The Sea Shepherds Protecting Humpback Whales | The Blue Realm | Real Wild

a male humpback whale a singer his complex and haunting song can be heard for miles underwater humpback migrations are legendary epochs of time and distance these whales and others were hunted to the brink of extinction but since the 1986 whaling moratorium a few species including humpbacks have recovered some of their historic numbers or whaling nations want to real go behind [Music] and currently kills whale controversial and lethal research program in the Antarctic massive factory ships stock minke and fin whales now they've announced their intentions to target humpbacks you're in a whale sanctuary and you're assisting in illegal activity remove yourself from these waters immediately captain Paul Watson of the sea Shepherd Society has made it his personal mission to shut down the whaling industry in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary Watson and his teams chase harassed and from these ships they're heroes too many pirates and eco-terrorists to others nations such as Tonga are being recruited to take sides with pro whaling nations at the International Whaling Commission but Tonga also has a fledgling whale watching industry and whale watching is a very popular and lucrative business especially in the Hawaiian Islands in winter months humpbacks are Maui's number one tourist attraction at Maui's whale quest photographers researchers and conservation groups gather at an annual conference dedicated to humpback whales there's no doubt the animal stir our emotions like no other creatures [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] humpback whales breaching jaw-dropping acrobatic feats [Music] these are the warm cobalt blue waters of Tonga an island nation in the South Pacific humpbacks gather here to mate give birth and delay their young for months adult whales do not need females lose much of their body mass while nursing their enormous offspring from the tropics humpbacks then travel thousands of miles to rich feeding grounds in colder seas of both hemispheres considering they haven't eaten for half a year it's a tremendous migration they undertake this arduous journey fugu breeze whether it's krill in the Antarctic or herring in Alaska humpback whales need to consume a lot of for the return voyage [Music] [Music] hunted for centuries whales fueled our insatiable appetites for oil blubber and countless consumer products the slow-moving animals were no match for Swift whaling vessels with the advent of even faster more modern ships equipped with explosive harpoons hundreds of thousands of whales were killed it eventually became clear that many species including humpbacks were in grave trouble a global moratorium stopped the commercial hunt in the mid 1980s and in 1994 the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary was formed in the waters surrounding Antarctica in the decades since the moratorium humpbacks and a few other species have rebounded in numbers with many commercial fish stocks on the verge of collapse there is a growing movement to once again target whales this time mainly for their meat literally tons of nutritious protein rich flesh from a single animal the ban on hunting whales is still in place but through a loophole whales can be killed for scientific or research purposes Japan is one of the leaders the merits and legitimacy of this lethal research are hotly debated critics denounced Japan's scientific program as a front for renewed commercial hunting of whales the Japanese countered that relatively plentiful and smaller minke whales that were not historically targeted are fair game but the most contentious issue in the debate is that the animals are currently hunted in a protected area the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary where whaling is banned and directly in their way trying to stop them is the sea Shepherd Society I said up Sea Shepherd uphold international conservation laws treaties and regulations so we intervene where there's a criminal operations taking place illegal whaling illegal fishing and that's what we've been specializing now over the years so we're not a protest organizers a respected and equally reviled activist Watson has been instrumental in raising public awareness on many environmental issues he developed his extreme form of activism at a very early age I was raised in a fishing village in New Brunswick and I began to walk the track lines and preethi fevers and the other animals and then I began to destroy the traps and so that's where my activism started at 11:00 and then in 1969 at 18 I was the youngest founding member of Greenpeace on dry land for just a few months each year Watson now a US citizen bases his operations on San Juan Island in Washington State alongside annual campaigns against Canada's sealing industry Sea Shepherd now directs much of their attention towards Japanese whaling in Antarctica in the Austral summer hundreds of thousands of whales migrate to Antarctica countless marine mammals gather in these frigid seas to feed this is the sea Shepherd vessel the Robert hunter its mission to hunt down Japanese whaling ships I had been wanting to go down and confront the Japanese fleet for years but it wasn't until 2002 that we were able to afford our first campaign to go down there and we just completed this year our fourth campaign to Antarctica and it's proven to be more successful every year our tactics pretty simple we just simply chase them and they run and they don't kill whales so they're only able to get half they're pulled over the last two years I like to design tactics that aren't going to hurt anybody and are somewhat humorous and so you know in the past we've had cannons at fire pie filling chocolate or cream pie and you know you can certainly slime somebody with 45 gallons of chocolate we're always constantly trying to come up with tactics that are designed to be effective but yet at the same time will not injure anybody that we're opposing the Japanese don't view Paul Watson's tactics as humorous and are definitely not amused smoke and stink bombs are just one