Ben Frietas

I was born to a family of pirates who roamed the seas of the South Pacific. Life was grand. They were good pirates - not the kind that terrorizes small villages, but the kind that sails off to distant lands in search of adventure and travel, whilst occasionally "borrowing" from wealthier vessels supplies as were needed. One night a terrible tsunami led to the destruction of my parents' vessel and subsequent separation from my family, where I floated on a piece of driftwood for weeks before landing on a small atoll somewhere near the islands of Juan Fernandez. It was only through the magnanimous aid of two sea lions, far from their own homes, and a crab named Josie, that I was able to survive and thrive. They taught me how to hunt, which fish were safe to eat, what shoals to stay way from, why shrimp tasted so sweet, and which waves could be ridden for maximum enjoyment, among many other useful skills and interesting knowledge. This then, was when I first began to learn about and to love the ocean.

Actually, I was born and raised in Northern California, in the San Francisco Bay Area, and spent several years later living and working in Los Angeles. So my first experiences and love are of the Eastern Pacific Ocean and its big waves and colder waters. It wasn't until I lived for a year on the Caribbean in the Yucatan, a few years after finishing undergrad, that I was able to really experience a different kind of marine environment - one in which, calmer, warmer, and more clear waters allowed for a greater appreciation of the diversity of life under the surface and away from the shore. This led to a switch in careers, some additional schooling, and a return to my first love - the study of marine ecology. My graduate work focused on the conservation of large coastal sharks, and I feel incredibly lucky to be continuing to work on a wide range of conservation issues, including increasing protections for sharks, as a Science Fellow with Oceana.