Luke Tipple is joined by marine biologist, Dr. Craig O’Connell to discuss shark repellents and how Montauk, New York has become a Great White hotspot.
Luke Tipple is joined by Dr. Craig O’Connell, who is featured in the 2022 Shark Week documentary, Monsters of the Cape. The marine biologist is innovating and testing new technology that are deterring Great Whites from humans. Dr. O’Connell, who lives in Montauk, New York, talks about how abundant the shark population has become in recent years and why repellents are even more needed given the high likelihood of negative shark encounters. They also discuss the effects of music and sound buoys on sharks.
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[00:00:00] Luke: On today's podcast, we'll be joined by marine scientist, shark expert, and star of discoveries, Shark Week special monsters of the Cape, Dr. Craig O'Connell. He's here to tell us all about the sharks of Montauk and the Cape Cod area, and he's also gonna talk about the new technology that's been proven to deter sharks from humans.
[00:00:20] Luke: All that and more is coming up on this episode of Shark Week, the podcast.
[00:00:27] Luke: I'm Luke Tipple, marine biologist. Frequent voice on my favorite things, oceans and sharks, and I'm stoked to bring the magic of Shark Week right to your ears. You know, sharks have been a big part of my life for over 20 years. They're a critical part of the ocean and a conduit to a better understanding life on our planet.
[00:00:45] Luke: So whether you've never seen Shark Week before, or you've been a diehard fan over the 30 plus years it's been around, this podcast is for you.
[00:00:59] Luke: Today I'm stoked to welcome a friend and very special guest, Dr. Crago Connell. He's a marine biologist and star of Discovery's Shark Week special monsters of the Cape. Welcome to the show, mate.
[00:01:10] Craig: Thanks for having me, Luke. We're absolutely, we excited to be on here
[00:01:12] Luke: Uh, the last time I saw you, we were up in your neighborhood and we're tag and sharks and hanging out.
[00:01:19] Luke: How did the summer treat you?
[00:01:21] Craig: The summer was the best one yet. We caught, I mean, last year we caught 25 sharks and tagged them and we thought that was a good season. But this summer we caught 75 sharks that ranged from everything from small dogfish up to uh, a 16 foot. Common threshold shark. So it was incredible.
[00:01:41] Craig: We got a lot of tags deployed, so we did really
[00:01:44] Luke: well. There's, uh, probably a lot of, uh, shark fishermen who are jealous of those stats out there. That's, that's a pretty good season. Yeah.
[00:01:51] Craig: They're all trying to find out where I was catching them, but I'm not telling them .
[00:01:55] Luke: Good. Good. Yep. So, uh, tell everybody you know, who you are, what you do, and where you work, and what you work.
[00:02:03] Craig: I am the executive director and founder of a youth education and shark research nonprofit that we operate out of Montauk, New York, and it's a really exciting nonprofit. What we do is we, we are actively conducting shark research and shark conservation research. We're testing out new technologies to save sharks, but in addition to that, we're actually taking high school students out on the boat with us so that they can get hands on with sharks so they could tag sharks.
[00:02:32] Craig: We had a couple high school students this summer help us bete eggs in baby great white, so it's absolutely incredible. And we're out in Montauk all summer doing this every single day. It's tiring, but it's probably one of the most rewarding things that I've ever done.
[00:02:46] Luke: Now, are you one of these guys that saw Jaws as a kid and thought, I need to get involved with that, and followed it literally to where Jaws was inspired by?
[00:02:55] Luke: Yeah,
[00:02:56] Craig: in a way, I mean, You always hear about jaws and it, it invoking all this fear in everybody. But for me it was more of fascination. But, uh, I took a course, a marine ology course down in the Florida Keys when I was 14 years old. I was out at a reef and uh, I kind of swam away from everybody. And out in the distance I saw the silhouette and I was like, What the hell is that?
[00:03:21] Craig: And I kept looking and it kept getting bigger and bigger, and my heart started to race. And I realized it was a shark. And immediately in my head I was like, I'm done. Like this is what happens in Jaws. This is the exact same scenario. And the shark came up to me, it got within about five feet from me. I could see its eye, I was staring at it.
[00:03:38] Craig: My heart was racing and it just swam right by. We locked eyes. It was as curious in me as I wasn't it, and it left me alone. And like after that moment, I was absolutely hooked. I was like, This is it. I wanna figure out what these animals are all.
