What is ethical seafood, and why the way fish are treated could change how you eat forever

0:00 Are fish treated well, that's gonna be the topic of today's episode. Have you ever thought about the welfare of fish either in wild caught fisheries or aquacultured fisheries? Not a topic that we think about often. We also think about the welfare of like us as seafood eaters and sustainable seafood eaters, and making sure that we're eating the right seafood and making sure that some of those fish are not being exploited and being sold fraudulently, having, Hey, I want to eat sea bass, but it's actually tilapia. Or I want to eat tuna, but it's actually a shark that has a lot of carcinogens in it. There's a lot of stuff that goes around the seafood industry, and we gotta make sure that we are treating these animals properly. So we're gonna talk to Wasim Imam, who is the founder of the Ethical Seafood Research Organization.

0:41 You can find more information@ethicalseafoodresearch.com. We're gonna be talking to him about the welfare of fish. 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, Marine biologist and science communicator here to tell you 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. And on today's episode, we're gonna be talking about the welfare of. Fish, because that's something that we don't talk about on this episode a lot because I think when people think of fish, they just think about food, like fish is food. That's how we think about it. We catch fish whenever we really see fish, unless it's at an aquarium or in your own aquarium. You look at it and you're just like, it's on a plate.

1:21 You know? If I look up salmon and I look up on the internet, I Google search it. You're gonna see salmon on a plate. You're gonna see how delicious salmon is and how you can, you know, different ways of cooking and all the different recipes, but you're not really gonna see a lot of salmon just underwater. But we don't think of how they feel that they feel pain, what they have to go through in their lives. Mother nature can be quite cruel to fish, especially schooling fish, or they're getting eaten by a lot of different predators And so forth. When we talk about how humans interact with fish, a lot of times welfare is not really brought up in the regular conversation because we just think of them as food. We don't think that they feel pain, but they do. Welfare needs to be addressed. And I have on the podcast today, Wasim Imam, who is the founder of Ethical Seafood Research.

2:02 He talks about his life growing up, wanting to be involved in Marine conservation, then finding just a different path, going all over the world for schooling and stuff, including Canada, here in Toronto, not far from where I grew up. And being able to start an organization because you know, you want to make sure that there are some set standards and people are following the set standards on fish welfare. And so I think it's really important to have that conversation. So was is here to talk about that. So here is the interview with Wassam, talking about ethical seafood research and fish welfare. Enjoy the interview and I'll talk to you after. Hey em. Welcome to the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. Are you ready to talk about the welfare of fish? Yes.

2:43 I'm really excited about this. Yeah, I've been waiting for this for a while now since we touched base. Absolutely. I'm super excited about this. This is, uh. Is it a subject matter that we don't go into often on this podcast? And I think it's, it's kind of a bit of a shame that we don't, because it's something that we need to talk about more. We're gonna be talking about fish welfare and looking at the fish and ethical seafood and all that wonderful stuff. Uh, And so there's gonna be a lot of questions, but before we get into all of that, well see. Why don't we, uh, talk about a little bit about you. Why don't you let us know about who you are and what you do? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, and I actually, that's exactly why I'm excited about this because I appreciate that this is not the typical topic from what I've heard of your previous, uh, episodes. Right?

3:23 So thank you for having me. So I'm an aquatic ecologist. Uh, everything I've ever done has involved fish in one way or another. I, uh. Uh, then got into fish welfare, uh, a bit by chance. I'll talk about that a bit later on. But, so I now describe myself as an aquatic ecologist by trade, but a fish welfare researcher. And I'm also the founder and executive director of a small non-profit called Ethical Seafood Research, where we advocate for improving the welfare of, uh, aquatic animals in the food system and the aquatic food system, obviously, uh, particularly in Africa. But we do have operations and projects outside of that as well that I can touch upon, uh, during the call, uh, during the, uh, recording.

4:03 Very nice, very nice. This is, uh, this is really cool because, you know, you don't meet a lot of people who are involved in welfare of fish, especially, you know, there's welfare of like, zoological animals, you know, animals that are, that are in zoos and things. I know there's a, a huge, huge area of interest in, in that respect. Um, but when you, we looking at fish, we look at, you know, obviously we look at especially from farm fish and, and, and, uh, wild seafood, wild caught fish. Uh, you know, there's, there's also worries about pain and, and, and worries about how they're raised and, uh, how they're caught. And of course, uh, so it's, it makes sense. Uh, right. But let, I want to go back a little bit further. Before you got into this, as you said, you kind of came by happenstance in, in terms in, into this field.

4:48 What originally drew you to being interested in, in fisheries or even just in the Ocean in general? Yeah, so my origin story as they call it, um, I was working with the, so I did my undergrad in Canada. Uh, one of my many nationalities is Canadian, so I, uh Oh, nice. Where from? Uh, Toronto. Oh, I, that's like, I'm right by you. Like I was, I live in Burlington, so I grew up in Toronto. That's awesome. Oh, so actually Burlington is one of the places I did work on Fish with the Great Lakes. Uh, yeah. Inland, yeah. The Leland Waters. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Nice, nice. So that was another place where I cut my teeth a bit. Yeah. I was working with the Ontario Ministry of the Environment in Otoko, if you know Right. I know exactly where that office is. Yeah. Yeah.

5:28 So during, during my undergrad, I did like the co-op program, uh, okay. The metal science and my third co-op placement. I was with the ministry there and I was, uh, my title was Biomonitoring Technician, so I would be going out with the senior biomonitoring technician and well, by monitoring scientists, I guess it was called. And, um, I was helping him collect samples of fish from D. Areas of Ontario to sample to, to sample levels of contaminants and Right, that informs the, what used to be called the sport fish guide. Uh, like contaminant, guider. It tells you like the safe levels to eat of, um, you know, fish caught from this area, uh, for pregnant women, for children, for older folk And so on.

6:10 And it was my first time ever really being out in aquatic environment, like on boats, maybe for like true Canadians, like where they grow up, like hunting and fishing and stuff. It's not that like exciting, but for me it is like a new comer to Canada. It was a completely new thing to me, you know? Uh, so being out like in the field, uh, like working with fish, really, I just loved all of that. Right. But on top of that, I started realizing just how vulnerable fish were, you know? Mm. Uh, so we, you know, my, we would wanted just a sample of 20 or 30 juvenile fish, but, you know, by staining we were catching like hons. And as my boss was trying to like, get the sample perfect, I was just trying to save all these fish that I was like, they're gonna die unnecessarily.

6:52 And then I started realizing just how, you know, fish in inland water especially are so at the mercy of like human activities and how we have the ability to like, over exploit the o Well, I mean, obviously I took it to the next level of oceans, but just in general, um, freshwater fish to me seemed very vulnerable. You know, that Yeah. Water levels, uh, they, they're at the mercy of the water levels being mm-hmm. Enough, they can't, they don't always have huge distances that they can escape, you know, natural fluctuations And so on. Whereas, you know, birds can fly or mm-hmm. You know, land animals might have. Obviously I'm simplifying things, of course, but course that's kind what got me thinking like, oh God, you know, these animals are actually quite vulnerable. Yeah. And for my, for my masters, And then did another project where I looked at the movement behavior of tilapia through McGill University.

7:36 They had a research station in Uganda. Yeah, I, I tracked the telemetry, I using telemetry. I tracked the movement behavior of tilapia there, which is something that no one's done or no one had done at the time. And I just loved this idea of radio tags and discovering like, you know, the innate movement patterns and stuff about species you don't know about. And from there I continued to that. I worked for the FAO for a bit, um, uh, fisheries in aquaculture, like sustainability and like at a policy level, global. But I didn't, I didn't enjoy that work too much. I got funding from in Canada to. Do a PhD. So you're working for the FAO but still went while living in Canada. 'cause I know FAOI always assume it's in Europe or like in in Rome or something like that.

