#64 - Coral Restoration and Conservation: Summer Collins on Saving Marine Ecosystems - Married with Opinions

Episode Transcript
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UNKNOWN (00:00):
Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 (00:02):
The Unfiltered Union Podcast.
All right.

SPEAKER_03 (00:06):
Florida, as Taylor Swift would say.
Oh,

SPEAKER_00 (00:09):
you're

SPEAKER_05 (00:09):
getting copyright infringement.

SPEAKER_03 (00:13):
We are, well, we are in Florida.
We are in the Tampa Bay area.
We love all things ocean.
I am Linz.

SPEAKER_04 (00:20):
And I am Russ.
And I like fishing and boating.
And not so much the beach.
There's too much sand that getseverywhere.
But mostly I like the ocean.

SPEAKER_03 (00:32):
Agreed.
And I think one of the bestthings about Florida is it is
surrounded by ocean.

SPEAKER_04 (00:37):
Yes.

SPEAKER_03 (00:38):
You walk out your front door and there is water.
But recently we went toSeaWorld.

SPEAKER_05 (00:43):
We did.

SPEAKER_03 (00:44):
We took kiddo up there and there has been a whole
new exhibit related to the coralreef and rehabilitation.
So doing kind of like a deepdive into Instagram, we found
Summer Collins.

SPEAKER_05 (00:56):
Yes.

SPEAKER_03 (00:58):
Hello.
Hi, Summer.
So as a coral biologist, and abackground in microplastic
research and sea turtlerehabilitation.
Your content on Instagram reallycalled to us.
Let's talk.
Thank you.
I try my best.
I have a lot of fun with it.
Oh, yeah.
Well, we appreciate it.

SPEAKER_05 (01:18):
For sure.
I

SPEAKER_03 (01:20):
mean, let's start at the beginning, Summer, with your
background, and we're going todive into some more of the ocean
aspects.
So what started your interest inmarine biology?

SPEAKER_02 (01:30):
So I'm from Florida, born and raised.
I grew up in the Sarasota area,actually, and there's a local
aquarium there.
And my mom really fed into mybrother and I's interests a
little too much, probably.
So every weekend we went to thataquarium.
We remember passes.
And then that turned into myparents buying a boat because my

(01:53):
dad also is an avid fisherman.
He hates fish, though, but justlikes catching them.
I don't know.
And then I After that, it justkind of kept spiraling.
I've always been drawn to theocean and I wanted to just share
my love for it.

(02:13):
And then I was talking to a FWCofficer, actually, and I was
like nine standing on the docksbeing like, oh, that's
particles.
This is the tide.
And he's like, you're goingplaces, kid.
So he handed me a bunch ofposters that had like all these
identifications of fish specieson it and that was my first

(02:34):
glimpse into kind of more of thescientific aspects of using like
graphic design into science sothen it went into like
encyclopedias and then it wasSteve Irwin and it just kept
spiraling and then outside ofthat too the back of my

(02:54):
neighborhood was allnon-developed land but it was
really tore up a lot because itwas in the process of being
developed developed and Floridaused to be completely underwater
so there's fossils everywhere somy mom would take us on fossil
walks and we would find likeshark's teeth and manatee bones

(03:15):
and then it just was like ohwhat's this bone what is this
animal where did this animal fitinto the ecosystem and it just
kind of kept spiraling

SPEAKER_05 (03:24):
right

SPEAKER_02 (03:25):
that is a fun idea oh

SPEAKER_05 (03:27):
yeah

SPEAKER_02 (03:28):
if you've never gone fossil hunting 10 out of 10.
Really suggest it.

SPEAKER_03 (03:34):
Really do.
We're not talking like at CircleB, right?
We're talking like go to

SPEAKER_02 (03:39):
a beach or something.
Yeah, go to the beach.
There's a bunch of rivers andcreeks all around Florida,
Rainbow River especially.
I don't know if you guys arequite close to that one, but it
would be worth the drive,needless to say.

SPEAKER_03 (03:53):
Yeah, we recently went to Wikiwachi.
Nice! I love that area.
Oh

SPEAKER_04 (04:01):
yeah, it was awesome.
Awesome.

SPEAKER_03 (04:02):
It really was.
It was a fun area, but I didn'teven think about looking for
fossils.
Have you

SPEAKER_04 (04:06):
found a mermaid fossil?

SPEAKER_03 (04:08):
No.

SPEAKER_04 (04:08):
I'm just kidding.

SPEAKER_02 (04:09):
I wish.
Oh, mermaids are real.
A hundred percent.
We'll get back to that.
Scientists claimed mermaidsreal.

SPEAKER_04 (04:17):
All right.
Oh, you heard it here first.

SPEAKER_03 (04:20):
I love it.
I absolutely love it.
Well, I mean, so the idea ofgoing on these fossil walks,
right?
And your mom really exposing youto the world and being born and
raised in Florida.
I mean, that right there justshows your interest in all
things marine biology.
I mean, how did you get to thepoint of being, you know,
interested in researchingmicroplastics?

SPEAKER_02 (04:42):
So that kind of came when I was a junior in high
school.
My dad's job relocated us tomiddle of nowhere, South
Carolina.
And I was really landlocked fora couple of years.
Absolutely did not like it.
And I went to University ofNorth Carolina, Wilmington for
my undergrad.
And that That's where I metBonnie Montaloni, who does a

(05:06):
plastic research project or aplastic ocean project.
And she did an entire Netflixdocumentary.
She is absolutely fabulous.
Cannot speak highly enough ofher.
And I actually took amicroplastics class with her in
school.
And that's how I was exposed toit.
And I ended up dissecting 146fish specimens for ingestion of

(05:31):
microplastics for, like, largetrophy fishes that were actually
located out of the Florida Keys.
So, like, mahi-mahi, sailfish,marlin, those kinds of species.
And I analyzed, like, themicroplastics from their gut
contents.
And I also did a plastic derbywith her.

(05:52):
So we got a lot of local chartercaptains.
Instead of chartering for fish,they did chartering for
plastics.
So we released...
this specialized microplasticsnet into the water that trailed
behind the boat and weespecially we kind of did like a
tournament basically of whocould ever come back with the

(06:12):
most amount of plastic thebiggest amount of plastic the
smallest amount of plastic andthey can get rewards as well so
it was a really cool experience

SPEAKER_04 (06:19):
that's genius yeah seriously yeah so i know florida
has they do that bounty programfor like invasive species of
lionfish and anaconda or pythonand all that stuff why don't
they do that

SPEAKER_03 (06:35):
for plastic

SPEAKER_04 (06:36):
yeah for plastic in the ocean because that's a
clearly a huge problem

SPEAKER_02 (06:40):
yeah that's that's what bonnie's working on she's
trying to get that idea to morewidespread but yeah

SPEAKER_04 (06:45):
yeah i don't know why you wouldn't do it yeah it
is brilliant because it kind ofit's kind of a competition which
humans thrive off competition

SPEAKER_05 (06:55):
yeah

SPEAKER_04 (06:56):
and you're doing good while also trying to maybe
win some money

SPEAKER_03 (07:01):
seriously I mean, who wouldn't want to jump on
that?
It would be so easy, too,especially when you're talking
about plastic, because most ofit is going to be single use,
right?
The bottles, the detergentthings or whatever.
So it would be pretty easy, Ithink, to find that stuff.
Interesting.
Oh,

SPEAKER_04 (07:21):
yeah.
I like that idea.

SPEAKER_02 (07:22):
It also really depends on where you're going.
So a lot of our microplasticsend up in seaweed that float on
the surface.
and get caught up in all of thatand so when you're at the beach
ideally you want to be at abeach that doesn't have a lot of
seaweed so when you're at thebeach you only see like really
cigarette butts or bottle capsand like those really hard

(07:44):
plastics um but once you getinto like the seaweed and the
seaweed patches that roll up onthe shore you'll find like the
ziploc bags the um more of theplastic bottles a lot of water
bottles flip-flops i've evenfound a cool Cooler, I found
once.
Tons of different stuff.

SPEAKER_03 (08:06):
Well, I mean, based on just that, right?
Like the list of things yougave, obviously we people,
humans are the large contributorto microplastics.

SPEAKER_04 (08:17):
The only contributor.

SPEAKER_03 (08:19):
Well, I

SPEAKER_04 (08:20):
don't see a frigging lion using a water bottle.

SPEAKER_03 (08:25):
Yes, but someone on the beach, right?
They lose their cooler.
That's one thing.

SPEAKER_04 (08:30):
Yeah, but that's us all day.

SPEAKER_03 (08:31):
True.
But is there any othercontributor other than people
going to the beach?
related to microplastics?

SPEAKER_02 (08:38):
Oh, there's a ton of different things.
So once you start really digginginto it, you realize just how
much of our society has plasticsinfused into it.
So one thing that a lot ofpeople don't realize is that
your clothes are a hugemicroplastic contributor.
A lot of the textiles haveacrylics or polymers in it that

(08:58):
release microplastics into yourwashing machine, which then get
drained down and then the cyclecontinues.
They also have these thingscalled nurdles.
I'm not sure if you've heard ofthem, but they are in a lot of
industrial things to smooth oversurfaces.
So it's plastic beading.
Another one that's not a lot ofpeople realize is for women,

(09:23):
like skincare, that stuff thatfeels so good on your face and
really exfoliates your skinprobably has some microplastics
in it.
The little beads are probablyplastic.
And that's another source.
Yeah, the exfoliant is probablya microplastic, unfortunately.

