How To Protect The Ocean
SUFB 119: Sharks and Climate Change with Dr. Chris Lowe
On Today's Interview Wednesday, I speak with the Director of the Shark Lab at the California State University, Dr. Chris Lowe, to discuss his research as well as why he thinks the white shark population is doing so well. You might be surprised by the answer.
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Welcome to the speaker for Blue Podcast, session 119. Hey everybody, we've got an exciting episode today. We're going to talk to Dr. Chris Lowe on Interview Wednesdays. He's going to talk all about white sharks. Yes, great white sharks. And we're going to talk about great white sharks on the Pacific. On the Pacific Ocean, just in his backyard, because he's at Cal State, Long Beach area. So he's in Southern California area. And he studies great white sharks, the juveniles. He talks about the adults. And he talks about their population and how surprisingly well they're doing, which is kind of interesting. And he talks why they're doing so well. So stay tuned for this episode of the Speak Up for Blue podcast. Welcome to the Speak Up for Blue podcast, helping you get involved in ocean conservation. And now, here's your host, Love's football so much. I mean, he really, really likes it. Andrew Lewin. 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 oceanpreneur. And today is Interview Wednesdays. And I love Interview Wednesdays last week. We didn't have an interview. It couldn't get one available in time. However, this week, we've got a great, great guest, Dr. Chris Lowe, from California State University Long Beach. He is head of the Shark Lab there, and director of the Shark Lab, and just a phenomenal guy, really into science communication. He's just a hell of a guy, to be honest. The first time I met him through this interview, and it's just a lot of fun. And we'll be doing a lot more collaborations with him on this show on the Speak Up for Blue podcast, because he's so awesome. So today, before we get into what we're going to talk about today-- because we're talking about sharks-- but what we're going to talk about today, before we get into that, I want to talk about what we're doing here on the Speak Up for Blue podcast, the Ocean Conservation Message. We are spreading it and making people aware of Ocean Conservation, its issues, and how to implement the solutions on this podcast platform. And we do it with a small team, myself, Andrew Lewin, Nathan Johnson, and Kate. She's our assistant. She manages all the logistics behind it. We just love what we do, and we want to do more of it. We want to hit different platforms. To do that, we need your help to increase our reach in this platform, on the podcast platform. We need your help, and we have a crowdfunding campaign on patreon.com, which is a great crowdfunding source that actually helps creators and podcasters provide, basically, a monthly support for the podcasters. And if you go to speakupforblue.com/patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N, you can help us out by supporting us. And if you like what we do, if you like the Ocean Conservation Message that we're sending, if you like the stuff that we're putting out as content, you can support us at different levels. There's different incentives for different levels, and we're providing a lot of that for you, and we have different goals. So podcasting is not the only platform we want to be on. We want to be on a video platform. We also want to be on a digital magazine platform. And we need your help to get that done. So if you like what we're doing, you like the show, and you want to help us out, you can go to speakupforblue.com/patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N. I just want to thank the people who have helped us out, Dr. Judith Weiss, Ron and Judy, and Chris and Claire Jefford. I really appreciate your support already. And again, if you want to support us, you can go speakupforblue.com/patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N. Let's get to the show. Speak up for blue is interviewing Dr. Chris Lowe from California State University Long Beach. Chris is a shark biologist. He's a marine biologist. He studies sharks. He's the director of the shark lab, which also states sharks. He describes himself. When I asked him what he did, here and in the interview, he describes himself as a person who not only loves marine science, marine biology, sharks in particular, but he loves the fact that we can use technology and the advances in technology to help gain a better understanding of sharks, their movements, their behaviors. And he talks about some pretty cool things that he's doing right now and some instrumentation that he's building or having built through an NSF grant that will help really focus our understanding on the behavior of sharks, why they swim, where they do, why they turn right, why they turn left, go up or down, just what makes them tick. We're really going to be able to find that out in the next few years. So that's fantastic. And I actually just reached out to Chris just out of the blue 'cause I saw, I came across his website. I said, "Hey, I can tell he's got a press, like a PR person. He loves a press. He loves talking about science. And he really wants to get science out there, not just the doom and gloom. He wants to get the positive science out there. And I think it's fantastic. So I asked him if he wanted to be on the podcast. He said, "Yes, pretty much right away." And we schedule an interview and here we are with the interview two days after we recorded it. So this is just, it was just a fun interview to do. He's a great speaker. He's really engaging. And we're looking forward to doing more with him and his lab and his colleagues to get more of the science out. I want you to pay particular attention to certain things that he says. One, his favorite shark is really cool. We might have to do a little bit of a species Tuesday on that shark 'cause it sounds really cool. The other is how well great whites are doing and why they're doing so well. It's a little bit of, there's a consequence that's actually making them doing so well. And there's also some really good things that have been implemented in the past that have really allowed them to flourish in this area, in the Pacific Ocean. So here, I'm not gonna wait any longer because this is such a good interview. Here is Dr. Chris Lowe talking about sharks in the Pacific Ocean. Hey Chris, thanks for joining me on the Speak Up for Blue podcast. How you doing? - Good, how are you? I am ready to dive into some shark research. I want knowledge. I think this is gonna be awesome. I'm not sure if you've been listening to the podcast before, but we've covered, in the last year, we've covered a lot of stuff on the Pacific Ocean. Not just about sharks, but just you know what's been going on. The El Nino, the Blob, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, just everything has been going on, it seems. And it's changing North America's climate and everything like that. And we're here to ask you questions and we're here for answers. And my whole audience can't wait for this kind of interview. - Awesome, what's talk sharks? - Right on. So before we get into the depths of sharks and El Nino and climate change and everything, tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do. - So I'm a professor of marine biology. I started here at Long Beach State in 1998 and I took over the shark lab. So the shark lab at Long Beach has actually been here since 1969. And it was started by a guy named Don Nelson, who's kind of a pioneer in shark behavior. And I was actually lucky enough to be one of his master's students in the late '80s or early '90s. And then I went on to get my PhD at the University of Hawaii, which is a great place to say sharks. - I can imagine, yeah. - And then unfortunately Don passed away in '97 and I was fortunate enough to be hired to replace him and take over the lab. So for me, it's kind of cool because I get to see that legacy of what the shark lab was continue. And it's not just based on shark research, it's based on using new technology to answer questions about why marine animals do what they do. And I'm a total technique. I love new technology. So for me, it's been awesome to kind of get that going and inspire the next generation of students. - Yeah, and we're seeing a lot actually in ocean technology develop for science. I mean, I'm not sure if you've heard, but OpenROV is this big, huge thing. I'm a Kickstarter Andrew David Thaler is sort of a spokesperson for that company who's also a marine scientist, a deep sea biologist. And it's just amazing to see now. You see Niskin bottles made out of 3D printers and stuff in a mount match. And think about how much that costs normally for a researcher. And of course, the money we get as researchers is not very much so that anything to save money and to provide that kind of stuff. I mean, it's just amazing. I think we're in a really good age of technology for ocean research. And certainly we're gonna get into all the technology that you use in a little bit. But what made you get into sharks? Why sharks for