Sharks and Hurricanes: Aaron Carlisle’s Journey From Jaws Trauma to Shark Science

1:00:00 We have Aaron Carlisle on the episode today for Beyond Jaws. It's going to be a fun one. We're going to be talking about sharks and hurricanes. Yes, that's all I have to say. Sharks and hurricanes. We're going to talk about that on today's episode of the, oh, we're going to talk about that on today's episode of the Beyond Jaws podcast. Let's start the show. Hey everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the Beyond Jaws podcast. I'm your co-host, Andrew Lewin. Here with my other co-host, Dr. David Ebert. Dave, are you ready to talk about sharks and hurricanes? Oh, absolutely. And especially today because Aaron Carlisle was a former student at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories. We had the Pacific Shark Research Center funded about 20 years ago. And so I've known Aaron a long time.

1:00:40 And I've got to say, I'm looking forward to this one here with the shark NATO angle is definitely coming to play during this discussion today. Yeah, for sure. You know, being at the University of Delaware, it talks about, you know, how he got there, you know, the different schools that he went to, the challenges that he faced, doing his Masters, doing his PhD. There's a lot to go into here. What do you think people should really listen to in this interview? I think some of the stuff we talked about, like we talked a bit about, like, as you go, if you're pursuing a degree in marine science, thinking about each step of the way you go. As we comment on the Masters degrees, you know, certainly you can't go wrong with that. But yeah, if you're thinking about a PhD, we have some advice for you, what you really need to think about if you're entertaining, pursuing a PhD, which a lot of people today are, but you got to decide and we have some really good comments.

1:01:33 We talk about that. Yeah. And I really think that's important for young people if you're listening, especially if you're in the in that field now and you're thinking about it, listen to what we have to say because I think it'd be really helpful for you. Absolutely. So let's get into the interview with Dr. Aaron Carlyle from the University of Delaware. Here's the interview and we'll talk to you after. Hey, Aaron. Welcome to the Beyond Jaws podcast. Are you ready to talk about sharks and hurricanes? Oh, boy, am I ever. Well, welcome to the Beyond Jaws podcast where we have an awesome special guest today. Have you seen the tagline sharks and hurricanes on social media recently and wondered what the heck that was about? Well, today, our guest is going to tell you about that about a real life shark NATO.

1:02:15 Our guest is Dr. Aaron Carlyle and Aaron is an assistant professor of fisheries ecology at the University of Delaware. His research focuses on how a bat abiotic and biotic environmental and orgasm biology interface to influence behavior distribution and ecology of species and how these interactions impact their population dynamics, life history strategies and ecosystem. He uses a variety of approaches and technologies such as stable isotope analysis, biologuing combined with new ways to provide unique insights into marine species. Aaron's a member of the IUCN shark specialist group and is an active member of the American Elasmal Break Society and the American Fisheries Society. He has over 70 peer reviewed publications.

1:02:56 They mentioned he's an assistant professor of fisheries ecology at the University of Delaware. Aaron did his bachelor's degree at Princeton University and he did his master's at the really the Cadillac of places, the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, which is where I'm based at. And in fact, I've known Aaron for 20 something years now, a long time. And then he went on to his PhD at Stanford University. With that, Aaron, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Always to talk about anything sharky. Cool. Very nice. Cool. Well, so start off with our first question. We always wanted to find out people like how do you get interested in sharks and marine science in general? So I mean, it will surprise you.

1:03:39 But like think about my age, I was born, I hate to say in 1977. So what do you think led to my interest in shark? Sharknado, Sharknado, Sharknado, right? Star Wars was a Star Wars. Star Wars. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was Jaws. It was Jaws. So my father was a the I grew up in the Puget Sound up in Washington. Very nice. And on the island and my dad was a family practice doctor and he was working the emergency room overnight. And I was two or three. And he came home very tired. My mom went out to do something and left me with him.

1:04:20 I have an older brother who was in this side doing something and younger sister too. But at the point when she came back, Jaws was on TV. My dad was asleep on the couch and I was sitting on his lap watching Jaws. And my eyes were like dinner plates like huge. And my dad was just snoring and she was like, what did you do? And so I was traumatized in a terrible, terrible way. There's Jaws was everywhere in every body of water, the toilet, the bathtub, the sink. And when you live on an island, you have to take a ferry to get to the mainland. And so Jaws was just chomping at the bit to get us and sink the ferry whenever we go back to the mainland.

1:05:05 And so that I was literally terrified of sharks for a very long time. And that just morphed into fascination. I was like morbidly fascinated. And I started reading about him. I started learning about him just reading every book, everything I could find about him. And I just that turned into interest over time. And I would have never in a thousand years thought that I would be where I am studying sharks is like a job now. But it started back then. Thanks to Jaws again. Jaws 50th anniversary. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You know, a lot of people I think got their inspiration for that and from that. And yeah, so here I am. So so when you so much at what point were you like in grade school or high school when you decided like you wanted to do sharks or?

1:05:51 I never actually so. So my my uncle is a marine biologist at Scripps. And he was a well-known ecologist did a lot of Antarctic research kelp horse ecology. His name is Paul Dayton for anyone who knows the guy and so I didn't know who he was like he was kind of a big wig in the marine ecology world. And I didn't know that at all. He was my uncle and I was always very excited about the ocean and he would tell me stories and that was a big part of it also beyond an island. You can't get away from the ocean. Right. But I would tell him about sharks and he told me Aaron, you shouldn't waste your time studying sharks. You should study something important like crabs.

1:06:34 Like a true invertebrate zoo. Exactly. And he has since apologized many many times and said you were right. I was wrong. But you know, it was kind of this this combination of Jaws with my uncle being a marine biologist. They're hearing because he was one of the first generation of like divers. He built his own scuba gear. And he was back in like this 50s and the stories he told me just inspired me and I just it just kind of was a virus that got into me and I could get rid of it and then being on an island you can't get away from the ocean. Yeah. So it was just it was part of me and now I'm I'm just lucky enough to keep turning this and do a job and career and play around with the ocean.

1:07:15 It's wonderful. I have a story. I have a quick story of my supervisor for my master's when he was my undergraduate teacher at University of Guelph. We he talked about how he was a plankton biologist was was his background and I remember he you know, he asked us when we first started the class. He said, you know, who who here wants to study whales who here wants to say sharks and people put up whales and he's like, they're useless. Plankton is where you have to go. And he I think people are so angry at him at the end at the end of the class because he just kept mentioning that because he was a plankton biologist. Of course, it's going to think like that. But it was just very it was very interesting.

1:07:55 And that's and that's similar to me. Like when I was I was I've always been interested in sharks. But then when I actually when I was an undergrad, I ended up taking a summer class subtitling college at Hopkins Marine Station, Stanford University, which is where I ended up doing my PhD in postdoc. And it was the most it was an amazing, beautiful experience. I we were diving. It was subtitling college. You were diving every day, learning kelp forest ecology, all the invertebrates, all the fish, all the plants, all the algae. It was amazing. And I that's what led me to kind of apply to grad school. I was like, I really like this.

1:08:35 Yeah. And my uncle actually told me if you want to study fish, you should go to Moss Laney Marine Labs because there's a guy there. Greg, who's like one of the best only old school ecologist, ecologist that will teach you everything about fish. Yeah. I was like, huh, okay, so let's do that. Yeah. And and so that's kind of what led me down this this path that led me to Moss Landing was just Miranda. My my uncle telling me you should do this. And I ended up doing it, but it was it was just kind of this confluence of events that led to this. And because once I got into Greg's lab, he was very anti not anti shark, but anti flashy things.

