#50 Dr. Aaron Adams - Bonefish + Tarpon Trust

Aaron Adams, PhD. has lived, worked, and fished on both coasts of the US, and in the Caribbean, where he has been conducting fish research for more than 25 years. His pursuit of effective fish and habitat conservation is rooted in his years growing up near Chesapeake Bay, where he witnessed the decline of the Bay’s habitats and fisheries.

Aaron has been an avid angler since the age of five, and was even known to skip school in pursuit of fish.The why and how of fish and their habitats became a passion and eventually led to the career of fish conservation scientist. He now holds the roles of Director of Science and Conservation at the Bonefish and Tarpon Trust (BTT) and he’s a Senior Scientist, Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute Florida Atlantic University.

As Director of Science and Conservation at BTT, Aaron is responsible for formulating, overseeing, and implementing BTT’s science and conservation plan, and applying scientific findings to conservation and management via interactions with resource management agencies and other non-governmental organizations. Aaron has been an author or co-author on more than 70 peer-reviewed scientific publications, has authored three books, and contributed chapters to four books. In addition to his scientific focus, he spends considerable effort translating fish science into angler’s terms. You can see his scientific publications on his Researchgate page. 

In this episode, Mark and Aaron speak about the incredibly cool nature of bonefish and tarpon, both as species and game fish, the Bonefish and Tarpon Trust's mission, the important nature of connection with guides on the ground to doing the work both as a scientist and as a storyteller, habitat devastation but there is light at the end of the tunnel, young people getting engaged and the vital importance of connection.

Save What You Love with Mark Titus:⁣

Produced: Emilie Firn

Edited: Patrick Troll⁣

Music: Whiskey Class⁣

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Creators & Guests

Host

Mark Titus

Mark Titus is the creator of Eva’s Wild and director of the award winning films, The Breach and The Wild. He’s currently working on a third film in his salmon trilogy, The Turn. In early 2021, Mark launched his podcast, Save What You Love, interviewing exceptional people devoting their lives in ways big and small to the protection of things they love. Through his storytelling, Mark Titus carries the message that humanity has an inherent need for wilderness and to fulfill that need we have a calling to protect wild places and wild things.

Guest

Dr. Aaron Adams

Aaron Adams, PhD. has lived, worked, and fished on both coasts of the US, and in the Caribbean, where he has been conducting fish research for more than 25 years. His pursuit of effective fish and habitat conservation is rooted in his years growing up near Chesapeake Bay, where he witnessed the decline of the Bay’s habitats and fisheries. Aaron received a bachelor’s degree from St. Mary’s College in Maryland, a Master’s degree from the College of William and Mary, and a Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts Boston, and also holds a Coast Guard Captain’s License. He now holds the roles of Director of Science and Conservation at the Bonefish and Tarpon Trust (BTT) and he’s a Senior Scientist, Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute Florida Atlantic University.

What is Save What You Love with Mark Titus?

Wild salmon give their very lives so that life itself can continue. They are the inspiration for each episode asking change-makers in this world what they are doing to save the things they love most. Join filmmaker, Mark Titus as we connect with extraordinary humans saving what they love through radical compassion and meaningful action. Visit evaswild.com for more information.

00:00:00:19 - 00:00:38:16
Mark Titus
Welcome to the Save What You Love podcast. I'm still your host, Mark Titus. Welcome welcome, welcome. Today I get to sit down with Doctor Aaron Adams. He is the director of science and conservation at the Bonefish and Tarpon Trust in South Florida. He's also senior scientist of the Harbor Branch at the Oceanographic Institute at Florida Atlantic University. And to start out, Aaron received a bachelor's degree from Saint Mary's College in Maryland, a master's degree from the College of William and Mary, and a PhD from the University of Massachusetts Boston, and also holds a Coast Guard captain's license.

00:00:38:18 - 00:01:09:09
Mark Titus
Go, Aaron. He has lived, worked, and fished on both coasts of the U.S. and in the Caribbean, where he's been conducting fish research for more than 25 years. His pursuit of effective fish and habitat conservation is rooted in his years growing up near Chesapeake Bay, where he witnessed the decline of the bay's habitats and fisheries. Doctor Adams has been an author or coauthor of more than 70 peer reviewed scientific publications, has authored three books, and contributed chapters to four books.

00:01:09:11 - 00:01:37:16
Mark Titus
In addition to his scientific focus, he spends considerable effort translating fish science in anglers terms. Thank God for that. Today we speak about the incredibly cool nature of bonefish and tarpon, both as species and game fish. The Bonefish and Tarpon Trust's mission, the important nature of connection with guides on the ground to doing the work both as a scientist and as a storyteller.

00:01:37:18 - 00:02:06:09
Mark Titus
Habitat devastation but the light at the end of the tunnel. Young people getting engaged. So important and the vital importance of connection. What a great conversation. Going to warn you ahead of time. This is heavy on fly fishing. Nerd dumb. If you're into that sort of thing, you're going to go bananas for this episode. if you're not quite there yet, maybe you'll get into it later.

00:02:06:11 - 00:02:48:18
Mark Titus
But, it's a wonderful, wonderful conversation. Hope you enjoy it. You're in for a gem. Onward.

00:02:13:09 - 00:02:17:20
Music
How do you save what you love?
When the world is burning down?
How do you save what you love?
When pushes come to shove.
How do you say what you love?
When things are upside down.
How do you say what you love?
When times are getting tough.

00:02:48:20 - 00:02:52:03
Mark Titus
Doctor Aaron Adams, welcome. Where are you today?

00:02:52:05 - 00:03:00:02
Dr. Aaron Adams
thanks for having me on the podcast. I am in my home office in east central Florida, where it's been raining a lot the past few years.

00:03:00:05 - 00:03:07:13
Mark Titus
Really? Is that different for this time of year? Do you guys get that all in the afternoon, like I remember in the South?

00:03:07:15 - 00:03:21:09
Dr. Aaron Adams
No, we should be in our rainy season, but it's been dry. now we've got a tropical disturbance. Not a hurricane or anything, but just tropical weather. So it's been raining most of the time now for the past few days.

00:03:21:11 - 00:03:23:04
Mark Titus
Is that is that a welcome thing?

00:03:23:06 - 00:03:27:01
Dr. Aaron Adams
Very welcome. Because it's we were in a drought situation, so we'll take it.

00:03:27:03 - 00:03:46:14
Mark Titus
Excellent. Yeah. You know, at any time it's the same up here. I mean, we get some grousing about, it's raining and I'm like, man, bring it. I'll take this any day over. We're, you know, we are living in wildfire time now. It's every summer. I grew up here and it wasn't like that before, but it is now.

00:03:46:14 - 00:04:06:12
Mark Titus
It's like every summer. Here it comes. So yeah, I'll take the rain. Well, I am so excited to have you on this show. for a variety of reasons. I love, your backstory and how you got into the work you do, but it's not about me. I'd love for you to share that with our listeners. Tell us your story.

00:04:06:13 - 00:04:14:08
Mark Titus
How did you get into this beautiful work that you do that, I think is a perfect expression of saving the things we love?

00:04:14:09 - 00:04:38:01
Dr. Aaron Adams
I, I goes back to my parents. I think, I started fishing. I was probably four years old. there's pictures of me with a fishing rod and four years old and walking down a path to the to the water. so, yeah, that passion started really early. My dad and my uncle, were pretty good mentors in that sense.

00:04:38:03 - 00:05:07:03
Dr. Aaron Adams
something I think is kind of lacking for a lot of today's young anglers. Is that mentorship, of the older generations? and so that was very impactful. and then, I pretty quickly gravitated towards the science and the things. I remember fishing in a tidal creek on the, Western, shoreline of Chesapeake Bay. a place that my family used to go camping a lot.

