Luke Tipple is joined by Cristina Zenato, “shark whisperer,” professional diver, shark expert, and founder of People of the Water. They discuss shark personalities, cognitive instincts and their memory passed through DNA.
Luke Tipple is joined by “the shark whisperer,” Cristina Zenato. She’s a professional diver, shark expert and founder of People of the Water. Cristina discusses the amazing work she does in the Bahamas, having Caribbean reef sharks relax in her lap. She’s been working with sharks for 30 years and has had first hand experiences connecting with reef sharks with different personalities. The two discuss shark cognitive instincts, memory passed through DNA and shark’s emotions and personalities. After 30 years of working with sharks, she attests to the fact that sharks are the safest animal to interact with on the planet.
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[00:00:00] Luke: On today's podcast, we'll be joined by the shark whisperer. That's Cristina Zenato, she's an absolute legend. She's a professional diver, a shark expert, and founder of people of the water. She's here to tell us all about her incredible relationship with reef sharks in The Bahamas and her long standing campaign for Marine conservation.
[00:00:19] Luke: All that and 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.
[00:00:39] Luke: They're a critical part of the ocean and a conduit to a better understanding life on our planet. So whether you've never seen shark week before, or you've been a diehard fan over the 30 plus years, it's been around this podcast is for you.
[00:00:58] Luke: And joining us today is the shark whisperer herself, Christina Zenato! Hi, Christina. How you doing?
[00:01:04] Cristine: Hi, Luke doing good. Thank you.
[00:01:06] Luke: Very good. So tell us about yourself because you are one of the more interesting people in the shark world.
[00:01:11] Cristine: Oh, my goodness. Where do I start? Uh, I am originally from Italy. I grew up in central Africa, in the rain forest, the Mons, gorilla, and crocodiles and all of that.
[00:01:21] Cristine: So I had always a passion for the outdoors and believe it or not, uh, attraction to the ocean, thanks to my family. And then at age 22, I moved, uh, to Guha island where I still reside a few years later, just, just a tad and, uh, Basically had a child, a dream to be an underwater scuba ranger to protect the oceans and have sharks with friends, which obviously everybody was just kinda like, yeah, no.
[00:01:45] Cristine: And instead I landed here, did my open water course and find out that it was quite possible. To make it, uh, come true fast forward. 28 years later, I actually have developed together with my mentor, Ben rose, a interactive shark dive with Caribbean reef sharks.
[00:02:04] Luke: Now, one of the things that you are extremely well known for is connected to that interactive experience that you've set up.
[00:02:10] Luke: So, um, for those who haven't seen Christina work, uh, she's really well known for. Dealing very up close and personal with Caribbean reef sharks. And, uh, you've probably seen photos of her somewhere because they're very widely distributed of exhibiting tonic immobility. Uh, for those who are listening, who may not be completely familiar with the terminology.
[00:02:32] Luke: When we talk about tonic immobility, we're referring to, uh, the behavior where a shark, uh, due to stimulus, whether it be, um, from a person or potentially from a. Interaction with another shark. We're not entirely sure exactly why it happens, but the shark will essentially almost not necessarily go to sleep, but it'll behave almost as if it were, you know, dead.
[00:02:56] Luke: Like everything is still working. It's still breathing, but it just literally goes. iMobile, which is why like we call it tonic immobility. And it's a very curious behavior. Um, usually doesn't last for all that long. Um, and it it's been noticed across many different species and it's been postulated that it could be something to do with, uh, natural breeding behaviors or perhaps a predator avoidance type behavior.
[00:03:22] Luke: But we've recently seen it, uh, being done by divers, uh, particularly on TV shows where they'll manipulate. The ampule of Lauren Zini that cover the, the snout of a shark, usually with gloved hands and by overstimulating that area, it'll, it'll make this shark go into, into tonic. Now I wanna put this the right way.
[00:03:40] Luke: So why don't you put it in your words, Christina, because, uh, your relationship with the sharks is very special.
[00:03:45] Cristine: Yes. So what I've known for is aha sharks relax in my lap. Now in the, in the, in the beginning, we used to call it tonic immobility. I kind of like moved away from that. Okay. Because as I was reading about tonic immobility, it is a natural reactions of animals.
[00:03:59] Cristine: Not only sharks to threat and stress is like they play dead. Uh, with the Caribbean re sharks is I have a selective group of females who literally come into my stomach, stop swimming, then naturally sink down on the. Floor and then sit there and allow me to pat them, uh, with, with my hands or give them a kiss.
