"Our planet is a blue planet." "Nearly three-quarters of its surface is covered by the oceans." "Their enormous size, and the fact that we know so little about many of the creatures that live there, presented the makers of this series with some very difficult challenges." "The series took the best part of five years to make and we filmed in nearly 200 locations worldwide." "Much of the behavior of the animals in this series had never been filmed before and some was new to science." "To get it, the Blue Planet team were helped by researchers at the cutting edge of marine science all over the world." "This film is about how we worked with those scientists and were able to see so much that is new." "One of the least known and hardest animals to film is the blue whale." "It roams thousands of miles of open ocean and can move at 30 miles an hour." "You have to be very lucky even to catch up with one." "This..." "This immense body is just the tip of the flank of the biggest creature that exists on the planet - the blue whale." "Over 30 meters long and weighing as much as 200 tonnes, it's larger than the biggest dinosaurs." "And yet its migration routes are still largely unknown and we have no idea where blue whales breed." "The biggest research project trying to solve these mysteries is based off California, working with one of the largest remaining populations of blue whales." "Marine biologist Bruce Mate is pioneering a new technique which uses electronic radio tags to send signals to satellites." "Amazingly, we don't know where most whale species are at least half the year, and it's really important that we know their critical habitats - where they feed, breed, calve and migrate, because those are the areas that they can't do without," "We have to be very careful not to frighten them off but, as we approach, you can see the flukes, you can see the head start to rise," "When it blows, you know you're in the presence of a HUGE animal," "There's a sense of intimidation there, just by the sheer size of the animal," "Squeeze in," " All right!" " Oh, yeah!" "The dart is little more than a pinprick to the whale and, in under six months, it will fall off." "The little tag sends up signals to the satellite that records the whale's exact position each time it surfaces to breathe." "The latest results confirm that this population commutes each year from Oregon in the north to Mexico and Costa Rica in the south, with many whales overwintering in the Gulf of California." "For three years, we had cameramen on standby all along this migration route using a microlight and helicopters to try to film blues from the air without disturbing them." "The microlight was specially adapted for landing on the water so the cameraman could jump in ahead of the whale for an underwater shot." "But soon the whales headed out of microlight and helicopter range, and we had to follow them south into the Gulf of California." "There, we worked with another marine biologist, Diane Gendron." "If we want to do an estimation of the population, an estimation of the numbers of blue whale who use the Gulf of California, we need to know if we're looking at the whole population or just part of it," "And that's what we're doing with the aerial transect - trying to estimate the number of blue whale that use the Gulf of California during winter," "Pilot Sandy Lanham has an expert eye for spotting blue whales from the air." "For the last ten years, she's worked with biologists studying these animals in the Gulf." "What's really exciting is that there are early indications that this may be the place that blue whales come with their calves." "For our cameraman Rick Rosenthal it was a unique opportunity to get rare footage of a blue whale mother with its young." "Marilee, we've just got," "The spotter plane also provided crucial information to a boat-based team trying to catch up with the whales down at water level." "The whales are only on the water's surface for two minutes." "Then they dive for 20." "But, as their tails go down, they leave a patch of smooth water called a footprint - a clue to where they're heading and where they might resurface." "You know, with experience, you have an idea of the distance a whale moves underwater, looking from where you started moving," "With Diane's knowledge and special permits, our team managed to get really close without disturbing the whales." "The open ocean is a vast wilderness between the continents - a big, blue arena where finding anything is extremely difficult." "Somewhere out in this marine desert, there are amazing dramas played out every day and the Blue Planet team invested over 400 days of often unsuccessful filming trips far out to sea." "The day is still young," "It's a little after four in the afternoon," "Historically, this is about the time that the predator hour starts up," "Probably the open ocean, which I like to call liquid space, is