Podchat 32 | Marine Stewardship, Education & Building Connection with Laura Griffith-Cochrane

Interactive Transcript

spk_0 That goes back to that thing of like animals build the world that they live in so you know like the

spk_0 Like the sand dollar creates the currents that build its own little world

spk_0 Yeah, and the whales bringing that iron up to the surface fuels a plankton bloom and the phytoplankton is eaten by krill

spk_0 And then the whales come and eat that krill and so they're like and we do that we build our world we farm

spk_0 We we change the currents of rivers every animal does this we just don't

spk_0 Really look at the way that other animals do it and recognize it in such a big way

spk_0 Like we recognize that crows do it and we look at beavers that bywant you know they engineer their own

spk_0 Spaces and elephants do when they trample grasslands and then distribute seeds around

spk_0 So all of us are doing that to build the world that we want to live in

spk_0 Really cool trees

spk_0 Welcome to another long awaited episode of the Nerd about Nature pod chat series my name is Ross

spk_0 I'm your host and I would like to start off by just offering an apology for the long delay between these episodes

spk_0 You know I've had dozens of people both online and in real life hounding me asking when the next episode is gonna drop and

spk_0 You know I've had three or four of these episodes recorded for a while but for the life of me

spk_0 I just have not had the time space or capacity to sit down and edit them and mix them and do all the different things

spk_0 It takes to get each one of these episodes out you know

spk_0 This whole nerd about nature project from these podcast episodes to the fun educational videos you see all over

spk_0 Instagram and YouTube it's all part of an ongoing passion project that's supported by folks on patreon and

spk_0 You know anybody that's alive and these crazy wild times that we're in today knows that they're just never seems to be enough time to do all the things

spk_0 So I'm slowly making my way to it. Ticking those boxes for repeat listeners here

spk_0 You might notice we have a new introduction and a cool new kind of hip-hoppy soundtrack, which is which is awesome

spk_0 I really stoked about that

spk_0 But anyway, let's get into today's episode because I had the amazing opportunity sit down with Laura

spk_0 from the Euclulid Aquarium, which is in Euclulid BC on the west coast of Vancouver Island

spk_0 who is just an incredibly personable and amazing storyteller great human and

spk_0 The aquarium itself is a really awesome project that I wanted to highlight because it's you know

spk_0 It's a catch and release aquarium project that uses or that takes you know samples from nearby waters and it pumps

spk_0 Water from the harbor through the whole system

spk_0 So it's basically like you took a chunk of the

spk_0 Kind of marine title ecosystems and brought it up onto land so people could look at all the things that are underneath the water

spk_0 So it's a really awesome

spk_0 Business model that I wanted to kind of promote so Lauren I sat down to talk about all of the amazing cool critters that they have in the aquarium

spk_0 The aquarium itself how it operates how it began the whole thing behind it

spk_0 As well as her approach to education which I find to be really

spk_0 Refreshing these days because it seems that everywhere in the world is obsessed with AI and digital and all sorts of different kind of

spk_0 Interactive interfaces and things and she takes a very hands-on approach which I find to be

spk_0 Just really awesome and still very applicable in learning these days

spk_0 We also digress a little bit and talked about some recent studies regarding marine life and

spk_0 fishing and tide pool ethics and etiquette which I found to be a really awesome part of our conversation

spk_0 So yeah, lots of great things coming up for you here

spk_0 So without any more hustle and fuzzle and beaten around the bush here

spk_0 Let's jump into the water and get into some deep conversation with Laura

spk_0 You

spk_0 Welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm excited. I've never done oh yeah, this is fun

spk_0 This is gonna be great. Would you like to start out by introducing yourself?

spk_0 Where we are and what it is you do

spk_0 All right, my name is Laura Griffith Cochran

spk_0 We're in the intertidal zone on the west coast of Vancouver Island and you clue it the traditional territory of you cool hut

spk_0 And I'm the executive director of the cool it aquarium nice, which is a pretty rad little spot. Yeah, pretty innovative pretty unique

spk_0 Which we're gonna talk all about but before we do that

spk_0 I'd like to just take a moment and look around because this is so like we timed this at low tide

spk_0 So we're in the intertidal area. This is not I mean there are tide pools around

spk_0 But it's maybe not your classic kind of tide pool areas that we have and kind of some of the bigger rocks. Yeah

spk_0 Do you want to start off by just telling us why the intertidal area is so cool?

spk_0 um

spk_0 It's my favorite space in the world

spk_0 It's full of life and nutrients. So we've got all of the the violence of the ocean coming in and out and

spk_0 cycling nutrients bringing fresh

spk_0 nitrogen and oxygen into this space. We have nutrients coming down from the forest

spk_0 um

spk_0 Water filtering through all of the root systems of trees and other plants and it's all meeting in this area

spk_0 And so there's so many dynamic

spk_0 possibilities for life

spk_0 um if you look around there's

spk_0 Everything that's in here has to be able to be

spk_0 tolerant of fresh water tolerant of salt water tolerant of exposure to air tolerant of sunshine um

spk_0 And so it there's just all of these opportunities for

spk_0 biodeiversity and

spk_0 A lot of you know when people go on vacation they often go to these like nice like calm sandy beaches

spk_0 But this is what I love. I love these rocky spaces where there's all kinds of little hidey holes and

spk_0 Yeah, there's just so much to look at hidey holes. Yeah, I never really thought about it as

spk_0 Like in terms of extremes because I mean you say the violence of the ocean

spk_0 Which is kind of hard to believe right now because it looks so relatively calm

spk_0 But like in the wintertime you know you have like 12 meter swells coming in

spk_0 pummeling these areas especially at a high tide

spk_0 And so it's just grinding on all these big rocks into little rocks and then everything here like in the summertime

spk_0 Like the exposure for like these enemies for example that are just on this rock here like the exposure to the sun

spk_0 Like it gets cranked like 25 degrees. I love tide pool sculpting. So all of these little if you look in any of these pools

spk_0 Um, there are these tiny little fish a lot of people call them bullheads

spk_0 And they look almost like a tadpole. They've got they're like really top heavy and then they've got these little tails

spk_0 and they're unbelievably strong. So

spk_0 Um, if you ever work with salmon

spk_0 You'd know that I you have to be so careful with water temperature and then you work with redfish

spk_0 Right, you know reengineering all of those river systems that have been damaged

spk_0 So that there's nice. I'm being visited by bee

spk_0 Hi, Bob will be um no flowers for you here buddy

spk_0 Um, there's a

spk_0 You know, you need to have all of those refuge spaces for temperature control in streams

spk_0 Because of salmon experience temperature changes more than two degrees in an hour

spk_0 They'll die and then you have tide pool sculptions

spk_0 They can be sitting in let's say like 12 degree sea water

spk_0 And then the tide will go out and then there's no

spk_0 renewing water coming in so the temperature and those tide pools in the summertime can get up to 22 degrees

spk_0 And then the ocean will come back and that first wave is going to drastically change

spk_0 The water temperature yeah, and they can tolerate that and they can tolerate we get two meters of rain a year

spk_0 So the salinity within the tide pools will just fluctuate like crazy

spk_0 Um, and they thrive. I I just think that there are these

spk_0 You know unselibated wonderful little animals. Yeah, I mean, and especially in my work with redfish like we

spk_0 You know, you don't hate sculptions because they're part of it

spk_0 But like especially when we do the juvenile swims you'd see sculptions like feeding on baby baby coho salmon

spk_0 You're like no, like yeah, you know, so are those the same species of no, okay?

spk_0 The ones that you're working with are probably the coast range sculptors that had been fresh water. Yeah

spk_0 Yeah, and then where these are

spk_0 Type pools. Yeah, but you never really think of them are you I don't know in my experience

spk_0 I haven't taken the time to appreciate their resilience, but yeah, it's a pretty

spk_0 Pretty wild little ecosystem we have here. Mm-hmm. Tell me about the Euclulid Aquarium. Yeah, so

spk_0 It's the first collect and release

spk_0 Aquarium in Canada. So we're an offer profit or charitable society

spk_0 And we run a public aquarium from March 1st until November 30th every year

spk_0 We bring in local species and then return them back to where we found them

spk_0 um, I really believe in that release process

spk_0 Uh, do you want to fight dive into go for it? Okay. Yeah, that's give me the philosophy. I love it

spk_0 um, okay, so I

spk_0 I feel like in our our day-to-day lives because we're not as

spk_0 We don't feel as intricately

spk_0 Ketley part of

spk_0 ecosystems

spk_0 Will kind of gravitate to one or two individuals and we really fall in love with those individual animals

spk_0 So if you have a pet car is made of makeup on up. Yeah, or yeah

spk_0 If there is a bird that visits you regularly in your backyard or

spk_0 um or sometimes if people go to other aquariums

spk_0 They'll really fall in love and be worried about the specific care of this one individual

spk_0 And they can work and ensure that that gets the best care possible

spk_0 But if you're releasing

spk_0 You have to really in-quish control and you have to accept that the best care possible means you care for that whole ecosystem

spk_0 And so my hope is that when people come out and they take part in the release

spk_0 It's like they weave a thread back to that organism that they've put back

spk_0 That sticks with them

spk_0 And so when they walk past the harbor where they walk past this

spk_0 beautiful and her title zone

spk_0 They feel connected to it and they

spk_0 Will continue to care for it or or start to care for it

spk_0 Do you find that folks at the aquarium are able to kind of form those relationships with these

spk_0 undersea critters because

spk_0 Like thinking of like the idea behind charismatic megafauna and how that has kind of guided a lot of conservation efforts

spk_0 Whether it's like talking about the polar bear

spk_0 Regarding climate change or the panda regarding deforestation

spk_0 They're these kind of like big-eyed

spk_0 cute mammalian

spk_0 Usually animals that people gravitate to because they feel some sort of like

spk_0 connection to them

spk_0 But when you look at like a crab or a barnacle

spk_0 It's much harder to feel that sort of like

spk_0 Interspecies appreciation for the other. I mean even me talking about skull poons

spk_0 You know like I've

spk_0 Looked at them as a pest because I've only viewed them to this one lens, you know

spk_0 Like do you find that your work at the aquarium has allowed a lot of people to kind of form those relationships with