[00:04:20] Cristine: Now for the public, I wear a protective suit. Uh, it's a chain mail, which I call the barrier that drops the barrier between me and the sharks. I only do this with this selected group of sharks that don't go around the world trying to, you know, handle and put sleep sharks that I don't know. And. L it is very much a choice of the shark to come in and allow me to do that.
[00:04:44] Cristine: And some of them can stay there for 40, 50 minutes if they want to.
[00:04:48] Luke: Why did you go to Bahamas and why is it reef sharks you like to work with?
[00:04:52] Cristine: I came to The Bahamas because I wanted to learn how to scuba dive, but any destinations that I AC originally picked, we're talking about 90, 94 in the travel agency were not available.
[00:05:03] Luke: And so they actually said, oh, so it's just completely random,
[00:05:05] Cristine: absolutely random. I, I, they were like, oh, why don't you, we have this place in The Bahamas. I was like, okay. Alright, sure. I'll go. And when I came here and I did my open water checkout dives, they had sharks on the dives. Yeah. And so I surf as an absolute, I was like, yeah, you have sharks in the water.
[00:05:21] Cristine: And. You know, fast forward, 30 years later, it's it's really cool. Cuz it, the, the Bahamians and instructors turn around and kinda go, of course we have sharks and what are you dummy? You know, it was just like for them, it's so natural. And so the inter the, the presence of sharks was so natural and so accepted.
[00:05:39] Cristine: So I had the opportunity to give it a try. And what I did is I took a job in a hotel to speak five languages. And I said, oh, I'll stay here for a year dive and, you know, get diving out of my system. . And that is where I sat with Caribbean re sharks. It was because, uh, a gentleman called Ben rose. He's no longer with us.
[00:06:00] Cristine: Unfortunately, he had started. Somewhat of a dive with the Caribbean re sharks. And so I met him in my infancy of my diving and I started diving with him and following what he was doing. And that's where, where basically the interaction was built with these animals from, uh, fast forward, you know, hindsight, 30 years later, it's obvious, also a reasonable size, a shark.
[00:06:23] Cristine: Mm we're. Still welcoming. An animal into our lap. Uh, when we go to tiger beach, we interact with tiger sharks that are 14, 6, 16 foot long. Um, obviously different animal, a different behavior. We still can push them out of the way or interact with them. But I don't know if I will welcome a shark that has a three foot, you know, mouth span into my lap and especially a tiger, which behaves differently.
[00:06:48] Cristine: Yeah. So Caribbean becomes a suitable also as an animal to interact.
[00:06:53] Luke: whose idea was it to start the, the chain mail and the hand feeding and, you know, the tonic, which is really not tonic, um, but you know, feeding type behavior.
[00:07:04] Cristine: Um, the, the chain suit was first, uh, basically created by Ron and Valerie Taylor, uh, to be able to interact as videographers with, uh, sharks out in Australia, especially sharks that we're doing the traditional trumble. So like a lot of agitated animals with dolphins and sharks and birds going after these giant bait balls. So these groups of like small fish and being able to be in the middle of it, you know, having the arms stretched out, holding onto the camera without having to worry about where their feet were, where their ankles were or anything like that.
[00:07:40] Cristine: Uh, the feeding was an accident. Uh, Ben was out there, fish feeding. and, uh, basically there was this huge cloud of little fish, but all of a sudden the, the, the fish parted like the curtains of a theater and he had a Caribbean re sharks in front of him. I wish he was here to tell the story. And so he had the fish in his hand and he looked at the shark and he looked at the fish and naturally he tossed the fish out of his hand.
[00:08:04] Cristine: And so the shark bit, the fish and swam away. And then he came back around and kind of like, look at Ben. Do you have any more of that? and, and so Ben's surface and he was just like, whoa, I just fed a shark. And from there was about two years of conversations, not only on the back of the boat about how to do this in a, uh, considerate manner, in a safe manner and, uh, respecting some of the guidelines that I still basically follow when doing interactive shark dives.
[00:08:38] Cristine: So that's how. Build up. It was like a series of like, wow, the touch, same thing. It was a shirt that came in way too fast. And Ben, again, went to deflect her, just basically put his hand out and went to deflect her. Instead of deflecting her. She basically paused for. two heartbeats and started slide it down his hand.
[00:09:00] Cristine: And when we saw that, that was literally, you know, wow. Did you see that? Yeah. And so in the beginning, if you were to look at videos of me back in 96, 97, 95, you will see that. Actually I was definitely trying a lot of am amplify stimulation. Mm-hmm we thought that it was just all this, like. RA off the Amul light to put them to sleep.
[00:09:24] Cristine: And now fast forward, 28 years later, if you actually look at some of the videos, you'll see that the shark just come in and I just sometimes just bent gently, just taper on the top of the head. Sometimes I don't even patter.
