South Pole Episode 15. Antarctic Krill: Where governance, science and industry meet

In this episode of South Pole, host Clark Marchese interviews Dr. Javier Arata, a marine biologist specializing in fisheries management in Antarctica. They delve into the sustainable harvesting of Antarctic krill, a crucial species supporting ecosystems for penguins, seals, and whales. Dr. Arata shares his experiences as a scientific observer, his work with CCAMLR, and his role in promoting responsible practices through the Association for Responsible Krill Harvesting Companies. They discuss the impacts of climate change, the importance of monitoring krill populations, and innovative conservation strategies, highlighting the critical role of krill in Antarctica’s food web. Tune in to understand how science, policy, and industry come together to protect this essential marine resource.

Episode Guest: Dr. Javier Arata

Find more on Dr. Arata here.

Find Dr. Arata’s publications here. 

More on the Association of Responsible Krill harvesting companies (ARK) here

Episode Transcript  and more information on the Pine Forest Media Website

Follow Pine Forest Media on Instagram @pineforestmedia

Hosted, produced, written, and edited by Clark Marchese 

Cover art and PFM logo by Laurel Wong. 

Theme music by Nela Ruiz

Transcript

[00:00:09.550] - Clark

Hello, and welcome to another episode of South Pole, the podcast that explores everything Antarctica. I am your host, Clark Marchese, and today we are talking about krill, skeg, scientific observers, and sustainable fishing in the Southern Ocean. All right. It's lovely to have you here. Today, we are going to be diving into the complex world of sustainable fishing, scientific observers, and the role of international organizations like CCAMLR in protecting this critical marine environment. Our guest today is Dr. Javier Arata, a marine biologist and an expert in fisheries management. Dr. Arata has spent years studying this relationship between wildlife and fisheries in the Southern Ocean, with a particular focus on how responsible krill harvesting can ensure the survival of species like penguins, seals, and whales. His work also involves helping the industry adopt sustainable practices and ensuring that we balanced human needs with the health of the Antartic ecosystem. In this conversation, we'll explore Dr. Arata's unique career from his early days as a scientific observer to his current role working with the Association for Responsible Krill Harvesting Companies. We'll also touch on the challenges that climate change poses to krill populations and the innovative solutions being developed to manage and protect this vital resource.

[00:01:35.290] - Clark

One of the reasons I love this episode is because it sits right where we like to be, which is at the interface of science and policy. The last thing I'll say before we get started is if you think science communication like this is important and should reach more people, or if you just enjoy the show and want to support us, one of the easiest ways to do that is to leave a one tap five star rating wherever you're listening to this. It only takes about four seconds or a lovely written review on Apple podcast would also really help us out. You could probably even do it by the time this next little music intro ends. So thank you to all of you who feel called to do that. And without further ado, let us welcome Dr. Arata onto the show. All right. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today, Dr. Arata. The first question I have is if you could please introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your work.

[00:02:39.150] - Dr. Javier Arata

Yes. Well, my name is Javier Arata. I'm a researcher originally from Chile. I studied marine biology when I was young. I was always attracted to wildlife and to the ocean. When I was finishing my career, I got the opportunity to go in a trip, in a fishing trip to South Georgia in the Southern Ocean. As a feature observer for the Patagonian toothfish fishing. At the beginning, I didn't know what I was getting into it, actually. I was just excited to do some real job after being studying at the university. But I think that experience changed me for the rest of my life. I was so beautiful, so great to be in the wild, in Antarctica, seeing all the albatrosses. I was very impressed by seeing all the albatrosses and also sperm worlds. A lot of sperm worlds around the fishing vessels. At the same time, I I was not very interested in the interaction between fisheries and wildlife. Of course, I enjoy having a nice fish and ship plate, and I was very interested to learn how the data for the management of the features are taken, what is the role of the scientific observer of a fishing vessel, and what can I do to improve that system.

[00:03:51.750] - Dr. Javier Arata

After that, I decided to do my PhD, and I choose a particular professor at Chile in Valdivia who was already working within CCAMLR. CCAMLR is the Convention for the Conservation of Atlantic Marine Living Resources. And when I was a scientific observer, I was a scientific observer under the CAMEL-R scheme. So that implies some specific rules that the fishing person had to follow and some specific monitoring that I was helping to comply with. I did my PhD there. I studied super ecology in Alpatrosis in Southern Chile. But at the same time with this professor, we were conducting our research on the impact of the fishers, particularly two fishers in Southern Chile, to the Alpatros population. Because at that point in the late '90s, it was already been described that the long-line fishing has a mayor impact on sipper due to sipper bycatch.