00:05:07:05 - 00:05:30:03
Dr. Aaron Adams
and I'd go and first few times and that still kind of side channel. And I was catching all kinds of sunfish and. And then one time I went back and it was dry. There was no water. And I was astounded. And of course I was. The tide was out. and so I asked a lot of questions and just started trying to kind of figure out a lot of the whys.

00:05:30:05 - 00:06:07:00
Dr. Aaron Adams
so pretty early on, the mix of fishing and science, kind of started to ping off each other. so, yeah, that started a lot with freshwater fishing, but then growing up, in and then near Baltimore, near Chesapeake Bay, I spent a lot of time on the Bay. was really influential to, I mean, just experiencing the mix of the salt and freshwater worlds in an estuary the size of Chesapeake Bay is kind of hard to describe unless you experience it.

00:06:07:02 - 00:06:35:03
Dr. Aaron Adams
I mean, in a day, you could go from catching largemouth bass and sunfish or bluegill to striped bass, to bluefish, and and even to things like cobia. you know, all in all, easily all in a day, depending on where you are. and then, geez, I grew up eating blue crabs, steamed blue crabs, oysters, all those types of things.

00:06:35:05 - 00:07:03:20
Dr. Aaron Adams
they were just kind of, taken for granted, because they were so super abundant. but then as I grew up, the Chesapeake Bay, started to collapse psychologically. oysters, oyster fishery collapsed in part because of harvest, in part because of disease. the seagrasses started disappear. the striped bass fishery, what we call the Maryland rockfish.

00:07:03:22 - 00:07:27:13
Dr. Aaron Adams
that plummeted, bottomed out. so much so that they shut down the fishery entirely, for at least five years, in some cases longer. and then had some super great luck. at the same time that closure happened in that striped bass fishery, it came back pretty well. Over time, it took some time. and so that was pretty formative for me as well.

00:07:27:15 - 00:08:12:04
Dr. Aaron Adams
because I, you know, gotten to understand, of course, the passion for fishing. but then I got to understand a lot of the, ecology of the fish and their habitats, and then seeing the bay collapse. kind of drove me toward doing science to, apply to my management. Conservation. So not just satisfying the scientific curiosity, which has value in its own right, but making sure that that scientific curiosity actually fed into this incredibly large list of needs, from habitat management, conservation, all that types of things.

00:08:12:06 - 00:08:50:11
Dr. Aaron Adams
I mean, in many ways it's it's really no different than the, the, tragedy of the salmon, right? it's. Yeah, it's the conversation can pretty quickly get caught in a deep and dark hole. but I'm an optimist, and I fly fish, so I have to be an optimist. and then I would guess the later in career, addition to good mentors, kind of the what kind of sealed things for me is when I was in graduate school at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, I was tasked with putting together a seminar series, One Semester on Marine Conservation.

00:08:50:13 - 00:09:24:11
Dr. Aaron Adams
And so I invited, a number of amazing conservation scientists, all of whom were older than myself. the baby boom generation and despite as impactful as they were at the time, every single one of them said that they regretted not taking action earlier, thinking that, oh, we'll understand these things and it'll be okay. And then as they work through their careers, seeing things not be okay.

00:09:24:13 - 00:09:39:00
Dr. Aaron Adams
and so that kind of kind of took me up to the next level of making sure that the work that I did applied to not letting things get so bad, but that, and to actually improving and where they can.

00:09:39:01 - 00:10:08:18
Mark Titus
So I'm hearing there was, a lot of personal observation and then personal feeling in this. And of course, as a scientist, you need to be objective and to gather data. And it's not it's not necessarily the the portal for emotional, response, but it sounds to me like it did come at least the impetus to go down this trail came from an emotional response.

00:10:08:20 - 00:10:10:09
Mark Titus
Is that accurate?

00:10:10:11 - 00:10:44:02
Dr. Aaron Adams
For sure. the passion that is comes from the fishing. But the science is what drives me. And, you know, my career choice. and I think the science can and can be done and is done by myself and others with that objectivity. but that doesn't mean that it has to be divorced from the passion needed to get that objective science applied to conservation, right?

00:10:44:05 - 00:11:27:13
Dr. Aaron Adams
The I mean, you know very well the process of conservation and policy is ugly. It's, it's not direct. it's not clean. there's a lot of, people treating others badly. and so you have to have that passion to work through all of that murkiness after the science has been done. so, yeah, it's I don't see it as a, as a conflict at all to be able to be objective as a scientist, but also willing to put on a different that.

00:11:27:15 - 00:11:52:07
Dr. Aaron Adams
and have the passion of being part of the system to make sure that it's applied and understood. That's great. I mean, I think a great thing that you do is you take a lot of that science or talk to scientists, and get their input, and then you apply the passion, which is fantastic. for that to happen.

00:11:52:09 - 00:12:14:10
Dr. Aaron Adams
But I think that more and more scientists are, moving away from the standard, academic, position of being one step removed from and that kind of involvement, and seeing the value and having those two different hats.

00:12:14:12 - 00:12:44:06
Mark Titus
I love spending time with scientists like you and, Ted, to your friends who are scientists, and I love, sense of humor and, and the just the raw dedication to me is something that just blows my mind all the time. Like, I think I'm, I'm not officially diagnosed, but I think I am ADHD, and I think I'm way too just all over the map to have that discipline.

00:12:44:07 - 00:13:09:13
Mark Titus
But what we talk about a lot is that very thing of like translating these sets of data into meaningful storytelling. And, and I think it's it's a fit and a partnership that I absolutely love. So thanks for saying that that, that that's awesome. That means a lot. I want to we're going to dive into more about policy and about your work here.

00:13:09:13 - 00:13:37:15
Mark Titus
But, to set the table for our listeners, most of us listening are West Coasters, which is why it was so exciting to me to get the opportunity to talk to you. And, you know, we're, we're into salmon and trout and such and paint us a landscape. Why tarpon? Why bonefish? I fished for bonefish when I went to Maui last with my wife, and I went out with a guide, and I actually got a shot at at bonefish.

00:13:37:15 - 00:14:01:13
Mark Titus
The the guide was gasping because he said it would could have been a record. And of course, that bonefish came up and took one look at my offering and then headed for Japan. you know, that was it. That was my one shot. So. But like, the whole picture. Let's geek out. What is their ecosystem like? What are they like as a species and what are they like as a game fish, you know, permission to dork out obnoxiously as a fly fisherman?

00:14:01:13 - 00:14:02:15
Mark Titus
Granted.

00:14:02:17 - 00:14:05:06
Dr. Aaron Adams
Okay. God, where do we start?

00:14:05:08 - 00:14:05:21
Mark Titus
Yeah, I know.

00:14:06:02 - 00:14:08:11
Dr. Aaron Adams
I feel like talking about the origins of life itself.

00:14:08:15 - 00:14:09:12
Mark Titus
That's right.

00:14:09:14 - 00:14:30:13
Dr. Aaron Adams
Well, I mean, it can start with tarpon, because I'm, gearing up to go tarpon fishing this weekend. it's an old haunts. they've been around for 100 million years in the form that they're in now. and they're still doing the same thing that they were doing back then. and doing it really well. Wow.

00:14:30:18 - 00:14:58:20
Dr. Aaron Adams
So you're basically fishing for dinosaurs. which just is kind of, you know, from a, from a many different perspectives is kind of mind blowing. You know, a lot of the fish we have nowadays are much more recently evolved. but tarpon have been doing it this way for, yeah, over 100 million years. the site fishing aspect is hard to describe until you experience it.

00:14:58:22 - 00:15:21:11
Dr. Aaron Adams
so stay efficient for trout. and you're a dry fly enthusiast. it's very similar to that in many respects. You have to see the trout. You know, depending on the water, he might be able to walk along a, you know, a stream, spring fed stream, very clear and actually see the trout and then back off and cast, etc..

00:15:21:11 - 00:15:45:23
Dr. Aaron Adams
So it's got those kinds of aspects. the casting, accuracy. And it's important. Right? You have to you have to see the fish. once you see the fish, you have to make the cast. and as you saw with the bonefish, even if you make the cast, they could, you know, flip you off anyway.

