Octopus Ocean Book: Exploring the Genius Minds Beneath the Waves with Mark Leiren-Young

1:00:00 There are so many ocean animals out there that have cool characteristics. They have personalities. They have these evolutionary attributes that make them really cool to look at and really cool to understand. And they have this ability to connect with us, with humans, and make us feel in a different sort of way. Like just emotionally happy, sometimes sad, and sometimes you just connect with you when you don't realize it. And that's who we're going to talk to today. We're actually going to talk to Mark Lanyon, who is an author, a screenwriter, a playwright, a filmmaker, who's made a name for himself, writing and doing videos and movies upon orcas, on sharks, and now on octopuses.

1:00:42 And we are going to talk to his new book, Octopus Ocean, on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Let's start the show. Hey everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. And this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean and what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action. On today's episode, we're going to be talking about a new book that Mark Lanyon has written. It's called Octopus Ocean. It is the geniuses of the deep. He talks about his connection to octopuses. He talks about not only his connection, but just to the ocean environment, into the animals that live in the ocean environment. He lives out in BC.

1:01:22 He's got a very interesting connection to the orcas out in BC. He talks about that connection and just like it's an emotional connection that not only he's had, but he said many people that he's met. And I've met too, who you see when people watch these orcas and see these orcas and see how phenomenal they are just by spotting them, it overtakes them with emotion. Happiness, sadness, just this bewilderment of watching these orcas do their thing. And the stories that he has, you are going to want to watch. He teaches storytelling. He tells stories in such a magical way that I wanted you to be able to hear this. So here is the interview with Mark Lanyon talking about octopus ocean and orcas and all these different animals and wonderful connection to these animals.

1:02:07 Here's the interview. Enjoy and I'll talk to you after. Hey, Mark, welcome to the how to protect the ocean podcast. Are you ready to talk about octopus ocean? Absolutely. All right. On. I am looking forward to this. This has been a long time coming. You and I have been planning this for a while. I, you are a fellow podcaster. Skana is the podcast that I was actually a guest on, which was a lot of fun back. I think it was in the summer. Was it released? Is that yeah, it was in the summer. So that was a lot of fun. And so it's always nice to, to be able to interview another podcaster. So that was one of the reasons we had you on, but also you are a, an author and you have a new book out that we're going to talk about called octopus ocean.

1:02:48 And we love talking about octopus and we love talking about the ocean in general. So we're going to talk about podcasting. We're talking about the ocean. We're talking about writing, talking about works for the ocean. And I think it's going to be a lot of fun, but before we get into all that fun stuff, Mark, why don't you just let the audience know who you are and what you do? Wow. I am a writer. I read all sorts of different things. I've never sure that it's so funny because for the how to protect the ocean podcast, I feel like it's just like, yeah, I read lots of stuff about oceans because I really do. I, my life was, my life was taken over by orca's back in 2015 and they have not let up. And like basically it's like, yeah, I, I belong to J-pod at this point.

1:03:35 And, uh, but that turned into books about sharks that turned into this new book, but octopuses, I've got another book coming out next year that was the main reason I wanted to interview you because it's all about how to protect the oceans. But for kids, I'm like, I have to talk to you. You are the how to protect the ocean guy. And you are the only person who's not a, who's not like a youth activist who I've currently quoted in the book, assuming you make it. Wow. Thank you. Thank you very much. I was like, I have to quote the guy who runs the how to protect the ocean podcast. He had the how to protect the oceans for kids book. It's in the name. It's in the name. It kind of goes. Yeah. Right. I love that. Um, you know, it's a lot of fun when we, we, uh, we talk to authors because a lot of the authors that we've actually talked to come up with like textbooks.

1:04:26 You know, I had a Dr. David Ebert on here a number of times. He's written, I think it was over 35 tech textbooks. Uh, we've had David Schiffman, which is a bit of a textbook and kind of every day. Also wonderful intro to sharks. Yeah, yeah, exactly. A perfect one to sharks. Um, so we had a lot of people on that, that have different books on being activists and, and, uh, you know, about climate change and growing up with climate change and all that kind of stuff. And it's a lot of fun, but it's a lot of fun when you have someone who's just dedicated and you've written multiple books on the ocean. So let's just start off right from the beginning. I want to get to know you a little bit. I want the audience to get to know you a little bit. Where did this passion for the ocean come from?

1:05:06 Wow. This is where my life gets totally confusing for most people. And because you're you, I'll give you more context that I don't like it. Please. Yes. Well, I've always people now assume that I've got a background like you or David Schiffman or something that I've got a background in at the very least a background in science. Yes. You know, I've got much more of a background in comedy. I've got much more of a background in theater. I've got a degree in theater and creative writing. I went to an event where I was speaking to the Marine Mammal Symposium at the University of British Columbia. And I went, I think I'm the old, not only do I think I was the only speaker who wasn't an ologist in a Marine related profession. I was definitely the only person there with a master of fine arts.

1:05:53 Yeah. Right. Like, you know, yeah, like one. Three hundred people there. I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who's positive. Yeah. I guess a safe bet. So weirdly, where my life took a very interesting left turn was I was writing for Maclean's magazine a jillion years ago. Wow. And I was writing a story from Maclean's on the never ending battle at the time over cetaceans in captivity, vinca record and for any of the listeners who do not know this Maclean's used to be a very, very, very big deal.

1:06:38 Oh, this is huge. It was like Time magazine for Canada, really. Absolutely. Yeah. And I was used to writing for regional publications. I'd written for a lot of stuff in B.C. I've written for like most the alternate weeklies, but writing for Maclean's was pretty posh. And I realized very quickly that I could talk to anybody I wanted to because I could just say, hi, I'm Mark. I'm voting for Maclean's and suddenly I took politicians. I could talk to celebrities like when I was doing the clean story. So that who's the guy to talk to about orcas? Yeah, Paul Watson. Yes, I. So I called Paul Watson, you know, who at that time, man, thinking he see shepherd at the time.

