WEBVTT 00:00:11.609 --> 00:00:13.863 Thank you very much for inviting me here, 00:00:13.887 --> 00:00:15.894 and thank you to Carlin, wherever she is, 00:00:15.919 --> 00:00:19.450 for tracking my progress and deciding this was a story worthy of TED. 00:00:19.490 --> 00:00:21.823 I think you've seen basking sharks, hands up. 00:00:22.347 --> 00:00:23.614 A few of you. Okay. 00:00:23.653 --> 00:00:25.830 Basking sharks are awesome creatures. 00:00:25.854 --> 00:00:27.177 They are just magnificent. 00:00:27.201 --> 00:00:30.376 They grow 10 meters long; some say bigger. 00:00:30.773 --> 00:00:32.788 They might weigh up to two tons. 00:00:32.812 --> 00:00:34.376 Some say up to five tons. 00:00:34.400 --> 00:00:36.653 They're the second-largest fish in the world. 00:00:37.077 --> 00:00:39.689 They're also harmless plankton-feeding animals. 00:00:40.213 --> 00:00:45.649 And they are thought to be able to filter a cubic kilometer of water every hour 00:00:45.673 --> 00:00:50.649 and can feed on 30 kilos of zoo plankton a day to survive. 00:00:50.934 --> 00:00:52.299 They're fantastic creatures. 00:00:52.323 --> 00:00:53.680 We're very lucky in Ireland, 00:00:53.704 --> 00:00:57.284 we have plenty of basking sharks and plenty of opportunities to study them. 00:00:57.308 --> 00:00:59.606 They were very important to coastal communities, 00:00:59.630 --> 00:01:01.066 going back hundreds of years, 00:01:01.090 --> 00:01:05.160 especially around the Claddaghduff, Connemara region 00:01:05.366 --> 00:01:09.890 where subsistence farmers used to sail out on their hookers and open boats, 00:01:09.988 --> 00:01:12.715 sometimes way offshore to a place called the Sunfish Bank, 00:01:12.739 --> 00:01:14.516 about 30 miles west of Achill Island, 00:01:14.540 --> 00:01:16.232 to kill the basking sharks. 00:01:16.257 --> 00:01:18.429 This is a woodcut from about the 1800s. 00:01:19.153 --> 00:01:21.904 They were very important, for the oil out of their liver. 00:01:21.928 --> 00:01:24.390 A third of the basking shark's size is their liver, 00:01:24.414 --> 00:01:26.197 and it's full of oil, gallons of oil. 00:01:26.221 --> 00:01:28.310 That oil was used especially for lighting, 00:01:28.334 --> 00:01:30.507 but also for dressing wounds and other things. 00:01:30.531 --> 00:01:32.417 In fact, the streetlights in 1742, 00:01:32.441 --> 00:01:33.965 of Galway, Dublin and Waterford, 00:01:33.989 --> 00:01:35.376 were lit with sunfish oil. 00:01:35.400 --> 00:01:38.170 "Sunfish" is one of the words for basking sharks. 00:01:38.330 --> 00:01:39.885 They've been around a long time, 00:01:39.924 --> 00:01:42.588 they're very important to coastal communities. 00:01:42.647 --> 00:01:45.941 Probably the best-documented basking shark fishery in the world 00:01:45.965 --> 00:01:47.477 is that from Achill Island. 00:01:47.501 --> 00:01:49.876 This is Keem Bay up in Achill Island. 00:01:50.200 --> 00:01:52.353 Sharks used to come into the bay, 00:01:52.377 --> 00:01:55.378 and the fishermen would tie a net off the headland, 00:01:55.402 --> 00:01:57.034 string it out, an old Manila net, 00:01:57.458 --> 00:02:00.306 and as the shark came round, it would hit the net, 00:02:00.331 --> 00:02:01.727 the net would collapse on it. 00:02:04.115 --> 00:02:06.245 It would often drown and suffocate. 00:02:06.270 --> 00:02:09.125 Or at times, they would row out in their small curraghs 00:02:09.149 --> 00:02:12.906 and kill it with a lance through the back of the neck. 00:02:13.007 --> 00:02:15.751 And then they'd tow the sharks back to Purteen Harbour, 00:02:15.775 --> 00:02:17.499 boil them up, use the oil. 00:02:17.523 --> 00:02:21.447 They also used the flesh as well, for fertilizer 00:02:21.471 --> 00:02:24.367 and also would fin the sharks. 