Episode 5: Turtles and straws - 10 years later: Plastic Podcast Crossover

Plastic straws and sea turtles collide in this episode featuring marine biologist Dr. Christine Figgener, whose viral 2015 video of a straw pulled from a turtle’s nose launched a global anti-plastic movement. We explore the long history of sea turtles, the modern threats they face from plastic pollution, and how science and activism can work together to drive change. From migration research to marine conservation, Dr. Figgener reflects on a decade of impact and the future of ocean health. Originally aired on Plastic Podcast, this episode is cross-posted on Oceanography due to the urgent overlap between ocean ecosystems and plastic waste.

Support our science communication by joining us on Patreon or sending us a gift on PayPal

Episode Guest: Dr. Christine Figgener

Learn more about Dr. Christine Figgener on her website 

Follow Dr. Christine Figgener on Instagram @seaturtlebiologist

Read Dr. Christine Figgener’s book My Life with Sea Turtles 

Watch Dr. Christine Figgener’s video on YouTube

Find more of  Dr. Christine Figgener’s work on Google Scholar

Listen to Plastic Podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

Episode Transcript  and more information on the Pine Forest Media website

Follow Pine Forest Media on Instagram @pineforestmedia

Hosted, produced, and edited by Clark Marchese 

Cover art by Jomiro Eming

Theme music by Nela Ruiz

Listen to South Pole on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

Listen to Something in the Water on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

Transcript:

Clark Marchese (00:11.874)

Hello there, and thank you so much for joining us on Oceanography, the podcast that dives deep into the science of our oceans, the latest in marine research, and the scientists working hard to better understand and protect our blue planet. And today we are talking to the turtles.

Clark Marchese (01:00.972)

All right, we have something really special for you today on oceanography, and it is actually not an episode of oceanography. Stick with me for just one second. If this is your first time joining us, this is a great time to tell you that this podcast is only one of a handful of different series produced by the Pine Forest Media Network. Each of our shows unpack a different environmental concern with a science and approach. Speaking to scientists on the front lines of research, following policy activists who are trying to turn that research into action and all while staying curious and hopeful about the wonderful world we find ourselves in. For example, you may have heard of South Pole, a limited series that discusses the past, present, future, and importance of Antarctica. Or Something in the Water, hosted by environmental scientist and water sommelier, Dr. Alaina Berg, who seeks to better understand access and sustainability concerns of drinking water around the world. Or you may have heard of Plastic Podcast, a series that follow the negotiations of a United Nations treaty on plastics pollution and the scientists who submitted their research for consideration. So today we are actually going to be listening to an episode of Plastic Podcast. As you can imagine, there are a lot of overlapping issues between plastic and the sea. If you're interested in that overlap, boy, do I have a lot of content for you. On that show, we spoke to a scientist who made a global database quantifying microplastic concentrations across the entire ocean. We spoke about the great garbage patches, of course, and the marine life living on and around them. And today I'm going to be playing an episode that we did about turtles. Perhaps you have seen a viral video where a scientist pulled a straw out of a turtle's nose. It was published about 10 years ago now, but if you have seen it, you will remember what I'm talking about because it's one of those videos that sort of sticks with you. I'll put a link in the show notes. It was that video that prompted the entire anti-straw movement and made turtles sort of a symbol in the fight against plastic pollution. And this video was taken by a scientist named Dr. Christine Figner, who we were lucky enough to speak to on Plastic Podcast. And that is the episode I'm going to be playing for you today. As a side note, this one came out a while ago. So the book that we discussed, My Life with Sea Turtles is widely available, whatever you get, find books and can be found in the episode description.

Clark Marchese (03:17.806)

And we will be back to our regularly scheduled programming next week. Spoiler alert, it is about bioluminescent sharks. And if you like what you hear today, I encourage you to take a listen to our other episodes in that series or the other shows in our catalog. And if you think any of the things that I spoke about just now or that we've covered on this show so far are important and you'd like to help us share education about these issues to as many people as we can, I'd invite you to consider joining us on Patreon for as little as $3 a month. That money goes to keeping the show going and others like it, and a portion of those proceeds will be donated to other science communication and research projects that our contributors will get to help us choose. Today in 2025, science and research are facing quite a lot of challenges and it's important that we lift each other up. All right, that is the end of my plea, and I hope you enjoy this episode of Plastic Podcast on oceanography.

