Sept. 11, 2024

From Whales to Words: The Role of Environmental Communication in North Atlantic Right Whale Conservation

From Whales to Words: The Role of Environmental Communication in North Atlantic Right Whale Conservation

In this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast, host Andrew Lewin sits down with Marcus Reamer, a PhD candidate at the University of Miami specializing in environmental communication. They delve into the critical role of effective messaging...

In this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast, host Andrew Lewin sits down with Marcus Reamer, a PhD candidate at the University of Miami specializing in environmental communication. They delve into the critical role of effective messaging in conservation efforts, particularly concerning the North Atlantic right whales. The discussion covers the evolution of communication strategies over the last two decades, the impact of media coverage on conservation stories, and the conflicts that can arise in journalism related to environmental issues. Listeners will gain insights into the importance of communication in environmental advocacy and learn how to take action for a better ocean.

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Environmental communication plays a crucial role in raising awareness and understanding of conservation issues, particularly concerning endangered species like the North Atlantic right whale. In a recent podcast episode featuring Marcus Reamer, a PhD candidate at the University of Miami, the complexities of environmental communication and its impact on conservation efforts are explored in depth.

Importance of Environmental Communication

  1. Connecting People to the Ocean: As host Andrew Lewin emphasizes, effective communication is essential for fostering a connection between individuals and the ocean. This responsibility extends beyond scientists and communicators; everyone has a role in sharing knowledge about the ocean and its inhabitants. This grassroots approach can cultivate a community of informed advocates for marine conservation.

  2. Understanding Complex Issues: The episode highlights the intricate challenges surrounding the North Atlantic right whale, including entanglements in fishing gear and shipping traffic. Environmental communication helps distill these complex issues into understandable narratives, enabling the public to grasp their significance and the urgent need for action.

  3. Media's Role in Shaping Perceptions: Marcus discusses his research on media coverage of right whales, noting that the presentation of these stories can significantly influence public perception. For instance, the media often focuses on dramatic events, such as whale deaths or conflicts between conservation efforts and the fishing industry. This can create an "issue attention cycle," where the media highlights problems but may not provide a balanced view of potential solutions or positive developments.

  4. Storytelling as a Tool: The power of storytelling in environmental communication is emphasized throughout the episode. By sharing compelling narratives about the lives of right whales and the efforts to protect them, communicators can engage audiences on an emotional level. This connection can inspire individuals to take action, whether through advocacy, supporting conservation organizations, or altering personal behaviors that impact marine ecosystems.

  5. Diverse Stakeholders: The episode also addresses the various stakeholders involved in the conservation of right whales, including fishermen, conservationists, and policymakers. Effective environmental communication must consider these diverse perspectives to foster dialogue and collaboration. By understanding the interests and concerns of all parties, communicators can help bridge gaps and promote solutions that benefit both the whales and the fishing communities.

  6. Educational Initiatives: Marcus's background in animal care and training underscores the importance of education in environmental communication. By educating the public about marine life and conservation issues, individuals can become more informed advocates. This education can take many forms, from formal programs to informal interactions, all contributing to a broader understanding of the challenges facing endangered species.

Conclusion

In summary, environmental communication is a vital component of conservation efforts, particularly for endangered species like the North Atlantic right whale. By effectively conveying complex issues, utilizing engaging storytelling, and fostering connections among diverse stakeholders, communicators can raise awareness and inspire action. As illustrated in the podcast, the future of marine conservation hinges on our ability to communicate effectively and meaningfully about the challenges and successes of protecting our oceans and their inhabitants.

The Role of Media in North Atlantic Right Whale Conservation

In the podcast episode featuring Marcus Reamer, a PhD candidate studying environmental communication, the discussion delves into the critical role that media plays in the conservation of North Atlantic right whales. The conversation highlights several key aspects of how media coverage influences public perception, policy decisions, and ultimately, the fate of these critically endangered marine mammals.

Historical Context and Media Coverage

The episode outlines a timeline of media coverage regarding North Atlantic right whales, particularly focusing on significant changes over the past two decades. Initially, from 2010 to 2017, coverage was sporadic and often limited to basic updates, such as sightings or warnings from NOAA urging vessels to slow down in areas where right whales were present. This period was characterized by a lack of in-depth reporting or comprehensive narratives surrounding the challenges faced by these whales.

However, the situation shifted dramatically in 2017, a year marked by a series of whale fatalities, particularly in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. This tragic event catalyzed a surge in media attention, leading to what Reamer describes as an "issue attention cycle." This theoretical framework explains how media coverage can fluctuate based on public interest and significant events. As the number of reported deaths increased, so did the media's focus on the plight of the North Atlantic right whale, often dramatizing the conflict between conservation efforts and the fishing industry.

Themes in Media Coverage

Reamer's research involved a content analysis of 13 years of news articles from major U.S. newspapers, revealing several themes in the coverage of right whales. The findings indicated that the media often emphasized the dramatic aspects of the situation, such as entanglements in fishing gear and the contentious debates surrounding fishing regulations. This focus on conflict can shape public perception, leading to polarized views on conservation efforts versus economic interests.

Interestingly, while the media highlighted the challenges and tragedies faced by right whales, there was a noticeable lack of optimistic narratives. Stories about successful conservation efforts, such as the birth of new calves or positive changes in policy, were less frequently reported. This imbalance in coverage can contribute to a sense of hopelessness among the public, potentially diminishing support for conservation initiatives.

The Impact of Documentaries

The episode also discusses the emergence of two documentaries about North Atlantic right whales, which provided an opportunity for deeper exploration of the issue. Reamer conducted a critical examination of these films, analyzing their storytelling techniques and the messages they conveyed. Documentaries can serve as powerful tools for raising awareness and fostering empathy, but they also reflect the complexities of the conservation narrative.

By comparing the two films, Reamer aimed to understand how different approaches to storytelling can influence audience perceptions and engagement with the issue. This aspect of his research underscores the importance of media not just as a source of information, but as a participant in shaping environmental politics and public discourse.

Conclusion

The podcast episode with Marcus Reamer sheds light on the intricate relationship between media coverage and the conservation of North Atlantic right whales. As the media plays a pivotal role in framing the narrative around these endangered animals, it is crucial for journalists and communicators to strive for balanced reporting that includes both the challenges and successes of conservation efforts. By doing so, they can foster a more informed and engaged public, ultimately contributing to the protection and recovery of North Atlantic right whales.

Engaging with diverse stakeholders and understanding their perspectives is essential for effective communication in conservation, as it helps navigate complex issues and fosters a more comprehensive dialogue. This concept is particularly relevant in the context of the North Atlantic right whale conservation efforts discussed in the podcast episode featuring Marcus Reamer.

Importance of Diverse Stakeholder Engagement

  1. Complexity of Issues: The conservation of North Atlantic right whales involves multiple stakeholders, including fishermen, conservationists, policymakers, and the general public. Each group has its own interests, concerns, and knowledge about the whales and their habitats. For instance, lobster fishers may be concerned about regulations that affect their livelihoods, while conservationists focus on the survival of the critically endangered species. Understanding these diverse perspectives is crucial for developing effective communication strategies that address the needs and concerns of all parties involved.

  2. Fostering Comprehensive Dialogue: As Marcus pointed out, communication surrounding right whale conservation is not just about presenting facts; it’s about creating a dialogue that includes all stakeholders. This dialogue can help identify common ground and shared goals, which is essential for collaborative problem-solving. By engaging with various stakeholders, conservationists can better understand the complexities of the issues at hand and work towards solutions that are acceptable to all parties.

  3. Media's Role in Shaping Perspectives: The podcast highlights how media coverage can influence public perception and stakeholder engagement. For example, the issue attention cycle described by Marcus illustrates how media narratives can shift focus from one aspect of conservation to another, often dramatizing conflicts between stakeholders. By analyzing media coverage, conservationists can identify which narratives are being amplified and how they may affect stakeholder perceptions. This understanding can inform more balanced and inclusive communication strategies that consider the viewpoints of all stakeholders.

  4. Empowering Stakeholders: Engaging with diverse stakeholders also empowers them to participate in the conservation dialogue. As Marcus mentioned, individuals who may not be directly involved in conservation efforts, such as local community members, can still have valuable insights and experiences that contribute to the conversation. By including these voices, conservationists can create a more holistic understanding of the challenges and opportunities related to right whale conservation.

  5. Building Trust and Collaboration: Effective communication that includes diverse perspectives helps build trust among stakeholders. When stakeholders feel heard and understood, they are more likely to collaborate on conservation initiatives. This trust is essential for navigating the often contentious issues surrounding conservation, such as fishing regulations and habitat protection.

Conclusion

In summary, engaging with diverse stakeholders and understanding their perspectives is vital for effective communication in conservation. It allows for a more nuanced understanding of complex issues, fosters comprehensive dialogue, and ultimately leads to more effective conservation strategies. As highlighted in the podcast, the case of the North Atlantic right whale serves as a poignant example of how diverse stakeholder engagement can shape the future of conservation efforts.

Transcript
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A big part of conservation is how we get the message

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out when we identify a particular issue or when we identify something that's

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really great in the world of oceans is how do we get that

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message out and what the effect on people who

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are receiving that message is and how all

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the parts that go into putting a message together. And

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I'm really excited today to talk to Marcus Reamer,

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who's a PhD candidate at the University of Miami. He's

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studying environmental communication, especially when it comes down

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to North Atlantic right whales. We're going to be talking about

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all the things that happened over the last two decades in terms of

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communication, the types of communication that happen, especially within

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media around the North Atlantic right whales, And

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it's going to be a lot of fun. We're going to be talking about sort of how journalism, the

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way it could go compared to the way it does go in

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terms of when they cover conservation stories and conflict. So

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we're going to talk about a lot of really cool things. I can't wait for you to listen.

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Let's start the show with Marcus Reamer talking about environmental

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communication. Let's start that show. Hey

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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 the podcast where you find out what's happening with

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the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, and what you can do to

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live for a better ocean by taking action. And

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I have to tell you, I am extremely excited to

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be talking to Marcus Reimer today. Not just because Marcus

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is doing his PhD on environmental communication, which is Something

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that I've always wanted to do or especially lately wanting to do but

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it's and we're just gonna get down and dirty into this

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Topic because communication especially science communication

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is not talked about enough in my opinion I know I like to

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talk about it because something I'm really really interested in but

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it's something that I feel like we all need to learn about because I

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It's not just communicators like Marcus and I that are going to be talking about oceans

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or directors of communications of different organizations,

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but it's going to be you. You and I as just people who

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are interested in protecting the ocean, how we are going to

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get those messages across to our family members, our friends, our

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colleagues, and to make sure that people are thinking and feeling connected

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to that ocean. That is where we

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need to go, not only with this podcast, but a lot of other different types

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of communication styles to get people to really

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understand the significance of protecting the ocean. So

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today, I had Marcus on because I wanted to talk to him

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about doing his PhD. And so we talked about all

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the different types of degrees he has. He has two masters, one PhD, an undergraduate degree,

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of course. And well, he's about to get a PhD, knock on wood.

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Hopefully about to get his PhD in about seven weeks of this recording. But,

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you know, I want to talk about that process, especially when it

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came to environmental communication, his thought process on it. But

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we also like at the end of like the last half of the episode, we really

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talk about communication. We really talk about that focus

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and how there are different stakeholders involved and how maybe in a

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in when an issue comes up like northern northern northern

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Atlantic right whales and like lobster fishers, that

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they're not the only two you know, people involved or organisms

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involved in this conflict. There are other people that are involved that will benefit

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from having these whales around. There are people who benefit

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from fishing with different gear. These are complex issues

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that need to be talked about, but it's really difficult to

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talk about all the complexities to an audience that just wants

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to know, hey, how do we fix this? How do we fix this quickly? It's never quickly, especially

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when it comes to marine science and conservation. And that's what we're going to get into with

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Marcus. Marcus Reamer talking about his

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dissertation and how we can communicate over

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issues such as, you know, the critically endangered and protecting the critically

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endangered Northern Atlantic right whale. We're gonna talk about

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that on this interview. Enjoy the interview and I will talk to

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you after. Hey Marcus, welcome to the How to Protect

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Andrew, I'm always ready to talk about environmental communication. Are

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Oh, I am ready. I've been looking forward to this episode ever since we

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met over LinkedIn. You know, you shared one of your,

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I believe it was one of your chapters of your dissertation that you're currently doing.

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on environmental communications surrounding the oceans. And

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I think the post was, if I remember correct, I've seen a lot of posts since.

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But I think it was about the North Atlantic right whale and

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sort of how communication was done around the management around that. And obviously, we've covered that

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on the podcast. So we're familiar with the situation in terms

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of entanglements and obviously, the critically endangered

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status of these whales and how shipping is related and

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all the challenges that they face. But I've never

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really talked about the communication and how communication plays such an

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important role in not only looking at endangered species, but

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other aspects of the ocean. And it's always

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great when I can connect with somebody who's also in communications,

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who's formally learning about communications at a university. I've just kind

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of flown by the seat of my pants and just kind of done it that way. But

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it's great to see and to be able to engage with somebody who's studying

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it right now and is doing a PhD on it. And

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then when we looked into it, we started talking before we press record, there's a lot of

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stuff to you in terms of like you have two masters, you know,

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you have a Bachelor of Science. And so we're gonna talk

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all about that and sort of like how you see communication fitting

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in, not only for like your career in the future, but just sort of

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in the environmental movement or, you know, whether it has to do with climate change or

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oceans, especially, and where that kind of fits in in the future

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for either yourself as well as just for the the movement in

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general and the conservation in general. So before we get to that, we're

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going to get to know you a little bit. So Marcus, why don't you just let us know who

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Sure. I am currently a PhD candidate at the University

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of Miami's Rosensteil School. I'm in the Department of

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Environmental Science and Policy, and I'm

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an Abbess Fellow at the Abbess Center, which is an interdisciplinary PhD

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program. I'm currently studying the

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role of communication and media in the context of

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whale and dolphin conservation. And that

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won't be true for much longer. Uh, we're recording this today, exactly

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seven weeks before my defense, which is pretty exciting. So

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hopefully by that time, yeah. Yeah. Hopefully

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a couple of months from now, I'll be able to say I am a PhD

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instead of candidate, but I am really fortunate to

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say that I've spent my entire career in ocean conservation.

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I started about 12 years ago in animal care

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and training where I spent a few years where I really found my

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interest in science and environmental communication. When

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I was, you know, talking to visitors from all over the world and

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sharing stories about our animals and how that relates

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to animals out in the ocean and what people can do to

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care for all of them. So, A

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few years into that career, I decided to go back to school. As you mentioned,

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I have a couple of master's degrees. Got my

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master of professional science from the university of Miami in

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marine conservation, where I really started to explore the

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idea of science communication about the ocean and

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graduated after the 2016 election. It was kind of an

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uncertain time for a lot of people and a weird time

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to be searching for a job. So I wanted to expand my skillset. And

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I found a really great program at the University of North Carolina, Chapel

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Hill, uh, in public administration with a focus on

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nonprofit management. So that's where that second master's comes in

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the, around the same time that I started that degree, I

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started working at a job in DC and did those two things together.

