Leonardo Guida - Australian Marine Conservation Society - The Scuba GOAT Podcast

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Matt Waters (00:00):
Hey there dive buddies and welcome to the show

(00:08):
today we have Dr. Leonardo guidashark scientist and shark
conservation leader at theAustralian Marine Conservation
Society. Welcome to the show,buddy.

Leo Guida (00:16):
Hey there. Thanks for having me on. It's great to chat
with everyone. And to all thoselistening out there. I hope I
don't bore you to death.

Hey, have you been?
I'm just gonna jump straightinto here. Have you been busy
with that? While I've got caughtup in the niche? Oh, yeah, it's
all about timing.

Leo Guida (00:38):
For a lot of reasons.
I say timing, because we'reobviously having a chat that
only happened yesterday. And atleast in the campaign space, and
the lobbying space and trying toenact change. Whenever something
like this happens, things gointo full gear. But the other
thing about timing is that wekeep saying it every bloody
year. It's like clockwork, weknow when the whales are coming.

(00:58):
The nets should not be there. Atthe very least during migration
season and it's quite thedifference is like night and
day, almost literally, you'vegot Wales that you can see on
the I can't remember his firstname, but on Instagram drone
shark app. And it's alwaysamazing footage of these whales

(01:22):
going through Sydney and Bondiand up the coast and there,
there are people swimming withthem, you know, not knowing and
it's amazing stuff to see. Andguess what, there are sharks
around to Tiger sharks andwhatnot. You go, you literally
hop the border and those whalesas soon as they get past tweed,
bang, there's Gold Coast,Sharklets and drumlines and

(01:43):
you've got on the one hand,these beautiful images streaming
through daily from this blokeand his drone. And then
immediately next door and thenext day, the complete opposite.
And there's a moment of Bobstuck in a freaking shark net.
Yeah. And it happened here aswell, didn't it? There was a was
it. Last year happened to youbefore having a year before

(02:07):
that. In 2020. It was in 2020. Iremember this, this is when
things probably kicked off interms of activism. There was in
2020 in April, there was threewhales caught in three days
forth within the space of fourweeks, all on the Gold Coast

(02:28):
beaches and three wells arecaught in three days. myself my
colleague Lawrence clean like aHumane Society International
agenda Clarkie head on for fromSea Shepherd. And even Andre
from envoy and this is whenenvoy was currently filming or
putting together theirdocumentary on boy shark cow.

(02:48):
And I rang the boys and I saidguys, I said I remembered as
clear as day. It was a Sundayevening and I said guys, we've
got to do something like threewells in three days. Like we
have to capitalise on thismoment and this momentum to
really act to get some changehappening and get everyone you
know on board. And that Sundaynight. Between that Sunday we

(03:10):
did all the phone calls andeverything like that. And mind
you Coronavirus is in fullswing, this is early 2020. We're
heading into mid 2020. Everyoneacross the country is in
lockdown or about to go intolockdown. And we're thinking,
how on earth? Do we do thiswhere it attracts media? It's
visual, it's big. And we candemonstrate to the politicians

(03:33):
in numbers that there are a lotof people in the Gold Coast
community or in Queensland orsoutheast Queensland. Like give
a shit and want to see change.
In short, how do we demonstratea public protest that's visible
we're in lockdown and you can'tbe within a metre and a half of
whenanyone and we had a brainwave, I
took inspiration from one of ourother campaigners working up on

(03:58):
the reef. And what she'd donewas she'd gotten everyone to
donate up new cancer donatetheir fins or any dive gear and
they spelt out save our reef.
And I went on, I go, dude, Let'sget a bunch of surfboards, put
the call out and we'll spell outnets out now on the beach. And
that way they're each board isclearly representative of an

(04:20):
individual person. And it's big.
You can't miss it. The media isgonna love it. Like, let's get
on it. And so within the spaceand I think Andre actually even
mentioned this morning when hewas chatting to you in a space
of like 36 hours. We'd managedto find a bloke and a few others
down on the Gold Coast and he'slike, yep, sweet. I can help you
transport the boards. We go outthere we raced out there we tee

(04:41):
up media we spell that nets outnow. And it got the message
through and when I say got themessage through it was all the
mainstream media channels socialmedia channels seven Evening
News Channel Nine evening news.
We then made a few phone callsto minister Furnas office and

(05:02):
his advisers and tried to sussout, you know, what are you
going to do about this? Theywere very cagey, which is to be
expected. And then we routes. Sowe did this protest, I can't
remember the exact date. I thinkit was like a might have been
like a Friday morning orThursday morning.
I think it was a Thursdaymorning, because I made the
phone call on Sunday night. Andwe all spoke about what we were

(05:23):
going to do. We did the pricesfor Thursday or Friday morning.
And then we heard rumoursthat they were gonna do
something about these nets aregoing to take them out or
something was going to happen.
And we got a bit excited. Andfunnily enough, the journalist
was saying, also, when do youexpect the Minister to make an
announcement and we said, makean announcement? First, we've
heard of it. And so long storyshort and down the track, what

(05:47):
we eventually ended up hearingwas that apparently, let's say
apparently, because this isn'tdefinitive, but apparently, he
was going to, or the QueenslandGovernment, I should say, was
going to, in effect, remove thenets, and potentially put in

(06:08):
either lethal drum lines intheir place. Or maybe drones in
their place. We're not sure. Butthe point was, apparently, that
weekend, the Knicks were goingto come out. And we were waiting
and waiting and waiting for thisdecision. And nothing ever
happened. And few months downthe track, rumour comes out, and

(06:30):
apparently, the idea wassquashed at the 11th hour. By
who or how we don't know. Yetno. And again, I stress this is
just what we heard. This isn'tdefinitive. But we went, Okay,
well, the nets didn't come out.
But Bloody hell, we gave it asolid crack. And I think we've

(06:52):
rattled the cage.
And so again, last year, thesame thing happened. Tragically,
it always kills me to say this,but the tragically there was a
fatal shark bite agreementbeach. And this was a beach that
had drum lines and knits, thesame arrangement. And so with

(07:15):
the utmost sensitivity, we wentout in the media, and on social
media and everything like that.
And we were like, Hey, everyone,This beach is lined with nets
and run lines. And yet someoneis still unfortunately, bitten
and has passed away. This is ifyou ever you want to evidence
that these measures serve no oneany good, let alone wildlife

(07:37):
like, this is it and then westart and then we did a cooling
Gatorade August we managed toorganise a beach protest. And
again COVID stifled just howmuch we could do. So we were
down at Cooley, we organised theprotest ourselves, Sea Shepherd,
envoy, and HSI and everyone, andthis was just as Queensland had

(08:02):
pretty much had in place theirhard border according data. And
we had people in bought, we havepeople in Byron Bay, we had
people in tweed, we had peoplein the Northern Rivers of New
South Wales willing to drive twohours plus, to beat it and say
this has to stop. And theycouldn't be because of the hard

(08:23):
border closure. But again, giventhe COVID restrictions, again,
given the last minute notice, westill managed to I reckon to get
maybe 100 200 people, you canhave a look at the images on
envoys Facebook page. And again,we spelt out netstat now, but
this time in people, yeah, andthere were people to spare. So I
reckon there would have beenabout maybe 200 people there.

(08:44):
And again, you know, no matterthe barrier, whether it's COVID
or anything like that people docare, they do come out and they
want to see change. And theseare locals. And it was a magical
day, the weather was perfect.
And then as if it was scripted,that are you know, the
volunteers. Some of the peoplein the protest, we all went to

(09:05):
the Surf Lifesaving club had tobe had a bite to eat, we look
out the window. And you know,within a stone's throw of the
shoreline, there's a humpbackjust having a ball. Yeah, we
looked out the window and someof us went out to the beach. And
we were just like, I can'tarticulate it because on the one
hand, you've moved by thisamazing creature so close to

(09:25):
you, you know that? You know,it's fate is unpredictable,
there are nets out that it couldhit those nets. And on the one
hand, you're experiencing thisemotion of humility and awe. I
don't know how to say but like,it's like spiritual universal
experience where you're like, Ias a human and this big and

(09:46):
there's this huge ass Whale outthere. And this is amazing. This
is magical. Yet at the same timeyou're experiencing this emotion
of dread foreboding anger,because there are nets out there
and it could get called nosenets, and it could die.

But we've got to point out as well that, you
know, for those people who areunaware of the nets, or the, you
know, the strength of the netsand the size of a Whale, you
can't just release them if theyget tangled up, and I miss so
much power in that animal. It'sextremely difficult to try and
remove a net from from an animalpower.

Leo Guida (10:27):
Yeah, and I should say that it is illegal to do so
$20,000 Plus fine. And this isbefore shark exclusion zone
laws, which I'll touch on in aminute. And whilst we get people
all the time saying, or how comeno one's out there cutting the
nets, why aren't you guys goingout there cutting the nets? If I

(10:48):
say, Well, I'm going to cut thenets. And I have to stress to
anyone listening? who'sconsidering it? My strongest
recommendation is don't do it. Iknow it's extremely difficult to
hear that that's happening, letalone if you're in the water,
seeing it unfold. But at the endof the day, it is an extremely
dangerous operation. Dealingwith any stressed animal I've

(11:10):
dealt with stress sharks tryingto take their blood samples and
everything. Dealing with anystressed animal is incredibly
dangerous. And it's why theSeaWorld rescue crew that go out
there undergo extensivetraining. And they don't wear
helmets and life jackets for noreason. Put it that way. Yeah.
And you know, the slightest NICof a fin you're talking about,

(11:31):
you know, an animal that weighsmore than a tonne or several
times. And that fin hitting youcan break your ribs rupture your
organs,

mate, I've got a colleague in South Africa and
just a tiny flick of a fin andhe busted at two ribs
straightaway.

