Save the Whales!

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Save the Whales!"

Podcast: Stuff You Should Know
Hosts: Josh Clark & Chuck Bryant
Date: April 28, 2026
Episode Theme:
An in-depth exploration of the "Save the Whales" movement—its origins, cultural impact, tactics, successes, and ongoing challenges. Josh and Chuck trace whale conservation from its 19th-century beginnings through the peak 1970s campaign and examine modern whaling's decline and persistent threats.

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Main Theme & Episode Purpose

This episode dives into the history and impact of "Save the Whales"—one of the most famous and effective environmental campaigns ever. The hosts discuss how societal attitudes shifted, key moments in the anti-whaling movement, pop culture influence, ongoing whaling practices, and what remains to be done to ensure whale survival.

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1. Setting the Stage: Origins of Whale Conservation

[01:39–08:48]

• The phrase "Save the Whales" became prominent in the 1970s, but the concept dates to at least the 1920s, with some roots even earlier.
• Early conservationists in the 1920s and 1930s compared whales' plight to American bison and initiated meetings and satirical poems about whale preservation.
• Technological advances escalated whaling dramatically: by the 1960s, up to 80,000 whales/year were being killed, compared to ~100,000 in the entire 19th century in America.
• Quote: "By the 60s, they were taking 80,000 whales a year. Blue whales neared extinction, plenty of others in grave danger."
  (Josh, [05:32])

2. The Escalation and Early Regulation Attempts

[06:45–10:30]

• International efforts to regulate whaling began with the League of Nations in 1930.

• Multiple treaties and agreements through 1946 established regulatory bodies and attempted to limit whaling, often motivated by resource management, not compassion.

• World War II, food shortages, and lamp oil demand kept whaling essential in many countries despite regulations.

• Quote: "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."
  (Chuck, [08:28])

3. Discovery of Whale Intelligence: A Turning Point

[10:30–14:03]

• In the 1950s, US Navy engineer Frank Watlington recorded whale songs, revealing whales' intelligence and sparking empathy.

• The 1970 album Songs of the Humpback Whale reached multi-platinum sales, bringing whale sounds into popular culture.

• Quote: "It's the only multi platinum album of animal sounds, which is completely believable."
  (Josh, [13:05])

• Scientists' assertions that whales communicate and possess intelligence fueled the rebranding of whales as "ambassador animals" for ocean conservation.

4. The Modern Movement: Grassroots to Pop Icon

[18:18–23:34]

• The 1970s movement exploded with a decentralized network of groups under the "Save the Whales" banner.

• Pivotal events:

  • 1971: The Animal Welfare Institute partners with Fund for Animals to launch a formal campaign.
  • 1974: Major boycotts of Japanese and Russian goods, joined by millions.
  • 1977: Maris Sidenstecker (age 16) founds Save the Whales and popularizes the T-shirt; grassroots efforts blossom.
  • Local whale festivals, protests, and educational initiatives, especially targeting children.

• Quote: "If you teach little kids that whales are smart... those kids are gonna grow up to see whales as... something that you need to protect."
  (Chuck, [22:30])

• Celebrity activism: David Bowie headlines a 1972 benefit concert marking his transition to superstardom.

• Merchandise—T-shirts, bumper stickers, board games—cement the slogan as a cultural phenomenon.

5. Radicals, Media, and the "Mind Bomb"

[24:48–29:44]

• Greenpeace's "mind bomb" tactic: release graphic, unfiltered photos of whaling to create public outrage.

• 1975: Greenpeace confronts Russian whalers off California, resulting in iconic, widely published photos.

• The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (founded 1977 by Paul Watson, ex-Greenpeace) takes direct action—ramming and sinking illegal whaling ships, further pressuring the industry.

• Quote: "They have sunk a lot of boats."
  (Josh, [29:00])

• These efforts not only raised awareness, but directly affected industrial whaling through lost ships, increased insurance costs, and industry destabilization.

