June 10, 2025 • 45 mins
In this classic episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert chats with shark scientist Jasmin Graham about her new book “Sharks Don't Sink: Adventures of a Rogue Shark Scientist.” (originally published 7/16/2024)
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My
name is Robert Lamb. We're out this week, so we
have a vault episode for you. This is going to
be Sharks Don't Sink with Jasmine Graham. This was an
interview episode that originally published seven sixteen, twenty twenty four.
It's a fun chat. Let's jump right in.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My
name is Robert Lamb, and this episode of Stuff to
Blow Your Mind, we're going to be chatting with Jasmine Graham,
a shark scientist and author of Sharks Don't Sink. This
is a great book and it is out right now
in all formats. So I encourage you if this interview
grabs you, if the subject matter grabs you, especially if
(00:57):
you're interested in sharks. This is only some great summer
reading for you, so pick up a copy, especially if
you are going to go out to the beach or
in any way experience the ocean this year. So without
further ado, let's dive right in. Hi, Jasmine, welcome to
the show.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
The new book Sharks Don't Sink Adventures of a Rogue
Sharks Scientist is out now in digital, physical, and audio formats.
I really enjoyed it. It's a science book about sharks,
but it's also a social advocacy book and a personal memoir.
So I wanted to ask you. I'm going to ask
you about all of these aspects, but I guess the
best place to start is the simple question, how'd you
(01:41):
become interested in shark biology?
Speaker 3 (01:43):
I was always very interested in the ocean, and I
grew up fishing with my dad and come from a
fishing family, and so the ocean is always part of me.
I didn't really think much about sharks. I wasn't one
of those people that was afraid of them. I wasn't
super obsessed with them as a kid. They were kind
of just animals that existed. But whenever I was in
(02:05):
college working on my marine biology degree, I met a
professor who studied sharks, and I started talking with him
and doing some research with him, and they kind of
fell in love with sharks. I did a lot of
different marine science research while I was an undergrad, but
I just kept coming back to sharks because I just
think they're so cool. They've been here so long, they
(02:27):
have such neat adaptations, and I've always been someone that
roots for the underdog, and they're very misunderstood, so I've
always enjoyed working with them.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Now, in the book, you discussed the challenges and limitations
of the academic world. I think a lot of us
outside of academia only have like a surface level understanding
of things like publish or perish, and so I might
ask you to discuss that a little bit for everyone.
But also, you know, I think it's easy for us
outsiders to think about science and research as being well, okay,
(02:59):
this is like a your logical thing, and we let
ourselves forget that we have all these issues of politics
and discrimination very much in play in that world as well.
What are the challenges facing up and coming research scientists
and scientists of color in particular.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Yeah, it's interesting that you point out this perception that
science is objective and without bias, and that's how science
should be in its purest form. But obviously science is
conducted by human beings, and human beings all have biases,
we have flaws, we're illogical sometimes, and so I think
(03:36):
it's really hard for people in the science field, not
just people outside of the science field, but even people
in the science field to come to terms with that
that this area of research that we do, you know,
we do the scientific method and all of that, and
we like to think of ourselves as being objective. It's
really hard for us to admit that our biases come
(03:57):
into play in our scientific research. But that's something that
we have to deal with because we've seen science be
used for some really terrible things. We've seen science be
used as an excuse for genocide, We've seen science create
atomic bombs, We've seen science do all sorts of really
not great things, and so we have to recognize that
(04:22):
we have this responsibility as scientists to try to be objective,
but recognize that we are not entirely objective, and so
we have to be critical of how we think, how
we interact with each other, and all of those things.
Everything to who gets to present to a scientific conference,
(04:43):
or who gets to work in somebody's lab, or who's
invited to speak at this university, all of that has
bias associated with it, and so we have to work
really hard to be responsive to that. What that looks
like in terms of scientists from marginalized communities, it often
looks like not getting as much mentorship opportunities. It looks
(05:05):
like not being in the club. You know, there's like
a there's a clear these are the cool people in science,
and we all hang out together and we all talk,
and then there's outside ring of people trying to get
into the cool club, into the inner circle, as it will.
And so those in the inner circle have to be
(05:27):
really mindful of those who are outside the circle trying
to get in and making sure that they're accessible pathways
to that. Because science and academia the way that it's
set up, has a lot of potential for gatekeepers to
solely decide who gets accepted into a PhD program, who
gets published. We have this idea of peer review, which
(05:50):
is really great if you assume that your peers are
objective and going to be fair and just. And yes,
there are a lot of people that give fair reviews,
but there's a lot of people whose reviews are biased.
They see somebody's name and they say, I don't know
that I trust that person just based off of their name.
(06:13):
If it's a name that sounds feminine, if it's a
name that sounds quote unquote foreign. You know, I've had
people that are in different countries trying to publish work,
and they complain a lot of times that they get
really unfair peer reviews that basically imply that because they
are from a country in the global South, their science
isn't as credible as somebody from Europe or North America,
(06:37):
and so that's something that we struggle with. So those
are just a few examples, but there's lots of areas
where biased can creep in, and because we like to
think of ourselves as objective, sometimes we choose to ignore
those things and kind of stick our head in the sand.
But we have to really confront it in order to
make sure that science is actually objective and equitable.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
And us thank you for walking us through that. Could
you talk a little bit about Minorities in Shark Sciences
or miss how this came together, what sort of work
it's doing, and where you'd like it to go in
the future.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Minorities in Shark Sciences is four years old. So we
were founded in June of twenty twenty. We actually met
each other on Twitter, me and the other three co founders,
and we really wanted to create a sense of community.
That's what it started out as. We want to create
a sense of community where people feel like they belong
in science, where people are able to build their science
(07:36):
identity in a place where they feel that the rest
of their identity can come along and they don't have
to leave it at the door in order to be accepted.
And so that's sort of where minorities and shark sciences
came from. Since then, it's grown to be so much
more than just community. It's grown to be this sort
(08:00):
of wave of change in marine science and shark science
in particular, where we were astounded at how many people
you did an open call of who is trying to
get into shark research or marine science and feels like
they are the first or the only person like them
in the room, come and join us, and five hundred
(08:23):
people responded. That's a lot of people. And so having
this movement build of Okay, now we have a responsibility
to all of these people who are sharing their stories,
who are pointing out these issues, who want support in
their universities, in their academic institutions, in their organizations to
(08:45):
bring these issues to the forefront, because what we found
is that a lot of people have been experiencing these
things and have been trying to draw attention to them individually,
and it's a lot of oh, I think you're imagining
that they maybe don't mean that, you know, all of
these sort of but but but but butt and so
(09:06):
that could be really frustrating to have people not believe
you whenever you're trying to address something. But you can
ignore one person, you can maybe ignore two people, ignoring
five hundred people saying the same thing. That's really hard
to do. You got to stick your head pretty far
in that sand. And so that's sort of what this
movement has become is giving voice to people who haven't
(09:30):
been able to have their voices amplified before. Doing cutting
edge research and making sure to elevate people who are
doing research that maybe wasn't being respected before and being
able to amplify that work and bring attention to it
with this collective power that Myths Is an organization has built,
(09:51):
and then also getting to bring more people into the fold,
making sure that more people get into that inner circle,
providing the mentorship experiences. So we do mentorship experiences, we
do professional development workshops, We help people build skills, all
of these sorts of skills that you don't learn in school,
but people expect you to magically know how to do
and then also getting internships and fellowships and things like that,
(10:15):
while eliminating the financial barrier associated with that, because that's
been a huge problem in the past. Is this pay
to play where you have to pay someone to go
work for them, which exists in marine science and is
super common. But if you went to pretty much any
other field of career, if you say, wanted to go
(10:37):
intern at Google, it would be absurd for you to
pay to intern at Google. Google would pay you to
intern at Google. But in marine science, for reasons, lots
of reasons, it's flipped where the expectation is you're going
to pay for this, and so that makes it really
hard for people to access those experiences. But they need
those experiences to get the job, to get in that
(10:58):
inner circle, to meet those people, and so MISS is
all about eliminating those barriers introducing young people to marine
science and the ocean early on. We serve what we
call Kada gray, So we're really interested in bringing everyone
in and making everyone feel connected, whether that means they
want to be a scientist or they want to just
(11:20):
advocate in their everyday lives. We want to make sure
that people have access to the information about what's going
on in our ocean ecosystems because it affects all of us.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
That's awesome. Now, getting I guess more into sharks again.