you? - So I actually grew up on Martha's Vineyard. - Okay. - And my mom's family had been there a long time. Many of my ancestors were whalers. They were commercial fishermen. My grandfather was a commercial fisherman. And I can remember going fishing with him off the vineyard and him taking me to spots where, you know, I would catch striped bass and blue fish and things like that. And the interesting thing is you remember, you would tell me stories about this animal called a cod. And in all my time fishing in the spots, he would tell me when he was 13, he would fill boats, fill doors with cod that weighed 15, 20 pounds. I never caught one. - Right. - So for me to grow up there, you know, the choices were, well, you could go, you could become a commercial fisherman. My grandfather was like, no way, you know, that career's done, it's over. Why would anybody-- - Interesting. - Or I could become a carpenter. - Okay. - So I decided that early on, I was more interested in learning about the animals than I was in catching them and just to sell them. - Right. - And I became enamored with sharks because I remember one day catching one and thinking, that's weird. I've never seen one of these things before. - Right. - And I wasn't the best student. - Okay. - But when I caught that shark, I didn't know what it was and I went to the library and I looked up what it was. And that was a game changer for me. I found that there are these things called books. (laughing) And the library was full of 'em. - Love it, love it. - And it really kind of got me interested in reading and things like that. For me, that was a big deal, that was a game changer. So fishing was the way I became interested in not just in sharks but in marine clouds in general. - That's interesting 'cause, I mean, fishing gets people out there, especially if you're a responsible fisherman and sounds like your family certainly was. And they saw early on, your grandfather saw early on how things were changing. Back this is what, '80s, I assume. Early '80s, late '80s kind of thing, somewhere around there. - 70s. - 70s. Okay, sorry, 70s. Hey, I've given you credit there. (laughing) So they must see the California sun. So, and even in the back in the '70s, he can see a change in how things are going. Now, as you grew up through university and everything, did you ever, you're looking at, when you look at marine biology and conservation and you're learning about that stuff, and then you hear about overfishing, did you ever feel a little bit of guilt because your family was from a fishing town or from a fishing family? Or did you ever get defensive? 'Cause you're like, well, no, my family's not like that. Did you ever get that kind of conflict? - All the time. - Right. - You know, it's interesting because, as a person who loved a fish, I mean, I would fish every day if I had the ability. - Right. - I never really thought about it when I was a kid. And I can remember talking to my grandfather, who people would come to pick his brain about where to fish. They were new commercial fishermen trying to break into the field. And I can just remember him telling them, you know, it's done, it's over, it's gone. The resource is gone. And I can remember him telling me, you know, it's really unfortunate and sad, but he was part of that. - Right. - So, you know, for me, I did feel a little guilty because my family were whalers, they were commercial fishermen, they were part of that, you know, De Muys on East Coast. And for me, I think I always looked at it as, this is something I can do to pay things back. - Right. - Oh, it's interesting. - With that said, - Yeah. - I also really feel defensive of fishermen when people put them down, because I think there are a lot of fishers out there, not just recreational, but commercial fishers, who have the best intentions in mind. - Absolutely. - And it's been, you know, giving them more information, giving them better science, so they can make better decisions themselves, and they care about the resource. - Absolutely, yeah. - And for me, I feel like part of my culture's been lost, because coming from a long lineage of that, and then suddenly ends, right? This has happened to many families. - Of course. - Their fathers can no longer pass on boats to their sons or daughters, because the industry's gone. Well, a lot of our coastal history throughout all U.S. was based on this culture. - Yeah. - It's sad to see it lost. I kind of hope that we can keep it going by being smarter about how we use natural resources, and develop sustainable fisheries. And I think we can bring some of that culture back. - I think so too, and I think we're starting to see a little bit more smaller scale fisheries, instead of the big, you know, giant companies and corporations. And to be honest, I'm sure you've felt this same way. When I was a master student over on the East Coast at Acadia University, a lot of our, like we didn't have boats, we didn't have research vessels. So we would charter local fishermen. And we did it because they were interested. And, you know, they were the small-scale fishermen where, or fisher people I should say, 'cause there's men and women, but they would, they were the ones who passed it on from generation to generation. And they had a lot of complaints about the way the industry was going, as sure as your grandfather did as well. But they really cared. You know, they really cared for one, just so that they could continue passing it down from generation to generation. But they didn't wanna see the resource gone because of them. They didn't wanna see the resource gone because of their industry. They wanted to just continue. They loved being out in the wild. - Right. - And I think we still have responsible fishermen out there that want to do the same thing and do the right thing. And I think we're seeing a little bit of a resurgence of those small-scale fishermen. And it'd be interesting to see how everything plays out. So you grew up doing research, you know, you go to university, you go to Hawaii, I'm very jealous. You see all these sharks. I have to ask, what's your favorite shark? (laughs) - So having worked on probably two dozen species so far in my career, probably the holy grail for me. My favorite by far is a cookie cutter shark. - Really, okay. - I spent some time going out, trying to find them because we wanted to tag them and learn more about their behavior 'cause nothing is not about the behavior, really. But that species is just amazing. I mean, here's a shark that only gets to be less than two feet long, takes bites out of everything in the ocean. I mean, everything. Whales, dolphins, tuna, Marlin, white sharks. I mean, anything out there. And occasionally they've been a person. - Right. - So, but here's the shark that's like a typical dogfish looking shark, kind of get that goofy nose and that kind of, I'm not a fast swimmer kind of tail. - Right. - Yet, how do they get bites out of the fastest swimming things in the ocean? - Right. - So, and you look at pictures of whales, like humpbacks and things like that and Mickey whales, these things have cookie cutter bites all over 'em. So, for me, that's the one. Before I wanna learn something about cookie cutters 'cause they are there by far the coolest species on the planet. - Well, that is, I mean, that's interesting. You're right 'cause if you look at the size and the speed at these animals are swimming and you get these little sharks that come out, they must have some kind of surprise mechanism of cutting, or they just kind of swim up like they're nothing and then all of a sudden they take a bite and they must have a great escape response or something because I mean, to get, I wouldn't wanna take a bite out of a white shark and then just turn around and be like, "Ladi da, you know, go back," right? - We publish a paper of a white shark at Guadalupe that had a cookie cutter shark bite taken out of its face. - Wow. - So, how risky is that? - Yeah, yeah. - That's pretty gutsy for a little shark. - Seriously, probably the bravest shark in the ocean, I think, to date. Now, one thing you mentioned is, and it's really the reason why there are shark researchers out there is we don't know a lot about sharks in general, do we? - Yeah, and it's frustrating. - Yeah. - It's frustrating because, you know, the challenge it, I mean, there's a whole media outlet dedicated, it built on shark media, right? - Right. - And it's an annual programming, it gets huge, huge viewership. And the unfortunate thing about all that is, while people think we know a lot about sharks, it's actually the same information repeated over and over again. It hasn't really driven the field forward. - Right. - And the tough part is, as a shark biologist, it's actually one of the most frustrating things because when I write grants to say, oh, you know, the most dangerous time to be in the water is dawn and dusk. And where people say, well, why is that? And we go, well, because sharks feed more than-- - Yeah. - Well, there's no actual scientific empirical evidence that sharks feed more than dawn and dusk than any other time of day. - Really? - So where do these things come from? So