She Moved Across the World to Study Devil Rays… Here’s Why It Matters

1:00:00 On today's episode of the Beyond Jaws podcast, we have Marta Palacios, who's working in La Paz, Mexico with Devil Ray's. We're gonna talk about Devil Ray's, we're gonna talk about her career, how she got to where she is from Spain, all the way over to Mexico to work on something that she went diving with when she was younger, and she realized how much she fell in love with Moby Lids. We're gonna talk all about that on today's episode of the Beyond Jaws podcast. Let's start the show. 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. Dave, are you ready to talk about some devil rays? Oh, absolutely. I'm pretty psyched up about this interview here today.

1:00:40 And this is just people know, this is the first of several episodes we're gonna be having over the next couple months of some of the keynote speakers from the upcoming Sharks International Conference. And several of the speakers have already been on the podcast before, but Marta has it. And there's a few others that have not been on the podcast. And they're gonna be on the pod, we'll be featuring them and some of the research they're doing. And she's a, certainly I've characterized an early career researcher just getting started. And she worked, she were found, you know, she found a little known species of devil ray that the monks devil ray, and she got onto it, has become like a world expert on those things now. So I'm really, really looking forward to hearing her story and learn and find out more about her journey.

1:01:23 Absolutely. Let's get into the interview with Marta and joy. And we'll talk to you after. Hey, Marta, welcome to the Beyond Jaws podcast. Are you ready to talk about Mobile Arrays? Good show. Right on. I love it. I love it. Well, welcome everyone to another Beyond Jaws podcast. We have a special guest today. We have Dr. Marta Palacios from La Paz Baja, California, Mexico. And she's one of the keynote speakers at this year's Sharks International. Marta is a Marine Biologist and co-founder of the Mobile Conservation Project, specializing in the ecology, conservation, and fisheries interaction of Mobile Rays in Mexican Pacific waters. She's also currently involved with the important Shark and Rays areas project supporting the global identification of critical habitats for chondricthians.

1:02:09 She's a collaborator with the Manta Trust, where Marta led a global assessment of the trade in Mobile and Meat and Gill Plates, contributing to the proposal to uplift Mobile as to CITES Appendix One. Marta is a grantee of the Explorers Club, the Shark Conservation Fund, the Walter Monk Foundation, and she's received numerous awards and other fellowships. Too many to go into here. I'll spend 30 minutes doing that. Very well accomplished. She has extensive experience working with artisanal fisheries, NGOs and government agencies to bridge science and policy. Her works contributed to the identification of critical habitats for Mobulids, as well as the development of management plans for Mexico. She holds a BSC and MSC in biology from the autonomous University of Madrid and the University of Laguna, Spain.

1:02:56 She also has an MSC in marine and fisheries resource management from Sisamar in Mexico. And she also has her PhD from Sisamar in collaboration with the University of California, Santa Cruz. And she's they said she's currently the director, co-founder of the Mobula Conservation Project. Her bridge is really her passion project, but she's also a research assistant for the ISRA program. And Marta, welcome to the program. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Yeah. So we'll get started. We'll ask you a first question. We always like to ask our guests. How did you get interested in sharks and Mobulids and marine science in general? So Mobulas and sharks, I would say by pure luck, like I was doing an internship in Bali.

1:03:45 I got a grant from Spain to go in a professional internship in a dive center in Bali. So we were diving in New Sape Nida and this place that is called Manta Point. And we were there. And one day there were like 13 mantas just swimming above the cleaning station. And I thought, what are these animals? What are they doing here? And since then I got like into into the mantras. But I have to say that before going like into mantas and sharks, I mess around with other animals just to to see if I was not more interested, like in dolphins, in penguins and or else.

1:04:34 Yeah, I was not never like, oh, this is my passion. No, I was I always love nature and being in the sea. So I experienced a bit of. Other things and then decided, was it more through diving? Was it more like or or was it actually like science at that point? At that point, I was like doing an internship with the university team. So I was having like my research project, but I was also getting my master's. Gotcha. But yeah, it was very basic science. Yeah. And then when I finished university, I yeah, I got distracted and went in in other directions a little bit to experiment.

