Jaws 50th Anniversary: How a Movie Reshaped Shark Science Forever

1:00:00 Ladies and gentlemen, this is a special episode. Why? Because the 50th anniversary of the release of Jaws, the movie, the trilogy, the thing that really changed shark science and how we see sharks in ways that we probably did not expect. Some people will say, hey, it made great white sharks look awful and people were scared and yes, that is true, but it also funded a lot of research for sharks in general and probably got to us where we got to a place where we are today in terms of all those shark research and all the stuff we know about sharks. And we're going to be talking to a number of people, including Dave Ebert, of course, cohost. We're also going to be talking to Lisa Nattanson.

1:00:40 We're going to be talking to Greg Skoemel. We're going to talk to Chris Lowe. All have worked with great white sharks in their career. All are part of the Jaws generation that we've been talking about on this podcast for a long time. So let's start the show and let's talk about Jaws. Hey everybody, welcome back to an extremely exciting episode of the Beyond Jaws podcast. I'm your cohost, Andrew Lewin here with my cohost, Dr. David Ebert. And Dave is part of that Jaws generation. Dave, welcome back to the show. Yo, thanks, man. It's kind of nice to be kind of a cohost slash guest on the show. Exactly. Right. It's definitely it's almost it's almost in a way like a high school reunion or something with the Jaws generation because Chris and Greg and Lisa and I all kind of came up together in the start in the eighties and Lisa and I as those of you listening to the show, we're heard out where and I were lab mates back at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories in the early eighties, literally started our careers together.

1:01:38 And and so it was kind of neat to kind of come full circle now and be talking about talking about Jaws at 50, which makes you feel really old. But we were but all of us had some kind of connection to the movie one way or another. And we talk about that in the episode, which is which is really cool. And I think I know I've mentioned a few episodes here and there, but actually, Lisa and I's first paper was on the age and growth of the white shark back in 1985. And I need to think about. Yeah, it's amazing. People think about it. And it was it was it came out of a conference we talk about that was at Cal State Fullerton in 1983, which was the first international global white shark conference.

1:02:19 And those of you listen to him back in 2023, they had the the fifth one, I think 40 years later, which I didn't attain. But that Lisa and I were the first attended that one. That was our first publication. And looking at the list of people at the time that are there, it's like pretty much really where were a the youngest that are there or the only ones that are still like kind of active and haven't retired or died yet. So it's like, well, that's good to know. Yeah, it's always nice to know. Right. Yeah. But this is this is it's going to be a fun episode because not only do we talk about the research and how it's changed over the time and how Jaws affected that and influenced that. But also just like your first perceptions of of the movie when you saw it in theaters and everybody else and and how they felt about it and different feelings, including my own, which is it's a lot of fun.

1:03:08 Just a little different generation there. And we've been posting up some show, some videos of a younger generation and how it affects how Jaws affected them, which is always interesting to hear. So there's a lot of different perspectives. We talk a lot about some of the tidbits of Jaws and the filming that probably people didn't know. Chris Lowe obviously grew up in the area. He's talked about it on this podcast a number of times where he actually saw like some of his friends and people that he knew in and around in around town that were in the movie, which he said, you know, were a bunch of characters in themselves in their own rights, which is a lot of fun. So this is a fun episode talking about shark research, talking about shark science, the perception of sharks over the years and some of the great conservation stories and success stories that we've seen over those years.

1:03:55 So without further ado, here are David Ebert, Chris Lowe, Grace Gomal, Lisa Dutanson and myself talking about Jaws, the 50th anniversary. Enjoy the interview and we'll talk to you after. All right, everybody, we have a special episode for you all today. It is the 50th anniversary of Jaws. So Dave and I decide actually this was Dave's idea. Really, Dave said, hey, you know what? We need to get the Jaws generation on the podcast. We've talked about this a number of times. Let's get like four people, including Dave, who are who who just grew up in this, having their career in this Jaws generation. And we're going to talk about the effect that Jaws had on the pod on on their careers and as well as shark research.

1:04:40 We're going to talk about the shark research that they've done because of that. And where do we think sharks are in terms of where it was back in the 70s after Jaws and now 50 years after Jaws is going to be a lot of fun. I'm sure there's going to be a lot of fun. We got some hot takes to go over. I'm looking forward to this. So before we go further, let's just do a quick introduction. We'll start with Lisa. Why don't you just introduce yourself, who you are and what you do? I'm Lisa Nattanson and I worked for over 30 years on shark life history, primarily age and growth and reproduction at NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service and retired a few years ago. And I'm still working, but I'm not getting paid anymore. So that helps.

1:05:24 Good to hear. Greg, you're next. Greg Skomal, I'm a shark biologist for the state of Massachusetts. And I I've worked with Lisa many, many, many years ago. Actually still collaborate with Lisa and Chris and Dave. But yeah, I've been focused on on great white sharks off New England recently, but I've done a lot of other stuff. Wonderful. And you and you've been on the podcast. Actually, everybody think has been on the podcast more than once, including Chris. Chris, I want you to just remind people who you are and what you do. Sure. I'm Chris Lowe. I'm a professor of marine biology at Cal State Long Beach and I'm the director of the shark lab. I grew up on Martha's Vineyard and I started working with Greg right out of college.

1:06:05 Amazing. Way back. And I've known Dave. He'll do that. Yeah. Lisa, too. Yeah. Yeah. And then Dave, I know everybody knows who you are because you've been on the podcast. Why don't you just kind of remind people who you are? Well, Dave Ebert and I have program director for the Pacific Shark Research Center and actually started out with Lisa. We were in the same lab together in 1980 something. And when we started out and so we've known each other a long time and had a lot of fun experiences. And then, yep, I got to know Greg and Chris all kind of from that same 80s era, kind of just post jaws.

1:06:47 And we're still still at it and still going at it today looking at sharks and everything. So awesome. Awesome. This is going to be fun. The first thing I want to do is kind of get an idea of where all of you were at, you know, age wise or career wise when Jaws, the first Jaws movie came out. Right. So Lisa, we'll start with you. Where were you in your career when had you started your career with graduate students? Where were you in that that time when Jaws came out? It was what 1975? Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yep. I'm not quite old enough to have started my career at that point. Okay. Sorry. I had decided probably 10 years before that that I was going to work on sharks.

1:07:29 I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. There was a lot of white shark attack stuff. I was a very gory child, so I kind of got into the whole attack scenario. So when Jaws came out, I was thrilled. And I went and saw it five times, which I don't usually see movies second time, no less five and just loved it. And it just kind of I don't know that it spurned my career, but it was kind of nice to see Matt Hooper out doing what I had wanted to do forever. So I was Greg, my Greg, how about yourself career? Well, being a lot younger than Lisa, I was a young teenager and I heard about this movie about sharks.

1:08:16 And like most kids, I was fascinated by sharks. And then I saw the film at a theater in Connecticut where I was growing up and I was completely fascinated by the film. I loved it. I thought it was incredible, kind of scary. You know, although the feature for me, like Lisa and probably Chris and Dave was seeing Matt Hooper. And I decided at that time, he's got a hell of a cool job. And that became my goal, you know, back in 1975, to say, you know, see if I can become a shark biologist. So it like that movie was like, no, this is what I want to do. Like once I found this because you were always interested in the sea, right?

