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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's

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Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and we are going crunchy

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Speaker 2: granola even today talking about saving the whales, which Chuck,

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Speaker 2: I don't know about you, but for me, that was

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Speaker 2: like a big part of my childhood. So this is

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Speaker 2: a little bit nostalgic for me.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, if you're insinuating I grew up under

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Speaker 3: a rock in the nineteen seventies, that it's not the case.

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Speaker 2: You did live on a gravel road.

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Speaker 4: That's true.

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Speaker 2: We're rocks involved.

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Speaker 4: I lived among rocks.

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Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean I would go out on a

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Speaker 3: limb and say that. Well, this article says save the

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Speaker 3: Whales is one of the most successful environmental conservation movements

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Speaker 3: in history. But I'm from my mouth to thine ears,

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Speaker 3: I'm going to say I think the Save the Whales

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Speaker 3: campaign is one of the most effective marketing camp pains

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Speaker 3: across any genre in history.

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Speaker 4: Well, wow, it was that ambiquitous.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it was super ubiquitous. I think you caught more

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Speaker 2: of it than me. Even like the stuff that I

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Speaker 2: call was a little bit of the the after wash.

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Speaker 2: I don't know, like remember that thing you were living well, no,

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Speaker 2: it was still a thing. Yeah, but I think the

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Speaker 2: peak I missed the peak and you were living right

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Speaker 2: through it because the seventies were like when this really

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Speaker 2: started to ramp up big time. And I'm sure plenty

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Speaker 2: of people out there have heard save the whales, and

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Speaker 2: it is like a pretty ubiquitous slogan used to be

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Speaker 2: even more ubiquitous, like we're saying. But despite that, there

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Speaker 2: wasn't like one person or group that you're like that

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Speaker 2: they started save the whales. It almost just kind of

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Speaker 2: bubbled up into the collective consciousness and a bunch of

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Speaker 2: different groups kind of started doing the same thing, sometimes

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Speaker 2: working together, other times doing it independently. But the whole

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Speaker 2: goal was to preserve declining whale populations from extinction, and

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Speaker 2: they all were kind of under the same banner of

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Speaker 2: save the whales.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and we're going to talk a little bit about

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Speaker 3: the actual saving of the whales. We're gonna talk a

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Speaker 3: little bit about that campaign, you know, slogan, and how

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Speaker 3: that was a thing. But if you want to talk

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Speaker 3: about just the word save the whales, that did not

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Speaker 3: come about in the nineteen seventies that became a thing.

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Speaker 3: And I mean the phrase dates back to the eighteen hundreds,

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Speaker 3: like the eighteen eighties, but it really became a thing

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Speaker 3: in the nineteen twenties when whale conservation was first a

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Speaker 3: little flicker on the radar of I mean, what would

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Speaker 3: be early conservationists. But in nineteen twenty eight there was

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Speaker 3: a mammalogist group that had to save the whales, meeting

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Speaker 3: in Washington, DC. And that's when it really kicked off

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Speaker 3: as far as like you know, there were buttons and

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Speaker 3: there was a satirical poem written about how ubiquitous it

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Speaker 3: was in the nineteen twenties and thirties.

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Speaker 4: So it was definitely a big thing early on.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and in those articles, I think Anna helped us

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Speaker 2: with this one. She dug up some articles from the

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Speaker 2: twenties about those meetings and they were saving the whales

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Speaker 2: to the bison populations that almost went extinct, yeah, you know,

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Speaker 2: just a few decades before. So the lesson was learned

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Speaker 2: by some and they're like, these whales aren't going to

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Speaker 2: be around much longer either. And it wasn't just the US.

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Speaker 2: It spread around the world, like other countries started kind

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Speaker 2: of their own save the whale initiatives. It was clear

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Speaker 2: that we were over whaling. And yet despite that, in

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Speaker 2: the nineteen twenties and thirties, whaling was still generally antiquated.

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Speaker 2: It was still the kind of whaling that you think

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Speaker 2: of like New Bedford, Massachusetts, like the salty old sea

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Speaker 2: dog with a peg leg and a spear in his

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Speaker 2: other hand, a pipe, maybe even a parrot like out

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Speaker 2: there whaling with a harpoon that he's using with his hands.

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Speaker 2: They killed a lot of whales like that, but it

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Speaker 2: was nothing compared to the Austrial whaling that started in

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Speaker 2: like the middle of the twentieth century.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean they started having you know, literal cannons

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Speaker 3: mounted on the side of a of a ship that

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Speaker 3: would shoot exploding harpoons. And by the sixties they were

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Speaker 3: taking eighty thousand whales a year. Blue whales neared extinction,

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Speaker 3: plenty of others in like grave danger. I am taking

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Speaker 3: my first trip to Nantucket this summer, and that is

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Speaker 3: they have a whaling museum there.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, that I'm going to go to.

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Speaker 3: I've never even been to that part of the country really,

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Speaker 3: so I'm eager to go, and not to celebrate whaling,

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Speaker 3: but just as a sort of historical museum kind of thing.

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Speaker 4: Emily has already said that she won't be going.

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Speaker 2: No, I can understand that it would be kind of

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Speaker 2: hard to take for sure.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, but I mean, I imagine it's fairly interesting.

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Speaker 3: It's just a blip in time, but it's not I

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Speaker 3: doubt if they're trying to sell you on whaling at

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Speaker 3: least a.

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Speaker 2: Right right, Remember when it's great about Nantucket. That is

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Speaker 2: like to thirty limericks, what enya is the crosswords?

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Speaker 4: Wow? Yeah, yeah, that's a nice full So a good.

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Speaker 2: Comparison here is like, like I said, New Bedford, Massachusetts,

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Speaker 2: that area Nantucket, Cape Cod. I guess sure they this

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Speaker 2: was like the seat of whaling internationally in like the

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Speaker 2: mid nineteenth century and over this basically this decade of

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Speaker 2: American dominance of whaling, they took one hundred thousand whales.

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Speaker 2: Now what you're saying is that by the sixties they're

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Speaker 2: taking almost that amount in one year, not a decade. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: that's how much it had gotten stepped up. And if

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Speaker 2: the people in the twenties in the thirties were worried

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Speaker 2: about whales going extinct before using the kind of antiquated

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Speaker 2: original whaling techniques. This new stuff was really a threat

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Speaker 2: to them.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure.

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Speaker 3: And you know, the seventies, it sort of merged with

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Speaker 3: the post sixties crunchiness to really become a big thing.

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Speaker 3: But going back to the thirties and nineteen thirty on

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Speaker 3: the nose, the League of Nations got together and established

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Speaker 3: the Bureau of International Whaling Statistics just so they could

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Speaker 3: see if it truly was a bison situation. And a

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Speaker 3: year later they're like, yep, it's pretty bad. They're declining

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Speaker 3: big time. And so twenty two nations signed in agreement

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Speaker 3: at the Geneva Convention that year for the regulation of

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Speaker 3: whaling to put some limits. And that was kind of

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Speaker 3: the first move was in nineteen thirty one.

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Speaker 2: You know what else I saw too, Something else that

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Speaker 2: saved the whales in the first way the first half

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Speaker 2: of the twentieth century was the invention of the light

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Speaker 2: bulb because people didn't need whale oil for lamps anymore.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I guess we should say that they

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Speaker 3: whiled because that blubber was oil for lamps, and people

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Speaker 3: also ate it. And also, you know, we're not going

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Speaker 3: to not talk about indigenous populations where it's right. You know,

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Speaker 3: they depended on that stuff for sustenance and some still do, so, yeah,

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Speaker 3: that's why they wailed.

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Speaker 2: Well. Also, that's why some of these early I guess

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Speaker 2: international agreements on conserving whale stocks were created, not because

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Speaker 2: they're like whaling's wrong. They were like, we need to

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Speaker 2: be able to keep whaling in the future, so let's

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Speaker 2: not overdo it now, let's figure out what is a

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Speaker 2: sustainable amount. That's what the earliest agreements were for.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, let's stop whaling some so we can keep whaling exactly.

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Speaker 4: So that was the first one.

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Speaker 3: Thirty one, thirty seven came along and ten nations signed

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Speaker 3: on to another one called the International Agreement for the

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Speaker 3: Regulation of Whaling.

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Speaker 4: Also put some more limits.

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Speaker 3: It banned blue, humpback fin and sperm whales under certain links.

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Speaker 3: But it was still declining. So in nineteen forty six

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Speaker 3: the International Whaling Commission. They just keep starting these commissions

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Speaker 3: and getting member countries on board and it's really not

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Speaker 3: making much of a difference. And they did that in

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Speaker 3: forty six again with fourteen member nations. But the forty

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Speaker 3: six one, you know, aligned I guess at thirty seven

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Speaker 3: aligned with World War two, so they were like, we

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Speaker 3: can't go without this oil like at this time. So

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Speaker 3: it just it didn't really have any teeth.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, not only that they needed like meat, So they

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Speaker 2: weren't in a position. The world wasn't in a position

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Speaker 2: after World War two to be like no, not let's

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Speaker 2: stop taking this meat. Like whale meat fed a lot

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Speaker 2: of people who didn't have access to other kinds of

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Speaker 2: protein from World War two. So yeah, those agreements were

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Speaker 2: kind of like, no, this isn't gonna work right now.

