Extra: A Modern Whaler Speaks Up (Update)

0:00:06 Hey there, it’s Stephen Dubner.
0:00:11 We just republished a three-part series called Everything You Never Knew About Whaling.
0:00:18 We spoke with economists, historians, Moby Dick scholar, and an environmental activist
0:00:20 whose mission in life is to stop whale hunting.
0:00:26 We also tried to speak with a whale hunter, but public sentiment against whaling is so
0:00:29 strong that most modern whalers don’t want to speak with the press.
0:00:32 Also, there just aren’t that many whalers around anymore.
0:00:38 In the 1960s, at the peak of industrial whale hunting, thousands of whalers in more than
0:00:41 a dozen countries were killing tens of thousands of whales a year.
0:00:47 Today, commercial whaling happens in only three countries, Norway, Iceland, and Japan.
0:00:50 And collectively, they only kill about a thousand whales a year.
0:00:56 There just isn’t much demand for whale meat, it turns out, and even less for whale oil.
0:01:00 Anyway, we couldn’t get a modern whaler to go on the record with us.
0:01:06 But then, right as we were finishing our series, we landed our white whale, Bjorn Andersen, one
0:01:08 of the biggest whalers in Norway.
0:01:13 The Norwegian government allows for the harvest of 1,400 minka whales a year.
0:01:14 The minka is plentiful.
0:01:16 It’s not at all an endangered species.
0:01:23 Even so, Andersen and his fellow whalers usually take less than half of the allowed quota each year.
0:01:27 Like I said, just not much demand for whale meat these days.
0:01:32 When we caught up with Andersen back in 2023, he had just finished his whaling season.
0:01:37 In the conversation you’re about to hear, he tells us why he loves hunting whales and how
0:01:44 he does it, why harvesting whales is important to maintaining the supply of fish, and why he
0:01:48 thinks that in the future there will be more whale hunting and not less.
0:01:53 It’s coming up on this bonus episode of Freakonomics Radio, starting now.
0:02:12 This is Freakonomics Radio, the podcast that explores the hidden side of everything, with your host, Stephen Dubner.
0:02:22 Okay, Bjorn, it’s Stephen.
0:02:23 You can hear me okay?
0:02:25 Yes, I hear you.
0:02:27 I’m sorry to interrupt your holiday.
0:02:29 Yes, you’re on holiday in Sweden?
0:02:33 Yes, I am outside Söderhamn, in the middle of Sweden.
0:02:37 We have to go to my wife’s home place.
0:02:40 And what do you do when you’re there on holiday?
0:02:41 Cutting grass.
0:02:45 Do you do any fishing?
0:02:48 No, it’s holiday.
0:02:50 Now, where in Norway do you live?
0:02:54 In Lofoten, in the westly part of Lofoten, on the water.
0:02:56 We live on small islands.
0:02:58 Is that where you grew up?
0:02:58 Yes.
0:03:01 Did you grow up in a fishing family?
0:03:05 Yes, my father was a fisherman and a whale hunter.
0:03:07 And can you tell me about your work now?
0:03:11 You’re mostly a fisherman and then you whale during the whale season?
0:03:14 In the first of January, we start fishing cod.
0:03:20 When it comes to spring, April or something like that, we start minkeye whale hunting.
0:03:22 And that goes on to the summer.
0:03:27 After summer, we go to shipyard to repair and fix the boat.
0:03:31 And in the autumn, we fish herring.
0:03:39 So of the three things that you catch mostly, cod, whale and herring, which makes you the most money?
0:03:40 It depends.
0:03:44 Cod and herring are this year the best.
0:03:46 How was your whale season this year?
0:03:47 How many whales did you get?
0:03:50 111 whale.
0:03:51 Wow.
0:03:52 Holy cow.
0:04:00 So you alone are responsible for like 25% of all the whales taken in Norway this year, yeah?
0:04:00 Yeah.
0:04:04 So 111, how many trips was that?
0:04:05 Four trips.
0:04:08 Can you describe how you sell it then?
