Rising Tide: The Ocean Podcast

On Sunday, July 21, Ocean Activist and Sea Shepherd Society founder Paul Watson was arrested in Greenland, a territory of Denmark, on an Interpol warrant issued by Japan. Japan claims he damaged one of their commercial whaling ships while protesting and helping to end Japanese whaling off Antarctica. France, where Watson now lives, has asked Denmark not to extradite him. We're replaying our Octobe...

On this episode of Rising Tide the Ocean Podcast we speak with world-famous Ketchikan Alaska-based artist and illustrator Ray Troll about his art – from Tee-shirts to wall murals - highlighting ocean life present and prehistoric (he summers in the ancient seas of Kansas). Combining the sensibilities of Gary Larson and Winslow Homer he can take your breath away with laughter and beauty. We discuss...

In this rebroadcast of episode 13 of the Rising Tide Ocean Podcast, we pay tribute to the late Dr. Wallace J. Nichols, a distinguished marine biologist, passionate water lover, and dedicated turtle advocate. In this poignant conversation, Dr. Nichols opened his heart and shared the deeply personal story of losing his home in the devastating California Lightning Complex fires. We felt his profound...

Join us on this episode of the Rising Tide Ocean Podcast as we dive deep with Curt Newport, an underwater salvage expert and author of the new book, 'Ready to Dive – Five Decades of Adventures in the Abyss.' Curt shares his incredible experiences using ROV robot submarines and advanced technologies around offshore oil platforms, fiber optic cable laying operations, military crash sites, and more....

Join us for an inspiring episode of the Rising Tide podcast as David Helvarg & Natasha Benjamin sit down with Bob Shavelson, a seasoned conservationist with over 35 years of experience in the environmental field. Growing up along the shores of Atlantic City, NJ, Bob's journey has taken him from the east coast to the rugged beauty of Homer, Alaska, where he has led significant efforts in environmen...

On this episode of the Rising Tide Ocean Podcast! Today, we sat down with Kiera Foti, the brand manager for Atlantic Sea Farms, the leading aquaculture kelp grower in the U.S. Based in Maine, this innovative company supplies edible kelp to stores like Whole Foods and numerous restaurants. They also produce branded products and sell kelp for cosmetics, fertilizers, and more. Discover how Atlantic S...

On this, our latest episode we talk with Kate Toniolo, U.S. Fish & Wildlife’s project leader for Delaware’s coastal refuges including the 10,000 acre Prime Hook, an area devastated by 2012’s Hurricane Sandy.  Since then, she’s overseen restoration efforts that have seen the comeback of its sandy beaches, fresh and saltwater marshes and wildlife including threatened shorebirds, horseshoe crabs and...

To celebrate Earth Day (which is 71% ocean) we’re speaking with Margaret Spring, Chief conservation and science officer for the world -famous Monterey Bay Aquarium, in California. Before coming to the aquarium Margaret was an environmental attorney and a leader at NOAA. Today she oversees the aquarium’s science policy work including on plastic pollution and its extensive Seafood Watch sustainable...

In the latest Rising Tide we talk with our old friend Ana Blanco of the International Ocean Film Festival - coming to San Francisco April 12-14 - and Sarah Norenberg, the director of ‘Orca – Black & White Gold,’ one of the exciting documentaries playing there about how Russian activists saved 100 whales slated to be sold to Chinese aquarium parks, and instead got them released back into the wild. ...

In the latest episode of Rising Tide, along with Blue News, David and Vicki talk with Dr. Nancy Rabalais from Louisiana State University.  Nancy’s been called ‘the mother of dead zones’ in that her decades of research has helped define the Gulf of Mexico’s seasonal oxygen-depleted waters generated by polluted agricultural runoff from the Mississippi. These dead zones can grow to the size of New Je...

Director of ocean and fisheries economics at the University of British Columbia, our guest this week, Dr. Rashid Sumaila, has used economic modeling applied to global fisheries to come up with some dramatic and world changing conclusions.  He talks with us about everything from how government subsidies threaten coastal seas to how living fish have ten time the climate value than they do dead and e...

In this episode of Rising Tide Vicki and I speak with Shelby Van Pelt, author of the best-selling novel, ‘Remarkably Bright Creatures’ that tells the story of a growing, healing friendship between a widowed aquarium cleaner and a Giant Pacific Octopus with an attitude.  Shelby talks about how Marcellus the bored, curmudgeonly cephalopod came into being, how her upbringing in the Pacific Northwest...

