Luke Tipple chats with Joe Romeiro & Lauren Romeiro, shark experts and stars of the Shark Week special, The Dawn of the Monster Mako.
Shark Week: The Podcast, goes behind the scenes with stars of the Shark Week special Dawn of the Monster Mako, underwater filmmaker and shark expert Joe Romeiro & marine biologist and cinematographer Lauren Romeiro. Host Luke Tipple chats with the newly married shark couple about the differences between makos and swordfish, the elusive nature of the adult mako shark, and the footage caught by deep water cameras that can go up to 3000 feet underwater. The experts share their shark safety while searching the depths around the ancient island of the archipelago.
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Find episode transcripts here: https://shark-weeks-daily-bite.simplecast.com/episodes/s3-ep11-the-epic-battles-between-swordfish-and-mako-sharks
For more about sharks, head to SharkWeek.com
[00:00:00] Luke: The Mako shark with top speeds of 60 miles an hour and impressive agility. This shark is the fastest in the world and a crazy formidable predator. They usually average around eight to 10 feet in length, but some makos seem to be considerably larger than that. The question is just how big and where are these monster make?
[00:00:25] Luke: Welcome to shark week. The podcast I'm Luke tipple, Marine biologist, and a frequent voice on my favorite things, oceans and sharks. I'm stoked to bring the magic of shark week, right to your ears. Sharks have been a big part of my life for over 20 years now, studying them and diving with them all around the world.
[00:00:44] Luke: I guess that's given me some of the street cred to participate in many shark week documentaries throughout the years, and now to be your host. 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. To tell us a bit about monster MAOS.
[00:01:06] Luke: I'm thrilled to welcome an incredible husband and wife duo stars of the shark week, special Dawn of the monster Mao underwater filmmaker, and shark expert, Joe Rome and Marine biologist and cinematographer Lauren Romero. Hey, I think the last time we spoke, you were just getting your boat up and going and you were chasing around massive macOS and trying to get as gnarly as possible.
[00:01:25] Luke: Does that pretty much sum up your lives? Yeah, pretty
[00:01:27] Joe: much. Yeah. yeah, the season started up again,
[00:01:30] Lauren: so yeah. Started of the season. So we're in full swing up here, Jason makos around.
[00:01:35] Luke: So what does starting up the season mean for you? Is it filming? Is it research? Is it tourism? Like what, what do you get involved in?
[00:01:42] Lauren: Uh, we have a bit of everything. So we do, I have my own PhD research going on that we do all summer. Um, but we do our own filming work too. So we're. Pretty packed up in the summertime. We try and give everything its own time, but
[00:01:59] Joe: it's like following the stories of everything she's doing. So, I mean, she's got a pretty extensive PhD project that involves like so many different species of sharks that we're constantly like I get to tag along and like, See what we can get from it.
[00:02:12] Joe: Like what kind of stories and what kind of things we get to see. And last couple of years we've seen some pretty cool stuff. So, I mean, like, especially last year was pretty, pretty hectic. So yeah, we have
[00:02:22] Lauren: a lot of species up here, so. Yeah,
[00:02:25] Joe: it was a good year. So in a couple more years of doing it and it'll probably mean a lifetime of doing
[00:02:32] Luke: it.
[00:02:33] Luke: well, your focus is, has, seemed to be at least so far on big Mako sharks. Is that still an emphasis for your research?
[00:02:40] Joe: Yeah, I think it's one of those animals that it's just like. It, we, we were like talking about this, like the other day. It's like the comparison of all different, like animals on the planet that you see all the time.
[00:02:50] Joe: And it's like, you always see adult animals. And when you see a baby, it's the rarity, you know? And even in sharks, if you see like a baby great white or a baby tiger shark, everybody makes a big deal of it. But like macOS, super rare to see him like an adult ma. Like seeing babies are way more prevalent and easy than seeing an adult.
[00:03:09] Joe: An adult's like a unicorn in the shark world. It's like one of those animals, if there was any shark that was ever hunted, it's that animal, you know, it's like, it it's just become one of those sharks for us that it's just still hard to find and still hard to like know much about. But a lot of my opinions of them have changed a lot throughout the years.
[00:03:28] Joe: Well, how's that?
[00:03:30] Luke: I mean, you've, you've spent probably more time in the water. Actually in the water, you know, hand on snout with a bunch of MAs and probably anyone else in the world. Would that be fair to characterize?
[00:03:40] Joe: I, I think it's, yeah, I think that's pretty fair. I, I mean, I haven't really heard it said like that before, but I'll go with that I guess like, yeah, I would say
[00:03:47] Luke: that's true.
[00:03:47] Luke: I should probably say snout to camera
[00:03:50] Joe: mostly for sure. I like, even to this day, I have a hard time like bringing my, without being without my camera, even on just. Stupid dives, like things that you just go down, you could go down to go new to Bronx or like slugs and I'd still have a camera with me just in case.
[00:04:03] Joe: Yeah. You feel weird
[00:04:03] Lauren: without your camera? Yeah.
[00:04:05] Luke: well, it's probably cuz you're so used to pushing sharks off with your camera. What do you do
[00:04:08] Joe: without it? It feels like, yeah, you get that security blanket with you and it's hard to like get rid of it. Like feels like when you're like diving underwater, you don't have it.
