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Speaker 1: Hey you Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My

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Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 2: And I'm Joe McCormick, and today we're bringing you an

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Speaker 2: episode from the Vault. This one originally aired on June

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Speaker 2: twenty third, twenty twenty two, and it is Rob's interview

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Speaker 2: with Ryan Tucker Jones, author of a book called Red Leviathan,

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Speaker 2: which has to do with whales. And I think we've

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Speaker 2: been doing a lot of whales lately, so it seemed appropriate.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I've referred back to this book a couple

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Speaker 1: of times as well, read Leviathan, The Secret History of

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Speaker 1: Soviet Whaling. So I thought it'd be a great time

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Speaker 1: to just go ahead and feature this interview once more.

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Speaker 1: Things a really informative one, And here we go.

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Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. This is

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Speaker 1: Robert Lamb. My co host Joe is on leave this week,

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Speaker 1: so I have an interview for you. I recently talked

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Speaker 1: with Ryan Jones of the University of Oregon. His new

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Speaker 1: book is Red Leviathan, The Secret History of Soviet Whaling.

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Speaker 1: So this is a fascinating book, and I think we

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Speaker 1: had a fascinating chat about the history, specifically the twentieth

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Speaker 1: century history of whaling and how that factors into Russian history,

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Speaker 1: the history of the Soviet Union, but also global history

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Speaker 1: as well. A word of caution that this interview will

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Speaker 1: of course discuss whaling, which is going to have some

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Speaker 1: graphic details in it, so be advised on that count.

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Speaker 1: But on the other hand, I want to stress that

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Speaker 1: this will not just be a parade of horrors. There's

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Speaker 1: a lot of interesting historical and cultural information in here

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Speaker 1: as well. So without further ado, let's go straight to

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Speaker 1: the interview. Hi, Ryan, welcome to the show.

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Speaker 4: Hey Rob, thanks for having me.

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Speaker 1: So your book concerns whaling, which humans have been engaging

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Speaker 1: in for thousands of years, and yet twentieth century whaling

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Speaker 1: stands out in rather appalling ways. Can you set the

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Speaker 1: scene for us regarding twentieth century whaling and what truly

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Speaker 1: sets it apart from the sort of nineteenth century whaling

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Speaker 1: that many of us are probably familiar with from the

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Speaker 1: likes of Moby Dick.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, that's right, Rob, I mean nineteenth century whalen, which

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Speaker 5: was dominated by the Americans, was a really low tech

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Speaker 5: enterprise that still managed to manage to sweep nearly the

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Speaker 5: entire Earth Pacific, Indian, Atlantic Ocean, and I had a

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Speaker 5: pretty massive impact on certain whale species like sperm whales.

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Speaker 5: Others it left entirely untouched, especially the fast whales, the

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Speaker 5: big whales that many people will be familiar with, humpback whales,

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Speaker 5: blue whales, fin whales.

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Speaker 4: Et cetera.

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Speaker 5: And major parts of the ocean that were just off

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Speaker 5: limits to people working with sale technology, like the Antarctic,

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Speaker 5: which is the place where the most whales used to

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Speaker 5: live at least.

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Speaker 4: And so twentie central whalen was.

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Speaker 5: Far I think, far less talked about, far less romanticized about.

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Speaker 5: There is no Herman Melville for the twentieth century industrial era,

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Speaker 5: and yet it was by an order of magnitude more

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Speaker 5: devastating for most whale species. Do you want me to

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Speaker 5: talk a little bit about the technology. I'm mindful of

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Speaker 5: not just going on and on with my answers and

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Speaker 5: new readers.

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Speaker 1: No, No, I think we'd all love to have a

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Speaker 1: little technological background. My next question, in fact, was going

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Speaker 1: to be about the Stern Slipway and what it was

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Speaker 1: and why it was so essential to modern whaling.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean the technology.

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Speaker 5: There was really a major change in the technological implementations

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Speaker 5: of oiling at the end of the nineteenth century, mostly

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Speaker 5: brought about by Norwegians who had been whaling in their

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Speaker 5: near shore waters, but perfected a few things like the

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Speaker 5: exploding harpoon gun, which actually sent a grenade into a

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Speaker 5: whale exploded inside its body, which was far more lethal

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Speaker 5: and far less lethal for humans because they could kill

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Speaker 5: the whale, often with one or two shots, rather than

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Speaker 5: having to tire it out over a long period of

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Speaker 5: time being attached to this gigantic, dangerous creatures they had

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Speaker 5: in sail whaling. So that was one of the major

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Speaker 5: changes that took place. The other was the stern slipway

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Speaker 5: raw which you just mentioned, and this was a classical

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Speaker 5: industrial piece of technology which allowed whales to be winched

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Speaker 5: on board the whale ship, which really fundamentally changed the

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Speaker 5: whole industry. It meant that you didn't have to process

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Speaker 5: whales either in the ocean on the side of the

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Speaker 5: ship as you know, as people did in moby Dick

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Speaker 5: for example, or that you even had to go ashore

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Speaker 5: and process whales at shore factories. What this meant was

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Speaker 5: that you could stay out to see with your mother ship,

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Speaker 5: your factory, your factory ship, and just process whales day

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Speaker 5: after day after day. They'd be brought to you by

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Speaker 5: a fleet of catcher boats taken to the mothership, winched

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Speaker 5: up at the stern slipway, and then a whole team,

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Speaker 5: whole army of industrial workers would process that whale carcass

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Speaker 5: into the products that people in the twentieth century wanted,

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Speaker 5: which increasingly was margarine, you know, butter substitute. That was

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Speaker 5: another technological innovation, the process of hydrogenation, which allowed people

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Speaker 5: as scientists to inject hydrogen.

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Speaker 4: I better not.

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Speaker 5: Maybe I won't go so firmly into the details of hydrogenation,

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Speaker 5: but it allowed them to to process whale meat in

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Speaker 5: such a way that it was basically stripped of any

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Speaker 5: fishy flavor. People didn't even know they were eating margarine.

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Speaker 5: They had come from whales oftentimes, and this was the

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Speaker 5: major driver behind twentieth century global industrial whaling.

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Speaker 1: You also mentioned that this allowed for the processing of

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Speaker 1: the carcass to take place out of sight, right, This

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Speaker 1: made it a little more hidden.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, that's right. I mean, certainly not for those involved

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Speaker 5: in it. For those involved in it, you know, you

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Speaker 5: could you would see just one hundreds on some days,

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Speaker 5: literally hundreds of whales being processed. But it was it

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Speaker 5: allowed the industry really to take place. Well, first of all,

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Speaker 5: in the Antarctic. The Antarctics started being hunted in the

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Speaker 5: nineteen tens based on this new technology, and then really

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Speaker 5: peaked in the twenties and thirties, so far away from

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Speaker 5: where any humans lived that you would, you know, you'd

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Speaker 5: get this product margarine with really no sense of what

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Speaker 5: kind of labor, what kind of danger, what kind of

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Speaker 5: slaughter had produced it.

