Deep Sea Shark Discovery: Ivy Barrymore and David Ebert Train the Next Generation in Honduras

1:00:00 Welcome back to this bonus episode of the Beyond Jaws podcast. We're going to be talking to Ivy Bearmorf, who's part of the Mar Alliance, who recently collaborated with our very own Dr. David Ebert to do a workshop on shark identification of DC sharks. We're going to talk about that on today's episode of the, of the Beyond Jaws podcast, not the How to Protect the Ocean podcast, the Beyond Jaws podcast, which is about to say, let's start the show. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another exciting episode of the Beyond Jaws podcast. I am your cohost, Andrew Lewin here with my cohost, Dr. David Ebert. And Dave, this is kind of a special show. Last show, you were the focus of the show. Now you're like the half focus of the show because you did a workshop with Ivy.

1:00:45 And we're going to be talking a lot about that workshop. So kind of set the scene for us in terms of what people should know about this workshop. Well, we do these, I do these workshops. I've been doing these for a long time, for decades, but the, and Ivy and I have been talking about this one for about a decade. And it's coincidentally, it just happened to be after I came off this month long trip to Madagascar. But, but anyway, it was, yeah, it does. But, but you know, the, they're really important that run these identification workshops like I do, because it really helps lay the, the foundation for, you know, countries, if they want to develop, you know, international plans of action for sharks and rays in their country. You're really, it's like, I always look at like building a building. You got to lay the foundation first. And the foundation is what species do you have there? And, and be able to train people in country to identify stuff has been, is really where it all starts.

1:01:36 And because I have the expertise, expertise, I've been doing this for a long time. I go to a lot of these countries, meet a lot of the young people, get the network with them and train them on, on how to do basic identification of sharks and rays. And so really, and it's something that we talk about in the, in the, we'll talk about in the episode is like, it has an impact because young people can do something, develop checklists and stuff. And it can have an immediate impact right away as far as helping, helping develop conservation and fishery management policy. Well, I think it's, I think it's really important too, because as you mentioned in a number of a number of different episodes that we've mentioned is people don't know a lot about sharks in their, in their own countries.

1:02:16 And it's just because they just haven't had the training or they haven't had the need for it at that point. And then when you are able to do these workshops and you're able to share it with, you know, just the skills and experience that you need to go through something like this to be able to identify in the future. Look, we probably, and a lot of some of these, some of these people are, are students that are looking, looking to do marine biology of some sort, probably get into shark biology. You might be helping to take a career off to, you know, like basically looking at a career to take off in deep sea sharks within Honduras in this country, which I think is amazing. So I'm looking forward to getting to the interview. So here's the interview with Ivy Behrmer from our Alliance talking about the deep sea shark identification workshop.

1:03:03 We enjoy the interview and we'll talk to you after. Hey, Ivy, welcome back to the Beyond Jaws podcast. Are you ready to talk about sharks? I'm always ready to talk about great to be here. Welcome. Welcome to the Beyond Jaws podcast. We have the fabulous Dr. Ivy Merrimore back on for a bonus episode here today. I've is your might recall was on episode 77 last year in September of 2024, where she talked about her journeys as shark researcher and conservationist and Ivy just to refresh your memory has a PhD from University of Exeter, as well as an MSC from the University of Florida and a BSC from University of Florida State. She's the science coordinator for Mar Alliance, which is an organization founded by our friend Rachel Graham, who also appeared on the show back in way back on episode 17 in March of 2022.

1:03:56 And Ivy here today to talk about a workshop that she organized. It took place the week of October 20th in Honduras. And yours truly is also involved in that as well. So but she'll talk about we'll talk about how the importance of these workshops are for teaching people how to identify stuff. And Ivy, welcome back to the show. Thanks so much. And thanks for having me back. Great. So why don't you tell us about what's sort of the genesis of the workshop and everything? Well, this is something that I've been thinking about for a long time. And you and I have been talking about this for a long time, since I kind of first sent you a picture of a deep sea shark. And I think it's been about 10 years ago, which I think happens to you quite often.

1:04:42 But I was lucky this year to get a fellowship from the Ross Robertson Research Award for field studies on Neotropical deep reef fishes very long title on that one. And as part of that fellowship, I included some funds for a regional taxonomy workshop because because of the conversations that we've had and I've had with other people around the world on some of these species that we're catching that we just kind of keep bumping up against and not quite being able to really nail down what we've got. And kind of realizing that this is a very understudied region and there's very few opportunities for local researchers to actually see any of these species that exist in their backyard.

