Save the Whales!

Introduction

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Podcast Introduction

1:20Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

1:31Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jerry's here too. And we are going crunchy, granola even today, talking about saving the whales, which, Chuck, I don't know about you, but for me that was like a big part of my childhood. So this is a little bit nostalgic for me. Yeah, I mean, if you're insinuating I grew up under a rock in the 1970s, that is not the case. You did live on a gravel road. That's true. There were rocks involved. I lived among rocks. But yeah, I mean, I would go out on a limb and say that,

2:05well, this article says Save the Whales is one of the most successful environmental conservation movements in history. But I'm, from my mouth to thine ears, I'm going to say I think the Save the Whales campaign is one of the most effective marketing campaigns across any genre in history. Wow. Wow. It was that ubiquitous. Yeah, it was super ubiquitous. I think you caught more of it than me even. Like the stuff that I caught was a little bit of the after wash.

2:35I don't know. Like remember that thing? You were living a, well, no, it was still a thing. But I think the peak, I missed the peak and you were living right through it. Because the 70s were like when this really started to ramp up big time. And I'm sure plenty of people out there have heard Save the Whales. And it is like a pretty ubiquitous slogan. Used to be even more ubiquitous, like we're saying. But despite that there wasn't like one person or group that you're like, yep, they started Save the Whales. It almost just kind of bubbled up into the collective consciousness.

3:10And a bunch of different groups kind of started doing the same thing. Sometimes working together, other times doing it independently.

Whale Conservation History

3:17But the whole goal was to preserve declining whale populations from extinction. And they all were kind of under the same banner of Save the Whales. Yeah. And we're going to talk a little bit about the actual saving of the whales. We're going to talk a little bit about that campaign, you know, slogan and how that was a thing. But if you want to talk about just the word Save the Whales, that did not come about in the 1970s. That became a thing. And I mean, the phrase dates back to the 1800s, like the 1880s.

3:50But it really became a thing in the 1920s when whale conservation was first a little flicker on the radar of, I mean, what would be early conservationists. But in 1928, there was a mammologist group that had a Save the Whales meeting in Washington, D.C. And that's when it really kicked off as far as like, you know, there were buttons and there was a satirical poem written about how ubiquitous it was in the 1920s and 30s. So it was definitely a big thing early on.

4:22Yeah. And in those articles, I think Anna helped us with this one. She dug up some articles from the 20s about those meetings. And they were likening saving the whales to the bison populations that almost went extinct, you know, just a few decades before. So the lesson was learned by some. And they're like, these whales aren't going to be around much longer either. And it wasn't just the U.S. It spread around the world like other countries started kind of their own Save the Whale initiatives. It was clear that we were over whaling. And yet, despite that, in the 1920s and 30s, whaling was still generally antiquated.

4:59It was still the kind of whaling that you think of like New Bedford, Massachusetts, like the salty old sea dog with the peg leg and a spear in his other hand, a pipe, maybe even a parrot. Like out there whaling with a harpoon that he's using with his hands. They killed a lot of whales like that.

Industrial Whaling

5:17But it was nothing compared to the industrial whaling that started in like the middle of the 20th century. Yeah. I mean, they started having, you know, literal cannons mounted on the side of a ship that would shoot exploding harpoons. And by the 60s, they were taking 80,000 whales a year. Blue whales neared extinction, plenty of others in like grave danger. I am taking my first trip to Nantucket this summer. And that is, they have a whaling museum there.

5:50Yeah. That I'm going to go to. I've never even been to that part of the country, really. So I'm eager to go and not to celebrate whaling, but just as a sort of historical museum kind of thing. Emily has already said that she won't be going. No, I can understand that. It would be kind of hard to take for sure. Yeah, but I mean, I imagine it's fairly interesting. It's just a blip in time, but it's not, I doubt if they're trying to sell you one whaling. Or at least I hope not. Right, right. Remember when. Yeah. That's great about Nantucket. That is like, to dirty limericks, what Enya is, the crosswords.

6:23Wow. Yeah. Yeah, that's a nice pull. So a good comparison here is like, like I said, New Bedford, Massachusetts, that area, Nantucket, Cape Cod, I guess. Sure. They, they, this was like the seat of whaling internationally in like the mid-19th century. And over this, basically this decade of American dominance of whaling, they took 100,000 whales. Now, what you're saying is that by the 60s, they're taking almost that amount in one year, not a decade.