the most difficult area to work in the ocean," "People wonder how we even film out there - do we just throw the camera in or wander about for days on end?" "There's hours of boredom, Nothing goes on, Nothing," "Patience, patience, Looking, looking," "After six weeks searching off the Pacific Coast of Panama, our crew finally caught up with some fast-moving and unusual dolphins - spinners." "I look for dolphins, marine mammals aggregating, coming together - a successful predator goes where the food is," "If we can find those patches, then that's going to be paydirt for us as well," "A pod of dolphins like this is often accompanied by other predators such as tuna." "Our team thought that following dolphins might lead them to some exciting action." "Right behind the dolphin school, a massive bunch of tuna came by," "I dove down and one school was crossing in front of me, then all of a sudden" " Boom!" " another big, massive school," "Eventually, the team struck gold - a ball of baitfish corralled at the surface by predators." ",on that outside edge there," "You have to be quick to film a bonanza like this, because soon the baitfish will be eaten and it'll be all over." "You have to be careful, too." "This frenzy is no place for the inexperienced." "One of the things - when you are in the water, sardines will often swarm you to try to hide around you from the predators," "I could see a piece of the bait ball break off and come directly at me," "The fish were on me and the tuna knew it, The tuna were rocketing out of the deep, just for a second, I felt I had become part of this feeding frenzy," "I felt like a big sardine in the middle of the bait ball," "Finally, when it was all over, all that remained was a shower of fish scales from the sardines, slowly sinking into the deep," "And me," "0n the other side of the world, another Blue Planet team was looking for more gentle creatures - one of the world's smallest whales, pilot whales." "So little research has been done in the open ocean that normally we worked without scientists." "But here we had advice from the local experts." "This site in the Alboran Sea is very important for some species that are in decline in the Mediterranean, like the common dolphin, the bottlenose dolphin, the sperm whale or even the pilot whale," "We have a lookout post on the masts and we tow a hydrophone behind the ship that detects the clicks or the whistles that these animals use to communicate," "It's just like a clock, you know, a very rhythmic sound," "Common dolphins and pilot whales are curious animals," "If you go straight into them, usually they'll go away," "But if you spot them and then stay at a distance, they're like children - very curious - and they'll actually go towards you," "(HIGH-PITCHED SQUEAKS)" "Cameraman Mark Gottlieb describes what it was like to get so close to so many whales." "Their sounds filled the water, It was an amazing experience," "I stayed with the whales for about two hours," "They were very tolerant, but it's sensible to respect their potential power," "A calf came very close to check us out," "The male was escorting the mother and calf, making sure nothing came too close, which in this case was me," "As I saw the calf coming towards me, it was obvious that the male didn't want me there," "It was very important to leave the calf alone," "The male came up and swished his tail right in front of me and nearly knocked me out, so I just stayed there and let them swim off on their own," "The presence of film crews on a ship like this is definitely very important," "We are not just doing the research for academic purposes but for conservation, so public awareness is an important part of our programme," "It's no use for us just to come up with scientific results," "We have to get through to the public and politicians that take the measures," "The open ocean's ultimate filming challenge is the world's fastest fish " "Billfish." "Spectacular predators like marlin and sailfish are extraordinarily difficult to locate and film." "We finally caught up with them off Mexico, where Rick Rosenthal used the birds to guide him to the action." "There's a Mexican legend about the frigate bird, which they call tijereta, or scissor tail," "The height that the frigate bird flies above the surface of the sea is directly proportional to the depth where the predators are swimming," "This opportunity only came after a total of 400 days scouring the open ocean and many failed trips." "You're pumped up, you're hunting, you're hunting with a camera," "You have to filter out an awful lot of what's going on around you, get specific, get into where the action is," "It was an exciting but dangerous moment." "These underwater javelins can travel at over 70 miles an hour." "Suddenly, tuna arrive to attack the very same bait ball." "And finally, almost unbelievably, a sei whale." "We got it!" "Will it come up