[00:09:36] Luke: I mean, you'll be the first to admit that you get bit quite often. Is that correct?
[00:09:39] Cristine: I'm very reluctant into addressing this without putting the context. And the context is we are working directly with the sharks. We are handling I'm reaching into their mouth. I'm also handing them fish, right? Yeah. So if you work, um, long enough, eventually you will have an accidental bite, but I also want people maybe if they have the opportunity to watch a video is a stand me standing in the middle of this group of sharks with fish in my hands and the shark, just swimming.
[00:10:08] Cristine: Around me without just not biting, biting, biting, biting, but yes, shame is necessary the same way you would use a mitten to take a, you know, a pot out of the oven.
[00:10:19] Luke: You've also commented that, you know, uh, that your sharks are, um, You know, attuned to you and you've remarked that over the years, you've seen that now you don't even need to really overstimulate them.
[00:10:33] Luke: They'll just come in. So that leads me to, um, ask you about the, the personalities of those sharks. And is it fair that we give a shark a personality and I, I don't like to anthrop Mophies anything, but, um, is it fair to say that they do have personal.
[00:10:51] Cristine: Yes, very fair to say they have personalities. And, and then that brings us, I think, further into the conversations about sometimes when people ask, oh, why, you know, sharks do this or sharks do that is just not even just the species is, uh, they have individual personalities and it's not for, it's basically saying one sharks is more direct.
[00:11:12] Cristine: Some sharks learn faster than others. Some. Learn really slow . Yeah. Like some of us, some have higher associate thoughts. Uh, some have more instinctual connections. Um, some are shy, some are dominant. So absolutely I, and it defers from one of the, uh, of each of the girls and boys that are down there Absolut.
[00:11:36] Cristine: I don't think that is actually wrong to say. And actually there's a paper that came out saying, you know, finally, after 25 years of you and I observing them in a while, say, Hey, sharks of personality. Yeah. Finally paper came out saying, oh wow. We found out sharks of personalities.
[00:11:52] Luke: I've always found it hard though, to, to talk about a sharks personality, because inevitably people then ask, as you say about their behavior, and then it's. Are they angry? Are they mad? Are they coming for us? Are they, you know, all these other things that we wanna layer on top of that. And I find it so hard to, um, to relate that, yes, we might be able to identify some human emotions with some of their behaviors, but that doesn't mean that they have a human intellect or personality or, you know, um, Intellectual makeup.
[00:12:26] Luke: I mean, just because they might seem more shy or more bold doesn't mean they're calculating, they thinking about, you know, how many humans they want to.
[00:12:35] Cristine: no, and, and that is a thing. They are not humans, so we can associate their behavior to a human behavior. Um, sometimes to do people understand I associated to a different length, uh, animal, but sharks are so unique, uh, with their seven, almost eight to discovered senses they're, uh, cognitive learning is completely different because there is an instinctual.
[00:12:59] Cristine: That, uh, cannot overread and, and that is what makes it actually interacting with sharks. one of the safest animals on this planet. You could not do what we do with sharks with certain other animals, because they're sensitive thought their cognitive learning is much higher than their sensory system. Um, I wouldn't even say they have human emotions.
[00:13:21] Cristine: I would just say they have different kind of personalities, but, uh, one thing, and I, and I say this with all my love. One of the things we're very lucky is that they have so much instinct and maybe not as much intellect. And so I never seen a shark angry. I never seen a shark, a vengeful. I never seen a sharks retaliating.
[00:13:39] Cristine: And that is incredible. I really wish people understood. sometimes when we talk about shark bites, people go, oh, that was vicious. That was aggressive. That was it's like, well, no, that's how the shark has been designed by nature to act. Sometimes they'll come in bite shake sever. It's not vicious. That's what nature has designed them to do.
[00:14:02] Cristine: Uh, all they're doing is. Eating and going for their food and to our eyes. Yes, it's frightening, but it's their natural way. Same as a cheetah grabs the antelope and tries to go for the neck.
[00:14:15] Cristine: I think that's, uh, a really good way to put it, you know, just because they might have personality doesn't mean they have emotion behind that, you know, personality and emotion can be completely separate concepts, especially in this type of context.
[00:14:27] Luke: Um, I am curious about sort of play behavior. Like you say, you've never seen him angry or anything, but recently, uh, you might have seen a Joan LA. Romero filmed, poor beagle sharks. And it looked like they were actually kind of playing or perhaps even dueling for, um, for space. And, uh, that, it's an odd thing to see with that species.