6:57That's how much it had gotten stepped up. And if the people in the 20s and the 30s were worried about whales going extinct before using the kind of antiquated original whaling techniques, this new stuff was really a threat to them. Yeah, for sure.

Save the Whales Campaign

7:11And, you know, the 70s, it sort of merged with the post-60s crunchiness to really become a big thing. But going back to the 30s, in 1930, on the nose, the League of Nations got together and established the Bureau of International Whaling Statistics just so they could see if it truly was a bison situation. And a year later, they're like, yep, it's pretty bad. They're declining big time. And so 22 nations signed an agreement at the Geneva Convention that year for the regulation of whaling to put some limits.

7:43And that was kind of the first move was in 1931. You know what else I saw, too? It's something else that saved the whales in the first, I guess, first half of the 20th century was the invention of the light bulb because people didn't need whale oil for lamps anymore. Yeah, I mean, I guess we should say that. They whaled because that blubber was oil for lamps and people also ate it. And also, you know, we're not going to not talk about indigenous populations where it's, you know, they depended on that stuff for sustenance.

8:15And some still do. So, yeah, that's why they whaled. Well, also, that's why some of these early, I guess, international agreements on conserving whale stocks were created, not because they're like, whaling's wrong. They were like, we need to be able to keep whaling in the future. So let's not overdo it now. Let's figure out what is a sustainable amount. That's what the earliest agreements were for. Yeah, let's stop whaling some so we can keep whaling.

Early Conservation Efforts

8:45Exactly. So that was the first one, 31. 37 came along and 10 nations signed on to another one called the International Agreement for the Regulation of Whaling. Also put some more limits. It banned blue humpback, fin, and sperm whales under certain lengths. But it was still declining. So in 1946, the International Whaling Commission, they just keep starting these commissions and getting member countries on board. And it's really not making much of a difference. Right. And they did that in 46 again with 14 member nations.

9:17But the 46 one, you know, aligned or I guess the 37 aligned with World War II. So they were like, we can't go without this oil like at this time. So it just it didn't really have any teeth. Yeah. Not only that, they needed like meat. So they weren't in a position. The world wasn't in a position after World War II to be like, no, let's not let's stop taking this meat. Like like whale meat fed a lot of people who didn't have access to other kinds of protein from World War II. So, yeah, those agreements were kind of like, no, this this isn't going to work right now.

9:49And then as things started to ramp up, because now there was a much bigger market that hadn't been there before for whale meat, like a global market. That's why it became this industrial factory farming like version of whaling. Right. So because there was just a lot more money to be made. So the people who finally started the Save the Whales campaign in the 70s had a really huge hill to climb. The biggest hill anyone who was against whaling itself ever had to climb in the history of whaling.

10:21Yeah, for sure. But it was, like I said, kind of the right time coming out of the 60s. There were a lot more just sort of environmental concerns popping up. The EPA was a little more in the limelight. And it was just there was more awareness of that kind of thing. And there was a big perspective shift that happened that was much, much different from those earlier ones, like you were saying, where it was like, let's conserve so we can keep whaling. Like, this was a legitimate, like, hey, these things we're realizing are intelligent. And that started happening in the 1950s, like finding out that whales were smart.

10:52Yeah. Thanks to a Navy engineer named Frank Watlington was a really big change. Well, yeah, he liked to, I almost have the sense that it was in his spare time, record with a hydrophone the underwater sounds of the Navy, like shooting off bombs. And he accidentally caught some whale songs of some baleen whales. And he was like, this is, I've not heard stuff like this before. It seems like there's a pattern to it or a rhythm or they keep coming back to like a chorus. I don't know.

Songs of the Humpback Whale

11:21So he gave it to some marine biologists who actually took it and released it as an album in 1970, Songs of the Humpback Whale. Have you listened to it? Oh, yeah. Like most of my adult life. Yeah. It's just so mellow. It's so ambient that you're like, wait, did they add some synth here? And no, it's just nothing but whale songs, right? Yeah. Brian Eno had nothing to do with it. Right. So I can't imagine, this was released in 1970. I can't imagine between 1970 and 1980 how much acid was dropped listening to the album Songs of the Humpback Whale, man.

11:58It was like made for it. So maybe I think this has got to be fair use. We can just play a short snippet just so people can hear a piece. Yeah. Okay, sure. Let's give it a shot. All right. Here we go, everybody, with Songs of the Humpback Whale on SYSK.

