WEBVTT - From the Vault: Red Leviathan, with Ryan Tucker Jones 0:00:06.200 --> 0:00:08.320 Hey you Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My 0:00:08.400 --> 0:00:09.760 name is Robert Lamb. 0:00:09.480 --> 0:00:12.200 And I'm Joe McCormick, and today we're bringing you an 0:00:12.280 --> 0:00:16.040 episode from the Vault. This one originally aired on June 0:00:16.040 --> 0:00:19.880 twenty third, twenty twenty two, and it is Rob's interview 0:00:20.320 --> 0:00:23.959 with Ryan Tucker Jones, author of a book called Red Leviathan, 0:00:24.040 --> 0:00:26.680 which has to do with whales. And I think we've 0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:29.040 been doing a lot of whales lately, so it seemed appropriate. 0:00:29.720 --> 0:00:31.800 Yeah, and I've referred back to this book a couple 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:34.440 of times as well, read Leviathan, The Secret History of 0:00:34.479 --> 0:00:37.000 Soviet Whaling. So I thought it'd be a great time 0:00:37.040 --> 0:00:39.800 to just go ahead and feature this interview once more. 0:00:40.159 --> 0:00:43.040 Things a really informative one, And here we go. 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:50.680 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:56.320 --> 0:00:58.840 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. This is 0:00:58.960 --> 0:01:03.880 Robert Lamb. My co host Joe is on leave this week, 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:07.559 so I have an interview for you. I recently talked 0:01:07.600 --> 0:01:12.160 with Ryan Jones of the University of Oregon. His new 0:01:12.240 --> 0:01:16.880 book is Red Leviathan, The Secret History of Soviet Whaling. 0:01:17.520 --> 0:01:20.039 So this is a fascinating book, and I think we 0:01:20.080 --> 0:01:24.240 had a fascinating chat about the history, specifically the twentieth 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:29.199 century history of whaling and how that factors into Russian history, 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:31.479 the history of the Soviet Union, but also global history 0:01:31.520 --> 0:01:35.479 as well. A word of caution that this interview will 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:39.119 of course discuss whaling, which is going to have some 0:01:39.200 --> 0:01:43.240 graphic details in it, so be advised on that count. 0:01:43.360 --> 0:01:44.880 But on the other hand, I want to stress that 0:01:44.920 --> 0:01:48.920 this will not just be a parade of horrors. There's 0:01:48.960 --> 0:01:52.600 a lot of interesting historical and cultural information in here 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:55.840 as well. So without further ado, let's go straight to 0:01:55.840 --> 0:01:59.880 the interview. Hi, Ryan, welcome to the show. 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:01.320 Hey Rob, thanks for having me. 0:02:01.600 --> 0:02:05.280 So your book concerns whaling, which humans have been engaging 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:08.440 in for thousands of years, and yet twentieth century whaling 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:11.480 stands out in rather appalling ways. Can you set the 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:15.040 scene for us regarding twentieth century whaling and what truly 0:02:15.040 --> 0:02:17.840 sets it apart from the sort of nineteenth century whaling 0:02:18.560 --> 0:02:20.640 that many of us are probably familiar with from the 0:02:20.720 --> 0:02:21.600 likes of Moby Dick. 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:25.000 Yeah, that's right, Rob, I mean nineteenth century whalen, which 0:02:25.040 --> 0:02:29.760 was dominated by the Americans, was a really low tech 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:34.520 enterprise that still managed to manage to sweep nearly the 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:38.200 entire Earth Pacific, Indian, Atlantic Ocean, and I had a 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:43.640 pretty massive impact on certain whale species like sperm whales. 0:02:44.400 --> 0:02:49.520 Others it left entirely untouched, especially the fast whales, the 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:52.640 big whales that many people will be familiar with, humpback whales, 0:02:53.560 --> 0:02:55.960 blue whales, fin whales. 0:02:55.560 --> 0:02:56.079 Et cetera. 0:02:56.560 --> 0:02:59.119 And major parts of the ocean that were just off 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:03.080 limits to people working with sale technology, like the Antarctic, 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:07.960 which is the place where the most whales used to 0:03:08.000 --> 0:03:09.200 live at least. 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:12.240 And so twentie central whalen was. 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:18.280 Far I think, far less talked about, far less romanticized about. 0:03:18.320 --> 0:03:22.080 There is no Herman Melville for the twentieth century industrial era, 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:25.359 and yet it was by an order of magnitude more 0:03:25.440 --> 0:03:30.680 devastating for most whale species. Do you want me to 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:33.280 talk a little bit about the technology. I'm mindful of 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:36.680 not just going on and on with my answers and 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:37.720 new readers. 