June 7, 2024 • 33 mins
Happy World Ocean day and we hope you are celebrating Ocean Week Canada!
In this episode of the 'Water We Doing' podcast by the Aquatic Biosphere Project, host David Evans explores the incredible biodiversity of coastlines around the world and how humans can coexist with endangered species. Starting from Canada’s extensive coastlines, David discusses how these areas are biodiversity hotspots, essential for both nature and human activities. The episode takes listeners on a global tour, covering sea otters in Vancouver Island, little blue penguins in New Zealand, coastline dynamics in the Sundarbans of India and Bangladesh, and the impact of tourism on sea turtles in Greece. Lastly, David returns to Canada's east coast to discuss the resurgence of great white sharks.
Throughout the episode, experts like Linda Nichol, Elvisa Van der leden, Dinyar Minocher, Dr. Liam Dixon, and Dr. Chris Harvey Clark provide insights into how humans and these marine species navigate the challenges of sharing coastal spaces. Sponsored by the Canadian Ocean Literacy Coalition and Grant MacEwan University's Environmental Studies Institute, this episode is a deep dive into ocean conservation and the importance of sustainable interaction with marine life.
Did you know the podcast is now available on youtube? Click here to check out the video version of the show!
To learn more about:
Sea Otters:
Little Blue Penguins:
Bengal Tigers and the Sundarbans:
Sea Turtles in Greece
Great White Sharks in Canada:
MacEwan UniversityThanks to the Environmental Studies Institute of MacEwan U for supporting creating the Podcast!
Canadian Ocean Literacy Coalition
Empowering Canadians to better understand, value, and care for the ocean! Thank you for your support
The Aquatic Bisophere Project
The ABP is establishing a conservation Aquarium in the Prairies to help tell the Story of Water.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
The What Are We Doing podcastand the Aquatic Biosphere
Project acknowledges that we arelocated on Treaty 6 territory
and respects the histories,languages, and cultures of First
Nations, Métis, Inuit, and allFirst Peoples of Canada, whose
presence continues to enrich ourvibrant community.
Dave Evans (00:18):
When was the last time you planned a vacation?
Let's see.
Vacation.
Where do I want to go?
Well, usually it's somewherenear water.
You want to go somewhere wherethere's a nice coastline, you
can go relax on the beach, orsomething like that.
Well, turns out, actually,Canada has the longest coastline
in the entire world, of anycountry.
(00:40):
But it may not be the beachesthat you're normally attracted
to.
Coastlines are these incredibleplaces.
They're these biodiversityhotspots.
It's where all of the land meetsthe water, and you have that
intermingling of species.
It's where you have access forfishing, where you have ports,
where we do a lot of ourshipping and commercial
pursuits.
(01:00):
It's this conglomeration of allof these competing interests.
And it turns out to be the homeof so many amazing, amazing
species and endangered species.
So how do we mix these things?
How many times have you thoughtwhen you're going on vacation,
Oh, I wonder how this is goingto affect the sea turtles, or I
wonder how this is going toaffect.
(01:20):
Today, we're going to dive intosome of these endangered
species, and we're going toexplore how they interact with
humans along the coastlines, andhow we can coexist in the
future.
Today we're going on an allaround the world adventure
exploring our coastlines, fromthe west coast of Vancouver
Island to New Zealand'scoastlines, up to India and
(01:41):
Bangladesh, then across toGreece, and finally back to the
east coast of Canada, just offof Halifax Harbour in Nova
Scotia.
So get ready to learn a littlebit more about coexisting along
coastlines.
(02:01):
Buser Bunny, GN boom, two B, alow two.
(02:23):
Mary.
Water.
Water we doing?
And how can we do better?
Your one stop shop foreverything water related.
From discussing water, its use,and the organisms that depend on
(02:46):
it.
For all the global issues thatyou really never knew all had to
do with water.
I'm your host David Evans fromthe Aquatic Biosphere Project.
And I just want to ask yousomething.
What are we doing?
And how can we do better?
(03:13):
Hey, did you know this episodeis also available as a video on
YouTube?
Be sure to check it out on ournew at water.
We doing podcast, YouTubechannel.
So what is a coastline?
So a coastline is anywhere whereyou have a continent or an
island where it meets the oceanor the sea or a large water
body.
Anywhere where we have thoseinteractions between marine
(03:36):
environments and terrestrialenvironments.
And it seems to be that this iswhere many, many of our largest
cities and urban populationsseem to congregate 40 percent of
the entire world's population iswithin 100 kilometers of a
coastline and 5 of the world'sbiggest cities.
Are located right along coasts.
All the other cities are locatedalong rivers or other water
(03:58):
bodies.
And that's because water playssuch an important role in our
transportation, in ourcommercial pursuits, in our
ability to procure food that wewant to be around it.
And that means on vacation to wewant to be around it as well.
Coastlines are these dynamicenvironments.
They're always changing becausethere's so much force from
storms and waves crashing up onthe land that they're eventually
(04:22):
eroding, or they're beingchanged by humans over time,
because That's where we want tobe.
We're putting in ports.
We're putting in boardwalks.
We're putting in anything to getpeople out onto the water, and
that's changing how the oceanand how the coastline and
species interact with each otherout there.
So coastlines actually can playa really important natural
(04:43):
buffering effect to safeguardextra erosion from happening.
Take mangrove forests forinstance.
They're these amazing placeswhere they're able to basically
dampen a storm as it's comingin.
Coral reefs off of the coast areable to dampen storms as they
come in, so there's less erosiveforce.
But we also want to have accessto these places.
(05:04):
So sometimes they get removedand that's where we can have
lots and lots of change veryquickly on our coastline.
Another reason we love to benear coastlines is because of
the bountiful, plentiful speciesthat are there, at least
initially.
A lot of the times we areattracted to these areas because
they can support so many peoplewith fish, with other natural
(05:25):
resources that are veryplentiful.
And that was the case onVancouver Island, for thousands
of years, we've had this amazingcoastal experience on Vancouver
Island with sea otters andabalone and everything in
perfect balance.
Sea otters are one of the mostplayful animals in the ocean.
They spend their time divingdown to the bottom, grabbing
(05:46):
invertebrates, bringing them up,cracking them on their chest
with rocks they're so, sofascinating.
And it makes the tale even moretragic when they disappeared for
hundred years.
Linda Nichol (05:57):
They stay in the ocean throughout their lives.
They never come ashore.
But they don't have a blubberlayer.
So all other marine mammals,nice thick blubber layer, which
keeps them warm like a wetsuit.
They've evolved this incrediblydense fur that has waterproofing
outer hairs, and then this verydense under fur where air is
captured.
And that air layer keeps themwarm but that's the luxurious
(06:20):
fur that got them in trouble inthe first place
Dave Evans (06:22):
That was Linda Nichol.
She's a research biologist forthe Department of Fisheries and
Oceans Canada.
She studies sea otters, othermarine mammals like whales and
dolphins as well.
the fur trade completely wipedout the sea otter population in
Canada.
So sea otters were these apexpredators.
They were controlling thepopulation of all of these
(06:42):
invertebrates, clams and seaurchins that were all along the
bottom of the ocean.
So Linda, can you tell us whathappened when the sea otters
left?
Linda Nichol (06:51):
So the sea urchins and the abalone and all these
species were released from theirmain predator.
And these animals areherbivores, like grazers, like a
cow, right?
They graze on kilt, they weregrazing and grazing and they
were keeping the kelp fromgrowing.
So the kelp, forests,disappeared.
You'd have these areas that werecarpeted with invertebrates.
We often talk about sea urchinbarrens.
(07:12):
This is the classic story of seaotter effects in rocky habitats.
Dave Evans (07:16):
Okay, so we lost the kelp forest when we lost the
otters.
What really is a kelp forestanyways?
Kelp forests are often referredto as the rainforests of the
sea.
