How To Protect The Ocean
SUFB 104: Will The Real Great White Shark Please Stand Up with Esther Overbeeke
I speak with Esther Jacobs Overbeeke who is a Communications Specialist for Oceans Research, a South African research organization focusing on Great White Shark populations. Esther's story is an awesome one, selling everything she had in Scotland to move to South Africa to work with sharks.
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Show Notes:
http://www.speakupforblue.com/session104
Welcome to the speaker for Blue Podcast, session 104. Welcome to interview Wednesdays. Today on the show, we have Esther Jacob Overbeek, who is a marketing and communications background person or education, but she's also a shark conservationist, a marine conservationist, but works particularly with sharks in South Africa. Her story is awesome for people who, especially targeting people who don't have a marine science background, but still want to get involved in ocean conservation. I get this story a lot, I get this question a lot, how do I become a marine conservationist? Well, this part of the story of Esther's interview is the story of how she became a marine conservationist, and the rest is how she works with great white sharks and other sharks in South Africa and works with the public. It's a fantastic interview, so stay tuned for the speaker 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 am your host, Andrew Lewin, founder of Speak Up For Blue.com, marine ecologist and self-proclaimed ocean printer. And today is interview Wednesdays, and this is a fantastic interview. We are going to talk to Esther Jacobs Overbeek, who is a shark conservationist in South Africa. Now, before we get into this show, I just want to mention our supporters. I just want to thank our supporters, Chris and Claire Jeffer, Dr. Judith Weiss and Judy and Ron. Thank you very much for your support on Patreon. If you want to support our podcast, you can do so at SpeakUpForBlue.com/patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N. It's a quick signup if you're not already a patron of somebody else's, but it's a way to really help support our conservation efforts in communicating ocean science, ocean conservationists to you and the audience, the Speak Up For Blue community, here in podcasting land. As I like to call it. But anyway, you can do so. Thank you very much if you do, and if you're already a patron, thank you very, very much. Let's get back to the show. Esther Jacobs Overbeek is a fantastic story. She has a wonderful story. She is a Scottish background, lived in Scotland for a long time, moved to South Africa because she loved to conserve sharks. Basically, uprooted her entire life and just changed her entire lifestyle, moved to a different country, had a different pole, a different southern, south of where she is, and just started this wonderful career changing from communications and marketing at a bank to communications and marketing for shark research and ecotourism. We have a lovely interview. Not only do we talk about how she moved over to this career, but we talked about how she didn't have a science background and a marketing communication background, which, of course, I get the question a lot. How do I become a marine conservationist if I don't have a science background? I tell people you do not have to be a scientist to be a marine conservationist. Those of you who are budding marine conservationists and you don't have a science degree, listen to this episode, listen to the passion that she has and how she just decided to follow her passion and create a career out of it. She did a fantastic job and is doing a fantastic job at it, so definitely look into that or listen to that part of the episode, which is at the beginning. Then we get into her depiction of great white sharks. We see sharks on media, on TV. We see them as predators. We see them as these mindless, non-personality type of shark that all they want to do is kill. All they want to do is eat. Of course, they have a function in the ecosystem. They regulate prey, stocks and populations, but they get this man-killer, human-killer kind of persona and Esther is around them a lot. For a while when she was with the ecotourism company that she was with, she would go out three or four times a week and be around these great white sharks all the time. She developed, there's some uniqueness to them, what she talks about, there's some personality to them, there's some sharks were calm, some sharks were a little hyper. They looked at juveniles, sometimes they saw adults. These are massive animals. These are animals that have evolved into very efficient predators, apex predators, but they also had a personality. They also had a bit of a pecking order as well when they came to eating bait or just being around. I think the way she depicts them, the way she takes video and the way she takes pictures of these sharks is just fantastic because it allows people to see a different side of these sharks. Not just the killing side, not just the predator side, it allows them to see a softer side, a curious side of these animals. We also go into the interview. We also talk about the perception of sharks, speaking of perception in South Africa. As someone who has never been to South Africa, I don't know much about it. I do know they have a very budding, great white shark population as well as other sharks. I always wanted to know, I want to ask Esther what the perception was of the South African people to sharks in general. She had a very interesting answer that surprised me. That's also in the interview. She talks about the programs and how she goes into schools and talks to young children, grade four to grade seven, which I guess would be about nine to 12 years old. She talks to them about sharks, she kind of moles her perception a little bit, talks about how she approaches shark conservation, how researchers approach shark conservation, how they should. The meat industry, the shark meat industry is pretty big, not only in South Africa, but also in Europe, which is accounting for a lot of the deaths and declines of shark populations around the world. Very important stuff that she's doing, some great work, and starting from a very humble background, from a banking background, going into ocean conservation is just a fantastic story. What she's doing is just awesome. She's very innovative. We talk about some of the projects that are coming up and her new job at Ocean Research, which is a world-round outfit in South Africa about their research on great white sharks and what affects them. I hope you enjoy this interview. Here is Esther Jacobs overbeat. Hey Esther, welcome to the Speak Up for Blue podcast. Thanks for joining us today. Thank you for inviting me. No problem now. We sort of met through social media, through Facebook. You are living in South Africa. We're going to get more description of where you live, how you got there and all that kind of stuff. What captivated me about what you do in your, you work with sharks, you work with great white sharks, but you were showing some amazing pictures and videos of the stuff that you do with ocean research, and I was just captivated. I had to have you on the podcast and just say, I need to find out more because we're going to talk about a little different. You show sharks in a different light, especially these massive great white sharks in South Africa that we see as these amazing predators, but we see a different side of them from a regular media perspective. We're going to get into all that today and other projects that you have on. As usual, the people we have on here, folks, are very busy with a lot of different projects because they love what they do so much, so we're going to get into all that, but thank you for joining us. Yeah, thank you. You bet. So Esther, tell the audience if they don't know who you are, tell them who you are and what you do. Okay, so my name is Esther Uphurbika, and I obviously work with sharks. I call myself a shark conservationist, ocean conservation in general, of course, and I've been living in South Africa, working with sharks for five years, it'll be five years in one week's time. Wow, wow. Now you're, when we started to message each other back and forth on Facebook, I wanted to get to know how