From Skates to White Sharks: The Journey of Megan Winton

0:00 Welcome back to another wonderful episode here on the Beyond Jaws podcast. On today's episode, we have Megan Winton from the Atlantic White Shark Organization, where she studies... White Sharks. She's been on Shark Week and Shark Fest, and she's going to be on it in 2024. And we talk about that a little bit, but we talk about her career and how she went from studying different types of sharks to studying with Dave just on lost sharks and then going back to White Sharks to finish off. And when she did her PhD and she just finished her PhD like a week before a couple of weeks, she got her confirmation that her defense went through with flying colors, and she's gonna be a doctor right now, and I think that's awesome. So we got to talk to her, and it's exciting. So here is the episode with Meghan Witton. Let's start the show. In the early to mid 1900s, the only thing people knew about sharks was that they bit people from time to time. Some scientists started to get to know more about the larger sharks, studying their life histories and their fisheries. As the field grew, so did the diversity of fields within shark science. Public interest in sharks grew exponentially as a series of movies called Jaws peaked the people's fear and curiosity for these sharks. More information was revealed about these mysterious animals as the shark science field grew. From exploration to discovery to genetics and ecology, the Beyond Jaws podcast will introduce you to shark scientists of the American Elasmobranc Society and their work to help you better understand these wonderful species and

1:33 take your knowledge beyond jaws. Hey, everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the Beyond Jaws podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, your co-host, Andrew Lewin, here with my co-host, Dr. David Ebert. Dave, we have Megan Winton on the program. Are you excited? Because this was one Megan was one of my was one of my former students, and she was an ace. So I tell you, she was she was one. And it's really for me as a being a mentor, a former advisor. She's really one of the rising stars in the field. I mean, she's really on it. She's managed. Of course, she's kind of got in the opposite direction than most of the students where she worked on skates in Alaska, actually for her master's degree with me. And then she's kind of went to the dark side working on white sharks, which is I'm very, I should be That was really good. I mean, she, she got connected and It's just, it's a whole fascinating story.

2:36 We'll get into there and how she came to working with Greg Skomal of all places. Cause she went from Florida to California to new England and we'll get into that in the, in the, in the show, but it's a, it's a fascinating story. And, uh, but she, but I think the thing she kind of talks about is she, it was, she didn't just focus on white sharks. She learned a lot of skills, particularly quantitative skills, which led her to obtain the position she has now. And I couldn't be more proud of her. And as I say, she's, you know, we've had a number of these, young up and coming rising stars in the field. And she's another one that I just see big things for in the future. And I'm happy she finally got her PhD. I know she spent a number of years on it. Um, but that was, but yeah, I'm sure, I know it's going to be an excellent piece of work and I'm happy to be able to call another one of my former students, doctor. And, um, yeah.

3:24 And, uh, yeah, so I'm like, I'm really looking forward to, to, to the interview today. And, um, so yeah, so let's, let's get And we're going to find out why it took her a little bit longer, because it's a little thing called side projects. We're going to find out what some of those are and how those can be distracting to everybody, because it's always great to get experience. But she did get a lot of experience. She's going to tell us about it in this interview. So here's the interview with Megan Winton. Enjoy, and we'll talk to you after. Hey, Megan. Welcome to the Beyond Jaws podcast. Are you ready to talk I love it. I love it. We want to welcome everybody to the Beyond Jaws podcast where we have another rising star in the shark world with our awesome guest Dr. Megan Whitten who recently just completed a PhD at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth at the School of Marine Science and Technology. Yay! However, before embarking on her PhD, in full disclosure, Megan completed her Master's of Science degree in Marine Science at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, where she was a graduate student of mine before going on to bigger and better things.

4:38 Yeah. So, well, since 2019, Megan's been a research scientist for the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, where she's working to improve scientific understanding of new white shark aggregation sites off Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Her research focuses on various aspects of fisheries biology and ecology, as well as the development of quantitative frameworks for interpreting and integrating tagging data into population assessments. Through her work on white sharks, Megan's become increasingly interested in the human dimensions of wildlife management and decision making. And in his terrific book, Greg Skomal, who was on our podcast last year, his book titled Chasing Shadows, My Life, Tracking the Great White Shark. Megan's featured extremely prominently in that book. Greg's been on her podcast, check it out. You definitely want to get that book to find out more, if you want to find out more about Megan, at least until she writes her own autobiography book. With that, Megan, we're super happy to have you on the show today. So I'll ask you, I'll start off with the question we always ask our guests is, how'd you get interested in marine science and in sharks in particular?

5:43 First off, Dave, I just want to say, can you come introduce me for every talk ever? Because that's like the closest thing I've ever had to like a sports announcer being like, here Love it. Yeah. Anytime. Not That's the Well, it works. It's great. Most scientists don't get that kind of introduction most of the time, so that's pretty great. But to answer your question, one thing I really love about this field is when you get everybody's shark science origin stories, they're kind of all over the map. There's so many different roads that lead people to become a shark scientist and get interested in the ocean. sometimes feel a little embarrassed when people ask me about this, but I was actually afraid of sharks when I was a kid. I grew up in Florida. My both sets of grandparents lived in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, which has the distinction of being the shark bite capital of the world. So sharks were always kind of on the mind. And I have a very vivid memory. I was probably like eight or nine years old, but my sisters and I were swimming at the beach There was a guy fishing just up from us and he caught a shark and we all went running out of the water like, oh my gosh, how did I not just

7:16 get eaten by a shark? I was just swimming with a shark. But it really sparked my curiosity and my mom got me books on sharks. I started reading about them and I just was hooked. You know, I'm so punny. But and I just the more and more I read about them, the more I kind of realized these were just fish that had gotten a really bad rap. And they were fascinating from a biological perspective. And, you know, my interest continued. I watched all the shark documentaries I could on TV. I used to tape them on VHS so I could watch them year round. And I was like, one day I'm going to be one of those scientists on one of those shows unraveling the mysteries. of sharks. And there are times when I honestly still kind of pinch myself, like, I can't believe this is actually happening. And there were times I think my parents thought I might outgrow this crazy dream I had. But it's been such a fascinating journey.

