SHARKS: GUARDIANS OF OUR OCEANS

Dr Rae Wynn-Grant: [00:00:00] When you think of the Bahamas, you probably picture white sand beaches and clear blue waters and a bustling tourist economy. [00:00:07]

Peter Gros: [00:00:09] Beneath those clear blue waters is an abundance of plants and sea life, thanks in part to the many sharks that call these ecosystems home. [00:00:18]

Dr Rae Wynn-Grant: [00:00:19] Time and time again in conservation work, we're reminded how important it is to protect apex predators in the wild. [00:00:25]

Peter Gros: [00:00:26] Unfortunately, when it comes to sharks, we only tend to hear about negative encounters. [00:00:30]

Candace Fields: [00:00:31] In the media, it's always about a shark attack, whether it's fatal or not. You know, there's no headline saying shark casually swims by snorkeler. But that's what's happening 99.9% of the time. [00:00:45]

Dr Rae Wynn-Grant: [00:00:46] We seek the truth about living and swimming with sharks. [00:00:50]

Peter Gros: [00:00:58] I'm Peter Gros, wildlife expert and educator. [00:01:01]

Dr Rae Wynn-Grant: [00:01:01] And I'm wildlife ecologist, Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant, and this is Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, The Podcast. Episode nine, sharks, guardians of our oceans. In 2011, the ocean waters of the Bahamas were declared a shark sanctuary. Because of this classification and the restrictions it places on industries and fishing, sharks are flourishing. [00:01:37]

Peter Gros: [00:01:38] Candace Fields is a marine biologist and Ph.D. candidate studying and advocating for sharks in the Bahamas. She says that one of the biggest threats to sharks is from the fishing industry, either as targets or getting caught by bycatch. [00:01:52]

Candace Fields: [00:01:53] If you're targeting tuna, for example, a lot of offshore species, silky sharks, oceanic white tips, things like that, get caught as bycatch in like tuna fisheries, right? They're obviously out there really targeting the tuna, but sharks are going to take the bait or get caught up in their nets at some times. So that is a huge threat to sharks. [00:02:13]

Peter Gros: [00:02:13] We visited with Candice in the Bahamas to shoot an episode of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, Protecting the Wild. We got a first-hand look at how her fascination with these apex predators has led to her work to educate people about them. [00:02:27]

Candace Fields: [00:02:28] Everybody has this inherent fear, this inherent sharks are the bad guy perspective, and I have always wanted to be someone who is kind of like the voice of the sharks, right? How can I get people to understand why we need these animals in our oceans? And the goal is never to say nobody should be afraid of sharks because that's not reasonable. And I want to be that voice for sharks and understanding why sharks are imperative for the ecosystem and ensuring that they basically continue to live on for millions and millions of more years. [00:03:08]

Peter Gros: [00:03:08] Now you talk about sharks in general, how many different species of sharks have you worked with? [00:03:13]

Candace Fields: [00:03:13] I've never really thought about that. I mean, definitely, probably 10 or so directly and, you know, maybe a few more indirectly. But it's really interesting. Each species is so different. There's always something new to learn. We have so much that we still don't know about sharks. You know, there are over 500 species of sharks in the world. So there's tons and tons of sharks out there, many of which nobody will ever come into contact with, right? They're either in the deep sea or very far offshore. You I think this is important to note. Many sharks are... Three to four feet long. So a person is much, much bigger than a majority of the shark species out there. But obviously that's not the ones that's making the press, right? And so I think when you try to change your perspective a little bit and think about how few sharks and shark incidents there are, it really gives you this idea of maybe we're painting a picture that's not actually accurate for these sharks. [00:04:06]

Peter Gros: [00:04:07] And how about all the knowledge that you are deriving from your sort of research? How does that aid in shark conservation? [00:04:12]

Candace Fields: [00:04:13] Part of my work is just to look at how populations have or have not changed since the implementation of the shark sanctuary to try to basically safeguard the sanctuary in the Bahamas. Because there's a growing call that people want to see the regulations in the Bahamas change in terms of sharks and shark conservation policy. Then I'm also doing in terms trade and conservation of critically endangered species, some work, some genetics work on oceanic white tips where I'm looking at fins from market in Hong Kong and mainland China. And you can actually use genetic analyzes to trace the fin back to the region of origin. So basically you can say if this shark was caught in the Atlantic or in the Indo-Pacific. And that is huge because you're able to basically highlight where if at all illegal trade is occurring and to what percentage it's happening. So I'm really excited about that work. [00:05:07]

Peter Gros: [00:05:08] Candice showed us how she's able to monitor populations within the Bahamas Shark Sanctuary. [00:05:13]