8:19 It's, it is. Exactly, exactly. I see. But you did it from, from Canada? No, I actually had to move to Rome. Oh, you had to move to Rome. Okay, cool. So, and even the funding that I got, the NC uh, like PhD funding. Yeah. They, I, they allowed me to take it anywhere. So I took a to Scotland And so Cool. And I did a PhD there with uh, uh, with a group that had, was looking at aquaculture and my supervisor there told me, Hey, have you thought of animal welfare or fish welfare? And I was like, no, I don't really know what that is. And that's kind of what got me into this. So we can talk about that. But I was just giving you a high level sort of like I love it. Overview of my journey. Yeah. Well I mean it's very interesting 'cause like you did a lot of traveling. What made you first come to Canada to do the, do the undergrad at u at University of Toronto, UFT.

9:02 Yeah, so my dad, uh, wanted to come to Canada from like, when I was young, and he said to me like, you know, that's where the future is. You know, I was in high school in England, I was in the uk and um, okay. It just, you know, Europe was always seen as like kind of still a bit, you know, struggling in the past, whereas the future is North America and there's like opportunities ing. Okay. Yeah. And I think that there is a lot of truth in that, to be fair. Uh, you know, especially at the time, so when I moved to the UK for high school, it was the same year, same month, same, same week as nine 11, and you can Oh, wow. Yeah. And I'm from the Middle East originally, so like Right. I got used to some really, like, I don't, I don't think this is a different than your audience.

9:44 No, but I mean, you're not used to Yeah. It, it, it, it forms who you are because these are like the, the, the, you know, I think that's what, that's what gets left out of a lot of, um, you know, people discuss when we discuss Marine, Marine biology or anything Marine conservation related, is we, we leave out what's happened to people throughout. You know, throughout their lives, you know, we are impacted by what's happening in our lives. Like the people right now, in many places around, especially here in North America, we are impacted by decisions made by the US government. Right now, whether we agree with them or not, we are impacted. Like there are people whose jobs in the states are impacted by what all the cuts that are happening at Noah. And so it, it definitely shapes where we're gonna go, where we're gonna live, how we're gonna be treated when we go to certain places.

10:30 Um, you know, you going to the UK from the, from the Middle East, um, and what country you, are you originally from? Egypt. So Egypt, right? Yeah, like very well educated, you know, like a great, like in Egypt, like they, they have like, you know, stable structure, like, you know, history, culture. You go to the, you go to, uh, a place like the UK. During nine 11, you probably could have come to any place like even the US or Canada, And then you're looked differently and you get treated differently. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, and not by, I mean, you were in high school, like, you know, you didn't do anything. Parents came over for, for what you say is like a better life, And so you get impacted by that. So yeah, never leave that out of your story because that's who you are, are and what you've become. You know what I mean?

11:11 Totally. Now did like, but actually Andrew, sorry to interrupt you. Yeah, go ahead. Just on that note, I do remember, and I always tell this anecdote because it, it stayed with me for so long. Like, I came back to the UK for Christmas and I went back to, uh, Canada after my first semester or term. Mm-hmm. Uh, university. And I had a PR card. Right. So I was Yeah. Yeah, of course. A resident and the border guard in Canada, I don't even, what do we call them? Like the customs officer Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like the guy said to me, welcome home, sir. And I was like, what? Oh my God. Like that just felt like already a huge difference, Yeah. Yeah. You know, and that always build part of this kind of like, feeling like you're part of something and you don't have to prove who you are. You can look like anything. And especially Toronto, right?

11:51 Like, uh, yeah. Well, Toronto's so multicultural Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Sorry I cut you off, but you were gonna say something. Well, what I was gonna say is like, you know, as you grew up in that like, you know, in the UK in high school and, and you're like, did you, did you still have that interest, you know, for, for oceans, like you must have had like for freshwater or oceans to come to UFT to do a degree. Did you, was that the purpose? Like you were coming like, you know, like you go to from the UK to Canada to be like, okay, this is what I want to do with, you know, better place. As you mentioned, like this is like going to North America for a better place. Were you always interested in oceans or, or aquatic life even in high school? So I actually think that came a bit later and sometimes I, I do regret just that it took me that long for the, you know, penny to drop, let's say, right?

12:37 Because biology was always my favorite subject, but you know, I didn't follow. What I liked as much as what I was good at and what I was really good at was business studies somehow, like I excelled anything to do with business, like that was my top, top subject in the uk. So I thought, oh, well, you know, making money is good. And I was just thinking about that. I didn't, I wasn't really in tune with my interest per se. Mm-hmm. And then, And then when I actually moved to Canada and I realized that management, business management was like an actual very mathematical, very like financey, like I just didn't like it at all when I started and I picked up the prospectus and I started thinking, well, what do I actually like? And I'm like, mm-hmm. I've always liked sciencey subjects and sort of animals and, uh, biology.

13:19 And so, and it seemed like a no-brainer to change to environmental science with a focus on, um, environment, uh, like the aquatic, uh, aquatic domain especially. And then co-op shifted me very much in that direction. Yeah. Interesting. So that's kind of where I was a bit late in that sense. You know, like, was it Yeah. Yeah. What I truly liked. Yeah. And, and I think that's, I think it's a great part of your story too, because like, you know, you, you change, you, you realize, you try something out in university. You, you, you literally go across Ocean, Ocean to go try something in university and you realize, well, hold on a second. I don't like this. You know, I'm not, I'm not, this is, this is not what I really wanted to learn. Absolutely. And, And then you switch. That's a big decision to do as a young man, like going into a, a new country, new university and you're like, what the hell am I going to do?

14:05 And then you find out, hey, I've always loved science. Like let's do it. And you, and you graduated and, uh, was this the program? You go, you went, you went into this, uh, you got a bachelor of science, but um, you went into environmental science and international development. That's a, a different, that's not your traditional like science. You know what you would think when people say, oh, you'd graduated with a science degree. International development's a big part of, of science, but not a lot of people put that together. What did you transfer into that program right away? Like that's what was interesting. And then, and why? Yeah. So I, I think I was okay. Do you know what I did more credits. I think you only have to do 20 credits to actually get a degree. Yeah. I did like 23 or 24 credits. Gotcha. I just loved studying so much when I was at UFD that I kept, I kept taking like six courses every semester just 'cause I was That's modules.

14:53 Yeah. Not easy to do. Six is not easy to do. It's a lot of work. Exactly. But also like, just, um, the idea that they have, like in the summer you can take stuff and like, you know, and there was no limit, uh, per se, as long as you're keeping on top of things and electives is something that I really loved about, uh, north America, that we don't have any uk uh, we didn't have, you know, some of my friends there couldn't take all these electives. I just like taking random stuff. Anthropology, linguistics. Mm-hmm. Stuff that really shaped, shaped me, I think actually. Absolutely. How I looked at things, but Um, so I actually took like enough courses for three majors, but I could only declare two. So I declared international development and environmental science, but I did also do a whole major in French just 'cause I was like kind of obsessed with French and Awesome.

15:37 Uh, that, that didn't, and you're in Canada, you might as well, right? Exactly, exactly. So that, that was a really, really, really nice, uh, part of the experience. Um, So environment international development is. It was, when I looked at prospectus, I just thought, this is really, I, I always wanted to work for the UN and like, kind of do international type stuff because I traveled a lot as a kid. You know, I was an expat in most places. I was born in Saudi Arabia to Egyptian parents. So like we had an expat community there already. And I just imagined that's, that would be my future. And you know, like international development spoke to me, I think. Gotcha. But when I kind of started taking the courses, I realized it's gonna be hard to find a job or like easily, you know, there's a lot of, um, also it's like the kind of thing where you're learning about like.

