01x04 - Whales

[bunniefuu]

Long before there was a
sprig of grass on earth,

there was life in the water.

In the great womb of the sea,

the intricate process of evolution

brought forth countless
forms of life that flourished

and gradually made their way to land.

During 60 million years,
there came a return to the sea.

Creatures evolved on land,
re-entered the water,

and their bodies changed to
accommodate the new environment.

Aboard Calypso, we have often marveled

at the swimming and diving
performances of mammals

so much like ourselves.

But of all the mammals of the sea,

none has adapted better to aquatic life

than the largest and most powerful
animal that ever lived, the whale.

We are steaming south in the
Indian Ocean off the coast of Africa.

In the past half year, we have studied
the creatures of the coral reef.

We observed the life
cycle of the giant turtles,

and we ventured into the
disquieting realm of the shark.

Now we seek the largest animal
that ever existed, the whale.

To find whales, sonar
devices are still impractical.

The only reliable
means is the lookout

scanning the horizon
for tell-tale spouts.

When whales reach the
surface, they exhale,

sending 50-foot vapor
plumes into the air.

The deeper they dive, the higher
whales spout when they return.

And it's the spout which has always
betrayed them to the hunter.

We know from the size and the
characteristic hook-shaped dorsal fin

that this is a finback whale.

We must react quickly,

for the finback stays only a
minute or two at the surface.

Then it will dive and be lost
for as much as 20 minutes.

Traveling alone or in
groups of two or three,

the daily routine of a
finback is unknown.

To study its behavior,

we have improvised an
unusual tracking method

that will allow us to remain
in contact with the whale.

Chief diver Albert Falco
becomes Queequeg,

the harpooner of Moby d*ck.

The shaft is long enough to
give balance for throwing,

but the barb is designed only
to hook into the thick blubber,

not to injure or k*ll.

Buoys, attached to the
harpoon by 1,500 feet of line,

will reveal the location of the whale,

while it pursues its secret life


The thin line proves too fragile
against the pull of the 20-ton finback.

To harpoon the finback again,
the speedy Zodiac must be used.

In the cramped rubber boat,

Falco will rely on the r*fle
harpoon to set the second line.

This is an historic moment.

For the very first time,
the finback whale is seen

and filmed underwater in the open sea.

From our boat on the surface,

the size and power of
the finback frightens us.

Suddenly underwater,
our fear changes to awe.

Nothing has prepared us for
the sight of such enormity

moving with such grace.

The tail of a finback
measures 12 feet across

and generates 200 horsepower.

It is also the only defensive weapon
he can use against predators.

The shark, the k*ller
whale and even man.

We are both mammals,
man and the finback.

Much of our body physiology
operates in the same way

but in his adaptation to the sea

the whale has undergone
critical changes.

He is free in the three-dimensional
world of the sea and we are not.

So it is with a sense of envy

that we watch the finback
return to the deep.

In our search for the whales,

Falco and I travel back in time

and into the romance and
legend of the great beast.

We are steeped in that atmosphere,

Mystic Seaport in Connecticut,
the restored whaling village.

Here rest the last surviving
wooden whaling ship,

the Charles W Morgan,

which made her final
voyage in 1921.

The men who sailed her helped
create the myth of the whale

and the terrifying tales they
brought back from the sea.

In the words of Starbuck,
chief mate of Captain Ahab's ship,

I will have no man in my boat
who does not fear a whale.

They sought the sperm whale,
rich in oil, big, fast and strong.

Once spotted, the long
boats would give chase.

Often they would track
the whale for hours.

Six men, in a boat 28 feet long,

pursuing a whale weighing 40 tons

and measuring 50 feet or more.

When the long boat gets
close enough to the whale,

the harpooner harpoons the animal

and the harpoon is attached
to the boat by a long rope.

Then, later on, the whale is k*lled,
with a lance.

And this weapon is
held and stuck into

the lungs of the animal
several times until it dies.

The dead whale was towed to the
boat and attached alongside,

and men with his tools
began cutting in like this

in order to detach large
pieces of blubber.

This was a very exhausting work.

The head of the sperm whale
contained a very special treasure.

Several barrels of pure oil.

It is here, in this pot,

that a large, beautiful
mammal ended up.

Crewman boiled its blubber
into oil with a screwed tool.

And, of course, I imagine
that with rolling and pitching,

this oil must have spilled
all over the deck.

And the smell must have
been absolutely awful.

