Dave Ebert: The Insider's Guide to Sharks

0:08I'm Guy Kawasaki and this is Remarkable People. We are on a mission to make you remarkable. Today we are diving into the subject of sharks with one of the world's leading experts in the field, Dave Ebert. Dave has studied sharks for decades. He earned his Bachelor of Zoology from Humboldt State University and Master of Marine Biology from Moss Landing Marine Laboratories. He also has a PhD from Rhodes University in South Africa. Dave has discovered over 50 types of sharks. He is director of the Pacific Shark Research Center, president of the American Elasmo Brand Society, and an honorary associate at the California Academy of Sciences.

0:53He has written 30 books about sharks. NBC News, Good Morning America, and the Today Show have featured his work. He leads Shark Week expeditions to find the rarest and most elusive sharks. He has appeared in and advised BBC Shark and Blue Planet 2 and National Geographic's when sharks attack. I'm Guy Kawasaki. This is Remarkable People. And now, here is the remarkable Dave Ebert.

1:26You sent me a copy of Sharks of the World. it's 600 pages color thousands of illustrations and photos and it's only 55 dollars i don't understand why is that book so cheap you would have to ask the publisher princeton university press they they set the price and everything it's a great deal when you look at how much books cost yeah for 50 55 bucks it's a great deal and there's literally a ton of information in there on sharks of the world. That is not exaggeration. There is literally tons of information. I write business books and there are 200 pages, black and white, no illustrations, no color, no photography, no nothing.

2:13And they're$26.95. Let me tell you something. If those books are$26.95, your book should be$250. But I digress. Yeah, I'm glad it's a relatively cheap book because things are so expensive. A lot of people,$50,$60, you think, oh, I could get a book like that's 600 and some pages. Whereas a lot of smaller books, they want$90 or$100 for them. People got to think, I don't want to spend that much for a book. But yeah, for$50,$60, you can literally get a book that has all the sharks of the world in it, at least up through last year. I'm just curious. One more question about this book. How do you write and produce a book like this that is so long and has so much information.

2:57There's pages and pages of this is the kind of teeth that sharks have. How do you even write a book like that? It started probably about, oh, almost 40 years ago for me when I first started studying sharks as a young grad student. And I just, in my case, I just had a wealth of information just from working in the field for for so many years and decades, the illustrations that Mark Dando does. That's a key to books like this. You need to work with an outstanding illustrator because people will read the text, but your eyes immediately go to the illustrations. And that's what everyone's going to look at first.

3:31And then they'll get onto the text and realize, well, there's a lot of information about that shark. So the kind of the key for this kind of book is to have an outstanding illustrator, as I did with Mark. And then also I had another colleague of mine, Sarah Fowler, who's also another shark conservationist and she's been around for I don't want to embarrass her but she's been around for a number of years as well and so it's just a really good collaboration with the three of us and on that and it's a lot of work I swear this is my last question about this book okay but so let's say you decide to write this book and at the time I don't know maybe there's 400 species of sharks not the 600 that there are today so you tell your illustrator okay guys start drawing 400 sharks.

4:16How long does it take to have that 400 illustrations? It was years. It was years. The recent one is an updated edition. The original edition came out in 2013, and then this was an updated one. So we had a number of illustrations done, quite a few done already, but Mark updated. As we get more information, you think, oh, once you draw something, that's it. But you realize on some of the rare species, you get more information. Something as simple as a coloration. Often you'll see like a dead specimen or something in a museum that's kind of gray or brown. Then you see it in the wild alive and you're like, wow, this thing's really a pretty shark.

4:51We just didn't know that. In Mark's case, he updates these illustrations. That takes a lot of extra work. But the meticulous part is doing things like the teeth just to get the teeth in there because sharks are usually identifiable by their teeth if you know what tooth on the whatever thing was 545 species of sharks in there each jaws from each shark is unique so you think about that you could draw each shark you got to draw the teeth for them because they're unique and then other little thing characteristics like you see that there'll be a ventral image of like the snout the mouth and the and the nostrils and a lot of the times that could be very distinctive for some of the shark species so we try to put in as many of the characters as we can and then just hit on the main things to try to get people to look for the characters that people would look for.

