The Future of Sharks: How Climate Change Threatens Their Survival

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If you like sharks, then you're going to want to see climate change reduced before

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2100. Because there is a new study out that says that if in the worst case

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scenario, if we continue to develop fossil fuels the way we are now, that

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sharks will only hatch at an 11% success rate.

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That means newborn sharks will only have an 11% success

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rate of actually hatching. We're going to talk about why that's important on

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today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Let's start the show.

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Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another exciting episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast. I'm

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your host, Andrew Lewin. And this is a podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how

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you can speak up for the ocean, what you can do to live for a better ocean by

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taking action. And on today's episode, we're going to be talking about

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sharks and why we love sharks so much. We love

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sharks so much because they're interesting. They're mysterious. They kind of scare

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us a little bit, but there's a lot of different species of sharks out

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there. There's over 1200 species of, sharks, skates,

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chimeras, stingrays, whatever you

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want to call your different types of sharks. They're out there. There's over

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1,200. We talk a lot about sharks over on the Beyond Jaws

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podcast that I co-host with Dr. David Ebert, a.k.a. The

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Lost Shark Guy. So if you ever want to hear more about sharks, check out that

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podcast. But really, when it comes down to it, we

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love sharks. And sharks are important to the ecosystem. They're essentially

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a predator, and they pretty much have a good formation

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and form what a food web looks like because they, a

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lot of times, are apex predators. And we need to protect sharks as

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much as possible. We need to make sure that not only are they surviving in

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adulthood, but they're getting to adulthood. And to get to adulthood,

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you have to be able to hatch from their egg

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cases, right? That's what a lot of sharks do. They hatch from egg

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cases. And there's a study that came out that says, hey,

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you know what? the worst temperature gets and the more acidic

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the oceans get, the less we're going to have

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of sharks because they're not going to be able to hatch properly. And so that's a

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problem that we're going to talk about today. Before we do that though, if you're interested

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in news and you want to know more about the ocean news, this is your resource.

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As this podcast, I hope that this is your resource you come to to

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learn about the new studies that are coming out, people that are

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doing them, and just overall how you can protect the

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ocean. That's the name of this podcast. But if you aren't getting enough of that and

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you want more information, you can sign up to our newsletter where

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you get an email every single day of the

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week, during the weekday, of course. Monday to Friday, we send an

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email out, 8 a.m. Eastern, and you get to

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learn more about what's happening in the ocean. You can see what jobs are

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available. and you get to hear about what the latest podcast is,

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for that newsletter, you can do so at speakupforblue.com forward

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slash newsletter. All right, let's get back into

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this. Now this original story was found on fizz.org. I

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found this on The Cooldown. The Cooldown's a great website to

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learn more about climate change. Gotta love

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that. I'll see you And

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her team has found some disturbing data involving oceanic

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warming and acidification that are affecting small spotted

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cat sharks. So these are just one species that they've found. and

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that they did some experiments on, and they looked at some scenarios. And

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so the whole thing is we know

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that extreme weather is here. We're seeing spikes in

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ocean temperature. We're seeing increases

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in pH, meaning if you know the pH scale from 1 to

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about 15, I guess, somewhere around there, normal

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pH of an ocean is about 8.2, 8.3, normally 8.3. As

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it gets less of pH, as the pH decreases,

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we're actually seeing more acidification. So it's getting more acidic. So

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7 is about neutral, anything under that is more acidic. And so when you

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start to see acidic water, you start to see the dissolving

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of anything that's made from calcareous material.

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So you'll see corals start to decay. You'll see

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mollusks like clams and oysters start

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to decay. Mussels start to decay. Scallops start

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to decay. Anything that has a shell, crustaceans such as

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shrimp and such as crabs and lobster, you won't see them grow

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as well because of the acidity in the water.