8:16 And I honestly can't imagine myself doing anything else. I really love being a scientist. If you wake up every morning and you're like, what kind of questions am I going to tackle today? And then to do work that has such an applied impact because so many shark species are in trouble around the world, even though some are now making a comeback in certain areas like the white shark in the Northwest Atlantic. It really it's it's just such important work, but it also feels like such a privilege to be able to do it and have the opportunity to study and understand these animals in a way most people don't. So I feel very You kind of grew up, you had this whole, obviously you're pretty much focused when you're going through grade school, high school, like you were just, you wanted to go do sharks. That was pretty much your focus. So I'm kind of curious, you went to a school in, you didn't go to like University of Florida or Florida State or University of Miami, you went to a school in Georgia for your undergraduate degree. I'm You know, it's a good question. And honestly, when I look back, sometimes I ask myself, like, you were in Florida, why didn't you go to University of Florida, where there were people there doing shark research, because I was very much kind of like the shark girl in high school, I always had my big white shark tooth necklace on. And, you know, I remember my friends kind of making fun of me, like, you're not really gonna grow up and do this, are you? And I was like, no, no, But I got some great advice from an early mentor in high school who said, what you really want

9:48 to focus on first if you want to do this kind of work is getting a really solid background in biology. And so I went to Emory University in Atlanta, which has a really strong general biology program. There are a whole lot of pre-med folks. But it was a really great program and I just had a wonderful experience that pushed me in a lot of ways. And it was at that point I learned about the importance of statistical modeling and math to interpreting all the data you're collecting. And I basically used the summers to get marine science experience, but I knew I wanted to go to a school that would really, really challenge me academically, and Emory certainly did. And during the school year, I worked in a primatology lab, even though I did not want to grow up and and study primates. But I knew it would be good, relevant experience. And I got to work in the lab of a very famous primatologist. His name is Franz de Waal. And he's done some really groundbreaking work. And I was terrified of him. Like, I don't think I ever really spoke two words to him when I was in the lab because I was just like, he was very intimidating. But that's one thing I really have loved about this career path is it's so nonlinear. And some of these jobs and things I've done along the way that I thought wouldn't have any applicability to growing up and eventually becoming a shark scientist or really relevant, awesome skills that I was able to apply in our field. So it's that's one thing, you know, when when students come to me and ask for advice or, you

11:20 know, come to the folks, the other folks who work with me at the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy and ask for advice and are very focused on sharks, I'm like, look, And you never know what ways you're going to grow in those positions and how you'll eventually be able to apply those skills to ultimately do what you want to do. I mean, math and statistical modeling, that's how I got involved in the white shark work. It wasn't because Greg was just like, oh, you really like sharks, you know. He knew I had worked with some really awesome people with you, Dave and Greg Kaye. So that definitely gave me brownie points, but they were starting the first survey for white sharks in the Northwest Atlantic once Cape Cod became an aggregation site. And they knew I love stats and modeling and coding, and they basically needed a super nerd to join the team and, and lead the modeling efforts. So that's how, how I got to ask you, because I had this experience myself, because I had the same thing. I'd wanted to do sharks from the time I was five years old. So when you were in high school, you went and saw your guidance counselor, and they asked what you were going to do your senior year. And you told them, well, I'm going to go study In high school, the folks were very supportive. It was actually in college. And I won't name his name, because he was a very nice man.

12:43 But my advisor in undergrad basically tried to talk me out of it. you know sharks are really charismatic there aren't that many people that get to study them you might want to set your sights a little lower and i was like i'm a good student like i'm a very curious person i'm super stubborn i think i can do this if i you know take the right path But he just, he was like, I don't know, you should, you should set your sights a little lower. And I like, I remember that moment sometimes. And I'm just like, I'm so glad I didn't take that advice that I followed through with it, knew what I wanted to do. And I didn't let him or anybody else really talk me out of it. Like they're bumpy road, you know, it can be a bumpy road. They're tough times for sure. You know, finding funding for different things can be a struggle, but ultimately, if you know that's what you want to do, it's so worth it and so rewarding.

13:36 Did you find that when that guidance counselor said that, or that advisor said that, Did it make you think ahead, just being like, okay, what do I have to look out for? He probably told you, it's not a lot of pay. Those are the typical ones that people tell you. It's really hard to get into. Did you start to wonder, it's like, okay, do I have to network a little bit more in my undergraduate? Do I have to reach out to people a little bit more? Or did you just sort of just be like, no, no, I'm gonna continue, because I really love this stuff, and just go continue and hope for You know, I wish I could say the former. I just like I wasn't phased. And I get that question a lot from folks. They're like, have you, you know, did you ever think you could be a shark scientist? Or did you? I guess I'm butchering my words.

14:30 But I get that question a lot where folks will ask, like, did you ever grow up thinking you couldn't be a shark scientist because you're a woman? And I've had this conversation with Lisa Natanson and some of my other female shark science heroes, and like, honestly, it never crossed my mind that I couldn't do this. And I have my parents to thank a lot for that, they were so supportive. And they told me, you can grow up and be whatever you want to be and I just took it to heart. And you know, I've talked with Lisa and Hanson about this before and she was like, yeah, it never really crossed my mind either. So I feel really lucky that I was almost able to have some of those blinders on because I wonder if I had to call that advice to heart.

15:11 Much like maybe I would have been like, oh, maybe they're right. Maybe I should I should do something else But I was a girl with a dream and I was a girl on a mission Determined I want it. You know, I want to you know when you were before you came to Moss Landing I just because I know that I just kind of Informant for people to know like you went and worked you went and did an internship with John Carlson with Noah fisheries and in Enrique's been on the podcast. John's going to be on the podcast coming up here soon. We're getting everybody. We'll get around everyone eventually. Could you talk about how that came about? on Yeah, so when I was in college, the summer after my junior year, I did an internship at Moat Marine Lab with Colin Simpendorfer and Michelle Heupel. And I just had the time of my life, it was like a dream come true and They are still, you know how you meet a lot of people you kind of worship when you're younger and they are great but they're not necessarily what you expect them to be. Colin and Michelle, I still like have them on a pedestal. They are such awesome humans and they were just so great to work with and I remember when I walked in and Colin introduced me to Michelle and

16:42 told me they were married, I was like, What? Like shark science super couple. I was just so excited about it. I was like, this is amazing. So I had a great experience with them. And as that summer came to an end, I was talking with them like, where should I go next? You know, there were other options. And they recommended because I was interested in in population modeling, I had done a project with Colin that summer doing some population viability analysis for small tooth sawfish, which was like, So amazingly cool to do that work and see those guys in the flesh. And they recommended I look into the shark population assessment group in Panama City and consider doing an internship with Enrique and John. And so I applied to do that after I graduated. moved down to Panama City, Florida, stuck around for a while, had a great time working on their juvenile shark survey down there, and was hired by Enrique to put together this comprehensive shark diet database. And while I was there, I got to work up shark stomachs. It's still one of my favorite things I've ever done. I learned how to age, aged shark species, assess maturity. I just got to dissect a lot of things and I just had a ball. And so I was there for I think about a year and a half. I got to go on the long line survey in the Gulf of Mexico, see some big sharks for the first time, just blew my mind. And then they knew this guy out

