The Giant Shark Scientists Still Don’t Understand, New Discoveries from Madagascar

1:00:00 We have another wonderful episode of the Beyond Jaws podcast for you today. Today we are speaking to Stella Diamond, who is talking about her organization, the Madagascar Whale Shark Project Foundation that is in and around, obviously Madagascar. Uh, but we're talking to Stella. She's, once we did the interview, she was back home in Belgium. She talks about, you know, discovering how whale sharks really inspired her to be, uh, you know, as a researcher of whale sharks. And you'd be surprised at how much we don't know about whale sharks. So that's what we're going to find out today. What we do know now because of the research and why science is so important in discovering how this massive shark, uh, has gone really undetected by science, I'm going to say, not undetected because it's so big, but we just don't know much about it from a scientific standpoint.

1:00:51 And she's helping us gain more research. We, we're going to talk about a lot of different things, how her, her, um, you know, just sort of her connection to Simon Pierce, who's been on the podcast before and talking about the Marine mega foundation and how that got her start to, uh, doing whale sharks. It's going to be a lot of fun. We're going to talk a lot about everything that has to do with whale sharks. If you like whale sharks, this is the episode for you. So let's start the show. Hey everybody. Welcome back to another exciting episode of the Beyond Jaws podcast. I'm your cohost, Angelo, and here with my cohost, cohost Dr. David Ebert. Dave are like, I know you, you like whale sharks, but I know you prefer the lost sharks have yet like, has there been a lost shark whale shark? Like, is it like, we know it's just one species, but you know, maybe one day there'll be one that you'll be discovering again.

1:01:39 Well, it's funny because as good as I am at finding law sharks, I'm not so good at finding whale sharks. It's only the biggest fricking fish in the ocean. And it's just as I share here in the, in the episode, it's like been my curse, like to find to see a whale shark. I've never, every place I go, it's like, Oh, guarantee you'll see them here. Dave. Now they're not, they just don't show up. They don't want to cooperate with me. Yeah. Cause you went to, when you went to Ecuador, you went out diving with the man of trust and they were like, Hey, we're going to go see, there should be some whale sharks here. Whale sharks weren't there. You left whale sharks came showed up two days later. So two days later. And then when you went to Madagascar recently, uh, did you go diving for whale sharks or they just weren't, it was just what we went out in the, well, Stella did in fairness. Stella told me, she said we're a little early, probably a couple of weeks early for the whale sharks. I wasn't, my, my hope was not as high as it was in other places.

1:02:35 You didn't go in the water looking for them. Yeah, no, we were just, yeah, no, I was ready though. I was ready, but, but I was just disappointed as I had been. And I missed it. We're talking, this goes back like 35, 40 years. This is a long time. These are just the most recent one here. So, um, good, good to find it. Law sharks. Just don't bring me along for whale sharks. That's okay. Cause we're going to find out a lot about whale sharks today with Stella diamond. Uh, you know, why don't you talk a little bit about Stella, how you met her, uh, because it was, you know, it was your connection again that, uh, that brought us here with, uh, and brought her on the podcast. Yeah, actually it was a, uh, it was a red Bennett for the wildlife conservation society in South Africa. He's, uh, does it kind of as a director of the shark and Ray program, the Western Indian ocean. He connected me with her, uh, when I was going to, when I was going to send up my expedition to Madagascar and we, her and I talked a few times and, uh, we hooked up and noisy be, uh, Madagascar. And it was great. She's just, she's a dynamic young woman. Um, and she's really on the ball and she's got, she, she's got her, I got this Madagascar whale shark project foundation going. She, you know, and as you mentioned, she, uh, got on initially with, uh, you know, did some stuff with Simon Pierce is a good friend of the show.

1:03:51 He's been on the program and there's a few other people that, uh, we had a number of other, one of these things we had a number of mutual connections in the field. Uh, we had a chance to meet and it was really fun to get to alert, get to get to see her, get to see her in action and her in the field. She works, has a lot of, uh, young Malagasy, uh, up and coming students, uh, working, uh, interning for her. And, uh, we did get, uh, we did get to go out, uh, went out, spent a day on the ocean, saw some whales, dolphins, all kinds of other marine life, snow whale sharks, right. And, um, we did some snorkeling and stuff. So it was a wonderful time. It was great. Anytime you're on the water, you know, beautiful ocean like this. Great. And yeah, the, Hey Stella's she's, uh, yeah, it was, for me, it was great to see her in action.

1:04:33 Cause she's, she's a dynamo boy. I tell you, I was really, uh, impressed. I just didn't know much about her cause she works, you know, she's in Belgium and she goes to, goes to Madagascar there. And I hadn't been to Madagascar or our paths hadn't crossed yet. So, um, but we have now and, uh, yeah, it was really, really, really awesome having her on the show here. Oh, it was. And it's, you know, we've seen, uh, you know, people like her on this podcast a lot where people are starting projects on sharks because there's just not enough information. And we're seeing these organizations pop up where they're, you know, small organizations that employ local people and um, you know, uh, work with local communities to not only find information on the fish that they're looking for, the shark that they're looking for, but also help the communities as well.

