Whales & Dolphins Big Blue UK

Every day this week,

we'll be looking at a different group of animals

that make our seas their home.

We're here at St Oswald's Bay in Dorset,

where we'll be delving deep

into the lives of the UK's whales and dolphins.

The British Isles is one of the best places in Europe

to see this marine megafauna.

Later, I'll be looking back at the UK's whaling past,

and finding out how things have changed.

All week we're also joined by roving wildlife cameraman

Richard Taylor-Jones,

who today is exploring a mysterious whale stranding.

What on earth was a 45-foot-long sperm whale doing

washed up on a beach in Kent?

We'll also be joined by some familiar faces

sharing their best past experiences of whales and dolphins.

And I'm heading to Cardigan Bay to meet the UK's largest pod of

friendly bottlenose dolphins - a place where anyone can see them.

Two animals.

But first up, here's Richard to give us

the lowdown on the ocean giants swimming in UK seas.

For almost 20 years, I've been filming British wildlife.

Whales and dolphins are tough to capture,

but when you can, it's completely worth it.

Worldwide, there are more than 80 different types of whale,

dolphin and porpoise, collectively known as cetaceans.

What's more surprising is that over 29 species have been

sighted in waters surrounding the British Isles.

Our little island is in the perfect position.

With the deep waters and powerful currents of the Atlantic

not far from our shallow shores,

nutrients are brought to the surface, making prey abundant.

Most of us will know the harbour porpoise.

And the bottlenose dolphin.

These are playful, social animals and you often see them

in harbours or close to shore.

Heading further out to sea, you are much more likely

to come into contact with the common dolphin,

an elegant black-and-white creature often found in large pods.

Confusingly, pilot and killer whales, despite their name,

are both types of dolphin.

And yes, incredibly, we have these stunning animals in UK waters

all year round.

If you want to see true whales, you need to have a little patience,

as they stay underwater a long time.

But because they aren't fish, at some point, they have to breathe.

And that's your best chance to spot them.

Sperm whales are around all summer

and can dive to depths of over 1,000 metres.

The minke may be the smallest of our whales,

but they seem to pop up anywhere, at any time.

And growing up to 27 metres,

the mighty fin whale is the second-largest animal on earth.

There's a whale, dolphin or porpoise to suit

virtually every aquatic environment.

So, as an island nation,

is it really surprising that we are a cetacean hot spot?

'Newquay Harbour in Cardigan Bay is the perfect arena

'to catch a glimpse of the sea's ultimate show-off.'

These waters are home to the UK's biggest population of dolphins

and, this summer, there's a reported 300 animals, but why are they here?

'Bottlenose dolphins can eat up to ten kilos of fish a day.

'And this area is rich in a wide variety of fish,

'from migrating salmon to bass, mullet and mackerel.

'Where the dolphins gather, the tourists have followed,

'and today, I'm one of them.'

This is a special trip for me, because I've never seen dolphins

in the wild before, so fingers crossed for today.

Have you spotted any dolphins?

We've been lucky a couple of years ago, haven't we?

How many did you see that time?

-About three, wasn't there?

-Yeah, we saw quite a few. Two pups.

Have you got any top tips for spotting some?

Well, there is a tour boat that has been coming backwards and forwards,

so we basically just follow wherever they're going

and get our binoculars out, see if we can spot them.

If you see everybody on the pier pointing and looking

in one direction, then just copy them.

There'll be dolphins there!

'Dolphins are so important to the economy here

'that locals, like Les and Glenys,

'have been taking part in the Dolphin Watch Project

'for over 20 years.'

What is Dolphin Watch?

It was set up originally because the community and council

were concerned about the interaction between the dolphins

and the passenger boats.

What do you have to record?

How many dolphins, if there's been any boat interaction,

did the boat comply with the guidelines? That sort of thing.

And once you've collected this data, then, what you do with it?

We hand it in at the end of the season to the conservation officer.

And he and his team collate the information.

And you can see, quite clearly,

trends of where the populations are, but also

how the dolphins behave, when they have interactions with the boats.