[00:04:15] Joe: It feels like you're swimming without. I don't know if you've done that in a while, but if you've ever like gone back in the water and like taken your fins off and just been like, oh my God, no, I haven't. But I like, I can't do anything. You can't swim anywhere. , it's, it's like the most, you feel like the most useless thing in the world it's like immediately, you know why you're having no, I, I,
[00:04:33] Luke: I do spend most of the time in the water without a camera though.
[00:04:35] Luke: And I do envi obviously look at the cameraman who are getting mobbed by sharks and thinking, well, it'd be nice to have a camera in front of me at times. yeah. Yeah, it really
[00:04:46] Joe: is. yeah. The people without 'em have it definitely a lot worse. Yeah, for sure. Like with a lot of things.
[00:04:51] Lauren: Well, cause then you have to use your hands and then it's just, yeah.
[00:04:54] Lauren: It's easier when you have a nice big box in front of you to just be like, oh, go over
[00:04:58] Joe: there. Yeah. You know, so I think in the beginning of our diving career, we started doing them and especially with some of the guys that we were working with within the shark week crews, we had just not known. Very, we had known very few people to do, even just like one like big Maco versus like a couple big macOS or trying to like, see what big macOS were doing at night or anything like that.
[00:05:19] Joe: So there was a lot of territory where we felt like we had no, not known too many people on our block that had already done it. So there was really hard to something to compare it, to be like, well, this guy had done it and he was okay. You know, where it was like, There was a lot of like putting our faith to the test with those bigger sharks.
[00:05:36] Joe: And I think like a lot of what we discovered is a lot of their they're a lot smarter than we think they put a lot of like real judgment into what they're like. You know, looking at they're very cautious and then like there's a lot to do with their tooth morphology. That just makes those animals, that once they commit into something, they're kind of locked into that prey because a lot of the animals that they catch are so fast that they have like this denture to hold onto these, these things, that commitment means that they're super vulnerable.
[00:06:05] Joe: And that ability to do that is like, They don't really want to do it. They'll bite at things to do things, but to really like commit into something, they gotta really know what it is to want. And they don't really like each other very much. So you're dealing with one. You don't necessarily have to deal with two at the same exact time.
[00:06:21] Joe: You never really see like a rarity. It's like, I have a photo of two MAs coming together and I think it's like one of the few times I've ever like, seen them actually touch where they just don't. Yeah, they kind of give each other a lot of space. Yeah.
[00:06:35] Luke: Mm-hmm so, I mean, in your work, you know, locally, you're looking for MAOS, I'm looking for the larger ones characterized for us what that is, you know, someone's never seen a ma, never seen a Mako show before.
[00:06:45] Luke: How old are they at adult stage? How big are they at adult stage? And why aren't you seeing em locally?
[00:06:51] Joe: Well, getting back into like the makos are like one of five, like endothermic species, these sort of species, like a very close relative to the great white, they look really similar to 'em except they just have like little characteristics that make them like, they're your own unique shark.
[00:07:05] Joe: They're fastest shark in the world. Uh, now one of the, like an endangered shark within the world and it's, um, I mean, like, as far as characteristics,
[00:07:15] Lauren: like said there nine feet for females to be characterized as like adult where they can actually
[00:07:20] Joe: yeah. Adult reproduce reproduce 14, probably like maximum length of what you hear those animals really being at.
[00:07:27] Joe: Yeah. So it's like, they're not like as big as great whites, but there's a lot of contention of like, who is the toughest out of both of them. Cuz the behavior is different out of either one of these
[00:07:35] Luke: animals. Got it. So to put it simply we're at we're about nine feet. Where they start being characterized as adults, you guys are really looking for the 10 foot plus the, the 13, 14 foot ones.
[00:07:45] Luke: How old are they at that stage? Ah, they
[00:07:48] Joe: say like about like 25 to 30 years old is like a guess. Exactly. I mean, nobody really knows, you know, it's like you look at great whites and how much they like age, but cold water shark scene to like be around a little bit more than warm water from what I've. I mean, I've read.
[00:08:01] Joe: No one really knows. So I guess, yeah, I guess if it's to take a guess like 25, 30, 30 years old, you know? Yeah.
[00:08:08] Luke: Probably a pretty fair educated guesser. So what drove you out to the, is it the
[00:08:12] Joe: Azos or the Azos? Uh, the Azos, well, they're nine islands in the middle of the Atlantic. We hear always kind of like different rumors about it, but like I had a friend Michael that came back and he had like these images of this shark that could only describe as being like a sub.
[00:08:28] Joe: Like this massive make. I've seen a lot of big macOS on film. And after seeing a lot of macOS on film, you kind of can distinguish even size by looking in on film, like the size of the fins compared to the body. Like, what does the face look like? Like characteristics far as color when you saw the size of this animal, it really made us wanna like go back out there.
[00:08:45] Lauren: So, yeah, I mean, I think it's also a place. I mean, you grew up there, so we do a lot of research here at home, so it was nice to go back where you grew up and really see. How the sharks are there as well. I'm trying to find, it's just
[00:08:58] Joe: like that connection between that, like the big Mako where I'd like been born and was raised the first years of my life.
