Shark Conservation in South Africa

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Welcome back to another episode of the Beyond Jaws podcast. On

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today's episode, we have Sabine Wintner from

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South Africa, who was part of the KwaZulu-Natal Sharks

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Board. She tells us about a number of different things,

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but really what I love about this episode was the fascinating

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evolution of shark research in South Africa over

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the last number of decades. We talk about how she's retired now

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and what she's up to and what her volunteering position is doing. I just think it's

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a phenomenal interview and it's something that you're going to want to

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check out for sure, especially if you want some advice on building

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a shark science career. So let's get started with the show. Hey, everybody, welcome

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back to another exciting episode of the Beyond Jaws podcast. I'm your co-host,

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Andrew Lewin, with my co-host, Dr. David Ebert. Dave, how's

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It's going great, Andrew. I'm really and I'm really looking forward to today's episode

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with Savine Vintner. She's retired now from

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the KwaZulu-Natal Sharks board. I've known Sabine.

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She's a very good friend. I've known her for probably longer. She cares to remember

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think about but it's been 30 years or so and

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But you know, she was she was one of the real You know

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pioneers in the field one of the you know real outstanding

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women in the field starting back out in the early 90s and

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she like I did she emigrated to South Africa

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and to kind of launch her shark career. She's from

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Germany originally, and when she got her undergraduate

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degree, she just went to South Africa. And back

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at this time, as you'll hear in the story, it wasn't like today

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where there's a lot of people go to South Africa and they work with different NGOs and

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nonprofit groups and stuff. Back then, there was no such thing. She

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just went there because she heard there's a lot of sharks there. So that was a

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very pioneering thing, just to literally get up and leave. have no

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idea what you're gonna do until you actually get there. So it's a

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fascinating story, and I'm really happy she had a chance to

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share her story on her journey, and we'll also

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get to get caught up and hear what she's doing kind of post-shark career

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these days, which is something that young people don't think about as much, but

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at some point, at some point- It's starting to cross my

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At some point, they're gonna come up and tap you in the shoulder and say, okay, okay,

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Dave, it's time to go. So it's like, or Andrew, it's time to go. So

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anyways, I'm looking forward to this interview

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Yeah, absolutely. What I want people to really think about is that

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evolution of science in general, not just shark science, but the

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where we've come from where we were even 40 years ago,

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Dave, you and I talk about this all the time. And, you know, a lot of the time we've come

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from different generations, and we've seen a lot of changes over that time.

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and we're always just flabbergasted where we're at right now compared to

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where we were 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 40 years ago. And

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so I think it's really cool to see this just in terms of moving

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and the communication back home was not

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as fast as it is now. And so I think

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it's really interesting just to see that difference, you

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know, compared to now and how much easier it is to move even

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though people get homesick. Back then you really got homesick because you didn't have a lot

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Yeah, I can just tell you when I went to South Africa, I didn't talk to my parents

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for two years. There was just, you just didn't. Yeah, that's

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insane. Yeah, so think about that. Was it by letters? Just

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letters. Letters though? Yeah, we wrote letters. You wrote letters. Yeah,

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Yeah, because long distance, like if it was available, was

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Yep. It was too expensive. It was really expensive. So you just didn't really make phone calls

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back then. So, um, so yeah. And that's, and that's crazy,

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And Sabine and I just, I left

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just before she arrived there. So she was in the same situation where

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you just, when you left, you left and you were just there. So,

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uh, so anyway, so I, so when you listen to the episode, just

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keep that in mind about what the times were in a different, you just didn't have.

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Well, it's going to be a lot of fun to listen to this interview. So here's the interview with

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Sabine Vintner. Enjoy. And we will talk to you after. Hey, Sabine,

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welcome to the Beyond Jaws podcast. Are you ready to talk about

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You bet. Well, I want to welcome everybody

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to the Beyond Jaws podcast. We want to wish everyone a

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very happy new year as we kick off 2025 here. with

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our first episode with an absolutely awesome guest, the

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fabulous Sabine Wintner. Sabine worked at the KwaZulu-Natal

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Sharks Board for about 28 years, retiring in 2019 as

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the Acting Head of Department for Research and Development. During

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her career, she specialized in the age and growth of sharks, and she's the

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only person I know who's published on the age and growth of the

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whale shark and the basking shark, the two largest fish and

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sharks in the ocean, and she also published on the Asian

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growth of the white shark among many other species. Sabine

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has 70 peer-reviewed publications to date and she's

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still actively publishing as we speak now and

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she's also has numerous scientific reports, popular articles and

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review articles that she's published throughout her career. Sabine's

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a member of the IUCN shark specialist group and was on the organizing committee

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for the sixth Indo-Pacific fish conference back in

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2001 and for the second Sharks International Conference in

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2014. And if you ever need anybody to organize a conference, Sabine's your person. As

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I mentioned, Sabine, she retired in 2019, but she's kept

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an extremely busy schedule. And we thought it'd be a great time to catch up

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with her and what she's been doing. She's also, just in

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her schooling background, she did a BSC in zoology at

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Munich University in Germany, where she's from originally. And

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she did an MSC at the University of Natal in South Africa. And

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Yeah. And so as we always start off with our guests is how

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did you get interested in marine science and in, and in a

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All right. Fasten your seatbelts. Um, so

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when I, when I was, I think six years old or something, I

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watched a six years old or something. I

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watched a, um, uh, animal

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program. And it said, they interviewed somebody and it says underneath,

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it says biologist. And I said to my mother, that's it,

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I want to become a biologist. So she was not impressed

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because in those days, you had to learn Latin in

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order to study biology. And the small Latin,

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as opposed to the big Latin, which the attorneys had

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to learn. But which meant I had to go to a

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different school, which was a gymnasium, as

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opposed to a real school. And she didn't want that for me.

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So she wasn't impressed. But anyway, I ended up, I learned

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my Latin. And then a couple of years later, I

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just got so interested in sharks. And other

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teenagers had like Bay City rollers, I'm giving my age away now,

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posters on the walls. And I

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had all these shark posters on the wall. So I was

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very, very lucky that I actually realized my dream

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Just so you back up, you were born in Switzerland, actually.

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You grew up in Germany, but you weren't near the ocean at all. No,

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And you still managed to get

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interested in sharks, being in where you were from.

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What part of Germany, you weren't near the ocean where you grew up in Germany, right?

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Okay, and so we've had a number of guests, and you see,

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you end up going, why'd you happen to pick like University of Munich to

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So in Munich you can't choose, well in Germany in

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those days you couldn't choose your university. So whatever you

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had a matric that you had to pass that level

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in order to apply for that particular biology or

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whatever it was, obviously you had to have the right courses, And

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then you went into a big system and they

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will tell you then at which university you're studying. So you

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could be in Munich and you've been sent to Berlin to study there. So

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then there is a lottery system where people then, you know, the

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other way around are in Berlin and when sent to Munich, you

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can then swap places. So I

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started in Munich and then after my fifth semester, I

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wanted to go overseas to study for one year. And

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then because I could only speak English and Latin, it

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reduced the number of universities I could choose. And

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I could not afford, I mean, James Cook University was

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the one I wanted to go. And even in the early 90s,

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they had separate fees for non-Australians and

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all that. So I couldn't afford UK, I couldn't afford America,

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I couldn't afford Australia, and the only English speaking country I could

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It's kind of interesting, so when

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you were going through your high school and stuff, you

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had to score certain marks in school to go to

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certain universities. Now, did Munich have a particularly strong

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program? Was it marine sciences you were looking for at that time,

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You do biology and it's compulsory, it

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wasn't compulsory in those days, it's biology, it's zoology, botany,

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genetics, physical chemistry, inorganic chemistry, chemistry.

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So that is your foundation. And after you do your full diploma,

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after four semesters, then only then can

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you choose to go into botany, zoology or genetics. And

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I was just kind of interested because most people coming from the U.S. and

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I think it's probably the same in Canada, if you decide after

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high school you want to go marine science or something, you can kind of pick the

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university if you have the grades to get in. But in Germany, you're

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kind of already tracked in kind of to where you're going to go. before,

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by the time you finished high school. In those days, yeah. So you wanted to,

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so when you finished, when you were finishing up your degree at

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Munich, you wanted to go overseas. You mentioned James Cook, and

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then how'd you happen to pick South Africa next on your, as

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Well, as I said, I couldn't afford any,

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so I didn't finish the degree. I was in my fifth semester. We

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normally study 10 semesters, five years to get

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our, and then the equivalent to an MSc. So

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I was in my fifth semester and I wanted to study one year in

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a foreign country and I could only speak English and

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Latin and I could not afford any

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of the other universities so I ended up picking South Africa because

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it was English speaking and it was the cheapest university fees.

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So when you came down to South Africa, you

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went to, how'd you happen to, I know

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it's a bit in the weeds, but how'd you end up with like Durban versus Cape

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Town or University of Port Elizabeth or some

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Okay, that's also an interesting story because

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one of my friends went to

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South Africa quite often and he

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was in Durban and he offered to pop in at the university and pick

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up some application forms. In those days, we didn't have email.

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So, he did inquiries on my

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behalf and that's how I ended up in Durban. He brought

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those back and then I contacted the Durban University and

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as I said, they put me into the third

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So you're saying, I think this is really interesting, because times

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have changed now. I deal with people who look

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at careers all the time, look at graduate school, and they're emailing different

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schools. So your selection was based off of not only

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what you can afford and what you can go from English speaking, but also where

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your friend went as a trip to pick up an application, because otherwise

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you may have had to call and get it sent to you, but that was really

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what it was determined by. I think that's really fascinating

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with just the way things have changed nowadays. They all complain, you

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know, well, I sent an email, I didn't get an email back. Imagine not even

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being able to use email, probably not even a phone call

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back, then you have to have a friend who went there, grab an application, and

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then send it back to you. That's remarkable. But

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you mentioned you were doing your master's at the school and

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then you switched over to your third semester. So did your

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master's change over to Durbin and then change into

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No, no, no, no. So in Germany, I did the full diploma, which is

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four semesters. So I was in my fifth semester, decided to study overseas

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for a year to increase my market value.

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So Durban University then thought, oh, this chick's coming

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from Germany. She wants to do her BSc in South Africa.

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We're going to put her into the third semester because it's a

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three-year course and you have to be at that university

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for two years in order to get it. And then I

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kind of, the mismatch in the level, I

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kind of jumped the whole system, both on the German side and

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the South African side, and then I went straight into an MSc, because

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it was just not working. So I got special

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permission from my German university to do a

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MSc in a foreign country, which at the time they didn't allow, but

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the head of the department was English speaking. obviously

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could only do this thesis in English. So he agreed

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to make an exception. So they allowed me to start

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my MSc at the University of Natal then. And

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then I decided I'm gonna jump the system again. I'm

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gonna stay in South Africa and told the German university, thank

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you very much for your offer, but I'm gonna finish now in

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So how, like, you know, you talk about that as if it was, you

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know, you just, this is how it went and this is, it sounds very easy.