Leo Guida (11:46):
Yeah. And I completely empathise with the
sentiment about wanting to helpthe Whale and the net, but I
cannot stress enough like, don'tdo it. It's, it's not worth it.
And then obviously, there's thefine on top of that, and going
on those exclusion zones. So forthose who aren't aware in
Queensland, around the sharkcontrol equipment, whether it be

(12:07):
a drum line or a shark net,you're not allowed within 20
metres of it. And they claimedsafety and Andre articulated a
perfectly when he was on yourshow. They claimed safety
starting a case of a young boywho was about 10 years old, got
tangled up in the drumline anddrowned. When was that? 10 years

(12:27):
old? Yeah, in the 90s. Yeah,it's like we've you're going to
claim safety, you've probablyshould have done it then to
start with. But in 2019, as partof our shark conservation
campaign, I say our soAustralian Marine Conservation
MySite International. We've gota shark conservation campaign
called Shark champions. And it'sa national campaign has been

(12:48):
going for three and a half yearsnow. And one of the elements of
it is ending shotcalling. And soin 2019, we've commissioned a
photographer to go out and divethe New South Wales nets and the
Queensland nets and drum linesand take photos. And people may
have seen in the media, thosemoving photos of the humpback in
the net, or the bull shark onthe drum line with the hook for

(13:08):
its mouth, or the tiger shark onthe drum on swimming around in
circles. So that was NicoleMcLaughlin who took these
amazing photos and she's onInstagram, Nicole McLaughlin,
you'll be able to see thoseimages there. And, yeah, the
media we got from those photosalone was phenomenal. And at the
same time, Queensland wasundergoing fisheries reforms

(13:30):
with their legislation and intheir act. And along comes this
exclusion law to which we said,what? And if you're in the know,
and you know how politics works,it was clearly a gag order.
Yeah. Basically, we want to stopany form of independent
monitoring of this equipment, sothat we can control the

(13:53):
narrative, we can control what'sgoing on, because we were
putting out these images sayingthis is what's happening. And
yeah, it was it was it was a gagorder. And it's, it's still in
place. So but despite that, Imean, you know, the proofs in
the pudding, we saw whathappened yesterday.

Yeah. And it's, um, it's got to be sad elephant in
the room. And I can only imaginethe only reason that these
things are still out there, thenets and the drum lines, whether
they're smart drum lines or thestandard baited hooks. The only
reason they're there is theamount of money that's coming
through the door, you know, thejobs that he's creating. And
then it's all run by politicianswho are just protecting their

(14:32):
own hours for the next fouryears.

Leo Guida (14:34):
Yeah, there's, there's 1,000,001 reasons. I
suppose if you start fromsuppose the most obvious one is
this reluctance to change? Andyet there is that that fear on
the political side of things,and this is consistent
government's not just thecurrent one, that if they remove

(14:54):
the equipment, and someoneunfortunately gets bitten or
even more tragically dies, so somuch of the public's going to
Like them, it's they're gonnahave other politicians using
that as ammunition against them,however which way and as you
said, you know, risks of seatrisks re election, then you can
kind of step back and look atthe more sort of higher ideals
and you're looking at a culturethat's been ingrained since the

(15:17):
1960s. And any form of culturechange is inherently going to
take time to move in a differentdirection, in this case, in a
positive direction, where we canimprove beach safety. So we're
under no illusions. And we'renot naive to think that, that
lethal shark control orshotcalling is going to end
overnight as much as we wantedto. It's going to take time to

(15:42):
happen. And that's why we'vebeen working on it a concerted
effort on it for the past fouryears dedicated effort on it.
The great thing is, is thatwe're seeing each year these
dominoes fall where one thinghappens, and then we're moving
towards this space of non lethalshark control. So if we look at
the history of when we startedour concerted effort on Shark
campaigning as shotcalling, westarted in 2019. And that was

(16:05):
when a young bloke fromMelbourne, Daniel Christie's, I
think his name was tragicallydied in the Whitsundays. bitten
on the leg and tragically diedin said Harbour. Then there's a
few other bites around the sametime. And what happened there
was Queensland the governmentactually had a roundtable

(16:27):
meeting with the local communitybecause tourism didn't want
shotcalling happening in theGreat Barrier Reef are in their
area, because the whole point oftourism there is to come see the
wildlife and the wild spaces. Sothey had this roundtable and the
ministers at the time, you know,decided to put more money
towards research. So we thought,Oh, my God, this is one domino

(16:47):
that's fallen like this has seta precedent like Queensland
haven't done a knee jerkreaction going out on a sharp
cold, this is positive. And sowe fast forward from 2018. We.
And we see this sharp in thatincident with the whales before
whales caught in a month. Andagain, we hear rumours that the
next might be pulled out andsomething's going to change. We

(17:09):
go Oh, okay. And then at the endof May 2021, Queensland for the
first time in its historytrials, drones at Southeast
Queensland beaches. And we go,boom, that's another domino
that's fallen in the rightdirection. And so we can feel
this building, we can see thechange happening. It's just that
it takes time, and it's amarathon, not a sprint. And this

(17:31):
year, I can tell you right now,just over the past couple of
days, to quote the castle, it'sall about the vibe, like the
vibe that I'm getting fromsocial media, and I know social
media can be an echo chamber.
But you know, this is I haven'tseen this ever really. We've got
people in WA and networks in WA,who would against shotcalling,

(17:53):
and campaigning for a solutionhere in Queensland. And I
genuinely feel that there's agroundswell coming we're seeing
on the ground communities up onthe sunny coast as well taking
action and putting out on theirsocial media channels, like the
Sunshine Coast environmentCouncil. And I should mention
another really significantdomino that fell was last year,

(18:14):
Larry and I from HSI we went upto a forum on the sunny coast at
the Council held with DEPrepresentatives and scientists
about and all stakeholders, youknow, lifeguards, community
reps, everyone going, okay, howcan we address the issue of
SharkBite mitigation in theNoosa biosphere whilst
maintaining its environmentalvalues. And again, people were

(18:37):
putting forward ideas about nonlethal solutions. And that was
another critical domino thatfell. So things are moving in
the right direction, I genuinelyfeel that there's a community
groundswell growing. I would notbe surprised if there are more
demonstrations this year,especially given the fact that
there aren't COVID restrictionsin terms of gathering in public

(18:57):
spaces. And I'm hopeful andconfident that if not this year,
by next year, there'll be moresignificant changes. And as I
said, it will take time, but wehave to keep that pressure on
and we will get there and wewill see our beaches become
safer for betas, surfers,anyone. And not just people but

(19:19):
also safer for wildlife as well.

Yeah, I mean, it's got to be done. I mean, in this
day and age, I mean, youmentioned Western Australia that
mean they've they're using nonlethal. The one that caught my
eye actually was the forgive me,I can't remember the name of it
now. But it was on an invoiceshark call. And it's the kind of

(19:45):
the false or manmade weed effectthat prevented sharks passing
through. I can't understand whywe can't use something like that
instead of nets. Surely thatwould be you know, given a gives
the answer on both sides of thesides there. Yeah.

Leo Guida (20:02):
And look, if not that specific technology. The point
is, is that there's innovation.
Yeah, we know more, we've gotdrones, we're understanding
electro receptors in sharksbetter to the point where we've
got now two independentlyscientifically verified personal
shark patterns that work.
They're not silver bullets. Butit just might be that one
instance that that, you know,prevents you from getting a

(20:24):
really significant injury, we'vegot wetsuits, which are
currently I think they mightstill be in protocol stage. But
again, they've beenscientifically evaluated. It's
what Kevlar is the bullets in,it won't stop you from that
blunt trauma, but it just mightsave your life from bleeding
out. So there's a range ofsolutions. And it's not like

(20:45):
they're fanciful, or they're 10years down the track. They're
here, then now, and this is whatis incredibly frustrating. The
fact that we have solutions,we've got strategies that
incorporate education and soforth, yet. It's not been
comprehensively used. I mean, togive credit to Queensland, they
have made significant strides inthe past two years, and they

(21:06):
have made more of an effort incommunicating beach safety with
respect to shark interactions.
And it's good to see thathappening. And there are good
people in the QueenslandGovernment and the department
doing amazing work, I have tosay that, from a political
standpoint, in the decisionmaking, it's like, there's no
justification for havingdrumlines or net still in the

(21:28):
water, like anything, is animprovement on safety than what
we've currently got.

Yeah. Yeah, it's ridiculous. I'm gonna say like,
it's much like a rather largetennis court, with a very small
ping pong net, it's justpointless.

