:00:10. > :00:18.The only continent on earth with no native human population.
:00:19. > :00:25.But Antarctica's coasts are teeming with life.
:00:26. > :00:28.So how can scientists study and protect that wildlife
:00:29. > :00:31.year-round through the harshest winter on the planet?
:00:32. > :00:35.I'm Victoria Gill and I'm following a team of scientists who
:00:36. > :00:40.are setting up remote cameras in penguin colonies here.
:00:41. > :00:44.Here in the Antarctic Peninsula, penguins are largely declining.
:00:45. > :00:50.I want to understand what the threats are to penguins
:00:51. > :00:55.in this region and how to get rid of those threats.
:00:56. > :01:01.Climate change is already having an impact on penguin populations here.
:01:02. > :01:05.So what can Antarctica's most famous residents reveal about the future of
:01:06. > :01:30.We are on the shortest possible crossing to Antarctica
:01:31. > :01:40.It's actually quite hard to breathe when you put your face in the wind.
:01:41. > :01:45.It takes more than two days to cross the infamously rough Southern Ocean.
:01:46. > :01:49.We're about half a day's sail away from the Antarctic
:01:50. > :01:52.peninsula, and I guess this is the weather they talk
:01:53. > :01:54.about when you've got to cross the Drake Passage.
:01:55. > :01:56.The winds are uninterrupted by any landmass.
:01:57. > :02:01.We've got our first iceberg just over my
:02:02. > :02:10.It might look uninviting but this is a highly productive ocean.
:02:11. > :02:16.It's the foundation of the Antarctic food chain.
:02:17. > :02:19.Seabirds, including glider-like albatrosses,
:02:20. > :02:26.follow the ship throughout our 1000-kilometre voyage.
:02:27. > :02:29.But these displays are only a glimpse of why scientists make
:02:30. > :02:44.Antarctica is this vast thermostat for planet Earth, so we need to
:02:45. > :02:47.understand what's happening here, not just to protect its wildlife but
:02:48. > :02:52.to predict what's going to happen to our own climate in the future
:02:53. > :03:00.in places that are much more populated than this.
:03:01. > :03:03.There's a glimpse of Antarctica, even more spectacular
:03:04. > :03:09.Gorgeous day, perfect day for camera setups.
:03:10. > :03:16.On the deck of our ship, the Ocean Endeavour, I meet
:03:17. > :03:20.He's been working here for ten years and spent
:03:21. > :03:24.the last five setting up a network of penguin monitoring cameras.
:03:25. > :03:28.This is the first of just five days he'll have to work
:03:29. > :03:34.So as soon as he spies the mainland he's making a plan.
:03:35. > :03:39.The harbour is at the eastern end of the bay.
:03:40. > :03:46.The sun's out and it's a balmy zero centigrade.
:03:47. > :03:50.Landing ashore, though, can be risky.
:03:51. > :03:53.Weather conditions can suddenly change and we have to be prepared.
:03:54. > :03:58.OK, a quick safety check, has everyone got water?
:03:59. > :04:03.Tom and his team will go ashore more than a dozen times during this trip,
:04:04. > :04:05.but every landing is taken very seriously.
:04:06. > :04:11.And it's not just about personal safety, we have to
:04:12. > :04:20.This is the gangway on the side of the ship where we get onto
:04:21. > :04:24.Before we go ashore, we have to wash our boots.
:04:25. > :04:27.We can't take anything onto the Antarctic mainland
:04:28. > :04:40.It's just a short ride from the ship to reach the shore.
:04:41. > :04:45.But with relatively sparse sea ice, access to this bay and its nesting
:04:46. > :04:59.Here in their hundreds, these are gentoo penguins.
:05:00. > :05:10.As you can see there are a bunch of nests in view.
:05:11. > :05:14.This is the cool one, it takes a photo every hour all year
:05:15. > :05:16.which shows when they arrive, when they depart,
:05:17. > :05:21.the reproductive success, which chicks survive and which don't.
:05:22. > :05:25.But this has to survive an entire Antarctic winter.
:05:26. > :05:28.It actually looks surprisingly simple to me.
:05:29. > :05:32.It's simple, very cheap, a basket of rocks that holds up
:05:33. > :05:39.It's light so we can carry it up here, we can buy these locally
:05:40. > :05:50.These penguins provide scientists with a barometer of Antarctic
:05:51. > :06:00.The birds will return to this exposed rocky spot every year.