You spend a great deal of the book discussing the
elegance of sharks, you know, from broad strokes about their
appearance and evolution, to biological specifics and species level details.
You know, I'm not going to ask you to go
through all of that here. I encourage listeners to go
(11:51):
check out the book, But in brief, why are sharks
such an evolutionary success story? Why have they done so
well and why have they changed so little?
Speaker 3 (12:00):
That's a great question and something that we as evolutionary
biologists are really interested in, and we don't have all
the answers. But something that's really unique about sharks is
that they've been around on this planet a really long time.
And when I say a really long time, I mean
before the dinosaurs, before we had trees, before Saturn had
(12:23):
its rings. This we're talking four hundred million years of time,
which I think is really hard for us to grasp
as human beings who have been on this planet for
a blink of an eye. But they've been here and
pretty much not changing that much. The same basic body plan,
same basic in the time that dinosaurs became chickens. Because
(12:46):
closest relative to dinosaurs a chicken, it's pretty wild to
think that sharks kind of looked the same and we
went from a dinosaur to a chicken and that same
amount of time, and so it's it's really cool, but
it's also something that makes it really alarming when we
think about losing them at the rate that we're losing them.
(13:06):
So they've survived every mass extinction event thus far, supervolcanoes,
meteor showers, you know, all of these ice ages, all
of these things that other organisms didn't survive, they survived.
But we're in the sixth mass extinction that's driven by people,
and they're dying an alarming rate, which we should all
(13:28):
be concerned about because we don't know what the world
looks like without sharks. Sharks have been here so long
that we don't even know what happens to an ecosystem
when they're not there. We have no idea what the
consequences of that are. And it's also really upsetting to
think that we as a species are more damaging to
(13:49):
the marine environment than supervolcanoes and meteor showers. That's pretty bad,
and we need to start thinking about how we live sustainably.
How do we coexist with all of these creatures that
are here inhabiting the planet right now, because we just
got here and we might not last very long if
(14:11):
we keep going the way that we're going. And so
that's something that I think is really important to think about.
And sharks have all of these really cool adaptations that
we can really learn from. I mean, Michael Phelps had
a whole swimsuit designs like the skin of sharks, and
it was actually so effective that they banded in the Olympics. Like,
(14:35):
just by copying how a shark's skin is designed, you
increased your speed so much that it was banned at
the Olympics. That's wild. Like nature has some really cool
ways of figuring out how to solve problems, and sharks
have really solved a lot of them. And so we
can learn a lot from sharks, but not if they're
(14:55):
not here.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
You talk about sharks as case selected animals than are
selected animals, and how that plays into their vulnerability. Can
you can you walk us through that real quick? What
does it mean to be a case selected organism.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Sure, so when we think about the term case selected,
and that's a term that's been used for a long time,
people are starting to transition away from it, but I
think it's really good for this concept. You have an organism,
think like a sequoia grows for a really long time,
gets really big, and that's that's great. You know, lives
(15:34):
a long time, super long life, which is a strategy.
And then you think of like a mosquito that lives
and dies pretty much within a couple of days. And
so you are comparing those two things, and it's not
that one is more effective. Mosquitos, you know, are effective
(15:56):
at existing. Sequoias are effective at existing until you introduce
something like people and all the things that we do
that causes these things that are supposed to be living
a long time to not live a long time. And
so these case selected organisms are their strategy is live
(16:18):
a long time, produce a lot of young over a
long period of time, not just you know, put all
of your eggs in one basket. Right at the beginning.
When we have mosquitoes and things like that, there are
selected They don't live a long time, but they have
a lot of young in that amount of time, and
(16:39):
that's fine, whatever strategy works until you start cutting down
sequoias before they get to live their full life and
reproduce as much as they should have if they live
their full life. Same thing for sharks. It takes sharks
a really long time to mature. So you think about people,
we're also long lived, don't reproduce very much. If we
(17:03):
all died before we hit twenty years old, think about
how many of us wouldn't have had children. Think about
what that does to the population we're supposed to live.
You know, roughly seventy eighty ninety. Some people live to
be over one hundred years old, and you have time
to have multiple children. Not if you die at twenty
(17:26):
that's you don't have that opportunity, and so you can't
replace yourself. And so that's what's happening with sharks is
their strategy worked for a really long time until we
had these other things come about there now killing them
and they're not living their full life expectancy like they
should have, and so that's affecting everything. It's affecting how
(17:50):
many young are in the next generation. It's affecting the
health of those young because we also have things like
maternal offloading, which is where a mother shark has so
much toxins, think mercury, think all of those things in
her body that it starts being detrimental to her. And
(18:12):
the strategy for a case selected individual is I'm going
to get rid of these toxins and my next litter
of pups, I'm just going to dump it all into
them and they might not survive, but I will keep
living and I will have more pups. So I will
make the sacrifice of these pups so that I can
keep living and continue to have pups, which is a
(18:33):
great strategy, except for if you then are always accumulating mercury,
and now all of your pups are not healthy and
you're continuing to live and reproduce, but the pups that
you're reproducing aren't as viable because they have all these
toxins in them. And so those are sort of things
(18:54):
that you don't start to think about until you kind
of dive deep into theology and how sharks work. And
that's sort of what I like to talk about in
the book so that people can understand, Hey, conservation of
the oceans involves conserving sharks.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
What do you think are some of the most I
guess winnable problems with shark conservation right now. What are
the areas where that are the most easily addressable that
maybe we're not addressing yet.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
So fishing is a big problem. We have overfishing, which
is where they're taking more out of the population than
can replace themselves. But then we also have by catch
and by catches where they're not actually targeting sharks. Sharks
are not the goal, sharks are accidentally being caught. And
(19:58):
so that I feel like is something that's we can address.
Is it's not a matter of how do we feed
these people, how do we make sure that these people
have their economies stabilize. They don't actually want these sharks.
They don't want the sharks. We don't want them to
catch the sharks. This is a perfect way for us
(20:18):
to come together and think how do we keep sharks
out of your gear? And so that's a lot of
what I start thinking about is by catch reduction, how
do we keep these species that people don't want. They
don't want to eat them, they don't need them for anything.
That's a huge problem where they're dying for no reason
at all. We're not even using them and so that's
(20:42):
one area. Another area with the overfishing is a bit
more complicated but still doable, is how do we cut
down on the amount of products that we need. So
we think about squalling squalling, and it's the oil in
sharks livers. A lot of it's used in cosmetics and
(21:03):
lotions and things like that. Whilst scientists have figured out
a way to manufacture synthetic squaling, so we replace all
of the squaling that's coming from sharks with synthetic we've
already cut out a good number of sharks deaths and
so little things like that, simple switches that we can
(21:24):
make in order to cut down on the amount of
products that we use. I think people tend to focus
on other people as a means to change. So we
think about shark fin soup. That's what a lot of
people like to focus on, is well, we need to
(21:44):
stop the Asian people from eating shark fin soup. This
is not an Asia problem. This is an everyone problem.
And it's really easy for you to point at somebody
else and say, well, it's their fault. We need to
start thinking about what can I do, what can we
do here to make changes. It's not about pointing fingers
(22:08):
at people, and I think it's a very slippery slope.
It's really easy to fall into racism and xenophobia and
be like, these people that are not like me are
the problem. Fishermen are the problem, Asian people are the problem,
Indigenous people are the problem. It's never I'm the problem.
We have to start thinking about how we are contributing
(22:29):
to the problem, because we all are, and we can't
just go pointing fingers at people, especially because the people
that tend to have the fingers pointed at them are
marginalized communities who don't have a seat at the conservation
table when these discussions are going on. It's really easy
to blame someone when they're not there to defend themselves,
and so I always like to tell people just be
(22:49):
mindful of that when you're starting to think about conservation,
start with yourself first before you start pointing fingers at
other people.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Now in the book, you bring up the topic of
beach renourishment. Is this something that threatens sharks in the wild.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Beach renourishment is something that's really interesting because as we
have people living on coastlines, we have we have kind
of two I guess groups of people living on coastlines.