1:07:21 So it was just left green. Was he did he leave green piece at that point? I'm not sure what the math was, but I'm pretty sure he was running the sea shepherd at that time because he left green piece when I was pretty young. But I asked him about orcas, captivity, then cream and the time captivity was so not his issue, right? Like he's he's become more passionate about it now. But at the time, he's like really wild whales from a thing. I'm really not your guy. But did you know the bank for query was the first place ever to capture and display an orca? And no, how do I not know that? And they said, did you know that harpoon that orca?

1:08:04 I was like, God is amazing. How do I not know that? And I did two things that broke. I mean, I was a professional freelancer. I made my living writing for newspapers and magazines doing freelance stories. And I did two things freelancers do not do one. I have no idea why for the life of me. I still don't know why decades later. But I decided that the story of this or can captivity was for me. It wasn't for my clients. Okay. For I don't know why I did that. I was just like, No, I'm not wasting this in this right up on cetaceans and captivity. I went, I need to know more about this.

1:08:46 And that was the other thing they did that freelancers do not do. I decided I was gonna look into this with nobody paying me for it. Yeah, passion project at this point. I was just like, I need to know more about this. And so I tracked down Dr. Marie Newman, who at that time had been retired from the Vancouver crane for some time. And I said, would you talk to me about this orca you captured? And he's like, yeah, it was an accident. The orca was named Moby doll. But the first thing he does is he breaks open this book from 1964, the same year that they accidentally caught Moby. And he reads me this passage. And I'm gonna badly paraphrase this. There was a period I could have done this dead on.

1:09:30 But basically, it was lions, tigers and bears or fierce creatures, but far more dangerous, far more ferocious than any of these is the dreaded killer whale. Wow. This this was written by the top whale expert in the US. And Marie Newman, as I found it later, still is the most important thing. And I found out later, studied trout. His PhD thesis was trout. So he talked about learning more about orcas and he's like, not anybody can talk to you and said, you don't go near them. They will kill you. You get anywhere near an orca. Sorry. Anyone here killer whale. Nobody's using the term orca. No, it was all killer whale. All killer whale. So and you get anywhere near one of these killer whales, it will kill you. There were people who are afraid that they would approach them on land.

1:10:20 That if they got too close to shore, that killer whale is going to jump up like as scary as we think as scary as people thought sharks were after jaws. That's how scary everybody seemed to think these orcas were back in the in the mid sixties blew my freaking mind. And then the more I learned about it, the more I went, oh my god, I've stumbled onto a real life science fiction story. Now, science fiction is my thing. I went, yeah, I found the story of first consciousness. Story of first contact with an alien creature. And the other thing that I thought was this was the free willy era. So nobody wanted to hear a story about an orchid captivity. The where it wasn't this is monsters like, no, this was science happening in real time. This was discovery in real time. And I was obsessed with the story. I can't stress enough. I was having almost none of my pitches rejected this time. I was, I was like, no, I'm not.

1:11:18 You know, I was going to do this. I was like, no, I was going to do this. I was just, I was just like, no, I was like, I was getting the news back to this time. I was like, winning magazine awards on regular basis newspaper boards. I could not get anyone to let me write about this story. Really? Nobody was like nobody was interested? No, it was a history piece. I was dealing with a guy who I think was already in his seventies. He was my nobody was into it at all. I could not solve anyone. Were you surprised by that? Yeah. So you were so interested. I well, I started going to people that I knew who made documentary films and I went, you should do this. Yeah. like, not, I should do this because I'm not capable of this. I don't know how to make a documentary. And they were like, well, you're the one who's passionate about it. Let's pitch it. I had an Academy award winning documentary maker try and pitch this documentary. I had an Emmy award winning documentary maker and they just kept running into you. It's not free willing. The story of what he wanted was people wise free willing free. They wanted free willy. They didn't want this history piece. And this is the third thing I did as a freelancer that there's no other story that I've ever stuck with like this. I kept trying to give it away because I kept saying somebody has to interview these key people because they're all really old and they just have to get the story.

1:12:31 Yeah. Yeah. Because what I found out was that all of the interviews that were done with him all started from except for the stuff in the sixties, everything started from the premise of how could you do this horrible thing? Yeah. And they left out the context of in 1964 fishermen were shooting these orcas on site. We had a machine gun turret set up off the coast of Campbell River to slaughter killer whales. So this was the world in 1964. Yeah. And the idea that essentially really in days of the time Moby doll was accidentally captured this shifted blew my mind. So I chased after this story.

1:13:20 Like I looked this up. I actually reached out to Moby Dick scholars who went they figure a have chased Moby doll. Sorry, a have chased Moby Dick. Yeah. For three for three years max. Right. I chased I chased Moby doll for freaking decades. Before anybody would talk to me because I finally got Marie Newman to say I will I'll let you tell the story or sorry. I finally other way around. I finally figured out how I could do the interviews. I didn't know who was going to do them for but I made my own. I made a different movie. I made a feature film called the green chain. Oh, cameras aren't that scary. And I asked the camera man. I said, what would it cost? That could just book you for one day. I want to interview these old guys. I have no idea what I want to do with it, but I just need to interview with them. Just I can sleep at night. I know I need to know somebody has protected the story.

1:14:13 Right. And somebody's asked them stories in context and I get the camera man. He's a documentary guy has won awards and I'm so psyched and Marie Newman said, you know what? Every time I've opened my mouth, but Moby doll somebody calls me a monster. I've never talked about it again. No. Yeah. So I finally figured out how to do this. Yeah. And this is where I cross into a have territory because at this point, I am sending Marie Newman Christmas cards. Right. He is sending me relationship. He is sending me articles about diving. He's like Mark, I will talk to you about anything in my entire career. Not just not Moby doll. And finally, there's a symposium on Saturna Island celebrating the legacy of Moby doll. It's like closing in the 50th anniversary and news. You know what?

1:15:03 We'll do this. Let's do this. And so he invites me over. To his house and you can tell and this is a decade on easily since my first man. So he's long retired and he invites me over to his house and thank God. I had a producer who was a friend who went, you know what? I'm going to send a couple cameras with you. Let's see what happens. My wife came with a GoPro. Like we had cameras everywhere because what he did was he said, you know what? I think you should talk to everybody. So I show up and I arrive. He went from nine to 10 o'clock. You will talk. You will speak with me from 10 o'clock to 11. You will speak to Dr. Pat McGeer, who was the neuroscientist who was the scientist in the expedition from 11. You will talk to the chief veterinarian from Vancouver.

