What Happens to Ocean Science During a War?

0:00 What would you do if your research species was endangered, your coastline was under constant pressure, and a war broke out around you? One marine scientist in Gaza is trying to answer this question while studying one of the Mediterranean Sea's most mysterious animals, the giant devil ray. This is the How to Protect the Ocean podcast, your weekday ocean news update. If you care about staying informed on the ocean every weekday, Monday to Friday, hit that follow button right now on your favorite podcast app, and you won't miss tomorrow's episode Today's episode is about more than devil rays. It's about what happens when science, conservation, and human resilience collide in one of the most difficult places on Earth. Now, before we go into this, this is a very sensitive subject matter.

0:43 Obviously, the crisis that's happening in Gaza, we are not overlooking this on this podcast. It is a tragedy and I have feelings on this, but I'm not gonna bring my political beliefs on this in this area. What we're gonna be doing is focusing on a Mongabay article that has to do with someone studying devil rays in Gaza and obviously being endangered of this person's life. This is a very serious thing. Unfortunately, we also saw a sea turtle biologist killed in Lebanon this past week, which is a huge tragedy. She felt that she wanted to be there to protect them. She's from Lebanon, didn't live there, went back, and unfortunately she was hit in a missile strike. Absolute tragedy. I'm against war in all major facets.

1:24 You care for the people that are affected by this, and unfortunately, losing scientists to war when they're trying to study their species is just so tragic in all cases. And so I want to go forward with this episode because I think it's important to tell this person's story, and help amplify the story that's on Mongabay News, which is really well done. But I wanted to make sure that we got this out of the way to just let you know of where we stand here at the How to Protect the Ocean podcast, and well, it really is me, because this is something that I care about very, very deeply about these scientists, and we wanna support scientists who are out there. So this is something that we're gonna go do. We're gonna answer a question today. It's, can ocean conservation continue during a humanitarian crisis? So the story comes from a recent interview published by Mongabay featuring marine ecologist Mohammed Abu Daya, a scientist from Gaza who has spent years studying giant devil rays and other marine species in the Eastern Mediterranean.

2:16 So let's start with the animal at the center of the story. Giant devil rays are among the largest rays in the world. If you've ever seen a manta ray, they look somewhat similar. They have broad wing-like fins, can grow several meters across, and spend much of their lives moving through open ocean waters. But unlike manta rays, giant devil rays remain relatively mysterious. Scientists still know surprisingly little about population sizes, migration routes, and breeding behavior. That uncertainty is a problem because the species is already considered endangered and recovers very slowly from population declines. Female devil rays produce very few offspring, making it difficult for populations to bounce back when it numbers fall.

2:57 For years, Mohammed Abu Daya has been working to understand these animals along Gaza's coastline. His research became internationally recognized after helping reveal that what many media outlets once described as a mysterious mass stranding of devil rays on Gaza beaches was actually a targeted fishery. Hundreds of rays had been caught and landed by fishers rather than washing ashore naturally. That discovery helped scientists better understand both the species and the challenges facing conservation in the region. But then the situation became far more difficult. The ongoing war in Gaza has disrupted nearly every aspect of daily life, including scientific research. Fieldwork became dangerous, if not impossible Equipment and resources became difficult to access, and communication with collaborators became even more complicated.

3:48 And yet Abu Daya has continued working whenever possible to document marine life and contribute to conservation knowledge, even though he was probably in danger when doing it. That's where the story becomes much bigger than devil rays. When we talk about ocean conservation, we often focus on protected areas, fishing regulations, or climate change. But conservation depends on something even more fundamental: people, right? If we manage the people, we can manage the ocean. The ocean can almost manage itself, Scientists collect data, communities share knowledge, managers make decisions. Without people doing that work, conservation slows down or stops entirely. Now, the story of Mohammed Abu Daya highlights something we rarely discuss in ocean conservation.

4:28 Many of the world's most important ecosystems are located in regions experiencing political instability, conflict, or economic hardship. Yet biodiversity doesn't pause during a crisis. Species continue migrating, fish continue spawning, threats continue to affect wildlife. And scientists working in those places often become the only source of information available. In Gaza, the marine environment faces unique pressures. Fishing areas are restricted, economic challenges influence how marine resources are used, and conservation measures can be difficult to implement. Yet the coastline still supports important marine species, including the endangered devil rays. What's remarkable is that despite these obstacles, researchers continue finding ways to collect data and engage with fishing communities.