1:08:58 From I remember the first interview you talked about having marine aquariums and all that kind of stuff. Were you already at that point? Yeah, as I talk about in my book, Chasing Shadows, available on Amazon, all major book outlets. Nice plug. Nice. Yeah, yeah, I kept fishing aquariums. I was fascinated by the ocean. And so, you know, and I love sharks, but Matt Hooper told me that, boy, there's a job like this. And Chris, how about yourself? Well, you have a little bit more special and more intimate journey. A little bit. I because I grew up on the island, I was there when they filmed it. And a lot of the kids that I went to school with were in it.

1:09:40 So I definitely did not have the looks to get a movie and we're close. I couldn't be an extra. But I remember filming and I was interested in sharks before. And I was probably 11 when it came out. And I remember going to the island theater in Vineyard Haven and seeing it had just been out. And it was it was amazing. I kind of laughed. I thought this part were kind of funny. But but that was because we watched it being made. So I'm a mechanical shark. You saw all those things and you thought, well, this is kind of fake, right? Yeah. But I can imagine somebody who didn't see that would go, oh, my God, this is horrible. So I think as a kid growing up there and seeing all that was, you know, kind of made it not real for me.

1:10:27 And of course, it happened in a fictitious place. Of course. So so that made it easier. But the cool thing for me is watching Jaws is like watching home movies because there were so many locals in that thing that I grew up with. You know, my baseball coach was in there. My uncle was in there. So for me, it's literally like watching a home film. You know, they show the fairy Greg Greg can relate. He lived on the island for many years. He knew many of those characters and they're truly characters like you would have to be hard pressed to find actors. Right. That are better actors for those parts than the people they found that live in the island. So, you know, for me, it was it was it was kind of surreal.

1:11:09 Yeah. But the other cool thing was, you know, my friends, nobody was in the water that summer. We would get unfettered access to the beach. You'd be on the beach. I would get in the water. We're like, this is awesome. Opportunity knocks. Yeah. Good. Yeah. Yeah. Dave, what about yourself? You know, the first time I saw it was at the Steinbeck theater in Cannery Row, like right when it came out and kind of like Lisa, it was the first time I'd ever like went back to see a movie again. I thought it was so cool, but I was I was already kind of hooked on sharks. I'd been hooked on sharks since I was five years old. And I was probably about 15 or 16 when I saw the movie the first time.

1:11:50 And I grew up in the Monterey area. And so I was pretty into spearfishing. I was doing free diving and they'd have shark attacks. Around there. And it was like before Jaws is like a one day story. Oh, a surfer got bit today or a free diver got it. It'd just be that would be it'd be over. And but you just it was just when I saw it, I thought it was really cool, but it was just kind of a monster movie to me. I just thought like it was just I just because I was in the walk. And I found I kind of realized years later that if you kind of grew up on the water around the water and you weren't, you know, sharks weren't as sort of scary as they were in Jaws. You just knew they were just part of the environment. If you went hiking in the woods, you might see a bear or something. That's kind of how.

1:12:30 So I didn't really it didn't have the impact that that you see you read at the time. But I will say after Jaws came out when there would be a shark and we had we have a shark attacks every now and then the area after Jaws. Every shark attack was a huge event. It was like it would be a huge and you and you guys would come down from the Bay Area or over from out of the area and they'd go out in a boat. It was that's where it got a little like Jaws, where there were people out there trying to catch. A white shark that had maybe bit a surfer down, say the Big Sur coastline and they're out off, you know, off Monterey, you know, off the off the off the Canary Road looking for a shark that where there was an attack, say 30 miles away, but they're off Monterey, because that's where all the TV TV stations that go out and film these nuts.

1:13:14 Trying to catch a shark. And it was just that was probably the funniest part. I remember after the movie did come out, it was people there were people that do that, but they were never the locals. It was always somebody from out of the area would come down to the area to actually to actually do that. So, yeah, so it was. But it was it was definitely had it definitely had an impact in the area. And you did see things like, you know, I think in the movie you had there's they're had like these little video games where the guys are shooting the sharks and stuff that you saw those things pop up around like cannery row and stuff. And I just but, you know, but it was all it was all tourist driven. They could, you know, they, you know, tourists would come down there. They'd have they put these little game things up there. And of course, it's all like, yeah, of course, none of the tourists come down.

1:13:55 We're going in the ocean at all that summer. So that was good for me. So just what might be my friends were just going out, just going diving like we normally would and shooting a few fish and oh, well, you know, I don't know how you guys were. But before Jaws, like you really didn't have in this obviously way before any of us were studying sharks, you had a very different. Would your impression of sharks sort of different than it is now? Well, if I see a white shark, I'll just do this or do that versus prior to actually having seen one with what they could actually do. So, yeah, well, I'll tell you, I I saw Jaws probably late 80s like my first time seeing Jaws.

1:14:35 I was nine years old. I was in Florida. We were in a hotel room. I watched it with my dad. And I'll tell you, I didn't even want to go into a pool after that. I was I bought into the full thing. I didn't see it get made. I didn't see it. Yeah, the special effects were great. But to a nine year old in his imagination, I was like, nope, there's no way I'm going in the water for a while until my dad made me go into the ocean because he's like, you got to get over your fear. Then after that, I was fine. But, you know, it scared a heck of a lot of people, you know, and it and it definitely affected a lot of people in terms of how they perceive sharks in general, not just white sharks, but sharks in general. Now, all of you have worked, you know, throughout, you know, decades after Jaws.

1:15:17 And of course, we could we could talk a little bit about the sequels. They're not they weren't as good as the as the original, you know, and different actors, like pretty big actors, maybe not at the time. But they were they were like Dennis Quaid and Louis Scott, a junior were in. I think it was Jaws 3D. I think it was. Michael Caine was in the third Jaws Revenge. So, yeah, it was definitely, you know, action packed. And a lot of people were into it. But from from your perspective, you know, and your evolution as a as a shark scientist to today, from then to today, what did you see in terms of like, have you seen the perception of white sharks shift or even just sharks in general?

1:15:59 Well, sorry, Chris, you've you all have you've done sharks like white sharks. But I know you've we've talked about white sharks recently with you as well. Let's start with you. Yeah. So my perception shift. Right. White sharks. I thought they were totally overrated. Premedana sharks. Right. And I swore I swore I was never going to work on white sharks. That would be totally selling out. What's a freakin like doing right now? I'm studying white sharks. Yeah, I know. I'm selling. The problem was I got to hold a baby white shark. And I swear to God, those are the cutest things ever. I'm telling you right now, they are the cutest things ever.

1:16:40 And it was holding a baby white shark. I was like, OK, Dan, it seems kind of cool. I'm right up to do this. So what was it? What was it about that little tiny baby shark that that made you a miniature, perfect miniature version of the adult? I mean, they're just scaled down. Right. And then, of course, once you start learning about their physiology and all those things, you're just like, OK, this is kind of cool. You know, maker sharks are kind of like the tweeters, but white sharks are just coming cool. And of all the sharks I've ever worked with, Greg, Lisa can probably attest to this. These things just they're easy sharks to work with. Right. Compared to all the other species, they're actually kind of a journey.