Basically, the better the boats behave to dolphins,

the better the dolphins behave for the boats.

-It's a pretty special place up here, isn't it?

-Yes. Oh, yes.

-It's quite stunning.

-It's wonderful.

-Amazing views.

I've taken the advice, got my binoculars

and I'm heading to join the dolphin spotters on the harbour wall.

It's not just the tourists that can be found watching the dolphins.

Sarah Perry is from the Wildlife Trust

and, as part of their work, they conduct land- and boat-based studies

of the local bottlenose dolphin population.

Here in Newquay, we're really lucky.

We have dolphins at this time of year almost on a daily basis.

We can't predict when they're going to arrive -

they're wild animals.

We're just out here as much as we can, spotting them.

Dolphins can hold their breath for minutes at a time.

But, being mammals, they need to come to the surface to breathe.

And that's when we hope to spot them.

There's one animal called Connie.

She's a real character. She comes in with her young.

The juvenile tends to do a lot of tail slapping,

so we kind of know when there's an animal in the bay doing that,

that it's probably... "Oh, it's probably Connie and her calf."

So I've got some pictures here, if you'd like to have a look?

-Yeah, that'd be great.

-What we're trying to do is

-photograph the dorsal fin, so the fin on the top of the back.

-Yep.

And you'll see from these pictures that Connie's got some

-really, really good markings.

-Wow!

-So some big chunks.

They're really distinctive, actually.

There's a number of chunks there, down the fin.

Yeah, so big notches out of the trailing edge of the dorsal fin.

-Some tooth marks.

-Ooh, look at that! Wow!

-Ah!

-What's that?

-We just heard, on the radio, there's dolphins in town.

-OK, brilliant.

-Let's go!

Ah, here!

There's definitely a crowd of people looking and pointing,

which is one of my top tips, so hopefully...

-Oh, there.

-There!

-Amazing.

-Two!

-Yeah, two.

-Two animals.

-Wow. Do you know what? I'm amazed by how dark coloured they are.

-Yeah.

-They look almost black, they are quite dark grey in colour.

-Yeah.

They have white underbellies.

Do you know what? I'm so torn between using my eyes

and using my binoculars, because I don't want to miss them!

You know, we're so lucky, we can stand here on a harbour wall,

on the west coast of Wales and look out and see dolphins.

It's just amazing. It really is.

Each year, around 500 cetaceans are washed up onto the UK shoreline.

Richard Taylor-Jones has been finding out how scientists are using

this sad scenario to get a better understanding of the mysterious

life of the whale.

This is Pegwell Bay in Kent.

It's like many other stretches of coast around our UK shores -

a few houses, some industry, a small nature reserve.

In many ways, it's pretty ordinary.

But on the 3rd of March, 2011, something very,

very extraordinary happened here.

A 45-foot sperm whale has washed up on a Kent beach today.

The animal was first spotted this morning in Pegwell Bay

near Ramsgate.

Claudia Sermbezis reports.

Experts were initially unsure whether it was male or female,

alive or dead.

To find one of these colossus in English waters is an extremely

unusual event.

Yet despite Pegwell Bay being visible from my front door,

I had absolutely no idea

there was a sperm whale outside my house.

It was only when I got a call to tell me what was going on that

I grabbed my camera and got myself down to the bay.

And I wasn't the only one. Word had spread quickly.

People began to gather at the scene.

The whale became an instant sensation.

Never seen anything like this before.

To see this and so many people, it's amazing.

I think everyone's quite shocked, really, aren't they?

Yeah, we've all been texting and phoning our friends frantically.

When I saw that the tide was going out, I thought,

"Let's come down and take the opportunity to have a look," so...

Incredible sight.

But things had not gone well for the whale.

The tide had gone out, and the whale,

stranded on the mud flats, unable to breathe under its own body weight,

had died.

This was an undeniably tragic event, but it did, of course,

raise the question of, what on earth was a 45-foot-long sperm whale

doing washed up on a beach in Kent?

Usually, sperm whales are found in deep waters across the globe,

from Scandinavia to South America.

