Transcript
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Hey everybody, we've got a special episode for you today. This is going
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to be one for the books. We have Dr. Alexandra
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McInturff on the podcast to talk about the
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Big Fish Lab. This is a lab at Oregon State
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University. It is The
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stuff that we talk about is all over the place in terms of fish
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and sharks. We talk about basking sharks. We even talk about a
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ship strike on a basking shark. There's so
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many things that we talk about. It is going to be a lot of fun. So I don't want to delay it anymore.
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Let's start the show. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of
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the Beyond Jaws podcast. I am your host or co-host, Andrew Lewin.
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And here is my other co-host, Dr. David Ebert.
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Oh, I'm excited about this one, Andrew. I'm really looking forward to
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having Alex on the show here talking about basking sharks. Um,
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as, as you know, and some people know, I, her and I coauthored a paper on basking
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sharks and involved a lot of citizen science a couple of years ago. Um,
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just, she's just a real dynamo and are really looking forward
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to, um, having her on there. Just, just a really. Pumped
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up exciting, uh, uh, up and coming shark shark
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superstar. I think, you know, she's really on the ball. And
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we learned some things about it. I didn't even know, I didn't even know about her at,
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we're looking forward to, and so we're really, we're excited having
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Yeah, it's going to be great. You know, we talk about her athleticism and
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and how that impacted her life and how that's kind of driven her
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life to be so successful. This is going to be definitely
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one for the books as you mentioned. So here is the interview with
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Dr. Alexander McInturff. Enjoy and we will talk to you after. Hey
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Alex, welcome to the Beyond Jaws podcast. Are you ready to talk about
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The answer to that is always. Thank you so much for having me. I
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That's awesome. I want to welcome everyone to another Beyond
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Jaws podcast episode today, where we have another rising star
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in the fantastic world of sharks. We have the fabulous Dr. Alexandra
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McInturff. She's originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, which
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I believe is landlocked, last I checked. Alex
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graduated from Cum Laude from Williams College. with
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a bachelor's degree in both biology and English. She
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received her PhD in animal behavior from the University of California, Davis.
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And recently, she's been a research associate at Oregon State University's
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Big Fish Lab. Her research generally focuses on how marine organisms
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respond to biotic and abiotic environmental variables. And
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she uses this information to contextualize and predict behavior, movement
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patterns, and survival. And she explores this topic in relation to
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threatened marine species. For her PhD, Alex studied salmon
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sharks and, believe it or not, seven-gill sharks. So we've got a
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lot to talk about today in California. And basking
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sharks also in Ireland. She currently examines a
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foraging ecology of salmon sharks in Oregon and
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Alaska, including microplastics ingestion. the
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distribution of Chinook salmon and their overlap with salmon sharks, the
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movements of Pacific spiny dogfish, the social lives of
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sharks in general, and many more species and topics. She has a dozen publications
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and is presented at numerous conferences. She does outreach through
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organizations such as the Gills Club, the Irish Basking Shark Group, and
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previously served as editor-in-chief for the Ethagram, which is
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the official blog of the Animal Behavior Graduate Group
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at UC Davis, while supervising a team of editors and
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contributors and maintained a media presence for the blog. Alex
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is an avid science communicator and has developed and led graduate-level courses
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on the topic. In addition to her own personal PSYCOM
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endeavors, she coordinates the Irish Basking Shark Group, an outreach, research,
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and education organization dedicated to basking sharks in Irish
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waters. She's a frequent guest on various media platforms, including print
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media, television, and podcasts. She's currently,
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as I've mentioned, a research associate at Oregon State University's Big Fish Lab
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at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, Oregon, which
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is an absolutely beautiful part of the country. I actually love it. I'm jealous there,
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but I live in Monterey, so it's not too bad. So anyway,
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I told you we're going to go through your entire life. Wow, thank you.
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Yeah, you really did. I feel like there might have been some internet stalking
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Just a wee bit. We do our research. We do our research. We
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do our research. We want to be prepared. So
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I'll start off with our usual question in that, how
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did you get interested in marine science and sharks? all
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of that whole, the wonderful world of the marine environment from Cincinnati, Ohio?
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Yeah, that's a really good question. I get that a lot. And to
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be honest, my mom still asks that question of me every time
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I visit. She is so baffled by
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my career choice, but of course was very supportive, which is how I ended up
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here. I think I got into shark science in
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the same way a lot of the other folks y'all have interviewed got into it. And
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I'm finding my story is less unique than I thought. I,
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like many aspiring scientists, I wanted to be a shark biologist from
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the time I was 12. Growing up in
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Ohio, I didn't live near the beach. And so I really knew
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I wanted to study animals when I was young, but my parents
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didn't even know what a marine biologist was. I distinctly remember
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wanting to be a vet, because that's what I knew. And we
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had dogs, and they went to the vet. So that's what I figured the options were
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for working with animals. And then one year we went
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to Florida and I remember just being at
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the beach and thinking, oh, this is so fun. This is like my favorite place to be. Also,
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the ocean is a little bit scary. And I think I
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asked my dad, you know, one way I've learned since then that I probably cope with
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fear is to learn more about the things that scare me. And I said to my dad
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that day, I said, can you study the ocean? And
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he was like, I think you can. I think it's called
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a marine biologist. That's the job you might be interested in. And
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like any 12-year-old who's very stubborn, I decided that that was
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going to be my job for the rest of my life. And I'm pretty sure
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that Shark Week was happening the week I was in Florida, which, of
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course, that's the scariest thing when you're that age. Well,
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I think it did prompt. It prompted the curiosity, for
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sure. Um, yeah, from then on, I
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was always known as the shark girl throughout, you know, middle school
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and high school and into college. And, um, my high school
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friends are still baffled by the fact that I'm living
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the childhood dream that I set out to live. And
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again, people in Ohio just don't understand for the most part.
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I've got, I've got out. So I, I don't mean to interrupt you, but I just got to ask you,
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like, so when you were in high school, cause I had this experience. When you went and
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saw your guidance counselor, sort of like your junior, senior year,
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and they asked you what you were going to do, and you told them you were going to do shark science,
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To be honest, I don't quite remember. So this is a little complicated. I
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was a soccer player, and I was getting recruited to play. So my
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priority, you know, my ability to prioritize sharks and research
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generally was a little bit delayed because I was an athlete first, kind
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of student second. So I remember primarily having conversations about
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soccer but not sharks with my guidance counselor, and
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that being my focus. And my husband
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says I really can only talk about like two things, and it's soccer and
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sharks. That's still
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Not bad things to talk about. That's what I'm saying. They're
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Absolutely. Did
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I did, yeah. I played at Williams, yeah. So
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When you say you played soccer, now that's like at the
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college level. That's playing soccer. That's just not in
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a house league kind of thing. That's high level. You're
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working out. You're living that. Like soccer basically.
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Yeah, I was living soccer for quite a long time. Um, and
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yeah, williams is in massachusetts So I left I knew I was gonna leave ohio regardless
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and I was looking at schools kind of everywhere for undergrad But again soccer
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kind of drove That choice and so, you know williams college
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didn't have a super robust, you know research program They
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were not an r1 university. They were a liberal arts school, but
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their soccer program was like Top 10 d3 schools
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for women. So I was really trying to get recruited by
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them and Then I figured at
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some point later I could focus on Sharks, but while I was still
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being a soccer player, I really wanted to see that through Okay.
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Yeah, we've had a number we've had a number of people on there that
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were there both our college athletes that played in fact I was that was
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I little similar to you because I was a I was a I was a college wrestler
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at Humboldt State, which was a top five D3
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when I was there. It was the same sort of thing that I like. I wanted to do sharks,
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but I loved doing wrestling too. So I think the thing is,
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you probably found the whole thing, the discipline of like trying to be a student athlete at
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the college level, it's a whole different world than a
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Yeah, totally. So it's actually something, being a
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student-athlete I think has had resounding impacts throughout my career more
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so than I think I realized at the time, right? Like
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you start playing your sport from the time you're five if you're a
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woman soccer player who's going to play in college for the most part. And so
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growing up, you know, I took my SATs in high school at
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recruitment camps on the road. I took all my AP exams,
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like, in different buildings around the country as I was trying to
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get recruited. And then, you know, I would
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come back for finals. We went to the... This
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is just kind of a funny aside. We ended up going to the national championship my senior year,
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and so I actually was planning to go to grad school immediately out
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of undergrad, but couldn't because I couldn't submit
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the applications. I had to come back from that game and take
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my finals that year, and I didn't have any time to put applications together.
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But you know, you have practices in the evening, you're lifting in the
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morning, you know, your whole life revolves around performing
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well athletically. And then also, Williams was a top-tier academic
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institution, so they really wanted you to be the full student-athlete.
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Like there was, there was, you were no less the student
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Yeah. Now getting a BA in biology and
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English, Those are quite different subject matters,
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definitely complimentary to each other. And obviously English is
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always great to have. What was, why English? I
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can understand the biology just based on what you wanted to do, but why English
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So I got my English degree kind of on accident. I
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really like to read. I love to read and write. Those
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are two things. I like to say my brain thinks more
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on the writing side. I'm not as good at things like math and stats, unfortunately,
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for me. which is definitely a weakness I'm aware
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of in my current career, but I do love to write and
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I was taking all the courses just for fun anyway. I
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was taking like Shakespeare and you know.
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Nice. Irish poetry. And I
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just remember thinking, you know, the liberal arts education, they really encourage you
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to pursue all these different opportunities. And I just
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thought those classes were really cool. And then at some point I realized I had only
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like two more classes to take before I fulfilled the
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criteria for the major. So I just kept going. So, yeah.
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So I think it was it was not really on purpose, but
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Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That even complicates being
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a student athlete and getting two degrees like that that are in kind of very
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different areas, really. So you've got to be pretty disciplined
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and dedicated in that in that realm. I can I can definitely
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attest to that. So so you have these two degrees. You already knew
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you were going to go to graduate school when you finished at Williams. You
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already had that in mind. Yes. And so, I mean,
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I I kind of think I know, but why don't you tell us, well, how'd you
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wind up at UC Davis out in Cal? So you went from Massachusetts to
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Yes, very different. Well, so I
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can kind of tell you the story of how I, how I got there after
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this, national championship debacle. So again, I
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thought I had my whole life planned out and I knew from the get-go
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that I wanted to get my PhD. Like I really like school. I like learning. I
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knew I might want to go into academia someday. So I thought PhD is
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the way to go. Realistically, I also thought that's where I'd make the
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most money. I have now learned a lot about my
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career and those options. But when you
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Google salaries, when you Google salaries when you're
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like 15 and they say you have to have your PhD and
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you can make like 100k or more a year. I thought,
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you know, that's I have to get my PhD. We can
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get into that later. But so anyway, I knew I wanted to get my PhD. I
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had actually already been emailing a bunch of faculty, you
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know, as you're supposed to do. And I'm sure you all have talked about this. you
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are supposed to kind of reach out and network with folks. And I had started to do that with a few people
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prior to this game. And so I had to email them
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all again and say, I actually can't apply. But then
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I was at a loss. I think this is the only time I've ever been truly lost in my
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life because I'm a planner. And I was like, I have a whole year
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ahead of me where I don't have any job prospects or
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any idea of what I'm going to do. That year actually
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ended up being really formative for me. I ended up going to
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the Bimini Shark Lab and working with the Oceans Research Program in South Africa
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that year, which got me that hands-on
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experience with sharks, and that was super incredible. And then sort
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of in between to kind of support myself, I coached
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stalker, I nannied, I worked in a cafe, I
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was a freelance science writer for one of my professors, and
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then I applied to grad school. And so once I got to the point
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where I could start, you know, thinking about applying, I reached back
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out to all those folks. Pete Klimley at UC Davis
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was one of them. And for folks who don't know, Pete was kind
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of one of the major fathers of telemetry for sharks.
