From Skates to White Sharks: The Journey of Megan Winton

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Welcome back to another wonderful episode here on the Beyond Jaws podcast.
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On today's episode, we have Megan Winton from the Atlantic White
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Shark Organization, where she studies... White
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Sharks. She's been on Shark Week and Shark
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Fest, and she's going to be on it in 2024. And we talk
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about that a little bit, but we talk about her career and how she went from
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studying different types of sharks to studying with
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Dave just on lost sharks and
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then going back to White Sharks to finish off.
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And when she did her PhD and she just finished her PhD like a
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week before a couple of weeks, she got her confirmation
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that her defense went through with flying colors, and
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she's gonna be a doctor right now, and I think that's awesome. So
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we got to talk to her, and it's exciting. So here is the
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episode with Meghan Witton. Let's start the show. In
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the early to mid 1900s, the only thing people knew about sharks was
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that they bit people from time to time. Some scientists started to
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get to know more about the larger sharks, studying their life histories and
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their fisheries. As the field grew, so did the diversity of fields
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within shark science. Public interest in sharks grew exponentially
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as a series of movies called Jaws peaked the people's fear and curiosity
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for these sharks. More information was revealed about
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these mysterious animals as the shark science field grew. From exploration
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to discovery to genetics and ecology, the Beyond Jaws podcast will
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introduce you to shark scientists of the American Elasmobranc Society and
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their work to help you better understand these wonderful species and
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take your knowledge beyond jaws. Hey,
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everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the Beyond Jaws podcast.
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I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, your co-host, Andrew Lewin, here with my
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co-host, Dr. David Ebert. Dave, we have Megan Winton on
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the program. Are you excited? Because this was one
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Megan was one of my was one of my former students, and she was an
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ace. So I tell you, she was she was one. And it's really
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for me as a being a mentor, a former advisor. She's really one
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of the rising stars in the field. I mean, she's really
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on it. She's managed. Of course, she's kind of got in the opposite direction than
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most of the students where she worked on skates in Alaska, actually for
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her master's degree with me. And then she's kind of
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went to the dark side working on white sharks, which is
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I'm very, I should be
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That was really
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good. I mean, she, she got connected and It's just, it's a whole fascinating story.
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We'll get into there and how she came to working with Greg Skomal of all places.
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Cause she went from Florida to California to new England and we'll get
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into that in the, in the, in the show, but it's a, it's
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a fascinating story. And, uh, but she, but I think the thing
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she kind of talks about is she, it was, she didn't just focus on
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white sharks. She learned a lot of skills, particularly quantitative skills,
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which led her to obtain the position she has now.
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And I couldn't be more proud of her. And as I say, she's, you know, we've had a number of
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these, young up and coming rising stars in the field. And
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she's another one that I just see big things for in the future. And I'm happy
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she finally got her PhD. I know she spent a number of
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years on it. Um, but that was, but yeah, I'm
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sure, I know it's going to be an excellent piece of work and I'm happy to be able to call another
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one of my former students, doctor. And, um, yeah.
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And, uh, yeah, so I'm like, I'm really looking forward to, to, to
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the interview today. And, um, so yeah, so let's, let's get
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And we're going to find out why it took her a little bit longer, because it's
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a little thing called side projects. We're going to find out what some of
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those are and how those can be distracting to everybody, because it's
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always great to get experience. But she did get a lot of experience. She's
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going to tell us about it in this interview. So here's the
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interview with Megan Winton. Enjoy, and we'll talk to you after. Hey,
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Megan. Welcome to the Beyond Jaws podcast. Are you ready to talk
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I love it. I love it. We want to welcome everybody to the Beyond Jaws
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podcast where we have another rising star in the shark
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world with our awesome guest Dr. Megan
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Whitten who recently just completed a PhD at
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the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth at the School of Marine
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Science and Technology. Yay! However, before embarking
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on her PhD, in full disclosure, Megan completed her
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Master's of Science degree in Marine Science at Moss Landing
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Marine Laboratories, where she was a graduate student of mine before
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going on to bigger and better things.
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Yeah. So, well, since 2019, Megan's been a research scientist for
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the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, where she's working to improve scientific
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understanding of new white shark aggregation sites off Cape Cod,
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Massachusetts. Her research focuses on various aspects of
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fisheries biology and ecology, as well as the development of quantitative frameworks
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for interpreting and integrating tagging data into population assessments.
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Through her work on white sharks, Megan's become increasingly interested in
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the human dimensions of wildlife management and decision making. And
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in his terrific book, Greg Skomal, who was on
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our podcast last year, his book titled Chasing Shadows, My
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Life, Tracking the Great White Shark. Megan's featured extremely prominently
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in that book. Greg's been on her podcast, check
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it out. You definitely want to get that book to find out
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more, if you want to find out more about Megan, at least until she writes her own autobiography
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book. With that, Megan, we're
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super happy to have you on the show today. So
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I'll ask you, I'll start off with the question we always ask our guests is,
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how'd you get interested in marine science and in sharks in particular?
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First off, Dave, I just want to say, can you come
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introduce me for every talk ever? Because that's like the closest thing
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I've ever had to like a sports announcer being like, here
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Love it. Yeah. Anytime. Not
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That's the
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Well, it works. It's great. Most scientists don't get that kind of introduction most
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of the time, so that's pretty great. But to
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answer your question, one thing I really love about this
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field is when you get everybody's shark science origin stories,
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they're kind of all over the map. There's so many different roads that
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lead people to become a shark scientist and get interested
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in the ocean. sometimes feel a
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little embarrassed when people ask me about this, but I was actually afraid
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of sharks when I was a kid. I grew up in Florida. My
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both sets of grandparents lived in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, which
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has the distinction of being the shark bite capital of the world. So
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sharks were always kind of on the mind. And I
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have a very vivid memory. I was probably like eight
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or nine years old, but my sisters and I were swimming at the beach There
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was a guy fishing just up from us and he caught a shark and
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we all went running out of the water like, oh my gosh, how did I not just
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get eaten by a shark? I was just swimming with a shark. But
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it really sparked my curiosity and my mom got
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me books on sharks. I started reading about them and
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I just was hooked. You know, I'm so punny. But
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and I just the more and more I read about them, the more I
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kind of realized these were just fish that had gotten a really bad rap.
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And they were fascinating from a biological perspective. And,
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you know, my interest continued. I watched all the shark documentaries I
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could on TV. I used to tape them on VHS so
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I could watch them year round. And I was like, one day
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I'm going to be one of those scientists on one of those shows unraveling the
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mysteries. of sharks. And there are
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times when I honestly still kind of pinch myself,
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like, I can't believe this is actually happening. And there were
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times I think my parents thought I might outgrow this crazy
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dream I had. But it's been such a fascinating journey.
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And I honestly can't imagine myself doing anything else.
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I really love being a scientist. If you wake up every morning and you're like,
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what kind of questions am I going to tackle today? And
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then to do work that has such an applied impact because
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so many shark species are in trouble around the world, even though
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some are now making a comeback in certain areas like the white shark in
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the Northwest Atlantic. It really it's it's just such
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important work, but it also feels like such a privilege to be able
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to do it and have the opportunity to study and
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understand these animals in a way most people don't. So I feel very
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You kind of grew up, you had this whole, obviously you're pretty
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much focused when you're going through grade school, high school, like you were just, you wanted to go
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do sharks. That was pretty much your focus. So
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I'm kind of curious, you went to a school in, you
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didn't go to like University of Florida or Florida State or University
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of Miami, you went to a school in Georgia for your undergraduate degree. I'm
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You know, it's a good question. And honestly, when I look back, sometimes I
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ask myself, like, you were in Florida, why didn't you go to
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University of Florida, where there were people there doing shark
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research, because I was very much kind of like the shark girl in
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high school, I always had my big white shark tooth necklace
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on. And, you know, I remember my friends kind of making fun of me, like, you're not
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really gonna grow up and do this, are you? And I was like, no, no, But
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I got some great advice from an
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early mentor in high school who said, what you really want
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to focus on first if you want to do this kind of work is getting a
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really solid background in biology. And so
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I went to Emory University in Atlanta, which has a really strong general
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biology program. There are a whole lot of pre-med folks. But
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it was a really great program and I just had a wonderful
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experience that pushed me in a lot of ways. And it was
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at that point I learned about the importance of statistical modeling
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and math to interpreting all the data you're collecting. And
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I basically used the summers to get marine science
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experience, but I knew I wanted to go to a school that would really, really
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challenge me academically, and Emory certainly
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did. And during the school year, I worked in a primatology lab, even
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though I did not want to grow up and and
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study primates. But I knew it would be good, relevant
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experience. And I got to work in the lab of a
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very famous primatologist. His name is Franz de Waal. And
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he's done some really groundbreaking work. And I was terrified of him. Like,
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I don't think I ever really spoke two words to him when I was in the lab
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because I was just like, he was very intimidating. But
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that's one thing I really have loved about this career path is it's so
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nonlinear. And some of these jobs and things I've done along the
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way that I thought wouldn't have any applicability to growing up and
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eventually becoming a shark scientist or really relevant, awesome
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skills that I was able to apply in our
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field. So it's that's one thing, you
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know, when when students come to me and ask for advice or, you
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know, come to the folks, the other folks who work with me at the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy
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and ask for advice and are very focused on sharks, I'm like, look,
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And you never know what ways you're going to grow in those positions and
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how you'll eventually be able to apply those skills to
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ultimately do what you want to do. I mean, math and statistical modeling,
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that's how I got involved in the white shark work. It wasn't because
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Greg was just like, oh, you really like sharks, you know. He
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knew I had worked with some really awesome people with you, Dave and
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Greg Kaye. So that definitely gave me brownie points, but they
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were starting the first survey for white
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sharks in the Northwest Atlantic once Cape Cod became an
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aggregation site. And they knew I love stats
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and modeling and coding, and they basically needed a
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super nerd to join the team and,
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and lead the modeling efforts. So that's how, how
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I got to ask you, because I had this experience myself, because I had
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the same thing. I'd wanted to do sharks from the time I was five years old. So
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when you were in high school, you went and saw your guidance counselor, and they asked what you were going to
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do your senior year. And you told them, well, I'm going to go study
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In high school, the folks were very supportive. It was actually in
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college. And I won't name his name, because he was a very nice man.
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But my advisor in undergrad basically
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tried to talk me out of it. you know sharks are
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really charismatic there aren't that many people that get to study
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them you might want to set your sights a little lower and
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i was like i'm a good student like i'm a very curious person i'm super
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stubborn i think i can do this if i you know take the right path
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But he just, he was like, I don't know, you should, you should set your sights a
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little lower. And I like, I remember that moment sometimes. And
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I'm just like, I'm so glad I didn't take that advice that I followed
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through with it, knew what I wanted to do. And I didn't let him
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or anybody else really talk me out of it. Like they're bumpy road, you know,
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it can be a bumpy road. They're tough times for sure. You
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know, finding funding for different things can be a struggle, but ultimately, if
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you know that's what you want to do, it's so worth it and so rewarding.
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Did you find that when that guidance
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counselor said that, or that advisor said that, Did
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it make you think ahead, just being like, okay, what do I have
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to look out for? He probably told you, it's not a lot of pay.