there's these kind of myths that have been perpetuated in the absence of actual direct evidence. So when you write a grant to say, well, I want to try to figure out when sharks feed, but I want to kill 10,000 sharks to look in their stomachs to do it because that's not really for us. - Right. - You know, we're trying to use new technology that, you know, we put stomach sensors in their stomachs and we can measure their stomach pH to determine when they fed recently, but you can't get money because people go, well, we already know the answer to that. And I go, no, we don't, that's a myth. That's been perpetuated. And that's just one. I mean, there are just loads of examples of these things. So for me, it's frustrating to have to popular animal. And yet it's so hard to get money to answer these questions. - Right, 'cause everybody thinks they've already been answered. - We know it because I heard about that on Shark Week. - I mean, that's, yeah. I mean, that's amazing. And like you said, we don't know a lot of the basics of these animals. And right now, it seems like the big push for sharks in general is to find out where they go and why. And I think what really got me, where I really started to learn that, was during the census of marine life, which was a big initiative, worldwide initiative, back in, I was gonna say, late '90s to early 2000s, I think. And that's when we started to tag really large animals. So tuna, whales, sharks, dolphins, and marine mammals. And we really started to see how they entrenched in turtles, really started to see how they started to go, right? And they started to travel over the world. Why are you, your research and the shark lab really, you guys really look at movements as well? So why are you guys so focused on movements? - Well, if you can understand why an animal moves, you can understand how it interacts with its environment and how it interacts with other animals in its environment. And for me, that's been kind of a mission, right? So when I started in the shark lab, back in the late '80s, we were, we would have to build our own transmitters. - Okay. - That we would then put on a shark, that we could then follow that shark around in a boat. And if we were lucky, we could track that animal for maybe a couple days tops, and then you'd be exhausted, right? - Right, right. - That's a single individual that you put in all this time and effort to get really fine-scale information. Now that fine-scale information that we got, was that the animal started here, and we were able to track it all the way to here. So the great thing was, is we were using that technology to begin to figure out where animals went. Over time, we were able to add sensors to those transmitters. We could add depth sensors and temperature sensors and tail-beat sensors, so we could begin to look at more about what's the environment that they're moving through, how might they be responding to the environment. But believe it or not, we're still missing an important context. - Right. - So, all the top data, the data from the satellite tags, they're showing animals moving across oceans and giving us water temperatures, we know what the animal's exposed to, but we don't know how the animals are making decisions, because we don't know what's immediately available to the animal. - Right. - The ocean is a really dynamic place in three dimensions. And these animals aren't just responding to changes in the environment, they're responding to other organisms that they encounter in that. It could be prey, it could be a predator. So the part that we've always been missing is the context as to why animals move where they do, or when they do. So the new technology that we're developing, so excited about, is we have a grant from National Science Foundation, and I'm working with a roboticist to develop autonomous underwater tracking robots. So we can put a transmitter out of shark with all the sensors. We can program the robot to follow the shark around it, knows exactly where the shark is in the water, because the robot knows where it is. We can program the robot to move up and down through the water column, and the robot is basically characterizing the ocean. It's measuring water, temperature, and depth, and chlorophyll, it's got video cameras, so we can see schools of fish, you can see other sharks, it's got board-facing image sonar, so even in zero visibility, zero light, you can see a little pitch, how is that? - So how long does it stay on the animal? Are you expecting? - So we can track an animal for up to 24 hours. - Wow, that's pretty good. - And then basically we programmed the robot to be smart. So when we're out tracking a shark, we want to get really fine-scale information. Quite often, we have to be right over top of the shark to know exactly where it is. That's actually bad, because you can be chasing the shark. - Right, I gotta get away from this, right, yeah. - The cool thing about the robot is we can tell the robot never to get within 100 yards of the tag shark. So if the shark hears the robot, 'cause it's got a propeller, it makes noise, and the shark gets interested and it turns back towards the robot, the robot's programmed to turn away, start moving away, but when it's moving away, it still knows exactly where the shark gets. Shark gets bored and goes, okay, whatever that was, it's leaving, turns around, goes, robot turns, starts falling again. So we basically programmed the robot to start to mimic the shark's movement behaviors. So with all of this, we can reconstruct that 3D environment around the shark, and we can begin to ask questions. As to context, why is the shark turning right? Why did it turn right? Why'd it go up, why'd it go down? And that's something that we've been missing. So this is the next generation of technology that's going to enable us to not only figure out why sharks move from A to B, but what drove them there, why did they change their path, and what's the reason for all of that? How they making decisions. And if we can begin to understand that, we can begin to understand how shark behavior will change with fishery interactions. Or with changing ocean conditions. - This is amazing, because usually when we talk about behavior in marine animals, we're looking at marine mammals, because there's such a push on that behavior. You never hear about sharks, and it's interesting, I interviewed Esther Overbeak. She's a science communicator in South Africa with Ocean's research. They do white shark research. And she would, I interviewed her because she posted pictures of great whites, but when she posted the picture, she spoke about their behavior. And not about the fact that, oh, they jumped and they killed this, or this one jumped and killed this, is this one, the big one came in, the little one went out, and she named them, and basically observed their behavior. And it was the first time I'd really seen somebody attribute a behavior to a shark, 'cause usually you just think, okay, these are mindless killers from what we've been told. And they don't really have a behavior, they just eat and swim, and that's all they do. And of course it makes sense that they have a behavior. Now we're gonna, like with your stuff, when you test it out and it starts to work for you, my God, this is gonna give such great information. - Exactly, and the thing is that, the reason why that group of animals has been so successful on the planet, I think is largely attributed to how plastic their behavior is. They're very adaptable animals. - So evolutionarily, physiology changes really slowly, morphology changes really slowly, but behavior can change very quickly. So they're actually pretty smart animals. The intelligence scale, but they're actually pretty smart. They learn very fast. So it's that aspect about behavior that I think people, you're right, people have kind of ignored, they've not looked at sharks as being a very adaptive animal, and a very smart animal in terms of, you know, I got a good meal here doing this behavior. If I do that again, I'll be able to get that meal again. And they actually, I think there's a fair bit of learning from other sharks too. So you know, the tough part is, how do you measure that? And that's where I think our new tools are gonna help us do that. The challenge we have is people, is the minute we jump in the water, we love to do that. People who love sharks will jump in the water and watch and see what they're doing, but we're influencing their behavior by being. - Absolutely, yeah. - So it's developing tools that spy technology that enables us to spy on them without actually being there and potentially influencing their behavior. And developing tools that have either less influence or negligible influence, so that we can really get a handle at what they're doing and how much that changes. - Yeah, and I mean, you're right. They are so adaptable to difference in air. I mean, it makes sense. They've been around for millions of years. They've changed over time in different ways, and we've seen that through the fossilized records and whatnot. And now it seems like a lot of animals have to change just because of what's happening with our environment. Whether it be a human presence, like you mentioned, like a boat on top following it or a paddle boater or a surfer or something that changes their behavior from a human perspective, you got water quality, a big thing that's changing everything these days, especially in the Pacific right now, is climate change. And El Nino, and you have this thing they call the blob up in the North Pacific, and then there's also the decadal oscillation has changed as well, and you've got to really warm waters. I guess the first question I have to ask is, do you guys see these warm waters? Like, do you see them along the coast? 