[00:00:00] Speaker A: Learn how to support the Rewildology podcast and sign up for the newsletter at rewildology.com support the show sea turtles have roamed the Oceans for over 100 million years, outliving dinosaurs and living through extreme planetary changes. Yet today, these ancient reptiles face unprecedented threats, from plastic pollution to climate change and bycatch. What is being done to protect them and how can we ensure their survival in our rapidly changing world?
Welcome back to rewildology, the nature podcast that explores the human side of conservation, travel and rewilding the planet. I am your host, Brooke Mitchell, conservation biologist and adventure traveler.
In today's episode, I'm sitting down with Brad Nahil, co founder and president of Sea Turtles S E E Turtles, a nonprofit organization that dedicated to protecting sea turtles through ecotourism, funding grassroots initiatives, and tackling the illegal wildlife trade. Brad and I spoke back in December 2021 and so much has changed in marine conservation since then. Over the next hour, Brad shares new challenges and wins in sea turtle conservation, updates on sea turtles, major projects like Billion Baby Sea turtles, and insights into the rapidly evolving role of technology in protecting marine biodiversity. We also explore how conservation strategies differ across the globe, dive into the complexities of nonprofit funding, and discuss Brad's vision for the future of sea turtles and global conservation.
Before we dive in, I want to thank today's featured organization, Sea Turtles, for sponsoring this episode. As you'll soon hear, Sea Turtle's mission is to connect people with sea turtles in meaningful, personal and memorable ways and help the sea turtle community grow and thrive by supporting community based conservation efforts. I've personally admired Sea Turtles work since I met Brad in 2021 and I am so excited that they're sponsoring this episode. If you're inspired by this conversation and want to take action, check out sea turtles.org rewild to learn five ways you can help sea turtles from joining a conservation trip to saving a baby turtle and even fighting the illegal trade. Plus, Rewild Ology listeners can get $50 off of a conservation trip by using the promo code rewild. All right, let's jump in. Here is my conversation with Brad.
It just makes sense that we would begin this episode laughing hysterically because. Because I was reflecting, Brad, like you and I originally sat down, I looked at the date, so I still have all of my notes from every episode I've done so far. And we sat down on December 16, 2021.
[00:02:56] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:02:57] Speaker A: It is now. What is today? January 17, 2025 is when we were sitting down again.
[00:03:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:03:05] Speaker A: And that Crazy. Yeah. It's been such a long time, long, beautiful journey watching sea turtles grow. And you've been very engaged with rewaterology, which I've been super just grateful for how many times I've randomly reached out to you for random things like, could you tell me more about this like, crypto industry right now? You know, how do you get grants, Brad? Tell me that. So, yes. So it's been awesome just to stay in touch all of this time since then. Obviously so much has changed in the landscape of sea turtle conservation and marine conservation as a whole. And you have a pulse on the global scale of this thing since 2021, what new challenges and conservation wins. Both of them have emerged for both sea turtles and marine biodiversity since the last time we sat down.
[00:04:03] Speaker B: Yeah, it's definitely been a very eventful few years for our organization, for the work with these anim in general. So, you know, I would say, you know, it's been more of an acceleration of trends. We are already seeing. I'm not seeing a ton of like, brand new things coming up, but, you know, things like climate change, you know, is only getting worse and, and unfortunately, you know, progress on that seems like it's going to be challenging at least here in the United States for the next few years. You know, the plastic issue is not something that we're seeing. You know, there's, there's winds here and there, but, you know, like the, the collapse of the recent treaty, plastic treaty talks was, was definitely discouraging. But in general, did you elaborate that?
[00:04:55] Speaker A: Actually, a little bit. What happened?
[00:04:58] Speaker B: So the United nations, you know, you may have heard of like the climate treaty, the Kyoto treaty in Paris, accords that every few years there's negotiations on. There has been a huge effort to do that around reducing plastic waste. And there was one, you know, in 2024 and unfortunately, you know, no agreement was made. A number of countries really held out in terms of committing to reducing plastic use, the US Being one of them. And that was with an administration that is generally a lot more friendly to these kinds of issues.
So, you know, it doesn't seem like, at least in the short term, that, that those kinds of global agreements are going to be a source of progress. But we are seeing a lot of progress in the locations where the work is really happening. So these overall global efforts, I think are, are facing a moment of reckoning. But we are seeing in a lot of places things getting better because of the work of the groups on the ground, working with the communities, working with fishermen, working with, you know, People who consume eggs, who consume turtle products, things like that. It was so wonderful to hear your podcast recently with Melania. You know, she's a friend, we introduced her, she's a longtime partner and, and their work is a great example of seeing a recovery in sea turtle populations in Mexico. There's a few places in Mexico where we're seeing recoveries starting to happen, which is really encouraging. There's another one in Michoacan, the same place where you hear most recent guess was on the coast, a place called Colola, which has had an extraordinary recovery of the black sea turtle, which is considered a subspecies of the green sea turtle, who's are up to 80 some thousand nests per year, which is really extraordinary comeback. And really. Yeah, in a really short period of time and 25 years, they've gone from 500 nests to 80 some thousand. And so we are.
[00:07:11] Speaker A: That's crazy.