spk_0 Fauna that might not necessarily be the big and charismatic ones. Yeah

spk_0 um

spk_0 We like joke that the aquarium is kind of like a beaten switch thing

spk_0 Unintended that

spk_0 So yeah, people come in because they want to see the octopus and then when they leave

spk_0 The

spk_0 Like they're talking about jellyfish and barnacles and it's so fun

spk_0 um

spk_0 The one of my favorite things are sand dollars

spk_0 um

spk_0 Back in the days of the mini aquarium

spk_0 So they the aquarium used to be in this little

spk_0 Like it was just almost like a almost like a sea can kind of space and um

spk_0 It was just plywood and two by fours and we had 30 tanks that we just had on on like

spk_0 Yeah on cement blocks

spk_0 and um and people would come in and they would ask what lived in a sand dollar and then you'd

spk_0 Like people put their hands in the tank and you'd put a live sandal or on their hands

spk_0 And they'd feel all of the little spines moving

spk_0 Just like that super light tickling kind of feeling and then I used to take them put them underneath a microscope

spk_0 And you could see the spines moving and

spk_0 And people would just have this

spk_0 This like quiet

spk_0 moment

spk_0 Um

spk_0 Where they'd be like oh my god, it's alive

spk_0 This quiet like awakening. Yeah, that's my favorite. It's not when um

spk_0 Not when people are like yelling or like wow or it's when

spk_0 That really like internal like

spk_0 Like feeling connected to something. Yeah, and sand dollars are such

spk_0 Interesting

spk_0 I mean, I mean for people who are familiar with the sand dollars. It's it's in the same family as urchins

spk_0 So what you think of urchins is these round shell things with hard spines

spk_0 They kind of move the spines to get around and crawl over things sand dollars are just that but flattened with like really tiny

spk_0 Spines they almost kind of look like fur when you first pull out of the water

spk_0 And they're really they live in these colonies. They're really social

spk_0 Um, if you take time to look at sand dollars and then you look at all of the hard surfaces around like every surface around here

spk_0 Has something living on it. There's like barnacles. There's muscles. There's

spk_0 sponges and and bryzoins and sand dollars when you look at them they move very slowly

spk_0 And very rarely is there anything else living on them. They have these amazing

spk_0 anti-microbial and antifungal properties have really good at um

spk_0 preventing against parasitism and they work together

spk_0 There's I think this is like a so we really old but there's like a

spk_0 nature of things with david Suzuki

spk_0 pretty sure it's a clip

spk_0 We're watching like sand dollars and I'm react to the presence of a sunflower star and how they work as a community

spk_0 Yeah, okay not to get too distracted and fart on the rabbit hole of sand dollars

spk_0 But what do you mean they act as a community because they buried they'll bury themselves in sand to hide from predators, right?

spk_0 How do they act as a community? So they communicate by um to

spk_0 chemical communication so they release

spk_0 pheromones and

spk_0 chemical

spk_0 signals into the water and

spk_0 and if

spk_0 When you look at a sand dollar, it's got a thinner end and a thicker end

spk_0 So the thinner end will bury down into the sand and then the

spk_0 base which has all of those lines that go down to the mouth those are a little mucus groups

spk_0 so all of the little spines on its

spk_0 Downward side will trap plankton and pass it down to the mouth at the bottom

spk_0 So sand dollars work together to pile up and they create these little tiny spaces where the water will eddie

spk_0 And then that allows the plankton to slow down and be captured by their splines. Oh no way

spk_0 I'll take turns in their places

spk_0 Moving around so like one can be at the top for a while

spk_0 Well the other one is in the sand propping the other up then they'll move around

spk_0 um and then when they

spk_0 um

spk_0 sense the presence of a predator

spk_0 they will

spk_0 Shift and pile up on one another and try to make it difficult for predators to get in there and and grow one

spk_0 No way. Yeah, so that's crazy

spk_0 So they like change the flow of water like in the water column to trap more plankton feet

spk_0 Yeah, it's like if anyone gets nerdy about physics. It's the venturi effect. So they're creating like

spk_0 Yeah, well and for people who watch nature documentaries and charismatic megafauna

spk_0 You probably see this a lot with the way that whales will do that. We'll blow blow bubbles to kind of

spk_0 heard

spk_0 Crill together and then like come through and just like go up them like that's like a common thing but yeah

spk_0 You don't think if it was time you little a kind of germs. It kind of germs. That's right. A kind of mean said

spk_0 Or spiny skin. Yeah, yeah, a kind of

spk_0 Yeah, Durham skin a kind of also you've got

spk_0 Sand dollars urchins see cucumbers stars all together. Okay. Yeah

spk_0 I before we just go down this rabbit hole

spk_0 Let's bring it back to the aquarium

spk_0 What is the journey of the aquarium been because I've only I only know it kind of as it is now and like eight years ago

spk_0 Nine years ago when I first kind of came out to the coast here on Vancouver Island

spk_0 Like how did it start?

spk_0 It started by a man named Philip Brooker and

spk_0 Who's a really creative

spk_0 person fill also started the Aqua van with the Vancouver querym

spk_0 um and

spk_0 Phil wanted to create a space that was more um

spk_0 I like to say like less like an art gallery and more like an interactive artist studio

spk_0 so um where people are interacting directly with visitors um and

spk_0 And where you could get hands on and feel things and and feel connected and so um

spk_0 If Phil started it

spk_0 Just on his own at the beginning um

spk_0 With other like some volunteers and uh staff member named uh jimshin kuski and uh and then uh

spk_0 Yeah, there's so many it's like hard with projects like this because there's so many wonderful people that help to

spk_0 Get it off the ground and then um

spk_0 The public started like at the beginning at sea kool-it so we're talking like 2005

spk_0 Nobody's visiting you kool-it everybody's going to stifino where this weird town at the end of the road

spk_0 I like nobody's going to visit and um and then

spk_0 people started coming in and

spk_0 Getting really excited about it and so then in 2009

spk_0 um

spk_0 That the society so the society was formed in 2005 the society started really fundraising towards a permanent building

spk_0 um

spk_0 We are getting enough consistent visitation

spk_0 to

spk_0 To say okay, you know

spk_0 Like if we meet this number of people in this summer then i think this is going to be a consistent thing

spk_0 Let's try and fundraise towards a permanent building um because for anybody that

spk_0 Had didn't go into the mini aquarium. It was literally just like plywood and two by four. It's like their holes in the wall

spk_0 um

spk_0 You know, we had to secure all of the tanks

spk_0 Not because we were worried about anything getting out what we were worried about this mink that would come into the aquarium and try to eat the fish

spk_0 And then it would get like super angry because it couldn't get anything and it would move on the floor

spk_0 It's awful, but um

spk_0 Yeah, so and we didn't have any washrooms. There's no heat and if you're working in October and in an aquarium where you're cleaning tanks all day long

spk_0 And there's no heat like it was a pretty chilly adventure

spk_0 so um we started fundraising and we got so much community support

spk_0 um

spk_0 It's a pretty

spk_0 Unreal project when you compare it to aquariums around the world um

spk_0 The community of euculid really got behind it in such a big way and then in 2012 the permanent building was built

spk_0 um

spk_0 There was so much volunteer work and so many donations that went into it almost all of the tanks came from other projects like other aquariums

spk_0 um research projects from as far away as ninovitt

spk_0 I and all of them were refurbished by people in town and then put in the aquarium the beams like the trees in the aquarium

spk_0 um those were trees that were cut in order to make space for the community center and uh matte harbidge

spk_0 um collected those and took care of them and so that they could be installed in the facility

spk_0 um

spk_0 Yeah, so it was a huge labor of love. Yeah

spk_0 It's a beautiful building and I think like that's kind of why I wanted like bring you on and chat with you because it is

spk_0 Such a different model of an aquarium

spk_0 you know like I think about the aquariums that I visited when I was a kid in like Seattle and like

spk_0 they're

spk_0 They're big and they're beautiful and they're well-funded and they're bringing in exotic fish and things from all over the world

spk_0 And it's it I mean, it's a very kind of like colonial and like displaying this like exotic animals and stuff from like all over the world

spk_0 Whereas this is like a community-driven thing that uses catch and release models

spk_0 So nothing is kept there for their lifetime

spk_0 And it kind of it gives people a chance to see what's under the waves under the surface of the water

spk_0 In these kind of localized regions in a way that preserves these you know these areas because you can't obviously bring

spk_0 However many people are coming through there into these little time pool things and maintain the habitat here like it

spk_0 These places would be destroyed

spk_0 So I feel like it's such a great and unique way to

spk_0 Showcase the beauty we have around here in way that protects these ecosystems and getting people involved like

spk_0 It's just such a beautiful community thing. I love it. I think

spk_0 it's the

spk_0 Like going back to the bait and switch idea

spk_0 but it's not it's not really like it's about the fish and it's about the animals, but it's about making connection and

spk_0 I like I've talked to people where

spk_0 Some people are like well, there's so many like wonderful videos and there's so much information out there

spk_0 Is this even needed anymore?