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Speaker 4: You know.

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Speaker 5: Previously, I mean, whaling had always taken place pretty far

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Speaker 5: from shore, but it had always been you know, pretty

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Speaker 5: closely connected with shore industry as well, since you know,

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Speaker 5: often process the whales on shore, et cetera. Often hunted

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Speaker 5: whales in many cases that were not that far away

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Speaker 5: from human population. So yeah, it allowed it really changed

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Speaker 5: the industry in a lot of ways, making it in

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Speaker 5: some ways far more mysterious for most people.

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Speaker 1: And you mentioned too that the twentieth century whaling also

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Speaker 1: it impacted more species of whales as compared to the

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Speaker 1: nineteenth century.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, whales, a lot of whales are really

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Speaker 5: hard to catch without industrial technology. They're fast, they can

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Speaker 5: standard water for a long period of time, and as

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Speaker 5: with fishing, the twentieth century just saw, you know, a

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Speaker 5: series of innovations that allowed people to overcome the whales

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Speaker 5: ability to escape. First of all, diesel engines, of course,

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Speaker 5: which are so much faster, allowed them to really run

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Speaker 5: down any species they wanted to. Then sonar, after the

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Speaker 5: Second World War came into greater use airplanes which allowed

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Speaker 5: them to spot you. Often on this mothership would have

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Speaker 5: a helicopter or an airplane, but usually a helicopter pad

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Speaker 5: where helicopters would take off and search the area for whales,

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Speaker 5: tell people where the large agglomerations were that they could

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Speaker 5: chase them down with these really fast ships and then

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Speaker 5: process them on board. I mean, you know, for whales,

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Speaker 5: you can only imagine this was a obviously devastating suite

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Speaker 5: of technologies. They never faced predators like this on the

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Speaker 5: scale or with this lethality. They were really totally prepared,

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Speaker 5: especially the big ones like blue whales and fin whales,

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Speaker 5: you know, the two largest species on Earth, which really

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Speaker 5: sustained the whaling industry from the nineteen tens through the

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Speaker 5: nineteen sixties.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, in terms of what it was like for the whales.

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Speaker 1: You described this as the breaking of their quote, cultures

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Speaker 1: and families. Can you describe that a little bit for us?

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Speaker 4: Yeah? Thanks Rob.

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Speaker 5: This is one of the things I wanted to do

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Speaker 5: with the book was to I mean, the statistics can

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Speaker 5: be numbing and it feels like an industrial slaughterhouse, which

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Speaker 5: of course it was in a lot of ways. But

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Speaker 5: you know, the whalers were catching wild animals, wild animals

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Speaker 5: that had as you know, scientists are telling us these days,

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Speaker 5: they've done incredible research into whale cultures, the whale emotions,

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Speaker 5: whale behaviors that you know, whales are complex creatures. They

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Speaker 5: passed down a lot of the information necessary for their

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Speaker 5: lives through cultural transmission. That is, they learn it from

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Speaker 5: the other whales around them. It's not embedded genetically. Certain behaviors,

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Speaker 5: migration routes, feeding areas, feeding strategies, et cetera. And so

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Speaker 5: it allows us to understand what was happening with this

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Speaker 5: unprecedented onslaught, which was not just the kind of devastation

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Speaker 5: of a population, but also the loss of knowledge amox

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Speaker 5: whale communities. That we have pretty clear evidence that whales,

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Speaker 5: even as they've rebounded since the end of industrial whaling

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Speaker 5: in the eighties, have failed to recolonize certain areas, places

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Speaker 5: that they used to go to to give birth, the maid,

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Speaker 5: to feed, et cetera, in part because there was just

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Speaker 5: such a loss of cultural knowledge that was part of

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Speaker 5: this slaughter. You know, you killed so many nursing mothers,

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Speaker 5: for example, right, who have then failed to pass on

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Speaker 5: to their offspring certain important facets of what it meant

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Speaker 5: to be a humpback whale.

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Speaker 4: And so that's kind of.

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Speaker 5: Knowledge reverberate that loss reverberates.

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Speaker 4: Today.

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Speaker 5: Sperm whale mothers, for example, seem to be far less

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Speaker 5: adapt at keeping their calves alive than they were before whaling.

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Speaker 5: It's surmised that this is one of those knowledge losses

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Speaker 5: that happened as a result of industrial whaling. So we

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Speaker 5: still see the impacts even as whale numbers are rebounding

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Speaker 5: here in the twenty first century.

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Speaker 1: Now, red Leviathan is the secret history of Soviet whaling,

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Speaker 1: So I'm getting a little bit into the history of

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Speaker 1: Soviet whaling and also just Russian history with whaling. I'm

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Speaker 1: always fascinated by a particular culture relationship with the sea,

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Speaker 1: and you discussed this in the book concerning Russia. So

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Speaker 1: how did Russia historically view the ocean and its resources

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Speaker 1: and how did this impact involvement in whaling.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, Russia such an interesting place to think

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Speaker 5: about humans relationship to the ocean. You think about Russia,

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Speaker 5: it's this huge land empire, which.

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Speaker 4: It is, of course, but it also has.

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Speaker 5: One of the longest coastlines in the world. And Russians

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Speaker 5: have been interacting with wales, you know, for a couple

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Speaker 5: of thousand years, of all sorts of different species in

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Speaker 5: the Pacific and the Arctic and the Baltic, in the Ocean,

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Speaker 5: you name it. The Russians had relationships with whales there.

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Speaker 5: And I mean, I think the important thing for Russians

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Speaker 5: was that they basically missed this period of sale whaling.

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Speaker 5: Well they didn't miss it exactly. They saw themselves as

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Speaker 5: victims in this period. Americans British dominated that they had

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Speaker 5: the capital to sustain these long distance whaling expeditions. The

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Speaker 5: Russians didn't. They were quite poor compared to Western European

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Speaker 5: and America nations. And so what they saw year after

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Speaker 5: year Americans come into Siberian shores, for example, and doing

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Speaker 5: whatever they wanted, even though this was part of what

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Speaker 5: Russia thought of as their own territory. Americans would come

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Speaker 5: and kill as many whales as they wanted, basically laugh

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Speaker 5: at any kind of Russian attempts to stop them. They

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Speaker 5: trade with indigenous people, Siberians, who in many cases depended

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Speaker 5: on whales for their own sustenance, Alaskans as well. You know,

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Speaker 5: Russia controlled part of Alaska in the nineteenth century, and

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Speaker 5: you know, from the Russian perspective, it's just outrageous. These

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Speaker 5: capitalists whalers, Yankee whalers as they called them, were destroying

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Speaker 5: indigenous livelihoods. Russians really actually cared about this. They were

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Speaker 5: destroying whales that Russians would have liked to have made

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Speaker 5: some money off of. And so that really helped shape

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Speaker 5: Russia's major entry into the end industry. They came with it,

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Speaker 5: you say, a lot of historical baggage into it. And

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Speaker 5: when Russia finally established its own whaling industry in the

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Speaker 5: nineteen thirties under Stalin, Joseph Stalin, they thought of it

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Speaker 5: not just as a way to industrialize the country that

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Speaker 5: was part of it, but as a way to kind

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Speaker 5: of rectify this historical wrong, that their whaling industry was Russia.

