Mick Grant: Discovering River Sharks and Sawfish in Papua New Guinea

1:00:00 Welcome back to another episode of the Beyond Jaws podcast. The podcast where we spotlight the people behind the shark, the science of sharks, rays and their conservation. In this episode, we're joined by Dr. Mike Gull, also known as Mick Grant, a postdoctoral researcher at James Cook University who shares his journey from a childhood love of nature to groundbreaking work in river sharks and sawfishes in Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. From rediscovering rare species like the sail and hound shark to advocating for smarter conservation policies, Mick offers a insights into real world challenges for protecting some of the most, some of the oceans most threatened predators and how the next generation of scientists can make a difference.

1:00:45 We're gonna talk about all this on this episode of the how to protect, we're gonna talk about this on this 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, how are things? Are you excited for this interview? I'm super excited for this interview for a number of reasons. Probably most notably is Mick's discovery of the sail fin hound shark, which is definitely one of the rare species out there and what occurs in a part of the world, Papua New Guinea, that's not well known at all. But Mick has been working there for a number of years and it's a difficult area to work into for a whole host of reasons we'll talk about in the show.

1:01:33 And it's fascinating area of the world. It's in that area where it's a high biodiversity of things. And so I'm really looking forward. I'm really glad we're able to get him on because Mick's traveling quite a bit and it's hard to catch up with the guy at times. But he's got some really fascinating stories and so I'm really looking forward to this. Yeah, this should be an interesting one. He's a postdoc researcher right now and talks a lot about his PhD and sort of all these new discoveries and what you can do at this early on in his career. I think it's a really great example of what people can accomplish when they start to go for rare species or species where we don't have a lot of information on. I think Dave, you've been professing this for a long time.

1:02:13 You start to learn about species we don't know about and groups of sharks that we don't know about and that helps in not only putting your legacy in the shark science in the field, but also knowing more about sharks, rays and chimeras in general. So this is gonna be a great interview. Here's the interview with Dr. Mick Grant in joy and we'll talk to you after. Hey Mick, welcome to the Beyond Jaws podcast. Are you ready to talk about sharks, skates and rays conservation? Are you ready? Absolutely. Cool. Love it. Well, welcome to another episode of the Beyond Jaws podcast where we have the fabulous Dr. Michael Mick Grant today.

1:02:55 As our guests coming all the way from Bali, Indonesia. Mick's a postdoctoral researcher at James Cook University in Australia where he completed an undergraduate degree, an honors degree and a PhD at the University there. His research focuses on the conservation of sharks and rays, particularly on aspects of life history, including the applications of vertebral chemistry, extinction and vulnerability risk assessments and understanding human drivers of population declines. Mick's research has focused particularly on riverine and coastal areas with a particular emphasis on identifying populations and threats to river sharks, glyphosate species, freshwater rays and sawfishes in Papua New Guinea and Indonesia.

1:03:36 He's a member of the IECN shark specialist group, where he served as an editor on the recent global status of sharks, rays and chimeras report. Mick's were published over 30 papers and he frequently presents at conferences where he's been a keynote speaker at the Oceania Condricting Society, at the International Seminar on Fisheries and Marine Science, at the Lumbung Mankuret University in Indonesia, which I probably mangled but Mick can explain it, pronounce it to us correctly in a few minutes. He also serves as the vice chair for the Sawfish Conservation Society. He's a conservation and fisheries advisor for the PICU Biodiversity Network in Papua New Guinea. He's an adjunct lecturer at another university in Indonesia, the Haasanudin University in Indonesia.

1:04:22 Mick finds supervising students to be the most rewarding part of his job as a shark scientist. His current position is as a postdoctoral research fellow at conservation and fisheries at James Cook University. He's a lecturer also at a university in Indonesia. As I mentioned, Mick did his BSC at James Cook as well as an honors and a PhD. Mick, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. I like the intro there. Yeah. You got to look good. Why don't you look good here. So our first question we always like to ask the guests, how did you get interested in sharks and rays and marine science? Yeah, I suppose I'm a traditional shark tragic in that I kind of grew up in a very sort of nature based family.

1:05:15 I spent a lot of time going to national parks and things. And some of my earliest memories are watching. There used to be a Walking with Dinosaurs series. I don't know if it was on the BBC or something back in the late 1990s. And a few of the episodes focused on the golden age of sharks or the old sharks throughout the rotational traffic. For some reason that just clicked with me. So this time I'm probably three, four years old. Yeah. And then so my dad does a lot of fishing. He's always been a very enthusiastic fisherman.

1:05:57 I love our holidays growing up or based around, you know, we got some other missions going to get there and, you know, go and scope out or fishing spots and beaches and best gardens and rocks might be around the fish based on a swell. And I think a lot of that kind of got me thinking ecologically about, you know, why is this fishing sport better than the other. We tended to chase Mulloway, which I can be a big type of Jewishy. Yeah. So that was kind of a glory catch.

1:06:38 Don't ask me about our success rate. But the journey, not the destination. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that got me going in terms of marine biology and fish and thinking about the environment. Yeah. Where we want to be fishing. We spent a lot of time. No good. So we a lot of the fishing we did was up at a place called Yamba, which is North New South Wales Clarence River and home of the bull shark is what they call that river. So there's been a bit of research out of there recently, actually. But yeah, they were the black hatch.

1:07:23 You know, when we go is all the way around. It wasn't unusual that hook a bull shark and you know, you really get stined in the lines off to the horizon. Yeah. So that kind of got me interested in sharks and rivers. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's always found that it is really big, powerful animals. So the type estrus and things. Yes, I think that's probably what kicked it off. Now, when you're going to school, you start school like grade school, the high school, would you just do it? People ask you like, so what are you gonna do when you grow up? Make you just tell them I'm gonna go study sharks.

1:08:06 I wanted to for sure. I probably didn't start saying that until maybe about year 10. I am. So my dad's sort of from a medical background as a medical doctor. My sister does pharmacy. I was kind of, yeah, erring toward that general field, I guess. I wasn't very academic and I hated school. You know, it's great. It's great. I didn't really kick into gear until probably 12. Yeah, but by that you tend I started doing a lot of spear fishing and I bought a really nice underwater camera.

