Well, come to the speaker for blue podcast session 143. Welcome back, everybody. It's Ocean Talk Friday, my favorite day of the week. We've got four stories where I talk with Nathan Johnson about these four stories that we thought were important that came out this week, and we want to share them with you. We describe them. We break them down, give our opinions on it, and then we'd like to hear from you in the comments section and maybe on BLAB.I am going to record this. This next week, Wednesday at 9 p.m. Eastern, where we talk about four more stories for the week, because we like to include the speaker for blue community. So, stay tuned for this week's episode of the speaker for blue podcast. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another exciting episode of the Speak Up for Blue podcast, your voice for the ocean. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, founder of SpeakUpForBlue.com, marine ecologist and self-proclaimed ocean printer, and today is Ocean Talk Friday, my favorite day of the week. So, where I get together with Nathan Johnson on BLAB.I am, it's a live streaming site where people can actually listen in, participate either through text and questions, or even live through audio and video. It's a great platform that we can interact, and it allows us to interact with our community or SpeakUp for Blue Community. You guys, the audience, and I think it's a great way of doing it. So, join us every Wednesday, 9 p.m. Eastern. We talk about four stories of the week, and we want to hear your opinions on it. So, next week, I think what we're going to do, I'm a little teaser here, I think we're going to talk about stories from the field. So, all you scientists who have good stories from the field, we'd love to hear from you guys. So, anyway, let's get to today's episode. We cover four stories. One of those stories is, NOAA has released some educational material for teachers to use in their classrooms for their young students. So, usually, great four down, maybe, maybe even higher. So, what it is, it's a bunch of cutouts, 3D cutouts, 2D cutouts, where they can draw, they can put habitats together, coral reef habitats, and seagrasses, and so forth. And then, it allows them, allows the students to really interact with the animals and show how the animals integrate with the habitats, shows how they swim with their pectoral fins and their dorsal fins, and their caudal fins, their tail fins, and just how they eat and everything like that, how they interact. I think it's a great tool. We talk all about that. We break that down for you. We also talk about how the U.S. is using the Marine Male Protection Act as a tool to protect depleted beluga population that keeps getting taken for, the individuals keep getting taken for captivity, and so the U.S. is deemed depleted, that population in Russia, and they decided, "You know what? We're going to protect them using our tool." And I'm not going to tell you how we do it now. I want you guys to listen in on the BLAB conversation that's coming up in just a few moments with Nathan Johnson. Listen in and see how they're using that tool, it's a really, really interesting way to do that. And in the article we talk, we talk about, Dr. Naomi Rose is in it too, who's been a guest on the podcast before, so really cool stuff to see that come full circle. The next story is we talk about green sea turtles and how their conservation is doing really well. It's working, guys. It's working. Their status, their endangered status, has been downgraded to threatened, which is a great thing to see, means their population is doing very well, or much better than it was. It's not going down towards the extinction category. It's actually going back to the least concerned category. So it's threatened right now. It's going to be more research is going to be done, more protection. They're going to continue on with their protection, but they just want it to show conservation works in Florida and Gulf of Mexico, because these populations are thriving much better than they were before. There's still a lot of work to be done, but they're doing it and the conservation tools are working. So we talk all about that, break it down, give our opinions on it. And then last story is not so exciting and so good, such a much good news. The Great Barrier Reef, one of the most iconic barrier reefs in the world, the largest one in the world, and one of the eighth wonders in the world, a natural sanctuary, a natural heritage site, a new and natural heritage site, is having some major problems. 90% of the corals have been deemed bleached, according to a new article that came out. And so we break that down for you. We talk about what we can do to protect it, what Australia the government can do to protect it. But yeah, it's kind of interesting of what we can do. And if we leave it alone, a little hint, if we leave it alone, they can maybe come back. So we talk all about that on today's episode of Speaker for Blue Ocean Talk Friday. So I'm not going to talk anymore. I want you guys to listen in, enjoy, and I'll see you after the conversation. Hey, Nathan. How's it going? Welcome back to another Ocean Talk Friday. How you doing, bud? I'm great. Thanks for having me. You bet, you become like a co-host now, so it's not even a guest kind of thing. You're kind of in it. I can't do Ocean Talk Friday without you now. I weaseled my way in. I think you earned it. I think you earned it. You showed up every week, you know, maybe not be wearing pants right now. So that's all right. That's the beauty of this is just don't get up. Don't get up. Yeah. Keep a chest above. That's all right. And I know as you keep popping in the Redskins mug, even though it's the off season and they're not very good. I got to support my crappy, crappy time. No problem. Okay. So today, for those of you who are on the show, we're on BLAB. We record this for a Speak Up for Blue podcast that airs Friday. And as we call this Ocean Talk Friday, of course, Wednesday right now as we do this. So if you guys have questions, just put it in your, just type it in. And if you want to come on, we can always discuss kind of that. We're not used to having people come on live. So if you want to, we can try it today and we'll see how that goes. But we'll just give you the what we do is we take, we do about four stories, four articles that we think are impressive or that we were that we liked, and then we talk about them. And we talk about how they really help marine conservation, how they protect things or some issues that come up and we don't really like, and we just talk all about that. So we come in here every Wednesday at nine o'clock and then around, it's nine thirty now that we're starting, but we kind of discuss and catch up every once in a while. But yeah. So today's stories, we're going to talk about these principal materials for students and teachers to teach marine conservation in class that I believe it's a government kind of issue thing and know a thing, which is kind of cool. We're going to