna be a kid program we'll get kids turned on because actually you're far better off to convince a kid of something than the parents because guys my age aren't listening to anything right but if you want to get to us get to our kids and grandkids you might actually get through so we thought oh this is gonna be a kids program then all of a sudden we started noticing that when we'd have the tanks the parents were every bit as engaged as the kids the parents are like what's that how does that do that you know there are kids out of the way so when we go to that community and we say you know we really like to protect these sponges and their critical habitat for all these fish so we can identify again to to the individuals all the sudden that door opens much wider you know we're not just somebody who comes in with a color brochure and says hey read this color brochure and you're gonna just love this you know yeah yeah yeah and we use modern techniques we use social media so I'm very big on video because I'm video producer that's why I do living I'm an underwater photographer and videographer so I can show people what's down there and you know it's the old Custo Express you know people will protect what they love yep and so make them love it and even locally we've got people enamored with sponges and trust me they're not charismatic dolphins are well for sure for sure but people started touching and identifying with things and and I think that that's how it happens so I think it has to happen in a community yeah and it spills out back it's got to be top-down bottom up yeah yeah it's got to be both you got to be both absolutely I agree but now how do we motivate or convince people in other communities along the coast to do what you guys did you know like if you think about it if if if that that effort saying like okay if you get a bunch of divers together and they pick their dot favorite dive sites they put in the the mooring buoy and then they start they start taking you know they start documenting their favorite dive sites and you know doing some science and and and getting people involved is do you think it's possible to duplicate that effort that you guys did like is it just as it just a matter of fact that you guys got lucky that you got the people that you have in the underwater council that are willing to go that extra distance or that are just interested in doing that kind of stuff will it can you find that in other sort either dive groups or interest groups that are along the coast well I find the interesting I've been doing this kind of activism stuff for a long time you know it's an activist are always looking okay what's the magic goal of what works how do we tie these people together and it's interesting because it seems a lot of people like to do their own thing and come up okay stuff and it makes it very difficult because more often than not there's already a group out there doing it mm-hmm so I think the trick is is to finding a way of getting those individuals who want to create their own thing to realize that there's already people out there that are doing it hook onto them and actually take that route rather than to say hey we need an organization to do this right I think we have to find common goals and simple goals yeah I mean I mean I'm I'm always on the same bone it's like create fully protected green protected areas it's easy grateful marine sanctuaries but the challenge lies in getting to people do not understand the purpose and I mean the purpose is the whole thing I mean the idea of it is you know people it's ironic because people get the concept of a zoo on land they'll go oh we got to protect the animals because they're going to be endangered and we've got a safe place for them and I just have to wonder where that mentality is with the real frickin ocean because all we have to do is say let's pick this place in the ocean and this will be our real zoo kind of thing and so I think I think our human mentality and our human nature has to shift a bit that way yeah I have to understand that it's about the natural environment and I mean and I I mean and you see a lot of that you see the shift is happening now yeah you do you know well I also think it has to do with people like yourself who are not only are you active on social media but you're ready to share the things that you do underwater and I think more and more people are actually seeing the beauty of the Pacific coast because if you think about it for a while there if you said hey we have colorful species in you know a lot like off the coast of Vancouver people like yeah it's brown water you know you're not going to get anything colorful there you're going to get colorful in the clear water down on the tropics but you're not going to get the colorful in the enemies you're not going to get the colorful rockfish you're not going to get that in and the sea stars you're not going to get that in the Pacific coast because it's brown water and nobody can see it and and your videography and your your pictures and your images and people like yourselves who go out there every day or as often as you can and take those photographs and and allow them to be shown on social media with all the copywriting issues and the the the stealing of photos that happen you guys still go out there and show it and now we can see like there is life underwater because yeah I'm not sure if you've ever seen that there's a cartoon I haven't seen it in a while there's a cartoon that always circulates every once in a while and it's a it's like I think it's like a guy on a deserted island and he's looking out you know along along the horizon at the horizon looking on and and there's nothing going on on the top side of the surface and he's like man what a boring place I wonder what I'm going to get to eat or how I'm going to survive and then underneath they show all the life you know they show you know octopus they show sharks they show whales they show turtles and fish and and all that kind of stuff and it's like and I think that before all this stuff were all that the people who like yourself who took the pictures in the videos and showed them on social media before that I think that was a very common thing is to look out in on the horizon look on the surface of the water and say man this is a really boring place when in reality it's actually quite exciting down there and quite active even to the point where it's now even quite active in the zone that we can't even see the deep sea and we just we just starting to discover that with ROVs and and cameras and and so forth so I think there's a lot of people who still have that mentality is I see the surface of the ocean I don't see anything but if I go to a zoo or if I go to Africa and I see these large animals and they need protection and and whatnot you know then you start to see it now you know now you get to see people starting to really root for sharks with the whole shark finning thing because people are actually watching sharks being finned alive you know and that that tugs at the heart yeah very graphic so it's almost like that and Cecil the lion getting getting shot you know those are almost comparable now where you're seeing the same kind of advocacy role happening you know the the whole cove thing that happens and and you know precious dolphins get get to get killed and murdered and hacked and people are like no like now we see it you know up in in