00:02:24.391 --> 00:02:27.232 This is probably the biggest threat to sharks worldwide -- 00:02:27.256 --> 00:02:29.295 the finning of sharks. 00:02:29.919 --> 00:02:32.408 We're often frightened of sharks, thanks to "Jaws." 00:02:32.432 --> 00:02:35.486 Maybe five or six people get killed by sharks every year. 00:02:35.510 --> 00:02:38.685 There was someone recently, wasn't there? Just a couple weeks ago. 00:02:38.709 --> 00:02:40.676 We kill about 100 million sharks a year. 00:02:40.700 --> 00:02:42.676 So I don't know what the balance is, 00:02:42.700 --> 00:02:46.694 but I think sharks have more right to be fearful of us than we have of them. 00:02:48.618 --> 00:02:50.247 It was a well-documented fishery. 00:02:50.271 --> 00:02:52.474 As you can see here, it peaked in the '50s, 00:02:53.098 --> 00:02:55.458 where they were killing 1,500 sharks a year. 00:02:55.819 --> 00:02:58.990 And it declined very fast -- a classic boom-and-bust fishery, 00:03:00.277 --> 00:03:02.949 which suggests that a stock has been depleted 00:03:02.973 --> 00:03:04.911 or there's low reproductive rates. 00:03:05.735 --> 00:03:08.205 They killed about 12,000 sharks within this period, 00:03:08.229 --> 00:03:11.159 literally just by stringing a Manila rope 00:03:11.183 --> 00:03:13.761 off the tip of Keem Bay up in Achill Island. 00:03:14.277 --> 00:03:16.690 Sharks were still killed up into the mid-80s, 00:03:16.714 --> 00:03:19.727 especially out of places like Dunmore East in County Waterford. 00:03:19.751 --> 00:03:22.580 About two and a half, 3,000 sharks were killed up till '85, 00:03:22.604 --> 00:03:24.298 mainly by Norwegian vessels. 00:03:25.222 --> 00:03:26.376 You can't really see, 00:03:26.400 --> 00:03:28.939 but these are Norwegian basking shark hunting vessels. 00:03:28.963 --> 00:03:32.518 The black line in the crow's nest signifies this is a shark vessel, 00:03:32.542 --> 00:03:34.614 rather than a whaling vessel. 00:03:34.638 --> 00:03:37.483 The importance of basking sharks to the coast communities 00:03:37.507 --> 00:03:39.185 is recognized through the language. 00:03:39.209 --> 00:03:41.494 I don't pretend to [know many Irish words], 00:03:41.518 --> 00:03:45.076 but in Kerry they were often known as "ainmhide Na seolta," 00:03:45.100 --> 00:03:46.675 "the monster with the sails." 00:03:47.101 --> 00:03:50.506 Another title would be "liop an dá lapa," 00:03:50.629 --> 00:03:52.539 "the unwieldy beast with two fins." 00:03:53.320 --> 00:03:56.729 "Liabhán mór," suggesting a big animal. 00:03:56.859 --> 00:04:00.362 Or my favorite, "liabhán chor gréine," "the great fish of the sun." 00:04:00.386 --> 00:04:01.922 That's a lovely, evocative name. 00:04:02.246 --> 00:04:06.075 On Tory Island -- a strange place anyway -- they were known as "muldoons." 00:04:06.100 --> 00:04:07.121 (Laughter) 00:04:07.145 --> 00:04:08.340 No one seems to know why. 00:04:08.364 --> 00:04:10.699 Hope there's no one from Tory here. Lovely place. 00:04:10.723 --> 00:04:14.746 But more commonly all around the island, they were known as the sunfish. 00:04:14.770 --> 00:04:17.478 And this represents their habit of basking on the surface 00:04:17.503 --> 00:04:18.661 when the sun is out. 00:04:18.685 --> 00:04:21.248 There's great concern that basking sharks are depleted 00:04:21.272 --> 00:04:22.785 all throughout the world. 00:04:23.009 --> 00:04:25.002 Some say it's not population decline, 00:04:25.026 --> 00:04:27.515 it might be a change in the distribution of plankton. 