of the many ways in which sea shepherd disrupts the operations of whaling ships for weeks even months at a time Sea Shepherd teams search for Japanese ships and the Antarctic is a massive territory to cover confrontations are rare and generally fleeting but when they do encounter Whalers all hell breaks loose as an illegal whaling vessel we strongly advise that you leave the Southern Oceans Whale Sanctuary immediately this is not a protest action this is a law enforcement action pack up your bags and head back to Japan or we will shut you down Sea Shepherd utilizes many templates in their mission to stop whaling ships one of the more dangerous techniques is we get volunteers from around the world and we interview them the one question that we sit down and ask them is are you willing to risk your life to protect the whale and they say no then we don't want people risk their lives and kill other people over real estate and oil wells I think it's a far more noble thing to risk your life over protection of an endangered species or threaten habitat I believe that we should save the whales because whales and dolphins are very intelligent animals I think they're worth saving that's why I'm down with we also give a very clear message to Japanese fleet that we're not we increasing our protest organization we're capable of doing a lot more we want to stop them to shut down their illegal operation because that's what it is as long as that runs from us as long as we're in their slipstream as long as we're on their tail following them they can't kill whales and they know that so they'll always try to get away from us smokers smoke smoke and stink bombs severely disrupt activities on the Japanese ships the cleansing decks can be rendered inoperative until they are thoroughly clean one of the more noxious substances is butyric acid which is found in rancid butter vomit and body odor it really smells but all else fails to send the ruler's packing a final and very controversial technique is to bump or even Ram them [Music] stop who rammed who in this January 2007 incident is still being debated and both sides claim the other is it [Music] oh [ __ ] that's funny I can stop the Japanese did indeed issue a mayday this wouldn't be the first or the last international incident in Sea Shepherd's and Arctic campaigns [Music] oriental blue Lord or should I say the SS whale meat please remove yourself from these waters you're in violation of international conservation regulations we're acting in accordance with the United Nations world charter for nature and implementing these regulations you're in a whale sanctuary and you're assisting teams on board Sea Shepherd's second ship the Robert hunter confronted the main factory ship the Nisshin Maru in the next campaign a sea Shepherd team attempted a very risky maneuver boarding a factory ship the two sea Shepherd crewmembers were held briefly by the Japanese or eventually turned over to Australian officials who had helped negotiate their release back onboard their own ship they were greeted as heroes [Music] the 2008 campaign would eventually take a darker turn Sea Shepherd teams again threw stink bombs onto the deck of the Nisshin Maru but this time the Japanese fought back armed guards tossed flash grenades at the sea Shepherd crew [Music] boy Watson who always wears a bulletproof vest may have been shot right here he's been hit by bullets [Music] yeah Sea Shepherd's future campaigns will no doubt be controversial and confrontational every single Marine Mammal on this planet is in danger not only that most of the fish are endangered every single commercial fishery is in a state of collapse the oceans are dying and so we've got to have stopped this massive exploitation of well species I think that we have to have a complete moratorium on raping the oceans because it's just out of control there's something too many people and there's not enough fish and animals in the sea to continue to support this incredibly rapacious appetite that we develop whether you agree or disagree with Sea Shepherd's tactics for their politics they are if anything Highly Effective activists there are alternatives to killing whales whale watching is a very lucrative business a live whale can be worth far more than a dead one [Music] this is Lahaina x' whale world dozens of businesses geared to tourists line the waterfront the main attraction here way of watching each day in winter hundreds of eager tourists crowd the waterfront vying for space on a handful of whale watching boats whale watching boats of all shapes and sizes head into the channel between maui and lanai in search of humpbacks my name is nate I'm gonna be your naturalist on the mic telling you what we're looking for out there today in Norfolk I said humpback whale the main thing I think is so great about ecotourism is it gives a chance to people to get as close to these animals as legally and ethically possible and we get to take people out here show them these whales you know literally the probably the biggest thing they'll ever see in their lifetime this is definitely the the biggest tourist attraction here on Maui I believe yesterday we had 492 people out we're trying to break the record our goal is to get 500 people out here in one day favorites of everyone poo and guests alike are the small calves [Music] a little head lunge that turned into a spy hop guys he was looking at us his eyes were just as well out of the water he's checking us out welcome to a Maui mugging where you don't have to worry about your wallets another cool thing about watching these classes they do have smaller lungs so they aren't down that long [Music] no one ever seems to tire of Hawaii's most famous seasonal residents sorry excuse me the more you do it the more you realize how magical this is and to have a close encounter with the will even for those of us that do this I Drive 14 charters a week to have that experience it's just absolutely unbelievable [Music] before long it's time to head back to the harbor to pick up yet another group of tourists make no mistake this business makes a lot of money did you guys have a good