6. Pop Culture Saturation

[31:19–34:31]

• "Save the Whales" reaches a pop culture zenith:
  • Referenced in comic strips, board games, music (e.g., Judy Collins, Kate Bush), and film (e.g., Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home).
  • Simpsons episode with "Nuke the Whales" poster highlights cultural saturation.
  • Quote: "If you have made it to board game territory, then you're part of pop culture."
    (Josh, [32:00])

7. From Slogan to Policy: The IWC Moratorium

[34:45–38:21]

• Despite public pressure, initial calls for a whaling moratorium failed (IWC rejected it in 1972).

• 1982: International Whaling Commission finally enacts a moratorium, effective 1986—all commercial whaling to be suspended.

• The intent: allow whale populations to replenish. Crucially, the ban was never lifted.

• HUGE impact: from 80,000 whales/year in the 1960s to around 825/year by 2023 (excluding indigenous whaling).

• Quote: "Blue whale populations have increased about 8.2% per year. Bowhead about 3.7 per year. Humpbacks... might have been as few as 5,000. And those babies are back over 80,000 now."
  (Josh, [38:01])

8. Whaling Today: The Holdouts and Modern Challenges

[41:33–48:22]

• Commercial whaling continues in only three countries: Iceland, Norway, and Japan, all exploiting legal loopholes or rejecting the IWC moratorium.

• Japan, notably, continued "scientific" whaling—a pretense widely seen as false, with most whale meat unsold and stockpiled.

  • Consumption of whale meat is minimal: only 2% Norwegians eat it monthly; in Japan, it's down to 1% of its 1960s peak.
  • Most Norwegian whale meat is exported to Japan, which already has large stockpiles.
  • The industry is propped up by government subsidies (e.g., Japan spends $50 million/year).

• Quote: "Those whales died for nothing except for a handful of people that make some money... $31 million a year globally."
  (Chuck, [45:12])

• The episode stresses the decline is driven by lack of public demand rather than legal pressure alone, suggesting that within 20 years "there probably won't be whaling anymore."

9. New Threats: Beyond Whaling

[48:22–50:13]

• Even if commercial whaling ceases, whales now face existential threats from:

  • Global warming
  • Bycatch (unintended capture in fishing gear)
  • Ghost fishing (lost fishing gear that continues trapping marine life)

• The challenge: Unlike the simple rallying cry of "Save the Whales," these modern problems require different and more nuanced campaigns.

• Notable Moment:

  • T-shirt discussion: "Save the Whales" was succinct and unifying, while today's threats are harder to encapsulate.
  • Quote: "One challenge for conservationists now... you can't just say, stop global warming, stop bycatch, stop ghost fishing. Before, it was 'stop whaling,' and it was very successful... The whales were definitely saved, but there's still now other problems."
    (Josh, [49:26])

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• "I think the Save the Whales campaign is one of the most effective marketing campaigns across any genre in history."
  (Josh, [02:08])

• "So the people who finally started the Save the Whales campaign of the 70s had a really huge hill to climb, the biggest hill anyone who was against whaling itself ever had."
  (Chuck, [10:02])

• "Rainbow Warrior... that was the ship I grew up with." (Chuck joking about his dad being a "matey," [27:12])

• "[Sea Shepherds] have never injured a single person, they've never been indicted for breaking any law... they're targeting pirate whaling ships."
  (Chuck, [29:33])

• "Japan's spite is not a good reason to keep whaling."
  (Josh, [47:25])

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Key Timestamps

• 01:39: Start of main episode & early nostalgia
• 05:32: Modern whaling numbers & escalation
• 11:05: Whale intelligence discovery & Songs of the Humpback Whale
• 18:18: Save the Whales campaign launches
• 24:48: Greenpeace's "mind bomb" campaign
• 29:00: Sea Shepherd Conservation Society tactics
• 32:00: Board game and pop culture impact
• 35:27: IWC moratorium attempts, eventual 1986 ban ([35:59] vote passes)
• 38:01: Whale population rebounds—stats
• 41:33: Modern whalers: Iceland, Norway, Japan
• 48:22: Rise of new threats (global warming, bycatch, ghost fishing)
• 49:53: The challenge of today’s conservation messaging

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Conclusion

Hosts’ Closing Thoughts

While the "Save the Whales" campaign achieved remarkable success in reducing commercial whaling and reviving populations, current threats like climate change and bycatch require new thinking and action. The hosts are hopeful that commercial whaling will disappear entirely within 20 years, but urge continued vigilance and conservation efforts.

