How To Protect The Ocean
SUFB 060: Ocean Talk Friday Dolphin Friendly Labelling; Fish Vessel ID; Citizen Science; and, Fish Camouflage
Nathan Johnson is our guest on the Ocean Talk Friday Show this week as we talk about Dolphin Friendly Labelling; Fishing Vessel ID; Citizen Science; and, Fish Camouflage.
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Well, going to the speaker for blue podcast session 60. Holy cow, I can't believe we're at number 60 already. This is fantastic. I just want to thank everybody for listening to the podcast, subscribing and downloading each and every episode. I really appreciate it. And I look forward to providing more episodes, but today, let's get into today's episode. We got Ocean Talk Friday. We're going to be talking about fishing, we're going to be talking about food labeling and how it can help reduce bycatch. We're also going to talk about some citizen science projects and what makes fish some fish invisible in the plain ocean without hiding. So it's going to be kind of interesting. Here we go. Ocean Talk Friday on the speaker for blue podcast. Hey everybody, welcome back to the speak up for blue podcast, your voice for the ocean. I am your host, Andrew Lewin, founder, speakupforblue.com, marine ecologist and self-proclaimed ocean printer. And today is Ocean Friday. One of my favorite days, why because, well, one, it's Friday. And two is we get to have our guest on the show who is again, recurring. He keeps coming back, which is awesome. Nathan Johnson, how you doing, buddy? I'm doing fantastic. How are you doing? Oh, wonderful. Wonderful. Having a great time. This is going to be a good episode because this week, as you've heard some of the podcast episodes right, you know, and I've been going on, they were depressing. The first three days were pretty depressing in terms of those bad news coming in. And I just wanted to bring it up. And you, I think you kind of hinted on that after listening to the podcast because you sent some stories that you wanted to talk about today and they're a little up, they're more uplifting. You know, there's more about people getting involved and more about what's going on and how we can really get engaged in ocean conservation. So I appreciate that. Thanks for looking for those stories. I got some too that are, that are pretty interesting, some, some ways that, you know, we can end illegal fishing and some ways that that, that fish, I think this is a cool story, probably one of the coolest ones I've seen in a while is ways that fish can become invisible just by swimming in the ocean. I think it's fantastic. So we're going to talk all about that. So let's get into it. I'm not going to talk about the store that we have. Not going to talk about the store. Oh, by the way, I know I'm Canadian, but happy Thanksgiving to you, Nathan. And happy Thanksgiving to every, all our US listeners out there. We have a big proponent of US listeners, so I want to say thank you very much. And as I was going to say, I'm not going to advertise our online store. It has everything 20% off this weekend. I'm not going to advertise that because there's no point. Everybody knows it's Black Friday, so everything has to have a sale. But by the way, if you want to, you can go buy some items from the Speaker for Blue podcast shop at speakerforblue.com/shop. Anytime you buy something, not only do you raise awareness just by using the items, whether it be a t-shirt or a mug or anything like that that has a saying on it that raises awareness, but you actually help support our partner, which is sea turtles forever. A great organization that helps sea turtles also helps clean up beaches. They've just been a fantastic organization. It's a smaller organization, but it has a really big impact than every time you buy from that store, the Speaker for Blue online shop, you support that organization right off the bat. Every revenue after cost will go towards that organization. It's a really great organization. But I'm not going to mention that. I didn't mention that. You didn't hear that from me. But you can go to the store, speakerforblue.com/shop. All right. Let's get back into the show. It's Ocean Talk Friday. Let's start it off, Nathan. What's our first story? Our first story is about the World Trade Organization. It's not a happy one, but that's okay. We'll get through it. We'll go back a little bit. Tuna fishing in the Pacific historically has also resulted in a lot of dolphin bycatch because dolphin and tuna hang out are in the same areas. A lot of fishing methods that catch tuna from all the way up until the 1990s have historically also caught a lot of dolphins, which can lead to mortality and death of dolphins. In the '90s, the United States put on a ban for any fishing methods that they deemed unsafe to dolphins for tuna. For example, any fishing methods that have a high dolphin bycatch, the U.S. will not import them. They started this thing called dolphin-friendly labeling where any sort of tuna that's sold in the U.S. can opt into if they follow the restrictions the guidelines set by the U.S. have their tuna can labeled dolphin-friendly, so you know that it was caught with dolphin-friendly methods basically. Some other countries specifically in Mexico did not like that this ban on fishing methods that also harmed dolphins was being unfairly restrictive for Mexico imports. That's what they claim. They challenged the U.S. on this law. It went all the way to the World Trade Organization and today, for the fourth time in the last five years, the World Trade Organization ruled against the dolphin labeling. What this means is that, well actually, it's a little confusing as to how