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So I've. Since I left animal care

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and training, I've worked in communication capacities for

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organizations like seven seas media. the National Marine Sanctuary

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Foundation outside of DC, and a consulting firm. And

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I also work part-time here at the Rosensteil School, where

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I share my own career story and

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experiences with students in our Master of

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Professional Science program, where I sort

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of help them explore different career paths, sort of like you

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were saying before, for people who

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might not know all that's out there or might want to try different things

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and figure out sort of where they want to land. So help them

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explore career paths and prepare for their required internships

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and postgraduate careers. So lots to

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work with here, but currently a PhD candidate,

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currently helping our master's students in one of our programs across

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14 tracks. And just really grateful to be here today and

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to be able to to share my perspective and

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Yeah. And I love, I just love the beginning of the story too, uh,

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where, you know, you, you're working a little bit and you

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kind of figure out, okay, this is what I really like to do before

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that. Let's like go back a little bit before that. Did you have a

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bachelor of science at that point or an undergrad degree,

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um, before you worked, uh,

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with the sort of the, the communications like the animal communications were the

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So I got my bachelor of arts in psychology, um,

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with, with the intent of working with animals.

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I kind of wanted to live out every four year old's dream and work with marine mammals

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and was really fortunate to land a job, you know,

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right out of college and did that for four or five

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years. So that, that was sort of always the plan was ocean

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animals. I grew up in central Maryland. Uh,

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my. parents own a seafood restaurant. And I remember

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distinctly from a, from a very young age, getting in trouble

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for trying to bring live blue crabs home to keep his pets. Um,

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and we, yeah, we, we traveled a

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lot to the Eastern shore of Maryland and the Delaware beaches. So

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the ocean's really just always been part of my life. And

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when I was eight years old, uh, a family friend, um,

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took me to the national aquarium in Baltimore and we were supposed to

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feed the sharks that day. That tour got canceled and

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I was kind of salty about it. And the backup plan was to

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go meet and interact with one of the dolphins during the show. And

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I can tell you pretty much everything about it to

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this day. So that was my inspiration. I was eight putting

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on the rubber boots and, you know, meeting a dolphin and giving

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hand signals, spelling fish. Um, in front of a stadium

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full of people, which was pretty cool. The dolphin was. Yeah.

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The dolphin was also eight. Her name was Chesapeake. Um, and

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what's really cool. I like that everything. And what's really cool

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is that when I was in animal care and training, I actually went back to

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the national aquarium to work with Chesapeake and her daughter,

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uh, in the Marine mammal pavilion. So it was really cool. Yeah.

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Really cool. Like full circle. That's so cool. the

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same dolphin who inspired me to really

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pursue that career path, who led me to the University of

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Miami to do all of these things. You know, I got to go back and really

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get to know her and see how she had grown as well. So a

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That is so cool. I love that. I love hearing stories

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like that. Now, when you were working at Animal Care,

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and you're telling these stories, and you said you love sharing stories about

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some of these animals to connect with people. We are a storytelling

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species. We like to hear stories. We like to tell stories. What

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about that aspect said, Hey, you know what? I want to

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start looking at more of a communications role within,

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within the oceans or within ocean conservation, because, you

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know, it's not something a lot of people think of right off the bat. Like I know for

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me to start doing podcasting, it kind of came around around

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and about way. Um, but what was it for you that said, Hey,

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I think it was two things. I, like I said, I was

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really fortunate to just land that dream job straight out

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of college. So I started really early. I worked down in the keys, um,

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went and worked in, in Baltimore, had this full circle moment and

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was really saying, is this something I can imagine myself doing for, you

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know, 30 or more years. And, you

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know, a lot of internal dialogue on that one, but at that

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same time, you know, I met some really incredible people

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from all over the world who had an interest in

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not only the animals in our care, but the animals out in

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the ocean as well. And being able to, you

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know, teach people the most basic things. Dolphins

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are not fish, they're mammals, right? Right. I'm an ocean expert.

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You're knowledgeable about the ocean, right? But there are just a lot of

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people who don't know things that feel very

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simple. So being able to, to empower people. Um,

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with knowledge and they, they leave more educated than they

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arrived with was really inspiring, but really it

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was those more individual interactions,

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whether it was kids during a poolside meet and greet who

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I saw a lot of my eight year old self in them and saw that, that

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twinkle in their eye or. if it was kids

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from Baltimore City Public Schools coming in for straight

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A night, if they wouldn't otherwise be able to come to

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the aquarium and show them dolphins and really share my

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love with them through story. And so sort

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of as I got to the tail end and I was saying, is this something that I could do

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for another few decades? Like what does growth look

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like? I'm a person who really loves to learn and explore and challenge

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myself. Every day working with animals is an

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adventure. Um, but thinking about that fulfillment, I

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was like, you know what? I'm a storyteller. I

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have, you know, use the animals that were either

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behind me or in front of me or next to me, wherever I was sort of

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standing in that amphitheater to inspire people to

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care a little bit more about the ocean than, than when they woke up that day.

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So that's when I was like, you know what? I kind of want to go back

238
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to school and I want to start exploring science

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and environmental communication, whatever that means. Yeah,

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so it was sort of those two things converging and it

241
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So was it difficult finding a pro you went back. Is that where you went back to?

242
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I went back to Miami for that one. They have a master of professional science program.

243
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So it's okay. Um, it's You it's

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kind of a choose your own adventure you write and treat it like a traditional master

245
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of science where you complete a hypothesis based research

246
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project or you can do more professional based non

247
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hypothesis work. And so I enrolled

248
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in the marine conservation program, which is very flexible and sort

249
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of took coursework that I would have never really thought to take during

250
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my undergrad years. Of course, I threw a bunch of marine mammal classes in

251
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there. to feed my passion for that and

252
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was able to explore science communication through

253
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my project, which I did with Seven Seas Media,

254
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which at that time was called Seven Seas Marine Conservation and

255
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Travel Magazine. Yeah.

256
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So sort of charted my own

257
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course there, but had the kind

258
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of expert support that I needed in our faculty to

259
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really work through that knowing that I was

260
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Right, right. There's a lot of more hands-on communication

261
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roles too, right? I mean, that's what I think that's what it provided. It

262
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was like that professional science, like let's get, I

263
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love these programs. I feel like programs like this, we don't advertise

264
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enough. I think people think that if you want to go into marine

265
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conservation, I've seen this a lot where people are trying to, you know, they work for

266
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a bit, they may not have thought about going into marine biology or

267
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marine conservation, and then all of a sudden they're like, I really like this, it's

268
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really fulfilling, and they're not getting the fulfillment in the current, you

269
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know, stream that they're at. So they kind of come back like, well, I

270
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need to become a marine biologist now. And I always tell them, like, you don't necessarily need to

271
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become a marine biologist. You might be able to take the degree that you have. and

272
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then use that to get into a master's of professional

273
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science or something similar at a different university and just

274
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to be like, hey, this is what I can use now. And you don't have to go back

275
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to do another four-year degree to restart. And

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that's expensive, one. Plus, it may not give you

277
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what you want. It may not give you what you like. There's a lot of us who've gone through the

278
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science program that don't end up in science all the time. And so

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I think for a lot of people, These

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programs are really ideal. And I know the

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Master of Professional Science has been a huge hit in University

282
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of Miami. So that's always great to

283
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hear. Now, coming out of that, that was right before the

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Right after. I graduated December 2016. So right

285
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in the aftermath, when everybody was sort of wondering

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Yeah, because we knew at that point, you know, Trump became president.

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He wasn't the most, the administration wasn't, I'll

288
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say this politely, the most environmentally focused. Let's just

289
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say a lot of environmental programs federally got cut and

290
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funding as well got cut, which put a damper on a lot of

291
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environmental organizations and their ability to hire. ability

292
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to do projects and so forth. So you decided to go back for

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that masters of, uh, I believe it

294
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was, it was at Chapel Hill, the public administration. So

295
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you kind of saw like a different skillset that you might be able to use in

296
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I think it's a great point. And I should say that the

297
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last quarter of every year can be a challenging time

298
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to look for a job, right? Because, you know, end

299
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of budget year, people are taking off for the holidays. It

300
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doesn't really start back until January. So that compounded with

301
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waiting for the new president elect to take office

302
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and see what was going to happen, you know, made

303
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it a bit of a challenging job search. And one

304
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of the things that I knew I wanted to do was work for nonprofit organizations.

305
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What were the skills that I did not. get coursework in

306
00:19:08,812 --> 00:19:12,396
during my professional science master's degree. There were courses that

307
00:19:12,436 --> 00:19:15,879
just weren't offered when I was there that had previously been

308
00:19:15,919 --> 00:19:19,122
offered things like grant writing or leadership. And

309
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so I was like, you know what, if I'm going to be looking for

310
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a job anyway, let's see about gaining some new skills

311
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and really focusing on the nuts

312
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and bolts of being not just a good employee, but

313
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you know, somebody who could lead organizations or understand organizations

314
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and be a really effective team member wherever I ended up. And

315
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so I thought I was applying to a certificate program.

316
00:19:47,483 --> 00:19:51,424
It ended up being an online master's program. So happy accident there

317
00:19:51,544 --> 00:19:54,746
as Bob Ross would call it. Um, at

318
00:19:54,786 --> 00:19:58,467
around the same time that I was accepted, uh, which

319
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I guess was March of that year. I had found my job at

320
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the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation and I started those two things about

321
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the same time. So it was really cool to step into

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a new job, which is a senior level role under new

323
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leadership, lots of big challenges to tackle, and

324
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then also sort of learn about those things through

325
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this public administration program and apply them as I went. So

326
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just a really, really incredible secondary experience.

327
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I'm so grateful for that. opportunity.

328
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And while it was an online program, you know, Chapel Hill's just so good

329
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at what they do on that front. I was able to go to the campus, uh,

330
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two years in a row for what are called immersions and it's online in-person

331
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students. We all come together for special topics and it was just a

332
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really special experience. Yeah. So I call that like

333
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the third leg of my three legged stool. I've got the science, I've

334
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got the communication and then I've got that sort of, um,

335
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an organizational management or administration skillset. Because

336
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one of the things that I often tell students or people that

337
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I mentor, no matter what you want to do, you're going to work

338
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for an organization or with other people. Even if you want to

339
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be a consultant and work for yourself, even if you want to

340
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be quote unquote, just a shark scientist off on

341
00:21:19,632 --> 00:21:23,154
a remote Island somewhere, you're gonna, be

342
00:21:23,194 --> 00:21:26,516
affiliated with an organization. So you should understand what they

343
00:21:26,656 --> 00:21:29,858
are, how they work effectively, and how you fit into all

344
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that. So I was really grateful for that experience as

345
00:21:35,081 --> 00:21:38,448
Yeah. This is something I've been discovering even recently. I

346
00:21:39,549 --> 00:21:42,971
just turned 46 and over this past

347
00:21:43,051 --> 00:21:46,512
year I've discovered there's a lot of jobs

348
00:21:46,592 --> 00:21:50,334
where they're like program coordinators or program managers

349
00:21:50,414 --> 00:21:53,676
and this and that. And you require a skill set

350
00:21:53,696 --> 00:21:57,318
that you may not learn in university through like a marine biology

351
00:21:57,338 --> 00:22:00,600
degree, maybe in the professional science, depending on the track that you use,

352
00:22:01,340 --> 00:22:04,941
But it's not easy to find a program that

353
00:22:04,981 --> 00:22:08,602
has, it's a pretty diverse set of skills that

354
00:22:08,622 --> 00:22:13,444
you can develop. So having something like in public administration or non-profit

355
00:22:13,684 --> 00:22:17,065
work or something like that, that you can gain that experience is

356
00:22:17,105 --> 00:22:20,866
really great. Project management experience is so helpful.

357
00:22:20,886 --> 00:22:24,207
It just keeps you organized. It allows you to have maybe

358
00:22:24,247 --> 00:22:27,468
those senior type roles, managers, supervisors and so forth.

359
00:22:27,488 --> 00:22:31,136
So it must have been great to be able to learn that alongside that Marine Sanctuary

360
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program because you're just basically like, here's what I'm learning and

361
00:22:34,439 --> 00:22:37,702
here's how I'm applying it. I'm already applying in real time and I

362
00:22:37,722 --> 00:22:41,345
think that's such a, like you said, enriching

363
00:22:41,425 --> 00:22:44,567
experience. You don't get that often. It couldn't have

364
00:22:44,587 --> 00:22:48,250
been easy to do though, like work a full-time job and then do an online

365
00:22:53,394 --> 00:22:56,968
Carefully. I'm really thankful

366
00:22:57,008 --> 00:23:00,753
that, you know, my boss at the sanctuary foundation was super supportive

367
00:23:01,554 --> 00:23:05,138
and, you know, the program was designed

368
00:23:05,239 --> 00:23:08,603
for working professionals that online format is really for.

369
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people who either have a job or, you know, are in

370
00:23:12,729 --> 00:23:16,570
the middle of their search. And so it's a lot of evening coursework, asynchronous.

371
00:23:16,610 --> 00:23:20,351
So I would be watching my asynchronous lectures. I

372
00:23:20,391 --> 00:23:23,552
shouldn't say watching because I was listening to them, you know, on

373
00:23:23,572 --> 00:23:27,013
my commute into work, for example, right. You know,

374
00:23:27,093 --> 00:23:30,694
so, so carefully, but, um, the

375
00:23:30,734 --> 00:23:34,175
really cool thing was that like, In

376
00:23:34,195 --> 00:23:37,818
my master of professional science experience, I was around a

377
00:23:37,858 --> 00:23:41,840
lot of really knowledgeable and really exciting people who were tackling diverse

378
00:23:41,880 --> 00:23:45,523
topics in ocean science, conservation, you know,

379
00:23:46,443 --> 00:23:49,926
all kinds of stuff like that. The master of professional science, it's

380
00:23:49,946 --> 00:23:53,388
just so much broader because local government, there

381
00:23:53,408 --> 00:23:57,211
are thousands of them in the U S right. So people

382
00:23:57,251 --> 00:24:01,675
working on veterans issues and human health and housing I

383
00:24:01,715 --> 00:24:05,038
could learn new perspectives and apply it to my own work

384
00:24:05,598 --> 00:24:09,261
in a really different way that I didn't get in the professional science. So

385
00:24:09,421 --> 00:24:12,524
in that experience where I brought the communications interests and had to

386
00:24:12,544 --> 00:24:15,906
figure out how to work with that in public administration, I

387
00:24:15,966 --> 00:24:19,249
brought the environmental science and had to figure out sort of how

388
00:24:19,289 --> 00:24:22,632
that fits with what we were talking about. And my

389
00:24:22,692 --> 00:24:26,174
colleagues were so diverse and just so interesting that

390
00:24:26,294 --> 00:24:29,681
it never really felt like. Work. So it didn't feel like

391
00:24:29,701 --> 00:24:33,283
an extra lift because I found it exciting. And

392
00:24:33,483 --> 00:24:38,927
fun. So while it was, you know, finals

393
00:24:38,947 --> 00:24:42,509
week was never fun for anybody, but it was that combo of, of

394
00:24:42,529 --> 00:24:46,632
enjoying it and just having a really supportive, uh, employer

395
00:24:46,812 --> 00:24:50,174
and, and team and just a program that was run really,

396
00:24:50,234 --> 00:24:53,657
really well allowed me to thrive. And I credit

397
00:24:53,737 --> 00:24:57,847
a lot of my success to that program. As well, because it

398
00:24:57,907 --> 00:25:01,110
informed a lot of my, my work moving forward into the PhD and

399
00:25:04,955 --> 00:25:08,275
Awesome. That's great to hear. And so that's what so that's what made you

400
00:25:08,716 --> 00:25:12,358
do the PhD. So my next question, you

401
00:25:12,398 --> 00:25:15,821
know, going back to University of Miami to do the PhD, why there?

