Why whales matter
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 19 April 2022
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Baleen whales were almost hunted to extinction. Now they face a new threat – global shipping. But despite humans blighting their lives, can they now recover and help revive ocean life?
Justin Rowlatt speaks to two researchers who observe these intelligent, sociable giants up close. Matt Savoca at Stanford University explains the scale of the slaughter inflicted by whalers in the twentieth century, while Ryan Reisinger of Southampton University describes how modern ships continue to harm whales.
By virtue of their sheer enormity, these animals also underpinned entire ocean ecosystems that have since collapsed, as veteran oceanic researcher Victor Smetacek explains. So with their numbers finally recovering, what can we humans do to help? Justin asks Guy Platten, secretary general of the International Chamber of Shipping.
Presenter: Justin Rowlatt Producer: Laurence Knight Picture: Aerial view of a whale getting up close to a boat in the Sea of Cortez in the Gulf of California; Credit: Mark Carwardine/Future Publishing/Getty Images
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Business Daily. I'm Justin Rolat and today we will be diving into the world of the largest animals ever to have lived on Earth. |
| 0:13.0 | Yes, I'm talking about whales. |
| 0:16.1 | In the 20th century, we killed roughly 1.5 to 2 million baleen whales. That is the equivalent weight |
| 0:24.3 | of about 3 to 4 billion people, billion with a B. So that would be in terms of wiping out |
| 0:31.0 | half the people on the planet. Even though the mass slaughter is over, the world's whales now face |
| 0:37.2 | another threat. Shipping is the, the world's whales now face another threat. |
| 0:38.7 | Shipping is the main threat to large whales currently. |
| 0:42.4 | You'll often see photographs, for example, of baleen whales sort of draped across the bow of the ships as they come into port. |
| 0:50.1 | So what can be done? Find out on Business Daily from the BBC World Service. |
| 1:16.6 | Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt our program of dance music to bring you a special bulletin from the Intercontinental Radio News. |
| 1:24.7 | In 1938, Orson Welles shocked American audiences with his performance of War of the Worlds on CBS Radio. |
| 1:27.9 | Reports observing several explosions of incandescent gas occurring at regular intervals on the planet Mars. |
| 1:30.9 | The spectroscope indicates the gas to be hydrogen |
| 1:33.3 | and moving toward the earth with enormous velocity. |
| 1:36.2 | Famously, some listeners who tuned in late |
| 1:39.8 | panicked when they thought our planet really was |
| 1:43.0 | being invaded by Martians. |
| 1:48.1 | It was, of course, a work of science fiction, adapted from the novel by H.G. Wells. |
| 1:53.7 | Yet at the same time, there was a very real invasion taking place here on planet Earth. |
| 1:59.9 | But the earthlings under attack weren't humans |
| 2:02.6 | and the invasion wasn't plotted on Mars, but in places like this. I'm in the ship and whale |
| 2:09.5 | pub in London, Stocklands. And two and a half centuries ago, this was a popular haunt for whalers. |
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