1:05:25 I'm in the middle of it. But yeah, I ended up with I would say I will start with mantas in in 2016. OK. OK. Yes. Cool. So did you grow up in Spain? Did you grow up near near the ocean in Spain near the med or no, I grew up in Spain and my part of my family lives in Asturias, which is on the North Coast of Spain. So it's very like coal and rough seas. And what we were doing mainly was surfing. So I think surfing was what got me into my love for the ocean because we were spending many, many hours in the water just waiting for the waves.

1:06:16 And after that, I knew I always knew I wanted to study biology. Right. Because half of my family, my aunts are all biologists and they study like wolves, bears and other animals in Spain. So nature, it's been always part of my life. OK. So what brought you all the way to Mexico? I was in the Galap. I was actually before here. And well, I I did one semester in Mexico many years ago, like in 2014.

1:07:00 And then went to New Zealand, to Brazil, Ecuador. And when I was in Ecuador, I was doing an internship with Manta Trust at the Charles Darwin Foundation. And there I met Thomas Peschek because he was there to tag some Manta Rays. So we were talking about different projects or different things that could be done with mobulas, especially I was trying to focus more on on devil rays, like the smaller species, because at that time I thought like mantas were like everybody was doing mantas. So I was more interested in some of the in the movelas. Yeah.

1:07:44 Yeah. And the devil rays that that were more like unknown. Interesting. So he told me about this place in a spirit of Santo, which is a marine protected area here in in California, so that there's like a dive site where you can dive at night with Munchy on mobile and can. So they got attracted to the light and then you can spend like a few hours with with the mobulas swimming around. So he told me it's a good place to start because you already know where is the aggregation. Maybe you can go there and tag some animals and see what are they doing there.

1:08:25 So I talked with guy guy, Steven, from the mantet rest. And he was like, Yeah, it's a great idea. If you go there, we will support you in the way that they can. So I came straight from the Galapagos back to Barra in 2016 to start the project. And since then, I'm trapped here. Oh, that's true. And so you know, you when you did your start doing your your system are where you at in the pause or up in Ensenada in the past.

1:09:07 In the past. Yeah. Okay. She's in my knees. It's in the past. Okay. Okay. And then and then who's your main advisor down there? Is it Felipe? Is yeah, Felipe. I'll ban and Rogelio. When Sally's arm. So they were both helping me at the beginning because at the beginning, it was kind of a struggle because I came here to study a species that nobody was doing much. And I didn't have any budget. So everybody was like, Yeah, yeah, it's a great project. But we don't have money for you. So so that's when I met Don Crow. Actually, Felipe put me in contact with Don Crow. And he was coming every summer to El Pardito, which is a small island of fishers.

1:09:57 So he's been coming down here for the past 30 years. So Felipe sent me to the island with Don Crow. And Don Crow didn't have an option. He had to took me in. And I was very lucky because he was very nice. And we talked a lot about the project that I wanted to do. And of course, as I always tell him that he always destroys all the projects like when you have an idea to just pitch it to him and he will destroy it. Which I think is very good because it actually makes you think and rethink how I'm going to answer these questions, why these questions are important. Is there any other questions that I can maybe ask?

1:10:53 So he helped me a lot to establish like the hypothesis and how to to do the sampling. But the best thing is that he introduced me to the fishers that live in El Pardito. So these guys, they've been fishing for mobile arrays since they were kids because their father was helping Don Crow to tag the animals there. So they're kids that were now like 35, 40 years. They were experts in catching mobulas without killing them because that was because they learned about their lives. Yeah. Yes. So it was perfect because they are also super, super nice people.

1:11:47 We got along very well since the beginning and we became really good friends. So after that, like I had the team, I have the questions, but I didn't have the money. So after that, it came all the struggle to find money to just for a couple of acoustic receivers and a couple of tags and just to pay the salary to the fishers to go with me to the island. So yeah, luckily we we managed to get some funding from the Mentor Bay Aquarium that they've been supporting a this this work in the Gulf of California for the past years. So yeah, Diego Don Crow gave me some acoustic tags and he was like, good luck. I don't think it's going to work.