00:15:46:00 - 00:15:47:18
Mark Titus
Exactly.

00:15:47:20 - 00:16:14:09
Dr. Aaron Adams
especially older fish that have seen it all before. Yeah. so that to me, it's, the visual nature of flat fishing. is the is probably the top draw. when I have gone, trout fishing or salmon fishing, the big draw for me is the landscape. So floating a river, say, in Montana or or Wyoming or whatnot.

00:16:14:11 - 00:16:42:13
Dr. Aaron Adams
I spend as much time looking around at the canyons and everything else. as I do the fishing. it's that landscape when you're in the tropics and you're fishing for bonefish, tarpon, permits, snook, you name it. There's a visual aspect which I described, not especially eloquently, but there's the all the different, visual and inputs.

00:16:42:15 - 00:17:06:01
Dr. Aaron Adams
so you have to process so much. if, if you're waiting or you're on the balance, if it doesn't really matter, the water is always moving. The fish are always moving as you move. The bottom is always changing from sand or seagrass to maybe algae or to rocky. you could be fishing along a mangrove shoreline. That provides a different aspect.

00:17:06:02 - 00:17:29:23
Dr. Aaron Adams
It could be fishing along a sand ridge or a drop off. there's just kind of an overwhelming amount of visual stimulation that you have to process. And you have to process that in a way that allows you to focus on number one. Seeing the fish. and that sounds easy, but God is not.

00:17:30:01 - 00:17:34:14
Mark Titus
no, it's not like people definitely agree.

00:17:34:16 - 00:17:43:13
Dr. Aaron Adams
When people first go bone fishing, for example. when I call bone fish the gateway drug, I. Okay. Right. Because I've the three, they're the easiest.

00:17:43:15 - 00:17:44:09
Mark Titus
Oh, God.

00:17:44:11 - 00:17:46:01
Dr. Aaron Adams
And that's alright, man.

00:17:46:02 - 00:17:46:13
Mark Titus
Yeah.

00:17:46:18 - 00:17:48:00
Dr. Aaron Adams
That's all relative. Got a.

00:17:48:00 - 00:17:49:21
Mark Titus
Lot. A lot of steep learning curve.

00:17:50:03 - 00:18:22:18
Dr. Aaron Adams
Yeah. you know, bone fish with their silvery reflective scales. Ability to change color somewhat. They can be pretty much invisible. And so you your brain has to develop an image recognition. so I'll never forget that first bonefish that my brain caught by that image. Recognition. It was a white sand flat. It was the British Virgin Islands, British Virgin Islands, on the island of Antigua.

00:18:22:20 - 00:18:55:20
Dr. Aaron Adams
the whole south side is just one big sand flat. And in hindsight, I know what happened. But my brain saw the fish. I automatically started to cast a cast that the fisherman caught it. And in hindsight, what my brain had seen it processed was the eye of the fish. Right. Because that was different. It stood out as a different structure than the sand, flat and algae and all the other things that the body was reflecting.

00:18:55:22 - 00:19:24:16
Dr. Aaron Adams
and so there's, yeah, there's a big learning curve. of being on the water enough to see those things that are different. You don't always see the fish. You might see a shadow. You might see, like, for permit. they have, like, a black edge on their, on their dorsal fin or that over their tail. for tarpon sometimes, you see, it's almost like, you're watching the matrix movie.

00:19:24:18 - 00:19:34:15
Dr. Aaron Adams
You know, the there's a seagrass bed or there's a bottom, but there's a piece of that bottom that looks like it's been digitally changed.

00:19:34:16 - 00:19:35:21
Mark Titus
and so cool.

00:19:35:23 - 00:19:57:20
Dr. Aaron Adams
Yeah. Those are the things that that that you're looking for. So. And you're looking for those, as I said, in a mix of overwhelming visual stimuli of all the things. And then of course, it gets windy. It's always windy. It might be sunny or it might have clouds come across. All of a sudden there's shade, right? there might be tide or might be wind.

00:19:57:22 - 00:20:23:02
Dr. Aaron Adams
waves. yeah. So it's. It's. You almost have to be in a, somewhat of a Zen type of state to be able to have that focus. And you can't maintain that all day. You just can't. And so if you're fishing with somebody, say, on a flat skiff and it's kind of slow, then you start to chat.

00:20:23:04 - 00:20:41:05
Dr. Aaron Adams
that's when you miss the fish. Fish. You come by and you miss them because you've kind of lost that focus, that concentration. so, yeah, it's a very. Yeah. I mean, you have to have that drive to kind of go through and and pursue all that.

00:20:41:07 - 00:20:52:20
Mark Titus
It's from the little. I've done it. I see everything you're saying. And why is a little different in Maui? it's not sand flats. It's it's kind of rocky structure.

00:20:52:20 - 00:20:54:05
Dr. Aaron Adams
So right over it.

00:20:54:06 - 00:21:24:05
Mark Titus
Yeah. It's. Yeah. Exactly. Old reef. So it's flat, but, you've got a little bit even more kind of camouflage to, to deal with. And, the guide I was with is like, look for the green sprite bottle, the hovering green spray bottle. And I'm like, what are you talking about? And and I remember same as you. You know, you keyed in on on the I but I remember like this sort of luminescent just greenness that just appeared.

00:21:24:05 - 00:21:51:21
Mark Titus
And I was like, oh my God. After three hours of searching. Yeah. Intently focusing. There it is. It just appeared. And it was it was kind of like you say, a Zen sort of letting go more than it was. My I keenly spotted that, you know, it was a letting go. And there it appeared. And, I mean, I, I love it if I was near that structure, I would be fishing every moment I could.

00:21:51:23 - 00:21:52:04
Mark Titus
yeah.

00:21:52:05 - 00:22:26:09
Dr. Aaron Adams
And Hawaii bonefish are have a different appearance than the Caribbean bonefish. they tend to have that greener hue to them, that brighter, greener hue than Caribbean bonefish. and they tend to be a bit longer. kind of a long dated. So in the Caribbean, what they often most look like is a barracuda. Okay. When I was, when I fished in Hawaii, I kind of forced my my mind to think about looking for a barracuda because it's a, it's a more similar shape and image type of recognition type of thing.

00:22:26:11 - 00:22:32:21
Dr. Aaron Adams
and that's the one of the beauty of, of being with a guy, is they know all those local nuances.

00:22:32:23 - 00:22:33:14
Mark Titus
That's right.

00:22:33:15 - 00:22:41:13
Dr. Aaron Adams
Right. So if you fish in a, in a stream in Montana versus one in Wyoming versus one in Northern California, etc., there's going to be different nuances.

00:22:41:15 - 00:22:42:04
Mark Titus
Of course.

00:22:42:04 - 00:22:52:20
Dr. Aaron Adams
And a good angler will be able to cut through a lot of that learning curve. But those that that final piece. Right. The final ten feet, is that local knowledge for sure?

00:22:53:01 - 00:23:14:08
Mark Titus
Oh for sure. What about tarpon? Like what? Walk me through a little of that experience that it's when I don't have my dad. my dad passed in in the autumn of last year, but he before he did, he he, gave me all of his tarpon flies. He had been, on a on a sailboat in, Belize.

00:23:14:08 - 00:23:34:03
Mark Titus
And of all the guys on the boat, he was obsessed. And he he caught a tarpon on a fly off the sailboat, and he said it was one of the great experiences of his entire life. Tell me, tell me if we're starting with the gateway drag with bonefish. Give me a little escalation here with tarpon.

00:23:34:06 - 00:24:00:18
Dr. Aaron Adams
Okay. So tarpon. there's different ways to fish for them. you can go out at the crack of dawn. when it tends to be calm. the the sun's not even up yet. I mean, launching at dawn, you see the sun up. You're already out there. It's hard to see. Kind of still dark. And a lot of times tarpon, they'll kind of lay up or hang out overnight, and then they'll start to, come to the surface and gulp air.