It took about three days of hard work

to take care of the grease
and oil of one single whale.

With such primitive equipment,

the total catch per year
was about 8,000 whales.

Tragically, whalers today
take ten times that total.

At the Smithsonian Institution
in Washington,

a life-size model provides
a unique opportunity

for studying the
anatomy of a whale.

Here, frozen for eternity
in painted plastic,

it hints at its awesome secrets.

Yes, it's the largest
animal that ever lived,

a blue whale,

This model represents a
blue whale, 92 feet long

and weighting probably 135 tons.

Whales actually were probably land
mammals about 30 million years ago.

And they have adapted a beautiful
way to the aquatic environment.

His eyes, for example, are relatively
small and his vision poor.

But his hearing is very accurate.

His forelegs became flippers
and as his body streamlined,

his hind legs disappeared.

Now, his powerful tail takes up
a full one-third of his length.

This creature lives
mainly on tiny shrimps.

Opening a wide mouth and
inflating his elastic frills,

he takes in tons of water,
then pushes it out

through the strainers of whale
bone which retain the shrimp.

There are over 50 varieties of whales.

Most of the large ones,
the baleen whales,

have whale bones instead of teeth.

The sperm whales and the k*ller whales,
on the contrary, have powerful teeth.

They could, if they
ever wished to do so,

attack and even eat a man.

The huge dorsal fin marks
the male k*ller whale.

The largest male is the
leader of a family group

that lives and hunts the sea together.

k*ller whales have been captured alive.

To study one at close range, Falco
travels to Marine World in California,

where he meets director Brad Beru

and a 20-foot female
k*ller whale named Clyde.

We brought the two
females down from Canada,

and all the way down,
they communicated

with a very high, shrill
sound, back and forth.

The k*ller whale is known to
attack dolphins and seals,

and it appears at sea as if all
creatures scurry from their path.

Yet in the rare encounters
of divers with the k*ller whale,

he has always seemed to
be only curious and friendly.

Wonderful animals.

They seem to be very intelligent.

They seem to be adapting faster
than the porpoises at this time.

They respond to the sound.

She's temperamental.
She has a mind of her own.

It has been reported that when
one k*ller whale is captured,

the others stay nearby and keep
up a dramatic conversation.

This sound has been recorded,
and we play it back in the tank

to observe Clyde's reaction.

At first, Clyde answers the cries.

Clyde is still too new to
captivity to trust completely.

Falco enters the tank gingerly, unsure
himself in a sea only 40 feet across.

When the sound is switched off,
Clyde turns away.

Back in contact, Clyde
swims toward the speaker.

Hearing plays a primary
role in a whale's perception

for echo-location as
well as communication.

Whales are equipped with
veritable sonar detectors.

They receive signals not
only through their tiny ears,

but also through their
entire skull structure,

and perhaps along their bodies as well.

Interrupted again in mid-conversation,

Clyde scans the tank for her
newfound, new lost friend.

One day, we may be able to
understand this squeaky language,

but for the moment, it's enough to
know they speak and understand.

The dog hunts with his nose,
man with his eyes.

The k*ller whale uses sound.

The facility has developed because he
lives in a world of limited visibility,

where smell does not carry, but
where sounds travel great distances.

Not enough is known about
whales yet to determine

what role their clicks and
grunts play in hunting.

But Clyde, on the way to a snack,

is deterred by a thin board she
could crunch into sawdust.

Only a form of sonar could have
directed her lunges and retreats.

Falco thinks the high pitch sound of a
small motorboat interferes in some way

with the communications
apparatus of whales,

like jamming a radio signal.

Falco's experiment
works almost too well.

The scream of the motor sends
Clyde into a fury of confusion.

May 20th, near the Maldive Islands.

Floating on the surface, we have
discovered a piece of giant squid,

a deep living creature.

The squid is common
game for the sperm whale.

The backs of the whales are often
scarred by the horny beaks of the squid

and by the suction
cups of its tentacles.

What we have found
is the debris of battle.

This section measures two feet

and we estimate the squid must
have been about eight feet long.

Now we know the
sperm cannot be far off.

Minute drifting plants begin
the chain of marine life.

Small creatures feed on
this watery meadow.

They are prey for larger creatures,

who in turn become a
part of the food chain

that reaches the larger
squid at 3,000 feet.

It is to feed on squid
that the sperm whale

developed its remarkable
capacity for deep dives.

