Asha de Vos’ journey from deck hand to marine science leader
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hey, it's Flora, and you're listening to Science Friday. Today, we are bringing you one of our favorite conversations from last year. We're headed back to the waters of Sri Lanka, a tropical island off of the coast of India. There, we'll find a population of blue whales that behaves unlike any other in the world because those whales stay put while every other population we know of migrates. And that discovery was made by a student who just finished her undergrad degree. The finding made a huge splash, and so did that student who later became the first Sri Lankan to earn a Ph.D. on marine mammal research, effectively charting a whole new path in science in her country. Dr. Asha DeVos is here to tell us about how she did it and what it takes to raise the next generation of ocean champions.
Asha is the founder and executive director of the nonprofit Ocean Swell. Asha, welcome to Science Friday.
Hi, I'm so pleased to be here.
Asha, I want to go back to this big moment in your scientific life.
How did Asha de Vos first discover a resident population of blue whales in Sri Lankan waters?
It's 2003. You're fresh out of undergrad. You're working on a research vessel off the coast of Sri Lanka and something catches your eye. Pick it up from here.
Oh, yeah. OK, so whenever I get to tell this story, I get so excited because it takes me back to that moment. So we were tracking some sperm whales actually off the coast of Sri Lanka. I was out on deck looking for them. But actually in the distance, what I did see was a really tall, powerful blow or the exhalation of a whale. But it was so tall and powerful, I immediately knew that it was not a sperm whale. It was like a gigantic animal, you know? And so I got super excited and I told my captain, I was like, 11 o'clock, two kilometers, let's go. I was telling him to change direction of our entire research expedition, by the way. And also, you know what? On this boat, just to say, on this boat, I was working as a deckhand.
So I was going to cleaning toilets and polishing brass. That was how my career started, right? So can you imagine, like the person who's cleaning toilets and polishing brass is now asking this expedition to go completely off track. Because she may have seen what looks like a blue whale, right? Like, I don't know. I was clearly living on the edge at that point. And then luckily for me, the captain was like, sure. After I said, I think it might be a blue whale. And we went in that direction. And so, you know, we're getting closer and closer to this animal. I am panicking because I'm so afraid I'm going to lose sight of it. Because now everybody's like, you know, looking for this so-called blue whale. And we're getting closer and closer.
And then I immediately start to think I'm losing my mind. Because... It wasn't one blue whale, but there were six blue whales, right? And it wasn't just that there were six blue whales, but they were in an area the size of a soccer pitch.
Was it surprising to see blue whales? Like, I know you were looking for sperm whales, but did you not expect to see blue whales in this area?
What did Asha observe that suggested blue whales were feeding, not just breeding, near Sri Lanka?
There were blue whales in our waters. They had been documented in 1983, but nobody had done any research on whales in Sri Lanka. consistently since then, because the country had gone through a war and access was limited and there was lots of things, right? And I think there's two exciting and really surprising things. One is that these are the largest animals that have ever roamed our planet. They can roam 70% of our planet, right? Because that's how much ocean we have. But they were choosing to aggregate in this small patch of ocean. And the second exciting thing is that they were aggregating in a small patch of ocean in like warm tropical waters, right? And we normally expect to see aggregations like this where they're feeding and large whales.
What I've been told by my textbooks and my professors was that large whales go to cold places to feed. and come to warm places like Sri Lanka, which is in the tropics, just to breed and have babies. And so I was excited because I thought I was going to see like blue whales mating and having babies, right?
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:02–1:09
2
How did Asha de Vos first discover a resident population of blue whales in Sri Lankan waters?
1:09–2:57
3
What did Asha observe that suggested blue whales were feeding, not just breeding, near Sri Lanka?
2:57–6:26
4
How did that whale sighting become the catalyst for Asha’s scientific career?
6:26–11:41
5
Why did international scientists ask Asha for help and how did she respond?
11:41–14:47
6
What is parachute science and why did Asha want Sri Lankans to lead local research?
14:47–18:23
7
How did Asha bootstrap a research program and build capacity from scratch?
18:23–18:34
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from Science Friday
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