South Georgia Deadly Pole to Pole

My name's Steve Backshall...

..and this is Deadly Pole To Pole.

Oh!

From the top of the world to the bottom.

Whoa!

Deadly places,

deadly adventures

and deadly animals.

And you're coming with me, every step of the way!

Argh!

Deadly!

I've been on the road now for just over a year

and we have one last stop before we reach our final

destination in Antarctica, but what a place to stop.

It looks like a vast snow-capped mountain range that's just

been dropped in the ocean.

And in amongst those peaks, beaches and glaciers are vast

gatherings of some of the most special animals on earth.

This is South Georgia.

This stunningly beautiful, rugged island is right in the

middle of some of the roughest seas on earth.

It's taken us five days to get here from the mainland,

battered by massive waves.

We're now almost 10,000 miles from the North Pole,

and nearing the end of our expedition,

but it's still just getting better and better,

as South Georgia is a sanctuary to some of

the most extraordinary wildlife you'll ever see.

Hey, I've got one! I've got one!

First up, we head south along the island to St Andrews Bay,

the site of a grand Antarctic spectacle.

This part of the world,

perhaps the best known kind of animal is the penguin.

We've seen several different species since we've been down here -

the macaroni, the gentoo and the rock hopper.

But the one we're hoping to see today is simply breathtaking.

And as we get closer, we get our first glimpse of this

extraordinary animal.

It looked like the beach was covered in snow,

but actually every single one of those little white dots is a penguin.

There could be 300,000 of them right here.

These are all king penguins...

the second largest of all penguins and,

to my mind, the most beautiful.

In their tough southern world,

they have to fend off the toughest of opponents.

And when at sea, their speed and agility makes them a deadly force.

The team and I head to the beach to get a closer look.

PENGUINS SQUAWK

As with so much of the wildlife here in South Georgia,

they don't see human beings as a threat.

They probably don't see that many people,

so they're not scared of us.

Sometimes it's completely the opposite.

Hello.

Doesn't take long for their natural curiosity to get the better of them.

You can see them clocking you from miles away and just waddling

through the hoards until they get really close,

and then they'll crane out that extendable neck

to get a really good close look at you.

They have the classic counter shading colouration that you

see in so many marine animals.

So they have a white belly and a dark back,

and the reason for that is that once they're in the sea,

if you look at them from below,

their white belly disappears against the light of the sky above.

Whereas if you look down on them, then you're going to see that

grey back disappearing into the deep blue sea that's below them.

It's a very, very simple camouflage, but works fantastically well.

It means that when they're out hunting

they can keep hidden from predators, but also sneak up on their prey.

Penguins need to be robust, hardy creatures.

The waters out there are two degrees

and that's as warm as it gets round here.

In order to be insulated against those kind of conditions,

these animals have a thick layer of fatty blubber

underneath their skin and short, tight feathers,

which are incredibly densely packed together.

It has unbelievable insulating properties

that allows them to stay warm and stay active,

even in the chilliest seas on earth.

It's not just the chilly sea they're up against.

In the winter the temperature here plummets.

With winds reaching up to 100 miles an hour,

the wind chill can be as low as -50C.

Somehow the kings not only survive, but thrive.

But it's not just their ability to withstand the cold

which helps them live out here.

They also have a unique way of finding each other

when they arrive back on land.

Wandering around any penguin colony, it's always noisy,

but most of the time with most species of penguins

it's just a right racket.

King penguins, though, make the most beautiful sounds.

They throw back their heads

and they create this wonderful bugling call,

but it is also very, very important.

The chicks learn very early on how to recognise

their parents from that sound.

The sound is completely individual to each bird.

And using these calls, the chicks and the adults can find themselves

in amongst all of these swarms of animals,

which essentially all look exactly the same.

Wonderful as this is, it's just a taste of the spectacle ahead.

Down the beach is all very beautiful,

but I've been saving myself for my first view of the breeding colony.

It's just over this ridge.

Wow.

Ah-ha! That is absolutely jaw dropping.

The density and the amount of animals here

is just impossible to comprehend - they go on forever.

Well, I was expecting it to be big, but that is ridiculous.

A colony this big is a mighty predatory force.

The 300,000 penguins here are probably

eating 300 tonnes of fish every day.

Every once in a while, you can pick out in amongst them

a big round bundle of fluff with a tiny little head.

Those are the chicks and that's the whole reason why all these

birds have come together in one place - it's for breeding.

Breeding amongst king penguins is pretty unusual.

They breed probably twice in three years.

Lay one egg, and that turns into a furry brown chick.

After about six weeks, they're old enough that they can be

left in a creche like this,

so there's lots of little brown youngsters

and the adults are both off at sea feeding.

After two months, they've got to be the same size

and weight as the adult, but it's a full year before they're

properly fledged and they can head out to sea to feed themselves.

It's out at sea where they really come into their own.

So in order to fully appreciate these birds,

we need a marine encounter...

..and that's going to be a tall order.

So, in the meantime,

we're focusing our search on an animal of mammoth proportions.