talk about that. We're also going to talk about how the US is taking a major step toward ending beluga whale captivity in the States and hopefully around the world. This is a really interesting story that we're going to be talking all the more, but this one's in particular. And then we're going to talk about green sea turtles, how the conservation of efforts are working for a lot of the green sea turtles that are going on. So that's kind of cool. And we're also going to talk about what's happening with the Great Barrier Reef right now. It's a major bleaching event and we're going to talk about, can we save the Great Barrier Reef? That's what we're going to talk about today on the show. If you want to chime in, just let me know in the message box and maybe we can let you maybe we'll let you in. And if not, just sit back relax and enjoy the show. So Nate, why don't you take us through the first story, the printable oceanography, marine biology, ocean aquatic life science lessons. So obviously April is ocean month. I mean, that's something we've all had marked on our calendars for at least the last 60 days. Absolutely. We are up on our months. And so Noah is putting together, it looks like educational materials that are free for, it's mostly younger groups. So they talk about it. These are things are geared from young children in kindergarten all the way to high school. And on their website, it seems like it's mostly sort of the younger grades, maybe ages five through 10. But what you get are a lot of really interesting educational materials to sort of initiate a lot of young kids into ocean conservation, marine biology, oceanography and all that sort of stuff. So there's cool little coloring activities where you can color in a sea creature. There's stuff about defining the different zones of the ocean, which I think is really cool because it gets you into the different habitats. There's a lot of other sort of assorted quizzes and trivia and things that you can do with your class or with your family. That's all geared towards younger students. And I think that's why I really like the stories because, I mean, there's a lot of things particularly about science that young educational schools don't really get right all the time. You know, it seems like, especially with biology, students are mostly taught basic facts. They're just to memorize these facts. And so as they get older, they see science as just a memorization sort of subject. And they think in order to succeed at science, you have to just be naturally smart. It doesn't really matter how would you work at it. If you can't memorize these things, can't remember them, you're not really gonna succeed, which is not true. No, not at all. I'm living proof. I'm living proof of that. Just make two of us. I mean, I support the Redskins, how smart can I be? So, you know, I think what this really does is it captures like the creativity of it. And it captures the wonder of the ocean. It shows you all these crazy different animals and it doesn't go too deep into, you know, what the structures are that make this animal different than this animal or what really distinguishes this species from another. It just says, hey, this is what's out there. And isn't this really cool? And I think that's what kind of we need more of is we need researchers and people who work underneath the ocean and work on these projects in the ocean to just say, look, this is what we know. This is the diversity of life that you find in the ocean. Let's talk about what part of this you find interesting. And then you can rope people in that way and get them to learn more about the ocean basically based on their own curiosity rather than saying, all right, let's walk through the, you know, the different phyla that live underneath sea and what distinguishes a gastropod from the rest of the mollusks and stuff like that. So, I mean, I think this is a really cool opportunity to try and get younger people engaged in the ocean and really interested in what's out there. Absolutely, this is one of the things that, you know, as someone who goes into schools to teach young children about marine biology, I do it at my kid's school who are six and eight. And so I go into like, when they were in kindergarten, I went to kindergarten with grade one, I went into grade one, grade two, I go into grade two, and I just keep going, I just keep following them up. And like teachers love it when I come in and show them images. A lot of times, it's just like a PowerPoint presentation, I show them images of animals and I talk about the differences in animals, but I kind of go into the ecology of them and how they survive and stuff and the kids love it. Obviously, things that they can do with their hands is one of the best things for them to learn. And at that age, they love to color and to get printable materials out there like I'm looking at right now, I was just surfing as you were talking, it's just easy to print them off, get them to color, there's something you can make like your own coral reef habitat and stuff out of like a 3D materials and it's really easy to do. You can draw them yourself and make them and stuff and kids love that. And they soak it in. And as they're drawing stuff, you'd say, okay, well, you're drawing, you know, the pectoral fin now or you're drawing the dorsal fin now and what are the advantages of these? Look how this fish actually swims and you can actually go and you can teach each individual what the fish do, why they're built the same way, same with invertebrates, why they're built that way, their functions and they really get into it. And I remember one time going into a class and I talked about little things that fish and animals did that were like symbiotic relationships and the best one I can come up with. Well, two, I can come up with one is the pistol shrimp and the goby, right, where they do that, they have that little, you know, one stays in man's, the cave and the other one goes out and brings food back and they protect each other and, you know, it's just one of those things that there are videos of it and of them actually, of the pistol shrimp digging out the cave and the fish kind of monitoring that and protecting it and bringing food back and the kids just lapped it up. The other one is the cleaning station of a reef, right? You've got these master sharks that come in, they open up their mouths and then you've got these little cleaner shrimp and rasses to go in and clean up their mouths without getting hurt. And they couldn't believe that this happens, you know, and it's the actual station, it's like a known like car, what they call the, the ocean car wash station, you know, and it was just, it's fun, but you can do that kind of stuff with these principal materials and you can teach that and they get engaged and I think that is the biggest sort of advantage of, you know, bringing people in on this is bringing these kinds of materials is to get them to learn about the different parts of the bodies and what those functions are of those bodies. I