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Speaker 5: Finally Russia getting its share and finally able to sort

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Speaker 5: of defend its own oceans against Americans, British and increasing

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Speaker 5: the Norwegians as well.

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Speaker 1: Now you get into the mystery of wales as well.

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Speaker 1: I was taken by what you shared about the mystery

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Speaker 1: of baleen whales, including a tenth century Russian poem that

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Speaker 1: concluded that these whales fed on quote heavenly fragrances. What

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Speaker 1: are we to make of that?

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Speaker 5: Yeah, whales are a pretty mysterious creature. They were for humans,

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Speaker 5: well they still are in a lot of ways. You know,

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Speaker 5: they spend ninety nine percent of their life underwater. Humans

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Speaker 5: really only got to know them when they were washed

245
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Speaker 5: up on shore or once they'd been harpooned, and so,

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Speaker 5: you know, wales lent themselves to a lot of mystery.

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Speaker 5: And you know, one of the interesting things that I

248
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Speaker 5: found research in this book is, you know, the really

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Speaker 5: important work that the Soviet Union did, especially as scientists

250
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Speaker 5: and kind of unraveling some of these mysteries. You know,

251
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Speaker 5: you read this poem. This was a great indication of

252
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Speaker 5: the really almost total ignorance of whales that humans had

253
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Speaker 5: in the tenth century, but really up until the twentieth

254
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Speaker 5: century in a lot of ways. And you know, the

255
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Speaker 5: Soviets they killed more whales than any country did after

256
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Speaker 5: the Second World War. They also studied wales in greater

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Speaker 5: depth than any other country. They're scientists, were on the

258
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Speaker 5: whale ships, you know, digging through whale carcasses, watching whales

259
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Speaker 5: as they were being hunted, using captive dolphins for study.

260
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Speaker 5: You know, the Soviet Union, as much as any country,

261
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Speaker 5: really advanced our knowledge of what wales. Where no one

262
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Speaker 5: was talking about them feeding on heavenly mists, by the

263
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Speaker 5: late twentieth century, the Soviets were talking about them nearly

264
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Speaker 5: going extinct, and they were some of the first understand

265
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Speaker 5: how deep the crisis was as well.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so in this you're getting into what you refer

267
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Speaker 1: to in the book, is that the challenging contradictions that

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Speaker 1: you encountered and sometimes you're encountering in interviews with Russian

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Speaker 1: whalers and scientists. Can you can you speak to this

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Speaker 1: a little bit?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I kim In.

272
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Speaker 5: I wrote this book because I was horrified and shocked

273
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Speaker 5: by a lot of things I've just been talking about

274
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Speaker 5: the numbers of whales killed, the truth, you know, the

275
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Speaker 5: pain that whales felt, but you know, to to try

276
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Speaker 5: to understand this and the role specifically that the Russian

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Speaker 5: Soviet Union played. Of course, I went out and I

278
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Speaker 5: talked to people who had been on board these whale ships.

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Speaker 5: I went to Ukraine and went to I went to

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Speaker 5: Moscow and Coliningrad and other places and talk to people

281
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Speaker 5: who had been part of this, and it was it

282
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Speaker 5: was hard not to like them, frankly. You know, they're

283
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Speaker 5: people who not only didn't think at the time that

284
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Speaker 5: what they were doing was wrong, many of.

285
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Speaker 4: Them, some of them did.

286
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Speaker 5: I should make that clear that you know, some people

287
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Speaker 5: were really disturbed by the whaling that they were doing.

288
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Speaker 4: Many were not.

289
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Speaker 5: And you know, frankly, most people around the world didn't

290
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Speaker 5: really care that whales were being killed.

291
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Speaker 4: For most of the time period.

292
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Speaker 5: But you know, not only that, but also that they

293
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Speaker 5: were you know, they were also really deeply interested in wales,

294
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Speaker 5: you know, like myself, really fascinated by these creatures. And

295
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Speaker 5: you know, when I talked to them, I talked to

296
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Speaker 5: whales scientists. You know, they wanted to talk. They were

297
00:17:59,320 --> 00:18:03,800
Speaker 5: so you know, they wanted to relive their experiences with whales.

298
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Speaker 5: They expressed sympathy for these creatures, fascination for them. You know,

299
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Speaker 5: I met some of really the greatest whale scientists, probably

300
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Speaker 5: the twentieth century, people who are still who still really

301
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Speaker 5: care about whales, who tried to blow the whistle in

302
00:18:19,720 --> 00:18:22,679
Speaker 5: the Soviet Union about some of the illegal whaling that

303
00:18:22,760 --> 00:18:25,960
Speaker 5: was taking place, and some of them turned out to be,

304
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Speaker 5: you know, as you said, challenge contradictions. You know, one

305
00:18:30,760 --> 00:18:34,439
Speaker 5: of the whale scientists that I really relied on for

306
00:18:34,480 --> 00:18:37,159
Speaker 5: a lot of the information for this books living in

307
00:18:37,240 --> 00:18:40,800
Speaker 5: Odessa and Ukraine now and you know, has been emailing

308
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Speaker 5: me telling me he can't wait for Russia to come

309
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Speaker 5: free Ukraine from the Nazis. You know, he's a deep

310
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Speaker 5: Russian patriot who really regrets the demise of the Soviet

311
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Speaker 5: Union as well. You know, people who's not not easy

312
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Speaker 5: to pigeon hold them into easy dichotomies that we often

313
00:19:04,960 --> 00:19:05,520
Speaker 5: fall into.

314
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Speaker 1: And looking at Russia, so we touched a little bit

315
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Speaker 1: already on the history of Russian whaling and their relationship

316
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Speaker 1: with the resources of the sea prior to the twentieth century.

317
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Speaker 1: But then what other reasons they're pushing the Soviet Union

318
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Speaker 1: then to pursue industrial whaling so strongly during a time

319
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Speaker 1: when other countries are dropping out of the practice.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, that was the crazy thing about this, and the

321
00:19:29,920 --> 00:19:35,560
Speaker 5: King really came through heartbreaking details. I was reading scientists reports.

322
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Speaker 5: You know, the Soviet Union really expanded their whaling presence

323
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Speaker 5: in the late nineteen fifties and early nineteen sixties, just

324
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Speaker 5: at a time, as you say, Rob, when the Norwegians

325
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Speaker 5: were starting to drop out, the British were starting to

326
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Speaker 5: drop out, the Dutch were starting to drop out, The

327
00:19:54,240 --> 00:19:57,400
Speaker 5: US wasn't whaling anymore. Everyone saw the writing on the wall.

328
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Speaker 5: The large profitable whales wiped out. You know, they're gone.