spk_0 but

spk_0 There's so much information out there and yet we are still

spk_0 behaving in ways that are going to harm us and

spk_0 And so unless we feel connected

spk_0 we we feel

spk_0 You know if you don't feel like something is going to affect you

spk_0 It's really hard to motivate to make change and

spk_0 And connection is that that factor that is going to like

spk_0 help

spk_0 Everything that's out here because they're valuable and worthy of respect too

spk_0 But then also

spk_0 Help us continue to exist as a species right

spk_0 Yeah, that resonates a lot

spk_0 I feel like because I spend so much time making videos online that people

spk_0 Know it's like learning but like there's so much crap on your phone and on the internet these days

spk_0 It's like you can have the most detailed video about

spk_0 You know like I'm sure that little rant about sand dollars like

spk_0 Educated a lot of people who never like even though I'm sure that exists in a video somewhere on YouTube and stuff

spk_0 You have to dig for it like there's just there's so much out there that like getting

spk_0 They're in person like you have the touch tanks you have like these ways where people can be evolved or like involved in real life

spk_0 I feel like that's such an underrated

spk_0 Form of education these days because everybody is just turning to like the remote digital

spk_0 Stream it model. I think that it's

spk_0 um

spk_0 It's educational and it's important

spk_0 But you have to balance that with something that like weaves that thread of you being part of the world

spk_0 um

spk_0 Like you you know, you can learn a lot about something and know a lot of facts, but you still have to have

spk_0 That piece that makes you feel part of it

spk_0 Yeah, I feel like that that kind of is like a funky one going back to what I was saying earlier like it's easier for people to

spk_0 Feel connected to land animals because we mostly live on the land. Yeah, but these are you know our group like we all share the same

spk_0 Common ancestor at one point in time. Yeah, I was reading this book called e poop that I really entitled

spk_0 He pooped that yeah by Joe Roman and

spk_0 He was talking about whales and like how is it that we

spk_0 Don't really see how much whales do for the world and um and he was talking about how there used to be vote four million whales

spk_0 And then industrial whaling happened and now there's about one point five million

spk_0 So we're just not really sealing seeing them as much of these all like toothed and was just like the whole

spk_0 population

spk_0 Yeah, only one point five billion

spk_0 Yeah, yeah, yeah, and then and so he was talking about how they

spk_0 they

spk_0 Engineering ecosystems, you know, they move nutrients around the world they dive deep for food and then they come up to the surface

spk_0 And then they poop so they're they're cycling iron and nitrogen and phosphorus around the planet and um and with them layers

spk_0 Different layers of the ocean yeah, because they're stratified. There's like a bottom layer which doesn't mix much

spk_0 And then the top layer which gets all the solar radiation

spk_0 So that's where like all the photosynthesizers live so they're like kind of mixing those two

spk_0 Zones yeah, they're at like from the deep deep sea the benthic zones

spk_0 Bringing it back up and then they're also bringing it to other places

spk_0 So you know we come out to sometimes watch the whale migration here

spk_0 humpback whales and gray whales that go down to max co and then come back up

spk_0 and if you think about all of this

spk_0 Life that they're consuming here and then the females will go down there down to max co and give birth and so all that

spk_0 Like it's not just about their urine and that they're they're taking around all that nitrogen

spk_0 Um and their poop but also like the skin that they're sloughing off when they get down there

spk_0 um when they give birth i

spk_0 It's uh there's so much

spk_0 material that's moving around the world just because of them

spk_0 Yeah, that's an interesting one to look at it from like a biotic lens because i know like when people talk about

spk_0 nutrients cycling in the ocean and it's mostly attributed to currents in the way the waters flow

spk_0 But like these are things that break those lines of of current flows and stuff

spk_0 moving moving nutrients

spk_0 Both vertically within the water column, but then like horizontally like across the world. Yeah

spk_0 I love that idea of bringing like

spk_0 Because the eqrium is beautiful, but there's not a lot of tech there's not screens there's not videos

spk_0 There's nothing there's no touch pads no

spk_0 I want you this one aquarium like it's there was this like unreal cool

spk_0 massive uh coral ecosystem that the aquarium had made and it was so awesome

spk_0 And this tech company was like head partnered with them and they're like yeah, we can make these um

spk_0 Uh touch screens where you can flip through and so then you can have more information available about the animals that are in this

spk_0 tank because you know you've got limited space around um

spk_0 around an exhibit

spk_0 But people especially kids would get stuck on these screens and i watched

spk_0 So many kids just flipping through the screens instead of looking at the tank

spk_0 And so all of that work

spk_0 To put together this massive thing

spk_0 And nobody was really um engaging with it

spk_0 I wouldn't say nobody, but

spk_0 Not in the way that if I had put all of that work together

spk_0 That I would be hoping that people would be engaging with it

spk_0 But I don't you know, there's so many other cool things that

spk_0 That facilities can do

spk_0 that um

spk_0 That we can't do but what I think our

spk_0 Organization really can do is build connections

spk_0 And um i like not having any screens or technology

spk_0 um

spk_0 I think they've got their place, but in the aquarium we just want people to

spk_0 Connect get off their phones not be distracted by anything else

spk_0 Look at all the cool little things

spk_0 Funny you're talking about building connections and we're talking about social media which is both to connect people and my mics are not connecting

spk_0 And we're having all these connection issues

spk_0 Crimeini

spk_0 Um, yeah, I mean it's

spk_0 Again like I know this sounds ironic and hypocritical for me to say because I operate in this like social media space

spk_0 And this is a podcast that people are going to be listening on their devices and it's not um

spk_0 It's not

spk_0 Human to human in person connection

spk_0 But I feel like

spk_0 We're kind of shifting towards like a balance of that or a better balance than we've had maybe in the past five or ten years

spk_0 Especially with all the AI stuff coming out we don't need to talk about that

spk_0 But like it's getting to a point when like the things you see on the internet aren't necessarily even going to be real

spk_0 So like what's the point in engaging with that? Yeah

spk_0 I think that like I see a lot of things as different tools. So there's a lot of things that I really appreciate from social media

spk_0 um

spk_0 I you know, I live in a town like we live in a town of two thousand people

spk_0 So there's limited experiences that

spk_0 We can have in our community and and social media has

spk_0 opened up my access to seeing different art to learning about different cultures to like hearing people's

spk_0 voices from themselves

spk_0 which um

spk_0 Otherwise, I would have to hear through other lenses or through other you know other interpretations and um

spk_0 So I love that about social media and I just I think it's it's one tool and you just have to be really conscious of the fact that you're using

spk_0 that one tool and

spk_0 You need to make sure that you're

spk_0 You're you know, not just staying in that one sphere, but like branching out to others as well

spk_0 Totally and it and it does have such great potential especially from like an education perspective like

spk_0 You have the world that your fingertips you can learn so much about so many things that you're interested in

spk_0 I mean

spk_0 You know like I see it with myself my generation with my my parents who didn't grow up with this stuff like the way my

spk_0 I love my dad to death, but he will sit there on the couch just sucked into his

spk_0 iPad looking at plants and it's like he's he's doing constructive stuff with it

spk_0 He's he's uh an avid gardener, but like

spk_0 There's there's no sense of like restrained and I see like so many kids these days and like while it does have so much potential

spk_0 To educate and for people to go down whatever rabbit holes they want and learn about things

spk_0 It's so often is co-opted to become a marketing tool to sell people things to get you kind of feeling this like

spk_0 inadequacy like you're

spk_0 You're too ugly you're too fat. You're too thin. You don't have the right cool the coolest equipment

spk_0 You're like always buying new things is just like it's become this force of capitalism that has just like

spk_0 Sped things up so much and the more and more time I spend on it personally the more and more time I want to be off of it

spk_0 Yeah

spk_0 So like when you're dealing with like children and stuff who are like because you have kids I do yeah

spk_0 And so what's that balance like with technology and then like seeing the way that kids interact in this aquarium space and like being able to see

spk_0 These things in real life and being like

spk_0 six inches from you know a rock fish and like between the glass are going to the touch tanks and having an urchin kind of cling on to their finger like what's that

spk_0 Experience like it's so cool

spk_0 Yeah

spk_0 Um that's been a real like joy of becoming a parent is

spk_0 um

spk_0 Seeing them discover the the world around them um

spk_0 I I just want to like so many local kids are so knowledgeable about this stuff

spk_0 One of my favorite moments came from a few years back where we had this 11 year old volunteer

spk_0 And she was fantastic and she would come in and she would work really hard and she got to know all of the specimens in there and

spk_0 And I think a lot of people don't expect kids to retain as much knowledge as they do

spk_0 Um, and so to have an 11 year old

spk_0 That would be

spk_0 Excuse me working beside a tank and then a visitor who's maybe in their fifties what

spk_0 Walk by and and go like oh those

spk_0 Sunflower stars are so cool and then the 11 year old would be like actually

spk_0 Those are bad stars you can tell because of the webbing between their arms and then this adult would be like

spk_0 They're still seven year old correcting me, but they know it they've like they grow up in their part of the world and I

spk_0 um

spk_0 I think that that is such an important thing to celebrate um

spk_0 I

spk_0 So with like looking at all of our North American cultures and and how like colonialism and and um how

spk_0 much we move around as

spk_0 Lots of cultures in the world

spk_0 We don't have those long-term multi-generational

spk_0 connections

spk_0 To the space around us and so

spk_0 We don't have that language and knowledge to interpret what change means

spk_0 So if for example um

spk_0 There is a

spk_0 year where um

spk_0 Like some years we have lots of the Lava Lava that wash up on the beaches. What does that say about the ocean?

spk_0 we

spk_0 You know, we don't really know

spk_0 We're starting to learn that stuff right now. We're investing a lot more in research

spk_0 But there's so many cultures that where they if they have that long connection to the space around them

spk_0 All over the world they can interpret that stuff in real time. They know what that change means

spk_0 And so for what I'm really excited about

spk_0 With my kids is that they're

spk_0 Learning from people around them and they're learning what these changes mean like if if there's a poor salmon run

spk_0 What does that mean does that mean we just

spk_0 Pick up and move to a place where there's more salmon or do we know that that means something catastrophic for our community and we have to invest in it

spk_0 And I hope that I really hope that my kids are going to be the kind of people that

spk_0 um

spk_0 See the need to invest in it and like

spk_0 Consider themselves part of the world and giving back to the world

spk_0 Yeah, I love the way that you said that like growing up as a part of the world

spk_0 And I feel like there is so much disconnection

spk_0 It's almost like there's the idea of shifting baselines

spk_0 You know when you're plugged into like baselines and watching them change over time

spk_0 But in a sense

spk_0 With how people and communities and cultures have moved across the world specifically western ones to these parts of the world

spk_0 There's almost like just like a break in the in the baseline where you don't even know what existed prior because you don't have that kind of

spk_0 Long standing cultural connection to it. I Daniel Polly the shifting baselines theory

spk_0 Favorite fisheries biologist just the coolest man

spk_0 Um, I don't know if you've I have you looked up his maps that he created no so um

spk_0 Dr. Daniel Holly to see you around his lab

spk_0 um

spk_0 Created these maps almost like topographical maps, you know with different colors and

spk_0 comparing pre-industrial times

spk_0 um in the Atlantic Ocean to

spk_0 post-industrial fishing times and fisheries data is

spk_0 So incredibly well documented in a lot of places around the world because a lot of fisheries data