1:08:48 Yeah. And I mean, I feel my mates get up regularly. I think that I got into, yeah, it's probably around that time. It's probably six or seven hours. In marine biology, I grew up in Sydney, post-good, criminal. The marine biology options probably weren't great there. There's a few universities. There's some good universities in Sydney. Yeah, marine biology is necessarily a strong suit. And I didn't really want to end up studying algal reefs. You know, the things that I was throwing to the tropics, like everyone.

1:09:30 So yeah, James Corp University up in town. I sort of set my sights on that. I finished high school. Probably Gappier actually to get some money together to sort of fund heading up that way. Yeah, I did it. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't know when you went up to James Cook was was Colin Sifendorfer there at the time. He was. Yeah, not not to my knowledge whatsoever. I am. Yeah, it's pretty funny actually how I tripped over him. So I was talking along in undergrad degrees. It's a three year degree. I was doing a double degree actually in aquaculture and marine biology.

1:10:13 There's this really good aquatic so that he did physiology of things like barramundi. And he was a really great guy. And I was, yeah, sort of half thinking of wanting to do honors with him. And then he actually left. JCU. And then I went to the sort of honors coordinator like, hey, you know, I like sharks and actually inquired about coming to South Africa, believe it or not, because your name had come up in my Google searches. And I was like, oh, I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm just saying. And yeah, this lady, she just kind of looked at me like, you know, you know, Colin Sifendorfer's here.

1:10:54 And I could just kind of sense that obviously, he was some big week in the shark world. And I was like, oh, yeah. Yeah. You know, but that's, you know, I wanted to explore my options and do that. So then went home, Google, Colin, was like, oh, yeah. OK. I need to go talk to him. And then funny story. So he was having that week was having a seminar with another visiting researcher. This is two thousand and fifteen, I guess early two thousand and fifteen. So I went along to this seminar and I was like, you know, listen to Colin's talk. I wanted to just ask a question about anything after the talk and then go up and leave it. I did that. So, yeah, the first guy spoke and I didn't really pay him any mind.

1:11:43 And Colin spoke after question or take up a meeting for the next day. That hit me about three years later, but the guy who spoke before Colin was Nick Givi and he was presenting the 2014 Global Status paper, which is probably the biggest paper in shark biology possibly still is. Yeah. And I just did not click at all for that three years. And when I was like, oh, yeah. And that was so that was how I got on the call. And yeah, that was early 2015. I was still in my third year of undergrad.

1:12:24 Yeah. And then I, you know, as as you sort of got to do, I think I had done a bit of research on him for how to look at what he'd you know, what his research topics and things were. And some of those drawn to was the deep water shark space because I noted that, you know, there weren't there wasn't much research out there and the research that was out there was there wasn't a lot of information. So that would be a good thing. And it's a bit unusual, you know, because I'm sure Colin would get, you know, 20 students inquiring about honors. So, yeah, I had a chat to him about that. He was somewhat interested. And then he sort of put me on to Cassie Rigby.

1:13:11 And so Cassie was living up in Cairns, which is about a four hour drive north of town. And I happen to be heading up there to do some diving. So I, yeah, hit up Cassie and sort of said, hey, you know, looking to do a project with Colin, he said to have a chat about deep water sharks. So I drove up there and met her at Queensland Fisheries, which is working at the time. We had a bit of a chat. She was finishing up her PhD and had done a whole bunch of deep water stuff and that obviously. But yeah, it didn't quite sound like those legs for sort of any residual data or things to do for an honest.

1:13:55 So that, yeah, it was a ended up being an incredibly valuable connection to make which, you know, that's it. And then I was back to Colin and we sort of I think we met three or four times weren't really getting anywhere. And I was sort of getting concerned as to whether anything would eventuate. And then one day I walked into his office and there's a big box of silky shark vertebrae sitting on his desk. And I was, you know, the silky shark is and I said, no, I don't brought it up on Google, showed me a picture. And then, yeah, we sort of started talking about life history and aging. So John Smart was at JCU at the time sort of, yeah, doing all his modeling and age and growth and demography scripts.

1:14:44 And yeah, so I sort of slotted into that space and yeah. So was that something that you, you know, when he presented you with that, that project, was that something you were like interested in pursuing or was it just more of, okay, so we finally find a project that we can do together as more of a last minute resort? Like initially, did you think of aging as something that you wanted to do or did you have something else in mind? And then when it was presented to you, did you take it because, oh, this actually seems interesting. Or did you take it because, you know, finally we have a project, you know, not to take anything away from it. Obviously, it ended up working out really well for you.

1:15:24 But just initially as that, that, you know, enthusiastic student that you want to be trying to find a project, you just kind of settle on that? Or was that something that when he presented to you like, no, no, this is this is something I want to do. I mean, in the initial five seconds, it was yes, I get to do a project with Colin, you know, matter what it was. No, but then I, you know, sort of did a bit of research on the species and second most caught the shark and the world. And just the application of aging growth sciences and how that kind of transferred to the oscodalist. Yeah, there was a very short reflection period.

1:16:08 The green light was on. So, yeah. So, and that became your honors project then? That's it. Yeah, yeah. So I had five hundred and fifty vertebrae to age. And I actually did a little internship with Colin before that. Our college had some scheme for undergrad students to sort of get a pace for research. So I had on Colin had a set of silky shark that had been aged from the Indian Ocean. So I sort of trained up on those. Did my P and G or central West Pacific, so to shock vertebrae.

1:16:48 Yeah, good memories in that. Yeah. The dry lab aging lab. It just it's like it was just the boxes of very slowly decaying vertebrae. Aircon didn't really work being towns or, you know, the summer months. It's thirty five degrees close to one hundred percent. I used to like you'd be looking through the the microscope to age. And it was so hot that like you'd get condensation on the lens so you could age about three vertebrae. And then you sort of had to back away like the lens off and let the lens actually cool down as the heat from the eye would make the glass colder than the air.