Seaweed, which grows extremelyfast, is able to make this 3D
structure in the ocean.
It allows for carbonsequestration.
(07:37):
It provides buffering for wavesand storms when they come
ashore, but also provideshabitat for so many.
important species, includingmany commercially viable fish,
and the area for young fish tobe able to grow.
Imagine you're in a forest now,if you remove all of the trees,
Suddenly, there's no habitat forspecies that need to be up high
(07:59):
or need to be down low, andeveryone's visible to everyone.
You're not having those visualbarriers.
It's the same thing as a kelpforest down in the water.
Now, a reintroduction eventhappened in the 1970s.
89 sea otters were brought fromAlaska down to the B.
C.
coastline and reintroduced.
And they've done insanely well.
They've now ballooned up to 8,000 sea otters and growing.
(08:23):
And they've had tremendouseffects on the kelp forest.
Linda Nichol (08:27):
So the sea otter is reintroduced, and as the
population recovers in an area,And they start eating these
invertebrates.
They begin to reduce theirnumbers.
This allows the kelp forest togrow.
So that's one of the effects wesee increasing sizes of kelp
forests these kelp beds can bereally big.
In fact, 19 times bigger than inareas where sea otters don't
(08:48):
occur and they can be four timesdeeper, so much, much bigger
kelp forests.
Dave Evans (08:53):
Now you might be thinking, well, isn't this
great?
We have the sea otters back, thekelp forests are back.
What's wrong?
It's hard to say it's a winalways, because there's always
competing interests.
Now we have a boom of tourism.
So people are coming to BC tosee the otters, there's more
species of fish that were comingback to these waters, and the
(09:14):
commercial fisheries are doingwell, but there's always a push
and pull.
Local indigenous communitiesweren't consulted when the
initial reintroduction happened.
They weren't asked if that wouldbe of interest and other
fisheries were also reallyimpacted.
There was really important crab,sea urchin and clam harvest,
which now are not as plentiful.
(09:35):
And so We've had an economicpush and pull where not everyone
is seeing all of the benefitsfrom having the sea otters
there.
And that's often what happens inthese coastal spaces where we
have so many interests that arecompeting.
We often don't even know that wemight be having that impact.
Elvisa Ven Der Leden (09:51):
I was doing a bit of a pub crawl in
Wellington city, I heard thisnoise.
I was like, what the hell isthat weird noise?
Something like this, it goes.
So we're on the coastal walkwaydown there and I went down on
the rocks and I found these twolittle blue penguins and I was
like, Oh my gosh, guys, there'spenguins here.
(10:11):
Right on the city's fringe Itwas my first interaction with
the penguins and then a fewyears later I was catching them
for science and respecting theirboundaries, their and now I go
into schools and when we havefunding for Finding Little Blue.
I work with local schools andeducate them about why it's
important to give them space ifyou do find them
Dave Evans (10:32):
That is Elvisa van der Leeden.
She lives in New Zealand inTaranaki, and is elected to the
Taranaki regional council, andwhile she's not busy with
councillor duties, she'svolunteering in many different
areas in the environmentalsphere, especially with little
blues.
The little blue penguin, orKorora in Maori, is one of the
three penguin species that'sfound in New Zealand.
(10:54):
And it's actually the smallestspecies of penguin in the world.
Another fun fact about penguins,there's actually only seven
species of penguins that everactually go down to Antarctica.
There's actually more species ofpenguins if you add up all of
the species that live inAustralia, New Zealand, the
continent of Africa, and SouthAmerica.
Wild.
The little blue penguin livesalong New Zealand's coastlines
(11:15):
in rocky boroughs.
And often nests really close tohuman settlements, even under
porches.
Because they really like rockycrevices, and it just so happens
that underneath your porch is aperfect spot for penguin
nesting.
The problem is, people don'treally like having them there,
because they're loud, and theydon't smell that great.
But who doesn't want a penguinliving under their porch.
(11:36):
Come on.
The Finding Little Blue programwhich, when it's funded, goes
into schools, provides communityoutreach and education about the
plight of little blue penguins,and what we can do to help
protect them, give them space,and help them thrive and live
alongside each other in peace.
Because, to be quite frank, Iwould be just as surprised
walking home from the bar,seeing a penguin, and I would
(11:58):
want to go and say hi to it aswell.
But it's really important togive them space, and it's their
home too.
So we have these penguins livingright beside humans along the
coastlines in New Zealand.
So what are the main threats?
Well, there's crossing roads,there's busy beaches, there's
people all around and birdsbeing skittish, but there's also
(12:18):
environmental risks as well.
Elvisa Ven Der Leden (12:20):
they've found that fledglings in the
last few years have been dyingoff in mass numbers because of
the turbulence of the water as aside effect of climate change.
The turbulence affects thevisibility so they can't see the
food source as they're trying tohunt it.
With the warming waters, evenjust a couple of degrees
(12:41):
difference can actually shiftfood sources further out to sea.
Say a species thrives in acertain temperature range with
the warming waters, they havebeen seen to be moving further
out.
And even just a kilometer canmake a huge impact on fledgling
little blues burning more energyto try and find their food than
(13:02):
they are actually catching it.
Dave Evans (13:04):
So there's so many different ways that wildlife can
be impacted by sharing thesespaces along coastlines, whether
it's through environmental or,human causes.
But our next stop, we're goingto be looking at what happens
when the humans are also reallyimpacted by the wildlife that
they're sharing the space with.
But first, we have a quick wordfrom our sponsor.
Ow.
I'm so excited to thank today'ssponsor, the Canadian Ocean
(13:26):
Literacy Coalition, as we wereawarded the Blue Creators Grant.
We're so thankful to theCanadian Ocean Literacy
Coalition for helping tocontinue this podcast.
The Canadian Ocean LiteracyCoalition is empowering
Canadians to better understand,value, and care for the ocean.
They launched in 2018 and is anationally and internationally
recognized catalyst and centerfor ocean literacy,
(13:48):
collaboration, research, andinnovation.
They convene and leadcollaborative action across
regions, sectors, and scales,and their work focuses on
education and engagement,research and impact, leadership,
and advocacy.
We're so excited to be part ofthat group.
We're so excited to be releasingthis as part of Ocean Week
Canada, a public celebration ofthe ocean from coast to coast to
(14:11):
coast.
Ocean Week Canada is an annualnational celebration of ocean
events, learning, and engagementheld during the week of World
Ocean Day, June 8th.
Through these events andlearning activities, we
recognize the important role theocean plays in our everyday
lives.
And how local waterways connectus all with the ocean, help us
raise public awareness andcelebrate this connection to
(14:31):
coastal areas, the ocean andwatersheds in Canada.
Together, we can inspire actionto ensure a healthy ocean for
future generations.
Be sure to keep your eyes peeledfor any events happening in your
vicinity.
We're so grateful for yourgenerous support.
Now, back to our episode.
Ow.
Our next stop, we're going tothe Sundarbans in India and
(14:52):
Bangladesh.
It's where the Bay of Bengal,the saltwater meets the
freshwater from the Ganga, theBrahmaputra and the Magna
rivers.
It's the largest mangrove forestin the world.
A huge biodiversity hotspot too.
It's where there's so manydifferent species.
You have sharks, saltwatercrocodiles.
You have so many species ofbirds, mammals.
You also have the largestpopulation of Bengal tigers in
(15:14):
the world.
The area has been very heavilyprotected.
It's a UNESCO World HeritageSite, and it's also a national
park in India, as well as manycountless biosphere reserves.
All of this protection has putextra pressure on the population
of people living there.
Let alone the pressures from thenatural world.
Dinyar Minocherr did hismaster's research looking at
marine protected areas andecotourism in these remote
(15:36):
regions, and what can be done tomake sure that local populations
are involved with that process.
Dinyar Minocher (15:42):
One of the things that's a reality in a
place like this is every singleyear, there's about people taken
by tigers and crocodiles alone.