12:15Here is part of the same song played at its natural speed and pitch, just the way other whales hear it. All the sounds are made by one whale, both the high squeaky tones and the low rumbly ones. Wow.

12:55What an album, right? Yeah, I mean, it's the only multi-platinum album of animal sounds, which is completely believable. Yeah, I can't imagine there's too many more. Yeah, I mean, it actually became a huge hit. It's the only multi-platinum album of animal sounds, which I guess, now they think about it, is completely believable. Right. But if you just go listen to it, it's only like a half hour or so long. I think it says Songs of the Humpback Whale, but there's so many different songs that I'm like, there's got to be different species involved.

13:27It's just neat. Just go listen. Yeah, it's super cool. And the whole point of it all was is that it raised awareness. People were all of a sudden like, wait, these, like scientists said, I think they're communicating here, and they're super smart, like Chuck would later say in a podcast. And so Save the Whales campaign all of a sudden had a kind of different rallying cry, which is like, hey, we're, you know, these aren't just big, dumb logs floating around in the ocean. These are really super smart animals to be protected. Right. And so in environmental ease, they became ambassador animals for the ocean as a whole.

14:02Yeah. This is now an animal that you can make people care about, and now we have to go get the word out, and by saving whales, you're also going to save everything else in the whales ecosystem that you're working to preserve. That's right. Should we take a break? Yeah, I was about to say the same thing. So Jinx, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, you owe me nine Cokes. Oh, gosh. All right. I'm going to go to the store, and we'll be right back. Hey, everyone.

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16:53AT&T. AT&T. AT&T. AT&T. AT&T. AT&T. AT&T. AT&T. All right. We're back, everybody, after a delay that you don't need to even know about, right? It's our business. Yeah.

Mind Bomb Tactics

17:06None, yeah. So Save the Whales is kicked off in the 70s. And I think you mentioned earlier on, it's, you know, sometimes was in parallel with one another. It wasn't like just one group doing this, but everyone got on board with that same, the same three words because it was a very unifying thing. And this is sort of a loose timeline of how it started. And it kicked off in 1971 when the Animal Welfare Institute got together with the Fund for Animals to officially launch the 1970s version of the Save the Whales campaign.

17:37Right. And they started doing things like, you know, going to teachers' conventions, you know, sending out, you know, information and mailers and placing ads and saying like, hey, maybe we should boycott whaling nations, that kind of stuff. Right. Yeah. In just a few years, they started a pretty big boycott, I think, in 1974. They said, no Japanese goods, no Russian goods. Yes, we're even talking about vodka. They had to say that a lot. Yeah. And I think 18 other groups signed on, and I think 5 million Americans said, yes, no Russian goods, no Japanese goods.

18:15Let's save the whales. Hot damn. For real. They got benefit concerts together. I know David Bowie in 1972 had a very, he headlined a very famous Save the Whales benefit concert. You know, of course, Greenpeace would get on board early on, although they would get on board two years after it started with their Project Ahab, which was a little surprising. They're like, no, wait, what about the panda? I thought we were all doing the panda. They're like, that's later. We'll do the panda next. We're going to save the whales now. Finally, Greenpeace came around.

18:46Yeah. And, you know, a lot of this early stuff was very just sort of local roots oriented, like in the mid 70s, the Connecticut Cetacean Society. Just like literally went from town to town in Connecticut with Save the Whales events and places like Mendocino, California had the Mendocino Whale Festival and founded the Mendocino Whale War. So it's like, you know, and this is where whaling is taking place mainly in these like sort of little small coastal towns. So it wasn't like, you know, we're going to go to New York City and have this big event like they were doing it where it was going on.

19:21Yeah. And there were like different ways of doing this. Some were like we want to go like basically confront whaling ships where they're whaling. Other people are like, let's just we just need to raise awareness and raise money and all. Like it wasn't like this this thing that I'm doing is the right way to do it. It was like, OK, you're going to do that. I'll handle this over here and all together. We're going to save the whales, even though there wasn't like necessarily a lot of coordination going on. It was just, you know, you kind of look to your left and see somebody like trying to save the whales with you.

19:55And you just kind of give them like a finger gun and a wink and be like right on. Yeah, for sure. I mean, they proposed moratoriums and stuff like that. And we'll get into the weeds about how that actually went down in a little bit. But one of the big things that happened in the 70s was that T-shirt in 1977. There was a woman named Maris Seidenstecker who had been selling these shirts for like three years, like really successfully since I think 1974. And she was 16 years old.

