Shark Week Part 1 - Beyond Jaws! Marine Biology, Conservation, and the Truth About Sharks with Dave Ebert (Ep 47) - Resilience Gone Wild (WinWinWin Mindset)

Episode Transcript
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(00:04):
Hey. It's Jessica Morgenthal
at Resilience Gone Wild, and I am here
with my fabulous producer, Kai Sorensen
Thank you. For Chart Week. Yeah. So excited
to be here. Jessica, what's great about this
is when I was 11, 12,
watching Shark Week on the Discovery Channel,
I never thought I'd be 38
on third next weekend.

(00:25):
Well, happy birthday. 30 great, I'm calling it.
Yay.
Taking part in a shark week. So it's
that's really cool for me. Sharks have always
been my second favorite animal next to the
sea turtle. So, yeah, just really excited for
all the conversations we've been having. Okay. Wait
a minute. Just for, like, fun, just, like,
explore the fact
that we did not know each other.
We got connected by somebody who had no

(00:47):
idea
that both of us loved sea turtles and
sharks. Like, how weird is it that those
are your two favorite animals and
and they've become my two favorite animals. That
is really cool. Yeah. I think it's super
fun. You know, I think growing up in
the landlocked Nebraska, of course, going back to
our first episode,
the reason I love these animals so much
is because of the Henry Doorly,

(01:08):
aquarium in Omaha, Nebraska, going there as a
kid. And again, I think it's a lot
of what we're gonna get into with the
fascinating people we're we're gonna talk to David
Ebert,
this week for episode one,
and just kind of like this idea of
how curiosity led to empathy, which led to
conservation in in his entire career.

(01:28):
David Eubertsch, rare shark guy, like really important
in the field of
finding new fields, new species of sharks because
they're going extinct and we need to care
about them. We need to find them, care
about them, and
and save them. Mhmm.
And then talking to, Francesca Francesca Paige today

(01:49):
about,
the 200 shark project. Like, she has dug
up and done this magnificent art about 200
sharks, and that's just that's not even all
of them. So Yeah. Yeah. And that's that's
getting to episode three. And, you know, I
think with Franchesca, it's just her combination of
her art
with conservation is just such a beautiful

(02:09):
career she's found. And so, again, we just
have talked to so many people
this season because we're wrapping up season one
with the next three weeks. Maybe there'll be
a bonus one in there. We don't know
yet, but we We're working on it. Live
on edge of our seat here at Resilience
Gone Wild. But in between, you know, Jessica,
I think you were struggling with what shark
you wanna do our animal episode about. So
you wanna give us a little sneak peek

(02:29):
on who I get to do some sound
design underneath? Yeah. I can't wait for your
sound design, especially because sharks don't actually make
a sound, but they they are part of
the ocean, the soundscape of the ocean. So
it's Shark Week, and it's also the fiftieth
anniversary
of Jaws. And
that anniversary
in my world and in Kai's world is
all about,

(02:50):
like, looking back at fifty years of fear
that was created
from
this, like,
ta da movie
Mhmm. That was not intended
to create
a fifty, you know, fifty years of fear
that has continued
to kill.
Right. And misinformation around
around sharks in general.
Yeah.

(03:11):
So we're all about relooking out at whether
sharks are really something to be afraid of
or something to be in awe of. And
our guests talk to that and we are
all about like changing that metaphor. Like sharks
are not a bad thing. Sharks are so
desperately, desperately needed as part of the ecosystems
that they live in. They are apex predators.
And I thought it would be kind of
cool to do the great white shark because

(03:33):
that's the Jaws shark as mine. But I
couldn't really fall in love with the jet
the,
the great white shark. And it was kind
of common. Right? Like and I don't do
common. I mean, I do tardigrades. Right? Like
we need to do stuff that we don't
know about so that we fall in love
with new characters and Tasmanian devil, you know,
all that. And I just love whale sharks.
They are literally the largest non mammal in

(03:56):
the world
and they are spectacularly
beautiful. And they have this amazing resilience
among other things that we can relate to
about having the thickest skin. So
watch for this episode that's coming up around
having thick skin like the whale sharks and
just go out there and find pictures. Franchesca
Page has some incredible ones that she's drawn.

(04:16):
Some award winning photography. Totally. Which we'll we'll
post to in the show notes. And and
as well as David's
decades long career of shark
research has also contributed to to what we
know about sharks today. And, again, in the
show notes there, there'll be links to his
work. And, actually, I looked at sharks of
the world, I think it's called. I think
I'm misspeaking.
But, anyways, I just kinda What was his,

(04:38):
like, bible? That was his Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Flipping through it, it's like Yeah. I
was just online. I was kinda, like, glancing
through the book, and it's just so cool
to see just, stepping through how sharks work
and just, like, it's a beautiful blend of,
like, science and cool and and diagrams. So,
before we get to interviews, I you know,
all this talk of please post a review,

(04:58):
and guess what? Somebody did. And
it's a long one, so we're gonna get
through it because it's so good. Nina from
New York. And we don't know who Nina
is. It could be a Nina I know,
but I don't know. Alright. Well, Resilience Gone
Wild is one podcast that may indeed have
something for everyone. Jessica Morgenthal's well researched and
entertaining dives into the natural world, typically in
the company of experts in their fields, reminds

(05:18):
me of that favorite teacher who made science
come alive. She focuses on the unique resilience
mechanisms of species other than our own, providing
examples that are extraordinary and often breathtaking.
This focus in on in and of itself
could be a three credit course. Wow.
The substantial icing on the cake, however, is
Jessica gently offers how we might learn and
what we might do physically,

(05:39):
psychologically, and spiritually.
To attain a similar resilience in our own
lives, Jessica's respect for nature is exceeded only
by her respect for human capability.
You simply do not leave these podcasts without
feeling a bit more informed, a bit more
energized, and a bit more hopeful for the
world.
So beautiful. Thank you, Nina. Well written. Thank
you, Nina. We so appreciate it. Yeah.

(06:00):
Alright. Well, on that note, should we get
to the interview? Get to the interview. Alright.
Enjoy Shark Week, everybody, the next three episodes.
Enjoy.
Welcome, David Ebert. I am so thrilled
to welcome you to Resilience Gone Wild. This
has been many months in the making, and

(06:20):
we've
targeted all towards Shark Week, which is upon
us. And it's probably keeping you very busy
because you're the lost shark guy among other
other titles and and, and names that you've
taken on. So we I can't wait to
have this conversation with you. Sure. I met
you through Andrew Lewin,
who was on our podcast a few months

(06:41):
ago, and he said he now has a
podcast with you. I guess it's been going
on for a while. Yep. The Beyond Jaws
Yes.
Podcast because Jaws is turning 50 years old.
It'll already have been fifty years since the
date that it dropped by the time this
airs, I think, a few days before. But
we're celebrating, and we're gonna have this amazing
conversation about finding lost sharks, lost species, extinction,

(07:05):
what metaphor and naming does for and not
for different species. And you have this great
take on it that you just gave me
a little bit of a taste on. So
let's get going. So tell us about yourself,
Dave. Well, I'm Dave Ebert, and I'm the
program manager for the, Pacific Shark Research Center
at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories out here in
the Monterey area, and we're part of the

(07:25):
San Jose State University program here in the
science department. And I've been doing this for
well, I've been doing sharks pretty much my
whole life, my whole adult life. But I
actually got interested in sharks when I was
about five years old, and my parents gave
me a book on sharks. And I thought
this was, like, the coolest stuff I'd things
I'd ever seen. And, of course, when you're
five years old, you think people are gonna
grow out of this. And it's like, no.

