WEBVTT - How Whaling Works 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.920 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:07.360 It's ready. Are you welcome to you? Stuff you should 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:16.160 know from house Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome 0:00:16.200 --> 0:00:18.680 to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. I can't believe we're 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:22.880 doing this again. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant doing one again? Yes, 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:26.239 the show? Yeah? What did you think we were done? 0:00:26.320 --> 0:00:31.960 I'm so tired, are you? I'm so tired. I'm discouraged 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:34.400 to know that you hate Tom Petty. I hate them, 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:39.159 Mr Petty. I'm sure you're a genuinely nice guy, but 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:42.320 I can't stand your music. Oh I love Tom Petty. 0:00:42.400 --> 0:00:44.320 That's great. I hope you love them enough for both 0:00:44.360 --> 0:00:48.960 of us. That's fine. I just I'm not surprised because 0:00:48.960 --> 0:00:51.320 you don't dig a lot of that sort of classic 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:56.520 rock stuff. That's not true. Born and raised thirty special 0:00:56.560 --> 0:01:00.800 fan buddy, Are you really okay? I like plenty of 0:01:00.840 --> 0:01:08.040 classic rock except led Zeppelin. Uh Um. I don't hate 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:11.240 a C. D C. I just don't really whatever you know? 0:01:11.920 --> 0:01:15.039 Uh what else don't I like? Wait, let's do this 0:01:15.120 --> 0:01:17.200 the other way. Here's the classic rock. I do like 0:01:18.160 --> 0:01:23.720 the doors your I just twitched did it. Jim Morrison 0:01:23.760 --> 0:01:28.840 does that to me? Um, let's see. Uh, I guess 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:31.560 that's about it. The doors. Yeah, I used to like 0:01:31.600 --> 0:01:36.600 the Grateful Dead, as you know, sure, but I don't anymore. Well, 0:01:36.640 --> 0:01:39.800 this has been a scintillating start. Do you want to 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:42.720 record over this? No? No, I think it's good. So 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:46.800 um ahoy chuck. Um, we're gonna be talking like that 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:52.840 a lot like Scarby Sea dogs. Um, not pirates, it's 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:57.560 Scarby Sea dogs, big difference. Um, that was a Scotsman 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:03.200 they sailed. They definitely did. Um. I have an intro. 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:05.360 Let's hear it. And it was a gift from you. 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:08.399 So thank you for this? Oh the news recently? Yeah good, 0:02:08.440 --> 0:02:12.440 let's talk about that. So the Japanese, Um, we're very 0:02:12.440 --> 0:02:16.200 sad when they came back to Japan from Antarctica and said, 0:02:16.639 --> 0:02:20.960 we only caught two hundred and sixties seven whales, which 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:24.480 is way less than the nine we planned to catch 0:02:24.560 --> 0:02:31.440 this season. Yeah. Um, they left. They left Japan in 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:35.560 December and came back very recently, um at the beginning 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:39.639 of March, because whales season was virtually over in Antarctica. 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:44.919 Even though there's a couple of weird things here. Uh, 0:02:45.560 --> 0:02:48.360 Antarctica is one of the places in the world where 0:02:48.360 --> 0:02:55.240 whales are protected internationally supposedly, and number two, whale hunting's outlaw. 0:02:55.440 --> 0:02:59.120 This isn't like gb year zero where you can just 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:05.000 go and whale commercially. Um. Instead, it's two thousand twelve 0:03:05.560 --> 0:03:08.280 and Japan still managed to kill two d and sixty 0:03:08.280 --> 0:03:12.920 seven whales. Now, um, for people who are fans of whales, 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:17.960 I'm a fan of whales. Isn't everyone who's like stupid whales? 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:21.200 They deserve it. I'm sure whalers no. I think they 0:03:21.240 --> 0:03:23.920 just have a you know, an industry that they're trying 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:27.959 to keep going. Um. And I want to clarify, uh. 