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Speaker 2: And then as things started to ramp up, because now

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Speaker 2: there was a much bigger market that hadn't been there

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Speaker 2: before for whale meat, like a global market. That's why

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Speaker 2: it became this industrial factory farming like version of whaling, right, So,

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Speaker 2: because there was just a lot more money to be made.

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Speaker 2: So the people who finally started to save the whales

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Speaker 2: campaign of the seventies had a really huge hill to climb,

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Speaker 2: the biggest hill anyone who was against whaling itself ever

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Speaker 2: had to climb in the history of whaling.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, but it was, like I said, kind

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Speaker 3: of the right time. Coming out of the sixties. There

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Speaker 3: were a lot more just sort of environmental concerns popping up.

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Speaker 3: The EPA was a little more in the limelight, and

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Speaker 3: it was just there was more awareness of that kind

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Speaker 3: of thing, and there was a big perspective shift that

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Speaker 3: happened that was much much different from those earlier ones

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Speaker 3: like you were saying, where it was like let's conserve

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Speaker 3: so we can keep whaling. Like this was a legitimate

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Speaker 3: like hey, these things were realizing are intelligent, and that

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Speaker 3: started happening in the nineteen fifties, like finding out that

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Speaker 3: whales were smart. Yeah, thanks to a Navy engineer named

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Speaker 3: Frank Watlington was a really big change.

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Speaker 2: Well, yeah, he liked to I almost have the sense

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Speaker 2: that it was in his spare time record with a

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Speaker 2: hydrophone the underwater sounds of the Navy, like shooting off bombs,

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Speaker 2: and he accidentally caught some whale songs of some baileing whales,

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Speaker 2: and he was like, this is I've not heard stuff

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Speaker 2: like this before. It seems like there's a pattern to

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Speaker 2: it or a rhythm, or they keep coming back to

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Speaker 2: like a chorus. I don't know. So he gave it

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Speaker 2: to some marine biologists who actually took it and released

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Speaker 2: it as an album in nineteen seventy Songs of the

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Speaker 2: Humpback Whale and have you listened to it?

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Speaker 4: Oh? Yeah, I like most of my adult life.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just so mellow. It's so ambient that you're like, wait,

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Speaker 2: did they add some synth here? And no, it's just

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Speaker 2: nothing but whale songs.

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Speaker 4: Right yeah, Brian, you know had nothing to do with it.

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Speaker 2: Right, So I can't imagine this was released in nineteen seventy.

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Speaker 2: I can't imagine between nineteen seventy and nineteen eighty how

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Speaker 2: much acid was dropped listening to the album Songs of

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Speaker 2: the Humpback Whale. Man, it was like made for it.

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Speaker 3: So maybe I think this has got to be fair.

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Speaker 3: Use we can just play a short snippet just so

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Speaker 3: people can can hear a piece.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, sure, let's give it a shot.

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Speaker 3: All right, here we go, everybody with Songs of the

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Speaker 3: hump Back Whale on s y sk.

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Speaker 1: Here is part of the same song played at its

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Speaker 1: natural speed and pitch, just the way other whales hear it.

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Speaker 1: All the sounds are made by one whale, both the

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Speaker 1: high squeaky tones and the low rumbling ones.

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Speaker 2: Wow. What an album, right, Yeah?

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Speaker 3: I mean it's the only multi platinum album of animal Sounds,

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Speaker 3: which is completely believable.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't imagine there's too many more.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it actually became a huge hit. It's

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Speaker 3: the only multi platinum album of animal sounds, which I

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Speaker 3: guess now they think about it is completely believable.

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Speaker 2: Right, But if you just go listen to it's only

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Speaker 2: like a half hour so long. I think it's a

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Speaker 2: It says songs of the humpback whale. There's so many

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Speaker 2: different songs that I'm like, there's got to be different

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Speaker 2: species involved. It's just neat. Just go listen.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's super cool. And the whole point of it

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Speaker 3: all was is that it raised awareness. People were all

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Speaker 3: of a sudden like wait, these like scientists said, I

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Speaker 3: think they're communicating here, and they're super smart, like Chuck

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Speaker 3: would later say in a podcast, And so save the

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Speaker 3: Whales campaign all of a sudden had a kind of

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Speaker 3: different rallying cry, which is like, hey, we're you know,

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Speaker 3: these aren't just big dumb logs floating around in the ocean.

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Speaker 3: These are really super smart animals to be protected.

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Speaker 2: Right, and so an environmental ease, they became ambassador animals

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Speaker 2: for the ocean as a whole. Yeah, this is now

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Speaker 2: an animal that you can make people care about, and

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Speaker 2: now we have to go get the word out. And

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Speaker 2: by saving whales, you're also going to save everything else

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Speaker 2: in the whales ecosystem that you're working to preserve.

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Speaker 4: That's right. Should we take a break?

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Speaker 3: Yeah?

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Speaker 2: I was about to say the same thing, so gen one, two, seven, eight,

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Speaker 2: not you owe me nine cokes?

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Speaker 3: Gosh, all right, I'm going to go to the store

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Speaker 3: and we'll be right back. All right, We're back everybody. Uh,

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Speaker 3: after a delay that you don't need to even know about, right.

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Speaker 4: It's our business.

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Speaker 2: Yeah? None.

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Speaker 1: Ye.

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Speaker 3: So Save the Whales is kicked off in the seventies,

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Speaker 3: and I think you mentioned earlier on It's it's you know,

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Speaker 3: sometimes it was in parallel with one another. It wasn't

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Speaker 3: like just one group doing this, but everyone got on

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Speaker 3: board with that same the same three words because it

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Speaker 3: was a very unifying thing. And this is sort of

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Speaker 3: a loose timeline of how it started. And it kicked

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Speaker 3: off in nineteen seventy one when the Animal Welfare Institute

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Speaker 3: got together with the Fund for Animals to officially launch

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Speaker 3: the nineteen seventies version of the Save the Whales campaign, right,

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Speaker 3: and they started doing things like, you know, going to

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Speaker 3: teachers conventions, you know, sending out you know, information and

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Speaker 3: mailers and placing ads and saying like, hey, maybe we

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Speaker 3: should boycott whaling nations that kind of stuff, right.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, in just a few years they started a pretty

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Speaker 2: big boycott. I think in nineteen seventy four they said

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Speaker 2: no Japanese goods, no Russian goods. Yes, we're even talking

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Speaker 2: about vodka. They had to say that a lot. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: and I think eighteen other groups signed on, and I

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Speaker 2: think five million Americans said yes, no Russian goods, no

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Speaker 2: Japanese goods, Let's save the whales hot damn for real.

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Speaker 3: They got benefit concerts together. I know, David Bowie in

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Speaker 3: nineteen seventy two had a very headlined, very f famous

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Speaker 3: save the Whales benefit concert.

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Speaker 4: You know.

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Speaker 3: Of course Greenpeace would get on board early on, although

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Speaker 3: they would get on board two years after it started

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Speaker 3: with their project Ahab, which was a little surprising.

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Speaker 2: They're like, no, wait, what about the panda. I thought

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Speaker 2: we were all doing the panda. They're like, that's later,

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Speaker 2: we'll do the panda next. We're going to save the

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Speaker 2: whales now. Finally green Peace came around.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, a lot of this early stuff

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Speaker 3: was very just sort of local routes oriented, Like in

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Speaker 3: the mid seventies, the Connecticut Cetacean Society just like literally

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Speaker 3: went from town to town in Connecticut with save the

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Speaker 3: Whales events and places like Mendocino, California had the Mendocino

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Speaker 3: Whale Festival and founded the Mendocino Whale War. So it's like,

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Speaker 3: you know, and this is where whaling is taking place,

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Speaker 3: mainly in these like sort of little small coastal towns.

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Speaker 3: So it wasn't like, you know, we're going to go

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Speaker 3: to New York City and have this big event like

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Speaker 3: they were doing it where it was going on.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and there were like different ways ways of doing this.

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Speaker 2: Some were like we want to go like basically confront

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Speaker 2: whaling ships where they're wailing. Other people are like, let's

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Speaker 2: just we just need to raise awareness and raise money

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Speaker 2: and all.

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Speaker 3: Like.

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Speaker 2: It wasn't like this this thing that I'm doing is

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Speaker 2: the right way to do it. It was like, okay,

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Speaker 2: you're going to do that. I'll handle this over here

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Speaker 2: and all together, we're going to save the whales. Even

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Speaker 2: though there wasn't like necessarily a lot of coordination going on.