329
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Speaker 5: It's not going to pay. And you know, the Soviet Union,

330
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Speaker 5: they had a real belief in the power of science.

331
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Speaker 5: You know, this was a society that was had thrown

332
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Speaker 5: off God, thrown off religion. It was going to rely

333
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Speaker 5: on the expertise of people who weren't subject to those

334
00:20:24,000 --> 00:20:28,200
Speaker 5: kinds of those kinds of superstitions. You know, they were

335
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Speaker 5: going to integrate all kind of economic planning with experts.

336
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Speaker 5: So they had a real belief that they were actually

337
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Speaker 5: going to be really more responsible environmentally than other countries,

338
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Speaker 5: So it was it was just bizarre to read, you

339
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Speaker 5: know that they when the Soviet Union under Nikita Krushev

340
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Speaker 5: was thinking about building they thought about building nine new

341
00:20:51,440 --> 00:20:57,439
Speaker 5: factories floating factories in the nineteen fifties, which was, you know,

342
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Speaker 5: was going to make them the biggest whaling country on earth.

343
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Speaker 5: And they asked their scientists, is this a good idea?

344
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Speaker 5: Every scientist said, now, they said, look, the oceans are

345
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Speaker 5: in crisis, and they really were in the in the

346
00:21:09,400 --> 00:21:14,120
Speaker 5: nineteen fifties. It's easy to forget just how we had

347
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Speaker 5: exploited whale and fish stocks at that time really recklessly.

348
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Speaker 5: And Soviet scientists understood this perfectly. They were seeing it

349
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Speaker 5: happen on board to a man, and they were all

350
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Speaker 5: men at that time. They advised the Soviet economic planners like,

351
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Speaker 5: don't do this, this is crazy. And what did they do?

352
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Speaker 5: They said, Okay, instead of nine, were build seven. They

353
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Speaker 5: built seven new factory fleets, which you know, dwarfed everyone

354
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Speaker 5: except the Japanese at a time.

355
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Speaker 4: As I said, when people.

356
00:21:47,440 --> 00:21:53,000
Speaker 5: Were getting out of this industry justified logic, and it

357
00:21:53,560 --> 00:21:57,600
Speaker 5: led to the predictable disaster. You know, the Soviets having

358
00:21:57,640 --> 00:22:02,280
Speaker 5: built these these huge fleets found that there weren't whales

359
00:22:02,280 --> 00:22:04,919
Speaker 5: to catch, so they started catching the last of the

360
00:22:04,960 --> 00:22:08,199
Speaker 5: whales that were prohibited, you know, and they really, you know,

361
00:22:08,280 --> 00:22:13,920
Speaker 5: the special contribution that the Soviets made was catching those

362
00:22:14,040 --> 00:22:16,800
Speaker 5: last few whales of the species that really didn't make

363
00:22:16,800 --> 00:22:20,280
Speaker 5: any economic sense to catch the Soviets for the Soviets,

364
00:22:20,280 --> 00:22:23,600
Speaker 5: though they had the capacity.

365
00:22:23,040 --> 00:22:23,479
Speaker 4: They did it.

366
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Speaker 5: They wiped out almost the last of the humpback whales

367
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Speaker 5: in the southern hemisphere, the last of the southern right whales.

368
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Speaker 5: So you know, it's it's hard to read that stuff,

369
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Speaker 5: and it really feels like a kind of a tragic

370
00:22:39,800 --> 00:22:45,640
Speaker 5: failure of the Soviet belief that science would really make

371
00:22:45,760 --> 00:22:50,040
Speaker 5: them able to operate more effectively in the world. You know,

372
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Speaker 5: they it could have worked, you know, the scientists told

373
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Speaker 5: them the right thing, and they ended up ignoring the advice, really,

374
00:22:57,440 --> 00:22:59,280
Speaker 5: you know, to the great tragedy of the whales around

375
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Speaker 5: the world.

376
00:23:00,040 --> 00:23:02,800
Speaker 1: But they did end up sending scientists out on these

377
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Speaker 1: ships as well.

378
00:23:03,520 --> 00:23:03,800
Speaker 4: Yeah.

379
00:23:04,200 --> 00:23:07,520
Speaker 5: Oh, the Soviet Union had the largest net of whales

380
00:23:07,560 --> 00:23:11,199
Speaker 5: scientists really in the world, and so they understood probably

381
00:23:11,240 --> 00:23:13,320
Speaker 5: better than any country in the world what you know,

382
00:23:13,359 --> 00:23:17,560
Speaker 5: exactly how deep the crisis was with the world's whales's

383
00:23:17,720 --> 00:23:21,000
Speaker 5: that's the that's the difficult contradiction here.

384
00:23:21,480 --> 00:23:24,440
Speaker 1: So there were there were international quotas at the time, though, right,

385
00:23:25,400 --> 00:23:28,720
Speaker 1: how did this play into Soviet whaling activity at the time?

386
00:23:29,359 --> 00:23:31,960
Speaker 5: Yeah, right, So you know, Soviet Union was one of

387
00:23:32,000 --> 00:23:36,720
Speaker 5: the original signatories to the International Whaling Convention that established

388
00:23:36,760 --> 00:23:39,359
Speaker 5: in the National Whaling Commission in nineteen forty six, and

389
00:23:39,920 --> 00:23:44,280
Speaker 5: they'd agreed to abide by quotas. Quotas which at first

390
00:23:44,320 --> 00:23:48,360
Speaker 5: were kind of laughably generous. They wanted to make sure

391
00:23:48,400 --> 00:23:53,760
Speaker 5: that whalers were still profitable, but became increasingly restrictive over

392
00:23:53,800 --> 00:23:58,080
Speaker 5: the years, and especially in the nineteen sixties. They had

393
00:23:58,119 --> 00:24:00,719
Speaker 5: some real teeth in them. And the same the Union

394
00:24:01,200 --> 00:24:05,639
Speaker 5: pretended to abide by those quotas, they would come back

395
00:24:05,680 --> 00:24:08,479
Speaker 5: and every year whale nations would have to report how

396
00:24:08,480 --> 00:24:13,040
Speaker 5: many whales they'd killed at the at the meeting of THEWC,

397
00:24:13,920 --> 00:24:16,120
Speaker 5: and so an you would do this, they'd make their

398
00:24:16,119 --> 00:24:20,880
Speaker 5: reports and they started falsifying them in the nineteen fifties,

399
00:24:20,920 --> 00:24:24,200
Speaker 5: at first overstating the number of whales that they'd killed,

400
00:24:24,920 --> 00:24:28,199
Speaker 5: in part because they wanted to look like they were

401
00:24:28,200 --> 00:24:30,919
Speaker 5: bigger whalers than they were, in part because you know,

402
00:24:30,960 --> 00:24:33,920
Speaker 5: they wanted to establish a precedent for having killed this many.

403
00:24:34,160 --> 00:24:37,760
Speaker 5: But then after they built these big fleets, they realized,

404
00:24:38,600 --> 00:24:41,280
Speaker 5: you know, we can't abide by any of this stuff.