402
00:25:17,182 --> 00:25:20,444
And and again, going into communications, like what

403
00:25:20,584 --> 00:25:23,827
did you have the idea of what you want to do going into the

404
00:25:23,887 --> 00:25:27,049
PhD? Or was this something you had an idea of who you want

405
00:25:31,032 --> 00:25:34,773
It's an interesting question, because I My parents bring

406
00:25:34,793 --> 00:25:37,915
this up all the time. I said, I would never go to graduate school. And then I

407
00:25:37,975 --> 00:25:41,098
went and then I went again and then I went a

408
00:25:41,278 --> 00:25:45,261
third time. So it's sort

409
00:25:45,321 --> 00:25:48,544
of been, it's evolved as we've gone, I should

410
00:25:48,584 --> 00:25:51,706
say, but, um, you know, coming out

411
00:25:51,766 --> 00:25:55,489
of the public administration program, I was

412
00:25:55,509 --> 00:25:58,772
like, man, I still just don't quite feel finished. And the things that

413
00:25:58,792 --> 00:26:02,074
I was seeing, I was the communications director for the sanctuary foundation. I

414
00:26:02,094 --> 00:26:05,669
had. you know, just an incredible

415
00:26:05,749 --> 00:26:09,031
front row seat to what was going on in ocean science

416
00:26:09,071 --> 00:26:12,473
and conservation across the country. At the time there were 14 sites

417
00:26:13,094 --> 00:26:16,996
from American Samoa to the Florida Keys to Massachusetts,

418
00:26:17,717 --> 00:26:21,059
different communities, you know, different topics. I could be talking about

419
00:26:21,079 --> 00:26:25,762
whales in one meeting and then shipwrecks in another, working

420
00:26:26,302 --> 00:26:29,825
to support fundraising, talking about grants we were making.

421
00:26:29,965 --> 00:26:33,007
So just that incredible diversity of topics that I

422
00:26:33,047 --> 00:26:36,279
could talk about. was really fulfilling to me. But,

423
00:26:36,439 --> 00:26:40,982
um, I think it was in that role that I was really just noticing this

424
00:26:41,162 --> 00:26:45,366
gap between ocean communication and

425
00:26:45,806 --> 00:26:49,249
terrestrial conservation communication, climate communication. And

426
00:26:50,750 --> 00:26:54,493
that really inspired me to, to pause and be like, you

427
00:26:54,533 --> 00:26:57,795
know, I'm thinking about a PhD. I think I

428
00:26:57,815 --> 00:27:01,018
would want it to be about ocean communication and really how that

429
00:27:01,158 --> 00:27:04,850
fits The ocean conservation movement,

430
00:27:04,890 --> 00:27:08,233
and this was before the UN ocean decade and things like that.

431
00:27:08,933 --> 00:27:12,336
So I was like, you know what? Let's just try and let's

432
00:27:12,376 --> 00:27:15,739
find a program that's interdisciplinary and lets people get

433
00:27:15,859 --> 00:27:19,542
weird with what they want to try out. And I

434
00:27:19,622 --> 00:27:23,346
didn't have to look much further than the university of Miami for the

435
00:27:23,386 --> 00:27:27,149
program here at our Abbott center for ecosystem science and policy. It's.

436
00:27:28,405 --> 00:27:31,608
a little bit different from a traditional PhD because you don't have

437
00:27:31,648 --> 00:27:35,210
to work with any one faculty member in a particular school

438
00:27:35,411 --> 00:27:38,833
or college. So ending up there was

439
00:27:38,873 --> 00:27:41,976
definitely a match. I was familiar with the university and with the

440
00:27:42,016 --> 00:27:45,398
Rosensteil school already. And so I was able

441
00:27:45,498 --> 00:27:48,721
to come back and jump right in.

442
00:27:49,001 --> 00:27:52,944
So I didn't go in with this proposal to do communication

443
00:27:52,984 --> 00:27:57,214
and media about right whales, but it sort of just naturally fell

444
00:27:57,254 --> 00:28:00,376
into place because I started six months before COVID. I had

445
00:28:00,396 --> 00:28:03,558
these big dreams to go out and do community engaged work and,

446
00:28:04,479 --> 00:28:07,561
and tackle all these topics. Wanted to work on some of this stuff with the

447
00:28:07,581 --> 00:28:11,103
Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary expansion. And,

448
00:28:11,123 --> 00:28:14,385
and a lot of that got just curbed by

449
00:28:14,565 --> 00:28:17,928
COVID and we obviously had to adjust

450
00:28:18,008 --> 00:28:21,730
course. And I give all the credit in the world to my co-advisors who

451
00:28:21,750 --> 00:28:25,472
were so patient during that time. When I was like, well, can't

452
00:28:25,492 --> 00:28:28,755
go out and do that. So what are we going to do instead? Here's a million bad

453
00:28:28,835 --> 00:28:31,917
ideas that I'm just throwing out. You

454
00:28:31,937 --> 00:28:35,499
know, what do we think could work? So I

455
00:28:35,900 --> 00:28:39,382
not only came into the PhD with an open mind

456
00:28:39,843 --> 00:28:43,745
and an open question, but the world

457
00:28:43,825 --> 00:28:47,668
altering sort of change that was COVID also

458
00:28:48,069 --> 00:28:51,331
forced me to think on my feet and brought me

459
00:28:53,404 --> 00:28:57,187
Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, that's great. Like, the

460
00:28:57,327 --> 00:29:00,791
one interesting, I mean, there were a lot of interesting things that happened during

461
00:29:00,831 --> 00:29:03,893
COVID with with graduate students, some good, some bad, you

462
00:29:03,933 --> 00:29:07,456
know, a lot of people had to pivot and switch the focus of

463
00:29:07,556 --> 00:29:11,019
their, you know, some people couldn't do fieldwork anymore.

464
00:29:11,240 --> 00:29:14,482
So they had to, you know, take the data they had and make the best of what they

465
00:29:14,522 --> 00:29:17,745
could and maybe elaborate on some of the things or

466
00:29:17,885 --> 00:29:21,693
like I said, pivot on in ways

467
00:29:21,733 --> 00:29:26,331
that they never thought of before. you

468
00:29:26,351 --> 00:29:30,374
definitely built the skill set as a graduate student during COVID, where

469
00:29:30,414 --> 00:29:33,616
you had to be really resilient. And I'm sure it tested the

470
00:29:33,676 --> 00:29:37,979
mind body with all of that. So

471
00:29:38,620 --> 00:29:42,842
what did you decide when you did your PhD, as

472
00:29:42,882 --> 00:29:47,065
that changed where you couldn't do as much community engagement, if at all,

473
00:29:47,245 --> 00:29:50,748
what line did you wanna go towards? Like what line did you wanna follow?

474
00:29:54,792 --> 00:29:59,553
Yeah. Well, and I shouldn't call them bad ideas, but when

475
00:29:59,573 --> 00:30:02,854
you brainstorm, there's just so much that ends up on the cutting room floor. And

476
00:30:02,894 --> 00:30:06,315
that's, if I looked back at my idea sheets

477
00:30:06,675 --> 00:30:09,935
from year one versus now, I would wonder what

478
00:30:09,955 --> 00:30:13,596
the heck I was thinking. But, um, I think that's all

479
00:30:13,616 --> 00:30:18,092
of us when we look back at our past work. So One,

480
00:30:18,452 --> 00:30:21,994
you know, the fact that I had the experience as an online student

481
00:30:22,155 --> 00:30:25,797
at UNC really helped me learn

482
00:30:25,837 --> 00:30:29,519
to work effectively online and in a virtual environment. So.

483
00:30:30,439 --> 00:30:33,961
That's when I said, you know, it's at least for the foreseeable future,

484
00:30:33,981 --> 00:30:37,663
we're going to need to look into things

485
00:30:37,683 --> 00:30:41,805
that don't require interacting with people. So what is that exploring media,

486
00:30:41,825 --> 00:30:45,767
um, whatever that looks like. And. you

487
00:30:45,807 --> 00:30:48,969
know, I tried my hardest coming into this PhD to, to try

488
00:30:48,989 --> 00:30:52,951
to branch out and do other topics and whales

489
00:30:53,011 --> 00:30:56,232
and dolphins, they always just call back to me. And so I was like, you know what?

490
00:30:56,752 --> 00:31:00,114
Well, in dolphin conservation, my advisor at

491
00:31:00,154 --> 00:31:03,936
the time agreed. She said, this is your wheelhouse. There's

492
00:31:04,016 --> 00:31:08,018
no need to try to branch outside that. So let's just follow that where

493
00:31:08,038 --> 00:31:12,040
you think it'll lead. And around that same time, two documentaries

494
00:31:12,080 --> 00:31:16,104
came out about right whales. And I said, well, This

495
00:31:16,184 --> 00:31:19,366
is ripe. This is prime for, for the exploring. And

496
00:31:19,406 --> 00:31:22,687
this is the kind of work that we can do. This is something that's

497
00:31:22,747 --> 00:31:25,989
timely. It's. You know, not around

498
00:31:26,049 --> 00:31:29,511
people. So what if we did right whales? Yeah. And

499
00:31:29,931 --> 00:31:33,012
that's sort of how we ended up on that one. I had been familiar with it.

500
00:31:33,433 --> 00:31:37,034
Right. Um, done, obviously learned

501
00:31:37,074 --> 00:31:40,696
about it in courses, done projects. I did like my

502
00:31:40,816 --> 00:31:44,028
GIS course in. Uh, the MPS program, I

503
00:31:44,228 --> 00:31:48,429
did a paper about right whales, um, supported

504
00:31:48,489 --> 00:31:51,930
some of that work, uh, while I was with the sanctuary foundation. And

505
00:31:51,990 --> 00:31:55,431
I was like, this is where we'll land. I think we can do something pretty

506
00:31:55,531 --> 00:31:59,212
interesting with this and look at right whale conservation from

507
00:31:59,252 --> 00:32:03,133
a different angle, which also kept

508
00:32:03,213 --> 00:32:07,134
me motivated going back to what you said about needing resilience

509
00:32:07,575 --> 00:32:10,708
and, you know, to be able to make it through a

510
00:32:10,748 --> 00:32:13,930
graduate program, that was something that was gonna keep my attention and keep

511
00:32:13,950 --> 00:32:18,792
me motivated, not all day, every day. Having

512
00:32:18,832 --> 00:32:23,394
an interest and feeling like I was doing something interesting definitely

513
00:32:23,434 --> 00:32:27,295
helped. So that's how we landed on Right Whale Communication, Right

514
00:32:30,257 --> 00:32:33,618
Yeah, not communicating with Right Whales, like talking to

515
00:32:33,638 --> 00:32:37,019
them or getting there, it's about the media. And

516
00:32:37,059 --> 00:32:40,384
to be honest, There were

517
00:32:40,404 --> 00:32:44,129
a lot of things that went on, not only in the past, but even during COVID in

518
00:32:44,189 --> 00:32:47,394
regards to North Atlantic right whales. I mean, we've seen

519
00:32:47,434 --> 00:32:50,618
like in the early 2000s, they weren't critically endangered or

520
00:32:50,659 --> 00:32:54,484
maybe even before that. Then all of a sudden they plummeted. and

521
00:32:54,504 --> 00:32:58,808
then you know there was that disastrous year of fatalities

522
00:32:59,609 --> 00:33:03,132
in it was 2017 where they started to come up to the Gulf of

523
00:33:03,172 --> 00:33:06,456
St. Lawrence here in Canada. There's been a lot of stuff

524
00:33:06,476 --> 00:33:09,939
that went on pre-COVID but even with COVID during COVID

525
00:33:09,979 --> 00:33:13,303
even up to like last year there were a lot of things going on

526
00:33:13,343 --> 00:33:17,086
especially around A lot of the sustainable

527
00:33:17,186 --> 00:33:22,030
seafood programs that were supporting lobster

528
00:33:22,070 --> 00:33:25,553
fishing and crab fishing and shrimp fishing and anything

529
00:33:25,593 --> 00:33:29,016
that had to do with a pot that was on the ground and

530
00:33:29,036 --> 00:33:33,120
a line that would go up where these whales

531
00:33:33,440 --> 00:33:36,562
would swim through because they couldn't see it and then they would end up

532
00:33:36,602 --> 00:33:40,025
getting hurt. you know, could die of infection or what

533
00:33:40,065 --> 00:33:43,528
have you. Plus, you know, shipping channels and so forth. With

534
00:33:43,588 --> 00:33:47,611
climate change kind of rearing its ugly head, especially nowadays, and

535
00:33:47,691 --> 00:33:51,715
seeing the different patterns that we're seeing of distribution

536
00:33:51,835 --> 00:33:55,238
with North Atlantic right whales, it wasn't a bad time to

537
00:33:55,258 --> 00:33:58,429
start looking at how The media was

538
00:33:58,549 --> 00:34:02,532
portraying this from a conservation standpoint

539
00:34:02,572 --> 00:34:05,974
as well as probably from a bit of a controversial standpoint with

540
00:34:06,535 --> 00:34:09,877
how different organizations and governments were taking a

541
00:34:09,937 --> 00:34:13,139
stance on protecting these animals from

542
00:34:13,179 --> 00:34:16,962
a fisheries perspective as well as from a conservation perspective. So there's

543
00:34:16,982 --> 00:34:20,868
a lot that was going on. in the last 20 years or

544
00:34:20,908 --> 00:34:24,869
more, 24 years, to say, hey, there's a lot that

545
00:34:24,909 --> 00:34:28,370
you can go here. Now, when you look at media, were you looking at how

546
00:34:28,410 --> 00:34:31,751
the media was portraying, like looking at the different sides? And if there's one

547
00:34:32,211 --> 00:34:35,532
that was being more biased towards one way or another,

548
00:34:35,552 --> 00:34:39,653
like the conservation or not, what was the question

549
00:34:44,174 --> 00:34:47,669
There's a lot there. So maybe what

550
00:34:47,689 --> 00:34:50,890
I'll do, I'll, I'll. Walk you through the sort of order of my

551
00:34:50,930 --> 00:34:54,391
dissertation projects and we can follow the thread lines

552
00:34:54,451 --> 00:34:57,551
that we're interested in. So the

553
00:34:57,611 --> 00:35:00,932
first paper as part of the core of my,

554
00:35:01,272 --> 00:35:04,973
my body of research right now is not actually about communication

555
00:35:05,113 --> 00:35:08,514
or media, but it was a really important chapter. And

556
00:35:08,554 --> 00:35:11,954
that was a law and policy case study related to

557
00:35:11,974 --> 00:35:15,689
the Eastern North Pacific gray whale. And I chose that. That

558
00:35:15,709 --> 00:35:19,250
was a project that I started looking into while I was a master's student.

