Luke Tipple is joined by biologist & star of Discovery’s Shark Week Special Island of the Walking Sharks, Forrest Galante, to discuss remarkable walking epaulette sharks in Papua New Guinea.
On this episode of Shark Week: The Podcast, Luke Tipple is joined by biologist, rare species expert & star of Discovery’s Shark Week Special Island of the Walking Sharks, Forrest Galante, to discuss his expedition to find remarkable epaulette sharks, which can move on dry land in Papua New Guinea. Plus, Luke looks into reports of so-called “mega sharks” appearing in French Polynesia and reveals the remarkable news that some great white sharks may actually be able to change color to camouflage themselves.
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[00:00:00] Luke: On today's podcast, we'll discuss reports of massive mega sharks popping up around the world's ocean. I'll be telling you about new research, which suggests that some great whites can actually change color to camouflage themselves. And biologist, rare species expert, and star of Shark Week special Island of the Walking Sharks, Forrest Galante joins us to discuss sharks that can actually walk on dry land.
[00:00:25] Luke: All that more is coming up on this episode of Shark Week: The Podcast. I'm Luke Tipple, marine biologist and a 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 better understanding life on our planet. So, whether you've never seen Shark Week before or you've been a die hard fan over the 30-plus years it's been around, this podcast is for you.
[00:01:04] Luke: We start today's pod with shark speak. You know, the world of sharks is never boring and, as ever, we have several stories to dive into. And I swear we could do a podcast just talking about headlines from UK newspapers, because you guys have the most sensational article titles ever. Like this one…
[00:01:20] Luke: “We're gonna need a bigger boat: the rise of the mega shark” out of the Guardian on July 19th, 2022. This particular article is talking about, without much evidence, to be honest… it's talking about mega sharks that have been spotted around French Polynesia. Now they really don't have anything to cite there. They're saying that, hey, there's been some big tiger sharks and they're about a third larger than normal.
[00:01:47] Luke: They don't have any data to say what is normal or what they're comparing it to. But these aren't droves of sharks traveling around the world, you know, eating up mega fish that are making them megas size. And now it's a, a great big problem that they're not. They're just adult sharks. So this article really says adult sharks seen in French poly.
[00:02:06] Luke: Fantastic. The Marine protected areas might be working. This is awesome. And the study, what they're saying anyway is that the Marine protected areas are becoming a refuge for sharks and the sharks can therefore grow to mega sizes. And the implied threat there is that we are all gonna die because there's bigger sharks in the water, which is definitely not the case.
[00:02:29] Luke: Now, Marine protected areas. If you dunno what they are is simply an area of the ocean that's been selected to not undergo fishing pressure and there's different kinds there's areas where simply sharks are protected there's areas where. Everything is protected, but it's been shown to be an incredibly useful tool in promoting the biodiversity and the health, particularly of coral reefs.
[00:02:51] Luke: And this applies from everything from sharks all the way down to algae. And if you've listened to this podcast before, if you've ever seen shark week before, you know, that sharks are just a critical part of that trophy pyramid, and we need the sharks to be there. So it's not just about protecting sharks, it's about protecting everything on that reef, cuz without the sharks, we'll lose the reef without the lower animals on the reef, we lose the sharks, they all work together and it's our job to help foster that.
[00:03:19] Luke: Now speaking of extinction and threats and everything, this next story is something that I think is absolutely amazing. It combines great science, good storytelling. And two of my favorite species of sharks to talk about the great white and the Megalodon. Now, the story is what drove the Megalodon to extinction.
[00:03:36] Luke: The great white shark may have, this is in the USA today on June 2nd. Now, for those who don't know the mega. Was the biggest shark to ever exist. It was around 20 million years ago. It went extinct about 3.6 million years ago. Uh, they grew up to about 60 feet long. So imagine a whale shark, but four times the girth, like the biggest whale shark you could ever think of.
[00:03:59] Luke: But four times the girth is still three or four times larger than a great white shark. These are big, big sharks. Well, I should say they were very big, big sharks. They're extinct. They're gone, but we do find their teeth. Now. I'm sure you've seen these teeth. They're bigger than your hand. They're just giant.
[00:04:17] Luke: They look very similar to a great white, not exact, but very similar. Now these teeth are the only thing we know about the Megalodons, you know, any picture that you've ever seen of a Megalodon is computer generated or artistically rendered and is just pure conjecture. We've we've got no idea what they looked like.
[00:04:37] Luke: We, we don't know what their coloration was like. We don't know if they had three eyes, you know, we, we can make a lot of very educated guesses about it, but the reality is we think it was essentially a, a, just a much larger, great white, a little more prehistoric, but you know, a much larger, great white, the real science will tell you that when sharks eat food from certain levels of the traffic pyramid, and that's saying whether they're eating big tuna or small sardine, those fish that they're eating, that food that they're eating, it leaves, deposits in their bodies.
[00:05:12] Luke: And what these scientists have been able to figure out is that by tracking the zinc. Isotope ratios in the Megalodons teeth, they were able to figure out over the years how their diet changed and what they were actually feeding on. Now, they can also look at modern and fossilize, great white shark teeth, and look at what the great white sharks are feeding on.
[00:05:32] Luke: Now, the great white shark is a younger species evolutionary, but essentially what happened is the Megalodons disappeared and the great whites either appeared or out competed the Megalodon. Now that whole process is a little bit hazy in the record, but one thing that we've been able to figure out with these zinc ITO ratios is that they were feeding the Megalodon and the great white shark at that time, close to the extinction of the Megalodons were feeding on the same trophic level.
[00:06:03] Luke: So they were competing against each other. So the theory that comes from this is well, Megalodons aren't around great white sharks are it's quite possible that the great whites by being smaller. By perhaps needing less calories, they could have been. The cause of the Megalodons extinction simply by out competing and out maneuvering a much larger, presumably more clumsy animal who's going after the same kinds of food.
[00:06:28] Luke: And you know, it's not like great white sharks or sharks in general have finished evolving. You know, as we look through the fossil record, it's kind of tempting to think about animals as having just one little slot and they didn't change all that much, but evolution is constantly ongoing. And that brings us to our next story where great white sharks may change their color to sneak up on prey.
[00:06:50] Luke: This is from national geographic on July 8th, 2022. Now this is incredibly interesting work that's happening right now because scientists in South Africa, they were able to figure out that at least one, if not. Great. White sharks are able to change their color from like a gray to a black presumably as a camouflage strategy.
[00:07:12] Luke: Now, the way they did this, they were dragging essentially a big tube of PVC behind them. And this PVC had bands of different colors. So they had these color bands where they were able to take a photo of the tube and the shark in the same frame and compare the pigment of the shark to the band on the tube.
[00:07:32] Luke: And what they're able to figure out is that this same shark was coming up a different color on different photos. And this was a bit of a, you know, excuse the pun, but a bit of a light bulb moment for these scientists as they kind of figured out. Wow, this great white shark is able to change its pigment.
[00:07:52] Luke: I wonder if we can replicate that. So what they did, they took a core sample of the shark's tissue. And while that tissue was still alive, they raised it back to shore and subjected those skin cells to adrenaline. And when they did the great white sharks melanocytes, which are the skin cells that contain pigment, they contracted and turned lighter.
[00:08:14] Luke: So they had this darker flesh when subjected to adrenaline, it went lighter. So this pretty clearly shows that at least this shark and this example was able to change its color to some. But this does bring to mind some thoughts that even I've had out on the ocean, you know, when we see sharks that are different colors, there was the theory that, Hey, a shark with different coloring or darker coloring is simply spending more time at the surface.
[00:08:43] Luke: This has been something that's almost just been known for a long time. We thought essentially sharks got a little bit of a sun tan, but it could be that different species of shark. In this case, the great white are actually able to change their skin color in response to different stimulus. And of course, this leads us to the biggest scientific question of all.