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But I've known, like, universities are not easy to do this

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kind of thing, especially when you're doing something new. What

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were your stress levels like during that time, like going back and forth

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with different universities? You talk about jumping the systems. Universities don't

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like you not jumping systems and things like that. Was

229
00:15:00,406 --> 00:15:04,551
it difficult to coordinate with both

230
00:15:07,253 --> 00:15:10,714
Look, we're talking about 30 years ago. So things then

231
00:15:10,835 --> 00:15:15,617
were not as difficult as they are now. So, yeah,

232
00:15:15,717 --> 00:15:19,178
we didn't, it was more difficult in terms of contacting, you

233
00:15:19,198 --> 00:15:23,840
know, you had to have money to phone South Africa. And obviously

234
00:15:24,120 --> 00:15:27,281
I can't even remember if there were emails. I don't think so. I think it was

235
00:15:27,562 --> 00:15:31,383
done via phone, but it

236
00:15:31,463 --> 00:15:34,685
wasn't that difficult. You obviously, I had to

237
00:15:34,745 --> 00:15:38,086
get all the German, qualifications up

238
00:15:38,126 --> 00:15:41,910
to the stage or course proof

239
00:15:42,690 --> 00:15:46,874
translated into English and that kind of thing. I

240
00:15:46,914 --> 00:15:50,317
didn't think it was a major mission. I just felt bad that I took everybody

241
00:15:53,039 --> 00:15:59,064
You got to do what you got to do, right? You got to do what you got to

242
00:15:59,644 --> 00:16:02,887
So you went down to South Africa. Originally, you were just going to go for

243
00:16:02,907 --> 00:16:06,115
like a year. Was that your plan originally? and

244
00:16:06,135 --> 00:16:09,457
then go back and then, of course, here you are, let's say a few years later.

245
00:16:09,477 --> 00:16:13,559
Thank you. So

246
00:16:15,499 --> 00:16:18,901
anyway, you went down there and you started, when you arrived

247
00:16:18,921 --> 00:16:22,183
in South Africa, had you ever even heard of the shark sport at all?

248
00:16:23,743 --> 00:16:27,145
Yes, yeah, yeah, definitely. So that was my first,

249
00:16:27,285 --> 00:16:30,787
yeah. When

250
00:16:30,827 --> 00:16:34,338
I realized I was mismatched at the university, I

251
00:16:34,378 --> 00:16:37,680
went straight to the shark support and asked for a job,

252
00:16:38,180 --> 00:16:41,642
well, for an opportunity to help

253
00:16:43,563 --> 00:16:46,805
Did you work as ... Yeah, just to set some people, because

254
00:16:46,845 --> 00:16:50,107
a lot of the young people listening, everybody goes to South Africa now because they

255
00:16:50,127 --> 00:16:53,349
have all these white shark conservation groups and NGOs. People

256
00:16:53,389 --> 00:16:59,088
go volunteer and everything. Back in the day, It

257
00:16:59,128 --> 00:17:02,971
was not that way in South Africa. It was pretty much, there

258
00:17:02,991 --> 00:17:06,674
was a sharks board, there was this program, research

259
00:17:06,714 --> 00:17:11,778
center where I was in Cape Town. So

260
00:17:11,798 --> 00:17:15,281
it was just very different than it is today. It wasn't like people, like

261
00:17:15,321 --> 00:17:18,884
say the young people go down today, it was just a very different. Plus as Sabine

262
00:17:18,904 --> 00:17:22,227
was talking, you had to actually write a letter and put

263
00:17:22,247 --> 00:17:25,610
it in the post office and mail it there and hope it got there in

264
00:17:25,670 --> 00:17:29,362
time. at some point in time. So when

265
00:17:29,382 --> 00:17:32,984
you went to the sharks board, did you work as a

266
00:17:33,044 --> 00:17:36,407
volunteer at first or were you able to get hired on fairly

267
00:17:36,827 --> 00:17:40,969
No, so they didn't have any volunteer positions.

268
00:17:41,170 --> 00:17:44,432
What happened is the head of the department at the University of Natal was

269
00:17:44,492 --> 00:17:47,854
also the acting head of the department of

270
00:17:47,874 --> 00:17:51,236
the research department. So I went for an interview and

271
00:17:51,296 --> 00:17:54,598
I said I would like to work here

272
00:17:54,678 --> 00:17:58,082
and help out. and they hired, they needed

273
00:17:58,162 --> 00:18:02,364
somebody to do, to catalogue their vertebral selection, collection.

274
00:18:02,804 --> 00:18:06,486
So I was hired as a tochleber and

275
00:18:06,606 --> 00:18:11,529
I think in those days it was 250 an hour. And so

276
00:18:11,669 --> 00:18:15,210
I would skip, I would not go to the classes because I've already done

277
00:18:15,250 --> 00:18:18,492
this stuff and I would go to Sharksport and just sit

278
00:18:18,512 --> 00:18:22,014
with these vertebrae and write down on a piece of paper the

279
00:18:22,074 --> 00:18:25,542
numbers and didn't have a computer. So

280
00:18:25,602 --> 00:18:29,145
that's how it started. And then after a

281
00:18:29,225 --> 00:18:33,449
year or so, they employed me as a temporary staff. And

282
00:18:33,469 --> 00:18:36,752
then I had, and that was like three-year contracts, and

283
00:18:36,812 --> 00:18:40,114
I was on two or three three-year contracts, temporary, and

284
00:18:42,616 --> 00:18:46,360
And you got out, when you went out, what was your sort of entry, formal

285
00:18:46,400 --> 00:18:49,903
position there? Was it as a researcher, or when they

286
00:18:53,277 --> 00:18:56,478
In those days, the levels were different. It

287
00:18:56,518 --> 00:19:00,780
was called Assistant Nature Conservation Scientist. It

288
00:19:04,201 --> 00:19:07,583
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember that era fairly well.

289
00:19:09,563 --> 00:19:13,645
You've been there, yeah. I've been there, so. So

290
00:19:14,045 --> 00:19:18,147
you got on there now. Did you start early on into, when

291
00:19:23,717 --> 00:19:27,278
Yeah, so they originally wanted somebody like a student just

292
00:19:27,318 --> 00:19:30,778
to go into the vaults and record what

293
00:19:30,898 --> 00:19:34,199
is there. And that's how I started. And then

294
00:19:34,519 --> 00:19:38,180
I obviously read up on how to age because

295
00:19:38,200 --> 00:19:41,520
that was the ultimate goal. Once we knew what we

296
00:19:41,580 --> 00:19:44,881
had, we then wanted to age all the species we

297
00:19:44,921 --> 00:19:48,981
catch because that's part of the

298
00:19:49,281 --> 00:19:53,849
impact assessment of the nets. If you have a species which lives 60 years

299
00:19:53,929 --> 00:19:57,271
and reproduces every year, 50 pups,

300
00:19:57,351 --> 00:20:00,453
whatever, then you taking out 15 animals per animal is

301
00:20:00,593 --> 00:20:04,394
going to do nothing. Whereas if you have another species,

302
00:20:04,434 --> 00:20:07,576
you know, whatever. So, the first thing

303
00:20:07,636 --> 00:20:11,458
was to catalog and then the second one is they wanted somebody to look

304
00:20:11,558 --> 00:20:15,820
at aging and I sort of naturally got into that.

305
00:20:16,480 --> 00:20:19,922
And I remember faxing Lisa once in

306
00:20:22,975 --> 00:20:26,757
Yeah, I was going to say like you at some point I know in there you contacted Lisa

307
00:20:26,777 --> 00:20:30,059
Natanson who was on one of the first episodes we had

308
00:20:30,119 --> 00:20:33,440
there as retired NOAA fisheries and she was kind of the age and growth

309
00:20:33,480 --> 00:20:36,822
person at that time. Did you

310
00:20:36,842 --> 00:20:42,585
say you faxed her? Yeah.

311
00:20:42,625 --> 00:20:46,107
I faxed her. It was a little faster than sending

312
00:20:46,147 --> 00:20:50,490
an actual mail, letter by mail. at

313
00:20:56,094 --> 00:20:59,496
Everything was post and now suddenly you stick a piece of paper on this side

314
00:20:59,757 --> 00:21:03,219
and it comes out on the other side of the ocean and another country comes,

315
00:21:05,160 --> 00:21:08,763
Everybody had a fax number. Every office had a fax number that you could

316
00:21:08,803 --> 00:21:12,326
fax to and for those of you listeners who haven't

317
00:21:12,506 --> 00:21:15,728
heard of a fax before, fax machines were like the

318
00:21:15,868 --> 00:21:19,310
email of back in the day before we really had internet,

319
00:21:19,471 --> 00:21:22,752
I guess. And it was a phone number that you would call, and you could

320
00:21:22,993 --> 00:21:26,335
put a paper in this machine. This machine would literally fax it

321
00:21:26,415 --> 00:21:30,037
over, like you said, overseas. And it would go to the next

322
00:21:30,117 --> 00:21:33,378
machine. And you would print it out. And it wasn't always easy to use. It didn't always

323
00:21:33,439 --> 00:21:37,121
work. But people used it quite a bit. Every office

324
00:21:37,161 --> 00:21:40,843
had a fax number and a phone number. And I thought it's always interesting.

325
00:21:41,443 --> 00:21:45,225
It was revolutionary at the time, because

326
00:21:45,265 --> 00:21:48,336
it was just like, wow. I'd already left South Africa at

327
00:21:48,376 --> 00:21:51,597
that time, but it was like just, yeah, with almost instantly you could

328
00:21:51,637 --> 00:21:55,137
get something across. It was like, so you couldn't even imagine like,

329
00:21:55,197 --> 00:21:58,378
wow, where can we go from here with a fax machine, beyond a

330
00:21:58,418 --> 00:22:02,499
fax machine. Obviously that's changed a lot now as

331
00:22:02,519 --> 00:22:05,799
we're recording videos now for podcasts and other things.