00:24:00:20 - 00:24:20:07
Dr. Aaron Adams
So tarpon are different than most other fish in that they're they're air bladders modified. So that's similar to a lung. So they can actually gulp air at the surface. and process that oxygen the same way that, that we would through our lungs. So it kind of helps them augment the oxygen to get through their gills like other fish.

00:24:20:09 - 00:24:44:03
Dr. Aaron Adams
They don't have to do that to get enough oxygen. but it augments for sure. and I think it's also, some kind of, behavioral communication type of thing. so if you go out for the Dawn patrol, you're looking for those rollers and you see a roller come up. it's more like, you know, similar to porpoises.

00:24:44:04 - 00:25:01:00
Dr. Aaron Adams
you might see a porpoise do their head. Their mouth comes up first. if you're close enough, you can actually hear mixed spell and then take in some air. and then the rest of their body kind of rolls, rolls through that. You see that? And you cast a few feet ahead of that roll and try and intercept intercept them.

00:25:01:02 - 00:25:18:08
Dr. Aaron Adams
And that's that's fine because it's sight fishing. everything's so calm on the best mornings. It's, yeah. That time of day for me is when it that first glow of dawn is just coming, and it's slick, calm, and there's tarpon rolling. I mean, I get chills just talking about it.

00:25:18:09 - 00:25:25:23
Mark Titus
You've painted a beautiful picture. I'm right there with you, and I want to go out fishing right now. Yeah.

00:25:26:01 - 00:25:51:07
Dr. Aaron Adams
Then later in the day, once the sun comes up, say, 9:00 or so, and then you can start site fishing for the fish swimming in the water. there's a few ways to do that. The most common are, to be on the, let's call the ocean side versus the bay side of where you might be. And it's finding, Lane where the tarpon are swimming, and they might be in singles or pairs or long way call strings, a school of maybe 30 or so.

00:25:51:07 - 00:26:10:23
Dr. Aaron Adams
It would be strung out, you know, nose to tail. kind of like you might see an elephant sometimes, traveling, so you can set yourself up. And this is kind of a local knowledge of some of those movement pathways. a ridge or sand bank or something like that. and and fish for them that way.

00:26:10:23 - 00:26:29:06
Dr. Aaron Adams
So that's side fishing. They'll roll when they're doing that. But most you're looking for those fish that are swimming. and they'll be anywhere from a bright silver to kind of an aqua green to almost like a brown on top. and so learning those different patterns for that, it's, you see the fish coming, it's making the cast.

00:26:29:08 - 00:26:52:19
Dr. Aaron Adams
to get it in front of the fish without spooking them. and then, you know, just kind of manipulating the fly in a way that gets them to bite. and that takes a lot of. I mean, sometimes luck is important, too, but, yeah, it takes a lot of skill. and a better anglers are really good at knowing what it takes to feed those fish.

00:26:52:21 - 00:26:53:22
Dr. Aaron Adams
but.

00:26:54:00 - 00:27:02:22
Mark Titus
yeah, in my case, plenty of luck would be necessary. And what, what type of flies are you using for these guys?

00:27:02:23 - 00:27:31:12
Dr. Aaron Adams
it all depends on the situation. in places where tarpon haven't been, heavily pressured, I'll use flies that are pretty big. something like that. I was at about five inches. and places where tarpon have been pretty pressured. it'll be flies that are much smaller. just a, you know, maybe three inches long, sometimes even smaller than which you see that in trout fishing as well, right.

00:27:31:14 - 00:27:57:18
Dr. Aaron Adams
the more pressured they are, the more picky they forget. And the smaller the flies. and then trying to figure out, what their prey they're going to be most interested in and where they are, how they're behaving, what the conditions have been. yeah. And that's kind of where a lot for me, a lot of the science comes back in is, trying to access all that type of information.

00:27:57:18 - 00:28:02:00
Dr. Aaron Adams
I mean, you get into the zen of it, it's like learning to think like a fish.

00:28:02:02 - 00:28:02:15
Mark Titus
That's right.

00:28:02:18 - 00:28:16:01
Dr. Aaron Adams
Right. They don't think they're just they're they're at. That's what they are. That's what they do. but being able to try and figure that out, is, is a huge, huge part of their game for sure.

00:28:16:03 - 00:28:25:21
Mark Titus
Well, that's a wonderful segue. let's dive right into it. Bonefish and Tarpon Trust was formed in 1998. Why?

00:28:25:23 - 00:28:53:23
Dr. Aaron Adams
a bunch of anglers and fishing guides in the Florida Keys, saw a decline and bonefish and tarpon numbers, during that time and were concerned about it. They pretty quickly learned they started as bonefish Tarpon unlimited. Basically, their founding members threw a money and a hat and tried to start funding some some stuff. They pretty quickly learned that there was very little known scientifically about bonefish or tarpon.

00:28:54:01 - 00:29:18:17
Dr. Aaron Adams
and a few years later, added permit and even less known about them. and so they started out as bonefish Tarpon unlimited thinking along the lines of Trout Unlimited, you know, advocating for conservation, but without any science. What do you advocate for? So, pretty quickly evolved to become, bonefish Tarpon trust by officially by 2009.

00:29:18:19 - 00:29:51:14
Dr. Aaron Adams
but well, prior to that a science based conservation organization. so for me, as a conservation focused scientist is pretty unique because for a number of reasons. One, it's science based conservation, some other groups, and there's needs for all different kinds of groups have advocacy positions. and they might need science to support those. And so they'll fund science or work with others who might do the science.

00:29:51:16 - 00:30:26:14
Dr. Aaron Adams
What we do is, we work with, resource management agencies. We work with anglers. guides and anglers. and then our own scientists to assess the status of knowledge. the knowledge gaps, and management needs and threats, of course, conservation threats. And we use that to prioritize the type of information that is, needed, most needed in order to inform management.

00:30:26:16 - 00:31:00:00
Dr. Aaron Adams
And that's the type of resource that we conduct or fund others to conduct. And so it's a very integrated process with the fishing community. countless hours on the water. They know a lot, right? and so that's that's just absolutely essential. Working closely with the resource management agencies is important because what we don't want to do is what's called hopeful science, where a scientist applies for a grant to do some cool research, does the research, and then kind of hopes the results apply to management.

00:31:00:02 - 00:31:22:10
Dr. Aaron Adams
and I used to be guilty of this many years ago. a lot of what scientists do is they do the research and then, the big way that we're evaluated at academic institutions is we have to publish that research in scientific journals. and so as part of those research articles will summarize the research of why it was done and then the results.

00:31:22:12 - 00:31:48:01
Dr. Aaron Adams
And then at the end, we might do a little bit of hand-waving saying, oh, and this can apply to management because, that's hopeful science. Got it. that's different than doing directed science that is aimed to address a specific question with a known management application. You still don't know the answer, or you would have to do the research, but it's it's yeah, it's it's kind of a little bit of a different approach.

00:31:48:01 - 00:31:50:20
Dr. Aaron Adams
And so that's super rewarding as well.

00:31:50:22 - 00:32:14:06
Mark Titus
Well let's dive into that a moment. What's that direct approach? What what are we talking about? and I know this is voluminous but to to really kind of get a high level look at this for our listeners. What is what are the attributes that you're looking at. that are under threat and that you're addressing with your direct science?

00:32:14:08 - 00:32:17:23
Dr. Aaron Adams
yeah. That is there's it's kind of a how much time you have.

00:32:18:01 - 00:32:18:18
Mark Titus
I know it's huge.

00:32:18:18 - 00:32:43:08
Dr. Aaron Adams
So I'll, I'll pick one. since you're talking about bonefish, in the Bahamas, bonefish are catch and release only. except for, Bahamians are allowed to keep, going fish. They catch with hook and line, you know, for consumption, individual personal consumption. so there's no commercial fishery, there's no netting or any of that stuff that would lead to overfishing.

