Leonardo Guida - Australian Marine Conservation Society

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Matt Waters: Hey there dive buddies and welcome to the show

00:00:08
today we have Dr. Leonardo guida shark scientist and shark

00:00:12
conservation leader at the Australian Marine Conservation

00:00:15
Society. Welcome to the show, buddy.

00:00:16
Leo Guida: Hey there. Thanks for having me on. It's great to chat

00:00:19
with everyone. And to all those listening out there. I hope I

00:00:23
don't bore you to death.

00:00:26
Matt Waters: Hey, have you been? I'm just gonna jump straight

00:00:29
into here. Have you been busy with that? While I've got caught

00:00:33
up in the niche? Oh, yeah, it's all about timing.

00:00:38
Leo Guida: For a lot of reasons. I say timing, because we're

00:00:41
obviously having a chat that only happened yesterday. And at

00:00:44
least in the campaign space, and the lobbying space and trying to

00:00:48
enact change. Whenever something like this happens, things go

00:00:51
into full gear. But the other thing about timing is that we

00:00:55
keep saying it every bloody year. It's like clockwork, we

00:00:58
know when the whales are coming. The nets should not be there. At

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the very least during migration season and it's quite the

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difference is like night and day, almost literally, you've

00:01:14
got Wales that you can see on the I can't remember his first

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name, but on Instagram drone shark app. And it's always

00:01:22
amazing footage of these whales going through Sydney and Bondi

00:01:25
and up the coast and there, there are people swimming with

00:01:28
them, you know, not knowing and it's amazing stuff to see. And

00:01:32
guess what, there are sharks around to Tiger sharks and

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whatnot. You go, you literally hop the border and those whales

00:01:39
as soon as they get past tweed, bang, there's Gold Coast,

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Sharklets and drumlines and you've got on the one hand,

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these beautiful images streaming through daily from this bloke

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and his drone. And then immediately next door and the

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next day, the complete opposite. And there's a moment of Bob

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stuck in a freaking shark net. Yeah. And it happened here as

00:02:02
well, didn't it? There was a was it. Last year happened to you

00:02:07
before having a year before that. In 2020. It was in 2020. I

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remember this, this is when things probably kicked off in

00:02:17
terms of activism. There was in 2020 in April, there was three

00:02:23
whales caught in three days forth within the space of four

00:02:28
weeks, all on the Gold Coast beaches and three wells are

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caught in three days. myself my colleague Lawrence clean like a

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Humane Society International agenda Clarkie head on for from

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Sea Shepherd. And even Andre from envoy and this is when

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envoy was currently filming or putting together their

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documentary on boy shark cow. And I rang the boys and I said

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guys, I said I remembered as clear as day. It was a Sunday

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evening and I said guys, we've got to do something like three

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wells in three days. Like we have to capitalise on this

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moment and this momentum to really act to get some change

00:03:06
happening and get everyone you know on board. And that Sunday

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night. Between that Sunday we did all the phone calls and

00:03:13
everything like that. And mind you Coronavirus is in full

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swing, this is early 2020. We're heading into mid 2020. Everyone

00:03:21
across the country is in lockdown or about to go into

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lockdown. And we're thinking, how on earth? Do we do this

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where it attracts media? It's visual, it's big. And we can

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demonstrate to the politicians in numbers that there are a lot

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of people in the Gold Coast community or in Queensland or

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southeast Queensland. Like give a shit and want to see change.

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In short, how do we demonstrate a public protest that's visible

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we're in lockdown and you can't be within a metre and a half of

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when anyone and we had a brainwave, I

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took inspiration from one of our other campaigners working up on

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the reef. And what she'd done was she'd gotten everyone to

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donate up new cancer donate their fins or any dive gear and

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they spelt out save our reef. And I went on, I go, dude, Let's

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get a bunch of surfboards, put the call out and we'll spell out

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nets out now on the beach. And that way they're each board is

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clearly representative of an individual person. And it's big.

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You can't miss it. The media is gonna love it. Like, let's get

00:04:25
on it. And so within the space and I think Andre actually even

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mentioned this morning when he was chatting to you in a space

00:04:31
of like 36 hours. We'd managed to find a bloke and a few others

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down on the Gold Coast and he's like, yep, sweet. I can help you

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transport the boards. We go out there we raced out there we tee

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up media we spell that nets out now. And it got the message

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through and when I say got the message through it was all the

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mainstream media channels social media channels seven Evening

00:04:53
News Channel Nine evening news. We then made a few phone calls

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to minister Furnas office and his advisers and tried to suss

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out, you know, what are you going to do about this? They

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were very cagey, which is to be expected. And then we routes. So

00:05:09
we did this protest, I can't remember the exact date. I think

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it was like a might have been like a Friday morning or

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Thursday morning. I think it was a Thursday

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morning, because I made the phone call on Sunday night. And

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we all spoke about what we were going to do. We did the prices

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for Thursday or Friday morning. And then we heard rumours

00:05:30
that they were gonna do something about these nets are

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going to take them out or something was going to happen.

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And we got a bit excited. And funnily enough, the journalist

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was saying, also, when do you expect the Minister to make an

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announcement and we said, make an announcement? First, we've

00:05:42
heard of it. And so long story short and down the track, what

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we eventually ended up hearing was that apparently, let's say

00:05:53
apparently, because this isn't definitive, but apparently, he

00:06:00
was going to, or the Queensland Government, I should say, was

00:06:04
going to, in effect, remove the nets, and potentially put in

00:06:08
either lethal drum lines in their place. Or maybe drones in

00:06:13
their place. We're not sure. But the point was, apparently, that

00:06:16
weekend, the Knicks were going to come out. And we were waiting

00:06:21
and waiting and waiting for this decision. And nothing ever

00:06:24
happened. And few months down the track, rumour comes out, and

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apparently, the idea was squashed at the 11th hour. By

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who or how we don't know. Yet no. And again, I stress this is

00:06:42
just what we heard. This isn't definitive. But we went, Okay,

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well, the nets didn't come out. But Bloody hell, we gave it a

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solid crack. And I think we've rattled the cage.

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And so again, last year, the same thing happened. Tragically,

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it always kills me to say this, but the tragically there was a

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fatal shark bite agreement beach. And this was a beach that

00:07:09
had drum lines and knits, the same arrangement. And so with

00:07:15
the utmost sensitivity, we went out in the media, and on social

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media and everything like that. And we were like, Hey, everyone,

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This beach is lined with nets and run lines. And yet someone

00:07:29
is still unfortunately, bitten and has passed away. This is if

00:07:34
you ever you want to evidence that these measures serve no one

00:07:37
any good, let alone wildlife like, this is it and then we

00:07:42
start and then we did a cooling Gatorade August we managed to

00:07:47
organise a beach protest. And again COVID stifled just how

00:07:51
much we could do. So we were down at Cooley, we organised the

00:07:54
protest ourselves, Sea Shepherd, envoy, and HSI and everyone, and

00:08:02
this was just as Queensland had pretty much had in place their

00:08:06
hard border according data. And we had people in bought, we have

00:08:11
people in Byron Bay, we had people in tweed, we had people

00:08:14
in the Northern Rivers of New South Wales willing to drive two

00:08:19
hours plus, to beat it and say this has to stop. And they

00:08:23
couldn't be because of the hard border closure. But again, given

00:08:27
the COVID restrictions, again, given the last minute notice, we

00:08:31
still managed to I reckon to get maybe 100 200 people, you can

00:08:35
have a look at the images on envoys Facebook page. And again,

00:08:38
we spelt out netstat now, but this time in people, yeah, and

00:08:41
there were people to spare. So I reckon there would have been

00:08:44
about maybe 200 people there. And again, you know, no matter

00:08:49
the barrier, whether it's COVID or anything like that people do

00:08:52
care, they do come out and they want to see change. And these

00:08:55
are locals. And it was a magical day, the weather was perfect.

00:08:59
And then as if it was scripted, that are you know, the

00:09:03
volunteers. Some of the people in the protest, we all went to

00:09:05
the Surf Lifesaving club had to be had a bite to eat, we look

00:09:08
out the window. And you know, within a stone's throw of the

00:09:11
shoreline, there's a humpback just having a ball. Yeah, we

00:09:15
looked out the window and some of us went out to the beach. And

00:09:17
we were just like, I can't articulate it because on the one

00:09:22
hand, you've moved by this amazing creature so close to

00:09:25
you, you know that? You know, it's fate is unpredictable,

00:09:31
there are nets out that it could hit those nets. And on the one

00:09:34
hand, you're experiencing this emotion of humility and awe. I

00:09:39
don't know how to say but like, it's like spiritual universal

00:09:43
experience where you're like, I as a human and this big and

00:09:46
there's this huge ass Whale out there. And this is amazing. This

00:09:49
is magical. Yet at the same time you're experiencing this emotion

00:09:53
of dread foreboding anger, because there are nets out there

00:10:00
and it could get called nose nets, and it could die.

00:10:05
Matt Waters: But we've got to point out as well that, you

00:10:07
know, for those people who are unaware of the nets, or the, you

00:10:11
know, the strength of the nets and the size of a Whale, you

00:10:15
can't just release them if they get tangled up, and I miss so

00:10:18
much power in that animal. It's extremely difficult to try and

00:10:23
remove a net from from an animal power.

00:10:27
Leo Guida: Yeah, and I should say that it is illegal to do so

00:10:32
$20 Plus fine. And this is before shark exclusion zone

00:10:36
laws, which I'll touch on in a minute. And whilst we get people

00:10:42
all the time saying, or how come no one's out there cutting the

00:10:45
nets, why aren't you guys going out there cutting the nets? If I

00:10:48
say, Well, I'm going to cut the nets. And I have to stress to

00:10:51
anyone listening? who's considering it? My strongest

00:10:56
recommendation is don't do it. I know it's extremely difficult to

00:11:00
hear that that's happening, let alone if you're in the water,

00:11:02
seeing it unfold. But at the end of the day, it is an extremely

00:11:06
dangerous operation. Dealing with any stressed animal I've

00:11:10
dealt with stress sharks trying to take their blood samples and

00:11:13
everything. Dealing with any stressed animal is incredibly

00:11:16
dangerous. And it's why the SeaWorld rescue crew that go out

00:11:19
there undergo extensive training. And they don't wear

00:11:23
helmets and life jackets for no reason. Put it that way. Yeah.

00:11:27
And you know, the slightest NIC of a fin you're talking about,

00:11:31
you know, an animal that weighs more than a tonne or several

00:11:33
times. And that fin hitting you can break your ribs rupture your

00:11:37
organs,

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Matt Waters: mate, I've got a colleague in South Africa and

00:11:42
just a tiny flick of a fin and he busted at two ribs

00:11:45
straightaway.