(07:46):
I just kinda kept getting more interested in
it. And when I was about 10 years
old,
I thought like, you know, I gotta figure
out a way to like somehow study sharks
and travel the world because I love to
travel. Or, you know, I was only 10
years old, but, you know, so you're still
thinking, okay. You know, kids, you know, sharks,
dinosaurs, you know, whales. But I just was
like I just never I just wanted those
kids. I just never grew out of it,

(08:08):
and I just knew what I wanted to
do.
And I was very fortunate, as you'll hear,
on some of the little
turns and twists along my journey as I
went along because this was, you know, this
is the nineteen sixties, which is ancient history
for a lot of the younger people here
when I was growing up. And then, things
kinda started back at that time, like,

(08:28):
shark researchers, there really was non existent. It's
hard for
young people today to understand that that are
into this field because
before World War two,
the only thing about sharks that were done
was anatomical research or maybe if they did
a final
review of fishes from some area, they'd mention
the sharks there. And that was pretty much

(08:48):
it.
And then
World War two came along, and then during
that time, there's a lot of these horrific
stories about pilots and sailors being stranded at
sea. They had experienced a horrific
combat
experience, and they would have survived, and they
survived. And then they'd be in the find
themselves in the water, and there'd be sharks
around. And a lot of these stories

(09:10):
came back to the public, and probably one
of the best known,
stories was of the USS Indianapolis,
which is actually recounted by, Quint in the
movie,
where he was in the movie, he talks
about having been on the boat. This was
a boat that delivered the atomic bomb.
Wow. Wait. This is in the movie Jaws?
Yeah. Well, no. This is this is a
real this really happened.

(09:32):
In the movie, Quint talks about having been
on the ship, but it's a true story.
Yeah. And when after they dropped off the
atomic bomb on Leyte, I think it was
the island Wow. The ship I don't think
anybody knows that. I think everybody assumes that
it was just it flew all the way
from The States
on the Enola Gay and that it didn't
have a ship in the middle of it.
So this is actually an interesting picture. The

(09:53):
Indianapolis actually sailed from Oakland, California
Wow. With the with the atomic bomb. And
I mentioned that because my father grew up
in Oakland, California. So Wow. But anyway but,
yeah, they sailed, went over there and they
delivered the bomb. And then on the way
back to where like, at a Kimura, it
was Tinian, I think they were going to.
No. Don't quote me in the islands. I
might have been a little off the islands,
but they were but after they dropped off

(10:14):
the bomb, they're sailing back. And because it
was such a top secret thing, they're on
complete radio silence. Well, they got torpedoed by
a Japanese submarine and the ship sank pretty
quickly
And there's Oh my god. That was on
the way back, though. Like, how crazy would
life would the whole
world be if it had been torpedoed on
the way there instead of on the way
back? That that that's a whole yeah. That'd

(10:34):
be a whole it'd be really interesting if
it happened on the way in versus the
way back. But what happened was basically had
I think it was, like, 11 or 1,200
sailors on the ship, and after it sank,
there's still about 900 to a thousand survived.
Well, because they're in such a top secret
mission, there's no distress warning went out. Wow.
And so these guys were in the waters
for about four or five days,

(10:54):
and most of them died from exposure and
from injuries,
but some were attacked by sharks.
And and when these stories kind of drifted
back, this is this was in, like, late
July nineteen forty five, literally about a week
or so before ten days before they they
dropped the first bomb. But but any but,
anyway, what happened was,

(11:15):
all these stories for this and there's other
stories that came back after the war
about, you know, people surviving this and then
being attacked by sharks.
And so
the office of naval research invested a lot
of money for decades
looking at ways to prevent,
shark attacks, shark repellents, and similar types of
things.

(11:35):
And most shark research for decades up until
the early really early is was all funded
through the office of naval research and all
revolved around shark attack. Wow. And how to
prevent shark attack. And it was again, it
had because it had a military implication.
Wow. A lot of the people that were
my mentors, and I'll talk a little more
about, like, Leonard Campano,
some of these other people, Sonny Gruber, Don

(11:56):
Nelson, these are all, like, prominent names, Perry
Gilbert.
These guys were all funded largely a lot
through the Office of Naval Research. Wow. And
that was so interesting because the whales have
it's this different story, but it's a similar
story that the recognition
of whales
and the singing and the the sound from
whales came out of World War II as

(12:18):
well. And that that never would have happened,
and I think it was probably funded to
a certain extent after that in terms of
research by the by also by the military.
Right. Yeah. You know, it was it was
literally that was literally and in a couple
of the primer books that were written on
sharks that in the nineteen sixties, a fella
named Perry Gilbert, who was at Cornell University,
edited,

(12:39):
where basically it it explored some other areas,
but a lot of it had to do
with sharks and types of sharks and shark
attack. And, anyway, my mentor, Leonard Campano,
who went to Stanford University, he grew up
in San Francisco, went to Stanford, but he
got received funding from this all the way
up. In fact, the last
product that was produced from all of this
was a was a two volumes,

(13:00):
series called the catalog of the sharks of
the world that was published by the Food
and Agriculture Organization, which is part of the
United Nations.
Okay. Wow. Like, just to process that for
a second that the publisher
of
the primary books on sharks
was the food and I'm sorry. What? Agriculture.
FAO. Food and agriculture. But I guess they
were in charge of fish fisheries as well.

(13:22):
Well, that that was what it was under
the it came through the it was done
through their fisheries. They have a big fisheries
and aquaculture program. Yep. Food security is what
it's it really ties into. But the but
the funding but they go out and get
funding from different countries for different things and
and they and this culmination
where I'm going with this whole thing, this
culmination of these catalog of the sharks, the
world that was published in 1984

(13:45):
came about because of
the Office of Naval Research because of World
War two and all these shark attacks.
Amazing. And this was sort of the penultimate
publication
from this. And if we remember Jaws, just
again, for people's reference, Jaws came out in
June of nineteen seventy five. Right. Which was
ten years before that. So Yeah. Literally. Yeah.
And and,
my adviser, Leonard Capania, who wrote these catalog,

(14:08):
which if you're in the shark world, these
are, like, classic references. Yeah. Yeah. You can
download them, the PDFs online.
He actually consulted on the movie Jaws in
in designing the the mechanical shark they called
Bruce in the movie. Wow. And so if
you watch and if you watch the movie,
at the very end of the movie, the
last credit that comes up, they think mister

(14:29):
Leonard JV Coppano, Stanford University.
Wow. That's pretty wild. And, I've been I've
seen I've seen Bruce in I don't know
if it's the same Bruce, but I have
seen Bruce at, is it at Disney or
Universal? I think it's Universal. Yeah. I haven't
seen it, but you think it's Universal. Been
through the shark in the jaws exhibit where
they, like oh, wait. Anyway, it's pretty funny.

(14:49):
Bruce is still around, I think. Yeah. Well,
I had I had all kinds of problems
with him because of the salt water and
the rust when they actually took it out
to use it, but Leonard's part was they
he went down there and he told me
the story about walking around with Spielberg because
at the time they wanted to make that
shark look real and now and again,
when I when the movie came out, I
was in high school

(15:09):
and
I have to say the shark at that
time, the shark looked really real. There was
nothing like that. You just thought that was
a really you watch it now and you're
kinda like, yeah, it looks like kind of
a mechanical shark. It doesn't really but if
if you put your can put yourself back
at that time, special effects
as, you know, are just were nothing like
they are today. They just were not nothing
like they It was pretty cool. Pretty it

(15:30):
was it
was an awesome it was awesome and But
take us back a little bit because you
I thought that you had gotten your PhD
in South Africa with. Yeah. Well, I'm going
I'm heading that way. That's where I'm heading
for. So take us back because I love
hearing these origin stories where and and I
volunteer
as a docent in the aquarium section of
Loggerhead Marine Life Center, and we have two

(15:51):
nurse sharks, and we have some stingrays, two
stingrays. And there's nothing that lights me up
more than the conversations that I have with
kids
coming through
a very young age as well as, you
know, up through. So maybe they'll be from,
you know, four or five, like, when you
started, and then
nine, 10, 15 where they've kept it on.
And they're so enamored

