For The Wild - STEFANIE BRENDL on Being Humbled by Sharks ⧸242

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00:00:54.040 Hello and welcome to For the Wild podcast. I'm Ayanna Young.

00:00:59.300 Today I'm speaking with Stephanie Brendel.

00:01:02.280 That's the kind of thinking that we're struggling with, that sharks are really only seen as a collection of parts that can be sold.

00:01:11.020 Stephanie Brendel is an advocate for sharks and a creative and social entrepreneur that leads campaigns and projects in all corners of this planet.

00:01:19.840 As founder and executive director of Shark Allies and team member of various NGO coalitions,

00:01:27.920 she has dedicated her last two decades to bringing greater protection to sharks.

00:01:32.720 As filmmaker and producer, she also filmed and produced a documentary called Extinction Soup about the perils of shark finning.

00:01:40.700 well welcome stephanie to the podcast i'm really looking forward to diving in with you around

00:01:51.140 sharks and oceans and all that good stuff thank you i'm really happy to be here yeah well i'd

00:01:58.280 like to begin our conversation in reverence for our shark kin these truly wild and mystic

00:02:06.780 apex predators have inhabited waters for 450 million years, meaning their existence even

00:02:13.720 predates trees. I know there are over 400 species of sharks, each one, you know, with its unique set

00:02:22.200 of characteristics. But I wonder if you could speak to the majesty of these creatures, and how

00:02:28.200 easy it should be for us to replace common fear with a deep sense of respect for their resilience.

00:02:34.900 well I think if everyone had the privilege of meeting sharks in person we would have a completely

00:02:43.380 different general feeling about sharks I think we're as human beings we're scared of what we

00:02:50.520 don't know and what we don't see and the less we see it the more scared we are because we fill in

00:02:56.860 the blanks with the myths and the stories and the anecdotes that we hear and the only anecdotes we

00:03:04.060 ever hear of sharks are shark attacks and for anyone that has had a chance to be in the water

00:03:11.200 and see sharks this this whole impression changes from you know at the minimum being apprehensive

00:03:20.380 and at the worst having a phobia it changes to being completely fascinated and you know recognizing

00:03:28.200 this presence in the water there are large animals and you know unlike some of the smaller fish

00:03:35.000 you really feel their presence in the water when you're there and you realize immediately that

00:03:41.360 they're just there to do their job they're there because it's a it's their natural place

00:03:47.560 we're the ones out of place and they have no particular interest in us they're not

00:03:52.900 suddenly turning to attack anyone they're not they're looking at us it's maybe a curiosity

00:03:58.320 and um you know that is something it's very hard to get that across to people more and more now

00:04:04.740 you know we have beautiful imagery in video and and photos and that has really helped but it still

00:04:11.220 doesn't give you the true feeling and the true respect that you feel when you're in the water

00:04:16.640 with them yeah I could imagine that I'm just yeah picturing myself in the water with them and

00:04:26.880 the connection that I'm sure would come through and yeah it it's a if I can say it and in a

00:04:36.720 different way it's it's not necessarily a connection where you you know when you meet a

00:04:40.860 dog or a horse and you feel very much like you want to go pet them and and you know you want to

00:04:47.600 almost cuddle them with sharks you realize that you are meeting a predator a wild animal

00:04:54.520 and there is a huge amount of respect there that it's not necessarily frightening but you do

00:05:02.680 understand that there that's a different type of animal you know that animal really is there

00:05:07.800 and couldn't care less about human beings and you do understand that that you truly don't mean

00:05:14.340 anything to them which is uh i think it's a great experience for human beings to not be important

00:05:21.980 and i kind of like that about wild animals that you know in their in their world view and in their

00:05:28.640 daily going on you you don't matter except when you are the one that hunts them or you know hurts

00:05:35.760 them so i think that's that's a big difference between sharks and encountering sharks and some

00:05:41.640 of the other animals it may be similar to meeting a grizzly bear or wolves or lions you know meeting

00:05:49.340 a predator is is on a whole nother level oh thank you for speaking to that and i think it's so

00:05:56.860 important to hear about that humbling experience for us humans because we really need that a lot

00:06:04.460 uh so i yeah i appreciate that and we don't get that very often you know we don't uh we don't

00:06:12.100 get connected to real raw nature very often and um and we don't have a lot of natural

00:06:18.940 fears i mean that we have natural fears but we don't have a lot of things that threaten us

00:06:25.980 in nature anymore except natural disasters but we on average when you go out you know the chances

00:06:31.640 of having a dangerous animal around are pretty small and I think connecting to that primal part

00:06:37.640 of you that really puts you way back to when you know when humans lived on the land and were just

00:06:44.420 another animal we were for those animals for land predators we may have been prey

00:06:50.220 and I think it's a it's a good thing to connect to that at times absolutely and it's often

00:07:00.460 overlooked, but sharks play a really vital role in our oceans. And as I understand, sharks act

00:07:08.700 similarly to vultures as they scavenge for sick and injured fish, working to keep oceans healthy

00:07:15.480 and populations in balance. And I know that, for example, when the eastern seaboard saw a local

00:07:21.480 decline of great white sharks, there was a huge boom in rays and thus a total decline in scallops.

00:07:27.860 And so we'd be naive to think that we won't see this happen worldwide should shark populations continue to plummet.

00:07:36.220 What are the immediate implications of global shark extirpation?