think it's, I think it's fantastic. I'm going to use them next time I go in for sure. Yeah, I'm going to print some off and just color adult color and it's becoming a thing these days. I heard, I heard you get your own like art kit and stuff and I think next time next next show next week, you should have them up and back to the wall. We're going to expect them to be covered. Yeah. Yeah, your own little reef up there and, and yeah, it'll be, it'll be great. You know, we can talk about bleaching and say, Hey, I colored this pink and I colored this brown and some of it might not be colored at all because I want to demonstrate the impact of bleaching. That's what we call laziness. That's what we call laziness. That's what we call people need to take a stand. That's true. This is what the grayberry reflux right now. It's all white. It's going to be ecologically representative here. Hey, hey, I, I agree. I think that's, I think that's fantastic, but yeah. So what do you like these materials? I think it's fun. They're free, which, which I think helps, especially for teachers date. I remember in high school, one of my teachers actually going on a trip for teachers to learn about marine science and come back and teach it. And for, of course, a high school in Ontario, you don't really get a lot of people doing that. Right. And so that becomes difficult. But, you know, I know a lot of high schools and elementary schools along the coast in Seattle and stuff, they actually incorporate marine science into, into their curriculum. Did you have that when you were in high school? Uh, no, not, not particularly. I mean, I took biology my freshman year and I'm sure marine biology made it into that, but I was, I'm freshman year. I was more interested in genetics than else we learned in biology. I didn't really get a chance to even take a marine biology course until my sophomore year at college. Oh, okay. And then I passed on taking that course and I ultimately didn't take another marine biology course to like junior, senior year or something. Okay. But, I mean, I, I remember just like being interested in all the stuff when I was a kid, I never thought that it would, could really be a career for me. I just thought it'd be kind of like, you know, I'll keep fish tanks for a while and, and make sort of a hobby. And then, you know, for whatever reason in college, I decided just to, to take a leap with it. And it worked out okay. But I, I think that's pretty similar for most people. And I don't know if it was Sylvia Earle who said that some, some famous researcher said something along the lines of that we're all curious and we're all science minded as students and as younger kids. And then it's kind of beat out of us as we grow up. Yeah. Absolutely. I feel like podcasts like this, we try and get people excited about the ocean and talk about, you know, really cool species every once in a while and really important issues other times. And from the feedback we've gotten, people like learning this kind of stuff. Yeah. And in my experience, like younger kids find this stuff really exciting too. So there must be some sort of disconnect in the middle where, you know, when you get to that young adult age, you're kind of taught that science isn't really a viable career or is like, well, you don't get, you don't get, you know, people, I remember going into it and people like, well, you're not going to get paid well. You know, you're not going to get paid like a banker or you're not going to get paid like a lawyer or a doctor. No, you don't get paid like those professions for 99% of other professions. Right. Right. But then I found that when I, when I got into my career, I started getting into the whole ocean conservation careers thing, teaching people about how to get a career. I got a lot of people who would come to me who are in their late 30s and early 40s saying, I took a couple of courses of marine biology when I was in university, but then I realized that I couldn't make a career out of it and so I went in as a banker and now I'm bored and I need to do something meaningful with my life and I want to get into marine biology again. No, so it kind of comes full circle realizing when you're, you know, in your late 30s and 40s being like, no, I really want to do something I care about, not just about the money, you know, because it's just, it's boring after a while. And then that, I mean, some people, you know, they're lawyers for life and they're doctors for life and they love it, but you know, it's kind of a big, kind of a big thing. So Dustin was saying here, just say he made a comment, the professional careers is a big deal at my university. And even though a lot of people find interest in marine biology, they're going into med school and dental school. Yeah, that's the thing, right? You got to go with what people tell you how you support your life. Yeah. Yeah. We need to do an episode one time about focusing how cool it is to be in marine biology or be in ocean conservation, like as a career, like what are the benefits of it? Because you're right, you're not going to get paid a lot, but I feel like from my experience talking with a lot of people and my personal experience, as long as you make it enough to support yourself and your family, if you have a family and be comfortable, which, you know, if you work hard, you can pretty much do that in a lot of different careers. Yeah. And the added money that you would just put in your pocket at the end of the day doesn't make as much of an impact as you might have thought it would. No, exactly. And the thing is too, is if you, as you grow into the career and you meet people in your career, you realize that a lot of us are the same personality wise. A lot of us don't need a ton of money to live and survive well. We actually appreciate, and I'm saying people don't who are bankers and stuff who make a lot of money, but we actually, I find we have more of an appreciation of nature and the fact that if I'm out on the ocean at a sunset and it's like glass out on the ocean and you get that reflection, I'm in heaven, I'm in second heaven, I'm like, this is worth all, you know, the late nights and early mornings in university and trying to memorize and trying to learn all this different stuff. This is worth it just that being on the ocean and, you know, having people diving in the ocean while I'm watching, you know, putting it down instruments like thousands and thousands of feet just to get, you know, just to get a water sample, it is totally worth it because it's so much fun. Yeah. I mean, how often, like I tell people I lived on, I lived on a boat for eight months out of the year when I lived in on the Gulf of Mexico, they're like, oh, where'd you live? I'm like, oh, Gulf of Mexico. They're like, what do you mean Gulf of Mexico? I'm like, why you literally lived on the Gulf of Mexico, I lived on a boat, and we would go around the Gulf of Mexico and do research. And people are like, that's awesome. And I'm like, yeah, it's great. You know, I don't have