in Norway in the Falcon Islands and everything you're seeing that happen and people are getting angry because we're seeing it happen and now we know and I think that's what's actually bringing people out and saying oh god like what have we done you know what are we allowing this to happen because we know we allowed it before because we couldn't see anything on the ocean right and it was only people who actually went out on the ocean the scientists the conservationist the divers the surfers and all the people who went out on the ocean actually saw firsthand of what was happening but then that people wouldn't believe them when they came back you know and told them they just wouldn't believe it you know if I said oh I just saw shark without fins and he's twitching in the in the water I don't think people would have believed me you know I mean they're like what kind of horror movie did you come out of yeah you know even when you think about it you know that whole practice thing that you would actually take an appendage of an animal and let the rest of it go to waste just because it's worth some money in it you know but it speaks to the fact that if you have a system based on economics you know it kind of allows for that sort of abuse to happen and and the worst part is just when you see the reason for it's a cultural thing yes often you know we address this as a fishing issue but it's not a fishing issue it's a cultural issue yeah I mean it's it's considered and more often than not it has some sort of socioeconomic reason and you know right now that's one of my gripes when they're doing these huge oil and gas assessments and that sort of thing they they're not taking the socio-economic part of it into account like you you know I see them take certain economic but it's using industry-based and right it's not now look at the other side the social aspect of it is totally neglected and so you know and this was our argument in how sound is you know if divers are going on these reefs over and over and over and over again what's and they're paying a charter operator you know that charter operates operators take maybe a couple of dozen people out all the time yeah that adds up and that's sustainable tourism if they keep seeing those fish don't keep coming back to see those fish and more and more people come and see those fish yeah you know but you have to you know an unfortunate in a system that values economic systems you have to play into that and we have that ability I mean how many people are watching whales now oh yeah you know that's it's just amazing I mean I was in the Azores for a whale conference a few months back and it you know it's just absolutely amazing that the Azores used to be a whaling station and was like yeah and tuck it you know we went to the old we went to the old whale station and you know that was that was such a big deal and now they're they're making their money off taking tourists out to go see the whales and everybody's thrilled and it's sustainable and it makes so much more sense you know even for like and that's the thing I think I think we're seeing a surge in of economic science you know coming into play but looking at the difference or the comparison of a dead animal or degraded habitat compared to a flourishing habitat or an animal that's alive and you see it a lot in Costa Rica where they say if you you know a turtle alive is worth twice as much as a dead turtle right and and that's you're you're seeing that with with with whales you're seeing it with sharks and because the tourism plays especially in the tropics the tourism plays such an important role or along any coastline the tourism plays an important role I was out for a conference in Victoria a while back a few years ago now maybe like six years ago and I remember seeing the tour boats for the orca sightings you know that the and they were going in and out of the Victoria sort of downtown port like it like it was just like they would come out unload the the last the last boat ride and then put more people on and go right back out fuel and go right back out and then come back and then go back out and then come back and it was like it was constant you know and there they were so busy because I mean I always made the argument people are like oh well you know we talk about captivity and we're gonna get into that in it in a little bit later on but we talk about orcas being a captivity and how it's important to see orcas but there's nothing and I haven't seen them yet in the wild but there's nothing like seeing an animal in the wild enjoying themselves what's that we got to get you out here again I agree I completely agree and the next time I get out there I will be doing an orca tour for sure but that's what it is right it's you actually see them in the wild you see them happy you see them as a pod and you see them flourishing and you just like this is this is it like this is what I want to see and and I think there was just news out today that one of the save the one of the rescued orcas that was in captivity for because it was rescued I forget the name it just came out today there's an article they found out that it just had it's a calf and they said it's the most successful it's the only successful captivity and and reintroduction ever of an orca and but I mean it was in captivity just for a little bit which one sorry we time in Springer are we talking of the successful release like Springer was like the springer that's exactly that's exactly who it was and so they she has a calf now and that's like that was for the for the biologist who was on who was there when she got rescued he was just like this is the most successful thing that we've ever done for orcas I mean in terms of captivity and and reentry almost saying that yeah maybe you can you know put them back in the water or it's probably the only case where they've actually ever really done it to as far as you know that's the this is the thing they've they've never been in the release game it's always exactly it's always been in the captive game exactly yeah and I mind you this was a rest like it was a full wrong rescue and and it wasn't in for like a show or for profit it was just more of a let's let's get it back healthy and get it back in the waters as soon as we can but I mean you're seeing that now and you're seeing them in the water and you're just like wow like this is a beast you know like there's when you see a whale in any whale in a water you see the such seer size of them and the way they move is just amazing and I think we're seeing more of this tourist stuff you know pop up because it's important and people actually want to go out and see them they want to go out on the ocean I've known people I have some family members who will go out in the ocean to go whale watching and there's they get sick all the time they get seasick all the time but they will go to watch it it's worth it you know what I mean and that that's a testament to what it can do for you and and I think it's I think it's amazing so your president of let's just kind of continue on with the interview your president of the Canada Marine Environment Protection Society that's right that's a mouthful what does it do what does it do yeah well essentially the work we've been doing right now is the focus is usually around marine protected areas okay so they're in sanctuary so we've been involved in a lot of the meetings and those sorts of