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:39.960 No, No, I think we'd all love to have a 0:03:39.960 --> 0:03:42.960 little technological background. My next question, in fact, was going 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:45.600 to be about the Stern Slipway and what it was 0:03:45.640 --> 0:03:47.880 and why it was so essential to modern whaling. 0:03:48.360 --> 0:03:51.120 Yeah, I mean the technology. 0:03:51.560 --> 0:03:55.440 There was really a major change in the technological implementations 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:57.760 of oiling at the end of the nineteenth century, mostly 0:03:57.800 --> 0:04:02.160 brought about by Norwegians who had been whaling in their 0:04:02.200 --> 0:04:05.320 near shore waters, but perfected a few things like the 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:10.400 exploding harpoon gun, which actually sent a grenade into a 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:16.080 whale exploded inside its body, which was far more lethal 0:04:16.360 --> 0:04:20.640 and far less lethal for humans because they could kill 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:23.280 the whale, often with one or two shots, rather than 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:26.120 having to tire it out over a long period of 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:30.200 time being attached to this gigantic, dangerous creatures they had 0:04:30.240 --> 0:04:32.840 in sail whaling. So that was one of the major 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:36.240 changes that took place. The other was the stern slipway 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:40.039 raw which you just mentioned, and this was a classical 0:04:40.120 --> 0:04:44.920 industrial piece of technology which allowed whales to be winched 0:04:45.279 --> 0:04:50.040 on board the whale ship, which really fundamentally changed the 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:52.760 whole industry. It meant that you didn't have to process 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:55.560 whales either in the ocean on the side of the 0:04:55.600 --> 0:04:58.920 ship as you know, as people did in moby Dick 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:02.120 for example, or that you even had to go ashore 0:05:02.400 --> 0:05:06.159 and process whales at shore factories. What this meant was 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:09.400 that you could stay out to see with your mother ship, 0:05:09.600 --> 0:05:14.600 your factory, your factory ship, and just process whales day 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:17.880 after day after day. They'd be brought to you by 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:22.040 a fleet of catcher boats taken to the mothership, winched 0:05:22.120 --> 0:05:25.719 up at the stern slipway, and then a whole team, 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:30.480 whole army of industrial workers would process that whale carcass 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:34.680 into the products that people in the twentieth century wanted, 0:05:34.720 --> 0:05:41.800 which increasingly was margarine, you know, butter substitute. That was 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:46.520 another technological innovation, the process of hydrogenation, which allowed people 0:05:46.920 --> 0:05:50.080 as scientists to inject hydrogen. 0:05:51.320 --> 0:05:51.880 I better not. 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:54.800 Maybe I won't go so firmly into the details of hydrogenation, 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:58.960 but it allowed them to to process whale meat in 0:05:59.080 --> 0:06:02.960 such a way that it was basically stripped of any 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:07.160 fishy flavor. People didn't even know they were eating margarine. 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:10.599 They had come from whales oftentimes, and this was the 0:06:10.680 --> 0:06:14.640 major driver behind twentieth century global industrial whaling. 0:06:15.240 --> 0:06:19.320 You also mentioned that this allowed for the processing of 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:22.159 the carcass to take place out of sight, right, This 0:06:22.600 --> 0:06:24.040 made it a little more hidden. 0:06:24.320 --> 0:06:27.400 Yeah, that's right. I mean, certainly not for those involved 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:30.240 in it. For those involved in it, you know, you 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:34.400 could you would see just one hundreds on some days, 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:40.640 literally hundreds of whales being processed. But it was it 0:06:41.040 --> 0:06:44.680 allowed the industry really to take place. Well, first of all, 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:47.120 in the Antarctic. The Antarctics started being hunted in the 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:51.880 nineteen tens based on this new technology, and then really 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:55.240 peaked in the twenties and thirties, so far away from 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:58.160 