you got the position and whatnot. So where do you work? What's the organization you work for? I now work with Ocean's Research, I just started working for them, actually, the beginning of the month. I originally worked with White Shark Africa, so they're an ecotourism company. Okay, wonderful. Yeah, and Ocean's Research, they are the scientists that we have and also they. Okay, perfect. Now, I want to get back to the beginning, because you have an interesting story of how you actually got into shark research. Where are you originally from? You're not from South Africa, obviously, so tell the audience where you're originally from. From Scotland, from, actually, a little town called Inverky thing in Fife in Scotland. Okay, so when you grew up in Scotland, did you ever expect to be working where you are now the place and with the subjects matter that you're working with now? Oh, no, it was a complete dream, definitely, no, no, I would never wait 10 years ago thinking this is where I'd be right now, you know, I feel very privileged. Yeah, well, growing up, Scotland, you know, you're close to the ocean, did you, were you always interested in the ocean growing up, is that something that you always had in the back of your mind, it would be kind of fun to work with ocean animals and just in the oceans in general. Oh, yeah, yeah, I'd always had an interesting notion and it'd always be something I'd be reading up on, you know, and I'd have a lot of the fact boots and things like that. But I'd never pursued a career in it originally, just probably what a lot of people are like and I just didn't really know what I wanted to do. Right, so you're kind of, so you go into, you went to university and what did you graduate with? And media and communications, media and communications and now you're working with sharks. This is what I love to, I want it to highlight and we talked about this before the interview. A lot of people ask me when they say, okay, I want to get into oceans or I wanted to get into marine conservation or ocean conservation, or I want to work in particular with sharks, I get that a lot. However, they don't have a marine biology degree or marine science degree. Now you're in that situation and you, this is five years now, you've been interacting and working with sharks in the ocean. Of course, in a far away place, tell us how you got to this place and go back to the beginning of where you got to this place. Well, so around seven years ago, I decided that financial publications wasn't really my thing. So I was working for a big bank at the time. So I'd already started looking for a new job in the same sort of line in communications and publishing. But at the same time, I knew I wanted a bit of a clear change and I was actually thinking about going back to study marine biology because obviously my passion for the oceans. But what I decided to do was an internship because I thought, well, if I give everything up and go study and actually really don't enjoy it at all. So I decided to do a month's internship in South Africa, originally I was supposed to work with tiger sharks up in Durban, but that fell through and I ended up in a place called Plettembert Bay and we were mostly doing a citation based research. But we had an opportunity to come up and see the white sharks in here where I live now, which is Mosul Bay. So when we were visiting Mosul Bay and doing the cage dive, I just absolutely fell in love with these sharks. I mean, I really love the internship in general, loved working with all the citations, but the white sharks just captivated me completely. So I jokingly said to the owner, I'm from a marketing background, if you ever need anybody to do any of your marketing, give me a shout, I'll give you my CV. And it turned out that we're actually looking for an assistant on the internship. So I immediately said, just consider me, I'll go home, I'll send it from a CV and everything. So as soon as I got home, I got my CV out and they accepted me for the job and then reality setting. And then realised, so we sort of worked on a six month time scale because I had to, I mean, I had my own house, I had to, you know, cat, you know, this new job that I actually had taken on, which I was enjoying, surprisingly, it's just, it was communications and it was still financial communication. So it wasn't, the passion wasn't there as much as it is and obviously my current career. So yeah, so took me six months to sell everything off and then pack a suitcase and move over here. And then after two months, two, three months of being here, I got offered a job of running the internship. So that was me, I took over the internship and it was never looked back. Now, now doing that move from Scotland to South Africa, now that's a pretty big move. What did your, what did your family friends think when you, when you decide to do this? Because it seemed like it happened so quickly. I mean, I know it was over a six month period, but it happened so quickly. What did, how did your friends and family feel about that? You know, they were really, they know what my passion is and they were, they were all like this, because at first I was like, I mean, do I take the job, I mean, I have to give up everything and they were all like, you will regret it for the rest of your life if you don't take it. And so the, you know, my, my good friends really sort of spurred me to actually take the job. I think I would have taken it, even if I had a few people trying to push me against it, but they all know that that's exactly where my passion lies. That's exactly where it should have been. Even my mum, now mum's an extremely anxious person, which doesn't travel easily and things like that. She's an amazing woman, but this, something like this for her was a massive, massive thing, you know, because I'm her only child as well. So my dad had to basically sit down with her and talk her through it and, and get her to sort of let me go. And she ended up being really supportive and, and you know, she's since visited a few times, so she's completely behind me all the way. Yeah. She was nervous about it, but she's very happy now. Of course. So when you first, when you first came, came back to South Africa, it was for originally for two months, and then they said, we're going to hire you on after two months, or was it just a different position? You just shifted to a different position. Well, the guy that they had originally running the internship wasn't working out so well. So it kind of, it was times very nicely in that I, I came to work there and they were sort of trying to, and it sounds terrible, but almost are pushing out the door a little way. He just, he wasn't a people person, he was good with the sharks, but he wasn't very good with people. Right. And for an internship, you've got all these people from all over the world, who not only want to just work for the sharks, but they want to have a good experience all around and they weren't really getting that. So. Yeah. And this was a, this was an eco tourism outfit, right? This was an eco tourism. That's right. It's an eco. So it basically dedicated on dealing with people all the time. Exactly. Exactly. So they have their sort of client-based side of things and that's the clients that come on for one day and go cage diving. Okay. And then the other side of it is this internship where people come to actually learn about the white shark behavior and watch them and then just, there's actually a marine scientist onboard now and you know, she's working on her own project so they get to work alongside her. Oh, that's fantastic. And they may also do things like, or we did things like tag and release of the other species of sharks. Right. Don't tag white sharks unfortunately because that would be quite, quite fun. But the company I work for now, they do, they do tag white sharks looking forward to getting involved in my first white shark tagging project whenever it comes about. Absolutely. Absolutely. So when you were a coordinator of this internship, how many interns would you guys get on a, on a daily like on a weekly basis or how did it work? People come in from out of country? Yeah. Yeah. They're from all over the world. I had anyone from South Africa surprisingly, it was from elsewhere in the world and from all walks