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Summary Takeaway

"Save the Whales!" offers a case study in how grassroots activism, shifting cultural attitudes, powerful media, pop culture engagement, and persistent policy work can together spur historic environmental change—while reminding listeners that no victory is ever final, and new threats require new answers.

Transcript

[Josh Clark]

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[Josh Clark]

Welcome to Stuff youf Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

[Chuck Bryant]

Hey, 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. A big part of my. So this is a little bit nostalgic for me.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I mean, if you're insinuating I grew up under a rock in the 1970s, that is not the case.

[Chuck Bryant]

You did live on a gravel road.

[Josh Clark]

That's true.

[Chuck Bryant]

There were rocks involved.

[Josh Clark]

I lived among rocks. But yeah, I mean, I would go out on a limb and say that, well, this article says Save the Whales is one of the most successful environmental conservation movements in history. But from my mouth to thine ears, I'm gonna say I think the Save the Whales campaign is one of the most effective marketing campaigns across any genre in history.

[Chuck Bryant]

Wow. Wow.

[Josh Clark]

It was that ubiquitous?

[Chuck Bryant]

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. I don't know.

[Josh Clark]

Like, remember that thing you were living.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, no, it was still a thing, but I think the peak. I missed the peak. And you were living right through it. Cause the 70s, 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. And a bunch of different groups kind of started doing the same thing, sometimes working together, other times doing it independently. But 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.

[Josh Clark]

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. But 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 mammalogist 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. 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 US 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. It 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, but it was nothing compared to the industrial whaling that started in, like, the middle of the 20th century.

[Josh Clark]

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 grave danger. I am taking my first trip to Nantucket this summer, and they have a whaling museum there that I'm gonna go to. I've never even been to that part of the country, really, so I'm eager to go. 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, I can understand that. It would be kind of hard to take, for sure.

[Josh Clark]

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 on whaling, or at least I hope not.

[Chuck Bryant]

Remember when that's great about Nantucket, that is like to dirty limericks, what Enya is to crosswords.

[Josh Clark]

Wow.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that's a nice pull.

[Chuck Bryant]

So a good comparison here is like. Like I said, New Bedford, Massachusetts, that area, Nantucket, Cape Cod, I guess.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

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. Yeah, that'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.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, for sure. And, 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. And that was kind of the first move was in 1931.

[Chuck Bryant]

You know what else I saw, too? Something else that saved the whales in the first. First half of the 20th century was the invention of the light bulb. Because People didn't need whale oil for lamps anymore.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I mean, I guess we should say that they wailed because that blubber was oil for lamps and people also ate it. And also, you know, we're not gonna not talk about indigenous populations where it's, you know, they depended on that stuff for sustenance. And some still do. So. Yeah, that's why they whaled.

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, let's stop whaling some so we can keep whaling.

[Chuck Bryant]

Exactly.

[Josh Clark]

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. But the 46, one, you know, aligned, or I guess the 37 aligned with World War II. So they, they were like, we can't go without this oil, like, at this time. So it just. It didn't really have any teeth.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, Not. Not only that, they needed, like, meat. So they, 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. And 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 of the 70s and 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.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, 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, thanks to a Navy engineer named Frank Watlington, was a really big change.

[Chuck Bryant]

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, 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. So he gave it to some marine biologists who actually took it and released it as an album in 1970, Songs of the Humpback Whale. And have you listened to it?

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah, Most of my adult life.

[Chuck Bryant]

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?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Brian Eno had nothing to do with it.

[Chuck Bryant]

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, it was, like, made for it.

[Josh Clark]

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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, okay. Sure. Let's give it a shot.