0:04:08 Who do you sell it to?
0:04:14 Well, it’s a company I’m co-owner in.
0:04:20 And then we distribute it to all the Norway, to the stores.
0:04:23 So we export some whales to Japan.
0:04:31 One thing that confuses me is I read that the Norwegian quota for minke whale in a year is 1,000.
0:04:37 But that all of you collectively, all the whalers only take like 500 or 600 in a year.
0:04:40 So why are you not getting up to the quota?
0:04:41 Is it just not worth it?
0:04:43 Are there not enough whalers?
0:04:50 It’s a problem to distribute and get it in the store everywhere and people have to buy it.
0:04:54 What about the price of whale meat over the past few years?
0:04:55 It goes up, it goes down.
0:04:56 Where is it?
0:04:59 No, it’s going up, but not in that speed we want.
0:05:04 The price of whale meat has risen every year almost, but not enough.
0:05:09 It’s about one third or one fourth of our income.
0:05:12 Does the government subsidize fishing and whaling?
0:05:13 No.
0:05:14 Not at all?
0:05:15 No.
0:05:20 Are there any price guarantees for the fish or the whale that you catch?
0:05:22 Yes.
0:05:27 All fisheries in Norway have a guarantee minimum price.
0:05:29 It’s regulated by law.
0:05:32 Is it usually sold for more than that anyway?
0:05:34 Yes.
0:05:37 Often it’s over the minimum price.
0:05:42 But the minimum price is useful to you just in case the prices fall, yeah?
0:05:47 It’s useful for everybody because you don’t have those ups and downs.
0:05:54 Everybody are jealous on our fishermen today because it has been quite good to be a fisherman
0:06:02 in the last 20 years now because we have had quite good quotas and good money.
0:06:10 So what would happen to you if Norway decided that they don’t want to allow anyone to hunt whales anymore?
0:06:13 If they do, they are crazy.
0:06:22 Some years from now, there will be no cod or no herring to fish because there are so many whales.
0:06:24 That’s the food for the whale.
0:06:26 Minko whale is an opportunist.
0:06:31 We eat even salmon and cod and herring and everything.
0:06:39 If you hunt whale, you can fish more fish because you have the balance in the ecosystem.
0:06:42 Do you know how many minko whales there are in the world?
0:06:45 The latest number is 150,000.
0:06:47 In the world?
0:06:49 Not in the world, in the North Atlantic.
0:06:56 I saw a number, this was a few years ago, that said there were maybe half a million of Antarctic minko stocks.
0:07:00 Does anyone talk about the minko whale as endangered at all?
0:07:05 That must be people who don’t know anything about the sea.
0:07:19 If you are going to the coast of Norland and Troms and Finnmark, you can see minko whale and humpback and finn whale all the spring and summer and the autumn.
0:07:35 If you number out how much minko whale eat, if there are 150,000 minko whales, it will be about 50,000 to 60,000 ton each day of fish.
0:07:46 They have studied the numbers of how much the sea animal, including birds and everything, eats in a year.
0:07:53 It’s 25 million tons of food and the fishermen only take 4 million tons.
0:08:00 When you get the whale, you bring the whale on board the boat and you open up the stomach, what do you find in the stomach of a minko whale?
0:08:01 Everything.
0:08:06 It could be salmon, it could be cod, it could be herring.
0:08:13 What does a modern-day whaler think of the Save the Whales movement?
0:08:14 That’s coming up.
0:08:15 I’m Stephen Dubner.
0:08:17 This is Freakonomics Radio.
0:08:18 We’ll be right back.
0:08:31 Okay, I’m Stephen Dubner.
0:08:36 Let’s get back to my conversation with Bjorn Andersson, a Norwegian fisherman and whale hunter.
0:08:45 So do you think the Save the Whales movement that started in the 1970s, do you think it’s gone too far?
0:08:49 That there are too many whales that are eating too much of the fish supply that people eat?
0:08:53 Yes, it will come to that soon.