[00:09:02] Luke: If they change color, can we really call 'em a great white shark anymore? I don't know. It'd be interesting to find out. And as we're talking about this great big ocean of ours in the discoveries that are yet to be found, it brings me very naturally to our next guest on big impact. He's a biologist, a rare species expert and the start of Discover's shark week, special island of the walking sharks forest Galante is coming up next.
[00:09:31] Luke: And now as promised, I'm pleased to welcome fors Golan to the show. He's a biologist, a rare species expert, and he's the star of discovery, shark week, special island of the walking sharks. So FARs, welcome to the show mate, for people who don't know you. And I dunno that there's many people who don't these days, but set us up, tell us who you are and what you do.
[00:09:49] Forrest: Yeah. Always a pleasure to, to see you and chat with you, Luke. Um, I'm, Foria, I'm a wildlife biologist. I particularly specialize in animals on the edge of extinction, critically endangered things that are to do with human wildlife conflict and sort of the bizarre. Critters and creepy crawlies that, uh, that, that don't get a lot of attention in the limelight.
[00:10:09] Forrest: You know, the sort of unusual animals that people might not have heard about. And, uh, yeah, it's been a long standing career of chasing 'em around on TV now.
[00:10:19] Luke: well, Hey, tell us all about island
[00:10:20] Forrest: of the walking sharks island of the walking sharks is an incredible adventure where my team and I head to Papua New Guinea to track down three recently described species of ETT and confirm whether or not the rumor that these species actually leave the ocean to walk on.
[00:10:36] Forrest: Land is true, and what's so special
[00:10:39] Luke: about an Ette
[00:10:39] Forrest: shark, their walking sharks. There are these small walking catch. That have evolved the specialized ability to use their fins, to actually walk instead of swim
[00:10:49] Luke: and are, they are like a common shark. Like why do you have to go out all the way there? Like they're
[00:10:54] Forrest: kind of all over the world, right?
[00:10:55] Forrest: No, they are in O Australasia, specifically, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and, and the great barrier reef. And these animals are criminally understudied. We understand very, very little about them. Let's get
[00:11:07] Luke: it outta the way, the, uh, show you did island of the walking sharks. I check that out and just flat out without any sort of hyperbole or anything else.
[00:11:15] Luke: It was one of the best documentaries we've ever seen. My, ah, you say that I was watching it guys. I know you. I really don't. I really, really don't. I I'm a critic and I look at this stuff, like I, I grew up on this stuff as probably we all did, but. It's rare to see a show like that, where I felt the adventure the whole time.
[00:11:33] Luke: Like whether you guys like, kind of had it set up at least loosely, I'm sure your producers are really good like that, but you know, to some degree it felt very spur of the moment. Yeah.
[00:11:43] Forrest: thank you. Uh, you know, it was pretty spur of the moment. Yeah. On extinct alive the show I did for a couple seasons on animal plant, which ended three or four years ago.
[00:11:51] Forrest: Now we sort of just stopped worrying about what might happen and what will happen and just going for it. And that's funny, you can say that on an animal planet show, but when it comes to shark week, you know, it's still the super bowl of cable and you're like, all right, we gotta make sure we do this.
[00:12:04] Forrest: Right. We gotta have lots of sharks and all this action. And I'm just like, we're going to pop one new Guinea, you know, like we're not gonna, we kind, we can't predict any of this. Like let's just go for it and do our best and follow along with the cameras. And whatever happens happens. And, uh, it was a blast man.
[00:12:21] Forrest: I've wanted to go to pop, win Guinea. Since I was like six years old, it's always been super high on my bucket list for just the weird confluence of species that takes place in that, you know, Wallace line, a Australasia area. And, uh, it was incredible. It was absolutely awesome. And obviously we put out a fun documentary, you know, thanks to the trip.
[00:12:39] Forrest: So it was awesome. Loved everything about it. Yeah.
[00:12:41] Luke: The adventure seemed like it felt like a very plausible thing to be out on. And you actually did discover some space of sharks that at least haven't been seen in quite some time by scientific sources. Is
[00:12:52] Forrest: that fair to say? Yeah. I don't think any of the sharks would be considered as undescribed or lost, but rather just critically understudied, you know, and it's not because of a lack of interest or passion or anything like that.
[00:13:05] Forrest: It's, it's simply the fact that pop one new GU. Has a violent history. It's incredibly geographically difficult to conduct any research in everything's isolated, you know, in the show, it's funny, you see things like, oh, FARs just landed in Papua New Guinea. Now he's found a walking shark. It's like, well, no, what you don't see is the eight days it took us to find that fisherman or you don't see the, you know, the, the, the 10 days it took the boat to get to the island of the walking sharks.
[00:13:29] Forrest: That's chopped up into one little montage of like five seconds. And so the, the spaces are very expansive and vast, and we were very successful in finding all three known species in Papua New Guinea. They're just, they're just understudied, you know, simply, and frankly, they're just so understudied. So every bit of research that we did in data that we collected is basically all new science.
[00:13:51] Forrest: What got you so interested
[00:13:52] Luke: in weed animals?
[00:13:54] Forrest: Um, you know, it wasn't really weird animals that got me so interested. It was incredibly rare. I think that, uh, you know, I grew up in Zimbabwe in Southern Africa. I know you knew know that Luke, but, um, So I grew up on safari. I was son of a safari business owner.
[00:14:09] Forrest: I always spent my time in the Bush and I rarity. I think I would've been a great hunter. Let's put it that way and I'm not interested in hunting, but I'm, I'm so interested in like the crown jewel of rarity, the trophy, the rarest, the biggest, the most unusual, you know, things like that. But I have no in no desire and absolutely no interest in killing them.
[00:14:28] Forrest: I just wanna see them and learn about them and photo document them. And so I think that something about this, like, you know, in the African Savannah, you've got all these animals, but seeing a leopard is so difficult. Right. And I know lots of people have seen leopards, but like where I grew up in Zimbabwe leopard was the crown jewel.
[00:14:44] Forrest: So while I could be walking through the Bush and see elephant and see rhino and see giraffe, a leopard is all I really wanted because nobody else could see them. And I don't know why that sort of intense drive of like, I can find this thing that I don't think anybody else can find came from, but that is, uh, It's sort of that feeling of like, if I can find this really rare thing, this thing that nobody else has been able to find, maybe I can give it some attention and some awareness and then people will care more about it.
[00:15:10] Forrest: And I, I think that's, that's sort of what sparked it and it's just turned into a full blown, like obsession. Yeah.
[00:15:16] Luke: When you say, I, I knew sort of way you grew up, but I never, uh, knew if your parents were involved in hunting at all. Were, did you come from that heritage and kind of went your own way? Or were they also about, you
[00:15:27] Forrest: know, preservation?
[00:15:28] Forrest: No, they're, uh, they're they own photographic safari businesses there's no, no, no real hunting in our family at all. And I'm not, you know, I'm certainly not opposed to hunting, especially as some hunting can be very good for conservation and fun conservation in very many ways, but it just doesn't interest me.
[00:15:44] Forrest: Yeah. Well,
[00:15:46] Luke: you have knowledge on that. It's not really the topic of the show, but let's go down that path a little bit, uh, speak to us. Why hunting can be good for conservation?
[00:15:53] Forrest: Yeah. Well, at the end of the day, you know, there's, there's many, many pass through the woods and there's many ways that hunting is very bad for conservation, but as soon as an animal has value to, to the humans, as a species, monetary value, then it, then we care enough to protect it.
[00:16:07] Forrest: Right. When you think about Ella sharks, Well, it's great that we all enjoyed the show, but what value do they have to you or I Luke, or, you know, Joe Schmo in his living room, in, in Chicago, right? They don't have any value, but if you or I, or Joe Schmo sitting in his living room are obsessed with big trophy elk, right?
