“The Lost Shark Guy,” Dr. Dave Ebert, joins Luke Tipple to discuss how to find undiscovered shark species, and why they’re essential to ocean life.
Luke Tipple invites “The Lost Shark Guy,” Dr. Dave Ebert, who is personally responsible for finding dozens of shark species that were either previously unknown to science or thought to be extinct. He and Luke discuss why shark populations are a direct indicator of how healthy the ocean is, how to find undiscovered sharks, and why diversity in sharks is essential for marine life.
Find episode transcripts here: https://shark-weeks-daily-bite.simplecast.com/episodes/s4-ep11-undiscovered-sharks-and-the-state-of-the-ocean-dave-ebert
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:30:05
Luke Tipple
Today, we're speaking to a scientist who by himself has discovered over 50 new species of shark. And stick around for a shark bite where Sierra reveals how the ocean may soon be taken over by A.I. robots. G’day everyone. Welcome to Shark Week, the podcast. I'm your host, Luke Tipple.
00:00:30:05 - 00:00:54:03
Luke Tipple
Just like a patient being examined in a doctor's office. There are ways of telling if the ocean is sick. For example, we could look at sea temperatures and deduce that rising temperatures might put local sea life in danger. Similarly, we can look at ocean currents, which recent data indicates might be undergoing radical changes.
00:00:54:05 - 00:01:13:13
Luke Tipple
And you can look at sharks, how they're doing is largely a reflection of how the ocean as a whole is doing. As the seas most prolific apex predators, they sit at the top of the food chain, which means that if the food chain is unhealthy or in other words, if the ocean is sick, then the sharks population will be unhealthy, too.
00:01:13:15 - 00:01:40:20
Luke Tipple
My guest today calls sharks the canary in the coal mine when it comes to the ocean's health. He's Dr. Dave Ebert. And as a man who's led dozens of explorations and found by himself over four dozen new species of shark, he's uniquely placed as an expert on how sharks are doing around the world. He's here to talk to us about what sharks mean to their ecosystems and how he's been so successful in finding unusual sharks where no one else has been able to.
00:01:40:22 - 00:01:52:10
Luke Tipple
Dave, welcome to Shark Week, the podcast. I've really wanted to chat to you for a long time because frankly, you are an inspiration of the, you know, 500 some species of sharks out there. You've discovered over 100 of them?
00:01:52:12 - 00:02:02:09
Dave Ebert
Well, I have. I've identified about 100, but I've probably only officially named over a little over 50 because it's the whole process to actually name them. Discovering them is the fun part to do.
00:02:02:11 - 00:02:04:22
Luke Tipple
Well, I thought if you discovered them, you got to name them? Why they?
00:02:04:22 - 00:02:16:02
Dave Ebert
Oh, yeah, I know. You know, you do get the name, but you just got to take some time to go through. You have to write up the description, go through a whole peer reviewed process. You can't just sort of wave a wand, say, Hey, this is a new species and stuff.
00:02:16:04 - 00:02:25:23
Luke Tipple
How do you actually go out and start identifying a new species, like isolating a region of the world to go target? Or is it fisherman that's bringing you catches? Like what is it?
00:02:25:23 - 00:02:46:14
Dave Ebert
I never go look for a new shark. What I'll do is I'll go out to like, some part of the world and I'll try to identify. I'll work with like local NGOs and government agencies, fisheries to try to help them identify the sharks and rays that occur in their waters. And it's going through that process. They'll find sometimes I'll find ray extensions, I'll find species that people haven't seen for decades.
00:02:46:16 - 00:03:11:03
Dave Ebert
And then, of course, I'll find new species. So there's kind of like there's three categories. But if I say, like, I'm going to go look for a new species, you'll never find it. You have to be going out to do something else. And then like, Oh, hey, I felt like three new species. The things that I'm looking for are smaller species that are not charismatic, and yet they'll tell you more about the health of the environment than a white shark will, believe it or not, because those things are quietly slipping away and disappearing.
00:03:11:09 - 00:03:20:11
Dave Ebert
And very few people outside myself are really paying any attention to it. So I'm trying to bring awareness to these species here that that really could tell you more about the health of the environment.