18:16 in California named Dave Ebert who was looking for a student. And they were like, well, you know, your contract's almost up. We know you're interested in pursuing a graduate degree. There's this guy in Central California. Have you heard of him? Dave Ebert. He's got some money for a student. And I was like, what? And I knew, you know, of your work and was so excited because I knew you were really into deep sea sharks and and lost sharks. And I love those guys, too. And I was like, yeah, I'd love to check out the West Coast. And so That's been one thing that I have loved so much about my career is one thing has just led into another in just different ways. I've set off, moved to California, moved to Moss Landing. And I remember my, you know, I didn't go out and we talked on the phone, Dave. You know, I didn't go out and do an in-person interview because I just, I'm one of those people. I'm like, all right, this is the next thing. Let's just go. Let's just do this and see where it leads you. And then I showed up for orientation. I think I still was dying my hair Yeah. Oh, yeah. Why not? We're going to get into that in I had bright red hair and I showed up for orientation and I just was like so excited, but so terrified. And then I met you in person and then we had orientation and

19:47 then Greg Kaye walked in and I like worshiped his work and I just couldn't believe, like I was so afraid, but everybody was so wonderful and so welcoming and so lovely. And I just like, those were some of the, I was there That's awesome. I just have a quick question before we get into the work with Dave. You went, you know, with the contract, you were looking at dissecting a lot of different sharks, big sharks, small sharks, you know, got a lot of experience in terms of field studies, in terms of, you know, just skills and experience in the lab as well as in the field. And then you have this opportunity to go towards like deep sea sharks and lost sharks. You seem like at this point in your life, you seem to still try and find what you want, especially. Because in the shark, I'm not a shark scientist per se. But I feel like there's categories of people who, some people like to study the bigger sharks. You get the people who like to study the deep sea and the lost sharks and things like that. You seem to just be enamored by all of the different types of sharks at this point in your career and just being like, hey, this looks really interesting. Let me try this. Again, were you just going because this was an opportunity, or were you thinking ahead of being like, what type of shark scientist do I want to be? Or again, did you just not care, and you're like, It was a little bit of both. In the back of my mind, I knew I wanted to do population

21:19 modeling, because from a conservation and management perspective, that to me was so important. And Enrique was a great mentor in that regard. But one thing he said to me is, You know, he attends all these meetings, runs all these stock assessments. And he was like, some of these stock assessment scientists are so smart. They're so good with numbers, but they're terrible with fish. So he recommended I get more hands on experience in terms of biology of the species, learning about their reproductive characteristics and age and growth firsthand. And Dave and Greg both had so much experience with that. But it is also a little bit, I am like a kid in a candy store, still to this day.

22:04 Part of the reason my PhD took me so long is because I'm the queen of side projects. I'd have somebody just come in, do you want to analyze this data or do you want to do something like this? And I'd be like, yeah, and I'd go talk to my PhD advisor, Dr. Gavin Fay, and he'd be like, is this really like the best use of your time? But I was just like, this is the time for me to explore all the things. So I just genuinely get so excited and carried away on the science front of things. And honestly, that's one of the biggest struggles for me in my job right now. I love white sharks. I love studying them. They're amazing. But because We're such a small team and all of this stuff has happened so quickly off the coast of Massachusetts. We're really focused on that one species right now. But there's so many other interesting species around here. So I still have that kid in a candy store vibe all the time, but I've gotten a little bit Like, I mean, when I went to Moss Landing, one of my first days, Dave, you took me in the museum, and you just had all these species I had dreamed And I was just like, what? Like, it was so, Yeah, I just want to share a little insight. Like, you know, Megan talked about some of the people she'd worked with, like Colin Simpfendorfer, and Michelle Heipel, and Enrique Cortez, and John Carlson, and that. Any of you that are in the shark field, if you're a young student coming up, keep in mind that we all know each other. And so like when I get somebody like

23:36 an application like Megan's, and I see, oh, I see some names in here I recognize, there's a phone call will take place that she'll never, you'll never hear about, but that is like, it's like, well, what do you think of Megan? Outstanding, you'd be an idiot not to take her. Okay, well, Megan's coming to Moss Landing. And so, so I'm telling this, I'm sharing this with people, young students listening to this, that when you're doing these internships, do the best you can because that's, That's a lot of times gonna be your best way to get in. It'll be some phone call or a talk with somebody in the field, because again, it's a small field. We all know each other. Most of us kind of went to grad school. We're all in grad school at the same time or roughly. But it's a good way. You do a good job. It gives you that little edge over somebody else. And certainly with Megan, like I said, I got something along the lines of I've got to be an idiot not to take Megan. So besides her outstanding application, having that little extra encouragement from my Florida friends, was really helpful at the time. And, um, yeah, it was never a regret. Megan got, as she said, she got into a lot of stuff when she came out there. We learned a heck of a lot. And, and just so people know, cause people like to hear me talk about lost sharks or charismatic stuff. Megan worked on a, on a skates that occur from Alaska, from the Bering sea down to California, looking at different populations and comparing age and growth and, and, and, and population, uh, dynamics for there, which really had a lot of implications for, for for management, which I believe you're now applying to your current position, looking

25:07 It's true. Very true. Don't sell Oh, no. I never do. They're awesome. They're absolutely awesome. I just can't figure out where I went wrong, that you left doing skates and all these really cool deep sea sharks, and then the next thing I know you're doing white sharks. It's like, my God, you're doing white sharks now? One thing just leads to another. Well, you know, I don't know if you know this or not, but I know I've talked to a few other people, but my first paper was on the age and growth of the white shark when I was a grad student. That was my first papers on white shark and Lisa Natanson as well. We're both cohorts there. So I went the opposite way. I did white sharks, then I went off and did all these other cool sharks. You did all these other really cool There's some to be said for timing. Timing influences careers But I love that it is so true what you were just saying about how small the field is. I don't think I fully appreciated that when I was getting into this world. I remember reading papers and seeing the same names over and over again. But I was like, oh, these are super productive scientists. And they totally were.

