How To Protect The Ocean
Marine Biologist Missing At Sea off the Coast of Peru
Marine Biologist, Keith Davis (41) was reported lost at sea while working as a fisheries observer in Peru. I wanted to talk about this tragedy to remind people that marine scientists and conservationists often put themselves at risk when working on or around the Ocean.
It is important for scientists and conservationists to understand that safety training is crucial to maintaining a long career without incidents.
Show Notes:
http://www.speakupforblue.com/keithdavis
Welcome to the Speak Up For Blue Podcast, session 14. I got a new microphone. Welcome to the Speak Up For Blue Podcast, helping you get involved in ocean conservation. And now, here's your host, he just turned 37, but feels young at heart, Andrew Lewin. Hey everybody, welcome back to another wonderful 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. Hey everybody, welcome back to a new and exciting format 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. That's right, I like to help the ocean through my businesses and that is what I'm here to do today. Today, we're going to talk about the new format of the Speak Up For Blue Podcast. We're going to talk about how you can conserve the ocean, 10 ways you can conserve the ocean. I have a free gift for you. And we're also going to talk about a recent news, well I guess it's not recent anymore, but it was a couple of weeks ago where it was announced that natural geographic, the magazine that introduced people to the wonders of nature through visual photography or visual depictions of nature, wonderful articles on science, exploration and discovery has been now bought and is now owned by Rupert Murdoch's 20th Century Fox. Yes, the person who owns Fox News and also a self-proclaimed climate change was a skeptic. Climate change skeptic, wonderful. So now we have a beautiful magazine that's introduced people to science, to nature, to discovery, to exploration and the potential, we're going to have the potential, what we're going to talk about today is the potential of this magazine being influenced by someone who doesn't necessarily believe in one of the biggest and most destructive, potentially destructive forces on earth and that is climate change. So it's going to get interesting. But first, before we get into the whole details of this sort of mess that I like to call a mess, let's talk about the new format, SpeakUpForBlue.com. For those, or SpeakUpForBlue podcast, for those of you who have been listening to the SpeakUpForBlue podcast, you know that I update a show every week. Usually every Wednesday with an interview with some interesting person who is involved in ocean conservation or ocean science or both and they want to get their story out there, they want to get their project, they want to get something out there. But that's what I try and do. I try and use it by using the whole SpeakUpForBlue, let them speak up for blue so you can learn from them, learn what's going on, potentially support them, or just share their story through our podcast here and just build that community and build that self-awareness. Well, I want to continue with those and I will continue with those. But I decided to sort of increase the frequency of the podcast. I want to bring, and I've always wanted to do this, I want to bring you information on ocean, on nature, on science, every day of the week, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. So, Wednesdays, we're going to continue with the interview podcast as long as I can get someone to interview. And Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, we're going to talk about just different topics, sometimes going to be ocean news, sometimes going to be about ocean conservation careers, sometimes going to be just about the industry in general, and sometimes going to be maybe a resource or a tip that I have for you that I've just learned or that somebody's told me about. And sometimes we're going to have other people on, not necessarily an interview, but discussing hot topics and what they believe in. And I must, before I go on, I must apologize. I've got a cold. I might cough. I might, you know, adjust my throat. And I might even sneeze. I hope not, but I might even sneeze. So I apologize for that to begin with, but it's just the lay of the land. I also must apologize to some of my listeners who haven't, some of your listeners who didn't get a podcast last week. My computer was in the shop. I couldn't do anything about it. And now I will release last week's podcast this Wednesday. So stay tuned for that. It's actually a really good one. Andrew Wright, he's going to talk about the conservation of a very small marine mammal called the vaquita and their importance there. That is my dog who's protecting the house right now for my contractor. So I apologize for that noise. But anyway, enough with the apologies. Let's get on with some extra, some more things. A lot of you have come to me as I start SpeakUpForBlue.com and, and, and when I start SpeakUpForBlue.com and continue to churned out content and hopefully valuable content. And you come to me and you ask Andrew, how can I help the ocean? You know, whether I live on the coat, well, you live on the coast or you live inland, how can I do something to help you or to help the ocean and help ocean conservation? So I am here to help you right now. I'm going to answer that question with a free gift. It's a PDF that I created and it's really the 10 things that you can start doing in ocean conservation from your home or sometimes out. It depends on the level of commitment you want to get. But there are 10 ways that you can help conserve the ocean. And you can get that by actually texting three, the number, you text the number three, three, four, four, four. And you will text the word, all one word, conserve my ocean. So you text the number three, three, four, four, four, and it'll be, you type in conserve my ocean, all one word, you'll get a link, you can put it in your email and it'll get sent to you on your email, it'll get sent to your email and you'll get to pick it out. Now, I'm doing this through text messaging because I find a lot of people who are listening to my podcast are actually listening to on their smartphone. Sometimes you're out and about, you're on your walking, your dog, like I listen to when I listen to podcast, or you're on the bus, or you're jogging, or you're working out, or whatever, wherever you may be listening to this on your smart device or on your, on your tablet, you know, you might, you might not have access to email right away or you might not have access to going to a webpage. So I thought texting might work. Let me know if it does. That'd be great if you could, if you can do so. And that's essentially it. If you want to know 10 ways you can help conserve the ocean, sign up, text that, that in text, me at three, three, four, four, four, and type in conserve my ocean, and you will find out how you can conserve the ocean in 10 different ways. It's really, a lot of them are really, really easy. They're very simple steps that you can