Madagascar Environment and Shark Science with Dr. David Ebert

0:00 Have you ever wondered how sharks get discovered? Now, I'm not talking about just, you know, regular sharks, like your great whites, your makos, your bull sharks, your tiger sharks. Those are like sort of the iconic sharks. Those are like the popular kids in class type of sharks. But these are the sharks that are really unknown because they've been lost or they haven't been seen in a long time. But it's important to know if they've gone extinct or if they're still around. And to be able to say, Hey, there are actually a lot more sharks than the sharks that we talk about or we see in documentaries and in movies all the time. It's important to know the diversity because it's important to know how far they each stretch out in terms of shape, form, size, look, different adaptations, and so forth, and even different depths within the ocean. Well, today on the podcast I have Dr. David Ebert, who is my co-host for the Beyond Jaws podcast.

0:43 He's here to talk about his trip, recent trip to Madagascar, where he went to look for lost sharks, and we're gonna talk to him about his journey. It's gonna be a lot of fun. I can't wait to start the show. So let's start the show. Here we go. Hey everybody. Welcome back to another exciting episode of the Head to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening. At the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action. I have a special treat for you today because this is an episode that we are going to show on Beyond Jaws podcast. So if you haven't heard of Beyond Jaws, I do a separate podcast. I co-host it with a friend of mine, Dr. David Ebert. Who I actually met during an interview for this podcast a number of years ago, and we got along so well even before and after we did the podcast.

1:30 We actually recorded, we actually talked about an hour or two before and after the podcast. We spent, you know, about like four hours on the call just to talk about everything, talk about science, talk about sharks, talk about sports and football and all this kind of stuff. And it was a lot of fun and we just got to be friends over that time and we decided, hey, you know what's. Start a podcast on sharks because Dave is a shark biologist and he is someone who's very into finding lost sharks and discovering sharks that people don't really know about. These are like smaller types of sharks, so they may not look like your typical shark. They might be a skate, they might be a stingray. They might. Be a manta ray. They might be a chimer, like a ghost shark, or they might be a deep sea shark, like a goblin shark or a sleeper shark, and like all these different types of sharks that are out there that we just don't know, which is why I love the show all the Sharks on Netflix because we were able to see so many different types of sharks and shapes and sizes and.

2:22 Different types of adaptations and colors, of course, which were really cool to see during that show. Well, Dave's, that's his life. Dave is there to discover sharks. He's discovered and named over 50 different types of sharks over his career, and he's here to talk about a project, a recent trip that he went to go to Madagascar, Africa to be able to look for specific sharks. Now, did he find some, did he not? We're kind of keeping that a little bit of a secret because we're gonna be showing it on his show. At Lost Shark Guy on his YouTube channel, and I wanted to kind of give you a perspective of what it's like to look for lost sharks, and it's probably not your typical way when you think about someone going into the field and looking for lost sharks. It's very different than going out at sea all the time and looking for a needle in a haystack because the ocean is so vast.

3:07 It's so big. It's so deep. It's very difficult to just go fishing for it or seeing it as bycatch, although that has happened. We saw that on alien sharks. On Discovery Channel is some of his graduate students of the past, and so I think it's important to talk about how Dave finds lost sharks in a lot of these countries and how he prepares for a trip like this. This is a series of trips that he's done over the last three years with help from the Save Overseas Foundation that provides the funding for this type of work. And he talks about that and we're gonna talk all about that. On today's episode, so here's the interview with Dr. David Ebert, talking about discovering Lost sharks in Madagascar. Enjoy the interview and I will talk to you after. Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Beyond Jaws podcast. We're gonna be doing something a little different today.

3:47 We're having Dave Ebert as our guest on the podcast today because he just came back from an incredible trip where he was looking for lost sharks. It's one of his trips that he does every year. Seems like for the last couple of years. Uh, and we are gonna talk about. Some of the things he's gonna tease, some of the things that he may or may not have been like searching for and may or may not have found. We're gonna talk a lot about sort of what it's like to go into a country like Madagascar, where he went and what it was like to, you know, go into the fish markets and look for these lost sharks and engage with the local community. It's gonna be a great episode. Let's get started with the show. Hey everybody. Welcome back to another. Citing episode of the Beyond Jaws podcast.

4:29 I am your co-host, Andrew Lewin, here with my co-host Dr. David Ebert. But today's a little different 'cause. Dave is our guest today. So Dave, welcome to the Beyond Jaws podcast. Are you ready to talk about lost sharks? Absolutely Andrew, and thanks for, thanks for inviting me on the show. Isn't it great when you have like a podcast to yourself, like you're Oh yeah. You just be, you're like, Hey, can I just be the guest? Yeah. We're gonna talk about my trip. Absolutely. Because this is what people wanna know and people wanna know about your trip, right? Well. Exactly. And plus it's easy to book me. We're doing this like, just to let people know, like the, the day that we're recording this is on Thanksgiving, Canadian Thanksgiving, uh, so it's, it is like I've had the day off.

5:12 I had a little break with family stuff 'cause we did our Thanksgiving yesterday. Dave's like, Hey, you wanna get together? Let's talk about it. I'm like, absolutely, let's do it today. 'cause we actually have some time to relax. And for all those who you don't know, some of the, some of you who have been guests on the podcast know that when we record the show, we record a show. And it's usually like, you know, 30 minutes to an hour, sometimes a little longer, but afterwards. And before Dave and I talked probably for like two to three hours. So it's, it's been a long haul already. We've already been talking for an hour. We're getting into the episode. We'll probably talk for a little bit after that. Uh, but that's the experience you get as a guest on this podcast. For any of you who have either been on it or watch this or want to be on in the future, uh, that's what to expect. So just to let you know that.

5:53 But regardless, Dave, uh. You are, you just came back from an incredible trip to Madagascar looking for lost Sharks. Can you talk a little bit, just set it up. This has been a bit of a series. We've been doing the videos on Lost Shark guy on, on YouTube. We'll put the link in in the show notes. Can you just talk about sort of your journey throughout this whole process and how you ended up in Madagascar? Yeah. Well, I gotta start off saying that the really the, the big thanks goes to the Save RCS Foundation. Which is, I have a Keystone grant from, it's number 5, 9 4, and they've been, they've been s spectacular with the supporting this and the projects. The project's really been to raise awareness of these lost sharks and these are species that haven't been seen in decades, you know, some in a century or more sometimes.