00:04:27.539 --> 00:04:28.696 It's been suggested 00:04:28.720 --> 00:04:31.944 that these sharks would make fantastic indicators of climate change, 00:04:31.968 --> 00:04:34.379 as they're basically continuous plankton recorders, 00:04:34.403 --> 00:04:36.223 swimming around with their mouth open. 00:04:36.247 --> 00:04:39.211 They're now listed as vulnerable under the IUCN. 00:04:39.956 --> 00:04:43.751 There's movements in Europe to try and stop catching them. 00:04:43.840 --> 00:04:46.296 There's now a ban on catching and even landing them, 00:04:46.320 --> 00:04:48.385 even landing ones caught accidentally. 00:04:48.809 --> 00:04:50.397 They're not protected in Ireland; 00:04:50.421 --> 00:04:53.406 in fact, they have no legislative status in Ireland whatsoever, 00:04:53.430 --> 00:04:55.360 despite our importance for the species 00:04:55.384 --> 00:04:58.938 and also the historical context within which basking sharks reside. 00:05:00.462 --> 00:05:01.976 We know very little about them. 00:05:02.700 --> 00:05:04.400 And most of what we do know 00:05:04.425 --> 00:05:07.211 is based on their habit of coming to the surface -- 00:05:07.235 --> 00:05:10.637 we try and guess what they're doing from their behavior on the surface. 00:05:10.661 --> 00:05:13.729 I only found out last year, at a conference on the Isle of Man, 00:05:13.753 --> 00:05:16.467 just how unusual it is to live somewhere 00:05:16.491 --> 00:05:20.038 where basking sharks regularly, frequently and predictably 00:05:20.062 --> 00:05:22.606 come to the surface to "bask." 00:05:23.026 --> 00:05:25.121 It's a fantastic opportunity for a scientist 00:05:25.145 --> 00:05:26.946 to see and experience basking sharks. 00:05:26.970 --> 00:05:28.319 They are awesome creatures. 00:05:28.343 --> 00:05:31.799 It gives us a fantastic opportunity to study them, to get access to them. 00:05:31.823 --> 00:05:35.221 What we've been doing for a couple years -- last year was a big year -- 00:05:35.245 --> 00:05:37.796 is we started tagging sharks, 00:05:37.823 --> 00:05:40.869 so we could try to get some idea of sight fidelity and movement 00:05:40.893 --> 00:05:42.051 and things like that. 00:05:42.075 --> 00:05:47.175 So we concentrated mainly in North Donegal and West Kerry 00:05:47.200 --> 00:05:49.911 as the two areas where I was mainly active. 00:05:49.935 --> 00:05:51.505 And we tagged them 00:05:51.516 --> 00:05:52.692 with a big, long pole. 00:05:52.716 --> 00:05:55.342 This is a beachcaster rod with a tag on the end. 00:05:55.366 --> 00:05:58.037 You go up in your boat and tag the shark. 00:05:58.799 --> 00:06:00.347 And we were very effective. 00:06:00.371 --> 00:06:03.209 We tagged 105 sharks last summer. 00:06:03.233 --> 00:06:06.884 We got 50 in three days off Inishowen Peninsula. 00:06:06.908 --> 00:06:08.465 Half the challenge to get access 00:06:08.489 --> 00:06:10.703 is to be in the right place at the right time. 00:06:10.727 --> 00:06:14.196 But it's a very simple, easy technique; I'll show you what it looks like. 00:06:16.520 --> 00:06:19.371 We use a pole camera on the boat to actually film the shark. 00:06:19.595 --> 00:06:22.132 One, it's to try and work out the gender of the shark. 00:06:22.292 --> 00:06:24.561 This is a picture that you can't really see 00:06:24.601 --> 00:06:27.458 because we cut off the green tag on the shark from Kerry. 00:06:27.556 --> 00:06:31.219 We also deployed some satellite tags, so we did use high-tech stuff as well. 00:06:31.243 --> 00:06:33.151 These are archival tags. 00:06:33.176 --> 00:06:35.115 What they do is store the data. 00:06:35.139 --> 00:06:38.436 A satellite tag only works when the air is clear of the water 00:06:38.549 --> 00:06:40.446 and can send a signal to the satellite. 00:06:40.470 --> 00:06:42.925 And sharks and fish are underwater most of the time, 00:06:42.949 --> 00:06:45.878 so this tag actually works out the locations of shark, 00:06:45.902 --> 00:06:49.264 depending on the timing and the setting of the sun, 00:06:49.288 --> 00:06:51.239 plus water temperature and depth. 