things and community outreach and creating videos and getting people engaged in thinking about creating these marine sanctuary areas we're quite cetacean focused right now so whales and dolphins we're we're also a very active member of the world cetacean alliance which is a group of 35 different member countries around the world that is all working towards that okay so essentially we're working on education we're working on a thing called whale heritage sites and that's something that'll come into play in Canada we're currently we're looking at the first one in the in the exhaust okay we're part of those discussions we essentially you know are kind of to some degree watching what's happening in the environment making sure that the information is disseminated so the Canadian public knows what's going on within the marine conservation community we're active participants at a lot of different sort of conferences that sort of thing so for example we'll be participating in the 2016 Salish Sea conference is coming up in April right and so essentially in a lot of ways we're a more of an observation group to a large degree but we'd like to get the message out so and to educate the Canadian public on what's really going on out there so you go so essentially you almost play you almost do sort of two two major roles and and and that's essentially you attend the meetings for sort of these these public meetings that are held for stakeholder engagement for marine protected areas and to see what's going on especially in the BC area where you're located and then you take that information that you found whether good or bad and you educate the public on why it's important to have marine protected areas as well as you know what the hold up is on why Canada doesn't have a protected areas right is that is that kind of a good summer I mean I don't mean to mean anything but like you guys do a lot but that's essentially how you do it now the question I have is when you engage the public obviously you social media stuff like that what are you finding are the what's the feedback you get from the public when you when you give off information well I think I think you know you start examining what what are the real issues here and what you know how are we gonna get through to people how's you know how do you get through to somebody is Saskatchewan right and that is a real challenge and I think one of the one of the expressions that comes up a lot when you're talking about fish protections and marine protections is the fisheries are tragedy at the commons so when people look at fish and I'm in you know Ontario and I look at fish I think oh well that fish might belong to the fish market if I think a little bit more I might think it belongs to the fishermen but it never seems to get to the thought of well actually that belongs to me as a Canadian even if I live in Saskatchewan that resource of fisheries is part of my resource right and so I think it's creating that connection with people so that people understand that you know there if they're going to be protecting this in perpetuity or for whatever reason it's a protected area what's the benefit to me because that's always what everybody asks what it what is this to me why should I care and when you see that you know these close fish stocks got wiped out into a blivian yeah you have to ask yourself well you know we obviously did something wrong there we've got another opportunity here I mean out here in the west right now I mean salmon are big salmon are a huge issue out here and you know and then you look at things like herring and you know and you know there's a herring road fishery oh okay so you're gonna actually fish out the road before it even hatches out into a fish you know think about these things yeah it's so cool you know it's it's it's really getting that connection of people to it and going back to what we were talking about earlier people identify better with singular things than they do in the mass group kind of thing right and I think that's one of our biggest challenges like we had a big rockfish meeting a couple of weeks ago and one of the suggestions and I think it was a very valid suggestion is this maybe we should have an adopt a rockfish in specific areas because they're very territorial I mean as a diver I mean I mean a buddy of mine spotted a China rockfish in house and I've never seen a China rockfish in house and you think how big this is a big area you know you're talking a huge area how sounds is really deep for yours there's lots of water there and he was able to take me right to that very area and that very China rockfish and show me that China rockfish right and you know and well I speaks a lot to his skill but it also speaks a lot to the fact that they're territorial and then maybe start identifying with individuals and getting people like I mean the whole finding Nemo thing but I always use finding Nemo as the classic example of movie gone wrong I mean yeah it's about saving a you know a little fish in what happened afterwards everybody and their brother wanted to have their own little clown fish in an aquarium and so what happened in the real world everybody went out they raped the reefs they took all the clown fish off the reefs because everybody wanted to have their own little Nemo so you have to say you know is that an epic failure as a movie to send this message out yet nobody gets it yeah you know is this a failure on the part of the parents to explain what the kids to the kids what the movie was about you know I know there's emo too coming out I'd be very curious to see if they've addressed that because I think that's where we're failing yeah yeah it's gonna be interesting cuz now it's all about you know the the blue tank the hippo tank as they call it in in the the aquarium industry and and we're gonna see if if that if that tank will will go through the same thing as as the clown fish and I remember when when finding Nemo came out I remember going to see it in the theater and coming out and a local aquarium store set up a tank full of clown fish right outside the theater in the theater basically saying if you want to buy a client if you want to buy Nemo come to our place now it with with their in their defense they did sell captive bread clown fish so that's a bit of a a story I actually communicate with somebody over and now he's named Robert Robert Winter and he's he's very avid in the aquarium or anti aquarium field and he would give you a pretty pretty good debate on how there's no such thing as a non captive clown fish or captive bread clown fish they all have to come out of the wild one way or the other you know so none of their their mums and dads came well yeah I mean but I mean if you think about what could have happened you know it's better than than like you know taking it off a reef taking a wild right however however like you know it was you know like I said it was in their defense but they had it set up and it was it was one of the things where I was just like oh my like I was when I first realized what that movie was gonna do obviously a Disney movie is gonna be huge it was like one of the first like pixel kind of movies that really came out that really captured people and you're just like oh my lord like this is going to change the way we we look at things in the aquarium industry and and yeah with the number two coming out I think it'll be interesting I think