Shark Science: How International Trade Fuels Unsustainable Shark and Ray Fisheries

1:00:00 If you want to know how someone can dissect a basking shark that has washed ashore from a surfboard, you're going to want to listen and watch this episode because we have Chris Moll on the episode who talks about his experience in dissecting a basking shark that washed up unfortunately dead, but he didn't want to have it go to waste. He got a bunch of different parts so that it could be used for science. We're going to talk about that on today's episode of the Beyond Jaws podcast. Let's start the show. Hey everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the Beyond Jaws podcast. I'm your co-host Andrew Lewin with here with my close Dr. David Ebert. David, imagine you get you pull up on a basking shark.

1:00:43 You can't get out there right away. So you know what you do. You just take your surfboard and you go and dissect it. It sounds like an easy job, but we're going to find out about how hard that is. Imagine like, what would you do in that situation? Well, he had just for everyone in context, it was it washed up in a little island that he had to he had to take his paddleboard surfboard out to to get to collect stuff. Then he had to make multiple trips back and he had the he had the rising tide coming in for going out. It's fast in Nova Scotia. It's fast. Yeah. Yeah. And so he had a few challenges, but that seems to be if you work on sharks at all and you do you used to do in dissections and necropses. That's not unusual in the field. Exactly. It can get you have to be kind of challenging. So yeah, that was quite a story. Chris had the head to tell. I hope everyone listens to it too. It was it was just one of one of many fascinating stories he had to tell about his his journey today, which is which his journey is we'll find out was he's driving cross cross Canada right now with his wife and that's turned into a bit of a journey in itself.

1:01:49 It's true. We'll talk. We'll share a little of that too. So yeah, it was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun to interview Chris. He he he was really forthcoming with a lot of information with his career, where where he started, how he where he's ending up, where he would like to end up. And I think it's it's really interesting to show that that having a shark science career is not an easy, not an easy path. And there's a lot of things that you can put yourself in a good place. And hopefully, you know, people will will see it and put, you know, and give back in terms of show like, hey, we've got love for you, and you deserve to be in a certain place. And I think that's what we see with Chris in this episode. So Dave, what do you say? Should we get to it?

1:02:34 Let's do it. All right. Here's the interview with Chris Mall talking about his career in shark science. Enjoy the interview and we'll talk to you after. Hey, Chris, welcome to the Beyond Jaws podcast. Are you ready to talk about sharks? I spend most of my time talking about sharks. So absolutely, I'm ready. Great. That's like the arrow. Well, welcome to the Beyond Jaws podcast, everyone. And we have an outstanding early career guest today. We have Dr. Chris Mall, who's currently among other positions as a research scientist at the University of Washington School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences. He also holds several postdoctoral positions. We'll talk more about today. Chris is originally from Southern California, where like most Southern Californians, he spent his time at the beach, surfing, snorkeling, diving. Think Baywatch for shark nerds.

1:03:19 And he did his undergraduate, though, at the University of California, Davis, up in the Northern California area, where he got his first experience doing animal husbandry and research, working on everything from crayfish to sturgeon to sharks. After his undergraduate, he moved back to Southern California to do a master's degree at California State University, Long Beach with Chris Lowe, who's a frequent podcast guest. And he was Chris was recently on our Jaws 50th anniversary episode. And where he worked on the reproductive biology of those lovable, lovable flat sharks, the famous round stingray, Eurybatus hallery, who we'll find out more about today. After his master's thesis, he worked at the CSU Long Beach lab as an analytical chemist doing toxicology just for fun. He then moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, where he worked with Dr. Nick Dolby, his PhD, to do his PhD. And Nick was has been on our podcast as well back in September, October of 2023.

1:04:16 And also on his committee was another fan favorite of ours, Dr. Carrie Yopat, who's also been on our podcast. And we really need to have her back again sometime studying the life history and brain evolution across chondricthians. After completing his PhD, Chris did several post doctorates in the US, Australia, Canada, and his current work combines phylogenetic comparative methods to better understand trade evolution and more applied work looking at how international trade contributes to unsustainable fisheries for sharks and rays. Chris has over 20 publications, and he's also an associate editor for the Journal of Marine Biology. As I mentioned, he has a research position at University of Washington, has several postdocs. He's also the co founder and principal investigator of Sharkopedia, which we'll find out more about today. He's also a principal investigator for the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis to assess international trade that drives unsustainable shark and brave fisheries.

1:05:10 And well, Chris, welcome to the show. Sorry, I took up all your time doing your introduction. But you have a very impressive resume. Thanks a lot, guys. Thanks for having me. I try to be a jack of all trades. Great. Definitely. So our first help to hit you up with our first question here, like, how did you get interested in marine biology and sharks? Yeah, so I guess I'm probably like a lot of people when I was little. That's what I wanted to do. And I kind of never grew up, never grew out of it. So my parents say that when I was three or four, I declared that I wanted to work on sharks and kind of done everything in my career since then to work towards that goal.

1:05:51 So I grew up in Hermosa Beach, a little town in Southern California. It's a big surfing town. And we spend our days at the beach boogie boarding, surfing. I'd see little leopard sharks in the waves. Sometimes shovel nose, guitar fish, bat rays, things like that. And so sort of piqued my interest. And then every once in a while, you'd hear of somebody catching like a young white shark off the Manhattan Beach pier. And that was kind of a big thing. But yeah, and I just sort of kind of never grew out of it. And I haven't really wanted to do that. So I got to show you, so all through like grade school, high school, high school counselors asked you like what you're gonna do, you're telling them I'm gonna go study sharks. Yeah, I mean, I always knew I wanted to do something in the sciences, but it was always clearly like sharks was the main thing I wanted to do.

1:06:41 And so yeah, every decision I made was kind of towards that goal. And funny, funnily enough, even going to UC Davis, which is pretty far inland, part of that. And I think that's a really cool thing. Part of that. And the reason I went specifically was because they had, you could do a quarter at the Bodega Marine Lab. And so I got my first taste of doing like hands on independent research when I was there. So one of the probably one of the most fortuitous things is when I was at UC Davis as an undergrad, I got to work with Joe check. So he is kind of one of the sort of godfathers of physiology. And that's really where I started to get interested in physiology. So he let me work in his lab volunteering.

1:07:22 So you know, you start off with kind of menial tasks, washing glassware, data entry, that sort of thing. But he had some really cool projects looking at sturgeon and salmon and how they kind of interacted with with a lot of these sort of fish exclusion devices. So anytime there was agricultural setups that were taking water from the delta, they might impinge some of these endangered fish. And so we were studying that. And then working with him, that's when I kind of formulated sort of my first independent research project. So when I went to the day today, I got to work on leopard sharks, looking at how differences in salinity affected metabolic rate. So I got to build my own flow through respirometer. And I had these really old devices, like old hospital blood gas analyzers that I have to calibrate and then use. And then from there, some friends and I just really loved it. And so we we got a little grant through the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to stick around summer. And we worked in the eelgrass beds looking at rockfish, surf, purchase, those kinds of things. And then it just kind of blossom from there. And once I got a case of research, that's kind of how it all started. And I didn't want to do anything else. And then when I was looking for grad schools, you know, there wasn't really anyone who was kind of doing eco physiology of sharks at the time. And I was talking to Joe, I said, you know, where can I go? And he said, Well, there's this guy at Cal State Long Beach named Chris Lowe, and he'd be a good person to talk to. And I applied to Chris's lab. And then I got a piece of research on the E.D.C.

