For more Eli Roth, check out his latest episode on the new season of Discovery's Shark Week: The Podcast. On this episode of Shark Week: The Podcast, host Luke Tipple takes a dive into the latest news in the world of sharks. He discusses Mako sightings off the coast of Spain and the media coverage of several shark attacks near Egypt. Plus, award-winning filmmaker & shark conservationist Eli Roth also joins Luke to discuss shark killing tournaments in Florida and across the United States. Eli & Luke explain how spreading awareness and increasing public pressure can put an end to the practice, once and for all!
For more Eli Roth, check out his latest episode on the new season of Discovery's Shark Week: The Podcast.
On this episode of Shark Week: The Podcast, host Luke Tipple takes a dive into the latest news in the world of sharks. He discusses Mako sightings off the coast of Spain and the media coverage of several shark attacks near Egypt. Plus, award-winning filmmaker & shark conservationist Eli Roth also joins Luke to discuss shark killing tournaments in Florida and across the United States. Eli & Luke explain how spreading awareness and increasing public pressure can put an end to the practice, once and for all!
Connect with the podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/shark-week-the-podcast/id1527053422
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Learn More About Shark Week: https://www.discovery.com/shark-week
For more about sharks, head to SharkWeek.com
Find episode transcripts here: https://a-ghost-ruined-my-life-with-eli-roth.simplecast.com/episodes/shark-week-the-podcast-eli-roth-on-shark-killing-tournaments
[00:00:00] Luke: On today's podcast, we're talking about mako sightings off the coast of Barcelona. We'll discuss mating season and if sharks are more dangerous during this part of the life cycle. Then, we're gonna chat with film director and shark activist, Eli Roth. He joins us to discuss shark killing tournaments in Florida. All that and more is coming up on this episode of Shark Week: The Podcast!
[00:00:21] Luke: I'm Luke Tipple, marine biologist and a frequent voice on my favorite things, oceans and sharks. And I'm stoked to bring the magic of Shark Week, right to your ears. You know, sharks have been a big part of my life for over 20 years. They're a critical part of the ocean and a conduit to better understanding life on our planet.
[00:00:43] Luke: So, whether you've never seen Shark Week before or you've been a die hard fan over the 30-plus years it's been around, this podcast is for you.
[00:00:58] Luke: G’day and welcome to Shark Week: The Podcast. Before we dive in to today’s episode, I’m going to tell you about some changes to the format… Now, don't worry! This is still Shark Week: The Podcast. I'm still Luke Tipple and we're still here bringing you amazing shark content and guests on this weekly Shark Week podcast. But going forwards, we’re going to be breaking down each episode into three parts…
[00:01:21] Luke: We'll start each episode with Shark Speak, where I'll take you on a dive through some interesting shark and ocean news, things that are going on today and some weird stuff that you might not have known about. Then we'll move on to Big Impact. This is where we're talking about a big topic that needs our attention.
[00:01:37] Luke: I'll be joined by a special guest and we'll break it all down for you. And last we'll finish with Fin. We'll get our final thoughts, debrief and talk about what you can do to help save sharks, our oceans and mother earth. Sound good? Well, let's get going with Shark Speak.
[00:01:57] Luke: We've just wrapped up another epic Shark Week. And I gotta tell you, I enjoyed every show. I hope you did too. It seems like we've been talking about sharks, just wall to wall, but, you know, sharks are a year round phenomenon and people are fascinated with them around the world. Like, in the news today, there's a story about a mako shark that was found just off the coast of Barcelona.
[00:02:20] Luke: Now, if that doesn't sound weird to you, it's because you might not know that they're actually kind of rare around there. Now, it actually took them a little bit of time to think about it because this mako shark was found by a Cetacean Underwater Association, by a guy named David Jara. Now he photographed it.
[00:02:37] Luke: He initially thought it was a sunfish. It just goes to show that they're not used to seeing sharks around there all that often. But he thought it was a sunfish, then he noticed, wow, that's a dorsal fin. And then he thought, wow, that might be a great white shark because it was actually kind of big. And, if you don't know, makos kind of looked like great white sharks, especially when they're really big.
[00:02:58] Luke: But, he went on to say that there's no record of a video of a shortfin mako in the Spanish Mediterranean. So, they've now discovered this fish out there and, granted, they were not out there specifically looking for it but these guys are working with cetaceans; they're working with whales and dolphins, that type of thing.
[00:03:16] Luke: So, they're always out at sea, always looking for stuff. They know what a sunfish is, which is a very obscure fish and there's a mako. So, for me, that's a pretty good symptom of some health in the Mediterranean, that a mako is there. But it could also be that there's some changes going on in the area. We know that makos travel a lot.
[00:03:36] Luke: We know that they're highly migratory. For them to be turning up in an area where they're not traditionally found… That could speak to food availability, it could speak to water temperatures, it could speak to a lot of different things. But the fact that they're there, I think, is great. Now this is a critically endangered species.
[00:03:52] Luke: It's been recognized in a place where it hasn't been before. I think that's just a good news story and everyone should be stoked about that. Now, for those of you listening, who might be, like, a little bit worried about makos turning up where they're not supposed to be. I mean, makos are supposed to be in that area.
[00:04:06] Luke: It's just that they're not seen all that often. And they are a pretty elusive fish. I mean, we've just been through an entire week where we've dedicated probably millions of dollars in production money, sending crews of people out to find makos. And they sit there for days and days and days and days and days, in places where they know that the makos are supposed to be and they don't get to see them.
[00:04:26] Luke: So, look, this isn't swarms of makos going around. This is a pretty random sighting by people who spend a lot of time on the water. And they've never seen one there but it's worth noting that it's kind of cool that sharks have these massive global ranges and that they have the ability to surprise us occasionally.
[00:04:46] Luke: But makos are traditionally way offshore, they like deep water. Unless you're out there swimming with a cetacean society, you're pretty unlikely to run across that particular shark. Now, this next story is one that kind of got me crazy when I first read it. And, it came from The Sun, which is probably a reason to be, you know, factually curious about the reporting anyway.
[00:05:05] Luke: Especially when I see the title and this is just worth reading verbatim. You ready for it? Out For The Kill: Killer Shark Was Sex Crazed When It Mauled Two Swimmers To Death Near Egypt Holiday Spot, Say Experts. This is from the US Sun on July 13th 2022. And, you know, Sun, I can see your copywriter sitting there and wondering how we can get sex and killing and sharks and holidays and all things that people care about, all in the one headline and, you know, congratulations! You wrote a pretty provocative headline… but it's mostly garbage. So, let's break it down and see, actually, what happened. Now, the tragedy of it is, two women did lose their lives to a shark or sharks.
[00:05:51] Luke: We don't know if it was the same one. It was in, you know, a very local area. They weren't very far away from each other. It could be the same shark. There's no evidence of that, but one might think that could be possible. This happened in Sahl Hasheesh, near the city of Hurghada. It's about 60 miles southwest of Sharm El-Sheikh, which is a name a lot of you might know. Now, the locals will be quick to say, “hey, it's nowhere near Sharm El-Sheikh and that's an unfair reference to give”.
[00:06:18] Luke: But, for those who might just need some type of reference, it's in the Red Sea. Now, shark attacks in the Red Sea are exceedingly rare. They really don't happen. And, when they do, it's been mostly attributed to oceanic white tips, which have been known to, you know, bite people.
[00:06:36] Luke: And there have been some tragic events linked to that species. But what I found really interesting about this particular article is that not only did two people get bitten within a few days of each other and it happened in a very localized area, but the media response to this has been pretty crazy. Because we've got people from The Sun talking about sex crazed killer sharks and then we've got the local environmental organizations saying that it's to do with, you know, the mating season and the egg laying season.
[00:07:11] Luke: Now what's fascinating about that is those are the actual words that they used… that was picked up by the media and the media then makes the tangent in connection to sex crazed sharks. It's nothing to do with the shark’s mating season, at all! They're talking fish! They're talking about, probably groupers and stuff that are like mating and spawning in the area.