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Speaker 2: It was just you know, you kind of look to

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Speaker 2: your left and see somebody like trying to save the

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Speaker 2: whales with you, and you just kind of give them

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Speaker 2: like a finger gun and a wink and be like,

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Speaker 2: right on.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. I mean they're proposed moratoriums and stuff

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Speaker 3: like that. And we'll get into the weeds about how

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Speaker 3: that actually went down in a little bit. But one

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Speaker 3: of the big things that happened in the seventies was

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Speaker 3: that T shirt. In nineteen seventy seven, there was a

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Speaker 3: woman named Maris Sidenstecker who had been selling these shirts

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Speaker 3: for like three years, like really successfully since I think

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Speaker 3: nineteen seventy four, and she was sixteen years old old

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Speaker 3: and seventy seven founded because of the success of these

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Speaker 3: T shirts, founded her own conservation group called Save the Whales.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, she had a small ad and Rolling Stone, just

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Speaker 2: this recurring ad and that's how she got the word

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Speaker 2: out about the T shirts. And then one other thing

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Speaker 2: I saw about her. She was named Maris Sidenstecker the

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Speaker 2: second because her mother was Maris Side and Stucker. The first. No,

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Speaker 2: that's unusual but pretty cool. Huh.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, usually that would be junior.

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Speaker 2: Well, you just don't usually see that with women. It's

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Speaker 2: mostly men.

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Speaker 4: You know, Well, it's because men are the only people

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Speaker 4: who think their name means something.

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Speaker 2: Well, sure, the and Stecker women stuck their thumb in

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Speaker 2: the eye of the patriarchy, is what they did.

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Speaker 4: Oh, you put it on this building or on my

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Speaker 4: parking spot.

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Speaker 2: So let's talk about some of the tactics they took.

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Speaker 2: Like I said, you'd look to your left, look to

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Speaker 2: your right. All these people are taking these different approaches

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Speaker 2: to it. It's all about saving the whales. One of

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Speaker 2: the easiest ones is to just kind of go to

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Speaker 2: the kids, because, as we'll see, if you can go

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Speaker 2: to the younger generation, that's like the long game that

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Speaker 2: you're playing, But it's also the one that's more likely

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Speaker 2: to pay off. If you teach little kids that whales

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Speaker 2: are smart, that they live in families, that they care

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Speaker 2: about their babies just like your mom cares about you,

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Speaker 2: those kids are going to grow up to see whales

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Speaker 2: is not something that you kill for blubber or meat,

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Speaker 2: but something that you need to protect from people who

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Speaker 2: want to kill them for their blubber or meat.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, So that was you know, that's kind

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Speaker 3: of the starting point. I think is just educating the children.

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Speaker 3: The children's we already talked about obviously, you know, public

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Speaker 3: events like concerts and protests and boycotts. The merchandising, like

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Speaker 3: the T shirt, Like that's not just like hey, let

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Speaker 3: me make the shirt, like bumper stickers and shirts and

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Speaker 3: buttons are a big part of any kind of movement

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Speaker 3: like that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, one thing you mentioned, that Bowie concert. I saw

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Speaker 2: somebody was writing about it and they said like this

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Speaker 2: was the concert that made David Bowie like a superstar,

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Speaker 2: like he was on the rise, and that that concert

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Speaker 2: was where he turned the corner.

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Speaker 4: Hmm, what year was it?

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Speaker 2: Seventy two? Okay, it was supposedly a pretty good concert.

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Speaker 2: He had lou Reid on stage and they played Sweet

365
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Speaker 2: Jane and like two other songs I've never heard of. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: it seemed like it probably was pretty cool.

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Speaker 4: I wish I could have been there. That's a big

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Speaker 4: regret for me as Bowie.

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Speaker 3: He's on the short list of dudes I never got

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Speaker 3: to see and had a chance to, you.

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Speaker 2: Know, he's on the time Machine list.

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Speaker 3: Uh Yeah, like a really regrettable one because he was

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Speaker 3: around him playing shows that you know, I never was, like, no,

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Speaker 3: I'm not going to go to that, Like, but it

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Speaker 3: wasn't like, you know, Queen stopped playing shows. That's another

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Speaker 3: one on my list. But they could stop playing shows

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Speaker 3: in Atlanta when I was I don't even think they

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Speaker 3: played there after. I was like seeing concerts, so you know.

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Speaker 2: I see, I see. So that's not as regrettable as Bowie.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, because I had the chance to see Bowie and

381
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Speaker 3: did not take it.

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Speaker 2: I understand.

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Speaker 4: That's like he's never going to leave us, is what

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Speaker 4: I thought, right.

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Speaker 2: Bowie will never die rules, Bowie lives.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, very sad.

387
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Speaker 2: So one of the tactics that actually kind of emerge

388
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Speaker 2: from this greenpiece is like, we need to catch up.

389
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Speaker 2: We got to come up with our own kind of

390
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Speaker 2: brand of doing this, and they came up with a

391
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Speaker 2: term for it. They called it the mind bomb, which

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Speaker 2: is basically like, now, yeah, it is very corny and

393
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Speaker 2: nowadays you're like, well, yeah, that's of course you're gonna

394
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Speaker 2: do something like that if you're you're an activist campaigning,

395
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Speaker 2: you know, to say, save an animal. The mind bob

396
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Speaker 2: was basically like showing people unfiltered photographs of what is

397
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Speaker 2: actually going on. Yeah, and that's what they did They

398
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Speaker 2: released a lot of photographs to the press internationally of

399
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Speaker 2: whaling in action so that people could see how brutal

400
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Speaker 2: it was. They made it no longer just a concept

401
00:20:48,040 --> 00:20:50,800
Speaker 2: that people heard about save the whales, Save the whales.

402
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Speaker 2: Now they can see for themselves why people were saying

403
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Speaker 2: save the whales, because they were being brutalized by humans.

404
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Speaker 3: Yeah, and those those one particular advance that they went

405
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Speaker 3: on that kind of started it all and was in

406
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Speaker 3: newspapers all over the country.

407
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Speaker 4: I was in April of nineteen seventy.

408
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Speaker 3: Five aboard the Phyllis McCormick boat. Twelve activists got on

409
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Speaker 3: the boat and they spent a couple of months out

410
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Speaker 3: at sea trying to find some whaling boats. Finally, in

411
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Speaker 3: June they caught up with a Russian fleet off the

412
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Speaker 3: coast of California and just kind of followed it around

413
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Speaker 3: for a little while, like using bullhorns and loud speakers

414
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Speaker 3: to in Russian to beg them to stop killing whales,

415
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Speaker 3: played like blast music at them and stuff, and that

416
00:21:32,200 --> 00:21:33,960
Speaker 3: wasn't working. So eventually they were like, all right, we

417
00:21:34,000 --> 00:21:35,919
Speaker 3: need to step it up just a little bit, and

418
00:21:35,960 --> 00:21:38,280
Speaker 3: so they got on those little rubber speedboats like the

419
00:21:38,280 --> 00:21:41,800
Speaker 3: little raft boats, and followed it around like a lot

420
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Speaker 3: closer that you could do in those boats, and took

421
00:21:45,320 --> 00:21:49,359
Speaker 3: some pretty horrifying pictures that made a like these close

422
00:21:49,400 --> 00:21:52,159
Speaker 3: up pictures of harpooning whales made a big, big difference

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Speaker 3: in the campaign.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw, just like that Bowie concert being where

425
00:21:57,359 --> 00:21:59,920
Speaker 2: he turned to corners. Supposedly, this is where the same

426
00:22:00,040 --> 00:22:02,400
Speaker 2: the whales effort really turned to corner too. Like it

427
00:22:02,440 --> 00:22:05,840
Speaker 2: was again international news. There were plenty of newspapers that

428
00:22:05,880 --> 00:22:08,439
Speaker 2: put it some of the pictures on their front page,

429
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Speaker 2: and like it just really kind of captured people's attention,

430
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Speaker 2: and so that whole mind bomb idea really kind of

431
00:22:14,000 --> 00:22:17,000
Speaker 2: took off and spread not just from Greenpeace, but you

432
00:22:17,000 --> 00:22:20,800
Speaker 2: know to other groups not just animal conservationists, and green

433
00:22:20,840 --> 00:22:23,840
Speaker 2: Peace continued on. The ship that I grew up with

434
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Speaker 2: that they used to do this with was the Rainbow Warrior,

435
00:22:26,359 --> 00:22:27,080
Speaker 2: remember that one.

436
00:22:27,200 --> 00:22:29,520
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and by the way, for a second there

437
00:22:30,600 --> 00:22:32,120
Speaker 3: a minute ago, I thought you were going to say,

438
00:22:32,960 --> 00:22:35,280
Speaker 3: like the Bowie thing, this is where photography really.

439
00:22:35,040 --> 00:22:39,680
Speaker 2: Took off, right exactly in nineteen seventy five.

440
00:22:39,800 --> 00:22:41,560
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was like, oh, man, is that what's coming? Yeah?

441
00:22:41,640 --> 00:22:44,200
Speaker 3: I totally remember the Rainbow Warrior. I didn't know you

442
00:22:44,240 --> 00:22:45,800
Speaker 3: grew up on that boat, but that's pretty cool.