1:08:51 And then kind of got going from there. So yeah, I kind of just tried to learn sort of different skills along the way. So, you know, working with Chris, learn everything from like physiology. And then he had a really big, vibrant lab at the time. But it's funny, like there wasn't a lot of shark research going on. There was so some of the people you might have talked to you before Yani, I know he was on an episode, Jeremy Baudel, some of those folks were just kind of finishing up. And so when I started, I was working on stingrays, a lot of people were working on rockfish. And then at the time, there was a lot of work on the offshore oil platforms were kind of the fact though, marine reserves, people weren't allowed to fish on them.

1:09:35 And there was this whole rigs to race program. So we got to do tons of fieldwork. And then there was this whole thing of, you know, lots of lots of diving on the rigs, which was really cool. Got to see, obviously tons of rockfish, pilot whales. One time was one of the gold mine, I did get a mola mola in my transect on the platform. As I was going down, I just sort of stayed still until it got within my window. So the great thing is like, we all worked on each other's projects and got to do tons, tons of stuff. And so there was a really like collegial atmosphere. And then from there, yeah, I kind of just wanted to learn more skills and this this job in this chemistry lab opened up. So the lab is Hermes, the Institute for Integrated Research and Materials and Environment and Society, which is why they call it Hermes. It's sort of a mouthful, but it was, it was a core facility for the Cal States.

1:10:28 Everything for mass spectrometry, including ICP, MS, GC, MS, we had X-ray for essence. So electron microscopy, we had stabilized tote mass specs. We had laser ablation suite. So we had all these really cool tools. And so my job was to sort of work on any sort of contracts that came through. It was mostly different Cal State researchers. And then maintaining the equipment, obviously, was a big part of it, which is really fun because these are really, really fancy, really expensive instruments. And you kind of have to get over your fear of fiddling with them. And then we sort of, if there was downtime, we could run things that we wanted to samples that we wanted to. And at the time, Chris's lab was working with the Monterey Bay Aquarium. And we were part of the rapid response team for the juvenile white sharks.

1:11:17 This is when that program was kind of first getting started. So we would go out and, you know, we tag sharks that fishermen had captured as bycatch. Some of them went to the aquarium at the time, a lot of them released. But if there were incidental mortalities, we would take those animals and we perform necropsies. And so we had this kind of tissue bank. And I thought it'd be really interesting to see what the contaminants are. So a friend of mine, Mary Blasius and I, we took the samples and we were running heavy metals. We had a lot of the samples and we found these really, really amazingly high levels of things like mercury, DDT, PCBs. And so that kind of kicked off sort of this interest in toxicology. And then from some of that work, we discovered that basically these sharks could not have acquired those levels of those contaminants.

1:12:12 by feeding alone. So it had to be coming from something else. And that other source was the mother so that contaminants are offloaded during gestation. So it was kind of the first evidence of maternal offloading contaminants and white sharks, which was really cool. And that's become like a birthinga field and Katy Lyons, is she's sort of taken the torch and run with that. And she's done some amazing work looking at the internal offloading and then again, I wanted to learn more skills and so while I was there, you know, I worked with a lot of people, I always loved collecting samples with people. And this postdoc from UC San Diego was looking at brains of different sharks and rays, Kara came up. And so I helped her collect some brains from some of the round sting rays I was working on. San Diego was looking at brains of different sharks and rays. Kara came up. And so I helped her collect some brains from some of the round stingrays I was working on.

1:12:56 And then when the opportunity came up to do a PhD with Nick and Kara, I sort of jumped at the opportunity to learn some skills and moved off from there. That's kind of an interesting combination. Obviously, we know both Nick and Kara real well, but how did you, it kind of like what those two do, how did this whole thing come about that you're doing brain work with? Yeah. It just seemed like knowing what Nick does and what Kara does is like, how did that come about? Yeah, so I think in a former life or when Nick was doing his PhD, he was really interested in life history and reproductive mode evolution, these types of things.

1:13:38 And then I think sort of the idea was kind of spawned by a conversation that he had with another faculty member at SFU, Bernie Kresbe, who ended up being one of my committee members, but they knew that maternal investment was really important for relative brain size in mammals. So the idea is that neurogenesis is an incredibly expensive process. And most neurogenesis occurs during early development, especially in mammals. So the more energy that a mother can invest in a single offspring, the vast majority of that energy, especially in early life is going towards neural development or neurogenesis. So in humans, I think in the really early stages, about 85% of the energy that goes to a fetus is going towards development of the brain and the central nervous system.

1:14:23 And it's really cool, you know, in mammals, there are different degrees of maternal investment, but you have this, they're all essentially within a few reproductive modes. So most of the work was done in, in eutherian mammals. So it's like us, they have a placenta, but there's similar patterns seen in marsupials. So again, it's just kind of a different combinations or durations of gestation and lactation. But the really cool thing about sharks is that they have every form of reproduction that's been described for vertebrates. So everything from egg laying to placental live bearing and then this whole range of modes in between. So you have this kind of arena for really different levels of maternal investment, depending on the life history of the animals, the environment, select pressures, and then also offspring size and number.

1:15:06 And Kara had had a couple of really amazing papers coming out, just looking at this, the neurobiological diversity of sharks and rays. So she was building on some earlier work from Glenn Northcutt. And what she realized when she expanded the dataset is that, you know, we think of mammals having really large brains and then other vertebrates like reptiles and teleos having smaller brain sizes. And when I say brain size, I'm typically saying I'm referring to relative brain size. That's the size of your brain relative to your body size. But sharks have this like range of relative brain sizes that spans all of this. So you have some species which have huge relative brain sizes, things like hammerheads, mobulid rays, and then you have things that have really small relative brain sizes.

1:15:53 Typically, there's going to be like squaliforms, skates, things like that. And so again, what's kind of the difference between these groups? Oftentimes, it comes down to life history. And a big part of that life history is reproduction and then maternal investment. And so they kind of had this idea and then they were looking for a PhD student. So I came in and kind of took that initial idea, built on it, looking at, you know, the sort of sequence and tempo of evolution, brain, not just brain size, but brain organization and then spinning that out into a number of different things. So kind of really, it's really cool because I was really focused on eco-physiology and those types of things first.

1:16:35 But then it really made me start to think about the full diversity of sharks and rays. And, you know, as you both know, there's more than just every book probably thinks of like five species of sharks when I think of sharks. But there's over 500 species of sharks, 600 species of batoids. There's this huge amount of biodiversity that is oftentimes underappreciated. So I do remember when I was when I was interviewing with Nick and Kara, one of the questions they asked me, was, well, you know, what if we decided we didn't want to work on sharks? We actually wanted to work on something else, like a different taxonomic group. So I said, you know, that would be kind of interesting.