We have people who are living on the coastlines because
they don't have anywhere else to go. And we have
(23:28):
people that are living on coastlines because they want beachfront
property and they want to look at the ocean. And
so these are two groups of people that are often
in conflict with each other because there's the people that
have the beachfront property, have money and power, and the
(23:49):
people who do not and are there because that's where
they've been pushed. Thinking about indigenous communities in Louisiana, a
lot of indigen and as communities got pushed to Louisiana
in those parishes that are coastal that are now going underwater,
and that is not where they intended to be, that
(24:11):
is not where their native lands are, that is where
they were pushed. And then we have people you know
that want to come and live in Miami and you know,
have their beaches and stuff. And so we have to
think about this from like two perspectives, because there are
renourishment things where we're trying to keep land available for
(24:33):
people who have nowhere else to go. And that's that's
one issue, and there are lots of ways that we
can think about how do we keep people where they are,
how do we help them decide where they want to
go and give them a place to go if that's
what they choose to do. Then we have this other
group of people who are like, I want white fluffy
(24:55):
sand in a beach. That is a different situation, and
that's what I'm talking about, Just to clarify, that's what
I'm talking about when I talk about renourishment projects being
a problem renourishing a beach because you want your nice beach.
You're a hotel and your private beach is disappearing. That's
(25:17):
do we need to do that? I don't know. That's
that's debatable. And so we have this issue where we
put this fake sand or not fake sand, but sam
that's not supposed to be there in an area where
the ocean wants to move it, like mother nature has
decided this be this beach ink won't be here no more.
And when mother nature decides something, it's really hard to
(25:40):
counteract that. And you have a really good reason for
doing that because it's going to be really expensive and
it's probably not gonna work, or it will work, and
it won't last very long. And so what we have
like in Myrtle Beach where my family is from. Is
we have these hotels and these owners of beachfront property saying, well,
my beach disappearing, and that's a natural process, but we're
(26:05):
trying to stop it for economic reasons. And we put
the sand here, and then a hurricane comes, like Hurricane
Ian came and they had just done a beachy nourishment project.
Guess we're all of that sand that they spent millions
of dollars putting on that peachment. Whoop, the mother nature
took it away mine. Nope, not supposed to be here.
(26:26):
But where does that sand go? It gets dumped off shore,
It covers up reefs, it covers up sea grass beds,
it covers up all of these habitats where fish are living,
and all of this sand, just this whole beach just
shifted into the water. And that's where we have an issue.
(26:50):
Is the ocean giveth and the ocean taketh away. Like
you can put all the sand there you want to.
If the ocean does not want that sand to be there,
it is not going to stay there and it's got
to go somewhere. And that somewhere is often covering important habitats.
We have fishermen that I've talked to that say, immediately
(27:10):
after a storm, after a renewerished area gets swept away,
they can't catch fish. And that's just terrible because that
means all of these where did all these fish go,
all of these fishermen that are relying on this, all
of these communities relying on this for food, It's gone.
They can't access it until the sand starts moving further
(27:33):
and further offshore, which who knows how that's how long
that's gonna take. And so these are things we have
to take into consideration. We make these decisions as humans
because we are part of the environment. The environment is
part of us. Every decision we make has an equal
and opposite reaction. So we need to be making decisions
based on necessity, not on I want my beach to
(27:54):
look at ice.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Now, coming back to just sort of the like that
the character of Sharks, the being in the water with sharks.
You know, the book is coming out in the summer,
this episode is publishing in the summer. A lot of
people are getting in the water. Sometimes people are getting
in the water, maybe in the vicinity of sharks for
the first time, or for the first time in a while.
Do you think there are key things that like the
(28:18):
average person getting in the water with the sharks might
need to learn about them or unlearn about them.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
Like what.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Do folks often just maybe not seem to understand or
need to understand a little better before they get in
there with them.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
Yeah, there's just a lot of fear surrounding the ocean
and sharks in particular. And I mean there are tons
of people that will not get in the ocean because
they are that afraid of sharks. And I mean I
can give numbers and figures and statistics, and maybe that
affects people, maybe it doesn't. You have this fear that's
(28:54):
been built by years of watching these shark movies and
hearing these news stories and all of the sensationalized things,
and that's something that takes time to get over. And
I think some of the best ways to overcome that
is to do it. You just expose your therapy, get
(29:17):
in the water, see that you're fine, and then you're like, Okay,
that wasn't so bad. I'll go a little deeper next time.
I'll go a little deeper next time. And once you
get in the ocean, you discover all of these amazing
things the ocean has to offer. Once you start snorkeling
and looking underneath the water and seeing all of these
fish that are swimming around you and all of that stuff,
(29:40):
hopefully the fascination with the ocean will start to outweigh
that fear. And I like to kind of remind people
we say things, and our language affects people's perceptions and so,
you know, media all of that, just be mindful of
(30:00):
the way that we portray sharks. So saying things like
shark infested waters, the waters are not shark infested. That's
where they live. It's if anything, they're people infested because
we're the ones that aren't supposed to be there. You
wouldn't say that the sky is bird infested, like they
live there. That's where they are. And you know, the
(30:21):
pictures that we choose to use when we have a story,
I mean, someone will get nibbled by like a little
tiny leopard shark and they'll be like shark attack off
La Hooia Shores. It'll be like a great white shark. No,
it was like the little tiny, two foot little leopard
shark and the person needed a band aid. We don't
need like this whole like thing. And yes, there are
(30:45):
people who have bites. They have negative encounters with sharks,
it does happen. But we have negative encounters with all
sorts of wild animals. They are animals. We have negative
encounters with each other, we you know. So it's a
fact of life that if things are in proximity to
each other, eventually there will be a negative encounter. And
(31:09):
it's something that I hope that with the love of
the ocean and this increased desire to be in the ocean,
similar to how we still get in cars even though
we know that we could get in an accident. That's
because our necessity, our a desire to get from one
place to another quickly and not have to walk outweighs
(31:30):
our fear of getting in an accident. And that's sort
of where we're going with kind of exposing people to
how cool the ocean is, how exciting it is, and
then that fear is kind of downplayed a little bit.
And I'm not saying that there's like a zero percent
chance that you're gonna get bit by a shark. What
I am saying is, wouldn't you rather experience this amazing
(31:54):
thing rather than be cut off from it because you're
afraid of this thing that's really not gonna happen happening.
And I also like to remind people like I work
with sharks for a living. I'm like around them all
the time. I've touched them all the time, doing things
that they don't exactly want. Like you don't like for
(32:18):
your dentists to be in your mouth, you don't like
for your nurse to draw your blood. You don't like
these things. They're like good for you, and like the
sharks don't understand that sharks can't think like people and
be like, oh, this person's trying to help me. Look
they're removing a parasite. How nice of them. They're like, ah,
why are you touching me? Ah? And so I haven't
(32:40):
had any issues with sharks. If I haven't, and I
have like way higher probability than the average person. So
you're fine, Like you just walking in the water up
to your waist. It's like, you're fine.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
So if chips are down. What's your favorite shark species?
Speaker 3 (33:06):
My favorite shark species is the bonnet head shark because
they're adorable. It's also the first shark that I got
to work with, and they were the first shark to
be discovered to be omnivorous, so they eat plants and animals.
Seagrass makes forty to sixty percent of their diet actually,
which is pretty wild that this little shark is eating
(33:31):
potentially more plants than they are eating animals and getting
more nutrition from plants. And so, I mean that just
goes back to how cool sharks are. We have this
one dimensional view of sharks because you hear the word
shark and you think great white jaws, mindless killing machine.
(33:51):
But there's so much diversity that actually white sharks are
the exception and not the rule. Most sharks are small.
Most sharks are less than four feet long. A lot
of sharks live in the deep sea. Some of them
grow glow in the dark. Some of them have hammers
for heads, Some of them eat plants, some of them
are pretty colors, some of them are filter feeders. It's
(34:12):
just there's so much variety, and we're really doing sharks
at disservice by only thinking of them in this one way.
That would be like us thinking that all humans are
I don't know, six', five or LIKE i don't Know
yao ming or something like, That like where they're not,
like we're not all like. That we had a lot of.