00:03:20:13 - 00:03:42:14
Luke Tipple
Well, let's talk about that, because it is something that is part of kind of the the shark trope that, you know, they exist in every marine environment that there is, that they're in indicators of a healthy environment. But probably you're uniquely out of anybody would understand exactly what that means for the environment. How important are sharks as indicators of the health of a particular ecosystem?
00:03:42:16 - 00:04:01:16
Dave Ebert
Absolutely important. Sharks are the canary in the coal mine. Really. By time you see a problem with white sharks or tiger sharks, it's going to always be too late because everything else below them has been probably knocked down and things like, you know, shark like white sharks, tiger sharks, they a lot of them feed on smaller sharks and some of the smaller sharks are gone.
00:04:01:22 - 00:04:32:11
Dave Ebert
They're not going to have any food there and they're going to have to move away. And so like those, it's absolutely critical, these smaller species, you're looking for it. I talk a lot about overfishing, but a lot of these a lot of that in Africa, all these sort of tropical areas, you know, in Asia and stuff, a lot of areas of like had things like mangrove swamps which are really important in the life cycle of a lot of these sharks, particular like sawfish is a good example and they've been like destroyed for other types of thing aquaculture or other types of activities, you know, beachfront resort hotels.
00:04:32:11 - 00:04:37:07
Dave Ebert
But those are critical habitat that people often overlook as far as the environment.
00:04:37:09 - 00:04:43:01
Luke Tipple
Why are sharks in every little nook and cranny of the ocean and even freshwater systems?
00:04:43:01 - 00:04:59:00
Dave Ebert
You know, I talk about sharks. I'm also talking about the rays, because what a ray is, is just a flat shark. If you take a shark, you squash it down. That's really what a ray is. What unites them is they have a cartilaginous skeleton. Now, that compares to all the bony fishes like your cod, your rockfish, you know, halibut, those things.
00:04:59:00 - 00:05:25:22
Dave Ebert
And there's about over 35,000 species of bony fish compared to just under 1300 species of sharks. And so what the thing is why the sharks have been very successful, have adapted to the all these things. So there's been a niche available to them. So they've been able like invade some species, invade freshwater habitats. You know, you go to Australia, northern Australia, the freshwater river sharks up there, things like bull sharks, you go up there and then you have pelagic species like oceanic, white tip sharks.
00:05:25:22 - 00:05:44:02
Dave Ebert
You know what good example I like to I talk to people about is like you think like a mega mouth shark here. Is this like 20 foot shark wouldn't even know existed until 1976. It gets 20 feet long and you think like, wow, it's got these big teeth, but the teeth are just really tiny. And actually this is like a 20 foot shark that's geared just to catch krill.
00:05:44:02 - 00:05:48:13
Dave Ebert
What evolutionary force is like cause something like just to feed on krill, for example?
00:05:48:15 - 00:06:05:04
Luke Tipple
Well, I mean, from what I understand, there is krill are fairly bioavailable, you know, there's a lot of it, and they don't have to work very hard to get it. So they just go around scooping it up. So they're getting the energy that they need and the calories that they need to grow large. But what you're saying is no one really understands why they'd be doing that.
00:06:05:08 - 00:06:22:04
Dave Ebert
Yeah, exactly. People think about these, the big sharks, but you think about there's things like a pygmy dwarf shark. It doesn't get any bigger in the palm of your hand, gets maybe eight inches long, and that's as big as the shark gets, and yet they'll feed on smaller things. It speaks to the success of the sharks. I mean, you've got they've been around for over 400 million years.
00:06:22:06 - 00:06:27:05
Dave Ebert
And, you know, most of the modern species have been around for, you know, the last 100 million years or so.
00:06:27:09 - 00:06:34:21
Luke Tipple
I wonder, is there another order of animals that has the diversity that sharks do?
00:06:34:23 - 00:06:58:15
Dave Ebert
Yeah, I mean, as far as like as far as like a high trophic level predator, I mean, there's really I can't think of anything that would exceed the sharks. I mean, it's like you're going out finding, like, you know, a couple dozen new species of bears every year or new species of wolves or lions or tigers or anything, you know, you know, but shark, you're finding 17 new species of sharks a year on average.
