Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to you? Stuff you should
Speaker 1: know from house Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome
Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. I can't believe we're
Speaker 1: doing this again. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant doing one again? Yes,
Speaker 1: the show? Yeah? What did you think we were done?
Speaker 1: I'm so tired, are you? I'm so tired. I'm discouraged
Speaker 1: to know that you hate Tom Petty. I hate them,
Speaker 1: Mr Petty. I'm sure you're a genuinely nice guy, but
Speaker 1: I can't stand your music. Oh I love Tom Petty.
Speaker 1: That's great. I hope you love them enough for both
Speaker 1: of us. That's fine. I just I'm not surprised because
Speaker 1: you don't dig a lot of that sort of classic
Speaker 1: rock stuff. That's not true. Born and raised thirty special
Speaker 1: fan buddy, Are you really okay? I like plenty of
Speaker 1: classic rock except led Zeppelin. Uh Um. I don't hate
Speaker 1: a C. D C. I just don't really whatever you know?
Speaker 1: Uh what else don't I like? Wait, let's do this
Speaker 1: the other way. Here's the classic rock. I do like
Speaker 1: the doors your I just twitched did it. Jim Morrison
Speaker 1: does that to me? Um, let's see. Uh, I guess
Speaker 1: that's about it. The doors. Yeah, I used to like
Speaker 1: the Grateful Dead, as you know, sure, but I don't anymore. Well,
Speaker 1: this has been a scintillating start. Do you want to
Speaker 1: record over this? No? No, I think it's good. So
Speaker 1: um ahoy chuck. Um, we're gonna be talking like that
Speaker 1: a lot like Scarby Sea dogs. Um, not pirates, it's
Speaker 1: Scarby Sea dogs, big difference. Um, that was a Scotsman
Speaker 1: they sailed. They definitely did. Um. I have an intro.
Speaker 1: Let's hear it. And it was a gift from you.
Speaker 1: So thank you for this? Oh the news recently? Yeah good,
Speaker 1: let's talk about that. So the Japanese, Um, we're very
Speaker 1: sad when they came back to Japan from Antarctica and said,
Speaker 1: we only caught two hundred and sixties seven whales, which
Speaker 1: is way less than the nine we planned to catch
Speaker 1: this season. Yeah. Um, they left. They left Japan in
Speaker 1: December and came back very recently, um at the beginning
Speaker 1: of March, because whales season was virtually over in Antarctica.
Speaker 1: Even though there's a couple of weird things here. Uh,
Speaker 1: Antarctica is one of the places in the world where
Speaker 1: whales are protected internationally supposedly, and number two, whale hunting's outlaw.
Speaker 1: This isn't like gb year zero where you can just
Speaker 1: go and whale commercially. Um. Instead, it's two thousand twelve
Speaker 1: and Japan still managed to kill two d and sixty
Speaker 1: seven whales. Now, um, for people who are fans of whales,
Speaker 1: I'm a fan of whales. Isn't everyone who's like stupid whales?
Speaker 1: They deserve it. I'm sure whalers no. I think they
Speaker 1: just have a you know, an industry that they're trying
Speaker 1: to keep going. Um. And I want to clarify, uh.
Speaker 1: When we say whaling, we're talking about whale killing expeditions,
Speaker 1: not whale watching expeditions. Just to clarify to people like
Speaker 1: my wife. Um so Uh. The the Japanese whaling season
Speaker 1: ended prematurely, right, It packed up their harpoons and went home,
Speaker 1: thanks to the efforts of a group known as Sea Shepherds.
Speaker 1: Then the sea Shepherds. Sea shepherds sell sea shells by
Speaker 1: the sea shore. They're militant. Uh. They're described as a
Speaker 1: militant environmental group. Have you seen their boats? Are they
Speaker 1: the ones that are painted like death from Above style?
Speaker 1: They have They have the logo Jolly Rogers skilling cross boats,
Speaker 1: but one of the bones is a triadent and the
Speaker 1: others like a shepherd's hook. That's pretty cool. But even
Speaker 1: cooler it's painted on the side of boats that look
Speaker 1: like batmobiles. Yeah, that's the ones. I yeah, pretty cool.
Speaker 1: I believe they have a show on our our parent
Speaker 1: mother company, Discovery, who keeps us warm in her embrace
Speaker 1: and suckles us from her teeth. Whale Wars. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: gotta be it, right. Yeah, that's time I've never seen that.
Speaker 1: I don't say that. I love that show every night.
Speaker 1: I love that show too, and all of its commercial sponsors.
