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Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My

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Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 2: And I am Joe McCormick, and it is Saturday. We

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Speaker 2: are going into the vault for part two of our

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Speaker 2: series The Arsy Blows about whale spout. This one originally

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Speaker 2: published April twenty seventh, twenty twenty three. Let's see if

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Speaker 2: this whale spout burns our skin off.

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

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Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My

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Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 2: And I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with part two

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Speaker 2: in our series on that most charismatic anatomical feature of whales,

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Speaker 2: the blowhole, also known as the spiracle or the spout.

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Speaker 2: If you are just joining us and you haven't heard

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Speaker 2: Part one, on a hot back in the timeline and

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Speaker 2: listen to that one first. That's where we go over

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Speaker 2: a lot of the basic science of the blowhole. But

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Speaker 2: as I mentioned last time, this is a subject that

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Speaker 2: I was tempted to look into because there is a

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Speaker 2: whole chapter about the spout in the classic nineteenth century

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Speaker 2: American novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Now If you've

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Speaker 2: ever read Moby Dick, you'll probably recall that it is

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Speaker 2: not all high speed whale chases and heroics by Queek

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Speaker 2: Wegg and mad sermons of vengeance by Captain ahab An.

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Speaker 2: Awful lot of the book is made up of chapters

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Speaker 2: that could be considered strange, thoughtful little essays on objects

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Speaker 2: both technological and biological. Technological subjects like various pieces of

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Speaker 2: whaling equipment and things on ships and biological subjects like

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Speaker 2: the various parts of a sperm whale's body. And one

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Speaker 2: of the latter chapters is called the Fountain. It concerns

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Speaker 2: the blowhole, and I thought this was this would make

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Speaker 2: an interesting subject for us, in particular because the chapter

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Speaker 2: raises a number of practical controversies about the biology of

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Speaker 2: whale spouts, as well as some tantalizing but questionable claims

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Speaker 2: about sprays of blubbery venom from the hole. Now, among

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Speaker 2: the primary controversies that concern the narrator Ishmael in this

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Speaker 2: chapter is the question what is it exactly that shoots

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Speaker 2: out of the whale's spout? What are the plumes that

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Speaker 2: whaling ships used to locate these animals out on the

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Speaker 2: high seat, And of course these are still you know,

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Speaker 2: people looking for the whale blow? Is still what like

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Speaker 2: whale watchers today would use to look for these animals?

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Speaker 2: Is it a towering jet of water blasting as if

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Speaker 2: from a fire hose, as it is often depicted, I'd say,

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Speaker 2: most often depicted, or is it nothing more than gas,

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Speaker 2: vapor or mist? And to get us started here, I

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Speaker 2: want to read from the this chapter in Moby Dick

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Speaker 2: articulating this first question. Are you all right if I

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Speaker 2: read this?

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Speaker 1: Rob go for it?

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Speaker 2: Okay, okay, this is what Ishmael says. You have seen

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Speaker 2: him spout? Then declare what the spout is? Can you

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Speaker 2: not tell water from air? My dear sir, In this

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Speaker 2: world it is not so easy to settle these plain things.

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Speaker 2: I have ever found your plain things the naughtiest of all.

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Speaker 2: And as for this whale spout, you might almost stand

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Speaker 2: in it and yet be undecided as to what it is.

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Speaker 2: Precisely the central body of it is hidden in the snowy,

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Speaker 2: sparkling mist enveloping it. And how can you certainly tell

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Speaker 2: whether any water falls from it?

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Speaker 1: When?

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Speaker 2: Always, when you are close enough to a whale to

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Speaker 2: get a close view of his spout, he is in

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Speaker 2: a prodigious commotion, the water cascading all around him. And

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Speaker 2: if at such times you should think that you really

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Speaker 2: perceived drops of moisture in the spout, how do you

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Speaker 2: know that they are not merely condensed from its vapor,

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Speaker 2: Or how do you know that they are not those

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Speaker 2: identical drops superficially lodged in the spout whole fissure which

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Speaker 2: is countersunk into the summit of the whale's head. For

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Speaker 2: even when tranquility swimming through the midday sea in a

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Speaker 2: calm with his elevated humps sun dried as a dromedaries

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Speaker 2: in the desert, even then, the whale always carries a

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Speaker 2: small basin of water on his head. As under a

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Speaker 2: blazing sun, you will sometimes see a cavity in a

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Speaker 2: rock filled up with rain.

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Speaker 1: Whoaoa, whoa, whoa, this kind of went off the rails. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and here what.

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Speaker 2: You do not agree that whales always have a pool

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Speaker 2: of water on top of them, like a rock filled

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Speaker 2: up with rain.

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Speaker 1: Right, Or that they keep their elevated humps sun dried

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Speaker 1: as a camel's in the desert. Yeah, that is.

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Speaker 2: A good cause. I don't know if there's anything to

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Speaker 2: that claim or not, Like, would a whale ever keep

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Speaker 2: a part of its body consistently exposed over the surface

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Speaker 2: or do they? I mean, what I feel like I've

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Speaker 2: seen most of the time is repeatedly going on and

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Speaker 2: then coming back up to breathe and then returning correct.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I think there'll be a hint of

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Speaker 1: this in one of the sources I refer to in

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Speaker 1: a bit concerning depictions and iconography of whales, which very

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Speaker 1: often still do picture the whale as having a large

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Speaker 1: portion of its head above the water, as if that's

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Speaker 1: just how it rides around. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Now, we already discussed discussed this question to some extent

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Speaker 2: in the last episode, and the consensus of experts, marine biologists,

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Speaker 2: and just whale watchers that we were reading last time

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Speaker 2: seemed to be that what comes out of the whales

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Speaker 2: blowhole is not primarily water. It is not a jet

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Speaker 2: like from a fire hose, but it is the explosive

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Speaker 2: exhalation of gas from the whale's lungs, and to be clear,

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Speaker 2: that can be quite explosive, because when a whale breathes out,

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Speaker 2: especially after it has been under for a long time,

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Speaker 2: it nearly totally collapses its lungs. It is like a

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Speaker 2: blast of breath, and that excellent can create a very

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Speaker 2: watery looking blow for several reasons. First of all, the

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Speaker 2: exhaled breath contains vapor, which condenses into mist and droplets

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Speaker 2: when it leaves the warmer environment of the whale's lungs

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Speaker 2: and airways and enters the colder environment of the atmosphere above,

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Speaker 2: similar to how you can see your own breath on

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Speaker 2: a cold day. Then, of course there's also some droplet

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Speaker 2: content in the whale's breath that is just mucus being exhaled,

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Speaker 2: kind of like when we sneeze. And then there's probably

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Speaker 2: also some splashing of sea water, which may happen if

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Speaker 2: the exhalation begins before the blowhole breaks the surface of

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Speaker 2: the water, so some water is just getting sort of

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Speaker 2: splashed up by the blast, or if there was some

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Speaker 2: amount of seawater trapped in the airways robbed. Is that

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Speaker 2: about the gist of it, you think?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, And like I say, from my family's trip

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Speaker 1: down to Mexico to observe the gray whales and their lagoons,

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Speaker 1: very much the cave with those exhalations that occur below

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Speaker 1: the surface of the water. Those can be quite explosive

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Speaker 1: and create what feels like a fountain next to you

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Speaker 1: in the water.

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Speaker 2: But that does not mean the whale spout is shooting

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Speaker 2: a jet. It is breathing out, and that breath is gas,

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Speaker 2: though it contains probably some mucus droplets and bits of water.

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Speaker 1: Now of note, I've run across various descriptions, both in

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Speaker 1: literature and in just you know, discussions of whale behavior

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Speaker 1: of the spout with a rainbow within it. You know,

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Speaker 1: the spout mist goes up into the air and you

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Speaker 1: can see the reflection, the refraction and the dispersion of

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Speaker 1: light in the water droplets. I don't have much to

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Speaker 1: say about that other than it is neat to see,

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Speaker 1: and you've certainly seen it see that. It has captured

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Speaker 1: people's imaginations over the years, and you can find various

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Speaker 1: photos of this today from whale watchers. Rob.

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Speaker 2: When you mentioned this, did you know that this actually

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Speaker 2: connects to the final paragraph of this chapter in Moby Dick.

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Speaker 1: Moby Dick was coming up in my searches, and I've

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Speaker 1: never actually read Moby Dick. I've only seen the film adaptations,

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Speaker 1: but I did suspect that Melville also touched on this.

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Speaker 2: I actually he writes about it quite beautifully, so if

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Speaker 2: you don't mind it. In the last paragraph, he says,

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Speaker 2: and how nobly it raises our conceit of the mighty

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Speaker 2: misty monster. To behold him solemnly sailing through a calm,

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Speaker 2: tropical sea, his vast, mild head overhung by a canopy

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Speaker 2: of vapor engendered by his incommunicable contemplations. And that vapor,

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Speaker 2: as you will sometimes see it, glorified by a rainbow,

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Speaker 2: as if Heaven itself put its seal upon his thoughts.

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Speaker 2: For do you see, rainbows do not visit the clear air.

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Speaker 2: They only irradiate vapor. True science fact. And so through

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Speaker 2: all the thick mists of the dim doubts in my mind,

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Speaker 2: divine intuitions now and then shoot in kindling my fog

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Speaker 2: with a heavenly ray.

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Speaker 1: That's beautiful. Yeah, And really, I mean, this is what

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Speaker 1: it's like to be in the company of whales. Like

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Speaker 1: the idea that Heaven is glorifying them with a rainbow

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Speaker 1: does not feel hyperbolic to me having been in their presence,

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Speaker 1: Like being in the presence of a whale invites hyperbole

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Speaker 1: because it's just such an overwhelming experience.

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Speaker 2: Haven't had the experience myself, but I can't disagree. It

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Speaker 2: seems quite true to most observers who write of it.