[Josh Clark]

All right, here we go, everybody. With Songs of the Humpback Whale on sysk. Here 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Wow, what an album. Right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I mean, it's the only multi platinum album of animal sounds, which is completely believable.

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right. But if you just go listen to it, it's only like a half hour or so long. I think it's. It says songs of the humpback whale, but there's so many different songs that I'm like, there's gotta be different species involved. It's just neat. Just go, listen.

[Josh Clark]

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. 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right? And so in environmental ease, they became ambassador animals for the ocean as a whole. Like, 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 whale's ecosystem that you're working to preserve.

[Josh Clark]

That's right. Should we take a break?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I was about to say the same thing. So, Jinx. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. You owe me nine Cokes.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, gosh. All right, I'm gonna go to the store and we'll be right back.

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[Josh Clark]

All right, we're back everybody. After a delay that you don't need to even know about. Right? It's our business.

[Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

So Save the Whales is kicked off in the 70s and I think you mentioned earlier on it's, you know, sometimes it was in parallel with one another. It wasn't like just one group doing this, but everyone got on board with that same. Those 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 a fund for animals to officially launch the 1970s version of the Save the Whales campaign. 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And I think 18 other groups signed on, and I think 5 million Americans said, yes. No Russian goods, no Japanese goods. Let's save the whale's hot dam for real.

[Josh Clark]

They got benefit concerts together. I know David Bowie in 1972, he headlined a very famous Save the Whales benefit concert. 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

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 gonna save the whales now. And finally, Greenpeace came around.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. 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 gonna go to New York City and have this big event, like, they were doing it where it was going on.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. 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. And all, like, it wasn't like this. This thing that I'm doing is the right way to do it. It was like, okay, 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, and you just kind of give them, like, a finger gun and a wink and be like, right on.

[Josh Clark]

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, and in 77, founded, because of the success of these T shirts, founded her own conservation group called Save the Whales.

[Chuck Bryant]

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 Merriciden Stecker I. That's unusual, but pretty cool, huh?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, usually that would be junior.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, you just don't usually see that with women. It's mostly men, you know?

[Josh Clark]

Well, it's because men are the only people who think their name means something.

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

on my parking spot.

[Chuck Bryant]

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, that's like the long game that you're playing, but it's also the one that's more likely to. 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 gonna 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.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, for sure. So that was, you know, that's kind of the starting point, I think, is just educating the children. The children's we already talked about, obviously, you know, public events like concerts and protests and boycotts, the merchandising like, the T shirt. Like, 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

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 that concert was where he turned the corner. Hmm.

[Josh Clark]

What year was it?

[Chuck Bryant]

72.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Josh Clark]

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.

[Chuck Bryant]

He's on the time machine list.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Like, a really regrettable one. Cause he was around and playing shows that, you know, I never was like, no, I'm not gonna go to that. But it wasn't like Queens stopped playing shows. That's another one on my list. But they could stop playing shows. And Atlanta, when I was. I don't even think they played there after I was, like, seeing concerts. So, you know.

[Chuck Bryant]

I see. I see. So that's not as regrettable as Bowie.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Because I had the chance to see Bowie and did not take it.

[Chuck Bryant]

I understand.

[Josh Clark]

That's like, he's never gonna leave us is what I thought.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right. Bowie will never die. Bowie rules. Bowie lives.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Very sad.

[Chuck Bryant]

So one of the tactics that actually kind of emerged from this Greenpeace was like, we need to catch up. We gotta come up with our own kind of brand of doing 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. Yeah. 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. They 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.

[Josh Clark]

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. Finally, 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, 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 speedboats, like the little raft boats, and followed it around, like a lot closer that you could do in those boats and took some pretty horrifying pictures that made a. Like these close up pictures of harpooning whales made a big, big difference in the campaign.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I saw just like that Bowie concert being where he turned a corner. Supposedly this is where the Save the Whales effort really turned a corner too. Like, it was, again, international news. There were plenty of newspapers that put it, 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. Remember that one?