00:11:46
Leo Guida: Yeah. And I completely empathise with the

00:11:50
sentiment about wanting to help the Whale and the net, but I

00:11:53
cannot stress enough like, don't do it. It's, it's not worth it.

00:11:57
And then obviously, there's the fine on top of that, and going

00:12:00
on those exclusion zones. So for those who aren't aware in

00:12:04
Queensland, around the shark control equipment, whether it be

00:12:07
a drum line or a shark net, you're not allowed within 20

00:12:10
metres of it. And they claimed safety and Andre articulated a

00:12:17
perfectly when he was on your show. They claimed safety

00:12:20
starting a case of a young boy who was about 10 years old, got

00:12:24
tangled up in the drumline and drowned. When was that? 10 years

00:12:27
old? Yeah, in the 90s. Yeah, it's like we've you're going to

00:12:29
claim safety, you've probably should have done it then to

00:12:31
start with. But in 2019, as part of our shark conservation

00:12:37
campaign, I say our so Australian Marine Conservation

00:12:41
MySite International. We've got a shark conservation campaign

00:12:45
called Shark champions. And it's a national campaign has been

00:12:48
going for three and a half years now. And one of the elements of

00:12:51
it is ending shotcalling. And so in 2019, we've commissioned a

00:12:56
photographer to go out and dive the New South Wales nets and the

00:12:59
Queensland nets and drum lines and take photos. And people may

00:13:03
have seen in the media, those moving photos of the humpback in

00:13:06
the net, or the bull shark on the drum line with the hook for

00:13:08
its mouth, or the tiger shark on the drum on swimming around in

00:13:11
circles. So that was Nicole McLaughlin who took these

00:13:14
amazing photos and she's on Instagram, Nicole McLaughlin,

00:13:17
you'll be able to see those images there. And, yeah, the

00:13:23
media we got from those photos alone was phenomenal. And at the

00:13:27
same time, Queensland was undergoing fisheries reforms

00:13:30
with their legislation and in their act. And along comes this

00:13:33
exclusion law to which we said, what? And if you're in the know,

00:13:40
and you know how politics works, it was clearly a gag order.

00:13:46
Yeah. Basically, we want to stop any form of independent

00:13:49
monitoring of this equipment, so that we can control the

00:13:53
narrative, we can control what's going on, because we were

00:13:55
putting out these images saying this is what's happening. And

00:13:59
yeah, it was it was it was a gag order. And it's, it's still in

00:14:04
place. So but despite that, I mean, you know, the proofs in

00:14:08
the pudding, we saw what happened yesterday.

00:14:10
Matt Waters: Yeah. And it's, um, it's got to be sad elephant in

00:14:13
the room. And I can only imagine the only reason that these

00:14:16
things are still out there, the nets and the drum lines, whether

00:14:18
they're smart drum lines or the standard baited hooks. The only

00:14:23
reason they're there is the amount of money that's coming

00:14:25
through the door, you know, the jobs that he's creating. And

00:14:29
then it's all run by politicians who are just protecting their

00:14:32
own hours for the next four years.

00:14:34
Leo Guida: Yeah, there's, there's 1 reasons. I

00:14:40
suppose if you start from suppose the most obvious one is

00:14:44
this reluctance to change? And yet there is that that fear on

00:14:48
the political side of things, and this is consistent

00:14:51
government's not just the current one, that if they remove

00:14:54
the equipment, and someone unfortunately gets bitten or

00:14:57
even more tragically dies, so so much of the public's going to

00:15:00
Like them, it's they're gonna have other politicians using

00:15:02
that as ammunition against them, however which way and as you

00:15:06
said, you know, risks of seat risks re election, then you can

00:15:11
kind of step back and look at the more sort of higher ideals

00:15:14
and you're looking at a culture that's been ingrained since the

00:15:17
1960s. And any form of culture change is inherently going to

00:15:23
take time to move in a different direction, in this case, in a

00:15:27
positive direction, where we can improve beach safety. So we're

00:15:31
under no illusions. And we're not naive to think that, that

00:15:35
lethal shark control or shotcalling is going to end

00:15:37
overnight as much as we wanted to. It's going to take time to

00:15:42
happen. And that's why we've been working on it a concerted

00:15:44
effort on it for the past four years dedicated effort on it.

00:15:47
The great thing is, is that we're seeing each year these

00:15:51
dominoes fall where one thing happens, and then we're moving

00:15:54
towards this space of non lethal shark control. So if we look at

00:15:57
the history of when we started our concerted effort on Shark

00:16:01
campaigning as shotcalling, we started in 2019. And that was

00:16:05
when a young bloke from Melbourne, Daniel Christie's, I

00:16:11
think his name was tragically died in the Whitsundays. bitten

00:16:17
on the leg and tragically died in said Harbour. Then there's a

00:16:20
few other bites around the same time. And what happened there

00:16:23
was Queensland the government actually had a roundtable

00:16:27
meeting with the local community because tourism didn't want

00:16:30
shotcalling happening in the Great Barrier Reef are in their

00:16:32
area, because the whole point of tourism there is to come see the

00:16:35
wildlife and the wild spaces. So they had this roundtable and the

00:16:40
ministers at the time, you know, decided to put more money

00:16:43
towards research. So we thought, Oh, my God, this is one domino

00:16:47
that's fallen like this has set a precedent like Queensland

00:16:50
haven't done a knee jerk reaction going out on a sharp

00:16:54
cold, this is positive. And so we fast forward from 2018. We.

00:17:00
And we see this sharp in that incident with the whales before

00:17:03
whales caught in a month. And again, we hear rumours that the

00:17:06
next might be pulled out and something's going to change. We

00:17:09
go Oh, okay. And then at the end of May 2021, Queensland for the

00:17:13
first time in its history trials, drones at Southeast

00:17:16
Queensland beaches. And we go, boom, that's another domino

00:17:20
that's fallen in the right direction. And so we can feel

00:17:23
this building, we can see the change happening. It's just that

00:17:26
it takes time, and it's a marathon, not a sprint. And this

00:17:31
year, I can tell you right now, just over the past couple of

00:17:34
days, to quote the castle, it's all about the vibe, like the

00:17:38
vibe that I'm getting from social media, and I know social

00:17:43
media can be an echo chamber. But you know, this is I haven't

00:17:46
seen this ever really. We've got people in WA and networks in WA,

00:17:53
who would against shotcalling, and campaigning for a solution

00:17:56
here in Queensland. And I genuinely feel that there's a

00:18:00
groundswell coming we're seeing on the ground communities up on

00:18:04
the sunny coast as well taking action and putting out on their

00:18:07
social media channels, like the Sunshine Coast environment

00:18:09
Council. And I should mention another really significant

00:18:14
domino that fell was last year, Larry and I from HSI we went up

00:18:20
to a forum on the sunny coast at the Council held with DEP

00:18:23
representatives and scientists about and all stakeholders, you

00:18:26
know, lifeguards, community reps, everyone going, okay, how

00:18:30
can we address the issue of SharkBite mitigation in the

00:18:34
Noosa biosphere whilst maintaining its environmental

00:18:37
values. And again, people were putting forward ideas about non

00:18:40
lethal solutions. And that was another critical domino that

00:18:43
fell. So things are moving in the right direction, I genuinely

00:18:47
feel that there's a community groundswell growing. I would not

00:18:51
be surprised if there are more demonstrations this year,

00:18:54
especially given the fact that there aren't COVID restrictions

00:18:57
in terms of gathering in public spaces. And I'm hopeful and

00:19:04
confident that if not this year, by next year, there'll be more

00:19:07
significant changes. And as I said, it will take time, but we

00:19:12
have to keep that pressure on and we will get there and we

00:19:15
will see our beaches become safer for betas, surfers,

00:19:19
anyone. And not just people but also safer for wildlife as well.

00:19:24
Matt Waters: Yeah, I mean, it's got to be done. I mean, in this

00:19:27
day and age, I mean, you mentioned Western Australia that

00:19:30
mean they've they're using non lethal. The one that caught my

00:19:34
eye actually was the forgive me, I can't remember the name of it

00:19:39
now. But it was on an invoice shark call. And it's the kind of

00:19:45
the false or manmade weed effect that prevented sharks passing

00:19:50
through. I can't understand why we can't use something like that

00:19:54
instead of nets. Surely that would be you know, given a gives

00:19:59
the answer on both sides of the sides there. Yeah.

00:20:02
Leo Guida: And look, if not that specific technology. The point

00:20:05
is, is that there's innovation. Yeah, we know more, we've got

00:20:08
drones, we're understanding electro receptors in sharks

00:20:12
better to the point where we've got now two independently

00:20:15
scientifically verified personal shark patterns that work.

00:20:18
They're not silver bullets. But it just might be that one

00:20:21
instance that that, you know, prevents you from getting a

00:20:24
really significant injury, we've got wetsuits, which are

00:20:28
currently I think they might still be in protocol stage. But

00:20:31
again, they've been scientifically evaluated. It's

00:20:34
what Kevlar is the bullets in, it won't stop you from that

00:20:38
blunt trauma, but it just might save your life from bleeding

00:20:41
out. So there's a range of solutions. And it's not like

00:20:45
they're fanciful, or they're 10 years down the track. They're

00:20:48
here, then now, and this is what is incredibly frustrating. The

00:20:53
fact that we have solutions, we've got strategies that

00:20:56
incorporate education and so forth, yet. It's not been

00:21:00
comprehensively used. I mean, to give credit to Queensland, they

00:21:04
have made significant strides in the past two years, and they

00:21:06
have made more of an effort in communicating beach safety with

00:21:11
respect to shark interactions. And it's good to see that

00:21:16
happening. And there are good people in the Queensland

00:21:19
Government and the department doing amazing work, I have to

00:21:21
say that, from a political standpoint, in the decision

00:21:24
making, it's like, there's no justification for having

00:21:28
drumlines or net still in the water, like anything, is an

00:21:32
improvement on safety than what we've currently got.

00:21:34
Matt Waters: Yeah. Yeah, it's ridiculous. I'm gonna say like,

00:21:39
it's much like a rather large tennis court, with a very small

00:21:43
ping pong net, it's just pointless.

00:21:46
Leo Guida: It's yeah, in terms of, like we said, in terms of

00:21:49
space, you know, I'll tell it when you go the beach pays out.