1:09:18 And right things like that. And I was like, I don't want to do sharks because, you know, that's that's not what a serious marine biologist does. They study things like plankton and crab. Everyone knows that. And so and then I ended up just falling into this leopard shark kind of idea. And it was largely through a lot. Dave Ebert, like our wonder, your wonderful host had a big part of that. And along with our other Pope grad students at the time, Joe Bizarro and Wade Smith, who were like, hey, you should do something like this. And and then another the guy who's actually my co-advisor was Rick Starr, who worked for California Sea Grant.

1:09:59 He had the telemetry expertise that he very generally taught me everything I know about that stuff. And so is is I'm sure everyone probably would tell you it's like it's we are all products of everyone we interact with through our past. And the only reason any of us get anywhere is through our network of people that get us there. Yeah. And so it's funny because you're a plankton crab, whatever. It's like there's the people are like, this is what's important. So I really avoided sharks for as long as I could just because I didn't want to be one of those people. I don't want to be a whale. I don't want to be shark hugger. But I couldn't avoid it. It just happened. I was going to say you can imagine what Greg Kaya was also my adviser when I did my master's back in the early 80s. And you can imagine what it was like going to Greg back in the early 80s right after Jaws had come out, Mr.

1:10:46 Anti-flashlight, you know. But I actually started doing the shark stuff at that time. But it was but he did it from more of a an ecology standpoint. The sharks were just like another fish, something to do with it. It wasn't like there's anything flashy. And it was such a and even when you when you started there in the early 2000s, it was a different is very different than it even is today. I think in terms of what you agree with the shark in the terms of the shark. Oh, 100 percent. Very different. You know, everything has changed. Yeah, it wasn't. Wasn't so here. Here's a question for you. You and Andrew are kind of in that middle group for my age group to the younger kids that are like in school now. You're kind of in that middle group. But do you think you think like the social media stuff has changed a lot of that landscape?

1:11:28 Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's it's yeah. I mean, it's it's changed everything. It's not just shark science. It's it's society and culture and civilization. Yeah, honestly, I mean, it's it's it's probably the most the biggest change in my culture for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it was because it was like when you said you're doing sharks is like, okay, it's like wasn't like such a even when you were back. There at Mossland. It wasn't like a wasn't like today or seemed like there's more. There's more of a like, oh, wow, sharks kind of thing where still it was like it was a it was a fish for study. Yeah. And well, I'm back then you to be, you know, quote unquote shark person.

1:12:14 You had to go through school. You had to publish all these papers. You had to be one of like two or three people that's asked to be on like National Geographic or BBC. Yeah. This is before shark week. Yeah. And you know, not really, but you know, round time. And now you can just jump in the water with a shark, take some pictures, you become a shark expert. Yeah. And it's about social media, about the exposure. And it's not about actual expertise or training or knowledge. It's about your your likes and your if that's my own, you know, I'm being no, you're right. And you're sure I mean, people people look at it. And if you have a lot of followers, it's almost like you have a PhD, you know, where people will this person has so many followers, this person can do so much with it, whether that's right, like whether they do or not is irrelevant, is people are like, oh, people really like this person because there's you have like million followers, two million followers, 10,000 followers.

1:13:09 But if you have like, you know, if you're an actual PhD and you don't you're not on social media all that much, but you share, you know, some of your stuff on online, it's more scientific based, but you only have like 200 followers, people are like, well, you don't really, you don't have a lot of influence. It's like, it's very different. It definitely changes the way the public sees you as an expert, quote, unquote, expert. Because as you said, Aaron, like, you know, somebody with jumps in, jumps in, I mean, well, if we've all seen anybody has seen, which I don't recommend, the dancing was short. The dancing was sharks show that they had this week, this year for sharks week, which was absolutely atrocious. You know, like they were calling them shark experts and and shark wranglers and all this kind of stuff.

1:13:51 And you're just like, what are we doing here, folks? Like, what is this, you know? Yeah, absolutely. A hundred percent. And like, I mean, it's that shark week, everything. It's like when I've been watching some of the shark week, this year, shark week episodes. I've tried to watch some just to kind of keep my feel on the pole. Yeah, it's so hard. It's so hard to make it through any of them. Yeah. And you see these people in my my daughter will say, Leah will say, Who's this person? You know, I'm like, yeah, and they're like, they know what they're doing. Like, no, they're just they're, they're videographer. And they've just done it long enough where they've kind of taken on this persona of being a shark expert or marine biologist or whatever. Yeah, yeah.

1:14:32 Yeah, like they there's always one or two of those episodes in that week where you're like, Oh, this is interesting. Like they've taken actual scientific study and they've kind of visualized it, which is kind of cool. Sharkfest, I find does more of that these days, where they actually take like a scientific. Lauren Meyer was on it with. Yeah, I won't forget the name. But yeah, Charlie, Charlie, Charlie. Yeah. And they, these are some cool ones. But yeah, I think it's I think it's really interesting the way it's it's gone these days. Yeah, and when I when I, you know, if I come across as badmouthing and poo pooing that stuff, I don't mean to do that. I mean, everyone tries to find their niche and make a living and that's fine. And so it's no no, no ill will to any anyone doing any of that. It's just it's something where I'm like, I don't, I still have imposter syndrome for what I do. And so I'm like, it took me a while.

1:15:23 When can I say I'm actually a marine biologist? I asked my wife, Aaron, like, when can I say I'm a marine biologist? And yeah, I don't, I say I'm a marine biologist. I still sometimes I'm like, I can't believe that I'm actually considered to be an expert in anything. Right. It's a real. Yeah. You know, I would just say it's really true because like nowadays anybody if they just get on have a, you know, social media account, YouTube, they're an expert on it. But I know, like, I know just for myself, like, I've done a PhD, a postdoc, I'd written a book published, like, two dozen papers, I still didn't consider myself like any kind of an expert. It wasn't until like some of my mentors, like Greg Kye and some of those guys said, it's okay, Dave, you can like acknowledge like you know, something about sharks at this point in time, that I actually like, okay, I guess I know something. But I wasn't, I had to get that sort of peer review, that literally like a peer review before I get to acknowledge it.

1:16:19 I didn't just couldn't, I just didn't feel comfortable saying it. And whereas today, I think it's just a very different, different world, very different thresholds and the bars are different, you know, for sure. And with that said, you know, there are some great scientists who are on social media who are sharing actual science, you know, which is great. I love to see that type of science. They are, you know, either becoming experts as they're doing their PhD, or they're doing their grad work, and they're sharing that, that experience and so forth. And you have some really great communicators out there who have become great communicators as they do more of this, this kind of stuff. And I think it'll benefit it'll be an interesting thing to see this new generation that have grown up with social media from birth, you know, and to see how that that reacts.

1:17:06 I'll never forget my, my daughter, who's now, you know, 16 and, you know, walking up to the TV when she was just like a year and a bit, you know, with in diapers and her little stuffy and she's trying to swipe the TV open, you know, like, that's how that's how it's changed, you know, and it's crazy to think like she thought that was a huge iPad or tablet. You know, which today it could be, you never know, right? But, but I mean, that's, that's how it's changed. It's gonna be interesting to see how things are shared, you know, compared to like, you know, the way science is shared now, which is over, or how it was like still now, but even before was peer reviewed papers, but we realize those don't get shared with the general public.