[00:09:05] Joe: And I don't know, it just felt like one of those things that seemed like very prophetic is being like, we were gonna chase a big animal. This seemed like one of the areas we may have lot doing it and having that trail of like someone just coming back from there and being like, This is a photo of like probably the largest make we've ever seen.
[00:09:20] Joe: So you pass that up.
[00:09:22] Luke: Lauren, had you been out there
[00:09:23] Lauren: before? Um, yes, we were out there a couple years ago, but we weren't actually in the water. So this was my first time actually in the water out there. So there's so much wildlife. It was absolutely amazing. That's where we got
[00:09:35] Luke: engaged. Yeah. Nice. Well, what were your first impressions of being in the water with the big animals out there?
[00:09:42] Lauren: I think it's a, it's the same a lot as here. I mean, it's open ocean. There's no bottom. So I mean, really anything can come from anywhere except for above, really. So you just really have to be aware of what's out there. I mean, I had never been there before, so I at home, I know kind of, what's going show up, dived out there before.
[00:10:01] Lauren: Yeah, I haven't dived out there before. So like at home, I kind of know, but out there you just, you don't really know. Well, I didn't really know. So that was new and fun for me.
[00:10:11] Joe: Clarity. Yeah. There's a lot more clarity water over. It's like 102 hundred feet of visibility. That's ridiculous. There's like, not even, not even fun.
[00:10:19] Joe: You get out to the Gulf stream where it starts to get really nice, but majority of it is a little bit more difficult than
[00:10:25] Luke: that. One of the, uh, The really interesting things about the show for me was, uh, the parallel you drew between the, you know, relationship and presence of makos to swordfish. Can you kind of describe that for me,
[00:10:37] Joe: convergent evolution, two animals that come together that like, like are from completely different backgrounds, completely different species that.
[00:10:48] Joe: Basically look the same act, the same hunt, kind of the same animals, just like one evolved to have a SP like a sword at the end of its face. And the other one evolved to have a bunch of teeth and they both just don't like each other but the fins look the same. Well,
[00:11:04] Luke: you, you described them as doing yeah.
[00:11:06] Luke: You described them as doing
[00:11:07] Joe: battle. Oh, for sure. Yeah. They're like warrior. Those two,
[00:11:10] Luke: tell us about that. I wanna hear about swordfish and ma battling
[00:11:13] Joe: away. Well, I mean, you think about like, I, I think about like sharks all the time, as far as like, we all do. And it's like, but as far as like hunting and eating things, like how they have, like some of sharks, Ambu things, some sharks like hammer heads are just like scouring the bottom, like rubbing their face against sand till one day something just starts stabbing the, you know, stabbing their eyeballs.
[00:11:33] Joe: And they're like, there it is. And they can attack and kill something with their. But all these animals, like the evolution of them to have something that drove you to the point where you have like a makos. Like how a Mako looks like, you know, like how it's face looks, how it's like set up how it's like it, it's just made to catch and hold on to super fast animals.
[00:11:56] Joe: And then to have another animal that occupies the same space does the same thing. And they're so highly aggressive with each other that that animal evolved to sword on the end of its face. to be able to defend against things like that, attacking it. So it's like, you know, and they kind of, they, they both have like this.
[00:12:15] Joe: Uh, like this Crescent shaped tail, this really thick, caught keel, the counter shadings almost the same. The coloring's almost the same. Their fins are all. They have dorsal fins, pectoral fins, like all the same things that each other have. They're. One's a fish with two sets of gills. One on either side, one's a shark with 10 gills, five on either side and like teeth.
[00:12:37] Joe: And it's like, but they, if you saw one swimming away really fast from the surface, you'd be hard pressed to identify it immediately as one or the
[00:12:46] Luke: other. Ha have you per, have you personally seen them in the water together and how they, you know, stand off? I
[00:12:51] Joe: have seen swordfish at the water. Like really briefly, but swordfish are one of those animals.
[00:12:56] Joe: And most people don't even realize that like swordfish are one of those animals. They're so highly, this is an aggressive animal. This is an animal that's constantly hunted enough where most things will spook it enough where it just starts to be aggressive with people. And most of the things of people filming swordfish they've like attacked the cameramen so they're, they're one of those fish that is still not a lot known about.
[00:13:17] Joe: And maybe like one day. , you know, we'll change our mind about how we feel about those two. But for me, it's like one of those animals, if someone was like, Hey, there's a swordfish around. I would feel like, you know, like real danger. Yeah. Cuz you never know how they're gonna react to each other and how are they gonna react to you?
[00:13:34] Joe: And it's like, and that thing has like a. Three foot sword at the end of its face, it will put through something. And it seems like makos, you see with full on like, like spikes through their faces through their sides. We, I saw a Mako on a shoot for shark week that had one that went through its stomach and came out the other side.
[00:13:51] Joe: And this shark was like 10 feet long. And this swords bill was like, Broken off through its body and it was still swimming around fine. The shark was still swimming around. Fine. Still the shark was still swimming around. Fine. No one knows what happened to the swordfish, but it definitely lost its sword.
[00:14:07] Joe: like, like got away. yeah. So I, I don't know how that works if they like break off or whatever, but I know like, and you see like all kinds of old paintings of the two of them together. It's like they occupy the same spaces. They hunt the same food. They hunt like one hunts. The other, I think that's like.
