Species, unite, unites. Unite. The number one thing is to respect us as a country and a lot of people who feel privileged in their life, they own a very nice yacht. They have money. They're wealthy. They live in Florida. They live in a golden life. They live in a grand life. I'm not saying there's anything bad about that. I want to be that way too. But at the same time, they have a responsibility to be respectful to our loss. They have to respect our marine life. They should follow and not try to hurt things that are

native to our country and just do whatever they think is arbitrarily good for their own spirit and

their own soul, which is damaging our livelihood.

And they should learn and work with the behaving people.

Let us teach you. Hi, I'm Elizabeth Novigrats. This is Species Unite. We have a favor to ask if you like today's episode and you have a spare minute, could you please

rate and review species unite on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to Podcasts. It really helps people to find the show

This This conversation is with Keith Cooper. Keith is the founder of the Bohemian-based West End Ecology Tours in Grand Bahama.

Over the past 16 years, Keith has formed a bond with many of the stingrays in the Bohemian waters,

earning him the name the Stingray whisper throughout the island.

I went down a couple of weeks ago to meet Keith and meet some of his stingray friends.

Mainly I went down because many of these stingrays and many lemon sharks in the same waters are getting hooked, meaning of these gigantic hooks in their mouths.

Much of it has been caused by boaters that are coming to the Bahamas from Florida.

I swam with them up close, really close, and I saw the hooks in so many of their mouths. It's awesome to be here in the Bahamas just so people get an idea of why I'm here and what's happening. We'll get into it, but I want to talk about yesterday

and going out on the boat with you, meeting the stingrays and swimming with them and snorkeling which was such a gift so

thank you for that. I want to say thank you Beth for making the trip from New York

to Grand Bahama Island and specifically into West End where I live and where I've been living for the

last nearly 20 years to do the work that I've been doing with these incredible

and amazing stingrays and lemon sharks off of Sandy Key.

So I thank you and everyone who's listening for taking an opportunity to let me share my message with you.

So before we get into your message and before we really even

get into the lemon sharks and stingrays, talk a little bit about you grew you were

born here right and you're for this is your families like on the West End and

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