1:15:51 He'd lined up every from noon to one. We will have lunch. We were having tuna fish sandwiches and cookies. It was like a full day conference kind of thing for you. Here's my science background and my science background is really weird because my lab partner in chem 11. Dr.

1:16:35 Bob, Dr. Robert is with the top AIDS researchers out there teaches at SFU now. Todd is you know like and I almost ruined his science career because I would make jokes. We would get projects. I would make jokes on them and the chem the chem teacher actually gave me a great year. And I was like, you cannot get anymore called a conditional pass and the condition was I never set foot in another science classroom. Right? So so that was my science background up until suddenly I'm in the middle of this. So I'm somewhere that science teachers like no, no, you're you're not for science article in Canada.

1:17:23 And I did a story called the killer whale that changed the world for CBC radio for ideas and that won a Webster award and the night of the Webster awards and I'd pitch this to publishers for 20 something years night of the Webster awards publisher came up. I thought of doing a book and like, yeah, huh. She'd be like, no. And wrote the book and somebody that you will have heard of and I'm hoping your listeners are aware of Eric Hoyt was kind enough to read the book and blurt. Yeah, the biggest, you know, marine mammal scientist and the guy he's the guy. Yeah. Yeah. So he offers to read the book and he gets back to me and he said, I love it. I've only got one suggestion.

1:18:10 What's that? He said, not the killer whale that changed the world. The killer whale who changed the world. So not and my. Yeah, my publishers went for it. I mean, even though we'd started publicizing even though CBC thing and one major award, they're like, we'll go with that. I'm I will be forever grateful to Eric, quite for that suggestion because that set me down an entire path of referring to animals as who not what he, she and they not it and realizing that's what Dr. Jane Goodall is into and you know, France to wallow down throw put an aisle became an obsessed of mine. So that's where all that went and then what happened going back to the books orca publishing, which ironically does not publish a lot of books about orcas reached out to me and they're one of the top kids publishers in Canada and I'd known the publisher from my other life where I published funny stuff.

1:19:13 Yeah, she said, would you be interested in doing a kid's book of the killer will have changed the world and I went to depressing a story. I mean, the whale, you know, Moby dies. Yeah, being harpooned. It is a sad freaking story. Like, sure. I do believe that will change the world, but it's a sad story. And I said, could I just do a story about all the amazing things I've learned about orcas since being thrown into this world? And she went absolutely. And that became workers everywhere and then I had I used to do a lot of interviews around movies. I covered the Toronto Film Festival for 20 years of the Georgia Strait of Vancouver, sometimes to think for some and one of the people I met actually I'd met him when my movie about forests, which was fictional was touring.

1:20:11 And I was a little bit of a fan of Rob Stewart who made the movie Sharkwater. Yeah, and we kind of became friends and so I introduced his movies film festivals and we hung out a bit and he was actually set to write a blurb for the killer whale who changed the world and be one of my first guests on Skana. And I decided that the way to honor him on Skana and part of my podcast was to run some of the interviews I'd done with him over the years, even though they were never intended as audio. And I had I did that and somebody working on his posthumous movie reached out and I had no idea that you were so into him.

1:20:56 Would you be willing to work on promoting his movie to NGOs and basically talking about the work politically? And I was like, Oh, you began to reach out and go, you know, these are the things that we would like to see happen to help sharks. It's like, oh, this is like, so yeah, the to be one of the best things that ever happened in the podcast was being invited to do that. Yeah, and the orcas everywhere. And you know, the first book for orcas also turned into a book, a baby book, a big whale, small world and a picture book, or because it's the other C, and orcas really happy and said, would you like do something else?

1:21:44 I would like to write the book about sharks that Rob should have written. So that, and I reached out before saying yes, I reached out the shark water foundation. I went, do you think Rob's parents will be cool with us? Would you guys be cool with this? And so that Rob's parents gave me their blessing. Shark water foundation gave me their blessing as access to their photos. Oh wow. All of these amazing photos. I also did a shark baby book, which was specifically because I wanted to get across that sharks are awesome, not scary. Yeah. Right. And then, one sec.

1:22:25 And then, or I can say, so what else are you going to do? I'm like, I got nothing. This I keep, this isn't my world. I'm like a comedy writer. Please man. But my wife rain, who basically is responsible for me having the podcast to she did the tack and said, yeah, if you did the podcast, I'll do the tack. Okay. I said, you should do octopuses because octopuses are awesome. And so I came through so amazing. And so I came in octopuses completely cold beyond always, you know, whatever I'd gone to an aquarium as a kid, I would just obsess over watching them.

1:23:05 Of course. Cause how do you not? Yeah. Right. And, but I came at their world completely cold. And again, that's where the podcast was a gift. So it, Oh, I will just interview octopus experts and I'll get them to tell me things. So I interviewed Simon, Montgomery, and they interviewed down a staff and just went, okay, tell me cool octopus things that kids would want to know. And I went to, I went to a local elementary school and what do you know? What do you want to know? And so that was just kind of fueled it all for you. Right? Yeah. But that was just pure research and fun.

1:23:45 Right. But again, it's very odd sort of led like if, if like my career, my life has taken a lot of odd turns. I'm pretty sure no one could have predicted that 2015, I was going to write a book about orcas and 2025 that this is still where I'd be playing. Yeah. I would still be talking about orcas. Still talking about the science. Oh yeah. My, my students, I teach courses in writing and pop culture and intro to fight hearts. And my students were like, you're the whale guy, right? Like my classes are on the marvel. I teach a storytelling course built around the marvel universe, a storytelling course built around the DC universe.