the U.S. will go forward, but what it means is that they'll have to work together with Mexico and the World Trade Organization to basically figure this out because essentially what the World Trade Organization was saying is that Mexico has a point. It seems like it's not an issue about the fact that the U.S. wants to label dolphin-friendly tuna or that they want to restrict dolphin mortality. From the articles that I've read, it seems like it's more the implementation of the standards. Mexico feels like they don't have a clear idea of what these standards are. The U.S. is kind of unfairly making them more restrictive regarding Mexico imports, which makes them more difficult for Mexico to import tuna into the U.S., which hurts their trade hurts their economy and the World Trade Organization basically said, "Yeah, you guys got to figure this out. You can't keep doing it the way it's been doing." A lot of environmentalists are upset, what I would just encourage is to read through the entire thing because it's not necessarily a final blow for dolphin-friendly practices. What it just means is that as we're implementing them now, we're going to have to change them in the future. I think this is still a really good practice. I think it's still going to be in effect to a certain degree. It is a shame that how it was enacted currently was kind of struck down, but hopefully Mexico and the U.S. can work together in getting this on track again because I think all fishermen want to basically prevent as much dolphin mortality as they can, but just from an ecological standpoint, this article says there's been a 97% reduction in dolphin deaths since this thing's enacted. It seems to work, we just need to figure out how we can implement this more fairly across the board. I find it interesting because the article went into not only the World Trade Organization, but it went into, I guess Mexico argued from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the TPP, which has been in the news lately here in Canada, at least, but it's basically a partnership between it's over 20 countries, I believe, in the Pacific Ocean, that have borders on the Pacific Ocean. What they did is they essentially said, "Through the TPP, this is not fair," and it doesn't necessarily say that Mexico uses these practices that catches dolphins. It's just assumed, but it doesn't necessarily say they use it, but it's one of those things where it's like, I guess what the article is also saying too, it's saying these partnerships, these big partnerships kind of force countries to do specific things because other countries want them to do it. You lose a little bit of that freedom as an independent country to make decisions on your own. For instance, the US can just say, "Screw it, we're going to keep putting dolphins safe labels on because that's what is valuable to us because we know it works. We have the proof, we have the evidence that there's a reduction of 97% which is amazing in dolphin killings catching tuna, so we're just going to keep putting those labels on, but they can't because of this, if they want to stay in this trans-specific partnership, which has a lot of other economic benefits, then it has to abide by these rules." It will be interesting, you're right, it is a little confusing to see if the US and other countries are going to abide by this because I know in Canada we also have the dolphin safe label because we probably get a lot of the products from the US, but it'll be interesting to see if we see the dolphin safe label anymore or if that dolphin safe label gets a little corrupted where it's not totally dolphin safe because labeling in Canada at least and probably the US is not perfect. I remember I did a course and it was like agri-food economics or something like that in first year. It was really interesting, we talked about labels and when it says fat-free on a yogurt container, it actually means 1.5% fat. It doesn't actually mean fat-free, it's not 0% fat. The labeling is equal to 1.5% fat, but you don't know that because all you're seeing is fat-free. Oh, perfect, but that's just a word, it doesn't actually match up with the number. So I wonder if that's what's going to happen with this dolphin safe is the label, which I hope it doesn't. I really do, I hope it stays dolphin safe, but we may even see the disappearance of it or we might kind of question it next time we see it, is this dolphin safe? Or is it going to say not dolphin safe from Mexico because we can't be sure? So I think it's concerning, I think it's great that this article has come out and people know that there's a 97% reduction in dolphin death, that's a huge number, I still can't get over that when I read this article. But it's one of those things where it's like, okay, let's keep this going, let's fight for this label because it works. We know it works and it's something that we can do so we can still fight for it. Talk to your politicians and say, no, let's keep this label, screw what Mexico says, let's just keep the label, work it out because it works. What's interesting too, this article talks a lot about how these places, like these partnerships really corrupt, really are not good for environmental protections and they violate a lot of these environmental protections, whether it be oil and gas or mining trade or anything like that. It kind of forces countries to do those kind of things, just kind of go back on their word or damage the environment even more. I think we have to be careful when we look at these partnerships, it's an economic benefit, but does it actually benefit the environment? Yeah, and to your point, the WTO and the TPP are very much trade