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The higher the temperature in the atmosphere, the more carbon

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dioxide that comes into the ocean, That carbon dioxide reacts

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with the calcium in the ocean, and there's less

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free calcium for those organisms to pick up,

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and so it becomes hydrocarbic acid, I think? And so

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it becomes more acidic, and then you get acid water,

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and you get less crustaceans, you get less molluscs that have

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shells on them. And that is not good, because those are habitats, right?

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You get less coral reefs as well. Anything that has

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a calcium-based shell, you get less of,

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because it'll slowly start to weather away. It won't be as strong. And

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so what they're saying here is as temperatures increase and as acidity increases

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as well, you are going to get less of

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these types of organisms, including, apparently,

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small-spotted cat sharks. essentially

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study was about, that they said here, the hatching success

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of embryos is crucial factor for population dynamics. In

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the case of skates and sharks, which have a slow pace of life, low

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hatching rates could be critical for population renewal.

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This is Coulombe, the PhD student who shared this article.

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So luckily we've gotten advanced notice about how environmental changes

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due to heat and pollution can affect Not just ocean life, but

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every creature on the planet. So why is this

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information important? Studies have shown that warmer ocean temperatures impair

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cognitive function in fish and abnormally high spikes

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in North Atlantic seas could lead to high mortality rates.

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The NOAA's projections for the year 2100 showed a pH and carbon levels that

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could begin dissolving the shells of crustaceans. So this

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is like lobster, shrimp, crabs, and so forth. Kulo's team

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created several tiered scenarios for the future and

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had, so they basically went from less impact

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to most impact. So SSP2, or middle of the

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road model, which describes a future where progress towards reducing

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pollution is underway. This is what we're hoping to see, but net zero

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isn't achieved just yet. They offered an 83% survival

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rate of the sharks. But if you go to the other extreme, the

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SSP5, or the fossil-fueled development scenario,

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was quite dire. They were shocked to see the low

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survival rate observed in the SSP5 scenario with

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only 11% of embryos hatching. So

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what is the problem with that? You're going to have less sharks. You're going to

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have less small spotted cat sharks, which also could mean

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less sharks of other species of sharks and

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skates and stingrays that have these egg cases. There's

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something in the water when it's acidic that these egg cases don't

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do well. The development is not as good. And

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so we're gonna start to see low development, low survival

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rates, and that's gonna kill off a lot of sharks in the

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future. Now, what can we do? It's really take action against

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climate change. That is the big thing. More research needed on

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figuring out which species will be affected. But other than that, you

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wanna find out how we can reduce climate change. Reducing climate

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change should be the biggest movement

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that we've ever seen. And we're starting to see governments work on that. too

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slow in my opinion, but slowly starting to work on that,

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but they need to do better. They need to start focusing on

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more advanced policies, stricter rules for

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emissions, getting back into policies that

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are positive for the environment, that are positive for the atmosphere, looking

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at equality and equity within action,

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giving back local communities with help, just it's everything.

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We need to throw the book at it. We need to throw everything we have

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and say, hey, you know what? We're going to reduce climate change. We're

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going to reduce climate change as much as possible, as

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fast as we can. And more governments have to act more aggressively. Now,

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it sounds easy to do. But it's not, right? You know this,

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like we've been talking about this for a long time. Climate change is a complex problem

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because there's money tied to it. There's businesses, there's industries

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that are tied to it that contribute to climate change.

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Unfortunately, a lot of those businesses have the backs of

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a lot of politicians who are in power now and will be in power later on.