of life as well. You didn't have to be studying biology or anything like that because it's just an opportunity for anyone to come and learn about something as long as they have a passion for the sharks and the oceans. So yeah, so I'd be about eight people a month would come out there to learn. And they have a few more coming now, but when I, when I was running it with certain limited to people, yeah, and they'd come for a month at a time. Some of them would come for two months and then there was an opportunity to sort of be a longer term intern and it'd be up to six months. Okay. And what would the interns do when they come? Like what kind of work would they do? Well, they'd either be out for the day tagging and releasing this our smaller sharks like the benthic sharks or the smaller pelagic sharks. And so that'd be like a whole day of going out to see them fishing. And then the other aspect would be going on to the cage diving book, working with the clients, you know, talking to the clients about what's happening, what they're seeing, recording all the behavior of the sharks, recording each individual shark, you know, naming the sharks of the opportunity presents itself and really studying each individual in terms of not only behavior, but markings that we could then later identify the shark through and taking thin ID. So that's taking a photograph of the dorsal fin and each dorsal fin is unique to each shark. Of course. Now, doing all this, I mean, you kind of, you get thrown into this position, great opportunity, which is fantastic. You're learning obviously all this new stuff about the sharks, individual sharks, great whites and all the other different types of sharks, you're working with a lot of different interns from all over the world. Fantastic. Did you ever feel overwhelmed as someone who didn't have a marine biology degree but had a more of a communications and marketing background? Did you feel overwhelmed at times where you're just like, maybe I don't know enough about this kind of thing? And well, actually, I didn't really, I think because I've always had a passion of always sort of done self study, so although I haven't got a biology degree, I've actually completed a few courses related to marine biology and specifically studied, self-studied sharks and great big sharks. Also, the guys I worked with, they've been working with the sharks for a good number of years and they were great at also helping with the idea and the teaching of the interns as well. So, I knew enough definitely for everything that I was doing but I was also learning as I went along. Yeah. That's fantastic. The reason I asked the question is not to say that you should have been marine scientists at all is I just love the fact that you're going into this with a marketing communications degree and you're kicking butt, not only at the job, but you're learning on your own. You're developing this passion, further developing this passion for the sharks because you're seeing them almost every day, not only great whites but the benthic and pelagic smaller sharks, and you're allowing other people, you're helping other people, interns and client side, the public just to kind of just get involved and really develop the same kind of passion. So, that's why I asked this question is because people keep asking me, do I need a marine biology degree to work with sharks and you are proof that you don't? So, that's why I ask the question. It's not to say... Do you need the passion? No, the passion is the most important thing I would say. Yeah. Which I find a lot of people do have, but you really have to. I mean, you obviously had a passion where you were ready to uplift from one country, travel all the way to the other end basically and start this new love, or continue this love and start this new life that you had, this kind of thing. How did you find the transition moving the countries? Did you find it difficult at the beginning or was this something that you just, I'm open to everything? I'm kind of like, change comes, change not comes easily, but I've never, I've never been scared of change, so that helped a lot. I think the difficult part is obviously leaving friends and family because I know I had a very good circle of friends and close family and two cats, giving up my two cats was so difficult, but because I went to my brother and made it a little easy. Right, right. Of course. So, yeah, the people in the cats, you can tell your animal lover because you're worried about the cats. I understand that. But you know, once I got here, I mean, it was so easy and quick to make friends because people of muscle weight in South Africa are very, very welcoming and I find that I was like, I mean, within a couple of weeks, I'd already sort of built up a couple of friendships and that really made things a lot easier, definitely. And in today's world, you're at the touch of a button away from either calling or skiving, you know? Yeah, of course. Yeah, but you were calling someone. So that really helps, yeah. Well in the time zone is not that difficult from that different from Scotland, is it? No. And in summertime, it's only an hour and at this time of year, it's like two hours. So it's not bad at all. Yeah, so it's not that bad. So you're kind of living the same. You're along the same timeline, which is kind of... Exactly. Now, I want to ask you a couple questions on the reason how I actually found you on Facebook. It was your unbelievable documentation through photos and video of these great whites. And the reason I say it's unbelievable because normally when we see great whites in the media, in the public, we see them either feeding on something, catching a seal. You know, you just see them around boats and fishermen just kind of being either afraid of them or just being in awe of them. But usually it's around something of fear. You know, news channels are saying, "Oh my gosh, there's a shark in the ocean. Look out everybody." You know, instead of saying, "Wow, these are amazing kind of animals and look how big they are." They're swimming and how they're built and everything like that. You showed a different side of sharks. You would show pictures of them and then you're naming them. And then you would show... You would talk about their behavior that day and, you know, a particular name. I don't remember the names, but say for instance, like Sally was particularly friendly today or really curious today and things like that. Describe why you decided to do that. Like, why you decided to take pictures and describe them in that sort of way? It'd be like going to visit like a pound of dogs, you know. As soon as you see one, you sort of start to get to know it's its personality. I mean, I swear to you, white sharks each have their own individual personality in the same manner that like a pet would. Right. So, you know, we've got, just to name a few, we've got one called Blackgill. You know, I'm never going to get in the water of a Blackgill, you know. Right, of course. You don't see her coming. She breaches. That's her thing. She just breaches constantly. So, she's, I mean, no way aggressive, but she's very, very active. And so, I know, I've had no Blackgills around, that's not a time that I would choose to get in the water. Gotcha. However, if there was a shark bee called Sweetheart around, not only is she called Sweetheart because she has a heart shape on her dorsal, which helps identify her, but she really has such an incredibly sweet personality. Have I been standing at the back of the boat with my mago pro in hand? Yeah. She'll come to the back of the boat and she'll just spy hop, she'll stick her out of, you know, spy hopping, where they pop their head out of the water. It's almost like they're bobbing up and down, right? Yeah. Yeah. And that's it. And so, you sort of see her eye just checking you out and she glides by and you watch her eye follow you. It's incredible. Wow. Yeah. She just, she's so calm and serene, you never see her do much. She barely goes for the bait, you know, so she's just, I mean, no, she will go for the bait, but not, not, not very often at all, yeah. But there's been many, many sharks that are just so calm and serene. My favorite over the five years was a shark called Pod. Now she was about three and a half meters, so for a