1:17:35 Yeah. So yeah, that's a lot of sweat in that room. But a little shed some pounds to you with a water weight. Yeah. Yeah. So you did that and do that for your for your honors project. And then do you end up going straight to a PhD from there or when you. Yeah, I did. I am. Yeah, I never had a chance to breathe, to be honest. I so what happens? I punched out that age and growth work and then I kind of had a few extra months and we did a bit of demography as well, which is very much standing on the shoulders of John. To this day, struggle to write one plus one and a.

1:18:18 But yeah, so we got through that. And then the honors package ended up being, you know, really, really solid thesis for the good age and great paper and demography paper. So I went down to OCS in 2016 now presented my work. So we'll write had the funding for this broader. Sharts and raise a P&G project for all these vertebrae. Yeah, it led to, you know, my eyes. What was my school's? The Masters to do smarts. There's a bunch of us have worked on all the different species. And yeah, I presented my work and then started talking to Cassie and Britt about people in the shots were peach.

1:19:03 And I was back on the deep water train. Yeah, we had a couple of chats about, you know, it's anything to do. Can we get on any of these vessels and you know, the coal sea of Queensland or the Western deep water troll and yet a feeling was to be a bit difficult. Yeah. Again, it kind of just wasn't really going anywhere just because of the funding and what you need to get on this deep water project. It's because you know, fishermen are always the one for nothing. Yeah. And then out of the blue, we'll say, hey, can we have a quick chat? You know, absolutely sat down. He said, look, I got this funding from from say, I see these two at the time.

1:19:50 I think he had actually been awarded the funding, but he just put the second round. Yeah, it was to go and essentially work out where sawfish were in the beginning because he'd done a bit of work on sort of shark fin markets and they detected all four species in just this tiny amount of sample effort, which kind of indicated that they must be there somewhere. And that was the same trick where they sort of trip go to a couple of the groupists, the two groupists species, which at the time were the first rockwoods in 15 years. So yeah, there was a bit of a feeling that, you know, you look at a map of Papua New Guinea rivers, enormous estuaries, you know, really shallow turbid coastal waters.

1:20:41 And, you know, how do all the makings of crying or sawfish and gorgeous habitat that are extremely accessible? Yeah, no, we're back to later. Yeah. When you came across this first, these first river sharks, the glyphosate and the salt, where they had fish market. Obviously, you found them in the guys are catching them. I know, I think we found fins first and then we sort of fell in this village where they caught a few. I think one of the photos I'd sent me where I got a really long beard. Yeah, gruelling trip and we finally found one and I was very elated with that.

1:21:26 Yeah, so I guess just to go back on the story bit there. So I took on that PhD from Will. So that I guess the picture we'll have was I've got this funding. I don't know if there's legs for a PhD in it, but, you know, it'll be pretty cool nonetheless. I had a chat with Colin again and we sort of hatched a plan to stretch it into a PhD. I think Colin student load was saturated the time sweet and Andrew Chin come on as primary advisor. Yeah, then we'll work with obviously an advisor and then we got Pete Kine as well. So that ended up with the dream team.

1:22:09 Colin Andrew willing to eat. Yeah, yeah. Let me let me ask you this in terms of because I know a lot of the times when you see people that go to school and they do like their undergraduate there, maybe their masters and a PhD, even a postdoc, they do it at different universities and we're seeing I'm starting to notice more and more that people are staying at universities to their undergrad, maybe not do their their masters, but have the likes to do a PhD. What was the reason that you stayed at JC? Was it just because of the people that were on your advisory were like, yeah, like mostly at JC, you obviously their legends in the game to do that. But was that the reason is just the project came to be it ended up having the legs to do a PhD and then also your advisory committee was just so, you know, stacked.

1:22:54 And then you're just like, why, why go anywhere else? Like was that ever a concern of yours? I think some people when they do PhDs, they wonder if they should stay at the same school that they did their undergrad or even their graduate work, like a masters and then, you know, go or go somewhere else. I'd love to hear your thought process on that. Yeah, well, for me, I didn't have time to think about it, to be honest. I mean, I was so I'm going to go in a clinic. Yeah, I was sort of offered that work from will win that was September. And then my thesis on his thesis wasn't due, I think, into November. Oh, so it's not a lot. Yeah, you know, my PhD paperwork is in the same time. I mean, you know, being to bring up calling again, I mean, it'd be crazy.

1:23:41 Yeah, right. Oh, it's true. Essentially, Aristotle and sharks. So they need. Yeah, so there's no question. Yeah. I get the value. No, I, I do get the value and a lot of the students we have coming through to us now. They're rarely people that have done an undergraduate Jason. It is different. Yeah. Yeah. They got to ask you it before we'll pitch the the River sharks stuff to you. Had you ever heard of River sharks before? I'd heard of them. Yeah, yeah. No, I bull sharks had been my favorite species growing up and then reading up bull sharks. You know, there's always this throwaway sentences about these other glyphous things that also quite a bit is that we don't know much about them and you know, back to the sharks. Yeah, so that they were firmly on my radar. I had to be honest, I was more interested in the river sharks than the sawfish coming into that project. Yeah. Yeah.

1:24:45 And you've you've seen what both the was the Northern River shark and the Garyx River shark is that those are two species you encountered? Yeah, so they're the two we get the other two we get in Australia and then we get the glycoskangeticus which we're just that's you know, they'll come up maybe a bit later. Yeah, we just recently found that up in northern. Where'd you find it in? In North Kalimantan. So just, okay. In Indonesia side of this. Yeah, I was just in it. You know, follow me right in Jakarta. Follow me. Now he just showed me maybe this is the same one, but he had a glyphosate glyphosate gangeticus or no excuse me.