Leo Guida (21:46):
It's yeah, in terms of, like we said, in terms of
space, you know, I'll tell itwhen you go the beach pays out.
200 steps, look back from whereyou started. And then look at
the coastline. Exactly. And,and, you know, I tried to, as
best I can to put inperspective, for others who

(22:06):
perhaps haven't been to thebeach or, you know, have mental
surf beach, we have no conceptof a shark or net, for that
matter. I say to them, you know,I go, you know, this safety
strategy has been in place for60 plus years. So, if you went
to work, your school, your kidsschool, your home, your

(22:28):
workplace, and they said to youare our safety standards of 60
plus years old. Tell me are yougoing to go? What? Are you going
to accept that or you're goingto go? No, can we please have
modern day safety standards? If,in the past two years with the
Coronavirus pandemic, we'veasked for improved safety

(22:48):
standards for our health, inhospitals, and in aged care,
because our lives matter becauseour health matters, we want to
know that we're safe. We don'twant the perception of safety,
we want to know that we're safe.
So why is it that at the beach,we accept the safety standards
that are 60 plus years old? I'mconfident that people don't
accept that. The real questionis to ask the decision makers,

(23:11):
the ministers and thepoliticians, why won't you
upgrade safety standards andbring them up to modern day
standards? So again, hopefullythat resonates with a few others
who perhaps aren't quiteinformed about shark or shark
nets, but at the very least justwant to know that when they go
and visit a beach in Queensland,when New South Wales for that

(23:31):
matter, that their safety istaken seriously, and it's not
treated like a game. It's not aperception thing. It's a real
thing.

I think you touched on a point there of lack of
knowledge as well. And I thinkthat goes right the way up
through from us walking down onthe streets to people that are
new into politics andparliament. You know, they can
only go on what they've beentold by the relevant departments
and in I've experienced thatfirsthand with, with with the

(24:05):
police here in New South Wales,when a rather senior chap was
trying to preach to me aboutnets, and it was it was party
line and I had to stop him inhis in his tracks before he got
a bit out of control. But that'sanother that's another topic
another episode. Let's come awayfrom that one for a little bit.

(24:28):
Yeah, what where and how did youget into diving was that was it
the career choice that got youin there or you're in it before?

Leo Guida (24:35):
Now there before?
Like a lot of people likeeverything starts when you're a
kid things you most passionateabout. And I was all sharks
always been my favourite animal.
I've watched National Geographicdocumentaries. I rated my school
library for as many picturebooks as I could. And believe it
or not, this book right here isthe one that kicked it off. So
this was published in 1986.

Is that one

Leo Guida (24:59):
this is a Reader's Digest with an introduction by
Ron and Valerie Taylor, the1986. If you get a chance to
read it, it just it's a sign ofthe times like there's no
mention of anything aboutthreatened animals conservation.
It's just sharks biology,fishing. That's it. So books
like that I used to just absorband absorb as a science geek
love science, super curious,still in. And so fortunate

(25:22):
enough to marry the two and andas I got older, I grew up in the
outer suburbs of Melbourne. So Ididn't, I didn't grow up by the
beach per se. But again,fascination with the ocean. And
as I got older, I had a matethat I went to school with two
decent diving. And I said, I'dlove to do that at some point.
And it was literally just a caseof eventually, I think, at the

(25:43):
age of 21. Relatively, I'd say,late, getting into diving.
managed to save up enough cash.
Got my licence. I've beenMerimbula in southern New South
Wales, my mates holiday house,and never looked back. And I
reckon I've got I'm now 37 AndI've dived more in the past two

(26:06):
years than I had in the yearsleading up to that. Yeah, cuz I
was at uni. It's an expensivehobby. I had to work on
weekends, all the usual excuses.
And, and yeah, I I've had someamazing, amazing experiences.

(26:28):
One of my fondest was in SouthAfrica in 2014. So I went there
for a big sharks conference.
Also my PhD at the time. It'scalled sharks International. And
it's the massive conference, Ihave it every four years. And
this year, they're doing it inOctober in Spain, which I'm
lucky enough to go to again. Butanyway, they had it. They had it
in South Africa in 2014. Andhalfway during the conference,

(26:51):
they had a daybreak, so the fiveday conference, and on the
Wednesday, everyone could go outand do guided tours and whatnot.
So quite a few people went outon the dive. And it was it Ali
Whaleshark Because they had aconference in Durban and Aliwal
Shoal. You know, I googled it inYouTube before I went, and it
was, you know, Whaleshark Tigersharks, blacktip sharks, like,
those aren't hanging, this isgonna be awesome. And so we went

(27:14):
out there, and we dived withwithout a cage on the first one,
although there was holes,there's no cage. And these
beautiful, just black tips, acommon black tip shark, you
know, maybe two and a half threemetres long, buzzing around us.
And it was an experience I'llnever ever forget, like, they
come right up to you. And yougot to kind of like just gently
nudge him away. And was that abit? It was just, yeah, yeah,

(27:36):
that by the the water. And thenon the second day of that day,
they took us to a slightlydifferent spot. And they're
like, oh, you know, we'll showyou some ragged tubes, which is
what they call grey nursesharks. So we went diving, and
again, that is not in the visitwas absolutely horrible. But it
was also part of the mistake aswell as like, they just pop up

(27:58):
out of the green. And you know,they're there. And it was just
Yeah, and then had the raggedtooth. You know, I remember
sitting on the sea floor, thisragged tooth just looking at me,
and it's coming towards me, andI can remember doing this lap
comb. And it was just comingslow and then just veered off.
And then me and my dive buddy,who was this Mexican fellow we
went, swam under this rocky sortof little overhang. As we were

(28:21):
coming back up. I remembercoming up, and I looked up to my
left, and I saw this shadow. AndI had his blunt nose, and I
thought that's gonna be a hugetiger shark. And I was just
pumped, and then I'm assumingI'm gonna do that. And then No,
that's way too big. And thenwhat it was, it was a silhouette

(28:41):
of a Whaleshark coming over thetop. So I kicked up and I
managed to catch the the side ofit. But these animals just moved
so incredibly fast because oftheir size, one beat at the
tail, and they'd gone. And thenafter that, got back up on the
boat, and the guys are gonnadive. They said, I You're not
going to believe me if I toldyou he started laughing. And

(29:02):
then I told him, he startslaughing nearly as mate he goes,
you've missed the season byabout two months. He goes, I
don't think you saw it. You saw.
I said, I've got it on myfrickin GoPro, but like I
couldn't show him. Sorry. Yeah,that was amazing. And then, and
then after that conferencefinished, I had I went down to,
to Cape Town for a couple ofdays. And that's when I got into

(29:23):
a cage with a white shark. Andthat was I'm getting two
responses remembering it. Thatwas it was this. Four and a half
metre five metre female. And Iremember we're on the boat, and
we're back to go in in the cage.
And it was the most interestingexperience where I felt

(29:46):
instinctive fear. Yeah. And Ifeel like I've never felt
before. And I caught myself fora split second and I went, Ah,
that's what that feeling islike, it's, it's this
instinctive fear, and then Iwent, Leo, it's okay. You're in
it. hates all good. Let's go in.
And then I went in, and thenthat fear dissipates, but it was
just, it was just it was yourhuman instinct telling you, you

(30:06):
are entering a really, reallydangerous place. Yeah. But
anyway, winning. And, you know,again, the visit is terrible,
it's green. But that's what madeit amazing. It was like, it was
like, you know, when you watchthose movies, and like a figure
appears out of the fog, it waslike that, but it was just
beautiful white shark isappearing out of this green fog.
And she's circling the cage forlike 40 minutes, and she's big.

(30:30):
And the one thing that blew mymind was the size of the tail.
So from the top of the tail tothe bottom of the caudal fin, it
was like at least seven foot,like it looked disproportionate
to the body, like it was crazy.
This thing is just built forspeed, it is a missile. And

(30:50):
she's swimming around. And inthe whole 45 minutes, she bears
her teeth maybe once. Which isamazing. Because whenever you
see white sharks, most people,whenever you see it, it's always
an image of their teeth. They'realways in attack mode, they're
always, you know, vicious, yet,in reality, you're watching this
animal, and it's just cruising,just and you watch it pass the

(31:12):
cage, and I've got my GoPro andI have to remind myself to pull
my hands in, cuz I'm so excited,I've got to remind myself to
pull my heads in just in case.
It's coming past the cage, youknow, within last 30
centimetres, and these big,beautiful, like, per dark purple
eye. It's like the size of adinner plate. And you can see it
move and twist and you know thatthat animal can see you. But you

(31:33):
don't know what it's thinking.
And arms in the water going,what are you thinking I'd love
to just peer inside your mind.
Because you can tell it'slooking at you. And you only
bear the teeth once. And fromthat experience. They're like,
your perception on the animalcompletely changes because
you've seen it in real life.