1:17:22 So it's you know, it kind of defies the way people think of them. Right. The way they were portrayed in Jaws. And I think for me, that was a surprise. And I think people's perceptions are changing because of all the work that we've been doing. I think people are looking at white sharks. You know, it's it's you know, Jaws, it's in the water. It's going to come after you. No, that's simply not true. Right. So but it's think about that's 50 years to get to this point. Right. I mean, it's crazy. You know, the analogy I always use of whales. Right. So if you went to where I grew up 150 years ago, you ask people about whales. They're like, those are horrible animals. Right. They kill people.

1:18:03 Whales are bad. They got a big makeover in the 70s. And literally overnight, people are like, we love whales. OK, white sharks 50 years. And we're finally starting to get there. But it's taking a long time. That sharper teeth than maybe than orcas, I guess. But they've got a worse rap, you know, 100 percent damage for whales. But, you know, Jaws really turned the corner. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say it really it changed a lot, though, too, because there's up until like the early 80s, all the funny was all about shark attack through the Office of Naval Research and Chris, your your adviser, your master, Don Nelson, that was kind of his sort of bread and butter for decades, wasn't it? Pretty much.

1:18:51 We did some crazy crap, right? All all all in the sake of saving people from sharks, right? All the chemical, electrical repellents we would go out on the channel and they eat in a bunch of blue sharks and you'd have a mackerel in one hand and a squirt gun with soap in your other. And you squirt the soap in their mouth and see if they go away. And of course, 10 minutes later, they come back and want a mackerel. Or you just knock them and you get shocked as bad as the shark would. And you'd be like, why? Why are you doing? So all crazy stuff was to try to protect people from sharks. And here we are 50 years later and we're like, how do we protect sharks and people? Yeah, it's interesting flip, right? Yeah, I think that's the other thing that we went from that Jaws mentality of how to protect people from sharks to how we protect sharks and people.

1:19:39 Yeah, for sure. I was going to say, you know, I'll give I'm going to give Greg Skomol's a book, another plug here is Chasing Shadows. Get it? It actually and I think I've never texted Greg when I first read the book is that the early part of that book I could really relate to because I was all that stuff that Greg talks about the time early in his career, because it's kind of early 80s when we were when we were kind of really starting out, I could just relate to it. You talked about some of the people like talking to John McCasker, who is the California Academy of Sciences and some of the stuff going on there. At that same time out here in California, literally the same timeline, I was talking to McCasker about what do you think about? Can you go out and get white sharks? And he's like, you're never going to see enough of them.

1:20:21 They'll pop up here and there. You're just kind of, you know, it's OK. But he actually got me on to seven gills sharks, which is where I took off of my career. But if you want to hear, but Greg's I Greg did a great job and I'll get to get a check later from Greg, but all I get. But but I thought he did a really good job painting sort of that or that time frame when you know, when you were when he was starting out, he's looking around where to go and study sharks. And a lot of the people you mentioned was almost like kind of reminiscing, like just kind of parallel careers just on different coasts at that time. And of course, Lisa and I are in the same lab at the same time at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories.

1:21:01 So that was that's a scary thought that's going to. You know, what was good? Yeah, well, like, yeah, I think, you know, obviously, I actually start back in the 60s and 50s. And the only good sharks, the dead shark. And we talk a lot about that history and the development and growth of shark tournaments, which were replacing, you know, tuna and swordfish and marlin tournaments up in New England and Northeast. And the perception was clearly, you know, the only good shark is a dead shark. But I as Chris said, you know, the the perception by the public is it has shifted.

1:21:42 And I think it has a lot to do with the fact that we've gotten so much better at communicating with the public and educating the public and the idea of a scientist doing something in his or her lab or in the field and then publishing it in a in a journal that nobody reads. But other scientists, that's that's kind of over. And, you know, the Internet, social media, all those vectors have helped and groups, you know, conservation based groups and such. The word's out and people are engaged. And I think that's really helped to to turn, you know, the way people are thinking about sharks. Well, also, you know, if you look at it at the time that that jobs that we didn't know much about gray white sharks, you know, we know probably a little bit, but not not even close to scratching the surface.

1:22:29 But also, their population was down to like to compare to what it was today. It's Chris, I think you mentioned on one of one of the shows you were on where now, like, you look at the great white shark and it's a conservation success story, you know, since then, which you would think it would be the opposite after Jaws came out. And either anyone can answer this. But when did we really start seeing the shift in like an increase in population of great white sharks, either on the on the West Coast on the East Coast, I guess, which was was first was a West Coast or East Coast. And then when did we really start to see that that increase with the West? Yeah, I mean, I think Chris was one of the first people to start documenting that very well in some papers, looking at, I think, catch records in the gill net fishery, perhaps, Chris, I'll let you talk about that.

1:23:18 But that that that was before what we started seeing. Yeah, I think, you know, that was a shocking part for me was looking at fishing records and seeing that change, right, seeing numbers high and then numbers go down and then suddenly numbers start to go up and then going, I can't be. We're telling the public shark shark populations are decreasing. How can this be going up? And and I had to do a lot of convincing of myself. I had to look at a lot of data to go, do I really believe this? And the great thing was, at the same time, you know, Greg was doing us work off of the con and I grew up there all my time, all my time in the water, never saw what I took my grandfather's commercial fishing for 65 years.

1:24:01 Right. Ask them how many white sharks did you ever see in your life? He's like, maybe a few, but not, you know, not very many. Now, you know, in the summer, any day of the week, I can take somebody out and show them a white shark in Southern California pretty much any day of the year. Yeah, that's a whole. Different. Paul, that's amazing. If you'd asked me 20 years ago, would I be able to do that in California? I wouldn't have predicted this. Even 20 years ago. Yeah. So 30. Yeah. 30 years after. Right. After the movie. Well, now, was there a decline? Was anybody out there after the movie came out? Was there like an increase in trying to fish for these for gray whites or trying to kill them because of the movie?

1:24:44 Lisa, do you remember anything? Yeah, I mean, one of the things just to kind of follow up on something Greg said, um, and we were in the same project after I left the lab with Dave Greg and I were in the same project for a few years. And that project started back in the sixties and and so did these tournaments. So the fishing didn't all start after Jaws and the perception of sharks was formulated before Jaws and just kind of enhanced by Jaws. And yes, the increase in shark tournaments, the increase in sports fishing for sharks definitely went up after Jaws and into the eighties. I think it peaked in the eighties and nineties. Correct me if I'm wrong, Greg. And now you are. We see at least in the northeast, a lot of the tournaments are gone.

1:25:28 A variety of reasons, actually. But I do want to disagree a little bit with Chris in that. I think the poor beagle babies are really way better than a white. Okay. Or just. I'll admit that still won't work on. They they actually deserve. They deserve to be worked on. They're not those prima donna white sharks. I think. I was just saying about white sharks. But you know what? Whether you like them or you don't like them, you think there's too much research on them. You always want to go see them. And they're really cool animals going out with Greg on the boat is, you know, it's a highlight. So you can hate them all you want, but they're pretty cool.

1:26:16 And I would assume to like, you know, the the all of a sudden the interest after Jaws on great whites, you know, at some point led to the the interest in other sharks like Mako's and blue sharks and all sorts of hammerheads and all the different like did that like kind of like Wooshi scoffs on n What we call here on like the iconic species of, you know, tires and hammerheads and so forth and nonetheless go ahead Lissa, Go ahead Once the fishing really was ramping up. They saw that there were all kinds of other species that were coming up in the summer, tigers, hammerheads May goes whatever. And so, yeah, the whenij any,speaking them the interest is for them.