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Speaker 2: But I want to come back to this misconception, the

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Speaker 2: idea that the whale spout shoots a jet of water

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Speaker 2: like from a fire hose. Do we have any idea

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Speaker 2: like where does this misconception come from? How far back

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Speaker 2: does it go? And like why were people saying this?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting to try and tease this apart getting

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Speaker 1: into these older descriptions of whales and older understandings of

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Speaker 1: whale behavior and biology. You know, there's a lot we're

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Speaker 1: still unraveling about wales today. But historically there was a

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Speaker 1: great deal that wasn't known about these creatures, and they

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Speaker 1: were frequently the subject of myth, legend and folklore, and

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Speaker 1: and even people who are trying to, you know, skeptically

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Speaker 1: understand them were often having to depend on the word

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Speaker 1: of sailors and second and third hand accounts of what

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Speaker 1: they do. And then you throw whalers into the mix,

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Speaker 1: and of course, you know that also skews things in

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Speaker 1: different directions. But they were, you know, generally, they were

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Speaker 1: often interpreted as fish, as monsters, as gods, as shape shifters,

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Speaker 1: and more. Now concerning whale blow or whale spout in particular,

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Speaker 1: there are a few main myths and misconceptions yea to discuss,

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Speaker 1: you know, first hitting on this one about the about

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Speaker 1: the spout being a jet of water. Again, this is

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Speaker 1: something that not only do you find in old bestiaris

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Speaker 1: and woodcuts, some of those old maps. You see these

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Speaker 1: fabulous like beat twaals with two you know, almost like Martian,

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Speaker 1: old school Martian style blowholes on the top of their

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Speaker 1: head that are depicted just spouting big jets of water

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Speaker 1: like their fire engines.

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Speaker 2: They have almost horns made of water or like antinnae.

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Speaker 1: Yes and then just poking around. If you have your

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Speaker 1: smartphone with you and you pull up, pull up somebody

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Speaker 1: in there, do you know a text? And if you

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Speaker 1: go into throwing some whale emojis, chances are, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: if your phone's like mine, you'll have two to choose from.

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Speaker 1: One is a more thankfully scientifically accurate whale, but the

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Speaker 1: other is what we've seen a million times and emojis

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Speaker 1: and clip art. It is a cartoon whale spouting a

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Speaker 1: fountain out of its single blowhole on the top of

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Speaker 1: its head.

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Speaker 2: The same way it is most off and drawn with

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Speaker 2: the fountains splitting in a kind of fork two ways.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, which, as we discussed in the previous episode, you know,

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Speaker 1: the spout has different shapes and different intensities depending on

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Speaker 1: the species of the whale. Some do kind of squirt

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Speaker 1: off in two directions, but it's the way you see

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Speaker 1: it in clip art and the simple plistic cartoon illustrations. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it tends to look just like a fountain. Now, in

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Speaker 1: trying to in getting into this ended up, I kept

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Speaker 1: pulling up older sources. But one of the more interesting

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Speaker 1: older sources on this is an eighteen eighty four book

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Speaker 1: by naturalist Henry Lee titled See Fables Explained, and it

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Speaker 1: took on this misconception about whales spout more than a

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Speaker 1: century ago.

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Speaker 2: Now a brief note on Henry Lee. He was a

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Speaker 2: nineteenth century English naturalist who specialized in marine organisms, and

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Speaker 2: for a time he was the director of the Brighton

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Speaker 2: Aquarium in England. But he is notable for writing measured

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Speaker 2: skeptical investigations of cryptozoological legends, and in this latter capacity

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Speaker 2: he has actually come up on the show before, I

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Speaker 2: think on some episodes that we just recently did for

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Speaker 2: Vaults on Saturdays. So Lee was the author of the

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Speaker 2: eighteen eighty seven monogram called the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary,

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Speaker 2: a curious fable of the cotton plant. We discussed this

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Speaker 2: at length in those episodes on the vegetable lamb, which

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Speaker 2: of course was a legendary organism with accounts going back

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Speaker 2: to ancient times, usually described as a basically a mammal

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Speaker 2: that grew from a plant, a furry, flesh and blood

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Speaker 2: mammal that had meat and bones and blood that came

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Speaker 2: out of a stalk that was attached to the ground

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Speaker 2: through roots and grew somewhere in Central Asia. While there

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Speaker 2: have been multiple skeptical attempts to make sense of these

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Speaker 2: legends going back hundreds of years, Lee offered an, I think,

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Speaker 2: in both of our views, an extremely persuasive argument that

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Speaker 2: these accounts actually go back to observations and misunderstandings of

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Speaker 2: the cotton plant. So, by the standards I would normally

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Speaker 2: apply to a I don't know, a multidisciplinary skeptical treatise

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Speaker 2: involving literary, historical, and biological knowledge from the eighteen eighties.

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Speaker 2: I recall being extremely impressed with the last work of

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Speaker 2: Lee's that we looked at.

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Speaker 1: Oh. Absolutely yeah. And I feel like this book. What

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Speaker 1: I read from it, which is basically the chapter on

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Speaker 1: whale spout, I thought it. Thought it was a very

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Speaker 1: level and in many ways ahead of its time. So

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Speaker 1: in this chapter he cites an example of this whale

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Speaker 1: spout misunderstanding in the work of the second century Greco

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Speaker 1: Roman poet Opium, And this is the quote uncouth the

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Speaker 1: site when they, in dreadful play discharge their nostrils and

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Speaker 1: refund to see while noisy finfish let their fountains fly

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Speaker 1: and spout the curling torrent to the sky. So beautiful,

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Speaker 1: you know in translation obviously, But yeah, this idea of

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Speaker 1: refunding the sea letting the fountain fly a curling torrent

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Speaker 1: up to the sky, it's at least a landsman's idea

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Speaker 1: of what whale spout consisted of.

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Speaker 2: Based on what I've read, it seems like the most

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Speaker 2: common understanding was that whales were sh jets of water

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Speaker 2: out of their blowholes because they like swallowed a lot

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Speaker 2: of water through their mouths while eating, and then they

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Speaker 2: would have to squirt it back out, but couldn't do

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Speaker 2: that through their mouths for some reason.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, which I think is one of those things

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Speaker 1: that certainly by this point naturalists knew that this is

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Speaker 1: not how an organism worked, and certainly not how to

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Speaker 1: how a whale works. And so Lee Yeah, he basically

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Speaker 1: lays out that this had been already been refuted time

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Speaker 1: and time again by naturalist but that the image was

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Speaker 1: just too entrenched in the popular imagination and popular imagery

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Speaker 1: of whales to be fully dismissed. And also more people

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Speaker 1: are casually taking these images in than they are actually

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Speaker 1: listening to the naturalists, and we have to I guess

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Speaker 1: we also have to bear in mind like today so

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Speaker 1: many of us have access, whether we're actively watching them

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Speaker 1: or not, to fabulous documentaries about the biology and behavior

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Speaker 1: of whales, so many opportunities to see for yourself what

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Speaker 1: the whales spoel was like. And this of course was

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Speaker 1: not always the.

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Speaker 2: Case, right, So back then there might have been more

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Speaker 2: correct knowledge about whales and their mammalian biology in books,

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Speaker 2: but that it really hits home more when you just

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Speaker 2: like see some video of them moving and swimming and spouting.

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Speaker 1: Right, right, So he rails against quote sensational pictures in

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Speaker 1: which whales are presented with their heads above the surface

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Speaker 1: and throwing up from their nostrils columns of water like

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Speaker 1: the fountains in Trafalgar Square. Now he cites another erroneous

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Speaker 1: description from a sixteenth century map by map master Olaus Magnus.

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Speaker 1: This is somebody we've talked about on the show before

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Speaker 1: and concerning old maps and sea monsters.

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Speaker 2: Right. I think he came up extensively in my interview

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Speaker 2: with chet van Duzer on the history of monsters on maps,

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Speaker 2: but I think he's come up in other capacities as well.

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Speaker 2: This is a recurring guest.

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Speaker 1: Here, yes, Lee right the following, quoting Magnus quote four.

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Speaker 1: To the danger of seamen, he will sometimes raise himself

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Speaker 1: above the sail yards and cause such floods of water

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Speaker 1: above his head which he had sucked in, that with

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Speaker 1: a cloud of them, he will often sink the strongest

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Speaker 1: ships or expose the mariners to extreme danger. This beast

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Speaker 1: hath also a large round mouth like a lamprey, whereby

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Speaker 1: he sucks in his meat or water, and by his

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Speaker 1: weight casts upon the foe or our hinder deck. He

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Speaker 1: sinks and drowns a ship hinder deck, hinder deck, hinder deck.

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Speaker 1: I think, I don't know anyway, you get the idea like,

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Speaker 1: here's this big monster and there and he fears some

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Speaker 1: woodcut illustrations to this article, and you can you can

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Speaker 1: easily find these as well, depicting the same sort of

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Speaker 1: like you know, beaked monstrosity we just described, with these

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Speaker 1: creatures like coming up to a ship and spitting out

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Speaker 1: that you know, using their their strange blowholes to just

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Speaker 1: flood a ship and make.

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Speaker 2: It see brutal, not real though.

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Speaker 1: Yeah no, and Lee continues to rail against this. He

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Speaker 1: shares that after previously trying to set the record straight

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Speaker 1: on this in a publication, he received letters stating that, Okay, sure,

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Speaker 1: while lesser whales might not spout water like this, the

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Speaker 1: great whales are doing it. They're totally doing it. You're wrong.

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Speaker 1: So he goes on to discuss the basics of blowhole

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Speaker 1: anatomy and function, driving home that there's no way this

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Speaker 1: system could be the system that you find in a

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Speaker 1: whale's head, great or small. There's no way that the

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Speaker 1: system could be used to squirt jets of pure water.

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Speaker 1: It's just not how their bodies work right.

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Speaker 2: So, as we said before, in certain cases, there might

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Speaker 2: be a lot of splashing from a whale's explosive exhalation,

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Speaker 2: but it's exhaling gas, and that maybe some splash is

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Speaker 2: getting caught up in that exhalation, but it is not

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Speaker 2: squirting water. What's coming out is from its lungs.