where any humans lived that you would, you know, you'd 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:03.440 get this product margarine with really no sense of what 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:07.400 kind of labor, what kind of danger, what kind of 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:09.320 slaughter had produced it. 0:07:09.520 --> 0:07:09.720 You know. 0:07:10.040 --> 0:07:14.160 Previously, I mean, whaling had always taken place pretty far 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:16.559 from shore, but it had always been you know, pretty 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:20.840 closely connected with shore industry as well, since you know, 0:07:21.000 --> 0:07:24.960 often process the whales on shore, et cetera. Often hunted 0:07:24.960 --> 0:07:27.800 whales in many cases that were not that far away 0:07:28.040 --> 0:07:32.320 from human population. So yeah, it allowed it really changed 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:36.080 the industry in a lot of ways, making it in 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:38.280 some ways far more mysterious for most people. 0:07:38.600 --> 0:07:41.400 And you mentioned too that the twentieth century whaling also 0:07:41.440 --> 0:07:44.840 it impacted more species of whales as compared to the 0:07:44.920 --> 0:07:45.840 nineteenth century. 0:07:46.080 --> 0:07:48.320 Yeah, you know, whales, a lot of whales are really 0:07:48.320 --> 0:07:53.480 hard to catch without industrial technology. They're fast, they can 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:57.600 standard water for a long period of time, and as 0:07:57.680 --> 0:08:00.640 with fishing, the twentieth century just saw, you know, a 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:05.640 series of innovations that allowed people to overcome the whales 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:09.520 ability to escape. First of all, diesel engines, of course, 0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:13.720 which are so much faster, allowed them to really run 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:18.160 down any species they wanted to. Then sonar, after the 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:23.240 Second World War came into greater use airplanes which allowed 0:08:23.240 --> 0:08:26.000 them to spot you. Often on this mothership would have 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:30.720 a helicopter or an airplane, but usually a helicopter pad 0:08:30.760 --> 0:08:34.600 where helicopters would take off and search the area for whales, 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:39.000 tell people where the large agglomerations were that they could 0:08:39.120 --> 0:08:41.480 chase them down with these really fast ships and then 0:08:41.559 --> 0:08:44.040 process them on board. I mean, you know, for whales, 0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:49.400 you can only imagine this was a obviously devastating suite 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:56.160 of technologies. They never faced predators like this on the 0:08:56.320 --> 0:09:00.520 scale or with this lethality. They were really totally prepared, 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:03.400 especially the big ones like blue whales and fin whales, 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:06.760 you know, the two largest species on Earth, which really 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:10.240 sustained the whaling industry from the nineteen tens through the 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:11.280 nineteen sixties. 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:13.240 Yeah, in terms of what it was like for the whales. 0:09:13.280 --> 0:09:16.680 You described this as the breaking of their quote, cultures 0:09:16.720 --> 0:09:21.200 and families. Can you describe that a little bit for us? 0:09:21.480 --> 0:09:22.280 Yeah? Thanks Rob. 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:23.520 This is one of the things I wanted to do 0:09:23.600 --> 0:09:27.160 with the book was to I mean, the statistics can 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:31.760 be numbing and it feels like an industrial slaughterhouse, which 0:09:31.800 --> 0:09:33.560 of course it was in a lot of ways. But 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:37.240 you know, the whalers were catching wild animals, wild animals 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:42.280 that had as you know, scientists are telling us these days, 0:09:42.520 --> 0:09:46.559 they've done incredible research into whale cultures, the whale emotions, 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:52.040 whale behaviors that you know, whales are complex creatures. They 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:55.520 passed down a lot of the information necessary for their 0:09:55.559 --> 0:09:58.920 lives through cultural transmission. That is, they learn it from 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:04.160 the other whales around them. It's not embedded genetically. Certain behaviors, 0:10:04.280 --> 0:10:10.800 migration routes, feeding areas, feeding strategies, et cetera. And so 0:10:11.840 --> 0:10:14.960 it allows us to understand what was happening with this 0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:19.760 