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah. And by the way, for a second there, a minute ago, I thought you were gonna say, like, the Bowie thing. This is where photography really took off.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right, exactly. In 1975.

[Josh Clark]

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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, yeah. My dad was a mate. 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. So he became a H Vac engineer.

[Josh Clark]

Eventually, we need to shout out Australia. 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, well, I thought it was corny. Mind bomb. It's because they would blow people's minds.

[Chuck Bryant]

Exactly.

[Josh Clark]

With their pictures for sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

And they did. But again, it is a very corny way to put it.

[Josh Clark]

That's right. But that would be stepped up even more because, you know, Greenpeace gets a little more aggressive, and then there's always one more like the Brad Pitt group in 12 Monkeys that's like, nah, they're not even taking it far enough. We need to actually, well, I guess sort of engage in sabotage.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. This one I associate with the 90s is Sea Shepherd. They were a conservation society founded, I think, in 1977 by a guy named Paul Watson, who had been a Greenpeace member and was like, you guys are corny. I'm out of here. I'm going to do something like. Like actually significant, not just follow whalers around and take pictures. He 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.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. He said mine bombs are effective. Real bombs are more effective, pretty much.

[Chuck Bryant]

I mean, they used at least one bomb on, I think, a ship called the Sierra, Right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Well, they rammed the Sierra a couple of times with their boat and damaged it. And then a few years later, or No, I guess one year later, that was 79. And 1980 is when they planted an underwater bomb and sank that thing. And like you said, many others.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And just to be clear, Paul Watson and the Sea Shepherd Society, they have never injured a single person.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

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. Like, 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.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And they, you know, this wasn't like, hey, we're gonna. I mean, it was definitely awareness, but, like, it. It put an actual dent in the whaling industry. Like, they sank two of Spain's five. Only five whaling ships. Yeah. And if I had a better math brain, I could figure out the percentage, but that's probably 40 something, so.

[Chuck Bryant]

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. That had this direct impact on whaling as an industry. Just him being out there sinking ships made whaling ships insurance rates go sky high. So there were some that were like, I can't afford the insurance anymore. I'm gonna stop doing illegal whaling.

[Josh Clark]

That's right. And he also. He had that great line about mine bombs not being as effective as real bombs. And he also had one about loose lips. And I think you can just fill in the rest.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

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, and 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 awareness and. Cause 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Apparently. I was reading about the rules players are. They cooperate rather than compete with one another to save the whales.

[Josh Clark]

I like cooperative games.

[Chuck Bryant]

I mean, that's definitely, like, difficult gameplay to come up with, I would guess.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. They couldn't be like, all right, who's gonna play the whaler?

[Chuck Bryant]

Right. Exactly. Everybody hates me. Yeah. What was the pinnacle of the whole thing, though, Chuck? It came in 1986.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah. As everyone who's listening to the show knows, I know nothing of Star Tre, but I did know the plot, at least of Star Trek. What is that? The Voyage Home, which is when the crew. Captain Kirk and his crew went back to save the whales.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So that's. I mean, yeah, 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. Yeah. And she goes, nuke the whales. He's like, gotta nuke something.

[Josh Clark]

Save the nukes.

[Chuck Bryant]

Touche.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I remember wearing. We had hippie day in high school once a year where you pretty self explanatory. And there was a picture of me, I believe, in the yearbook, wearing my little hippie outfit. And my prop was a little Save the Whale sign. So it was, you know, I wasn't stepping out and trying something original by any means. It was like, super. And this was the mid to late 1980s at this point.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right underneath it said, charles W. Bryant shows off his hippie outfit. Also, he's the best all around.

[Josh Clark]

Boy, it probably said something like that, except for the last part.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that was a big surprise for you.

[Josh Clark]

Man, those yearbook captions, they were pretty bad.

[Chuck Bryant]

I remember we had a yearbook in high school where they misspelled tomorrow on the COVID Say, to Mari, it's a T O, M, M, O, R, R,

[Josh Clark]

O, W. Too many m's.