focused. That's their goal, so they're not environmental focused. They say they do, I know the TPP says part of what they're going to do is try and conserve these habitats from a sustainability standpoint, but when push comes to shove, they're mostly focused on trade. I think that the issue isn't that Mexico is just killing dolphins every time it goes out to fish for tuna. I think what it appears to be at least, and I could be wrong on this, but that the US restrictions and basically the method for becoming a dolphin safe product in the US, according to that label, is different from, I guess, traditional international standards on this, or what the international community has agreed is dolphin safe. It seems like the US has a further definition of that, which personally, I think that's good. If you have a 97% reduction, it shows that whatever you're doing is working. But so, I think what Mexico is saying is that the US's definition is too harsh, and according to Mexico is unfairly implemented. So, hopefully, what this means is they don't necessarily have to get rid of the label, or that they even have to change their qualifications for how to become a dolphin-friendly product or import. I think it sounds like they very much just have to talk it out between Mexico and the US. US just has to know that the World Trade Organization isn't really helping them in this. So, whether it's, we'll need a lot of community support, we'll need to stress the importance of keeping these labels, and we'll need to find ways that the US and Mexico can work together on this. But you're right. Hopefully, it doesn't mean a degradation of the label or a complete removal of it all together. Yeah, I completely agree. It's definitely going to be something that the US and Mexico have to work out, because I just can't see them getting rid of it. I can't see them accepting. I can't see the US accepting practices where it increases dolphin mortality. It just doesn't make sense when everything is reduced. To reverse that doesn't make sense to me. But anyway, let's move on to the next story. We're going to talk more about fishing, but this is a story that came out of the Pew Charitable Trust. If you don't know what the Pew Charitable Trust is, it's basically a foundation, and I guess a charitable foundation that covers a lot of different topics, I guess, and they do a lot of work with governments all around the world to not only work with environmental factors or issues, but they work with poverty and social issues and all that kind of stuff. It's international development and wonderful stuff like that. They do a lot of great work, and actually in one of the episodes that we have, we had Angelo Villagomez on who was at the time part of their shark research team, and now he's part of their ocean conservation team. So the Pew does a lot of great, great things. They've had an article on this on fishing and how to track illegal fishing using low-tech identification schemes. And I thought this article was pretty interesting. They essentially said that now that there are more and more large fishing vessels that are more than, I think it's 185,000 tons, 185,600 tons, and it's still growing. Oh, sorry, there are over 100 gross tons that it's over 24 meters, and the number has reached over 185,600 vessels, and it's still growing. So these are pretty large vessels that can handle a lot of fish, and there's no real way of tracking them that can be sustainable. Right now they can be identified by name of the ship, by the call sign on their radio, and the flag of registration. But all those can be changed, and they actually even mentioned this that has happened. I can't believe that this goes on, but sometimes a fishing boat will go out illegally fish and then repaint the boat while let's see to make it look like it's a different boat and put the different name, change the flag of registration, change the call sign, and then it's all of a sudden it's a different boat, and it can't be traced back to the original owner, which is pretty disappointing. I guess it's cunning, but it's pretty disappointing to see that happening. What they're talking about here, the Pew, is implementing what they call mandatory IMO numbers. I'm going to see what they, oh, I forgot what they stand for. It's international marine. Anyway, we'll find it. Anyway, the IMO numbers, essentially what they do is it's a specific serial number for the ship, and it'll be put on the ship, it'll be put on the engine, it'll be put on the name, it'll be put on the bridge, it'll be put on the actual, eventually it'll put on the fishing gear and everything like that, it'll all be put on so that we can identify everything that belongs to that ship. Apparently, this has been accepted by a lot of the different international bodies, the Commission of the Conservation of Arctic Marine Living Resources, which manages fishing in the Southern Ocean, implemented this in 2013, and now more international bodies are starting to implement it. We're going to see a lot of these things, and the FAO has also agreed to add the IMO number and it says the best number and uniquely identify ships in a database, and it's just a really good way to put this number on. Nathan, what do you think of this kind of number? Do you think it'll work? I hope so. It's one of those stories that I think really just shows you how far behind we are in some aspect. We always talk about once you get out past the exclusive economic zone, there's the high seas, there's really no legal restrictions there, but I think this kind of shows you how much of a problem that is, is that we can't even track these boats. We just have to take people's word that