again?" "Where the hell are you?" "Get going!" "Help Doug, Help Doug," "You have a wish list of things you'd want to film," "And, if you're in these gatherings, you'd certainly hope that some day a whale would come in and feed and you're in there," "In this programme, we were at the right time," "We followed groups of whales feeding," "We had put a cameraman or two in the water," "At the same time, we were filming from the surface so we could get proper coverage," "0f all the ocean habitats, the coasts are the most dynamic and demanding." "Life here is harsh and there are few permanent residents." "But when the conditions are right, the coast can be extremely rich - and that is exactly what happens each June off this coast in Natal, South Africa." "For two seasons, our crew of six cameramen and their extensive back-up team came to try and film one of the ocean's greatest spectacles." "Change speed underwater," "Six to 115." "They were here for an annual event called the sardine run." "Millions and millions of tonnes of sardines migrating northwards along the coast with the changing currents." "So much food inevitably attracts masses of predators." "It was this predation the team were hoping to film." "The sardine run stretches for miles, and the microlight was constantly searching for pods of common dolphins that would lead them to the action." "Once the microlight had discovered hunting dolphins, it passed on the location to the boat-based teams." "And it wasn't just dolphins, but hundreds of sharks that were also attracted by the fish." "Before diving in, the team put special explosive tips on their shark sticks." "If things looked really dangerous, these could be used to frighten the sharks away." "En garde!" "One - two - three, Go!" "Very few people dive with the brown shark, because we see the sharks in shallow water during the sardine run only," "When we are surrounded by sharks, we feel fear," "And suddenly the dolphins come," "We hear them before we see them, And then we start to relax," "Scientific research on the sardine run is still in its early stages." "But underwater filming reveals some very exciting new behavior among the dolphins." "Working together in teams, they release walls of bubbles to corral the sardines into ever-tighter balls." "This bubble-netting behavior allowed the dolphins to feed on every last sardine left behind while the rest of the migration continued north." "Monterey Bay, on the coast of California." "Every year, a pod of killer whales arrives to hunt gray whales as they migrate north through these waters." "Our cameramen Doug Allan and Tom Fitz spent eight weeks over two seasons trying to film the action." "We had these killer whales," "We started following them but, as you can see, the sea's got up," "It's 30 - 35 knots, We couldn't keep up with them," "Our team was advised by marine biologist" "Nancy Black, who had spent 14 years watching killer whales in Monterey Bay but had never seen a single complete kill." "The boat-based team was supported by keen-eyed spotters who every day scoured the bay from the air looking for gray whale mothers and their calves taking a shortcut." "(NANCY) During the spring, when the mothers and calves come through, the gray whales migrate north," "When they cross Monterey Bay, they have no shore protection," "There's no place for them to hide, and the killer whales are out looking for these mother/calf pairs of gray whales," "Killer whales can travel at over 20mph." "The challenge was trying to keep up with the action, whatever the weather at sea." "(NANCY) We were out there at the perfect time, right before the attack happened, with the killer whales in pursuit of the gray whales," "It's the first time that we've seen it all the way from the start to the end," "The killers kept up the hunt for five hours until, eventually, the calf was so exhausted that the mother was forced to stop." "And we had to watch as the pod came in to finish off the calf right in front of us, just a few meters away." "Killer whales seem to work in certain roles," "One female actually positioned herself between the mother and calf gray whale," "She was in there, pushing him away, The others had roles around the outside," "They seemed to be really co-ordinated," "It was the first time we'd had a chance to document that," "We spent a long time with them that day," "If they'd taken a mind to, they could have flipped us over," "But, on the other hand, I think they were concentrating on the whale, and we were able to get closer but not interfere, which was important," "By the end," "I was just completely emotionally drained," "After a six-hour hunt, the fifteen-strong pod of killer whales ate nothing more than the calf's lower jaw and its tongue." "The coral seas are the richest in the ocean." "Their diversity and richness of life is unmatched." "Blue Planet filmed worldwide in pretty well every major