I don't understand this,
but I'm actually looking into the world of why philanthropy is at the mercy of
capitalism these days in the world. And why can't we just, I mean,
if I were to die tomorrow, I want to leave this world a better place right?
What we're trying to do really is earth restoration for the future of humanity,
right? Even if we need to explore other planets,
we're going to have to restore earth resources and sustain them.
[Intro Music].
This is Cookie and I don't know if he'll let, he'll stay for long.
He's not a normal cat, huh? Or is that-.
Well, he's got this extra, it's like, it's like a catcher's mitt,
oven mitt, you know.
Where'd you find him?
Well, he's um, he's a, uh, you know, uh,
a street cat.
Oh, really?
We adopted him from the street.
Okay. So how did you get interested in cats because,
and you were interested in big cats, right?
Yeah, I was interested in, um, well,
I was interested in big cats in general. Like,
obviously you know you grow up in India,
you learn so much about tigers and lions and all the
mythological-.
Lemurs and all sorts of other things right?
Right, right. Um, but you know, the craziness didn't set in,
uh, up until I finished my engineering degree because, you know,
that's what we do in India.
We first get our engineering degree and then we do everything else.
How did the engineering degree take you to, you know, cat conservation?
Well, um, you know,
it was a degree in biotechnology and then after that I was, uh,
finishing it up. And then at the end of June, right in the last year,
um, I was always interested in wildlife and, you know,
I would get outdoors with my dad, you know, we'd go hiking into the country.
And, uh-.
Did you ever see a tiger out there?
Oh no. Yeah. We went to a lot of national parks, but, uh, you know,
seeing a tiger is not that easy, seeing wild cats in general is not that easy.
So, um, anyway, I was, I was this outdoorsy kind of person,
you know, getting outdoors with my dad and then, uh,
my mom was in the Serengeti. Well, actually my mom was in Tanzania,
she's a doctor,
she's a gynecologist and she was practicing in Tanzania and we got
hosted by my mom in Tanzania on an international, our first international trip.
So we went to the Serengeti right in the final year of my engineering degree.
And then I was in the Serengeti with, uh,
camping out for the first time in my life with my dad.
And of course my mom funded our trip. She didn't come on that trip. Yeah.
And then, you know, that just sold me because I was, uh,
the best part is I was camping out with those field guides and their names were
Thomas and Jerry. And it
was magical because, uh, Tom and Jerry, you know,
they're like so inspiring they knew everything about the lions.
They knew everything about the leopards and all of the amazing, you know,
species out there in the Serengeti.
Now, did you, did you see any of those cats?
Absolutely.
That was a safari that sold me into
wildlife conservation and I had to do something about it. So, uh, fast forward,
uh, 10 years, I got my PhD in wildlife conservation and-.
Now there's no way.
Wait wait Jesse let him talk, wait what did you say?
Macros is coming through. Uh,
I finished my PhD in wildlife conservation and changed the license plate on my
car to CATDNA.
Okay.
We would have missed that. Okay. Okay. Cat DNA.
Living, where were you living then?
Um, well, after India, moved here to Tucson, I mean,
actually I went to a conference in, uh,
Oxford at the UK after I finished. Uh, I came back from the Serengeti,
finished my engineering degree,
and then I found a person working on tigers in India, uh,
at this research lab. And I got, I mean,
I was fascinated with cats and wildlife,
so I wanted to get into wildlife research. So, um, I started working, you know,
it was, the funny part is the first thing you,
if you're a wildlife or when you start studying wildlife,
the first thing you're handed is a bunch of poop.
Well, it's all there. You know what I mean? I saw,
I analyzed tiger poop to start with.
And what did you find out about it? What was in there?
Um, a lot of crazy stuff. So we were, we were, first of all,
using genetics to identify whether it was a tiger or another species.
Uh, and then the same thing, even in, uh, you know,
when I started my master's here in Arizona was mountain lions and bobcats who
were trying to differentiate between the two and then find out what-.