00:32:43:10 - 00:33:25:12
Dr. Aaron Adams
So the biggest concern there is habitat loss. and so we worked with fishing guides, to identify the movement patterns and habitat use for bonefish. That included figuring out where bonefish spawn. So we know from doing a lot of tagging of fish and recaptures and tracking that, adult bonefish have a pretty small home range. but then they'll migrate 70 to 80 or more miles to get to a, what we call pre spawning aggregation location, which is typically a bay, deep ish bay, protected from, seasonal winds.

00:33:25:13 - 00:33:44:17
Dr. Aaron Adams
They spawn during the winter, but near deep water drop off because they go off shore and go down about 400 or so feet in order to spawn. Wow. Right. And then they come back up and they go home. most of us will come out of a shopping center. Can't find where we parked a car. These fish can do all that and that.

00:33:44:19 - 00:34:09:12
Dr. Aaron Adams
Right. So we were addressing the need for habitat conservation. worked with Bahamas National Trust, which is kind of their version of the National Park Service to put those locations that we'd identify as home ranges and also spawning locations. and trying to get those a national parks or other types of protected areas. So we knew the need for habitat information and then, yeah, we're work from there.

00:34:09:14 - 00:34:18:08
Mark Titus
So you're dealing with many agencies and governments and across across the spectrum here.

00:34:18:10 - 00:34:43:16
Dr. Aaron Adams
yeah. where we work? Bahamas, Cuba. Belize, Mexico. Florida. Of course. All the states say from probably migrate regularly as far as Chesapeake Bay on the East Coast and around the Gulf of Mexico. Mexico. yeah, a lot of different places. we're doing a lot of work now in Belize to try and focus on habitat, for example.

00:34:43:18 - 00:34:56:16
Dr. Aaron Adams
and all those require, interactions with the fishing community. as well as the various resource management agencies and governments and policy and all that kind of stuff.

00:34:56:18 - 00:35:12:09
Mark Titus
I might guess that dealing with the fishing community is a little bit easier and a little bit more fun than dealing with red tape with bureaucracy.

00:35:12:11 - 00:35:41:04
Mark Titus
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00:36:24:13 - 00:36:50:12
Mark Titus
I want to dial in on that though. I was a guide for over a decade in Alaska, and I love that life. it's a huge part of what you do. And how important is that interaction with sport fishing guides? And where did you personally learn that art of interacting with guides and captains to help in the work that you're doing as a scientist?

00:36:50:14 - 00:37:13:21
Dr. Aaron Adams
well, I mean, I've been doing it for a long time, but I'm still, still learning. I mean, if you're not if you're not learning something every day, then you should probably be doing something else. but yeah, it's essential. I mean, it's it's it's a requirement. It's essential. What other words? because they're the ones who are on the water every day.

00:37:13:23 - 00:37:39:18
Dr. Aaron Adams
They see everything. and so they're seeing the threats, seeing changes in the fishery, all the different, all those different aspects from on the water, but also, it's a back and forth, you know, helping to work with them to develop a longer term vision of not just next year or next week or five years from now, but ten years from now.

00:37:39:18 - 00:38:09:07
Dr. Aaron Adams
What, you know, what do you want this to look like? What are the threats that might be coming? you know, is there going to be more boat traffic or are we going to be overrun by jet skis? those types of things. but also using, you know, if you take a purely science perspective, the information that a lot of guides have, is fantastic for setting up, the framework or design of some research to test predictions and make hypotheses.

00:38:09:09 - 00:38:41:17
Dr. Aaron Adams
but or you might have scientific hypotheses that you work with the guides to refine or to test. So there has to be that and all of that back and forth. yeah. Where did I first learn that? when I was young, my dad, was doing a lot of sociological research. he still helped in the infancy, for example, setting up, some drug rehab, clinics and doing a lot of the street research work, in Baltimore.

00:38:41:19 - 00:39:11:00
Dr. Aaron Adams
and so pretty early on, the importance of that type of communication to me was I could see that as important. And my mom was a like a kindergarten teacher. So there's, there's that was kind of ingrained in me a long time ago. And then just as I came through the, the, you know, the world of becoming a marine biologist, seeing the differences in the difference in results.

00:39:11:02 - 00:39:40:10
Dr. Aaron Adams
colleagues or mentors who developed relationships with fishing communities versus those who kind of stayed away and might show up for occasional meeting but didn't have those relationships. yeah. So it did become after a while, that kind of comes in grain, right? Is that type of communication back and forth? But it's essential. the other thing too, is, you can't introduce yourself a second time.

00:39:40:12 - 00:40:00:23
Dr. Aaron Adams
so you have to have your act together before you go in and want to work with, whether it's anglers or scientists or anybody else. and so it's important to do your, your background research and kind of figure some things out. So at least you can, have a good conversation.

00:40:01:01 - 00:40:23:23
Mark Titus
so absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I would imagine hearing you talk about this, that, that the work output with folks that do have those relationships like you were describing versus folks that just kind of show up once in a while to the required meetings. I bet it's it's a stark contrast.

00:40:24:01 - 00:40:48:21
Dr. Aaron Adams
Yeah. It is. There's a term, some guys from Puerto Rico. a fishing community. the conference I went to last year. The term they used was helicopter science. Other people said parachute science. Where a scientist might come in, kind of introduce themselves to community, have a project they want to do, develop some relationships for that project over.

00:40:48:22 - 00:41:22:18
Dr. Aaron Adams
They leave. And that's it. and that doesn't mean that good research isn't being done. it, it often or even usually is. It's that that is that the, the relationship to the community that lives with or relies on those resources. isn't isn't complete. It's not continued. So the kind of stuff that we're talking about is based on long term relationships.

00:41:22:20 - 00:41:50:14
Dr. Aaron Adams
There's not just a one off. right. Because you have to build the trust in the first place to be able to have a communication. but you also have to be able to have that information exchange and back and forth over the long term, because none of this is static. There's it's dynamic. It's always changing. so the scientific output can still be solid on either approach, but the applicability of that and the integration of that, differs.

00:41:50:19 - 00:41:53:07
Dr. Aaron Adams
Yeah. Dramatic for sure.

00:41:53:09 - 00:42:20:01
Mark Titus
I have an example of that, too. In my life as a storyteller, it's it's the same it's the same paradigm of, whether you, you know, just helicopter in use that term to a location, you're going to film with different characters, different subjects of a documentary versus spending time there, going to people's homes, having meals together. it it's a completely different animal.

00:42:20:04 - 00:42:55:17
Mark Titus
I mean, it just is. you may get good footage just sort of flying in and flying out, but you're there's there's an edge to it. There's a, maybe that's a softening. Actually, it's a softening of that edge. I think that is is nuanced and subtle, but very, very real and perceptible on screen. And most importantly, I'm missing out if I'm if I'm just in and out, I don't I'm I'm taking that benefit of that gift of that human interaction, a new a new friendship and a new experience.

00:42:55:17 - 00:43:00:19
Mark Titus
And, so that's really validating and a cool thing to hear about your work.

00:43:00:21 - 00:43:18:04
Dr. Aaron Adams
And you might also you're not going to tell the same story. You're not going to have the depth if you fly and do the story and leave, there's going to be things that you miss. You might be telling a completely different story. It's like, you know, let's say you're working on a on a storyboard or you're working on a book.

00:43:18:06 - 00:43:44:01
Dr. Aaron Adams
the first draft is never what ends up right on screen or or in print. and oftentimes we're actually ends up there is is a completely different beast. because of that depth. and so when it comes to doing work that effects people's livelihoods, you know, that's even more, that's even more responsibility. Oh, yeah.

00:43:44:02 - 00:44:13:08
Dr. Aaron Adams
And so it's. Kind of going back to your original questions about how I got into all this kind of like story. trying to describe to people you know, how this works. what, what this means, etc., is I used to talk about it being a lifestyle. You know, the the fishing, the research, the the cultural interactions, surfing, all that kind of stuff.

