Inside the World’s ONLY Whale Warehouse 🐋

Watch the full first episode of Human Footprint here: • Video
Long before the days of fast-fashion and chain restaurants, humans were busy hunting down whales and nearly wiping them out... The efficiency of 20th-century whaling had a devastating impact. Join host Shane Campbell-Staton as he visits Paleontologist Nick Pyenson at Smithsonian's Whale Warehouse to uncover the history of whaling and its impact on our oceans.
Human Footprint is a show that delves into the impact of humans on the planet. Join Shane as he travels from farms to restaurants, from high-tech labs to street markets, and from forests to cities to uncover the consequences of our unique history. Are you ready to explore our past, present, and future as a species?
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[@takenname8053]

Felt a shiver down my spine hearing how much biomass we were able to take out of the ocean. We really like playing with fire until it burns us.

[@Kamigawa411]

And that number continues to rise with japanese whaling, and overfishing

[@justcallmeSheriff]

I had to stop the video and relisten to that part. That butchery was an “ecocide”, akin to the Tyranids in Warhammer or the Flood in Halo just consuming a world. And knowing how intelligent whales are makes it all the more tragic that we burned them for lighting our homes. And it was only for a few decades in a small number of industrialized countries…

[@bendover-bz4bc]

Stop crying . Animals go instinct so the time . Dinosaurs also went instinct because their time was up. Humans will go instinct when our time is up too. So don't assume yourself like superhero social justice warrior for whales.

[@takenname8053]

@@bendover-bz4bc Why are you yucking my yum?

[@Kinknuckle]

@@bendover-bz4bcyou sound stupid

[@pjk9225]

I grew up on Cape Cod and remember going on field trips to whaling captains houses. One house had 2 jawbones forming an arch over the driveway that cars could drive through. Nantucket and New Bedford were the whaling capitals of the world. It was said that a man couldnt get married on Nantucket until he had speared his first whale, or survived a "Nantucket Sleigh Ride", when they harpoon a whale from a dingy then hold on till the whale tires, or the boat breaks. There were so many whales in cape cod bay that sources from the 1600's and 1700's said you could "Walk across their backs to the other side" It breaks my heart now knowing how intelligent whales are, I really hope we can get it together and bring them back.

[@ianlucas7679]

Defo agree wit you . Why wud we as human beings want to harm , kill, and eat this beautiful animals . I can't get my head round it .The people who do need to get ther karma . Horrible , pathetic humans I'd say 😡

[@jeaninemonet3845]

Impressive

[@Louzahsol]

A friend of mine in New Zealand has tons of sperm whale teeth. His garden has an archway made from the jaws of blue whale

[@magisterrleth3129]

​@@ianlucas7679 The reason was fuel. Humans will do anything for a cheap source of energy.

[@maxsmith131]

@pjk9225 that is the captain Penniman house in eastham but they took the bones down because they were deteriorating

[@johndoh5182]

Thank you PBS for making shows like this possible. Great episode. But I feel devastated. Great presentation Shane.

[@KiraRagged]

thank you. glad to know i wasn't the only one who had a reaction of "this is incredible.. and also i hate it... "

[@BlackSlimShady]

"..in 1972, 99% of the blue whales that were alive in 1900, were gone"... Well yeah, no shit, there life span is only 80-90 years. Obviously over 90% of them are going to be dead... This is exactly what mathematicians/statisticians mean when they say misleading stats.

[@013nil]

Yes, but if you you want to make a show like this, make it right.

[@S-T-E-V-E]

This must have had a devastating effect on the ocean floor where Whale falls probably supported life there too!

[@hansolowe19]

Yes, we've been destroying the oceans for centuries.

[@goosenotmaverick1156]

​@@hansolowe19not just the oceans, the entire planet

[@hansolowe19]

@@goosenotmaverick1156 I know.

[@julianleivers1608]

People care more about which bathroom to use than our planet

[@goosenotmaverick1156]

@@julianleivers1608 that's the truth.

[@vinnybag-o-donuts4362]

I want to shoutout PBS for still having amazing content that educates after all these years. I grew up on this channel and love seeing it still thriving ❤

[@sharonmiller7213]

The amout of opportunities people passed up to call it a Whalehouse is unforgivable.