(09:44):
So you got to like, you have todo a lot of reading now, which
is crazy.
But yeah, and then obviously youhave your traditional plastic.

UNKNOWN (09:57):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (09:57):
What's the word?
Plastic sources, I would guessyou would say.
Like restaurants, you have a lotof takeout boxes, Ziploc bags,
those water bottles, silverware,those straws, those kinds of
things.

SPEAKER_04 (10:13):
I guess it's not silverware if it's

SPEAKER_03 (10:14):
plastic.
Cutlery.
Cutlery.
Yeah, there you go.
Well, hold on.
Can we go back just one second?
You said clothes.
Yeah.
And that literally just blew mymind.
When you talk about washing yourclothes, I understand that the
fling packs, right?
Like the little detergent flingpacks.

(10:37):
The Tide

SPEAKER_04 (10:37):
Pods that all the teenagers were eating.

SPEAKER_03 (10:39):
Yes, those.
That the actual casein may havesome plastic to it.
There's plastic components toit.
But you're saying my actual,like my shirt that I have on may
have some sort of plasticresidue that gets into the wash
and becomes a microplastic.

SPEAKER_04 (10:55):
This is organic cotton.

SPEAKER_03 (10:56):
Yeah, so

SPEAKER_02 (10:57):
the thing.
So if it does say 100% cotton or100% fleece or whatever, then it
doesn't have any plastic in it.
But the things that you have tolook out for is acrylics.
So they're taking the cotton orthey're taking literally the
plastic bottles and they stringit out to create a fabric-like

(11:20):
substance that they then makeclothes out of.
So a lot of your workoutclothes, a lot of your leggings
are probably going to have thoseplastic components in there.

SPEAKER_04 (11:30):
Is polyester plastic?

SPEAKER_02 (11:33):
I'm not sure if it's considered plastic.
I think it is.
I

SPEAKER_04 (11:39):
see that on labels a lot for clothing.

SPEAKER_03 (11:43):
My mind is blown right now.
The idea that you have clothesthat are essentially leaching
into your water.

SPEAKER_02 (11:56):
Into

SPEAKER_04 (11:57):
your skin.

SPEAKER_02 (11:57):
I looked at the notes that I made because I
wanted to make sure I wasfact-checking myself before I
just skewed random shit.
I absolutely

SPEAKER_03 (12:07):
love you.
No, you're good.
We're allowed.
I curse like a sailor.
Heads up.
He was in the Coast Guard.
We're used to it.

SPEAKER_02 (12:16):
Everyone in science curses a lot.
Except when we're presenting andwe're like, oh, this is our
research.
This is the data.
Meanwhile, we're running oursoftware like, fuck.
Textile fibers with acrylic andpolyester.
So, yes, polyester does haveplastic in it, and it is
included in that.

SPEAKER_04 (12:37):
And I know that's a very common one.

SPEAKER_02 (12:40):
My leggings.
I know.

SPEAKER_04 (12:42):
The leggings I have on.
Right.

UNKNOWN (12:47):
I mean.

SPEAKER_04 (12:47):
So, okay, I mean, so essentially we're saying
everything has plastic in it.

SPEAKER_02 (12:52):
Pretty much at this point.
Your phone has plastic in it,computer.

SPEAKER_04 (12:57):
Right.
we do.

SPEAKER_02 (12:59):
That's a great question.
A lot of people are looking intodifferent ways to produce a
plastic-like substance withoutit actually being plastic.
I know a common one that they'vebeen turning to is corn.
They've actually been using cornand breaking it down into its
starch form and then usingbasically a mold to create

(13:29):
Right, right.

(13:59):
We have huge plastic pilesfloating in the middle of the
ocean that have congregated.
And nobody, A, nobody knows howto collect all of that
efficiently without it beinguber expensive.
And then B, once you'vecollected all of it, what do you
do with it?
Yeah.
So those are the two mainproblems when it comes to

(14:21):
plastic.
And plastic is forever.
Yes.
Like it takes forever to breakdown and then...
People's definitions ofmicroplastic are different.
So like what I considermicroplastic could be as small
as a pinhead.
Some people consider it evensmaller than that.
So when you're talking aboutcentimeters, millimeters,

(14:45):
micrometers, you're talkingtiny, tiny little pieces, which
they've even found plastic nowsettling into the human body,
which is not good.
That

SPEAKER_03 (14:57):
scares me.

SPEAKER_04 (14:59):
I've read you can inhale microplastics now.
It's airborne.
That's how fine they are.
That's nuts.

SPEAKER_02 (15:05):
Yeah.
I know.

SPEAKER_04 (15:06):
It's everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 (15:07):
Yeah, it's everywhere.
You can't.
there's no essentially gettingrid of it, which is very dark to
think that.
Who thought

SPEAKER_04 (15:14):
this shit was a good idea?

SPEAKER_02 (15:17):
Yeah, some

SPEAKER_03 (15:17):
guys.

SPEAKER_04 (15:18):
Boomers! Boomers! I just don't I don't understand
how we go down a path that weit's an irreversible path.
Like, we're down it.
Now we have to figure out how toundo years and years of

(15:40):
pollution and I read andresearched the recycling
industry

SPEAKER_05 (15:48):
I

SPEAKER_04 (15:50):
read a lot of bad things that it really doesn't do
anything sometimes it does I'mnot saying everything but I read
that we ship some of ourrecycling stuff over to China
and then China just dumps it inthe ocean

SPEAKER_02 (16:06):
yeah because it's cheaper for us to do that

SPEAKER_04 (16:09):
but so

SPEAKER_02 (16:11):
so like

SPEAKER_04 (16:12):
we're not recycling

SPEAKER_02 (16:14):
yeah it's honestly the system is broken on a
multitude of different facetsbut the main issue with it is
that we have this problem weknow we need to do it's kind of
like global warming wow we havethis problem we know that we
need to make steps towards itand then we absolutely have no

(16:38):
foundation foundational systemor steps of how to alleviate
that problem without completelyrewriting the way that we do
things.
So like for some people, youknow, oh, I I'm in Maine
currently because I'm focusingon writing my two books for the
summer.
So I was like, oh, cool, Maine.

(16:59):
I'll go in the middle of thewoods and write.
But here they don't haverecycling bins.
There's not one anywhere.
You can't just take out yourtrash and there's not a
recycling bin.
It doesn't exist.
But they have...
You only can buy a recyclablebag for your groceries or you're

(17:20):
using a paper bag.
But they don't...
Like, what do you do with yourcardboard boxes?
What do you do with all the...
And then the other issue, too,is the inaccessibility for
people financially to be able toafford things that aren't a
one-time use or disposable solike I use wax seals over my you

(17:42):
know leftovers to where I usereusable like ziplock bags but
those are expensive especiallywhen they break and not
everybody can financially affordto do that it's cheaper to buy
you know 100 ziplock bags versusthe four or five ziplock
reusable ziplock bags especiallyif you have like a large family

(18:02):
or something like that sothere's a lot There's a lot of
things that we need to figureout as a society.
And I think about it all thetime because I'm like, wow, for
such a smart species, we havereally come up with some dumb
things.
Yeah.
Oh, man.
I

SPEAKER_03 (18:20):
don't know.
We never think about the longgame.
No.
I think it's our problem.

SPEAKER_04 (18:25):
Well, you just said it, that we send our stuff to
China for recycling because ofmoney.
It's

SPEAKER_03 (18:31):
cheaper.
But we're

SPEAKER_04 (18:32):
using overabundance of plastic because of money.
money corporation bigcorporations are over there
everything goes into plasticbecause it's real cheap it's
readily available it costs meless and I can charge you and
make a lot more money than doingthis corn thing or some kind of
biodegradable packaging or paperpackaging for deodorant sticks

(18:54):
which makes sense because it'snot liquid but you know it's
it's more expensive which butWhen we don't have the
facilities like where you're at,you don't have the facilities.
It's like, why don't we pushmore towards these big companies
to...
be more responsible.

(19:15):
They have the money to do it.

SPEAKER_02 (19:18):
I think there's something definitely to be said
for the convenience of it.
It's easy.
It's easy to put something in aZiploc bag and then, oh, I don't
need that anymore.
You just throw it away.
It's much harder to wash out theZiploc bag because some
recycling facilities make youseparate out your recyclables
into your different types ofrecyclables.

(19:41):
You have your hard plastics,soft plastic, sickly used
plastics, et cetera, et cetera.
And not everybody wants to dothat.
I'm guilty of it.
Everybody's guilty of it.

SPEAKER_05 (19:55):
For sure.

SPEAKER_02 (19:55):
I don't want to sit there and wash my bags.
What are you talking about?
And then you have people thatjust truly have no concept and
have no clue.
I have walked around here again,Maine, and I'm like, oh, yeah,
I'm a choral biologist andscience communicator.
And they're like, what?
What is that?

(20:44):
can't afford that option.
What are you going to make herdo?
It's a rock and a hard place.

SPEAKER_04 (20:53):
I don't know.
When you go to the grocerystore, you don't really have
much choice.
If you want to eat, you'rebuying something out of plastic.