take just at home. And that's why I did it is because a lot of people don't realize the changes that we do help everywhere, like the change that we do in our daily lives help the ocean, right? Because we're all connected to the oceans. So that is why I am doing this. I hope you enjoy it, right? And share it with your friends, be, you know, you can always share it with your friends and, and refer them to the site, refer them to the podcast. Always love that kind of stuff. So I'm trying to provide you value. Let me know if it works out. I really appreciate it. You could tweet me at speak up for blue. I'm always listening, and however you want to engage with me, I'm there. So that's it for the free gift. Let's move on to the rest of the show. The reason why you're here, you want to find out why Nat Geo, National Geographic, the National Geographic Society, was purchased by Rupert Murdoch. And I'll be honest, I don't really know the reason why, you know, Rupert Murdoch, why there is a connection. I'm going to go over the story of what of, you know, sort of the connection between Center 21 Century Fox and National Geographic. But we're also going to talk about the potential consequences or not of this purchase. So a couple of weeks ago, we find out National Geographic was purchased by Rupert Murdoch, the owner of 21 Century Fox, also the owner of Fox News. Now, for those of you who may or may not know about Fox News, we know that they mislead, especially when it comes to science, they mislead the public. And in fact, the union of concerned scientists actually noted that in one year, the Fox News misrepresented or misled the public in science, 72% of the time, they talked about science, 72%. That's not a very good record. And I don't think they really care. If you've ever watched Fox 21, they're very, Fox News, they're very political, mostly Republicans, which is fine, you want to be Republican, that's fine. But science is science. They just, they mislead, they distort the science just for their own benefit, their own political benefit. And it's a shame that it happens, but it's the reason why scientists and conservation is like myself, like people from deep seeing news, like people from Southern Fried Science dot com, they are out there trying to bust myths and try and get people excited about science and just know about the real science that's out there, because there are people like Fox 21 or Fox News that really mislead people in science and that's not good. And that is really the big issue with the purchase of National Geographic. Now with this purchase, Fox owns 73% of National Geographic. What they've done is 18 years ago, Fox actually started the National Geographic channel, the cable channel that we watch or the non cable channel, whatever it is, though, you know, the TV that we watch, they've actually controlled the production of that for the last 18 to 20 years. They've never owned the rights to the National Geographic Society or the magazine, which is really the bread and butter and what we really know, no National Geographic for us, where they got their claim to fame, where they got their status, where they respected. The channel, on the other hand, has put out some wishy-washy kind of shows over the past 18 years. Some of them have been very informative, some of them have been not too sure about that, you know, those kind of episodes. So these are concerns that you have when Fox is already controlling a channel. They do it a lot of times, they say, well, we need to bump up the ratings. We need more people to watch so we can actually get the shows that, you know, where the science is actually intact, the science is good. We need them to watch that. We need to gain people, have people come in and watch our show, and by that, we have to have these outrageous kind of shows. I don't agree with that, and a lot of science and conservationists don't agree with it as well, and it's led to a bit of a boycott, but of course, these channels still get watched by a lot of the major public. And of course, naturalistic graphics, not really the only channel to do so. Animal Planet and Discovery in the past have been well documented on putting up these shows that have been a little wishy-washy in their science, or misled people to believe that it's a real show, but it's really a fake documentary, and we'll talk about that in just a sec. So what they've done is, so Fox owned or Rupert owned the channel, National Geographic channel. Now he owns the magazine and the entire society. Well, 73% of it. What he's done is it was a nonprofit organization for the last 127 years. That's a long time for a magazine and a society to exist, especially in these days when companies are going up and down all the time. They were, apparently, they were in dire need of money. They were in debt, and they need someone to buy them out. Rupert Murdoch did that probably because of the association with the National Geographic channel. It makes sense from a business perspective. In doing so, they, in the purchase, they switched the National Geographic Society from a nonprofit organization to a for-profit business. Now I'm not too worried about the fact that, now this is my opinion, of course, this is what happened, this is my opinion, before I get into the whole nonprofit versus for-profit issue. The first thing that people are really worried about, there's two things really that people are worried about. One, will National Geographic put out the same type of material as they have been? The stuff that they were respected for, the stuff that they're known for, they've garnered a great reputation for, you know, National Geographic is not a straight up science magazine. It's a magazine that really entices and communicates with the people, with the public, and gets them involved. Get them excited about nature and different things around the world, and out of space in the ocean, on earth, everywhere. It gets people excited to explore, to be curious, to discover. And I think that's a great way to get, to entice people, to get involved in this type of situation. A lot of time it leads to people being a little more conservation minded because they know more about nature, they understand nature a little bit more, they're just more aware of their surroundings, which a lot of us aren't. So I think it's, you know, the magazine that they've put out has been really great and it's a great tool to use, to get people, again, enticed in conservation and just nature and what's around them. Now the big problem is, of course, Fox News, in the way they mislead science. And Rupert Murdoch is in charge of this information. He could change that if he wanted to, but he doesn't. Now Rupert Murdoch is also a climate change skeptic, this is what he's called himself. He's not a denier, but he's a skeptic. And he's quoted as saying, at one point I'm going to paraphrase, but he's quoted as saying that he understands that the sea levels are rising and that we can't control that. Right? That sea levels are rising right now. He's right. They are rising and they can't control it. But he says, is just to kind of adapt