[00:14:47] Luke: Have you seen that with the Caribbean reef sharks or the sharks are area in your area?
[00:14:51] Cristine: What I saw is the same behavior that sometimes I see through someone with my girls is you. And I've seen that also with the bull sharks in Fiji and is you'll have some more dominant sharks and through body language, this is what I could discern most likely a hormonal secretions, which we can't discern, unless we do a research.
[00:15:10] Cristine: Uh, there is some sharks that basically will say, move out of the way. This is my space and that's what I have noticed with the poor beagles. So there is definitely some way of a hierarchy and a communication between them.
[00:15:24] Luke: Um, do you think that shark diving changes, shark behavior? A little bit.
[00:15:28] Cristine: It does. I mean, let, let's face it a little bit it does. It makes sharks actually less a shy of mm-hmm um, if you don't do shark dives, and that's the reason why shark diving was born, people wanted to see sharks and all the salt was like a tail riding away into the sunset it was like, I wanna see sharks. It's like, well, you know, they're very afraid of bubbles and noise and all of that.
[00:15:48] Cristine: So it reduces a little bit there. Their fear, but it doesn't make them then too intense towards the divers either. Yeah. What it doesn't change, which is really, really good. Is there national behaviors,
[00:15:59] Luke: do you think it's then, uh, disingenuous for people? I, I, there's absolutely a hundred percent, you know, shark divers out there specifically who, you know, have a commercial interest in sharks who will kind of state that, Hey, we're not doing anything towards changing their behavior.
[00:16:16] Luke: And they're citing those studies about, you know, Relate to long term natural behavior.
[00:16:21] Cristine: Well, i, like I said, I'm actually more on the side that we do affect their behavior. Yeah. I also don't believe we provision or feed meaning the amount of food that we bring down there. Occasionally is so little, that's more, I consider more like a treat like a treat.
[00:16:35] Cristine: I train my dogs and I give them a treat. Um, But saying across the board? No, absolutely. We're not changing their behaviors. Just like, well, I can show you videos of 30 years ago and I can show you videos of now and just even like how the shark comes in to be packed. Oh yeah. Um, change from 30 years ago.
[00:16:53] Cristine: And I recently had the experience of a shark that we never seen before. And like, as you know, we recognize catalog, photograph name, all our shorts. This girl came in and she's very recognized that she's missing her tail, but she's cut off by a propeller, but she's doing. She's doing great. And she literally came some straight into my stomach and there are studies in which it says, well, the, uh, characteristics, some of the characteristics of the mother are transferred down to the offsprings.
[00:17:21] Cristine: So why not, not having, yeah. Why have not wear 30 years into it, right? Caribbean re sharks, 15 to 18 years or 18 years lifespan. Why some of these girls may not manifest a less, a more comfortable relation with me in this case, by the mother.
[00:17:42] Luke: That's crazy. Um, like for people listening, uh, there is no maternal care. Um, for sharks, they, you know, uh, uh, a female shark will pop and those pops are left, offend on their own. And usually the female will put them in a place where those pops can have the best chance of growing up. But there's no learned behavior from the adult. And you are suggesting that there's a, a learned behavior inherent in the DNA. Is that right?.
[00:18:08] Cristine: I'm not suggesting this potentially paper, that there's a BI shark lab paper that just recently came up short of two months ago. This says that they actually, because they can recognize the mothers and then the offsprings are through DNA that they recognize that actually some of the behavioral characteristics of the mothers has transferred into the offsprings or through, through birth.
[00:18:31] Luke: That must be incredibly flattering for.
[00:18:34] Cristine: it it's pretty impressive that actually, cause I said there's no parental care, so there's no really like, Hey, you watch me how I hunted this, this ante analog. Yeah. Like a Chah will do. Right. However, at the same time re you know, we knew the sharks communicate through hormonal secretion, so they could be the sum of these new sharks that come in.
[00:18:52] Cristine: Also feel something out of the shiver that is around me. And so allows them to do, um, some more interactive, but saying that we don't affect it is like if we didn't affect it, I will never be able to approach a shark. And she kept coming in and usually a brand new, small shark, like that is also trustworthy of, of my presence.
[00:19:14] Cristine: I'm too big, too noisy, too bubbly. It takes them a long time. So I do believe there is something.
[00:19:22] Luke: I think it's pretty. I think it's pretty cool to think that there's sharks in out there imprinting on their offspring, the, uh, the image of, uh, Christina, Zardos sitting down there in chain mail. I think they do that ready to, I know they don't, but just in my fantasy of my mind here, I'm just thinking, you know, they're just cruising around looking for that odd object that they just remember, like a dream and there it's.