1:17:16 And there's always possibility. But I think sharks and rays are actually a really ideal group for these reasons. And I think that in their mind sort of crystallized. OK, this is the person who can take this idea and run with it. So it's not not to say there's anything bad of loving sharks. We all do. But the thing that I really tried as champions that like they're actually a really good group for asking a lot of these really broad ecological evolutionary questions. And it kind of brings it back to Dave, you'll know this. So I read this paper because you recommended it was one of Leonard Campano's sort of review papers, like alternative life histories and time and space. Kind of a classic paper that every student of shark and ray biology should read.

1:17:57 So he does everything from define eco morpho types. So the evolution of these things, reproductive modes. But it has, I think, one of the best concluding paragraphs of all time in any paper. And I sort of shared it like in talks and let's like science communication. But the idea is that, you know, people always think when they think of like groups that are worthy of studying, it's the birds, it's the mammals, the reptiles, the teleos. But there's a big number of reasons why sharks and rays should not be overlooked. And they're actually a really ideal group for doing a lot of these things. And that's kind of what I'm trying to like gear my career towards is focusing on that biodiversity and why it's important and why we should appreciate it.

1:18:43 Yeah, I got. Yeah, it's just a reiterate to everybody out there that Leonard Capaña's 1990 paper environmental biology of fishes. Alternate life history. It's absolute classic in any serious student who wants to get into this. That's the paper. It's a must read paper for you. It's just it's so revolutionary and just out think out think you talk about a guy. I've always talked Leonard thinks outside the box with such an outside the box type of paper. It was so revolutionary at the time. And a lot of people don't even know about these days. Yeah, it was kind of overlooked. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and I was and I've told the story, but I was I was a grad student when they when he got onto that whole thing.

1:19:26 And there's a book that really kind of helped drive the whole thing to is he refers to it in the in the in the in the in the papers by Robert Bakker, who's if you're a Jurassic Park fan. He's kind of like the the actor in the camera, the actor's name in the in the movie, the original one. But that was kind of modeled after him. And he wrote a book called the dinosaur heresies. And that's that's a phenomenal. I've read that book, too. I couldn't put that book down. And that was and that gave a Leonard a lot. Leonard was already kind of working on it. When he read that book. Yeah. He just like it just inspired him. And I actually got the book to and read it.

1:20:08 It's just that's a good those are two kind of complimentary things. It reads that the dinosaur Harry Harris. He's by Robert Bakker. I think it came out around eighty six or so. And then Leonard's paper. If you want to just get inspired to think differently in terms of your your research, you're doing shark research. It's just incredible paper. But yeah, I'm glad to hear you read it. You picked it up. Yeah. And I sort of read occasionally, I think, you know, like I said, like one of my favorite paragraphs, any science paper, it clearly was inspired by that because I think it starts. It's time to nail the list of conjunct the and Harris is to the cathedral door of marine biology. Yeah, and then it just goes on a short rant, which is really great. Right, right. And he talks about the talk. He refers to the rise of the fabulous furballs.

1:20:56 Which were the mammals that took over from the dinosaurs. He comments on that, too. And he acknowledges Bakker and the acknowledgments, too. But again, anyway, listen to this thing. Yeah. This paper, if you can't find it, hit me or Chris up. We'll just just direct DMS and we'll give you the reference. But that's an absolute paper you need to read on that thing. It's just it's just such a good. It's such a such a good paper to read. Well, I'm glad I was glad to hear it. Glad to hear that. That kind of inspired you to as far as your the work you did. I thought the whole stuff you're doing with the brains and all that stuff was was pretty cool. I just was kind of curious.

1:21:39 I never really asked you how that whole came about with the connection between Kara and Nick. Yeah. But I think there's kind of this, I would say, like, kind of overarching idea. And like, you know, Nick is obviously obviously a lot of my scientific endeavors and ideas are obviously shaped by my advisors and things. But he had this idea. And I think it sort of guides his research now. It's like, let's say you're on your deserted island and you find that this new species of shark. What can you tell about its behavior, life history, ecology, anything just by what you have in your hands? You can't just track it. Yeah, but you know, you can look at things like the brain, which we can infer a lot about behavior, sensory specializations, energetic requirements.

1:22:23 If that you can infer things maybe about habitat, their feeding modes, their behaviors. If you look at things like the gills, can you understand their metabolic requirements? So the idea that your gill surface area is a limiting factor in how much oxygen you can uptake and also how much waste gases you can can really so the idea is you can you can really learn a lot about an animal by looking at its morphology. And so I think that's been kind of an overarching thing for a lot of the stuff that he's done. And then obviously, you know, you're always guided by your scientific mentors. You know, Nick and Kara obviously have been huge ones for me. But even, you know, Chris, when I was doing my masters, his big thing was like, you know, think about everything that you know, it was like a tool in your toolbox. So that's why I've always tried to learn new skills. And it's, you know, it helps to be a more well rounded scientist helps you have conversations with different people, but also I think helps you ask better questions to ultimately.

1:23:24 And then even, you know, what I've been doing more recently. So my last postdoc working with Aaron McNeil on the shark meat project, you know, took some of those skills that the taxonomy that I've been working on the phylogenetic stuff. And put that towards more applied stuff and then building on like quantitative skills and modeling. So and then it's really cool to have, you know, research that's much more applied as well, especially considering the current sort of conservation crisis facing sharks and rays. Yeah, well, I think you hit on a good you've hit on a good point that young people listening to is you learned throughout your career so far, you've always made an effort to learn new skills. And I think, you know, you're out there looking for a position now, but those skills are going to help you get a position somewhere more than how much you know about, you know, the brain construction of, you know, Brown Stingray or something.

1:24:21 And I always tell students like I can, you know, like myself or Nick or Carol will teach about all you want to know about raising sharks. But the skills are what's going to help you get a position somewhere. So always just learn skill as many skills like you did. You're in the you're one of the best examples. I could think of recently we've had on head on the show, a young person who just like really got a lot of a wide range of skills as you've gone along so far earlier. career, you know, and definitely a lot of diversity, diversity in that. So so you got through you got through your how'd you have just out of again, how'd you have to pick Nick, Sam Simon Fraser, how'd that come about? So he had just started, or he'd been there for about a year. And so he had must have had like some startup funds, but you know, he was looking for for PhD students and so myself and other guy, Rohan Trebical ended up his first PhD students. And we worked on really different things. You know, Nick is also a really broad scientist, works on all different things. Yeah, he worked on coral reef fish before. So that's kind of more what my buddy Rohan was doing and I was kind of really into the shark and right stuff. And it was it was cool because everyone in Nick's office had a lot of fun.