:06:01. > :06:05.Gentoo nests painstakingly built from valuable bite-size stones that
:06:06. > :06:08.they seek out are vital to protect eggs and chicks
:06:09. > :06:17.As few as a quarter of these birds will survive their first year,
:06:18. > :06:23.but those that do will return to this site as adults to breed.
:06:24. > :06:27.What Tom's camera's capturing here, and what he's come all this way to
:06:28. > :06:29.retrieve, is a rare glimpse of a whole year in
:06:30. > :06:36.What we're going to do today is check this camera, change
:06:37. > :06:42.the batteries and the SD card, then that's good for another year.
:06:43. > :06:44.There are a number of threats to penguins.
:06:45. > :06:48.We understand some of them and we don't understand others.
:06:49. > :06:52.This is the equivalent of having 70-100 biologists all around
:06:53. > :06:56.Antarctica and simultaneously recording and comparing notes, and
:06:57. > :07:10.they do that 365 days of the year without complaining how cold it is.
:07:11. > :07:13.With the first camera reloaded it's back to the ship to prepare
:07:14. > :07:17.for the first landing in just two hours.
:07:18. > :07:21.The Ocean Endeavour is the base for the scientists, but this isn't
:07:22. > :07:28.a research expedition, this is a tourist cruise.
:07:29. > :07:31.The researchers work in partnership with an American tour
:07:32. > :07:35.company, so they are amongst almost 200 holidaymakers on this trip,
:07:36. > :07:38.but nearly 40,000 tourists will have visited Antarctica this season,
:07:39. > :07:46.hoping for close-up encounters like this.
:07:47. > :07:50.A century ago a place that explorers risked their lives just to set foot,
:07:51. > :08:00.Antarctica is now an adventurous traveller's dream destination.
:08:01. > :08:04.The team has now installed 40 cameras throughout the peninsula.
:08:05. > :08:09.Some like the one here on Booth Island are more difficult to
:08:10. > :08:15.Touring from place to place like this means they can visit up
:08:16. > :08:20.They'll have their first glimpse of what the cameras captured
:08:21. > :08:30.as many of their monitored colonies as possible.
:08:31. > :08:34.To make the most of every excursion once they've
:08:35. > :08:39.retrieved images from the camera, Tom and his colleague,
:08:40. > :08:42.a PhD student, set about gathering a very different type
:08:43. > :08:48.So today I'm collecting a bit of guano sample,
:08:49. > :08:55.I'm also getting a couple of swabs on some adults and chicks,
:08:56. > :08:59.and we're looking to see if the viruses and the microbes are
:09:00. > :09:11.shared from adult to chick since the adults recurred to take
:09:12. > :09:16.It's actually a fairly common procedure.
:09:17. > :09:19.I'm not sure it's ever been done on camera.
:09:20. > :09:22.Sometimes it involves a little bit more defensive posturing on my part.
:09:23. > :09:24.But it's generally OK and pretty quick.
:09:25. > :09:26.It's OK. It's OK.
:09:27. > :09:30.For Antarctic biology, this is a very special site.
:09:31. > :09:34.All three species of penguin that inhabit the
:09:35. > :09:37.peninsula, gentoos, chinstraps and adelie penguins
:09:38. > :09:45.For disease monitoring it's really cool to just be able to be
:09:46. > :09:48.in a place where we can see if diseases or bacteria and viruses
:09:49. > :09:51.are shared across the three species whether they are live
:09:52. > :09:58.This is a new vein of conservation research.
:09:59. > :10:01.Very little is known about the impact of disease here.
:10:02. > :10:03.But along with climate change, that scientists have already linked
:10:04. > :10:09.to declines in chinstrap and adelie penguins, it is a suspected threat.
:10:10. > :10:12.This is an area where policies tend to be
:10:13. > :10:15.implemented that might be damaging and then only when the research
:10:16. > :10:19.shows that things are damaging are they reversed, I think it should be
:10:20. > :10:24.Getting that data with the cameras and now getting the baseline disease
:10:25. > :10:27.data is a really important way to set things up properly
:10:28. > :10:56.This project provides scientists with Antarctic CCTV,
:10:57. > :10:59.a window into how exactly this environment is changing,
:11:00. > :11:03.Having spent the day ashore captivated by the wildlife,
:11:04. > :11:07.I can't wait to see what the remote cameras have been gathering when
:11:08. > :11:14.At the end of each day the ship will move on,
:11:15. > :11:17.and it's during these journeys that Tom finally has a chance to see
:11:18. > :11:22.These are some of the cards you have got from this trip?
