Racing Extinction Page #3

I was just some hippie, you know,

gonna be here for

a day or two.

I said, "Listen, man.

"I can be here for a month or two

or a year or whatever.

"How long can you survive

while I am here?"

Ten days later,

the restaurant closes down.

To me,

it was a beautiful moment.

Everybody had gone home,

and this one guy with

this big, bright light,

and keeps the light shining

on this subject.

Shut it down!

There are thousands of people

all over the world,

willing and able and changing

their careers to save species.

They go to some of

the darkest, grimmest,

most unsafe places

on the planet.

Let's save the shark!

Let's save the shark!

Over 800 environmental activists

have been killed

in just the last decade.

So these guys are doing

the tough work,

and we never hear about them.

They're not household names.

Shawn Heinrichs,

I live in Boulder, Colorado.

You can't get any more

landlocked than Colorado.

And I found out that there's

this incredible ocean activist

living right down the street

who quit his job as a CFO

for a tech company

so he could help save

endangered species.

Shawn's doing some of the best,

most groundbreaking work

that I've seen anywhere

in the world.

Isla Mujeres was

the largest shark-fishing island

on the east coast of Mexico.

At least 20,

if not more, long-liners...

...were targeting sharks

each and every single day.

Shawn helped turn

this hunting ground...

...into one of the top places

in the world

where you can actually

go and watch sharks.

Now you have this

community of ex-shark fishermen

who are making much more money

taking tourists out

to swim with whale sharks

than killing sharks on long-lines.

It's just simple economics.

Shawn often works

with his buddy, Paul Hilton,

an investigative photojournalist.

They can't help but to get themselves

into dangerous situations.

Traveler's paradise.

Paul's a photojournalist,

like me,

focused on endangered species.

He's brilliant at what he does.

Paul and Shawn try to bust rings

selling endangered species.

We're gonna blow the lid

off this place, right?

Shawn's pretty full-on.

I love his enthusiasm.

He talks far too much

when we're on assignment.

There's always that issue

of me having to go to him

and say, "mate, wind it up."

I think it's

the American in him.

l'm rolling. l can distract.

And a lot of the situations

we go into,

it's always nice

to go in as teams,

because you're going

into situations where

you get caught up

in the moment with the camera,

and you'll actually

photograph it, and

there's no one

watching your back.

Ask for the toilet.

Where's the toilet?

Paul and Shawn

have this technique

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