1:27:03 Unifishing can be very expensive, so people did shark fishing, which was less expensive and a little more reliable at times. And that opens the floodgates for samples for us, and then we can study them and increase that kind of awareness. I was just saying, the West Coast, when Lisa and I were starting out, and Greg Kai was a professor, or advisor, professor, ichthyology professor at the time, the money was all fisheries related on the West Coast, and a lot of it was Mako sharks, Thresher sharks, Blue sharks to a point were being fished. Lisa got it. They started Angel Shark Fishery, which is what Lisa got onto.

1:27:45 But what was interesting is a dirty little secret is that they had this White Shark Conference at Fullerton State in 1983. And it was just, it was on White Sharks, and Greg was like, "Hey, let's do an agent growth paper on White Sharks." And so Lisa and I were literally like the two youngest people there. They ended up going to this thing at the time. And it's kind of funny now, if you look down at the publication that came out, it's like a who's who of shark in the shark world at the time. But even though it was on White Sharks, that was like, I think one of our first papers that Lisa and I did was on the White Sharks. A little fact, a lot of people don't know about us.

1:28:28 But I think the thing, and see what you hear your take. Well, I think I know what your take is, Lisa, but that conference turned into an amazing networking event for both Lisa and I, because people like Jack Casey, Wes Pratt, Frank Carey, Leonard Campagno, Don Nelson. I mean, it was like a who's who of like, you know, people and the legends in the shark field. And that was when I met Jack and Wes and subsequently went to work for them and all that. Yeah. That was like, that's, I met, you know, I'd met Leonard, but got to know Leonard at that conference there.

1:29:09 And then that led to me eventually going on for South. Shelly Affelgate was another one and young people, if you don't know these names, you should look them up because they're all, they're all well known legend in the field. And Dave, and this kind of shows you something. When we did that paper, how many specimens? We had 13 specimens that we aged for that paper. Yeah. Greg and I did our paper. We had what upwards of 150 or something like that. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. That took 50 years to get that many. Years of collecting. So just an increase that we were seeing at the end. That's the interesting thing about white sharks, right? So, Andrew, coming back to your original point, I think what happened was the juveniles were being caught in commercial fisheries in California.

1:29:55 They're being sold a shark. You can't if I stake them out, you couldn't tell the difference, you know, Mako and a white shirt stick, right? So people were eating it. They didn't know it, but the adults couldn't really be caught in traditional fishing gear. So people actually had to deliberately go out and get them. And the reason why there weren't a lot of samples, especially big samples for them to work with is there was no fishery for adult white sharks, right? So in California, there were incidents where a fisherman went out in Farallon to kill four in a day, adults, right? But that's rare. So the reason why, you know, this has kind of been this kind of slow thing is really juveniles that were impacted that was drawing the population down.

1:30:35 And of course you have fewer adults. So therefore, you know, we just don't really, we still don't even have very much data on adults. You know, age and growth wise, you can't age something. You can't count. So getting vertebrae from big adult females or things like that, you just don't get access to. Yeah. So I think that's part of that story. And of course, you know, what happened with sharks and that popularity was, you know, by 70s, Noah was already fishing down a lot of other populations. So cod were gone, flat fishers won. Fishermen were pissed because all they're catching is sharks. And Noah's going, can we make these things valuable? Can people make a living off these?

1:31:16 And they actually did market testing for the company. Right. And they pushed it. Exactly. And it happened fast. Right. So it went from, you know, not a value to, oops, maybe we over fish these things too fast. So it was at that time Jaws was coming out that that was really starting to happen. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I say that what you know, it's Chris said there. And I know this from talking with Leonard Kapanja, who grew up in San Francisco next to Chinatown, you know, shark fins, shark meats. You know, it was very popular in the Chinese community. A lot of it was exported at the time. This was in the 40s and 50s and 60s. But like the fishing tournaments in New England, nobody said nobody cared.

1:31:59 Nobody paid any attention to him. And I always tell people, like, you know, I give talks like you guys do. I was like, Jaws kind of brought this whole thing out of the shadows and into the public light because it was it was going on. And nobody, nobody really nobody paid any attention to it. And if they wouldn't have if there would have been Jaws, it might eventually come to people's attention. But they're just they're just catching sharks. And nobody was just nobody thought anything about it. Well, one interesting thing that's going on now is now that the shark population is not necessarily whites, but I'm talking sandbars, dustbuds, whatever, are coming back a little bit. There's a lot of pushback from the fishermen. They want to start fishing them hard again because they're getting their wahoo or their mahi bitten by shark and they're out for blood now.

1:32:45 So it's kind of interesting because you get that cycle. Now we're getting back to what we want to kill these sharks. Yes, it's very similar to like the the seal and sea lion population on both coasts. Right. And everybody hated it when they were low population. And then when they made regulations to make them better, like the Marine Mail Protection Act, all of a sudden, they're like, well, hold on a second now. Like, you know, maybe they're eating all our fish. So like we maybe we should start hunting them. So, yeah, it's it's it's always interesting. I wanted to just take a little bit. I know this is this is a great conversation, but I wanted to talk a little bit of these hot takes that I I kind of looked up that people had. So the first one and this goes to anybody who wants to to talk about it. But was Jaws in the movie like when you first watched it and maybe now you're not sure if your perceptions change.

1:33:31 Was Jaws the villain or the victim? I say I thought it was just a monster. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I just thought it was a monster. It was it was the villain. It was the villain. I think he might have started out the film that became the victim. Yeah. Yeah, I think it. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't I didn't I didn't I didn't definitely never sense any. It was the victim at all at the time. It was just at the time. But now do you think it's the do you think it's the victim? Uh, you know, the shark in the movie is is is a nightmare.

1:34:12 Yeah. Right. If that wasn't it because it's something but it wasn't because humans like pissed it off. Right. Essentially. Well, not the first one. No, I would say my students would be offended at them harpooning that shark. Like they would find that for right. It's just for right. Despite all the beginning part of the movie. Right. Yeah. They would still find that offensive. So, you know, I think that's that generation. Right. We've seen the generation shift where they look at that and go that's for because the perceptions has changed to. Yeah. Yeah. So people have.

1:34:52 On the East Coast has that changed or is it now that it is still a villain? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, no, I mean, the character in the film is a villain. You know, there's nothing that shark does that I think gets sympathy. But sharks in general now are the victims, I think more so than. I have to say one thing from the I don't know how you got how you guys felt about this. But the first time I saw that in the white shark jumped in the back of the boat, I just thought there just no. I mean, I didn't know. No way. Everybody is like, no way. That could never happen. The Q Air Jaws. Well, maybe maybe that could happen. Who knows? Well, you are the.

1:35:37 Like I've told the story before. But the thing is, I went first went to South Africa in 1986. The people down there along the coastal area, you know, these white sharks, they breach. Now, you guys are full of shit. They know why. And the guys that knew where to go, there's a few there's a few spots. They go out there and they would do these like kite fishing like holy fly this fish out here. And these freaking sharks are just white sharks. Big ones just come flying out of the water. And then I came back. I mean, I first came home from South Africa to visiting. I saw people like John McCasker and Bob Lee and Greg, the usual guy. And they thought like, OK, were you drunk or stoned?

