Entangled Film Discussion

Show video

Welcome back everyone, I hope you  enjoyed the film as much as I did   and I'm very excited to have you back for —  we're planning on about 30 minutes of discussion   please post any questions you have in the Q&A  box or the chat box, and we will monitor that   and try to answer as many of those questions  as possible. I am going to give you a fuller   introduction of our panelists tonight t so  you know a little bit more about both of them.   David, who you should have heard at  the beginning of the presentation,   is an award-winning journalist who covers  the environment and fisheries for the   Boston Globe — that's his day job. In that role  David has previously covered the war in Kosovo,  

unrest in Latin America, national security issues  in Washington DC and terrorism both in New York   City and Boston. That kind of background  apparently prepared him well to grapple with   whale and lobster politics in the northeast.  His interest in filmmaking in the environment   has led him to direct and produce a number of  award-winning films — which we encourage you all   to track drown track down. Those include "sacred  cow" — I’m sorry "Sacred Cod" — about the collapse   of the iconic cod fishery in New England, "Lobster  War" — examining the climate-fueled centuries-old   conflict between the U.S. and Canada over  an area of rich lobstering waters — and  

"Gladesmen: The Last of the Sawgrass Cowboys"  —which is about the federal government's ban   on Florida’s iconic airboats in  much of Everglades National Park   and surrounding everglades in an effort to repair  environmental degradation from the past. In 2019   David and his co-director and producer —of some  of those previous projects — collaborated again   to make "Entangled" and we're very happy to see  the results of that tonight. I’m also delighted to   introduce Jane Davenport. Jane's a senior attorney  with Defenders of Wildlife her work at Defenders   has been relentless and cutting edge in defense  of a wide range of species from marine wildlife   — such as right whales and dolphins sharks and sea  turtles — to freshwater aquatic species and bats.   Jane is a recognized expert in the Endangered  Species Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act,   the Migratory Bird Treaty Act among other things.  and a really treasured colleague for myself and   all of us at Defenders. Jane earned a master's  degree in environmental studies from the Yale  

School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and a  JD from Yale Law School. We're going to have about   30 minutes of conversation, in particular, we're  really interested in questions from the audience   so please submit any questions that you have  that you would like to ask David and Jane.   With that, I have a question for David. I’m  really interested in how "Entangled" came about.   You said at the beginning — in case people missed  it — you were inspired to try to tell the story   in long-form about a particular species  because of your reporting on the   biodiversity and extinction crisis that's looming.  Tell us, how did you come to pick right whales and  