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Or so he would say, I think. And so, you know,
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I was really impressed. Pete's
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Let's put it this way. I've known Pete since he finished his PhD at
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Scripps. I was a
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young, just starting out. I was just starting my master's when Pete finished
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his PhD. I've known Pete for a little while. Anyway, so
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Yeah, totally. And he
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was actually my top choice of mentor. I applied to a few other places,
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but he was really doing the stuff I wanted to do. And he seemed really eager
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to have me as a student. And one of
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the projects that we had talked about together was this Irish basking
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shark group project so he actually had just done this
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whole big stint this like speaking speaker series
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in Ireland they had brought him over the Irish basking shark group
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had brought him over in part to do that series and
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so he was looking for a graduate student to kind of bridge the gap between
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his lab in Ireland which is how I got my basking shark start And
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so I ended up at UC Davis in the animal behavior program, but
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I actually had to interview from Bimini. They told
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me I had an interview while I was in Bimini and they flew me
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to Davis from Bimini. But I didn't know that
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was going to happen. And so I ended up having
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to be dressed by everybody at the field station because
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I didn't have any clothes. Right. So I
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had to borrow somebody's skirt. I had to borrow somebody's shirt.
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I wore flip flops to my interviews. I was very tan. But
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I think it made for some really incredible stories with the faculty there.
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It's California, too. So, you know, Beach Boys and stuff. Anyway,
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yeah, that's but that's certainly did you were you based out? Would
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you spend much time out at the? Bodega marine lab at all when you're
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I Didn't mostly because I wish I had I
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love working at Hatfield right now at OSU's campus because
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being at a marine lab is so special It's like a very cool environment and
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I didn't get that during my PhD I think for a few reasons namely
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I was trying to go to Ireland to study basking sharks So I didn't need to be on the
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California coast Um, but also COVID hit during
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the last two years of my PhD. And so I was pretty confined. Yeah.
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To my house, uh, for, for most of my PhD, I
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Wow. Okay. Okay. But you were, you were, you were obviously able
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to get out to Ireland, at least enough to get, collect data and get your, do
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No, so this is
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my woe is me story. So basking sharks, I
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love them, but they're so incredibly finicky. And Dave,
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this is why you and I are authors on my dissertation chapter
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paper, because I ended up having to collect or
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work with data that was already available in California, because I
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went to Ireland for three summers and saw no sharks. No,
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I had the funding. I got the funding to go. I had places to stay.
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I had a skipper. All the logistics were aligned. And basking
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sharks, they don't always show up when you want them to
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show up. So I
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totally had to pivot during my PhD. I ended
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up working with Dave and a few other folks on the basking shark data they had
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collected in California. I worked on a salmon project. I
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worked up some old sevengill shark data, you know, just to try to get
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the analytical skills I needed. But it wasn't until I
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started my postdoc that I actually saw basking sharks in
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Can I just ask you this? When
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you have a PhD and you have a plan for your PhD,
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and you mentioned you're a planner, so you expect certain things to, you
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plan out and you expect certain things to happen. Then
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this happens where you go three summers, you don't see a basking shark.
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How much are you freaking out at this point? Like I know you pivoted and
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it worked out, but how much were you freaking out and what did you learn
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Well, let me add another wrench in this picture. So Pete
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also got me set up at Davis and then retired after
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my first year. So not
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only did I have to deal with COVID and then not seeing basking
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sharks, but then I didn't have, there was no other shark person
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at Davis who could advise me. So I ended up being adopted
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by two tremendous mentors at Davis, Damian Cayo
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and Nan Fungi. Damian is a primatologist. He studies mountain
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gorillas in the Congo. But he's really good analytically.
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And I think that's where my interest in social behavior started. And
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then Nan is a salmon physiologist. And
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so that's where my interest in salmon started. So all of
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this was obviously very stressful, but I think Having
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supportive supervisors, and this is something I say to all the students
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I mentor, makes such a world of difference. I
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knew that they were going to help me to graduate regardless of
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what it took, and frankly, I graduated with a salmon chapter.
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Damian helped me with the hydrodynamic modeling that I did
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with the seven gills. You know, they really supported me through that process, so
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I didn't ever really feel like I was going to fail. But of course, when you're
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in Ireland sitting around, it kind of sucks, right? You
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go to dark mental places. You're mostly alone. It's
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a new place. Even if it's beautiful, even if the environment is
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awesome, you can't help but feel that it's a little bit of a personal failure
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for a while. And in fact, I wasn't sure if I
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wanted to go back when the opportunity presented itself for my postdoc.
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I was so just, I think, a little bit burnt out from
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trying so hard with that project that I didn't Really have a
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So, you know, we're in a good place now I
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would have thought like Ireland Ireland in that area is like probably one of the best
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places that you can usually count on seeing basking sharks Well,
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clearly I was had the wrong information since you didn't see one
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Well, no, you have the right information for now. And this
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actually has sparked a whole new area of research for me, where I've
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now been looking at trends in Ireland sightings as compared to
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the trends, Dave, that we looked at in California. Because you
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don't see them in California anymore, and you are seeing them. We had record numbers
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of basking sharks this year reported to the Irish basking shark group.
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Yes, now Ireland is one of the best places to see them, ironically,
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and I'm so glad that I stuck it out and did end up coming back because
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we've been able to have tremendous research opportunities there now
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Yeah, I was going to say one thing on the project we did, you know,
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because a lot of it was citizen science based, and I think I've talked to
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you about this before, but whenever, again, at the times
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of year when they're usually around here, If you put out
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any kind of a media thing, like they run a thing on the local news or
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the newspaper, we'd almost always get a few sightings, a
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couple. But if you don't pester them to like put something
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out there, you don't hear anything about them. And then you think like, oh, we're all
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the basking sharks. Not that there's like loads of them out here, but
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usually you'll pick up some sightings if you get the word out
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to the community. This is kind of the Central California area I'm talking
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about. But it would just go quiet, nothing. And then you get
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a news story out there, and then suddenly you get like two or three sightings.
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And so I don't know if that's something I think I wanted to just emphasize a
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bit, where citizen science could be a huge help in
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really helping people like us be able to gather data, because we
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can't be out in the water all the time. And so
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anyway, I just wanted to, you know, and as you
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notice, like it's not like Ireland where you can see them like you could.
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Right. Right. Well, even in Ireland, part
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of the reason I do what I do with the Basking Shark Group is to raise
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awareness. We have a revamped website. We have
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a strong social media presence. And part of that reason is so
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that people know to report their sightings to us. And we're having this same sort
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of challenge in Oregon right now because the Big Fish Lab was established in
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2019. mid-pandemic, essentially. And so we
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are trying to get people to pay attention to the sharks in
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Oregon. Most people don't associate Oregon with sharks, right? Same thing with Ireland, actually.
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So you really do have to do a lot of community engagement
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What type of community engagement do you do? Do you go out to
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festivals? Do you go out to libraries? What
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type of community engagement do you have to do to let people know that there
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Totally. That's a really good question. So actually, I'm very fortunate in
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my group. I work with Dr. James Sulikowski and Dr. Taylor Chappell. They're
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both really supportive of science communication. And so I'm actually part-time funded
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to do community engagement, which is one of my favorite things to do. That's amazing.
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So I am currently planning a Sharktoberfest event
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that will happen here in Portland. which is
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really exciting. So that's a good example. And
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we do a lot of in-person dissections as well. We've had
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like 600, 700 people at both of our events this summer already.
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So we do try to target that. We also do a lot of social media.
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So we have a Big Fish Friday feature every week
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on our platforms at Big Fish Lab. We really try
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to make sure that that gets enough attention. I think a lot of people try
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to do SciComm and it often fizzles out because there's
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only so many hours in the day and so much effort you can really dedicate to that.
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So we actually have a rotation for the social media in
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particular where every week it's a student or me who's doing it.
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So I only have to be on social media like once every two months. But
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it means that I dedicate a lot of time the week I'm on it. So there's
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a lot of strategies you can implement for this sort of thing. And we're
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I think this is great. I'm a big Psycom person. Obviously, a couple
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of podcasts. This is the platform I like to use. When
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you're on social media and you're talking about, is it just basking sharks
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that you're talking about? Because at some point, somebody's like, how much can
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you talk about basking sharks in a week, let alone two months
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I mean, I could talk about basking sharks forever. So I
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would say that's my answer to that. Whether
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people want to listen to me talk about basking sharks for that long is another
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For the Irish basking shark group, we are a little more selective. We're
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much more active during times of year when the basking sharks are known to be
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present. That is a little bit less structured and
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more opportunistic. Here in Oregon, it's all
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Oregon species and even beyond. So some weeks we'll feature a publication. Some
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weeks we'll do like a creature feature where we talk about one
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of the species that we have here. Some weeks we're just advertising for
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our outreach events. And some weeks we're like following people in the field. So
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And so who becomes your, like obviously you have a kind of split
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between two audiences, the Irish and sort of people in
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Oregon. How do you, do you like really focus in on them
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through social media or you just post and hopefully the people who
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listen, I guess like say if you did an in-person event
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they'll probably follow you afterwards so you get that audience. But do
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Totally and I should clarify So because
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I do the organization of a lot of the Big Fish Lab outreach, I
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also do a lot of the organization of the Irish Basking Shark Group outreach, but they are
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separate accounts. So we do, I feel really strongly, yeah,
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in targeted social media. And we do like lab
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discussions about this, right? Like no jargon, you
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know, making sure we only use visuals, making sure that we're targeting specific
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audiences. We do have a Facebook group, not because we're
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on Facebook a lot, but because a lot of the fishing community is on Facebook. So if we're trying
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to target fishermen, yeah, we're going to go where they are. And
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so we primarily use socials to reach like, it's,
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I don't want to say general audience, cause I hate that term. There's really no such thing, but
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to reach the folks more broadly, even beyond
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Oregon, we get a lot of people beyond Oregon and it's people in our professional and personal networks.
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And then the basking shark group page targets primarily folks ideally in
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Ireland and we do have a researcher in our group who is learning Irish
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So we try to share that in Irish and English just to increase accessibility
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to information How did you how did how did you have we
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What how did you how did you happen to go from you? So you finished up
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Yes, so I feel like
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even though there were a lot of obstacles during my PhD, the rest
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of my journey so far has been pretty linear. I
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knew of Taylor Trappell because he also went to
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UC Davis and so you know like in many academic buildings
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there's posters everywhere of the students who have been there before And
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actually, Pete Klimley was on his committee. And so it's
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a very small world, as you know. And I had
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seen his name. I'd read some of his stuff. And then
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it's a very long story. But long story short, I
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ended up in Monterey on a white shark boat because I was donating some equipment
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to a project that was going on over there. Something had broken, and we had a
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replacement at UC Davis. And part of the agreement was if I bring you this
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piece of equipment, I get to go on the boat, right? and Taylor
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was actually running the boat that day, unbeknownst to me.