00:21:54
200 steps, look back from where you started. And then look at

00:21:57
the coastline. Exactly. And, and, you know, I tried to, as

00:22:05
best I can to put in perspective, for others who

00:22:06
perhaps haven't been to the beach or, you know, have mental

00:22:09
surf beach, we have no concept of a shark or net, for that

00:22:13
matter. I say to them, you know, I go, you know, this safety

00:22:17
strategy has been in place for 60 plus years. So, if you went

00:22:22
to work, your school, your kids school, your home, your

00:22:28
workplace, and they said to you are our safety standards of 60

00:22:33
plus years old. Tell me are you going to go? What? Are you going

00:22:38
to accept that or you're going to go? No, can we please have

00:22:40
modern day safety standards? If, in the past two years with the

00:22:44
Coronavirus pandemic, we've asked for improved safety

00:22:48
standards for our health, in hospitals, and in aged care,

00:22:52
because our lives matter because our health matters, we want to

00:22:56
know that we're safe. We don't want the perception of safety,

00:22:59
we want to know that we're safe. So why is it that at the beach,

00:23:04
we accept the safety standards that are 60 plus years old? I'm

00:23:07
confident that people don't accept that. The real question

00:23:11
is to ask the decision makers, the ministers and the

00:23:13
politicians, why won't you upgrade safety standards and

00:23:17
bring them up to modern day standards? So again, hopefully

00:23:21
that resonates with a few others who perhaps aren't quite

00:23:26
informed about shark or shark nets, but at the very least just

00:23:29
want to know that when they go and visit a beach in Queensland,

00:23:31
when New South Wales for that matter, that their safety is

00:23:34
taken seriously, and it's not treated like a game. It's not a

00:23:38
perception thing. It's a real thing.

00:23:42
Matt Waters: I think you touched on a point there of lack of

00:23:45
knowledge as well. And I think that goes right the way up

00:23:48
through from us walking down on the streets to people that are

00:23:52
new into politics and parliament. You know, they can

00:23:56
only go on what they've been told by the relevant departments

00:24:00
and in I've experienced that firsthand with, with with the

00:24:05
police here in New South Wales, when a rather senior chap was

00:24:10
trying to preach to me about nets, and it was it was party

00:24:13
line and I had to stop him in his in his tracks before he got

00:24:18
a bit out of control. But that's another that's another topic

00:24:22
another episode. Let's come away from that one for a little bit.

00:24:28
Yeah, what where and how did you get into diving was that was it

00:24:31
the career choice that got you in there or you're in it before?

00:24:35
Leo Guida: Now there before? Like a lot of people like

00:24:38
everything starts when you're a kid things you most passionate

00:24:41
about. And I was all sharks always been my favourite animal.

00:24:45
I've watched National Geographic documentaries. I rated my school

00:24:49
library for as many picture books as I could. And believe it

00:24:52
or not, this book right here is the one that kicked it off. So

00:24:54
this was published in 1986.

00:24:57
Matt Waters: Is that one

00:24:59
Leo Guida: this is a Reader's Digest with an introduction by

00:25:01
Ron and Valerie Taylor, the 1986. If you get a chance to

00:25:05
read it, it just it's a sign of the times like there's no

00:25:08
mention of anything about threatened animals conservation.

00:25:10
It's just sharks biology, fishing. That's it. So books

00:25:15
like that I used to just absorb and absorb as a science geek

00:25:19
love science, super curious, still in. And so fortunate

00:25:22
enough to marry the two and and as I got older, I grew up in the

00:25:25
outer suburbs of Melbourne. So I didn't, I didn't grow up by the

00:25:28
beach per se. But again, fascination with the ocean. And

00:25:33
as I got older, I had a mate that I went to school with two

00:25:37
decent diving. And I said, I'd love to do that at some point.

00:25:41
And it was literally just a case of eventually, I think, at the

00:25:43
age of 21. Relatively, I'd say, late, getting into diving.

00:25:50
managed to save up enough cash. Got my licence. I've been

00:25:54
Merimbula in southern New South Wales, my mates holiday house,

00:25:59
and never looked back. And I reckon I've got I'm now 37 And

00:26:06
I've dived more in the past two years than I had in the years

00:26:10
leading up to that. Yeah, cuz I was at uni. It's an expensive

00:26:14
hobby. I had to work on weekends, all the usual excuses.

00:26:20
And, and yeah, I I've had some amazing, amazing experiences.

00:26:28
One of my fondest was in South Africa in 2014. So I went there

00:26:33
for a big sharks conference. Also my PhD at the time. It's

00:26:37
called sharks International. And it's the massive conference, I

00:26:39
have it every four years. And this year, they're doing it in

00:26:42
October in Spain, which I'm lucky enough to go to again. But

00:26:45
anyway, they had it. They had it in South Africa in 2014. And

00:26:51
halfway during the conference, they had a daybreak, so the five

00:26:54
day conference, and on the Wednesday, everyone could go out

00:26:57
and do guided tours and whatnot. So quite a few people went out

00:27:00
on the dive. And it was it Ali Whaleshark Because they had a

00:27:04
conference in Durban and Aliwal Shoal. You know, I googled it in

00:27:07
YouTube before I went, and it was, you know, Whaleshark Tiger

00:27:11
sharks, blacktip sharks, like, those aren't hanging, this is

00:27:14
gonna be awesome. And so we went out there, and we dived with

00:27:19
without a cage on the first one, although there was holes,

00:27:21
there's no cage. And these beautiful, just black tips, a

00:27:25
common black tip shark, you know, maybe two and a half three

00:27:27
metres long, buzzing around us. And it was an experience I'll

00:27:31
never ever forget, like, they come right up to you. And you

00:27:33
got to kind of like just gently nudge him away. And was that a

00:27:36
bit? It was just, yeah, yeah, that by the the water. And then

00:27:42
on the second day of that day, they took us to a slightly

00:27:45
different spot. And they're like, oh, you know, we'll show

00:27:46
you some ragged tubes, which is what they call grey nurse

00:27:49
sharks. So we went diving, and again, that is not in the visit

00:27:54
was absolutely horrible. But it was also part of the mistake as

00:27:58
well as like, they just pop up out of the green. And you know,

00:28:00
they're there. And it was just Yeah, and then had the ragged

00:28:04
tooth. You know, I remember sitting on the sea floor, this

00:28:06
ragged tooth just looking at me, and it's coming towards me, and

00:28:09
I can remember doing this lap comb. And it was just coming

00:28:13
slow and then just veered off. And then me and my dive buddy,

00:28:17
who was this Mexican fellow we went, swam under this rocky sort

00:28:21
of little overhang. As we were coming back up. I remember

00:28:26
coming up, and I looked up to my left, and I saw this shadow. And

00:28:29
I had his blunt nose, and I thought that's gonna be a huge

00:28:33
tiger shark. And I was just pumped, and then I'm assuming

00:28:37
I'm gonna do that. And then No, that's way too big. And then

00:28:41
what it was, it was a silhouette of a Whaleshark coming over the

00:28:44
top. So I kicked up and I managed to catch the the side of

00:28:48
it. But these animals just moved so incredibly fast because of

00:28:52
their size, one beat at the tail, and they'd gone. And then

00:28:57
after that, got back up on the boat, and the guys are gonna

00:29:00
dive. They said, I You're not going to believe me if I told

00:29:02
you he started laughing. And then I told him, he starts

00:29:05
laughing nearly as mate he goes, you've missed the season by

00:29:07
about two months. He goes, I don't think you saw it. You saw.

00:29:10
I said, I've got it on my frickin GoPro, but like I

00:29:13
couldn't show him. Sorry. Yeah, that was amazing. And then, and

00:29:18
then after that conference finished, I had I went down to,

00:29:21
to Cape Town for a couple of days. And that's when I got into

00:29:23
a cage with a white shark. And that was I'm getting two

00:29:27
responses remembering it. That was it was this. Four and a half

00:29:33
metre five metre female. And I remember we're on the boat, and

00:29:39
we're back to go in in the cage. And it was the most interesting

00:29:42
experience where I felt instinctive fear. Yeah. And I

00:29:46
feel like I've never felt before. And I caught myself for

00:29:50
a split second and I went, Ah, that's what that feeling is

00:29:54
like, it's, it's this instinctive fear, and then I

00:29:57
went, Leo, it's okay. You're in it. hates all good. Let's go in.

00:29:59
And then I went in, and then that fear dissipates, but it was

00:30:03
just, it was just it was your human instinct telling you, you

00:30:06
are entering a really, really dangerous place. Yeah. But

00:30:10
anyway, winning. And, you know, again, the visit is terrible,

00:30:14
it's green. But that's what made it amazing. It was like, it was

00:30:18
like, you know, when you watch those movies, and like a figure

00:30:20
appears out of the fog, it was like that, but it was just

00:30:23
beautiful white shark is appearing out of this green fog.

00:30:26
And she's circling the cage for like 40 minutes, and she's big.

00:30:30
And the one thing that blew my mind was the size of the tail.

00:30:35
So from the top of the tail to the bottom of the caudal fin, it

00:30:38
was like at least seven foot, like it looked disproportionate

00:30:42
to the body, like it was crazy. This thing is just built for

00:30:45
speed, it is a missile. And she's swimming around. And in

00:30:50
the whole 45 minutes, she bears her teeth maybe once. Which is

00:30:54
amazing. Because whenever you see white sharks, most people,

00:30:58
whenever you see it, it's always an image of their teeth. They're

00:31:01
always in attack mode, they're always, you know, vicious, yet,

00:31:03
in reality, you're watching this animal, and it's just cruising,

00:31:07
just and you watch it pass the cage, and I've got my GoPro and

00:31:12
I have to remind myself to pull my hands in, cuz I'm so excited,

00:31:15
I've got to remind myself to pull my heads in just in case.

00:31:18
It's coming past the cage, you know, within last 30

00:31:21
centimetres, and these big, beautiful, like, per dark purple

00:31:24
eye. It's like the size of a dinner plate. And you can see it

00:31:29
move and twist and you know that that animal can see you. But you

00:31:33
don't know what it's thinking. And arms in the water going,

00:31:37
what are you thinking I'd love to just peer inside your mind.

00:31:40
Because you can tell it's looking at you. And you only

00:31:43
bear the teeth once. And from that experience. They're like,

00:31:48
your perception on the animal completely changes because

00:31:51
you've seen it in real life. books tend to paint it out to be

00:31:55
and you walk away going it is a gentle, majestic animal. Don't

00:32:00
get me wrong, a dangerous animal. And you don't want to

00:32:05
muck around with it. But nonetheless, majestic and

00:32:08
graceful. And has every right to exist. Yeah. Yeah. And it was it

00:32:14
was just mind blowing. And then, you know, I've kept in touch

00:32:19
with some scientists over in South Africa. And we can we can

00:32:21
touch on this lady with regards to another issue. But I've kept

00:32:25
in touch with them because Chris Fellowes who's this amazing

00:32:29
photographer in South Australia, South Africa, who was the first

00:32:31
person to capture that edge yours when you're leaping out of

00:32:34
the water and the bleaching. I had a chat with him and he calls

00:32:38
me up. And he goes, we had a chat because he goes for the

00:32:42
past four or five years. So this is in 2020. You guys may know

00:32:46
white sharks in false Bay. And I said, What do you mean? He goes,

00:32:51
we actually haven't seen any white sharks in full space since

00:32:56
2015. So for those who aren't aware, false Bay is where that

00:33:00
seal colonies it's well in cage diving. This is where they tow

00:33:02
the seals and the sharks breach. So why he goes, I suspect that

00:33:08
because of unsustainable shark fishing here, so fishing for

00:33:13
what they call smooth down sharks and taupe sharks. They're

00:33:17
the same species. We also catch in our largest shark fishery in

00:33:21
the southern and eastern scale fish and shark fishery. So he's

00:33:24
the one that spans New South Wales reps around Victoria,

00:33:27
South Australia through the WA. So we have a gummy shark and

00:33:30
it's called Shark. They have a toad shark and the smooth round.

