Transcript
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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
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it difficult to coordinate with both
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Look, we're talking about 30 years ago. So things then
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were not as difficult as they are now. So, yeah,
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we didn't, it was more difficult in terms of contacting, you
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know, you had to have money to phone South Africa. And obviously
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I can't even remember if there were emails. I don't think so. I think it was
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done via phone, but it
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wasn't that difficult. You obviously, I had to
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get all the German, qualifications up
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to the stage or course proof
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translated into English and that kind of thing. I
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didn't think it was a major mission. I just felt bad that I took everybody
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You got to do what you got to do, right? You got to do what you got to
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So you went down to South Africa. Originally, you were just going to go for
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like a year. Was that your plan originally? and
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then go back and then, of course, here you are, let's say a few years later.
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Thank you. So
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anyway, you went down there and you started, when you arrived
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in South Africa, had you ever even heard of the shark sport at all?
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Yes, yeah, yeah, definitely. So that was my first,
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yeah. When
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I realized I was mismatched at the university, I
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went straight to the shark support and asked for a job,
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well, for an opportunity to help
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Did you work as ... Yeah, just to set some people, because
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a lot of the young people listening, everybody goes to South Africa now because they
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have all these white shark conservation groups and NGOs. People
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go volunteer and everything. Back in the day, It
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was not that way in South Africa. It was pretty much, there
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was a sharks board, there was this program, research
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center where I was in Cape Town. So
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it was just very different than it is today. It wasn't like people, like
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say the young people go down today, it was just a very different. Plus as Sabine
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was talking, you had to actually write a letter and put
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it in the post office and mail it there and hope it got there in
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time. at some point in time. So when
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you went to the sharks board, did you work as a
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volunteer at first or were you able to get hired on fairly
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No, so they didn't have any volunteer positions.
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What happened is the head of the department at the University of Natal was
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also the acting head of the department of
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the research department. So I went for an interview and
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I said I would like to work here
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and help out. and they hired, they needed
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somebody to do, to catalogue their vertebral selection, collection.
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So I was hired as a tochleber and
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I think in those days it was 250 an hour. And so
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I would skip, I would not go to the classes because I've already done
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this stuff and I would go to Sharksport and just sit
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with these vertebrae and write down on a piece of paper the
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numbers and didn't have a computer. So
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that's how it started. And then after a
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year or so, they employed me as a temporary staff. And
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then I had, and that was like three-year contracts, and
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I was on two or three three-year contracts, temporary, and
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And you got out, when you went out, what was your sort of entry, formal
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position there? Was it as a researcher, or when they
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In those days, the levels were different. It
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was called Assistant Nature Conservation Scientist. It
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember that era fairly well.
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You've been there, yeah. I've been there, so. So
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you got on there now. Did you start early on into, when
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Yeah, so they originally wanted somebody like a student just
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to go into the vaults and record what
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is there. And that's how I started. And then
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I obviously read up on how to age because
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that was the ultimate goal. Once we knew what we
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had, we then wanted to age all the species we
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catch because that's part of the
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impact assessment of the nets. If you have a species which lives 60 years
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and reproduces every year, 50 pups,
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whatever, then you taking out 15 animals per animal is
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going to do nothing. Whereas if you have another species,
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you know, whatever. So, the first thing
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was to catalog and then the second one is they wanted somebody to look
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at aging and I sort of naturally got into that.
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And I remember faxing Lisa once in
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Yeah, I was going to say like you at some point I know in there you contacted Lisa
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Natanson who was on one of the first episodes we had
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there as retired NOAA fisheries and she was kind of the age and growth
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person at that time. Did you
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say you faxed her? Yeah.
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I faxed her. It was a little faster than sending
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an actual mail, letter by mail. at
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Everything was post and now suddenly you stick a piece of paper on this side
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and it comes out on the other side of the ocean and another country comes,
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Everybody had a fax number. Every office had a fax number that you could
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fax to and for those of you listeners who haven't
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heard of a fax before, fax machines were like the
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email of back in the day before we really had internet,
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I guess. And it was a phone number that you would call, and you could
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put a paper in this machine. This machine would literally fax it
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over, like you said, overseas. And it would go to the next
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machine. And you would print it out. And it wasn't always easy to use. It didn't always
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work. But people used it quite a bit. Every office
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had a fax number and a phone number. And I thought it's always interesting.
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It was revolutionary at the time, because
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it was just like, wow. I'd already left South Africa at
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that time, but it was like just, yeah, with almost instantly you could
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get something across. It was like, so you couldn't even imagine like,
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wow, where can we go from here with a fax machine, beyond a
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fax machine. Obviously that's changed a lot now as
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we're recording videos now for podcasts and other things.
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And I can remember somewhere in there, after you got corresponding with
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Lisa, that you and I Connected at some point because
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and we're but we're still writing letters at that point in time For
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a few years kind of in the late 90s and I was I'd been home in,
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California and then It was just
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back then you just that's all you do it was fax if you had a fax option
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to the fax or yeah, I'm just writing letters and so so
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it was still like it was several years actually before you actually I know
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you and I first met in 2001 at the Indo-pacific but It
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was a number of years before even people like Lisa and others, you actually got a chance to
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meet in person, correct? Some of the people you're corresponded with?
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That was actually in 2001 then, when
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we had the Indo-Pacific in Durban. And that's where people I
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corresponded with like Greg Collier and George Burgess and
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yourself. It was the first time I've met these people I've
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Yeah. And when did you, and when'd you actually finally meet Lisa? Cause you
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I fixed in
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1999. I think I still got the original fix. I'm
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If I could just jump in for a second, I just say that because Sabine will
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literally pull up emails that I had with her from like 20 something years ago.
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and send me these emails that I thought were long gone. I forgot about
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it. Remember back in like 2002, you said this or whatever.
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And I'm like, oh Jesus Christ, I forgot all about that. Anyway, so I
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Love it. Anyway, but I know it was
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quite a few years actually for you guys. I know at the Indo-Pacific in
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2001, you finally got to meet some people. And then I know like
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Lisa was years later on that. So let's
359
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back up a little bit. You started working at the shark sport there.
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Now, a lot of the sharks that you had the vertebrae from were sharks
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that were caught in the shark nets, which nowadays
362
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is kind of a, it depends on some quarters, it could be it's
363
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a bit controversial. and everything, and it's been kind of a back
364
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and forth over the years. And just, again, I
365
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don't know, maybe you can give a little bit of the history in the shark sport when it kind
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of came into prominence was in
367
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the early 60s, I believe, after they had their sort of, sort
368
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Black September, yeah, they had like a, what was it, like
369
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five or seven attacks over a couple day period. And
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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
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December and then the Easter, I think it was a total of 21 shock attacks or
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shock encounters now politically correct. Um,
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uh, and seven of which I think were
375
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fatal. And that was at the time we're talking 19 early sixties.
376
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the tourism industry was just, everybody
377
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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
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something about this perceived problem. And
382
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they got their cue from the Australians and they put in nets, It
383
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started off with encounters like rigid cages
384
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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
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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
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the beach. So your probability of being bitten is less.
398
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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