(34:32):
Varieties some of us have different hair, colors we're different,
shades we're different, sizes we have different. Interests and it
would be doing humans disservice to narrow us down to
like one type of. Person so we shouldn't do that to.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Sharks now that you pointed out, it it does feel
like even in like science, reporting a lot of, times
like the shark diversity stories that kind of end up
poking their head up or ones about like looking. Teeth you,
know it'll be, like, oh look at the goblin. Shark
it's it's stary, looking you, know and and maybe less
so On, well here's here's a shark that. Eats it is.
(35:09):
Omnivorous so that's a great. Point, now in terms of your,
research what shark or ray species are you working with
the most right?
Speaker 3 (35:18):
Now right? Now my work is mostly on understanding the
effects of a harmful alcol bloom Called florida redtide on,
sharks and So i'm doing that work here In Sarasota
bay And Tampa, bay and so a lot of the
sharks That i'm working with are black, tips black. NOSES
(35:39):
i still am working with bonnet heads a little, bit
although not as. Much and then we have scalloped hammerheads
and great hammer heads as, well and so those are
the main species That i'm interested in working with right.
NOW i still am a part of the sawfish re.
(36:00):
Church right, now sawfish are experiencing a unprecedented die off
in the in The South florida area where they're exhibiting
this weird spinning behavior and washing up. Dead we've lost
quite a number of, them especially considering how small the
population is, already because they're critically, endangered so there's not
(36:22):
a lot of, them and so that's been a big,
concern and So i've been kind of just helping where i,
can giving my expertise WHERE i, can SINCE i have
worked with them for a number of. Years because it's
all hands on deck right. Now no one knows why
this is, happening how to stop, it what's going, on
and so we're all just kind of lending support where we.
(36:43):
Can so that's sort of an ongoing side project of,
mine built more out of, necessity where we're trying to
deal with this unprecedented event now.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
In the shark science is obviously they're going to be
species that are hard to get to or rare in,
number but in, general are there are there any shark
species that are considered like, understudied not so much because
of their, remoteness just because like we just don't, know
don't pay as much attention to. Them are there any
stories like that in the shark.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
SCIENCES i feel like there are tons of understudied species
and you ask a different scientist and they will give
you a different, answer like THE i, mean there's so
many species of. Sharks there's about five hundred species of,
sharks so we're not studying all of. Them some of
them are in the deep, sea we can't get to,
them some of them are in areas where there's not
(37:35):
a lot of. Support, so AS i, mentioned there are
scientists in countries in the Global south that are doing,
work and that work is, happening but it's not making
it into the mainstream publication system because of these biases that.
Exist so we have that issue where there are shark
(37:59):
species that are studied by, someone but we don't get
to hear about it that much because their work is
being suppressed or. Undervalued and so that's one. Thing and
then there's also some species that just aren't as. Glamorous
like there are some species where people are, like, ah,
(38:19):
yes whale, SHARKS i will give money to fund whale shark.
Research if you're, LIKE i want to STUDY i don't,
know the shy shark or something, random people are, like,
okay you, know there's not as much flashy. Money people
want to spend money on things that are cool and
(38:41):
glamorous and they're like really excited. About people aren't really
like investing as much money in sharks that are like
just like super. Cash so there's definitely like a not
equitable distribution of, funding and so that also drives what
people choose to, study because if they can't get funding
(39:03):
to study that, animal then they have to go and
try to study something. Else and so there are some
of the less charismatic i'd say shark species that are
not being studied as. Much BUT i mean there's also
like tons of people that are working with sharks, that
(39:27):
LIKE i, said aren't making, headlines they're not making it
into the. Mainstream and so that's part of WHAT miss
is trying to do is amplify the work that's being
done on some of those lesser known researchers and areas
where people are doing.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
Work in the, book you write so passionately about what
attracted you to marine biology and the, ocean as well
as the challenges you've. Faced what advice do you have
for any young people out there who maybe feel the
same attraction to the ocean into marine biology and are
considering a career in SOMEIDE i.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
Would, say if you're considering a career in, science you
should one hundred percent go for it and don't let
anyone tell you that you can't do, that and don't
doubt that you. Can a lot of people, think you,
know WHENEVER i, say, Oh i'm a, scientist people's first,
reaction like nine times out of ten, is, oh, wow
(40:23):
you must be really. Smart and that's because we have
this perception that scientists are smarter than other. People And
i'm gonna let you in on a. Secret we are
not any smarter other. People that is not, true because
what does smart even? MEAN i don't, Know LIKE i
(40:45):
think there's a there's a famous quote AND i can't
remember who said, it but it was And i'll. Paraphrase
everyone is. Intelligent but if you judge a fish by
its ability to climb a, tree it will live its
whole life believing it is. Stupid and you, know we're
not any smarter than anyone. Else and so if you're, like,
(41:05):
OH i want to do, science BUT i don't Think
i'm smart, enough throw that, out because let me tell,
you there are some not why scientists out, there and
some of them are like really high up, there big,
shots and they're they do some things that are. Illogical
so just because someone is a scientist doesn't mean they're,
(41:28):
smart and so you shouldn't think, LIKE i don't Think
i'm smart enough to be a. Scientist that's a. Myth
scientists aren't any smarter than other. PEOPLE i, say as a,
SCIENTIST i can tell you right NOW i am not
smarter than anyone. Else and then people have this this
fear of, well If i've become a, SCIENTIST i gotta do,
math and math is. Scary AND i struggled with math
(41:51):
a lot WHEN i was in. School it was like
my hardest subject AND i actually had to get through
some of my math. CLASSES i basically was in my teachers'
class after school every, day getting tutoring to make it.
Through and so, like you don't have to be good
(42:14):
at everything to be a. Scientist all sciences is asking
questions and trying to figure out the. Answer that's all it.
Is people put all this flare and handwaving and, whatever
and that's all it, is asking, questions trying to figure
out the. Answers you can do that now and wherever you,
(42:35):
are whoever you, are you can ask questions and try
and figure out the. Answers you can do. Science that's all.
Sciences everything else is just. Flair doesn't matter what alphabet
is after your, name doesn't, matter if you have a,
degree doesn't, matter if you even know how to, read
you can do. Science i've seen, children toddlers do science
(42:57):
where they see ants walking and go where are those ants?
Going AND i, SAY i don't, know why don't you
follow them and find? Out and they will follow the
ants and figure out where they're. Going guess, what that's.
Science they just did. Science can't spell their own, name
but they did. Science and so that's all it. Is
so don't be intimidated by. It don't think that you
(43:18):
have to be somebody special to do. It we're not.
Special we're just like anyone else people that do. Science
and if there's a scientist that thinks that they're, special
they're just a little too over confident in. Themselves they
are not any more special than anyone. Else so anyone
can do. Science don't let anyone tell you that you.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
Can't all, right, well this has been. Delightful before we
close out, here remind everybody again that the book is
out now in, digital, physical and. Audiobook, right did you
read for the? Audiobook? CORRECT i?
Speaker 3 (43:53):
DID i did read for the.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
Audiobook, Awesome so it's out in all. Formats and then
as far as minorities And Sharks science, goes where can
people go to learn more ABOUT, miss to get involved
WITH miss or donate TO.
Speaker 3 (44:05):
Miss, Yes so we have a. Website IT'S Miss elasmo
dot org M i s S e L a s
M o dot. Org elasmo short for, alasmobrank which is,
sharks skates and. Rays so if you were wondering what that, was.
Elasmo and we're also On, Twitter, Instagram, facebook, YouTube TikTok and,
(44:30):
LinkedIn uh so you can look us up. There.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
Awesome, well thanks for taking time out of your day
to chat with me here.
Speaker 3 (44:36):
Today thanks thanks for having. Me thanks.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
Thanks once more To Jasmine graham for coming on the show.
Again you can pick up that book right. Now sharks don't.
Sync you can find it wherever you get your, books
and it's available now in all four. Minutes thanks as
always to the Excellent jjpossway for producing this show and
if you would like to get in touch with this
if you have suggestions for future episodes Of stuff To
(45:03):
Blow Your, mind comments on past, episodes or just any
other comments you want to share with, us, well you
can email us at contact at stuff To blow Your
mind dot.