'Cause generally, the coast of your in Long Beach and the coast of LA and San Diego and whatnot, you get the Alaskan current coming down, and it's quite cold usually for an ocean water for that where you are in your latitude. - Actually, no, we, because of the way the California coast comes down, it digs in in Southern California, creating a bite. It's called the Southern California Bite. So the California current kind of slips by us. Pass to the California, we're further east, right? So as the current comes down, it actually creates a countercurrent that draws warmer water up from the south up into the Southern California Bite. So we actually get warmer water than you would find if you went further west. - Okay. - So that warmer water creates a really interesting bio-break. So there are lots of animals that only go as far north as Santa Barbara. - Right. - There are a lot of animals that only go as far south as Santa Barbara. So the cool thing about Southern California is we get a mix of both. We get a mix of those kind of northern species that make it down. This is about the Southern extent, and it gets Southern species that come up and kind of mix. During El Nino's, like what we've had the last two years, it turns into a different ocean. - Interesting. - Maybe turn into a sub-tropical ocean. And it's really cool because a lot of our normal cast of characters, you know, whether it's baitfish or sharks, that are more cold adapted, they move north. They disappear. So the squid disappeared the last few years. The anchovies have disappeared. The sardines have disappeared. But they get replaced with things like plastic red crabs, which come in huge droves. - Right. - And that becomes kind of the basis of the food chain for many of the, you know, the miso, the middle predator fish. - Okay. - So like this past year, we had epic sport fishing off Southern California. I mean, people haven't seen this in 50 years. - Wow. - I mean, it was off the hook, crazy sport fishing. So yellow tail, record catches of yellow tail, yellowfin tuna, close to shore, bluefin tuna. We had Wahoo, off Southern California, a lot for the first time in a long time. Mahi, Mahi, working their way all the way up into Central California. We had smooth hammerhead sharks. We had whale sharks. We had manta rays. - Wow. - I mean, it's something that we only see during these strong El Nino's, but it is a different ocean. And it is notoriously warmer and clear. The water was just crystal clear this year. So we measured water temperatures off our beaches this summer that were in excess of 80 degrees Fahrenheit. - That's just unheard. - Yeah. - What's the average temperature on a regular basis? Non-El Nino year to get the audience accomplished? - It's like if we hit seven. - Yeah. - Yeah. So, you know, low 70s by late August, early September, that would be your typical non-El Nino, non-Lan Nino type year. - Right. - Kind of your middle of the road average condition. - And then it would probably go about 10 degrees. - That's big and stay down. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Does that happen all year long? - It did. So in the winter, our winter temperatures never really got below 62 degrees. This winter, we finally, we have water temperatures dip below 60, but if you go offshore, water temperatures are still warm. So they're still above 60 degrees. So it's, that's normally our winters. We get down to 58, 57 degrees. That's kind of chilly for us. - Yeah, yeah. - But that's what drives the normal seasonal migrations of many of our sharks in race. - Right. - But because we didn't have that oscillation, many of those migrators didn't migrate. White sharks, for example. - Interesting. - So that was a game changer for the last two years, baby white sharks that normally would migrate in the winter, didn't. They're still around. - Interesting. - So have you not been studying them for the last nine years? - You wouldn't have known. - You wouldn't have known. - Right. So I was just going to ask you, so you've been studying juvenile white sharks, which are very popular in your area for about nine years. And you've been studying their movements through tagging in various ways, acoustic and satellite tags as well, or do you just do acoustic tagging? - You do the whole gamut. - You do the whole gamut. Okay. - Absolutely. - Okay, and then, now, one question I actually had because we're talking about white sharks and climate change, is there was an article recently, I believe it was before Christmas where great whites, well, I mean, actually it was in the fall, there was this, you've probably seen it, right around Alcatraz, there was this epic video, kind of a cool thing, actually, of a shark feeding on, I'm assuming it was a sea lion at the time, and it just kind of popped out of nowhere, a boat was leaving, a ferry was leaving, there were people on the dock of Alcatraz, and probably about, I would say, 30 feet offshore of the dock, a great white just kind of came up and fed on a sea lion. Everybody went crazy, and crazy on both sides. One, it was like, holy cow, that's awesome. Two, oh my God, there's great whites in the water, we're gonna freak out, and I have to give credit to shark stewards, David McGuire, he kind of went out and did a swim from Alcatraz to the shore to show that, hey, it's nothing to worry about. But the big question was, are sharks, are white sharks normally found there? 'Cause it seemed like there were more that were being spotted, are there more there because of climate change, or are they just being spotted more, 'cause maybe more people are actually having videos out, and things like that. My question to you, with studying some of the movements, do you have any kind of research showing that, or do you know of any kind of research showing that there's more sightings and possibly more occurrences of great whites going north for food, I assume? - So the answer to that question is kind of all be above, maybe? - Okay. - So, number one, I think we're seeing an increase in white shark population. So as the population is increasing, and we've only been studying them in a few isolated locations, right? Which makes it hard to estimate how many there are. - Of course. - But we think numbers are going up, mainly because we're seeing more and more babies in Southern California. - Okay. - So for us, fish biologists, we call that recruitment. There are new babies coming into the population. - Right. - So, but when that goes up, that usually, in order to have more babies, you have to have more motties. - Of course. - So, one idea here is that, the reason why people are seeing more white sharks, not just on the central California coast, but in Southern California, is because the population's increasing. - Right. - Then another part that factors into that is that all this is happening at the time that we have a strong El Nino. So now we know that at least adult white sharks, because they're, they can keep their bodies warmer than the water, you know, they're warm-bodied like us. They have the ability to move across different water temperatures quite easily. They can move in a warm water, they can move in a cold water, and it enables them to move across ranges that most sharks can't. There are babies, the baby white sharks five feet at birth. - Yeah, okay. - So, they have all the same equipment, but they're probably not as good at keeping the heat as the adults, and therefore, tend to act more like a cold-bodied shark. - Okay. - So, one of the things that we've been noticing is that not only are people seeing more adult white sharks along the central California coast, that could be just population increase. - Right. - But also, if the population's been rising, places like the Farallons and Nuevo are getting kind of crowded. - Right. - So, if you're a young, upstart teenage white shark coming in and wanting to get a place where you can feed on marine mammals too, that is not a good place to go, 'cause you're gonna get your tail kicked by a bigger, badder, meaner, mommy or daddy. So, those sharks have to start finding other places to feed you. So, San Francisco Bay is not a bad place to feed. - Right, lots of sea lions, yeah. - Southern California is not a bad place to feed, particularly around the Channel Islands. So, the other thing that factors into this is that marine mammal populations have exploded. I mean, literally exploded. They have come back from what was extinction in 100 years to being at potentially record-numbered populations. So, the California sea lion population was estimated