Speaker 1: So they show up, they say, we're gonna throw our
Speaker 1: ropes in your propellers, and we're gonna launch stink bombs
Speaker 1: at your boat and to to to thwart your whole
Speaker 1: operation in the Japanese retaliated using water cannons, throwing harpoons,
Speaker 1: grappling hooks, bamboo spears. Yeah, but what's crazy is the
Speaker 1: sea shepherds. They came out on top. I mean there
Speaker 1: were at least six hundred and change whales that didn't
Speaker 1: lose their lives this year. Um, because in the Japanese
Speaker 1: said they call them sabuteurs, not activists. Um. But because
Speaker 1: these they were harassed the whole time. So it's working.
Speaker 1: That's a huge victory. But um, whaling, I'm out there.
Speaker 1: I'm putting us out there, dude, because I think for
Speaker 1: most of our listeners in America, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: sympathy for whales. This isn't a whaling country. Although, um,
Speaker 1: there is whaling in the US by indigenous groups Alaska, way,
Speaker 1: there's still are they grandfathered in? Yeah, there's about three
Speaker 1: hundred a year. Roughly they take about three hundred whales
Speaker 1: a year or no, I'm sorry, less than a hundred.
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like a jerk saying that's not bad.
Speaker 1: But compared to the old numbers, that's really not bad
Speaker 1: exactly right. Um, So I think there's a lot of
Speaker 1: sympathy for whales. Yeah, apparently in Japan, even the younger generation,
Speaker 1: they're having a hard time talking them into being on board.
Speaker 1: Even though Japan, which we'll talk about, is is skirting
Speaker 1: some of these laws to continue to whale, and Japan
Speaker 1: is a whaling country, has been a whaling country since
Speaker 1: the seventeenth century. Um. So, yeah, the idea of killing
Speaker 1: a whale has gotten more and more stomach churning over
Speaker 1: the year. Agreed. So let's talk about how to do it. Okay, Uh,
Speaker 1: should we go the history first. I didn't talk to
Speaker 1: you about this beforehand like we normally do. Sometimes we do,
Speaker 1: so we never do. Yeah, we can talk about history.
Speaker 1: I think that's a good idea. Okay. Where did whaling start?
Speaker 1: It started in uh Spain and northwest Spain and southwest
Speaker 1: France by the Basques. Well that's commercial whaling. Oh well
Speaker 1: you're you're talking about just uh Nanook of the North
Speaker 1: out there with this harpoon, sure, yeah, indigenous folks yeah,
Speaker 1: or Sandtok of the south. Yeah. Um, there's a good
Speaker 1: whale in down Antarctic away what still is yeah? Um,
Speaker 1: but not just them. The Norwegians have long been whaling cultures,
Speaker 1: same with the Icelandic. Yeah, true, Russians and they still
Speaker 1: ice in Iceland and Norway. Right, they're still at it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now not so much these days. Were there at the
Speaker 1: very least getting a little more aware alright. So getting
Speaker 1: back to the Basques, the first commercial whaling operations UM
Speaker 1: as early as one thousand in the Bay of biz
Speaker 1: K and then of course everyone else saw what was
Speaker 1: going on, jumped on board England in UH in North
Speaker 1: America in the early sixteen hundreds, Japan six. The US
Speaker 1: finally off Nantucket sevent twelve. So this this article kind
Speaker 1: of skirts over some really big stuff here, Like it
Speaker 1: basically goes from Nantucket to ven Foyn And when you jump,
Speaker 1: make that jump, you leave out the entire Golden Age
Speaker 1: of whaling right in fifty year. So when you reach Nantucket,
Speaker 1: the you you encounter UM and there's this awesome ken
Speaker 1: Burns like two part series on UM whaling. If you're
Speaker 1: ever interested, it's definitely worth checking out this one. But
Speaker 1: Nantucket became like the whaling capital of the world and
Speaker 1: thereby also became the commercial um engine of the world
Speaker 1: because whaling and whale oil uh came about at a
Speaker 1: time when the Industrial Revolution hit, and whale oil was
Speaker 1: to the world what fossil fuel oil is today. Pre petroleum,
Speaker 1: it was petroleum. Yeah, like it literally is what the
Speaker 1: world ran on and what we lit artificially our world with. Right,
Speaker 1: So UM New Bedford specifically in Nantucket or like the
Speaker 1: what Saudi Arabia is today, and whales out there in
Speaker 1: the ocean were basically like floating pieces of oil rich
Speaker 1: real estate that anybody with the ship could go claim.
Speaker 1: Is that why that area is so still so dollar heavy?