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So we ended up starting a conversation, and this was
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about two or three years before I was ready to graduate, but he followed up
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with that conversation and said, when you're ready for a boat stop, let me know. And
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so it was pretty simple. I emailed him
449
00:28:40,969 --> 00:28:44,111
and a few other folks who I really admire and was interested in working with, and
450
00:28:44,592 --> 00:28:48,535
a lot of them knew each other, because a lot of them had been working in Monterey, and so I
451
00:28:48,575 --> 00:28:52,077
ended up on a big collaborative project about salmon sharks, with a
452
00:28:52,117 --> 00:28:55,858
lot of those people, with Taylor as the lead PI. He was
453
00:28:55,978 --> 00:28:59,498
new at Oregon State, and I was his first postdoc, and
454
00:29:05,099 --> 00:29:08,560
When did he start? He only started up there fairly recently,
455
00:29:20,202 --> 00:29:23,985
Yeah, now we have a massive group. We've grown dramatically
456
00:29:25,666 --> 00:29:28,948
Yeah, or yeah, Oregon literally went from like nothing to now
457
00:29:28,968 --> 00:29:32,170
You got all these people like running around doing sharks and rays up there at
458
00:29:32,491 --> 00:29:38,235
least doing sharks anybody doing rays at all They'd be working on rays Well,
459
00:29:38,435 --> 00:29:41,697
we did have a postdoc working on skates dr. Kyle
460
00:29:41,737 --> 00:29:45,159
Newton, but he recently moved on to a new position I think so
461
00:29:46,810 --> 00:29:50,112
Yeah, we don't have anybody actively working. We did have a master's student, Josh
462
00:29:50,132 --> 00:29:53,735
Filman, looking at chemical communication and bat rays. So
463
00:29:53,815 --> 00:29:57,417
that was an experimental setup and that should be published soon. But
464
00:29:58,858 --> 00:30:02,500
Okay. I just kind of curious. So
465
00:30:02,560 --> 00:30:05,842
I just got to back up one more little thing. So tell us about your 7GIL
466
00:30:10,430 --> 00:30:13,852
Okay, I will say I don't consider myself a
467
00:30:13,892 --> 00:30:17,874
sevengill expert by any means. My PhD
468
00:30:18,114 --> 00:30:21,275
chapter about sevengills was primarily opportunistic. It
469
00:30:21,315 --> 00:30:24,417
was a data set Pete had collected but hadn't written up. And so it
470
00:30:25,377 --> 00:30:29,079
was, as you know, to look at movements of sevengill sharks
471
00:30:29,179 --> 00:30:32,353
in and out of San Francisco Bay and to try to see if if
472
00:30:32,373 --> 00:30:35,914
there was any correlation with different tides. And
473
00:30:35,934 --> 00:30:39,035
to do that, we essentially demonstrated a method where we
474
00:30:39,095 --> 00:30:42,496
created a hydrodynamic model, which is just a fancy model that
475
00:30:42,516 --> 00:30:45,937
visualizes water moving in and out of the bay. And
476
00:30:45,977 --> 00:30:49,038
we overlaid the seven-gill shark tracks on top of
477
00:30:49,078 --> 00:30:52,379
that to see how they responded. It was just a really interesting way to
478
00:30:52,839 --> 00:30:56,220
retroactively contextualize data, because obviously they
479
00:30:56,260 --> 00:31:00,001
were collected much before my time. And so being
480
00:31:00,041 --> 00:31:03,262
able to observe that in real time is really hard, and
481
00:31:03,282 --> 00:31:07,863
it was kind of a cool opportunity to get to explore different methods of doing that. I
482
00:31:07,943 --> 00:31:11,185
am now dabbling in seven gill
483
00:31:11,205 --> 00:31:14,366
shark work, but primarily leaving that to the PhD student in
484
00:31:14,426 --> 00:31:17,647
our lab, Jess Schulte. She's really talented, and she's been focusing on
485
00:31:17,687 --> 00:31:21,208
them in Willapa Bay in Washington. So, yeah. So,
486
00:31:27,246 --> 00:31:30,851
It's one of those things, I see seven gills, you know, that was kind of my starting point
487
00:31:30,891 --> 00:31:34,135
in the whole journey. So I had to, I just, I see seven
488
00:31:34,155 --> 00:31:37,980
gills, I just got to bring it up and ask, cause I was like finding a
489
00:31:38,020 --> 00:31:41,544
fellow traveler, like, Ooh, cause somebody to talk about seven gills for. And you
490
00:31:41,564 --> 00:31:44,688
think you can, you think you can talk about basking sharks? Get me
491
00:31:52,408 --> 00:31:55,889
Yeah. Yeah. Um, so I mean, so Oregon's kind of an interesting
492
00:31:55,929 --> 00:31:59,970
place because California's had a fairly active shark program.
493
00:32:00,210 --> 00:32:03,531
Washington state has had, uh, over the years, some
494
00:32:03,551 --> 00:32:07,532
different, different stuff going on. And of course, up at, uh, in Vancouver, but
495
00:32:07,952 --> 00:32:11,313
Oregon's been kind of a black hole in a sense that nobody's
496
00:32:11,373 --> 00:32:14,951
really done stuff there. So it's kind of, exciting that
497
00:32:14,971 --> 00:32:18,072
you guys are doing a lot of work up there. What are
498
00:32:18,092 --> 00:32:22,234
some of the things you guys are finding or some of the interesting projects
499
00:32:26,333 --> 00:32:29,737
Yeah, totally. So I guess my
500
00:32:29,817 --> 00:32:33,101
general answer is that we've learned why it's a black hole, which
501
00:32:33,261 --> 00:32:37,286
is that it's really hard to do work there. Oceanographic conditions
502
00:32:37,366 --> 00:32:41,071
can be incredibly challenging and visibility
503
00:32:41,131 --> 00:32:44,274
is terrible. The water is cold, so not a lot
504
00:32:44,294 --> 00:32:47,977
of people in the water. And what
505
00:32:47,997 --> 00:32:51,458
we're finding is that there are about 15 shark species there.
506
00:32:51,738 --> 00:32:55,299
And hypothetically, that did used to include basking sharks, although
507
00:32:55,439 --> 00:32:59,060
I have not heard of a basking shark report in recent memory. And
508
00:32:59,100 --> 00:33:02,301
we didn't see any in our data set, Dave, when we were looking at that for
509
00:33:02,321 --> 00:33:05,562
the West Coast. What we are finding is that shark
510
00:33:05,582 --> 00:33:08,715
presence there is pretty seasonal. And it totally depends on the
511
00:33:08,735 --> 00:33:11,976
species you're talking about, but we see a lot of taupe and blue
512
00:33:12,016 --> 00:33:15,218
sharks, some spiny dogfish and salmon sharks. Those would
513
00:33:18,399 --> 00:33:22,141
Yeah. We had, we were doing the basking shark stuff. We would get, I'll just
514
00:33:22,181 --> 00:33:25,443
mention this to you, but we would start to see like the basking sharks would show
515
00:33:25,463 --> 00:33:28,725
up in Southern California off like San Diego. Then
516
00:33:28,745 --> 00:33:32,006
they'd show up off LA starting around April, May. Then
517
00:33:32,026 --> 00:33:35,448
usually about June, July, we started getting some sightings up this
518
00:33:35,528 --> 00:33:39,226
way. And then, but once we got kind of up to Marin County,
519
00:33:39,246 --> 00:33:42,667
just over past San Francisco, it just kind of went blank
520
00:33:42,687 --> 00:33:45,949
because there's just nobody, wasn't really good communication up
521
00:33:45,989 --> 00:33:49,370
there. It was hard to get the word out to people. And then you get further north
522
00:33:49,450 --> 00:33:52,871
up into Oregon and there's nothing. And
523
00:33:52,891 --> 00:33:56,073
then you get into Washington, you get a little bit going on in Washington state, but
524
00:33:56,653 --> 00:34:00,174
yeah, the Northern California and Oregon is just, it's just a blank. You
525
00:34:00,194 --> 00:34:03,635
just, there's just not enough. There's people out in the water because they're fishing
526
00:34:03,675 --> 00:34:07,520
communities, but just getting, Sure people that report
527
00:34:07,560 --> 00:34:10,883
stuff, you know, that's that's what we found, you know, and
528
00:34:13,385 --> 00:34:16,689
Yeah, and I think that's definitely true. That's like
529
00:34:16,789 --> 00:34:20,272
that's exactly what we're finding. I think you know we
530
00:34:20,332 --> 00:34:23,613
say we're Oregon's dedicated shark research program. There really,
531
00:34:23,873 --> 00:34:27,413
there have been like Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and a few other entities
532
00:34:27,453 --> 00:34:31,054
that have sporadically done shark projects, but having a consistent
533
00:34:31,414 --> 00:34:34,935
shark monitoring effort there is really critical. I mean, we are still learning
534
00:34:35,495 --> 00:34:39,056
about who was showing up when. We are relying on fishing reports.
535
00:34:39,136 --> 00:34:42,436
We get a lot of dead animals washed ashore. So salmon
536
00:34:42,456 --> 00:34:45,677
sharks and blue sharks in particular, I was out on the beach for like three days
537
00:34:45,717 --> 00:34:49,277
this past month, like, getting dead animals that were finally reported
538
00:34:49,297 --> 00:34:52,678
to us. But the big challenge, as you say, Dave, has been overcoming that
539
00:34:52,718 --> 00:34:55,999
communication barrier and letting people know that we're here.
540
00:34:56,179 --> 00:34:59,939
And I don't care what state that shark is in. I want to see it. I have driven from
541
00:34:59,979 --> 00:35:03,260
Willapa Bay in Washington, just over the border, back down to Newport, which
542
00:35:03,300 --> 00:35:06,600
is a four-hour drive, with a seven-gill shark that is dead and wrapped in
543
00:35:06,640 --> 00:35:09,901
a tarp in my car, like, extending the
544
00:35:09,941 --> 00:35:13,442
length of my car such that I can rest my elbow on its tail.
545
00:35:15,882 --> 00:35:19,503
Here's what I'm thinking about. So it's not a pickup truck that you have. You actually have
546
00:35:19,563 --> 00:35:22,824
a car, so it's inside, like this dead animal's inside where
547
00:35:28,005 --> 00:35:31,526
It was. It was. And I was just thinking the whole time, I'm driving
548
00:35:31,586 --> 00:35:35,027
down the 101, and I'm thinking, I need to go fast because
549
00:35:35,047 --> 00:35:38,248
the shark is thawing. It was frozen. But I'm also thinking, if I go
550
00:35:38,308 --> 00:35:41,649
too fast, I'm going to get pulled over. And this looks like a dead, it's
551
00:35:41,709 --> 00:35:44,991
a dead body, right, in the car. then that's
552
00:35:45,011 --> 00:35:48,138
going to take even longer. So I'm like trying to figure out
553
00:35:48,178 --> 00:35:51,304
how often I can speed to get the shark back to the freezer. And it was
554
00:35:51,324 --> 00:35:54,551
a really big shark. So yeah, we do that
555
00:35:54,611 --> 00:35:58,635
all the time. Um, that's a really good question. I
556
00:35:58,715 --> 00:36:01,997
feel like it was at least like 8 to 10 feet.