26:24 But then you get into the field and you're like, wow, it is tiny, which is wonderful in so many ways because you have these awesome relationships with people throughout your career. and they build in and add to your work in different ways along the way. But it's also kind of a, it's a blessing and a curse situation, because then they've seen you go through all your phases, you know, you start grad school, usually, you know, when you're pretty young, and you're still like, you know, figuring yourself out. And so all those things, you know, it's kind of like this big shark family. But you know, they remember those things, they Well, I remember, well, the other thing I'll share too is when it is that after you first came out there and you met, obviously you and I met and then you met, met with Greg and as your hair was red, I think you mentioned at the time. And I just remember like after you left the office there, Greg looks at me and he goes, red hair. And I'm like, don't worry, she'll be great, Greg. She'll be awesome and stuff. He was just like, I say red hair. It was like, it wasn't a red head. It was like red hair.

27:34 And he had a, it was always, I mean, I, it was great having a lab. Cause I never knew like from, you know, week to week, whatever month, the month, what color hair you'd show up with and stuff. And, Being from California, I'm just kind of used to it. It's like, oh, we got the Rainbow Coalition going here with Megan. It was my rainbow bright face. Absolutely. In fact, I think you were there at least a year, year and a half. I remember one day at one of our meetings, I just said, what color is your hair really? Because I had no idea what color your hair was. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so so you went out so you went out to Well, I think one of the things I wanted to add into is like now part of when you're working with me I had you go back to work with Lisa Natanson in Rhode Island to work on age aging and aging and aging vertebrae really because Lisa was really like the Goddess queen of aging at that point in time. Yeah, she was the go-to person And so once you pick up how that helped that kind of led to your Yeah, I mean, that was such a great experience. And I think back on that, and I'm like, what an amazing human Lisa is to just, I mean, it wasn't just Kelsey and I, before us, it was Jasmine and Shara, who she just, she had never met us. She just let us come in and invade her home

29:07 At her house. I mean, how incredible. I honestly, I didn't think I would do that. I'd be like, I need a break from you guys at the end of the day. Go! She was so awesome and we learned so much from her and she just is such a meticulous phenomenally Productive scientist that it was I learned so much from her in those those three weeks And I felt so fortunate to have that opportunity Yeah, well you mentioned to like you when you went back there when it's had you go back you went back with And she went on and became a student of Lisa's. So both of you ended up going on and doing your PhD in New England kind of after going and spending three weeks with Lisa. So I looked at that as a positive and kind of coming out of it really having two students. And you came, you both, you came on after Shara Ainsley and Jasmine Maurer went back there. And Lisa actually moved, I think partly moved to, eventually moved, retired, moved to Alaska because Jasmine because she lives down the street from Jasmine now, so it's kind of an interesting I've kind of saying all this just so everybody understands kind of the web of this whole once you get in the shark world here It's kind of like a it's like a web you just kind of get entangled in there and as I say everybody knows everybody and you never know what connections might lead to something something good like a PhD program or or

30:46 When we went to Lisa's, I think it was February, and there was a snowstorm and she was away. She'd gone to Sable Island to go on some awesome Lisa adventure. And she was like, OK, clear the snow. And, you know, and we were like, OK. And we went out and she's from California, born and raised, is back there now. And her and I, we did what we thought was shoveling. And we were like, good job. Let's go play in the snow. Let's go sit on this frozen lake. And then Lisa gets back and she's like, what is this? And we were like, what, what? We cleared the snow. And she was like, no. She was like, it's all frozen now. This is terrible. And we were like, what? We just had no idea. And that was a moment of a little bit of tension, but she forgave us for it. I was like, I'm so sorry, I'm from Florida, but when I decided to get into this field, I honestly thought at this point in my life I'd be living on a tropical island, probably scuba diving. And I have to seem somehow to move progressively further and further north, which is fine. But this winter was great. I got to spend a lot of time down south doing some field work down there, which was good. Nice, nice. that I was going to end up in Massachusetts, I would have thought you were crazy. If you had told me I was going to end up in Massachusetts studying white sharks, I would have thought you were out of your mind. I would have been like, no, I

32:19 got to go to California or South Africa or Australia if What did you think you were going to study after all the schooling and everything? You know, I think for a while there, I thought I was going to become a stock assessment scientist. And I still love that side of the work. But one thing I really love about my job is I get to do the quantitative work, but I also still get to study these animals and learn about their biology and think about their behavior. So I get to put all these things together in my role now, where a lot of times the further along you go, the more focused you have to become. And I feel really lucky that I still get to ask all these sorts of questions. And it's really kind of a crazy situation to be in as somebody who grew up as kind of a fish scientist in general, because we kind of know these individuals at this point, because so many of these white sharks are coming back to Cape Cod year after year. we actually maintained the white shark catalog for the Northwest Atlantic at the Conservancy. And we started that work as part of this this big photographic mark recapture study that Greg Skomal and John Chisholm started back in 2014 as Cape Cod was just emerging as this white shark hotspot. But so it's wild to me that now we have sharks that come back year after year and we're able to follow the same individual over time, not just with tagging technology, but also

33:50 visually and we're able to get observations of them, you know, learn more about how they grow, you know, or how slowly they grow or appear not to grow at all, based on what we've seen there, but we're learning more about, you know, different sorts of injuries and maybe threats to the population that we weren't really aware of. Something we've gotten a big appreciation for over the past couple of years is the number of white sharks that we observe that have evidence of boat strike wounds, which, you know, isn't really on a lot of people's radars in terms of what might be an issue for white sharks right now. But it's been, I mean, it's just been, basically, I just have been kind of, I don't want to say holding on for dear life, but it has been quite a ride ever since I started my PhD because I just arrived on the scene right as all of this was unfolding off the coast of Cape Cod. And now we are seeing increases in white sharks up and down the east coast of the US.