(16:12):
and so knowledgeable.
And
about at these conversations about sharks, and the
parents are, like, so impressed by their kids.
Right? Like, it doesn't feel like the care
the parents know very much. They just love
hearing their kids being excited about it. And
they're like, wait. They know this one you
know, Charlie knows more. Ask Charlie more questions
about it. And they are just so excited

(16:33):
about
and it feels like these kids are gonna
stay in the world like you did. Like,
they'll have some of this same energy of,
like, this is the coolest thing in the
world to, like Yeah. Being connected to a
shark.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'll tell you a funny
story. When I was,
when saw my guidance counselor for, you know,
your senior year of high school, you go
see a guidance counselor. Mhmm. And this was

(16:54):
obviously after the movie Jaws had come out,
and they he kind of asked me now
you're talking about it for, like, 17 at
the time or something, and asked me, like,
you know, what I was planning to do.
And I said, well, I'm gonna go to
college, and then I'm going to do travel
the world. I'm gonna study sharks.
And I still remember him sitting there. He's
kinda like looking kinda looked up at me
and he didn't say anything. He he was
just so, uh-huh. He goes, oh, that's that's

(17:16):
good you have some some some ambition, Deva.
Have you thought about a plan b in
case that shark thing doesn't work out? And
I was like, no. Not really. He goes,
well, you know, kind of good luck with
that shark thing. And and I but I'll
say he was not dismissive at all. He
he did not he kind of encouraged me,
like, okay. Well, good. I got you know,
it's great. You know, good luck. And about
ten years later,

(17:37):
and I'm gonna get to this before I
went to South Africa to study sharks,
I saw him and, I was over at
my old high school and I saw him
there and I just we got to talk
and I told him what I was doing
and everything and I said, do you remember
me talking to you about studying sharks? And
he's like, oh, yeah. He goes, I've
thousands of kids I've had here. You're like
the only shark guy I ever had come
through here. And, I said, so what do

(17:58):
you think about it? He says he goes,
you know, I get so many kids come
through here, have no idea what they're gonna
do, and they're like months away from graduating.
He goes, you at least had a direction,
like, okay, I'm gonna do this. He goes,
honestly, I didn't think the shark thing was
gonna work out for you, but you had
a direction, so I wasn't gonna, like, impede
that, you know, or, you know, you know,
get in the way of that. And so

(18:18):
I I always was very I thought about
that years later, you know, kind of was
really,
it was really good in his part that
he didn't, like, just dismiss it, like, oh
well, this guy's, like, lost his mind or
something. He was just, he just had it
direct and I did. I knew where I
wanted to go
on everything but again this was
just like right, you know, a year or
two after Jaws came out

(18:38):
and
I come back to there was at that
time there was no field of shark research,
you know, other than
shark attack. There was so, you know, here
I am going along for, you know, the
first sort of twelve, thirteen years, you know,
from the time I was five years old,
like, I'm gonna go study sharks. And there
really was no field. There was no field.
And there wasn't any YouTube to, like No.

(18:59):
Learn quick stuff at it. Like, it was
only the books that were written and the
papers that might have been written. Like, there
was, like, nothing. So how did you actually
Well you know, keep up with this? I
did. Well, and, again, I talked to people.
I talked about some of the peep some
of my cohorts from the same age group
and stuff. We all had the same similar
story. But and but one thing all of
us will tell you about is in 1971

(19:21):
before jaws the book came out there was
a movie came out called Blue Water White
Death
and it was a search for the great
white shark and it was the first time
somebody and this included like Rod and Valerie
Taylor, Stan Waterman,
Peter Gimble, Rodney Fox, a lot of people
names that became prominent later. They actually did
a movie that they documented where they went

(19:43):
to around the world to find a white
shark to film live in the wild. And
that was so revolutionary.
It was people just couldn't couldn't couldn't believe
it. And and that was actually a kind
of a precursor.
If you wanted before Jaws, obviously, this is
like four years before the movie came out
and that was a for someone like me,
you know, being at that age, whatever, I
was like, you know, 12 years old or

(20:04):
something when it came out 11, 12, it
just further inspired me like I wanna go
do that. I wanna travel the world and
go. It was literally they were doing what
I wanted to do, travel around the world.
Funny, but what's coming up for me is
that I live in Florida now during the
winters,
and there's great white sharks around us. Oh,
yeah. Like, it's not that hard to find
a great white shark. Now it is. Was
it harder? Was it why is it so

(20:26):
much easier now? Tell me what the story
Well,
it this is where I'm going with Jaws.
It brought awareness to sharks. Mhmm. When the
movie Jaws came out, like, you know, the
blue water white death was interest. And I'd
recommend anybody if you're go see it. It's
It's a very it's it's nothing like you'll
see today because it's very raw. This was
done Mhmm. Over fifty years ago, but it's
a it's from a historical thing, it's neat
it's really cool to see. But when Jaws

(20:48):
came out in the mid in '75,
what it really did was it brought sharks
kind of into the limelight
in that,
you talk about, you know, being in Florida,
now here we see sharks, you know, they
know about white sharks now. Well, part of
why they know there's white sharks out there
now is we have groups like the Atlantic
White Shark Conservancy,
you know, up in New England putting

(21:10):
satellite tags on sharks and so they track
these sharks. Right. Yeah. And so now and
and I know it's been on social media
lately and that's maybe where you've been seeing
it too where they're seeing these sharks up
and down the Florida coast, and everybody's like,
wait a minute. We we had no idea
there were sharks here in Florida
Yeah. Or at least white sharks. Yeah. And
And, And, And, and, honestly, people with drones
who aren't sending those drones that far offshore

(21:31):
Yeah. Are seeing them as well. So, like
Yep. They're they're right there, but Oh, yeah.
They're not but they're not bothering us. So
let's just put it that there. And that
oh, yeah. And I I'm I'm I'm here
in the Monterey area, and if you go
and I grew up in this area. If
you go out now,
I'll go up in the hell there's a
helicopter,
do helicopter tours around here, and they go
up and and we'll go spot looking for
white sharks. I'll go along about two mile

(21:53):
stretch of beach, and I'll count 40 white
sharks. Wow. Literally, this is a popular beach,
and you'll see kids playing in the surf.
You know, their parents are, you know, we're
up above obviously in a helicopter and parents
laying on the beach, kids playing in the
surf, and right back of the surf break,
you'll you'll count like, you know, eight, ten
white sharks just kind of hanging out.
No idea because when you're down at the
water level, you don't see them

(22:15):
because most of the time the sharks are
not finning at the surface. They're below the
surface so unless you're up high, you don't
see them
and,
and then you're worried about that time of
the year now where there's plenty of white
and they're not these are small like six
to eight footer but you know, if they're
you know, I'm six foot. If they're bigger
than me, I'm, you know, I'm kinda giving
them a lot of respect, let's say. Okay.