557
00:36:05,038 --> 00:36:08,380
Yeah. If I remember correctly, and I might be exaggerating a little bit,
558
00:36:08,420 --> 00:36:12,382
but it felt quite big to me at the time. Um, yeah, it
559
00:36:12,422 --> 00:36:15,724
was big. Yeah, for sure. Um, but we do that a lot. Like
560
00:36:16,004 --> 00:36:19,265
I, the other week had to go collect, I went on a trail
561
00:36:19,305 --> 00:36:22,967
run and then got a call from Taylor and he says, Are
562
00:36:23,007 --> 00:36:26,370
you anywhere close to this area? There's a salmon shark wash
563
00:36:26,390 --> 00:36:29,692
to shore and we like to get the salmon sharks whole if we can. I've
564
00:36:29,712 --> 00:36:32,874
been doing a stomach content analysis series on
565
00:36:32,914 --> 00:36:36,357
them and we also collect tissues for stable isotopes and a variety of other things
566
00:36:36,437 --> 00:36:40,179
and we use them also if they're in good enough shape for public dissections as
567
00:36:40,219 --> 00:36:43,401
an educational tool. So I said, yep, you know, I'm
568
00:36:43,501 --> 00:36:46,863
sweaty already. I'm just going to go grab it. You know, I don't have anything. I
569
00:36:46,883 --> 00:36:50,145
don't have a tape measure. I don't have a bag. I don't have a knife,
570
00:36:50,465 --> 00:36:53,847
which is important for the story because I show up and this woman walks
571
00:36:53,867 --> 00:36:57,328
me a quarter mile down the beach and I say, okay, the
572
00:36:57,348 --> 00:37:00,570
shark is not in good enough shape for me to take the whole thing. It's been a little bit
573
00:37:00,590 --> 00:37:03,852
eaten by some birds, like parts of it are missing, but I would need
574
00:37:03,892 --> 00:37:06,972
to take a muscle sample. Um, and I need to
575
00:37:07,012 --> 00:37:10,313
take out its eye because we're doing some eye studies. So I said,
576
00:37:10,333 --> 00:37:13,714
do you have a knife? And she said, I do. And
577
00:37:13,814 --> 00:37:17,656
she came down with like a Cuisinart bread cutting
578
00:37:17,676 --> 00:37:20,957
knife, like a kitchen knife. And was like, here
579
00:37:21,197 --> 00:37:25,378
You know her knife is going to get thrown out after? I know. You probably won't
580
00:37:26,599 --> 00:37:29,780
I know. That's what I said. I said, are you sure this is what you want me to use? And she
581
00:37:39,857 --> 00:37:43,501
Great story. That's a, that's a, that's a good story. So,
582
00:37:43,821 --> 00:37:47,264
so what are you, so you're, so you're focused on like things like the salmon shark you
583
00:37:47,284 --> 00:37:50,587
mentioned there and, and basking sharks are, are priorities. Are
584
00:37:50,608 --> 00:37:53,991
there any other, uh, any other, any other sharks you're really, you're, you
585
00:37:58,503 --> 00:38:01,964
Yes. One study that we just recently started with Oregon
586
00:38:02,064 --> 00:38:06,585
Department of Fish and Wildlife is on Pacific spiny dogfish. Those
587
00:38:06,625 --> 00:38:09,966
are your smaller species. One of the smaller species we get in Oregon, right? We
588
00:38:10,026 --> 00:38:13,867
usually get them about a foot or two long. They have that characteristic spine
589
00:38:13,967 --> 00:38:17,148
in front of the dorsal fin. And this is kind of one
590
00:38:17,168 --> 00:38:20,448
of the more applied projects I'm working on. I am really interested in
591
00:38:20,488 --> 00:38:24,569
everything from behavior to movement. But actually for this project, Noah
592
00:38:24,689 --> 00:38:28,062
is really interested in learning about catchability. of
593
00:38:28,423 --> 00:38:31,745
pacific spiny dogfish so how often their surveys are actually catching them
594
00:38:31,785 --> 00:38:35,187
to inform the stock assessments because currently the pacific coast
595
00:38:35,227 --> 00:38:39,710
stock of spiny dogfish is actually in a really dire situation
596
00:38:39,870 --> 00:38:43,573
the numbers have dropped dramatically and there's a lot of concern due
597
00:38:43,593 --> 00:38:47,015
to bycatch with other fisheries that there's going to have to be some intervention with
598
00:38:47,035 --> 00:38:50,377
fishing activity. And so we're actually working with the stock
599
00:38:50,417 --> 00:38:53,919
assessors and ODFW to try to put some tags out
600
00:38:53,959 --> 00:38:57,601
on these dogfish to figure out where they're going and how often they're in Oregon
601
00:38:57,942 --> 00:39:01,550
versus leaving Oregon and how we can sort of mitigate that
602
00:39:01,610 --> 00:39:04,812
human wildlife interaction with the fishery and also tell
603
00:39:04,892 --> 00:39:08,515
NOAA where and when they should conduct their surveys to get better information
604
00:39:08,535 --> 00:39:12,218
about dogfish numbers. So this is actually a really cool way
605
00:39:12,258 --> 00:39:15,640
to jump into some of the, I guess, understanding how
606
00:39:15,720 --> 00:39:19,023
stock assessments work and the data that's required for those. So
607
00:39:21,725 --> 00:39:25,668
Okay, nice. Do you do much outreach
608
00:39:25,688 --> 00:39:29,511
through the aquarium there in Newport? Do you
609
00:39:30,905 --> 00:39:34,326
Yes, I think yes, it depends. You
610
00:39:34,366 --> 00:39:37,446
know, the Newport Aquarium is awesome and we definitely do a
611
00:39:37,506 --> 00:39:40,727
lot of research with their research team, which is cool. They've
612
00:39:40,747 --> 00:39:44,168
been undergoing a lot of transition and construction in the last couple of years that
613
00:39:44,208 --> 00:39:48,168
has made it, I think, hard to host events there. But they
614
00:39:48,188 --> 00:39:51,669
do something for Shark and Ray Awareness Day. They will
615
00:39:51,729 --> 00:39:54,910
often, I'll go guest lecture in one of their classrooms for some
616
00:39:54,930 --> 00:39:58,459
of the courses at OSU. There's definitely capacity to
617
00:39:58,519 --> 00:40:01,761
build there, and I'd like to do that for sure, but I think they're
618
00:40:06,484 --> 00:40:10,287
I'm curious about the outreach. You said you were half
619
00:40:10,307 --> 00:40:18,714
funded to do science communication. Just
620
00:40:18,754 --> 00:40:22,218
partially, not fully half, yeah. Okay, so partially, but
621
00:40:22,398 --> 00:40:25,521
that's still difficult funding to get these days. You know,
622
00:40:25,541 --> 00:40:29,165
there's not a lot of people get funding to actually have that incentive
623
00:40:29,225 --> 00:40:32,588
to go out and do that type of outreach. Can
624
00:40:32,608 --> 00:40:35,852
I ask how that, like, what made you think, or
625
00:40:35,932 --> 00:40:39,215
what made the lab think of getting that funding, how it came about, if
626
00:40:40,827 --> 00:40:43,988
Sure, yes. So I'm funded in a variety of
627
00:40:44,028 --> 00:40:47,149
different ways. I guess to start by answering that question, and I'll get back to
628
00:40:47,189 --> 00:40:50,451
that, I should describe how our lab kind of operates and the structure of
629
00:40:50,511 --> 00:40:54,752
our lab. So Taylor founded the lab in
630
00:40:54,992 --> 00:40:59,254
2019. He has a few grad students. I came on as his first postdoc in
631
00:40:59,614 --> 00:41:03,535
2021. And then Dr. James Zolikowski, who is one of the world's experts on
632
00:41:03,595 --> 00:41:07,757
shark reproduction, joined as the director of our department in
633
00:41:08,600 --> 00:41:12,843
I think June last year. So he
634
00:41:12,863 --> 00:41:16,004
very recently joined. We were super psyched when he got the
635
00:41:16,044 --> 00:41:19,366
job. And since then, we have just had
636
00:41:19,386 --> 00:41:22,828
a lot of big ideas. So it's basically James and Taylor. I've
637
00:41:22,868 --> 00:41:26,410
been hired on now. I finished my postdoc as a research associate. So
638
00:41:26,551 --> 00:41:29,852
I'm basically- Oh, congratulations. Thank you. Yeah. So I
639
00:41:29,872 --> 00:41:33,054
just say it's a glorified postdoc position, but it does mean I am
640
00:41:33,114 --> 00:41:36,176
research staff. So I kind of sit underneath them, and the
641
00:41:36,216 --> 00:41:39,539
three of us do a lot of communication about the
642
00:41:39,579 --> 00:41:42,883
future of the lab and all sorts of research projects,
643
00:41:42,903 --> 00:41:46,127
but also education directions. And then we have a bunch of
644
00:41:46,187 --> 00:41:50,988
really tremendously talented graduate students and undergraduates. I've
645
00:41:51,028 --> 00:41:54,289
been just super impressed by everybody that I've worked with in that lab. I think
646
00:41:54,349 --> 00:41:57,530
everybody has also developed a lot in the last couple years, which
647
00:41:57,590 --> 00:42:00,851
is really cool to see. But when James joined and
648
00:42:00,931 --> 00:42:04,052
said, I'd like you to stay on as research associate, he and
649
00:42:04,092 --> 00:42:07,213
Taylor and I were envisioning ways that I could potentially be funded, which
650
00:42:07,273 --> 00:42:10,975
is certainly on some of these projects. We
651
00:42:11,015 --> 00:42:14,418
definitely write in to all of these projects some funding for
652
00:42:14,458 --> 00:42:17,781
the education and outreach. But what really made
653
00:42:17,801 --> 00:42:21,123
a difference was that I co-wrote my position description with
654
00:42:21,303 --> 00:42:24,686
all of them. So me, James, and Taylor co-wrote it. And
655
00:42:25,366 --> 00:42:28,469
we were able to say, all of us value science communication so much that
656
00:42:28,489 --> 00:42:32,392
we were able to say, part of your salary or part of your position will
657
00:42:32,472 --> 00:42:35,675
just be dedicated to science communication. And that's just an understanding that
658
00:42:35,755 --> 00:42:39,317
all of us have. So it is written down. X% is mentorship,
659
00:42:39,457 --> 00:42:42,679
X% is science communication, X% is research. And then I'm just
660
00:42:42,719 --> 00:42:46,401
funded my stipend generally on all these projects. So I
661
00:42:46,441 --> 00:42:49,903
feel like this is a really cool and unique position. It's
662
00:42:49,943 --> 00:42:53,184
something I didn't anticipate falling into, but I really love
663
00:42:53,264 --> 00:42:56,487
it. And I think Part of the reason I love my
664
00:42:56,527 --> 00:43:00,170
job so much right now is, again, mentorship, as I said, is so critical.
665
00:43:00,230 --> 00:43:03,332
And James and Taylor, we're all really aligned with the
666
00:43:03,352 --> 00:43:06,435
goals of where we want the field of shark science to go, how we want to make it
667
00:43:10,238 --> 00:43:13,621
That's amazing. Seems like you're getting everything that you want, like
668
00:43:16,043 --> 00:43:19,205
Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. You got some
669
00:43:19,225 --> 00:43:22,828
pretty good stuff. So you talk we talked earlier. You had a fairly
670
00:43:24,469 --> 00:43:27,856
High-profile paper come out here recently on boat striking a
671
00:43:33,162 --> 00:43:36,944
Yes, totally. So I have now seen basking sharks
672
00:43:37,124 --> 00:43:40,606
equally as many field seasons as I have not seen them, which for me is
673
00:43:40,626 --> 00:43:44,228
a win. I'm even.
674
00:43:44,248 --> 00:43:47,869
And I'm hoping to break even in the positive way
675
00:43:47,929 --> 00:43:51,131
very soon next year. So this year, like
676
00:43:51,171 --> 00:43:54,373
I said, we had a record number of basking sharks in Ireland. And we were
677
00:43:54,413 --> 00:43:57,694
trying, we were kind of running low on funding, to be honest, but
678
00:43:57,834 --> 00:44:01,216
we were trying to maximize the amount of funding we had. And one of the things we've been working
679
00:44:01,316 --> 00:44:04,503
on is developing a method of putting animal-borne cameras on
680
00:44:04,543 --> 00:44:08,286
the sharks, along with an accelerometer unit
681
00:44:08,326 --> 00:44:11,569
that can essentially be attached to their body to measure how their body is
682
00:44:11,669 --> 00:44:15,333
responding to different environmental variables that we can see in the camera. So
683
00:44:15,353 --> 00:44:18,475
they have this attachment on their body, we've developed an attachment method over the
684
00:44:18,515 --> 00:44:22,136
last few years, and then they're towing a camera behind them. and
685
00:44:22,336 --> 00:44:25,460
we had a few of these cameras out over the
686
00:44:25,520 --> 00:44:28,784
course of this past field season which took place in April but we only had
687
00:44:28,944 --> 00:44:32,148
one out at a time because we often had to recover them and
688
00:44:32,188 --> 00:44:35,472
it's a whole big thing and one day
689
00:44:35,492 --> 00:44:39,137
we got one of the cameras back and we were primarily interested
690
00:44:39,157 --> 00:44:42,460
I should say in foraging behavior at this point.
691
00:44:42,520 --> 00:44:45,804
So we are using these cameras to see what the energetic cost of
692
00:44:45,844 --> 00:44:48,987
basking shark feeding is. If you haven't seen a basking shark feeding, it
693
00:44:49,007 --> 00:44:52,090
just looks like they're opening a giant parachute that is their mouth, and
694
00:44:52,130 --> 00:44:55,374
that is surely causing a lot of drag. So we're asking a
695
00:44:55,394 --> 00:44:59,137
lot of questions about how that might have evolved to be an effective foraging tactic.