muscle bait where we get mostly juvenile, she was a really fair sized shark, you know, not just in length, but she was a girthy shark, a huge, huge girth on her, you know, and she was very, very dark as well. So she was like, like almost black on the surface, yeah. So she, but she was so, she was beautiful. She never, I don't think she ever once went for that bait. She just, she hugged the boat. She just swam round and round, she'd watched the people in the cage. She'd spy hop, she'd check you out, she knew exactly who was on the bait line and she'd be watching just to watch for them throwing the bait in and then she'd just swam off again. She had no interest in the bait. She just, she was like a people shark. She was just like, what are you doing? Just curious, right? Just always looking. So, that's it, but very, very calmly, I mean, if there was an opportunity, I probably would have jumped in the water with her, you know, she was just beautiful. Such a lovely personality, but we haven't seen her in a few years. So, um, a couple of years, yeah. So that was literally there in the medics, you could be anywhere. Right. And that could be this, you know, she could have been a juvenile. She was a juvenile, you said, as you say, most of them are juvenile. So she could have been in a different part of her life history and in a different part of the world, you know, you never know. So, but, I mean, I find this is interesting, like, what did you first, when you first saw them, I mean, obviously you were in amazement, but did you expect this type of behavior from them? Did you expect them always to be aggressive or always going towards the bait or what have you? What did you expect when you first saw them and then how did that change as you started to observe them? Yeah. I didn't really take into account that they would possibly have personalities. They were just sharks, they were just, you know, predators to me. They would, you know, I assumed bait was in the water. That's all they do is just go for the bait completely and that's all their interest would be. Right. So, that's my initial thought. It wasn't until like I actually came out to run the internship or to assist in the internship that I started to realize that, wow, each of them, each of them is completely different from the other one, you know, I mean, it can generalize, you know, the really young ones tend to be a bit more active and a bit more feisty. Yeah. But it's like, what I would describe as like, puppyish behavior. Right. They tend to be a bit more, a bit more active puppies, you know, and they're all over the place. And yeah, I would, you know, I've noticed that in white sharks as well. Right. So you mentioned earlier, they see who's on the bait lines up. Would you see multiple sharks at the same time around the boat where they come up at the same time? What was their interaction with among each other? Oh, they didn't, they would avoid each other for sure. Yeah. So, um, if there was one of the larger ones coming in on the bait, then the smaller one even if it was also going for the bait at the same time, as soon as it noticed, the larger one it would, it would swear of. Oh, really? So it would avoid. So there is a bit of a pecking order in terms of size. Absolutely. And it goes in terms of size, not always a length, but in Girtha, from what I've noticed. Really? Interesting. Yeah. That's kind of interesting. So, so as this, see, see these person as how often a week would, like when you did the internship program, would you actually see these sharks? Well, um, most of the time it'd be about three, three to four times a week. So it would be out low and most trips would be successful in seeing sharks. They, we have a period of a couple of weeks, um, up to a month of each year where the sharks just disappear and we don't know where they go, where we don't necessarily know the reason for it. Um, recently, um, the last couple of months has been, we've been barely seeing any sharks, but we had a pod of orcas in the bay. So the thought is, which obviously, you know, shark, shark's name is this. So, um, the thought is, um, obviously they've been scared of the, the, the orcas pod and the orcas stayed around for about three weeks, which is very unusual. So obviously they've, they've sort of disappeared and they've been coming back in and we actually had a couple of good days of same good activity again and now just nothing. So everything's been blamed for, um, you know, um, from water, temperature changes, and we know it's been like, you know, nobody knows for sure where they are, what they're doing. Yeah. And I guess, you know, at Ocean's research though, they're probably studying, okay, let's look at, let's observe the period that they're gone. You know, when they see orcas, when they don't see orcas and then when they see the shark starting to come back and, and I'm sure they're taking either like water quality temperature and stuff like that, as they, as they go along to exactly, yeah, yeah, it's exactly, it'd be really good to sort of have a good reason for why they, why they disappear. And it's not that it's on a regular basis, but it happens every year. So. Right. So it happens at the same time every year. Now do you see the orcas coming back at the same time every year? No. No way. Don't. So. I had, um, for the first three years, I think of living here, there was there, there hadn't been orcas cited at all, and but there was orcas in January last year and orcas in November again this year. So sorry, last year. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting how they think they're starting to come around. That's, uh, yeah, I mean, there's so many different populations of orcas that we don't really understand. That's. You know, the most studied, I guess would be North, North Western, um, United States and South, South Western Canada. Oh, I'd love to see those ones. I would love to have seen these ones as well. That's a frustrating thing for me is so far offshore and never got a chance to see them and they chased off the white sharks. So of course. Yeah. So now that I'll both all the wildlife that you want to see are gone, right? Um, now through your, your, your program, uh, through the ecotourism industry, you, you started to develop these other programs, um, and one was, uh, keep Finn alive. Can you tell us a bit about that, uh, and how long it's been going on? Why you started it and, and, and how you, how it's continuing? Yeah. Well, actually. So I, um, I, I had a baby. So I went on maternity leave and, um, very good friend of mine took over the program. Okay. Um, and then, you know, when I was sort of finished with maternity leave, I find myself the better time on my hand. I mean, I was working with him, but, um, it was very just, just on and off and, um, um, yeah, it's a part time. So, uh, I just, I had the notion that, um, we needed a lighthearted approach to try and spread, um, awareness of the issues facing shark to the moment, you know, spread, spread the sharks applied. Yeah. Um, and once upon a time, I'd taken this, uh, this Scottish cow, um, or Highland cow called a himmage and taken photos of it in various places, um, and I did the same for a friend's birthday with the lion around Cape Town in South Africa and taken photos and developed a big back story for him as a prison. Right. I just thought, well, that could work with a shark. So I had, um, I've got a whole hand puppet shark, um, and decided to, I'd be photographing them in various places to try and just sort of raise awareness of how they're, they're a bit misunderstood, but then I had the idea of actually trying to get them photographed with well-known faces. Okay. And so that's where I developed, uh, I created that, uh, the line for the poster. I honked a shark and I liked it. Yes. I loved it. Keeping a lot. Yeah. So people have really taken it, taken to it. So, you know, my first test band or if you like, um, Prime Circle, one of South Africa's biggest bands. Okay. And I just turned up at their show, spoke to the manager and then they, they were, they were really keen to be photographed. They were right behind it. So. That's awesome. Once you've got one behind you, everybody kind of wants to be a part of it, which is great. So, so I've had them plus scientists and researchers