Recounting 2025’s Biggest Shark Stories: Orcas vs Great Whites, Better Protections, and More!

0:02 On this special episode of the Beyond Jaws podcast, Dave and I recount the year in shark news, shark conservation, shark science, all things that have to do with shark. We're going to talk about what happened in 2025 as we are approaching 2026. It's going to be a fun episode. We're going to be talking about orcas versus great whites. We're going to be talking about the Jaws, the movie, the 50th anniversary. We're going to talk about some protections that happened to sharks with the Sides. We're also going to go over some things that happened to us with our podcast and our own podcast. So it's going to be a lot of fun. So stay tuned and let's start the show.

0:43 Hey everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the Beyond Jaws podcast. I'm your co-host Andrew Lewin here with my co-host Dr. David Ebert, also known as The Lost Shark Guy. We're going to be today talking about all things sharks. What happened in 2025. Dave, are you ready to start this? I'm absolutely Andrew. I'm pumped up and ready to roll. And it's like, it's great. Kind of like look at the year and recap and what we have look forward to in 2026. Absolutely. It's going to be a lot of fun because a lot of stuff happened in 2025. So we're going to get to it. Let's jump right into the big news around that happened in 2025.

1:27 There was a paper coming out talking about how orcas were shaping the population of great white sharks in South Africa, particularly in false Bay and other bays. And the fact of like, you know, lot of the great white sharks have disappeared from the area. We don't know really what happened. are some theories that have happened through some data and through some evidence. ah like orcas tend to obviously uh sort of dominate the news cycle and the headlines when there's two orcas, Port and Starboard, that come in and they grab the livers of the great whites and they're known to come in. And we had Alison Towner on to talk about it and to come in and like within a half hour or a couple of hours or three hours.

2:08 You know, they killed, you know, a good number of sharks, you know, over five, maybe even ten sharks. I think it was 17 was the number, but like incredible amount of sharks that obviously dominates the news because people are fascinated with, you know, great whites and they're fascinated with orcas. But there are two prevailing theories on why there's been such a disappearance of these great whites where they dominated the food chain before they were the apex predator. Dave, why don't you just kind of give a quick explanation. It's going to be a half hour episode, but we're going to try and, know, crunch this into that because we have other stuff to talk about but you know give me your thought or talk about the two you know prevalent theories. think the two theories as you kind of outline, have the one at these two orcas have basically knocked down the population of great white sharks in the Western Cape and South Africa.

2:57 The other theory is that a lot of the species, kind of the mid trophic level species that white sharks would feed on besides sea lions or other sharks and rays and some of the larger boni, predatory boni fishes, those populations have been affected more. which has been more of the impact of the great white shark population as much as well, uh in addition to the two orcas. And we've had people on, we have had Alison Tadron, we had Chris Fallows on a few years ago, we've had some different people on. Of course, I know people on both sides of the issue quite well in South Africa. And uh it's a fascinating story that's going on.

3:38 I mean, I can tell you from my own experience when I was there, there was no shortage of white sharks in the Western Cape. very common, know, ecotourism were quite prominent at the time. know, Shark Week still goes out and tries to find great white sharks breaching out around uh Seal Island and False Bay. I think it's getting a little harder to find talking with Jeff Kerr and a few people who've had on the show in the past. uh It's a fascinating story, but I think also people need to look at like historically what's gone on, because I know from the fifties and sixties, which for my time, uh white great white sharks are quite common up in a Quasul and the towel, which is the East coast of South Africa, Durban.

4:20 And, and part of that was because they used to have a, whaling station up in Durban back when they did whaling and these large white sharks would follow the whale carcasses into the whaling station. And they used to have a uh club. They used call the thousand pounder club and fishermen go out onto the jetty there. and try to see if they could land a thousand pound white shark. And there's an angling club based right there by the Durban Harbor that you can go in there and you can see these pictures from the 50s and 60s of these giant white sharks they would catch. Now, put aside what you might think of people fishing for large white sharks, again, this was back in the 50s and 60s, but the fact that white sharks were pretty common back in that day.

5:03 Now, going up to when I was... first came to South Africa in the kind of mid late 80s, early 90s, uh white sharks in the Western Cape, Cape Town and that area were very common. was, you know, it was pretty common. But up on the East Coast there, Durban and North, they were not as commonly seen as they were. And so I don't know if there's been so there could have been a shift somehow. Some motion of graphic changes that have maybe pushed the white sharks that way. It's possible it's the orcas. It could be a reduction of some of their food in the Western Cape. uh There's a of different theories abound as far as what's going on out there. And again, from my recollection, when there used to be a lot of white sharks there, it's hard for me to imagine that two orcas have really have hammered the population that much.

5:54 you never know. it just seems like there are, I tend to think there's probably more going on, just in my own opinion, besides just the two orcas there. And a thing you and I and Andrew have talked about, off air a bit is like, where's the pods for these particular orcas? Because orcas are very social animals and they tend to occur in a pod. It's like, where are the pods? I don't know if anybody's, that's a good question we should ask some of these people there. when we had Allison on the podcast, we talked about that because I was like, are they part of a pod? And she was like, that's a great question because she didn't know. There's nothing known about these these orcas because nobody followed. I guess it would be difficult to predict when they're going to come in.

