🪸 Under the Sea with Claire Macdonel

Originally aired on August 2, 2026. Doug's insightful interview with Claire Macdonel, for your listening pleasure.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Nine oh two on Sports Talk seven ninety The Dug
Pike Show. Thank you for listening. I certainly do appreciate it.
It is time now to introduce a very special guest
on The Dug Pike Show. And I'm guessing most of
you have heard the story about thirteen year old Sugarland
girl who had a little incident down in Turks and
Caicos a week ago or so as she celebrated her birthday. Well,
she's gotten through the big surgery this past week. I

(00:21):
am happy to let you know, and is ready to
have a conversation with me, which makes me very happy. Claire,
are you there? Welcome? Punch that button? Rank there we are, Hi, Claire,
how are you? I'm doing great. I'm glad to hear that.
I really am. I'm not going to dwell on what
happened down there, Okay. What drew me more to your
story is your passion for marine biology and even more interesting,

(00:42):
why you're still interested in it after that. What's your
first memory of being around saltwater?

Speaker 2 (00:47):
My first memory was hanging out with my family, but
going to find shells, looking at and fish, and just
exploring what was inside the ocean.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
At a young age.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
I take it you've done a lot of snort in
your tongue. Yes, I figured as much. Was there anything
special about that first time when you're seeing the shells down?
I've done that too. I've done a lot of diving
and snorkeling, and I know exactly how you feel. Describe
what it where it takes you when you're seeing all

(01:19):
these fish around you and the shells on the bottom
and the quarrels and whatnot. Where what does that make
you feel inside?

Speaker 2 (01:27):
It makes me feel really happy because at a young
age I always wanted to become a mermaid because I
was so fascinated by the ocean and I just wanted
to live in it.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
You know. And for the record, Claire, I agree with you.
Nobody has ever proven that there are no mermaids, have they?
H I'm just going that's exactly right. So who knows?
Does your school offer any courses in marine biology or
anything like that? I'm not sure, not quite yet. Yeah,
maybe high school, I think before you'll be able to

(01:57):
do that. Is that something you plan to study as
you get a little.

Speaker 3 (02:01):
Yes, of course.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
And are you doing a lot of reading about it
as you grow up? Is that something you've drawn to.
If you have an hour to kill, are you going
to go look up something about marine biology? Yes? Oh, man,
I like you so much more already. That was me
growing up, It really was. I was so fascinated. My
grandparents had a house in Florida. I'll tell you about
that some other time. So do you have a favorite

(02:24):
animal that lives in the ocean.

Speaker 3 (02:28):
I think it's a seahorse.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
Oh, very good choice. I like that. I really do.
Why the sea horse because I feel.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Like they're so pretty and I just want to learn
all about them because they have a lot like their
skin is really weird looking, but it's also it looks
really fun to learn.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
Yeah, they're kind of cool animals. I've seen a couple
of those out there. Yeah. I like that. And here's
a chance for you to say it out loud if
you want to. Do you have a least favorite animal
in the sea? Just now? Yeah? You want to? You
want to say it?

Speaker 3 (03:07):
Arracuda?

Speaker 1 (03:10):
I heard, Claire, I heard that you named that barracuda?

Speaker 3 (03:14):
Mm hmmm.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
And what what was that barracuda's name?

Speaker 3 (03:19):
Susie the varracuda.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
And so you're you're are you on speaking terms? With
Susie anymore, or y'all just had to cut the cord.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
We had to cut the cord. It just didn't work out.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
Yeah, you know, and that's okay, that's okay. Uh gosh,
Claire McDonald on The Doug Pie Show, I like you
so much. So let's say you and your family were
going to go on a beautiful beach somewhere for another
vacation soon and and everybody turned to you at breakfast
and said, Hey, Claire, what do you want to do today?
What are you going to do? If you could do

(03:49):
anything you wanted to do on that ocean front vacation
of yours, what what is your choice of The first choice?

Speaker 2 (03:57):
Go to a snorklink like a re where you can
snorkel and swim with the dolphins.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
Ah, you haven't swum with dolphins yet, No, not yet.
That's ah. I bet that's going to be awesome when
you do that. That's something I've never done. I'd like
to do that too. By the way, the way you
handled all of this stuff that you've gone through, I've
been watching it pretty closely. It shows just a tremendous
amount of maturity and understanding on your part. Just thirteen

(04:24):
years old. I really genuinely admire you for that, Okay,
I wanted to make sure you know that. Uh, can
you see yourself as a marine biology you're going to
study it in college? What profession would you like to
go into? Is there anything specific about marine biology that
like you would like to do.

Speaker 3 (04:47):
I'll get back to you with thatllan I'm not sure.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
Okay, Yeah, that's no problem. How important is it to
you that my generation and your parents' generation work on
making the oceans cleaner?

Speaker 2 (05:02):
Well?