20:25And in 77 founded, because of the success of these T-shirts, founded her own conservation group called Save the Whales. Yeah, she had a small ad in Rolling Stone, just this recurring ad. And that's how she got the word out about the T-shirts. And then one other thing I saw about her, she was named Maris Seidenstecker II because her mother was Maris Seidenstecker I. That's unusual, but pretty cool, huh? Yeah, usually that would be junior. Well, you just don't usually see that with women. It's mostly men, you know?

20:56Well, it's because men are the only people who think their name means something. Well, sure. The Seidenstecker women stuck their thumb in the eye of the patriarchy is what they did. You put it on this building or on my parking spot. So, let's talk about some of the tactics they took. Like I said, you'd look to your left, look to your right. All these people are taking these different approaches to it. It's all about saving the whales. One of the easiest ones is to just kind of go to the kids. Because as we'll see, if you can go to the younger generation,

21:27that's like the long game that you're playing. But it's also the one that's more likely to pay off. If you teach little kids that whales are smart, that they live in families, that they care about their babies just like your mom cares about you, those kids are going to grow up to see whales as not something that you kill for blubber or meat, but something that you need to protect from people who want to kill them for their blubber or meat. Yeah, for sure. So, that's kind of the starting point, I think, is just educating the children, the childrens.

21:57We already talked about, obviously, public events like concerts and protests and boycotts. The merchandising, like the t-shirt, that's not just like, hey, let me make this shirt. Like bumper stickers and shirts and buttons are a big part of any kind of movement like that. Yeah. One thing, you mentioned that Bowie concert. I saw somebody was writing about it and they said, like, this was the concert that made David Bowie like a superstar. Like he was on the rise and that concert was where he turned the corner. Hmm. What year was it?

22:2972. Okay. It was supposedly a pretty good concert. He had Lou Reed on stage and they played Sweet Jane and like two other songs I've never heard of. Yeah. It seemed like it probably was pretty cool. I wish I could have been there. That's a big regret for me is Bowie. He's on the short list of dudes I never got to see and had a chance to, you know. He's on the Time Machine list? Yeah. Like a really regrettable one because he was around and playing shows that, you know, I never was like, no, I'm not going to go to that.

23:00Like, but it wasn't like, you know, Queen stopped playing shows. That's another one on my list. But they stopped playing shows in Atlanta when I was, I don't even think they played there after I was like seeing concerts. So, you know. I see. I see. So that's not as regrettable as Bowie. Yeah, because I had the chance to see Bowie and did not take it. I understand. That's okay to me. I was like, he's never going to leave us is what I thought. Right. Bowie will never die. Bowie rules. Bowie lives. Yeah. Very sad. So one of the tactics that actually kind of emerged from this Greenpeace is like, we need to catch up.

23:32We got to come up with our own kind of brand to do in this. And they came up with a term for it. They called it the mind bomb. Yeah. Which is basically like now. Yeah, it is very corny. Nowadays, you're like, well, yeah, that's of course you're going to do something like that. If you're an activist campaigning, you know, to say save an animal, the mind bomb was basically like showing people unfiltered photographs of what is actually going on. And that's what they did. They released a lot of photographs to the press internationally of whaling in action so that people could see how brutal it was.

24:10They made it no longer just a concept that people heard about, save the whales, save the whales. Now they could see for themselves why people were saying save the whales because they were being brutalized by humans. Yeah. And there was one particular adventure that they went on that kind of started it all and was in newspapers all over the country. It was in April of 1975 aboard the Phyllis McCormick boat. Twelve activists got on that boat and they spent a couple of months out at sea trying to find some whaling boats.

24:40Finally, in June, they caught up with a Russian fleet off the coast of California and just kind of followed it around for a little while, like using bullhorns and loudspeakers in Russian to beg them to stop killing whales, play like blast music at them and stuff. And that wasn't working. So eventually they were like, all right, we need to step it up just a little bit. And so they got it on those little rubber speed boats, like the little raft boats, and followed it around like a lot closer that you could do in those boats and like took some pretty horrifying pictures that like made a like these close up pictures of harpooning whales made a big, big difference in the campaign.

25:17Yeah, I saw just like that Bowie concert being where he turned the corner. Supposedly, this is where the Save the Whales effort really turned the corner, too. Like it was, again, international news. There were plenty of newspapers that put some of the pictures on their front page. And like it just really kind of captured people's attention. And so that whole mind bomb idea really kind of took off and spread, not just from Greenpeace, but, you know, to other groups, not just animal conservationists. And Greenpeace continued on. The ship that I grew up with that they used to do this with was the Rainbow Warrior.