1:24:29 Like you're the whale guy, right? You're the whale guy. Yeah. Now you got to switch your storytelling courses. You got to switch it to more of, uh, you know, of, of like, like ocean stuff, you know, I try. I, I try. Am I intro to fine arts? I'm just like, yeah, I'm just like, yeah, we're going to talk about whales now. And like, if I let my students ask me questions, they now go, tell us more about sharks. But like, and I'll talk about like the studies on lemon sharks and friendship. Yeah. Like, what are the most like, what are the things that are most shocking to people? And that's what I go to. Like it's the stuff you cover, man. Yeah. Like it's why I love your podcast because you cover all of the, this stuff that's just unexpected, right?

1:25:15 That sort of rakes the way we think things are. Well, I think, I think that's the thing is, is when you take all this information, there's one of the reasons why I do the podcast and you bring on people who you may or may not have heard of at some point in time. And you talk about the cool projects that they like. There are so many cool things and research and conservation projects and impacts and channels like I just did. I just did an interview just before this on, you know, there's a guy who's in in in Australia who started an organization because he saw the Great Barrier Reef bleach 10 years ago. And he wasn't happy about that. They needed more data. So he came up with a way to create an A.I. and use citizen scientists to basically, you know, determine and get more data just in terms of like three categories of reefs.

1:26:01 And so now it's an app where you can actually just go and use the A.I. and you just need science to say, yes, this is rubble or yes, this is a branching coral. Yes, this is a a a boulder coral or whatever. And that information goes to university and they put that into a model. Like, how do you come up with this kind of stuff? And you don't do it until you start reaching out to people or they reach out to you and then you start talking to them about this kind of work. Right. And you never know who it's going to inspire. Like, just like he was in the Netherlands at the time where hearing about the Great Barrier Reef, he was originally from Australia, moves back and is like, yes, like I'm going to do something about this because I have to, you know, like that's an incredible story that needs to be told.

1:26:43 I've met students who've gone into marine science because they read The Killer Wheel could change the world. That blows my mind. Isn't it crazy? Yeah, it's crazy. And you never know who they might become. You never know what they might accomplish, you know, and and like you've done like, like for when you write, what do you write for? Like, like when you write a book, any of the books that you that you've written in your past, right? How many books have you read? Yeah, I don't know. I like I really don't know. No, no. And and about countless articles, right? Like countless articles. Yeah. Oh, thousands. Right. Right. Thousands of articles. So when you write a piece, whether it's an article or a book or whatever, like overall, like what are you trying to accomplish at that point?

1:27:27 I'm trying to share whatever I found that I think is amazing. Right. Whatever I'm like that, whatever I think people should know this like the shark book just kind of kicks off going sharks do not want to. You eat you if you read no further, this is all you need to know. You need to know. Right. Like you can just stop the book now. Sharks don't want to eat you. Right. With the Octopus book, I so wanted to get across how amazing they are, how intelligent they are. And with orcas, for lack of a better word, how human they are. Right. Like the gift to me of not being a scientist is that I came at this world having no clue that anthropomorphism was a thing.

1:28:12 I did not, I did not even know that term. So, um, so, and I lucked out because the first, when the first scientist, he really made time for me was Lance Barrett Leonard for the bank for credit. And he is his life has been dealing with orca behavior. And I think I caught him on just the right day because when I was asking him a question, he said, you know what? I'm really tired of apologizing for more of housing. He said, I don't know what else to say beyond these animals have the same type of emotions we do. Yeah. Right. And I caught him on. I really do think it was like just the right day. And rain. I asked him a question that became kind of a go to for me in all of my work since, which was, she said, do you think whales are psychic?

1:29:03 Because he was talking about where these orcas show up and he, he didn't love the word. Of course. But he went first day I show up in Vancouver and I'm about to dedicate my life to these orcas and I'm on a kayak and I'm suddenly surrounded by orcas. And I started asking the question a little bit differently and I started basically asking people who've devoted their lives to orcas. Tell me your impossible story. Tell me the story that you are uncomfortable sharing because it just sounds fictionally implausible.

1:29:43 Tell me your fictionally implausible work. I started and they all have one and they actually they all multiples and the one that really blew my mind. I know have multiples and the one that just completely blew my mind was Alexandra Morton talking about these orcas surrounding her when her boat was lost the fog and the orcas leading her back to safety and this pod she was studying. And the reason that it blew my mind was I went, I think Ken Baucom told me that story a few months ago and Ken Baucom said it for whale researcher. Same thing where his boat was lost and a group of orcas, a pod of orcas surrounded him and took him to safety.

1:30:28 This isn't possible. I like I actually heard the story and I couldn't even connect it to that. I must be mixing up. Ken must not have told me this like, yeah, he did. And in both cases, they said the same thing. This happened once. This happened exactly once. They were in trouble. The orcas stuck with them. And I look and I put a chapter about all of these weird things. Yeah, in orcas everywhere. And the first time I read this chapter, I'm on Saturna Island. I'd spent an entire summer on Saturna Island because somebody Saturna Island was where Moby doll was captured. Right. Somebody basically gifted me their place on Saturna Island for a very small fee so I could write the book on Saturna Island.

1:31:13 Never managed to see an orca the whole time I'm on Saturna Island there. And so Rain and I are there the whole summer. So I'm back. They want me to do a reading in the park where Moby was harpooned. And this is just after Taliqua had carried her dead daughter for 17 days. And I had decided I had not told anybody this, but I decided I could no longer do this. It was just too sad. I was like, I, because it's hard for people to get to now you hear the Southern residents and they're no longer called the Southern residents. They're called the critically endangered Southern residents. Yeah. And when, when I jumped onto this story, when I first told the story of the killer whale who changed the world, it was a phenomenal story of a recovery of the population of recovered and everybody I talked to was excited and enthusiastic and talking about the resilience of nature.

1:32:09 I didn't talk to a single sad person. They were all like, Oh my God, is this amazing? And then they started to freaking die. And I was making a movie called the hundred year old whale. I can show you a link to this one because it it's up everywhere now. Made a movie with rain called the hundred year old whale and about granny. But I thought we're going to put out that movie and I'm going to put out this book and then I'm done because this is just too sad. Yeah, it's hard. I'm standing there and I'm about to read from this chapter for this book that is unpublished and somebody shouts whale and suddenly all the people are there for the reading.