Speaker 1: Probably is that what got them going to begin with?
Speaker 1: Wer Yeah, and from like seventeen fifty to eighteen fifty
Speaker 1: it was like one of the richest places in the world.
Speaker 1: So you can't quite skip over that. It's definitely worth mentioning.
Speaker 1: That's right, Those cold uh Atlantic waters up there, fertile
Speaker 1: ground for whales, I imagine. Yeah, And they started out
Speaker 1: by just um harvesting whales that washed up ashore. But um,
Speaker 1: that would have been a nice way to just keep
Speaker 1: it that way it was, But then the industrial revolution
Speaker 1: hit and they're like, oh, whale, it really burns. Well,
Speaker 1: we can make candles out of it. If I dabbed
Speaker 1: some behind my ears, I'll use as a perfume, well,
Speaker 1: like a stinky whale. Yeah. But it isn't uh perfuman
Speaker 1: cosmetics and stuff like that, right it is. I think
Speaker 1: it probably still isn't something in Japan, all right, So
Speaker 1: are we ready for spin? Sure? The Norwegian Pioneer sven Foyn,
Speaker 1: which is a great name. Uh. He launched the first
Speaker 1: steam powered whaling ship in eighteen sixty three and then
Speaker 1: invented a little something that really changed everything called the
Speaker 1: harpoon cannon, which is pretty awful. It's not you know,
Speaker 1: your harpoon a whale by hand up until that point,
Speaker 1: and then now all of a sudden you could shoot
Speaker 1: a harpoon with a cannon that would explode inside the whale.
Speaker 1: Crazy sven Foyn is pretty much single handedly the reason
Speaker 1: why we have such depleted and endangered whale stock today.
Speaker 1: And I guess it didn't mess up the whale too
Speaker 1: much with the explosion, and hopefully it was over because
Speaker 1: prior to that, um, killing a whale is very cult
Speaker 1: when you are hand throwing a harpoon, right sure, And
Speaker 1: that's how they did it. UM. So you had a
Speaker 1: bunch of guys in little tiny boats like all throwing spears,
Speaker 1: not necessarily harpoons, because the harpoon was used to towe
Speaker 1: the whale back whence it was dead, but like a
Speaker 1: spear UM and the only way to kill it was
Speaker 1: to spirit in its gills, so that eventually it was
Speaker 1: stabbed enough that it would um aspirate and choke on
Speaker 1: its own blood. And it took a while, and it
Speaker 1: would swim about pretty pretty heavily for a little bit,
Speaker 1: is called a flurry, and then it would just go
Speaker 1: on its side finn up. And that's how you knew
Speaker 1: the whale was dead. And you harpooned it, and all
Speaker 1: the whale boats towed it back to the boat for processing.
Speaker 1: So hopefully that explosion just killed it immediately. But I'll
Speaker 1: but it didn't. Yeah, but at the very least it
Speaker 1: must not have messed it up for harvesting processing, or
Speaker 1: else they probablyn't have done it. Um Well, you mentioned
Speaker 1: the threshing about very dangerous job back then. Definitely imagine
Speaker 1: it still is to a certain degree. But back then
Speaker 1: those little boats, large whale, much larger than your boat
Speaker 1: thrashing about. It's gonna capsize you. You could drown, You
Speaker 1: could slip on the boat with the blubber and the
Speaker 1: blood everywhere. Yeah, because I mean, we'll think about this.
Speaker 1: You have a whale ship, right, and that's where like
Speaker 1: everybody lives in stays. But to go hunt the whale
Speaker 1: when you're actually killing the whale, you're in a whale boat.
Speaker 1: And that's basically like the size of a rowboat. And
Speaker 1: that's what you're in with with a whale, Like, get
Speaker 1: off of me, get exactly. So lots of dudes died, uh.
Speaker 1: And then there's the disease of course, going to exotic
Speaker 1: and gross sports of call tuberculosis, what else, yellow fever, malaria,
Speaker 1: pretty much I would imagine the whole gambit, the whole
Speaker 1: gambit of sea board disease, scurvy, ricketts v D. Let's
Speaker 1: get real, yeah, um, And like you said, seven had
Speaker 1: a direct hand in leading to the depletion of the population,
Speaker 1: and starting in the early nineteen hundreds, things really started
Speaker 1: going south for the whale. Yeah. Numbers wise, yea, you
Speaker 1: want to rattle off a few of these, So like
Speaker 1: this is sven point everyone, this is fin Foin's work.