Yeahs thats hard to do because there's not a taxonomy necessarily that that's
easily understood.
So are you the first person doing that or is there already something to look at?
No there's a lot of research out there. I mean, it's,
it's extensively worked on, um, you know, you can,
you can find out from scat, you know,
it's a gold mine of information. You can tell who's,
who's daddy who's related to whom, uh, what species it is, uh, where,
you know, which population is from around the area. Uh, in fact,
there was one time-.
When aliens scan us and they look around,
they know all that stuff that we don't even know.
No. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, there was a funny incident when I was,
uh, uh, analyzing mountain lion poop, a lady handed me, uh, uh, uh,
a Ziploc baggie of, of poop that she's taught was mountain lion. And then, uh,
with it, a bag of cookies and she said, please let me know.
Oh, Ow.
That's how I got the nickname scatman.
Isn't there coffee from poop, somebody's poop,
there's coffee they make somewhere, that's a whole other story, but.
We're going to avoid all that.
Alright we can avoid that but anyway, so.
Kopi Luwak yes.
Exactly. Thank you. So the love of the cat though,
like the love of the cat, like-.
But, but those are big cats, those are giant cats.
How do you go from these big giant cats to the little itty bitty cats?
You know, um.
And tell us about the kind of place where you lived and tell us about the
mangroves and being out there and did you ever see a cat out there and what are
these cats look like?
That came out later. So, uh, you know, like you, you, you,
you deal with the big stuff and then you realize, Oh,
I really need to pay attention to the underdogs. You know,
the things that don't get as much attention, you know, that feeling, right. So.
I do that all of the time with Jesse, right?
We have a whole company based on that.
Exactly. You know, you know, the big companies are the big companies,
and then there's the small companies and then you want to do something with a
startup and things like that. Right?
Yeah.
So anyway, uh,
w- I studied tigers and I studied mountain lions and I studied, uh, all,
uh, you know, I was in the big cat world and I found out that there were,
there were 38 species of cat,
wild cats at that time.
I think they're more like 40 right now that have been described, uh, or, um,
wild cats
and people have rarely heard of these names, but, you know,
I'll rattle off a few, um, Andean cat, Pampas cat, Pallas cat,
Black-Footed cat, Bay cat, Fishing cat,
Rusty Spotted, cat. Rusty spotted cat is the world's smallest cat. It's like,
it's about the size of a wine bottle and it lives in South Asia. So
everyone knows tigers, leopards, lions, you know, all the snow leopards,
all the, you know, big, beautiful, um,
cats. But then very, very little research was published on these smaller cats.
And I wanted to see how we could take all the great,
amazing knowledge and talent and ideas that we have. And, uh, you know, the,
we studied all these big cats with and then apply them to these smaller cats.
So that's when, um, I said, okay, well, there's,
what's the next most endangered cat next to the tiger.
And where am I from? You know, I speak four Indian languages. Uh,
why can't I,
you know- and I kept going back and forth between India and the US um,
the last, you know,
decade while I was doing my studies to try to do conservation work.
And I found out that, uh, Fishing cats, uh, live, um,
in my backyard pretty much, I mean, from the state I am from.
And, um,
there were many areas where they were there and nobody seemed to care about
them. And the fact that, you know, they were endangered,
um, and their habitat is being lost,
like many other wildlife species, you know,
the biggest threat to wildlife is habitat loss. Um- did you,
so did you hear about that? And then how far away from your home is it,
is it two hours by car? Is it three hours by car,
or you didn't have to take a plane flight?
Like the first time you went to see what it was like, how far was the journey?
It was about a day's worth of driving and then walking
into, uh, so about eight to nine hours of driving and then,
um, into the villages, uh, from the city.
And then you go into these mangrove forests, which, you know,
we were looking at these locations, uh, via Google satellite imagery,
and we thought, you know,
these were the most likely places that these cats might be because they are
wetland adapted. Uh, they love to fish. Um,
and so-.
Now, are you looking for scat when you first get there or-.