[@philjongboom]

I didn’t even watch the video. It was in my recommended and I clicked strictly to make sure this comment was here lol.

[@beverlyness7954]

This is absolutely incredible. I'm so impressed with what's being studied about whales and the entire eco system they are part of. Thanks for sharing.

[@MariaMartinez-researcher]

Chilean here. Two things. Until the 70s, you could buy whale meat at the fish market. I ate whale several times. Very much like beef, but with a distinct "fishy" taste, not at all off-putting. I remember at the time there were news about krill, how abundant it was, how it could be processed to make krill sticks and other delicious foodstuffs. After a while, no more news. Whale meat was not available anymore at the fish market. This episode explained both disappearances. Second thing. Trekkie here. It has been said that the fourth Star Trek film (1986, the one with the whales) helped to change people's minds about whaling. Maybe yes, maybe not, but the pro-whale message in the film is unmistakable. Also, it's a great movie, one of the best in the franchise. Space people from the future (including an alien who has just resurrected - and is slightly amnesiac) comes to the 1986 America because they need a whale to answer a message from a gigantic alien spaceship or Earth will be destroyed. Whales are extinct in that future. So, clueless future people trying to navigate 20th century culture - lots of fun!

[@Tser]

One of the most fun Trek movies ever. "There be whales here!"

[@MariaMartinez-researcher]

@@Tser "Maybe he's singing to that man."

[@srwla2501]

People can eat you too, you know. It won't taste musch different.

[@MariaMartinez-researcher]

@@srwla2501 I presume you are aware that in the years of the 7th decade of the 20th century, whaling was legal everywhere, and very few people were concerned or knew of any threat to the survival of whales. I presume you know that commercial whaling was forbidden in 1986. I presume you know that currently, Iceland, Norway and Japan continue to commercially hunting whales for their meat and other body parts, and indigenous peoples from Alaska and the Faroe Islands hunt whales for their survival. I presume you know the meaning of "you are barking up the wrong tree."

[@BlackSlimShady]

"..in 1972, 99% of the blue whales that were alive in 1900, were gone"... Well yeah, no shit, there life span is only 80-90 years. Obviously over 90% of them are going to be dead... This is exactly what mathematicians/statisticians mean when they say misleading stats.

[@francescamele8077]

This was absolutely amazing on so many levels. Thank you for sharing!!

[@scrambled_greg]

So glad YT rec'd this show to me. Well done, thank you for making content like this.🐳🐳

[@codyellison2704]

It blew my mind when they said the blue whale jaw bone isn't just the largest bone on earth, but the largest to have ever existed!? When I think about the absolutely humongous sauropod called Argentinosaurus. But after doing some maths it seems the largest blue whale on record is still quite a bit larger and much heavier than the Argentinosaurus. 🤯

[@myriamickx7969]

The blue whale is the largest animal that ever existed on our planet. If there is/was a larger dinosaur, it hasn't been discovered yet.

[@treeaboo]

@@myriamickx7969 It's also unlikely there ever could have been due to the laws of physics, things can get much larger in the water than they can on land, even were a larger animal to exist it's extremely unlikely that any single bone on it would be as large as a blue whale's jaw bones.

[@RichardFerreria]

Amazing! I'm always here for the whale content :) One whale fact I never considered was the role that whales played in moving biomass vertically through the water column! I couldn't even imagine how whales hunting in the deep and defecating on the surface sustained zooplankton until this episode

[@fahimtajwar4818]

this gives me 2010s discovery channel nostalgia love it

[@ericarichardson2983]

New favorite phrase “there’s knowledge in the stank” 😂🖤

[@Jobobn1998]

I feel like I need this on a t-shirt XD

[@almiranara]

learned a lot, thanks PBS! great episode

[@jso6790]

This was beautiful and super depressing, but it highlights those OTHER things about the food web we often forget. Through better understanding hopefully we can help restore some of the balance, because it is clear that this anthropocene extinction is not slowing down at the moment.