Speaker 1: I'd lay this clearly at his feet. In nineteen o four, UM,
Speaker 1: A hundred and eighty four whales uh were killed off
Speaker 1: of the South Atlantic island of South Georgia, right right
Speaker 1: within ten years UM. It jumped to four right within
Speaker 1: ten years UM. Just blue whales alone, thirty eight were killed,
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy six fin whales and twenty one thousand
Speaker 1: eight hundred ninety four humpbacks were killed in that same
Speaker 1: area within one decade. And that's just in that one area.
Speaker 1: And also you you will note that blue whales and
Speaker 1: fin whales used to be out of the reach of
Speaker 1: um any kind of whale ship were they too fast
Speaker 1: and they could out maneuver and out out run any
Speaker 1: ship that was chasing them until Sven foy In introduced
Speaker 1: the steam power whales. Right, So it was just the
Speaker 1: sperm whales at first, is that right? Right? And sperm
Speaker 1: whale also, by the way, is what they were looking for,
Speaker 1: mainly because sperm oil was the best oil available, burned
Speaker 1: the cleanest and the brightest. And sperm whales also had
Speaker 1: something called sperm machetti, which is like this waxy substance
Speaker 1: in their head that you could use to cut the
Speaker 1: whale oil into candles. That worked really well. It was
Speaker 1: just like the best stuff. It was also way more
Speaker 1: valuable than regular whale oil. Yeah, how much did they produce?
Speaker 1: I had this year? Oh, they had like um to
Speaker 1: forty barrels, and there's like a whale oil per whale
Speaker 1: per sperm whale. Yeah, and that's wharrel was thirty one
Speaker 1: and a half gallons. Yea, so it's I did the
Speaker 1: math somewhere. Sixty gallons per sperm whale. Yeah. Well, and
Speaker 1: they would use every part of the whale. We'll at
Speaker 1: least give them that. It's not like shark fin soup,
Speaker 1: like cut off the shark fin and then dump the
Speaker 1: shark back in the water. They would try to use
Speaker 1: every part of the whale per sustenance. Um. So I
Speaker 1: guess we're going back to the beginning again, which is
Speaker 1: why did they do this to begin with? Because it
Speaker 1: couldn't grow veggies in a lot of these places, so
Speaker 1: whale was like what they subsisted on, subsided on, subsisted,
Speaker 1: subsisted on, subsided happened after they ran out of whale exactly. Um.
Speaker 1: So you know it's got a lot of protein, iron niacin,
Speaker 1: vitamin's A d C. Yeah, and that's like good stuff
Speaker 1: for them, right. And they figured out early on that
Speaker 1: they could burn the blubber too right to light and
Speaker 1: heat their iglues make sleds. That would help making sleds
Speaker 1: and tools out of baileeen whales. Teeth, I guess I
Speaker 1: should make air quotes teeth. Um, you can use it
Speaker 1: for all sorts of stuff. Imagine bones too. And this
Speaker 1: is back in the day that like before commercially and
Speaker 1: there's a long tradition of using all parts of the whale.
Speaker 1: But there's a huge difference between even a massive commercial
Speaker 1: enterprise like that were like the ones that were launched
Speaker 1: off of Nantucket that required sale power and hand thrown
Speaker 1: harpoons and then steam power boats and harpoon guns with
Speaker 1: explosive tips. There's a big difference, huge difference. And then
Speaker 1: the global demand also just kind of changed everything too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Japan um post war, post World War two. Uh, they
Speaker 1: relied a lot on whales for for food. They were
Speaker 1: um pretty poor at the time after the war, trying
Speaker 1: to put the pieces back together, and whales were a
Speaker 1: big part of that. On the school lunch menu up
Speaker 1: into the nineteen sixties, even although it's not supposed to
Speaker 1: taste very good, is it. It's supposed to taste it
Speaker 1: says in this article like either reindeer or moose. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a fine slate, try it, I guess. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: that's what he had to say. Yeah, and it's not
Speaker 1: heavily spiced out of tradition, right. Uh. That is in
Speaker 1: Norway Iceland, in Alaska. Ok. Yeah, in Japan they spice
Speaker 1: the heck out of it, I guess so. I'm sure
Speaker 1: they say serve it as sashimi, which would mean that
Speaker 1: they probably don't. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of a
Speaker 1: s h phoneme tongue twisters in this one for me.