(22:36):
Let's just I gotta ask you the obvious
question. So is this safe? Is this scary?
Like, should these should there be
some greater boundary between kids swimming and the
white sharks that are right over on the
other side of the circle? There's and I'll
add too. There's probably more white sharks along
the coast now
than there was when I was growing up,
even though they were around. Think to think

(22:57):
the thing is part of it's part of
it's an awareness of of what's going on,
but the statistics I like to use is
that since 1950,
now, whatever seventy five years, there's on there's
on average three or four shark attacks in
California a year. And, you know, with a
range of anywhere from zero to I think
the highest eight or nine at most in
a year and

(23:18):
but the population of California has gone from
like 15,000,000
to 40,000,000
and there's a lot more people in the
water now than were back in 1950. People
are surfing. They're doing stand up paddleboard. I
mean, it just goes on and on and
on, and yet the number of shark attacks
hasn't really increased. Yeah. So I mean, I'd
love to go down that path a little
because one of the reasons I wanted to

(23:38):
do this episode was
to just put some of the real information
out there that
that will hopefully dissuade the unbelievable fear of
sharks and the interest in of sharks in
us.
So, I mean, some of the numbers I
read, I think last year, there were, like,
67 or something unprovoked shark attacks. In the

(23:58):
world, the number of people that you don't
get the the the number that goes with
it, which is where you're going with this,
like, how many people swim in the ocean
where there are sharks,
you know, during the course of a year,
billions.
Right? Like, the chance
of having and the provoked shark attacks,
which are people annoying sharks and all that

(24:19):
kind of thing, aren't even that high. They're
higher than the unprovoked.
But the chances
of having an episode
that is dangerous
with a shark of any sort
is so slim that, like, literally, you must
have I I am guessing you have some
of these comparisons, like, you know, a 100
times less than being hit by lightning. Or,
like, what are the numbers? They throw out

(24:39):
they I mean, there's all kinds of examples
you can pick up, like, on social media
about, like, you know, chance of getting killed
driving to the beach
is much higher than actually being attacked by
shark. I mean, look look, there's certain areas
you could, okay, popular beach is not so
much, but there are areas you could go
if you wanted to, like, find a shark
to attack you. There's some areas you could
go that we would probably get in trouble

(25:01):
if you wanted to and it's just because
and they're usually known areas that people know,
like, this is not a good area to
go swimming in. A lot of times, this
time of the year, go a lot of
times, it's more diving that people like if
they're if you're going abalone diving. You make
a really important point. It's a specific time
of the year. There are times when I've
listened to some of your podcasts and stuff,
you know, and your videos. Like, there's times
when you just did one on the whale

(25:22):
sharks with Andrew that, you know, at a
certain exact time each year,
whale sharks, which are not dangerous, by the
way, but Yeah. To humans, find themselves,
I think,
off Cozumel or something, like, where there's a
specific
full moon,
you know, snapper something or other. And, like,
so don't go in the water at that
exact moment.

(25:42):
Right. Alright. Well, Well, there's a lot of
well, there's yeah. There's a lot of you
get when they're when the snappers are are
spawning, basically, there's a lot of food in
the water. That's Right. You get areas off
Belize and Honduras and Cozumel and these areas,
Cancun. There's a there's several areas in The
Caribbean, and they do tours there and stuff,
but but at times of the year, you
know there's gonna
be a lot of gametes in the water

(26:03):
from the groupers and then that's when the
whale sharks, you know they're gonna be there
at that time. And, a lot of places
have these sort of whale tours going on,
but you also gotta keep in mind too
when you got the
when there's a lot of food in the
water, you get you kinda just work your
way up the food chain. There's probably gonna
be some other predators there that are not
as friendly, let's say, that that feed on
something more than plankton.

(26:24):
Yeah. So I have to throw this in
every time it sort of pops up for
me is just the mind blowing
intelligence and a capacity
for these ancient creatures.
Sharks have been around before the dinosaurs, right?
Like ancient creatures
that are most of our world
that have developed such unbelievable

(26:45):
skill, adaptation,
intelligence, all that, that they know exactly where
to be.
You know, they travel thousands of miles and,
you know, and I always go back to
the sea turtles
that nest in the salmon, that nest on
the beach they were born because that has
the best
chance
for their offspring.
Mhmm. The whale sharks have the best chance
of getting the right, you know, food that
they're looking for if they go to the

(27:06):
exact location, but they can find it, and
they know exactly when to go. Right. So
it's just the process,
the, you know, what would you call it?
Is it intelligence, is it instinct, is it
It's adaptation, all of it. It's like, you
know, we're in the Pacific Northwest here. You
have salmon that come back to the same
rivers.
Mhmm. Yeah. You know, they're born there, they
leave, they come back two, three years later.
It's the same thing. And you see this

(27:27):
you see this throughout the animal king. Yeah.
Birds
But they know exactly where the food is.
Right? And they they go north to South
Pole, like, it's crazy. Right. And, yeah, and
sharks are the same way and rays too.
They have they'll these big migrations of, you
know, rays, people don't think about them as
often. They're basically just flat sharks is what
they are, but they they'll
migrate distances some species, not all, but some

(27:47):
species, and whale sharks are a good example.
They'll they'll go thousands of kilometers
to a location.
If they've tagged some off, they've tagged,
all these are basking sharks, I guess, but
same type of thing. They feed on plank.
They've tagged some off New England that have
shown up off the Amazon River in Brazil.
You know? We're like, what? We had no
idea they went that way, but they're clearly

(28:08):
going there. And I and if they had
the resources to tag more, you'd find there'd
be a pattern would emerge, much like these
whale sharks off Cozumel and Cancun and these
areas. You know, at certain times of the
year when those fish are spawning, they're gonna
be there, and they have some kind of
innate
ability to understand to know when and where
to be. And I you know, that's a
whole area of animal behavior I've not experienced

(28:30):
in, but I but I've seen it. I
know what goes on.
Incredible. So,
you know, it's like here we got white
shark. White sharks show up here
pretty much about about this time of year
they're here, and they'll be here till about
November, December. They'll start tailing off in by
November. So Northern California? That's where we're Yeah.
Yeah. In in Central Northern California, they they

(28:50):
they show up here, and we know they're
gonna be here, and I then they take
off, and we got a little more information
on white sharks now. We know they they'll
migrate out towards Hawaii
into an area called the the cafe out
there. We have no idea. That's one of
the things they're trying to study, figure out
now. Like, this area they go to, they
nobody can figure out, like, what are they
going out there for? Because there's it doesn't
seem to seem to be kind of a
dead zone in the ocean where there's just

(29:12):
not
Wow. It's not much So I always ask
the question, what do they know?
Yeah. They go there for a reason
consistently. There's a pattern.
What do they know? They know something because
it keeps them alive, like, to Yeah. And
another sort of matter. Another thing too with
these a lot of these sharks is they
because at different stage of their life, they
go different places. This is the interesting thing

(29:32):
with the sharks is that when they're young,
they might stay in a nursery area. Mhmm.
It's called a nursery area. They may not
be able to migrate
that far.
And then as they get up a little
older, kind of, you know, maturing, they'll they'll
start migrating to further areas, and then adults
will have a very specific areas they'll go
to. And that's in like how and how
they learn that behavior.
Mhmm. Right. There's no there's no parental

(29:54):
supervision really to speak of. It's incredible. And
yet they know where to go. A lot
of species like that the children
go to, you know, stay in a different
place and know somehow they know. Yeah. Like,
what do they know? And then they are
also learning. It's partly instinct, obviously, but they're
also learning to make good decisions because they
have to survive. So Yeah. They well, yeah.
Obviously, you have a lot more young that

(30:15):
are born that, you know, some you know,
not very many usually make it to adulthood
real realistically.
And you have yeah. Usually, they try to
the the young, they usually try to birth
in an area where there's, like, a lot
of food, rich food resources. But then Yeah.
But we just don't really know. We, you
know, you stumble on these areas that are
a nursery area, but you don't always you
don't always know. You know, you sometimes get
lucky. So Yep. Literally, you get lucky. That's

(30:36):
why I interrupted. You were taking us on
this journey, this amazing journey from
when sharks were not really known and there
wasn't any research, and then you came in
because I know you were really early
in this whole development and and really a
pioneer. So
you're I think you're headed to South Africa
at some point. So Yeah. Well, what I
what I was saying is when I, you
know, when I left high school in sort

(30:58):
of the the mid seventies and started college
late late late seventies,
there was you know, I didn't know this.
Talk about ignorance being bliss.
You know, if I had any idea, I
might have yeah. Well, I don't I don't
know if I would have or not, but
there was really, I had no
idea there was no real field of shark
research at the time.
And so,
but I was but I had this mission.