[00:07:35] Luke: Now, there's no such thing as an egg laying season for sharks, in this area anyway. And the species that they're accusing of… first of all, they're accused of being a mako shark, which, I don't know where they get that from. This happened in very shallow water, granted near a drop off, but very shallow water.
[00:07:53] Luke: It would be exceedingly rare, if not the first time ever for a Mako shark to be in that shallow, having a fatal incident with a swimmer and it happening again a few days later. That's not makos. And, besides that, makos give live births. So this whole egg-laying thing kind of got a bit weird and it's out there in the media.
[00:08:16] Luke: So, we're dispelling that right now. The local conservation organization attributed the shark presence in the area to, perhaps, being related to the local fish spawning and mating season, which is a known event. It happens generally in mid April through July, and there have been sharks around during that time.
[00:08:38] Luke: This is totally normal. This is a cycle of life. This is what's supposed to happen. When fish come, sharks go… that's what they're supposed to do. They're supposed to go and eat. And when there's a whole lot of them around, sharks get to eat too. Now the logic behind an article that cites shark’s mating season being responsible for a heightened sense of aggression in the water… kind of makes sense when you hear about it but that's really not how it works.
[00:09:01] Luke: The male shark is highly aggressive towards female sharks during the mating period. Now, I'm not even gonna say mating season, ‘cause that doesn't even make sense with sharks. You know, they're very opportunistic. They do go to places at certain times to mate, but it's not really a season per se. But it's not fair to just translate that aggression to saying, oh, if I'm in the same area, they're gonna be aggressive towards me.
[00:09:26] Luke: Now, I can tell you that a male shark, once it's very determined to mate with a female shark, won't care about the person swimming near it. And that event is extremely unlikely to happen near somebody who's swimming around anyway, particularly in a tourist resort. So this isn't something that you need to worry about.
[00:09:45] Luke: They get very fixated on, you know, consummating the deed and they're not gonna see you as a competitor. So, it's fair to say that’s absolute nonsense… unless you happen to look a lot like a female shark, and then, you've probably got much bigger problems anyway. As to what species this was, it actually took me quite a bit to drill down because I found multiple reports of a mako shark being responsible.
[00:10:10] Luke: And then I found multiple reports of an oceanic white tip, which they didn't directly attribute but they said it was probably, because of historical evidence. But, then I found an eight page report issued by the local committee, which was written in some English and some not… they're saying that it was a single tiger shark now because of the actual bite marks that were on the victims.
[00:10:32] Luke: It's extremely likely that a tiger shark would exhibit this… Well, actually let me roll back that rhetoric. It's not extremely likely that a tiger shark would bite somebody but this type of behavior, the type of attack that it was, the location where it was, the evidence of there being fish spawning around the place.
[00:10:50] Luke: Yeah. That's gonna bring in tiger sharks. So it's pretty likely, in this case, that it was a tiger shark. Now, whether it was a single tiger shark or not, that’s completely up for, you know, conjecture. No one's ever gonna know that, unless they happen to catch a tiger shark and found genetic evidence of those victims inside that shark.
[00:11:09] Luke: Now, the local response was also pretty interesting with this because they basically shut down everything. Now, this is a very tourist-heavy location, a place that greatly relies on money coming in from overseas. They have a lot of tourists from the Middle East. They have a lot of tourists from the UK and Europe and the waters there are beautiful.
[00:11:28] Luke: I've spent a lot of time there myself. The Red Sea is gorgeous, you should definitely go. There's some great diving there. And the sharks, when you get to see them, are fantastic. I've seen aggregating hammerheads there, and that was fantastic, but they have had a few incidents recently and, you know, the last incidents were like five years ago or something.
[00:11:48] Luke: So it's not a common event, but, you know, the local authorities were fairly quick to say that, “hey, it's all to do with overfishing and it's to do with carcasses getting dumped from local ships”, which could be the case. You know, local ships are throwing offal overboard and sharks could be around.
[00:12:06] Luke: There was a lot of blame getting laid on external factors that basically said, “hey, we're a tourist resort and if we just stop some of these things, the sharks will go away”. That’s not necessarily gonna happen because at the very beginning they blamed the regular fish spawning and mating events that sharks might turn up for.
[00:12:24] Luke: So look, this is just one of those really unfortunate things where a shark’s around and it's probably because there's a lot of fish in the area. There's probably a lot more tourist activity right now. It's the end of COVID. People can travel. You know, there's just a lot more activity in the water in that period of time.
[00:12:42] Luke: Some animals might have changed their locations a little bit. It's nothing we can really blame on the shark or whatever. It's just something to be aware of that, hey, if you're gonna go into their environment and you are in a fish spawning season, we've said this before, about Florida and other places in the world.
[00:12:55] Luke: If you're gonna go swim in a fish spawning… known spawning aggregation, it's worth being a lot more careful and swimming in groups and not swimming alone. Both women who were bitten were alone, at the time. So that's worth noting. And if you are snorkelling and you do see a shark, look it in the eyes, swim towards it.
[00:13:14] Luke: You know, they're ambush predators. If they see that you know what they are, then, they're probably gonna give it a second thought. And you'll probably be able to tell that story rather than unfortunately being part of this horrible news headline. Now, lastly, we're gonna talk about a shark tournament that took place in Riviera Beach, Florida, just recently. Happened on July 9th, 2022.
[00:13:35] Luke: Now, this thing just absolutely blew up. It's been all over the news. It's been in the media, it's been on social media feeds and there've been some big celebrities that have been talking about this. And, I had to wonder why is it that a fishing tournament is creating so much drama?
[00:13:54] Luke: And it was a pretty easy answer because these fishing captains decided to hold a shark tournament and they decided they were gonna kill as many sharks as they could. Well, at least that's what they were saying on the social media boards. Now, if you talk to the actual organizers of the shark fishing tournament, they're saying that they're holding a scientifically valid, permissible and totally normal shark fishing tournament where they're gonna go and census some of the sharks in the local area.
[00:14:24] Luke: And they did, they harvested nine sharks that we know of, nine big bull sharks. They say that they released 328 sharks, which is a heck of a lot of sharks in a particularly focused area. And, as you may well know, releasing sharks doesn't mean that they lived. Sharks are extremely prone to stress and some species like hammerheads…
[00:14:48] Luke: Once they're caught, they get so stressed that they might give birth prematurely. They very frequently die. They're just extremely vulnerable to stress. So yeah, they released quote unquote 328 sharks. They harvested nine of them and, in the lead up to this event, there was protests because people caught wind of these chatboards, where people were talking about killing as many sharks as they could; shoot them, sink them, cut them.
[00:15:15] Luke: They were very graphic in the way that they were talking about eliminating sharks from an area. And that was very clearly the focus of, at least, some of the people associated with it. And I'm not even saying these are the people on the boats.
[00:15:32] Luke: I'm saying that these are the people on the chatboards that created a huge amount of pre-heat for this tournament. And this is something we're gonna be talking about with Eli Roth in just a moment, but it's worth noting that the people protesting these tournaments were particularly angry about bull sharks being targeted. Going out and targeting bull sharks in a certain area is borderline stupid.
[00:15:57] Luke: I mean, you're taking out a very long lived animal from a very focused area. And you're just completely destroying the trophic pyramid in that particular area. You know, bull sharks do travel but they do kind of hang out in certain areas. So you've just taken, you know, the top predator out of a fairly localized ecosystem.
[00:16:16] Luke: It might be a larger reef system. It might be a 50 mile area or something that they're targeting but, to sharks, that's a smaller area, that's their neighborhood and you've just removed them all. But anyway, we're gonna get deep into this with Eli in just a moment. Now, the footage and photos that came out of this event are straight up just shocking.
[00:16:35] Luke: I mean, you've got big adult bull sharks getting dragged out of boats, being put on a lawn and butchered, for really no reason, except for their jaws. You know, we've got kids stabbing them with knives. We've got, you know, power tools being used to carve out the teeth and the jaws and stuff like that. I mean, this is slaughter.