00:44:13:08 - 00:44:37:23
Dr. Aaron Adams
All the water. Right? All the water centric things. But it's not a lifestyle. It's a way of living. And that's a difference. A lifestyle is something that you do. Way of living is who and what you are. Yeah. And how you interact with other people. And when you can kind of transcend that from that sort of superficial to the more ingrained level.

00:44:38:01 - 00:44:56:02
Dr. Aaron Adams
then I think it's it's more fulfilling for for me, of course, but also for the people that, that I and colleagues work with. because there's that common, intellectual and emotional connection. yeah. So it's yeah, it's a it's a way of living.

00:44:56:03 - 00:44:56:22
Mark Titus
that's so great.

00:44:56:22 - 00:44:57:16
Dr. Aaron Adams
Different now.

00:44:57:20 - 00:45:25:20
Mark Titus
It's so great. I love that. And, And you, you have, you've got some hours put in now, over the years. Tell us about what you've observed. in terms of habitat changing, climate change and even habitat devastation, with, of course, the central lens of, bonefish, tarpon and permit and, and other fish species.

00:45:25:22 - 00:45:29:04
Dr. Aaron Adams
Okay. It's kind of it could get pretty dark.

00:45:29:06 - 00:45:32:09
Mark Titus
That's okay. But we we don't shy away from that on this show. Okay.

00:45:32:10 - 00:45:38:20
Dr. Aaron Adams
I got I'm going to I'm going to start. I think it can get pretty dark, but I think there's also some light at the end of the tunnel.

00:45:38:22 - 00:45:40:19
Mark Titus
Good. I figured.

00:45:40:21 - 00:46:13:13
Dr. Aaron Adams
Yeah. So. And one more step back. Bonefish. Tarpon permit. are the focus for bonefish Tarpon Trust from a conservation and science perspective. They give us a good testing ground for conceptual models for general conservation. And that's because there's no commercial fishery for those species. So we don't have all those politics that go with salmon or red snapper or whatever the case may be for species that are overfished or there's allocation issues or whatever the case may be.

00:46:13:15 - 00:46:40:00
Dr. Aaron Adams
And so we can use these species to kind of focus on that habitat based approach to, to all of this and a culturally based approach. And then and then hopefully have some of that, and it is being applied by others and other fisheries. so kind of proving ground. but as far as what I've seen, It yeah, it's, there's good and there's bad.

00:46:40:00 - 00:47:08:02
Dr. Aaron Adams
There's a hell of a lot of bad. Yeah. Where I live now, near Melbourne, Florida, Indian River lagoon on the east coast of Florida. it's an absolute mess. pretty much all the seagrass is gone. I'd say 90%, because of water quality issues. I mean, I can pull my skiff a solid eight miles from the closest inlet along these flats and not see a blade of seagrass.

00:47:08:04 - 00:47:35:03
Dr. Aaron Adams
Wow. There used to be solid seagrass. said Chesapeake Bay growing up. That was pretty humbling. it took them. It's taken them 40 years or so, but they're getting some good results from a lot of a lot of concerted efforts. Belize is having, a lot of major challenges with coastal development, some of it legal, some of it not.

00:47:35:05 - 00:48:09:00
Dr. Aaron Adams
that can be challenging because, you know, police need jobs, but mass tourism doesn't bring good quality jobs. That doesn't bring, cultural support. It brings typically cultural wastelands. you know, because. Yeah. So there's, there's, there's a lot of, push and pull, trying to similar to what people have been trying to do is salmon is thinking of long term consistent, sustainable use of the resource.

00:48:09:01 - 00:48:17:13
Dr. Aaron Adams
In contrast to our current version of, you know, a Western view of infinite growth.

00:48:17:15 - 00:48:18:13
Mark Titus
Right.

00:48:18:15 - 00:48:44:07
Dr. Aaron Adams
And there's no such thing as infinite growth on a finite planet. That's right. so at some point we either learn to live sustainably or, or I mean, it's in our it's great. It's saying if you don't get this understood quickly kiss humans goodbye. he says it more eloquently than I do. so, yeah, it's I see a lot of habitat loss, a lot of habitat destruction.

00:48:44:09 - 00:49:19:21
Dr. Aaron Adams
The biggest concern for me in a lot of places is water quality decline. Too many nutrients, you know, pollutants going into the water, causing these massive plankton blooms that cause fish kills and kills seagrass. loss of fisheries. I mean, Indian River lagoon right now, the red redfish red drum fishery is closed, even though it was already only recreational, not commercial, but it was closed totally close to harvest now because population crashed due to habitat loss and water quality declines, not because of fishing pressure.

00:49:19:23 - 00:49:50:14
Dr. Aaron Adams
that's pretty damn depressing, right? if you go into the tropics, the coral bleaching is absolutely overwhelming and indescribable. any pictures? Videos you see, you don't really understand. unless you've seen what live reef look like. And then you go back to the same ones and you see what they look like. Now it's, Yeah, I've had colleagues, you know, break down, I see that.

00:49:50:16 - 00:50:11:07
Dr. Aaron Adams
So that's, you know, it's mostly climate change, but pollution as well. so, yeah, it can get pretty damn depressing. one of the things that people don't understand is it's not just climate change. It's not just habitat loss. It's not just water quality. It's not just new dams breaking up river flows. It's the combination of all of those.

00:50:11:09 - 00:50:39:18
Dr. Aaron Adams
They all interact with one another. And if you had healthy habitats and clean water systems are much more likely to be able to adapt to climate change. to limits of course. But since there aren't that many places that have natural, healthy, functioning ecosystems, they're less capable of responding in a positive way to what's going on with climate change.

00:50:39:19 - 00:51:05:08
Dr. Aaron Adams
That's pretty damn depressing. The light at the end of the tunnel is that we know what the problems are, right? It's not like we don't know the cause of all this stuff. We know every single car. So I think of it for if I was a, say, a cancer doctor, and I have a patient come in and they've got cancer, but we have no idea what type of cancer, how to treat it.

00:51:05:08 - 00:51:36:02
Dr. Aaron Adams
Right. That's that's horrific. But now the cancer research has come along so far. Most cancers are at least identifiable and more and more of them are treatable. So some cancers are, you know, terminal. But the the portion that are relative to, say, 30 years ago is drastically different. So if we were to think of ourselves as cancer doctors, we have all those tools, every single one of those tools.

00:51:36:04 - 00:51:59:17
Dr. Aaron Adams
And the problem is that our policymakers aren't applying the tools. They're allowing the cancer to spread. Even though we have the tools. But it's not just the policymakers, it's us. And so, to me, the big light in the tunnel is I have have people ask me all the time, what can I do?

00:51:59:18 - 00:52:00:11
Mark Titus
Yeah, exactly.

00:52:00:11 - 00:52:22:13
Dr. Aaron Adams
And my response is, look in the mirror because you're the only one who can have the solution. If we start, we're in a democracy. If we start voting on these types of issues as being important, these issues will be fixed. If we start living our own lives in ways that reduce these type of impacts, that will help fix them.

00:52:22:15 - 00:52:48:04
Dr. Aaron Adams
so yeah, there's a lot of, self-reflection and all of that. and that's not that's often not well received. but yeah, there's a lot of ways we can do it individually, but the scale that we're working on right now requires, you know, full government action, to basically. But it's also a lifestyle change. Everything we do, it's a lifestyle change, for sure.

00:52:48:06 - 00:53:13:16
Mark Titus
I couldn't agree with you more. And that is going to be a central, if not the central theme in my upcoming third and final film in my salmon trilogy. the turn about that look in the mirror, the deep look in the mirror. Because I don't I don't believe systems change is possible without change from within and on the individual level first.

00:53:13:18 - 00:53:36:12
Mark Titus
So, good on you. another piece I found as a light on the horizon is the work you all are doing with young people. You have a program dedicated with young people. How important is that? And how does it make you feel seeing young people get involved in your work?