25:50Remember that one? Oh, yeah. And by the way, for a second there, a minute ago, I thought you were going to say, like the Bowie thing, this is where photography really took off. Right, exactly. Exactly. In 1975. Yeah, I was like, oh, man, is that what's coming? Yeah, I totally remember the Rainbow Warrior. I didn't know you grew up on that boat, but that's pretty cool. Yeah, yeah. My dad was a mate. I love it. He was a matey on the Rainbow Warrior for many, many years. We had to basically peel him off of the deck and be like, go get a different job.

26:21So he became an HVAC engineer eventually. We need to shout out Australia because they had a Greenpeace affiliate called the Whale and Dolphin Coalition that was, like you said, kind of doing the same thing. They were like, hey, this is a really effective deal. So let's get out there. And we didn't say why I thought it was corny. Mind bomb is because they would blow people's minds. Exactly. With their pictures. For sure. And they did. But, again, it is a very corny way to put it. That's right. But that would be stepped up even more because, you know, Greenpeace gets a little more aggressive.

26:53And then there's always one more like the Brad Pitt group and 12 Monkeys that's like, no, they're not even taking it far enough. We need to actually, well, I guess sort of engage in sabotage. Yeah. This one I associate with the 90s, the Sea Shepherd. They were a conservation society founded, I think, in 1977 by a guy named Paul Watson who had been a Greenpeace member. It was like, you guys are corny. I'm out of here. I'm going to do something like actually significant, not just follow whalers around and take pictures.

27:25He followed whalers around and tried to sink their boats by ramming his own boat into them. And he was so successful, Chuck, that I propose we do a short stuff just on the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society itself. They have sunk a lot of boats. Yeah. He said, mine bombs are effective. Real bombs are more effective. Pretty much. I mean, they used at least one bomb on, I think, a ship called the Sierra, right? Yeah. Well, they rammed the Sierra a couple of times with their boat and damaged it. And then a few years later, or I don't know, I guess one year later, that was 79, in 1980 is when they planted an underwater bomb and sank that thing.

28:03And like you said, many others. Yeah. And just to be clear, Paul Watson and the Sea Shepherd Society, they have never injured a single person. Right. They've never been indicted for breaking any law. These are pirate whaling ships. They're operating completely outside of the bounds of international, like, agreements. Right. Where they're hunting endangered species that are off the table. They're taking whales that are young that shouldn't be taken. They're, like, taking more than they're supposed to.

28:34Like, it's a big deal that these people are out there. And that's why he's targeted them. And he said that in an interview, he's never lost a lawsuit that's been brought against him either. So, he's feeling pretty good about what he's doing. Yeah. And they, you know, this wasn't like, hey, we're going to, I mean, it was definitely awareness, but, like, it put an actual dent in the whaling industry. Like, they sank two of Spain's five, only five whaling ships.

29:04Yeah. And if I had a better math brain, I could figure out the percentage, but that's probably 40-something. So, yeah, another thing that he did, he would put out bounties on other pirate whaling ships. There was one called the Astrid, and the owner of the Astrid eventually just sold it because he couldn't trust the crew anymore, that they weren't going to sabotage it and take the $25,000 reward. Because he definitely wasn't paying them $25,000, right? And then there was one other thing that had this direct impact on whaling as an industry.

29:36Just him being out there sinking ships made whaling ships' insurance rates go sky high. So, there were some there, like, I can't afford the insurance anymore. I'm going to stop doing illegal whaling. That's right. And he also, he had that great line about mine bombs not being as effective as real bombs. He also had one about loose lips, and I think you can just fill in the rest. That's right. So, they're making a lot of headway, you know, sinking these ships and raising awareness. But, you know, we mentioned early on, like, just how big of a ubiquitous thing this was in the 70s.

30:08And it was, like, a legitimate pop culture phenomenon. I mean, it was right up there with, like, where's the beef in the 1980s, ironically. As far as, like, slogans that people knew and wore on shirts and put in songs, like, Judy Collins and Kate Bush both sampled that Songs of the Humpback Whale as, you know, awareness and because it sounded cool. There was a Save the Whales board game in 1978. And we can tell you firsthand, if you have made it to board game territory, then you're part of pop culture.