there's definitely gonna have to be an awareness campaign by a lot of different organizations to get the word out being like don't buy a hippo tank because I'll tell you there's one thing about buying a clownfish and having in a tank because you can keep it in small tanks a hippo tank like like a dory or a blue tank whatever you want to call it requires a significantly larger tank to keep it in because it swims so fast and if that's the case if people are gonna buy and put in small tanks you know you're gonna get you're gonna have some problems you're gonna get a lot of dead fish and a lot of people buy more funerals a lot of bathroom I'll tell you I'll tell you a story quickly right I used to work for an aquarium store when I was a kid and I remember somebody coming in and coming in and saying my my fish died when I when I got home and and I'm like oh you know I'm like what what kind of fish was it he says it was it was a yellow tank so yellow tank saltwater fish you know from the Hawaiian Islands I was like okay well what what happened because I don't know I put him in the water and he was dead and I was like oh okay I'm like did you test the water and he's like yeah water was fine ammonia levels were fine you know temperature was fine I was like okay I'm like what about the salt content he goes well I added salt in I'm like but what was the level I'm like did you imagine love he was no I'm like oh okay I'm like I go I go what kind of salt did you put in like the brand you know cuz we sold salt and I was kind of I salt he put in table salt he put in table salt and thought that was the same thing and and the reason I'm telling the story is because there's a lot of people who God bless them are just ignorant of how to take care of fish and what it requires to take care of fish and I think we're gonna see a lot of that coming in because there's gonna be a lot of parents that want to satisfy their kids after watching Dory and you know and and they're gonna have a lot of trouble because they're not gonna be able to keep that fish alive if they put him in this in a small tank you know in a 20 gallon tank it's just not it's not gonna work and that's that's I think that's gonna be you know you put up a good point that's gonna be a big awareness campaign that people are gonna have to go through is what are the you know cuz they're a very popular fish in the aquarium industry and it's like what are the actual necessities for these fish to survive you know are you putting you know are you using the right size tank are you you know all this kind of stuff because if not these things are gonna die they're gonna be bought you know you can't prevent it from being bought you could you could you know it almost be worth our while as this is the kind of work we do online to see if we can you know go to Pixar and say hey you really missed the mark in the message of the last one and it was pretty obvious to the rest of us you know obviously if that's the way you cut the movie that's really what you wanted to happen you didn't want clown fish to be raped off reach just backfired on them yeah yeah and so are you addressing this you know can we can we help you as organizations individuals to get the message out that you know there's you know after somebody walks out of the theater and sees your movie are they gonna make the right moves or not yeah you know it'd be it'd be really interesting to see because there's a part of me they're really wonders how serious that aspect of the movie was taken into account yeah yeah no I agree I think that would be an interesting experiment I'd love to talk to their scriptwriter or their director or producer and say you know what was your agenda and what was your motivation there and I think that that would you know that would be a really interesting dialogue yeah yeah yeah you know the time to do it obviously and you don't want to wreck a movie that's the other thing so you know it it has to be handled right but if they do it correctly they would have all these people like I mean I belong to a lot of animal welfare type of organizations and I know a lot of animal welfare people and and we thrive on being able to take care of the creatures in the wild and yeah even and captivity for you know yeah you know it's just it's I think there's opportunities there and I think people care more about the welfare of animals now we're seeing we're seeing it with you know that wonderful announcement that SeaWorld does want to breed orcas again yeah so things are shifting yeah like to see a chef further but I mean it that we are making making progress progress that we didn't make before in this this fast right yeah actually okay so let's I think that's great because this is kind of one of those conversations that you probably had back with how sound being like we should put a buoy out there so anchors don't drag because you notice the anchors are dragging and then someone's like yeah yeah we should and then all of a sudden that idea comes to fruition and then you're like hey we should we should protect this and it's the same kind of thing here where it's like yeah can we contact Pixar and be like hey you know you know this is what happened last time how can we work together to protect it yeah you know what this is how things happen and I think this is this is fantastic but speaking of which last week you put together a post on Facebook celebrating two wins and we haven't had a chance to talk about it and we're kind of coming close to the end of the interview and I want to just kind of chat about it just a little bit and I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing it probably is it is it Hulkett Bay? Hulkett Bay yeah Hulkett Bay that was a big thing what happened with Hulkett Bay let us let us know what happened well essentially how could is was a BC park okay so it's it's a provincial park it's kind of a what they call marine parks so you can go in there with your sailboat you put an anchor down and you can stay in Hulkett Bay and there's little campsites along the shore so if you you know you had a tent or something like that you could bring it in and set her up and interestingly enough right on the outside of the point outside the bay there's a really nice sponge reef this is a bunch of reefs that we've known about as divers for a number of years we've been diving it for a number of years and we you know we saw geez you know the park so close and but the reef not protected anyway so maybe we should have a chat with BC Parks and see if you know we can stimulate some interest towards creating protection for those reef well first thing they did is they went to the books and they recognized that the the boundary of the park was not such that it took the reef into account right so what this required would be a boundary extension okay so and so we you know doing what we do we do community outreach we talked to people about things and then we had the good fortune of having somebody within within the BC Liberal government and that's Jordan Sturdy he was the local MLA okay it was interesting because they've actually sunk an artificial reef in how good bay which is a whole different matter and a whole whole different story right but we were out there for the day of the sinking and we had this big destroyers being sank and we look over at this boat and over on this other boat happens to be Doug Bifford from BC Parks and Jordan Sturdy the MLA