and, and all that being photographed now, which is fantastic. So. Now, what's that doing, uh, for the campaign, the purpose of the campaign is to raise awareness for, uh, I'm assuming the shark finning, the, what's going on with shark finning. Is that, is that correct? And I would, well, shark finning is obviously one big issue, but it's to, to, the, the main issue is obviously just the shark trade in general. So shark meat is, it's, it's probably a bigger trade than, than the fin trades. Um, it's just, it's not as, um, people, people aren't aware of it because it's, it's not as messy. If you like, cause it's a shark finning trade point. Yeah. So, um, and obviously when you see how shark finning's done, it's, it's horrendous. It's completely inhumane. So obviously a lot of people are behind, behind that. So I do completely want to spread awareness of that. Um, there's not a lot of shark fin soup here, um, elsewhere in the world, for sure. Here definitely the shark meat is, is a big trade. Um, Europe in general shark meat is, is a big trade. So that's, that's where I wanted to sort of concentrate on not just shark, shark meat trades, but how they're actually fished. So long lining, um, and, uh, trolling obviously catches, um, a lot of sharks. There's a lot of shark bycatch. And often they're just, uh, discarded, um, dead, back into the ocean. So all those things I want to raise awareness of. And I do that. So I've got my, my nice light hearted pictures with, you know, celebrities and scientists and anyone who really wants to be, um, photographed with thin, uh, the campaign mascot. Um, and in between them getting the real messages out there, uh, you know, spreading the words, um, sharing the, the articles and the petitions and things like that because people often turn a blind eye to the doom and gloom. So if you kind of make it like accurate, but then you're getting some of the doom and gloom messages in there, it means it's not all doom and gloom and it's not all activism. Though activism is a very good thing. Some people just, they don't, they don't respond to activism so well. Well, they haven't had a good experience with activism before, right? People take activism to the very extremes and then there's other people I would say most of it. Like, so you get, you know, just like in everything, you get five to 10% of the people take it to the extreme, you know, another 5% who don't take it far enough. And then you got the middle ground which take it up with a sort of level headed mind, just like yourself where you, you know, you put in a good message to get the people to attract the people and then just sort of educate them on what this message is and why you're trying to, uh, you know, what you're trying to resolve. Now, uh, so the shark meat industry is very big in Europe. Very big. It's pretty big in South Africa, I would imagine, across, across Africa and Australia. So how, how do you find it? How long has the program been running? It's actually not been running for long at all. So I started off in July last year. So yeah, but it's growing arms and legs. So it's great. Yeah. Do you find people are responding to it? Do you find people saying, well, I used to eat shark meat but now I'm not going to. Or I'm being more aware, I'm signing more petitions that way. How are you measuring that? Um, yes. So that just basically the response I get, the feedback I get from, from the general population. Um, the, the biggest thing for me is when people do turn around and say, I stopped doing this or I started doing that, you know, a lot of people are just so unaware of not, it doesn't, it's not just the fact that obviously shark populations are dwindling around the world. I mean, I'm generalizing here, of course, of course, shark, sharks being predators are so high in Mercury and arsenic that they're, they're toxic. The meat is toxic. It doesn't make sense to, to eat shark meat. So that's a big thing people aren't aware of as well that I'm trying to, to get the message out of it about. Yeah. It comes to a, it comes to a health perspective from the actual consuming of shark meat. I mean, you're right. Yeah. It's just a giant in Mercury levels and that's just some, just from, from the water quality in general, it bio accumulates through different prey and of course sharks being the apex predator, they get the blunt, the brunt of it just as orcas would get the brunt of it as well. And, and many other large predators get the brunt of it. So that's interesting to, to take it to that level too, to show them, Hey, this is actually your, um, uh, your health is actually involved in this kind of thing. Plus the way they're fished is not necessarily sustainable. There's a lot of bi-catch and just a, you know, talking about generalists, there is an estimate out there that 270 million sharks are, are killed each year. Yeah. A hundred million they say are killed for the shark fitting industry, but that leaves another 170 million by bi-catch long lining, um, and, and bi-catch as well. Um, and a lot of them, like you said, are being discarded overboard dead already, you know, which, which affects, which is going to affect the ocean. You know, it's going to affect all habitats all around the world. You can't take that many fish out of the sea and not see a change kind of thing. So I, I think the, what you're doing is fantastic. And the, the, the people you're getting to do this, this kind of thing that that's, uh, that's amazing. Did you expect the, sorry, what was the band's name that you, that she said that was big in South Africa? Oh, this is the very first band prime circle. Now, now did you expect, like when you went to that concert and you talked to the manager, did you expect them to say yes? Did you expect to even talk to their manager and say, Hey, you know, this is, this is what I'm trying to do. Well, no, I've just started with, uh, went along on a whim and I took a couple of friends with me, good friends, um, that are also, also worked with the sharks. Um, so actually while I was standing on stage speaking to the manager, they were, they, they saw the band get off stage behind me. So they ran and grabbed them and then when I walked through with the manager, they're all, you know, happily posing with Finn, which was great. That's fantastic. I mean, that must have just sort of, like you said, it's just snowballed into a lot of people, a lot of other people doing this kind of thing. And obviously you probably have a good relationship with a lot of the shark researchers that are in South Africa and, and they, I'm sure any kind of campaign to raise awareness of what's going on. That's, no, they're all very supportive, which is great. And then most post for the campaign already, which is fantastic. Right. Now, um, I want to kind of get into some of this, the new stuff that you're, that you're kind of developing and you're, you're getting into, but before we do, and I think this kind of is a good introduction to it. What is the general attitude in South Africa about sharks, just in the general public? How are they viewed? I mean, obviously sharks are more apparent in South Africa as opposed to something, you know, I live in central Canada. So people know about sharks through shark week and through documentaries and things like that. There aren't a lot of shark attacks in Canada, but people still have a general fear of them just because of the media and stuff like that. But people who see them or had the potential of seeing them quite a bit. What is the, what are the general sort of attitudes towards sharks out there? Well, I guess the same as a lot of places in the world. I mean, the people here, they don't necessarily do the ecotourism things because they live here. And so the most of the time they're hearing about sharks in the media, like the rest of the world, but it's so sensationalised as well. So obviously there's, there's have been a couple of a shark negative shark encounters in the past here because there are millions of people in the ocean every day around the South African coastline alongside sharks, because there's a lot of sharks here too. So obviously, incidences are going to occur. And that's the only time they hear about these sharks is when something like that occurs. Luckily, I've had a couple of articles published and