Yeah. Tracks and scat precisely, you know, this like, uh, it's kind of cool.
I wish I had kept tracks, but, um, you know, if you look at two,
if you look at cat tracks mechanical, you can tell between left and right there,
the toes of the cats are just like our finger nails.
And you can tell between left and right. Looking at that. But, um, yeah,
we were looking for tracks because that's what you look for on moist sand
and the best part about fishing cats is, those tracks are perfect. You know,
it's hard to, uh,
find cat tracks uh like mountain lions and tigers
because you know, they're in these drier environments also. And,
uh, the, the substrate isn't the best, but with fishing cats,
they're in these wetlands and this loamy soil just makes this perfect textbook
style cat print.
So did you go by yourself initially? Or did you go with somebody?
Well, I sent my dad.
I'm confused though were you in Arizona and then you went back home to do this?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, so yeah,
to seal up the story, uh, you know, after Serengeti, when I came back,
I didn't want to do engineering anymore. I wanted to get into wildlife.
And so I, I, uh, got in touch with this lady who was studying tigers,
um, in India. And then she hooked me up with a project in tigers,
and then I presented the results of that research,
basically tiger poop analysis,
finding out that there's actually tigers in an area where people thought there
weren't, you know tigers are going extinct and,
and lo and behold in Oxford, when I presented that research, I met my advisor,
uh, who was studying, he- she's a mountain lion legend. Her name is Melanie.
That's what I thought you were going to say.
It's a person who studies mountain lions right?
Yeah, she, she did this pioneer in genetic research on finding out, uh,
uh, you know, basically letting people know that the Florida Panther is,
uh, the same as your Puma or Cougar, you know,
mountain lions have so many names, Puma, Cougar, uh, you know, Catamount,
uh, Mo- you know, many places that Panther, painter and some, some, some,
some places. But anyway, she did a lot of research and I was just, you know,
budding graduate student or, uh, looking to get into her head.
Had she done research on the fishing cat?
No, she had not. She was, um, more into genetics and genomics of, uh, I mean,
she was into human genomics and genetics, and then she, uh,
started doing this uh mountain lion, uh, genetics, um, uh, work.
And she was, she became well known for that. I met her at that conference,
and this was a unique conference.
There's never been such a conference in the world. Again, it was only one time,
300 wild cats specialists flew in from all over the world,
into this location in Oxford. And, uh, in September of 2006.
Was the liquor flowing or what? It was crazy. Yeah. Everyone was-.
There's a, there's a reason. It only happened once.
That's a good idea. We should start a liquor called catatonic.
Brand it right now. I was going to ask if everybody was purring, but that was,
you know, I guess that was mostly, yeah, well.
We tried drinking like a fish or whatever for fishing cats,
but anyway, yeah, the cat, the cat specialist, you know,
that's where I, uh, presented my research. And, um,
my advisor was like, wow, you know, you did this great stuff on tigers.
You know, I'd love to give you an opportunity to come do a masters program.
You know, obviously I was like super enthusiastic.
I really wanted to get into an official wildlife program. And when I got here,
the first thing I get handed by her is a box of poop.
That was my master's degree, analyzing mountain lion poop. So it was fun.
It was awesome. And then I practiced my fake accent, right.
The first talk that I gave in the US it's like,
I'm staying right here in america where I can get a bucket of chicken for a buck
ninety-five.
I don't know. I don't know. Did it work? I don't know.
I don't know if it's still working. So, so, okay.
So you send your dad to the, to the first off,
how did the conversation with your dad when you said,
I don't want to be an engineer anymore. I want to study swimming cats,
how did that conversation go?
He was like,
I'm waiting for the time in your life where it's like,
I told you, I told you. He wanted, he wanted to get that.
That's what he keeps saying.
I want to get to the point where you really fall flat on your face.
And you're like, I told you.
Yeah. But somehow,
but somehow you convinced him to go to the village without you. Yeah?
Yeah. He's a, he's kind of a Maverick in our family.