[00:19:45] Luke: That's pretty amazing. Um, but I guess it does. I mean, there's precedent for it, right? I mean, sharks have, you know, ingrained, um, migratory patterns in them that they, you know, that they just have just like, you know, many creatures do. So it makes sense. So I'm glad that research is coming out. That's pretty fascinating.
[00:20:03] Cristine: Dr. Eugenie Clark, 1957. actually demonstrated a sharks could count and sharks that actually are remembered to push a certain buttons to open the gate, to get some food after six months of a break. Mm. So not only to learn how to count and she did it by basically tap, you know, sounds, tap, tap, tap, you know, and, uh, she taught them to do one tap. You do this two taps. You do that three taps. You do that. Um, it's a beautiful book. It's called the lady in the. So they have memories, they have associative thoughts. They have capability of connecting things and I don't see why not. Some of it cannot be transferred also through DNA.
[00:20:55] Luke: Now your operation out there in Bahamas is, is now pretty iconic. It's, uh, a huge tourist store. It's a, a destination event for many people. I know that, um, grand Bahama is, um, you know, a location that many cruise ships come by and a lot of divers want to go to. Um, and I've been working in and out of The Bahamas for 15 years now.
[00:21:14] Luke: And I, I wanted to get your thoughts on the tourism industry out there. Um, because one of the things that kind of. Challenging to wrap my head around sometimes is this whole argument that sharks are worth more alive than dead, which is, you know, not up for debate. They certainly are. Um, but there's been some pretty fantastic numbers attributed to the actual value of each shark or to the, uh, to the industry in general.
[00:21:39] Luke: Um, what are the numbers on Bahamas now? Are you familiar with those? As far as what the shark diving industry is worth to the country?
[00:21:46] Cristine: Pre COVID because right now, obviously trying to catch up again. Sure. We were talking about hundred and 20 million a year. Yep. In a sharp industry alone. Uh, which means that does not include flights, food, accommodations, souvenirs, additional, uh, attractions that these people could actually complete.
[00:22:08] Cristine: And then there was about, uh, 73 millions that were brought in by the filming industry. Mm-hmm , uh, shark week being one of them. Uh, and then there was another 30 million more or less brought in by their research industry. So people that come to this healthy population of sharks, they wanna learn something and they.
[00:22:26] Cristine: 40 species variety to which to apply their, uh, studies and The Bahamas pretty readily available in very much a unique congregations. So those are big numbers. Yeah. Way bigger than efficient industry could ever achieve.
[00:22:42] Cristine: Oh, absolutely. How does that, how does that money work in The Bahamas zone and you've lived there for so long.
[00:22:48] Luke: Um, where does it trickle down to, does it benefit the community in general? Is it sort of a certain number of operators that benefit the most from it? It's a fairly staggering amount of money.
[00:22:58] Cristine: So, uh, the money, uh, um, if the money is spent within the community, meaning using Bahamian operators, be Bahamian, run the liverboards, uh, staying in the islands, using the people that live and work here, then money goes directly into the economy of The Bahamas.
[00:23:18] Luke: Got it. The money within that study is money. That's actually, um, physically landing and being spent in Bahamas. You're saying that there's a pool that's much larger. That could be, uh, further benefiting Bahamas, but is going offshore.
[00:23:32] Cristine: Yes, sir. The money from the study comes directly from what was, uh, uh, extrapolated and calculated that has lended in The Bahamas.
[00:23:39] Cristine: And so within that, uh, the Bahamians and the Bahamian, uh, country a benefit from it, I do believe there is a, a bigger pool yeah. Of money that is coming in from the outside that cannot be really evaluated. . So for me is the, the shark diving industry has value for the life of sharks. When the people that are protecting sharks, which are the Bahamians in this case, or could be like Palau and another case or Fiji in a third case is when they do benefit from this protection mm-hmm and they financially see positive results of seeing that they have employment into the diving industry rather than having to be Fisher.
[00:24:17] Cristine: Yeah. And, and that is what a lot of my work has been is educating Bahamians year after year after year in the diving industry.
[00:24:25] Luke: I mean, when you walk into The Bahamas airport, you know, there's a great big photo of Cristina Zenato much larger than life up on the wall. And it's amazing. I mean, you're holding a shark and it's something that people definitely see them like, wow, we need to go see that.
[00:24:37] Luke: But the flip side of that is the other side of media attention. And especially when we. An incident that might happen in Bahamas or elsewhere, where there's a person that gets bitten or even killed in some instances, um, it's a completely random thing and very rare, but when it does happen, obviously the media just goes whew, and focuses on that event.