[Chuck Bryant]

Too 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.

[Josh Clark]

That is on the editor in chief

[Chuck Bryant]

and on the teacher advisor.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, the school sponsor.

[Chuck Bryant]

So, okay, so I think we've established Save the Whales. It spread throughout pop culture. People's sympathies, like, definitely started to go toward the whales, but 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 UN said, great idea. And the IWC said, no. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

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.

[Chuck Bryant]

It was 1972.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. Yeah. So that was 72. The next year, in 73, the UN 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 voting on moratoriums.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So basically, 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. No whale's gonna be killed in the 1986 whaling season. And it passed. 25 nations said yay, seven said nay. 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.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, for sure. Should we talk about some of these stats and then take our second break?

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, my gosh. We haven't taken our second break. We have not. Okay. Yeah, definitely.

[Josh Clark]

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, obviously, only nations that object to the moratorium. And we'll get to those after the break. And 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And since 1978, blue whale populations have increased about 8.2% per year. Bowhead about 3.7 per year. Humpbacks I mentioned in act one 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So let's take our break, Chuck, and we'll come back and talk about how whaling still continues, unfortunately.

[Josh Clark]

All right, we'll be right back.

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[SimpliSafe/LinkedIn/Public Ad Voice]

hey everybody. Home security can be a real headache sometimes. There are expensive monthly fees, there are contracts that lock you in for years and years, and system hardware that requires requires a technician to set up.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, well welcome to SimpliSafe, friend. Because they do away with all that stuff.

[Josh Clark]

That's right.

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You can easily customize the system that's right for your [e-mail], it's going to ship right to your door in just a few days. And with their app guided setup and no drilling required, you can install and arm your system in under an hour.

[Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

That's right.

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[Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

Because you need to invest in what looks good to your CFO.

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[Chuck Bryant]

So cut the Bullspin. Advertise on LinkedIn, the network that works for you. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a $250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.comSYSK that's LinkedIn.comSYSK. terms and conditions apply. All right, we'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.

[Josh Clark]

They don't even have crosshairs.

[Chuck Bryant]

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, that 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. And 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. And 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.

[Josh Clark]

No. Which is super shameful. And here's the other thing is there's. 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. Consumption of whale meat in Japan is 1% of what it was from its peak in the 1960s. And so in 2006, Greenpeace is 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 kind 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, there probably won't be whaling in 20, 20 years is. 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. 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, when 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.

[Josh Clark]

And like you said, and they're not even really eating it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right. And Japan is in 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 that 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.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. There was in 2018, the US Naval Institute put out an article that said the global revenue, like the entire world whaling industry revenue is about 31 million bucks. And in 2012, and this is gonna. This is really gonna 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right. So. And it's not like if they were making 31 billion, that'd be a different thing. Forget the whales are 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. And Japan seems to oppose it because they resent the international pressure that's been put on them over the years. 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 for this, 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.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And Japan spite is not a good reason to keep whaling.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's true.

[Josh Clark]

Like, we don't like this international pressure. Everyone's trying to get us to stop that. So we're not going to stop it because. Just because you want us to. I know Norway, I think they eventually stopped in recent years subsidizing the whaling industry. And I think in past years that was about half the entire value of the annual catch. So it's gonna 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

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

[Josh Clark]

do, but it is an interesting 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Everybody's got a little spite to them. Right?

[Josh Clark]

I mean, I know I do.

[Chuck Bryant]

So unfortunately, even if we just completely eradicate whaling, which again, I predict is going to happen in 20 years, within 20 years. God, I hope I'm right. There are other threats to whales that have become like, even bigger. Like global warming is a big one, Bycatch. So like a lot of whales die because they end up in nets that are meant to catch other stuff like tuna. So that I think a lot of them die that way more than are hunted. And then ghost fishing. Remember we did an episode on ghost fishing that's a big problem for whales as well.

[Josh Clark]

You know, ordinarily in the past Joshua would have said, well, in 20 years we'll let you know. But if I'm still doing the show at 75 years old, then I'm not going to say something has gone really right, that means something has gone really wrong officially.