00:53:36:14 - 00:53:59:12
Dr. Aaron Adams
it's extremely important, for many reasons. one of which is having a conversation with a colleague the other day. when kids learn at school about all this stuff, oftentimes they'll go home and they'll they might ask their parents, why are you spreading fertilizer on the lawn? Or and then the question becomes, why do we even have a lawn?

00:53:59:14 - 00:54:00:05
Mark Titus
There you go.

00:54:00:07 - 00:54:29:15
Dr. Aaron Adams
so that's that's one kind of, immediate, but learning young, kind of like I did, and others, that helps to create that way of living that is going to be required for, as you said, and kind of a complete change and, and, and how we, we do things. so having that type of relationship with the younger people is a big part of that.

00:54:29:17 - 00:54:59:13
Dr. Aaron Adams
so like in the Bahamas, for example, we're doing a lot of mangrove restoration, because Hurricane Dorian, destroyed just tens of square miles of mangroves. a large part of that is including school groups. And and so it's not at all, just the Bahamas. It's common everywhere. But a lot of the kids didn't really have an understanding, a relationship with the ocean, with the flats, with the mangroves.

00:54:59:15 - 00:55:29:04
Dr. Aaron Adams
but incorporating them into all this and, working with Bahamas National Trust to create a school curriculum that that student that teachers could use in schools. that's making a big difference in a better general understanding of their relationship with the nature that's around, we're doing the same thing in Belize. with distributing, training manuals to teachers and materials to students around coastal Belize.

00:55:29:06 - 00:55:51:17
Dr. Aaron Adams
we've created a lesson plans that have been vetted for use in Florida school. and all of this, of course, is publicly available as much as we can get it out. You know, we have a conservation program where we have youth ambassadors, that, you know, just need to take it on to themselves to be good spokespeople for all this type of thing.

00:55:51:17 - 00:56:11:00
Dr. Aaron Adams
And that's important, if not essential, to having that lifestyle change. that we're going to really need to, to do, but also to do much more rapidly, to, to make the changes, all right. To, to stop the bad changes from happening.

00:56:11:02 - 00:57:00:13
Mark Titus
You know, you mentioned something early on that really struck me about, a dearth of mentorship. And, I see that, too. It's something that's really important to me. trying to carve time out. We're all busy. We're all working. faster and faster. but I have ten nieces and nephews, and, I'd like to be even better about carving time out, but that is one of the top, top, top priorities in my life to make time for those kids to be a mentor in some way, whether that's fishing or just being in the outdoors or, you know, learning how to to move through the world with some, some grace.

00:57:00:15 - 00:57:13:01
Mark Titus
do you, do you find a role for mentorship in your life and, and or is there a role in, in the organization as well? for that kind of mentorship?

00:57:13:03 - 00:57:32:00
Dr. Aaron Adams
organizationally, we don't have the capacity, unfortunately. we get inquiries about internships relatively frequently. we just don't have the personnel capacity to do it. Well. if you're going to be an organization that does that, you pretty much need someone who. That's their job.

00:57:32:03 - 00:57:33:06
Mark Titus
That's right.

00:57:33:08 - 00:57:56:23
Dr. Aaron Adams
and we just we we just. Yeah. We have a hard time keeping up. We can't keep up with all the stuff that we're trying to do, but it would be fantastic to do that. And and we're working to try and get more support for for education for sure. personally, not so much with kids, but with, say, graduate students.

00:57:57:01 - 00:57:59:22
Dr. Aaron Adams
young scientists. yeah. For sure.

00:58:00:00 - 00:58:01:05
Mark Titus
That's great.

00:58:01:06 - 00:58:35:16
Dr. Aaron Adams
I try and do a lot, one on one. I'll give some guest lectures. at universities where colleagues teach, one of the challenges in my mind. And I'm sure I'm going to get some emails after this, is I don't think our science education system in college and graduate school does a good job. Actually, I think we do a poor job of teaching communication.

00:58:35:18 - 00:59:05:11
Dr. Aaron Adams
so that scientists, they can go to a conference or talk to one another about different science projects. But as far as being able to share that, to communicate well with non-scientists, it's getting better, but overall it's pretty rare. And that's because our institutions don't teach it and they don't reward it. The for example, I've had positions at universities and this is not all, but most universities.

00:59:05:13 - 00:59:32:09
Dr. Aaron Adams
I was evaluated annually based on how much grant money I could bring in, how many, research articles I got published and, perhaps as many how many graduate students that I supported with that money. the work that I do, writing the books to translate science into fishermen's terms, writing articles and fishing magazines. the time spent on docs developing relationships.

00:59:32:10 - 01:00:00:10
Dr. Aaron Adams
none of that was rewarded. In fact. Very, very few. I can think of one. university systems even have a category for. Wait for that to be rewarded or even evaluated. and that, I think, is a huge problem. and so in my mind, as far as mentorship, that's where I can have the most influence.

01:00:00:12 - 01:00:29:17
Dr. Aaron Adams
in a positive way. yeah. It's it's where in many ways, we're still operating on a education and even a management system, resource management system based on a worldview from 60 or more years ago. and we're starting to change, but it's, it's paradigm shifts that we need. so, yeah, mentorship is hugely important, but we also need a system that supports that mentorship.

01:00:29:18 - 01:01:03:08
Mark Titus
Good on you. I don't have a thing to add. I think everything you said is is spot on. stories change. Hearts and hearts change policy. from a scientific perspective and capacity. we're all, as a society now, kind of grappling with AI and and what is this thing going to be? Is it going to benefit humankind and other, you know, more than humankind?

01:01:03:10 - 01:01:10:12
Mark Titus
or not? Is that playing a role in your work now at this point? And do you have an outlook on that?

01:01:10:14 - 01:01:52:07
Dr. Aaron Adams
not my work directly or personally. well, to the age of not learning as many new things like that, but collaborating with people who know those things. typically younger scientists, it's better to collaborate. yeah. I, in various ways, has been useful to figure out complex data. For example, figuring out, movement patterns of fish, the spawning and those types of things, or working to figure out some of the, complex relationships between things like water quality and habitat change and whatnot on fish behavior.

01:01:52:07 - 01:02:19:23
Dr. Aaron Adams
Those types of things, for sure. so I think I can, in its various, types and applications can be beneficial. But I also think that just because you get an answer doesn't mean it's a valid answer. and I think in many ways that many times we are not being critical of the answers that AI gives us.

01:02:20:01 - 01:03:02:11
Dr. Aaron Adams
And I think a lot of times that I've had some conversations with some, grad students about this recently. A lot of times those students don't have the background sounds that are make it sufficient for them to really evaluate the validity of the models. so that. Not spending spending more time learning, things like code and, other things to create AI models or to inform them or whatnot, rather than or not and rather than but in addition to, learning about the systems that they're working in.

01:03:02:13 - 01:03:26:19
Dr. Aaron Adams
and if you don't have that overall background knowledge, then you're more likely to accept answers that look good but aren't really the right answer. And in my mind, that's the biggest concern. and there have been a number of, research articles and, excuse me, the scientific literature that address this issue that have largely gone ignored, unfortunately.

01:03:26:21 - 01:03:41:18
Dr. Aaron Adams
so, yeah, that's my concern. There can definitely be good benefits and has helped us out already and others as well. but it's you have to have be trained well enough and have a strong enough background to know what's valid and what's not.

01:03:41:20 - 01:04:10:17
Mark Titus
Yeah, it kind of goes back to that, that discussion about showing up and extracting versus being present and and getting the entire scope of the work. right. I think that's brilliant. I have one more question for you. And then the bonus round. I always like to ask about this. and, I, I have a pretty clear idea about this, but I'm curious what your, your thinking is as an angler.