[00:24:58] Luke: How do you see that effect, you know, the, the local shark industry, and is there something that we or the media could be doing?
[00:25:07] Cristine: I do worry when I see that, uh, increase of focus attention, because it is unbalanced. Uh, one of the things that if you think about it, we there's, if there is a one shark incident in The Bahamas, it makes it all the way to Australia.
[00:25:24] Cristine: It does have a negative effect, especially because when it gets publicized as The Bahamas mm-hmm and it has no details, uh, sometimes details are hard to come. Yeah. Right. And a lot of it is, um, I'm misunderstood. People say unpredictable. I'm like, no, it's just misunderstood. We do not really understand yet how they work, how they interact, how they behave.
[00:25:47] Cristine: Um, what is the trigger and to move these attention sometimes I think is going to be, um, not positive, cuz all it does is reinforces a negative perception that is already based on, um, Lack of information
[00:26:04] Luke: and they've perhaps gone to a place that is not fully set up for shark operations and taken some information they've been given about a different location, extrapolated that information and thought, oh, I can go swim with the sharks that might be in this area. You know, is there something that could be done, you know, in The Bahamas or elsewhere to mitigate that a bit better? Because it seems that the people who at least in some of these instances are having negative shark interactions. Probably just shouldn't have been there to start with. Well, the issue
[00:26:34] Cristine: is actually two of that, then it just happened in, yeah, in the last couple of years in The Bahamas, we're not even related with shark diving activities or any kind of shark activities.
[00:26:43] Cristine: It was just totally water related activities, which brings us back to we're kind like entering the world. Uh, and so this reason why I usually say unless I see a shark coming out of the water, dragging you back in the water to bite you, I will not call in an attack. Yeah. But what could be done better is I think, and that has to come with education as part of the work, obviously that I've been trying to do.
[00:27:05] Cristine: I've been part of counseling, uh, groups in many parts of the world I even flew to Mexico is that sharks have a very, very high tolerance for our presence there actually, compared to what we are doing out there. Very, very easy to deal. Um, I think part of it is education of those people that, um, now look at the sharks as just a source of income without paying attention at the shark as, as a creatures, as an animal.
[00:27:34] Cristine: Yeah. And I think that is part of the issue. Um, There's a lot of confusion for me, there's a very much a, a very basic rule. And unfortunately, people go across the table that said, oh, feeding sharks teaches them to eat people. It's like, well, if you had done that, they will be eating every person that is off the back of the boat or goes to spear because the Fisher's tall shark, top sharks, what to do. Way, way, way before diving was born. Mm, about 40,000 years ago, but there is still a limit.
[00:28:01] Luke: So how does a, a tourist who's visiting a location assess the, um, the safety of an operator? Like, is there a guideline like for me, I might say, Hey, um, you know, don't. Go into the water with sharks, unless you are specifically being guided there by an expert who knows what they're looking at?
[00:28:21] Luke: That seems pretty simple to me. And at least in one of these local, uh, recent cases with the, the young boy from the UK, that was not the case. You know, they left a shark diving location where there were. Handlers there. And they went and thought that the sharks were, would be totally fine in a different location.
[00:28:38] Luke: And they walked in without an expert with them and, and suffered the consequences. Unfortunately. How should somebody look at that type of assessment?
[00:28:48] Cristine: I that's difficult because technically, you know, like when I leave the site and other divers show up, they go dive in there because they're the sharks that I just finished working with and everything is fine.
[00:29:00] Cristine: Yeah. So saying going there with that would say yes, going there with an operator helps, but not necessarily. It means that when there's no operator that becomes automatically dangerous. I think parts of it. A personal responsibility and understanding your entering a, a wild world and the, and appreciating the fact that it is so rare yesterday, I spent my day on the phone answering people's questions about the most recent incident and what should I do to avoid a shark attack.
[00:29:31] Cristine: Yeah. And I'm kind of like, um, The universal answer. And I said, I said, if I could tell you, I would say, stay out of the water yeah, yeah. But it is also how do you avoid a car accident is like don't drive. Yeah, but we do drive and, and the funny, the interesting part is there is a death for having 370 people that drive a vehicle in a United States of America.
[00:29:54] Cristine: And there is a shark death for every 11.4 million people that go on the ward in the United States of America within a year. Take a deep breath, right? Learn a little bit more. Yes. About the environment. Understand, ask some questions. You'll go in there, ask the operator and then pretty much understand that it's less likely to have a negative shark encount to be hit by a lightning.
[00:30:18] Luke: But with all this, you know, the negative media that might come out and everything else, do you, um, is there ever any concern from The Bahamas specifically cuz that's what you deal with? Is there concern from the authorities over there about having to, you know, crack down on some of these operations or to change behaviors or like how did they deal with the PR from a, you know, you know, government.