They are creatures of the deep sea, diving over two kilometres down

in search of their favourite food, squid.

To investigate why this whale ended up in Kent, Rob Deville

from the Zoological Society of London,

an expert in whale strandings, also rushed to the scene,

and I've met up with him again to see what he learned.

So how do you think this particular individual ended up here,

at Pegwell?

We don't know why he ended up in the North Sea.

I guess what we can say is, given where it's stranded, here in

Pegwell Bay, it's right next to the busiest shipping lane in the world.

Lots of marine noise,

lots of potential disturbance for that whale,

and so that's probably why it's stranded here, as well,

that noise may have had an impact on the animal not being able

to get out to where it should have been. When we opened it up,

on the inside, we found, in the stomach, there was nothing

in there apart from some squid beaks and some parasites,

so it hasn't been feeding recently.

The North Sea is fairly shallow, maybe 100 metres depth,

so very different to the normal 1,000 metres

depth off the continental shelf edge.

So they probably can't feed here,

cos they're preferential deep sea feeders.

There are over 500 whale and dolphin strandings every year in the UK,

and the work that Rob does really helps us understand

what is going on with the different populations around our coast.

If we talked about the humpback whale as an example,

we didn't have any humpback whales stranded in the UK at all

for about 80 years.

Most people know that we've banned commercial whaling, largely.

Since then, we've seen a really nice recovery,

an ongoing recovery, of humpback whales in the North Atlantic.

They're doing really well, which is great news.

Still an ongoing situation.

Because there are more of them out there, we see more strandings,

so in that time since the mid-'80s we've seen about 20 humpbacks

stranded around the UK.

It's obviously bad news for the individual, but actually,

paradoxically, it can be quite good news for the population.

It tells you that there are more of them out there.

It's indicative of a healthier or recovering population.

So, in fact, it's among species where we don't see

strandings where we might expect to see them -

that's where we have much more cause for concern.

Whale and dolphin strandings are always going to take place.

Of course, where we can rescue them, we do.

Like the pod of pilot whales that were stranded in Scotland

earlier this summer.

The majority were successfully put back to sea.

But where we fail to keep animals alive,

we have to look at them as an opportunity to

learn about species that are otherwise very hard to study.

And it's not just scientists that are learning from these strandings.

When I was here down at Pegwell, there were thousands of people over

the course of the day that had come down to film

and take photographs of the animal.

They were becoming more aware of what lives out

there in the big blue around our shores.

That new awareness can only be a good thing.

The other unexpected upside of these sad strandings is that they

provide us with a supply of cetacean bones for scientific study,

and that's been really crucial in developing our understanding

of these creatures.

Science aside, actually seeing a whale skeleton for yourself

is a brilliant way to get a sense of the sheer scale of these creatures,

and there are all kinds of exhibits all around the country

where you can do exactly that.

The Oxford Museum of Natural History has a killer whale,

the National Museum of Wales a young humpback,

and if you're willing to wait, there's a 25-metre blue whale

being hung from the ceiling of the Natural History Museum in London.

You'll just have to hold on until 2017.

But meanwhile, Lindsay, where should we head to to see the real deal?

Seeing a whale or dolphin for yourself might

seem like an impossible task,

but there are some great spots around the UK

where your chances are pretty high.

None more so than the Moray Firth near Inverness.

There is a resident population of 130 bottlenose dolphins.

Hang out at Chanonry Point for an hour,

and you're almost guaranteed a sighting of these playful creatures.

If you're boarding a ferry this month, head up to the top decks.

It gives you a ringside seat.

Whether it's the Channel ferry to France or

a trip across the Irish Sea,

it's a great opportunity for spotting dolphins and whales.

Keep an eye out for the distinctive blow shooting out of the water.

If you're after something more specialist

and willing to put in the time, why not head to Orkney or Shetland?

These islands are the best place to see a killer whale,

which, remember, is our largest dolphin.

And that's not all.

Since 1980, 18 species of cetacean have been recorded here.

Although I've namechecked some of the best locations, whales,

dolphins and porpoises live all around the UK.