unprecedented onslaught, which was not just the kind of devastation 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:24.600 of a population, but also the loss of knowledge amox 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:30.000 whale communities. That we have pretty clear evidence that whales, 0:10:30.040 --> 0:10:32.960 even as they've rebounded since the end of industrial whaling 0:10:33.000 --> 0:10:37.400 in the eighties, have failed to recolonize certain areas, places 0:10:37.440 --> 0:10:39.920 that they used to go to to give birth, the maid, 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:42.880 to feed, et cetera, in part because there was just 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:47.360 such a loss of cultural knowledge that was part of 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:51.600 this slaughter. You know, you killed so many nursing mothers, 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:55.200 for example, right, who have then failed to pass on 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:58.680 to their offspring certain important facets of what it meant 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:00.120 to be a humpback whale. 0:11:00.640 --> 0:11:01.959 And so that's kind of. 0:11:01.920 --> 0:11:04.960 Knowledge reverberate that loss reverberates. 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:05.559 Today. 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:09.400 Sperm whale mothers, for example, seem to be far less 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:13.840 adapt at keeping their calves alive than they were before whaling. 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:18.920 It's surmised that this is one of those knowledge losses 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:22.600 that happened as a result of industrial whaling. So we 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:26.120 still see the impacts even as whale numbers are rebounding 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:32.959 here in the twenty first century. 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:38.800 Now, red Leviathan is the secret history of Soviet whaling, 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:42.200 So I'm getting a little bit into the history of 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:46.839 Soviet whaling and also just Russian history with whaling. I'm 0:11:46.880 --> 0:11:50.040 always fascinated by a particular culture relationship with the sea, 0:11:50.080 --> 0:11:54.760 and you discussed this in the book concerning Russia. So 0:11:54.800 --> 0:11:58.319 how did Russia historically view the ocean and its resources 0:11:58.360 --> 0:12:01.199 and how did this impact involvement in whaling. 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:05.400 Yeah, you know, Russia such an interesting place to think 0:12:05.440 --> 0:12:08.880 about humans relationship to the ocean. You think about Russia, 0:12:08.880 --> 0:12:12.760 it's this huge land empire, which. 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:14.080 It is, of course, but it also has. 0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:17.679 One of the longest coastlines in the world. And Russians 0:12:18.280 --> 0:12:20.680 have been interacting with wales, you know, for a couple 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:24.679 of thousand years, of all sorts of different species in 0:12:24.720 --> 0:12:29.320 the Pacific and the Arctic and the Baltic, in the Ocean, 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:33.120 you name it. The Russians had relationships with whales there. 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:35.760 And I mean, I think the important thing for Russians 0:12:35.800 --> 0:12:38.480 was that they basically missed this period of sale whaling. 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:42.280 Well they didn't miss it exactly. They saw themselves as 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:47.839 victims in this period. Americans British dominated that they had 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:51.880 the capital to sustain these long distance whaling expeditions. The 0:12:51.920 --> 0:12:56.680 Russians didn't. They were quite poor compared to Western European 0:12:56.840 --> 0:13:00.640 and America nations. And so what they saw year after 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:06.800 year Americans come into Siberian shores, for example, and doing 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:10.600 whatever they wanted, even though this was part of what 0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:14.199 Russia thought of as their own territory. Americans would come 0:13:14.280 --> 0:13:16.760 and kill as many whales as they wanted, basically laugh 0:13:16.840 --> 0:13:19.600 at any kind of Russian attempts to stop them. They 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:25.800 trade with indigenous people, Siberians, who in many cases depended 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:30.600 on whales for their own sustenance, Alaskans as well. You know, 0:13:30.720 --> 0:13:35.079 Russia controlled part of Alaska in the nineteenth century, and 0:13:35.600 --> 0:13:40.960 you know, from the Russian perspective, it's just outrageous. These 0:13:41.240 --> 0:13:44.960 capitalists whalers, Yankee whalers as they called