1:25:36 It was cool because everyone in Nick's lab worked on something different. So there are people doing life history, people looking at distributions and conservation. And then obviously, at the time, Nick was, he was just starting out as the IUCN co chair. So obviously, a lot of students that came in subsequently worked on that sort of stuff. But it was just a really cool lab, where, you know, we all learned from each other was working on. So whether it was a trophic dynamics and trophic pyramids or age and growth, or neurobiology or conservation, like, everyone's always working on something different. And it was kind of the same in Chris's lab and his own master's was a big lab, we all helped each other out and work on different people's projects. I think that was, that was kind of a key to sort of the success in both those places, which is having people working on different things. So you can always jump into something new, whether it's going out in the field with somebody in Long Beach.

1:26:34 And then you can also dive in for rockfish or diving on the platforms, or whether it was, you know, just thinking about people's figures or analyses at SFU in Nick's lab. So there's always something new to do. It's keeps you interested and keeps you motivated. And also, it just keeps everything fresh. So you don't get kind of bogged down in like the one thing that you're working on. So go ahead. Go ahead. No, no, go ahead. So you've had quite a array of postdoctoral positions in Canada, US and Australia. I'm curious, to people interested, how did you wind up with such a diverse, I mean, in so many different locations?

1:27:17 Yeah, well, I mean, part of it is kind of like, you know, taking the skills that I have in applying them towards different systems. So what I've what I finished up my first postdoc was was still working with Nick, but it was part of a larger project with Colin Simpfendorfer and Michelle Heiple, and it was a shark ray MPA project. So the idea is, what can we do to help optimize the design of MPAs for sharks and rays? We still have a we still have a couple things in the works that are coming out. But so I came aboard to kind of look at using the phylogenetic comparative approach to look at what things sort of shape and drive the movement activity or behavior of a different species.

1:27:59 Things like dispersal. So how far animals move from point A to point B, and also activity space. So the idea, if you can understand what speak, what drives species needs for space, you know, whether it's foraging movement, those types of things. How can you optimize MPAs in a particular area? So let's say you go to a new place, you want to put an MPa there. How big does it need to be to protect the sharks and rays? Or how does it need to be designed? And so it's really fun, because it's really started to, even though I've done a master's in Chris's lab, this first time, I really got to work with telemetry data directly. So there are some really great movement ecologists that we worked with, Vinay Udiweir and Ross Dwyer, and we sort of got to use a lot of the data to understand how we can do that. And this is also where it kind of started to jump into big data. We use data from I'm OSTN tag animals, whether it's acoustic tags, conventional tags, or satellite tags to kind of build mechanistic models to understand these sorts of things. And we're still working on the research outputs from this, but that was kind of the first foray into that. And then the first one was a much shorter one. It was down in Tasmania working at UTAS. And the idea was to, again, take that phylogenetic comparative approach and look at life history diversity of penguins. So again, it's a much more, I guess we'd call it in variant groups, obviously, they're all egg layers, they're sort of restricted range, but if you think about sort of extinct species of penguins, especially like the giant penguins, things that caught up

1:29:29 into South America, further up into Africa as well. There's a huge amount of diversity there. So again, it's taking that phylogenetic comparative approach and just applying it to a new problem. And then from there, that's what I came back to Canada. And this is kind of when we first started like an idea that had been percolating during my PhD cancer frolitions. So what you'd mentioned earlier, Dave, Sharkopedia. So this is an open access database that we've created to provide access for reliable key data. And then we have our reliable curated life history traits and population abundance trends of all sharks and rays.

1:30:14 So it started out as shark traits. So myself and another PhD student sub part at the time came up with the idea because we were both building our own life history databases and we realized there's a lot of like duplicated effort here. And so we're doing this all the time. Or, you know, we're having to like everyone's reinventing the wheel. So if someone's doing their own comparative paper, they're building their own database, they might be missing things. The idea was to just reduce people's time and effort also get around paywalls. So people at some universities might not have access to every paper. So like if people can't access Leonard Campano's paper, we have that available. And so that we started that with support from the Shark Conservation Fund.

1:31:04 And then we brought that together with the Global Shark Trends project, which Nick had, which was these abundance time series. We brought those together into a single database Sharkopedia. And so it's mostly been supported by Shark Conservation Fund and Save Our Seas and it's something we're still working on. And we're trying to expand it. Our coverage. We're going to be running a workshop at Sharks International next year, focusing on data from around the Indian Ocean and early career researchers and just getting other people access to it, training people and bringing in more data that we don't necessarily have access to ourselves. And also, even that has kind of developed into something that's more conservation oriented. So you're both familiar with CITES, Convention on International Trade and Endangered Species. So for any species that CITES listed under, that's listed under Appendix 2, those species can be traded, but in order to do so, they have to have a non detriment finding.

1:32:04 And so countries basically have to show their work and say that their fishery is not impacting the population. And a part of that framework, and if they have to do that is sort of intrinsic biological information. And to make that process more streamlined, some folks at Blue Resources, Daniel Fernando, actually at TANNA developed the ENDF. So it's an electronic form of this. It makes it more reproducible, rapid and that sort of thing. And that actually uses Sharkopedia as the back end to build out the intrinsic biological information. So anything that goes into Sharkopedia is now going directly into the NDF process to help the implementation and enforcement of CITES.

1:32:44 So we're trying to just make these things more widely usable and applicable and increase uptake, but at the same time, just putting the information in the hands of anyone who needs it, whether it's researchers, conservationists, managers, those types of things. So things like the Sharkopedia stuff that's as accessible on the internet. Are you having trouble hearing me, Dave? Yeah, a little bit. You're kind of coming to go a little bit. There's a couple of places I didn't hear you very much. But yeah, I just... So if I say something that you may have answered, I just will work it out. We'll edit it and stuff. So the Sharkopedia thing is that... I didn't hear a few. Is it web-based pretty much? The Sharkopedia?

1:33:29 Yeah, so we have a website. So it's yeah, it's sharkopedia.org. So you can go, you can search by species, you can search by trait or trend. So we have information on age and growth, reproduction, demographics, things like relationships. So length, weight, length, length, relationships, so conversion ratios, those types of things. And then all the population trends are available. And one of the things we wanted to do was build on fish base. So fish base is a great resource, but everything is kind of boiled down. So let's say you want to go and look up blacktip shark, carcrannus, lumbatus.

1:34:10 What is the age and growth estimate of it? You're going to get a single estimate of age and growth parameters. But when you do that, you lose a lot of resolution, especially for species that are wide ranging populations might differ. So we maintain the resolution of all of the data. So you can search by parameter, even if you want to search by growth model, those types of things. And then ultimately, everything is traceable back to a resource. So people can use this to freely generate their own data set that they want to use. So we want to look at this for comparative analysis or, again, for doing things like conservation information or intrinsic biological information of exploited species, those types of things.

1:34:52 And then, you know, we ultimately want to expand this with some other information. So some of like the threat information that we're working on, so outputs from like the Global Shark Meat Project and these types of things. So estimates of like fisheries landings per species, trade per species and commodity type. And ultimately, this is always going to be freely available for everyone. That's kind of the first thing it was built on. And it's also curated information. So anytime data gets submitted, an editor such as myself or others will check the data before it actually gets imported and becomes available. And so it'll always be up there. People can use it. Sharkopd.org. If you ever have any people want to submit data, they totally can submit their own data. If they find a paper of theirs is included.