1:25:32 The gangeticus that he just recently got, but I can't tell you where he got it might have been the same one. It was pretty quiet. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was pretty good. It was pretty good. It was pretty cool for me to see I I tell a story I mentioned mentioned in one of our earlier podcast, but I was when I was a student at Leonard Cope. When I was a student at Leonard Cappagno's back in the late 1980s, he had like the only I think most of the only known river sharks at the time the gangeticus he was working on garak. I had to describe it at the time and and then he had and so he just he had pretty much all known species and he at the at this time we thought they might be extinct because he'd been at that point. He'd been through India had been to the Ganges River the Hooghly.

1:26:18 I think he'd been through Indonesia, but they didn't have as much going on like taking this was probably he was there probably back in the early to mid 80s and at the time of workout, there were just wasn't really much more materially around. They actually thought this thing was extinct and I mentioned that because it was because like the work you've been doing Pete kind's been doing and Julia it's kind of cool. These things are actually if you know where to find them from what I can tell they're kind of common. Yeah, I mean I guess two things say I think the more we understand these animals, they just sit in this tight salinity band and you need a big title with others really terrible.

1:27:05 I mean, I think that's sort of anywhere from 10 to 25 parts per thousand and if they're there you'll find them. So yeah, I think where our understanding is getting to a point that they probably do not use freshwater like outright freshwater. I mean, I'm like back in 2006, you can almost count the number of known river sharks in Australia on two hands like those just harboring any observations because they didn't get caught in their inshore fisheries. And if they did, they probably got misideed.

1:27:45 Yeah, so they're just yeah, it was just really strange and then yeah, some of the work Pete kind did I guess they kind of zone in on you know, okay, they're in the estuary and they don't leave the estuary and some of the micro can work we've been doing on the vertebrae indicates that the adults don't really need the estuary. I don't know if juveniles are upper estuary adults lower estuary very little indication of freshwater. Yeah, so do you see it? Do you see them very much out in the pure marine environment or they just tend to be right that narrow zone in the estuary water? Yeah, that's the they the interesting thing is there's been one, I think adult that was caught well kind of away from a river and very much more. But probably 99.9% records of all three species from an estuary.

1:28:45 Yeah, I think there's a bit of a misconception early on where good his band Jeddakis was described from was kind of suggested to have been a freshwater locality. That kind of set the seed that there these freshwater sharks, but I don't think they ever work unless they did penetrate further up the Ganges, which they tend to be another like, I can share one story with you. But this can Leonard Kupaño and he was when he was writing the the 1984 catalog of the sharks of the world for FAO. They sent him on around the world trip and he went to India for like six weeks and he he went to he went to the museum collections.

1:29:26 He went out up the Ganges and he saw lots of bull sharks, but no but no no glyphosate. And so he but again, he was he may have been too far up the river like you were just suggesting and but he said bull sharks were pretty common. But he he came away thinking that these river sharks were probably might have gone extinct at that time just because he just he went up and down there. He went all over. They just could not find these things at all. But you know, but he was really until he sort of showed up. There wasn't really anybody paying that close attention. But they couldn't find it. But now knowing what you know, what P kind knows about finding like the right habitat, you've got to be in the right spot to get those things I get from my government around a while.

1:30:16 I looked at this kind of a happy story and that these things are around. And if you know where to find them, they seem to be still hanging on pretty well, particularly in Australia. You know, I don't know about Pow Pow, New Guinea and Indonesia, maybe not so much. But I just haven't been one of the that was one of the first species I can recall as a young PhD student thinking like, man, these things may not may be gone like for good. The whole genus. So it's been such for me personally, an evolution to see that. And I went out last year, I went out with P kind and Julia, we went out and tagged some some of the glyphosate guy. And so I was like, that was probably one of the highlights of my career just to be able to actually go out and see him in the wild knowing what thinking that these things have been extinct at one time. So yeah, pretty. Yeah.

1:31:07 Yeah, there's definitely a group of sharks that I'm sure ignite the lost shark neurons. Yeah, just a mystery. I mean, just to skim over the PNG work, but when we started the Borneo project I'm currently working on, so our funding was specifically to go and try and find the river shark that presumably occurred somewhere in Borneo. So far, we had found one in 2005 in Southern Kalamantar, which is the southern coast of Borneo. And I was kind of just going to bash my way through the major rivers and look for freshwater stingrays while I was there.

1:31:54 But I originally I put that project in to save our seas and I'd selected out three major areas to target. And then I kept just looking at North Kalamantar and this huge turbid delta estuary and just thinking that is exactly like where I find the sharks or PNG. But we had some advice and things that were glittery from rivers from other rivers from other systems to target those originally. But yeah, eventually I just went I got to go to North Kalamantar and they're going to be there. We went there, got out of the boat, went to a village, I had my salinity meter, 10 parts per thousand. Perfect.

1:32:36 Went and spoke to a fisherman, made you open the shark fins, pulled out a bag of just clear as day, gliff as fins. And then we said, like you said, I got a half of a commercial lump, I guess. I don't see it as a hash commodity or something we do, but we had him sort of just photographing his sharks. He'd punch and he caught one the next night. I think he caught four or twelve or something two nights later and then he caught four more. And then we're like, all right, you've clearly changed your fishing baby here and we cut that off. But yeah, I mean, abundant, you know, that's more of a gangeticus than have been documented since the 2000s.

1:33:24 Yeah. Oh, yeah. We got that four nights of fishing. Yeah. So that was a win. We never found them in South Kalamantar. I was down there, went to some really good habitat, really. Well situated rivers, but I was there at the wrong time of the year. The trade wind was blowing south. They weren't really fishing with the nets. I think they're there. Have you done? Have you been able to do you or anyone been able to do much long term tracking? With these? I know Pete's done some stuff up in the Northern territories. Have you been able to do anything in Papua New Guinea or anything? I haven't. No, it's difficult because in Papua New Guinea, we can't really set up an acoustic array because one, those rivers get about 12 meters of rain per year and the wet season.

1:34:19 You know, if you put your stakes into the mud, they'd be on their way to Australia by the end of the wet season. The other thing too is that you sort of need to tie a float to the receiver to you know where to go and find it. Floats are big time commodity in the fishing villages apart from New Guinea. So, you know, they'd be someone would have come and cut them the next night if you if you're trying to do that. And yeah, so the short answer is no, but I know Pete at the moment will probably do it. I think they've been doing some sort of long term work in the.