to it, is just move inland more, don't live on the coast as much. Well, it's not as simple as that, but he thinks that's the way we can adapt and that's the way we can change. We don't have to change the way we are acting or the way we do business or the way we pollute the in the skies. It's not necessarily our fault. It's just happening. So of course I'm paraphrasing, but that's essentially what he said, which is to me as a scientist and conservationist, it's really scary to have a man like that who believes in that, who believes that statement and said that statement is in charge of a magazine that is acts as a tool to get people excited about science, about nature, about exploration about discovery. He's in charge of this. Now the question lies is he going to influence the way National Geographic puts out their information? That's the big question. And a lot of people think that's what's going to happen and they are not happy. A lot of people that I know and a lot of people that I see, I'm like, you know, my Facebook friends and my social network have said that they've subscribed once they hear the news, they unsubscribed from the magazine because they just, they don't trust it anymore. They think it's biased now and that's going, and to be honest, I think they have a fair point. However, we have to, there's, I think a few things that we have to consider, one, things don't just change overnight. Two, we don't know if Rupert Murdoch will influence any of this information or his sort of infrastructure, his company, Century 21 Fox. We don't know if they're going to go into that. There's, there's reports that he's got businesses that do not mislead information. You know, he's a broad, he's, he's into broadcasting information peddling, so to speak. And he may not, he, you know, he may have some companies that don't do what Fox News does. However, it's something that we have to think about. The other thing that we have to think about too is the employees, the people who work for the National Geographic Society, the explorers, the discoverer, the photographers, the videographers, these people are scientists, they're conservationists, they love nature and a lot of them understand that climate change is a real thing and that we're causing it. They are working for National Geographic. They, a lot of them we think have stay or will stay on as working for National Geographic. We hope they have come out and said we are going to continue with and bring the same kind of integrity that National Geographic has had for the last 127 years. We are going to do that because we are dedicated to this company. And it kind of reminded me of a quote, and I'm, again, I'm paraphrasing because I don't know the quote by heart, of, so Richard Branson and I read this on Facebook at some point a couple of weeks ago and it really, it really, it kind of stuck with me. He talked about how companies don't deal with clients. It's the employees that take care of the clients. So the company should take care of the employees because they're going to take care of the clients. And it's so true. In this situation, it's the employees, the people who are dedicated to work for National Geographic, who will really work and provide the clients, which is the readers, the membership, with the information that they have pride in, the information that they care about, that they have a passion in, and that they will provide their readership or their viewership. And so that we hope that these, the people who work there will, one, continue to work there. And two, we'll have the chance to have and have that freedom and creativity to continue the work that they do, continue to provide National Geographic or allow National Geographic to be a tool to allow kids and adults alike to discover nature, explore, and just really allow them to be curious about nature and ask questions and find out results and find out answers by exploring and discovering nature. So I hope, I really, truly hope that this is going to happen, although I have my doubts, I really do have my doubts. And when I heard the news, I talked to a few friends I saw on Facebook and I was like, "Whoa, what do you guys think?" They're like, "Oh, this is ridiculous. We have a lot of, the people, the organizations and companies that traditionally we depended on to get information to the public, such as Discovery channel, such as Animal Planet and such as National Geographic." They are all kind of up in limbo in terms of what kind of information they provide. As many of you may know, through our podcast on Shark Week, in the past, Shark Week, especially in the last five to ten years, Shark Week has produced a lot of sketchy episodes on sharks, where they're misleading the public to think that sharks are these human killing machines, that's all they do, which is in fact the opposite. They've come out with fake documentaries where they have actors who are portraying scientists, but they don't let people know that these are documentaries, and they're saying that the megalodon is still around, there's this massive killer that's actually hunting humans, which is all false, and they came out after and they said it was false, and it was, yes, it was entertaining. If you watch one of those fake documentaries and you know it's a movie, then sure, it's entertaining. However, if you start telling people that it's true and they're freaking out and they're saying, "I'm never going to go in the ocean again," what's that going to do? That's just going to have the opposite effect for conservationists. No one wants to go in the water if they think that there's this massive killing machine. Now, discovery has a new president or CEO or whatever it is, and he's deciding that they're going to go back to their fact-producing episodes, which is great. It's great news to hear that they're listening to the public and the people have put out enough guff and enough noise to say, "We want the truth, we want facts, we want science, we want conservation, we don't want this stupidity that you've been providing us." So that's a good thing, but they haven't really changed that much and we don't know if they're going to change. Animal Planet just a couple years ago showed another fake documentary on mermaids and saying that mermaids exist, and now people think mermaids exist, and there's people who actually argue on social media with scientists that mermaids exist and drive them insane just ask David Schiffman, aka Y Sharks Matter on Twitter, how he feels about mermaids and you'll get his answer very quickly or you won't get an answer at all. But I mean, it's just ridiculous. These are the tools that we go to to provide information for us, to provide information on nature and inspire people to protect and conserve nature, and we're getting a lot of misled things. Now National Geographic is sort of in question because it's now 73% owned by Rupert Murdoch, who is a climate change skeptic. This is all stuff that we don't want to see happen, but it's happening. And when I heard about all this happening, and I was like, "This is ridiculous." You know, you've got Discovery