332
00:22:09,840 --> 00:22:13,101
And I can remember somewhere in there, after you got corresponding with

333
00:22:13,181 --> 00:22:16,690
Lisa, that you and I Connected at some point because

334
00:22:16,811 --> 00:22:20,892
and we're but we're still writing letters at that point in time For

335
00:22:20,932 --> 00:22:24,113
a few years kind of in the late 90s and I was I'd been home in,

336
00:22:24,133 --> 00:22:27,394
California and then It was just

337
00:22:27,734 --> 00:22:31,415
back then you just that's all you do it was fax if you had a fax option

338
00:22:31,435 --> 00:22:35,857
to the fax or yeah, I'm just writing letters and so so

339
00:22:35,877 --> 00:22:39,018
it was still like it was several years actually before you actually I know

340
00:22:39,038 --> 00:22:42,648
you and I first met in 2001 at the Indo-pacific but It

341
00:22:42,668 --> 00:22:45,930
was a number of years before even people like Lisa and others, you actually got a chance to

342
00:22:45,970 --> 00:22:51,852
meet in person, correct? Some of the people you're corresponded with?

343
00:22:51,992 --> 00:22:55,614
That was actually in 2001 then, when

344
00:22:55,654 --> 00:22:59,056
we had the Indo-Pacific in Durban. And that's where people I

345
00:22:59,136 --> 00:23:02,538
corresponded with like Greg Collier and George Burgess and

346
00:23:03,138 --> 00:23:06,359
yourself. It was the first time I've met these people I've

347
00:23:10,359 --> 00:23:13,480
Yeah. And when did you, and when'd you actually finally meet Lisa? Cause you

348
00:23:16,781 --> 00:23:20,482
I fixed in

349
00:23:20,642 --> 00:23:24,363
1999. I think I still got the original fix. I'm

350
00:23:30,084 --> 00:23:33,405
If I could just jump in for a second, I just say that because Sabine will

351
00:23:33,425 --> 00:23:36,726
literally pull up emails that I had with her from like 20 something years ago.

352
00:23:37,168 --> 00:23:40,569
and send me these emails that I thought were long gone. I forgot about

353
00:23:40,629 --> 00:23:44,431
it. Remember back in like 2002, you said this or whatever.

354
00:23:45,011 --> 00:23:48,532
And I'm like, oh Jesus Christ, I forgot all about that. Anyway, so I

355
00:23:58,456 --> 00:24:01,541
Love it. Anyway, but I know it was

356
00:24:01,561 --> 00:24:04,744
quite a few years actually for you guys. I know at the Indo-Pacific in

357
00:24:04,804 --> 00:24:08,007
2001, you finally got to meet some people. And then I know like

358
00:24:08,067 --> 00:24:12,090
Lisa was years later on that. So let's

359
00:24:12,551 --> 00:24:15,893
back up a little bit. You started working at the shark sport there.

360
00:24:16,454 --> 00:24:19,757
Now, a lot of the sharks that you had the vertebrae from were sharks

361
00:24:19,777 --> 00:24:24,140
that were caught in the shark nets, which nowadays

362
00:24:24,200 --> 00:24:27,323
is kind of a, it depends on some quarters, it could be it's

363
00:24:27,363 --> 00:24:31,818
a bit controversial. and everything, and it's been kind of a back

364
00:24:31,858 --> 00:24:35,259
and forth over the years. And just, again, I

365
00:24:35,279 --> 00:24:38,700
don't know, maybe you can give a little bit of the history in the shark sport when it kind

366
00:24:38,740 --> 00:24:41,981
of came into prominence was in

367
00:24:42,001 --> 00:24:46,862
the early 60s, I believe, after they had their sort of, sort

368
00:24:51,663 --> 00:24:54,824
Black September, yeah, they had like a, what was it, like

369
00:24:54,904 --> 00:24:58,710
five or seven attacks over a couple day period. And

370
00:24:58,951 --> 00:25:02,154
that's really what kind of started the whole shark sport thing. Could you talk a little bit about

371
00:25:02,715 --> 00:25:05,918
Yeah. Um, yeah, so it was a black

372
00:25:05,938 --> 00:25:10,042
December and then the Easter, I think it was a total of 21 shock attacks or

373
00:25:10,102 --> 00:25:13,266
shock encounters now politically correct. Um,

374
00:25:13,386 --> 00:25:16,689
uh, and seven of which I think were

375
00:25:16,729 --> 00:25:21,134
fatal. And that was at the time we're talking 19 early sixties.

376
00:25:22,226 --> 00:25:26,149
the tourism industry was just, everybody

377
00:25:26,209 --> 00:25:30,371
just left Natal, the coastline. And

378
00:25:30,651 --> 00:25:34,433
that's where the, and then called the Anti-Sharks

379
00:25:34,554 --> 00:25:38,256
Measures Board was formed in order to, how

380
00:25:40,097 --> 00:25:43,519
can I say, help do

381
00:25:43,579 --> 00:25:47,121
something about this perceived problem. And

382
00:25:47,221 --> 00:25:50,916
they got their cue from the Australians and they put in nets, It

383
00:25:51,116 --> 00:25:54,777
started off with encounters like rigid cages

384
00:25:54,917 --> 00:25:58,018
at the Durban beachfront, had one in the early, I

385
00:25:58,078 --> 00:26:01,239
can't remember, and then also lower south coast. And now we've got

386
00:26:01,259 --> 00:26:04,560
a very high energy cost. So those structures didn't last

387
00:26:04,620 --> 00:26:08,422
long. They corroded, the waves smashed them. So eventually,

388
00:26:09,902 --> 00:26:13,584
the then-Antonin-Natal Shocksport, whatever, they

389
00:26:13,624 --> 00:26:17,125
then decided to go with the same system as in New

390
00:26:17,165 --> 00:26:21,207
Zealand and Australia and introduced nets. And we

391
00:26:22,047 --> 00:26:25,128
had huge catches when they were introduced because it was a

392
00:26:25,188 --> 00:26:28,610
pristine population along Durban. It

393
00:26:28,670 --> 00:26:31,931
started off in Durban and then it went along the coast down

394
00:26:31,991 --> 00:26:35,232
south and north. And that was basically the

395
00:26:35,272 --> 00:26:40,027
concept of the shock nets. So you're reducing the population. Instead

396
00:26:40,067 --> 00:26:43,268
of having a thousand sharks on the beach, you only got a hundred sharks on

397
00:26:43,288 --> 00:26:46,630
the beach. So your probability of being bitten is less.

398
00:26:47,110 --> 00:26:50,592
And they have worked over a 50 year

399
00:26:52,813 --> 00:26:56,254
Now when they had the, you know, and just so people

400
00:26:56,274 --> 00:26:59,756
understand, they're listening, like the coast along

401
00:27:00,396 --> 00:27:03,938
Durban and KwaZulu-Natal, there's a lot of river systems.

402
00:27:04,678 --> 00:27:07,951
And what you get is a lot of like, you get basically bull

403
00:27:07,971 --> 00:27:11,132
sharks, or Zambezi's they call them, they're coming up

404
00:27:11,152 --> 00:27:14,914
the rivers and stuff. And so you have these large sharks, bull

405
00:27:14,954 --> 00:27:18,596
sharks, coming up in areas that are bathing areas. And

406
00:27:18,616 --> 00:27:22,998
that's where you had a lot of the shark, shark, shark attack, shark encounters. And

407
00:27:23,158 --> 00:27:26,239
at the times of the year, summertime, when there's a lot of activity going on,

408
00:27:26,259 --> 00:27:30,061
the water in a lot of those areas is not very clear. And so

409
00:27:30,081 --> 00:27:33,242
that had, so it wasn't, it was an area where

410
00:27:33,262 --> 00:27:37,328
you had a lot of, a lot of shark activity, big shark activity. And

411
00:27:39,909 --> 00:27:43,271
And so like a- So this is why shark spotting doesn't

412
00:27:43,331 --> 00:27:46,633
work in our province. You know, the shark spotting program in Cape

413
00:27:46,653 --> 00:27:49,814
Town is very successful because they've got crystal clear water because they've got no

414
00:27:49,834 --> 00:27:53,416
rivers. And they've got the brooks, the mountains

415
00:27:53,516 --> 00:27:57,037
to have the vantage point to look down onto the ocean. That

416
00:27:57,117 --> 00:28:00,319
concept does not work in our province because of, as you mentioned, all the

417
00:28:00,359 --> 00:28:03,700
rivers going in there, we are as flat

418
00:28:03,761 --> 00:28:07,040
as anything. Shark spotting, it does not

419
00:28:08,501 --> 00:28:11,744
It's difficult, yeah. It must be really challenging. And the

420
00:28:11,804 --> 00:28:15,266
bull sharks, just so people know, maybe not shark

421
00:28:15,306 --> 00:28:18,768
people, but the bull sharks tend to get more aggressive when the visibility is

422
00:28:18,849 --> 00:28:22,171
low. If you're in clear water with the bull sharks, they'll kind of tend to stay

423
00:28:22,211 --> 00:28:25,753
back. But as soon as the visibility goes down and you get this muddy,

424
00:28:25,853 --> 00:28:30,016
sort of murky water, that's when they tend to get really aggressive. They

425
00:28:30,036 --> 00:28:33,519
get really aggressive. And again, the Natal coastline there

426
00:28:34,716 --> 00:28:37,838
And also, don't forget, we had a whaling station, eh?

427
00:28:39,039 --> 00:28:42,162
Yes, that was, and again, we've mentioned this

428
00:28:42,182 --> 00:28:45,504
before, but if you ever watch the movie, it's a classic, Blue

429
00:28:45,544 --> 00:28:48,767
Water, White Death, came out in 1971. They went

430
00:28:48,807 --> 00:28:51,949
to Durban to film at the whaling station there,

431
00:28:51,969 --> 00:28:55,552
because they would pull in these whales, they were still whaling in the 60s, and

432
00:28:55,612 --> 00:28:58,935
these big white sharks, oceanic white tips would follow

433
00:28:58,975 --> 00:29:02,077
the whale carcasses in, and they had a little bit

434
00:29:02,117 --> 00:29:06,084
of history. off of the South

435
00:29:06,344 --> 00:29:09,844
Jetty, I think, Sabine, where they used to have the 1,000-pound

436
00:29:09,904 --> 00:29:13,785
club. Fishermen

437
00:29:13,825 --> 00:29:17,466
used to go out there and catch these white sharks off

438
00:29:17,506 --> 00:29:20,867
the beaches near the whaling station. They called

439
00:29:20,887 --> 00:29:24,628
it the 1,000-pound club. It had to be a minimum of

440
00:29:24,648 --> 00:29:28,129
1,000-pound white shark they would catch. It's amazing

441
00:29:28,169 --> 00:29:31,470
how many They used to catch quite a few sharks. This is all rod

442
00:29:33,550 --> 00:29:36,931
And on bamboo, hey? Bamboo rod and reels, not graphite rods.