[00:16:25] Forrest: That's all we care about is big trophy elk. And we want a big trophy elk on our wall, or we want to eat the meat for, for trophy elk. Well then, you know, maybe I'll go pay for a trophy elk hunt, right? And if you pay for a trophy elk hunt, maybe you get one, maybe you don't, I'm not, I'm not into the killing aspect of it, but that money goes towards the ongoing preservation of that species.
[00:16:46] Forrest: So the next Joe Schmo can come and get his trophy elk. And while there are negative repercussions, you know, the killing of trophies is going to alter the gene pool. So on and so forth at the end of the day, just having monetary value to an animal me means people wanna protect it, even if it's for their own selfish greed, because they're like, oh, if I protect elk, well, then I can get every Joe Schmo to come and pave to kill one.
[00:17:06] Forrest: Right? I don't agree with that motive, but I agree with the fact that now for the first time, millions of dollars, tens of millions, whatever it is, are going towards protecting these elk because people wanna kill 'em at least we're putting money towards protecting them and protecting their habitat and their land breeding them, you know, so on and so forth.
[00:17:22] Forrest: And so hunting is not always a bad thing. Not to mention. There are places in the, in the world where we have altered the ecosystem to the point that certain species are overpopulated Catalina island, right in front of where we live. Right. There's something and don't quote these numbers, but there's something like 13,000 deer on that island right now.
[00:17:40] Forrest: And they're supposed to be like 2000, right? So they're about to open up a call on Catalina island because the deer are ultimately going tore havoc on the ecosystem. If there's too many of them and then their population will collapse and they'll all be skinny and weak and unhealthy because there's not enough resources to sustain a number like that.
[00:17:57] Forrest: So there's another instance where hunting can actually, you know, contribute to conservation. So it's a tool. I don't think it's something, you know, I hate, I hate when you go to these conferences or you hear people be like, hunting is good for conservation, it's no wrong, right? It's not, there's no blanket statement.
[00:18:13] Forrest: It's good. Or it's bad. It's a tool in the tool belt that if managed correctly can be very, very helpful to conservation and fund certain conservation. It's certainly not something we should rely on exclusively. And it, and it makes up a very small portion of the species that we can protect now for those,
[00:18:29] Luke: uh, budding filmmakers and documentary buffs who are out there, who, you know, quite rightly look at this show and they're like, this is.
[00:18:36] Luke: You know, it's blue chip stuff. Like to me, you know, as, as yeah, as an adventurer, you know? Sure. It might not be, you know, blue chip quote unquote, as we typically think of it. But as a, as a hosted Jacque Gustos type adventure where you're going out there, this is really sort of the pinnacle of filmmaking.
[00:18:53] Luke: So thank you. But it looks so easy. So give people an idea of how long you are there for, and just some of the logistics to go into it. Cuz I, I looked at this with my eye and I'm like, oh, those guys. Went down, they threw down for this show.
[00:19:07] Forrest: Oh yeah, no, it was a nightmare. Not only did we throw down, we came in way over budget and you know, he took a haircut and everything else, but, uh, you know, it, we were there for three and a half weeks, you know, we, we knew we were gonna hit three destinations, port Mosby being one of them, which is the capital city.
[00:19:21] Forrest: And that, I mean, you'd say that's easy, but it was still like 40 hours of flying just to get to port Moresby. And then we went to the area called Madang where there is an ETT shark that is so specifically endemic that it's not endemic to the region of Madang, it's endemic to a single reef on Madang as far as we know.
[00:19:39] Forrest: And then we went to this, this like vast area called Millen bay. Which, uh, it's a big bay. I, I can't remember the statistics of how large it is, but it's, you know, it's several hundred miles sort of wide or long. And we knew that there were known to be leopard Ettes in that bay. But, you know, that's like going to San Francisco bay and being like, Hey, somewhere in here's a sturgeon.
[00:19:58] Forrest: It's like, well, yeah, there is, but look at the size of San Francisco bay, you know? And so, yeah, we, we definitely had our work cut out for us knowing the size of the area and the scope of what we set out to accomplish. But like I was saying before, I've sort of just stopped worrying so much about like, what's going to happen.
[00:20:14] Forrest: What if we don't get it and just put all my energy as far as, not just a filmmaker, but a biologist and a scientist into the, the quest. Succeeding to find these animals. And what I mean by that is we went there going all right, we'll probably get one of the Ts, right? Like we've got a pretty good chance.
[00:20:31] Forrest: We've got a, basically a week in each location. We'll probably get one of them. And then we got all three, which was incredible. Like we never knew we'd get all three. And we never knew that we'd actually capture footage of one walking out of the water. There were obviously many rumors of this behavior, but nobody had ever documented it in pop Whitney, new Guinea.
[00:20:47] Forrest: So we were just like, let's just go for it. Let's throw everything at the wall, do the best we can. You know, we took way too much gear. Our baggage fees were astronomical, as you can imagine. and, uh, we just went for it. And, uh, we succeeded, which was
[00:20:58] Luke: awesome and talked people through the, you know, the, the final scene of the, of the show, but really one of these big discoveries was documenting and filming a shark, walking up over dry sections of reef.
[00:21:10] Luke: Can you explain how that actually happens for people who are just
[00:21:13] Forrest: listening? I mean, when you talk, I get goosebumps. You see that like, when you literally say it, like, it, it, it sinks into my brain that that actually happened. And it still gives me goosebumps because I was so. uh, just so determined to capture that if it was actually happening.
[00:21:27] Forrest: So to talk people through it, we went on this long quest, you know, we, we found, uh, pop and ETT in a fisherman's trap. And then we found hooded ETT on the, the known reef where it's still incredibly rare, arguably the rarest ETT species on the planet. And then finally, we went into this Millon bay on this liverboard boat.
[00:21:44] Forrest: And after about a week, we found this reef that was for all intensive purposes loaded with leopard Peltz. I think we found 14 in one night. Okay. And this reef was told to us by a fisherman where it, you know, it was very hard to get this information. Cause it wasn't like he had GPS, but he basically pointed us in this direction.
[00:22:01] Forrest: We found what we believe was the reef that he said, the leopard lets live on. And then we found 14 of them in one night. And this was three nights before the boat, our boat was scheduled to leave and head back and take us home. And so two nights before that, I was like, okay, We've found 14 of them on this reef.
[00:22:18] Forrest: The bathymetry of it's perfect. Right? Cause you've got these shallow limestone, Rocky shelves butting up against the island. And then all the sharks that we found were in like six to eight feet of water, I mean really shallow. Right? And the title shifts are like four or five feet. So those areas that we were finding the sharks would be exposed or very close to it at low tide.
[00:22:40] Forrest: So the mentality was all right. We found these sharks. We know there's a very high density of them in this particular location. Now, all we have to do is set up cameras around the island to see whether, if at low tide during the night, because these are nocturnal creatures, there's any remote chance that one of them will get stuck in a tide pool and go for a walk or even leave the ocean and come into a tide pool or anything like that.
[00:23:02] Forrest: And. That's all good and well, but you can't set up trail cameras on the ocean, right? Every single wave sets off the motion sensor, and one set of eyes are even putting all the guys on the island. That's gonna create a ton of commotion and a, you know, a ton of activity and it's probably gonna inhibit animal behavior.
[00:23:19] Forrest: So what we did was we built this camera system that are. Full time. Like they're running all the time cameras that are designed to monitor horses in horse trailers. Okay. So for, for big rig or rather like horse trucking companies that move horses across the country and livestock across the country, they set up one of these cameras in the trailer and then pretty far away they have, uh, like wireless or Bluetooth.