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We have two major elections coming up in Canada and North America

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or in Canada in the US in the US in November 2024 this

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year There's a huge election for president as well as for

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Congress people and some senators and then of course in

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Canada in 2025 we have a big election federal election of

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who will be the new prime minister or will this that will Trudeau stay

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prime minister now when you look at what

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we're looking at in terms of action for these

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different groups. One party is better than the other in terms of

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taking action. One party doesn't take action at all. So

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it really comes down to do you want to see a future where you have seen

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less change in the environment or do you want to see a future where

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you're going to see a ton of change in the environment, and it's not

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going to be good. It's going to be more expensive, more weather-related events,

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more natural disasters, and a

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lot of money going towards fixing that. And I don't know how we're all going to pay

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for that. We're going to get less services so that we can put our tax money towards

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that. No matter what country you live in, it's going to be bad. It's

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not going to be good. So the ways that you can help according to

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this article, you can get involved in climate issues, talk about

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climate issues, you can support forward-thinking policies, so

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support the people who want to put forward forward-thinking policies

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and do your part in transitioning to cleaner tech. such as EVs,

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solar panels, and whatnot. I even think now they have

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heat exchangers and coolers. There's geothermal that

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can work as well. They're expensive. This tech

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is really expensive. It's very difficult to get if

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you're not in a position to get that. do what you can, get

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involved with your government, get involved with non-profit organizations

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that are working towards changing climate and making

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changes towards reducing climate change is

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what I really meant there. But that's really what it comes down to is,

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you know, if you want to save these sharks, if you want

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to make sure that we are going to see sharks and other species continue

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to persist within the environment. Now, we're also not just talking

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about sharks that sort of, you know, Form aware

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or have influence over a food web, but

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you're also looking at you know Organisms that create

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habitats, you know, some of the most diverse habitats in the

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world, you know You're gonna have coral reefs. You're gonna have oyster reefs

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You're going to have mussels and clams and

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scallops, all that have shells that can form these complex systems,

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these complex habitats that provide hiding places for fish,

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that provide food, that clean up the water through

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filter feeding. There's a lot of benefits in keeping these organisms

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intact and reducing climate change to do that. The

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ocean can only take a certain amount of carbon dioxide before it starts to

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change, and it's already changing. huge spikes

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in temperature that we haven't seen before. And it continues to get hotter

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and hotter in that ocean. You can only do it so much where you're going

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to get a change where you just can't change back. So let's

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do our part. Let's talk about more climate issues. Let's

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start to talk about it with our government representatives or

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future government representatives and become a government representative, especially

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if you're into changing climate. And I think, you know,

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just in the previous episode, we talked to Janelle Kelman,

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who is someone who is very forward-thinking. She's an environmental lawyer.

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She's also was the mayor of Sausalito City in

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California. She now sits on the council. She's running for

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lieutenant governor of California in 2026, where she

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will have influence over policies and programs that

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have to do with the environment, including the ocean. This is

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how you can get in. Lieutenant Governor may not be the spotlight

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position that you'd want in government, but it's something that she can be most effective

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at in the background that she has and the

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motivation that she has to help save our planet, one

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city at a time, one state at a time. I think that's a valuable lesson.

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If you want to listen to that episode, you can go back to the last episode, listen to

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that interview. It was a great interview. She has such great energy, loves

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the ocean, loves the environment, and she wants to protect it.

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And I think that's great. That's what we need, more political leaders who

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do that kind of stuff. And who want to be motivated to

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do that kind of stuff or who are motivated to do that kind of stuff? So check that out and

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of course That's it for today's episode if you want to have a conversation about

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this you want to talk about this Please feel free to visit us on YouTube

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because I'm starting to put out these YouTube channel YouTube video podcasts

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I'm also putting the video on on on

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Spotify where you can actually comment and and or answer polls

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when they're there. It's a great platform. It's

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really turning into such a great platform for podcasting and

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interaction. I love the interaction because this is the start of a conversation that

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I want to continue with hearing from you and what you think. Whether

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you agree with me or don't agree with me, that's fine. I don't really mind.

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I'd love to just chat with you and hear your thoughts on all these

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items, especially, you know, sharks being affected by climate change even

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before they're born. Like that's, that's the crazy part. It's even before they're

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born. So something that you can chat about, you can hit me up also on

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Instagram at how to protect the ocean and you can just DM me

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there, but there's so many ways to get ahold of me. You can use any which

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one you want. Love to hear from you. And thank you so much for joining

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me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host,