spk_0 Historically was intertwined with naval operations, right and um and so dr. Polly

spk_0 um

spk_0 If you look up if you just google

spk_0 dr. Daniel Polly fisheries maps Atlantic Ocean

spk_0 um there's the a map that compares the biomas in tonnage

spk_0 um from the 1900s to the 2000s and you can see this especially around newfoundland like this

spk_0 Okay

spk_0 You were saying there's biomas are on newfoundland? Yeah

spk_0 Because it's one of those super awesome upwelling zones and there's so much life and

spk_0 uh and so comparing that area you look at

spk_0 How much mass there was how much life there was

spk_0 Before industrial fishing happened and then post-industrial fishing is just

spk_0 Yeah, it's insane and that specific map is just looking at biomass

spk_0 It's not looking at like species diversity or anything like that just biomass. Yeah. Yeah. That's

spk_0 Incredible how much data is out there that uh is

spk_0 Often just ignored blatantly. Yeah, and then if you compare it to what our human experiences are

spk_0 I think the important thing is to look at that data and then go how does that affect us? So if my granddad

spk_0 um i went out fishing and

spk_0 wanted to fish for his family

spk_0 He could go out in a non-motorized boat and get a few salmon and that would be good for the family for a long time

spk_0 And now if I wanted to go out and get a few salmon

spk_0 It's not likely that i'm gonna be successful if i just row out and and fish for a few hours

spk_0 You know at the most of the harbor

spk_0 It's more likely that i'm gonna need to be in a motorized boat and move around

spk_0 Maybe even head a few hours offshore have downriggers have you know

spk_0 Like hundreds of dollars worth of fishing equipment and um

spk_0 So that data

spk_0 translates into our connection to the world and how we're experiencing it and the kind of effort that we have to do

spk_0 To be able to have the same experiences that

spk_0 previous generations have had yeah

spk_0 I mean and then the experiences go from being like assessments

spk_0 This is what you do to exist and survive to suddenly a tourist attraction

spk_0 It's like it's a recreational thing

spk_0 I mean it's like you have to you get your fishing license you go out with your boys on the weekend and you like

spk_0 It becomes this experience that you work to

spk_0 That is purely novel

spk_0 You know like you you can get everything you need from the supermarket

spk_0 So like why do you need to fish you do it because it's like it's an experience. It's different

spk_0 Like that's the way at least it's pitched in a lot of these communities and then like you know

spk_0 the

spk_0 That kind of ends up becoming the political swaying devices like look at how many jobs there are in tourism because of the fishing industry versus how many

spk_0 Fish are being produced is just like it putting a different metric on

spk_0 On the

spk_0 Dare I say resource quote-unquote

spk_0 As it shifts over that baseline. I think like a messaging is so important with those things because I think you can have

spk_0 tourism

spk_0 That is like built on a stronger for connection

spk_0 So if you were to say market

spk_0 um

spk_0 Just going out on a boat seeing the world from the water

spk_0 Um, maybe you're going to do some fishing and you're going to eat it and experience that from like this is

spk_0 Why we've been so connected to this part of the world like it would sustain us and

spk_0 And if we don't catch anything we don't catch anything if we are going to catch something

spk_0 We're going to behave in a way that respects the animal that we're catching

spk_0 We're going to learn what by catch we might have and how to handle that first

spk_0 um

spk_0 I

spk_0 We're not going to damage ecosystems in the process. We're not going to throw anything that we accidentally catch to bait eagles for photographs

spk_0 You know like we're going to behave in a way that feels respectful and connected

spk_0 Because I think a lot of visitors that come here

spk_0 They look to us to tell them what they should expect

spk_0 To have a great time

spk_0 And so if someone's like we're going to go whale watching we're going to pet a gray whale

spk_0 Then they're going to say okay

spk_0 Well, I know that I've had a good time because they said that that's what I need to have

spk_0 To have a good time and if you say we're going to go out and we're going to be on the water

spk_0 And we're just going to see what we see because this is a beautiful space and you're excited about it

spk_0 I think you can set the tone for tourism and um

spk_0 Yeah, because if I were

spk_0 You know um to go to different places in the world

spk_0 I don't know a lot about some of those places. So I'm gonna

spk_0 It's the people's reaction around me that's gonna help me know like was this exciting, you know did um

spk_0 So we have these like very arbitrary definitions of what is the best animal to see

spk_0 Yeah, like for some people they come out here and there I have got to see a killer whale

spk_0 And then I'll talk to some people

spk_0 I remember these visitors that came into the query when I was like how's your visit going and they're like

spk_0 We went to Jasper, Matt National Park and we saw squirrels and I was like that's awesome

spk_0 And you talked to birders and they're like I saw a gross peak and that's what I'm excited about

spk_0 So

spk_0 Everybody has it within them to be super nerdy about something and we just have to help people like find out what it is

spk_0 That they're nerdy about and connect to it. Yeah, and I think it like it you know

spk_0 Experience is a gateway drug because if you are like have those experiences get that hands on connection that in person connection

spk_0 That's gonna you know provide the the groundwork to guide the rest of your life doing things that like either work in that space or protect it

spk_0 And without that, you know

spk_0 It's just out of sight out of mind and then you feel that disconnect from the world that we also intricately share

spk_0 Yeah, I really hope that when people come through the aquarium

spk_0 They go back home and they think about a space that is meaningful for them in their life like whether it's a tree in a park

spk_0 That's close to their home or a forest ecosystem that they run through where

spk_0 That connection will go back with them and then maybe when they're like if they're out for a run

spk_0 They're not just like I'm getting my 45 minutes of exercise before work

spk_0 They're going for a run and they're feeling like they're making time to be connected to the world

spk_0 And then they carry that with them when they go into their work. Are they going to school or they go anywhere else? Right

spk_0 Yeah, yeah, I think that's a huge thing that especially in like urban areas is like so

spk_0 I mean so easily just you know

spk_0 Forgotten

spk_0 That we are all a part of these

spk_0 ecosystems however strange and rare

spk_0 The violent and all the different adjectives they may be like we are all part of them and we are all part of these nutrients cycles

spk_0 Like you think about how much whales move nutrients around the oceans like think about how many nutrients and things are moved around because of people like we

spk_0 Yeah, our part of it. Yeah totally

spk_0 Got their zony studies we could tell about that are so interesting about humans moving nutrients around there's

spk_0 Oh my god. Yeah, there's a one study that I read

spk_0 About caffeine and in like the North Pacific, you know

spk_0 caffeine culture and

spk_0 And it was talking books. Yeah, and talking about how caffeine exits our

spk_0 um

spk_0 Our metabolic system in the same form and so like when we're you know

spk_0 So it's still like a stimulant yeah, and so and for a lot of towns like Victoria

spk_0 You know when I was a university was still

spk_0 releasing rossuage into the ocean and it affects the metabolism and the reproductive systems of a lot of invertebrates causing them to reproduce earlier

spk_0 really yeah, there's um

spk_0 Studies on the effects of antidepressants on salmon and it makes them so bold

spk_0 So they'll come out of these stream systems and then go into eel grass beds and and estuaries and

spk_0 And then when they're often, you know, they'll spend some time fattening up getting strong before they fully go out

spk_0 Just into the ocean, but if they're subjected to a lot of antidepressants

spk_0 They're just like I'm ready to go and then they just head out to the sea

spk_0 And then end up dying because they're malnourish. Yeah

spk_0 It's going back to the the idea of like respect and and honoring like our position in these uh

spk_0 Amongst these ecosystems, you know like I think from like an outdoor

spk_0 Perspective like there certainly is like a lot like the hunting world

spk_0 um

spk_0 The hunting world has developed like a pretty strong ethos

spk_0 I'd say for like how you operate how you work with different animals and like the process behind like using every part of an animal

spk_0 Respecting it before you take the shot like aiming for kill shots because you want to like you know respect

spk_0 It's like yeah, but like um I don't think that same respect is necessarily shown to ocean beings

spk_0 It's pretty wild when you start breaking it down you think up so if we wanted to go hunting

spk_0 We'd have to

spk_0 I know we're in Canada so you'd have to get your gun license right unless you're you're both hunting and then um

spk_0 You can't just go into Walmart and leave it

spk_0 I kind of like it's a hard time imagining that like I know what country in their right mind would make it so easy to do that

spk_0 So nuts anyway anyway

spk_0 um

spk_0 So you get to your gun license and then you would get to your course. That's your um conservation outdoor recreation education

spk_0 So it's a course you have to pass um this weekend long course showing that you know how to identify why it is your you have to shoot or you're going to shoot

spk_0 how to um

spk_0 Be safe in the outdoors how to have minimal impact on ecosystems and um you know, how do I identify male from female how to identify young from old and

spk_0 And it's just like a two-day intensive. Yeah, and so you pass that and then you can apply for different licenses to go hunting

spk_0 so um

spk_0 Like here on the island

spk_0 I there's a deer and elk there's a limited

spk_0 number of licenses for elk um

spk_0 So you'd go through this whole process and and know where you're allowed to hunt things like you couldn't just rip around in the wild Pacific trail

spk_0 Be like there's a deer there's a gross you'd have to like go to a place or here allowed to hunt

spk_0 There's uh different rules if you are first nations on your territory

spk_0 There's different rules for people who are not first nations going on to first nations territory and

spk_0 It's important that you know that and if you want to go fishing

spk_0 You pay your twenty five dollars and you go and there's information on a website like dfo has information about what you're allowed to collect

spk_0 But cell services spotty as as I remember especially out here like and and there's different catch allowances for different zones

spk_0 so um

spk_0 You know, there's like if you're on the west coast you're allowed to catch different

spk_0 Mouts of animals versus on the east side of the island which those are very different ecosystems. So that's important

spk_0 um, but a lot of people don't really know that and a lot of people

spk_0 learn the names of species

spk_0 from

spk_0 from different cultural processes then

spk_0 like one

spk_0 education process

spk_0 I'm not explaining this super well so like um

spk_0 If uh going back to like the grandfather experience so if my mom learned from my

spk_0 grandfather how to fish and my grandfather was like yeah, these are a rot cod

spk_0 Then my mom would know okay, those are rot cod

spk_0 And there are almost 12 species out here that are referred to as cod that are not cod

spk_0 Like cod is a specific group of fish with three dorsal fins and a funny little barbell that comes off of its chin

spk_0 Really, but you can catch rockfish and savel fish and seldom is cod and they're not cod

spk_0 And I think about that comparison a lot where if I went out hunting and I like I was like yeah

spk_0 I'm going deer hunting and then I posted on instagram later and I had an amuse and a cow and and you were like what you did not

spk_0 Shoot deer and like they're both brown and they have four legs. Well, I don't know what what are you asking for here?