00:33:34
The top shark is the school sharks that are made and the

00:33:36
smooth Hound is essentially the sister species of a gummy shark.

00:33:40
It's same bucket different colour. And he said he goes, I

00:33:43
know, I've clicked on these fleets, the fishing with the

00:33:49
marine parks, you know, they're raping and pillaging the ocean.

00:33:51
They're catching all the shark and it's being sent to

00:33:54
Australia. And so what he goes, Yeah, he goes, we know that this

00:33:58
shark fishery exported shark meat. So what Aziz most commonly

00:34:01
known as flake to Australia, and he goes from my experience. The

00:34:07
we think that the white shark tends to eat smaller sharks

00:34:14
because more numerous and number easier to catch. And if they can

00:34:17
score a seal, they will. Now there's some there's logic to

00:34:21
this because white sharks only have about a 50% strike rate

00:34:25
when they go hunting seals. It's not that high. They're good at

00:34:28
it. But it's only 50% Because those seals are bloody clever,

00:34:31
and they're bloody fast. And sharks are only hunting that

00:34:36
narrow window of early dawn and sunset because they can use the

00:34:40
lack of light to their advantage. So he goes, You know, I suspect

00:34:45
that between the overfishing the sharks don't have as much food

00:34:49
to eat. And they've moved on elsewhere. He goes because if

00:34:53
you go around guns by muscle by everything like that, he goes,

00:34:55
it's still there. And I said to him, I go What about the killer

00:34:58
whales? because there's a famous case of port and starboard these

00:35:00
oceanic killer whales, who come in and we're picking off white

00:35:04
sharks and we're eating their livers like Hannibal Lecter is

00:35:06
of the sea. That's the only thing that was the liver. And

00:35:08
these white sharks were washing up dead, with their livers,

00:35:12
excised, and getting their head look at studies on white sharks

00:35:17
and killer whales can actually scare white sharks off for like,

00:35:19
a couple of months at a time. Yeah. And he goes, Look, he goes

00:35:22
short, he goes, I don't doubt that that happens. He goes, but

00:35:28
you're talking about videos, that's relative blip. He goes,

00:35:31
we're looking at multiple years of no white sharks. I don't know

00:35:35
why. Because only thing I can think of is because the severe

00:35:38
overfishing, it's affecting the ecosystem here in South Africa's

00:35:42
waters. So okay, I'll have a look at the Australian side of

00:35:46
things. So I look at the Australian side of things. And

00:35:48
whilst there's no definitive evidence as such, if you have a

00:35:51
look at the trade records, coincidentally, from 2015,

00:35:54
through to now, year on year, it doubled. And by now it's about

00:36:03
tripled. Where Australia is importing shark meat or shark

00:36:06
products from South Africa. It's coincidental, it's at the same

00:36:10
time. And most of Australia's shark making shark products

00:36:14
actually comes from New Zealand, the vast majority of it, but

00:36:17
other than New Zealand, the next country bank, South Africa, just

00:36:23
at the moment just these imports come in. Now admittedly, it is

00:36:26
coincidental. But there's enough there to go. And I'm speaking to

00:36:31
Enrico generic who's a sidestep in South Africa, study white

00:36:34
sharks. Admittedly, there's enough clues to go something's

00:36:39
going on here. And you'd be naive to think that overfishing

00:36:44
wasn't part of the problem. So from my end, with my work,

00:36:48
looking at sustainable fisheries in Australia, looking at shark

00:36:52
conservation through the lens of sustainable fishing in

00:36:55
Australia, I started putting this together and going, so hold

00:36:58
on. So Australia is happy to claim claim, you know, that

00:37:02
we're cleaning green, and we're the world's best fisheries and

00:37:05
more sustainable brand Australia. Yet, we've got no

00:37:07
problems supporting unsustainable fishing practices

00:37:13
in South Africa, that will but are driving two species to

00:37:16
extinction, because the smooth hound and the toad shark in

00:37:20
South Africa are endangered. So we are eating or importing these

00:37:24
endangered sharks. So we're happy to support that fishery,

00:37:28
which is driving the sharks to extinction. We're having to eat

00:37:31
those endangered sharks. And we're affecting an entire

00:37:36
tourism operation in South Africa. So much so that if you

00:37:39
bring up the cages, I was in false Bay now. And you even if

00:37:41
you look at the websites, they've kind of shifted their

00:37:44
marketing to shark experiences where you're looking at board,

00:37:46
no seven gills and a few other shark species, because the white

00:37:48
sharks just aren't there. Yeah. So we're affecting the tourism

00:37:51
industry. We're affecting the ecology. We're affecting species

00:37:55
driving into extinction, in pulling them over to Australia.

00:37:59
And we're happy to do that. And I was like, no, this doesn't cut

00:38:03
the mustard. Even if you take out the equation, watch X

00:38:06
disappearing from South Africa. This does not cut the mustard.

00:38:09
Something's wrong here. And so part of the work that I do is

00:38:12
going okay, Australian fisheries need to lift their game because

00:38:18
we've got some serious problems in our own backyard. And part of

00:38:20
those problems is we can't be a pot calling the kettle black.

00:38:24
Sure, relative to the rest of the world, our fisheries are in

00:38:28
a relatively good position, because we're well resource

00:38:31
country, relatively low historical fishing pressure. But

00:38:34
that does not mean we don't have problems. However, that being

00:38:37
said, as a quote unquote, leading nation, we should not be

00:38:43
supporting unsustainable fishing practices elsewhere. And that

00:38:47
speaks to seafood imports, seafood labelling, and how we go

00:38:50
about it. So yeah, it's a long winded way of saying that

00:38:56
Australia's fisheries need some serious fixing up when it comes

00:38:59
to sharks and rays. And that's what my work entails.

00:39:06
Matt Waters: of you. Just just on the Import Export thing,

00:39:08
though, if you come across the import and export of shark fin

00:39:14
at all, I'm just thinking back to Brendan and lizard shark

00:39:17
guardian, they took on parliament in the UK with the

00:39:22
legal importation of people being able to take it through an

00:39:25
analogue edge.

00:39:27
Leo Guida: So so you'd be I don't know if you'd be

00:39:31
surprised, because you might you might be quite well informed,

00:39:33
but it's perfectly legal to import an export shark fin.

00:39:38
There's nothing illegal about it. Australia trades in shark

00:39:41
fin, there's nothing illegal about it. What is illegal is

00:39:45
shark finning, and that is where you're cutting the fins off and

00:39:47
you're dumping the body, but there's nothing illegal about

00:39:50
getting a sharp cutting fins off using the meat and the fins and

00:39:52
then trading in it. So that's that there. I'm sorry. Do you

00:39:58
want to repeat the question? I don't know if I've answered it

00:39:59
right. Have I just got off on a tangent again?

00:40:01
Matt Waters: That's alright. Just if it was, if there was any

00:40:03
similarities with another had limitations on what individuals

00:40:08
could bring into the UK?

00:40:10
Leo Guida: Ah, I see what you say. Yeah. Yeah. So with our

00:40:16
important exports, I suppose the best place to start is with a

00:40:22
concert that's called the concert. It's called fins there,

00:40:25
sorry, with a concept or a management tool that's called

00:40:29
fins naturally attached. Okay. Now what this is, it means that

00:40:34
if any shark is harvested, its fins by the time it gets to

00:40:39
land. By the time it's landed on land back to port, it has to

00:40:43
come back in one piece essentially, with its fins on it

00:40:46
fins naturally attached. The reason for this is there's a few

00:40:50
reasons. One, it obviously is a practical safeguard against

00:40:54
illegal shark finning. Because you can't separate the fins from

00:40:57
the body, too. It helps fishery managers identify what species

00:41:02
are being caught and in what numbers, because once you start

00:41:04
removing things from a shark body, species become very hard

00:41:08
to identify. So the size of the fins relative to each other, and

00:41:11
their position on the body. And their shape is one of the

00:41:13
morphological features we use to identify sharks, particularly

00:41:16
when you're looking at Whale species that all have that

00:41:18
characteristic shark shape that all look similar. So species ID

00:41:24
helps managers know what species are being caught, where and how

00:41:26
many, that then goes into broader management so that we

00:41:29
can have sustainable fisheries. Thirdly, it stops endangered

00:41:33
species from being caught, because that speaks to being

00:41:35
able to identify the species. So if someone brings a shark back

00:41:38
with fins naturally attached, and the fisheries officer goes,

00:41:42
Okay, I'm going to check your catch. Hold on, that's an

00:41:46
endangered species that's protected by law, you shouldn't

00:41:48
have that. He can spot it, or she can spot it. But without

00:41:52
fins naturally attached, if you're able to mix up your fins

00:41:54
and flesh, you'd never know. Yeah. So in a nutshell, stops

00:41:58
illegal live feeding. sharks come back in one piece, you can

00:42:02
ID the species and preventing dangerous species from entering

00:42:04
the trade. Now, I mentioned that because when we start looking at

00:42:10
imports and exports, this is what Canada did. I think the UK

00:42:14
follow the same model, I have to double check. But this is

00:42:16
definitely what Canada did. And what they did is they said that

00:42:20
for any imports and exports, you have to have things naturally

00:42:23
attached. Now what that that disincentivizes trading shark

00:42:27
fins because all of a sudden, if you want to export shark fin,

00:42:31
you have to export the entire caucus. Yeah. So that's white,

00:42:34
that space and a shitload of money to do so. So the question

00:42:38
is, do you really want to do it? Conversely, if you want to

00:42:43
import shark's fin, you're going to have to pay for a consignment

00:42:45
of shark carcasses with their fins attached, again, costs so

00:42:49
on and so forth. Do you really want to do it? So it's kind of

00:42:53
an economic disincentive? quite it's quite a practical

00:42:56
workaround and quite a practical solution. The other thing in

00:43:00
theory is that with fisheries that have fins naturally

00:43:04
attached, there is the argument and this is gonna be very

00:43:09
controversial, per se, but hear me out there is the argument

00:43:12
that you could have a sustainable fin trade. And by

00:43:16
that, I mean is that and again, this is in theory, is that let's

00:43:21
say you have a fishery, where it catches a shark species that

00:43:24
reproduces relatively fast, you've got a good handle of its

00:43:27
biology, its stock, you know what numbers can be caught

00:43:30
without depleting the population. And on top of that,

00:43:34
the way you fish it doesn't impact the broader environment.