Channel, that's kind of up in the air. People plan showing stuff on mermaids, and then they're showing, you know, you get reality shows of people trying to catch fish with their arms and all this kind of junk. You know, and then you've got National Geographic, who is now owned by the head of Fox News. What do we do? And it inspired me to come up with an idea, and really where I want to take SpeakUpForBlue.com. And that's create a channel on the web, so a YouTube channel and a web site, that expands SpeakUpForBlue into a science and conservation, sort of science and conservation entertainment channel, where it's a channel for science and conservation by people, for the people. And I'm going to get out more information as this idea develops. In fact, I'm actually thinking of documenting it through either a podcast or video or both on my sort of path, on how I'm going to build this channel. But this is what I feel that it needs to come to. You need to have people who are willing to tell the truth, no matter what, whether the result is good or bad, I mean, that's science. Science is asking a question, trying to figure out the answer, and being truthful about the answer. If you like the interpretation or not, basically allowing science to be science. And sometimes there's going to be, there won't be a result, sometimes there's going to be more questions coming from it. But what we want to do, what I want to do is build an infrastructure company, an entertainment company that focuses on science and conservation, nature science and conservation, that will inspire, hopefully inspire young people, kids, youth, adults, like I was inspired. And like most of my colleagues were inspired, that allowed us to become scientists and conservationists. Because we need people like that, we need people to know the information that it's necessary to protect our planet, whether it be the ocean, whether it be earth, it doesn't matter. Whether it be space later on, who knows? So we need to protect our earth, we're in a real pickle, you know, to say the least, we're in a trouble, and we keep ignoring science, or we have politicians who are ignoring science, and a lot of people listen to them, and that's just not right. Okay, we got to make sure that the truth gets out there. And I want to do it through a YouTube channel, right, and on the web, where people are now, and people want the truth. So we're going to, I'm going to kind of keep you guys updated on that. It's just an idea right now. I don't know if it's going to work out. I really don't. I'm going to be truthful. But I want people to, I'm going to probably do it through a crowdfunding. I want people to basically support this channel, whether it be financially or through in-kind work. But I want, because I want it to be for them, right, I want it to be a channel controlled by the people. We listen to what you want, and we provide the truth. And that's what science and conservation is all about. So I'm not going to keep you much longer. This is the end of the first sort of new frequency, SpeakUpForBlue.com, or SpeakUpForBlue podcast. I'm going to try and do these every day of the week, so that, and just kind of keep you up to date on what's happening. Issues like this are big in the science and conservation community. And I want you to know about that. There's a lot of news that I'm going to bring you. I'm going to maybe make this a video. I'm actually recording this on my laptop, just sitting here with my new microphone and everything. So it might not be exciting, but who knows. People may want to watch me on YouTube, I'll post it on YouTube, and just kind of have people get in on it and make comments and stuff like that. If you want to make a comment, you can comment on the website on our show notes, which is SpeakUpForBlue.com/natgeo for this episode. It'll be SpeakUpForBlue.com/natgeo. Obviously you can find this podcast on iTunes, on Stitcher. You can listen to it on the web, on our show notes at SpeakUpForBlue.com/natgeo. And you'll probably be able to, in the next few weeks, sign up to our email list, our newsletter, where you can get access to the free gift. But if you want the free gift right now, this is really for podcast listeners only, just text the number 33444 and text "conserve my ocean" to that number, and you will get a link that will lead you towards the PDF that I've made for the 10 ways you can conserve the ocean on your own. And I think it's a really important document. I'd like to hear your feedback, you can comment on it, but what I really like to hear from you on the show notes is the question, I'm going to pose a question for you, because I want to hear what you have to say about you, this is a community, I want to hear what you have to say about it. Really, do you think Rupert Murdoch, I'll start that over, do you think Rupert Murdoch will have influence over the science information and conservation information at NatGeo? And will that lead to misleading the public on specific issues like climate change, similar to what he does at Fox News? I want to hear your thoughts, let me know, do you think Rupert Murdoch will have influence over the NatGeo channel on the type of information that's going to be shown given that he's a climate change skeptic? So do you believe that this is really going to mess National Geographic up, mess the reputation up? I want to hear from you, if you do, tell me why, if you don't tell me why, I really want to know I'm sort of 50/50 on this, I don't know really what's going to happen, I'm a bit of an optimist, but also just have a bit of a pessimistic side of saying this is not going to work at all, and this is just not, it's going to bring National Geographic down, I hope it doesn't, and I hope it stays the way it is, and maybe improve, it consistently tries to improve like businesses normally do, but I have a feeling we're in a little bit of trouble. But anyway, let me know what you think, go to the show notes, www.speakupforblue.com/natgeo, n-a-t-g-e-o, all one word, and you can let me know your thoughts, let the community know your thoughts, and that's all for today. I will see you tomorrow because I am doing another episode on Tuesday, September 22nd, and we're going to talk about an issue that's really weird, actually, it's going to talk about how people are going out, mothers to be are going out, and wanting to have their babies in the ocean with dolphins, it's a really weird issue that's kind of caught on, and you'll hear my thoughts on that tomorrow, Tuesday, because that's the new freak, that's the new format of the Speak Up For Blue podcast. So anyway, have a good day, I will see you tomorrow. Happy conservation, I'm Andrew Lewin, talk to you tomorrow. Described as a subspecies, I think it was this year or maybe last year, but that's also running out of actual habitat as Taiwan keeps filling in their shallow water habitat, it's literally running out, it's being squashed out. Oh, wow. Yeah, there are a lot of species where we're not doing enough, and a lot of the problems are hard to fix chronic pollution, and so forth, and so forth, some of them are a lot