00:06:51.263 --> 00:06:53.431 And you have to kind of reconstruct the path. 00:06:53.455 --> 00:06:54.628 What happens is, 00:06:54.652 --> 00:06:57.742 you set the tag to detach from the shark after a fixed period -- 00:06:57.766 --> 00:06:59.164 in this case, eight months -- 00:06:59.188 --> 00:07:01.296 and literally to the day, the tag popped off, 00:07:01.320 --> 00:07:03.199 drifted up, said hello to the satellite 00:07:03.223 --> 00:07:06.092 and sent, not all the data, but enough data for us to use. 00:07:06.116 --> 00:07:09.360 This is the only way to really work out their behavior and movements 00:07:09.384 --> 00:07:10.575 when they're underwater. 00:07:11.477 --> 00:07:14.375 And here's a couple of maps that we've done. 00:07:14.400 --> 00:07:18.555 In that one, you can see that we tagged both off Kerry. 00:07:18.580 --> 00:07:22.452 Basically, it spent all its time, the last eight months, in Irish waters. 00:07:22.489 --> 00:07:24.498 On Christmas, it was out on the shelf edge. 00:07:24.522 --> 00:07:26.466 Here's one we haven't ground-truthed yet 00:07:26.490 --> 00:07:28.615 with sea-surface temperature and water depth, 00:07:28.639 --> 00:07:31.361 but again, the second shark spent most of its time 00:07:31.416 --> 00:07:32.765 in and around the Irish Sea. 00:07:32.789 --> 00:07:36.566 Colleagues from the Isle of Man last year actually tagged one shark 00:07:36.591 --> 00:07:39.775 that went from the Isle of Man to Nova Scotia in about 90 days. 00:07:39.799 --> 00:07:43.122 Nine and a half thousand kilometers -- we never thought that happened. 00:07:43.146 --> 00:07:47.070 Another colleague in the States tagged about 20 sharks off Massachusetts. 00:07:47.094 --> 00:07:48.534 His tags didn't really work. 00:07:48.558 --> 00:07:50.391 All he knows is where he tagged them, 00:07:50.415 --> 00:07:51.883 and where they popped off. 00:07:51.907 --> 00:07:54.225 His tags popped off in the Caribbean, 00:07:54.249 --> 00:07:55.776 and even in Brazil. 00:07:55.800 --> 00:07:58.115 We thought basking sharks were temperate animals 00:07:58.139 --> 00:07:59.631 and lived in our latitudes, 00:07:59.655 --> 00:08:02.847 but in actual fact, they're obviously crossing the equator as well. 00:08:02.871 --> 00:08:04.633 So very simple things like that, 00:08:04.657 --> 00:08:06.687 we're trying to learn about basking sharks. 00:08:06.712 --> 00:08:11.261 One thing that I think is a very surprising and strange thing 00:08:11.285 --> 00:08:14.250 is just how low the genetic diversity of sharks is. 00:08:14.274 --> 00:08:17.735 I'm not a geneticist, so I won't pretend to understand the genetics. 00:08:17.759 --> 00:08:20.116 And that's why it's great to have collaboration. 00:08:20.140 --> 00:08:21.452 Whereas I'm a field person, 00:08:21.476 --> 00:08:23.000 I get panic attacks 00:08:23.024 --> 00:08:26.172 if I have to spend too many hours in a lab with a white coat on. 00:08:26.196 --> 00:08:27.427 Take me away. 00:08:27.451 --> 00:08:30.031 So we can work with geneticists who understand that. 00:08:30.755 --> 00:08:33.335 So when they looked at the genetics of basking sharks, 00:08:33.359 --> 00:08:37.923 they found that the diversity was incredibly low. 00:08:38.592 --> 00:08:40.451 If you look at the first line, really, 00:08:40.475 --> 00:08:43.931 you can see that all these different shark species are all quite similar. 00:08:43.955 --> 00:08:45.733 I think this means they're all sharks 00:08:45.757 --> 00:08:47.687 and they've come from a common ancestry. 