SPEAKER_03 (21:02):
Even if you go on Amazon, for example, and you
look for something that is aproduct that does not have
plastic, Amazon's going to shipit to you in a plastic wrap

SPEAKER_04 (21:13):
and

SPEAKER_03 (21:14):
or a cardboard box.
With the

SPEAKER_04 (21:16):
bubbles, the plastic bubbles.

SPEAKER_02 (21:18):
And then you have the carbon emissions on top of
that from being shipped to you.
So

SPEAKER_03 (21:24):
unless you make it yourself, which a lot of
millennials and Gen Z's aredoing now, like trying to make
their own products rather thanbuying.
Which

SPEAKER_02 (21:33):
is great.

SPEAKER_03 (21:35):
I agree.
But I'm not that crafty.
So a lot of that is, you know,you have to learn the skill.
So again, you're back toconvenience and you're back to
finance so i i hear you loud andclear on everything that you
guys are talking about but mymind is still blown

SPEAKER_04 (21:53):
okay well i just i want to say i think we need to
push more towards these bigcompanies doing something about
it rather than i know we shouldwe still are responsible

SPEAKER_03 (22:03):
money talks

SPEAKER_04 (22:04):
but yes money talks and i feel like like i said i i
can't go to the grocery storeand leave there without having
something in plastic it'simpossible unless I go to farmer
Joe up the road and he hands mea bunch of stuff that's
outrageously expensive that Ican't afford.
But I don't know.
I just feel like all these bigcompanies, they need to be held

(22:26):
more responsible for theirplastic footprint.

SPEAKER_02 (22:29):
Absolutely.
I, I completely agree with you.
And I definitely, definitely, Idefinitely think that consumers
should push more.
Like we're seeing that with kindof Kellogg's and the cereal
brands right now.
Like, Oh, You want to eat cerealfor dinner?
Okay.
And like, I think that we have alot more power than we want to

(22:52):
recognize sometimes of like, oh,this is just how it is.
But no, we don't have to acceptthat.
And I think if thesecorporations truly wanted to
change, they definitely have thepossibility to.
And I will also say that thereis a lot of whole foods and like

(23:13):
bulk food container stores thatare popping up more especially
in like coastal cities whichmakes me so happy to see I don't
know if you guys have seen oneyet where you basically you
bring in any container of whatyou want and then you can buy
anything from sugar rice floursoap all sorts of stuff and you

(23:33):
just bring your container andyou pay by the weight of the
product that you use and I thinkthat is definitely going to
hopefully be the way movingforward of what we do.

SPEAKER_03 (23:46):
Yeah, you think about like Lidl or Aldi or
Trader Joe's.
Yeah, exactly.
Like they all sell products inbulk and or you have to bring
your own, you know, bags,packaging, however you want to
get it home.
So that's just taking it a stepfurther.
So I like that idea.
Like let me buy the product andlet me figure out how to store

(24:09):
it.
I'm good.

SPEAKER_04 (24:10):
Speaking of bringing your own bags, I had a story
that my parents were telling meabout when they were younger
grocery shopping they went fromplastic to paper because
plastic's bad but then they saidokay we got to stop using paper
and go back to plastic becausewe're chopping down all the
trees it's like

SPEAKER_02 (24:30):
that was gonna be my next point i was like well and
the other bad part about paperis that then we are yeah we can

SPEAKER_04 (24:38):
sustainably do that now you know like we've got tree
farms and all that Well,

SPEAKER_03 (24:44):
but there's a difference though, right?
Let me figure out how I'm goingto store it.
I don't need you to put it inwhatever packaging, make it
pretty and colorful and like,no, I'm good.
If I need soap, then I will geta container that I am going to
use to dispense said soap.

SPEAKER_04 (25:00):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (25:00):
And that'll be on me to decide, not

SPEAKER_04 (25:02):
on you.
Why are you putting cereal in abox?

SPEAKER_03 (25:05):
Well, in a bag.
Yeah, exactly.
I'm confused.

SPEAKER_04 (25:08):
Just dump the cereal in that box, man.

SPEAKER_03 (25:12):
Or have a big dispensary and I'll come I'm
fillable.
There you go.

SPEAKER_04 (25:16):
I saw this video on Facebook.
It would probably drive younuts, Summer.
It was a lady.
She's an organizational person,right?
And she goes to the grocerystore.
She buys all this stuff.
And then she takes it out of thecontainers and puts it in new
containers.

SPEAKER_03 (25:28):
This is Russ's pet peeve.
Oh, my God.
Or it's like the aesthetic.
Yes.
The refrigerator.
That is his pet peeve.
Organizing everything.

SPEAKER_04 (25:35):
I was so mad.

SPEAKER_02 (25:37):
Yeah.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (25:39):
I was like, you just bought plastic containers to
take stuff out of plasticcontainers.
To

SPEAKER_03 (25:44):
put into plastic containers.
To

SPEAKER_04 (25:45):
put into another plastic container.

SPEAKER_02 (25:47):
So happy medium, because I love the aesthetic of
an organized fridge.
I will not lie.
It looks beautiful.
The part that isn't soeco-friendly to me is that she's
buying it and then putting it inother things.
So what she could do instead isgo to a farmer's market, which I
did a lot in the Keys.
If you can find a local farmer'smarket, 10 out of 10.

(26:07):
They are normally a little bitcheaper than a grocery store
anyway.
And I would much rather callboth family that's having their
own farm that fuel a megacorporation.
So she could do that instead.
So maybe next time you see oneof those, be like, check your
local farmer's market instead.
Yeah, yeah,

SPEAKER_04 (26:27):
for sure.
Oh my gosh, it was so agitating.

SPEAKER_03 (26:30):
This is not how I thought this conversation was
going

SPEAKER_04 (26:33):
to go at all.
I think it was like midnightwhen I saw this video and I woke
her up and I said, look at this

SPEAKER_05 (26:40):
shit! You need to see

SPEAKER_03 (26:42):
this! This is bullshit! Oh, I am enjoying you
summer.
I'm

SPEAKER_02 (26:49):
enjoying this conversation.
It's flowing.
Great.
10 out of 10.

SPEAKER_03 (26:53):
I did

SPEAKER_04 (26:53):
not think we were going to talk about organized
fridges at all, but here we go.
You never, you

SPEAKER_03 (26:59):
never know.
No, we are unfiltered.
Yeah,

SPEAKER_04 (27:04):
that's right.

SPEAKER_03 (27:04):
Okay.
Going back to marine biologyhere for a minute.
Circle back.
Let's come back here.
So, So overall, I mean, I couldprobably say that we would all
agree that microplastics are oneof the biggest threats to the
ocean at this point.
Yeah.
I mean, overall, that's a bigone.

(27:26):
I mean, can we think of anythingother than microplastics that
would also be an impact to theocean that is either what we
think the largest threat orsecond largest threat?

SPEAKER_02 (27:39):
Global warming, ocean acidification, pollution.
What else?
Disease, overfishing,destruction of habitat.

SPEAKER_03 (27:53):
Summer, you posted a video that had the fish that was

SPEAKER_02 (28:01):
spinning?
Yeah, it's like a wholephenomenon that's going on in
the Florida Keys right now.

SPEAKER_04 (28:07):
What is it?

SPEAKER_03 (28:09):
I didn't show you that video.
I didn't wake you up atmidnight.

SPEAKER_04 (28:11):
I'm sorry.
You aren't in a fit of rage.

SPEAKER_03 (28:14):
No, I was probably flabbergasted.
Like, what is this

SPEAKER_02 (28:18):
fish doing?
Her guests were flabbered.
Yeah, so nobody really knows,unfortunately, of, like, what's
going on.
And I haven't had time to reachout to my contacts to, like...
figure out further what'shappening.
But there are now, thankfully, aton of different programs and

(28:41):
organizations that have answeredthe call right away and are now
looking into it, collecting datasamples of vastly different
water qualities from all the waynext to the shore, all the way
offshore.
They're collecting specimensthat are exhibiting this
problem.
So basically, Russ, I don'tknow.
I'm going to cue you in on theconversation real quick.

(29:03):
Since you don't know what we'retalking about.
Basically, a lot of the fishspecies in the Florida Keys have
just been spinning.
They don't do anything else.
They just spin in circles, kindof like how your pet goldfish
growing up when they had areally bad water quality just
starts spinning in circles andyou know they're going to die

(29:23):
soon.
That's what's happening in theFlorida Keys.
Unfortunately, it's progressedso bad to the point where it's
now impacting our sawfishpopulation which is already a
critically endangered speciesand we've lost a lot of those
individuals due to this problemof just them spinning on top of

(29:46):
the surface we've seen grouperwe've seen pinfish we've seen
sawfish we've seen stingrays allsorts of things just at the
surface spinning in circles andwe don't know what's going on so
a lot of it's

SPEAKER_04 (29:59):
like a blanket thing it's not just fish it's all All
kinds of stuff.