[00:23:44] Forrest: I'm not sure streaming to a monitor so they can watch the animal's health the whole time they're driving. And we're like, okay, that makes sense. But they put one camera in each trailer let's get, let's see what the most that we can like tweak the system to handle is. And we figured out that you could get four cameras streaming to one monitor.
[00:24:00] Forrest: And so we're like, that's it. And these weren't cheap tools as you can imagine. So. we bought all four cameras. We, we rigged them with like little, little legs and grippy arms and stuff so that we could set 'em up around the reef and they were water resistant. And then we got this monitoring system. So we now know there's this reef sharks are super abundant and shallow water right next to it.
[00:24:20] Forrest: We go there as the tide is dropping. Thank goodness. I mean, it was just so fortuitous that the title cycle, cause as you know, it changes every, every, you know, it's constantly changing, but the title cycle happened to be that low tide was at like 10 o'clock at night. Um, or maybe it was 11. I can't remember anymore, but it was, you know, it was late at night, but not four in the morning.
[00:24:37] Forrest: Thank goodness. And um, and we went, okay, so we set up these cameras all along the reef. What I looked for were sort of narrow shallow exit points, where if I was a shark, I'd be like, okay, cool. You know, tides dropping. I can still follow a waterway up here and hunt for crustaceans and fish and we set up four cameras around.
[00:24:57] Forrest: and then my truth that said I was insane, but I made everybody put on these boiling hot, like seaweed ponchos. They're like a Gilly suit poncho. And it's, you know, it's pop one new Guinea. It's 105 out and super humid the whole time. So we're sitting there just sweating our everything's off mosquitoes, chewing us, like crazy.
[00:25:13] Forrest: And I keep barking at everybody to be quiet or stop shuffling or, you know, just don't do anything that can inhibit animal behavior. And it didn't even take that long Luke that's, what's incredible. We only had four sets of cameras out in these sections and I would say two hours, maybe two and a half hours, you know, you kinda lose track.
[00:25:30] Forrest: You just sit there and you're like a zombie staring at the screen. And like, you kind of doze off once in a while and then bring yourself too. And you're like, oh God, I gotta look at the screen. And, uh, I think all the cameras were down or maybe Mitch had his rolling cause he never stops recording. But, um, we, uh, all of a sudden after like two, two and a half.
[00:25:46] Forrest: One of these little channels, you just see the shark appear in the lower right hand corner. And it's like, oh my God, this isn't happening. But at this point in time, as excited as I'm getting the shark, hasn't left the water, right? He's still sitting in three inches of water, four inches of water fully covered.
[00:26:03] Forrest: And we just watched him in the show. It looks for about 15 seconds. But in reality, we sat there watching him on, on the, on the monitor. Uh, so funny the camera guy's filming me, watching the shark on the, on the monitor, that's filming the shark, right? And so we sit there for like 15, 20 minutes watching him.
[00:26:21] Forrest: And then after a little while he like turns and you sort of see him like, look up at this, this sort of divot in the reef where the water level is definitely dropped below. And he's like, meh. And you just see him start kind of grabbing these fins and just sort of going like fin by fin towards it. And I'm like, this is it.
[00:26:37] Forrest: He's coming outta the water. So we quietly but rapidly rush over to that little spot. And as soon as we get there, I mean, it's, it's only, you know, a hundred feet from where we're sitting, but as soon as we get there, half the shark is already outta the water. And I don't think the guys caught that at the very first moment, because we just, you know, we rushed over there and the shark's tail and behind is in the ocean, but his head and, and pictorial S are out on dry land or like a, you know, couple millimeters of water.
[00:27:04] Forrest: And, um, it's just incredible. And so we just sit there, I'm like, keep the lights low, you know, don't shine, any light, blah, blah. And the shark just continued the rest of the way out and just waddled around and went in and out of these tide pools for the next 25 minutes or so before finally being like, all right, these guys are annoying me with their cameras and they're yelling and excitement.
[00:27:23] Forrest: And then, you know, bug it off back into the actual ocean. And it was just, uh, it wasn't like the single monumentous second where the shark walked. It was like we had 25 minutes. You know, in the middle of pop, win new Guinea, super remote, isolated from anything, and anyone staring at a shark walking around on land by ourselves.
[00:27:43] Forrest: And it was like nobody's ever seen this before. Like, I, it doesn't matter how loud I yell. Nobody's gonna come here and see this, like we're in the middle of nowhere. And, uh, it was really, really cool. It was an amazing thing to witness. Yeah. The, the
[00:27:54] Luke: actual method of walking, uh, correct me if I'm wrong, but it looked like it's using it.
[00:27:58] Luke: It's petrol and it's pelvic fence, correct? Right. As essentially, almost kinda like a, if you imagine. Dog with its legs splayed out. And it's just on its belly kind of crawling along with its legs. Would that be a, a reasonable way to explain it, trying to visually show people over, you know, an audio wave form, how, how that's ha actually happening.
[00:28:18] Forrest: I would visualize a salamander and the way that they oscillate between their front and behind legs and they curve their bodies back and forth. You know, they, they don't have like a long rigid, uh, body or, or like a, a, a rigid spinal column that keeps their body straight, like a dog or, or a cheetah or a leopard or something like that.
[00:28:37] Forrest: Instead they're oscillating the whole time. And so they're counterbalancing their PE their say they're right pectoral and their left pelvic. And then they switch over to the opposite pictorial and pelvic and twerk their body back and forth. Very, very similar to how you see a salamander crawl on, on land.
[00:28:52] Forrest: Um, and it's interesting because, you know, salamanders are amphibious. They're sort of, you know, they're, there's something that spend most of their, a lot of almost all salamanders spend a lot of their life cycle as aquatic animals. And then. Grow up to be terrestrial animals. And these sharks are something in between, right.
[00:29:07] Forrest: They spend all of their time, all, I mean, 99.9, 9% of their time is aquatic animals. And then they're terrestrial for these tiny little blips of, of moments. And, uh, yeah, it's an incredible thing to see. I mean, it's like a, it's like seeing a missing link of evolution and it's like evolution in action. Yeah.
[00:29:23] Luke: Now for them to be terrestrial for any period of time, requires them to be able to stay oxygenated. And we know that sharks can be out of the water for some period of time, but maybe you can explain to people how long that is, uh, for the Ettes versus other sharks,
[00:29:36] Forrest: perhaps. Yeah. And to be honest, I don't know the answer, you know, I wasn't willing to grab a shark and shove it on land and be like, oh, that's been 30 minutes and it's dead.
[00:29:44] Forrest: Uh time until he taps out. yeah, yeah. That wasn't really my, my goal there. So I don't know how long they can spend on land. What I do know is that their morphology allows them to be incredibly heat tolerant. They, they can survive in super low oxygen environments. Um, you know, and. What it looks like when you're observing it is sort of like a reverse free diver.
[00:30:06] Forrest: Like you see them take a breath in the water and then come out, you know, do their little crawl for, from what we saw, none of them were exposed for more than maybe 45 seconds. You know, they, they see where they're going. Like they come out, crawl, crawl, crawl, and hop back into the water. Maybe a minute. I, I, I'm not sure we didn't time it, but, um, and then when they get back in the water, you know, it's obviously head first because of the body, the angle of the body.
[00:30:30] Forrest: And then you see them sometimes, like we saw this one where he left the second half of his body stayed outta the water for, for minutes. Well, he re recall his breath and you see the gills pumping and you see the mouth opening and closing. And it's like, it's the same as coming up from a free dive and going, who, you know, and you're like catching your breath and it's you just see the shark doing the exact same thing, but in reverse, um, what's interesting, Luke is that, you know, there's a very well known, well studied shark from Australia known as Theallet just to make it very confusing.