easier to fix if the political will is there, but that's just another problem, so. Yeah, yeah, it's almost like an issue in itself to get people to change policy or add new policies to get in there, and that's something we discussed with Chris Parsons in episode 11, we did talk about a lot of policy, and it's frustrating, I think, as a scientist, because you do all that work, and then it could go somewhere, it might not go, but I mean, you know, the scientist essentially, I always say, is sort of like we work in the trenches saying, this is what's going on, whether it's good or bad, and then you give it to somebody who can do something about it, and then it may or may not get done, depending on the priorities of that area, but it seems just from your answer that a lot of the, say, Bailene whales tend to stay offshore, for the most part. They travel long distances, and one, they do come close, but it seems like a lot of the small cetaceans that live close to the coast are having the most problems, and it's probably just due to proximity to humans, I assume, and more runoff development, like you said in Taiwan, it just seems like those things can change the most, it seems, like you said, if the will is there. Yeah, I think that's a reasonable summary. Right, right. I think it's pure proximity to humans for the most part, and even if the Bailene whales do come in closer short, again, with a few notable exceptions, most of them are migrating through, or only here for part of the year, or whatever, so, yes, they may be susceptible here for a period, but then they move on, so, yeah, I think in, as a general way of talking, I think the small coastal vote anteceeds are definitely the ones that are having their trouble. The trouble, yeah. You mentioned the Vaquita, and that's what we're really here to talk about, and what I want to focus this interview on, the next part of this interview on, can you describe the Vaquita? Well, first of all, is the Vaquita. Vaquita, I'm sorry, I keep saying Quita, Vaquita, okay, thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, no problem. It's also known in Mexico as the Little Cow. Okay. It is one of Mexico's national animals, their national marine mammal. It's quite small, measuring in at sort of the five foot mark. It is a very cute little porpoise. It has basically black eyeshadow and black lipstick, so that's its face. It has six fingers, and it's flippers, and it's a dorsal flippers, so yeah, they are a unique animal, they have quite a low genetic diversity. So all of these unique characteristics, especially the six fingers and the low genetic diversity suggest they went through a genetic bottleneck not so long ago, and so they're naturally quite a rare animal. Historically, the abundance is sort of placed in a sort of 500 animal range from when it was discovered in the 1950s by Ken Norris. But down into the 1990s, actually down into the 1990s, it was estimated in the 500s, sorry, but still naturally rare. It was down in around about 560 ish, if I recall, but in 2008, I want to say, the number was down around about 250, and the number has plummeted since then, down into under 100 in the survey that was done last year, so in the new abundance estimate that came out last year was down to 100, but obviously the bycatch rate is now likely to be in the sort of 50, 60, 70 animals sort of mark, and that obviously has implications for a population if they don't have too many breeding age females. Right, right. Now what happened between, I mean, I mean, even though 500 is low number of individuals, but how, like, what happened from then, like from the 1990s to 2008, where there was such a dramatic, I mean, basically half the population that we knew of disappeared, what was the major issue? Did something happen during that time that people know of, that they can say, you know, increase in fishing pressure, or whether it be something that should be distributed to climate change, or what have you, what happened? What issue happened there? We have to understand, first of all, that the bakita are, those don't need present in the northern Gulf of California, and they exist in a habitat range that's around about 4,000 kilometers in size, and it's between three fishing villages, and so a group scientist got together and they reviewed the status of the bakita and they ruled out the loss of water from the Colorado coming into the Delta, and a number of other issues, pollution and so forth, and the issue that came up was bycatch, and they had been known to be caught in nets set for total lava, which is an equally endangered fish that's around about the same sort of size as the bakita, and that fish is caught primarily for its swim bladder for export to China. However if you're going to build a net to design to catch the bakita, it would be roughly that size and shape because as I said the fish is around about the same size as the bakita. Now that industry sort of tailed off, and the bakita was likely at much lower numbers, but still substantial numbers, in the fishing activity that goes on there, which is a fairly large fishing fleet that goes out and catches the shrimp, the bakita were being vital in those nets instead. So there was an effort to buy out the fishermen from this particular activity, give them nuclear nets, and the number of boats in the fleet did actually decline, there was some success, and the decline of the bakita was also sort of tailed off. So we did make some ground, a lot of hard work from Lorenzo Roher and Barb Taylor and a lot of other folks over there that were involved in that. But in the last few years, for some reason, the total arbor fishery has come back with a vengeance and the number of bakita being bicord, it's just skyrocketed just the last few years. So from 2008, and said it was around about 250 animals, it's down to 100 in five years, and most of that decline has been in the last couple. So it's that increase, sorry, how do you pronounce the fish, the fish that they catch? Total arbor. Total arbor. Okay, I want to make sure I got it, I got it right. So that increase pressure has really decreased the population too. When you get into numbers of 100, you almost wonder, is there a chance, there is a big chance that these mammals are going to go extinct. And it's a national sort of icon you said for Mexico. Is there a chance that these numbers will increase like are they stopping the fishing pressure? Can they stop the fishing pressure from these villages who probably rely heavily on the money from the swim bladders? Well, first of all, because the total arbor is itself endangered, fishing for the total arbor is already illegal. Oh, I see. So that in itself is an illegal activity. So there has been a few busts recently at the Mexican U.S. border, for example, because a lot of the export traffic goes through the U.S. on the way to China, and in fact, some of it goes to the western U.S. coast, to the Asian populations there. So that is police to a certain extent, however, the amount of money that can be made, if you sell two swim bladders, you can buy a new truck. It's a large amount of money