[00:04:48.880] - Clark

Right. So for anyone who's not heard of long-lining, this is a fishing technique where a long line, often several miles in length, is set into the ocean with thousands of baited hooks. It's designed to catch large fish like tuna and sword fish. In the Southern Ocean, it might be toothfish. Unfortunately, this method isn't exactly selective, meaning it often results in bycatch, which is the other word that was mentioned, which is the unintentional capture of non-targeted species. It can often be sharks. In Antarctica, it happens to be seabirds. It can also be turtles or dolphins. And bycatch does have some serious ecological consequences because some of these species could be endangered. It can put a lot of strain on populations and potentially even disrupt the ecosystem.

[00:05:33.160] - Dr. Javier Arata

So we were trying to understand if that was also a reality in Chile, and what can we do to improve that. We are happy. I'm really proud that at the end of that research, We had the government to implement the first mitigation measures to reduce bird by catch in the toothfish feature in Chile, which was a great success.

[00:05:53.060] - Clark

Okay, that is quite a journey. So thank you for your work. That's amazing. For clarification, Kamalar, spelled CCAMLR. It's an acronym for the Commission for the Conservation of Antartic Marine Living Resources. This is an international organization that was established in 1982 as part of the Antartic Treaty System. Its primary goal is to manage and conserve marine wildlife in the Southern Ocean, particularly to ensure sustainable fishing practices and protect ecosystems from overfishing and general environmental degradation. Now, CCAMLR sets regulations on activities such as krill and toothfish fishing. Interestingly, and perhaps unrelated, calamar is the Spanish word for squid. Anyways, scientific observers, for anyone who's never heard of this job title, is someone whose job it is to monitor fishing activities on board vessels and ensure that their operations comply with the environmental regulations set out by organizations like CCAMLR. They also collect data on fish stocks, bycatch, and the health of marine ecosystems. All right, so today we are going to talk about krill, which is a very important species in the Southern Ocean ecosystem. Can you Can you tell us what is their role in the ecosystem?

[00:07:03.160] - Dr. Javier Arata

Of course. Antartic krill, we usually just call it krill, but it's the Antartic krill. There are more than 83, 84 species of Ephausis, and Cree, Antartic krill is one of them. Antartic krill It's the largest Ephausis that there is, and also it's the most abundant animal in the planet, I think after humans. There are estimations about between 300 and 500 million tons of Antartic Creel living right now in Antarctica.

[00:07:30.020] - Clark

When it comes to Creel and humans, there are more of them than there are of us, but not just by numbers of individuals, although that is probably also true. Definitely also true, actually. But this is a comparison of biomasse, which is if you took all of the members of a species and weighed them together on one scale, there are about 60 million metric tons of humans out there on the planet, and there's almost 380 million metric tons of krill. So much more of them than there are of us.

[00:07:57.060] - Dr. Javier Arata

So being so abundant, they place a very important and roll in the tropical web in Antarctica. It is what is called a wasp-waste species in the ecosystem. They are the main predator of the fit plant, which are the main producers, organic energy in the ecosystem. Those are the plants in the ocean, and they can transfer that energy to the upper tropical levels, including Seals, penguins, and whales. So they are placed in a unique position where they are the main predators of the algis and also are the main prey of the top predators. I think the most important part is that because they accumulate so much of the energy that is produced by the primary producer, the phytoplanth, they constitute the base of the diet of all the upper predators. If krill is absent, let's say, for example, during some years where the krill availability is lower, there are other predators of the phytoplanth, but they are not very good in transferring that energy into the upper trophic levels. So the Penguin and wave will suffer of a shortage of food if Crile is not present.

[00:09:04.280] - Clark

Okay, so energy comes from the sun, this I knew. But us humans and other mammals and fish and most animals on the planet cannot photosynthesize. So we get our energy from plants, eating plants are eating things that eat plants. So the krill, it seems, are the link between the primary producers and the upper half of the food chain. Now, you mentioned that the krill populations can vary from year to year. How are the krill populations doing? Are we seeing they're under strain or being threatened in any way? And so what might those threats be?