their boat's always been blue and that's all we can do. I hope it will work. It sounds like they've got some credibility, like you said, they've used it for a few years if you're fishing in the Southern Ocean. A lot of other international bodies have already accepted this as a good idea, and I think merchant fleets already have to do this. It's mostly talking about fishing vessels. I'm sure it will work. I think the really interesting thing is what types of information and actions will they take now that they can track these boats. The major thing that it talks about in the Pew article is it'll prevent illegal fishing because we can monitor illegal fishing boats better. I agree. I think that's probably one of the hugest things it can do, but I can also see some fishing vessels kind of being worried about, okay, we put an identifier on our boat. Is that basically just going to be sort of a way to keep us in line? Are you going to do monthly checks or whatever and make sure we're not breaking any laws, which is probably very well justified, but you can also understand if the fishing vessels are thrilled about it. I think the thing is, and I'm sure Pew has done this because they're really good at working with all stakeholders involved to show them that it benefits these fishing vessels because it will cut down on the amount of people poaching in certain areas, undercutting prices for people who are fishing completely legally. This may sound silly, but I wonder if there's some sort of reward system for boats who traditionally never get caught with or never break any of these rules, because I think that could be a huge incentive. If you've been found for five years, 10 years, completely clean record, there should be some sort of benefit for that. I don't think we necessarily need to incentivize people to do their jobs properly, but I don't think it could hurt to sort of say that, hey, this isn't just to kind of crack down on you. It's not like we just want to keep tabs on you. You're a teenager out past curfew. This is very much like we just want to monitor things better and see how things are going on so we can manage everything more effectively. Yeah. It's interesting because I've seen a few studies, one in the Great Barrier Reef and one in the Gulf of Mexico, where in the Gulf of Mexico, the study was for shrimpers, shrimp trawlers that had to have, they were part of a study, it was actually they contracted a consulting company to manage the tracking systems on these boats, and it was the actual industry, the shrimping industry, so as all the boats were all, like all the fishermen were all in for this program, and what they did is they tracked where the boats went, and they wanted to track where the boats went just to show themselves where they go, where most ships hang out, and all that kind of stuff. In the Great Barrier Reef, they found out they did it as well, they had voluntary fishermen, or actually they're mandatory if you want to fish in the Great Barrier Reef, you had to have a tracking system, or you had to have a GPS, and what they actually found, when they went to rezone all their marine areas, so they want to increase the number of no-take areas from 3% to 30%, but the fishermen were like, "You can't do that, you're going to take everything away from us," so they said, "Okay, well, I'll tell you what, we'll track you, just see where you go," and then we're going to put where we want to put where we want to increase our no-take areas, and we're going to overlay those on top of your tracks, and when they did that, all the areas that they wanted to increase didn't overlap with the trawlers, and so the trawlers were like, "Yeah, go ahead then, we don't care, we're not there," they're like, "Okay, perfect," and it actually increased the spillover effect and made fishing even better, so they went from 3% to 30%, just because of this data, and because they had volunteer fishermen that wanted to do this kind of thing, and actually they mandated everybody to do it, and the fishermen loved it, because they didn't lose any of their prime fishing areas, it was obviously, it was all, you know, kept secret, but the government was able to increase, the park was able to increase their no-take from 3% to 30%, which is massive, right, when you think about the Great Brave Reef, it's all zoned, and in the Gulf of Mexico, I don't know exactly what the point was, but I think it was just to find out where they go, it was really cool though, because when they put the GPS tracker on, it takes, you can calculate the speed, and when they, you know, you knew when they were trawling by the speed that they were going, and then you, when they weren't trawling, because they were going faster, so it was very interesting to see how that happened, and if you do like the graphic and the modeling, you can actually see it in real time, it's really cool, but I think, you know, tracking systems should be on them, any kind of tracking system, numbers, serial numbers, especially on like fishing nets, because then you can go back and be like, hey, by the way, we found your fishing net wrapped around a seal that you left in the ocean, you know, you are fine for this, you know, it'll decrease people from, you know, taking it out real mind you, they could always take off that number, I don't know how exactly it would manage that, but I think it's, I think it kind of holds them accountable, but I think it's also good, if they want to keep fishing, they're gonna have to, they're gonna have to do this kind of stuff, and they're gonna have the, we're fishing unsustainably right now, and illegal fishing is the big part of it, so you can't, there's no