This group of 30 pilot whales was spotted in the Thames Estuary.

So if you're going to the beach or heading to sea,

keep your eyes peeled.

You never know what you might spot.

I've been looking long and hard,

but sadly, I haven't seen any whales spouting or dolphins leaping today.

But if you want some more suggestions for the best

places around the UK to spot cetaceans for yourself,

then go to our website.

Catching a glimpse of these wonderful giants of the sea is

a rare privilege, and unfortunately we're largely to blame for that.

Historically, the UK's whales were hunted almost to extinction.

By the beginning of the 20th century,

we'd pretty much hunted out all the whales from around our own shores.

But that didn't stop British whaling companies making big bucks

elsewhere in the world.

A few weeks ago, I headed to Scotland to find out more,

and just to warn you, you may find some of these images upsetting.

I'm in Edinburgh's Leith Docks,

the historical base for Christian Salvesen,

once the world's biggest whaling company.

In the early 1900s, they sent whaling boats south to

the Antarctic to fulfil our growing demand for whale products.

This building here now houses a Chinese restaurant

but it used to be the headquarters of Christian Salvesen's

Leith-based whaling operation

and the money men who were based here

understood that this was a highly profitable business.

In its heyday in the 1920s,

they were raking in the equivalent of over £100 million a year.

During a time of industrial and social progress,

the whalers were responding to huge demand from back home.

Whale oil was the wonder product of the day,

going into food, fuel and even explosives.

Don Lenny worked as an engineer on the whale catching ships

from 1958 until the end in 1963.

Did you go to the Falklands?

I was only in my 20s then.

The galley boys and engine room boys were young kids, 16, 17.

For a young man at the time, could you make a good living?

I thought I was a rich man, really.

First season, £300.

A lot of guys bought cars or motorbikes or whatever.

You know.

While the men earned a good wage, it wasn't easy money.

It was a tough, brutal job, spending months at a time

out in the rough seas of the Southern Ocean.

We got a lot of rough weather down the Antarctic.

On the catchers, we could be sailing for maybe a week looking for whales.

Whales were chased and harpooned

from smaller, faster ships called catchers,

before being processed by the much larger factory ships.

One catcher I was on, we chased a whale for ten hours,

a big strong whale, 70 odd feet.

The gunner shot it, the line went out

and it shackled to down underneath the boat

and you bring the whale alongside and then we put our flag on it,

with a number of the boat, so you know which boat it belonged to.

The buoy boat came along and picked these whales up and took them

back to the factory ship.

Whale oil was processed mainly from the blubber.

High-grade oil was used in margarine and, by 1933,

37% of British margarine was made from whale oil.

Lower grade oils were used in soap and other products.

George Cummings worked on one of these factory ships

processing the liver for liver oil tablets.

How big is a whale liver?

-Probably about two tonnes at least.

-Two tonnes?

-Yes.

You had to physically manhandle great chunks of liver.

-So that was a messy job.

-It really was.

You were up to your armpits in blood, actually.

Not only was it a deeply unpleasant job

but, by the late '50s,

the whales were getting harder and harder to find.

We could go days and never find a whale,

that's how bad it was getting.

You take a factory, it can take over 2,000 whales in the season

and you've got 10, 20, 30 factory ships.

That's a lot of whales.

Whales were becoming too scarce to make hunting them viable.

Something had to be done

because they were going to be extinct.

But it wasn't just the whalers who were gaining

awareness of the plight of the whale.

Public opinion was changing too and, by 1963, the UK had stopped whaling.

If whales could make a noise, there wouldn't be any whaling.

If they could screech and scream...you know.

Would you like to see a future where there is no more

-whaling on the planet?

-I would love to see that, yes.

That's the way I feel.

I think every whaler would tell you the same thing.

In 1986, the International Whaling Committee established

a worldwide moratorium banning commercial whaling.

Despite this, Norway and Iceland don't recognise the ban

and continue to whale commercially.

Japan has also whaled since under a scientific research permit.