34:50 So folks are seeing them in Canada. We're working with a lot of awesome scientists in Canada down in Florida, Gulf of Mexico. We work with a charter captain out of South Carolina who has figured sharks out down there and it's been such a privilege to work with him. Yeah, I got to do a couple trips with him this winter and we tagged one big, big female white shark in December. Her nickname is Lee Beth. And she went all the way to Mexico. She got a spot tag. She got the first camera tag in the southeast. Wow. She's been all over the place. And she just recently pinged in off Cape Cod. And I texted, his name is Chip Michaelove. And I was like, she's coming to see me. And then she veered off and it looks like she was on a trajectory for Nova Scotia. But some of these things are just like unfolding at such a crazy pace. And it's just been a joy to be a part of the ride. And like last summer, we went to Long Island to work with Toby Curtis and Greg Metzger and Harley Newton, who have been studying the White Shark Nursery site there. for years and to me to go there it was I'm a big shark science history buff too I love all the old literature and stories and for those of you who might not be aware that area off of Long Island in northern New Jersey was documented as as a nursery site for white sharks back in the first paper that came out on it was in the 1980s by Jack Casey and Wes Pratt. And so to get to be a part of kind

36:20 of that scientific history that, I mean, I just like, I can't even explain how much it means to me. And when I was just on a family reunion and talking to my niece and nephew who are about the age I was when I got interested in all this, they were, one of them said to me, they were like, I can't believe that you like actually grew up what you to be what you wanted to be. And it kind of made me think about it, because you can get so focused on the work sometimes that you almost can forget that that road to how you got here. So it's it's just like I said earlier, it's such a privilege to be able to do this and be a You know, it's interesting, Megan, you started up there to kind of like you said, they were kind of the right time where the white shark population seems to be increasing and do you think it's increasing or It's such a great question. It's definitely a little bit of both because anytime somebody sees a white shark they're going to take a video of it or a picture of it with their camera because everybody's got a phone at all times now and then they're going to post it to social media and it's going to go wild and we're going to hear about it But at this point, they've had decades of protections and those management measures that were put into place in the 90s do seem to be bearing fruit. It also has to do with management measures that were put into place for seals and other marine mammals because off of the Cape, seals

37:51 never used to be a thing. When you talk to people who lived on Cape Cod in the 1980s and 90s, like they would go to the beach, they would never see a seal. Sharks were not on their mind at all. And then the gray seal population started to make a recovery. And now you have a hard time, you know, if you go to the beach on Cape Cod, you have a hard time not seeing a seal. And so it's been a period of really rapid change for the community. So it's one part the food source is back, and the sharks are coming here to take advantage of that, but there are also really strong indications that the white shark population itself is making a comeback, even though we don't have great historical data for them. That's Do you keep, do you correspond, because we're seeing the same thing here in California, where the white shark population just seems to be exploding, and I've been doing a lot of media lately, because we see all these sharks here, white sharks, in Monterey Bay and which they weren't. Well, the larger ones have been around, but those small ones we're seeing now, those were not around back when you were a grad student or whatever, 12, 15 years ago. They were not around then, but since 2014, they've just, they've just exploded out here. And, um, I mean, I, there've been, you've probably picked up in the news. They've been, you know, the guys will go up and I've been up in the helicopter too. You get tired.

39:17 You literally get tired of counting them. You get up to, I get up to like 40 and I just stopped counting. There's just so many and they're all like six, eight foot and they're right off popular beaches. They're like literally in back of the surf break. You see, you know, people laying on the beach, people playing in the surf, boogie boarding, and they don't realize there's like a half a dozen white sharks, like, you know, less than a hundred meters from them. Um, just in back of the surf break. And I, have you, have you, do you, of course, do you guys keep in touch with like Chris Lowe and some of the guys doing stuff here to kind of compare the two coasts, what's going Yes, definitely. So there was a White Sharks Global Conference in November in Australia, and a lot of folks were there. Chris Lowe's whole group was there, but we definitely are all chatting as much as we can. The hard thing about it is In all these areas, it's very few people who are focused on studying that species and everybody's super busy. But we're always, you know, making comparisons, seeing what works for different groups and what hasn't worked. Chris Lowe's group has been great for kind of setting the standard on how to provide information to the public at the beaches. So they've got their shark smart booths and we now do the same on Cape Cod just to be there to provide information to the public. Because like you mentioned, a lot of folks have no idea they're going to a beach and there could be all these sharks right off the shore. We have this happen all the time off Cape Cod. We'll go to the beach, we'll be flying a drought or doing some kind of research or manning one of our shark smart booths. And we'll have people

40:48 come up to us and they'll be like, oh, we know they're here. We've heard about it on the news, but they're like way offshore. White sharks don't come this close to shore, right? And we're like, no, no, they hunt for seals right off the beaches. And it always blows their mind. I have to say, Dave, I feel a little left out of the Central California white shark scene right now because Aptos, that was my neighborhood where people are seeing all these white sharks. Like that was where I would go. running down that beach and sit on that cliff every evening. And I just, I'm like, I can't believe I'm missing it. In a lot of ways, I almost feel like I was fated to study white sharks because I grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, had no idea that they were there in the winter.

41:36 moved to Panama City after college. Now there are a lot of land-based guys catching sharks there. We're learning more about how important the Gulf of Mexico is to them as part of their overwintering range through a lot of the tagging work that's been done, but also thanks to citizen scientists who are tagging us in posts when they see them and sending us information. So, you know, Panama City, they were swimming right past me there. Aptos, Central California, I knew was a white shark hotspot. And I thought I'd see one when I was there. But all I ever saw was a bitten elephant seal. Um, but you know, they were there now Massachusetts, but like, it's all been so full circle, in a way, so much so that one of the PSATs, one of the satellite tags that the charter captain we work with in South Carolina put out on a shark came up, washed up on a beach right by near where my parents live. I called them and I said, hey, would you guys possibly want to go pick that tag up off the beach to see if you could find it? If you do, it's huge for us. And they were like, oh yeah, we're right across the street eating lunch. And they ran out of the door, ran down to the beach, and they searched around. I coached them through it on FaceTime. And my mom and my sister found that tag. And it was such a full circle moment. Every once in a while, it takes a lot of hard work and dedication and stubbornness, but every once in a while you have those moments where Speaking of Florida and sharks, have you heard a lot from

43:10 people in Florida about what's happening up in the Destin area these days? Has that been a big talk I was on vacation last week. We did talk about it at the family reunion. I was getting a lot of questions from my family. And they were like, is it safe to go in the water? And I was like, yeah, let's go boogie boarding. And they were like, well, Megan's in the water. She'll tell us when the shark is coming. And I was like, that's not how it works, you guys. But I appreciate the vote of confidence. I was like, they're there. Just so you Did you find like, did you find like the more you got to know about sharks, particularly white sharks, there was a point where like, to use a cliche, it's like ignorance is bliss. Like when you didn't know so much, it's like, oh, I'm just gonna go splash in the water. And then now that you kind of know it's out there, you're like, oh, I think I'll hang in the beach here.