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Speaker 1: Right, And he lays all this out and discusses everything

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Speaker 1: we've just mentioned before that yeah, it's not water coming out,

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Speaker 1: but if the exhalation comes below the surface of the water,

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Speaker 1: it's liable to carry up a lot of water and

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Speaker 1: have this explosive watery appearance.

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Speaker 2: Now, given all this, I did want to be fair.

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Speaker 2: I want to come back and add that to the

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Speaker 2: partial credit of Ishmael, the narrator of Moby Dick. He

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Speaker 2: does come down on what we now know to be

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Speaker 2: the correct side of the water jet versus mist or

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Speaker 2: vapor debate. So he says it is missed, but he

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Speaker 2: gives a fairly hilarious reason for thinking it is missed.

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Speaker 2: His explanation is as follows. Quote I account him meaning

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Speaker 2: the sperm whale no common shallow being, inasmuch as it

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Speaker 2: is an undisputed fact that he has never found on

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Speaker 2: soundings or near shores all other whales sometimes are. He

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Speaker 2: is both ponderous and profound, and I'm convinced that from

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Speaker 2: the heads of all ponderous profound beings such as Plato,

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Speaker 2: per the Devil, Jupiter, Dante, and so on, there always

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Speaker 2: goes up a certain semi visible steam. While in the

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Speaker 2: act of thinking deep thoughts, while composing a little treatise

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Speaker 2: on eternity, I had the curiosity to place a mirror

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Speaker 2: before me an eir long saw reflected there a curious

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Speaker 2: involved worming and undulation in the atmosphere over my head,

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Speaker 2: the invariable moisture of my hair while plunged in deep

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Speaker 2: thought after six cups of hot tea in my thin

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Speaker 2: shingled attic of an August noon. This seems an additional

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Speaker 2: argument for the above Supposition's so good, I get sweaty

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Speaker 2: one time too.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, these are some some wonderful mental gymnastics which again

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Speaker 1: land him in the right spot, but some unnecessary twists

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Speaker 1: and turns now. It's worth noting for the most part,

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Speaker 1: this misunderstanding of whale anatomy is victimless, right. I Mean,

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Speaker 1: It's like, okay, if worst case scenario you think that

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Speaker 1: a whale shoots water out of its blowhole. I mean,

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Speaker 1: what's it? Or if you encounter a whale you'll be

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Speaker 1: set right on this. But it's worth noting that the

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Speaker 1: myth of whale spouts and water can even prove actually

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Speaker 1: dangerous to wales. This, according to Dan Jarvis of the

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Speaker 1: British Divers Marine Life Rescue Organization, is quoted in a

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty one Melissa Hobson article on Nationalgeographic Dot cot

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Speaker 1: a UK. Apparently there have been cases where people who

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Speaker 1: are not familiar with the anatomy of Wales, who still

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Speaker 1: have this idea of the whale fountain in their mind.

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Speaker 1: They have happened upon a stranded whale on the beach

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Speaker 1: and thinking that this great fish needs water, start pouring

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Speaker 1: water into its blowhole, which can drown the whale. Oh no, yeah,

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Speaker 1: So you know there are cases where not knowing what's

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Speaker 1: going on, even is a non biologist, it can lead

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Speaker 1: to something like this. So don't go pouring water into blowholes.

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Speaker 2: Certainly not but okay, I think we can mostly close

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Speaker 2: the book on the idea of the water jet. It's

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Speaker 2: not a water jet. But returning to c fables explained

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Speaker 2: by Henry Lee. Lee also briefly addresses a strange claim

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Speaker 2: in the same chapter of Mobi Dick that caught our

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Speaker 2: attention and we wanted to investigate further and to refresh you.

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Speaker 2: We mentioned this in the last episode, but this is

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Speaker 2: the allegation made by Ishmael that the whale spout is poisonous,

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Speaker 2: a claim that seemed prima fasse unlikely to both of us.

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Speaker 2: But to read again from Mobi Dick, just so you'll

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Speaker 2: know what he's saying. He says that for even when

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Speaker 2: coming into slight contact with the outer vapory shreds of

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Speaker 2: the jet, which will often happen, your skin will feverishly

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Speaker 2: smart from the acridness of the thing so touching it.

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Speaker 2: And I know one who coming into still closer contact

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Speaker 2: with the spout, whether with some scientific object in view

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Speaker 2: or otherwise, I cannot say, the skin peeled off from

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Speaker 2: his cheek and arm. Wherefore, among whalemen the spout is

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Speaker 2: deemed poisonous, they try to evade it. Another thing I

400
00:23:16,160 --> 00:23:18,280
Speaker 2: have heard it said, and I do not much doubt it,

401
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Speaker 2: that if the jet is fairly spouted into your eyes,

402
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Speaker 2: it will blind you. The wisest thing the investigator can do, then,

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Speaker 2: it seems to me is to let this deadly spout alone.

404
00:23:29,640 --> 00:23:32,399
Speaker 2: So that's a number of strange claims. He says, Okay,

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Speaker 2: I've got a friend who got some whale blow on

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Speaker 2: him and that made his skin peel off. Whaleman generally

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Speaker 2: say that the blow that comes out of the spout

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Speaker 2: is poisonous and if you get it in your eyes,

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Speaker 2: it will make you blind.

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Speaker 1: So Lee doesn't spend a lot of time with this.

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Speaker 1: He mentions it. He doesn't really have much to add,

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Speaker 1: but he kind of dismisses it out of hand, and

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Speaker 1: also throws in there that Herman Melville is quote not

414
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Speaker 1: a naturalist, and he doesn't seem to have much to

415
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Speaker 1: add beyond that, aside from mentioning an account from a

416
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Speaker 1: steamship whaler. He writes, quote, he believes that the blast

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Speaker 1: was strong enough to blow a man off the spiracle

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Speaker 1: if he were seated on it. Now, I don't know. Okay,

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Speaker 1: that also feels kind of like a tall tail, but

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Speaker 1: maybe a more believable. It's not saying that it will

421
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Speaker 1: blow your skin off and blind you, but he's just saying, well,

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Speaker 1: it's pretty explosive if you were seated right on it.

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Speaker 1: I bet it would blast you into the air. I

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Speaker 1: think it definitely would make you move so on just

425
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Speaker 1: strong enough to blow a man off the spiracle. I

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Speaker 1: believe he would not remain on the spiracle if you

427
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Speaker 1: were somehow balanced there for the spout.

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Speaker 2: Right, So it might knock you off, but it would not,

429
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Speaker 2: as often depicted in cartoons and illustrations, create a jet

430
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Speaker 2: that then leaves you floating in the air above it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. And the idea of it being used as

432
00:24:54,720 --> 00:25:00,240
Speaker 1: an offensive blast against ships, yeah, that's pure fantasy. One

433
00:25:00,240 --> 00:25:02,480
Speaker 1: thing I did find interestingly he doesn't go into this,

434
00:25:02,560 --> 00:25:04,440
Speaker 1: but he mentions that this being an account from a

435
00:25:04,440 --> 00:25:09,360
Speaker 1: steamship whaler, And I can't help but wonder about during

436
00:25:09,400 --> 00:25:13,399
Speaker 1: the age of steam power, if there's not some level

437
00:25:13,720 --> 00:25:18,600
Speaker 1: of technological comparison going on in one's mind where steam

438
00:25:18,640 --> 00:25:20,960
Speaker 1: comes out at the top of a ship. Steam, of course,

439
00:25:21,520 --> 00:25:26,280
Speaker 1: is very hot and can damage you and burn the

440
00:25:26,320 --> 00:25:28,960
Speaker 1: skin off of your body, things like that, And so

441
00:25:29,119 --> 00:25:31,400
Speaker 1: if there's some sort of like comparison that gets made

442
00:25:31,640 --> 00:25:34,560
Speaker 1: between the ship and the whale, which of course is large,

443
00:25:35,040 --> 00:25:38,879
Speaker 1: travels in the water and also emits these blasts that

444
00:25:39,400 --> 00:25:42,560
Speaker 1: don't look unlike steam like maybe it's the kind of

445
00:25:42,560 --> 00:25:45,160
Speaker 1: thing where there's just kind of like a sub conscious

446
00:25:45,240 --> 00:25:46,560
Speaker 1: comparison being made.

447
00:25:46,960 --> 00:25:49,400
Speaker 2: That's interesting. I never thought about that, but that does

448
00:25:49,400 --> 00:25:53,040
Speaker 2: seem plausible. So I did my own digging around for

449
00:25:53,359 --> 00:25:57,320
Speaker 2: answers on the question of the supposedly poisonous whale spout,

450
00:25:57,359 --> 00:26:00,159
Speaker 2: and like you, Rob, I found no support whatsoever or

451
00:26:00,280 --> 00:26:04,680
Speaker 2: for the claim that the blow from the blowhole is poisonous,

452
00:26:04,720 --> 00:26:08,880
Speaker 2: meaning that it contains a chemical toxin or venom with

453
00:26:09,040 --> 00:26:13,480
Speaker 2: directly injurious effects on nearby mammals through either topical contact

454
00:26:13,560 --> 00:26:17,080
Speaker 2: or ingestion. I found nothing on that. In fact, I

455
00:26:17,160 --> 00:26:20,399
Speaker 2: didn't even find that many references to this passage in

456
00:26:20,440 --> 00:26:22,359
Speaker 2: Moby Dick, which I was surprised by. I thought I

457
00:26:22,359 --> 00:26:26,320
Speaker 2: would come across more. I don't know scientific sources referencing it,

458
00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:29,280
Speaker 2: even if only to contradict it or maybe try to

459
00:26:29,880 --> 00:26:32,240
Speaker 2: get at the source of this belief. But it just

460
00:26:32,320 --> 00:26:35,200
Speaker 2: doesn't seem like this this idea gets a lot of stick.