and we say well how'd you like to come on the boat with us and we're gonna go over top of the reef that we'd like to protect right and because we've been talking to him already and it all made sense here we have a park here we have a reef let's create an opportunity to actually reach protections for it and again the real world mixed with you know the activist world and so several of our organizations got together so there was a Sunshine Coast Conservation Association that was work was interested there was underwater council British Columbia marine life sanctuary society Canadian marine environment protection society and we all we all wrote up letters and we you know we said in support of protection for this reef would you be interested in considering this for a boundary extension yada yada yada and that's how we ended up that so you know that took several years to get there and in this search to it then this little you know elevator speech on it but it was it was considered a win we're not a full reading yet so you know it's not it's not totally officially yet but given the announcement last week I'd say we're gonna sound it sound pretty promising from the the articles that I've read it's not pretty promising it just has to be read in and people are gonna agree to now how much how much longer will the boundary be extended is that the right word how how much like how much how much how far out was the reef like like can you put in a meeting maybe hundred years from where the park boundary was so in in all in all consideration it's really not that long but the benefit is even bigger by protecting that glass you know the glass sponge reef yeah yeah we're finding this sponge we've seen to play a pretty critical role for filtration so they're amazing filter feeders they oh yeah yeah they clean up a lot of the ocean yeah and and now I have you found a lot of I mean glass sponge reefs on the west coast have become a really big thing you know I think they've always been a big thing since they were really discovered do you find a lot of people going at a lot of divers going out and filming them and taking pictures of them and really getting into them and that because the public has really you know got behind you guys and and and really loving these recent you know they're not the necessarily the iconic species but they have become an iconic sort of habitat you know do you find that's happening a lot more with with spongries well what's happened here is this is the only places one of the few places in the planet where you can find them in scuba diving range so you're really desirable as divers and you know this has become a problem unto itself because then we see damages caused by the divers when the divers kick them because they're they're silicate glass sponges yeah they're very they're very sensitive very delicate and so not to cover these things we we were talking to a local patty course director and over at ocean quest and he said well I'm gonna go to patty and I'm gonna see if we can develop a sponge diver course so people can actually get certified to dive the sponges safely creating the damage on them so when we do this sort of thing we like to you know do things as environmentally friendly as possible we make sure that you know it's being done in a proper fashion and you know we do us cover all the eventualities that may occur and we've got a very nice situation here in that a lot of us are friends we've known each other for years right and so we work cooperatively together so yeah letters in the government or we do presentations we're very complimentary to each other and we work together that's amazing and and of course your work on the the World Sotation Alliance your partnership with them and then the announcement with Sea World coming out saying they will not breed their orcas anymore and they're not going to be grabbing any more orcas out of the wild essentially their orca program is limited now to the orcas that they have and and they didn't say anything about releasing the orcas they have now of course that's a pretty big issue whether they can be released or so forth but this is a pretty big win for the conservation community yeah it's something that you know we've been doing baby steps with the movie The Cove and the movie Blackfish they've certainly had a huge impact on the conservation community people are starting to understand that perhaps putting a citation that she's to roaming thousands of kilometers into some of the size of a bathtub isn't perhaps a wonderfully ethical thing to do right I mean I'm very staunchly anti-captivity it's just a case if I don't think those creatures are meant to be there they're very sentient but now we have a situation now we've got you know whales and captivity and they're certainly not a lot of them of 50% of them aren't released well anyway because they're bred in captivity right let's have a whole place to go well and even now there was a better we can give them more enrichment right you can put them in open net pants there's things that we can do yeah but you know it's not like we can just suddenly open the gates let them out in the way you go freewheeling yeah you know that's that's the unfortunate part of it the other part of that is if they stop breeding they're still going to be around for a large number of years because I mean the youngest whale now could conceivably left to 50 in captivity yeah you know they don't they don't like to admit it but the captivity age is nowhere near what it is in the wild of course yeah this is the other thing so I think I think there's some opportunities to go there now they're finally having that dialogue yeah I I really question how sincere this whole anti-breeding statement is because I mean it's it's like they're capitalizing on it as good press we've been pushing for how long so well I mean it wasn't it the way I looked at it was it was kind of inevitable they were gonna have to do it because it wasn't it the state of California deemed it illegal to breed orca's in captivity just before well you know it's it's difficult because you know these laws get passed at municipal levels sometimes like you know yeah Vancouver this is you know this is some defense coming in and saying hey we're gonna legislate a breeding program in Orca's in Vancouver it's not the way it works and you know and also you wrap against the economic summit all which essentially is the whole reason they're there in the first place yeah so you know and then you have to look at other places you look at Monterey Aquarium where they don't have any situations in captivity but their attendance numbers keep going up every year so you know what if you're trying to justify it by attendance it doesn't work you know you know there's it's a it's a very complex thing but the thing that I have an issue with is even if they quit the breeding as long as that they're being held in a captive situation there's going to be other countries like China and Russia opening up new facilities it's about 14 of them right now that are going to take whales out of the wild to put them into those facilities because they're going to say well you do it yeah why can't we yeah and so we really have to you know this is a really good time for us to put as much pressure to bear as can be in regards to captivity because realistically if we don't it's going to result more captives cetaceans coming out of the wild which is