16:21 Poverty in places and you're learning about problems, but it's not always solutions and it's a lot of sort of Right. It could be heavy. We've try. Exactly, exactly. Be heavy. Whereas environmental, I loved environmental science because you know, if the soil is like, has issues, you remediated it, you move on. Yeah. Like that's, there are solutions that are concrete and I could get my head round those and I felt like I could make an impact. And of course climate change was all the rage. It still is, but like still is. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And I felt like that's something huge that we really need to do something about. And so anything within the environmental domain was, um, uh, really interesting to me. That's awesome. So, you know, you do this, this, uh, bachelor's, you start off with a master's. Is that what happened?

17:02 Yeah, so I, uh, went, I got scholarship to do something called Erasmus Mond, which is for non-Europeans to come to Europe, uh, to do a two year degree. And it's always like a, something joined between multiple countries. So mine was France, which, which obviously leveraged my French, uh, English, uh, so uk, France, uh, Germany, and Portugal. That was the four countries that were part of the consortium where I did my masters. But I, for my dissertation or thesis, I did my project through McGill, uh, because I had a contact there in a Stewart Biology department, and, And then she had the field research station in Uganda was just, I was always like, um, I've always, I'm always someone who had like lots of interests in different things and different places and stuff.

17:50 Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, it, it makes sense. You move around a lot. And then you're like, okay, you know, where am I gonna go to next? It almost feels like that's, you know, that's, that's what it feels like in terms of research, which is great for someone who wants to be interested. I, I think that it, you know, for me, I never traveled a lot. I always stayed in Canada, you know, when I did, when I did my masters, I, I, I traveled a little bit. Like I lived in the States a little bit, but I never really traveled to Europe or Africa or, or Australia or anything like that to do science work. Um, which, you know, and that's like, it's, it's tough 'cause like your comfort level may not be there, but if you're used to traveling, you're this used to living in different places, then you're a little bit more open. And, and what I like about that is the freedom to be like, all right, I have this question for science that I want to be able to solve.

18:35 Where is the best place to do it? You know, so it, it, your field station might be, like you said, in Uganda or your field station might be back in, in Canada somewhere or, or in the UK or in Egypt. It just depends Right, totally. To have that open mind of like, I've lived in a bunch of different places, I know what to expect there. I can go in and have my own, you know, sort of cut my own teeth on this science, but also enjoy the adventure of going into a different place. Is, is great. Uh, now going to Uganda is a very interesting country because it's had, uh, you know, it's, it's social problems itself in terms of, I mean, I remember in their late nineties, early 2000 had, there was a civil war that broke out.

19:16 How did, when you went there, was there, was there violence in certain parts of, of Uganda? So, you know, it's funny because as an Egyptian or someone originally from Egypt, you kind of grew up thinking that you're African and you're like, oh yeah, I'm African. But then when you go to real Africa, you realize that even they don't consider you African. Like everyone was treated you the same as like any other, like none. Right? None like Ugandan person. And, um, that was eye-opening. 'cause obviously I just mentioned that it was like on the receiving end of racism in previous parts of my life. So suddenly it's like, hey, like can you guys make up your mind like, am I this or am I that? You know? But, um, but no. So Uganda, no, actually it felt extremely safe where I was.

19:56 Um, I was in a small village by one of the satellite lakes, uh, near, um, it's called Lake Nabo Gabo, uh, it's just outside Lake Victoria. Uh, okay. So it, it was nothing at all. Like, um, what, what I had maybe imagined, uh, well, it was really uninformed. All of my, uh. Just like images I had in my head were uninformed, but Yeah. Right. The research station was very quiet. It was so tranquil by the lake. People were so nice. Uh, I just had a really good experience there and that's why I kind of wanted to do more stuff in Africa in the future. Oh, okay. Okay, cool. Uh, I was just looking it up as you were mentioning that. I was just looking, making sure that I, 'cause I know, I think I may have, I was thinking of Sudan when I was thinking of, of wars that happened, And so I think they were involved in some kind of way, but I don't know exactly how they were.

20:45 So I don't want to misstep and say the wrong country. I thought, I thought you were refer, I thought you were referring to like, ID mean remember the last King of Scotland. Yes. You know? Yes. I think I was, I don't know a lot about the histories. I know like, uh, there was a war in 86 to 94. But I didn't know, like I I said the late nineties, so, um, I think there was, but I think that had to do with the, the Sudanese, uh, civil War. So Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, but it, regardless, I mean, you know, you never know. You never know what you're gonna expect in, in these countries. How did you enjoy staying there for your field season? Like what was that like? So, I was an eyeopener for sure. I'd never done tropical field work.

21:26 Uh, yeah. Uh, and I, I suppose one thing I liked about it, you know, because in Canada and, and like Europe and stuff where I've done other stuff, like everything's so structured, you know, like health and safety, this like, kind of mm-hmm. You have a protocol, but like there, like you're kind of reacting to things on the ground that you haven't prepared for at all. And also no one really cares that much about certain things. They're like, you know what? You want this? Yeah. You want a sample, we'll get you this face. Yeah. Like, whereas like I would've had to, you know, go through, jump through all these hoops. Yeah. I think, I think it's also a lot more real in that sense, you know? Mm-hmm. Um, uh, I know course it taught me a lot about, um, how, you know. Well, we, I learned about all this fishery stuff, uh, but really seeing how the communities depend on that as a livelihood was, uh, really eyeopening.

22:12 Yeah. And I can imagine how, just how big a problem it is. You know, what they call a tragedy of the commons. Like if it's not regulated, like everyone's just going to, I could see it in happening in, in real life that uh, if someone doesn't cash it, someone else will cash it. And, you know, everyone is sort of trying to provide for their families, um, in a subsistence way. Uh, yeah. So. It was a bit depressing. That part I would say. Yeah. Especially like the Nile Perch, you know how it was introduced to the Lake Victoria? Mm-hmm. I could see the effects. The, like, just the decimation of endemic populations in the Yeah. In the lake there. It's, it's one thing to hear about it, like through literature and through other people. It's another thing to see when you see like an invasive species or an introduced species come in and, and wreak havoc into a, a lake that, where you've heard so many things, like great things about, it's, it's, uh, you know, we see it in the Great Lakes here, uh, with the Asian carp coming in and you're just like, exactly.

23:06 You know, they just destroy everything if they're in here. Um, And so you worry about that. But there's some, there's one thing in seeing it and there's one thing in just in hearing about it too. They're very, very different things. Um. Actually under, since we mentioned Burlington and the Great Lakes Lab, that is the one that is a project that I was helping them with in 2012. Halfway through my master's, I did an internship with someone called Sue Doka. I don't know if you know anyone from the group there. She used to be my boss. Really? No. We must have missed each other by like, we were in the same building. Oh, no way. I was, uh, in 20 12, 20 13, I was working for Nick Manta Ray.

23:46 Yeah. Oh, no way. He was at ut he, he joined UTSC just as I was leaving Scarborough, right? Yes, yes. Yeah. Okay. That's hilarious. Yeah. H so hilarious. About 2012. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's so funny. Yeah. Yeah. Small world. Yeah. So her and I, her and I, I helped her with a few reports, her and her like group at the time, like Erin and other people, but they had this project, uh, with Nick la I don't know if you know who that is. Yeah. Yeah, I know Nick. Yeah. And, and Aaron was like my office bait. Oh Yeah. I didn't realize you were there. Yeah. Yeah, Yeah. Yeah. I live like, like a stones throw away. Like I could I drive there like five minutes? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's so funny. Amazing. Yeah. So I, I did a, a few months with them looking at like, uh, the carp.