559
00:35:19,810 --> 00:35:23,731
And it, it's a really incredible conservation story

560
00:35:23,771 --> 00:35:26,912
because that was the first marine mammal ever removed from the

561
00:35:26,992 --> 00:35:30,893
U S endangered species list for a successful recovery rather

562
00:35:30,933 --> 00:35:34,954
than extinction. And that was done in 1994. And

563
00:35:34,994 --> 00:35:38,214
so what I did with that paper was look at this sort of

564
00:35:38,355 --> 00:35:42,055
historic context of how we went from industrial

565
00:35:42,115 --> 00:35:45,859
whaling, where we decimated nearly all whale stocks globally

566
00:35:46,559 --> 00:35:50,863
to a place where whales are almost celebrities out

567
00:35:50,883 --> 00:35:54,445
in the ocean. And so really looked at the law and policy

568
00:35:54,485 --> 00:35:58,388
decisions, the cultural movement, the,

569
00:35:59,789 --> 00:36:03,051
I should say movements that took place over a span of

570
00:36:03,111 --> 00:36:06,334
about 40 years. And then the law and

571
00:36:06,394 --> 00:36:10,477
policy framework under which we were able to help

572
00:36:11,077 --> 00:36:14,738
that population of gray whales not only recover but thrive

573
00:36:14,938 --> 00:36:18,779
where they're now in these sort of boom and bust cycles. So

574
00:36:19,399 --> 00:36:22,760
walking through that helped me explore the complexities of

575
00:36:22,840 --> 00:36:26,081
marine mammal conservation and management, not just

576
00:36:26,901 --> 00:36:31,002
under us law, but under international law and all these different agreements.

577
00:36:31,822 --> 00:36:35,423
And it introduced me to some of the cultural movements and the conservation

578
00:36:35,503 --> 00:36:38,824
marketing that helped whales become those celebrities they

579
00:36:38,924 --> 00:36:42,085
are today. And that actually has come up

580
00:36:42,665 --> 00:36:46,062
in. Subsequent projects. So

581
00:36:46,623 --> 00:36:49,786
that was chapter 1. It's really chapter 2, but

582
00:36:50,086 --> 00:36:53,289
the 1st project, you know, law and policy case study. We

583
00:36:53,329 --> 00:36:56,832
did it before. Can we do it again with the same laws, the

584
00:36:56,913 --> 00:37:00,356
same frameworks. For animals, like the right whale, the

585
00:37:00,396 --> 00:37:03,759
rice's whale, other endangered species. And

586
00:37:03,779 --> 00:37:07,303
then I moved on. to the next project, which

587
00:37:07,403 --> 00:37:11,064
was a content analysis of whale watching operator

588
00:37:11,104 --> 00:37:14,646
websites in the U S. And if

589
00:37:14,706 --> 00:37:18,008
I were to ask you what you thought environmental media was, you

590
00:37:18,028 --> 00:37:22,089
would probably say things like documentaries, uh, presentations,

591
00:37:22,169 --> 00:37:25,371
displays of zoos and aquariums. You probably wouldn't go

592
00:37:25,471 --> 00:37:29,533
for a whale watching operator website, but.

593
00:37:30,853 --> 00:37:34,335
You know, coming out of the whaling era when whale watching

594
00:37:35,181 --> 00:37:38,564
really blew up and we, as a global

595
00:37:38,604 --> 00:37:42,087
community, on the whole changed the way that we consume

596
00:37:42,107 --> 00:37:45,529
whales from, for meat and oil and, you

597
00:37:45,569 --> 00:37:49,312
know, other materials to visual experience

598
00:37:49,372 --> 00:37:52,595
and consuming them for, you know, that spectacle of

599
00:37:52,715 --> 00:37:55,957
nature. You know, whale watching is

600
00:37:56,197 --> 00:37:59,480
one of the only ways that most people will ever experience these

601
00:37:59,620 --> 00:38:03,348
animals in their habitat for real. Right. And

602
00:38:03,628 --> 00:38:07,071
the messaging that we receive from things like

603
00:38:07,272 --> 00:38:10,695
advertisements. Interact with things

604
00:38:10,975 --> 00:38:14,158
like podcasts or, you know, science talks that

605
00:38:14,198 --> 00:38:17,762
we go to, or, you know, um, exhibits that

606
00:38:17,782 --> 00:38:20,945
we engage with at aquariums to create meaning about what

607
00:38:21,005 --> 00:38:24,368
whales are and what their plight is. So

608
00:38:24,388 --> 00:38:28,029
we looked at. Whale watching operator websites, uh,

609
00:38:28,169 --> 00:38:31,570
in six regions. So Massachusetts, Northern

610
00:38:31,611 --> 00:38:35,492
Southern California, Washington state, Hawaii,

611
00:38:35,852 --> 00:38:39,114
and Alaska. And really just wanted

612
00:38:39,154 --> 00:38:42,495
to understand what is it that whale watching operators are selling

613
00:38:42,535 --> 00:38:45,977
to people during that pre-tour experience? What are the expectations they're

614
00:38:45,997 --> 00:38:49,298
creating and what do people think they're buying? Right.

615
00:38:49,398 --> 00:38:52,639
And, and that's a really important. thing to

616
00:38:52,719 --> 00:38:55,922
consider because we don't always actively engage with

617
00:38:55,982 --> 00:38:59,125
environmental media, but we experience environmental messages in

618
00:38:59,165 --> 00:39:02,568
passing all the time. It's almost like a pinball machine

619
00:39:02,608 --> 00:39:06,352
where we're sort of just bouncing around. You

620
00:39:06,372 --> 00:39:09,534
know, even Lisa Frank drawings of whales and dolphins like

621
00:39:09,574 --> 00:39:13,037
that help shape the things that we think

622
00:39:13,078 --> 00:39:16,755
they are and what those animals mean. So

623
00:39:17,395 --> 00:39:21,337
looked into whale watching operator websites, and Massachusetts

624
00:39:21,357 --> 00:39:25,999
was obviously one of the focal areas. And they, on

625
00:39:26,039 --> 00:39:29,400
the whole, promote right whales

626
00:39:29,480 --> 00:39:33,021
as one of the top species that you can see for the operators

627
00:39:33,101 --> 00:39:36,503
who listed specific species. So

628
00:39:36,983 --> 00:39:40,222
they're obviously something of interest up there. We

629
00:39:40,262 --> 00:39:44,044
didn't really see, you know, specific right

630
00:39:44,104 --> 00:39:47,826
whale tours, but they were mentioned fairly frequently. So they're

631
00:39:47,846 --> 00:39:51,508
at least known and something that people want to see. So

632
00:39:51,548 --> 00:39:54,670
that sort of told us what operators were focusing on.

633
00:39:54,870 --> 00:39:58,152
It's what we found was that it's more about the things that

634
00:39:58,172 --> 00:40:01,394
they can control. Are there bathrooms on board? Are you going

635
00:40:01,414 --> 00:40:04,655
to be able to learn if you want to? Who's the captain and what's

636
00:40:04,715 --> 00:40:08,102
the boat? Can you bring food? Um, and

637
00:40:08,142 --> 00:40:11,785
conservation and education, we're a little bit lower on the list of.

638
00:40:12,425 --> 00:40:15,787
Priorities, you know, and we saw lots of

639
00:40:16,628 --> 00:40:20,330
stereotypic images, what we call the whale watching imaginary. So

640
00:40:20,770 --> 00:40:24,373
the imagery is pretty standard across regions and across websites. You've

641
00:40:24,413 --> 00:40:27,575
got whale jumping on a whale jumping on

642
00:40:27,615 --> 00:40:31,337
a scenic backdrop, whale tail, um, people

643
00:40:31,537 --> 00:40:34,740
leaning over the side of the boat with their cameras to take pictures of

644
00:40:34,780 --> 00:40:37,928
a part of the whale that's up close, you know, So it's not all

645
00:40:37,968 --> 00:40:41,070
that diverse, but also you're trying to get people on the

646
00:40:41,090 --> 00:40:45,112
boat so that you can educate them and give them this incredible experience. So

647
00:40:45,132 --> 00:40:48,533
you don't want to show a picture of a whale logging 300 meters

648
00:40:48,593 --> 00:40:52,375
away. You know, that's just not all

649
00:40:52,435 --> 00:40:55,556
that inspirational. So some interesting stuff came out of that one,

650
00:40:55,596 --> 00:40:59,018
but it wasn't traditional. Environmental media, as

651
00:40:59,078 --> 00:41:02,539
you might think of it. So we have the lawn policy analysis with

652
00:41:02,559 --> 00:41:05,801
the whale watching operators, and then we get into the whale, the right whale

653
00:41:05,841 --> 00:41:10,539
stuff. started by looking at 13 years

654
00:41:10,859 --> 00:41:15,001
of news coverage in larger U S newspapers from 2010, when

655
00:41:15,021 --> 00:41:19,122
the population started to decline from its moderate peak all

656
00:41:19,142 --> 00:41:23,464
the way through, uh, March 15th,

657
00:41:23,844 --> 00:41:27,286
2023. And where that project came from, you know, I

658
00:41:27,746 --> 00:41:31,247
got a news alert one day through like Apple news or something that

659
00:41:31,287 --> 00:41:34,707
had said as part of a federal spending bill, the

660
00:41:34,787 --> 00:41:38,069
US Congress had blocked certain provisions with right

661
00:41:38,089 --> 00:41:41,632
whale conservation and the federal agency's ability to

662
00:41:41,692 --> 00:41:45,334
manage that. And I said, well, that's interesting. Let's look into that. Saw

663
00:41:45,374 --> 00:41:48,456
some follow-up stories. And I said, you know what? I want to

664
00:41:48,476 --> 00:41:52,159
know how we got here. And so went through and

665
00:41:52,679 --> 00:41:56,181
chose six large US newspapers, sampled

666
00:41:56,301 --> 00:41:59,944
everything they had done for about 13 years, which ended

667
00:42:00,004 --> 00:42:03,197
up being 356. texts, which

668
00:42:03,257 --> 00:42:06,680
include letters to the editor, and

669
00:42:07,100 --> 00:42:10,502
really just set out to figure out what those stories

670
00:42:10,542 --> 00:42:13,825
they were telling were, what was the focus, and how they were presenting it.

671
00:42:14,225 --> 00:42:17,407
So, to your earlier point about a lot happening over the

672
00:42:17,447 --> 00:42:22,831
last few decades, yeah, saw it firsthand. And

673
00:42:22,871 --> 00:42:26,047
what came out of that project, because we went in and

674
00:42:26,067 --> 00:42:29,190
just coded for which publications are

675
00:42:29,210 --> 00:42:32,313
publishing about right whales most, which authors, what

676
00:42:32,353 --> 00:42:35,577
are the themes they're talking about? We found that one

677
00:42:35,637 --> 00:42:39,761
publication and one author were really driving the narrative. And

678
00:42:40,101 --> 00:42:43,285
that started in 2017, that summer that

679
00:42:43,305 --> 00:42:46,648
you mentioned where at least a dozen whales were found dead

680
00:42:46,668 --> 00:42:50,459
in the Gulf of St. Lawrence where they didn't at the time have legal protections.

681
00:42:50,519 --> 00:42:54,741
And that started what we call an issue attention cycle. We're

682
00:42:55,501 --> 00:43:00,302
quite familiar with those as consumers of media, but

683
00:43:00,382 --> 00:43:03,663
I really looked at all of that coverage through the lens

684
00:43:03,703 --> 00:43:07,324
of issue attention cycle, which says media will follow predictable

685
00:43:07,364 --> 00:43:11,165
patterns to focus on what's problematic or

686
00:43:11,205 --> 00:43:14,706
what they can dramatize to maintain consumer interests

687
00:43:15,266 --> 00:43:19,377
until they grow bored and move on to something else. Um,

688
00:43:19,537 --> 00:43:22,878
and we can talk more about that if you want, but we found that there was an issue

689
00:43:22,918 --> 00:43:26,218
attention cycle surrounding entanglements. Uh,

690
00:43:26,358 --> 00:43:29,919
in fishing gear, specifically as it related to the new England lobster

691
00:43:29,959 --> 00:43:33,079
fishery, where everybody sort of focused in

692
00:43:33,160 --> 00:43:37,200
on that. They focused on the drama, the conflict, uh,

693
00:43:37,320 --> 00:43:40,601
disagreements and it was

694
00:43:40,681 --> 00:43:44,441
huge and it was contentious and it's, it's a really interesting,

695
00:43:44,522 --> 00:43:48,990
but tangled web and. it

696
00:43:49,010 --> 00:43:52,373
was really interesting to see what came out of that. And

697
00:43:52,473 --> 00:43:56,656
so followed that

698
00:43:57,137 --> 00:44:01,320
more than decade of news media to say, what were the important events? Who

699
00:44:01,360 --> 00:44:04,703
were the featured actors? So who were the human stakeholders that the

700
00:44:04,983 --> 00:44:08,686
journalists went to or who engaged with journalists to

701
00:44:08,746 --> 00:44:12,369
co-create the story? And what would that story be,

702
00:44:12,889 --> 00:44:16,452
you know, for people who are following along? Most people, they read stories here

703
00:44:16,512 --> 00:44:20,030
and there, but we looked at the full what's called media

704
00:44:20,111 --> 00:44:23,332
discourse to make sense of sort

705
00:44:23,372 --> 00:44:26,834
of not news media as an outside actor

706
00:44:27,454 --> 00:44:30,636
looking in and showing people what is,

707
00:44:31,396 --> 00:44:35,058
but really as participants in environmental politics who,

708
00:44:35,078 --> 00:44:38,380
you know, serve as this political arena for

709
00:44:38,420 --> 00:44:41,702
different interests to try to shape public discussions and

710
00:44:41,762 --> 00:44:45,023
inform policy decisions. So some really interesting stuff

711
00:44:45,063 --> 00:44:49,117
came out of that. And as part of that issue attention cycle, came

712
00:44:49,157 --> 00:44:52,558
the two documentaries that I mentioned earlier. So

713
00:44:52,598 --> 00:44:56,660
the next project was to do a critical examination of

714
00:44:56,700 --> 00:44:59,881
those two documentaries. It's really rare to get two

715
00:44:59,941 --> 00:45:03,802
movies about the same topic by different filmmakers within

716
00:45:03,822 --> 00:45:07,324
a year of each other, you know, that takes such different approaches

717
00:45:07,384 --> 00:45:11,645
to storytelling. And so I wanted to take advantage of that opportunity to

718
00:45:11,685 --> 00:45:14,867
compare and contrast. So I looked at both of those

719
00:45:14,907 --> 00:45:18,323
films. I've seen both. more times than I can count. I'm

720
00:45:18,363 --> 00:45:22,985
sure my dog can recite it in his sleep at this point. But

721
00:45:23,025 --> 00:45:26,627
really looked at the different angles that they took, the storytelling devices

722
00:45:26,707 --> 00:45:29,849
that they used, and then expanded on

723
00:45:29,929 --> 00:45:33,911
that project with the final chapter of the dissertation, which

724
00:45:33,991 --> 00:45:37,253
is really where we took it to real people. So where

725
00:45:37,273 --> 00:45:41,135
we looked at the contents of the media in the study before, we

726
00:45:41,155 --> 00:45:44,617
wanted to look at the media effects. And so I did focus groups where

727
00:45:44,677 --> 00:45:48,533
people saw one of two films, And, you

728
00:45:48,573 --> 00:45:52,236
know, we talked through their experience as a viewer, what

729
00:45:52,256 --> 00:45:55,578
they thought the filmmaker was trying to do with it,

730
00:45:55,778 --> 00:45:59,461
what they understood the issue to be after seeing

731
00:45:59,501 --> 00:46:02,824
that film. And so that was a pretty interesting way to

732
00:46:03,344 --> 00:46:06,627
not only compare and contrast, you know, the critical reading that

733
00:46:06,687 --> 00:46:09,929
I did with the way that people experienced it, but

734
00:46:10,049 --> 00:46:14,453
also helps offer some informed insights about messaging

735
00:46:14,773 --> 00:46:18,030
surrounding right whale conservation. moving forward and then the

736
00:46:18,130 --> 00:46:22,172
use of wildlife film in support of conservation. And

737
00:46:22,212 --> 00:46:25,473
what was interesting about this project is that I was able

738
00:46:25,533 --> 00:46:28,854
to do the focus group work, uh, in

739
00:46:28,954 --> 00:46:32,815
Southern Delaware and Maryland's Eastern shore, which is along

740
00:46:32,855 --> 00:46:36,516
the right whales migratory pattern, but it's not near critical habitat.