SPEAKER_02 (30:04):
Greg Fertzenworth is the first person that noted this
behavior.
And he's a local in the FloridaKeys.
He's been diving forever.
He grew up there.
And he's been recording this...
phenomenon of fish spinningsince last year and has been
reaching out to like CNN andother organizations like news

(30:29):
outlets to be like, what isgoing on?
What is happening?
But unfortunately, in that sametimeframe, we also had the huge
coral bleaching event in theFlorida Keys.
So that kind of took precedentover this fish spinning story.
And now since then, it's justincreasingly got worse until it
finally impacted the soft thesawfish population so now that

(30:54):
unfortunately has finallygrabbed people's attention so
now they're doing somethingabout it but there's been
hypothetical like theories allthe way from you know poor water
quality to a parasite to adisease we have no idea

SPEAKER_03 (31:11):
That's wild.
It's crazy.
Like the videos that Summer hason Instagram of these fish and
other types of sea animals doingit, like it literally looks like
they can't stop.
They're just going in circles.
It's insane.
But I'm glad to hear that peopleare answering the call.
And when you look at the watertemperature for Florida, like

(31:35):
from the Gulf all the waythrough, you know, to the
Atlantic, the temperature everysummer has gotten at least a
degree higher every summer sincewe've lived here and we've been
in Florida for almost four yearsso it's getting hot

SPEAKER_04 (31:49):
oh yeah it's it's bath water

SPEAKER_03 (31:52):
we

SPEAKER_02 (31:52):
have 101 degrees surface temperature right last
year I mean

SPEAKER_03 (31:57):
overall though um but overall though it just seems
like with the water temperaturerising it can only be you know
one of those reasons like it canonly be a parasite or the water
quality right like

SPEAKER_04 (32:13):
is that why is that what the bleaching does it have
something to do with thebleaching event

SPEAKER_03 (32:17):
oh

SPEAKER_02 (32:18):
that's that's also a theory is that like because we
had so many coral like bleachout and die and have tissue
necrosis that then the algaeoverly bloomed in the water so
it's a specific type of algaethat's consuming too much oxygen
and it might be because of anoxygen loss it could be the

(32:40):
toxicity of the water is toohigh because now we have all
this necrosis and deathbasically in the water.
Greg also did like a timescalelooking of drone footage over
the Florida Keys and you can seelike the progression of algae
growth throughout like atimeline that he took and you
can literally see the water getgreener and greener and greener

(33:02):
because of the algae.
So Greg's thinking it couldpotentially be algae but I'm not
sure.
Nobody's really figured it outyet to great mystery right now
and it's very nerve-wrackingyeah to the point where people
are like i don't want to go inthe water anymore and that's
devastating

SPEAKER_04 (33:23):
yeah i don't want to spin around in circles

SPEAKER_02 (33:25):
yeah

SPEAKER_03 (33:25):
well yeah like are they zombie

SPEAKER_02 (33:28):
fish

SPEAKER_04 (33:29):
ah don't get me started

SPEAKER_03 (33:31):
like is that how it gets to humans okay sorry

SPEAKER_01 (33:35):
zombie apocalypse 2024 here we go it's not
mushrooms it's

SPEAKER_04 (33:40):
fish you did say I would say the people in

SPEAKER_01 (33:42):
Maine had no idea what...
It would start

SPEAKER_04 (33:44):
in Florida.
Oh, for sure.
It's going to.
It's either going to be algae ormeth.

SPEAKER_01 (33:51):
Or the bath salts.

SPEAKER_04 (33:53):
Or bath salts.
That's right.

SPEAKER_03 (33:56):
Oh, God.
I'm having way too much fun.

SPEAKER_04 (33:58):
But you did say that you were in Maine and nobody
knew what coral reefs were orcoral was.
And I thought that they probablywould have thought that it was
the sun from Walking Dead.

SPEAKER_03 (34:08):
Yeah.
Oh, Carl.
Carl! Carl! enough from

SPEAKER_02 (34:13):
you i love that show so you can't get me wrong negan
um anyway i loved him greatcharacter 10 out of 10 okay
we're gonna edit that part out

SPEAKER_03 (34:27):
um well when it comes to the coral bleaching
right so there's tons of effortsand again when we when we went
to sea world they had all of thetanks of the corals that the
corals of the coral that theywere restoring trying to
rehabilitate um so what made youturn your focus from any of the
marine biology and start tofocus in on the coral

(34:48):
restoration?

SPEAKER_02 (34:49):
I graduated college right in the middle of the
pandarini.
It was great.
I had an online graduation.
It was great.
I worked at a red grocery storefor at least eight months and I

(35:10):
was just miserable because, youknow, pandarini.
And I was like, okay, I'm atthis point in my career.
I've graduated.
I have my degree.
I want to do something with it.
The world is kind of in shamblesright now, but let's just see if
anybody's taking internships.
I got to diversify my resume alittle bit more.
You know, I had done, I hadworked with sea turtles.

(35:33):
I had worked in microplastics.
I loved and thoroughly enjoyedboth of those experiences, but I
knew I had that like ticklingfeeling of like, This isn't it.
This isn't my thing.
And I wanted to figure out whatmy thing was.
So I was like, okay, let's, youknow, I had gone to Belize.
I did a study abroad there in myundergrad and I thoroughly loved

(35:53):
it.
I saw healthy reefs for thefirst time in my life and I was
just taken aback.
So I was like, okay, let's trycorals.
Why not?
And so I applied for theinternship in the Florida Keys
at the laboratory and they werelike, yeah, sure.
come on down.
And I was like, oh my gosh,

SPEAKER_05 (36:15):
okay,

SPEAKER_02 (36:15):
cool.
I'm 20 at the time.
I'm like, I'm moving to theFlorida Keys.
This is crazy.
This is great.
And it was at my dreamlaboratory.
It was my top pick from all ofmy internships.
And I moved down there for inthe beginning of January 2021.
And I worked as an intern,unpaid, in In the Florida Keys.

(36:42):
For four months.
And I loved it.
That's where I fell in love withcoral.
That's where I had, like, themind-bending explosion of, okay,
this is what I'm meant to do.
This is what I'm supposed towork on.
This is what I'm, you know, Ilove this animal.
And it's so vastlyunderappreciated.
Most people look at it and it'slike, that's a rock.

(37:04):
I'm like, no.
No.
That's a boulder.
It's alive.

SPEAKER_01 (37:09):
And it's way cooler

SPEAKER_02 (37:10):
than around.
Don't touch it.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
And I led tours.
I got to meet different collegesand students.
And I got to educate and workwith a great group of staff
there.
And I just fell in love with it.
And so at the end of my fourmonths, I was supposed to get

(37:32):
out.
And I didn't want to.
So I wrote up an email to thepresident of the research
facility.
And I was just like, hi, yourteam is really understaffed.
I'm here.
I have a place to live and Iwant to work for you.
And for some reason, I guess Ijust impressed her with my

(37:54):
overconfidence.
Yeah.
And she was like, sure, why not?
So I talked to my mentor aboutit, sent the email and I did an
interview with her and I waslike shaking like a leaf.
And I had like 15 questions toomany and she was phenomenal too
because everyone that I've metin choral has been amazing

(38:16):
people and um I was standingoutside of the lab like talking
with the staff that I had workedwith and I was like I don't know
I'm really nervous and I don'tyou know like I don't know and
she like came up behind me andshe like gave me like a side hug
and she's like hello guys youtalking to our new staff and I
just look over like what and itwas really cool so that's kind I

(38:41):
I just fell into it.
I didn't mean to.
I never thought I was going towork with corals.
Initially, I went into marinescience thinking, oh, I'm going
to work with sharks.
Sharks are my jam.
That's all I want.
Not taking anything but sharks.
And then here I am, coral lady.
100%.

SPEAKER_04 (38:59):
Boulders.

SPEAKER_02 (39:00):
Yeah.
I'm just kidding.
Yeah, ocean boulders.
Well, okay.
So some coral, like some speciesof coral are literally called
boulder corals.
So you're not wrong.

SPEAKER_04 (39:10):
So you're not wrong.
See?
I know.

SPEAKER_02 (39:11):
There you go.

SPEAKER_03 (39:14):
It's not a rock.
You said that you just fell intoit.
Let's be clear.
No, you lady boss that.
I just want to give you yourprops on that because you took
initiative and you got in there.
That is awesome, Summer.
Thanks.
I won't let you take that awayfrom you.

SPEAKER_02 (39:30):
Thanks.
Appreciate it.
I started the internship and I'mlike, I'm not leaving here
without a job.
Damn

SPEAKER_03 (39:38):
it.
I'm not doing it.
There you go.
I feel like more people needthat mentality

SPEAKER_05 (39:43):
oh

SPEAKER_03 (39:43):
yeah you know like i want this i'm going to get it
you know like have that driveand you will get the things that
you want so i you do it it's all

SPEAKER_04 (39:53):
about that that confidence too you emailing that
person and saying i'm not i i'mjust not leaving

SPEAKER_03 (40:03):
you should hire me

SPEAKER_04 (40:04):
you

SPEAKER_03 (40:06):
have to keep me i'm

SPEAKER_04 (40:07):
staying and you can go

SPEAKER_03 (40:10):
yeah yeah

SPEAKER_02 (40:11):
I honestly I think it's a mixture of like my dad
says it's better to be luckythan good all the time and I do
think it's a mixture of lucklike timing luck and confidence
because just at that time theywere because I worked at a
non-profit so a lot of thatmoney is considered soft money
so nobody's guaranteed theirroles and hiring is very

(40:35):
difficult because they have toallocate so much money a year
towards paying that person toactually live and I just
happened to hit the timing rightwhere they had just gotten a
huge grant to be able toallocate another staff member.
So it, it just, the starsaligned.
It's

SPEAKER_04 (40:53):
great.
There

SPEAKER_02 (40:55):
you go.