1:35:53 And so we're running a workshop right before the meeting. And we'll be trying to get as many early career people from around the Indian Ocean as possible because it's a really critically important area for for Global Shark and any conservation. So a lot of places have really good fisheries management. So the goal for Australia, Canada, for example, good fisheries management. But there's a lot of places that have really high shark and ray biodiversity and don't. And so what they're missing is capacity and information to help them develop fisheries management strategies, conservation strategies. And so we want to provide that for them. And then also build the capacity in those places so they can they can continue on. So it's not that we don't want to be the only ones doing it. The more people that are part of the community.

1:36:46 It's definitely an area of high biodiversity. That's for sure. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're definitely a good. So you're definitely a good area there with the terms of high biodiversity and stuff. So I should be I should be very good. I'm hoping to be there. So hopefully I'll see. Yeah, hopefully. I'm sure I hear the sharks and national meetings are always really fun. Sri Lankan. Oh, yeah, they're like they're like the go to meeting for me these days. It's like it's it's only once every four years. So it's kind of a great good, good gathering point. A lot of people I see a lot of people that are like, oh, I'm not sure what you're looking for. But I think it's a good gathering point. A lot of people I see a lot of people at those meetings that we don't don't normally I don't normally see like in an AAS meeting or even OCS meeting. You just get a lot of people that are able to go to those meetings. So I think it'll be I think it'll be pretty well at least the international people do international work will be there. Yeah, yeah. I think pretty well show up show up pretty well for that. So and then always in really nice locations too. So yeah, yeah, it is Sri Lankan extra going to be a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun.

1:37:48 I think it's exactly definitely doesn't hurt when it's somewhere nice to go. I'm sure I'll have Daniel for Daniel Fernandez been on the show here before before. Cool. And some some people back next year to talk about the probably the Sharks International both before and afterwards. So we'll get some more. In fact, we had we had Paul Cox and Ali hood on when they had the last one in 2022. So we'll yeah, yeah, sure be talking about that. Maybe we'll have one of you or Nick or somebody on to come talk a little more about this your workshop. Yeah, as well. Yeah. Or after every really good. I'm really cool. If you're very young person out there, that's definitely a good if you can afford to get to Sri Lanka, it's really it's definitely the conference to go to. Yeah, start applying for funding now, I would say for the work. I think it's May next year, right? May 20. Yeah.

1:38:35 Yeah. Work that extra job if you need to. You know, so yeah, yeah, sometimes you have to look into that. Yeah. Yeah. So you got so you got the the the the the the. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, so driving across Canada, this is this is going to be the third time that I've done it. Uh we're going a little bit slower this time, which is taking our time. Um so yeah, I teach. I teach a class at Dalhousie every summer. It's the biology and conservation Sharks and Rays. And it's it's a really fun class. It's cool. Yeah. And I don't know if you've to teach for the students at Dalhousie, I think for a lot of them it's kind of a highlight.

1:39:22 So Halifax is cold a lot of the time, there's not a lot of opportunities to get out in the field, but summers are really nice and there's a really high biodiversity of things just off the coast of Halifax. So one of the big components is we do some field work. So we go out and we tag blue sharks just offshore. So we go about 10 miles offshore and we've seen tons of things out there. So tons of whales, bluefin tuna. That's the first time I saw a pod of Atlantic bluefin tuna just charging. I thought they looked massive. They were probably like five or 600 pounds and the boat captain was like, yeah, those are pretty big. They get bigger. Last year we saw leatherback turtles, which is the first time I had seen them. It's pretty cool. You know, being a canonist seeing sea turtles are like, what the heck is going on? But the Gulf stream coming up, it's actually gets it's surprisingly warm. So, you know, the water temperature varies a huge amount from season to sea. So in the wintertime, you know, the water can get down to about minus one doesn't freeze most of the time because it's salty. So yeah, I think that so I like to surf like the coldest day that I surfed out there was minus 27.

1:40:46 The water was about minus one. But then, you know, there's usually once a week every year when you can surf in your trunks. Yeah, you know, the water will be like up in the mid 70s. It doesn't last long, but it's no, it's pretty cool. You gotta take advantage when you can. Exactly. Yeah. Have you encountered any white sharks up there yourself? So I haven't seen them. I haven't seen them, but I've been surfing a couple times. They've been around. So one time a buddy and I were surfing and it was really foggy and we could get all the splashing in the water. I made some joke about sharks. And then as soon as we were walking up the beach, this lifeguard came running down said, Oh, we just saw a huge fan and we're closing the beach. Oh, okay. So maybe it wasn't that far off. And then just where we were living, so my wife and I are about an hour outside a little spot called West Adore. And you know, we lived out there because it's like a nice little area. We had a house right in the water. One of the great things I have like my own sort of private surf break out front a little point break. And then one day one of the search tag sharks swam right through there. And the next day I saw half of a seal floating or just washed up on the sand spit right there. So there's definitely around. We see lots of signs of them, especially, you know, getting into the late summer, fall

1:42:16 months there around. I haven't seen, I mean, I've seen a lot more in California and on the West Coast than I have in those discussions, but there's probably more around there. But one thing I did see last year, which has been on my bucket list for a long time was a basking shark. So oftentimes, you know, people people mistake those for white sharks because everyone has white sharks on the mind now. But actually, I was teaching my class and one of the students she worked for the marine animal response society. So they go whenever there's like a marine mammal stranding, or oftentimes if something washes up, they collect it for DFO to do necropsies. And when I was first starting my class, there was this Instagram video going around of this massive basking shark swimming in a bay on the eastern shore of Nova Scotia. And it was in about 60 feet of water. And as I was watching the video, and I thought, I'm pretty sure I know exactly where that is. It's a spot called Little Harbor. And then the last day of my class, the student came up to me and said, oh, there's been a basking shark stranding. And I know, yeah, so nobody can go and get it. So it had apparently washed up on a little island. So I said, Okay, well, can you send me the coordinates? And she sent it to me as exactly what I thought it was. It's just this little tiny pile of rocks basically in the middle of this bay.