1:32:50 We race to the side of the cliff and there is J pod, including telequa freaking dancing. Like, I don't know how else you want to put it, but they are just splashing everywhere. Have a good time. I got it. Okay. Yeah. I'm yours. Yeah. I don't get to quit. I'm yours. Right. That's insane. Like the timing, you know, like, oh, like I absolutely decided I was done. I was absolutely sure I was done and J pod shows up. And when I posted some Facebook, the number of people said they showed up for you, which sounds utterly crazy. I'm so you go back to you go back to Eric Hoyt's work where he goes or because show up for the people who need them.

1:33:36 Yeah, and this is in Orca and Marie Newman back. The first time I saw the word psychic Mitch was Marie Newman saying these orcas must be psychic. They've never avoided to turn Island before. And here we are. We've been here all summer and it's like they know we've got a harpoon. When the, when the machine go, we'll set up at Campbell river. The orcas went nowhere near Campbell river that entire summer. And you already. So how does that happen? Right. Like that's that's where I've just become totally obsessed. Yes. Like, how does that happen? It's unreal to like, you know, you hear these these, as you say, impossible stories and you just say, you know, how can they show up like this each and every time, you know, how can they help guide people to safety?

1:34:23 How can they show up in emotional moments where you just, you know, you know, they've been going through a hard time. You follow them for you for decades. And then all of a sudden they show up when you need them. Like when you're like, I'm not sure I can do this anymore. Like, this is it after this. And they're like, no, you still have a job to do. You need to you need to speak for us. And we're going to be here for you when, when you need it. It's it's weird because, you know, as a scientist, you're just like, this, this doesn't happen. It's like, this is not a thing, you know, but when you when you look at the complexity and emotion, emotionality, I guess, of these whales, you know, these these orcas, you are, I feel like you're constantly surprised, you know, as as, you know, general, we like we're constantly surprised by what they can accomplish.

1:35:08 Right. And, and, and you just think about the last 40 years that they, what we've put them through as humans and you just like, they keep showing up for us yet, you know, humans keep doing this to them. And it's like, at what point are we going to learn, you know, that we need to do better for these, for these animals? I, I mean, I go with Ken Balcom on, Telico was trying to tell us something. Right. But I mean, like, to me, the story just told me, that's not even our craziest orchestra. Right. Like, I had sold what we call the hundred year old whale, I had assumed there was a ton of footage of granny out there, because she's really old.

1:35:49 Whether she's around everywhere. So what happens is, Rain and I are like, oh, you know, we're out hanging around downtown Victoria. And there's a, there's a particular whale watching company that works with a lot of the department fisheries notions were scientists, a lot of unique people. Um, and the guy who runs it said, you know what? If we see granny, if we see her, we will take you out and we have this great conversation. She said, you just need to know she's mostly hanging out with this other orchid and onyx from L pod. They are not being spotted very often. They're not being spotted with J pod. So no idea if we'll be able to help you up with summer. Yeah. If it happens, we'll call an hour later, he calls and says, um, hi, you know, I said, we haven't seen granny.

1:36:36 Granny just showed up and she's hanging out by one of our whale watching boats. How fast can you get down to fishermen's work? And next thing I know, rain and I rain has a new camera. She's never used. Because this is not supposed to be for the film. This is just a camera. She was out playing with that day. And, oh, he said, you know what, I'm going to take you out because we, you may never get that another chance. So Brett who runs this company, Eagle Wing, uh, Clint, who's this amazing photographer, rain and I get on a boat. I don't, I just assumed he was getting us on a whale watching, but he's just getting us on his boat.

1:37:16 So we could see granny. Cause he said, granny story is important. I will help you tell this story to race out there. And the best way to get it across with the people on the whale watching boat who they had left there so that we could catch them. So they would not lose sight of granny. When they got back to shore, they said they were asked other choices. Oh, you know, it was great. But then the other boat showed up and it was amazing. And what happens is we show up rain points your camera. And if you've ever been out looking for orcas with the camera, you know that they're like, oh, camera. Yeah. We're side to side wherever you want, wherever you point that camera. Good luck.

1:37:59 I might be right behind you, but you won't know. Good luck getting my freaking tail. No, no. The granny goes, Oh, hey, rain. I'm going to tell a slap for you. And then a moment later, it's like, Hey, rain, I think I'm going to jump out. I'm going to spy hop for you. And then there's, we're out at, if you know, no, what films magic hours when the sun just goes orange and purple. Right? Yeah. We are out at magic hour. Pretty much the entirety of J pod, except for granny is behind the boat for all looking almost right behind us. Like we're parked. We're not moving. They're coming towards towards you guys. They're like, Hey, we're ready for a close up.

1:38:40 Just get that camera ready. And I actually said, look, I don't care if the orcas behind us start to hula. I said granny was over there. Just point your camera over there. Yeah. Yeah. As much as possible. And the next thing we know, granny does this phenomenal perfect freaking breach. Does this arc out of the water rain catches it just to make sure she didn't miss it. She does it a second time. She's and if you listen to the entire tape, like if you can hear the whole audio, you can hear the guy who has been running these whale watching tours and the photographers but out with them for decades. Yeah. Oh my, oh my, oh my, oh my, this granny's getting like, they sound like four year old girls and then you hear me, the mother and going, please tell me about the shot. Please tell me about the shot. Please tell me about the shot. Uh, like the camera did not reset in time to get the second breach because they were so fast. Wow. And I said to, and I turned to guys. I said, she must have seen this dozens of times. Yeah. And they looked at it. No, five times ever.

1:39:47 We've seen granny breach five times ever. Those were two of them. Jesus. Then I reached out to center for whale research. Decades. They've been out there for decades. I reached out to center for whale research and went, can we please get all of your footage of granny? And I, oh, we've got no footage of granny. And what do you mean with this? We've got some stills. But it's. But no. And I started putting out calls for footage of granny. If we had known there was no footage of granny, we couldn't have made the movie. Our producer wouldn't have approved it. So this one fluky day, we get the footage that ends our movie that if we want a whole bunch of awards for that movie, we want awards because granny showed up for her close up. A few days later, rain goes out without me. Just one of the great regrets of my life was I was like, no, I've got some deadlines.