how did you decide film was the right way to tell  the story. Yes, it's a good question thank you.   So in some ways this film was the outgrowth  of my previous films that you mentioned,   it's kind of like the capstone of a trilogy of  films that I’ve made about how climate change is   affecting our oceans and particularly the Gulf  of Maine — which has been warming faster than   nearly any other body of water on the planet — and  my interest in telling those stories was so that   we could show how climate change is not some just  an abstract threat, but one that is having a real   and significant impact on people's lives now, and  so the first film — it's funny you said sacred cow   because when I first started making this film —  Jane may remember this —but at one of the first   scenes was at the incidental take reduction team  and and I asked someone from NOAA to just tell   everybody who I was and why I had cameras there  and what I was doing and he also introduced it as   sacred cow and I had to correct him in front of  everybody, but "Sacred Cod" was a film about how   the warming waters of the Gulf of Maine has led to  a collapse of our iconic cod fishery which is what   brought settlers from Europe and the pilgrims  and sustained generations of fishermen and   brought great wealth to New England, and to this  country in its early years and so it was pretty   shocking to a lot of people when all of a sudden  the federal government imposed a moratorium on cod   fishing and there had been years and/or decades  of pressure on that fishery from overfishing and   it was really — I think scientists say — climate  change that led to the collapse and then I made a   film called "Lobster War" which was also about how  climate change is affecting our ecosystem and that   film looks at how climate change in some ways  has had the opposite effect while we've seen a   collapse of the lobster fishery south of cape cod  to the extent that we've lost nearly 90 percent of   the catch the last time I checked, there has  actually been a boom in the lobster fishery   north of in the northern, eastern parts of  the Gulf of Maine and particularly that boom   which arguably is also a function of the warming  waters which has led to a kind of sweet spot   in that in this portion of the gulf of Maine  where there is a small island known as — which   is basically a rock — that both the United  States and Canada have claimed since the end of   the revolutionary war — it's called Machias Seal  Island — and nobody really cared about this island   until about a decade ago when all of a sudden  the waters around that island — which both   countries refer to as the gray zone because they  both claim those same waters — once those waters   became abundant with lobster the Canadians who  long-ceded the waters to the American said, "hey   those are our waters too and we're going to fish  them," and that led to all kinds of conflict   and when I was making that film I learned a  lot about the impact of these things called   vertical buoy lines — the ropes that extend from  the surface to the seafloor — and their impact   on marine mammals and particularly north Atlantic  right whales and as a reporter for the Globe I’ve   been writing a lot about right whales but  in a piecemeal fashion and as I’ve learned   sort of the power that that films can have  and how they convene audiences and how they   kind of command your attention, I thought this  is another example of how climate change is sort   of roiling another very significant industry  and a very significant part of our ecosystem   and as everybody hopefully just watched there  is significant concerns about how the warming of   the Gulf of Maine has led to the collapse of the  the primary food source of north Atlantic right   whales — a rice-sized creature called Calanus  finmarchicus — which has pretty much, you know,   their populations have declined by some 90% or  more in primary summer feeding grounds of the   whales and so they had to go elsewhere and they  primarily moved from from near the Bay of Fundy   where they fed traditionally up to the Gulf of  Saint Lawrence in Canadian waters and they arrived   there in significant numbers for the first time  in 2017, when we had a catastrophic loss of the   right whales. We lost 12 right whales in the Gulf  of Saint Lawrence that Summer out of 17 that we   lost altogether and arguably that was a function  of climate change as well — so anyway — all of   these factors were things that I’d been writing  about and I felt like —again as I said —with the   confluence of this report from the United Nations  that this was a really important story to tell   and my hope was that people would recognize the  urgency of the crisis for right whales but also   understand that as we make these regulations and  as we try to come up with solutions to reduce the   serious mortality — the serious injuries and  mortalities of right whales — that we try to find   a way to do it so that we don't destroy a vital  part of our economy as well and figuring out how   to thread that needle is what this film is about  and it's clearly a very difficult thing to do.  

Thank you for that. We're  getting a lot of questions about   how to how to save the right whale, what's being  done, and what can be done. I want to ask you   one more question about the film before we turn  to that. Could you tell us a little about what  

was most challenging in making the film? The  technological, human, cooperation, weather...?   Tell us a little bit about the process of making  the film. Getting Jane Davenport to talk to me.   Jane's very busy I can understand  that. She's busy, she's exacting   she's tough on you if you don't quite  get it right... No, she was not a very   difficult person to get to talk to. You know, I  think the challenging part was ending the film   and figuring out how to put a bookend to this  because this is a story that is still unfolding   and I thought I had the end of the film when —  in the final meeting of the take reduction team   we see this historic unprecedented agreement  where all but one of the members agrees to take   what seemed like really hard difficult decisions  to make sacrifices and do something that would   make a substantial impact on the future  of this species and there was a lot of   a lot of grandiose commentary, and then all of  a sudden that wasn't the end of the film when   I began to see that there was this huge backlash  in Maine and there was an effort essentially to   rescind their agreement and the folks in Maine,  the congressional delegation, the governor,   lobsterman, put a huge amount of pressure on the  Trump administration to essentially take these   rules and put them in a kind of regulatory black  hole and I was sort of waiting for the outcome   of these rules and they didn't — they were not —  released, and finally there were several lawsuits   that also reached some form of resolution so we  had to incorporate that toward the end — and so   it was really challenging to figure it out.  So finally last Summer, we decided to put a  