[Chuck Bryant]

Fair enough. I'm with you on that one.

[Josh Clark]

I'm not announcing my retirement, but I'm not going to do this till I'm 75.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay. All right, I'll hold you to that. 72. 73.

[Josh Clark]

No one wants to hear Abe Simpson.

[Chuck Bryant]

So I guess that's it. One challenge for conservationists now, Chuck, I have to say, is, like, you can't just say, stop global warming, stop bycatch, stop ghost fishing. There's all these different things. Before, it was stop whaling, and it was very successful. Like you said, it's often compared to the ozone layer being tackled. The whales were definitely saved, but there's still now other problems that we have to work on, too.

[Josh Clark]

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.

[Chuck Bryant]

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.

[Josh Clark]

Or maybe it just says equals. And then on the back, save the whales.

[Chuck Bryant]

Nice. Nice. 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, and that means it's time for listener mail.

[Josh Clark]

All right. We also took another break while I reattached my mic, 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 and confirm that your instincts regarding car battery recycling are correct. 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. 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. 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.

[Chuck Bryant]

Man, why is everything so evil?

[Josh Clark]

I know. It's sort of. Sort of not a great time to be alive, is it?

[Chuck Bryant]

You know, I've kind of come to the same conclusion, Chuck. Very interesting time to be alive, but I think I would trade interesting for stable and calm and happy and not so evil.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that's the T shirt

[Chuck Bryant]

equals save the Josh.

[Josh Clark]

That's right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, if you want to be like Gabby. Thanks a lot, Gabby. If you want to be like Gabby and send us a an email that's a total downer. We're open to those kind of things. You can send it off to stuffpodcastheartradio.com

[Josh Clark]

Stuff youf Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite show.

[SimpliSafe/LinkedIn/Public Ad Voice]

Hey everybody. Home security can be a real headache sometimes. There are expensive monthly fees, there are contracts that lock you in for years and years, and system hardware that requires a technician to set up.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, well, welcome to SimpliSafe, friend. Because they do away with all that stuff.

[Josh Clark]

That's right.

[SimpliSafe/LinkedIn/Public Ad Voice]

You can easily customize the system that's right for your [e-mail], it's going to ship right to your door in just a few days. And with their app guided setup and no drilling required, you can install and arm your system in under an hour.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, no need to wait around for a technician appointment. And we're not talking about just cameras. We're Talking about what SimpliSafe calls a comprehensive ecosystem of sensors, cameras for inside and out and 247 professional monitoring. In the event of a break in fire, flood, Simplisafe's agents are ready to help you.

[Josh Clark]

That's right.

[SimpliSafe/LinkedIn/Public Ad Voice]

No long term contracts, affordable pricing and proven trust. Over 5 million people trust SimpliSafe every day. And right now you can get 50% off your new system by visiting simplisafe.com stuff that's half [e-mail] stuff. There's no safe like SimpliSafe.

[Geico Ad Voice]

Geico presents a 30 second podcast between your podcast. Today's story is shared by one of our listeners. It's called Betrayed by Bill. It was in that moment I caught who was staring back at me in betrayal or more like what my insurance bill. With trembling hands, I grabbed my phone and switched to Geico, saving about $900 in the process and never to be betrayed again. Now that was bloody riveting.

[Josh Clark]

It feels good when the story ends with savings.

[SimpliSafe/LinkedIn/Public Ad Voice]

It feels good to Geico.

[Chuck Bryant]

Imagine never buying gas again. Well, you can with an electric vehicle. EVs are easy to charge as your phone and perfect for everyday life. You can drive daily with confidence everywhere you go. Most Americans drive just 40 miles a day and most EVs are equipped with 200 to 400 miles of range. Plus they've got fewer parts, they require fewer repairs, and they produce fewer headaches. And with all those pluses, it's no surprise that we're seeing more and more EVs on the road, which makes the planet happier and happier. The way forward is electric. You can learn more about [e-mail] this

[Josh Clark]

is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.