443
00:29:41,933 --> 00:29:46,294
What was the reaction of having all these shark

444
00:29:46,374 --> 00:29:50,475
encounters and so forth? What were the reactions of the people that

445
00:29:50,515 --> 00:29:53,956
were being affected by these shark encounters and shark

446
00:29:53,996 --> 00:29:57,897
bites? Were people scared to go in the water? even

447
00:29:57,917 --> 00:30:01,078
in the rivers like and then was it you know like you see it

448
00:30:01,118 --> 00:30:04,400
in Australia now it's like they go out and kill all the big

449
00:30:04,440 --> 00:30:07,681
sharks was that the reaction of of the government is

450
00:30:08,181 --> 00:30:11,423
if there was an encounter you go and you say okay well we're gonna try and find

451
00:30:11,463 --> 00:30:16,305
this one that that has a you know quote-unquote taste for humans okay

452
00:30:17,842 --> 00:30:22,027
As I said, it affected the tourism industry and it had financial implications

453
00:30:22,247 --> 00:30:26,153
for the province. So, they formed this board to

454
00:30:26,193 --> 00:30:29,597
look into measures how to

455
00:30:31,179 --> 00:30:34,542
make it more safer. for the bathers. So we,

456
00:30:34,622 --> 00:30:38,664
you know, Florida is different because they've

457
00:30:38,924 --> 00:30:42,145
always had incidents and they never had

458
00:30:42,185 --> 00:30:45,887
a program like that. We had incidents in the 60s. We

459
00:30:45,947 --> 00:30:49,388
built this program and it then obviously evolved into

460
00:30:49,408 --> 00:30:52,719
a huge organization. And, and the

461
00:30:52,779 --> 00:30:56,022
people know this for the last half a decade, well,

462
00:30:56,782 --> 00:31:00,325
50 decades, five decades. And, and you can't, it's

463
00:31:00,345 --> 00:31:03,987
very difficult to play around with a system like it.

464
00:31:04,147 --> 00:31:07,370
Yeah. So there was, I mean, obviously they're through the, you know,

465
00:31:07,490 --> 00:31:10,912
dynamite and, and, and cages and they

466
00:31:10,952 --> 00:31:14,234
did all this stuff, you know, but, and then what

467
00:31:14,274 --> 00:31:18,277
happened then was the nets and that was the most successful way

468
00:31:18,357 --> 00:31:21,955
of producing the huge, pristine number

469
00:31:26,518 --> 00:31:29,921
Gotcha. I think she was still there, but the

470
00:31:30,001 --> 00:31:33,844
person that really got the whole shark sport going was

471
00:31:33,904 --> 00:31:37,327
a person named Beulah Davis, who was really well

472
00:31:37,387 --> 00:31:40,830
known, certainly in South Africa, and even globally she

473
00:31:40,870 --> 00:31:44,413
was known. She was the one that really set

474
00:31:47,682 --> 00:31:51,103
in the sixties and which used to be all still there when you when you arrive wasn't

475
00:31:51,123 --> 00:31:55,044
she she's actually she just retired

476
00:31:55,064 --> 00:31:58,525
uh... so i've met her and she just

477
00:31:58,625 --> 00:32:01,905
kind of left and i started in nineteen ninety one but

478
00:32:01,945 --> 00:32:05,186
she still came in and you know for the christmas and she wrote uh... wrote

479
00:32:05,206 --> 00:32:08,947
christmas cards for all those female staff and all that so

480
00:32:09,287 --> 00:32:12,868
and and uh... kudos to her in in those days

481
00:32:12,888 --> 00:32:16,449
uh... south africa's is uh...

482
00:32:17,349 --> 00:32:20,691
in those days was a very chauvinistic country. First of all, and

483
00:32:20,731 --> 00:32:24,813
it still is, I'll be honest. But as

484
00:32:24,853 --> 00:32:29,055
a woman, to put that off in those days, she

485
00:32:30,836 --> 00:32:33,978
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, for sure. I knew her a little bit. I

486
00:32:34,018 --> 00:32:37,440
knew her a little bit. She was still there when I was still

487
00:32:37,500 --> 00:32:41,342
there. And then, as you mentioned, she retired shortly

488
00:32:41,382 --> 00:32:44,584
just after I left. But South

489
00:32:44,624 --> 00:32:48,187
Africa was interesting, because they had Beulah Davis, who really I

490
00:32:48,227 --> 00:32:52,389
mean, certainly back in those days, now, that was a very male-oriented society,

491
00:32:52,409 --> 00:32:55,751
and to have a woman like Beulah set up and run the Sharks board,

492
00:32:55,791 --> 00:32:59,993
and she ran that baby with an

493
00:33:00,113 --> 00:33:05,116
iron fist. I mean, there was no – some other

494
00:33:05,136 --> 00:33:08,458
day I'll have some other funny stories I can share there some

495
00:33:08,518 --> 00:33:11,968
other time, but also they had – I've mentioned

496
00:33:11,988 --> 00:33:15,691
Jeanette Daubry, who worked at the Oceanographic Research Institute, another

497
00:33:15,751 --> 00:33:19,614
woman. She led actually the shark research part

498
00:33:19,934 --> 00:33:23,656
in South Africa at that time from about 1959 through

499
00:33:23,676 --> 00:33:26,818
the 60s and into the early 70s. And with her and

500
00:33:26,858 --> 00:33:30,481
John Bass and Nat Kisasami, they published some monumental

501
00:33:30,541 --> 00:33:33,943
works on sharks in South and

502
00:33:34,003 --> 00:33:37,145
Southern Africa. It actually included Mozambique and

503
00:33:37,185 --> 00:33:40,985
Tanzania and Madagascar, but it was just Revolutionary

504
00:33:41,025 --> 00:33:44,607
stuff, and again you had a couple of very dynamic women

505
00:33:45,528 --> 00:33:49,549
in South Africa at a time when there wasn't many women anywhere globally.

506
00:33:49,569 --> 00:33:53,111
You had those two, you had Jeanne Clark in the United States, and

507
00:33:53,131 --> 00:33:56,633
there wasn't many others beyond that. I'm sure I'm missing someone,

508
00:33:56,653 --> 00:33:59,854
but there was not many women at that time in certainly the

509
00:33:59,934 --> 00:34:03,556
60s and 70s that were kind of leading in the whole

510
00:34:03,616 --> 00:34:07,038
realm of shark research and everything. So I just wanted to

511
00:34:07,118 --> 00:34:12,418
mention that, raise that issue there. So for

512
00:34:12,458 --> 00:34:15,799
yourself, when you got in there and you started working on the aging growth, I always thought it

513
00:34:15,819 --> 00:34:19,199
was kind of cool that you actually had,

514
00:34:19,259 --> 00:34:22,540
I think, the unique experience that you did

515
00:34:22,560 --> 00:34:25,721
the aging growth of the whale shark, the basking shark, and the

516
00:34:25,781 --> 00:34:29,682
white shark, which are probably three of the most charismatic, high-profile

517
00:34:34,835 --> 00:34:38,377
Okay. Qualify here, the Baskin

518
00:34:38,437 --> 00:34:41,659
shock, eventually Lisa was the lead author on that

519
00:34:41,719 --> 00:34:45,541
paper. So I really, it was a very difficult

520
00:34:47,042 --> 00:34:50,423
long-term project trying to get these vertebrae from different

521
00:34:51,004 --> 00:34:55,506
museums and get them sent. And

522
00:34:56,487 --> 00:34:59,948
so, and then this, it was very difficult. And at one stage,

523
00:35:00,509 --> 00:35:03,767
well, during the data analysis, And Lisa

524
00:35:03,787 --> 00:35:07,069
and I spoken often because I said, I don't understand this growth curve.

525
00:35:07,229 --> 00:35:10,710
How come is it two per year, one per year? What is happening? And eventually

526
00:35:10,770 --> 00:35:14,532
I said to her, listen, you run with it. And she

527
00:35:14,772 --> 00:35:18,914
ran with it and established that it's got nothing to do

528
00:35:19,574 --> 00:35:23,176
with age at all. So it's a structural thing. So

529
00:35:23,356 --> 00:35:26,597
the white shock was, I think my blacktop shock was

530
00:35:26,657 --> 00:35:30,119
for my thesis. And then I did the white shock

531
00:35:31,380 --> 00:35:34,643
And the whale shark, because we had all these whale shark

532
00:35:34,663 --> 00:35:38,066
strandings. So I went to cut the vertebrae out, and

533
00:35:38,406 --> 00:35:41,769
then you're interested, how old do they get? And you

534
00:35:41,789 --> 00:35:45,292
start x-raying and try different techniques. So yeah, that's

535
00:35:49,095 --> 00:35:53,239
Yeah, I know you did a number of other species, like the blacktip shark, Carcharhinus

536
00:35:53,299 --> 00:35:56,461
lumbatus was for your MSC thesis. But the

537
00:35:56,501 --> 00:36:00,799
fact that you were involved in three very Prominent

538
00:36:00,859 --> 00:36:04,080
shark species. I don't think anybody else's can have that

539
00:36:04,140 --> 00:36:08,861
click and state that claim to fame Anyway,

540
00:36:09,621 --> 00:36:12,842
but the Back a little bit on

541
00:36:12,882 --> 00:36:16,023
the on the the black tip shark just jumping over that for

542
00:36:16,063 --> 00:36:19,663
saying it was that a species that you just had a like a lot of access to vertebrae for

543
00:36:19,884 --> 00:36:23,224
Because of all the different species in vertebrae at the sharks

544
00:36:28,357 --> 00:36:34,481
A long time ago. I can't really remember, but I think it

545
00:36:34,521 --> 00:36:37,723
was also depending on our catches, you know, so, so

546
00:36:37,783 --> 00:36:41,085
obviously the sharks would wanted to know age and

547
00:36:41,105 --> 00:36:45,108
growth data for species, which they caught commonly. So

548
00:36:45,208 --> 00:36:49,190
for like a great hammerhead catching for a year, we

549
00:36:49,210 --> 00:36:52,505
don't need to know the age and growth for them because it that

550
00:36:52,545 --> 00:36:55,848
small catch has got no impact on the greater population in the Indian Ocean,

551
00:36:56,269 --> 00:36:59,611
Western Indian Ocean. So I suspect that

552
00:36:59,651 --> 00:37:02,854
the black tip was A, we had enough vertebrae, it

553
00:37:02,894 --> 00:37:06,357
was a species of, you know, we catch, concern

554
00:37:06,377 --> 00:37:09,660
maybe, and then obviously went to more

555
00:37:09,700 --> 00:37:13,243
the white shark was also in those days, 1991, it was protected