[00:31:00] Forrest: Theallet shark, which lives on the great barrier. Now those blood sharks have been documented walking outta the water before. They're very interesting, but the researchers that study, those have figured out and, and put out information that these animals are actually doing extremely well during climate change, because as water is getting warmer and things are pushing deeper and moving off the S are actually expanding their range.
[00:31:24] Forrest: So not to say that climate change is a good thing, of course, but rather. It's interesting to know that there is an animal, a shark of all species that is thriving, uh, under these new harsher conditions. That's
[00:31:35] Luke: kind of fascinating what would be, what would be the reason for them thriving under those conditions, as you say, like, is it because the, the, the title height is coming up or there's more food available in certain
[00:31:47] Forrest: areas?
[00:31:47] Forrest: Um, you know, I, I think that they're, they're a very small shark. They're low down on the food chain. You know, I think it's a Dan, the ocean is a dangerous place. And even when they're in the ocean, they have adapted far more so to walk than swim, you know, when every. Every shark that we cuz we caught several of them, many of them and everyone that we released or even the ones we found when we caught, they weren't free swimming through the water column.
[00:32:11] Forrest: They were walking along the floor. So they've already evolved this ability and adapted to this in order to hunt and, and sort of forage, if you will, through reef, canals and tunnels and keep out of the eye of predators. And you know, if I had to guess, I would guess that because there's such a shallow water shark, the majority of the time they're hunting in, you know, a foot or two foot in these reef areas.
[00:32:33] Forrest: And then they get stuck in tide pools and they're like, all right, well, I'm gonna rummage around on my way back to the ocean. And I think that's. That's really how it came about, but I don't, I don't know the answer to that. That's just my, my guess,
[00:32:44] Luke: I'm curious in your work in P and G uh, you know, it's a very subsistence based, um, society and also has external pressures from, you know, fishing in their territorial waters and aquarium collecting and everything like that.
[00:32:58] Luke: What was the, uh, the response from the locals to the work you were doing there?
[00:33:01] Forrest: Oh, they loved it. Uh, you know, it's interesting. We have very, very, because I've worked in 48 countries now in wildlife conservation, something like that. I'd have to check at this point, but high forties, low fifties, and, uh, very, very seldom have we encountered people that didn't care or didn't want to help.
[00:33:19] Forrest: And maybe it's the, the novelty of these, like, you know, gringos coming in and being like, Hey, what can we do to find this animal that you guys see all the time? And. Uh, just go look over there. Idiots. Yeah, go ask Bob. Yeah. He's down the road. Yeah, totally. Totally. I don't know if it's like that novelty of it, or if it's just, you know, a lot of these places like Papa new Guinea in particular, right?
[00:33:38] Forrest: You read up on it, travel warnings. It's dangerous. Cannibals, head hunters, tribal warfare, all these like buzzwords that are supposed to make you scared to go there. And then you go there and don't get me wrong. There were times where we were like, holy crap. Like, are we in? Are we in trouble? But everybody we met was smiley and polite and we did see some violent things take place, but nothing was targeted at us, you know?
[00:34:00] Forrest: And it was, everybody was super accommodating. And when we went into the tribe, um, the, uh, Krai tribe and spoke to them about sharks, they were. You don't see this on camera, but when we explain, like we're here to study sharks and we want to help protect the sharks, they're like, oh, that's wonderful. Let us help.
[00:34:16] Forrest: Let us help you show you where those sharks are. You know, it wasn't just like, Hey, we're here for info K by. And they were like, no, why? You know, they wanted to know why. And we were trying to explain what we wanna protect them. And in their eyes, they're like, well, you don't need to, there's a zillion of them, but regardless, they were super happy and accommodating and.
[00:34:33] Forrest: The reception in PNG, like most places was very, very positive. Yeah. That,
[00:34:36] Luke: uh, that tribe that you run into is an interesting scene where you guys were accessing a cave that looked to be some kind of a burial site. And then you come out and there's a, there's a warrior in, in full forestry garb, standing there looking
[00:34:49] Forrest: at you.
[00:34:49] Forrest: There were four of them. I don't think we got shots of all of 'em. Cause everybody was in utter shock in state of fear, but there were four warriors surrounding the cave entrance with their spheres waiting for us. Yeah. I mean, I,
[00:35:00] Luke: I gotta ask the question, you know, there's there's production and there's production, but was that legit?
[00:35:04] Luke: Like you got surprised by them turning
[00:35:06] Forrest: up. We were utterly shocked. It was terrifying to be honest. And, and, uh, they didn't
[00:35:11] Luke: speak to us, to us. You're pet, hunting territory a traditionally, you know, in some respects, you know? Oh yeah. In P and G it is a, it was in some respects, our head hunting culture. And the thoughts are that there are, that is a practice very much in
[00:35:24] Forrest: some places.
[00:35:25] Forrest: And not only. Not only were we that's scary, man, uh, scared. But when we came out of the cave and I don't know if this was cultural or what they'd been instructed to do or what, they just motioned to us to come with them. And they sort of surrounded us. And I don't think we, yeah, we got some of it on camera, but it was like, you know, cameras down, like chill out.
[00:35:41] Forrest: Like let's not create conflict here. And there was only five of us that went up the tributary to find the Krai tribe. And we had already been cautioned that they don't like, not a lot of people visit them, you know? Like, be careful like this isn't it's not like, oh, go hang out with the Krai for a day and take your tourist photo.
[00:35:57] Forrest: Right. This is like, don't go over there. Like these are not people that are, have a lot of visitors. And so when we came out the cave. We had these guys surround us and they just motioned to us, even though most of them spoke English, we cut, came to find out later Mo about half of them spoke English. They just motioned to us to follow them.
[00:36:14] Forrest: And there was like, one of my cameramen even said like, should we run? And I'm like, don't fucking run, whatever you do cause we're gonna die. So we just followed these guys and they surround us. They all had their red beetle, net teeth and they were all in black war paint and had Spears. And it was, uh, it was pretty wild.
[00:36:28] Forrest: Um, and then it wasn't a long walk from there to where the village was actually set up. It was maybe a five or eight minute walk, but it felt like an eternity not knowing what we were being led to. And then when we spoke to the chief and he was like, are you doing here? I've had my warriors following you.
[00:36:42] Forrest: Since you came up the tributary, I. These guys. And like my profession Luke is to be like observant and like looking for animals and like looking for obscurities in the environment that stand out. And these guys have been following us for like an hour and a half, at least . And we had no idea that, that like they were even around us.
[00:37:00] Forrest: yeah.
[00:37:00] Luke: And what was the response? I mean, obviously they, there had to be a conversation about why you guys were in that cave, uh, when you spoke to the older yes. How was that
[00:37:07] Forrest: addressed? I was sort of a little upset that we didn't end up putting that in the edit, but it became a very long conversation, which is why I think they decided to cut it out, but it was a burial site.
[00:37:16] Forrest: It was a traditional burial site. They did point out that they no longer put bodies in there. They didn't really specify whether or not it had anything to do with cannibalism or ritualistic, or there was. And I didn't, I didn't push, you know, that's not really my place, but I was, I did ask, you know, why is there a cave full of skulls up by the river?
[00:37:35] Forrest: And they, the chief explained to me that that was a traditional burial site, you know, things have changed now and there aren't, they, they don't do it that way any longer, but they still hold that area very sacred. And, uh, you know, the fact that I saw it was unusual and like not many people know about it and, you know, he was very, he wasn't embarrassed or shy by any means, but he was like, yeah, you're not really supposed to go in there.
[00:37:57] Forrest: You know? And I think if somebody had decided to grab a skull as a souvenir or something, we would've been in trouble, but that's not really not really something that we would do. You know, like we didn't even know they were there and they had Spears. And I think I had a pocket knife, you know, it's like, what was our odds of were ne and that was not the point ever.