bookend on the film, but then because of all  of these developments including the federal   government released the draft regulations on  the last possible day that they possibly could   at the end of the year in large part because  of the Defenders of Wildlife lawsuit against   the National Marine Fisheries service,   I needed to somehow address that and there  were also other developments, for example,   when I started making this film the estimated  population for right whales was roughly 411 —   this was in 2019 — and then last year late in  the fall the population estimate was revised to   356 and that was just a huge drop-off and so I  also wanted to account for that so earlier this   year we decided to update the film and you know if  I were to recut the film again there would I would   have to account for other developments including  this thing called the biological opinion and   there's so many — it's continuing — so  that was really the most challenging thing.   That's fascinating, it is a story that is rapidly  evolving that's for sure.. well we hope you'll   make a sequel and keep us updated. Jane I’d love  to bring you into this conversation we are getting   a lot of questions I think people are looking for  some hope and some action here we're getting a lot   of questions about some of the technologies the  reckless technologies that are being developed,   could you just talk a little bit about the  options that we have as a society for addressing   some of these threats and particularly there's an  interest in some of the technology that's being   developed that'd be great. Yeah, and of course  David’s film did a really good job of previewing   some of those technologies that are not  only in development but that are in use.   Both in the United States and Canada, there are a  lot of forward-thinking fishermen who are really   motivated by the idea that, especially  when you do have a closure, it's better   to be able to fish in that closure than not  fish, so the Canadian government has been   much more nimble in responding to this crisis  than the U.S. government has. There have been  

rolling closures in Canada over the past several  summers and that has proved a tremendous incentive   to fishermen to work with scientists and engineers  and the government to get into these closed areas   and test these ropeless technologies, and there's  not one ropeless technology, there's a bunch of   different mechanisms that can be used to get a  trap or a pot or a trawl— which is a string of   trap or pot— from the ocean floor to the surface  so it can be retrieved onto a boat. David’s film   shows the Smelts technology — which is these  lift airbags — there are other technologies where   the flotation device where a buoy and a rope get  put into basically what looks like a lobster trap   and that trap is the first on the end of the trawl  and then you set all your traps and you go away   and you come back and you send an acoustic signal  through a modem and the lid pops off and up comes   the buoy and up comes the rope so you still have  rope it's just not sitting in the water the entire   time you're fishing so you're only fishing for  lobsters you're not also fishing for whales while   you're doing that. There's a lot of gear retrieval  technology that the military has been using for   dozens of years and in a lot of ways it's about  bringing the pieces together it's about taking   technologies. getting them into the hands  of fishermen and getting their feedback and   their innovation to say "well it doesn't  work this way but let's do it that way."  

Some of our colleagues in the conservation  field are actively working with fishermen.   My colleague Erica Fuller from the Conservation  Law Foundation featured in the film, they have   gone to the National Marine Fisheries Service and  helped get experimental fishing permits together   so that the government can approve this kind of  experimental fishing. I think know there's still   a lot of pieces to the puzzle. There are different  purposes of a buoy and a rope — right — it's not   only to be able to get your gear back on the boat,  but it's also to indicate to other fishermen where   your gear is because if you're a lobsterman and  you've got traps and pots on the bottom and along   comes a guy who is judging for scallops if he  doesn't know where your gear is he can drag your   gear away — right — there's a gear conflict aspect  that we have to be able to solve so that everybody   can see the gear that's on the bottom. There's  also an enforcement piece of it — right — because  

if you're the federal government or you're the  Massachusetts Department of Maine Fisheries,   you want to make sure that everyone's complying  with the law in terms of their gear so   your enforcement boat — right now — has to be able  to go out there and pull the traps and make sure   everyone's got their tags. So there's there are  components of this that go beyond simply, "here's   a rope and the rope is how I get my gear." That's  one of the reasons that Defenders and our allies   have been pushing hard for the past four years  on a bill that's been introduced and reintroduced   in the past couple of sessions of congress called  the Save Right Whales Act, and basically what this   says is we need federal money to do this — right  — this is like a moonshot, I mean if we can put   people on the moon we can put federal money into  saving the whales or more recently if we can put   the rover on mars you know, the kind of money that  we need for this is pocket money compared to those   kinds of national efforts, but if we have that  significant investment of federal money then we   can bring the engineers and the fishermen and the  tech people who can figure out how to make these   systems talk to each other. We need the government  to work on regulations for all of this. So it's   possible. It's not here today but it's also not  Star Wars, this is not some futuristic plan, it's  