00:07:40.940 And perhaps within that, you could also highlight for us the reality that there is actually no way to mimic or recreate the role of sharks.

00:07:51.000 Yeah, so that's a it's a complicated thing to explain.

00:07:56.240 You know, shark, there's so many different shark species and each species has a certain niche in the ecosystem that they take care of.

00:08:06.160 So while some may operate a little bit like a vulture, but others are more, you know, akin to a lion or a wolf.

00:08:15.660 basically the the pressure of predators not only contra controls the populations in the sense that

00:08:25.800 they take out the the sick the dead and the dying and therefore keeping the healthiest alive to

00:08:32.760 reproduce they're also of course taking care of like you said the dead and even just their sheer

00:08:39.160 presence changes how all the other animals behave and how they, for example, graze on seagrasses

00:08:46.140 or how far they move away from the reef to hunt. So there are really ecosystem engineers where

00:08:55.240 when they're around, everything changes. And my most favorite example is the wolves in Yosemite

00:09:03.380 park that you know when they were reintroduced because they had a problem with deer um it changed

00:09:10.460 everything from how the aspen trees were growing because of how the the deer were grazing and even

00:09:17.220 where they were where they would mingle and hang out and of course they controlled the numbers the

00:09:23.200 wolves controlled the numbers but it also affected erosion because of how the you know the trees were

00:09:28.860 growing and shrubs were eaten down and all the way down to how the river was flowing so this is

00:09:34.780 this is the role that we really need to see sharks as in the ocean they are controlling the ecosystem

00:09:41.880 in many many different ways and that of course is something good luck for us to figure out how to do

00:09:48.040 we couldn't even do it on land that's why the wolves were reintroduced the humans could not

00:09:52.360 replicate what the wolves were doing because there's too many layers and too many very subtle

00:09:58.420 effects good luck trying to do something like that in the ocean you know you cannot have boundaries

00:10:04.680 there you cannot make fences you we can barely even get lower than 300 feet in the water so how

00:10:11.480 would we ever control it and you cannot breed sharks in captivity so once we lose them it's

00:10:19.560 not like we're going to go on a massive action to reintroduce and replenish the stock so this is

00:10:26.380 this is a free service we get you know sharks taking care of the ocean naturally have done it

00:10:33.100 in the most perfect way that we could never replicate and all we have to do is stop from

00:10:40.360 over hunting them we don't really have to do much more there is not an additional investment that we

00:10:46.080 have to spend but the only way we can do it is is to stop overfishing them in the first place

00:10:52.120 because they do not replenish themselves very quickly because they are predators and predators

00:10:58.080 by default reproduce very slowly because they're not being hunted and therefore you know the nature

00:11:06.280 has designed it in the way where they produce in the limited number so here we are you know it's

00:11:12.200 we have an incredibly important animal for a system that the whole planet depends on.

00:11:19.520 All of us, no matter where you live, depend on the ocean in one way or another. And we're just

00:11:28.360 haphazardly just, you know, overfishing them. And we don't really care because we can't see it. We

00:11:35.140 can't see what's going on under the ocean. So out of sight, out of mind. Yeah, absolutely.

00:11:42.200 Well, I'd like to focus on some of the most immediate threats to shark populations, but I wonder if we might be able to do so in recognition that this is what capitalism looks like at sea.

00:11:56.080 Much of the ocean's biodiversity is at risk because of modern industrialized fishing efforts and the way in which the global markets operate.

00:12:04.580 And I think, unfortunately, for quite some time, the blame has been placed on other countries, so-called bad actors or cultural differences.

00:12:15.820 But the problem is really the scale at which these global captures are taking place.

00:12:20.700 And quite frankly, what I see is the callousness of capitalism.

00:12:25.680 so with this in mind I wonder if you can share why there is an economic benefit to killing sharks

00:12:32.720 and the scale at which it's being done around the world yeah it's um the numbers are staggering

00:12:41.120 when we look at how many sharks are being taken every year you know the estimates

00:12:46.860 depending on what research you are looking at and how conservatively you want to use the numbers

00:12:53.760 it is somewhere between 63 million to 273 million sharks other studies say it's 70 to 100 million

00:13:04.500 sharks let's just even go with the lowest number 63 million sharks per year taken that is a

00:13:11.680 staggering number when you even just try to imagine what that looks like in actual bodies

00:13:17.240 the sharks are valuable to retain even if they're bycatched these days because of the parts that

00:13:26.040 can be sold you know if there's value to sell something then it's being either hunted or being

00:13:32.280 targeted or kept even if it was caught accidentally so sharks are being taken for meat for fins for

00:13:38.360 in the case of manta rays which are also part of the family of sharks the elasmobranchs they're

00:13:44.140 taken for the gill plates and then of course shark liver oil so all of those products contribute to

00:13:50.820 giving value to sharks some sharks are more valuable than others from some you can only

00:13:56.280 take the meat others only the fins sometimes you can take the fins and the oil or only the fins in

00:14:02.260 the meat so there's not separate markets or separate fisheries for you know the different

00:14:07.920 parts so it's very hard to dissect how much are sharks hunted for one or the other product

00:14:14.040 and um then the additional problem to knowing the numbers is of course um that uh there's a lot of

00:14:22.900 illegal underreported or unreported fishing going on and the labeling between the countries you know

00:14:30.180 the coding of how things are being shipped around the world any shark parts could be thrown in as