Speaker 1: You are right, No, Well, we'll persevere. So we're no
Speaker 1: longer running on um any kind of our Our economy
Speaker 1: doesn't run on whale oil any longer. No now raping
Speaker 1: the earth of petroleum. Right, but at least it doesn't
Speaker 1: you know, have babies. Um, So why are we still
Speaker 1: killing whales? Uh? Well, in Japan they have a loophole
Speaker 1: um under Article eight of the International Convention of the
Speaker 1: Regulation of Whaling that says that they are allowed to
Speaker 1: kill for research purposes. Technically anybody is yeah, but well
Speaker 1: yeah in Japan is the only one taking them up
Speaker 1: on it, saying yeah, this is for research, yes, but
Speaker 1: that is disputed, yes, because really the only um use
Speaker 1: these days for whales is meat. Right, So Japan um
Speaker 1: is through this international convention, they're not the only ones
Speaker 1: who can use um. Whale hunting for scientific research is
Speaker 1: a reason to kill whales right, um. But yeah, they're
Speaker 1: they're only criticized for it because there's other techniques that
Speaker 1: other countries used to study whale populations that don't require, um,
Speaker 1: the whale to die. Well. I don't get that to
Speaker 1: begin with, because what they're studying is what they're trying
Speaker 1: to prove is that there are actually more whales. And
Speaker 1: people are saying that's one of the things. They're saying
Speaker 1: one of the other things. And I should say that
Speaker 1: my source for this is Greenpeace, um. But they said
Speaker 1: they were saying that Japan routinely uses study study samples
Speaker 1: of populations of like five whales from the same area,
Speaker 1: which is a terrible way to study like a species. Um.
Speaker 1: And they are examining their stomach contents to find out
Speaker 1: about whale diets, and then they'll say, oh, well, these
Speaker 1: whales eat a lot of salmon, and salmon's are very
Speaker 1: commercially important, um fish, so we should kill more whales, right. Um.
Speaker 1: If you look at the Australians, they study whale diets too,
Speaker 1: but they track whale feces and they also study whale
Speaker 1: habits by keeping them alive and get more data by
Speaker 1: keeping them alive by just tagging them. Yeah, and they're
Speaker 1: one of the countries that's come out hardest against Japan
Speaker 1: and condemning them, right yeah. Yeah, the Australians were like, good,
Speaker 1: I'm glad you guys made it back safely and early
Speaker 1: from your whale hunting season this year. So the Japanese
Speaker 1: are very much criticized for exploiting this, but under international
Speaker 1: law they can do this. And um, I guess the
Speaker 1: provision that allows science big whaling says if you catch
Speaker 1: a catch and kill a whale for scientific purposes, you
Speaker 1: have to use the whole whale. So they're saying, well,
Speaker 1: we've got to sell this as food, right. The the
Speaker 1: that's a huge loophole because it's basically like, yeah, if
Speaker 1: you say we're well here's this here's this study we're
Speaker 1: carrying out, you can just conduct commercial whaling, which is
Speaker 1: what they're doing. So um in now they were starting,
Speaker 1: they already were processing. Is that what you said earlier?
Speaker 1: They're already processing on board before. Yeah, So what happened then?
Speaker 1: Did it just? The factory ships made it even easier.
Speaker 1: They were just more outfitted with it. Yeah, they were
Speaker 1: kind of like d I Y processing whales beforehand, but
Speaker 1: they were definitely doing it during like the Golden Age
Speaker 1: off and Nantucket, where like you would capture a whale
Speaker 1: harpoon it. All of the guys who had just been
Speaker 1: fighting this thing for like hours would grow it back
Speaker 1: to the ship and they'd attach it with chains to
Speaker 1: the ship and then start skinning it like layer by layer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they said it's like peeling an orange skin. And they
Speaker 1: would carve it up into blanket pieces. There were a
Speaker 1: ton a piece, Like some guys died for that. That
Speaker 1: was one of these people die was getting crushed by
Speaker 1: like a slab of blubber. Oh sure, a ton of
Speaker 1: whale blubber falling on you. That's not a good way
Speaker 1: to go. Um. And then they would haul these blanket
Speaker 1: pieces up and then divide them into what they call
Speaker 1: horse pieces. My guess is that that was about the
Speaker 1: size of a horse. Sure probably could still kill you.