443
00:22:46,280 --> 00:22:49,359
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, my dad was a mate. He was a

444
00:22:49,400 --> 00:22:53,040
Speaker 2: Madiyah a Rainbow Warrior for many many years. We had

445
00:22:53,040 --> 00:22:55,240
Speaker 2: to basically peel him off of the deck and be like,

446
00:22:55,280 --> 00:22:58,440
Speaker 2: go get a different job, so he became an HVAC engineer.

447
00:22:58,480 --> 00:23:01,960
Speaker 3: Eventually, we need shout out Australia because they had a

448
00:23:02,000 --> 00:23:05,480
Speaker 3: green Piece affiliate called the Whale and Dolphin Coalition that was,

449
00:23:05,520 --> 00:23:07,040
Speaker 3: like you said, kind of doing the same thing. They

450
00:23:07,040 --> 00:23:09,280
Speaker 3: were like, hey, this is a really effective deal, so

451
00:23:09,480 --> 00:23:12,119
Speaker 3: let's get out there. And we didn't say why. I

452
00:23:12,119 --> 00:23:14,119
Speaker 3: thought it was corny and mind bombs because they would

453
00:23:14,240 --> 00:23:15,600
Speaker 3: blow people's minds.

454
00:23:15,880 --> 00:23:19,720
Speaker 2: Exactly with their pictures, for sure, and they did. But

455
00:23:19,840 --> 00:23:21,760
Speaker 2: again it is a very corny way to put it.

456
00:23:21,760 --> 00:23:25,320
Speaker 3: That's right, But that would be stepped up even more

457
00:23:25,920 --> 00:23:28,880
Speaker 3: because you know, green Peace gets a little more aggressive,

458
00:23:28,880 --> 00:23:31,800
Speaker 3: and then there's always one more like the Brad Pitt

459
00:23:31,800 --> 00:23:35,280
Speaker 3: group in Twelve Monkeys. That's like, nah, they're not even

460
00:23:35,320 --> 00:23:38,679
Speaker 3: taking it far enough. We need to actually, well, I

461
00:23:38,680 --> 00:23:41,520
Speaker 3: guess sort of engage in sabotage.

462
00:23:41,680 --> 00:23:44,399
Speaker 2: Yeah, this one I associated with the nineties of the

463
00:23:44,480 --> 00:23:48,640
Speaker 2: Sea Shepherd. They were a conservation society founded I think

464
00:23:48,640 --> 00:23:51,080
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy seven by a guy named Paul Wattson

465
00:23:51,119 --> 00:23:53,000
Speaker 2: you have been a Green Pieace member. It was like,

466
00:23:53,280 --> 00:23:55,080
Speaker 2: you guys are corny, I'm out of here, or I'm

467
00:23:55,080 --> 00:23:59,240
Speaker 2: gonna do something like actually significant, not just follow whalers

468
00:23:59,320 --> 00:24:02,720
Speaker 2: around and take pictures. He followed whalers around and tried

469
00:24:02,760 --> 00:24:05,400
Speaker 2: to sink their boats by ramming his own boat into them.

470
00:24:05,720 --> 00:24:08,359
Speaker 2: And he was so successful, Chuck, that I propose we

471
00:24:08,440 --> 00:24:11,600
Speaker 2: do a short stuff just on the Sea Shepherd Conservation

472
00:24:11,800 --> 00:24:15,520
Speaker 2: Society itself. They have sunk a lot of boats.

473
00:24:15,760 --> 00:24:18,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, he said, mind bombs are effective. Real bombs are

474
00:24:18,880 --> 00:24:20,239
Speaker 3: more effective.

475
00:24:20,280 --> 00:24:22,520
Speaker 2: Pretty much. I mean they used at least one bomb

476
00:24:22,600 --> 00:24:25,000
Speaker 2: on I think a ship called the Sierra, right.

477
00:24:25,720 --> 00:24:28,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, they rammed the Sierra a couple of times

478
00:24:28,280 --> 00:24:30,480
Speaker 3: with their boat and damaged it. And then a few

479
00:24:30,520 --> 00:24:33,320
Speaker 3: years later, no, I guess one year later. That was

480
00:24:33,359 --> 00:24:36,240
Speaker 3: seventy nine, and nineteen eighty is when they planted an

481
00:24:36,320 --> 00:24:38,480
Speaker 3: underwater bomb and sank that thing.

482
00:24:38,680 --> 00:24:40,760
Speaker 4: And like you said, many others.

483
00:24:41,280 --> 00:24:44,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, And just to be clear, Paul Watson and the

484
00:24:44,400 --> 00:24:48,720
Speaker 2: Sea Shepherd Society, they've never injured a single person. They've

485
00:24:48,760 --> 00:24:52,920
Speaker 2: never been indicted for breaking any law. These are pirate

486
00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:57,040
Speaker 2: whaling ships. They're operating completely outside of the bounds of

487
00:24:57,080 --> 00:25:01,760
Speaker 2: international agreements where they're hunting endangered species that are off

488
00:25:01,800 --> 00:25:05,360
Speaker 2: the table. They're taking whales that are young that shouldn't

489
00:25:05,400 --> 00:25:09,359
Speaker 2: be taken. They're like taking more than they're supposed to.

490
00:25:09,720 --> 00:25:12,040
Speaker 2: Like it's a it's a big deal that these people

491
00:25:12,119 --> 00:25:16,120
Speaker 2: are out there and that's that's why he's targeted them.

492
00:25:16,560 --> 00:25:19,840
Speaker 2: And he said that in an interview. He's never lost

493
00:25:19,880 --> 00:25:23,120
Speaker 2: a lawsuit that's been brought against him either, so he's

494
00:25:23,160 --> 00:25:25,199
Speaker 2: feeling pretty good about what he's doing.

495
00:25:25,600 --> 00:25:29,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they you know, this wasn't like, hey, we're

496
00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:32,280
Speaker 3: gonna I mean, it was definitely awareness, but like it

497
00:25:32,280 --> 00:25:35,119
Speaker 3: it put an actual dentt in the whaling industry, Like

498
00:25:35,160 --> 00:25:40,600
Speaker 3: they sank two of Spain's five only five whaling ships. Yeah,

499
00:25:40,640 --> 00:25:42,160
Speaker 3: and if I had a better math brain, I could

500
00:25:42,200 --> 00:25:45,320
Speaker 3: figure out the percentage, but that's probably forty something.

501
00:25:46,600 --> 00:25:49,320
Speaker 2: So Yeah. Another thing that he did he would put

502
00:25:49,320 --> 00:25:52,040
Speaker 2: out bounties on other pirate whaling ships. There was one

503
00:25:52,040 --> 00:25:55,120
Speaker 2: called the Astrod, and the owner of the Astroid eventually

504
00:25:55,200 --> 00:25:57,880
Speaker 2: just sold it because he couldn't trust the crew anymore

505
00:25:57,920 --> 00:26:00,600
Speaker 2: that they weren't gonna sabotage it and take twenty five

506
00:26:00,640 --> 00:26:03,639
Speaker 2: thousand dollars reward because he definitely wasn't paying them twenty

507
00:26:03,640 --> 00:26:06,640
Speaker 2: five thousand dollars, right, And then there was one other

508
00:26:06,680 --> 00:26:12,320
Speaker 2: thing that had this direct impact on whaling as an industry.

509
00:26:12,520 --> 00:26:16,280
Speaker 2: Just him being out there sinking ships made whaling ships

510
00:26:16,400 --> 00:26:19,840
Speaker 2: insurance rates go sky high. So there were some there

511
00:26:19,880 --> 00:26:22,399
Speaker 2: like I can't afford the insurance anymore. I'm gonna stop

512
00:26:22,400 --> 00:26:23,919
Speaker 2: doing illegal whaling.

513
00:26:23,960 --> 00:26:24,400
Speaker 4: That's right.

514
00:26:24,720 --> 00:26:26,920
Speaker 3: And he also he had that great line about mind

515
00:26:26,960 --> 00:26:29,960
Speaker 3: bombs not being as effective as real bombs. He also

516
00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:31,920
Speaker 3: had one about loose lips, and I think you can

517
00:26:31,960 --> 00:26:32,520
Speaker 3: just fill in the.

518
00:26:32,480 --> 00:26:33,600
Speaker 2: Rest, that's right.