coral reef system." "But some of the most exciting places we worked were remote islands far off the Pacific coast of Central America, like the Galapagos, Malpelo and Cocos." "This is a big event," "This is a place in this vast ocean, and the deep water currents come in and hit this island," "And it upwells - brings all the nutrients up," "So the little fish feed on the nutrients, the bigger fish feed on the little fish, then the sharks feed on THEM," "We came out here without any experts, by ourselves, just out looking around trying to find sharks, trying to find good things to film," "And we found a bunch of them," "Finding oneself among so many silky sharks was an extraordinarily exciting but perhaps worrying experience." "I don't think you have anything to be worried about or frightened of," "They're a very curious shark, They come right up to you, which makes it good for photography," "They bump you, they push off your camera with their nose," "I think they want to find out what you are and what you're doing here in their world," "When they bump me, I bump them back to let them know, "Hey, I'm here and I'm something to be reckoned with, "" "No sooner had they arrived than the silky sharks started to disappear into the open ocean, never to be seen again on that particular trip." "At night, a completely new collection of animals emerges onto the reef and we were determined to film some of the things that happen under cover of darkness." "But lighting the reef to look as if it were lit by moonlight requires a well co-ordinated team and a complex lighting set-up." "For filming at night, especially sharks in a big area, we needed quite a bit of light," "Little battery lights wouldn't do, We brought in a generator and cables coming down to 650W lights," "I don't think the sharks were disturbed at all by the light," "These sharks are clued in to little electronic impulses from each other and also from the prey," "Filming in the tidal seas is all about timing." "The lives of the animals that live here are dominated by the daily advance and retreat of the tides." "But it's not just the daily cycle that's important." "The monthly cycle of the moon also has a massive effect on the oceans." "And on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, it seems to be the key factor co-ordinating the mass spawning of the entire reef." "We were there to try and film that spectacle but, as yet, it's still not properly understood by science." "It was only 20 years ago that they discovered that the whole of the Barrier Reef went off," "Basically it goes off on three or four nights," "They've been working on it ever since but they still don't know an awful lot," "So, for the scientists, this is really exciting," "and we tracked that down to one small, encrusted brown multipore," "It was Craig's advice that allowed us to get there at just the right time." "With three cameramen and a complex lighting rig, we were determined to film." "But, for Martha, there was a lot of tension as she waited on deck." "It's frustrating not being able to speak to them or see them," "If you're filming topside, you can interact and you know what the cameraman's getting," "But, on the back of a boat, at night, you have no idea what's going on," "That first night, there was no sign of the spawning." "The worry was that the lights might be interfering with the coral's behavior." "Craig thinks it's important not to have light on the coral at all," "He actually got us to turn the lights off on here and that light over there off because it was producing a cast on the reef," "He thinks it might be affecting the corals," "Well, we have to light it in order to film it," "Well, I white-balanced, I switched, I had the light on," "He obeyed instructions!" "Craig thought the light might affect the spawning so I thought I'd just leave things as they are," "I wasn't told that," "(PETER) This is a practice lighting, (MARTHA) It was, you're quite right," "Tantalizingly, for two more nights, there was little sign of the spawning." "But, eventually, on the fourth night, something started to happen." "Some of the corals began to release sperm in clouds into the water." "But this was not the mass-spawning spectacle the team had come to film." "For the cameramen, it was rather frustrating work as they picked away, trying to get the pictures needed to build up the story." "It just takes such a long time, I mean, it doesn't go in one big bang," "It just goes 1, 2," "Quite a lot of eggs go off, but they don't go off in vast numbers," "They just sort of waft out gently, 4, 5, 1," "We would follow one egg, you know, one egg," "You wait five minutes and you might get two," "Watching a lump of stone getting ready to spawn is," "(PETER) Now, this, We've gone up and we've got the main light," "We're not balanced for that so I just had to adjust it," " That's mine," " I know, I know," "Finally, on the fifth