like the four cars and the, you know, three car garage and the big house. I have a great house, I do well, but I'm not like crazy rich, right? I find the experience that I have and that I keep having are just amazing, you know? Yeah. So it makes it worth, it makes it worth a, it makes it worth a while. And people realize that when they get, so they start to get to my age and they start to say, hey, you know, I need to do something meaningful with my life. I want to do something that will protect it, right? So it's a great path to take it. Yeah. For sure. For sure. So we should do a whole episode on trading stories from the, from the field and, and having fun, you know, when we're in the field, I think that'd be a lot of fun, you know? Maybe we should, you know, as, as speak up for Blue Grows and we announce more and more things of what we're turning into, we should, we should do more stuff in the field and record it and maybe Snapchat it like we were talking about before. See how we can do that because I'm new to Snapchat and I have no idea what I'm doing on there. We, we would be Snapchat champs in like a week. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. For sure. Cause it'd be all of our, it would be all of our, uh, uh, doesn't even agree for field stories. Yeah. It would be all of our mess ups on Snapchat. Be like, am I recording? There's no reading. Some Snapchat. No, there is no redos. I know. You can't even delete things. I've had some bad pictures and I'm like, crap, um, it'll be, it'll be fine. Oh, yeah. It'll be good. We'll figure it out. We're scientists. Let's go on to the next story. Uh, uh, those printable things, we're going to put on the link on the, on the, on the show notes, which will be speakupforblue.com/session143. Uh, so you can tune into that on the podcast and you can see those links. Um, the next story, we're going to talk about, I'll describe this one. This is kind of an interesting one. Um, so the US has a Marine Mammal Protection Act and it's, uh, it's a very stringent act that essentially protects all Marine Mammals in US waters. You cannot harass. You cannot change the path. You cannot do anything around a Marine Mammal without a special permit. Uh, and that really has protected them and, and you know, if you look at, if, uh, one of the episodes, I forget the name, uh, the name of the person, it's, it's kind of, it's kind of, uh, it's kind of slipped my mind. Uh, but if you look at one of our sessions where we talk about shark, it was the shark lab one, but we talk about how great whites are doing so much better in the Pacific. And it was attributed. One of the attributes was that tool, the Marine Mammal Protection Act actually helped bring sea lion populations back to where they are now. Yeah. That was Chris Lowe. I think Chris Lowe. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Dr. Chris Lowe at the shark lab and, uh, and, and you know, and it's one of those things where it, it actually brings, it protects seals, sea lions, uh, polar bears, walruses, all types of whales and dolphins, any kind of Marine Mammal that you see, it protects them and it brings them back. And what's interesting in this story is that the U S is taking a stand against beluga captivity. Now, beluga is in the U S cannot be taken captive in U S waters, but most of the belugas that are in captivity come from a population in Russia. I believe it's just north of Siberia if I'm, if I'm not mistaken and, um, and they live in the sea of, I'm going to try and pronounce this, Akashk, Akashk, is that right? Russia specific coast. My Russians. Pretty bad. Yeah. I don't even know if I can speak Russian. That's not Russian. I can't. It's a cutsker. Whatever you say. Yeah. A cutsk. All right. Maybe we should have a whole show dedicated to pronouncing different names cause I suck at it. Anyway, um, the problem is with that population that they're keep taking from is that it is depleted. And, and so the people keep taking it for captivity. So it's not only like, uh, sea world and marine land and Georgia aquarium who tried to, to get more permits, um, and got denied. It's places in Russia, places in China who are opening up all these different, uh, dolphin aeriums or, you know, sort of sea world type, uh, places. And so the, the population is getting depleted. I don't know if Russia has permits or stringent rules on marine mammal captivity or taking marine mammals for captivity. However, it's, they're being taken and, and it doesn't seem like Russia's really doing much of it. So the US has stepped in because of pressure from groups, um, like animal, I believe it's the, uh, let me just look it up here to make sure Naomi rose who's been on the show as well, um, from the animal welfare institute has been putting pressure on the government to step up and say we need to do something about this. And so the US has, in fact, the US has put a ban on any kind of cetacean coming in from other parts of, like coming in from Russia, especially belugas to come in and be important into the United States. They have banned all of that. So the Georgia aquarium who put in the permit, uh, two years ago or three years ago in 2013 for belugas to be put in their aquarium have now been banned from doing that. And I find that really interesting because now it's like they're taking their laws and applying it around the world to protect ocean life. What do you think about that, Nathan? I think it's a good move. Um, I mean, it looks like a lot of, so the article mentioned that obviously the Protection Act doesn't extend to other countries. Um, listing the belugas as depleted under this act isn't going to stop like Russia from shipping off these belugas to other countries. But what it would do is make it illegal for the US to import them. And I also get the sense that what this will do is sort of send some sort of message, not in like a stern way to these other countries, but say, look, like domestically, we decided to address this beluga population because we don't think we should be importing any into our country, um, because of the, because of its population numbers. Now, what you guys, you other countries choose to do with that information is up to you. But because we evaluated that this stock is depleted according to our protocols, you know, kind of like hinting at you guys should also probably check into this or at least stop collecting from this population. So I think, you know, on paper, it's a pretty straightforward move for what it sounds like. It's obvious that they should be marked as depleted. Um, I can't imagine the beluga demand in the US is that high, but I could be really, I could be wrong on that. If you think about it though, think about how many places would actually want belugas. And there are a lot of deaths of belugas in those kept in captivity. I know there's one at the mystic aquarium in Connecticut, um, because I've been there and that was actually the first beluga I've ever seen. So I, well, and, and you know, so it could, it will make a huge impact on the beluga