(31:55):
books tend to paint it out to beand you walk away going it is a
gentle, majestic animal. Don'tget me wrong, a dangerous
animal. And you don't want tomuck around with it. But
nonetheless, majestic andgraceful. And has every right to
exist. Yeah. Yeah. And it was itwas just mind blowing. And then,

(32:19):
you know, I've kept in touchwith some scientists over in
South Africa. And we can we cantouch on this lady with regards
to another issue. But I've keptin touch with them because Chris
Fellowes who's this amazingphotographer in South Australia,
South Africa, who was the firstperson to capture that edge
yours when you're leaping out ofthe water and the bleaching. I
had a chat with him and he callsme up. And he goes, we had a

(32:42):
chat because he goes for thepast four or five years. So this
is in 2020. You guys may knowwhite sharks in false Bay. And I
said, What do you mean? He goes,we actually haven't seen any
white sharks in full space since2015. So for those who aren't
aware, false Bay is where thatseal colonies it's well in cage

(33:02):
diving. This is where they towthe seals and the sharks breach.
So why he goes, I suspect thatbecause of unsustainable shark
fishing here, so fishing forwhat they call smooth down
sharks and taupe sharks. They'rethe same species. We also catch
in our largest shark fishery inthe southern and eastern scale

(33:24):
fish and shark fishery. So he'sthe one that spans New South
Wales reps around Victoria,South Australia through the WA.
So we have a gummy shark andit's called Shark. They have a
toad shark and the smooth round.
The top shark is the schoolsharks that are made and the
smooth Hound is essentially thesister species of a gummy shark.
It's same bucket differentcolour. And he said he goes, I
know, I've clicked on thesefleets, the fishing with the

(33:49):
marine parks, you know, they'reraping and pillaging the ocean.
They're catching all the sharkand it's being sent to
Australia. And so what he goes,Yeah, he goes, we know that this
shark fishery exported sharkmeat. So what Aziz most commonly
known as flake to Australia, andhe goes from my experience. The
we think that the white sharktends to eat smaller sharks

(34:14):
because more numerous and numbereasier to catch. And if they can
score a seal, they will. Nowthere's some there's logic to
this because white sharks onlyhave about a 50% strike rate
when they go hunting seals. It'snot that high. They're good at
it. But it's only 50% Becausethose seals are bloody clever,
and they're bloody fast. Andsharks are only hunting that

(34:36):
narrow window of early dawn andsunset because they can use the
lack of light to theiradvantage.
So he goes, You know, I suspectthat between the overfishing the
sharks don't have as much foodto eat. And they've moved on
elsewhere. He goes because ifyou go around guns by muscle by
everything like that, he goes,it's still there. And I said to

(34:58):
him, I go What about the killerwhales? because there's a famous
case of port and starboard theseoceanic killer whales, who come
in and we're picking off whitesharks and we're eating their
livers like Hannibal Lecter isof the sea. That's the only
thing that was the liver. Andthese white sharks were washing
up dead, with their livers,excised, and getting their head
look at studies on white sharksand killer whales can actually

(35:19):
scare white sharks off for like,a couple of months at a time.
Yeah. And he goes, Look, he goesshort, he goes, I don't doubt
that that happens. He goes, butyou're talking about videos,
that's relative blip. He goes,we're looking at multiple years
of no white sharks. I don't knowwhy. Because only thing I can
think of is because the severeoverfishing, it's affecting the

(35:42):
ecosystem here in South Africa'swaters. So okay, I'll have a
look at the Australian side ofthings. So I look at the
Australian side of things. Andwhilst there's no definitive
evidence as such, if you have alook at the trade records,
coincidentally, from 2015,through to now, year on year, it

(36:03):
doubled. And by now it's abouttripled. Where Australia is
importing shark meat or sharkproducts from South Africa. It's
coincidental, it's at the sametime. And most of Australia's
shark making shark productsactually comes from New Zealand,
the vast majority of it, butother than New Zealand, the next

(36:23):
country bank, South Africa, justat the moment just these imports
come in. Now admittedly, it iscoincidental. But there's enough
there to go. And I'm speaking toEnrico generic who's a sidestep
in South Africa, study whitesharks. Admittedly, there's
enough clues to go something'sgoing on here. And you'd be

(36:44):
naive to think that overfishingwasn't part of the problem. So
from my end, with my work,looking at sustainable fisheries
in Australia, looking at sharkconservation through the lens of
sustainable fishing inAustralia, I started putting
this together and going, so holdon. So Australia is happy to
claim claim, you know, thatwe're cleaning green, and we're

(37:05):
the world's best fisheries andmore sustainable brand
Australia. Yet, we've got noproblems supporting
unsustainable fishing practicesin South Africa, that will but
are driving two species toextinction, because the smooth
hound and the toad shark inSouth Africa are endangered. So
we are eating or importing theseendangered sharks. So we're

(37:28):
happy to support that fishery,which is driving the sharks to
extinction. We're having to eatthose endangered sharks. And
we're affecting an entiretourism operation in South
Africa. So much so that if youbring up the cages, I was in
false Bay now. And you even ifyou look at the websites,
they've kind of shifted theirmarketing to shark experiences
where you're looking at board,no seven gills and a few other

(37:48):
shark species, because the whitesharks just aren't there. Yeah.
So we're affecting the tourismindustry. We're affecting the
ecology. We're affecting speciesdriving into extinction, in
pulling them over to Australia.
And we're happy to do that. AndI was like, no, this doesn't cut
the mustard. Even if you takeout the equation, watch X
disappearing from South Africa.

(38:09):
This does not cut the mustard.
Something's wrong here. And sopart of the work that I do is
going okay, Australian fisheriesneed to lift their game because
we've got some serious problemsin our own backyard. And part of
those problems is we can't be apot calling the kettle black.
Sure, relative to the rest ofthe world, our fisheries are in
a relatively good position,because we're well resource

(38:31):
country, relatively lowhistorical fishing pressure. But
that does not mean we don't haveproblems. However, that being
said, as a quote unquote,leading nation, we should not be
supporting unsustainable fishingpractices elsewhere. And that
speaks to seafood imports,seafood labelling, and how we go
about it. So yeah, it's a longwinded way of saying that

(38:56):
Australia's fisheries need someserious fixing up when it comes
to sharks and rays. And that'swhat my work entails.

of you. Just just on the Import Export thing,
though, if you come across theimport and export of shark fin
at all, I'm just thinking backto Brendan and lizard shark
guardian, they took onparliament in the UK with the
legal importation of peoplebeing able to take it through an
analogue edge.

Leo Guida (39:27):
So so you'd be I don't know if you'd be
surprised, because you might youmight be quite well informed,
but it's perfectly legal toimport an export shark fin.
There's nothing illegal aboutit. Australia trades in shark
fin, there's nothing illegalabout it. What is illegal is
shark finning, and that is whereyou're cutting the fins off and

(39:47):
you're dumping the body, butthere's nothing illegal about
getting a sharp cutting fins offusing the meat and the fins and
then trading in it. So that'sthat there. I'm sorry. Do you
want to repeat the question? Idon't know if I've answered it
right. Have I just got off on atangent again?

That's alright.
Just if it was, if there was anysimilarities with another had
limitations on what individualscould bring into the UK?

Leo Guida (40:10):
Ah, I see what you say. Yeah. Yeah. So with our
important exports, I suppose thebest place to start is with a
concert that's called theconcert. It's called fins there,
sorry, with a concept or amanagement tool that's called
fins naturally attached. Okay.
Now what this is, it means thatif any shark is harvested, its

(40:34):
fins by the time it gets toland. By the time it's landed on
land back to port, it has tocome back in one piece
essentially, with its fins on itfins naturally attached. The
reason for this is there's a fewreasons. One, it obviously is a
practical safeguard againstillegal shark finning. Because
you can't separate the fins fromthe body, too. It helps fishery

(40:57):
managers identify what speciesare being caught and in what
numbers, because once you startremoving things from a shark
body, species become very hardto identify. So the size of the
fins relative to each other, andtheir position on the body. And
their shape is one of themorphological features we use to
identify sharks, particularlywhen you're looking at Whale
species that all have thatcharacteristic shark shape that

(41:18):
all look similar. So species IDhelps managers know what species
are being caught, where and howmany, that then goes into
broader management so that wecan have sustainable fisheries.
Thirdly, it stops endangeredspecies from being caught,
because that speaks to beingable to identify the species. So
if someone brings a shark backwith fins naturally attached,
and the fisheries officer goes,Okay, I'm going to check your

(41:42):
catch. Hold on, that's anendangered species that's
protected by law, you shouldn'thave that. He can spot it, or
she can spot it. But withoutfins naturally attached, if
you're able to mix up your finsand flesh, you'd never know.
Yeah. So in a nutshell, stopsillegal live feeding. sharks
come back in one piece, you canID the species and preventing
dangerous species from enteringthe trade. Now, I mentioned that

(42:04):
because when we start looking atimports and exports, this is
what Canada did. I think the UKfollow the same model, I have to
double check. But this isdefinitely what Canada did. And
what they did is they said thatfor any imports and exports, you
have to have things naturallyattached. Now what that that
disincentivizes trading sharkfins because all of a sudden, if

(42:27):
you want to export shark fin,you have to export the entire
caucus. Yeah. So that's white,that space and a shitload of
money to do so. So the questionis, do you really want to do it?
Conversely, if you want toimport shark's fin, you're going
to have to pay for a consignmentof shark carcasses with their
fins attached, again, costs soon and so forth. Do you really