Candace Fields: [00:05:14] With Ray today, she's going to be assisting me in setting a baited-remote underwater video station, which we just call BRUVS for short, because who has time to be saying all of that every single time? We don't have to capture the animal, we don't to touch the animal. The animal doesn't have come out of the water. It's strictly observational, right? So we're able to learn a lot about species diversity, as well as species abundance. So how many of said species are there? [00:05:35]

Dr Rae Wynn-Grant: [00:05:36] Faded remote underwater video station. [00:05:38]

Peter Gros: [00:05:41] Now, when Ray and I were there, we saw your incredible underwater cameras that you're using. Can you tell us a little bit about how that works? [00:05:47]

Candace Fields: [00:05:48] Yeah, so that is how I'm doing the assessment of the Bahamas Shark Sanctuary and basically what we do is use this apparatus called a baited remote underwater video station or more commonly known as BRUVS. Then it has an arm that has some bait on it and then just an underwater camera and you basically just deploy it, let it sit down there for an hour to an hour and a half and you see what comes by, right? And the whole... You know, premise of that work is that you can get an understanding of things like the species diversity, the species abundance. Touching the animal at all, right? And without you entering their environment. So it's non-invasive and non-extractive. And when you're dealing with, you know, endangered species, this is a pretty ideal scenario, right. You don't have to risk any mortality event, um, doing your study. And the cool thing about the BRUV's work is also, it's great for the Bahamas, but it contributes to, to global studies as well. Um, there's a project called the Global Thin Print Project, and basically we're able to assess the situation with reef sharks across the globe. The first iteration found that reef sharks in many places were kind of functionally extinct, right? They, they were not in the numbers that they should be, but there were bright spots, right. There are hotspots places like the Bahamas. And the second iteration is kind of diving deeper and looking into impacts of things like marina protected areas and things like this. So this little simple tool has the capacity to give us so much information in a pretty cost-effective way. [00:07:17]

Peter Gros: [00:07:17] So it must be exciting each time you come back to take a look at the footage and see what you've actually captured down there. Have you ever seen anything that just really surprises or just really sets you back and say, I can't believe we have a picture of that? [00:07:30]

Candace Fields: [00:07:31] When you deploy these BRUVS you have an idea of what you expect to see, right? And you, you know that based on where you're setting the BRUVs So for example, in the area where we dove, if I set a BRUV anywhere in that general vicinity, I could expect to a solid amount of reef sharks and probably some nurse sharks, just based on the fact that I know that there's a ton of those sharks that live there. Um, what's exciting to me is when you see things like hammerhead sharks or tiger sharks, again, not because. It's a surprise that they exist in the Bahamas, but the typical video consists of reef sharks. So something else that's exciting is to see a different species. I love seeing that. One of my favorite things also to see was I actually saw a lemon shark sitting on the floor and buckle pumping, right? So, you know, there's this idea that sharks need to keep swimming to breathe. And that is the case for some species, but many species have the capacity to sit completely still and breathe and they can force water over their gills. Without swimming and on one of the BRUVs, I actually caught a lemon shark sitting down and just opening and closing his mouth, breathing. And I actually found that quite cool. I'd never seen it in real life before. So that was pretty cool. [00:08:41]

Peter Gros: [00:08:42] Have you noticed any decline in any of the shark populations? [00:08:44]

Candace Fields: [00:08:45] What we're looking at in the Bahamas, we're actually seeing stable population trend, which is good news, right? People often equate having a shark sanctuary to having some sort of population explosion, right, that all of a sudden the numbers are astronomical and out of this world, and we need to do something about it. But what we're seeing is that just stable and healthy populations. And so this is something that we hope to continue to see in the future. And it just speaks to the importance of continual monitoring so we can assess the situation and have science-informed policy. [00:09:20]

Peter Gros: [00:09:21] I had a chance to dive with Candice and observe the sharks. After all these years, this was actually my first time diving with sharks without a cage. I've never done this before without a cage and it's the first time I've thought about going diving hoping the sharks would be there. So this is going to be really exciting. [00:09:39]

Candace Fields: [00:09:39] Yes, well I think that you don't even have to hope. I can, I promise you that the sharks will be there. Swim calmly as you would on a normal dive. If a shark comes at you, the best thing to do really is maintain your eye contact, right? You don't want to turn and swim away. Sharks swimming at me, maintain eye contact and remain calm. Remain calm, absolutely. [00:09:54]

Peter Gros: [00:09:59] When we were diving together, we saw so many species of fish and coral, especially along the wall. Can you explain to our listeners a little bit just what that's like to me? It seemed absolutely surreal to be weightless in this relatively warm water surrounded by marine life that didn't seem to be bothered by us at all. It just kept popping up in front of me. It's just certainly an environment that I will never forget. But can you describe that a little bit to our listeners? [00:10:28]