[00:07:12] Speaker B: Yeah, it really is. I've never heard of a more successful wildlife pro project. Not, not just sea turtles, but any, you know, and they're still not quite back to prehuman exploitation levels, but they're getting there, they're getting close. And it's really amazing what, you know what, when you see biologists working together with communities, in that case, an indigenous community of the Nahua people have been working together since the early 80s and it took 20 years and to start seeing real results for the numbers to start going back up again, but they stuck with it. And now, you know, the, the numbers are growing rapidly, so we're starting to see that in a number of places. And I'm really excited to see, and shortly, I believe in a few weeks, there should be a new global look at what the different populations are looking at. The last time one came out in I think it was 2011, led by one of our newest board members, Dr. Brian Wallace, who's, you know, one of the real big thinkers in the world of sea turtles and many other researchers involved. But when, when they did this paper in 2011, the majority of number of sea turtle populations around in the world were growing. And so that was really encouraging to see. But you know, you know, it's. It's been a minute now, and so, you know, it'll be a good chance for the sea turtle community to take stock and see where things are recovering, where more resources need to go.
[00:08:43] Speaker A: Wow, that's really exciting. So when did you say that that'll be published or like, is that currently being.
[00:08:51] Speaker B: It's in process until February. So next month.
[00:08:54] Speaker A: Oh my gosh.
[00:08:55] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:08:56] Speaker A: Wow. Okay.
Wow, that is very exciting. Please keep us posted on that.
Yeah. And if they're hopefully the positive trend like you said, since you're, like I said, you're so entrenched in these different areas around the world with, with you know, how many projects sea turtles supports. So I'm sure you're getting reports all the time of like what's happening on the ground. You know, I've talked now more than once, which is awesome. With you know, Christine Figner, she's in Costa Rica, she has a really good pulse on things there. And then you introduced me to Melania. Um, just for context though, that we, so that we understand where exactly all the sea turtle help support around the world. I know it's like around the world.
[00:09:43] Speaker B: But yeah, yeah, it's a lot of places now and yeah, it's so fun to hear it. I've, you've had so many of my friends on, you know, Chris Malone, Darden Simano, our board member. Katerina Oddly, our good friend who's working on the whales in Mexico as well.
You know, really enjoy every episode.
Yeah. So I believe at last count we're supporting projects and I believe about 40 different countries right now.
[00:10:11] Speaker A: Oh my gosh.
[00:10:11] Speaker B: So we are US based, but all of the work that we support is in the, the developing world, in the global South I should say is the term we like to use. And so what we try to do is find the resources here in the US and get them to these smaller community based organizations for the most part working in these communities so that they can have the resources that they need to do the work that they do. We as a US based organization don't do or run any projects in any of these places where we try to be pretty careful about that. But yeah, there's something like 60 or 70 different organizations that we're supporting right now on a whole number of topics. On reducing plastic.
[00:11:02] Speaker A: That's mind blowing.
[00:11:03] Speaker B: Thank you. On protecting nesting beaches, on educating people. We have more than 100 partners with our annual Sea Turtle Week celebration every June.
Working on the tortoise shell trade, our trips and things like that. So yeah, it's, it's grown quite, quite wide. So you know, primarily Latin America, Africa and Asia.
[00:11:23] Speaker A: Wow, that is incredible. And then so then switching to sea turtles itself. I mean, you have such an innovative mind. Like the things that you've come up with, like how did you even think of that? You know, I feel like if most of us or more of us in the conservation world had more of your creative spin on things Like, I feel like we'd be so much further ahead in so many different ways. But anyways, so what new updates or new major initiatives have you tried at Sea Turtles or any other changes that have happened since 2021? A lot can happen in that time.
[00:11:59] Speaker B: Yes, definitely. And you know, and I will just say a lot of our best and most creative ideas came from our co founder, Dr. Wallace J. Nichols, who we unfortunately lost in 2024. And it was a huge blow to our community because he had such a creative mind and such an empathic and kindness to him. And so our entire ethos of wanting to work with and support these local communities came from him and his experience in Mexico. So it was really tough to lose him this last year. We're still kind of reeling from it. But yeah, many of our best ideas came from him. And so when we last spoke, we had launched a couple of new initiatives that we've been focusing on for the past couple of years that have really grown and started to take on new dimensions, which is really exciting. You know, when we, when we did speak, we were starting to come out of the pandemic. And one of the things about that was that we realized, talking to a lot of our partners around the world is when tourism stopped, so many different turtle projects were affected. So many were really dependent on the income from travelers, from tour operators.
And that was a huge challenge. And we came to a bit of a realization that there was a. There's an over dependence on tourism to a certain extent in many places. And so through discussions that we were having with our partners about what are you doing to diversify your income?
One of the things that we learned that several projects were doing was trying to figure out creative ways to do things with the plastic that they're collecting on their beaches. Because the sea turtle community was one of the first to realize, like, hey, we've got a global problem here. We're seeing plastic washing up on our shores every day. These projects have been doing beach cleanups for decades and have been documenting it and seeing it grow and seeing the impacts that it has on not just sea turtles, but also on the communities and other wildlife. And so in the past decade or so, you know, different technologies and methods for doing stuff with that plastic have been developed. And we're seeing projects on the ground investing in the infrastructure and setting up processes and creative ways of taking that plastic and using it and turning that into money.