1:36:18 And I was like, no, seriously, these these sharks can really jump out of the water. And it was it was it was amazing. And then, of course, years later, Chris Fowlas started doing it and became, of course, British and famous, which I just would have thought about when I was a grad student. But but then I had these same guys are saying, hey, Dave, did you ever see these white sharks in like South Africa breach? And I was like, yeah, no shit. I told you like five years ago about this. And you guys thought I was drunk or stoned. That's all. All right. The next one is it's a shark movie fatigue. So some people think Jaws spawned too many inferior shark movies, leading to a wave of cheesy knockoffs that diluted the genre.

1:37:03 So like Sharknado and things like that. Have there been has there been a better movie than Jaws about sharks like fictional, whether it be a horror, whether it be a thriller, what like has there in your opinion, has there been a better movie than Jaws on sharks? That's not a documentary. I would say no. Yeah, no, I agree with Lisa. Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's damn good. Don't get me. Yeah, I know. I love all eight of them or however many there are now.

1:38:01 Yeah. Yeah, I know. It's like I kept trying to pitch to get my lab in the movie just to have one. Yeah. Did you remember motion, just wood? Yes. Yes. I remember that motion that my mother was caused by an Swamp. No, it's an 1865. No. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Greg, what about you? Smooth dogfish? Maybe? No. A school of spiny dogfish tearing me apart like piranhas would be really funny. You know, I think I like that. I mean, I'm I'm just it's not really happening to me, right? No, no, it's not really happen. It's just a movie. It's just a movie. Yeah, that'd be kind of fun. You're all coming right down to bones. Right?

1:39:04 All right, Chris, what about yourself? Oh, I'd have to say cookie cutter. Oh, that's my biggest nightmare. Oh, yeah. That's horrible. Because those damn thing, we get 18 inches. Can you imagine if they got like six feet? Oh my God. Yeah, it wouldn't be a cookie cutter anymore. They just swallow. You don't get melon ball to death. Right? Oh, man. Dave, what about you? Are you like goblin shark or or a chimera? I'd have to I'd have to say frilled shark and I say frilled shark because in one of the I think it was a shark NATO two or three they had a frilled shark attack some guy in the and then I thought oh that'd be pretty awesome. That'd be good. I would say a goblin shark because I would that I feel like that's a good like, yeah, villain of a, you know, of a character. Yeah, it's got that cool jar. Yeah. Yeah.

1:39:58 Yeah. Sure. Definitely got that. Definitely got the alien jaws going on that one. That would be the shot, right? Holding it by the neck. Well, it's jaws. Yeah. Yeah. You're trying to grab it. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Jaws come out like a bit. Yeah, it's like alien. Yeah, for sure. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Let's pitch that. All right. Here's one that's interesting. The economic impact. Did the film increase the like the tourism economy in Martha's Vineyard at the time? Oh, yeah. Because I did get like an influx of tourists at the time. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. And that's necessary that summer is after right. Definitely picked up and you know, that interest in sharks definitely picked up.

1:40:43 So I think, you know, people recognize places that they saw in the movie, right? So it, you know, the bridge, you know, where the shark goes under, you know, people recognize those places. So I think it was fun for people to go to the island and think, oh, this is where it all took place. And I can envision sharks swimming underneath the bridge or something like that. So I think, you know, it was a boom for the island. Yeah. Did you get out and do any like as a kid, do any tour guiding like say, hey, pay me like 10 bucks. I'll take you around and show all the places. No, no. But we would be the one spear fishing underneath that bridge where nobody would go on the water. We used to jump off that bridge all the time. Right. That was the fun thing to do. And then we would spearfish under the bridge and people would be like, oh my God, you crazy. The shark goes right underneath there.

1:41:30 You mean the mechanical shark in the movie? They couldn't even get the mechanical shark through there. I got asked a question. I'm just kind of curious. Is that in that lagoon there where the shark was in? Is it, is it tend to be a Marine or more of a estuarine in that area? That's Dr. Strom. He was doing scallop work, I think, at the time. Yeah, I spirit a lot of fish in that pond. It's a yeah, it's a salt pond. You know, it's OK. Yeah, it's a great producer of scallops and all kinds of shellfish and and flounder. Man, I nailed a lot of flounder in that book. Yeah. And they call that bridge Jaws Bridge. You know, right. I mean, come to the island and they love to jump off it.

1:42:13 And it's it's popular. All the spots are, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And did you have did you have any, Greg, do you have any like when in New England, you when you were growing up, did you ever have any like encounters with any of the people from Jaws like Chris did at all when they. Well, you know, as as Chris mentioned, I actually met Chris on the vineyard because I moved out there in 1987 and and lived there for 23 years. And he left. He goes, I got to get the hell out of here. You know what, man, you went to Hawaii, didn't you? You're like, I'm going to go one island to the California for your first right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Yes. So all the characters that Chris mentions, you know, I I met them, but they were old, you know, right.

1:42:57 One of them is police chief now and I think he just retired, actually. He did. He did. Yeah. Jonathan. And so, yeah, there's a there's still characters. Matter of fact, I'm going to the 50th anniversary celebration on the vineyard in late June. Nice. OK. I'll be a guest there and give some talks and all that will be fun. And they're going to bring some of the old whatever actors are alive. I don't know who's left. Maybe Dreyfus. Yeah. And they're still kicking a bunch of the production crew. OK, that's awesome. What about what about Ben Gardner? His what widow still arounders?

1:43:38 That's another character. Oh, my God. Was that was it? Craig Kingsbury, who is that that character? Oh, my God. He was a selectman. He was a huge crazy. Oh, yeah. Those are all true Islanders right there. Introduce the island. Did you know that, right? Say again. Craig Kingsbury, who is Ben Gardner, introduced stumps to Martha's Vineyard. Oh, I didn't know. I don't know. Kingsbury did it. I heard a rumor that another person did it. But supposedly just crap. Yeah, that's well, let's keep it amongst ourselves. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Between the five. I want to hear more about that. Yeah, for people.

1:44:20 Listen, if you're running who Ben Gardner is, you got to go watch the movie to find out. Yes. Absolutely. That was that was probably the most scary scene for I thought when that when in that when Ben Gardner popped up, literally. I think I went to a Jaws fest once years ago and hit that head that they used in the mountain was there and I photographed it. I actually put it in one of my A.S. talks. Yeah, I remember how I built it in. But I use Ben Gardner's head in one of my talks. Yeah. Yeah. I think it was a talk you gave. We talked when they had that big white shark in the lagoon that was trapped. I think it was that was the one there. Because I remember I remember it popped up in your talk there.

1:45:00 I was watching. I was like, oh, Jesus. I think I use that line. I definitely use that picture in my talks. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm talking on the phone behind him and he's going, has anybody seen a shark? Yeah, he's been right behind me. I think I think Chris, I think I think we use that. I think we use that when we promoted Chris or Greg's episode on this podcast episode. I think we I got a copy that it might have been from Chris or somebody. I got a copy of that and I ended up that's that's like the thumbnail for for for Greg's for Greg's thing. I think I think Chris, when your show your show, the thumbnail, we had a had a dual thing with with Matt Hooper with with you like with what's the actor's name again?