population in the US that's in captivity because we won't be able to get anymore, um, which is a positive step. I think the other thing it says though, is just sort of sending that message that like the US is going to restrict imports into our country from this population in Russia and then other countries might follow suit, which I think is, is kind of a good or if they don't follow suit, they'll at least question in the future and maybe they have their own protocols as to how they protect marine mammals in, in their waters. Maybe they'll look into the belugas there as well. So I, I think it's a good step. I think, um, this is something that honestly, I don't know how big of a deal it is in the US. I mean, you certainly don't hear the outrage that you do with orcas, um, for, for a number of reasons, but that doesn't mean that's not as big of a problem. So I think it's good that we're addressing this now either before it a becomes a big problem or B now that we've recognized it currently is a problem. Yeah. And I think this does a couple of things. It, it kind of takes, it's a kind of says the US is here to protect marine mammals the best way they can. So not only are they going to protect marine mammals in, uh, the US waters, but they're going to protect mammals outside that have tried to, that people try to import in. So that means I would imagine that would mean not only sort of belugas in the, in, in, in the Siberia, but what about dolphins in, at the cove, you know, the dolphins, the first dolphins that don't get killed, they actually get captured and so, and, and sold to captivity. Does that include those areas? You know, it, this is what we have to think about is, is, you know, if the US is, is willing to do that for belugas, what about, you know, bottom those dolphins now? I don't know if bottlenose dolphins in, in near Japan are considered depleted and maybe that's why they're doing it, but I mean, that's a, a, a, something that they could take into account say we're not going to let the import happen because we're taking accountability for this and we want marine mammals to be protected and we recognize this and we're going to do it the best way we know we can't make other countries do it, but we can make damn sure that they don't bring, that it does, that our people don't bring things into our country from other places that are depleting their animals. And I think that's a, that's a great thing, because especially the US, I mean, there's always, the US is, is usually into something, you know, I mean, and I think that would be, that's a huge thing. If they're not into something, then, you know, that'd be pretty surprised. So it's nice that they take that responsibility from marine mammals and maybe this, and this is a tool that they can use to do that. And I think that's, that's quite an interesting aspect. So. Yeah. And I think that's, we're really seeing the sort of blackfish effect, I think, and we'll be seeing it over the years as well. I think once, you know, blackfish brought the huge, huge issue of orchid captivity to sort of the public eye, and now, you know, whether it's the public or whether it's researchers or policy makers, like you said, now you start thinking, well, if we can't do it with orcas, can we also not do it with belugas? And I mean, it's a similar, it's a different situation because the beluga restriction is based on a population count, not necessarily on a morality count or something like that. But I think over the next 10 years or five years, you'll start seeing the same questions asked, like you said, about dolphins, about even some other marine mammals that are kept in captivity, you know, is now that we've asked this question about orcas and it seems like the public as a whole has a sort of general opinion on it that we're not okay with it. Now why would that not extend to other animals? Yeah. Specifically marine mammals. So why would that not extend to belugas and dolphins and seals, sea lions, maybe? Walruses. Yeah. I think once you ask yourself that question about orcas, it becomes a lot more difficult to be okay with everything else as well. Yeah. You know, I just find interesting, people talk about how belugas are, I remember I covered a story one time, belugas are the canaries of the sea where they're very sensitive animals and they're not easy to keep in captivity, they haven't been kept in pristine tanks. And I'm sure the same thing that orcas go through, belugas tend to go through as well. But the thing is you can just keep, it seems like you can keep belugas together easier than you would in orca, they're smaller so people maybe don't feel that pressure as much. But they're still very sensitive animal and I think, you know, the fact that they're depleted tells us something, they're going, they're still going through all the climate change stuff every other animals going through, plus they're being taken out for captivity. So now you're really taking, you're really affecting your population and that needs to stop. And that is the biggest, you know, the biggest step we need to take. And I think the fact that the U.S. is taking that initiative and saying, no, there's no U.S. citizen that can bring or anybody who can bring into U.S. borders, you know, this type of animal, we're not, we're not taking it. So I think it's great. I think it's awesome. So anyway, let's go to the next story. Do you want to take this one, the green sea turtles one? Yeah. U.S. Fish and Wildlife in the U.S. in addition with NOAA have changed the classification for green sea turtles, in the Gulf of Mexico and in some areas around Mexico as well. They've changed them from endangered to, I believe, threatened, which is one classification down. So that means that their population is, has risen or recovered to the point that we no longer have to say there in immediate threat of extinction, which is basically what endangered is. Right. Now that they're threatened, I mean, they still need protection. There will still be protective measures taken as far as restricting the types of fishing equipment you can use in some of their habitats, restricting the use of their nesting habitats for other sort of beach development. But it's, it's a good sign. I mean, one of the criticisms of the Endangered Species Act and of a lot of these endangered classifications is that there hasn't been a whole lot of hard evidence to suggest that once something's placed on the list, it's taken off, but I think, first of all, I don't think that's necessarily true. But second of all, you see these types of stories with very sensitive animals like sea turtles, ones that are really heavily susceptible to overfishing, to eye catch, to habitat destruction. And certainly they're not out of the woods yet. But the fact that we can get to a point where we're comfortable declassifying them from endangered to threatened is a good sign. Now, the one thing I will say is that this, the story that I found, this one's on pulse, but there's a couple other local news articles around the Florida area