556
00:37:13,283 --> 00:37:16,486
in South Africa. So that was also then

557
00:37:16,526 --> 00:37:20,112
a reason to look at that particular animal Yeah,

558
00:37:22,773 --> 00:37:26,654
Okay, so you guys, you still, when

559
00:37:26,694 --> 00:37:30,035
you were, so throughout your career you worked on the different agent

560
00:37:30,075 --> 00:37:33,855
growth. Did most of the common species that you guys caught in the nets,

561
00:37:33,995 --> 00:37:37,256
did you guys work out the agent growth for most of those during

562
00:37:39,537 --> 00:37:42,978
Well, yeah, I spent, I don't think we did, well the reggae was

563
00:37:42,998 --> 00:37:46,598
then later with the bomb carbon, but so the zambi, the tiger,

564
00:37:46,618 --> 00:37:50,117
the white shark, so we wanted to do the three, potentially

565
00:37:50,157 --> 00:37:53,239
dangerous species on our coast, so that was, and then blacktip, we did the

566
00:37:53,279 --> 00:37:56,900
spinner, we did the scalloped, which

567
00:37:56,940 --> 00:38:00,161
was also a high-catch species, yeah, and then

568
00:38:00,201 --> 00:38:05,063
the reggae was way back later in 2000-some, well,

569
00:38:07,544 --> 00:38:10,625
Yeah, yeah. Was there any other, was there any of the ones you did the

570
00:38:10,645 --> 00:38:13,746
Asian growth on, were there any of them that kind of stood out? We

571
00:38:13,766 --> 00:38:16,948
talked about the basking shark a little bit, but were there any of the other ones that kind of stood out, that kind of

572
00:38:16,968 --> 00:38:20,122
surprised you? that you're working on?

573
00:38:22,183 --> 00:38:25,424
Yeah, look, the nice thing is with the white shark,

574
00:38:25,444 --> 00:38:29,805
we had our first tetracycline recapture, which corroborated

575
00:38:30,525 --> 00:38:33,966
the ages in that part of

576
00:38:34,006 --> 00:38:38,907
their lifespan. And we obviously know now that it's

577
00:38:39,267 --> 00:38:42,468
changed. And then we also were very lucky. We

578
00:38:42,508 --> 00:38:48,580
had tetracycline recaptures for the tiger shark. So

579
00:38:48,761 --> 00:38:52,143
I think my most surprising one

580
00:38:52,263 --> 00:38:56,366
was Reggie, although I did not do that aging, because

581
00:38:57,507 --> 00:39:00,670
Ken Goldman at the time was the only published paper on

582
00:39:00,750 --> 00:39:04,653
Reggies. We call them Reggies Santagas.

583
00:39:05,373 --> 00:39:08,636
And his maturity age was

584
00:39:08,656 --> 00:39:11,838
a certain age. And Jeremy Cliffhead at

585
00:39:11,878 --> 00:39:15,061
the time, he started tagging Reggies up at 11 point. And

586
00:39:15,081 --> 00:39:18,373
those were mature pregnant females. And we started to

587
00:39:18,413 --> 00:39:21,996
get recaptures like 20 years later. And

588
00:39:22,536 --> 00:39:25,659
I think the most was 28. And then I

589
00:39:25,699 --> 00:39:29,422
said, I looked at this and I said, there is no way that these animals matured, that

590
00:39:29,482 --> 00:39:33,085
there's something not right. And then I contacted, you

591
00:39:33,105 --> 00:39:36,728
know, Michelle and all them. And I said, you know, I've got this recaptured

592
00:39:36,768 --> 00:39:40,732
vertebrae as well. And this age needs to be re-evaluated because

593
00:39:40,772 --> 00:39:43,954
it cannot be based on our

594
00:39:47,332 --> 00:39:50,453
So now you guys went through a lot of those Asian growth stuff. Did

595
00:39:50,473 --> 00:39:53,715
you guys, where did you, like

596
00:39:54,175 --> 00:39:57,416
over the course of your career, were you still doing Asian growth or did you guys

597
00:39:57,456 --> 00:40:02,218
kind of start doing more tracking and doing other types of studies kind

598
00:40:03,218 --> 00:40:06,479
No, no tracking. No tracking. We didn't have the money for

599
00:40:06,499 --> 00:40:10,101
this. No, we did have a tagging program. It's just normal

600
00:40:10,501 --> 00:40:14,222
dot tags, which are in as well. And

601
00:40:14,482 --> 00:40:17,786
only later, We did get some money for

602
00:40:17,826 --> 00:40:20,987
pingers, but we didn't have any, I

603
00:40:21,008 --> 00:40:24,509
know that's very sexy and all that, we never had that. We had basic

604
00:40:24,569 --> 00:40:27,711
plain dog tags and that was our tagging program, which was,

605
00:40:27,731 --> 00:40:30,793
I mean, we had a couple of thousand sharks tagged over a

606
00:40:34,615 --> 00:40:37,817
This might be a little, you may or may not know this,

607
00:40:37,837 --> 00:40:41,098
but like there's been a lot of talk about how like the white sharks

608
00:40:41,139 --> 00:40:44,361
in the Western Cape have declined and there's a lot of talk

609
00:40:44,401 --> 00:40:47,743
about whether it's orcas that have caused it or some people

610
00:40:47,763 --> 00:40:51,125
think they've moved more to the east coast

611
00:40:51,165 --> 00:40:55,068
here. During the time you were involved,

612
00:40:55,088 --> 00:40:58,810
did you notice any upticks or decreases

613
00:40:58,850 --> 00:41:02,532
in white sharks off the KZN

614
00:41:05,654 --> 00:41:08,816
Look, we catch the juveniles. We used to

615
00:41:08,856 --> 00:41:13,627
catch the juveniles up to two and a half. I

616
00:41:13,667 --> 00:41:17,029
would lie now if I say something, but I don't think there was any

617
00:41:17,150 --> 00:41:20,432
decline because I also kept tabs on the catch

618
00:41:20,472 --> 00:41:23,614
trends and we would have, I don't

619
00:41:23,635 --> 00:41:27,918
know what it is now because I'm out of it for five years, but we

620
00:41:27,958 --> 00:41:32,021
would have, I would have picked up something where we alarmingly suddenly

621
00:41:32,081 --> 00:41:35,363
don't catch. And you have to keep in mind

622
00:41:35,403 --> 00:41:39,294
that this is a, 40-year data set, so there is a huge fluctuations.

623
00:41:39,394 --> 00:41:42,836
And Jeremy published a paper about El Nino and

624
00:41:42,856 --> 00:41:46,458
El Nino effects on the white shark catches. So if

625
00:41:46,498 --> 00:41:49,839
you get something going down, you're going to have to monitor it

626
00:41:50,019 --> 00:41:53,861
for a while before you have the red flag running,

627
00:41:53,901 --> 00:41:57,683
because it might just be inter-annual variation.

628
00:41:57,843 --> 00:42:01,104
Right. Yeah. I was asked, because I know a few years ago when

629
00:42:01,125 --> 00:42:05,257
I was there talking to some of the dive groups

630
00:42:05,357 --> 00:42:08,799
off KZN, they were saying they were seeing white sharks more frequently than

631
00:42:08,819 --> 00:42:12,642
they used to see them in prior years. And of course, that coincided

632
00:42:12,662 --> 00:42:15,923
with people in the Western Cape saying they weren't

633
00:42:15,963 --> 00:42:19,045
seeing the white sharks as much there. And so I was kind of

634
00:42:19,085 --> 00:42:22,207
wondering if there might have been a, if you'd noticed any shift in terms of what

635
00:42:22,227 --> 00:42:25,409
was being like in cotton, where you see more white sharks caught in

636
00:42:27,287 --> 00:42:30,690
Let's get Toby Curtis, let's get Toby Curtis over here

637
00:42:30,730 --> 00:42:34,112
and check if they also got a shift like on the east coast of

638
00:42:35,773 --> 00:42:39,356
Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Well, we've had an office in California here

639
00:42:39,376 --> 00:42:42,698
where we see a lot more of the juveniles up in central California than we used to,

640
00:42:43,219 --> 00:42:46,561
than we ever did when I was certainly growing up. And I don't know if it's a change

641
00:42:46,601 --> 00:42:50,204
in the water temperature or if it's just the

642
00:42:50,264 --> 00:42:53,786
population is doing better. I know the marine mammal population has gone crazy out

643
00:42:53,826 --> 00:42:57,335
here, which I think in, in New England, we had Megan Whitton

644
00:42:57,435 --> 00:43:00,497
on a few months ago, and then we had Greg Scobel on, and

645
00:43:00,517 --> 00:43:04,179
they've seen increases in the marine mammal population.

646
00:43:04,199 --> 00:43:07,542
So I didn't know if there was something similar you noticed off in South

647
00:43:07,682 --> 00:43:10,784
Africa during the

648
00:43:10,844 --> 00:43:14,127
course of your career. I know, well, back when

649
00:43:14,147 --> 00:43:17,349
they had the whaling station there, they certainly seemed to have no problem catching white

650
00:43:17,389 --> 00:43:20,711
sharks, the fishermen, off the beach near the whaling station. So

651
00:43:20,771 --> 00:43:25,915
they certainly, the white sharks knew where to find a meal. For

652
00:43:25,935 --> 00:43:30,438
sure. Yeah. So

653
00:43:30,758 --> 00:43:33,960
as you went along now and you sort of, so what kind of sort

654
00:43:33,980 --> 00:43:37,141
of research, like sort of the latter part as you guys started knocking and doing a

655
00:43:37,181 --> 00:43:41,084
lot of the aging growth stuff, where did you, did your research

656
00:43:41,304 --> 00:43:44,826
focus shift at all during your career from the aging growth

657
00:43:47,387 --> 00:43:50,682
Yeah. Now it has. you know,

658
00:43:50,982 --> 00:43:54,104
aging shocks and Steve Branstetter said that once to me is the

659
00:43:54,224 --> 00:43:57,646
art of smoke and mirrors. And it

660
00:43:57,746 --> 00:44:01,008
is very labor intensive. And then what happened

661
00:44:01,068 --> 00:44:04,250
over the years is we got a lot of

662
00:44:04,330 --> 00:44:07,552
requests, you know, as research evolved, we had

663
00:44:07,592 --> 00:44:10,974
a lot of requests for tissue samples. And people wanted

664
00:44:11,034 --> 00:44:15,617
to look at pollution, people wanted to look at isotopes, genetics,