[00:14:22] Joe: There's a lot to those
[00:14:23] Luke: two. Yeah. Well, I think in, in, uh, previous shows you've described, uh, the Mao's ability to, you know, take the tail off, take the locomotion off of their, their target species. And, uh, are the swordfish on the Mao's menu or is it more of a defense thing?
[00:14:38] Joe: Oh, for sure. They're on the, make those menu for sure.
[00:14:41] Joe: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Like they just one of those animals that like once it's, it, it, I think probably, maybe because they're, they're in the same area as well. Doesn't really help it, but I've seen them react very well. promisingly to, to, to swordfish it. It's probably, it's like a large size too.
[00:14:59] Lauren: That's yeah, pretty much what they just go for is to swordfish.
[00:15:02] Lauren: Once they hit like probably like 10 feet, they're just going for those larger animals.
[00:15:08] Joe: Yeah. Once they, yeah. It's like the caloric intake of an animal. Like how much does it like really worth for an animal, like of 10 foot, 12 foot nature to like chase a macro. You know, so it's like something to catch and kill.
[00:15:19] Joe: That's gonna have a lot more of like, Alor, intake's gonna be something like a swordfish, but like what, what an animal to kind of like tackle and kill with only your face. Like literally, yeah. Lauren
[00:15:32] Luke: Joe's in the water. He doesn't have his camera and he is either gonna get he' getting tangled with either a, a make or a swordfish.
[00:15:39] Luke: And he has to take on one of them. Which one would you prefer?
[00:15:42] Lauren: A Mako for sure. I would be, I'd be jumping in behind him, like throwing in a Plexiglas shield. There's
[00:15:50] Luke: a sword can't in this theoretical.
[00:15:51] Lauren: You can't. No. So then I would take a 12 foot make over a swordfish just cause I've, I've never been in the water with a swordfish.
[00:15:59] Lauren: I have no idea. I have just heard stories and I rather not have you sped with a sword. I think you can handle the mouth of a make. Much
[00:16:08] Joe: better. I handle it, but you definitely. How do you feel about that, Joe? I, I think like Amaco itself would probably come over and judge what you were first and they're not bumpy, so they're kind of like mouthy.
[00:16:19] Joe: So you would probably have ability to like tap it away or tap its head or a sword. A sword fist is so fast at what I've seen him approach things that I feel like. They're much more dangerous fish than people think they are. They're not, we're not talking about Marlin. We're not talking about sailfish.
[00:16:34] Joe: We're talking about like a deep water sword fish, like a big full on sword fish. Like these are animals that most people don't get to see.
[00:16:42] Luke: For it's worthwhile. And I think that's a pretty good call. I'd I'd make the same myself. yeah. uh, I noticed that you guys are, are frequently just on snorkel, you know, mass snorkel, fins, and jumping in the water with the cameras.
[00:16:53] Luke: Is there a strategy for that? Like you wanna be on the surface? Is there a, a, might there be a better use for scuba in that type of environment? Why is that your
[00:17:02] Joe: preference? I mean, scuba would probably be the Mo the easiest to do where you could just jump in and kind of like pick the level of anything you'd wanna film, but the animals, as you know, like they don't do what we normally wanna do.
[00:17:13] Joe: And there's a lot of power play with like Magos and big sharks like that. Where if you get whoever's below is just gonna be the one that is leveling off with a shark. So it's like, once you put everybody at the surface, it kind of levels the playing field. The shark feels pretty secure. Knowing that you're up there and it's like, it will come up to you a little bit closer as soon as you seem to like, get yourself below a shark, it doesn't really wanna approach you as easy.
[00:17:35] Joe: It's kind of like, seems more vulnerable to that. The sound itself seems to affect him. I mean, every time we've done scuba with him, it depends on the animal. We've had a lot of like, Success at times. And then we've had a lot of times where it's just like a lot of animals run away from us and they just see it and go, I have no idea what that is.
[00:17:52] Joe: I don't trust it. I don't like it like where it's positioning itself. And then they just, they take off and plus it complicates like the amount of time that the animal's there. You're sitting on a boat, you see the animals show up. You have a little short amount of time where this animal that's the fastest shark in the world is going to sit there.
[00:18:09] Joe: And judge, if it's going to hang around or if it's going to leave and you can either choose to sit on the boat, get ready, strap in, grab your scuba tank, put up the like, put on the valves, check all the air flow, or grab a snorkel and go, get in the water and immediately do your work where you're, you can get to the animal and the animal will feel more comfortable and get closer to you.
[00:18:28] Joe: So it's like it's and. Honestly a lot, a like, it's easier for you to turn around and this animal's constantly making you spin, checking you out. So it's like, you're just keeping it in front of you.
[00:18:52] Luke: So I, I have absolutely no doubt that both of you are gonna keep pursuing this until you find the, the greatest monster Mao ever. Uh, the one that you found out in the Azos, how big was it? It was big.
[00:19:04] Joe: big enough. It was big. It didn't really do like, it wasn't there for like hours or anything like that. Yeah.