Speaker 2 (45:12):
Com stuff To Blow Your mind is production Of. iHeartRadio
for more podcasts from my Heart, radio visit The iHeartRadio,
App Apple, podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite.
Shows
Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My
name is Robert Lamb. We're out this week, so we
have a vault episode for you. This is going to
be Sharks Don't Sink with Jasmine Graham. This was an
interview episode that originally published seven sixteen, twenty twenty four.
It's a fun chat. Let's jump right in.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My
name is Robert Lamb, and this episode of Stuff to
Blow Your Mind, we're going to be chatting with Jasmine Graham,
a shark scientist and author of Sharks Don't Sink. This
is a great book and it is out right now
in all formats. So I encourage you if this interview
grabs you, if the subject matter grabs you, especially if
(00:57):
you're interested in sharks. This is only some great summer
reading for you, so pick up a copy, especially if
you are going to go out to the beach or
in any way experience the ocean this year. So without
further ado, let's dive right in. Hi, Jasmine, welcome to
the show.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
The new book Sharks Don't Sink Adventures of a Rogue
Sharks Scientist is out now in digital, physical, and audio formats.
I really enjoyed it. It's a science book about sharks,
but it's also a social advocacy book and a personal memoir.
So I wanted to ask you. I'm going to ask
you about all of these aspects, but I guess the
best place to start is the simple question, how'd you
(01:41):
become interested in shark biology?
Speaker 3 (01:43):
I was always very interested in the ocean, and I
grew up fishing with my dad and come from a
fishing family, and so the ocean is always part of me.
I didn't really think much about sharks. I wasn't one
of those people that was afraid of them. I wasn't
super obsessed with them as a kid. They were kind
of just animals that existed. But whenever I was in
(02:05):
college working on my marine biology degree, I met a
professor who studied sharks, and I started talking with him
and doing some research with him, and they kind of
fell in love with sharks. I did a lot of
different marine science research while I was an undergrad, but
I just kept coming back to sharks because I just
think they're so cool. They've been here so long, they
(02:27):
have such neat adaptations, and I've always been someone that
roots for the underdog, and they're very misunderstood, so I've
always enjoyed working with them.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Now, in the book, you discussed the challenges and limitations
of the academic world. I think a lot of us
outside of academia only have like a surface level understanding
of things like publish or perish, and so I might
ask you to discuss that a little bit for everyone.
But also, you know, I think it's easy for us
outsiders to think about science and research as being well, okay,
(02:59):
this is like a your logical thing, and we let
ourselves forget that we have all these issues of politics
and discrimination very much in play in that world as well.
What are the challenges facing up and coming research scientists
and scientists of color in particular.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Yeah, it's interesting that you point out this perception that
science is objective and without bias, and that's how science
should be in its purest form. But obviously science is
conducted by human beings, and human beings all have biases,
we have flaws, we're illogical sometimes, and so I think
(03:36):
it's really hard for people in the science field, not
just people outside of the science field, but even people
in the science field to come to terms with that
that this area of research that we do, you know,
we do the scientific method and all of that, and
we like to think of ourselves as being objective. It's
really hard for us to admit that our biases come
(03:57):
into play in our scientific research. But that's something that
we have to deal with because we've seen science be
used for some really terrible things. We've seen science be
used as an excuse for genocide, We've seen science create
atomic bombs, We've seen science do all sorts of really
not great things, and so we have to recognize that
(04:22):
we have this responsibility as scientists to try to be objective,
but recognize that we are not entirely objective, and so
we have to be critical of how we think, how
we interact with each other, and all of those things.
Everything to who gets to present to a scientific conference,
(04:43):
or who gets to work in somebody's lab, or who's
invited to speak at this university, all of that has
bias associated with it, and so we have to work
really hard to be responsive to that. What that looks
like in terms of scientists from marginalized communities, it often
looks like not getting as much mentorship opportunities. It looks
(05:05):
like not being in the club. You know, there's like
a there's a clear these are the cool people in science,
and we all hang out together and we all talk,
and then there's outside ring of people trying to get
into the cool club, into the inner circle, as it will.
And so those in the inner circle have to be
(05:27):
really mindful of those who are outside the circle trying
to get in and making sure that they're accessible pathways
to that. Because science and academia the way that it's
set up, has a lot of potential for gatekeepers to
solely decide who gets accepted into a PhD program, who
gets published. We have this idea of peer review, which
(05:50):
is really great if you assume that your peers are
objective and going to be fair and just. And yes,
there are a lot of people that give fair reviews,
but there's a lot of people whose reviews are biased.
They see somebody's name and they say, I don't know
that I trust that person just based off of their name.
(06:13):
If it's a name that sounds feminine, if it's a
name that sounds quote unquote foreign. You know, I've had
people that are in different countries trying to publish work,
and they complain a lot of times that they get
really unfair peer reviews that basically imply that because they
are from a country in the global South, their science
isn't as credible as somebody from Europe or North America,
(06:37):
and so that's something that we struggle with. So those
are just a few examples, but there's lots of areas
where biased can creep in, and because we like to
think of ourselves as objective, sometimes we choose to ignore
those things and kind of stick our head in the sand.
But we have to really confront it in order to
make sure that science is actually objective and equitable.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
And us thank you for walking us through that. Could
you talk a little bit about Minorities in Shark Sciences
or miss how this came together, what sort of work
it's doing, and where you'd like it to go in
the future.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Minorities in Shark Sciences is four years old. So we
were founded in June of twenty twenty. We actually met
each other on Twitter, me and the other three co founders,
and we really wanted to create a sense of community.
That's what it started out as. We want to create
a sense of community where people feel like they belong
in science, where people are able to build their science
(07:36):
identity in a place where they feel that the rest
of their identity can come along and they don't have
to leave it at the door in order to be accepted.
And so that's sort of where minorities and shark sciences
came from. Since then, it's grown to be so much
more than just community. It's grown to be this sort
(08:00):
of wave of change in marine science and shark science
in particular, where we were astounded at how many people
you did an open call of who is trying to
get into shark research or marine science and feels like
they are the first or the only person like them
in the room, come and join us, and five hundred
(08:23):
people responded. That's a lot of people. And so having
this movement build of Okay, now we have a responsibility
to all of these people who are sharing their stories,
who are pointing out these issues, who want support in
their universities, in their academic institutions, in their organizations to
(08:45):
bring these issues to the forefront, because what we found
is that a lot of people have been experiencing these
things and have been trying to draw attention to them individually,
and it's a lot of oh, I think you're imagining
that they maybe don't mean that, you know, all of
these sort of but but but but butt and so
(09:06):
that could be really frustrating to have people not believe
you whenever you're trying to address something. But you can
ignore one person, you can maybe ignore two people, ignoring
five hundred people saying the same thing. That's really hard
to do. You got to stick your head pretty far
in that sand. And so that's sort of what this
movement has become is giving voice to people who haven't
(09:30):
been able to have their voices amplified before. Doing cutting
edge research and making sure to elevate people who are
doing research that maybe wasn't being respected before and being
able to amplify that work and bring attention to it
with this collective power that Myths Is an organization has built,
(09:51):
and then also getting to bring more people into the fold,
making sure that more people get into that inner circle,
providing the mentorship experiences. So we do mentorship experiences, we
do professional development workshops, We help people build skills, all
of these sorts of skills that you don't learn in school,
but people expect you to magically know how to do
and then also getting internships and fellowships and things like that,
(10:15):
while eliminating the financial barrier associated with that, because that's
been a huge problem in the past. Is this pay
to play where you have to pay someone to go
work for them, which exists in marine science and is
super common. But if you went to pretty much any
other field of career, if you say, wanted to go
(10:37):
intern at Google, it would be absurd for you to
pay to intern at Google. Google would pay you to
intern at Google. But in marine science, for reasons, lots
of reasons, it's flipped where the expectation is you're going
to pay for this, and so that makes it really
hard for people to access those experiences. But they need
those experiences to get the job, to get in that
(10:58):
inner circle, to meet those people, and so MISS is
all about eliminating those barriers introducing young people to marine
science and the ocean early on. We serve what we
call Kada gray, So we're really interested in bringing everyone
in and making everyone feel connected, whether that means they
want to be a scientist or they want to just
(11:20):
advocate in their everyday lives. We want to make sure
that people have access to the information about what's going
on in our ocean ecosystems because it affects all of us.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
That's awesome. Now, getting I guess more into sharks again.