696
00:44:59,938 --> 00:45:03,042
So we're looking for feeding and non-feeding on these cameras, and my
697
00:45:04,004 --> 00:45:08,049
colleague Dave Cade, he's the camera guru, and
698
00:45:08,089 --> 00:45:11,574
was showing our skipper some example footage of
699
00:45:11,614 --> 00:45:14,974
what the cameras produced. And I just made a comment. I
700
00:45:15,014 --> 00:45:18,416
said, oh, that shark must have rubbed up against a boat because there's blue paint
701
00:45:18,496 --> 00:45:21,698
on its back. And that is not uncommon for basking sharks in
702
00:45:21,718 --> 00:45:25,120
this area. There's a lot of boats around. And so
703
00:45:25,560 --> 00:45:29,142
typically they just seem pretty superficial or just like they've rubbed up against the
704
00:45:29,202 --> 00:45:32,884
hull of a vessel. It's the anti-fouling paint there. And
705
00:45:33,004 --> 00:45:36,406
then didn't think anything of it. Dave jumped back to an earlier clip
706
00:45:36,566 --> 00:45:40,049
and there was no paint. So we said, oh, something
707
00:45:40,089 --> 00:45:43,218
must have happened in between these two clips. on
708
00:45:43,258 --> 00:45:47,121
the camera that captured this encounter
709
00:45:47,161 --> 00:45:50,884
with the vessel. And then we actually found it and it was pretty sobering. So
710
00:45:51,425 --> 00:45:54,647
what ended up happening and we ended up publishing these results this
711
00:45:54,727 --> 00:45:58,143
past summer. is the one tag
712
00:45:58,183 --> 00:46:01,526
we had out in this area, which had been recently designated as
713
00:46:01,626 --> 00:46:04,969
Ireland's first national marine park, the camera
714
00:46:05,009 --> 00:46:08,452
captured a vessel striking the basking shark. So
715
00:46:08,892 --> 00:46:12,175
what you see is the basking shark swerving to get out of the way,
716
00:46:12,235 --> 00:46:15,438
and then you see the hull of the vessel, the camera starts tumbling through the water, the
717
00:46:15,458 --> 00:46:18,962
basking shark is spinning, it seems like, and then the
718
00:46:19,002 --> 00:46:22,564
basking shark bolts. and you basically see
719
00:46:22,624 --> 00:46:25,726
darkness and then you see the seafloor and that unit that
720
00:46:25,766 --> 00:46:29,068
was on the body actually captured this response. It really
721
00:46:29,608 --> 00:46:32,730
actively shot down to the seafloor and we were able to
722
00:46:32,770 --> 00:46:35,932
sort of recreate the shark's track with that unit and we were
723
00:46:35,952 --> 00:46:39,174
able to see that it had bolted offshore and rested on
724
00:46:39,214 --> 00:46:42,639
the seafloor essentially. swimming really, really slowly for
725
00:46:42,679 --> 00:46:45,966
the duration of the deployment. And we actually don't know what happened to
726
00:46:45,986 --> 00:46:49,012
the shark because the tags were designed to pop off within a
727
00:46:49,052 --> 00:46:52,415
certain amount of time and they popped off a couple hours later. and
728
00:46:52,596 --> 00:46:55,998
when the shark was still on the seafloor. So that was a pretty big deal
729
00:46:56,118 --> 00:46:59,200
because these cameras are used widely and for other species as
730
00:46:59,260 --> 00:47:02,763
well. For whales, Dave primarily works on whales, our camera guru,
731
00:47:03,403 --> 00:47:06,506
and he said he's never seen that before captured on
732
00:47:06,566 --> 00:47:10,148
camera. So it was a pretty big deal. It definitely got the attention
733
00:47:10,769 --> 00:47:14,992
of the Irish politicians and management and
734
00:47:15,072 --> 00:47:18,153
folks over there as well as actually globally, which was
735
00:47:18,173 --> 00:47:22,274
a little bit of a surprise to some of us because a lot of people don't know what basking sharks are. But
736
00:47:22,314 --> 00:47:26,195
I was glad that it kind of got the attention that it did. I think Ireland's
737
00:47:26,235 --> 00:47:29,716
at a big turning point in its policy for basking sharks and protections
738
00:47:29,796 --> 00:47:33,417
for them. So I think it was maybe a good reminder
739
00:47:40,338 --> 00:47:43,902
It's a crappy story because it's a hitting
740
00:47:43,942 --> 00:47:47,245
of a basking shark, but it's an amazing story that you captured it
741
00:47:51,230 --> 00:47:55,434
Yeah, that's what we said. We
742
00:47:55,454 --> 00:47:58,735
were at the pub when this happened. We were at the pub
743
00:47:58,935 --> 00:48:02,536
with the computer showing the videos at the time that we found
744
00:48:02,696 --> 00:48:06,637
it. This is doing field work in Ireland. It was such a casual post-field
745
00:48:09,958 --> 00:48:13,159
Yeah, I could imagine. I could imagine. Did people at the pub look in with it?
746
00:48:15,679 --> 00:48:18,840
No. No. We kept that under wraps for a little while, mostly because we've made
747
00:48:21,650 --> 00:48:25,492
we've made a really big deal out of the fact that we're not villainizing anybody because
748
00:48:25,612 --> 00:48:28,834
I think that's also really critical. It could happen to anybody. It could,
749
00:48:29,335 --> 00:48:32,897
it was not, it was not our boat. Um, and we have a really knowledgeable skipper,
750
00:48:32,937 --> 00:48:36,679
but if you don't know, basking sharks are around, they can be really hard to see. So we've
751
00:48:36,699 --> 00:48:39,841
made a big deal out about like, we're going to, you know, make sure we
752
00:48:43,440 --> 00:48:46,663
I know I've seen this, you probably can confirm this,
753
00:48:46,683 --> 00:48:50,025
but basking sharks spend about 90% of their time below
754
00:48:50,065 --> 00:48:53,308
the surface. They're not really at the surface all that much in terms of
755
00:48:53,348 --> 00:48:56,750
their overall behavior. Is that correct? Is that what
756
00:49:00,270 --> 00:49:03,653
Well, you know, that is really interesting. It depends, I
757
00:49:03,673 --> 00:49:06,956
think, on where they are. So when they're in Ireland, they do spend a
758
00:49:06,996 --> 00:49:10,580
substantial amount of time at the surface. But to your point, Dave, like
759
00:49:10,640 --> 00:49:13,863
relatively speaking, it seems like they're spending a lot of time there, but they
760
00:49:13,903 --> 00:49:17,066
don't have to necessarily. They tend to do that
761
00:49:17,106 --> 00:49:20,209
when they're feeding in Ireland. But that's one of the challenges of
762
00:49:20,289 --> 00:49:23,566
working with them is you know, a lot of what we know about basking sharks
763
00:49:23,906 --> 00:49:27,147
is based on what they're doing when they're at the surface. And most of our
764
00:49:27,207 --> 00:49:30,327
distribution models are based on that. And most of our, you
765
00:49:30,347 --> 00:49:33,528
know, observations of behavior are based on that. But certainly, you know, we
766
00:49:33,588 --> 00:49:36,669
find that they go to depth for sure. And we've been actively tracking a
767
00:49:36,709 --> 00:49:40,010
few this past year, and we know they're around because we can hear the pings
768
00:49:40,030 --> 00:49:43,711
from their tag, but we can't see them anywhere. So I don't know about 90%, but
769
00:49:46,652 --> 00:49:49,993
Yeah. Yeah. I just that's just a figure I I've seen.
770
00:49:50,213 --> 00:49:53,394
But I don't know. I really didn't know for sure. I know. I do know that
771
00:49:53,674 --> 00:49:57,475
from what I when I when I people have studied him in the past, they
772
00:49:57,495 --> 00:50:00,996
say they spent a lot of time. But unless you get up high and see down, which
773
00:50:01,016 --> 00:50:04,537
is kind of not untypical where sharks sometimes are there just
774
00:50:04,597 --> 00:50:07,918
below the surface and at boat level, you
775
00:50:07,958 --> 00:50:11,379
can't see them generally. But if you're up a little bit with a drone or a plane,
776
00:50:12,000 --> 00:50:15,418
you can you can pick them off. And so I didn't even know, which
777
00:50:15,678 --> 00:50:19,521
actually leaves me a question. Do you guys, have you done much, tried to do much with drones
778
00:50:23,667 --> 00:50:27,049
Yeah, totally. I think you're totally right that the aerial component is
779
00:50:27,089 --> 00:50:30,270
really helpful. There's been times when the sharks have been around and
780
00:50:30,330 --> 00:50:33,932
we can only see them because we can see the body of the camera that they're towing because
781
00:50:33,952 --> 00:50:37,214
they're sitting literally just such that their dorsal fin is
782
00:50:37,294 --> 00:50:40,836
like two inches below the water. But I think what
783
00:50:40,856 --> 00:50:44,237
we've noticed, and we particularly noticed this as the Irish basking shark group during
784
00:50:44,257 --> 00:50:47,682
the pandemic, a lot of people were taking walks And
785
00:50:47,722 --> 00:50:51,147
a lot of people were starting to play around with drones. And so
786
00:50:51,487 --> 00:50:55,112
in Ireland, what we were seeing is a lot more reports and a lot of really incredible
787
00:50:55,152 --> 00:50:58,376
footage of behaviors like the tourist behavior. If you don't know
788
00:50:58,396 --> 00:51:01,660
what I'm talking about, it's a bunch of sharks swimming around a bunch of basking sharks swimming
789
00:51:01,680 --> 00:51:04,772
around in a giant mass. They're not feeding. It's thought to
790
00:51:04,812 --> 00:51:08,973
be like a courtship ritual, but you should Google it. It's like T-O-R-U-S. It's
791
00:51:08,993 --> 00:51:12,574
a really incredible phenomenon. And then also we see what recently
792
00:51:12,614 --> 00:51:15,695
has been coming out is a lot of like splashing and interacting. And
793
00:51:15,735 --> 00:51:19,356
so again, part of my research is on their social dynamics. Part
794
00:51:19,396 --> 00:51:22,737
of the reason for that is because of all these really unique
795
00:51:22,797 --> 00:51:26,058
ways that they swim together. They will follow each other around. They will
796
00:51:26,418 --> 00:51:30,059
swim in the giant torus. Sometimes they'll swim right next to each other in sync
797
00:51:30,199 --> 00:51:33,760
completely to the tailbeat. And it's clearly non-random.
798
00:51:33,820 --> 00:51:36,922
So that's a question that I and a few other researchers are really interested in.
799
00:51:37,202 --> 00:51:41,224
Yeah, it'd be very interesting. Yeah Yeah, they're definitely sharks.
800
00:51:44,325 --> 00:51:47,487
Yeah, sorry one more time as I said who
801
00:51:47,507 --> 00:51:50,549
knew basking stars had such personality I did not I
802
00:51:50,589 --> 00:51:54,031
did not until I saw them There
803
00:51:54,271 --> 00:51:57,572
there's a you may be familiar with this but I'll throw it out there just
804
00:51:57,592 --> 00:52:01,094
if you weren't but Back in the mid-1970s, Sonny
805
00:52:01,134 --> 00:52:05,457
Gruber actually published a paper on bonnethead sharks, and
806
00:52:05,497 --> 00:52:09,219
he found that he had a group of bonnethead, and he gave names to each of the sharks, and
807
00:52:09,720 --> 00:52:12,822
he found that each of them had their own individual personalities. Are you familiar with
808
00:52:15,964 --> 00:52:19,466
I thought you might be. I don't think I'm familiar with that exact one. Yeah,
809
00:52:19,506 --> 00:52:22,648
but there's definitely been a few. Animal personality is a
810
00:52:22,708 --> 00:52:26,431
very cool component of the field of animal behavior. But
811
00:52:28,192 --> 00:52:32,313
Yeah. He was the first. He was the first. There may be another. This is probably says
812
00:52:32,374 --> 00:52:35,795
like 1975 or 76. But it was the first paper
813
00:52:35,835 --> 00:52:39,616
that I remember when I was a young grad student in the 80s. Remember reading. And
814
00:52:39,636 --> 00:52:43,358
I thought that was kind of interesting that he. And again, there's all captive stuff.