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:31.959 When we say whaling, we're talking about whale killing expeditions, 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:35.640 not whale watching expeditions. Just to clarify to people like 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:41.960 my wife. Um so Uh. The the Japanese whaling season 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:46.160 ended prematurely, right, It packed up their harpoons and went home, 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:50.520 thanks to the efforts of a group known as Sea Shepherds. 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:54.480 Then the sea Shepherds. Sea shepherds sell sea shells by 0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:58.040 the sea shore. They're militant. Uh. They're described as a 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:02.320 militant environmental group. Have you seen their boats? Are they 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:05.480 the ones that are painted like death from Above style? 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:09.520 They have They have the logo Jolly Rogers skilling cross boats, 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:12.080 but one of the bones is a triadent and the 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:15.960 others like a shepherd's hook. That's pretty cool. But even 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:18.479 cooler it's painted on the side of boats that look 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:21.760 like batmobiles. Yeah, that's the ones. I yeah, pretty cool. 0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:24.960 I believe they have a show on our our parent 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:29.839 mother company, Discovery, who keeps us warm in her embrace 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:34.000 and suckles us from her teeth. Whale Wars. Yeah, that's 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:36.200 gotta be it, right. Yeah, that's time I've never seen that. 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:39.880 I don't say that. I love that show every night. 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:44.600 I love that show too, and all of its commercial sponsors. 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:48.320 So they show up, they say, we're gonna throw our 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:51.160 ropes in your propellers, and we're gonna launch stink bombs 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:56.160 at your boat and to to to thwart your whole 0:04:56.160 --> 0:05:01.160 operation in the Japanese retaliated using water cannons, throwing harpoons, 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:07.440 grappling hooks, bamboo spears. Yeah, but what's crazy is the 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:10.480 sea shepherds. They came out on top. I mean there 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:13.359 were at least six hundred and change whales that didn't 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:17.560 lose their lives this year. Um, because in the Japanese 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:22.600 said they call them sabuteurs, not activists. Um. But because 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:25.480 these they were harassed the whole time. So it's working. 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:31.120 That's a huge victory. But um, whaling, I'm out there. 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:34.120 I'm putting us out there, dude, because I think for 0:05:34.160 --> 0:05:36.000 most of our listeners in America, there's a lot of 0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:39.480 sympathy for whales. This isn't a whaling country. Although, um, 0:05:39.520 --> 0:05:44.960 there is whaling in the US by indigenous groups Alaska, way, 0:05:45.640 --> 0:05:48.880 there's still are they grandfathered in? Yeah, there's about three 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:52.920 hundred a year. Roughly they take about three hundred whales 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:54.919 a year or no, I'm sorry, less than a hundred. 0:05:56.160 --> 0:05:58.480 I mean, I feel like a jerk saying that's not bad. 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:01.200 But compared to the old numbers, that's really not bad 0:06:01.520 --> 0:06:04.960 exactly right. Um, So I think there's a lot of 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:09.720 sympathy for whales. Yeah, apparently in Japan, even the younger generation, 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:12.920 they're having a hard time talking them into being on board. 