1:35:03 Yeah, yeah. Yeah, interesting. Well, I got to ask you, I know a little bit. How's it working in Papua New Guinea? I know there's challenges. I know there's challenges. Just research. Just yeah, just trying to get around and stay alive. It's yeah, I mean, you've got to have the right connections or it's impossible. The thing is I some areas of Papua New Guinea are quite easy and accessible when there's hotels and you know, it's no dramas like some of the islands particularly the northern coast. It's not really an issue. But in the Gulf Province and the Western Province, they're sort of the two most impoverished provinces of Papua New Guinea, which is somewhere, you know, in the bottom 10 of the world. So yeah, things are pretty hectic there. I can no electricity, no storage. And I was lucky I tripped over this lady, the Lani amaku, who I still work very, very closely with.

1:36:09 And she runs an NGO and had been working on the turtles in Southern New Guinea. And I sort of hijacked that NGO and pumped in a bunch of shark funding and the ashes of P-injuries primary shark experts. But yeah, I mean, her having her social capital has she been working the area for probably about eight years before I sort of inquired about her. So yeah, it's very proud, customary heritage and the government's have very little social capital in those areas.

1:36:50 So it's, you know, if the communities don't want you there, that'll be very clear. Yeah, but she she she kind of acts as this conduit between the customary governance and the national governments. And, you know, there's a lot of back and forth between the national fisheries authority, the sea and the conservation and the environmental protection authority. And yeah, she, yeah, she does amazing things for a whole range of species and a whole range of communities. Yeah, I mean, if I never met her, who knows what would have happened to my PhD? And she will. Yeah, and to get to some of the rivers we've got to like some of the rivers we surveyed had never been surveyed.

1:37:37 And that's these villages and the kids haven't seen black people before. And you know, touching the hair and this at any given time, you got 60% of the people in the room just intently staring at you and an amazing experience. Yeah, I've had that I've had those experiences where they all the little kids are falling around the village. Because they're seeing, yeah, it's like I have blue eyes, blue eyes, they just then they're just really like locked into like they're gonna never seen anybody like, let alone, they haven't seen a white person, let alone someone with light eyes. That's just really, it's just it's quite like if you come a sideshow for the village. And one of one of the amazing things about doing work and pop on New Guinea, and then going to Borneo was like the human development in Borneo in these remote regard villages was amazing, absolutely amazing.

1:38:32 They've got electricity, most of them have sort of running water, they built these roads up on the mangroves, just on like wooden slats, motorbikes and stuff like, I was blown away. But the difference was, they, I was also very surprised about their lack of exposure to sort of Western people. So same thing, I'd get to these villages and they'd be like, you know, oh my god, there's a white guy here and but the difference was in Indonesia, everyone's got phones and tik tok and Facebook. So you'd end up with a crowd of people just filming you and everyone wants a photo and whether in PNG, it was, you know, you're a ghost, you were kind of to be avoided.

1:39:13 But look that so yeah, it was a very different, interesting kind of dynamic. Yeah, yeah. So I got I got to ask you, because this was one of the probably one of the if I had to pick a lot one of the sort of my top 10 law sharks, I'd like to have seen I know you guys came across recently the sail fin hound shark gogoli. Yeah, that was can you share much about that? Right? About that? Oh, yeah, I mean, we're on the paper, we're just waiting on it to come back from reviews. Well, I hope I'm not I hope I'm hoping I give anything away, but I reviewed it like about five weeks ago and sent it back. So I don't know what happened to it. All right.

1:40:00 Well, yeah, I can't remember the story with that. So I had known Jack suggests some guy, I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that right. But he he was working for WWF, the PNG office. And he was actually going to come on one of my expeditions back in 2018 or something that he couldn't in the end. And we sort of loosely kept in touch. And then, um, yeah, just one day scrolling Twitter of all things. And it's like, Jack's made this post of some people having sailed back and shot for dinner tonight. I just said, like, blank picture. And then, um, yeah, I followed him up. I think I'd see see willing. And we're like, you know, what and where and you know, more info please. And yeah, it was like, we're doing some monitoring off my dang. So as any exact same place that that holotype for being found and yeah, then a few more pictures have come through. There's a pregnant female that had like, I remember the exact number like eight yoked over or something. I know the total type. The original one was it was a pregnant female. And then, um, and that was and so you found some more pregnant females. At least one. Yeah, I think.

1:41:20 Yeah, I'm just trying. I haven't read that. You know, when you're on a paper and you forget what it's about. Yeah, I think we had six animals in total. And I think they're all adults, which is interesting because there's a bit of a funny. Yeah, the geography of that Bay is a bit funny. The city, the city, the channel that runs right into the coast is there's almost no continental shelf. Yeah, less than a kilometer wide in some places. So there's this kind of ravine that runs in and they're clearly coming in. They all been colleague around 200 meters or so 200 250 meters, something like that kind of deep.

1:42:02 I think, um, nothing the ones just called recently where some 80 meters or something. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I think the original way I think, you know, do you know who described the genus the genus for people listening? It's the family's triacodie and the genus is a gogolia. You know, you know who described the genus. No, file. No, file would I was the name. Anyway, Leonard Kupan to describe the genus when he was a PhD student. Right. Okay. They went back to the California. I had to bring that up after talking about the glyphosate and Leonard story with the glyphosate and then this sale and houndshark comes up that he, he actually described the genus and it was foul wood was it.

1:42:49 He was it. What is connection was if he was the one that collected it or found it or, um, I forget what his connection was with it. But, um, anyway, yeah, I thought that was kind of interesting. That was another bit of an interesting connection with it with that one. But yeah, that was, I had to pick one of my top 10 ones. That would have been one of the ones I would have been loved to have been in on finding that one. That was such a bizarre, bizarre thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a lot of work to do on for a lot of species in a lot of areas. Yeah. Oh yeah. Easy 80, 90% of the things. All you need to do is just go on and find the species and then find the species and then find the species.