519
00:26:34,080 --> 00:26:37,359
Speaker 3: So they're making a lot of headway, you know, sinking

520
00:26:37,400 --> 00:26:39,720
Speaker 3: these ships and raising awareness. But you know, we mentioned

521
00:26:39,720 --> 00:26:42,360
Speaker 3: early on like just how big of a ubiquitous thing

522
00:26:42,359 --> 00:26:45,359
Speaker 3: this was in the seventies, and it was like a

523
00:26:45,440 --> 00:26:48,800
Speaker 3: legitimate pop culture phenomenon. I mean, it was right up

524
00:26:48,800 --> 00:26:51,679
Speaker 3: there with like where's the beef in the nineteen eighties, ironically,

525
00:26:52,760 --> 00:26:56,000
Speaker 3: as far as like slogans that people knew and wore

526
00:26:56,040 --> 00:26:59,680
Speaker 3: on shirts and put in songs like Judy Collins and

527
00:26:59,760 --> 00:27:03,720
Speaker 3: Kate Bush both sampled that songs of the Humpback Whale

528
00:27:03,760 --> 00:27:06,679
Speaker 3: as you know, awareness and because it sounded cool. There

529
00:27:06,720 --> 00:27:09,080
Speaker 3: was a Save the Whales board game in nineteen seventy eight,

530
00:27:09,160 --> 00:27:11,680
Speaker 3: and we can tell you firsthand, if you have made

531
00:27:11,680 --> 00:27:15,800
Speaker 3: it to board game territory, then you're part of pop culture. Yeah.

532
00:27:15,960 --> 00:27:19,240
Speaker 2: Apparently I was reading about the rules players are they

533
00:27:19,280 --> 00:27:22,680
Speaker 2: cooperate rather than compete with one another to save the whales?

534
00:27:23,119 --> 00:27:24,119
Speaker 4: Like games?

535
00:27:24,400 --> 00:27:28,119
Speaker 2: I mean, that's definitely like difficult gameplay to come up with.

536
00:27:28,240 --> 00:27:29,000
Speaker 2: I would guess.

537
00:27:29,280 --> 00:27:31,879
Speaker 4: Yeah, they couldn't be like, all right, he's going to

538
00:27:31,920 --> 00:27:32,880
Speaker 4: play the whaler.

539
00:27:33,560 --> 00:27:35,760
Speaker 2: Right exactly? Everybody hates me.

540
00:27:35,960 --> 00:27:36,280
Speaker 4: Yeah.

541
00:27:36,320 --> 00:27:38,440
Speaker 2: What was the pinnacle of the whole thing? Though, Chuck?

542
00:27:38,480 --> 00:27:39,760
Speaker 2: It came in nineteen eighty six.

543
00:27:39,960 --> 00:27:43,400
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, as everyone who's listening to the show knows,

544
00:27:43,440 --> 00:27:46,760
Speaker 3: I know nothing of Star Trek, but I did know

545
00:27:46,920 --> 00:27:50,600
Speaker 3: the plot at least of Star Trek. What is that

546
00:27:50,720 --> 00:27:54,679
Speaker 3: for the voyage home, which is when the crew Captain

547
00:27:54,720 --> 00:27:56,760
Speaker 3: Kirk and his crew went back to save the whales.

548
00:27:57,400 --> 00:28:01,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's I mean, yeah, a little game and

549
00:28:01,720 --> 00:28:04,680
Speaker 2: a Star Trek, not a Star Trek episode an entire

550
00:28:04,760 --> 00:28:08,880
Speaker 2: Star Trek movie dedicated to saving a whale. Saving the whales.

551
00:28:09,320 --> 00:28:11,520
Speaker 2: That was a pretty big deal. So yes, this thing

552
00:28:12,040 --> 00:28:15,520
Speaker 2: spread grew a tasta size, became part of just the

553
00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:18,600
Speaker 2: regular culture. There are comic strips that mentioned it, just

554
00:28:18,680 --> 00:28:22,239
Speaker 2: the casual mentions of it, the way it came up.

555
00:28:22,280 --> 00:28:23,919
Speaker 2: When you look back at it, you're like, yeah, this

556
00:28:24,119 --> 00:28:29,560
Speaker 2: was everywhere. I remember there's a Simpsons where Lisa develops

557
00:28:29,600 --> 00:28:32,640
Speaker 2: a crush on Nelson Mounts and she goes to visit

558
00:28:32,720 --> 00:28:34,480
Speaker 2: him at his house and he has a poster on

559
00:28:34,480 --> 00:28:37,920
Speaker 2: the wall that says Nuke the whales. Yeah, and she goes,

560
00:28:38,040 --> 00:28:40,640
Speaker 2: nuke the whales. He's like, got a nuke something, save

561
00:28:40,680 --> 00:28:42,160
Speaker 2: the nuke touche.

562
00:28:42,640 --> 00:28:46,840
Speaker 3: Yeah. I remember wearing We had Hippie Day in high

563
00:28:46,880 --> 00:28:51,320
Speaker 3: school once a year where you you know, pretty self explanatory,

564
00:28:52,080 --> 00:28:53,800
Speaker 3: and there was a picture of me, I believe, in

565
00:28:53,840 --> 00:28:57,240
Speaker 3: the yearbook wearing my little hippie outfit and my prop

566
00:28:57,320 --> 00:28:59,840
Speaker 3: was a little save the whales sign. So it was

567
00:29:00,280 --> 00:29:03,560
Speaker 3: you know, I wasn't stepping out and trying something original

568
00:29:03,920 --> 00:29:06,320
Speaker 3: by any means. It was like super And this was

569
00:29:06,960 --> 00:29:09,280
Speaker 3: the mid to late nineteen eighties at this point.

570
00:29:09,600 --> 00:29:13,480
Speaker 2: Right underneath it said Charles W. Bryant shows off his

571
00:29:13,640 --> 00:29:17,040
Speaker 2: hippie outfit. Also, he's the best all round boy.

572
00:29:17,720 --> 00:29:20,480
Speaker 4: It probably said something like that, except for the last part.

573
00:29:22,120 --> 00:29:23,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a big That was a big surprise

574
00:29:24,080 --> 00:29:24,400
Speaker 2: for you.

575
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:27,240
Speaker 4: Those yearbook captions.

576
00:29:26,920 --> 00:29:27,720
Speaker 2: They were pretty bad.

577
00:29:27,800 --> 00:29:28,000
Speaker 3: Yeah.

578
00:29:28,040 --> 00:29:30,080
Speaker 2: I remember we had a yearbook in high school where

579
00:29:30,120 --> 00:29:35,080
Speaker 2: they misspelled tomorrow on the cover, say Tomory. It's a

580
00:29:35,360 --> 00:29:43,520
Speaker 2: t MMO r RW too many ms, too many, yes,

581
00:29:43,640 --> 00:29:46,120
Speaker 2: too many ms. I have my hands over my eyes

582
00:29:46,200 --> 00:29:48,800
Speaker 2: right now because I'm just cringing thinking about it. Like

583
00:29:48,840 --> 00:29:52,560
Speaker 2: they were. This was printed distributed before anybody noticed, like

584
00:29:52,640 --> 00:29:53,520
Speaker 2: they were done.

585
00:29:54,120 --> 00:29:56,000
Speaker 4: That is on the editor in chief.

586
00:29:56,840 --> 00:30:00,320
Speaker 2: And on the the teacher.

587
00:30:00,440 --> 00:30:01,440
Speaker 4: Yeah, the school sponsor.

588
00:30:03,000 --> 00:30:06,160
Speaker 2: So okay, so I think we've established save the whales.

589
00:30:06,320 --> 00:30:11,120
Speaker 2: It spread throughout pop culture. People's sympathies like definitely started

590
00:30:11,120 --> 00:30:13,760
Speaker 2: to go toward the whales. But where the rubber meets

591
00:30:13,800 --> 00:30:16,400
Speaker 2: the road is whaling going to stop. You need to

592
00:30:16,440 --> 00:30:19,480
Speaker 2: go to the people who oversee stuff like this, like

593
00:30:19,760 --> 00:30:23,040
Speaker 2: entire governments and national bodies. And just like they did

594
00:30:23,080 --> 00:30:26,479
Speaker 2: in the thirties, they went back to the International Whaling

595
00:30:26,480 --> 00:30:29,280
Speaker 2: Commission and said, hey, guys, what do you think about

596
00:30:29,320 --> 00:30:32,400
Speaker 2: just stopping this, and the UNS a great idea in

597
00:30:32,480 --> 00:30:34,880
Speaker 2: the IWC said no.

598
00:30:35,280 --> 00:30:36,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think the first try was they

599
00:30:36,920 --> 00:30:39,320
Speaker 3: proposed a ten year moratorium on whaling.

600
00:30:40,720 --> 00:30:42,080
Speaker 4: What year was that, I don't have that in front

601
00:30:42,080 --> 00:30:42,240
Speaker 4: of me.

602
00:30:42,640 --> 00:30:44,520
Speaker 2: It was nineteen seventy two.

603
00:30:44,680 --> 00:30:46,120
Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, so that was seventy two.

604
00:30:46,240 --> 00:30:48,280
Speaker 3: The next year, in seventy three, the UN Conference on

605
00:30:48,400 --> 00:30:53,280
Speaker 3: Human Environment basically said, yeah, ten year moratorium. The IWC

606
00:30:53,400 --> 00:30:55,480
Speaker 3: rejected it, and then the next year, in seventy four,

607
00:30:56,080 --> 00:30:59,680
Speaker 3: the AWI called for a boycott of Japanese and Russian goods,

608
00:31:00,200 --> 00:31:04,280
Speaker 3: and that same year eighteen other conservation groups got on

609
00:31:04,320 --> 00:31:08,200
Speaker 3: board with that boycott. But again it would take I

610
00:31:08,240 --> 00:31:11,520
Speaker 3: think until nineteen eighty two before they got back to

611
00:31:11,560 --> 00:31:13,600
Speaker 3: real like voting on moratoriums.