741
00:46:37,256 --> 00:46:40,877
You know, these are not people who are probably tuned

742
00:46:40,937 --> 00:46:44,238
in to all the drama in the newspapers and things like that.

743
00:46:44,279 --> 00:46:47,879
They may have heard of right whales. So they weren't involved

744
00:46:47,939 --> 00:46:51,141
in the films. They probably hadn't seen them. So being able to

745
00:46:51,221 --> 00:46:54,683
talk to people with relationships to the ocean and

746
00:46:54,703 --> 00:46:57,864
an interest in conservation, show them these

747
00:46:57,924 --> 00:47:01,246
films and talk to them about it was a really cool

748
00:47:01,286 --> 00:47:04,468
experience. So those are the projects that I've worked on

749
00:47:04,928 --> 00:47:08,270
that are going into the dissertation. A lot there.

750
00:47:12,372 --> 00:47:16,181
Well, I mean, you know, when you do When you're working on a project, obviously

751
00:47:16,201 --> 00:47:19,422
you're still working on your writing phase. I

752
00:47:19,442 --> 00:47:22,643
don't know if you've submitted yet. Have you submitted yet? No, not yet.

753
00:47:23,403 --> 00:47:26,564
You're still probably putting the finishing touches on over the next

754
00:47:26,624 --> 00:47:30,145
few weeks. But overall, when

755
00:47:30,165 --> 00:47:33,246
you look at media, because one of

756
00:47:33,266 --> 00:47:36,527
the reasons why I started this podcast is because when I started looking

757
00:47:36,547 --> 00:47:39,848
at articles, when I was looking for articles during that

758
00:47:39,888 --> 00:47:42,992
time, I was like, It seems to be talking about the

759
00:47:43,032 --> 00:47:46,654
same thing over and over again. Obviously whales are a big topic.

760
00:47:46,734 --> 00:47:50,156
Sharks, usually it has to do with shark quote-unquote attacks, right?

761
00:47:50,856 --> 00:47:54,007
And the negative that comes around that. When

762
00:47:54,047 --> 00:47:57,331
it came to North Atlantic right

763
00:47:57,391 --> 00:48:01,096
whales, what were the types of,

764
00:48:02,097 --> 00:48:05,301
when different types of media started talking about it, say

765
00:48:05,581 --> 00:48:08,745
like mainstream media, like newspaper articles or

766
00:48:08,905 --> 00:48:12,089
digital newspaper articles and things like that, what was the

767
00:48:12,169 --> 00:48:15,552
content, was it more of Oh, another North Atlantic

768
00:48:15,592 --> 00:48:18,913
white whale was discovered dead. You know, here's it. Or

769
00:48:18,953 --> 00:48:22,274
were there any coverages on any potential, and

770
00:48:22,314 --> 00:48:26,936
if there were available, optimistic articles

771
00:48:26,976 --> 00:48:30,197
or optimistic stories of right whales that survived or like,

772
00:48:30,237 --> 00:48:33,619
you know, new calves come through or what have you? Like, what was the

773
00:48:38,140 --> 00:48:41,802
So looking at 13 years of news coverage, I

774
00:48:41,842 --> 00:48:45,104
saw pretty much everything under the gamut that you

775
00:48:45,144 --> 00:48:49,147
just mentioned. From 2010 to 2017, it

776
00:48:49,747 --> 00:48:53,149
was fairly rare to

777
00:48:53,189 --> 00:48:57,292
see stories about right whales in the publications that we sampled,

778
00:48:57,652 --> 00:49:00,815
other than NOAA is urging vessels to

779
00:49:00,895 --> 00:49:05,078
slow down, right whales have been sighted in this area, or right

780
00:49:05,098 --> 00:49:08,500
whale was found dead here, or right whale calf was

781
00:49:08,540 --> 00:49:11,987
spotted here. There were some talk

782
00:49:12,047 --> 00:49:15,409
of like naval bases in Georgia, Jacksonville at

783
00:49:15,449 --> 00:49:18,791
that time, a couple of stories bubbled up there,

784
00:49:19,632 --> 00:49:22,834
some stuff about energy development, but it was lots of

785
00:49:22,874 --> 00:49:26,496
like one-offs. Then 2017 happened

786
00:49:27,076 --> 00:49:30,278
and things started to intensify a

787
00:49:30,318 --> 00:49:33,781
little bit. And so in an issue attention cycle, this

788
00:49:33,861 --> 00:49:37,343
theoretical framework that I used, step one is that you have this issue

789
00:49:37,403 --> 00:49:41,202
that's known by the people that affects most and

790
00:49:41,242 --> 00:49:45,585
probably some experts who are working on it, but it's not really something commonly

791
00:49:45,625 --> 00:49:49,368
known by the public. And then there's this period of intense

792
00:49:49,888 --> 00:49:53,471
enthusiasm or what they call alarm. Right. And

793
00:49:53,531 --> 00:49:56,714
so that's when there's a huge problem and it becomes sort

794
00:49:56,754 --> 00:49:59,996
of prevalent or more prevalent in the

795
00:50:00,016 --> 00:50:03,839
coverage that people start seeing. And that was 2017. That's when

796
00:50:03,859 --> 00:50:07,042
you started to hear Right. Well, dad, right. Well, dad, right.

797
00:50:11,164 --> 00:50:15,226
And then. Along with that is this enthusiasm that,

798
00:50:15,346 --> 00:50:18,667
you know, we're going to fix this. We have this problem. We can all

799
00:50:18,707 --> 00:50:22,109
do it. And then you move into this third stage, which

800
00:50:22,169 --> 00:50:25,291
is where you have to grapple with reality. It's you realize the

801
00:50:25,411 --> 00:50:29,172
cost of significant progress and that's where

802
00:50:29,212 --> 00:50:33,715
things start to fall apart a little bit. And then it decreases

803
00:50:33,875 --> 00:50:37,430
from there. And so there's a gradual

804
00:50:37,470 --> 00:50:40,832
decline in public interest at stage four. And

805
00:50:40,872 --> 00:50:44,955
then at stage five, the person who coined

806
00:50:44,995 --> 00:50:49,138
the issue attention cycle framework talks about the fact that it's

807
00:50:49,159 --> 00:50:52,421
kind of in limbo. The topic will remain something that people

808
00:50:52,441 --> 00:50:56,084
are interested in. Maybe it'll pop up here and there again, but it's

809
00:50:56,764 --> 00:50:59,947
probably not going to be as intense as it had been earlier in

810
00:50:59,987 --> 00:51:03,569
the cycle. We saw the same thing with COVID, right? It was this unknown

811
00:51:03,689 --> 00:51:06,939
thing that started. you know, in a far off place. And

812
00:51:06,979 --> 00:51:10,142
then it made its way over here. You know, we

813
00:51:10,182 --> 00:51:13,986
were all going to do this. All we need is a vaccine. Costs

814
00:51:14,046 --> 00:51:17,690
of significant progress. Oh, here's what closures mean.

815
00:51:17,710 --> 00:51:21,153
Debates over vaccines. And now where are we? People all

816
00:51:21,193 --> 00:51:24,837
but forget about COVID. So this is a fairly predictable way of

817
00:51:24,897 --> 00:51:28,601
looking at media and to take it back to right whales during

818
00:51:29,611 --> 00:51:33,772
that third stage, realizing the cost of significant progress, it

819
00:51:33,852 --> 00:51:38,014
really focused in on fishing gear entanglements. And

820
00:51:38,114 --> 00:51:41,835
so what did that mean for science

821
00:51:41,875 --> 00:51:45,677
communication? What did it mean? You know, for the overall discourse,

822
00:51:46,477 --> 00:51:50,138
there's lots of issues facing the right whale. They're all integrated. You

823
00:51:50,158 --> 00:51:53,579
brought up earlier climate change. There's vessel strikes. There are,

824
00:51:54,280 --> 00:51:57,941
you know, there's ocean noise, there's entanglement. And

825
00:51:58,061 --> 00:52:01,930
so. What I saw was really excellent science communication.

826
00:52:02,871 --> 00:52:06,572
Focusing on the biggest issue that's causing the greatest harm that

827
00:52:07,393 --> 00:52:10,834
where there was an opportunity for the greatest conservation gain, which

828
00:52:10,894 --> 00:52:14,836
happened to be reducing the risk of entanglement for whales. Yeah.

829
00:52:16,316 --> 00:52:20,118
What came with that was this perception that environmental

830
00:52:20,138 --> 00:52:23,840
groups or whoever was singling

831
00:52:23,940 --> 00:52:27,702
out lobster fishermen and trying to do these nefarious things.

832
00:52:28,582 --> 00:52:31,998
Um, And what that did was

833
00:52:32,278 --> 00:52:35,900
increase the representation of lobster fishing voices who

834
00:52:35,940 --> 00:52:39,582
then in collaboration with journalists,

835
00:52:39,662 --> 00:52:43,245
and that's not like a thing that happens actively, it's just sort

836
00:52:43,285 --> 00:52:46,607
of how the reporting shook out, really

837
00:52:46,687 --> 00:52:50,149
focused on what harms further

838
00:52:50,189 --> 00:52:53,451
regulation on the fishing industry would do to

839
00:52:53,491 --> 00:52:57,093
them and their communities. And so it then became this debate

840
00:52:57,213 --> 00:53:00,827
between, I call it the clash of the titans, between

841
00:53:00,867 --> 00:53:04,370
protecting right whales or protecting lobster fishing rights,

842
00:53:04,450 --> 00:53:07,713
and only one side could win. And so that's

843
00:53:07,753 --> 00:53:11,656
really the thing that the media coverage overall

844
00:53:11,756 --> 00:53:15,299
focused on for the remainder of the time. You

845
00:53:15,339 --> 00:53:18,621
heard things about vessel strikes, some stuff about, you know,

846
00:53:19,342 --> 00:53:22,945
during the Trump administration, offshore oil exploration permits

847
00:53:22,985 --> 00:53:27,709
and undoing environmental regulations, that was mentioned. Biden

848
00:53:27,729 --> 00:53:31,422
took office in 2021. That's when the fishery service started

849
00:53:31,482 --> 00:53:34,604
to really explore new rules. There were a bunch of

850
00:53:34,744 --> 00:53:38,146
lawsuits. So it really just focused in on the fights.

851
00:53:38,886 --> 00:53:42,749
And even in stories that were focused on solutions, where

852
00:53:42,789 --> 00:53:46,611
there were stories that talked about fishermen who

853
00:53:46,651 --> 00:53:50,393
were really invested in, you know, so-called ropeless

854
00:53:50,433 --> 00:53:53,635
fishing gear technology and trying it out and were

855
00:53:53,675 --> 00:53:57,923
really committed to participating. for

856
00:53:57,943 --> 00:54:01,344
the benefit of right whales, even those stories included

857
00:54:01,444 --> 00:54:04,765
some kind of conflict, whether it was certain

858
00:54:04,825 --> 00:54:09,226
fishermen are calling these fishermen traders or the, the

859
00:54:09,286 --> 00:54:12,727
state government denied special permits to try out ropeless

860
00:54:12,768 --> 00:54:16,529
fishing gear. And that created a new conflict to consume. So

861
00:54:16,549 --> 00:54:20,030
like even those solution stories focused on a conflict

862
00:54:20,110 --> 00:54:23,371
because that's what people read. And then we got to this

863
00:54:23,451 --> 00:54:27,510
inflection point. where, as you mentioned earlier, seafood sustainability

864
00:54:27,550 --> 00:54:31,393
labels changed the designation of American lobster

865
00:54:31,594 --> 00:54:35,538
from U.S. and Canadian fisheries to an unsustainable source,

866
00:54:35,598 --> 00:54:38,921
citing right whales as the cause. That caught

867
00:54:38,941 --> 00:54:42,505
a lot of people's attention. Blue Apron, the meal kit company

868
00:54:42,545 --> 00:54:46,448
stopped carrying lobster, Whole Foods, Walmart, like

869
00:54:47,149 --> 00:54:52,250
pretty wide Yeah, pretty, pretty recognized organizations

870
00:54:52,551 --> 00:54:55,734
took notice and said, as part of our sustainability commitments, we're not

871
00:54:55,774 --> 00:55:00,038
going to carry lobster that caught Congress's attention. Right.

872
00:55:00,658 --> 00:55:04,562
And then. In an unrelated federal

873
00:55:04,602 --> 00:55:07,725
spending bill, all these things happen, right? Well, provisions were

874
00:55:07,765 --> 00:55:11,048
written in, took everybody by surprise where the

875
00:55:11,088 --> 00:55:14,457
fishery services. basically not

876
00:55:14,538 --> 00:55:18,519
allowed to impose any new regulations until

877
00:55:19,580 --> 00:55:23,381
2029. We came out of that period and into 2023 with

878
00:55:24,282 --> 00:55:27,963
lobstermen suing the Monterey Bay Aquarium for their Seafood Watch decision.

879
00:55:28,463 --> 00:55:31,845
So to answer your question in

880
00:55:31,985 --> 00:55:36,027
short, after all of that detail work, is

881
00:55:36,107 --> 00:55:39,488
really to say the coverage focused on conflict and

882
00:55:39,548 --> 00:55:43,393
disagreements and you

883
00:55:43,433 --> 00:55:47,575
know, the problem and scientists

884
00:55:47,635 --> 00:55:50,896
and environmental groups sort of stayed the course and they really tried to

885
00:55:50,936 --> 00:55:54,438
focus on rope as the issue, not fishing, not

886
00:55:54,518 --> 00:55:59,260
fishermen. It's rope that we want to address. You

887
00:55:59,300 --> 00:56:02,502
know, this is where our greatest gain is, and this is

888
00:56:02,562 --> 00:56:05,678
where we think our expectations are

889
00:56:05,718 --> 00:56:09,440
realistic. And then, you know, when you heard people talking

890
00:56:09,480 --> 00:56:13,322
from a lobster fishery, whether it was individuals or groups, you

891
00:56:13,362 --> 00:56:16,784
know, they talked about themselves as this sort of small

892
00:56:16,824 --> 00:56:20,086
scale fishery that was being villainized when in fact they have a great

893
00:56:20,126 --> 00:56:23,508
deal of power and influence in that region. But they

894
00:56:24,268 --> 00:56:27,430
also compared themselves to right whales and

895
00:56:27,490 --> 00:56:31,613
called themselves endangered and said any regulations

896
00:56:32,073 --> 00:56:36,312
would cause them economic harm, It would harm their communities. And

897
00:56:36,352 --> 00:56:39,435
so it really became this story of we're stuck between a

898
00:56:39,475 --> 00:56:43,879
rock and a hard place and we have to pick one. And that

899
00:56:43,919 --> 00:56:47,603
doesn't necessarily reflect the scientific reality. It doesn't necessarily

900
00:56:47,683 --> 00:56:50,906
reflect where things had been, but it's what was

901
00:56:55,310 --> 00:56:58,467
So this is the interesting thing that I always have. You

902
00:56:58,487 --> 00:57:01,749
know, like obviously, you know, in stories, we like to have conflict, right?