[00:03:54] Luke: Uh, I remember you telling me that you actually wanted to be a dolphin guy to start with, Is that right?
[00:03:58] Craig: Yeah, dolphins, whales, I mean, I can't believe we're telling everyone this, but , but yeah, no, I have a fascination with all, all wildlife. But in particular, I was, I was very interested in working with dolphins and whales. I took this course in high school, marine ology course to go learn about dolphins. And while I'm there learning about dolphins, I see my first wild shark and.
[00:04:21] Craig: Game over. I was like, this is what I wanna work at.
[00:04:24] Luke: They leveled up to sharks. I mean, that's, that's, uh, not a particularly unusual thing. I mean, I think sharks, uh, such a source of inspiration and, and, and sheer awe for people in the water that anybody who's attracted to the water will see them and just go, I want to be involved with his animal.
[00:04:41] Luke: That's, that's pretty incredible. Do you remember what species it was the first one you saw?
[00:04:45] Craig: Caribbean reef shark. But I remember getting on the boat and being like, I just swam with a great white, like, oh my God. And I described it and they're like, No, that was a Caribbean reef shark. But it was big. It was five or six feet long.
[00:04:58] Craig: So it was, it was
[00:04:59] Luke: amazing. And now you have your PhD. Is, uh, is the PhD specifically in sharks or in a different field? Yeah, so
[00:05:06] Craig: my PhD is, is specifically in sharks. Um, Technically in marine science and conservation engineering. So basically I have been highly trained in developing new types of technologies that can help protect marine wildlife.
[00:05:22] Craig: And for me, what I did during my PhD is I developed this massive magnetic barrier as a way to potentially, um, replace beach nets and drum lines in areas like South Africa and Australia. This new technology is noninvasive. It's eco-friendly and it was very successful. I'm going next week to test it in the Cape again.
[00:05:44] Craig: And then next summer we're gonna do a very extensive test where we deploy about a football field length of this new exclusion barrier to see if it can effectively manipulate these great white sharks. And if it does, um, it means that we may be able to utilize this technology in South Africa, in Australia, in Reunion Island as an alternative to their lethal approaches to shark.
[00:06:07] Craig: So it's exciting
[00:06:09] Luke: now. You are no stranded, a shark weekly. We love seeing you every year. This year you are on Monsters of the Cape. Tell me about.
[00:06:15] Craig: Well that was a pretty fascinating and exciting and nerve wrecking film, um, in the sense that we were going to an area that I used to go body surfing all the time, um, as a kid.
[00:06:29] Craig: And I used to go in the water without a single thought of there being a great white shark there. Right? And now the northwest Atlantic white shark population is recovering and at that same particular beach that I used to go to as a kid, it happens to be one of the best. In the entire world to go see great white sharks.
[00:06:47] Craig: Um, these sharks are, um, navigating right along the shoreline in super shallow water. I mean, you could go to the beach in Chatham, in Cape Cod, it's called NAA Beach, and see sharks about 10 feet away from the dry sand. Huge 15 foot great white sharks. It's mind blowing. Because of that, the people are crying out.
[00:07:07] Craig: They wanna find a solution. So we were. Testing out two unique technologies. My exclusion barrier, which is a visual and magnetic barrier that I have been able to demonstrate, can manipulate and exclude bull sharks from bait. But I've never tested it on white sharks yet, so I was really nervous about it.
[00:07:25] Craig: And we also had this sound buoy that we wanted to test out. Um, Mark Rackley, the cameraman and foe the other cameraman, um, developed this really exciting piece of technology where a life card can have a button. They press the button and there's a buoy offshore about a hundred feet from the shoreline. Um, and that buoy is connected to a speaker, um, and through this Bluetooth connection, as they press the button, it activates the speaker, the speaker emitts a sound.
[00:07:53] Craig: And, um, we're hoping that that sound would actually deter white sharks and give lifeguards a sufficient amount of time to go out and get that swimmer that could potentially be in distress. Out of the water. We used the sound buoy, um, a little bit further offshore, about three miles offshore. And we were transmitting a variety of different sounds to these white sharks as they approached.