them, were destroying 0:13:45.040 --> 0:13:50.400 indigenous livelihoods. Russians really actually cared about this. They were 0:13:50.440 --> 0:13:53.440 destroying whales that Russians would have liked to have made 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:57.200 some money off of. And so that really helped shape 0:13:57.559 --> 0:14:01.160 Russia's major entry into the end industry. They came with it, 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:04.880 you say, a lot of historical baggage into it. And 0:14:04.920 --> 0:14:08.400 when Russia finally established its own whaling industry in the 0:14:08.480 --> 0:14:13.720 nineteen thirties under Stalin, Joseph Stalin, they thought of it 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:16.960 not just as a way to industrialize the country that 0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:19.240 was part of it, but as a way to kind 0:14:19.240 --> 0:14:25.960 of rectify this historical wrong, that their whaling industry was Russia. 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:30.760 Finally Russia getting its share and finally able to sort 0:14:30.760 --> 0:14:36.680 of defend its own oceans against Americans, British and increasing 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:37.880 the Norwegians as well. 0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:43.080 Now you get into the mystery of wales as well. 0:14:43.440 --> 0:14:47.040 I was taken by what you shared about the mystery 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:50.640 of baleen whales, including a tenth century Russian poem that 0:14:50.800 --> 0:14:55.880 concluded that these whales fed on quote heavenly fragrances. What 0:14:55.880 --> 0:14:56.720 are we to make of that? 0:14:57.720 --> 0:15:02.800 Yeah, whales are a pretty mysterious creature. They were for humans, 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:04.760 well they still are in a lot of ways. You know, 0:15:04.760 --> 0:15:11.920 they spend ninety nine percent of their life underwater. Humans 0:15:12.000 --> 0:15:14.320 really only got to know them when they were washed 0:15:14.400 --> 0:15:18.680 up on shore or once they'd been harpooned, and so, 0:15:19.000 --> 0:15:21.440 you know, wales lent themselves to a lot of mystery. 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:25.320 And you know, one of the interesting things that I 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:27.880 found research in this book is, you know, the really 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:32.280 important work that the Soviet Union did, especially as scientists 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:35.520 and kind of unraveling some of these mysteries. You know, 0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:38.720 you read this poem. This was a great indication of 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:44.280 the really almost total ignorance of whales that humans had 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:47.320 in the tenth century, but really up until the twentieth 0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:49.400 century in a lot of ways. And you know, the 0:15:49.440 --> 0:15:54.240 Soviets they killed more whales than any country did after 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:57.840 the Second World War. They also studied wales in greater 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:02.560 depth than any other country. They're scientists, were on the 0:16:02.560 --> 0:16:07.120 whale ships, you know, digging through whale carcasses, watching whales 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:12.040 as they were being hunted, using captive dolphins for study. 0:16:12.440 --> 0:16:15.360 You know, the Soviet Union, as much as any country, 0:16:15.400 --> 0:16:18.520 really advanced our knowledge of what wales. Where no one 0:16:18.600 --> 0:16:21.640 was talking about them feeding on heavenly mists, by the 0:16:21.920 --> 0:16:25.480 late twentieth century, the Soviets were talking about them nearly 0:16:25.480 --> 0:16:28.560 going extinct, and they were some of the first understand 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:31.880 how deep the crisis was as well. 0:16:32.240 --> 0:16:35.040 Yeah, so in this you're getting into what you refer 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:37.760 to in the book, is that the challenging contradictions that 0:16:37.800 --> 0:16:40.640 you encountered and sometimes you're encountering in interviews with Russian 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:42.760 whalers and scientists. Can you can you speak to this 0:16:42.840 --> 0:16:43.400 a little bit? 0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:45.520 Yeah, you know, I kim In. 0:16:46.320 --> 0:16:51.400 I wrote this book because I was horrified and shocked 0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:53.240 by a lot of things I've just been talking about 0:16:53.240 --> 0:16:56.120 the numbers of whales killed, the truth, you know, the 0:16:56.560 --> 0:17:00.360 pain that whales felt, but you know, to to try 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:03.200 to understand this and the role specifically that the Russian 0:17:03.320 --> 0:17:05.639 Soviet Union played. Of course, I went out and I 0:17:05.680 --> 0:17:08.080 talked to people who had been on board these whale ships. 