1:12:37 But yeah, I know the first time we went to the to the island with the fishers, I was with my friend, Abel Trejo, who is also a shark researcher. And actually, he's like the mastermind from where I learned everything. And so he was coming with me and we were camping on the island on tents and with the fishers and dogs. And we were just looking for the mobulans and then trying to capture them. And we realized that we were capturing very, very small individuals. So we managed to tag neonates and one of the gear mobile and which was kind of rare.

1:13:33 And we started to do the same for a year and a half. So at the end of the project, we came out with the result that this area is a nursery area for mobile and can in the Gulf of California. So yeah, it's very nice. The mobility of Makiata, there's not there's it's one of the it's kind of a regional endemic species. It only occurs really in the eastern Pacific. And it's it's it's it's it's the smallest of the mobile is devil rays or is it is? Yeah, it's the smallest one. And it's only found from the Gulf of California to the north coast of Peru.

1:14:19 Okay. So yeah, it's endemic to the Eastern tropical Pacific. And at that time, we didn't know we didn't know much of the species more than they were very abundant in especially in the Gulf of California because you could see them jumping all over. But nobody knew what were they doing there and what was like kind of the fundamentals of the ecology of the species. So yeah, it was a surprise that we were capturing this tiny, tiny individuals. And then we developed the project from there, not like, okay, now we found a nursery area. Where are the adults? And what are they doing? And so after that, it came my PhD, trying to solve the rest of the questions.

1:15:17 Yeah. So so with the with these, because like, yes, to my knowledge, there's almost nothing known about or there has been almost nothing known. Do you ever meet GSA pay? Nota Bartolo desi Ari? Yes. Yes. He came in 2022. And we were with the Walter Mann Foundation that at that time he the foundation was funding most of my research through my research. Through my PhD. So they invite you separate to actually see mobile and Canada in the white, because he described the species in the 80s while he was doing his PhD at scripts, scripts, but he never saw the animals in the water. He just described the animals from landing from the fishers.

1:16:08 Yeah, so it was it was really, really something to to be in the water because it was like a perfect day. The water was like a lake. And we found this group of mobile as it could. I think there were like, thousands of them in this vortex doing this vortex. So you didn't even need to swim. And you said they got into the water and he was just like floating at the surface and the moment as we're beneath them. And yeah, it was it was amazing. Yeah. He earned it. They rewarded him well for it. Yeah.

1:16:49 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But that's so when you're when you're working out when you're working on these monkey on monkey on it. Did you ever did you encounter any other any other species of devil? Yeah, well, in the Gulf of California, mobiles are like very, very common. The most common one is the monkey on it. But then we have mobile. That is the benefit. They will raise and mobile a mobile. And but because our surveys are like super target, we only capture a monkey on it because we we use the monkey on it. Because we we use like an artist on a net that we make it. It's called rodeo technique. So when we spot the group at the surface, the features start to set up the net super fast around the group and we go with the boat making like around around the group and then just close it very fast.

1:17:50 Although sometimes they can go underneath like they are masters of avoiding the net. So that's how we capture. But it's very specific. Like we never have other species. No, no, the raise the devil raise another. Are they fairly are they targeted into fisheries down there? No, in Mexico, they are protected since 2007. So yeah, since 2007, the fishery was finished because previously there were direct fisheries and it was crazy.

1:18:31 Like you could go to this place that is now the epicenter for ecotourists in La Ventana. So before this was the main fishery. Main fishery in the one of the main fisheries in the Gulf of California, like the fishers were just setting the net super close to the coast and retrieving it in the morning. And some days the net was so heavy, they they couldn't leave the net because it has so many mobiles that they just drag the net towards the beach and then start to process the animals on the beach. So yeah, but since 2007, they they were protected. But the big problem is the bycatch. Yeah, I what I've heard what I understand is because they tend they tend to travel in large groups, the monkey on and so like the fishers used to like spot where they were moving like along the coast.