5:40And again, because I'm a scientist, I want to write this to the average person, someone like yourself who might be kind of interested in it, but it's not an expert or anything. So you can look at that, understand like, hey, here's some characteristics, how I can tell this is this particular species of shark. And so I try to write that for the average person. I'm not writing this for technical people like myself. I want the average person to be able to pick up this book and to be able to find a shark, maybe washed up on a beach or something they see on TV and they can try to identify it. Let me give my audience a plug for your book.

6:12So if you are at all interested in sharks or fishing or the ocean, I cannot conceive of a more impressive book to buy in this book for a mere 55 bucks eat out one less time go buy this book man it's magnificent and if you check around to even better this occasionally they'll have some special offers we got things like this summer we'll have a shark week shark fest stuff coming up and they'll sometimes give a 30 discount on the 55 so if you check back or follow me on social media I'll post it like when they come up and there's a discount, I'll post it. And so you can even get that book for less than$50 at times.

6:59All right. So now take us back to 40 years ago or whenever, and you're a grad student. And at what point do you say, okay, I'm going to dedicate the rest of my life to sharks? Like, how did that go down? Oh, I can take you back further than that. When I was about five years old, my parents gave me a book on sharks. And we still, I still have it too. and I just thought these were like the coolest things I'd ever seen. I just thought, man, these are like really cool. Now, you know, when you're five years old, sharks, whales, dinosaurs are cool and most kids grow out of that. But when I was about 10 years old, I told my parents, I said, I want to travel the world and study sharks and I want to figure out a way to get paid for that.

7:40I was 10 years old. My parents were like, man, don't worry. He'll grow out of that. I'm sure it's some phase. And just from there on, just went on through my life. And even when I was a senior in high school, I go to your guidance counselor, wants to talk to you about what you're going to do. And I've still never seen my guidance counselor, my senior year in high school. And he said, what are you going to do? I'm going to go to college and I'm going to travel the world and study sharks. And he was like, uh-huh. Oh, that's great. He goes, that's good. He goes, do you have a plan B at all? And I was like, no, not really.

8:08I'm going to travel and study sharks. And he was like, okay, good luck on that shark thing. But he wasn't discouraging. He didn't discourage me at all. And that counselor, about 10 years after I left high school, I saw him and I was talking with him and I said, so what'd you think about the fact that at this point I'd already had a master's degree from Moss Landing Marine Laboratories. And I was actually just getting ready to leave for South Africa to start my PhD. And I asked him, I said, what'd you think about, do you remember that conversation we had? And what'd you think about me when I mentioned the shark thing?

8:37And he goes, well, he says, you know, I see a lot of kids. And he goes, honestly, I didn't think the shark thing was going to really work out for you. But the fact that you had a direction and a passion, I didn't want to like burst your bubble. He goes, I see kids all the time that have no idea what they're going to do. But you had a direction. So I was like, going to let you pursue it. I never thought you were actually going to still be doing sharks 10 years later. And I've turned that passion just into a lifelong journey, really, at this point. And it's taken me all over the world. just some amazing experiences with it.

9:08So yeah, it started when I was young.

9:18We have interviewed 200 remarkable people and this kind of early discovery of your passion is rare. In fact, Madison, you chime in, but I think it's only Neil deGrasse Tyson, Jane Goodall and Dave Ebert. That's good company. That is good company. Yeah.

9:42You know, Guy, if I could just punctuate the thing here, when I had this passion, this started before the movie Jaws came out in 75. And the field of shark research really started in the late 70s, early 80s. And I was in high school like a sophomore or so when the movie came out. And I already had this direction that I was going to travel the world and I was going to study sharks. And there really was no field of shark research at the time. So thanks to Peter Benchley and Steven Spielberg for a great book and an awesome movie, this whole field started. And it was because people were interested in sharks.