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Those are the typical ones that people tell you. It's really hard to
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get into. Did you start to wonder,
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it's like, okay, do I have to network a little bit more in my
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undergraduate? Do I have to reach out to people a little bit
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more? Or did you just sort of just be like, no, no, I'm gonna continue,
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because I really love this stuff, and just go continue and hope for
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You know, I wish I could say the former. I
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just like I wasn't phased. And I get that question
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a lot from folks. They're like, have you, you
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know, did you ever think you could be a shark scientist? Or
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did you? I guess I'm butchering my words.
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But I get that question a lot where folks will ask, like, did
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you ever grow up thinking you couldn't be a shark scientist because
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you're a woman? And I've had this conversation with Lisa
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Natanson and some of my other female shark science heroes,
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and like, honestly, it never crossed my mind that I couldn't do
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this. And I have my parents to thank a lot for that, they were so supportive. And
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they told me, you can grow up and be whatever you want to be and I just took it to heart.
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And you know, I've talked with Lisa and Hanson about this before and she was like, yeah,
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it never really crossed my mind either. So I feel really lucky that
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I was almost able to have some of those blinders on because
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I wonder if I had to call that advice to heart.
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Much like maybe I would have been like, oh, maybe they're right. Maybe I should
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I should do something else But I was a girl with a dream and I
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was a girl on a mission Determined
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I want it. You know, I want to you know when you were before you
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came to Moss Landing I just because I know that I just kind of Informant
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for people to know like you went and worked you went and did an
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internship with John Carlson with Noah fisheries and in
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Enrique's been on the podcast. John's going to be
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on the podcast coming up here soon. We're
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getting everybody. We'll get around everyone eventually. Could
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you talk about how that came about? on
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Yeah, so when I was in college, the
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summer after my junior year, I did an internship at
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Moat Marine Lab with Colin Simpendorfer and Michelle Heupel. And
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I just had the time of my life, it
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was like a dream come true and They are still,
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you know how you meet a lot of people you kind of worship when
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you're younger and they are great but they're not necessarily what
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you expect them to be. Colin and Michelle, I still like
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have them on a pedestal. They are such awesome humans and
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they were just so great to work with and I remember when
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I walked in and Colin introduced me to Michelle and
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told me they were married, I was like, What? Like shark science super
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couple. I was just so excited about it. I
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was like, this is amazing. So I had a great experience with
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them. And as that summer came to an end, I was talking with them like,
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where should I go next? You know, there were other options. And
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they recommended because I was interested in in population
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modeling, I had done a project with Colin that summer
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doing some population viability analysis for small tooth
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sawfish, which was like, So amazingly cool
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to do that work and see those guys
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in the flesh. And they recommended I look into the shark population assessment
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group in Panama City and consider doing
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an internship with Enrique and John. And so I applied to
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do that after I graduated. moved
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down to Panama City, Florida, stuck around for
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a while, had a great time working on their juvenile shark
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survey down there, and was hired by Enrique
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to put together this comprehensive shark diet database. And
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while I was there, I got to work up shark stomachs. It's still one of
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my favorite things I've ever done. I learned how to age,
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aged shark species, assess maturity. I
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just got to dissect a lot of things and I
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just had a ball. And so I was there for
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I think about a year and a half. I got to go on the
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long line survey in the Gulf of Mexico, see some big sharks
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for the first time, just blew my mind. And then they knew this guy out
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in California named Dave Ebert who was looking for
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a student. And they were like, well, you know, your contract's almost
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up. We know you're interested in pursuing a graduate degree. There's
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this guy in Central California. Have you heard of him? Dave Ebert. He's
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got some money for a student. And I was like, what? And I knew, you
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know, of your work and was so excited because I
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knew you were really into deep sea sharks and and lost
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sharks. And I love those guys, too. And
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I was like, yeah, I'd love to check out the West Coast. And so That's
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been one thing that I have loved so much about my career is one
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thing has just led into another in just
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different ways. I've
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set off, moved to California, moved to Moss
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Landing. And I remember my,
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you know, I didn't go out and we talked on the phone, Dave. You
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know, I didn't go out and do an in-person interview because I just, I'm
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one of those people. I'm like, all right, this is the next thing. Let's just go. Let's just do
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this and see where it leads you. And then I showed
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up for orientation. I think I still was dying my hair
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Yeah. Oh, yeah. Why not? We're going to get into that in
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I had bright red hair and I showed up for orientation and I
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just was like so excited, but so terrified. And
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then I met you in person and then we had orientation and
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then Greg Kaye walked in and I like worshiped his
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work and I just couldn't believe, like I was so afraid, but everybody was
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so wonderful and so welcoming and so lovely.
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And I just like, those were some of the, I was there
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That's awesome. I just have a quick question before
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we get into the work with Dave. You went, you
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know, with the contract, you were looking at dissecting a lot of different sharks, big
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sharks, small sharks, you know, got a lot of experience in
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terms of field studies, in terms of, you know, just skills and
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experience in the lab as well as in the field. And
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then you have this opportunity to go towards like deep sea sharks
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and lost sharks. You seem like
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at this point in your life, you seem to still try and find what
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you want, especially. Because in the shark, I'm not a
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shark scientist per se. But I feel
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like there's categories of people who, some people like
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to study the bigger sharks. You get the people who like to study the deep sea
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and the lost sharks and things like that. You seem to just be enamored
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by all of the different types of sharks at this point in your career and
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just being like, hey, this looks really interesting. Let me
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try this. Again, were you just going
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because this was an opportunity, or were you thinking ahead of being like, what type
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of shark scientist do I want to be? Or again, did you just not care, and you're like,
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It was a little bit of both. In the back of my mind,
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I knew I wanted to do population
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modeling, because from a conservation and management perspective,
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that to me was so important. And Enrique was a great mentor
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in that regard. But one thing he said to me is, You
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know, he attends all these meetings, runs all these
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stock assessments. And he was like, some of these stock assessment scientists are
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so smart. They're so good with numbers, but they're terrible with fish.
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So he recommended I get more hands on
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experience in terms of biology of the species, learning
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about their reproductive characteristics and
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age and growth firsthand. And Dave and Greg both
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had so much experience with that. But it is also a
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little bit, I am like a kid in a candy store, still to this day.
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Part of the reason my PhD took me so long is because I'm the
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queen of side projects. I'd have somebody just come
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in, do you want to analyze this data or do you want to do something like this? And I'd be like, yeah,
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and I'd go talk to my PhD advisor, Dr.
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Gavin Fay, and he'd be like, is this really like the best use of your
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time? But I was just like, this is the time for me to explore all
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the things. So I just genuinely get so excited
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and carried away on the science front of things. And honestly, that's
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one of the biggest struggles for me in my job right now. I
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love white sharks. I love studying them. They're amazing. But because
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We're such a small team and all of this stuff has happened so
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quickly off the coast of Massachusetts. We're really focused on
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that one species right now. But there's so many other
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interesting species around here. So I still have that kid
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in a candy store vibe all the time, but I've gotten a little bit
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Like, I mean, when I went to Moss Landing, one of my first days, Dave,
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you took me in the museum, and you just had all these species I had dreamed
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And I was just like, what? Like, it was so,
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Yeah, I just want to share a little insight. Like, you know, Megan talked about some
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of the people she'd worked with, like Colin Simpfendorfer, and
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Michelle Heipel, and Enrique Cortez, and John Carlson, and that. Any
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of you that are in the shark field, if you're a young student coming up, keep in
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mind that we all know each other. And so like when I get somebody like
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an application like Megan's, and I see, oh, I see some names in
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here I recognize, there's a phone call will take place that she'll
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never, you'll never hear about, but that is like, it's like, well, what
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do you think of Megan? Outstanding, you'd be an idiot not to take her.
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Okay, well, Megan's coming to Moss Landing. And so, so
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I'm telling this, I'm sharing this with people, young students listening to
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this, that when you're doing these internships, do the
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best you can because that's, That's a lot of times gonna be your
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best way to get in. It'll be some phone call or a talk with somebody
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in the field, because again, it's a small field. We all know each other. Most
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of us kind of went to grad school. We're all in grad school at the same time
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or roughly. But it's a good way. You do a good job. It gives
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you that little edge over somebody else. And certainly with Megan, like I
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said, I got something along the lines of I've got to be an idiot not to take Megan. So besides
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her outstanding application, having that little extra encouragement from
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my Florida friends, was really helpful at the time. And,
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um, yeah, it was never a regret. Megan got, as she said, she
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got into a lot of stuff when she came out there. We learned a heck of a lot. And, and
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just so people know, cause people like to hear me talk about lost sharks
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or charismatic stuff. Megan worked on a, on a skates that occur from
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Alaska, from the Bering sea down to California, looking at
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different populations and comparing age and
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growth and, and, and, and population, uh, dynamics
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for there, which really had a lot of implications for, for for
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management, which I believe you're now applying to your current position, looking
399
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It's true. Very true. Don't sell
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Oh, no. I never do. They're awesome. They're absolutely
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awesome. I just can't figure out
402
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where I went wrong, that you left doing skates and all these really cool deep
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sea sharks, and then the next thing I know you're doing white sharks. It's like, my
404
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God, you're doing white sharks now? One thing
405
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just leads to another. Well,
406
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you know, I don't know if you know this or not, but I know I've
407
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talked to a few other people, but my first paper was on the age
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and growth of the white shark when I was a grad student. That was my first
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papers on white shark and Lisa Natanson as well. We're both
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cohorts there. So I went the opposite way. I did white sharks, then
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I went off and did all these other cool sharks. You did all these other really cool
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There's some to be said for timing. Timing influences careers
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But I love that it is so true what you were just saying about how small
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the field is. I don't think I fully appreciated that
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when I was getting into this world. I remember reading
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papers and seeing the same names over and over again. But I was like, oh, these
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are super productive scientists. And they totally were.
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But then you get into the field and you're like, wow, it is tiny,
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which is wonderful in so many ways because you have these
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awesome relationships with people throughout your career. and
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they build in and add to your work in different ways along
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the way. But it's also kind of a, it's a blessing and a curse situation, because
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then they've seen you go through all your phases, you know, you start grad school,
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usually, you know, when you're pretty young, and you're still like, you know, figuring
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yourself out. And so all those things, you know, it's kind of like this big
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shark family. But you know, they remember those things, they
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Well, I remember, well, the other thing I'll share too is when it is
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that after you first came out there and you met, obviously you and I met and
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then you met, met with Greg and as your hair was red, I
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think you mentioned at the time. And I just remember like after you left the office there,
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Greg looks at me and he goes, red hair. And I'm like, don't worry, she'll be
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great, Greg. She'll be awesome and stuff. He was just like, I
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say red hair. It was like, it wasn't a red head. It was like red hair.
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And he had a, it was always, I mean, I, it was great having a
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lab. Cause I never knew like from, you know, week to week, whatever month,
436
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the month, what color hair you'd show up with and stuff. And, Being
437
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from California, I'm just kind of used to it. It's like, oh, we got the Rainbow Coalition going
438
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here with Megan. It was
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my rainbow bright face.