6:40 And it's also also just to raise awareness of even of species of, of species that people don't think about as sharks. Yeah. Things like the white shark, tiger, shark, you know, the high profile, charismatic ones. People know popular, the popular ones, but all these other ones, people don't think about, especially in these, you know, a lot of these, uh, developing countries like Madagascar. And so the project I've been working on with, uh, the Save RCS Foundation with their support has been to go to different location every year. Mm-hmm. We start off, two years ago, we went to, uh, south America, to Ecuador and Peru. Spent spent, you know, spent few, several weeks there just traveling through, looking for some different shark species. Yeah. Made a lot of great contacts there.

7:21 And in fact, the first, uh, we on, on my YouTube channel, uh, at Lost Shark Guy on YouTube, the series, uh, searching for Lost Sharks Extinct or Live, the first four episodes are up, and the, the episodes two to four really focus a lot on. Some of the South American species there and some of the species that have been been, uh, uh, we went looking for and mm-hmm. One, case one we didn't find, um, uh, but it has a whole story there. And they're all, they're all short, like 10 minutes plus or minus a few minutes if you, so it doesn't take up a big chunk of your time. Yeah. And then, um, and then last year we went to an amazing trip. We went to, first we went to Darwin Australia up in the Northern Territory. Uh, looking for river sharks. Then from there we went on to Timor.

8:02 Lessie, just an incredible place. And if you don't know where Timor-Leste is, it used to be called East Timor. Go look at a map. This place is like, yeah, almost no one knows about it out unless you live in Australia or that part of the world. It was just one of the most. Unbelievable trips I've ever had. And we're gonna be having an episode of that, uh, coming out here in the, in the fourth, coming in a few months now. And then from there, we went all the way through Indonesia, starting in the, in the east. Went through several places. Ended up in far western Indonesia, again, highlighting a lot of speed, new species there, uh, rare species. Um, and the, and the cool thing with, with that, with this series, and of course this, this year we went to Africa, went to Madagascar.

8:42 Uh, but I'm working with people in country. That are basically a lot of young, early career students, uh, uh, conservationists, uh, researchers. And so it's kind of, it's been really neat working with these young people. They're kind of passing along what I know, you know, passing my knowledge onto these young people in these countries. If you're basically the next generation, it'll be, you know, taking the torch. You know, in the coming years. Yeah. And a lot of these, you know, most of these people are all like, just really top-notch people. And I hope if you've been following the series, we've had, most of 'em have been on the podcast here. And so if you have a chance, like be sure to check in, you know, follow the podcast, check out the series, and then you can, you can follow these other, these people out on their social media platforms as well.

9:27 And uh, so that's been really kind of another gratifying part to me is just to be able to. Work with a lot of these young people in these different countries and you'll hear, hear about some of the people in Madagascar now. Uh, that I had a chance to work with this year. And, uh, so anyway, check out that series, uh, on the YouTube channel and, uh, and you find out more about it. And of course go to the Beyond Jaws 'cause you can hear most of those people speaking there. Um, and it's a, it's a phenomenal series. Like I know we're biased, but it's, it's fun because it gives you a, a taste of what you do in terms of searching for lost sharks. A lot of, a lot of people and certainly myself, when I heard, you know, before I knew who you were, like before we met and stuff like that, I, I started to, you know, do some research before you came on the podcast for the first time, and.

10:11 I was like, oh, how do you search for lot sharks? Do you go out to sea all the time and, and like, go to these TRAs? Because I saw Alien Sharks. You know, when, when the Discovery channel had some of your students on there at the time and, and I was like, oh, this is kind of an interesting way. Like, but it's gotta be like, you know, you're looking for a needle in the haystack here we're talking about the ocean and a lot of times deep sea ocean. So how do you find these sharks? But you know, when you, when you came on, we talked about it a lot and you've really shown me, especially through these, these videos that, like the series that. You know, searching for a lost shark is a lot like, uh, you know, really getting into, diving into the communities of where they, you think these lost sharks have been found or have been seen in the past. And talking to fishing communities, talking to locals, and getting to know them and building those relationships, like that's a, that's a huge part of what you do.

10:58 And I think do, do you find, when, when people talk to you about the work that you do, do you find that's the biggest surprise that they have when they find out that that's how you find a lot of these lost sharks? Yeah. Well a lot of 'em have, people have no, unless you're in the field, have no idea. There's all these different shark species out there and they have no, almost no idea that these things have, in some cases been, been, uh, been missing. Right. Um, you know, and, and I, and the thing is this was, you know, I finally, I used to do some of these different like alien shark series and for Shark Week and for Nat Geo and BBC. And one of the things with this one, I wanted to be able to tell my story. You know, the way I wanted to do it without, you know, editors and corporate people telling, well, we need to do this, we need to, we need to have a flying white shark.

11:42 Which, you know, if anybody's, if you know, most people won't, but if you've worked in any of these shows, there always comes that one part. When you're doing like a show, when they're doing a show prep or the story prep, they'll say like, okay, now when does a white shark come into the, come into the episode? And I'm like, well, there's no white shark in the episode. Um, you know, and they're like, oh, well I don't know if we'll wanna do this episode then. So. That's the nice thing about me. I've had the freedom to kind of like, I'm telling my story and I've had, you know, it's been great. It's been really good. Just for people know, like with this journey I've been on, I mean, two people have been just invaluable, has been Denise Sotomayor is a young Peruvian journalist, filmmaker, uh, underwater cinematographer. She's been with me on these journeys the last three years, filming, filming these things here.

12:27 And then of course, Andrew, you've been. Invaluable editing this stuff here. 'cause I have no idea what I'm doing. Editing. I can, I can do the story, I can go through all the film clips, but, but I, I, um, thank God I got you to do the, uh, do the editing on this whole thing. Um, and, uh, but, but, but both Denise and Andrew have been just invaluable in this whole thing. And, and even Denise. 'cause Denise has had to go through these different adventures with me. And in the last three years we've had like, well, let's see. We've had coups, political assassinations, oh man. Near, nearly getting eaten by crocodiles. Um, it's been, it's been kind of fun. It's been interesting. Let's just say, yeah. It's been very interesting and Andrew's sitting back there in Toronto going, oh, wow, that's, that sounds kind of exciting.