You spend a great deal of the book discussing the
elegance of sharks, you know, from broad strokes about their
appearance and evolution, to biological specifics and species level details.
You know, I'm not going to ask you to go
through all of that here. I encourage listeners to go
(11:51):
check out the book, But in brief, why are sharks
such an evolutionary success story? Why have they done so
well and why have they changed so little?
Speaker 3 (12:00):
That's a great question and something that we as evolutionary
biologists are really interested in, and we don't have all
the answers. But something that's really unique about sharks is
that they've been around on this planet a really long time.
And when I say a really long time, I mean
before the dinosaurs, before we had trees, before Saturn had
(12:23):
its rings. This we're talking four hundred million years of time,
which I think is really hard for us to grasp
as human beings who have been on this planet for
a blink of an eye. But they've been here and
pretty much not changing that much. The same basic body plan,
same basic in the time that dinosaurs became chickens. Because
(12:46):
closest relative to dinosaurs a chicken, it's pretty wild to
think that sharks kind of looked the same and we
went from a dinosaur to a chicken and that same
amount of time, and so it's it's really cool, but
it's also something that makes it really alarming when we
think about losing them at the rate that we're losing them.
(13:06):
So they've survived every mass extinction event thus far, supervolcanoes,
meteor showers, you know, all of these ice ages, all
of these things that other organisms didn't survive, they survived.
But we're in the sixth mass extinction that's driven by people,
and they're dying an alarming rate, which we should all
(13:28):
be concerned about because we don't know what the world
looks like without sharks. Sharks have been here so long
that we don't even know what happens to an ecosystem
when they're not there. We have no idea what the
consequences of that are. And it's also really upsetting to
think that we as a species are more damaging to
(13:49):
the marine environment than supervolcanoes and meteor showers. That's pretty bad,
and we need to start thinking about how we live sustainably.
How do we coexist with all of these creatures that
are here inhabiting the planet right now, because we just
got here and we might not last very long if
(14:11):
we keep going the way that we're going. And so
that's something that I think is really important to think about.
And sharks have all of these really cool adaptations that
we can really learn from. I mean, Michael Phelps had
a whole swimsuit designs like the skin of sharks, and
it was actually so effective that they banded in the Olympics. Like,
(14:35):
just by copying how a shark's skin is designed, you
increased your speed so much that it was banned at
the Olympics. That's wild. Like nature has some really cool
ways of figuring out how to solve problems, and sharks
have really solved a lot of them. And so we
can learn a lot from sharks, but not if they're
(14:55):
not here.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
You talk about sharks as case selected animals than are
selected animals, and how that plays into their vulnerability. Can
you can you walk us through that real quick? What
does it mean to be a case selected organism.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Sure, so when we think about the term case selected,
and that's a term that's been used for a long time,
people are starting to transition away from it, but I
think it's really good for this concept. You have an organism,
think like a sequoia grows for a really long time,
gets really big, and that's that's great. You know, lives
(15:34):
a long time, super long life, which is a strategy.
And then you think of like a mosquito that lives
and dies pretty much within a couple of days. And
so you are comparing those two things, and it's not
that one is more effective. Mosquitos, you know, are effective
(15:56):
at existing. Sequoias are effective at existing until you introduce
something like people and all the things that we do
that causes these things that are supposed to be living
a long time to not live a long time. And
so these case selected organisms are their strategy is live
(16:18):
a long time, produce a lot of young over a
long period of time, not just you know, put all
of your eggs in one basket. Right at the beginning.
When we have mosquitoes and things like that, there are
selected They don't live a long time, but they have
a lot of young in that amount of time, and
(16:39):
that's fine, whatever strategy works until you start cutting down
sequoias before they get to live their full life and
reproduce as much as they should have if they live
their full life. Same thing for sharks. It takes sharks
a really long time to mature. So you think about people,
we're also long lived, don't reproduce very much. If we
(17:03):
all died before we hit twenty years old, think about
how many of us wouldn't have had children. Think about
what that does to the population we're supposed to live.
You know, roughly seventy eighty ninety. Some people live to
be over one hundred years old, and you have time
to have multiple children. Not if you die at twenty
(17:26):
that's you don't have that opportunity, and so you can't
replace yourself. And so that's what's happening with sharks is
their strategy worked for a really long time until we
had these other things come about there now killing them
and they're not living their full life expectancy like they
should have, and so that's affecting everything. It's affecting how
(17:50):
many young are in the next generation. It's affecting the
health of those young because we also have things like
maternal offloading, which is where a mother shark has so
much toxins, think mercury, think all of those things in
her body that it starts being detrimental to her. And
(18:12):
the strategy for a case selected individual is I'm going
to get rid of these toxins and my next litter
of pups, I'm just going to dump it all into
them and they might not survive, but I will keep
living and I will have more pups. So I will
make the sacrifice of these pups so that I can
keep living and continue to have pups, which is a
(18:33):
great strategy, except for if you then are always accumulating mercury,
and now all of your pups are not healthy and
you're continuing to live and reproduce, but the pups that
you're reproducing aren't as viable because they have all these
toxins in them. And so those are sort of things
(18:54):
that you don't start to think about until you kind
of dive deep into theology and how sharks work. And
that's sort of what I like to talk about in
the book so that people can understand, Hey, conservation of
the oceans involves conserving sharks.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
What do you think are some of the most I
guess winnable problems with shark conservation right now. What are
the areas where that are the most easily addressable that
maybe we're not addressing yet.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
So fishing is a big problem. We have overfishing, which
is where they're taking more out of the population than
can replace themselves. But then we also have by catch
and by catches where they're not actually targeting sharks. Sharks
are not the goal, sharks are accidentally being caught. And
(19:58):
so that I feel like is something that's we can address.
Is it's not a matter of how do we feed
these people, how do we make sure that these people
have their economies stabilize. They don't actually want these sharks.
They don't want the sharks. We don't want them to
catch the sharks. This is a perfect way for us
(20:18):
to come together and think how do we keep sharks
out of your gear? And so that's a lot of
what I start thinking about is by catch reduction, how
do we keep these species that people don't want. They
don't want to eat them, they don't need them for anything.
That's a huge problem where they're dying for no reason
at all. We're not even using them and so that's
(20:42):
one area. Another area with the overfishing is a bit
more complicated but still doable, is how do we cut
down on the amount of products that we need. So
we think about squalling squalling, and it's the oil in
sharks livers. A lot of it's used in cosmetics and
(21:03):
lotions and things like that. Whilst scientists have figured out
a way to manufacture synthetic squaling, so we replace all
of the squaling that's coming from sharks with synthetic we've
already cut out a good number of sharks deaths and
so little things like that, simple switches that we can
(21:24):
make in order to cut down on the amount of
products that we use. I think people tend to focus
on other people as a means to change. So we
think about shark fin soup. That's what a lot of
people like to focus on, is well, we need to
(21:44):
stop the Asian people from eating shark fin soup. This
is not an Asia problem. This is an everyone problem.
And it's really easy for you to point at somebody
else and say, well, it's their fault. We need to
start thinking about what can I do, what can we
do here to make changes. It's not about pointing fingers
(22:08):
at people, and I think it's a very slippery slope.
It's really easy to fall into racism and xenophobia and
be like, these people that are not like me are
the problem. Fishermen are the problem, Asian people are the problem,
Indigenous people are the problem. It's never I'm the problem.
We have to start thinking about how we are contributing
(22:29):
to the problem, because we all are, and we can't
just go pointing fingers at people, especially because the people
that tend to have the fingers pointed at them are
marginalized communities who don't have a seat at the conservation
table when these discussions are going on. It's really easy
to blame someone when they're not there to defend themselves,
and so I always like to tell people just be
(22:49):
mindful of that when you're starting to think about conservation,
start with yourself first before you start pointing fingers at
other people.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Now in the book, you bring up the topic of
beach renourishment. Is this something that threatens sharks in the wild.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Beach renourishment is something that's really interesting because as we
have people living on coastlines, we have we have kind
of two I guess groups of people living on coastlines.