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:16.640 Even though Japan, which we'll talk about, is is skirting 0:06:16.640 --> 0:06:19.600 some of these laws to continue to whale, and Japan 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:22.080 is a whaling country, has been a whaling country since 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:27.000 the seventeenth century. Um. So, yeah, the idea of killing 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:30.240 a whale has gotten more and more stomach churning over 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:34.839 the year. Agreed. So let's talk about how to do it. Okay, Uh, 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:36.720 should we go the history first. I didn't talk to 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:40.760 you about this beforehand like we normally do. Sometimes we do, 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:44.559 so we never do. Yeah, we can talk about history. 0:06:44.600 --> 0:06:47.320 I think that's a good idea. Okay. Where did whaling start? 0:06:47.760 --> 0:06:51.880 It started in uh Spain and northwest Spain and southwest 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:55.440 France by the Basques. Well that's commercial whaling. Oh well 0:06:55.480 --> 0:06:58.960 you're you're talking about just uh Nanook of the North 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:02.440 out there with this harpoon, sure, yeah, indigenous folks yeah, 0:07:02.560 --> 0:07:05.680 or Sandtok of the south. Yeah. Um, there's a good 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:10.480 whale in down Antarctic away what still is yeah? Um, 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:14.600 but not just them. The Norwegians have long been whaling cultures, 0:07:14.600 --> 0:07:19.640 same with the Icelandic. Yeah, true, Russians and they still 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:24.120 ice in Iceland and Norway. Right, they're still at it. Yeah, 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:26.800 now not so much these days. Were there at the 0:07:26.880 --> 0:07:30.920 very least getting a little more aware alright. So getting 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:35.440 back to the Basques, the first commercial whaling operations UM 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:38.160 as early as one thousand in the Bay of biz 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:41.440 K and then of course everyone else saw what was 0:07:41.440 --> 0:07:47.120 going on, jumped on board England in UH in North 0:07:47.160 --> 0:07:52.040 America in the early sixteen hundreds, Japan six. The US 0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:56.960 finally off Nantucket sevent twelve. So this this article kind 0:07:57.000 --> 0:08:00.360 of skirts over some really big stuff here, Like it 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:05.520 basically goes from Nantucket to ven Foyn And when you jump, 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:09.240 make that jump, you leave out the entire Golden Age 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:14.240 of whaling right in fifty year. So when you reach Nantucket, 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:19.640 the you you encounter UM and there's this awesome ken 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:22.360 Burns like two part series on UM whaling. If you're 0:08:22.360 --> 0:08:27.880 ever interested, it's definitely worth checking out this one. But 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:33.559 Nantucket became like the whaling capital of the world and 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:39.320 thereby also became the commercial um engine of the world 0:08:39.800 --> 0:08:44.880 because whaling and whale oil uh came about at a 0:08:44.960 --> 0:08:49.400 time when the Industrial Revolution hit, and whale oil was 0:08:49.480 --> 0:08:54.080 to the world what fossil fuel oil is today. Pre petroleum, 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:57.280 it was petroleum. Yeah, like it literally is what the 0:08:57.320 --> 0:09:01.359 world ran on and what we lit artificially our world with. Right, 0:09:01.679 --> 0:09:05.840 So UM New Bedford specifically in Nantucket or like the 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:09.439 what Saudi Arabia is today, and whales out there in 0:09:09.480 --> 0:09:12.960 the ocean were basically like floating pieces of oil rich 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:15.280 real estate that anybody with the ship could go claim. 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:19.679 Is that why that area is so still so dollar heavy? 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:22.040 Probably is that what got them going to begin with? 