not going to happen for 25 years but it's going to  take money and it's going to take political will   to make these kinds of innovations happen. And  not just for the right whales, entanglements   are a problem all around this country. They are  a problem on the West Coast they are a problem   in Alaska, there's a much bigger picture here,  they're a problem around the world, we have to   develop these technologies to bring fishing into  the 21st century if we're going to have healthy   populations of whales and sea turtles and other  marine life that gets tangled up in these ropes.   I would just say I think the work that both  of you are doing — David to bring awareness   public awareness to these issues and  conflicts and Jane your work on changing   public policy — those are both really valuable  ways to make a difference to get some of these   solutions implemented so I'm really happy that  you're both able to talk about those today.  

Jane, I guess talk a little bit about  what some of our audience members can do   spreading the word, I think about this film  and about these issues generally, but tell   our audience what we would recommend  what actions they take, obviously,   there's a lot of information on Defender's  website about right whales and about the project   and we'll make it easy for people to know how to  contact congress to talk about the Save The Whales   Act, is there anything else you'd recommend  people do to help advocate for these issues.   That would be my number one pick, and we make  it really easy on our website to send an email   to your congressperson, but I'll tell you what's  even more effective than an email is a phone call   or a letter — right — because congresspeople  respond to their constituents and they respond   to their constituents who show they really  care so it's easy to go to congress.gov   and look up your representative and call and  say you know my name is Jane Davenport and I   am one of your constituents and I want to know  are you co-sponsoring the Save Right Whales Act,   I want to know are you supporting appropriations  through the annual appropriations process   to work on these technologies, to work on  plankton monitoring, to work on all these   complicated pieces of the puzzle that all have  to be solved at the same time. So truly as   individuals I think that's the squeaky wheel gets  the grease and constituent calls to congresspeople   get attention because they want your vote the next  time around so... And it's not just congresspeople  

in New England I mean this bill that we've  gotten successfully introduced with bipartisan   support has gotten sponsorship from congressional  representatives around the country, so it doesn't   matter what part of the country you're in, you  don't have to be living on the East Coast where   the right whales are to make a difference and  tell your congressional representatives that   they need to support the right whales, they  need to support a strong Endangered Species   Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act, these  fundamental statutory protections for our   critically endangered marine wildlife, you can  do that from any of the 50 states in the country.   I think we have someone joining from Idaho today  so that's a good note. I'd be interested in both   or either of your answers to this, we're getting  some questions — a lot of questions — about the   fishermen, and David you portrayed a real range of  attitudes and frustrations and experiences in the   fishing community. I'd be really interested  in your thoughts about those conflicts  

and our we've got several questions about, are  their ways to compensate the fishermen. Jane   mentioned federal funding for the technology and  things like that but talk a little bit about the   conflict — that we can in addition to regulation  about the whales — ways that the fisheries the   fishermen can be part of the solution if  properly incentivized or helped or led.   I would say first of all there is a wide range  of views just like on the other side there's   a wide range of views about how to address this  problem. So Jane has a different view than other  