6:36 And when they do come in, what do you do? You grab a helicopter. I your drone can only go so far. A boat's not going to keep up with with orcas and try and track them. maybe you can track them from the air like a helicopter or a plane but even then it's difficult. So maybe if you know they're in the area maybe you can send something up there but we don't really know a lot of the research that's been done on orcas down in South Africa and if anybody's watching this please let us know because we would love to have a conversation with those researchers and then the people who have done work or know more about them. But I do think it's interesting too because you look at you back in the fifties you know he said that you know derby was was popular i'm looking at a map right now derby and keep down a pretty far from each other you know going ocean wise uh...

7:23 and so unit maybe in there's it's possible completely possible that that derby population may have come down over to to capetown and muscle bay and and and so forth but We don't know that. We don't know if that's the same population. We don't know if that population has gone back up there. If it's that same pop, maybe we'll know a little bit more if we, if they've been tagged now that we've done a lot of research. Like there've been a lot of researchers now that have looked at that population ever since, you know, the air jaws thing started, right? Right. Well, the other thing too is we know these white sharks move around and kind of a little story. This is something we probably should have done. We may do a story in the new year on this is that there was a white shark tagged off South Africa that turned up in Indonesia.

8:05 Right. That's again, that was Alison Towner too, that came up with that paper, right? I don't know if, yeah. Well, here's the other funny part of the story was the, uh, the person that got the tag from it, um, actually contacted me and asked me if, you and asked me if I knew who, who's tagged this was. And that set off a whole detective story. And at the time the fishermen said it was a long fin Mako shark. And so, and so I reached out to a number of people that I knew. including Allison Towner and others and said, Hey, I got this colleague in Indonesia who got this tag and then and basically a long story short, it turned out that we're able to we're able to track down that who whose tag it was and they actually tracked it back down and turned out it was.

8:56 Yes, it was a tag that was done off South Africa that it wound up a couple of years later off of off Indonesia. And so like so you've got the. Yes, you've got these sharks traveling all over the place that I mean, you think about the, I mean, it doesn't surprise me. These are large, large white sharks being able to move such great distances, but I don't think anybody had in their, uh, bingo card that these things would go all the way to Indonesia. We, we know there's at least one record going to Nigalu reef in Australia, but here's another example. Well, and it's so interesting to see, like again, I'm looking at a map, so I just kind of zoomed out from South Africa to look at where South Africa is compared to Indonesia.

9:36 And it's kind of interesting because you have, well guess, yeah, Indonesia is so, where was it off the coast of Indonesia? I forget the exact location off Indonesia. forget the exact island. to I want to say yeah I say Sumatra. I can't remember exactly but it was I can't remember was it was because it's cool because it's like I guess the lower part of Indonesia where you have like North Sumatra, West Sumatra, like the Sumatra Islands here. Because like the the main island of Indonesia, like when you look at it, like the Borneo and stuff, it's it's it's covered. It's basically like a barrier from like Sumatra becomes a barrier to to the rest of Indonesia.

10:18 So it becomes it becomes interesting to see like where they've gone and how They've navigated through that. uh But yeah, it's just so cool to see these big migrations from these large sharks. Obviously not surprising based on their morphology and their size that they can, and they're obviously an apex predator so they can survive that trek, but just the way they go from back and forth is pretty cool. yeah, and mean in Indonesia, mean there's records of great white sharks from there, but they're not considered that common in there and stuff, so they tend to be deeper, it's more Trump. No, actually, interesting story, and there's specific, the fisherman said it was a longfin mako, which wasn't even, which is the shortfin's a more common one.

11:05 It turned out after a lot of invest, and this was kind of a, there's a longer story, maybe we'll get somebody on here. yeah, yeah. detail. mean, could tell you about my part of the whole thing, but, cause I was the guy they contacted that led to them to figure it out. But it was kind of a detective story. It turned out to the fishermen knew it was a great white shark and um, but they, because great white sharks are protected that he didn't want to, they didn't want to tell him, say it was a great white shark, but the fishermen knew it was. And because they, the shark, they get cut the fin off where the tag had been put on the dorsal fin. I remember seeing the fin going like, man, she doesn't look like a Mako shark, but yeah, I didn't really, I was just thinking, but yeah, right, right.

11:47 Yeah. mean, the dorsal fin didn't quite look like a long fin. I think like, and long fin Makos are not that common. Mako sharks are a little more common, but the fisherman was kind of specific, but yeah, anyway, it turned out that they caught it. It was incidentally caught. And, um, and I can speak from experience, you catch anything there, you're not throwing it back. It's protein to eat. and stuff. so, but there, but the fisherman was afraid he might get in trouble for having caught a great white shark. Um, but yeah, but they knew he knew what it was. And so, uh, but that was a whole, you know, we'll have to have somebody come on next year and talk about this. be a good bonus episode. It was a great, it was a great investigative story in terms of how you figured this whole thing out. That turned out multi-continents and multiple people involved.