13:09 Yeah. You know, well, I think, I think it also, it, it speaks to the, um, some of the dangers of the world. You know, like, like a lot of the times, you know, for me, I don't think I've ever. Uh, thought when I was growing up through, going through my undergrad, going through my graduate studies that I would ever work in a country, uh, that I didn't necessarily consider, you know, quote unquote safe. You know, where I could do field work and I wouldn't be, other than the sort of the, um, the dangers of the environment that you're working in, you know, on a boat or at sea, you know, when you're doing field work that I never had, I never thought about, you know, different like the politics of a country or some of the emerging issues that are happening within, within countries.

13:54 You know, as you mentioned some of those, so. A lot of times you don't think about the dangers that the people, the, some of the people who you mentor are in just doing their work. Mm-hmm. You know? Yeah. And that, like, that's, it's, it's scary when you think about it. I've, I've definitely been, um, you know, been educated through what the work that you do and other people have done over the years of how dangers it could be, uh, in a lot of these places, and how some people who live in certain countries have to be more careful in how they go about their business and go about their science, because it could be. Misconstrued as, you know, interfering with other maybe, you know, not so great activities going on in that country and that their, their lives could be put at risk, you know, in that kind.

14:38 Exactly. I mean, they're, and, and again, you know, this, I, you know, I, I don't share a lot of stuff on air or publicly because, 'cause my colleagues that are in the, still in those countries could be at risk if I shared a lot of more, exactly more detail on things I experienced. You know, if it's just me. And once I, you know, because I'm, I leave, I'm outta the country. It's like, you know, I'm a little more open. But if I got friends, colleagues there, collaborators, I, I gotta be careful what I say. 'cause I don't want them to suddenly become a, get a target on their back. Mm-hmm. Some, some guy who's left, who's left the country now. Um, and so like, and if anybody, you know, most people don't know, but I'm, all I'm gonna say is like, if you follow any international news and stuff, you'll know Madagascar. About two days after I left, they had a. Some civil unrest there, and I think they've, they're on their third, third president now.

15:25 The last few weeks since I left, and um, so there's stuff going on there, but anyway, but there's a lot of, there's a lot of other challenges you meet too as well when you're, when you're working a lot of these places or, and I, I try to convey that, but, you know, you got things like your working areas that it's difficult to get around. Madagascar, it's, it's definitely hard to get around. The roads are not really very good. You know, you basically, the best thing to do is hire somebody just, which what we did and just who's basically a driver of the vehicle just takes you, yeah. To some of these remote spots and um, you know, like people ask me, I think you'd even did early on, like, well, how do you find all these weird lost sharks? And it's like, well, 'cause I'll go places most people won't go.

16:05 'cause if it's, you know, if it's easy to get there, you're probably not gonna find anything too exciting if you really have to work to get there. Your chances are finding something pretty, pretty exciting goes way up and um, you know, what gives you that motivation to do that though, right? Because like, I, I get it. Like I get that and it makes sense that a lot of places that are more remote, uh, you know, you find, you find those sharks, uh, whether you have to find it by land or you have to find it by sea or an island, you know, whatever that might be. Ha. Have you always had that motivation to go that little extra mile to say, Hey, I wanna find these, these sharks. Yeah, I, yeah, I mean the whole, as I've kind of mentioned a few episodes, the Lost Shark thing kind of evolved over time.

16:48 I didn't just decide I was gonna go find these lost sharks, but, but I have, I had that sort of explor gene and I've always had it right, and I've just wanted to go, and it's a curiosity too, like I wanted to go find things. I wanted to learn as much as I can about. All the different sharks and when, and just everybody know that when I say sharks, I'm talking about the rays. Yeah. Bat toys. All sharks. The ghost sharks. That's everything. They're all sharks. Thesal. Bris. Yeah. And yeah. And Ians. Yeah. And what, what really kind of the whole lost shark, uh, guy thing started back in the eighties when I was, even though I didn't call it that, but I would go off into the, you know, places. And at that time, nobody had really ever been to Namibia, even though people lived in Namibia. Mm-hmm. That nobody ever gone exploring the sharks there.

17:30 I'd go off there and, and I'd, I'd be gone a couple of months and I'd come back with just wild things. I didn't know what to make at 'em. And fortunately I had a Professor Leonard Kanu, who had a broad knowledge of all kinds of, all things shark. And he'd see things I'd bring back. He'd tell me like, we haven't seen this in a hundred years. We haven't seen this species in 80 years. And I was like, well, that's kind of cool. So that only like a little bit that only inspired me to go, yeah. To go more, uh, to keep going. And so I went to a lot of places, and again, one of the, one of the things when you go to these places, I, you know, another question I get is like, well, aren't, aren't you worried about the sharks? And I'm like, sharks are like so far down on my list of things to be worried about.

18:11 Um, you know, when you've, when I've, yeah. You know, I've been in places, and this was years ago, especially when I was young. I'm a little. There is this thing about age and wisdom for your young people listening. It really does. It is because when I was young, I You think twice? Yeah. When I was young in my twenties, I was like, sure, let's go do whatever. You know? And you didn't think about, you know, some of the, some of the realities of stuff. Yeah. Um, but, you know, civil unrest was a big thing would come up. Um, you know, you had different, you know, I'd been in some places where their coups took place where. Yeah, the government was, I literally was like there. And there be, people are like shooting at each other and stuff, and things don't even think about, um, when you, you're also in areas in, especially when you, when you, you're in areas in, in Africa when you, where you did your PhD mm-hmm.

18:54 If you went to Namibia or, or other countries, adjacent countries to there where poverty was extreme in a lot of places. Just the fact of your personal, like the, the, your team and the people who are going with your personal safety can be at risk in a lot of these places if you're not, um, aware of what Oh, yeah. What you're going into. Right, right. You gotta be aware of stuff like, and like Namibia, when I used to go back there, we just take, me and my friend Paul Callie were both grad students. We just took off and went. There was just no, it was a little different. Other places we go to you, you, I always tried to, I learned early on to like work with local people. Where you could, uh, because a lot of times there's language barriers and stuff, but yeah, when you go to these, you go to these different places like, you know, Madagascar, you know, you go to these, some of these remote villages and.