00:43:36
So you know, dolphins do gongs, so on and so forth. So for

00:43:39
simplicity sake, let's just say that you've got a shark. It's

00:43:43
sustainable by any measures, you're not impacting the

00:43:45
population. The theory goes with fins naturally attached, is that

00:43:50
you're harvesting the shark sustainably, you're using it in

00:43:53
its entirety, it's not being wasted. If you're using it for

00:43:56
meat, well, then why wouldn't we use the fins? You then export

00:43:59
the fins? And you know, it's from a fishery that's traced as

00:44:03
fins naturally attached, everything's aboveboard.

00:44:05
Arguably, you could charge a premium for that product. And

00:44:09
then again, in theory, because you're charging a premium for

00:44:12
that product, because it is sustainable, that money should

00:44:15
then go into improving fisheries management even better, and even

00:44:18
helping threatened species recovery number. Again, that's

00:44:24
theory. That's currently what's accepted scientifically as best

00:44:29
practice. Because short of that, what do you do? And there are a

00:44:35
lot of arguments you know, for and against. But suffice to say

00:44:38
that fins naturally attached in fisheries is the best practical

00:44:41
metall we have at the moment to prevent life finning

00:44:46
in Australia, God Western Australia is the only

00:44:53
jurisdiction in the country that doesn't have it. and Western

00:44:56
Australia has Australia's second largest shark fishery that

00:44:59
catches Don't be shocked school sharks and Hammerhead species.

00:45:02
They don't have it. However, thanks to thanks to air

00:45:06
campaigning in the support of the broader public, the

00:45:09
government's made a commitment that by the end of this year

00:45:11
they will have it. So I'm actually in discussions now with

00:45:15
wa to kind of see where they're at and how they're progressing.

00:45:19
But fingers crossed that come the end of this year, they'll

00:45:21
actually have it in place. Queensland doesn't have it in

00:45:25
the Gulf of Carpentaria fishery, so Queensland's very north, if

00:45:29
you look at the Cape, decide to head west into that gulf. That

00:45:34
fishery there does not have fins naturally attached, and they

00:45:37
still catch a shitload of shark with nets including endangered

00:45:40
skeleton ahead, and no fins naturally attached. Queensland

00:45:45
however, does have it on its east coast fishery. The point

00:45:48
I'm getting at is that Australia is Patchwork, its anti finning

00:45:52
regulations aren't up to scratch and then not consistent. So what

00:45:56
this means is that in the Gulf for example, if a fisher wanted

00:46:01
to illegally fin an animal or highgrade his product, he could

00:46:06
and be none the wiser. Because an example would be Skeletor

00:46:12
Hammerhead, for example. So skeleton ahead endangered in

00:46:15
Australian waters, you can still legally be harvested, and palmed

00:46:19
off the efficiency of shop and market it is like there's

00:46:22
nothing illegal about it. You can be any endangered sharp and

00:46:24
you wouldn't even know it. But let's just say a fishy goes out

00:46:27
there. And I should preface this with the fact that this isn't

00:46:31
all fishers. Because there are some bloody good fishes out

00:46:34
there who do give a shit about the work they do environmentally

00:46:37
and wanted to continue in the future. But at the same time,

00:46:40
there are also ones out there like in any industry that are

00:46:42
cowboys and don't give a shit. They just want to make money now

00:46:45
and that's it. So let's just say this bad Fisher so to speak, the

00:46:49
one of the one of the Rori, one of the rotten eggs, wants to

00:46:53
goes out, catches the sharks and on his boat because there's no

00:46:57
fins actually attached, cuts the fins off, puts it in one pile,

00:47:00
dices the flesh, flesh out puts it in another pile. And so long

00:47:03
as those piles are in about a 5% ratio, according to the law.

00:47:07
He's okay.

00:47:08
Matt Waters: What do you manifest leaps and ratio.

00:47:11
Leo Guida: So, so long as the weight the weight of the fins is

00:47:15
5% of the total weight of the flesh is okay. The rationale

00:47:20
behind that is that as a general rule of thumb, the weight of a

00:47:26
shark's fin is 5% of his body mass. Okay, well, that's not the

00:47:31
case, because they've done numerous studies afterwards to

00:47:34
kind of work out this thing. And you've got species where the

00:47:37
ratios are way off. You've got some species where I think like

00:47:41
an oceanic white tip or maybe a few others where you know, the

00:47:44
weight ratio is like maybe eight 9% And you've got somewhere the

00:47:47
ratio is 1%. So the moral of the story is that 5% is somewhat

00:47:51
arbitrary. So anyway, so long as he's got his pile of flesh in

00:47:55
his pile of fins, and within that ratio, you guys yet um,

00:47:58
sweet, no worries. But let's say he pulls up his net, and he

00:48:03
pulls up this huge mature skeletal, great Hammerhead, the

00:48:07
Hammerhead Hammerhead fins are one of the most prized on the

00:48:09
market. Yeah. And he goes, I can't let these five $600 It

00:48:17
cuts the field off, dumps the body. And what he does is in his

00:48:20
pile of fins to keep the weight ratio up, he throws out some of

00:48:23
the smallest little ones that aren't going to fit his money.

00:48:26
That's high grading. It's like a fish. It's like if anyone went

00:48:29
out and they caught small fish, and then later on on their way

00:48:31
home, they caught bigger fish and throughout the small fish.

00:48:33
That's what they call high grading. So he's done that with

00:48:36
fins, and his finger shark and he's done something illegal. And

00:48:40
there's no way of knowing because a in Queensland

00:48:43
fisheries, there's no independent monitoring. And in

00:48:45
WA fisheries, there's sorry in the WH Shark Fishery as well.

00:48:48
And in Queensland fisheries entirely. There's no independent

00:48:52
monitoring. So there's no way of knowing what actually happens

00:48:54
out of sea. And it hasn't been like that since 2012.

00:48:57
Matt Waters: So it's just It's just math music when they report

00:48:59
that, you know,

00:49:01
Leo Guida: it's interesting that what they put in the books is

00:49:03
true. And so in short, this guy has pulled up his Hammerhead cut

00:49:07
the fins off high graded it now again, I stress this is if this

00:49:11
is if official wanted to do something illegal. No one

00:49:15
watching you. And comes back to Port fishing officer comes up

00:49:20
doesn't ever look the catch here. Sure. No worries. Fisher,

00:49:24
obviously he's got no idea of how to identify the sharks

00:49:27
because there's a pile of fins and a pile of flesh. Yeah, tell

00:49:29
me you're gonna go pick through each one and try and you can't

00:49:32
seem practical. But he goes, you know, what are the weights yet

00:49:36
within the ratio? No worries, off you go. If you had things

00:49:41
actually attached, there's no way that would have been able to

00:49:43
happen. So with fins naturally attached, even though there is

00:49:47
an independent monitoring, any chart that he brings back has

00:49:51
essentially been one piece. So there's no way he's going to

00:49:54
bring back any protected species or anything like that. because

00:50:01
it'll get caught,

00:50:02
Matt Waters: but then wouldn't be the argument that if he

00:50:05
catches the big ash scalloped hammerhead, and we're operating

00:50:10
under the fence attach bit that he doesn't just chuck out a shit

00:50:12
tonne of the small Yeah,

00:50:13
Leo Guida: and case there despite the fact that it's an

00:50:16
endangered animal but can still be legally caught. Sure he

00:50:18
hasn't broken the rule by catching a skeleton ahead and

00:50:20
bringing it back. But he couldn't finish it, he couldn't

00:50:24
dump it. And if he did want to bring it, let's get to chew up

00:50:28
his holding space. So it's perhaps going to take place. So

00:50:32
from a practical standpoint, Finn's naturally, Tasha is

00:50:35
world's best practice in sustainable fisheries

00:50:37
management, whether you're sharp fish or not, because the reality

00:50:40
is, even in a tuna longline fishery, you're going to catch

00:50:44
pelagic sharks. In some trawl fisheries, you're gonna catch

00:50:47
sharks. And some of those sharks are byproduct, they're kept for

00:50:50
their fins and their flesh. And so fins naturally attached just

00:50:54
ensures that from a very practical perspective, we know

00:50:57
what's getting caught. We know what species are getting caught.

00:51:00
And even from a marketing perspective and and consumption

00:51:03
perspective, the animal isn't getting wasted. And obviously,

00:51:07
people can have their ethical views on that better that's

00:51:09
entirely within their rights. But yeah, in Australia, who is

00:51:13
the only jurisdiction that does not have it in any of their

00:51:16
fisheries, let alone their major shark fishery. I am optimistic,

00:51:20
and I am trusting that they will have it in place by the end of

00:51:22
the year. But we're still wait to see that. But the good news

00:51:25
is they have made that commitment. That's the good

00:51:27
news. So yeah, that's that's just from the defence side of

00:51:33
things. But it is a bit of a misconception globally, that

00:51:37
finning is driving the declining sharks. So WWF WWF did a global

00:51:43
study with a few scientists, and they released I think, last

00:51:47
year, and it's clear that what's actually driving the decline in

00:51:51
sharks in terms of fishing is the meat. So whilst meat per

00:51:55
kilo is worth less than thin, right? In terms of volume, and

00:52:02
market demand, it's the meat that's getting sold. And

00:52:07
Matt Waters: so we've got all this finger pointing towards the

00:52:09
Far East once in fins all the time, when actually, it's much

00:52:12
more than the Far East. It's it's countries like Australia

00:52:16
and England, that are using that meat as as you know, like, say,

00:52:20
the unofficial chip shots.

00:52:22
Leo Guida: It's everyone like you can't really point the

00:52:24
finger at any individual. Yeah. Sure, the biggest fin trade

00:52:29
market is in Southeast Asia. But I'm not going to go and say

00:52:33
that, because frankly, it's racist. And I'm not gonna go and

00:52:35
say that on Southeast Asia that's driving the decline in

00:52:38
sharks right across the world, because fin trade, it's not

00:52:41
true. It's the demand for meat. And what we have to realise is,

00:52:46
is that that demand for meat goes to service poor nations,

00:52:50
because shark meat is generally the cheapest meat, because in

00:52:55
some cases, we've perhaps overfished what was

00:52:57
traditionally targeted. So we fall back to shark meat, which

00:53:01
is historically generally speaking, less desirable. T, and

00:53:06
it's not as marketable, it's not as worthy per kilo. So the

00:53:13
demand is largely made through the rest of the world, not fins,

00:53:16
fins, is if you want to call it a bit of a byproduct. But again,

00:53:20
that's not to say that finning doesn't occur that people don't

00:53:22
kill sharks, because the fins are valuable, that does happen

00:53:25
too. But overall, the main driver is the meat, not the

00:53:30
fins. But suffice to say, they're both problems

00:53:33
nonetheless. And the other really important thing that that

00:53:36
people should be aware of, in terms of pointing fingers, and

00:53:41
who's to blame for declines and whatnot, is just to be a bit

00:53:44
culturally aware. And by that, I mean that, particularly in a lot

00:53:48
of the Southeast Asian countries, and fishing nations

00:53:52
where fish is pretty much their only source of reliable protein.