If you need any evidence for the awesome potential of our next

deadly animal, all you have to do is look at the skull.

It's enormous, hefty, heavy and bony,

I can barely hold it up in my two hands,

and it's armed with these enormous teeth.

This is definitely a creature to be reckoned with.

It's the elephant seal...

the very largest seal on the planet.

With their trunk-like noses, the males can weigh almost four tons.

South Georgia's one of the best places in the world to see them...

..and it doesn't take long before we spot a group of young females.

Elephant seals, perhaps more than any other species,

seem so out of place up on land.

They're really heavy, they're clumsy,

they certainly have a lot of trouble getting around,

but in the water it is a totally different story.

This blubbery shape turns into a lithe torpedo,

and they're able to dive down to as much as a mile below the surface.

Some of their dives have been known to last for two hours in length,

which is just beyond belief.

While they're down there they'll hunt for fish and for squid,

which they eat in enormous quantities.

This is a superbly evolved predator.

To get an even better idea of their predatory prowess,

I need to find one of the monster males.

SEAL ROARS

Most of the animals here are females,

but that one, who just made that big bellowing roar

and is currently with his mouth open showing off his teeth, is the male.

The biggest male elephant seals can be ten times the weight of the

smallest females, and all of that weight and size is about commanding

a territory and having access to the girls.

This sound is, at the moment, for my benefit.

He's letting me know that these are his girls

and I should keep my distance, so I will.

I'm just going to stay here because the last thing you want

is an angry male elephant seal after you.

There are two times in an elephant seal's life cycle

when they need to come ashore.

One of them is now, when they're moulting their skin.

If you look carefully at some of the animals around me,

it kind of looks like they've got peeling wallpaper

all over their backs.

Their skin's coming off in great big sheets.

They'll come ashore for perhaps five or six weeks

while that skin moults off and lounge around in wallows like this.

I have to say, the smell is utterly overpowering.

I can barely breathe in through my nose

because it's making me want to be violently ill.

These animals have obviously been here for

quite a while and the smell is just revolting.

The other time that elephant seals come to land is when they breed.

That's when those noises are going to come really into their own.

It's also when elephant seals show their deadly side.

During August the males battle for females.

They rise up to show off their huge size...

then launch at each other,

tearing chunks out of their competitor.

Some encounters end with roaring and aggressive posturing,

but many others turn into violent, bloody battles.

With only one male on this beach,

there's not much chance of seeing these territorial battles,

so we're going to try our luck elsewhere.

Luckily, our captain knows of a beach where a number of juvenile

males have been hanging out.

And as we begin our search along the beach, suddenly something kicks off.

SEALS ROAR

It's two elephant seals and they're going into battle.

This is incredible.

These are probably young males that are just trying out their skills,

but even so you can see how brutal it can get.

These two massive animals laying into each other,

stabbing with those big teeth.

And using the layers, the thick layers of blubber,

to protect themselves.

It's almost like a suit of armour around the neck.

Just as we thought the male had been seen off,

he returns to land and moves towards another group of young males.

Before two males start fighting,

there's a good deal of posturing and an awful lot of noise made.

So, this animal here rearing up,

making itself look as big as it possibly can,

exposing the teeth is almost certainly leading

up to a bit of a battle between these two males here.

If you look closely around the neck, in every single one of them

there are chunks and scars taken out from where they've come head

to head and been knocking bales out of each other.

That trunk on the top of the nose will expand to huge proportions

and they can bellow air through it, making a sound just like that.

It carries across the entire beach

and it's a way of intimidating their rivals.

The sound they make is almost like a classic car or motorbike revving up

and it's always a precursor to conflict.

And the next sound is the sound of two animals that probably

weigh three tonnes slamming against each other.

The elephant seal, weighing in at nearly four tons.

It's the largest species of seal on the planet,

the champion free diver of all seals,

and in the battles between males, absolutely brutal.

For that reason, the elephant seal is undeniably deadly.

The largest seal on earth.

Champion free divers, spending two hours underwater...

and huge males that battle for females.

Without doubt...deadly.

Deadly.

South Georgia's been everything we've dreamed of.

Although we haven't had the chance to swim with king penguins in their

icy marine world,

but early the next morning came a rare opportunity.

We've woken up this morning to one of the most extraordinary

things I have ever seen.

I think all of us thought that our king penguin adventure was done,

but you can see, far from it.

The water around us is thick with them.

This means we have the opportunity to do

something very few people have ever done - to dive with king penguins.

No way!

HE LAUGHS

Penguins have that wobbling gait - they look so clumsy -

but underwater their grace and elegance is just bewitching.

They pull in that retractable head and neck,

forming a perfect stumpy torpedo shape...

and then their short, stiffened wings paddle them

through the water at great speed,

sometimes leaving a trail of silvery bubbles behind them.

It's absolutely breathtaking.

When they're travelling, like now, they stay close to the surface.

But when they're hunting, it's a whole different story.

'As the larger penguin species

'are the world's greatest deep sea diving birds.'