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:26.520 Wer Yeah, and from like seventeen fifty to eighteen fifty 0:09:26.520 --> 0:09:29.000 it was like one of the richest places in the world. 0:09:30.720 --> 0:09:34.640 So you can't quite skip over that. It's definitely worth mentioning. 0:09:34.760 --> 0:09:39.320 That's right, Those cold uh Atlantic waters up there, fertile 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:42.199 ground for whales, I imagine. Yeah, And they started out 0:09:42.200 --> 0:09:46.360 by just um harvesting whales that washed up ashore. But um, 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:48.360 that would have been a nice way to just keep 0:09:48.360 --> 0:09:51.000 it that way it was, But then the industrial revolution 0:09:51.080 --> 0:09:53.600 hit and they're like, oh, whale, it really burns. Well, 0:09:54.040 --> 0:09:56.440 we can make candles out of it. If I dabbed 0:09:56.480 --> 0:09:59.920 some behind my ears, I'll use as a perfume, well, 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:03.960 like a stinky whale. Yeah. But it isn't uh perfuman 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:07.240 cosmetics and stuff like that, right it is. I think 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:11.559 it probably still isn't something in Japan, all right, So 0:10:11.600 --> 0:10:16.680 are we ready for spin? Sure? The Norwegian Pioneer sven Foyn, 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:21.040 which is a great name. Uh. He launched the first 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:24.760 steam powered whaling ship in eighteen sixty three and then 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:28.440 invented a little something that really changed everything called the 0:10:28.480 --> 0:10:33.760 harpoon cannon, which is pretty awful. It's not you know, 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:36.040 your harpoon a whale by hand up until that point, 0:10:36.360 --> 0:10:37.720 and then now all of a sudden you could shoot 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:42.240 a harpoon with a cannon that would explode inside the whale. 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:47.240 Crazy sven Foyn is pretty much single handedly the reason 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:51.840 why we have such depleted and endangered whale stock today. 0:10:52.120 --> 0:10:53.640 And I guess it didn't mess up the whale too 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:56.840 much with the explosion, and hopefully it was over because 0:10:56.840 --> 0:11:00.400 prior to that, um, killing a whale is very cult 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:03.000 when you are hand throwing a harpoon, right sure, And 0:11:03.040 --> 0:11:05.199 that's how they did it. UM. So you had a 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:09.160 bunch of guys in little tiny boats like all throwing spears, 0:11:09.200 --> 0:11:11.719 not necessarily harpoons, because the harpoon was used to towe 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:13.840 the whale back whence it was dead, but like a 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:17.080 spear UM and the only way to kill it was 0:11:17.120 --> 0:11:21.000 to spirit in its gills, so that eventually it was 0:11:21.040 --> 0:11:23.880 stabbed enough that it would um aspirate and choke on 0:11:23.920 --> 0:11:27.079 its own blood. And it took a while, and it 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:29.880 would swim about pretty pretty heavily for a little bit, 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:32.200 is called a flurry, and then it would just go 0:11:32.240 --> 0:11:34.800 on its side finn up. And that's how you knew 0:11:34.800 --> 0:11:37.040 the whale was dead. And you harpooned it, and all 0:11:37.040 --> 0:11:39.559 the whale boats towed it back to the boat for processing. 0:11:39.880 --> 0:11:42.920 So hopefully that explosion just killed it immediately. But I'll 0:11:42.960 --> 0:11:45.920 but it didn't. Yeah, but at the very least it 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:49.439 must not have messed it up for harvesting processing, or 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:52.360 else they probablyn't have done it. Um Well, you mentioned 0:11:52.360 --> 0:11:57.360 the threshing about very dangerous job back then. Definitely imagine 0:11:57.360 --> 0:11:59.719 it still is to a certain degree. But back then 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:03.319 those little boats, large whale, much larger than your boat 0:12:04.160 --> 0:12:07.960 thrashing about. It's gonna capsize you. You could drown, You 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:10.320 could slip on the