665
00:44:15,777 --> 00:44:18,972
you know, as research evolved, So

666
00:44:19,192 --> 00:44:22,476
we had a lot of requests because we catch these

667
00:44:22,536 --> 00:44:26,099
animals and we want to use them. And it caused

668
00:44:26,139 --> 00:44:30,183
quite a consternation in the lab because Joseph

669
00:44:30,203 --> 00:44:33,727
from Australia sent his vials and it was with this formalin

670
00:44:34,227 --> 00:44:37,811
and he wanted that. And then Joseph from UK

671
00:44:38,191 --> 00:44:41,935
sent these vials and he wanted those samples in that particular

672
00:44:41,975 --> 00:44:45,368
buffer. So it we then I decided that's

673
00:44:45,668 --> 00:44:48,911
it we're going to standardize this whole thing we're going to take

674
00:44:49,111 --> 00:44:52,434
everything from every single animal which comes in and

675
00:44:52,494 --> 00:44:55,797
it's going to be standard and Demian Chapman helped me quite a bit there

676
00:44:55,837 --> 00:44:58,980
back in 2000 I think it was when I met him at

677
00:44:59,000 --> 00:45:02,418
the AAS from the genetic point of view, how to

678
00:45:02,918 --> 00:45:07,200
sample and how to store long-term storage of these samples. And

679
00:45:07,601 --> 00:45:10,942
so when we get a request, we can just go and open the fridge

680
00:45:11,062 --> 00:45:14,624
and say, okay, which year do you want? Which species

681
00:45:14,664 --> 00:45:18,286
do you want? Do you want males, females, whatever? It's all sorted. It's

682
00:45:19,326 --> 00:45:22,688
in a database. You can pull it out. And

683
00:45:22,748 --> 00:45:26,270
that's then started my transition into

684
00:45:28,228 --> 00:45:31,330
all sorts of other things, isotopes, pollution. We did a lot of

685
00:45:31,390 --> 00:45:35,694
pollution stuff with Nigel Hussey's students, mercury,

686
00:45:35,814 --> 00:45:40,217
organo stuff. We did a

687
00:45:40,277 --> 00:45:43,540
lot of isotope of Nigel as well. And

688
00:45:43,560 --> 00:45:46,842
then I even dwelled in the dark science of taxonomy with

689
00:45:46,962 --> 00:45:52,967
a particular prominent, prominent

690
00:46:02,041 --> 00:46:05,563
Well, I say that was a actually just a kind of

691
00:46:06,044 --> 00:46:09,286
jump off on that a bit we did a few years ago Sabine and I

692
00:46:09,366 --> 00:46:12,468
and Peter Kine did a co-authored paper on

693
00:46:12,508 --> 00:46:16,611
the checklist on the Chondrichthyes

694
00:46:16,651 --> 00:46:19,933
of South Africa, which I think was an update it hadn't been

695
00:46:19,953 --> 00:46:23,456
done in quite a few years and it kind of like really laid the foundation for

696
00:46:23,496 --> 00:46:26,844
what species occurs in in South Africa, which

697
00:46:27,184 --> 00:46:30,265
is important from developing like any kind of

698
00:46:30,365 --> 00:46:34,287
a national plan of action for

699
00:46:35,548 --> 00:46:38,609
any countries and stuff. And so for me, it was kind of cool to

700
00:46:38,629 --> 00:46:42,071
be able to do it in South Africa and to be able to work with you and others

701
00:46:47,433 --> 00:46:51,675
So one cool paper I must mention is

702
00:46:51,735 --> 00:46:55,432
the one where we looked at catch related to

703
00:46:55,512 --> 00:46:59,334
turbidity, moon phases, and temperature. And

704
00:46:59,454 --> 00:47:02,776
I've worked with anglers for quite a long time.

705
00:47:03,356 --> 00:47:07,179
And as an angler, you know tides and play

706
00:47:07,219 --> 00:47:10,300
a big role in catching. And I

707
00:47:10,400 --> 00:47:13,742
was particularly interested how these three

708
00:47:13,802 --> 00:47:17,525
factors affect catches. And I've gotten together

709
00:47:17,545 --> 00:47:21,088
with somebody from DEF then And we

710
00:47:21,188 --> 00:47:25,231
called things murky waters and temperature, what affects sharks,

711
00:47:25,311 --> 00:47:29,034
catches, and how sharks sport. And there were some really interesting trends

712
00:47:29,074 --> 00:47:32,336
with some species. Some caught more new

713
00:47:32,356 --> 00:47:35,679
moon, some caught more full moon. Some

714
00:47:35,739 --> 00:47:39,601
species were significant, whether it was murky water or not, and temperatures

715
00:47:39,822 --> 00:47:43,204
differed with some species, not with other ones. So

716
00:47:43,264 --> 00:47:47,087
that was another totally different research

717
00:47:48,769 --> 00:47:51,912
You're touching something too that we've had other guests talk about. You worked a lot

718
00:47:55,356 --> 00:47:58,599
And you found out they were, and I presume they're, how, how is that working with

719
00:47:58,659 --> 00:48:01,922
them, working with the angling community from your experience?

720
00:48:02,403 --> 00:48:06,166
Well, that was when we, when we started, um, the tetracycline

721
00:48:06,447 --> 00:48:10,150
tagging program, because you know, when you age sharks, you obviously in

722
00:48:10,190 --> 00:48:13,477
those days, early nineties, you have to

723
00:48:13,517 --> 00:48:16,820
validate your, verify your counts. So the

724
00:48:16,840 --> 00:48:20,223
only way to do that is injecting them with tetracycline, which

725
00:48:20,644 --> 00:48:24,687
we did do in the nets, but now we need to tell the anglers that

726
00:48:24,887 --> 00:48:28,511
if they catch one of those sharks with a different kind of tag, because

727
00:48:28,591 --> 00:48:32,094
up till then they were always yellow, so now we suddenly got an orange tag,

728
00:48:32,554 --> 00:48:35,657
and if you catch one of those and you gaff it badly and

729
00:48:35,717 --> 00:48:39,606
it dies, don't chuck it back, we need the backbone. So

730
00:48:39,726 --> 00:48:43,027
I went on an awareness of things. I went on

731
00:48:43,087 --> 00:48:47,308
all the national rock and surf. I went on two international competitions

732
00:48:47,368 --> 00:48:52,209
held in South Africa just to create

733
00:48:52,249 --> 00:48:56,149
awareness about this particular program. And then obviously, you

734
00:48:56,209 --> 00:48:59,450
also inject the animals on the beach to supplement what you

735
00:49:01,250 --> 00:49:04,631
And did you find it was pretty good? And I presume like the anglers,

736
00:49:04,651 --> 00:49:08,121
when they would catch something, one of these sharks that had been injected with

737
00:49:08,482 --> 00:49:11,704
oxytetracycline and stuff, did you end

738
00:49:11,744 --> 00:49:15,447
up provide, when you guys did all the analysis, everything, were you able to provide information

739
00:49:18,690 --> 00:49:22,012
Yes. Well, I mean, the guys who

740
00:49:22,052 --> 00:49:25,935
take that white shark, I trained some taggers then to

741
00:49:25,995 --> 00:49:29,478
inject on our behalf. And the guy who take

742
00:49:29,738 --> 00:49:33,905
the only world wide white shark, was

743
00:49:33,945 --> 00:49:37,487
one of these anglers and he tagged it at Sunday's river and we caught

744
00:49:37,547 --> 00:49:40,969
it back in our nets. So that was very historic because

745
00:49:41,069 --> 00:49:44,191
I think to this day it's an injected white shark which has

746
00:49:44,271 --> 00:49:47,592
been recaptured. And you obviously got, these guys got

747
00:49:50,354 --> 00:49:53,815
Yeah, that's really good. Even though I

748
00:49:53,835 --> 00:49:57,403
know you've been retired, do you keep in touch with any of the anglers still at all? Do

749
00:49:59,484 --> 00:50:02,826
Yeah, the odd angler. I stopped going

750
00:50:02,866 --> 00:50:09,450
to the competitions in about 2000 or

751
00:50:09,490 --> 00:50:13,753
something. I went for about 10 years. I'm

752
00:50:14,033 --> 00:50:17,355
still a friend of Eleanor Bullen. She was a tagging

753
00:50:17,395 --> 00:50:20,537
officer then at Ori. I'm still in contact with her. I

754
00:50:21,177 --> 00:50:24,359
visited her the other day. Some of the anglers are

755
00:50:26,499 --> 00:50:31,306
Yeah, okay. So

756
00:50:31,426 --> 00:50:35,912
now that you've, since you've retired, I know you keep a pretty active schedule. You're

757
00:50:35,952 --> 00:50:39,557
working out at the Ushaka Aquarium there and you're

758
00:50:43,621 --> 00:50:47,202
Yeah, so when I retired, I wanted

759
00:50:47,262 --> 00:50:52,603
to volunteer somewhere because I was bored stiff. And

760
00:50:53,263 --> 00:50:57,084
I started off at the Center of Rehabilitation

761
00:50:57,124 --> 00:51:01,024
of Wildlife, which predominantly birds.

762
00:51:01,825 --> 00:51:05,645
And then a friend of mine suggested to, why don't you volunteer

763
00:51:05,665 --> 00:51:10,343
at Ushoka? And I know everybody in Ushoka. It

764
00:51:10,423 --> 00:51:13,825
then was the Ori Aquarium. So I know all the curators and

765
00:51:13,845 --> 00:51:17,086
the staff there. And I also knew from

766
00:51:17,246 --> 00:51:21,007
my time at Charlesport, I knew the people who run the dangerous creatures section

767
00:51:21,047 --> 00:51:24,128
there, which is a

768
00:51:24,188 --> 00:51:27,950
very, very good exhibition on

769
00:51:28,030 --> 00:51:31,511
snakes. And we do have scorpions and spiders

770
00:51:31,571 --> 00:51:35,619
as well, and some monitor lizards and stuff. So

771
00:51:36,259 --> 00:51:39,921
I wanted to do something different and it was a standard joke

772
00:51:39,961 --> 00:51:43,102
that I arrived at Ushoka and not, not volunteer in

773
00:51:43,122 --> 00:51:47,544
the aquarium. So I volunteered with

774
00:51:47,584 --> 00:51:51,565
the snakes and I've been with them for four years now. So I'll go there once

775
00:51:51,625 --> 00:51:54,806
a week, maybe sometimes twice a week. I also assisted with a

776
00:51:54,866 --> 00:51:58,088
veterinarian team. They poached me

777
00:51:58,168 --> 00:52:01,419
from the, snake people, so I worked for them for

778
00:52:01,439 --> 00:52:04,941
a while. So it was cool stuff, you know, ultrasounds on

779
00:52:04,981 --> 00:52:09,464
dolphins and endoscopies on dolphins, seal

780
00:52:11,065 --> 00:52:14,467
health examination. So I learned quite a bit and obviously on the snake side,

781
00:52:14,487 --> 00:52:18,129
I've also learned a lot on those reptiles and

782
00:52:21,511 --> 00:52:24,753
And a lot of the snakes there are actually poisonous, right?