(31:19):
I knew where I wanted to go,
and I I walked and so I went
through I did my undergraduate
degree, and it's
funny story I tell sometimes. I was kind
of I was lucky enough just to I
was kind of thinking I never I had
no idea the grad school back. This is
a time you, you know, you thought and
I was a generation like, oh, thank god
this guy got a bachelor's degree because it

(31:40):
was either that or probably, you know, you
know, working at a a fast food restaurant
the rest of my life or something.
And as I was leaving and they tell
the story sometimes because it it just especially
to younger people, it's like you meet people
along your journey in life sometimes, and sometimes
you meet someone for a cup of coffee
that has a tremendous
influence on the trajectory of your life or

(32:00):
your career. And this happened to me when
I was finishing up my degree at Humboldt
State University.
A professor there I knew, he was actually
an invertebrate guy, John Demartini said, asked me,
said, what are you gonna be doing? I
said, well, I'm gonna graduate, you know, next
semester, and I'm gonna head off and go
study sharks around the world. He goes, oh,
that's a great idea, Dave, you know, and,
he goes, why don't we go have a
cup of coffee? I'm like, okay. Great. You

(32:22):
know?
So and when I was there when I
was having a cup of coffee, he tells
me he starts saying, you know, you really
need to think about doing a master's degree
if you wanna go anywhere in this field.
Now I'm thinking, oh my god, a master's
degree? Jesus, I'm lucky I used to get
a bachelor's degree.
But I listened to what he said and
I said, well, if I'm gonna do a
master's degree, I'm gonna do what I wanna

(32:42):
do and I'm gonna work on sharks.
And so I fortunately for me, I grew
up near Moss Landing Marine Laboratories here in
the Monterey area,
and so right at this time, this is
why I talk about I'm gonna go into
this whole Jaws generation.
Uh-uh. I go I went and talked to
and there this is the early nineties, 1981
or so. I talked to Greg Kieh, who
was just starting up a shark program at

(33:05):
the marine lab because there and at that
time, it was because there was a lot
of interest in sharks. People were just going
like Because of Jaws. And it was all
because of Jaws. They wanna know, like, well,
how many sharks are there? How many you
know? And and so I was really fortunate
there was right, you know, close by to
where I grew up. And so I went
and talked to him and,
you know, you know, I was getting one
of these conversations you have, like, I, you

(33:25):
know, I was was interviewing to go to
grad school and kind of asked him when
I finished, I said, you know, and again,
I I went through my undergrad, no no
clue. I was, you know, grad school is
not even on my radar.
And I sort of said, do you think
do you think I got a chance to
get in here? And he goes, oh, Dave.
Getting in is not your problem. Your problem's
gonna be getting out of here. And I
was like, okay. But, you know, he gave
me a chance and that's, you know, in

(33:46):
life, if if somebody gave me an opportunity,
take it. And that's it's up to me
to make it. So I went and did
my started doing my master's degree and I
was working on some sharks, a group of
sharks in San Francisco Bay, Sevegnill sharks.
And, I was and while I was doing
that, I ran it I met a guy
named Leonard Capano, who I'd met you before.
And Leonard had he'd at this point in

(34:06):
time, he'd finished Stanford University, and he was
working at the Tiburon Marine Lab in Marin
County just across the Golden Gate Bridge as
he was an adjunct there working on soft
money. And when I first met him in
1982,
he was working on the catalog of the
sharks of the world. Wow. What a time.
Like,
being in the right place at the right
time and making sure that you've met the

(34:27):
right people. Oh, yeah. No. It was totally
if you're gonna go to grad school, I
tell us, you know, young people and stuff,
like, work on something you wanna work on,
you know, and find somebody in the field
who's, like,
the best that you can in the field
you you can go work with. And at
the time with Leonard, I just and it
was a funny story, but I when I
met him, I was coming in from catch

(34:48):
it from fishing some sharks and some dogfish
there. And Leonard was let's say an eccentric
person
and, but he, and I was it was
just poor. I still remember it was pouring
down rain as pulling up the boat. I
was cleaning up the boat with my brother
and a friend and this guy walks by
and kinda saw these dogfish in the boat
and asked what I was doing. I said,
oh, I'm from Moss Landing. I'm studying sharks.

(35:09):
He's like, I don't know anybody studying seven
gill sharks here.
And the next thing you know, we I
we spent, like, two hours standing in the
rain talking about sharks before he said, like,
you wanna come on I I said, do
you mind if we get out of the
rain? He goes, oh, yeah. Why don't you
come over to my office?
And I still remember walking into his office
for another three hours. So this is after
fishing all day.
And, but I didn't want to it was

(35:30):
such a great opportunity and here he had
everything laid out that I still remember this
very clearly. He He had everything laid out
that he was working on the sharks of
the world book at the time. He told
me about it. Amazing to like walk in
and see that in its process. So when
you see, you know, you see this online,
you download stuff, I mean, I actually
saw him,
everything laid out, all because he was doing

(35:50):
the illustrations, he was doing he was kind
of an all around I mean, he's a
brilliant guy and they say he's kind of
eccentric. And so anyway, I got to know
him during my graduate studies there over the
next couple of years. We got to be
pretty good friends. I you know, I'd stop
in and see him and stuff Well when
I was up there and I I he
was like an encyclopedia, you know? Yeah. He
was writing the encyclopedia and he was an

(36:10):
encyclopedia.
And, during this time here, he'd done an
around the world trip through the Food and
Agriculture Organization to work in the book. Again,
this is funded by Office of Naval Research.
Yeah. And so when the project ended, he
was basically looking for employment, you know, because
his funding was running out and, it turned
out he got offered a job
in South Africa.

(36:31):
Eight months later, he called me up from
South Africa and tells me he has a
PhD post in South Africa if I want
it.
Wow. And the next thing I knew, I
was on a plane to South Africa. One
of the things that's that you you made
me think of is, you know,
in terms of, like, the fear of going
in the water for the sharks, like, you
there was this this judgment, I'm sure, that

(36:52):
you got thrown with that you're going to
South Africa. Like, that's not a place to
go. It's not safe. It's not worth it.
It's not whatever. And you're like, you know
what? Those are just stories you've heard. Some
of stories are always true,
but, like, that doesn't mean it should shut
you down. Like, do a little more digging
to see if you really shouldn't go in
the water. If you really shouldn't go to
South Africa. Right? Again, this is all pre

(37:14):
Internet and stuff. As a young person, it's
like, it was an adventure. I was setting
off an adventure and and,
you know, what the heck? And it was,
again, it was the best decision I ever
made. It was an it was an amazing
experience. I learned tons of stuff, and I
I experienced more in life than I would
have if I would have stayed here in
California.
Yeah. So much so much to learn from
this, like, just sort of to put you

(37:35):
know, follow your passions. Don't let people judge
you for them.
Don't believe the big stories that are out
there. Do your own digging and look for
the fact
past the headlines. Like, you've said so many
things that are so important in terms of,
you know, making a choice of where what
you pursue. I mean, I've pursued this latest
chapter of my life, you know, not when
I was 20.