Sales of products that are reused or remade from waste to support the communities and to support the conservation work. So you know, when we decided that we wanted to try to tackle the problem of plastic in the ocean, you know, we were a little overwhelmed by it. It is so big, and, you know, we really wanted to find our niche with it. And so we were talking to some of our friends. Chris Figaner was real instrumental in this process for it. We started this program where we're going to raise funds and help these communities invest in that infrastructure. So purchasing machinery to break plastic down so that it can be more easily recycled. It can be either transported to the places where they're recycling it easier, with less of a carbon footprint, less of a cost for the organizations, or just recycling it right there on site. And so right now, we've provided something like 50 plus grants now. Oh, my gosh, yeah. Over $140,000 invested into more than 30 organizations to do beach cleanups and to invest in this machinery. And so some of the pro. Some of the things that our partners are making are bricks to build houses, fence posts, things for tourists, souvenirs, so that we're actually kind of exporting some of that plastic back out of these destinations where, you know, the majority of it's coming from places like the US And Europe and ending up in these. In these, you know, global south countries as a way to turn it into a value and get it back out. And so that program has really grown. We're working with quite a bit in the tourism industry.
Natural Habitat and Lindblad have been huge supporters of that program. And so it's been really great to see the growth in that, and so that's been really great to see.
Another thing that came out in that period when we were talking before was our program that invests in building capacity in coastal communities around the world. And a lot of that stemmed from us, you know, taking a look at ourselves and what we could do to move diversity, equity and inclusion forward. You know, we were seeing a real reckoning, you know, in our country around social justice issues with the Black Lives Matter protests. And so we took that as a signal to say, hey, what can. What can we do to support this and help build that capacity? Because these communities, these disadvantaged populations, haven't had the resources needed to really build their careers and to be able to take on leadership in these communities, helping to run these conservation programs. So since then, I was actually adding some up. Today, we've supported 14 people in coastal communities with more than $35,000 in grants. So that's providing funding for leadership positions or studies to help advance their careers. And the Next step with that is going to be providing more services to these folks to help them build their careers and help them learn how to fundraise, how to do marketing and social media, how to connect them to the global community, things like that. So we're not just, you know, sending some money, but also you really help building, you know, the individual capacity of these emerging leaders from these communities.
[00:18:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I love that you bring that up too, because, I mean, money is always a useful tool, but if you don't then also have the skills that to properly utilize that money in the best way possible, then it, you know, it just doesn't make sense. Like, I almost kind of reminds me of like the startup world, like somebody can raise a whole bunch of money, but if the idea or the execution isn't there, then it's probably gonna fail in the end. So it's really cool that it's such a holistic approach that you have to this. It's not just one thing. It's like, yeah, we can raise money, but what's the end goal here? The end goal is, yeah, all this stuff. It's conservation action. It is empowered communities. It is all of this good, feel good stuff. I love it. It's so good. You have another big program that I just love this program, this idea, when you told me about it, just was so cool. And I'm sure that it has grown a lot since then, but the Billion Baby Sea Turtles initiative.
[00:19:21] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:19:21] Speaker A: How's that one going?
[00:19:23] Speaker B: That one is going great. That was another one of Jay's ideas. And when he first brought it to me, I was a little skeptical. Like a billion billion baby turtles. That's a lot of baby turtles.
I like the alliteration.
But, you know, the idea grew on me and it's now become our biggest program. Right now we're supporting about 40 different turtle nesting beaches with about $200,000 in funding per year, which comes from a variety of sources, from individual donors, from businesses, tourism businesses, foundations, things like that. Melania is one of our collaborators on that. She was one of the first. We've been supporting your work for, I think about 10 years now and really love to see the progress that, that she's made. And so we're are the numbers are growing. In fact, at some point this year, I think fairly early, we're trying to figure out how we're going to celebrate this. We're going to pass 20 million baby turtles saved, which is really thrilling. Yeah, last year was about 6 million alone.
A lot of them coming from that one particular beach in Mexico that I mentioned in Michoacan, Colola, they are providing, are protecting a whole bunch of those. So we don't want to take credit for any of that. It's the local groups that are doing all of the work on the ground. But when people donate, for every dollar that they donate, we can save at least 10. And last year was actually closer to 30 baby turtles. For every dollar.
[00:20:56] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:20:57] Speaker B: Yeah, for every dollar donated. So you know, that money really goes far in these communities and what it does is it pays for the local folks to be able to walk up and down the beaches, to study the animals, to make sure that the eggs are not being collected for the black market, that the, the mother turtles are not being collected for their shells or for their meat and getting those hatchlings into the water. So that program has been tremendously successful and we're just thrilled. We're really excited. In fact, I think we will let you know about this. But we may do, we may do like a little trip giveaway to celebrate.
[00:21:33] Speaker A: Oh yeah, yeah, definitely. Keep me posted in the reward ology community. I'm sure they would love to be involved. Yes, yes, definitely. Tell me about that. Where would the trip be?
[00:21:47] Speaker B: Probably Costa Rica.
[00:21:48] Speaker A: Ooh, always a solid destination. So my 30th birthday there. That was awesome. Yes, it was the seeds of our, of our Costa Rica series.
[00:21:59] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:21:59] Speaker A: So Sheridan set it up, Sharon set it up. She was amazing. So yeah, Sheridan, for those who don't know, because that episode was I felt like 10 years ago it wasn't, but it feels like 10 years ago she runs reefs to Rockies and I decided that I was not turning 30 in the United States. So she set up a birthday trip for me. And since it's me, I can't just go vacation. I just can't do that. So I ended up like hopping all around and meeting all these amazing conservationists and seeing all of these fantastic groups on the ground. I mean I wasn't there at the optimal time of year for that, but it's fine. I mean you, you can't choose your birthday. So it just wasn't the best time of year for those things. But yeah, she did a fantastic job. So Costa Rica is beautiful. It's amazing. The culture, the people, the food, the wildlife. When I go back, I need to go to the OSA Peninsula. Yes, that is a non negotiable. I just want to go there the whole entire time. And maybe up to Guanacaste too. I think I would like that as well. Yeah, I know Some jaguar researchers up there.