00:06:58:20 - 00:07:23:14
Dave Ebert
Well, I tell people like over 25% of all the shark species we know today have only been discovered in the last 15, 20 years. And so there's a lot of new species being found. But would you put that in perspective? We find, say, 17 new species this year. If I tell you like on average there's about 18,000 new species of everything, of all taxa described a year.
00:07:23:16 - 00:07:41:17
Dave Ebert
It kind of puts it in perspective. There's really not that many shark species out there compared to a lot of other taxa. So they're very they evolve to be like occupy these different niche. But but they're really not as diverse as some of the like you mentioned, ants. Frogs are seven 8000 species of frog. I talk about 18,000.
00:07:41:17 - 00:07:45:10
Dave Ebert
I'm talking about, you know, flowers, plants, a lot of, you know, basically everything.
00:07:45:12 - 00:07:55:19
Luke Tipple
Given a amount of time, is it inevitable that a group of animals will occupy every little space that it can? Or is it just unique to sharks that they're doing that?
00:07:56:00 - 00:08:12:14
Dave Ebert
I think I think, like we look at like take like the bony fishes and stuff, they occupy a lot of habitat. They've been actually they're more prolific in the freshwater than the marine environment. Interestingly, if you look in the in the fossil record, sharks actually were more prolific in the freshwater environment. If that's one area, they've probably gone in reverse.
00:08:12:16 - 00:08:36:14
Dave Ebert
They're more prolific in the freshwater environment, then they adapt and evolve, become more prolific in the marine environment. Whereas, you know, you have a few groups, you have, you know, freshwater stingrays in Brazil. You have the river sharks, which are freshwater, mostly freshwater we know about in Australia and Indonesia, that part of the world. So the sharks have really receded from a lot of the freshwater environments that they occupied a couple of hundred million years ago.
00:08:36:18 - 00:08:42:13
Luke Tipple
And you said it was about 200 million years since we saw that plethora of freshwater species. That about right?
00:08:42:15 - 00:08:53:19
Dave Ebert
Most of the modern sharks evolved between about 100, 250 million years ago. So as they started, the modern sharks started evolve all their for the floor. The freshwater ones just went extinct, essentially.
00:08:53:21 - 00:08:58:17
Luke Tipple
Now you talk about the small sharks being a passion of yours. How important are they?
00:08:58:19 - 00:09:19:01
Dave Ebert
I think they're very important because you have to figure out what they are first before we can learn something about what do they feed on, what's their role in the environment and stuff. And so these little sharks, this gets to the heart. Really. The heart of the thing is like, what is their impact in the marine environment? Like you get these little things like like a pondicherry shark, which we think might have gone extinct, used to kill off India, Sri Lanka in that part of the world.
00:09:19:06 - 00:09:36:21
Dave Ebert
And so we think like what would happen with these things if they if they gone what what environmental impact if they had can't really answer that because no one's seen one in over 50 years. You know, I mean, I'm going off here in a few weeks to look for a shark, the lost shark of Ecuador. Our species hasn't been seen in over 60 years.
00:09:36:23 - 00:09:47:19
Dave Ebert
And so if we can find it, then they'll tell us something about what's going on. If we can't find it, then we've got to start thinking like, what impacts is the loss of this diversity have on the environment and the ecosystem?
00:09:47:21 - 00:09:54:07
Luke Tipple
So why would you go after that species in Ecuador now if it hasn't been seen for 60 years? What started this mission?
00:09:54:09 - 00:10:12:21
Dave Ebert
Well, I've been doing this for four decades, really. I just kind of really have galvanized it over the sort of the last ten, 20 years. Now, really the star sharks of is a lot of it. Why we're doing now is a lot of its funding. You know, people fund things for like white sharks and stuff. But you say like, I want to go try and look for some sharks that haven't been seen in decades.
00:10:12:23 - 00:10:30:05
Dave Ebert
Yeah, people like that's great, Dave. But as far as, you know, finding support, I mean, well, the Save Our Seas Foundation have been terrific. It's difficult to get funding in general, but when you want to go look for different species, it makes it even more difficult. They're just not a lot of organizations that will fund that type of research.