to be as low as 2,000 animals as of 1920. I mean, they were hunted to the verge of extinction. If a fisherman saw them, they simply shot them. They viewed them as competitors. Marine Mammal Protection Act goes into place in 1973. It's now against a lot of kill those animals. We see the population start to turn up, but the real upturn is in the mid-90s, a population just skyrockets. It's growing at a rate of 6.5% per year, which marine mammal biologists thought was impossible. In addition, remember, this is the time period of 90s. When we're telling people, the oceans are over fish. There's nothing out there left to catch. Well, sea lions eat the same things we do. They eat squid, they eat anchovies, they eat all the young juvenile species that we'd like to eat. So, how is the population growing at 6.5% per year? If there's nothing left in the ocean because we've overfished it, it just doesn't make sense. So, but you've got that growing population. That's basically, that's prime rib for adult white sharks. So, it would make sense that the white shark population is taking advantage of this booming prey population, which is now also spreading out along the California, Oregon, and Washington coast. So, for example, I got phone calls from British Columbia last year because sea lion was found with a big white shark-sized bite taken out. And people are going, "What else can this be?" And I'm going, "Oh, nine times out of 10, that's probably a white shark." White sharks don't occur in British Columbia waters. I go, "Actually, they can." They can go all the way up into the Gulf of Alaska. - They have the temperature tolerance, right? - Sure. - And especially if it's getting warmer as it goes up. - Exactly. So, to answer your question, it's hard to say how much of this is attributed to population growth. How much of this is attributed to climate change, which might actually allow animals to go further north. Or whether it's not only attributed to that, but this episodic blob in El Nino that we just so happen to have this particular year. So, hopefully the future will tell and the more information we get on these animals and the more and better we're able to track them, the better we're gonna be able to answer that question in the future. - Yeah, I mean, that's kind of cool to know that it may not just be climate change. I mean, you say it might have a point where it might have some kind of influence on maybe extending their natural habitat and allowing that population to maybe grow even more 'cause more resources are available. But to see them go up as far as British Columbia, especially the first thing I thought of is you're looking at orca territory there, which would probably be their prime predator. - And that would be interesting for that population to see great whites up there. But I mean, it's amazing to think that this population is growing when it is an endangered species, but I assume it's got protection. - It does, and that's the other part. So people think of white sharks as being endangered, but are they? - Yeah, I wonder now, yeah. - So white sharks have been protected in California since 1994. And that legislation was put in place in California because it's always surprising to me because white sharks have a tendency to occasionally bite people, right? - Right. - So despite that reputation, the state of California had the wherewithal to put protection in place for them because they recognized how vulnerable they are to overfishing. They already aren't very abundant numbers. They take anywhere from seven to 12 years to reach sexual maturity. They may carry their young for two years. So therefore, they may only be giving birth every two to three years. They can live to be maybe 70, but they might only have letters of two to 14 pumps per liter. So in many ways, they're kind of more akin to people in terms of their life history. So that makes them very susceptible to being overfished. So putting protection in place was a smart thing. South Africa did it, Australia did it, Mexico did it, the US did it. They've been protected in many of these places for 10 to 20 years now for the exact same reason. And guess what? And pretty much every one of these locations, populations seem to be going up. So the good thing is, if we care enough about something to protect it, over time, it seems to work. However, the parts that I think are most important is protection alone may not be enough to allow populations to recover if there's no food for them. So I think in this case, the Marine Mammal Protection Act was instrumental in allowing white shark populations to recover. The Magnes and Stevens Act, which requires the federal government to best manage commercial fishing and our state fisheries management, has improved over time, therefore allowing the marine mammal population to grow. So, and you can't do that if the water's all mucked up. So the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, all these pieces of legislation that were put in place back in the '70s have actually worked. I mean, there are three to five times more people living in coastal areas around the U.S. and we have cleaner water now than we did in the '70s. - So are you saying that a holistic approach actually works? Having multiple protections actually works? This is amazing. - I call it unintentional ecosystem management. - That's true. - Right? These were all placed for different reasons, but humanively have worked. And so the thing that keep reminding people about is that it's the animals at the top of the food chain are really the canaries in the coal mine. They're the most susceptible to overfishing, but they're the most susceptible to any, you know, food chain effects, right? So if you have pollution that's killing off plankton and those plankton are no longer feeding your forage fish and those forage fish are no longer feeding the middle predators, then the ones at the top of the food chain are screwed. - Yeah. - When we see top predators coming back, like the tooth whales, like white sharks and things like that, that actually is a sign that things are maybe not as bad as we always hear. - Right, right. - Now, with that said, there are a lot of things that those are regional things that we do things, right? Those are on the scale of, you know, a regional coastal community, we fix. The part that's scary for me is that there are now measurable global ocean effects that we have no idea or how they're gonna affect populations. And global things are far more difficult to fix than regional things. - Right, can you name an example just for the audience? - Global climate change, right? So global warming, if you wanna call it that. - Yes, high temperatures, yeah. - And through that comes ocean acidification. There are a lot of things tied together with that. That even if us, Californians, us, you know, environmentally conscious Californians, we do all the good things for the environment, we tax ourselves for it. - Yeah, thanks. - That certain people hate, but run it paid out. And in the US, things that, you know, we've done to try to improve those things, but we alone can't change it. - Yeah. - This is for global effort. And the problem is we have to, number one, recognize that there's a problem in order to justify doing something about it. And I think we're making progress on this. The question is, are we doing it fast enough? - Yeah, yeah. - So, why I would like to say we're seeing some signs of good, signs that we can do some things better. We have a next generation of problems that are gonna need to be solved by the next generation of scientists. And the next birth users are gonna have to decide what's important in the long run. And I think those are gonna be the difference between taking the things that are going well and keeping them going well, or completely reversing us. - Yeah, no, for sure. And you mentioned, you know, now that we're seeing an increase in the population of great whites. And that's a good thing. We're seeing apex predators coming back, and obviously they have a top down effect, but there is a bottom up effect as well that affect their population. And we've talked about that, and that's growing, and that's allowed them to grow. They're doing well. How about other sharks on the Pacific coast? I know your shark lab studies other sharks. What other shark species do you guys study, and how are their populations doing? - So, you know, white sharks are kind of the fun thing to do. - Of course. - It's really hard to get funding to keep that going, and there's not a lot of them. So, it's been tough, but we also work on a lot of coastal species, like leopard sharks, which get to be about five or six feet long. They're coastal species. They feed on worms and clams and things like that, but there's a recreational fishery for them. We work on things like shovel nose guitar fish. We work on bat rays. We work on round stingrays. We work on fresher sharks and maker sharks and blue sharks. So, there are coastal sharks species that we work on that use bays and estuaries, and we've looked at how wetland restoration, estuary restoration actually improves habitat for sharks. And we've got a lot of cool data to show that it works great. There's some of the first invaders that get into these restored environments, and probably one of the biggest beneficiaries of some of those restoration projects. But in general, what we've seen from not just our data but historic data is that California's done a few key things that have allowed shark populations to increase. They've better managed fisheries, one by banning use of near-short gill nets. That was a big one. I mean, they're really cool, like noticeable facts of banning near-short gill nets in recovering shark populations, species that were bycatch in that fishery. - Right, right. - In addition, there's been better fisheries management, and I think a more educated recreational fishing community that looks at, goes, I'm probably not going to eat that, I'm just going to let it go. It was cool, I'll take a picture, let it go. So a lot of the research that we do is also what happens to those species that people catch, and they have to let go. - Right, right. - So do those sharks and fish survive when they let go? And what is their physiological state? So we use cool CSI techniques. We take a little lead sample, we try to look at how stressed out we get. Which transmitters on, we fall them around, and ask how long does it take them to start acting normal? - Right, right. 