[00:23:06] Speaker B: There's a beach in Costa Rica where jaguars eat the sea turtles and.
[00:23:10] Speaker A: Yes, I know, I want to go.
[00:23:11] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah, it's an.
We support as well. And my colleague Adriana went and got to see one of the jaguars and lots of jaguars also. Yeah, they were going to check the camera traps. They have camera traps there in Nancy Day to. To study them in the forest. And they didn't see them on the beach at night, but they were starting to walk up and the. The researcher or, you know, our friend said, stop. It's like, oh, there's a jaguar nearby. He just knew. And they looked and maybe like 20ft away they saw one in the underbrush. No quiet. And, you know, it kind of went on its way. But yeah, no, they see them quite often there. But yeah, their numbers are growing in Costa Rica. Yeah, you can't find them on the OSA and we support some great work on the OSA 2.
The OSA, the Tortugas de OSA is a great organization that we support their plastic work and their nesting beaches. So we'll set you up with Lara and those folks there as well. And they're actually connecting Sheridan and Reefs to Rockies there and.
[00:24:21] Speaker A: Amazing.
[00:24:22] Speaker B: I spent some time there in like 2000 and loved it. And I've been back a handful of times. It's really a quite amazing place. But you know, my birthday, my 50th birthday is this year and I'm going to celebrate it by going to Kenya and I'm going to go see the big.
[00:24:37] Speaker A: Oh, yes. Oh, my God.
[00:24:40] Speaker B: I won't be there on my birthday, but I'm going to celebrate it as part of it. I'm going in March and we're going to be scouting out best time. Yeah.
[00:24:49] Speaker A: Oh, you're starting a new trip, too?
[00:24:50] Speaker B: Yes, we're going to be launching, I believe, next year a new trip to Kenya. So I'm doing a safari.
[00:24:56] Speaker A: Whoa, Brad, you're mixing it up.
[00:24:59] Speaker B: Yes. So, yeah, I can't sit still on a vacation either. It's not really vacation, but we're hitting Amboseli and Tsavo and then we have partners all up and down the coast. So we're going to be doing some diving. We have a bunch of partners doing plastic work there, some nesting beaches and at several of the, we call them the community leaders grants there. So we're going to be hitting a bunch of spots along the coast, are going to be posting a lot about it and hopefully taking people there next year, which is very exciting. Be My first time in Africa ever.
[00:25:31] Speaker A: Really?
Man, this is a really fun 50th birthday. I wish I was going.
Yes, any excuse to get back to Africa. You are going in my favorite time of year, hands down. Hands down. I've now been in hot, dry, cold dry and green season. And you're going to be there in the green season and it is now my favorite. Without a doubt, without a question. Every single season has its perks. But you love cats and all the cats at that time of year.
When you're there at the green season, like all of the wildebeest are dropping their babies. We're going to be in the north and the migration is going to be in the south, but you'll still see a ton of stuff. And the weather is so cool and like the dramatic scenes, like some of my favorite wildlife photos I've ever taken in my life. And all of my adventures came from green season East Africa. So, like, your birthday is going to be way more epic than my 30th is what I'm saying.
How exciting. Okay, okay. Okay. Well, definitely keep us posted on that as you're like expanding your destinations. Where else are you planning to grow sea turtles? Conservation trees trips too.
[00:26:45] Speaker B: Yeah, so, yeah, and another update. So since we last spoke, we have added in a bunch of places where we had taken people to before. One is that beach in. In Michoacan, Colola. In fact, our travelers from a group there returning today on their way home from there, and it seems like they had a really fun trip. I mean, that's a beach where hundreds of turtles per night, thousands of hatchlings. It's really extraordinary. And you know, while the Michoacan is not considered one of the safest parts of Mexico, the coast is totally safe and just a really spectacularly beautiful. And I have never been to a turtle nesting beach like this one. I went in 2019, last letter group there and they had something like 40, 000 nests. And now they've doubled.
[00:27:33] Speaker A: What?
[00:27:34] Speaker B: Yeah. So now it's 85.
I haven't seen this year's numbers yet, but it's more than doubled in five years. And so it's a really, truly unique experience. It's very off the map, but this station is actually pretty comfortable. It's not super rustic like some of the places where we take people.
We're also bringing back our Galapagos trip, which is really exciting. We've got a new local partner there and we'll be doing that in May, going for a couple of weeks. So it's going to be very eventful travel year.
[00:28:06] Speaker A: Sounds like it. I'm jealous.
[00:28:07] Speaker B: Extraordinary. Yes. It's an extraordinary destination. And so that one I'm really excited about. And then we also brought back Cuba. So we're going to Cuba in August.
[00:28:18] Speaker A: Oh, really?
[00:28:19] Speaker B: Yes. So Cuba had been for several years, once things had opened up, had it been our most popular and profitable trip. But during the previous administration, when things were rolled back, the demand cratered. It got a lot more challenging. But you know, you can still go there. It's still open. You just have to follow certain regulations. We don't know how open it will be. That's one thing that we think there's a possibility that we might not be able to do it after this year, again, at least for this administration, because we don't expect this administration to really want to engage with Cuba, unfortunately. It's a really extraordinary place, culturally. Just absolutely fascinating. The history is amazing. Tons of turtles, great local partners, great local communities.