10:18Like, well, how many shark species are there? How old do they get? Where do they live? All these kinds of questions. And so a lot of the university programs started asking these questions. and I was in that early young group of grad students. I always refer to where I was part of the JAWS generation of grad students that we just caught that wave literally in the early eighties. And there's a whole group of us. And the cool thing about it is we started like when I started my master's, you know, I'd ask a professor like, well, what should I do? He goes, I don't know. It's your master's. You figure it out.

10:50This is the best part. And this is like being an explorer. There was no roadmap there. It was just like, if you could think about it in your mind, you could go pursue that direction. And some stuff turned out to be like, well, it was a little crazy, but we tried it. But you found your footing. It was just such a golden age to study sharks because there was really nobody in front of us. And we just went ahead to go basically blaze our own trail, our own path. And it was fabulous. I look back on it now and I almost get goosebumps. I'm so excited that, God, it was just so great. And I had professors that were just like, hey, if you can think about it, go do it.

11:25No one was saying like, here's what you have to do. You got to do A, B, C. It was just like, go figure it out. There's no map here. It was awesome. And a side story is if you watch the original Jaws movie that came out in 75, at the very end of the movie, when they're rolling the credits, the last credit that comes up is a guy named Leonard Campagna, who was at Stanford University at the time. and I don't know if you knew this or not, Guy, but Stanford used to have one of the preeminent ichthyology programs in the world for close to 100 years and they closed down in the 70s. But anyway, this guy who I mentioned here, who actually designed the mechanical shark Bruce and worked with Spielberg on the movie, turned out that he was my main professor advisor for my PhD.

12:10Wow. Like 12 years later, after the movie came out, I started a PhD and at the time he lived in the Bay Area up in Tiburon where he was working. And I got to know him because people ask me like, they'll say like, well, how'd you, you know, how'd you do this whole traveling thing? And I was working, like did a lot of research in Monterey Bay, San Francisco Bay, Humboldt Bay. And I got to know this guy, Leonard Capagno. And he took a job in South Africa. Now this is about 1985, 86. And for those of us that are certain age, you know, South Africa probably wasn't the main place people were looking to go to at that particular time.

12:43But he had taken a job there and I went up to say goodbye and I was just finishing my master's degree. And as he was leaving, I said, hey, you know, if you need anybody to carry your bags or something in South Africa, let me know. And it was literally almost like a throwaway statement. And eight months later, I got a phone call from him and he says, hey, Dave, I have a PhD position here. Do you want it? Like in a nanosecond, I was like, hell yeah, I'm going. And basically here I was like 26 years old and I'm taken off to go travel the world and study sharks. I was going to get paid to do it. And it was this dream I'd had since I was 10 years old was all falling together at this time.

13:22Wow. And it was the best thing I ever did. And it was just this huge adventure I had. It's becoming apparent to me that you're the Jane Goodall of sharks. How's that? That sounds awesome. She's quite, it was quite a person. I remember seeing her like on National Geographic back when I was a kid. So that's cool to hear that. I think I can guess at your answer, but all things considered, is Jaws the best or worst thing that ever happened to sharks? I saw Steven Spielberg was just on a program kind of comment on, he thought it was a negative thing. And I know Peter Benchley, who I never met, I actually haven't met Spielberg either, but Peter Benchley felt it was a bad thing for sharks.

14:05It was the best thing that ever happened to sharks was those movies. And the thing was, is everyone focused on the negative. And you keep in mind, like, and it's hard for younger people to understand this, but there was no field of marine conservation, certainly no conservation on sharks at the time. And again, as I said, when the movie came out, people got interested in it. The thing is, there were already shark tournaments going on in the world. They're happening here in Elkhorn Slough, in San Francisco Bay. They were just going on. Nobody paid any attention to them. They would have a shark attack on Monterey where I grew up.

14:39It'd make a one day news story, but after Jaws, every shark attack became an event. All these shark fishing competitions became events. It sort of brought this out of the shadows and into the public light. But again, people were just kind of like more interested in sharks as they got going. And I might mention my colleague, Sarah Fowler, who I did the Sharks of the World book with. She was actually one of the pioneers who started the entire field of shark conservation in the late 80s, early 90s. We're cohorts. I didn't know her at the time, but before she started it, there was no field of shark conservation.