1:05:32 So we thought it would be just a really great opportunity to kind of raise awareness of what we have here. But then also try to maybe start to put a little bit of a pin in the species that we've got because we're still kind of back where I started on identifying some of these deep water species, shark species that we've been catching in Belize and here in Honduras as well. So we're still kind of at the bottom of the line. And so we've got a lot of people that are really excited about the African Sea, you know, you get people that are just excited about it because Honduras doesn't like a lot of the Central American countries doesn't really have a long history of shark research in the country and they have a fair.

1:06:17 You have to give me the number, but it's like a reasonable coastline in the Caribbean, but they're very small coastline in the Pacific. Correct. So it's mostly actions going to be more in the Caribbean side. On the downside also, Honduras actually has more water than land. The economic exclusive zone, I could give you the exact number, but it is actually more than the square kilometers for the land that is within the country. And so it's a huge territory and very little bit, little of it has been explored even with no bathymetry maps aren't very good. And it's it encompasses part of the Cayman Trench as well. So, you know, there's just no telling what's out there. Yeah.

1:07:06 Now, now when you start, so can you been in Honduras now for what have been been about close to 10 years you've been in Honduras now? I've been in Honduras for six years and before that I was in Belize for about about five or six years. Okay. Okay. So how do you, you know, you go here, you're so you're operating in a country where obviously you're you're you're expert in, in Kendrick things and sharks and rays, but you're working in a country. It doesn't have like a history or tradition of people doing that. How do you go? How'd you go about finding the participants for the for the workshop? Well, fortunately, our country coordinator, Analucia Lopez is, is well connected. Our research officer, so beta Nunez is also she we hosted the workshop in Tello, which is where she's based. I'm in the Bay Islands. I'm in Roa 10. So I'm we're all in, and I'll see as in the capital city.

1:07:56 So we're all spread out. We don't actually have a, you know, an office together. So we just put together our resources. So beta's work with a lot of different organizations. Analucia knows a lot of people that are at the universities. So we knew that we wanted to invite sort of a broad range of people, not just, not just the scientists and not just managers, but we also wanted to extend the invitation to, to lay people, shark enthusiasts who might get something out of this just to have a more broad understanding, but also enthusiasm. It is great, you know, scientists were all great and managers and everything, but you know, that's it's very brass tacks. But having people who students we had some, we had both university students and a young man who is 13 years old. So he was the high school student who actually participated in the entire workshop. And so getting that kind of enthusiasm and also people who don't want to be in the workshop.

1:08:54 So people who don't work in the end, who aren't necessarily professional scientists have a totally different perspective on conservation and biology. And often, I think what happens when you talk to people who aren't kind of in your world, you get questions and perspectives that you don't necessarily get otherwise. And so it's really nice to be able to speak to other people who have a totally different perspective who might then, you know, like open up different ideas and, you know, open up different ideas and other ways of looking at questions. And you had people from the diving community, for example, also involved in the thing. Yeah, exactly. And they were great because we did a field trip. We did go out and try to catch some of the these, the deep sea sharks, the gulpers sharks that are that occur near Tella.

1:09:43 Unfortunately, we didn't have any luck. We were only out for about three hours. And if you've ever been sharking or especially for deep sea, you know, that that's not really very much time. Yeah, but they they supported us with the we were able to go out with the dive company on their boats. And, you know, they're they love sharks to they want to see sharks. That's something that's, that's super exciting. They want when they go diving, they, they want to see sharks. And so having them there to talk to us and be able to basically have access to people. I think a lot of people have an idea that scientists are kind of stuffy and unapproachable. But the fact that, you know, we were there just chatting and they could they, you know, to all take out their phones and we're like, you know, this is where we see this one.

1:10:23 And this is where we see this one. What do you think this one is, you know, being able to have those kinds of conversations, I think it really changes people's minds about what science is and how approachable and it also makes it things like citizen science and increases our ability to think about science. And so we're really excited to have our ability to talk with citizen scientists and to get more information that we wouldn't necessarily get otherwise. Now, with with with the people there, so you got you had to quite like so you mentioned you had like a 13 year old high school student there, which was pretty amazing. He was a pretty enthusiastic young guy. And that's kind of really the future for Honduras. Even though all even though pretty much like everybody else you had there was pretty much under 30 years old, which really makes you feel old.