'Cause it's got to be pretty stressful to get caught like that. - You would think, but the amazing thing, the thing that never surprises me about fish is how, just how hardy some are, and how adaptable they are. So despite the fact that they do show signs of physiological stress, 12 hours after you put them back in their natural environment, physiologically, they're back to normal. - They're fine. - So they're very resilient. If fishers practice use good practices, right? So we do a lot to establish what those best practices are, and try to educate fishers on how to use them, if they want to keep fishing. - Right, and do you find you get good feedback from the recreational fishing community? - Yeah, actually there's a lot who are really, want to know, they want more information. And there are a lot of those fishers out there who want to know that management has been put in place for the right reasons, like minimum size limits. If a fisherman catches a leopard shark and it's under the legal size of it, and they have to put it back, is that shark going to survive? Because if it isn't, why make them do that? - Yeah, true. - So, and quite often, management has put in place in the absence of that information because it's a stopgap measure. - Right. - But if we can provide good scientific evidence that those sharks will survive, especially if they're handled properly and treated properly, fishermen feel good about the fact that they're putting those sharks back, and maybe in the future, you'll get a chance to catch a legal one that they can actually catch and keep. - Right, and you know, it's interesting because you're answering their common questions, right? 'Cause I can see a fisherman grabbing this and be like, "Really, why am I laying this go? "I don't even know if it's going to survive." You talk to them or you send them the research through their clubs or whatever, you have a talk or whatever, and then like, "Oh, okay." So it's proven that they actually survive. So, okay, I'll let them go. They'll survive, and then when it gets bigger, or another individual gets bigger, then I can't catch it, then I can keep it. - And you know, the other great thing is quite often we partner with fishers. - Right. - Right, so we work together, we work with them. - Yeah. - Because not only are they helping us catch more fish, 'cause frankly, that's what they like to do. - Of course. - We get an opportunity for them to see the data as it's evolving. So they, you know, quite often scientists, you know, in fisherman's minds, you know, where the evil empire, you know, we're the ones who give, you know, all the agencies the information they need to put more regulations in place. - Right. - And quite often the data that we generate, they are very skeptical of. - Right. - However, we find when they participate in the research and they see how the data are collected, and they actually are part of it, they are less skeptical of how the data are, and what the data mean. So we get greater buy it. And in some cases, they actually come to the agencies and say, we think you need to put new regulations in place. - Interesting. - Imagine that. - Yeah. - Because they see them and a bunch of their friends doing it, and then they think, these other guys should do it too, or these other women should have to do it too. - Right. - Because it's for the good and the fishery. - Now that's interesting, 'cause, you know, and you see this happening a lot in science, is the emergence of citizen science. - Yeah. - There's a huge citizen science program, or a fairly large one, down in San Diego with green sharks, right, with Michael Bear. I'm not sure if you know who Michael Bear is, or if you've worked with him before. And of course, shark stewards have, they partner with citizen science that are fishermen, recreational fishermen. And I'm sure, do you guys do the same thing? Do you consider it a citizen science program, part of that project, or are there other, like, do the recreational clubs, or, you know, whatever they are, do they actively participate in considering themselves citizen scientists? - Yeah, I guess in a way, I mean, we call them partners. - Right, yeah, of course. - They're working with us on a project. They're partners in the project. We want the full investment. I think many of them look at, you know, what they do, I mean, they're eager to learn. - Of course. - They don't consider themselves scientists, but they consider themselves partners in the project. Like, they're contributing something that's unique, and it really is beneficial. So, you know, I think there's, I think the key is developing projects where people can contribute where, and I don't mean this to be elitist in any way, but quite often, doing the science is really hard. - Yeah, a lot of them. - For a trained scientist. So, I often think I have a great experimental design until I start looking at the data and I go, "Oh man, how am I going to work this out?" - Of course. - It's even harder when you're using an army of people who have no science background at all. - Yeah, yeah. - So, you know, I think the types of partnerships we develop are good. They feel like they're involved in and have a point in place in the science. They feel comfortable with what they're seeing in terms of the science. And I think there are lots of opportunities for that. - Yeah, yeah. And I agree, and I mean, it's really, if you think of, if you use the analogy of a business where you include your employees in the decision making of a business, they're gonna care more because they know they actually have some sort of influence on how that business is doing. And I think it's the same thing with science. You include them in the science. They're more actively involved. They understand why you're doing things 'cause you're doing it with them. You form the relationship. I mean, there's no better bond than scientists and anybody else who's in the field because you see us at our worst and our best. You know what I mean? And our happiest, right? We know marine biologists are happy in the ocean and same with recreational fishers. So if you're on the surface of the ocean, you're at your best and you also probably look your worst because we all know that's how we look. But I think that increases that bond and that trust of where the data's coming from because they're helping produce it. So I think that's fantastic. A couple more questions as we get more into this interview. Like I mentioned, you guys study a lot of different sharks. How do you choose which sharks? Do you approach it from an individual population aspect? Do you approach it from a community aspect or the interactions between sharks? Or is this more of what are we gonna get funded for? Or what will funders kind of fund? I'm sure it's a little bit of all, but what drives you and your colleagues to pick a specific species? - So, and that's a really good question. A lot of times I hate to say it, it's kind of opportunistic. - Right. - So I look at the way I do science like the way sharks feed. - Okay. - So, you know, if you have an opportunity and you see that opportunity, you start thinking about, okay, how can I use this as an opportunity to number one get funding to do that research? Can I answer an important question that would really contribute, either to conservation of the population or understanding of how this whole thing fits together? So to give you an example, we've been doing a lot of work on white sharks and leopard sharks and things like that. And then we have this other species in California called a horn shark. - Right, yeah. - Cute little devil, you know, little pug nose. They only get to be about three feet long. They've got the little spines on their dorsal fin. But they're kind of, you know, people look at them ago, is that really a shark? You know, it doesn't really meet the shark