[00:19:08] Joe: But it definitely enough to like where we saw it. Yeah. It was, it was big. Well, what would surprise you at this point? Yeah. I don't know. There's still like other, like there's two species of makos out there, Luke. Oh yeah. That'd be, that'd be. That'd be something yeah. To kinda like, see, and then there's just like all kinds of different ones after that, you know, like you can get that makeup then the biggest one of that makeup and have them both together or anything like that.
[00:19:32] Joe: But there's, there's always something that surprises you size is one of those things that. Still surprised me. I thought after a certain amount of time, you're like, yeah, I've definitely seen some of the biggest ones. Nothing will really surprise me. And then you see another one and you'd be like, yeah, except for that one.
[00:19:48] Joe: that one's kind of surprising. Well, for
[00:19:50] Luke: all of our sake, I hope you do continue to stay surprised. and what would be, what would be the, you know, the Pener I mean, I think what is the biggest Maco that's ever been caught size? Was it like 15 feet.
[00:20:04] Joe: Oh, is that right? I think it's around there. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's around there around that size.
[00:20:08] Joe: I think that's where they were like judging it. I don't, I don't really know what, like they actually, they go by weight so much of the times that it's like, but yeah, I would guess that would be fair. Fair judgment.
[00:20:16] Luke: Well, I do hope you stay surprised and get one as big as you boat. That'd be really cool.
[00:20:20] Luke: That would be great. Not
[00:20:21] Joe: one, like long enough to stay there long enough for the tape measure. Be like this one definitely makes 15
[00:20:26] Luke: feet. I love it. Yeah, it certainly. The, the urge to get in the water with massive predator, much more immediate like Lauren, can you maybe speak to that? Cause I, I think for people at home, maybe it's not, they, they have trouble grasping the idea of just sitting there on a boat, waiting, waiting, waiting until somebody says, go.
[00:20:45] Luke: And as soon as they say go, there's a splash, then there's a. 10 plus foot predator. Yeah. In front of you. And your goal is to get right up on it. Mm-hmm
[00:20:53] Lauren: yeah, it's a lot of waiting on a boat and then they show up really fast. And if you're not ready, you could miss any opportunity that you have. So I think over the years, it's just been really easy for us.
[00:21:04] Lauren: To grab a snorkel, grab the camera, jump in as quiet as possible. And it's really easy to talk to each other that way. I mean, I know on scuba sometimes you have like underwater coms, but I find it easier being on snorkel, being able to like, say like watch out behind you, all that sort of stuff. So, but. It's helped us a lot.
[00:21:20] Lauren: Just being able to jump in really quickly, cuz I mean, a lot of times we'll hang around for, you know, an hour or more, but some fish won't, you know, and you only get 10, 20 minutes. So it's nice to just get any interaction that you can,
[00:21:32] Luke: both of you are looking down lenses or at least at screens, you know, you're pretty heavily occupied.
[00:21:37] Luke: What's the strategy with both of you diving together, husband, wife, team. You've both got great big cameras. Who's watching your backs or how do you watch each other's back?
[00:21:44] Lauren: Yeah, I think. With us, we kind of have the unspoken, like, looks like I can kind of tell when one's like right there. And I just have to like, see what his face looks like, you know, like, Don't even have to say it, which is really nice.
[00:21:58] Lauren: Like we know each other that well to know like, okay, turn around
[00:22:01] Joe: like what the reaction is, but if the tension's there, like, it's like, it's definitely different. Like when we first started working together, it was just like, you know, divers working in the same field, you know, it's like just race, car drivers.
[00:22:11] Joe: And then one day race car driver becomes your wife,
[00:22:13] Lauren: but now you actually care about the other person in
[00:22:16] Joe: the water. It's not that you don't care, you just don't want it. You know, there's a lot more wrapped up into that than it is. Like if we just sat there and there was just, you know, like if. Sat there.
[00:22:25] Joe: And you just dived with someone that you don't really have any like personal connection with after, like you gotta go home to and stuff, and it's like, you screw up at work or do anything at work. You do just like, that's the end of it right there. Like you gotta go home and have to hear about it,
[00:22:37] Luke: but like , you didn't tell me it was fine.
[00:22:39] Luke: You
[00:22:39] Joe: like just, yeah. It's just like, there's a ton of dynamics to it that like, make it a lot different. And it definitely makes me feel differently about diving with certain situations where if you're by yourself versus when you have someone with you, you know, You live
[00:22:54] Luke: with, I I'm curious about that risk assessment.
[00:22:56] Luke: Cause that's something that we, you know, as divers doing this kind of thing, we're always thinking about. Um, but I've personally never worked with my spouse doing that, that kind of work. So what, for both of you, what does that process look like when you really do have to think about somebody's, you know, long term livelihood where you really can't just look at each other and go, you know, somebody could get hurt on this and that's.
[00:23:18] Luke: Because when you're talking to your best buddy, you know, you're visit him in hospital later, but you know, you don't have to deal with that every day. Does it change how you guys
[00:23:27] Joe: work? Calculated risk is how it's always worked. But there's definitely a feeling of like, at least I know there's someone on the boat that wants to make sure, like, you know, that isn't like is really paying attention to being like, like making sure that your safety is an account.