like dealing in cocaine or something. It's an insane incentive to go out and catch these things. Well, it's very similar to... Sorry, it's very similar to thinning, shark thinning, mostly illegal, but the money is worth actually getting caught. Exactly. And the other thing that's gone on is that they had a bikini refuge put in place. So fishing in that refuge, even for shrimp, was also illegal, however, there were pictures put up on the IUCN page that showed the borders of that fishery was not being enforced and not being respected, so there were fishing pleats going in there. So just after the fishing season closed this year, the Mexican government under pressure from the US government to some extent, a whole number of NGOs, a few scientific organisations such as Society for Marine Mammology and the Society of Conservation Biology, of which I am on the Marine Section Board for the pressure on the Mexican government. And ultimately, they had to step up and did put in place a two-year gill net ban almost completely in that part of the world, not completely, still gill nets allowed for one particular kind of fish, which does allow the sort of illegal fishing to go on under the radar, which is a little bit of a shame, but obviously that has huge implications for the local fishermen and their livelihoods, the legal fishermen obviously have it pretty hard. So it's this delicate balance, obviously, of trying to come up with a conservation plan that can be supported by the local communities, rather than fought by the local communities. So we'll see how it goes, there have been some enforcement efforts since the gill net ban was put in place, and there's been a few more busts of the Totowaba smuggling. So perhaps there's some signs that things can change if we can stop the fishery and stop the bycatch, lead to a better use of the Kita friendly fishing gear, which has been ongoing in development, and there's been some improvements there. But the use of that has actually been dissuaded by other fishermen, what to keep doing and what they were doing. So the fishermen that were interested in it received peer pressure not to do that. So there's a lot of different factors there, but I think because the Kita is naturally quite rare, because the population has came down from around about a thousand from where we knew where it was, it's already gone through that bottleneck, as I mentioned. It's got the low genetic diversity, which is not good for it in the long run, but it's likely that the species has already been through the inbreeding depression, which will really hurt small populations trying to recover. So it has a few chips in its favor, if we can just get the local population behind saving this animal, which is uniquely Mexican. It's 100% Mexican, it's totally unique to that region, it is a national animal, and from my point of view, it would be a shame if Mexico followed China into sending an endemic and very, very local species to extinction. The big shame for Mexico would be the shrimp that is fished goes mostly to America, and the swim bladders that are taken from the total arbor go mostly to China. So it's a distinctly Mexican animal that is being accidentally fished to extinction to feed foreign markets. Yeah, it seems to me, the way I would see it, enforcement seems to be the big issue, and it usually is in these situations, when you're looking at putting in a sanctuary or some kind of protected area for whatever species it is, it's hard to be on the water all the time and manage a large area that has essentially invisible borders, basically on a map. And that seems to be, you know, enforcement seems to be the big issue. Now lately a lot of organizations, a lot of governments have taken to the co-management sort of way of enforcement, which is getting the community, one teaching community members to be the enforcement sort of quote unquote police, and then having them really add on the peer pressure to say, no, you can't, you know, you can't fish in these areas, or, you know, they guys, they put that local community pressure on and say, no, we got to keep these things around, we want to keep them in culturally important and so forth. And they basically train the local people to go out and enforce themselves, because they're on the water anyway, you know, they can tell the Mexican government, you know, for the actual, you know, legality of the situation, you know, and it just seems like that would be a better way of doing things in the long run to, and then I guess what that does is that really brings a community close to say, hey, we actually care about these species, we're in charge of keeping them together, do you think that's a way and has that been explored in that area from from your knowledge? I will admit that my knowledge of the on the ground discussions that go on in in Mexico is limited, I'm not in the region, right, of course, the Renzo and many others are doing a lot of work there, and the discussion they're having some are on some are off the record, and most of it is in Spanish of which I am mostly lacking, however, a lot of the sort of plans that you said I know have been suggested at various points in time, the main problem with most of them is that you do need to get a certain amount of buy-in from people originally, which is part of the reason why the Society for Conservation Biology and Marine Section has been looking into different ways to reach out to people both in the north and south of the border to try and educate them a little bit more about the plight of the vaquita with the note that there is still hope, right, it's not a done and dusted situation for sure, and we're hoping to try and find some way to get that message to the Mexicans, the locals down there with some locals that we've made connections with recently to try and inspire a national pride in the animal, and I think if we can if we can make use of these two years while there's a gill net ban and at least some sort of ramp up in enforcement, it buys us a little time to really work on the hearts and minds of Mexicans in the region and try and have them take this ownership, and at which point then self-enforcement becomes a more viable option. Absolutely. Yeah, I know that sounds good, once you get the pride in, then they start to want to do it more and more. Now, in this situation, we don't know much about the species, or we didn't know much about the species when they first got discovered, and we still probably don't know a lot about their ecology and physiology, probably just scratching the surface. What kind of studies are necessary, and perhaps maybe now being conducted on, say, the vaquita that would help its conservation? Well, first of all, we actually know a reasonable amount about vaquita, despite the fact it's very hard to see, it's very boat shy, so it's very hard to actually go out, and we've only had video, there's only two or three videos in existence, and there's only a handful of photograph. Right. They're very, very hard to see. They don't like those, and they generally stay away from them. So doing too much in the way of visual studies