1:05:23 Um, you know, obviously whale sharks is a huge ecotourism, uh, um, market for in, in Madagascar, but there needs to be some, some code of ethics as Stella mentioned, and she helped produce them. Uh, but we've seen in other places too, where you're looking at working with the local community to get more information on these sharks and the value that these sharks bring to the coastline in this case is to tourism. And so we want to make sure that these are sharks are going to keep coming back and people can view them and enjoy them in a very ethical way. And I just think it's, I just think it's wonderful. So let's get started with the interview. Here's Stella Diamond talking about the Madagascar whale shark project foundation, how she got all started and all the stuff that goes with it, the fun stuff of running an organization.

1:06:08 Here's the interview we'll talk to you after. Hey, Stella, welcome to the Beyond Jaws podcast. Are you ready to talk about whale sharks? Hello, I'm ready. Yes. Great. Well, welcome to another episode of the Beyond Jaws podcast. We have a awesome guest today. We have the fabulous Stella DeMont from Belgium, who's the founder and director of the Madagascar whale shark project. An organization doing amazing research out of noisy be Madagascar that I had the opportunity to actually meet Stella in person and organization to get to know during my recent expedition to Madagascar. Stella was drawn to whale sharks after seeing her first whale shark in 2014 through the Marine Mega Fauna Foundation with Simon Pierce, who was on the podcast last May.

1:06:52 In 2016, Stella presented at the fourth International Whale Shark Conference on a paper entitled the preliminary observation of whale sharks in noisy be Madagascar. Stella has had quite the journey to where she is today having worked in Zambia, Costa Rica, Mozambique, Tanzania, Namibia, which favorite country of mine, Mexico, Hawaii, and I'm sure a whole lot of other places will find out about today. Stella has 15 publications to her credit, including a recent paper that I just found out that her and I coauthored were entitled only 1% of important shark and ray areas in the western Indian Ocean are fully protected from fishing pressure. So that's something else we have to talk about. And she has some breaking news today to talk about on our whale shark research here. She's been doing in Madagascar. Stella did her bachelor's degree at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom.

1:07:41 She has a master's degree in evolution and conservation from Imperial College in London. And they say her current position is she is the founder and director of an incredible organization, the Madagascar Whale Project, whale shark project. And Stella, welcome to the show. Thank you, Dave. So your whole history. I got you. Yeah. I do a lot of investigation ahead of time. So we always ask all of our guests, what got you interested in marine science and whale sharks? Yes. As you say, it's been quite a journey. I mean, I come from Brussels in Belgium, where you have no ocean. And I wasn't raised up near the sea. I was into nature and horse riding.

1:08:31 And I always wanted to work with animals somehow. Initially, I wanted to be a vet. And it's true. A first experience in Madagascar when I was 21 that I discovered this country and realized conservation was a field. I didn't know, you know, it was kind of recent at the time. And I really loved the aspect that you work with communities, you know, you work towards species protection. But it's also something that benefits, ideally benefits communities. And I was kind of on my radar. And obviously, like everyone, I was kind of dreamt of seeing a whale shark and scuba diving. And after that first trip, I kind of got into that, but still hadn't seen a whale shark.

1:09:14 And then I came back and did my masters kind of always wanted to go back to Madagascar. But things got in the way, ended up in Namibia and a few other places. And eventually, I went back there when I was 24. And that's the year you mentioned when I saw my first whale shark. That's when I think a lot of things aligned in my head that, wow, these animals still exist and we don't know anything about them. And at the time, there was no research going on. There had been previous work by by Rachel Graham, but she had stopped and and so we didn't know how many whale sharks there were and I was just fascinated and then feeling quite comfortable in Madagascar.

1:09:57 There was so much work to be done and yeah, and very little people or capacity there. So for a reason, I felt like maybe I could do it. And that's how I got into sharks, pretty much. It was quite a coincidence. And I felt there was an opportunity there to do something meaningful in Madagascar. So what brought you originally to Madagascar? Like what was that first trip about? Was it just more of a vacation? Was it you know, say was around Madagascar? No, it was a it was a volunteer experience with the WWF. They have a program. Okay, I don't know if it still exists, but basically you write you apply. And if you're selected, you're sent to one of their ongoing projects.

1:10:42 And that one then was about coral reefs and alternative livelihoods. And so it was already like a first kind of experience in conservation. Yeah, you had you had quite you have quite the resume in terms of a lot of the country, a whole variety of countries you've been to. I'm just kind of curious, like, how did you things like when you went, you've been to Namibia and Zambia and all this house came like, because Namibia is what country I really enjoy. How did you happen to go to Namibia? So you know, the thing that everyone told me at uni was that you need to have field work to be credible in, you know, leading a project in the field and it was something. Yeah, I didn't hadn't really done before. So, so that was kind of my ambition, you know, I'm going to see if the field is for me. And so, so I applied to these kind of technical, sorry, technician positions or ecologists and you have a range of these positions that often cover you costs that don't necessarily pay.

1:11:43 And so ended up with a few projects. Well, some it's, you know, I think you should never pay for one, but someday, I mean, it's interesting in terms of experience. And, and yes, I ended up gaining a lot of field field work experience in a range of fields, I'd say. So, well, like for example, just kind of curious on the, so let me, let me back up a little bit when you're going through school, like he, when he started to go to like university and stuff, did you already kind of know at that point you wanted to do something in the, in the science, in the biological sciences or the marine sciences? Yeah, for sure. I mean, marine for me, like I'm not going to lie, it was, it was exciting, but yeah, it was unknown, you know, it's, it's not something I grew up with. So it was more terrestrial initially, but, but yeah, then I started scuba diving and discovered all of that. And then, yeah, it was an environment I felt very comfortable in.