:11:23. > :11:24.This is everything from this morning and yesterday.
:11:25. > :11:28.Looks like it. Great, that must be a relief.
:11:29. > :11:34.Yeah, massive relief. Looks really good.
:11:35. > :11:38.So that is a year in the life of that penguin colony.
:11:39. > :11:48.The cameras captured a glimpse of every hour
:11:49. > :11:54.This network means researchers can see how penguin colonies are
:11:55. > :11:59.affected by weather, and by human activities like tourism and fishing.
:12:00. > :12:01.So you're just going to scroll through all these images?
:12:02. > :12:06.This is the early stage of a long-term monitoring project,
:12:07. > :12:09.and it's has been revealing some unexpected information,
:12:10. > :12:13.including how penguins seem to use all that messy guano to melt
:12:14. > :12:24.the times when you are not here, ready for nesting.
:12:25. > :12:28.the times when you are not here, seeing what is going on in winter is
:12:29. > :12:32.quite beautiful and something you would never get to see. No-one
:12:33. > :12:43.really sees these in the way we get to see them. Another day, another
:12:44. > :12:49.messy journey to the next site. We sail through the stunning
:12:50. > :12:52.Tourists gather on deck to take in the scenery and the wildlife,
:12:53. > :13:01.As we approach the end of this narrow passage,
:13:02. > :13:05.our path is blocked by sea ice, but that brings us even closer
:13:06. > :13:12.The icy platform these animals rely on looks substantial, but it
:13:13. > :13:19.A careful nudge satisfies the crew that we can safely push through,
:13:20. > :13:37.Over the course of the next few days,
:13:38. > :13:45.working closely with the US organisation Oceanites.
:13:46. > :13:48.Since 1994, they have been tracking migrations on this peninsula.
:13:49. > :13:51.But as their network grows, they are amassing millions
:13:52. > :13:59.of images, too much data for them to study on their own.
:14:00. > :14:00.The solution - enlisting the public's help.
:14:01. > :14:04.All of the images will go online, in a vast Antarctic citizens'
:14:05. > :14:09.The team wants as many eyes as possible helping them to monitor
:14:10. > :14:26.For the first time, people really can take part in Antarctic research
:14:27. > :14:34.And we really need them, because we have millions of images.
:14:35. > :14:42.This will make a difference to how we manage Antarctica.
:14:43. > :14:45.Science is the one human activity that is truly prioritised
:14:46. > :14:53.In a land with no borders, where there has never been a war,
:14:54. > :15:01.a land that belongs to no state, 30 countries operate research bases.
:15:02. > :15:03.Each one is a microcosm of national culture.
:15:04. > :15:06.And with Antarctic summer tourism growing, many of them,
:15:07. > :15:08.like the Ukrainian Vernadsky Research Base, welcome visitors
:15:09. > :15:19.It is the world's most remote gift shop.
:15:20. > :15:23.Apparently if you leave your bra you can get a free shot of booze.
:15:24. > :15:39.It is the relatively busy summer research season, and the scientists,
:15:40. > :15:46.The people running the gift shop and serving drinks at
:15:47. > :15:53.the bar are also botanists, marine biologists, and climate scientists.
:15:54. > :15:57.It is an isolated existence here, and just 12 men will make this
:15:58. > :15:59.place their home throughout the long Antarctic winter.
:16:00. > :16:02.How is it to live here for 14 months?
:16:03. > :16:04.It is a long expedition. Yeah.
:16:05. > :16:09.And during this expedition I made 105 dives.
:16:10. > :16:11.You dive there? Yes.
:16:12. > :16:30.This used to be a British research base.
:16:31. > :16:40.It was sold to Ukraine in 1996, and with it an instrument that was
:16:41. > :16:44.This is the station where the ozone hole was discovered in 1985.
:16:45. > :16:53.It seems typical of an Antarctic research base to find
:16:54. > :16:57.an instrument that gathered information that change the world
:16:58. > :17:06.This is Nobel Prize-winning research that went on here.
:17:07. > :17:09.That is about as rock 'n' roll as it gets in science.
:17:10. > :17:11.That's... That's amazing to see.