Speaker 1: I imagine you die going. Then they would boil, boil out,
Speaker 1: extract extracting the blubber, the oil from the blubber. And
Speaker 1: this is all done on board, like with big iron
Speaker 1: pots and stoves. Pretty gnarly. Yeah, and um, there's blood everywhere,
Speaker 1: there's oily blubber everywhere. So one of the one of
Speaker 1: the great um dangers of the job was slipping on
Speaker 1: deck and falling overboard. You don't think that the waters
Speaker 1: around the ship they were skinning the um whale weren't
Speaker 1: just infested with sharks, So that was a very dangerous
Speaker 1: Part two. Uh so, once they had the oil um
Speaker 1: extracted from the blubber, they would actually go ahead and
Speaker 1: put it in the casks, stow it down in the hold,
Speaker 1: try and clean up the mess, even though there really
Speaker 1: is no cleaning up that mess, no, apparently not. And
Speaker 1: um then they just start over again, and like a
Speaker 1: whaling expedition, dude, was years long. They went for years,
Speaker 1: Like they just go out there because they could do
Speaker 1: this all um aboard their ship and they just live
Speaker 1: on the whale the whole time. They usually had provisions.
Speaker 1: I'm sure they would stop in Tortuga and pick up
Speaker 1: some provisions and some vds or whatever, beans and veneerial
Speaker 1: disease with their whale and um and then you know,
Speaker 1: go on their way. But like they would be away
Speaker 1: from home for years at a stretch. Yeah, so is
Speaker 1: a crazy life, all right. So let's uh flash forward
Speaker 1: a bit um factory ships in nineteen five were introduced,
Speaker 1: which really ramped up the killing and sixty years in
Speaker 1: the sixty years following that, more than two million whales
Speaker 1: were killed in the Southern hemisphere. So that's when people countries,
Speaker 1: the League of Nations specifically sat up and said, you
Speaker 1: know what, in one we should put together some sort
Speaker 1: of legislation to regulate this, and they's pretty cool. For
Speaker 1: twenty six countries got on board. Um, except for Japan,
Speaker 1: Germany and Russia. Uh. Then ten years later, uh, in
Speaker 1: nineteen I'm sorry. Five years later they established the International
Speaker 1: Agreement for Regulation of Whaling, and again Japan said no thanks.
Speaker 1: And that year there was a record high of forty
Speaker 1: six thousand, thirty nine whales killed in the Antarctic alone.
Speaker 1: It still is the record. And you know, they've tried
Speaker 1: these different things over the years, but basically what I
Speaker 1: gathered was there was never any enforcement. No, the the
Speaker 1: i WC has no teeth. They have by lean that's it.
Speaker 1: So they can't really they can't do anything that was
Speaker 1: off the cuff. Was really, um, well, then they can't
Speaker 1: do anything like you can sit there and make up
Speaker 1: regulations all day, but Japan can just say no, we're
Speaker 1: not gonna do it, I think, and be like, hey,
Speaker 1: that would hurt our economy. Sorry, we understand that you
Speaker 1: feel for the whales, but we're whaling. So what are
Speaker 1: you gonna do? And they they say, oh, yeah, we forgot.
Speaker 1: There's no sanctions that we can carry out against you.
Speaker 1: We can police, we can condemn it. Yeah, there's no
Speaker 1: whale police, see shepherds, but their rogue. Yeah, they do
Speaker 1: a good job apparently. Whether or not you agree with
Speaker 1: their methods is one thing. But they certainly made a
Speaker 1: difference this year. Uh. Flash forward again to nineteen six
Speaker 1: UM when they banned commercial whaling altogether, again rejected by Japan,
Speaker 1: in Norway and Russia. But in that in that UM convention,
Speaker 1: there was that loophole for scientific research. There's also I
Speaker 1: think always been exceptions for indigenous groups too. Um. But
Speaker 1: the uh, the the big loophole was the scientific whaling one.
Speaker 1: That's the one that they continue exploiting because everybody's like,
Speaker 1: we're not doing any commercial way, like we're just licensing,
Speaker 1: issuing scientific whaling licenses to these commercial whaling out Now
Speaker 1: early you said the United States still does with that.
Speaker 1: Is that just indigenous peoples? Yeah? Um, And there was something.
Speaker 1: I couldn't find out what happened, man, But I saw
Speaker 1: this like chart of whaling and from since n UM
Speaker 1: it's had an impact that the convention, that treaty had
Speaker 1: an impact, because if you look at UM overall total
Speaker 1: kills UM they call him catches, it's declined just trem
Speaker 1: endlessly since then. It's just since the band was put
Speaker 1: in place. Yeah, and then I saw for nineteen, for
Speaker 1: two thousand nine eight, around eight nine hundred killed for
Speaker 1: the world that year compared to forty six thousand in
Speaker 1: Antarctica alone, which is pretty crazy. The key is is
Speaker 1: whether that number can be kept down in pace with
Speaker 1: the if that can outrun the decline of whale population
Speaker 1: so that there aren't any extinction events before whaling just
Speaker 1: ceases or before the stocks can be um stabilized refurbished. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think there's like a real definite like race against
Speaker 1: the clock thing that's going on right now with whale populations.