SPEAKER_04 (40:55):
It's all that matters.

SPEAKER_02 (40:56):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (40:58):
And now here we are.
And now we get to talk to youall about

SPEAKER_04 (41:02):
Coral.
Yeah.
And you're on our podcast.

SPEAKER_02 (41:08):
I loved that.
Keep that in there, please.

SPEAKER_04 (41:10):
Oh, Oh, it's staying.
Our

SPEAKER_03 (41:14):
synchronized woo!

SPEAKER_04 (41:16):
Yeah, we gotta keep it.

SPEAKER_03 (41:19):
Okay, so again, trying to bring it back here,
guys.
So again, when we talk aboutrestoration of coral, what
exactly does that mean?
Like, pretend I know nothing.
Pretend I don't follow you onInstagram obsessively.
Pretend I know nothing.
What does that mean?

SPEAKER_02 (41:37):
Okay, so basically, You can kind of think of it like
your yard, right?
So say your yard, you mow thelawn and then all of a sudden
these bugs come through and youhave patches of brown grass
everywhere.
It's not good.

(41:57):
You don't want your yard to looklike that.
You're going to have mud patchesand just dead grass sitting
there, not doing anything.
And you have an ugly yard andit's not good for you.
You don't like how it looks andit's not good.
Your HOA is going to

SPEAKER_05 (42:10):
find

SPEAKER_02 (42:10):
you.
So what do you do?
You buy seeds, right?
You buy seed for your grass, youlay your grass down, you water
your grass, and then it comesback to life and it all looks
good.
And you have a healthy, fullcoverage surface amount of
grass.
And it's perfect.
So that's kind of whatrestoration does.

(42:32):
Perfect.
It's perfect.
Restoration is far from perfect.
There's actually a lot of debateon whether it's good or not, but
I'll answer that later on.
Basically, we take corals thatare...
either rescue corals or that arefrom our spawning facility and

(42:54):
our reproduction facility andreproduction lab.
And we rescue them from the reefbecause they're either dying
from a disease or they have beendislodged from the reef and are
like buried in sand ordefinitely going to die.
So we take those corals or wetake them from like construction
sites.
So like a seawall is beingrepaired or rebuilt and all

(43:16):
these beautiful corals havegrown on there and they don't
want to destroy the corals sothey contact organizations like
ours and they're like hey comeget these so we don't have to
kill them and we're like cool sowe come in and we have a what's
called a land based nursery soyou can kind of think of it like
your aquarium tank in your houseif you have one and we take

(43:36):
these corals and we essentiallygrow them in our tanks and after
they've hit like a specific sizerange about a silver dollar is
what we would say we outplantthem to the reef.
So kind of like laying the seedsin your grass.
So we take a two-part epoxy,kind of like plumber's epoxy,

(43:57):
and we literally take theselittle baby corals and we stick
them on the reef of differentareas of the reef that have not
been doing well or that have lowcoral coverage.
So most of the Florida reefsthat I have seen are like at 3%
coral coverage when they shouldreally be like 30 to 50%.

(44:17):
coral coverage so that's justyou know kind of a percentage of
how much we're actually missingand our goal was to increase the
coral coverage that we have on areef so again kind of like
thinking about your grass youwant to think you want to have
nice even amount of grasseverywhere on your yard you want

(44:39):
to have a nice even amount ofcoral coverage on your reef so
that's essentially what coralrestoration does and then
there's like a whole bunch ofstatistics and logistics behind
all of that but broken downreally simply we take coral from
the ocean or we make it in areproduction lab we grow it in

(44:59):
little and we grow it in tanksand then we take it from the
tanks and put it onto the reef

SPEAKER_04 (45:05):
and the idea is that stuff spreads right

SPEAKER_02 (45:07):
yes yes and that stuff spreads and then we're
introducing more biodiversityonto the reef so when corals do
spawn that they can actuallyspawn and be produce naturally
and thus working ourselves outof the job that's the long-term
goal is that eventually we won'thave to do this but with the
coral bleaching events that'shappening and like all of the

(45:29):
disease progression that'shappening behind that looks like
it's gonna be a couple moreyears

SPEAKER_03 (45:36):
at least at

SPEAKER_04 (45:38):
least so do you guys go back like when you when you
do a seed do you monitor thatarea

SPEAKER_02 (45:47):
Yes.
What was that?
An outplant.
That's what we call them.
Oh, an outplant.
I'm sorry.
No, no, no.
You're good.
I was thinking about lawns.
I didn't explain.
Yeah.
But basically, so every coralthat we have, that's the silver
dollar size.
We call it an outplant.
And we outplant themspecifically in clusters of four

(46:09):
so they can reach sexualmaturity faster.
So corals reach sexual maturityat size and not age.
So for a coral to start from alarvae, settle onto the wreath,
and grow to a sexual size, whichis about a dinner plate that
big, that would take anywherefrom 75 to 100 years.

(46:30):
The way that we do it cuts itdown to about five to six.

SPEAKER_04 (46:34):
What?

SPEAKER_03 (46:34):
Wow.

SPEAKER_04 (46:35):
That's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 (46:37):
Very fast.
So is it like you put, goingback to the lawn analogy, you
put miracle grow on there inorder to make it grow fast?
Yeah.
Oh.
So-

SPEAKER_04 (46:47):
So how does the four thing make that happen?

SPEAKER_02 (46:51):
So how do I, it's always difficult to explain like
the physiology of a coralwithout relating it to a plant
because it's not a plant, butthink of it kind of like an ant
colony.
So every ant is part of acolony, right?

(47:11):
Even though the ant is anindividual thing, you can kind
of think like a coral polyp isthe same way is all part of the
colony.
But the way that colonies growin size is that they produce
more polyps growing every year.
So if we have four little piecesthat are next to each other that
are all the same genotype, theywill eventually fuse in size and

(47:35):
recognize each other.

SPEAKER_05 (47:36):
Kind of like if you cut open your skin and your skin
fuses back together, it's kindof the same process.

SPEAKER_02 (47:43):
Wow.
Yeah, super cool.
So you

SPEAKER_04 (47:45):
guys have figured out how to remove 95 years out
of the process that's freakingcrazy

SPEAKER_03 (47:53):
that is insane and the idea that it i'm learning so
much about coral the idea thatit fuses together that it almost
understands each other and it'slike okay yeah you're you're me
you can be me

SPEAKER_02 (48:06):
it's

SPEAKER_03 (48:07):
like

SPEAKER_02 (48:07):
i'm you

SPEAKER_03 (48:07):
you're

SPEAKER_02 (48:08):
me like

SPEAKER_03 (48:09):
yeah it's the same thing well okay so we've talked
about bleaching and we've talkedabout you know pollution
microplastics but whatultimately leads to a bleaching
event?
What is the threat to the coralreef?

SPEAKER_02 (48:25):
Heat.
Water temperature.

SPEAKER_03 (48:26):
So

SPEAKER_02 (48:28):
it would be climate change.
That's going to be yourunfortunately.
Some people hear climate changeand are like, I'm not listening
anymore.
Believe what you want.
Why it's happening.
It's happening regardless.
No matter what, it's gottenwarmer.
And that water temperaturechange, that shift in water
temperature because corals arevery much like us, right?

(48:51):
We don't like it when it's 90degrees outside.
We can go inside and we can cooloff and turn on the AC.
Well, corals can't do that.
They have no choice.
And corals also have an algaesymbiont called zooxanthellae
that lives within their tissue.
So you can think ofzooxanthellae kind of like...

(49:15):
They produce the food that thecoral feed on.
So coral kind of are thelandlords of this huge apartment
building that zooxanthellae livein.
And then the AC gets shut offand skyrockets to 100 degrees.
So the coral is like, hey, yougot to get out.
They kick out the zooxanthellae.
But then the coral is leftwithout any food.

(49:38):
So then they starve and thenthey boil, which is no good.
And

SPEAKER_04 (49:43):
that zooxanthellae, that's.
That uses photosynthesis?

SPEAKER_01 (49:47):
Yes.

SPEAKER_04 (49:48):
See, that's crazy.
It's like a self-sustainingecosystem, but when you take one
part away, it just blows

SPEAKER_02 (49:54):
the whole thing up.

SPEAKER_04 (49:55):
That is crazy.

SPEAKER_02 (49:57):
Besides this, coral polyps are able to grab food
outside in the water column.
I've even seen corals eatfull-blown shrimp and fish,
which is crazy.
I don't

SPEAKER_04 (50:11):
blame them.
This shit's

SPEAKER_02 (50:12):
good.
Except when they kick out thezooxanthellae like that's one of
their largest energy resourcesso and then they could also
fluoresce which is really coolbut also kind of bad because
that's their last defense ofproducing a sunscreen almost to
try to help them cool off andprotect themselves and once you

(50:36):
see that that's kind of like theoh shit something's not right
and some they're not good andthen it'll either continue to
bleach that white color and keepgoing past that and eventually
die because when coral arebleached they're not dead

SPEAKER_04 (50:56):
oh okay see i didn't know that

SPEAKER_02 (50:58):
yeah so coral get most of their color from um like
the stuff within their tissuesand those in belly themselves.
So once that is expelled, theirtissue is actually clear.