461
00:26:35,720 --> 00:26:38,800
Speaker 2: One example of the kind of reference I found was

462
00:26:38,840 --> 00:26:42,680
Speaker 2: in not even really a scientific book, just a sort

463
00:26:42,680 --> 00:26:46,680
Speaker 2: of book on grey whales called Grey Whales Wandering Giants

464
00:26:46,680 --> 00:26:50,679
Speaker 2: by Robert Bush from nineteen ninety eight, which mentions the

465
00:26:50,680 --> 00:26:54,240
Speaker 2: claim in Moby Dick that the spout is poisonous, only

466
00:26:54,280 --> 00:26:57,480
Speaker 2: to say that it's not poisonous at all, but that

467
00:26:57,600 --> 00:27:00,480
Speaker 2: sometimes it does have a very powerful smell, and the

468
00:27:00,560 --> 00:27:04,480
Speaker 2: author quotes John Steinbeck from a work called The Log

469
00:27:04,560 --> 00:27:08,000
Speaker 2: from the Sea of Cortes. In Steinbeck wrote, a whale's

470
00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:13,040
Speaker 2: breath is frightfully sickening. It smells of complete decay. The

471
00:27:13,080 --> 00:27:16,240
Speaker 2: author here Bush says, I don't know, It's never really

472
00:27:16,240 --> 00:27:17,080
Speaker 2: smelled that way to me.

473
00:27:17,920 --> 00:27:21,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was in a position to smell a lot

474
00:27:21,280 --> 00:27:23,480
Speaker 1: of gray whale breath and I don't know. I mean,

475
00:27:23,520 --> 00:27:25,840
Speaker 1: there is a breathiness to it, I guess at times,

476
00:27:25,880 --> 00:27:29,199
Speaker 1: but yeah, I wouldn't say it stinks. Now. One thing

477
00:27:29,240 --> 00:27:31,720
Speaker 1: to keep in mind, though, is like these are organisms.

478
00:27:31,960 --> 00:27:35,800
Speaker 1: The blowhole is, you know, a breathing orifice. So I

479
00:27:35,840 --> 00:27:37,919
Speaker 1: have read that you do have situations where you can

480
00:27:37,920 --> 00:27:41,199
Speaker 1: have a sick whale, So that could impact what you're smelling.

481
00:27:41,240 --> 00:27:42,080
Speaker 1: I suppose that.

482
00:27:42,200 --> 00:27:44,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Bush says the same thing. Maybe when it

483
00:27:44,200 --> 00:27:46,920
Speaker 2: maybe it's breath smells worse when it is diseased or

484
00:27:46,960 --> 00:27:50,359
Speaker 2: wounded or something. So beyond this, I was just I

485
00:27:51,000 --> 00:27:53,280
Speaker 2: was like Okay, I'm going to expand my circle of

486
00:27:53,320 --> 00:27:56,600
Speaker 2: interest here. I was looking to find any evidence of

487
00:27:56,920 --> 00:28:00,960
Speaker 2: any mammal or any animal for that matter, that is

488
00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:05,120
Speaker 2: believed to have poisonous or venomous breath, and I really

489
00:28:05,160 --> 00:28:08,639
Speaker 2: could not find anything that fits the description. Despite the

490
00:28:08,680 --> 00:28:12,520
Speaker 2: popularity of creatures with toxic breath in Dungeons and Dragons

491
00:28:12,600 --> 00:28:15,679
Speaker 2: in video games. It's a good area of effect type attack,

492
00:28:16,400 --> 00:28:20,080
Speaker 2: but I couldn't find really any evidence of this in reality.

493
00:28:20,119 --> 00:28:22,040
Speaker 2: Maybe there is such a thing and I just wasn't

494
00:28:22,040 --> 00:28:24,720
Speaker 2: searching the right way. But the closest stuff I could

495
00:28:24,760 --> 00:28:27,520
Speaker 2: find is what we're all more familiar with, like animals

496
00:28:27,520 --> 00:28:31,399
Speaker 2: that might spit venom or something, but not having toxic breath.

497
00:28:31,880 --> 00:28:33,560
Speaker 1: Yeah. About the only thing that really comes to my

498
00:28:33,680 --> 00:28:38,479
Speaker 1: mind is vultures, say vomiting, which there are a few

499
00:28:38,480 --> 00:28:42,000
Speaker 1: different interpretations of that behavior, but it's not quite a

500
00:28:42,080 --> 00:28:44,120
Speaker 1: Dungeons and Dragons area of a fact attack.

501
00:28:44,600 --> 00:28:47,160
Speaker 2: And still that would be vomit from the digestive system,

502
00:28:47,240 --> 00:28:48,640
Speaker 2: not toxic breath.

503
00:28:48,400 --> 00:28:51,480
Speaker 1: Right right, not toxic gas emitted from the mouth.

504
00:28:52,200 --> 00:28:55,360
Speaker 2: So is this claim in MOBI to just completely made up?

505
00:28:55,480 --> 00:28:58,400
Speaker 2: Maybe Melville just made it up to make you know,

506
00:28:58,760 --> 00:29:02,240
Speaker 2: just for interesting fictional effect, or maybe it was something

507
00:29:02,400 --> 00:29:05,800
Speaker 2: he heard he heard from people that was an actual

508
00:29:05,800 --> 00:29:09,360
Speaker 2: belief among whalers, but they just made it up. Well maybe,

509
00:29:09,360 --> 00:29:12,960
Speaker 2: but then again maybe not. While I think it's clear

510
00:29:13,120 --> 00:29:18,920
Speaker 2: that the exhalation of wales is not poisonous or venomous,

511
00:29:19,600 --> 00:29:22,239
Speaker 2: I think this could be a misunderstanding of something that

512
00:29:22,320 --> 00:29:25,320
Speaker 2: does seem true, which is that I found evidence that

513
00:29:25,400 --> 00:29:30,040
Speaker 2: sometimes after certain types of contact with marine mammals, including whales,

514
00:29:30,520 --> 00:29:35,200
Speaker 2: people do report reactions. In fact, this is a great

515
00:29:35,360 --> 00:29:38,680
Speaker 2: bit of listener male. We heard from a listener after

516
00:29:38,800 --> 00:29:41,080
Speaker 2: part one of this series who has a bit of

517
00:29:41,200 --> 00:29:45,440
Speaker 2: relevant personal experience. So Rob, I'm going to read Tabitha's

518
00:29:45,480 --> 00:29:50,200
Speaker 2: email here, all right. Tabitha says, dear Robert and Joe,

519
00:29:50,560 --> 00:29:55,000
Speaker 2: regarding the consequences of getting a face full of blowhole ejecta.

520
00:29:55,320 --> 00:29:58,880
Speaker 2: I have a family experience. As a child, I went

521
00:29:58,960 --> 00:30:02,719
Speaker 2: on a dolphin watch boat trip. When dolphins started swimming

522
00:30:02,760 --> 00:30:05,840
Speaker 2: alongside the boat and playing in the bow waves, my

523
00:30:05,960 --> 00:30:08,160
Speaker 2: sister and I were allowed to lie on the deck

524
00:30:08,240 --> 00:30:11,480
Speaker 2: and stick our heads out under the railing to watch them.

525
00:30:11,840 --> 00:30:16,240
Speaker 2: It was the nineties. One dolphin surfaced and exhaled directly

526
00:30:16,320 --> 00:30:20,600
Speaker 2: into my sister's face from close range. Initially she was fine,

527
00:30:20,680 --> 00:30:24,240
Speaker 2: if a bit slimy and embarrassed. Later that day, however,

528
00:30:24,320 --> 00:30:29,000
Speaker 2: her eyes turned red, weepy, and swelled almost shut. I

529
00:30:29,040 --> 00:30:32,720
Speaker 2: don't really remember the aftermath except for thinking it was hilarious,

530
00:30:32,920 --> 00:30:35,280
Speaker 2: but as far as I recall, it got better in

531
00:30:35,320 --> 00:30:38,760
Speaker 2: a day or so, suggesting an allergic reaction rather than

532
00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:42,840
Speaker 2: bacterial infection. So maybe a certain number of people are

533
00:30:43,080 --> 00:30:46,600
Speaker 2: just really allergic to cetaceans. Maybe a lot of people,

534
00:30:46,680 --> 00:30:49,479
Speaker 2: but we don't have the opportunity to find out very often.

535
00:30:49,920 --> 00:30:52,400
Speaker 2: I can imagine a whaling crew having one case of

536
00:30:52,480 --> 00:30:55,880
Speaker 2: whalesnot face rash, and the story spreading until it reaches

537
00:30:55,920 --> 00:30:59,720
Speaker 2: the flesh dissolving, eye melting tall tail stage. Love the

538
00:30:59,720 --> 00:31:03,760
Speaker 2: show as always, Tabitha, well fascinating, and thank you so

539
00:31:03,840 --> 00:31:07,160
Speaker 2: much for sharing this, Tabitha, So I totally agree that

540
00:31:07,200 --> 00:31:10,200
Speaker 2: it is not hard to imagine some nineteenth century whalers

541
00:31:10,240 --> 00:31:15,360
Speaker 2: could observe experiences like this and conclude, incorrectly from it

542
00:31:15,400 --> 00:31:20,200
Speaker 2: that the whale spout is toxic, is venomous or poisonous,

543
00:31:20,560 --> 00:31:24,240
Speaker 2: like the venom of a spitting cobra or something. But

544
00:31:24,480 --> 00:31:27,400
Speaker 2: I was wondering more about the mechanism, what is actually

545
00:31:27,440 --> 00:31:30,880
Speaker 2: going on here? Now, I honestly could not find much

546
00:31:30,880 --> 00:31:37,680
Speaker 2: of anything documenting what we're directly classified as allergic reactions

547
00:31:37,760 --> 00:31:42,360
Speaker 2: to cetacean blow. But I did find a very interesting

548
00:31:42,400 --> 00:31:47,680
Speaker 2: source documenting similar reactions in the context of human zoonotic

549
00:31:47,800 --> 00:31:52,400
Speaker 2: diseases from marine mammal vectors. Now, this is something I

550
00:31:52,480 --> 00:31:55,440
Speaker 2: really had never thought about before we did this series.