boat with the blubber and the 0:12:10.440 --> 0:12:13.040 blood everywhere. Yeah, because I mean, we'll think about this. 0:12:13.200 --> 0:12:15.400 You have a whale ship, right, and that's where like 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:18.079 everybody lives in stays. But to go hunt the whale 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:20.520 when you're actually killing the whale, you're in a whale boat. 0:12:20.679 --> 0:12:23.360 And that's basically like the size of a rowboat. And 0:12:23.400 --> 0:12:26.040 that's what you're in with with a whale, Like, get 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:30.360 off of me, get exactly. So lots of dudes died, uh. 0:12:30.400 --> 0:12:32.960 And then there's the disease of course, going to exotic 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:37.959 and gross sports of call tuberculosis, what else, yellow fever, malaria, 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:40.400 pretty much I would imagine the whole gambit, the whole 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:46.040 gambit of sea board disease, scurvy, ricketts v D. Let's 0:12:46.040 --> 0:12:49.920 get real, yeah, um, And like you said, seven had 0:12:49.960 --> 0:12:53.679 a direct hand in leading to the depletion of the population, 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:58.160 and starting in the early nineteen hundreds, things really started 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:02.319 going south for the whale. Yeah. Numbers wise, yea, you 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:04.840 want to rattle off a few of these, So like 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:08.280 this is sven point everyone, this is fin Foin's work. 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:12.120 I'd lay this clearly at his feet. In nineteen o four, UM, 0:13:12.200 --> 0:13:15.280 A hundred and eighty four whales uh were killed off 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:19.640 of the South Atlantic island of South Georgia, right right 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:27.600 within ten years UM. It jumped to four right within 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:32.920 ten years UM. Just blue whales alone, thirty eight were killed, 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:37.280 hundred and seventy six fin whales and twenty one thousand 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:40.240 eight hundred ninety four humpbacks were killed in that same 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:43.319 area within one decade. And that's just in that one area. 0:13:43.600 --> 0:13:46.160 And also you you will note that blue whales and 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:48.920 fin whales used to be out of the reach of 0:13:49.320 --> 0:13:52.199 um any kind of whale ship were they too fast 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:56.160 and they could out maneuver and out out run any 0:13:56.160 --> 0:13:59.400 ship that was chasing them until Sven foy In introduced 0:13:59.440 --> 0:14:01.760 the steam power whales. Right, So it was just the 0:14:01.920 --> 0:14:05.320 sperm whales at first, is that right? Right? And sperm 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:07.320 whale also, by the way, is what they were looking for, 0:14:07.440 --> 0:14:11.760 mainly because sperm oil was the best oil available, burned 0:14:11.800 --> 0:14:16.000 the cleanest and the brightest. And sperm whales also had 0:14:16.120 --> 0:14:19.640 something called sperm machetti, which is like this waxy substance 0:14:19.640 --> 0:14:21.800 in their head that you could use to cut the 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:24.320 whale oil into candles. That worked really well. It was 0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:27.200 just like the best stuff. It was also way more 0:14:27.280 --> 0:14:32.720 valuable than regular whale oil. Yeah, how much did they produce? 0:14:32.760 --> 0:14:35.560 I had this year? Oh, they had like um to 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:39.440 forty barrels, and there's like a whale oil per whale 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:42.040 per sperm whale. Yeah, and that's wharrel was thirty one 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:44.720 and a half gallons. Yea, so it's I did the 0:14:44.800 --> 0:14:48.960 math somewhere. Sixty gallons per sperm whale. Yeah. Well, and 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:50.960 they would use every part of the whale. We'll at 0:14:51.040 --> 0:14:53.600 least give them that. It's not like shark fin soup, 0:14:54.320 --> 0:14:55.960 like cut off the shark fin and then dump the 0:14:55.960 --> 0:14:58.320 shark back in the water. They