night, it seemed it was all going to happen and Martha could hardly suppress her excitement." "Ye-e-e-es!" "But there was a problem." "At the last minute, Peter's camera had failed." "He worked desperately to fix it in the few hours remaining before the spawning was due to happen." "(MARTHA) We're in go mode for tonight," "We're in go mode tonight," " With color, - 0h, there'll be some color there," "No guarantee what it's like!" "There'll be some color there but," "(MIKE) ,but no spawning yet," "Luckily, on the fifth night, the team WERE all set to film a spectacular mass spawning of the coral reef." "The seasonal seas that occur in the temperate regions of the world are probably the most productive parts of the ocean." "But they're hard places to work in." "Their very productivity reduces water visibility, and the weather is often rough and unpredictable." "The Blue Planet came to temperate waters off California to film some exciting new behavior in harbor seals, first observed by biologist Teri Nicholson." "Harbor seals are incredible," "I guess what I love about working with them is dispelling the myth that they are these funny, rock-looking objects on shore," "When you get underwater with them, they have an incredibly complex and dynamic social life," "They're very curious and very cool to be with," "Teri discovered that young male seals seem to learn an extraordinary courtship song by closely mimicking older males." "I know it sounds much more intense than that, but I'm a female!" "These vocalizations kind of allow males to feel each other out and figure out who are the males to stay away from, who they can potentially be harmed by," "They're bigger and more dominating than other males that they can overcome," "The biggest lesson I've learned is that, to look at harbor seals and understand their behavior, you have to look underwater," "Almost everything interesting these animals do occurs underwater," "Hundreds of miles to the north, off Prince William Sound, Alaska, another Blue Planet team came in search of one of the least-known sharks " "salmon sharks." "These unusual relatives of the great white shark have never been observed behaving naturally underwater, and we were keen to try and get unique images using a remote camera attached to a pole." "Director Hugh Pearson could watch the action via a monitor on the surface." "It was great to try and film something very new," "Also, it just fitted in so well with our story, because the whole theme of the temperate programme is the seasonality of the seas," "And this story is totally seasonal," "The salmon sharks wait for the salmon to spawn, and then they move in," "Obviously, we're hoping that we're going to get them actually behaving naturally and fishing amongst the salmon in the thick numbers that we're told," "(HUGH) The timing for us to come here is absolutely vital, because, for most of the year, the scientists think they're out feeding in the North Pacific on whatever's there," "But they follow the salmon in and the salmon only run in for maybe a month or so during the summer," "It's not just the sharks that are after the salmon - there's a big fishing industry here." "Marine biologist Ken Goldman works with the fishermen, who help him catch sharks for science." "The salmon sharks are becoming an important resource for the state of Alaska," "There's a large interest in sport fishing," "It's becoming big news for game fishing," "The state and the federal government are interested in managing this species before the population begins to decline because of the fishing," "Catching and tagging a 4-meter shark is hard work." "But Ken hopes it might provide vital information about population size and where the sharks go to breed." "They've only ever been seen here off Alaska and then for just one month each year." "The rest of their lives remains a mystery." "(KEN) That'll be fine, That's good," "This is often the only close-up look that Ken ever gets of his shark." "And he was as fascinated as we were to see what pictures would emerge from our camera on a pole." "This is a 3-minute selection of some of the good stuff we got," "(KEN) This kind of activity is what I don't get to see," "Even when I look over the side of the boat," "I get a top view, I don't see the side of it or get to look up underneath it," "What's the distance from the camera, That's nice," "It's probably 10 foot when you start to see him," "(KEN) They probably see that camera at 30 feet," "Who knows?" "But theirs are adapted to that environment where ours are not," "(HUGH) Do you think from that" " that they're very visual predators?" " Yeah," "By exploiting the shark's visual sense, we hope to lure them closer to get some more powerful images still." "You get that silver-sided salmon doing what you're doing," "You're moving it along, it's something visual going through the water," "You can't really see it without a