1:12:39 When you went to like, so I got asked with Namibia, how did, what did you do in Namibia? What kind of work did you do there? I'm not sure you're ready for this. I studied baboons with behavioral products. Oh, cool. Yeah. That, that, yeah. So, I mean, I spent a lot, when I was a graduate student in South Africa, people listened to that podcast. Now I spent a lot of time in Namibia. So I, so what part of Namibia were you studying the baboons in? It was in a reserve called Sowbis. It was kind of, yeah, middle of Namibia pretty much. And it's a project run by Zoological Society of London, where basically you get to know the baboons and do, you know, focal follows and basically spend all your days just walking after them and getting to know them.

1:13:26 Sounds awful. It was amazing. It was amazing. Did you get up to any of the, do you go to any of the, do you see cheetahs very often there? That was? No, but I did. I mean, we did some travels after with the field team and we saw quite a lot. Like you get so used to being in that environment and so tuned in. So it was amazing that feeling to be really knowing what was going on. Yeah. Did you, did you get over to the coast to Swakomat or up to the skeleton coast? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. An amazing place. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I said. We, I spent a whole time. We wait, like I've spent a lot of time on the coast, but I've been to, been to the Atasha pan and all that area all up through there. So I was just, anyway, got a lot of good memories from that place.

1:14:09 So when you, when you did the, the, it sounds like all the different experiences in each country were very different in terms of like environments in terms of obviously countries and cultures and things like that. What attracted to you, you to do these different opportunities and one work with baboons, one work with coral reefs. Like, was it just more of like, oh, that looks cool. Like, I'm going to try and get more field work in this area or on land and in underwater. And then you get a lot of different experiences. And that like, why, like, why didn't you just pick underwater for all of it or why did you pick land for all of it? Or you were just going for that variety? Was that on purpose? I'm not sure. I think it was what I could get at the time. It was, I mean, it was, and I'm sure it still is incredibly competitive with how you know and whether you qualify the languages you speak. But I was just, I mean, it's always been a bit of a problem, but I see it as a strength out, I would say.

1:15:04 But everything interests me and I and I have always struggled to choose, you know, because I think there's so much to do with so many fields and yeah, so it was just a general interest for a lot of stuff. But eventually, what made me kind of, I was, I don't know if I picked my, I guess, picked me, but how this whole project happened, it was, it was mainly because I felt, yeah, I could, yeah, I could do something, you know, tangible and long term and and I find, yeah, that's the, it's the kind of opportunity I was looking for, you know, to not just come through and leave, but be there for longer and really build something that would last. So that was, I think, my initial ambition. Yeah, yeah, I mean, you're definitely the explorer type. I can, I can tell, tell from that. Did you have, did you spend time in like, like you, you were in Mozambique in Tanzania and I assume looking at some whale sharks there with Simon and the Marine and I think that's really, so then when you first went to like sort of Madagascar, did you have any kind of a clue you might see them there or did you?

1:16:19 At the time, I mean, like people, locals knew they were there, but it's, it's a, as you know, David, it's a big country. Some people, you know, haven't traveled to other places. It's, it's still, it's very remote, especially at that time. And so actually I overheard in a, like in a tiny hotel. I had been traveling in Madagascar, like a kind of a month helping out on some projects I knew back then. And then my mom came to meet me and we had planned to go to the north. And then we were speaking to some people who just got back and they said, you know, we've seen whale sharks there. And I was like, Oh, I didn't know they were here. Like it was just that kind of coincidence. And then, and then my mom got quite sick on that trip. So she was like, okay, I'm just gonna sit this one out. So we went together the first day.

1:17:06 I'll always remember. And then I went out a few more days. And back then, yeah, it was just, there was no one around. It was, it was raining. It was the water was dark, but yeah, I'll always remember that kind of feeling. Yeah. I know. After I came back, I, we did a, I did a podcast on, on talk about Madagascar and it was definitely one of the, and I've been to a lot of places, but one of the more difficult places to get around, especially when you go, when you went down to the south after Noisy B. It's just, if you're right there, it's sort of, you go out in the boat, but it's, it's definitely not an easy country to get around to do a lot of stuff. You really have to have to get around. And so, so when you, so after you saw your first sort of whale shark there, you, you went back, you're all excited.

1:17:52 You wanted to do like, you're decided you're going to start this foundation. No, no, no, I was, I was, I mean, it's a, I'm surprised I got this far, to be honest. No, no, I mean, my initial, you know, I was what? 24, 25 then. So I came back and like everyone else, you know, I Googled like who's working on whale sharks now and got in touch with Rachel and eventually I got in touch with Denny Ramirez who, who's been amazing at the time who works in Mexico. And she said, well, you should talk to Simon. He works in that region. Maybe he's interested in, in helping you out. So that's eventually how I, you know, I spoke to Simon who back then was unattainable for me and he said, yeah, actually we've had a decrease, like a big decline in the sightings in Mozambique.