[00:09:33.820] - Dr. Javier Arata

Well, there is a lot of discussion now by scientists about this topic, and there's a lot of discussion about the long term projection of the krill. So far, My understanding is that there has been a reduction in the crip availability or Crile abundance if we compare with the early 20th century. So from 1920 until 1980, 1990, it seems that there was a decrease the abundance in the total abundance of Crile. But our more recent estimate of Crile suggests that the abundance has not changed much between the 1990s and the present. We are living a stable era right now. But all the projections suggest that due to climate change, the future of Crile is not very good. Apparently, the Crile habitat, particularly the habitat where the Crile needs to reproduce, will decrease in the future due to climate change because the temperature will increase, so that's not very good for the reproduction of the eggs. There are many other competitors that do better when the temperature increases, like sorps. Also, the water will become more acidic, which also kills some of the Crile level. So the long term perspective is that the Crile will decrease south from where it is right now.

[00:10:52.780] - Clark

Okay, recap. Warmer water impacts reproduction and the development of eggs. Crile competitors prefer the warmer water and increased acidity can even kill some Crile. Now, is it commonly agreed that climate change might be the largest threat facing Crile, or are there other threats perhaps having to do with direct interaction with humans?

[00:11:11.320] - Dr. Javier Arata

Well, climate change is recognized as the greatest threat to the long term survival of Antarctica krill. That's for sure. In the short term, there are a lot of discussions about the role of fisheries, for example, on the Atlantic Crile. But my take in is that the feature is highly regulated and doesn't have an impact on Crile. There are, though, some concerns about local effects on the predators of krill, not on krill itself.

[00:11:38.260] - Clark

Okay, interesting. So it's good news to hear that the fisheries are not posing a great threat to the krill, but that might be in part due to an association that you are a part of called the Association for Responsible Krill Harvesting Companies. Now, that must mean that if fisheries are not causing a problem, it's because they're fishing in a responsible way. My question is, can you tell me what it means to be a responsible krill fishery, or perhaps on the flip side, what it might look like if it was irresponsible krill harvesting?

[00:12:03.890] - Dr. Javier Arata

Well, thank you for the question. Actually, the answer is a bit more complicated, so I would prefer to give you some story background first. As I mentioned, I started as a scientific observer for Kamelar, and then I have the opportunity to work within Kamelar representing Chile. I'm really a fan of Kamelar, actually. Kamelar is a convention that manage all this, all the notion, manage all human activities related with exploitation of feature resources. As such, I think Kamelar has done a very great job in implementing something that was very new in the '80s, which is called the Ecosystem Approach to Futures. They not only manage the stock that you're fishing, but also the impacts on the related ecosystem that depends on that species. So for example, in the case of krill, Kamel had tried to manage the feature in a way that secures the continued reproduction of krill, but at the same time it leaves enough krill to be prey for the top predators that depends on krill. So they have very strict regulations regarding how much you can fish for krill. On top of that, some years ago, the krill fishing companies created the Association of Responsible Krill Harvesting Companies, on which right now I am the executive officer.

[00:13:18.330] - Dr. Javier Arata

What they're trying to achieve is to make a link between what Kamala is trying to accomplish and the industry. They try to foster good practices within the companies and to to support the work that Kammerer is doing. The main responsibility of the management of the feature is due to Kammerer. But certainly, the ARC, the Association of Responsible Creek Harvesting Company, have been doing a positive job in trying to help the companies to understand what a good management of the feature is and how they can help to achieve that.

[00:13:51.410] - Clark

Okay, so it seems like you sit in this really amazing space in between academic and scientific research and industry. Now, I'm curious, what types of data or research questions would we need to find out about Crile in order to inform our responsible fishing practices?

[00:14:05.330] - Dr. Javier Arata

Thank you. Yeah. So I was thinking about what data is something that we need to inform a responsible fishing practice. So I think we can discuss a few elements. To start, you need a solid management approach that takes into account the productivity of the Crile. As I mentioned, Cami is very rigorous on this aspect, and they implement the most precautionary principle for managing any features. It's what is called the ecosystem approach to fishers, which includes they try to maintain a sustainable recruitment of the fish population, in this case, krill.

[00:14:42.710] - Clark

Voculary word, recruitment. In biology, recruitment refers to the process by which new individuals are added to a population, typically through birth or the maturation of juveniles into adulthood. In the context of fisheries and wildlife management, it often describes the addition of young individuals to a population that has reached a size or stage where they can be harvested.