(37:56):
And, like, it was a there was passion.
There was just a sense of of complete
awe
and opportunity
when you meet you know, keep trying to
meet people that light you up,
and you never know where that opportunity is
gonna come. Right? Yeah. And I was just,
like I said, I just went and I
literally I just went to study sharks. That
was all of my whole thing. I didn't
really, you know, I I knew Leonard was

(38:17):
there and stuff and so I thought, well,
let's go. And I had made some of
the best friendships I I've had and I
I always, you know, I was still like,
I I got more out of it than
I was expecting
because I got to see a side of
life and experience a time and everything that
was just amazing. So somehow you become the
rare shark guy. People weren't even studying sharks,
let alone you went into this entire new

(38:38):
area that you must have, like, completely lit
you up, that you're
you're
connecting to saving from extinction, the seven year
old shark that suddenly shows up with or
70,000,000, whatever you said. They said, is is
the office of naval research funding stopped,
other stuff, fisheries mainly started funding
shark research because a lot of people wanted

(38:58):
to know
how many shark species are there, how many,
you know, you know, young do they produce,
how old do they get, all this stuff.
And so a lot of the funding went
in that direction for life history studies and
I was just right at the tip of
the spear, basically, me and my cohorts who
all
who
caught that wave
of of shark research at the time. And

(39:20):
that's and we I look back now. It's
like we literally were the Jaws generation because
and there's no other better way I could
can't think of a better way to describe
it because if it was not for the
movie Jaws, I don't believe any of that
would have taken place. I wasn't referred to
that as a time, but, like, in the
nineteen eighties, I was doing grad school. I'd
be going
into just these areas like in Namibia and
other places, Africa, I was traveling through Asia,

(39:42):
spent some few months in Asia. I would
find these sharks and rays, and I'd go
back, and this is the brilliance of having
somebody like Leonard Capania, who is a big
name in the shark world. I'd I'd go
back and I'd show him these things and
he's like, where'd you get this thing? And
I said, oh, I got it here. And
he says, we haven't seen this thing for
like a hundred years or this thing's only
known from like three specimens caught in the

(40:02):
1800s.
And so they said, what is it? There
were a museum somewhere, like old museums.
Exactly. There were there were there was a
museum specimen from, like, a hundred and fifty
years ago, and nobody has seen one. And
here I bring back, like, six.
Or, you know, there's there's some there's once
a couple one species that, you know, they
had there's one no one known specimen

(40:23):
collected in the fifties.
And I this is like 1988,
'89. I got like 36 in one day.
That's so fun. One of the things that
I just wanted to highlight is because I
learned this from some of the stuff I
was watching and reading, that
some of it, you're not spending all your
time in the water
No. Hanging out looking for a shark. Like,
you're actually working with

(40:44):
the humans who live in relatively remote areas
Yes. Who are
living this life and and know the sea
and know these species. And they they so
go go down that path. Like Yeah. You're
not a alone thing where you're just diving
around looking for fish. No. No. No. You
just no. I it was like I was
just I didn't have any, like, set I
just was fascinated by sharks and rays and

(41:06):
ghost sharks in general. I just wanted to,
like, learn anything I could about them. But
I was I was
going to I started go because of going
to Africa and Asian stuff, I was I
would go out to these remote areas and
stuff and and place where nobody would really
go. And I was seeing I was seeing
all these I was seeing these different species
there. And and, yes, it to your question,
people ask me, like, you know, do you

(41:28):
you spend a lot of time diving? Are
you out in a boat? And they're, like,
you know, that's kinda cool, but, you know,
you can't really do that much dive. You
know, you're diving. You got maybe, what, forty
five minutes if depending on how deep you
are. Yeah. You're very lucky. Yeah. If you're
yeah. If you're very lucky
and, you know, or you're or you're, you
know, if you're on a boat, you're one
guy on a boat in the big ocean.
Whereas if I go to, like, a village,

(41:49):
I'll have 50 to a 100 boats out
fishing every day.
And then I just I just walk through
the landing site
and then or I'll go through the fish
market there where they're offloading stuff, either where
they're offloading when they land the boat or
at the market nearby,
and I just look at where what they're
bringing in. And I get to know they
get to know the fishermen.
And you might go, well, how do you

(42:09):
how do you get by if everybody's speaking
Swahili, Dave? Well, I work with my local
contacts there who were fluent in English and
Swahili,
and they're using somebody that's connected with the
village or the community. And so I get
to know people and specifically that's just some
of the great experiences like, you know, you
know, I never thought about when I started,
but I go to these places and I
I've got people I've known for forty years.

(42:32):
I I'd met in villages here. I still
keep it now with, you know, WhatsApp, I
can keep in touch with them better. That's
pretty cool. And so it was just a
whole thing I never expected, but but yeah,
I just would I would just build these
contacts. And I work again, I work with
local people, you know, now a lot of
them will be with NGOs or their fisheries
agencies or somebody because otherwise, it's just some

(42:52):
guy wandering through a village in Africa from
The
US. You know, it sounds like you started
when everything was unknown. So whatever sharks you
found
were mostly, except for this this catalog, this
encyclopedia that was happening, like, there really wasn't
any knowledge about the No. The even the
common sharks that were out there. You were
just
collecting this unbelievable

(43:13):
breadth of information. And by the way, about
any cartilage
what's the word?
Cartilaginous. Cartilaginous,
which is the rays and the sharks and
the Yeah. Ghost sharks. Sharks and the so
and then and now that, like, in fifty
years, you know, the sharing of information, the
collecting and the sharing of information
has changed everything, you know, in a really
important way that now you've got,

(43:36):
this
this incredible knowledge, but and that but there's
still so much we don't know, but people
don't realize that. So you've gone down this
totally different path. Well, what's interesting is, like,
it's where it's kinda gone is is you
and you and you go I think some
of this is social media related. Everybody's, like,
likes to go work with the big toothy
sharks. Not saying that they don't need some
research, but it's like, you know, you don't

(43:57):
need a thousand people studying white sharks. I
mean, you get some really Right. If Right.
Yeah. You can get some, you know, neat
pictures, I guess, and stuff, but they they
are impressive animals. I'm not gonna diminish it.
But I tell young people, if you wanna
make a name for yourself,
find something nobody's studying and become the expert
on it. That's what I did essentially.
And at the time but but again, when
I was coming out, we were just any

(44:18):
shark. We didn't care what it was. We
will we work a raise and I and
rays and skates are just flat sharks. If
you let if you just take a shark
and you flatten it down, that's that's a
ray. And so I use flat shark a
lot of time because people get more excited
about it. And rays even rays even need
more research done than the sharks.
And so I try to try to get
you know, like I said, I tell people,
like, go study something nobody else is working

(44:39):
on and become that expert. Because the thing
is the skills you'll learn, it's not so
much the species, but the skills you'll learn
on feeding, aging growth,
you know, reproductive
behavior, movement stuff, the things you you can
apply to a whole array of things.
And I kind of bring just and I
talked to you about I mentioned about just
you gotta bring this bring this this part
of the story the full loop

(45:01):
is that when in in,
I I first met Leonard. He was working
on his catalog of the sharks of the
world. Well, in 2013,
I published a book,
with Leonard and, Mark Dando and Sarah Fowler
on the sharks of the world. Mhmm. And,
and so Forty years later. Right? That's pretty
cool. Yeah. Like, whatever. Thirty was it four?
Thirty years later? So Yeah. Forty yeah. I

(45:22):
basically so I'd come full circle from having
remembered Leonard working on the sharks of the
world to co authoring a book with him
on the Sharks of the World. Yeah. And
so it was pretty cool. Then we did
a lot of other obviously, did a lot
of other
publications in between, but it was just kind
of neat to have that trajectory from from
having been in the been the mentor or
being a mentee to become a mentor and

(45:43):
stuff. How fun is that. Right? And and
just to put it in perspective, you've got
something like 30 odd books and four or
500
papers that are all have made an impact
on the field and the understanding.
So let me ask you this because I've
I've gone through a long time.
What what's the goal? Like, what what drives
you at this point now that you know,

(46:03):
keep going down that path. Like Yeah. What
is the impact of studying something
that is lesser known? Like, what can change?
What can you do to make the world
better by doing the work you're doing? Well,
the thing yeah. When I started out, like,
I was I just wanted to be a
scientist. I wanted to travel and do the
research. That was most of my career. But
what but I find as you get along
in your life and career, I wanna challenge

(46:24):
myself to new things.
And so as you know, I've gotten into,
like, podcasting now. Yep. And,
you know, I I have had my own
students now, though I'm kinda winding down. I've
I still mentor students a lot, but I
don't have the lab I had partly thanks
to COVID, but but it's but it kind
of led me into a child some new
challenge. Like, I never really thought