0:09:01 So when someone says to you, Bjorn, I like whales, I don’t want any whales to be killed, what do you say to them?
0:09:05 No, I don’t like to kill them, it’s for food.
0:09:13 A minky whale is very closely related to a cow because the minky whale has a poor stomach.
0:09:20 So I cannot see any difference to kill a cow or kill a minky whale.
0:09:28 The entire commercial whaling industry, Norway, Japan, Iceland, wherever, kills only about a thousand whales a year.
0:09:37 But hundreds of thousands of whales are dying every year from plastic pollution and noise pollution and boat strikes and most of all from getting caught up in fishing gear.
0:09:45 But it seems that most of the protest by environmental activists is directed at you, at the commercial whalers.
0:09:47 Why do you think that is?
0:09:53 It’s a human’s bad conscience due to environmental stuff.
0:09:56 Do you consider yourself an environmentalist?
0:09:58 Yes.
0:10:01 Do you think of yourself as a conservationist?
0:10:04 Yes, I think it’s common sense.
0:10:12 If you harvest nature, you have to make sure that there are growing up things to hunt or to harvest next year.
0:10:20 So what do you say to someone who thinks that they are being a perfect moral person, right?
0:10:24 And says that no one should ever kill whales?
0:10:29 Get some understanding of the nature.
0:10:31 It’s simple like that.
0:10:32 They don’t understand nature.
0:10:38 They believe more on Walt Disney or something like that.
0:10:44 I have not so much to say about that because I’m just fed up with them.
0:10:47 They are so wrong in many, many places.
0:10:51 Stop the plastic pollution we have now.
0:10:58 They should have worked for stopping plastic pollution many, many years ago.
0:11:04 And even petrol, the global warming is also a big issue.
0:11:06 We don’t know what’s happening in the years to come.
0:11:11 They should have done more work on those issues.
0:11:13 It’s really become a problem for us.
0:11:17 Minky whale or whale hunting is not a problem.
0:11:22 It was a problem for the whale many years ago.
0:11:25 Now it’s no problem with the whale stock.
0:11:30 Do you think the International Whaling Commission did a good job years ago
0:11:34 when they tried to regulate the number of whales that could be killed?
0:11:36 They didn’t do their job.
0:11:37 Why not?
0:11:42 They are an organization based on the scientific committee.
0:11:47 And the scientific committee said there was enough minky whale.
0:11:51 So they should have given out quota on minky whale.
0:11:52 But they didn’t.
0:11:59 So what would happen if everyone in the world were allowed to hunt minky whale starting next year?
0:12:02 Would that be a problem for the minky whale population?
0:12:03 Of course.
0:12:06 You have to do a regulation.
0:12:07 You have to count them.
0:12:11 You have to give out quota and do it sustainable.
0:12:18 I’ve read that whalers wanted the fisheries ministry in Norway to promote whaling and whale meat,
0:12:24 but that it didn’t work, that they were worried that trading partners would get upset.
0:12:25 Do you know anything about that?
0:12:26 Yes.
0:12:32 I was one of those who wanted him to respond on that, but he didn’t.
0:12:34 Have you ever been to the U.S., Bjorn?
0:12:36 Yes.
0:12:37 Where did you go?
0:12:38 New York.
0:12:40 Yeah, that’s where I am.
0:12:41 Did you like New York?
0:12:42 Yes.
0:12:48 Because I study engineering, high power electricity engineering.
0:12:52 So we was to visit Con Edison in New York.
0:12:54 And you were working as an engineer then?
0:12:56 Yes.
0:12:57 Who did you work for?
0:12:59 Norsk Hydro.
0:13:01 It was a power plant, yes.
0:13:06 We produced about 3% of Norwegian electricity.
0:13:11 So why did you stop working as an engineer and become a full-time fisherman?
0:13:14 It’s a much better way of life.
0:13:17 You are free and you are out.
0:13:18 You can see the nature.
0:13:20 You can see whales.
0:13:22 You can see other fish.