[00:08:17] Craig: And we were kind of messing around. At first, we were like, Let's see what happens if we play the sound of a exploding bob? What would that do? And we figured the sound is gonna be so harsh and so loud, and it's gonna create these massive vibrations underwater. That the white sharks are gonna swim away.
[00:08:34] Craig: Then we started playing the vocalizations of orcas, and at first we played them and we saw these very subtle turns away and the sharks would disappear, and then the sound would go off and the sharks would come right back in. And we were like, Huh, that was interesting. And then we kept doing it. We did it about 10 different times, and the result was always the same.
[00:08:57] Craig: These very slow turns away. And they would go a exit frame, we'd turn the sound back on and the sharks would come right back in. Hmm. So it was an indication that maybe that sound. Um, was not only heard by the sharks, but they recognized it as potential danger and it temporarily caused them to move outta
[00:09:16] Luke: the area.
[00:09:17] Luke: I've always thought that sound would be the ideal. Yeah. If we could figure out what sound will deter white sharks, in particular white sharks and bull sharks. Right. There are our biggest problems. Um, if we. Could use sound then it's, you know, noninvasive. It works over a very long distance. Um, not very expensive.
[00:09:37] Luke: That'd be amazing. Um, I was part of a, a, a study that used orca sounds in Guadalupe. This must have been, 15 years ago and the sharks didn't care. They actually ate the speaker bit, the speaker get outta again and yeah, . So there you go. That's my more, didn't do anything . But you know, I, I have to admit the study wasn't well set up.
[00:09:57] Luke: I think
[00:09:58] Craig: we're gonna have to look into other sounds, but like just trying to find a sound that could potentially be a deterrent. is, it could take years, right? And then it might work on white sharks and it won't work on bull sharks, so you may need another sound for bull sharks. Um, so it's something that's gonna require a ton of effort, but like you, um, I, I agree that sound would be an excellent tool if you can actually find a sound that works.
[00:10:22] Craig: It travels extremely fast and far underwater. Um, we know sharks have excellent hearing. Um, they can determine the directionality of the sound using their lateral line. So we've also learned is if you continually present the same, um, auditory stimulus, the same sound to a shark, um, they will rapidly habituate to it and it will no longer be effective.
[00:10:43] Craig: So it has to be something that's almost surprising to the shark, you know, that lifeguard sees that. And for the first time all day, boom, he presses the button. Maybe the shark recognizes that as a deterrent and it swims out a frame. But again, the work is still in its infancy. It needs a lot more research.
[00:11:00] Craig: And the fact that you told me that about Guadalupe, I think we have to look for another auditory
[00:11:05] Luke: sound, sharp trait. Yeah. A couple years ago in Bahamas we did, uh, it was admittedly kind of a silly experiment just to see what would happen. You know, just one of those fun ones. And, uh, we just played different kinds of music.
[00:11:17] Luke: We had set up one of our, our audio guy, we set him up as a DJ and and, uh, we played. Different types of music to the sharks there. We had, uh, tiger sharks and Caribbean reef sharks and lemon sharks as well. And, uh, I was going for heavy metal. I wanted them to all be, you know, complete metalhead. But they didn't like that.
[00:11:34] Luke: Um, really, you know, we, we even played like baby metal, like Korean hardcore heavy metal . Nice. And, uh, they didn't like it. And I was all, I was all disappointed about that. I thought that'd be cool. But, uh, you know what, they did come in for boy band music. Get outta here. Yep. It was just the worst stuff to have to listen to for That's a long time underwater, but they, well, actually it might have been okay because they did come up and try to bite the speaker, so maybe they did have good taste after all.
[00:12:00] Luke: There you go. .
[00:12:02] Craig: I love it. Everyone wants a shark repellent to work every single time, but in reality, it's, it's not, it's never, You're never gonna. The silver bullet shark repellent that works a hundred percent of the time on great whites, on tiger sharks. On bull sharks. Every shark species is physiologically different, which means you need a slightly different repellent or different approach to maximize the effectiveness on each species.
[00:12:27] Luke: Now for the people who are just listening, um, you are indicating that, you know, your magnets are much, much larger. Give us some physical dimensions and you know, the size of the barrier or field that it might be casting off.
[00:12:40] Craig: Yeah, so the magnets that I use are almost identical to the size of like a clay brick.