19:40 These little kids, you know, they've, they've never seen a white guy before. Literally. Yeah. Yeah. A white guy. A white guy with blue eyes especially. Yeah. Um, you know, and you just got these little kids follow you around there and just like, you know, kind of like you're, they're curious and you're curious. Of course. Then after a few minutes they, they're like, Hey, maybe this guy has some money sitting. They're begging for money from you. Yeah. And um, one of the things just kind of a pro tip. Never give money out. When you're traveling these places, you might feel like you want to but don't. It's, it'll go, it won't go, it won't end well for you in a lot of those places. Right? Yeah. Once you, once you start pulling out that wallet or putting that money, it's all gone. Right? It'll go bad. Yeah. So you don't wanna do that, but, but you know, you go through these places, you know, and you know, you, like, you, you know, you have a country, you know, like Madagascar, you know, you got like, illiteracy is about 70%.

20:25 A lot of the country doesn't have much in the way of like, uh, electricity. Mm-hmm. Or, or clean water, certainly by Western standards. And, um, um, but you know, you still, but you know, you find some of the nicest people, you know, you go in these places, of course, you know, and they're like, you know, they're, they're often, they're very. You know, they'll show you around stuff and of course there they speak Malagasy or French, neither two languages I don't speak. Right. And, uh, but yeah, work again, this is where coming and working with, um, local people and, and in this case, in Madagascar, I was working with, uh, uh, wildlife Conservation Society people, uh, WCS. These are, uh, some of the people, uh, Rhett Bennett, who's South African, who's been on the podcast.

21:05 Yep. Some, some of the people work for him. 'cause Rhett's sort of the Western Indian Ocean Regional director for, I apologize, I'm not getting your title correctly, but regional director there. Um, but like Christelle who's, uh, worked with her. And I apologize, I'm not pronouncing your last name, Christelle, because, um, I cannot possibly begin to pronounce it correctly. So, um, but you'll, we're gonna have her on the podcast here early next year. And so people get a chance to hear her story. Um, but she has a master's in marine science and she's, uh, um, uh, was just invaluable. Being able to get around knew, knew, knew where to go. We had a few of other people, a few of her colleagues there, a young guy named, liked his name's, like that's how you pronounce it.

21:46 And, uh, he was great. Likable guy. Likable guy. Took us around all the fishermen. Another, another guy down the south that was up in the north of the noisy bee area. Down in the southwest. Another, uh, good friend of hers, Piero, who, uh, who uh, went to the university, uh, with Christelle, uh, took us around, took us to some just really remote villages that you just, you know, they were not easy to get to. Mm-hmm. In fact, one of the ones we went to. They were fish, they were catching deep sea sharks out there, which ended up being like one of the highlights for the trip. Um, just seeing these, some of these deep sea sharks, including, we got a, we got a new record of one of one ray, a new ray for, uh, Madagascar. That's awesome.

22:26 Which is amazing. And then, and the other thing, they catch, um, sealants there, if you, if you don't know what seal cans are, they catch sealants there. And I didn't know they went that far south. Yeah, they're, yeah. Well, they didn't, yeah, they, they, the first ones came in in 1995. Right. And, uh, the fishermen knew all, but one thing the fishermen knew like, yeah, that's a big deal. You know, we don't see really this all the time. Yeah. We don't, they're not really great eating, but we catch 'em and Yeah. And stuff. So, um. Uh, so yeah, I, I'm sure if I would've given 'em some money, they probably would've caught one for me, but I really don't have any reason to want to get a sealant. Right. Um, but they caught some really other really interesting species, like some guer sharks and just some other deep sea squa OIDs, which are really where I, I I see those deep sea things that you get pretty fascinated by 'em.

23:11 Yeah. Um, but, you know, it was a, it was, it took, you know, every day it was a couple hours just to get down to this place. You know, you go there, you see, like you, you pass a lot of the rivers and stuff. You see like people using the rivers, they're in their, they're, they're bathing, they're getting drinking water. There's cattle, there's wildlife in there. It's just, I mean, not the most hygienic place you'd wanna be, right, right. To get water. Um, but, but you see those types of conditions because that's, that's the only place there's, there's no real running, running water anywhere else and, uh, and everything. So it's kind of, I, I think another thing too, you ask. I like experiencing that stuff for myself firsthand. I mean, most people sit, you really get to see the world that way. Yeah. You see what's happening in these countries, right?

23:52 You see a part of the world that 95% of the world never, of the, I say what 95% of the western world doesn't see. Yeah. You know mean we hear about, but sometimes we don't hear about the right things. Like we hear about like the popular stuff that's happening such as like these riots and stuff, but you never really hear about the innards of like what? Goes on in the country on a day-to-day basis, what it's like, how the people, you know, how they're living, all that kind of stuff, right? Yeah. And Mo and most of those people are just trying to get by, just, you know, yeah. You know, go out, you know, provide for the FA family and you see these people go out, you see these fishermen go out and these just little dugout canoes. Right. Don't even look seaworthy. And yet these guys are just amazing. You watch 'em just, they, they got, they got these homemade sales and they can, I'll be posting some of this stuff.

24:35 I've posted some already, but I'll be posting more stuff in the coming weeks on my social media, particularly Instagram and I, and I'll try to post some of my channel as well. But you just see these people out there, just like out there fishing and they're absolute mariners. Yeah. Uh, these guys out there and, uh, they'll go out there and just, and they go out at night sometimes and they'll fish for whatever. You know, sometimes 7, 8, 9, 10 hours out at sea and they just, they seem to know how to navigate because they're, they go, sometimes they'll go out. Fairly far out. Sometimes they'll be out for a couple of days. Mm-hmm. And I just don't know. I'm just like, I just can't believe they're even being able to navigate out there. But they're very good mariners. In fact, one, this one village we went to down the southwest was pretty remote place we went to.

25:17 Funny story is, um, we came walking up over the dunes sand dunes from the village to the beach where the boats where they come in and land and they came over the dune. There's these little kids with homemade surfboards outta wood. The tree home made surfboards outta wood. Yeah, I mean, I mean it sound, it literally, they just some, some trees they chopped down. They made these little surfboards, nothing fancy. And they were literally like surfing. I mean like some were boogie boarding, but some were just popping up and standing up surfing. These were incredible kids. Like 5, 6, 7, 8 years old, maybe 10. Yeah. And they were surfing and just in the surf, like the shallow waves kind of thing.