Speaker 3 (05:02):
Can you repeat that? I'm sorry?

Speaker 1 (05:04):
And how important is you How important is it to
you that that my generation, I'm older than your mom
and dad and their generation, that we really work to
keep the oceans clean for you and your generation?

Speaker 3 (05:18):
Hmm, yeah, it's really im portantin.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
Yeah, do you think we're doing an okay job of that? Now?
Not really? Okay, Well explain. I'm glad to hear that.
I'm glad you had the courage to say that in
front of your mom. So what are we doing wrong?
What should we be doing better?

Speaker 3 (05:37):
We should?

Speaker 2 (05:38):
Well, the coral, the coral is already kept safe, it's protected,
but there ever since, like the sea turtles have been
almost like if they have been protected the plastic, they're
doing good on the plastic. But now like that the
turtles are saved, the people are starting to not care

(05:59):
about out the pollution.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
Well, yeah, we do need to work on pollution. And
that's all around the world. There are a lot of
places we're we're pretty good on the scale of one
to ten. There are places in the world where it's
a lot worse. And I'm glad there's going to be
youngsters like you coming up to jump in and do
some of that stuff. I also can tell you from
firsthand experience. Just this past week, I saw for the

(06:24):
first time in two consecutive trips on you know, day
after one one day and one two days later, I
saw Little Ridley's turtles at the surf side Jetty. Not
down in Corpus where there's tons of them, but I
saw them at surf side. Yeah. I was really impressed.
I hadn't seen them. I don't think i'd ever seen
turtles there before, and there they were, dog on it.

(06:46):
I was really happy to see that. So they're expanding
their range. Maybe I don't know, but whatever it is,
it makes me feel like it's getting a little better.

Speaker 3 (06:53):
Huh.

Speaker 1 (06:55):
Yeah, So do you have any any plans? Do you
have any plans for another trip soon?

Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yes, we're gonna go back to Turks and Caico.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
Are you You're not gonna go looking for Susie? Are you?

Speaker 2 (07:07):
Um?

Speaker 1 (07:09):
Probably not.

Speaker 3 (07:09):
Maybe we can go try go fishing for her.

Speaker 1 (07:11):
With Oh that's a whole different thing now, isn't it.
Oh uh, she cook her up? Yeah. Oh oh, I
think you've got some pretty rough plans for Susie. Oh
my goodness. Oh you're such a wonderful young woman. I'm
so happy that I got a chance to talk to you,
I really am. What if you could here's your chance

(07:35):
to deliver a message to a whole bunch of adults, okay,
and tell them what Claire McDonald thinks about the future
of our oceans. What's your message to the adults in
this room right now?

Speaker 2 (07:50):
Keeping them safe, keeping the ocean, like, keeping the marine
life safe. So all the coral and the turtles, exeter,
all the animals that need to be protected, that are
about to go extinct, we can protect them, and we
could do so much better.

Speaker 1 (08:10):
And yeah, you know, it's just so beautiful underwater. I
couldn't agree with you more when you get down there,
if you haven't done it for people who haven't done it,
Claire and I have done this, and it's just amazing
what you see. I've been blessed just as you have
to be able to do that. And man, next time
I get a chance, i'm gonna go and I'm gonna

(08:30):
think about you. But not Susie. Okay, Okay, Clara McDonald,
I'm so glad you're healing up. It sounds like you're
feeling better. You're laughing and having a good time again.
I'm thrilled that I got to talk to you. I
really am thank you for your time this morning to you. Okay, yeah,
bye bye, bye bye. How about that, Frankie, what do

(08:50):
you think that was great? That little girl is way
beyond her years. And she's not you know, she's not
pushy about it. He's like somebody like Greta Thornburg or
whatever her name is. Claire McDonnell is just saying it's
common sense advice, but it's not. It's not over the
top stuff. Just just take care of the oceans, save

(09:13):
the fish, save the turtles, save the corals. Corals are
in a little bit better shape. I got to see
a reef that had been bleached years ago. I went
on a trip down to it. May have been Honduras
or one of the trips down that way somewhere, but anyway,
the bottom line is we dove a coral reef that
was just obliterated almost by bleaching, and it really opened

(09:36):
my eyes. And I learned about maybe four or five
years ago that they had almost completely recovered that reef. Now,
so yeah, there are ways to make sure that these
oceans of ours get taken care of and everything that
lives in them, and the corals and the turtles and
the fish and the mermaids. They're all out there, and
they all need to be taken care of, right, Frankie,

(09:58):
especially the mermaids especially all right, man, that was that
was one of my That may be one of my
all time favorites right there, for sure. It's such such
innocence and such such a pure heart and somebody who
really cares about something that deeply at thirteen, when a
lot of thirteen year old girls don't care about much.
But I don't. I don't know. I've never been one,

(10:20):
and I don't I have an eighteen year old son. Yeah. Anyway,
that that was fun for me. It really was