[00:16:53] Luke: This is harvest, you know, it's never a pretty thing. If you went to a place where cattle were being slaughtered, you'd be absolutely horrified as well. It's never nice to see animals getting taken apart but the senselessness of this particular event and the images that came out of it was striking because we saw these sharks that really had no purpose at all to these fishermen, except as being a trophy and except as winning some money. And that kind of gets me to the point of this being a tournament. These aren't people who are going out and subsistence fishing, they're not particularly shark fishermen, in the sense that that's how they make their money.
[00:17:34] Luke: They're not harvesting the meat. In many respects, the meat is gross-tasting and toxic to them because of the heavy metals. So this is literally an event that was targeting sharks, for really no purpose except for trophies. And if you talk to the event organizer, this guy named Robert “Fly” Navarro, who I'd love to talk to sometime because I wanna hear both sides of everything, but he's gone heavily on the record saying that the sharks are overpopulated in a certain area and they needed to census and do a bit of a cull, his words.
[00:18:10] Luke: So he was saying that as fishermen, they're going out, they're catching fish, the taxman, quote unquote… if you haven't heard that before, that's a fisherman's term for, you know, getting your fish taxed by the tax man, the shark who's coming up and eating that fish that you're trying to catch for yourself and pull onto your boat.
[00:18:25] Luke: Now he's saying this is happening just way too regularly. There's too many sharks out there. We're not landing our catches anymore. And you know, the sharks need to go. That is anecdotal and admittedly, fairly well researched in the sense that they're out there a lot. You know, fishermen are fonts of knowledge, but they're not scientists.
[00:18:47] Luke: They're not censoring what those animals are doing to the local populations. They're not following migration patterns. They're not realizing the importance of that particular animal to different ecosystems or different locations. They're just seeing maybe their favorite fishing spot has a couple of sharks around and they're losing their fish, whether it be for commercial or, you know, private or just their own edification and eating, when they're trying to catch a fish, a shark’s getting it.
[00:19:12] Luke: And that was kind of his justification for needing to go do it. And NOAA actually said that this is totally okay. And they literally gave them guidelines for how to do this, and they had no problems with it. So we've got official government organizations saying, yeah, no problem, go out and target all these sharks.
[00:19:32] Luke: They actually have catch quotas for these sharks that you're supposedly allowed to do. And, officially, no laws are broken. However, our next guest is gonna help us understand why there perhaps should be laws that have been broken here and perhaps how there were laws broken. And we're gonna learn about that with Eli Roth, who's coming up just next in Big Impact.
[00:19:55] Luke: So today, I'm stoked to welcome a guest who is extremely passionate about shark conservation and, lately, has been a vocal critic of shark killing tournaments. Eli Roth is a film director and shark activist. He probably needs no introduction to many of you out there. And I wanna welcome you to the show, how you doing mate?
[00:20:12] Eli: Great. Thank you, Luke. Happy to be here, love talking sharks!
[00:20:14] Luke: And mate, I've been, you know, you've been out there just lately… this killing tournament, this shark fishing tournament, got you pretty enraged.
[00:20:25] Eli: Well, this is the season. I mean, this is every time, like, this year, around every time, last year it happened too.
[00:20:30] Eli: And the year before, where you just start looking at all these shark killing tournaments that are happening up and down the East Coast of the United States. And everybody loves to, you know, criticize Asia and criticize Indonesia and Spain and all the places are killing sharks and places they're eating them. But nobody looks at our own backyard and says, what are we doing?
[00:20:48] Eli: And what is the purpose of this? And it's amazing, how these people hide behind science, which is just such a complete joke. But I started getting sent Facebook messages from a group… and this group of Florida fishermen were going, we're gonna go and kill. We're gonna make this the bloodiest, most brutal kill tournament in 50 years.
[00:21:08] Eli: I mean, I have the screen caps of the messages. So a lot of people were going, hey, have you seen what's going on? And I started making noise about it and tagging everybody. And, everyone was just like, is this really happening? And a lot of people… what was great, was a lot of people started waking up to not just the tournaments but the insane amount of corruption and how little the government organizations do and how they just kind of willfully ignore people and allow the tournaments to happen.
[00:21:33] Eli: And then one amazing, amazing woman went in and she did it, like, she got permission from these guys. She sort of was like, hey, I'm a fisherman too. And they let her in. And she filmed what they're doing. And all these people that were acting like this is for science and conservation are children, stabbing sharks with knives, cutting them open with power tools, posing with beers for selfies, all the stuff you'd imagine that, you know, the worst of the worst.
[00:21:59] Eli: And then they go, well, it's all legal. We can do it. And the sick part is, it is legal. So then there's another one in Alabama. There was one in Block Island, Rhode Island, that actually canceled because they were so afraid of the backlash. But my new mission in life is to kill all of these tournaments because they're so useless.
[00:22:16] Eli: And so unbelievably destructive. And literally, the purpose is for social media, likes and prizes. I mean, that's it. There's nothing else that they can do with this.
[00:22:24] Well, let's take it back to kind of, the inception of how you got involved in this first one because I think this is kind of a pivotal point that we're facing here and, you know, shark tournaments have been going on for a long time.
[00:22:36] Luke: They've been kind of up and down with corporate sponsorships. The reasoning behind it, you're correct is, you know, sketchy at best, but this particular one may be one of those turning points. And I think it started with those chatboards. Can you fill us in on some of that?
[00:22:53] Eli: Yeah. I mean, every species there's… you know, 50 years ago it was “Saved the Whales”. And then, you know, you could feel the “Save the Dolphin… Save the Tuna”. And remember the Cove (CHECK THIS) was the thing where everyone was like, whoa, there's a dolphin sold, which is by the way, again, gonna happen starting soon. But the black fish, you know, we needed that kind of turtle in the straw (CHECK THIS) moment for sharks where you're just like, what are we doing?
[00:23:15] Eli: Why are we doing this? Regardless of whether the stocks are at a hundred percent. By the way, they're down 90%, they're near extinction and we're still doing this and people are defiant about it. Like, how is this happening? And this is something I learned about when I was shooting Fin. And, I went to one outside Boston where I grew up, I didn't know this was going on.
[00:23:34] Eli: And the thing is, 30 years ago, it wasn't a problem. You know, this shark extinction is something from the last 20 years. It's not because of Jaws, it's because money came into China and people started selling shark fin soup. And then they created these laws where you can't just cut off the fins, you’ve gotta land the whole shark.
[00:23:50] Eli: Well, all that did was multiply the problem because then they started these nonsense industries of fake science, like shark liver oil and shark cartilage pills and selling shark jaws and shark meat… The meat is so toxic and none of its tested, it just goes right into supermarkets. They're not testing it for mercury.
[00:24:08] Eli: Talk to Shark Girl Madison or Reggie Domingo at Naka (CHECK THIS). They're testing the meat and showing us 30 times the amount of mercury. So the problem is that sharks have, you know, everyone's saying… look, if you go to NOAA fisheries, on the damn NOAA website. Now NOAA just got makos banned for fishing as of July 5th, but, on their website, they still list mako as a really great alternate source of protein.
[00:24:30] Eli: I mean, NOAA is part of the department of commerce. So I just started digging into it. I started, you know, showing it in the documentary and I have all that footage. I have it in VR and every year I just release it and people are just like, wait, what is this real? Is this going on right now? And when I showed people the sponsors that were part of the Alabama Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo, which was Coca-Cola, Yamaha, US Army, the Food and Drug Administration, iHeart Radio, Chevrolet… and they're all sponsoring this.
[00:25:00] Eli: And the problem is, the tournaments don't say we're killing endangered sharks. They go, Hey, it's for charity. We're giving money to scholarships. This supports local industry. They make it seem like it's a great thing. It's been going for 30 years but we are at a turning point. We are at the point now.