[00:12:45] Craig: So let's say they're about eight inches long by two inches thick by four inches wide. Um, so they're absolutely massive. The magnetic field extends approximately one meter or three feet away from the magnet. And we are creating a continuous barrier from sea floor to sea surface, from shoreline. The shoreline, it could be hundreds of meters long, hundreds of feet long.
[00:13:10] Craig: Um, and because of the positioning of the magnets throughout the barrier, the magnetic field is continuous throughout the entire barrier. It's this invisible deterrent extending all throughout the barrier and roughly three feet away from the barrier. Okay, so you. Yeah, you have the electro, uh, magnetic deterrent, the magnets, and you also have this visual deterrent, this, this massive structure in front of the sharks.
[00:13:34] Craig: Yeah. Which is composed of this, this black piping. And the thing about the barrier, um, that's exciting, um, is that we have. Committed to fundraising for the material cost of the barrier. One of the previous issues we had with one of my other technologies I worked on is that it was too expensive. It's cheaper to deploy these nets.
[00:13:55] Craig: It's cheaper to deploy drum lines as a way to protect our beaches and deploy your noninvasive tech technology. So what we're doing, um, is we're raising money so that we can actually fund the cost of the barriers
[00:14:08] Luke: and what is the cost of a barrier. So it's.
[00:14:12] Craig: We're deploying a, um, about a hundred meter section, uh, 300 foot section, and it's costing roughly $10,000.
[00:14:21] Craig: Um, so it's, it's inexpensive in the sense that like the previous barriers I've worked on were millions. Um, so this is, this is a great step in the right
[00:14:30] Luke: direction. And how does it actually work? Like what, what systems? Is it messing up or deterring or, and is this something that will work across species? I know the, the research is young, but if we're deploying it, we have to know, right?
[00:14:44] Luke: Yeah.
[00:14:44] Craig: So, so basically what we've learned, um, And what we're continuing to learn is, um, sharks utilize their aMule of Lauren Zini, so all those pores on the sn of the shark, their electros sensory system to detect electric fields given off by prey. But we've also learned that we believe or way hypothesize that these sharks are utilizing that sensory system to also detect the earth's geomagnetic fields in order to navigate.
[00:15:12] Craig: If you see those, those massive aggregations of scallop hammerhead moving through, Um, Gala, the Galapagos Islands or Cocos, we believe that they're picking up on the. Geomagnetic signatures underwater to get from point A to point B in the reference list ocean, right? So those magnetic fields are extremely weak, about 0.25 to 0.65 gals.
[00:15:35] Craig: And so what we're doing is presenting them with a much stronger magnetic stimulus. That's about one to 2000 Gs, orders of magnitude, greater and strength. And we believe or hypothesize, Overwhelming their electro sensors system and deterring them away from the area. Now what we've learned is that these magnets are more effective on species like bull sharks, um, because they're highly electro receptive.
[00:16:00] Craig: They're swimming around in murky water. They're less reliant on their vision and more reliant on their electro sensors in order to navigate and find prey, whereas we haven't seen that. Super effective on great white sharks. We have seen some very good flins and avoidance behaviors from them, but we've learned that just the visual components of our structure of the like exclusion barrier is sometimes sufficient enough to deter white sharks cuz they are highly visual predators, relying on their visual system to find prey.
[00:16:32] Luke: Is there an argument for saying that sharks might be attracted to this new structure? I mean, if it's acting as, you know, a fad or you know, a fish attracting device, you know, this new structure, it's gonna attract small bake fish, it's gonna attract other things, you know, Would sharks sensor. Magnetic field and think that it's something to navigate to, at least for a little while.
[00:16:52] Luke: I, I hope not. . I I can just, I, I can see the news articles now. I mean, we, we look at a lot of stuff on this show and, and you know, people are overnight shark experts and they're like, Oh, sharks navigate by magnetic fields. This guy thinks that setting up a hundred meter long magnetic field in front of a tourist beach is a great idea.
[00:17:11] Craig: that's, You know what? It's funny you say that cuz that's exactly. How I came up with the idea, Yeah. Is I was taking marine biology and I was taking physics at the same time. I learned about the process of, uh, magnetic detection. I learned about the fact that sharks may use the earth's magnetic field to navigate.