24:29 They had like a RA radio. Radio telemetry. No radio. No, it's acoustic telemetry project in Harbor. Right. And we're looking how to keep carp out of the, um. Main part of the lake, I guess. Yep. Using these gate, they had these gates that they could like open and close, I think. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Oh God, it's taking it back. Yeah. Yeah. But it was carpet. That was a problem. And it still is. I right. Still is. I mean, it's still, there's still, um, you know, I think they found a few, but nothing, uh, like a major population or anything like that. I don't, I haven't kept up in the last few years, but I know they still do monitoring every year and there's boats out every year to make sure they, they catch 'em and, and grab 'em if they see them. But I, they haven't seen too, too many things.

25:10 They've, they've, they've sampled with like EDNA and stuff and have found, you know, some samples of, of some that are, that are there. The good, not the good ones, so, okay. 'cause there's like Asian carp that are okay. There's, And then there's invasive Asian carp And so there's two, there's a bunch of different species as you know, in there. And so, um, they, they continue to monitor them. But even common carp is like Rick has re wreaked haik and Oh Yeah. 'cause they're so destructive, right? When they eat, they eat everything. And so they're so destructive that they can, they can really take away habitat pretty quickly if they go through. Um, Asian carb just seemed to be a little bit more efficient at it. And so, um, you know, common carp is still, still bad, but they can, I, I don't think they're as bad as what we're expecting Asian carp to be.

25:55 Yeah. And there's so many rivers and streams that they can reproduce in Um, so it could be, it could be quite, you know, quite concerning, you know, in terms of that, in invasive, uh, species. But Yeah. Yeah, of course. Now you're taking me back. Now. I know that word for a while. Uh, no, but that's awesome. So, so like, And then you go, you know, you, you do the work in, in Uganda, um, and was that at, when you were at University of Sterling? No, that was when you were at McGill. That was, yeah, that project was through the McGill Research Center. Gotcha. Called Lauren Chapman from there. I dunno if you know anyone Yeah. From there. Yeah. Oh, you know, no, I don't know anybody from there, but I've heard of it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, so she's an inland freshwater person too.

26:36 And she had someone called Beth who was working with Okay. Also Canadian. She's now a Virginia Tech, I believe. Okay. And Um, So from there, I, well, after that I got the FAO work, so I came back to Canada for a bit. I was applying for jobs and it was mostly consulting work that I was getting. Yes, yes. A lot of consulting. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't wanna get to consulting, you know, like, uh, like the big Yeah. Yeah. Sort of environmental services And so on. So when the FAO thing came up, I was like, yeah, definitely it was a consultancy. But, um, right. It took me to headquarters for a year and a bit. Uh, I did different roles there, uh, with fisheries, uh, mostly. And then I joined the, uh, so do you know, like RF os, how they work, right?

27:18 Yes. I guess Yeah. Yeah. So I'm used to people who actually don't know anything about my field. Yeah. So like, I have to like. Recalibrate be like, no, Andrew actually knows a lot about this. Well, why don't, but why don't you just tell the audience like what it stands for. 'cause 'cause we've talked about it on the podcast before, but just to make sure that they completely understand It's like regional or MF fishing management. Yeah. Organization, Yeah. Yeah. So the, the whole, all of the Seas, oceans of the world are divided into areas by the UN and or by other bodies. And they're all managed by these organizations that are responsible for kind of making, like bringing countries members, states of that region together to mm-hmm. Make decisions about, mostly about fisheries. Like how, like safe levels to catch of different, um, stocks.

28:02 And they kind of help mediate between countries a bit. Um, yeah, the majority of them have a lot of issues because countries just don't agree on so many things and there's no real stuff. Yeah, exactly. Holding them like accountable is also very hard. Like you can't force 'em to No, um, stick to their promises. Um, So I worked in the RFMO, I actually worked in two RMOs, one in, in Thailand, well, the one for Southeast Asia. Uh, the coordinating body for the Southeast Asia was called. That was, uh, actually that was before my masters. Uh, but I worked after my master's in the Mediterranean one called the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean, GFCM, uh, which is by the way, the worst managed body of water in the world.

28:44 Uh, ironically or un ironically, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Terrible, terrible. Yeah. So much missed much management. Actually, Spain and Italy used to be, I still, I believe they still are the worst culprits, right. For like over fishing and just, um, even Marine pollution and a bunch of stuff and discarding fishing gear. Yeah. Um, they're like kind of, it's a bit of wild west in some areas. Well, and it's also, it's like there's no, I just discovered this recently. I, I didn't know a lot about the Mediterranean in terms of management, but there's no like. Yeah. You know how every other country has like an exclusive economic zone? Yeah. There's really no exclusive economic zone. 'cause there's so many countries that are there. Exactly. All of them overlap. So it's pretty much just like treated as international waters.

29:25 So you can do whatever you want and there's nobody there to help you. And hopefully the High Seas Treaty that just came in recently, as of this recording, like this past weekend, hopefully there's gonna be some management coming from there. And those countries can agree, but Absolutely. It's, it's a, it's a mess in there. Yeah, absolutely. So one of the things that I was sort of marginally involved in, but like that was the, all, all like the talk of the town when I was at the FAO was the port state measures agreement, which was gonna basically 'cause, you know, IUU fishing, I, I guess I have to define that. Illegal unreported, unregulated phishing. Um, like so much of global fishing goes undocumented and unregulated. And that's a problem obviously for the UN and for just trying to manage fisheries globally.

30:09 Um. They were, they were very excited about this idea that if all the ports around the world signed up to the agreement that they'd have to, you know, make sure that everything that comes in is documented. That would be a way, you know, to combat IUU fishing. So, 'cause nothing can be landed as long, if you can't land it, then it can't, you know, that's kind of solving it at, not at source, but at like, you know. Yeah. So a source because Yeah. Yeah, to come in Yeah. Yeah. So that was, and I think that got ratified, but then somehow I haven't heard about it since really? Uh, which is an indication that probably it didn't end up having impact should have had, or maybe not enough countries ratified it.

30:50 Um, just, I mean the High Sea Treaty was another one, but, um, that's a different ministry, uh, a different organization. Is that Uner? Uh, or is it the, uh, I'm not sure who age is that. Okay. Yeah, I'm not sure it might be, no. Okay. Yeah, I, no, just remembered that poor state measures 'cause it was like everyone was so excited about it. But, you know, a lot of the UN stuff is like that I think on paper And then in theories it's all very nice, but like, like SDGs is so nice, beautiful poetically kind of meaningful, but you know, we just kind of crap all over that. Don not we, but like, you know. Yeah, no, I get it. Like, look, you're preaching to the choir here because, you know, I, I've said this for years where it's like when you have international agreements like this, it's, it's, uh, they're nice to have and there are certain countries who will follow it and they take pride in following it and they, they, they take pride in getting it and or being a part of it.

31:40 And then if they don't. You know, they get, they get embarrassed because of it. And so some countries work on, I don't wanna get embarrassed, so I want to be able to keep this. And other countries now these days seem like, well, you know, I don't want to, I don't even care about it, you know, or I'll pull out of it because we don't wanna be when we want. But others were like, I'll be a part of this if you let me do this. It's a little bit of a negotiation tactic, you know, for cer for certain times. So they become important, but there's definitely a game to be played, uh, with those. And, and enforcement is never easy, especially in international waters. So that could be a difficult, that could be a difficult thing. A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think we could have a whole Oh, a hundred. Yeah. Yeah.