Clark Marchese (04:19.502)

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Plastic Podcast. The show that tells the story of plastic, how we got here, where we even are, and where we need to go. And this week we are serving science and sea turtles.

Clark Marchese (04:44.928)

Okay, plastic and sea turtles. What's the link? Maybe you've already guessed it. But turtles are perhaps one of the largest animal symbols in the anti-plastic movement. It all started around 10 years ago in 2015 when a viral video found its way to the internet of a scientist pulling a plastic straw out of a turtle's nose. Maybe you've seen it. After this video came out, restaurants all over the world stopped giving out straws or switched them to those paper versions that we've all gotten used to. In addition to these restaurant swaps, it also prompted us to ask questions about our own plastic consumption and whether or not what we're using it for is actually necessary. Now, the scientist who took this video is a self-proclaimed turtle biologist named Dr. Christine Figener. And you won't believe it, that is our guest for today's episode. Dr. Christine Figener does research on turtle migrations and their trophic morphology. Let's break that down. Trophic means like food and or eating. And morphology refers to shape, size, design, or physical features. Now we will throw a third word in there, which is optimal, meaning the best for fitness or survival. So the optimal trophic morphology is how bodies are designed to help us eat. Boom. Science communication, baby. Now Dr. Figener is currently living and researching in Costa Rica, and she was kind enough to hop on a call with me and talk about her work. We spoke about how her passion for turtles evolved and the threats that modern plastic poses to the ancient creatures. We talked about the video that she published and the response it generated, now able to reflect on the movement 10 years later. And we also talked about how to navigate both spaces of science and activism together. I hope you enjoy our chat and I'll see you on the other side of the East Australian Current.

Clark Marchese (06:41.302)

All right, welcome. Thank you so much for coming on the show today. I'm so excited to have you here. First things first, can you please introduce yourself?

Dr. Christine Figgener 

Yeah, thank you first of all for having me on this show. I'm Dr. Christine Figgener and I'm a marine conservation biologist by trade and my focus are sea turtles.

Clark Marchese

Incredible. Now one of the things I like to do on the show because I interview a lot of scientists that study a lot of different things and I'm always curious about their journey of how they became an expert in something and for you that will be sea turtles. So can you tell us how your interest in sea turtles began?

Dr. Christine Figgener 

Yeah. So my journey into marine biology actually started, at least the passion started as a child. So I went on vacation with my parents mainly to the ocean because my parents are more of ocean people than mountain people, I guess. It just instilled in me in this curiosity for the underwater world and what's going on there. And when I got my first diving goggles that pretty much opened up a whole new world. So friends say that I even kindergarten already said that I would become an ocean explorer, just like Jacusto and Hansas, which were big back then, having incredible underwater documentaries that I could see in the television as well. And so I knew that at one point, of course, I needed to study biology to become what I call an underwater explorer. also

Dr. Christine Figgener (08:15.636)

decided to do my internship, which was mandatory back then, in zoological setting where in an aquarium actually where I could get like, you know, first-hand experiences with scientists researching marine life. And I think that was very, very helpful, first of all, to kind of get in of what scientific work could look like. And also I think giving you a realistic idea of what that work, especially field work, would entail.

Clark Marchese

I would love to do an internship at an aquarium if I had any skills that they might find useful. I actually looked into it and I'm too old to do one at my local aquarium, but I know that a lot of aquariums have entry-level programs for high schoolers, so if you're high school and listening to this, your time is now.

Dr. Christine Figgener 

And then the other thing was that while I was working there, a lot of the biology students, I saw struggling with the English language because the scientific language nowadays is English. And of course I'm German, so I'm not a native speaker. So I did not want to, you know, be bogged down by the fact that I wouldn't be able to speak English well enough. And I actually did an exchange here in the U S to kind of brush up on my English.

Clark Marchese

Shout out to anyone who has ever studied or really done anything at all in a second language. That is not easy.