405
00:24:41,960 --> 00:24:45,280
Speaker 5: We're to make any money from this at all, We're

406
00:24:45,280 --> 00:24:48,720
Speaker 5: going to have to cheat wildly, and they did. And

407
00:24:48,800 --> 00:24:54,640
Speaker 5: so throughout the late fifties and sixties, they'd come back

408
00:24:54,680 --> 00:24:57,760
Speaker 5: from the Antarctic and say we killed three hundred and

409
00:24:57,760 --> 00:25:00,439
Speaker 5: fifty humpback whales and they'd killed twelve thou you know,

410
00:25:00,480 --> 00:25:06,800
Speaker 5: that kind of just devastating numbers, which flummoxed people around

411
00:25:06,840 --> 00:25:10,000
Speaker 5: the world. You know, whales scientists in Australia and New

412
00:25:10,119 --> 00:25:14,199
Speaker 5: Zealand who were monitoring local populations that migrated down to

413
00:25:14,240 --> 00:25:19,679
Speaker 5: the Antarctic starting in fifty nine, they saw that suddenly

414
00:25:19,720 --> 00:25:22,800
Speaker 5: there were no whales coming back and they couldn't understand why.

415
00:25:22,880 --> 00:25:27,359
Speaker 5: They said, well, maybe there's some cheating going on, but

416
00:25:27,640 --> 00:25:29,359
Speaker 5: we'd have to, you know, there'd have to be tens

417
00:25:29,359 --> 00:25:32,919
Speaker 5: of thousands of missing whales to explain what's happening. No

418
00:25:32,920 --> 00:25:37,240
Speaker 5: one's cheating like that. But actually, the Soviets were was

419
00:25:37,280 --> 00:25:43,320
Speaker 5: an unbelievable crime, really was a tragedy, of course, not

420
00:25:43,359 --> 00:25:45,879
Speaker 5: only for whales, but you know, for those who were

421
00:25:45,920 --> 00:25:50,359
Speaker 5: studying and cared about them, one that wasn't unraveled until

422
00:25:50,400 --> 00:25:53,240
Speaker 5: the nineteen nineties, you know, about thirty forty years later.

423
00:25:53,960 --> 00:25:56,919
Speaker 5: It was thanks to those same Soviet scientists who who

424
00:25:57,480 --> 00:26:02,560
Speaker 5: were really upset by this, kept their own figures. They

425
00:26:02,920 --> 00:26:05,960
Speaker 5: kept the real numbers, in part because they hated to

426
00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:08,520
Speaker 5: see their science messed up by the fake numbers, and

427
00:26:08,560 --> 00:26:11,199
Speaker 5: in part because they really cared about the future of

428
00:26:11,240 --> 00:26:15,240
Speaker 5: whale stocks. And thanks to them, we actually know the

429
00:26:15,320 --> 00:26:16,760
Speaker 5: extent of what was going on.

430
00:26:23,520 --> 00:26:26,719
Speaker 1: Now, could you take us to a pivotal point in

431
00:26:26,840 --> 00:26:30,280
Speaker 1: the international reaction to Soviet whaling, the one that you

432
00:26:30,359 --> 00:26:32,720
Speaker 1: touch on several different times in the book, and that's

433
00:26:32,760 --> 00:26:35,960
Speaker 1: the green Peace protest in nineteen seventy five.

434
00:26:37,720 --> 00:26:42,320
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, green Peace people are putty familiar with

435
00:26:43,240 --> 00:26:47,959
Speaker 5: the organization. It's still around, of course, an important environmentalist organization,

436
00:26:48,680 --> 00:26:52,840
Speaker 5: but they really got their start as an anti whaling group.

437
00:26:53,520 --> 00:26:57,160
Speaker 5: They tried some anti nuclear actions that were only mildly

438
00:26:57,240 --> 00:27:01,040
Speaker 5: successful in the early seventies, but seventy five they hit

439
00:27:01,080 --> 00:27:05,400
Speaker 5: on this strategy of going out to the open ocean

440
00:27:06,520 --> 00:27:13,200
Speaker 5: and locating whaling fleets and coming between them and their prey,

441
00:27:13,320 --> 00:27:17,080
Speaker 5: trying to stop them from killing whales, and of course

442
00:27:17,119 --> 00:27:21,280
Speaker 5: most importantly photographing this all video recording it and letting

443
00:27:21,280 --> 00:27:25,480
Speaker 5: the world know, letting the world see just how brutal

444
00:27:26,040 --> 00:27:31,480
Speaker 5: industrial whaling was, just how awful it was to see

445
00:27:31,520 --> 00:27:34,000
Speaker 5: these whales being killed. And so some of the green

446
00:27:34,040 --> 00:27:39,080
Speaker 5: piece called mind bomb crafting an image that would be

447
00:27:39,119 --> 00:27:45,480
Speaker 5: so powerful that it would immediately sway global opinion, and

448
00:27:45,520 --> 00:27:50,520
Speaker 5: they were pretty successful with this. This was a groove,

449
00:27:51,920 --> 00:27:58,520
Speaker 5: groundbreaking moment in the history of global environmentalism, and it

450
00:27:58,600 --> 00:28:01,480
Speaker 5: was the Soviets that they decided added to target. It

451
00:28:01,680 --> 00:28:06,400
Speaker 5: was one Soviet ship out of the Russian Siberian port

452
00:28:06,440 --> 00:28:11,840
Speaker 5: of Vladivostok that they located in June nineteen seventy five,

453
00:28:11,960 --> 00:28:20,000
Speaker 5: and was a ship that had just been warned by

454
00:28:20,320 --> 00:28:25,240
Speaker 5: Soviet authorities and especially Soviet scientists not to take undersized

455
00:28:25,400 --> 00:28:31,639
Speaker 5: sperm whales. Soviets were really nervous about that publicity that

456
00:28:31,760 --> 00:28:35,800
Speaker 5: was caught red handed by Greenpeace in this moment, taking

457
00:28:36,480 --> 00:28:40,520
Speaker 5: sperm whales just off the coast of California that were

458
00:28:40,720 --> 00:28:47,520
Speaker 5: really small infants, really young sperm whales, maybe not infants,

459
00:28:48,040 --> 00:28:53,040
Speaker 5: and this was, you know, for the Soviets as well,

460
00:28:53,120 --> 00:28:56,240
Speaker 5: one of the turning points. You know, they the negative

461
00:28:56,280 --> 00:29:01,600
Speaker 5: press that they got was really pretty pretty devastating for them.

462
00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:05,880
Speaker 5: They didn't end whaling right away, but one could point

463
00:29:06,120 --> 00:29:09,080
Speaker 5: to the green Peace confrontations. It's really the beginning of

464
00:29:09,120 --> 00:29:13,480
Speaker 5: the end for Soviet and industrial whaling as a whole.

