WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.140 Cucumbers usually cost under three dollars a kilo. But 00:00:04.150 --> 00:00:07.470 see cucumbers Khun set you back over three thousand 00:00:07.470 --> 00:00:10.510 dollars a kilo. In fact, they're so 00:00:10.510 --> 00:00:13.660 valuable people will risk their lives to get ahold 00:00:13.660 --> 00:00:19.270 of one. They might not look it, but 00:00:19.270 --> 00:00:23.270 sea cucumbers are pretty special creatures. Just ask 00:00:23.270 --> 00:00:25.840 this guy, Steven Purcell, one of the 00:00:25.840 --> 00:00:32.320 world's foremost experts on sea cucumbers. They don't 00:00:32.330 --> 00:00:41.970 have England's than yours. Ah, thes. Otherworldly 00:00:41.970 --> 00:00:44.690 animals have been prized as a delicacy in Asia 00:00:44.690 --> 00:00:47.730 for centuries, where the wealthiest class would eat 00:00:47.730 --> 00:00:50.850 the animals as a nutritious, high protein treat 00:00:51.440 --> 00:00:54.090 . But it wasn't until the nineteen eighties that 00:00:54.100 --> 00:00:58.210 demand exploded. A growing middle class in China 00:00:58.210 --> 00:01:01.600 met. More people could afford the luxury. Today 00:01:01.810 --> 00:01:05.510 they're typically dried and packaged in ornate boxes, then 00:01:05.510 --> 00:01:09.540 given his gifts and served on special occasions. So 00:01:09.820 --> 00:01:13.800 the fancier and more unusual looking the better and 00:01:13.800 --> 00:01:18.450 more expensive, it turns out, the the 00:01:18.450 --> 00:01:22.410 animal's heart cross and of the twelve hundred fifty 00:01:22.420 --> 00:01:25.620 different species of sea cucumber in the world, the 00:01:25.620 --> 00:01:28.620 Japanese sea cucumber takes the cake, you know 00:01:28.690 --> 00:01:35.230 . Imagine some sort of mystical dragon slog. All 00:01:35.230 --> 00:01:37.730 these sparks coming out. It add up to 00:01:37.730 --> 00:01:40.850 three thousand five hundred dollars a kilo. It's 00:01:40.850 --> 00:01:44.240 the most expensive sea cucumber on the market, compared 00:01:44.240 --> 00:01:47.360 to other varieties like the golden sand fish, dragon 00:01:47.360 --> 00:01:50.200 fish and curry fish. And even if you 00:01:50.200 --> 00:01:52.870 order a common species on Amazon, you could 00:01:52.870 --> 00:01:56.070 still pay over one hundred seventy dollars for a 00:01:56.070 --> 00:02:00.930 plate. Besides presentation, cucumber connoisseurs also value 00:02:00.983 --> 00:02:03.823 a thick, chewy bodies and to a lesser 00:02:03.823 --> 00:02:07.803 extent taste, but the experience of eating them 00:02:07.803 --> 00:02:10.773 is only part of their appeal. Turns out 00:02:10.843 --> 00:02:13.733 , see cucumbers contain high levels of a chemical 00:02:13.733 --> 00:02:16.693 called few casa lated glucose amino glikin in their 00:02:16.693 --> 00:02:19.903 skin, which people across Asia had been using 00:02:19.903 --> 00:02:23.993 to treat joint problems like arthritis for centuries and 00:02:23.993 --> 00:02:26.623 more recently in Europe, where people are using 00:02:26.623 --> 00:02:29.063 it to treat certain cancers and to reduce blood 00:02:29.063 --> 00:02:32.473 clots. The sea cucumber craze now comes from 00:02:32.483 --> 00:02:36.003 all sides. You have the original Asian delicacy 00:02:36.003 --> 00:02:39.133 demand that started in the nineteen eighties and the 00:02:39.133 --> 00:02:43.653 new interest from Western pharmaceutical companies. In response 00:02:43.823 --> 00:02:46.993 , nations have clamored to harvest their local species 00:02:47.683 --> 00:02:50.593 , from Morocco to the United States to Papua 00:02:50.593 --> 00:02:53.513 New Guinea. Everyone wants in on the sea 00:02:53.513 --> 00:02:59.573 cucumber trade. Just for example, from nineteen 00:02:59.573 --> 00:03:02.273 ninety six to two thousand eleven, the number 00:03:02.273 --> 00:03:06.283 of countries exporting sea cucumbers exploded from thirty five 00:03:06.313 --> 00:03:10.533 to eighty three. But unfortunately, sea cucumbers 00:03:10.533 --> 00:03:14.013 couldn't handle the strain. In Yucatan Mexico, for 00:03:14.013 --> 00:03:17.633 example, divers saw a ninety five percent drop 00:03:17.633 --> 00:03:20.763 in their harvest just between twenty twelve and twenty 00:03:20.763 --> 00:03:24.753 fourteen. And that's a problem for everyone. For 00:03:24.753 --> 00:03:27.743 one, because the more sea cucumbers air harvested 00:03:27.973 --> 00:03:31.963 , the rarer and more expensive they become. Average 00:03:31.963 --> 00:03:36.633 prices rose almost seventeen percent worldwide between twenty eleven 00:03:36.633 --> 00:03:39.753 and twenty sixteen. And the rarer these animals 00:03:39.753 --> 00:03:42.893 get the deeper divers air swimming to find them 00:03:43.483 --> 00:03:47.523 . That's when fishing gets dangerous. They're doing 00:03:47.523 --> 00:03:51.793 that without either a lot of training in some 00:03:51.793 --> 00:03:53.993 of the tropical countries getting a lot of people 00:03:54.073 --> 00:03:59.983 become paralyzed for decompression sickness. So far, at 00:03:59.983 --> 00:04:03.099 least forty Yucatan diver have died trying to harvest 00:04:03.099 --> 00:04:05.999 sea cucumbers. And as the man continues to 00:04:05.999 --> 00:04:09.629 increase, the problem is only getting worse. Of 00:04:09.629 --> 00:04:13.179 the seventy or more species of exploited sea cucumbers 00:04:13.479 --> 00:04:16.799 , seven are now classified as endangered all through 00:04:16.799 --> 00:04:21.529 exploitation, forcing numerous fisheries worldwide to shut down 00:04:21.539 --> 00:04:25.439 and damaging local economies in the process. So 00:04:25.479 --> 00:04:28.279 why not a farm sea cucumbers and leave the 00:04:28.279 --> 00:04:32.079 wild ones alone? Well, it's easier said 00:04:32.079 --> 00:04:35.169 than done, since many larvae die before reaching 00:04:35.169 --> 00:04:38.259 maturity, and those that do survive take two 00:04:38.259 --> 00:04:41.019 to six years to grow to a marketable size 00:04:41.469 --> 00:04:44.549 . That said, agriculture for a few varieties 00:04:44.549 --> 00:04:47.099 has started to take off, like with that 00:04:47.099 --> 00:04:52.919 fancy Japanese sea cucumber. I got John Billions 00:04:52.929 --> 00:04:55.979 . Hopefully, more species will be farmed instead 00:04:55.979 --> 00:04:58.719 of fished in the future if not to protect 00:04:58.729 --> 00:05:02.659 local economies and helped develop potentially life saving drugs 00:05:02.919 --> 00:05:06.549 , then at least to preserve a fascinatingly bizarre