We have people who are living on the coastlines because
they don't have anywhere else to go. And we have
(23:28):
people that are living on coastlines because they want beachfront
property and they want to look at the ocean. And
so these are two groups of people that are often
in conflict with each other because there's the people that
have the beachfront property, have money and power, and the
(23:49):
people who do not and are there because that's where
they've been pushed. Thinking about indigenous communities in Louisiana, a
lot of indigen and as communities got pushed to Louisiana
in those parishes that are coastal that are now going underwater,
and that is not where they intended to be, that
(24:11):
is not where their native lands are, that is where
they were pushed. And then we have people you know
that want to come and live in Miami and you know,
have their beaches and stuff. And so we have to
think about this from like two perspectives, because there are
renourishment things where we're trying to keep land available for
(24:33):
people who have nowhere else to go. And that's that's
one issue, and there are lots of ways that we
can think about how do we keep people where they are,
how do we help them decide where they want to
go and give them a place to go if that's
what they choose to do. Then we have this other
group of people who are like, I want white fluffy
(24:55):
sand in a beach. That is a different situation, and
that's what I'm talking about, Just to clarify, that's what
I'm talking about when I talk about renourishment projects being
a problem renourishing a beach because you want your nice beach.
You're a hotel and your private beach is disappearing. That's
(25:17):
do we need to do that? I don't know. That's
that's debatable. And so we have this issue where we
put this fake sand or not fake sand, but sam
that's not supposed to be there in an area where
the ocean wants to move it, like mother nature has
decided this be this beach ink won't be here no more.
And when mother nature decides something, it's really hard to
(25:40):
counteract that. And you have a really good reason for
doing that because it's going to be really expensive and
it's probably not gonna work, or it will work, and
it won't last very long. And so what we have
like in Myrtle Beach where my family is from. Is
we have these hotels and these owners of beachfront property saying, well,
my beach disappearing, and that's a natural process, but we're
(26:05):
trying to stop it for economic reasons. And we put
the sand here, and then a hurricane comes, like Hurricane
Ian came and they had just done a beachy nourishment project.
Guess we're all of that sand that they spent millions
of dollars putting on that peachment. Whoop, the mother nature
took it away mine. Nope, not supposed to be here.
(26:26):
But where does that sand go? It gets dumped off shore,
It covers up reefs, it covers up sea grass beds,
it covers up all of these habitats where fish are living,
and all of this sand, just this whole beach just
shifted into the water. And that's where we have an issue.
(26:50):
Is the ocean giveth and the ocean taketh away. Like
you can put all the sand there you want to.
If the ocean does not want that sand to be there,
it is not going to stay there and it's got
to go somewhere. And that somewhere is often covering important habitats.
We have fishermen that I've talked to that say, immediately
(27:10):
after a storm, after a renewerished area gets swept away,
they can't catch fish. And that's just terrible because that
means all of these where did all these fish go,
all of these fishermen that are relying on this, all
of these communities relying on this for food, It's gone.
They can't access it until the sand starts moving further
(27:33):
and further offshore, which who knows how that's how long
that's gonna take. And so these are things we have
to take into consideration. We make these decisions as humans
because we are part of the environment. The environment is
part of us. Every decision we make has an equal
and opposite reaction. So we need to be making decisions
based on necessity, not on I want my beach to
(27:54):
look at ice.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Now, coming back to just sort of the like that
the character of Sharks, the being in the water with sharks.
You know, the book is coming out in the summer,
this episode is publishing in the summer. A lot of
people are getting in the water. Sometimes people are getting
in the water, maybe in the vicinity of sharks for
the first time, or for the first time in a while.
Do you think there are key things that like the
(28:18):
average person getting in the water with the sharks might
need to learn about them or unlearn about them.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
Like what.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Do folks often just maybe not seem to understand or
need to understand a little better before they get in
there with them.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
Yeah, there's just a lot of fear surrounding the ocean
and sharks in particular. And I mean there are tons
of people that will not get in the ocean because
they are that afraid of sharks. And I mean I
can give numbers and figures and statistics, and maybe that
affects people, maybe it doesn't. You have this fear that's
(28:54):
been built by years of watching these shark movies and
hearing these news stories and all of the sensationalized things,
and that's something that takes time to get over. And
I think some of the best ways to overcome that
is to do it. You just expose your therapy, get
(29:17):
in the water, see that you're fine, and then you're like, Okay,
that wasn't so bad. I'll go a little deeper next time.
I'll go a little deeper next time. And once you
get in the ocean, you discover all of these amazing
things the ocean has to offer. Once you start snorkeling
and looking underneath the water and seeing all of these
fish that are swimming around you and all of that stuff,
(29:40):
hopefully the fascination with the ocean will start to outweigh
that fear. And I like to kind of remind people
we say things, and our language affects people's perceptions and so,
you know, media all of that, just be mindful of
(30:00):
the way that we portray sharks. So saying things like
shark infested waters, the waters are not shark infested. That's
where they live. It's if anything, they're people infested because
we're the ones that aren't supposed to be there. You
wouldn't say that the sky is bird infested, like they
live there. That's where they are. And you know, the
(30:21):
pictures that we choose to use when we have a story,
I mean, someone will get nibbled by like a little
tiny leopard shark and they'll be like shark attack off
La Hooia Shores. It'll be like a great white shark. No,
it was like the little tiny, two foot little leopard
shark and the person needed a band aid. We don't
need like this whole like thing. And yes, there are
(30:45):
people who have bites. They have negative encounters with sharks,
it does happen. But we have negative encounters with all
sorts of wild animals. They are animals. We have negative
encounters with each other, we you know. So it's a
fact of life that if things are in proximity to
each other, eventually there will be a negative encounter. And
(31:09):
it's something that I hope that with the love of
the ocean and this increased desire to be in the ocean,
similar to how we still get in cars even though
we know that we could get in an accident. That's
because our necessity, our a desire to get from one
place to another quickly and not have to walk outweighs
(31:30):
our fear of getting in an accident. And that's sort
of where we're going with kind of exposing people to
how cool the ocean is, how exciting it is, and
then that fear is kind of downplayed a little bit.
And I'm not saying that there's like a zero percent
chance that you're gonna get bit by a shark. What
I am saying is, wouldn't you rather experience this amazing
(31:54):
thing rather than be cut off from it because you're
afraid of this thing that's really not gonna happen happening.
And I also like to remind people like I work
with sharks for a living. I'm like around them all
the time. I've touched them all the time, doing things
that they don't exactly want. Like you don't like for
(32:18):
your dentists to be in your mouth, you don't like
for your nurse to draw your blood. You don't like
these things. They're like good for you, and like the
sharks don't understand that sharks can't think like people and
be like, oh, this person's trying to help me. Look
they're removing a parasite. How nice of them. They're like, ah,
why are you touching me? Ah? And so I haven't
(32:40):
had any issues with sharks. If I haven't, and I
have like way higher probability than the average person. So
you're fine, Like you just walking in the water up
to your waist. It's like, you're fine.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
So if chips are down. What's your favorite shark species?
Speaker 3 (33:06):
My favorite shark species is the bonnet head shark because
they're adorable. It's also the first shark that I got
to work with, and they were the first shark to
be discovered to be omnivorous, so they eat plants and animals.
Seagrass makes forty to sixty percent of their diet actually,
which is pretty wild that this little shark is eating
(33:31):
potentially more plants than they are eating animals and getting
more nutrition from plants. And so, I mean that just
goes back to how cool sharks are. We have this
one dimensional view of sharks because you hear the word
shark and you think great white jaws, mindless killing machine.
(33:51):
But there's so much diversity that actually white sharks are
the exception and not the rule. Most sharks are small.
Most sharks are less than four feet long. A lot
of sharks live in the deep sea. Some of them
grow glow in the dark. Some of them have hammers
for heads, Some of them eat plants, some of them
are pretty colors, some of them are filter feeders. It's
(34:12):
just there's so much variety, and we're really doing sharks
at disservice by only thinking of them in this one way.
That would be like us thinking that all humans are
I don't know, six', five or LIKE i don't Know
yao ming or something like, That like where they're not,
like we're not all like. That we had a lot of.