that talk about this as well. They haven't said specifically what conservation steps have been taken that take these off the endangered classification. I know there's a lot of federal regulations regarding when you can have activities on beaches where there's sea turtle nesting, what types of things you can do, what types of processes you have to go through. There's turtle exclusion devices that are put on a lot of different fishing vessels. There's certain techniques you just can't use around turtle habitat. So there's a variety of measures put in place, but it would be really interesting to see which one of these, if they can target them, have really lent itself to this type of recovery. Yeah, no, for sure, I mean, I'm always cautious when they put something down. They talk about how it was endangered, now it's threatened, which is great, meaning the population is doing well. Luckily, I think in this situation, I'm not too familiar with the U.S. sort of species at risk act in terms of what protections go under each category, but endangered and threatened are not that much different. So I would imagine the protections would be very similar. You know, it's just maybe not, and the monitoring would still be there. It just goes to, this is just more of a status update saying, hey, green sea turtles are doing better in these regions, and so we're going to up them a little bit or take them down a classification so they're not as at risk as they were before. And I think that's extremely important to know, you know, for the future, and it just goes to show that, yeah, you're right, conservation works. The efforts that people are putting together to protect sea turtles, to tag and to find out where they are, the scientists that did the science to go behind it, and the research to go behind it and say, hey, this is what they need to do, this is how we protect them. The U.S. fisheries and wildlife have very stringent rules on sea turtle protection in Florida. I remember being in Florida one time, we found a nest, I don't know if it was a green sea turtle nest, but it was definitely a sea turtle nest called U.S. fisheries and wildlife and they were there within a half hour and cordoned off the area on a public beach. And there was a bunch of them all up along this, this was like Miami Beach, you know. So it's nice to see that these are things that are protected and people take it seriously. And it goes to show that, you know, all that work is paying off and we're seeing a recovery in these species, we're seeing less deaths, you know, you're seeing the, what is it, the turtle exclusion devices being used, I know it's on and off, it's a big issue in the Gulf of Mexico, but they are being used at most of the time and it seems to be working. So this is something that, you know, we need, we need to continue to do to see this sort of population improve and to see other populations improve. And to see, you know, I think it's interesting too, to be interesting to see what made those efforts so much better and the recovery so much better in like the Gulf of Mexico compared to say the Pacific. So I think that'll be, and with other species, you know, I think that'll be, yeah, definitely interesting, but yeah, it's a great story. I think I think it's a lot of fun to see species doing better, especially sea turtle species that, you know, you wouldn't expect because they're such long live species, they're in a lot of trouble and now they're doing, they're doing much better. So I think that's very interesting. Do you have any last words to say on that one? Yeah, I mean, I would agree. I think the next step would be to figure out how the other, is it six other sea turtle species we're doing, specifically the ones in the Gulf of Mexico that are in the same area. And it is important to mention that they say there's, they call them segments, there's 11 different segments of green turtles. I don't know if that corresponds to genetically different stocks, or if they're just, just specific geographical regions. Three of those will still be classified as endangered. The other eight are going to be the ones that are bumped down to threatened. But, you know, a lot of the same impacts that affect green turtles also affect other types of sea turtles. Obviously, depending on the population and the area you're in, you're going to get, you know, if you're in the Gulf, for example, bycatch is a huge threat because there's just so much fishing going on, whereas other areas, like in the central Pacific where fishing may not be as industrialized, sea turtles might not necessarily be as threatened by fishing over there. But it's the same, I mean, they occupy the same trophic level throughout. They have similar life spans as far as ages go. So you would think that they would be susceptible to similar things, not the exact thing, but similar things. So it would be interesting to take a look at some of the data from, you know, like leatherbacks or Hawksbills or Kemp's Ridley's to see if we're also seeing maybe a slight increase or if they're on the same trend, or if there's some discrepancy between the other species. Right. Yeah. No, for sure. I mean, that's, yeah, I mean, there's still a lot more to be done. And I think it's interesting to see how these are doing well and then to compare them to other species to see what the differences are and where we're going to go with that. So yeah, that'll be good. All right. Last story of the day is kind of a bit of a depressing one. The Great Barrier Reef, probably one of the iconic sites of the world. I think it's one of the eight wonders of the world. But also for marine biologists, it's probably like, it's, I hate to use the word of us like Mecca, you know, it's it's on everybody's bucket list to go visit, right? You want to dive on it, you want to snorkel on it, you want to do research on it. I know if I ever get a chance to do research on it, I'm not passing that out. You know, and I remember doing a job interview for somewhere in Australia and it would be on the great the research would be on the Great Barrier Reef. It was a GIS job and the professor asked if I, you know, wouldn't mind doing field work. And I said to him, like, I would have done it for free, you know, to tell me to go and do sampling on on the Great Barrier Reef. But if you're going to pay me, yes, yes, I will do it. You know, it's something that you always dreamed about because you learned that's one of the first things you learn about when you get interested in marine biology. Unfortunately, this year, being an El Nino year, the blob year, the just the devastating temperature, sea temperatures that we're getting, it's there's a mass bleaching event across the entire Great Barrier Reef, especially in the northern areas and shallow areas. There's a picture on this on this article, we're going to put this link in the in the, I think it's in this link. Maybe it was something else somewhere else. Anyway, there's a picture of one of the links here that shows a helicopter flyover of the Great Barrier