00:08:47.711 --> 00:08:50.050 But if you look at nucleotide diversity, 00:08:50.105 --> 00:08:54.324 which is more genetics that are passed on through the parents, 00:08:54.349 --> 00:08:57.182 you see that basking sharks, if you look at the first study, 00:08:59.006 --> 00:09:03.372 was order of magnitude less diverse even than other shark species. 00:09:03.600 --> 00:09:05.672 You can see this work was only done in 2006. 00:09:05.696 --> 00:09:09.721 Before 2006, we had no idea of the genetic variability of basking sharks. 00:09:09.757 --> 00:09:14.769 We had no idea: Did they distinguish into different populations? 00:09:14.794 --> 00:09:16.069 Were there subpopulations? 00:09:16.093 --> 00:09:18.244 And that's very important if you want to know 00:09:18.268 --> 00:09:21.045 what the population size is, and the status of the animals. 00:09:21.069 --> 00:09:24.680 So, Les Noble in Aberdeen kind of found this a bit unbelievable, really. 00:09:24.704 --> 00:09:29.288 So he did another study using microsatellites, 00:09:29.313 --> 00:09:31.924 which is much more expensive, much more time-consuming, 00:09:31.948 --> 00:09:35.209 and to his surprise, came up with almost identical results. 00:09:35.233 --> 00:09:38.145 So it does seem to be that basking sharks, for some reason, 00:09:38.169 --> 00:09:39.939 have incredibly low diversity. 00:09:39.963 --> 00:09:42.721 And it's thought maybe it was a genetic bottleneck, 00:09:42.781 --> 00:09:44.852 thought to have been 12,000 years ago, 00:09:44.876 --> 00:09:47.400 and this has caused a very low diversity. 00:09:47.424 --> 00:09:49.384 And yet, if you look at the whale shark, 00:09:49.408 --> 00:09:52.123 which is the other plankton-eating large shark, 00:09:52.147 --> 00:09:53.618 its diversity is much greater. 00:09:53.642 --> 00:09:56.077 So it doesn't really make sense at all. 00:09:56.101 --> 00:09:58.535 They found that there was no genetic differentiation 00:09:58.559 --> 00:10:01.020 between any of the world's oceans of basking sharks: 00:10:01.044 --> 00:10:03.282 even though they're found throughout the world, 00:10:03.306 --> 00:10:05.464 you couldn't tell the difference, genetically, 00:10:05.488 --> 00:10:08.921 from one from the Pacific, Atlantic, New Zealand, Ireland, South Africa. 00:10:08.945 --> 00:10:10.524 They all basically seem the same. 00:10:10.548 --> 00:10:13.453 Which, again, is kind of surprising; you wouldn't expect that. 00:10:13.477 --> 00:10:15.824 I don't understand or pretend to understand this; 00:10:15.848 --> 00:10:17.758 I suspect most geneticists don't either, 00:10:17.782 --> 00:10:19.176 but they produce the numbers. 00:10:19.200 --> 00:10:21.527 So you can actually estimate the population size 00:10:21.551 --> 00:10:23.721 based on the diversity of the genetics. 00:10:23.745 --> 00:10:28.282 And Rus Hoelzel came up with an effective population size: 00:10:29.321 --> 00:10:31.154 8,200 animals. 00:10:31.178 --> 00:10:34.082 That's it -- 8,000 animals in the world. 00:10:34.106 --> 00:10:36.328 You're thinking, "That's ridiculous. No way." 00:10:37.052 --> 00:10:39.930 So Les did a finer study, 00:10:40.000 --> 00:10:42.778 and he found out it came out about 9,000. 00:10:42.802 --> 00:10:45.683 Using different microsatellites gave the different results, 00:10:45.707 --> 00:10:50.348 but the mean of all these studies is about 5,000, 00:10:50.372 --> 00:10:51.976 which I personally don't believe. 00:10:52.000 --> 00:10:53.630 But then, I am a skeptic. 00:10:53.654 --> 00:10:56.083 But even if you toss a few numbers around, 00:10:56.107 --> 00:10:59.524 you're probably talking an effective population of about 20,000 animals. 00:10:59.548 --> 00:11:04.063 Do you remember how many they killed off Achill in the 70s and the 50s? 00:11:04.087 --> 00:11:05.783 So what it tells us, actually, 00:11:05.807 --> 00:11:09.059 is that there's actually a risk of extinction of this species 00:11:09.083 --> 00:11:10.976 because its population is so small. 