1:11:09 I do it. Yes. Yes. Go have some fun. I like, no, not me, man. I'm like, I got to get up and work tomorrow. Yeah. So that was really good. And it was interesting talking to a lot of them because they seem pretty enthusiastic. I think that really came up, came came came out when we were doing some of the necropsies doing some of the dissections and some of the different sharks that you saved and collected over the last recent few months. And just seeing how excited they were to actually look at these things. I yeah, me too. I was, you know, you never really know how people are going to react in a dissection. And, you know, they're sharks, but, you know, they've been in a freezer for a little while.

1:11:50 They're a little smelly, you know, and when they've got these sharks, the deep sea sharks, also, they have these very oily livers. And so there's a lot of, you know, it's just, you have to really get your hands dirty, even with gloves, you have to kind of just get in there. And boy, did they get in there. Yeah, there was a lot of poking and prodding. One of those university students dissected the heart and wanted to keep, you know, one of this, because it was such a fascinating thing for her. So like, ask if she could keep the heart. Yeah, you can keep the heart. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, and being able to be, being able to show in, you know, in person, you know, really on a slide or textbook about the different modes of reproduction is one thing, but actually having like an embryo of sharks that can actually hold in your hand is something that is, I think most people don't get to experience.

1:12:43 Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. I think it was kind of fun the first day and we had, they had to identify the sharks there by species. And with a couple of gulper sharks, we were having like, they came with a couple of different species that you and I pretty much thought that was correct, what they came up with. And then, of course, the next day, we started going through and realized like, uh-oh, there's going to be a problem there. Oh, it goes to show the challenging part of identifying sharks, right? That's, that's. Yeah. Yeah. And especially these species, the gulper sharks, which have been hounding me. Yeah. It's a, it's, I mean, they gave the species of gulper sharks were one of the hardest groups taxonomically to identify. Believe me, I've been working on this with Will White for now going on 20 years, trying to sort them out. And I was pretty convinced we had like at least two different species of gulper sharks.

1:13:37 And I think we had two species there, but after we did the dissection, I know we may still have two species there, but sure. I kind of threw a curve ball at us that they're both pregnant. We won with one. I was sure it was going to be immature. It's going to be much larger granular, centropolis granulosis species and the common gulper shark and it was like, uh, this thing shouldn't be pregnant at this size here. So, um, and the other one that was small and should have been mature was not correct. Exactly. And all, all three of them look different. And I know with gulper sharks, they changed. And you know, this too, they, they, with they grow, they change. And so like, if you look at a small one and intermediate size and a large one, they could be very different looking and, um, and all three of the ones you had were all very different looking, but two, we kind of thought might be the same species and they turned out to be internally like wildly different. And the one we were convinced was definitely something different. That turned out to be similar to one of the other two, the two pregnant was one of the two pregnant ones we found. Yeah, we didn't go, we didn't go too far.

1:14:33 Yeah, we didn't go easy on them. No, they got thrown into the, do we definitely through some, through some loops at them? Uh, and the big, because it is, it's something, you know, we, we had a day of, of, uh, sort of the morning, like, well, here's the big picture. Now here's the hardest species that you could possibly try to identify. Yeah. Have at it. What do you think? Yeah. Well, how did they, how did like the, the participants? Cause like the participants, like you said, they're not scientists. How did they take on that challenge? Was it like, did they just like, well, I have no idea where I'm going to do, do they just kind of give up or do they actually like give it a shot? Good shot. Well, I think more than half of them were scientists that participated or scientists and training students. Right. And so they have the, you know, the fundamentals down, but Dave did an amazing presentation in the morning that's, that sort of went down, breaking down. How do you, you know, if you have a shark, what, where do you start? You know, doesn't have spines.

1:15:30 What's the shape of the tail? Does it have this, you know, what are the teeth look like? What are the dermal denticles? So going big and then kind of working down to the smaller things. So we kind of, we told them we didn't really expect them to necessarily get down to the species, but we wanted to have them at least get down where they could identify them to as low as they possibly could. So if they could get to genus, that's great. If they could get to the family, that would, you know, even better. And so, you know, they all had their books and we had printouts and they were all comparing notes and we had them team up like who, who thinks it's this and who thinks it that and sort of split up along teams that way. So yeah, and they, and really, they got really got into, got into it and paired up in teams and, you know, really, like did compare notes and like, what do you think this one might move things around and, you know, poking and broading. So yeah, it was a really great, we, it was a very nice transition from sort of a, there's my motorcycle again.