1:19:34 They would set the nets, they could basically trap the whole wipe out the whole school essentially back. This is years ago. That's what I was curious, which I would think after enough years, I would pretty much wipe out the most of the population there. But they they they they've been protecting them since 2007. Do you think it's been pretty successful in your opinion? It's successful in in the sense that a target fishery towards this species can be very damaged in very few years. Like if you have a target fishery towards mobiles in 10 years, you can almost destroy populations now and provoke local extinctions.

1:20:19 But yeah, I think the the ban on the fishery really helped the populations. But we still have the problem of the bycatch because like we have this sense of like, yeah, artisanal feature is that like small. But we find out that one fisherman with one net like a net that is maybe less than a kilometer is a big less than a kilometer can kill up to 80 mobiles in one night. So if you multiply that for all the all the days that he's going out and all the pungers that are out fishing with kill nets.

1:21:07 It's a massive, massive number of bycatch. And the problem with the bycatch is because they are not allowed to bring the animals to the to the shore. They just throw overboard. And we don't have the numbers or the sense of how many are being killed by these kill nets that are actually targeting stingrays. Right. Okay. Yeah. So that's one of the main problems in California. Are kill nets in in that area? Are they not banned because of the whole toto alba and vikita problem in there? No, the total is more on the north part of the Gulf of California.

1:21:55 So we are very much at the south. This is more south. I got just not the entire Gulf. It's just like in that northern part. Yeah, just the northern part is where the total of a fishery is concentrated. Gotcha. Got. Because when we have the problem. Right. But the gill nets are allowed and are widely used among the artisanal fishers in this region. They use it for angel sharks and other stingray species that actually have like a huge market here. Right. So they don't want the devil rays in their nets. No, they don't target the devil rays.

1:22:41 But if they have the race, sometimes they process the meat as well and they sell it under other names. And that was another study that we conducted in two thousand and twenty two in the supermarkets of La Paz. So we were collecting Manta Raya because they call everything Manta Raya is like the umbrella term. And we find out that under Manta Raya there are actually fourteen species of sharks and whales. And among those species are two mobulans that are federally protected. So that's that's the problem. Also the meat of the mobulans are not very high value here because they have like a dark meat.

1:23:31 They actually call it here. Cubanas because of the dark dark color of the interesting. So it's very low price and the fishers doesn't get much money for the mobulans. They get more for the stingrays. But yeah, it's it's a bycatch because of the habitat overlap. Have you done much? Have you gone elsewhere along the Pacific coast of Mexico to see or Central America to see if you find any other aggregations of these things? So, they aggregate pretty much everywhere they exist. That's the thing. It's something that is within their species.

1:24:18 And that's what they do is they aggregate. They aggregate. They aggregate. They aggregate. They aggregate. The thing here in is this massive aggregations with money to these aggregations that are like thousands of thousands of individuals in less than one kilometer. So it's very seasonal and it goes by pulses. It goes by pulses. But it's along a migration that they are conducting around the peninsula. They also aggregate. For example, if you go to a garetto or in Costa Rica in Ecuador in Peru as well.

1:25:02 They also aggregate. But you cannot find these massive groups as you see here. How come? Maybe it's because of the fisheries like they've been so heavily fished. Oh, I see. It's not as abundant. There's not as much. Or it's just because we don't know because for these huge groups that are here. We didn't know until 2017 2018. Or we knew that they were going to be there. We knew that they were making these large aggregations, but there was just not research on this species. So is this work you've been doing here now? You're involved in the important shark and ray areas program. You're a research assistant there. Research researcher in that program. Is this the information you've gathered from these monkey on monkey on? Are they going to be factoring play a role in how you?

1:26:06 How you work on that project as well? So for monkey, that's actually how I started with the interest with important shark and raised areas because they were asking for proposals in two thousand and twenty two. I think it was the first region they were assessing. So I wanted to put more pianos on the map. So I submit a proposal with all my PhD information for the nursery area for the reproductive grounds. And so they got they have already several issues. Some here in Baja. I know they also have something better.