440
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Absolutely. In fact, I think you were there at least a year, year and a half.
441
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I remember one day at one of our meetings, I just said, what color is
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your hair really? Because I had no idea what color your
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hair was.
444
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, so so you went out so you went out to
445
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Well, I think one of the things I wanted to add into is like now part
446
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of when you're working with me I had you go back to
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work with Lisa Natanson in Rhode Island to
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work on age aging and aging and aging vertebrae really because
449
00:28:30,802 --> 00:28:34,024
Lisa was really like the Goddess queen of aging at
450
00:28:34,064 --> 00:28:38,287
that point in time. Yeah, she was the go-to person And
451
00:28:38,368 --> 00:28:41,572
so once you pick up how that helped that kind of led to your
452
00:28:44,473 --> 00:28:47,795
Yeah, I mean, that was such a great experience. And I think back
453
00:28:47,875 --> 00:28:51,456
on that, and I'm like, what an amazing human Lisa is
454
00:28:51,556 --> 00:28:55,357
to just, I mean, it wasn't just Kelsey and I, before
455
00:28:55,538 --> 00:28:58,799
us, it was Jasmine and Shara, who she just,
456
00:28:59,379 --> 00:29:02,800
she had never met us. She just let us come in and invade her home
457
00:29:07,276 --> 00:29:10,797
At her house. I mean, how incredible. I honestly, I
458
00:29:10,817 --> 00:29:14,539
didn't think I would do that. I'd be like, I need
459
00:29:14,559 --> 00:29:18,586
a break from you guys at the end of the day. Go! She
460
00:29:18,626 --> 00:29:21,788
was so awesome and we learned so much from her
461
00:29:21,928 --> 00:29:25,790
and she just is such a meticulous phenomenally
462
00:29:26,191 --> 00:29:29,472
Productive scientist that it was I learned
463
00:29:29,533 --> 00:29:33,875
so much from her in those those three weeks And
464
00:29:33,975 --> 00:29:37,257
I felt so fortunate to have that opportunity Yeah, well you
465
00:29:37,277 --> 00:29:40,639
mentioned to like you when you went back there when it's had you go back you went back with
466
00:29:43,218 --> 00:29:46,379
And she went on and became a student of Lisa's. So
467
00:29:46,439 --> 00:29:49,861
both of you ended up going on and doing your PhD in New England
468
00:29:50,201 --> 00:29:53,622
kind of after going and spending three weeks with Lisa. So
469
00:29:54,723 --> 00:29:58,004
I looked at that as a positive and kind of coming out
470
00:29:58,024 --> 00:30:01,446
of it really having two students. And you came, you both, you came on after
471
00:30:01,546 --> 00:30:05,507
Shara Ainsley and Jasmine Maurer
472
00:30:05,547 --> 00:30:08,909
went back there. And Lisa actually moved, I think partly moved to,
473
00:30:08,929 --> 00:30:13,299
eventually moved, retired, moved to Alaska because Jasmine
474
00:30:13,319 --> 00:30:16,421
because she lives down the street from Jasmine now, so it's kind of
475
00:30:16,441 --> 00:30:19,584
an interesting I've kind of saying all this just so everybody understands kind of the
476
00:30:20,184 --> 00:30:23,327
web of this whole once you get in the shark world here It's kind of like a
477
00:30:23,907 --> 00:30:27,270
it's like a web you just kind of get entangled in there and as I say everybody knows
478
00:30:27,350 --> 00:30:31,573
everybody and you never know what connections might lead to something something
479
00:30:31,613 --> 00:30:34,755
good like a PhD program or or
480
00:30:46,580 --> 00:30:50,845
When we went to Lisa's, I think it was February, and
481
00:30:50,885 --> 00:30:54,588
there was a snowstorm and she was away. She'd gone to Sable Island
482
00:30:54,608 --> 00:30:58,412
to go on some awesome Lisa adventure. And she
483
00:30:58,452 --> 00:31:01,576
was like, OK, clear the snow. And, you know, and
484
00:31:01,596 --> 00:31:05,120
we were like, OK. And we went out and she's from California, born
485
00:31:05,180 --> 00:31:08,404
and raised, is back there now. And her and I, we did what we
486
00:31:08,424 --> 00:31:12,109
thought was shoveling. And we were like, good job. Let's go play in the snow. Let's
487
00:31:12,149 --> 00:31:15,633
go sit on this frozen lake. And then Lisa gets back and
488
00:31:15,853 --> 00:31:19,301
she's like, what is this? And we were like, what, what?
489
00:31:19,401 --> 00:31:23,064
We cleared the snow. And she was like, no. She was like, it's all frozen now.
490
00:31:23,485 --> 00:31:28,008
This is terrible. And we were like, what? We
491
00:31:28,028 --> 00:31:31,431
just had no idea. And that was a
492
00:31:31,491 --> 00:31:36,475
moment of a little bit of tension, but she forgave us for it. I
493
00:31:37,615 --> 00:31:40,917
was like, I'm so sorry, I'm from Florida, but when
494
00:31:41,157 --> 00:31:44,780
I decided to get into this field, I honestly thought
495
00:31:45,140 --> 00:31:48,882
at this point in my life I'd be living on a tropical island, probably scuba
496
00:31:48,902 --> 00:31:52,278
diving. And I
497
00:31:52,318 --> 00:31:56,501
have to seem somehow to move progressively further and further north,
498
00:31:58,322 --> 00:32:01,504
which is fine. But this winter was great. I got to
499
00:32:01,544 --> 00:32:04,706
spend a lot of time down south doing some
500
00:32:04,726 --> 00:32:08,949
field work down there, which was good. Nice, nice. that
501
00:32:08,969 --> 00:32:12,152
I was going to end up in Massachusetts, I would have thought you were
502
00:32:12,192 --> 00:32:15,676
crazy. If you had told me I was going to end up in Massachusetts studying white sharks,
503
00:32:15,836 --> 00:32:19,119
I would have thought you were out of your mind. I would have been like, no, I
504
00:32:19,139 --> 00:32:22,563
got to go to California or South Africa or Australia if
505
00:32:25,565 --> 00:32:29,029
What did you think you were going to study after all the schooling and everything?
506
00:32:29,688 --> 00:32:32,890
You know, I think for a while there, I thought I was going to become a
507
00:32:32,930 --> 00:32:36,471
stock assessment scientist. And I still love that side
508
00:32:36,511 --> 00:32:39,793
of the work. But one thing I really love about my
509
00:32:39,853 --> 00:32:43,295
job is I get to do the quantitative work, but I also still
510
00:32:43,315 --> 00:32:46,496
get to study these animals and learn about their
511
00:32:46,536 --> 00:32:49,958
biology and think about their behavior. So I get to put all these things
512
00:32:50,018 --> 00:32:53,200
together in my role now, where a lot
513
00:32:53,220 --> 00:32:56,421
of times the further along you go, the more focused you
514
00:32:56,501 --> 00:32:59,744
have to become. And I feel really lucky that I still
515
00:32:59,784 --> 00:33:02,947
get to ask all these sorts of questions. And
516
00:33:02,987 --> 00:33:07,050
it's really kind of a crazy situation to be
517
00:33:07,070 --> 00:33:10,734
in as somebody who grew up as kind of a fish scientist in
518
00:33:10,794 --> 00:33:14,337
general, because we kind of know these
519
00:33:14,457 --> 00:33:17,900
individuals at this point, because so many of these white sharks are coming back
520
00:33:17,940 --> 00:33:21,603
to Cape Cod year after year. we actually maintained the
521
00:33:21,643 --> 00:33:24,926
white shark catalog for the Northwest Atlantic at
522
00:33:24,966 --> 00:33:28,348
the Conservancy. And we started that work as part of this this
523
00:33:28,408 --> 00:33:32,411
big photographic mark recapture study that Greg
524
00:33:32,431 --> 00:33:36,594
Skomal and John Chisholm started back in
525
00:33:36,754 --> 00:33:40,096
2014 as Cape Cod was just emerging as this white shark hotspot. But
526
00:33:40,116 --> 00:33:43,359
so it's wild to me that now we have sharks that come back year
527
00:33:43,479 --> 00:33:46,881
after year and we're able to follow the same individual over
528
00:33:46,921 --> 00:33:50,293
time, not just with tagging technology, but also
529
00:33:50,554 --> 00:33:53,877
visually and we're able to get observations of them,
530
00:33:53,897 --> 00:33:57,320
you know, learn more about how they grow, you know,
531
00:33:57,400 --> 00:34:01,283
or how slowly they grow or appear not to grow at all, based
532
00:34:01,363 --> 00:34:05,026
on what we've seen there, but we're learning more about, you
533
00:34:05,066 --> 00:34:08,449
know, different sorts of injuries and
534
00:34:08,489 --> 00:34:11,850
maybe threats to the population that we weren't really aware of. Something we've
535
00:34:11,890 --> 00:34:15,072
gotten a big appreciation for over the past couple of years is
536
00:34:15,112 --> 00:34:18,414
the number of white sharks that we observe that have evidence of
537
00:34:18,454 --> 00:34:21,496
boat strike wounds, which, you know, isn't really on a lot of
538
00:34:21,556 --> 00:34:24,817
people's radars in terms of what might be an issue for
539
00:34:25,158 --> 00:34:28,940
white sharks right now. But it's been, I mean, it's just been, basically,
540
00:34:28,960 --> 00:34:32,362
I just have been kind of, I don't want to say holding on
541
00:34:32,402 --> 00:34:35,684
for dear life, but it has been quite a ride ever since
542
00:34:35,744 --> 00:34:38,927
I started my PhD because I just arrived on
543
00:34:38,987 --> 00:34:42,370
the scene right as all of this was unfolding off
544
00:34:42,390 --> 00:34:46,333
the coast of Cape Cod. And now we are seeing
545
00:34:46,874 --> 00:34:50,017
increases in white sharks up and down the east coast of the US.
546
00:34:50,057 --> 00:34:53,540
So folks are seeing them in Canada. We're working with a lot of awesome scientists in
547
00:34:53,580 --> 00:34:57,222
Canada down in Florida, Gulf of Mexico. We
548
00:34:57,242 --> 00:35:00,944
work with a charter captain out of South Carolina who has figured
549
00:35:01,004 --> 00:35:04,466
sharks out down there and it's been such a privilege to
550
00:35:04,506 --> 00:35:07,727
work with him. Yeah, I got to do a couple trips with him this
551
00:35:07,787 --> 00:35:11,239
winter and we tagged one big, big
552
00:35:11,319 --> 00:35:14,803
female white shark in December. Her nickname is Lee Beth. And
553
00:35:15,023 --> 00:35:18,106
she went all the way to Mexico. She got a spot tag. She got the
554
00:35:18,146 --> 00:35:21,309
first camera tag in the southeast. Wow. She's been all over
555
00:35:21,349 --> 00:35:25,213
the place. And she just recently pinged in off Cape Cod. And
556
00:35:25,373 --> 00:35:28,697
I texted, his name is Chip Michaelove. And I was like, she's coming to see me.