characteristics. How are that little shark? May actually be a really important regulator in kelp beds. So it turns out one of the things horn sharks love to eat for sea urchins. - Okay. - Sea urchins are the goat of the ocean, right? - Yes. - So they are herds of goats and they are phasers and they graze on kelp. - Right. - For urchin population kind of explodes, they can literally graze out an entire kelp forest. - Right. - Kelp actually becomes a really important organism in the structure of a kelp bed. So there are entire organisms that are dependent on kelp. If the kelp disappears, a lot of that community changes. It breaks down. It becomes a completely different community. - It's a very diverse community, right? - It's super diverse. - Yeah, yeah. - But it's a living organism that's actually creating the habitat, like a coral. - Right. - That drives that. So understanding who eats urchins and their appetite for urchins and what drives them to eat urchins and what size urchins and what species of urchins they eat becomes really important. Well, researchers have spent a lot of time looking at other species that eat urchins, like lobsters, California lobspiny lobsters eat urchins. And California sheep head, rass, eats. And there's been a lot of research done looking at their role as Keystone species in the system. But nobody's paid attention to the poor, lonely, homely horn shark. - Yeah, that's interesting. - So I now have a grad student. I have an undergrad who's measuring the metabolic rates of horn sharks in a rest barometer. So you can stick the horn in a rest barometer and we can just let it sit there because they're lazy sharks, they'll lay on the bottom. And we can measure how much oxygen they're taking out of the water at a particular temperature. And then what we do is we then change the temperature slowly, we adapt them to a winter temperature and then we measure their resting metabolic rates again. By knowing what that difference is between their summer and winter temperatures, we can measure something called their q-tech. And that's basically tells us something about their metabolic temperature sensitivity. So because these animals are cold body, when the water's cold, their metabolic rates are low. When the worms out their metabolic rates go up. When their metabolic rates go up, they eat more. When their metabolic rates go down, they eat less. So now what we're gonna do is we're gonna put these devices on their dorsal fins and accelerometer, which is basically the little thing in your cell phone that lets the screen flip, you know? So we can put a little accelerometer on their dorsal fin that measures acceleration in three axes. We can put a little gyroscope, tells us compass heading. It's got a temperature and depth sensor. We can put an acoustic transmitter on there. We can dive, catch a horn shark underwater, clamp this on their dorsal fin, and let them go. Then we can track them from the boat for 24 hours. Then after 24 hours we come down, catch the shark again, take the device off, and we can download that record. Now in the lab, we can take that same device, clamp it on a horn shark's dorsal fin, and then feed it different meals. We can feed it in an urchin. And when a horn shark sees urchins, they're really cool. They pull the spines off the test first, so they can get enough of the test there, and then they kinda crunch at it. - They just break it down, right? - So what happens is you get these really unique motions that we think we can characterize with the accelerometer. - Right. - When you feed them something like squid, they behave very differently than when they're eating like a crab. - Okay. - So the idea is if we can feed them these different prey items in the lab, we can measure these acceleration signals. Maybe we can identify unique signals. So then when we track them in the field, and we download those accelerometer, we can tell not only how often they fed, but how many urchins did they eat, or how many crabs did they eat? So the cool thing is, is then we can take the metabolic rate data that we get, and we can begin to calculate calories. So like on the candy bar wrapper, it says this candy bar is worth 250 calories. Well, we know how many calories a small urchin is worth. So how many calories did that shark get if it ate three urchins a day? - Yeah, yeah. - And do the number of urchins go up when the water temperature increases, and does it go down when the water temperature goes down? So then the cool thing is, once we have all that information, we can develop mathematical models, making pictures on what will happen if global climate temperatures continue to rise. What will that do to horn shark appetites? - Right. - And what impact would that have on kepets? - Yeah. - Or even other keystone species who feed those as well, right, if they're feeding on more urchins. I mean, this is kind of cool because when I went through my university career, the big population model example that people would use for marine systems was the kelp, urchin, otter relationship. And you don't realize that there's so many other species that rely on urchins to almost manage kelp beds and to a certain degree. And the fluctuations of all those, I mean, really goes to show how diversity is important in those areas. If you just have an otter or you just have the rass or you just have the horn shark, you don't know individually what that's gonna affect, how that's gonna affect it. And then together, how that's gonna affect it. And it just goes to show how diversity is important. - So that, and you're right. And the cool thing about that model is, sea otters are no, they're protected. They're no longer harvested. - Right, right. - They have really high metabolic rates. So they eat like fiends. - Yeah, they're always eating, yeah. - Now those other three, the spiny lobster, the California sheep head and the horn shark are all harvested species. So we take those animals out of the system, which means the prey are then released from that predation pressure. Now your kelp beds overrun with goats. - Right. - Right. So we can begin to look at how our extraction, what we take to the ocean is putting those things out of balance. And the tough part is always quantifying these different organisms need for the environment, right? So I look at calories as a currency. - Right. - So if you're looking at global economy and this is how many dollars that are invested and this is for spent and consumed, calories are a way of accounting for that. - Of course. - Yeah, my mind's going ballistic right now, thinking about how this affects. And from management implications, you can almost look at a kelp system, say in a specific area and look at that and maintain monitoring of that kelp system and notice how big or small it gets. And then if you monitor the keystone species that regulate the urchins and see how they're doing, you can almost manage that kelp bed in terms of putting more regulations or a smaller quota on the harvested species to bring back that kelp bed and help other people who are harvesting those species understand that this is affecting the kelp bed, which is eventually going to affect the presence or absence of those species, right? - Yeah. - Yeah, it's all connected. I think that's interesting for our audience to realize, you know, how that all translates, how that kind of migrates into management implications and policy. - Well, and the other thing that you really have to remember is in the animals, the groups of animals that we're talking about, kelp, urchins, sharks, fish, all those things, remember, they are all coal-bodied, which means everything, all their biological processes are affected by changes in water temperature. And when water temperature goes up, everything speeds up. So animals have choices, right? Those choices are physiologically, they, you know, everything speeds up and they eat more. But if conditions get beyond some physiological comfort zone, they move. - Yeah. - So if we can begin to understand the effects of temperature on physiological, how an animal is driven physiologically and what influences behavior, man, we'll be in much better shape of understanding how global ocean temperatures will affect not just populations, but their distributions. - That's awesome. - Cool stuff. - That is very cool stuff, very envious of your job. (laughs) I love it, you know, I have a couple of other questions. I know we're running a little bit on time here 'cause in New York, I keep it about an hour. But just some quick questions for you, if you don't mind. - Sure. - What are the two biggest threats facing shark populations in general right now, in your opinion? - So I think, you know, I'm happy to say that I think populations in many of the U.S. waters are doing well. And I think that's because we've done some smart things in better managing fisheries and ecosystem management. In other places, that is not the case, right? So in other places and parts of the South Pacific, shark populations are just getting hammered. So, and I always look at fisheries as a balloon. - Okay. - So imagine you have a balloon and you squeeze the balloon. So what we've done in this