time out there that's what we like to hear well private whale watching charters also depart from many of the islands waterfront resorts welcome aboard guys go ahead and follow that down hey guys three o'clock every group you're seeing right now is mother calf escorts [Music] it's very difficult to describe the experience of whale watching the animals trigger a strong emotional response in most people there's just something magical about a close encounter with one of Hawaii's humpbacks whales are amazing you never appreciate them till you see them up close and get it experience their beauty and the size of them and hear the sound it's really amazing this is my favorite time of year it's nice to have them here [Music] what goes on in the lives of Wales well we're always curious about the unknown I think maybe that's one of the strengths of being a human being that the unknown is a challenge and it's also a source of attraction and focus and so here you have this gigantic animal it's bigger than anything that you've got on earth and yet you realize you don't know anything about it you don't love things that you don't value and you don't value things that you don't know whale watching is an avenue to getting to know something which will lead to getting to value it which will lead to being concerned with saving it [Music] [Music] there's one of the male's so the other two a pride was left of him deep below the surface a male humpback calls out to other whales singers have long fascinated and perplexed whale researchers what exactly are humpbacks trying to say canadian scientists dr. Jim darling spends the winter months in Maui studying humpback whales each day weather permitting darling and other researchers depart from Lahaina Harbor Hawaii's humpbacks are one of the world's most heavily studied cetaceans but there are still many unanswered questions about their behavior especially their iconic songs humpback whales kind of summer feeling all around the ground in Northern California in Japan in the winter they migrate to breeding grounds in tropical waters subtropical waters something right the males are here to meet the females have two lives when they're here one is to meet and the other is to give birth and yours whale researchers in Hawaii have made an encouraging discovery humpback numbers are definitely on the rise population in the North Pacific is increasing and increasing quite quickly you know since we started looking at whales here in the mid seventies there's just no question that the numbers at least are Drupal's in this area and all indications are is that the population is continuing to increase in numbers and is beginning to Rhian have a traditional ranges which were empty for decades after whaling so in the present right now it appears that this particular population of whales is doing relatively well darling motors around the channel looking for signs of humpbacks specifically loan animals surprisingly is only the male's that sing we've learned over the years of most singers are alone they're lone males so no for travelling long and we see any single blows you sort of go over there just to check because the odds are greater than their singing then then F whales are in groups the songs are so loud they can be felt through the boat's hull we know that all bec male's sing during the breeding season the song is somewhat unique in the sense that it it's a series of sounds just repeated over and over sort of every 10 or 15 minutes and the song changes as it's being sung sort of gradually evolves as ping shun all the singers in a population sing the same version any one time so we've been attempting to understand what's going on why are they singing what's the function how does it work what's the purpose of it all it's clearly a fairly important part of their breeding meet the behavior because it means everywhere you can't put your head in the water here without hearing song any time from December through April the greatest misconception about whale song is that it's male singing to attract females for mating purposes and that idea has been around for several decades the problem is is that no one has ever seen a female attracted to a singer singers saying until other lone adults come and join them but those others on adults or other males so we listen to the song and there's a part of the song where usually just precedes them coming up and you listen until it comes to that part of the song and then you start looking around for whoever surfaces [Music] before song recordings can be analyzed the singers have to be identified each whale has a distinct tail fluke much like a human fingerprint and we always like to know which individual is attached to the song we may be comparing songs of different individuals or we may have repeat sightings of this guy we want to see how his specific song has changed over time we also idea because we may see him in different groups really that's quite a bit of interaction going on here between two males and the mother and a half probably trying to stay on the way.i and a handful of others around Walt and working on the song issue for what it wants two decades now and we're getting closer they're beginning to understand a little bit about the swing it isn't puzzle you just want to see how close she could kind of solving it Jim darling and others in the whale research community are very alarmed that news of humpbacks possibly being targeted by whalers hawaii's whales do not travel to Antarctica and would not be hunted but there's concern that renewed commercial whaling would make its way eventually to the North Pacific many humpbacks like these animals of play have no fear of people or bonus they would make easy targets for whalers there is no question in my mind whatsoever that we don't have the the kind of information we should have to open any kind of whaling quotas on humpback whales we have some vague idea of numbers in some areas but we know virtually nothing of their social system or behavior population definition and so on until we know those things any kind of whaling assistance HTML researchers and whale watchers are