557
00:35:29,377 --> 00:35:32,960
And then she veered off and it looks like she was on a trajectory for
558
00:35:33,000 --> 00:35:36,343
Nova Scotia. But some of these things are just like
559
00:35:36,583 --> 00:35:39,866
unfolding at such a crazy pace. And it's just been a
560
00:35:39,926 --> 00:35:43,589
joy to be a part of the ride. And like last summer, we went to Long
561
00:35:43,689 --> 00:35:46,951
Island to work with Toby Curtis and Greg Metzger and
562
00:35:46,991 --> 00:35:50,474
Harley Newton, who have been studying the White Shark Nursery
563
00:35:50,554 --> 00:35:53,844
site there. for years and to me to go
564
00:35:53,884 --> 00:35:57,167
there it was I'm a big shark science history buff
565
00:35:57,207 --> 00:36:00,610
too I love all the old literature and stories and
566
00:36:01,151 --> 00:36:05,015
for those of you who might not be aware that area
567
00:36:05,135 --> 00:36:09,078
off of Long Island in northern New Jersey was documented as
568
00:36:09,579 --> 00:36:13,382
as a nursery site for white sharks back
569
00:36:13,462 --> 00:36:16,844
in the first paper that came out on it was in the 1980s by Jack Casey
570
00:36:16,884 --> 00:36:20,106
and Wes Pratt. And so to get to be a part of kind
571
00:36:20,126 --> 00:36:23,308
of that scientific history that, I
572
00:36:23,348 --> 00:36:26,690
mean, I just like, I can't even explain how much it
573
00:36:26,950 --> 00:36:31,453
means to me. And when I was just on a family
574
00:36:31,513 --> 00:36:34,695
reunion and talking to my niece and nephew who are about the
575
00:36:34,795 --> 00:36:37,937
age I was when I got interested in all this, they were, one
576
00:36:37,977 --> 00:36:41,298
of them said to me, they were like, I can't believe that you like actually
577
00:36:41,338 --> 00:36:44,539
grew up what you to be what you wanted to be. And it kind
578
00:36:44,559 --> 00:36:48,620
of made me think about it, because you can get so focused on the work sometimes
579
00:36:48,660 --> 00:36:52,120
that you almost can forget that that
580
00:36:52,180 --> 00:36:55,661
road to how you got here. So it's it's just like
581
00:36:55,701 --> 00:36:58,881
I said earlier, it's such a privilege to be able to do this and be a
582
00:37:01,422 --> 00:37:04,722
You know, it's interesting, Megan, you started up there to
583
00:37:04,822 --> 00:37:08,523
kind of like you said, they were kind of the right time where the white shark population seems
584
00:37:08,563 --> 00:37:11,804
to be increasing and do you think it's increasing or
585
00:37:14,024 --> 00:37:17,405
It's such a great question. It's definitely a little bit of both
586
00:37:18,105 --> 00:37:21,486
because anytime somebody sees a white shark they're
587
00:37:21,506 --> 00:37:25,026
going to take a video of it or a picture of it with their camera because everybody's got
588
00:37:25,046 --> 00:37:28,887
a phone at all times now and then they're going to post it to social media
589
00:37:28,987 --> 00:37:32,448
and it's going to go wild and we're going to hear about it But
590
00:37:32,588 --> 00:37:36,190
at this point, they've had decades of protections and
591
00:37:36,791 --> 00:37:40,153
those management measures that were put into place in the 90s do seem
592
00:37:40,193 --> 00:37:43,455
to be bearing fruit. It also has to do with management measures that
593
00:37:43,495 --> 00:37:47,177
were put into place for seals and other marine mammals because off
594
00:37:47,217 --> 00:37:51,199
of the Cape, seals
595
00:37:51,239 --> 00:37:54,641
never used to be a thing. When you talk to people who lived on
596
00:37:54,681 --> 00:37:57,942
Cape Cod in the 1980s and 90s, like they would
597
00:37:57,982 --> 00:38:01,164
go to the beach, they would never see a seal. Sharks were not on
598
00:38:01,184 --> 00:38:04,625
their mind at all. And then the gray seal
599
00:38:04,665 --> 00:38:07,826
population started to make a recovery. And
600
00:38:07,906 --> 00:38:11,127
now you have a hard time, you know, if you go to the beach on Cape Cod, you
601
00:38:11,147 --> 00:38:14,388
have a hard time not seeing a seal. And so it's been
602
00:38:14,408 --> 00:38:17,810
a period of really rapid change for the community. So it's
603
00:38:17,990 --> 00:38:21,412
one part the food source is back, and
604
00:38:21,432 --> 00:38:24,634
the sharks are coming here to take advantage of that, but there
605
00:38:24,674 --> 00:38:28,037
are also really strong indications that the white shark
606
00:38:28,057 --> 00:38:31,419
population itself is making a comeback, even though we don't have
607
00:38:31,559 --> 00:38:34,842
great historical data for them. That's
608
00:38:36,463 --> 00:38:39,665
Do you keep, do you correspond, because we're seeing the same thing
609
00:38:39,705 --> 00:38:42,788
here in California, where the white shark population just seems to be
610
00:38:42,848 --> 00:38:46,270
exploding, and I've been doing a lot of media lately,
611
00:38:46,290 --> 00:38:49,717
because we see all these sharks here, white sharks, in
612
00:38:50,037 --> 00:38:53,819
Monterey Bay and which they weren't. Well,
613
00:38:54,060 --> 00:38:57,341
the larger ones have been around, but those small ones we're seeing now, those were
614
00:38:57,381 --> 00:39:01,003
not around back when you were a grad student or whatever, 12, 15 years
615
00:39:01,063 --> 00:39:05,806
ago. They were not around then, but since 2014, they've
616
00:39:05,846 --> 00:39:09,928
just, they've just exploded out here. And,
617
00:39:10,248 --> 00:39:13,390
um, I mean, I, there've been, you've probably picked up in the news. They've
618
00:39:13,410 --> 00:39:16,812
been, you know, the guys will go up and I've been up in the helicopter too. You get tired.
619
00:39:17,303 --> 00:39:20,785
You literally get tired of counting them. You get up to, I get up to like 40 and
620
00:39:20,805 --> 00:39:24,087
I just stopped counting. There's just so many and they're all like six, eight
621
00:39:24,147 --> 00:39:27,489
foot and they're right off popular beaches. They're like literally
622
00:39:27,549 --> 00:39:31,031
in back of the surf break. You see, you know, people laying on the beach, people
623
00:39:31,071 --> 00:39:34,253
playing in the surf, boogie boarding, and they don't realize there's like
624
00:39:34,273 --> 00:39:38,215
a half a dozen white sharks, like, you know, less than a hundred meters from them. Um,
625
00:39:38,235 --> 00:39:41,377
just in back of the surf break. And I, have you, have you, do
626
00:39:41,397 --> 00:39:44,698
you, of course, do you guys keep in touch with like Chris Lowe and some of the guys doing
627
00:39:44,738 --> 00:39:48,083
stuff here to kind of compare the two coasts, what's going
628
00:39:48,703 --> 00:39:52,146
Yes, definitely. So there was a White
629
00:39:52,166 --> 00:39:55,469
Sharks Global Conference in November in Australia, and a lot
630
00:39:55,489 --> 00:39:59,372
of folks were there. Chris Lowe's whole group was there, but we definitely
631
00:39:59,392 --> 00:40:02,675
are all chatting as much as we can. The hard
632
00:40:02,695 --> 00:40:06,178
thing about it is In all these areas, it's very
633
00:40:06,278 --> 00:40:09,641
few people who are focused on studying that species and
634
00:40:09,782 --> 00:40:13,345
everybody's super busy. But we're always, you know, making
635
00:40:13,405 --> 00:40:16,669
comparisons, seeing what works for different groups and
636
00:40:16,729 --> 00:40:19,912
what hasn't worked. Chris Lowe's group has been great for kind
637
00:40:19,932 --> 00:40:23,315
of setting the standard on how to provide information to the public at
638
00:40:23,355 --> 00:40:26,777
the beaches. So they've got their shark smart booths and
639
00:40:26,917 --> 00:40:30,577
we now do the same on Cape Cod just to be there to provide information
640
00:40:30,637 --> 00:40:34,178
to the public. Because like you mentioned, a lot of folks have
641
00:40:34,258 --> 00:40:38,159
no idea they're going to a beach and there could be all these sharks right
642
00:40:38,199 --> 00:40:41,440
off the shore. We have this happen all the time off Cape Cod. We'll go to the beach,
643
00:40:41,480 --> 00:40:44,721
we'll be flying a drought or doing some kind of research or
644
00:40:45,061 --> 00:40:48,442
manning one of our shark smart booths. And we'll have people
645
00:40:48,482 --> 00:40:51,783
come up to us and they'll be like, oh, we know they're here. We've heard about it on the news, but
646
00:40:51,803 --> 00:40:55,304
they're like way offshore. White sharks don't come this close to shore, right? And
647
00:40:55,324 --> 00:40:59,066
we're like, no, no, they hunt for seals right off the beaches. And
648
00:40:59,146 --> 00:41:02,827
it always blows their mind. I have to say, Dave, I
649
00:41:03,148 --> 00:41:06,409
feel a little left out of the Central California white
650
00:41:06,429 --> 00:41:09,650
shark scene right now because Aptos, that was
651
00:41:09,690 --> 00:41:12,871
my neighborhood where people are seeing all these white sharks. Like
652
00:41:12,891 --> 00:41:16,314
that was where I would go. running down that beach
653
00:41:16,434 --> 00:41:20,599
and sit on that cliff every evening.
654
00:41:20,799 --> 00:41:24,003
And I just, I'm like, I can't believe I'm missing it. In a lot of
655
00:41:24,023 --> 00:41:27,587
ways, I almost feel like I was fated to study white sharks because
656
00:41:27,627 --> 00:41:31,031
I grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, had no
657
00:41:31,171 --> 00:41:34,534
idea that they were there in the winter.
658
00:41:36,477 --> 00:41:39,861
moved to Panama City after college. Now there
659
00:41:39,901 --> 00:41:43,125
are a lot of land-based guys catching sharks there. We're learning more about
660
00:41:43,165 --> 00:41:46,429
how important the Gulf of Mexico is to them
661
00:41:46,489 --> 00:41:49,713
as part of their overwintering range through a lot of the tagging work that's been done,
662
00:41:49,753 --> 00:41:53,177
but also thanks to citizen scientists who are tagging us
663
00:41:53,237 --> 00:41:57,710
in posts when they see them and sending us information. So,
664
00:41:57,830 --> 00:42:01,331
you know, Panama City, they were swimming right past me there. Aptos,
665
00:42:01,672 --> 00:42:05,613
Central California, I knew was a white shark hotspot.