1:26:51 And and now that we are assessing the North Pacific region. I'm hoping to as well add them in some of the proposals for the peninsula for the Pacific side. Yeah, but the important it's not just for mobility is for all types of sharks and rays and go sharks. Are there other species that you can talk about that you think are important that they should be looked at? Should be looked at in the area. And here in Baja, especially I think a guitar fishes, angel sharks. We have a lot of horn sharks as well. Aggregations of.

1:27:41 What a silky sharks. We have a lot of aggregations of silky. OK, so yeah, it's it's going to be very interesting. We have the workshop in three weeks. So yeah, we are just now in the craziness of all the proposals and looking for more areas and talking to everybody in the region. Is it going to be in the workshop in Mexico or yeah, it's going to be in Playa del Carmen. OK, OK. Nice. It's a good spot. And the gang the gang will all be there. And that's going to be for the whole sort of Eastern North Pacific from the Bering Sea to Gulf of California.

1:28:24 Yes, but we are also including the Caribbean and the Northwestern Atlantic. Oh, wow. That's huge. In in this workshop, we combine two regions. Yeah, we are feeling it. Yeah, I say I guess I guess so. If you're going to be doing you're going to be doing all of that work. So with all those things. So what's so you got. So you say you got a pretty full plate with things going on here. Is there anything else like you find time to go do some surfing? Yes, I go surfing during the weekends and very early in the mornings if the swell is good. And actually it was very like the place where I go surfing is like a secret spot where nobody else. Oh, it's very local. So I was there and I was seeing them in Canada surfing in the ways when I saw. Oh, cool. Wow. So I was like, I have to put an acoustic guitar.

1:29:28 And I was like, Oh, I'm going to get the receiver here because I'm sure I'm going to get the mobile. And Don Crow was like, you're going to be wrong. Like they are. You will never get them in the middle of the Pacific, especially because I got them here in the Gulf of California. Yeah. But I put the receiver anyway. And we got several channels that we take in. And they went all the way to the Pacific coast and up the Pacific coast. Oh, really? Yeah, they were up. It was this place is from the time. Place where we put it. It was like 520 kilometers away.

1:30:18 Wow. Wow. They get north of Magdalena Bay. Probably. Yes, I don't really receive it farther up. I my last receiver ended up in Magdalena Bay. Yeah. But yeah, after that, we don't know. But probably what you had this. Well, now, just for people out there, Don Crowell actually. And I went to did our masters together, Moss Landing Marine Laboratories. And he's mainly a marine mammal guy, but he's always been a keen surfer. And so did you have to share your secret surf spot with Don? Yes. Yes. Okay. In the pin. Well, I have to make sure Don Don's a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. I have to make sure Don catches this episode.

1:31:21 How do you feel about that? I feel excited. And I try not to think about it much. I already because this year there's this format of combined talks. So there's like early researchers with a more senior researchers. So yeah, I've been talking with guy because we are going to give the talk together. Guys get guys speaking as well. Yes. Yes.

1:32:03 So yeah, it's it's also been very good to have these meetings with him and just try to to put form at our message and what we want to try to communicate. But yeah, I think like spoiler alert. The talk is is going to be about mobile. But it's going to be about really collaboration, like how collaboration is it makes wonders. And for me, it's something that I learned it first with month of trust. And now with days record it to see how how it is when people really collaborate.

1:32:52 Even people that work in the same areas or with the same species that normally they don't collaborate as much because we are like an outside entity and a neutral one. And it's like, okay, we are just going to deal with everybody the same way. And we have an objective and goal. And at the end, everybody is collaborating. Everybody is making the best effort to put their best information for the species and for the conservation of this species. And it's amazing, like every time after every workshop with the Israel's we are just like how much information there is outside there.