SPEAKER_03 (51:14):
Okay.

SPEAKER_02 (51:17):
So...
You can actually go super...
I actually have a post aboutthis coming up soon.
When corals bleach, their tissueis super clear, and all you're
seeing is the carbonate skeletonin their body, and that's what
makes it appear white, andthat's why bleaching is white.

(51:38):
But they're not dead.
They're just dying.

SPEAKER_04 (51:43):
Right.
We can save them.

SPEAKER_02 (51:46):
Yes, they can recover from that if they...
AC is turned back on within acertain time frame.
But the issue is once we've hitthat temperature in the
seawater, it takes a minute forit to come back down.
And a lot of the times thecorals can't hang on within that
threshold for it to cool off.

SPEAKER_04 (52:04):
That is so weird.

SPEAKER_02 (52:06):
So kind of like you can think of it like when people
get a sunburn, they turn brightred and pink.

SPEAKER_04 (52:12):
You don't want to see me with one of them.

SPEAKER_02 (52:14):
Exactly.
Corals just turn white.
That's the difference.
They're still alive, they justturn white when they get
sunburned.
And that's effectively what'shappening.
Wow.

SPEAKER_04 (52:25):
So, okay.
So that's...

SPEAKER_03 (52:30):
We need some solar recover.

SPEAKER_04 (52:32):
Some spritz.

SPEAKER_02 (52:34):
In a lot of different conferences,
scientists are now like, allright, balls to the wall.
Fuck it.
What are our crazy ideas?
People have tried to do, let'shaul in offshore water that's
cooler.
Let's start outplanting coral indeeper depths to see if they'll
live.
Let's throw a giant shade clothover the entirety of the reef

(52:58):
and see if it still lives.
The ideas now that are comingout are pretty drastic, but
that's because now is the time.
And a lot of people are just nowgetting a grasp on, oh, coral is
an animal.
Let's save this animal.
But the time for that knowledgewas 30 years ago.
And so we're kind of behind thecurve in that aspect of the

(53:21):
general public.
Damn, boomers.
This is a huge problem thatwe're having.
Yeah.
And coral reefs are one of themost biodiverse ecosystems on
our entire globe.
So if we lose our reefs, we'regoing to see a huge bio

(53:46):
collapse.
It'll be a

SPEAKER_04 (53:46):
domino effect.

SPEAKER_02 (53:47):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (53:49):
Because they provide a lot of shelter for everything.
We went to the Keys back in...

SPEAKER_03 (53:57):
Oh, God.

SPEAKER_04 (53:58):
It was years...
Yeah, it was years ago.
We were in high school.
That aged us.

SPEAKER_03 (54:05):
We're millennials.
Let's be clear.

SPEAKER_04 (54:08):
We went to a place called Sea Camp.
I don't know if you've everheard of it down there.

SPEAKER_02 (54:12):
Yes.
Where I worked was next door.
That's hilarious.

SPEAKER_04 (54:18):
We went there and it was a really educational trip.
It was for school.

SPEAKER_03 (54:24):
Oceanography.

SPEAKER_04 (54:25):
It was for oceanography.
When we swam on the corals, wedid not tell They were amazing.
It was unbelievable, thecolorfulness, the fish
everywhere.
I couldn't imagine that notbeing there.

SPEAKER_02 (54:42):
Yeah, it's interesting to talk to some of
the older conservationists andscientists that have grown up
there, and they're like, oh, ifyou think this is pretty, you
should have seen it 20 yearsago.

SPEAKER_03 (54:54):
Did you just call us old?
No, no,

SPEAKER_02 (54:56):
no, no.
You guys aren't old at all.
No, no, no.
We're

SPEAKER_05 (55:01):
talking

SPEAKER_02 (55:02):
about Eric, who's like 60.
If he hears this, he's going tokeel over.
A

SPEAKER_04 (55:09):
boomer?

SPEAKER_02 (55:10):
No, no, no.
He's not a boomer.
But he's been diving sincebefore I was born.
Maybe that makes me young.

SPEAKER_04 (55:20):
I know Australia is going through coral bleaching
events over there.
It's mind-boggling that We'restruggling so hard to stop it.

SPEAKER_02 (55:32):
Well,

SPEAKER_04 (55:33):
what's...

SPEAKER_02 (55:34):
What's incredibly sad, because I was working in
June during the worst coralbleaching event that people have
ever seen down there in theKeys, and I was doing research
and monitoring, and I don't knowif I ever answered your question
about like, oh, do you go checkon them?
Yes.
You asked, Russ, if we go backand check on the corals.

(55:57):
We check on them.
It's one month, and then sixmonths, and then every
sequential year after that.
We check on them.
And every single outplant, likecluster that we have, has a
little tag on it that's next toit.
So we can mark exactly which tagit is, what location it is, what
genotype it is, and how old itis too.

(56:18):
We have vast databases for thatthat are longer than my legs.
But anyway, so NOAA announced, Ithink like in April, that we're
in our fourth global bleachingevent.

SPEAKER_05 (56:33):
Oh

SPEAKER_02 (56:34):
my goodness.
because it's happening globallynow.

SPEAKER_04 (56:39):
Have you all done projections of what the ocean
looks like without it?

SPEAKER_02 (56:45):
Without coral?

SPEAKER_04 (56:46):
Yeah.
Worst case.
I know it's a terrible thing tothink about but I'm sure there's
models out there somewhere.

SPEAKER_02 (56:56):
Yeah, there's models out there and it's bleak.
It's bleak.
you're seeing the entirecollapse of global fisheries at
that point.

SPEAKER_04 (57:07):
See, that's what people need to

SPEAKER_02 (57:10):
hear.
Which sustains millions ofpeople, billions of people
globally.
Not only for jobs, but for food.
Yeah.
So you're seeing that that isgoing to be the first thing that
you would see.
And then it's almost like from ascientific perspective, you're

(57:30):
almost kind of like you don'twant to acknowledge that as a
possibility because what thesteps that I've seen my
organization do we have thissystem called a sea bass system
where they do the projections ofwhat ocean conditions will be
like in 100 years 300 years andso on and we subjugate like the

(57:50):
corals that we have thegenotypes that we have to those
conditions to see which ones arethe most disease tolerant the
most heat resistant the mosttolerant of ocean acidification
genes And then those are thecorals that do best in those
conditions for 100 years now.
Those are the ones that we focuson outplanting.

(58:12):
Scientists are kind of ahead inthat aspect of the game of like
trying to choose genotypes thatwill be able to survive in those
conditions.

SPEAKER_05 (58:21):
See, that's cool.
Yeah, yeah.
I like that

SPEAKER_02 (58:23):
a lot.
That's pretty badass.
Yeah.
And one of my friends, she's theone that developed the system
that we were using.
And I'm like, wow, you are...
Like, y'all think my littleInstagram is impressive.
Holy shit.
Which I do.
Some of these people are

SPEAKER_04 (58:39):
like, whoa.
Yeah.
Which I do.
That's cool, though, that you'reable to kind of model after, you
know, rising temps and things ofthat nature and pick the right
stuff to go in there.
I never even thought that thatwould be something.
I just thought that outplanting,see what I did there,

(58:59):
outplanting was just, what Whatyou rescue is what you throw
back in there, you know, but Iguess it's more, there's a lot
more to it than that.

SPEAKER_02 (59:09):
It's definitely a mixture of both because
obviously we want to preservethe genotypes that are naturally
found, like occurring currently,um, in the system or in the
environment, the localenvironment, especially.
And, um, but the mixture ofgenotypes and seeing what corals
do, uh, do best and is somethingthat we're heavily focusing on

(59:34):
as well it's wild and then againlike another crazy thing that
people are suggesting is likethe crossbreeding of Caribbean
native species with likePolynesian species and
Australian species to see if wecan come up with some sort of
fierce crossbreed that wouldwithstand all of this but then

(59:58):
you run into heavy red tape withoh well you don't want to
introduce an invasive species orwhat if it takes over the entire
reef and then you havegovernment policies and what's
allowed and what's not allowedso it's All very interesting and
incredibly rewarding to work atbecause it's kind of like a
giant jigsaw puzzle of, okay, ifI move this piece here, what

(01:00:21):
will be the effect here and canI do this and that?

SPEAKER_04 (01:00:25):
So when are you guys going to hire me and Linz?

SPEAKER_03 (01:00:31):
Yeah, we'll be overconfident and we'll say, you
need us.

SPEAKER_04 (01:00:33):
Yeah, you need us.
I need to move to the Keys

SPEAKER_03 (01:00:37):
now.
I like Tampa, though.
Tampa's doing good for us.
Yeah, but...
But I

SPEAKER_04 (01:00:41):
think I'd like the Keys

SPEAKER_02 (01:00:44):
a lot too.
The Keys is great.
I loved living in the Keys.
Like 10 out of 10.
But it's more coming fromsomebody that lives there for
the past three years, three anda half years.
It is great to visit for like amonth or two and then it's great

(01:01:04):
to leave.