point in setting quotas when people are going over those quotas, so setting the quotas, I like the incentive program by rewarding people, and fishing, the fisher people who actually abide by those rules, I think, I think you're in a good place, you know, you get the incentive program, you get extra money, or you get extra quotas, or whatever, you know, you actually, you know, you become a responsible fisherman, and maybe get attributed as that, and I think that's really important for a lot of these fishermen, so I think it's important, I think it's a good step forward, I think we should use this, it looks like it's going into this kind of area, but I think it'll be, it'll be good, it'll be interesting to see how this develops though, yeah, yeah well, yeah let's move into the next story, because this is kind of cool, when I first read this story, I'll let you describe it in a sec, but it was inside of Scientific American, and the title is "Humpback Tales Wanted", and I was like, oh dear lord, what is going on, I've read some nasty articles this week, and now people are trying to get humpback tales, tell us what this article is all about, Nathan, before everybody freaks out. So this article is for all, for our yachting demographic out there, so those people who download this free podcast while they're on their yacht, you know, we know who our audience is, so we want to tailor this to them, there's a website called caribtales.org, short for Caribbean, and and it's a website dedicated to gathering and analyzing photographs basically of humpback whale tales, so what it is, is that the goal of this is a citizen science project in the Caribbean for people who yacht down there who, you know, frequently boat in the area to photograph any humpback whales that they see send them to this website, provide any other information they need, and they can use these tail identifications to get individual specific information on these whales. So for a lot of marine mammals, dolphins, whales, I'm honestly not sure if seals and sea lions in the same way, but you can use sharks, I know, are similar to like this sometimes too, you can use dorsal fin patterns or caudal fin fluke patterns to identify individual, and so you can track that, you know, not just a population or a species, but you can track that individual throughout migration patterns, throughout seasons and years, and their life cycle, so the whole point is that we don't know a lot about where humpback whales go between the North Atlantic, where they spend most of their time feeding, and then when they go down to the Caribbean for breeding, so what this is, it's a citizen science project meant to get people involved in not only caring about these whales, since, you know, a lot of people already care about whales, it's, you know, an easy thing to get people excited about, but now they can actually contribute to this research on them, and all they have to do is take a photo of the tail fin, which, you know, anyone who's out on a yacht or a boat could probably do pretty easily. So it's a really cool idea, we're seeing a lot more of this in research, the last five to 10 years is engaging people in science. From a scientific point of view, it's great if the project is, is designed for that, you know, if you don't need a lot of technical expertise, you basically get free data from a lot of other people who are interested in your work, but from a public point of view, you're going to care more about things that you have a say and that you have, you know, the potential to make a difference in, so they're learning about these whales, they're learning about the research. I think a lot of people usually are also, they just assume scientists know everything, which, you know, they know a lot, but I think this type of thing shows, you know, it gets people excited because they're like, oh, you actually don't know this, we can help contribute to all this data, and we can help answer a question for you. So I think it's a really cool idea. Yeah, I do too. I think this is one of those things where I think the, you know, the way it works is you take a photo, when you see a humpback, and hopefully it'll be a good one, and then you submit the photos. So you're not actually interpreting it yourself, you're just submitting the photos, the photos go into this database, and then goes into a software program of some sort, whether it be customized, or, you know, some sort of of pay as you like, you know, some sort of payment software, or commercial software is what the word I was looking for. And then it identifies the, you know, individuals based of each photograph based on the flute pattern, or whatever pattern they have. I think it's fantastic. This is one of those things where it engages yauders even more, and cruisers even more, because they get involved. They can go back to the, to the, I'm looking on the site right now, they can go back to the site, and they can look at all the things, they can submit their photos. I'm sure there's a way that they can follow up on how their photos are doing, and what they've actually identified. They've, they've identified a specific whale, and whatnot. And I just think it's fantastic. I think this site can, can really do a lot, and just get more people involved. And that's a beautiful thing about citizen science. The one disadvantage of citizen science, and I think this kind of covers it, is, is the fact that you always worry about the science integrity. You know, you get scientists like you and I, we're trained in specific ways to do field data and collect, you know, collect information. Some citizens that aren't scientists are not, but usually citizen science