1:16:29 From a classroom, a classroom setting to a field slash laboratory setting, you know, a nice transition so that no, it wasn't, it never got dull, I think, I think it was really, really fun workshop. No, yeah, I was thinking, just, just for people know, like, you know, obviously the people are Honduras is a Spanish speaking country. And so we had, so we basically had a translator, Gloria was doing the translation. And I'm sorry, what was Gloria? I forgot your last name. So many names, like Ali's name, his name's bunk around my head, but anyway, but they, but he did an excellent job translating. And so it wasn't, so I don't think anybody really had any issues with the language barrier, you know, and I've done, certainly done translations before.

1:17:20 And, you know, I've done in Swahili and Arabic, if you can get through the Chinese, actually, I've done Chinese too. So you get through those Spanish is pretty easy. So, so it's pretty good. And I think it did help also Gloria is a biologist, her, she's got a, her background or her bachelor's degree in biology. So it does help, I think a little bit to have that, you know, more of a working knowledge of the scientific terms. Oh, yeah. So having that and I did my best to kind of keep those, keep things in Spanish as well. But it is always a challenge going back and forth. Because it does double, it doubles your time. Yeah. Yeah. No, she does. Yeah. But no, I mean, a lot of the good questions, you know, we had during the breaks is like, when you get the best stuff, a lot of interactions, people talking to you asking you questions about different things and, and kind of, you know, raising some issues.

1:18:08 Like, I know I talked, we talked a lot about Honduras, they have a, hopefully they'll eventually work towards like a national plan of action. But a lot of, but with the young people there are thinking it could have an impact is developing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, if you're talking about the policy right now with Uncondrictions, sharks raised in the...

1:18:51 So on the books, Honduras is actually a shark sanctuary. It's illegal to catch and land sharks raised. There's no legislation on those. But yeah, so on paper, the Honduras does not have any trade. So there shouldn't be any trade of sharks. But we know there's also there was amendment to the law. So the ban was passed in 2011. In 2016, it was amended to allow for incidental capture. But the incidental capture wasn't very well defined. And it's meant to be just in kind of one region of the country. And and it wasn't very well publicized. So there's just and there's not and there are there's enforcement in some areas, but for the most part, it's it's it's kind of a little bit of a paper park. And so because of that, because there is national legislation against landing and keeping sharks, there's no government record of landings because, you know, technically, it doesn't happen.

1:19:59 So that's one of the things that is important and that we were emphasizing to the attendees is that that, you know, that's kind of the role that we have as as an NGO is to help support where there's not the capacity to do these landings or these monitoring because there technically are no landings and we're not able to measure that. We can go out and do these fishery independent surveys to get an idea of what the baseline is of the status of sharks and rays in the country. So that's one of the things that's important to do. And the absence of sort of the government data or collecting the data that you need for national plans of action.

1:20:42 That's where these kinds of surveys come in because we can we need to know obviously the coastal sharks occur, but the deep sea is a whole other ballgame. And there's you know, there's little not very much funding for the you know, the tropical reef associated in coastal species and so even less for deep sea species. Yeah, no, and the deep sea ones are obviously the more vulnerable ones because they tend to be slower growing longer living and all that compared to the near shore species. So they're even even a potentially more concerned out there. Exactly. And what I what I found here is that the place where we went to try to catch the gulper sharks is just out from Tela Bay. It's not very far off shore.

1:21:29 You can see it's far from it's a bit of a transit for the fishers, but you're close to shore and in two to 300 meters of water and there's just a huge, there's at least two species of gulper sharks. We're catching the pups so it might be a nursery area we catch the adult females. So it's this really interesting place and while right now nobody, not I won't say nobody because there is a targeted shark fishery in Guatemala for deep sea sharks, which is just around the corner. But at the moment the Honduran fishers nobody really wants it. But we can see in the future what's happening in the rest of the world with deep sea sharks is that there is global demand and it's very high in targeted fisheries for deep sea sharks and especially gulper sharks because they have such high oil levels in their in their liver. So the global shark liver oil trade is kind of knocking on the door. So it would really only take you know, we know these species they is what we saw one of them had one pup and may not reproduce. I think the little gulper shark they say that they produce two sharks every two to three years, two pups and so and they live for a long time so they're they have very low productivity and once you knock down that population it's really hard to recover.