30:39Yeah. Apparently, I was reading about the rules. Players are, they cooperate rather than compete with one another to save the whales. I like cooperative games. I mean, that's definitely, like, difficult gameplay to come up with, I would guess. Yeah, they couldn't be like, all right, who's going to play the whaler? Right, exactly. Everybody hates me. Yeah. What was the pinnacle of the whole thing, though, Chuck? It came in 1986. Oh, yeah. Yeah, as everyone who's listening to the show knows, I know nothing of Star Trek, but I did know the plot, at least, of Star Trek, what is that, for The Voyage Home, which is when the crew, Captain Kirk and his crew, went back to save the whales.

31:21Yeah, so that's, I mean, yeah, a board game and a Star Trek, not a Star Trek episode, an entire Star Trek movie dedicated to saving a whale, saving the whales. That was a pretty big deal. So, yes, this thing spread, grew, metastasized, became part of just the regular culture. There were comic strips that mentioned it. Just the casual mentions of it, the way it came up, when you look back at it, you're like, yeah, this was everywhere. I remember there's a Simpsons where Lisa develops a crush on Nelson Muntz, and she goes to visit him at his house, and he has a poster on the wall that says, nuke the whales.

32:01Yeah. And she goes, nuke the whales? He's like, gotta nuke something. Save the nukes. She says, touche. Yeah, I remember wearing, we had hippie day in high school once a year where you, you know, pretty self-explanatory. Uh, and there was a picture of me, I believe, in the yearbook, uh, wearing my little hippie outfit, and my prop was a little Save the Whales sign. So, it was, you know, I wasn't stepping out and, and trying something original by any means. It was, like, super, and this was the mid to late 1980s at this point.

32:34Right. Underneath it said, Charles W. Bryant shows off his hippie outfit. Also, he's the best all-around boy. It probably said something like that, except for the last part. Uh, yeah, that was a big, that was a big surprise for you. Man, those yearbook captions. They were pretty bad. Yeah. I remember we had a yearbook in high school where they misspelled tomorrow on the cover. Did it say tomorrow? It said T-O-M-M-O-R-R-O-W. It's a too many M's?

33:06Too many, yes, too many M's. I have my hands over my eyes right now because I'm just cringing thinking about it. Like, they were, this was printed, distributed before anybody noticed. Like, they were done. That is on the editor in chief. And on the, um, the, um, teacher advisor. Yeah, the school sponsor. So, uh, okay. So, I think we've established Save the Whales, it, it spread throughout pop culture. People's sympathies, like, definitely started to go toward the whales.

33:36But where the rubber meets the road, is whaling going to stop? You need to go to the people who oversee stuff like this, like entire governments and national bodies. And just like they did in the 30s, they went back to the International Whaling Commission and said, hey, guys, what do you think about just stopping this? And the U.N. said, great idea. And the IWC said, uh, no. So, yeah, I mean, I think the first try was they proposed a 10-year moratorium on whaling. What year was that? I don't have that in front of me.

34:07It was 1972. Okay, yeah. So, that was 72. The next year in 73, the U.N. Conference on Human Environment basically said, yeah, 10-year moratorium. The IWC rejected it. And then the next year in 74, the AWI called for a boycott of Japanese and Russian goods. And that same year, 18 other conservation groups got on board with that boycott. But, again, it would take, I think, until 1982 before they got back to real, like, voting on moratoriums.

34:37Yeah, so, basically, in 19, yeah, in 1982, the IWC, the International Whaling Commission, basically said, let's take up this vote again. I could not find what prompted this. So, I just have to assume it was just the general awareness of saving the whales. So, they voted again on a moratorium, and it actually passed this time. And so, they said, well, we'll give everybody four years to get ready. But, in the 1986 season, the quote was that the catch limits for the killing for commercial purposes of whales from all stocks, any kind of whale, that's just me adding that parenthetical, shall be zero.

35:17No whales going to be killed in the 1986 whaling season. And it passed. 25 nations said yay. Seven said nay. Yeah. And it came into effect in 1986. And the thing was, Chuck, it was originally just going to be a temporary measure. And just like in the tradition of the IWC and other whaling commissions, the point was to allow the whale stocks to replenish themselves so you could get back to whaling. But they never lifted the moratorium. It's just continued indefinitely. For sure.

35:48Should we talk about some of these stats and then take our second break? Oh, my gosh. We haven't taken our second break? We have not. Okay. Yeah, definitely. All right. So it had a big impact, obviously, these moratoriums. At its peak in the 1960s, I think I mentioned they were killing about 80,000 whales a year. In 2023, the IWC estimated that 825 whales, down from 80,000, were killed by, you know, obviously only nations that object to the moratorium. And we'll get to those after the break.

