Discuss the "America's Last Whaling Station" radio and TV story

Amy Standen Post on Mar 01, 2007 by
Topics: Biology, Environment, Radio, Television

This month, gray whales are beginning their 12,000-mile spring migration from calving grounds in Baja, Mexico, back up north to feeding grounds off Alaska. Just a generation ago, these waters were hunting grounds for commercial whalers. In fact, Richmond, California was home to America’s last commercial station. It closed in 1972.

Nanotechnology Takes Off and Journey into Darkness (episode #106), in which this story is a short segment, airs tonight on QUEST at 7:30pm on KQED 9, and KQED HD, Comcast 709. (full schedule)

You may listen the “America's Last Whaling Station” Radio report as well as the TV story online.

To see & discuss photos from this story go to the America's Last Whaling Station – KQED QUEST Set on Flickr.

Radio report: Amy Standen is a Reporter for QUEST and Radio News at KQED-FM.

TV Story: Amy Miller is a Coordinating Producer for television on QUEST, and is the producer seen on camera for this story.

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  • zeva

    I live within walking distance of old station. and would like you to do a longer story on it and a story on the harbor where I live. Point san plablo yacht harbor. There's lots of history here. John Wayne's movie made here,

  • Ana

    I didn't know there was a whaling company in California, I am glad though that people become educated about Whales. That they are not " Fish" and that they are VERY intelligent animals and should be allowed to live. So I am so proud that America stopped and the REST of the whale should stop TOO!

  • Helen W.

    Just found this site. My step-dad (Kenny Hamai) was one of the captains at Richmond and took me out whaling as a kid.

  • bob mull md

    Hi, I worked at the whaling station in the 1970 at what was the SF Bay Marine Research Institution, ran by Dr. Curtis Lake Newcombe We took over the whaling station just as the whalers left.I was given so much stuff that would fill a large room in a musuem. Sitting on the dock at sunset with my dog was the most pleasent time of my life. Getting stuck in the mud flats near the Standard Oil oxidation ponds, when the tide went out was not. Any one who worked there still alive?

  • Teresa Wagner

    The slaughter of whales is not something Americans should feel proud of. . . being part of stopping it is.
    Could you do a follow up story on the whales themselves, not just how we brutally killed them?

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