00:11:11.000 --> 00:11:12.531 In fact, of those 20,000, 00:11:12.555 --> 00:11:14.723 8,000 were thought to be females. 00:11:14.747 --> 00:11:17.434 There's only 8,000 basking shark females in the world? 00:11:17.458 --> 00:11:19.304 I don't know. I don't believe it. 00:11:19.725 --> 00:11:23.368 The problem with this is they were constrained with samples. 00:11:23.392 --> 00:11:24.975 They didn't get enough samples 00:11:24.999 --> 00:11:28.719 to really explore the genetics in enough detail. 00:11:29.314 --> 00:11:33.801 So, where do you get samples from for your genetic analysis? 00:11:34.270 --> 00:11:36.338 Well, one obvious source is - 00:11:36.374 --> 00:11:37.825 dead sharks, washed up. 00:11:38.158 --> 00:11:41.813 We might get two or three dead sharks washed up in Ireland a year, 00:11:41.838 --> 00:11:43.360 if we're kind of lucky. 00:11:43.384 --> 00:11:45.734 Another source would be fisheries' bycatch. 00:11:45.758 --> 00:11:48.747 We were getting quite a few caught in surface drift nets. 00:11:48.771 --> 00:11:51.557 That's banned now, and that'll be good news for the sharks. 00:11:51.581 --> 00:11:53.498 And some are caught in nets, in trawls. 00:11:53.522 --> 00:11:57.140 This is a shark that was actually landed in Howth just before Christmas -- 00:11:57.164 --> 00:12:00.191 illegally, because you're not allowed to do that under EU law -- 00:12:00.215 --> 00:12:04.952 and was actually sold for eight euros a kilo as shark steak. 00:12:04.977 --> 00:12:06.801 They even put a recipe up on the wall, 00:12:06.825 --> 00:12:08.603 until they were told it was illegal. 00:12:08.627 --> 00:12:10.474 They actually did get a fine for that. 00:12:10.506 --> 00:12:13.299 Any of you tried it, no? I don't think it's that nice. 00:12:13.730 --> 00:12:16.688 So if you look at all those studies I showed you, 00:12:16.780 --> 00:12:19.436 the total number of samples worldwide 00:12:19.460 --> 00:12:20.984 is 86, at present. 00:12:21.758 --> 00:12:23.850 So it's very important work, 00:12:23.874 --> 00:12:25.969 and they can ask some really good questions, 00:12:25.993 --> 00:12:30.276 and tell us about population size and subpopulations and structure, 00:12:30.300 --> 00:12:32.953 but they're constrained by lack of samples. 00:12:33.644 --> 00:12:35.493 When we were out tagging our sharks -- 00:12:35.517 --> 00:12:38.827 this is how we tagged them on the front of a RIB, get in there fast -- 00:12:38.851 --> 00:12:42.202 occasionally, the sharks do react. 00:12:42.241 --> 00:12:44.992 On one occasion, when we were up in Malin Head in Donegal, 00:12:45.016 --> 00:12:48.413 the shark smacked the side of the boat with his tail, 00:12:48.438 --> 00:12:51.582 more, I think, in startle to the fact that a boat came near it, 00:12:51.606 --> 00:12:53.493 rather than the tag going in. 00:12:53.576 --> 00:12:57.566 And then when myself and Emmett got back to Malin Head, to the pier, 00:12:57.590 --> 00:13:00.032 I noticed some black slime on the front of the boat. 00:13:00.956 --> 00:13:03.685 I used to spend a lot of time on commercial fishing boats, 00:13:03.709 --> 00:13:05.188 and I remember fishermen saying 00:13:05.212 --> 00:13:08.035 they can tell when a basking shark has been caught in a net, 00:13:08.059 --> 00:13:09.939 because it leaves a black slime behind. 00:13:09.963 --> 00:13:11.794 So that must have come from the shark. 00:13:11.818 --> 00:13:15.212 Now, we had an interest in getting tissue samples for genetics 00:13:15.236 --> 00:13:17.222 because we knew they were very valuable. 