26:00 Yeah, well some of those waves were like three, four foot, so they weren't backed out. Yeah. So it's pretty big for a five or 6-year-old too. Yeah. I sent, sent, I, I sent, I sent a thing to, uh, I sent, I, I, I took, I took some video and I sent it back to my buddies in Santa Cruz, Neil Berg and, and, and a couple other guys that, Hey, check this out. These guys are here. Gonna give you some competition, these little kids. Wow. That was one of the, but that's the kind of thing like you. I, I just, I, I get me excited kind of seeing something like that. Like for sure. Who would ever think these guys would be thinking about surfing? Yeah. And what inspired I, what inspired these kids to pick up a board, to make a board to surf on. Because they don't, I wonder if that's just like a, like a generational thing.

26:42 Like a traditional thing that people do as ways to enjoy the coastline and just enjoy the day, right. Uh, yeah. I mean, I think by the time these kids get to be 12, 13, 14, they're, they're going out fishing. They start, yeah, they working the fishing. So these are these, I say these kids were a little young, not quite, yeah. Age Well. 'cause I think once they hit 12, 13, 14, they're. They're working in the fishing business pretty much. So these, that's why these kids were like really young and they're just playing like most kids, young kids would do. Yeah. Just playing around and having a, having a really good freaking time out there and stuff, and then wondering who the hell the sky is with, you know, coming around asking, coming around here, like asking questions, talking to their parents about different sharks and Yeah.

27:24 You know, they're kind of like, yeah, I see these things all the time. What's the big deal? You know? Yeah. And, uh, uh, so I kind of, uh, so it was just. Yeah, that's one of those things like I, you know, we did get some film of that and I hope we get the episode up. We'll be able to show a little bit of these kids surfing if it, how it comes out. I mean, I can't, the little video I took didn't look that great, but hopefully Denise has some little better footage of it. But it's just, yeah, it's one of those like slice of life things you don't even think about amongst in this, in this kind of part of the world. Like these guys were actually got surfing on stuff and so anyways, that was kind of neat. That's awesome. That was kind of a neat little story. Oh yeah. That was kind of a neat little story. Um. Yeah, it was, it was, it was interesting. We went there, there was like three species I had on my hit list to go find.

28:08 We found two. Well, I was gonna, I was gonna ask just before you go into that. Yeah. The preparation. When you go to a country like Madagascar, first of all, you know, like why Madagascar? Like, what, what made you want to go, like, you know, you've been to Ecuador and you've been to Perdu, Peru, you've been like, over the last few years, especially through these, these, uh, SOF uh, s let's say, overseas. Overseas. Um, and you, you've, you've gone to Darwin, East Timor, you know, Indonesia, like Jakarta, uh, and now you're Madagascar. So like what, uh, what was it about Madagascar. That, was it the actual species that you were looking for? Like what makes you get interested in like where these species kind of come on your radar, where you're like, Hey, I'm gonna look for this one.

28:52 I, well, part of it is, uh, part of what the project I wanted to highlight different parts of the world. Okay. Uh, partly Madagascar came about because I've been to all of the other Eastern, a East African countries from Kenya to South Africa. The Mauritius Sey shell. Those Western Indian Ocean places. I've been to all of those countries, you know, I mean, okay. I haven't been to like Somalia, but that wouldn't really be a safe place to go. Right. You still have Sudan right now. Stuff have to look at where you're going. Yeah. You know, so I mean, there, there is a, there is a point where you're like, that's not gonna, that would not end well for me to go to like Somalia right now. Mm-hmm. Um, but, uh, um, but I hadn't, I hadn't been there before. I kind of, it's one of those places. Sounds kind of exotic. Yeah. And so I wanted to check it out and so I, and so I, so yeah, I thought, oh, this would be good.

29:36 I knew, and I knew of a couple species there that haven't been seen in a while, and I thought, let's go check it out and just go check it out firsthand. I knew it was gonna be a bit of a tough from talking to people that have been there. I knew it was gonna be a bit of a, of a rough, of a rough trip. Just 'cause it was just rough in that. Yeah. There's not like a lot of amenities there. I mean, we Right. You know, we, we, we do what we can and uh, and I was glad I went, you know, I said it was, it was the landscape and everything was nothing like I expected. Um, you know, spoiler alert, if you've watched the movie, the animated movie, Madagascar, it's kind of a lush, jungley area that's not Madagascar. It's, it's very Oh, interesting. Very arid, very uh, uh, I was there in the dry season too, but it's just very, very dry.

30:20 Uh, a lot of dust sand blowing around. Interesting. Very, yeah, very arid. Not, not, not at least the parts I was at. And again, it is a big country. It's, I think it's one of the biggest islands. Biggest islands in the world. In the world. Yeah. Top, top five maybe. But, but yeah, it was nothing like, I thought it wasn't this lush jungle area and stuff. And, um, so, but again, I kind of, few people kind of gave me a heads up, but yeah, if you've seen the cartoon, the animation's, nothing like that. It's not like that. Trust me. Yeah. I kept joking about looking, looking for, uh, Alex the Lion and, you know, uh, uh, Morty and, and Melman and everybody, but, uh, no, no such luck over there. Um, but they have, but they do have like a high, they have a lot of endemic species there.

31:03 Yeah. Of actually one of the, uh, one of the, uh, um. Species I've described from there, uh, uh, the Malagasy guitar fish, uh, arterio betas, Andy Saban, I, um, is in depth. It's only known from Madagascar and there's a few other species. In fact, you know, one of the, one of the ones I was looking for, it's only known from Madagascar, and I'm not gonna give it away now because we're gonna do a special right thing on this one. Um, but it was a, uh, um. Uh, it's a species that hasn't been seen like in over a hundred, a hundred years. And so we went to see if we could find it and, uh, we'll let you know what kind of luck we had with it. But there's a, there's a couple others there, there's some other species that, you know, haven't been seen in 30, 40 years.

31:44 We, you know, we, we looked for and, uh, uh, you know, thought we had a chance for. Then there's another, another, there's another species that hasn't been seen. In almost a hundred years either. So we went for, I knew of like, said a few of them there that I thought would be good targets to go find and then to say we found a stingray that hasn't never been reported from Madagascar before. We, I'm gonna have more information on that later. Sorry to leave people a little bit of a mystery here, but there's, there's some of these things are gonna be really a big deal when they come out. And so we're gonna do a separate, I'll do a separate, uh, show. We're actually gonna do a, one of the, uh, uh, uh. Searching for lost sharks. Episode is just gonna be on these species we went searching for. Yeah. Um, but I said we found some other, some other species that were really some deep sea stuff that were really exciting to find.