12:30 And, uh, but, but yeah, just to give you a sense of how far these white sharks can travel and, um, um, you know, all the going all the way there. And just also another kind of a little note on when I was did my trip earlier this year in Madagascar, you know, we might have found an area in Madagascar that people, catch a very large and very small newborn white sharks off Madagascar, which might be a birthing area, which should be something we follow and we'll be following up on in 2026. That would be huge. That yeah, because that's never been detected, right? Okay. It's one of those things that some local people might be aware of it, but I'm not aware of.

13:14 No, to my knowledge, no, there's not there. So that could be a whole unraveling story for 2026. People might stay tuned for. Yeah, it's a good teaser for next year to look forward to. Yeah. of great whites, we had a pretty big anniversary of the movie Jaws this year was to the 50th anniversary in 2025 of Jaws. We did a special episode where we had you, had Lisa Nattanson, we had Greg Skomol, we had Chris Lowe, you know, and all of them had, you know, very, very great big memories of Jaws, where they were, how they thought.

13:55 or what they thought of the movie as their research, as we often refer to you and that group as the Jaws generation because a lot of research money came in because people want to know about great white sharks in that area and how that's going to change and what they just want to know about sharks. And it kind of spurred a huge curiosity about sharks, which obviously spurs science funding and being able to do a lot of new things with sharks. Yeah. over this podcast a series, a number of times. And so that was cool in terms of being able to do that. Jaws has really molded what people think of sharks.

14:40 There's obviously the predominant feeling of being scared in the water, not having control when you swim compared to these massive animals. And then of course, there's what I just mentioned is that the spurring of funding so because government officials all over the place including California uh You know obviously the movie took place in Cape Cod But this is in California where they were like we wanted to know where that why they're great whites here and what they need to do and then it became like such a important conservation story such a successful conservation story where on both coasts the East Coast and the West Coast you saw an increase and you continue to see an increase in Great white sharks, and so that's phenomenal to see But obviously people are still afraid of sharks and and Jaws a lot of the times like I saw Jaws I'm not going in the water.

15:28 Why would I why would I go in the water? I guess like you know after we did the episode we got we got some really cool insights you know Chris Lowe talked about how he grew up there and he knew a lot of the people that were in the movie and things like that he watched a lot of production he saw the robotic shark that never worked you know that kind of stuff. m What are you to wrap up your thoughts on the year for Jaws? You know, it's obviously played a significant role in the reputation of sharks and the funding of shark science. But like, going forward, where do you see Jaws as the generation that watched it kind of like, it almost becomes like a classic horror movie, but, or thriller horror movie, as we get further away from its release date, and know, 50 years after, do you think Jaws is still the predominant shark movie that...

16:19 you know, the next generation Gen Z, Gen Alpha have seen and, you know, lived by? Or do you think there are other movies that play a more significant role, whether they're horror movies or documentaries or anything like that? I still think Jaws has looms large for a lot of people, even though I know we talked with some of the younger people that were born like, you know, well after Jaws came out, you know, they watch it now and, you know, it kind of looks like a fake shark. I mean, you know, you have to look at the era, you know, at that time, the special effects were cutting edge in 1975. That was that was that was the thing. And and you mentioned like, you know, Chris Lowe was he grew up there in Martha's Vineyard.

17:00 He watched. the stuff. And like, I think he used the term, he goes a lot of it's for him watching like family home movies because a lot of his relatives and friends were in the movie or in the movie. And, and, and so like, you know, kind of moving forward here, you know, I don't know if they've had that definitive sort of shark movie. They've all been sort of jaws knockoffs. I don't know if there's been that one that's really kind of captured the imagination like jaws did. And as I said, you know, I've said many times over is that it really, it laid the foundation for, for, for modern shark science and things that again, young people were just, you know, were born well after jaws.

17:42 Can't get, can't understand. Like there was things like, there's no field of shark conservation. It just, didn't exist. It was not in the, it was not in the lexicon at all. And a thing back then too, I've tried to emphasize when we've tied these conversations is that It was really cool back then, because if you could think of something, you know, most of us that were doing grad school, like the professors were like, I don't know, go check it out and let me know what you find out. You could, it was like a wild West where you could go try things. And back then people worked in all kinds of tax. It wasn't just great white sharks. You know, we didn't know anything about white sharks then, but people worked in all kinds of tax. You know, we had Dominic Didier on who talked about, you she made her name in go sharks and that, and she, and she was that, she was that era.

18:26 that jaws generation, she works on a tax and nobody knew anything about. And, and so like, I mean, all this stuff that's come out shark education outreach, even, know, today fast forwarding today to some of the shark communication stuff with social media and stuff. All this to me came out of jaws because there was nothing, there was nothing before the movie came out. And after that you started getting the sort of the seeds in the whole, science realm that eventually led to the conservation. conservation. We've had Sarah Fowler on in the couple of episodes in the past. Well, and she was really one of the other the jaws generations that really kind of started the whole conservation field. But yeah, yes, I can't think of any any movie as like today of what I just can't think of a movie today, a shark type movie that has that same sort of impact.