country is we've squeezed the balloon, right? So we wanted to reduce take because to keep our populations healthy and as a result, we squeeze the balloon. The balloon volume doesn't change. It bubbles out somewhere else. So in some ways, the good things that we've done to protect shark populations in this country have actually had negative impacts on other countries. And the reason is, is because you're not really always changing demand, right? So to give you an example, we heavily regulate commercial fishers in this country. We set really strict guidelines on how they can fish and where they can fish and how much they can take, but literally across our borders, their commercial fishermen are not held at the same standard. But we still import 85% of our seafood into this country. So while we've cracked down on our own commercial fishermen to better protect our stocks, those stocks cross the border, they swim across the border where they can be harvested by other commercial fishers using methods that we don't allow in this country. And then we turn around and pay less for that same fish or shark. - Yeah, yeah. - So that's a problem we have to fix. - Same thing, Canada too. - Oh, same thing, yeah, of course. Remember NAFTA, that allows brief trade, right? - Yeah. - Across border. And the problem is, is regulating this becomes difficult because quite often, fisheries trade agreements are wrapped in with many other things, like electronics and cars and natural resources. So you can't just disentangle them and say, "Well, we're not gonna allow you to import shark parts or meet into this country because that's bad. You shouldn't be catching it there. You can't disentangle those." - Right. - So it's a complex problem. - Gotcha. - So I think just over-efficient is an issue in many places. The other one is habitat loss and degradation. That is a big one. So many shark species and race species are now being harvested via trawl. So deep water trawls, we fish deeper now than we've fished before. Many of those habitats, these animals lay their eggs there. There may be critical nursery habitat there that's getting damaged. And we don't really know the impacts of that. Estuaries, mangrove, legumes, many of those things are being cut down in many places for development. Those are critical nursery habitats. So one of the things that I think has allowed populations to rebound so quickly in the United States is, we have spent a lot of money trying to restore estuaries in wetlands and bring some of that habitat back, which is critical for many of those populations. So even if some of those countries protect sharks from overfishing, but are still losing habitat, those population recoveries are gonna be slower than they will be here. - Gotcha. Because the restoration. And also restoration costs a lot of money as well. And some other countries may not be able to afford that. I mean, even Canada and the US, when we do restoration, it's very expensive and we can't do that often and just because it's so difficult to restore. - Yeah. And we, you know, I think have done some smart things in terms of that money that it costs to restore habitat is very expensive. We've done it with a plan of accelerating things, but in many places, if you just leave it alone, if just say we're not gonna screw that anymore, it can come back. - Right. - It will just take longer. - Yeah. Yeah. We just need patience as a human race, which we tend to lack quite a bit. Now for the audience members that wanna do something about, especially, you know, overfishing and seafood, you know, they like to eat seafood. You mentioned a lot of times we import 85% of our seafood. How would you tell our audience members, or what would you suggest that they do in terms of buying seafood, or any kind of, you know, basically protecting them from overfishing? - So, you know, the great thing about that is for great programs, right? So Monterey Bay Aquarium has the seafood watch program, where they do all the homework for you, which is great. So they do all that part where they gather all that information, look at whether the fishery's sustainable and ecologically supported. So, I think that makes it easy. You can go online, you can do all those sorts of things. The other thing that people can do, especially foodies, you know, they wanna know where their food is from. When you go to those seafood markets, ask, kind of domain, where does it come from? You know, where was it caught? Do you know anything about how it was caught? So the consumer has huge power in this case. And it's really only been recently that the consumers have began to flex their muscles in that regard. So, you know, the tough part is, we have a lot of people on the planet that need to eat. Many of them are dependency food is a critical protein for them. And they can't always afford to buy something that is sustainably caught. - Right, 'cause it's always more expensive. - Exactly. So, you know, there are other ways to do it. And that is, you know, small-scale fisheries can be sustainable if they're managed well, and we have to start looking more towards aquaculture. I've never really heard anybody talking about aquaculture for sharks or Alaska banks. But, you know, the day may come. - Yeah. - They're slow-growing and maybe a tough group of animals work with that way, but, you know, we can do anything. - Yeah, yeah, we certainly can, especially with the technology and stuff. Very interesting stuff. You know, Chris, this has been amazing. There are questions that I wanna ask you. We are a little short on time. I would love to invite you back sometime. And we can talk more about sharks and ecosystem and how it works and how it all interplays again. If you'd be so willing, I think it'd be amazing. But, until then, thank you very much. This has been so much fun. I really appreciate it was great to me. We just met, like, an hour ago. So, this has been fantastic. I don't know many researchers on the West Coast, so this has been definitely an eye-opener for me. And I really appreciate it. - Sure, and I'll hook you up with some more. - Absolutely, yeah. From your lab, we talked about this before. And the idea of this podcast is just to get more people out and get our audience members familiar with you guys, who, you know, you've had some press, you know, in other ways and stuff, but some of your colleagues may have not. And just to kind of break down those barriers and really show people who are out there on the front line, I like to call them the front lines, right? And seeing what you see, yeah, you're in the trenches, you're working hard, and I think it's time that we emerge and start saying, hey, this is what we do, and we live a cool life. It's kind of bring back the attractiveness of marine biology again, right? Everybody wants to be a marine biology when they're teenagers, they don't all become one. But when we do, everybody's an envious of us. Well, let's bring that envy back. - Absolutely, I'm down to that. - Right on. Well, Chris, thank you very much. What we're gonna do in the show notes, we're going to put all the links you provided me before the show, we'll put all the links in the show notes, and yeah, it'll be wonderful. Just stay on the line before, as we say goodbye, and we'll just chat about the logistics of everything. But thank you very much, Chris, for joining us on the Speak Up for Blue podcast. - Great, thank you. - No problem. All right, everybody, that was Dr. Chris Lowe talking about great whites, cookie cutter sharks, all the different types of sharks, their movements, their physiology, and what we can really know about sharks and how much more we need to know about sharks to get a better understanding of how these apex predators work, and also how the animals in the food web below them, how they work and how they help support these sharks, these apex predators. So, just a really riveting interview that we had with him, and we're hoping to get him back on the show as well. So, Chris, if you're listening to this right now, thank you very much for being on the program, and we look forward to having you back sometime soon in the near future. But yeah, if you guys have any comments, you can contact us through Speak Up for Blue at the show notes. So, speakupforblue.com/session119. You're gonna find all of his links that you can reach them at. That'll be there, his Twitter account, Facebook and website as well. And please feel free to ask some questions. If you wanna go on our comments on the show notes and ask questions there, please feel free to do so. I can try and get them to answer them either there or through some other way, and I'll get those answers done to you. So, yes, thank you very much for listening. And again, if you wanna support our ocean conservation on this platform and help us grow to other platforms, you can do so at speakupforblue.com/patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N. We really appreciate your support in the future. And thank you very much for listening. My name is Angelou, and you've been listening to Speak Up for Blue podcast. Happy Wednesday, and happy conservation. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)