5:14 That collaboration matters. Many conservation successes begin with local knowledge. Fishers often know when the species arrive, where they gather, and how populations appear to be changing. Scientists can then combine their observations with research to better understand what is happening beneath the surface. In other words, conservation isn't something done to communities. The best conservation is usually done with communities, and that's a lesson that applies whether you're working in Gaza, Canada, Australia, or anywhere else. The future of devil ray conservation remains uncertain. Scientists still need better information about population trends, migration patterns, and habitat use throughout the Mediterranean. The species faces ongoing risk from fishing pressure, accidental capture, and habitat degradation.

5:59 But there's also a reason for optimism. Every new piece of information helps build a cleaner picture of how to protect these animals. Researchers across the Mediterranean are increasingly collaborating on the devil ray conservation, and citizen science programs are helping document sightings. Conservation groups are raising awareness about the species, and scientists like Mohammed Abu Daya continue contributing knowledge under circumstances that many researchers would find unimaginable. His story remind us that conservation isn't only about species. It's also about the people who dedicate their lives to understanding and protecting them. When we read scientific papers, we often see just the data. We see the graphs, we see the conclusions.

6:40 What we don't always see are the human stories behind that work, the long days in the field, the uncertainty, the setbacks, and sometimes, as in this case, the extraordinary determination required simply to continue doing the science at all. Like, let's be honest, nobody expects science to go on, especially for the marine environment, while there's a war that breaks out. I don't even know what we expect people to do. I've never been in a war zone. I could never even imagine what people go through. I can only just be afraid for the people who are experiencing this, the innocent people who have done nothing but just have to deal with bombs every single day. How do you expect someone to go out and study these? The fact that they're doing this says a lot about who they are as a scientist and who they are as a person, and I have the utmost respect for the people who are doing this.

7:25 The ocean story is really a people story. Because protecting species like the giant devil rays depends not only on the animals themselves, but on the people willing to keep studying and protecting them even when the odds are stacked against them. Just like to even think about going out when you may or may not see or hear bombs going off and buildings just coming to rubble and people screaming and people scared, people trying to find food, just trying to survive. That's a difficult problem. Gaza is not a very big place and from what I gather from what's been happening, there's nowhere to go. And so they're facing this and here's Mohammed who's actually out there trying to collect data as much as he can, whether he's trying to keep busy, keep his mind off what's going on or just continue to do his work because he's passionate about it.

8:07 The fact that he's actually doing it is amazing. Like, I just can't even consider thinking about what this guy is going through. And I would love to get his story and get him on the podcast at some point, but I would rather him be safe, him survive, him and his family survive what's going on. And hopefully he can one day tell a story at a conference or on this podcast or wherever he can because I think it's one of bravery, I think it's one of courage. I think it's one of trying to do something good in a bad situation, a really bad situation. And there are a lot of biologists out there and conservationists, whether they're terrestrial, freshwater or marine, that have to go through dangers on a regular basis. They live in countries where there's political instability, where there's drug trafficking, where there's human trafficking, where there's a lot of crime, and they have to go out in remote areas where they're unprotected and they are vulnerable to what's happening in and around the area that they live in.

8:59 And you just never know what's gonna happen. And we wanna protect the people there. and we want to support the people who are doing that. We want them to be safe. I don't know if I have the bravery and courage to do that. There's no way. I don't think I could do that. So I give a lot of respect to Mohammed and what he's been able to do, and what he's been able to gather over these last few years, and even just throughout his time living in Gaza, and the fact that he's staying there, like, is just phenomenal. I hope everything goes well for him. I wish him well, and I hope that we get not only more data, but his safety, and his family's safety, and his friends'. And then just the end to the war in general, obviously. It's just awful. So, that's the episode for today. If you enjoyed this episode and you wanna listen to more, you can follow the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.

9:39 If you wanna support the work I do, you can go to speakupforblue.com/patreon. That's speakupforblue.com/patreon. Link is in the show notes. And of course, if you wanna contact me, you can do so on my socials. I wanna thank you for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I also wanna thank Mongabay News for writing this article and the one that we covered yesterday on the podcast 'cause they're an amazing organization. You should check them out at mongabay.com. And I wanna thank you for listening to this episode, and have a good day. We'll talk to you next time, and happy conservation.