815
00:52:43,398 --> 00:52:48,180
But he noticed that each of them seemed to have a different behavior. You know, I
816
00:52:48,220 --> 00:52:51,741
came or the number he had. I remember all the details. But it might be some interesting
817
00:52:51,761 --> 00:52:55,106
just to see. But it was one of the first papers
818
00:52:55,186 --> 00:52:58,309
I can recall where somebody was actually looking at sharks and noticed that
819
00:52:58,329 --> 00:53:01,972
they had different behaviors, individual behaviors there.
820
00:53:01,992 --> 00:53:05,375
So you can imagine, and those are bonnet heads, which are obviously little sharks
821
00:53:05,796 --> 00:53:09,139
compared to like a basking shark, which have much
822
00:53:09,159 --> 00:53:12,382
more behavior patterns. Do you
823
00:53:14,282 --> 00:53:17,683
Yeah. Do you see him working up like when they're in an area where there's where they're feeding
824
00:53:17,743 --> 00:53:21,204
and stuff? Do you see him kind of moving any like uniform
825
00:53:21,244 --> 00:53:25,346
patterns or behavior where they're kind of in any kind of a coordinated fashion
826
00:53:28,006 --> 00:53:31,426
Yes, for sure. Like. I know it's almost
827
00:53:31,466 --> 00:53:35,191
certainly coordinated and actually this is a really interesting component.
828
00:53:35,231 --> 00:53:38,695
So to your point about like animal personality, that's
829
00:53:38,715 --> 00:53:41,959
something that so UC Davis has a really big animal behavior program that I was in
830
00:53:41,999 --> 00:53:45,572
and a lot of people were studying animal personality. in
831
00:53:45,992 --> 00:53:49,415
Dr. Andy C's lab using primarily smaller
832
00:53:49,575 --> 00:53:52,837
animals, right? Like using stickleback fish, like super
833
00:53:52,877 --> 00:53:56,139
tiny animals you can keep in captivity and manipulate their environment. And
834
00:53:56,159 --> 00:53:59,621
so studying the personality or even just
835
00:53:59,781 --> 00:54:02,838
associations among individuals in the field is
836
00:54:03,118 --> 00:54:06,219
so hard and I think the field has come really far in the
837
00:54:06,259 --> 00:54:10,821
last couple of years but it's definitely still growing. When
838
00:54:10,881 --> 00:54:14,382
we see the basking sharks in Ireland they're very rarely
839
00:54:14,482 --> 00:54:17,743
alone and I think that's really important because what we found
840
00:54:17,803 --> 00:54:21,204
in our paper Dave was a decline obviously in the
841
00:54:21,364 --> 00:54:24,665
number of sharks sighted simultaneously along with the decline in
842
00:54:24,705 --> 00:54:28,166
sighting. So group size was decreasing as was the number of sightings.
843
00:54:28,626 --> 00:54:32,489
Potentially indicating that this associative behavior is
844
00:54:32,509 --> 00:54:35,751
maybe really important for their population to persist right
845
00:54:35,831 --> 00:54:39,834
why that is I don't know But it's an interesting correlation Yeah,
846
00:54:39,894 --> 00:54:44,097
I was gonna say just my own Observational
847
00:54:44,137 --> 00:54:47,579
stuff over the years I think most shark species from
848
00:54:47,719 --> 00:54:51,021
white sharks to seven gills to spiny dogfish to I
849
00:54:51,061 --> 00:54:54,379
think they they generally have a group
850
00:54:54,499 --> 00:54:57,682
behavior, it's not a schooling behavior, and you might
851
00:54:57,702 --> 00:55:01,505
be able to elaborate more about this, because I never had any kind of an animal
852
00:55:01,525 --> 00:55:04,807
behavior course, but I definitely was pretty good
853
00:55:04,847 --> 00:55:08,030
about observing and watching what went on with groups of sharks, and
854
00:55:08,090 --> 00:55:12,233
even though you may not see two next to each other, if
855
00:55:12,273 --> 00:55:15,536
you see one, like a white shark, and I live in South
856
00:55:15,616 --> 00:55:18,758
Africa, and if you see one, there's almost a guarantee there'll be at least
857
00:55:18,858 --> 00:55:22,201
one other one around. They're never solitary, like
858
00:55:22,221 --> 00:55:25,467
people tend to think, And I don't know if you've seen, I know you mentioned talking about
859
00:55:25,487 --> 00:55:29,010
basking sharks. I don't know if you've observed this in any other shark species you've,
860
00:55:29,491 --> 00:55:32,634
I know Pete Clemley, of course, did hammerhead sharks, scalloped hammerheads in the
861
00:55:33,174 --> 00:55:36,618
Gulf of California, you know, way back in the day. But have
862
00:55:41,522 --> 00:55:44,806
Yeah, absolutely. I, we're noticing it with the spiny
863
00:55:44,826 --> 00:55:48,143
dogfish part of the problem. with their stock, we
864
00:55:48,183 --> 00:55:51,404
think, is that they school in these massive numbers. And so when they are
865
00:55:51,464 --> 00:55:55,405
buy caught, they're buy caught in large amounts. And
866
00:55:55,425 --> 00:55:58,806
I think it's actually really much more common
867
00:55:58,846 --> 00:56:02,387
than people think for sharks to aggregate. And
868
00:56:02,407 --> 00:56:06,368
I say that term really carefully. We actually had a paper come out last year on how
869
00:56:06,408 --> 00:56:09,508
to define aggregations in sharks, because that is a really hard thing to
870
00:56:09,568 --> 00:56:13,349
do, right? Like, how do you determine if shark A can even detect shark
871
00:56:13,389 --> 00:56:16,718
B, and at what distance do you see them apart, right? And
872
00:56:16,959 --> 00:56:20,142
so I think that's something that people need to pay more attention to
873
00:56:22,264 --> 00:56:25,887
I mean, the term I used back when I was doing my Ph.D. on
874
00:56:25,947 --> 00:56:29,210
seven girls was social facilitation. And I don't know if that's a proper one
875
00:56:29,250 --> 00:56:33,214
that you guys at Davis would use, but it was a social facilitation
876
00:56:33,234 --> 00:56:36,477
is what I use because there are some I could just see these things where there is
877
00:56:36,517 --> 00:56:39,722
a coordinated behavior with them. And the best way I
878
00:56:39,762 --> 00:56:43,223
could analogize it, and you might have had some of this at Davis, was having
879
00:56:43,303 --> 00:56:46,523
read up on and seeing lions and hyenas and other
880
00:56:46,563 --> 00:56:50,164
land predators hunt cooperatively. And
881
00:56:50,264 --> 00:56:53,505
if you know anything about them, and I sound like you probably got a little experience with
882
00:56:53,545 --> 00:56:56,905
this, you watch the sharks, and they're like, yeah, this
883
00:56:56,965 --> 00:57:00,766
is not a random behavior, what they're doing. There definitely is a coordinated behavior.
884
00:57:00,786 --> 00:57:04,006
But social facilitation is the only
885
00:57:04,226 --> 00:57:07,627
term I could come up with. But there's a coordinated behavior.
886
00:57:08,467 --> 00:57:11,629
of behaviors going on there. So it's interesting to me hearing you
887
00:57:11,669 --> 00:57:15,131
say that because that's the same conclusion I'd had came back a
888
00:57:19,213 --> 00:57:22,915
Yeah, well, yeah, it is. And it's really important.
889
00:57:22,975 --> 00:57:26,377
And I think part of the reason this all ties back into science communication, too,
890
00:57:26,577 --> 00:57:30,120
because when I say to people sharks have friends, I'm obviously
891
00:57:30,160 --> 00:57:33,601
really simplifying that process. But yeah. For someone to
892
00:57:33,641 --> 00:57:36,683
see a shark and think, oh, friend, that's actually a
893
00:57:36,783 --> 00:57:40,604
weird association, rather than sharks as these solitary, mindless,
894
00:57:40,684 --> 00:57:43,846
man-eating machines, right? And I think, so I've really been
895
00:57:43,866 --> 00:57:47,267
trying to highlight this concept of this coordinated behavior, this
896
00:57:47,307 --> 00:57:50,949
ability to recognize individuals, hunt cooperatively. Like,
897
00:57:50,989 --> 00:57:54,591
there are so many ways you can start to describe these behaviors that actually really
898
00:57:58,144 --> 00:58:01,225
Yeah, absolutely. I think that's an
899
00:58:01,285 --> 00:58:04,346
interesting way of looking at it when people think of
900
00:58:04,426 --> 00:58:07,827
sharks, they think of danger, killing machines, like
901
00:58:07,927 --> 00:58:11,107
those are the type of word associations you'd probably have when
902
00:58:11,127 --> 00:58:14,568
you start to put them in as, hey, you know, they coordinate with
903
00:58:14,628 --> 00:58:18,069
other shark species, not just within their own. That is something
904
00:58:18,129 --> 00:58:21,270
that's probably difficult. You get people who are just like, no, I don't believe that.
905
00:58:22,315 --> 00:58:26,118
Actually, I have found, luckily, I don't
906
00:58:26,158 --> 00:58:29,441
get a lot of pushback. I think what I have found is that folks who
907
00:58:29,481 --> 00:58:33,465
are non-scientists tend to be really receptive to information, mostly
908
00:58:33,505 --> 00:58:37,468
because I think a lot of people have the same sort of paradoxical
909
00:58:37,488 --> 00:58:40,631
feelings towards sharks that got a lot of us into shark science. I think a lot of people
910
00:58:40,651 --> 00:58:44,414
are really afraid of them, but also fascinated. And so I think that's why
911
00:58:44,534 --> 00:58:47,797
our events are so well attended. I think that's why people want to see shark
912
00:58:47,817 --> 00:58:51,339
dissections, because they're just This is their opportunity to
913
00:58:51,379 --> 00:58:54,500
see a shark in an environment that feels safe with people who seem to know
914
00:59:00,061 --> 00:59:03,182
Yeah, I say a lot more. I got a lot more interest in the public So it
915
00:59:03,222 --> 00:59:06,603
tends to be less less less rigid in their thinking and stuff.
916
00:59:06,643 --> 00:59:10,444
So, um, yeah Yeah, for sure I'd
917
00:59:10,464 --> 00:59:14,025
say anyway, alex has been a fascinating discussion here. Um,
918
00:59:14,045 --> 00:59:17,161
do you have any kind of like thoughts on what you
919
00:59:17,181 --> 00:59:20,764
would get you how advice you might give for some some person starting out
920
00:59:21,484 --> 00:59:24,767
and my other question is like where do you see yourself in the next 10 20 years?
921
00:59:29,736 --> 00:59:33,537
Um, I liked the first question and I don't know how to answer the second question.
922
00:59:37,338 --> 00:59:40,519
Um, um, I think my first question, my
923
00:59:40,559 --> 00:59:44,660
first, the first, my answer to the first question would be, um, you
924
00:59:44,700 --> 00:59:48,260
know, networking went a long way for me. Like learning
925
00:59:48,300 --> 00:59:51,461
to network early was really helpful getting into shark science as
926
00:59:51,481 --> 00:59:54,522
someone from Ohio who didn't have people to guide me for quite a
927
00:59:54,562 --> 00:59:57,703
long time into this field. I was able to find mentors both in
928
00:59:57,743 --> 01:00:01,024
shark science and otherwise that really And mentorship, as
929
01:00:01,064 --> 01:00:04,446
I've said multiple times, really matters. As
930
01:00:04,486 --> 01:00:07,688
a quick note, I also want to say that as
931
01:00:07,788 --> 01:00:11,230
much as I say, you know, people from Ohio, you know, don't understand why
932
01:00:11,250 --> 01:00:14,472
I do what I'm doing, both Taylor and James are also from Ohio. So
933
01:00:14,532 --> 01:00:17,974
together, we form. And
934
01:00:18,314 --> 01:00:23,558
yes, no shade to Ohio, but it is kind of a coincidence. Yeah.