00:53:59
And culturally, fishing has been around for 1000s of years in

00:54:03
their cultures. They have an inherent understanding of the

00:54:07
value of fish to their cultures, and they respect the sea as

00:54:12
such. But there's also modern day real world pressures. So

00:54:17
I'll never ever forget. And again, this goes back to that

00:54:19
South Africa conference where this woman got up and she was

00:54:21
speaking about her research from memory was in Indonesia. And

00:54:25
part of her research was looking at the human side of shark

00:54:28
fishing, what that meant for conservation. And I'll never

00:54:30
ever forget it because the first time that I went, oh shit, I

00:54:33
never thought of that. And that was she said, the shark

00:54:38
fishermen in Indonesia know how important sharks are to their

00:54:42
ecosystem. They know how important sharks are to their

00:54:45
culture, to their belief systems to everything. Ah, they faced

00:54:52
with a very real world problem of how do I feed my family? How

00:54:57
do I go out on these boats for days? If not, weeks at a time,

00:55:00
maybe months, and come back with nothing. When all I can come

00:55:06
back with is shark me, or at least that's the majority of

00:55:09
what I can come back with. Or I come back with the fins because

00:55:14
it's gonna give me money and I can, it's a very real problem

00:55:18
and a very wicked problem. And so that's when I went cheese

00:55:23
like, you can't just be a quote unquote raving, grinning. Not

00:55:28
that I want it to be, but I was just like, you've got to realise

00:55:31
there's a human element here, you've got

00:55:33
Matt Waters: to have balance, it's got to be on balance. And

00:55:35
you've got

00:55:35
Leo Guida: to have that in Australia, it's, it's a bit

00:55:38
trickier because, you know, the situation is not that dire. To

00:55:41
be quite frank, I'm sure whenever you're looking at

00:55:45
fisheries management, it impacts livelihoods Sure. But at the

00:55:51
same time, you know, I look from the perspective of, I want to

00:55:55
see a healthy ocean. I like fishing to eat. I actually

00:55:59
wouldn't mind trying to spear fish. I just started freediving

00:56:03
not long ago. Again, for my own personal consumption, I've got

00:56:07
nothing against it completely understand it, it just goes back

00:56:10
to that point where fishing is a responsibility not arrived. Just

00:56:13
don't be a dick when you do it. And so when you're looking at

00:56:17
fisheries management, and I'm involved in a lot of working

00:56:19
groups, I speak to a lot of commercial fishers in these

00:56:21
groups, you know, now cracks in me saying oh, you know, you want

00:56:23
to destroy fishing in Australia, you know, you want to destroy

00:56:25
jobs. And I get that sentiment. But at the same time I started

00:56:30
like a minute ago. I want to make sure that what's out there

00:56:35
is out there for everyone, including yourself, because the

00:56:38
right way going in this particular fishery. Might you're

00:56:42
going to struggle in the next few years, you're struggling now

00:56:44
according to the stock assessments. But again, that's

00:56:49
just the typical Argy bargy. But the point being is that within

00:56:53
these working groups, there is balance. And I'm on the side of

00:56:57
making sure that these oceans are healthy, and that our sharks

00:57:00
and rays are protected and they're not driven to the

00:57:03
client. They're not driven to extinction so that sustainable,

00:57:07
true environmentally sustainable fishing can occur. And what I'm

00:57:12
really proud of is that AMCs Australian Marine Conservation

00:57:17
silent I work for, we've got a programme called the good fish

00:57:19
programme, which is our independent, sustainable seafood

00:57:22
guide. And we look at sustainability from a holistic

00:57:27
perspective. So it's not just the number of a given fish. It's

00:57:30
also about when you catch that fish short, its numbers might be

00:57:34
great, but what's the impact on seals on dolphins on the habitat

00:57:38
on the environment, so on and so forth. And we then write that

00:57:42
product with a traffic light system. So green is yet go

00:57:45
ahead. Oranges elect and red is avoid. And so I'm proud to say

00:57:53
that there are some fish there are fish stocks, and there are

00:57:55
fisheries where we have green listed them. We recently green

00:58:00
list I did double check was green or amber. But suffice to

00:58:04
say, we recently showcased a line fissure in the Great

00:58:09
Barrier Reef officious for Cole trout. Now, this bloke catches

00:58:13
fish with a headline. And he can tell the size, to some extent

00:58:18
what fish just by the Twitter the line just through periods,

00:58:22
and one fish at a time comes up in good nick, if he catches one

00:58:26
he's not meant to catch because it's in good nick, you can throw

00:58:28
it back there, it's gonna survive. So there are ways of

00:58:30
doing things. It just comes down to the fact that we've got to

00:58:34
get over this idea that we can have what we want when we want

00:58:36
and however we want it. I think those days are long and totally

00:58:39
gone. So I'm really proud that we do that, that we look at

00:58:44
conservation, and we're bringing everyone on board for the ride.

00:58:47
If you're a vegan, amazing, you've been able to make that

00:58:50
choice, you've been able to support that lifestyle, all the

00:58:53
power to you. And I mean that genuinely, if you're red

00:58:56
blooded, carnivore, great. We just hope that you make your

00:59:01
choices as informed as possible. And that's where the AI comes

00:59:04
in. For some people, you know, I want to eat seafood for this my

00:59:07
life. But alright, here's an informed choice so that you can

00:59:10
enjoy seafood, but let's enjoy it so that the environment

00:59:14
actually benefiting as well. Yeah, then there are people who

00:59:16
are on the journey. And I'll include myself in this, where

00:59:20
our relationship with seafood has drastically changed. I grew

00:59:23
up or I've grown up in an Italian family, where seafood is

00:59:27
just common fare. And I've grown up now my family knows that and

00:59:31
even people I go out with like for me to eat seafood when I go

00:59:34
out. I am so picky. It's not funny. Unless I know what it is,

00:59:38
where it's from and how it's caught. I just don't touch it.

00:59:40
But I don't want us the same time. If they asked me why I

00:59:44
said Well, alright, let's have a conversation. And they might

00:59:47
walk away and change their mind. I don't know. But the great

00:59:49
thing is is that for people with their relationships changing and

00:59:51
they're on this journey, again, being informed with our

00:59:54
sustainable seafood Guide is a way to go. Okay? I'm thinking of

00:59:58
going vegan or I'm thinking of being Vegetarian, suppose like a

01:00:02
drug, I want to wean myself off. And then to wean myself off,

01:00:05
I'll start with small, achievable goals. And that might

01:00:08
be, I'll only eat the green list and species, and then down the

01:00:11
track that might realise, well, I actually don't really need

01:00:14
that much seafood anymore. Fuck it, I just wanted seafood. And

01:00:19
I think I'm actually starting to head down that track. And that's

01:00:21
only because I'm so picky with what I eat. Now in terms of

01:00:24
seafood that I've realised I can't even read the last time I

01:00:27
ate seafood, and then I go, has the quality of my life really

01:00:31
changed. Not really, still eat a pretty balanced diet, still

01:00:35
pretty healthy, still pretty fit. I have good friends have

01:00:38
good family is good. But again, I say that coming from a very

01:00:42
fortunate position, fortunate position in terms of, you know,

01:00:46
job security, or wage, education, so forth. So we're

01:00:51
not all cut from the same cloth in that respect. And it's gonna

01:00:53
take horses for courses to bring everyone on this journey to

01:00:57
really improve the health of our oceans.

01:00:58
Matt Waters: Yeah. And it's the sustainability element that you

01:01:01
were touching on there, you know, the, the guy that's on his

01:01:03
fishing line, or, you know, the locals that I used to live with

01:01:07
in Papua New Guinea going out on the kynos, single lines and

01:01:11
catching what they can and in very small quantities in

01:01:15
comparison to what's out there. It's the huge trawlers that are

01:01:19
making the millions of dollars and catching tonnes upon tonnes

01:01:22
upon tonnes, leaving it in a freezer offshore and then

01:01:25
shipping it across. That's the bit that needs to be controlled.

01:01:29
That's the bit that we need to get a grip of.

01:01:32
Leo Guida: Yeah, yeah, there's there's a lot of problems

01:01:35
globally. And, and it's tricky, because there's a lot of

01:01:38
problems that I genuinely would love to help solve. Be really,

01:01:42
really full blown involved with, but there's enough to bite into

01:01:45
just in Australia alone. So Australia's our focus and my

01:01:51
focus at the moment, and there are some international

01:01:53
components to it. But yeah, I, I'm not going to stop until I

01:02:00
die pretty much. Yeah, I mean, I don't really call this work.

01:02:03
It's what I do.

01:02:05
Matt Waters: That's what they do. It's a it's a passion, isn't

01:02:06
it? And if you Yeah, if you can do your passion every day, then,

01:02:12
you know, there's only gonna be some good come from it somehow.

01:02:15
And I think you're well,

01:02:17
Leo Guida: there is my um, and like, even when you follow your

01:02:21
passion, you have cheat days, you have days where you're like,

01:02:24
quiet, I knew this. bit naive to think it's all going to be

01:02:29
roses. But the point is, is like when you're doing your passion,

01:02:31
like you're willing to put up with it, when you have those

01:02:35
moments, but the good stuff, the best stuff that happens and a

01:02:38
genuinely put wind in your sails. And it's happened a few

01:02:41
times, is when you get a letter from a kid. And they've taken

01:02:46
the time to sit down and write this letter. And some of the

01:02:49
things they say are hilarious, because it's just like they say

01:02:53
from the mouth of babes. It's just cold truth. Yeah. shark

01:02:58
fishing should never happen. And sharks aren't mean they're nice.

