Dolphins and Whales: Tribes of the Ocean (2008)

[bunniefuu]

DARYL HANNAH: The oceans
are the source of all life on our planet.

Without healthy oceans, no life,
even on land, can continue to exist.

Cetaceans, better known
as dolphins and whales,

have been roaming the oceans
for millions of years.

Yet in only one century,

we have slaughtered many of them
close to extinction.

Despite some efforts to protect them,

human activity has forced
these weakened populations

to face the greatest danger of all,

the destruction of their habitat
and food resources.

We live on land. They live in the oceans.

But we all breathe the same air.

We share the same planet,

yet only a few of us have had
the privilege to meet them underwater.

Let's share their worId for a while
and meet these tribes of the oceans,

the dolphins and the whales.

Cruising through the sparkling waters
of the Azores Islands,

these sperm whales can reach feet
in length and weigh up to tons.

They are the largest of all the toothed whales.

(SOFT INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC PLAYING)

Sperm whales are social creatures,
enjoying companionship.

They take care of one another
and even look after the injured.

The females raise their young in nurseries,

one female caring for another's baby
while she dives into the abyss to feed.

The sperm whale, like all marine mammals,

must surface regularly to breathe.

(INHALING)

They also have the ability to dive
up to , feet for as long as an hour

while searching for their favourite food,
the giant squid.

The scars on his head were most likely
received during fights with his prey

or from an encounter with a jealous rival.

Sperm whales once roamed the Earth
in vast numbers.

They were hunted almost to extinction
during the last century,

mainly because of the precious oil
that fills their huge square heads.

This creature, while hunting,
used to lead fishermen to squid,

thus becoming commonly known
as the pilot whale.

At only feet,
this toothed whale is relatively small.

These social creatures live in small,
very organised pods

and will, in turn, join larger pods
headed by one leader.

They will blindly follow that leader anywhere,

sometimes to their own detriment.

When one strands on a beach,
the others will follow.

Why? We don't know for sure.

Sadly, still slaughtered in some places,

only about , pilot whales
remain in the world today.

They seem to be smiling at us,
the spotted dolphins.

Of all of the tribes of the ocean,
they've become our best friends.

(DOLPHINS SQUEAKING)

Like the sperm whale,
dolphins are actually toothed whales,

grabbing and tearing at prey with their teeth.

(DOLPHINS CLICKING)

These spotted dolphins were grey
when they were born and spotless.

Very social, they, too, live in pods.

Dolphins love to interact with each other.

They play, touch, fight, hit and caress.

Check this out.

Displaying amazingly intelligent behaviour
and a wonderful facility for teamwork,

these adults have intentionally picked up
some algae from the sea floor

to start a game.

They play for fun, not fighting for the piece

but cordially passing it around
like a game of catch.

One of the great mysteries
of the animal kingdom

is the spine-tingling humpback whale song.

(SNORTING)

(SCREECHING)

(SQUEAKING)

The male humpbacks create eerie,
hauntingly beautiful tunes.

Are they mating calls to females
or warning calls to ward off other males?

We don't know for sure.

(VOCALISING)

These complex communications
can be heard from great distances

and may be repeated for several hours.

(VOCALISING CONTINUES)

This graceful and elegant underwater ballet
is one of the most beautiful shows

we will ever see
below the surface of the ocean.

The humpback is a baleen whale.

Instead of teeth, they have baleen plates
that filter food out of the water.

They have an appetite to match their size,

eating an average of , pounds of krill
and small schooling fish every day.

With a life expectancy of years,

a humpback whale can reach over feet
in length and weigh up to tons.

Humpbacks are nomads,

migrating to the icy polar waters
for the summer where they feed.

Summer's gone, they will make the month,
, mile journey

back to tropical waters to breed and calve.

Today, despite some recovery,

the humpback whale is still a victim
of human activity,

and its future is precarious.

The beluga whale
lives in the frigid waters of the Arctic.

Born grey, they don't turn white
until six years of age.

(SQUEAKING)

It is also called the sea canary
because of its bird-like sounds.

The beluga is the only whale
that can move its head in all directions.