He was the one who used to get out, uh, get outdoors and, uh, you know, India,
like recreation wasn't really a thing when I grew up and, uh,
getting outdoors and going on hikes and stuff and climbing rocks, uh,
in unknown places was kind of a weird thing, but he got me into that.
So he was,
he had no problem getting outdoors and he thought this was just exciting. Uh,
and so-.
Are you a city kid in India? Would you, did you live in the city?
Nah, I, I grew up in the city, but I was always, always, uh, you know,
I wanted to get outdoors and do stuff in the wilderness.
But so you, you didn't, you drove for nine hours,
but you never had any feeling of danger from going to a village or is
that, is that something that you'd have like here in America?
I would feel nervous about doing that, is it less so there?
Not really. Yeah. I mean, Well,
I think it's the kind of people you're talking to.
Some people are just super city focused and some people are just like, you know,
super, um, you know, uh non-city, but generally I found,
so I've traveled in many places. I, in fact,
I traveled with my dad to Indonesia, to, uh, um, uh,
other countries in Southern, Southeast Asia as well. We keep traveling,
we keep meeting for these field opportunities these days,
because we want to discover these cats and we want to work with the people who
are working next to these cats.
Yeah. It's just like a dad now he's interested in what you're interested in.
Now he's interested now he's hooked. Right.
Let's go back to the fishing cat though. So this was, uh, this,
you heard about the fishing cat, you sent your dad and by the way,
it's a fishing cat, like, what does that mean?
The cat is actually going fishing.
It's called a fishing cat because, uh, I guess, well,
it's scientific name is Prionailurus viverrinus so it's, they're,
they're named after viverrids, uh, which are actually, um,
kind of like new stellids, uh, but, uh, you know,
when people studied this cat,
they found that the cat likes water or lives next to, you know,
these wetlands and loves to catch fish.
So if you looked at a photo of a fishing cat, you know, you'll see, uh,
most of them are in water in wetlands. And the photos that we obtained too,
you know, most of the times we found them, uh, looking for fish and, you know,
it's an app name. I think it's awesome. Cats usually hate water,
and this fricking cat loves water. Right.
Now they'll use one paw,
they'll tap the paw on the top of the water cause it sounds like a fish.
You know, that's what I've heard heard, but I haven't seen that.
And neither is there any video documentation of that happening in the wild. Um,
but yeah, that's really cool to, uh, I mean, for,
for us, I think, um, I think, well, we don't,
I haven't seen any evidence of it is what I'm trying to say, but it, I think,
I think that's what they do. They also just jump in, uh, to catch fish.
And you know, if you go to zoos, I don't know where you guys you're in LA,
right? Yeah. Uh, San Francisco zoo has fishing cats. Uh,
San Diego zoo has fishing cats. Um, and you can go see them, uh,
jump into water and catch fish.
What's your feeling about zoos?
Well, zoos are the whole point is conservation, right?
The idea is to protect and restore wild animals.
And if a zoo is able to do that effectively, then I'm okay with it.
But if a zoo is just a zoo for a business perspective to capitalize on animals,
um, then I don't think that's, that's the way to go going forward.
It's not going to be sustainable anyway. Uh, even, I mean,
from a business standpoint of when we started Fishing Cat Conservancy in
2014, it was all about looking,
discovering this cat and trying to protect it. But you know, why,
why do, why is this cat endangered? Why is this habitat being lost?
And it's all because of business reasons.
When you look at what people are being incentivized by; deforestation,
climate change, extinction,
all of this is happening because there are no jobs that
are, uh, you know, solving these problems.
There are no jobs that are making people, plant trees. You know, that there,
it's not a valued sealed. And that's what I learned when I graduated. It's like,
I mean, my, my friends who were in wildlife, they left wildlife. They were like,
"Dude, there's no money in wildlife. I'm getting out,
I'm getting outta here." And I'm like, "That's really sad.
We've got to change that." And so that's when we started discovering that,
you know, this is an ecological problem,
but it needs to go hand-in-hand with economy, you know,
local economy.