01:03:02
And thank you so much for making me learn about this. And I

01:03:06
really want to save sharks and some kids have actually gone

01:03:08
like, they've donated money from their birthdays, they've they've

01:03:12
saved up money to donate to help save sharks. And I look, I look

01:03:16
at that, and I go, it, they inspire me, they motivate me,

01:03:22
not the other way around. And it just demonstrates that no matter

01:03:27
what you do, whether you're a conservationist, whether you're

01:03:29
a diver, whether you're an electrician, or whether you're a

01:03:32
builder, whatever, like don't, for a moment think that you

01:03:37
don't have impact on people around you. And I think if you

01:03:42
can make yourself conscious of that as much as you can, then

01:03:48
it's enriching, it makes you want to be better to do better,

01:03:51
regardless of what your trade is. And in my case, when I get

01:03:55
those letters, or when I'm given an opportunity to speak to a

01:03:57
school. And kids get really excited, it reminds me of when I

01:04:02
was a kid, and I now am fortunate enough to be in this

01:04:05
position to give back. And what I give back, they give to me

01:04:10
tenfold. And it's there the winds that are really cherished

01:04:16
because the conservation winds, particularly with marine

01:04:19
conservation, they're few and far between you fail more than

01:04:23
you're in. And when you do get those winds, they can literally

01:04:26
take years to happen. As we discussed earlier, shotcalling

01:04:30
with fisheries management, look, I've been doing this for four or

01:04:32
five years now. And my four or five years, I'm hoping that by

01:04:36
the end of this year, who puts fins is actually attached in. So

01:04:42
it's a long road and you take the winds where you can get them

01:04:46
no matter how small they are. And I suppose that just speaks

01:04:49
to a life lesson in general.

01:04:51
Matt Waters: Yeah, yeah. Just a bit. So where did where do you

01:04:55
think we're going with, you know, let's put a prediction.

01:04:58
What's that? What's going to happen with And Dr. Leo said,

01:05:01
what's gonna happen with sharks in Australia? Over the next 10

01:05:04
years?

01:05:06
Leo Guida: Over the next 10 years? Oh, good question.

01:05:10
Matt Waters: There's a big one for him.

01:05:11
Leo Guida: That's a big one. So the next 10 years will be 2037.

01:05:15
No 2020 32. Wow. I don't know. Because there's so many factors

01:05:25
like even if you took fishing out of the equation, climate

01:05:28
change is a big one. And that's affecting sharks as

01:05:35
well, all right, let's, it might be hard to say. Alright, let's

01:05:39
look at this. Because I actually was involved in a study on this.

01:05:42
So we have some indication of what sharks are going to be

01:05:46
doing in the next 10 years or so at least by the end of the

01:05:48
century, with climate change. So what you'll see or what we'll

01:05:52
probably see, in terms of movement, is we'll see sharks

01:05:57
literally pushed into a corner. So we'll have tropical species

01:06:00
and subtropical species like bull sharks, tiger sharks,

01:06:05
making their way further south into Australia. They've already

01:06:09
noticed this with bull sharks as well. So they'll head further

01:06:12
and further south, particularly down the east coast. And the

01:06:15
reason being is you've got that East Australian Current that

01:06:17
brings warm water from the tropics down. That's extending

01:06:21
year on year and getting stronger year on year. And when

01:06:24
you get down to the bottom of Australia, like that Victorian

01:06:27
kind of Tasmanian intersection, that's a global warming hotspot,

01:06:30
the water there is heating at four times the global average.

01:06:34
So yeah, so what's happening is you're getting these tropical

01:06:38
species moving down in terms of sharks, which are then pushing

01:06:43
your more subtrim temperate species you call border species,

01:06:46
they're getting pushed, according to the modelling, say,

01:06:50
from Vic, down into South Australia, because they can't go

01:06:53
further south, because there's a continental shelf. Yeah, so not

01:06:57
all sharks can just live in water, because it's deep, like

01:07:00
they have depth limits as well, yeah, based on habitat

01:07:02
requirements, and so forth. But generally speaking, once you get

01:07:04
to the shelf, it's kind of like up, we're going to stop here,

01:07:08
we're going to change direction. So they can only go so far south

01:07:11
and they got to go west. So they're going to have west into

01:07:13
South Australia, you look at the West Coast of Australia, it's

01:07:17
going to be almost similar kind of thing, warm water is going to

01:07:19
come further south more or less. And then what's going to happen

01:07:22
is you're going to have this kind of contraction, where

01:07:26
there's this concentration in South Australia, or they're in

01:07:29
that kind of Great Australian Bight region. They can only go

01:07:32
so far, and they can only move in so many directions. That's

01:07:37
just in terms of I suppose temperature and habitat, you've

01:07:39
then got to look at all of a sudden, you're gonna get more

01:07:43
interactions with species that never really had to worry about

01:07:46
each other before. So all of a sudden, you might get increased

01:07:49
levels of predation on gummy sharks by Tiger sharks. What

01:07:53
does that mean for the ecosystem? What does it mean if

01:07:56
Tiger sharks are now starting to, I don't know. Smash

01:08:00
Australia's still only at Phillip Island, or start

01:08:03
smashing little penguins. What does that mean? These are all

01:08:08
plausible scenarios and the nuts and bolts of it is, is tropical

01:08:11
species going to move further south into cooler waters? What

01:08:14
that means for the ecosystem we don't know and what that means

01:08:17
for the dynamics we don't know. sciro syro CSIRO, Australia's

01:08:21
leading sort of scientific body. They did some studies from a

01:08:25
fishery perspective looking at the abundance of certain fish

01:08:28
and how they might change as climate change, or global

01:08:31
warming increases. And when they looked at gummy shark and school

01:08:34
shark, the two primary targets shark species in southern

01:08:37
Australia or sorry, I should say, gummy shark is the primary

01:08:41
target species in southern parts of Australia. school shark is

01:08:44
bycatch, but it's endangered and can still legally be sold.

01:08:48
Again, another story. But I had a look at those two species

01:08:52
because it commercially important one way or another and

01:08:55
their productivity, I think from memory is expected to decline by

01:08:58
20%. Because of warming waters alone, that wasn't even

01:09:03
factoring in fishing pressure changes, interactions with other

01:09:06
species because you can only measure and predict so much like

01:09:08
you can't throw everything in it just becomes a mess. Yeah. So in

01:09:13
the next 10 years to the end of the century, we are we are

01:09:17
seeing shifts pure and simple. We are seeing shifts. A few

01:09:22
years back you had the odd sighting of a Manta ray off the

01:09:24
coast of Tassie hammerheads off the coast. And as this is going

01:09:28
back, I think maybe I want to say six to eight years ago. Now

01:09:34
you do get vagrants like species that just wander off track, so

01:09:37
to speak outside their range. But this is happening more and

01:09:41
more given the warming water currents coming down. I mean,

01:09:46
those magical kelp forests in the past straight or around

01:09:49
Tassie that 90% of them, I think have gone or more or less

01:09:53
disappearing because of you got Urchins coming in with the

01:09:57
warmer water from the north and Earth is a smashing kelp. Yeah.

01:10:02
And then you got warming waters as well. So there's a lot of

01:10:08
things happening. So it's really hard to predict what's going to

01:10:10
happen in the next 10 to 50 years or so. From a fishing

01:10:16
perspective, I, to be honest, I couldn't tell you.

01:10:21
What we try and focus on what we try and do is both the immediate

01:10:25
problems. And probably the safest thing to do is look ahead

01:10:29
in five year brackets. So I'll say five in brackets, because

01:10:34
it's ample time for you know, between government processes,

01:10:37
changing industry regulations, getting stuff on the water to

01:10:40
happen, technologies research, kind of all happens within five

01:10:44
year windows, and generally speaking, best practices is that

01:10:49
when fisheries do an environmental risk assessment,

01:10:51
so when they assess the overall snapshot of the fishery, and

01:10:54
what's going on to what species in what spaces are at high risk

01:10:57
that should be mitigated, and what species are at low risk and

01:11:00
find that, in theory, best practice should happen anywhere

01:11:04
between every two to five years. So that's enough time to capture

01:11:08
changes in the environment. It's enough time to capture changes

01:11:11
in management, changes in law, and even changes in social

01:11:15
attitudes as well. So, yeah, predicting 10 plus years out,

01:11:20
it's really hard. But if we look at five years time, we'll put it

01:11:25
this way, by 2024. We've managed to secure commitments from

01:11:31
Australia's largest fishery. So that's the stuff that I

01:11:34
mentioned earlier, the southern and eastern scale fishing shark

01:11:36
fishery, secured commitments from WA, as well as secure

01:11:41
commitments for Queensland, that by 2024, there should be

01:11:45
independent monitoring in their fisheries. And that's a

01:11:49
fundamental to any form of sustainable management because

01:11:52
it means not only, you know, do we have accurate reporting, but

01:11:57
the data we get is accurate, it's more robust so that we can

01:12:01
better fine tune our management, so that we're not forced to use

01:12:05
these big broad strokes and rules, which complains about

01:12:09
what it's like, well, you're complaining about it, you're

01:12:12
complaining that there's not enough data and the data is not

01:12:14
good enough and that you want more data? Well, then, why the

01:12:18
fuck are you against independent monitoring in the first place?

01:12:20
Just what it's all. So when the when the when he comes home to

01:12:25
roost and all these problems occur, it's like, it's

01:12:28
frustrating. So. But yeah, in the next by 2024, we're hoping

01:12:31
to have independent monitoring across a lot of Australia's high

01:12:35
risk fisheries. And then after about two years of that, once

01:12:38
the data comes in, we'll get a real picture of what's happening

01:12:41
with target fish that we sell for seafood. But we also get a

01:12:45
better picture of what's happening with threatened

01:12:46
endangered species and the numbers that are being caught.

01:12:48
And because there's under reporting is just rife in

01:12:52
Queensland. And so that takes us to our 2026. So then, hopefully,

01:12:59
by 2030, we've gone Okay, the next eight years, we've got all

01:13:02
this information, like, let's fix what we haven't fixed

01:13:07
previously. That's maybe overly simplistic, but that's the best

01:13:11
way I can put it, because it's always a moving feast, throw in

01:13:14
the complications of climate change, throwing rotating

01:13:18
governments, the best you can do is just just keep up the good

01:13:23
fight and make sure you make those incremental improvements

01:13:25
over time.

01:13:27
Matt Waters: Well, soon as you thought that was gonna be a

01:13:28
struggle to answer a 10 year window. I think you've done it

01:13:31
bloody well. You covered everything. Oh, that's right.

01:13:40
And what's Well, that's that's what's that's what's predicted

01:13:43
for the sharks and the fishes. What's, what's the prediction

01:13:45
for? Dr. Leo? What are you going to do for the next 10 years more

01:13:48
or the same

01:13:49
Leo Guida: next two years? Wow, love this? Well, I'll definitely

01:13:54
be at IMCs for at least the next two years, doing the shark

01:13:58
campaign decade shark campaign there. I wouldn't mind down the

01:14:03
track dabbling in international trade, probably pivoting into

01:14:07
international trade of shark products. And then with that

01:14:10
experience, maybe further down the track, just international

01:14:12
trade in seafood and fisheries in general. That's very loose.

