Bertarelli Summer2024 FINAL - Flipbook - Page 57
CO M M UNIC AT IO N
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RE W I L D I NG
line here, they are under-resourced. But as a military
force with a sense of mission and purpose, we can bring
our skills to bear and focus less on veteran problems,
and more on veteran potential.
We think of our mission as a two-part mission. One
is to heal the ocean. And the second is to heal ourselves.
We think of our mission as a
two-part mission. One is to
heal the ocean. And the second
is to heal ourselves.
What role do zoos, aquariums, and museums play in
your work, and how could they play a role in the future?
Ritterhoff: When we were out in Arizona doing the
invasive snail project, we teamed up with the OdySea
Aquarium in Scottsdale. Every time we deploy, the
first question we ask is “who is the scientific partner?” and then we can find the issue that needs to be
addressed.
The kelp forest project we did in California was with
an aquarium that is in the Los Angeles Harbor. And
we’ve partnered with the NFL for the last five Super
Bowls to find marine conservation projects in the local
area the game is happening in.
Our first question is always who, in the local area,
are the subject matter experts? Who has a project we
can get involved in? We’re nothing without our scientific partners. We’re not scientists; we are a high skilled
workforce of underwater operators that can get a job
done. But we need the scientists to collaborate with us.
it was an inspiration to want to get into the ocean and
get involved in marine conservation. But something
that few people know about Jacques Cousteau and his
crew, is that they were all trained as part of the Commando Hubert, which were the French frogmen. That’s
how Jacques Cousteau learned to dive. So we are taking
that same idea of using the same skill set for marine
conservation.
And since we began in 2016 and in the seven years
since, we have deployed dozens of Special Operations
veterans on more than 30 impact missions around the
United States and throughout the Caribbean. We’ve
been involved in projects like kelp reforestation in California, working with marine mammals, doing surveys
of sea turtles, and even removing invasive snails from
rivers in Arizona. Where there’s water and an environmental need, we have a team of highly skilled individuals who can hop in and get the job done.
Just going further into the work of public aquariums, we know that millions of people go to zoos and
aquariums each year. That’s a phenomenal number of
people. And partnering with them can get projects a
lot of exposure, right?
Jeannot: Cryptobenthic fish are perfect subjects for
aquariums. They’re so colorful and so pretty and there
is so much we might learn about coral ecosystems just
by knowing slightly more about them. Gathering public
interest about these critters would be the first step to
getting people interested in doing the work and getting
more funding. We need new research ventures to try
and find new species and understand their underlying
mechanisms. Aquariums are a great place to go for this.
Challenger: Antigua and Barbuda don’t have any zoos
or aquariums. But we do rely heavily on partnerships
to get our work done. Re:wild, to name one. We have
people in the country to do the work, but we do need to
tap into others’ expertise sometimes. In conservation,
That sounds like a big undertaking.
Ritterhoff: One of the things I’m most proud of is that,
in the last six years, we’ve enlisted some big private sector partners, including the National Football League,
Pepsico, and Publix supermarkets. These are companies
that got involved in marine conservation because of our
story. The veteran angle can be the spoonful of sugar
that helps the medicine go down for a lot of people who
might not be initially interested in marine conservation.
One of the things that’s really synonymous with
all veterans’ experiences is a loss of identity when you
leave the service. The darkness can start to feel like it’s
tearing you apart. You go to places of sacrifice and suffering. A team and a mission can help you get past all of
that. The scientists and marine biologists on the front
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