And we need to build in an economic solution to this ecological problem.
If we don't create jobs in conservation, uh, we,
we're not gonna basically succeed at protecting these species in their habitat.
And that's the reason why, uh, I was motivated to start Fishing Cat Conservancy.
And that's, that's why I started FishCat. It's creating jobs for conservation.
So when do you see, so you start by seeing scat. Now, you know,
and tracks. Now, do you,
cause you can infer what the cat's doing a bit from these, these, uh,
tracks. And you can, you know,
you can see what other animals are doing and where they are in an ecosystem and
how many there might be there.
Like what did you learn when you first went and saw that?
And were you surprised that you saw tracks and scat right away?
Yes, I was actually, I mean, we, our,
our estimation that this cat is going to be in these
habitats and that nobody had gone and discovered them.
We were studying this cat on,
in paper and there were only like 15 or 16 research papers published on it and
its behavior. But you know, with that preliminary information, we're like,
boom,
these are the locations that they might be and let's go check them out and then
went there, boom. We saw tracks, we put up wildlife cameras, which are these,
you know, game cameras where,
motion sensor cameras where animal moves in front of them, you get a picture.
And we're like, "Yep. Put it on this cat, you've got a fishing cat." Now,
did you,
did you stay there or did you set the camera and then come back a week later?
You set the camera and come back and then you check three or four days later and
you have some pictures and that's what, and then we started mapping these,
these locations and saying, "Okay, confirmed Fishing Cat,
confirmed Fishing Cat confirmed." And you know,
we put all these locations and then we'd go in and find out and talk to the
local people like, Hey, have you seen this cat? And they're like, yeah,
we see this cat in and out, you know. And then why,
why is this habitat not being protected? Because there's no incentive!
Who cares?It's like cut the trees down and then use it and then build farms.
By the way, the biggest threat to cats, these Fishing Cats and these, uh, uh,
locations of habitat is our seafood consumption.
I learned Monterey Bay Aquarium became, or we became their partners last year.
And they, uh,
I learned that over 90% of the seafood consumed in the U.S. is
imported. And that just blew my mind. And if you go to any grocery stores,
you'll see "Product of India," "Product of Thailand," "Product of Vietnam,"
"Product of Sri Lanka." And it's all of these fish and shrimp farms
that have decimated Mangrove forests.
And we've lost like over 50% of the historic Mangrove forest cover. And um,
yeah, there you go. That's the business.
No, no, that's really important. I mean,
I think that is super important because I think you're talking now about an
ecosystem. You start with the cat, your love of the cat, you follow the cat,
then you see the cat,
then you learn that nobody cares about the cat and all of the other problems,
which is really what you're trying to get at.
Well, at what point does it become the,
you see that the Mangrove is fading away and that people are, you know, uh,
you know,
that it's a part of an ecosystem and that you need to save the cat as a,
as a way to save the Mangrove forests. Right, so, um,
we started out with the cat and then we found out that this problem is much
larger than the cat itself. Um, and that the mangrove ecosystem, well,
actually first let me clarify that Fishing Cats also live in inland wetland
ecosystems like rivers and swamps and lakes. Uh,
but many of their populations are concentrated in these Mangrove forests in
South and Southeast Asia. So, you know,
11 range countries in South and Southeast Asia all the way from Pakistan to
Indonesia, or I should do this the opposite way. Um,
so what we discovered was Mangroves, in general,
are these amazing ecosystems.
They protect coastlines from tsunamis.
They are the source of freshwater fish, shrimp,
and crab to local people. In many cases, you know, you know,
a large number of human populations depend on, you know,
sustainable fisheries from these Mangrove forests. Uh, so,
it's a primary source of food and livelihood. They also, uh, are,
this is what I call the "Icing on the Earth fact" or icing on the cake fact, um,
mangroves store upwards of five to 10 times more carbon dioxide than tropical
forests.
So protecting an acre of mangroves is like protecting five or more acres of
tropical or Upland forest. Think about that. I mean,
this ecosystem has probably one of the best bangs for anyone's conservation
buck. Um.