The men are typically taken bytigers because of honey
collection and fishing and thewomen are typically taken by
crocodiles in that they're doingprawn seed collection, where
they weighed waste deep in waterand do collections.
And often they're taken in thatway.
(16:03):
And I think that's somethingthat we need to realize when we
have these protected areas.
And then we're starting to lateron introduce things like
tourism, you're having thisjuxtaposition of the new world
and the old world comingtogether.
And how can that coexist?
On top of trying to preserve thenatural processes that exist
there, which is the mandate of anational park,
Dave Evans (16:22):
It's really difficult to find this balance
between having these protectedareas where people are
interested to go and investmoney to protect species, but
also making sure that it'sbeneficial for the people who
live there, who call that placehome, who need to rely off of
the natural world to be able tosustain their lives, sustain
their families.
It makes it very difficultbecause oftentimes in places
(16:44):
like the Sundarbans, There maynot actually be that many direct
benefits to the people who livethere, although it might appear
so on paper.
Dinyar goes into much more ofthis in his talk, but I think he
made a really important pointwhen he talked about what we
often think of as poaching.
Dinyar Minocher (16:59):
I think we as a Western society have this
tendency to place responsibilityon the lowest rung of a ladder.
When we declare someone apoacher.
We're pointing at someone who'sthe poorest and most desperate
and doing the actual killing,but they wouldn't kill if there
wasn't a market for it and thatmarket is being fed from many
(17:19):
outside sources.
And then ultimately the personwho we place responsibility on
is the most desperate and justtrying to survive.
And trying to feed theirfamilies.
If we go back to who thesepeople are, these village
populations, completelyuneducated, They have no money
to build.
There's no infrastructure thatalready exists there.
The money is coming from majorcities.
(17:41):
And then it leaves.
And this whole conception of atleast the fishermen would be
making money from the resortsbuying their fish.
All of a sudden that means thatevery single person who lives
there is no longer able toafford.
The top quality of food at all,I think one of the interesting
ways to look at this is to notlook at tourism as a broker and
(18:02):
a tourist interaction, butinstead look at it as a triangle
of the broker, local andtourist.
When you bring in that localcomponent, then you say, okay,
who's benefiting?
And you don't measure that bythe one, two or three people who
benefit you look at.
Across the average of the localpopulations and then you ask
yourself.
How can these people actually beinvolved and then?
(18:24):
It only gets sadder because thereality is yeah sure some of
them can clean maybe if there'ssome English or Bengali Hindi
capacity.
They could work at a little bitof a higher level.
The long and short of that isno, I don't believe it's a win.
It is one of the things that'smost plaguing to the local
populations in this roomprotected area.
And it's one of the things thatwe need to consider as the
(18:44):
Western world, when we thinkthat all the money percolates
down to everyone in society.
If anything, it furthermarginalizes the groups, even at
the bottom,
Dave Evans (18:54):
Ecotourism sounds like this amazing concept, and
it works really well in somesituations.
But that's not always the case,as we see in the cinderbonds.
A lot of times we're drawn tothese coastlines because we have
the marine ecosystems meetingthe terrestrial ecosystems.
We have these biodiversityhotspots and the opportunities
to see such amazing creatures.
(19:15):
And that's the case in our nextstory, where we're stopping in
Greece, where we're looking atsome creatures and how, what we
like to do on the coastlinesreally impacts their ability to
survive.
Liam Dickson (19:26):
My name is Liam Dixon.
I did my PhD on the spatialecology of sea turtles nesting
beaches in Greece.
They've been around for millionsof years, and they're extremely
threatened by coastaldevelopment.
We're talking about theinteractions of humans and
animals along the coastlines.
This is a big one for seaturtles, they come back to the
(19:47):
same beaches to nest and breed.
And if those beaches are gonebecause we've built up a
seawall, or there's a new hotelthere, then there's not really
anywhere for them to go back to.
There's that classic image wherethe sea turtle comes out from
its nest and it's crawlingtowards the water, and the
seagulls are coming down andtrying to eat it.
(20:08):
But that image Is removed fromany sort of human influence, and
we don't think about the turtlecoming out of the Nest and then
there's a beach chair in frontof it blocking its way or
there's a ton of people theretaking photos of it Or there's a
street light behind it.
That's disorienting So thereality and I think something
that gets minimized is Theactual effect that we are having
(20:30):
on the beaches
Dave Evans (20:31):
So again, we're looking at a national park
preserving the habitat forendangered species, but there's
a lot of other differentfactors.
It's in Greece.
There's a very different societythere, and the poverty level is
just not even comparable to thearea in the Cinderbonds.
So we have this juxtaposition,though, of.
A very popular tourism area andthese endangered species.
(20:55):
So when William was doing hisPhD, he got to observe a pretty
unique time period in humanhistory, as he was studying the
spatial ecology of where thesesea turtles go every day and
what areas they actually use.
Liam Dickson (21:08):
The research that you're referring to is focused
around the, nesting beach onZakynthos in Greece, this is one
of the biggest sea turtlenesting beaches in all of the
Mediterranean.
And it's also an extremelytouristed area.
There is this big high streetwith massive beach clubs.
And you get a ton of people fromall over the place.
(21:29):
And just partying and drinkingand getting really raucous.
You've got all this big club,sending Fireworks out basically
every night on this sea turtlenesting beach, so there's huge
amounts of activity there.
Sea turtles were coming in quiteclose to shore, where the water
was a bit warmer later on in theseason, as the water warmed up,
(21:51):
they were moving offshore intothe deeper waters.
And we thought, okay, maybethey're moving offshore because
the water's getting too hot.
We didn't really know if thereare other influences there's
been tourism there since beforewe were monitoring the sea
turtles on the beaches, so COVIDprovided extremely unheard of
opportunity.
As kind of a proxy baseline forwhat the turtles would do if
(22:15):
there was no tourism, And whenwe were monitoring the sea
turtles during that period, wesaw that they actually Stayed in
those shallow, warmer waters formuch longer.
So we were able to conclude thatit's actually a large part of
their moving offshore is theinfluence of tourists arriving
as the season warms up.
(22:36):
When the beaches are perfect forlying out and going swimming and
stuff, that's driving these seaturtles offshore.
Dave Evans (22:41):
Driving these sea turtles offshore may not sound
like that big of a deal,especially when you look at how
that impacts them as apopulation might change your
mind One of the interestingthings with sea turtles is that
water temperature actuallyaffects egg development within
the females, if they're inwarmer water, their eggs can
develop a lot quicker, andthey're able to have more
(23:03):
nesting events every year.
So they actually are able tomake way more babies or
potential new sea turtles everyyear, there's also another
number of effects that arehappening here too as sea levels
continue to rise, there'spotentially less and less
available area for the seaturtles to nest on the beaches.
The beaches aren't increasing insize the same level as the water
(23:25):
is rising.
If anything, the tourists andthe sea turtles are being put
into more conflict of sharingthis dwindling space on these
beaches.
As well, there's also an impactto the temperature of the sand.
So as sea turtles lay their eggsthe sand temperature actually
affects the female to male ratioof the hatchlings.
As the sand temperatureincreases, you're more and more
(23:46):
likely to get more females thanmales hatching out.
And while you don't need as manymales in a population you're
going to start to seebottlenecks.
As well, As the sand temperatureincreases if you get to a
certain threshold, those eggsare just going to be cooked and
they're not going to be able tobe successfully hatched so
there's many different pressuresfacing these sea turtles, which
are a huge draw to people tocome to these beaches to see
(24:09):
these areas.
What's the answer?
What can we do about it?
Liam Dickson (24:12):
There is management in place already.
I mean, it's a national parkThere's still motorboats driving
around.
There's still these massivetourism boats that are going and
looking at the turtles.
And, We can't say that thesolution is to stop all tourism,
really, because people of thatisland also depend on this for
their livelihood.