(46:44):
that heavily in terms of, like, doing being
a science communicator, but we started this podcast,
Andrew Lewin and I,
called Beyond Jaws. And we have a YouTube
channel. And the whole the thing is,
having had the experiences I've had in life,
I have a lot of
just, you know, forty years of knowledge there.
And so I bring people on we bring
people on the show. Some of them are

(47:06):
from the Jaws generation. You see people like,
Chris Lowe, Lisa Natanson, Greg Skolmole. You know,
we all kinda came up together. There are
others too.
But we all but I and so I
I I have them share their stories, and
then I bring on some younger people that
are just maybe finished their PhD or master's
or some, share their where they are. And,
of course, with them, I say, like, where
do you see your career in twenty years

(47:27):
from now? And and we have the tape,
so it'll be around on the Internet somewhere.
There are some people in their mid careers
talk about what they've done. So we get
people who are a little different, we talk
about people's journey. And I think a lot
of it is because
I've had such an amazing journey through my
own career,
and I wanted to kinda capture that for
other people. Yeah. The most important part about

(47:47):
this is something that I just cannot stop
talking about, which is the energy ripples
that we that we produce. Whatever we do
every moment of every day Yeah. We
are standing out either positive or negative and
ripples that we have no idea
where they will end up. Like, the people
that you just mentioned, the experiences that you

(48:08):
just shared, the stories,
those people are have no idea
that those memories and those stories are so
present
in you and that had such an impact
on your life and that you're now sharing
them and continuing to ripple their energy and
their
importance and and what they've done to, like,
just all like, to remember that, to, like,

(48:29):
recognize that whatever work you do, you know,
if if you're doing
what seems like kind of a solo, you
know, small in the scheme of the world
thing, it is gonna make such an impact
on people, and it will matter. Right? Yeah.
Yeah. And it yeah. And it's it's like
I said, it's a lot of my thing
now is to try to raise awareness, these
these little known sharks, and to try to

(48:51):
pass on I mean, you can tell, you
know, talking to me. I'm still at I'm
still at five year old kid at heart.
I mean, I'm like I'm like super excited,
like, whatever I'm gonna do. And I talked
about, you know, I talked about the podcast.
You know, I just started this,
other YouTube channel, Law Shark. I, Yeah. I
saw there's a few videos that have come
out. Yeah. Yeah. The first three episodes are
up. Go check them out. It's a the
series it's a documentary series on YouTube I

(49:13):
have. They're short. They're Yeah. They're short. Yeah.
They're like seven seven to fourteen minutes. And
they're short. They're just they tell a story
Mhmm. And,
and they're just like it's searching for lost
sharks extinct or alive. And it's to raise
awareness of these of these little known sharks.
And I I basically go to different countries,
and you'll notice is a series we have
about eight or 10 episodes planned right now.
The first three are up. You know? And

(49:34):
I'm working you'll know I'm working with usually
some grad student from, you know, Peru or
Ecuador
or or or, Timor Leste or Indonesia or
Australia. You know? So I'm working with Yeah.
Young grad students and all these And keeping
their lives. Yeah. Just, you know, and this
is all passing along this knowledge
and documenting these things. And again, trying to
tell a story
about these and,

(49:54):
check the first episode on the Ecuador's lost
shark. I don't wanna give it away here,
but go check it out. Like, that seems
like it's a story that's guided
the way you've lived, your your choice of
the way you've lived your life. Like you're
you're looking for the unknown.
Yeah. And the wonder and the awe that
comes from any new discovery

(50:14):
Yeah. Is just the goal. Like, as you
said, you know, I said, what's your favorite
shark at one point when I said, which
I read my episode about. You're like, it
it's the one I don't know yet. Yeah.
It's it's the Christmas gift of the unknown.
Like, and just to live in a sense
of
of surprise and wonder and curiosity
to that extent
without
being disappointed. Like, there's no expectations.

(50:37):
And to just live life
that way is so incredibly brilliant. I had
a I had a very dear friend of
mine years ago when I was still a
grad student gave me a book called The
Road Less Traveled by Robert Frost.
And that kinda
sums up my life. Put it in perspective
of the contribution that you make. Like, it's
you know, the the stories that you tell

(50:57):
are somewhat
quite humble in the impact that you make.
But the work you do reminds me of
a lecture I heard by Linda Ianniello,
who is a black water photographer
off the coast of Florida where I live.
And I heard her speak
at Loggerhead
by the sea lecture and she blew me
away. It was the first exposure I'd had

(51:18):
to this whole,
the idea that she's doing which is to
identify
and
to photograph and to record and to study,
but not to study, but to
give identity to species
which there are
way more that we don't know about in

(51:38):
this world than we do know about
in the oceans, in the jungles, but, like,
definitely in the oceans so that
we can recognize
that life in the ocean is incredibly
valuable.
And the fact that we don't know that
animals are there, that species of animals and
plants are there, doesn't make them not worthwhile.

(51:58):
So that we talk about bottom trawling and
sea mining and all of the destruction
for extraction
of the oceans
that offer a huge amount of gratitude to
you for identifying
and going to places that we aren't going
and identifying species that are living and thriving

(52:19):
in places that we shouldn't be destroying
because they matter. They're they're part of the
biodiversity.
They're part of the food chain. They're part
of life
in it where we don't know that much.
So can you go with that just a
bit? Yeah. You know,
you think about thing the best example I
could use, you look at stuff like I'll
use white sharks as an example because it's
charismatic. Lots of people wanna study it. But

(52:41):
Mom? As I as I tell people, like,
when you start noticing there's a problem with
the white shark population
Too late. It's too late because there's a
whole bunch of things that have happened below
that. As all of these lower
trophic level sharks, these are like, you know,
your dogfish, your, your hound sharks, your your
stingrays,
your skates, and a lot of these things
have been, like, impacted. And then because because

(53:03):
you have white sharks, they're impacted at that
point in time. And, Like, if they haven't
been able to find them as food
and there's a problem with the white sharks,
there's a lot of stuff that Exactly. The
whole food chain happened before that. Exactly. And
that happens for orcas now. Right? Like, we're
worried about the orcas, and and it's their
whole food chain that's really has been the
problem before. Yeah. Well, here it's great that

(53:23):
you brought up the orcas because, again, this
is a bit controversial, and I'm not taking
a side because I have good friends on
both sides of this issue in South Africa
on the whole thing about the orcas,
displacing the white sharks in the in the
Western Cape around Cape Town in that part
of the world. And I I can tell
you I haven't been there at the time,
there there used to be quite a few
white sharks there. Other sharks have disappeared

(53:46):
and the orcas now are you know, you're
gonna see a couple of these orcas are
impacting them as well.
And so I think and then the other
people think, no. It's been strictly these two
orcas that have that have replaced all the
white sharks.
I'm like, man, I don't know. I and
I'm kinda like, I don't know. There's, like,
a lot of white there used to be
a lot of white sharks here. I think
there's something more going on, just my opinion.
It could be But these are, again, these

(54:07):
charismatic
species that we're talking about that there's so
much
behind the scenes
that people like you and people like Linda
who are filming and actually recording and giving
the research, the the evidence
Mhmm. That this rest of this world
exists and is absolutely vital Yes. To the
survival of these charismatic,

(54:29):
massive creatures
is something we need to focus on. Because
if we destroy that whole aspect of the
biodiversity in the ecosystem,
we're gonna have nothing left. Right? Yeah. No.
Yeah. You're you're right. You got I mean
Thank you. Yeah. No. You're you're gonna you
gotta South Africa is one of the five
most diverse
shark and ray fawns in the world. So,
like, there's a lot of other stuff. Go
study it because, you know, every I look

(54:49):
at it as, like, you know, what is
it? The Pink Floyd song, Another Brick in
the Wall. Yeah. Which I'm sure you know
as well as I do. I do.
If if young people, you don't know it,
go check out Pink Floyd, Another Brick in
the Wall. But that's literally what it is.
All these other species are a brick in
the wall. And, like, it kind of sit
at the top. You got the white shark,
for example. And if you an orcas above
that, and if you start pulling out all

(55:09):
these bricks below them, your structure is gonna
collapse. And that's where you should go out
and look because you'll learn the same skill
and, yeah, something else I tell grass, learn
skills. I can teach about sharks, but the
skill set you learn is what's gonna get
you a job and allow you to go
study other sharks if you stay in the
field or somewhere else. But And make a
difference in our world. And make a difference.