Ashwin, can I, I want to ask you a question, how is the overfishing, I just,
just take me through, and the audience through the thread, the overfishing,
what, what's happening? And just explain that to the audience,
like what is happening?
We've got over fishing that kind of screws up everything else, right.
Right. Aquaculture is non-sustainable because, or unsustainable in many ways,
because you have, you've dug out a pond, you've dug out a farm on the land,
right. And you're filling it with, uh, you know,
concentrated pollutants, chemicals and shrimp,
and you're trying to basically increase the productivity within an acre and or
whatever unit area. And then after the produce has done, it's sold.
And then all of that pollutant water has to be pumped out and it's pumped out
into the natural rivers. And, and so it, it,
it reduces or impacts the fish stock,
the natural fish stock in the rivers. Right?
And they have to keep doing this year, over year, over year.
And after three or four years,
the productivity of that unit acre drops off dramatically.
And then they need to replenish the entire soil base and they dig it up,
they dig up the pond. They like,
it completely messes up the entire unit. And then,
because there's a lot of salt concentration,
there's a lot of chemical and pollutant concentration. And so that basically,
and farmers lose their livelihood.
Aquaculture farmers are get attracted with the money, the awesome profits,
the first few years, the short-term profits. And then long-term they are,
their lives are completely... And these big companies, they're like, "Oh yeah,
I'm going to extract this. I'm going to go extract this.
I'm going to extract these farmers" and then finally... Ultimately,
now aquaculture is an industry that is so focused on
improving efficiency and sustainability because they can't live without
sustainability. Right? And I'm going well,
here's a Mangrove forest that is sustainably producing fish,
shrimp and crab, and you don't have to pump it with chemicals.
You don't have to, uh, you know, provide, do, uh, basically, uh,
anything to it and it will naturally produce...
Albeit it won't be as high of a productivity level, but guess what?
We can create multiple sources of income with a Mangrove forest.
Not only would it provide for your food and base livelihood,
but we can make it a carbon sink and get you carbon offset money.
We can establish a nature reserve and get people to come visit your nature
reserve and get you an third source of income. So,
and then we created that with FishCat, we created Earth Camp.
We create a nature reserve. We're experimenting with those ideas. Uh,
but basically, um, you know,
it's on the premise that there's enough in the world for everybody's need,
but there's not enough in the world for everybody's greed,
which I think is a quote by Mahatma Gandhi.
So when you, um, the first, um,
farmer or the first fishermen, you know, they're not conservationists,
they're just trying to feed their families.
And you've had success at turning some of them into conservationists because
there's a different way of, of, of them making a living.
What were the first meetings like, like for that? That's a,
that's a great question. Like we would go and just, like I said, you know,
where we left off,
going and exploring these locations where these Fishing Cats are,
and they'd ask like, "Hey,
what are you here for?" And we'd show them the photo of the fishing cat and say,
"Hey, we're here to look for this cat.
And can you tell us where this, you know,
have you seen this cat?" And, you know,
just kind of get the conversation started. It's a con,
the cat is a conversation starter, believe it or not.
It's the hook for this entire program and then begins the
idea of, "Okay, how's your life doing? You know,
is there a way that nature is providing for your livelihood? And how can we...
So that's, that's, that's what happened. And then,
we discovered that the problems are deep-rooted. I mean, the local, uh,
fringe fishermen, the really, the people who do the sustainable fisheries,
they're the ones throwing the net, catching their daily catch and going home.
They, they were complaining. They were like, you know,
all these farmers for aquaculture farms, they've come in,
they've destroyed our local fish, you know, our, uh, stock.
And basically we are suffering and we want there to be.
And so one case, in one case, uh,
this was our poster child story. Um, we found one guy,
his name is Moshi. He used to be a poacher.
He used to hunt these animals and used to sell them off to the local circus for
a living. And so we said, Hey, you know, you're a tribal, uh,
from this area and you'd been dependent on these forests. Well,
he was telling us this story. He's like, "Well,
there's really no more livelihood based on forests anymore. How we used to live.