So those are ones that we've all brought back this year and we're really thrilled. Our trips are doing amazing. And just as a reminder, I know you're going to add this in, but we really would love to have some rewildology followers listeners join us and we are offering a discount for you guys. So if you go to se e turtles.org and let us know that you're a listener, you know, you can get a discount for a trip. But you know, our trips have really been filling. We've also added in trips to Oaxaca which have been super popular. We've been. We announced a trip and we fill it and then we add another trip and we fill it again immediately. It's such a popular place and it's been a really amazing one for us. And it's a really just extraordinary part of Mexico. Again, just tremendous culture. We visit a nesting beach that one can have during their what we call an aribada, which is a mass nesting event, if people haven't heard of that, where thousands and thousands of turtles can come ashore. The one with the jaguars and Costa Rica is also an aribada beach. But this one, Escobia is is number one or two depending on the event in the world, where they can over a few day period have up to a half a million turtles nesting.
[00:30:30] Speaker A: Oh my gosh. I can't even comprehend that. I don't either.
[00:30:34] Speaker B: I haven't seen it personally.
[00:30:36] Speaker A: Oh my God.
[00:30:37] Speaker B: Had a chance to experience it. But it's just an entire beach full of turtles, just day and night. And then you know, a couple months later, you're talking about millions of hatchlings being born and going out into the ocean. So it's hard to time. You know, the. The turtles are a little bit fickle. It's somewhat lined up with moon cycle. So we try to time the trip for the most likely time, but sometimes they come, sometimes they don't. We try to build the trip so it's somewhat flexible. So if you're somewhere else in there and it starts, you can quickly adapt and go.
But that is generally like November, December. So we just launched our 2025 trip for that. So there's still some spaces for that. But it's been going great. We've been having record years. We've been filling just about every.
And. And we're also. One of the things that we're really excited about moving forward is we're in discussions to potentially acquire a student travel company which would really take the organization to the next level. Yes.
[00:31:37] Speaker A: Wow. Just drop that bomb.
[00:31:40] Speaker B: You know, it's early stages, but we're pretty confident that it'll happen. And it'll take our traveler program from, you know, 100 people a year to maybe a thousand.
[00:31:51] Speaker A: Wow, Brad, how do you keep it all straight?
You blew my mind the last time we sat down. And every single time I talked to you, you blow my mind. And now I'm like, oh, my. What?
[00:32:05] Speaker B: Yeah, we keep it straight and we keep it going. Number one, we have extraordinary staff. My colleague, Adriana Cortez, who lives near that Aribada beach in Mexico, has just been an extraordinary asset to the organization. She was new when we last spoke. We have an incredible communication staff. We had two different Bethany's who have been extraordinary for us, who have really taken us, Taken our marketing and communications to new heights, and then just our incredible network of partners around the world because we do some of the stuff, we raise a lot of the funds and provide a lot of services, but it's these, you know, incredible local groups that we partner with that are doing the really hard work. The people that are out on the beach for six, seven, eight hours a night, walking miles and miles a night, like, it's really, you know, a group effort.
[00:32:59] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And just so inspiring all around. Because one thing that I. I love about an organization, an organization like Sea Turtles, is it's like you've shown that you can do this. Like, you can have an incredible mission and reach it in all these different creative ways. You know, Like, I feel like it's a real downfall and an unfortunate part of the nonprofit world is. We think we've all been. I don't know if victims is the right term, but, you know, just seeing these opportunities crash or these organizations go down, because it's all with passion, without the good business mind, too. And so just to see all of these different creative ways that, you know, sea turtles is thriving, and then because of that, these communities are thriving.
[00:33:50] Speaker B: The.
[00:33:50] Speaker A: The wildlife is. Is thriving. We're seeing these incredible rebounds. People are getting to go into the field and see these things for themselves in the sustainable way. So, yeah, it's just such a win, win now that I'm sure you don't have sleepless nights and, and everything that comes along with being a leader in this field. I know it's a lot. We talked a little bit of it last time. I. I know I did. It's a lot. But you're still doing it sometimes. But when you have that passion, sometimes it's the only thing that keeps you going.
Yes, many of those days.
[00:34:24] Speaker B: Yeah. And, you know, being a small nonprofit, it comes with a lot of different challenges. And yeah, you have to be really creative and, you know, thinking outside the box and, you know, we're able to be pretty experimental because we don't have this huge bureaucracy and structure that we need to maintain. You can see I'm here in my home office. You know, we keep really low overhead and we're able to go and see what works. You know, our. Our sponsorship of the podcast is an experiment for us and for you, and we're thrilled to be able to support your work because you really are getting amazing stories out there. And so, you know, having, you know, being able to be agile and nimble and innovative is really the only way that we can survive.
[00:35:18] Speaker A: Yeah. I feel like you should lead a course in that, just like for conservation leaders, how to be nimble and creative. Which I know that even making that a course alone is like, not that creative, but you know what I mean, how to be creative and make it work and whatever it is that you do.
[00:35:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:37] Speaker A: Speaking of making it work, so the last time we sat down and ended up, we had a whole lot of side conversation that could totally go down over during some time, which would be really fun.