903
00:57:01,769 --> 00:57:05,150
That makes a good story, you know. And that conflict

904
00:57:05,191 --> 00:57:09,153
happens, but at what cost? You know, from a journalistic perspective, you

905
00:57:09,473 --> 00:57:12,914
think you want to stay in the middle. Here's the one side, you

906
00:57:12,934 --> 00:57:16,596
know, especially when it came to small scale fishers who are using, you

907
00:57:16,616 --> 00:57:19,898
know, the lobster pots. And then here's the other side of

908
00:57:19,918 --> 00:57:24,100
a lot of NGOs, government workers and so forth who want to protect these,

909
00:57:24,320 --> 00:57:30,321
these, you know, wonderful animals, these northern white whales. At

910
00:57:30,361 --> 00:57:33,504
what point do we just kind of say, hey, look, a story is a

911
00:57:33,544 --> 00:57:36,807
great story and that's wonderful, but at what point do we kind

912
00:57:36,847 --> 00:57:40,070
of hold journalists accountable to be like, where

913
00:57:40,110 --> 00:57:43,293
do we want to go from here? What do we want to

914
00:57:43,333 --> 00:57:46,957
do? We understand that there are two sides to this conflict. We

915
00:57:47,017 --> 00:57:50,420
want fishers to continue to fish. We want these animals

916
00:57:50,480 --> 00:57:54,015
to grow in population and be healthy. And

917
00:57:54,055 --> 00:57:57,719
so from a from a media perspective, from a communication perspective, where

918
00:57:57,739 --> 00:58:01,182
do we be like, okay, we understand both sides, what's the best way forward?

919
00:58:01,803 --> 00:58:05,746
Oh, there's there's this new technology that allows ropeless crab

920
00:58:05,787 --> 00:58:10,669
pots and lobster pots. How about we say,

921
00:58:10,729 --> 00:58:13,971
hey, let's invest in this more so that

922
00:58:14,031 --> 00:58:17,293
we can decrease the amount of instances or the risk that

923
00:58:17,333 --> 00:58:21,136
these animals will get entangled because there'll be less pots. Now, I know the

924
00:58:21,176 --> 00:58:24,938
fishing community was not necessarily happy about the first iterations

925
00:58:25,138 --> 00:58:28,832
of these ropeless pots. But if

926
00:58:28,872 --> 00:58:32,414
you can have more significant investment, that means the technology, in

927
00:58:32,534 --> 00:58:35,716
theory, could move through faster. So at what

928
00:58:35,836 --> 00:58:39,679
point do the journalists be like, instead

929
00:58:39,699 --> 00:58:43,362
of getting the story and make the most conflicting story,

930
00:58:43,482 --> 00:58:47,084
or the one with the most conflict, and then get

931
00:58:47,185 --> 00:58:50,407
clicks or get papers to read, at what point do you just be

932
00:58:50,447 --> 00:58:54,390
like, let's move forward with the best option for both

933
00:58:57,274 --> 00:59:00,397
I wish I had a simple answer for that. Um, but

934
00:59:00,457 --> 00:59:04,240
I'm going to give the stock academic answer that I, we don't really know

935
00:59:04,260 --> 00:59:07,602
yet because this is so challenging. Um,

936
00:59:08,864 --> 00:59:12,326
I think generally with science and environmental journalism, there's

937
00:59:12,406 --> 00:59:16,870
just changes in the news industry where you don't have specialists

938
00:59:16,950 --> 00:59:20,533
covering a specific beat the way that you used to. So science and environment

939
00:59:20,633 --> 00:59:24,156
is now very broad. Right. And going

940
00:59:24,216 --> 00:59:27,806
back to the gray whale paper that I mentioned earlier, like Marine mammal

941
00:59:27,826 --> 00:59:31,468
conservation is a special kind of complex, right?

942
00:59:31,488 --> 00:59:35,010
There's just so many overlapping laws. These animals travel

943
00:59:35,050 --> 00:59:38,272
through jurisdictions. They intersect with

944
00:59:38,412 --> 00:59:41,813
lots of different human uses of the ocean. And there's

945
00:59:41,853 --> 00:59:45,215
just really robust conservation marketing behind them.

946
00:59:45,295 --> 00:59:49,457
So they, they are especially complicated, um, to

947
00:59:49,497 --> 00:59:53,439
communicate. And I think right whale conservation is

948
00:59:53,639 --> 00:59:56,828
extra complicated in that. because you

949
00:59:56,868 --> 01:00:01,211
have these interrelated issues. Climate is driving changes

950
01:00:01,291 --> 01:00:05,494
in their prey, which is leading whales to new and unexpected places in

951
01:00:05,534 --> 01:00:08,857
different aggregations. And there are lots

952
01:00:08,937 --> 01:00:12,519
of things that are threatening them. The math is bad,

953
01:00:13,060 --> 01:00:17,063
right? The population can't afford to lose a single individual

954
01:00:17,663 --> 01:00:20,906
each year, and we need to almost triple the birth rate. And

955
01:00:20,946 --> 01:00:24,668
what's the way to do that? Stop injuring and killing them. How

956
01:00:24,689 --> 01:00:28,165
do you do that? Well, there's shipping and then there's fishing and

957
01:00:28,185 --> 01:00:31,326
then there's noise and

958
01:00:31,366 --> 01:00:34,507
all kinds of stuff. So at some point, if you're a

959
01:00:35,167 --> 01:00:38,588
reporter or you're an editor trying to find the story

960
01:00:38,628 --> 01:00:42,208
that you want to include in your upcoming paper, you

961
01:00:42,248 --> 01:00:45,849
have to frame something and you have to exclude almost

962
01:00:46,149 --> 01:00:49,290
all of the other things to be able to tell a simple and

963
01:00:49,410 --> 01:00:52,951
clear journalistic story when the science behind

964
01:00:53,011 --> 01:00:56,486
it is very complex and you know, climate is

965
01:00:56,546 --> 01:01:00,469
a big factor here. That's the overarching

966
01:01:00,509 --> 01:01:04,031
like mega boss that's touching all of this. And

967
01:01:04,271 --> 01:01:07,433
the thing that we need to do is decarbonize and,

968
01:01:07,954 --> 01:01:11,276
and slow climate change and ocean warming and things like that.

969
01:01:12,077 --> 01:01:15,919
But in the meantime, this particular species doesn't have

970
01:01:15,999 --> 01:01:19,302
decades for, you know, figuring that out. Yeah.

971
01:01:19,582 --> 01:01:23,247
So, so it's kind of. Like the science and

972
01:01:23,267 --> 01:01:27,129
the reality has boxed things into a point where you

973
01:01:27,169 --> 01:01:31,410
have to make tough decisions and that emphasis on conservation technology.

974
01:01:31,570 --> 01:01:35,211
It's probably where the most conservation gains are, but

975
01:01:35,291 --> 01:01:38,693
focusing on technology as a solution. There's other

976
01:01:38,753 --> 01:01:42,574
research out there about this. It's just a

977
01:01:42,614 --> 01:01:45,935
really limiting strategy because it convinces non

978
01:01:46,895 --> 01:01:50,204
experts that there's nothing that they can do. to be part of that. That's for

979
01:01:50,224 --> 01:01:54,647
the engineers. That's for the experts. That's for the government to pay for. I'm

980
01:01:54,687 --> 01:01:58,390
good. Right. When you actually need that, that public

981
01:01:58,490 --> 01:02:02,133
pressure to create the kind of demand for

982
01:02:02,173 --> 01:02:05,836
the industry to adopt the technology. Right. Yeah. If,

983
01:02:05,916 --> 01:02:09,679
and when it's ready. And so I think

984
01:02:11,600 --> 01:02:14,903
this is, this is why it's so interesting to me to look

985
01:02:37,007 --> 01:02:40,168
And it's true, if you, and the one thing I was thinking as you

986
01:02:40,208 --> 01:02:43,349
were saying that when you were talking is, if

987
01:02:43,409 --> 01:02:46,510
you start to throw all the complexities to people, to an

988
01:02:46,610 --> 01:02:50,351
audience, then they can get really down on the situation, and

989
01:02:50,491 --> 01:02:54,212
like, well, there's no way out. You know, you got climate change, you got ocean noise,

990
01:02:54,292 --> 01:02:57,693
you know, we're not gonna stop shipping from happening, we're not gonna stop fishing from happening.

991
01:02:58,933 --> 01:03:02,234
These animals are doomed, let's just forget about it. I remember when I first

992
01:03:02,274 --> 01:03:05,375
started a YouTube channel a number of years ago, like early 2012s,

993
01:03:05,395 --> 01:03:08,724
11s, you know one of the things that i focus

994
01:03:08,764 --> 01:03:11,845
on was all the issues but i'll talk about the issues and we'll we'll just you know if

995
01:03:11,885 --> 01:03:15,426
i talk about them the people listen to the more and i remember talking

996
01:03:15,446 --> 01:03:18,626
so that was a dinner with uh... the owner of my gym and we

997
01:03:18,646 --> 01:03:22,307
were and it was a group of us and she was like oh yeah i watch your videos that

998
01:03:22,367 --> 01:03:25,448
stop and i got really like that but that's not what we need to

999
01:03:25,488 --> 01:03:28,888
stop sick kept hearing is just negative negative negative and

1000
01:03:28,908 --> 01:03:32,410
i just felt helpless uh... like oh Oh, interesting.

1001
01:03:32,990 --> 01:03:36,172
Oh, OK. And so I started to really think about that and be like, I've got

1002
01:03:36,192 --> 01:03:39,455
to be careful of how many negative stories that

1003
01:03:39,495 --> 01:03:42,978
I cover. You still have to cover those

1004
01:03:43,038 --> 01:03:46,260
stories, but you have to show that optimism. And I went

1005
01:03:46,320 --> 01:03:49,442
to a conference, International Marine Conservation Congress in

1006
01:03:50,503 --> 01:03:53,626
2014, and the theme was ocean optimism. I spoke to

1007
01:03:53,666 --> 01:03:56,868
a lot of people about that theme that weekend and just being like,

1008
01:03:57,298 --> 01:04:00,600
or that we can just be like it's important for us as

1009
01:04:00,640 --> 01:04:04,023
scientists as communicators to put forth that hope

1010
01:04:04,603 --> 01:04:07,805
where we can see you know people adapt like with climate change a

1011
01:04:07,866 --> 01:04:10,988
lot of times you know i'll talk about climate change like yeah there's really no way out

1012
01:04:11,008 --> 01:04:14,430
of the range of my well might be good look at this you know country

1013
01:04:14,470 --> 01:04:17,853
down here and like in the philippines you got these fishing villages who

1014
01:04:17,913 --> 01:04:21,375
have like you know they know that there's gonna be typhoons they know they have marine protected

1015
01:04:21,415 --> 01:04:25,058
areas they've installed but then when a typhoon comes in and then it

1016
01:04:25,198 --> 01:04:28,501
kind of disrupts everything and they have no money, then they have to fish everything.

1017
01:04:28,561 --> 01:04:31,683
But now they've got a savings account that they've put together so that

1018
01:04:31,723 --> 01:04:35,026
when they do have these typhoons, well, they can come in,

1019
01:04:35,066 --> 01:04:38,549
they can use that money in the meantime, and then that holds

1020
01:04:38,589 --> 01:04:41,832
them over until that marine protected area kind of gets back to

1021
01:04:41,892 --> 01:04:45,055
normal, you know, gets out of the thing. There's just not added pressure to

1022
01:04:45,115 --> 01:04:48,476
that. And people are like, oh, wow, I didn't know that. That's really cool.

1023
01:04:48,496 --> 01:04:51,818
And so it's like me trying to get all these little

1024
01:04:51,898 --> 01:04:55,420
stories that may not be huge on

1025
01:04:55,660 --> 01:04:58,822
the global market of media, but it

1026
01:04:58,882 --> 01:05:02,383
kind of gives people a little bit of hope here and there and kind of piecing

1027
01:05:02,423 --> 01:05:06,306
those together. But it would be interesting to hear you

1028
01:05:06,326 --> 01:05:09,668
know i've always and i've always thought about this is like having focus groups and getting their

1029
01:05:09,708 --> 01:05:13,010
responses to certain episodes that i do to be like we

1030
01:05:13,150 --> 01:05:16,633
what were your thoughts on this on on this type of messaging and

1031
01:05:16,653 --> 01:05:20,195
what was your thoughts on this type of messaging you know what what if we throw all

1032
01:05:20,215 --> 01:05:23,457
of the gambits against the north atlantic right well just like what

1033
01:05:23,477 --> 01:05:26,639
are your thoughts after we talk about this you know and and the fact that the

1034
01:05:26,659 --> 01:05:30,181
hey they still have caps you know there's still some casual what are your thoughts and

1035
01:05:30,221 --> 01:05:33,955
then just talk about one issue because i feel as though Some

1036
01:05:34,015 --> 01:05:37,256
people will think and some audience members may think that

1037
01:05:37,296 --> 01:05:41,978
if we just cover like, you know, I did a story when Seafood

1038
01:05:42,018 --> 01:05:45,479
Watch pulled, Monterey Bay's Aquarium Seafood Watch pulled their support

1039
01:05:45,539 --> 01:05:49,440
for the lobster fishery, the main lobster fishery. And

1040
01:05:49,460 --> 01:05:52,701
I remember I covered that and so I'm sure some audience members are

1041
01:05:52,741 --> 01:05:56,382
like, well, if we can get rid of the fishing, then we can get the

1042
01:05:56,442 --> 01:06:00,008
whales back on track. Potentially. But

1043
01:06:00,048 --> 01:06:03,470
then there's a lot of other things that go like shipping is like they're notorious for

1044
01:06:03,490 --> 01:06:06,813
being hit by ships because they don't move very well when they're at the surface

1045
01:06:06,893 --> 01:06:10,035
or they sit just below the surface so they're really hard to see. So

1046
01:06:10,055 --> 01:06:13,137
there's that aspect. So it's interesting in

1047
01:06:13,177 --> 01:06:17,039
the way to go about it. But there are solutions. It's just you

1048
01:06:17,059 --> 01:06:20,362
have to throw the whole gambit of solutions to that

1049
01:06:20,582 --> 01:06:24,164
face. And it's just like you said, it gets more and more complex. And

1050
01:06:24,184 --> 01:06:27,807
I think that's the challenge for communicators in the future is how

1051
01:06:27,867 --> 01:06:31,330
can we try and simplify the problem? Or do we just talk

1052
01:06:31,370 --> 01:06:35,010
about the complexities and how we're addressing that complexity? Right?