1:22:49 So we have a really great opportunity here to sort of protect an area that could be really important for the survival of the species. You raise a question here is that particularly in Central America we have a lot of smaller countries at all border some border both Pacific and Caribbean some just in one but you have a lot of smaller countries and and if like you say in Guatemala has a fishery going where Honduras doesn't I'm not sure what Belize current status is but do you almost see like a regional like I don't know Central American or partisan like a a group of countries in Central America getting together and developing an overall strategy or do you think there'd be it'd be difficult to pull together?

1:23:29 That is funny you should mention that that is something that we definitely have on our radar but there are very different forces at play in the different countries so we have Honduras which technically is a shark sanctuary they're not supposed to be catching exporting. Guatemala has a very tiny piece of the Caribbean on this side so they do have while they do have a shark and ray fishery it's it's just it's something like 11 boats so it's not that that many that being said they are right on the edge like they don't have very much territory there so there is a bit of transboundary fishing that happens there and then Belize is a small country with probably the fewest per capita fishers and they have a shark fishery but it is actually mostly for export to Guatemala and then Mexico is a shark eating country and so while we don't have huge and along that region the shark fishery isn't big and they're not really going for the deep sea sharks yet you know they're they're a shark and array eating country and Guatemala is a shark and array eating country Belize is not so there's like very different dynamics but yes there is a you know we would like to see a unified closed season for sharks the same way that they do lobster and conch yeah those those have been kind of across the region yeah i'd say i'd think Mexico would be a difficult would be a tough one relative to Central America they are shark eating kind of they do huge fisheries i'm more familiar with the

1:25:01 pacific than the than the Caribbean and the gulf side but they obviously they do a lot of fishing for sharks they eat a lot but but from from at least if the Central American countries were more of a block they could have maybe some more i don't know parodies the right word at this point in time to talk about but have something of a yes exactly and the the Caribbean part of Mexico as well um you know these days it's becoming it's like everything else it's becoming more ecotourism um and uh based and so i think there is opportunity there because um the the um they have ecotourism with sharks and and plyo carbon with the bull shark diving um there's ecotourism for the divers with the spotted eagle ray um and so the tide may be turning for those uh those fisheries as well and i think public sentiment is also um changing uh the going away from um killing and more towards keeping them keeping them alive yeah yeah isn't it off the ukutan is there a whale shark ecotourism thing oh yeah huge yeah that's the biggest aggregation of whale sharks uh in the world and it's off of um just north of Cancun, east of the Harris right yeah okay okay and then but even like that's a big biorebizer they actually have that that is a a protected area just where those whale sharks aggregate so that is totally protected right i assume that's big tourist money for mexico is me my guess oh yes for sure yeah as long as i don't show up then all the whale sharks will disappear and they'll never see them so we're gonna

1:26:32 get to there dave yeah but but even but even where you are in uh off of i know Belize i believe and then Honduras you guys do have a bit of a whale shark ecotourism that is an interesting story um yes probably up until about 10 years ago it was a very big um tourism ecotourism uh draw and southern Belize off of gladden spit the the whale sharks came in and um a little bit different part of the year than the Mexico i believe i believe it was earlier in the year and then here off the bay islands especially utilla there was also an aggregation and that both of those sightings have gone down enough uh now that it's really not a reliable in the past you used to be able to say come to Belize see whale sharks during this time and um and now you'll be lucky if you get out to see them um and it's a it's a big shame because it really had become a very big part of the economy of um southern Belize and it was a pretty big part of the economy of um especially utilla um and the bay islands here and um they we do like we we do get reports here and there i went out searching with a friend for whale shark that was cited here a couple weeks ago so they do they do come around but it's not in the same numbers that it was do you think it's just kind of a decadal shift that they come they go they're here for a while i know there's not like a lot of long-term data to show that type of stuff but um i think so so the um the gladden spit Belize population they were around the fish spawning aggregations and those have been

1:28:03 fished down pretty pretty hard um because whale sharks eat fish eggs and uh and um you know the other um plankton in the area and so there was a big opportunity there for the sharks to feed and because those um those spawning aggregations have declined there's just not as much food um and if they it's you know that's one thing that would be great if the the spawning aggregations come back do we see the whale sharks come back um here in the bay islands the i think the running theory is that it actually had to do with um the land crabs that um larvae that's the that's the local um story i don't i can't be for sure about that whale sharks also um feed on things like jack tuna spawn and so it could be any number it could be that the client the the currents have changed um that the you know this the wrong temperature and whatever it was that they were eating just isn't here um anymore or whatever it was that was spawning isn't spawning in such big numbers and it's just not worth it for them to come uh to this to this location anymore yeah it's it's a big mystery we have a lot of theories we all we're scientists we always get theories yeah exactly but a lack of food seems like a pretty good one most of the um the animals that we saw here um in the past are uh juvenile males so they're big still they're whale sharks um but they weren't like the big mature females that you see in some other aggregations um and so you know these guys are trying to grow as fast as they possibly can uh to get to reproductive size and if the food's not