783
00:52:24,913 --> 00:52:29,444
That you work with? Venomous, venomous, venomous, not poisonous. Yes.

784
00:52:29,504 --> 00:52:33,507
Venomous. Sorry. Thank you. Yeah. Correct me. So

785
00:52:39,292 --> 00:52:42,715
So I just realized I was on mute. Sorry. Yes. Let

786
00:52:42,755 --> 00:52:46,117
me let me ask you this. When you retired, did did

787
00:52:46,137 --> 00:52:50,181
you retire for a bit where you weren't volunteering and then you decided, no,

788
00:52:50,241 --> 00:52:53,744
I'm bored, like I'm going to volunteer? Or did you say before

789
00:53:02,415 --> 00:53:05,698
Okay. So it was just more of like, Hey, I've got nothing to do. I want to do something that's

790
00:53:10,442 --> 00:53:13,645
Some new skills, that kind of thing. Yeah. That's good. I

791
00:53:20,711 --> 00:53:24,741
Yeah. Yeah. I was good. I was going to say besides your, um, Snake,

792
00:53:24,781 --> 00:53:28,563
you keep pretty active. I know you're into skeet shooting, fencing,

793
00:53:28,603 --> 00:53:32,145
and archery, so you keep, and I know you became quite

794
00:53:36,407 --> 00:53:40,229
Well, not so much skeet, actually, more trap and sporting. There's

795
00:53:40,269 --> 00:53:43,350
different disciplines, but I'll shoot anything as long as it's

796
00:53:43,890 --> 00:53:52,508
orange and blue. But, so, yeah, I've, qualified

797
00:53:52,548 --> 00:53:55,731
for provincial colors in three years, but I didn't, I choose not

798
00:53:55,771 --> 00:53:58,873
to accept it for a number of reasons. And I

799
00:53:58,913 --> 00:54:02,896
shot on three world championships, two

800
00:54:02,976 --> 00:54:07,379
in South Africa, one in America. Yeah. So

801
00:54:07,399 --> 00:54:10,841
I enjoyed, I've turned, I've shot the circus for about

802
00:54:10,881 --> 00:54:14,083
10 years. So I've turned down now. The archery I did

803
00:54:14,144 --> 00:54:18,583
for a while, And the fencing, I'm still with

804
00:54:23,866 --> 00:54:27,048
I think you're much faster than the three of us. I'll tell

805
00:54:32,851 --> 00:54:36,373
I was going to say, if you're going anywhere and you need security to bring with you, you

806
00:54:42,599 --> 00:54:45,699
Handle venomous snakes. Now you just need to get into mixed martial arts and

807
00:54:50,760 --> 00:54:54,641
You did? I did try. I did knife fighting,

808
00:54:55,961 --> 00:54:59,102
Knife fighting, great. Yeah.

809
00:54:59,762 --> 00:55:03,322
You haven't lacked for adventurous things to do since you were, quote,

810
00:55:03,362 --> 00:55:08,128
retired, if that's what you want to call it with from

811
00:55:08,148 --> 00:55:11,591
the shark sports stuff. So that's, is

812
00:55:12,151 --> 00:55:15,473
there anything, so with all your, so

813
00:55:15,613 --> 00:55:18,815
now are you still active with the, at Ushaka, working in

814
00:55:21,938 --> 00:55:25,660
Yeah. I

815
00:55:25,680 --> 00:55:28,942
did weigh a puff adder yesterday. I did catch

816
00:55:28,982 --> 00:55:32,224
some crocodiles, some small crocodiles. And what else did

817
00:55:32,264 --> 00:55:35,647
we do? Crocodiles. Caught crocs. And

818
00:55:35,747 --> 00:55:39,725
I fed a monitor. lizard. Yeah.

819
00:55:40,066 --> 00:55:43,308
So that was, that is pretty, that's kind

820
00:55:43,328 --> 00:55:46,611
of cool to say that you did all that. That's pretty cool. That's one day. That's

821
00:55:47,812 --> 00:55:50,954
Yeah. Pretty kept pretty, pretty busy. What, so

822
00:55:50,974 --> 00:55:54,557
what do you have any other, what else do you have coming up that you're going to try? What's

823
00:55:59,121 --> 00:56:03,104
Hmm. Wow. That's a good question. Um, um,

824
00:56:05,765 --> 00:56:10,428
I'm fully booked. I'm

825
00:56:10,508 --> 00:56:14,191
quite busy. My

826
00:56:15,913 --> 00:56:20,036
I know you were just in Uganda and you saw the mountain gorillas a couple

827
00:56:20,076 --> 00:56:26,120
months ago. And I think you're going to Nepal next? Yeah.

828
00:56:26,140 --> 00:56:29,783
So in between... Yeah, go

829
00:56:33,246 --> 00:56:37,195
So you saw the gorillas. a couple months ago, and then

830
00:56:37,215 --> 00:56:40,595
you're in the next, in whatever,

831
00:56:40,695 --> 00:56:44,016
February, so you're going to Nepal, and what

832
00:56:46,777 --> 00:56:50,258
Okay, so I'm going

833
00:56:50,618 --> 00:56:53,779
on a tiger safari, because I want to see tigers in

834
00:56:53,819 --> 00:56:57,139
the wild, yes, and that is in India, and then after that,

835
00:56:57,219 --> 00:57:00,720
I'm going to Nepal, and I'll do some trekking

836
00:57:00,780 --> 00:57:04,287
there in the most remote a

837
00:57:09,049 --> 00:57:12,230
Exactly. Exactly. Is

838
00:57:12,250 --> 00:57:15,431
there anything, is there anything particular you're tracking in Nepal? Is there anything in

839
00:57:18,512 --> 00:57:22,393
Look, any, any new species of animal,

840
00:57:22,834 --> 00:57:26,015
whether that's a mammal, a bird, fortunately they don't have

841
00:57:26,075 --> 00:57:29,817
reptiles. So I'm a photographer, I love animal

842
00:57:29,857 --> 00:57:33,759
photography, so I'm trekking there to see as

843
00:57:33,799 --> 00:57:36,981
little people as possible and as much wildlife as possible. And

844
00:57:37,081 --> 00:57:40,603
because there's so little people, I mean, I'm hoping for a snow leopard,

845
00:57:44,565 --> 00:57:47,886
I know, I know. I'll be absolutely jealous if

846
00:57:47,926 --> 00:57:51,530
you see red pandas. That's one

847
00:57:52,310 --> 00:57:55,711
You will be the first to see it. You

848
00:57:58,111 --> 00:58:02,752
I'm sure I'll see it on my WhatsApp. Like, yep, there it is. Damn

849
00:58:02,812 --> 00:58:06,933
it. Well, obviously, you've

850
00:58:07,173 --> 00:58:10,373
got a lot on your plate and a lot of stuff coming up. And you've

851
00:58:10,393 --> 00:58:13,634
had a fabulous career. What

852
00:58:13,654 --> 00:58:16,775
would you, for someone coming up, starting out in the field like a

853
00:58:21,354 --> 00:58:24,775
Okay, so is it must I say

854
00:58:24,795 --> 00:58:30,097
truthful, be just be honest, be truthful. Okay,

855
00:58:30,117 --> 00:58:33,338
so in my opinion, work your

856
00:58:33,458 --> 00:58:37,159
ass off. Yeah. And that gets noticed. So

857
00:58:37,219 --> 00:58:40,360
don't come up with an entitlement attitude or

858
00:58:40,380 --> 00:58:44,309
right work hard. And establish

859
00:58:44,329 --> 00:58:47,692
good relationships. Sometimes, and I said that to a lot of my students,

860
00:58:47,752 --> 00:58:51,375
it's not what you know, it's who you know. And that

861
00:58:51,495 --> 00:58:57,340
is important, unfortunately, but don't

862
00:58:57,400 --> 00:59:00,542
take no for an answer. But I'm coming from an era where I

863
00:59:00,583 --> 00:59:04,282
really had to compete against male, well,

864
00:59:04,443 --> 00:59:08,405
not compete, but I was in a very male-oriented environment, which

865
00:59:11,807 --> 00:59:15,569
But there's a lot of competition out there. It doesn't matter male,

866
00:59:15,669 --> 00:59:19,351
female, any other gender. People are applying, they get hundreds of applications, if

867
00:59:19,411 --> 00:59:23,293
not more, to each job application, right?

868
00:59:23,313 --> 00:59:26,375
That's why I work hard. I

869
00:59:26,395 --> 00:59:30,021
can attest to this, having known Sabine quite a while, is

870
00:59:30,061 --> 00:59:33,403
that when she started out, she was definitely one of the female pioneers in

871
00:59:33,443 --> 00:59:36,785
the field, because there were just not many women in the field at all.

872
00:59:36,865 --> 00:59:40,167
And you really, especially being in South Africa, you really

873
00:59:40,227 --> 00:59:43,249
had to work to get ahead, especially if you're a

874
00:59:43,289 --> 00:59:46,551
woman. So I just want to really very

875
00:59:46,571 --> 00:59:50,013
accomplish what you've had to do. And it's obviously just changed

876
00:59:50,053 --> 00:59:54,116
a bit today, but I think the work hard ethic is still something you

877
00:59:56,554 --> 00:59:59,737
And Sabin, what do you mean by work hard? So say if you have someone who

878
00:59:59,757 --> 01:00:02,980
just graduates, right? And they may or

879
01:00:03,020 --> 01:00:06,082
may not have a lot of experience. Say they graduate from an

880
01:00:06,122 --> 01:00:09,425
undergraduate degree or maybe have a graduate degree. What

881
01:00:09,445 --> 01:00:12,588
would you mean by work hard? Is it

882
01:00:12,728 --> 01:00:16,371
once you get the job, work hard? Or do you mean

883
01:00:16,411 --> 01:00:19,594
like get as many volunteerships or internships as

884
01:00:22,588 --> 01:00:26,689
Yeah, so try and get as much volunteer

885
01:00:26,729 --> 01:00:30,911
programs. Okay, obviously some of them you have to pay. And

886
01:00:31,371 --> 01:00:34,992
if you get into that, then don't

887
01:00:35,092 --> 01:00:38,854
ride it as in, oh yeah, now I can take some sharks and

888
01:00:39,234 --> 01:00:43,856
suntan myself on the boat or something. So really

889
01:00:44,236 --> 01:00:47,997
stand out by being a hard worker, diligent worker.