[00:25:14] Eli: I mean, Diego Cardoza, (CHECK THIS) who's someone I interviewed for Fin who has a lab at Cador Farms in Hong Kong and DNA test (CHECK THIS). The sharkfin trade is like… seven out of the 10 sharks that are being traded are now, like, very close to extinction. Like, they're gonna be gone. They are not coming back. And the problem is that killing sharks is a billion dollar industry.
[00:25:33] Eli: So every time people speak up, the classic line I hear is, well, you're not a scientist. You're just a filmmaker. Shut up and stay in your lane. Or, well, we need this research or, well, we really need… We could, the only kind of data we can get is from dead sharks. So, you know, the tournaments are actually quite beneficial.
[00:25:49] Eli: So this nonsense of lying and hiding behind science, all it does is keeps the killing going. And every time a shark is out of the water, someone is making money. It's a complete lie. And do you know who loses? We all do. In fact, I talked to Austin Gallagher who has a fantastic NGO called Beneath the Waves.
[00:26:09] Eli: He just presented a paper in Portugal. That's going to be printed very soon, but basically through The Bahamas, which is protected waters. And obviously, none of the fishermen are starving there. And it's not like everyone's being eaten by sharks there. The sharks live quite freely in The Bahamas. They discovered that the tiger sharks specifically were all congregating in this one area where there was seagrass. Beneath the seagrass is where the turtles are feeding.
[00:26:35] Eli: The tiger sharks are feeding on the sea turtles but because the tiger sharks feed on the sea turtles and the sea grass is allowed to grow, this seagrass is eight times more powerful than the rainforest at trapping carbon. So all of these companies that wanna be carbon neutral and talk about carbon offset, the easiest way to do it is by letting tiger sharks live.
[00:26:56] Eli: Like, don't kill tiger sharks. It's so insane. And there's photos from Alabama from these fishermen. You can look it up on Brian Rose’s Facebook, which is very public. It's children riding dead tiger sharks that have distended their stomachs. So it's just like the whole culture that sharks are these monsters that are these prizes for us to kill, has to change.
[00:27:19] Eli: You know, we have to start seeing them really as protectors of the ocean and protectors of our oxygen. And they are the doctors of the sea. They keep the sea clean. They are not monsters. And yeah, is there an increase in shark bites? Yeah. 7 billion people in the water. People are gonna get bit, but wherever there's fish, there's going to be sharks, but they're not biting you on purpose.
[00:27:39] Eli: They're not eating you on purpose, but we have to protect them the way we did the whales. Otherwise it's gone. And then God knows what's gonna happen.
[00:27:46] Luke: If we take some of those points and say, alright, we need to isolate things because we can only legislate what we can isolate. Right? We can't say, alright, the entire world has this problem and we need to address it on all fronts.
[00:27:58] Luke: Individual people need to say, all right, here's something that I can do tangibly, or that I can focus on tangibly, and we'll change that one thing. And we do that a million times over, we've solved the problem. Right? You know, theoretically. So this particular event, you have evidence of the fishermen beforehand, getting involved, talking to each other about what they were planning to do, which was kill and sink a bunch of sharks.
[00:28:22] Luke: Then you have footage of the tournament organizers or somebody involved, at least in the captain's briefing, talking about how to essentially get away with killing sharks and not bringing him back to the dock. And you said that it's a fairly corrupt thing. Explain that process. And is this a problem with all tournaments or was this a particularly isolated one where it was bad?
[00:28:43] Eli: It's a problem with all tournaments and, I'm not saying all fishermen are corrupt, but they're not bringing back the small sharks. First of all, when they say we're only getting the large sharks, you know, sharks take eight to 10 years to reach sexual maturity. So you're literally taking the only sharks that can breed out of the water and they say, they're not going after the babies, but they're not bringing them back.
[00:29:05] Eli: They're throwing them back. They're either throwing them back in or killing them. Now, certain species can handle that. But if you're a hammerhead, the stress just kills you. And as soon as they're turned upside down, there's stomachs to distend… and that's all sharks. So we're only seeing what they're bringing back.
[00:29:20] Eli: And there is some footage from the water of a guy beating a sandbar shark to death with a baseball bat. So what we've done is we took it and we turned it over to PETA and we turned it over to law enforcement and we have environmental lawyers looking at that to see if we can prosecute. Now all of that got turned over to Florida Fish and Wildlife.
[00:29:41] Eli: And they said, well, there's nothing wrong. We were at the captain's briefing. He was just talking about how to clean a shark… he wasn't saying that. Other people were like, yeah, no, that guy was saying shoot him with a handgun for all we care. Like they're all buddies. It's like some old boys network. And there was a woman who went to the hearing and someone after, like, tried to intimidate her, like you better not come around here.
[00:30:01] Eli: And like, real redneck stuff. I mean, these people are all hunters, the people that are on Fish and Wildlife. And, by the way, I'm not saying hunters are evil. I'm not saying fishermen are evil. I'm saying the people that kill sharks are not, they're hiding the ones that are gonna get them in trouble. So unless you have, you know, representatives from everyone on every boat, who knows what they're doing.
[00:30:24] Eli: So we have the footage from the captain's meeting. We have the footage from the tournament and, because the laws in Florida allow you to kill sharks, they go, we didn't do anything wrong and they're not incorrect. The problem is much worse than they realize. And they think, oh, we're a bunch of shark hippies making it up.
[00:30:40] Eli: We're a bunch of shark huggers. They'll use the classic propaganda. I mean, you have to realize that, like big tobacco, the fishing industry has spent so much money to put out news stories of all the shark attacks. They're behind all of it. They're spending money to make sure that people are afraid of sharks that they want them killed and that nobody complains about it because they don't want to lose that money.
[00:31:04] Eli: So we're fighting massive propaganda.
[00:31:06] Luke: Yeah. I haven't heard that before. So what evidence do you have of that?
[00:31:09] Eli: Oh, I mean, look at who's funding the labs. This was something I learned. First of all, in Fin, you see me having a conversation with captain Peter Hammerstad and he's explaining the money of the EU subsidies and there's footage of them voting to subsidize these boats that just go into Liberia, that are these illegal fishing vessels that are subsidized by the EU and the US is putting money into all of it.
[00:31:34] Eli: And they're sucking up the sharks and killing them. They are massive, millions and millions and millions of dollars. Then there was one scientist I interviewed who's in the film who will go unnamed. And afterwards he sort of starts talking to me about how, yeah, we can have sustainable shark fishing.
[00:31:51] Eli: I'm like, but how's that possible for killing 11,000 minimum, maybe 18,000 an hour… And they take 11 years to reach sexual maturity and they only have about seven or eight pups, basically the same amount of as humans reproduce. How can you possibly sustainably fish them? And why would you? And then another scientist was like, yeah, well, his lab is actually funded by the fishing industry and this is something I heard that they're like, the fishing industry, they're smart.
[00:32:18] Eli: They fund the NGOs, NOAA and the fishing industry will pay scientists to come up with data just like tobacco’s. Like, no, this is totally safe. The only way to stop this is if we drive the price to zero, like, look at the ivory trade. Everyone's like, no more ivory, just burn it. No one can buy ivory otherwise elephants will be gone within a year or two… and they stopped it.
[00:32:40] Eli: And China banned it. Right now, you feel the tide turning but, classic example, this is how people are bought. Last week in Florida, they had SharkCon and a lot of people told me they were going to SharkCon, this wonderful thing for sharks. Well, look up the Instagram of these kids; Cash, who is TheConservationKid and also EllaSavesTheOcean.
[00:33:00] Eli: Ella’s 12, Cash is 14. They set up a booth at SharkCon and had posters from the Alabama Fishing Rodeo and from the Florida Shark Massacre. And they were across from the fishing… Florida Fish and Wildlife and NOAA had booths there. These kids probably had 400 signatures in a petition saying, stop shark tournaments. The organizers of SharkCon shut them down.
[00:33:25] Eli: The organizers of SharkCon said to them, you need to take down your posters because it's going to incite violence. That's actually what they said. And these kids, they made a TikTok about it. They're like, and they wrote to me, like, what did we do? I was like, make a TikTok, explain it. And I go, now you're getting it.
