Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: The best insight, instant feedback, accountability. The all new talk radio Freedom 106.5.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: Joining us at this point in time and gentlemen, he's been with us on numerous occasions. He joins us here pretty early this morning. And I have to say thank you so much for being with us here this morning. Let's say good morning and welcome to our program. Titan Martin. George, good morning to you.
[00:00:22] Speaker C: Yeah, hi. Good morning to you. Satish. Yes. You know, I'm not an early morning person.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: I really appreciate it to get you out this morning, but I wanted to get an idea from you in your capacity of the various hats that you wear about how this incident has impacted on Tobago and Tobagoians and tourism and all these things. Because ten beach is closed for the longest while, you can't keep beaches closed forever.
What's going on over there at this point in time? How has this shark attack affected everyday life?
[00:00:56] Speaker C: Yeah, well, the thing is, I think, I mean, the closure of the beaches was the immediate reaction of the, the. To this scenario because, I mean, I guess you, you must show that you're doing something. And of course, if it is that there is some immediate threat out there, you want to ensure that your population is, you know, I mean, kept safe from it.
The challenge, though, as you say, is that you can't keep this scenario forever. So therefore, you have to ensure that you are, you know, able to reun the beaches in a manner that is safe and in which you can ensure that, you know, the threat is either minimized or alleviated entirely.
In terms of this weekend, despite the fact of this is incident I saw, even at the starfish hotel itself, there were events taking place for the jazz weekend. Of course, this is now the privately run shows for jazz because there's no official jazz weekend from the, the but. And, you know, you saw a fairly, you know, decent crowd there. So therefore, I think people who would have pre booked their flights or their weekend for Tobago for this past weekend would not have stopped or turned back or changed their minds in any way. It would just be that, look, those particular beaches, you just have to avoid them. And I mean, there were certainly several other options as far as beaches go. So, I mean, while it has attracted some international attention, I'm not sure it's the kind of thing that people will necessarily see. Well, look, I am not going to go to Tobago because of it, if you understand, because the reality is that all around the world these things do happen.
[00:02:51] Speaker B: Yeah, I know that. I know Florida has a big problem with that as well. Some of the Florida beaches, but what they do is they have a monitoring system where they use drones or whatever else it is to keep monitoring the oceans. So when they see the influx of sharks, they are aware, listen, the sharks are currently seeing them and they send out the warnings, but that's a proactive approach because of the prevalence of the sharks there and so on. So they develop that system so that you can't stop the sharks. And they have not put out any bounty to say, well, go and kill out all the shark, as we saw from the, the, as misguided as it could probably could have been.
[00:03:25] Speaker C: I think that that was a bit of over exuberance on the part of the, the, and, you know, its officials when they put out that reward for the shock. Because first of all, how do you identify to know that that's the same shark that bit the man, if you understand? So, I mean, it was a bit ludicrous in its concept and the thinking, you know, and it really was, I think, short lived. And they quickly realized the error of their ways and retracted it.
[00:03:54] Speaker B: But the people know who I want to say, I'm not necessarily talking about the international community because the international community deals with these things differently. To us, they have a more measured approach to these things. They understand. Well, listen, if you're bathing in the ocean, the possibility of a shark being around is very high.
That's what happens. Sharks swim and they move. They don't stay one place. And that kind of thing, even though a shark attack for us is very, very uncommon, I believe Trinbegonians may be more skeptical now because the inter island travel rather than international. Have we heard from persons involved with domestic tourism that hear what? People canceling the vacation? Or is it much of the same what has happened?
