Can We Study the Ocean Without Harming It?

0:00 Here's a question for you. Can we study the ocean without harming it? And what if you can actually study marine life without disturbing it at all? This is the How to Protect the Ocean podcast, your weekday ocean news update. If you are looking for a resource in the form of a podcast that is all about the ocean and keeping you up to date on what's happening with the ocean, but also how you can make better decisions for the ocean, this is the place to be. Hit that follow button right now on your favorite podcast app because we are posting episodes five days a week, Monday to Friday. Now, normally, if this is your first time here, we do an episode, a solo episode Monday to Thursday, and an interview on the Friday.

0:41 And then we have the topic's the same. There's like a theme for that week, and I prepare you for the interview, so I break it down in the solo episodes. This week we're doing something a little different. We've been talking about different stories, kinda randomized stories that I thought was interesting. There's no interview tomorrow, but you can tune in and we're gonna be talking about a randomized news item that I think is really important. So stay tuned for that and hit that follow button right away so you can get more ocean news. Let's go back to this question. Can we observe marine life without interfering with it? Science is extremely important. We need to discover trends. We need to see if they're good. We need to see if they're bad. We need to plan out studies with local communities and make sure that things are being addressed the way they need to be addressed.

1:24 But in that methodology, which we often ignore as non-scientists, like even for me, when I look at a paper, if I'm looking at a science journal where they have the methods, the whole scientific process, I'll look at the intro. I might look at the results, but I'll look at the interpretation, like the discussion, and then I'll look at the conclusion. I rarely look at the methods unless it's a new method or somebody mentions it and it's something new that I'm interested in, 'cause I do like methods, especially when I'm in the field. You have to know the methods, and they're very important. But, like, we really need to focus on methods that are the least disturbance on the animals that we're studying or the ecosystems that we're studying, the habitats and so forth. Because without having that inkling, like, if you're using technology, new technology, and you are harming the animals by using that technology, or you're interfering with their regular life, their natural life, you are truly not getting the true representation of what you're expecting.

2:14 When you go in with that science question or that null hypothesis where you're, like, testing, like, can this statement be falsified? And you realize that the instrument that you're using to measure and determine whether that statement is true or false is harming the animal, or it's disturbing the animal in a way that could affect your results. I mean, disturbing the animal just in general is not good. But if you're trying to do that without disturbing, that's the better way to doing it. And so we need to do more about making sure that we're not interfering it. And I was on Phys.org the other day, and I saw this article that looked at how drones were affecting whale sharks. Now, you would think this is kind of weird because whale sharks are underwater. Drones are above the water, unless they have actually underwater drones, we're gonna check out in a moment.

2:56 But if you wanna track that data, drones can cause noise. They can interfere, they can hit, they can do whatever. And drones have been used to track marine mammals under special permits. But there was a lot of worries in the past about when drones first started coming out about who can use a drone and what you can do. Now you have to get your pilot's license and a drone pilot's license to make sure that you're flying it properly. But in this study, researchers used motion sensors and tracking data. So not just observation. They're looking for some other things. And I think that's what's really interesting is looking at how these drones would affect the animals, ' cause they flew the drones above the animals and found that no detectable change in behavior.

3:37 Well, that's really important, because it suggests that drones may be a low impact way of studying certain species. With whales that come up to the surface or dolphins that come up to the surface, you may see them come up to the surface, and then a drone comes down. You don't wanna touch it. You don't want the noise to bother it because you know that pods of marine mammals will communicate with each other because of noise. We've seen a lot of noise impact studies on the social behavior of whales and the communication of whales in the past, especially when it comes to a lot of boat shipping tracks or shipping observations or also seismic survey observations. And so we know the impacts on those. But, knowing how drones affect certain species is really important.

4:17 There's a challenge in science, right? To study animals, we don't wanna disturb them. We wanna make sure that they're fine. So you have boats, you got tags, which obviously disturb them cause you have to actually tag them. You got divers in the water. There are trade-offs. So certain times you have to interfere. You have to interfere with their regular path. You have to tag them to find out where they go like, tagging. Studies have come so far and have allowed us to understand so much more about animals and how far they go. The first sea turtle ever tracked, Dr. Wallace J. Nichols, was with a team. When they tagged the sea turtle, I think it was a leatherback sea turtle or a loggerhead, I don't remember, but it went from Baja California all the way to Japan. So we're starting to see these long migration routes that these animals are taking.