1:45:46 The guy played Hooper in there. Dreyfus. Yeah, he's he's out there trying to tag the jaws. And then there's Chris is like sitting there tagging is a little like baby white shark. Oh, man. Little bit different tagging and tagging in different different eras. And I know I mentioned this before, but I was mentioning it like Glennard Kup on you as my advisor for my Ph.D. He he worked on the mechanical shark Bruce for the movie. And I know you guys all kind of knew Leonard to different degrees. And he was I mean, trying to picture that guy who is let's all he was eccentric for a couple of weeks down in Burbank working on the shark.

1:46:27 Man, I've been loved have been a fly on the wall for that. Well, and and the shark didn't work properly, right? I think, Chris, you know that it was like it was very problematic in terms of how it worked. Yeah. Well, Leonard's role was just to make sure it looked like a white shark. They were they really wanted to make sure. And I don't know how you guys felt when I first saw the movie. I thought it looked that shark looked pretty damn real to me. But I watch it now. I'm like, you know, it's like a mechanical shark. It's kind of I agree. No, first, I mean, it looked pretty good special effects for back then. Oh, 100 percent. Yeah. Well, I mean, if you think about it after that, was it didn't he do didn't Spielberg do Star Wars after that? Right. And like, yeah, they use this like similar special effects styles.

1:47:09 Right. In terms of obviously didn't use a mechanical shark. But, you know, like different different properties, you know, but very similar. Yeah. But you know, I would argue that was the magic of the movie. Right. The magic of the movie was out getting failed in getting good underwater footage of white sharks. And all they had was the mechanical shark. So and they want to show it very often because it did look kind of fake. Most of the monsters melt made in your head. Right. Yeah, that's true. And the music. The music probably did. I think it's probably the most popular shark identifying music. When people hear that, they know something's about to come up or something's coming from somewhere. But yeah, you're right. They didn't show it that often. But you knew you knew you feared it.

1:47:53 Yeah, I mean, I was kind of good the way they kind of stealthily did it. And I think then they end up getting some of the footage from the Rod and Valerie Taylor shot it down in Australia was the stuff. That was the ballad games and the trip failed. Oh, the weather. They had a hard time finding sharks. They went out a bunch of times. They just had a hard time. All they got was a few clicks. OK. And then they shot all that stuff. You know, shark POV at the beginning. Yeah. Yeah. They shot that. And that was I was reading. That was like a new thing. Nobody had ever really done that before. And that really changed the game in terms of horror movies, apparently, is to have the sort of the killer, the monster POV to to be like, OK, now we're seeing it from their point of view.

1:48:37 And this is even this makes it even scary. If you look at all the horror movies after that, the Halloweens, the Jason's, you almost like see it from there and you know, you know, it can be it can be like a creepy feeling. So, yeah, that was apparently that was the first time I was ever done. So, yeah, I think that that era, some of the stuff, those movies like the Jaws movie and then the Star Wars, it came out. Those are like, you know, at that time, like, I think Lisa said, like, you never went back to see a movie. You'd watch it once. That'd be it. Yeah, those movies you want to go see again. Indiana Jones. Yeah, the Indiana Jones. Yeah, those are. Yeah, those were movies you want. Yeah, you want to go see again, which was at that up to that point was like unheard of.

1:49:17 You'd want to actually go back and see the same. Same movie at the time on that. And are they up to in mind? You actually had to go to a theater. You couldn't just watch it on Netflix in your house. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we would we would we had spent a long time. We'd like we'd like pull money for like one guy to get in the movie theater because we didn't have any money. We're just kids and one guy going and going to your truck. Yeah. The tribe in there'd be like there'd be like one guy and there'd be like six hiding in the back or something or one guy would go in the theater and then you go to the back door emergency exit and let everybody else in through the back door.

1:50:02 I guess the first question is, do you think that Jaws had a net benefit impact on sharks as opposed to sort of that negative outlook? Do you think it actually made it more positive just with your experience with working with sharks and how we understand sharks now? Or do you think it still had a net negative effect on sharks? Well, I think long term long term, I think it's been positive. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I did a show once called How How Jaws Changed the World and I was interviewed in it and maybe you guys did too. But I mean, the interview filmmakers, underwater photographers, all these people, boat builder, all these people who are inspired by Jaws. Right.

1:50:46 They really emphasize that. And I think in the long term, it's been a positive. Yeah. I. And I agree with the same thing. I always like said, I think people all that stuff is the finning, the shark fishing were going on and then sharks brought it out. And I think people were made people more aware of it. And I think after the initial, you know, that time or a good shark is a dead shark. It evolved into like people are like got curiosity about it. And so people started like asking a lot of questions. I mean, I guess I always look at that's how the art, the contemporary shark field today, the non shark attack stuff, really kind of grew. Grew out of Jaws because people asked a lot of questions, wanted to know like how old the sharks get, you know, where do they live?

1:51:30 How many are there? Where do they go? Right. You know, a lot of people saw Matt Hooper and thought he was cool and start getting interested. And yeah, scientists came out of that movie, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I would I would agree with that. I think a lot of people got interested in science. And yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And I think for our generation, I think that was a big movie. Well, here's a follow up to that. I just you know, you know, now we have all these streaming sites and, you know, CGI and special effects have gone to a place where I mean, even A.I.

1:52:21 I think that sharks would would do better. Even research would would be more invigorated by another Jaws movie or do you think it would actually have a more of a negative effect at this point in time? Oh, I've been thinking about this. Yeah. Yeah. I want to do a remake. And the reason is, is I think you could flip the script completely. So now with CGI, you can totally give people that perception of being the shark. So there's only a just a few seconds of that. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I've been thinking about this concept of my my ancestors were whalers. Right. Right. Imagine being a whale back in the early 1800s, mid 1800s when everybody was hunting you.

1:53:06 You know, be cool to do like a reverse movie dick. Right. It's from the whales perspective. I think that would be kind of cool. It might flip the script in terms of how people think about the shark. Yeah. You could still make it a horror movie because it could be evil. Sure. But I think there's a lot of cool things you can do now. We couldn't do that. And I think, you know, there's opportunities to do that and make it interesting fun or at least entertaining. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I would say if they'd be interested. I say come up with a new script, though. Don't try to rehash. You say every time they every time they try to reimagine the same freaking script, it's a disaster movie. Literally.

1:53:51 So if they're just Gen Z, but I mean, I think it's just a lot. TikTok. That's all you scroll. That's the attention span of most of the kids anyway. So it's like I think you're what you're the way you pose it, Chris. Really interesting. But yeah, I just my only thing would be just come up with a new script. Just make it completely different. More more. Make it more contemporary. Don't try to take 50 years ago and then retell it. Don't don't retell the story. Come up with a new script, which I don't think they seem to do that very much in Hollywood. It's like, well, this now take the same. It's like, well, this now take the same. It's yeah, this do what fits, you know, or or you go over the top like the Sharknado movies.

1:54:37 Yeah. Yeah. Well, if if if if they did it, if they redid it another Jaws, what science would you want to see in there that you think people should know about a great white or even another shark, another type of shark that you think that people would get a blast out of and you think they should know? That's a good question because the science I do most people could care less about. It's not exciting to watch. Except for the people in this room. But you could bring that in to a discussion when you're talking about the shark, you know, they get this older.