00:13:17.246 --> 00:13:18.903 We would use conventional methods; 00:13:18.927 --> 00:13:21.244 I have a crossbow -- you see it in my hand there, 00:13:21.268 --> 00:13:25.653 which we use to sample whales and dolphins for genetic studies as well. 00:13:25.678 --> 00:13:27.653 So I tried that, I tried many techniques. 00:13:27.677 --> 00:13:29.606 All it was doing was breaking my arrows, 00:13:29.630 --> 00:13:32.149 because the shark's skin is just so strong. 00:13:32.179 --> 00:13:34.955 There was no way we were going to get a sample from that. 00:13:36.079 --> 00:13:37.656 That wasn't going to work. 00:13:37.680 --> 00:13:40.237 So when I saw the black slime on the bow of the boat, 00:13:40.261 --> 00:13:43.238 I thought, "If you take what you're given in this world ..." 00:13:43.262 --> 00:13:44.426 So I scraped it off. 00:13:44.450 --> 00:13:48.845 I had a little tube with alcohol in it to send to the geneticists. 00:13:48.869 --> 00:13:51.924 So I scraped the slime off and sent it to Aberdeen, 00:13:51.948 --> 00:13:53.464 and said, "You might try that." 00:13:53.488 --> 00:13:55.098 And they sat on it for months. 00:13:55.122 --> 00:13:57.934 It was only because we had a conference on the Isle of Man. 00:13:57.958 --> 00:13:59.497 But I kept emailing Les, saying, 00:13:59.521 --> 00:14:01.616 "Have you had a chance to look at my slime?" 00:14:01.640 --> 00:14:03.483 And he was like, "Yeah, yeah. Later." 00:14:03.507 --> 00:14:06.330 He thought he'd better do it because I never met him before; 00:14:06.354 --> 00:14:09.109 he might lose face if he hadn't done the thing I sent him. 00:14:09.133 --> 00:14:11.984 And he was amazed that they actually got DNA from the slime. 00:14:12.008 --> 00:14:13.843 They amplified it and they tested it, 00:14:13.867 --> 00:14:16.665 and they found, yes, this was actually basking shark DNA, 00:14:16.689 --> 00:14:18.626 which was got from the slime. 00:14:20.468 --> 00:14:21.633 So he was very excited. 00:14:21.657 --> 00:14:24.942 It became known as "Simon's shark slime." 00:14:24.966 --> 00:14:27.857 And I thought, "Hey, you know, I can build on this." 00:14:27.881 --> 00:14:31.643 So we thought, OK, we're going to try to get out and get some slime. 00:14:31.667 --> 00:14:35.301 So having spent three-and-a-half thousand on satellite tags ... 00:14:38.387 --> 00:14:41.824 I then thought I'd invest 7.95 -- the price is still on it -- 00:14:41.848 --> 00:14:44.038 in my local hardware store in Kilrush 00:14:44.062 --> 00:14:45.832 for a mop handle, 00:14:45.856 --> 00:14:48.776 and even less money on some oven cleaners. 00:14:48.800 --> 00:14:52.271 And I wrapped the oven cleaner around the edge of the mop handle 00:14:52.295 --> 00:14:53.776 and ... 00:14:53.800 --> 00:14:55.358 (Laughter) 00:14:55.382 --> 00:14:58.913 I was desperate to have an opportunity to get some sharks. 00:14:58.937 --> 00:15:03.729 And this was into August now, and normally sharks peak in June, July, 00:15:03.754 --> 00:15:06.743 and you rarely see them, or rarely can be in the right place 00:15:06.767 --> 00:15:08.318 to find sharks into August. 00:15:08.342 --> 00:15:10.772 We were desperate, so we rushed out to the Blaskets 00:15:10.796 --> 00:15:12.866 as soon as we heard there were sharks there, 00:15:12.890 --> 00:15:14.417 and managed to find some sharks. 00:15:14.441 --> 00:15:18.504 So by just rubbing the mop handle down the shark 00:15:18.529 --> 00:15:20.097 as it swam under the boat -- 00:15:20.121 --> 00:15:22.631 you see a shark running under the boat here -- 00:15:23.455 --> 00:15:24.797 we managed to collect slime. 00:15:24.821 --> 00:15:26.069 And here it is. 00:15:26.093 --> 00:15:29.822 Look at that lovely black shark slime. 00:15:29.846 --> 00:15:34.439 And in about half an hour, we got five samples. 00:15:34.463 --> 00:15:36.216 Five individual sharks were sampled 00:15:36.240 --> 00:15:39.072 using Simon's Shark Slime Sampling System. 