1:18:39 So I was like, well, I'm going to Madagascar. Let's, let's try to train you up and then to find some funding for you to do like a first year of monitoring, you know, photo ID. So that's how eventually, yeah, I met Simon in 2015 in Tanzania and pretty much straight me up in photo ID and I was useless. I couldn't keep up with the sharks. I was just like, how am I going to what what am I getting myself into? And then, you know, slowly, like it took a lot of dedication. Like I moved back on my parents. I didn't have a job. I was just writing up these grants without knowing how to write up grants. And then eventually we got like a first bucket of money for me to go in 2016 and and back then I had kind of got in touch with a few operators and the ones I still work with now were kind of the leaders in tourism, like we're watching in swimming with where sharks industry.

1:19:36 They were like, yeah, I mean, you can come on the boat for free and collect data and then, you know, we'll see how that goes. And so I went out like every day that first year and then we got more than 100 different whale sharks identified. And then we had the jobs and expeditions and yeah, still doing a bunch of different stuff, but it was slowly kind of taking over and then since yeah, I think since after COVID we had a two year force break, I think like everyone and then since 2022, I'm just everybody had a full time. Yeah.

1:20:19 Yeah, I didn't know it was going to become a foundation or anything. It was just kind of a right. Let's see where this goes. And I think it was good in a way. Again, no expectations. Yeah, yeah. It's really interesting. You know, you mentioned to me there's a lot to unpack and just what you said there because there's so much information that I want to find out more about. You mentioned when you first started swimming with them and you first started trying to like free diving was difficult. I can see that like that doesn't look like an easy thing to do. But keeping up with them was difficult too. I think a lot of people when we see whale sharks in a video or on TV, we don't realize just like sometimes with great whites and other things, other sharks we see, we don't realize how slowed down the video is with these with these sharks.

1:21:03 They like whale sharks. I've been told like the reason why people snorkel when they swim with them is because they have to get back on the boat to like kind of follow them because they move so quickly through the water. Was that what you mean by you had trouble keeping up with them? Yeah, I mean, they swim really fast and you have to give everything each time. And I mean, it's a habit, you know, like now now it's easy. But at the time it was and the pace, you know, it's very fast pace. It's not like maybe I go in or not. It's like you have to go in now and you cannot hesitate or think back or forget something. And so, yeah, initially, especially that first that first experience in Tanzania, I mean, I was with like the best guys from MmF and I felt completely out of my comfort zone and completely useless.

1:21:54 Yeah. Had you done any. Have you been freediving before? Was that your literally your first first time you're freediving was with the whale sharks? Yeah, I mean, I didn't even really know about it except, you know, from some movies and and then after that experience, I was like, OK, I'm going to learn properly. So I did like the first level. And now it's become a hobby and a passion and something I do as a sport as well. And it's opened up. So like a new dimension for me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When you're when you're out doing your whale shark stuff now, is it pretty much either yourself or some of the volunteers, people you have work working with? You pretty much free to have to free dive to get like a photographic identification of the things. I mean, we yeah, we we ask that people have, you know, I mean, we used to have a volunteer program that we've stopped now for a range of reasons.

1:22:46 And we focused only on Malagasy students. And it's one of the aspects of the projects. I'm really proud of. And I think it's super important. And so this year, yeah, we trained them up when in freediving. And it's great to see them, you know, becoming comfortable with that as well. And yeah. Yeah, I was going to say you did just my experience there with you. You definitely really getting a lot of the Malagasy local people involved, young young people involved, excited about the whole thing. And so you're getting them all trained up, I guess, to kind of help help kind of fill in when you're not there in country. Do they get out and they go out in the field this time?

1:23:29 It's still is like one of the more difficult aspects of running a project that is seasonal is that some of the year, you know, now it's cyclone season, the boats out of the water, everyone's off or so it's. Yeah, with the team, I mean, we kind of try juggle this. So we one of the students, he just came back now, he was doing interviews with fishermen. And then another one is back in his hometown now, but still everyone is working kind of remotely. But it's it's mainly to have a, you know, good solid team so that when again, when you see the whale sharks, you're in a position where you can actually collect data and be efficient because because we're seeing less and less of them. And there's more and more tourists. So it's becoming like the opportunity we have to to do work on them is becoming quite limited. Yeah, some of the some of the young people you have work in there, like some of the students, I mean, they're they're actually working towards like graduate degrees, like Masters or PhD with you.

1:24:26 Yeah, so we each each year we as part of our commitment and our agreements with the different institutions we work with in in the country we we accommodate at least one but now to students in at the Masters level, we have collaborations with different universities is only three for now that do marine biology and we collaborate with all three. And then so but this year we had also bachelor student from one of the three unis that we started working with this year. And then and then what we'd like to do is we you know we keep welcoming them again and they can grow their projects and and really work towards.

1:25:06 Yeah, more ambition. So I'm a lose one of the few students we had before he's come back now two years in a row and he's starting this month's his PhD in Madagascar first one on sharks. Oh, nice. So yeah, oh, nice. Really cool. Yeah. Well, I mean, there's a lot there. I there's there's a lot of stuff done on sharks years ago, but they're just nothing really has been done recently on any of the sharks really there. Obviously, well sharks are such a high profile. Is there much of a tourism industry diving with the well sharks up there? Is it much of a tourist attraction? Yeah, it's become huge. It's become huge now. Yeah. Yeah. And you were involved in like developing some of the protocols for people diving with with the well sharks there.