551
00:31:55,480 --> 00:31:58,200
Speaker 2: Of course, when you think about zoonotic diseases, you think

552
00:31:58,240 --> 00:32:03,320
Speaker 2: about bats, You think about livestock animals, you know, maybe pigs, birds,

553
00:32:03,400 --> 00:32:05,800
Speaker 2: and so forth. I had never thought of the idea

554
00:32:05,920 --> 00:32:12,000
Speaker 2: that humans could catch diseases from whales, seals, dolphins, and

555
00:32:12,040 --> 00:32:12,600
Speaker 2: so forth.

556
00:32:13,080 --> 00:32:14,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean neither.

557
00:32:14,600 --> 00:32:17,680
Speaker 2: But now allow me to introduce you to the paper

558
00:32:17,840 --> 00:32:21,200
Speaker 2: health Risks for Marine Mammal Workers, published in the journal

559
00:32:21,240 --> 00:32:24,280
Speaker 2: Diseases of Aquatic Organisms the year two thousand and eight

560
00:32:24,560 --> 00:32:28,400
Speaker 2: by Tanya Hunt at All. This is a paper where

561
00:32:28,440 --> 00:32:31,600
Speaker 2: the authors say, there have been, you know, isolated, documented

562
00:32:31,640 --> 00:32:35,400
Speaker 2: cases of humans acquiring zoonotic diseases from marine mammals. There

563
00:32:35,400 --> 00:32:39,320
Speaker 2: are certain diseases that are well known and even have

564
00:32:39,720 --> 00:32:44,400
Speaker 2: interesting little names, such as seal finger. If you want

565
00:32:44,440 --> 00:32:46,200
Speaker 2: to be grossed out. You can look up images of

566
00:32:46,280 --> 00:32:50,360
Speaker 2: seal finger. But they wanted to design a survey to

567
00:32:50,400 --> 00:32:53,840
Speaker 2: get a broader range of responses. So they wanted to

568
00:32:53,880 --> 00:32:58,320
Speaker 2: survey professionals and volunteers who regularly work directly with marine

569
00:32:58,320 --> 00:33:01,920
Speaker 2: mammals to see how common very types of injuries and

570
00:33:02,600 --> 00:33:06,240
Speaker 2: work related illnesses were in people who have contact with

571
00:33:06,280 --> 00:33:10,320
Speaker 2: these animals. So what did they find to read from

572
00:33:10,360 --> 00:33:13,440
Speaker 2: their abstract? First of all, they characterized the people who

573
00:33:13,480 --> 00:33:17,240
Speaker 2: responded to the survey. Most respondents eighty eight percent were

574
00:33:17,440 --> 00:33:22,840
Speaker 2: researchers and rehabilitators. And then they say, quote, of all respondents,

575
00:33:22,920 --> 00:33:26,560
Speaker 2: fifty percent reported suffering an injury caused by a marine

576
00:33:26,600 --> 00:33:31,640
Speaker 2: mammal and twenty three percent reported having a skin rash

577
00:33:31,800 --> 00:33:37,560
Speaker 2: or reaction. Marine mammal Work related illnesses commonly reported included

578
00:33:37,840 --> 00:33:42,040
Speaker 2: seal finger, which is now known to be traceable to

579
00:33:42,480 --> 00:33:48,920
Speaker 2: a bacterium called Mycoplasma conjunctivitis. That's very interesting because that

580
00:33:49,120 --> 00:33:53,720
Speaker 2: conjunctividis is irritation and swelling of the eyes. That of

581
00:33:53,760 --> 00:33:57,200
Speaker 2: course connects to Tabitha's story, but also connects to the

582
00:33:57,240 --> 00:34:00,200
Speaker 2: idea that getting whale blow in your face could make

583
00:34:00,240 --> 00:34:05,240
Speaker 2: you blind but to go on viral dermatitis, bacterial dermatitis,

584
00:34:05,280 --> 00:34:09,600
Speaker 2: and non specific contact dermatitis. This is rash or irritation

585
00:34:09,680 --> 00:34:13,680
Speaker 2: of the skin, although specific diagnoses could not be confirmed

586
00:34:13,719 --> 00:34:17,120
Speaker 2: by a physician. Through the study, severe illnesses were reported

587
00:34:17,160 --> 00:34:24,760
Speaker 2: and included tuberculosis, leptospirosis, brucellosis, and serious sequeli to seal finger.

588
00:34:25,239 --> 00:34:28,680
Speaker 2: Risk factors associated with increased odds of injury and illness

589
00:34:28,680 --> 00:34:33,600
Speaker 2: included prolonged and frequent exposure to marine mammals, direct contact

590
00:34:33,640 --> 00:34:40,320
Speaker 2: with live marine mammals, and contact with tissue, blood and excretions.

591
00:34:40,760 --> 00:34:44,120
Speaker 2: And I was looking at another paper tracking marine mammals

592
00:34:44,200 --> 00:34:47,279
Speaker 2: zunoses in humans. This was by waltzik at All in

593
00:34:47,440 --> 00:34:51,800
Speaker 2: Zunocees and Public Health from twenty twelve and it also

594
00:34:52,280 --> 00:34:56,360
Speaker 2: tried to collect all of the literature on zoonotic infections

595
00:34:56,360 --> 00:35:00,359
Speaker 2: from marine mammals and humans and it concluded that the

596
00:35:00,400 --> 00:35:05,480
Speaker 2: most common type of zoonotic reaction to marine mammals was

597
00:35:05,800 --> 00:35:10,279
Speaker 2: localized skin infections in humans, which again makes you think

598
00:35:10,320 --> 00:35:14,480
Speaker 2: about the discussion about like peeling skin and skin reactions

599
00:35:14,520 --> 00:35:19,200
Speaker 2: that Melville mentions. So those are human diseases that have

600
00:35:19,400 --> 00:35:24,640
Speaker 2: been tentatively linked at least circumstantially to contact with marine mammals.

601
00:35:24,680 --> 00:35:27,560
Speaker 2: But we need to introduce some caveats. Number one. This

602
00:35:27,600 --> 00:35:30,799
Speaker 2: includes a wide range of different marine mammals, so not

603
00:35:30,880 --> 00:35:34,160
Speaker 2: just whales, but all kinds of marine mammals, and a

604
00:35:34,239 --> 00:35:39,000
Speaker 2: wide range of different types of contact, including touching of skin, bites,

605
00:35:39,480 --> 00:35:43,560
Speaker 2: contact with blood and inner organs, etc. Not just exposure

606
00:35:43,680 --> 00:35:46,840
Speaker 2: to say, mucus and droplets from the blowhole of whales.

607
00:35:47,360 --> 00:35:49,160
Speaker 2: So what if we were to come at this question

608
00:35:49,280 --> 00:35:52,600
Speaker 2: from the other direction and ask what is in whales?

609
00:35:52,640 --> 00:35:55,200
Speaker 2: Not specifically when a whale breathes out, there's got to

610
00:35:55,239 --> 00:35:58,480
Speaker 2: be plenty of bacteria and stuff in there. Has anybody

611
00:35:58,520 --> 00:36:01,960
Speaker 2: ever documented what microbes are present in the blow of

612
00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:05,160
Speaker 2: a whale and whether that list contains anything that could

613
00:36:05,239 --> 00:36:08,759
Speaker 2: cause skin or eye infections or otherwise create the impression,

614
00:36:09,120 --> 00:36:14,120
Speaker 2: even the false impression that the spout is poisonous or venomous. Yes,

615
00:36:14,239 --> 00:36:19,200
Speaker 2: there have in fact been investigations microbiological investigations of whale blow.

616
00:36:19,960 --> 00:36:22,440
Speaker 2: The first one I wanted to mention was a paper

617
00:36:22,440 --> 00:36:27,359
Speaker 2: from twenty seventeen. This was published in m Systems two,

618
00:36:27,440 --> 00:36:31,120
Speaker 2: which is an American Society for Microbiology journal. It's by

619
00:36:31,200 --> 00:36:35,200
Speaker 2: amy April at all, and it's called extensive core microbiome

620
00:36:35,280 --> 00:36:39,880
Speaker 2: in drone captured whale blow supports a framework for health monitoring.