environmental advocates have about how to either  coerce or pressure the government to take action   but I think lobstermen, I think they're  the fishermen that we follow in the film,   I chose Rob Martin and his partner Lori Karen  because, first of all, they are the most affected   people by existing or previous whale regulations  — their fishery has been closed for several months   a year for some seven or eight years now  — and so they've had to learn the hard way   that if they don't pay attention and don't try to  get involved and try to figure out how to solve   the problem they're just gonna be left behind So  Rob, like some other fishermen has been testing   ropeless gear and we increasingly seen Canada  fishermen — who are also having their fisheries   closed — also testing ropeless gear, so in some  ways if necessity is the mother of invention,   closures — like the ones that just took effect  this year... So one of the things that's not   included in the film when I said that it was a  hard thing to put a bookend on — one of the other   developments that occurred since the film ended,  was that starting this winter — in part because of   legal pressure and in part because of the onset  of these federal rules, the state of Massachusetts   closed nearly its entire lobster fishery,  not just the area around Cape Cod Bay,   but extended all the way up to the border with  New Hampshire and around to parts of Cape Cod to   essentially ban lobster fishing when whales  are in the vicinity from February through May,   or until the whales are no longer clearly seen  in our waters. So now there's a lot of interest   from fishermen here about testing ropeless fishing  and there are now studies and calls for ropeless   fishing — which is actually technically  illegal — to be used in a commercial way   right now because — and Jane can talk about this  — because right now, to get a permit, to fish,   you need to agree to abide by specific  practices and use specific kinds of gear   and lots of folks have been urging the state  of Massachusetts and the federal government   and other states to change the rules to  allow fishermen to start using this other   kind of gear and I think in the next year or  two we will likely see that in the federal   rules — Jane can talk about this as well —  which are supposed to finally be released   sometime this summer, are also likely to allow for  some kind of testing in two new closed areas that   will likely be part of the final rules. But  the point is that if there are closures and   there are more significant regulations, then it  seems like fishermen will have more incentive   to start testing and using the system. That  all said, the critical problem is while Jane   noted that this technology has matured  quite significantly in recent years   and is viable for the most part, it is still  really expensive, and so for a lobsterman   who is at the whim of changing prices, at the  whim of mortgage payments on his or her boat,   and who is always at the mercy of all kinds of  expenses —fuel costs, bait costs — having to spend   tens of thousands of dollars to to completely  change the way they fish and the way their   parents fished and their grandparents fished and  to re-outfit their 800 traps to use ropeless gear   would be very expensive. So ultimately, in order  for this fishery to really make the transition,  

as Jane said we're going to need some kind  of government support for that transition.   Great thanks. We have so many questions in the  chat, we are not going to be able to get to all   of them though we will certainly try to respond  separately to as many of them as we can. I want to  

ask one question to both of you over the course of  all of your work on right whales and on fisheries   generally, tell me the most surprising thing  about whales that you've discovered and the most   surprising thing about the people that you've  worked with. Jane, you're on the spot first. So it's my mission in life that no one ever uses  the phrase "gentle giants" when it comes to whales   or manatees, I mean we as humans, we tend to  say "oh well a whale is a gentle giant," well   that's because it doesn't have large teeth like a  shark and it's not going to take a bite out of you   but we have to respect that these are really  strong and powerful animals and David's film   shows footage of Joe Howlett who  was a dedicated and innovative   Canadian fisherman who spent so much of his time  on disentanglement, fishing was his real job   and disentanglement was his passion and his  public service and it wasn't the whale's fault   and it wasn't Joe's fault and he was killed  by whale so I think we need as humans to   respect that these animals — in nature —  they have their own agendas and it's not   about us — right — they're not there to have  awesome photographs with a scuba diver, don't   ever approach a whale. Number one it's illegal but  two it's dangerous. I think what's so amazing is   this is the most studied whale population in  the world. You saw the footage of Amy Knowlton   and her colleagues taking pictures and documenting  and having books of all these whales where they   have names they can be identified and yet we  don't know where most of them are for a good   chunk of the year, the closure in Cape Cod  is built around when a full one-quarter of   the population is there feeding. Where are the  other three quarters? We don't know we can't   tag and track whales, we can't LoJack them like  we could a car because you know the tags are too   injurious to a whale, you can't tag a whale like  you can a bird or a fish so we don't we where they   go. So, just sum that up, there's so much mystery  about them, they're trying to live the life that  