isn't easy. Now, whether or not you want to say this is fortunately or not, but we've had a lot of dead bodies in fishing nets and stranded on the beach following entanglements, so we actually know quite a lot about their reproductive history, and unfortunately, they don't reproduce fast enough. They're fairly slow reproducers, but in terms of what needs to be done next, it's fairly clear at this point we've established a decline in the population, we know what's causing it. There is going to be another survey that the Mexican government is organizing as part of their new protection efforts going on some point in the next few months. I'm not entirely sure what that's going to show since the ban on the Gilnets came in sort of after the last fishing season, so it won't affect any of the shrimping that happened last time, so it's undoubtedly going to show more decline if they can detect enough animals, they're using a lot of acoustic detection technologies, passive acoustic monitoring at the moment, but I know there's a discussion going on about what's being used in that Mexican government survey, they may be trying to do it visually, I still don't know the details, I'm not sure anyone truly knows exactly what's happening there yet, but we'll wait and see, I expect to get another low number coming out, I expect confirmation of their sort of 60, 70, 80 numbers following the extra year of the fishing activity, and then I don't know what that shows, it shows we know where we are, whether or not the Mexican government and the fishermen will argue that the protection measures are obviously not doing anything, so why bother, or whether or not the decline will be enough that they put in extra protection measures, I think is going to be part of the politics game going on down in Mexico, so we'll just see what happens, but in terms of the research needed to understand how to see the species, I think that's fairly clearly over, we know what the problem is, we know how to fix it, it's just the case of going and doing it. Right, I mean I think it's also difficult, like you said, there's a lot of things going against the species, it's sort of isolated to one area in the world, it's a slow reproducing animal, there aren't many of them right now as we speak, so there's probably, like you said, in breeding depression that's a major issue just naturally, just with low numbers, but that could be over with, but still, and then you have, it's set in an area that's high fishing, like there's a lot of fishing, and people probably, I guess they depend upon that as their main income to feed their families, so there's a lot going against these species, however, like you said, researchers and policymakers in the government know what is needed to get done to protect these species. With all this going on, I mean it's hard to, it's hard to believe that, like this species can recover, do you think this species will recover, or do you think this is going to be another river dolphin problem in China, where we lose this one? I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't think they could recover, I think if you take the fishing nets out of the water they will recover, it will take time, but they won't recover, I mean it's not like the river dolphins that face boats, noise, fishing nets, habitat loss, dams and all these other things, so it's not a big conglomeration of facts, if you take the fishing nets out, the animals will stop dying, it's that simple, and so the two year ban was hard fought, and ultimately it was put in place, obviously how effective it is depends on the enforcement, but it is a big step, and if it's enforced, then it will buy the Vergita Lifeline, which is, it's that simple, if it's not enforced and it's a paper park, then nothing much will change, and things will go the way they are, obviously if the complete Gilnet ban had been put in place, as was recommended by server, the recovery panel, then it would have been a lot easier to police, the elite nets have a Gilnet, it's not allowed, but there are still some Gilnets allowed for some fish, so there's still work that can be done, there's still barriers to enforcement, but I do see it as a positive step, and if we can take this time to develop buy-in from the local population, then I think the Vergita has actually got a pretty good shot, the elephant seals came back from almost nothing, there's no reason the Vergita couldn't do the same, right, right, now the speaker from the audience, the people who are listening to us right now talk about the Vergita, we're a pretty active group, I always get emails of what can I do for such-and-such species, what can I do for such-and-such issue, for people who are, say, a lot of the people who listen to this are non-scientists, not necessarily involve as a career in ocean conservation, people at home who want to do something, what is the best course of action to save an animal like the Vergita, or to help? Depending on where they are, one of the things that a lot of North Americans can do is just check the source of their shrimp, if this shrimp comes from the northern Gulf of California, then if it's Mexican shrimp, then just give it a pass, the democracy of consumption is a powerful pressure, now I'm not calling for a boycott, but that's one option for anyone that wants to put their two cents in literally, another way of making differences is helping get the word out there, because it's been tougher, a lot of people have never heard it with Vergita before, a lot of people haven't had a chance to see it, do a quick Google search, check out some pictures on Vergita.tv, sign up for Vergita Al Browncoats, which is a Vergita meets Serenity Firefly page on Facebook, and keep track of the news, yeah, so I mean there are some interesting efforts, there's V-Log, which is a Vergita website run by a teenager in Mexico, he's just trying to get the words out there, so do a little Google search, find out a little bit about the Vergita share the knowledge on Facebook, on Twitter, on social, and help get the word out there, but also keep track of these websites, some have made this, some have petitions, the merits of the petitions I'm not entirely sure of, but because the US government is involved, I have the Canadian government not so much, but the US government is involved, so if they're Americans they can write to their congressmen either, and just say hey, can you please help raise the enforcement, elsewhere in the world, obviously in China, the total arbor consumption, as an afrodisiac, of course, so putting the word out to friends in Asia, that maybe this isn't what they should be doing, again sort of raising the profile of both the total arbor, which as a said is an endangered species in itself, and the Vergita in Asia, it is a lot of what can be done, it is sharing knowledge, but obviously in Mexico that's a much bigger issue, and Mexicans can and should reach out to their government as well, and also if they are in the region, try and educate the fishermen, try and ask the fishermen what they're doing and what steps they're taking, as I said it's a very uniquely