15:16Young people that weren't around at that time can't imagine that. But it was one of these things that nobody even thought about it. It was just like sharks are being finned. Sharks are being caught, but just nobody paid any attention to it. So the movie Jaws, it changed that entire trajectory because people got interested in it. And the people like myself pursued it as a career. You could knock me over with a feather. I thought for sure you're going to say it's such a negative thing, but okay. Okay. So while we're on the positive negative spectrum, can you just tell us the most common misconceptions of sharks?

15:53I think that one of the reactions I get with sharks is when people, we talked already about the number of shark species. You know, I mentioned the book, there's 545. I'll ask audiences when I give talks, like I'll throw out a question. Does anybody know how many species of sharks are out there? and they're almost, everybody will go maybe 20, 30. Some people will throw out, how about a hundred? They have no idea that there's over 500 species of sharks. And that's probably one of the biggest misconceptions that people don't realize how diverse they are. Because most people, particularly if you watch a lot of TV shows, you got like flying white sharks, you've got tiger sharks, the big toothy ones that occasionally attack people.

16:31And that's all they ever see. They don't realize there's this huge diversity out there. And when I talk with young people, I try to emphasize to them, like, don't go do what everyone else is doing. Because there's like a thousand people out there studying white sharks. You'll just be another face in the crowd. If you want to make a name for yourself, you want to rise to the top, find something that no one else is studying. And go out and become an expert on that. Because then you're an expert and you know something. And chances are there's so many species out there, you're almost inevitable to find something that no one else is even looking at.

17:03So that's really a thing I try to emphasize to people. There's a lot of stuff out there. Another study on white sharks is, okay, get in line. There's a whole bunch of people out doing that. What about the impression that sharks are these stone cold killers that are going to come bite you when you're swimming? Is it? I kind of like gloss over a little bit when it comes to shark attacks or they try to use something more friendly like, oh, shark human interactions. You know, if you go walking out in the woods in Alaska or Montana, you might run into a grizzly bear. You might actually be injured or killed by it.

17:33It's a bear attack. You know, it happens. You might run into a mountain lion. You go in the ocean, you might run into a shark. The chance there it's a white shark or something that might actually hurt you is pretty remote. And oftentimes people will see sharks, you know, large, like a white sharks and stuff, especially around Monterey Bay. It's not uncommon. And most of the time they just swim by, might scare the hell out of you, but they just generally swim by and they don't really bother you. So people really aren't on the menu for sharks because honestly, you know, a chubby seal or harbor seal or something has a lot more protein for them than, you know, than basically a skinny person or even a slightly overweight person.

18:11There's not gonna be enough fat content for them to really energize their body. And so they need to look for things that are high protein, like again, harbor seals or sea lions, elephant seals are great. They love those things. So yeah, people are not on the menu by any means. I think I know the answer to this question too. I'm a surfer. Madison is a surfer. I surf. I don't know if that makes me a surfer. But anyway, when I try to encourage people who don't surf to surf and almost all of them say, I'm afraid of sharks. And it seems to me that there's more danger driving over Highway 17 to get to Santa Cruz than there is being in the water and getting attacked by a shark.

18:55Right? Absolutely. Yep. Absolutely. I grew up here in the Monterey area. I started to skin diving at Lover's Cove when I was about eight years old. My dad took me out and my brother and I just started, chose how to free dive. And so I started free diving at a very young age. I felt comfortable swimming through the kelp and I was a free diver for about 10 years before being a scuba diver and anybody that free dives. And I was young, a teenager, I used to like to spearfish. I'd like to go out and get, you know, get some fish for dinner or something. And so you think about, let's see, you're shooting fish or you're carrying them around on a stringer, wiggling fish, blood in the water.