(42:49):
want to do it? So it's kind ofan economic disincentive? quite
it's quite a practicalworkaround and quite a practical
solution. The other thing intheory is that with fisheries
that have fins naturallyattached, there is the argument
and this is gonna be verycontroversial, per se, but hear

(43:09):
me out there is the argumentthat you could have a
sustainable fin trade. And bythat, I mean is that and again,
this is in theory, is that let'ssay you have a fishery, where it
catches a shark species thatreproduces relatively fast,
you've got a good handle of itsbiology, its stock, you know
what numbers can be caughtwithout depleting the

(43:30):
population. And on top of that,the way you fish it doesn't
impact the broader environment.
So you know, dolphins do gongs,so on and so forth. So for
simplicity sake, let's just saythat you've got a shark. It's
sustainable by any measures,you're not impacting the
population. The theory goes withfins naturally attached, is that

(43:50):
you're harvesting the sharksustainably, you're using it in
its entirety, it's not beingwasted. If you're using it for
meat, well, then why wouldn't weuse the fins? You then export
the fins? And you know, it'sfrom a fishery that's traced as
fins naturally attached,everything's aboveboard.
Arguably, you could charge apremium for that product. And
then again, in theory, becauseyou're charging a premium for

(44:12):
that product, because it issustainable, that money should
then go into improving fisheriesmanagement even better, and even
helping threatened speciesrecovery number. Again, that's
theory. That's currently what'saccepted scientifically as best
practice. Because short of that,what do you do? And there are a

(44:35):
lot of arguments you know, forand against. But suffice to say
that fins naturally attached infisheries is the best practical
metall we have at the moment toprevent life finning
in Australia, God WesternAustralia is the only
jurisdiction in the country thatdoesn't have it. and Western

(44:56):
Australia has Australia's secondlargest shark fishery that
catches Don't be shocked schoolsharks and Hammerhead species.
They don't have it. However,thanks to thanks to air
campaigning in the support ofthe broader public, the
government's made a commitmentthat by the end of this year
they will have it. So I'mactually in discussions now with
wa to kind of see where they'reat and how they're progressing.

(45:19):
But fingers crossed that comethe end of this year, they'll
actually have it in place.
Queensland doesn't have it inthe Gulf of Carpentaria fishery,
so Queensland's very north, ifyou look at the Cape, decide to
head west into that gulf. Thatfishery there does not have fins
naturally attached, and theystill catch a shitload of shark
with nets including endangeredskeleton ahead, and no fins

(45:40):
naturally attached. Queenslandhowever, does have it on its
east coast fishery. The pointI'm getting at is that Australia
is Patchwork, its anti finningregulations aren't up to scratch
and then not consistent. So whatthis means is that in the Gulf
for example, if a fisher wantedto illegally fin an animal or

(46:01):
highgrade his product, he couldand be none the wiser. Because
an example would be SkeletorHammerhead, for example. So
skeleton ahead endangered inAustralian waters, you can still
legally be harvested, and palmedoff the efficiency of shop and
market it is like there'snothing illegal about it. You

(46:22):
can be any endangered sharp andyou wouldn't even know it. But
let's just say a fishy goes outthere. And I should preface this
with the fact that this isn'tall fishers. Because there are
some bloody good fishes outthere who do give a shit about
the work they do environmentallyand wanted to continue in the
future. But at the same time,there are also ones out there
like in any industry that arecowboys and don't give a shit.

(46:42):
They just want to make money nowand that's it. So let's just say
this bad Fisher so to speak, theone of the one of the Rori, one
of the rotten eggs, wants togoes out, catches the sharks and
on his boat because there's nofins actually attached, cuts the
fins off, puts it in one pile,dices the flesh, flesh out puts
it in another pile. And so longas those piles are in about a 5%

(47:03):
ratio, according to the law.
He's okay.

What do you manifest leaps and ratio.

Leo Guida (47:11):
So, so long as the weight the weight of the fins is
5% of the total weight of theflesh is okay. The rationale
behind that is that as a generalrule of thumb, the weight of a
shark's fin is 5% of his bodymass. Okay, well, that's not the
case, because they've donenumerous studies afterwards to

(47:34):
kind of work out this thing. Andyou've got species where the
ratios are way off. You've gotsome species where I think like
an oceanic white tip or maybe afew others where you know, the
weight ratio is like maybe eight9% And you've got somewhere the
ratio is 1%. So the moral of thestory is that 5% is somewhat
arbitrary. So anyway, so long ashe's got his pile of flesh in

(47:55):
his pile of fins, and withinthat ratio, you guys yet um,
sweet, no worries. But let's sayhe pulls up his net, and he
pulls up this huge matureskeletal, great Hammerhead, the
Hammerhead Hammerhead fins areone of the most prized on the
market. Yeah. And he goes, Ican't let these five $600 It

(48:17):
cuts the field off, dumps thebody. And what he does is in his
pile of fins to keep the weightratio up, he throws out some of
the smallest little ones thataren't going to fit his money.
That's high grading. It's like afish. It's like if anyone went
out and they caught small fish,and then later on on their way
home, they caught bigger fishand throughout the small fish.
That's what they call highgrading. So he's done that with
fins, and his finger shark andhe's done something illegal. And

(48:40):
there's no way of knowingbecause a in Queensland
fisheries, there's noindependent monitoring. And in
WA fisheries, there's sorry inthe WH Shark Fishery as well.
And in Queensland fisheriesentirely. There's no independent
monitoring. So there's no way ofknowing what actually happens
out of sea. And it hasn't beenlike that since 2012.

So it's just It's just math music when they report
that, you know,

Leo Guida (49:01):
it's interesting that what they put in the books is
true. And so in short, this guyhas pulled up his Hammerhead cut
the fins off high graded it nowagain, I stress this is if this
is if official wanted to dosomething illegal. No one
watching you. And comes back toPort fishing officer comes up
doesn't ever look the catchhere. Sure. No worries. Fisher,

(49:24):
obviously he's got no idea ofhow to identify the sharks
because there's a pile of finsand a pile of flesh. Yeah, tell
me you're gonna go pick througheach one and try and you can't
seem practical. But he goes, youknow, what are the weights yet
within the ratio? No worries,off you go. If you had things
actually attached, there's noway that would have been able to
happen. So with fins naturallyattached, even though there is

(49:47):
an independent monitoring, anychart that he brings back has
essentially been one piece. Sothere's no way he's going to
bring back any protected speciesor anything like that. because
it'll get caught,

but then wouldn't be the argument that if he
catches the big ash scallopedhammerhead, and we're operating
under the fence attach bit thathe doesn't just chuck out a shit
tonne of the small Yeah,

Leo Guida (50:13):
and case there despite the fact that it's an
endangered animal but can stillbe legally caught. Sure he
hasn't broken the rule bycatching a skeleton ahead and
bringing it back. But hecouldn't finish it, he couldn't
dump it. And if he did want tobring it, let's get to chew up
his holding space. So it'sperhaps going to take place. So
from a practical standpoint,Finn's naturally, Tasha is

(50:35):
world's best practice insustainable fisheries
management, whether you're sharpfish or not, because the reality
is, even in a tuna longlinefishery, you're going to catch
pelagic sharks. In some trawlfisheries, you're gonna catch
sharks. And some of those sharksare byproduct, they're kept for
their fins and their flesh. Andso fins naturally attached just
ensures that from a verypractical perspective, we know

(50:57):
what's getting caught. We knowwhat species are getting caught.
And even from a marketingperspective and and consumption
perspective, the animal isn'tgetting wasted. And obviously,
people can have their ethicalviews on that better that's
entirely within their rights.
But yeah, in Australia, who isthe only jurisdiction that does
not have it in any of theirfisheries, let alone their major
shark fishery. I am optimistic,and I am trusting that they will

(51:20):
have it in place by the end ofthe year. But we're still wait
to see that. But the good newsis they have made that
commitment. That's the goodnews. So yeah, that's that's
just from the defence side ofthings. But it is a bit of a
misconception globally, thatfinning is driving the declining
sharks. So WWF WWF did a globalstudy with a few scientists, and

(51:43):
they released I think, lastyear, and it's clear that what's
actually driving the decline insharks in terms of fishing is
the meat. So whilst meat perkilo is worth less than thin,
right? In terms of volume, andmarket demand, it's the meat
that's getting sold. And

so we've got all this finger pointing towards the
Far East once in fins all thetime, when actually, it's much
more than the Far East. It'sit's countries like Australia
and England, that are using thatmeat as as you know, like, say,
the unofficial chip shots.