[00:38:14] Forrest: Right. We were never there for conflict. We were there. And like the second they, they sort of came out and saw us. We put our hands up and said, hello. And I kept telling everybody smile, you know, like, And this isn't the first time we've been in a situation like this, this one was pretty unique with the skulls and how remote the tribe was, but it's just like people aren't out to get people, right.
[00:38:33] Forrest: That's not how the world works. And I think we have this warped vision of like, oh, everybody's out to get everybody. No, they're just like, what are you doing here? And why are you in our cave? You know? It's like, what are you idiots doing? And then we're like, we're just here to learn about sharks. And they're like, oh, all right, well, come on in then.
[00:38:47] Forrest: Um, you know, it's like, it's like knocking on the door, asking for a cup of sugar. It's like at first somebody's gonna answer the door and be like, what do you want? And then when you're like, oh, I want a cup of sugar. They're like, all right, well, come on in, I'll grab you a cup of sugar. Uh,
[00:38:57] Luke: one of the interesting things was you found, uh, you know, very clear evidence of, you know, the exotic, uh, aquarium trade, um, taking place in P and G where, you know, one fisherman had a, a collection of Theallet sharks, uh, and they were destined for aquariums around the place.
[00:39:14] Luke: Uh, is that a, is that a big problem? Is it something that we need to be worried about with sharks
[00:39:19] Forrest: in the ocean? Undeniably? Yeah. Are there enough of them there to support it? Uh, no undeniably, so, yeah. So for those that haven't seen the show yet, the first species of ETT, the Papa and Ette is endemic to a region just around the capital city of port Mosby.
[00:39:33] Forrest: And as anybody can imagine, when an animal lives near a capital city, it's not in, it's not in the best situation, right? Because there's a million people, they're all fishing. They're all, a lot of them are substance fishermen and there's, there's too many people and not enough animals to support a city, always everywhere basically.
[00:39:50] Forrest: And, um, all that to be said is. After a few days. And it was only a few days, I forget how many, but we, we went to the Koki fish market, which is the largest fish market in Papua New Guinea. It's in the capital of port Mosby. And we talked to fishermen and we showed them images of theit sharks. And we said, Hey, does anybody know where this is?
[00:40:08] Forrest: And somewhat sheepishly. And I'll, we'll talk. You, you mentioned producing Luke and I'll explain something to you after this, if you remind me somewhat sheepishly, but at the same time, we were like, oh, there is someone. They were like, oh, there is someone who catches these sharks, but they're not here in the fish market.
[00:40:23] Forrest: Like you have to go with him. It's like a special, different thing. And I was like, oh, this is weird. And so we found this guy and he took us over and he was a man who had recently, like as recently, as several months ago, been commissioned to capture these animals for live aquarium export. And now you, you basically explained that in far less words than I did, but.
[00:40:46] Forrest: This man had been commissioned to capture these animals for aquarium export. Now that's fine. I don't have a problem with keeping fish and fish tanks. I have a fish tank right behind me here. The problem is they're not being bread in captivity. We don't know anything about their population density, right?
[00:41:02] Forrest: We know that they're endemic to a tiny little region around a capital city. So it's all very well to have an ETT shark in an aquarium and breed them and distribute them to other aquariums for education purposes and people to learn and fall in love with ETT sharks. But when you you're a random fish collector, who's like, Hey, go out and catch me these things.
[00:41:18] Forrest: As many as you could get, well, that can wipe out an entire population. If they did the same thing with the hooded ETT, the other species I mentioned, that's endemic to a single reef. As far as we know, they'd be gone in a week. There's one, there's one reef where they live, that we know of, it would be one week and they'd be completely gone.
[00:41:35] Forrest: So when I say the producing thing is something that I wanted to bring up. I had been told, because as you can imagine, Luke, we do months and months and months of research going into one of these things. I had been told that recently there was an operation that was based in Saudi, Saudi or Dubai. It was based in Dubai that was buying up and distributing rare ETT sharks.
[00:41:57] Forrest: Okay. And I'd been told, and we didn't mention them. And I won't mention them on this podcast cause I'm not, I'm not, it's not the point of what I'm saying, but I've been told that this operation had recently was planning on building a shipment facility, a containment and shipment facility in port Mosby.
[00:42:14] Forrest: And it was all above ground. You know, the government had said, yes, it was all legal and everything else. It's just not very ethical. Right. So in other words, you're going into a developing nation saying, Hey, you guys go and catch me. These sharks I'll pay you for 'em. I don't care how many there are or, or whatever.
[00:42:28] Forrest: It's kind of like commercial fishing. It's just like, get me as many as you can. And then they were gonna, you know, they probably pay, I'm gonna make these numbers up five bucks, a shark. Right. But then they ship them around the world to these rare fish collectors. And I'm not talking about like reputable aquariums.
[00:42:42] Forrest: I'm talking about guys, you know, that want them in their backyard or in their fish pond or fish tank. And they're probably selling 'em for an absolute fortune, you know, $50,000 a shark or whatever, because they're so rare. And so when I say I wanted to produce, I found out about this and I really wanted to tell that story.
[00:42:59] Forrest: But I didn't know how to tell it because, you know, I didn't want to just like start naming these people that I'd heard about that are in a different nation, a thousand, thousands of miles away. I didn't wanna, you can't throw the fishermen under the bus cuz they're just trying to make a living. So the whole thing was like, yeah, we even talked to the fixer and we're like, Hey, we know where they're developing this, um, this containment and shipment center.
[00:43:20] Forrest: Can we like go there and film undercover? Like, could we take our spy cameras in and show all these aquariums are being built to ship fish out around the world. And it was just, the whole thing was just like, I mean, you maybe could, but it's dangerous. And what's the point. Like, it doesn't really tell you anything about sharks.
[00:43:35] Forrest: And I was like, yeah, you're right. You know, like, let's just, I guess we'll just leave it. Like, I don't know how to tell that story and work it into the main part of the mission. And then it all just unfolded organically, you know? And so it's like, it's amazing that we were able to communicate that story without giving out a ton of detail.
[00:43:50] Forrest: And catch these sharks and release them somewhere that they wouldn't be re caught.
[00:43:53] Luke: Yeah. I mean that, it does sound like a bear that you'd be poking and you'd be forced to go down a whole different, um, path in that type of storytelling, but with your interest and, you know, your trade of finding these exotic animals, is there a part of you that has a concern for highlighting the presence of some of these, you know, nearly perhaps extinct animals or previously thought extinct animals and, you know, fostering that new interest in them
[00:44:21] Forrest: for unethical people.
[00:44:22] Forrest: I love this question. I get this question a lot. I challenge any, I thought I was really smart.
[00:44:26] Luke: That was the first time you'd ever heard it.
[00:44:28] Forrest: I challenge anybody to go and try and find one of these things that we've found. Yeah. You know, I mean, you know, it's, it's all fun and games on TV and all that, but.
[00:44:37] Forrest: It's dangerous. We get heatstroke, we get sick. And if you watch any of our shows, we never give away the specific location of where we are and, and who the people are. And, you know, we, we're very conscious of that, but I get that. I, I even get people. Like, it's funny. I made a, my shark week, last year, where we went to the re hedos islands in Mexico.
[00:44:56] Forrest: And, uh, I had a couple, you know, I showed this incredible wall of yellow and tuna, these through 250 pound yellow tuna that I was diving with that swimming right by me. And I had it, like, I probably got 10 different messages on social media that were like, you're such an idiot for showing people that they can go fishing there.
[00:45:12] Forrest: And I'm like, oh my God, this is a nationally protected Marine sanctuary that the world knows is a hotspot for big pelagics. But people just have this emotional knee-jerk reaction of like, you've ruined it because you've told the world where these things are. And I'm like, you, you do me a favor. You get yourself to the rev, see how easy that is for you to go fish there.