1:55:18 They eat something besides license plates or they have this many pups. You know, you can bring that into the to the dialogue. And they kind of did that a little bit with. Lorraine was reading Ellis's book. They tried to put in a little bit of knowledge on the shark in Jaws. So I think, you know, putting in some of these things that we do know now that we didn't know before, to a degree, the age, the reproduction, this kind of thing, the migration routes, I think would be. You know, easily done. But to put in like somebody reading a shark vertebra, I think would not do well.

1:56:00 People don't know you got CSI nowadays, right? You can see the crap out of that, right? Funny story along those lines. So 20 years ago, they were shooting a TV show in my lab called Sharks One. It was made for made for TV movie. Right. And it was like John Snyder and the guy from on the gas, real actors. Right. And they were using my lab because it was a traditional shark. And the sharks were going crazy. And, you know, they had some brain disorder or something. So they had a mechanical shark in the lab. And, you know, they were filming in the lab and they were talking about how they were going to kill these crazy sharks. And I was laughing. Well, I'm in my office while they're filming. And I'm laughing. I'm like, this is like the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

1:56:43 So they go cut cut and they get the writers and they say, can you spend like half an hour with our writers to try to help them science this up a bit? So they're talking about these guns that the underwater guns are going to use to stun the sharks. I'm like, what are you talking about? So they were asking about just basic sensory biology. What do we know about the senses of sharks? You know, how can you shock a shark or shoot a shark underwater? And after half an hour, I finally gave up. I'm like, forget it. These guys are like, no, none of those ideas work. That's too sciencey. And I'm thinking, oh, my God, it's just it's basic science. That's all. Yeah. You guys just need to put one one ounce of science into this thing. They're like, no, it's got to be more exciting than that. I'm like, OK.

1:57:27 So it was just funny to watch. Right. Whoever wrote the script clearly knew nothing about sharks. Right. Yeah. And the producer and the director was like, I don't know if this works. So it was just that was my only delving into a movie making sort of experience. And I thought they could really benefit from having you there. Right. Basic terms. I think I think I think if they want to make it more realistic, if you remember the original Jaws, there's a point where the Roy Schneider character is talking to the Hooper character. And he's like, are you rich? He goes, yeah. So I think so. So so to sort of like, yes, so to like kind of make it realistic, you should have the Hooper character is like a homeless guy living in a tent who's got a PhD in postdoc and marine biology.

1:58:21 And he just gets out of his homeless tent and goes down to the thing to go out to tag sharks. And he goes back to his homeless encampment just to make just to put the realistic touch on the on the. I just I just built a talk because of the 50th anniversary debunking a lot of the film and mostly showing what Matt Hooper got wrong. You know, I mean, from the species name to to all these other elements. And the Oh yeah, yeah.

1:59:22 Yeah, it's gotta be a horror movie. Yeah, you gotta be over the, well, I think that was the attraction of the whole Sharknado thing, which it was so over the top with people that you just, I mean, I've had people like, maybe you guys have had the experience, they're like, how could you watch it? And I go, well, my lab gets together every year, has pizza and beer and watches Sharknado when it comes out. It's the most funniest thing we ever see. It's an entertaining, and the only cheer for the sharks, like where they're gonna end up, or I just think, yeah, it was very well done. For like a budget of like 60,000 or something like that, it was something ridiculous like that. Well, the thing is, it's so over the top, it's campy. You just gotta laugh at it. There's nothing in there that you're gonna take away seriously in the whole thing.

2:00:06 Another thing. So yeah, one other thing I wanted to mention too, I thought all of us, we started out like, started doing sharks, we all worked on everything, but pretty much white sharks, except for that little side tour Lisa and I had with white shark age and growth. I think, I don't know what you're feeling is, but it seems like today, because of social media, a lot more people are focused on the big, like the white sharks, the tiger sharks, because they wanna have that clip on their social media, and they've gotten away from where we all worked on different species in the 80s and 90s, to now it's becoming more focused on just the big toothy sharks.

2:00:47 Is that kind of your experience? You know, kind of isn't even that, Dave. We worked great and I, we did age and growth. We just had to do age and growth on sharks, which is the species we wanted to target. We were very lucky to make careers out of that, but we were really doing age and growth, reproduction, Nancy was doing food habits, migrations. It just happened to be on sharks, you know, and all different species, whatever we had enough samples to work on. I mean, I'm not like those guys. I don't work on white sharks, quote unquote, but I have done papers on white sharks with Greg, but I wouldn't say I work on white sharks, you know?

2:01:27 And so I totally agree with you. There's a totally different way of looking at things now. And when I talk to the kids, I tell them find something you like to do and do it on the sharks, and then you can also find a job and do it on something else when you can't find a job doing it on a chart. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's more the skills, it's more the skill set that young people should be learning, not the species not going to be as important, but I just see that there's been a like a shift away from words. We had a lot of different species that we worked on when we were graduate students, and it seemed like there just is kind of a bit of a shift away from it because of the appeal on how, you know, you see, I had-- mechanisms as well.

2:02:10 Yeah. I had a discussion with somebody here recently. I think it was on the AAS website about the people on social media. You see these pictures, these guys swimming up to tiger sharks, petting them on the nose or swimming next to white sharks and holding the fin. I mean, that's just like an accident waiting to happen. Mm-hmm. And, you know, the person in there might get away with it, but other people start, you know, they're not-- don't have any experience with sharks. They're like, "Oh, I'm just going to go swim up to that tiger shark or that white shark and-- Or even nurse sharks. People have been, quote unquote, bitten by nurse sharks. Yeah. Or sardine, I guess. I don't know. They wait with it till they don't.

2:02:51 Right, right. Exactly. Who is that? Ocean Ramsey. I mean, she sets a very poor example, and one of these days she's going to get her head bitten off and-- Mm-hmm. Yeah. And if you had-- So, David, it's kind of interesting because I just finished teaching my Alazan-ranked biology class, and I end with conservation. And a lot of the students want to go into shark conservation, right? And I always ask them, "What is conservation?" Right? Yeah. So, and the interesting thing is they go, "I just want to be known for doing something that was important for conserving sharks." And then I go, "Well, you know what you could do? You could do aging growth, reproduction, or diet of some of these less-known species." And they're like, "But I'm not using cutting-edge tools. You don't need to."

2:03:34 All these stock assessments that tell us where a stock is, they're all listed as data-deficient. Why? Because nobody wants to do that anymore. Right. Right. People need to do that because that's the only way. We will know if the things we're doing are actually helping. Yeah. So, these students all think today you have to be using the most cutting-edge tool, and it has to be fancy and expensive, and I'm like, "Nope." Yeah. Do you really want to make a difference? It's the foundation. Right. I just think you got to do the foundational information about the sharks. I just tell them, "Find something that nobody else is doing anything on, and become the expert on that species." That's, you know, I mean, I think another thing, too, is like, when we're all kind of started out in our careers, I mean, I know Lisa and I, like, when we were grad students, we were like up to our elbows and like shark guts all the time doing knee-cropsies.

2:04:21 I mean, Lisa and I have talked about it. I mean, I can't tell you how many thousands of, tens of thousands of sharks and rays and stuff I've gone through. But I learned a hell of a lot, and I know you guys did as well, and I don't think a lot of people do that these days. You know, you got to get like an ayah cook, you got to get a whole bunch of permits to do whatever, and I think that, I think they're losing out a lot in a lot of information, just basic biology that nobody else, you know, nobody else is getting. If you have that, you know, that's a real miss, I think. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I agree. Yeah. So. Well, I'll tell you what, this is, this has been amazing to be able to chat with all of you guys for, personally, for me, this is amazing.