00:14:36.440 general seafood so you wouldn't even know which shark so it's really a chaotic trade that is

00:14:42.000 global and in essence what drives it is the market and the value that can be derived from

00:14:50.420 sharks and shark parts and a large part of that is still to be contributed to fins because the

00:14:57.540 fins have the highest value of on the shark so keeping it and only making money on fins and

00:15:04.840 maybe a few extra cents on meat or let's say the or even just if the meat could even be just given

00:15:11.780 to the pet food industry it's often not even for human consumption so it not doesn't even

00:15:17.240 help us with food security so it's a very sort of it's a shady business that where everyone

00:15:24.520 passes the buck as you said you know each trade says oh it's the other guys we're not the bad

00:15:30.260 ones it's the other country it's this other industry it's the fin it's the the market for

00:15:35.860 fins it's the market for oil it's the market for meat and everything else is considered byproducts

00:15:41.600 When, you know, when you think about it, who eats 200 million sharks, it's impossible to even imagine that we need this many sharks, because they're not that many countries that actually consume shark. So what are all these animals being killed for, is really a basic question that everyone tries to avoid.

00:16:03.900 Wow.

00:16:06.720 Gosh.

00:16:07.320 no it's just hearing those numbers and thinking about the pet food is so horrifying and disgusting

00:16:17.920 and i'm just thinking about the international demand for shark ray and skate meat has more

00:16:26.140 than doubled since the early 1990s and i do wonder how much of this demand grew in response to

00:16:32.800 marketing or accessibility but i guess specifically i'd like to ask you about how you're going about

00:16:39.420 reducing the unsustainable consumption of something like shark fin and you know potentially

00:16:45.640 how much of that work is also at some level recognizing the ways in which we exploit the

00:16:50.100 natural world to signal class status yeah so the the reason why the meat market for sharks has gone

00:16:58.400 up is probably a mix of several reasons one of them is that other fish stocks have been in certain

00:17:06.160 regions so depleted that shark ended up being the only thing that can be caught and suddenly sharks

00:17:12.640 when they used to be considered a trash fish well that's all we can get so that's what they're going

00:17:18.280 to catch and then also once the market is keen on selling a product they create the demand in a

00:17:28.640 sense where they just push it to the market and start advertising it or they push it into you

00:17:33.160 know the pet food industry they will find a way to sell it or to market it so it goes both ways

00:17:39.220 it's not just that um you know consumers want it and therefore it's caught it also goes the other

00:17:45.000 way around if it gets caught and they want to sell it they can also create a market for it

00:17:50.080 for example you know the the guild rakers that that market didn't even exist a few decades ago

00:17:55.660 and because manta rays are so easy to catch and was something that was also targeted for their

00:18:02.160 fins even though they're small you know they just made up a product and and put out some stories

00:18:08.300 that it might be good for you just like shark cartilage somebody wanted to find a market for

00:18:12.900 shark cartilage and and the the let's say rumors were put out that they help cancer and they help

00:18:19.520 your joints and they have all these things and there was never even a study done on it

00:18:23.220 so you know it's easy to sell snake oil to people when you tell them the wonderful effects it can

00:18:29.820 have and of course a big driver of the shark meat market was the fact that um fins are worth so much

00:18:39.500 money and when sharks are caught for their fins it makes sense to also try to sell the the meat

00:18:48.080 especially in countries where the law demands that you bring in the shark's hole in order to take the

00:18:55.200 fins when you can't do finning at sea anymore because that was something that was outlawed

00:18:59.680 by many countries you know a few decades ago because it's cruel and wasteful thinning the

00:19:05.480 finning of sharks was outlawed, meaning you can't cut the fins off and throw the bodies back into

00:19:10.880 the ocean. Sharks were meant to be brought back whole, and then you could process them. So since

00:19:18.320 they had to bring the bodies back, they then said, well, let's sell the meat and let's make the meat

00:19:22.680 more marketable. So that really increased the demand or the market for shark meat. And that's

00:19:29.760 just as you said in the beginning it's it's capitalism in in the sense that it's just about

00:19:36.240 who can make the money and short-term thinking the people making the money and paying for sharks

00:19:43.640 right now they are not paying for the damage that is being done to the ocean that's all of us all

00:19:48.640 of us will be paying for that um that goes all the way to you know the fish oil industry for

00:19:55.300 supplements and it goes all the way to cosmetics and squalene they consider shark squalene an

00:20:02.580 inexpensive product that's because they're not truly paying for the sharks that they're using

00:20:07.700 they're only paying for the oil that somebody gave them that person fishing that shark did

00:20:12.640 not truly pay for the cost of that shark the true cost of the shark that it it means to the

00:20:18.580 environment and to all of us so that's the kind of thinking that that we're struggling with that

00:20:24.720 sharks are really only seen as a collection of parts that can be sold you know that you could

00:20:30.920 put a price tag on their fin on their liver on their meat maybe on their teeth and maybe on their

00:20:36.680 skin at some times and that's all they're they're looked at is a collection of parts they're not

00:20:42.500 looked at as the value they have as as a complete being and you know i had this conversation with a

00:20:50.340 friend just the other week no one in their right mind would consider hunting lions or tigers on a

00:20:58.340 commercial level for food you know and it just immediately strikes you as wrong and yes maybe

00:21:05.120 their coat would be you know that the fur would be valuable their claws their maybe their livers

00:21:10.660 maybe you know their teeth there would be all sorts of things you could probably make off a lion