[00:45:31] Forrest: And, uh, when your boat gets blown up by the Mexican Navy, just remember. I ruined it for everybody. it's like, you know, it's so funny, but anyway, the point is I we're always conscious of it. We never give away the specifics of a location, even island to the walking shark. We're like it's in Milon bay. You know, we never show where it is on the map.
[00:45:49] Forrest: Like good luck finding it on a map. And, uh, you know, people just aren't getting there. Yeah. Quite simply. Have you ever,
[00:45:56] Luke: you, you talked about people reaching out on social media with a, you know, whole accusatory type tone, but has anyone reached out to you and said, Hey, man, I know that you know where these things are.
[00:46:05] Luke: How about we do a little side deal here and you, you know, don't tell anybody and go get me one of those rare ocelots or whatever it might
[00:46:12] Forrest: have been. Oh, I think people are too scared. I like, I would put you on blast so bad if you did that. Do you know what I mean? I would be like, I would call fish and game and oh my God.
[00:46:21] Forrest: I mean, I actually scratch all that erase. Delete, edit. Yeah. Yeah. You guys hit me up with that. I'll get you your special stuff. Wink, wink. Uh,
[00:46:29] Luke: I was just gonna say this could be like catch a predator, you know, like yeah, totally.
[00:46:32] Forrest: Actually no, I've never had that. I've never had that. I have had total like whack jobs reach out to me and be like, I know exactly where the Thyssen is.
[00:46:41] Forrest: I've got it. I've got it in a cave and like all these things. And I'm like, I look up who they are. I have my researcher figure it out and it's like, Some guy living in a Highrise apartment in like Sydney or something, I'm like, oh yeah, for sure. You definitely. Yeah. You definitely have one. Yeah, I think that's my
[00:46:55] Luke: great uncle.
[00:46:56] Luke: And sorry about that. He drinks too much Forex that's he likes your show. So that's just how it goes. what do you, what do you think is, I mean, so how deep is a whole question, but what do you think is the, the biggest problem in society today in terms of how we view our wildlife and protection of our wildlife?
[00:47:17] Luke: Is that a, a question that can even be answered?
[00:47:19] Forrest: Not in, not in a very concise manner, but my, my immediate answer is the word renewable. Okay. You know, I think people think in, in today's world, it's amazing. We look at examples like the passenger pigeon of which there were billions the great AK of which there were tens of millions and they're gone.
[00:47:38] Forrest: Those animals don't exist any longer. And at the time, and I've, I've been there too. I mean, fishing blue tuna, which I still do, you know, I substance spear fish for tuna, the Pacific, not the Eastern I want to mention or the Atlantic, but, um, you look at 'em and go, we could never get rid of these things.
[00:47:54] Forrest: There are so many of them, they're a renewable, uh, resource. They'll never run out. And that's just not the case. People look at these things and they have these objective ideas of like, because there's so many, there's nothing we can do to get rid of them. They'll never run out. There's an abundance of them.
[00:48:10] Forrest: And that is just the wrong mentality for society. Like we should look at them as treasures and treats and be like, wow, how lucky are we that we. A million of these things or a billion of these things, or 10,000 of these things let's protect them. You know, it doesn't mean we can't enjoy them as a resource or harvest them or whatever it is, but let's protect them instead.
[00:48:28] Forrest: There's this sort of blanket idea of like, yeah, I get it. There's lots of rhinos, you know, whatever they killed, some rhinos doesn't affect my life, you know? And I think it's that mentality of like, everything's renewable and it's not that big of a deal that, uh, that is the biggest problem with. Yeah.
[00:48:43] Luke: Hey, uh, before we go, I wanted to ask you about, uh, this story we had kind of in the top of the show before we brought you on.
[00:48:48] Luke: But, uh, have you heard about these great white sharks
[00:48:50] Forrest: color changing? Yeah, I read about it. I, I, I find it pretty interesting, uh, where the researchers, uh, I believe they're dragging seals and they saw the same shark was like light gray, and then sort of a darker gray and blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Yeah. They had like a
[00:49:04] Luke: color bar chart that the, the shark would pop up next to, they took photos.
[00:49:07] Luke: Mm-hmm, corrected it for the weather and conditions and everything and realized, Hey, the shark is different colors at different times. Then they took a tissue sample and were able to show that, uh, the, the tissue changed color under the influence of adrenaline. Um, which I thought was pretty fascinating.
[00:49:22] Luke: Um, you know, this, you know, super crypto biologist guy, does that surprise you at all that we're learning this now about great Watts. Well, I'll
[00:49:29] Forrest: say this, you know, Luke, if you hopped off, took, popped your headphones off and did a hundred pushups real quick. I don't think your face would be the same color when you got back on the pod in 10 seconds, would it?
[00:49:39] Forrest: Um, or in a minute, whatever it takes you to do a hundred pushups, it would take me 10 seconds. That's all I'm saying. No, I'm just kidding. Um, but uh, you know, I, I almost feel like it's, it's, it's one of those studies that's like, wow, that's really cool. But like, duh, you know what I mean? It's common sense in a sense.
[00:49:56] Forrest: It's like, every animal under certain stress changes conditions. And every individual, especially as you get higher up on the food chain is unique. You know, if you go fishing and reel in a Dorado, the color it is in the water compared to the color, it is two minutes after it gets on the boat. 10 seconds after it gets in the boat or two entirely different color pallets.
[00:50:16] Forrest: It's not that these animals are being like, okay, there's a seal up there. Let's go dark. You know, I don't think that sharks are changing and, and I'm less qualified to speak on white sharks, but I can speak on other sharks. It's not that they're like making a conscious decision to camouflage into their environment to be better H hunters.
[00:50:33] Forrest: It's just rather that their heart rate is changing. Their blood is changing the hormones and the chemical balance and their blood system is changing. And that changes their aesthetic very, very slightly. Right. And it happens to humans when we go for a run or when we lie around or when you get sick and you get that pale yellowy complexion, you know, Things change within your body that are going to change your aesthetic, to tie it back to island, to the walking sharks, the variation in the individual sharks.
[00:50:57] Forrest: And I'll give you a little hypothesis here. The variation in the individual leopard Ts and the papain TZ was incredible. And I'm certain certain that the ones that are darker are Sunter are sunburnt burnt our Sunan I'm I, when you look at the variation, like in that bucket, uh, that Elis, the fisherman gave us of all the different PAB and apple blood sharks.
[00:51:17] Forrest: Some of them were light cream in color, and some totally look like a tanned surfer guy who had been out in the ocean way too long, and they had got sunburn. And I'm sure that it is from those ones are more willing to climb up either shallower or above the water surface during daylight hours. And they're just getting this like sun tanned complexion.
[00:51:36] Forrest: And that's not, again, that's not an intelligent choice to change their color. It's just environmental. And I, I, that's how I see it with the white sharks is like, yes, It, it makes sense. It, I, I don't find it groundbreaking or incredible. I don't think these animals are choosing to change color. It's a spike of adrenaline.
[00:51:52] Forrest: Something happens, you know, a spike of dopamine, whatever it is, something happens and it change, it alters their skin pigment a little bit. Yeah.
[00:51:58] Luke: Well I guess, uh, none of us really do until we get to see this, uh, actual published study. I do hope they publish, cuz it'll be really cool to see, uh, even just understanding the mechanism for how that works and just knowing that, Hey, it, it may be involuntary or it may be an adaptation, but regardless, it's cool to understand how much control they have or, you know, involuntary control they have over that skin and it's limitation.
[00:52:22] Forrest: It's another one of those things that could help us understand their behavior and be less terrified of them. Right? Yeah, totally. Well, when we were diving with a shark, when you see it arch its back locks, its pectoral fins, you know, you know, it's aggressive and you need to get outta the. If we could look at it and go, Hey, he's getting a little bit darker.