would try to use 0:14:58.320 --> 0:15:01.560 every part of the whale per sustenance. Um. So I 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:03.520 guess we're going back to the beginning again, which is 0:15:03.920 --> 0:15:06.200 why did they do this to begin with? Because it 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:09.000 couldn't grow veggies in a lot of these places, so 0:15:09.120 --> 0:15:13.600 whale was like what they subsisted on, subsided on, subsisted, 0:15:13.680 --> 0:15:20.320 subsisted on, subsided happened after they ran out of whale exactly. Um. 0:15:20.400 --> 0:15:23.640 So you know it's got a lot of protein, iron niacin, 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:27.040 vitamin's A d C. Yeah, and that's like good stuff 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:28.760 for them, right. And they figured out early on that 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:31.840 they could burn the blubber too right to light and 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:36.400 heat their iglues make sleds. That would help making sleds 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:41.320 and tools out of baileeen whales. Teeth, I guess I 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:44.120 should make air quotes teeth. Um, you can use it 0:15:44.120 --> 0:15:48.200 for all sorts of stuff. Imagine bones too. And this 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:50.360 is back in the day that like before commercially and 0:15:50.400 --> 0:15:53.520 there's a long tradition of using all parts of the whale. 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:59.800 But there's a huge difference between even a massive commercial 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:02.800 enterprise like that were like the ones that were launched 0:16:02.800 --> 0:16:08.520 off of Nantucket that required sale power and hand thrown 0:16:08.600 --> 0:16:12.840 harpoons and then steam power boats and harpoon guns with 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:17.520 explosive tips. There's a big difference, huge difference. And then 0:16:17.600 --> 0:16:21.720 the global demand also just kind of changed everything too. Yeah, 0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:26.440 Japan um post war, post World War two. Uh, they 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:29.280 relied a lot on whales for for food. They were 0:16:29.920 --> 0:16:32.600 um pretty poor at the time after the war, trying 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:37.280 to put the pieces back together, and whales were a 0:16:37.320 --> 0:16:39.080 big part of that. On the school lunch menu up 0:16:39.120 --> 0:16:42.840 into the nineteen sixties, even although it's not supposed to 0:16:42.840 --> 0:16:45.760 taste very good, is it. It's supposed to taste it 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:48.880 says in this article like either reindeer or moose. Yeah, 0:16:48.920 --> 0:16:51.160 that's a fine slate, try it, I guess. Yeah, And 0:16:51.160 --> 0:16:53.160 that's what he had to say. Yeah, and it's not 0:16:53.280 --> 0:16:57.040 heavily spiced out of tradition, right. Uh. That is in 0:16:57.520 --> 0:17:01.800 Norway Iceland, in Alaska. Ok. Yeah, in Japan they spice 0:17:01.840 --> 0:17:03.640 the heck out of it, I guess so. I'm sure 0:17:03.680 --> 0:17:07.119 they say serve it as sashimi, which would mean that 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:11.080 they probably don't. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of a 0:17:12.200 --> 0:17:16.040 s h phoneme tongue twisters in this one for me. 0:17:16.560 --> 0:17:21.480 You are right, No, Well, we'll persevere. So we're no 0:17:21.600 --> 0:17:26.600 longer running on um any kind of our Our economy 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:29.800 doesn't run on whale oil any longer. No now raping 0:17:29.840 --> 0:17:33.879 the earth of petroleum. Right, but at least it doesn't 0:17:33.920 --> 0:17:40.760 you know, have babies. Um, So why are we still 0:17:40.840 --> 0:17:44.879 killing whales? Uh? Well, in Japan they have a loophole 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:49.600 um under Article eight of the International Convention of the 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:53.280 Regulation of Whaling that says that they are allowed to 0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:58.320 kill for research purposes. Technically anybody is yeah, but well 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:00.000 yeah in Japan is the only one taking them up 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:03.639 on it, saying yeah, this is for research, yes, but 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:07.640 that is disputed, yes, because