19:33And I did that from the time I was eight years old for all this whole time. And I've never seen a shark while I was spearfishing. I've seen a few sharks diving, but just never was spearfishing. And you think about scuba diving, you're down the bottom, free diving, you're pretty wide open there. And especially if you go out to some of the places like along, we used to call it Flounder Flats area between the Monterey Wharf and the hotel there. It's always a big sandy area. It used to be a good place to go spearfishing for halibut. And of course, now I go up in the helicopter looking at sharks in Monterey Bay.

20:05And I got to tell you, there's a hell of a lot of white sharks out there, but they don't really bother anybody. They just hang out there during the day. And I go out there where the cement boat was, Manresa, which is a popular surfing area and stuff. And, you know, if we see a shark, we'll call down to the lifeguards and stuff. But I think if people really realize how much is out there, they might rethink it. But, you know, it's like I said, if you're going to go walking in the woods or something, you're going to go in the ocean, you might see a shark, but it's pretty remote. It's really remote.

20:33Let me put it this way. Statistics I like to use, since 1950 to the present, there's been anywhere from zero to about eight shark attacks a year off California. And the average is about maybe three or four a year, but some years there's zero and some years there's as many as eight. And when you think about it, the average number of attacks hasn't changed in what, 73 years, but the population in California has gone from what, about 15 million to 40 million. And there's a lot more people, as you know, in the water now than there was even 30 or 40 years ago. I tell people that to put in perspective that, yeah, if you want to spend time in the water, great, go out for it, go diving, go surfing.

21:17I did a little surfing when I was younger, but I really got into the diving. So I never really pursue the surfing as much as they probably should have grown up around here. I'll be up in the helicopter just looking for sharks and we'll go along up there around Seacliff and the cement boat area and stuff. Especially in a summer day, you'll see people on the beach laying around, their kids are playing in the surf and they don't realize there's like six white sharks about a hundred feet beyond the surf, just hanging out. If people saw that, they'd be like running around with their hair on fire and the sharks are just hanging out there.

21:48Kids are playing in the surf. And usually during the day, the sharks are just hanging out. They tend to get aggressive. I don't say aggressive, but more active is usually around dawn, between dawn and dusk. That's when they're typically hunting. During the day, they're just hanging out, resting, chilling, not trying to avoid the people in the water. So let me get this straight. So you're in a helicopter. You're near the cement boat, sea cliff. You see sharks a hundred feet from swimmers. You don't dial 9-11 and call them up and say, hey, get those people out of the water. You just continue on business as usual.

22:23Oh, they'll usually, you know, call down. They'll let the lifeguards know and they'll usually put up some kind of notice just that there's sharks around. The interesting thing around here in Monterey, which has been interesting, is that the sharks we see up around the cement boat tend to be the little, okay, let me qualify this, the little white sharks, which are the young of the year, and they're between six and eight feet long. So my personal thing, if the shark's as big as me, I'm six foot. If the shark's as big as me or bigger, like I'm going to get out of the water probably, but depending on the species, but I'm going to get out of the water.

22:51But the big ones, I know you're a surfer and any surfers would know this. If you go down towards Manresa, that's where you see sort of the larger sharks, the ones that are over 12 feet or so, the bigger ones. And then you think about white sharks because really in California, if there's a shark incident, that's a problem. white sharks generally eat fish and fish and other sharks actually until they're about they get to be about 10 to 12 feet their teeth when they're smaller are very narrow when they get about 10 feet their jaws become much larger and triangular which is what people when they think of like jaws like the movie these large triangular teeth they don't get that way until they're about 10 to 12 feet what happens is at that size they switch from feeding just on bony fishes and other sharks to starting to feed on marine mammals, harbor seals, elephant seals, those types of things.

23:44So when I talk about these ones, like at Sea Cliff, the cement boat, most of those are small white sharks, like six to eight foot. And some days I'll go up there and I'll literally count 40 white sharks along a two to three mile stretch of beach. I just get tired of counting them. There's so many of them around there at this time. And that's actually, I got to put a plug in for this. That's actually a good thing in a way, because to me, it speaks to the health of the bay, because when you see that many sharks out there, up until 2014, it was only the larger sharks you would see. We never saw the small white sharks.