something that we actually almost eliminated under the old system I'll hand it I'll hand it we did get that far yes yes although in some very questionable transfers happened but that's a whole other story but nonetheless I think we were we were actually making some good headway but now we're set all the way back again because there's money yeah yeah yeah and you know that thing that happens and you know stuck with a an economic system that drives everything so it's something that you know we have to reevaluate it now I have one question I have for you about SeaWorld with this announcement there's a chance there there could be a chance that SeaWorld or I guess my question is in your opinion do you think there's a chance that SeaWorld can pivot sort of their their mission their focus and become at a time become a leader in sort of conservation you know at again I mean they were considered a while ago even though they still have these orchas but they do have their rescue program that is pretty successful do you think that in your opinion that they can actually become in the future a sort of a leader in conservation based on these practices and and what they've learned from that do you think they can actually regain that or or gain that that reputation I think that given their reluctance to change the way things are right now I don't think that there's a lot of faith out there that they could actually turn into that sort of thing right there's a part of me that would love to see it I mean yeah of course you know if you want to flip this around I mean people will love you forever if you want to go out there and rescue whales right and if they can't be rehabbed back into the wild at least keep them in a decent neck head and do that yeah they're gonna love you just as much and they're probably gonna contribute to just as much right this is the argument I mean we we don't know is that true maybe maybe not right but nonetheless the challenges is this is the paradigm they've created for themselves yeah and unfortunately and I think I think the days of the sideshow are almost over yeah I mean the circus tricks and that sort of thing I think I think we're moving away from that now I mean you see I mean if you look at the circuses and where that's gone so I like to think that that's kind of the direction that things are gonna go giving enough pressure and enough time if they can build a financial case to keep them as a rehab or as a rescue facility I think that's that has a lot of merit yeah and and you know it's always been my argument you know when I get into these captivity anti-captivity debates with people and you know I always fun isn't it I don't know if you followed that case I did I did and I was like what this was a good to use post I don't understand yeah some people didn't particularly grasp it the same way I did but I think that that's kind of typifies things though because like to me when I'm doing that I mean the social media is it's kind of like a real good improving ground how do people feel what are they and and I'm not inclined to necessarily only keep the people singing in my choir right one of the people the dissenters I wanted I want to hear from the people who are gonna go counter to my argument yeah because I have to understand what they're thinking and what they're thinking and it's really interesting because a lot of it stems around and how human-centric people actually personally feel yeah you know if you've got somebody and they fundamentally think that I am a human and I'm here to subjugate the entire planet because I'm a human those are a tough net to crap but you know if you get to somebody you know and when you're having this this debate often it has to come on its own I mean I know several trainers who've worked with cetaceans in captivity and just couldn't do it anymore yeah I mean I know Rick O'Berry right of course I mean the classic you know the guy you had to you know watch it dolphin dying his arms to realize what he was doing wrong and when you see people who have that massive epiphany you know that's when I really realize like when you see somebody who's had had that shift then it's not hard to have that shift yourself and you know I know that we don't all agree on this I mean I've seen I've seen some of the heavyweights in marine science duke it out where you know one's a pro captivity saying oh I'm studying I'm studying a whale and in captivity and the other ones well you might as well be studying a human in a closet right you know and I've seen that I've seen amongst you know some you know some very learned people who are like PhD marine biologists and specializing in sedations and they've come to different conclusions yeah that has a lot to do with your own world fiber how you feel about animals how you feel about sentience yeah personally I come at it from that aspect I think I mean I look at how sentient sedations are and I mean through observation in the wild and in captivity and I mean I've been in the water with orcas and seen them in the wild I've been in the depth of the aquarium at night with the lights off watching an orcas swimming in psychotic circles upside down I mean I've seen I've seen all sides of this and I've come to my own conclusions right and and I just you know once you see them majestic cetacean in the wild I mean to me it's it's it's just so bloody obvious yeah that's what drives me to do it I do but I also have to recognize it most cases these are people I have to work with on other conservation matters so I mean I do it in as civil a fashion as possible I'm unrepensants about it yet I think I look I look at this portion of time that we're going through right now is this is the dark-aged ages of the planet we're going through right now yeah you know about the dark ages but it's nothing compared to what we've actually done here yeah the sixth great extinction I mean and yet it's not it's not a supper conversation oh we're creating the sixth-grade extinction what did we kill today and so I mean if we're given opportunities to turn that around and the whales are kind of that story I mean if it wasn't for you know a bunch of protesters in Brighton over 30 years ago storming the International Whaling Commission in Brighton yeah we have stopped whaling so you know I have to look at this as an opportunity and then you know it changed then and hopefully we can change it now well and I think I think I think you're right I think the interesting thing I think what happened this time is is SeaWorld got hit where it counts and that was in their pocketbook right that was they lost a lot of money especially over the last two years they still lost a lot of money and I attribute that to obviously you know the cove and blackfish to really the popularization of those movies really brought the emotions up into in people and be like oh god I'd never knew they were suffering that much especially the families that would attend SeaWorld and Marine Land and all these places and I think what happened was the education of those people so you have the movies and then you have the compliments of the world's citation alliance and all the other NGOs that came out and said and just basically campaigned in saying look this is what the science says this is what scientists are saying this is the state of these of these animals these are what the animals do in the wild and this is what they do in the captivity it's obviously