Candace Fields: [00:10:29] The dive site that we were at was called the Ray of Hope, which is a shipwreck, but where it's situated, it's very close to the wall, right? And basically that just means that you're swimming and it's sea floor, sea floor and then all of a sudden there's this sort of drop off, right. And that is basically because of the bathymetry or the underwater topography of the Bahamas, it's this shelf situation. And so you're able to see you know, this juxtaposition of just vast expanse of blue and kind of this nothingness. And then all of a sudden there's a bunch of life, right? There's a variety of reef fish of all sizes, like groupers and snappers. There's stingrays, there's corals of different species, whether that's hard corals or soft corals. And then of course the sort of main, the main show, the sharks, right. So, you know when I go there, I kind of imagine. What it must have been like 50 years ago to to see that area because if we think that this is amazing I can only imagine what you know your sort of Jacques Cousteau's of the world were seeing when they were exploring the ocean because these expanses of beautiful marine life and when you really think about it this is not even close to what it you know should or could be like so it's it's something that you know I wish that everybody could experience because I think people would have a better understanding of how the ocean is changing and how it's being impacted by humans and human related changes like climate change and pollution and things like that. [00:12:06]

Peter Gros: [00:12:07] What sort of relationship between coral reef and sharks is there? You always think of the two of them together. Can one sustain itself without the other? [00:12:16]

Candace Fields: [00:12:17] Taking one out would probably not be great for the other, right? And that could be because of a direct effect, whether that's something like consumption of reef fish or an indirect effect. So if you think of an example that's a little in a different environment in a seagrass bed, right, I'm going to basically say that tiger sharks are important for seagrass. That seems like a pretty far-fetched statement, but... Basically, if you think about the Bahamas, for example, and you think about the fact that we have tiger sharks, sea turtles, and seagrass. If I'm a turtle, I have to weigh the risk of going to feed on the best seagass patch with the idea that a tiger shark might come to try to eat me, right? If for some reason we fished out all the tiger sharks. Now me as a turtle. I don't have that risk, so I can go and just graze and graze, and graze. On the seagrass patch until it's completely depleted. That's gonna then create problems. So indirectly, tiger sharks are important to seagrass beds because they make sure that turtles don't just feed on one bed until there's no more and then move on to the next one. [00:13:28]

Peter Gros: [00:13:28] What are the chances, are there commissions, are there annual meetings of maybe this attitude how important preserving sharks is in other parts of the world? What can one do to help get that word out? [00:13:40]

Candace Fields: [00:13:40] The biggest thing you can do is donate to reputable organizations, whether that's a research organization, whether it's a nonprofit for conservation, something like that. You can do small things with your habits that make a big impact on the ocean and thereby sharks. You can limit your plastic consumption, right? You can use a reusable water bottle instead of buying water by the case. Bring your reusable bags to the grocery store. Things that are good. For the environment as a whole are going to be good for the marine ecosystem and its inhabitants. I like to tell people things like that because it seems far more accessible than saying, you know, go and volunteer at your local aquarium. That's also very important. Um, but it's not necessarily an option for everybody, but people making small changes in their kind of day-to-day habits will make an impact. It's easy to get pigeonholed into talking about conservation of sharks, specifically, but... We have one planet and the planet is in need of help. And so I think, you know, doing things that can help as many facets as possible is, is something that is great. [00:14:47]

Peter Gros: [00:14:48] Thank you so much for my underwater shark education, my shark tutorial, and keep up all the good. You're affecting people's attitudes so much about the importance of sharks in our ecosystem. [00:15:00]

Candace Fields: [00:15:01] Oh, I appreciate that so much because, you know, some of the most important work that I do actually is not even the research, it's the outreach, right? And I work a lot with an organization called Sharks for Kids, where our whole goal is to basically inspire the next generation of ocean advocates with sharks as a flagship species through education, outreach, and adventure, right, and so we go into classrooms, whether that's in person or virtually, and we talk to kids about shark biology, the importance of sharks in the ecosystem. Sharks that are in and around the area that we're presenting in. And you can really see sometimes the kind of light bulb go off for some kids where you're able to get them to shift their perspective from fear to fact and from, you know, understanding, okay, these sharks aren't out to get me. We just need to figure out a way to coexist with them because they are crucial. And so I'm just so thankful for platforms like this and I had such a great time with you and Ray. Showing off the Bahamas and what we have to offer, because it's things like that that get the word out and that's the only way that we're going to make a difference. [00:16:06]