2:05:08 You guys are legends in the shark world, and I know a lot of people are going to want to hear what you have to say about Jaws and just about, you know, the field of where it was, where it is now. And even just, you know, telling people to just do the, sometimes the simple things to be able to get the research and get the knowledge on, on the different sharks and so forth. It doesn't always have to be what people think, quote unquote, is the sexy science that we all, you know, know and love and stuff. But just the foundational stuff needs to be done too. But this, I'll tell you, you know, Dave and I started talking about this when Dave suggested, I was like, this is, this has got to happen. And you guys were on board right away. Yeah. Really want to thank you, not only for coming out today, but you guys have been on the show multiple times.

2:05:51 We really appreciate the support and all the contributions you've made over time, including Dave. I mean, this is, like I said, this is, this is surreal for me. So, so thank you so much for joining us. We definitely appreciate it. Thank you for having us. Yeah, thanks for having us. It's great to hang out with these guys. And now after I, after I press stop, we'll talk even more and then we'll be like, we should have recorded this. Appreciate it. Thanks. Thank you everybody for joining us on today's episode of the Beyond Jaws podcast. It was great to have this, this guest, as I mentioned at the end of this interview, it's such an honor to be in the presence of this panel.

2:06:35 You know, there's so many years between amongst all of you of, of shark science, of fun stories that you've had together. Obviously you've been friends for a long time, but being able to talk about Jaws at a point where some of you were there when the, the, the release of the movie. And then if not watching it later on and being part of shark research during that time, advancing, Dave, even you talking about at least in your first paper on aging and growth of, of white sharks. It's amazing just to see how far we've become and where everybody was at when the, when the, when you sort of like, were part of that pioneering investigations and studies. It's just a lot of fun going back in time. What, what was this like, you know, reminiscing and, and on the stories of Jaws as well as some of the fun stories that you all had together.

2:07:23 You shared together. What was it like for you for this interview? It was, it was, it was fun. We wanted to say, we all kind of came up together. There's a, there's definitely, there's a few more people I could have added to the, to the mix there, but we all came up. We all kind of came up together. And as I say, Lisa and I literally started, we're in the same lab together at Moss landing Marine Laboratories under Greg Kye. And Chris Lowe did his master's with Don Nelson. Um, and then, uh, Greg Sculm will work with, uh, Jack Casey, who was involved in Lisa and a Tansen's PhD later on when she went to do her PhD. But it was just such a literally like a reminiscing down, down memory lane. And I give a shout out to, uh, Greg Sculm's book, chasing shadows, which talks about the early days there when, uh, follows his early career and kind of, he really did a good job at capturing that era.

2:08:11 And I think, and, and, and something that I've tried to mention too is like, it was such a dynamic time. Cause like anything was possible. Really. You could just literally, if you could think of an idea, you know, our, our professors and mentors were kind of like, sure, go try it. You know, cause they had literally, it was, it was great because you don't often get that today. Like the wild, wild west of the ocean and the shark science, right? Literally it was. And we worked, you know, I look back to, we really, at that time we worked at all kinds of tax. It wasn't just white sharks. We worked on a lot of, a lot of different species, uh, uh, just a diversity of things as well. And of course, white sharks were part of them, but it wasn't like today where it seemed like every other person's working on white sharks to one degree or another.

2:08:51 And, uh, and so, and yeah, so we had like the other thing to touch on too, is there was no people today are very tuned into the whole conservation thing, but there was no feel the conservation at the time. Well, you didn't know any information on them. Really? If you think about it, right? You need information for conservation. It revolved around two areas. One was fisheries. And then another was just the general public's interest in like, well, how many shark species are there? And like, how big do they get? And how many? Yeah. All those kinds of basic questions that we, we had no answers to. And so it was kind of like just the whole field was just wide open for us at the time. Yeah. And, uh, and so like, yeah, we're definitely like, it was a, it was a really, it was a dynamic time for us.

2:09:34 And, and all of us had a chance to meet some real, you know, people that are, they're very prominent in the field. You know, many of, most of them have passed away now, but you know, people like we mentioned a conference Lisa and I went to in Fullerton, where we were, we were like, oh, I'm going to do this. Lisa and I went to in Fullerton, we're just like literally like 22, 23 years old. And we met people like, you know, Leonard Campagno and Don Nelson, you know, and Jack Carey, Jack Casey, Frank Carey and Jack Casey, just a whole number of prominent guys that are big names in the field. And so young students, like we were, uh, it was just as great and same with, you know, Chris and, and, and Greg having that great opportunity. And then of course having this podcast now that we can kind of riff back and forth about some of this stuff. Um, like I said, if you're a young person, you want to kind of hear what it was like, um, from us. We were, this was a great episode to listen to.

2:10:26 Absolutely. You know, it was a lot of fun, a lot of fun to be a part of, uh, and, and to watch you guys reminisce, it was, it was a lot of fun. And to be able to talk about the, you know, the big influence it had good and bad on, on sharks. And I think, um, you know, we, we have a lot to thank for, uh, a lot to be concerned about, but a lot to thank for, uh, including like other shark horror movies that have come out in the past and have been like some of them that we liked. And some of them were like, maybe that's a little too far, a little too grotesque or a little too good. Again, sharks, but regardless, you know, it's, it's, it's a lot of fun. Uh, as I say this, have you seen the new one? There's a new, uh, I think it's called, I forget what it's called, but it's, um, a guy who kidnaps people and feeds it to the, feeds them to the sharks, like kid next young people and feel, have you seen that trailer? It's all over. No. Oh, I have not seen that one. I miss that one.

2:11:15 I guess. Oh yeah. I forget what I think it's called dangerous animals, but he basically like brings them on his boat and, and cow kidnaps them. And this is a movie. It's fictional. As far as I know, it looks off like it looks grotesque because they just use sharks. It's like crazy eating machines, but we'll see what happens. I thought the one good thing came out of it. The whole shark NATO series, which I got exactly. I thought that was just my, and I think people, people that are not in the field, but you know, like my lab, they loved it. We look forward to it. We'd have like a beer and pizza night and watch shark NATO. And it was phenomenal. My only disappointment was they never invited my lab to be on, you know, have a camera. Perfect. One of the shark NATO series. Yeah. One of the shark NATO series. I'd been, I'd have been like my ultimate drop mic moment for my career. So it's all about, yeah, it's all about the connections. If anybody's listening out there, the shark NATO, give us, give me a shout. So yeah, exactly. Exactly. All right. That was awesome. Dave. Well, thank you so much.

2:12:07 And everybody, Lisa, Greg, Chris, we appreciate you guys for joining us. It is awesome to have you on and everybody else. Let us know what your stories are on about Jaws. Like when you first saw Jaws, what was your initial reaction? Did it, did it help you? You know, develop a love for sharks or fascination for sharks and interest for sharks. I would love to hear your thoughts on it. Hit us up on the on Jaws pod Instagram or at lost shark guy and people want to get a hold of you or they could watch your series on YouTube. You should watch the series on your shirt. If search for lost shark on lost shark and the YouTube channel lost shark guy. And we'll, we'll link to it in the description. But other than that, well, thank you so much for joining us on today's episode of the beyond Jaws podcast. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.