1:43:43 So DFO wasn't going to get it because they didn't have the time or boat. Mars couldn't go and get it. So I called DFO and said, Hey, it's a cool if I go. They said, Sure. So I, I didn't have my own boat, but I took my surfboard, loaded up with my dissecting gear. The biggest knife I could find at the time, because I was kind of packing up and moving was a fillet knife that had I think maybe a five inch blade on it. So I paddled out there. And so I'm all alone on this island. It's a beautiful sunny day. It's paddle thermistor for it. And there's an eight meter basking shark just washed up. And obviously, unfortunately, the animal had passed. So I inspected there were no signs of boat strike or boat injury. So what I wanted to do is collect some samples. So I texted everyone I knew that might want something before I went out there, you know, this is kind of a rare opportunity. So if I can get samples for people. So obviously I had requests for vertebrae, muscle, liver, all these sorts of things. And then I knew Carl was going to want the brain. So there's a big board to bring all that stuff. So the shark was mostly out of the water. It was that the coddle fin was still in the water. And of course, Nick wants the coddle fin aspect ratio. So of course, I take this little five inch knife, I have about three hours until the tide fits back in, fills back in. So I set up

1:45:14 my phone. So it can videotape me and I can yell out the measurements, I take it all the more from metrics. Oh, no, I start collecting samples. And so I had to get the first I had to get the coddle fin off to measure it. So it was underwater. So I basically take this knife some underwater, remove the whole coddle fin, drag it up onto the beach, that thing probably weighed 150 200 pounds. Get it up there, get all the measurements. Then I needed to get vertebrae. So I'm going through the top cutting through finally got through and I got so I took six vertebrae in total, but I could only carry three at a time. So three vertebrae alone was probably about 80 pounds. So I get a section out, paddle it back to shore, go back out, cut the other ones. And mind you that you know that these vertebrae, the radius was probably about seven inches. So that's just a single vertebrae is bigger than the knife that I have.

1:46:07 I'm just hacking away. But the best part was the time was getting close to filling back in. And I had to get the brain. So I quickly got through the chondro cranium, exposed it. And then there was a lot of three balls fluid in there. So I had to cut a little trough in the cartilage to let that the fluid drain out as I did that the tide started to fill in. So I had to quickly take my knife and dissect out the brain. And I got the whole brain out and probably about 10 minutes. And then brought it back to shore. And then because it was the 4th of July, I packed the brain and some formal and took it to the pub to show off everybody. So I'm sure you sure that was a treat.

1:46:51 People also love that. And I just so people don't know if you haven't worked a bad day, their skin is really tough. Yeah, there's a lot of yeah, Danicles. You must have gotten where you probably wearing a wetsuit. So you probably get torn. No, it was warm. So I just kind of just wearing trunks and then you know, I was wearing nitrile gloves at first, but it would shred right through those. So then I had to get a pair of like mechanics to wear those but I was just my arms were completely shredded and you know, a lot of sharks if you if you go one way, they're rough, you go the other way, they're smooth. Basking sharks, it doesn't matter. They're just rough every way you go. But it was a really spectacular animal to see. So yeah, that's a great that's a great story to share with your students or some some day just going out there by yourself and taking off the image. Good thing about technology, you can set up your camera just to record everything. Exactly. Yeah, stuff off. I was definitely my have the video. Do you still have? I do. Yeah.

1:47:54 Yeah. Yeah. So and you know, we're still trying to figure out what happened to the animal. So why it's trying to do so. And one of the reasons I took the brain not only for the animal, but for the animal. The brain not only to obviously study the brain size organization was there's been a sort of more recently, especially animals and temperate water sharks kind of washing up and there's been evidence of them having a form of meningitis. Oh, which could be caused some behavioral impairment. And this is why these animals might be dying or stranding. So I'm sending it to a vet to sort of analyze path logically to see if we can figure out that that's what it was. Because as far as I know, this would be the first case of. This meningitis in basking sharks. Right.

1:48:36 But other land reform species have had this. So white sharks have stranded with it and pressures and things like that. So salmon sharks, we get them here. We get salmon sharks, which you would know, Chris, that we get them here. A little sort of about three foot long salmon sharks wash up. Yeah. Kind of from about now from about July into the fall. And we always get these calls about a little white shark washed up from the white sharks. Yeah. And you know, we got to a point where I think we need to get some of the white sharks. Yeah. And you know, we got to a point where I think we must have had like 30 or 40 of these things around. So I've just got to be like, send us a picture because you know, like, yeah, you get so many of those small ones are just, you know, you kind of know what once you figured out what happened with them with this meningitis thing.

1:49:17 You know, you don't have any more and you don't need any more. So it's kind of like we're done. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. I think that was one of my the first calls I went on with the rapid response in Long Beach with a fisherman was like, I got a small white shark. It's kind of funny looking. Yeah. But yeah, it's probably gonna be a salmon shark. And that's exactly what it was. But, you know, he caught a salmon shark off of Malibu. So yeah, yeah. Yeah, that doesn't happen often. I'm sure. Yeah, it's pretty rare. Yeah. Yeah. Down. We get them down to Monterey. They're not uncommon, but south of us, we get especially down in Southern California. They're not that common. They just get caught in the current. The the the Alaskan current. No, well, they get they come down the loop. The little ones come down the coast. Yeah. Yeah. So there's been some cool work done by Aaron Carlyle at University of Delaware. So with a lot of these animals when they're smaller, they don't have quite the capacity for regional endothermy when they're younger. Okay. And so they tend to be in these small these nursery areas which are further south and then as they get bigger, obviously, their diets change and then habitat change. Yeah. But a big part of that is they're increasing capacity for regional endothermy and they can move into it. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

1:50:33 Yeah. That's pretty. That's pretty easy. You guys didn't didn't Chris do a little bit of work in those down when you were down at Chris Lowe's lab. They do a little bit. On the salmon shark. Yeah. Well, the only thing I remember is that one that we caught that one day. He may have Oh, you know, he had some students that were a little bit after my time that we're doing some stuff up in Alaska. And so that yeah, that might have been. Well, Aaron, Aaron, Aaron Carlisle came out of my lab, my lab here at Moss Landing. He worked on the upper sharks and he went to Stanford his PhD and then that's when he really got into the salmon sharks and so because Stan because Hopkins is close by us we're you know, every weekend the call is Aaron was a guy keeping them we're saving them for Aaron or he'd go pick them up and then once he had about 30 or 40 is like okay, I think we're kind of we're cool here. We got enough of these things.

1:51:27 Yeah. So they look kind of cool when you first see them but like I said, you kind of get to where you lose the the enjoy or the the the wow factor kind of fades after a while. Yeah, I think that's that's one of the hard things but you know, you never want to lose like the joy of seeing these things. Yeah. And you don't want to the only two is a lot of time they're found by people in the public and you don't want to disappoint them because you yeah, I find something else later on. And you don't want to like think like, well, I think that's what they were. They weren't interested in that three foot salmon shark, but that eight foot white shark that washed up in the beach. They might be interested in that. Everyone's always interested in a white shark. Yeah. Yeah.

1:52:08 So that's why you want to make sure you keep everybody happy on that stuff. So we always oblige him and go get him and stuff when we can. Assuming they're within a rate reasonable area to go pick them up. It's all part of the citizen science. It's all part of citizen science that really. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's you know, it's it's a big part of like opportunistic sampling, which is I think you know for as a comparative biologist, that's a really important thing. So like when I was doing my when I was doing my PhD was it was really similar to yours, Dave, where you were just traveling around and and collecting samples. So you know to get brains I traveled all around Australia basically working as a decky and all different kinds of fishing boats and my pay was in samples. So I worked on longliners purse.