[00:15:03.760] - Dr. Javier Arata

Also, they consider the trophic status of the species that is being target. Because krill is an important prey for many other species, they allow for at least 75% of the biomask to remain in the water, so it's available for predators.

[00:15:19.450] - Clark

Okay, 75%, that's quite substantial.

[00:15:21.890] - Dr. Javier Arata

But together with that, you need a rigorous monitoring system so that the management decisions are implemented by the feature. In this case, Kammerler has a nice system where all the vessels that participate in the fishing has to notify in advance. They use satellite trackers to know where the vessels are fishing, and every vessel has to have a scientific observer on board. To collect important information about the environment and the crew.

[00:15:48.010] - Clark

Okay, this sounds like a lot of sensible and important regulation. I'm wondering, though, who's enforcing all of this?

[00:15:54.950] - Dr. Javier Arata

That's a nice question. Because it's an international agreement, what What happened is that every country has to report back to Kamel every year. Then in the annual meeting where participates 26 country members of Kamel art, they review all the information and then they note if there was any problem. Then there is a system of international chain for the nature that had not been implemented in the rollage properly. If there is a vessel that did something wrong, usually what happened is that the vessel is forbidden to go fishing again until they fix problem. In this system, the role of the scientific observer is also very important because they corroborate the information provided by the fish in the sense.

[00:16:38.660] - Clark

I can only imagine how interesting of a job it must be to be a scientific observer on a vessel like that. Can you tell me what that job is like?

[00:16:46.430] - Dr. Javier Arata

When I started, I was a scientific observer for the tooth fish feature, a related feature. Yeah, it's demanding and sometimes a bit stressful because a couple of times I noticed that the vessel were not doing what they were supposed to. In those cases, you will have to inform the captain that they are doing something that is not according to the regulations and that you have to report that, but you give them the chance that they can improve it.

[00:17:14.750] - Clark

I can imagine that might be even tense at times, but it seems like there's a lot of collaboration between the governance, the scientists, and the industry. The existence of ARC, this Association for Responsible Crile Harvesting, itself shows that there is a certain level of buy-in from the fisheries and that they want to be part of the conversation and science-based decisions.

[00:17:34.700] - Dr. Javier Arata

Right now, there is a scarcity of research vessels to conduct to ocean research in Antarctica, in particular in Crile. Is in that point that the feature plays a crucial role today, collecting basic information on krill abundance on the main fishing grounds. As an example, ART members participated and co-founded a large-scale survey on krill in all of area 48, which include the Atlantic Peninsula, South Orniths, and South Georgia during the abstract summer of 2018. That year, six vessels surveyed over 10,000 Autigan miles. You know what it says about the distance between the North Pole to the South Pole. They contribute all that information in order to assess the status of the Crile during that year. The good result was that the survey in 2019 suggested that the Crile population was at the same level of abundance that 20 years ago during the last survey in 2000. In addition to that, ARC Also, ART members conduct surveys every year around the Atlantic Peninsula and the South Ornith Islands, which are the main fishing grounds, to support the management of the fishing by Cama. That's one way that ARC can contribute to help the management of the future.

[00:18:46.820] - Clark

I'm curious also, as we established the climate change is being identified as a potential threat to Creel in the future, are the policies that are currently steering the fishing industry going to change or be adjusted based off of what we're learning about climate change?

[00:19:01.110] - Dr. Javier Arata

That's the main topic today. That's a very good question. Even though Creel... I mean, the general management of the feature by Kamala is very good, I found it, there is still a lot of room to improve. Right now, there is what is called a trigger level. It's a very low quota that's allowed for the feature to exploit until a better management strategy was implemented. It was created in 1991, many years ago when we didn't have enough data. It has been a has remained there for many years because the size of the scope to manage the feature is really huge. But these days, with all the new information that we have about the great inter-runer variability in Creel and the effect of climate change on the Creel population, they realized that that system having even a small quota, but a fixed quota, was not good enough. And since 2019, Kammerer has been working in a new way to manage the feature that actually is more responsive to changes in crip population and changes in the ecosystem like a climate change. We are hoping that this new system will be implemented very soon. Kammerer has already demonstrated the capacity to develop a new water system under the new management strategy, which actually use animal surveys on a smaller area that have the areas actually fished by the industry, and they apply the models on the population growth and mortality in those regions.