Dr. Christine Figgener 

And so, you know, when, when I kind of started to develop my passion, sea turtles were actually not even on my radar, I have to admit. It was back then humpback whales. Humpback whales really fascinated me because of the songs. Family is quite musical. So there was always music around just thinking about that another species other than humans might have some, like such as a song that is not just, you know, stationary, but that develops over the course of their life that adds,

Dr. Christine Figgener (10:03.97)

depending on the experiences and all of that. So I actually set out studying biology to study humpback whales. So I did my master's in that. I went to Costa Rica for an internship to just, you know, get some field experience. And I ended up in a leatherback turtle project here in Costa Rica. And that was really where my sea turtle journey truly started. And while I was in this project, of course, you are getting the whole feel about, you know, sea turtles in general, sea turtle biology. And of course you're also realizing that this animal that has been on this planet for such a long time, all of a sudden is on the brink of extinction and it's all thanks to us humans. And it gives you a big feeling of guilt because of course I am a representative of the human species and it made me incredibly sad thinking that in my lifetime there is a, there's a very there's a very real chance that those animals will not be here anymore. mean, leatherbacks have been around, estimatedly, for about 110 to 90 million years. So they literally have survived the extinction of the dinosaurs. And I think this is really what started it all. And also my university that, you know, at least when I asked for it, gave me the opportunity to do my master's thesis in Costa Rica with leatherback. And then I just moved to Costa Rica full time and I'm still here. In between I did also a PhD like after I worked a little bit here. I actually went back to school and did a thesis on the migration patterns of olive root leaf and the diet, peri preferences. Yeah. And so now I'm Dr. Christine Figener.

Clark Marchese

Wow, that is quite a journey. And I can hear the passion in your voice, just sort of the way you talk about these animals and tell that story. And I didn't really think I had a grasp of how long turtles have been on this planet, opposed to sort of how recent are the threats that they're facing. The reason that they might not make it through this second mass extinction and their species lifetime is because of us humans. It's quite something to grapple with. But let's get into the reasons why that might happen. Maybe we'll start with a video that you posted in 2015 that went viral.

Clark Marchese (12:17.408)

across the whole internet. I'm sure you know which one I'm speaking about. And to our listeners, if you haven't seen it, I'll put a YouTube link in the episode description. can you just sort of tell us the story of this video?

Dr. Christine Figgener 

Yeah. So the video you're speaking of is very likely the video of the turtle that had a straw stuck in its nose. And it was filmed during my data collection, actually for my PhD thesis dissertation in 2015 when we were out sampling on a boat. during that time, because of course, field workers always, you know, a little bit costly, researcher actually piggybacked onto my research because he was interested in the critters that are living on sea turtles. And so we had been collecting for him pretty much everything that kind of like on turtles, let it be some crustaceans, little crabs or little sanguilos. But yeah, so that particular day he was on the boat as well. And after I was done with my data collection, he said, you know, I think she has something funny in the nose. It looks like a big barnacle. And since I wasn't doing anything anymore, I just grabbed my camera and said, oh, that's kind of funny. That's an uncomfortable place to have a barnacle. So I started filming and when he started pulling, it was very slowly materializing that it had a strange shape for a barnacle. It became longer and longer. And after a while I could see black stripes on it and we were really not sure what it was. And so we cut out of a piece. One of my local systems actually bit on it and said, that's plastic. And from that point on, was pretty clear. mean, the shape already looked like it, but it was a straw. Well, we've removed it. The turtle was probably not so pleased about it in that minute, but very happy when he swam away. And after that, I uploaded it to YouTube and it went crazy. mean, was never the intention. It was never what we thought would happen. It was just, we were so shocked about it. I think we all felt incredibly guilty as well, again, because straw is a human night.

Dr. Christine Figgener (14:20.768)

And so yeah, when we published it, it became this like internet sensation. Everybody suffered with the turtle and it definitely made sea turtles the poster child, I would say, for the impact that plastic had, at least in the marine environment. And I think this is rightfully so. Of course, there's so many other animals, including massive whales that are impacted by plastic, by eating plastic or ingesting plastic.