19:15 think, we had we had Alia Benchek on from the the All the Sharks series on Netflix, which I have to say, Yeah. typically watches those things. Cause when you live in this world, you just don't really watch them that much. But I was, it was kind of cool. They went out to look for some, um, some different sharks and kind of feature some different species of sharks for that, for that program. in the episode, of course we had a Leon the show, uh, to talk about, talk a little bit about her experiences and everything. and so that was kind of neat to see that they're kind of like trying to promote. They're trying to promote some other shark species out there.

19:57 Some different, some other types of sharks, some, shark diversity. So that, that was kind of cool to see and see if they, if they pick up on that as on any of those things going forward. You know, then you have, then you have a lot of the standard stuff with whether it's shark week or Nat Geo shark festival, get back into just doing white sharks, which is the same thing over and over again, you know, kind of my opinion. But, yeah, yeah. Yeah. liked about all the sharks was it was the refreshing attitude of like, let's display, let's talk about different sharks. They'd have like almost like a little panel that would pop up when there was a new shark that was discussed on the show. And you got to understand that there are a lot of different, there are a lot more diversity.

20:38 There's a lot more diversity to sharks than, you know, just the iconic ones that we know, the tiger sharks, the great whites, the bulls and so forth. Right. Well, it's kind of gone in reverse because when we started out, you know, my generation, we're starting everything. I mean, there was no limit. We're looking at it's gone the opposite way. And I think probably, you know, the phenomena shark attack was definitely something that a lot of these things focused on in the 80s, 90s and into the early 2000s. And then you start getting a lot of the spectacular white shark stuff, which it's it's it's pretty spectacular to see them when they breach. I there's no no question about that. uh But there's been like there's just there's just still, but it's gone to where everybody wants, especially social media. Everybody wants to go out and like film themselves with a white shark or a tiger shark, which I think is kind of nuts.

21:23 But, you know, because you're because you're you're playing with a wild animal that you don't know what's going to happen. And, uh you know, and so versus, you know, you do see there are some people out there that feature some lesser known species, uh which I think is really cool, uh which is good. But there's but, you know, particularly grad students coming through and always Harp in this like find something nobody's doing and that's gonna be your best your shortest distance to making a name for yourself do work on something nobody else is doing and then that's where you make your name that's where you make your name for yourself in the field ah you know so yeah jaw jaws it was 50 years I think it was it's still the overall shark movie that people will point to even if people younger people they think it looks hokey and admittedly today I watched today at It's a good story, but the shark looks a little more hokey.

22:15 But as I say, when I was in high school in 1975, that shark looked pretty damn real at the time for what we knew about sharks. Scared the hell out of I wouldn't go in pools because of it. That's how much it scared the hell out me when I was a kid. oh No, for sure. Absolutely. Well, and you know, with that, with research that, you know, spurred with this movie and the development of a shark science and conservation field, conservation became a really big uh part of the field because we realized that sharks were being fished at such a phenomenal rate. They still are fished, like they're over fished in a lot of places, especially the high seas, but even within a lot of the country's borders because it's really difficult to patrol all the time to stop over fishing.

23:01 And we know there's a lot of problems with that. There's been a lot of success in protecting some of these sharks, but we saw some big, big protections this year using CITES. And so Dave, why don't you just kind of talk about, you know, what CITES is. why the protections became better, what those protections were, and how it's going to protect these species. Yeah, society is basically a it's a it's a conservation uh tool really to protect its conservation and trade of endangered species. And they had a number of sharks, particularly shark shark groups. Probably the biggest one that they put in some protections are for the gulper sharks that they had because they're deep sea sharks or easily over fish.

23:46 And a lot of people go for them for the liver oil. And we had a number of people that have been on this been on our podcast like Brit Fenucci and others. we're involved with that and stuff. you know, big thing I have, and they, there's a whole number of tax that they've, they've, they're developing or they're to be implementing some protections. But a lot of things we just, and we just hit on this too, is that there've been some really good stuff with some shark conservation. The white sharks in North America have been astounding success. And I think that should be highlighted. I don't think people should highlight that enough, but a lot of these countries, Um, it's, it's where they, where they have these things, food security is a, a big issue and it's really hard.

24:32 talk about like, well, can you go out there and really enforce this? And it's like, well, again, coming from, I've been to a lot of these places. How do you go into some places where malnutrition is over 50 % of the population and they catch a shark and they're just carrying to catch anything for protein. And you say, oh, you shouldn't catch that because it's endangered or something. You know, you just, you can't do that. I just, I just. from a humanitarian standpoint, you just can't go in there and tell these people in a village where they might catch something, you know, cause they're not using this pretty, I use the term primitive gear. They're not using like big commercial industry. It's not like some these sort of factory ships that are out fishing on the high seas and stuff. That's a different story. I'm talking about some extremely poor countries that they're catching things and the government's not going to go in realistically and tell them, well, you can't catch that shark.