32:31 Uh, we found three species of gulp sharks, which was super, super interesting. Yeah. Um, probably the other thing we had to do, I met, met just an amazing woman down there, Stella Mont. Who runs the, who's the founder and runs the, uh, Madagascar Whale Shark Foundation project. Oh, cool. Hope I got that right, Stella. And, uh, yeah, Stella's another one we're gonna, I wanna have on the show. Um, she's actually from Belgium and she, um, but she spends part of the year in, in, uh, Madagascar. Up in noisy B um, studying the whale sharks up there and the whale sharks congregate. Oh, cool. At times of the year up there. And um, of course, you know, my, the running joke with me is if you don't wanna see whale sharks, just have Dave go show up there.

33:11 You can go to the most, you can go to the most abundant whale shark place in the world. Just have Dave show up and they're all gone. No, you might see mannas, you're not gonna see. Yeah, exactly. You might see manna range, but you're not gonna see nail sharks. And just, just for those of you that have listened to, when I did, came back from Ecuador, we went out to a place called Eyelid, a plot looking for the, uh, sharkfin hound shark. And at the, went out there with uh, uh, uh, uh, Michelle Guerrero, who runs the, uh, uh, manta Trust, uh, Ecuador Manta Trust, uh, uh, group there. Yeah. And it's, it's like the biggest ban of. Congregation and whale sharks out there, and of course. No whale sharks there, but right after, like two days after I left there, all the, all the whale sharks showed up.

33:53 So of course, and, and I've had several other experiences in Mexico and other places where like, oh, you're, no, you'll absolutely see him here, Dave. And they never show up. Yeah. So, so if you want to go see Whale Shark. Don't go with Dave. Yeah, exactly. Like I, I will, I will say Stella did warn me, she said, I'm probably a little early. They probably won't see him, but Right. You still had to go make out and go make an effort out there and go see him. Of course, of course. Beautiful day, you know, beautiful day out in the water. Beautiful day to see whale sharks. Beautiful. Yeah. But they just, just weren't around. We, we did see whales though, which was kind of cool. That's cool. Humpbacks, humpback whales, and I think minky whales. There's another one we saw. Oh, that's cool. Saw some other stuff. Some dolphins. So we saw some other. Other stuff and, uh, I had a great time.

34:34 It was really awesome. And, and, uh, there'll be, we'll feature some of that stuff in there, in, in the episode of course comes up of course. And then they say Stella will be on the show here, probably early in the new year. Yeah. Talk about her program. So, well, so we had some just to say before you go on, just to say, you were talking about the, the size of the islands and, and, and I looked it up. Um, thanks to chat GPT, uh, and it's, and Madagascar is the fourth largest island at 587,000 kilometers squared. Borneo the third, uh, new Guinea is the, the second, and Greenland is, uh, it blows everybody outta the water. Like 2 million. Yeah. Although isn't Australia considered an island? I, I, I thought Australia was considered an island. Yeah. So I think Australia would probably be the biggest if you're, if you're including that.

35:17 I don't know how it's though, it's considered a continent, so, oh, it says excluding continent. So maybe that's why this list. Yeah. But also just to let you know, in terms of. For those of you who want to know in the top 10, uh, Baffin Island, which is Canadian mm-hmm. Is up in the five, 500,000, uh, Sumatra, Indonesia, Honshu in Japan, Victoria Island, another Canadian, uh, great Britain, uh, obviously United Kingdom, and then Smer Island. Another Canadian island up in the, all up in the Arctic. So, uh, I had a feeling that, that's why I looked it up. I'm like, I, we should have a bunch of Canadian islands up there. Oh yeah. Go Canada, Greenland. Yeah. Go Canada. Indeed. Uh, Greenland is at 2 million, uh, kilometers squared over 2 million kilometers squared, so it blows everybody else new guinea's a second.

35:59 It, it's at 785,000 kilometers square, so, okay. You know, kind of like bigger than everybody else, but, uh, interesting. Nonetheless. Yeah. So the fourth, fourth largest. Kind of a, kind of a funny story when I, when we were flying there, we, and I'd, I've, I've flown from South Africa 'cause we just, just so people know, like just getting to Madagascar is not an easy task. You had to, because I'm leaving from California. So it was like, you know, it's like 10 hours to London, then you gotta lay over in la You got a few hours in London, then you have another 11 hours to Johannesburg. Yep. You gotta stay overnight, then you gotta stay overnight. Then you have like another four and a half hour flight or so four hours to Madagascar and, uh, so it's, and and they only fly certain days of the week.

36:43 So it's, it's not like an easy. Place to get to It is a, it's, it, I basically left on a Thursday and I got there on a Sunday. So just to give, just to give you a, a sense of couple of layovers here and there. Yeah. And all that kind of stuff. I, I think you could, I think you could go to Paris and then fly directly from Paris to Madagascar. Yeah. But I had, uh, I think you can. Yeah, you can. I think you can fly because they do have other airlines. I know you can fly from. The UAE and a few other countries. Yeah. But either way it's still like getting from California to there. It's a long haul. And um, it was kind of funny was I, I've kind of flown over Madagascar before, but when we kind of, we, because you fly out from, from South Africa and then when you, you fly and then you, as you approach Madagascar, you turn, you kind of had, in our case, we headed north and I kind of, I kind of, I was looking out the window and I kind of like, sort of knew.

37:33 It was Madagascar, but just kinda asked the, uh, flight attendant, like, you know, Hey is, that's Madagascar there? And he goes, yeah. He goes, he wasn't sure, you know, he says, well, I'll, I'll ask the pilot. And so the pilot comes back and says like, oh no, it's the Chemours. And I'm like, I've flown over the Chemours before. They're kind of a speck, a couple of rocks in the middle of nowhere. Yeah. Yeah. And so I'm thinking, so the funny thing when I'm thinking to myself like. How does he not know? I go, if the pilot doesn't know, we could be screwed here. And, and, and so, and so when I got the noisy beat, the first thing I did is got on, got online with a friend of mine I went to high school with who used to be an airline pilot. And told a story and all she could do is like, send me back an LOL.