00:21:15.760 but i bet you everyone that just heard that line immediately sort of recoiled and said well that 0.98

00:21:21.920 would be that would be stupid that can't work and that's really on a different level what we're 0.99

00:21:30.120 dealing with with sharks is that they are slow producing and reproducing and they are predators 0.99

00:21:36.380 and but we just look at them as as a product nothing but but dollar signs let it go just like

00:21:44.180 the ones that came before

00:21:45.620 Stones

00:21:47.840 rolling back into

00:21:50.040 the ocean

00:21:50.900 Shake it off, it was only

00:21:54.320 just a cost

00:21:55.780 Money, money, money

00:21:57.920 Can't buy the ocean

00:22:00.280 Mmm

00:22:04.180 Mmm

00:22:06.180 Mmm

00:22:08.180 Mmm

00:22:10.180 Mmm

00:22:12.180 Hide away in a shell inside a cave

00:22:23.520 Never love, never know nobody

00:22:28.460 Right or wrong, you know, you know it won't be long

00:22:32.880 Just as long as the scars are fine

00:22:38.500 I believe that over the past couple of years, there's been significant pressure across many

00:22:56.580 countries to regulate wildlife trading through multilateral treaties like the Convention on

00:23:02.520 International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna. But I think it's

00:23:08.440 probably misguided to think that these sort of treaties come close to addressing the problem.

00:23:14.700 So what are some of the discrepancies between the international level versus the national level when

00:23:20.040 it comes to regulating sharp products? Or what are some of the most glaring legal loopholes that the

00:23:26.880 industry is able to exploit? Well, let me go straight to CITES, the convention you just

00:23:33.220 mentioned. It's very important that we get animals and species listed on the CITES listings. However,

00:23:41.260 it's only one part of many things that have to be done, because what people don't understand

00:23:46.720 about this listing is that, first of all, it is a convention of treaty members that signed on.

00:23:54.080 This is not every country that is part of CITES. And the different appendices, you know,

00:23:59.740 appendix one, two, and three mean different types of protection. And it really is a trade

00:24:06.320 agreement, meaning that if the species is in one of the lists, it means that on the highest listing,

00:24:12.880 for example, in appendix one, they're permitted to be haunted only under exceptional circumstances,

00:24:20.200 meaning, well, if a country determines that it's an exceptional circumstance,

00:24:24.780 that those protected species can still be hunted and in appendix two is you know there's this term

00:24:31.620 called non-detrimental meaning you know a country can only trade that species if it could be done

00:24:39.840 in a non-detrimental way or if the if the utilization is not incompatible with survival

00:24:47.380 well that leaves a lot of room to be interpreted by each country the u.s for example determined that

00:24:53.820 mako is um you know in where mako is incredibly endangered and the numbers are dropping but in

00:25:02.560 the u.s they the um authorities determined that you know the u.s fisheries were doing such a great

00:25:10.020 job it's not the the hunting and the trade of mako is not detrimental so it can continue so there are

00:25:17.360 lots of ways to to wiggle through these uh also other endangered species listings there are just

00:25:23.380 listings it doesn't mean that they're enforceable you know and and when people hear that something

00:25:28.920 is on the red list it doesn't mean anyone is sticking to that list saying oh oh it's on the

00:25:34.300 list we better not hunt it it means someone still has to enforce that certain products you know

00:25:40.520 one of the more successful ways to enforce endangered species products is to go at them

00:25:49.820 at a trade level for sure because protecting the whole animal sometimes is difficult but in the

00:25:55.860 case of fins or elephant ivory um it's many countries have decided to prohibit the sale

00:26:04.440 and the trade and this is what we've been working on a lot with fins is to prohibit the sale and

00:26:09.640 trade of the actual product the fins so they can't come and go or be sold or be offered for sale in

00:26:16.520 restaurants that is again it doesn't necessarily stop it at the fishing level but it stops a

00:26:23.400 country from contributing to the problem so you can you can tell already that none of these things

00:26:31.520 are the the absolute perfect solutions and unfortunately that's what we're dealing with

00:26:35.840 with animal protection we have you know 10 or 15 different tools and we try each one to to chip

00:26:44.580 away at the problem and hopefully the combination of all those tools will bring about more protection

00:26:50.680 you know that of course you know you have to add to it regulating fisheries or on land you know

00:26:57.580 creating parks in the ocean creating marine protected areas all of those things none no

00:27:03.680 single one is perfect and when people like to jump on certain campaigns saying oh well what's the

00:27:10.860 point of this is still not going to fix overfishing or it's still not going to catch the it's still

00:27:15.980 not going to address the problem of bycatch well there's always something else that's worse and

00:27:21.300 always something else that will not be addressed but you have to start somewhere and that's really

00:27:26.400 the only thing we can work with is is trying to work on protection and conservation on many

00:27:32.860 different levels yeah and because of how media has historically talked about shark finning

00:27:40.800 I think many might think that this is an issue that is solely being driven by Asian countries, but the United States is the seventh largest shark finning country in the world, and we're also complicit in terms of its location and the supply chain.

00:27:55.500 Back in 2019, it was reported that between 2010 to 2017, the United States was the middleman to roughly 772 tons of shark fin exports, or 1.29 million sharks, that passed through U.S. ports.

00:28:15.260 So what does the United States' complicity look like in the illegal shark fin trade, and how could stronger regulatory resources change this?