This friendly-looking creature
can appear to have very human expressions.

Human activity has resulted
in massive pollution of their habitat

and has put some of these tribes
in great danger of extinction.

The beluga whale may soon become
a ghostly shadow of the Arctic,

a mere memory.

(SQUEAKING)

Now, here's a very difficult tribe to approach.

Risso's dolphins are fairly large,
weighing up to , pounds.

Their battered look comes from
the numerous scars that cover their bodies.

The older they are, the more scars they have,

and over time, their naturally
dark grey bodies turn nearly white.

They get those scars
during rough social play.

As belligerent as they can be,

these fascinating dolphins will remain
in a tight-knit social structure

enjoying strength in numbers.

(SOOTHING INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC
PLAYING)

In the shallow coastal waters of Florida
lives the most peaceful of marine mammals,

the manatee.

It may look something like a cetacean
but this is a sirenian.

Manatees, much like dolphins and whales,
evolved from land mammals

and later returned to the sea.

The curious-looking manatees
are more closely related to elephants

than any other living animal.

Despite the corpulent look,

their layer of blubber is so thin

that it cannot protect them
when the temperature drops.

They won't survive in water
below degrees,

so in winter, they will seek out warm springs.

The manatee is also called the sea cow.

In fact, it's the only marine mammal
that eats vegetation.

The manatee's diet causes fIatulence.

(CHUCKLES) Look at aII those bubbIes.

A manatee calf will live with its mother
for five years.

They'll nurse from the long teat
located at the base of her pectoral fins.

Just to keep their bodies warm,

they have to eat
more than pounds of water plants a day.

The , manatees left in Florida

are one of the last surviving
sirenian tribes in the worId.

But for how long?

Every day, human development
takes a little more of their habitat.

Soon, they may have nowhere left to live.

The orca, or k*ller whale,
is the king of the ocean.

It is the largest of the dolphin family.

It can reach feet in length
and weigh up to tons.

(SCREECHING)

They will spend their entire lives
in pods as large as individuals.

The eldest female will always lead.

Mother knows best.

This extraordinarily intelligent animal,

probably the smartest of them all,

exhibits highly sophisticated
social behaviour.

(WHISTLING)

They have their own dialects,
varying from pod to pod.

They will work as a team,

and are able to adapt their hunting strategy
when faced with new situations.

The orca
is the greatest predator of the ocean

and will even attack the great white shark.

Their frightening nickname, k*ller whale,

derives from the fact that they are
the only whales that k*ll other whales.

Orcas, too, are suffering from pollution
and depletion of their prey.

At the head of the food chain,

they have become one of
the most contaminated of all the cetaceans.

They are slowly being poisoned
by the polluted prey upon which they feed.

Another tribe losing ground.

The fin whale is one of the largest creatures
on Earth.

Only one, the blue whale, is larger.

Looking at these dolphins,

it is easy to imagine
how big this fin whale is.

It can reach up to feet in length,
and weigh up to tons.

Are these spotted dolphins
hunting with the fin whale?

After a large school of fish
has been herded into a tight ball,

many predators appear.

The large bait ball of fish

is first being attacked from above
by shearwater birds.

Now, the spotted dolphins from below.

And finally, here comes the giant fin whale,
taking its turn.

In one fantastic gulp,

it takes the entire school of fish
into its enormous mouth.

Look how the ventral grooves
below its mouth have expanded,

like a giant balloon, to hold the catch.

The water will be filtered out
through the baleen plates,

and the entire school of fish, trapped inside,

will become this fin whale's dinner.

They will eat up to tons of krill
and small fish each day.

Although supposedly protected,
the fin whale is still hunted today

and is extremely vulnerable.

In addition to modern commercial whaling
and collisions with ships,

the fin whale is now also
being impacted by climate change.

Indeed, krill, its primary source of food,
depends on the cover of sea ice,

which is now melting.

The common dolphin,

creature of legend, art, poetry,

from ancient times to the present.

Why this mystical appeal?

What about these magical tribes
so captures the human imagination?