AI, AI and tech. Like, you're one of the first people in the conservation sphere that opened my eyes to the possibility of what really cool things AI can do in the service of conservation. And so, you know, too rare to rare, Too rare to wear.
[00:36:09] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:36:09] Speaker A: Did I say right?
[00:36:10] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:36:10] Speaker A: Okay, I did. I don't think I'VE actually said that out loud, at least not in three years. So it's like, wait a second, did I just get tongue tied? But your amazing app that identifies hawksbill sea turtle, like illegal souvenirs and stuff like that.
[00:36:25] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:36:26] Speaker A: So could you talk about this a little further? Like how, how's that program doing? Have. Has it been able to stop the exportation of endangered species like stuff?
And has that grown and also too just like, what, what are your thoughts about AI in this realm as well from using it personally and then now that it's like being adopted everywhere. So yeah, you were a first early adopter. Tell me about your thoughts on it and everything.
[00:37:00] Speaker B: Yeah, I think the last time we spoke we were in process of creating the app that uses machine learning called C Shell S E E Shell.
That was an idea in collaboration with a couple of tech folks because I am not a super tech person. I'm a little bit of a tech luddite. But a conversation with a sea turtle researcher, brilliant guy named Alex Robillard, where he pitched me, he was on the.
[00:37:29] Speaker A: Show, by the way, everybody.
[00:37:31] Speaker B: Yes.
Alex pitched me an idea to use machine learning to create an app that identifies individual live turtles, which I think, you know, has tremendous potential, is being used now.
But I said, you know, that sounds great and really valuable, but it's not something that I think we would focus on. So what about, could we use it to identify tortoise shell products, illegal turtle products? And he said, yeah, I think we could said, all right, well what we need, we need to build a big library of images of these kinds of products and products that can be confused for it. So either tortoise shell, but like pattern, but plastic, things like that also, you know, coconut shell or bone or seashell or a whole variety of things that can, can be confused for it. And so we built this big library of, you know, thousands of images of real things and not real things. And Alex was able to build a model that can analyze, you know, take a photo and analyze what's in that and look at the patterns of it. Because there are some distinctions between tortoiseshell and real info and then other things that can be used to determine it. And so we launched that a couple of years ago. We've been tinkering with it ever since. And we're actually coming out with a new update of it soon that we're pretty excited about. We actually got multi year funding from U.S. fish and Wildlife for this program which is really.
[00:39:08] Speaker A: Oh wow.
[00:39:09] Speaker B: Exciting. Yeah, the program, amazing. Yes. The program had Gone a little bit quiet for a couple of years because it can be hard to maintain the funding from year to year. We had some great initial funding and then it slowed down. But now having this multi year funding, we're working with this great app developer guy named Eric Soto in Florida, who's also just absolutely brilliant, really donating so much of his time and energy. It's kind of a, you know, a pet project for him. He's very passionate about it and he's actually working right now on some updates to improve the accuracy of it, the usability of it. But we've had more than 3,000 submissions so far through the app. A lot of those were testing. So as part of this program, the Tourette Aware program that you mentioned, we are working with local partners in places like Costa Rica, Panama, Indonesia, elsewhere to Colombia, a really big one, to support efforts by our local partners to train the enforcement staff in these places that might be environmental police or customs. In Panama, they're working a lot with the Navy. And you know, these folks are not sea turtle experts and we can't expect them to be. And if they're looking for illegal wildlife products, how many different animals are they looking for to the tortoise shell pattern has become so ubiquitous, like we don't expect any of them to be able to look at it. There's only really, you know, a handful of people who can look at a product and be like, oh yeah, that's Tortoiseshell.
So training those folks on how to recognize these products, how to use the app. So a lot of those submissions were testing of that.
But you know, we're really excited to really take that app to the next level and, you know, to really use it to help with these efforts. You know, it's really hard to say, like, how much has this impacted on the ground. I will say we have an extraordinary partner in Colombia, the Fundacion Tortugas del Mar, that has done a really amazing job at developing relationships with local government officials, with sellers, souvenir shops, with local communities. And in Cartagena, which is had been one of the number one places in the entire western hemisphere for selling these products, has had at least an 80 if not 90% decline in sales of these. And wow. Yeah, they've done just the extraordinary job. There's not a lot of places where enforcement authorities really care about this issue.
A lot of what they're looking for is drugs, terrorism. And I mean the reality of that is coming from our country and where our money flows to places like Colombia is on the drug trade.
And so that's what they're focused on. And so for these folks to be able to convince them and say, yeah, drugs are important, we definitely want to, you know, reduce the traffic of those things. But also, hey, there's this other thing. And here, here's how you can make a difference. And I've met a bunch of the police and folks there, and they. They just.
They're so passionate about it and they're so thrilled that they can be making a difference on this issue. So we've been providing those folks funding for several years to help support their work. They have this great program where it's the Sea turtle Safe Souvenir shop. So when you go to Cartagena, you can look for a logo for shops.
Yeah. And so we're now working to try to build a bit of a network in Colombia to get the tour operators on board so they can educate the travelers. Because in a lot of cases, they're the ones that are buying these products. Maybe.
[00:43:02] Speaker A: Yeah, they probably don't know.
[00:43:03] Speaker B: No, exactly. And so travelers can use the app as well. So if you look up Seashell SE Shell, they're on the major app platforms. You can find this app. And, you know, when you go to these places, if you're in a market stall and you're looking at something, you're not sure what it is. You could snap a photo and it'll tell you with a pretty high degree of accuracy if it's. If it's real or not.