[00:33:45] Eli: Who do you think is paying for SharkCon? Their sponsors are Fish and Wildlife and NOAA and other things, and they're getting upset and they're going, you're giving us a bad name. Because they're not protecting the sharks. They just protect the fishing to keep it going. It's unbelievable. The whole thing is so corrupt.
[00:34:05] Eli: And then when you see Alabama Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo, they have this one scientist from this one lab, it’s all on their website, ADSFR.com Alabama Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo, go on their Facebook. And they are these two scientists that are like, they've approved it. We can fish great hammerheads. So, you have these scientists that run labs that get huge donations from corporations.
[00:34:27] Eli: They are very paid off by the tournaments and they go, yes, you can do this. And then they hide behind the science. And the only thing that is going to stop it is public outrage where we go, we're not gonna give money to your companies. We're not gonna donate. I wanna go after the alumni of this university going… your university is sponsoring killing endangered, great hammerheads.
[00:34:47] Eli: It's so sick, but there's so much money and killing sharks and people… it's like dinosaur shooting. You know, people love to shoot the big, scary shark and, you know, stand next to it for photos. I mean, literally we are driving our greatest oldest species, they've been here for 400 million years.
[00:35:04] Eli: Trees are only 65 million years old. Sharks survived five great mass extinctions. They will not survive this. They will not survive human fishing and we need to stop. I mean, look, there's always gonna be shark fishing. There's always gonna be bycatch. We're never gonna eliminate a hundred percent. But what we need to do is stop the culture of killing sharks for fun and prizes.
[00:35:25] Eli: Do what Hawaii did, which is ban shark fishing altogether. It should be completely banned to fish any shark. There's absolutely no reason for any shark to be out of the water, but you know, the fishing industry makes a lot of money. So they're paying scientists to tell you there's no problem.
[00:35:39] Luke: So if we're not addressing it from a culture standpoint, because there's money involved, then we need to address it from a data standpoint.
[00:35:48] Luke: And this is where there's a big disparity. And I think it's something you can speak to uniquely where, if you look at what NOAA says, versus what, like, IUCN says. You know, IUCN runs a red list and they say, okay, a certain species is, you know, endangered or vulnerable, but then you drill down in their data.
[00:36:06] Luke: And like, for example, hammerheads, the IUCN literally says there is no data available on the population size of the scalloped hammerhead. Yet, they give it a category, which would suggest that it's unsustainable fishing based off of, you know, 10 year old data, 20 year old data, that they extrapolate and use models on.
[00:36:27] Luke: If you go to NOAA's side, they say, well, hammerhead sharks can be harvested because we don't have data saying that it's being over harvested. It's this weird kind of language that they're using. And they still assign a quota. They, NOAA, still has a quota on their website of hammerheads, so it can be taken, particularly in the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coast.
[00:36:51] Luke: So, how do we rectify this disparity between the data?
[00:36:55] Eli: You need to start a movement to defund these organizations. These are criminal organizations and, I'm a filmmaker, I don't make my money from the fishing industry so I can speak openly and honestly, and be real about this. These are criminal organizations.
[00:37:10] Eli: They make their money when sharks get killed. They have zero incentive to stop the fishing. Zero. The scientists… it takes years to get this data. Sharks are pelagic, and I saw it firsthand where Reggie Domingo went to CITES and Canada, who say, oh, we don't serve shark fin soup. And we stopped finning.
[00:37:31] Eli: They blocked putting shortfin makos on the site's appendix too, because someone said, well, I looked and they're fine here. But, like, not taking into account that they travel all over the world. Like, that week they looked and they were fine, but they've paid off these lobbyists that don't… the fishing lobbies are so powerful.
[00:37:50] Eli: The question we all need to ask these people over and over and over is why are we fishing them at all? I don't care if they're at a hundred percent, why are you fishing them? Why would you harvest a hammerhead, for what? The shark liver oil squalene has an olive oil replacement, that's just as good. It's the same thing.
[00:38:12] Eli: You have a plant based replacement. The shark cartilage pills are nonsense. It's proven to be junk science that causes inflammation. The meat is too poisonous and toxic for anyone to eat. Humans can't eat it. It's gonna cause impotence, brain damage, birth defects. It's loaded with mercury. So why are we even asking NOAA for data?
[00:38:34] Eli: Why aren't we just saying, why in the hell are we fishing them in the first place? We don't go polar bear hunting. Like, what are we doing? Are we gorilla hunting? Are we panda hunting? Why would you kill a shark? It's not a source of food. Hunters that I know, that are real hunters, 90% of whatever carcass they kill, they consume.
[00:38:54] Eli: This is 0%. So when I hear these data points and so everyone goes, what do we do? What do we do? You raised a really good question, ‘cause it does get overwhelming. The fishing industry wants you to be overwhelmed. They want you to go, well, the problem's so bad. I'm helpless. You're not helpless!
[00:39:08] Eli: Your voice matters so much more than you know. One 12 year old girl with a sign made Fish and Wildlife and NOAA terrified because they're speaking the truth. All you have to do is use your voice and you can focus on one thing. Go after squalene. Look at products, look at makeup, look up lipstick, look up moisturizer that uses shark liver oil and go after them and go, why are you killing sharks?
[00:39:31] Eli: Why are you killing sharks? Go to GNC. Why are you selling shark cartilage pills? These are proven to be deadly. Publicly go on Facebook, go on Twitter, make TikToks. Go to Amazon, they sell 317 types of shark products. Please stop selling all sharks! Go to FedEx, why are you shipping shark or, you know… like the…
[00:39:54] Eli: The craziest thing that I learned is, you know, and I learned this from The Bahamas where it's a shark sanctuary. One shark dead is about 20 or 30 dollars, sold to a fisherman and cut up for parts, goes for a bowl of soup. And the fin is flavorless, by the way. I mean, I tried it. It's like eating fishing wire. I mean, there's nothing, it doesn't taste. It literally is like fingernails cartilage.
[00:40:11] Eli: It's zero flavor. They have to flavor it with stuff. One shark dead, $30, one shark over the course of its lifetime is worth $250,000 in dive tourism. So, like, even as a green business, as an evergreen business, as an entrepreneur, like why would you be helping these fishermen flip to dive tourism? Like, we should be putting this to our representatives and putting this to our government and going to Coca-Cola going, why are you sponsoring killing?
[00:40:39] Eli: Why don't you go to the shark fishermen and help them flip to dive tourism? That should be your money. That should be where the money goes. And if that public pressure goes, you spent all this money, Chevrolet, on killing sharks. We want you to spend that money helping the fishermen because, you know what, the fishermen know the waters better than anyone.
[00:40:57] Eli: They know how to attract the sharks. We can't vilify the fishermen because the fishermen, by the way, have been told for years, you're doing nothing wrong. If you're a fisherman and the fishing industry's targeting you and brainwashing and saying with propaganda going, everything's fine. Of course, they're gonna look at me and go Eli Roth's a crazy filmmaker. He's hysterical. He doesn't know what he's talking about. Of course, they're gonna say that. So what we need to do is, like, we all inherited this problem. The fishermen didn't cause this, the fishing industry caused this. So don't let them turn us against each other. Let's all go… We, as a society, we saved the whales.
[00:41:34] Eli: We did it with the dolphins. We're doing it with orcas. If we have to do this for the sharks, they are intelligent animals. They're animals. They're marine wildlife, this isn't some dumb fish that you can harvest to make yourself feel good. So I agree with you. I look at the data and it's never gonna come from data.
[00:41:50] Eli: It's never gonna come from industries. It's gonna be people vocally… it's social pressure and spending money and social pressure going after companies that continue to make money from the death of sharks. And I'm gonna start an NGO. And I'm gonna have companies that are part of the problem and part of the solution.
[00:42:09] Eli: And the goal will be to get companies to move from one column to the other. It's that simple.