Mexican animal, there is no citation like it on the planet, it's the only one with six fingers, and eyeshadow and black lipstick just like Angelina Jolie or something, so it's a very cute animal, go and check out a picture online, it is adorable, like everyone else, it's very adorable, so I have no idea why it's the national animal, national marine mammal for Mexico, and I don't know why there's not more people involved in it, and a lot of people still think it's a myth than it, it doesn't really exist, so it's, education is the real big thing that anyone can do, share the information, if you have Mexican colleagues and friends make sure they know about it. Well thank you, I mean that's awesome because I think this audience has a lot of power in terms of social media, getting the word out there and sharing it, there are a lot, there are a good amount of pictures on the Vikita, and it is probably one of the most adorable animals you've ever seen, I didn't know about the six fingers though, but I'm going to be looking for that, but I think it's just one of those things where that's what a lot of people can do, is just share and raise awareness of the plight of this animal, and that the fact is that we can recover this animal by just taking the nets out, and I think that's a huge thing, and like you said, it's a government icon, it's a national mammal and I think more needs to be done, so I really appreciate you coming on here Andrew and letting us know about the Vikita, and hopefully this will get shared a lot, and we can grow from there and raise that awareness, so I really appreciate you taking the time, because it is 10 o'clock at night there, probably closer to 11, it's seven in the morning here, so we're definitely on opposite sides of the world, but I really appreciate you connecting, and so quickly too, so that was awesome, and we really appreciate it, and maybe one day you could come back and discuss another marine mammal, or give us an update on your work over in New Zealand and seeing how seismic surveys will be conducted in the future from now on, and hopefully there's a lot of progress in the protection of the local marine mammal populations. Yep, well let's hope so, and I would be very happy to come back sometime. Wonderful, well thank you very much, and we'll talk to you later. Thanks, bye. Bye bye, see you later. Alright, that was Dr. Andrew, right, talking about the Vikita and the many ways that we can help with saving this precious, precious marine mammal, you know, there's always, it's kind of interesting when you talk, when you see marine mammals and you hear about marine mammals, we always want to save them, because we identify with them, they're an icon, what we call an iconic species, they're an umbrella species, and how we refer to them in conservation. Because they're ranges, or this one maybe not, but a lot of marine mammals, their ranges are so large that protecting them will hopefully protect a lot of the things that are underneath, that swim underneath them. So we tend like this area, if this area is protected, and the Sea of Cortez in the Gulf of California and Mexico, you know, if we protect these marine mammals, we protect that whole area, right, and that's important. So I think it's going to be one of those, one of those things that it's going to be a last minute thing where these, you know, there may be less than 100 individuals of this population, and we need to make that number rise, okay? We need to rise as fast as possible. We need to put pressure on the governments, join, you know, the Society of Conservation Biology, help them out, join lobby groups that are involved, we're going to put a bunch of links of people who are involved, and how you can get involved. But that's what we're really going to end the biggest thing, is share this information as much as possible. We need to share this information, we need to get the story of the vaquita out there. I mean, it's not going to be difficult, because once you see this mammal, and you can see at the show notes at www.speakerforblue.com/session14, once you see a picture of these animals, you're going to be like, are you kidding me? These things have to be safe, because they're probably one of the most adorable things in the world. Just think of a dolphin that's always in a baby shape, because that's what this is, with makeup, because that's what this is. So, and natural makeup, it's their own, we didn't put it on them. So, you know, it's one of those things that's important. It's important to the ocean. It's important to that area. I think it could do really well as the ecotourism area. And maybe do something good for the ocean. I think it'll be a lot of fun in the future to see what happens with these, hopefully in a more positive direction, it'll be very interesting to see. So that's it for me this week. Tune in tomorrow. We're going to have more of the speaker for blue.com, or the speaker for blue podcast. And sorry, I have a cold, so I apologize if I'm sniffling or breathing heavily into this new microphone. This lovely, lovely microphone. But yeah, we're going to be turning out the content. Sometimes I'll bring on guests just to chat about certain issues. Others, you know, other times it'll just be me, most of the time it'll just be me talking about issues. And I hope you enjoy it and let me know what you think. Put a writer review on iTunes or Stitcher. That helps get this podcast out in the open more often and share it on your social media websites, your platforms, because we need more help in getting this done. So without going on and on and on about that kind of stuff, I really appreciate you listening to the podcast this week. Andrew is really kind to spend some late night time in New Zealand to help us out. And we'll have him on, hopefully again soon, to talk about other things. Right now he's working on a project in New Zealand about ocean noise and looking at the regulations and ocean for ocean noise in and around the New Zealand waters, so they're trying to take a proactive approach for future oil exploration. And I think that's a fantastic thing. So it'll be great to talk to him in the process that he goes through just to give you an idea of the process that people go through and governments go through to get these regulations either changed or make them better so that they truly represent the situation that these marine mammals will be in, as well as protect a, you know, either protect a resource or exploit it properly and sustainably. If that can be done, I don't know. But really we're looking at protecting the environment around it if we are going to exploit these resources. So that's it for me today. I hope you enjoy the episode. And I'll see you tomorrow, or you'll hear me tomorrow. And you know, like I said, look out for changes to the website coming up. That's speakerforblue.com. Look out for some videos coming your way. I'm going to try and do an iTunes video podcast as well as expand our YouTube channel. And that's it for me today, and I'll speak to you tomorrow. Happy conservation. I'm Andrew Lewin. See you later. Bye. Bye. (upbeat music)