Dr Rae Wynn-Grant: [00:16:06] Now it's time for conservation connection. We know that the more we can connect with animals, the more likely we are to protect them. Today, we'll hear from Dr. Rory Telémaco, Director of Conservation Science at the Fresno Chaffee Zoo. [00:16:20]

Peter Gros: [00:16:21] Prairie is working to save the blunt-nosed leopard lizard from extinction in its native central California. [00:16:26]

Dr Rae Wynn-Grant: [00:16:27] Rory and his team have been successfully breeding these lizards under human care and are now reintroducing them to the landscape of central California, an area that's undergone tremendous changes. [00:16:37]

Dr. Rory Telémaco: [00:16:38] Many people aren't aware, I wasn't before I moved there, that there used to be a massive lake in central California called Tulare Lake. It was the largest freshwater body west of the Mississippi River. Had a surface area approximately the size of Lake Erie. And that is on maps from the 1880s. Like it's recently that this thing existed. And just in that time, we've done some remarkable engineering on this landscape where we went from having a massive Lake with wetlands. Next to Upland Desert, San Joaquin Desert, and we rerouted the rivers for irrigation, and we've now created a uniform agricultural environment that really is a breadbasket for much of the world. If you've had an almond or a pistachio, or even one of those little cutie oranges recently, it probably was grown somewhere Blountnose Leopard Lizards used to live. So they've had most of their landscape broken up. In just that 150 years, which means we're left with, with really these tiny little pockets of habitat that are extremely susceptible to sort of rare events causing local extinction. [00:17:46]

Dr Rae Wynn-Grant: [00:17:47] Rory's team tracks the progress of the lizards they've reintroduced to the landscape using radio telemetry. But how do you place a tracker on a small lizard? Well, they've created tiny lizard backpacks. [00:17:59]

Dr. Rory Telémaco: [00:18:01] And what's really cool about them is they're a lot lighter than the old school telemetry units. They are solar battery hybrid powered and they should last about three years when we deploy them, which is longer than the average lifespan of the lizards in the wild. And the ones we release back to the wild are the ones that wear these cute little backpacks. The hope is that we will be able to monitor everywhere they go for their entire life at our field site. And use that information to really figure out how to rewild the species, because it's lost over 90% of its native habitat. And then organizations like Fresno Chaffee Zoo are learning how we can put the vertebrates back on that landscape, which means we have these large collaborations from government through not-for-profits working together to really restore this ecosystem so it isn't lost, and doing so before the damage is so bad that we've lost all that genetic diversity. And if that's not hopeful, and I don't really know what is. [00:18:55]

Peter Gros: [00:19:03] Thank you for listening to this episode of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, The Podcast. And remember, if we protect wildlife and the environment today, we can ensure magical moments in the wild kingdom for future generations. [00:19:16]

Dr Rae Wynn-Grant: [00:19:18] Join us next week when we talk to Dr. Daniel Kinka about the work he's doing to repopulate bison in Montana. [00:19:23]

Dr. Daniel Kinka: [00:19:24] We went from like no land at all to more than a half a million of acres between deeded and leased land set aside for conservation, right? Our bison herd has gone from zero to somewhere between eight and nine hundred animals, right. Other wildlife have rebounded now that they've had the space to do so. [00:19:40]

Dr Rae Wynn-Grant: [00:19:41] That's next time on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, The Podcast. [00:19:44]

Peter Gros: [00:19:57] Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, The Podcast, is a production of Pineapple Street Studios and Mutual of Omaha. Our senior producer is Stephen Key. Producers are Elliot Adler and Jenny Van Soelen. [00:20:10]

Dr Rae Wynn-Grant: [00:20:11] Associate producer is Lisa Cerda. Editor is Darby Maloney. Executive producers are Barry Finkel, Gabrielle Lewis, and Jen Wulf. Pineapple's head of sound and engineering is Raj Makija. Senior audio engineers are Marina Pais, Davy Sumner, Javi Cruces, and Pedro Alvira. This episode was mixed by Davy Sumner. [00:20:35]

Peter Gros: [00:20:35] Production music courtesy of Epidemic Sound and Hearst Media Production Group. [00:20:39]

Dr Rae Wynn-Grant: [00:20:40] Episode Clips, courtesy of Hearst Media Production Group. Marketing and promotion by Emily Poeschl. This podcast is hosted by me, Dr. Rae Winn-Grantz. [00:20:49]

Peter Gros: [00:20:51] Peter Gross, a special thanks to Katelyn Williams, Sophie Radmelamich, and Stephanie Diaz. [00:20:56]

Dr Rae Wynn-Grant: [00:20:57] Today's episode is based on the Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom series created by Don Meier. Our next episode will be out in a week. [00:21:04]

Peter Gros: [00:21:05] Make sure you listen on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. [00:21:05]