01:14:19
But to be really honest, I've had a few people ask me this

01:14:21
question, and I've asked what do you plan to in the next five

01:14:23
years what you think is taking you? I genuinely feel like I'm

01:14:30
where I'm meant to be. Yeah. I feel like I have the privilege

01:14:35
and the luxury of now just being able to enjoy the ride. So I did

01:14:40
my university studies, I did my PhD and after I finished my PhD

01:14:44
in 2016, and that was studying sharks and rays. You know, for

01:14:49
two years old soul searching because, you know, I was

01:14:52
managing a bar full time and I was like, I didn't do this to

01:14:54
manage a bar full time. Like don't get me wrong. I love the

01:14:56
cocktails and I love the pretty ladies that come in and but You

01:15:00
know, I want to be, I want to be a shark. So I just want to work

01:15:02
with sharks. In 2018, when I started with AMCs, you know, my

01:15:09
PhD, quote unquote, paid off, it gave me street cred, so to

01:15:13
speak. So I'm not just conservationist, but working in

01:15:17
shark conservation, but I've got a doctorate like, I know what

01:15:20
I'm talking about. Yeah, I've got the network's like, you

01:15:23
know, opponents can say that I'm writing green as much as I want

01:15:26
to go make I know what I'm talking about pure and simple.

01:15:28
Yeah. I really want to push my buttons. And I won't lie. I do

01:15:32
love the big budget.

01:15:36
Matt Waters: You don't get it get those boxing gloves on.

01:15:39
Leo Guida: Yeah, I did that once. That was fun. But, um, but

01:15:43
yeah, I feel like I'm where I'm meant to be. And the risk of

01:15:46
tooting my own horn, like, I feel like on a personal level,

01:15:50
very fulfilled, and like, I've arrived, yeah, I'm at the place

01:15:54
where I wanted to be when I was a kid, I am a shark scientist,

01:15:57
and I'm saving sharks. And what's better is, I have all

01:16:01
these amazing opportunities to talk to people about it, to to,

01:16:06
you know, to be in the newspapers, to talk about it on

01:16:09
TV, to be on podcasts like this with yourself, meet all these

01:16:12
amazing people in the free diamond community, the diving

01:16:15
community scientists, it's just, it's not just the fact that I've

01:16:20
been lucky enough to follow a dream and live it. It's I feel

01:16:24
like I'm reaping the rewards only just now. And that is, and

01:16:29
it's not the financial rewards. Not that at all. It's my work is

01:16:33
fulfilling. I feel like I'm impacting in a positive way, the

01:16:36
environment and people's lives. But not just that, but the

01:16:40
amazing people and opportunities that I've gotten to meet that

01:16:43
I've gotten to experience and will experience. And the best

01:16:47
best best part is, like I said before, is being able to give

01:16:51
back. That is the most fulfilling part. So I'm lucky to

01:16:57
just right now, I think it's a very fortunate position in life.

01:17:03
Where I can just enjoy the ride, I don't, there's no other rungs

01:17:07
on the ladder to climb, like, I'm here. And I can just enjoy

01:17:11
the ride, and be able to take or pick and choose what

01:17:16
opportunities come my way and see what might be. It's just

01:17:20
crazy. The only I'm a competitive person by nature.

01:17:23
But the only competition I feel at the moment is just within

01:17:26
myself. And that is to quite literally be a better person

01:17:30
tomorrow than I was today. And the way in which I do that is

01:17:35
through my shark conservation work, and bringing people along

01:17:40
the journey with me.

01:17:41
Matt Waters: Yeah. And it's people like the ear that brings

01:17:44
that information to people that are unaware. And that's the big

01:17:47
thing. In all of this sheer muzzle of what you know, the

01:17:51
world is right now. It's information and people's lack of

01:17:55
information. And we combine the two, three people like yourself

01:17:59
that are well informed, and it's their own people people's eyes

01:18:02
makes it a brighter day.

01:18:04
Leo Guida: Thank you and at the risk of going down a rabbit

01:18:06
hole. The other problem is is that there's so much information

01:18:10
that there is a real challenge of people in general, having the

01:18:19
skills to critically think about what information is accurate and

01:18:24
doesn't come from a reputable source.

01:18:26
Matt Waters: I saw I saw it on Tik Tok. It's fact that dude was

01:18:32
on Tik Tok. He was wearing a doctor's stethoscope. It's a

01:18:35
fact. You know, you've got to drink water with lemon in the

01:18:37
morning to lose 10 kilos a day. Done.

01:18:40
Leo Guida: How's that gone? Wrong? You look great.

01:18:45
Matt Waters: Oh, yeah, I could do another 20 kilos mine.

01:18:50
Leo Guida: Yeah, that that's that's definitely a challenging

01:18:53
one. And look, I don't think it's anyone's fault, per se.

01:18:56
It's just we're bombarded with so much information that becomes

01:19:00
reinforcing. And you live in your own little bubble. And that

01:19:03
is your world. Yeah. And there's, you know, any

01:19:06
psychologist will tell you that you get reinforced information

01:19:09
from your own little bubble. And you'd literally see that as the

01:19:11
world like that is what's happening. Which is why you

01:19:15
can't you can't argue or convince people with facts

01:19:19
alone. Yeah, if we did that, Well, shit. Climate change

01:19:23
wouldn't be a thing would be fine. So it's really a challenge

01:19:27
where you've actually got to empathise with people understand

01:19:32
their values, their worldview, and try and sort of communicate

01:19:35
through that and then drop the facts in. And that's and that's

01:19:38
an art form. It's something I'm learning, because coming

01:19:41
straight out of academia, it's very much dry. Here are the

01:19:44
facts, therefore, this should happen. Yeah, that doesn't work

01:19:47
in the real world, so to speak. In the real world. It's like so

01:19:51
many different competing interests and so many different

01:19:52
points of view. You've got to try and find the value that

01:19:56
speaks to a certain person and and work through that. So if I'm

01:19:59
told Until commercial Fisher, there's no point me saying, oh,

01:20:03
sharks are declining in such a way that I've got to go, okay,

01:20:05
mate? How can we work this out where you can have a profitable

01:20:09
business into the future, and I can improve your social

01:20:12
licencing and marketability, because you're taking every step

01:20:15
possible to reduce interactions with threatened species. All of

01:20:20
a sudden, we're having a conversation about conservation

01:20:22
without talking about conservation. Whereas, you know,

01:20:26
if I'm gonna speak to a bunch of primary school kids, yeah, I'm

01:20:29
gonna drop all these cool, amazing facts and big numbers,

01:20:32
because shit, that's really interesting. Wow, I didn't know

01:20:35
that I'm gonna go home and tell mom and that. Versus if I'm

01:20:38
talking to someone at the pub, you know, I'm going to get them

01:20:42
to speak to me, and then work out what their interests are.

01:20:46
And go, Hey, let me show you this awesome photographer on

01:20:49
Instagram him out of these pictures, or, you know, check

01:20:52
this out and then through that aesthetic input. So I've got why

01:20:56
is that like that? Well, let me tell you about the particular

01:20:58
place in the world and why it's like this. So it's speaking

01:21:01
through different values and dropping the facts in bit by

01:21:05
bit. Yeah, that's that's the best way to convince someone but

01:21:11
again, it can be used for powers of good or powers of evil.

01:21:14
Matt Waters: Yeah. Well, thankfully, you're doing the

01:21:16
good bits, not the bad bits. Hey, one thing before we round

01:21:22
up after round off, I've literally I'm flying out on

01:21:25
Sunday to Indonesia and had my lunch behind the show. And I've

01:21:30
I've tried to fill anatomy face ocular run at the dentist in

01:21:33
about half an hour, 45 minutes, whatever. So before, bugger off.

01:21:38
I've always I've been chasing this information for a number of

01:21:41
years now. Loose cystic hammerheads. Do you know of any

01:21:48
location in the world where you can see loose cystic hammer

01:21:52
hits? No, because I do. I do you? Yeah.

01:21:58
Leo Guida: I don't know if you want to divulge your secrets

01:22:01
over a podcast but I'd be definitely keen to know because

01:22:05
hammerheads are on my bucket list. Ready to dive with? Yeah,

01:22:09
I've seen him. I've seen him on the end of the fishing line. But

01:22:12
not underwater, free swimming on my bucket list.

01:22:17
Matt Waters: Which we'll talk after the show because I'm

01:22:20
reopening my my travel agency as well. So maybe we could organise

01:22:24
a trip in the future where Dr. Leo comes along, and we go and

01:22:27
find some hammerheads. This sounds like a plan, mate. Yeah,

01:22:31
yeah, that sounds good. Yeah, I'll tell you after the show.

01:22:35
100% I've got the I've got the location.

01:22:37
Leo Guida: Done deal. I'd be that'd be amazing. I'm just just

01:22:40
out of curiosity. I'm assuming you've you might have informed a

01:22:44
few scientists on it.

01:22:46
Matt Waters: I've spoken to a few people very quietly I'm very

01:22:49
I'm very careful. I don't want to give it away. You know? Yeah,

01:22:55
Leo Guida: my seal permit.

01:22:58
Matt Waters: What lips the seal? Yeah. Now the latest I heard was

01:23:01
a few years ago. Now when I was looking at it in a bit more

01:23:04
depth. And I think it was it would have been seven or so from

01:23:09
now. It would have been nine years ago. When one was seen

01:23:12
upon the northern coast of Australia. That's the only

01:23:16
that's the only thing I've found. Yeah, anywhere in the

01:23:19
world.

01:23:20
Leo Guida: Geez, that'd be an absolute trip scene. One of

01:23:22
those. You like seeing a ghost?

01:23:25
Matt Waters: It is like I've got video footage. I'll send it to

01:23:29
you.

01:23:30
Leo Guida: Oh please do

01:23:32
Matt Waters: tell me about maybe 10 seconds or so. But 10 seconds

01:23:36
is a long time when you think about it. Oh yeah. Especially

01:23:38
when you're when you're out in the water and your artists

01:23:41
twitching I'd be nice Leo. I'm gonna have to sign off and like

01:23:48
go to the dentist get this sorted out so you can call me

01:23:50
Holly Bob's so thank you so much for being on the show. Thank

01:23:53
you. Thank you, man.

01:23:54
Leo Guida: I had a ball and um yeah, happy to come on another

01:23:58
time we're going to catch up or be have a chat. And maybe you're

01:24:02
going to have to try and get me to shut up because sharks with

01:24:06
me mates is not

01:24:07
Matt Waters: going to that's all right. It makes make him making

01:24:09
episodes of podcasts are very easy when people just want to

01:24:12
talk is Fanta and he told me passion so it makes it even

01:24:15
better. Thank you. Thanks again. And just stay on line. We'll

01:24:20
have a little chat chitter chatter afterwards. Thank you

01:24:23
very much for joining the show and I hope you enjoyed. Look

01:24:26
forward to see you next time. Bye for now. Thanks, everyone.

01:24:28
Happy diving. Got a podcast for the inquisitive diver.