Clark Marchese

So it is a quite maybe heart-wrenching video is the right word, but it was also majorly impactful. I think you're right to say that both sea turtles and the straw have become pretty massive symbols. Sea turtles sort of representing almost all of the vulnerabilities of the ocean and the straw representing all of the problems around plastic. So this sort of speaks to the power of media as well, because not all of us live near the ocean or interact with sea turtles very often, but those two powerful images emerged from just this short clip.

Dr. Christine Figgener 

I think sea turtles were one of the first species that have been found to have ingested plastic. In fact, the Lotharback turtle has been the very first species ever found to have had plastic in their stomach. those records date back to the sixties and seventies. They actually first published scientific paper on it was from the eighties, but it was, you know, also leaning on data that was collected before from necropsies. Pretty much with the you know, the introduction of plastic right after the Second World War when it became really big.

Clark Marchese

Okay, so that's like almost 80 years ago, at least since this species started interacting with plastic. I'm wondering, obviously no turtle will enjoy having a straw in its nose or plastic in its stomach, but can we talk about specifically all the harms that plastic poses to species like turtles?

Dr. Christine Figgener (16:08.374)

Nowadays we estimate that about 80 % of all the T.C. turtles swimming in our oceans do have plastic in their stomachs. So that's a lot. And you know, it doesn't always lead to the immediate death of a turtle. You know, it can lead to, for example, perforations to any kind of wounds within the digestive tract, but it can also completely block it. So that means the turtle can starve while it has a stomach full of plastic because it can't eat anymore. But the problem with plastic, especially plastic that's been for a long time in the ocean, is that it almost works like a sponge. attracts certain toxins to its surface. And so there have been studies that show that just, you know, the consumption of about 14 pieces of plastic already reduces the mortality or like the probability of what arranges the probability of mortality by 50%. And we're only scratching the surface because it's really difficult for a species that is so long lived of how consumption really affects the entire life cycle. So yeah, that's kind of the problem. And that's not even including the entanglements of plastic, right? Because if you think about industrial fishing and all of that, what are those nets made of? Of course it's

Clark Marchese

Would you say that plastic could be considered the main threat to turtles at this moment?

Dr. Christine Figgener 

I get this question so many times and I find it really, really difficult and also wrong to do a ranking of threats because unfortunately plastic is a threat that turtles are facing. One of the major threats I would say as well. But if it's the most dangerous part of their lives, I don't think so. It depends maybe on the population because there is so much other stuff going on in our oceans. There's industrial fisheries that kill.

Dr. Christine Figgener (17:55.17)

hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, but then we also have the climate crisis. So we have temperatures that are rising within the water. We have the ocean level that is rising, which is destroying or like actually, yeah, eroding our nesting beaches, temperatures globally that are rising and also the sun temperatures. And because the biological sex of the sea turtle depends on the temperature during the incubation of the eggs in the sand, we already have a problem with feminizations of populations. So plastic is one of those problems and they're all somehow interconnected. Like I said already, you know, what are fishing nets made of? It's plastic. And why do we have the climate crisis? Because we are using way too many fossil fuels and what is plastic made of? It's petroleum, right? So this is all this vicious cycle. They're all interconnected and I think the common denominator is us humans, right? I think that we should have very clear it's humans and it's our lifestyle. So the way how we eat, the way how we move about in the world and how we consume, that's the sad truth.

Clark Marchese

These are all so interwoven when we really look at it. And I like the idea that it's not the best approach to sort of rank them, because we know they're all issues and perhaps even trying to rank them or identify the worst one could take focus away from the others. So they're all things that we need to be working on in tandem. But despite the reality of their interconnectedness between all of these threats and all of these species, turtles and straws have gotten a lot of airtime comparatively. So do you have any thoughts on why they became so powerful or potent as a symbol.

Dr. Christine Figgener (19:33.742)

Well, I can only guess, right? So this is nothing hard to sustain back here. I mean, I think the video definitely had something to do. It's because, you know, well, sea turtles are charismatic megafauna, which means we do emotionally relate to sea turtles. We think they're cute, maybe not cuddly because they're not fluffy, but they definitely, you know, kind of totally have sympathies from our sides. Just like panda bears and cute animals, baby animals especially. And I think seeing such an animal in such a horrible position as in that video, and it's a close up of the face and you could see the suffering, I think it does something to us emotionally. And after that, even though plastic straws are definitely not the most, well, like the biggest part of the plastic, not even the single-use plastic, but it symbolizes the problem with single-use, right?