SPEAKER_03 (01:01:05):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (01:01:06):
Because it almost feels like another country
because you're so disconnectedconnected from everything.
Like the closest you're going tobe to Miami is three and a half
hours.
Like that's it.
Unless, I mean, I was in themiddle keys.
So I was in big, I'm in big pinekey.
So that's definitely more middlekeys.

(01:01:26):
So that's where like the more ofthe disconnect comes in, but you
know, you're, you get the waterand you get to be able to go on
a boat and diving and fishingand whatever you want all the
time.
But then like, Oh, if your carbreaks down, good luck.

SPEAKER_03 (01:01:40):
Well,

SPEAKER_02 (01:01:41):
Talk.
Talk, yeah.
If you need to go to the doctor,well, that's going to be six
months.
The day-to-day life aspect ofthings takes a lot longer, which
some people just hate that.
It depends on how busy you wantto be, right?

(01:02:01):
Yeah, and it's very laid back.
If you say, okay, guys, let'shave dinner at 6, nobody's
showing up until 7.30, which isgreat.
So it

SPEAKER_03 (01:02:09):
sounds like Europe.

SPEAKER_02 (01:02:11):
Yeah.
It's a very European lifestyle.
Very European lifestyle.

SPEAKER_04 (01:02:17):
Now you just sold me.

SPEAKER_02 (01:02:20):
I got a house.
Come on down.
Part of the reason why I do whatI do is talk on podcasts and do
the social media and talk withstudents and try to do a lot of
outreaches.
One, when I was working at thatlaboratory, I thoroughly,
thoroughly arrived in thementorship aspect because I was

(01:02:44):
the internship coordinator formy program and I mentored over
like 50 students when I wasworking there and it was amazing
and I thoroughly just enjoyedhelping these young students
because I saw a lot of myself inthem of like I just love the
ocean and I don't know what thehell to do with my life and I

(01:03:05):
need somebody to help me and Iwish I had that person and I
didn't and I want to be thatperson that person for a ton of
people.
So doing stuff like this andjust being a voice of like, hey,
I'm a scientist, yet I can stilltalk and relate and chill things
out so people can understandwhat the hell I'm talking about.

(01:03:30):
When a lot of my colleagues areincredibly intelligent, but they
don't have a social cue to savetheir lives.
So being that bridge is reallycool.

SPEAKER_04 (01:03:40):
For sure.
I can see scientists being, wework with engineers and.
Decently abrasive people.
Yeah.
You know, it's hard to, it'shard to really like, Hey man,
you want to go out to lunch?
It's like, no.

SPEAKER_03 (01:03:56):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:03:57):
Nah.

SPEAKER_03 (01:04:00):
Well, we've talked about the keys.
We've, we know you're in Maineright now.
Where else have you traveled tosee coral or to do any sort of
marine biology type research?

SPEAKER_02 (01:04:10):
I've been to Belize.
I've been to Hawaii.
I've been to St.
Martin and St.
Thomas and Italy.
Those are all places I've been.
I haven't really done researchstuff, per se, except for Belize
and the Keys.
And Italy only kind of countsbecause that was my honeymoon.

SPEAKER_03 (01:04:33):
Oh, there you go.
Congrats to you, regardless ofhow long you've been married.

SPEAKER_02 (01:04:39):
I just got married last September, so...
so it was a little recent.

SPEAKER_03 (01:04:42):
Oh,

SPEAKER_02 (01:04:43):
there you go.
Thanks.
Very nice.

SPEAKER_03 (01:04:44):
We're going on 11 years.
Oh,

SPEAKER_02 (01:04:47):
awesome.
We're

SPEAKER_03 (01:04:47):
old.

SPEAKER_02 (01:04:48):
My husband, so weird to say out loud, and I have been
together since high school, sowe're nine years in total.

SPEAKER_03 (01:04:56):
There you go.
Same for us.
We're 20.
We're 20 years in.

SPEAKER_02 (01:05:00):
Amazing.

SPEAKER_03 (01:05:01):
I can't wait.
We're old.
We're old.
So you mentioned that you're inMaine, though, for your book.
Yeah.
Your next two books i think yousaid

SPEAKER_02 (01:05:12):
yeah

SPEAKER_03 (01:05:13):
tell me all about your books

SPEAKER_02 (01:05:16):
so um i'm an avid reader i read too much my
husband calls me a book dragonbecause i hoard them um and
again like my interest in marinescience was spurred on by books
and encyclopedias and all sortsof stuff so a publishing company
reached out to me via myinstagram and they were like hey

(01:05:39):
do you want to write a book andi And I was like, hell yeah, I
do.
So yeah, I've been working on itfor past five months now.
I haven't gotten as far as Iwant to just because it's my
first ever book and I've beenbusy.
So, but yeah.
Getting married, duh.
Yeah, I've been married andmoving across the country, all

(01:06:01):
sorts of things.
But it's been really cool.
And I'm essentially just writingabout my experience as a
graduating student into thepandemic having mega girl boss
vibes of getting my job and thenworking as a scientist through a

(01:06:22):
coral bleaching event and kindof like afterward of what the
hell am I doing and mytrajectory of like moving more
from the coral biologist intothe science communication role
that I'm in now um and I don'tknow just hoping to in fire more
people and share informationlike I'm with you right now

(01:06:45):
about coral reefs and liketeaching people about outplants
and when corals reach sexualmaturity and like the magic that
is seen spawning and just allthe crazy wonderful information
that I've absorbed the past youknow five years of my career and

(01:07:05):
yeah and basically doing thepodcast but in book form

SPEAKER_03 (01:07:09):
so we got the cliff notes version but when it comes
out we will purchase the actualbook and get all the the gritty
details that maybe we didn't getin today's interview

SPEAKER_02 (01:07:21):
yeah but there'll be a lot more details

SPEAKER_03 (01:07:26):
fair enough i i can't wait to see it i can't
wait i know me too

SPEAKER_02 (01:07:30):
for sure it's it's coming along finally now that
i'm like in the middle of thewoods able to focus

SPEAKER_04 (01:07:36):
sometimes you gotta do that cut it off cut off
everything except our podcastbecause, you know, you got to
interview with us.

SPEAKER_02 (01:07:42):
Exactly.
I still have internetconnection.
That's important.

SPEAKER_04 (01:07:46):
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (01:07:48):
Well, I think we're at a point now where we can say,
let's switch gears to our morefun questions.
Yes.
Okay.
We always ask one fun questionat the very end, but we're going
to have two for you.
Okay.
And we have two for you becauseyou're a Florida native.

SPEAKER_02 (01:08:08):
I'm special.
Amazing.

UNKNOWN (01:08:10):
Okay.

SPEAKER_03 (01:08:10):
All right, so what is, what was, what remains your
favorite thing about Floridalife?
Florida living,

SPEAKER_02 (01:08:21):
being in Florida.
Florida living.

SPEAKER_04 (01:08:25):
Cannot be bath salts.

SPEAKER_02 (01:08:27):
It's not bath salts for Miami.
It's...
favorite part of flora is thatit's always connected to the
ocean somehow some way likewhether it's the fossils in your
backyard or the river runningthrough that leads to the ocean
you live right on the beachyou're on the ocean um i really
enjoy that aspect and i reallylike that it's a melting pot of

(01:08:47):
people like there is just somany different people from the
walks of life everywhere youwalk down the street at least
where i was and you can hearfive different languages um and
so i thought that was reallycool you have you get to meet
people from all over because alot of people who have never
been to Florida want to go toFlorida because they hear about

(01:09:09):
the craziness that is Floridaand they're like let's go down
there so it's it's cool to meetthat and then also see like the
I would just say like thenatural gems that are in Florida
and because you get such a wilddrastic variety of ecosystems
there that are so unique toFlorida and find Everglades with

(01:09:35):
gators and you can't drive downthe highway and you're like, oh
yeah, there's a gator.
Or Crocs.
Or you can't go diving and thenthere's a Florida reef and you
see a pod of dolphins swim byyou.
You can't do those things manyother places.

SPEAKER_04 (01:09:50):
We agree on that for sure.

SPEAKER_03 (01:09:51):
Absolutely.
But it was a two-part question.
Didn't see this coming.
What's your least?

SPEAKER_02 (01:09:58):
Oh.
Oh.
That's my least.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (01:10:02):
Miami.

SPEAKER_02 (01:10:03):
I don't know.
Miami's got a cool school there,so I'll forgive them.
I would say, at the same token,the people.
Yes.
When you get a bunch of visitorswho don't know and just are
completely unaware, you get alsoa lot of destruction of those

(01:10:23):
ecosystems and the harassment ofwildlife because they just don't
know.
And that isn't their fault, butit's also heart-wrenching to see
when you're diving and then yousee somebody that's carved their
name into a coral.
And you're like, oh, okay.
And you just hope.
that that's just blatant like Idon't know and you're unaware

(01:10:46):
and you don't want to see thedestruction of those ecosystems
um and like obviously like thetrash and stuff on the beaches
is hard to see but again that'swhy I do what I do I want to
teach people and show peoplelike hey these things are really
special and super cool and I'mincredibly passionate about it

(01:11:07):
and like I care about it andhopefully me being Bearing my
heart and soul of like why Icare about this makes you care
too.
So it's like a double edgedsword there with the people.

SPEAKER_04 (01:11:18):
For sure.
For sure.
No, I can see that.
Cause like you said, we've gotall walks of life.
We've got people coming downthat are snowbirds and all that.
They don't, I mean, they don'tlive here.