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:11.280 I went to Ukraine and went to I went to 0:17:11.359 --> 0:17:14.440 Moscow and Coliningrad and other places and talk to people 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:17.359 who had been part of this, and it was it 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:20.280 was hard not to like them, frankly. You know, they're 0:17:20.359 --> 0:17:25.080 people who not only didn't think at the time that 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:28.160 what they were doing was wrong, many of. 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:29.480 Them, some of them did. 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:32.399 I should make that clear that you know, some people 0:17:32.760 --> 0:17:36.440 were really disturbed by the whaling that they were doing. 0:17:36.800 --> 0:17:37.399 Many were not. 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:39.879 And you know, frankly, most people around the world didn't 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:41.600 really care that whales were being killed. 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:42.560 For most of the time period. 0:17:42.600 --> 0:17:45.200 But you know, not only that, but also that they 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:48.359 were you know, they were also really deeply interested in wales, 0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:52.159 you know, like myself, really fascinated by these creatures. And 0:17:52.840 --> 0:17:54.560 you know, when I talked to them, I talked to 0:17:54.600 --> 0:17:59.240 whales scientists. You know, they wanted to talk. They were 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:03.800 so you know, they wanted to relive their experiences with whales. 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:08.119 They expressed sympathy for these creatures, fascination for them. You know, 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:11.359 I met some of really the greatest whale scientists, probably 0:18:11.480 --> 0:18:15.600 the twentieth century, people who are still who still really 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:19.639 care about whales, who tried to blow the whistle in 0:18:19.720 --> 0:18:22.679 the Soviet Union about some of the illegal whaling that 0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:25.960 was taking place, and some of them turned out to be, 0:18:27.440 --> 0:18:30.719 you know, as you said, challenge contradictions. You know, one 0:18:30.760 --> 0:18:34.439 of the whale scientists that I really relied on for 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:37.159 a lot of the information for this books living in 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:40.800 Odessa and Ukraine now and you know, has been emailing 0:18:40.840 --> 0:18:43.200 me telling me he can't wait for Russia to come 0:18:43.880 --> 0:18:48.720 free Ukraine from the Nazis. You know, he's a deep 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:55.680 Russian patriot who really regrets the demise of the Soviet 0:18:55.800 --> 0:18:59.080 Union as well. You know, people who's not not easy 0:18:59.160 --> 0:19:04.200 to pigeon hold them into easy dichotomies that we often 0:19:04.960 --> 0:19:05.520 fall into. 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:08.800 And looking at Russia, so we touched a little bit 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:14.480 already on the history of Russian whaling and their relationship 0:19:14.480 --> 0:19:17.760 with the resources of the sea prior to the twentieth century. 0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:21.119 But then what other reasons they're pushing the Soviet Union 0:19:21.119 --> 0:19:24.720 then to pursue industrial whaling so strongly during a time 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:27.320 when other countries are dropping out of the practice. 0:19:27.800 --> 0:19:29.800 Yeah, that was the crazy thing about this, and the 0:19:29.920 --> 0:19:35.560 King really came through heartbreaking details. I was reading scientists reports. 0:19:35.600 --> 0:19:40.960 You know, the Soviet Union really expanded their whaling presence 0:19:41.080 --> 0:19:45.119 in the late nineteen fifties and early nineteen sixties, just 0:19:45.280 --> 0:19:47.840 at a time, as you say, Rob, when the Norwegians 0:19:47.840 --> 0:19:50.199 were starting to drop out, the British were starting to 0:19:50.280 --> 0:19:54.119 drop out, the Dutch were starting to drop out, The 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:57.400 US wasn't whaling anymore. Everyone saw the writing on the wall. 0:19:58.240 --> 0:20:01.760 The large profitable whales wiped out. You know, they're gone. 0:20:02.000 --> 0:20:05.280 It's not going to pay. And you know, the Soviet Union, 0:20:06.400 --> 0:20:12.280 they had a real belief in the power of science. 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:15.440 You know, this was a society that was had thrown 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:18.399 off God, thrown off religion. It was going to rely 0:20:19.200 --> 0:20:23.920 on the expertise of people who weren't subject to those 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:28.200 kinds of those kinds of superstitions. You know, they were 0:20:28.240 --> 0:20:33.159 going to integrate all kind of economic planning with experts. 