1:33:39 Everybody has a lot of information and how amazing is when everything comes together in a map or in the case of the month of trust, it was for the global trade. Right. But yeah, it's like people is it's really open to collaborate. Sometimes we just have to set the ground. Yep. Yeah, for sure. For sure. So let me ask, so where do you see your career going your early career getting this big talk at the thing? Where do you see where do you see yourself in the next 5, 10, 20 years from now?

1:34:20 Well, as, as you could see by my resume, I have like very diverse interest. Yeah, so yeah, for sure. I really hope to keep going with the model of research here in Mexico and do more projects, like always focus on the conservation. That's like my main goal. That's like my main drive to do science. And but I also see myself working with horses. Horses. Interesting. Like research or just like riding? No, just like giving. Yeah, like a keynote that up and things like that. I like it. Oh, nice. That's that's how long you've been into horse riding?

1:35:15 Since I was 10. Since you're 10. Okay. She's actually been in the horses at least as long or longer than you've been into the sharks and mobile. It's actually more into horses than into. Yeah. Oh, nice. Do you ride down in in La Paz? Yes. Well, not in La Paz, but in a small town on the Pacific coast. Okay. Yeah. Nice. We ride there. That's awesome. That's great. That's awesome. So what what I mean, you got a diverse background. What what advice would you have for a young person just sort of starting out? Um, what I would say, I would say try to collaborate with as much people as they allow you to. Sometimes you just send a lot of emails and it's like, nah, nah, nah. But you just have to try. Yeah. For me, it was, I think, it was a very good idea.

1:36:12 It was what really helped me was like getting into all these different projects in very, very different places with of course very different set of people. Um and then you learn how to interact with everybody and you learn a little bit. Hopefully the good stuff from everybody. Um how to do research in. Yeah. With pictures how to do research. How to do research in the middle of the Amazon how to do things like that. And at that point when you are learning all those things, you may think I'm so lost because I'm changing ideas every year.

1:36:57 But then when you find your thing, like all all that knowledge will come to you in different forms. Sometimes it's just pure patience. Sometimes it's like, oh, I'm not going to do this. Sometimes it's like different ways of talking to people. Sometimes it's like skills to be in the field. Not doesn't matter if it rains or it's very hot. Um so yeah, I would say just go out try to collaborate experiment very different projects and different settings and be open. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, Marta, it's been really wonderful having you on here and congratulations on giving a keynote here at the Sharks International. I'll I'll be sitting up front taking notes. Uh I look forward to meeting you again in person. Um and uh anyway, thanks very much and and and uh we're definitely going to have you back on here in the future. If you get some new exciting research going, we'd love to have you back on the show again.

1:37:59 Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Martha, for joining us on today's episode of the Beyond Jaws podcast. It was great to have you on Dave. You know, one thing that I loved about this episode, it kind of goes to what you've been talking about for a long time is picking a species that people don't know much about. She had the opportunity to look at uh you know, just manta rays in general and she's like, you know what? A lot of people are looking at are looking into the species during research on the species. We know a good amount of information about this, but what we don't know is we don't know about devil race. So I'm going to do anything I can on devil race to find out as much as I can. And I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that. And all the scientific evidence here, uh, of the inverse of there are being one research procedure and, and she just immediately got over it, and then then he was a whole bunch of Supplementpl VOL like these, and he just hadn't in fact, as we talked about, they're the smallest, they're the smallest of the devil rays.

1:39:02 And species was just described back in about 1987. And it's, and so, but nobody's really ever done much for them. And they used to be, before the protections came in, in Mexico, they used to be fished fairly heavily actually. Yeah. And so it was kind of nice to see, she found something that is now protected, thankfully. And she really is just taking this, taking this on and really basically, you know, writing the story for these things, which is amazing. Oh, absolutely. I think this is, you know, it goes towards the thing is you want to be able to get funding. You want to be able to research something, do something that nobody else is doing. There's still a lot of information, a lot of species where we don't have information on shark ray skate species, and it needs to be done.