[00:17:28] Craig: And I was like, Well, why don't we. Set up a string of magnets all along the shoreline, and if they're attracted to magnetic fields, you can just simply redirect their swimming behavior out to sea. I, I, that's the way I was thinking. And then we started finding out that it was more of a deterrent. Um, but in, in reality, I can't say if the barrier structure is going to act as an attractant or in a deterrent until we extensively
[00:17:53] Luke: test it.
[00:17:53] Luke: How does this approach differ to, uh, like some of the other approaches going on in your area? So, you know, we've seen news articles come out about, you know, acoustic buoys and you know, these sort of high tech buoys that are detecting the tag shocks that are swimming around. It sounds like yours is a deterrent, whereas the other one is more of an awareness tool.
[00:18:13] Luke: Is that right?
[00:18:14] Craig: Yeah. So, uh, right now, Cod, they're deploying these real time receivers, um, that I think are really awesome. And they are notifying the public whenever there's a tag shark that swims by an area. Um, and in the past, you know, there's been detections here, here or there. But now as time continues, because they're tagging more and more sharks, um, they're getting more and more detections and, and, and more and more alerts to allow these people that are utilizing the waters in Cape Cod.
[00:18:42] Craig: Hey, there's a great white shark nearby. It may be a good idea to, to get out of the water, let, let it do its thing and, and move on. So, Um, I think it's a really great approach. I mean, science and knowledge is power and, and what they're doing in Cape Cod is using a super noninvasive approach to learn as much as they possibly can, as quickly as they can about these white sharks to proactively protect, um, the beach goers and the swimmers.
[00:19:08] Craig: What happens if one of those animals is swimming around the beach and we don't know that it's there and we're in the water? And it's, it's definitely a understandable reaction. Um, you know, but at the end of the day, this is, this is science. It takes time. But the fact that they are tagging all these animals, they're learning about the migratory patterns of these sharks when they hang out in shore, um, in terms of day versus night.
[00:19:32] Craig: Um, when's the safest time they go out in the water, They're learning all this information to maximize beach goer safety. And I think it's a really good
[00:19:39] Luke: approach. Uh, what is it about the, you know, I, I'm kind of mixing these together, but you know, Monta I know is not Cape Cod, but you're still in the same kind of like marine system there.
[00:19:50] Luke: What is it about this particular area that is such a, um, a rich source of knowledge and sharks? Like why are people focusing on this area,
[00:20:00] Craig: both Manta and Cape? Exhibit the perfect locations to get hands on with these animals so that you can learn as much as you possibly can. I could go to Cape Cod right now to a particular location and.
[00:20:14] Craig: Extremely confident that I'm gonna see at least one sub-adult to adult great white shark and, and possibly up to 11 in the span of two to four hours. I went to Cape Cod one day in two hours we saw 11 different great white sharks. That's the perfect opportunity right there to collect data on these awesome animals, right?
[00:20:32] Craig: So it's a hotspot in man. Same thing. We don't have routinely don't have great white adult great white sharks there, although they are around. But what's also very unique about Montauk, um, in the past two to three years, we have been seeing an absolute increase in abundance of spinner and black tip sharks.
[00:20:53] Craig: So much so that I can, I can literally say that I was surrounded by. Um, a thousand spinner sharks one day in my boat. Wow. Um, which is completely unnatural for Bonta. Um, I have no idea what they were doing. I couldn't see any prey, but they were literally jumping into the sides of my boat. But again, it offered this excellent opportunity to tag these animals.
[00:21:15] Craig: And get an insane amount of data over a really small timescale.
[00:21:19] Luke: That sounds like a pretty extraordinary encounter. Uh, give people some size of, you know, the, the scale of these animals. You know, how big is spinner sharks and what's it like being surrounded by a thousand of 'em banging into your
[00:21:29] Craig: boat?
[00:21:30] Craig: Yeah. So, What? What was amazing about the encounter is I had my two year old and my four year old in the boat as well as my wife, and we drove past this one part. We were looking for humpback whales and there was nothing, not even a ripple in the ocean, but it was flat calm. I said, Guys, we're far enough.
[00:21:48] Craig: Let's start heading back. The sun's starting the set, and on our way back I saw all this weird, like white water. It looked like an extremely strong current, and the waves looked like they were just smashing against each other. So I got a little nervous. I was like, What in the world is happening? So we, we get a little bit closer and I start seeing all these little fins coming outta the water and I was like, Holy crap.