Reef and how much how much white you see where you'd normally see like a darker, reddish, pinkish, purpleish color. And those are reefs. And what happening is the corals have a he are being bleached. And it's because the sea temperature is too high. And they, the, the zoo entity, the little, the little phytoplankton that live in the corals that not only give the corals its color, but help feed the corals through photos, the byproducts of photosynthesis, when it gets too hot, they skedaddle. They're out. And the coral goes white. It's just the coral skeleton, the coral body. If the zoo entity can come back, if the temperature gets better. However, if it, it goes for a prolonged area, a prolonged time, then the corals will die off. And that's the big problem right now is Australia in the summer and even it's, it's fall right now in, in Australia. It's still hot. They had the most consecutive days at 40 degrees Celsius they've ever had. And their breaking records left right and center. Now they're saying a helicopter trip by Australia's National Coral Bleaching Task Force in late March showed that more than 90% of the corals were bleached, including the Great Barrier Reef. And if you go on that link that will probably include in the, in the, in the, in the show notes, you'll see that, that, that area of photo that I was talking about where the, you just, it's all white. I mean, it's unbelievably white. All the corals are bleached in this area. And it's just, it's devastating. You don't want to see this happen anywhere in the world, let alone one of the most iconic coral reef areas, the biggest barrier reef in the world. The other thing that they, they, they talk to a researcher, Professor Langton, I don't know his first name, he talks about how what they need, the actions they need to do now, they can't do much about the bleaching right now. They can't do much about the temperature right now. It's very hard to control temperature. Obviously, if it was easy, we'd done it, we would have done it a long time ago. What they need to do now is protect these places, protect these reefs even more, and take out the pollution that affects them. You know, a lot of water pollution in Australia affects the inner barrier reef, the reef that's closer to, to Australia, the mainland. And that pollution gets out. So from coastal development, from nutrients, that gets out, what happens is you get overgrowth of, if you get a bleached coral, and then you get overgrowth of algae, it's very difficult for that coral to come back and be healthy. So they need a lot of protection in these areas, because if they don't have the protection from what we can control, they won't recover. And studies have proven that if we protect the human direct impacts on the reef and let the reef sort of figure out its own thing in this climate change era, most likely they'll come back. But the problem is, is to put those in those protections in place, or more protections in place in areas that are really affecting it that get, they get, they get major pollution. Now the problem is with pollution, is it gets very, it's very indirect. You don't know essentially where it's coming from, and you may not be able to attribute it to one particular company or person or area. So that's the challenge that they face in the future in Australia. And what do you thoughts, Nathan, what do you think about that? If you can remember back to a month or two ago, we talked about the island effect in the ocean as to why islands tend to be so much more productive than the rest of the system. And we talked about all starts with the phytoplankton and the algae, and that it's sort of a, it's a positive feedback loop. So when you have more life, especially human life on an island, you tend to have more nutrients being put into the water which accelerates the phytoplankton growth. So specifically, that's usually nitrogen and phosphorus are kind of the two major nutrients that seem to be washed off in high levels into areas surrounding productive cities, in this case, Australia. So you have a lot of this runoff coming from things like fertilizer, pesticides, just general pollution that is not necessarily being dumped into the ocean actively, but then after heavy rains, all that water washes off into the ocean at some point. So you get these massive phytoplankton blooms. And as you mentioned, if you don't have a lot of healthy coral, this algae then just smothers the coral, and they compete for the same resource. So the coral are going to be even further stressed from all that runoff. So a lot of this, as you mentioned, is we can't really do much immediately about the temperature. That's something that is going to require policy changes and we're not likely to really see any impacts for at least a few years. But the pollution, the additional stress that's being put on these corals when they're already pretty weak, is something that you certainly can take a stand on. You certainly can make a dramatic impact in a short amount of time. And the other thing is, I mean, not only is it really iconic, but it's really productive. It's in the coral triangle in the Indo-Pacific, which is home to a huge diverse, a huge diversity of coral reefs and other tropical marine species. So if the coral die, then you lose the habitat for a lot of those other fish and invertebrates and marine mammals that rely on those healthy coral habitats, either for their own homes or for things like sharks and larger marine mammals, they feed on those fish that live on the coral reef. So if there's less coral, there's less fish, and then there's less of those higher trophic animals as well. They mentioned also that overfishing can also not help the problem at all. I don't know how much fishing is really even allowed in the Great Barrier Reef, but it seems like if you just fish heavily in areas surrounding it, then you lose that spillover effect. So the fish are typically herbivorous. They're ones that will feed off some of that algae if there's a little bit. Exactly. So if they're not there, you get even worse in flow of algae and algal growth on the coral. So it's just not a great situation for the Great Barrier Reef. And I think we're reaching a point where you kind of go, you know, at what point do we raise a serious alarm? Because it is, I think you mentioned it was like 90% of the area that they surveyed looked pretty unhealthy. We know this is a really massive coral bleaching event that we've got going on over the last month globally. Obviously, it's an El Nino year, so it could be a little skewed to the high point, but climate change seems to only going to be getting worse unless we take, stance to protect it. Unless they put in some sort of regulations to cut off the amount of nutrient inflow running into the water, we're likely to see similar amounts of runoff. So like you said, it's a really vital habitat and it's a really iconic area. I think it could be a really great figurehead for pushing for healthier oceans. But at what point do we say like, no, this isn't something