video shot like this, where it comes in, turns its head to it, then turns away - curious and cautious," "And then comfortable enough to go for it," "It's a new look, This is a shark that so little is known about, and few people have had the opportunity to see them underwater," "So, every time, the behaviors are either confirming something we suspect or showing us something new, or something we didn't think they could do," "It's absolutely wonderful to see," "You learn stuff every time you watch something like this," "The frozen seas in the Antarctic and the Arctic, for some, are the most beautiful of all ocean habitats." "But it's dangerous to be lulled by their beauty." "For the animals that have to survive at the poles, and our teams who had to work there, conditions could hardly be harsher." "This is not a day to be looking for bears," "It's about minus 15 with 20 knots of wind," "The wind chill is something ferocious," "Doug Allan made several trips to the Arctic island of Svalbard to try and film polar bears hunting." "I've got this little guy here," "He comes with me on all my trips," "And, if I put him down here by the window, facing out, hopefully he'll bring in the real thing," "So, do your stuff," "Polar bears hunt far out on the frozen sea ice, which is a dangerous place to work." "And finding a white bear in this white wilderness requires much patience and experience." "God, that was so frustrating," "We had this female and cub, We'd been watching her for the last 3 or 4 hours doing a bit of hunting, never very close," "Anyway, she came in to a nice position," "And then I took a few steps towards her," "She was a long way away but she just completely reacted the wrong way," "I lost all her confidence and now she's, pissed off," "And it's such a nice day for filming," "And I thought we had it and, 0h," "If anything, working in Antarctica is even more demanding than the Arctic." "Here you can be thousands of miles from civilization and everything you need has to come in by sea or air." "We were fortunate to have the support of scientists on the Italian Antarctic programme who kindly let us share a temporary research base they'd set up miles out on the edge of the frozen sea ice." "(SPEAKS IN ITALIAN)" "The Italian programme is involved in a wide range of Antarctic research, but here they were concentrating on the communities of animals and plants that live under the ice." "By measuring the amount of light that reaches algae under the ice, they hope to monitor the frozen sea's productivity - one vital way to gauge the health of the Antarctic Ocean." "Their hole also provided a unique opportunity for Doug." "It's quite nice," "Really big platelets of ice," "Very impressive when Mark's crawling in amongst it trying to find a space for the light center," "Very nice, Browns, greens, all kinds of colors," "A Weddell seal came by and gave us a quick once-over," "But most of our work was concentrated at the ice edge." "We were there to film Emperor penguins as they returned to their breeding colonies from feeding far out to sea." "A remote camera under the ice helped us predict when the penguins would emerge." "0K, I think that's it, That's it," "Back in the Arctic, on Svalbard, after weeks of patience," "Doug was finally getting close to a polar bear and its cub." "You have to work very carefully to gain her confidence." "It's five o'clock in the morning and I think we've just cracked it," "We had a female there with the cub, and she did quite a lot of pouncing about," "50 to 80 meters away, just a nice sort of distance," "And do you know what she did when she was finished?" "She was so relaxed, she sat down and gathered the cub in to her, and suckled it head-on to the camera," "I tell you, the weight off your mind when you get something like that is incredible," "Sixty per cent of our planet is covered by ocean more than a mile deep." "The deep is by far the largest of all the ocean habitats." "And yet it's the least known." "You need the very latest technology to explore this last frontier." "As you descend, the light diminishes and pressures increase to dangerous levels." "Within 1,000 meters, it's 100 times that on the surface and only a handful of submersibles worldwide can dive any deeper." "You're flying around in this very small ball of air - a glass bubble, zooming around," "And it's just a wonderful feeling to think that the chances are excellent that no one else has ever seen anything you're looking at on that entire dive," "We joined the Johnson Sealink submersible from the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute to film a completely new community of animals only discovered in the '90s." "This brine lake is surrounded by thousands of mussels, and there are extensive fields of tubeworms nearby, all existing without the sun's energy." "Filming was a real challenge." "Every single thing you do is done remotely," "You