really the only um use 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:13.760 these days for whales is meat. Right, So Japan um 0:18:14.080 --> 0:18:17.480 is through this international convention, they're not the only ones 0:18:17.520 --> 0:18:23.240 who can use um. Whale hunting for scientific research is 0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:26.480 a reason to kill whales right, um. But yeah, they're 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:30.000 they're only criticized for it because there's other techniques that 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:35.000 other countries used to study whale populations that don't require, um, 0:18:35.160 --> 0:18:37.280 the whale to die. Well. I don't get that to 0:18:37.320 --> 0:18:40.400 begin with, because what they're studying is what they're trying 0:18:40.400 --> 0:18:42.280 to prove is that there are actually more whales. And 0:18:43.359 --> 0:18:45.880 people are saying that's one of the things. They're saying 0:18:45.920 --> 0:18:47.639 one of the other things. And I should say that 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:50.639 my source for this is Greenpeace, um. But they said 0:18:51.040 --> 0:18:57.080 they were saying that Japan routinely uses study study samples 0:18:57.320 --> 0:19:01.679 of populations of like five whales from the same area, 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:05.720 which is a terrible way to study like a species. Um. 0:19:05.920 --> 0:19:09.880 And they are examining their stomach contents to find out 0:19:09.920 --> 0:19:14.440 about whale diets, and then they'll say, oh, well, these 0:19:14.440 --> 0:19:16.920 whales eat a lot of salmon, and salmon's are very 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:22.600 commercially important, um fish, so we should kill more whales, right. Um. 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:26.760 If you look at the Australians, they study whale diets too, 0:19:26.760 --> 0:19:30.800 but they track whale feces and they also study whale 0:19:30.840 --> 0:19:33.680 habits by keeping them alive and get more data by 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:36.200 keeping them alive by just tagging them. Yeah, and they're 0:19:36.200 --> 0:19:39.119 one of the countries that's come out hardest against Japan 0:19:39.760 --> 0:19:43.359 and condemning them, right yeah. Yeah, the Australians were like, good, 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:46.040 I'm glad you guys made it back safely and early 0:19:46.119 --> 0:19:50.680 from your whale hunting season this year. So the Japanese 0:19:50.720 --> 0:19:54.800 are very much criticized for exploiting this, but under international 0:19:54.880 --> 0:19:58.520 law they can do this. And um, I guess the 0:19:58.560 --> 0:20:02.840 provision that allows science big whaling says if you catch 0:20:02.840 --> 0:20:05.560 a catch and kill a whale for scientific purposes, you 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:08.080 have to use the whole whale. So they're saying, well, 0:20:08.240 --> 0:20:11.240 we've got to sell this as food, right. The the 0:20:11.440 --> 0:20:14.720 that's a huge loophole because it's basically like, yeah, if 0:20:14.720 --> 0:20:17.800 you say we're well here's this here's this study we're 0:20:17.840 --> 0:20:20.520 carrying out, you can just conduct commercial whaling, which is 0:20:20.560 --> 0:20:25.680 what they're doing. So um in now they were starting, 0:20:25.680 --> 0:20:28.480 they already were processing. Is that what you said earlier? 0:20:28.480 --> 0:20:33.080 They're already processing on board before. Yeah, So what happened then? 0:20:33.119 --> 0:20:36.160 Did it just? The factory ships made it even easier. 0:20:36.200 --> 0:20:38.520 They were just more outfitted with it. Yeah, they were 0:20:38.600 --> 0:20:42.960 kind of like d I Y processing whales beforehand, but 0:20:43.200 --> 0:20:45.960 they were definitely doing it during like the Golden Age 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:49.679 off and Nantucket, where like you would capture a whale 0:20:49.680 --> 0:20:52.240 harpoon it. All of the guys who had just been 0:20:52.280 --> 0:20:55.359 fighting this thing for like hours would grow it back 0:20:55.359 --> 0:20:58.320 to the ship and they'd attach it with chains to 0:20:58.400 --> 0:21:02.680 the ship and then start skinning it like layer by layer. Yeah, 0:21:02.720 --> 0:21:06.320 they said it's like peeling an orange skin. And they 0:21:06.320 --> 0:21:09.199 would carve it up into blanket pieces. There were a 0:21:09.240 --> 0:21:12.480 ton a piece, Like some guys died for that. That 0:21:12.560 --> 0:21:14.640 was one of these people die was getting crushed by 0:21:14.680 --> 0:21:17.239 like a slab of blubber. Oh sure, a ton of 