Um, now it's all so commercialized.
And we got to do something to feed our family." He had a family of 30 people.
I mean, this entire thing is a community. And so we said, okay,
how can we help Moshi, uh,
into a more sustainable, uh,
way of living?
And so we offered him a job to detect these cats,
and believe it or not we got some of the best Fishing Cat footage with his help.
And we, we paid him for a year, year and a half.
And then he,
we connected him with the local forest authorities and the forest department.
They had a leopard rescue, they called on him. So he became this asset...
The poacher
turned conservationist. That's the poster child story for us.
That is amazing.
And so he's, he's living right now. He just sent a video of, believe it or not.
Uh, as we were speaking, uh, of, uh, uh, you know,
texting me his, uh, uh, uh, tractor that he is now, uh,
pushing on, on the farm. And, uh,
anyway, I should, I'll play it.
Put it in the chat!
Yeah. Yeah. Look at him running that tractor.
Nice.
Yeah.
So basically, um, the, the point I want to make is,
if we can create jobs that incentivize,
and we're working with Vanka and other aquaculture farmers right now who are now
planting Mangroves in their aquaculture farms and restoring that Mangrove.
So what we're telling Vanka is, "Hey, we will,
we will give you carbon offset funds, or rather,
our incentive contracts that we provide to our land partners to grow a forest on
their land. And, uh, we will, we will,
that will be a first source of income for the first few years.
And as your forest grows and starts to produce, you can start to, uh, you know,
draw in income from that.
And then we'll establish a nature reserve near you and basically create a,
another source of livelihood for you.
So we're trying to create multiple streams of income for these guys to the point
where...
You actually have done this successfully,
returned some land to Mangroves. Yeah?
You had one area which was overproduced and it was, you know, yeah?
Well, we've partnered,
we've partnered with about 700 acres of landowners in India and Sri Lanka so
far. Um,
and actually even in the U.S. we're trying to experiment with this.
Um, but, uh, the idea, I mean, we've, we've only done,
we've only really practiced restoration on about 30 to 50 acres.
And that's what's going on right now, it's about, we're restoring,
we're truly restoring about 30 to 50 acres.
And we're experimenting with the plan that if we create a circular economy here,
of providing multiple nature-based sources of income to the
landowner,
that landowner will select for conservation and nature as an
opportunity for a much more sustainable carbon,
negative livelihood than aquaculture or other unsustainable
jobs. Um, and so that's,
that's our plan pretty much is to create sustainable
and more enriched livelihoods that are based off of conservation.
Is, is there a way for our viewers to get involved? Like,
could they sponsor a cat or something?
I was going to say, if you go to Fishcat.org, uh, what
we're trying to do is we're trying to connect every of our donors,
who we call investors, right,
with the land partners who we are partnering with.
So if you scroll down that page, you'll find, uh,
some t-shirts that have QR codes.
I don't know if one of you has your cell phone with you. Uh,
you can just go to the website and, um,
scan the QR code on the website.
Yeah.
I think Priscilla is doing this. I'm doing it. Do you see it?
I'm screen-sharing the cat? Can you see it?
Take us through some
of the pictures of the cats.
Look how beautiful that cat is! I mean this is just one,
I wanted everyone to see this, but like, we have so many.
Who took this picture? Yeah, that's a beautiful picture. Who took this one?
Is this, is this...
That's taken by Anjani Kumar. He's a professional photographer. And again,
you know, we were, we're connecting talent with, uh, local people here.
And this is the product of a local fishermen community in
collaboration with a professional wildlife photographer.
So what's this cat's name, by the way? Does this cat have a name?
You can name, you can name the cat.
Is it a boy or girl? I got to think about it. I'll come back to that.
I have no idea. We don't know. But if you, if you were,
when you were doing that screen-share, can you go to Fishcat.org?
Oh, that's, this was so, you know,
this took me 20 minutes to figure out how to do that.