00:10:30:07 - 00:10:34:10
Luke Tipple
Do you think you'll find the shark in Ecuador? Do you have any good leads?
00:10:34:12 - 00:10:58:17
Dave Ebert
I got some good leads. I've already got people in country. I don't just sort of show up. They're like, Hi, I'm Dave. I'm looking for some sharks. I, I work with organizations, NGOs and colleagues I have in-country where already I've actually looking for a right now to see if we could find it. A lot of it's just awareness and I've got I've had a pretty good track record over my career finding things that people haven't haven't seen for decades.
00:10:58:19 - 00:11:04:13
Dave Ebert
By finding, it'll be like Christmas, Christmas in August if I find this thing. So, which is always kind of nice.
00:11:04:15 - 00:11:09:18
Luke Tipple
That's amazing. Why is it that you are so successful versus other conventional scientists?
00:11:09:18 - 00:11:27:00
Dave Ebert
I go out and I talk with the fishermen. That's that's the key. And a lot of people, like in my profession, they very leery of the fishermen and they get I'm talking about going to like, you know, smaller villages, artisanal fisheries and stuff. And of course, a lot of times I you know, you go to Zanzibar, I don't speak Swahili, but I work with local people there.
00:11:27:05 - 00:11:45:20
Dave Ebert
It's kind of people think it's kind of cool to go out in the boat, you know, you see like on Shark Week, you're out diving or doing something really cool, but you're only one person on one boat in the ocean where if I go to a village, I'll have 50 or 100 boats coming in every day. So my time just goes up like, you know, 50, 100 fold that I might find something.
00:11:46:01 - 00:11:58:19
Dave Ebert
Will you find it? Trust me, sometimes, as some of the older fishermen they'll look at and they go like, Oh, yeah, we used to see this all the time, but we haven't seen it for decades. And you talk to the younger guys, they like we've never seen this thing that starts scared the guests the whole journey more exciting.
00:11:58:19 - 00:12:14:03
Dave Ebert
Like, okay, I have some people that actually know what this thing is, but we haven't seen it for a while. So you start asking them like, Where did you see it? Where do you used to catch this thing? And so like you start talking with them. Maybe you develop a relationship with a fisherman. I mean, I got there's there's fishermen and villages.
00:12:14:03 - 00:12:27:04
Dave Ebert
I've been going to for 35 years now, and I'll show up there and they'll still start waving. I may not have seen for like five years or more, and they'll start saying, Hey, Dave’s back. That's always kind of a cool feeling to see that you left that kind of an impression on some people.
00:12:27:06 - 00:12:33:03
Luke Tipple
Do you ever ask them a question like what happened to these sharks? I imagine they're just overfishing.
00:12:33:05 - 00:12:51:05
Dave Ebert
Yeah, they'll they'll say they'll it'll be something along the lines of we used to catch them all the time, but we don't see them very much anymore or we don't see them at all. Some of the places that I've gone back to over decades, it's the same story like, yes, Sawfish are a great example. You know, 35 years ago at East Africa, you'd see them occasionally.
00:12:51:05 - 00:13:01:13
Dave Ebert
They're still around, but they've never seen what I mean. They'll many of those younger people never see one in their lifetime. They're older people. The older fishers are like, Oh yeah, we used to catch these all the time. We just don't see them anymore.
00:13:01:15 - 00:13:12:05
Luke Tipple
Now when you talking about the the smaller sharks, you're talking about sharks that are maybe up to a couple of feet long. Yeah, Yeah. The other fishermen targeting them for food traditionally?
00:13:12:07 - 00:13:31:10
Dave Ebert
Yeah. The way the pattern goes, they used to catch a lot of the bony fishes and then they slowly got fished out, and then they start fishing the sharks, and then the sharks start disappearing and again, the thing I emphasize the people is a lot of places I go to, these are people, if they don't go out and fish and catch something, they don't eat.
00:13:31:10 - 00:13:46:14
Dave Ebert
They can’t run down to the local grocery store and pick up, you know, some steaks or some fish for dinner. I mean, they literally like if they don't if there's a bad weather, if there's a typhoon or something, they can't fish and then they got to live on whatever kind of reserve they might have, which is not going to be much.