38:16 Like laugh out loud. I'm thinking like, fuck, that didn't really help me too much. No, no. So that's hilarious. They prob they probably, they probably figured the, well I think she told me like she figured the flight attendant was probably busy doing flight attendant stuff. Wasn't really paying attention and Exactly. The pilot pro, the pilot probably just threw out something just thinking, ah, shut the passenger up or whatever. Just kinda like, yeah, we're over the Coors. That's just the Coors. Yeah. Well, I've, well, because I've flown, I've flown around that area quite a bit. It was probably in. Wasn't a great question for me to ask. I just was kind of curious. But you know, because you fly along for about a half hour, 45 minutes up along a coastline, there's nothing else out there in the Indian Ocean. Right. 'cause most, you know, like Mauritius s you know, if you blink your eyes, you pa you pass.

38:57 Yeah. Reunion, you pass right over those places. But mad gas are you kind of hit. So yeah. Anyway, that was kind of a funny little story we're going into. Going into Madagascar, like, oh, this is gonna be interesting. That's, yeah. And if you're asking the question out there, and I know people are, it's a burning question. It's like, how is it flying around domestically in Madagascar? And that's like, so something, everyone that I'm sure wanna know, well just be prepared when you go there because. The flights can change quite rapidly. And thank God, like for Christelle, who was, uh, who was our, our, our company, us the whole way around there and thank, thank goodness we had somebody there because they would literally change the flights or cancel 'em. But they don't tell you you have to go online to find out if you still have a flight.

39:37 So before you leave for the airport, you just go online to check? Yeah, like usually a day or two ahead of time. So you got time to contact them, contact 'em to say like, um. They'll get you in another flight, but you have to like check to see if you, if you still have, uh, if there's even a flight going. This is the domestic airlines, Madagascar Airlines. Right. So that was kind of a funny little, how did you find that out though? Did somebody tell you? Yeah, Christ did well, A couple. Yeah. Well, a couple people. RT Bennett kind of tipped me off before I went. Make sure you check the flights. I'm so used to like, you know, here if like you're flying it from the US or Canada or Europe, they tell you, they tell you, you get a little thing on your phone or something like that.

40:18 We've rescheduled your flight or put you in a different flight. Yeah. Nothing there. You have to actually go online to check to see if you're even on the, uh, on the flight. Yeah. Or if there're, if there's even a flight going and like. Well, so she christelle tipped us off and that's we, 'cause she was on the same flight with us. So we'd go on there and we're like, there's no flight. There's just nothing there. Yeah. Your flight's just gone. It's not like we've booked you elsewhere. So you have to contact them and then get on another flight to um Right. And they'll put, they'll put you on a flight. Like I said, they're great as far as rebooking you, but you had to like, let 'em know that your flight had been canceled even though Yeah. Should have known so. Some of the, some of the funny thing, fun things about traveling a lot of these countries, um, different places because you get so used to a Western way, um, that when you go to these places, um, it's just really, it is just really, um, it's just so different.

41:13 It's eyeopening. Definitely eyeopening. Yeah. It's, you know, in terms of what it does. Yeah. Yeah. And it's kind of, like I said, it's, I kind of like the challenge and stuff. It keeps, keeps me young, especially running around with all these like young grad students and stuff. Yeah. Uh, uh, early, early career conservation and research types. Yeah. That's, that's all good stuff. Ke keeps you going and stuff. I figure like, you know, that's why people ask me like, whatcha gonna retire? Like, why, why am I gonna retire? I get to travel and have all these fun adventures. You gets to all these wonderful things and, and discover more sharks. I think that's great. Yeah. Now let me, a, let me ask you this. Uh, you know, every trip, you know, you have a certain purpose. Um, and, and you know, you look at. What's a success and what's not a success? Would you consider this trip for what you were going to look for for lost Sharks?

41:56 Uh, a, a success from one to 10? What would you consider like, it, it, it being as from like 10 to say like, everything is successful to, you know, one or like nothing went well. Uh, easily like a 9, 9, 5. I would. Okay. It was a good, it was a good trip. It was a good trip. I, I'd never been there before, so I had a lot of, so it was, there was a lot. It was so, it was, it was just a new big adventure for me and stuff. Yeah. I, I probably would've given it a 10, but the, the story for I, everybody told me like, just be prepared. You'll probably get some kind of a stomach. Bug while you're there. And I, um, and, and I was like, okay. So I, thankfully I got a prescription stuff of some, some stuff to take in case you get food poison, basically what it is.

42:40 Yeah. I made it through all the way to the end of the trip. I apologize, Christelle, but the last day we're there, Christelle says that it, Denise and I says, Hey, why don't you come out with my husband and I will go out for a traditional Malagasy meal. And like every part of my body's saying no, but my lips were like, sure, let's go out. I tell you, it tasted really good. Going down, not good. Coming back, coming. The return, the return when it came back wasn't so good a few hours later. And, um, so that kind of like had to, I had to knock off a half a point and that was my fault. It was strictly, but I had to knock off a half a point just 'cause it was like. And it was like, and yeah, and just, just for, uh, uh, a pro tip, if you're traveling to these places, like go to your doctor and get like a prescription of like erythromycin, right.

43:26 That stuff will, you know, your other stuff over the counter stuff, it's okay, but this stuff will just knock the shit out of what's ever in your stomach. And you believe me, you wanna have that, especially when you're, you wanna have that. Yeah. Especially when you're looking at, you have to get on a plane in like nine hours and fly for four hours. You don't, you do not wanna be like. No, heaving your guts out, so, um, no. Yeah, you definitely don't wanna do that. Yeah. So other than that little glitch, it was a, it was a great experience and I, as I tell people Andrew, it's like I wanted to travel the world from the time I was 10 and search for sharks. And I've been living the dream for over 40 years now. And yeah, the young people listening like. Have a dream, go for it.

44:07 You know? Yeah. You're young once or, and I'm still, these challenges keep me young, even though I'm, yeah, well, well past my say thirties. It keeps me young and I do, I get, and you can tell, you know me long enough. I get excited about it. I get absolute, absolutely. I get excited now is when I was in my twenties to go in these adventures like this and just kind of to meet those challenges. I think reinventing yourself, always trying to meet, you know, keep, learn new skills and stuff. Keep you always, keep you young and if you start at a young age with that attitude, they'll carry a long way in life. And, and, um, anyways, it's like, just advice, like to pass, pass along to young people there. And, um, anyway, like, you know, watch out, watch. We'll have a a a, a YouTube channel episode coming up on this.