[00:43:25] Speaker A: Just such a fantastic idea. And just like the. The scalability of it to other potential products, too. You know, with the right funding, this could go in so many different directions because as we know, like, smuggling of animal products is a major issue for wildlife trade across the world.
[00:43:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:43:45] Speaker A: You know, as more and more countries get affluent, there's been such an increase in illegal trade. I mean, to the point now where we have armed guards everywhere in places like Africa, just to make sure that we have a rhino population. And like, our. Our big tuskers are gone. They've all been. Not all, but, you know, very few tuskers are even in existence anymore. The big elephants with the big tusks, everybody, if you don't know what that means.
[00:44:14] Speaker B: Yeah. We're really hoping this idea expands and grows. We've had a number of conversations and have shared a bunch with wwf, who works a lot on the wildlife trade, especially like Traffic. Yeah, traffic. Their Singapore office.
We're also collaborating with them, trying to reach out to the tech industry. We're Starting to try to work with some of the tech companies to use this model on the back end. So if you're an online platform and people are selling these products, and not just sea turtles, but ivory, pangolin, all of them on these platforms, you know, you could go on and we've had people do this. I've done it. Where you go on and look for these products and you can report it, but just like a law enforcement person's looking for so many different things, you know, somebody on Facebook or another platform who is. You know, when you. Something's flagged that they check them. They're not a sea turtle expert. According to some research we did less than 20% of the time, flagging a product actually results in it being taken down. But if this model can be used on the back end to prevent these things from getting put online in the first place, we think that can have a real huge difference. So we're in some early discussions with some tech companies that we're hoping will lead to others. There's a coalition to ant trafficking and wildlife trafficking online that WWNF and others are working on, that we're working to collaborate with and stuff like that. And you and I have had discussions about how this could potentially be translated for big cats, recognizing big cats or big cat parts using machine learning. So we're really hoping that the idea spreads because we think it can be a really valuable tool. And in combating this trade, you know, the enforcement community is at such a disadvantage to these huge multinational smuggling rings that, you know, we need every tool that we can get.
[00:46:14] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. And if we can help them in that, we all win. You know, because a lot of these, as we've learned, or at least as I've learned just going through down my conservation journey, that quite often the illegal wildlife trade is just an arm of a bigger operation. Yeah. You know, there's probably a lot of other crime that's also happening.
Yeah. So, yeah, if we can. Any way we can help with that, the better.
[00:46:41] Speaker B: Yeah, they know these smuggling rings are not just smuggling wildlife. They're all doing, you know, smuggling drugs, people, illegal products, things like that. It's. It's this, you know, when you know how to smuggle, you're smuggling everything that you can. And so, yeah, any tool that can help with this, I think is valuable. I would love to eventually see one app that an enforcement official can use and snap a photo, and it can tell you from all the different potential animals, plants, trees, wood, all those things.
[00:47:15] Speaker A: You know, that would be amazing. Yeah, I mean, the way tech is going, I don't see, I mean, going through TSA anymore. You know, I feel like even that alone, like, the tech has gotten so much better because I. I feel like each airport is getting higher and higher, like scanning things. So who knows, like, this could really be not that far away. And on that, again, since you are so involved in, like, the tech side, and I've really embraced that as the possibility or as a big tool in conservation, which we need more of. Has there been any other developments that you've seen in the past few years that you're excited about or even not? I mean, I guess, or two. Any red flags either way? Green flags? Red flags in the tech world for conservation?
[00:48:07] Speaker B: Yeah, no, there's been a lot of really amazing applications of tech, you know, in terms of red flags. Just the sheer amount of energy used by it is very concerning. We hope that that can get figured out because, you know, the climate issue is a big problem. But we are seeing a lot of really interesting uses of technology to be able to improve research and conservation. Drones for. Yes, you know, researching, you know, researching in a way that is less invasive to the animal.
AI using, like, know these aratas, you know, imagine how do you count 500,000 turtles on time? But you can snap a picture and.
And, you know, it can give you a snap count. Amazing things like that.
Satellite technology has been around for a long time, but for so long these transmitters are big and they, they create a lot of drag on the turtle and they're very expensive. But those are getting smaller and smaller to the point where researchers are now putting tiny little ones on hatchlings. And we're starting to learn where hatchlings go. This is considered the lost years, when a hatchling leaves a beach and is in their juvenile period. A lot of cases we don't know where they are, where they're going, what they're doing. And so this technology is starting to open the door to learning more about that. So that's really exciting. We're seeing drones being used to monitor nesting beaches that are a little harder to reach to reduce illegal hunting.
So, yeah, there's a lot of applications that we're seeing grow and it's exciting. Yeah, genetics, the genome genomics, learning about where these animals are coming from with the tortoiseshell trade. Wwf, we collaborate with, has created this great program called Shell bank where they're doing genetic analyses of tortoiseshell that they're finding so they can figure out where the source of it's coming from. That's a lot of the folks in Australia because they know that a lot of the hawksbills in like the Great Barrier Reef, for example, are going to other parts of the Coral Triangle and disappearing. And so that's a way to find out, you know, pinpoint where the hunting is occurring so that it can be better targeted.