Leo Guida (52:22):
It's everyone like you can't really point the
finger at any individual. Yeah.
Sure, the biggest fin trademarket is in Southeast Asia. But
I'm not going to go and saythat, because frankly, it's
racist. And I'm not gonna go andsay that on Southeast Asia
that's driving the decline insharks right across the world,
because fin trade, it's nottrue. It's the demand for meat.
And what we have to realise is,is that that demand for meat

(52:46):
goes to service poor nations,because shark meat is generally
the cheapest meat, because insome cases, we've perhaps
overfished what wastraditionally targeted. So we
fall back to shark meat, whichis historically generally
speaking, less desirable. T, andit's not as marketable, it's not

(53:06):
as worthy per kilo. So thedemand is largely made through
the rest of the world, not fins,fins, is if you want to call it
a bit of a byproduct. But again,that's not to say that finning
doesn't occur that people don'tkill sharks, because the fins
are valuable, that does happentoo. But overall, the main
driver is the meat, not thefins. But suffice to say,

(53:30):
they're both problemsnonetheless. And the other
really important thing that thatpeople should be aware of, in
terms of pointing fingers, andwho's to blame for declines and
whatnot, is just to be a bitculturally aware. And by that, I
mean that, particularly in a lotof the Southeast Asian
countries, and fishing nationswhere fish is pretty much their

(53:52):
only source of reliable protein.
And culturally, fishing has beenaround for 1000s of years in
their cultures. They have aninherent understanding of the
value of fish to their cultures,and they respect the sea as
such. But there's also modernday real world pressures. So

(54:17):
I'll never ever forget. Andagain, this goes back to that
South Africa conference wherethis woman got up and she was
speaking about her research frommemory was in Indonesia. And
part of her research was lookingat the human side of shark
fishing, what that meant forconservation. And I'll never
ever forget it because the firsttime that I went, oh shit, I
never thought of that. And thatwas she said, the shark

(54:38):
fishermen in Indonesia know howimportant sharks are to their
ecosystem. They know howimportant sharks are to their
culture, to their belief systemsto everything. Ah, they faced
with a very real world problemof how do I feed my family? How
do I go out on these boats fordays? If not, weeks at a time,

(55:00):
maybe months, and come back withnothing. When all I can come
back with is shark me, or atleast that's the majority of
what I can come back with. Or Icome back with the fins because
it's gonna give me money and Ican, it's a very real problem
and a very wicked problem. Andso that's when I went cheese

(55:23):
like, you can't just be a quoteunquote raving, grinning. Not
that I want it to be, but I wasjust like, you've got to realise
there's a human element here,you've got

to have balance, it's got to be on balance. And
you've got

Leo Guida (55:35):
to have that in Australia, it's, it's a bit
trickier because, you know, thesituation is not that dire. To
be quite frank, I'm surewhenever you're looking at
fisheries management, it impactslivelihoods Sure. But at the
same time, you know, I look fromthe perspective of, I want to
see a healthy ocean. I likefishing to eat. I actually

(55:59):
wouldn't mind trying to spearfish. I just started freediving
not long ago. Again, for my ownpersonal consumption, I've got
nothing against it completelyunderstand it, it just goes back
to that point where fishing is aresponsibility not arrived. Just
don't be a dick when you do it.
And so when you're looking atfisheries management, and I'm
involved in a lot of workinggroups, I speak to a lot of

(56:19):
commercial fishers in thesegroups, you know, now cracks in
me saying oh, you know, you wantto destroy fishing in Australia,
you know, you want to destroyjobs. And I get that sentiment.
But at the same time I startedlike a minute ago. I want to
make sure that what's out thereis out there for everyone,
including yourself, because theright way going in this
particular fishery. Might you'regoing to struggle in the next

(56:42):
few years, you're struggling nowaccording to the stock
assessments. But again, that'sjust the typical Argy bargy. But
the point being is that withinthese working groups, there is
balance. And I'm on the side ofmaking sure that these oceans
are healthy, and that our sharksand rays are protected and
they're not driven to theclient. They're not driven to

(57:03):
extinction so that sustainable,true environmentally sustainable
fishing can occur. And what I'mreally proud of is that AMCs
Australian Marine Conservationsilent I work for, we've got a
programme called the good fishprogramme, which is our
independent, sustainable seafoodguide. And we look at
sustainability from a holisticperspective. So it's not just

(57:27):
the number of a given fish. It'salso about when you catch that
fish short, its numbers might begreat, but what's the impact on
seals on dolphins on the habitaton the environment, so on and so
forth. And we then write thatproduct with a traffic light
system. So green is yet goahead. Oranges elect and red is
avoid. And so I'm proud to saythat there are some fish there

(57:53):
are fish stocks, and there arefisheries where we have green
listed them. We recently greenlist I did double check was
green or amber. But suffice tosay, we recently showcased a
line fissure in the GreatBarrier Reef officious for Cole
trout. Now, this bloke catchesfish with a headline. And he can

(58:13):
tell the size, to some extentwhat fish just by the Twitter
the line just through periods,and one fish at a time comes up
in good nick, if he catches onehe's not meant to catch because
it's in good nick, you can throwit back there, it's gonna
survive. So there are ways ofdoing things. It just comes down
to the fact that we've got toget over this idea that we can

(58:34):
have what we want when we wantand however we want it. I think
those days are long and totallygone. So I'm really proud that
we do that, that we look atconservation, and we're bringing
everyone on board for the ride.
If you're a vegan, amazing,you've been able to make that
choice, you've been able tosupport that lifestyle, all the
power to you. And I mean thatgenuinely, if you're red

(58:56):
blooded, carnivore, great. Wejust hope that you make your
choices as informed as possible.
And that's where the AI comesin. For some people, you know, I
want to eat seafood for this mylife. But alright, here's an
informed choice so that you canenjoy seafood, but let's enjoy
it so that the environmentactually benefiting as well.
Yeah, then there are people whoare on the journey. And I'll

(59:16):
include myself in this, whereour relationship with seafood
has drastically changed. I grewup or I've grown up in an
Italian family, where seafood isjust common fare. And I've grown
up now my family knows that andeven people I go out with like
for me to eat seafood when I goout. I am so picky. It's not
funny. Unless I know what it is,where it's from and how it's

(59:38):
caught. I just don't touch it.
But I don't want us the sametime. If they asked me why I
said Well, alright, let's have aconversation. And they might
walk away and change their mind.
I don't know. But the greatthing is is that for people with
their relationships changing andthey're on this journey, again,
being informed with oursustainable seafood Guide is a
way to go. Okay? I'm thinking ofgoing vegan or I'm thinking of

(59:58):
being Vegetarian, suppose like adrug, I want to wean myself off.
And then to wean myself off,I'll start with small,
achievable goals. And that mightbe, I'll only eat the green list
and species, and then down thetrack that might realise, well,
I actually don't really needthat much seafood anymore. Fuck
it, I just wanted seafood. AndI think I'm actually starting to

(01:00:19):
head down that track. And that'sonly because I'm so picky with
what I eat. Now in terms ofseafood that I've realised I
can't even read the last time Iate seafood, and then I go, has
the quality of my life reallychanged. Not really, still eat a
pretty balanced diet, stillpretty healthy, still pretty
fit. I have good friends havegood family is good. But again,
I say that coming from a veryfortunate position, fortunate

(01:00:42):
position in terms of, you know,job security, or wage,
education, so forth. So we'renot all cut from the same cloth
in that respect. And it's gonnatake horses for courses to bring
everyone on this journey toreally improve the health of our
oceans.

Matt Waters (01:00:58):
Yeah. And it's the sustainability element that you
were touching on there, youknow, the, the guy that's on his
fishing line, or, you know, thelocals that I used to live with
in Papua New Guinea going out onthe kynos, single lines and
catching what they can and invery small quantities in
comparison to what's out there.
It's the huge trawlers that aremaking the millions of dollars

(01:01:19):
and catching tonnes upon tonnesupon tonnes, leaving it in a
freezer offshore and thenshipping it across. That's the
bit that needs to be controlled.
That's the bit that we need toget a grip of.

Leo Guida (01:01:32):
Yeah, yeah, there's there's a lot of problems
globally. And, and it's tricky,because there's a lot of
problems that I genuinely wouldlove to help solve. Be really,
really full blown involved with,but there's enough to bite into
just in Australia alone. SoAustralia's our focus and my
focus at the moment, and thereare some international

(01:01:53):
components to it. But yeah, I,I'm not going to stop until I
die pretty much. Yeah, I mean, Idon't really call this work.
It's what I do.

That's what they do. It's a it's a passion, isn't
it? And if you Yeah, if you cando your passion every day, then,
you know, there's only gonna besome good come from it somehow.
And I think you're well,

Leo Guida (01:02:17):
there is my um, and like, even when you follow your
passion, you have cheat days,you have days where you're like,
quiet, I knew this. bit naive tothink it's all going to be
roses. But the point is, is likewhen you're doing your passion,
like you're willing to put upwith it, when you have those
moments, but the good stuff, thebest stuff that happens and a

(01:02:38):
genuinely put wind in yoursails. And it's happened a few
times, is when you get a letterfrom a kid. And they've taken
the time to sit down and writethis letter. And some of the
things they say are hilarious,because it's just like they say
from the mouth of babes. It'sjust cold truth. Yeah. shark
fishing should never happen. Andsharks aren't mean they're nice.