[00:30:39] Cristine: Well, it is a concern. It is a concern as an operator with charts that eventually they'll just do across the board, everything is forbidden. Instead of thinking that, you know, one size does not fit all that we need to actually have more defined understanding of what's going on. And, um, that was one of the reasons I'm hoping to eventually being able to contribute into the conversation because the conversation.
[00:31:05] Cristine: Uh, might have to be had, but like, as you know, we might not wanna have the government involved in it. I think it should be a, a conversation have from the operators and understanding that, um, sometimes refraining a little bit to, and not make a buck actually in the long term works better. Mm. And it goes back to really understanding sharks and appreciating how to do the interaction with them and how to leave the site after you're done with that.
[00:31:33] Luke: What do you think about the, um, uh, that video that came out on a new Sam MENA? Did you see that where the, the guys are dragging? I believe it was a black tip up the beach. And at first look, it was pretty horrific. Someone saying, Hey, take that back into the water. And, uh, and they, they refused to, and they, you know, very poorly tried to put it down, you know, by putting a, a knife through its brain. They did a very poor job of it, but that, oh my goodness, that video went everywhere.
[00:31:58] Cristine: Well, so that brings up to I, I did a post about that as well, and it brings up two very, uh, different concepts. So going back into, from a legal standpoint, those two people did nothing wrong. Um, black tips are fishable. They can actually catch them.
[00:32:15] Cristine: You can actually kill them and actually you can keep them as a even source of meat. Um, the concern that I had was their, uh, attitude and behavior. However, and I know people are gonna hate me for this, cuz I cried. When I watched the video, I cried. I literally sat there and fell so bad for the shark. Again, we're going back into the, the person that was on the phone might actually might have, uh, instigated some of those reactions from the people by not addressing them in a correct way.
[00:32:51] Cristine: And so it brings up then of psychological issues. One is, uh, the fact that these guys felt it was okay to, you know, just show. Much disrespect for the animal rather than just saying, okay, we fished it, listen, this is our meat, kill the shark done. Uh, it's what I fished is not a problem, but then it brings up the other issues is how they were approached and that's they were antagonized.
[00:33:16] Cristine: And so that behavior maybe yeah, um, made 'em puff up a little bit, their chest and have all this negative reaction.
[00:33:24] Luke: Yeah. I will say that. Most hunters that I know, and that I've I've dealt with are very respectful of the animals they take. Absolutely. You know, you go out with hunters and they'll, they'll spend a lot of time and care selecting their, their prey.
[00:33:37] Luke: And, you know, particularly I'm talking about land hunters here and, you know, they'll do everything they can to put that animal down as humanely as possible that. That's much more difficult when it comes to the ocean, because you don't know when you put that line out, what species you're gonna be dragging in, gonna fight.
[00:33:52] Luke: Yes. What type of fight it's gonna put up? You have no way to immediately put it out of its misery. Um, but then also there's this, as you say, kind of, you know, bravado or in this case, machismo from these guys who maybe they were provoked, but they were, you know, catching a shark and being all brave and tough and stuff rather than thinking, oh, we.
[00:34:12] Luke: You know, our prey, we caught our food. Let's put it down as quickly as we can. And they chose to taunt not only the person on the video, but the animal itself, which I think is absolutely reprehensible, but they were, they were within their right. and maybe if there were like a, in the case of shark fishing, um, you know, a standardized way to, uh, to put down a shark, you know, um, you know, we see videos of people, you know, clubbing them to death or shooting them and doing all these other things.
[00:34:39] Luke: Like if there were. If we are to accept that there is a sustainable shark fishery of X species, whichever species that is that's well managed and is, is not at threat, which is a depleting list for sure. Um, if there was a standardized way that when people act outside that, that framework, then they become a, a target for.
[00:35:00] Luke: Uh, inhumane behavior, uh, towards those animals. I don't, I don't think there's a perfect solution to that. And I don't think we're ever gonna stop that type of fishing ever because there probably always will be a sustainable species that can be taken. Um, but certainly the attitudes need to change. Um, do you, yes.
[00:35:16] Luke: In your, I mean, uh, I respect your practical outlook on all this, you know, as much of a, a shark lover and everything as you are, uh, do you accept that there may be a sustainable shark fishery of any species
[00:35:28] Cristine: I'm on the fence with sustainable and shark fishing? Uh, just because of nature of sharks, uh, uh, we don't really have a baseline for any of the ocean out there, but especially sharks were already proven how difficult they are reproducing and how, and you need to think about all the other things that we are affecting them with. We're taking away some of the reproductive territories we're taking away some other food. Um, there was a lot of bycatch, so I can really pronounce that.