1:29:35 there if they're like teenage boys basically like if they can't just constantly eat they're probably they're going to try and find somewhere else where they're going to have have better snack yeah so uh so what kind of stuff net with the uh with this workshop now you're going to be you're going to have some some kind of post workshop stuff count i know you're working on a video from this we hope so yes um so we were able to um bring in a photographer videographer to get a lot of good footage so um we'd like to um be we'll put out some kind we'll be putting out news articles and blogs and things like that and then um from the videos we should be able to put up some some great like summary um summary videos and uh and social media posts and reels and things like that about the workshop and then also um with the shark and ray exhibit that our country coordinator anna lucia has put together which is a save our seas funded project um so we've also um got great some great output something coming from that one as well and that's an exhibit that's traveling throughout honduras this year and then next year it's going to belize um and so it's going to be translated into this one's in spanish and we're translating it into english and then um hopefully we can get into some of the other local languages like garifuna and maya and the local creoles and things like that so nice yeah really nice opportunity to get more elizmo evangelizing yeah well i know i posted some stuff on social media and i know you'll probably be doing some more is there any is there any website off the top you people could go check it

1:31:06 out just online now or you need to wait wait until it comes um we are what we have information on our website our our social medias our instagram uh facebook um all those are youtube that would be the places so we'll definitely be posting a link when we have those videos up okay um and the other thing that i that's part of this um fellowship that that funded uh the tech the workshop um is i'm trying to get out some satellite tags on some of these species as well so i'm i'm looking at the atlantic six skill shark um i've got two out right now i'm hopefully um in a couple weeks we'll have some data and then i've got three more to put out so before the end of the year i hope to have um uh five tag sharks um and so we'll be putting out some information about that as soon as we get it as well oh great oh that's that's really cool so a bit so they'll be able to they'll be able to follow there'll be a lot more i think it's kind of great you can have they have some follow-ups a lot of times these workshops and and everybody takes off and that's like last the last you hear of anybody on uh yeah exactly yeah we're hope we um we've got a little whatsapp group with all of the participants and um you provided a lot of really great resources for everybody um so a big mountain of shark references and taxonomy and and uh identification guides and everything um so yeah we'll definitely be keeping that group um in the loop and um i also um i still would like to get out and you know collect a few more of these organisms we've got to get some more genetic uh genetic uh samples so that we can

1:32:36 start to really kind of nail down uh what we've got and then working with um brit brit finucci and um and others on the liver oil um project as well so uh we've got a lot of good stuff coming up that's great that's that's really that's really that's really terrific stuff um is there anything you want to kind of add onto our discussion here and everything before we go any other any other kind of thoughts or comments you have um well first of all thanks for coming for making this happen davis i think it was very successful um like i said we've been talking about this for for about a decade um and so it was really great that we were able to to bring it together and you know we've been talking about replicating something like this and beliefs um so that we can get our you know a lot of our other partners um uh i think one of the better thing one of the nice things about the workshop also was that um we talked a lot about how to take good photos for um identification so even if you can't you don't have the tools in front of you to be able to identify something or you just don't know how do you take a how do you take a good photo for identification like not from the back not on the side you know not at an angle it needs to be you know these are the features that we're looking for and so you need to have it this way and then we did that great um we went to the fish market as well and talked to um talked to people who are selling fish and and basically went through like um what kind of questions do you ask even if it's not something that you're there are no sharks and rays there because that's illegal they're they don't sell sharks and ray or not rays but they

1:34:08 um the sharks are legal and there's not really much consumption of of the rays locally but there were a lot of fish and there were some interesting species and so going into the people who are selling fish and asking the kinds of questions that you might need to know to find what you're looking for like where did you where the fishers bringing this in where do you know where what do you do you see seasonal you know fluctuations and and these numbers and you know it's not just about sharks all the time we we like fish yeah so yeah being able to just get get out and and it tells you a lot about your local ecosystem going to the fish market um i i was very surprised to see that there was tilapia and like a carp okay a big goldfish that's caught in local lagoons um it's like an asian and a and an african species and it's being sold locally at the fish market um and so you know you do you get a really you really um it is one of the ways to better understand your your local marine ecosystem without necessarily having to get on a boat yeah yeah so i think that was also we had some i you know we we did a lot of sharky stuff but we also you know there i think it was a really nice in depth different activity kind of workshop where we really made people think about bigger questions and how to answer um you know if i can just say on a personal note i mean i found it was my first time in honduras found a wonderful place people were awesome really enjoyed it hopefully make i made some new friends there and nobody was saying like oh thank god he's gone finally and but i had a really good time and if