0:13:30 And you can feel the weather, bad weather or good weather, in a much better way than you do in office.
0:13:35 When you came to New York, did you go into the rural areas at all or just the city?
0:13:37 No, we were just in New York.
0:13:38 Okay.
0:13:44 So if you had gone upstate into New York, you would see a lot of deer.
0:13:51 And in the U.S., some species of deer are considered a nuisance animal for a lot of reasons.
0:13:52 They eat crops.
0:13:53 They spread disease.
0:13:54 They cause car crashes.
0:13:57 And so hunting of deer is encouraged.
0:13:59 There’s a season and there’s a limit.
0:14:04 Do you see the minka whale as sort of a nuisance animal like that?
0:14:06 No, it’s a source of food.
0:14:15 But you have to try to balance the ecosystem as good as you can because then it will produce the most.
0:14:20 We have to harvest our resources in a sensible way.
0:14:25 If we don’t shoot whale, the ecosystem will collapse sooner or later.
0:14:32 After the break, how exactly does Bjorn Andersen harvest those resources?
0:14:34 You have to think like a whale.
0:14:35 I’m Stephen Dubner.
0:14:37 This is Freakonomics Radio.
0:14:38 We’ll be right back.
0:14:48 Welcome back.
0:14:52 I’m speaking with Bjorn Andersen, a Norwegian fisherman and whale hunter.
0:14:55 Tell me about your ship.
0:14:56 How big is the ship?
0:14:57 What’s it called?
0:15:03 The boat is called Reinebuen and it’s a 32 meter long steel boat.
0:15:07 And the name of the boat, Reinebuen, what does that mean?
0:15:10 My father was grown up on Reine.
0:15:12 It’s a place in Lofoten.
0:15:17 Reinebuen, it’s like a man who lived on that place.
0:15:21 Did you grow up wanting to be a whaler when you were a kid?
0:15:23 Yes, I was five years.
0:15:26 First time I saw a whale was shot.
0:15:30 It was very excited.
0:15:33 Why did you get talked into becoming an engineer then?
0:15:36 There was stop in the whale hunting.
0:15:39 So I didn’t know what to do.
0:15:47 This was in 1986 when the International Whaling Commission put a moratorium on commercial whaling.
0:15:55 But in 1992, Norway announced it would resume hunting minko whales in defiance of that ban.
0:16:02 Andersen, who was by then working as an engineer for a power company, was able to get back to his first love.
0:16:11 I think that was a very good decision because the culture and the know-how is starting to disappear.
0:16:16 And it could be very hard for the coastal people here in Norway.
0:16:18 Do you have kids, Bjorn?
0:16:19 No.
0:16:26 Do you have young crew members that are going to become, like you, a whaling boat captain?
0:16:27 Yes.
0:16:34 They just finished school and they started to onboard a ship and learn to catch whale or fish.
0:16:37 Some are good or some are bad.
0:16:38 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:16:39 You’re good?
0:16:39 Yes.
0:16:42 My father, he learned me everything.
0:16:46 You have to have a good interest in what you’re doing.
0:16:48 It’s whatever you do.
0:16:52 If you don’t have the interest, you will be not so good.
0:16:55 What about the crew size on your boat?
0:16:58 We are six people all the year.
0:17:01 They work for you year-round, the same six?
0:17:01 Yeah.
0:17:03 Do they live in your town?
0:17:05 Nearby.
0:17:08 What’s the longest you’ve ever gone from land then?
0:17:09 Two, three, four weeks.
0:17:15 We have been on the north side of Spitsbergen, almost 81 degrees north.
0:17:20 When you’re out on the water, can you describe how you locate the minko whale?
0:17:23 We only use our eyes.
0:17:23 Wow.
0:17:26 No sonar, nothing like that?
0:17:27 No, nothing.
0:17:30 It’s the best equipment we have.
0:17:31 Okay.
0:17:33 So what are you looking for?
0:17:36 Looking for the whale.
0:17:38 You’re not looking for birds or a spout?
0:17:43 The birds as well, they often give away where the whales are.