that specific podcasts like us talk about. This should be something that everyone should really talk about because it's that way. Absolutely. I mean, this is, you know, this is a big event when you got 90, when they say 90% of the corals are being bleached in the largest barrier reef in the world. That's scary. Like I said before, they're breaking records in temperature. Their fall has been like summer to them. It's not changing anytime soon and it's just, it's a little depressing on how, you know, why that's happening. So protections need to be in place. I know for fishing, there are areas where you can fish. I mean, there is a big commercial fishery on the in certain parts of the Great Barrier Reef. I remember a presentation from John Day, who's the director of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. And this was back 10, maybe 11 years ago, maybe even more, 12 years ago. Came to the presentation on how they were, they went from 3% protected area. No, no, no take areas, 3% to 30%. And when they went to 30%, they, they told us, they told them why. And what was happening is the areas that they chose that the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park chose for their no take areas were all the areas around all the trawling and all the fishing boats. They weren't in the areas that the fishing boats would go in, but they were around there. So there's obviously an important part of those fisheries, but the fishermen had no problems with it, because they were able to track where the fishermen were going. So once they overlaid where they wanted to put the areas and the fishermen saw that they weren't putting them over there, the areas that they liked to fish, they were like, okay, I'm good. We're fine with it. And they went from 3% to 30%. So yes, there is a big fishery in big fish commercial fishery in Great Barrier Reef. Probably not huge like in other areas like on the northeast coast of the U.S. or southeast coast of Canada. But it definitely does play a role. And there are different management areas in the Great Barrier Reef, which is what makes it so successful. So it's not just one protected, big protected areas, like some for recreation and some that are for fishing and some that are for just for research and some that nobody can go in at all. So there's a lot of different areas. But it seems like a lot that one thing that marine protected areas don't protect are from pollution, you know, because it's not real, they're not real borders. They have to let things in. They let bad water quality. And I think that's the big problem. They're facing and they have been facing for a while. But now it's just exasperated by climate change and by the fact that cores are bleaching left, right and center. And now we're having a problem. So it's obviously gotten worse and it hasn't gotten better. A couple of weeks ago, I believe I we did a story on the podcast where it was talking about how it's just shallow areas that we're getting that we're getting hit. And now it seems like it's 90%. So it's not just shallow areas, it's more. So it's one of those things where, you know, we've got to look into we got to figure out what's going on. And, you know, we know what we know what's going on. We just got to hopefully wait it out and hopefully make it better in the future with better protected protected areas, which will be a lot of politics involved in the last stakeholder engagement and then seeing where the sources are coming from. I think that'll be a big thing. So anyway, any last words on that? Just that. I think this hopefully will get more attention. I mean, you see news articles pop up every once in a while about the Great Barrier Reef. I haven't seen one that had that 90% figure until today. Yeah, that is pretty scary and worrisome. So hopefully there will be some sort of large scale movement to address this. Yeah, there's a certain part of me that doesn't really believe that 90% figure. Well, it's from a survey. So, you know, how rigorous is that? But still, it's probably indicative of a high amount of coral bleaching. Exactly. It's probably over 50% which is scary enough, right? So yeah, so I think it's pretty scary. But hopefully it'll get better. Hopefully we won't have to worry too much about it. But, you know, it's something that we're definitely concerned about. But anyway, that's our show today. Thank you very much for everybody who kind of came in and joined. Dustin, thank you very much for joining us asking questions. People who are listening to the podcast right now, this was on blab.im when we recorded it. It's a live streaming site where you can come and ask questions and take part and listen to us as we go on. We want to hear from you guys. We want to hear from the speaker for Blue Community. So please feel free to come and join us. And it's every Wednesday at 9 PM Eastern. That's what we try and do. We'll try and schedule it earlier now and announce what we're going to be talking about. We're getting a little more organized. We're getting a little more better organized every week. But anyway, that's our show today. Nathan, thank you very much for joining us. I really appreciate it. Just stay on after I pause the recording. And we'll talk to you next week. Thanks a lot. Thank you for listening. I appreciate it, guys. This is amazing. We love Ocean Talk Friday and we want you guys to participate. We want our audience to participate. So if you're available on Wednesdays at 9 PM Eastern, come on to blab.im. You can sign in using your Twitter account and participate in the conversation. We want to hear from you guys. It'll be great. And one last announcement before I go. I just want to let you know that speak up for Blue TV, the YouTube channel, has been relaunched. I'm doing a vlog every day in April of Veda. It's called vlog every day in April. And I'm bringing ocean news and tips and some information and news on what's happening in the ocean conservation industry. I've done seven episodes. I'm about to post the seventh today and it's one a day. So enjoy that and let me know what you think about it because I'm trying to improve on my video taking. I try to do them quickly. I try to keep them between two and five minutes. No more, no less. And just kind of give you information on another different platform. So check it out. Subscribe to it so you get all the channels. I'm just going to keep improving and improving as we go along. Hopefully the videos will get a little more complex, a little more entertaining as they get more comfortable behind the screen. But that's it for me today. I want you guys to enjoy your weekend. You've been listening to speak up for Blue Podcast. By the way, sorry, I forgot to mention before we go. If you want to look at all the session notes and their articles, all the links are in the session notes at speakupforblue.com/session143. Go there. Have a great day. You've been listening to speak up for Blue Podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. Happy Friday. Happy conservation. See you later.