44:09 Do you ever have those moments where you think like, yeah, there's a lot more sharks out there A little bit, but I have also seen so many sharks in areas where there are people where they have absolutely no response that it's comforting in a way. Now we're using all these new exciting technologies to study sharks. We're using drones. like Chris Lowe's group is, like, you know, people all up and down both coasts are doing. We also, we work with a spotter pilot who flies around, and just so everybody knows, when we do spot a shark, we have a whole system in place for reporting in and for the lifeguards to get people out of the water, and we monitor that situation. But the more you learn about them, like, I don't like to discredit them, they are amazing predators but they really they're just big fish that are out there looking for their natural prey items and we've been using these camera tags on white sharks off of Cape Cod for the past couple of years and some of the things we've seen like it would really hurt their fearsome reputation. We see them get scared by birds. We've seen one get shocked by a torpedo ray. We've seen one eat, or we put one, Greg put one on a shark right after she ate. We could see the seal intestine streaming out of her gill slit. And the whole point of the study when we started it was to learn more about their predatory behavior there. And we were like, oh,

45:40 great. She just ate. We're not going to see anything cool. But then she went offshore and she just sat on the bottom, face into the current. And I freaked out and ran into Greg's office. And I was like, this thing is just sitting on the bottom there. She's not swimming right now. And so some of the insights and the glimpses into their lives that we've been able to get with this technology I think really goes against a lot of the public perception that's out there. And honestly, one, if I could do anything for shark conservation, I think I would take everybody cage diving, or I guess white shark conservation in particular, because you don't need a cage for all species. They're fine. But, you know, it's just so different than the way you see it depicted on TV.

46:30 And it's, you know, just such a such a neat experience. And I wish I mean, that's a big part of I think the onus that's on us as scientists is we get to see these animals and learn about them in a way most people don't. So, right. You know, scientists were not always like science communication for me was not always very comfortable. Like I would get super nervous and I didn't want to speak You know out or do public talks and now look at me. You can't shut me up It's really Important that we impart that knowledge Yeah, you know in addition to learning about them from a scientific perspective and providing advice to fisheries managers and things like that but Because of that, we really need to share it with folks and combat some of those misperceptions that Yeah. And I think the interesting part of it all is the fact that as you start to monitor specific sharks and you get to know the sharks a little bit, their character kind of comes out. You can almost tell. And we've heard this with other scientists when they observe the white sharks in South Africa. When they see them enough, and they keep coming up, and they know who they are based on identifiable marks, they start to see the character come out. And when you start to see that character come out, gives them a little bit of that fun kind of, oh, there this one is doing, she's up to no good now, or what's she up to, or she's really curious, she's

48:00 going to come close, or he's going to come close, or one's going to stay really far away because they're not too sure of us. And I think it's interesting when you start to You start to recognize them over and over again, and you see them individuals, and you get that character. It makes it easier to talk about them, because you're talking about them as if you know them really well. Because you do, because you've seen them. And so when the stories come out about those, I think that becomes more interesting. to people, because now we're kind of, I know in a way we're kind of humanizing them a little bit, but it's like, oh no, they have these little flaws, or they're not, they're kind of funny in a way, in the way they react, or the way they come and do the same routines and stuff. I think it makes it interesting, makes a dangerous animal a little bit more friendlier when you I was very resistant to that at first because my upbringing was like, nope, we're not going to nickname these things. Like, that's what American people do. We're shark people. We don't do that kind of thing. But then once we started the catalog and started identifying different individuals and we got to a certain point and it was like, like WS 101, like that's not going to stick in my mind. So when we switched to nicknames, it made it so much easier to just remember. But it also has that impact. It's much more impactful for the general public because we have people ask us about specific sharks. year to year. Like

49:32 has James showed up? When's the last time you heard from Jameson, who was this little shark that stranded on the beach and lived? So it's a really great way, even though it might raise some eyebrows, but it's a great way to get the public engaged with the work and get them curious about it. And different sharks definitely have different vibes. I won't use the P word, but they definitely have different vibes. And it's one thing that I just, I love so much about being a scientist is that for every question we answer, like 55 more questions pop up. And the more we learn and try to characterize the white shark population in the Northwest Atlantic, the more individuals that Greg tags, and the more we kind of get a peek into their lives, the more we realize how much individual variation there is, which is very different, I think, for people to think about for a fish. People are comfortable thinking that way for mammals. You know, a lot of people have dogs or cats, but we don't tend to think about fish the same kind Have you noticed any of the sharks like tend to They'll, they'll stay, certain individuals will kind of hang together.

50:51 I don't want to say they don't necessarily school, but they'll kind of hang together. We'll do see, we will see like pulses of activity where our spotter pilot will have like eight sharks in the vicinity for a while. And then all of a sudden it's like poof. They're gone. And we don't know why. We don't know if it's always the same individuals. But one thing that I've gotten very curious about as as part of that photo ID work is we have some individuals that look so much alike. Their markings are very similar. There was one shark that we thought we had made a match. and then we realized one was a male and one was a female. And we were like, oh, they have to be related. So now we've got this kind of, we call it the sibling conspiracy board that we were like, this white shark I think is related to this one.

51:42 And one thing we're trying to ramp up is our genetic sampling so we can start to look at these things. Because like, I mean, it's just some of the markings on them are so similar. Yeah, and then talking with folks at White Sharks Global, the folks who are doing the genetics work in Australia and some of these other places, they found they're like, essentially, the white shark populations there decline so much that they're all just kind of inbred. Not my, But it made me curious having seen so many sharks with similar markings, we know based on the timeline of declines of protections and the fact that at least right now we think that females don't start reproducing until they're in their 30s and they're 15 feet long. I don't know if you guys heard about the shark that washed up on the beach in Pensacola this winter, dead.

52:39 It was 15 feet long female shark, not mature, not mature at that size. So they take so long to reproduce and that population was knocked down. you know, by all the, by all accounts pretty severely. So they're likely for a while haven't been that many reproductively productive females out there. So it makes sense, but we just, we don't have any, any sorts of data on, on that yet for this population. But I'm, I'm very, I would be so satisfied if some of our sibling conspiracy theories panned out, I'd be like, I knew I, I, I, you know, I, I, I don't know about the white shark, but I know with other species, I think when they pup, a lot of those siblings kind of hang, when their first pup, they tend to hang together in the same general vicinity. Again, I don't want to say it's a schooling behavior, but they tend to hang together.