5:00 The other month, I did an episode of the Beyond Jaws with MarAlliance's, Rachel Graham, who's the executive director. She's talked to Dave Ebert and I, about a study where they saw, they observed, they tagged a tiger shark and observed the longest transatlantic tiger shark migration from the Cape Verde islands all the way to Brazil and back. That's pretty long, and we never would have realized it if we hadn't tagged them. So tagging does provide a lot of great information on how animals travel in the ocean. But also, there's some concern about how tags work and, like, if they harm the animal long term. There are studies to show that they don't, but there's special ethics that you have to go through when you go through these research methods. And so, tagging is part of that. Drones are another one that have been studied.

5:42 Drones might reduce the interference that tagging provides or divers provide. But this doesn't apply to everything. Other species, like whales they can react to drones. So it's not just a free pass of using drones. It's a step forward for certain species, maybe species that don't come to the surface out, as often and we can actually see them through the water. So manta rays, any animal that you can follow easily with a certain pattern. So whale sharks matter because they have unique patterns on their back, so you can identify individuals. You can follow these with drones, although they'd be difficult to follow. You'd have to use a boat a certain distance. So there's still some problems in there from the methodology. These are what scientists consider when they use these different types of instruments, is how far can you be without having to interfere with their regular migration pattern.

6:27 So it is a step forward. It's good to have these types of above water drones, underwater drones. They provide a lot of information, but you have to be careful, and you have to look at, how you use them. So the next step for these drones is refinement. We have to understand which species would be sensitive, because you don't wanna go to the point where, oh man, these species have reacted to this drone, because then you're not really doing them a favor. But you have to understand what species would be more sensitive to using drones in that area. You have to set up guidelines, and you have to use these tools responsibly. There are a lot of best practices documents out there for specific species in using certain technology, which I think is really important. There's a lot of ethical documents, depending on the country, that you have to fill out, and you have to get permits to work in and around some of these animals, especially marine mammals.

7:14 Maybe not so much sharks, unless you're tagging them, you have to get special permission. So that's important. And you have to use these tools responsibly. It's not just setting up guides. You have to use them responsibly, because better technology only matters if we use it well. And as scientists, we have this obligation to make sure that we are not harming to the point where we are providing a detriment to their health, where you're harming the animal, and you're not getting the right data. And look, there are a lot of people who are against things like tagging and certain ways that scientists conduct their methods. For some things, I say, "Hey, look, let the science speak for itself. You have to trust scientists in certain ways." But other times, I'll be like, "Hey, you know what? If you don't think this is right, then follow the science, talk to the right people, and pressure scientists to change if that's deemed necessary." I think it's important.

8:02 I think it's important that scientists just don't go on their own in their own circles and just be like, "Yeah, these guys are kooks, or these activists are trying to get us to change." I think there's a certain way that these activists and advocates can actually work with scientists to ensure that they are doing the proper thing. People may not like the way certain things like tags are added onto the animal, or how the animal may or may not be affected. I don't think it's wrong to add pressure to the scientific community to make sure that we're doing it properly. But when the evidence comes in to say, "Hey, we're actually not harming these," or it's showing, like, that it's actually better to do this and to understand how we can protect them. 'Cause a lot of tagging studies, especially tagging, 'cause I talked a lot about that in this episode because a lot of people are against it, it has provided ways to protect sharks and other species because of the information that we learned from the tagging.

8:46 So when you look at the overall picture, it actually ends up being better. You may not agree with that, and I would love to hear from you because that's something that I always like to hear from people who are interested in protecting animals all the way to the science methodology. The future of the ocean isn't just about what we study, it's about how we study it, and to make sure that we are doing it properly, and to make sure that the animals have a chance to survive each and every time we interact with them. So I think that's really important. And of course, there are some studies that don't, where the animals have to be sacrificed in certain areas. But by all means, I'd love to hear from you. You can get ahold of me through my socials. You can look in the show notes for that. You can sign up for my newsletter, speakupforblue.com/newsletter.

9:28 When you respond to that newsletter, it goes right to me, so you have a direct access to me. And of course, if you really wanna give me feedback, you can do so, speakupforblue.com/feedback. That's speakupforblue.com/feedback. Leave a voicemail, type a message, whatever you'd like me to hear, I would love to hear from you. And I wanna thank you for joining me on this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I am your host, Andrew Lewin. Have a great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow, and happy conservation.