00:28:23.820 well if you think about it in terms of how you would deal with this with drugs

00:28:31.500 if you're not the user and you're not the producer of the drugs then if you are the one selling it

00:28:39.620 in the middle what what's your part of um you know of the problem you're just as guilty because

00:28:46.220 you're enabling the trade and the movement of the product and by the through that you're not

00:28:53.460 making a statement that you're against it you know you cannot say you're against finning or

00:28:59.460 the trade of fins and then allow the trade a lot of the justification for that is that

00:29:05.540 there's a big part of even the science community that still likes to claim that sustainable shark

00:29:12.760 fishing is a possibility and that we should focus all of our attention towards developing

00:29:19.940 sustainable shark fishing and therefore the fins should be a valuable product that make that

00:29:26.240 industry possible now the problem with that is is that the only places it has proven to be

00:29:35.000 possible were very isolated small pockets of shark species where there was a very highly

00:29:42.180 controlled fishery that only fished at a certain time of the year you know didn't take certain

00:29:47.160 let's say didn't take the females and was extremely conscientious about sticking to quotas

00:29:53.120 which is not something that is possible on a large scale so there is there is a justification that

00:30:01.240 comes from the fisheries agencies from our own agencies that are in charge of conservation in

00:30:07.840 fisheries but they tend to really rule in favor of the commercial fishing lobby most of the time

00:30:15.480 they want to keep that industry going because the u.s has a mandate to you know to use its resources

00:30:23.340 at a maximum yield or optimal yield not maximum optimal yield that's even in our fisheries act

00:30:29.480 it says it should use all resources at an optimal level meaning not fishing enough is is not a good

00:30:36.600 thing and I think that thinking has to drastically change because for decades that has been the

00:30:43.280 mandate and look where it's gotten us you know if I always say if the fisheries agencies were a

00:30:50.000 corporation they would be failing miserably they would be bankrupt they would be fired from

00:30:54.700 mismanagement but you know because it is government agencies and they have they choose their own

00:31:02.480 experts on their panels they can continue to say we're the authority and we say it's possible and

00:31:08.460 therefore we're going to continue to allow it so yeah we every country that participates in the fin

00:31:15.340 trade is part of the problem whether you're fishing your own sharks or not and um you can't

00:31:22.020 you can't really use that excuse anymore yeah and just thinking about the drones and the it's almost

00:31:29.880 like this warlike mentality of finding fish in the oceans and the technology being used to chase

00:31:37.580 fish and shark is horrifying it speaks a lot to where we are as just a culture right now and

00:31:48.840 yeah I wanted to mention that what initially drew me to shark allies was some of the news that was

00:31:55.660 coming out early in 2020 that was talking about the ramifications of possible COVID-19

00:32:01.940 vaccines containing squalene, which is a compound derived from shark liver oil.

00:32:08.060 And I think most of us, you know, are more familiar with squalene as a substance found

00:32:13.240 in cosmetic products.

00:32:15.260 And although there are plant substitutes to squalene, I understand that these are more

00:32:20.500 cumbersome to procure and also more expensive than shark-based squalene. So to begin, I wonder

00:32:27.520 if you could clarify, what does the current demand for squalene, I hope I'm saying this right,

00:32:32.960 look like and what industry is behind it and how many sharks are being killed to meet this demand?

00:32:42.320 First of all, I think squalene and squalene both are correct to say. We've been having this

00:32:47.860 discussion for a while we're not really sure i i used to always say squalene until everyone around

00:32:53.940 me started to say squalene so i i skipped back and forth as well um so the the cosmetics industry

00:33:00.860 is still the the larger user of shark oil the fact that it is used uh the liver oil is used

00:33:09.900 you know to make squalene for vaccines was something completely new that we stumbled

00:33:15.220 across I mean for us it was new I know that other people knew about this and of course may have known

00:33:21.780 about it but but also not thought it was a big problem until we looked into it it became more

00:33:27.700 relevant because of the COVID vaccines my thinking was if we are going to see sharks as an animal

00:33:38.360 that saves human lives, that can become a really difficult thing to overcome, even if there are

00:33:46.940 alternatives. You know, once the recognition or the belief is there that we need sharks to fight

00:33:53.440 COVID, that's what initially scared me the most about this. I said, that's just one more reason

00:33:58.900 that will give fisheries a free-for-all to say, hey, we're doing it to save human life.

00:34:06.520 that's the initial thought i had when i came across this when when actually my team came across it

00:34:12.360 wasn't me and yes let me say straight from the beginning that the amount of squalene used in

00:34:22.140 vaccines right now is still small comparable to what's used in cosmetics and squalene use is still

00:34:28.760 very small compared to other products like fins and meat the point is that in the case of squalene

00:34:37.560 it can be made from many many sources and the belief that it is harder to make and that it is

00:34:43.680 more expensive to make is not really true anymore that is something that was put out and yes it

00:34:49.900 might have been true when sharks were incredibly plentiful but just think about what will happen

00:34:56.100 when a shark fishery collapses, well, then squalene is going to go at the price for squalene

00:35:02.740 will go up very quickly. It's a very unreliable source. Also, depending on a wild animal for a

00:35:13.600 substance that is needed on a global basis for something that is very important, like a vaccine,

00:35:20.460 it seems incredibly short-sighted to me because this is something we don't just need one time

00:35:26.660 this is going to be for decades we're going to have new mutations there's going to be more