On the whole, whale numbers across the globe are gradually

starting to recover but it's going to be a long, slow process,

one where we can't afford to take a step backwards.

What's most heartening is to see how these former whale hunters,

as much as anyone you'll talk to,

are genuinely thrilled to see how whale numbers are recovering

and genuinely hopeful for their future in our oceans.

Although almost half of the whales found around the UK are still

endangered, luckily dolphins weren't as heavily targeted, so nowadays

the UK has sightings that would rival anywhere else in the world.

A few years ago, wildlife cameraman Gordon Buchanan proved it.

He'd heard of a large pod of killer whales regularly tracking

alongside fishing vessels in the North Sea.

So he decided to hitch a ride and try and see them for himself.

And, boy, was the bumpy trip on the high seas worth it.

I'm so excited about this trip. I haven't looked forward to

a filming trip so much in a very long time.

I've got every reason to be excited

because I'm on a trawler heading out into the North Sea to

look for one of the planet's most impressive animals.

What is there not to be excited about?

When there are fish to catch, these guys don't mess about.

We are only a few hours out of port and already it's action stations.

I'm hoping and praying that the killer whales find us

before the fishermen have caught their quota of mackerel.

The fish are here, the gannets are here

and we're just waiting for the main attraction.

Got whales, we've got whales.

Just over to the left here, coming straight in.

I'm finally going to get the chance to film killer whales in UK waters.

I can't believe that they're coming.

Oh, gee, look at that!

Really close.

There are so many whales here,

it's very difficult to try and estimate how many there are.

Possibly 50, possibly 60.

There may even be up to 100 on the other side of the boat

that we're just not seeing.

Look, look, look, look!

Unbelievable!

HE LAUGHS

That is something else.

I just cannot believe that we have killer whales

just 10, 15 metres away from us.

So why do the killer whales come

so close to our fishing trawler?

Because they get easy pickings here.

Like the gannets, they can hoover up

the fish that have spilt out of the nets.

Scientists now think that the killer whales could be benefiting

from the fishing, which may be boosting their numbers.

The whales have actually disappeared.

What I'm hoping is that they have gone under

and they are approaching the boat underneath the water.

So I'll just keep my eyes peeled much closer in.

With the whales in close, it meant I could now try and film underwater.

But I hadn't bargained on using the camera in these conditions.

They're big seas.

The waves are coming right up to the entrance of the door here.

Come on.

Typical, we get this on just about the worst day we've had so far.

With the camera in, all the chaos above suddenly

disappeared as I saw the male killer whale glide towards me.

We've got him right here, right in front of me,

I could reach out and touch him.

Holy mackerel!

He appeared serene, yet powerful, a true master of his environment.

Look at that. Thank you ever, ever so much.

Yes!

Then I was reminded why these whales were here as he drifted in again

and sucked up a floating mackerel.

This is something I would not have thought was possible

off the coast of the UK

and I've had the most intimate of encounters in the North Sea.

The whales have saved their best till last.

To see them under the water is just fantastic.

The little bit of their lives that we see above the ocean

is just the tip of a very large iceberg,

and I can now go back home, onto dry land,

incredibly happy.

Wow. What a fantastic way to end our first show of the week.

Just incredible.

Amazing footage of killer whales above and below the water

and all in the UK.

It certainly made me want to head back up north to try and see them.

I hope we've shown you that you don't have to travel to

the Outer Hebrides in order to see the UK's whales and dolphins.

They're all around the British Isles,

you just need to get out to the best spots and keep your eyes peeled.

Please join us tomorrow at the same time

here on Big Blue UK,

where we'll be uncovering the secretive life of our sharks.

I'll be tracking down evidence of baby sharks

on one of our most popular beaches.

Absolutely brilliant. Have we found one?

Yeah, you have.

Richard is finding out what attracts basking sharks to UK seas.

Oh, my goodness me. That is absolutely amazing.

And I'll be heading ten miles offshore in the hope of meeting

the beautiful blue shark.

Oh, she is right here.

For now, though, we'll leave you

with the very best of our whales and dolphins.