1:43:38 Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of work to do for a lot of spaces in a lot of areas. Yeah. Oh yeah. Easy 80, 90% of the things all you need to do is just actually go out to the areas where they may occur and you'll find them. But a lot of the areas like you just explained are not easy to get to. And there's not a lot of people willing to go to a lot of those areas. But if you go there, you can certainly find them. That was, that's definitely true. There's a few that are really, you got to be really lucky to see. But yeah, that's pretty cool. Well, I'll be, hopefully you guys, that's just the beginning of a story there. You guys will find, get some more. Maybe you'll actually learn a little something more about the species. Because you only find it from what you told me, just this one location there.

1:44:22 Yeah, I think I'm Jack. Unfortunately, he's been his role has changed and I think he's back in Port Moresby and working in central province or something. So I unfortunately, I'm not sure how much ongoing fisheries kind of works happening in the. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, it's one for the future. Yeah, we'll see. Yeah. Again, just for people listening there, if you go, go check out the sail fin hound shark and it's. Gogolia foul wood. I check, check that out. If you get a chance, it's a really, it's a really cool looking shark. And if you go online, you can find pictures of it. I think, I think. And there is Mick Mick has a paper coming out on it. So look for that. And I think it's a, I think it's a journal fish biology will be in, I believe. So.

1:45:11 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I did. And I did not hold it. I did. Yeah. Jack's paper. Very, I'm very much just a attacking author on that one. But yeah, really happy to see Jack. Oh, that's, that's really, that's really cool. So what are there? One of the things you have going on now, you're, you're based in Bali, right? And so what's your, you're going to Borneo now is a lot of, a lot of your effort research effort now. Yeah, so I guess, yeah, jumping back into my life story. So the, the PNG stuff kind of finished up, brought up the thesis, Colin moved to Hobart.

1:45:54 And then, yeah, Andrew Chin and I were kind of left it. JC, you sort of, you know, looking at each other like what next? And then, yeah, to Andrew's credit, he, you know, been working really closely with him now for the last five years, I guess. And yeah, he's, he's put some really big yards into kind of get this fish and fisheries lab at JCU, not only to keep going, but yeah, sort of become a magnet for all these students and things and build projects and try and support postdocs and things. So yeah, credit, credit to Andrew, but, um, yeah, so I guess I hung around for the ride with him and helped supervise some students and things.

1:46:41 And then we were, funnily enough, the week COVID broke out, which was in Australia anyway, you know, circa March 2020, Keystone Grants, we'll say that our seeds were due in a few weeks. And Andrew and I were up in Cooktown doing some work on freshwater mussels and all things with an indigenous group. And yeah, we just kind of got talking about Indonesia and Asia generally and, and I, Simeon had sent me a photo of this fish fin from a river in Borneo. And I was like, you know, let's, let's go find them. And we put together this Keystone project, got the funding by then COVID had shut the world down.

1:47:33 Indonesia sort of slammed its borders shut as to Australia, so we couldn't get out of the country. So that project actually got delayed by sort of two and a half years. I'd like these are. So yeah, in that time helped out Andrew sort of building up the lab again, had some really good students. Yeah, and then 2023 I could finally get into the country and I was going to do that project like I wanted to do one trip per year so sort of one month on a trip a year different problems each time. And that was going to be the project but with the delays, you know, we had all this money and you know this compressed time. I just took a year when lived between sort of lazy which is where my host is.

1:48:26 And yeah, it's been the, it's been the year traveling back and forth between Borneo and so the lazy looking for fresh water rays and river sharks and yeah doing a lot of interviews. I mean, that project wasn't so much me leading it was more I was training people at Hasenu, the university or local universities in province revisited in and out to sit down with a fisherman for social survey, things like that. And then they kind of did the research like I was present. I was very much a capacity building project.

1:49:06 Have you found any other really, have you found any other really cool like you mentioned like a river stingrays and some some fresh fresh water riverine singer if any interesting any interesting species in that group. Oh, interesting. I know that. They're all interesting. Oh, I realize that but anything stand out that you thought well this was a pretty this was pretty, pretty awesome fine. It was, it was pretty cool seeing a movie trigon oxy wrinkles. And I think that's the first time they've ever the model with brain, which it is in a small body. I think they were getting about 38 centimeters this way.

1:50:10 So we're going to go to the east coast of Borneo and then into the south. And we only found the full the trigonals south. They don't really occur on that east coast man because there's not much continental shelf. Yeah, it's not really that's a way to spread around there. I mean surprisingly good numbers in in the southern parts of Borneo there, which prior to that work, you know, we kind of a shoes they have heard there that we didn't really have solid evidence. So that was good to see. It's good to see some healthy populations and dry and freshwater with braids. I mean, they were they were pretty abundant. We saw a lot of them.

1:50:54 And they were amazing. They're big, big animals. I actually just to go on a tangent, I said, Zeb Hogan, who used to run a show called mega fish National Geographic. He's been working up in the Mekong for a number of years, and they caught a giant freshwater whipprai that weighed in at 300 kilos or something, which was the largest verifiable freshwater fish on record. So that includes as well. Undoubtedly that species gets bigger than that. But this is the largest. So, yeah, I actually went up to Cambodia and I'm from the end of two thousand twenty three for the Guinness World Record presentation and the other had all this footage and things of this huge animal like, you know, I think it's 230 centimeter.

1:51:53 This is 300 kilo. Just absolutely. I don't think people realize how much a lot of these stingrays they get quite large like like this when you're talking about them and they get so big. And I don't think most people realize just how big a lot of these stingrays get. They tend to think focus more on the big sharks. But these stingrays get pretty massive. Some of the species, some of the species with them. Yeah. And I think once once they get that big, I think they just kind of escape the fishery in a sense that there's no gear that can hold on to them, which is why they're not seen because a lot of these kind of more developing nation states.