[00:22:12] Craig: We got a little bit closer and I realize it was, it was about two football fields of just sharks jumping out the water. There are fins coming out now. These are spinner sharks. They're roughly. Five to seven feet long. And before we knew it, I drove directly into the middle of the school or the shiver of sharks wanting to see what the heck was happening.
[00:22:32] Craig: And they were acting so aggressively that they were bumping into the sides of my boat. So you're out there and you just hear boom, like just right into the sides of the boat. My kids are like, Oh my God, are we okay? And but they loved it. They realized that they were safe and then we just had all these shark swimming around.
[00:22:48] Craig: So, um, that's become a fairly common sight in mon.
[00:23:04] Craig: What's really unique about Montauk, um, is that, uh, Let's say in Cape Cod right now, they have an explosion of gray seals, right? And what we're starting to notice with time is that the population, the range of it is expanding and expanding, and these animals are finding new spots to hang out throughout the summer months, um, so that they can effectively find food and survive.
[00:23:25] Craig: Um, and so what we found is that in Montauk, there's this one particular island. Used to really not have any seals at all. And now we could go there and we could see up to a hundred seals, um, in the middle of the summer months. Uh, cuz there's an abundance of prey. It's a, a great site where there's, there's little competition with other seals and we're beginning to look at that site as a potential hotspot for white sharks.
[00:23:49] Craig: It's a new abundance of prey. Um, and we've filmed a massive adult female white shark at that particular site in the middle. The Long Island, their black island sound, um, which is new. So scientists actually determined that the entire New York bite, which is the area from Cape May to Montauk, it's this massive expensive area, shallow deep, um, highly dynamic.
[00:24:14] Craig: Um, but scientists in the 1980s already designated that site or this entire region as a great wide shark nursery. So now what we're doing, a scientist is looking. For particular sites within that massive designated area to see if they are hotspots for great white sharks. And so there is a spot, um, especially where we worked when you were out there that is being designated as a hotspot for great white sharks.
[00:24:39] Craig: And now we're trying to figure out why, why are these white sharks centered at this particular spot for, um, roughly two weeks every year they show up to the point where we could see five to 10 of them. Swimming around our boat, these tiny little great whites, um, in ev in any given day. So it's a really special spot.
[00:24:56] Craig: We're working to try and figure out why.
[00:25:00] Luke: With that being a sort of designated nursery in an area where we know that there's gonna be juveniles or different sharks, could that be at all threatened by some of these other species of sharks that are perhaps moving north, chasing the, the now warmer
[00:25:15] Craig: waters?
[00:25:16] Craig: What makes me the most nervous is that we're gonna see what they're seeing in California. Um, is that as the temperatures begin to rise, even just a degree or two, these white sharks are gonna continue making their way, um, east or or northeast, away from our particular sites in Montauk, and I'm not gonna see them as much anymore.
[00:25:35] Craig: And it's, it's upsetting to me because this summer I was literally in my boat saying, I am so grateful to be out on this particular spot. Like, we're surrounded by great white sharks. I can't believe this is my life. Like I literally said that. And then in the back of my mind I was, Uh, this might not last forever.
[00:25:52] Craig: Like we're starting to see tropical shark species and subtropical species making their way into our waters. That might mean that these pups don't hang around here as much anymore, So that could be the realistic future. If global warming continues to go in this trend or in this direction, we might not be seeing as many of these pops.
[00:26:10] Craig: And that's up. We're learning that the loss of, you know, even 10 actual individuals, great white sharks could have catastrophic effects on the overall population health. And so, you know, if you think about that, if we're changing the entire dynamics of the ecosystem, which may be con potentially contributing to the loss of, you know, upwards of 10 to 20 great white shark pops, that's a disaster.
[00:26:33] Craig: So we wanna do whatever he can to prevent that.
[00:26:36] Luke: Is your work mostly going out with the kids and kind of surveying the sharks that you find while on these trips? Or are you also out there not doing the sort of education trips and doing more sort of solid research? Like how would you, how do you break that up?