1:40:40 And a super pod shows up again. The boat is freaking parked and the super pod just goes, excuse me. She needs some photos for her movie. So we've got seven New Yorkers here. We better. We heard you're making a movie. We want to be in granny. We would all like. We'd all like to be in the movie. Yeah. So. Rain was supposed to give a bit of extra footage for a movie and instead she shot half the film. In these right now, one in these two days because she's got the super pod and she came back just. In tears. And this is the most amazing thing I've ever seen in my life. Right.

1:41:23 And again, super pods are wild and scientifically important. And I think that's a very plausible because they almost always seem to coincide with bursts and deaths. Yeah. Again, sciencey scientists are very uncomfortable and just even it's a coincidence. I'm like, no, no, I read my Sherlock Holmes once as a coincidence. Three times as evidence. Right? Exactly. Fifty times I don't get how you don't go some in some way, shape or form. We do not understand. They are sharing information that is saying it's super pod time, guys. We've got a we got a celebration or we've got a grief ritual.

1:42:06 And unreal. Yeah. These like it's really interesting to see like you telling these stories and then you know, you see on like I watch tiktok incessantly I'm addicted and I see a number of creators on there that you know, are scientists and they talk about orcas and they work for organizations around orcas or they live in B.C. And I'll tell you when they show their footage of them going out just to see them like they hear the orcas are in or they're close or they I don't know if there's like a network of people citing them and then people just you see all these careers just go and a lot of times they're just showing the camera.

1:42:47 You know, they may have music in the background. Sometimes they don't but they show themselves watching them and it's like it's emotional. It's it's super emotional for these like these professionals who see them often. Right? Like they go out whenever they can and have studied them or have researched them and when they see them in person, it's like this this uncontrollable human emotion to get emotional. Whether it's happiness, whether it's happy tears or sad tears or whatever that might be. No matter how many times you like people live out there and how many times you see them every time seems to be like it hits that emotional strings.

1:43:28 It was amazing to me because we really didn't know how our documentary was going to spin. So one of the questions that I asked non scientists asked scientists as well. Can you tell me about the first time you saw well and the number of times I heard the word magic. Like if you know if I was just categorized in the words that came up magic and magical just were the go tos. Yeah, right. Just there's something just overwhelming about being out there with I just realized that we're talking entirely about the wrong. Yeah, but doesn't matter. This is good because I think people don't realize that we see them again. We get to see them a lot on online and on TV and in documentaries.

1:44:15 I feel like it should be on every everybody's bucket list to go whale. I should go orca watching. You know, it's definitely on mine. I've never seen an orca in the wild. Oh, I know. It's something that I want to do. You know, it's definitely on my bucket list. And it's just I feel like it's just something just you've seen professionals who see them often react every time the same way. It's just it's a very different thing. And I don't know what it is about these orca's that do it. But they're just and you've described it just like their timing their ability to provide like good moments at the right time when you just need it. I mean, other times the frustration of them not showing up when you go out and you're looking for them. You got the big camera out and everything. I just I just love that. But it just goes to show that it can get someone like yourself who's not a scientist who doesn't study them, but as somebody who loves to write and tell stories.

1:45:09 And there's a number of people. You know, you mentioned Alexandra Morton who loves to tell stories about these orca's. Yeah, very good storyteller in her own right. And you just sit there and you're just like. I'm glad that it's not just a scientist that's writing about these. And of course, they've affected every people other than scientists as well. But it's just so nice to see someone who you and your and rain your wife like to be like we want to share their stories like the way they affected us. We need their stories to go because obviously, you know, critically endangered southern resident orca population. You have the northern orca population, which they're doing okay, but they're not the best. You have a transient population, which we still don't know too much about. And then you have another population out even further, which we still don't like we're just seems like we're so the officers are just weird. They're right.

1:45:54 Oh, they're just out there. They're they're eating sharks. Right. And the fact that they were identified by their lousy teeth. That's just awesome. Exactly. Exactly. So it's just such a like it's such a moment where I did want to cover because obviously you've dedicated a big part of your life to orcas. And it's part of your story in writing about science. I think that's it's amazing. But like when we as you pivot towards different, you know, going to sharks and other big whales, small world like that type of work and now octopus ocean when you when you move in, obviously, you know, sharks forever. It had a bit different story. Definitely had that emotional connection for you and, you know, for Robin, his family and his legacy.

1:46:38 The other books like what makes it like obviously people suggested but what makes like is there an emotional tie that you have to octopus like whales you do but like what is that tie to octopus that you have? Well, with octopuses, I was like, we just come out of the pandemic. And I had read Simon gumrys amazing book where she went and hung up with octopuses. Yeah. And the Shaw Center for the Salish Sea in Sydney, which is like 30 minutes from my house. And I said, Are you guys cool with me just coming out and watching people watch your octopuses? Right? So I just watched kids and adults watching mostly this octopus named storm. And after I'd been great, like one of those great octopus.

1:47:29 Yeah. And finally, it's really interesting. They're very careful with who they let meet their octopuses there because they return them. They've got a really interesting policy where they're like, you know what? We are in the center of where these guys live. So we're only going to keep them six months. Right. And storm had a really interesting story because she was basically captured and was on route to Iceland where she would have spent her entire life in captivity and a storm kept her from flying out to Iceland.

1:48:12 And instead of short term at the state of season, they went, you know, we can just find another octopus. So why doesn't she just stay with you? And then she was supposed to be returned. I think she stayed with them longer than any other octopus because we had fires and they could not get her home. And so her story became a wild story in terms of terrible weather effects we have here now. And they were kind enough to let me put a hand into storms tank right before she left. Right. And storm we shut and shook my hand. I'm like, yeah, that's my opening. Like I knew I actually as soon as I left, I'm like, I went to a cafe right around the corner from and I wrote the introductory chapter. And I went, yeah, I've just just right then and there.