465
00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:17,120
Speaker 1: Now, how much of that came through to the Russian

466
00:29:17,160 --> 00:29:19,640
Speaker 1: people at that time or were they more or less

467
00:29:19,640 --> 00:29:20,760
Speaker 1: cut off from any.

468
00:29:20,560 --> 00:29:21,760
Speaker 4: Of this in the media.

469
00:29:22,240 --> 00:29:25,240
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, the Soviet Union did its best to

470
00:29:25,440 --> 00:29:30,720
Speaker 5: hide the confrontation from the Soviet people, but they had

471
00:29:30,760 --> 00:29:35,800
Speaker 5: access to Western media, western radio reports, to television.

472
00:29:36,520 --> 00:29:37,600
Speaker 4: They could get some of that.

473
00:29:37,760 --> 00:29:39,560
Speaker 5: And you know, one of the things that was I

474
00:29:39,600 --> 00:29:42,520
Speaker 5: found really interesting in the book was to trace Russian

475
00:29:42,880 --> 00:29:46,400
Speaker 5: popular opinion around whaling, and it was really changing as

476
00:29:46,440 --> 00:29:49,240
Speaker 5: well by the nineteen seventies. You know, I give green

477
00:29:49,280 --> 00:29:52,720
Speaker 5: Piece a ton of credit for saving the loss of

478
00:29:52,760 --> 00:29:56,920
Speaker 5: the whales, but there it's not the whole story. And

479
00:29:57,440 --> 00:30:00,000
Speaker 5: the whole story really does connect to some of these things.

480
00:30:00,040 --> 00:30:05,400
Speaker 5: Soviet scientists, who by the nineteen seventies were publishing a

481
00:30:05,440 --> 00:30:09,320
Speaker 5: lot of their research in for domestic consumption. Soviet people

482
00:30:09,360 --> 00:30:12,880
Speaker 5: love to read about the ocean. They were totally intrigued

483
00:30:12,920 --> 00:30:17,560
Speaker 5: by it and this they they loved to read these

484
00:30:17,600 --> 00:30:21,840
Speaker 5: popular scientific accounts, and what they were reading was was

485
00:30:21,880 --> 00:30:26,920
Speaker 5: really changing. By the seventies, Soviet scientists were in some

486
00:30:27,080 --> 00:30:30,080
Speaker 5: ways kind of similarly to the West, kind of rethinking

487
00:30:30,120 --> 00:30:33,360
Speaker 5: what whales were. And a lot of the popular publications

488
00:30:33,400 --> 00:30:36,720
Speaker 5: at the time we're talking about wales as humans best friend.

489
00:30:36,920 --> 00:30:42,280
Speaker 5: You know, their their their gentle creatures, They're useful, their

490
00:30:42,360 --> 00:30:47,240
Speaker 5: you know, dolphins are really loyal to humans like dogs

491
00:30:47,280 --> 00:30:50,200
Speaker 5: like this is one of the things that Soviet scientists

492
00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:53,560
Speaker 5: were saying, and people were reading about. Some of the

493
00:30:53,600 --> 00:30:57,480
Speaker 5: Soviet Union's indigenous authors, people from Jakotka, God by the

494
00:30:57,520 --> 00:31:01,400
Speaker 5: name of Urrit Hugh in particular, was writing novels that

495
00:31:01,600 --> 00:31:06,280
Speaker 5: really talked about wales from an indigenous perspective as sentient,

496
00:31:07,800 --> 00:31:14,080
Speaker 5: intelligent creatures, and so Soviet people really gaining this really

497
00:31:14,120 --> 00:31:17,080
Speaker 5: different view of wales and it led them to question

498
00:31:17,520 --> 00:31:22,400
Speaker 5: their own industry, even aside from what Greenpeace was doing,

499
00:31:22,480 --> 00:31:26,080
Speaker 5: and it comes to quite clearly. They wrote letters to

500
00:31:27,280 --> 00:31:32,400
Speaker 5: members of the Bolshevik Party, the Communist Party, demanding, for example,

501
00:31:32,440 --> 00:31:36,000
Speaker 5: that the dolphin hunt be ended, which the Soviet Union

502
00:31:36,040 --> 00:31:41,080
Speaker 5: did ended in nineteen sixty six, well before the United

503
00:31:41,120 --> 00:31:46,040
Speaker 5: States ended marine mammal hunting in nineteen seventy two, and

504
00:31:46,080 --> 00:31:52,160
Speaker 5: then increasingly letters to newspapers, you know, saying, hey, look

505
00:31:53,760 --> 00:31:57,440
Speaker 5: are we really adhering to the IWC conventions? Are we

506
00:31:57,560 --> 00:32:00,240
Speaker 5: going to end whaling? What's going on here? And a

507
00:32:00,240 --> 00:32:03,760
Speaker 5: lot of pressure on the Soviet Union to endus well,

508
00:32:04,120 --> 00:32:06,280
Speaker 5: And that's a big part of the That has to

509
00:32:06,280 --> 00:32:08,480
Speaker 5: be part of the explanation for why the Soviet Union

510
00:32:08,720 --> 00:32:13,200
Speaker 5: ultimately agreed in nineteen eighty seven to stop industrial whaling.

511
00:32:14,120 --> 00:32:18,000
Speaker 5: A it's a combination of Western environmentalists and some pressure

512
00:32:18,040 --> 00:32:19,960
Speaker 5: from Russian people at home too.

513
00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:23,240
Speaker 1: And did the did the economic aspects of it play

514
00:32:23,400 --> 00:32:25,360
Speaker 1: into it at all? Or was that or was the

515
00:32:25,400 --> 00:32:27,800
Speaker 1: whaling industry kind of in the Soviet Union kind of

516
00:32:27,840 --> 00:32:30,200
Speaker 1: insulated from like market forces.

517
00:32:30,440 --> 00:32:35,560
Speaker 5: Yeah, they it did play a role, you know, Soviet Wales.

518
00:32:35,560 --> 00:32:37,600
Speaker 5: It's unclear if they ever made any money off of it.

519
00:32:37,760 --> 00:32:41,120
Speaker 5: Another the like, I don't know, tragedy in some way.