not the only people concerned with the welfare of humpbacks photographers and film makers have long held a deep fascination with these enigmatic animals [Music] renowned artists such as David fleadom David Doubilet and Flip Nicklin are strong opponents to the prospects of renewed commercial whaling and at Maui's whale quest these photographers scientists and conservation groups all gather for an annual conference dedicated to humpback whales still photographer David freedom has a special affinity for humpback whales Maui resident for over 20 years fleadom has encountered more than his fair share of whales he finally recalls one of his first experiences with a humpback down in the South Pacific was the first place I saw one underwater they're so enormous it's like a huge bus swimming around underwater it really takes your breath away it's hard to believe that anything alive is that big one whale stayed underneath our boat for about four hours we stopped and had lunch so which if anybody told me I was gonna be eating a sandwich and as a humpback whale was swimming around my boat I would have told them they were nuts when you slipped into the water it would immediately swim straight over to you and it would have pulled its pectoral fin out and wave it only just a few feet in front of your face I have no idea what the whale was trying to tell me finally I was like well I have that shot and I have that shot and so I started getting as tight as I could and I got a shot of the tubercles around there John the top and the bottom of their head are bumps and each bump contains a hair and for the first time I actually got a shot where you can see the hair in the in the tubercle when humpbacks sing the sound is so loud you can hear it before you even get in the water it reverberates through the Hult and once you get in the water there's some low sounds that they make where you actually get shaken underwater by it the first time that I ever free dove down onto a singer the sound was so loud I couldn't hold my breath I ended up coming back up and going alright calm down take a few deep breaths and then dive back down the singers are phenomenal freedom shows the concerns of many that renewed commercial hunting of whales especially humpbacks is a grave mistake it seems that to begin whaling again at this point in time is ridiculous the whales have been protected for so long in the 20 years that I've been in Hawaii I hear more and more of encounters between boats and whales friendly encounters where the whales approach the boat and that they stay around the boat but the whales I think are just getting more and more excited to people and boats and have no fear of them to now begin hunting them is like hunting bears in Yellowstone Park the humpback is just now reached the point where it's a question whether or not it is still an endangered species - at this point go out and be killing them it just seems ridiculous we just barely got through possibly saving them historically man's capability of even managing a fishery is hopeless you know we target one species until they're gone and then we hit another species until they're gone so to put something that we've just now saved back on the the killing list is to me ludicrous [Music] [Music] at Kapalua Swale quest conference a diverse group of artists researchers and conservation groups gather to celebrate Hawaii's most famous cetaceans scientists like dr. Jim darling presents some of their most recent findings - an either public everyone here it seems loves humpback whales research community together with the public so that we can share what we're learning about whales and try to get everyone as excited as we are about what we have right here in our backyard we have up to 60% of the North Pacific population of humpbacks coming here every year but we want to do is share that information with as many people as we can and get it out in royal quest kapalua is one way that we can do that so we tried to incorporate and include people there looking at the ocean that are passionate about the ocean from a number of different perspectives from photography from videography cinematography as well as the science because it's really that combination of all those things that will lead hopefully people becoming inspired and get excited about conservation the size of these creatures in the water is extraordinary that wonderful majesty - a whale it's a presence that is unknown on this planet there's no other animal that has that enormous silent and absolutely graceful presence Whale Quest is a chance for local researchers and supporters to present to the community what we're doing and what we're learning in their backyard and it's a chance for the community to support research that's important if we don't know about the animals then the pictures don't mean anything if you don't know about the animals then you can't do education if you don't know about the animals you can't make good conservation decisions and so there's a tie between the research the story the presentation and education no one part works without the other during whale quest flip Nicklin David Doubilet and other participants also get to become whale watching tourists caps gonna come up right here they're coming down here she comes right here [Music] whale-watching and whale tourism like this these animals completely relax to plant around the boat you know you've got a captain that knows what the heck he's doing with the whole thing and how can you beat this you know it's wonderful it'll change everybody on this boat and what their attitudes to are towards humpback whales that's a tremendous positive thing [Music] images have become really the way that our society research memories and for photographers like myself like my flip like favorite are their whales behind me we have been charged with documenting their changing our planet and to maybe keep a record of what's happening photographers are really some of the people that are in the frontlines of conservation [Music] while Hawaii's and other pacific whale species are heavily protected humpbacks in other regions are not so lucky this calf