1:17:52 So unless someone's out there doing a talk to the public, or do a talk at an aquarium or zoo or at a university lecture hall, that information wasn't getting out to people, including like managers who needed the information to, to make better decisions. So I think social media definitely adds to that, that aspect, I think it'd be, it's gonna be interesting to see how that gets shared. Another question, Aaron, for you, because you're, do you have PhD students that you're, you know, okay, I thought you thought you so because now when even back when you were going through and I definitely when I was going, finished like a master's, go to master's is like, when I was going through was a big deal. And if you're gonna do a PhD, you really had to give it a lot of thought and like your advisors like, you know, Greg, I like I'm sure with you. And I remember even talking to you a bit is like, you gave us some thought like, is this really is it worth doing the PhD for what I want to go in my career, if you're, if you're gonna become like a professor, like you are, clearly, you need to do a PhD, but in a lot of positions, you don't need that.

1:18:49 But today, it seems like everybody wants to do that PhD, so they can say that their doctor, whoever, you know, and I try to tell people like, and you probably do as well, like, think about if you if this is really where you want to go, because you can almost be overly qualified. Yep. Yep. 100% correct. I every single potential student I talked to, I bring this up. And I tell them like, you know, PhD is if you want to get it for just to have it by your PhD by your name, great. But don't do it for employment or job or and if you can afford to do it, but it's it's only useful for certain situations.

1:19:31 And it's in some place, sometimes it hurts masters never hurt. Right. Masters only help. It never is a bad thing. But once you get a PhD, you are pigeonholed, you're overqualified, even for things you would love to do. And you won't get hired because they're gonna assume you're not going to be happy being at a not running the show because what if you want to give a PhD, you're gonna want to run the show. That's the whole idea is that you only do if you want to manage something run something, have a program that does x, y, z. And so it's not useful for many, many, many, many, many people. And so it's hard to kind of disabuse young students that like, I want to get a PhD and you ask them why and they're like, well, I just always wanted to.

1:20:19 And I'm great if you really want to and you want to take the time to do it without having any potential employment on the other side, just given the reality of being a marine science and opportunities to get jobs and careers. It may not it's not gonna be necessarily worth it. You need to think about it. Yeah, it's a it's something you and I were talking about before we came on air here was that really, it's in I can speak from being a college in the late 70s and early 80s. There's never been like a lot of jobs in this field. The only the only blip was in the 60s. When they had when the US and the Soviets were in this sort of science space race, really, it was a space race that really, they put a lot of money in this in both space and into the oceans.

1:21:06 But except for in the 1960s there, it's never been a field people would would go into because there just was not many jobs that you have a few but not many. And so people today, young people, they say, you know, they're worried about jobs. Well, it's never been a field. There's a lot of jobs involved in and so people, you know, young people listening, think about you should think about that. And I think what you said to is a master's you can't go wrong. You'll learn skills that will be very helpful to you. But PhD got a really think specially this student debt now coming out of this. Yeah, it's it's I mean, who wants to run up like I don't know what it costs to go for PhD at University of Delaware, but I'm probably guessing is a couple hundred grand to do a PhD at least.

1:21:48 I don't actually even know. But I mean, the whole point of the PhD is hopefully you are paying for it. So that's true. But there I mean, there's living expenses and everything like that. It can be a lot of money. It's time. It's time. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it takes it takes both of you, you know, right into your basically early 30s. If you're doing a P for the PhD, it's not something you're going to be done with. I mean, if you're very, very good, you might finish by your late 20s. But more likely, it's going to be somewhere in your early 30s or later before you actually finish. Even later for me when I went to Moss Landing, had the Moss landing like five year masters or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. But anyways, listen, yeah, the problem with Moss Landing is they got like the five year masters program. Some people could be seven or eight even talked to Wade Smith and Joe Bizarro. If you know what I'm talking about. And they actually like the Cal State instituted a limit on the masters the length of time you could be a master student, because there's a guy I don't know if you probably knew him Dave, Dave Ventress.

1:22:51 Oh, yeah. And he was the Institute of the Limited 14 years because of how long you took to the Yeah, I don't remember exactly but it was a 12 or it was a long time. And so there it's mostly has a reputation of being like the, you know, jazz, jazz freeform Odyssey of the marine sciences where you just kind of go in you get accepted and you meander your way through over X number of years because Well, a lot of a lot of the faculty they used to have their Moss Lane was not like your easy masters thing they they when I started there. I don't know. It might have been similar when you did as well Aaron, but it was like they used to brag about how only 20% of the students that started actually finished their masters.

1:23:36 Yeah, I know. I mean, now. Yeah, literally only one. I mean, literally be like only one in five a year can actually finish. This is a masters. I know. That's and that and but and then but then they say then they say like, yeah, and like something but of those that finish like, you know, 60% of you will go on for PhDs. And of course, when you're when you're your first week of school that you're like, Jesus Christ, I just want to get a master's the health of PhD. And so it was yeah, Moss Lane was definitely like a boot camp for crazy people. It were say domestic is man because it was not an easy program to get through it was not and you know, the thing is, is like it's PhD light. And so I mean, I ended up with like four or five publications for my masters, which is more than most.

1:24:25 I had seven. Yeah, seven. So I learned a tremendous amount of muscle and sacrifice your turn. I would do it again if given the chance because I love so much. So important. I'll say the one the flip side, like when you got to do your PhD and you had to do things like qualifying exams and and and and seminars, qualifying seminar, it was like I was your product to see like, I've already done this. What? Yeah, it was honestly, that was the thing. Once you kind of went through that when you get to PhD was like, okay, I'm going to do that. So PhD was like, whatever, I can keep doing this forever. Fine. Yeah, yeah. It's pretty, it's pretty, it's pretty straightforward. So so I guess that's the flip side or one thing at Moss Landing, but it's, it's definitely a school for people that want to have a sadomasic, make that sadomasicistic, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:25:12 Yeah, yeah. So, so you went along, so you've got your, she got you when you let me ask you, I here's the point, I don't even know this, I should know this, but when you were at Moss Landing, what point did you decide you're gonna do a PhD or do you already know you're going to do one? Oh, basically, once I graduate was approaching graduation, realizing holy cow, I don't know what I'm doing. I got to get a job or do something I was like, what am I gonna do? And I really enjoyed that I learned that I enjoyed research a lot. And that's one thing I learned and was beat into me was like, hey, if you're gonna go through this process, you really have to enjoy research in the process of science, which is a lot of frustration and dealing with setbacks.

1:25:53 And it's all about perseverance and resilience and bouncing back when things go wrong, because things just basically always go wrong. Right? They never go right. Always. And so it was that that point when I was like, okay, what am I gonna do? I'm like, well, I kind of want to do PhD. But at that point, I was I was married, my wife had a great job in the area. And I was like, I'm not gonna move my family around. What are the opportunities in the areas? You see Santa Cruz, Stanford, a few places. So I cast my net around and tried to talk to people in the area who did PhD programs. And I ended up talking at my Greg actually introduced me to Barbara block at Stanford, he knew her and I was graduating, he ended up emailing her saying, Hey, I have a shark guy looking for a shark guy, he was pretty good.