[@briandstephmoore4910]

Every little fish has its place in the eco system we need them all

[@Jobobn1998]

This is my first time watching this show, and I'm really digging it! Also, I wonder how bottlenecked the blue whales' total genome has gotten from their near extinction. I have to imagine it's pretty pared down. Of course, long-lived, slow-developing animals tend to have some mechanisms to speed up genetic diversity development, so hopefully that's helping keep the populations healthy and able to fend off disease.

[@jso6790]

That was a thought that crossed my mind, an idea I learned about on PBS Eons' episode about Mammoths and their extinction.

[@NawDawgTheRazor]

This series should more appropriately be named “Human Atrocities.”

[@quantafreeze]

The Blue Whale is so cool!

[@elisecooper1688]

It's taken 40yrs since the whaling ban in the 80's but they say that the humpback whales that migrate past where I live on the coast of western Australia are back to pre-whaling numbers ❤ There's so many now. I hope we can keep going this way!

[@leebatt7964]

“Theres knowledge in the stank”. Truer words have never been spoken.

[@clovismcpony]

Almost cried when I realized the magnitude of the biomass loss so recently.

[@Louzahsol]

Weak

[@JoeRogansForehead]

Soft

[@Cptdng]

Snowflake

[@seatheparade]

It hurts to see how much damage to an entire beautiful species just decades of human abuse cost. Thanks for making this, all of us hope the whales make it through and thrive

[@coffeecupofficial9440]

36 secs that music is so out of pocket i can't😂

[@TOCC50]

DMTBKA

[@emilywhittle1420]

I live on the island of Newfoundland and as a result have seen hundreds of whales in my lifetime. Each and every time it’s a shock, awe, and amazement to see them. Thank God we never killed them all

[@vickihatley4041]

I really enjoyed this show Just wonderful PBS Never Disappoint 🐦💙

[@pbsterra]

Glad you enjoyed this episode of Human Footprint!

[@Lookdownhereiam]

I love the chemistry with these two gentlemen. ❤

[@hummersd]

Though we appreciate the attention to detail in adding specific background music, could it be turned down in future videos? It makes it difficult to focus on the dialogue. Thanks!

[@OpEditorial]

The discovery of petroleum was a miracle for whale populations of the world, the fact that J.D. Rockefeller saved more cetaceans than Green Peace could ever dream of is kind of poetic irony. Speaking of oil, the whale oil that permeates the warehouse is rancid which is why it smells so funky.

[@mistermist634]

Well, that depends. If you calculate in the devastating effects of climate change (still to come), he might as well have killed more animals than any other person.

[@Guapo10292]

Rockefeller did not discover or even popularized drilling for oil. He was just the most successful businessman, like implying Steve Jobs is responsible for the computer.

[@blowitoutyourcunt7675]

When you consider how much of that oil has been dumped into the ocean to the detriment of not only citations, I think it comes out at an even score.

[@kats9755]

I'm really loving this series. I love how it connects different scientific disciplines and shows how humans are deeply connected to and affected by the world around us and the history of the world, even though a lot of times we try to pretend we're removed from nature or above it somehow. Like. I know these things, more or less, in the back of my mind. But the way these videos link all those facts and figures in a way that tells a coherent story of HOW connected we all are to the world we live in is great, thank you~ ❤

[@evandelaalquarame4171]

For the future or re-releases, the sound mixing should keep the music much quieter; it's making the dialog hard to hear, and I don't even have hearing loss which would make that effect worse.

[@blanchjoe1481]

The Question Why Whale Oil rarely comes up, but there were good reasons why it was used. It was not that other forms of oil were not used for lighting, indeed plant oils have been used to create light since the time of before the Pharaohs. However oil from other sources ( including candles ) had two large problems, First they smoked, a lot. As you burned them them created a very fine soot that covered everything in the environment, much of the patina that exists on very old paintings is a combination of fireplace smoke, tobacco smoke, but most of candle or oil light smoke. The other issue is that these other sources were very "Yellow", meaning their candle power was dim ( the measurement of brightness per square meter ), and they color was towards the yellow spectrum. Whole oil on the other hand burned with an almost pure white light, and with a high candle power ( much brighter ), this made it in very high demand. So much in demand that they made special Whale Oil Lamps to burn the oil with. Lastly and almost as importantly, whale oil was a very high-quality lubricant for fine machinery. With the emerging industrial revolution and before the emergence of petroleum products, only whale oil worked for types of fine machinery.