In this episode of Rising Tide I speak with Coast Guard Rear Admiral Andy Sugimoto.  He commands the 11th District that stretches from the California Oregon border to the waters off Peru, also Arizona, Nevada, Utah and a bit of Wyoming.   A 39-year veteran of the service I wrote about in my book, ‘Rescue Warriors’, he’s done 12 years at sea, worked as a judge advocate general and coordinated U.S....

In our new episode we speak with Kathi George, Director of Cetacean Conservation for California’s Marine Mammal Center. As a founder of California Whale Rescue, Kathi has been involved in half a dozen at sea ‘disentanglements’ of gray, humpback and orca whales trapped by fishing gear as well as 50 sea lion rescues from fishing line and plastic debris. She tells us about how it’s done, the dangers...

In a special edition of Rising Tide, David Helvarg, Vicki Nichols-Goldstein and Natasha Benjamin play excerpts of some of our past guests since RT first went live in 2020.  Since then, we’ve attracted thousands of listeners like you and tens of thousands more on community radio stations across the nation. Listen to clips from 14 of our past guests including Ian Urbina, Sylvia Earle, Danni Washingt...

In our latest episode we speak with world-renowned underwater photojournalist Brian Skerry.  Brian talks about his early work in the bone-chilling waters of New England (where he continues documenting our changing seas), his early pictures for National Geographic starting with a pirate shipwreck.  Also, some of his famous images including of a grey seal, a Right Whale greeting his assistant and a...

On our latest Rising Tide, we speak with paleo oceanographer Margaret Leinen, Director of the San Diego based Scripps Institution of Oceanography, one of the world’s leading research centers. Leinen talks about its cutting-edge work on the ocean, atmosphere, climate, biology and more. Also, how their vessels monitor climate change in Antarctica and across our blue world and how the role of women i...

About half the world’s seafood now comes from aquaculture, rather than wild caught fishing. Last year Blue Frontier made a short film on Ocean Era, a Hawaii-based company doing cutting edge research into sustainable mariculture. On Today’s Rising Tide we talk with its founder and CEO Neil Sims about their work with fin fish veggie diets, offshore pens, growing seaweed for food and fuel, climate-fr...

In a Special Encore Episode of Rising Tide we revisit our June 2022 talk with the late Ocean Pioneer, Don Walsh, who passed away on Nov. 12 at the age of 92.  In 1960 he and Jacque Picard became the first humans to reach the deepest part of the ocean – almost 7 miles down in the Challenger Deep. He talks about that journey and its near disaster, why ocean exploration didn’t go the way of the Space...

On this episode of Rising Tide David & Vicki speak with Marce Gutiérrez – Graudiņš, founder and Executive Director of Azul, the first grassroots organization working with Latinx people throughout the Americas to protect our blue ocean. Based in California where she sits on the governing board of the California Coastal Conservancy, Marce, shocked by the Chevron refinery explosion in Richmond Ca...

On this episode of Rising Tide we talk with surfers and filmmakers Lewis Arnold and Chris Nelson about their upcoming documentary "The Big Sea". This startling expose takes a look at the links between the manufacture of neoprene (chloroprene rubber), used in wetsuits and the toxic pollution and high-cancer risks faced by low-income communities adjacent to neoprene's main manufacturing plant in Lou...

On this episode of Rising Tide we talk with Mikki McComb-Kobza of the Ocean First Institute.  A long time diver and conservation biologist Mikki has studied sharks all around the world.  She’ll talk about her discovery on how Hammerhead sharks see, how sharks are the wolves of the sea, why that’s a good thing and how she uses DNA sampling and measures white sharks using underwater lasers.  And of...

On this episode of Rising Tide we talk with Terry Tamminen, President and CEO of AltaSea in the Port of Los Angeles.  The former Waterkeeper, head of California EPA and longtime Climate advisor tells us about this unique ‘Blue Economy Hub.’  Hear what AltaSea is doing to scale up Ocean Climate Solutions through innovation, education and sustainable business startups focused on clean energy and aqu...

Today we’re having an in-depth conversation with best-selling author and ocean advocate Susan Casey about her latest book, ‘The Underworld, Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean.’  She talks about the role of the deep oceans in sustaining life on earth, the ‘Star Wars Bar Scene’ population of strange and incredible animals living miles below the surface, how people like her have and can travel to th...

Our overheated seas off Florida have now topped 101 degrees, the kind of record you don’t want to claim. Today we’re talking with Alex Neufeld of the Coral Restoration Foundation, a major group of scientists and technicians who’ve been forced to move their coral grow nurseries from the waters of the Florida Keys to onshore tanks to prevent their bleaching and dying.  We’ll discuss how they’re doin...