1:25:50 Yes, I mean, it was it was part of the initial plan, you know, when Simon so after I trained with Simon in Tanzania, he came out, I think, three years in a row, helping me tag and and it was I mean, the tourism back then was still manageable and quite small. So yeah, he told me immediately you need to have a code of conduct and you need to train people up. Otherwise, it's just going to go mad. So we've initially was just like a voluntary code of conduct and then we've done. Free training for years and years and now since end of 2023, it's become official decree in Madagascar. And so far, it's the only country in Africa that has an official decree. So operators, they have to follow this law and tourists as well.

1:26:38 The issue we have now is enforcement because obviously if no one's telling people off, they say yes, and then they do the other thing. So we're working closely now with authorities and we we did the first like patrols at sea. This year to really warn people about, you know, consequences and and encourage them to follow these rules. But it's very complicated topic in most places in the world unless you have very strict rules and enforcement. It's difficult. You're underwater. You're with the species that moves. It's complicated. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So so so with your with with you got your developing the same. How many how many sharks have you tagged now?

1:27:19 You've been in put out the satellite tags we did with Simon the first year we had eight and then since we've moved to acoustic tagging because we really wanted to know how much they were using this bay because there's the tourism but there's also like a marine protected area plans and so we wanted to be able to contribute to that and we've deployed more than 60 now since the last few years. Can you still can you explain just for the audience the difference between the satellite tags and an acoustic tag in terms of how it's put on how it functions just in general? Yeah, I mean so he attaches externally both of them for sharks because they have such thick skin.

1:28:02 You cannot just like do it like you would with another shark. So you have a kind of an adapted spear where you you have the like a little anchor like a razor blade and then a little thread and then the tag and then you just kind of aim at it like you would for a skin sample. It's it's quite similar and the type sorry the shark doesn't usually react because again the skin is very thick. So it's just gonna kind of lay itself within the like the the skin denticles and stay there for sometimes they fall off sometimes they stay for years. But usually with the acoustics they can stay for a few years. And then the difference is that the acoustic tags they really need a receiver station. So it's kind of a communications they have between the two units and then you need these receiver stations that will kind of collect the data from the tag sharks. So the more tag sharks you have the more data likely you're going to have if they stick around if they go somewhere else unless you have other stations there. You don't really have data which is one of the issues we have in Madagascar. We're now collaborating with other researchers, especially one person.

1:29:09 So who's working on cetacean so he has also received a station's couple to hydrophones and that way we can have data about our sharks. But otherwise, yeah, unless I mean Madagascar at the moment, no one else is doing acoustics and then satellite tags, they will give you very neat data whenever a shark comes back to the surface to feed. So usually it indicates that the shark is surface feeding. So you will have like these nice kind of GPS tracks you can see even if you're in the water, you can have a few years. Right. And the receivers for acoustics, the hydrophones they stay, they stay in the water. How deep are they when you put them in? Because I know like whale sharks can there. They're not a shallow species necessarily. So are they floating in a buoy system like maybe mid water column?

1:30:03 Or do they have different systems? We've started using the second system now. So I think that's one of the things that we need to do. Or do they stay at the top? You have different systems. We've started using the second system now, but usually you have a mooring that you kind of deploy to a place you can dive and then you need to pick up these receivers. We do it twice a year to get the data. Otherwise, you kind of get it. So we have we have eight that we have in relatively shallow waters so that you know anyone who can dive has a good, good experience diving can go. So they're between 20 and 30 minutes. And then we also have the other technology where they're much deeper. So they call the VR two ARs and they can go to I think 300 400 meters. But you need to find like a place where you have that kind of depth and then they just sit there. Yeah, also in a mooring. And then you have a kind of really quite often.

1:30:53 Yeah, I mean, it depends because we we've tried to be quite random with our study design. So we we did it with the We didn't just put them where we know the sharks go. We kind of put them as a big grid just to see. So you have clearly some places where the sharks go more and other places less. And now it's quite interesting with this new collaboration. We see the sharks go really quite far out where we didn't think they would go. That's awesome. So you have some big news you're going to share with us and break news today, right? And one of your one of your whale sharks. Yes. And then you have a lot of other things that you can do. Yes. So we I mean, it was kind of I was always waiting for this. When is one of the whale sharks we've identified in Madagascar going to be seen elsewhere. So like out of this country is quite a massive country. And we've identified we're sitting on 546 identified whale sharks thanks to photo ID. So yeah, yeah.

1:31:53 Yeah. Yeah. And you know, you have other whale sharks that are seen as a big Tanzania seashell. So we I mean, there is this collaboration now at the global level with the shared, you know, photo ID platforms. The one we use is called wild book where everyone loads the data. But some people, yeah, they don't know how to use wild book. They don't have the staff. Anyway, so for all of these reasons, we because we've had that declined since a few years. I was quite keen to find there any sharks going to sessions because we know teams in Mozambique and Tanzania Tanzania load their data onto this database. But sessions doesn't because back in the day when I started, they had a lot of whale sharks. And then as we've seen more and more whale sharks in Madagascar, mostly because I was counting them.