(55:30):
Yeah. You don't need to do the same
thing that everybody else is doing in that
area. That's what drives me a lot still
too, to
try to inform and, you
know, get people make people aware of these
other things that are going on.
Yeah. Awesome. Okay. So super generous. Thank you.
First of all, thank you so much for
being here. But give us some last you
know, a story that totally upload another story

(55:53):
that just is one of your favorite to
tell about something you've learned. I'd love to
hear, like, you know, some moment where you're,
like, blown
away and then last words of wisdom. So
yeah. Well, I say the the kind of
a good example that kinda ties in a
lot of the stuff. We talked about working
with fishermen, working remote areas and stuff. This
is a story that happened about, I don't
know, seven, eight years ago to me. I

(56:14):
was I was going to Sri Lanka,
to work with some colleagues there and do
some surveying.
And, about,
I can't remember, maybe
five six months before I went there, I
got a picture from a friend of mine
of this weird looking shark and I'm like
going like, man, I think that's this new
species
I'm working on.

(56:35):
I had one specimen from India and I
go like, I think this is a new
species here.
And so I said, hey, look, let's make
sure we go to this place. I only
had photographs of it. Let's make sure we
go to this place. So a few months
later we went to Sri Lanka. We went
they scouted out this area and we went
there
and so this is a brilliance of this
is one thing about modern technology having a
camera phone.
We went there and and,

(56:57):
you had to be there between about a
two hour window of the day. If you
weren't there, you'd see nothing. You'd have no
idea there's a fishing place, but we were
there. We knew about it because of this
literally because of a photograph I received.
And we I talked to some of the
guys, and I showed them a picture
of, of the of the shark. And,
and they're looking at it, and they recognized
the boat and all this stuff. They're kinda

(57:18):
like, oh, yeah. Come back tomorrow. And I
said, okay. I'll come back tomorrow.
And so I came back the next day
and they got one.
Wow. And I said, like, do you catch
these very often? According to this is after
I was running up and down the beach
doing fist bumps,
cartwheels. I mean, it was, like, hurting my
body. Just got so pumped up. I mean,
you talk about it. Talk about the five

(57:38):
year old and
me running around as a, you know They
need to stay kids. We need to stay
odd. Mentally, I'm still a kid. My body
doesn't always agree with that. I'm with you.
But I tried to stay in shape, though.
But, hey. But the whole point the whole
point was they they brought it they brought
the shark in. I said, like, how how
often do you catch these? And they said,
well, we had three yesterday. We just threw
them back because they're not really worth anything,

(58:00):
which is unusual in a lot of these
countries. But they're they're mainly fishing for
a shark liver oil fishery, which the Sri
Lankans did not know about until I sent
them this picture and then they went and
investigated and found there's a whole fishery going
on for shark liver oil that nobody knew
about.
Wow. And so this one thing led to
another
and, ended up getting this whole new species

(58:22):
of shark that we named back in twenty
eighteen, twenty nineteen.
Literally from a photograph I got from a
WhatsApp
from this marketing.
Anyways, hold.
But if you talked about one of those,
if I had to capsulate a lot of
different things, knowing the fishermen, talking to the
people,
that
was probably
the one of the just encapsulates a lot

(58:43):
of things.
So It does. It's like the whole journey
of,
is all about the unexpected. Yeah. Oh, oh,
yeah. Oh, yeah. It's it's all because, you
know, if if you know what's coming next,
it's not an adventure, and I like adventures.
So Exactly. I was like, I I haven't
quite grasped
what it is about sharks that

(59:04):
has enamored you for your whole life. What
is it that just blows you away? I
think I think it's bigger than just sharks.
I think you find something you really wanna
do. Oh, I know. But what was it
about what was it that got you? Like,
something about
I just thought I literally I could just
trying to think of the five year old
man, I thought they were like the coolest.
And it was just a I hate to

(59:25):
say goofy little book because it inspired me.
My mom my mom still has the book.
It was like it was like it was
just inspired me. I just thought these were
the coolest things I'd ever seen.
And a lot of kids you grow out
of that faith. I just never did. I
just thought and then because I went along
when I was young, We I, you know,
I really got to, you know, join geography
and traveling and, you know, National Geographic, the

(59:46):
exotic place. I wanted that's where I got
into this whole thing. I wanna travel
and go, you know, study sharks because those
are the two things I really wanted to
do.
You know, and so I just I just
stayed like laser focused and, you know, I
I kind of
few things few things I tell people, particularly
young people, but any age can really help.

(01:00:06):
But if you find something you wanna do,
if you and and just in life in
general, if you have if you have a
positive attitude about stuff, if you have a
drive,
you're focused, you're persistent, and above all else,
if you're passionate, you'll be amazed at where
you'll go in life. And I'm the living
proof of it. I never would have guessed
I would be where I am today. There's
literally something there. Like, I'm picturing you, like,

(01:00:27):
being inspired by sharks because
they're tough.
They just keep going,
there's this incredible
perseverance, resilience, and
energy, like just
positive, like I got this energy, right? I
found my passion and my focus in life
early in life.
And,
that's awesome. And they say, yeah,

(01:00:48):
just the way it is. Thank you, Dave,
so, so much for sharing this time with
us. I'm so excited about Shark Week coming
up. Tell us quickly like what you've got
coming up and I know you've got this
great video series and you've got Shark Week.
Like tell us more. What's the shark we
find you? What what we Go up on
YouTube. Go to, AtLawSharkGuy,
and I've got the first three episodes of
Searching for Lost Sharks, Exincture Live. It's on

(01:01:10):
YouTube. I the other YouTube thing I have
is BeyondJaw's podcast with Andrew Lewin.
And there's a whole we're up, we got
about 125
episodes up now, and you hear people
in fact, we got a special Jaws episode.
It'll probably be up by the time this
comes out. We'll have, Lisa Natanson, Chris Lowe,
Grace Goma. We're all part of the Jaws
generation.
And just a

(01:01:30):
quick sneak peek like Chris Lowe who's on
the show, he grew up in Martha's Vineyard
when they're filming the movie Jaws and a
lot of people in the movie were friends
of his
and so so I have to shout out
Lewis Pugh. And I don't even know if
I'm pronouncing his last name right. PGH who
just swam around Martha's Vineyard Mhmm. To prove
that it was not scary Oh, yeah. Because

(01:01:52):
that's where it was filmed. Right? So he
swam the entire circle Mhmm. With shark infested
waters to, like, prove that we need to
move past this. Thank you so much, Dave.
Thank you. So appreciate it. I'm looking forward
to staying in touch. Thanks for everything. You
too. Take it. Bye bye.

(01:02:17):
This has been a production of BLI Studios
produced by me, Kai. Follow along with our
other BLI produced shows @balancinglife'sissues.comslashpodcast-BLI.
Got an idea for the show? Email me,
Kai, @balancinglife'sissues.com.
And don't forget to stay in touch with
your host, Jessica, at jessica@winwinwinmindset.com.

(01:02:37):
Anything else to add, Miles?

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Shark Week Part 1 - Beyond Jaws! Marine Biology, Conservation, and the Truth About Sharks with Dave Ebert (Ep 47)

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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;}Shark Week Part 1 - Beyond Jaws! Marine Biology, Conservation, and the Truth About Sharks with Dave Ebert (Ep 47)