[00:04:42] Speaker C: I haven't heard any such thing. And as I say, I think people are viewing it in context in the sense that exactly as you see, you recognize that you are going into the ocean. This is where the sharks live. So, I mean, at the end of the day, you know, that, look, there's always some possibility or element of risk, you know, the same way, you know, if one person drowns at a beach, does that mean that nobody will ever bathe in that beach anymore? If you understand, unless it is that you, you're talking about some particular dangerous beach, in which case then you may have to take some measure to close the beach permanently. But I mean, this being a kind of one off and as you say, very rare occurrence, I think persons are mature and sensible enough to view it in context and that nobody's going to say, well, look, I'm canceling my Tobago vacation because I might be the unlucky one that a shark will attack. Because you look back in history, because if we approach this logically, you look at the statistics and you ask yourself when was the last time there was ever any such a report of a shark biting someone like that in Tobago? You know, to that extent. And, I mean, I. I have not been able to find any heat, you know, from the researches that I have done, you know, so therefore, it's clearly not something that is a regular occurrence. There have not been any mass shark sightings to say, well, you know, you're seeing a huge pot of sharks, you know, circling outside in the waters or anything of the sort. So it seems to be an isolated one off incident. Very unfortunately, of course, we extend, you know, our, you know, our thoughts and prayers to the victim and his family, you know, and we hope for a speedy recovery. And I think the TJ has stepped up and, you know, they have, you know, assured that they will put the expenses in relation to that. So, I mean, treat with it and, you know, we just exercise due diligence and caution as we move forward.
[00:06:45] Speaker B: What's the thought process of the decision makers? Because they obviously would want to put some kind of thing in place to treat with matters like these moving forward because the response we had was, it seemed to be a very knee jerk response and it did not. It did not appear as though we had this thing. Okay. We were prepared for it at all, even though it was so uncommon. And I don't think we had the facilities to prepare. But moving forward, are there discussions? Are you aware of any kind of discussions to put. I don't want to say a plan, but some kind of.
Here's what we do in the event this happens again. Do we have anything like that taking place? Right.
[00:07:27] Speaker C: Well, I haven't heard of any such plans. I mean, we of the Tobago business chamber stand ready to work alongside with the. The. If it is that they want to, you know, sit down and formulate some sort of emergency response plan or some, as you say, proactive measure such as you say, occurs in Florida where they use the drones and they, you know, you use the technology to try to be preventative rather than curative. So, I mean, we would be willing to assist in that regard, but so far we haven't heard of any concrete plans in that regard. I guess maybe it's early days still and we are hopeful that there really would be something because at the end of the day. The whole point of having experiences such as this is to be able to learn from them and to be able to put measures in place to ensure that such things are minimized, you know, I mean, you may not be able to stop it from ever happening again, but at least you could minimize the risk. And that's what, you know, sensible, responsible management and leadership would do.
[00:08:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I think we're gonna have to leave it here this morning, and as you said, and as we've been saying, this is such an unusual occurrence.
When I heard of it on Friday morning, I was like, somebody making this up. This can't be real. You know, this. This is so.
[00:08:43] Speaker C: I mean, of course, people were out very quickly with the memes.
[00:08:47] Speaker B: The memes were like, whoa, we could joke about any. Anything. And we didn't take it seriously initially because we didn't believe it. It was so unusual. We just didn't believe it as a people until the news started coming around and everything else.
[00:08:59] Speaker C: But, I mean, of course, for the victim and his family, it was very real.
[00:09:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:03] Speaker C: You know, I mean, at the end of the day, it's the kind of thing that really can scar you for life, both physically and emotionally, psychologically.
[00:09:12] Speaker B: And this has been reported internationally. I mean, as a british citizen, you're talking about BBC and everybody else, they've. They've picked up on the story, I think. I want to thank you, but we need to have a further discussion some other time when you're more well prepared, because we need to speak about pleasure. We need to speak about.
[00:09:29] Speaker C: I mean, I'm always willing to assist in terms of, you know, elevating the level of discourse that we have in Trinidad and Tobago. Of course, we're a land of humor and rumor and stuff like that, and that's great. But sometimes we need to have serious discussions and seriousness.
[00:09:43] Speaker B: Yeah, we will. And one of the things we need to discuss is the mid year review, what's going on, where is Tobago, and all of that. So thank you once again for being with us here this morning.
[00:09:52] Speaker C: Always a pleasure.
[00:09:53] Speaker B: And that, of course. Ladies and gentlemen, Tammy Martin.
[00:09:56] Speaker A: George, the best insight, instant feedback, accountability. The all new talk radio Freedom 106.5.