44:50 With everybody. I'll be posting on my social media, particularly Instagram, but I'll be posting some of the other Facebook Yeah. And LinkedIn and some of the other stuff. And I just wanna say one more time, just a huge, huge thank you to Save rcs Foundation. You guys have made this all possible, uh, with all your help for this thing. And, uh, um, just wanna thank people I mentioned Christelle, like Piero, um, Stella, and your group. Amazing. Um, sorry if I forgot anybody else. And Oh, also some of the fisheries ministers we met there. Amazing people. Really, really doing all their best they can do, you know, to help fisheries and sustainable Yeah. With sharks in Madagascar. And, uh, thank you all so much for the, for your, for your help in all this.

45:33 Absolutely. If you wanna follow more, you can follow the episodes that we're putting up on Dave's, uh, YouTube page, uh, or YouTube channel that's at Lost Shark Guy. So if you just look up, I'll put the link in the show notes so you can take a look. Um, but you can always check that out. We put out, there's four episodes already out. The fifth episode will probably be out by January, I think, of 2026. Yes. Um, and, uh, and, and yeah, it's gonna be a lot of fun. We're we're heading into the time where he went, where Dave went to Darwin. East Timor, uh, uh, Jakarta, Indonesia, and, and some cool, some cool things happen. So, uh, definitely, uh, take a look at that and, uh, looking forward to seeing that. Subscribe to the channel. Uh, and you'll get, you'll get, uh, access to those, uh, mo those, those videos.

46:17 Which are short, they're like YouTube style videos. So they're perfect for what you need. Um, and of course Denise went with you to take those videos for Denise, those trips. And Denise, I did not wanna forget Denise, that's Denise's. Alright, I got you. I so tomorrow. Thank you so much. Yeah, she's absolutely phenomenal. So she's been on the podcast before too. So anyway, Dave, thank you so much for, for sharing this with us. We look forward to hearing more about it through the videos on Lost Shark Guy, the channel, the YouTube channel. Uh, we wanna thank you for, for coming to the episode. Appreciate it. Okay, cool. Thanks. Thank you, Dave for joining us again on the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. It was great to be able to show what we talk about on the Beyond Jaws podcast and now what we talk about on this podcast, to be able to show it on this one. And I think that's really important to be able to promote not only the different shows, but to show you that there's different types of stuff that we talk about now when we talk about a lot of the stuff on the Beyond Jaws.

47:03 If you haven't heard it yet, I highly recommend that you go listen to it. It's very different than how to protect the Ocean. We talk a lot about. The careers of a shark scientist because one of the reasons why we do is one is to show how the career is not a straightforward path. Most of the people who have been on the podcast have been working in the field for a number of different years. Like it ranges from like five years as graduate students all the way to like. 35 plus years, like what Dave's been working in. Greg Komal, Lisa Hanson, who's now retired, and so all these different types of people who are working in shark science who have worked in shark science. The idea is to show that the careers are not straightforward. They meander and give advice that everybody gives advice, you know, their own advice and what help them do the work that they do right now and over those years.

47:46 So it's a lot of fun to be able to check that out. So I highly recommend that you go to Beyond Jaws. Check that out. You can go to speak up for blue.com/beyond Jaws to check out that podcast. In this episode, I wanted to show you something different because it was different. I told you it was gonna be different. When we think about going into the field and we look for lost sharks, we're not going necessarily on the ocean. We're going into fish markets. You know, Dave goes into fish markets, talk to local fishermen in the different places that he goes. Like even Madagascar, the fourth largest island in the world. You know, you have to travel to different places, remote places, and speak to people who have probably fished there all their lives to be able to say, Hey, what do you see on a regular basis? Do you see this fish? Do you not see this fish If you actually go to the lost shark guy or YouTube channel, and you can check that out, and it's shown us below.

48:29 If you go and check that out, you'll see in the first couple of episodes, they had a number of different people that go around and they show posters of pictures of the shark. So the Adriana Gonzalez does, and the other Adriana, I forget her last name, I apologize. But they went around showing the pictures of the sharks to the fishermen who were like, oh yeah, we've caught that. Or It's been like 30 years since we caught that, or It's been 20 years since I saw that, or I just saw that the other day, or something like that. So they go around with pictures and they go around, speak to local fishermen and locals who've see this at the fish markets, who see this, that they catch on their boats or not catch on their boats. And it's a very important aspect of finding these lost sharks to make sure that it's like, Hey, if we see them at a fish market. Well, they've been discovered again, where did you find these? Where they've been? When was the last time you saw this?

49:09 Or like when did you catch this fish? There's a lot of different things that go into it, and it's not like the perfect science, but it's something where you explore. And Dave always wanted to explore in his career and be able to travel and look for sharks, and he loves it, as he mentioned. You know, he's well beyond 30 years old and he still gets excited when he sees these sharks or when he goes on a trip like this to be able to discover some of these sharks. And I have to say that. When things went his way per se. I got a text and he was very happy with what he saw in certain situations. So, you know, it's a lot to look forward to. We will be putting the results of his trip on the Lost Shark Guy YouTube channel, so I highly recommend that you look that over the next year or so. It's gonna be a lot of fun to be able to see what he's been able to discover and what he's found.

49:53 And then of course, his camera woman, Denise, she's been amazing in each one of these trips. They went to Peru, Ecuador a couple years ago, and then last year they went to Darwin. East Timor and Jakarta, Indonesia. And then this year they went to Madagascar. So a lot of really cool things and that's thanks to save our cease foundation. So we appreciate the funding that you're giving Dave to do this type of work, and I will highly recommend that you watch it and let me know what you think about discovering these lost sharks. So let me know in the comments below if you're watching this on YouTube, and if you are watching this or listening to this on your favorite podcast app, the audio version. Just hit me up on Instagram, DM me at how to protect the ocean. That's at how to protect the ocean. And if you wanna know a little bit more and you want to email me, you can do so If you go to speak up for blue.com/contact.

50:35 And that'll go right to my email if you fill out that form. And if you want to know how to get ahold of Dave, it's at Lost Shark Guy on Instagram, but I'll put all his social media contacts in the show notes. So that's it for today's episode. I wanna thank you so much for joining us on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin from the True Nord Strong and free. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time. And happy conservation.