they've obviously been positive in sharks in a positive light, but that's, that's a couple of articles out of goodness knows how many that have been named. Yeah. Of course. So generally they're not, sorry, generally people do not perceive them very well at all. And they're demonised or, or yeah, by the media here. So that's, that's how people see them. So that could be, like, that could translate into eating a shark is okay, because, you know, we don't really, they, they attack us now we're attacking them. Is that kind of the attitude a lot of people take too is towards eating of shark is this like, okay, we don't think anything of it. Yeah. I don't even think they consider it at all. It's just part, part of, part of the general diet. People don't realise, obviously the shark meets used like widely and things like fish and chips and fish fingers here and things like that. So people don't even realise they're eating shark most of the time anyway. So I find that when people realise that there's a possibility they have been eating sharks that they're a little bit wary of it and don't really want to, to eat it in future, which is good. It's interesting you mentioned sort of like the fish and chips and chicken fingers or fish fingers and things like that, because those are usually just when you buy in a grocery store or you're at a, you know, maybe at a restaurant they mention it, but here, you know, we know it's like, it's haddock or cod or, or halibut, but when you buy it in a box in the grocery store, sometimes you tend not to look and they, they could put shark in it. And if you don't know, you could just be like, oh, you know, I had no idea and I'm sure if he said something here, people would be taken aback and be kind of wary. He's like, I'm eating what, you know, I think that's very interesting. But I think that goes more towards a seafood industry thing where a lot of the times we don't know what we're eating, even, even if we think there's been a lot of things coming out now from scientific research where fish markets have been mislabeling food. And the only way you can tell is by genetic, by genetic testing. So even the fish markets don't even know, that's why that's a huge worry in terms of the way we can in the way we consume seafood around the world. If we don't know what it is, then, you know, that that's a huge worry. So we're looking into that a little bit here to speak up for blue. But yeah, I just find it, you know, I just, I just find that kind of thing really interesting, the perspective that people have, especially around, you know, in South Africa. Now, one thing I wanted to, I wanted to get your take on it. I believe it was in South Africa. Was it in the summer? There was the World Surfing Championships. Was that in South Africa? Yes. Right. Hispanic. Yeah. It was worldwide coverage, and of course, this video went viral of Mick Fanning. I guess he was just waiting for his turn, out at seats, it's a surf. And it was a great white that came up and sort of was curious of what was there, and he was able to get away unscathed, thank God. But what happened after that? In South Africa, what was the, I mean, surfing is a big thing in South Africa, I would imagine, especially the World Championships, gets a lot of viewership. What, I mean, what was Mick Fanning's sort of take on it afterwards? Because there have been some pretty funny videos of it coming out after where he's actually wrestling the shark, and he has it over his head, obviously not real. But what was his take on it afterwards as a surfer, who were, usually surfers are pretty pro-environmental movement kind of thing, right? They're very into the ocean, and they give back and that kind of thing. What was his sort of take on it? He didn't want to get back, he didn't want to go surfing again, I know that he said he was sort of put off for a while, but then a couple of months later he did get back in. I think it was just the initial shock. Yeah, so I mean, he didn't say much too negatively against the shark, but because he constantly was saying the shark was coming to attack him, which was not true, but I don't believe it was true, then that obviously put a big pressure on sharks and shark conservation. Yeah, and I mean, in his defense too, I mean, I remember them interviewing him right after it happened, and he just got to shore, and it was like maybe a couple of hours after. That is going to shock your body, that's going to shock your mind. You don't really know what happened, and obviously if the shark wanted to attack, it would have been a very different scenario and probably a different approach to how he discovered the body, but it does seem like the shark was being curious. But I guess I can understand his perspective where it's like, "Oh, the shark was coming at me." And then of course everybody's saying, "Oh, it's attacking, it's attacking because they don't know any better." But from your perspective, how did you guys deal with it? As best we could, any time there was anybody approaching us about it, I had one of the radio stations speak to me about it, it was just to explain to them, "You don't walk away unscathed from a shark attack," and explaining that we believed it was a curious juvenile shark that, you know, swam close to sort of investigate, but I mean, there is a possibility that might have resulted in a bite, we don't know, but obviously it got caught in the McVannings surfboard lead liner rope, and everyone said that it started frenzying as if to attack him, but what I was explaining is sharks, they don't like to be wrapped in something like that, that would immediately stress them out, so it was going to thrash, yeah. So it's trying to almost like talk people through it step by step, this is what we think happened, and this is why we don't think the shark was actually going in, to certainly not to eat McVannings, there's a very small chance it was going in for a bite, because as you know, I mean sharks don't have hands, so they do use their mouths to investigate, but yeah, I mean, the encounter was a negative encounter, but resulted in absolutely no injuries whatsoever, apart from the shark being a bit dazed and confused in terms of the punch to this. Well, I mean, it is surprising, obviously he didn't see the shark come up behind him, he was obviously very surprised, and he did what he had to do to get away, because he never know, and especially if you're being surprised in that situation, I don't know what I would have done, and of course it's, I'm sure his heart was pumping out of his chest as that happened, and as he got pulled to shore, but I mean, I think it's an interesting story, because especially in South Africa, it's such a big thing, it became a big thing around the world, I can just imagine shark researchers and people, shark conservationists and ocean conservationists just, I just kind of went, oh God, like what's going to happen, because you know, every time there's a shark attack, it's like let's go and kill that shark, because that shark now that has a taste for human blood, which is absolutely ridiculous, it's going to go after humans for the rest of life, like jaws, you know, it's almost like they take that persona, but this, what was the aftermath of this, did anything happen to sharks, was there a want to actually go after this shark or any shark? Well, thankfully, white sharks are protected in South Africa, so there isn't the possibility of targeting them like that, which is great, because I'm sure a few fishermen might have jumped on their high horse and tried to go out there after the shark, which is not a possibility, meaning how do you identify that one shark anyway, so luckily, there was no chance of that happening, not legally anyway, yeah, no, that's good, I'm glad that was put into place, I just find it's an interesting story for you guys to deal with, especially you who's in marketing communications and very, a huge advocate of sharks, and you know a lot of these sharks, and you see that happening, you're just like, oh God, I am going to be put into work for the next 48 hours straight about communication and things like that, exactly, right, but it's interesting with that perception, now going with that, you know, a lot of people in South Africa may not know a lot about sharks, just what