25:22 because they're just, you're talking literary people. And it's an interesting topic we've talked a little bit about over the years and stuff. Maybe it's something we could do for next year, have a few people on, have a little more of a panel discussion about it. ah I have to say one thing, I think I've talked off air about this and I've talked to a few colleagues of it. When I was watching the whole CITES thing going on in real time with the pictures and stuff being posted from. It was in, it was held in Abu Dhabi and it was a very opulent event. mean, it was very much, it was high end, really ritzy to use the term. And honestly, at the time I'd just come out of Madagascar, which is like the third poorest country in the world.

26:06 And it's, it's really hard for me to see people going to a very opulent event like this, mostly from developed countries, making decisions for people in developing countries, poor countries. on what they can eat and can't eat. I just, philosophically have, that's just a personal thing. And I have, I have a lot of very good friends there and I know they're very committed to what they're doing. But the, but the optics of it to me was, I had some problems with the optics of it. just, it's just really, it's just really, it was just kind of hard to see. And I think they need to find a little better way to be able to do these types of things, but, but, but not present in such a way that, you Hey, we're from the Western world and we're going to tell you how you need to, how you need to be uh eating and catching stuff in Madagascar or pick your country, you know?

26:56 Um, so, um, I don't know how. sense. mean, there's obviously a bit of a disconnect in terms of, you know, coming in from Abu Dhabi where everything is very high class to going to a situation where, you know, it's not, you know, there are people who are literally fighting to eat their next meal. you know, a lot of those are fishers and they're going to eat whatever they can. And so it kind of goes towards the the ability of are these studies regulations gonna be met? And that's the challenge, right? In these poorer countries, or these developing countries where there's a problem with that and they need to eat and sometimes they can't get it and so they're gonna do whatever they can to eat.

27:46 Obviously, not the good thing for those species that are being uh attacked or caught, but also It's something that we need to make sure that we're focusing on. have a solution for it, but it's just something that you see there because I work in that world and I see that and I cross over to both sides of it. think a lot of people, I mean, I'll just tell you, for my career, mean, a lot of people wouldn't go to a lot of the places I've been to in my career. They just wouldn't go there. And when you're on the ground, you see what's to see there. It's a very different experience than when you're sitting in like say Abu Dhabi.

28:26 Absolutely. or sitting in some other place. And so you just have an appreciation. think it'll be interesting to see. But that was the one ah thing I noticed. it's a lot of this is trade. So it's more of like bringing over borders. So a lot of the sharks are caught for a lot of medicinal purposes. So, you it's not necessarily for food for poor fishermen. Mind you, they could sell that food that that food that they catch for probably a pretty big amount, but that trade won't get over to the countries that bringing it in bulk and they're trying to make more of a profit from it instead of, you know, trying to support. local fishers and things like that. So I think it's an important aspect.

29:07 The big thing is it went from, I believe it was Annex 2 to Annex 1 or Annex 1 to Annex never remember which one's the more, it went from less strict to more strict for the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species in Wild Fawn and Florida. That's what CITES is, is Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species. I never remembered it, I had to look it up myself, Dave, so I didn't want to put you to the feet of the iron on that. I used to say, so I used to say in the acronym, I forget what they have to look it up to, even though I've yeah, it's only been dealing in the world for like most of my career, but yeah. You know, it's like, you just used to say one thing, but yeah, it's, it's, it's a challenge and there's no doubt about it. Um, where things are, but you know, it kind of, as a side note to this whole thing and people might, younger people might be shocked about, but in the early 1980s, I think about 1983, there was a national geographic specialist featured Eugenie Clark and the shark lady.

30:00 And in the ep, it was a really well done episode, but she's promoting the use of shark liver oil for medicinal purposes in the, in the program. And, and this just tells you where we've gone today because back at that time in the early eighties and even in the eighties, It was kind of like thought, we just use, you know, liver oils. It works for medicinal purposes. And, um, and again, this necessarily, that was more of a cultural thing where she was going by the culture because that's what they use it for. So she's like, there must be a purpose for it. But then when the actual research comes out in peer review journals and some of them they find out it doesn't work, then that's when you change your mind, right? yeah, I mean, Genie was part Japanese as well, but you know, again, this was like, think I to say 1983 national geographic.

30:45 I mean, we were only like eight years past Jaws at that time. And really the whole, the whole shark research thing was really just starting to kick into gear at this point in time and stuff. it was, again, sharks for medical purposes too and their properties there too, right? That probably hasn't even been looked at at that point. This was this was all new stuff that just came about that we had no idea what we had no idea at the time. And so you always have to look through the lens of history. And, know, if you're younger people, you know, it's not often you have a chance to talk to people that are have lived through that, like, you know, I have and Chris Lowe and Greg Skomol and Lisa and Dominique and stuff. You know, you you catch it at a conference or someplace, you know.