1:35:38 you guys are looking anyone's out there looking to go diving or go to go go touristy someplace i'd recommend honduras it was just a wonderful experience um i also didn't have to spend three days on a plane to get there like i did did madagascar so that was that was a huge one for me personally and um that helps but yeah it was it was an awesome time and when the video comes up we'll definitely post it out there and we'll we'll have someone else uh someone from mar alliance come on anna lucia probably and talk about the video and shout out to save our season they did she did a really terrific job with the uh your traveling show there shark show yeah it's on its way to to the next town as we speak it's in a truck believe oh cool awesome yeah great great great cool well ivy thank you so much for coming on and sharing this uh this wonderful uh workshop we had last last week and uh and we're hopefully looking forward to seeing you again and um doing it again somewhere maybe belize so yeah absolutely and i will be uh sending you some fin clips in the mail awesome i'm looking forward to i'm looking forward to that it's always fun so thanks very much thanks a lot thank you i think a couple the main couple of things was it was a it was a terrific really heard say a really enthusiastic group of young people there and all these people that were there you know most of them were under 30 and they were in fact i think pretty much in fact we had the youngest one was a high school student was 13 and it was just really enthusiastic to learn as much as he could and i think you know and that's like we said you know that's the foundation really the future for like honduras having these young people there and just

1:37:09 it was the enthusiasm that uh uh i really found uh uh special and uh and also the people were just very warm friendly people it was my first time in honduras had a wonderful time there and they're just a lot of us just because the people were just really really good and um and just getting to know them and uh but but doing the different parts we talked about was the workshop as far as the luxury part or the learning to take photographs or the dissection there everybody was just really enthusiastic about it they wanted to learn and that was probably the big take home yeah yeah now now i mentioned at the beginning of this episode this could be a platform to take off from in terms of learning about deep sea uh deep sea sharks within the uh within the waters of honduras do you think that there are some students that showed interest in in identifying or even working with fisheries to manage these types of of shark fisheries i think some definitely because they're at their point in their careers a lot of them are a little a lot of them are at that point they're just kind of starting out there in college or just post college but some of them are definitely i think i think there'll be some that'll really take the sort of the bull by the horns here and really take off and do some stuff it could be you know more than i think but i think even but you know as as we talked about some of the people were more citizen science types that attended the workshops and they learned you know like the diving community there they they took the tools they took away with there will be helpful because they'll know like okay i can contact this person or that person to get to know uh if i have some

1:38:39 questions and stuff and they learned you know some of the basic skills that sound you know is like just taking pictures how do you take a picture to identify stuff right as ivy said like the the lower you can get something down to whether it's a family or a genus you know if you get the genus that's great if you get them to species it's even better but a few of the groups like we talked a lot about the gulper sharks that's a hard group i mean these guys these these young for you guys like you oh yeah for us it's really hard so but having them get that exposure will be really will be important to say do you want to work on some of these tougher groups when you get the easier ones for the reasons you yeah so let me ask you this you know the diet like there's some divers there like some scuba divers there as there's as there's a big scuba diving industry within hunduras you know how often are they going to come across a deep sea shark like what what are we like what are you asking them to do in this case well the workshop wasn't just deep sea though we focused a lot in the deep sea it was just on basic identification so we've okay so if they see coastal species they'll they'll get an idea on how to how to identify them now now a lot of the common stuff like some of the bull sharks and yeah you know the the caribbean reef shark and some of those most of those guys they can pick those off pretty easily but it's when they see the unusual thing like maybe offshore they'll see a silky shark or something or or when you get onto the rays the rays are just wide open because nobody really pays any attention to them i think after this workshop they're gonna be a lot more attention paid to the rays and so i think so i think that'll be that'll be something and then they'll