[00:50:32] Speaker A: Yeah, that's so cool. I love that you brought up drones because I actually had an amazing guest on from Australia as Well, Debbie Saunders, PhD, and she started Wildlife Drones. And they use this incredible technology as a way to help find and track wildlife in the field. And it's way less invasive and a lot easier on the researchers too, and way more accurate and, and just all these different ways using tech. I'm sure probably by now, I don't, I don't know, I have to think if they were also using AI, but I mean, probably at this point, I feel like there's like so many applications anymore for AI to help us identify wildlife and everything like that. So I definitely love that you brought that up because it has come far. Just listening to her blew my mind. I was like, wow, this is so cool. Yeah, you know, just from like a big old radio transmitter, you know, with the beep, beep, beeps in the air to like this like high tech drone that's like able to like, you know, do all this amazing stuff. Yes, it's, it's very exciting. So I guess now if we want to look ahead for the future, what are some of the things you're really excited about for both, like in all the different directions for sea turtles, Maybe even you personally or, or conservation as a whole. But yeah, what are you, what are you most. How excited about?
[00:51:55] Speaker B: I, I'm really excited about this student travel thing that I mentioned. You know, it, like I mentioned before, running a small nonprofit is, is hard. It's, you know, the funding is difficult. It can be very uneven. You know, sometimes you don't know where your next paycheck is coming from, really. Being dependent on the whims of wealthy people and where they want to send their next grant to is a difficult way to survive. And, you know, I know that I opened the show talking about overdependence on tourism, but I really see tourism and conservation travel being as part of our DNA. We're called S E E Turtles because we want people to go and, and see them in the wild, which kind of makes me laugh a little bit because we've been around since 2008, so 17 years. And the very first time somebody commented on our social media this week, it's spelled sea A like we spelled the name wrong. And I thought it was absolutely hilarious.
Gently explained that, yes, we're aware of how you spell the animals and that it's a play on words.
But, you know, our. The whole reason we started was getting people to these places to see these animals in ways that support conservation. You know, we've expanded to all these other programs. We're raising funding for nesting peaches and plastic and tortoiseshell and all these things. But we. I would really love for us to really be able to make a huge difference in these communities by bringing people to these communities and also by providing transformational experiences for the travelers themselves so that when people go home, they're inspired to get involved. You know, we've had people, we actually this past year, it was really lovely to see a young woman who first went on our trip as a student through to Costa Rica, ended up coming back and as a research assistant in college to the place that she had visited years before on a family trip. And we love to see that kind of thing. And we're really excited to see her grow her conservation career. We want to see that happen more and more. We want to see people come back different people from the trip that they do. And so we're going to be starting a process to really do that in a very holistic way so that it's not just going on a tour and seeing some animals, but you're transforming. The communities are transforming in a positive way and it's helping to rewild these animals. And so we think by really moving into the student travel area, we. I'm hopeful that we will get to a bit of what is kind of a nonprofit holy grail, where I won't have to fundraise for admin for my salaries, for my colleagues, salaries that these trips will pay for all of that so that all of the money that we raise can go into these communities. That would be my goal. And I really think it's possible within a couple of years that we could be at that point, you know, knocking on wood without, you know, global pandemics and recessions and things that those profits from those trips can be really help us take us to a new level. So I would love to see us saving 10 or 20 million baby turtles a year, cleaning up a million, you know, pounds of plastic a year, supporting hundreds of communities and thousands of people. Right now we're supporting seven or 800 people in these coastal communities. We're generating several hundred thousand A year. But I think we can really grow that, you know, exponentially once this happens and really, you know, just take our efforts to a whole nother level. So that really has me excited.
[00:56:16] Speaker A: Well, if anyone can do it, it's you. I have full faith that if anybody I've met in my life that can make these big, grand visions come together, it's going to be Brad and all.
[00:56:30] Speaker B: Of it will honestly be doing it to honor Jay.
It was the whole idea was his program, and his vision has been our vision. And, you know, he changed my life when we met and started this project together. So really, everything that we're doing is in honor of him and the extraordinary impact that he had.
[00:56:56] Speaker A: Wow. Well, I feel like that is a fantastic way to end this amazing conversation and honor to Jay. I wish I would have met him. Everything that I read online, all the beautiful services that you all held for him seemed like he was a very, very special person. And so that's what all we can hope for is that when we leave this planet, that we left it better than when we came.
[00:57:19] Speaker B: So.
[00:57:19] Speaker A: And it sounds like he did succeed at that. So amazing. Amazing all around. Well, thank you so much, Brad. Thank you for everything. Thank you for again being an incredible leader in this field, for saying as a good friend to me and for saying as a big supporter of rewildology and sea turtles and wildlife and communities all around the world, yes, we all are grateful to have you here working and doing what you're doing.
[00:57:46] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you're doing great stuff as well. And like I said, we're really thrilled to be able to support you and do one more quick plug se turtles.org rewild bunch of ways you can help support sea turtles. So you can download the app. From there, you can save some baby turtles. You can join us for one of these amazing trips. You can reduce the amount of plastic waste that you create. All kinds of fun ways, so check that out. Get in touch. We would love to have you. And I will look forward to many, many more fun episodes of your podcast.
[00:58:24] Speaker A: Awesome. Thank you so much, Brad.
[00:58:26] Speaker B: All right, my pleasure. All right, talk to you soon.
[00:58:31] Speaker A: Thank you for joining me on this wild adventure today. I hope you found been inspired by the incredible stories, insights and knowledge shared in this episode. To learn more about what you heard, be sure to check out the show
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