[00:23:42] Joe: Not that people aren't there. Aren't there always are, you know, we have great safety people and great support, but there's always just knowing that, you know, they're definitely gonna make sure that you're like back on the boat and everything's okay. And, you know, there's, there's that, but when they get put in the water with you, or when there's some kind of like situation that was like dangerous, there's been a couple of shoots where there's been a few things where it's just.
[00:24:04] Joe: You know, there's moments and then you get back and you're like, it definitely makes you feel differently. Hmm. Can't say it. I
[00:24:12] Lauren: can't say it. I think for you too, you've seen so many MAs that you really have a good, any shot understanding of that. Yeah. Any shark, any show? you have a good understanding of them.
[00:24:23] Lauren: So I don't know, for me, at least I rely a lot on how you react to it. And if you
[00:24:28] Joe: feel that, but the dynamic of ha having like that, something that can happen to you or something that can happen to anything like that is just like that sort of like stress is like, I've worked a bunch with no one with me and that I've.
[00:24:41] Joe: Like where it's actually, you know, with my wife, with me. And there's a super difference yeah. Of working alone versus working with your spouse. You, you feel like there's a lot of like risk. You always calculate your risk, but everything becomes heightened and you really look at like, what's going on. And I mean, there are some times too where like, there are things where I feel like I will even like do more because we're, we're like pushing each.
[00:25:07] Joe: There is that too, where we feel like, you know, there is like, you feel cautioned for the other person, but at the same time, sometimes we get pretty competitive with each other and we're pushing each other into spaces that are also probably a little, you know, dangerous.
[00:25:20] Luke: Yeah. and, you know, you can talk about who's to blame over dinner later on.
[00:25:23] Luke: Right. That's kind of how it works. so, okay. Take us with all that dynamic. You guys have go going on your desire to get over and see some great big makos, you know, getting back to the Homeland. Um, tell me about some of the shark experiences you had over
[00:25:36] Joe: there. Well, we had some really good blue and Maco action.
[00:25:39] Joe: I mean, we definitely had some like interesting things. I mean, some things that the locals had never even really seen, we had brought out some of Lauren's new tools, some deep water, like, uh, like deep water cameras, century cameras that we were like dropping in super depths. And then we ended up getting like six, six skills and kite and sharks and all these things that we weren't expecting to really see that we were just.
[00:26:01] Joe: Getting blessed with, so, I mean that place, at least then at that time period, we were getting really lucky with how it was all out folding, but it was just, yeah, there was a lot to be held there as far as sharks. Yeah. We had a good, good few weeks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We had a lot of
[00:26:17] Lauren: species
[00:26:18] Luke: for sure. So the, the six heels kite fins that was all on the, the dropdown Brav.
[00:26:22] Luke: Right. So what depth were you at? What type of soak times were you looking. Uh,
[00:26:27] Lauren: we were at 1500 feet. I wanna say. Um, we. They can record for up to seven hours. So they were down there for a long time and we dropped, um, I think we dropped three or four of them, um, while we were there probably more. Um, but like every time we got the six skills and the kite fins, so that was really amazing to see.
[00:26:51] Lauren: I mean, you can't see that shark unless you have. Those cameras. So it's not like they're just on the surface. You
[00:26:57] Joe: so, and a ton of other fish too, but yeah. Yeah. And I mean, that's the one thing we paid attention to, but there was like a million other things we sold too. Yeah. But that one was really cool.
[00:27:06] Joe: yeah. That's the ones that we were like. Yeah. But there was like fish that were just covered the screen, do all kinds of
[00:27:11] Luke: crazy stuff. It was pretty intense. Lauren for the people who don't know, describe the Bre to.
[00:27:16] Lauren: So the, our bras actually have no line attached to them at all. So they, once they leave the boat, they are not attached.
[00:27:24] Lauren: Um, they have an, an acoustic receiver attached to the bottom of them. So each one has its own special code. Um, that when we go back to pick 'em up, I have like a little. A little box that then I'll put a cord over in, in the water and put in its code it beeps. And then there's a little, I don't know what to call it.
[00:27:45] Lauren: Uh, like screw on piece on the bottom and then that screws right off and it comes up with the float and then. Hopefully it's in range where you can see it, which usually it is. I mean, it's real, it's really heavy. So it does come up pretty slowly. And I mean, we found it every single time. It's a huge orange
[00:28:03] Joe: flow.
[00:28:03] Joe: So yeah. Yeah. Most of that stuff, like when we did 'em in the past was always like ropes. So we like throw off and it's like, soon as you get to like 300 feet, 300 feet of rope is like a barrel, a barrel full of bro. Yeah. It becomes annoying. And anybody who's pulled up, anything from 300 feet is like, yeah.
[00:28:17] Joe: So like 1500 feet, 1800 feet, they're starting to approach like. Like 2000 feet.
[00:28:22] Lauren: It was, yeah. I mean, these can go all the way to 3000 feet so they can go, the
[00:28:25] Joe: te systems are, are like where it really, it was. But before then I think like a lot of that stuff was done with like submarines and stuff. There wasn't really anything doing that.
[00:28:34] Joe: Like, that's all a new
[00:28:35] Luke: tech. Yeah. So, um, for, to get really particular about it, these are cameras that are baited, that you put weights on that can sink down now to apparently 3000 feet, which is incredible. And you can remotely call 'em up by pressing a magic button and they come back to the surface. Is that right?