00:13:46:14 - 00:14:00:16
Dave Ebert
You know, you have to walk that line between you can't tell people not to go fish something because they're not going to eat. And you just cannot feed everybody in the world. You need to let them there. So it's it's an interesting kind of socio economic situation as well as an environmental issue.
00:14:00:18 - 00:14:04:00
Luke Tipple
Is there such thing as too many sharks in an environment?
00:14:04:02 - 00:14:27:17
Dave Ebert
I would say no, there can never be too many. I think in my in my opinion, the sharks are tended to be regulated by the availability of food. But, you know, in North America, we've actually done some really good stuff here as far as, you know, things like the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which increased the marine mammal population, which has has increased the white shark population along the coast here, which has also benefited a lot of the shark populations.
00:14:27:17 - 00:14:45:18
Dave Ebert
And so in the US and Canada, we've actually does a really good, I think, in my opinion, some good policy that it actually has sustainable shark. And so you should stand back and say, Hey, here's an example of somewhere we did pretty good. We did a really good job because everybody gets tired of hearing about, oh, you know, sharks are collapsing or going away.
00:14:46:00 - 00:14:53:07
Dave Ebert
But we did something good. And there's some other examples that we should you should highlight, though, so people think, okay, there is hope, there is a chance we can do something.
00:14:53:09 - 00:15:17:18
Luke Tipple
Yeah, there is. I mean, there's data from NOAA that says, for example, the sharks of the Atlantic seaboard are largely, in their opinion and their data very well managed and the limits that they institute sustainable and survivable. Now, people will probably find that distasteful. A lot of times it actually results in these kind of bifurcated opinions where we've got fishermen who like there's way too many sharks.
00:15:18:00 - 00:15:33:09
Luke Tipple
And I've had several of those conversations where like, hey, you're not on the water every day like we are. Depredation where the sharks are catching, they're, you know, eating. Their catch is getting out of control. We need to kill all these sharks as too many or the other side of it, which is NOAA is saying, hey, the sharks are about where they should be.
00:15:33:11 - 00:15:48:14
Luke Tipple
And we're setting the catch limits just to maintain sustainability here. Where do you stand on that? Like, should there be zero take or is a, you know, well-managed sustainability the goal across the entire bony fish and Elasmobranchs?
00:15:48:14 - 00:16:10:05
Dave Ebert
I think there should be within that within the Elasmobranchs like you get things like some of the hound sharks, the smooth hounds and stuff. You can sustainably fish those and it's been shown you can because they're because they're reproductive things. They mature pretty quickly. Within 2 to 3 years. They're already mature. They give birth annually. So there are some species you can fish sustainably, but then you've got other things you know, like some of things like dusky sharks.
00:16:10:05 - 00:16:21:06
Dave Ebert
You know, they they take decades to mature, they live very long. They, you know, they may not start breeding till then. They're, you know, they've been 20 years or so and so those are they, you can fish down quite a bit.
00:16:21:08 - 00:16:41:10
Luke Tipple
Where are we in terms of sort of real time data and feedback? Because when I look up like the IUCN database, for example, or NOAA, they'll be data from ten years ago or assessments from ten years ago. And we're supposed to take that as an assessment of today's stock. And that doesn't seem right. And then no, it's not.
00:16:41:10 - 00:16:52:02
Luke Tipple
It appears to take in like last year's catches, but the results of that catch might not be seen for, as you say, ten or 20 years in some species. So, yeah. Is that a little short sighted?
00:16:52:04 - 00:17:09:15
Dave Ebert
Yeah, it is. I can speak to both. I've been involved with the IUCN for decades now, and the thing is, they do the assessments about every ten years for species. So those are going to be outdated. We've just gone through a process over the last four or five years updating them, but still, by the time you actually get them processed, they're already out of date.
00:17:09:15 - 00:17:29:11
Dave Ebert
And it's like, you know, you published a scientific paper, it's almost out of date by the time it gets published because it takes it just takes time to go through a peer reviewed process with, with some of the like the NOAA data and stuff. You could probably get more. I know I say quite real time data, but you can if you look at it, you could probably get data with that or maybe within 2 to 3 years old.