1:49:01 Yeah, I was just like, I should cancel the octopus. Everything else in the entire book may change. This is my opening. Because it was shows it you had that connection. Yeah, that was the inspiration right at that connection. Yeah, she reached out. She said, Hey, decided I was nowhere near as interesting as the crab she was eating. But, you know, and did she recognize me as the guy I've been watching her off and on for six months? Probably because they know stuff. Right? Like story after story that I read about optimuses and interview after interview, it was like, yeah, yeah, they recognize keepers they recognize certain people.

1:49:43 And I mean, running into stories with animals with sense of humor. That's just weird. Right? Like just going, yeah, they spray somebody because they want to or, you know, one of the wildest things that I've ever seen in my life is just how it is. And I think one of the wildest stories really stuck with me was Chester the false killer whale, the anchor for Korean. And I asked this is an animal. This is false killer whale who washed up. I remember correctly on the beach. Not some I've never written about Chester, but washed up on the beach was taken in and they don't know didn't know which family Chester belong to and was basically doing medical rehab for all that time. Chester would have learned.

1:50:25 How to be a false killer whale. Right? It's very hard to explain to people like no, no, these animals learn their own language. They learn their culture. This is even in their dialect for each pod. Like there's differences, right? Yeah. So I said, you know, I asked what seemed like a really normal question. I said, you know, what's Chester like? And the person who was showing us around the crime what? Wasn't sure what same kind of an asshole like what? Yeah, that was my I was like, what? And they said, Chester has this game and just discovered that when there's when there's a lot of people around, especially kids, Chester will sink like a stone to the bottom of his tank and wait till people scream and cry.

1:51:18 And then pop back up and go, I'm fine. They said they dubbed it the resurrection game because Chester was clearly messing. Yeah, Chester was clearly messing with the people. They are like and what stuck with me about that was the idea that people who were there were very like they weren't comfortable saying Chester to personality, but they admitted Chester to personality. Right? And the idea of the personalities of these animals, the fact that every single person I've spoken to who's an octopus expert is like, oh, yeah, they are so different. And again, shark people are like, oh, you have met shy sharks. I've met friendly sharks. Yeah, that's like trying to get across their individuals.

1:52:06 Well, I like, Mark, I have like I did the Toronto Zoo podcast for a long time. I hosted it and I got to talk to zookeepers. And one of the things that we had with a special was like stories from the zookeepers. And they would talk about their silverback gorillas and they would talk about the personalities. There was one. I think it was like Josephine's daughter. I forget her name. She used to love hats. She used to see people wear hats. So they gave her hats and she would try them on in a mirror and see how she looked like a massive silverback gorilla would try on a. A hat like like and I mean sun hats, ball caps, like everything she would see. And then she'd like, oh, that looks interesting. And they would give her old hats and they should try them on. And they're the troop leader. You know, big, big silverback, scary, like typical. Like you do not want to mess. This guy will rip off your arms in a second if he really wanted to.

1:52:55 Never did. Of course, he was very gentle. He was afraid of frogs. Afraid of frogs. Okay, think about it. Like imagine, imagine you see. And this is the keeper said this. They saw one time there was a frog. In the in their enclosure and all these gorillas were were like were like surrounding this frog and you see Charles just kind of like flick it and like what and it would jump and they'd all like back up like these massive troops of like massive gorillas. A troop of massive gorillas just would like be afraid and there was one time and I'll tell this story quick because I know this interviews about you. There's one time where they all where they were coming out of their nightly enclosure like their bed area. Yeah. And they came out and Charles stopped all them and they put them all back into their bed area and you wouldn't come out and like what is going on and they looked around. They looked around. They look around. There was a tree frog in the back corner and he saw it. He wouldn't let any of them out.

1:53:46 So you so afraid of this to the point where we I was out there with my daughter and we went to watch. She wants to be a wildlife biologist or watching all these animals and I'm telling her about all these these different animals and the different characteristics of each one and you see like this outdoor enclosure and there's like you know it's a cage obviously reinforced cage and you get to see these girls like you're not that far but you can see them and they're just amazing. There's one area case that had like a little cutout. It was like it was reinforced with something else because like maybe the enclosure broke or something like that. But it looked like it was fixed and on there was a picture of a frog like right dead smack in the middle of that area that was fixed. It was a picture of a frog and do you think the girls went close to it when they went near it.

1:54:32 They would run to skirt by it so they could get rid of it. They wouldn't run anywhere else but they would walk walk walk nice and slow and then it would like like run like they were afraid because there was a frog on there. You're telling me all the I love that so they all have their different personalities. They all have their things. Some of them are devious. Some of them are tricksters. Some of them are fun and cuddly and and they're just amazing to watch and and it's phenomenal to see these these characteristics and I'm sure if you see orcas in the wild. They're octopus in the wild. I mean my octopus teacher wanted Grammy for not Grammy but an Academy Award for for that movie because you saw the personality of an octopus. Well that was one of the things that came up when I was hanging out at the center facility was oh my god everybody had seen that movie. So it was pretty cool when Craig Foster read Octopus Ocean went yes you're all right you're nice blurb and gave and did a bit of a fact check and I'm like yeah awesome nice nice.

1:55:30 Nice. Nice. You know like okay I feel very official now. I love it. I love it. So like so like for what do you what do you want people to get out of octopus ocean with octopus ocean. I want to get across the word not the only with so many of these now that were not the only intelligent animals on this planet. Yeah right. Just the more I learned the more it's like. Oh wow the whole human exceptionalism thing makes no sense at all because again coming at this without a science background. I started by saying okay so walk me through the whole food chain concept like walk me through why we're considered the best the coolest animal on earth.

1:56:20 And I just like for real I just assumed there was a scientific basis to this I just assumed somebody's gonna say well humans can do this and this and this and I would hear all the stuff is like man the tool maker. Yeah crows do that you know like you could just break down like or no how to make nets with bubbles. Yeah, like that's cool right and crows know how to make keys and you just start to go through the animals like okay that doesn't hold up and I mean one of the gifts of of of being a social instructor at the University of Victoria was I've had access to like amazing students who have studied science and for orcas everywhere I got I was basically a history prof is a friend of mine who was also doing a book on orcas basement.