621
00:36:40,400 --> 00:36:43,319
Speaker 2: This study was interesting because it used a drone to

622
00:36:43,680 --> 00:36:47,479
Speaker 2: fly above the water surface and collect blow from two

623
00:36:47,560 --> 00:36:50,960
Speaker 2: populations of healthy humpback whales, one Pacific group off of

624
00:36:51,040 --> 00:36:54,480
Speaker 2: Vancouver Island and an Atlantic group off of Cape Cod

625
00:36:55,239 --> 00:36:58,400
Speaker 2: And I was thinking, wow, that's a good use for drones. Yeah,

626
00:36:58,960 --> 00:37:01,360
Speaker 2: So they took these samples, but then they compared the

627
00:37:02,120 --> 00:37:05,600
Speaker 2: microbes present in them to what was present in just

628
00:37:05,680 --> 00:37:09,080
Speaker 2: samples of straight seawater from around because obviously some seawater

629
00:37:09,120 --> 00:37:11,040
Speaker 2: gets in with the blow, so you're looking to see

630
00:37:11,120 --> 00:37:14,160
Speaker 2: what's in the blow that's not just in seawater. And

631
00:37:14,200 --> 00:37:17,319
Speaker 2: the author's right quote. The blow microbiomes were distinct from

632
00:37:17,360 --> 00:37:21,719
Speaker 2: the seawater microbiomes and included twenty five phylogenetically diverse bacteria

633
00:37:21,800 --> 00:37:26,120
Speaker 2: common to all sampled whales. This core assemblage comprised on

634
00:37:26,239 --> 00:37:29,560
Speaker 2: average thirty six percent of the microbiome, making it one

635
00:37:29,560 --> 00:37:33,480
Speaker 2: of the more consistent animal microbiomes studied to date. The

636
00:37:33,560 --> 00:37:37,680
Speaker 2: closest phylogenetic relatives of twenty of these core microbes were

637
00:37:37,680 --> 00:37:41,759
Speaker 2: previously detected in marine mammals, suggesting that this core microbiome

638
00:37:41,760 --> 00:37:45,520
Speaker 2: assemblage is specialized for marine mammals and may indicate a healthy,

639
00:37:45,760 --> 00:37:51,440
Speaker 2: non infected pulmonary system. So that's interesting. These two geographically

640
00:37:51,480 --> 00:37:55,840
Speaker 2: distinct populations of healthy humpback whales from different oceans share

641
00:37:55,880 --> 00:38:00,719
Speaker 2: a common baseline of non pathogenic bacterial species. Of course,

642
00:38:00,760 --> 00:38:03,480
Speaker 2: the fact that a bacterium is not pathogenic in its

643
00:38:03,520 --> 00:38:07,480
Speaker 2: normal whale host doesn't necessarily tell you how it will

644
00:38:07,520 --> 00:38:11,040
Speaker 2: behave when sprayed onto the skin or into the eyes

645
00:38:11,120 --> 00:38:14,040
Speaker 2: of a human being. But then, the other study I

646
00:38:14,040 --> 00:38:16,800
Speaker 2: wanted to mention is one that was published in Nature

647
00:38:16,880 --> 00:38:22,120
Speaker 2: Scientific Reports by Raverty at All in twenty seventeen, called

648
00:38:22,280 --> 00:38:27,320
Speaker 2: Respiratory microbiome of endangered Southern resident killer Whales and Microbiota

649
00:38:27,400 --> 00:38:32,719
Speaker 2: of surrounding sea surface micro layer in the Eastern North Pacific. So,

650
00:38:33,640 --> 00:38:37,000
Speaker 2: to summarize from a news report on this article I

651
00:38:37,040 --> 00:38:40,600
Speaker 2: was reading from the University of British Columbia. Stephen Raverty,

652
00:38:40,880 --> 00:38:42,960
Speaker 2: he was the lead author on the study, is a

653
00:38:43,000 --> 00:38:46,680
Speaker 2: professor or an adjunct professor at University of British Columbia's

654
00:38:46,760 --> 00:38:50,600
Speaker 2: Institute for the Oceans and fisheries, and this study was

655
00:38:50,600 --> 00:38:55,320
Speaker 2: looking at the microbiome of endangered southern resident killer whales

656
00:38:55,360 --> 00:38:58,239
Speaker 2: in what's known as the Salish Sea. It's the sea

657
00:38:58,360 --> 00:39:01,879
Speaker 2: around I think to the inside of Vancouver Island. It's

658
00:39:02,080 --> 00:39:05,600
Speaker 2: the sea around that stretch throughout British Columbia and Washington State.

659
00:39:06,040 --> 00:39:09,040
Speaker 2: And this study was focused on the health of orcas,

660
00:39:09,200 --> 00:39:12,560
Speaker 2: not on humans, so this was not studying human diseases.

661
00:39:12,600 --> 00:39:16,520
Speaker 2: But it did find that the breath of these killer whales,

662
00:39:16,560 --> 00:39:20,239
Speaker 2: when sampled droplets from that blow, contained all kinds of

663
00:39:20,280 --> 00:39:24,560
Speaker 2: bacteria and fungi that are known to cause disease in humans,

664
00:39:24,680 --> 00:39:29,960
Speaker 2: so bacteria like salmonella, like Staphylococcus aureus, and then fungi

665
00:39:30,160 --> 00:39:34,759
Speaker 2: like penicillium and foma. And it's not clear that these

666
00:39:34,800 --> 00:39:38,560
Speaker 2: common bacteria that could also cause disease in humans would

667
00:39:38,640 --> 00:39:41,399
Speaker 2: be present in the breath of all whales. It's also

668
00:39:41,480 --> 00:39:44,520
Speaker 2: not clear that they have always been present, even in

669
00:39:44,560 --> 00:39:48,120
Speaker 2: these killer whales, because there's a possibility that these are

670
00:39:48,280 --> 00:39:51,960
Speaker 2: sort of recently introduced microbia loads that are a result

671
00:39:52,040 --> 00:39:54,520
Speaker 2: of human activity. We don't know, but it's a possibility.

672
00:39:55,200 --> 00:39:57,480
Speaker 2: Giving a quote to this news article, the lead author

673
00:39:57,560 --> 00:40:00,319
Speaker 2: Raverty says, quote, we're not sure if these mic robes

674
00:40:00,440 --> 00:40:03,520
Speaker 2: naturally occur in the marine environment or if they may

675
00:40:03,560 --> 00:40:07,399
Speaker 2: be terrestrially sourced. These animals are long ranging as they

676
00:40:07,440 --> 00:40:11,720
Speaker 2: migrate along the coast, and they are exposed to agricultural

677
00:40:11,800 --> 00:40:15,600
Speaker 2: runoff and urban discharge which may introduce a variety of

678
00:40:15,640 --> 00:40:19,319
Speaker 2: microbes into the water. So ultimately, in this case, we

679
00:40:19,320 --> 00:40:22,080
Speaker 2: don't know for sure, Like we can't take a sample

680
00:40:22,280 --> 00:40:25,440
Speaker 2: of what, you know, whalers might have been getting blown

681
00:40:25,480 --> 00:40:28,880
Speaker 2: in their faces from sperm whales or whales in general

682
00:40:28,960 --> 00:40:31,839
Speaker 2: in the nineteenth century. But here at least there are

683
00:40:31,960 --> 00:40:36,880
Speaker 2: cases today of whales that are ejecting breath from their

684
00:40:36,960 --> 00:40:41,200
Speaker 2: lungs that contains droplets of mucus with bacteria that we

685
00:40:41,320 --> 00:40:44,919
Speaker 2: know do cause disease in humans. Whether that is sort

686
00:40:44,920 --> 00:40:47,400
Speaker 2: of a recent loading onto these whales or whether that

687
00:40:47,440 --> 00:40:49,239
Speaker 2: would have been present a long time ago, we can't

688
00:40:49,280 --> 00:40:52,200
Speaker 2: say for sure. But if you combine this with the

689
00:40:52,239 --> 00:40:55,160
Speaker 2: other observations that people, you know, people who work directly

690
00:40:55,200 --> 00:40:57,720
Speaker 2: with marine mammals report a lot of sort of skin

691
00:40:57,840 --> 00:41:02,480
Speaker 2: infections conjunctividis and things like that, it does not seem

692
00:41:02,480 --> 00:41:06,960
Speaker 2: implausible to me that this story about the whale blow

693
00:41:07,040 --> 00:41:12,200
Speaker 2: being poisonous could emerge from different types of infections people

694
00:41:12,239 --> 00:41:17,040
Speaker 2: get after getting whale mucus or other types of whale

695
00:41:17,080 --> 00:41:19,400
Speaker 2: body fluids on their skin or in their eyes.

696
00:41:20,360 --> 00:41:22,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are a number of additional considerations to make

697
00:41:22,960 --> 00:41:25,759
Speaker 1: based on this information, because, on one hand, just by

698
00:41:25,760 --> 00:41:29,600
Speaker 1: the nature of tall tales and sailor lore, how many

699
00:41:29,680 --> 00:41:32,360
Speaker 1: times would it need to happen really for the stories

700
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:37,040
Speaker 1: to generate, You know, just one incident of somebody really

701
00:41:37,080 --> 00:41:40,200
Speaker 1: swelling up after being exposed to whale blow might be enough.

702
00:41:41,120 --> 00:41:44,080
Speaker 1: At On top of that, if there are myths and

703
00:41:44,200 --> 00:41:47,239
Speaker 1: legends pre existing that to tie into some of this,

704
00:41:47,600 --> 00:41:50,960
Speaker 1: those could add to the energy of these tails and

705
00:41:51,160 --> 00:41:55,480
Speaker 1: could even in their origin be partially inspired by such experiences.

706
00:41:55,880 --> 00:41:57,319
Speaker 1: And then I think the other thing to keep in

707
00:41:57,360 --> 00:42:00,920
Speaker 1: mind is that the whalers you're just talking about, all

708
00:42:00,960 --> 00:42:04,920
Speaker 1: the different things that one might have reactions to have

709
00:42:04,960 --> 00:42:08,680
Speaker 1: exposed to, including like blood and organs, Like the whaler

710
00:42:09,120 --> 00:42:13,000
Speaker 1: was not just out there to to see the whale,

711
00:42:13,040 --> 00:42:15,239
Speaker 1: not just out there to experience the whale. They were

712
00:42:15,239 --> 00:42:18,799
Speaker 1: out there to kill and butcher the whales. So it

713
00:42:18,840 --> 00:42:21,120
Speaker 1: seems entirely likely that yeah, if you're gonna have an

714
00:42:21,160 --> 00:42:25,759
Speaker 1: allergic reaction to one aspect of the whales anatomy. There

715
00:42:25,760 --> 00:42:29,040
Speaker 1: are going to be multiple additional opportunities to be infected

716
00:42:29,120 --> 00:42:30,800
Speaker 1: by blood, viscera, et cetera.

717
00:42:31,280 --> 00:42:33,479
Speaker 2: I absolutely agree with all that. So yeah, I can't

718
00:42:33,480 --> 00:42:36,920
Speaker 2: say for sure, but my best guess is if this

719
00:42:37,040 --> 00:42:39,279
Speaker 2: is not just a made up story, if there are

720
00:42:39,600 --> 00:42:42,520
Speaker 2: if there were actually folk tales among whalers that the

721
00:42:42,520 --> 00:42:46,120
Speaker 2: spout was poisonous, it probably came from people getting some

722
00:42:46,200 --> 00:42:57,680
Speaker 2: kind of infection after being around whales.