1:52:36 It's unusual to see people using big hawks with really strong line in an intro setting. It's all gill nets and trawl and other methods like that. So, yeah, I think once some of these rays get to a certain size, they kind of get a bit of protection just because they found out if we get caught, but probably just break the mirror. Yeah. Have you spent much time traveling around through like Southeast Asia, like Cambodia mentioned and Vietnam and that part of the world much? Not a whole lot. Yeah, I haven't done much in mainland Asia. I kind of want to, but yeah, it's one of those areas where there's unfortunately probably not a whole lot left. I am still in contact with Zepogon. So we've got a student who's going to do a sort of a vulnerability assessment of the meek holes.

1:53:31 Mega for working with him. Maybe our main is some looking forward to that. I think that, you know, if we can get some more work on the rays because the other, you know, Ray that we know nothing about is the meek hole. Which is this fresh water thing that's hardly ever recorded. You know, who knows what the story is without species and there's a group up in nothing. Get onto a few of those. So they're still there anyway. There's still a population. Yeah. The meek holes just go. Yeah. I think that part of the world, there's like almost nothing, nothing known about any of the sharks rays, anything like that. So there'd be a high area. You could find some things that maybe haven't been seen for a while.

1:54:20 So literally some of the large sharks in that area. And I mean, I'd be interested just last thing on the meek hole. So the marbled with pray for the trigonoxyrhynchus is talking about before. So that was actually described from the specimen. And then there's a set of jaws that were presumably collected off an island, which I think aligned with the glyphous glyphous.

1:55:04 Yeah. So, you know, it's a system that would have and of course, large-shaped sawfish used to be in the system. I was going to ask you about the sawfish because there are people studying. Do you, whether it's in P and G or Borneo, do you come across sawfish very often? Yeah, I mean, P and G, well, the funny thing with P and G is I got there just as this fish more fishery was taking roots. So the I guess the fishing history in Papua New Guinea was they tended not to really do much fishing.

1:55:46 They'd use some sort of indiscriminate traps and things. And, you know, the productivity of the estuary in Southern P and G has just so good that it's so easy to catch fish. So, yeah, up until sort of 2010, they just didn't really use nets or any trolls or anything that was destructive because it was that easy to get fish. And then, and so just a further context that I think in the 1990s, the government actually gave out gill nets to these villages, like go catch some fish because they're all protein deficient, like, you know, they were trying to encourage them to fish.

1:56:26 I mean, didn't work. So, yeah, then enter 2015, there was sort of some, I guess, Asian business owners in the region that were exporting mud crab. And then, yeah, they cottoned on to the the swing bladder trade. So those who don't know, when bladder is the organ that the fish used to make the water and estuary and fish that live in two of the environments where I said, is that good? Use this when glad are they sort of squeeze it contract and makes this kind of boom.

1:57:12 If you've ever slept on a boat at night, sometimes croakers under the boat, just kind of talking. So estuary and fish have a big, thick swing bladders. And they're worth a lot of money. And I think that's a significant proportion of the population is probably being caught in the last 10 years.

1:58:17 And they're not common. Yeah, still there. What where do you see like with all this with your work and everything? Where do you see your yourself going on the next, you know, five, 10 years and stuff as far as your career trajectory? Where do you see yourself heading towards? Yeah, it's a it's a good question. I, to be honest, I'm more interested in studying people who catch sharks than I am in studying sharks. I go, I'm not really drawn to ecology and, you know, biology all that much just because we know what the problems are, you know, for sharks and rays in the world.

1:59:00 And we sort of know what we need to do in the words of Colin. You know, he doesn't mind recording him. We probably don't need this study. All that, like, do all that much more ecological work on sharks, because I think a lot of the barriers we face now are policy, the politics of getting the measures in place that we don't need to be in place. So that's why, you know, I really look up to those people like Rema and Cass Ruby and Sarah Fowler and a bunch of people in your part of the world that, you know, make that effort to pursue these sightings and things because it works.

1:59:42 You know, sightings. I mean, when I was in PNG, pre-Carcarina, it's being listed. Shark bins everywhere, you know, the villages and dry rags, you'd see it. Fast forward to recent trips back in PNG in 2000 or the end of last year, December. Harvey anything. And, you know, I, in a sense, Fishmore has replaced it in these coastal areas in some regions, but it's clear that, you know, the head has been kind of cut off of the beast. The money in that market chain, I think it's baby. I can't really give you much good evidence. It's very anecdotal. But yeah, it's the same when I was in Blynya.

2:00:30 There's not a lot of shark being drying the rags and coastal villages anymore in Asia. Unfortunately, though, you know, like everything when one product fades and other booms and it's, it's the skins of daisy atom rays causing them to fall. Along with Fishmore, which is again, incidentally catching a range of coastal sharks. You know, it's a big problem in pop-up. And it's, you know, this population we've just found in North Kalamantai, you know, this Fishmore happening there as well. Yeah. Yeah. Where do you see like, what, I guess, what did last question here for you, Steph? It's been really super interesting. I haven't talked to you about all this, your adventures through PNG, but what advice would you have for a young person starting out?

2:01:21 Find a hole and fill it, I think. I like that. Looking back at my career, it was the review paper I did in my PhD. I think that set me on a trajectory. So yeah, I was going to, you know, look for these sort of things that might be occurring in freshwater and PNG. And, you know, we kind of, I'm denied about a review topic and then we're going to going to review like the ecology of sharks and rays and freshwater. So I kind of got to work on that. And then a few days later on, I was like, we don't know what a freshwater shark all is.

2:02:04 The definitions are so poorly defined. We don't know what species are occurring there, whether they can survive there, whether they're just transient visitors, you know. And there were a few. So companion wrote a really good paper on the topic in 1995. And there was another paper by a last time in 2005, but was very similar to the companion work. Yeah, so it was apparent that no one had really sat down and unpacked the topic since 1995. So, yeah, we did that and we, you know, tried to list out what are our really high on species where freshwater species are truly estuarons.