53:33 And for however long, I don't know, but I'm sure these white sharks, if they went out there, like when we see all these ones off, off here in Monterey Bay, if you were to get genetics on enough of those things, I would not be surprised if a number of them are related. And I'm sure where you are in the East Coast there in New England, you'd probably find a similar thing, especially when they're younger. They might segregate more. We do know they segregate at some point where the adult males and the adult females and the juveniles all kind of stay in different areas. So it would make sense that there would be some, if you found the right nursery area, that there'd be some relation there with them. Which kind of leads me to question two. Have you guys noticed any expansion Not yet. Well, we've seen there are more smaller ones being caught in the waters off of Rhode Island, but that was kind of the northern extent of that area. And we do have reports every year of a few small ones like south of Nantucket, not quite Cape Cod area, but we see a pretty broad size range off Cape Cod. We've seen sharks as little as like six feet. which isn't an itty bitty baby, All the way up to 18 feet long. So most of the ones we see are between eight and 12 feet in length. But we do see a pretty big size range. And, you know, every year that's one thing. I'm not a big social media person, but it is really good for doing some some white sharks sleuthery, because anytime

55:05 somebody catches one, they're going to post. And folks are catching baby white sharks or they're spotting them with drones in other places. So that's one way that citizen science can play a big role in this. But yeah, right now, still the only really well-defined kind of known nursery area for the species in our neck of the woods is that area off of Long Island. There is there an app for like a like a I white shark nap app like, you know, I natural sap We have an app called shark tivity it's there we go available on iPhone and Android and Android It's a it's essentially it's a citizen scientist tool.

55:45 So we report sightings from research trips. We share our tagging data that way. We actually have five real time acoustic receivers that are deployed off the Cape every summer. And whenever a shark tag with an acoustic transmitter swims by one of those real time receivers, that notification goes immediately to the app. that it also provides information on the shark. Is it a male? Is it a female? What's its nickname? Where has it been detected before in our array, which is really cool. So it's a good outreach tool. But what's so powerful about it is it also allows folks to submit their own sightings because we're a small team. We can't be everywhere all at once. But people love going to the beach in the summer and they love being out on boats. So it's been a great source of information. It's a great So I gotta ask you the question. So now that you're doing your dream job working on sharks, How much time I feel really lucky. I do certainly have a lot more admin work than I did in the past, but we are very field heavy this time of the year. It's a small crew, so I do still get to spend a good amount of time in the field, which is great for me because it helps make it really rewarding, like you're out there and you see a shark that you identified before.

57:15 Sometimes we can recognize them from the surface, even if it doesn't have a tag, and we just geek out. So I found it's really helpful to stay connected and engaged. that way. But yeah, the computer work, it really creeps up on you, especially this time of the year. I find myself speaking and doing a lot of But you're doing a lot of you're doing a lot of analytics, too, like you're doing a lot of population analytics and things like that. So it's not just admin stuff. It's you're actually working up the data that you collect in the field. So there's probably a lot of hours doing that as well, I assume. Right. There are. And you know what? It's going to sound super kind of nerdy, but I love that side of the work. It is so mentally challenging. It's like putting together a puzzle.

58:02 And I knew I was interested in it, but Dave, when I was working with you, as I was finishing up my master's, I really wanted to learn R. I wanted to learn how to code. And so that's when I kind of got my feet wet on that. And I just, it can drive you crazy if you've got a bug in your code. And you've got to puzzle and figure it out. But it has helped me become a much better biologist. And that was when I knew I wanted to go back and get my PhD. I knew I kind of reached the point where I had kind of taught myself statistically as much as I could to do what I needed to do at the time, but I knew I needed a little bit more formal training to analyze data responsibly, I guess I would say. And so at that point, I went to UMass Dartmouth, and my major advisor there was not actually Greg. He was obviously a huge part of the work and a very active member on my committee But Gavin Fay, who is a very super crazy smart, like I talk to him and I just feel like an idiot. He's a smart quantitative scientist at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. And I definitely ramped up my coding skills. And a lot of my PhD work was actually more focused on model development. But I was very lucky that I had an application that I was super invested in. But if there are young upcoming marine scientists out there listening, one skill

59:34 I would highly recommend you get in your arsenal. It seems to be pretty invaluable these days. And again, it's how I got into the world of white shark science is learn how to code, learn how to analyze data. It will make you think about your studies in a different way and it can be, I mean, it's just such a fun kind of puzzle to put together. But to know not only how to collect data, but what to do with it to answer these questions is a really powerful, important skill. And we're in the era of big data. We're putting out camera tags that collect 11 hours of footage and millions of data points for like a multi-day deployment. like their drones. I mean, it's just there's, you know, there's data everywhere.

1:00:22 So being able to make use of it is, is hugely So, so Megan, you have it, you're going to be on a shark fest this year. I understand. And so why don't you tell us a little bit about this? This show is going to air just after your, your debuted on the, on the on the Shark Fest, but can you tell us about the show a I guess since it's coming out after I can. No, it was a really great experience because Greg Skomal and I've been working with him, we were the first to put out these camera tags. On white sharks in our in our area. And so we've had other folks reach out to us about doing that work. We made a trip to Canada a few years ago to get a camera tag on a white shark there, which was a really cool thing to be a part of. completely different scene to Cape Cod. And it was just so beautiful.

1:01:17 And I was like, I'm going to move to Canada. This place is amazing. Until I went back in the winter, and it was freezing. I was like, no, can't hack it. Can't do it. Colder than Massachusetts? Not as cold as it is in Canada. Woo, it was brutal. Kudos to them. But we had the same opportunity to go to Long Island and work with Dr. Toby Curtis and Greg Metzger and Dr. Harley Newton, who's been working really hard over the past couple of years to get a better handle on that nursery site. And they put out satellite tags, acoustic tags. We studied those sharks in various ways, and they learned a lot, but they hadn't put a camera tag on one of them yet, and we had a specially made, tiny, itty-bitty camera tag that was small enough to go on a baby white shark. And so we went down there to get that out and get a first glimpse into the life of these baby white sharks in their nursery area. And I'll You will have to, yeah, absolutely. Gotta watch the show. Well, Megan, this has been really terrific. I knew it was going to be great having you on. And of course, I love having my former students on the show here. What's next for you? Before we go here, what's sort of the next step you think about for your career, besides maybe not moving to Canada where

1:02:53 Not moving to Canada. You know, I'm actually I'm so happy where I am. So I took my current job a few years before I graduated. Well, I took this job in 2019. And it's been really exciting and rewarding to be a part of. And it's been very cool to be a part of an organization that's that's been growing at the same time as I've been growing as a scientist. So there are still quite a few questions I want to answer here. But I would be lying if I if I didn't say I wanted to just follow the sharks year round this past winter. I went down and did some work with the charter captain we work with in South Carolina. And I really got into the snowbird scene. I was like, you know what? I think I should just follow these things year round. And Massachusetts, like, King Kong right now is wonderful. It's in the 70s. It's kind of almost California type weather. But come February. It's time to go back to Jacksonville. So it's nice to go, to go south.