666
00:42:05,973 --> 00:42:10,014
And I thought I'd see one when I was there. But all I ever saw was a bitten elephant
667
00:42:10,074 --> 00:42:13,975
seal. Um, but you know, they were there now Massachusetts,
668
00:42:13,995 --> 00:42:17,236
but like, it's all been so full circle, in a way, so
669
00:42:17,496 --> 00:42:20,617
much so that one of the PSATs, one of
670
00:42:20,657 --> 00:42:23,998
the satellite tags that the charter captain we work with
671
00:42:24,098 --> 00:42:27,475
in South Carolina put out on a shark came up, washed up
672
00:42:27,555 --> 00:42:31,336
on a beach right by near where my parents live. I
673
00:42:31,377 --> 00:42:34,717
called them and I said, hey, would you guys possibly want to go
674
00:42:35,338 --> 00:42:38,699
pick that tag up off the beach to see if you could find it? If you do, it's huge
675
00:42:38,739 --> 00:42:42,000
for us. And they were like, oh yeah, we're right across the street eating lunch. And they
676
00:42:42,100 --> 00:42:45,561
ran out of the door, ran down to the beach, and
677
00:42:45,601 --> 00:42:49,001
they searched around. I coached them through it on FaceTime. And my mom
678
00:42:49,021 --> 00:42:52,522
and my sister found that tag. And it was such a
679
00:42:52,563 --> 00:42:55,824
full circle moment. Every once in a while, it
680
00:42:55,864 --> 00:42:59,385
takes a lot of hard work and dedication and stubbornness, but every once
681
00:42:59,425 --> 00:43:03,887
in a while you have those moments where
682
00:43:06,007 --> 00:43:10,009
Speaking of Florida and sharks, have you heard a lot from
683
00:43:10,069 --> 00:43:13,150
people in Florida about what's happening up in the
684
00:43:13,210 --> 00:43:17,692
Destin area these days? Has that been a big talk
685
00:43:21,588 --> 00:43:27,191
I was on vacation last week. We
686
00:43:27,471 --> 00:43:30,973
did talk about it at the
687
00:43:31,013 --> 00:43:34,135
family reunion. I was getting a lot of questions from my family. And
688
00:43:34,155 --> 00:43:37,377
they were like, is it safe to go in the water? And I was like, yeah,
689
00:43:37,397 --> 00:43:40,579
let's go boogie boarding. And they were like, well, Megan's in the water. She'll tell us when the
690
00:43:40,599 --> 00:43:43,880
shark is coming. And I was like, that's not how it works, you guys. But I
691
00:43:43,961 --> 00:43:47,102
appreciate the vote of confidence. I was like, they're there. Just so you
692
00:43:52,216 --> 00:43:55,398
Did you find like, did you find like the more you got to know
693
00:43:55,459 --> 00:43:59,722
about sharks, particularly white sharks, there was a point where like, to
694
00:43:59,822 --> 00:44:03,025
use a cliche, it's like ignorance is bliss. Like when you didn't know so much, it's
695
00:44:03,045 --> 00:44:06,267
like, oh, I'm just gonna go splash in the water. And then now that you kind of know it's
696
00:44:06,428 --> 00:44:09,670
out there, you're like, oh, I think I'll hang in the beach here.
697
00:44:09,690 --> 00:44:12,933
Do you ever have those moments where you think like, yeah, there's a lot more sharks out there
698
00:44:15,753 --> 00:44:19,215
A little bit, but I have also
699
00:44:19,315 --> 00:44:22,716
seen so many sharks in areas where
700
00:44:22,756 --> 00:44:28,559
there are people where they have absolutely no response that
701
00:44:28,919 --> 00:44:32,581
it's comforting in a way. Now we're using all these new exciting
702
00:44:32,641 --> 00:44:35,862
technologies to study sharks. We're using drones. like
703
00:44:36,002 --> 00:44:39,085
Chris Lowe's group is, like, you know, people all up
704
00:44:39,125 --> 00:44:42,368
and down both coasts are doing. We also, we
705
00:44:42,388 --> 00:44:45,650
work with a spotter pilot who flies around, and just so everybody knows, when
706
00:44:45,671 --> 00:44:49,193
we do spot a shark, we have a whole system in place for reporting
707
00:44:49,654 --> 00:44:53,057
in and for the lifeguards to get people out of the water, and we monitor that
708
00:44:53,117 --> 00:44:56,500
situation. But the more you learn about them,
709
00:44:56,760 --> 00:45:00,123
like, I don't like to discredit them, they are
710
00:45:00,223 --> 00:45:03,587
amazing predators but they really they're just big fish
711
00:45:03,767 --> 00:45:07,191
that are out there looking for their natural prey items
712
00:45:07,451 --> 00:45:11,155
and we've been using these camera tags on
713
00:45:11,195 --> 00:45:14,299
white sharks off of Cape Cod for the past couple of years and
714
00:45:14,359 --> 00:45:17,962
some of the things we've seen like it would really hurt their fearsome
715
00:45:18,002 --> 00:45:21,224
reputation. We see them get scared by birds. We've seen one get
716
00:45:21,284 --> 00:45:25,807
shocked by a torpedo ray. We've seen one eat,
717
00:45:25,907 --> 00:45:29,149
or we put one, Greg put one on a shark right after she ate. We
718
00:45:29,189 --> 00:45:33,192
could see the seal intestine streaming out of her gill slit. And
719
00:45:33,232 --> 00:45:36,814
the whole point of the study when we started it was to learn
720
00:45:36,834 --> 00:45:40,092
more about their predatory behavior there. And we were like, oh,
721
00:45:40,192 --> 00:45:43,534
great. She just ate. We're not going to see anything cool.
722
00:45:43,554 --> 00:45:46,676
But then she went offshore and she just sat on the bottom, face into the
723
00:45:46,716 --> 00:45:49,858
current. And I freaked out and ran into Greg's office. And
724
00:45:49,898 --> 00:45:54,942
I was like, this thing is just sitting on the bottom there. She's
725
00:45:55,002 --> 00:45:58,264
not swimming right now. And so some of the
726
00:45:58,364 --> 00:46:01,546
insights and the glimpses into their
727
00:46:01,586 --> 00:46:04,809
lives that we've been able to get with this technology I think
728
00:46:04,949 --> 00:46:08,153
really goes against a lot of the public perception that's
729
00:46:08,353 --> 00:46:11,577
out there. And honestly, one, if I could do anything for
730
00:46:11,617 --> 00:46:15,182
shark conservation, I think I would take everybody cage diving, or
731
00:46:15,202 --> 00:46:18,286
I guess white shark conservation in particular, because you don't need a
732
00:46:18,346 --> 00:46:21,790
cage for all species. They're
733
00:46:21,870 --> 00:46:25,751
fine. But, you
734
00:46:25,791 --> 00:46:29,952
know, it's just so different than the way you see it depicted on TV.
735
00:46:30,232 --> 00:46:33,673
And it's, you know, just such a such a neat experience. And
736
00:46:33,693 --> 00:46:36,994
I wish I mean, that's a big part of I think the onus
737
00:46:37,014 --> 00:46:40,134
that's on us as scientists is we get to see these animals and
738
00:46:40,174 --> 00:46:43,435
learn about them in a way most people don't. So, right. You
739
00:46:43,475 --> 00:46:46,756
know, scientists were not always like science communication for me was
740
00:46:46,836 --> 00:46:50,097
not always very comfortable. Like I would get super nervous and
741
00:46:50,117 --> 00:46:53,518
I didn't want to speak You know out or do public talks and
742
00:46:53,558 --> 00:46:58,639
now look at me. You can't shut me up It's
743
00:46:58,759 --> 00:47:02,060
really Important that we impart that
744
00:47:02,140 --> 00:47:05,561
knowledge Yeah, you know in addition to learning
745
00:47:05,601 --> 00:47:09,543
about them from a scientific perspective and providing advice to fisheries managers
746
00:47:09,783 --> 00:47:14,485
and things like that but Because
747
00:47:14,505 --> 00:47:17,790
of that, we really need to share it
748
00:47:17,930 --> 00:47:21,115
with folks and combat some of those misperceptions that
749
00:47:21,676 --> 00:47:24,800
Yeah. And I think the interesting part of it all is
750
00:47:24,860 --> 00:47:28,646
the fact that as you start to monitor specific
751
00:47:28,706 --> 00:47:32,070
sharks and you get to know the sharks a little bit, their character kind
752
00:47:32,110 --> 00:47:35,552
of comes out. You can almost tell. And we've heard this with
753
00:47:36,052 --> 00:47:39,634
other scientists when they observe the white
754
00:47:39,674 --> 00:47:42,996
sharks in South Africa. When they see them enough, and
755
00:47:43,016 --> 00:47:46,818
they keep coming up, and they know who they are based on identifiable
756
00:47:46,918 --> 00:47:50,120
marks, they start to see the character come out. And when you start to
757
00:47:50,140 --> 00:47:53,384
see that character come out, gives them a little bit
758
00:47:53,424 --> 00:47:57,125
of that fun kind of, oh, there this one is doing, she's
759
00:47:57,166 --> 00:48:00,327
up to no good now, or what's she up to, or she's really curious, she's
760
00:48:00,347 --> 00:48:03,689
going to come close, or he's going to come close, or one's
761
00:48:03,709 --> 00:48:06,771
going to stay really far away because they're not too sure of us. And I
762
00:48:06,791 --> 00:48:10,468
think it's interesting when you start to You
763
00:48:10,488 --> 00:48:13,631
start to recognize them over and over again, and you see
764
00:48:13,671 --> 00:48:16,854
them individuals, and you get that character. It
765
00:48:16,954 --> 00:48:20,076
makes it easier to talk about them, because you're talking about them as
766
00:48:20,116 --> 00:48:23,780
if you know them really well. Because you do, because you've seen them. And
767
00:48:23,820 --> 00:48:27,663
so when the stories come out about those, I think that becomes
768
00:48:27,903 --> 00:48:31,125
more interesting. to people, because now we're kind of,
769
00:48:31,465 --> 00:48:34,847
I know in a way we're kind of humanizing them a little bit, but it's like, oh no, they have
770
00:48:34,887 --> 00:48:38,748
these little flaws, or they're not, they're kind
771
00:48:38,768 --> 00:48:42,130
of funny in a way, in the way they react, or the way they come and
772
00:48:42,150 --> 00:48:45,451
do the same routines and stuff. I think it makes it interesting, makes
773
00:48:45,511 --> 00:48:48,673
a dangerous animal a little bit more friendlier when you
774
00:48:52,575 --> 00:48:56,078
I was very resistant to that at first because my
775
00:48:56,278 --> 00:48:59,602
upbringing was like, nope, we're not going to nickname these things. Like,
776
00:48:59,662 --> 00:49:03,385
that's what American people do. We're shark people. We don't do
777
00:49:03,445 --> 00:49:06,809
that kind of thing. But then once we started the
778
00:49:06,869 --> 00:49:10,212
catalog and started identifying different individuals and
779
00:49:10,232 --> 00:49:15,007
we got to a certain point and it was like, like WS
780
00:49:15,187 --> 00:49:18,349
101, like that's not going to stick in my mind. So when
781
00:49:18,389 --> 00:49:21,851
we switched to nicknames, it made it so much easier to
782
00:49:21,911 --> 00:49:25,674
just remember. But it also has that impact. It's
783
00:49:25,774 --> 00:49:28,916
much more impactful for the general public because we have
784
00:49:28,956 --> 00:49:32,778
people ask us about specific sharks. year to year. Like
785
00:49:32,798 --> 00:49:36,340
has James showed up? When's the last time you heard from Jameson,
786
00:49:36,360 --> 00:49:40,882
who was this little shark that stranded on the beach and lived?
