What Now? with Trevor Noah
Bertie Gregory: Saving the Animals (Even the Ones That Are Assholes)
29 Jan 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What mass extinction events are we currently facing?
In history, there have been these mass extinction events, and we're now in one. When the rate of extinction goes up incredibly high, there's sort of this big purge. And I think with humans, we often talk about wanting to save the world when actually, in the long term, world, the planet, it's going to be just fine.
It's just whether or not we exist or whether we exist on a place that's actually nice to be. We're not just sort of...
I think that's where the groups that do these things have done really well. They have sort of participated in making us think of it as save the world, which then arrogantly puts us at the center of it again in the wrong way. You know, it's like, do you want to save the world? And it's like, all right, world, if you need me, I'll save you. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, my friend, no.
Chapter 2: How do animals impact their ecosystems and each other?
Do you want to be alive? This is What Now? with Trevor Noah. All right, so now I can ask you the question. So where are you coming from? Mexico. All right. What were you doing in Mexico?
So I was filming for a new project for Disney+, which that one is under NDA, so I won't be allowed to talk about that one. No, that one's a secret.
About cartels. You have the most wholesome NDAs of anybody I know, by the way. Other people who have NDAs is like, yeah, no, the drug cartel, yeah, the settlement, this whole thing. And then with Bertie, it's like, I have an NDA. Oh, why, Bertie? It involves penguins. It involves penguins.
Penguins secrets.
Yeah, penguins and whales and cheetahs and just cute little animals. And I can't tell you their stories.
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Chapter 3: What unique experiences does Bertie Gregory share from his adventures?
So first of all, welcome. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming. Just to give people a bit of context, even Eugene, everyone. Like Bertie is... One of my favorite explorers in the world. You've been excited the whole day. I genuinely have. I've been excited for a long time. Because when I first met Bertie, I met him at like a conference type thing. And it was a room full of CEOs.
These are cold, heartless human beings. Hold on there, Luigi. That was nice. That was very nice. Yeah, it was cold. Like I'm talking about like cold calculated, show me the KPIs and the, you know what I mean? And the return on investment, ROIs. Lots of TLIs flying around. All of those things, all of those things.
Chapter 4: How do climate change and conservation efforts relate to animal behavior?
And then Bertie steps up on stage and he goes, I'm going to play you a little video. And all the other videos have been like growth, numbers, expansion, expansion. And then Bertie comes up and he's like, allow me to play your video.
And it's like, it's like animals.
And you see people in the room start going onto their phones to check the stock market real quick. And then 10 seconds in, everyone's phones go down. And I think the first one you played for us might have been the whales or it might like the first one I saw of yours. And let me tell you something.
I cannot tell you that I've had more experiences where I've felt like I've been transported to a completely different world than when I've watched the films that this man makes. Even snippets of them transform you to another world, make you think of animals completely differently. In fact, I would...
But the best thing is it is our world. And I think that's the coolest thing is that- Maybe that's why you make it.
So how would you describe what you do? Do you think of yourself an explorer, a documentarian? What would you say you do?
I think my job is to get people excited about the natural world. and aware of some of the challenges it faces. And I think most importantly, understand that looking after wildlife isn't just something that's like a nice thing to do because like penguins are cute. Yeah.
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Chapter 5: What role do whales play in combating climate change?
We need it for so many things we rely on. And if nature is not healthy, we're not healthy. So it's, I guess, trying to dispel the myth that, yeah, you sort of, you know, looking after nature is at odds with enterprise and all the things that you were listening.
The money side of thing. So, okay, do me a favor. Actually, play me any, like an old video, anything that you have. Okay.
Well, we started with the whales. Yeah. Oh, let me find the whales. Yeah.
So, like, you know how, like, the best video on your phone is probably... Hey, hey. Hey, my man. You don't know my life. Two words. Okay. All right.
All right. So what is this?
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Chapter 6: How do animals exhibit complex social behaviors?
Animal reproductive systems. Okay. So what you're looking at here, this is a gathering of whales in Antarctica. What was the occasion? A big party. Each one of those whales is 25 meters long. So what's that?
we use meters yeah okay just let everyone else figure it out for themselves very long about double the length of a greyhound bus that's a nice yeah yeah so every time you see this little fountain the blowhole so yeah each one yeah these are fin whales they're the second largest whale in the world and we uh went down to antarctica spent a lot of time rolling around on a boat feeling very sick uh but we ultimately managed to film the largest gathering of fin whales ever recorded there were 300 of them together
And this was not only an amazing thing to witness because it's just loads of massive whales, but it's one of the kind of greatest conservation success stories of our time because these whales were hunted to the brink of extinction during the whaling era. And now they're making this incredible comeback. And yeah, that's exciting.
Not just because, yeah, like penguins are cute and whales are awesome. But because of so many other reasons, you know, the whales in Antarctica, that's not just a great thing. They're coming back for Antarctica. But, you know, new science is telling us that whales are really good at capturing carbon through a couple of different processes.
And so if we want to, you know, fight climate change, save the world. Yes, we should plant loads of trees because they're good at capturing carbon. But we also need to help the whales come back.
Wait, wait, wait. I need you to explain this.
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Chapter 7: What are some successful wildlife conservation stories?
Whales capture carbon? Right. So, couple different processes. The first reason that whales are really good at capturing carbon is because they go around their whole life eating food, eating carbon, essentially. And then when they die, they sink to the bottom of the ocean.
And some of them get eaten at the surface, but a lot of their bodies, it traps that carbon deep down in the bottom of the ocean.
I've never thought of where whales die.
Right. Yeah. They sink. Whale fall.
No, but I never thought of, I don't know why I never thought of like where. Where they go.
Whales.
Yeah. You've probably never seen a full episode of my 600 pound life. I'm so sorry. All right, you're good. Should we just move on?
I'm so sorry.
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Chapter 8: How can individuals contribute to wildlife conservation?
But the second process, which is much more interesting, is this thing called the whale pump. Yes. Okay, so let me try and break it.
Activate worst part of Eugene's brain.
Activate worst part of Eugene's brain. That has nothing to do with reproduction. Okay, okay. Okay, so in the ocean, in the deep, you have lots of cold, nutrient-rich water. Okay, there's a lot of nutrients in the deep. Okay, got it. Part of the problem is that at the surface, the place where the light hits,
uh it's called the photic zone so that the light has lots of microscopic plants in the water column near the surface the light's hitting them but they they lack some really important nutrients in order to grow okay so they have light from the sun but but they need these key nutrients so what the whales do is that they eat at depth and then they have to come up to the surface to breathe.
And when they're at the surface, they can't poop when they're under pressure at depth. They have to come up to the surface and that's where they poop. So they have been feeding in the deep, eating all those key nutrients that is missing in the surface. They then swim to the surface, breathe, take a big poop and they fertilize that surface layer. So it kicks off the food chain. The photon zone.
In the photic zone, exactly. So actually you'd think, okay, if the whales come back, they're going to eat all of the krill. But actually it's kind of the opposite.
It's like the krill, it's like this paradox in that the more whales there are, the more krill that they eat, the more they're coming up to the surface and fertilizing the surface layer, that creates more phytoplankton, the little microscopic plants. The krill eat the phytoplankton. So there's more whales and it just goes on and on and on. So it's this amazing runaway train. It's amazing.
And I could have explained that in much fewer words and much better, but you get the idea.
No, you see it can't be better. So this is what I think makes it exciting is one, you're like really passionate about it. But two, you connect the dots between these worlds that don't seem connected in any way, shape or form. Like for instance, the significance of the whales is something that I think most people miss out. The significance of most animals, to be honest with you.
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