1:32:42 sessions I seen quite a decline. So I was always curious, like, it's now that we seeing less, they're seeing more of them there. So yeah, I got in touch with Chris who works in sessions on the on the whale shark program. And because they had so few sightings around 2015, they kind of stopped the monitoring. So they started again a few years ago. But again, they don't have a dedicated team. So it's very opportunistic. So we spoke in August and I shared all our protocols with you. And I said, Okay, like try to take pictures of them. And so, like, yeah, we kind of committed with the team to, you know, process them for him. And so we got 20 photo IDs in December. And surprise, we recognize the shark from Madagascar in one of them. So, wow, really cool news.

1:33:31 And when you think about it, it's not so far for for a shark. It's 1200 kilometers, probably. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I just looked it up the straight line distance, depending on where you're going from is about between 1600 1800 kilometers. But again, it depends on where you're measuring from. Yeah, measuring from like the mid like inland of that. So not necessarily from the coast. That makes sense. That's crazy. That's awesome. It's awesome. And it's, it's really cool because it's a shark we've seen once. So we have like a logbook of all the sharks and they have names and we know how many times we've seen them. But yeah, so some we know we see a lot and others like like this guy is called Miss Raul, which is the name of a wind in France. And we thought it was pretty nice moments where they were like star names and wind names anyway.

1:34:18 And then we saw we saw him only once in 2019. And then where has he been all this time? He could have been in Madagascar and we just didn't see him. We didn't photo ID him. Right. But now he's he's he's been in sessions. So, really cool. Wow, that's gonna be really cool. That's the first one you found. It doesn't mean that there's probably more that are probably going forth. You just haven't discovered it yet. Yeah, well, that might that might inspire the people in the Seychelles to really get right get get motivated. Yeah, we're we're discussing this and we'd love to go and you need to do more collaborations like sampling the praise they eat and see if it's similar. And I mean, there's so many questions. Are they using Seychelles more now because they're using Madagascar less? Is it completely unrelated? Have they always been? If they already always have been using the two? I don't know.

1:35:13 Have you looked around Madagascar for any other well shark aggregation sites around around the around Madagascar? Such a big country. I mean, we're in touch with quite a few, you know, NGOs and researchers and we we know where sharks swimming through that they've been sighted but not kind of on a regular basis and actually, right. I can't remember if we talked of this together, Dave, but a well shark was fished in in southwest Madagascar in August. And we know from the satellite tags we deployed with Simon that the sharks we we see in the Seabay up north they they, you know, they swim past that village. At least we had some sharks that did that route. So is it just a route? Is it a feeding aggregation? Likely, there's a lot more than we think. Yeah.

1:36:02 Okay. Okay. Yeah. Well, I know a lot of the isle, a lot of the Metley Island there. I know it's a big country. I think we figured it's like the fourth largest island in the world, Andrew. I think so. Yes. Yes. And so like there's as I can imagine, there's a lot of remote areas where people just cannot get into or just there's just nobody able. You're not able to really do research unless you're in a boat. No, which is why like, you know, using different approaches and techniques, especially with well sharks is really interesting. Like now with this photo ID, we have this awesome match. But you know, with the satellite tags 10 years ago now, we saw that they were going all the way south, which is also like thousands of kilometers. So now with the acoustics, we know, okay, they use this area this way and this way, but we'd like to use satellites again because there we see them less and less. So is there like another cool place to go?

1:36:49 Were they feeding or are they actually just getting fished once they're offshore? I mean, there's so many explanations. Yeah. Have you considered like branching out into some other species like the, well, like the leopard sharks there are some of the other species that are kind of common. Yeah, I would like to. It's just always the issue, finding funding, finding capacity. Yeah, it's a good idea. Yeah, it's, we really try to work with Malagasy. So we, we need to find a, you know, project lead. And usually it starts with the students have some ideas, you have some shared interests, and then we kind of push them and support them into kind of developing that. But we, it's been kind of in the on the radar to do something on the mobile arrays, because there are some species that are critically endangered, and we see them quite a lot. And would be really interesting to know more. So actually, in the future, we're going to be doing a lot of research.

1:37:47 And right now at this time, we have a new student that he started a week, two weeks ago, specifically looking at the fishing of mobile arrays in the sea bay to better understand which areas they use, maybe eventually tag them. But yeah, we're doing that now. Okay, I just care. I mean, I mean, you can spend a whole career just doing the whale sharks. I'm sure, but just just so I know when I was there, there's just so many other species like that just there's like, they lend themselves a lot of good opportunity to do some other to do some other work there and stuff. And you're probably, as your organization grows, you're probably more and more doing all the all the bureaucratic paperwork, younger people be doing all the fun stuff.

1:38:31 Exactly. That's the trajectory all the the reason you got into it's like doesn't end up that way. You'll be busy with others. Well, is your is your focus the organization's focus is to find for the whale sharks anyway at this point is to find out, you know, where they are, where they go and who, who they are, like how many there are. Because because there's just no there wasn't information on that before. Now you have this longer term data set, you have almost 600 individuals that you've identified. Now you're even you know, you're you're you're well into the networking knowing people in Seychelles, obviously, Mozambique and elsewhere. So you're be able to understand, you know, just in in the general region of this of this part of the ocean, you'll be able to understand where they go.