36:18And also, we should point out, this doesn't include sort of the indigenous subsistence whaling that continues or, I think, kind of leaving that alone, right? Yeah. I mean, that only totaled 368 across four different indigenous groups in three different countries that year. So all told, there was about 1,200 whales killed. And like you said, down from 80,000. Yeah. And since 1978, blue whale populations have increased about 8.2% per year. Bowhead, about 3.7 per year.

36:49Humpbacks I mentioned in Act I were close to extinction. I think in the 1960s, there might have been as few as 5,000. And those babies are back over 80,000 now. Yeah. So let's take our break, Chuck, and we'll come back and talk about how whaling still continues, unfortunately.

Whaling Moratorium

37:06All right. We'll be right back. We'll be right back.

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39:28We're back. And I think we've kind of alluded to it a couple of times, but we are not indigenous whaling using traditional methods for subsistence is in no way in the crosshairs of basically anybody who is opposed to whaling, right? They don't even have crosshairs. Like people actually use the whales that they kill to feed themselves throughout the winter and stuff like that, right? Nobody's really got problems with that. It's commercial whaling, the industrial whaling. That's what everyone has a problem with. And it's still going on. Some stocks that actually did come back have started to become depleted again.

40:03And the way that it's going on is because some countries said, we're lodging an objection and we aren't going to comply with the whaling moratorium. Those countries were Iceland, Norway, and Japan. I should say are because they're all still doing that. And rather than Japan saying, we're just going to whale for commercial purposes, they, for some reason, hid behind this one exception that was made in the moratorium that you could kill whales for scientific purposes, ostensibly to study them to help preserve the whales, basically, right?

40:38And Japan's like, yeah, every whale we kill using all of our commercial fleet, we're just studying that for science. And that's just not what they've been doing. No, which is super shameful. And here's the other thing is there's two big points we're going to kind of hammer home here is in 2026, not many people at all are eating whale meat and they aren't making a lot of money doing this. So they've done studies, only 2% of Norwegians reported eating whale meat at least once a month.

41:10Consumption of whale meat in Japan is 1% of what it was from its peak in the 1960s. And so in 2006, Greenpeace was like, we need to get some independent research together. So they commissioned from the independent Nippon Research Center a study that found that 95% of Japanese people very rarely or never eat whale meat. And their stockpile, they have a stockpile of uneaten frozen whale meat and it doubled between 2002 and 2012. So like, it's this old, it seems like it's this older generation of nostalgia

41:46kind of digging in and all of this younger generation is just like, just, you know, once they die out, like no one's eating this stuff anymore. Yeah, there probably won't be whaling in 20 years is one way to look at it. Unless there's some weird revival of a taste for whale meat among younger generations, which doesn't seem likely. There's really the younger people are not into whale meat. The older people are because it's nostalgia food that takes them back to their childhood and, you know, post-World War II

42:18when people ate a lot of whale meat. Norway is basically the same way. Norway, so few people eat whale in Norway that basically 100% of Norway's whale catch is exported to Japan. Yeah, and they're not even really eating it. Right. And Japan is, like, they have that stockpile. The reason they have a stockpile is because the Japanese government subsidizes its whaling industry to the tune of $50 million a year. So that means that if you whale, you have a total guarantee

42:48that the Japanese government will buy the whale meat that you come and sell them, and the Japanese government just basically puts it in a freezer. So those whales died for nothing except for a handful of people that make some money. And like you said, the amount of money that we're talking about is relatively paltry when you're talking about an entire global industry. Yeah, there was in 2018, the U.S. Naval Institute put out an article that said the global revenue, like the entire world whaling industry revenue is about $31 million.

43:20And in 2012, and this is really going to drive it home, Norway's largest whaling company made a gross revenue of $1.3 million. And they, along with the lobby and the government, spent about four times as much on campaigns to try to get people to eat whale meat than they even netted with their nation's largest whaling company. Right. So, and it's not like if they were making $31 billion, that'd be a different thing.