programs have protocols, and they're not hard to, to go through. It's not as if you're working with chemicals, it's not, you know, it's all safe and everything. And these are photographers, like these photographers are probably pretty good photographers nowadays with the cameras, and all the different lenses and stuff like that. And people really get into it. So I think it's one of those things that's fantastic to do. I, there's nothing I wouldn't want to do more to do more than to travel around the Caribbean on a yacht taking pictures. I would love that. Like that sounds awesome. So if people are doing it, all the power to them, and I'm going to try and get these guys on the show, because I think this is, this is a pretty cool thing. But yeah, I think this is a great, like there's really nothing wrong with this, this program. I think it's fantastic. Well, and the great thing is, if you're out in the Caribbean, you're going to take pictures of whales anyway. Yeah, for sure. Like that's absolutely. So they're already doing this. And you're right, you're not going to ask people to, you know, create a citizen science project that analyzes like genomic data and use the stuff like that. But stuff like these visual identifications where you just need photographs that they probably have a set guidelines for how your photo should be. And there's some quality control involved. But for the most part, I think you're right, these people are good photographers. They can probably take these pictures just fine. Yeah. And to be honest, like to actually do, I've done photo identification, like I've worked with the identification software where, you know, images have been taking about of certain whales. These were these were G's in the Beaufort Sea, bowhead whales. And, you know, I would, you know, anybody can really do it. If you work with the software, if you're good with saw, like learning different pieces of software, all you have to do is identify specific markings on each whale. And then the software kind of takes care of the rest. It looks at that pattern searches the database, tries to find the same pattern. And then that's an individual. And then you just make sure that that's, you know, the patterns match up. It's not very difficult, but this is just makes it even simpler. And I think you're right, people are already taking pictures. So might as well submit them, submit a copy and do something great for the ocean. Because usually if you're out on the ocean, you're in love with the ocean. That's usually what it is. You're not only if you don't like the ocean, you're not going to be out on it, right? So I'm thinking a lot of people who can kind of take this one thing I would like to see. And I don't see it on this is a map with all the different sightings. I think that would be kind of cool to see. But they will work with them to do that. But anyway, yeah, that's I think this is a fantastic thing. This is a this is definitely a good find. Not what I expected. I have to admit, I thought people were trying to look for humpback tails and keep them and put them up in their on their wall and didn't like that. But no, not at all. That's completely different. So I'm glad my sick mind that wasn't right this time. Let's move on to the last story. This story is kind of cool. I saw this it was on it was I saw this headline on Facebook. And it says, how fish make themselves invisible? And it says the mystery has been solved. This is off of National Geographic, who's been who we've had on the news lately. But you know, it's one of those things that they talk about these look down jacks and and shads and big-eye scads, sorry, who have specific cells in their bodies to make them very highly reflective. So when light shines on them, they're almost invisible. You can't see them. And I think it's really cool because these the look down and scads and the big-eye scads, they're very thin animals, very shiny, very silvery. If they were coming head on to you in the ocean as a diver, you may not see it right away. You may see something moving, but you won't see it because they're that thin. But on the side, they're very, you know, very flat, very shiny. And you wonder like how they're open ocean schooling fish? How do they protect themselves from predators? And this study kind of takes a theory that people have had for a while and say, well, they're highly reflective. But what they went in, they went in further, they looked at this study, they did it in open ocean. They've never done it in the open ocean. They started flashing this specific device at the fish at different angles. And they noticed at 45 degree angles, they have these cells that reflect light. And it's very difficult to see. And they say a lot of the predators actually attack at 45 degree angles. So it's kind of a cool thing, a mystery that's been solved of how these jacks and scads kind of just swim in the open ocean. And they're fine. You know, for the most part, I'm sure some predators can, can eat them, but you're just like, wow, like this is pretty cool. Like, how can you make yourself invisible or camouflage in a sea full of blue, like unless you're blue? But these things are really shiny and really bright. So what are you, what are your thoughts on this? I really like these articles, because again, I think it just shows people a lot of the cool research that's still out there that, you know, you probably don't think about how these, like you said, they basically pancake fish swimming on the sides. How have they been alive for thousands of years? If you know, there's open ocean fish that are basically, you know, these types of things are like prey for anything larger than