1:39:14 Obviously, there's there's a lot more to accomplish in terms that distribution and you may, you know, just in a lifetime, we may or may not know where all these these different individuals go. Are there other aspects that is a priority for the organization other than distribution or is distribution such an important part that it takes up most of your, your role now and even in the future? Yeah, I was just talking about this today, there's so much to do, which is very exciting and also a bit overwhelming. And for me, it's really at this point, this kind of two priorities. One is exactly what you said, you know, where are the whale sharks that are using other places? And if so, you know, why is that? And that's just a super interesting research question.

1:40:02 But this there's also that growing tourism growing human pressure on that region, which is incredibly biodiverse, not just for the whale sharks. But you know, we've we've been surveying now for 10 years. We know it is all these other amazing species is the Omera whale. It's the only place in the world where you can see it on a regular basis to some back wheels as manta rays. And it's and it's being exploited for, you know, for tourism and and and the forests are being cut and you know, all of this is impacting eventually biodiversity. So for me that that's also, you know, super important that we continue to guide this development so that there is that awareness that stays with the communities with the tourism so it doesn't become empty in a few years. And so it's difficult to juggle both. Yeah.

1:40:51 But for sure. Well, and you're well positioned within the community too, because you know, with them, you've been working with them for 10 years, you know, the operators, you've been working with them, you know, how the businesses run because you've been watching it, you must have a, you must be in a unique position to work with them to ensure that hey, look, we want you guys not only to thrive, but we want the these whales to thrive. You can't thrive without these whales or sorry, whale sharks, you can't thrive without these whale sharks. So how like, how can we work together to do that? Do they do they get that point? A lot of the operas that you I'm sure the ones that you work with do. Yeah, it's, it's really a complicated topic because everyone's there to make to make a profit. And it's, you know, it's, it's a very poor country. So you're kind of stuck with really two audiences of people.

1:41:43 struggling to eat and going out fishing and putting themselves in really risky positions. And at the same time, a lot of experts coming in and making quite a lot of money and both are important and both need to cohabitate. So, and then you have authorities who are often, you know, difficult to work with or have other priorities. So it's, it's really juggling all of that and having the right arguments and it takes a lot of time. And people change like, you know, this year we had political crisis, all the ministers have changed again. So it's, it means you have to start again and again. And, and eventually, I mean, for me that conversation, it should be, you know, without us foreigners in, you know, it's about Malagasy people managing their heritage. So, so now with the, with the students, they're slowly becoming, you know, ambassadors and we have a really cool collaborative little project with other organizations working in, in the sea bay on, on coral reefs and teaching swimming lessons to communities and together we've kind of grown these, these, yeah, young people into ambassadors. So we're hoping now they can, you know, have these conversations. And I think that's, yeah, I mean, we're not, we shouldn't be the ones telling, telling them how to run the country. And for me, that's quite an important part of that conversation, but it's, it remains difficult.

1:43:04 And, and, you know, it's, it's, it's making a lot of money, the Welsh like industry. It's filling hotels, it's filling flights. So it's, you cannot stop it. And even if you forbid it, people are still going to do it because there's no enforcement. So it's about finding that, yeah, kind of balance. It's, yeah, it's, it's, I've seeked a lot of help on this and, and eventually, yeah, I mean, no one really knows how to do this. It's, it's, it's so different in each context. So you have to adapt and explore and test and yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Long term work. Well, yeah. I can imagine.

1:43:44 Ostal, this has been a, been a really terrific conversation with you. What, what advice would you have for someone who's like interested in pursuing a career, like maybe starting an NGO or something like you've done? What advice would you have for them? It's a lot of work. It's a lot of sacrifice. It's not for everyone. And I would say, be sure this is really what you want to do because of my experiences in the field. I've really told me this, you know, some stuff. I love doing it, but I wouldn't do it again. And I think it's really about finding where your strengths, strengths are and what you find easy, you know, this is where you should go. And I find, I find a lot now, I mean, at least, you know, 10, 15 years ago when I graduated, I was like, I'm going to do this. I mean, now this, this is one option, which is you do a PhD and you need to be, you know, modeling and, and you're going to be stuck doing data analysis for a while. But I mean, now this, there's so many avenues, you know, in conservation and in shark research, like the communication sector is huge.

1:44:43 The fundraising. We need like a lot of people on board with different skills. So I would really, I mean, we receive a lot of requests and, and, and I turn a lot of them down because like I said, we, we focus on, on training in country now, but I would really encourage anyone who has a passion or a talent, you know, how can you use that for the better good and in this case for sharks because we, yeah, we lack still a lot of, of these careers. Yeah. Sorry, final question here is where do you see yourself in the next say 10, 20 years? Where do you see yourself going?

1:45:24 It's a, yeah, it's, it's very short term how we plan things with the project because there's always all these emergencies and it's probably not the best way to run a project at the moment. Yeah, each year I tell myself it's too hard. I'm too tired. I want to, you know, move on and it's at the same time, it's, it's so exciting to keep growing the project and adapt each time and pivot and yeah, I love what I do. So really for me, so my ambition is, is I become some I guess he let you know, I can, I think I'm going to be still involved in some parts of it, but eventually that it has an impact. I mean, we're, we've done a lot of work on this project. I've done already a lot, but that it can, you know, keep coming up with these solutions and that eventually I can step back a bit and, and find the, yeah, good, talented Malagasy scientists who want to continue doing this. For me, that would be ideal. Yeah.