[@lindafox1679]

Excellent program! Thank you! ❤

[@KrazyKaiser]

Some new discoveries around Sauropods are putting into question the idea that the Blue Whale is the largest living animal ever, but I don't think any Sauropod will have a bone that outmatches the blue whales jaw.

[@pluspiping]

I especially appreciated the debunk of the "less whales means more krill right" assumption. Many cycles are more complicated & have more unseen steps than you might think. We can't rest on assumptions.

[@lukelupiano6264]

They are not the only warehouse, there is one in Argentina I was fortunate enough to visit in Usuhia

[@xtera5718]

I wish I could see the ocean before we ruin ones it, it must’ve been so full of life and just down right beautiful

[@JohnJames.]

Hearing old timers on the river talk about the good old days, then hear them brag how much roe they have in the freezer. No wonder we have it bad

[@xtera5718]

@@JohnJames. imagine how much more lively the ocean felt, old shipmen must’ve seen so many more animals, especially large curious ones like whales.

[@AnthonyDibiaseIdeas]

One of the best contribution I';ve ever seen. Thank you.

[@ShengWee]

Shane rocks! Put Shane in more vids!

[@juanitadiaz5928]

Please no extinctions prayers 🙏 😢

[@benmcreynolds8581]

When we talk about ancestors that relied on hunting for survival.. i can understand hunting a whale here & there. BUT, if it gets to a different lvl. Where Tons of people r just wiping out whales. That is just utterly unacceptable. It's Like what people did with the Bison. We take something that can be acceptable & sustainable and instead of utilizing it & realizing how important it is for our surrounding environment to flourish for Us to have a chance to flourish too... Yet people repeatedly mess up, destroy, devastate entire ecosystems. We need our habitat's to thrive alongside us in order for us to live our best life's. The planet/the food chain/the weather/geographic diversity/habitat & biodiversity all depends on if Humans are capable of NOT destroying the balance in our ecosystems.. I don't get why this is such a hard thing for us humans to understand? Especially since the industrial revolution era onward.. we gotta do better. The better nature is doing, the better we all can be doing. We cannot take it for granted and throw it all away for a quick buck.

[@Sentrme]

100%, but human population has to be reduced. The more people, the more likely for some to take advantage and undo the good of others. I hope we can find balance. It took millions of years for Earth ecosystem to find balance. We destroyed it in less than 1% of that time.

[@Louzahsol]

Your iPhone wouldn’t exist without whale oil, because the industrial revolution would have never happened

[@andrewmacdonald6647]

What’s with the crappy music?

[@wearecreatedformore]

Love Shane’s commentary

[@danielhowell1640]

A hundred years after man is gone, the earth will never know we were here.

[@TOCC50]

Can’t wait

[@DiscoverWildOfficial]

Amazing video, in so many ways. Whale anatomy is one of the most fascinating things in the world.

[@johancakep]

Whalehouse is RIGHT THERE.

[@Pixpaint1]

9:29 Warehouse owner: "the fortunate thing is, they [whales] didn't go extinct! so I think we have a second chance in the 21st century to make a greater impact." Japan: "And I took that personally"

[@Beryllahawk]

Great video, well presented, and Shane has SUCH clever turns of phrase! Enjoying this series quite a bit! The thing that astonishes and dismays me most is that - while we were doing all of this to get whale oil - how much of the other whale products ended up being wasted? I know in some parts of the world whale meat was eaten and so in those areas maybe the animals did get used (though perhaps when speaking of industrial level hunting we can't say used "with respect" ) - but what did people do with those carcasses? I know that in cultures where whales are taken specifically for survival, there's not a single part of that creature that isn't used for something, so what I'm curious about it just what the "Civilized World" did with those parts that weren't rendered down for oil or eaten. Whale bones for corsetry, perhaps? But how much bone did that really use? It makes me curious. I know most of the time we think of industry (especially the industries of a hundred years ago) as being wasteful and terrible and kinda the source of all our current troubles, but I feel like that's an oversimplified view. Not so much inaccurate as incomplete. We got where we are through many, many small steps, after all, and getting through this predicament will take many, MANY small steps as well. I do believe we can repair our planet, and even manage to do it in about the same amount of time it took us to break everything. But I'm always interested to learn the complexities of HOW we got here, what people did to survive, to thrive, to turn a profit or to eradicate something they saw as terrible. Folks don't go around killing whales while twirling their mustachios and yelling MUAHAHA, so it's always fascinating to understand what drove the choices made by our ancestors.