1:26:41 And she said, Yeah, I actually am her student, Kevin Wang, who's now at Virginia Institute of Science was just graduating, he ran kind of like, was a big part of their white shark research project, salmon sharks, stuff like that. He was heading out, and she was looking for someone to step in, and I was in the right place at the right time. And so much of this is that kind of that dynamic where you're just happened to be situated to be able to take advantage of an opportunity when it presents itself. And I was lucky enough to get in because Stanford was is not a place where you apply and this advisor wants you to get in, you have to apply to the school, you get evaluated amongst everyone. And you're not necessarily get in even if your advisor wants you.

1:27:22 And so I was lucky enough to get in with Barbara block. And once I got in, I was I was set. And I was going and doing all kinds of crazy stuff with pelagic sharks and salmon sharks, white sharks, tunas, everything was an amazing opportunity to learn a tremendous amount. But it was so much of that was just like is based on the realities of life and having a family and have you balance the need because oftentimes people you got to go over here, you got to go different places for your PhD postdoc masters, whatever. And I was that never worked out for me just for my family in my life. And so I ended up being in the moderate Bay Area in California for almost 20 years doing all the following, which is a great place to do marine science.

1:28:05 So if you're going to end up and being stuck trying to figure out how to make your way in marine science, Monterey Bay Area is a great place to be. Yeah, yeah. So you are one of the things you did work on that because I get this all the time is these you worked on salmon sharks, these little salmon sharks. And if you live on the west coast here, people see us on social media, but people would call call up Mossland all the time like hey, they're a little white shark washed up on the beach. And you ask like, well, how big is it about three feet? Well, it's not a white shark. It's actually a salmon shark. Now you worked on those to kind of figure out and cover the mystery of why these things were beach in themselves. Could you talk about that? Yeah, yeah, no. So that was, you know, it was such a fun project.

1:28:49 And it was just kind of trying to because that was that was a consistent thing. Like you said, there were these little laminated sharks and these little just sausages of sharks. The cutest thing you could ever imagine. Little, little miniaturized shrunken white sharks would be on the beach. And every now and then it would happen. We get calls, we go collect them. But the question has always been, why are these sharks stranding and not it's not like shark strand all the time. They rarely do. And one of the unusual things about salmon sharks is their regional endotherms, which means they generate and retain their own body. They're actually warm their body above ambient water temperature. And so they actually they salmon sharks and poor beagles, the two species in the genus lambda are like the kings of endothermy.

1:29:39 So they they generate, they raise their body temperature by about 21 degrees C above ambient. So basically, if the water temperature is a little above zero, 10 degrees Fahrenheit, their body temperature is like 80 or 85 degrees Fahrenheit. Right. So they they are warm sharks in a cold ocean. And so that endothermy has some great benefits, but also potentially important limitations. And one of the issues is is that salmon sharks, because they're endothermic, they generate a lot of their body heat with their red muscles. So red muscle and white muscle are the two kinds of muscle. Most of fish muscle mass is white muscle is white because there's not much blood flow, not much vascularization mitochondria my globe and all this other stuff.

1:30:29 The red muscle is the the marathon runner. So it's thinking about a bird. It's like the leg muscles versus the breast. So the legs are what they're always using the red dark meat versus the white meat is the white muscle. And so the dark meat is for constant movement, constantly doing things. And so the salmon sharks and other endothermic sharks, which are just in the family land today, for the most part, they have these big masses of red muscle. They're located right next to their backbone in the middle of their body. And they generate a lot of heat and they have these counter current heat exchangers that trap the heat in the middle of the body. They also counter current heat exchangers in their head and their guts and their stomach kidneys, spleen, things like that.

1:31:11 They trap the heat, the metabolic heat because the end product of all biological processes is heat generation and heat loss. And so they trap that and they elevate their body temperature with let's that when that lets them swim faster because their brains warmer. They can think faster. They can see faster, actually. They're digest meals faster. They can grow faster. Everything is sped up. But so one of the limitations of that is that when you're small, if your body temperature drops, the red muscle stops working. So there is some great papers that came out that showed that when the red muscle of salmon sharks gets below about 20 degrees centigrade, 18 to 20 degrees, it stops working. It just doesn't work anymore. It doesn't generate power, doesn't do anything.

1:32:00 And so if their body temperature drops too far, they're going to get stressed out and die. And so what our theory was, was not not just mine, but lots of people. I was just the one that kind of tested it. But was that maybe this is associated with cold shock. And so if you think about the coast of California, we have a very intense upwelling season where there's these huge masses of very cold, deep water that gets sucked up to the surface very quickly. And it can drop your the water temperature by seven to 10 degrees centigrade or something like that. And so very almost instantaneously. So if you're a little tiny, warm shark, that's a meter long, so three feet long or so.

1:32:47 And you all of a sudden get stuck in this bolus of this huge mass of very cold water, your red muscles not going to work, you're going to get super stressed out. And so the one thing that they found is that when they started looking at these sharks, because they behave really weird when they're stranding, so people would see them floundering in the surf and eventually end up on the beach. And so they acted weird. And they looked and they found that they had these massive brain infections, they had meningioencephalitis, and this very particular kind of bacteria. And the bacteria is associated in aquaculture salmon, aquaculture, things like that with stress. So whenever the salmon are handled, they get these outbreaks of this, this bacterial infection. And so basically, the idea was maybe these animals get stressed because of cold shock, and it basically infects their brain gives them this massive brain systemic infection.

1:33:42 And every salmon shark that's been looked at, for the most part, I think actually everyone that's been looked at baby salmon shark has had this infection. And so when you actually start to look at when they strand, like so if I find that they've the sharks stranded Monterey Bay and I look at, okay, what's going on Monterey Bay for the last two weeks, because these infections happen and resolve themselves very quickly. So once they get that infection, they die pretty quickly within a week or two. So we basically started looking at where every stranding event, let's look back in the history within a certain area around the stranding area. And every time that we looked back, it was very cold, there was a severe upwelling event. And so our theory is that they get stuck in this cold water because of their warm physiology, it stresses them out, triggers this massive brain infection, they end up stranding. And they've ended up seeing the same infection in common threshers.

1:34:34 Which are another endothermic shark, and even potentially juvenile leopard white sharks, maybe I think maybe there might have been a white shark they found. I don't remember. I haven't been keeping up with the literature so much, but it's it was a cool because it was like a detective story. And you actually find records the very first salmon shark who's actually described was described in central California by David Starr Jordan, who is the first president of Stanford and the famous ecthiologist in America, one of the most important, right? American ecthiologist. Also a little bit racist, it turns out, but you know, by God's, I guess. But the salmon shark was described in that salmon shark he first collected is at Calicad, I think. And it was a very interesting thing.

1:35:17 And it was stranded. It was a little baby salmon shark that stranded back in 1880. And so these stranding events go way back. And so there's been some insinuations that this is contaminants and pollution and whatever. And no, the fact is, they've been stranding as long as we've been around. Wow. So yeah, anyway, along with the dancer. Yeah, they do. You see similar things with poor beagle sharks, which are a close relative of the salmon sharks, not in the Atlantic, but it's like in the in the round here, there's not really a whole lot of upwelling in the same way that you get in California and in the eastern boundary currents in the in in Europe. I don't know if there's baby poor beagles around there.