935
01:00:29,906 --> 01:00:33,609
I think in the future for this field to be more inclusive
936
01:00:33,749 --> 01:00:37,272
and welcoming, I would just advocate for people putting positive
937
01:00:37,332 --> 01:00:41,015
energy into their interactions with people. You're going to
938
01:00:41,035 --> 01:00:44,338
get back what you put out. I do see a
939
01:00:44,498 --> 01:00:47,760
world in which shark science becomes much more diverse and welcoming to
940
01:00:47,800 --> 01:00:51,564
people of a lot of different backgrounds who may or may not have initial
941
01:00:51,604 --> 01:00:55,101
accessibility into this field. I think generally I'm
942
01:00:55,141 --> 01:00:58,924
seeing a lot of folks in this field are very collaborative these
943
01:00:58,984 --> 01:01:02,266
days, especially among the folks that
944
01:01:02,326 --> 01:01:05,468
I've been able and been fortunate enough to work with, and I hope to see
945
01:01:05,488 --> 01:01:08,770
that continue. So I would just advocate for future researchers continuing the
946
01:01:08,810 --> 01:01:12,232
collaboration. I think that's really important for pursuing, I
947
01:01:13,013 --> 01:01:17,583
think, a greater knowledge of the species we're working with. Yeah,
948
01:01:17,783 --> 01:01:21,446
and then where am I going? I will say, you know,
949
01:01:21,466 --> 01:01:24,827
I took my postdoc and I thought this is going to help me figure
950
01:01:24,887 --> 01:01:28,329
out what I want to do. I was working with folks at agencies. I was working
951
01:01:28,369 --> 01:01:31,451
with obviously people in academia. And so I actually for a
952
01:01:31,471 --> 01:01:34,553
little while thought I might want to pursue an agency position. I
953
01:01:34,613 --> 01:01:37,815
wasn't sold on academia. And I
954
01:01:37,855 --> 01:01:41,537
will say this postdoc has taught me nothing about
955
01:01:41,577 --> 01:01:44,794
that. I actually don't know. I should say
956
01:01:44,834 --> 01:01:48,437
it's taught me a lot. It's taught me a lot about that, but not
957
01:01:48,537 --> 01:01:51,901
enough to help me make a decision. And so I
958
01:01:51,941 --> 01:01:55,184
think yet. So for now, I'm
959
01:01:55,244 --> 01:01:58,387
really loving learning, being able
960
01:01:58,427 --> 01:02:01,830
to learn in my position as research staff in the Big Fish Lab. I feel like
961
01:02:01,870 --> 01:02:05,494
James and Taylor have offered me tremendous opportunities to learn about different technologies and
962
01:02:05,534 --> 01:02:09,313
different species. I really, I think I'm a lifelong learner.
963
01:02:09,353 --> 01:02:12,679
Like I really like continuing to learn, especially, you
964
01:02:13,260 --> 01:02:16,646
know, because I didn't grow up by the ocean. So I constantly feel like there's more
965
01:02:16,686 --> 01:02:19,872
to catch up on and I feel like I will probably be here for a
966
01:02:19,912 --> 01:02:23,019
little while. If I could run a research lab one
967
01:02:23,059 --> 01:02:26,559
day myself, I think that would be awesome. I think a challenge I
968
01:02:26,639 --> 01:02:29,780
see with academic institutions is you are obviously required to
969
01:02:29,820 --> 01:02:33,321
wear a lot of hats. You have to teach on them. And I love mentoring,
970
01:02:33,361 --> 01:02:36,562
and I actually like teaching. But I would love to see a model by which
971
01:02:36,602 --> 01:02:40,563
you could just do research, and that would be acceptable. And
972
01:02:40,723 --> 01:02:43,984
so maybe if a position like that opens up in the future, that could be really cool.
973
01:02:48,105 --> 01:02:51,548
Sorry, I just have to ask one little thing. You started out
974
01:02:52,148 --> 01:02:55,691
this podcast by talking about your soccer career in
975
01:02:55,992 --> 01:02:59,815
university. Things have changed quite a bit with
976
01:02:59,875 --> 01:03:03,117
soccer, especially women's soccer since that
977
01:03:03,177 --> 01:03:06,560
time. There's now a National Women's Soccer
978
01:03:06,620 --> 01:03:11,624
League. And I was just looking up because I wasn't sure exactly where
979
01:03:11,664 --> 01:03:15,247
all the cities were, but there is a team in Portland not
980
01:03:15,347 --> 01:03:18,949
too far from where you are. So do you still play?
981
01:03:18,969 --> 01:03:22,310
Do you still follow now, especially now that there's a National
982
01:03:22,330 --> 01:03:25,491
Women's Soccer League close by? Are you
983
01:03:29,353 --> 01:03:32,434
I do. I think something about time, and this would maybe be
984
01:03:32,454 --> 01:03:36,091
a recommendation for students also to tie into my first piece of advice, I
985
01:03:36,151 --> 01:03:39,255
think that you have to build your own work-life balance and make that a
986
01:03:39,295 --> 01:03:42,919
habit as soon as possible. I think it's easy
987
01:03:43,139 --> 01:03:46,443
to sacrifice a lot of your life for your job. And for me, I'm the type of person
988
01:03:46,483 --> 01:03:49,647
that if I sacrifice my whole life, I'll stop liking it. And
989
01:03:49,747 --> 01:03:53,030
so I know that about myself. And that's maybe
990
01:03:53,050 --> 01:03:56,552
not true for everybody. So I do spend a lot of time being active.
991
01:03:56,612 --> 01:04:00,154
I build that into my day because it's something that makes me happy, probably the student athlete
992
01:04:00,174 --> 01:04:03,396
thing. And I will say I haven't played
993
01:04:03,436 --> 01:04:06,738
soccer too much. I used to play a ton in grad school, but then COVID hit.
994
01:04:06,938 --> 01:04:10,220
And since then, it's been hard to find a team
995
01:04:10,260 --> 01:04:13,362
in Newport because it's a very small place. But I've taken up
996
01:04:13,462 --> 01:04:16,804
some other hobbies like trail running, and that has been really fun.
997
01:04:17,568 --> 01:04:22,370
And you said you're running a marathon, a trail, or you're practicing
998
01:04:25,112 --> 01:04:28,273
Before I run it, let's just say I'm practicing to run the
999
01:04:28,313 --> 01:04:32,395
trail marathon. And then if I run it, we can say that I've trained
1000
01:04:34,512 --> 01:04:37,895
Yes, that is coming up. A regular marathon is
1001
01:04:38,015 --> 01:04:41,459
difficult because it's, I'm trying to think, it's about 46 kilometers, so
1002
01:04:45,222 --> 01:04:49,886
Oh, 26 miles. 26 miles. So maybe it's more than 43 kilometers. Okay,
1003
01:04:50,086 --> 01:04:55,071
that's a long way on a flat plane. Now on a trail, why
1004
01:04:59,047 --> 01:05:02,829
You know I have been really into the vibe
1005
01:05:02,889 --> 01:05:06,150
of trail running. I am super competitive and
1006
01:05:06,290 --> 01:05:09,412
so I did road running for a long time. I've never run a
1007
01:05:09,432 --> 01:05:13,113
road marathon but I did like you know Olympic distance triathlons
1008
01:05:13,173 --> 01:05:16,355
and I did a couple half marathons and I get so competitive and focused on
1009
01:05:16,395 --> 01:05:19,696
pace and those that sometimes it takes the enjoyment out of them. So
1010
01:05:20,076 --> 01:05:23,218
trail running is really good because you just kind of
1011
01:05:23,298 --> 01:05:26,581
have to accept what the trail is going to throw at you and you're not focused on
1012
01:05:26,642 --> 01:05:30,085
pace, you're focused on not falling. So I think it's really good
1013
01:05:30,205 --> 01:05:34,309
for me to learn how to heal that inner athlete and competitiveness
1014
01:05:37,292 --> 01:05:40,375
Very nice. Sorry, I had to ask those last couple of
1015
01:05:43,957 --> 01:05:47,760
I got a feeling we're going to be having you back on here at some point, Alex. I
1016
01:05:47,920 --> 01:05:51,483
think so. We'll definitely want to have you back on. There's
1017
01:05:51,503 --> 01:05:54,806
a lot more stuff we could probably cover, but thank you so much for coming on the show
1018
01:05:54,846 --> 01:05:58,709
today and sharing your journey with everyone. We really appreciate
1019
01:06:03,767 --> 01:06:07,290
Thank you, Alex, for joining us on the Beyond Jaws podcast. It
1020
01:06:07,330 --> 01:06:10,432
was great to have you on. Dave, there's so much in
1021
01:06:10,472 --> 01:06:14,035
that interview that we discussed, you know, her career,
1022
01:06:14,496 --> 01:06:18,479
the studies that she's done, her athletic ability
1023
01:06:18,579 --> 01:06:22,482
and the D3 soccer and the national championship and
1024
01:06:22,903 --> 01:06:26,065
all that stuff and how that affected, you know, how when she
1025
01:06:26,085 --> 01:06:29,228
went to graduate school and how, you know, COVID messed up
1026
01:06:29,268 --> 01:06:32,490
her graduate work. retiring. It's just so
1027
01:06:32,530 --> 01:06:35,732
much going on there. Where do you even begin when you talk about this
1028
01:06:36,973 --> 01:06:40,135
Yeah, it was amazing, Andrew, and it was interesting. We've had
1029
01:06:40,175 --> 01:06:43,497
a number of our guests on there who were college athletes like Alex
1030
01:06:43,557 --> 01:06:47,399
was, and there's always that discipline they have
1031
01:06:47,439 --> 01:06:51,122
in there and that very competitive spirit they have to them. And it was
1032
01:06:51,182 --> 01:06:54,370
obviously very evident, listen to Alex, share her
1033
01:06:54,450 --> 01:06:58,313
career journey and Yeah, just just everything
1034
01:06:58,333 --> 01:07:01,755
she has, you know, she's doing she's run these trail marathons now and just finding
1035
01:07:01,775 --> 01:07:05,218
other which I think she gets you talked a little bit about her kind of work-life balance
1036
01:07:05,258 --> 01:07:09,323
and stuff and found other things that she enjoys doing Outside
1037
01:07:09,363 --> 01:07:12,587
the shark world and you talked about she likes to put on podcasts that have
1038
01:07:12,627 --> 01:07:16,572
nothing to do with sharks when she runs and mm-hmm and
1039
01:07:16,632 --> 01:07:20,017
so she just Very just really enjoy
1040
01:07:20,057 --> 01:07:23,281
very enthusiastic and she's another one that she kind of got interested early on
1041
01:07:23,642 --> 01:07:27,080
Especially being from Ohio, which is landlocked as we know But
1042
01:07:27,120 --> 01:07:30,402
she just got it. Just got really interested in this whole thing and I
1043
01:07:30,422 --> 01:07:33,884
have to say She had her career. She benches
1044
01:07:33,924 --> 01:07:37,246
was very linear. She kind of which is unusual for most
1045
01:07:37,286 --> 01:07:40,447
the people we've interviewed Yeah, it's never a straight line. I mean she
1046
01:07:40,487 --> 01:07:44,049
had a couple little Bumps along the road but relative
1047
01:07:44,089 --> 01:07:47,771
a lot of people we interview which have had to take major detours
1048
01:07:48,192 --> 01:07:51,593
To get doing shark. She hers was fairly fairly.