:17:12. > :17:15.For the tourists we're travelling with, this is a curious glimpse
:17:16. > :17:29.But for these visitors, who are from all over the world
:17:30. > :17:32.and of a surprisingly wide age range, Antarctica's allure is
:17:33. > :17:34.How old are you? Nine.
:17:35. > :17:36.Nine, and is this your first time in Antarctica?
:17:37. > :17:39.What do you think of it? It's awesome.
:17:40. > :17:43.This is God's hand, this is God's handiwork.
:17:44. > :17:52.You can tell stories, you can show your mates,
:17:53. > :18:09.but until you are actually here, it doesn't do it justice.
:18:10. > :18:11.We're here to provide people a way to see this,
:18:12. > :18:14.and experience it, and build a relationship to it,
:18:15. > :18:17.and have a reason for it to be relevant to their lives.
:18:18. > :18:22.So we have, you know, a series of guidelines that we follow,
:18:23. > :18:26.and the International Association for Antarctic Tour Operators is
:18:27. > :18:29.a really good example of industry advancing on regulation.
:18:30. > :18:42.You know, we have collectively decided we want
:18:43. > :18:45.to be really as light-handed as we can be on this environment,
:18:46. > :18:49.and these are the things we are going to do to do that.
:18:50. > :18:53.There is a certain paradox in the very fact of bringing large groups
:18:54. > :18:57.But by being on this cruise, these tourists are subsidising
:18:58. > :19:01.We would never have the access without them.
:19:02. > :19:04.They drop us off where we want to go, and
:19:05. > :19:10.in return we educate their tourists about conservation, and hopefully
:19:11. > :19:14.I wanna talk about life in the field, so...
:19:15. > :19:17.But even with scientists on board, should tourist ships visit
:19:18. > :19:23.What does it make you feel to see a troop of tourists in yellow
:19:24. > :19:37.But the data suggests that tourism is not having an impact.
:19:38. > :19:40.There are far bigger threats, and these are threats that are
:19:41. > :19:44.Because of tourism there has been clean-ups of scientific bases,
:19:45. > :19:53.It's actually only going to improve with the internet,
:19:54. > :19:55.and with people reporting the bad stuff.
:19:56. > :19:58.That's what actually forces governments to clean their act up.
:19:59. > :20:00.This is high-end ecotourism. Tom's lectures are full.
:20:01. > :20:02.The passengers want to learn more about
:20:03. > :20:13.But some of the travellers aboard have spent up to $15,000 to come
:20:14. > :20:19.On this ship, one of the things you can do is an activity called
:20:20. > :20:22.polar plunge, which is pretty much what it sounds like.
:20:23. > :20:26.These people in front of me are queueing to jump
:20:27. > :20:30.The lack of judgement on display in this room is pretty phenomenal.
:20:31. > :20:36.Swimming in near-freezing water is a one-off experience, in what for most
:20:37. > :20:51.How is it? How is it?
:20:52. > :20:54.How is it without swearing? It's cold.
:20:55. > :21:04.With the water just a fraction of a degree above freezing,
:21:05. > :21:07.I managed to last just over 30 seconds.
:21:08. > :21:16.With experiences like this, and the brutal beauty of this place,
:21:17. > :21:19.you can see what brings a growing number of visitors.
:21:20. > :21:23.But what drives people like Tom to spend months every year working
:21:24. > :21:30.I'm really trying to make a difference.
:21:31. > :21:32.But there's no doubt that this is personally just
:21:33. > :21:40.Sites like this, even when you're focused on the science,
:21:41. > :21:43.and you forget every now and then to look up,
:21:44. > :21:59.So yeah, there's really - yeah, kind of feeds your soul.
:22:00. > :22:04.So this is the last camera for this expedition now all checked?
:22:05. > :22:08.That's it for this year, for this camera, anyway.
:22:09. > :22:14.And now it's just to turn it on, and fingers crossed.
:22:15. > :22:18.So does that mean we can go back to the ship now for a cup of tea?
:22:19. > :22:19.Yes, let's go. Excellent.
:22:20. > :22:22.The penguins are unbelievably cute, but beyond that,
:22:23. > :22:24.they're such an important part of the ecosystem here.
:22:25. > :22:35.Watching over that ecosystem as it responds to man-made threats
:22:36. > :22:37.like climate change, pollution and fishing
:22:38. > :22:50.But this project will eventually provide a view of the impact people
:22:51. > :22:54.are having on this environment,, and on the wildlife that inhabits