[00:26:52] Craig: For instance? We'll go out and catch some pretty large sharks, like I said, a 16 foot thre air. Um, and we're in charge of all those activities, but then we integrate youth education by, once we have the shark secured to the side of the boat, we teach the kids all about it and they get to tag the animal, which is super exciting.
[00:27:10] Craig: It's educational. Um, and it's, I feel like it's inspiring for them and it makes them wanna do it in their future. Um, So we do do the camp, but on the weekends when we're not doing camp, we go out there and we do pretty rigorous research. Um, and we also do like research weeks. So whenever we're not doing camp and we have good weather, we'll go out to Montauk and we'll spend 12 to 14 hours a day out on the water.
[00:27:33] Craig: And we use every minute possible to collect data. Um, and it's exhausting, but amazing and rewarding at the same time. So we're, I'm out
[00:27:41] Luke: there a lot. It sounds like a monster of work, for sure. Yeah. So fast forward, you know, Four or five years in the future. And, you know, we're hearing about these, um, you know, super technological buoys that are out there detecting the sharks going through.
[00:27:55] Luke: Maybe you've got a few barriers around. I've heard about these, uh, ACA sound type things that might be also deterring sharks. Uh, But at the same time, the waters are getting warmer, tourism is still a increased presence. Five years in the future, are we still seeing these sort of incidental bites happening as people are using the waters around Monta?
[00:28:17] Luke: Or are we gonna get it under control?
[00:28:19] Craig: I mean, I, I think it's, it's still gonna happen, you know, There's still people entering the water. We can deploy barriers, we can deploy these buoys to, to protect ourselves, to mitigate the risk. But the second you put your toe into that water, you're stepping into the sharks realm and the risk substantially increases, um, in comparison to you just staying on the beach.
[00:28:41] Craig: So, um, I, I do think there's still going to be negative encounters in the future. You know, we, we hear about these negative encounters and then the government lashes out and says, We gotta go out there and kill this. We need to set nets and drum lines, and we're setting ourselves back a hundred years. Yeah.
[00:28:57] Craig: Um, we can't respond that way. Um, we have to find other ways to coexist with these animals and we're working on it.
[00:29:04] Luke: Do you think that there's a, an argument for saying that less data is better for the average person because. The more we understand about these sharks, the more we know where they're going, the more pings people are getting on their smartphones, the bing, bing, bing, shark out there, it, it becomes more of a zeitgeist.
[00:29:23] Luke: It becomes something that people wanna talk about. And I do wonder how much of that is positive for the sharks or negative, you know, the, it's likely the same number of negative interactions are gonna. Historically, we're seeing them increase what? Slightly, but you know, not exponentially like the people using the waters has.
[00:29:44] Luke: So, you know, overall we're actually looking at probably a decrease.
[00:29:49] Craig: Are you saying like ignorance is bliss type of thing?
[00:29:51] Luke: I think there is an argument for ignorance is bliss. Yeah. I mean, not that I, I agree. I'm not advocating for that whatsoever. I think research is good. I wanna understand as much as we can about these sharks.
[00:30:00] Luke: But, but I, I do wonder the expectations of some people where they're like, Hey, cool, we can look up on our smartphone when a sharks are around the minute one comes in without a tag, suddenly that entire. System is flawed and we need to either tag them all or something. I don't know.
[00:30:16] Craig: It's, Yeah, no, I, I, I completely understand exactly what you're saying.
[00:30:21] Craig: Um, you know, like in New York now, um, there's been a massive surge of people buying their own drones. And they're taking 'em out to the beach, and because of that, they're spotting sharks consistently and the beaches are being shut down almost every single day. Yeah. Whereas, you know, just a year prior, no one had drones at those beaches and they're in the water, and the sharks were still there and everybody was fine.
[00:30:43] Craig: So it has created this massive, um, hype and hysteria like, Oh, there's sharks out there. Get outta the water. Meanwhile, the years prior, you've been in the water swimming with sharks and you had absolutely was just fine. Yeah. So, um, yeah, I mean I could understand your point, but at the end of the day, I feel like knowledge is power.
[00:31:01] Craig: Um, and the more we can learn about these animals, the better we can educate people and make more informed or educated decisions. And I feel like the safer we're gonna be, you
[00:31:10] Luke: know, I think we just need to do more and better work to get people the right information. So, In the knowledge that they're amassing, you know, even on their own, like you mentioned, they're going out and you know, using their own drones and coming to their own conclusions.