1:35:57 So here here's something that hasn't been studied. But I just know this from having lived there in South Africa, they get these cold snaps, we get the warm water coming from the gala's down towards the western Cape and it meets with the Benguela current right there at Cape Point. But at times of the year, the first few records of crocodile sharks, Pseudo Carcarius, Kamahari, which is a little which is a little laminate. It only gets like two feet long. Go, go check it out. It's called crocodile sharks. The first records of these things from South Africa were beach wash around Cape Town. And this is I, I picked up ever looked in them, like in terms of like in like red muscle distribution.

1:36:38 This was this was back in like in the late 80s, early 90s when I was a student there. It wasn't even I was just like, oh, I just washed up. And there's a few other there's a few other sharks would wash up. You'd see occasionally in a bull shark or a couple others. But these little crocodile sharks, which the guys would occasionally catch offshore in the tuna fisheries because they're a pelagic species, they would wash up on the beaches like around Cape Town. And I know I probably picked up 234 of them that I I came across. And but they fit exactly what you're talking about with a lot of red muscle mass. These are very high speed little sharks. And again, if you're listening, go check out a crocodile shark. They're cool. Very cool. Very cool shark.

1:37:21 But but we used to get these cold snaps and you would see again, this is all ancidodal stuff, but you would see these occasions I'd come across these little people that come. And people come. I wasn't the only person other people would see him occasionally. Not not big numbers, but you find one here, one there on the beaches. Yeah, that's the crocodile sharks on my bucket list. I've never seen one. I've been fascinating with them for years. I read about them. I was looking at one right now. I got it. Dude, I can tell you where you could see like literally hundreds of them. If you want, if you want to tell me and we can do it offline because I want to see. I want to see a crocodile shark. Oh my god. I you can. Yeah, I saw more croc.

1:38:02 I've seen them, but I got a place. We'll talk later. We'll talk after the show. Alright, cool. Let's do it. We can see a lot of we can see a lot of crocodile sharks. I need to see a crocodile shark. They're really they're they're an awesome little they're definitely one. I've always would have been interested to do like an ecology study on but I could never get enough of them. It's such a low hanging fruit. I mean, that's the that to me is like that's one of the few lambda form like one of that group of sharks. It's like. I mean, I think that group of sharks is left. It's really no one knows much about no they they do catch him in tuna fisheries. These are these pelagic fisheries. They catch those out there. They some places they'll catch them and I think out in the Hawaiian Islands, they'll catch. This is not the place I'm talking about, but they're they'll catch him out in the Hawaiian Islands, but they just throw them back because they're not they're small little sharks. They're not worth anything. The fins are small.

1:38:46 There's they just throw them back, but I think a lot of the pelagic fisheries probably catch them more frequently than people realize. Yeah. And they're and and just if you're curious, if you have to look at a pitch, if people are looking at the show, if you want to look at them, they're vicious little leaders too. They're like they're like they they they'll eat cephalopods elite other bony fishes small shark. I mean, they're like they're pretty pretty vicious little critters. So anyway, I know that they're just just to let people know if you look up crocodile sharks and you look for images, there's a lot of AI of crocodile sharks. They're not accurate. So make sure you're looking up the right ones because there's a lot real sharks. They're like, is that it? No, they don't look like crocodiles. They don't look like crocodiles. Yeah. I'll say that just just for your intro, the scientific name is pseudo carcarius Kamahara. So I know it's a mouthful to say but just look for something like that. Pseudo blah blah blah. You can figure it out from there. We'll put the picture. Maybe we can fit it in. We'll put the picture in there so people can can see what they look like because they're they're cool. Very torpedo. Has anyone ever filmed a crocodile shark?

1:39:55 Yeah, not that I'm aware of no no actually I've never seen any I've never actually pictures of him swimming. He's always on the deck. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They sit at. Oh, hey here. Here. I have no idea. They're they're kind of pelagic. They're anywhere from the surface to a couple few hundred meters. Actually, here's a here's a plug for my YouTube searching for lost sharks. If you go to episode two searching for lost sharks extinct or alive on my YouTube channel at lost shark guy. There's a I found some crocodile sharks. I found some crocodile sharks at the fish market in Ecuador. So you can see you see a good picture of holding one right in that in that thing. So get some samples next time. Yeah, exactly. But more importantly, you need to subscribe to the channel. The YouTube my YouTube channel.

1:40:41 I'll I'll subscribe if I get samples. Okay, we can work that out. That's not a problem. So cool. Well, that's that's kind of a nice little sign. Anybody listen out there. Any students that wants to look for a project. There you go. Crocodile sharks and cold water sharks. And I can see you're going to be like, oh, I'm going to get a better snaps. See, see, I mean, and the thermia is so cool. Yeah. I can talk forever about endothermy is fascinating. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. So so I got so we've covered that was one the other thing I really wanted to talk to you about. And what really prompted me to get a hold of you to come on the show is sharks and hurricanes has been on the social media. And of course, I'm thinking shark NATO. And and so I have to in your manager.

1:41:25 There's also your wife happened to be promoting that very heavily on social media. I hate social media. So I have no social media presence. And so my wife, Aaron does a wonderful job advertising for me. And I appreciate it because I will never do that. So can you tell us about the sharks and the hurricanes and how it's related to shark NATO? Whoo. Yeah, no. So it's kind of funny because we've been working on this project for five years or so. And I think the idea has been going even further back, not so much hurricanes, but the animals as ocean sensors has been people have been doing it for a long time. And elephant seals have been for decades at this point, but carrying these, these tags on their head, these big tags made by sea mammal research unit, Smuru and St. Andrews University, Scotland. And they're the only company that makes these kind of tags that collect oceanographic quality data. And the idea is the elephant seals and swim come up to the surface when they would take these profiles in the ocean, going down and back up the temperature, the salinity, the depth at depth. And then they were sent back to the satellites whenever they surface these profiles. And they're using that it just like a research vessel to go out, you can either spend 10s of thousands of dollars a day to send a research vessel out to drop CTD profiles, conductivity, temperature, depth profiles. It's the basic sensor kind of unit that we use in oceanography

1:42:56 down through the water column to figure out what's going on physically environment and and so especially that in terms of the mixed layer depth where the thermocline everything is above all the thermocline where is isothermal everything is well mixed up in the surface of the water and that's where all the action happens in the ocean for the most part, at least on the scale we live on. And so the idea is that you can turn animals into these ocean observing platforms that basically go do the work for you. You can put different kinds of technology on them that basically record here's what's going on in the ocean where these animals have been. And send it back in real time where the actual oceanographers, atmospheric scientists can access the data because as you know, basically all the climate all climate all atmospheric processes weather is really kind of driven fundamentally by the ocean.

1:43:48 And so we have to know what's happening in the ocean, but we have to know what's going on below the surface and so satellite oceanography is wonderful, but it just sees the skin. We have to get something out there to look down deep and so you either have to send a boat or we can send gliders. For example, these, you know, robotic platforms that go out and do things go down and come up and record the same kind of data. Or there are these Argo buoys, which are these basically like gliders, but they just go from the surface down to the bottom out in the middle of the ocean and they report back what's going on. And so the issue is, is that we need more data in particular where I'm at in the mid Atlantic by the mid Atlantic by from Cape Hatteras up to like Cape Cod actually has the biggest sea surface temperature change annually anywhere in the planet. So from the summer in Delaware Bay, for example, it goes from basically being 90 like a hot tub 90 degrees Fahrenheit and it freezes sometimes in the winter.