00:35:31.980 coronaviruses and once more and more squalene adjuvants let's say in the case of vaccines

00:35:39.920 squalene is in the adjuvant once more and more more of them are being patented and used they

00:35:46.720 will also be marketed once it is a product it will be sold it will be made and it will be used

00:35:51.920 so it's not so much about what is happening immediately now it's it's where this could

00:35:57.660 lead and where this could it could just be one more product that means additional shark species

00:36:04.700 will be taken i understand that squalene very often the liver oil is very often a byproduct

00:36:12.620 of another fishery. Nobody's going out to hunt sharks specifically for vaccine squalene. That's

00:36:19.120 not what we're saying. But shark liver oil is most abundant in deep sea sharks, sharks that

00:36:27.320 live below 300 to 1500 meters. And those are sharks that may not even be commercially exploited for

00:36:33.940 any other reason. So suddenly there will be an interest in retaining sharks that are actually

00:36:41.560 quite mysterious. They haven't even been studied. Half of them are highly threatened, and the other

00:36:46.900 half have never even been studied. We don't even know about their life cycles and how they reproduce

00:36:52.640 or how many of them there are. So there's a lot of problems with squalene in vaccine use.

00:37:01.320 The fact that the processing might be more expensive, it connects to the issue of

00:37:09.300 purification squalene for cosmetics does not have to have not have to be as pure as it has to be for

00:37:17.420 vaccines of course so the oil from olives which is a very common squalene in cosmetics is very

00:37:26.440 difficult to get to that purity of vaccine use but squalene can be made from many other sources

00:37:33.460 And one of them that is highly usable for vaccines is bioengineered squalene made from sugarcane that is then fed to yeast.

00:37:48.940 And yeast and that will then produce any kind of squalene that you want under extremely controlled processes.

00:37:57.560 So that just shows you it can be done.

00:38:00.400 And in, you know, a process like that is reproducible in the exact same way under very controlled conditions and does not have to be taken from a wild animal species.

00:38:12.780 If it costs a little extra money for R&D and testing, I think that is a cost that the pharmaceutical industry can afford because they are going to make billions and billions of dollars off of vaccines.

00:38:27.780 And so is the beauty industry.

00:38:29.620 if it costs a little more to figure out how to use a not a plant squalene or a bioengineered

00:38:38.000 squalene so be it because again these companies are not really paying for the true cost of sharks

00:38:44.920 and to claim that sharks need to be used because they're cheaper is not going to hold up very much

00:38:50.420 longer gosh and just to even want to use the excuse that sharks are cheaper is really

00:38:59.760 sick and it says so much about where we are as uh yeah as a culture and i have to say that there

00:39:10.000 are probably some brands and some companies especially small smaller ones that may not even

00:39:15.180 realize that there's shark in there squalene because the way it is being marketed sometimes

00:39:20.860 squalene is just sold could be from animal or plants and it's not doesn't even mention the word

00:39:27.220 shark so there's a huge awareness raising need and which is part of the reason why why we're doing

00:39:33.760 it is it's not so much that we see squalene as the worst problem but it is something that the

00:39:40.200 consumers are not aware of and honestly a lot of consumers are kind of shocked when they find out

00:39:46.100 that their cosmetics do have sharks in them and that some of their vaccines or treatments you

00:39:54.100 know there's other things that that squalliness and there's some bacteria bactericides there's

00:40:00.940 some hemorrhoidal greens there's all sorts of things that have shark in them some of them it's

00:40:07.600 it's really just to be used as an emollient and i'm sorry but we have lots of other ways to

00:40:14.740 create emollients than to kill a wild animal yeah and it's just interesting too to point out

00:40:21.820 the connection between shark decline and our obsession with youth uh in terms of beauty

00:40:28.860 products it's like i said i i just have this um this other analysis going on in my mind around

00:40:36.840 the insanity of it all and um yeah now you know i understand that typically squalene or squalene

00:40:47.100 comes from deep sea sharks because they produce significantly larger amounts of it but this means

00:40:53.340 that entire species may potentially be decimated as they are solely caught and killed for their

00:41:00.160 livers. So what is needed to prevent this from happening? And if you are consuming squalene

00:41:06.920 products, what do you need to know? Well, I think consumer awareness helps a lot. And we've actually

00:41:15.240 had lots of people helping us with contacting companies to ask them to switch. I think consumer

00:41:22.780 pressure can cause, especially beauty companies, more than anything to change what they use.

00:41:30.160 i think also transparency and labeling very often a product will say squalene but it doesn't tell

00:41:38.100 you where it's from if you look if you start looking at your labels and you find it most

00:41:43.040 likely if it is if it says only squalene it doesn't say derived from olives then it probably

00:41:48.720 is shark because anyone that's aware of the fact that they well anywhere that anyone that has

00:41:54.940 switched and has chosen to use plant usually is aware of the problem and will want to announce it

00:42:00.960 so it's it's it's almost like uh you know it's it's a bonus to be able to say hey this is this

00:42:08.060 is made from from olives so labeling um being aware of what you use um in in choosing products

00:42:16.440 that don't have it sometimes the difficulty is you have to actually go to the website

00:42:20.420 of that product and see if they have a contents list and on the vaccine side you know pharmaceutical

00:42:29.540 companies they're very very hard to address and and deal with we're working on that we're trying

00:42:35.680 to start communications with them to see if they would consider changing the process it's going to

00:42:43.580 be a process they're not going to be able to just swap one for the other because there's a lot of

00:42:48.020 testing that has to happen, and clinical trials, etc. But the process has to start at some point.