0:17:48 So we know to use all the nature.
0:17:51 And how often does the minko whale breach?
0:18:00 It’s three to five minutes, and then they come up and blow three times.
0:18:09 We try to get close to the whale and try to think out where it’s possible.
0:18:12 Where the whale go, you have to think like a whale.
0:18:15 It’s like a chess player.
0:18:19 You have to think some step forward.
0:18:21 It’s a hunt.
0:18:25 You have to get close to it because we don’t shoot long distances.
0:18:29 It’s just a 30 or 40 meter, something like that, or closer.
0:18:30 And describe the harpoon.
0:18:37 The harpoon is 70 millimeter, but the barrel on the kanon is 60 millimeter.
0:18:43 So it’s a big hole where the harpoon hits the whale.
0:18:47 In the front of the harpoon, we have, of course, the granite.
0:18:50 We explode inside a whale.
0:18:53 So how fast does that kill the whale then?
0:18:54 It’s instant.
0:18:58 If you don’t kill it, maybe make it unconscious.
0:19:01 And then we kill it with the rifle.
0:19:03 And what kind of rifle do you use for that?
0:19:06 It’s an American rifle.
0:19:09 375 Remington.
0:19:13 Just so I’m clear, the grenade that’s at the end of the harpoon.
0:19:15 In the front of the harpoon.
0:19:17 Where do you aim on the whale?
0:19:19 For the head, the heart?
0:19:20 In the chest.
0:19:24 And then if it doesn’t succeed in killing the whale, then you kill it with the
0:19:25 rifle, yes?
0:19:25 Yeah.
0:19:27 And then how do you get it on the boat?
0:19:35 We have a strong wire we put on the tail and then you pull it up on the deck with a winch.
0:19:37 And how big are they?
0:19:41 It could be up to 10 meters.
0:19:42 What does it weigh?
0:19:44 15,000, 20,000 pounds?
0:19:46 I don’t know about pounds.
0:19:51 It’s up to eight, nine tons.
0:19:54 So you get it on the boat with the winch.
0:19:55 What happens now?
0:19:56 Who butchers it and so on?
0:20:04 Oh, it’s the crew cutting out the blubber and the meat and then we put the bone back to the sea.
0:20:06 What do you do with the blubber?
0:20:08 We give it to the birds.
0:20:09 Okay.
0:20:11 So the oil is not worth anything?
0:20:12 Not for now.
0:20:14 It’s a very healthy oil.
0:20:19 We haven’t managed to get any good system for taking the oil.
0:20:21 Do they travel solo or in groups?
0:20:22 Both.
0:20:27 But very often the minkie whale is a lonesome cowboy.
0:20:31 They travel individual.
0:20:37 But when they come to places where there are a lot of food, there could be very many.
0:20:41 Does the minkie whale ever try to attack the boat?
0:20:42 No.
0:20:44 Some whales do, yeah?
0:20:45 No.
0:20:46 No.
0:20:49 It’s more like accidents.
0:20:57 You know, you have some YouTube clip where a humpback can jump up and fall down on a sailing boat or something like that.
0:21:01 But I don’t think it’s attack.
0:21:03 It’s just an accident.
0:21:05 Yeah, I see.
0:21:06 Have you read Moby Dick?
0:21:07 No.
0:21:09 I’m not a reader.
0:21:15 When you see a whale breach, how can you tell if it’s a minkie whale or maybe some other kind of whale?
0:21:20 Oh, it’s like to see the difference on a horse and a pig.
0:21:30 Maybe you can mix them up if you are from New York or something like that, but not a crew on the whale boat.
0:21:35 Do you ever hear the whales communicating or singing?
0:21:37 You could sometimes.
0:21:42 You can hear the white whales and sometimes humpback.
0:21:48 If Norway were to allow the hunting of other species of whale, which ones would you want to hunt?
0:21:54 I have enough with minkie whale because we have to have bigger boats and other equipment to hunt bigger whales.