1049
01:07:52,034 --> 01:07:55,293
I don't say smooth because she had kovat she had to do a lot of work up
1050
01:07:55,313 --> 01:07:58,496
a lot of data that she wasn't able to collect. So it was, so she had
1051
01:07:58,516 --> 01:08:01,879
her challenges. I don't want to, you want to make light of it, but she, but
1052
01:08:01,939 --> 01:08:05,342
she, she definitely had in some, some regards had a little bit
1053
01:08:05,362 --> 01:08:08,665
of a, didn't hit some of their challenges, others did, but in the same
1054
01:08:08,705 --> 01:08:12,909
way, she, I think we'll have more people in her sort of cohort have
1055
01:08:16,933 --> 01:08:20,735
What I think also, yeah, there's definitely that aspect, but I think also she
1056
01:08:20,875 --> 01:08:23,956
has the, and she said, she mentioned it later on
1057
01:08:23,976 --> 01:08:27,057
when she gave the advice, she had the ability to, and
1058
01:08:27,077 --> 01:08:30,359
the fortune to network early in her career. And
1059
01:08:30,379 --> 01:08:33,920
I think that's what allows it to do. I mean, you've mentioned it before with
1060
01:08:34,240 --> 01:08:38,382
some of your master's students when they were looking to get a PhD, that
1061
01:08:38,402 --> 01:08:42,205
you recommended a lot of them to colleagues of yours because they
1062
01:08:42,245 --> 01:08:45,467
either met them once or twice or you said, hey, this graduate student
1063
01:08:45,487 --> 01:08:48,709
is so good that you should take her on or take him on. And they
1064
01:08:48,749 --> 01:08:52,171
would end up going over there. And whether it's across the country
1065
01:08:52,231 --> 01:08:55,453
or whether it's right down the street, it didn't
1066
01:08:55,473 --> 01:08:58,575
matter. They took it for your value. And it seems like
1067
01:08:58,615 --> 01:09:01,937
she did the same thing. She's got to meet people, got to volunteer and
1068
01:09:01,957 --> 01:09:05,019
work for people. Sometimes it's sort of
1069
01:09:05,099 --> 01:09:08,520
kismet that when you you know, when you work with somebody or
1070
01:09:08,700 --> 01:09:12,001
you come up with a job or you do some volunteer work and
1071
01:09:12,141 --> 01:09:15,282
you're working with somebody else, they like the way you work and they're like, hey, why don't you
1072
01:09:15,302 --> 01:09:18,563
just come do a graduate work with me? And it's sometimes that simple, you
1073
01:09:18,603 --> 01:09:22,384
know, and I think that's what's really interesting. And she obviously put
1074
01:09:22,424 --> 01:09:25,845
in the work to network with a lot of people and email people back
1075
01:09:25,885 --> 01:09:29,086
and forth, as she mentioned. And then when she had to delay because
1076
01:09:29,106 --> 01:09:32,288
of that national championship, then she was able to
1077
01:09:32,368 --> 01:09:37,033
reconnect with them a year later and do some work in between. That
1078
01:09:37,073 --> 01:09:40,256
motivation, again, the athleticism, being a
1079
01:09:40,797 --> 01:09:44,741
college athlete, that motivation to succeed just
1080
01:09:44,821 --> 01:09:48,405
continues to allow her to progress. You
1081
01:09:48,425 --> 01:09:51,628
know, whether you're a college athlete, whether you're just an
1082
01:09:51,688 --> 01:09:55,030
athlete in general, or you have that drive, if
1083
01:09:55,090 --> 01:09:58,293
you really want to do something, you can kind of put it
1084
01:09:58,353 --> 01:10:01,536
in your own way. You can kind of make your own
1085
01:10:01,576 --> 01:10:04,998
terms at some point, you know, by doing all these things and putting
1086
01:10:05,018 --> 01:10:08,301
yourself out there. It's not always easy, but when you do it,
1087
01:10:08,561 --> 01:10:12,044
it opens up the doors for you, you know, when you work hard and
1088
01:10:12,104 --> 01:10:15,365
you network. you kind of present opportunities to other people as
1089
01:10:15,405 --> 01:10:19,386
well. So I think that, I think really, you know, seeing that throughout the
1090
01:10:19,426 --> 01:10:23,007
interview and like, as we followed her life so far, I think we're
1091
01:10:26,048 --> 01:10:29,228
Yep, absolutely. I think, you know, persistence, I think is one thing you find with
1092
01:10:29,248 --> 01:10:32,349
a lot of people in this field in general. I think if
1093
01:10:32,389 --> 01:10:35,469
you're somebody that was, especially if they're an athlete and stuff, you really got to be
1094
01:10:35,509 --> 01:10:38,730
persistent because there's those long days of just, you know, getting up
1095
01:10:38,770 --> 01:10:42,291
at five o'clock to start your, you know, usually you got to practice three
1096
01:10:42,331 --> 01:10:46,135
times a day. And then you got classes, you got labs, so it's pretty
1097
01:10:46,175 --> 01:10:49,755
disciplined. And I really hand it to people, having done it myself,
1098
01:10:49,815 --> 01:10:53,016
and hand it to people like Alex, who've gone that
1099
01:10:53,076 --> 01:10:56,277
road and stuff. And I think it pays off dividends later on
1100
01:10:56,317 --> 01:11:00,137
in their career. And I think we'll see that with her. And so,
1101
01:11:00,417 --> 01:11:03,938
and she's very, the only thing too, I think, don't wanna pass it, but she's very
1102
01:11:03,978 --> 01:11:07,299
into, which I think a lot of the younger people are getting more into the whole social
1103
01:11:07,479 --> 01:11:10,980
science, science communication with things too. Which
1104
01:11:11,060 --> 01:11:14,474
I think is very much something that, It was definitely not,
1105
01:11:14,855 --> 01:11:18,018
well, it was a very different landscape early in my career. It was a whole
1106
01:11:18,038 --> 01:11:21,283
different thing. It's not even comparable now, but seeing people in that sort of
1107
01:11:21,423 --> 01:11:24,907
cohort now where she's at, that it's
1108
01:11:24,947 --> 01:11:28,111
a bigger issue, especially if you want to get grants. You know, if you
1109
01:11:28,131 --> 01:11:31,696
want to get grants or get noticed, you've got to have that presence on social media
1110
01:11:31,736 --> 01:11:35,163
now. And she's obviously doing
1111
01:11:37,464 --> 01:11:40,826
And I think what's interesting, too,
1112
01:11:40,886 --> 01:11:44,748
is it's not just science communication online. It's science communication
1113
01:11:44,868 --> 01:11:48,169
in person and getting the community involved. It seems like what she
1114
01:11:48,209 --> 01:11:51,551
mentioned, Newport and even Portland. Newport's a smaller
1115
01:11:51,591 --> 01:11:55,473
town or smaller city, maybe. More interaction with
1116
01:11:55,593 --> 01:11:59,335
the local university and the labs there. But
1117
01:11:59,375 --> 01:12:02,718
it also helps, you know, in gathering people, like when you do live
1118
01:12:02,758 --> 01:12:05,881
dissections or in-person dissections, not as
1119
01:12:05,961 --> 01:12:09,984
if the animal's live. It's
1120
01:12:10,104 --> 01:12:13,467
passed away. But, you know, you're
1121
01:12:13,507 --> 01:12:17,050
engaging. And then so just as we post this, they're
1122
01:12:17,071 --> 01:12:20,553
running their Oktoberfest fundraiser. And
1123
01:12:21,053 --> 01:12:24,415
that's where they invite a lot of people that they've interacted with before. And
1124
01:12:24,435 --> 01:12:27,996
they come and they celebrate. And it's not necessarily all about science.
1125
01:12:28,096 --> 01:12:31,617
It's about interacting with each other and getting to know the community. And
1126
01:12:31,998 --> 01:12:35,239
I think when scientists are interacting with the community, it makes it even better,
1127
01:12:35,279 --> 01:12:38,620
especially local community. It makes that relationship that
1128
01:12:38,680 --> 01:12:42,061
much more special. Turns into a bit of a fundraiser. They
1129
01:12:42,081 --> 01:12:45,283
get to do more things, but also they get to engage more with the community. I
1130
01:12:45,323 --> 01:12:48,745
think that's That's really, we don't hear about labs
1131
01:12:48,785 --> 01:12:52,009
doing that locally as much as we would like to, I
1132
01:12:52,049 --> 01:12:55,592
assume, right? I mean, you've been, you've seen that more and you've had more interactions with
1133
01:12:55,612 --> 01:12:59,055
lab, but that's one of the first times I've heard that happen for
1134
01:13:02,699 --> 01:13:05,962
Yeah, I've been in that kind of that juncture where I've kind of watched
1135
01:13:05,982 --> 01:13:09,990
this evolution over the last 20 years from basically nothing to
1136
01:13:10,150 --> 01:13:13,373
or I just say nothing but fairly minimal but you didn't have 20 years
1137
01:13:13,393 --> 01:13:17,056
ago you didn't have a lot of the social media platforms like you do now and
1138
01:13:17,076 --> 01:13:20,959
then they were kind of more of a novelty to where now it's become part
1139
01:13:20,999 --> 01:13:24,561
of the whole your lab if you want to get get any kind of promotion out
1140
01:13:24,621 --> 01:13:27,984
there in terms of promoting the science you're doing uh
1141
01:13:28,324 --> 01:13:31,707
grants as we mentioned and uh just to you know inform
1142
01:13:31,747 --> 01:13:35,626
the the public it's been an interesting evolution so it's something to talk,
1143
01:13:35,646 --> 01:13:39,109
which could be an episodes time we talk a little bit about the whole evolution of
1144
01:13:39,129 --> 01:13:42,713
that and talk with people like that. Did it were involved
1145
01:13:42,733 --> 01:13:46,056
more before this whole evolution? Like I said,
1146
01:13:46,156 --> 01:13:49,779
I've kind of transitioned through it. And then people, younger people like Alex, who
1147
01:13:49,799 --> 01:13:52,982
they just, it's just like part of the program with her, you
1148
01:13:53,002 --> 01:13:56,386
know, doing the whole science communication stuff. So yeah,
1149
01:13:59,048 --> 01:14:02,659
Definitely. Yeah. Definitely
1150
01:14:03,220 --> 01:14:06,582
an interesting episode, no doubt, and we're looking
1151
01:14:06,622 --> 01:14:10,444
forward to having Alex back to talk more about her career,
1152
01:14:10,564 --> 01:14:14,166
what she's been able to do, maybe even talk about some of the big
1153
01:14:14,246 --> 01:14:17,508
news that comes out of that lab every so often, or
1154
01:14:17,528 --> 01:14:20,810
a lot of the times. So we'll have her, maybe some of her lab
1155
01:14:20,830 --> 01:14:24,052
mates on as well, and that'll be a lot of fun. And we'll put
1156
01:14:24,092 --> 01:14:27,454
all her links so you can be able to find her on her website, on
1157
01:14:27,474 --> 01:14:30,871
her social media, as well as the lab website. But
1158
01:14:33,652 --> 01:14:37,033
It's Lost Shark Guy on Instagram and X
1159
01:14:37,313 --> 01:14:41,695
and on Facebook it's Lost Sharks and then just
1160
01:14:41,755 --> 01:14:45,196
Dave Ebert on or David Ebert on LinkedIn. It's the
1161
01:14:45,216 --> 01:14:48,497
best way to follow me and to find out what I'm up to,
1162
01:14:53,350 --> 01:14:56,752
Absolutely. Wonderful. And if you want to get a hold of us, you can do beyond jaws at
1163
01:14:56,812 --> 01:15:00,115
beyond jaws pod and our YouTube channel, go ahead
1164
01:15:00,235 --> 01:15:03,937
and subscribe to that channel, uh, and like the, and to hit that notification
1165
01:15:03,957 --> 01:15:07,540
button. So you get to hear all of our episodes because this will be on video as
1166
01:15:07,580 --> 01:15:10,862
well. Just go to just put in beyond jaws pod. There's
1167
01:15:10,902 --> 01:15:14,024
a link in the show notes. You can check that out. And, uh, thank you so
1168
01:15:14,064 --> 01:15:17,547
much for joining us on this episode of the beyond jaws podcast.