It's not really a sustainableoption or a realistic option to
(24:36):
just say, okay, we need to closeall the clubs and all of these
people who live on the islandare now going to be out of work.
And they're going to basicallynot have an income.
It's really more to highlightthat we need to find.
A better way for humans and seaturtles to coexist, whether that
be closing off certain parts ofthe beaches completely to
tourism during certain parts ofthe year, or having some sort
(24:57):
active management, where, if weare seeing on one day, the sea
turtles are in one area of thebeach, then closing that area of
the beach off and tourism on theother side, and then shifting
that as they move back.
And.
We're hoping that drones canallow that to happen.
Dave Evans (25:13):
Yeah, you heard that correctly.
He said drones.
That's exactly what Liam hasbeen doing for his PhD, is using
drones to be able to map outwhere sea turtles are and how
they're using the ocean habitatswhile we don't even see them out
there.
It's amazing to see from adrone's perspective what the
ocean looks like because you cantrack things that we have no
(25:34):
idea about if you're justsitting on the beach.
Before we continue, we have aquick word from today's sponsor.
Thank you so much to theEnvironmental Studies Institute
of Grant McEwen University,based in Edmonton, Alberta.
We're so grateful for thesponsorship and the support from
this program.
The Institute is designed tofoster the development of a
human population that is awareand concerned about the
(25:56):
environment.
This is achieved by developingknowledge and increasing the
capacity of individuals andgroups to find solutions that
contribute to a healthy andsustainable environment.
And we're so excited to be apart of that as part of this
podcast.
We're so grateful for yourgenerous support.
Now, back to our episode.
So there's definitely ways thatwe can work to coexist along
(26:16):
these coastal areas.
We just have to know what's outthere.
And drones provide that otherperspective, being able to
monitor what's out there and howour current impact is impacting
those species.
and this takes us to our finalstop today, where we're going
back to Canada, around theworld, to the east coast this
time.
Where we get to learn a littlebit more about some endangered
(26:37):
species that are coming back toour waters and a lot of species
that maybe you didn't even knowwe already had.
Chris Harvey-Clark (26:44):
We've had tiger sharks caught here.
In fact I helped to teach, aclass we call shark school in
the summer.
And the students get to go tosea and catch blue sharks and
tag them and release them, Infact, we even have our sort of
resident blue shark stock offHalifax.
It's here all year round.
Most of the species we see arecold adapted.
Which are the white shark Makoshark, poor beagle shark.
Then we have all the deep seasharks, Greenland shark.
(27:06):
They're right up into the Arcticand right around, till they run
into their Pacific cousin, thePacific sleeper shark.
They're also in very deep water,up to 10, 000 feet and deeper.
Dave Evans (27:14):
That's Dr.
Chris Harvey Clark fromDalhousie University.
He is one of Canada's foremostshark experts and has the
privilege of being one of thevery few people to have dove in
Canada and had a very closeencounter with a great white
shark, just outside of HalifaxHarbor.
Now I think a lot of people arewondering, have we always had
sharks in Canada?
Are we having more sharks inCanada?
(27:36):
And there's a lot of fear whenit comes to talking about sharks
because they do seem to be theseterrible predators.
But the reality is with sharkattacks that they happen very
infrequently.
Maybe we're seeing more of thisin Canada?
Chris, do you mind taking itfrom here?
Chris Harvey-Clark (27:50):
When Champlain came over in 1534.
He stopped at the beta chiller.
Which is, just before you goaround the tip of Brunswick, and
one of his men was swimming offthe boat and had his legs taken
by a shark.
Undoubtedly a white.
That's the only thing aroundthat could do that.
And, bled to death on the deck.
So, there have been sharkattacks here.
The first nations certainly knewthere were white sharks around.
The shark is in their legendsand white shark remains are
(28:12):
found in their middens.
Some of them stained with redochre, which means they were
some kind of a holy or ritualobject.
And, most of these encountersuntil recent years, until sort
of social media and the cellphone and stuff like that
happened, they'd be local lore,but you'd never hear about them.
Unless you were in the localcommunity the guys might talk,
but it wasn't ever anything thatwas reported in the media.
Probably the first real sharkbite encounter that likely
(28:35):
involved a white happened onFriday the 13th of 2021, a young
woman, was swimming off a boatup near Marguerite, which is on
the other side of Cape Breton.
And the shark bit her across thelegs and then released her and,
pretty severe injuries, like 120stitches or something like that.
And she was hospitalized.
She declined to talk about it.
(28:55):
And I fully understand thatbecause I can tell you having
had a white shark encountermyself, it's traumatic.
And replaying it doesn't help.
And then this last summer wasweird.
We've had a number of whiteshark strand.
I believe we had the first diveropen water encounter since then.
We've had seven more in the lasttwo years.
No one's been injured, butthere've been a lot of close
Passes.
We also had a hunter was duckhunting and put his dog in the
(29:18):
water to go get the duck and theshark took it out.
Another shark was observedtaking a deer that was swimming
between two islands these areunprecedented things that are
going on, Dave.
This has never happened before,and it's a sign that things have
changed in a pretty serious way.
And I think the story with whitesharks coming into our waters is
a really interesting one.
I think two things really cometogether.
(29:38):
First of all, We have anunprecedented seal population in
the Maritimes right now.
Not a lot of sealing goes onanymore, the estimate for the
whole sort of maritime region issomewhere probably north of
500,000 animals, and theyproduce about 87,000 pups a
year, That's what a white sharkwants.
So we got a lot of food.
The banquets open.
And the other thing that'shappened is north and south of
(29:59):
the border, we protected thewhite shark., in 97, prior to
that, there was a very active,aggressive headboat fishery
targeting big white sharks.
The idea was to catch thebiggest one you could and take
it back to the dock and get yourpicture with it.
The females don't really matureuntil they're about 15 or 16
feet long, at which pointthey're about 25, 26, 27 years
old and they don't have hugelitters.
(30:20):
So very easy to wipe out, theother interesting thing.
Is doubling time for whitesharks, it's a number of years
that it takes a singleindividual to completely replace
itself as a reproductivelymature active adult.
So how many sharks does it taketo make another?
It's about 26 years.
What is 1997 plus 26?
Yeah.
I think we're seeing the endresults of that.
(30:41):
Protection measure now that wegot white sharks up here.
Dave Evans (30:43):
There's been a number of different factors that
have led to the recovery of theGreat White Sharks on the east
coast of Canada.
So there's been a huge recoveryof these great white shark
species.
And while that's amazing.
We've grown accustomed to nothaving great white sharks in our
waters.
So how do we coexist with themnow?
And that's where we're at.
We're trying to figure this outas we get used to seeing great
(31:05):
white sharks and they're beingattracted to the waters with all
of the seals, there's all thesedifferent coexistences that
we're still trying to figureout.
All across the world, all alongour coastlines.
And that's what makes this topicso fascinating.
Whether it's sea otters, Bengaltigers, little blue penguins sea
turtles, or great white sharks.
There's so many differentstories, and we're so excited to
(31:27):
dive way deeper into all ofthese with all of the full
length episodes coming out soon.
Thank you so much for joiningtoday as we explored around the
world.
What is happening along ourcoastlines?
How we share spaces withendangered species and how they
(31:48):
affect us.
And then we affect them if youliked any of these topics and
want to learn more, we'll leavelinks in the show notes so that
you can actually go and learnmore about these species and the
organizations that are helpingthem out.
Thank you so much to all of theguests who spoke to us for this
episode.
Linda Nickel from the Departmentof Fisheries and Oceans Canada,
Elvisa Vanderleiden from theTaranaki Regional Council,
Dinyar Minocher, Dr.
(32:09):
Liam Dixon, and Dr.
Chris Harvey Clark fromDalhousie University.
Thank you so much and be sure tocome back and check out the full
interviews with each of theseexperts as we dig way more into
their specific issue, when yousee coexistence along
coastlines.