520
00:32:42,600 --> 00:32:44,800
Speaker 5: If they'd really cared about profits, they never would have

521
00:32:44,800 --> 00:32:49,560
Speaker 5: built those huge fleets in the sixties. But the Soviet

522
00:32:49,640 --> 00:32:54,080
Speaker 5: Union was entering into an economic crisis by the seventies,

523
00:32:54,560 --> 00:32:58,640
Speaker 5: and so these industries like the whaling industry, which were

524
00:32:58,720 --> 00:33:04,560
Speaker 5: lavishly financed people make great salaries in whaling, they begin

525
00:33:04,960 --> 00:33:08,840
Speaker 5: to seem like more of a problem as the Soviet

526
00:33:08,880 --> 00:33:11,560
Speaker 5: economy as a whole was slowing and then by the

527
00:33:11,600 --> 00:33:17,080
Speaker 5: early eighties really lurching into a crisis, and so the

528
00:33:17,120 --> 00:33:20,160
Speaker 5: economics did play a role. Yeah, so it was, you know,

529
00:33:20,200 --> 00:33:23,440
Speaker 5: the Soviets, like the Japanese by the early eighties were

530
00:33:23,480 --> 00:33:28,080
Speaker 5: catching really small whales in comparison to the earlier catches,

531
00:33:28,080 --> 00:33:32,720
Speaker 5: minky whales mostly and some sperm whales. Minkys are you know,

532
00:33:32,840 --> 00:33:37,520
Speaker 5: twenty thirty foot whale, and that's a lot less whale

533
00:33:37,560 --> 00:33:39,880
Speaker 5: product than you got from an eighty to two hundred

534
00:33:39,880 --> 00:33:42,000
Speaker 5: foot blue whale back in the nineteen fifties.

535
00:33:42,640 --> 00:33:47,640
Speaker 4: So there, that was a part of and they were.

536
00:33:47,480 --> 00:33:52,200
Speaker 5: Trying to economize on fuel and definitely played a role

537
00:33:52,680 --> 00:33:58,479
Speaker 5: in getting rid of the Soviet whaling industry, but it

538
00:33:58,480 --> 00:34:02,520
Speaker 5: had a long history of operating without much attention to

539
00:34:02,800 --> 00:34:06,640
Speaker 5: profits or losses. So yeah, it is, it is part

540
00:34:06,680 --> 00:34:09,799
Speaker 5: of the explanation, but it's definitely not the whole explanation.

541
00:34:10,520 --> 00:34:14,520
Speaker 1: So why are Soviets barely a part of the history

542
00:34:14,560 --> 00:34:17,920
Speaker 1: of whaling, as you discussed in the book, despite playing

543
00:34:17,960 --> 00:34:20,160
Speaker 1: such a you know, obviously significant role in it.

544
00:34:20,480 --> 00:34:21,239
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I.

545
00:34:21,200 --> 00:34:26,120
Speaker 5: Mean part of it is because sobjects were pretty secretive

546
00:34:26,520 --> 00:34:30,879
Speaker 5: about what they were doing. Part of it is this

547
00:34:32,280 --> 00:34:36,880
Speaker 5: period of industrial whaling. Yeah, but I don't think people

548
00:34:36,960 --> 00:34:38,799
Speaker 5: really like to think back on it that much. It

549
00:34:38,840 --> 00:34:42,440
Speaker 5: was a it was a grizzly history. It was a

550
00:34:42,520 --> 00:34:47,759
Speaker 5: depressing history, there's no question about it. But I think,

551
00:34:47,920 --> 00:34:51,120
Speaker 5: you know, maybe most of all this, you know, the

552
00:34:51,160 --> 00:34:56,600
Speaker 5: Soviet Union, despite producing this really top notch research, despite

553
00:34:56,960 --> 00:35:01,600
Speaker 5: killing so many whales, and there're scientists, weren't allowed to

554
00:35:01,760 --> 00:35:06,200
Speaker 5: travel around the world share their research, at least not

555
00:35:06,360 --> 00:35:09,719
Speaker 5: until the nineteen late seventies and early eighties, and so

556
00:35:09,800 --> 00:35:12,840
Speaker 5: a lot of what they were doing just the world didn't.

557
00:35:12,560 --> 00:35:15,080
Speaker 4: Know about, for better or for worse.

558
00:35:16,160 --> 00:35:18,560
Speaker 5: And you know, that's that's part of what I wanted

559
00:35:18,560 --> 00:35:20,759
Speaker 5: to do with this book, was to bring that back

560
00:35:20,840 --> 00:35:27,600
Speaker 5: into global attention and you know, account you know for

561
00:35:27,640 --> 00:35:31,400
Speaker 5: the destruction that the Soviet Union reeked on our oceans,

562
00:35:31,400 --> 00:35:35,200
Speaker 5: and you know, I should mention that. Look, it's not

563
00:35:35,280 --> 00:35:37,160
Speaker 5: like just like they were doing this, you know, in

564
00:35:37,360 --> 00:35:39,239
Speaker 5: some far away corner of the Earth. One of the

565
00:35:39,239 --> 00:35:41,880
Speaker 5: things that struck me was, you know that when I

566
00:35:41,920 --> 00:35:43,959
Speaker 5: went to the ocean as a kid in the North

567
00:35:44,000 --> 00:35:46,920
Speaker 5: Pacific on the coast of California and Oregon, you know,

568
00:35:47,400 --> 00:35:50,560
Speaker 5: the lack of whales there. Well, this was part of

569
00:35:50,560 --> 00:35:53,880
Speaker 5: the Soviet Union's legacy. They were killing whales just offshore,

570
00:35:54,040 --> 00:35:57,240
Speaker 5: as were the Japanese, you know, as had American wheeling

571
00:35:57,280 --> 00:36:03,200
Speaker 5: stations as well. Sovie Union was impacting my own history here,

572
00:36:03,960 --> 00:36:07,040
Speaker 5: so I thought it was really important to understand how

573
00:36:07,120 --> 00:36:09,680
Speaker 5: and why it had done this on you know, for

574
00:36:09,760 --> 00:36:12,600
Speaker 5: the for the globe, not just for those interests in Russia,

575
00:36:13,200 --> 00:36:16,360
Speaker 5: but also to give you know, to give the Soviets

576
00:36:16,440 --> 00:36:19,719
Speaker 5: there due especially in the way that they advanced our

577
00:36:19,800 --> 00:36:25,520
Speaker 5: knowledge of wales. They made really important contributions. We wouldn't

578
00:36:25,600 --> 00:36:29,520
Speaker 5: understand whales the way we do without the work of

579
00:36:29,560 --> 00:36:33,480
Speaker 5: their scientists, who did, you know, really incredible stuff, not

580
00:36:34,560 --> 00:36:37,400
Speaker 5: just an understanding whale behavior, which was their main focus,

581
00:36:38,040 --> 00:36:41,080
Speaker 5: but also in keeping the records that we have today

582
00:36:41,120 --> 00:36:44,640
Speaker 5: of exactly how many whales were killed in the twentieth

583
00:36:44,680 --> 00:36:45,399
Speaker 5: century as well.

584
00:36:45,800 --> 00:36:48,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to stress to our readers that even

585
00:36:48,520 --> 00:36:52,920
Speaker 1: though the subject matter is grim in many in many cases,

586
00:36:53,480 --> 00:36:56,399
Speaker 1: like the book is not just one endless horror show.

587
00:36:57,320 --> 00:37:00,440
Speaker 1: You know, there's there's so much fascinating content about the

588
00:37:00,680 --> 00:37:04,600
Speaker 1: people involved, the cultures involved in the uh, in the

589
00:37:04,719 --> 00:37:08,400
Speaker 1: in the science of whales. So I want to I

590
00:37:08,400 --> 00:37:11,080
Speaker 1: want to stress that to everyone. And and also you

591
00:37:11,080 --> 00:37:13,799
Speaker 1: you do specifically mention you know that there is there

592
00:37:13,880 --> 00:37:15,680
Speaker 1: is light in an otherwise dark taiale.