1:44:48 And so the whole we get everything from tropical species in the late summer and fall to polar species in the winter. It's the it's coming from California where I spent 20 years as a graduate student postdoc everything. It's always basically the same. It varies by a few degrees here. It varies by like 30 degrees Fahrenheit or spent centigrade, right? So it goes from a hunt almost 100 degrees Fahrenheit to almost freezing. So it's an incredible turnover. And so this has huge implications for hurricanes. And so hurricanes are driven by ocean heat content, which you think of like taking a tube of water from the surface to the bottom and you measure the heat in that tube.

1:45:31 That's the ocean heat content is but most of that heat is in the surface that mixed layer. I'm talking about above the thermocline. So that's what really the hot surface mixed layers would drive stronger hurricanes. And so you need to have a kind of a map of the ocean heat content to overlay and to use in your models because the hurricanes will follow that ocean heat content be stronger or go in different directions depending on where the heat is. And so right now we're limited in a lot of these data because it's expensive to get boats out there sending a research vessel out cost tens of thousands at least a day for the most part gliders those robotic profilers things they cost a lot of money.

1:46:16 So for the sloping gliders that we use that people use they cost 500,000 to about a million dollars a pop. Send your mouth they go out for and they kind of move along back and forth for about several weeks to a month tops and those every time you deploy them is just maybe 30 to 50 $60,000 and they have thrown away most of their data because they're so slow that most of the data they get is related to all the other data they already got. So they don't get a lot of new information for the profile because they're so correlated in time and space. And so the idea is that we can actually use we're helping Smuru that tag company they've built this smaller miniaturized version of the tag they put on elephant seals heads.

1:47:04 It's miniaturized at the point we can put it on shark fins a little bit easier. And so in the mid Atlantic by we don't have a whole lot of marine mammals air breathers so live in the ocean sea turtles there there, but they're not as many as you might get in other parts, especially if you get to higher latitudes. And beyond that they're all threatened endangered and so to touch them you have to go through huge permitting kind of hurdles and everything like that, which makes it a little bit more challenging. And so sharks are everywhere and they're basically much more accessible available than rain mammals and reptiles. And so we've been trying to work to push the development of these smaller tags.

1:47:46 So that ocean observatories that are around the planet that collect the data that we use to understand climate and hurricanes and extreme weather events that they can use these small tags in the future around the world. And so the idea is that in the mid Atlantic by at least we will have a fleet of tagged sharks swimming around diving doing their norm. The sharks are doing the normal sharky thing moving up and down through the water column. And as they're moving up and down through the water column, they're collecting data and every time they come to the surface and their fin breaks the surface. They transmit here's what's going on where I am right now and that comes in real time. There's a pipeline from the shark to the satellite to us.

1:48:29 And then we ship that out to the global telecommunication system and integrated oceanographic observing system I use system which then use of these to build these models to understand hurricanes and everything else. And so there's a lot of end users for these data, but our particular again focus in the main like bite is hurricanes because it's a big issue for obviously the south the east coast and the south southern southeastern US. So you do end up saving a lot of money on winches and and wire from not sending having to send down the CTD as someone who's done that in the Gulf of Mexico. Yep. For quite some time. That's a that's a big pain in the butt.

1:49:12 So it's nice to be able to save money and time on that because when those break, you have to that's a lot of fixing. How do you think it'll work with the sharks there and if because the sharks don't necessarily have to come to the surface. Well, Dave, that's a tough question. That's the thing is like you when you when you look at the diving behaviors of mammals and reptiles. It's wonderful air breathers because they have to come to the surface. Sharks don't but there are some sharks that come to the surface more often than others. And the best part is is when they do come to the surface where they surface is usually far away from where they did before. So each surfacing events provides very useful critical information that ends up being very valuable.

1:49:57 So if they came it to the surface every few hours, you would end up throwing away most of those data because they don't give you new information. And so it's kind of it's it's a compliment. It's not going to ever replace the Argo buoys or the gliders or the sharks. It's basically like for $50,000, you can put out 20 of these tags or something like that and they last for months and they will swim around doing their thing and you'll get intermittent surfacing surfacing events all over the place. And the idea is that will fill in all the gaps that we don't have other observations. How long when they surface, how long they have to be at the surface to download 10 seconds. Basically, oh, really quick then. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, seconds, you know, maybe be a few seconds for the most part.

1:50:46 It's again, this is kind of a it's it's it ends up being very complicated because it has to do with satellite coverage where it when does the shark surface relative to where the satellites are when it surfaces. You have to have very precise locations. And so the tags we're using a fast lock GPS. In addition to these Argos transmitters, which is kind of like these fancy things where basically a GPS gives you a location within 50 meters or so. And that tells you exactly where this profile was from, you know, knock on wood. But right now we've only because of COVID we got this grant right when COVID hit. COVID basically slammed everything everything shut down and it's those only last year we put out the first few tags and they it was a it was it none of it worked very well.

1:51:37 But that's because we figured out what it was attachment the tags the tags have been positioned up my we figured that out. And then we put them we put out a few more this year. They were transmitting like champions. We got a couple profiles. And then they went quiet and we don't know why. Where we think we figured it out. But what's frustrating was that we put these tags out in May late May of this year, 2025 off of basically 45 miles off of Ocean City, Maryland. And the sharks were just kicking up and down the continental shelf mid continental shelf swimming around doing great job. And then they went quiet. And then on the fourth of July weekend, one of our tag sharks was caught off of Nantucket, Massachusetts.

1:52:23 And we got a picture few pictures sent to us by Jeff Niebohn Toby Curtis and these other, you know, shark scientists again, this small community. They said, Hey, whose tag is this like, it's us. And, and that we never heard from the tag. And so it was out of this water. And so that told us that it wasn't doing what it should do. Right, but they let it go, which is good. And that tag actually just recently just a few days ago started talking again. And so I don't we working. Yeah, so we're this is this is this is we're figuring it out. Right. And so we're in the kind of very steep part of the learning curve. And we're actually heading out next week on a vessel called the RV Robert Gray, which we got through sea keep, we got access through, it's through sea keepers, which is a great group that connects, you know, yachts up to researchers and things like that.

1:53:13 It's a new boat. And so we're going to go out for a few days, going to go out to the outer shelf, have some fun, try to see how many tags we can get out. We have five to seven, eight tags. What kind of sharks you putting them on? Well, it depends, right? So we actually recently published a paper, which I can send you if you're interested in it. Absolutely. But it was all about considerations for using sharks as ocean observing platforms as much or as my grad student Caroline word, a key who's doing this, she calls them soups, you know, sharks as ocean observing platforms. And so, or as soups. And so basically, that whole process was using existing tag data from many, many different research groups to look at how would we predict or how can we judge whether one species or another is going to be better for carrying these tags. And so it has to do with the vertical movements, how much time they're at the surface of the ocean, but it's really, really important to have that information in mind that you can do that.

1:54:04 Our goal for insurance contributions things, our goal is the third information that we end up being close to, think about nations as giving up the tools to allow equipment,ribe thrive and do some other things whether it's helpful or functional now chewing on that challenge and trying to get our way through the gristle of that challenge. So why shark so again why sharks and and not marine mammals?

