This man is on a mission
to protect sea life that is under threat.
His discoveries have shocked the scientific world.
By pioneering the latest technology
he hopes to save some of the rarest
creatures on the planet.
Like the Giant Sea Bass, a monster of the deep
that can grow to nearly three meters long
and swallow a medium sized shark in one gulp.
They're the closest thing
you can get to being extinct.
With only 500 giant sea bass
left in the ocean, could a Facebook for fish
help bring them back from the brink of extinction?
Technology is both the genesis of the problem
and I think an important part of the solution.
Douglas McCauley is a Professor
of Marine Sciences at the University of California,
Santa Barbara.
He's on his way to the Channel Islands
off the coast of California.
This unique and delicate ecosystem
was made into a network of marine protected areas,
parts of the ocean where fishing is restricted or banned.
Many scientists believe that creating
more of these areas could be key
to saving some of the thousands
of marine species currently at risk
of disappearing forever.
This whole area right here?
Yeah. Prima.
That sounds great. A lot of marine life.
The Giant Sea Bass used to thrive
along the Pacific Coast, but sport fishing
and gill net fishing have decimated the population.
Last year 97 of them were sold in California alone.
That's one fifth of the current population.
All around the world advances in technology
are allowing fisherman to go further and deeper
than ever before.
We're in a pretty serious point now for the future oceans.
But what I see is an opportunity.
In the midst of all this bad news
we have more science that is telling us
how to react to these threats,
than we've ever had before.
Marine protected areas currently
make up 3.7% of the ocean.
But critically endangered fish, like the Giant Sea Bass,
don't respect these borders.
Doug's work is helping to establish where else
and why fishing should be banned or restricted.
We're also putting down a baited underwater camera
and try to collect some of those images
of Giant Sea Bass if they're in the area.
Of course, they are rare.
But just hope luck is with us today.
Conventional tagging methods are hard to use
with rare species like the Giant Sea Bass.
So to track them, Doug has developed a novel alternative.
He's building a photographic database
that can map their locations.
A kind of Facebook for fish.
This is a baited remote underwater camera.
It's focused here on our bait cage.
We'll get this guy set up and ready to go.
These cameras are carefully lowered
into the depths where they'll be constantly recording
in a bid to capture a glimpse of one of these
enormous and elusive sea creatures.
It's a magical experience.
When you look down beneath your fins and there is wildness.
You have these 100 foot fronds that grow from the bottom
to the surface.
Leaking through the canopy of this kelp forest,
are rays of sunlight, it really feels like
an under water cathedral.
Every time I go in there I'm blown away.
That's what a marine protected area is about.
It's about creating a legacy so that
that inspiration is there for generations to come.
Doug's work tracking the movement
of marine species has already had a major impact.
One of his research projects informed the US Government's
decision to expand America's largest marine protected area.
We used tags like this and a study of a shark species,
called a Gray Reef Shark, which as the name suggest,
people always thought lived on coral reefs.
Put this tag on, low and behold this shark
actually was traveling way out into the open ocean,
and they were feeding out in these blue Pelagic zones.
And the protected areas that we'd set up for them
were too small.
So it's a really great example of how a piece of technology
when you strap it to a shark, it can tell you
how to be smarter at setting up protected areas.
After his success with GPS for sharks,
Doug hopes that his Facebook for Giant Sea Bass
could lead to similar results.
If he discovers they're populating other parts
of the ocean, he can build a case to create new
marine protected areas.
And again, it's a piece of technology that could
make the difference.
Back in the lab Doug is reviewing footage
from resent dives.
Here coming out of the corner, another Giant Sea Bass,
coming in so close you can actually see the parasite
to it's head.
Interestingly, this guy's got some scars to his pectoral fin
and a fishing line hanging off of him.
That's a guy who has a hook there
that it will be lodged in its jaw.
Helping to analyze these images
is an algorithm originally developed
by NASA to identify stars.
But Doug and his team are now using it to identify fish.
On both sides of a Giant Sea Bass there are spots.
And those spots are unique.
Accidentally, these Giant Sea Bass are carrying
their own barcode on the sides of their bodies.
The algorithm can quickly scan
and identify individual fish.
So far, Doug has cataloged 115 of this critically
endangered species and is mapping their migration patterns.
We know next to nothing about Giant Sea Bass.
A project like this gives us the raw data
to actually manage their future successfully.
Marine Scientists are increasingly
turning to technology and data to help reverse
the damage being done to our ocean
and to endangered species, like the Giant Sea Bass.
We need to see more people like me
that are fish nerds, hanging our with computer nerds,
from Silicon Valley to understand more about the oceans.
To see more on the oceans
and to manage them more effectively.
I really see technology as the keystone
for being able to figure out how to get to that 100 year
future, that 1000 year future,
which is healthy for our oceans.