The search is underway
for sperm whales

in the area where the piece
of squid was discovered.

Falco tries to select a harpoon

that will just pierce the thin skin
and hold fast in the blubber.

If a whale is cut deeply enough to

penetrate his protective
layer of blubber,

he will eventually bleed to death.

The monarch of the deep

suffers the legendary infirmity
of European royalty, hemophilia.

For Falco it's a delicate choice,

but it marks the difference
between science and slaughter.

This time it's Dumas who
raises the first whale.

By the angle of its spout
blowing from the left,

he knows it's a sperm.

Of all the whales of the sea,

the spermaceti whale has
most captured the imagination

of sailors and landlubbers alike.

Herman Melville's
Moby d*ck was a sperm,

as were all the savage
whales of fiction.

Their huge foreheads give them a
majestic and fearful appearance.

They have been said to ram
ships with his forehead,

battering at them
until their hulls cave in.

To find the whale is tricky.

To keep track of him
is even more difficult.

And the maddest challenge of all

is in our desire to film
the whale underwater.

First, we must attach our
marker buoys to the whale

so that we may follow
him wherever he goes.

A mounted knights
stare up to the zodiac.

Falco enters the field.

The very sound of the speeding zodiac

seems to complicate the
problem of tagging the whale.

The sperm veers away from
the noise of the boat.

And only the zodiac's speed allows
Falco to catch up with his target.

The first step is accomplished.

Our bouchon de champagne,
our champagne cork,

follows behind the whale,
securely attached to his back.

For night tracking, a suitable target
for Calypso's radar is needed.

Aluminum foil supplies
partial solution.

It'll be hung in the
sky above the whale.

The finishing touch is a kite toon.

Part kite, part balloon.

Trailing a 75-foot aluminum-foiled tail,

it'll be attached to the buoy,
attached to the whale.

To study the unknown,
untried tools must be used.

Ben Franklin flew a
kite in a thunderstorm,

and its dangling key unlocked
the wonders of electricity.

The men of Calypso are explorers,

and where no man has ventured before,

there's no man to tell them how.

Others came to the
sea to k*ll Leviathan,

plunder his riches,

chase him to the brink of extinction.

Now the task is to save him.

But we cannot put this
beast under a microscope

or fashion an aquarium
that will hold him.

So we must grope for methods

and construct crude pieces
of apparatus to help.

Aboard the Calypso, improvisation
of equipment has become an art.

The sperm whale
migrates at the surface,

but feeds in the depths.


the whale to the kite toon

to allow for his dive.

In a characteristic gesture,

the tail fluke points skyward,

and the sperm whale sounds.

The whale's descent is vertical,

carrying with him line, buoy,

and finally snapping the cord
of the buoyant kite toon.

For the first time,
it has been proven

that the whale travels more
than a half mile down

in his search for food.

May 20th, 5 p.m.

An hour after losing the kite toon,

the rest of the whale herd surfaces.

Whalers believe that sperms,
like other toothed whales,

travel in groups,

usually one male and a herd of females.

When a young male challenges
the bull of a family group and wins,

he takes over the harem,

and the defeated bull goes
off to roam the seas alone

and find a solitary death.

Old whalers call them emperors.

For the moment,

the quiet throb of Calypso's engines
does not disturb the whales.

Trailing the herd allows a unique
opportunity for filming them

from the undersea observation
chamber in the bow.

Moving slower than the herd,

a mother and a newborn calf

loom before Calypso
on a collision course.

The propellers must be stopped to
avert possible injury to the baby.

The baby whale born tail first,

must immediately be pushed
to the surface to breathe,

or he'll drown.

One-third the size of
the mother at birth,

about 14 feet long.

He drinks half a ton of milk a day,

squirted from n*pples that are hidden
inside slits in the mother's belly.

He will be full grown in 10 years,
can live to 30.

This is where Calypso lost
the large sperm whale

and the kite toon.

Two miles further west is the pack,



Now we went northeast
and met a mother and baby,

and we must try to attach
a marker to the baby.

Baby whales do not dive deeply.

We often see them waiting at the surface

for the mothers to return from feeding.

Only when they grow and strengthen

will they be taught to sound.

The noise of the zodiac
frightens the baby.

As the boat cuts in front of him,
he hesitates,

and Falco is able to
place his short bar.

We have isolated the
baby not to harm it,

but to study the reactions of the
baby and mother and the herd.