1:54:45 Because we don't have a lot of them in our area. There's no the gray seals will show up briefly in the winter and other than that there's none. There are sea turtles but you know how do you catch sea turtles easily and permitting it's just it's a nightmare. Yeah. Sharks for the most part you know for better for ill they're a lot easier to get permitting requirements are a lot lower. Gotcha interesting. I thought it'd be interesting you probably don't see basking sharks that much in your area. Not in our area but up north a little bit Massachusetts. Yeah that seemed to be a good one because I'm thinking like more like you're probably like dealing with dusky's sandbars you know. Yeah none of them come to the surface we're hoping I mean we actually caught what our very first day out we went out 40-50 miles of the image when we started putting chum in the water. The first shark to show up was a juvenile white shark. Oh I was not expecting that we caught a caught one we pulled it up and I was like well that's unexpected and in the next day we saw another one. Another juvenile white shark. Yeah a different one. Yeah a different one several of them and and the one shark we tagged it with a spot tag which is a tag that transmits when the fins of the surface it's like what boasterge uses and we also put a mini pat which is a pop off tag that records the vertical behavior and the shark has been doing a bang up job transmitting it's been going up to Cape Cod and back to like you know New Jersey back along kind of that the you know gulf of like the mid-line fight basically all over the place so the reason we did that was to figure out maybe juvenile white sharks would be good for carrying these tags because

1:56:16 actually counterintuitively the neurotic environment so the environment on the shelf is actually we have less data for those areas than the open ocean in many examples because of those argo buoys that I was talking about earlier. Wow that's that's amazing whether if you went out there to try to catch a white shark I would it would never happen never happen it will never happen again did you did you talk to uh Greg Skomal up in New England or anybody about it? No no not yet I mean it's it's it's mainly because we weren't expecting any of that right and they see the big ones so I mean Toby Curtis the people they've been working on the juvenile white sharks and those groups we've been talking with them and we're actually been working with them we've been trying to figure out their their collaborators on the sharks as ocean sensors he and Toby Curtis and his the group he's associated with at the the SOFO the South Fork Natural History Museum in Long Island and so once we get to the point of where we get the technology and the approach develops to the point where we can start to operationalize it we want to give them tags to put out we want to give tags to multiple any group that wants them and so like there's actually a lot of interest in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean because they don't have money to put out gliders right and or big research vessels so it's like they can afford 20 or 30 thousand dollars in tags that will last for a while and animals come around but they can't necessarily afford a 500,000

1:57:46 or million dollar glider and I'm not sure if they're going to be able to get a little white sharks I don't know if they want a little white sharks I know I know Bay here in Monterey where we can. I'll be stepping on everyone's toes by going. Oh I got it. If I even look at those juvenile white sharks I'll be offending half the population. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's been a big. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I can well obviously you know I understand that whole situation here it's like one of those. inf more mentioned white shark politics. Oh, I don't even know the half of it. I mean, because I've kind of navigated I kind of skirted the white shark world, I kind of just flirt with it. I kind of bounced around on the peripheral, right? And so I don't quite ever get fully involved and invested in a specific working out for me.

1:59:00 Best you don't, you know, juveniles off the Atlantic coast. Yeah, it's just, yeah, it's amazing. It's amazing. So, it's been really great having you on the show here. I want to definitely got to have you come back and talk about like well like little white shark politics and stuff. But I want to ask you like, we're, what advice would you have for for a young person is considering, you know, maybe pursuing a PhD or going into marine science? Do you have any advice for him? Oh, I have so much advice run like hell. So it's, it's, it's a wonderful, wonderful I am the happiest person probably in the world.

1:59:41 I could never imagine being happier. And I feel so lucky to have landed in the position I have. I'm, I'm just so lucky. And so much of that is because of the support of people who have let me get here. And that's, you know, you Dave and Greg, and Barbara block and Robert Lee, Bob Lee, and all these people that have been so help you, right. And so you realize that it's it's it's it takes a village to make a shark scientist, right. And so I'm only here because of the people that invested in me and trusted me. And so find those people that give you good advice and listen to them and realize there's no way from, you know, point eight or nine to nine.

2:00:24 And I think that's the point B. It's never a linear path. And we all follow our own paths. If you want to do it, stick with it, and you'll make it work. And just be open. Say yes to opportunities and don't start out being looking to do shark science, look to do good science. Yeah, do learn skills. Learn questions. What are the questions? What are the theories? Your interest? What makes you excited when you read a research paper or whatever? Just do what you do and do the best job you can. And if you keep doing that, things will end up working out. But it might not be in the path you think. And so the open different paths and you never know where you're going to end up. So that's the goal. You will get there if you stick with it.

2:01:09 That's awesome. What I think. And last question, quick, where do you see your career? The next 1020 years. I don't know. I can't even tomorrow. I can't even get through. I'm trying to do it. My Google calendar is like filled up. I mean, I never thought that it'd be the point where I'm I'm overwhelmed. But it's like there's so it's just meetings. Meetings all the time meeting meeting meeting but it's good. It's all great and wonderful first world problems, as they say, but I'm I'm hopefully going to be right where I am keeping doing what I'm doing. I'm really happy being where I am at University of Delaware. I feel really lucky to have landed in this school with this group of people. It's a very supportive group. And it's a great place to do the work. I do. I my office looks out on the ocean and others the dock and the sharks. I can actually catch sharks off the dock. So it's just I don't have to go anywhere.

2:02:00 And so my goal from the beginning has been from when I was at Maslan. I would just like to be able to do anything related to my field. And then if I can do it in my backyard, that's even better. It's like traveling is super fun. I love it. But it's also as you get older and have family, you kind of like, oh, that's the way across the world. I mean, but it's I did that when I was younger. And I loved it. And I will I will continue doing it when I can. But it's now it's like just being able to do what I need to do. Where I'm at is really satisfying. And it's like the freedom you have being a scientist. Yeah, to ask the questions you get you want to ask for sure. It's all about creativity. And actually, it was Mark Meekin who told me this. And it was when I right when I found out I got this University of Delaware job, we were I ran into he was at Hopkins Marine Station, Stanford University, giving a talk. And he was out with with my advisor and other cohorts. And I was out with my wife celebrating. And I got the job and I ran to him. He's like, and I was talking to him. He was like, you know, the only limitation is your imagination.

2:03:05 And being able to figure out how to make it work. And it's just it's up to you to make it work. Yeah. So and I still kind of am thinking about that. I'm like, you know, there's no right or wrong way to do it. I just have to figure out how to make it work. And so you go out and you hustle and you if you want to do it, you make it happen. Yeah, I love that. That's great. Great advice there. And great. So thank you so much for coming on and we'll have you back. Definitely have you back in some time and tell us more about how your sharks and hurricanes are going and and. And maybe they'll make you may make a movie shark NATO eight or nine out of it. So yeah, yeah, yeah. Knock on wood. Thanks. Thank you so much. Of course, it's a pleasure anytime. Thank you, Aaron, for joining us on today's episode of the Beyond Jaws podcast. Dave, it was fantastic interview. You got to hear about sharks and hurricanes. What'd you think? Oh, I love it. It was great. It was it was nice. It was well, of course, it's always nice having somebody on those former student. Yeah.