spk_0 Like it's the same thing and we don't we we don't demand that of

spk_0 Fisheries, we don't say okay if you're gonna go out you have to know what it is that you're catching

spk_0 um and the reason that becomes important is because when we start to deal with conservation issues

spk_0 We have to be able to speak the

spk_0 uh unified language and

spk_0 Understand why it's important

spk_0 So for example yellow-eye rockfish can live both 200 years

spk_0 They don't start reproducing until they're in their 20s. They're not really good at reproducing until they're in their 80s and

spk_0 A lot of people refer to yellow-eye rockfish as red snapper

spk_0 And they do look like red snapper which are on the east coast in the Gulf of Mexico there

spk_0 but they're from a totally different family of fish and

spk_0 So if df o starts

spk_0 putting out notices saying these fish are a species at risk

spk_0 We need to be really careful about ensuring we descend them

spk_0 You know making sure they survive when they go back so that they can keep reproducing and nobody refers to them as yellow-eye rockfish

spk_0 Then you have a disconnect between the conservation effort and the ability for it to be

spk_0 um productive

spk_0 That's so interesting

spk_0 Yeah, I can't help but think and just because my world is more terrestrial based

spk_0 But it's the same thing you go to a lumber store and you buy fur

spk_0 What species of fur there's like I mean to put penning on where you are

spk_0 There's so many different species of fur and you and dug fur isn't even a true fur, but it's still sold as fur

spk_0 It's like how did we mess this up and then yeah you get into like the specifics of like species and populations

spk_0 uh

spk_0 I chuckled when you had to talk about some walking down the trail here looking for a grouse

spk_0 And like that's laughable for someone to be like walking on town looking for deer like there's obviously areas where you can do that

spk_0 But at the same time you can just come down to any of these tide pools and harvest whatever you want no matter where you are

spk_0 It's all like yeah, and there's no regulations

spk_0 There's no like safe places or like nurseries in a sense like where you're just like harvesting is off limits

spk_0 It's all just kind of open game. There are

spk_0 There's rockfish protected areas. So our closest one here would be in the broken group and

spk_0 But it was only a few years ago that Navionics which is if you're out in a boat the

spk_0 Like where you can see yeah

spk_0 I

spk_0 Where you would actually see that on Navionics where at which showcase okay?

spk_0 You're coming up to a rockfish protected area and

spk_0 because there isn't

spk_0 A mandated education program

spk_0 The classic thing when I first moved out to you cool it in 2008 was there'd be a group of people that would be really excited

spk_0 There'd be on a trip and they'd have beers the night before and then the morning they'd wake up and go oh my god

spk_0 I have to print off my fishing license because none of us had us on our phones then and then they'd have to like find a place with a printer and print it off and go and so

spk_0 It they wouldn't have all that information of by the way. There's a rockfish protected area out there

spk_0 It's super important, you know, make sure that you are not

spk_0 fishing in that area

spk_0 um

spk_0 There is a study that came out that was a really high percentage of

spk_0 protected areas. There's been no change in fishing practices

spk_0 Excuse me really yeah, and a lot of them um van koover. There's a few rockfish protected areas close by and um

spk_0 They're

spk_0 You know we do we don't have a solid education system and we also don't have a lot of

spk_0 um

spk_0 Offes like fisheries officers that are out there and able to respond to these issues

spk_0 So I feel like that's just a lot of government agencies in general. Yeah, I know for the regulations tough

spk_0 But then skimp on enforcement. Yeah, I think there's three fisheries officers for the area that we're in and they have to respond to marine mammal issues

spk_0 tourism related issues. So if somebody for example is collecting

spk_0 Um muscles or scalips or oysters in the harbor that's a health issue you're you know

spk_0 You don't want people doing that. They're gonna get really sick

spk_0 um, so they would have to respond to that

spk_0 uh, they also um

spk_0 respond to both commercial and recreational fishing issues

spk_0 um, so anyone that's poaching anyone that's um doing big commercial operations where there's issues and then

spk_0 Some of them are also involved in in like

spk_0 bigger

spk_0 Like other project training issues. Denise who's an amazing um

spk_0 Personna Pintofino is the firearms trainer for a huge part of Vancouver Island

spk_0 And so she has responsibilities that take her away from this area and so her ability to

spk_0 Respond to local issues and then to be part of like just a big

spk_0 Community-wide education program like she's at her max and um

spk_0 Yeah

spk_0 Well, and then there's also like the additional layer of like first nations and like in an era of underup when we should be honoring

spk_0 First nations rights and title which includes waters

spk_0 I know there's like a lot of like rivers that people don't like that the nations don't want fish

spk_0 But they don't have jurisdiction and DFOs like oh it's open fair game, but it's like

spk_0 And you what you put like one sign up on one of the how many trails that go to that specific stretch of river, you know

spk_0 It's like how do you begin regulating that?

spk_0 and different nations have different priorities and

spk_0 I love that if it was part of our

spk_0 our harvesting culture to just check in and like look at

spk_0 That off it like the nation offices priorities and go okay. I mean you cool. Ha territory. This is

spk_0 These are culturally important species that I should be respectful of

spk_0 I

spk_0 You know what projects are of concern what areas are trying to be rehabilitated

spk_0 um, there are traditional clam gardens that are in the Clue at Harbor

spk_0 And I know that that's a priority for those to be

spk_0 rehabilitated so they can be used and

spk_0 For those of us that are recreating in an area

spk_0 We're part of that story

spk_0 We need to be aware of that and and not be damaging things further. Yeah. I think that just goes back to

spk_0 Recognize that we're a part of this world and that our world is bigger than just like us as the individual

spk_0 Which is like you know north American culture is such an individualistic

spk_0 Culture like the way that we're all brought up. It's just like I mean what can I do? How do I do it?

spk_0 But like recognizing that we're a part of this and that like when you're coming out for recreational fishing or

spk_0 If you even if you are a sustenance like harvesting from you know

spk_0 foraging

spk_0 As like foraging the foraging boom has driven me nuts lately because so many people forage but like how does what you are taking from that land

spk_0 Work within the indigenous like land stewardship goals of that nation like

spk_0 Like how how can we be a part of this system together and like less focus on the individual

spk_0 But as the community as a whole yeah and

spk_0 that like reaching out to learn from that community knowledge

spk_0 um

spk_0 If you're something that

spk_0 Going back to like hunting and fishing

spk_0 um that drives me nuts a little bit because we don't

spk_0 Know a lot about what we're

spk_0 Fishing for we can really quickly damage an area um and um and there's

spk_0 If you reach out into your community and you're sharing data then you can learn about

spk_0 um

spk_0 What other people are noticing and then respond to that so for example um China rockfish have a territory of only two meters

spk_0 Two meters that's that's it and they can live 80 years so like two meters 80 years

spk_0 That wait like they don't venture out no they stay within where is the phenol that's it they have like two meter territories

spk_0 And so how big are they they're like to you look at this big and so

spk_0 ideally

spk_0 There is an overlapping area where

spk_0 There's enough of a population that they can go and meet each other

spk_0 And the so the analogy that I give one your territory is overlap yeah, it's like moving six times the length of your body

spk_0 In your lifetime and hoping that that territory overlaps with the potential mate and so

spk_0 If like looking at this beautiful space that we're in there for there to be effective reproduction within that rockfish population

spk_0 There needs to be at least a few individuals where they can see each other and then interact and mate and

spk_0 so

spk_0 If I follow the legal record of

spk_0 Regulations of the province and I have my spot and I go back to and you go to the same spot and

spk_0 You know, we don't really see each other that often and we don't communicate we give each other the stink guy because we're fishermen

spk_0 We don't like each other and then

spk_0 We fish out a whole area of China rockfish

spk_0 Then we are going to depend on there being another area close by that we haven't fished out where their larval young is gonna come through ocean currents and come back and settle it

spk_0 But if we're not keeping track of what's out there

spk_0 And we're not talking to anyone else like we might not realize that we are completely depleting an area of a species

spk_0 And there's you know a lot of people don't really love rockfish

spk_0 You know, they think of them as easy to catch they are they're not really big they're

spk_0 You know

spk_0 There some people just love the way salmon look they're so beautiful right um culture

spk_0 That's kind of how we've been brought up to like we praise the salmon. Yeah, yeah, but if you there's a salmon stomach content study out of the University of Victoria

spk_0 And and then if you know sometimes just talking to other people on the dock if they have a salmon

spk_0 We've looked at what's in their stomachs and a lot of them eat young rockfish

spk_0 So it's part of the whole story

spk_0 so we might not want

spk_0 You know, we might not praise the rockfish as much for our dinner table

spk_0 But the things that we want to eat

spk_0 meet them

spk_0 so having that complex

spk_0 ecosystem is super important and some rockfish only reproduce once every 10 years

spk_0 And so you need to have that diversity to have lots of food options

spk_0 So if a bokacheo is

spk_0 reproducing one year and that's what a lot of salmon are eating and then the hearing have a good year the next year

spk_0 That's what a lot of salmon are eating

spk_0 There's enough so that when one food species is not doing well

spk_0 Let's say there's a bad hearing year there's other things for

spk_0 Those things that we love to eat

spk_0 Yeah, it's about maintaining ecological complexity and diversity

spk_0 Yeah, I mean you look at

spk_0 Like the cod stocks on the east coast and the Atlantic caught and how that those were impacted by overfishing

spk_0 And like two point one now how like how many years has it been

spk_0 Has the fish ribbon closed like oh it was in the decades yeah, yeah, and it's still not rebounding

spk_0 Like very barely like it's it's hanging on like that goes back to that thing of like animals build the world right that they live in

spk_0 So you know like the

spk_0 Like the sand dollar creates the currents that build its own little world

spk_0 Yeah, and the whales bringing that iron up to the surface

spk_0 fuels a plankton bloom and the phytoplankton is eaten by krill

spk_0 And then the whales come and eat that krill and so they're like and we do that we build our world we farm

spk_0 We do we change the currents of rivers every animal does this we just don't

spk_0 Really look at the way that other animals do it and recognize it in such a big way

spk_0 Like we recognize that crows do it and we look at beavers that bio and you know they engineer their own spaces

spk_0 And elephants do when they trample grasslands and then distribute seeds around

spk_0 um

spk_0 So all of us are doing that to build the world that we want to live in and um

spk_0 But but there's like unintended consequences as well and like

spk_0 Especially I would wager to say that in the last like 150 years

spk_0 We focus so much on building that we haven't stopped and recognize what we've destroyed through the process of building

spk_0 Partly because we were totally unaware of it

spk_0 But even now that we are aware there's still forces like these established industries that are still trying to do the same thing

spk_0 They've always been doing even though they're fully well aware of everything that has destroyed in the process of them

spk_0 Operating that way

spk_0 So how do we change that culture? You know like how do we get those fishermen instead of stink-ying each other in that little pocket like how do we get them talking about it?