I'm the host and the producer ofthe podcast, David Evans, and
also the director ofconservation for the aquatic
(32:29):
biosphere project.
Thanks to Lianna Bresson forpodcast editing and
storyboarding support.
I'd Also like to thank the restof the aquatic biosphere project
team, Paula Polman, Ari DeJong,Lee Burton, and Dr.
Ross Shaw.
Thank you so much for all ofyour continued support in
developing this podcast if you'dlike to learn more about the
aquatic biosphere project andhow we're telling the story of
water in Alberta, please go toaquaticbiosphere.
(32:52):
ca.
You have any questions orcomments about the show, please
send us a message.
We'd love to hear from you.
You can email us at conservationat aquatic biosphere.
org or leave a comment pleasedon't forget to like share and
subscribe.
It really helps us out.
Thanks.
And it's been a splash.
The What Are We Doing podcastand the Aquatic Biosphere
Project acknowledges that we arelocated on Treaty 6 territory
and respects the histories,languages, and cultures of First
Nations, Métis, Inuit, and allFirst Peoples of Canada, whose
presence continues to enrich ourvibrant community.
Dave Evans (00:18):
When was the last time you planned a vacation?
Let's see.
Vacation.
Where do I want to go?
Well, usually it's somewherenear water.
You want to go somewhere wherethere's a nice coastline, you
can go relax on the beach, orsomething like that.
Well, turns out, actually,Canada has the longest coastline
in the entire world, of anycountry.
(00:40):
But it may not be the beachesthat you're normally attracted
to.
Coastlines are these incredibleplaces.
They're these biodiversityhotspots.
It's where all of the land meetsthe water, and you have that
intermingling of species.
It's where you have access forfishing, where you have ports,
where we do a lot of ourshipping and commercial
pursuits.
(01:00):
It's this conglomeration of allof these competing interests.
And it turns out to be the homeof so many amazing, amazing
species and endangered species.
So how do we mix these things?
How many times have you thoughtwhen you're going on vacation,
Oh, I wonder how this is goingto affect the sea turtles, or I
wonder how this is going toaffect.
(01:20):
Today, we're going to dive intosome of these endangered
species, and we're going toexplore how they interact with
humans along the coastlines, andhow we can coexist in the
future.
Today we're going on an allaround the world adventure
exploring our coastlines, fromthe west coast of Vancouver
Island to New Zealand'scoastlines, up to India and
(01:41):
Bangladesh, then across toGreece, and finally back to the
east coast of Canada, just offof Halifax Harbour in Nova
Scotia.
So get ready to learn a littlebit more about coexisting along
coastlines.
(02:01):
Buser Bunny, GN boom, two B, alow two.
(02:23):
Mary.
Water.
Water we doing?
And how can we do better?
Your one stop shop foreverything water related.
From discussing water, its use,and the organisms that depend on
(02:46):
it.
For all the global issues thatyou really never knew all had to
do with water.
I'm your host David Evans fromthe Aquatic Biosphere Project.
And I just want to ask yousomething.
What are we doing?
And how can we do better?
(03:13):
Hey, did you know this episodeis also available as a video on
YouTube?
Be sure to check it out on ournew at water.
We doing podcast, YouTubechannel.
So what is a coastline?
So a coastline is anywhere whereyou have a continent or an
island where it meets the oceanor the sea or a large water
body.
Anywhere where we have thoseinteractions between marine
(03:36):
environments and terrestrialenvironments.
And it seems to be that this iswhere many, many of our largest
cities and urban populationsseem to congregate 40 percent of
the entire world's population iswithin 100 kilometers of a
coastline and 5 of the world'sbiggest cities.
Are located right along coasts.
All the other cities are locatedalong rivers or other water
(03:58):
bodies.
And that's because water playssuch an important role in our
transportation, in ourcommercial pursuits, in our
ability to procure food that wewant to be around it.
And that means on vacation to wewant to be around it as well.
Coastlines are these dynamicenvironments.
They're always changing becausethere's so much force from
storms and waves crashing up onthe land that they're eventually
(04:22):
eroding, or they're beingchanged by humans over time,
because That's where we want tobe.
We're putting in ports.
We're putting in boardwalks.
We're putting in anything to getpeople out onto the water, and
that's changing how the oceanand how the coastline and
species interact with each otherout there.
So coastlines actually can playa really important natural
(04:43):
buffering effect to safeguardextra erosion from happening.
Take mangrove forests forinstance.
They're these amazing placeswhere they're able to basically
dampen a storm as it's comingin.
Coral reefs off of the coast areable to dampen storms as they
come in, so there's less erosiveforce.
But we also want to have accessto these places.
(05:04):
So sometimes they get removedand that's where we can have
lots and lots of change veryquickly on our coastline.
Another reason we love to benear coastlines is because of
the bountiful, plentiful speciesthat are there, at least
initially.
A lot of the times we areattracted to these areas because
they can support so many peoplewith fish, with other natural
(05:25):
resources that are veryplentiful.
And that was the case onVancouver Island, for thousands
of years, we've had this amazingcoastal experience on Vancouver
Island with sea otters andabalone and everything in
perfect balance.
Sea otters are one of the mostplayful animals in the ocean.
They spend their time divingdown to the bottom, grabbing
(05:46):
invertebrates, bringing them up,cracking them on their chest
with rocks they're so, sofascinating.
And it makes the tale even moretragic when they disappeared for
hundred years.
Linda Nichol (05:57):
They stay in the ocean throughout their lives.
They never come ashore.
But they don't have a blubberlayer.
So all other marine mammals,nice thick blubber layer, which
keeps them warm like a wetsuit.
They've evolved this incrediblydense fur that has waterproofing
outer hairs, and then this verydense under fur where air is
captured.
And that air layer keeps themwarm but that's the luxurious
(06:20):
fur that got them in trouble inthe first place
Dave Evans (06:22):
That was Linda Nichol.
She's a research biologist forthe Department of Fisheries and
Oceans Canada.
She studies sea otters, othermarine mammals like whales and
dolphins as well.
the fur trade completely wipedout the sea otter population in
Canada.
So sea otters were these apexpredators.
They were controlling thepopulation of all of these
(06:42):
invertebrates, clams and seaurchins that were all along the
bottom of the ocean.
So Linda, can you tell us whathappened when the sea otters
left?
Linda Nichol (06:51):
So the sea urchins and the abalone and all these
species were released from theirmain predator.
And these animals areherbivores, like grazers, like a
cow, right?
They graze on kilt, they weregrazing and grazing and they
were keeping the kelp fromgrowing.
So the kelp, forests,disappeared.
You'd have these areas that werecarpeted with invertebrates.
We often talk about sea urchinbarrens.
(07:12):
This is the classic story of seaotter effects in rocky habitats.
Dave Evans (07:16):
Okay, so we lost the kelp forest when we lost the
otters.
What really is a kelp forestanyways?
Kelp forests are often referredto as the rainforests of the
sea.
Seaweed, which grows extremelyfast, is able to make this 3D
structure in the ocean.
It allows for carbonsequestration.
(07:37):
It provides buffering for wavesand storms when they come
ashore, but also provideshabitat for so many.
important species, includingmany commercially viable fish,
and the area for young fish tobe able to grow.
Imagine you're in a forest now,if you remove all of the trees,
Suddenly, there's no habitat forspecies that need to be up high
(07:59):
or need to be down low, andeveryone's visible to everyone.
You're not having those visualbarriers.
It's the same thing as a kelpforest down in the water.
Now, a reintroduction eventhappened in the 1970s.
89 sea otters were brought fromAlaska down to the B.
C.
coastline and reintroduced.
And they've done insanely well.
They've now ballooned up to 8,000 sea otters and growing.
(08:23):
And they've had tremendouseffects on the kelp forest.