1053
01:06:36,071 --> 01:06:39,392
Well, and I think going back to your point about wanting

1054
01:06:39,412 --> 01:06:42,992
to do focus groups on your own podcast, I did focus groups

1055
01:06:43,252 --> 01:06:46,733
with the two films that are out there that focus on right

1056
01:06:46,753 --> 01:06:50,034
whales. And I heard a lot of the same stuff,

1057
01:06:50,674 --> 01:06:54,275
right? Um, the two versions of the film, not

1058
01:06:56,956 --> 01:07:00,214
You've got one that is by a reporter who

1059
01:07:00,314 --> 01:07:03,775
reflects his reporting that he did throughout that period that

1060
01:07:03,796 --> 01:07:07,217
I researched. So it was about lobster fishing in new England, the

1061
01:07:07,257 --> 01:07:10,739
policy processes, the conflict, and it

1062
01:07:10,799 --> 01:07:14,021
doesn't leave with a resolution. And the other is

1063
01:07:14,061 --> 01:07:17,602
by a Canadian filmmaker focuses more on

1064
01:07:18,003 --> 01:07:21,704
Canada, Florida, throughout its range, doesn't

1065
01:07:21,744 --> 01:07:25,066
talk about policy. And there's only one fisherman in

1066
01:07:25,126 --> 01:07:28,698
it. And he is a participant in you know, whale research and rescue

1067
01:07:28,878 --> 01:07:32,579
and also trying out this gear. So you've got one conflict

1068
01:07:32,679 --> 01:07:35,820
and one solution story showed people and

1069
01:07:35,880 --> 01:07:39,662
had these conversations. And just like you were saying, like

1070
01:07:39,762 --> 01:07:42,843
a lot of the feedback, the, the opening question that I

1071
01:07:42,883 --> 01:07:46,104
started every focus group with finish this

1072
01:07:46,124 --> 01:07:49,365
statement. When the credits rolled, I felt blank. And

1073
01:07:49,385 --> 01:07:53,787
I heard a lot of negative emotions for both films, hopeless,

1074
01:07:54,207 --> 01:07:57,597
defeated. I feel angry. And so through

1075
01:07:57,637 --> 01:08:00,940
conversation and probing that, what it comes down

1076
01:08:01,020 --> 01:08:05,564
to, and this is not unique to these two films. I

1077
01:08:05,645 --> 01:08:09,268
should lead with the fact that both of these films won awards.

1078
01:08:09,348 --> 01:08:12,951
They are well done, high quality. This is not unique

1079
01:08:12,991 --> 01:08:16,435
to these two films. This is something that people who

1080
01:08:16,495 --> 01:08:20,338
study environmental film ask often, which

1081
01:08:20,458 --> 01:08:23,968
is what are they supposed to do? How

1082
01:08:24,008 --> 01:08:29,211
are they supposed to play into conservation and policy? And

1083
01:08:29,251 --> 01:08:33,113
a lot of what I heard from people really just boils down to, they

1084
01:08:33,133 --> 01:08:36,595
spent so much time describing the problem, which I probably

1085
01:08:36,675 --> 01:08:41,017
could have understood in a couple scenes, but

1086
01:08:41,037 --> 01:08:44,339
then they left me with these big feelings, and I don't

1087
01:08:44,399 --> 01:08:47,661
know what to do with them, so I'm just going to pack them away.

1088
01:08:48,414 --> 01:08:51,775
And these are people who hear about right whales

1089
01:08:51,935 --> 01:08:55,336
in their local news when they pass by twice a year. These

1090
01:08:55,396 --> 01:08:58,717
are people who live by the ocean because they appreciate the ocean.

1091
01:08:59,197 --> 01:09:02,859
And I've heard from people, you know, all

1092
01:09:02,899 --> 01:09:06,220
kinds of political ideologies, different age groups where it's

1093
01:09:06,240 --> 01:09:09,781
like, sure, I care about this issue, but the government

1094
01:09:09,821 --> 01:09:13,382
has to solve it. I don't know what I can do because I don't lobster fish

1095
01:09:13,622 --> 01:09:16,763
in new England. I don't have a boat. Right. And

1096
01:09:16,863 --> 01:09:20,206
so. Some other things I've

1097
01:09:20,246 --> 01:09:23,547
heard too, people, when I would ask, okay, the

1098
01:09:23,587 --> 01:09:26,808
film didn't tell you what you're supposed

1099
01:09:26,828 --> 01:09:30,049
to do. What do you think you could do? Almost everybody went to

1100
01:09:30,109 --> 01:09:33,631
boycotting certain types of seafood, which the film's never mentioned.

1101
01:09:34,671 --> 01:09:40,067
And so the fact that we just jumped to boycotts, has

1102
01:09:40,107 --> 01:09:43,430
some interesting implications. But then I heard from people

1103
01:09:43,450 --> 01:09:46,833
who are like, okay, I could boycott this seafood, but I don't eat lobster and

1104
01:09:46,873 --> 01:09:50,296
crab regularly. I'm not that wealthy. Or

1105
01:09:51,217 --> 01:09:54,720
I heard from a couple of people who say, okay, well, I'm not supposed to eat beef because

1106
01:09:54,760 --> 01:09:58,364
of climate. I'm not supposed to eat chicken because of climate. I'm

1107
01:09:58,404 --> 01:10:02,147
not supposed to eat soybeans because of water. And now,

1108
01:10:02,327 --> 01:10:05,550
and now I'm not supposed to eat seafood because of whales. What

1109
01:10:05,590 --> 01:10:08,780
the heck can I And so that's where we talk about, yeah,

1110
01:10:09,641 --> 01:10:12,963
I mean, this is where we start to

1111
01:10:13,043 --> 01:10:17,106
hear from people that like outside messages do matter

1112
01:10:17,186 --> 01:10:20,648
because it places this context. And so the focus on

1113
01:10:20,689 --> 01:10:24,931
the problem is something that. Not

1114
01:10:24,972 --> 01:10:28,174
just these two films, but the reporting, um, that I looked at

1115
01:10:28,294 --> 01:10:31,456
really focused on, but it didn't really do the

1116
01:10:31,576 --> 01:10:34,738
follow through. Whereas lobster fishermen could tell you

1117
01:10:34,818 --> 01:10:38,127
what happens if there are more regulations. Right. Or

1118
01:10:38,427 --> 01:10:42,628
at least that's their argument. Yeah. So I think in

1119
01:10:42,668 --> 01:10:45,949
a situation that is so uncertain, we don't know

1120
01:10:46,029 --> 01:10:50,570
what happens to the ecosystems if right whales disappear. They've

1121
01:10:50,610 --> 01:10:53,731
been depleted for so long, you know,

1122
01:10:53,791 --> 01:10:57,271
maybe it's some localized effects or maybe it's part of a larger cascade. We

1123
01:10:57,291 --> 01:11:00,592
don't know. And so people recognize after seeing

1124
01:11:00,632 --> 01:11:03,733
these films, they know extinction is bad. They know we

1125
01:11:03,773 --> 01:11:07,311
need to avoid it. but they don't quite see

1126
01:11:07,391 --> 01:11:10,973
how they can get involved. And that left them feeling stuck and angry

1127
01:11:11,114 --> 01:11:15,076
and hopeless. And even when I did hear positive

1128
01:11:15,116 --> 01:11:18,619
emotions, it was in response to seeing this

1129
01:11:18,679 --> 01:11:22,241
incredible footage of right whales and not the story. And

1130
01:11:22,321 --> 01:11:26,805
so going back to your point, like there

1131
01:11:26,885 --> 01:11:30,527
has to be some kind of agency, but also

1132
01:11:31,608 --> 01:11:35,301
some of the things that we really need to do are kind of boring. When

1133
01:11:35,321 --> 01:11:39,582
we're talking about conservation technology and ropeless gear, I

1134
01:11:39,622 --> 01:11:42,883
heard from a lot of people. Oh, well, the federal

1135
01:11:42,923 --> 01:11:46,425
government should just fund that, but they didn't put that together with

1136
01:11:46,465 --> 01:11:49,746
the fact that federal agencies took budget cuts last

1137
01:11:49,786 --> 01:11:53,347
year or that every time you vote, that

1138
01:11:53,367 --> 01:11:56,748
has implications for right whales or each year

1139
01:11:57,028 --> 01:12:00,449
during congressional appropriations, you should reach out

1140
01:12:00,789 --> 01:12:04,024
and tell your, you know, members of Congress. that you

1141
01:12:04,064 --> 01:12:07,246
want to see funding for right whales, because if it's not in that

1142
01:12:07,326 --> 01:12:10,508
bill, there's no guarantee it gets done. And then

1143
01:12:10,548 --> 01:12:14,511
when you pose the question, okay, if we're paying for

1144
01:12:14,571 --> 01:12:17,913
conservation technology, what are we not paying for? What are we giving

1145
01:12:18,053 --> 01:12:21,695
up? Right. And those are tough conversations, but

1146
01:12:21,735 --> 01:12:25,838
like that civic engagement is really important. And

1147
01:12:25,858 --> 01:12:29,760
I'll go back just one more quick point about the conservation technology.

1148
01:12:30,953 --> 01:12:34,476
A lot of what I heard from people is like, well, the solutions right there.

1149
01:12:34,596 --> 01:12:38,098
It's this fishing gear. Everybody wins. Lobstermen

1150
01:12:38,138 --> 01:12:42,121
can keep fishing. Whale stopped getting entangled. Hopefully

1151
01:12:42,161 --> 01:12:45,544
these whale disentanglement people are out of a job and happy about

1152
01:12:45,624 --> 01:12:48,867
it, but nobody's really brought up the perspective of

1153
01:12:48,947 --> 01:12:53,090
the lobstermen either. What does it mean to be a fisherman? Right?

1154
01:12:53,130 --> 01:12:57,085
Like there, there's a huge sense of identity there. There's. there's

1155
01:12:57,205 --> 01:13:00,428
cultural importance of fishing the way that

1156
01:13:00,468 --> 01:13:03,870
their grandfathers or great grandfathers fished.

1157
01:13:03,990 --> 01:13:07,493
And that's missing from the conversation so that it's not just

1158
01:13:07,713 --> 01:13:11,976
Noah should pay for this technology to be developed and implemented. It's

1159
01:13:12,156 --> 01:13:16,159
also, how do you persuade an entire industry

1160
01:13:16,239 --> 01:13:20,302
that this can work and that this is worth doing?

1161
01:13:21,083 --> 01:13:24,318
And so I think, You

1162
01:13:24,358 --> 01:13:28,020
know, it's really hard to simplify the story and you have to make decisions

1163
01:13:28,120 --> 01:13:32,102
because there's no way one movie, one news article can

1164
01:13:32,142 --> 01:13:35,224
capture four plus decades of

1165
01:13:35,304 --> 01:13:38,446
science and conservation or nearly a century of

1166
01:13:38,486 --> 01:13:42,048
the right whale being endangered. But future movies

1167
01:13:42,348 --> 01:13:46,690
and future communications should explore some of these other topics, especially

1168
01:13:46,730 --> 01:13:50,312
because it's not just whale conservationists and

1169
01:13:50,452 --> 01:13:53,554
experts and lobster fishermen who are affected if we lose the

1170
01:13:53,594 --> 01:13:56,989
right whale. There are indigenous communities. Who

1171
01:13:57,029 --> 01:14:00,373
had no part in hunting the right whale to near extinction, who

1172
01:14:00,413 --> 01:14:03,696
would have to grapple with their losses. You know, what does that

1173
01:14:04,136 --> 01:14:07,239
do for conservation morale? Right. What

1174
01:14:07,279 --> 01:14:10,462
does it do in the ecosystem? So what does

1175
01:14:10,502 --> 01:14:14,025
it do for tourism? You know, I looked at whale watching websites in

1176
01:14:14,085 --> 01:14:17,949
another project. I didn't hear from whale watching operators in

1177
01:14:18,229 --> 01:14:21,562
news coverage or these films. or anything like that.

1178
01:14:22,023 --> 01:14:25,364
Right. So when we focus in, when

1179
01:14:25,384 --> 01:14:29,926
we focus in on these two, just Titans, we

1180
01:14:29,946 --> 01:14:33,528
sort of miss out on all the other color around that

1181
01:14:33,568 --> 01:14:36,969
for this black and white story. And then it just leaves people feeling like,

1182
01:14:37,029 --> 01:14:41,591
well, that's a big bummer. I

1183
01:14:41,651 --> 01:14:45,353
have to focus on the cost of living right now or

1184
01:14:45,393 --> 01:14:48,614
my job or parenting. So

1185
01:14:50,101 --> 01:14:53,724
Yes, it's too complicated. I can't figure it out on my own. I think it's

1186
01:14:53,764 --> 01:14:56,886
really interesting, too. You mentioned a couple of things. One, looking at

1187
01:14:56,927 --> 01:15:00,810
documentaries in general, the one that when you mentioned they

1188
01:15:00,850 --> 01:15:04,192
talk, they focus mostly on the problem, and then they don't

1189
01:15:04,212 --> 01:15:07,395
really give time all the time for the solution. Well, the

1190
01:15:07,435 --> 01:15:10,618
same thing happened. I remember watching Chasing Coral. That's another one

1191
01:15:10,638 --> 01:15:13,840
where they focus too much or they focus so much on the problem, which

1192
01:15:14,661 --> 01:15:17,943
cool technology, really interesting to see. But you felt

1193
01:15:17,983 --> 01:15:21,146
depressed at the end. You even see scientists like crying as they're like

1194
01:15:21,186 --> 01:15:24,829
looking at the Great Barrier Reef, you know, at a conference that's bleached

1195
01:15:24,869 --> 01:15:28,391
by 90%. And then after that, their only solution

1196
01:15:28,431 --> 01:15:31,674
was to go into kids' classrooms and, you know, tell kids

1197
01:15:31,734 --> 01:15:35,357
about corals and how important they are and this and that. And you're just kind of like sitting

1198
01:15:35,377 --> 01:15:38,659
here. And I remember like seeing on Twitter and

1199
01:15:38,719 --> 01:15:41,942
on social media the reactions to the movies and just being like,

1200
01:15:42,588 --> 01:15:45,831
I feel like, well, there go corals. That's it for them.

1201
01:15:45,931 --> 01:15:50,235
Too bad. Dive while you can. And it was

1202
01:15:50,275 --> 01:15:53,618
disheartening after a while to look at that and just be like, oh

1203
01:15:53,678 --> 01:15:57,161
man, that's how people see these when we do these videos. It's

1204
01:15:57,282 --> 01:16:00,441
so important. to do what

1205
01:16:00,461 --> 01:16:03,583
you talked about and start talking about look like you

1206
01:16:03,643 --> 01:16:07,006
may yeah you can avoid seafood if you if that's

1207
01:16:07,026 --> 01:16:10,729
what you choose to do everybody makes their own choices but

1208
01:16:10,749 --> 01:16:14,011
it's also like talking about the policy and being like if you

1209
01:16:14,151 --> 01:16:17,554
vote for this type of candidate they're

1210
01:16:17,594 --> 01:16:21,956
more likely to fund you know environmental legislation

1211
01:16:21,996 --> 01:16:25,517
or environmental for for environmental policies or put in environmental

1212
01:16:25,557 --> 01:16:28,838
policies and regulations to help these animals so

1213
01:16:28,898 --> 01:16:32,539
now you're doing it just by putting a vote you're helping them in that respect

1214
01:16:32,719 --> 01:16:35,901
and yes you can still avoid you know, plastics, you can

1215
01:16:35,921 --> 01:16:39,083
still avoid, you know, seafood if you choose to

1216
01:16:39,143 --> 01:16:43,266
do that. But at least you're giving, you're hitting it for like a multifaceted, solutions

1217
01:16:43,306 --> 01:16:46,629
are multifaceted just as much as the issues that

1218
01:16:46,649 --> 01:16:50,792
hit us. So I think that's a really interesting thing

1219
01:16:50,832 --> 01:16:54,935
to point out when we talk about these types of stories is focusing

1220
01:16:55,115 --> 01:16:58,938
on all the things that we can do from small to tall

1221
01:16:59,018 --> 01:17:02,100
just by voting. You know, and that's one thing I focus on

1222
01:17:02,160 --> 01:17:05,368
here is, it's always voting you know is it of

1223
01:17:05,509 --> 01:17:09,257
very important election coming up you know for it for the u s uh...