32:21 Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Uh, but like, like, so what after FAO, you know, you, you start, you kind of come across. Like welfare fish, right? Yeah. Um, And so how did that all come about? How did that cross your, like cross your, your, your life I guess? So there was these, a group, uh, at the University of Sterling in Scotland. They had a project from the British Council and the department, what used to be called the Department for International Development in the uk. Now it's been like, uh, combined with, uh, foreign, foreign and commonwealth office. So it's called the Foreign Commonwealth Development Office now. Okay. But used to be separate department or ministry, as you might call it. And um, they had funding for two years to try out this project in Egypt.

33:07 Um, it was an Institute of aquaculture at Sterling. Yeah. And, um, they hadn't done anything in Egypt before, but the idea was very, very like kind of. You know, kind of experimental, but exciting. So there's something called behavioral fever, which is like the, the phenomenon that fish that are sick. Of course fish are exothermic, so they, they can't control the temperatures, but just like reptiles and amphibians And so on, they've been known to seek out warmer waters when they're unwell. So it's like a, a thermo regulation or kind of a fever, um, right. Behavior. Yeah. So they kind of Yeah. Yeah. Be more comfortable. Exactly. And actually if in experimental setups, if you give fish that, um, thermal gradient to choose from, and, uh, they're sick and you, well, you infect them.

33:53 They do recover faster in the presence of the thermal gradient. And so we know that that is a concept that works in, at least in theory and in experiments. But we were thinking can we apply that to a Latino sort of low intensity aquaculture system as a way to help fish recover, you know, without using medicines And so on. Obviously it was very ambitious, so we tried to recreate these thermal gradients in ponds in Egypt. Mm-hmm. That was a project that I was part of, so it was called, um. Uh, well, it was called Bolty Egypt, the official name. Okay. Very long name, but like, kind of behavioral prophylaxis as a way of like improving health and welfare, sustainability, blah, blah, blah. But the part that I was focused on, my supervisor said to me, why don't you go assess the welfare of fish in this, in these ponds and like, come up with recommendations and like a protocol for how to assess welfare better.

34:41 And I was like, welfare, animal welfare. I didn't know anything about it. So. Right. I started reading about it and I was like, ah. 'cause you know, it used to be something like very veterinary. Mm-hmm. From the veterinary world or from, uh, you know, uh, terrestrial livestock. Uh, uh, and like you said before, pets, um, wild animals. It was like, like I just, I knew the term, but I didn't really know what it meant. But, you know, I, I realized it was whole fields of research showing like the five domains and the five pillars and all the famous for assessing it. And how do you know if animals are doing well? And I realized that fish welfare was like growing in, in, in, in, um. People are more and more interested in it, and I could see more funders also being interested in this area.

35:26 So I was like, huh, maybe it's actually a good opportunity. So, uh, yeah, through through the research, I, you know, started thinking about tilapia, which are very neglected. Uh, well that's a word that is now bandied about, like the, there was no protocol for how to assess the welfare of tilapia. No one really knew what the behavioral needs were. We're still slowly starting to know more and more, but they are one of the species that are farmed in the greatest numbers in the world and consumed as well, Um, So through that actually, And then after that, I. I was encouraged by a funder to basically start my own organization in Egypt because they were like, Hey, actually this is right after COVID where there was a lot of funding.

36:06 The stock markets were doing amazing. A lot of these foundations had like, they were flush with cash, and someone was like, Hey, how do you feel about like, you know, trying to start up your own thing? And I, it wasn't my dream of mine, but I could see a gap and I thought, well, I'll try it. And mm-hmm. I guess we tried to, we'll start with a small project, a scoping study, and from there on it just kind of grew. Um, I can talk a bit more about that, but I was just sort of giving it high level. Well, yeah, I mean, it, it's, it's interesting because obviously, you know, you look at the, what you mentioned as the, the basic project, looking at how, you know, fish will take care of themselves throughout, you know, a water column or whether, whether they're in an aquaculture facility or whether they're in the wild.

36:49 They have to, they have to survive. Right. And a lot of times when we look at fish. We just see fish. We see them either as seafood or we see them as like a cool looking fish, but we don't often, uh, see their character. Like even in an aquarium, you can look at a fish, but you'll see probably a school of fish. You may not see one unless they're really big, like a grouper or something. You won't really see their personality or their characteristics, even though each fish has their own personality or characteristics, whether it's the how they, how they demonstrate it in a school of fish, how they demonstrate it as an individual. They all have their own unique kind of characteristics, just as, as I discovered as any animal does. Right? Uh, you look at a zoo, they all have their own, their own characteristics and they have their kind of funny quirks and, and things like that as they're influenced throughout their life.

37:34 Like for instance, I was doing the podcast for the Toronto Zoo here at, at, uh, during COVID. And one of the things that I learned is that their, their head gorilla, like their troop leader, gorilla Charles, who was like a, a 25-year-old silverback, or even older, sorry, older, he was maybe in his like forties or fifties, silverback, like big gorilla, you know, like can pretty much rip somebody's arms off if the, if he really wanted to. And he was afraid of frogs, like fully afraid of frogs, you know, like wouldn't let the troop go near a frog because like, he was afraid of it. And so, like, you know, they all have this characteristics, but when we look at fish, like we could look at a whale and we can see the characteristics. Like we look at an orca and we're like, oh wow, these are really intense.

38:15 We look at fish, we don't see that, you know, we, we don't like, and this is anybody, not just scientists, but we look at them and they're just like, you know, they kinda look not dead in the eyes, but they don't look like they're looking at you. They don't look like they're really engaging with you. And, and especially like a fish like tilapia, which we normally just see as seafood. Like you see, like they have to take care of themselves. They have to survive from a very basic level. And so their welfare is, as a survivor is gonna be important. If they're sick or hurt, they're gonna want to go to a place where they feel comfortable. Like we go to, we go to bed if we have a flu. If they're sick, they need to go get warm, like you mentioned, so that they can get better again. Now, whether the warm allows them to heal or whether the warm allows their body not to worry about one more factor as the cold.

38:58 Yeah. And then they can actually allow it to heal, like allow the rest of the body to, to do what it needs to do. Is, is another thing, which I'm sure is, is probably published on and And so forth, but going into welfare is a really interesting idea. As you mentioned, you were like, I'm not a vet, you know, why would I go, you know, first, when you first think about why would you go, as you started to do this project more and more, did you, like, did your mind open up a little bit more to. Uh, to like the world of welfare of fish and like, and where was it going? Like what questions were you developing as you started to continue to do your, your PhD and even after, when you looking at welfare of fish or just in general?

39:39 Yeah. I just wanted to mention though, about this behavioral fever thing. Unfortunately, the project was actually like a huge failure. No, just because like, oh, no. Yeah. 'cause we tried to like design these greenhouses, like above parts of the pond. Yeah. And we thought, well definitely like, you know, like a tarpon in kind of like a cover, right? It or polyethylene? Sly, sorry. Like it was gonna definitely warm up the pond. Like that's how of course, you know. But then actually for some reason the data loggers that we use. Like consistently showed cooler. Maybe it was just like where the water level was in comparison to the height of like, there was a whole kind of physics and dynamics, like thermodynamic stuff that we did not study before. We kind of assumed we, we did pilot it, but for some reason we were just running behind schedule and we kind of just, you know, these things always go like as research things.