2:04:00 Moss landing. We have a lot of a lot of shared interest there. Alumni. We've all had this great guy. It was our advisor. Uh, me back in the eighties and Aaron in the early two thousands. Um, no, it was great. It was really good having him on catching up hearing about the different research he's doing. I think it was really interesting. He talked a bit about the salmon sharks, which is something that we've had come up, I think a couple times on some of the other podcast. But I deal with here in Moss Landing all the time where I get this time of year, I get phone calls or people. Want to know about this little white shark that washed up in the beach. It's a salmon shark. I thought they're and gave a very compelling explanation on what the whole issue is with the warming of the blood and the white muscle, the red muscle fat. Just for that alone, it's worth listening, really listening to the episode on that. And then, of course, the this kind of innovative technology that looking at with the sharks and the hurricanes and the and everything. I think it's a great way to get the thing. It's really it's it's just it's just to me being around as long as I have is that it it just shows how advanced the technology is that the fact that it can use try to put sensors on sharks so they can like figure out what the weather's doing to determine. It's amazing. Yeah, it's amazing. That's the kind of cool stuff that's really really really neat to see. Um, and hear more about. So hopefully I'll have Aaron on maybe one of his students later on talk a little bit about the about some of the advances they're making in some of these areas. Yeah.

2:05:29 And they're talking, you know, we won't talk about right now, but some of the future episodes that we might be able to do with some of the people in Aaron's lab, they're looking on like cutting edge innovative research, which I'm looking forward to diving into if we have the chance as as it's a little early now for that to talk about it. But once we're able to, I think once they start getting some results and some conclusions, maybe a paper published will be able to talk about it. Yeah, I think it's I think it's wonderful to see a monitoring program used with sharks and the sharks. I think that's pretty cool. And some of the some of the challenges they're facing with that, you know, sharks don't come to the surface as often as as mammals or sea turtle. Um, and so some of those, but also some of the data that they're getting back and they're actually getting pretty compelling data that could help measure, you know, how hurricanes are going to be moving through the system. I think it's going to be really interesting. Yeah, fascinating stuff. So really, yeah, definitely this was an episode to listen to and you may want to listen to it again because there's a lot of good advice in here and Leonard Aaron talked about his sort of path in his journey to get there to where he is today. And yeah, definitely, definitely. Yeah, definitely check it out. And you may want to listen to it.

2:06:38 Give me I think we have some good at like set the outset of the show. We have some really good advice here if you're thinking of doing a PhD to really consider if it's something you really should do. Absolutely. Yeah, ask yourself if it's going to help your career. I think it's I think it's really interesting because I think also too is like a lot of people do have PhDs now. And there's there's an argument to be said to get them because you're going to compete with all the people. All the other PhDs, whereas like someone like myself who applies for a job, if I apply for it and I go up against other PhDs, you may not have that chance. It's a bit of a catch 22 in a way because you have so many people coming out, so many more people coming out with PhDs than they were previously that the Masters almost seems like it's a prerequisite to get this. So I think it's a really interesting conundrum. Yeah, I think what Aaron said is pretty accurate. You can't go wrong with the Masters. You'll learn skills, which is what most employers are going to want those skills. But if you're doing the PhD, you really need to think why you need it. If you're going to go in an academic route like Aaron did, you need if you're gonna be a university professor, you need a PhD. That's no doubt about it. There's a few other positions, but most most jobs, you don't need a PhD. And if you're just looking and if you're just looking for the title, there's a lot easier ways you can get a PhD than doing one in marine science, which is you're looking at probably easily a five to more like a seven year commitment.

2:07:59 A lot of work and you got to publish and it's it's a lot. And then you know, then the chance of getting a job in the other end can be pretty iffy. So, yeah. So, but a Masters, you can't go wrong. You can pretty much get hired by a Masters if you got a Masters degree. So anyway, I think it's a good episode. Young person, you decide what to do. Think about it. You know, some Aaron talked a little bit about I think we're off air after the show is about how taking time off between each step in your degree and you you experience this. I did that. It helped me focus, David. It really did. It helped me understand like where I which way I wanted to go and find the opportunities and help me understand what I was doing because you come out of your undergraduate. You've accumulated so much information and you haven't really had. I didn't have a time to really think about where I want to go, what field I want to go. And I didn't really know. And there's so many different ways you can branch off.

2:08:55 And so it's difficult to choose. So I always recommend to people what I did is I just worked, you know, get the first job you can get if it's something interesting, great. If not, you know, try and find something else, but work into something and be like, is this the path I want to follow? Is this where I want to go further and further? And if it's not, then you go to a Masters and figure out something else or you go to another job and you figure out there's no I think the problem is that people think that everybody has to be in a rush. There's no rush. You know, if you get your Masters in your 20s, that's great. If you get in your 30s, that's great. If you get in your 40s, no problem. Like you can still get it. It's just a matter. I'd rather get a Masters where I know what I want rather than just doing it for the sake of doing it.

2:09:35 I was going to say, I think two people, you know, nowadays it's more common today than certainly when I was going through it, people take like a gap year or two or certainly after either between high school and college or between their college and their Masters. And I can speak as I mean, when I was coming through, it was pretty standard. You go straight from your math, your Bachelors to Masters. I was pretty common back then. But nowadays, I notice when I have students that come in with have to having taken a year or two off after their Bachelors, they're much more focused and serious about what they're going to do than students that go straight through. And I kind of look at my own thing like, yeah, if I'd had a little time off, I might have been a little more focused, but it's just different times.

2:10:17 But I, I think sometimes had taken a year or two off between each step from a Bachelors to a Masters. And then if you're thinking PhD, I take, I take time off and think seriously if that's what you want to do because it's a big investment. Nothing else time. You got time, time that you got is going to take years to get through. You'll be into your most people, you'll be well into your 30s mid early to mid 30s. And when other people that haven't gotten that have have already started off in their whole life path with with careers, jobs, marriage, family. So something to think about. I think we covered that. Yeah. And the other benefit, like last benefit, I would say of when you get to choose is you've actually worked in a team before if you've had another job. So when you come back and you're working in a lab, oftentimes you're working in a team.

2:11:03 You're working with other lab mates, other Masters students, PhD students, postdocs, whoever's in that lab. And so you're a little bit more, you understand a little bit more about what that work is going to look like. Right. And because when you do your graduate work, you almost have to treat it like a bit like a job, a bit more like a job than, than a student, you're expected to contribute to the lab, not only with your own research, but maybe with other parts of the research as well. And so to be able to be adaptable, to be able to work in team, go out in the field and have that experience will be a lot more beneficial to you when you come back and be more beneficial to the head of the lab, you know, the chief scientists, right? So I think that's, that's really important. But anyway, it's obviously definitely a great discussions coming out of this.

2:11:45 We'd love to know what we'd love to hear from you, like what your discussion would be and what questions or comments you have on this episode, you know, about doing a PhD, doing a Masters or other things, or Sharks and Hurricanes, whatever that might be. David, if people want to get ahold of you, how would they do so? Law Shark Guy on Instagram, a YouTube channel, Law Shark Guy, check out the series, searching for Law Sharks, Extinct or Alive. So new episode should be out by now. And those are the best ways to follow me and connect with me. Awesome. And of course, you can always connect with us on our YouTube channel, Beyond Jaws Pod, as well as our Instagram, Beyond Jaws Pod, as always great to do another episode with you, Dave. And thank you very much to Aaron for joining us. And thank you guys for listening each and every week or every couple of weeks when we publish these, we really appreciate this. And we love hearing from you and your feedback. So thank you so much for joining us on today's episode of the Beyond Jaws podcast from David. Now, we really appreciate it. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and happy constancy.