they see in the media, a lot of negative perceptions of them, you've developed some programs to go into schools, or you're developing a program, have you, give us a little bit of detail, because last time we talked, I wasn't sure if you were developing it, or if it's already been put in place, just give us a deal. Actually, I started the school's program last year, so last October we started it with a shark week, as we called it, so where we did like, I did a week of back-to-back talks in various schools, not just within a week, it was sort of over, over about two weeks, I think, in no, but we call it a shark week, it sounds better. But yeah, it was great, so I mean, I mean, it was exhausting, like I was, you know, an hour of presentation and each of the skills I went to, and what was really good for me is it wasn't just the sort of, the more privileged skills I was in, I was in some of the real poverty-stricken schools as well, because there is a lot of poverty in this country, and I was so happy to get into those skills and discuss it with kids that, I mean, sometimes they don't even get the opportunity to go to the beach, and it's not like it's that far, but they might not have a transport to get there, and they don't have money to, you know, and so it was great speaking to those kids who, I'd say 99% of them all describe the sharks when I asked them what they thought of sharks, so they all had described them as, you know, managers and killers and things like that, so it really needed to happen, you know, as our change of perspective. Right, right, I mean, that's, yeah, and that's amazing, because I mean, that's where you want to really, that's the age groups and the people you can really shape into, you know, change their minds about the actual perceptions easier than you would an adult, right, because adults have their, sometimes we're just stubborn as adults, and we just don't want to change our mind, but kids, when they learn, they actually get involved, and I just think that's fantastic. Now, you're talking about developing a bit of a puppet show? Yeah, so I'm so happy of secured funding through one of the local trust funds to develop this puppet show. Obviously, with the aiming at that, a younger audience, and even younger audience, because so far our masculine talks have been to sort of grade four to seven, so that's our age, so now I'm going to target, you know, as young as two, so I want to target the pre-skills with the puppet show, and again, it's the same sort of thing just done in a much more light-hearted way, where we'll have, I'm not entirely sure the script's yet to be developed, but we're certainly going to concentrate on, you know, the issues facing sharks, but not too scary way as well, you know? Of course, yeah. But also shark biodiversity, because we want to build advocacy for the sharks as well, so we want to make them fun, and we want to make them realise that there's all these different amazing species out there, right under their doorsteps, you know, and so we'll go into that. One of the the big focuses for the puppet show, because there's such easy actions can come out of it, will be plastic pollution, which affects obviously most marine species, so sharks being one of them, so that'll be a really easy thing to get across to them, is like how they can help with that one, is the don't litter and clean up the beach. Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, you know, it's interesting, I go into my daughter's school of two daughters, and they're in elementary, you know, they're six and eight, so I go into their schools every once in a while, and I teach them about different things, and I taught about plastic pollution one time, and I'll tell you, even my daughters to this day, will go on the walk with the dog around the neighbourhood, and they will bring a bag, a garbage bag, and they will pick up the plastic, they will pick up all the debris that's around, especially after winter, because a lot of people tend to hide, you know, garbage day, you know, wind blows, and it gets stuck under snow, so once the snow melts in the spring, you see a lot of pollution, a lot of debris, that's just been out, not on purpose, but not deliberate, but it's there, and they will actually go out and clean it, and then I say, well, why are you picking that up? And they say we're doing it for the ocean. Now, you have to remember, we live in Ontario, in Canada, the great lakes around it, which also have a lot of plastic in them, but they, you know, they do it no matter what, because I tell them, I'm like, everything will end up in the ocean at some point in time, or a waterway, so they understand it, they get it, and they're not afraid to act. That's what I love about kids, they're not afraid to go out and say, hey, let's pick, there have been times you're like, no, no, don't get your hands dirty by picking up the debris, but then I'm like, you know, maybe I should tell them, you know, just be careful of what you're picking up, but also like, it's okay, bring it, we'll wash your hands when you get back, you know what I mean, and we tend to get, I find as adults, we tend to get, we're always in a rush to go somewhere, but then these kids are like, oh, no, no, no, this is, this is pollution, let's pick it up, and let's put it in the garbage, or in the recycling, or in the compost, or things like that, so I find that targeting kids is just fantastic, now I do have to ask you a question, sorry to cut you off, I just have to ask you a question, your daughter is a strong shark advocate, is she gonna be involved in this puppet show, because she's, the way she wears some of the things, she kind of looks like an adorable puppet right now. Absolutely, oh no, she would definitely have to be involved, she'll be certainly my test audience, but yeah, she's absolutely completely behind all the shark stuff I do, which is fantastic, yeah, definitely got a big shark advocate then, and you know what you were saying about your, your daughter is picking up litter on the street, you know, she knows, you know, that with balloons, she has a thing for balloons, but she's only allowed balloons indoors, because if they blow out of her hand, or you know, a little bit pops, and you know, blows up in the wind somewhere, she knows that, well, to her, it'll end up in the stomach of a shark or Nemo. Yeah, well it's true, and that's, it's interesting, because if you think about how many parties you go to, you have to have balloons, right? Balloons are always there, and you go to parades and everything, I noticed balloons everywhere, and how do you tell a kid, no, no, you can't use a balloon, because this, but there's certain ways you can use balloons and dispose of them appropriately, so that they don't end up in the ocean, and they don't add up in the shark's stomach, or some stomachs there, you know, of other fish and whatnot, so, yeah, I find it, you know, quite challenging at times, but I find with, with, when you, when you talk to, I mean obviously I'm in science communication and ocean communication, but you get people that get it, and the people who may not have been exposed to it before, but once you expose, and they get it, and with kids, they can, they'll go back to their parents, talk to them about the day, and they'll want to do stuff about it, they want to act, that's what I love about kids, is they, they want to act. Do you know, what, what's great is actually I work with them, I'm an ambassador for Sarasota Finns as well, so they, you know, they aim to get sort of material about sharks into school, so the teachers can sort of teach kids more about sharks, and various aspects of sharks, not just conservation, but it is in there, and so I'm actually going to be working on a new project we've just decided, so I hadn't told you about this one, but where we want to, this is just an idea, again I came up with a couple of weeks ago, where we want to provide, well actually it sort of came about from two ambassadors in Ontario, finally enough, so we have a Finn in Ontario, and we have kids, and their kids wanted to actively get involved, so just a nice way to do this is we're going to provide them with materials so they can present, so you know what, they're show and tell, they're the ones that are presenting, so it's kids