spk_0 Yeah, well, I'm supervised. I think it's connection. Yeah, I agree with you. Yeah

spk_0 So free free passes for anybody who finishes to come to the aquarium check it out learn a thing or two

spk_0 this awesome group of people that came in um

spk_0 Last fall and and we were talking to them about um

spk_0 We're talking about like how to hold fish properly so that when you release them, you know if it's something that you don't want to eat

spk_0 Uh, how to just how to care for that and we'll put it back in a way where it's likely to survive. Yeah like a safe release. Yeah, and so

spk_0 You know if you're not gonna eat it just put it back. Don't take a picture with it. Just immediately put it back

spk_0 It's so stressed out

spk_0 um and

spk_0 I I was talking about like our rib cages, you know, I'm doing this thing that I do with kids like feel your rib cage and

spk_0 When you're you know that classic photo where someone's holding the fish by the tail and then squeezing it underneath the fins

spk_0 It's where his heart is and it doesn't have this protective

spk_0 hard-boned rib cage to protect its heart and so if you're creating this

spk_0 Trauma and it's internal organs. It's not gonna survive super well. So

spk_0 Yeah, so we were just talking about that and then they came back and they're like, you know

spk_0 We went fishing and they were so excited to share their story about how they were

spk_0 um

spk_0 Yeah, they were like really proud of what they were doing and that was really cool

spk_0 It like fueled totally my excitement too

spk_0 Yeah, I mean, I feel like it's a very it's an easy thing as humans get older to just kind of become more rigid and stuck in our ways

spk_0 But like that idea of like being a lifelong learner and um, you know like I

spk_0 There's been studies on like the fish release and salmon like so

spk_0 Like catch and release fishing people like oh, it's fine

spk_0 I'm just catching releasing I'm not taking home not eating it

spk_0 But like the way you handle that fish can have big impacts on the way that it goes back and is able to survive and

spk_0 uh

spk_0 It's been a while since I read the report of the study it was I think was two years ago it came out

spk_0 So my numbers might be a bit off

spk_0 But it was something like

spk_0 70% of all the salmon that are returned back

spk_0 You know, once you've met your quota you're not allowed to keep any more of the different species

spk_0 And then so if you catch like an extra coho that's above your limit you like get put it back in the ocean

spk_0 But because of the way those fish are handled and because of the trauma they experience like 70% of the fish released end up dying anyway

spk_0 Which is like that's no better like

spk_0 How do we fix this it's through education and teaching people

spk_0 Different ways of of doing things, but they also have to be receptive to learning yeah

spk_0 um

spk_0 I spoke at a couple of um spear fishing conferences and and spear fishing gatherings and

spk_0 There's

spk_0 There's some people in that community that are so excited to be conservation-minded

spk_0 um and and like seeing themselves as a long time

spk_0 You know like they want their kids to do it and they want to be part of it and that is so cool

spk_0 And then and then there's some people that just

spk_0 You know, they just want to picture themselves with a Puget Sound King crab above the water. It's like oh

spk_0 um

spk_0 Yeah

spk_0 What what's wrong with that oh

spk_0 Puget Sound King crab wrote the water yeah, we don't really know anything about Puget Sound King crabs

spk_0 So Washington state actually made it um a legal to harvest them

spk_0 Their closest relative the brown box crab lives more than 40 years. They brewed their eggs for 18 months

spk_0 We read yeah, it's so cool it like they so they will they're obligate molters

spk_0 So the the female male have to shed their outer skin um to be able to mate

spk_0 um and

spk_0 I use like like to joke that they're like throwing their clothes around and having a little nudist parties like you know

spk_0 He's the old crab shells washing up and so they have to shed their shells to be able to mate

spk_0 And then the female will keep her eggs in the her care pace. That's the shell and there's this

spk_0 sort of rounded

spk_0 peace on the stomach

spk_0 That will be able to open and close so that she can let water flow through and there's very little change in the eggs for the first year

spk_0 And then rapid differentiation in the last six months

spk_0 so um

spk_0 if you

spk_0 With let's like for example look at the

spk_0 And dung and s crab fishery

spk_0 um

spk_0 You're not allowed to harvest soft-shelled crabs and those are the ones that are active and developing in mating and

spk_0 You're not allowed to collect females that are brooding eggs and so there's an element of conservation in those regulations

spk_0 With brown box crabs and Puget Sound King crabs you can't really see

spk_0 Unless you were to open the stomach which can be very dangerous for yeah

spk_0 Uh, whether they're brooding eggs and because they're

spk_0 like the

spk_0 Those crabs their heritage is in the hermit crabs

spk_0 So they have three pairs of legs instead of four and if you look at the belly

spk_0 They have those sections where it almost looks like their male

spk_0 And so to be able to tell tell female from male you would look at a symmetry on the stomach

spk_0 Instead of looking for we say like the bee hive for the lighthouse

spk_0 Yeah, and so it's

spk_0 A lot easier for people to mistakenly harvest females and

spk_0 Because they live so long. It's likely just like a lot of other organisms in the ocean that the largest ones are the ones that are the biggest contributors to the next generation and

spk_0 And because we don't have a solid education program up here

spk_0 To ensure that people know what it is that they're harvesting and male from female and all that kind of stuff

spk_0 We really recommend that people just don't harvest them and

spk_0 anecdotally from a lot of divers

spk_0 Um that have been diving for a long time their populations are decreasing

spk_0 But because we never have done baseline studies

spk_0 We can't go out there and prove that they're going down in number

spk_0 So it's that's part of just being conservation-winded and using that community

spk_0 data

spk_0 To work together to protect something having that severed baseline

spk_0 And it's kind of like I mean as much as we learn

spk_0 It almost seems feels like every time by the time

spk_0 Do you know gets around to setting limits on things it's kind of like

spk_0 Too late

spk_0 Yeah the other issue

spk_0 I mean I can go off and attend it. What else do you want to ask for a call off on a weird event?

spk_0 I'm happy to hear your tangent. I have a couple tycoon tycoon questions

spk_0 Because one of the things that I think about too is just like a person walking around in these tidal areas at low tides

spk_0 I obviously

spk_0 I try to stay on the high points the rocks that don't have barnacles that don't have soft things

spk_0 I see people all the time walking over

spk_0 An enemies when they're

spk_0 I could take a picture and show this for people in the podcast

spk_0 But like do you have any tips because I mean like a lot of the damage that's created

spk_0 Is an intentional you know, I don't mean to like villainize people

spk_0 It's just the fact that we don't know so like if people are walking around these tidal areas

spk_0 What can they avoid how do they exactly do yeah look where you walk take your time go slowly

spk_0 um

spk_0 and I

spk_0 I

spk_0 I like to it um

spk_0 It's where I try to slow down

spk_0 so

spk_0 I work for a not-for-profit so the classic thing is like you know we're always rushing there's always so much we need to do

spk_0 um

spk_0 and

spk_0 And then wanting to have those really important personal connections with people like

spk_0 I often feel like we're really you know, we are really busy

spk_0 But in the entire title zone

spk_0 I try to really slow down

spk_0 And just really look at what's going on in a small space

spk_0 Because I'm just staring at this little

spk_0 There's this cluster of black turban snails they can live over 100 years, but wait, they're so cool um

spk_0 And I like turban snails again

spk_0 Yeah

spk_0 And and there's these little aggregating and enemies and barnacles and

spk_0 Kiteins and there's so much to see in one space and

spk_0 And so I like to encourage people to find a good spot

spk_0 And take at least five minutes to just look at it and see what's going on

spk_0 Get some you know if you're still with the scolathons will start coming out from underneath the rocks

spk_0 Right a little shrimp a little hermit crabs will move about yeah

spk_0 I like that

spk_0 I love it when you see lots of hermit crabs. They're like these little parachuters. They you know, tuck and roll

spk_0 They'll see you coming and they just like let go of the rock and yeah, tumble down

spk_0 Yeah, what um what is your favorite typo critter? Oh my gosh, that's such a horrible question

spk_0 I know I actually I take that back because I hate when people ask what my favorite tree is too. Yeah, they got to do it

spk_0 They're all been so different. Yeah

spk_0 What's one what's one most fascinating or cool things you've seen in a typhoon recently?