[00:20:25.600] - Dr. Javier Arata

Also, they consider the amount of prey and the distribution of the main predators in region to subdivide the quota in a smaller region so the feature is not concentrated in one specific place, and the quota is updated more often. So any effect of climate change could be identified and included in the model. So that's something that should be implemented very soon. We hope so. And that will mean that the feature is going to be managed in a more responsive way.

[00:20:52.850] - Clark

Okay, that's great news. Yeah, responsive regulation has to be, I guess, the name of the game with the future of climate change. And I think when we did an episode on Toothfish, we We talked about how species responses to climate change need to be reflected in fishing regulation. Our climate systems are changing, so we have to change with them, I guess. Also, one thing I'm hearing in this conversation is that the fate of krill also holds the fate of other species as well. Can you explain why responsible krill fishing is also important for penguins and other birds and other Antartic animals, both perhaps in the quantity of krill taken for them, but also perhaps any methods that might pose a threat to these animals, and also maybe how regulation might be able to address that?

[00:21:30.410] - Dr. Javier Arata

As I mentioned, the management of the feature regarding to Creel, I think, is well established, and I don't think there is any risk to Creel from the feature point of view. The total amount of Creel that is taken every year is less than 1%. But if we look now at the potential effect on the predator's krill, that could be a different story. The feature is distributed in some places where they know there is abandoned krill, so it's easier for them to catch it. And usually, those places are also preferred by predator like penguins, seals, and whales. It's very possible that in those specific regions, there could be a competition between the feature and the predators. If there is no other regulation, there is a chance that there could be some localized impact on the predator's product of the fishing exploitation. So this new management strategy will try to solve that issue by subdividing the quota in different and small units. So no one unit accumulates all the catch. So the fleet has to be to distribute the more even. So that's one very good news for the management of the fishery, and that's something that we hope to see implemented very soon.

[00:22:37.550] - Dr. Javier Arata

Another way to reduce the potential impact of the fishery on predators is by closing scenarios, closing closing some areas to fisheries so the predators can forage without any competition from the industry. There are discussions right now in Kamelar regarding the implementation of marine protected areas in the Gulf Peninsula region. This discussion has been going for too long right now, almost 10 years without results. So ARC decided in 2018 to implement a series of voluntary measures to reduce this competition between the fisheries and penguins in the Atlantic Peninsula. So what they do was to close voluntarily the fishing of krill near the main Penguin colonies in the Atlantic Peninsula during the breeding season, when the Penguin has to remain close to their nest to feed the chicks. This is what we call the voluntary street exons, help protect the penguins during the peak of the breeding season. We know that this is just a transitory measure, and we hope that the Kamelar very soon will implement a better system to protect the penguins and to allow a sustainable industry.

[00:23:51.560] - Clark

It sounds like there's a need to be more collaborative between the fisheries, the scientists, and the policymakers. You're also a part of an expert group called SCEG, another acronym, the SCAR, Creel Expert Group, SCAR being the Scientific Committee on Antartic Research, which is yet another acronym. Perhaps could this group provide space for such a collaboration?

[00:24:10.680] - Dr. Javier Arata

In CCAMLR, there are experts of Creel, of course, but also there are many management of features that are not necessarily an expert on Creel, but on the regular management of features overall. There's always a need to have the most up to date information to take the best decision. And not all the scientists scientists have the capacity to participate in camera meetings, and not all the scientists are interested in participating in these political meetings in CCAMLR. So SCAPE has a key role in bringing together, in bringing the advice from the scientist into Kammerer to improve the management of the Acryl feature. So I've been participating in SCAPE for a while now. My role there in SCAP is to lead a liaison between the scientists and the industry. So the industry, the manager of the companies, they really don't know much about science and about Tantive Creel. They know how to do a research. They don't know how to do a troll, a scientific troll and take samples, for example. But the scientists, right now, they have a lack of platform to do research. Actually, what happens is that the scale come up with the idea of research that's required in order to prove the management of the fishery.

[00:25:24.730] - Dr. Javier Arata

And I tried to convey those needs to the companies. We tried to make a link between what the scientists did and what the companies could implement during their daily activities to help to supply that data. In the past, we have a few examples of that collaboration. We have some scientists that have been on board some fishing vessels, a collecting data, and they have helped in improving the sampling protocols of the scientific observers, in developing new ways to use data that is collected daily, routinely by the vessels, to help in monitoring the feature and help to understand better, for example, the vertical migration of crip.