593
00:37:15,840 --> 00:37:18,719
Speaker 5: Right, I appreciate that, Rob. Yeah, so you know the book,

594
00:37:18,920 --> 00:37:22,000
Speaker 5: the book does chronicle a lot of whales being killed. Yeah,

595
00:37:22,040 --> 00:37:25,360
Speaker 5: this is fundamentally kind of a I mean, I turned

596
00:37:25,360 --> 00:37:27,680
Speaker 5: one chapter of the Whale Genocide. This is the story

597
00:37:28,360 --> 00:37:34,280
Speaker 5: of a number of species of creatures which it really

598
00:37:34,320 --> 00:37:38,040
Speaker 5: flourished on this planet for a long time, carved out

599
00:37:38,040 --> 00:37:42,160
Speaker 5: a really successful nis for themselves, really suddenly facing extermination.

600
00:37:42,920 --> 00:37:45,160
Speaker 5: And part of the book is, you know, it's chronicle

601
00:37:45,239 --> 00:37:49,480
Speaker 5: in that and trying to understand how whales did survive

602
00:37:49,719 --> 00:37:50,120
Speaker 5: through this.

603
00:37:50,160 --> 00:37:52,640
Speaker 4: If barely. But the other part of it, Rob is accactive.

604
00:37:52,640 --> 00:37:55,640
Speaker 5: As you say, you know, it's a people lived rich

605
00:37:55,719 --> 00:37:58,840
Speaker 5: lives even as they were you know, destroying these creatures.

606
00:37:58,840 --> 00:38:01,880
Speaker 5: And actually, you know, the Soviet whaling industry allows us

607
00:38:01,960 --> 00:38:03,880
Speaker 5: to kind of look at, you know, some of the

608
00:38:03,920 --> 00:38:09,040
Speaker 5: really really messed up, cynical aspects of Soviet life, but

609
00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:11,359
Speaker 5: also some of the great dreams that people had and

610
00:38:11,600 --> 00:38:14,600
Speaker 5: some of the ways that they really found meaning in

611
00:38:14,680 --> 00:38:19,880
Speaker 5: the communist project through their own work, through adventure and

612
00:38:19,960 --> 00:38:25,200
Speaker 5: the ocean, you know, through through real scientific accomplishment. You know,

613
00:38:25,239 --> 00:38:28,399
Speaker 5: there's I use this story as a way to think

614
00:38:28,480 --> 00:38:30,960
Speaker 5: about what life was like in the Soviet Union, all

615
00:38:31,000 --> 00:38:35,719
Speaker 5: all of it's really horrible and wonderful aspects and like

616
00:38:35,719 --> 00:38:39,239
Speaker 5: like any human society, and I had both, and it

617
00:38:39,280 --> 00:38:41,680
Speaker 5: comes out pretty clearly in the way that people made,

618
00:38:43,160 --> 00:38:47,640
Speaker 5: you know, some really really meaningful lives for themselves aboard whaleships,

619
00:38:48,400 --> 00:38:51,799
Speaker 5: getting to see the world, getting to know these creatures

620
00:38:51,840 --> 00:38:56,240
Speaker 5: that they were killing in really unsurpassed detail.

621
00:38:57,239 --> 00:38:58,359
Speaker 4: And also you.

622
00:38:58,239 --> 00:39:00,880
Speaker 5: Know, the real pain that a lot of whalers themselves

623
00:39:00,920 --> 00:39:05,600
Speaker 5: experience trying to reconcile all the great experiences they were

624
00:39:05,640 --> 00:39:08,759
Speaker 5: having with the with the fact that they were destroying

625
00:39:08,840 --> 00:39:10,280
Speaker 5: these families of wales.

626
00:39:10,680 --> 00:39:10,960
Speaker 4: Uh.

627
00:39:11,000 --> 00:39:13,280
Speaker 5: And they couldn't they couldn't get you know, they couldn't

628
00:39:13,280 --> 00:39:14,240
Speaker 5: overlook that fact.

629
00:39:14,719 --> 00:39:15,160
Speaker 4: All right.

630
00:39:15,239 --> 00:39:18,680
Speaker 1: The book is red Leviathan, The Secret History of Soviet Whaling.

631
00:39:18,840 --> 00:39:23,799
Speaker 1: It's out now in physical and digital formats. We've we've

632
00:39:23,840 --> 00:39:26,200
Speaker 1: been chatting with Ryan Tucker Jones. Ryan, thank you for

633
00:39:26,239 --> 00:39:26,920
Speaker 1: coming on the show.

634
00:39:27,080 --> 00:39:28,480
Speaker 4: Rob, Thanks for having me.

635
00:39:30,680 --> 00:39:33,520
Speaker 1: All right. Thanks once more to Ryan Tucker Jones for

636
00:39:33,640 --> 00:39:36,239
Speaker 1: chatting with me about the new book, Red Leviathan, The

637
00:39:36,280 --> 00:39:38,960
Speaker 1: Secret History of Soviet Whaling. You can get it right

638
00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:43,120
Speaker 1: now in physical or digital formats. Uh. Definitely, if you're

639
00:39:43,160 --> 00:39:46,680
Speaker 1: if you're interested in anything that we discussed in this episode,

640
00:39:46,920 --> 00:39:49,000
Speaker 1: definitely pick up a copy of this book. It's a

641
00:39:49,040 --> 00:39:52,120
Speaker 1: wonderful read. In the meantime, if you want to check

642
00:39:52,120 --> 00:39:54,680
Speaker 1: out other episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, our

643
00:39:54,760 --> 00:39:58,800
Speaker 1: core episodes published every Tuesday and Thursday, and the Stuff

644
00:39:58,800 --> 00:40:01,439
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind podcast feed on Mondays, you'll find

645
00:40:01,480 --> 00:40:04,399
Speaker 1: our listener mail episodes. On Wednesdays, we tend to put

646
00:40:04,400 --> 00:40:07,600
Speaker 1: out a short form artifact or monster fact episode, and

647
00:40:07,680 --> 00:40:11,400
Speaker 1: on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns and just

648
00:40:11,520 --> 00:40:14,680
Speaker 1: talk about a weird film. Thanks as always to Seth

649
00:40:14,760 --> 00:40:18,399
Speaker 1: Nicholas Johnson for producing this episode and if you want

650
00:40:18,440 --> 00:40:21,120
Speaker 1: to get in touch with us about anything this episode.

651
00:40:21,120 --> 00:40:25,000
Speaker 1: Future episodes, Past episodes You can do so by emailing

652
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Speaker 1: us at contact It's Stuff to Blow Your Mind dot com.

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Speaker 3: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

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Speaker 3: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 3: or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows, US parts

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Speaker 3: my bo Pops