612
00:31:14,120 --> 00:31:20,160
Speaker 2: Yeah. So basically in nineteen yeah, nineteen eighty two, the IWC,

613
00:31:20,280 --> 00:31:23,160
Speaker 2: the International Whaling Commission basically said let's tick up this

614
00:31:23,240 --> 00:31:26,520
Speaker 2: vote again. I could not find what prompted this, so

615
00:31:26,560 --> 00:31:29,760
Speaker 2: I just have to assume it was just a general

616
00:31:29,760 --> 00:31:32,400
Speaker 2: awareness of saving the whales. So they voted again on

617
00:31:32,480 --> 00:31:36,280
Speaker 2: a moratorium and it actually passed this time, and so

618
00:31:36,360 --> 00:31:38,400
Speaker 2: they said, well, we'll give everybody four years to get

619
00:31:38,440 --> 00:31:41,760
Speaker 2: ready but in the nineteen eighty six season, the quote

620
00:31:41,800 --> 00:31:45,360
Speaker 2: was that the catch limits for the killing for commercial

621
00:31:45,400 --> 00:31:49,240
Speaker 2: purposes of whales from all stocks any kind of whale.

622
00:31:49,240 --> 00:31:53,200
Speaker 2: That's just me adding that parenthetical shall be zero. No

623
00:31:53,320 --> 00:31:55,680
Speaker 2: whales going to be killed in the nineteen eighty six

624
00:31:55,840 --> 00:31:59,920
Speaker 2: whaling season, and it passed. Twenty five nations said yeah,

625
00:32:00,640 --> 00:32:03,240
Speaker 2: seven said nay, yeah, And it came into effect in

626
00:32:03,320 --> 00:32:05,240
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty six, and the thing was chuck. It was

627
00:32:05,280 --> 00:32:08,840
Speaker 2: originally just going to be a temporary measure, and just

628
00:32:08,880 --> 00:32:12,400
Speaker 2: like in the tradition of the IWC and other whaling commissions,

629
00:32:12,560 --> 00:32:15,680
Speaker 2: the point was to allow the whale stocks to replenish

630
00:32:15,760 --> 00:32:18,520
Speaker 2: themselves so you could get back to whaling. But they

631
00:32:18,680 --> 00:32:21,959
Speaker 2: never lifted the moratorium. It's just continued indefinitely.

632
00:32:22,040 --> 00:32:25,360
Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure. Should we talk about some of these

633
00:32:25,360 --> 00:32:27,000
Speaker 4: stats and then take our second break.

634
00:32:28,120 --> 00:32:30,240
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, we haven't taken our second break. We

635
00:32:30,360 --> 00:32:32,800
Speaker 2: have not Okay, yeah, definitely.

636
00:32:32,640 --> 00:32:35,160
Speaker 4: All right. So it had a big impact.

637
00:32:35,200 --> 00:32:38,520
Speaker 3: Obviously, these moratoriums at its peak in the nineteen sixties,

638
00:32:38,800 --> 00:32:40,680
Speaker 3: I think I mentioned they were killing about eighty thousand

639
00:32:40,680 --> 00:32:41,360
Speaker 3: whales a year.

640
00:32:42,160 --> 00:32:43,160
Speaker 4: In twenty twenty.

641
00:32:42,920 --> 00:32:47,240
Speaker 3: Three, the IWC estimated that eight hundred and twenty five whales,

642
00:32:47,360 --> 00:32:51,440
Speaker 3: down from eighty thousand, were killed by you know, obviously

643
00:32:51,480 --> 00:32:53,600
Speaker 3: only nations that object to the moratorium, and we'll get

644
00:32:53,600 --> 00:32:56,200
Speaker 3: to those after the break. And also this we should

645
00:32:56,240 --> 00:33:00,680
Speaker 3: point out, this doesn't include sort of the indigenous subsistence

646
00:33:00,680 --> 00:33:03,920
Speaker 3: whaling that continues, or I think kind of leaving that alone, right.

647
00:33:04,280 --> 00:33:06,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that only total three hundred and sixty

648
00:33:06,720 --> 00:33:09,880
Speaker 2: eight across four different indigenous groups in three different countries

649
00:33:09,920 --> 00:33:12,440
Speaker 2: that year. So all told, there was about twelve hundred

650
00:33:12,440 --> 00:33:15,520
Speaker 2: whales killed, and like you said, down from eighty thousand.

651
00:33:15,960 --> 00:33:19,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, and since nineteen seventy eight, blue whale populations have

652
00:33:19,280 --> 00:33:22,560
Speaker 3: increased about eight point two percent per year, bowhead about

653
00:33:22,600 --> 00:33:26,640
Speaker 3: three point seven per year. Humpbacks I mentioned in Act

654
00:33:26,680 --> 00:33:30,240
Speaker 3: one were close to extinction. I think in the nineteen

655
00:33:30,280 --> 00:33:32,200
Speaker 3: sixties there might have been as few as five thousand,

656
00:33:32,720 --> 00:33:35,640
Speaker 3: and those babies are back over eighty thousand.

657
00:33:35,680 --> 00:33:35,880
Speaker 4: Now.

658
00:33:36,360 --> 00:33:39,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, So let's take our breakschalk, and we'll come back

659
00:33:39,080 --> 00:33:42,200
Speaker 2: and talk about how whaling still continues unfortunately.

660
00:33:42,280 --> 00:33:43,280
Speaker 4: All right, we'll be right back.

661
00:34:10,400 --> 00:34:12,279
Speaker 2: All right, we're back, and I think we kind of

662
00:34:12,320 --> 00:34:14,279
Speaker 2: alluded to it a couple of times, but we are

663
00:34:14,360 --> 00:34:19,920
Speaker 2: not indigenous whaling using traditional methods for subsistence is in

664
00:34:20,000 --> 00:34:23,360
Speaker 2: no way in the crosshairs of basically anybody who is

665
00:34:23,360 --> 00:34:26,640
Speaker 2: opposed to whaling. Right, they don't even have crosshairs, Like

666
00:34:26,680 --> 00:34:30,200
Speaker 2: people actually use the whales that they kill to feed

667
00:34:30,239 --> 00:34:33,200
Speaker 2: themselves throughout the winter and stuff like that. Right, nobody's

668
00:34:33,239 --> 00:34:37,360
Speaker 2: really got problems with that. It's commercial whaling, that industrial whaling.

669
00:34:37,400 --> 00:34:39,640
Speaker 2: That's what everyone has a problem with, and it's still

670
00:34:39,680 --> 00:34:43,719
Speaker 2: going on. Some stocks that actually did come back have

671
00:34:43,840 --> 00:34:46,960
Speaker 2: started to become depleted again. And the way that it's

672
00:34:47,000 --> 00:34:50,560
Speaker 2: going on is because some countries said, we're lodging an

673
00:34:50,600 --> 00:34:55,560
Speaker 2: objection and we aren't going to comply with the whaling moratorium.

674
00:34:55,600 --> 00:35:00,600
Speaker 2: Those countries were Iceland, Norway, and Japan, I should say

675
00:35:00,640 --> 00:35:03,799
Speaker 2: are because they're all still doing that. And rather than

676
00:35:03,880 --> 00:35:06,520
Speaker 2: Japan saying we're just going to whale for commercial purposes,

677
00:35:06,880 --> 00:35:11,120
Speaker 2: they for some reason hid behind this one exception that

678
00:35:11,239 --> 00:35:13,680
Speaker 2: was made in the moratorium that you could kill whales

679
00:35:13,719 --> 00:35:18,760
Speaker 2: for scientific purposes, ostensibly to study them to help preserve

680
00:35:18,840 --> 00:35:22,240
Speaker 2: the whales, basically, right, And Japan's like, yeah, every whale

681
00:35:22,280 --> 00:35:26,799
Speaker 2: we kill using all of our commercial fleet, we're just

682
00:35:26,840 --> 00:35:29,399
Speaker 2: studying that for science and that's just not what they've

683
00:35:29,400 --> 00:35:30,160
Speaker 2: been doing.

684
00:35:30,320 --> 00:35:33,200
Speaker 3: No, which is super shameful. And here's the other thing

685
00:35:33,280 --> 00:35:35,360
Speaker 3: is there's two big points we're going to kind of

686
00:35:35,360 --> 00:35:40,279
Speaker 3: hammer home. Here is in twenty twenty six, not many

687
00:35:40,320 --> 00:35:43,520
Speaker 3: people at all are eating whale meat, and they aren't

688
00:35:43,560 --> 00:35:44,960
Speaker 3: making a lot of money doing this.