[00:28:52] Luke: Yeah, it's basically
[00:28:52] Joe: it, like, they release it like themselves from the bottom and they just, they come up to the surface. It's insane. Like back in the day it was something you just never believed. It's the equivalent of sending off. A satellite, I guess, just in the
[00:29:04] Luke: opposite direction. And on these, you saw, you know, six gills, kite fins.
[00:29:08] Luke: Was there anything else, like kind of extraordinary that you saw in those waters? I mean, the amount of
[00:29:12] Lauren: fish
[00:29:13] Joe: lights, deep water, like, like the
[00:29:15] Lauren: regular water. Well, as soon, like you just watch the bra actually drop and once it lands all these fish just go and they just swarm the thing. Like I've never bored fish.
[00:29:25] Lauren: You can't even see past these fish. Like. Absolutely crazy. These
[00:29:30] Joe: little orange fish and they just like fill the entire screen. And every time they part you're like, what's coming through, what's coming through and it'd be like an E or like something different. But like, those things like covered up everything.
[00:29:40] Joe: You can see much besides them, thousands of
[00:29:43] Luke: them. Well, you've got big lights on them. Right. So it must just to the fish look like there's, you know, alien landing craft, just going down
[00:29:50] Joe: down. And it's amazing how, like, not intimidated. They are by an alien landing craft. like anything on land would react differently.
[00:29:58] Joe: Like, but in the water, like you just send something down like that and they're like, Hey, what's that? They go running up to it, like tapping on the lens, you know? But it was all in all. I mean, the waters though themselves. insane. Lots of different stuff. We saw all kinds of stuff. I didn't really like we had whale experiences that we were just blown away by kind of like started a bunch of like interests into us about like whales, where it was like, we, you know, we spend so much time with sharks that we just don't really.
[00:30:24] Joe: See those kind of interactions. And when you have something like that, it just kind of like focused our attention into looking at different things, but overall like pretty awesome. Tell
[00:30:34] Luke: us about the experience of actually finding macOS out there. Uh,
[00:30:37] Lauren: finding macOS. I mean, that's always, I think a challenge really anywhere, but yeah.
[00:30:44] Lauren: I mean, we search high, low. For weeks. Um, and we eventually found what we came.
[00:30:51] Joe: Therefore, even the locals, there had no idea like how to start doing this, like how to, like where to begin, where we were looking at. So we just had to like go by a lot of like past experiences to be able to lock down on things.
[00:31:02] Joe: But when we started like seeing them, I remember a few locals looking at us and be like, yeah, that's the first macOS we've ever seen, you know, that they had not been able to like really. Locate where these animals were, what they were really doing. It's still so highly unexplored there. Like, it's not like here, like here you go down to a marina.
[00:31:22] Joe: There's like tons of recreational fishing boats and like people all by the water and all this stuff. And there is like, just seems like there's just artisanal fishing, nothing else. Like, there's not a lot of like, Ocean going things and stuff all happening there where they're out there. Just figuring that stuff out.
[00:31:38] Joe: I don't know. It definitely felt, felt very, uh, ancient, like in a lot of like Jurassic park sort of way. I don't know if that seems real, but that's kind of what it was.
[00:31:47] Luke: Yeah, it makes sense. But it is kind of surprising to me. I mean, I'm used to, you know, an environments like that, being able to find makers, you know?
[00:31:56] Luke: Sure. They're, you know, they're rare and hard to find, but you, but you can find them and I would've expected. Them to be a little more prevalent in those waters. Is that, is that a reason for concern, do you think?
[00:32:07] Joe: I think there's a lot of like fishing pressure going on there. The size of the ones we were looking for, even like more rare.
[00:32:13] Joe: So it was like, but they had not, I think a lot of the sharks they were targeting, they had never really known the specificity of like that animal and how, like, you know, how actually, uh, Which I guess, specific of what they really want and what they wanna do is that, that when they did, I think it kind of like opened a lot of eyes, but no, there's, there's a ton of fishing pressure out there as if any, as in anywhere, all over the world.
[00:32:38] Joe: I mean, you think of a place like right in the center of the Atlantic, how like hard that must be to get to, and it's still like just taking tons of
[00:32:45] Luke: fishing pressure. Yeah. It's a, is it local fishing pressure contracting for other countries or is it other countries vessel? Using those waters. Did other
[00:32:52] Joe: countries vegetables?
[00:32:53] Joe: A lot of it. Yeah. Portugal like has like, there's like kind of like a place of like a certain area of like protection around the ASOS, but just like the Galapagos and a lot of that other stuff, it's like it's encroaching and like people overlap, they accidentally go over borders. There's a lot of like fishing pressure from other countries that are around there because we are in the center of the Atlantic, you know, everybody's kind of like running around doing things and that, that kind of.
[00:33:18] Joe: Putting us right in the center there doesn't like exclude us from like having other countries kind of surround us and start fishing around us and how much they encroach on us. But it's, it's, there's definitely a lot of pressure around the area. And you can see that a lot of the people there that are fishing and a lot of the people that are diving and doing all their, like that ecotourism or whatever, they can feel the pressure from all the commercial fishing around.