Linda Nichol (08:27):
So the sea otter is reintroduced, and as the
population recovers in an area,And they start eating these
invertebrates.
They begin to reduce theirnumbers.
This allows the kelp forest togrow.
So that's one of the effects wesee increasing sizes of kelp
forests these kelp beds can bereally big.
In fact, 19 times bigger than inareas where sea otters don't
(08:48):
occur and they can be four timesdeeper, so much, much bigger
kelp forests.
Dave Evans (08:53):
Now you might be thinking, well, isn't this
great?
We have the sea otters back, thekelp forests are back.
What's wrong?
It's hard to say it's a winalways, because there's always
competing interests.
Now we have a boom of tourism.
So people are coming to BC tosee the otters, there's more
species of fish that were comingback to these waters, and the
(09:14):
commercial fisheries are doingwell, but there's always a push
and pull.
Local indigenous communitiesweren't consulted when the
initial reintroduction happened.
They weren't asked if that wouldbe of interest and other
fisheries were also reallyimpacted.
There was really important crab,sea urchin and clam harvest,
which now are not as plentiful.
(09:35):
And so We've had an economicpush and pull where not everyone
is seeing all of the benefitsfrom having the sea otters
there.
And that's often what happens inthese coastal spaces where we
have so many interests that arecompeting.
We often don't even know that wemight be having that impact.
Elvisa Ven Der Leden (09:51):
I was doing a bit of a pub crawl in
Wellington city, I heard thisnoise.
I was like, what the hell isthat weird noise?
Something like this, it goes.
So we're on the coastal walkwaydown there and I went down on
the rocks and I found these twolittle blue penguins and I was
like, Oh my gosh, guys, there'spenguins here.
(10:11):
Right on the city's fringe Itwas my first interaction with
the penguins and then a fewyears later I was catching them
for science and respecting theirboundaries, their and now I go
into schools and when we havefunding for Finding Little Blue.
I work with local schools andeducate them about why it's
important to give them space ifyou do find them
Dave Evans (10:32):
That is Elvisa van der Leeden.
She lives in New Zealand inTaranaki, and is elected to the
Taranaki regional council, andwhile she's not busy with
councillor duties, she'svolunteering in many different
areas in the environmentalsphere, especially with little
blues.
The little blue penguin, orKorora in Maori, is one of the
three penguin species that'sfound in New Zealand.
(10:54):
And it's actually the smallestspecies of penguin in the world.
Another fun fact about penguins,there's actually only seven
species of penguins that everactually go down to Antarctica.
There's actually more species ofpenguins if you add up all of
the species that live inAustralia, New Zealand, the
continent of Africa, and SouthAmerica.
Wild.
The little blue penguin livesalong New Zealand's coastlines
(11:15):
in rocky boroughs.
And often nests really close tohuman settlements, even under
porches.
Because they really like rockycrevices, and it just so happens
that underneath your porch is aperfect spot for penguin
nesting.
The problem is, people don'treally like having them there,
because they're loud, and theydon't smell that great.
But who doesn't want a penguinliving under their porch.
(11:36):
Come on.
The Finding Little Blue programwhich, when it's funded, goes
into schools, provides communityoutreach and education about the
plight of little blue penguins,and what we can do to help
protect them, give them space,and help them thrive and live
alongside each other in peace.
Because, to be quite frank, Iwould be just as surprised
walking home from the bar,seeing a penguin, and I would
(11:58):
want to go and say hi to it aswell.
But it's really important togive them space, and it's their
home too.
So we have these penguins livingright beside humans along the
coastlines in New Zealand.
So what are the main threats?
Well, there's crossing roads,there's busy beaches, there's
people all around and birdsbeing skittish, but there's also
(12:18):
environmental risks as well.
Elvisa Ven Der Leden (12:20):
they've found that fledglings in the
last few years have been dyingoff in mass numbers because of
the turbulence of the water as aside effect of climate change.
The turbulence affects thevisibility so they can't see the
food source as they're trying tohunt it.
With the warming waters, evenjust a couple of degrees
(12:41):
difference can actually shiftfood sources further out to sea.
Say a species thrives in acertain temperature range with
the warming waters, they havebeen seen to be moving further
out.
And even just a kilometer canmake a huge impact on fledgling
little blues burning more energyto try and find their food than
(13:02):
they are actually catching it.
Dave Evans (13:04):
So there's so many different ways that wildlife can
be impacted by sharing thesespaces along coastlines, whether
it's through environmental or,human causes.
But our next stop, we're goingto be looking at what happens
when the humans are also reallyimpacted by the wildlife that
they're sharing the space with.
But first, we have a quick wordfrom our sponsor.
Ow.
I'm so excited to thank today'ssponsor, the Canadian Ocean
(13:26):
Literacy Coalition, as we wereawarded the Blue Creators Grant.
We're so thankful to theCanadian Ocean Literacy
Coalition for helping tocontinue this podcast.
The Canadian Ocean LiteracyCoalition is empowering
Canadians to better understand,value, and care for the ocean.
They launched in 2018 and is anationally and internationally
recognized catalyst and centerfor ocean literacy,
(13:48):
collaboration, research, andinnovation.
They convene and leadcollaborative action across
regions, sectors, and scales,and their work focuses on
education and engagement,research and impact, leadership,
and advocacy.
We're so excited to be part ofthat group.
We're so excited to be releasingthis as part of Ocean Week
Canada, a public celebration ofthe ocean from coast to coast to
(14:11):
coast.
Ocean Week Canada is an annualnational celebration of ocean
events, learning, and engagementheld during the week of World
Ocean Day, June 8th.
Through these events andlearning activities, we
recognize the important role theocean plays in our everyday
lives.
And how local waterways connectus all with the ocean, help us
raise public awareness andcelebrate this connection to
(14:31):
coastal areas, the ocean andwatersheds in Canada.
Together, we can inspire actionto ensure a healthy ocean for
future generations.
Be sure to keep your eyes peeledfor any events happening in your
vicinity.
We're so grateful for yourgenerous support.
Now, back to our episode.
Ow.
Our next stop, we're going tothe Sundarbans in India and
(14:52):
Bangladesh.
It's where the Bay of Bengal,the saltwater meets the
freshwater from the Ganga, theBrahmaputra and the Magna
rivers.
It's the largest mangrove forestin the world.
A huge biodiversity hotspot too.
It's where there's so manydifferent species.
You have sharks, saltwatercrocodiles.
You have so many species ofbirds, mammals.
You also have the largestpopulation of Bengal tigers in
(15:14):
the world.
The area has been very heavilyprotected.
It's a UNESCO World HeritageSite, and it's also a national
park in India, as well as manycountless biosphere reserves.
All of this protection has putextra pressure on the population
of people living there.
Let alone the pressures from thenatural world.
Dinyar Minocherr did hismaster's research looking at
marine protected areas andecotourism in these remote
(15:36):
regions, and what can be done tomake sure that local populations
are involved with that process.
Dinyar Minocher (15:42):
One of the things that's a reality in a
place like this is every singleyear, there's about people taken
by tigers and crocodiles alone.
The men are typically taken bytigers because of honey
collection and fishing and thewomen are typically taken by
crocodiles in that they're doingprawn seed collection, where
they weighed waste deep in waterand do collections.
And often they're taken in thatway.
(16:03):
And I think that's somethingthat we need to realize when we
have these protected areas.
And then we're starting to lateron introduce things like
tourism, you're having thisjuxtaposition of the new world
and the old world comingtogether.
And how can that coexist?
On top of trying to preserve thenatural processes that exist
there, which is the mandate of anational park,
Dave Evans (16:22):
It's really difficult to find this balance
between having these protectedareas where people are
interested to go and investmoney to protect species, but
also making sure that it'sbeneficial for the people who
live there, who call that placehome, who need to rely off of
the natural world to be able tosustain their lives, sustain
their families.