00:42:55.740 And we're trying to bring in different organizations and people that could influence

00:43:04.160 the pharmaceutical industry to even think about making the switch. You know, this is probably

00:43:10.180 not going to happen through laws. It's going to have to be because the corporations want to do

00:43:14.920 the right thing and the consumers want to do the right thing it's it's a monumental effort but i

00:43:21.840 try not to think about how little we can get done but to just get started and do it anyway and this

00:43:27.640 is why we wanted to raise the awareness first we're not claiming to have all the answers we're

00:43:32.500 not claiming to have even exactly every stat and every piece of data about it we do know it's bad

00:43:38.900 enough and we do not need to change. And that's what we're working on. We're trying to make the

00:43:45.360 changes where we can at the time we can. And as you can imagine, trying to do this during COVID

00:43:51.540 has been very sensitive. We're trying not to in any way appear as if we want to slow down

00:43:58.880 a COVID vaccine. What we are saying is that if these vaccines are going to be around for decades

00:44:04.320 to come we need to start thinking about testing alternatives alongside with the established ones

00:44:11.580 because if we never start testing them they'll never be replaced and we'll keep having this

00:44:15.900 argument 10 and 20 years from now.

00:44:34.320 Oh, oh, oh

00:44:37.860 This you'd be the fox

00:44:54.380 Keep a step of it

00:44:57.300 This you'd be the knife

00:45:04.320 God in the fear

00:45:07.800 We all feel

00:45:11.240 This would be the cloud

00:45:15.480 That holds the water down

00:45:18.420 But it could be the sun

00:45:22.440 Keeping you warm

00:45:28.820 During the storm

00:45:34.320 now i've read several different statistics on how many sharks are killed every year

00:45:43.620 either from gill nets shark finning or for squalene and the number is somewhere i think

00:45:49.760 around 100 million annually but you know please correct me if that has changed and

00:45:55.260 and so something that i want to point out is that or is how our rapid consumption is also

00:46:00.780 just totally incompatible with biological paces so can you speak a bit about the sexual maturity

00:46:07.580 and gestation periods for sharks and how that factors into conservation dialogue as well as

00:46:15.020 the reality that sharks are inching towards extinction yeah i think because there are so

00:46:20.880 many different species the it varies of course you know how um how late their maturity is and

00:46:28.180 how many young they have and how old they grow it's it varies anywhere from you know just looking

00:46:34.460 at the age range from let's say reef sharks may live 20 to 30 years and then you go to like a

00:46:41.540 deep sea shark I believe the Greenland shark they they caught one that they think might have been

00:46:46.860 400 years old but that particular shark may not even be sexually mature until it's 90 or something

00:46:53.460 like that it seems impossible for me to you know it seems impossible that an animal like that could

00:46:59.980 even exist but generally speaking to understand how sharks how how they work is to think of mammals

00:47:08.900 you know you sharks are fish but they really reproduce more like other mammals compared to

00:47:15.280 to dolphins for example they have to be sometimes in their teenage years let's say with a great

00:47:22.160 bite shark you know they have to be in their teenage years before they're sexually mature

00:47:25.780 then they only have a litter of pups every other year possibly um they have a long uh gestation

00:47:36.200 period they you know some species have they're pregnant for anywhere from 9 to 12 or 13 months

00:47:42.100 so um you know and the litters are small you know i think if the whale shark is one that has

00:47:49.380 you know maybe 30 to 40 young but most of the shark species have a lot fewer of them some only

00:47:55.900 give birth to one and so you can see that this is not like a tuna that within a year is sexually

00:48:03.680 mature and then lays thousands and thousands of eggs every year these are animals that reproduce

00:48:10.440 you know like dogs and cats um and that is and they they live off of protein so this is one of

00:48:18.980 the biggest reasons why we cannot breed them you know even if they could be kept in in captivity

00:48:23.600 we could not breed them because the numbers the reproduction would be so slow it's it it wouldn't

00:48:29.400 be worth it that's why we're outpacing you know outpacing the uh their numbers um because they

00:48:35.740 cannot they can most shark species probably cannot handle any commercial exploitation and

00:48:44.860 meaning you know one could say well what kind of exploitation could they well they could

00:48:50.520 potentially handle some subsistence fishing you know people fishing for food um just you know

00:48:56.760 for their village here and there as long as they're not using it you know to to fuel the

00:49:01.780 whole business but um it's very difficult because what we consider to be sustainable

00:49:09.380 is counting the fish that are being caught.

00:49:13.440 And as long as the numbers of fish being caught

00:49:15.840 is kind of somewhat steady,

00:49:18.320 the agencies determine that it must be sustainable,

00:49:21.340 but it's by no means that way.

00:49:23.460 By the time the numbers plummet,

00:49:25.360 it's often too late for that population to recover.

00:49:30.200 So, you know, it's not a very complicated issue to understand.

00:49:34.160 You know, we're fishing more than the populations can replenish.

00:49:39.380 And we do that for many species, but for sharks, it's especially critical.

00:49:45.780 And if you wanted another number, I mean, the most recent study that just came out says that since 1970, sharks and rays have been declining by 71%.

00:49:57.780 So that means many of those species, because it's, you know, maybe more or less for some, but many of those species are indeed heading for extinction levels.