[00:42:14] Luke: What do you say to the scientists who may be culpable here, who are enabling these criminal organizations, as you call them, to operate under the guise of data?
[00:42:26] Eli: By the way, when I say criminal organizations, it's real mafia.
[00:42:30] Eli: I mean, this is actually organized crime fishing and I show this in Fin, that fishing is the easiest way to launder money and it's human slavery. I mean, they'll have people at sea for three years to get the fish and then throw them overboard and not pay them. It's the worst living conditions in the world.
[00:42:45] Luke: Well let's isolate the, you know, the criminal elements ‘cause I agree. 100%. I see the mafia connections and everything, your film is fantastic. It does a really good job of outlining. But I want to be specific about our listeners and they're probably mostly focused on, you know, they see overseas those great big problems and they don't know what to do. But when we start thinking about, okay, what type of culpability does the US have, for example, what type of culpability does NOAA have and the scientists who are providing data to know that they're justifying some of these shark killing tournaments on. Like, is there a way that we can approach or, you know, change that on a home based level?
[00:43:28] Eli: We need to stop giving them money. I mean, unless they're like… I'm fine with the shark, I mean, there's marine biologists that understand if you're a Boris Worm, Neil Hammerschlag and you're teaching and you run a lab, that's, you know, a biology lab and you understand how to catch a shark. And if there's a dead shark, you know, a shark that dies, you know how to get tissue like trained marine biologists.
[00:43:50] Eli: I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about recreational fishermen. These people want money. And I think that we need to start targeting them going; who is paying your bills every time a study comes out? ‘Cause now the shark fishermen in Florida have already organized a statewide tournament. They've already talked to NOAA, they're posting about it in their facebook group.
[00:44:08] Eli: Bragging about it. They're gonna do a quote catch and release to now study, like, sandbar sharks or dusky sharks. Like they are. They're like, let's do a catch and release in coordination with NOAA, the same people cutting them up with power saws and baseball bats. And NOAA is like, yeah, you guys can go do that.
[00:44:23] Eli: That's totally legal. That's fine. I mean, it's sick. None of these people are held accountable and NOAA is completely allowing it and they're trying to make it statewide. I mean they're… and there's no laws to stop them from doing it. So I think that when you have these labs, we have to go, who is funding your lab? Follow the money, follow the money every time there's a study and go, why are we looking to know it at data level?
[00:44:46] Eli: Why are you using this? And, to me, it just goes back to the same question. Why are you fishing sharks at… What are you doing? Let's say they were at a hundred percent. There's no problem with endangered sharks. Why are you fishing them? And if we keep… ‘cause there is no answer, the answer is, I wanna sell the fins or I wanna look cool on Facebook.
[00:45:06] Eli: That's it. They're not eating them. So why are they killing them? And I think we just have to keep asking them. If they go, well, we found that there's an overpopulation in the blah, blah, blah. Why are you killing them? Why? Like shark species are down 90%. I mean, we're killing a hundred million a year.
[00:45:23] Eli: These are real numbers. I saw it. I traveled the globe so I could see it with my own eyes. I saw the fins in the market. I was on the boats. I watched them pulling them out of the water. I understand it. It's real. That's not propaganda. It is real. And it's going and the problem is in our lifetime, it could be in 10 years, the sharks will get to a point where they're so rare they can't be reproduced and there's still no protection. I mean the law moves much slower. But, you know, look, I mean, there are organizations like Black Lives Matter. People defunded police departments, ‘cause there was a public outcry. It's hard to get people to care about sharks.
[00:45:53] Eli: Sharks do not, you know… and I'm obviously not trying to relate the issues in the same way. I'm just using that as an example, to show that social pressure does work. But the problem is getting people to care about sharks is very hard because they don't have faces. They don't have vocal chords. They don't make noise. They don't sing like whales do. But you can see a shark with its babies.
[00:46:14] Eli: I mean, look at that song, baby shark. It's the biggest song ever on YouTube. Why? Because it's a family! Because if you're a three year old child, you relate to sharks. There's a mommy shark, a daddy shark, a grandma, and there are. So three year old kids and two year old kids don't think of sharks as monsters.
[00:46:29] Eli: They think of them as a family. And I think that we need to start thinking of them that way. And they're, I mean, they're keeping the ocean clean for us. So, to me, the whole thing of, you know, the corruption, the NOAA, this data, these scientists, I think it's up to the public. You know, if people start getting under the microscope of the public wrath of, like, why are you putting out data? Who paid for this data and even so, then just take it to the next step.
[00:46:51] Eli: Why would you wanna kill them? Why would you kill them? Okay. So shark populations are healthy. Great. Doesn't explain why would we go back to killing them? Are we killing tigers? Are we killing lions? I mean, the whole thing is so barbaric, but it's gonna be a cultural mindset.
[00:47:05] Luke: I think it is worth, in the context of the tournaments that we're talking about and you're talking point, now it's worth talking about one of the, the popular talking points from fishermen of why are they killing him? It's because they're saying they're seeing sharks on every single catch day, they're out fishing and you know, the tax man's coming, the sharks are taxing their catch and they're not landing any fish.
[00:47:26] Luke: That seems to be an argument that is heavily used, especially here in Florida. And seems to justify, at least in this tournament's context, them saying that there was an overabundance of sharks in the area and that the system's outta whack, that there's actually too many sharks. The protection's working too well.
[00:47:45] Luke: And it's up to the fishermen to rebalance the system. I just watched an interview where they literally brought up that rhetoric. How would you respond to that type of answer?
[00:47:55] Eli: Well, that's the classic propaganda…. is there's so many sharks in the water. It's up to us to kill them, but the truth…. Look at how many more boats are in the water.
[00:48:02] Eli: Louis Aguirre, from Miami Channel 10 News, did a whole study and it showed how there's, like, a million new boats, there's like an insane amount of new registered boats since the pandemic. There's like an incredible amount of boats that are in the water. That's what's eating the fish. Look at the sharks in… Look at… there's no fishing problem in…
[00:48:19] Eli: Have you heard about starving fishermen in Hawaii? Haven't heard a word about that. What about The Bahamas, where sharks are protected and it's a sanctuary? Are you hearing about the starving fishermen there? No. These people are like, I mean, they're like overgrown children. They want to kill sharks and they're mad that if a shark took their fish, they're like, let's go wipe them out.
[00:48:40] Eli: Well, yeah. That's where they live anyway, that's why there's so much bycatch ‘cause when you're catching tuna and there's sharks, that's where the sharks are gonna be. When there's like a fish that's struggling, the sharks are gonna be there. I mean, it's ridiculous. It's completely absurd.
[00:48:54] Eli: And it doesn't mean you get to go wipe out a species just because they took your fish. Sharks don't eat that much. So these people that say that it's like, you look at any area where the sharks are protected. There's a complete, perfect balance. And everybody is just fine. I mean, they just wanna kill sharks.
[00:49:09] Luke: What would you say to the, you know, the 12, 14 year old or the, you know, the 30 year old or the person sitting at home going, you know, what can I do? You've given him some action steps already and things to do, but what’s the take home here. We just need to make more noise?
[00:49:21] Eli: Well definitely. And I think being targeted about it, you know, and, like, targeting, tagging the sponsors.
[00:49:26] Eli: There's people like Ocean Ramsey and Paul de Gelder, Joe Romeiro and Andy Casagrande. All the people that are on Shark Week that I met, I met them doing interviews. Anyone I interviewed, you know, Philippe Cousteau, Ashlan Cousteau, like incredible people that love sharks… Craig O'Connell and you just tag them and they will repost and people repost.
[00:49:45] Eli: And once a sponsor, once a company blocks you, you're like, wow. They're scared of me. When Alabama Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo blocked me after one post, I went, man, these guys are scared and you can see it. So you'll start to feel that power of your voice. I think also starting to follow really, really great organizations like One Ocean Conservation or Shark Allies.