It makes it very difficultbecause oftentimes in places
(16:44):
like the Sundarbans, There maynot actually be that many direct
benefits to the people who livethere, although it might appear
so on paper.
Dinyar goes into much more ofthis in his talk, but I think he
made a really important pointwhen he talked about what we
often think of as poaching.
Dinyar Minocher (16:59):
I think we as a Western society have this
tendency to place responsibilityon the lowest rung of a ladder.
When we declare someone apoacher.
We're pointing at someone who'sthe poorest and most desperate
and doing the actual killing,but they wouldn't kill if there
wasn't a market for it and thatmarket is being fed from many
(17:19):
outside sources.
And then ultimately the personwho we place responsibility on
is the most desperate and justtrying to survive.
And trying to feed theirfamilies.
If we go back to who thesepeople are, these village
populations, completelyuneducated, They have no money
to build.
There's no infrastructure thatalready exists there.
The money is coming from majorcities.
(17:41):
And then it leaves.
And this whole conception of atleast the fishermen would be
making money from the resortsbuying their fish.
All of a sudden that means thatevery single person who lives
there is no longer able toafford.
The top quality of food at all,I think one of the interesting
ways to look at this is to notlook at tourism as a broker and
(18:02):
a tourist interaction, butinstead look at it as a triangle
of the broker, local andtourist.
When you bring in that localcomponent, then you say, okay,
who's benefiting?
And you don't measure that bythe one, two or three people who
benefit you look at.
Across the average of the localpopulations and then you ask
yourself.
How can these people actually beinvolved and then?
(18:24):
It only gets sadder because thereality is yeah sure some of
them can clean maybe if there'ssome English or Bengali Hindi
capacity.
They could work at a little bitof a higher level.
The long and short of that isno, I don't believe it's a win.
It is one of the things that'smost plaguing to the local
populations in this roomprotected area.
And it's one of the things thatwe need to consider as the
(18:44):
Western world, when we thinkthat all the money percolates
down to everyone in society.
If anything, it furthermarginalizes the groups, even at
the bottom,
Dave Evans (18:54):
Ecotourism sounds like this amazing concept, and
it works really well in somesituations.
But that's not always the case,as we see in the cinderbonds.
A lot of times we're drawn tothese coastlines because we have
the marine ecosystems meetingthe terrestrial ecosystems.
We have these biodiversityhotspots and the opportunities
to see such amazing creatures.
(19:15):
And that's the case in our nextstory, where we're stopping in
Greece, where we're looking atsome creatures and how, what we
like to do on the coastlinesreally impacts their ability to
survive.
Liam Dickson (19:26):
My name is Liam Dixon.
I did my PhD on the spatialecology of sea turtles nesting
beaches in Greece.
They've been around for millionsof years, and they're extremely
threatened by coastaldevelopment.
We're talking about theinteractions of humans and
animals along the coastlines.
This is a big one for seaturtles, they come back to the
(19:47):
same beaches to nest and breed.
And if those beaches are gonebecause we've built up a
seawall, or there's a new hotelthere, then there's not really
anywhere for them to go back to.
There's that classic image wherethe sea turtle comes out from
its nest and it's crawlingtowards the water, and the
seagulls are coming down andtrying to eat it.
(20:08):
But that image Is removed fromany sort of human influence, and
we don't think about the turtlecoming out of the Nest and then
there's a beach chair in frontof it blocking its way or
there's a ton of people theretaking photos of it Or there's a
street light behind it.
That's disorienting So thereality and I think something
that gets minimized is Theactual effect that we are having
(20:30):
on the beaches
Dave Evans (20:31):
So again, we're looking at a national park
preserving the habitat forendangered species, but there's
a lot of other differentfactors.
It's in Greece.
There's a very different societythere, and the poverty level is
just not even comparable to thearea in the Cinderbonds.
So we have this juxtaposition,though, of.
A very popular tourism area andthese endangered species.
(20:55):
So when William was doing hisPhD, he got to observe a pretty
unique time period in humanhistory, as he was studying the
spatial ecology of where thesesea turtles go every day and
what areas they actually use.
Liam Dickson (21:08):
The research that you're referring to is focused
around the, nesting beach onZakynthos in Greece, this is one
of the biggest sea turtlenesting beaches in all of the
Mediterranean.
And it's also an extremelytouristed area.
There is this big high streetwith massive beach clubs.
And you get a ton of people fromall over the place.
(21:29):
And just partying and drinkingand getting really raucous.
You've got all this big club,sending Fireworks out basically
every night on this sea turtlenesting beach, so there's huge
amounts of activity there.
Sea turtles were coming in quiteclose to shore, where the water
was a bit warmer later on in theseason, as the water warmed up,
(21:51):
they were moving offshore intothe deeper waters.
And we thought, okay, maybethey're moving offshore because
the water's getting too hot.
We didn't really know if thereare other influences there's
been tourism there since beforewe were monitoring the sea
turtles on the beaches, so COVIDprovided extremely unheard of
opportunity.
As kind of a proxy baseline forwhat the turtles would do if
(22:15):
there was no tourism, And whenwe were monitoring the sea
turtles during that period, wesaw that they actually Stayed in
those shallow, warmer waters formuch longer.
So we were able to conclude thatit's actually a large part of
their moving offshore is theinfluence of tourists arriving
as the season warms up.
(22:36):
When the beaches are perfect forlying out and going swimming and
stuff, that's driving these seaturtles offshore.
Dave Evans (22:41):
Driving these sea turtles offshore may not sound
like that big of a deal,especially when you look at how
that impacts them as apopulation might change your
mind One of the interestingthings with sea turtles is that
water temperature actuallyaffects egg development within
the females, if they're inwarmer water, their eggs can
develop a lot quicker, andthey're able to have more
(23:03):
nesting events every year.
So they actually are able tomake way more babies or
potential new sea turtles everyyear, there's also another
number of effects that arehappening here too as sea levels
continue to rise, there'spotentially less and less
available area for the seaturtles to nest on the beaches.
The beaches aren't increasing insize the same level as the water
(23:25):
is rising.
If anything, the tourists andthe sea turtles are being put
into more conflict of sharingthis dwindling space on these
beaches.
As well, there's also an impactto the temperature of the sand.
So as sea turtles lay their eggsthe sand temperature actually
affects the female to male ratioof the hatchlings.
As the sand temperatureincreases, you're more and more
(23:46):
likely to get more females thanmales hatching out.
And while you don't need as manymales in a population you're
going to start to seebottlenecks.
As well, As the sand temperatureincreases if you get to a
certain threshold, those eggsare just going to be cooked and
they're not going to be able tobe successfully hatched so
there's many different pressuresfacing these sea turtles, which
are a huge draw to people tocome to these beaches to see
(24:09):
these areas.
What's the answer?
What can we do about it?
Liam Dickson (24:12):
There is management in place already.
I mean, it's a national parkThere's still motorboats driving
around.
There's still these massivetourism boats that are going and
looking at the turtles.
And, We can't say that thesolution is to stop all tourism,
really, because people of thatisland also depend on this for
their livelihood.
It's not really a sustainableoption or a realistic option to
(24:36):
just say, okay, we need to closeall the clubs and all of these
people who live on the islandare now going to be out of work.
And they're going to basicallynot have an income.
It's really more to highlightthat we need to find.
A better way for humans and seaturtles to coexist, whether that
be closing off certain parts ofthe beaches completely to
tourism during certain parts ofthe year, or having some sort
(24:57):
active management, where, if weare seeing on one day, the sea
turtles are in one area of thebeach, then closing that area of
the beach off and tourism on theother side, and then shifting
that as they move back.
And.
We're hoping that drones canallow that to happen.
Dave Evans (25:13):
Yeah, you heard that correctly.
He said drones.
That's exactly what Liam hasbeen doing for his PhD, is using
drones to be able to map outwhere sea turtles are and how
they're using the ocean habitatswhile we don't even see them out
there.