Speaker 1: If I remember correctly when we did it must have
Speaker 1: been when we did the the Swim with the Whales podcast.
Speaker 1: I think I remember something about the way they reproduced
Speaker 1: or reproduct reproductive cycles really long, so they have a
Speaker 1: hard time re establish thing. It's not like they're having
Speaker 1: little whale pups every every year or two. So that
Speaker 1: probably has something to do. And I think they stick
Speaker 1: around like with their parents, like they raised and nurse.
Speaker 1: They're young for a very long time as well. They're
Speaker 1: just like dead beats in the basement couch waiting around
Speaker 1: listening to Pink Floyd. You like Pink Floyd. Oh, yes
Speaker 1: I do. There's two thanks the doors and Pink Floyd.
Speaker 1: Very nice. So what does the future hold, Mr Clark? Well,
Speaker 1: not being a prognosticator myself, I don't feel comfortable predicting
Speaker 1: the future. But I don't know, man, I'm surprised by
Speaker 1: the um that that news report that you you gave me,
Speaker 1: like that the c Shepherds were having like that kind
Speaker 1: of effect. I figured that they would be a nuisance,
Speaker 1: not an effective activist militant group. Well they reased it
Speaker 1: up a couple of years ago too. They rammed each
Speaker 1: other supposedly. Yeah, but I got the impression from this
Speaker 1: article that it was like, all right, I'm on board
Speaker 1: your vessel and I can't really do anything and they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: you can't do anything either, And you know, it was
Speaker 1: like that that encounter was a the representation of just that,
Speaker 1: like the idea what the id WC does with whaling.
Speaker 1: It's like there's nothing you can do. Really, no one's
Speaker 1: able to do anything that has a real impact. But
Speaker 1: apparently they figured it out. So what happened was in
Speaker 1: two thousand ten, they claimed the Japanese ship rammed the
Speaker 1: Sea Shepherd ship, sinking it, and so the dudes from
Speaker 1: c Shepherd went aboard the whaling ship and that's when
Speaker 1: they just said, we can't do anything, so let's have
Speaker 1: a tickle fight. Pretty much, he was going to make
Speaker 1: a citizen's rest. Come on, that's like one thing. If
Speaker 1: you don't carry it out, you don't tell anybody. You
Speaker 1: were going to do that, right, you know, like I'm
Speaker 1: gonna make a citizen's rest. I was going to write
Speaker 1: you should just tackle them or something. I'll bet that
Speaker 1: that was all over Discovery Channel too, Yeah, probably, so,
Speaker 1: um so anything else. I don't have anything else other
Speaker 1: than to say, uh, you know, if this is important
Speaker 1: to you, pay attention, because there's always I think they
Speaker 1: met just last year about this again. It's like an
Speaker 1: ongoing battle to keep these regulations in place. So oh,
Speaker 1: I've got another one. Let's hear um. If you root
Speaker 1: for whales, you should check out the story of the Essex,
Speaker 1: which inspired Moby Dick. Um. It's the only known ship
Speaker 1: to have been sunk apparently purposely, purposefully by a whale
Speaker 1: ramming it. Whale rammed it, turned around, got speed and
Speaker 1: rammed it again and ended up sinking the Essex and
Speaker 1: sent like the twenty crew members on like this horrible
Speaker 1: journey um where they were adrift in the South Pacific
Speaker 1: and they avoided islands that were close by because they're
Speaker 1: afraid of cannibals. But in their attempt for South America,
Speaker 1: they began to starve in resort to cannibalism themselves. Wow.
Speaker 1: That's an ironic twist, didn't it. I've never read Moby Dick.
Speaker 1: Can you believe that I do? I have not read
Speaker 1: it either, so really yeah, I know? Wow? What we
Speaker 1: need to get that done? Okay, let's go read Moby
Speaker 1: Dick right now, chuck, okay. Um, while we read Moby Dick,
Speaker 1: you should learn more about whaling. You could type that
Speaker 1: into the handy search bar at how stuff works dot com,
Speaker 1: which means it's time for listener mail. Josh I'm gonna
Speaker 1: call this good organization in Austin, Texas, which we were
Speaker 1: just at and um, this is sent from Patrick who
Speaker 1: was at our variety show that'll be through. He said,
Speaker 1: great show, guys. I was pleasantly surprised with the quote
Speaker 1: unquote acting in the pilot by y'all, and I look
Speaker 1: forward to tuning in later. Quote unquote acting is accurate exactly. Uh.