Clark Marchese

Yeah, so for anyone who hasn't listened to our previous episodes, we did one on the history of plastic. It was our first episode, so you can go back and listen to it. But plastic products in the early stages were meant to last a lifetime, right? The concept of single-use plastic didn't come around until much later. And at some point we started using plastic for things that we don't really need. And I think the straw represents both single-use plastic and unnecessary single-use plastic. But as someone who's out in the field year after year, have you seen any changes over the last 10 years or so since this movement started? Because I know straws alone have got to be less than one-tenth of a percent of plastic waste, but it is perhaps the greatest example of success we have in terms of collective action. Even if that is the only effect it had, maybe that's even worth something.

Dr. Christine Figgener 

Well, I don't want to be totally negative about it. Honestly, I think because it opened up the discussion. If you think about it, like, you know, 10 years back, nobody was even talking about plastic. Nobody cared about plastic. And now we actually at a point, I think every child knows that plastic is bad for the environment, especially for turtles.

Dr. Christine Figgener (21:35.446)

We have a more and more research that even show that plastic is really, really not healthy for us humans neither. You know, if you look around and if you see all the companies and all the countries, especially the, you know, the policies that now exist to phase out straws, they usually didn't come as only phasing out straws. Most of them actually started phasing out other single use plastics at the same time. If you look at the, you know, the EU, for example, or even here in Costa Rica. The plastic was just, you know, the cider. And then people were like, you know what, if we start with straws, we can also talk about styrofoam and other things. So it didn't exist in a vacuum, right? It came with a lot of other changes. And now we're even discussing a UN treaty, right? And it actually doesn't only talk about the management of the waste, but it also talks about how can we reduce the production of plastic. And I want to make that very clear. So we will not recycle our way out of this crisis. And we do have to get the producers responsible. And I always say, because when I talk to them and they say, it's not as easy and we don't have any comparable materials, I'm always thinking and sometimes saying, you know, we are almost flying to Mars to colonize Mars. and invent new technologies almost every day for that. So really you want to tell me that we're not able to invent something that could replace plastic but is a lot healthier.

Clark Marchese

Another thing I want to explore on this podcast is sort of the intersection of scientific research and activism. And I'm wondering, since I know you've existed in both spaces, can you sort of speak to the experience about taking on both roles at once? There's a quote that you wrote in an article I want to ask about, and it was titled, What I Learned Pulling a Straw Out of a Turtle's Nose. And you wrote that talking to non-scientists is uncomfortable and effective. Can you explain what you meant by that?

Dr. Christine Figgener (23:30.766)

Yeah, so maybe first your first question. So I think I have now existed for longer in this space than maybe when I wrote this article or even when I started out. And I have to say, I was very slow in leaving my ivory tower as a scientist, or even I would say more my jungle here because, you know, I'm very isolated from the world. Sometimes I'm just doing my thing. And this video kind of was like the moment where I realized how powerful social media is. Once, you I can sit here in my little home in the jungle and literally publish things that I've read, you know, in I don't know how many countries by how many people that I can educate, that I can, you know, let people know of what their part could be in the whole story. I also realized that as a scientist, we do have a responsibility, I think, and which I think the scientific community slowly awakening to. I think it is not enough anymore that we are just the neutral bystanders that collect data and analyze the data and interpret the data. And I think it's our responsibility to communicate to non-scientists because a lot of times the information comes from politicians who are not scientists and who twist and turn everything. And I think it's on us to really make sure that information is put out there. that is understandable for everyone. It's just a different way of communicating, right? So that is what makes me uncomfortable because a lot of times when you're trying to simplify a very complex topic, it introduces inaccuracies, which of course, in science, you try to avoid usually. And so you have to find a way of doing it and maybe keeping the inaccuracies to a limit or to a minimum and also being comfortable with, you know, kind of being not as clear or maybe not as scientific correct sometimes of how you say things, right? Because you're getting drilled when you write a scientific article. Every word has a definition almost and it is very much matters of how many numbers after the comma are there and how you say certain things. So all of those rules kind of don't apply or don't apply as much for the communication because there you're trying to be as clear as possible and as