[00:35:55] Cristine: There is, uh, I agree with you. I think there's always going to be a shark fishing industry. Um, in Florida, there's very much also a shark fishing catch and. And a lot of these fishers has actually, uh, associated with maybe a researcher. So the researchers actually have learned, okay, I'm gonna talk to these guys, cuz know where to find these sharks, but then also they release them and I can also tag them and actually do more.
[00:36:18] Cristine: For example, a post mortality release rate to study to figure it out. Is this really sustainable or not? Yeah. Or does it need to change?
[00:36:27] Luke: Hey, before we go, I wanted to ask you about your organization, people of the water, cuz I was just looking up at what you're doing lately. You know, we haven't chatted in a little while and uh, I saw that you started this up. Tell me about.
[00:36:38] Cristine: I started the people of the water, which is a nonprofit, um, in 2019 is basically an extensions of what I've been doing for the last 20 years. I base my, as you said, maybe we haven't really expressed, but like my, my job is I make a living out of being a scuba diving professional. Um, and I use a lot of the money to.
[00:36:58] Cristine: Put into what is exploration, education and conservation exploration, meaning we go and explore things that we know or things that we don't know, including caves. I do quite a lot of work in cave diving and then education educate ourselves so they can educate others just so that then we can promote conservation.
[00:37:14] Luke: How can people help you with that? Cause it sounds pretty cool.
[00:37:16] Cristine: Our, our, uh, webpages basical. P O w nonprofit.org and on it, they can go and donate. The money is basically equally distributed between the work that we do in the exploration and the education part. Uh, the conservation part, what we do is we use the data and then provide everything both from a sharks and caves point of view to local NGOs, like the Bahama national trust, who has a direct communication with the, um, Baha Bahamian government.
[00:37:45] Cristine: To promote more conservation policies.
[00:37:47] Luke: That sounds awesome. And where can people find you personally when they choose to come to The Bahamas and come dive with you?
[00:37:53] Cristine: I am in Freeport grand Bahama, the most forgotten The Bahamas and they can find me, uh, the that's not NASA, Neo Providence, Freeport grand Bahama, and they can find me, uh, uh, Christinazenato.com without an H C R I S T I N a Z E N a T O.
[00:38:12] Luke: awesome. Well, uh, I can say from, uh, extensive personal experience working with Christina, uh, she's definitely someone that you wanna meet and go dive with. Um, Freeport is a very cool little place in The Bahamas and they've got great sharks and, uh, there's, there's just a lot to see out there. So make sure you, you go check out that place whenever you go to Bahamas and, uh, Christina, thank you for joining us.
[00:38:32] Luke: Um, I feel like we could talk for hours and hours. We'll definitely have you back on to dive into some other stuff, but, uh, I appreciate joining us today on shark week podcast.
[00:38:40] Luke: Thank you for having me.
[00:38:46] Luke: You know, say what you will about shark media, but it's very much a double edged sword. I think Christina brought out some really good points there where we need to be very careful about the media that we put out and to be careful that our messaging is actually relevant to the topic that we're on. But I also have to look at the other side of it where.
[00:39:06] Luke: Sometimes there's certain matters that need attention, that won't get attention without some type of sensationalism about it. And I know that that sounds a little hypocritical coming from a podcast that does a lot of criticizing about media, uh, because a lot of what does come out is complete garbage, but.
[00:39:26] Luke: I think there is something to be said for activists who use any technique possible to get their message heard. And we as shark divers, as shark lovers of advocates, like whatever shark fishes, like whoever's listening to this, whatever bucket you fall into, we all care. About this animal and the ocean.
[00:39:45] Luke: Most of us care about it being around for long enough, whether it be for sustainability, for your fishing or for your viewing pleasure or for your tourism operation, whatever it might be. Most of us listening to this care about this animal in the ocean and what we're not doing enough of is perpetuating the, the media and tactics and money raising and everything else that goes along with it to perfectly provision for its protection in the.
[00:40:15] Luke: So that's it for today's shark week, the podcast. I hope you enjoyed Christina Z. She's a, a personal hero of mine and I'm stoked. She joined us. I want to stay tuned to this feed as we continue to cover the Sharkies current topics. Talk to top scientists and experts and learn about the latest conservation efforts to keep this amazing animal from extinction.
[00:40:33] Luke: Thank you so much for listening to shark week. The podcast. Be sure to rate us five stars and subscribe for more shark, fun facts until next time I'm Luke tipple. I'll chat to you soon.