Speaker 1: They He's involved though, with a new nonprofit and I
Speaker 1: told him he would plug it. Um Retreat r E
Speaker 1: lowercase capital t r e E or case t. Let
Speaker 1: see where we're going here, t r e E t
Speaker 1: retreat Okay, not t r E A t H. They
Speaker 1: plant trees UM. They are a kaleidoscopic group of bicycle
Speaker 1: and tree enthusiasts with strong backs, sharp minds, and big
Speaker 1: hearts who volunteer to replant communities. The group formed in
Speaker 1: response to the Basstrop wildfires that took place during the
Speaker 1: summer of aught eleven. The way you can't say eleven
Speaker 1: it's bullets in, isn't it um? Just outside of Austin, Texas.
Speaker 1: During two days in January, Retreat America planted over two
Speaker 1: d trees and put eighty miles on their bikes. UM
Speaker 1: they're heading back to Basstroup for another round of tree
Speaker 1: planning March, which is right now, so by the time
Speaker 1: this comes out, that'll be be over. But you can
Speaker 1: still support him by going to Facebook dot com Ash
Speaker 1: retreat with two Ease America. It's a brand new group.
Speaker 1: They're trying to spread the word, so just a little
Speaker 1: awareness is what they're looking for, and they have some
Speaker 1: mandates here. One is to plant as many donated trees
Speaker 1: native trees as possible for homeowners affected by natural disasters.
Speaker 1: To harness the spirit of volunteerism that exists in everyone.
Speaker 1: Harness it and beat it with the stick number three
Speaker 1: and live in communities socially and economically in the aftermath
Speaker 1: of disasters. Number four. Stimulate stewardship and invigorate a local
Speaker 1: desire to rehabilitate the damage land stimilated. With the stick.
Speaker 1: Number five, spread proper tree planting and care techniques. Stick
Speaker 1: number six foster appreciation for UH and involvement in uh abericulture.
Speaker 1: How many UH lists of the how many demands do
Speaker 1: they have to have? One more? UM encourage the use
Speaker 1: of bicycles within the urban and vironment. Finally, we get
Speaker 1: the bicycles. So Patrick, y'all are doing great work. Austin
Speaker 1: is one of our favorite places now to visit and
Speaker 1: retreat America. You should support go check him out bike
Speaker 1: person or a tree person or if you hate trees
Speaker 1: and you love your car, then there's probably an organization
Speaker 1: for you, dude. We should also give a shout out
Speaker 1: to the contest winner who we met and hung out with. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Caleb Caleb. Did he sign a release to say his liscening. Oh,
Speaker 1: we'll just say Caleb w from Dallas. Yeah, he came out.
Speaker 1: He won the House Stuff Works Facebook contest and um,
Speaker 1: he came out, hung out with us. We we went,
Speaker 1: We went out to lunch. We took him on a
Speaker 1: tour of the office, tak him out for a very
Speaker 1: nice lunch. Um. The resulted in food poisoning for me.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to hear that, and um it was. It
Speaker 1: was very tasty though. Yeah, and he went to UM
Speaker 1: I followed up with him. He did go to the
Speaker 1: King Center after he left us. Yeah, he was keen
Speaker 1: on that. Yeah, he went. He'd been studying the life
Speaker 1: of Martin Luther King and was excited to go visit.
Speaker 1: We uh told him how to get there, and he
Speaker 1: went and he went to the King Center and his
Speaker 1: original house that he lived in. It's like all in
Speaker 1: the same area, and his church I think as well.
Speaker 1: So yeah, he checked it all and he said, it's
Speaker 1: really cool. It was very cool. So Caleb, we're glad
Speaker 1: you were here. You were a really nice dude. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you really were. It really could have gone a different
Speaker 1: way and we were very fortunate that you were the winner.
Speaker 1: That's right, So congratulations to you again. Um, let's see
Speaker 1: Chuck Whaling stories. Do you think anybody has one? I
Speaker 1: doubt it. Alright, let's find out. Let's hear your Whaling story.
Speaker 1: You can tweak to us at s Y s K podcast.
Speaker 1: You can join us on Facebook at Facebook dot com,
Speaker 1: Stupid Timeline, Facebook dot com, slash stuff you should Know um,
Speaker 1: and you can send us an email at Stuff Podcast
Speaker 1: at Discovery dot com. Be sure to check out our
Speaker 1: new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join houste Works
Speaker 1: staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities
Speaker 1: of tomorrow, brought to you by the reinvented two thousand
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