1:39:44 And so to be able to, you know, piggyback on other research or to be able to identify species that need a lot of information on it, I think is amazing. And you can do something fun, just like Martha's doing where, you know, she talked at the end about going surfing on, on the Pacific side of Baja and, and she's like, oh wait, there's like, this is a cool local spot, but there's mobulates here. I wonder if any of the species that I've tagged are here. I'm going to put it, I'm going to drop a receiver where I surf and hopefully, you know, we'll see, be able to see. And even her advisors like, you know what? You're never going to find anything there. What happens? 500 kilometers like distance between where she tagged them and where she put the receiver.

1:40:28 She finds one, maybe a couple. And it's just like, you know, it's that curiosity. You're out surfing, you're enjoying your weekend. You know, early in the morning, you see a mobula, like, wait a minute, maybe they come out this far, which nobody expected. And then you find out just that curiosity, dropping receiver there, all of a sudden, you know, their, their distribution has just increased. Yeah. You know, yeah. I mean, they came, they came quite a far up. Yeah. They came quite far up the coast of the Pacific coast of Baja was further, much further than I was aware of. I mostly knew them. They were mainly Gulf of California, maybe a little bit around the tip of Baja there, but they're, she's saying they're probably up north of Magdalena Bay, which is a big fondle change for those people who don't know the big. And so they get up there and so I'm kind of wondering if maybe occasionally they might creep into Southern California here. I'm not aware of any, any records of those things.

1:41:18 And we get the, we get the, the, the, the big, uh, uh, mobula, mobile are up here and we get a, you know, a couple other, uh, the, the giant Manare, uh, uh, mobile, a birosaurus, but we don't really get too many, don't get much more than that. But boy, after hearing her story, I wouldn't be surprised if in a warm water year, you know, these, you know, some of these things actually do get up here, which would be quite a, quite a range extension for them. But especially when you have like things like climate change, warming up the seas, it's, it's an important understand to understand where that range can go, right? And, and, and how far up the coast can go. And so, uh, yeah, that'll be, it's, it's always interesting. And I just think it's that goes to that curiosity. Uh, you know, she has a, uh, at the end, she, she talks about how she, Martha talks about how she had a wide range of curiosity, not just for underwater species, but even for horse species and riding, and riding. She's been riding since she was 10. She rides in near La Paz, like just in along, along the coastline.

1:42:14 Uh, must be just a, uh, it's, it must be fun just to be able to follow your passions as well as being able to study a species that, that not many people know about. So, and she's definitely, yeah, she definitely falls in that category. She's definitely been pursuing her passion. She's been very fortunate to be able to do that. And if you didn't pick up on the interview, she kind of was doing this ISRA important shark and ray areas, kind of like help pay the bills, but she really, real passions running her is getting her own NGO up off the ground and going. And that's really cool to see. Cause I think as we've talked about in other episodes, you know, in this field, there's never been a lot of jobs and I can attest to that. If you, but you know, you have more opportunities to start your own organization now. And the thing is you'll, it's got the pros and cons, but you have a lot more freedom to do what you want to do and direct your own research versus if you go to work in a, whether it's academia or agency, you're going to be more limited.

1:43:03 So there's definitely some big, big thing there and hopefully we'll have her back on hopefully in the future and talk a bit more as she, as her career progresses and looking forward to her and again, congratulations to Marta for being one of the keynote speakers this year at sharks international. Absolutely. We're going to look forward to seeing that. Hopefully I can see that in person. I know Dave, you're going, I'm hoping to get there. But I think it'll be great. She's doing it with Guy Stevens, which will be great to see that combination for a talk. I'm looking forward to seeing that. So about to thank you again for joining us. We're going to share your social media to their Dave. If people want to get ahold of you, how would they do so? You know, law shark guy on Instagram and then it follow my YouTube channel, a law shark guy and I catch up to series searching for law sharks at Andrew and I've been documentaries and I've been producing and we'll have a new episode out real soon.

1:43:53 Absolutely. And of course, if you want to follow this, if you're not watching this on YouTube, you can go to YouTube beyond Jaws pod and of course on Instagram beyond Jaws pod. Thank you so much everybody for joining us on today's episode of the beyond Jaws podcast. I hope you have a great day from Dave and I have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.