(01:03:02):
And thank you so much for makingme learn about this. And I
really want to save sharks andsome kids have actually gone
like, they've donated money fromtheir birthdays, they've they've
saved up money to donate to helpsave sharks. And I look, I look
at that, and I go, it, theyinspire me, they motivate me,
not the other way around. And itjust demonstrates that no matter

(01:03:27):
what you do, whether you're aconservationist, whether you're
a diver, whether you're anelectrician, or whether you're a
builder, whatever, like don't,for a moment think that you
don't have impact on peoplearound you. And I think if you
can make yourself conscious ofthat as much as you can, then

(01:03:48):
it's enriching, it makes youwant to be better to do better,
regardless of what your tradeis. And in my case, when I get
those letters, or when I'm givenan opportunity to speak to a
school. And kids get reallyexcited, it reminds me of when I
was a kid, and I now amfortunate enough to be in this
position to give back. And whatI give back, they give to me

(01:04:10):
tenfold. And it's there thewinds that are really cherished
because the conservation winds,particularly with marine
conservation, they're few andfar between you fail more than
you're in. And when you do getthose winds, they can literally
take years to happen. As wediscussed earlier, shotcalling
with fisheries management, look,I've been doing this for four or

(01:04:32):
five years now. And my four orfive years, I'm hoping that by
the end of this year, who putsfins is actually attached in. So
it's a long road and you takethe winds where you can get them
no matter how small they are.
And I suppose that just speaksto a life lesson in general.

Yeah, yeah. Just a bit. So where did where do you
think we're going with, youknow, let's put a prediction.
What's that? What's going tohappen with And Dr. Leo said,
what's gonna happen with sharksin Australia? Over the next 10
years?

Leo Guida (01:05:06):
Over the next 10 years? Oh, good question.

There's a big one for him.

Leo Guida (01:05:11):
That's a big one. So the next 10 years will be 2037.
No 2020 32. Wow. I don't know.
Because there's so many factorslike even if you took fishing
out of the equation, climatechange is a big one. And that's
affecting sharks aswell, all right, let's, it might

(01:05:35):
be hard to say. Alright, let'slook at this. Because I actually
was involved in a study on this.
So we have some indication ofwhat sharks are going to be
doing in the next 10 years or soat least by the end of the
century, with climate change. Sowhat you'll see or what we'll
probably see, in terms ofmovement, is we'll see sharks

(01:05:57):
literally pushed into a corner.
So we'll have tropical speciesand subtropical species like
bull sharks, tiger sharks,making their way further south
into Australia. They've alreadynoticed this with bull sharks as
well. So they'll head furtherand further south, particularly
down the east coast. And thereason being is you've got that
East Australian Current thatbrings warm water from the

(01:06:17):
tropics down. That's extendingyear on year and getting
stronger year on year. And whenyou get down to the bottom of
Australia, like that Victoriankind of Tasmanian intersection,
that's a global warming hotspot,the water there is heating at
four times the global average.
So yeah, so what's happening isyou're getting these tropical

(01:06:38):
species moving down in terms ofsharks, which are then pushing
your more subtrim temperatespecies you call border species,
they're getting pushed,according to the modelling, say,
from Vic, down into SouthAustralia, because they can't go
further south, because there's acontinental shelf. Yeah, so not
all sharks can just live inwater, because it's deep, like

(01:07:00):
they have depth limits as well,yeah, based on habitat
requirements, and so forth. Butgenerally speaking, once you get
to the shelf, it's kind of likeup, we're going to stop here,
we're going to change direction.
So they can only go so far southand they got to go west. So
they're going to have west intoSouth Australia, you look at the
West Coast of Australia, it'sgoing to be almost similar kind
of thing, warm water is going tocome further south more or less.
And then what's going to happenis you're going to have this

(01:07:22):
kind of contraction, wherethere's this concentration in
South Australia, or they're inthat kind of Great Australian
Bight region. They can only goso far, and they can only move
in so many directions. That'sjust in terms of I suppose
temperature and habitat, you'vethen got to look at all of a
sudden, you're gonna get moreinteractions with species that

(01:07:43):
never really had to worry abouteach other before. So all of a
sudden, you might get increasedlevels of predation on gummy
sharks by Tiger sharks. Whatdoes that mean for the
ecosystem? What does it mean ifTiger sharks are now starting
to, I don't know. SmashAustralia's still only at
Phillip Island, or startsmashing little penguins. What

(01:08:03):
does that mean? These are allplausible scenarios and the nuts
and bolts of it is, is tropicalspecies going to move further
south into cooler waters? Whatthat means for the ecosystem we
don't know and what that meansfor the dynamics we don't know.
sciro syro CSIRO, Australia'sleading sort of scientific body.
They did some studies from afishery perspective looking at

(01:08:25):
the abundance of certain fishand how they might change as
climate change, or globalwarming increases. And when they
looked at gummy shark and schoolshark, the two primary targets
shark species in southernAustralia or sorry, I should
say, gummy shark is the primarytarget species in southern parts
of Australia. school shark isbycatch, but it's endangered and
can still legally be sold.

(01:08:48):
Again, another story. But I hada look at those two species
because it commerciallyimportant one way or another and
their productivity, I think frommemory is expected to decline by
20%. Because of warming watersalone, that wasn't even
factoring in fishing pressurechanges, interactions with other
species because you can onlymeasure and predict so much like

(01:09:08):
you can't throw everything in itjust becomes a mess. Yeah. So in
the next 10 years to the end ofthe century, we are we are
seeing shifts pure and simple.
We are seeing shifts. A fewyears back you had the odd
sighting of a Manta ray off thecoast of Tassie hammerheads off
the coast. And as this is goingback, I think maybe I want to

(01:09:28):
say six to eight years ago. Nowyou do get vagrants like species
that just wander off track, soto speak outside their range.
But this is happening more andmore given the warming water
currents coming down. I mean,those magical kelp forests in
the past straight or aroundTassie that 90% of them, I think

(01:09:49):
have gone or more or lessdisappearing because of you got
Urchins coming in with thewarmer water from the north and
Earth is a smashing kelp. Yeah.
And then you got warming watersas well. So there's a lot of
things happening. So it's reallyhard to predict what's going to

(01:10:10):
happen in the next 10 to 50years or so. From a fishing
perspective, I, to be honest, Icouldn't tell you.
What we try and focus on what wetry and do is both the immediate
problems. And probably thesafest thing to do is look ahead
in five year brackets. So I'llsay five in brackets, because

(01:10:34):
it's ample time for you know,between government processes,
changing industry regulations,getting stuff on the water to
happen, technologies research,kind of all happens within five
year windows, and generallyspeaking, best practices is that
when fisheries do anenvironmental risk assessment,
so when they assess the overallsnapshot of the fishery, and

(01:10:54):
what's going on to what speciesin what spaces are at high risk
that should be mitigated, andwhat species are at low risk and
find that, in theory, bestpractice should happen anywhere
between every two to five years.
So that's enough time to capturechanges in the environment. It's
enough time to capture changesin management, changes in law,
and even changes in socialattitudes as well. So, yeah,

(01:11:15):
predicting 10 plus years out,it's really hard. But if we look
at five years time, we'll put itthis way, by 2024. We've managed
to secure commitments fromAustralia's largest fishery. So
that's the stuff that Imentioned earlier, the southern
and eastern scale fishing sharkfishery, secured commitments

(01:11:36):
from WA, as well as securecommitments for Queensland, that
by 2024, there should beindependent monitoring in their
fisheries. And that's afundamental to any form of
sustainable management becauseit means not only, you know, do
we have accurate reporting, butthe data we get is accurate,

(01:11:57):
it's more robust so that we canbetter fine tune our management,
so that we're not forced to usethese big broad strokes and
rules, which complains aboutwhat it's like, well, you're
complaining about it, you'recomplaining that there's not
enough data and the data is notgood enough and that you want
more data? Well, then, why thefuck are you against independent

(01:12:18):
monitoring in the first place?
Just what it's all. So when thewhen the when he comes home to
roost and all these problemsoccur, it's like, it's
frustrating. So. But yeah, inthe next by 2024, we're hoping
to have independent monitoringacross a lot of Australia's high
risk fisheries. And then afterabout two years of that, once

(01:12:38):
the data comes in, we'll get areal picture of what's happening
with target fish that we sellfor seafood. But we also get a
better picture of what'shappening with threatened
endangered species and thenumbers that are being caught.
And because there's underreporting is just rife in
Queensland. And so that takes usto our 2026. So then, hopefully,

(01:12:59):
by 2030, we've gone Okay, thenext eight years, we've got all
this information, like, let'sfix what we haven't fixed
previously. That's maybe overlysimplistic, but that's the best
way I can put it, because it'salways a moving feast, throw in
the complications of climatechange, throwing rotating
governments, the best you can dois just just keep up the good

(01:13:23):
fight and make sure you makethose incremental improvements
over time.