[00:33:42] Luke: So Lauren, I I'm, I'm curious about your PhD work. You said you're working on, you know, a whole bunch of different species and it's fairly far ranging, and obviously Joe's keeping up with you following around and getting a, a bunch of good footage. Uh, what is the thesis? What are you working on? So we're
[00:33:57] Lauren: working on white blues Magos and poor beagles.
[00:34:02] Lauren: We're looking at mating, we're looking. Feeding, we're looking at how they're interacting with each other, um, how they're interacting with the same species, sizes, sex, um, and that sort of, um, information. We have all sorts of camera technology from fin camps to those, to the bras that we have. Um, we also do a lot of water sampling for environmental.
[00:34:27] Lauren: It's DNA. Um, and that is actually a really new technology. That's really unique. And you just take a water sample, send it off to the lab and it'll tell you what, what species was in that sample within I think like a two to four day period. So that is, you know, you don't have to use like nets anymore or anything like that.
[00:34:46] Lauren: Jelly animals for it.
[00:34:47] Yeah.
[00:34:48] Luke: And you're able to do that in open ocean water. Yeah. Are we talking about low flow Esther or anywhere?
[00:34:53] Lauren: Anywhere. So you can do anywhere from like 10 foot, 10 feet of water, all the way to thousands of feet of water. So that's been really helpful for us that we've been doing the last few years, and it's really interesting to like see over time, like what.
[00:35:09] Lauren: Species are showing up first when they're showing up, when they're leaving, how are they like, um, interacting with each other? Yeah. Interacting with each other. Are they in the same areas? Are they just crossing paths? So,
[00:35:20] Luke: well, that's fascinating. I mean, uh, what's the mechanic behind, uh, The DNA getting left behind, uh, uh, sharks and fishes swimming around just streaming DNA off their bodies.
[00:35:30] Luke: Yeah. So
[00:35:30] Lauren: it's like any like skin cells and like urine, you know? Um, so any sort of DNA that will shed off any animal will just. Sit in the water column, um, at a certain depth and it there's done. There's been a lot of research in that says that it won't really travel much once it's in the water column. So it is pretty accurate on, okay.
[00:35:53] Lauren: That animal was just in that area within like a certain amount of space. So it's like one
[00:36:00] Joe: of those technologies is gonna save lives. Yeah. Is
[00:36:03] Luke: it also, you know, depth specific? Like, does it sink. Or can you think, so they,
[00:36:08] Lauren: so we take samples at least 30 feet, cuz then once it's above 30 feet, no, then like the currents would take it.
[00:36:15] Lauren: So as long as you're under that 30 foot mark, they've done a lot of research that shows that it will stay within that area and it's not gonna move very far.
[00:36:24] Luke: And how can that research in knowing, um, what animals are using the water? How can that help, you know, sharks or, you know, MAs. Future to shock knowledge.
[00:36:35] Luke: It's just
[00:36:35] Lauren: gonna help knowing, you know, when these species are in the area, you know, a lot of times we're just relying on when we actually see them, especially with white sharks, you know, there's. A lot of it out there is, oh, they're showing which sharks in
[00:36:48] Joe: July long lines where they like set out long lines and they kill like 200 sharks and go, oh, there were 200 sharks at this time in this area, you know, it's.
[00:36:55] Joe: Yeah.
[00:36:55] Lauren: But a lot of time, you know, they are here. They can be here year round, like the cold water sharks or whatever. But I mean, it's changing over time based on when they show up and when they leave. So it's really good to have. Sort of information when we're trying to like make laws and that sort
[00:37:11] Luke: of stuff.
[00:37:11] Luke: Yeah. And can you actually, with the DNA, can you tell that there's different individuals or is it just like a species was there or can you tell, Hey, there's, you know, there's enough DNA and variance in it that we know that there's, you know, 20 MAs that swam straight through that area yesterday. Mm-hmm .
[00:37:25] Lauren: I, I wish it's the, technology's not there yet.
[00:37:28] Lauren: I think give it a couple years and they're gonna be advanced enough, but you can tell how much is in a sample. So if you get a lot, you know, that it's probably more than one, but if you just get trace amounts, they were probably just passing through the area. So, I mean, we can't tell that exactly yet, but I think in a few years it's gonna be at that level for sure.
[00:37:50] Lauren: Cause it's already advanced so much. And just the few years that it's been around.
[00:37:54] Luke: All right. Well, Lauren Jo, Hey, thank you so much for your time today. Um, it was a really great show and I know you guys are out there just producing constantly so we can expect a lot of great things coming from you. Thanks, man.
[00:38:03] Luke: Awesome. Thank
[00:38:04] Joe: you so much. Yeah. Thanks for having us smoke.
[00:38:09] Luke: All right. That wraps up another episode of shark week. The podcast stay tuned to this feed for more interviews with shark experts that give us a behind the scenes scoop on what's really happening out at sea. And don't. We're keeping the shark passion alive after shark week is over. We're covering the Sharkies current topics, talking to top scientists and experts and learning about the latest conservation efforts to keep this amazing animal from extinction.
[00:38:35] Luke: I wanna again, thank Joe and Lauren for joining us on this show. Check out Dawn of the monster Mako on discovery. You won't wanna miss it. Be sure to rate us five stars and subscribe for more amazing shark week content. I'm Luke tipple until next time.