1224
01:17:09,438 --> 01:17:13,046
it seems like and is not far behind in terms of our federal government

1225
01:17:14,712 --> 01:17:19,434
it's, it's, it's so important to highlight

1226
01:17:19,474 --> 01:17:23,056
that, you know, especially with these days, when the

1227
01:17:23,116 --> 01:17:26,677
parties are so, you know, black and white in terms of their differences,

1228
01:17:27,138 --> 01:17:30,239
and what they're going to fund and what they're not going to find, it seems like one party is more apt to

1229
01:17:30,279 --> 01:17:34,441
fund environmental legislation and put in environmental legislation

1230
01:17:34,601 --> 01:17:38,162
than others. And I think that's, I feel I feel that's really interesting.

1231
01:17:38,503 --> 01:17:41,604
And trying to get out of the hole, let's put environment to

1232
01:17:41,624 --> 01:17:45,245
the side, because we have all these other issues to deal with. and

1233
01:17:45,405 --> 01:17:48,926
try and bring it in and be like, yeah, well, we can deal with all of them together, I

1234
01:17:48,946 --> 01:17:52,007
think is really important. But Marcus, this has been a

1235
01:17:52,808 --> 01:17:56,349
riveting discussion. I'd love to invite you back on.

1236
01:17:56,409 --> 01:17:59,550
We're coming up on time, but I'd love to invite you back on to talk more about this.

1237
01:17:59,930 --> 01:18:03,651
Maybe after once you become a doctor, I'll be able to call you Dr. Marcus

1238
01:18:03,711 --> 01:18:06,852
Reamer. which I'm looking forward to doing. But I want to

1239
01:18:06,872 --> 01:18:10,032
thank you for coming on and discussing this with us.

1240
01:18:10,112 --> 01:18:14,293
It's not often we get to really dive deep into communications, and

1241
01:18:14,313 --> 01:18:18,494
I want more and more people on that. I'm starting to meet more science communicators

1242
01:18:18,574 --> 01:18:22,135
out here in this, you know, digital universe,

1243
01:18:22,195 --> 01:18:25,855
and being able to discuss it more. Because one

1244
01:18:25,875 --> 01:18:29,818
of the things I tell our audience is, We

1245
01:18:29,858 --> 01:18:33,020
need to talk about this. The one thing is to be

1246
01:18:33,100 --> 01:18:36,502
aware and learn, but we need to continue to discuss this

1247
01:18:37,083 --> 01:18:40,265
on multiple levels. And the

1248
01:18:40,285 --> 01:18:43,827
more we can learn how to do it, the better. So I

1249
01:18:43,867 --> 01:18:47,169
think it's great to have you on, and I'm looking forward to having you back

1250
01:18:47,309 --> 01:18:50,931
on after your PhD and after you relax a little bit. I'm sure you'll

1251
01:18:52,972 --> 01:18:56,294
Who knows what it is to relax in a life like mine.

1252
01:18:57,673 --> 01:19:01,916
You know, I do another masters at some point, you know, my, my

1253
01:19:01,956 --> 01:19:05,398
parents joke that my only option, you know, I'm squeamish, so

1254
01:19:05,418 --> 01:19:08,860
I can't go to med school. So I might just go get an MFA or

1255
01:19:08,900 --> 01:19:12,822
a JD. But, um, if

1256
01:19:12,842 --> 01:19:16,064
there's one message that I want to leave off on

1257
01:19:16,385 --> 01:19:19,486
with hopes that we can speak again in the future, you know, I

1258
01:19:19,506 --> 01:19:24,730
would love to come back. Um, a lot of what I've found, not

1259
01:19:24,750 --> 01:19:28,224
just in my experience with PhD research, but, but

1260
01:19:28,304 --> 01:19:31,666
throughout my career is that we tend

1261
01:19:32,547 --> 01:19:37,109
to think of communication as a thing that just happens. And

1262
01:19:38,409 --> 01:19:41,791
that's changing, you know, for, for climate communication, for

1263
01:19:41,871 --> 01:19:45,153
other forms of environmental communication, but for

1264
01:19:45,333 --> 01:19:48,875
ocean topics specifically, there are certain

1265
01:19:50,336 --> 01:19:53,967
barriers to public engagement that We

1266
01:19:54,027 --> 01:19:57,549
have to learn how to do really well. We have to understand

1267
01:19:57,589 --> 01:20:00,971
them and we have to put money behind that. Funders have to,

1268
01:20:01,191 --> 01:20:05,093
to incorporate that into research. We need more people to

1269
01:20:05,534 --> 01:20:09,536
take an interest in researching ocean communication because

1270
01:20:09,956 --> 01:20:13,218
you know, things that I've heard from people who walk on the beach every

1271
01:20:13,278 --> 01:20:16,400
single day, whether it's in Florida or whether it's here in

1272
01:20:16,420 --> 01:20:20,742
Maryland and Delaware is that it feels far away. Right.

1273
01:20:21,980 --> 01:20:25,423
So there, there's a perceived distance, but then you have to think most

1274
01:20:25,463 --> 01:20:28,726
of the world does not live next to the ocean

1275
01:20:28,766 --> 01:20:32,669
and experience it every day. So there is a real distance too. And

1276
01:20:32,749 --> 01:20:36,132
so the, the thing that I find to be important, yeah,

1277
01:20:36,212 --> 01:20:39,815
the stuff that I've done with right whales, I hope will be helpful not

1278
01:20:39,855 --> 01:20:43,918
to just to that cause, but to figuring

1279
01:20:44,079 --> 01:20:47,281
out how we can incorporate communication into

1280
01:20:47,361 --> 01:20:50,654
comprehensive conservation strategies, whether that's

1281
01:20:50,714 --> 01:20:53,916
research or practice, to make the most of

1282
01:20:53,956 --> 01:20:57,159
this ocean decade and beyond. So how

1283
01:20:57,219 --> 01:21:00,762
can funders do more to support social science that

1284
01:21:00,802 --> 01:21:04,144
incorporates communication? How can we

1285
01:21:04,244 --> 01:21:08,248
support more interdisciplinary work, you know, with

1286
01:21:08,828 --> 01:21:12,011
the limited funding that we have for all the big challenges that

1287
01:21:12,031 --> 01:21:15,753
we need to address? So ocean communication is certainly something

1288
01:21:15,794 --> 01:21:19,322
that I I'm interested in, I've gotten good at, but

1289
01:21:19,742 --> 01:21:23,104
there are just barriers that are in the way that we need an all hands

1290
01:21:23,164 --> 01:21:27,047
on deck approach to, to help achieve a lot of those sustainability

1291
01:21:27,087 --> 01:21:30,209
goals. So yeah, I

1292
01:21:30,249 --> 01:21:34,192
think that's, that's my closing message. If there is one, it's, it's one

1293
01:21:34,232 --> 01:21:37,414
of hope and optimism and a call for action, which is

1294
01:21:37,674 --> 01:21:41,037
we got to put money behind it and bring people like you and

1295
01:21:41,057 --> 01:21:44,224
I into the fold. Um, to help make

1296
01:21:44,265 --> 01:21:47,668
sense of some of this stuff, not just for non-expert audiences, but

1297
01:21:48,208 --> 01:21:53,853
for the people who are directly involved as well. Filmmakers, journalists,

1298
01:21:54,413 --> 01:21:58,237
nature writers, you name it. Communication

1299
01:21:58,297 --> 01:22:01,920
scholars and practitioners are really valuable resources to

1300
01:22:05,826 --> 01:22:08,987
Absolutely, absolutely. Marcus, this was wonderful. Thank you

1301
01:22:09,027 --> 01:22:12,368
so much for coming on the podcast. Looking forward to having you back. Looking

1302
01:22:12,408 --> 01:22:15,769
forward to hearing that you have successfully achieved that

1303
01:22:15,869 --> 01:22:19,010
PhD and that doctor status. And I can't wait to

1304
01:22:19,050 --> 01:22:22,592
see what you're up to next. It's going to be a lot of fun, whether it's another graduate

1305
01:22:22,632 --> 01:22:26,093
degree or working in the rest of us. It's

1306
01:22:26,113 --> 01:22:29,274
going to be a lot of fun. But I want to thank you again for coming on the podcast. And

1307
01:22:33,370 --> 01:22:36,633
Thank you, Marcus, for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean

1308
01:22:36,653 --> 01:22:40,377
podcast. This was an episode that went a little longer than normal. Apologize for

1309
01:22:40,417 --> 01:22:43,921
that. You know, we're getting in, we're geeking out about it. I really, I really appreciated

1310
01:22:43,961 --> 01:22:47,624
Marcus's time, of course. Thank you, Marcus. But this is something that,

1311
01:22:47,885 --> 01:22:51,368
you know, we're going to have more conversations on. He's got to prepare for his PhD and

1312
01:22:51,428 --> 01:22:54,571
he's willing to talk all the time. about this and I'm sure we

1313
01:22:54,591 --> 01:22:57,954
could have gone on for another couple of hours, but we're not Joe Rogan,

1314
01:22:58,134 --> 01:23:01,196
we don't have the three-hour podcast, so I want to kind of keep it

1315
01:23:01,216 --> 01:23:04,379
a little tight and make sure that we were talking about, you

1316
01:23:04,419 --> 01:23:07,542
know, the issues that we want to talk about and the topics that we

1317
01:23:07,582 --> 01:23:12,065
want to talk about, but we're going to talk about more about environmental conservation

1318
01:23:12,365 --> 01:23:15,508
and communication when he comes back on and I'm

1319
01:23:15,528 --> 01:23:18,651
looking forward to that happening and hopefully I will be talking to him as a

1320
01:23:19,131 --> 01:23:22,501
doctor at that point. But I want to thank Marcus for joining us,

1321
01:23:22,561 --> 01:23:26,506
and I want to thank you for listening, because like I said before at the beginning of this episode, this

1322
01:23:26,606 --> 01:23:29,970
is a way for all of us to learn about communication, because we all

1323
01:23:29,990 --> 01:23:33,574
have to communicate that message. Whether we're communicating to our politicians,

1324
01:23:33,594 --> 01:23:37,218
whether we're communicating to our family members, our friends, our colleagues, getting

1325
01:23:37,258 --> 01:23:40,742
people connected to the ocean is really important when we talk about protecting the

1326
01:23:40,822 --> 01:23:44,223
ocean. Whether you live in Ontario like me, surrounded by the great lakes

1327
01:23:44,263 --> 01:23:47,523
and beautiful rivers and watersheds, that's how I feel connected to

1328
01:23:47,543 --> 01:23:50,884
the ocean. Every time I look at water, I think about the ocean. That's me

1329
01:23:50,944 --> 01:23:54,585
personally. Not everybody feels that way. You know, I remember, you

1330
01:23:54,605 --> 01:23:58,186
know, just a quick anecdote. I remember being at a conference in PEI

1331
01:23:58,746 --> 01:24:02,207
and they were talking about how people who live in Toronto, you know, when you

1332
01:24:02,327 --> 01:24:05,808
sit at Bloor Street, you know, and young and you look down towards

1333
01:24:05,828 --> 01:24:08,969
the water, you look south towards the water, You can't see the water from

1334
01:24:09,009 --> 01:24:12,331
there. Obviously, it's a big way. There's a lot of land in between that,

1335
01:24:12,691 --> 01:24:16,053
but there are buildings in between that. And the lakeshore now

1336
01:24:16,153 --> 01:24:19,715
is just covered and peppered with condos, and not necessarily

1337
01:24:19,755 --> 01:24:23,057
a good thing. And so you're not seeing the lake. You're

1338
01:24:23,078 --> 01:24:26,340
not seeing that water body. You're not seeing the shoreline. And

1339
01:24:26,400 --> 01:24:30,142
that could affect the way you feel connected to

1340
01:24:30,382 --> 01:24:33,664
a big body of water, like Lake Ontario, or like any of the other Great

1341
01:24:33,704 --> 01:24:37,847
Lakes, or like an ocean body, or a major river like the St. Lawrence River. That

1342
01:24:37,907 --> 01:24:41,128
matters. And so planning a city, making sure

1343
01:24:41,168 --> 01:24:44,249
that we all feel connected, make sure that we talk about the benefits of

1344
01:24:44,349 --> 01:24:47,629
water, the benefits of being close to water and seeing water

1345
01:24:47,649 --> 01:24:51,130
on a regular basis, whether it's any body of water, that's

1346
01:24:51,190 --> 01:24:54,471
really important. And being able to talk about it and being able

1347
01:24:54,511 --> 01:24:58,152
to make sure that we get that message across is critical to

1348
01:24:58,252 --> 01:25:01,673
protecting the ocean and protecting our water bodies on this planet, which covers most

1349
01:25:01,693 --> 01:25:04,853
of the planet. So, you know, we need to talk about it more. We need to learn that.

1350
01:25:04,893 --> 01:25:08,154
And so I want to thank Marcus for coming on the podcast again. to

1351
01:25:08,174 --> 01:25:11,675
be able to help us talk about that and teach us about what

1352
01:25:11,815 --> 01:25:15,616
he learned through his dissertation and what we can learn from him and

1353
01:25:15,656 --> 01:25:18,917
this podcast. So I want to thank him again. I want to thank you for listening and

1354
01:25:18,938 --> 01:25:22,098
you for putting in the time and the effort to help protect the ocean the

1355
01:25:22,138 --> 01:25:25,460
way that you do. And I'd love to hear your questions or comments about this

1356
01:25:25,520 --> 01:25:29,021
episode. You can hit me up on Spotify. You can comment there. You

1357
01:25:29,061 --> 01:25:32,402
can comment on a YouTube channel where this will be put. And you

1358
01:25:32,422 --> 01:25:36,223
can also reach out to me on Instagram at HowToProtectTheOcean if

1359
01:25:36,243 --> 01:25:39,385
you're listening too. your favorite podcast app and they don't have the comments. I don't

1360
01:25:39,405 --> 01:25:42,787
understand why podcasts don't have comments right on the episodes. That would be so cool.

1361
01:25:42,847 --> 01:25:46,510
I like the way Spotify is going about it in the way that they have interaction.

1362
01:25:46,590 --> 01:25:50,193
So that would be cool. Let's see what we can conjure

1363
01:25:50,233 --> 01:25:53,435
up in this episode and the questions that come in, the comments that come in. I'd love

1364
01:25:53,455 --> 01:25:56,618
to hear your comments later on. So thank you so

1365
01:25:56,658 --> 01:26:00,240
much for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Have