723
00:42:58,560 --> 00:43:00,759
Speaker 1: Now I have I have a few other things for

724
00:43:00,800 --> 00:43:03,600
Speaker 1: us to take into this first one kind of ties

725
00:43:03,640 --> 00:43:07,080
Speaker 1: into several different things we've discussed because it definitely concerns whaling,

726
00:43:07,440 --> 00:43:10,480
Speaker 1: It concerns the idea of a liquid spout, and it

727
00:43:10,560 --> 00:43:17,480
Speaker 1: also concerns exposure of the whaler to various parts of

728
00:43:17,520 --> 00:43:22,960
Speaker 1: the whales anatomy. So this concerns the red spout. In

729
00:43:23,040 --> 00:43:25,960
Speaker 1: the book Red Leviat and the Secret History of Soviet Whaling,

730
00:43:26,280 --> 00:43:29,120
Speaker 1: author and previous guest on the show, Ryan Tucker Jones

731
00:43:29,600 --> 00:43:34,880
Speaker 1: discusses the destruction wrought by the Soviet industrial whaling industry,

732
00:43:34,920 --> 00:43:40,040
Speaker 1: and in this one particular case, the Soviet industrial whaling harpoons.

733
00:43:40,400 --> 00:43:42,719
Speaker 1: So these were not like the harpoons of the classical

734
00:43:42,760 --> 00:43:45,959
Speaker 1: age of whaling as depicted in Moby Dick. We're talking

735
00:43:45,960 --> 00:43:51,040
Speaker 1: about things that are fired, and in this case grenade

736
00:43:51,160 --> 00:43:54,719
Speaker 1: tipped so that they explode upon hitting the whale and

737
00:43:54,760 --> 00:43:58,160
Speaker 1: impacting the whale. He points out that the ideal first hit,

738
00:43:58,400 --> 00:44:01,040
Speaker 1: ideal for the whalers, of course, not the whale, would

739
00:44:01,080 --> 00:44:04,319
Speaker 1: be for one of these to go off near the

740
00:44:04,320 --> 00:44:07,919
Speaker 1: whale's vital organs. Wherever it hit, blood would pour into

741
00:44:07,920 --> 00:44:11,200
Speaker 1: the cavity and the brain would eventually succumb. But if

742
00:44:11,239 --> 00:44:15,120
Speaker 1: the lungs were punctured, quote, blood would soon fountain out

743
00:44:15,280 --> 00:44:19,120
Speaker 1: the blowhole. This was termed by the Soviet whalers a

744
00:44:19,200 --> 00:44:23,040
Speaker 1: red spout, and the whale would drown in its own fluids.

745
00:44:23,600 --> 00:44:25,680
Speaker 1: And he goes into a great deal more detail about

746
00:44:25,680 --> 00:44:27,799
Speaker 1: all of this, but suffice to say like two to

747
00:44:27,880 --> 00:44:32,239
Speaker 1: six harpoons were often required to kill the whale. So

748
00:44:33,160 --> 00:44:35,479
Speaker 1: worth keeping this in mind. I think and thinking about

749
00:44:35,480 --> 00:44:39,759
Speaker 1: all of this, and also it brings to mind an

750
00:44:39,800 --> 00:44:44,840
Speaker 1: account that I was reading regarding a mythic monstrous whale.

751
00:44:45,280 --> 00:44:48,640
Speaker 1: So we have the word cetacean, you know, referring to

752
00:44:48,719 --> 00:44:54,040
Speaker 1: our whales. This I've read is connected to the name

753
00:44:54,120 --> 00:44:57,920
Speaker 1: of the of the sea monster in Greek mythology Ketos

754
00:44:58,000 --> 00:45:01,279
Speaker 1: or ctoss, and this leave by some, at least in

755
00:45:01,400 --> 00:45:05,360
Speaker 1: some tellings, to be based on or interpreted as a whale.

756
00:45:05,880 --> 00:45:10,440
Speaker 1: In Menilius's Monster by K. M. Coleman from nineteen eighty three,

757
00:45:10,520 --> 00:45:14,080
Speaker 1: the author points to whale like qualities of spouting in

758
00:45:14,120 --> 00:45:19,080
Speaker 1: the writings of first century Roman poet Manilius. Ovid, however,

759
00:45:19,480 --> 00:45:22,719
Speaker 1: doesn't write of spouting with these with this creature, but

760
00:45:22,840 --> 00:45:28,200
Speaker 1: of vomiting bloody water. So the author of this paper, Coleman,

761
00:45:28,400 --> 00:45:33,080
Speaker 1: contends that Manilius was possibly incorporating observational or even for

762
00:45:33,160 --> 00:45:35,839
Speaker 1: the time natural insight into his treatment of the myth.

763
00:45:36,400 --> 00:45:39,800
Speaker 1: But I also think this depiction that Ovid gives of

764
00:45:39,880 --> 00:45:43,759
Speaker 1: the spouting of bloody water this also brings to mind.

765
00:45:43,880 --> 00:45:45,440
Speaker 1: I mean this, I can't help but compare it to

766
00:45:45,440 --> 00:45:48,440
Speaker 1: this idea of the red spout, and wonder if it

767
00:45:48,520 --> 00:45:51,720
Speaker 1: might be connected to some you know, ancient world older

768
00:45:51,760 --> 00:45:55,960
Speaker 1: accounts of harpooning a whale, piercing the lung and observing

769
00:45:56,040 --> 00:45:56,840
Speaker 1: this reaction.

770
00:45:57,880 --> 00:46:01,200
Speaker 2: Wow, but now I'm picturing this. So the key toss

771
00:46:01,280 --> 00:46:04,719
Speaker 2: or the sea monster that is here being interpreted as

772
00:46:04,719 --> 00:46:07,880
Speaker 2: a whale, I think was the monster in the Perseus

773
00:46:07,880 --> 00:46:11,480
Speaker 2: and Andromeda story. So like when when Cassiopeia offers up

774
00:46:12,160 --> 00:46:16,000
Speaker 2: Andromeda as a sacrifice to the sea monster, we should

775
00:46:16,200 --> 00:46:19,960
Speaker 2: maybe picture at not like a big scaly man thing

776
00:46:20,080 --> 00:46:21,960
Speaker 2: coming out of the water track see and Clash of

777
00:46:22,000 --> 00:46:25,720
Speaker 2: the Titans, but instead a whale vomiting bloody water.

778
00:46:26,320 --> 00:46:30,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and you know this idea of the vomiting whale.

779
00:46:31,120 --> 00:46:33,600
Speaker 1: He goes. There's some other accounts of this as well,

780
00:46:33,920 --> 00:46:36,080
Speaker 1: because I was poking around looking for just any other

781
00:46:36,680 --> 00:46:41,319
Speaker 1: interesting like whale spout myths that connected into what we're

782
00:46:41,320 --> 00:46:43,840
Speaker 1: talking about here. And there are various myths about whales

783
00:46:43,880 --> 00:46:47,319
Speaker 1: being you know, monsters or gods and so forth, but

784
00:46:47,360 --> 00:46:51,320
Speaker 1: not all of them are necessarily insightful concerning the spout

785
00:46:51,400 --> 00:46:54,759
Speaker 1: or the blowhole. But I happened to cross something in

786
00:46:54,920 --> 00:46:58,080
Speaker 1: Irish traditions that I can't help but wonder if this

787
00:46:58,160 --> 00:47:01,320
Speaker 1: is something that ended up helping in warm sailor's lore,

788
00:47:02,040 --> 00:47:05,360
Speaker 1: especially as discussed in Moby Dick. I found this initially

789
00:47:05,400 --> 00:47:09,839
Speaker 1: in an eighteen ninety nine publication Notes and Folklore from

790
00:47:10,080 --> 00:47:16,520
Speaker 1: the Renez copy of The Dencentez by TJ. Westrop, published

791
00:47:16,520 --> 00:47:20,120
Speaker 1: in the Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland,

792
00:47:20,840 --> 00:47:24,520
Speaker 1: The Dencentez. This is the tales of the Tales of

793
00:47:24,520 --> 00:47:27,759
Speaker 1: the Duns, the lore of Places. It's a class of

794
00:47:27,880 --> 00:47:31,920
Speaker 1: texts from early Irish literature, and these were apparently added

795
00:47:31,960 --> 00:47:35,560
Speaker 1: to by various writers up until the eleventh or twelfth centuries.

796
00:47:35,960 --> 00:47:40,759
Speaker 1: So here's a quote from this particular author. Quote. A

797
00:47:40,880 --> 00:47:45,399
Speaker 1: very dangerous monster, the rose Sualt is also described, which

798
00:47:45,440 --> 00:47:51,239
Speaker 1: spouts at muhrisk in Mayo and a pestilence ensues. This

799
00:47:51,320 --> 00:47:55,160
Speaker 1: is stated of the whale in other ancient works. When

800
00:47:55,200 --> 00:48:00,239
Speaker 1: the whale spouts upwards, flying creatures die. When downward it

801
00:48:00,360 --> 00:48:05,160
Speaker 1: kills the fish and win at the land, a plague ensues. WHOA,

802
00:48:06,080 --> 00:48:10,200
Speaker 1: So this is the idea of a whale shooting birds

803
00:48:10,200 --> 00:48:12,839
Speaker 1: out of the air with its poisonous spout, and occasionally,

804
00:48:13,160 --> 00:48:14,920
Speaker 1: you know, coming close to the shore and being a

805
00:48:15,560 --> 00:48:19,480
Speaker 1: bringer of plagues, vomiting up plague upon the shore and

806
00:48:19,560 --> 00:48:23,160
Speaker 1: letting that plague or like roll across the countryside as

807
00:48:23,200 --> 00:48:25,520
Speaker 1: a vapor, a bringer of miasthma.