[@caro_santamaria]

Brilliant video 👏🏽🐋 This issue is so clear, so it’s just hard to understand how to this day, it continues to happen (in similar ways). Just look at the yearly slaughters on the Faroe Islands… and the whole world just lets it be 💔

[@chrish3175]

Really like Shane Campbell-Staton as host

[@SofiaTaylor-p3n]

Felt a shiver down my spine hearing how much biomass we were able to take out of the ocean. We really like playing with fire until it burns us.

[@nickinportland]

Haha I love this guy. He can host my educational videos any day 😂. Sees a whale bone and is like bruuhhh

[@Tessaranysaurus_Rex]

Great episode!

[@Yokai-Samurai]

Funny thing is; before the video even began, I wanted to know what that room smelled like. I got my answer, thank you.

[@notelym]

For some reason. It hurts seeing our ancestors doing that to the animal that has been living in peace.

[@myriamickx7969]

A word about krill: it seems that, now that our species has let the whale family recover some, we are exploiting their most important food supply: yes, krill. I’ve read that, in the Southern oceans, industrial fishing fleets are "harvesting” krill to provide cheap food for fish farms. On the other hand, no one knows how krill will be affected by climate change, which means warming oceans with higher acidic content. Will we threaten the whale population a second time through starvation?

[@oxmor]

Dude just told the bro to smell his giant whale finger 😂

[@AniFam]

Awesome~👍 Thank you for sharing this video~🤗

[@ingridllinas5612]

Interesting connection between krill and whales. They are dependent on each other. Ecosystem engineer.

[@mitchcarter4925]

That music is too funny 😂

[@TOCC50]

DMTBKA

[@Martinbj1992]

Daymmmm, I didn't expect the intro to go so hard, the music caught me off guard 😅

[@bobbailey4954]

Excellence in presentation this should be shown to all elementary students world wide

[@mizfrenchtwist]

.........those poor , beautiful , gentle animals😢😢😢😢😢. what a pitiful waste...........😠😠😠😠😠😠..........

[@GrandDawggy]

What's crazy is people didn't even see them as gentle back then and called them things like "hellfish" I don't know if that's because people thought it was more romantic that men done battle with demonic creatures than murdering intelligent beings or if it's another reason.

[@generaljellyroll8737]

You shouldn’t need a economic reason to not kill whales Edit: You can do the same thing with a lot of issues. “You shouldn’t need a economic reason to not knowingly pollute the atmosphere and poison all life on Earth.” “You shouldn’t need a economic reason to alleviate the suffering of sick people.” “You shouldn’t need a economic reason to house homeless people” These are all examples of the tail wagging the dog. Instead of humanity controlling its own economic system for its own benefit We have our economic system controlling humanity for its own benefit. I like the first class and coach example. People in first class are never going to voluntarily give up their leg room so those in coach can have more. They also see any decrease in their own leg room as a negative, even if that means those in coach have more. Furthermore, those in first class get to decide how leg space gets allocated.

[@marley4251]

It's sad to think many classic works of literature were written by the light from whale oil 😢

[@JJH-jc1fg]

including Moby Dick 😒

[@jadesea562]

No, what is sad is that you can't see all of existence is 1 thing playing out. So the classic works of literature coming into creation by the light of whale oil is a tiny piece of the one giant story of existence unfolding.

[@DertyMike]

Why the intro montage go that hard tho. 😭😭

[@facundobinelli6077]

"Akchually" there is another whale bone repository in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, maybe not so complete though.

[@Slong970]

I've never heard such a fire soundtrack on a PBS film 💯

[@greenfire7236]

Whats the Name of the First Song ?