barely twist this knob and the iris jerks," "And, you know, you see that kind of stuff - it's frustrating," "Beautiful, close-up images of tubeworms, revealed for the very first time." "These worms live 1,000 meters down, but we wanted to dive a lot deeper than that and had to use a far stronger submersible." "This is ALVIN, operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute." "It's a reinforced titanium tank with tiny windows, which allows it to dive as deep as three miles." "We joined ALVIN on a number of different expeditions." "This time we were diving over a mile down into the San Diego trench about 40 miles off the Californian coast." "I'll be tracking you on 12,5," "Crammed into the tiny sphere just 2 meters wide was the pilot, chief scientist Craig Smith... and, once again, our cameraman Mike deGruy." "500 meters, Five - zero - zero," "Craig was keen to return to a particular location that he had visited on a previous expedition" "18 months before." "I hear sonar target," "North-east at 60 meters," "The sonar found its target - the skeleton of a 40-tonne gray whale." "After a year and a half on the seabed, this was all that was left." "But we first filmed it as a fresh carcass after just six weeks on the bottom." "Originally, the dead whale had washed up on the coast of California." "With Craig's advice, we'd paid a local fisherman to drag it out to the San Diego trench, where it was to be sunk." "Easier said than done." "We put 5,000 pounds of weight on it and it was still sticking halfway out of the water," "We stabbed it full of holes with cleansing knives and a big spear that the first engineer made from the ship," "He also shot it full of holes with his ,45 automatic pistol," "The gas coming out of it when you cut holes in it was horrible," "But the hard work proved worthwhile." "The carcass attracted an extraordinary variety of deep-sea scavengers." "Shark!" "Shark!" "0h, gee!" "He's right out here," "Out of nowhere, a sleeper shark, a real deep-sea specialist, and never filmed at this depth before." "These sharks and thousands of hagfish stripped the carcass bare and this was all that was left 18 months later when we returned." "Craig's main interest in returning was to collect pieces of bone to take them to the surface." "For Mike, it was another opportunity to film this eerie but fascinating spectacle." "It's amazing, It's just evolved," "When we first got down there, it looked like no meat, all skeleton," "I thought, "Ah, well, that's great, "" "Big rib cages and hagfish moving through - totally picked clean," "Unbelievable, Then, as we settled in, and started looking in detail, we saw mats of all these worms, and suddenly meat, hagfish grinding away," "There's still meat on it a year and a half later," "It was great, And it looks terrific," "Everything worked, Hah, I'm happy," "Craig was delighted to get so many specimens lifted to the surface, even if they were less than fragrant." "They do smell pretty bad, 0n the surface, Craig could get a really close look at the life living on the bones." "0n a previous expedition, he found 178 species on one vertebra." "There's a fascinating community of animals that seem to be able to survive in the darkness by breaking down the energy trapped in the whale's bones." "What really fascinates Craig about the new species discovered on dead whales is that some are also found in one other special deep-sea habitat." "Two miles down along the mid-oceanic ridges, extraordinary volcanic activity emerges out of the seabed in hydrothermal vents." "Scientists were amazed to discover among these vents one of the richest oases of life in the deep ocean." "Since they were first discovered, a new species has been revealed every ten days." "And what fascinates Craig is that some of these species are exactly the same as those found on his dead whales." "Remarkably, Craig believes that his whale skeletons may be providing vital stepping stones of energy for larvae journeying to colonize a new vent." "Like so much in the marine world, this science is breaking the frontiers of knowledge and new discoveries are made every day." "The satellite tags on the blue whales are still operating today, providing Bruce Mate with new information round the clock." "We've seen animals tagged on the same day go in dramatically different directions," "In the first seven weeks, one went up to southern Oregon, one was down on the Baja coast, one was 1,200 miles offshore," "Some of those animals have gone all the way down to the Costa Rican dome, which is about eight degrees north of the equator and 400 miles offshore," "Despite all the efforts of researchers worldwide, we still do not know where these giants go to breed." "Like so much about our blue planet, it remains a mystery." "I don't know if we got that shot," "We'll get it again, Go on, get your act together," "Bloody producers, Can't get the staff,"