Dr. Christine Figgener (25:53.56)

simple as it needs to be. And I think it was actually Kel Fajan that said that, you know, if you can explain it to a child, then you do really understand it yourself, the topic, and then, you know, you know, you're on the right way. You know, that's kind of what I'm trying to do. I mean, I'm always calling myself an accidental storyteller because that's how I started out. You know, this video just kind of pushed me into that direction and I could have not done it, I guess. Just, you know, let it be and keep on doing what I've been doing before. But it comes with a certain guilt as well, because you feel like your subjects, your sea turtles do not have a voice, right? So they just live their lives and populations are dwindling and you are watching it as a scientist. And again, you feel like you should be doing something, right? You should be somehow communicating this and giving the voice to the voiceless, your voice to the voiceless.

Clark Marchese

Well, I sincerely thank you for the effort that you take to do that. And I know that the sea turtles do as well. And it's interesting that those scientific publications and then the mass media are two entirely different skill sets. I'm sure you've been doing it now for a long time, but well, it takes time to build those skills separately. And I think a lot of scientists have to navigate that on their own and in their own time, but it is necessary and we appreciate it. You wrote a book. I don't think I'm going to try and pronounce it. It is in German. But it translates to my life with sea turtles. It is available now, but in the event that you don't read German, I saw that the English version is going to be released in May. So can you tell us anything about this book?

Dr. Christine Figgener 

Yeah, so my book, Meine Reise mit den Meeresschwecken, actually translates like literally to my journey with sea turtles, but it didn't sound as pretty in English. So it became my life with sea turtles. It is very dear to my heart because it is a book, of course, about the sea turtles, but I didn't want to just package fun facts about sea turtles. Well, fun, maybe more or less fun into, you know, a popular science book. That's kind of the genre that's...

Dr. Christine Figgener (27:58.69)

that it belongs to because I honestly don't like reading it very much most of the times because it can be still pretty dry. And one of my big heroes, I'm not going to lie, is Dr. Jane Goodall. And I absolutely loved her books as a child because she managed to disseminate information about chimpanzees, about the threats chimpanzees are facing in such an emotional and very well-written way. that always intermingled with her own story as well. And so I took that as an example. I'm not saying it became the same, right? I Dr. Jane Goodall, right? I mean, it's absolutely incredible, right? Very eloquent and very well. But I tried to amalgamate it a little bit. And yeah, I pretty much tell my story a little bit about how I became a situational biologist in intertwine it with the life cycle of a sea turtle and going through the different stages of how a sea turtle pretty much, know, patches becomes adult and all of that. And maybe also some insights into conservation and marine conservation, especially because I have come to realize that a lot of people do not even know the first thing about conservation work and the realities of it. Let it be the type of life you're living if you're really completely dedicated to conservation, the constant struggles of also as a woman in conservation of working in a country that is maybe not your native country, of how you acquire funds and all of that. The neocolonistical ideas that conservation still has in a lot of parts of the world. So all of that I tried to pretty much put into this book. Some people describe it as like it's a mixture of autobiography, adventure, and a popular science book. So I think that's a pretty good summary. I hope it will encourage young people, especially women, to maybe follow my footsteps. Of course, hope. That's of course the big, big, big, big bottom line that people just fall a little bit in love with sea turtles.

Dr. Christine Figgener (30:03.042)

think about the ways they can, they can help can make a difference and help to guarantee a future for these animals on our planet.

Clark Marchese 

Wow, okay, I'm sold. I don't read German, but I cannot wait until I can get my hands on that English copy. I will put a link in the episode description for people to pre-order. We are going to start wrapping up. So I've heard a lot of them already, but I have written down to ask you, is there any one last fun fact that you'd like to share with us about turtles or to tell us if you have a favorite type of turtle?