808
00:48:25,880 --> 00:48:28,280
Speaker 2: Okay I was confused about the timeline for a second.

809
00:48:28,320 --> 00:48:31,160
Speaker 2: But okay, so this is an eighteen ninety nine publication,

810
00:48:31,320 --> 00:48:36,560
Speaker 2: but it is discussing these earlier like medieval Irish texts.

811
00:48:36,560 --> 00:48:40,880
Speaker 1: Correct. Yes, and for there's a little background. Marisk is

812
00:48:41,600 --> 00:48:44,960
Speaker 1: in fact a village in County Mayo in Ireland, and

813
00:48:45,040 --> 00:48:48,280
Speaker 1: also according to a different text in eighteen ninety two text,

814
00:48:48,280 --> 00:48:51,799
Speaker 1: I was looking at this roast salt, and I apologize

815
00:48:51,800 --> 00:48:55,240
Speaker 1: that I'm butchering. This was sometimes understood as a sea animal,

816
00:48:55,400 --> 00:48:58,360
Speaker 1: and I think sometimes translated as a walrus. Not that

817
00:48:58,360 --> 00:49:00,120
Speaker 1: we should necessarily think of it as a walrus, but

818
00:49:00,160 --> 00:49:03,359
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes there's a shift in what these terms

819
00:49:03,360 --> 00:49:05,799
Speaker 1: are referring to over time. So since we had a

820
00:49:05,800 --> 00:49:09,479
Speaker 1: sea monster here, especially one of European origin, I turned,

821
00:49:09,520 --> 00:49:11,560
Speaker 1: as I always do, to the books of Carol Rose.

822
00:49:11,640 --> 00:49:15,040
Speaker 1: She has these wonderful pair of encyclopedias, one dealing with

823
00:49:15,160 --> 00:49:19,200
Speaker 1: monsters and giants and other one dealing with fairies and leprechauns.

824
00:49:19,200 --> 00:49:22,400
Speaker 1: And there's some crossover between the books, but they're both great.

825
00:49:22,600 --> 00:49:25,919
Speaker 1: So I looked it up. And Rose has a little

826
00:49:25,960 --> 00:49:29,160
Speaker 1: more insight on the re salt, which she says is

827
00:49:29,200 --> 00:49:32,960
Speaker 1: an alternate name for the moorisk, a monster fish of

828
00:49:33,040 --> 00:49:36,080
Speaker 1: Irish tradition. She writes that it was said to inhabit

829
00:49:36,400 --> 00:49:41,239
Speaker 1: the region of crow og Patrick, and it was super poisonous.

830
00:49:41,239 --> 00:49:44,000
Speaker 1: If it vomited in the water, all the sea life

831
00:49:44,000 --> 00:49:46,359
Speaker 1: around it would die. The fumes from its mouth would

832
00:49:46,360 --> 00:49:48,839
Speaker 1: cause dead birds to fall out of the sky, and

833
00:49:48,920 --> 00:49:51,680
Speaker 1: it could breathe on a coastal region and bring disease.

834
00:49:52,120 --> 00:49:54,239
Speaker 2: Okay, that sort of matches what we were reading a

835
00:49:54,280 --> 00:49:57,360
Speaker 2: minute ago, right right, yeah, yeah, at the coast, it

836
00:49:57,400 --> 00:50:00,399
Speaker 2: brings the pestilens. It kills the birds if it shoots up,

837
00:50:00,600 --> 00:50:03,120
Speaker 2: and it kills the fish if it shoots down, right.

838
00:50:03,840 --> 00:50:06,719
Speaker 1: And I also found another source referring to this. This

839
00:50:06,760 --> 00:50:10,480
Speaker 1: is from P. W. Joyce in nineteen oh six is

840
00:50:10,760 --> 00:50:15,080
Speaker 1: a smaller social history of Ancient Ireland, and this author

841
00:50:15,120 --> 00:50:17,560
Speaker 1: added basically says the same thing, but added that it

842
00:50:17,640 --> 00:50:20,640
Speaker 1: was quote able to vomit in three different ways three

843
00:50:20,760 --> 00:50:24,200
Speaker 1: years in succession. He adds that the vomiting into the

844
00:50:24,239 --> 00:50:27,800
Speaker 1: water also wrecked ships, and when it vomited towards the

845
00:50:27,880 --> 00:50:31,360
Speaker 1: land in the third year, hit the whale caused quote

846
00:50:31,719 --> 00:50:36,080
Speaker 1: a pestilential vapor to creep over the country that killed

847
00:50:36,120 --> 00:50:38,280
Speaker 1: men and four footed animals.

848
00:50:38,480 --> 00:50:40,520
Speaker 2: No not the four footed animals.

849
00:50:40,880 --> 00:50:43,560
Speaker 1: The four footed animals are just at the forefront of

850
00:50:43,600 --> 00:50:45,600
Speaker 1: strange death. I mean, this is how many times are

851
00:50:45,600 --> 00:50:50,320
Speaker 1: we going to in this year last have we talked

852
00:50:50,320 --> 00:50:53,520
Speaker 1: about strange reasons that four legged animals are dying? And

853
00:50:54,120 --> 00:50:55,800
Speaker 1: in the British Isles.

854
00:50:55,480 --> 00:50:59,000
Speaker 2: We never considered this as an explanation for the cattle

855
00:50:59,080 --> 00:51:02,480
Speaker 2: mutilation panic. What if it was actually a risk?

856
00:51:03,360 --> 00:51:08,440
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, what if a whale vomited? So this is

857
00:51:09,440 --> 00:51:12,440
Speaker 1: this is all interesting Again. I don't think that I

858
00:51:12,520 --> 00:51:15,400
Speaker 1: think potentially one has to, you know, take into account

859
00:51:15,480 --> 00:51:19,719
Speaker 1: these these myths and legends about poisonous vomit coming out

860
00:51:19,719 --> 00:51:23,000
Speaker 1: of these whales or whale like creatures. These also first

861
00:51:23,040 --> 00:51:25,480
Speaker 1: hand accounts of potentially getting some sort of an infection

862
00:51:25,600 --> 00:51:29,200
Speaker 1: after contact with a whale spout or whale blood, et cetera.

863
00:51:30,400 --> 00:51:32,680
Speaker 1: But I also can't help but wonder if there's some connection,

864
00:51:32,760 --> 00:51:38,359
Speaker 1: particularly between this story and perhaps encounters with beached and

865
00:51:38,440 --> 00:51:43,040
Speaker 1: dead whales, where there's of course decomposition going on, and

866
00:51:43,080 --> 00:51:45,600
Speaker 1: therefore there's going to be a very strong, awful odor,

867
00:51:45,600 --> 00:51:47,600
Speaker 1: the kind of odor that we would, you know, we

868
00:51:47,640 --> 00:51:52,120
Speaker 1: would associate with with illness. Perhaps, so I wonder I

869
00:51:52,160 --> 00:51:54,680
Speaker 1: wonder if there's any connective tissue there as well.

870
00:51:55,040 --> 00:51:57,520
Speaker 2: Well, Rob, I think this has been a mighty fun

871
00:51:57,560 --> 00:52:00,919
Speaker 2: and interesting exploration. Even though we didn't get a definitive

872
00:52:00,960 --> 00:52:04,480
Speaker 2: answer on the poisonous whales thing, I think what we

873
00:52:04,520 --> 00:52:08,319
Speaker 2: did find out has been enlightening. And as Melville would say,

874
00:52:08,320 --> 00:52:11,120
Speaker 2: through all the thick mists and the dim doubts, you know,

875
00:52:11,200 --> 00:52:14,440
Speaker 2: the divine intuitions now and then shoot, so our fog

876
00:52:14,480 --> 00:52:16,200
Speaker 2: has been enkindled with the heavenly ray.

877
00:52:16,600 --> 00:52:20,000
Speaker 1: Oh very nice. All right, we're gonna go ahead and

878
00:52:20,000 --> 00:52:21,440
Speaker 1: close it out then, But yeah, we'd love to hear

879
00:52:21,480 --> 00:52:24,439
Speaker 1: from everyone out there if you have additional insight, experience, etc.

880
00:52:24,800 --> 00:52:26,600
Speaker 1: Just general thoughts and what we've talked about in this

881
00:52:26,680 --> 00:52:30,200
Speaker 1: pair of episodes or our previous episodes on gray whales

882
00:52:30,239 --> 00:52:32,680
Speaker 1: in particular. Right in we'd love to hear from you.

883
00:52:33,440 --> 00:52:35,800
Speaker 1: Just a reminder that's stuffed able. Your Mind is primarily

884
00:52:35,800 --> 00:52:38,759
Speaker 1: a science podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays,

885
00:52:39,040 --> 00:52:41,279
Speaker 1: but on Mondays we do listener mail. On Wednesdays we

886
00:52:41,320 --> 00:52:43,880
Speaker 1: do a short form artifact or monster fact episode, and

887
00:52:43,920 --> 00:52:46,840
Speaker 1: then on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to

888
00:52:47,040 --> 00:52:50,040
Speaker 1: just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.

889
00:52:50,239 --> 00:52:54,080
Speaker 2: Huge thanks to our audio producer JJ Posway. If you

890
00:52:54,080 --> 00:52:56,200
Speaker 2: would like to get in touch with us with feedback

891
00:52:56,239 --> 00:52:58,640
Speaker 2: on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic

892
00:52:58,680 --> 00:53:00,680
Speaker 2: for the future, or just to say hello, you can

893
00:53:00,719 --> 00:53:03,480
Speaker 2: email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind

894
00:53:03,600 --> 00:53:11,640
Speaker 2: dot com.

895
00:53:11,680 --> 00:53:14,600
Speaker 3: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

896
00:53:14,719 --> 00:53:17,479
Speaker 3: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

897
00:53:17,640 --> 00:53:34,000
Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.