[00:26:03.680] - Clark

Okay, I'm really happy to hear about that coordination. We are going to start to round out the episode. There's one question I want to ask just to make sure we didn't miss anything. Is there anything we didn't discuss today that you think would be absolutely necessary to mention in a discussion about crip and fisheries or anything else that we touched on today?

[00:26:20.080] - Dr. Javier Arata

Well, there is another area of challenge that I think I forgot to mention. So in any fishery, there are two main points of potential impact that the fishery could have on the ecosystem. One is direct competition by food. If we explore Crile, of course, we are reducing the amount that's available for penguins, seals, and whales. And in that regard, Kamerad, I think is doing a relatively good job in maintaining the quotas low, so there's enough food for everyone. The other potential impact is direct interaction of the fishing gear with wildlife. It often happens that there are birds who will strike the cables that we use to tow the nets, or maybe some penguins or seals could get entangled in the net because they are following the crystal arm and they get into the net. In that regard, I think there's still some room for improvement. In the early 2000s, it was discovered, thanks to the scientific observers, that there were some seals that have been trapped in the net while fishing. And that prompt Kamelar to implement some seal-excluding devices. So they either impede the seals to get into the net, or if they get into the net, they have a escape hole so they can escape the net and survive.

[00:27:36.210] - Dr. Javier Arata

And that have been very good. And we have, usually, we have very low mortality of seals, even though some years, because of a lot of availability of there is more seal pressure to the troll, more attraction. And today we have discovered, recently, Kamalar discovered that there are some bird strikes. Also see birds are attracted to the fishing vessels to try to pick on the créil that fall off of the nets when they are pulling the net on deck. In the fancy of feeding, in the fancy of feeding on creels, sometimes they don't... They forget to look for the cables or the warped cables that are toeing the net, and they hit the cable, and sometimes they get injured in the wings, for example, and that's potentially a bird that won't fly again. Right now, Kamala is trying to implement best practice to avoid that, and that's something that he had to continue to be improved.

[00:28:26.510] - Clark

Tell me, how would you prevent a seal from entering a net?

[00:28:29.430] - Dr. Javier Arata

Well, there are two basic system. The first one is very simple. You just put another match on the mouth of the net. It's a bigger, wider net that, of course, allow creep to enter, but doesn't allow the seals or penguins to enter. The second is a a jail, a jail system inside the net. So the seal entered the net but cannot pass some point, and that actually drives, directs the seals towards the top of the net, and there is a hole in at the top so they can escape.

[00:29:01.910] - Clark

Okay, that's some pretty cool human ingenuity. My next question is, what is your favorite thing about Antarctica?

[00:29:07.690] - Dr. Javier Arata

I've been there a few times, and I think it still is so incredible to interact with the fauna, which is not afraid to human beings. That's very surreal. I think it shouldn't be. There shouldn't be any reason for wildlife to be afraid of human beings, but I think we have told them differently. But in Antarctica, most of the fauna have not seen human beings. They have very little exposure to them. So they're very curious and they don't run away.

[00:29:34.010] - Clark

Maybe they should be more afraid of us. But as a scientist, I bet that's pretty cool experience. Well, my last question for you is simply, where can people find you and follow your work?

[00:29:43.280] - Dr. Javier Arata

Well, ARC has Two main tools. We have a website. You can follow us in ARK-ark-kril. Org. And we have a Twitter account at ARK-Kril.

[00:29:59.370] - Clark

Perfect. I will be sure to include links to those things in the episode description. With that, I'll say thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me today. Thank you for teaching me all about kril and sustainable fishing. Most importantly, thank you for your very important research and activism and career that you've dedicated to this space.

[00:30:17.200] - Dr. Javier Arata

Thank you very much for the interview. Take care.

[00:30:29.170] - Clark

You've been listening to South Pole. You can find more information about this week's guests and links to their work in the episode description. Cover art for the show was done by Laurel Wong, and the music you're listening to was done by Nela Ruiz. I'm your host, Clark Markaisi, and this episode was produced and engineered by me. If you found it interesting, send it to someone you know. South Pole is part of a larger network of sciencey podcast called Pine Forest Media. We've got one on plastic, one on drinking water, and a couple of new ones coming out soon. You can find more information about us in the episode description as well or on our website at pineforestpods. Com. We're also on Instagram and TikTok at Pineforest Media. And if you love the show and you want to support science communication like this, a five-star rating across platforms and a review on Apple podcast is one of the best things you can do to help us reach more people and for the entire network to grow. Thank you to all of you who have made it this far, and we'll talk soon.