00:17:29:17 - 00:17:46:19
Dave Ebert
So you can manage something a little more, a little more current than like, say, with IUCN data. So it really depends on the dataset. In some cases you might have state data might be even turnaround faster than even the NOA data. It depends on the state and where they are. But you could find that all that data is more is more current.
00:17:46:19 - 00:17:58:17
Dave Ebert
So it really depends at what level you're looking at the data. Again, if you're looking in the US, Canada, you got you have some good data sets to work from, but you go to a lot of other countries, you know, it's just you're not going to have that that type of data set.
00:17:58:19 - 00:18:11:17
Luke Tipple
Well, I know your life and career has been driven by, you know, curiosity and the desire to explore. And finally, the sharks. Why don't we wrap up this podcast with your favorite story of, you know, the species that you found that really inspired you the most.
00:18:11:19 - 00:18:35:12
Dave Ebert
You know, everyone's it's like it's like people actually I said, Well, it's one I haven't found. Yes. One inspires me because because that's always that next adventure. But if I had to share one that was probably one of my favorite ones in the last few years, I was in Sri Lanka and I just before I'd gone to Sri Lanka, somebody colleague there had sent me a picture of the shark they couldn't identify as like going, Man, I think that's like a new species of shark.
00:18:35:12 - 00:18:55:20
Dave Ebert
I haven't seen this thing before. I went there and it found some of the fishermen and I showed him a picture of the shark on my phone. They're kind of like looking at me going, okay, yeah, come back tomorrow. And I was like, okay, I'll come back tomorrow. And Son of a gun. I came back the next day and they caught one and I was like running around doing fish pops every well, I asked them, I said, Well how often do you catch these?
00:18:55:20 - 00:19:05:21
Dave Ebert
They said, Oh we caught three yesterday. We throw them back. They're not worth anything. And this is a shark. It was completely new to science. So I was trying my most exciting one in the last few years.
00:19:05:23 - 00:19:18:06
Luke Tipple
So you probably know we had Forrest on this podcast a little while ago and I asked him a question of how many sharks are left to be discovered, and he didn't have an answer for me, but he said, Ask Dave. So I'll ask you something. How many sharks are left to be discovered?
00:19:18:07 - 00:19:38:21
Dave Ebert
I can't tell you how many are left to be discovered, but I can tell you that in the last 15 years, 25% of all sharks have just been discovered. So that just gives you a perspective or been averaging about 17 new species a year. So, yeah, I Forrest was thinking a couple dozen or some I think you could find probably easily another hundred species or so.
00:19:38:21 - 00:19:51:07
Dave Ebert
And I'm a little bit guessing, but that's just based on what we've we know you're here with 25% of it, of a group like sharks have only been discovered in the last 15 years. It's kind of inspired you to go out and find more. You know, there's a lot more out there to be discovered.
00:19:51:13 - 00:19:57:16
Luke Tipple
And then when we get alien technology and we can safely roam the deep depths of the oceans, we'll probably find another thousand, right?
00:19:57:18 - 00:20:08:01
Dave Ebert
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Technology. You'll start finding some things. I think we didn't even know existed out there. So I'm excited. Especially a young person coming up. It's a great time to be an explorer.
00:20:08:03 - 00:20:14:18
Luke Tipple
What would you say to the up and coming scientists who are looking to work with sharks in the future? Is there a lot for them to do, a lot of work left to do?
00:20:14:18 - 00:20:29:18
Dave Ebert
Oh, yeah, lots of them. I mean, I'll never get done. Yeah. A fraction of what I'd like to do in my lifetime. And I made a point. Now my career, I've tried to I try to treat it well, especially we go a lot of countries to try to help as much as I can to share my knowledge and train younger people now.
00:20:29:20 - 00:20:46:19
Dave Ebert
But, you know, the biggest thing on this field is, you know, you have to be you have to have a positive attitude. You have to be you have to be driven, you have to have a focus. You have and you have to be persistent and above all else, you have to be passionate. And if you have those qualities, you'll carry a long way in the field.
00:20:46:21 - 00:20:54:14
Dave Ebert
And in this field, like I said, I've been doing it for decades and I have not lost my passion. I get as excited now as I did 35 years ago.