31:25 Yeah. talked to us about, because I can tell you exactly firsthand experience. You're not really having to read a history book or something or guess what it is. We lived it. So you can get a better perspective on the whole thing, I think, you can talk to people. So that was some of the good, that was some of the highlights I thought we had for some of the big issues that we had in big stories for 2025. Yep, yep. big story too, know, we, we, uh, to talk about, you know, beyond JAWS just in, in, in general, um, you know, Spotify always comes out with their wrapped, uh, you know, and it looks, you know, you know, for users, if you're a subscriber to Spotify or if you use the Spotify app, they come out with an app for those particular users and they talk about what shows you're a part of or what's your top your list or your top 10 whether it's music or whether it's podcasts or what have you.

32:22 But they also do it for podcasts and I assume they do it for music artists as well but they do it for podcasts. So, David, let's talk a little bit about some of the things that Spotify, this is only on the Spotify platform, but some of the things that we did. So, our total audience grew by almost 20%, by 18%. which is huge, you know, in the podcasting industry, especially these days when there are so many podcasts out there that people could be listening to. We also had a total new audience actually increase from last year by over 600%, like 681%. That's a big number. Our follower count increased by 33%, which was great.

33:03 Our listening time, if you look at it in minutes, it was over 80,500 minutes. If we look at days of listening, was actually 55 days of listening in terms of the total amount of times that people listened to us, which was kind of cool. uh And then uh we had, what's this increase in total listening time from last year? was 8%, which was great. uh So yeah, and then it also talks about uh one of our most played episodes was uh Simon Pierce, which had played 107, percent more than your average episode. So we talked about, you know, whale sharks and megafauna and conservation, m which was which was really cool.

33:48 A long friend of yours, right, Dave? Or, you know, with with the Marine Megafauna Foundation, which was huge. so, yeah, so that was that was pretty cool to be able to speak about that. And the new research that they came out about that. um And then we were We had 52 countries were reached on Spotify, which is really cool to be thought that we're doing that. Germany, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, and of course, the United States was number one. We had, what else, our top fans. So we had 269 fans where we were part of the top 10 of their shows.

34:30 We had 166 fans that were top five. And we had 45 fans. We were the number one show. on Spotify, so 45 people look to us first when they listen to their podcasts and that's pretty cool. uh you tell me too we've had downloads from like 170 countries now too? Total, total, yeah. we're looking at all the apps and so far, yeah, and that's pretty cool too. Absolutely, absolutely. a pretty impressive figure to have in so much considering we just started this whole thing as a concept about five years ago now and it's just really gone on and we're up to whatever, 130, 135 episodes now, considering I think from what you told me, most podcasts sort of peter out at about 10 episodes and we've kind of been able to keep this thing going.

35:18 right after about seven to 10 episodes, people will tend to, you know, basically pod fade. They stop they stop podcasting, which is kind of cool. Something like, you know, we're all we're on YouTube as well. So we had over twenty six thousand views on YouTube watch time of over a thousand uh watch time hours. And then we also gained one hundred and twenty three subscribers this year. which is really cool to bring us up to 635 as of this recording. So if you haven't watched this, if you're a YouTube fan, you haven't watched this on YouTube, you can go and subscribe to the YouTube channel. Just look up Beyond Jaws podcast and you'll be able to find it and you'll see our logo. It's the same logo we have on our audio podcast as well.

36:01 so, so yeah, so 2025 was a pretty big year for us. And then of course in 2025, we also released your documentary series. which you want to talk a little bit about that? Yeah. Well, you know, kind of thanks to funding from the Save Our Seas Foundation, we started, uh well, the original was a Keystone grant that I was basically, the grant is to raise awareness of lost sharks, these little known species that we talk about frequently. And uh as part of the thing, I wanted to have a, a bit of a video documentary series, which we started, it's called Searching for Lost Sharks, Extinct or Alive.

36:42 And we got the first four episodes are posted now. And I have to say, it's been a amazing experience. was just something I had never thought about years ago. And I was started my career. I'd be sitting here now like doing documentary, but it's kind of cool because I can tell the stories the way I think the story should be told for these little known species. And if you haven't caught them, please go there and please subscribe. We started, launched the first one in late January on the YouTube channel. I'm already up to three hundred eighty six subscribers. And it was amazing considering if you're just coming up in one year. maybe 15 at the beginning, right? Or something like that? Yeah. Yeah. And so I've just kind of really put it out there.

37:24 I'm going to try and increase the put some more content up, I think, going into the new year. And we're working on the initial series plan. We've got we've got about 10 episodes planned. We're working on episode five right now. It's taken a little longer because it was kind of a new thing for us. So it's taken a little bit of time to work through. But I hope you enjoy this episode. The last episode four has it talks a little bit about the story of finding new sharks, as well as the story of how Jaws laid the foundation for modern shark research. And they're all, short stories are like anywhere from seven to 14 minutes, know, kind of trying to average in around 10 minutes or so, the things, but just tell a little story on what's going on in the shark world and stuff. And we've got some more stuff planned, uh kept for in the coming year, and we'll be going out and some of the plays you hear us talk about like more recently, Madagascar and stuff, we'll be talking, there'll be stories featuring on some of these.