1:52:52 I did go out with researchers as well. Gill letters anything. So you know, often times I do. I do a lot of times these things would come up as bycatch. They'd already be dead. But for me, that was that was what I was there for. So I I was able to get a huge number of samples and a ton of species from doing that and also just see some really cool things and and travel some really cool places. So yeah. Yeah. Well, so if you had kind of going back for the it's probably going out with some of the commercial fishers, you probably saw a lot of cool stuff because they're out there all the time. Yeah. Yeah. The occasional survey you might I mean the surveys are cool but you don't probably get as much opportunity as you do on the going out with the commercial guys which are out there all the time. Yeah. I mean the thing about fishermen is they know where to fish. They know where they are.

1:53:37 So you're much more likely to get a lot of stuff that way. So and I think you know it's also like there's a huge amount of knowledge there that oftentimes doesn't get appreciated in academia. And so it's you know it's refreshing to learn from those people and also just you know especially younger fishermen I find I don't know if you found the same but they tend to be much more like keen and interested and even conservation oriented. And so it's really kind of refreshing to talk to fishermen like that because oftentimes we you know overfishing is the biggest thing driving the extinction crisis is sharks and rays but a lot of fishermen want to know more and do better and they are really interested in. So it's it's really cool to go to go work with them. And then obviously sometimes you get your your crusty old guys that aren't super happy to see you.

1:54:27 You see both sides. Yeah well yeah yeah yeah definitely. So we're so you get your bouncing all around Chris. So what's your ultimate goal? Where are you looking to to land career wise right now? Yeah. I mean I mean kind of let's say it's like two main things. So I know I've always been keeping an eye open for like an academic position. So one thing I really enjoy is teaching and especially mentoring students. So mentoring is a really good place for me to be. I think you know kind of a really ideal place for me would be somewhere like the Cal State system. So you know they're they're generally universities that only have like a master's level students but you can do some really amazing research at that level. You also get to do more teaching and kind of mentoring. And you know I'm a California native. That's kind of what I love. So I'd love to come back to California but you know even being a really cool, I mean having a really cool, I mean being on the West Coast is really nice. I was kind of getting really into the idea of working for government. So there's a lot of really cool research you can do at NOAA or DFO in Canada for obvious reasons. That's less of a possibility these days. So maybe DFO.

1:55:47 Maybe DFO has a little bit. Well, well, Chris Lowe recently retired. Are you looking at position? I I'm I would love to take over that role. I think you know, there's a there's a really kind of important legacy there and history with the shark lab. Yeah. So I think that would be a for me, that would be like a really ideal fit just for the type of research I'd like to do. Teaching and mentoring. Also it's kind of my home. Yeah, that's where I'm from. And, you know, being somewhere where I could also jump on the water and go snorkeling or surfing every day is is definitely not a bad idea. Yeah. No, you know, I'd say you know. I'm going to do a lot of work on this. Yeah, and it's a lot of fun. And I'm going to try to do a lot of work on this. And I think it's a lot of fun. I'm going to try to do a lot of research on this. So I think it's a lot of fun. I'm going to try to do a lot of work on this. So I think it's Back to your Baywatch roots.

1:56:29 Exactly, exactly. Go surfing where it's not minus 30, it'd be nice. (laughs) Little change, little different. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so something like that would be really ideal. But, you know, I think you also have to be just really flexible, and I think that's part of learning new skills and thinking about new things. So one thing that some friends and I have done recently, this came out of an AES meeting last year. We formed this group called MISO. So it's the MidCareer Elasmaprank Scientist Organization. So this was started by a group of mid-career folks. So myself, Cara Yopak, Andy Nossle, Davi Keseth, Kyle Newton, and Simon Dedmon.

1:57:12 And the idea was to build a network for mid-career people who are kind of in that postdoc, maybe early professor stage, building some community and some skills. And so we're all trying to support each other in finding positions, finding places to research, or even like other endeavors that are people are interested in. People have different skills from video production, cinematography, event planning, music, art, those types of things. So kind of incorporate those things into the shark world. And just kind of building a community where we can kind of support each other and get people to the next career stage is a big thing.

1:57:52 So. Nice. Oh, cool. So, so where would you now, even though you're out there still looking for your sort of job, your niche out there, what kind of advice would you have for a young person, younger person looking to get started in the field? Yeah. I mean, I guess kind of like one thing that I've done is, is, you know, especially earlier in your career, you know, focus on building skills. So, you know, I think oftentimes when we go through academia, people are trained for an academic career. So part of it is thinking about what career you might want.

1:58:33 If you want to go into government, it's a different skill set. If you want to go in academia, it's a different skill set. But the more things you learn, the better. It's ultimately going to make you a better scientist, much more well-rounded. And also, you know, we really kind of focus on our taxonomic group. You know, we all work on sharks and rays because that's what we love. But don't be like close to other opportunities. So, you know, my second most highly cited paper is on heavy metal in children's tooth enamel that has to do with autism and other spectrum disorders. So kind of be open to these opportunities. But, you know, I got on that paper because of a skill set.

1:59:14 I was learning with laser ablation, ICPMS and those types of things. And so I think that's a big one. Also, you know, if you really want to pursue like a scientific career, like just a perseverance is a really important component and sticking with things. So like one of the things I'm probably most proud of is one of my PhD papers I had published in the American Nationalists. And so this is a journal that I really highly respect. And this was a paper looking at life history, ecology and brain organization of sharks and rays. And to get this paper published, I think I submitted it 15 times to five different journals.

2:00:02 You know, sometimes it went through three rounds of review and was rejected. Sometimes it was desk rejected. And it was, you know, it was a combination of things of getting stuck in this kind of like early niche neurobiologic neurodevelopment argument kind of thing. But the paper that was published and the paper that I first wrote and submitted the first time are almost the same paper. It was just kind of pushing back against reviewers and like not losing hope because there's something I really believed in. And I also had the encouragement of Nick and Cara as I was doing it. So I really pushed through. So, you know, don't let little setbacks discourage you. You know, if if if it was easy, we'd all be shark biologists and we wouldn't be worried about job security.

2:00:47 So, you know, if you're really passionate about it, you're going to have to be willing to put your heart and soul into it sometimes. But, you know, then there's there's lots of perks to the job. So we get to meet great people. We get to travel to cool places. I've gotten to travel and fish for sharks and then also surf all over the world. So, yeah, there's there's great things that that come from it. Yeah, that's fantastic. That's great. That's awesome. Chris. Well, when you get a job, we'll have to have you come back and tell us tell us about how we'll have a we'll have a celebration with some adult beverages on air. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

2:01:29 Definitely keep us posted. And thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story. We really yeah. Thanks so much for having me, guys. It's it's really flattering, you know, considering, you know, some of the people that you've had on the podcast or, you know, you know, really highly respected kind of luminaries in the field. I think it's really important for, you know, for the younger generation to hear from those people. So to be included amongst those that group of people is a really nice feeling. Yeah. Thank you very much. Yeah, well, it's definitely deserved and and, you know, everybody we've have done have on is like serves a different purpose and they all like, you know, the goal of this podcast is to inform everybody of what's going on in the industry, what's going on in the field and how people are succeeding in some of the challenges that they're that they're facing and and being a part of it and just showing that passion, sharing that passion with everybody.