0:20:33.200 --> 0:20:35.560 So they had a real belief that they were actually 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:40.520 going to be really more responsible environmentally than other countries, 0:20:41.000 --> 0:20:43.280 So it was it was just bizarre to read, you 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:47.120 know that they when the Soviet Union under Nikita Krushev 0:20:48.400 --> 0:20:51.360 was thinking about building they thought about building nine new 0:20:51.440 --> 0:20:57.439 factories floating factories in the nineteen fifties, which was, you know, 0:20:58.200 --> 0:21:00.879 was going to make them the biggest whaling country on earth. 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:03.639 And they asked their scientists, is this a good idea? 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:07.159 Every scientist said, now, they said, look, the oceans are 0:21:07.200 --> 0:21:09.280 in crisis, and they really were in the in the 0:21:09.400 --> 0:21:14.120 nineteen fifties. It's easy to forget just how we had 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:19.720 exploited whale and fish stocks at that time really recklessly. 0:21:20.119 --> 0:21:23.399 And Soviet scientists understood this perfectly. They were seeing it 0:21:23.440 --> 0:21:27.239 happen on board to a man, and they were all 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:32.680 men at that time. They advised the Soviet economic planners like, 0:21:32.720 --> 0:21:35.480 don't do this, this is crazy. And what did they do? 0:21:36.520 --> 0:21:39.000 They said, Okay, instead of nine, were build seven. They 0:21:39.000 --> 0:21:43.959 built seven new factory fleets, which you know, dwarfed everyone 0:21:44.000 --> 0:21:46.280 except the Japanese at a time. 0:21:46.320 --> 0:21:47.760 As I said, when people. 0:21:47.440 --> 0:21:53.000 Were getting out of this industry justified logic, and it 0:21:53.560 --> 0:21:57.600 led to the predictable disaster. You know, the Soviets having 0:21:57.640 --> 0:22:02.280 built these these huge fleets found that there weren't whales 0:22:02.280 --> 0:22:04.919 to catch, so they started catching the last of the 0:22:04.960 --> 0:22:08.199 whales that were prohibited, you know, and they really, you know, 0:22:08.280 --> 0:22:13.920 the special contribution that the Soviets made was catching those 0:22:14.040 --> 0:22:16.800 last few whales of the species that really didn't make 0:22:16.800 --> 0:22:20.280 any economic sense to catch the Soviets for the Soviets, 0:22:20.280 --> 0:22:23.600 though they had the capacity. 0:22:23.040 --> 0:22:23.479 They did it. 0:22:23.520 --> 0:22:26.960 They wiped out almost the last of the humpback whales 0:22:27.240 --> 0:22:30.240 in the southern hemisphere, the last of the southern right whales. 0:22:30.840 --> 0:22:35.320 So you know, it's it's hard to read that stuff, 0:22:35.320 --> 0:22:39.719 and it really feels like a kind of a tragic 0:22:39.800 --> 0:22:45.640 failure of the Soviet belief that science would really make 0:22:45.760 --> 0:22:50.040 them able to operate more effectively in the world. You know, 0:22:50.080 --> 0:22:52.639 they it could have worked, you know, the scientists told 0:22:52.720 --> 0:22:57.200 them the right thing, and they ended up ignoring the advice, really, 0:22:57.440 --> 0:22:59.280 you know, to the great tragedy of the whales around 0:22:59.320 --> 0:22:59.639 the world. 0:23:00.040 --> 0:23:02.800 But they did end up sending scientists out on these 0:23:02.800 --> 0:23:03.480 ships as well. 0:23:03.520 --> 0:23:03.800 Yeah. 0:23:04.200 --> 0:23:07.520 Oh, the Soviet Union had the largest net of whales 0:23:07.560 --> 0:23:11.199 scientists really in the world, and so they understood probably 0:23:11.240 --> 0:23:13.320 better than any country in the world what you know, 0:23:13.359 --> 0:23:17.560 exactly how deep the crisis was with the world's whales's 0:23:17.720 --> 0:23:21.000 that's the that's the difficult contradiction here. 0:23:21.480 --> 0:23:24.440 So there were there were international quotas at the time, though, right, 0:23:25.400 --> 0:23:28.720 how did this play into Soviet whaling activity at the time? 0:23:29.359 --> 0:23:31.960 Yeah, right, So you know, Soviet Union was one of 0:23:32.000 --> 0:23:36.720 the original signatories to the International Whaling Convention that established 0:23:36.760 --> 0:23:39.359 in the National Whaling Commission in nineteen forty six, and 0:23:39.920 --> 0:23:44.280 they'd agreed to abide by quotas. Quotas which at first 0:23:44.320 --> 0:23:48.360 were kind of laughably generous. They wanted to make sure 0:23:48.400 --> 0:23:53.760 that whalers were still profitable, but became increasingly restrictive over 0:23:53.800 --> 0:23:58.080 the years, and especially in the nineteen sixties. They had 0:23:58.119 --> 0:24:00.719 some real teeth in them. And the same the Union 0:24:01.200 --> 0:24:05.639 pretended to abide by those quotas, they would come back 0:24:05.680 --> 0:24:08.479 and every year whale nations would have to report how 0:24:08.480 --> 0:24:13.040 many whales they'd killed at the at the meeting of THEWC, 0:24:13.920 --> 0:24:16.120 and so an you would do this, they'd make their 0:24:16.119 --> 0:24:20.880 reports and they started falsifying them in the nineteen fifties, 0:24:20.920 --> 0:24:24.200 at first overstating the number of whales that they'd killed, 0:24:24.920 --> 0:24:28.199 in part because they wanted to look like they were 0:24:28.200 --> 0:24:30.919