38:17 some of these different lost shark species. In fact, the last episode we talked about 10 new species discovered and stuff, yeah, so it's kind of got some good, we talk about one species that may have, we haven't been able to find, might have gone extinct, but why one may have disappeared, we've found 10 new ones. So check them out and please, and for both the Beyond Jaws and the Lost Shark Guy YouTube channels, please subscribe, because it definitely helps. helps us with future support and everything. And Andrew, you've got a bit of a thing for your How to Protect the Ocean YouTube channel too. Congratulations. uh I hit it.

38:57 I hit over a thousand. I hit the thousand subscriber mark, which is really, really cool. uh I hit the first monetization level for YouTube, which is I can do memberships, which will be coming out soon, and I can do super chats, which I'm still trying to figure out. I'm not a I'm a YouTube user, but I don't do a lot of like lies. So super chats, apparently. people can pay to get their comments to go higher during like lives and things like that. So it's pretty cool to get to that level. I've been working on it for about a year and a half to really focus in on on YouTube as well as the audio podcast is the same essentially. But I will be coming out with some more. We've got a podcast with Angelo Villa Gomez coming out in the new year called We've tentatively named it Two Polar Bears and Flip Flops.

39:45 because we look like the shapes of polar bears and we like to flip-flops, so we got that as well. And that'll be a live podcast on the how to protect the ocean, or on the Speak Up for Blue TV channel. And then, yeah, so it's gonna be fun. I'll be doing a bunch of lives as well, just kind of like encapsulating that oh and trying to get more hours on the thing. So pretty cool to do. It obviously takes a lot of work uh and a lot of commitment to. keep consistent and continue to get views but you know again thank you for everybody who supports not only beyond jaws and not only lost shark guy channel but also the speaker for blue TV channel because uh it's very important to both of us to have these channels and and to be able to uh enjoy you know putting out content for science communication on an audio and video platform that that that's YouTube and as well as the audio podcasting platform And please leave us comments either on our YouTube channels or you can always me hit up on Instagram too.

40:44 But yeah, please on the YouTube channels, leave comments because we're always interested to hear, get feedback on both those things. so we're really kind of trying to, especially for me, Andrew's been in this world a little longer than I have. It's just kind of for me, it's just it's kind of something new, new challenge. You know, if you're always trying to challenge yourself with some new things. And for me, this is definitely a completely new challenge for me. And I'm enjoying it. it's a lot of fun. blame Andrew for it, it's like it's been a good, it's a good blame. So, it's like. Yeah. something we haven't really talked about that I feel like we need to talk about is a big accolade for you, Dave. ah You did get an award this year, the Ed Ricketts Memorial Award, which is presented.

41:32 by the research activity panel of the Monterey Bay National Aquarium. Look at that, he's got it right up there, which is awesome. I'm gonna read out a bunch of stuff, because I think this is something that's really cool. It goes to individuals who have shown exemplary lifetime contributions to marine science, conservation, and education. It is named after Ed Ricketts, a pioneering marine ecologist whose work and holistic approach to natural history inspired generations of researchers. The award also includes an invited lecture, which has already happened, and you've posted. some videos on your YouTube channel at Lost Shark Guy lecture as part of the annual ceremony. And in December 2025, you were honored with that award for your career long dedication to shark science, taxonomy, conservation and public outreach.

42:19 And the event was at the Sanctuary Exploration Center in Santa Cruz, which is really cool. Just a little bit about you that sometimes I didn't even know this. I knew you wrote a lot of books, not just like five. That's a lot. This is a crap ton. 38 books that you have under your name uh and over 800 scientific publications. Dear Lord on sharks and related fishes. That's unbelievable. uh Serving in leadership roles such as the past president of the American Lasmanbrink Society and an advisor to the IUN Shark Specialist Group and the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization. Appearing on television including BBC, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, and is a regular on Shark Week, uh leading expedition and the Good Shark Week, part of the Good Shark Week, not these like bad ones, but the good ones.

43:09 uh Leading expeditions in search of some of the world's rarest shark species, co-hosting Beyond Jaw's podcast, founding of the Lost Sharks Project, and of course, producing the documentary series searching for lost sharks extinct or alive, which we've talked about. So this is a big award. It recognizes scientists who have a significantly uh advanced knowledge, appreciation, and protection. of the marine environment while also excelling in communication, mentorship and collaboration. think a lot of your students can agree on that. Dr. Ebert's or Dave's work aligns with those goals because of both technical research and his efforts to bring sharks into a broader public understanding. uh Congratulations.

43:50 Like this is amazing, dude. A lifetime achievement award, you know, that's a huge honor. Like that's a huge thing and very well deserved. uh You know coming from you like from me like that your friend and somebody I look up to to see you get that award and get your accolades and get your flowers is really important and it's definitely deserved. How did well first of all how do feel about the ward and then tell us how the lecture went? I feel great about it. It was completely unexpected because I mean, I've been aware of the award and some pretty very prominent people have received this award over the year. think it's first first was awarded in 1986, but it's a very prominent people.