Most of their dives will be 30 or 40 metres,

but the deepest ever recorded was 300 metres...

down into waters that are always dark and have unimaginable pressure.

On those dives they're hunting for squid and their main prey,

which is lantern fish.

Along with their close relative the emperor penguin,

kings hunt in huge numbers, scything through shoals of prey.

Their success is due to one thing - their wings.

No longer used for flying,

they've evolved into paddles that drive them

through the water at great pace.

The first explorers that came to this part of the world

thought that penguins were fish.

It's easy to see why.

As they go zipping past your ears,

they're much more like a shoal of fish than they are birds.

'Very few people have ever swum with these extraordinary predators.

'In South Georgia we may be the very first.

'This is an experience I will never forget.'

Unbelievable.

Their ability to fly underwater,

their bright colours, their simple camouflage,

there's no doubt that these masters of Antarctica are deadly.

They are underwater speed demons...

..with a multipurpose beak...

able to survive the freezing Antarctic winter.

These icons of the south are definitely deadly.

Deadly.

Before we leave to continue south,

we head to the rusting, broken down ghost town of Grytviken...

..as South Georgia has a deadly history.

Many of the wonderful whales that

we've featured over the years, like blue whales...

..humpback whales...

..and Sperm whales...

Wow.

..would have been caught and killed by boats like this.

You can still see the harpoon up at the front of it.

In South Georgia's waters, there were perhaps 175,000 whales killed.

Throughout the Antarctic, as many as 1.5 million.

Grytviken was in operation for 60 years.

In the summer months, the 500 workers caught whales for oil and meat.

The whales were caught and processed on huge factory ships.

In the 1960s, the whaling came to an end

because there were simply no whales left to kill.

The industry died and Grytviken became a ghost town...

..but signs of its dark past are still strewn about the ruins.

There's still evidence everywhere of what went on here.

That's one single vertebrae from the spine

of one of the great whales.

And these are jawbones, perhaps from a sei, fin, blue whale.

The first explorers and sailors that came to this

part of the world said there were so many whales that you could

walk across the bays going across their backs.

Now whaling's been stopped for a very long time,

but the numbers still haven't recovered.

But there is hope. Whales are now protected all over the world,

and in the last few years, whale numbers in the southern ocean

have started to increase.

Hopefully, on our journey down to Antarctica,

we may catch a glimpse of these incredible ocean giants.

Now the team and I travel further south.

We're here to explore the southern ocean,

as it harbours some very unusual life.

Unfortunately, the weather's got a lot chillier,

so getting in the water is going to be seriously cold.

Scuba diving is an adventure in itself.

Just the idea of diving down below the ice into water

that could be nearly -2 is a chilling one, literally,

but the whole environment down there

is one unlike any other on the planet.

Three, two, one.

There is a very steep wall,

which drops from the surface vertically down to about 90 metres.

The wall itself is covered with invertebrate life...

but there's something very specific I'm looking for.

'I'm hoping to find the largest relative of the humble woodlouse.

'And while I keep my eyes peeled for this curious critter,

'we see all kinds of other life, from star fish to sea slugs,

'and some other underwater oddities.'

Oh, this is interesting.

This...

is a nemertean worm.

It may look pretty unimpressive, but it is actually predatory.

It will...

inject digestive fluid into food and then suck it up,

and it can also secrete a kind of acidic mucus on its skin

to deter other predators.

Very curious, odd creature.

'But then I spot something even stranger.'

You can easily miss this,

but it's actually one of the great wonders

of these cold Antarctic waters.

It's a sea spider.

There's about 1,300 different species around the world.

The ones here in Antarctic waters get to be the biggest,

and there is so much that's weird and unusual about their biology.

They don't have either gills or lungs.

Instead they absorb oxygen through those great, big, long legs.

This is a creature that literally never takes

a breath in its entire life.

And then the way they move is just

so peculiar, it almost looks like it's clockwork.

'But we're still hoping to find our giant bug.'

Hey, I've got one! I've got one!

This bizarre alien-looking creature...

is a giant isopod.

It kind of looks like a weird cockroach...

..but actually its closest relative would be the woodlice

that you find in your back garden.

These giants can be longer than a standard ruler

and are a glutton of the deep sea.

They're scavengers of dead and dying corpses.

If a carcass drops down to the sea bottom...

..it will soon become absolutely swarmed

with these scavenging animals.

They can turn up in their thousands.

Using their complex mouths they pierce,

shred and mince their food.

Although mainly scavengers,

they've also been known to eat each other.

Mostly they get around by crawling,

but they have got special organs on the underside of the body

that allow them to swim.

Look at this.

The giant isopod...

swimming scavenger.

They're fabulous and they're deadly.

It's a bizarre underwater alien...

getting as long as my forearm...

..and they're a glutton of the deep sea.

Definitely...

Deadly.

Join me next time as I reach my final destination

on the Pole to Pole adventure -

Antarctica.

I come face to face with one of the deadliest predators of the south...

Wow!

'..go under the ice...'

This is exquisite.

'..and meet up with a familiar ocean giant.'

Oh, my goodness!