689
00:35:45,320 --> 00:35:46,560
Speaker 4: So they've done studies.

690
00:35:46,640 --> 00:35:50,640
Speaker 3: Only two percent of Norwegians reported eating whale meat at

691
00:35:50,719 --> 00:35:54,240
Speaker 3: least once a month. Consumption of whale meat in Japan

692
00:35:54,400 --> 00:35:57,279
Speaker 3: is one percent of what it was from its peak

693
00:35:57,280 --> 00:36:00,440
Speaker 3: in the nineteen sixties. And so in two six, Green

694
00:36:00,480 --> 00:36:03,200
Speaker 3: pieces like, we need to get some independent research together.

695
00:36:03,280 --> 00:36:09,080
Speaker 3: So they commissioned from the independent Nippon Research Center a

696
00:36:09,120 --> 00:36:11,600
Speaker 3: study that found that ninety five percent of Japanese people

697
00:36:11,960 --> 00:36:15,640
Speaker 3: very rarely or never eat whale meat, and they're stockpile

698
00:36:15,719 --> 00:36:18,560
Speaker 3: they have a stockpile of uneaten frozen whale meat, and

699
00:36:18,640 --> 00:36:22,520
Speaker 3: it doubled between two thousand and two and twoenty twelve.

700
00:36:22,640 --> 00:36:26,160
Speaker 3: So like it's this old it seems like it's this

701
00:36:26,280 --> 00:36:31,759
Speaker 3: older generation of nostalgia kind of digging in and all

702
00:36:31,800 --> 00:36:35,040
Speaker 3: of this younger generation is just like just you know,

703
00:36:35,120 --> 00:36:37,799
Speaker 3: once they die out, like no one's eating this stuff.

704
00:36:37,840 --> 00:36:38,280
Speaker 4: Anymore.

705
00:36:38,680 --> 00:36:42,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, theyre probably won't be whaling in twenty years, is

706
00:36:43,040 --> 00:36:45,360
Speaker 2: one way to look at it. Unless there's some weird

707
00:36:45,400 --> 00:36:49,319
Speaker 2: revival of a taste for whale meat among younger generations,

708
00:36:49,480 --> 00:36:53,239
Speaker 2: doesn't seem likely. There's really the younger people are not

709
00:36:53,400 --> 00:36:56,279
Speaker 2: into whale meat. The older people are because it's nostalgia

710
00:36:56,320 --> 00:36:59,279
Speaker 2: food that takes them back to their childhood. And you know,

711
00:36:59,360 --> 00:37:01,960
Speaker 2: post World War or two, when people ate a lot

712
00:37:02,000 --> 00:37:06,440
Speaker 2: of whale meat. Norway's basically the same way Norway, so

713
00:37:06,560 --> 00:37:10,200
Speaker 2: few people eat whale in Norway that basically one hundred

714
00:37:10,200 --> 00:37:15,400
Speaker 2: percent of Norway's whale catch is exported to Japan. And

715
00:37:15,520 --> 00:37:19,600
Speaker 2: yet you said, right, and Japan is like they have

716
00:37:19,719 --> 00:37:22,040
Speaker 2: that stockpile. The reason they have a stockpile is because

717
00:37:22,040 --> 00:37:25,719
Speaker 2: the Japanese government subsidizes its whaling industry to the tune

718
00:37:25,760 --> 00:37:28,480
Speaker 2: of fifty million dollars a year. So that means that

719
00:37:28,520 --> 00:37:31,719
Speaker 2: if you whale, you have a total guarantee that the

720
00:37:31,840 --> 00:37:34,959
Speaker 2: Japanese government will buy the whale meat that you come

721
00:37:35,000 --> 00:37:38,439
Speaker 2: and sell them, and the Japanese government just basically puts

722
00:37:38,440 --> 00:37:41,400
Speaker 2: it in a freezer. So those whales died for nothing

723
00:37:41,880 --> 00:37:44,920
Speaker 2: except for a handful of people that make some money.

724
00:37:45,120 --> 00:37:47,520
Speaker 2: And like you said, the amount of money that we're

725
00:37:47,560 --> 00:37:51,279
Speaker 2: talking about is relatively paltry when you're talking about an

726
00:37:51,440 --> 00:37:52,960
Speaker 2: entire global industry.

727
00:37:53,440 --> 00:37:54,000
Speaker 4: Yeah, there was.

728
00:37:54,200 --> 00:37:56,759
Speaker 3: In twenty eighteen, the US Naval Institute put out an

729
00:37:56,840 --> 00:37:59,960
Speaker 3: article that said, the global revenue, like the entire world

730
00:38:00,080 --> 00:38:03,680
Speaker 3: whaling industry revenue is about thirty one million bucks in

731
00:38:03,760 --> 00:38:06,160
Speaker 3: twenty twelve, And this is going, this is really going

732
00:38:06,239 --> 00:38:09,880
Speaker 3: to drive it home. Norway's largest whaling company made a

733
00:38:09,880 --> 00:38:14,200
Speaker 3: gross revenue of one point three million dollars, and they,

734
00:38:14,360 --> 00:38:18,799
Speaker 3: along with the lobby and the government, spent about four

735
00:38:18,920 --> 00:38:22,720
Speaker 3: times as much on campaigns to try to get people

736
00:38:22,760 --> 00:38:26,279
Speaker 3: to eat whale meat. Then they even netted with their

737
00:38:26,560 --> 00:38:28,120
Speaker 3: nation's largest whaling company.

738
00:38:28,760 --> 00:38:31,640
Speaker 2: Right, So, and it's not like if they were making

739
00:38:31,680 --> 00:38:34,400
Speaker 2: thirty one billion, that'd be a different thing. Forget the whales.

740
00:38:34,400 --> 00:38:37,480
Speaker 2: They're making a bunch of money. But like this should

741
00:38:37,480 --> 00:38:41,120
Speaker 2: be so easily overcome. Any reasonable person that seems like

742
00:38:41,120 --> 00:38:44,360
Speaker 2: who cares about animal life would be like, guys, what

743
00:38:44,480 --> 00:38:47,680
Speaker 2: are you doing. You're killing whales for thirty one million

744
00:38:47,719 --> 00:38:50,560
Speaker 2: dollars a year. Just stop. We can't find anything else

745
00:38:50,640 --> 00:38:54,040
Speaker 2: to do, right, And Japan seems to oppose it because

746
00:38:54,040 --> 00:38:57,160
Speaker 2: they resent the international pressure that's been put on them

747
00:38:57,200 --> 00:38:59,879
Speaker 2: over the years. Yeah, Norway seems to oppose it because

748
00:38:59,880 --> 00:39:03,640
Speaker 2: they have some non indigenous coastal communities who have a

749
00:39:03,680 --> 00:39:06,120
Speaker 2: tradition of whaling that they're just basically trying to keep

750
00:39:06,160 --> 00:39:10,760
Speaker 2: this custom alive for these small coastal communities. And again,

751
00:39:10,840 --> 00:39:13,160
Speaker 2: like I understand some people make their living like this,

752
00:39:13,600 --> 00:39:17,280
Speaker 2: but it's not like this is an amount of money

753
00:39:17,280 --> 00:39:20,040
Speaker 2: that could be subsidized in other ways by the government

754
00:39:20,120 --> 00:39:24,480
Speaker 2: that could spare the whales lives while also employing people

755
00:39:25,120 --> 00:39:27,239
Speaker 2: at the same rates that they're being employed by the

756
00:39:27,280 --> 00:39:28,160
Speaker 2: whaling industry.

757
00:39:28,440 --> 00:39:32,719
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Japan spite is not a good reason to

758
00:39:32,880 --> 00:39:36,960
Speaker 3: keep whaling. It's true, like we don't like this international pressure.

759
00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:38,680
Speaker 3: Everyone's trying to get us to stop that. So we're

760
00:39:38,719 --> 00:39:40,799
Speaker 3: not gonna stop it because just because you want us to.

761
00:39:41,920 --> 00:39:45,279
Speaker 3: I know, Norway, I think they eventually stopped in recent

762
00:39:45,400 --> 00:39:50,080
Speaker 3: years subsidizing the whaling industry, and I think in past

763
00:39:50,120 --> 00:39:52,239
Speaker 3: years that was about half the entire value of the

764
00:39:52,239 --> 00:39:56,360
Speaker 3: annual catch. So it's gonna definitely be going down in Norway.

765
00:39:56,520 --> 00:40:00,840
Speaker 3: And you know you got enough in your freeze, are Japan?

766
00:40:00,960 --> 00:40:03,200
Speaker 3: So like if you want to eat it, eat.

767
00:40:03,040 --> 00:40:06,840
Speaker 2: That, right, Yeah. I mean, it's just it's bizarre, and

768
00:40:07,200 --> 00:40:10,319
Speaker 2: it doesn't seem like the Japanese. It doesn't seem like

769
00:40:10,320 --> 00:40:11,040
Speaker 2: something that would do.