787
00:49:41,122 --> 00:49:44,344
So it's a really great way, even though it
788
00:49:44,384 --> 00:49:47,666
might raise some eyebrows, but it's a great way
789
00:49:47,686 --> 00:49:51,288
to get the public engaged with the work and
790
00:49:51,328 --> 00:49:54,990
get them curious about it. And different sharks definitely have different vibes.
791
00:49:55,050 --> 00:49:59,532
I won't use the P word, but they
792
00:49:59,552 --> 00:50:03,453
definitely have different vibes. And it's one
793
00:50:03,533 --> 00:50:06,914
thing that I just, I love so much about being a scientist is
794
00:50:06,954 --> 00:50:11,296
that for every question we answer, like 55 more
795
00:50:11,356 --> 00:50:15,177
questions pop up. And the more we learn and try to characterize
796
00:50:15,517 --> 00:50:19,099
the white shark population in the Northwest Atlantic, the more individuals that
797
00:50:19,699 --> 00:50:22,880
Greg tags, and the more we kind of get a peek into their lives, the
798
00:50:22,920 --> 00:50:26,541
more we realize how much individual variation there
799
00:50:26,821 --> 00:50:30,143
is, which is very different, I think, for people to
800
00:50:30,203 --> 00:50:33,585
think about for a fish. People are comfortable thinking that
801
00:50:33,645 --> 00:50:37,487
way for mammals. You know, a lot of people have dogs or cats, but
802
00:50:37,547 --> 00:50:40,869
we don't tend to think about fish the same kind
803
00:50:44,351 --> 00:50:47,832
Have you noticed any of the sharks like tend to They'll,
804
00:50:47,892 --> 00:50:51,415
they'll stay, certain individuals will kind of hang together.
805
00:50:51,435 --> 00:50:54,838
I don't want to say they don't necessarily school, but they'll kind of hang together.
806
00:50:58,181 --> 00:51:01,785
We'll do see, we will see like pulses of activity where
807
00:51:01,885 --> 00:51:05,668
our spotter pilot will have like eight sharks in the vicinity for
808
00:51:05,708 --> 00:51:09,606
a while. And then all of a sudden it's like poof. They're gone. And
809
00:51:09,646 --> 00:51:13,168
we don't know why. We don't know if it's always the same individuals.
810
00:51:13,208 --> 00:51:16,450
But one thing that I've gotten very curious about as as
811
00:51:16,570 --> 00:51:19,852
part of that photo ID work is we
812
00:51:19,912 --> 00:51:23,294
have some individuals that look so much alike. Their markings are
813
00:51:23,334 --> 00:51:26,516
very similar. There was one shark that we thought we had
814
00:51:26,536 --> 00:51:29,597
made a match. and then we realized one was a male and one was a
815
00:51:29,657 --> 00:51:33,139
female. And we were like, oh, they have to be related. So
816
00:51:33,179 --> 00:51:37,381
now we've got this kind of, we call it the sibling conspiracy board
817
00:51:38,522 --> 00:51:41,944
that we were like, this white shark I think is related to this one.
818
00:51:42,464 --> 00:51:46,006
And one thing we're trying to ramp up is our genetic sampling
819
00:51:46,026 --> 00:51:49,848
so we can start to look at these things. Because
820
00:51:50,349 --> 00:51:53,870
like, I mean, it's just some of the markings on them are so similar.
821
00:52:00,014 --> 00:52:03,276
Yeah, and then talking with folks at White Sharks Global, the folks who are doing
822
00:52:03,296 --> 00:52:06,738
the genetics work in Australia and some of these other places,
823
00:52:06,798 --> 00:52:10,461
they found they're like, essentially, the white shark populations there
824
00:52:10,501 --> 00:52:14,083
decline so much that they're all just kind of inbred. Not my,
825
00:52:17,165 --> 00:52:21,147
But it made me curious having seen so many sharks with similar markings, we
826
00:52:21,187 --> 00:52:24,610
know based on the timeline of declines of protections and
827
00:52:24,650 --> 00:52:28,433
the fact that at least right now we think that females
828
00:52:28,453 --> 00:52:31,855
don't start reproducing until they're in their 30s and
829
00:52:31,875 --> 00:52:35,298
they're 15 feet long. I don't know if you guys heard about the shark that
830
00:52:35,318 --> 00:52:39,141
washed up on the beach in Pensacola this winter, dead.
831
00:52:39,241 --> 00:52:42,583
It was 15 feet long female shark, not
832
00:52:42,623 --> 00:52:45,986
mature, not mature at that size.
833
00:52:46,006 --> 00:52:49,488
So they take so long to reproduce and that population was
834
00:52:49,568 --> 00:52:53,011
knocked down. you know, by all the, by all accounts pretty
835
00:52:53,071 --> 00:52:56,273
severely. So they're likely for a while haven't been that many
836
00:52:56,333 --> 00:53:00,155
reproductively productive females out
837
00:53:00,216 --> 00:53:03,538
there. So it makes sense, but we just, we don't have
838
00:53:03,598 --> 00:53:06,780
any, any sorts of data on, on that yet for
839
00:53:06,820 --> 00:53:10,322
this population. But I'm, I'm very, I would be so satisfied if
840
00:53:10,362 --> 00:53:13,865
some of our sibling conspiracy theories panned out, I'd be like, I knew
841
00:53:16,707 --> 00:53:19,986
I, I, I, you know, I, I, I don't know
842
00:53:20,006 --> 00:53:23,649
about the white shark, but I know with other species, I think when they pup, a
843
00:53:23,669 --> 00:53:27,051
lot of those siblings kind of hang, when their first pup, they tend to hang
844
00:53:27,091 --> 00:53:30,153
together in the same general vicinity. Again, I
845
00:53:30,173 --> 00:53:33,756
don't want to say it's a schooling behavior, but they tend to hang together.
846
00:53:33,776 --> 00:53:37,779
And for however long, I don't know, but I'm
847
00:53:37,979 --> 00:53:41,262
sure these white sharks, if they went out there, like when we see all these ones
848
00:53:41,362 --> 00:53:44,804
off, off here in Monterey Bay, if you were to get genetics on
849
00:53:44,864 --> 00:53:48,778
enough of those things, I would not be surprised if a number of them are related. And
850
00:53:48,798 --> 00:53:52,179
I'm sure where you are in the East Coast there
851
00:53:52,199 --> 00:53:55,440
in New England, you'd probably find a similar thing, especially when they're
852
00:53:55,460 --> 00:53:58,722
younger. They might segregate more. We do know they segregate at
853
00:53:58,762 --> 00:54:02,183
some point where the adult males and the adult females and the juveniles
854
00:54:02,243 --> 00:54:05,424
all kind of stay in different areas. So it would make
855
00:54:05,484 --> 00:54:09,385
sense that there would be some, if you found the right nursery area, that
856
00:54:10,526 --> 00:54:14,752
there'd be some relation there with them. Which
857
00:54:14,772 --> 00:54:18,975
kind of leads me to question two. Have you guys noticed any expansion
858
00:54:21,397 --> 00:54:24,980
Not yet. Well, we've seen there are more smaller
859
00:54:25,080 --> 00:54:28,322
ones being caught in the waters off of Rhode Island, but that was
860
00:54:28,382 --> 00:54:31,484
kind of the northern extent of that area. And
861
00:54:31,524 --> 00:54:34,727
we do have reports every year of a few small ones like south of
862
00:54:34,787 --> 00:54:37,969
Nantucket, not quite Cape Cod area,
863
00:54:38,009 --> 00:54:41,191
but we see a pretty broad size range off Cape Cod. We've
864
00:54:41,211 --> 00:54:44,674
seen sharks as little as like six feet. which isn't an itty bitty baby,
865
00:54:47,355 --> 00:54:50,556
All the way up to 18 feet long. So most of the ones we
866
00:54:50,616 --> 00:54:53,837
see are between eight and 12 feet in length. But we do
867
00:54:53,877 --> 00:54:57,178
see a pretty big size range. And, you know, every year
868
00:54:57,538 --> 00:55:00,918
that's one thing. I'm not a big social media person, but it is really good
869
00:55:01,419 --> 00:55:05,020
for doing some some white sharks sleuthery, because anytime
870
00:55:05,060 --> 00:55:09,058
somebody catches one, they're going to post. And folks are
871
00:55:09,279 --> 00:55:13,021
catching baby white sharks or they're spotting them with drones in
872
00:55:13,061 --> 00:55:16,444
other places. So that's one way that citizen science can play
873
00:55:16,604 --> 00:55:19,906
a big role in this. But yeah, right now,
874
00:55:20,006 --> 00:55:23,669
still the only really well-defined kind of known nursery area
875
00:55:23,709 --> 00:55:26,771
for the species in our neck of the woods is that area off of
876
00:55:26,791 --> 00:55:30,096
Long Island. There is there an app for like a like a I white
877
00:55:30,137 --> 00:55:34,861
shark nap app like, you know, I natural sap We
878
00:55:34,921 --> 00:55:38,285
have an app called shark tivity it's there we
879
00:55:38,325 --> 00:55:41,728
go available on iPhone and Android and
880
00:55:42,149 --> 00:55:45,853
Android It's a it's essentially it's a citizen scientist tool.
881
00:55:45,973 --> 00:55:49,275
So we report sightings from research trips. We
882
00:55:49,696 --> 00:55:54,119
share our tagging data that way. We actually have five real
883
00:55:54,179 --> 00:55:57,281
time acoustic receivers that are
884
00:55:57,321 --> 00:56:01,144
deployed off the Cape every summer. And whenever a
885
00:56:01,184 --> 00:56:04,826
shark tag with an acoustic transmitter swims by one of those real time receivers,
886
00:56:04,886 --> 00:56:08,413
that notification goes immediately to the app. that
887
00:56:09,113 --> 00:56:12,495
it also provides information on the shark. Is it a male? Is it a female? What's
888
00:56:12,555 --> 00:56:17,517
its nickname? Where has it been detected before in
889
00:56:17,597 --> 00:56:20,758
our array, which is really cool. So it's a good outreach tool. But what's so
890
00:56:20,818 --> 00:56:24,059
powerful about it is it also allows folks to submit their
891
00:56:24,179 --> 00:56:27,440
own sightings because we're a small team. We can't be
892
00:56:27,540 --> 00:56:30,822
everywhere all at once. But people love going to
893
00:56:30,842 --> 00:56:34,103
the beach in the summer and they love being out on boats. So it's been
894
00:56:34,721 --> 00:56:38,064
a great source of information. It's a great
895
00:56:38,484 --> 00:56:41,606
So I gotta ask you the question. So now that you're doing your
896
00:56:41,647 --> 00:56:44,926
dream job working on sharks, How much time
897
00:56:47,467 --> 00:56:50,950
I feel really lucky. I do
898
00:56:51,210 --> 00:56:54,533
certainly have a lot more admin work than
899
00:56:54,553 --> 00:56:58,155
I did in the past, but we are
900
00:56:58,216 --> 00:57:01,398
very field heavy this time of the year. It's a
901
00:57:01,458 --> 00:57:04,620
small crew, so I do still get to spend a
902
00:57:04,881 --> 00:57:08,304
good amount of time in the field, which is great for
903
00:57:08,324 --> 00:57:11,446
me because it helps make it really rewarding, like you're out
904
00:57:11,466 --> 00:57:14,988
there and you see a shark that you identified before.