spk_0 Okay

spk_0 Just before we started I went around the corner to get some sponge for the

spk_0 Collecting I got a video of you

spk_0 and I

spk_0 I found some orange sponge and it is

spk_0 Fibrantly orange and there are these tiny little orange nudibranx that live just on those little clusters of orange sponge

spk_0 And I think it's incredible that they find each other

spk_0 You know they when they're in their planktonic stage both of them have planktonic stages

spk_0 um

spk_0 By the way, I'm just gonna get nerdy about plankton for a minute

spk_0 plankton is not specific to an organism like plankton is not a species exactly plankton is a measurement of mobility

spk_0 and so

spk_0 If you can fight a one-not current in swim away your neck done if you are carried by a

spk_0 Any currents your plankton if you're blown around the ocean you're placed on

spk_0 So when I talk about plankton it means

spk_0 In this case they're microscopic and we often talk about small things with plankton

spk_0 But what I'm talking about is just that their organisms that are carried around the world

spk_0 By the ocean so and this is like a lot of organisms in their like planktonic stage where they're like

spk_0 You know this

spk_0 spores of

spk_0 I don't know like

spk_0 everything everything like from clams like filter feeders to

spk_0 Starfish like everything kind of starts as these tiny little

spk_0 Yeah, and then my other more fos yeah, yeah, I think a lot of like a caterpillar some butterflies or

spk_0 Um or like dandelions where they have this you know like

spk_0 Their seeds are carried by the wind and then find new spots and so in here

spk_0 so much of this life

spk_0 um is not

spk_0 It's not walking from one place to another like we would and finding a new home

spk_0 It's just carried around by the ocean and so there's this cool relationship where these sponges have to find this ideal

spk_0 Spot and then these newtobranchs have to be able to pick up on those cues and there has to be enough of them

spk_0 Just floating around in the ocean that at least one can find this tiny little

spk_0 Sponge cluster that's like the size of a quarter and then settle on it and grow and

spk_0 Have another one settle on it and grow and then they reproduce and then send their millions of young out to the ocean

spk_0 just such a

spk_0 like the

spk_0 They like chances of that happening are so small. It's so cool

spk_0 That concept brings me to one of my maybe

spk_0 Last questions going back to the aquarium because we've we've diverted from the aquarium quite a bit

spk_0 There's one pool in our one tank in the aquarium that is probably the coolest one

spk_0 It's so cool. I know exactly what it's so cool. What's so cool about it?

spk_0 So in 2012 when we built the aquarium we put this rock in there

spk_0 So before you begin I think this is probably an important thing to for people who

spk_0 Are listening who don't know about this but like the aquarium normally is a catch and release but like you're using water from the harbor cycling

spk_0 Through so they're constantly getting fresh water from the environment there and they're not like in like an isolated tank

spk_0 They're all still part of the ecosystem

spk_0 Just talk about that after too because it

spk_0 We're so lucky with being able to just pump raw water suit through

spk_0 So there's this rock in the middle of the of this tank

spk_0 We put it in there in 2012 back in the mini aquarium

spk_0 I'm a man that used to work at the aquarium named Spencer Wilson

spk_0 um and I

spk_0 built this like trial version of this exhibit and

spk_0 And then in this aquarium

spk_0 um, we set it up and

spk_0 We've never turned it off and we didn't put anything in there and we didn't we don't take anything out

spk_0 And so now we have this rock that is covered with life and that little ecosystem is entirely fueled by the water coming through

spk_0 So in the aquarium we do 250 gallons per minute and then and so there's

spk_0 Constant refreshing going on in that tank and everything that's in there is

spk_0 Fed by plankton or is eating the other things that are fed by plankton

spk_0 Um and arrived by plankton so it's constantly changing so what kind of things you have in there

spk_0 I know there's brittle stars. Yeah, the brittle stars so cool. Yeah giant rock scallops swimming scallops

spk_0 There's some really beautiful colonies of sponges that are in there. We've got some muscles some barnacles a really

spk_0 Fantastic slime worm colony. That's like this big and every time the garbage truck comes down the road. It's like

spk_0 and then um

spk_0 There's a couple of little crabs that live underneath the rock. They've tunneled underneath there and made their homes

spk_0 There's some urchins some

spk_0 Bat stars some leather stars

spk_0 uh leather stars too. Yeah, and so and everything in there started as a microscopic

spk_0 blip floating around in ocean water that was just siphoned through

spk_0 And then found a place to land on this rocker on the substrate created by the environment in that little thing

spk_0 To talk about how great the water is up here

spk_0 So a lot of because we live in Canada and the water's cold a lot of people have gone to

spk_0 warm places

spk_0 To go and explore

spk_0 So I'll talk to a lot of visitors who have gone snorkeling when they've gone on vacation

spk_0 And they don't realize how full of life and how beautiful and how colorful our ecosystems are up here

spk_0 Truly colorful. Yeah, and people are sometimes really disappointed by the clarity of the water

spk_0 Um, so let's say I was in uh like roatan and Honduras and I went diving and the water so clear

spk_0 You can see it 80 feet and I'm getting a little snarky because that's really cool that you can do it there

spk_0 But the reason why our ecosystems look like this and are so vile diverse

spk_0 Our is because they're water's full of life and I like to compare

spk_0 Our ocean ecosystem here like a rainforest whereas when you're on reef systems

spk_0 It's kind of like you're going to different oasis in a desert system like life is very specifically concentrated

spk_0 Whereas up here it's like spilling out. It's just on everything and amongst everything

spk_0 So the yeah the murky water is

spk_0 New nutrients and life like in the water

spk_0 As annoying as it is that you can't see

spk_0 So I mean that those other ecosystems are I don't want to say they're dead, but like they're more lifeless

spk_0 Yeah, and that's one of the things with climate change and oh, so this ocean acidification is it makes it more difficult for especially those smaller

spk_0 And like soft shell things to be existing in the water column. Yeah

spk_0 Yeah, and then just like when we were talking about you know, having different food sources

spk_0 It just the more that we lose those things the more that we lose the resiliency of the ecosystem to continue to exist

spk_0 Yeah, I

spk_0 Want to chat about the the aquarium's water system for a second because it's so cool

spk_0 um

spk_0 So something that I I get asked a lot in the aquarium is

spk_0 Well, how do those animals do when they go back to the wild and

spk_0 Because we're a new system

spk_0 um

spk_0 We we don't have a lot of data on that

spk_0 But we can take steps to

spk_0 Ensure that they're going to do well and something that I love about our water system

spk_0 Is that everything that's in the aquarium is experiencing the seasons and the daily

spk_0 uh chemical temperature and salinity changes that are going on

spk_0 um while they're in the aquarium

spk_0 So in the mini aquarium something that was really cool is

spk_0 We would watch crab behaviors change based on the tides

spk_0 So even though the dunjanass crabs were in this exhibit and they couldn't see outside of the aquarium

spk_0 They could smell the chemical changes of the tide going in and out and they would bury or they would come out

spk_0 And yeah, which was super cool. Yeah

spk_0 um

spk_0 So if uh if we go to release something

spk_0 um

spk_0 It can sense the season that it's in it's

spk_0 Responding to chemical cues that are in the ocean. It's responding to the blooms of life that are going on in the ocean around it

spk_0 And so when we put it back

spk_0 It is attuned to what's going on in the ecosystem

spk_0 um, that's wild

spk_0 Yeah, and so like the

spk_0 Plumosan enemies the scallops the barnacles they're eating the same food that they would be eating in the wild

spk_0 They're getting the same nutrient cycles that they would be getting in the wild and

spk_0 Um, and I think a lot about what is that sensory experience like for something that's in the aquarium and

spk_0 So we're a very visual species

spk_0 um

spk_0 And so what when I look around you know, I've got chemical cues and sensory cues going on around my body where I can sense that

spk_0 It's the late spring like you know, you're breathing through your nose and you can smell the air

spk_0 Yeah, yeah, like I can see some of the little dandelions that are blooming up there right you know

spk_0 And when you walk out the door in the morning, you can smell them. You can smell some of the flowers blooming

spk_0 um, I can hear

spk_0 Birdsong in the morning. That's a really great cue for me to know that it's late spring

spk_0 um

spk_0 The

spk_0 Yeah, and temperature and so if

spk_0 You know so much of my experience is visual, but if

spk_0 If I wasn't

spk_0 experiencing anything visually I could still tell that it's late spring from all these cues around me and so

spk_0 If I were this little

spk_0 Yeah, this little new to rank in the aquarium and I have no visual cues. I could still cruise around in the aquarium

spk_0 And I could pick up on this information that's telling me it's yeah

spk_0 That is blowing my mind right now

spk_0 I didn't even think about like the change of tide having a smell. Yeah

spk_0 You know, especially like if you're in the water. Yeah. Yeah, because every time the water comes up

spk_0 You you know, you've had all of this um, algae and

spk_0 And the rocks that have been heated by the the sun or have been washed by rain and then all of that changes its chemical

spk_0 Composure and then they you're picking up on that yeah, and then the tide will rise and that will be flushed throughout the ecosystem

spk_0 Some things will die

spk_0 When they're exposed to air and so there will be that smell of

spk_0 Death yeah, yeah, what are the foods?

spk_0 Yeah, exactly for shrimp and crabs and like that's

spk_0 That's the best uh, okay

spk_0 That so

spk_0 That's just

spk_0 Changing my whole

spk_0 Changing my mind about everything especially as the tide comes up

spk_0 We don't have too much longer here before we're our feet are wet. Yeah, it's getting pretty close

spk_0 But it's okay, so but this was like the first aquarium of this kind, right?

spk_0 Where you're bringing in ocean water and it's part of the system where this is like our

spk_0 Oh, there's some aquariums that do continuous circulation around the world. Okay. There's other ones that do that as well

spk_0 But you guys are kind of where the first in the area

spk_0 The first where like this is putting it all together. We're collecting a release

spk_0 We circulate water through the aquarium local species only

spk_0 our main focus is education and connection building and

spk_0 Yeah, and how things been going. I mean you're just amazing. Yeah, things have been booming lately. Really really wonderful

spk_0 Oh, we've got like such a good team. We've got a wonderful board. We've got a supportive community

spk_0 I mean to like walk knock on wood like it's um and how many fantastic

spk_0 How many people do you

spk_0 God you're about to ask how many people do we see a year?