very different and they're acting out because of it and this is what it is and I think the complement of that of those campaigns really changed things and and I think and it's the education of the families that would attend normally attend a place like SeaWorld would travel to San Diego or traveled San Antonio to go to SeaWorld I think that made the difference and that is why you and I do what we do we we pound the pavement me I pound the airwaves and I you know I pound we pound the social medias and we say look we educate in a positive light and we say this is what's happening to the ocean this is what we were doing I mean this is how this podcast came to be it's how speak up for blue came to be is I'm speaking up for the ocean and it's like and and I've through this podcast I've gotten feedback from people saying hey we've changed our lives because of what you've provided us you know I had a friend who lived who lives in Hong Kong and there's not a lot of recycling available in Hong Kong like she lives in an apartment so now her and her partner go down and go to the local recycling center to bring the recycling in because of the stuff that we talked about and plastic on this podcast that is like even if it's one or two people that will spread and that will that will get bigger and and that's what happened here with with SeaWorld that you know the education of what's happening to these poor animals really hit people and they believed it and those families stopped going whether it was the kids that influenced the parents or vice versa or both they just stopped going and and it hit him where it hurt it hit him in the pocketbooks and no matter how aggressive SeaWorld went after all the NGOs and how personal it got with a lot of advocates it got really nasty with some people and of course you've been in the debates online it can get really nasty online very quickly right so but but it but it worked because people stopped going and we and because people like ourselves and all the other NGOs who dedicated their lives to just saying no this is what's happening we're staying true to this is what the science says but you got to believe us and they did and it and it worked and it just kind of took everything back and it almost took like arts and science together with advocacy and it and it it basically shattered SeaWorld over the last couple years to the point where now they're not even going to be breeding orca's which if you ask people maybe two or three years ago do you know that SeaWorld has a orca breeding program they may not have known you know what I mean like that wasn't a well-known thing that came out through the movie where people really realize how much money was made off of orca breeding you know yeah well there it's it's it is a modern day slave trade yeah you know essentially still going on I mean they they actually use terms like loan an animal to another facility and that sort of thing and this is this will still carry on with the blue gas yes yes that's next thing yeah yeah one next one step at a time but I mean if it if it happens in orca's you know like it's not there they're not far off you know and and I think yeah I just think it's interesting how I want to touch upon that because in this interview because just basic education of conservation is is is probably the biggest need and to reach as many people as possible with this basic education is the biggest difference that we can make because people just don't know of what's going on in the ocean you know I had a I think it really is the oceans very difficult that way especially if people are landlocked oh yeah for sure yeah I here in Ontario you know even like now the Great Lakes you know there's articles coming out about plastic pollution in the Great Lakes and people didn't realize that they saw I thought that was only the ocean well how do you think it got to the ocean you know like go look along the coast of Ontario and you're gonna see plastic pollution everywhere and and we just don't realize that it gets there and I think it's just that that knowledge I have a you know I knew someone I had a conversation with in New York City last last summer and very well-educated man and he's like oh yeah what's happening with those glaciers up there you know all melting and stuff and I was like sit down do you have three hours sit down we need to talk but that's the thing though is you have to get to those to everybody and and and I mean let's let's let's be honest the shark fin trade decreased significantly they think a new report said it decreased 7 by 70 percent that's because organizations went over to China and educated the people of China of the devastation that was happening and then when they realized what was happening a lot of them just refused you know and there were campaigns you know was it Yao Ming the basketball player did campaigns and a lot of celebrities in China did campaigns that were very well respected and and it worked it started worked you know it's working you know we're not there yet but it's working and that's gonna help shark populations in the future and it's the basic education that's really what it comes down to you know anyway that's that's sort of what I wanted to kind of end the interview on I know it's a little bit of a rant but I mean that's what you do I mean that's what you've been doing like you know you say part of your campaigning and and getting these protected areas going is is engaging the public and telling them why it's important to protect how it could pay why it's important to protect how sound and and all the other you know rock diving rockfish diving areas that you guys love so much this is why it's important to protect it and then people got behind it because it's like oh yeah that's that's that's that's that makes sense you know and I think that's the important part I think a lot of of organizations out there don't realize how important it is to get the education out and that's what Speaker for Blues is is really about so so yeah so I just want thank you for all the work you've done and and all the work you and your colleagues have done I get the word out it's very cool that you're in Ontario and you're fighting for the oceans my hat's off to you well I think more like you that's for sure I mean we got that we got people in the coast but we desperately need more people in the center of Canada to start realizing it's it's theirs - it's their resources to absolutely absolutely and I think I mean you know it's interesting this this show does really well in the US because a lot of people in the US listen to podcasts and a lot of people I mean just in the US and YouTube the US is always a bigger a bigger audience and and so forth it's it's always tough to get that Canadian audience it's because maybe I don't know if we're online as much or we listen to podcasts or or watch YouTube as much but there's always that you know that need and and I'm still trying to find ways to increase the Canadian audience I still put Canadian content in there because it's important just as much as I put us issues whether in the whether in the United States you're in Canada is and this is the thing the ocean joins us all exactly the ocean doesn't know there's a this is an invisible line that's between our countries yeah doesn't know that we're doing well out here in the on the West Coast because like we're joining up with Washington and BC and talking about