905
00:57:15,028 --> 00:57:18,109
Sometimes we can recognize them from the surface, even if
906
00:57:18,169 --> 00:57:21,511
it doesn't have a tag, and we just geek out. So I found it's
907
00:57:21,891 --> 00:57:25,248
really helpful to stay connected and engaged. that
908
00:57:25,288 --> 00:57:28,470
way. But yeah, the computer work, it really creeps up on you,
909
00:57:28,770 --> 00:57:31,811
especially this time of the year. I find myself speaking and doing a lot of
910
00:57:37,694 --> 00:57:40,876
But you're doing a lot of you're doing a lot of analytics, too, like
911
00:57:40,916 --> 00:57:44,418
you're doing a lot of population analytics and things like that. So it's not just admin
912
00:57:44,458 --> 00:57:47,619
stuff. It's you're actually working up the data that you collect in
913
00:57:47,639 --> 00:57:50,981
the field. So there's probably a lot of hours doing that as well, I assume. Right.
914
00:57:51,340 --> 00:57:55,623
There are. And you know what? It's going to sound super kind
915
00:57:55,663 --> 00:57:58,786
of nerdy, but I love that side of the work. It is
916
00:57:58,906 --> 00:58:02,449
so mentally challenging. It's like putting together a puzzle.
917
00:58:02,469 --> 00:58:05,671
And I knew I was
918
00:58:05,731 --> 00:58:09,214
interested in it, but Dave, when I was working with you, as I was finishing
919
00:58:09,294 --> 00:58:12,577
up my master's, I really wanted to learn R. I
920
00:58:12,637 --> 00:58:16,099
wanted to learn how to code. And so that's when I kind
921
00:58:16,159 --> 00:58:19,461
of got my feet wet on that. And I just, it can
922
00:58:19,582 --> 00:58:23,104
drive you crazy if you've got a bug in your code. And
923
00:58:23,424 --> 00:58:26,786
you've got to puzzle and figure it out. But it has helped
924
00:58:26,826 --> 00:58:29,988
me become a much better biologist. And that was when I knew I
925
00:58:30,289 --> 00:58:33,431
wanted to go back and get my PhD. I knew I kind of
926
00:58:33,491 --> 00:58:37,453
reached the point where I had kind of taught myself statistically
927
00:58:37,513 --> 00:58:40,875
as much as I could to do what I needed to
928
00:58:40,915 --> 00:58:44,097
do at the time, but I knew I needed a little bit
929
00:58:44,137 --> 00:58:47,479
more formal training to analyze data
930
00:58:47,519 --> 00:58:50,761
responsibly, I guess I would say. And so at that point,
931
00:58:50,882 --> 00:58:54,204
I went to UMass Dartmouth, and my major
932
00:58:54,224 --> 00:58:57,345
advisor there was not actually Greg. He was obviously a huge part of the
933
00:58:57,386 --> 00:59:00,987
work and a very active member on my committee But Gavin
934
00:59:01,027 --> 00:59:05,108
Fay, who is a very super
935
00:59:05,288 --> 00:59:09,049
crazy smart, like I talk to him and I just feel like an idiot. He's
936
00:59:09,069 --> 00:59:12,670
a smart quantitative scientist at
937
00:59:12,690 --> 00:59:16,231
the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. And I definitely ramped
938
00:59:16,351 --> 00:59:19,452
up my coding skills. And a lot of
939
00:59:19,512 --> 00:59:23,593
my PhD work was actually more focused on model development. But
940
00:59:23,633 --> 00:59:26,854
I was very lucky that I had an application that I was
941
00:59:27,114 --> 00:59:30,675
super invested in. But if there are young
942
00:59:30,956 --> 00:59:34,477
upcoming marine scientists out there listening, one skill
943
00:59:34,577 --> 00:59:37,758
I would highly recommend you get in your arsenal. It seems to
944
00:59:37,798 --> 00:59:40,979
be pretty invaluable these days. And again, it's how I
945
00:59:41,379 --> 00:59:44,800
got into the world of white shark science is learn how to code,
946
00:59:45,260 --> 00:59:48,581
learn how to analyze data. It will make you think about your
947
00:59:48,621 --> 00:59:52,102
studies in a different way and it can be,
948
00:59:52,282 --> 00:59:55,424
I mean, it's just such a fun kind of
949
00:59:55,544 --> 00:59:58,665
puzzle to put together. But to know not only how
950
00:59:58,705 --> 01:00:02,426
to collect data, but what to do with it to answer these questions
951
01:00:03,147 --> 01:00:06,508
is a really powerful, important skill. And we're in the era
952
01:00:06,528 --> 01:00:10,870
of big data. We're putting out camera tags that collect 11 hours
953
01:00:10,930 --> 01:00:14,231
of footage and millions of data points for like a
954
01:00:14,451 --> 01:00:17,964
multi-day deployment. like their
955
01:00:18,284 --> 01:00:22,186
drones. I mean, it's just there's, you know, there's data everywhere.
956
01:00:22,226 --> 01:00:25,687
So being able to make use of it is, is hugely
957
01:00:27,127 --> 01:00:30,428
So, so Megan, you have it, you're going to be on a shark fest this
958
01:00:30,468 --> 01:00:33,689
year. I understand. And so why don't you tell us a little bit about
959
01:00:33,709 --> 01:00:37,331
this? This show is going to air just after your, your debuted on
960
01:00:37,391 --> 01:00:40,550
the, on the on the Shark Fest, but can you tell us about the show a
961
01:00:41,031 --> 01:00:45,557
I guess since it's coming out after I can. No,
962
01:00:46,738 --> 01:00:50,963
it was a really great experience because Greg
963
01:00:50,983 --> 01:00:54,207
Skomal and I've been working with him, we were the
964
01:00:54,247 --> 01:00:58,373
first to put out these camera tags. On white sharks in
965
01:00:58,493 --> 01:01:01,597
our in our area. And so we've had other folks reach out to
966
01:01:01,737 --> 01:01:05,222
us about doing that work. We made a trip to Canada a few years
967
01:01:05,302 --> 01:01:08,527
ago to get a camera tag on a white shark there, which
968
01:01:08,587 --> 01:01:13,039
was a really cool thing to be a part of. completely different
969
01:01:13,560 --> 01:01:17,102
scene to Cape Cod. And it was just so beautiful.
970
01:01:17,162 --> 01:01:20,505
And I was like, I'm going to move to Canada. This place is amazing. Until I went back
971
01:01:20,545 --> 01:01:24,308
in the winter, and it was freezing. I was like, no, can't hack
972
01:01:24,448 --> 01:01:29,232
it. Can't do it. Colder than Massachusetts? Not
973
01:01:29,272 --> 01:01:33,015
as cold as it is in Canada. Woo, it was brutal. Kudos to
974
01:01:33,035 --> 01:01:37,777
them. But
975
01:01:37,938 --> 01:01:41,318
we had the same opportunity to go to Long Island and work
976
01:01:41,378 --> 01:01:44,719
with Dr. Toby Curtis and Greg Metzger and Dr. Harley
977
01:01:44,779 --> 01:01:47,860
Newton, who's been working really hard over the past couple of
978
01:01:47,920 --> 01:01:51,601
years to get a better handle on that nursery
979
01:01:51,681 --> 01:01:55,742
site. And they put out satellite tags, acoustic tags.
980
01:01:56,516 --> 01:01:59,781
We studied those sharks in various ways, and they learned a
981
01:01:59,861 --> 01:02:03,226
lot, but they hadn't put a camera tag
982
01:02:03,286 --> 01:02:07,012
on one of them yet, and we had a specially made,
983
01:02:07,633 --> 01:02:11,658
tiny, itty-bitty camera tag that was small enough to go on
984
01:02:11,678 --> 01:02:16,203
a baby white shark. And so we went down there to get
985
01:02:16,243 --> 01:02:19,467
that out and get a first glimpse into the
986
01:02:19,507 --> 01:02:22,711
life of these baby white sharks in their nursery area. And I'll
987
01:02:25,614 --> 01:02:31,579
You will have to, yeah, absolutely. Gotta watch the show. Well,
988
01:02:31,599 --> 01:02:34,741
Megan, this has been really terrific. I
989
01:02:34,761 --> 01:02:37,982
knew it was going to be great having you on. And of course, I love having my former students on
990
01:02:38,002 --> 01:02:41,684
the show here. What's next for you? Before we
991
01:02:41,704 --> 01:02:45,026
go here, what's sort of the next step you think
992
01:02:45,066 --> 01:02:48,447
about for your career, besides maybe not moving to Canada where
993
01:02:53,050 --> 01:02:56,453
Not moving to Canada. You know, I'm actually
994
01:02:56,593 --> 01:02:59,976
I'm so happy where I am. So I took
995
01:03:00,296 --> 01:03:03,639
my current job a few years before
996
01:03:03,719 --> 01:03:08,623
I graduated. Well, I took this job in 2019. And
997
01:03:08,843 --> 01:03:12,125
it's been really exciting and rewarding to
998
01:03:12,165 --> 01:03:15,667
be a part of. And it's been very cool to be a part of an organization that's
999
01:03:15,827 --> 01:03:18,929
that's been growing at the same time as I've been growing as
1000
01:03:18,989 --> 01:03:22,070
a scientist. So there are still quite a few questions I want to
1001
01:03:22,170 --> 01:03:25,712
answer here. But I would be lying if I if I didn't say I
1002
01:03:25,752 --> 01:03:29,354
wanted to just follow the sharks year round this past winter. I went
1003
01:03:29,394 --> 01:03:32,676
down and did some work with the charter captain we work with in South
1004
01:03:32,716 --> 01:03:36,318
Carolina. And I really got into the snowbird scene. I
1005
01:03:36,358 --> 01:03:39,762
was like, you know what? I think I should just follow these things year
1006
01:03:39,822 --> 01:03:43,467
round. And Massachusetts, like, King Kong right now is wonderful. It's
1007
01:03:43,567 --> 01:03:47,191
in the 70s. It's kind of almost California type weather. But
1008
01:03:47,472 --> 01:03:50,633
come February. It's time
1009
01:03:50,653 --> 01:03:54,214
to go back to Jacksonville. So it's nice to go, to go south.