40:23 It happens Yeah. Yeah. So until now I don't actually know what that would look like in a true agriculture setting. Of course. Just to be, to be fair. And you said something else about welfare. I was gonna say. Yeah. So, uh, a big part of my work now these days is on slaughter. How to slaughter fish better, how to reduce the suffering of fish at slaughter in, in the context of aquaculture. Um, you know, where large numbers are being caught or harvested as they say. And, um, you know, it still shocks me because obviously I know because I've read literature that the fish are suffering, uh, well take, get taken out of water. And I think most farmers are, people who work with fish know, but the fact that the fish don't make any sound. Makes it hard, like if you're slaughtering what I've seen a cow be slaughtered, uh, in like Islamic ritual style.

41:10 Mm-hmm. Like this is horrible. Like anyone can see iss horrible, like the cow is trying everything to escape. Right. Um, and most other land animals, but fish just kind of flap about. I know. Still like if you're informed it's not nice to see, but Right. Um, the, the lack of sound sort of just doesn't resonate with us as humans where we mm-hmm. We think sound, sound must mean suffer or sound suffering has to be Yeah. Vocalized, right? Yes. So that's just something I thought of as we were saying that. Um, but then I kind of, you, you actually asked me other questions, so maybe we can go back to those Yeah. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Well, I guess like, as you start, just as you make these observations, um, when you're, you know, you, you, you finish off your PhD, you start to get more into this, this sort of welfare field of, of fish.

41:56 Like, what was the, what was the next step? Like what, what kind of questions arose after your PhD on the welfare and, and I guess did that, was, is, are those the questions that led you towards. You know, ethical seafood research. Yeah. So, uh, I work with A NGO called Aquatic Life Institute. I'm not sure if you've heard of that. I've heard of that. Yeah. Yeah. So they are US based, but actually their md their managing director is, uh, Canadian from, she lives in bc. Uh, she, I think she also went to UFT and did an environmental science background. Probably Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and Um, So I worked with them for a couple of years, and that was my first time in an NGO I'd worked in the un.

42:39 I worked in a government in Canada. I worked in a government in uk. I worked at like, um, research settings, but never in NGO. Um, maybe just like small contracts. I, I even worked for the European Parliament at some point, but not like, oh, wow. Yeah, that was a really fun, uh, role. Um, but I. You know, I guess I just learned about how NGOs work, and especially these like smaller NGOs or, or charities where it was like, you know, they all had fancy titles and a fancy website and like fancy, like even, you know, fancy branding and stuff. But then like, when I actually started working for them, I was like, oh, you guys are just a bunch of people, like normal people, like, like, like me. You know, like, and I realized just how accessible it was to do something similar.

43:20 And that was always in the back of my mind. I'm like, well, I could do something like this and I think it'd be fulfilling 'cause I was passionate and driven. Uh, but there's nothing as like fulfilling as you, you, you are working for yourself and like trying, you're having mission, you're mission driven, I guess is the word, right? Yeah. Like the, so that's was back in the back of my mind. I was like, I think I could, I think this is my calling ready to do. To pursue my own passion, uh, in a, in a format of an organization. But I also started realizing just yeah, like how neglected the field was, how much suffering happens, and, uh, that there were technological solutions available. We could do something about it. So like what they say track, they call it trackability.

44:02 So I think we can actually address that issue. Uh, so the scale was large, the collectedness was big, and, uh, there was something we could do about it. And then that appealed to me. So I don't know if you're aware, I guess I'm referring to a framework that belongs to the effective altruism movement, and that's the people who fund most of our work and Oh, okay. Most of the work of organizations like ourselves, such as Aquatic Life Institute. So the, the, that's a movement that came out of Oxford University's philosophy driven. How do you do the most good in the most efficient way? And um, they managed to convince a lot of tech bros to part ways with a lot of money, uh, because they kind of like this idea, uh, this framework.

44:48 And, and, and because of that, well our farm animal welfare is one of the areas that they care about. Normally it's just very neglected, like underfunded. But because right, they do the, they do the math and look at how many, like shrimp, for example, shrimp welfare is now receiving millions if not more. It's crazy 'cause you never would've thought of shrimp and welfare goes in the same sentence. Right, exactly. So that's kind of just serendipitous at the time that I was doing that research. Yeah, it was, people wanted defund that work. So yeah, it was opportunistic, but also I think it just made sense on many levels to me. To answer your question. I was trying to be brief, but then like, since I started talking about collectedness, I'm like, well, I might as well mention the movement and like the framework and stuff.

45:30 Yeah. Hey, this is a podcast. Nothing is a brief on, on this podcast. I am guilty of that myself because I talk a lot once, one of the reasons why I started this podcast. So no need and worried about being descriptive 'cause that's what we're here for. We want to, we wanna learn about that. Uh, so, so tell me how ESR came about, like ethical seafood, uh, research came about. Yeah. So my supervisor, uh, was always used using this word, responsible aquaculture or like, Yeah. Uh, ethical. Like he obviously he wasn't a big, uh, fan of sustainable because he just lost meaning over the years, right? So the word ethical comes from him very much him saying like, you know, yeah, we can do things sustainably, but.

46:10 Is it ethical to farm in this way? Or, you know, when you think about the ethical dimension, I was like, huh. Interesting. Um, not, I don't mean it in the same way as like, you know, uh, pita, like, or Peta, like the Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I, I just mean it in like a more, it's not like an activism kind of thing where you're protesting. Right, right. Exactly. Like, we just ask people, even farmers, like your average farmer, like, do you think it's right to treat animals in this way? Not in an aggressive, sort of accusative way. Right. But once you actually talk to them about, like, the suffering, they're like, yeah, you're, you know, you're right. I don't need to kind of throw them around if I can. Well, and or they tell you, well, I wish I could do it differently, but, you know, this is like, we're faced with these constraints. We don't ever go in there. Well, I think too, like what seems like one thing that gets, that gets me too is a lot of times when, uh, you speak to farmers or like, say a union of farmers or even fishers and things like that, a lot of the time there has been, I wouldn't say like scientific research.

47:05 But there's been sort of like generational research, like among farmers and fishers that look at what's the best way to, you know, kill the, the, the animal for the food. Right? And a lot of them don't want the animals to suffer. You know, they have, uh, if not a spiritual, but more of an ethical approach to it where they're doing what they can, even though they're killing an animal, they're doing what they can to, to make it the fast thing. Now, I am not in this, this genre or this field, so I don't know if that holds true for everywhere, but there's a lot of people who do, who do care about that. Um, and I think it's, it's interesting 'cause I'm, I'm sure a lot of the conversations have come with like, we tried this way, you know, decades ago And then we, now we try it this way 'cause it seems to be better and maybe they don't know the scientific part of it.

47:54 Right? Absolutely. So that's where, that's where you come. I agree completely under like your average. Farmer, your average fisherman or fisher folk or fisher person, whatever wants to do right and do better. And um, you know, when you don't shame them into it is you can have a very nice conversation about how things can be done differently and in a way that also doesn't hurt them Um, So I agree completely on that. I was just going to say about, uh, yeah, so then the word for. The word seafood obviously is self-explanatory. And research is, I just thought of like, I set it up as a consultancy, you know, carrying out research to answer those questions because I saw it as a niche or a gap. Um, yeah, ba based on my skillset at the time.

48:35 Uh, I didn't imagine to go down that, down the non-profit route, but the problem was that there wasn't that many people who wanted to like hire a consultant to work on that. You know, there was so few contracts coming our way or like it was a bit limiting. So I thought, well maybe if we move towards donations, can we get people to sympathize with fish in a way, or like fish and farmers? 'cause using what they call the one welfare approach, like, yeah, we're helping farmers, we're helping fish, we're helping the environment all in one. Like it's a win win win, a triple win Um, so can we get people to support that cause and it's something. Mm-hmm. I have to say that I'm still and haven't gotten answered to yet because we've only really pivoted to.