1:03:54 But I, so I hope we get to do a little bit more, uh, more winter work down south at some of these areas where, where white sharks are, are popping up and kind of becoming more of a, of a scene. Um, but Dave, I, we didn't even get to talk. I didn't even get to tell any embarrassing stories about you We'll have, we'll have to have you back on then. I guess we'll have to have you come on for part two here. to talk talk share some more stories because I know we can go on for a little longer but But Megan, thank you so much for coming on and we're definitely will have you back on to share some more stories and we'll get more into Your time at Moss Landing and some of some of the other other cool stuff and you're doing and some of the cool people you've worked with as well So anyway, That was a lot of fun. Thank you very much, Megan, for joining us on the beyond jaws podcast. Dave, this is going to like, she's a star already, like in the, in the, in the world of sharks, not just white sharks, but in the world of sharks, you know, what'd you think of the, I I mean, it was, it was great. I, I, you know, I knew, you know, Megan was just, she's a rock star and I really, you know, we've had some really outstanding ones, people on here and a really nice to having her on here. Uh, uh, cause she was a former student of mine, which I really, which is really, it's always kind of neat when I have one of my former students, I've had a few of them on now, have had Jenny Bigman and Rachel Atkinson and Kelsey James on previously and having Megan in there and she, they're all, well,

1:05:25 Megan and Kel, I think you heard the story, Megan and Kelsey actually, you know, heard the story, went from my lab, I sent them back to work with Lisa Natanson, who Lisa and I were graduate students together at Moss Landing. They went and spent a few weeks working with Lisa back there, learning age and growth. And then that led to Kelsey becoming a PhD student of Lisa's where she got her PhD. And that led to Megan meeting Greg Scoble, who then she eventually got on and became a PhD student. So, so young people, students listening out there, that's kind of how it works a lot of time. It's networking if you have that opportunity. And so I couldn't be happier than to, uh, I would like to add too, it's not just networking. I think it's how you work if Megan didn't work hard. You knew the type of student that Megan was. You knew that she would do really well under working with Lisa and learn a lot. She wanted to learn. And I think that's the key too. It's like, you can get referred through the networks of other people, but you also have to show that you're going to work, and you got to prove that you're going to work. And I think that's what Megan was, is someone who worked her butt off to get to where she's at and deserves all the accolades that she's getting now and will continue to get because she's so passionate about all the work

1:06:55 that she does. She just wants to learn about not necessarily one species of shark. She wants to learn about a number of different species and how they all differ and what kind of questions she can have. And I think that just embodies the shark scientists that we see today and continue to see from that started off in the past with Lisa, and now we're seeing it in Megan. We're seeing it in a lot of other, with Chantal, who we had on. uh, just, just before or who we're going to have on, uh, in a few weeks. And, and I just think it's, it's great to see, you know, this type of, of curiosity, just driving shark science, you know, and we see it in a lot of people that you just don't get the accolades that they, that they do. We don't see it because we don't hear them talk all the time, but I think, you know, we got to see it today in, Yeah, no, you see, I see with Megan, as I say, she got, you know, she happened to work with very fortunate. She got to work with Colin Simpendorfer, Michelle Hypel, John Carlson, you know, myself, Lisa, I mean, she, and at each stage of the way, and I kind of mentioned this during the show is that you do a good, you come in, cause especially the shark field, it's so it's a small, it's a small field. And if you come in and you do a good job for somebody, you know, like I see an application come through and I say, Oh, you worked with Michelle and Colin and John, you know, that's going to be a phone call I'm going to have and just get the straight story. And so always be aware of that when you're working with somebody that to do it. I mean, and Megan, it wasn't a case. It just came naturally for her. And I've had several other students. It was the same thing. They, they, you know, happened to get into be, have an opportunity to work with somebody and, and, and they, they get a firsthand view of them. And so, and Megan, she did not disappoint at all. She was an outstanding student in

1:08:27 my lab. She went on and did a great job. I mean, she wouldn't be where she is with Greg Skomal. if she hadn't done a good job back in the day. And she did a great job with Greg, yeah. Absolutely. And it's just like, for me, it's kind of really cool to see some of those students that I've had a personal hand in coming through. But there's a lot of students out there that we've had on there that are just really coming into their own. I think people like Megan and some of the other ones. We had Lucia Soros on a few weeks ago. We've had Jalen Myers on. We've had a number of Julia Constance. We've had several on this year that have been really Keep your eye on it because I think in the future, you'll see some big things by some of these people in the future, which is kind of neat for us, Andrew, because we can have them come back on and come on back on in a few years and see where they are. And we can play the tape.

1:09:14 We can play the tape. So that's kind of Yeah, it's going to be great. I'm looking forward to it. That's going to be a lot of fun. Okay, well that's it. I know Megan says she wasn't really into social media as much. She does have an Instagram, but it's more of a personal one, so we're not going to share that necessarily. It's lostsharkguy on Instagram, lostsharkguy on ex-Twitter, and it's lostsharks on Facebook and LinkedIn, Dave And if people want to watch this podcast, you can go to our YouTube channel. It is Beyond Jaws podcast. We'll put the link in the show notes. Subscribe and watch all of our past episodes and some of the clips that we have from those episodes if you don't have the time to watch the entire thing. But if you're into watching podcasts on video, you can go to our YouTube page and see that. But thank you so much to Megan and Dave. Of course, thank you very much for joining us and getting all these great guests. This is amazing. By the way, folks, this is a lot of Dave's network. You know, he's the one who brings out all these wonderful guests and knows the history and everything and knows all the stories. It makes it really, really entertaining. So Dave, thank you so much for lending that network to us. We really appreciate it. And thank you, everybody, for listening to this episode of the Beyond Jaws podcast. From Dave and I, we really appreciate you. Have a great day. We'll talk to