Because we feel uneasy
about what we have done,

we hurry to check the
condition of the young whale.

The baby has tangled
the line around his tail,

but appears to be unhurt.

Secured like a lasso,
the rope should hold.

So begins an unprecedented investigation

into the social behavior of the sperm.

We are now a little further north,

and we have been successful
attaching a kite toon to the baby.

The pack is still around.

The Calypso raises signals to warn
other ships that she is on track

and not free to veer from her course.

We are sure that mammals of the
sea communicate with one another.

Through the use of modulated sounds,
they convey complex messages.

It is likely that even the baby whale
will be capable of calling for help.

Calypso's sound engineer, Marcelin,

positions the launch between the
baby and the disappearing herd.

The hydrophone records two sounds.

The constant clicking is the
sonar beeps of the baby.

The growl is his voice.

His cry, perhaps.

The bubbling aqualung has often blurred
the sounds Falco hears while diving.

For the first time,
he can hear the whale clearly.

May 20th, 5.30 p.m.

A rotating watch checks the
movements of the whales.

Whatever course the herd takes,
the baby follows.

By late afternoon, it appears as though
other whales have joined the group.

Perhaps some sense of community
danger has drawn them.

For the sperm whales are
like a marching nation,

moving inexorably from one pole
of their migratory trek to the other.

The buoy holds.
The kite toon drifts behind.

And as Calypso tracks the baby,
crewmen, without realizing it,

look up from their work periodically to
check the progress of the infant sperm.

The experience today has given me
the basis of an intriguing theory.

Apparently, in the oil-filled head of
the creature lies the key to its success.

The monstrous head appears to be an
ultra-directional transducer of sound.

This extraordinary sensitivity enables
him to hunt in the darkness of the deep.

From evening sun to dawn,

the radar will stand watch
over the youngster

and the bridal train
of buoy and kite toon.

In a very few hours,
he has come to be more than

simply the subject of
an important study.

Through this night, at one
point in every conversation,

a question is asked,

Es qui l'etancola?

Is it still there?

The radar bouncing signals on the
aluminum-foiled tail of the kite toon

has kept Calypso within five miles
of the baby through the night.

The first entry in the logbook
of Calypso for May 21st reads,

Oui, il est là.
Yes, it is still there.

There is still two hours until
there'll be enough daylight

to film the young whale.

The constant chatter of the baby
and the answers of the herd

have reverberated through the sea.

The morning lookouts report
there are spouts on the horizon

for 360 degrees around the ship.

A few of the larger whales begin
dropping back from the herd

and the intensity of the
baby's cries increases.

Old whalers claim to have
seen one whale rescue another

by pulling the harpoon
free with their teeth.

The mother cradles the
baby in the way of whales,

chattering her special sounds.

It bends the imagination to consider
that her sounds are instructions.

There can only be conjecture as to what
actually occurred below the surface.

The harpoon now raises new questions.

Was it jarred loose or actually
pulled out by the mother?

Here's the situation.

The first baby sperm whale was
stopped here by the infernal circle.

Three adults came from the pack
and liberated the kid at 11.20.

Falco orders the boats
to search for the baby.

The baby, confused and frightened,
ceases movement.

Falco prepares the marking tag

while a new tracking buoy
is attached to the baby.

In years to come,
the tag may provide

an invaluable record of whale
behavior and movement.

He is only a baby, yet he is
ten times the weight of a man.

Because he lives in a
realm of boundless food,

he will grow to as much as fifty
feet and weigh over fifty tons.

In this manner, the entire species has
thrived amid the plenty of the sea.

In all likelihood, they will
continue to grow larger

and still larger for ages to come.

Tagging done, I asked the
divers to cut the baby loose.

We dare not temper longer
with this marvelous child.

He has served briefly to
increase our knowledge,

to excite our imagination in a way
that few creatures have ever done.

And now he must
return to the mother,

the herd, and to the nation
that prowls the sea.

Bonne chance.

In the first years of
the Calypso's travels,

eager to explore the
sea's unrevealed secrets.

We searched all sorts of wrecks

and plunged into lakes, rivers,
and submerged caverns

using diving gear and mini-subs.

We made friends with a
wide variety of creatures,

but always felt a special kinship

to the aquatic mammals like
dolphins, seals, and sea lions.

Our amazement has never ebbed.

And today, we are as curious as ever

to continue rediscovering the
world with our new friends.