49:16 Being a full-blown, um, charitable entity, uh, less than a year ago. And for now it's working out. But, you know, just have to, I had to shift gears 'cause I'd never, I, I, you know, I didn't know anything about running a charity really. Um, but, but the consulting idea came from when I was in the European Parliament. So I was with the fisheries committee there and I was with a team that commissions, they have a budget that they have to spend every year to commission, like, studies to be carried out by consultants. And I was reviewing these, uh, contracts or like the reports that would come in and I would, you know, sort of review it and, um, summarize it for the parliamentary committee to like, um, not vote on, but kind of, uh, give feedback and if they want changes to be made.

50:01 And I, and I started seeing that, like I could be on the other side preparing those reports, and I thought that's what would be more interesting for me. Uh, and I con I started contacting people who, um, the consultants that I was seeing their names and like, Hey, you know, my contract here is running out soon. You know, I'm really keen to do, to get into the kind of work that you're doing. What would be an entry path into that? And yeah, one of them told me like, you have to set up your own entity because much easier to apply for grants or contracts register. So that's, Yeah. Not as registered, like independent consultant, but you have like this nonprofit Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So that's where the, the, the idea of registering came And then the name came from like kind of being inspired and also thinking it was a niche, but then actually transitioning to not applying for those kind of contracts.

50:49 But actually going after like donations is something that came only a year ago. 'cause we set up in 2021 originally. Right, right. So now, uh, you know, now that you've been running for, what, five years now, say, um, as we, as we just moved into 2026, uh, you, you seem to have done, like you have a lot of, you have had a lot of projects, um, you know, and, and from all over the, seems like all over the world, uh, which is, which is great, Um, So can you talk a little bit about some of the projects that you have worked on, even just from a, an overview standpoint, just so people can get a perspective of what, you know, what kind of animal welfare are you looking at and, and, and what other people are looking at to get your services.

51:37 Cool. Yeah, of course. So I always say when I give presentations in conferences, I always say like, you know, we are, you know, a nonprofit advocates for improving fish. Well, uh, animal aquatic, animal welfare, blah, blah, blah. And then I always say like, three through three key pillars. Obviously research is in our name, but we also do like training and education. That's always like the backbone of anything we do. We're trying to improve practices. So there's always a lot of, you know, training workshops being held in the background. And then, um, more and more now we're doing policy work, but, or like, sort of governmental, um, like high level work with the government. So, um, uh.

52:19 We helped. One example is we're a bit opportunistic, I should say this, uh, just to be clear. So, you know, if there's an opportunity there, we'll seize it. And we were invited by the government in Zanzibar. I was living there at the time. So Zanzibar is a semi-autonomous island. Uh, a group of islands Archipelago off the coast of Tanzania. And uh, I was there in 2023 in January to March on uh, some kind of residency. And I formed a relationship with the government there, the Ministry of the Ministry of Blue Economy and Fisheries, they call it. And they invited me. They were like, Hey, we need a new aquaculture strategy. Do you think this something you can help me with?

53:00 And I'm like, help us with. And obviously it wasn't something that I'd done, but I was like, right, well, well, I'm sure I can. So I went away, applied for funding. I, you know, talked to some consultant friends of mine, uh, you know, together with a. The best way of doing it, and sure, sure, sure enough, we went away and, uh, delivered it in, in, in collaboration with them. And that now that's been adopted as official strategy for the islands for the next, well, it was 2025, adopted, so 2038. So this is 13 year strategy, and that will determine the direction that the islands go. Now this is because they're really keen to exploit the blue economy. All of Africa and many developing, uh, regions, you know, are, are keen like, you know, blue economy, blue economy.

53:45 The World Bank pushes hard on like blue economy. Um, but uh, actually when we were carrying out the stakeholder consultation and developing the strategy, we realized that Zanzibar is very well suited to seaweed farming. They already do a lot of seaweed and moving it to fish. Farming doesn't make sense because all the species that they would farm would be for export, not for food security or for sub sub subsistence. So actually. If it wasn't through fisheries, it was gonna be, um, like they could already meet their needs for protein through wild caught fisheries. So it didn't make sense for them to be doing too much, uh, fin fish farming of, you know, low cost species.

54:28 So seaweed makes more sense. It's a lower entry point. They're already doing it. Their environment is well suited and it's much better for the environment as we know it employs women and, um, younger people. And, um, it can be beneficial, uh, on a number of levels. So that, And then that kind of opened up a whole new work stream for us on seaweed, which I never anticipated. Like, when should a government invest more in seaweed and when should invest more in finfish farming? And that's one of my main projects for this year to look to work with economists to answer those questions, um, using a whole bunch of different models And so on. Uh, because I think often governments push. Because that's just like the fashionable thing to do.

55:10 Like yeah, let's hunt fish Yes. But without actually studying whether environmentally it's the best use of their resources. Mm-hmm. Uh, are they, do they have the right infrastructure? And if they do seaweed well, it can be profitable and it could be successful. Yeah. Uh, well and good for, and better for the environment too, depending on what you have. 'cause like, you know, I have heard of, of, of studies looking at. Seaweed being, uh, cultured over seagrasses and that affecting the seagrass beds, uh, even though it does well for the seaweed, but the seagrass beds aren't getting the light that they need and they end up suffering. Um, but also when you have, uh, aquaculture fish, aquaculture, you know, sometimes it's not as profitable for the whole time. And, uh, there's like, grease is going through some problems right now with abandoned, uh, fish farms And so forth.

55:54 So there's always problems. I didn't know that. There's always, yeah, there's always, uh, issues when when you look at, um, how things are managed within a country, how, how the regulations are set up, and you don't want to just exploit something for the sake of exploiting when it may not be best for, for that. And it's good to have, you know, uh, people like yourself and, and, and the people that work with you at, at ethical seafood, uh, research because, you know, it's, it's, you wanna make sure you're doing it properly. You know, obviously the, the, the money has to be there. The revenue has to be there, has to support jobs, but it also has to treat the con, the, the, the country and the, and their coastal areas or their lakes like properly. Right. And I think that's, uh. That's what's best about having, you know, someone like yourself and, and uh, e Sr there to be like, oh, this is what we do.

56:36 Like, this is what we're looking out for you as well, you know, as, as, uh, as your people and, and the environment. And so, yeah, that's definitely what we're trying to do. So, Andrew, I realized that I went off a, on a bit of a tangent on seaweed 'cause I'm like getting more options Yeah. Yeah, of course. No worries. Yeah, no worries. I guess the part that I really wanted to mention is that what differentiates us, I think, from others in the space is that we're very much like on the ground, we have our teams on every country that we operate in, we're far, we're focused. We're actually trying to work with the people who are closest to the fish. We're not like the policy stuff is like secondary, but really our bread and butter is that we're like, I work with aquaculture experts, they've all studied aquaculture. They understand exactly how to farm fish in the best way. And um, you know, so I think we go in there from a technical perspective or we're vet veterinarians as well.

57:22 Right. So, um, Yeah. Yeah, that's, I think really our bread and butter is producer facing. Yes. Yeah. Small scales of systems, farming, uh, right. Oriented. Yeah. That's all I want. Yeah. Very much like, very much community focus, you know, like in helping the community as well. Um, And so sometimes, like you said, it might be fish that might help, or it might be seaweed or it might be something else. You never know. Um, and I think that's, that's really great. What's, uh, so for, for the organization, obviously a, a, a fairly new organization, um, what are you, what are your hopes in the, in the future, like to direct this organization and where do you hope that, that you can be, um, uh, like best helpful, you know, for, for communities and, and countries And so forth?