43:51Forget the whales, they're making a bunch of money. But, like, this should be so easily overcome. Any reasonable person, it seems like, who cares about animal life would be like, guys, what are you doing? You're killing whales for $31 million a year? Just stop. We can't find anything else to do. Right. And Japan seems to oppose it because they resent the international pressure that's been put on them over the years. Yeah. Norway seems to oppose it because they have some non-indigenous coastal communities who have a tradition of whaling that they're just basically trying to keep this custom alive

44:24for these small coastal communities. And again, like, I understand some people make their living like this, but it's not like, like, this is an amount of money that could be subsidized in other ways by the government that could spare the whales' lives, while also employing people at the same rates that they're being employed by the whaling industry. Yeah. And Japan, spite is not a good reason to keep whaling. It's true. Like, oh, we don't like this international pressure. Everyone's trying to get us to stop that.

44:56So we're not going to stop it just because you want us to. I know Norway, I think they eventually stopped in recent years subsidizing the whaling industry. Um, and I think in past years that was about half the entire value of the annual catch. So it's going to definitely be going down in Norway and, you know, you got enough in your freezer, Japan. So, like, if you want to eat it, eat that. Right. Yeah. I mean, it's just, it's bizarre. And it doesn't seem like the Japanese, it doesn't seem like something they would do, but.

45:29It is an interesting, uh, conundrum from what everything I know about Japanese culture and people. But, you know, I guess this is, you know, a small part of that culture, you know? Yeah. Everybody's got a little spite to them, right? I mean, I know I do. So, unfortunately, even if we just completely eradicate whaling, which, again, I predict is going to happen in 20 years, within 20 years. Um, God, I hope I'm right. Um, there are other threats to whales that have become, like, even bigger. Like, global warming's a big one.

45:59Bycatch. So, like, a lot of whales die because they end up in nets that are meant to catch other stuff, like tuna. Um, so that, I think a lot of them die that way, more than are hunted. And then, um, ghost fishing. Remember we did an episode on ghost fishing? Oh, yeah. Um, that's a big problem for whales as well. You know, ordinarily in the past, Josh, I would have said, well, in 20 years, we'll let you know. But if I'm still doing this show at 75 years old, then I'm not going to say something has gone really right. That means something has gone really wrong.

46:30Okay. Officially. Fair enough. I'm with you on that one. I'm not announcing my retirement, but I'm not going to do this until I'm 75. Okay. All right. I'll hold you to that. 70 to 73. No one wants to hear Abe Simpson. Um, so I guess that's it. One, one challenge for conservationists now, Chuck, I have to say is, um, like you can't just say, stop global warming, stop bycatch, stop ghost fishing. There's all these different things with, before it was stop whaling.

47:01And it was very successful. Like you said, it's often compared to the ozone layer, um, being, um, tackled. Uh, the whales were definitely saved, but there's still now other problems that we have to work on too. Yeah. I mean, if you had, you'd have to have a t-shirt collection about bycatch and global warming and everything else. Save the whales really just encapsulated everything nicely. Or, yeah, or you could put it all on one t-shirt, but you just walk around with a magnifying glass to hand to people so they could read your t-shirt. Yeah. Or maybe it just says equals and then on the back, save the whales.

47:34Nice. Nice. Um, I think that's it. Chuck just kind of dropped his mic. You couldn't hear it because Jerry edited it out, but I heard it. Uh, and that means it's time for listener mail.

47:48All right. We also took another break while I reattached my mic. Uh, and I'm going to read this one. Hey guys, near the end of your recent middle class episode, you discussed greenwashed recycling programs. And Chuck, I'm sad to say, uh, and confirm that your instincts regarding car battery recycling are correct. Uh, I've sent you an investigative piece by the New York Times, which uncovered the reality of the recycling of batteries. Namely, that they are collected, shipped on freighters to another continent, and then manually broken down by an exploited workforce.

48:20Uh, rather than tree recycling, it seems more of a resource harvesting, where many of the components are smelted down in ways that pollute the surrounding area and cause a lot of illness. Uh, sadly, I'm not sure where this leaves any of us as to a better alternative when replacing our batteries. That is from Gabby, who says, thanks for many years of learnings and companionship. Man, why is everything so evil? I know. It's sort of, sort of not a great time to be alive, is it? You know, I've kind of come to the same conclusion, Chuck. Very interesting time to be alive, but I think I would trade, um, interesting for stable and calm and happy and not so evil.

48:57Yeah, that's, that's the t-shirt.

49:01Equals save the Josh. That's right. Uh, well, if you want to be like Gabby, thanks a lot, Gabby. Uh, if you want to be like Gabby and send us an email that's a total downer, we're open to those kind of things. Um, you can send it off to stuffpodcasts at iheartradio.com.

49:19Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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