(34:32):
Varieties some of us have different hair, colors we're different,
shades we're different, sizes we have different. Interests and it
would be doing humans disservice to narrow us down to
like one type of. Person so we shouldn't do that to.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Sharks now that you pointed out, it it does feel
like even in like science, reporting a lot of, times
like the shark diversity stories that kind of end up
poking their head up or ones about like looking. Teeth you,
know it'll be, like, oh look at the goblin. Shark
it's it's stary, looking you, know and and maybe less
so On, well here's here's a shark that. Eats it is.
(35:09):
Omnivorous so that's a great. Point, now in terms of your,
research what shark or ray species are you working with
the most right?
Speaker 3 (35:18):
Now right? Now my work is mostly on understanding the
effects of a harmful alcol bloom Called florida redtide on,
sharks and So i'm doing that work here In Sarasota
bay And Tampa, bay and so a lot of the
sharks That i'm working with are black, tips black. NOSES
(35:39):
i still am working with bonnet heads a little, bit
although not as. Much and then we have scalloped hammerheads
and great hammer heads as, well and so those are
the main species That i'm interested in working with right.
NOW i still am a part of the sawfish re.
(36:00):
Church right, now sawfish are experiencing a unprecedented die off
in the in The South florida area where they're exhibiting
this weird spinning behavior and washing up. Dead we've lost
quite a number of, them especially considering how small the
population is, already because they're critically, endangered so there's not
(36:22):
a lot of, them and so that's been a big,
concern and So i've been kind of just helping where i,
can giving my expertise WHERE i, can SINCE i have
worked with them for a number of. Years because it's
all hands on deck right. Now no one knows why
this is, happening how to stop, it what's going, on
and so we're all just kind of lending support where we.
(36:43):
Can so that's sort of an ongoing side project of,
mine built more out of, necessity where we're trying to
deal with this unprecedented event now.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
In the shark science is obviously they're going to be
species that are hard to get to or rare in,
number but in, general are there are there any shark
species that are considered like, understudied not so much because
of their, remoteness just because like we just don't, know
don't pay as much attention to. Them are there any
stories like that in the shark.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
SCIENCES i feel like there are tons of understudied species
and you ask a different scientist and they will give
you a different, answer like THE i, mean there's so
many species of. Sharks there's about five hundred species of,
sharks so we're not studying all of. Them some of
them are in the deep, sea we can't get to,
them some of them are in areas where there's not
(37:35):
a lot of. Support, so AS i, mentioned there are
scientists in countries in the Global south that are doing,
work and that work is, happening but it's not making
it into the mainstream publication system because of these biases that.
Exist so we have that issue where there are shark
(37:59):
species that are studied by, someone but we don't get
to hear about it that much because their work is
being suppressed or. Undervalued and so that's one. Thing and
then there's also some species that just aren't as. Glamorous
like there are some species where people are, like, ah,
(38:19):
yes whale, SHARKS i will give money to fund whale shark.
Research if you're, LIKE i want to STUDY i don't,
know the shy shark or something, random people are, like,
okay you, know there's not as much flashy. Money people
want to spend money on things that are cool and
(38:41):
glamorous and they're like really excited. About people aren't really
like investing as much money in sharks that are like
just like super. Cash so there's definitely like a not
equitable distribution of, funding and so that also drives what
people choose to, study because if they can't get funding
(39:03):
to study that, animal then they have to go and
try to study something. Else and so there are some
of the less charismatic i'd say shark species that are
not being studied as. Much BUT i mean there's also
like tons of people that are working with sharks, that
(39:27):
LIKE i, said aren't making, headlines they're not making it
into the. Mainstream and so that's part of WHAT miss
is trying to do is amplify the work that's being
done on some of those lesser known researchers and areas
where people are doing.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
Work in the, book you write so passionately about what
attracted you to marine biology and the, ocean as well
as the challenges you've. Faced what advice do you have
for any young people out there who maybe feel the
same attraction to the ocean into marine biology and are
considering a career in SOMEIDE i.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
Would, say if you're considering a career in, science you
should one hundred percent go for it and don't let
anyone tell you that you can't do, that and don't
doubt that you. Can a lot of people, think you,
know WHENEVER i, say, Oh i'm a, scientist people's first,
reaction like nine times out of ten, is, oh, wow
(40:23):
you must be really. Smart and that's because we have
this perception that scientists are smarter than other. People And
i'm gonna let you in on a. Secret we are
not any smarter other. People that is not, true because
what does smart even? MEAN i don't, Know LIKE i
(40:45):
think there's a there's a famous quote AND i can't
remember who said, it but it was And i'll. Paraphrase
everyone is. Intelligent but if you judge a fish by
its ability to climb a, tree it will live its
whole life believing it is. Stupid and you, know we're
not any smarter than anyone. Else and so if you're, like,
(41:05):
OH i want to do, science BUT i don't Think
i'm smart, enough throw that, out because let me tell,
you there are some not why scientists out, there and
some of them are like really high up, there big,
shots and they're they do some things that are. Illogical
so just because someone is a scientist doesn't mean they're,
(41:28):
smart and so you shouldn't think, LIKE i don't Think
i'm smart enough to be a. Scientist that's a. Myth
scientists aren't any smarter than other. PEOPLE i, say as a,
SCIENTIST i can tell you right NOW i am not
smarter than anyone. Else and then people have this this
fear of, well If i've become a, SCIENTIST i gotta do,
math and math is. Scary AND i struggled with math
(41:51):
a lot WHEN i was in. School it was like
my hardest subject AND i actually had to get through
some of my math. CLASSES i basically was in my teachers'
class after school every, day getting tutoring to make it.
Through and so, like you don't have to be good
(42:14):
at everything to be a. Scientist all sciences is asking
questions and trying to figure out the. Answer that's all it.
Is people put all this flare and handwaving and, whatever
and that's all it, is asking, questions trying to figure
out the. Answers you can do that now and wherever you,
(42:35):
are whoever you, are you can ask questions and try
and figure out the. Answers you can do. Science that's all.
Sciences everything else is just. Flair doesn't matter what alphabet
is after your, name doesn't, matter if you have a,
degree doesn't, matter if you even know how to, read
you can do. Science i've seen, children toddlers do science
(42:57):
where they see ants walking and go where are those ants?
Going AND i, SAY i don't, know why don't you
follow them and find? Out and they will follow the
ants and figure out where they're. Going guess, what that's.
Science they just did. Science can't spell their own, name
but they did. Science and so that's all it. Is
so don't be intimidated by. It don't think that you
(43:18):
have to be somebody special to do. It we're not.
Special we're just like anyone else people that do. Science
and if there's a scientist that thinks that they're, special
they're just a little too over confident in. Themselves they
are not any more special than anyone. Else so anyone
can do. Science don't let anyone tell you that you.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
Can't all, right, well this has been. Delightful before we
close out, here remind everybody again that the book is
out now in, digital, physical and. Audiobook, right did you
read for the? Audiobook? CORRECT i?
Speaker 3 (43:53):
DID i did read for the.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
Audiobook, Awesome so it's out in all. Formats and then
as far as minorities And Sharks science, goes where can
people go to learn more ABOUT, miss to get involved
WITH miss or donate TO.
Speaker 3 (44:05):
Miss, Yes so we have a. Website IT'S Miss elasmo
dot org M i s S e L a s
M o dot. Org elasmo short for, alasmobrank which is,
sharks skates and. Rays so if you were wondering what that, was.
Elasmo and we're also On, Twitter, Instagram, facebook, YouTube TikTok and,
(44:30):
LinkedIn uh so you can look us up. There.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
Awesome, well thanks for taking time out of your day
to chat with me here.
Speaker 3 (44:36):
Today thanks thanks for having. Me thanks.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
Thanks once more To Jasmine graham for coming on the show.
Again you can pick up that book right. Now sharks don't.
Sync you can find it wherever you get your, books
and it's available now in all four. Minutes thanks as
always to the Excellent jjpossway for producing this show and
if you would like to get in touch with this
if you have suggestions for future episodes Of stuff To
(45:03):
Blow Your, mind comments on past, episodes or just any
other comments you want to share with, us, well you
can email us at contact at stuff To blow Your
mind dot.
Speaker 2 (45:12):
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