58:07 Like, what do you have on the horizon or what are you hoping to accomplish on the horizon? So seaweed was a big one definitely for us. Uh, that that came, kind of came outta nowhere. That I'm really not sure. Well, I think the sky's, the sky's the limit in terms where we can go, just because there's so much excitement and funding thrown at that. Um, but I, it's a bit of a learning curve for me because I actually don't know too, too much just about how, like, it is quite, it's actually quite a, a whole field in itself. You know, I know a lot about animals, but I don't actually know too much about the botanical aspect of that, unfortunately. Yeah. Yeah. So that's, that's becoming bigger, uh, aspect of our work. Um, we haven't talked about it at all the, in our, uh, chat today, but, uh, caviar farming is something that I've also seen received.

58:53 Actually, when you're talking earlier about like the zoo, for some reason I started thinking of like sturgeon and like, yeah, I was watching. That's big out here. Yeah, huge. I was watching some videos of like these, like stirs, like the baby sturgeon being released and I was like, mm-hmm man, if enough people saw just like how amazing these fish were. Like the caviar industry is actually responsible for a fair bit of cruelty really. And it's something that mm-hmm. I published about in the last couple of years and I have a ongoing project with someone from UBC, animal Welfare Department. Um, well, she's a graduate from there. Um, we like interviewed producers to see how we can do things better. Interesting. It is not a huge area of workforce us it's just something I came to mind Yeah.

59:34 Yeah. When you were talking, um, other, I guess we have a, um, we're trying to work with governments to develop codes of practices on farm fish welfare, uh, in Africa. So we have the Kenyan government invited us to develop one for them, which would be something that will voluntary, but we believe that the industry will, uh, sign on. Uh, but that's kind. You know, so Africa, the thing about African aquaculture is it's the fastest growing in the world. So part of our focus to work there was that we get in there mm-hmm. For like all these like, bad practices that we see in salmon farming and all that gets like embedded. So through things like the code of practice, through early training, through steering the industry, you know, towards good technologies from the get go, I think we can do, have, have impact.

1:00:25 So I'm excited about this approach of like, you know, working, uh, trying to incorporate high level, uh, approaches, not just, you know, farmer work as I mentioned. Um, what else am I excited about for this year? I'm writing a book on, uh, like, like academic book. Yeah. I was to write that. Yeah. So I guess on a personal level that could, it's always interesting because you end up absolutely loads Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. It, it kind of adds to, to your credibility, right. As well as, as someone who's in this space and helping out countries and not only part of an organization, but you know, putting your words to paper and, and teaching other people as, as well. So I think, think that's, yeah. That's fantastic. And Andrew actually, sorry, the Humane Slaughter project I mentioned earlier, like yeah, if we can, if we can find or like refine a protocol, just even just for like using ice as a ice slurry to like immers fish quickly emerge fish after taking out water.

1:01:19 Yeah. In like the most humane way possible. If we can perfect that and, you know, adapt it so that people can use it easily, I think that could reduce a lot of suffering in a low cost, high impact way. So I'm very excited about the trials that are, are ongoing. Yeah. And that we'll continue to go on this year. So that's another thing that I see on the horizon. Sorry, I cut you off Yeah. Yeah, no, no, I, I mean that's great 'cause I was just about to just say thank you and everything, but that was awesome. I'm glad you told me about that. Um, 'cause it's just the different ways that people are thinking about making sure that we're treating the animals more humanely, you know? And, And so, you know, aquaculture as we know is, is one of the fastest growing, uh, fisheries in the world. Um, you know, it's, it's slated to, uh, if not already, uh, you know, serve about 50% of the population, like world population, uh, probably more than that.

1:02:05 In, in, in coming. As you mentioned, African, African countries are probably the biggest, the biggest growth of, of aquaculture in the continent overall. Um, And so it's, it's very interesting to be able to, to talk to you, uh, today about this with semen and, and be able to, you know, enlighten us on this type of work. You know, I'd love, I know we are, we kind of covered a lot today and, and, and a lot of different things, but I'd love to invite you back on to talk about specific projects and, and dive deeper into it, um, into the science and just to kinda give people a perspective of, of the type of research that's that's going on and, and how it, it it ties to. Helping community because I find with, with, with conservation, it's really managing communities, right? Absolutely. And, and it's a big part of that.

1:02:45 Absolutely. And, um, because we do a lot of the disturbance, so if we're gonna do a lot of the disturbance, we need to be managed, we need to do it right. Um, it's great to have yourself and, and your team, uh, to be out there and, and helping, um, you know, countries who are potentially new to this, uh, different types of, of, of, uh, farming or just, you know, welfare of, of animals in general. Be interested and, and work with your, your organization to help out. I wanna thank you for your work, but I also wanna thank you for coming and sharing your story with us. I really appreciate that and I'm always happy to come back and talk to your audience. It's been really, really, uh, a joy, uh, as always to talk about our work and to share. I just wanted to say, uh, Andrew that personally, you know, like when I saw this like title of speaking up for the blue, I was like, ah, yeah, is, is our work a good fit?

1:03:27 But I still want to like, kind of go for it. I'm like, well, you know, absolutely. You know, it's not Ocean. Absolutely. It's not necessarily like, you know, the sexy Marine biology stuff, but it's important and it's an important part of the debate and we're trying to get ourselves out there in different circles. Go ahead. Yeah, absolutely. It's, it's one of those things where, um, you know, people are always asking. You know, people are always asking about it. And, and although it's not like the major topics of, of today in terms of like, you know, like you said, being sexy, like climate change and things like that. But it's something that we have to identify. It's not just all about, you know, the major impacts that are, that are, uh, hindering us, but it's also making sure that we're treating the animals properly in whatever we do. You know, whether it's through experimentation, whether it's through aquaculture, whether it's through wildlife caught fisheries, um, you know, the, the, the less impact we have, the be, you know, more humane impact we have, the better, you know, and I think that's a, that's a huge, uh, aspect to, uh, to discussing and talking about the Ocean.

1:04:23 So I wanna thank you so much for the work you do and of course, coming on the podcast. Em, it's been great to have you on. Thank you so much. It's really been a pleasure. Yeah. Thanks again. Thank you. Was for joining us on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. It was great to have you on. It was great to have a great conversation on ethical seafood, ethical treatment of seafood in particular. So fish welfare, it's not a conversation that we talk a lot about. It's a conversation that we should talk more about and I think when that conversation arises, a lot of people think of like. Activism and advocacy, but there's a lot of science that can go into this type of research. Even like within the aquaculture industry, there's fish feed that you have to look at. How is the feed created? Like how is it made? Where are the fish that are caught to make that fish feed? Are they being fished sustainably?

1:05:03 Are they being treated properly? And the same with the fish in aquaculture pens, the same with the fish. Wild caught. Are we doing what we can to reduce the amount of pain, reduce the amount of problems that we are having on the Ocean and on that particular fish that's being eaten. So it's a very interesting field of study, one that doesn't get talked about a lot, and I'm so happy to have Wassim on the podcast to be able to talk to him about it. So super happy that he's here. I'd love to hear what you have to think about. Fish welfare, do you care? Do you not care? What do you care about in terms of fish welfare? Love to hear your thoughts. Let me know in the comments below if you're watching this on YouTube and if you're listening to this on your favorite podcast app. On the audio part, love our audio listeners because that's the first thing I did when I came in to the podcast industry.

1:05:44 I was dealing with audio and I still love my audio listeners. You can go to speak up for blue.com/feedback. That's speak up for blue.com/feedback, and you can either put in a voice note or you can write your thoughts down and I will get to read them and maybe share them later on if you so desire. But I wanna thank you so much until then for listening to this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin from the True Nor Strong and free. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.