(DOLPHlNS CLlCKING)

The clicks we hear are used for echolocation,

a sixth sense that allows them to see,
so to speak.

They use it to detect objects,
track down prey,

locate one another, avoid predators
and orient themselves.

They use squeaks as a form of language.

These sounds enable them
to communicate with each other

when hunting, playing
or keeping track of their young.

Today, common dolphins
are still hunted for their meat,

and around , dolphins and whales
die every year entangled in fishing nets.

Eight hundred a day.

A mother right whale and her baby,

nurturing, nurtured,
a bond formed over several years.

She will have one offspring
about every three years

and will nurse it with her rich milk
for roughly months.

The right whale's mouth contains
about baleen plates,

enabling it to filter tons of zooplankton.

The huge, pale growths on the head
and the lower jaw,

called callosities, are home to whale lice

that tint them with white, pink,
yellow or orange.

Unique formations,
their own kind of fingerprint.

Looking into the eye of a whale

is said to be
like looking into the window of one's soul.

For the few humans
who have come this close,

the whale's gaze has provided
a moment of true emotional connection.

Whalers dubbed this creature the right whale
because their entire body could be used.

In addition to their long baleen plates
and their blubber,

they were also slow swimmers, easy to catch,

and once dead, kept floating at the surface,
so it made their processing easier.

Thus, they were the right whales to hunt.

Most southern right whales are born dark,

but this one is white, a rare occurrence.

There are very few right whales left.

Southern right whales have shown
some signs of recovery

thanks to protective measures.

However, we can only remain
cautiously optimistic

about the future
of these last , individuals.

As for their cousins,
the Northern Atlantic right whales,

it is estimated
that a mere are left in the worId.

They are very, very close to extinction.

The bottlenose dolphin.

This tribe of dolphins is usually nomadic.

Sometimes, though, they prefer
to reside in one location,

like these,
swimming in the waters of the Bahamas.

Dolphins stick together.
Their pods are tight family groups,

well-structured, and come
with an established hierarchy.

(WHlSTLING)

The remarkable bottlenose dolphins
are able to develop

and teach their young different individual
and group hunting strategies.

They can then adapt these strategies
to varying situations.

They can chase through schools of fish
in the open sea

or corner a hapless prey against a sandbar.

A hungry adult bottlenose may consume
up to pounds of fish,

squid and crustaceans each day.

Their brain is proportionally as large as ours.

They communicate with a complex language

and, amazingly,
have individual signature whistles

they use the same way we use names
to identify one another.

Dolphins, when in the intense
throes of passion, become very playful,

swim in an agitated manner
and mate indiscriminately.

It's quite common for the bottlenose
to scratch each other with their teeth

during courtship and mating.

Time to play again.

(SQUEAKS)

Catch it.

(SNORTING)

A year has gone by.

This female is back in the tropical waters
of the kingdom of Tonga.

Here, sheltered from predators
and bad weather,

she will give birth to a beautiful
-foot baby.

This newborn baby is so young
that his eyes are still closed.

His body doesn't yet know
how to stay in balance.

Every four minutes,
for several days and nights,

the mother will gently nudge her baby
to the surface to breathe.

During this period,
mother and baby are extremely vulnerable.

Even a big storm can be fatal to a newborn.

A few days have gone by.

This calf can finally swim
and breathe on its own,

though it still takes shelter
under its mother's large fin.

Weeks have gone by.
The baby has grown stronger.

Its skin is darker.

From this point on for about two years,

the mother will teach her youngster
how to survive in the ocean.

Mother and baby
will often touch one another

in what appears to be a gesture of affection.

It will take about eight years

before this young calf will be old enough
to produce offspring of his own.

Will he survive that long?

Hope this young calf will grow old enough
to sing his own unique and lovely song.

Hope his song
will not be the last one we hear.

Dolphins and whales
are one of the Earth's living wonders.

Some assume they have the right to destroy
our children's heritage.

We can stop vandalising
and plundering the oceans.

We can change our way of life.

Make no mistake, it's not too late.

If we all join together,

we have the power to save
the dolphins and the whales,

the tribes of the ocean.

(GRUNTING)

(CALLING)