[00:50:07] Eli: They're really, really terrific. The women that run that are so cool and they do a great, great, great job. And they're passing laws in Florida and they'll DM you right back. Like, I think that picking a thing like going after a company and writing a letter to NOAA and writing to Fish and Wildlife, you know, people don't realize how powerful their voice is.
[00:50:26] Eli: Remember the fishing industry wants you to feel small. They want you to feel insignificant, but you are not! Your voice matters. And I think that's for those 12 year old kids, they realized that they went to SharkCon and they made a sign and the organizers of the tournament threw them out. That means they're scared.
[00:50:45] Eli: That means those kids are speaking the truth. And the kids know that the kids are like, it's not our fault. It's violent. We wish it was different, but we're here to show the truth. The truth is the truth. Whether we like it or not. This 12 year old said this, they're like, we can't control the truth.
[00:51:00] Eli: This is the truth. These need to end. And we need to do it for them because these kids deserve to grow up in a world with sharks and the fishermen, they're not gonna listen to me. They're gonna listen to their families. They're gonna listen to their friends. They're gonna listen to their neighbors going.
[00:51:14] Eli: You know what? I saw you guys sawing open that shark. And my kid was crying and I don't think we should do that here anymore. I don't think it's a good look for Jupiter, for Riviera Beach. And people talking to Chris at the Rod Room who lied and said he wasn't involved and let everyone use his backyard.
[00:51:27] Eli: And then, you know, he's just one of those guys. People go like, come on, dude, you can't do this. And then we can start to put… we'll see what violations there are. If there are animal cruelty violations, then a number of organizations are going to go after the tournament organizers. And then take that to NOAA and go, why are you letting criminals run these tournaments?
[00:51:45] Eli: Look what they did last time.
[00:51:47] Luke: Yeah. I wanna thank you for, you know, using your profile and your platform to protect sharks as what you're doing is extremely important. And what you've done particularly around this tournament, I think is, as I said, it's pivotal. And I think it's gonna change some things, which I think is fantastic.
[00:52:04] Luke: If you haven't already, people who are listening, you have to check out Eli's work on the documentary, Fin. This is on Discovery Plus, it's worth a watch. I mean, it's very clear why he's so passionate about this and such a font of knowledge, because what he did with that film is extraordinary.
[00:52:20] Luke: And if you really wanna learn about this, you need to go see that film. But what are you working on now? Are you crusading for sharks or are you off making another horror film or both?
[00:52:30] Eli: I'm doing a bunch of things. I have a bunch of, kind of, TV shows, that'll be on Discovery Plus. Season two of, I have, like, my horror shows goes through, that’s My Life in the Haunted Museum and two others that are gonna, you know, premiere in October.
[00:52:42] Eli: I haven't even announced yet that we're shooting now, but I love it. I'm in the middle of another documentary that’s starting again. Like, I like to sort of make them without telling anyone what it is and then having other people doing it and then sort of dropping it when it's done. But, you know, right now I'm in the middle of a film Borderlands, and it's one I'm shooting.
[00:53:02] Eli: COVID, it's one of the weirdest things ever because, like, we're editing and then we have to shoot a couple more scenes but getting actors availability is just tricky, ‘cause everyone's schedule keeps shifting, but we're almost done with it. So I'm just kind of working on Borderlands and then I have some other horror movies ready to go.
[00:53:17] Eli: I need to go and make a real good blood and guts, horror film, maybe a conservation themed one.
[00:53:23] Luke: At some point, for sure and maybe just a blood and guts, one that you can just have a good laugh at and not feel gross about later and feel the whole world is falling down around us.
[00:53:32] Eli: I like, you know, meat and potatoes slasher films, like, you know, horror movies that are just good fun times. I mean, it's my thing. It's also why I… I don't know, I feel like sharks were the monsters. So in a weird way with the horror movies… it's kind of an interesting choice to defend them because it's like, I hate that they're seen as monsters.
[00:53:54] Eli: I love them so much. I think they're beautiful animals. So I thank you, Luke. And thank you for giving me the platform and really, by the way, thanks to everyone for using their platform and speaking up, because I think one thing that came out of this experience is that everybody realized we all felt the same way and everyone realized the power in their voice.
[00:54:09] Eli: And even someone with 30 followers on Instagram was still rattling. These companies realized, oh my gosh, this got reposted by Dave Batista and Chris Jericho and Nina Dobrev… Slash. These amazing supporters of sharks. Nina was the EP on the film. She's been incredibly supportive of sharks. So there's so many people out there.
[00:54:28] Eli: Karen Gillan, Uzo Aduba, like all these people were, you know, Michael Rosenbaum, people were like, wow, they couldn't believe what was going on and they wanna support it. So just stay vocal and your voice matters, no matter what. Anyway, never let anyone tell you you're not qualified to have an opinion on sharks ‘cause that's the classic move. You don't know what you're talking about, stay in your lane. It's a lie. They're making money! Speak the truth
[00:54:50] Luke: I'll leave it at that. Eli. Thank you so much, mate. Your work is fantastic and the encouragement to people and the difference that they can make is more valuable than, probably, even you know. Thank you.
[00:55:15] Luke: Now I dunno about you, but my mind is kind of blown by that. You know, I spent my life around sharks and I spent my life in shark conservation. But talking to Eli, hearing his passion, hearing his work and some of the claims he's making… it’s eyeopening. And I hope that you listen to every little bit of that and you watch his documentary and continue to follow him to see what more we can do individually to make this change.
[00:55:40] Luke: Some of the things he's talking about, we can't substantiate on this podcast in terms of there being criminal organizations involved. My personal beliefs align with Eli's. I believe that shark tournaments should be a thing of the past. It's akin to going out and having a lion tournament or an elephant tournament, or, you know, a polar bear tournament. I thought it was a good comparison that he put forward.
[00:56:03] Luke: I think there's no place for it in a civilized society. And there's certainly not a place for it ecologically. Further than that, this whole global pandemic of shark fishing for fins and for status and for meat is something that we really need to address as a global society. And I love that he gave us some ideas there in having a voice and the things that we could do.
[00:56:26] Luke: And we're here in the Fin to add onto that, to give you some calls to action what you can do. And perhaps some of the things that we need to rethink as a society now, specifically on tournaments, if you want to talk to the organizers of some of these shark fishing tournaments, you can go to the Florida fish and wildlife conservation, commission@myfwc.com.
[00:56:48] Luke: Go to their contacts on there, right to them and tell them, hey, we see no place in our civilized society for a shark fishing tournament, especially. Like they are sponsored by big companies that have a stake in it, where people are incentivized to go out and find the biggest mature breeding age sharks.
[00:57:08] Luke: And let's also acknowledge that it takes them many, many years to get there. And they're also catching sharks that are smaller and therefore not being kept for the prize money, but those smaller sharks most likely have not bred yet. They have not done their job yet. They have not contributed to their own populations and they most likely were stressed to the point of… Well, they most likely probably died, you know, a lot of them. So it is totally fine to catch and release a shark. A lot of them can get away with it, but some of the species that they're encountering, I know, just didn't stand a chance once they got caught. And if we're to believe the chatboards, that we've previously referenced several times.
[00:57:50] Luke: The people out there fishing, I don't know if they were on the boats or not, but they were certainly talking about a lot of things like pulling up lines, shooting them in the head, sinking them out, if they weren't worth the prize money. That is not how we should be treating our super predators and the things that keep the oceans clean and healthy for our entire civilization.
[00:58:14] Luke: It's just silly. So if you wanna know my personal thoughts, shark tournaments need to go and we need to do everything we can to make that happen. So anytime you see somebody on social media calling out one of these tournaments, do 'em a favor. Click on the petition that they might have or share their post or, you know, contact the organizations in charge of it, whether it be NOAA or FWC or some of these organizations, they might just write back and say, hey, this is scientifically supported.
[00:58:43] Luke: We're doing this supported by scientists, but the fact is we really don't need this. You know, there are scientists who will say quite rightly, hey, we can get valuable data from the carcass of a shark or from clippings from a shark, but we can find better ways to do that. We don't need to be doing it under tournament restrictions.