they've lived for a million years plus and we  know so much about them and yet we still know   so little and we have to respect that they have  their own lives and their own way of being in the   world and in my view we need to figure out how  to get out of their way and stop killing them.  We may not be going out and harpooning them  anymore but we're running over them, we're   catching them, we've polluted their environment  with so much noise they can't hear themselves   think. I saw a pop-up in the chat, sharks have  cartilaginous fins so you can put like a cartilage   piercing in your ear it's not gonna hurt you for a  whale you have to tag them by shooting into their   blubber and that introduces infection so there's  so few right whales you can't tag them, because   it's just simply not safe because you could  actually kill them eventually if you did that.  I would just add to that. So one of the most  surprising things to me when I started making   this film and knew very little about marine  mammals let alone right wales was it seemed   like a simple solution, why don't you just tag  each of them — there're like 400 or so left   —let's just..., we can monitor where they go  and we track them pretty closely from the air  

and from the sea but it goes beyond that. The  problem, as it was explained to me, is that   they have actually tagged some right whales  there have been tags that have been developed   that aren't necessarily causing infections  but they don't stay on, the whales   go down to the seafloor and kind of rub them  off and apparently they don't stay on very well.   I still am skeptical and think  that there could be some kind of   way to like wrap it around a tail or a fluke — I  don't know obviously it's above my pay grade — but   I would love to see some sort of invention  that would make it easier for us to track   them because that could potentially solve  a lot of problems... but I would say for me   the more surprising issue was just how different  the Canadian system of addressing these issues is   than the American system. As I started making this  film, and I was watching the take reduction team   process I was just really impressed I was just  like this is this is democracy in action this is   this wonderful example of our federal government  convening stakeholders from the fishing industry   and from scientists and state and local government  officials and federal officials and all coming   around the table and being given a mission and  coming facing really hard choices and coming up   with serious solutions, and I was like "wow that  was impressive," and then I saw the dysfunctional   side of how that can be played, that system, and  how it can be drawn out and how in this weird way   the only thing that really prods the system into  action is lawsuits, and that seems like a whole   kind of crazy way to make policy when you know  it gets stymied and you have to coerce it through   lawsuits whereas the the Canadian system on the  outset seems almost authoritarian in that it's   essentially a very top-down system where a group  of ministers will come together and they might   listen to their constituents in the fishing  industry or they might be too influenced by   the fishermen but they come together and whatever  their interests are they make decisions and those   decisions can be put on the water with so-called  — they like to say — "with the swipe of a pen" and   and so after the the 17 right whales died  in 2017 and 12 of them in Canadian waters,   by the next fishing season the Canadian  government had a serious regime of closures   and other regulations to protect the whales. Then,  of course, they eased up on them the next year,  

and then in 2019 we saw nine of the  ten right whales that died that year   in Canadian waters in part because they eased up  on those rules but then they clamped down again   and last year there were no right whales  that were found dead in Canadian waters   and so far this year there haven't been any that  we know of, at least. In short, the thing that   was really surprising to me is that there are  just very different ways of approaching this,   and two and a half years now after the  federal government launched this urgent quest   to try to solve this problem we still  have no rules in effect that are taking   serious action to try to reduce serious  injuries and mortalities of right whales.  Oh it goes back longer than that, we've had  no new regulations in the United States on   addressing fishing gear entanglement since 2014  and you know it was 2017, April 2017, before we   started seeing the death toll just climb crazy,  that the nymphs right whale population biologists   came to the meeting of the take reduction team  and told us that we thought that right whales   were on the increase, from the conservationist's  point of view it was slower than it should be,   but we still thought that births were outnumbering  deaths and that the population was growing,   and that was when the atomic bombshell dropped and  we found out that the species has actually been in   decline since 2010 and I do want to mention here  that obviously the focus of our whole discussion   is about entanglements,and entanglements are only  part of the problem, and we also have to recognize   that it's not just entanglements it's vessel  strikes as well, and we need to put pressure on   the federal government to expand what's called  the vessel speed rule, it's basically like   slow zones for schools, you have areas where  they know right whales are, they ask vessels   or they require vessels to slow down because  then the whales can get out of the way, so   you know we're not going to solve this extinction  crisis just by looking at entanglements we have to   look at vessel speeds, we have to look at ocean  noise pollution. One of the most interesting,  