1:46:17 Yeah. That's great. Great. Well, that's terrific. That's terrific. Stella really enjoy having you here. We'll definitely have you back, come back again to some time and share some new, new, some new exciting science that you've been doing or new, new adventures you've had going on. And, but, but really thank you for coming on. And I just want to thank you. I had such a wonderful time getting to know you when I was in Madagascar and going out with you, even though we didn't see any whale sharks when I was out there. You need to come back. I need to come back and move next time. Next time you'll guarantee me I'll see whale sharks. So, uh, Dave, are you O for two for whale sharks? Cause you tried in Costa Rica too and you didn't get the whale sharks. I'm about, I'm about O for 10, be honest with you. I'm O for 10. It's like, you don't want to, anti, anti whale shark.

1:47:01 They don't like me for some reason. I don't know why they don't like me. They just, they disappear. So, uh, anyway, but thank, thank, thank you very much. Stella. Thank you again. Thank you so much. Yeah, we appreciate it. Thank you, Stella, for joining us on today's episode of the beyond jaws podcast. It was great to find out what it's like to run an organization. It's not an easy thing, folks. I think a lot of people are like, I'm going to have my own nonprofit organization. Well, when you run a nonprofit organization, you don't always get to do the science of the nonprofit organization as much because there's a lot of administrative stuff going on. And she talked about it in this episode and I thought it was really great to share that to say, Hey, you know what? Like, even though we're doing this and we're a small but nimble organization and we, we hire a lot of people that are local.

1:47:43 We're helping students understand more about what's happening with whale sharks so that they can eventually maybe either take over or start their own or be able to contribute to their own coastline and the information that goes on the coastline. I thought it was great. Dave, what were your thoughts on the episode? I was great. I thought she'd be a great guest to have on the show and she was. Absolutely. As really just like I said, she's, she's a dynamo and really gets, gets, gets going. It gets on these things. I think she's just, she's like a lot of people you have on the show. You know, she found a lot of people that are going to be there. Yeah. It's just, you know, she's from Belgium, she didn't grow up like diving and you know, pretty reefs and all that kind of stuff. She just kind of, but she went there and did some intern, you know, with some of the other groups, Simon Pierce and others.

1:48:25 And she is. She found her passion and it really, I guess the kind of the neat thing about our podcast, we really bring people on here just have found their passion in life and they just do what they need to do to pursue that. And um, it's really, it's really kind of rewarding. rewarding I think and just really the kind of having people on that because I think that that synergy sort of builds you get somebody on there that's excited about it and hopefully you know we reach some young people out there listening to this podcast and they're just like yeah that's what I want to do and they kind of hopefully they pick up a little bit on how other people like Stella and others have done it and it kind of gives them a bit of inspiration to pursue their own their own passion. Yeah absolutely I think it's I think it's wonderful you know to be able to study a shark like the whale shark and be able to find out more information about it and contribute to the information is just like you said all along day for pick up a species that people don't know a lot about and find out as much as possible on that shark and it works every single time.

1:49:26 We see with the angel shark project we see with whale sharks we see with lost sharks like it's just or a kind of terms not a kind of terms of go sharks sorry the chimeras yeah I'm thinking of starfish for some reason but chimeras like it's just it's pretty cool when people start to look into this the amount of information they can pull up and be able to share with people all over the world and they do that with this podcast which is great. Yeah I was going to say it was really kind of cool too because she she shared this new science this new science this movement patterns that they have have the whale shark they had their first one show up out in the sey shells of all places and which was on the one hand it wasn't too surprising but the fact that they actually got documentation now that went out there and she was real excited about it and actually we recorded the show she has a paper coming out on it on it we kind of we had we've held the episode up for a couple of weeks just published yeah but we we didn't want to we don't want to usurper her her paper coming out and but that was pretty exciting I know when when she had it she she was still in Madagascar a couple months ago and she sent me a message about this about this amazing find she had she was so excited about it and she's like okay now don't tell anybody want to get this application out really quickly so that was so exciting exciting for me because I kind of I knew a little bit was going on there I thought oh great we'll have to have her on the podcast there to talk about and share this amazing discovery for her so that was good that was it was great we're able to do that accommodate people like her come on the show and and be able to share that exciting science and hopefully we'll be doing that again with other

1:50:57 guests later later this year. I can't wait it's going to be a it's going to be a lot of fun so that's the episode if you guys have any questions or comments let us know if you're watching this on YouTube in the comments below or if you're watching this on on on like if you're listening to this on your favorite podcast app you can reach out to Dave or I beyond jaws pod can get both of us if you want to reach out today specifically at lost shark guy on Instagram as well as any other social platform that you can find X I think Facebook it's at last shark guy. Yeah, the usual places the usual places. Yeah, so beyond just pod on Instagram for us to get both of us and you know, we just want to thank you so much for joining us and listening to this episode always love to hear your thoughts and we can't wait to hear your thoughts in the future.

1:51:43 So thank you so much for joining us on today's episode of the Beyond Jaws podcast from Dave and I your hosts. We thank you so much. Have a great day and happy conservation.