I had a double thing happening. I've been multitasking. Talking to you,
trying to keep this going, and trying to pull this up.
Can you put on Fishcat.org? Um, uh.
Yeah, somebody on our team can do that for us.
Now, have
you ever seen one in the wild?
Yeah, it took about four years, uh, of research, of just tracks and poop.
But after that, finally, we saw one cause we had to see one. Uh,
and that was my dream is that one day, you know,
we'll be able to ride on a fisherman's boat and get,
actually get to see the cat, um.
And were you surprised when it showed up?
Not really. Because we knew we were,
they were there and we had documented them and we just, you know,
we'd go on a fisherman's boat and fishermen see them all the time.
And so even now, as part of our Earth Camps, we are restoring these lands.
They become nature reserves and habitats for these cats.
And you can actually go get to see them. In the wild.
You studied tigers, you know, how's this cat different from a tiger?
Um, well, not so different in terms of endangerment,
cause they are pretty endangered, uh, but different in that, um, they're,
you know, much smaller, less known.
I wish we could make Fishing Cats as cool and well known or even in fact more
well-known than tigers.
Well maybe we're on the way to doing that. Let's just, first of all,
we're going to name this cat for you. That's number one.
Well, I don't know if we need to name it, really, but, uh.
Well, there's a lot of cat lovers even, you know,
on our team here. So, um, you know what is kind of amazing though, Ashwin,
I'm just thinking something, you know, you started out,
you said you were an engineer, then you fell in love with the cats,
but you know, you are engineering a whole system.
You are an engineer because you started with one thing you cared about,
but then you saw all of these other things.
I just want to let you know and let your dad know like you are an engineer.
Yeah, well he's an engineer too. And you know, he, yeah, yeah.
He's an industrial engineer and he,
he loves mentoring me and you know, his number one quote these days, by the way,
he visited me and he was impressed with, uh, he went to,
he went to visit Stanford, uh, to the Design Thinking, uh, School, IDEO.
And he was, he's so about design thinking these days.
And he's like the number one step in design thinking is empathy.
If you do not empathize with your, uh, stakeholder, your customer,
your investor, everybody, you're not getting insight,
the needed insight that is.
Oh my gosh, we have to talk. We have to bring you back because this is,
our whole company is based on this. This is what all we think about.
Yeah, so I was going to say on the empathy note that every investor of FishCat
gets to be linked with the location on the planet that we are restoring. So in,
in what we're trying to do is if you scan that code,
it'll take you to the location that we are restoring.
And so we are trying to provide every investor with a carbon offset.
And in fact, a gift that keeps, you,
by investing in FishCat you're creating a forest that lives in your legacy
forever. So, I don't understand this,
but I'm actually looking into the world of why philanthropy is at the mercy of
capitalism these days in the world. And why can't we just, I mean,
if I were to die tomorrow, I want to leave this world a better place. Right?
And I want my money and that's one of our top investors too. He's like,
he's written off 30% of his legacy into FishCat because what he wants to see is
basically, uh, you know, a, a, a better world.
And what we're trying to do really is earth restoration for the humanity of the,
uh, the future of humanity, right? Even if we need to explore other planets,
we're going to have to restore Earth's resources and sustain them.
And so that's our legacy model is,
is we want to be able to create these long-term relationships between land owner
and investor and donor,
and basically make that a lifelong relationship that, you know,
remains on the land forever.
Well, Ashwin, hopefully we can be a little part of, um,
helping some people become aware of what you're doing and, you know,
we're big fans of what you're doing and we want to stay involved. So, you know,
come back on, you know, and, you know, yeah, later on.
Please come back another, you know?
Yeah, bring your dad next time.
Yeah. For sure. He would love, he would love to get on.
Yeah, let's do that. It's so great. You know, I love Tucson,
I have family there. So enjoy the, you know,
it's probably beautiful weather there hopefully right now. And, um, we,
we want to see you again, so.
Sure, yeah, I would love to.
And thank you guys so much for this awesome wondrous podcast.