770
00:40:11,120 --> 00:40:15,799
Speaker 3: But it is an interesting conundrum from what everything I

771
00:40:15,800 --> 00:40:17,840
Speaker 3: know about Japanese culture and people. But you know, I

772
00:40:17,840 --> 00:40:20,280
Speaker 3: guess this is you know, a small part of that culture.

773
00:40:20,480 --> 00:40:20,680
Speaker 4: You know.

774
00:40:20,880 --> 00:40:22,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, everybody's got a little spie to them.

775
00:40:22,800 --> 00:40:24,120
Speaker 4: Right, I mean, I know I do.

776
00:40:25,520 --> 00:40:30,480
Speaker 2: So. Unfortunately, even if we just completely eradicate whaling, which

777
00:40:30,480 --> 00:40:32,959
Speaker 2: again I predict is gonna happen in twenty years, within

778
00:40:33,000 --> 00:40:37,439
Speaker 2: twenty years, God, I hope I'm right, there are other

779
00:40:37,480 --> 00:40:39,880
Speaker 2: threats to whales that have become like even bigger, Like

780
00:40:39,960 --> 00:40:42,960
Speaker 2: global warming is a big one. By catch, so like

781
00:40:43,000 --> 00:40:44,880
Speaker 2: a lot of whales die because they end up in

782
00:40:44,960 --> 00:40:47,240
Speaker 2: nets that are meant to catch other stuff like tuna,

783
00:40:48,719 --> 00:40:50,880
Speaker 2: so that I think a lot of them die that

784
00:40:50,920 --> 00:40:54,960
Speaker 2: way more than are hunted. And then ghost fishing. Remember

785
00:40:54,960 --> 00:40:58,640
Speaker 2: we did an episode on ghost fishing. Yeah, that's a

786
00:40:58,680 --> 00:41:00,520
Speaker 2: big problem for whales as well.

787
00:41:01,000 --> 00:41:03,200
Speaker 3: You know, Ordinarily, in the past, Josh I would have said, well,

788
00:41:03,239 --> 00:41:05,399
Speaker 3: in twenty years, we'll let you know. But if I'm

789
00:41:05,440 --> 00:41:08,640
Speaker 3: still doing the show at seventy five years old. That

790
00:41:08,840 --> 00:41:10,719
Speaker 3: I'm not going to say something has gone really right.

791
00:41:10,760 --> 00:41:14,640
Speaker 3: That means something has gone really wrong. Okay, officially, fair enough,

792
00:41:15,000 --> 00:41:17,480
Speaker 3: I'm with you on that one. I'm not announcing my retirement,

793
00:41:17,520 --> 00:41:20,120
Speaker 3: but I'm not gonna do this till I'm seventy five.

794
00:41:20,600 --> 00:41:23,040
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, I'll hold you to that. Seventy two,

795
00:41:23,160 --> 00:41:23,759
Speaker 2: seventy three.

796
00:41:24,440 --> 00:41:26,560
Speaker 4: No one wants to hear Abe Simpson.

797
00:41:29,440 --> 00:41:33,279
Speaker 2: So I guess that's it. One challenge for conservationist now, Chuck,

798
00:41:33,320 --> 00:41:36,920
Speaker 2: I have to say is like you can't just say

799
00:41:37,280 --> 00:41:40,000
Speaker 2: stop global warming, stop by catch, stop ghost fishing. There's

800
00:41:40,000 --> 00:41:43,480
Speaker 2: all these different things. Before it was stop whaling, and

801
00:41:43,520 --> 00:41:46,920
Speaker 2: it was very successful. Like you said, it's often compared

802
00:41:46,920 --> 00:41:53,040
Speaker 2: to the ozone layer being tackled. The whales were definitely saved,

803
00:41:53,040 --> 00:41:55,319
Speaker 2: but there's still now other problems that we have to

804
00:41:55,360 --> 00:41:55,960
Speaker 2: work on too.

805
00:41:56,239 --> 00:41:56,479
Speaker 4: Yeah.

806
00:41:56,520 --> 00:41:58,360
Speaker 3: I mean, if you had, you'd have to have a

807
00:41:58,360 --> 00:42:03,000
Speaker 3: T shirt collection about bycatch and global warming and everything else.

808
00:42:03,040 --> 00:42:05,960
Speaker 3: Save the whales really just encapsulated everything nicely.

809
00:42:06,360 --> 00:42:07,759
Speaker 2: Or yeah, or you could put it all on one

810
00:42:07,800 --> 00:42:09,560
Speaker 2: T shirt, but you just walk around with a magnifying

811
00:42:09,600 --> 00:42:11,440
Speaker 2: glass to hand to people. So they could read your

812
00:42:11,440 --> 00:42:11,960
Speaker 2: T shirt.

813
00:42:12,239 --> 00:42:14,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, or maybe it just says equals and then on

814
00:42:14,960 --> 00:42:16,080
Speaker 3: the back save the whales.

815
00:42:16,840 --> 00:42:21,120
Speaker 2: Nice. Nice. I think that's it. Chuck just kind of

816
00:42:21,239 --> 00:42:24,720
Speaker 2: dropped his mike. You couldn't hear it because Jerry edited

817
00:42:24,719 --> 00:42:27,080
Speaker 2: it out, but I heard it, and that means it's

818
00:42:27,080 --> 00:42:28,000
Speaker 2: time for listener, ma'am.

819
00:42:30,800 --> 00:42:31,080
Speaker 1: All right.

820
00:42:31,120 --> 00:42:33,120
Speaker 3: We also took another break while I reattached my mic

821
00:42:34,600 --> 00:42:39,200
Speaker 3: and I'm going to read this one. Hey, guys, near

822
00:42:39,200 --> 00:42:41,280
Speaker 3: the end of your recent Middle Class episode, you discuss

823
00:42:41,400 --> 00:42:45,560
Speaker 3: greenwashed recycling programs, and Chuck, I'm sad to say and

824
00:42:45,600 --> 00:42:48,480
Speaker 3: confirm that your instincts regarding car battery recycling are correct.

825
00:42:49,520 --> 00:42:51,520
Speaker 3: I've sent you an investigative piece by The New York

826
00:42:51,560 --> 00:42:54,880
Speaker 3: Times which uncovered the reality of the recycling of batteries,

827
00:42:54,960 --> 00:42:58,640
Speaker 3: namely that they are collected, shipped on freighters to another continent,

828
00:42:59,320 --> 00:43:03,000
Speaker 3: and then gnually broken down by an exploited workforce. Rather

829
00:43:03,040 --> 00:43:06,120
Speaker 3: than true recycling, it seems more of a resource harvesting,

830
00:43:06,440 --> 00:43:08,520
Speaker 3: where many of the components are smelted down in ways

831
00:43:08,520 --> 00:43:11,960
Speaker 3: that pollute the surrounding area and cause a lot of illness. Sadly,

832
00:43:12,000 --> 00:43:13,560
Speaker 3: I'm not sure where this leaves any of us as

833
00:43:13,560 --> 00:43:15,760
Speaker 3: to a better alternative when replacing our batteries.

834
00:43:16,520 --> 00:43:18,640
Speaker 4: That is from Gabby, who says thanks for many years

835
00:43:18,640 --> 00:43:21,359
Speaker 4: of learnings and companionship man.

836
00:43:21,440 --> 00:43:23,400
Speaker 2: Why is everything so evil?

837
00:43:24,040 --> 00:43:27,000
Speaker 4: I know it's sort of sort of not a great

838
00:43:27,000 --> 00:43:27,760
Speaker 4: time to be alive.

839
00:43:28,640 --> 00:43:30,879
Speaker 2: You know, I've kind of come to the same conclusion, Chuck.

840
00:43:31,080 --> 00:43:34,000
Speaker 2: Very interesting time to be alive, But I think I

841
00:43:34,040 --> 00:43:38,960
Speaker 2: would trade interesting for stable and calm and happy and

842
00:43:39,040 --> 00:43:39,920
Speaker 2: yeah so evil.

843
00:43:40,360 --> 00:43:41,920
Speaker 4: Yeah that's the T shirt.

844
00:43:43,560 --> 00:43:45,280
Speaker 2: Equals save the Josh.

845
00:43:45,320 --> 00:43:45,759
Speaker 4: That's right.

846
00:43:47,040 --> 00:43:49,280
Speaker 2: Well, if you want to be like Gabby, thanks a lot, Gabby.

847
00:43:49,520 --> 00:43:51,080
Speaker 2: If you want to be like Gabby and send us

848
00:43:51,120 --> 00:43:53,799
Speaker 2: an email, that's a total downer. We're open to those

849
00:43:53,920 --> 00:43:56,680
Speaker 2: kind of things. You can send it off to stuff

850
00:43:56,719 --> 00:44:03,200
Speaker 2: podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is

851
00:44:03,200 --> 00:44:04,560
Speaker 2: a production of iHeartRadio.

852
00:44:05,040 --> 00:44:09,400
Speaker 1: For more podcasts myheart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

853
00:44:09,520 --> 00:44:11,360
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.