44:33 so to be kind of considering the same breath as many of these other legends in the field of marine science and conservation and education was just amazing. was like, I was floored when I, when they, when I was contacted and told I was I was I was was been awarded for this uh for this thing. was just it was just amazing. And then I gave up I gave a presentation at the Sanctuary Exploration Center on December 10th. And it's going to be they're going to have it. The thing will be posted um online in the coming weeks. They didn't have it. We're coming into the holidays. They weren't sure exactly. But I'll when that's up, I definitely will be posted on my social media contacts. They'll have the full the full lecture it will have on there.

45:16 And if you want to. kind of get a whole tour de force on how not to become a shark scientist, listen to it, because I kind of give the whole, I kind of give the snapshot overview of how I went from getting a childhood fascination and turning into a lifelong career and all the ups and downs and as you know, Andrew, from the people we've had on here, it's never a straight trajectory and that's the thing I pass along to young people. It's not gonna be, if you want to do this or go into whatever field you choose, it won't be a straight trajectory, but if you're, I always tell people if you're, if you have a positive attitude, if you're driven, you're focused, you're persistent, and above all, passionate, you'll go a long way in life, and I'm definitely that, fall into that category, because I mean, I have a lot of professors and teachers that are probably rolling in their graves now, in a good way, um from where I was to where I've come, but I I stayed focused my whole life, and.

46:14 knew what the goal, where I wanted to go. that's again, that's the best advice I could share with younger people. And if I could share one quick story here, before we go, I told you about we're talking off air, but in my presentation, when you have a chance to listen to it, really changed the trajectory of my life was when I was finishing my bachelor's degree at Humboldt State University, I literally had a cup of coffee. I ran into a professor I knew there, asked me what I was gonna do. And I said, well, I was gonna go. study sharks and travel the world. You know, I was like 20, 21. I what I know. You know, I 21, 22. And he said, well, let's go have a cup of coffee. And over that cup of coffee, he convinced me that I should go to grad school.

46:56 And I about passed out. I was like, are you kidding me? I'm just going to be happy getting a B I barely got through a bachelor's degree. And you're talking about graduate school and nobody in my family had ever been to grads. It was completely, I'd no one in my, no thing, but that, that caught that. Cup of coffee changed my trajectory because I ended up, I went to grad school, I talked to Greg Kaie. My grades weren't great. I was not like, you know, gonna go there. Greg gave me an opportunity to go to study under him at Moss Landing. I went there, I persisted, and during my time as a grad student at Moss Landing, I met Leonard Campagno, which again changed the trajectory of my life because the story I've told this before, but.

47:39 Literally as he was heading off to South Africa and Leonard's from San Francisco and I knew him when he was there. As he left for South Africa, I just asked him like, hey, do you anybody to carry your bags? It was that simple a question and it turned into, it was literally that question and eight months later he called me up and said he had a PhD position and off I went to South Africa and the rest is sort of history but it all came from a cup of coffee with a professor at Humboldt State. Unreal. to all that whole thing. And these days I'm gonna write my memoirs and stuff. I'll get a little more detail on it. But literally, I can't state enough that sometimes it's something as simple as like a cup of coffee with somebody changes, have such a profound influence on your life.

48:26 And that was me. And the professor at Hubbell was John Demartini. was an invertebrate professor there. That cup of coffee changed my whole direction in life. So you never know. It's all about networking. It's all about meeting new people. It's getting to know your professors, having coffee with them, having a good professional relationship with them just getting to know them. And the stories that uh we have, that we tell or have people on to tell are the stories that people share with each other when they meet uh for coffee or they meet at a conference or... These are the stories where you're just chilling out, you're relaxing, and then you never know what conversations will come up and what opportunities will come up.

49:10 And I feel like that is the huge thing that people don't realize just by engaging with their professors. And there's so many myths about people like, you know, professors are intimidating, want, they, you know, they just have to get you. It's not at all like that. This is about coming at you, trying to help you. They become your colleagues after a while and you just never know what might happen. So we'll end it on that. But Dave, congratulations on the Ed Ricketts Memorial Award. Much deserved. you know, you obviously belong in that prestigious uh names of people who have won it in the past. And I'm sure there will be more in the future. Probably people that you've had an influence, especially within the shark science degree and all the people that have been on this podcast so far have had an influence on like that.

49:57 Josh Generations and more. to be able to do that. mean, 800, over 800 scientific publications and 38, you know, books. is unreal. And probably still counting, because I know we've talked. There's something that works and there's more coming. So that's awesome. anyway, again, thank you to everybody for listening to us over this past year. We can't wait to, you know, get started on 2026. We'll have more guests, new guests, old, like guests who have been on in the past. We're going be talking more about shark research and shark conservation. You know, you never know what we're going to be up to in 2026. But we want to thank you for supporting us.

50:38 Thank you for subscribing and following and sharing with other of your colleagues or people you think are going to, you know, benefit from this because this is a big deal to us and we want to serve you. We want to make sure that you enjoy it as well. So Dave, can't wait for 2026. It was a great 2025. Looking forward to looking in the future. Yep, yep, and happy new year. Happy new year, everybody. Happy New Year for sure. All right, we'll talk to you soon. Alright!