[@TOCC50]

@@greenfire7236Megadeth

[@joweb1320]

Good stuff!

[@classicalstewart]

This host is great!

[@phantumTom]

Seeing this thumbnail while scrolling was like that scene from Ace Ventura, way to fk my vibe far the fk up with this “lovely room of death”

[@phantumTom]

Edit: tried watching it, that stupid edit with that cheesy song sent me. Fk this video and why it even exists to begin with. Fricken humans man.

[@cds8718]

What is with the hip hop and “hell to the ya”? This is PBS, not MTV Cribs.

[@TOCC50]

They always ruin things for us

[@stefhijzelendoorn1695]

Immediatly ordered Nicks book.

[@bobrocha6058]

'Spying on Whales' is a very good read. He's a good presenter, too. He did a lecture, at my invitation, for us at the New Bedford Whaling Museum.

[@gcm747]

Pretty wild to know that we share the planet to this day with the largest animal to ever life. Not some dinosaur from a few million years ago.

[@iMertin]

My great granda was a whaler from Shetland

[@kumottakun6089]

This being a docu type of production but having a pimp my ride audio kinda threw me off lmao.

[@nikolaivista920]

To think that discovering and using petroleum/oil saved the whales from extinction is crazy!

[@TheSpargin]

Thank you for the video. If this is for kids, the language seems a bit rough. Thank you!

[@Ohboymason]

The coolest thing to me was that the biggest bone in the world was right there for scale

[@michaellutcher214]

This was so fascinating whales are some of my favorite animals

[@doug-Hakura]

great show, thanks.

[@jmang7490]

Live and you learn, still doesn't make humans evil

[@TRaider66]

Great video. I remember watching Animal Planet shows that detailed Greenpeace fighting against whale killing. I was shocked to see that although illegal, Asian countries still killed whales almost at will as long as it was done for “research purposes”. As this was some years ago, I hope that too has been outlawed.

[@AidanRatnage]

I can't watch full episodes because I'm not in the US. 🙁

[@LY43537]

We can't have nice things. Ever. The krill paradox is similar to how, when the buffalo, the wolves, and the beavers were hunted to near extinction, their ecosystems started to collapse. It was until then that we realized, oh, we needed the wolves to keep the buffalo healthy, and we needed the buffalo to run through the plains and valleys and trample and fertilize the grass to keep those ecosystems healthy, and we needed beavers to keep the rivers healthy and to prevent erosion. Without those more complex animals that were higher on the food chain actively applying pressure to their environments, their food supplies and environments would collapse. How stupid we are, as a species, to make the same mistake over and over again.

[@davidsahlem3149]

Great Content!

[@DanyielSalley]

They are the buoyancy of the sea.Just imagine if all the sea creatures became extinct how would it affect the ships traveling to and from?

[@skpjoecoursegold366]

thanks.

[@felixthecat6284]

So god like the owner family of this warehouse? Anything bad happened to them?

[@Mintyscopes]

We need to protect these amazing animals

[@1969kodiakbear]

Wow. By the way, I have difficulty communicating because I had a stroke in Broca’s area, the part of the brain that controls speech. 2/8/2021 but I lived again. (My wife helped me compose this.)

[@AssociationOfFishaholics]

The song at the beginning wasn't it😅

[@scoopmacgooter4123]

PBS didn’t have to go that hard on the beat. 😆

[@erikaleonard2848]

😮😮😮😮 I learned a lot.

[@jorgecruzseda7551]

STOP ALL WHALING!!!😢

[@chryssesandchaos]

It's mind boggling to me how humans thought that it's okay to kill as many animals as needed and never once stop to think it might lead to something terrible for our planet and our future, what everything else gets blurry in the name of money?

[@harinathlakku]

I wonder if there’s any study on how this has contributed to rise in avg global temps

[@leonguggenheim1460]

Well, are humans included in the "wild mamal" comparison?

[@PabloLorEst]

What is the name of the song at the start?

[@tropixi5336]

how do you even a hunt a whale that size

[@us3rG]

Human brain is out of this world

[@tropixi5336]

@@us3rG its not like you hunt them like deer or anything else... dont be a dick hence why there so many dumb cunts out there