1010
01:03:54,434 --> 01:03:57,715
But I, so I hope we get to do a little bit more, uh, more
1011
01:03:57,775 --> 01:04:01,236
winter work down south at some of these areas where, where white sharks are,
1012
01:04:01,876 --> 01:04:05,117
are popping up and kind of becoming more of a, of
1013
01:04:05,177 --> 01:04:08,478
a scene. Um, but Dave, I, we didn't even
1014
01:04:08,498 --> 01:04:11,799
get to talk. I didn't even get to tell any embarrassing stories about you
1015
01:04:15,160 --> 01:04:18,321
We'll have, we'll have to have you back on then. I guess we'll have to have you come
1016
01:04:18,381 --> 01:04:21,750
on for part two here. to talk talk share some more stories because
1017
01:04:21,770 --> 01:04:25,290
I know we can go on for a little longer but But
1018
01:04:25,330 --> 01:04:28,671
Megan, thank you so much for coming on and we're definitely will have you back
1019
01:04:28,831 --> 01:04:32,332
on to share some more stories and we'll get more into Your
1020
01:04:32,352 --> 01:04:35,673
time at Moss Landing and some of some of the other other cool stuff
1021
01:04:35,733 --> 01:04:39,134
and you're doing and some of the cool people you've worked with as well So anyway,
1022
01:04:44,488 --> 01:04:48,030
That was a lot of fun. Thank you very much, Megan, for joining us on the beyond
1023
01:04:48,050 --> 01:04:51,311
jaws podcast. Dave, this is going to like,
1024
01:04:51,371 --> 01:04:54,692
she's a star already, like in the, in the, in the world of sharks,
1025
01:04:54,712 --> 01:04:58,294
not just white sharks, but in the world of sharks, you know, what'd you think of the, I
1026
01:04:58,734 --> 01:05:01,935
I mean, it was, it was great. I, I, you know, I knew, you know, Megan was just,
1027
01:05:02,216 --> 01:05:05,937
she's a rock star and I really, you know, we've had some really outstanding ones,
1028
01:05:06,357 --> 01:05:09,679
people on here and a really nice to having her on here. Uh, uh,
1029
01:05:10,019 --> 01:05:13,363
cause she was a former student of mine, which I really, which is really,
1030
01:05:13,544 --> 01:05:16,885
it's always kind of neat when I have one of my former students, I've had a few of them on now,
1031
01:05:17,366 --> 01:05:20,968
have had Jenny Bigman and Rachel Atkinson and Kelsey James
1032
01:05:21,108 --> 01:05:24,790
on previously and having Megan in there and she, they're all, well,
1033
01:05:25,270 --> 01:05:28,912
Megan and Kel, I think you heard the story, Megan and Kelsey actually,
1034
01:05:28,932 --> 01:05:32,074
you know, heard the story, went from
1035
01:05:32,114 --> 01:05:35,436
my lab, I sent them back to work with Lisa Natanson, who Lisa
1036
01:05:35,496 --> 01:05:39,298
and I were graduate students together at Moss Landing. They
1037
01:05:39,338 --> 01:05:43,057
went and spent a few weeks working with Lisa back there, learning age and growth. And
1038
01:05:43,077 --> 01:05:46,900
then that led to Kelsey becoming a PhD student of Lisa's
1039
01:05:46,940 --> 01:05:50,524
where she got her PhD. And that led to Megan meeting Greg Scoble,
1040
01:05:50,884 --> 01:05:54,227
who then she eventually got on and became a PhD student. So,
1041
01:05:54,427 --> 01:05:57,590
so young people, students listening out there, that's kind of how it works a
1042
01:05:57,630 --> 01:06:01,253
lot of time. It's networking if you have that opportunity. And so
1043
01:06:01,273 --> 01:06:04,573
I couldn't be happier than to, uh, I
1044
01:06:04,833 --> 01:06:08,156
would like to add too, it's not just networking. I think it's how you work
1045
01:06:21,004 --> 01:06:24,367
if Megan didn't work hard. You
1046
01:06:24,447 --> 01:06:28,151
knew the type of student that Megan was. You knew that she would
1047
01:06:28,211 --> 01:06:31,374
do really well under working with Lisa and learn a
1048
01:06:31,434 --> 01:06:34,537
lot. She wanted to learn. And I think that's the key too. It's
1049
01:06:34,557 --> 01:06:38,080
like, you can get referred through the networks of other people, but
1050
01:06:38,120 --> 01:06:41,383
you also have to show that you're going to work, and
1051
01:06:41,443 --> 01:06:44,946
you got to prove that you're going to work. And I think that's what Megan was, is
1052
01:06:45,226 --> 01:06:48,549
someone who worked her butt off to get to where she's at
1053
01:06:48,709 --> 01:06:52,171
and deserves all the accolades that she's getting now and will continue
1054
01:06:52,191 --> 01:06:55,453
to get because she's so passionate about all the work
1055
01:06:55,473 --> 01:06:58,934
that she does. She just wants to learn about not necessarily one species of shark. She
1056
01:06:58,975 --> 01:07:02,436
wants to learn about a number of different species and how they all differ and what
1057
01:07:02,476 --> 01:07:05,778
kind of questions she can have. And I think that just embodies the
1058
01:07:05,818 --> 01:07:08,920
shark scientists that we see today and continue to
1059
01:07:09,000 --> 01:07:12,242
see from that started off in the past with Lisa, and
1060
01:07:12,302 --> 01:07:15,544
now we're seeing it in Megan. We're seeing it in a lot of other, with Chantal, who
1061
01:07:15,584 --> 01:07:18,905
we had on. uh, just, just before or who we're going to have on,
1062
01:07:18,925 --> 01:07:22,167
uh, in a few weeks. And, and I just think it's, it's
1063
01:07:22,287 --> 01:07:26,029
great to see, you know, this type of, of curiosity,
1064
01:07:26,069 --> 01:07:29,231
just driving shark science, you know, and we see it in a lot of
1065
01:07:29,251 --> 01:07:32,453
people that you just don't get the accolades that they, that they do. We don't see it because we
1066
01:07:32,493 --> 01:07:36,114
don't hear them talk all the time, but I think, you know, we got to see it today in,
1067
01:07:36,675 --> 01:07:39,977
Yeah, no, you see, I see with Megan, as I say, she got, you know, she happened
1068
01:07:39,997 --> 01:07:43,698
to work with very fortunate. She got to work with Colin Simpendorfer, Michelle Hypel,
1069
01:07:43,739 --> 01:07:47,079
John Carlson, you know, myself, Lisa, I mean, she,
1070
01:07:47,519 --> 01:07:51,120
and at each stage of the way, and I kind of mentioned this during the show is
1071
01:07:51,160 --> 01:07:54,301
that you do a good, you come in, cause especially the shark field, it's so it's a
1072
01:07:54,341 --> 01:07:57,682
small, it's a small field. And if you come in and you do a good job
1073
01:07:57,802 --> 01:08:01,084
for somebody, you know, like I see an application come through
1074
01:08:01,104 --> 01:08:04,185
and I say, Oh, you worked with Michelle and Colin and John, you
1075
01:08:04,225 --> 01:08:07,426
know, that's going to be a phone call I'm going to have and just get the
1076
01:08:07,466 --> 01:08:10,887
straight story. And so always be aware of that when you're working with somebody that
1077
01:08:11,342 --> 01:08:14,644
to do it. I mean, and Megan, it wasn't a case. It just came naturally for her. And I've
1078
01:08:14,684 --> 01:08:17,726
had several other students. It was the same thing. They, they, you know, happened to
1079
01:08:17,766 --> 01:08:21,188
get into be, have an opportunity to work with somebody and, and,
1080
01:08:21,208 --> 01:08:24,550
and they, they get a firsthand view of them. And so, and
1081
01:08:24,710 --> 01:08:27,832
Megan, she did not disappoint at all. She was an outstanding student in
1082
01:08:27,872 --> 01:08:30,994
my lab. She went on and did a great job. I mean, she wouldn't be where she is
1083
01:08:31,014 --> 01:08:35,479
with Greg Skomal. if she hadn't done a good job back
1084
01:08:35,519 --> 01:08:39,021
in the day. And she did a great job with Greg, yeah. Absolutely.
1085
01:08:39,041 --> 01:08:42,202
And it's just like, for me, it's kind of really cool to see some of those students that
1086
01:08:42,242 --> 01:08:45,484
I've had a personal hand in coming through. But there's a lot of students out
1087
01:08:45,524 --> 01:08:48,766
there that we've had on there that are just really coming into
1088
01:08:48,786 --> 01:08:53,828
their own. I think people like Megan and some of the other ones. We had Lucia
1089
01:08:54,128 --> 01:08:57,250
Soros on a few weeks ago. We've had Jalen Myers on. We've had a
1090
01:08:57,450 --> 01:09:00,952
number of Julia Constance. We've had several on this year that have been really
1091
01:09:01,427 --> 01:09:04,710
Keep your eye on it because I think in the future, you'll see some big things by some
1092
01:09:04,730 --> 01:09:07,993
of these people in the future, which is
1093
01:09:08,013 --> 01:09:11,217
kind of neat for us, Andrew, because we can have them come back on and come
1094
01:09:11,257 --> 01:09:14,640
on back on in a few years and see where they are. And we can play the tape.
1095
01:09:14,660 --> 01:09:17,783
We can play the tape. So that's kind of
1096
01:09:18,724 --> 01:09:22,692
Yeah, it's going to be great. I'm looking forward to it. That's going to be a lot of fun. Okay,
1097
01:09:22,712 --> 01:09:26,114
well that's it. I know Megan says
1098
01:09:26,134 --> 01:09:29,195
she wasn't really into social media as much. She does have an
1099
01:09:29,255 --> 01:09:32,897
Instagram, but it's more of a personal one, so we're not going to share that necessarily.
1100
01:09:36,239 --> 01:09:40,001
It's lostsharkguy on Instagram, lostsharkguy on
1101
01:09:40,201 --> 01:09:44,383
ex-Twitter, and it's lostsharks on Facebook and LinkedIn, Dave
1102
01:09:44,683 --> 01:09:48,645
And if people want to watch this podcast, you can go to our YouTube channel.
1103
01:09:50,112 --> 01:09:53,774
It is Beyond Jaws podcast. We'll put the link in the show notes. Subscribe
1104
01:09:54,394 --> 01:09:57,975
and watch all of our past episodes and some of the clips that we have from those episodes
1105
01:09:58,035 --> 01:10:01,296
if you don't have the time to watch the entire thing. But if you're into
1106
01:10:01,436 --> 01:10:04,518
watching podcasts on video, you can go to our
1107
01:10:04,558 --> 01:10:07,919
YouTube page and see that. But thank you so much to
1108
01:10:08,019 --> 01:10:11,480
Megan and Dave. Of course, thank you very much for joining us and getting
1109
01:10:11,540 --> 01:10:14,902
all these great guests. This is amazing. By the way, folks, this is a lot of Dave's
1110
01:10:15,122 --> 01:10:18,583
network. You know, he's the one who brings out all these wonderful guests and
1111
01:10:18,623 --> 01:10:21,885
knows the history and everything and knows all the stories. It makes it really,
1112
01:10:21,905 --> 01:10:25,947
really entertaining. So Dave, thank you so much for lending that network
1113
01:10:25,987 --> 01:10:29,408
to us. We really appreciate it. And thank you, everybody, for
1114
01:10:29,448 --> 01:10:32,890
listening to this episode of the Beyond Jaws podcast. From Dave
1115
01:10:32,910 --> 01:10:35,951
and I, we really appreciate you. Have a great day. We'll talk to