It's amazing to see from adrone's perspective what the
ocean looks like because you cantrack things that we have no
(25:34):
idea about if you're justsitting on the beach.
Before we continue, we have aquick word from today's sponsor.
Thank you so much to theEnvironmental Studies Institute
of Grant McEwen University,based in Edmonton, Alberta.
We're so grateful for thesponsorship and the support from
this program.
The Institute is designed tofoster the development of a
human population that is awareand concerned about the
(25:56):
environment.
This is achieved by developingknowledge and increasing the
capacity of individuals andgroups to find solutions that
contribute to a healthy andsustainable environment.
And we're so excited to be apart of that as part of this
podcast.
We're so grateful for yourgenerous support.
Now, back to our episode.
So there's definitely ways thatwe can work to coexist along
(26:16):
these coastal areas.
We just have to know what's outthere.
And drones provide that otherperspective, being able to
monitor what's out there and howour current impact is impacting
those species.
and this takes us to our finalstop today, where we're going
back to Canada, around theworld, to the east coast this
time.
Where we get to learn a littlebit more about some endangered
(26:37):
species that are coming back toour waters and a lot of species
that maybe you didn't even knowwe already had.
Chris Harvey-Clark (26:44):
We've had tiger sharks caught here.
In fact I helped to teach, aclass we call shark school in
the summer.
And the students get to go tosea and catch blue sharks and
tag them and release them, Infact, we even have our sort of
resident blue shark stock offHalifax.
It's here all year round.
Most of the species we see arecold adapted.
Which are the white shark Makoshark, poor beagle shark.
Then we have all the deep seasharks, Greenland shark.
(27:06):
They're right up into the Arcticand right around, till they run
into their Pacific cousin, thePacific sleeper shark.
They're also in very deep water,up to 10, 000 feet and deeper.
Dave Evans (27:14):
That's Dr.
Chris Harvey Clark fromDalhousie University.
He is one of Canada's foremostshark experts and has the
privilege of being one of thevery few people to have dove in
Canada and had a very closeencounter with a great white
shark, just outside of HalifaxHarbor.
Now I think a lot of people arewondering, have we always had
sharks in Canada?
Are we having more sharks inCanada?
(27:36):
And there's a lot of fear whenit comes to talking about sharks
because they do seem to be theseterrible predators.
But the reality is with sharkattacks that they happen very
infrequently.
Maybe we're seeing more of thisin Canada?
Chris, do you mind taking itfrom here?
Chris Harvey-Clark (27:50):
When Champlain came over in 1534.
He stopped at the beta chiller.
Which is, just before you goaround the tip of Brunswick, and
one of his men was swimming offthe boat and had his legs taken
by a shark.
Undoubtedly a white.
That's the only thing aroundthat could do that.
And, bled to death on the deck.
So, there have been sharkattacks here.
The first nations certainly knewthere were white sharks around.
The shark is in their legendsand white shark remains are
(28:12):
found in their middens.
Some of them stained with redochre, which means they were
some kind of a holy or ritualobject.
And, most of these encountersuntil recent years, until sort
of social media and the cellphone and stuff like that
happened, they'd be local lore,but you'd never hear about them.
Unless you were in the localcommunity the guys might talk,
but it wasn't ever anything thatwas reported in the media.
Probably the first real sharkbite encounter that likely
(28:35):
involved a white happened onFriday the 13th of 2021, a young
woman, was swimming off a boatup near Marguerite, which is on
the other side of Cape Breton.
And the shark bit her across thelegs and then released her and,
pretty severe injuries, like 120stitches or something like that.
And she was hospitalized.
She declined to talk about it.
(28:55):
And I fully understand thatbecause I can tell you having
had a white shark encountermyself, it's traumatic.
And replaying it doesn't help.
And then this last summer wasweird.
We've had a number of whiteshark strand.
I believe we had the first diveropen water encounter since then.
We've had seven more in the lasttwo years.
No one's been injured, butthere've been a lot of close
Passes.
We also had a hunter was duckhunting and put his dog in the
(29:18):
water to go get the duck and theshark took it out.
Another shark was observedtaking a deer that was swimming
between two islands these areunprecedented things that are
going on, Dave.
This has never happened before,and it's a sign that things have
changed in a pretty serious way.
And I think the story with whitesharks coming into our waters is
a really interesting one.
I think two things really cometogether.
(29:38):
First of all, We have anunprecedented seal population in
the Maritimes right now.
Not a lot of sealing goes onanymore, the estimate for the
whole sort of maritime region issomewhere probably north of
500,000 animals, and theyproduce about 87,000 pups a
year, That's what a white sharkwants.
So we got a lot of food.
The banquets open.
And the other thing that'shappened is north and south of
(29:59):
the border, we protected thewhite shark., in 97, prior to
that, there was a very active,aggressive headboat fishery
targeting big white sharks.
The idea was to catch thebiggest one you could and take
it back to the dock and get yourpicture with it.
The females don't really matureuntil they're about 15 or 16
feet long, at which pointthey're about 25, 26, 27 years
old and they don't have hugelitters.
(30:20):
So very easy to wipe out, theother interesting thing.
Is doubling time for whitesharks, it's a number of years
that it takes a singleindividual to completely replace
itself as a reproductivelymature active adult.
So how many sharks does it taketo make another?
It's about 26 years.
What is 1997 plus 26?
Yeah.
I think we're seeing the endresults of that.
(30:41):
Protection measure now that wegot white sharks up here.
Dave Evans (30:43):
There's been a number of different factors that
have led to the recovery of theGreat White Sharks on the east
coast of Canada.
So there's been a huge recoveryof these great white shark
species.
And while that's amazing.
We've grown accustomed to nothaving great white sharks in our
waters.
So how do we coexist with themnow?
And that's where we're at.
We're trying to figure this outas we get used to seeing great
(31:05):
white sharks and they're beingattracted to the waters with all
of the seals, there's all thesedifferent coexistences that
we're still trying to figureout.
All across the world, all alongour coastlines.
And that's what makes this topicso fascinating.
Whether it's sea otters, Bengaltigers, little blue penguins sea
turtles, or great white sharks.
There's so many differentstories, and we're so excited to
(31:27):
dive way deeper into all ofthese with all of the full
length episodes coming out soon.
Thank you so much for joiningtoday as we explored around the
world.
What is happening along ourcoastlines?
How we share spaces withendangered species and how they
(31:48):
affect us.
And then we affect them if youliked any of these topics and
want to learn more, we'll leavelinks in the show notes so that
you can actually go and learnmore about these species and the
organizations that are helpingthem out.
Thank you so much to all of theguests who spoke to us for this
episode.
Linda Nickel from the Departmentof Fisheries and Oceans Canada,
Elvisa Vanderleiden from theTaranaki Regional Council,
Dinyar Minocher, Dr.
(32:09):
Liam Dixon, and Dr.
Chris Harvey Clark fromDalhousie University.
Thank you so much and be sure tocome back and check out the full
interviews with each of theseexperts as we dig way more into
their specific issue, when yousee coexistence along
coastlines.
I'm the host and the producer ofthe podcast, David Evans, and
also the director ofconservation for the aquatic
(32:29):
biosphere project.
Thanks to Lianna Bresson forpodcast editing and
storyboarding support.
I'd Also like to thank the restof the aquatic biosphere project
team, Paula Polman, Ari DeJong,Lee Burton, and Dr.
Ross Shaw.
Thank you so much for all ofyour continued support in
developing this podcast if you'dlike to learn more about the
aquatic biosphere project andhow we're telling the story of
water in Alberta, please go toaquaticbiosphere.
(32:52):
ca.
You have any questions orcomments about the show, please
send us a message.
We'd love to hear from you.
You can email us at conservationat aquatic biosphere.
org or leave a comment pleasedon't forget to like share and
subscribe.
It really helps us out.
Thanks.
And it's been a splash.
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