00:15:39.096 --> 00:15:40.911 (Laughter) 00:15:40.935 --> 00:15:46.266 (Applause) 00:15:46.290 --> 00:15:49.544 I've been working on whales and dolphins in Ireland for 20 years now, 00:15:49.568 --> 00:15:51.107 and they're a bit more dramatic. 00:15:51.131 --> 00:15:53.167 You probably saw the humpback whale footage 00:15:53.191 --> 00:15:55.301 we got a month or two ago off County Wexford. 00:15:55.325 --> 00:15:57.575 And you always think you might have some legacy 00:15:57.599 --> 00:15:59.093 you can leave the world behind, 00:15:59.117 --> 00:16:02.052 and I was thinking of humpback whales breaching and dolphins. 00:16:02.076 --> 00:16:04.461 But hey -- sometimes these things are sent to you 00:16:04.485 --> 00:16:06.677 and you just have to take them when they come. 00:16:06.701 --> 00:16:08.798 So this is possibly going to be my legacy -- 00:16:08.822 --> 00:16:10.464 Simon's Shark Slime. 00:16:10.488 --> 00:16:12.122 We got more money this year 00:16:12.146 --> 00:16:15.351 to carry on collecting more and more samples. 00:16:16.691 --> 00:16:19.631 One thing that is very useful is that we use a pole camera -- 00:16:19.655 --> 00:16:22.068 this is my colleague, Joanne, with a pole camera -- 00:16:22.092 --> 00:16:24.031 where you can look underneath the shark. 00:16:24.055 --> 00:16:27.457 What you're trying to look at is, the males have claspers, 00:16:27.548 --> 00:16:30.168 which kind of dangle out behind the back of the shark. 00:16:30.192 --> 00:16:32.789 So you can quite easily tell the gender of the shark. 00:16:32.813 --> 00:16:37.107 If we can tell the gender of the shark before we sample it, 00:16:37.384 --> 00:16:40.491 we can tell the geneticist this was taken from a male or a female. 00:16:40.515 --> 00:16:43.018 Because in the moment, they have no way, genetically, 00:16:43.042 --> 00:16:45.580 of telling the difference between a male and a female, 00:16:45.604 --> 00:16:46.763 which I find staggering, 00:16:46.787 --> 00:16:49.372 because they don't know what primers to look for. 00:16:49.396 --> 00:16:51.710 Being able to tell the gender of a shark 00:16:51.734 --> 00:16:55.976 is very important for things like policing the trade 00:16:56.000 --> 00:17:00.396 in basking shark and other species through the sightings, 00:17:00.420 --> 00:17:02.635 because it is illegal to trade in these sharks. 00:17:02.659 --> 00:17:04.696 And they are caught and are on the market. 00:17:04.721 --> 00:17:06.790 So as a field biologist, 00:17:06.816 --> 00:17:09.262 you just want to get encounters with these animals, 00:17:09.286 --> 00:17:10.675 and learn as much as you can. 00:17:10.700 --> 00:17:14.109 They're often quite brief, they're often very seasonally constrained. 00:17:14.134 --> 00:17:17.039 You just want to learn as much as you can as soon as you can. 00:17:17.063 --> 00:17:18.829 But isn't it fantastic 00:17:18.854 --> 00:17:22.353 that you can then offer these samples and opportunities 00:17:22.377 --> 00:17:25.196 to other disciplines, such as the geneticists, 00:17:25.221 --> 00:17:27.675 who can gain so much more from that. 00:17:27.700 --> 00:17:31.406 So as I said, these things are sent to you in strange ways. 00:17:31.430 --> 00:17:32.676 Grab them while you can. 00:17:32.700 --> 00:17:34.642 I'll take that as my scientific legacy. 00:17:34.666 --> 00:17:37.753 Hopefully, I might get something a bit more dramatic and romantic 00:17:37.777 --> 00:17:39.026 before I die. 00:17:39.050 --> 00:17:42.111 But for the time being, thank you for that. 00:17:42.179 --> 00:17:44.016 And keep an eye out for sharks. 00:17:44.159 --> 00:17:46.129 So thank you and thank you for listening. 00:17:46.153 --> 00:17:48.100 (Applause)