00:20:54:16 - 00:21:02:10
Luke Tipple
Well, from my perspective, I hope you find another hundred before you done. That'd be really cool. You know, keep boosting those numbers. Give it a thanks and inspiration, mate. Really appreciate it.
00:21:02:12 - 00:21:07:03
Dave Ebert
Great. Thank you, Luke.
00:21:07:05 - 00:21:13:06
Luke Tipple
It's time for today's Shark Bite, where Sierra brings us a cool ocean story to end the show. What have you got for us today, Sierra?
00:21:13:08 - 00:21:18:20
Sierra Kehoe
Today we've got a story about how scientists are using A.I. to spy on ocean wildlife.
00:21:18:22 - 00:21:23:04
Luke Tipple
Uh, so it's going to be scary. I know. All right, let's hear it.
00:21:23:06 - 00:21:47:20
Sierra Kehoe
So one of the problems, troubles, issues with studying marine life is we don't actually know what they're doing when we're not looking at them. A lot of the ways that we study them are disruptive. You know, it's big motors or cameras. They get in the way. It doesn't look like their natural habitat. So scientists went in to design a fish that is accepted by other fish.
00:21:47:20 - 00:21:52:23
Sierra Kehoe
So it is, you know, going to be totally quiet and navigates like a fish would.
00:21:53:00 - 00:22:08:08
Luke Tipple
Be to saying stuff like that about sharks for a while, what a shark is actually doing when we're not there bothering them with, you know, big boats and chum and machines and divers and all the rest. We're not seeing natural behavior. So how are they actually doing this? How are they powering up? What does a fish look like?
00:22:08:10 - 00:22:27:23
Sierra Kehoe
Yeah, so it's this it's three feet long, It's twenty two pounds and the head of it contains the electronics and the camera. And then the belly of it is for the battery in the motors live. And then the fin part, the back part is made of silicone and then it has two cavities that are then filled and emptied with water that help it propel it move.
00:22:28:01 - 00:22:32:10
Luke Tipple
That sounds remarkably complicated, but what type of data they're hoping to get?
00:22:32:12 - 00:22:49:19
Sierra Kehoe
I really they're just trying to see both. You know, there's a camera attached to it, so they're trying to see what the environment looks like when, you know, humans are down there kind of mucking things up and then they're looking for that Edna data to figure out like what lava and algae are in those certain areas.
00:22:49:21 - 00:22:51:21
Luke Tipple
Right? And they're sifting that out of the water samples.
00:22:52:03 - 00:22:53:15
Sierra Kehoe
Yep, yep, definitely.
00:22:53:17 - 00:23:03:17
Luke Tipple
Well, that's fascinating. I hope. I hope the research is successful, but I'm kind of fearing seeing robot fish swimming all around us. So my diving next time right.
00:23:03:18 - 00:23:05:10
Sierra Kehoe
AI is going to take over the ocean next.
00:23:05:10 - 00:23:27:18
Luke Tipple
Oh, not the place where I thought was safe. Okay. Yeah, well, thanks for that Sierra. Okay, that's it for today's episode. I want to thank you all for listening. And I do hope you learn something if you want to connect with Dave. He's a fascinating guy. He's full of shark stories, and the work is doing is just absolutely incredible.
00:23:27:23 - 00:23:39:18
Luke Tipple
Check out Lost Shark Guy on Instagram. You won't be disappointed. These finding stuff all the time. And I can't wait to hear what he finds in Ecuador until next time. I’m Luke Tipple. Thanks for listening.
00:23:39:20 - 00:23:50:02
Unknown
You’re listening to the Shark Week podcast.
00:23:50:04 - 00:24:19:12
Sierra Kehoe
Shark Week. The podcast is produced by Dove Media four, Warner Brothers Discovery. Luke Tipple is the executive producer and our writer and producer is Yale Rice, our researcher and associate producer is Sierra Kehoe. For Warner Brothers Discovery, the executive producer is Christina Bavetta and the coordinating producer is Corin Wilson. You can follow our show wherever you get your podcasts, and we'd love it if you could take a second to leave us a five star review and subscribe to help our mission to give sharks a voice.