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:19.640 whale blubber falling on you. That's not a good way 0:21:19.680 --> 0:21:22.720 to go. Um. And then they would haul these blanket 0:21:22.720 --> 0:21:24.840 pieces up and then divide them into what they call 0:21:25.280 --> 0:21:28.399 horse pieces. My guess is that that was about the 0:21:28.400 --> 0:21:30.760 size of a horse. Sure probably could still kill you. 0:21:31.160 --> 0:21:36.720 I imagine you die going. Then they would boil, boil out, 0:21:36.760 --> 0:21:40.320 extract extracting the blubber, the oil from the blubber. And 0:21:40.400 --> 0:21:43.159 this is all done on board, like with big iron 0:21:43.240 --> 0:21:48.760 pots and stoves. Pretty gnarly. Yeah, and um, there's blood everywhere, 0:21:49.000 --> 0:21:52.080 there's oily blubber everywhere. So one of the one of 0:21:52.119 --> 0:21:56.240 the great um dangers of the job was slipping on 0:21:56.320 --> 0:21:59.280 deck and falling overboard. You don't think that the waters 0:21:59.320 --> 0:22:02.920 around the ship they were skinning the um whale weren't 0:22:02.960 --> 0:22:06.680 just infested with sharks, So that was a very dangerous 0:22:07.040 --> 0:22:12.400 Part two. Uh so, once they had the oil um 0:22:12.440 --> 0:22:16.000 extracted from the blubber, they would actually go ahead and 0:22:16.040 --> 0:22:18.800 put it in the casks, stow it down in the hold, 0:22:19.960 --> 0:22:22.560 try and clean up the mess, even though there really 0:22:22.600 --> 0:22:25.760 is no cleaning up that mess, no, apparently not. And 0:22:25.880 --> 0:22:28.199 um then they just start over again, and like a 0:22:28.200 --> 0:22:33.160 whaling expedition, dude, was years long. They went for years, 0:22:33.240 --> 0:22:35.280 Like they just go out there because they could do 0:22:35.320 --> 0:22:39.520 this all um aboard their ship and they just live 0:22:39.560 --> 0:22:42.600 on the whale the whole time. They usually had provisions. 0:22:42.600 --> 0:22:45.440 I'm sure they would stop in Tortuga and pick up 0:22:45.520 --> 0:22:48.919 some provisions and some vds or whatever, beans and veneerial 0:22:48.960 --> 0:22:52.239 disease with their whale and um and then you know, 0:22:52.760 --> 0:22:55.159 go on their way. But like they would be away 0:22:55.200 --> 0:23:00.080 from home for years at a stretch. Yeah, so is 0:23:00.080 --> 0:23:03.480 a crazy life, all right. So let's uh flash forward 0:23:03.480 --> 0:23:07.600 a bit um factory ships in nineteen five were introduced, 0:23:07.640 --> 0:23:11.480 which really ramped up the killing and sixty years in 0:23:11.560 --> 0:23:14.760 the sixty years following that, more than two million whales 0:23:15.080 --> 0:23:19.040 were killed in the Southern hemisphere. So that's when people countries, 0:23:19.440 --> 0:23:23.080 the League of Nations specifically sat up and said, you 0:23:23.119 --> 0:23:27.400 know what, in one we should put together some sort 0:23:27.400 --> 0:23:31.000 of legislation to regulate this, and they's pretty cool. For 0:23:33.720 --> 0:23:37.359 twenty six countries got on board. Um, except for Japan, 0:23:37.560 --> 0:23:41.600 Germany and Russia. Uh. Then ten years later, uh, in 0:23:41.720 --> 0:23:45.920 nineteen I'm sorry. Five years later they established the International 0:23:45.920 --> 0:23:51.399 Agreement for Regulation of Whaling, and again Japan said no thanks. 0:23:51.600 --> 0:23:54.240 And that year there was a record high of forty 0:23:54.280 --> 0:23:58.120 six thousand, thirty nine whales killed in the Antarctic alone. 0:23:58.400 --> 0:24:02.560 It still is the record. And you know, they've tried 0:24:02.600 --> 0:24:04.800 these different things over the years, but basically what I 0:24:04.840 --> 0:24:07.639 gathered was there was never any enforcement. No, the the 0:24:07.760 --> 0:24:11.320 i WC has no teeth. They have by lean that's it. 0:24:11.960 --> 0:24:14.320 So they can't really they can't do anything that was 0:24:14.359 --> 0:24:17.680 off the cuff. Was really, um, well, then they can't 0:24:17.680 --> 0:24:19.399 do anything like you can sit there and make up 0:24:19.400 --> 0:24:22.760 regulations all day, but Japan can just say no, we're 0:24:22.760 --> 0:24:24.320 not gonna do it, I think, and be like, hey, 0:24:24.359 --> 0:24:26.919 that would hurt our economy. Sorry, we understand that you 0:24:26.920 --> 0:24:29.919 feel for the whales, but we're whaling. So what are 0:24:29.960 --> 0:24:33.600 you gonna do? And they they say, oh, yeah, we forgot. 0:24:33.640 --> 0:24:36.000 There's no sanctions that we can carry out against you. 0:24:36.000 --> 0:24:38.960 We can police, we can condemn it. Yeah, there's no 0:24:39.000 --> 0:24:43.520 whale police, see shepherds, but their rogue. Yeah, they do 0:24:43.560 --> 0:24:45.919 a good job apparently. Whether or not you agree with 0:24:45.960 --> 0:24:48.480