Dr. Christine Figgener 

Well, of course my favorite turtles are leatherbacks. I think they're like the unicorns, like the last unicorns. And some people don't even know what they look like. If I would ask them, draw me a leatherback, they would have no idea of how to do it. So maybe unicorns are even more known than leatherbacks than thinking of it. fun fact about sea turtles. I think there's so many. I think fun is for example, that they have some type of kidneys in their head. So you have to think about as an animal that lives mainly in a salty environment, you are consistently losing fresh water to your environment, right? So you would shrivel up like a raccoon if you wouldn't have somehow a way of counter balancing that, right? How you can pretty much acquire fresh water over and over again. And so sea turtles do that by having these kidney type glands in their head and modified tear ducts. And so they consistently filter salt, excess salt from the system and then excreted over the eye. So they literally consistently crying, which you don't really see underwater. But when you see them, for example, on the beach nesting, it looks like, you know, they're constantly crying. And that has led to a lot of misinterpretation about like, Ooh, the female isn't so much pain. It's not, it's just literally an essential survival tool that you can live in the ocean as an animal that has, you know, that needs to have fresh water in their body, of course.

Clark Marchese (31:52.398)

That's kind of beautiful. Well, my next question is, what is your favorite part of your job?

Dr. Christine Figgener 

You know, I think what has always provided me the magic is that I get to work in a very incredible environment. mean, you can't see it, but just looking out of my window, I'm literally looking at tropical rainforest. I can go onto the beach. I get to see incredible night skies. And of course I can work with a wild animal very, very, very close up. don't think there's a lot of species that permit you to be that close without having to sedate them or anything else. And you can just share those precious moments. When the females, for example, come up to nest, I think that is very unique to working with sea turtles.

Clark Marchese

Okay, I hope anyone who has even the slightest interest in science was listening to that because this could be your life, people. That sounds pretty amazing. Lastly, is there anything that we did not discuss today that you would like to share with the audience?

Dr. Christine Figgener 

Yeah, I think, you know, just like read something about sea turtles, get excited about something. Honestly, there are so many things in this world that are not going well. Just become part of the solution. Just don't be the innocent bystander that just doesn't care or is ignorant about certain things. I think that is important. You know, we all can chip in and if everybody would give their two little parts of grains, I think we could make a huge difference.

Clark Marchese (33:17.934)

All right, what a wonderful note to end on. I want to thank you so much again for your time and for teaching us about sea turtles and for sharing your work and for the important work that you do. The last, last, last question is where can people find you and follow it?

Dr. Christine Figgener 

Yeah, you're very welcome. And if you would like to learn mobile, you can always follow me on Instagram at sea turtle biologists. That's my handle or also my website is sea turtle biologist.com. Pretty easy to remember. think.

Clark Marchese

Okay, this episode description is going to be jam-packed with links, but that is great because we love them all. Alright, thank you so much for your time.

Dr. Christine Figgener 

Thank you for having me. Have a good day.

Clark Marchese (34:06.87)

Alright, one last thank you to Dr. Christine Figgener. Turtles and straws might seem like a cliché topic for a podcast about plastic pollution, and I might be inclined to agree with that if the turtles were actually in a better spot now because of it. I don't want to end this on a low note, but while there may be more paper straws out there in the world, there is still more plastic in the ocean now than there was 10 years ago, and there's other things than straws that can get stuck inside a turtle's nose. So I think it's important to remember the turtles and the straws - if only to remind ourselves that we are capable of making collective changes. And we can use this power we have and apply it to more than just straws. And I think we are, slowly. More and more people are becoming aware about plastic waste and paying attention to the plastic products around us and whether or not we actually need them. And I think that is what the takeaway for today is.

Clark Marchese (35:03.992)

You've been listening to Plastic Podcast. You can find more information about this week's guest and links to their work in the episode description. Join us back here next week where we're going to talk to Dr. Yvonne Shashua, an expert in chemistry and museum studies about her work preserving plastic artifacts of great cultural significance and how this work can inform environmental approaches to plastic pollution. Cover art for the show was done by Laurel Wong and the music you're listening to was done by Tadeo Cabellos.

I am your host, Clark Marchese, and this episode was produced, written, and engineered by me. If you loved it, I will not only see you here next week, but I would really appreciate a five star rating and review. Classic Podcast is part of a larger network of sciency podcasts called Pine Forest Media. You can find more information about us in the episode description as well, or on our website at pineforestpods.com. We've got some exciting science podcasts coming out this year, and we'd love to take you along with our journey.