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Stuff You Should Know

Save the Whales!

28 Apr 2026

Transcription

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

0.031 - 19.703 Josh Clark

This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. 2%. That's the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter. And on my podcast, 2%, I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world.

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19.723 - 35.371 Josh Clark

Put yourself through some hardships, and you will come out on the other side a happier, more fulfilled, healthier person. Listen to 2%, that's T-W-O percent, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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38.716 - 54.658 Keir Gaines

Hey, what's good, y'all? You're listening to Learn the Hard Way with your favorite therapist and host, Keir Gaines. This space is about Black men's experiences, having honest conversations that it's really not safe to have anywhere, but you're having them with a licensed professional who knows what he's doing. How many men...

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54.638 - 69.272 Keir Gaines

carry a suit of armor it signals to the world that you not to be played with and just because you have the capability that does not mean that you need to listen to learn the hard way on the iHeartRadio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts

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69.691 - 76.91 Stephanie Young

In 2023, Bachelor star Clayton Eckerd was accused of fathering twins, but the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax.

76.93 - 80.48 Josh Clark

You doctored this particular test twice, Ms. Owens, correct?

80.5 - 89.14 Stephanie Young

I doctored the test once. It took an army of internet detectives to uncover a disturbing pattern. two more men who'd been through the same thing.

89.38 - 91.082 Greg Gillespie

Greg Gillespie and Michael Marancini.

91.402 - 95.526 Stephanie Young

My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trapped.

Chapter 2: What sparked the Save the Whales movement in the 1970s?

528.353 - 547.936 Josh Clark

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.

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548.137 - 552.522 Chuck Bryant

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

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553.323 - 554.344 Josh Clark

Exactly.

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554.797 - 574.813 Chuck Bryant

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,

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574.793 - 594.198 Chuck Bryant

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 were like, we can't go without this oil, like at this time.

594.238 - 595.84 Chuck Bryant

So it just, it didn't really have any teeth.

596.343 - 616.99 Josh Clark

Yeah, not only that, they needed 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 stop taking this meat. 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 isn't going to work right now.

617.571 - 644.08 Josh Clark

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 version of whaling, right? Yeah. 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.

644.1 - 649.755 Josh Clark

The biggest hill anyone who was against whaling itself ever had to climb in the history of whaling.

Chapter 3: How did the Save the Whales campaign evolve over the years?

999.757 - 1018.505 Keir Gaines

I'm down to talk about crack all day, but just so y'all know. I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack. So I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table right now. Thank you for finishing that sentence. Yes. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Really? Yeah.

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1018.605 - 1033.726 Keir Gaines

For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to Look Back at It on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hard Way with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Keir Gaines.

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1034.367 - 1041.876 Keir Gaines

And in recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field and conversations with so many incredible guests.

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Chapter 4: What role did early conservationists play in whale protection?

1042.216 - 1063.482 Keir Gaines

I'm talking Tripp Fontaine, Ryan Clark. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing. And we're still chasing it. And we don't know when we've done enough. Because people scoreboard watch. Life becomes about wins and losses. Steve Burns, Dustin Ross.

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1063.622 - 1075.596 Keir Gaines

Because you find it important to be a good person while you're here on earth? Or are you a good person because you're afraid? Because that's two different intentions, bro. Absolutely. And that's two different levels of trust. I want you to just really be a good person.

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1075.576 - 1088.775 Keir Gaines

Join me, Keir Gaines, as we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, Learn the Hard Way. Open your free iHeartRadio app, search Learn the Hard Way, and listen now.

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1102.07 - 1109.037 Chuck Bryant

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

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1109.597 - 1110.858 Josh Clark

Yeah, nunya.

1111.439 - 1130.457 Chuck Bryant

So Save the Whales is kicked off in the 70s, and I think you mentioned earlier on, it sometimes was in parallel with one another. It wasn't like just one group doing this, but everyone got on board with those same three words because it was a very unifying thing. And this is sort of a loose timeline of how it started.

1130.437 - 1141.169 Chuck Bryant

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.

1142.05 - 1157.288 Chuck Bryant

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.

1157.926 - 1181.251 Josh Clark

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 five million Americans said, yes, no Russian goods, no Japanese goods. Let's save the whales. Hot damn.

Chapter 5: What were the significant tactics used by the Save the Whales campaign?

2490.591 - 2505.904 Keir Gaines

I want you to just really be a good person. Join me, Keir Gaines, as we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, Learn the Hard Way. Open your free iHeartRadio app, search Learn the Hard Way, and listen now.

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2519.063 - 2537.157 Josh Clark

All right, we're back, and I think we kind of alluded to it a couple of times, but we're 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...

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2537.137 - 2554.266 Josh Clark

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.

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2554.286 - 2578.062 Josh Clark

And the way that it's going on is because some countries said, we're lodging an objection here. 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 that.

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2578.042 - 2598.503 Josh Clark

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.

2598.964 - 2620.155 Chuck Bryant

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.

2621.556 - 2646.769 Chuck Bryant

Consumption 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.

2647.189 - 2667.094 Chuck Bryant

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.

2667.209 - 2691.799 Josh Clark

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. 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 post-World War II when people ate a lot of whale meat.

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