1:40:11 learn what characteristics to look for like how do i know you know if i say i see a shark swim by what am i looking for to tell and i had some people showed me some pictures of some sharks while i was there they took diving and i you know i gave my best i mean obviously when you're taking pictures diving you can't get the shark to always you know perform the way you want it to this way yeah can you do that but but you know but i did help a few of my identify gave my best guess what i thought some of them were and uh which helped them because they were they definitely said we don't usually see this one this is here's some of the ones we do see we know what those are but here's it here's what we don't see and so that really was helpful for them and then of course they do occasionally come across some of the deep sea stuff but again the the main take over the thing is what to look for fin position body color um you know proportions and then if they do happen to have one they find it a you know well even they can't really catch them into honduras but if they come across one they can take a picture of that might be dead or something they'll know what to look get some ideas what to look for and it gave them a lot of resources that they can go to as well and of course now they got you know better better connections with ivy they know me yeah and so that'll help you know yeah that'll help out and you know i get a lot of stuff comes in too and if i just go on for a second you're like you know connections i've made decades ago i still keep in touch with they'll send me something they haven't they go i haven't seen this i've never seen this before and sometimes that's where i find some of my lost sharks yeah that's true some yeah for sure so it's interesting too because i guess this this kind of takes off and

1:41:42 you start to see more identifications by these groups and maybe they end up teaching you know other other people that they know that are in the water a lot and and maybe able to see some of these sharks on a regular basis the idea here is to start really understanding you know the types the types of species you'll see the number of species you see the size the health and then hopefully eventually get to a point where you can include that not only in research and share it with the world but also in national policies for fisheries to ensure that these are managed correctly you know reducing bycatch understanding that sharks are important what they bring to you know from the diving community perspective as an ecotourism uh attraction and and so forth i think that's it's really important as we start to move forward with this and is that really like the long-term goal of of doing workshops like these yeah yeah exactly that's that's exactly what they're there for just to start them and they say i tried to i think you know a lot of young people tend to get you know because they're starting out they know like well what do i do how do i go i want to have some impact especially a lot of younger generations today or more don't you know don't have a lot of patience they want to like something impactful and i did talk say i talked quite a bit to several of them there about just developing something as a checklist that you guys could co-author you know a bunch a bunch of them could co-author and you know some of the ones i've done in other countries they've literally become right away they're useful they'll be used right away by by policymakers like here it is this is and so that's an so that's something they could see very tangible on the short on a

1:43:13 shorter term um you know maybe you know they could they could do something there so i'll be interested to see if some of them you know i talked to ivy a little bit about it too we may do something there but i think getting some of these young people see having them see like hey i can do something here that would have an impact that'll be important that'll be huge yeah that'd be huge well this is wonderful i i do appreciate you and ivy coming on the podcast to be able to show this and obviously you know deep sea sharks were covered in as you mentioned you know hopefully in the future you'll see a picture and somebody like i don't even know what this is you're like well i've never seen this either or this is something we've been looking for in the area for quite some time and looking for these lost sharks and speaking of which uh dave will you have a series that we've both been working on that people can go see uh can you just tell us a little bit about that and where they can go see it yeah they can go to uh on my youtube channel at lost shark guy and the series is searching for lost sharks extinct or alive that uh andrew and i've been working on and with dennis sota maior who's done the uh did the filming and it's a it's funded by the save our seas foundation and it's basically to raise awareness on a on a larger platform through through uh the youtube uh of people these these little these little known sharks that may be disappearing without people realizing and uh so i really appreciate people go out watch the episodes you know check out check out our episodes and if you like them please subscribe that all helps with uh you know trying to get future support for some of these projects to do future expeditions and uh these lost sharks find more of them and we're working on we're working on episode

1:44:43 five right now so it'll be out hopefully the end of the year early 2026 yeah it'll be a lot of fun for you guys see it i have to admit we've had a lot of collaborations from from various uh institutes and so forth and we have the imagery we have like not only is the nieces uh filming amazing but also the imagery that we have and and videos that we have of some of these like sharks that we that have been searched for have been found and so forth that they're amazing so i highly recommend that you go there about what uh 10 15 minutes if that um and so you can uh take a look at them at lost shark guy uh on youtube and uh check those out put the link in the show notes but dave i want to thank you so much for doing this again with me and uh and i'll see you next time uh thank you so much for joining us today and of course thank you to ivy bear more who from mar alliance will put the links to ivy the organization that ivy works for mar alliance uh the great organization down in central america and um yeah something that you gotta check out as well so uh thank you very much for joining us this has been another episode of the beyond job podcast from david and i thank you for joining us we hope you have a great day and happy conservation