SPEAKER_03 (01:11:29):
They don't know not to touch a manatee

SPEAKER_04 (01:11:30):
or, or the boulders in the, in the water.

SPEAKER_02 (01:11:37):
I

SPEAKER_04 (01:11:38):
get it.

UNKNOWN (01:11:40):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (01:11:41):
The other thing I might want to

SPEAKER_03 (01:11:43):
say is the traffic.
Yeah.
We were born and raised in theD.C.
area, so to us, traffic is a wayof life at this point.
But I agree.
Florida's traffic is almostJumanji-like, though.

SPEAKER_04 (01:12:00):
It's weird.
I never thought I would seeworse drivers than where we're
from.
But these motherfuckers downhere.
Holy crap.

SPEAKER_03 (01:12:11):
Yeah.
It blew our minds that you don'thave to have a car inspection in
Florida.
Nope.
So the cars that are on theroads.
Where it's like crumbling in theback bumper and you're like, oh,
cool.

SPEAKER_04 (01:12:23):
Don't follow too close behind that car.
Tire iron's going to fly out ofthe trunk.

SPEAKER_03 (01:12:29):
Yes.
Never knew people didn't get carinspections.
I mean, I like it,

SPEAKER_04 (01:12:33):
though, because that's an extra expense we don't
have.

SPEAKER_03 (01:12:36):
Right.

SPEAKER_02 (01:12:37):
True.
What is it?
Like Final Destination wherethat piece comes out?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
That's every time you get in thecar.
Anytime you get in the car inFlorida.

SPEAKER_04 (01:12:46):
That car's bumper's doing this.
Why?

SPEAKER_03 (01:12:48):
It's a little scary.

SPEAKER_04 (01:12:51):
It's hanging on by six pieces of duct

SPEAKER_03 (01:12:55):
tape.
Literally.
We've got one more for you,Summer.
If you won$10 million tonight,what is the first thing you
would do tomorrow?

SPEAKER_02 (01:13:08):
Oh.
Oh.
I mean, I hope this means thatyou're giving me$10 million.
I

SPEAKER_03 (01:13:16):
wish.
I

SPEAKER_02 (01:13:18):
don't know.
That's...
Okay, the first thing I'dprobably do is cry.
Second thing I'd probably do iscall my parents and be like,
holy shit! And then the thirdthing I would do is probably
start my own non-profit.

UNKNOWN (01:13:35):
Okay.

SPEAKER_02 (01:13:35):
um after working like in the non-profit sector
and in the private sector withcorals and like seeing different
ways of how people approach theenvironment and the conservation
of these of our beautiful planeti think i would start my own
non-profit because there'sthings that i would want to do
and implement in a different waythan that i've seen and like I

(01:13:59):
really think that I could make abigger impact than just me
alone.
And if I had more voices andmore people to be able to say
like, hey, this is really great.
And I would love to like sponsorinterns, because a lot of marine

(01:14:19):
science positions that areinternships are unfortunately
unpaid.
And in this economy, you can'tdo that.
You can't have so you're forcingthese you know 19 20 year old
students who probably havestudent loan debt into an
internship that's 40 hours aweek and then they often have to

(01:14:40):
have a job on top of that andthat's what I did during my
internship and like yeah do itfor the plot builds character
but also that sucks so

SPEAKER_03 (01:14:48):
right and it can squash passion right yeah come
out of school and you'repassionate you're ready to rock
and roll and ideas and exactlyyou have to have five jobs in
order

SPEAKER_02 (01:14:58):
to Yeah, so I think I would sponsor a lot of
interns, too, because I don'tthink people should have to go
through choosing between tryingto support themselves and
pursuing their dreams.

SPEAKER_03 (01:15:13):
I love that.
So that is a really good answerfor your$10 million question.
I think, again, the idea ofhaving a passion and then be
able to fund that passionbecomes critical, especially for
kids right out of college.

SPEAKER_04 (01:15:28):
Yeah.
Unpaid internships.
That hurts me.
Cause I, I just, I tell there'sa, there's a little kid in our
neighborhood.
He likes mowing grass.
And he came over to my house theother day and said, Hey man, can
I mow your grass?
I was like, I don't have anymoney.

SPEAKER_03 (01:15:43):
No cash.

SPEAKER_04 (01:15:43):
I have no cash.
And he was like 10, 11 yearsold.
I'll do it for free.
And I was like, no, no, no, no,no.
Time is money.
Not for you are a nerd.

SPEAKER_01 (01:15:54):
I am.

SPEAKER_04 (01:15:58):
But, uh, I said, you're not doing that for free,
but he loves the fish, so I gavehim a fishing rod.
He was so, so happy about that.
I just...
That to me is just wrong.
I'm not saying that youshouldn't do internships.
I'm just saying it's hard for meto swallow making someone work
40 hours a week for free.

(01:16:19):
Right.

SPEAKER_02 (01:16:20):
Yeah.
When I was an intern, I lived inintern dorms on site and there
is 15 of us that lived in thedorms.
And that was a large discussion.
A lot of the times of like,screw this, this is ridiculous.
You know, you're put in aposition of like, of, just pure,

(01:16:41):
I don't know, like...
the word just left my brain, butessentially it's not very open
because you have to be in aposition financially, just be
able to support yourself.
And one, that's not fair.
And then two, like it's hard forsomebody that's trying to start

(01:17:02):
their career to be in a positionthat they can't support
themselves.
So removing that barrier wouldbe awesome.
And I post a lot on my Instagramstories of paid internships.
So a a lot of organizations aretrying to change that, but there
are still a few sticklers outthere and the majority are still
unpaid.

(01:17:22):
So I'm trying to post all thepaid ones like here, get paid
for your time.
Oh

SPEAKER_03 (01:17:27):
yeah, for sure.
Oh, that's awesome.
Well, speaking of yourInstagram, let's tell people
where they can find you.

SPEAKER_02 (01:17:35):
Yeah.
So it's summer.scientist onInstagram.
And I actually built a websitefinally.
So that's, literally justwww.summerscientist.com and they
can find like free resources onthere like job and internship
opportunities how to build aresume how to write a cv um all

(01:17:58):
the different places that i'vebeen like i've been in a kid's
book i've been on other podcastsi'll put y'all's podcast on
there direct link to it so theycan hear me talk about my stuff
and then um all my wildlifetravel trips are on there too so
if they want to join that go tocosta rica with me and June
2025.
They can find that on there.
I'll go.

SPEAKER_03 (01:18:17):
That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 (01:18:19):
Yeah.
I'll go.
Well, come on.
Let's go.
10 out of 10.
Let's do it.
I'm not kidding.
It's open to anybody.
It's open to anybody.
It's June 2025.
It's before Father's Day, sodon't worry.
You won't miss out.
I know.
I love that little tip.

(01:18:39):
There you go.
See?
We're literally just going tospend a week in Coaster you guys
romping around and zip liningand going to waterfalls and
kayaking and snorkeling andhiking volcanoes and I'll do
basically a lot of this oftalking to people about coral
reefs and why they're cool andwhy pursuing a career in science

(01:19:06):
is totally the bomb and allsorts of all the answering all
the questions because a lot ofstudents have a lot of like I
need advice I I don't know whatto do, but it pertains just to
them individually.
And I do as much as I can on myInstagram.
But being able to meet people inperson and share that knowledge

(01:19:26):
is so important.
So I figured, hey, why not do itin Costa Rica?

SPEAKER_04 (01:19:30):
Yeah, that's a pretty good venue.

SPEAKER_02 (01:19:33):
Yeah.
Not bad.

UNKNOWN (01:19:35):
Not bad.

SPEAKER_02 (01:19:36):
It's direct flights.
The hotels are all covered.
Most of the meals are covered.
It's great.
We'll check it out.
I keep making it sweeter, like,oh, you should go with me.
You

SPEAKER_03 (01:19:50):
had me at go with you to Costa Rica.
I mean, you can stop sellingthere.
There's also natural hotsprings,

SPEAKER_02 (01:19:58):
so I'm not

SPEAKER_03 (01:19:59):
excited about that at all.
I mean, just adding layers.

SPEAKER_02 (01:20:05):
Awesome.

SPEAKER_03 (01:20:07):
We can't thank you enough, Summer, for coming and
joining us.
Like I said, I follow you onInstagram.
I'm an avid summer scientist onInstagram watcher.
I appreciate everything thatyou've taught us today.
And

SPEAKER_04 (01:20:22):
everything you do.

SPEAKER_03 (01:20:23):
Absolutely.
I hope you keep going forwardwith your mentoring and your
books.
I can't wait to read the book.
Again, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 (01:20:31):
Thank you, guys.
I was so happy to see you wantedto talk to me.
This has been really fun.
I thoroughly enjoyed it.

UNKNOWN (01:20:38):
Thanks!

SPEAKER_00 (01:20:39):
Thanks for watching.

(01:21:09):
And for ad-free early access toepisodes, join our Patreon
community at patreon.com slashunfilteredunion.
Thanks for being a part of theUnfiltered Union family.

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#64 - Coral Restoration and Conservation: Summer Collins on Saving Marine Ecosystems

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#64 - Coral Restoration and Conservation: Summer Collins on Saving Marine Ecosystems