2:02:18 And that's that's the that's the fun part to be able to to witness here each and every episode. So it's been great to gain to know you and your career and all the fun things you've been able to do, including dissecting a basking shark on a on a surfboard covered in shark guts. Yeah, you can't go wrong, right? You can't go wrong. Exactly. Well, I don't see it before. I'll definitely plan to see in Sri Lanka next year. So yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely. So awesome. Thank you very much, Chris. We really do appreciate you coming on the podcast. Thanks so much, guys. Thank you, Chris, for joining us on today's episode of Excuse me. Whoa, small the wrong way. Let's do that again. Thank you, Chris, for joining us on today's episode of the Beyond Jaws podcast. It was great to hear those stories. It was great to hear your path. Dave, what are your thoughts on this incredible human? I think Chris is like the definition of perseverance. And that's in this field. You have to have a lot of people who are in the field of Correcting theleys. Here's the question. Are you in the field of perseverance? So when you think you have that a fear, if you think you're going to try to go anywhere in this field, just because it's just it's not easy. There's never been people talk today about how well there's not like a lot of jobs around. Well, I can tell you going back 40 years, there wasn't a lot of jobs around when I started. And the people before me would tell you there wasn't a lot of jobs. So there were never, it's never been to feel that there's a lot of jobs available in.

2:03:49 And most people eventually go in a different direction. But to stay in it, you've got to have perseverance and a lot of drive. And Chris certainly has that. just by evidence of all the different postdoc he's done in different countries, different continents. But you know, that's what it's going to take if he wants to stick with it and hopefully get a job, whether it's in academia or working with a government agency and stuff. It's just that type of stuff. Even if you got into academia, there's no guarantee he's going to really be able to do much in the way of sharks either. So it's just, it's really a field of passion. Again, Chris kind of epitomizes that and his story certainly, certainly shares that, you know, I mean, he's certainly a well, well regarded young, young researcher, up and coming person in the field.

2:04:33 Well, and you mentioned drive, he literally drove across Canada to do a course at Dalhousie University that he does every summer. He's done for the past few summers. That's a long drive, folks. If you haven't, if you don't know Canada or you don't know how long they're going from Victoria, one side of the country to the next is not something you do in a day. And there's a lot of adventures that come across that. He was telling us of some of those adventures. I don't know if he said that on air. I'm trying to remember if he said it on air. But let's just say he had they had some car trouble. Yeah, through when they got actually not really halfway through, just not even a quarter of the way through. Canada's a big country and it takes a while to get over there. And hopefully he makes it. And he's on his journey there by time.

2:05:13 This episode, he's there by the time this episode publishes. But it's something that you that you go through. And and the great thing is, is you make the most of it in these journeys. You know, driving across Canada, you stop off, you get to see a wonderful country. Obviously, I'm biased because I'm from Canada. But regardless of what you do is you have to enjoy the moments that you're in. You have to be able to live in that moment, take advantage of those moments and do what you can. One of those stories is the basking shark story. You know, DFO was not able to department of fisheries notions in Nova Scotia. And that story was not able to pick up the the the basking shark, which will probably made it a lot easier for him to take samples.

2:05:54 So he took takes a surfboard paddles out there with the tide coming in and he's got what three hours to do all the work. He said he shredded up his forearms because, you know, basking sharks skin is not the smoothest. And, you know, spending a lot of time covered in shark guts. And let's be honest, in the water with a bunch of shark guts there that could attract a few critters, you know, and put them in some danger. And luckily, he was OK. But he did it for the science because he's interested in the science. He's interested in sharing the data. He mentioned Kerry Yaupack that wanted the shark brains and other things, you know, and taking the coddle fin for I think was was it Dolby Nick Dolby or somebody.

2:06:36 These things are not easy to do. And he did it because he was interested in the science. He wants to see the science persevere. And so he thought of all the people in his network, all the people, all the other scientists that he works with. And he's like, oh, some care would would really love these brains or somebody would really love the coddle fins and somebody would really like this. And I would really like this. And they make the most of an animal that, you know, has passed away and and they they use it for science. And I think that's that's really the definition of perseverance when we when we talk about Chris here. Yeah. Oh, yeah, definitely. He said it's not easy working on the shark like that. And it's not easy, you know, moving around all the different locations he's had to go to, especially when he has a wife.

2:07:18 It's got to be very understanding to be able to be able to do that. Right. Put up put up with that, I guess, be another way to explain it. And so, but yeah, he's it's a yeah, I've known Chris for quite a while, too, because Chris is originally as we talked about was from Southern California. And like I always joke with him, it's sort of like, you know, you know, Bay Bay Watch Bay Watch of the shark world. And I came out of Chris Lowe's lab for his for his graduate degree. And we've had a number of Chris's students on here as well now as as well. So it was a very testament to Chris's program that he has at California State Long Beach, which I guess he's retired now.

2:08:00 And Chris is looking and Chris is looking for a job which would make a nice fit because Don Nelson, who is the original person, set up the lab. Chris Lowe is his graduate student that went on to do a PhD. And when Don passed away, Chris Lowe took the job. And now with Chris, thankfully, Chris is still with us. Yes. Hiring. Maybe Chris smaller, somewhat one of his students like that could could get the job to kind of continue the legacy there. That would be pretty cool. Absolutely. And look, we're not trying to influence Chris Lowe in any kind of way. We're just saying that this is not a good thing that might happen. I've just fallen in the lap. And let's let's just leave it at that because we don't know. You know, we just think it's a good idea. That's all Chris is always. Yeah, yeah. I mean, Chris, we won't mention the fact Chris is Chris Lowe's been on our program three times now in the podcast.

2:08:45 Doesn't make any difference. Yes, it's part of the thing. So yeah, but no, it's great to have Chris on always. We can't wait to hear more of some of his things that he's been up to over the past over the next year. We'll have him on definitely upcoming and maybe next year or so to hear more about how this course went and of course, what he's been up to. So it's going to be a lot of fun to look forward to that. So we'll put up any type of contact information for him in the show notes. And of course, Dave, people want to get ahold of you. How would you do so? You know, through my social medias, Instagram, the last shark guy, YouTube channel, please go to a law shark guy and check out the series Searching for Lost Sharks, extinct or alive. And please subscribe.

2:09:28 And you can also hit me up and Andrew through our Beyond Jaws podcast, our YouTube channel and on Instagram. Perfect. Yeah, absolutely. It's going to be a lot of fun. And I want to thank I want to thank Chris for joining us, of course. And Dave, it's always a pleasure to continue to do these podcasts with you and to our audience. Thank you so much for supporting us each and every episode when you watch. We really appreciate it. We'd always love to hear from you and your feedback. But until next time, this has been another wonderful episode of the Beyond Jaws podcast. Thank you from Dave and I would really appreciate it. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.