it. So, you know, it also kind of shows like all of the stuff that goes on in the ocean that you don't really think about or notice. And so in this instance, it's polarized light is kind of the key to all of this is that these fish reflect the polarized light, which is very common in marine environments in which a lot of fish use or can see in marine environments. So they might use it to locate prey or anything like that. So, you know, when you think about it, it kind of makes sense. The fact that, like you said, they are open ocean fish, they've got to have some sort of protection because there's not a whole lot of like hiding places in the open ocean. And so the other interesting thing is that it kind of touched on some similar research regarding shrimp that, you know, there's been some studies that show shrimp can see polarized light very well. And they're wondering why that could be, but it seems to have some relation with the fact that polarized light is a really, is a really, I guess, focused on aspect for these fish. You know, they use it a lot, shrimp need to see it. So it's it's kind of, you know, these things, these animals are one up in each other from an evolution standpoint. So, you know, you they're probably predators that attack from not 45 degrees because they probably learned that if they attack 45, they can't see these fish. And there are probably some fish that have adapted to that as well. So it's, it's really cool just how this escalates and how there's feedback between them. So, I find this fascinating. This is really cool stuff. Yeah, it is. It's kind of one of those tidbits of information. It's like you can put on, you know, like a trivia quiz or something like that with people because this is the stuff that really gets us excited as scientists. We like to discover these things. They're sort of physiological. They have an ecological function and an evolutionary function. And it just it shows how these fish have adapted over the years. I mean, if you think about it, there there are a lot of times are swimming in open ocean with nothing else around other than large predators. And when large, and it's not as if these large predators come across these fish often, but when they do, you know, these fish have to be ready to defend themselves. They don't want to get eaten. You know, they already swim in schools to reduce the chance of an entire school getting eaten. But this, you know, you know, imagine like a, you know, a big, you know, fish coming along a barracuda or a tuna or something like that comes by and all of a sudden they can't see you. You know what I mean? They just go right by. I think that's a pretty phenomenal thing. It's something that you don't expect to see, you know, kind of geeking out. It's like that invisible cloak of Harry Potter, you know, as soon as somebody comes by, you don't want to be seen, boom, you pop that on. And, you know, that's, that's the way it goes. You know, they don't even see you and you walk by and you can do whatever you want. So, excuse me, I think it's great. I love these things. And this is what we love about National Geographic. So keep this stuff up National Geographic and we'll keep, we'll keep putting it on our on our podcast, right? Yeah, more cool science stuff. Yeah, and we haven't, I haven't seen one of these in a while. And there's actually another one, another article that I saw that we'll probably cover next week of a specific animal that was, that's known off the coast of Australia. So it's a little nematode. And I think it's a little weren't flatworm. And I think it's a pretty cool thing. It takes on the box jelly, which is, which is pretty cool. I'm excited. It's invertebrates. That's right. It's your invertebrates. I'm excited. I'll send you the article and we can think about it for the whole week and we can we can chat about it next week. But yeah, that's it for today. We ran it. We've ran out of stories. We've run out of time. It's been great. Thank you very much, Nathan, for coming on. This has been amazing. And we recorded this earlier than normal a day earlier because it is Thanksgiving and Nathan's going back home to feed on some turkey and some mashed potatoes and whatever he feeds on probably watch some football and watch my fantasy team do crap. I'm going in so bad. Oh, yeah. Yes, you are. You wear jogging pants right to dinner. That's what you wear, isn't it? Yeah, I'm just packing like three pairs of sweatpants. That's all you need. That's yeah, that's all you need. But you know, I appreciate you coming on and I know you're you're traveling. So safe travels. Yeah, thanks for grabbing me. Yeah, you bet. Absolutely. And thank you audience for for staying on and listening to us. We really appreciate it. I just want to let you know that last week we passed 10,000 downloads, which is a huge feat, especially for, you know, for an ocean podcast, an ocean conservation podcast. We're not, you know, a general topic that everybody loves to listen to. We're a pretty niche market, but it seems like a lot of people are listening to it. You guys really enjoy it. So keep sharing, keep reviewing, keep rating us. We really love it. Give us feedback. I really love it. And, you know, we'll continue to give you more content that we love. As you can see, you know, Nathan and I really love doing this. So it's a lot of fun. And we enjoy providing that for you. So if you, there's an article you guys want us to cover, you know, send it to us and we'll do that every Friday. So thank you very much. You've been listening to The Speak Up For Blue podcast. I am your host Andrew Lohan here with Nathan Johnson. Happy Thanksgiving and happy conservation. [Music]