the Salish Sea you know so so what we're doing is is we're respecting our indigenous people to an area that did not have a boundary and restoring the boundary that was really theirs yeah that's some invisible thing that we've created right and and there's there's been a lot of a lot of cohesion around the Salish Sea and we're really hoping that we can we can start working together more like that so I'm really looking forward we got the conference coming up here in Vancouver in 2016 Salish Sea Conference so I'd encourage anyone if they can come to that it would be a really good one and where so where is that actually being held okay and what what are the dates do you remember the dates you said April but it's in my phone I know don't worry about all you know what we'll look at we'll look it up and we'll put it on on the show notes yeah and and then if people want to attend if they're they're in BC or they're in they're in Washington they can get to BC and Vancouver then please do attend I wish I could attend unfortunately I can't but I think that'll be a very good a very good conference so yeah please do attend in fact there's there's a couple conferences in Canada happening that are very important for the ocean there's coastal zone Canada that's happening actually in Toronto for the first time that is an organization I'm actually on the board of essentially it's it's a body of scientists and conservation practitioners coastal practitioners like yourself who get together every two years and talk and share information of what's happening not only in Canada but internationally of what's happening along the coast so it's happening this one's happening in June of this year June 12th to the 16th it's in Toronto downtown Toronto and yeah we're gonna basically sit there we have we're hoping to have people come from BC you know the east coast the north coast you never know I might be able to make that because they do worth coming down to absolutely I will send you the information then yeah I think it's it's gonna be a lot of government representatives gonna be a lot of conservation representatives ocean ocean is in Toronto now it's headquarters in Toronto so hopefully they'll show up and WWF history is gonna be there the minute you know what they might they might just be we're trying to get some government keynote speakers so that'd be it'd be good to have a political you know a political presence at this conference to be honest it would be and then of course in for that yeah yeah but of course also in in Newfoundland this year St. John's is going to be the International Marine Conservation Congress over the long over the the I guess the August long weekend I don't even know I think it's different for every province now but that's gonna be held over a series of almost a way I guess seven days and then there's the science or the ocean science online conference that kind of piggybacks on top of that and that's all about science communication ocean science communication and how we can better that throughout the world so there's actually a lot going on in Canada this summer starting from the west coast or the Salish sea conference and ending with the the IMCC conference in in St. John's Newfoundland and of course in the middle is Toronto so it should be it should be an interesting time for Canada and seeing what's happening especially with the new government and and the new mandate to protect the oceans right that's that's a big thing I mean that was a big win for for us as Canadians to hear that and now it's up to us to make sure that it that it gets done you know and or it gets close to being done at least you know getting that that out there so yeah I think I think we're we're on a a good track you know this this two twenty sixteen their fries and that's excellent absolutely but anyway you know thank you very much for coming on Roy I really appreciate it this has been a long time coming and I long overdue absolutely and I'd love to have you on the show again and and we can talk more about you know whether it be cetaceans or whether it be local protection or citizen science or diving or anything like that and what we'll do we'll put your links on not only to the organizations you work with but also to your company website so people can see the images and the videos that you that you actually produce I think they're I mean they're phenomenal so I think that'd be very important and yeah thank you very much just stay on the line after I press the stop recording button we'll just we'll just chat and thank you very much for joining us thank you all right we'll talk to you there so I hope you enjoyed that interview Roy's a great guy in fact I think we spoke for about two hours maybe three almost three hours apart from this interview and I'm sure there'll be more con more conversations afterwards but it was been it's been a long time coming to have them on the podcast I've had an idea to have them on the podcast for a while of course my day job as a government scientist I have to be careful with some of the people I have on from Canada because they might be depicted as controversial Roy to some people are considered controversial I have a lot of respect for him I love what he does he's not not one to shy away from controversy or debate and before our last election I had to be careful as a as a fisheries notion scientist of what I said and who I had on the program and what we said about Canadian government we're in a different regime now and things are a little more open and you know during this interview we didn't really mention any sort of the setbacks that went happened the last ten years or anything like that maybe one day we'll be able to talk to it on the podcast openly but I always just you know I'm always just worried you know for my job you know that's that's my daytime job but Roy is amazing he is just awesome at what he does his and his passion just takes him to that next level and a very inspiring story and I just I just love to hear it I love that I actually got it out of him he was able to talk to talk to me about it openly and I just really appreciate him coming on and and being open about it and the fact that he got those two wins at Hunt Le Bay and and and and the Sea World with the Cetacean World Cetacean Alliance and the Sea World announcement that they're not breeding any orcas you know is a great first step into hopefully the right direction for captivity of Wales or getting rid of captivity of Wales and captivity so you know again if Roy as you're listening to us thank you very much for coming on the program really enjoyed it we'll have you on again definitely when you're available and we'll talk more about ocean conservation everyone I want you to I want to thank you for continuing to listen to these podcasts share them with your friends if you really enjoy them talk about them with your family your friends talk about the ocean talk about ocean issues this is really important for us to get it out in the open and really educate people because that's what it's all about speak up for this all about just making people over what's happening in the ocean and hopefully being able to implement solutions to reduce or eliminate all the issues that are happening in the ocean so I just want to thank you very much for listening to this podcast I am your host Angela and you've been listening to speaking to the podcast happy Wednesday happy conservation
