So how could you, again, it becomes complicated, but what did you learn about working at MSC in those two years?

So for those of you who don't know what this is, it is one of the leading players in the sustainable seafood space.

It is an eco label that can go on products.

It's a little blue check mark that looks like a fish that says MSC certified sustainable.

You have almost certainly seen this, even if you didn't recognize it.

Costco almost exclusively sells MSC certified products or seafood watch green or yellow products.

The McDonald's Filet-O-Fish sandwich, the most commonly sold seafood item in the world, is MSC certified and has that on the packaging.

So

Yeah.

Um, and they have this very rigorous science-based process that was co-generated with hundreds of experts from around the world.

That is the fishery standard, and if a fishery is assessed against that standard and found that it meets the criteria, then that fishery gets to put the label on its product and sell it as sustainable.

When I worked there, I worked for part of the research team.

My project was specifically looking at what they call ETP bycatch, which is endangered, threatened, and protected species.

So, a fisherman are trying to catch a tuna, and they accidentally catch a sea turtle or a shark or an albatross that was near the tuna, and they were looking at what have fisheries that used to have a problem with this done to reduce it, and what can we learn from that? And that was really cool because what I learned is it's a very practical and data-driven place.

They know that not everything will work for everyone, but they also are very big on sharing successes that, "Hey, this was a problem and we fixed it.

So if you can just kinda, like, let people know what happened, and then just, like, talk about have we really learned our lesson?

Is this normal, or is it weird that Trump is doing this?

The fishing industry seems to have its, its hooks, pardon the pun, pretty deeply into the Trump administration, and there have been a lot of executive orders related to removing environmental restrictions to make it easier to fish, including removing protections from the largest U.S. marine protected area, which is going to be an ecological disaster for, for decades to come, uh, even if the, the next president immediately puts it back, which it'll probably take time to fix.

That this is not a pro data-driven evidence administration.

This is, this is not a pro-environment administration.

I hope that's not too controversial to say.

But one thing that's especially weird is that Donald Trump actually has a really, really, really long and elaborate history of having personal animus towards sharks, which he's never encountered.

I actually just gave a Nerd Nite DC talk about this.

Before we went any further, I asked David to explain depredation for anyone who hasn't heard the word.

Right

... at some point, and I just sort of never grew out of that.

My family has pictures of me three years old with shark sh- shirts, um, and shark toys and things like that.

And I'm just...

I'm one of the lucky few who's sort of always known what they wanna be when they grow up.

And, excuse me.

Uh, I tell my students all the time, "It's okay if you don't know what you wanna be when you grow up." Lots of people have winding paths, and they try something, and it doesn't work for them until they find the right thing.

Right.