[00:59:04] Luke: And if you might say, hey, look, it takes money to make that happen. Well, that's true. Maybe we petition some of these brands that want to sponsor, or one of, some of the brands that have dropped out of fishing tournaments. So we can look at brands like Aon, Astoria Bank, Budweiser, Foley Caterpillar, Goslings Rum, Lexus… a lot of these brands that used to sponsor tournaments, but have now dropped out because of pressure.
[00:59:27] Luke: Maybe we support those brands and say, hey, you know that money you used to spend, maybe spend that on scientific research and give these scientists their own boats where they can go out and monitor the ways that these fish are being caught and released safely, rather than just being on a boat while fishermen haul them in for a catch as quickly as they can and have small regard over the safe release.
[00:59:50] Luke: Now there's a lot of companies who haven’t dropped out of these tournaments yet. And these are ones that you can actively decide whether to support or not. This is totally up to you. But if you're buying Coors or Miller or Sam Adams or Captain Morgan or Coca-Cola, shopping at Home Depot, Nissan, Hertz, Yamaha, all these brands just supported this local tournament and they support other tournaments as well.
[01:00:11] Luke: I'm not saying they're culpable in the sense that they know what's really going on. They see an advertising opportunity, but we, as consumers, can speak with our money, with our wallets. And if you choose to support those organizations, at least some part of what you're spending on them, will go towards killing sharks at some level, until these tournaments have stopped.
[01:00:31] Luke: Now, there is something I wanted to talk about here, which, there really isn't a good answer for right now. And that's frustrating to all of us who understand it, but there is an inconsistency in the data and I spoke about it with Eli. The data is what we, as scientists, rely on to make policy. That policy is championed by politicians and, you know, companies and sponsors and all the rest.
[01:00:56] Luke: But that data is so important, ‘cause it helps us decide what to do and how to appropriately manage species. Eli just got through telling us that globally 90% of sharks have been depleted, that many species are facing extinction. Now, if we look at some of the available government sources of information, they tell a totally different story.
[01:01:18] Luke: So I can go onto IUCN, which you can do right now. Just search for IUCN Red List, and look up your favorite species. You might look up, let's say the, you know, the hammerhead and look up scallop hammerhead. The IUCN will say that they're critically endangered with a decreasing population. Then you can go over to NOAA Fisheries and see that there's a permissible number of hammerheads that you're allowed to catch.
[01:01:44] Luke: Now, how can that be possible? How can those two organizations, you know, NOAA who's in charge of at least the US’s fisheries and help set a lot of international policy as well. Not forgetting that these fish are not American sharks. A lot of them travel and a lot of them contribute to, you know, genetics worldwide.
[01:02:03] Luke: And then you've got the IUCN, which looks very globally. And they do have data that they rely on for local populations, but they kind of try to do a global assessment of stocks. So who's right? Is it that NOAA's saying, oh, it's okay, you can catch hammerheads locally because they're not being heavily fished locally?
[01:02:21] Luke: We don't have evidence of them being depleted locally. Yeah. It might be a problem internationally, but not for us. Because that's what they're saying. That's literally what they're saying. They're saying that our data says that it's sustainable, at least to some degree, up to a certain amount. Whereas the IUCN says that globally, this is a problem.
[01:02:40] Luke: We just need to stop it essentially. And this just goes species by species. It’s something that we can find, like if we look at the blacknose shark, which you might not know about. Blacknose shark is a cool little shark. They’re super cool. They only weigh like 40 pounds to get up to a few feet long, a fast little reef associated shark.
[01:03:00] Luke: Now, if we look at the IUCN they say, and I'm gonna read this verbatim, cause I think it's important overall, given that the Southwest Atlantic portion of the range comprises at least two thirds of the geographic range, this species is suspected to have undergone a population reduction of 50 to 79% over the past three generation lengths.
[01:03:21] Luke: So that's 26 years. So, in the last 26 years, they’ve been depleted by 50 to 79%. Now NOAA allows for eight black nose sharks per vessel, per trip, with a total harvest of about 38,000 dry weight pounds, which is somewhere between about 1700 and 2000 sharks per year in a very small area. I mean, very small globally, but we're talking about, you know, the Gulf of Mexico, basically.
[01:03:51] Luke: How can both of those things be correct? I struggle with that concept because IUCN doesn't have the data that they need. They specifically say we don't have updated data. A lot of their studies are 10 years old and they're extrapolating. Whereas NOAA is relying on the reported catches locally to make their policy decisions.
[01:04:15] Luke: I'm not gonna cast judgment on either of these, but I will say there's a data disparity that needs addressing. So if you look on NOAA's website on the fisheries dot NOAA, NOAA.gov website and search around there for US-caught sharks, they've got a statement, which I find really curious because they say while overfishing has greatly depleted some shark populations overseas, US shark fisheries are some of the most sustainable in the world.
[01:04:46] Luke: They go on to note the number of species, including the 42 that they manage, which they claim, none of which are at risk or endangered. And they claim quite rightly also that while being managed, some species have increased in population and that's true. But the curious thing is, if we look at other data sources, worldwide accepted sources of, you know, the conservation status of a species, they will take those same species and put them in a vulnerable or endangered category.
[01:05:19] Luke: Both can't be right, but can they? Because we're talking about local versus global, the uncomfortable fact is that sometimes both can be right, but we need to explore this further. It's all well and good to talk about conflicting data, but what really matters is, like, how does all this matter to you?
[01:05:36] Luke: You might say, you know what, I believe NOAA, or I believe IUCN and you'd probably be right. I mean, they both have good data sources. They both have good scientists working on them. But I guess what I'm saying is we kind of need to keep an open mind towards all of the data sources. And if one data source is conflicting with another, we need to look at what is the worst case scenario.
[01:05:59] Luke: If, if one of them is right, does that mean we lose a species? And if that's the case, shouldn't we focus all of our efforts into substantiating the data of the one that has the worst case scenario. And if we disprove that- fantastic, great. Let's talk about management. No one's ever gonna fully agree. I think at least in the near future, on, you know, stopping shark finning or stopping shark fishing around the world, I'd love them to, but I'm biased.
[01:06:31] Luke: But we need to focus on our data sources. We need to keep an open mind to those data sources. We need to know that there are people collecting valuable data for every data source. There is. They all have motivation and that's both good and bad. The conservationists want things conserved. The fishermen want to fish.
[01:06:52] Luke: We have to find a middle ground, but we also have to realize that we can't keep reducing the resource before we find the actual appropriate management procedures from hard data. So how do we protect the critically endangered animals that we don't have good enough data on from being caught around supposedly sustainable ones?
[01:07:14] Luke: Well, we probably just need to stop doing what we're doing until we understand what we're really doing to our oceans. I mean, that would be my response. I realize that that's kind of hardcore, like, hey, just stop it all. But we are kind of at that point where you just heard Eli say that there's this tipping point where we are seeing our oceans being decimated.
[01:07:34] Luke: We're seeing shark populations being decimated. We have a fantastic week every year where we celebrate these sharks, but what are we doing for the other 51 weeks of the year where, you know, there's everyone from local tournament organizers to apparently mafia organizations going out and targeting these animals.
[01:07:51] Luke: The fact is, once they're gone, we're not gonna be able to bring 'em back. We've got over 500 species, but we need every one of them, ‘cause they're such specialists that we need them in every single corner of the ocean that they inhabit. So my take on this, my Fin on this would be… We need to end every single instance of shark take until we can see that it is truly sustainable to take certain species and the data agrees.
[01:08:20] Luke: And without the data, I don't think we can ever do something responsibly.
[01:08:27] Luke: Alright that’s all for today’s episode! Stay tuned to this feed as we’ll continue to cover the sharkiest current topics, talk to top scientists and experts and learn about the latest conservation efforts to keep this amazing animal from extinction. Thanks for listening to Shark Week: The Podcast. Be sure to rate us 5 stars and subscribe for more shark fun facts. I am Luke Tipple -- until next time!