1:57:10 I have like a bunch extra hours with my master student. Do you want her to help you do research and she does she knows marine biology and I would just go okay Lily walk me through this I said so I'm not asking a really dumb question to a scientist I'm going to ask the dumb questions to you. Yeah, I haven't because I have not taken first year marine biology right so I would ask questions especially around human exceptionalism basically which I not a term that I knew when I started this you know all these years ago and I kept thinking I would find a science behind it and what I found was this was the one place science really was deferring to religion.

1:57:52 And pretending there was science behind it but really going yeah we're the only ones who have language and let's define language to make sure make sure of that right right let's make sure our definition of language excludes anything else that could conceivably be language and interesting that we that we just kept moving the goalposts and again. I came at this expecting there to be goalposts I really did I didn't come out this contrary I came out this knowing nothing so I came out this going what is this anthropomorphism thing you speak of why am I supposed to why is it a thing in science walk me through this and going oh there's no scientific basis for this at all right there's no like walk me through the science of why this is a bad thing.

1:58:42 You know like my favorite was friends to all talk me through. I'm sorry if a three year old sees a tickle induced vocalizations there oh the monkey's laughing yes the monkey's laughing yeah yeah yeah yeah different term different yeah and with the orca book I saw oh man I saw one scientist like wrap themselves in knots to come up with a term that basically made sure you did not it may have been the sharks in France and just made sure they they made sure that they were not. made sure they they have affiliates like really yeah the the big one for me was taliqua because taliqua just rocked my world and I so wanted to do another killer whale who changed the world because she's the other one who did and when I saw I think it was the New York Times go the orca appears to be grieving and I thought no humans may appear to be grieving I have seen humans at funerals where they were going oh I'm glad that they were that person's in the box right I'm so glad that I do not believe.

1:59:50 Tala was faking us out here I don't believe she appears to be good. So how can we go humans great we know exactly that all of all human grief is legit. I cannot know what is going on. Yeah, no, no, you're trying way too hard to sound like we have signs and you're just like hold on a second here like well and then you can just like it's sentimental version of this, you know and oh and you can call it whatever you want but it's it's very similar to what we do right and then you get into science which again was all new to me right and you get into science of mirror neurons and going okay so these orcas have the and the apes have the exact same neurons that are referred to as the neurons that make us human. So the neurons that deal with complex emotions like grief, they've got them. So they've got the exact same neurons we do, but they don't have the same emotions.

2:00:50 So yeah, crazy. Yeah, crazy. I love it. I love this conversation. You and I could probably talk for hours on this and I'm sure we will have you back on to be able to talk more about your next book that you'll be writing. And then and but this is awesome if people want to get a hold of this and this copy, how would they do so? Oh, learn young calm the books available everywhere you buy books. So all the books are and learn young calm or scan or for the podcast look up scan and ask a and a and you get my podcast and you get my interview with Andrew and learn young calm and you can check the spelling out but spell it out.

2:01:31 I'll post it in the show notes so they so they get access to it. Mark, this has been such a treat to have you on really appreciate it's always great to to interview, not only a fellow podcaster but someone who writes, you know, from a non scientist point of view, where it's science books and just gets it gets it like we we get it and it's it's so great. And I love the connection you have with the ocean and with the orcas and I can't wait to go or go watching with you someday. It'd be a lot. Yes, we said thank you so much for all of you do. I love your podcast. Thank you. I appreciate it. Talk to you soon. Thank you, Mark, for joining us on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast and bringing the magic of storytelling, bringing the importance of connection to these animals to orcas to octopuses to sharks and to the people that are in the ocean.

2:02:14 I just, you know, scientists have this bond. We we we have colleagues. We have they turn into friends. Some of them are colleagues. Some of them, you know, you get a criticism from them. They might be enemies, whatever that might be. But there's this ultimate connection that we all have. And it's not just scientists. It goes to ocean conservationists. It goes to storytellers. It goes to writers. It goes to filmmakers. We we all have something in common in that we've connected with the ocean. We've connected with each other. And when we have this connection, we want to tell people stories. It's the connection that I have with a lot of the guests that I've had on, you know, it's meeting them at conferences, meeting them online and having them on the podcast and hearing them tell their stories gives me that connection gives me that inspiration where after I leave this after I've done this intro, I'm doing this right after the interview. I leave this my office and I'm just like, that's the way I'm going to do it.

2:03:08 And I think it's, you know, you want to do that. You want to pay tribute to the people that you interviewed to the people that your colleagues with the people who've had these extraordinary experiences, whether it be science, whether it be conservation, whether it be writing about them or creating a film about them. There is this incessant like connection that we all share and we all want to pay tribute to that. And to watch more of that, I think it's really important to us to be able to do that. And to watch Mark pay tribute to his heroes, you know, to Paul Watson, to Rob Stewart, you know, to other podcasters and so forth. It's amazing to see that it's just amazing to see that collaboration that ability to tell those stories and feel that connection and then pay tribute to the people by telling other stories, their stories through books, through the eyes and vision. Of orcas through other whales through octopuses is just phenomenal. And I absolutely love it. There's a point where, you know, markets a little emotional telling with the story. And you can just see that he's so into it that the connections that he's had with these orcas, the octopuses, you know, the whales, the sharks and the people who have helped them understand the material and tell those stories.

2:04:00 It's just phenomenal. It's absolutely phenomenal. It makes a great interview. It makes a great episode. Love to hear what you think of this episode. Go and go to my DMS on Instagram. DM me at how to protect the ocean. Let me know how you feel. If you're watching this on YouTube, just let me know how you feel about this episode and that connection and share a connection that you might have with the specific animals, specific animals, specific animals, and that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to put the links in to Mark Lane Young's website. I'm going to put it into how you can buy his book in the show notes. So check that out and check in the description if you're watching this on YouTube. But I want to thank you. I want to thank Mark. I want to thank you for joining us on today's episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew from the true North strong and free. Have a great day.

2:04:53 We'll talk to you next time.