presenting to kids about shark conservation, or other aspects of sharks as well, but I think conservation is going to be the big focus for us, and I think that's going to work really nicely. And you know what, when you, when that's developed, you can come in there, let me know, and if you want to share them with other people, we'll put them on, however you want to distribute them, we'll put them on the website, your contact information, and things like that, so more people can get involved in that, I think that'd be fantastic. Well we want to make it as easy as possible, so it'll be, you know, because like I said, I'd do a lot of kids here who are like in complete poverty, so I mean, but their skills have access to a printer, so I can send over a material that can be printed and presented, just standing there, they don't have to have PowerPoint or anything like that, like some of the skills have that facility, some of the skills won't, just making it as easy as possible for kids to present to other kids. I think that's fantastic, fantastic work. I mean, one thing I love about, about USC is you're very innovative, and you have all these ideas, and it's probably from the marketing background and communications background that maybe, I mean as a scientist, we're very linear in our thoughts, you know, a lot of the times. We do end up being creative at times, but especially when we're into our research, and we're focusing on specific aspects, we don't have the time, or sometimes we just, we don't think the way you're thinking in terms of the innovation and the education, and getting into schools, and talking to different, you know, different schools and teachers, and allowing, empowering the teachers to teach their kids about sharks and their plight and the issues, but also their beauty and their diversity. So that's fantastic. Congratulations on that, and I really, we really appreciate it from a conservation perspective, and from this audience perspective, all the stuff you're doing, you know, starting off with just the passion that you had, you know, making some, some big risks in life to travel, you know, down to the different pole and, and say, hey, this is what I'm going to be doing, and now you've got a wonderful life down there, and a daughter who sounds like she's going to be a marine biologist to me, or, or the same as her mom, but, you know, a marine conservationist who's going out and, and making sure that the plight of sharks are heard, and hopefully by her age, we won't have to deal with the same issues, we'll, we'll be dealing with much more positive issues in sharks by the time she grows to be but thank you very much. I really, sorry, go ahead. No, I was going to say that's just, you know, well, my one hope is that I can just like spur a couple of kids on to do some, some really good things in future. And, you know, I'll be very happy. Oh, yeah. No, for sure. And I mean, that's, that's what we do. If it's just one child at a time, you know, that's, that's just the way we get, we get to do it. And, and now with technology, we can actually get more. I mean, you're reaching people, you know, around the world with your pictures and whatnot. And I think that's, that's fantastic. And just a, we never really got into it, but just briefly, can you just tell us what ocean research is planning on doing in the next, over the next year, over the next few months, just give us a description. Obviously, they're very scientific. They're very into the ocean research, but great white shark research and shark research, other shark research. What are they, are they getting involved in this year, just to kind of give people a little, a little taste? Well, so there's a couple of big things are working on one is Dylan, who's, who's the scientist in residencies working on a population study of great white sharks. So that's going to be really interesting because there's been local studies done of shark populations, but they've never been encompassed into taking account of all the populations. There's also using various methods for tracking them. So, you know, you've got your, you can, or use a site, obviously, so observing them, but it's also using acoustic tagging as well. So, it'll be really interesting to get that information and encompass all these different areas, these concentrations of white sharks and find out more about their populations. That's going to be, you know, he's working on that this year and coming towards the end of it, actually. So, I'm going to be excited to see what his findings are going to be. And then the other big one is I'm going to be working with Miko Janari, who's the director of research on a plastic pollution project. So, obviously, I brought it into my campaign a little bit, but we're going to try and make a big thing of it because it's a huge, huge thing that's having a major effect on all the ocean around the world. Absolutely, absolutely. Fantastic. I mean, we'll have to have those researchers on and discuss their individual projects. I think that'd be that'd be awesome. But again, Esther, thank you very much for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. What we'll do is we're going to put a bunch of links that people can go to on the different projects or even the websites and so they can get more information. We'll put that on the show notes at speakupforblue.com/session104 so people can get access to that. So, thank you very much, Esther. I really appreciate you taking the time. No, thank you. Yeah. And I hope you'll be a Finn hugger soon. I'm going to say and make sure Finn gets to you. Please do. I've got two daughters and myself and my wife. We'll put up pictures. We'll put it on all our social media and I will definitely get it out there. That'd be awesome. Thanks a lot, Esther. Just stay on the line for a little bit and then we'll say goodbye. Okay, thank you. You bet. So, that was Esther, Jacob Overbeak. I hope you enjoyed the episode. If you want more information on Esther and Ocean's research and the stuff that she's done in the past, we're going to put a bunch of links on the show notes, which is speakupforblue.com/session104. Okay. So, all you have to do is just go on to those show notes. You can click the links or download anything that we have for you. And yeah, it'll be great. So, all you have to do is just do that. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you get a different perspective of sharks and especially great white sharks after this interview after listening to this. If you do go on the show notes, put in the comments how you felt about sharks before and after this interview if it changed your mind and the great and congratulate Esther on presenting the sharks in a different way and the work that she's done and the life that she's built for herself. She's got a wonderful young family, a daughter who's very into sharks, loving sharks, whereas these cute shark outfits all the time. And I think it's important. She lives in Bree's marine conservation. And you just go to show her passion for what she's doing. And she's instilling it in her the next generation of Overbeaks. So, I think that's fantastic. So, yeah, if you have any comments, just put on the show notes, speakupforblue.com/session104. You can also, if you want to support our podcast, love what we do, love to hear more. You can do so at patreon.com. So, if you go to speakupforblue.com/patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N, you can put in a level support that you wish. Obviously, there's different incentives of different supports. It doesn't take long to register if you're not already registered with Patreon. But you can support us on a monthly basis. We'd really appreciate it. It allows us to do more in ocean conservation. So, I really appreciate that because there's a lot of costs that go into it, a lot of costs in reaching people with our message. And we want to go worldwide with this with this sucker. We want to really help raise awareness. It's a great platform. There's a lot of people who are listening to podcasts. And this is a great platform to communicate through and talk about ocean conservation. So, you've been listening to speakupforbluepodcast. I appreciate it for watching. My name is Andrew Lewin. Happy conservation. Happy Wednesday. Talk to you. [Music]