Well, soon as you thought that was gonna be a
struggle to answer a 10 yearwindow. I think you've done it
bloody well. You coveredeverything. Oh, that's right.
And what's Well, that's that'swhat's that's what's predicted
for the sharks and the fishes.
What's, what's the predictionfor? Dr. Leo? What are you going
to do for the next 10 years moreor the same

Leo Guida (01:13:49):
next two years? Wow, love this? Well, I'll definitely
be at IMCs for at least the nexttwo years, doing the shark
campaign decade shark campaignthere. I wouldn't mind down the
track dabbling in internationaltrade, probably pivoting into
international trade of sharkproducts. And then with that

(01:14:10):
experience, maybe further downthe track, just international
trade in seafood and fisheriesin general. That's very loose.
But to be really honest, I'vehad a few people ask me this
question, and I've asked what doyou plan to in the next five
years what you think is takingyou? I genuinely feel like I'm
where I'm meant to be. Yeah. Ifeel like I have the privilege

(01:14:35):
and the luxury of now just beingable to enjoy the ride. So I did
my university studies, I did myPhD and after I finished my PhD
in 2016, and that was studyingsharks and rays. You know, for
two years old soul searchingbecause, you know, I was
managing a bar full time and Iwas like, I didn't do this to
manage a bar full time. Likedon't get me wrong. I love the

(01:14:56):
cocktails and I love the prettyladies that come in and but You
know, I want to be, I want to bea shark. So I just want to work
with sharks. In 2018, when Istarted with AMCs, you know, my
PhD, quote unquote, paid off, itgave me street cred, so to
speak. So I'm not justconservationist, but working in

(01:15:17):
shark conservation, but I've gota doctorate like, I know what
I'm talking about. Yeah, I'vegot the network's like, you
know, opponents can say that I'mwriting green as much as I want
to go make I know what I'mtalking about pure and simple.
Yeah. I really want to push mybuttons. And I won't lie. I do
love the big budget.

You don't get it get those boxing gloves on.

Leo Guida (01:15:39):
Yeah, I did that once. That was fun. But, um, but
yeah, I feel like I'm where I'mmeant to be. And the risk of
tooting my own horn, like, Ifeel like on a personal level,
very fulfilled, and like, I'vearrived, yeah, I'm at the place
where I wanted to be when I wasa kid, I am a shark scientist,
and I'm saving sharks. Andwhat's better is, I have all

(01:16:01):
these amazing opportunities totalk to people about it, to to,
you know, to be in thenewspapers, to talk about it on
TV, to be on podcasts like thiswith yourself, meet all these
amazing people in the freediamond community, the diving
community scientists, it's just,it's not just the fact that I've
been lucky enough to follow adream and live it. It's I feel

(01:16:24):
like I'm reaping the rewardsonly just now. And that is, and
it's not the financial rewards.
Not that at all. It's my work isfulfilling. I feel like I'm
impacting in a positive way, theenvironment and people's lives.
But not just that, but theamazing people and opportunities
that I've gotten to meet thatI've gotten to experience and
will experience. And the bestbest best part is, like I said

(01:16:47):
before, is being able to giveback. That is the most
fulfilling part. So I'm lucky tojust right now, I think it's a
very fortunate position in life.
Where I can just enjoy the ride,I don't, there's no other rungs
on the ladder to climb, like,I'm here. And I can just enjoy

(01:17:11):
the ride, and be able to take orpick and choose what
opportunities come my way andsee what might be. It's just
crazy. The only I'm acompetitive person by nature.
But the only competition I feelat the moment is just within
myself. And that is to quiteliterally be a better person
tomorrow than I was today. Andthe way in which I do that is

(01:17:35):
through my shark conservationwork, and bringing people along
the journey with me.

Yeah. And it's people like the ear that brings
that information to people thatare unaware. And that's the big
thing. In all of this sheermuzzle of what you know, the
world is right now. It'sinformation and people's lack of
information. And we combine thetwo, three people like yourself
that are well informed, and it'stheir own people people's eyes

(01:18:02):
makes it a brighter day.

Leo Guida (01:18:04):
Thank you and at the risk of going down a rabbit
hole. The other problem is isthat there's so much information
that there is a real challengeof people in general, having the
skills to critically think aboutwhat information is accurate and
doesn't come from a reputablesource.

I saw I saw it on Tik Tok. It's fact that dude was
on Tik Tok. He was wearing adoctor's stethoscope. It's a
fact. You know, you've got todrink water with lemon in the
morning to lose 10 kilos a day.
Done.

Leo Guida (01:18:40):
How's that gone?
Wrong? You look great.

Oh, yeah, I could do another 20 kilos mine.

Leo Guida (01:18:50):
Yeah, that that's that's definitely a challenging
one. And look, I don't thinkit's anyone's fault, per se.
It's just we're bombarded withso much information that becomes
reinforcing. And you live inyour own little bubble. And that
is your world. Yeah. Andthere's, you know, any
psychologist will tell you thatyou get reinforced information
from your own little bubble. Andyou'd literally see that as the

(01:19:11):
world like that is what'shappening. Which is why you
can't you can't argue orconvince people with facts
alone. Yeah, if we did that,Well, shit. Climate change
wouldn't be a thing would befine. So it's really a challenge
where you've actually got toempathise with people understand

(01:19:32):
their values, their worldview,and try and sort of communicate
through that and then drop thefacts in. And that's and that's
an art form. It's something I'mlearning, because coming
straight out of academia, it'svery much dry. Here are the
facts, therefore, this shouldhappen. Yeah, that doesn't work
in the real world, so to speak.
In the real world. It's like somany different competing
interests and so many differentpoints of view. You've got to

(01:19:52):
try and find the value thatspeaks to a certain person and
and work through that. So if I'mtold Until commercial Fisher,
there's no point me saying, oh,sharks are declining in such a
way that I've got to go, okay,mate? How can we work this out
where you can have a profitablebusiness into the future, and I
can improve your sociallicencing and marketability,
because you're taking every steppossible to reduce interactions

(01:20:15):
with threatened species. All ofa sudden, we're having a
conversation about conservationwithout talking about
conservation. Whereas, you know,if I'm gonna speak to a bunch of
primary school kids, yeah, I'mgonna drop all these cool,
amazing facts and big numbers,because shit, that's really
interesting. Wow, I didn't knowthat I'm gonna go home and tell
mom and that. Versus if I'mtalking to someone at the pub,

(01:20:38):
you know, I'm going to get themto speak to me, and then work
out what their interests are.
And go, Hey, let me show youthis awesome photographer on
Instagram him out of thesepictures, or, you know, check
this out and then through thataesthetic input. So I've got why
is that like that? Well, let metell you about the particular

(01:20:58):
place in the world and why it'slike this. So it's speaking
through different values anddropping the facts in bit by
bit. Yeah, that's that's thebest way to convince someone but
again, it can be used for powersof good or powers of evil.

Yeah. Well, thankfully, you're doing the
good bits, not the bad bits.
Hey, one thing before we roundup after round off, I've
literally I'm flying out onSunday to Indonesia and had my
lunch behind the show. And I'veI've tried to fill anatomy face
ocular run at the dentist inabout half an hour, 45 minutes,
whatever. So before, bugger off.

(01:21:38):
I've always I've been chasingthis information for a number of
years now. Loose cystichammerheads. Do you know of any
location in the world where youcan see loose cystic hammer
hits? No, because I do. I doyou? Yeah.

Leo Guida (01:21:58):
I don't know if you want to divulge your secrets
over a podcast but I'd bedefinitely keen to know because
hammerheads are on my bucketlist. Ready to dive with? Yeah,
I've seen him. I've seen him onthe end of the fishing line. But
not underwater, free swimming onmy bucket list.

Which we'll talk after the show because I'm
reopening my my travel agency aswell. So maybe we could organise
a trip in the future where Dr.
Leo comes along, and we go andfind some hammerheads. This
sounds like a plan, mate. Yeah,yeah, that sounds good. Yeah,
I'll tell you after the show.
100% I've got the I've got thelocation.

Leo Guida (01:22:37):
Done deal. I'd be that'd be amazing. I'm just just
out of curiosity. I'm assumingyou've you might have informed a
few scientists on it.

I've spoken to a few people very quietly I'm very
I'm very careful. I don't wantto give it away. You know? Yeah,

Leo Guida (01:22:55):
my seal permit.

What lips the seal?
Yeah. Now the latest I heard wasa few years ago. Now when I was
looking at it in a bit moredepth. And I think it was it
would have been seven or so fromnow. It would have been nine
years ago. When one was seenupon the northern coast of
Australia. That's the onlythat's the only thing I've
found. Yeah, anywhere in theworld.

Leo Guida (01:23:20):
Geez, that'd be an absolute trip scene. One of
those. You like seeing a ghost?

It is like I've got video footage. I'll send it to
you.

Leo Guida (01:23:30):
Oh please do

tell me about maybe 10 seconds or so. But 10 seconds
is a long time when you thinkabout it. Oh yeah. Especially
when you're when you're out inthe water and your artists
twitching I'd be nice Leo. I'mgonna have to sign off and like
go to the dentist get thissorted out so you can call me
Holly Bob's so thank you so muchfor being on the show. Thank

(01:23:53):
you. Thank you, man.

Leo Guida (01:23:54):
I had a ball and um yeah, happy to come on another
time we're going to catch up orbe have a chat. And maybe you're
going to have to try and get meto shut up because sharks with
me mates is not

going to that's all right. It makes make him making
episodes of podcasts are veryeasy when people just want to
talk is Fanta and he told mepassion so it makes it even
better. Thank you. Thanks again.
And just stay on line. We'llhave a little chat chitter
chatter afterwards. Thank youvery much for joining the show
and I hope you enjoyed. Lookforward to see you next time.
Bye for now. Thanks, everyone.

(01:24:28):
Happy diving. Got a podcast forthe inquisitive diver.

All Episodes

Leonardo Guida - Australian Marine Conservation Society

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Leonardo Guida - Australian Marine Conservation Society