[00:31:23] Luke: Yeah. How do we better arm people with the right conclusions, the right knowledge that they can, you know, that they can wrap that into rather it just be hysteria. Because the fact is there've always been there, there are some changes that are going on with temperature and stuff. Sure. But you know, there's always been sharks around us who are in the water.
[00:31:42] Luke: Maybe just don't freak out so much now that you know
[00:31:44] Craig: about it. Yeah. And you know, also Luke, I also think it's the interpretation of that data. Yeah. Um, and how the media kind of twists it to make a story that grabs more attention, um, that helps perpetuate the fear and make, makes the situations much worse.
[00:31:59] Craig: It's about how many people click your article because we just showed a million sharks slimming around people and shark confessed waters, and the shark went to attack the person, but they got out at the last second. Meanwhile, the shark was doing something else. I don't know, it's. I think an accurate interpretation of what is actually going on is super important, but that isn't always the case.
[00:32:20] Craig: Um, and that leads to more fear.
[00:32:22] Luke: Uh, Dr. Craig Connell, thank you so much for joining us on Shark Week, the podcast. It's, uh, been a pleasure to have you here and, uh, we'll have to have you back next year after we've understood all this data you've been crunching all, all winter.
[00:32:33] Craig: All right, sounds good. Luke.
[00:32:35] Craig: Thank you so much for having
[00:32:36] Luke: me. You got it, brother. Cheer. All right.
[00:32:38] Craig: Take care.
[00:32:43] Luke: Dr. Craiger Connell is one of those guys, though I just love exists in shark research. We've got a guy who self admittedly wanted to go be a dolphin guy, and he found his passion underwater when he saw a shark for the first time, and that was it for him and his infectious. Just joy when it comes to sharks is something that I absolutely love to see and it's guys like that, that we really need out in the field.
[00:33:09] Luke: He's working in a very dynamic area. He's working in, uh, an important nursery area for many different sharks. He's also working in what is historically an area where sharks have been villainized and, uh, target. By Fishman in the area. So having someone like Craig who can, you know, very convincingly convey that love and passion for sharks, but also the need for sharks, while also at the same time saying, You know what?
[00:33:37] Luke: We also need to coexist in a noninvasive way. Let's figure out ways that humans can better understand and, and better work with sharks. In our waters and still be able to use our waters as well and have a practical sense about that. I think that's absolutely fantastic and the work that he's doing, and I wanted to kind of dedicate the fin to, uh, the work that he's doing with kids now.
[00:34:02] Luke: He's taking high school age kids out on these shark camps and teaching them how to be shark scientists, and this is such important work. We don't have enough programs today. That focus on enabling kids to understand the work of a scientist, and this is something where that could literally inspire the next generation of people who will change the world.
[00:34:24] Luke: And we need this in every field of research, but the work that Craig is doing, in particular me as a kid, would've been my dream to go do it. So I want to encourage anybody who's listening who. Those, uh, those kids or, you know, the, the high school age or even college kids who are thinking, you know, what do I want to do with my life?
[00:34:43] Luke: And those ones who wanna be marine biologists, who continually ask us, we get so much questions on this podcast, on our social media, and it's always the same question, How can I be like you? How can I, And I don't say that with any sort of, uh, self aggrandizing whatsoever. It's people who are watching Shark Week who are inspired by the experts who are out there.
[00:35:07] Luke: Want to understand what it's like to actually be a scientist. You know, this is your opportunity to go do it. So, uh, contact Craig and you can get him@theocsfoundation.org. It's os e a s fdn.org. Just search for the OCS Foundation. It's a nonprofit, or the money that goes into paying for those camps goes into his research.
[00:35:29] Luke: So, Greg, thanks for what you're doing out there. It's absolutely fantastic.
[00:35:35] Luke: And that's it for today's episode. I want you to stay tuned to this feed as we continue to cover the Sharkies current topics, talking to top scientists and experts to learn all about the latest conservation efforts to keep this amazing animal from extinction. Thanks for listening to Shark Week, the podcast.
[00:35:51] Luke: Be sure to rate us five stars and subscribe for more shark fun facts. I'm Luke Tipple. I'll chat to you next time.