0:22:06 We spoke with someone in Japan who said that one reason that some whalers there still hunt whales is because the world tells them they can’t.
0:22:10 And I’m curious if that’s the same for you in Norway.
0:22:12 That’s stupid.
0:22:16 Yes, that’s stupid.
0:22:21 I already said that you have to harvest in a sustainable way.
0:22:22 It’s stupid.
0:22:30 Bjorn, we’ve been working on this series about the history and economics of whaling for about six months.
0:22:35 And you are the first whaler who agreed to speak with us.
0:22:41 Why do you think that whalers are so reluctant to speak about whaling?
0:23:03 Oh, I have had a lot of journalists on board a ship and there are many bad journalists who only want to have the big scoop, you know, want us to say something they could put together so they could make a scoop or something like that.
0:23:09 A lot of journalists are very bad.
0:23:11 When I watch the news, I have a big question.
0:23:13 When I watch the news, I have a big question signs.
0:23:32 And I think people, the whalers are fed up with bad journalists who only want to have a scoop.
0:23:36 And when you say they want a scoop, what does that mean?
0:23:38 It means they want to make you look bad.
0:23:41 It means they want to make you look like you don’t have morals.
0:23:42 Yeah, something like that.
0:23:48 Do you think whaling will still exist in Norway in 10 years?
0:23:49 Yes.
0:23:51 What about 50 years?
0:23:52 Then it will be more.
0:23:54 It has to be.
0:23:57 You say it has to be to protect the fish stock, you say?
0:23:58 Yes.
0:24:02 And to produce food enough for the people on the planet.
0:24:05 Is there anything we didn’t talk about that we should?
0:24:09 Is there anything I didn’t ask you that I should have or anything you just want to tell me about?
0:24:09 No.
0:24:11 No, it’s enough.
0:24:12 You’ve had enough of me.
0:24:30 I hope people in the United States will understand that to hunt an animal, it’s not a nice thing to do, but it’s necessary.
0:24:31 It’s good food.
0:24:37 It’s not nice to see a cow being killed, not even a chicken.
0:24:40 You never get allowed to see that.
0:24:46 The minkie whale have a nice, free life before he meets me.
0:24:48 Then it’s over.
0:24:52 All right, Bjorn, thank you very much.
0:24:55 I appreciate your talking to us and I enjoyed speaking with you.
0:24:55 Thank you.
0:25:04 And thanks to you for listening to this conversation with the Norwegian whaler Bjorn Andersson.
0:25:11 If you want to learn more about the modern whaling industry, I recommend you listen to part two of our whaling series.
0:25:14 It’s called Why Do People Still Hunt Whales?
0:25:17 And while you’re at it, you can listen to episodes one and three also.
0:25:21 We will be back soon with another episode of Freakonomics Radio.
0:25:23 Until then, take care of yourself.
0:25:25 And if you can, someone else too.
0:25:32 Freakonomics Radio is produced by Stitcher and Renbud Radio.
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0:25:40 Also at Freakonomics.com, where we publish transcripts and show notes.
0:25:42 This episode was produced by Zach Lipinski.
0:25:45 It was mixed by Greg Rippin with help from Jeremy Johnston.
0:25:58 The Freakonomics Radio network staff also includes Alina Cullman, Augusta Chapman, Dalvin Abouaji, Eleanor Osborne, Ellen Frankman, Elsa Hernandez, Gabriel Roth, Morgan Levy, Jasmine Klinger, Sarah Lilly, and Tao Jacobs.
0:26:04 Our theme song is Mr. Fortune by The Hitchhikers, and our composer is Luis Guerra.
0:26:06 As always, thanks for listening.
0:26:14 How many times a week or a month do you eat whale, would you say?
0:26:16 One or two times in a week.
0:26:20 We have chopped whale meat.
0:26:24 We have taco, pizza, everything.
0:26:26 Do you ever eat it raw?
0:26:27 Yeah, yeah.
0:26:29 Tartare, it’s very good.
0:26:38 The Freakonomics Radio network, the hidden side of everything.
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