is now large enough and strong enough to make the arduous journey south from the warm waters of Tonga to the frigid seas of Antarctica the future of these whales is uncertain there are now less than 800 humpbacks in Tongan waters and if commercial whaling resumes they will be on the frontlines of the hunt the sheltered waters of the South Pacific nation of Tonga have been important reading grounds for humpback whales for millennia [Music] these islands used to team with the animals maybe 10,000 or more before modern whaling only about 250 survived the whaling arrow many nations participated in the slaughter KGB documents revealed that Russian whaling ships illegally killed more than 48,000 whales in the southern pacific in just two decades the former king of Tonga was so concerned with the welfare of the country's remaining whales that he implemented a complete prohibition on whaling in the late 70s in the past few decades Tonga's humpbacks have recovered slightly to perhaps seven or eight hundred animals but Tonga's Fiji's and australia's humpback whales all migrated to Antarctica to feed the pro whaling nations held a majority the current situation with Japanese and whaling is that they have a scientific research program where they announced they were going to take 935 minke whales 50 fin whales and 50 humpback whales humpback whales are endangered or threatened depending on the population you're looking at and this happened to be a population that migrated past the coast of Australia through pressure by Australia and possibly some sort of backroom discussions with the United States Japan withdrew its quota of fifty humpback whales focusing on the 935 minke whales and the 50 fin whales two years ago the Japanese announced that they were going to be targeting humpback whales and I think really that they did this in order to put it on the table so they could always withdraw to get what they wanted they wanted a higher quota of minke whales and fin whales and every time they feel like they're not getting their way they throw them back on the table they're gonna be doing this again this year the pump back has really been the bargaining chip that they've been using to get their way down in Antarctica the Japanese argue that there are more than enough minke whales to sustain a well-managed whaling industry critics argue that even considering legalizing commercial whaling may open the floodgates to an all-out slaughter a new legal whaling industry would likely spawn illegal pirate operations that would make no distinction between species endangered or not but to resume whaling the moratorium would first have to be lifted the Japanese are according countries like Tonga and Mongolia and Chad and st. Lucia any country that they can get that will vote their way it's a real fear that of course Tonga would sell out to the Japanese just like you know Mongolia is now a part of the International Whaling Commission even though they don't have an ocean but Japan pays all of their expenses Japan's an economic bully and it gets in there and says okay you know we're going to cut prate agreements with you if we don't do what we want I'm not really concerned about it two months because Japan's not going to get a two-thirds majority at the international question they're just not going to do and that's the only way they're going to overturn that moratorium is with a two-thirds majority Japan is an island nation and they see the world in a different way they traditionally have gotten a huge proportion of their food from the ocean I can understand their position that you know they need to feed themselves and they have a right to feed themselves however was whaling it's not simply a matter of numbers if there's a half a million whales we can go out and kill a certain proportion of them it is how that half a million whales are distributed in the ocean how isolated they are from one another there's a lot of questions there that need to be answered before you can scientifically say that you can sustainably harvest that population the idea of harvesting natural resources can you do it which is a scientific question and should you do it which is a moral ethical question and I don't think the science part has been answered yet the moral and ethical part of that equation I think is always going to be a bone of contention between Pro whalers and anti whalers the growth of whale-watching tourism has been spectacular it now occurs in almost 100 countries it's estimated to generate in excess of a billion dollars each year and even minke whales are popular tourist attractions [Music] whale-watching is the ultimate sustainable industry you're not doing anything to harm the whales so you can keep people going out and seeing whales year after year after year it brings money into local economies these small South Pacific Islands Tonga for example I would love to go to Tonga to go whale watching and I know a lot of my friends would but the idea that these whales are also being hunted would make me less apt to go to a country like that to go whale watching this year the Japanese again announced a self awarded kora of fifty humpback whales and yet again they canceled the plans after closed-door negotiations at the International Whaling Commission can whale watching tours even help save humpbacks and other whales perhaps so now comebacks are still protected but it may be just a matter of time before the whaling moratorium is lifted [Music] [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Real Wild

Views: 146,628

Rating: 4.7281222 out of 5

Keywords: full documentary, wildlife documentary, natgeo wild, Nature documentaries - topic, Animals - topic, Full Animal Documentary, humpback whales, Whales, wild things, vavau tonga, sea photography, sea photoshoot, antarctica, whale documentary, sea shepherd documentary, sea shepherd, marine conservation, ocean raider, paul watson, animal liberation front, wild animal rescue documentary, conservation of whales, Blue Realm, knowledge network, the blue realm

Id: Xu4PT_gkCPE

Length: 45min 42sec (2742 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 07 2019