spk_0 um

spk_0 So we see 50,000 visitors a year

spk_0 Which is huge let 50,000 a year and that's um and how many people do you employ like uh, we have um

spk_0 Yeah, ten full-time year-round staff and then six um summer staff

spk_0 So one of the challenges that we have living in a remote area

spk_0 um

spk_0 Is that we don't get a lot of consistent volunteers

spk_0 So somewhere like the Vancouver Crayham has a thousand volunteers. Wow. Yeah

spk_0 And you know, there's excited university students. There's individuals who have retired. There are people that are just really passionate about

spk_0 marine education and they'll

spk_0 volunteer and

spk_0 We live in a really expensive area

spk_0 So a lot of people that are out here working sometimes are working two jobs

spk_0 They don't have a lot of free time to come in and just help us clean tanks and do

spk_0 interpretation and so our

spk_0 costs um are quite high for labor and uh

spk_0 But we have yeah ten full-time year-round staff

spk_0 For everything that we want to do. I think we could tell the bad

spk_0 But you know, we can't do that

spk_0 It's so impressive though. I mean like for how productive it is how amazing of an experience it is like to anybody listening come out to yuki and check it out

spk_0 It's definitely worth the trip as it is. Yeah, and we really try to do like

spk_0 non-scripted

spk_0 just

spk_0 like personal connection so

spk_0 Sometimes people come in and they're like okay, does that two or start and we're like no you just

spk_0 Just come in and cruise around and ask us questions and go around at least twice. Yeah

spk_0 You know and for repeat stuff too um because every year um

spk_0 assuming it's different with like what you're able to find yeah, I also like try to get a great time

spk_0 So excited to be able to do every year

spk_0 Yeah, what's some of like the coolest things that you've been able to find in the future? Oh, man. Yeah, but I'm a nerd um

spk_0 Like everybody wants to go with the octopus and we have this crab this little hermit crab

spk_0 That's in the aquarium right now that lives just in two berm casings

spk_0 So it's you think about how mobile hermit crabs are and this crab lives just in a calcareous two worm casing

spk_0 And so she's just in there in this rock that we collected and that's where she's going to be her whole life

spk_0 So we very rarely collect them

spk_0 We have a slime star right now

spk_0 And

spk_0 They're super cool. They can produce this massive amount of thick mucus to protect themselves if they

spk_0 A slime star yeah kind of like a slug wood. Yeah, yeah, um

spk_0 We have a black eye hermit crab

spk_0 We haven't had one in about four years and they're maybe the most charismatic of the hermit crabs if they live in moon snail shells

spk_0 They're really really big. Yeah, and then we have I've talked to a peugeot sound king crabs

spk_0 Those are some of the thing the animals that I love we've got this little one that's just

spk_0 This big and then we have this large one some of our team came in at night few nights ago

spk_0 um

spk_0 Just to well they were coming in on purpose to check and see if there were any shaggy most new to branks that were

spk_0 um

spk_0 Shaggy most new to branks are kind of an issue because we pump in raw seawater. They arrive in their planktonic stage and

spk_0 They eat an enemies and that's not and like in the grand scheme of things

spk_0 It isn't an issue like in the wild. That's what they do and that's fine

spk_0 But in an aquarium where we have concentrated

spk_0 um

spk_0 A number of animals if we get a shaggy most new to brank in there

spk_0 It will just they just kind of munch on things. They don't eat the whole animal and so can open it up for

spk_0 Disease outbreaks. So we just have to manage those and where where do you go when you're looking for these species

spk_0 Do you just like get on a boat in the spring and just yeah? Yeah, we're so lucky um

spk_0 There's a couple of dive sites in the most of the Clillet Harbor

spk_0 I love coming out to the well Pacific Trail for all of the green surf enemies the aggregating enemies purple urchins

spk_0 All of these seaweds so many different kinds of turban snails and channel top snails

spk_0 um and then

spk_0 We also go to taris beach and little beach and um

spk_0 And then we do go up to Tafino for a couple of things we can find strawberry and enemies new Clillet

spk_0 But it's on this like really uh

spk_0 Like exposed wall and there's this site up in Tafino where we can get strawberry and enemies and get the whole rock

spk_0 And so that way we're reducing so you're not taking risk of damage

spk_0 You're not prying off the relief whole fast

spk_0 We can take the whole thing and then we dive the whole thing back very cool. Yeah

spk_0 And what's the release like because you do the release every year in the fall

spk_0 It's actually quite a process

spk_0 Yeah

spk_0 It's it's really exciting

spk_0 So we have a veterinary in that we work with

spk_0 Um, and we do inspections throughout the season to make sure that what we are

spk_0 Um what we have is being well cared for and that also we are not accidentally

spk_0 um

spk_0 Breeding any kind of harmful

spk_0 Parasite or bacteria

spk_0 And uh because what we have to be it's not just about caring for the individuals that we have

spk_0 It's also about caring for the whole ecosystem

spk_0 So we have to make sure that when we put something back we're not putting the ecosystem out there at risk

spk_0 so uh our veterinary in comes out we um

spk_0 Have a big inspection for everything in the aquarium

spk_0 Even if we're inspecting just one individual to put back we go through our whole practices

spk_0 And then uh we apply for

spk_0 Introduction and transfer permits who the department of fisheries notions

spk_0 And once that has been reviewed and we receive our permits then we coordinate with weather

spk_0 I want you know

spk_0 This the tourism season and the like ideal collection season do not line up

spk_0 So we we like cancel 50% of any plans that we have um

spk_0 Because we'll plan to go out and and collect in the intertidal zone and it's beautiful and calm right now

spk_0 But in December or February, you know, there's like waves the size of a house

spk_0 That are smashing and so we you know we cannot go out and safely

spk_0 Release for either humans or or the organisms we care for so um

spk_0 Yeah, so we have to find a time where we can safely go back and

spk_0 And then we plan that and then we return them and then we have to fill out all of our paperwork and confirm that we've

spk_0 released everything amazing. Yeah

spk_0 um

spk_0 Yeah, it's such a cool model. I love it. Has it inspired quite a few other somewhere?

spk_0 Yeah, there's one in Campbell River. They have our old building that's a discovery passage querym and ricky

spk_0 Who is their curator is fantastic um like a really innovative creative human

spk_0 There's one in Gibson's um

spk_0 Yeah, the uh the tide pools querym. There's one that just started

spk_0 I like want to stay here until we're like half underwater um just gonna lift the cord up

spk_0 The tide is literally

spk_0 Kissing our feet right now. Yeah, there's um

spk_0 Yeah, one that just started called the north coast aquery um the north coast

spk_0 uh, yeah

spk_0 Education site of in Prince Rupert

spk_0 There's a woman who came through and loved the model and started one in Scotland. Oh

spk_0 So it's come international. Yeah, one of our previous directors Melanie Knight

spk_0 Who's a wonderful marine educator too started one in petty harbour and then their first

spk_0 One of their first employees moved to um

spk_0 Back to their home in Halifax and started um the back to the sea society

spk_0 And so there's a little aquarium and Dartmouth amazing. Yeah, and how come it's not in the states

spk_0 I guess we can have talked about that but as from my understanding there's uh

spk_0 There's some water restrictions that would prevent some of this going on in from like going up from the harbor

spk_0 India a establishment then back up in the harbor. Yeah, there's a fantastic aquarium though in port Townsend

spk_0 That's held on the dock and they do um I've met some of their their personnel and they're wonderful

spk_0 Yeah, I haven't been yet though. I gotta go down there. Yeah, Port Townsend is a great little town

spk_0 Yeah, anything else you'd like to talk about we're going to the aquarium. Oh

spk_0 Just come in and say hi come in and nerd out

spk_0 I think we're reaching our limit here um before we go though

spk_0 um

spk_0 This project is supported by folks on patreon

spk_0 Um and for every episode that we do

spk_0 Even when the tide comes up to our feet here um I make a donation to a nonprofit of my guest choice

spk_0 Oh

spk_0 Well, I don't think it can be the aquarium

spk_0 So if you anybody else you'd like to shout out

spk_0 um

spk_0 Talk about why you would like to support them and how

spk_0 Yeah, where would you like this week's donation to go

spk_0 Surferiter Pacific Rim. Surfriter. Yeah, I uh

spk_0 I'll see you still volunteer with Surfriter and they're just a fantastic organization. We're also neighbors now

spk_0 They have their uh, oh the research building um and they've done so much work on legislation around plastic pollution

spk_0 um

spk_0 And the other thing that I really love um about Surfriter which is more of an international thing

spk_0 But about ensuring that there's access to the ocean for everybody

spk_0 um that's something that they've been so cool about and um

spk_0 You know, not all of us there's a few very large homes near us and not all of us can afford to live

spk_0 On those spaces so making sure that we all have access to

spk_0 Come in and connect with these spaces. I think it's so important. So of Surfriders and other organizations that I really love

spk_0 Yeah, I love that totally agree with everything you said

spk_0 Well, thank you so much for taking the time to join me today

spk_0 You were rubber boots, which is a wise call good for our decision

spk_0 Um, yeah, thanks so much Laura's been great. Thank you so much. It's going great. You're talking to you

spk_0 Well wrapping up a good long convoy at the beach with wet feet is never a bad thing

spk_0 So thanks to Laura for sticking with me through it and sharing all that amazing information

spk_0 If you would like to learn more about the Euclulid Aquarium

spk_0 You can do so at Euclulid Aquarium.org. That's Euclulid

spk_0 UC LUE LET Aquarium

spk_0 AQUARIM.org

spk_0 Or better yet if you're in Euclulid

spk_0 You know on vacation or something feel free to swing by because it is truly an amazing experience for both young and old and everyone in between

spk_0 It is an awesome awesome place

spk_0 For every pod chat episode I make a donation to the non-profit of my guest choice and this week Laura has selected the Surfrider Pacific Rim chapter

spk_0 You can learn more about them at Surfrider.org

spk_0 And this whole nerdy about nature project everything from these podcast episodes of the videos you see online

spk_0 It's all a passion project and it's all supported thanks to the people on patreon who

spk_0 Enjoy what they're watching and listening to and want help support it

spk_0 So if that includes you

spk_0 Awesome if you would like to be a part of it you can check out patreon.com slash nerdy about nature for awesome perks and merch and all sorts of fun stuff

spk_0 And ways to support this project further

spk_0 So thanks to everybody for tuning into this episode today whether you're on youtube on Spotify Apple podcasts wherever you are

spk_0 However you got here. Thank you so much for being here and I can't wait to get you all next time

spk_0 This episode of the nerdy about nature pod chat series was produced by me Ross Reve

spk_0 It made possible with support from individuals like yourself

spk_0 For ways to support this project and to learn more check out nerdyboughtnature.com or at nerdyboughtnature on your favorite social platform

spk_0 we

spk_0 You

Podchat 32 | Marine Stewardship, Education & Building Connection with Laura Griffith-Cochrane

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