890
01:00:49,124 --> 01:00:52,887
Obviously, you're going to have to have some brains and also some

891
01:00:52,947 --> 01:00:57,129
kind of field physically fit

892
01:00:57,229 --> 01:01:00,592
and wanting to get stuck and do it because that's what

893
01:01:00,632 --> 01:01:04,054
people remember of these programs. If you've got

894
01:01:04,254 --> 01:01:07,656
five volunteers and one sticks out for really working

895
01:01:07,716 --> 01:01:11,398
hard and doing a job in no

896
01:01:11,458 --> 01:01:14,721
time and can think independently, it

897
01:01:14,761 --> 01:01:19,406
doesn't have to be the handheld. undergraduate student

898
01:01:20,307 --> 01:01:23,567
doesn't need to bum work. And then that

899
01:01:23,707 --> 01:01:27,628
one sticks out. And then looking for three

900
01:01:27,668 --> 01:01:31,329
years later, there is a job application maybe

901
01:01:31,589 --> 01:01:35,589
as a lab helper. And

902
01:01:35,749 --> 01:01:39,390
that person comes in with the application. I

903
01:01:39,430 --> 01:01:42,631
remember that person. And that's also how I

904
01:01:42,671 --> 01:01:46,472
chose a certain student. is also tenacity,

905
01:01:46,592 --> 01:01:49,694
you know, so if certain people wrote to me on

906
01:01:49,754 --> 01:01:52,876
a regular basis, okay, can I get a volunteer job? And

907
01:01:52,916 --> 01:01:56,359
I said, sorry, we don't have anything at the moment. And if their personal

908
01:01:56,419 --> 01:01:59,641
aspects six months later, and they've got a nice CV, and they've

909
01:01:59,681 --> 01:02:03,234
got a nice what this is what I've done, blah, blah, blah, blah. then

910
01:02:03,734 --> 01:02:07,396
I will, when something comes up, I will then choose that person

911
01:02:08,396 --> 01:02:11,738
Because they're persistent. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Good.

912
01:02:14,078 --> 01:02:17,520
Yeah. Well, Sabine, it's been fabulous having

913
01:02:17,540 --> 01:02:22,082
you on the show today. I know it's been long overdue and

914
01:02:22,122 --> 01:02:25,483
we just really enjoyed catching up, hearing your stories and stuff.

915
01:02:25,583 --> 01:02:28,824
And I hope you come back sometime. We'll have you have back on when you've

916
01:02:29,324 --> 01:02:32,867
got your next adventure going on. I don't know if it's crocodile

917
01:02:32,887 --> 01:02:36,270
wrestling or whatever. We'll have some reason

918
01:02:36,290 --> 01:02:39,513
to have you back on. But thank you so much for coming on

919
01:02:46,039 --> 01:02:50,161
Thank you Sabine for joining us here on the Beyond Johns podcast. Dave, we

920
01:02:50,201 --> 01:02:53,643
talk about differences between like when you like in the 1980s

921
01:02:53,983 --> 01:02:57,604
and early 90s to now and we talk about like it's a completely different

922
01:02:57,664 --> 01:03:00,966
ballgame, not only from the technology standpoint, but from the interaction with the local

923
01:03:01,006 --> 01:03:04,447
community. It seems a lot different now. It seems like it's much more

924
01:03:04,928 --> 01:03:08,369
as part of the solution, as part of the conservation, as

925
01:03:08,409 --> 01:03:11,550
part of the science. I mean, just coming from your career too, you have a lot

926
01:03:11,571 --> 01:03:14,752
of experience with that. Uh, you know, what was your reaction to

927
01:03:16,714 --> 01:03:19,836
Yeah. Oh yeah. I could, I could really relate to say, as I

928
01:03:20,136 --> 01:03:23,298
said, the opening intro, you know, I, Sabine and I

929
01:03:23,479 --> 01:03:26,761
just missed each other. I, she literally, cause we compared, no,

930
01:03:26,781 --> 01:03:29,903
she literally arrived a few months after I had left South Africa in the

931
01:03:29,923 --> 01:03:33,085
early nineties. And, um, it was, uh,

932
01:03:33,145 --> 01:03:36,188
it was unfortunate. We missed each other. We did, it was several years before we

933
01:03:36,248 --> 01:03:40,417
actually connected. And of course that was by writing letters at the time because there wasn't internet. Yeah,

934
01:03:40,537 --> 01:03:44,080
even in the mid 90s, it was just kind of a new thing. Um, but

935
01:03:44,120 --> 01:03:47,283
yeah, she just like, as we said at the outset, she just, you know,

936
01:03:47,323 --> 01:03:50,566
packed up, decided she wanted to do sharks. And again, there was not a lot

937
01:03:50,626 --> 01:03:53,748
of, you didn't have the opportunities like today. You can go down, you can, you know,

938
01:03:53,789 --> 01:03:57,031
hook up with some group down in South Africa and go down and play around with white

939
01:03:57,071 --> 01:04:00,614
sharks if you want. She just went down there and just looked around and managed

940
01:04:00,634 --> 01:04:03,797
to get on with the, uh, with the, uh, KwaZulu. Well, at the time it

941
01:04:03,817 --> 01:04:07,160
was the Natal Sharks board. Now it's the KwaZulu Natal Sharks board.

942
01:04:07,320 --> 01:04:10,937
Um, and where they do a lot of the netting. And she was one of, you know, she's one of the science officers

943
01:04:10,977 --> 01:04:14,178
there and she had a, she had an amazing career and the different things

944
01:04:14,258 --> 01:04:17,500
she, she had done. And we hope, oh, the other thing I hope people picked

945
01:04:17,520 --> 01:04:20,882
up on, she has a very diverse background. She, you know, especially since

946
01:04:20,942 --> 01:04:24,624
she's retired, she's gotten to a lot of different things. She does, she does fencing,

947
01:04:24,664 --> 01:04:28,406
does skeet shooting. She's works with venomous snakes and,

948
01:04:28,426 --> 01:04:31,607
um, and she's just kind of an adventure too. She just, you

949
01:04:31,627 --> 01:04:35,016
know, she's out and, uh, going out and just goes on these trips

950
01:04:35,116 --> 01:04:38,279
and stuff and goes on these, like, like even the, even still now she's

951
01:04:38,319 --> 01:04:41,643
retired, she has more time to do that kind of stuff. So that was, uh,

952
01:04:41,723 --> 01:04:45,066
she has, she's had a very amazing journey throughout

953
01:04:45,106 --> 01:04:48,510
her career. And, um, um, if you say she,

954
01:04:48,530 --> 01:04:51,633
and she still goes to America, Laszlo Brink society meetings. And if you happen to be

955
01:04:51,673 --> 01:04:55,117
there and you're a young person, definitely find her and have a, Have

956
01:04:55,157 --> 01:04:58,380
a beer with her, she won't turn you down, I'm sure. She might have a glass of wine instead, but

957
01:04:59,220 --> 01:05:02,543
definitely. But no, she's really,

958
01:05:03,124 --> 01:05:06,146
she's one of those, when she started, there were not a

959
01:05:06,186 --> 01:05:10,069
lot of women in the field at the time, but she's one of those extremely

960
01:05:10,109 --> 01:05:13,212
accomplished women that really was ahead of

961
01:05:13,252 --> 01:05:17,195
her time when she came in to do shark

962
01:05:17,255 --> 01:05:20,457
research. And so you really want a good historical perspective of where things

963
01:05:20,478 --> 01:05:23,960
have gone over the last, whatever, 35 years almost now

964
01:05:27,008 --> 01:05:30,290
Yeah, no doubt. No doubt. It's a lot of fun I was I was really happy we

965
01:05:30,330 --> 01:05:33,492
got to interview her It's it's not we

966
01:05:33,512 --> 01:05:36,874
don't get a lot of interviews with people in South Africa, although we've

967
01:05:36,914 --> 01:05:40,015
been pretty good with that But we haven't had one in a while And so it

968
01:05:40,035 --> 01:05:43,457
was really great to to see Sabine and hear about her career

969
01:05:43,477 --> 01:05:46,799
and her better advice So it was a lot of fun. So with that

970
01:05:46,839 --> 01:05:50,141
said we'll put all of her links. She's not on social media and but

971
01:05:50,161 --> 01:05:54,225
we'll put what you can get all the information from our podcast. But Dave,

972
01:05:56,807 --> 01:06:00,130
Best way is through Instagram at Lost Shark Guy, but you can also find

973
01:06:00,170 --> 01:06:04,433
me on Facebook at Lost Sharks and ex

974
01:06:04,493 --> 01:06:08,417
Lost Shark Guy and on LinkedIn, Dave Ebert on

975
01:06:08,457 --> 01:06:12,020
all those forms. So, yeah. Oh,

976
01:06:12,080 --> 01:06:15,515
and by the way, please go to our YouTube channel. Beyond

977
01:06:15,555 --> 01:06:18,699
jaws and subscribe and you catch a lot of the catch a

978
01:06:21,242 --> 01:06:24,563
Yeah which we've passed 500 subscribers, by

979
01:06:24,603 --> 01:06:28,264
the way. We've passed as of this, like we were at like 514 or something

980
01:06:28,284 --> 01:06:31,385
like that last time I checked. So thank you so much for all those of you

981
01:06:31,446 --> 01:06:34,827
who subscribed. And if you want to see us and you want to see our guest,

982
01:06:34,867 --> 01:06:38,108
you can do so on YouTube. You can check it out. We'll put the link in

983
01:06:38,148 --> 01:06:42,049
the show notes below. We really appreciate all your support in listening

984
01:06:42,109 --> 01:06:45,611
to us over the last few years. We're going to continue on and bring

985
01:06:45,631 --> 01:06:48,872
you more shark scientists, probably bring back some of our other

986
01:06:48,912 --> 01:06:52,454
shark scientists that we've talked to before and conservationists. and really

987
01:06:52,514 --> 01:06:55,677
get going on these shark conversations, as well as

988
01:06:55,777 --> 01:06:59,160
career updates and seeing where people are and how they got there. So

989
01:06:59,200 --> 01:07:02,343
thank you very much, everybody, for joining us. And Dave, of course, thank you so much. And

990
01:07:02,363 --> 01:07:05,546
Sabine, we really want to thank you. And from Dave and

991
01:07:05,566 --> 01:07:08,829
I, thank you so much. We really appreciate listening to the Beyond Just podcast. Have