00:50:09.380 i um i came across an interview you gave where you talked about the desire to see us move away

00:50:17.240 from these sort of or sort of adrenaline-based industries like shark dives and instead move

00:50:23.220 into ways of knowing that are more subtle and layered and it's so refreshing to hear this

00:50:29.700 because so often even advocates for sharks are still selling them as this sort of sensational

00:50:37.060 creature that is here for our amusement. And so I'd love to hear your thoughts on this and just

00:50:43.660 really challenging us to move out of this thirst for resources, entertainment, and dominion and

00:50:51.020 into a new form of relationship between humans and predators. Well, that's, you know, shark

00:50:59.720 tourism and uh diving and diving with sharks is um in general in general a very positive thing

00:51:10.320 you know it it is what has created the awareness of sharks and has created a vast amount of people

00:51:17.980 that love sharks now and that are passionate about sharks that is the reason why there are

00:51:23.360 so many photos on and and video clips of sharks on instagram on facebook that is all very very

00:51:30.760 positive and it is actually needed and it is the only reason why sharks are now really being

00:51:36.620 considered as an animal that should be protected so just to clarify that i'm not at all against

00:51:42.720 shark diving i think shark diving is is very very important what i don't like is if shark diving is

00:51:49.680 presented in a way that promotes the shark diver more than the shark in in what i mean is is when

00:51:58.180 they um present it as if it was a daredevil stunt or look at me in the danger zone or look at me

00:52:06.140 dominating this animal or you know in a way that this is like oh i bungee jumped and i then i dove

00:52:12.220 with sharks and i i'm crazy like that you know this that doesn't help us i think uh that's

00:52:19.140 becoming less and less prominent though i think people are starting to see through that i think

00:52:24.600 that looking for encounters with sharks is something that sometimes it can be negative

00:52:30.840 like anything else you know dive tourism can be damaging to the reef it can be damaging to you

00:52:37.560 know the fish population because there's just too many people in the water but it is the best thing

00:52:43.220 we have going that as an alternative to fishing because economies still have to be fueled by

00:52:49.500 something and diving is a great alternative like everything else there's good operators there's

00:52:58.980 bad operators there is good behavior and bad behavior and and sometimes you can't avoid one

00:53:05.820 while you have the other so I think it's all about how it's done and since shark diving is

00:53:13.640 a little bit new it had to go through these years of where it was being sensationalized and

00:53:19.260 unfortunately it still is on social media in many cases where there's a real tendency to people

00:53:26.960 wanting to be seen diving with sharks and really it is more about them than about sharks and more

00:53:33.480 about them being brave or having some particular skill than than it is about shark conservation

00:53:39.460 but in the process you know honestly any positive shark image probably helps the process along

00:53:47.600 we won't like all of them but I don't agree with everything needing to be perfect we can't have

00:53:54.760 perfection it's going to go a little wrong here and there so it's you know human beings generally

00:54:01.420 kind of overdo certain things and and the same happened with shark diving so I think it generally

00:54:07.680 it's a good thing I don't think that we can go out and say everybody leave everything alone that's

00:54:13.720 not going to happen and there's too many of us and we have too much interest to be in the ocean

00:54:19.360 on the ocean fishing sport fishing diving spearfishing that is not going to go away we just

00:54:25.340 have to figure out how to do it in the right way that's the hardest part you know figuring out the

00:54:31.340 the how to optimize it yeah oh well stephanie there's so much that you shared with us today

00:54:41.380 that so important and really i i feel like is asking us to sit with the complexity and

00:54:51.700 think about these kin that most of us know of but are not even beginning to understand

00:55:00.640 what's happening to them and the implications and the complicity of it all so thank you so

00:55:07.680 much for devoting your time and your love and your passion to these creatures and for being

00:55:14.020 able to communicate to us what's happening in their world which is our world of course

00:55:20.020 and how to connect all the dots I really appreciated this this conversation but if

00:55:26.020 there is anything else that you'd like to add in that hasn't been talked about please do so

00:55:32.740 I think I would just walk away by saying that within the community that is is forming the

00:55:42.140 community of shark conservationists and and advocates and particularly the people that

00:55:47.980 are very involved online I think I would like everyone to consider to try and be helpful you

00:55:56.220 know and to not tear into people that are doing things that are less than perfect or perceived to

00:56:02.540 be less than perfect because I want to emphasize that again none of us have the perfect solution

00:56:09.900 we're always struggling to find those and none of it is we're not always addressing the biggest

00:56:16.220 solutions but we should always stay involved and we should always move things forward even if it's

00:56:22.840 incrementally everyone can do that and um i think that's really i i always try to look forward and

00:56:31.220 i'd like everyone else to to look forward and let's keep looking for progress that we can make

00:56:37.100 if we look back and think about how dire the situation is with sharks then we're all going

00:56:42.380 to quit right now. So let's just look forward and let's keep looking for ways that we can move

00:56:49.600 the cost forward. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Stephanie. Well, thank you for having me.

00:56:57.260 thank you for listening to another episode of for the wild podcast the music you heard today

00:57:16.940 was by bird by snow handmade moments and left vessel for the wild is created by ayana young

00:57:23.700 Erica Ekrem and Francesca Glaspell, with special research assistance by Julia Jackson.

For The Wild - July 14, 2021

STEFANIE BRENDL on Being Humbled by Sharks ⧸242

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