but also just the most tragic studies, that I've  read about the right whale, there's a ton of work   done on whale poop, I mean they collect whale poop  they'll have sniffer dogs and they'll collect it   and they can test hormones, they can get all sorts  of information from whale poop and a researcher   was doing some of these collection studies on  right whales when 9/11 happened and everything   shut down right all of a sudden there's no planes  there's no boats everywhere world just came to a   halt, she was doing the research and got sort of  — the before 9/11 after 9 /11 when there was that   giant silent pause — and all the stress hormones  in the whales just plummeted, they were like   "oh I can hear myself think," and then, of course,  it all ramped back up again. So you think about   what it's like to be a right whale  where you can't communicate with   each other there's just this cacophony  of ocean noise going on all the time and   you know, we're humans we depend mostly on our  sight and not on our hearing so we don't have   that same kind of everything in the world depends  on our hearing for at least many people, but think   about what that's like to be a right whale when  you can't hear yourself think when you know you're   getting hit by ships you're getting entangled  by these ropes like we as humans are responsible   for all these things and it doesn't mean we're  evil or bad that's why it's called incidental   take, it's an accident no one's intending to do  this but we have to be more conscious of how our   ways of life, our ways of making a living are  affecting these species in the world around us.  Well, we're running a little past time I  think we all could stay and talk for a lot   longer about right whales. You've both done a  tremendous job — David through the film and Jane   through your work and through talking about all  the different ways we can get involved in this.   We really encourage all of you too, again look  at Defender's website, Jake has posted the   link in our in chat but you can also just find it  on our website to learn more about right whales   and what you can do to help them and really  encourage you to — one of the best ways to get   excited about these issues, and to learn how to be  more involved is to watch products like this film   and share information about it with your friends  and connections, I think with that we're going to   close David I did want to ask if there's anything  you want to tell us about your next project,   I hope it has something to do with whales  and we're really glad you picked whales   from all the topics you certainly could have  covered. Anything else you want to tell us? Thank you, I did write a story  in today's Boston Globe about the   lobster diver who was ingested by the whale. 

Not ingested! Ingested is different than swallowed,   ingested into the mouth but not  necessarily through the esophagus.  I'm gonna go look that one up I'll continue to use the word ingest we'll let   that one go but I do like to note that the whale  chose the guy who was not using vertical buoy   lines a bit of irony. I have actually just started  working on a new film and I'm not going to say too   much about it yet but it's climate change-related  and it has to do with sea-level rise   and trying to reflect the challenges of us sort of  making decisions that will have ramifications in   the decades to come and how we choose to live by  the sea and that sort of thing so that's a project   I'm just starting and laying the groundwork  for now, I just shot my first scene this week.  That's fantastic we all look forward to seeing  that and hope you'll come back and talk to us   about it again. I want to respond to  one, on the note about climate change,  

and responding to one of the questions  in the chat earlier about whether people,   whether we felt like people were more engaged  in environmental issues in the U.S these days   and I wanted to say I think climate change has had  a really profound impact on younger people and on   a really diverse audience of people and has  brought a lot of new people into the environmental   movement. I think in my adult lifetime an  environmental issue hasn't been on the agenda   of the President of the United States and climate  is front and center on the Biden Administration's   agenda so the issue is very serious and very  profound and, as I'm sure David's going to   tell us, could have ruinous effects on all of us,  but it has also mobilized a broader constituency   that's really looking in a very intersectional  way about environmental issues, and so I'm hopeful   that bringing attention to these issues and  getting more and more people involved really can   matter in our politics and in the way we run  public policy and I hope you're all seeing that   too, but in the meantime thank you for joining us  tonight David, thank you so much for sharing this   film with us for making this film and for taking  the time to speak to us about it. Jane thank you   for all the work that you do and for sparring with  David and everyone else in the film that we saw,   and huge thanks to our audience for those of  you who are sticking with us and for everyone   who joined for your really thoughtful questions  and ideas. There are lots of really good ideas  

in the chat that we're gonna take a look at too. Thanks everybody for joining us thank you I hope   everybody spreads the word to your friends and  family about the film and I think someone from   Defenders will be sharing links so that  you can share the film in the future.  I think that's right great thanks everybody,  have a great night good night thanks so much

2021-06-25

Show video