2:02:51 And what was transient? And yeah, you know, when the numbers came in, I think we had 10, you know, high on sharks and rays. And we for those sharks, so most people don't think of the bull shark, but it's actually not a species that is somewhat similar like history. And no freshwater sharks. And then, you know, coming back to what we talked about before the bliface, there's just beyond the bull shark is, you know, if there are occurrences of this is a freshwater potentially transient. I know Pete Klein's got a pair of records of small juveniles. So there's some very fresh conditions, but it's still very much within that.

2:03:35 Yeah, so that that was interesting. And then lo and behold, the group weren't doing too well in terms of extinction risks. So, you know, they're kind of this, you know, priority. I think the overall stack was more than half were data deficient on the red list, which is mainly an artifact of the time I tried to raise in South America. So, you know, a lot of recent texts and descriptions and things. Yeah, so that, you know, I held on to that topic, I think, and I still do in terms of the first water sharks and rays and recently kind of been able to integrate get them noticed within the ICM freshwater biodiversity unit that we've included in the big nature, maybe it just came out on the status of freshwater.

2:04:25 So yeah, we're trying to get them in the freshwater conversation because the narrative of mega fish is what they call them. They live in freshwater. The stat is like an 88% of the line since the 1970s numerous extinctions. And, you know, trying to situate sharks and rays, fresh water sharks and rays within that narrative. We don't have the information to do that at the moment. And that's, that's definitely that academic space. I really enjoy the most. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, thank you. Hey, Mick, we want to thank you for coming on. This has been a super fascinating episode talking to you about freshwater sharks and rays and just sort of your experiences working in, you know, countries like PNG and Borneo and stuff.

2:05:19 It's really fascinating. I think your message about young people like starting out, like find something nobody else is doing. I think it's really good. And hopefully people do that. But yeah, I really want to thank you. Thank you very much. And we'll definitely have you back on here sometime in the future when you talk to more about sail fin hound sharks or something. So anyway. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. There's a range of PNG stories that didn't make the cut there. So I'm happy to talk to you. Good. Awesome. Thank you so much, Mick. Yeah, thank you guys. And yeah, special thank you just to the colon and Andrew for the help. Thank you, Mick, for joining us on today's episode of the Beyond Jaws podcast. It was great to have you on learning about all these new discoveries and your work on making sure policy is the right thing, like the right thing to go by for these sharks. Dave, what'd you think of the interview?

2:06:11 Oh, it's great. I mean, it was it was really, really cool to have Mick share his stories and everything I knew I knew it'd be a good it would be a great episode with him. And of course, obviously hearing about the sail fin hound shark was probably my highlight of the show. But talking about some of the working in that working in Papua New Guinea, which is not an easy area. He spends a lot of time in Indonesia in that area as well, doing a lot of his research. And then, of course, helping with policy. And stuff. So it's it's a great is a wonderful thing. It was really nice having him on here and at first hand, sort of the stuff. And he does a lot of stuff like I do, like basically looks for these lost sharks thing. Yeah, they find and everything. And and I really enjoyed the story of when he found they came and finally came across this sail fin hound shark. The guys were like basically having it for dinner or something. So which is not unusual. No, no, not unusual at all. You know, it's like, though, but they, you know, but they didn't know.

2:07:08 They really didn't know anything about it. And so it was really nice to have a lot of fun. It was totally is just really cool hearing the whole story about that. Yeah, I just think it's overall just interesting what you can accomplish at such a young age in the worlds of sharks. I think a lot of people think that the shark field is plentiful of shark scientists, but it seems as though not a lot of people are. Well, I mean, I'm not saying not a lot of people, but it's very it's rare where you see people going out into rare sharks and finding out more about rare sharks. It's harder to be able to find information on them, but it seems like, you know, it's possible and it's beneficiary to to the field. Yeah. And just to emphasize where he's where he's working like in Papua New Guinea. That is not an easy place to work. You have it's a really tough area. I mean, you've got a piracy crime.

2:07:58 You have a lot of problems going on there. And I mean, I know people have gone in there to like work. Other colleagues of ours have gone into work work in there and they literally they'll land and they'll basically be told, get back on the plane and get out of here. You can't stay here. Right. Right. So it's not an easy. So I might, you know, my hats off to somebody like that that really persists because it's it's I can't overstate like it. It is a pretty dangerous area to work in. You can't just go wandering in on your own like that. And but he's been working there for a number of years with this project and he's, you know, got a lot of really wonderful contacts in Papua New Guinea, which any of these places of your, as you heard me talk, you have to really get to know the local people in there. They're going to help you, going to help it. It's not going to be a successful expedition unless you got to know the people in there. And then you can engrade yourself within the community and the culture there as is huge. It's just it's huge. Yeah, I completely agree. I completely agree. And, you know, we want to thank thank Mick again for joining us on the show. I think it was really great to have him on and be able to learn about all these discoveries in the work that he's doing. And we'll put any kind of links for him in the show notes. And then, Dave, if people want to get a hold of you, how would they do so?

2:09:09 Uh, it's a lost shark guy on Instagram or go actually go to a YouTube channel at lost shark guy and check out the new series I have going that Andrews worked with me and editing. And these, the nice Sotomayor is a film, but it's on on the searching for lost starch, extinct or alive. And you can check out the first three episodes there. Looking for Ecuador's lost shark. Yes, I hope you do. Please subscribe. We've got a lot of great feedback on those videos as well. It's been amazing. And we're going to see more come out as well. So it's going to be it's going to be a great fun. People are going to really like it. So, uh, yeah, so check that out. And if you want to hit us up on, uh, on, on Instagram, you can do so beyond Jaws pod. That's at beyond Jaws pod. I'll put that link in the show notes as well. And of course, we always welcome comments. So put them in the description or in the, sorry, in the comments below in YouTube. Or if you want to get a hold of that, you can go to Jaws.com.

2:10:00 Or if you want to get a hold of us, uh, you just hit us up on Instagram, just DM either one of us. All right. Well, thank you so much, Dave. And thank you so much, Mick, for joining us. And we want to thank you, the listener for listening to this episode of the Beyond Jaws podcast from Dave and I. Thank you so much. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.