01:04:10:19 - 01:04:41:04
Mark Titus
given the the tribal and kind of siloed country that we live in right now. is in your experience, is angling one of those avenues that can sort of get us all at the same table together? And if so, have you observed that? And are there others that you feel hopeful about, that will ultimately bring this, this unity necessary to kind of make a turn together as a people?

01:04:41:06 - 01:04:51:13
Mark Titus
as opposed to just, you know, continually fighting upstream. really the the nature of what truth itself is.

01:04:51:15 - 01:05:14:16
Dr. Aaron Adams
yeah. I think angling, could definitely play that role. Does play that role. because there's a, you know, there's a I talked about before, there's that shared passion, for people who who fish. I mean, I've got friends I fish with who are we're definitely not on the same wavelength, politically speaking, but that doesn't really matter, right?

01:05:14:18 - 01:05:35:17
Dr. Aaron Adams
There's, you know, maybe something we don't talk about or if we do talk about it, it's in a we might disagree, but it's in a respectful way because we've developed that trust that goes in that type of relationship. Right. When you when you spend eight hours a day on a 15ft skiff with somebody, that's pretty up close and personal.

01:05:35:19 - 01:06:00:00
Dr. Aaron Adams
It is. And, and so for that to be maintained, yeah, you have to have that, that level of, of of trust and, and respect, even if views aren't always the same. Yeah. I mean, I think. If you don't have a diversity of views, then you're then you're doomed because you get into groupthink.

01:06:00:02 - 01:06:01:07
Mark Titus
That's right.

01:06:01:09 - 01:06:21:16
Dr. Aaron Adams
and then it's it's inevitable. You're going to go down a rabbit hole is going to be a dead end, and that's the end of that. but I mean, there's other ways. I mean, it's the same thing. I like to surf. surfing is something that brings people together of all different stripes. and that stuff just doesn't really matter.

01:06:21:18 - 01:06:48:22
Dr. Aaron Adams
there's there's all kinds of, levels of relationship you can develop and maintain with people without getting into those kind of silos and polarized polarization types of situations. I mean, I've surfing friends, I joke back and forth about, you know, that kind of stuff. So we joke about it knowing that disagreements and whatnot. But, that's not going to disrupt the friendship.

01:06:49:00 - 01:07:13:18
Dr. Aaron Adams
and it's the same with fishing. So it's it's the shared experience, but it's also a going back to, fishing as well as surfing. You have to invest time and energy, and mental capacity in order to get any good. It's not the kind of thing that you can show up one day and, you know, catch 30 bonefish or 20 salmon or whatever it may be, or catch two monster waves.

01:07:13:20 - 01:07:38:18
Dr. Aaron Adams
It takes a lot of time and dedication. It takes paying attention. It takes learning. It takes, you know, being able to take advice from other people, all those types of things that. If you have that kind of investment, then that helps everything else around it. And that's very different than what I think we see a lot now of knee jerk reactions to quick.

01:07:38:18 - 01:08:08:12
Dr. Aaron Adams
Yes, yes, and so superficial. And, you know, during this time we've talked a lot about long term relationships, about depth, about understanding, about, excuse me, a lot of this is about connectivity, right? I talked about the connectivity of bonefish as they migrate from their home range, to spawning and back, that type of thing. There's also the connectivity between, different anglers, or guides and angler to different guides between scientists and guides resource.

01:08:08:17 - 01:08:19:20
Dr. Aaron Adams
All those things are connections. But it's also about the connectivity between us and the environment that we interact with. And let's face it, the environment we depend upon.

01:08:19:22 - 01:08:20:15
Mark Titus
That's right.

01:08:20:17 - 01:08:51:19
Dr. Aaron Adams
And. If we lose that connectivity with this kind of superficial, mostly made up. Sorry for the term polarization, we lose that connectivity among ourselves. And there's no ecosystem in the world that is going to sustain if it loses that connectivity. And salmon's a great example, right? You put up the dams. You break that connectivity and you're done.

01:08:51:21 - 01:08:53:15
Mark Titus
You got it.

01:08:53:16 - 01:09:13:02
Dr. Aaron Adams
so yeah, I think I think those types of things are really important. and so I think getting kids involved in those types of activities is important, too. because, you know, the old people have screwed it up enough. Maybe give the young, younger people a chance to, to fix it because it's their future.

01:09:13:04 - 01:09:37:17
Mark Titus
What a great conversation. Thank you man. This is just such wisdom and. And food. Literally. Food for the soul. Food for thought. You're not going to escape, though, without the bonus question. It's. Everybody gets out. It's it's truly. It's not as painful as it sounds. just a little imagination game. you're you're living in a part of the world where?

01:09:37:19 - 01:10:02:22
Mark Titus
Well, you know what? The water can rise. And let's just pretend for a minute that the water was really rising and you had to get out of the house. So you're going to get your loved ones first. Your pets, the dear ones to you, first out of the house. But is there one physical thing that you would take with the rising waters before you got out of the house?

01:10:03:00 - 01:10:08:05
Dr. Aaron Adams
One physical thing I would take.

01:10:08:07 - 01:10:09:09
Dr. Aaron Adams
That's a tough one.

01:10:09:11 - 01:10:15:02
Mark Titus

01:10:15:03 - 01:10:20:05
Dr. Aaron Adams
It'd probably be my stand up paddle board with my fishing rod.

01:10:20:06 - 01:10:26:13
Mark Titus
Well, duh. Of course. Of course it would be all right. All right. Well let's, let's, let's delve a little even a.

01:10:26:13 - 01:10:27:21
Dr. Aaron Adams
Little bit deeper.

01:10:27:23 - 01:10:41:08
Mark Titus
Yeah. Let's say it's one metaphysical thing, one metaphor, personality trait about you. If you could only take one that makes you you. What would you take?

01:10:41:10 - 01:10:43:04
Dr. Aaron Adams
Integrity.

01:10:43:06 - 01:10:59:06
Mark Titus
I can see that. Doctor Aaron Adams, thank you for a insightful and a wonderful conversation. How can folks get in touch with the work that you're doing? Where should they go to check out what you're up to?

01:10:59:08 - 01:11:26:14
Dr. Aaron Adams
the best way is to go to BonefishTarponTrust.com or BT. Dot org. our website is fantastic. We have a great, it is our marketing side. social media on Facebook. Instagram. YouTube. Vimeo. the whole thing. Twitter. where we have that presence? yeah. You can subscribe to our newsletter or our social media feeds.

01:11:26:16 - 01:11:33:00
Dr. Aaron Adams
but the biggest thing is. Yeah. Become involved. Become part of the solution, not part of the problem.

01:11:33:02 - 01:11:49:23
Mark Titus
Well, thank you, sir. I, I hope to meet you in person one day and and maybe, maybe even, get my my actual eyes on some of those tarpon rolling over. Until then, have a wonderful rest of the week, and, we'll see you down the trail.

01:11:50:01 - 01:11:53:11
Dr. Aaron Adams
Thank you very much.

01:11:53:13 - 01:12:24:19
Music
How do you say what you love?
How do you say what you love?
How do you say what you love?
How do you say what you love?

01:12:24:21 - 01:12:48:21
Mark Titus
Thank you for listening to Save What You Love. If you like what you're hearing, you can help keep these conversations coming your way by giving us a rating on whatever platform you're listening from and leaving a comment on Apple Podcasts. It really helps get the word out. Check out photos on our Instagram feed. We're at Save What You Love podcast, and you can get links from today's featured guest in the show notes of this episode.

01:12:48:23 - 01:13:17:19
Mark Titus
Join our growing community by subscribing to our newsletter at evaswild.com, and then clicking on connect in the upper corner. You'll get exclusive offers on wild salmon shipped to your door, and notifications about upcoming guests and more great content on the way. That said, Evaswild.com the word save spelled backwards, wild.com. This episode was produced by Emilie Firn and edited by Patrick Troll.

01:13:17:21 - 01:13:23:18
Mark Titus
Original music was created by Whiskey Class. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you all down the trail.