[00:52:37] Forrest: Like we need to get outta the water or, Hey, he's lightening up. Like, he's pretty calm. Yeah. That's gonna help us understand them further and fear them less because then we can actually spend time around them and be like, oh, okay. I understand this animal. And the way that it behaves. So I think it's a wonderful study.
[00:52:51] Forrest: I don't wanna discredit it by the way. I, I don't want this to come off wrong. I think what they're doing is wonderful. I just look at it and go. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. Like it's not rocket science. Yeah.
[00:53:00] Luke: Wouldn't it be cool though. If sharks did sort of give you a flashing warning signal.
[00:53:03] Forrest: Oh my God.
[00:53:04] Forrest: That would be the fun. I totally eat all my words. It'd be like, these things are so smart.
[00:53:08] Luke: The great watch strobing dude. Get outta
[00:53:10] Forrest: the water. He's St. STR. Exactly. It's on exactly the cuddle fish shark. Exactly. Yeah.
[00:53:16] Luke: Well, we won't give away, but the cuddle fish shark is the topic of, uh, forest next show. Um, we're looking forward to seeing on discovery next.
[00:53:23] Luke: Year's just kidding. What,
[00:53:24] Forrest: what are you actually working on now? What's up next? You know, it's hard to say because of contractual things, but I do have several more shark related things going on. Uh, we're working, we're working on a new adventure series currently, um, that, uh, I can't really release the information on that yet, but that'll be coming to.
[00:53:39] Forrest: Uh, I imagine by the end of the year. So there's, there's a lot going on a, as you can imagine, it's always to do with remote places, adventure and wildlife. It's the only thing I know how to do. Um, and so, uh, yeah, there's, there's certainly more coming and I always look forward to shark week. Every year. I look forward to putting out something on sharks that isn't the same old, same old, you know, tiger beach, white sharks jumping.
[00:54:00] Forrest: And I'm not discrediting that. I love that stuff, but it's just, I'm glad that there's somebody, my team and I who are able to bring these less appreciated sharks into the limelight. You got it,
[00:54:11] Luke: man. Thanks again for if, uh, you haven't seen it. Check out discovery plus it's one of the greatest documentaries I've seen in a long time island of the walking sharks with forest Galante.
[00:54:19] Luke: You really have to see it. It's a fantastic adventure and, uh, far you're champ mate. Thanks for joining us.
[00:54:35] Luke: So now we've reached the fin and that conversation with forest was absolutely fascinating to me. I mean, not only does his passion for his subject and the animals and the environment and travel in general come through, but he brings up a really good point. About the problems we have with trafficking animals.
[00:54:55] Luke: Now here's a guy who specializes in tracking down the most difficult to find animals on the planet. And yes, he tongue in cheek laughably says, Hey, yeah, I dare you to go and find that almost extinct animal yourself when he'd be asked about it. And the reality is there aren't people out there trying to find those very, very.
[00:55:15] Luke: Critically endangered animals necessarily for private collections or something like that. And it's not something you're gonna find at your local pet store and be able to say, Hey, we need to stop this and make the pet store, put it back in the environment. Most of this happens fairly illicitly and most of it happens to animals that are very rare, but also can be found in sustainable populations.
[00:55:35] Luke: And that's kind of what I really want to talk about here, because for example, in forest show, we saw one of these epi sharks that was in a sustainable population, but is being collected on request from a, a wealthy benefactor for the aquarium trade. Now, how long can that go on? We don't have the answer to that, but taking it back to our leopard at sharks, you know, these ones that live in Papa new Guinea and are being, you know, exploit.
[00:55:59] Luke: For the aquarium trade, you know, just because they're not the coolest shark in the world. I mean, and let's face it. The reason people are keeping Alet sharks is because one, they generally do. Okay. In an aquarium and two. It's a shark people wanna say, Hey, I've got a shark in an aquarium and there are some species that are bred for captivity.
[00:56:24] Luke: And those ones are just fine. Like just like forcep. They're just fine to have, but glorifying the possession of many more rare species, especially these understudied ones that we just don't understand. I mean, we're looking at, you know, many, many adults being removed from a, a, a thriving ecosystem in a short period of time, which for sharks is definitely not sustainable.
[00:56:46] Luke: Now it's important to note that wildlife trade is one of the biggest drivers of biodiversity loss, and it leads to the direct deaths of millions of individual animals, not just from the, the trade itself, but from the transport. It's a knock on effect of a lot of different things driven purely by the greed or the desire.
[00:57:06] Luke: To own something that's rare. The wildlife trade for example, is worth about 20 billion us, uh, globally, which is a pretty large number. When you think about it, particularly when we're targeting animals, that can't support being taken at that level. As we're talking about trade, it's not just the trade in animals, it's also the trade in animal products.
[00:57:28] Luke: So for example, when you look at caviar, it might seem like a, you know, a benign treat. I, I see it's advertised to me on social media all the time. I don't know why they're targeting me, but apparently caviar is a thing now sustainable caviar, but all 27 species of sturgeon are listed by the IUCN. And 16 of them are categorized as critically endangered.
[00:57:48] Luke: And this is directly due to the trade and consumption of that caviar. So we're not just talking about, you know, an exotic animal or a lizard or a bird or fish. Being taken for the aquarium trade. We're also looking at the, the animal products and some famous examples of this have had some success, for example, like the banning of ivory trade.
[00:58:07] Luke: Now that's gotten a lot of global exposure and I think that's really where we need to go with a lot of these animals. It's about having an awareness about it because the sad thing is that we can't really. Do something directly about it. As people sitting in our living rooms, you know, a lot of these collectors and collections are happening in non-public size places.
[00:58:27] Luke: They're, you know, for very wealthy people who want to have something cool and exotic to show off, it's kind of the same mentality behind sharkfin soup, for example, where it's being shown a, a, a rare thing. And it now has a, a symbol of status. You know, it's, it's not about the animal per se. In many cases, it's about the social stigma associated with it.
[00:58:49] Luke: So that's somewhere where we can actually participate by perhaps not glorifying the presence of these rare collections. And maybe not following that person on social media, who you're not quite sure where those animals are coming from. I think that as consumers, we can go out and make conscious choices about what we're doing and think about where that animal or that product is coming from.
[00:59:11] Luke: Definitely make sure that the animals that you might buy as a pet, uh, sourced ethically. They might be bred locally and not harvested from the ocean if it's not sustainable. And in many cases, these rare type exotic things are simply not sustainable. It is just like for said, you know, if you see a million animals in one place, it doesn't mean that we can go and, you know, reduce them by half and that that's community will continue.
[00:59:37] Luke: You know, the reality is in many cases, that might be the holding capacity of that environment. And the animals will take care of that. If we CU that down, then we might have just removed half their breeding population and therefore affected their survivability as a whole. So I get it. It's a challenge.
[00:59:52] Luke: I'm sitting here talking about lept sharks that are very understudied that maybe being exploited. Unsustainable for a aquarium trade and we sit here and go, well, okay, Luke, what can I do about that? I mean, the reality is there's not a lot we can do about that. So what we can do is support research efforts like forests and, and the other scientists are out there working on uncovering more data about these little served and unknown species.
[01:00:19] Luke: And in that way, we have the data which turns into a tool that we can use to speak to government groups, NGOs, conservation groups, fishermen, themselves, and make better educated decisions about how our ocean's resources are being used.
[01:00:36] Luke: Okay, well, that's it for today's episode, stay tuned to this feed. As we continue to cover the Sharkies current topics, talk to top scientists and experts and learn all about the latest conservation efforts to keep this amazing animal from extinction. Thanks for listening to shark week the podcast. Be sure to rate us five stars and subscribe for more shark, fun facts.
[01:00:55] Luke: I'm Luke tipple. I'll chat to you next time.