The Whales' Tale Incredible Animal Journeys

Hello!

I'm here in Mexico where these whales come to breed

and to give birth to beautiful babies like this.

This grey whale calf is about three months old, but in a few days

this mother and calf are going to head north

on one of the longest migrations on the planet.

This is the story of the grey whale.

It may not look that way,

but you're looking at one of nature's supreme athletes.

Grey whales migrate over 12,000 miles -

that's halfway round the planet -

every single year.

Big animals, big numbers...

It's a difficult and dangerous journey for all the whales,

but especially for the newborn calves.

They'll face constant threats.

In fact, only half the calves will make it to their first birthday.

But why do they do it?

Why do they have to go so far?

And how exactly do they make such an immense journey?

It's only by making the journey myself

that I can answer these questions.

So my mission is to try and travel with the whales as they take on

the longest journey of any mammal on the planet.

This will be a tough journey for me too.

Who knows what problems we're going to face?

Our route will take the whales and me

along the entire Pacific coast of North America.

Right now,

the whales are at the most southerly point of their travels.

Why are they here?

Well, these lagoons on the coast of Mexico

are the perfect place for them to give birth.

The water is warm and calm and there are very few predators.

But there's a big problem -

while it might be a great place to give birth,

there's virtually nothing for them to eat here.

These mothers are effectively running on empty

and are living off their fat reserves.

Come on, let's have a look at you.

'The amazing thing is that whilst they're in the lagoons,

'the whales actually chose to come to boats.

'They feel relaxed and safe here.'

Whoa, a big Mama!

Look at that! That is amazing.

This is the closest encounter you'll ever get with a completely wild,

enormous creature.

Ha-ha-ha!

Nobody can say for sure why they do it,

maybe it's because of the parasites.

They like them scrapped off,

maybe it's boredom.

Whatever it is, they get something out of it.

Ugh!

Since whale watching began here, the whales have become

extraordinarily trusting and inquisitive,

yet 100 years ago, grey whales were hunted to the brink of extinction.

It's actually a wonderful success story.

After hunting was banned, the whales made an amazing recovery.

There are now probably as many greys as there were before hunting began.

Look at you...

looking at me!

Look at mum. Mum's pushing it towards me.

Mum is saying, "Go on have a go. Meet them."

You must be a very proud mum.

Grey whales are one of nature's super mums.

Mother and calf have a 6,000-mile journey ahead of them

and mum will be looking after her baby every step of the way.

But right now,

her priority is to get her calf ready for this epic journey.

The calf fuels up on mother's milk and it's awesome stuff.

It's so rich the calf puts on around 27 kg every day.

Young grey whales are not strong swimmers

and their mothers have often been seen getting underneath them

and lifting them gently to the surface for a breather.

But these youngsters need to get into training fast,

and mums help here too.

They'll lead their calves to the entrance of the lagoon

to swim against the incoming tide in a kind of aquatic gymnasium.

There's such a strong bond between a grey whale mother and its baby,

which never strays far from its side.

But this intimacy does have a downside.

Within days of being born, the calf is covered with young barnacles

and is teeming with lice, which crawl across from its mother.

The baby will carry these harmless hitchhikers

for the rest of its life.

All these barnacles are newly forming.

You can see here and you can see hairs on the chin as well.

As all mammals have hairs, so do whales.

Look at that. That there is a whale louse.

It's gripped hold of my finger.

They really do grip on as well.

Let go!

No, it's stuck to that finger now.

I think I've now got my own complement

of whale parasites for life.

Whoa!

That was whale snot right in the face.

WHALE BELLOWS

-What a funny noise.

-HE GIGGLES

Sounds like my brother in the bath!

What an extraordinary day!

As always on Incredible Journeys,

I'm going to be keeping my own video diary throughout the trip.

There's only been a couple of times in my life

when animals, true wild animals, have come up to me and said,

"Hello, here I am, come and play."

Um, I am a scientist, I love to sort of work out why animals behave in the way they do,

but I also love the fact that science can't explain everything.

What happened today...

is a mystery. It's wonderful, it's really nice.

It's... You know, you can look at it on a scientific basis

and try and work out what the whales are getting out of it

or you can look at it on an emotional basis and it's an incredible experience.

It's all very well saying I'm going to try and travel with the whales,

but no-one has ever tried to follow individual grey whales before

on their entire migration.

So just exactly how am I going to do it?

Well, this is where the scientists come in.

We'll be joining a team of scientists

who have a research project to track the whales

by placing harmless satellite transmitters on mothers.

The transmitters should tell us

exactly where the whales are along their journey.

But since this hasn't been attempted before,

no-one knows if it's even possible.

The whole process of putting the transmitters on the whales

is highly skilled.

And Professor Bruce Mate from Oregon State University is the expert.

He's been studying these whales for 25 years.

With great care, Bruce places a tag on the mother.

It only weighs 150 grams and probably feels no more

than a pinprick to a 35-ton adult whale.

The red outer sleeve falls away leaving the small tag behind.

At least a dozen mothers need to be tagged for this scientific project,

but we need two particular whales to try and follow -

special mums.

They have to have clear and distinctive markings

to help us spot them as they travel up the coast.

We'll be checking in with Bruce to get the locations

of the whales throughout their journey.

What are our chances, do you think of finding our whales on the migration if we go out?

Well, actually our chances are pretty good

because we do have radio tags on them.

Otherwise it would be a needle in a haystack and we wouldn't have much chance.

And how successful are the tags, you know?

Have you used them in greys before?

Actually, this is the first time we've used

this technology on grey whales.

We've used it on blue whales, humpbacks, fin whales and sperm whales

and we've had a little bit of experience there, so we're hopeful that we're gonna see

at least half of these tags last for the entire migration.

It's amazing...you end up filming a lot of researchers

working in the field when you study wildlife,

but rarely do you get in to a project right at the beginning

where you're actually finding out, real time,

new knowledge and this is one of those occasions.

They live hidden lives

that we are hopefully going to get a real look at.

We're going to get a real understanding

of how they make this incredible journey.

The first results show that mothers and calves

don't all leave on migration at once.

Whilst some mothers have already left and started their journey,

others are still hanging around in the lagoons.

When to leave is perhaps the most difficult decision

the mothers have to make.

It's a real dilemma.

On the one hand, she needs to get going.

There's no food for her in the warm water here

and she hasn't fed properly for five months.

On the other hand, if she leaves before her calf

is strong enough to make the journey, it will probably die.

At least I've some idea of what's ahead of me

over the next few weeks on my journey.

I just wonder whether the calves are really ready

for what lies ahead of them.

Before they set off,

we've still got to identify those two special mums to follow.

And Bruce reckons he's found them.

The first one is called Shark Bite.

Now she had an encounter with a great white shark

that left her with some very distinguishing

scars across her back, so we should be able to see her

from quite a distance away.

Now our second whale is going to be called Patch.

And she has a perfectly round white patch on her back -

about the size of a dinner plate.

Shark Bite and Patch are on the starting blocks,

but they haven't moved far from where they were first tagged

in the lagoons down in Baja. They're still hanging about.

But they'll have to begin their journey before long

and head out with their calves into the open ocean.

This is going to be a risky project.

Tracking whales is no easy task.

First of all, the signal from the whales' transmitters

won't go through water.

But the whales spend about 95% of their time under the water

and that means the signal can

only be picked up by the satellite when the whale comes up to breathe.

Then if it's choppy, even a small wave breaking over a whale's back

may block the signal.

It's all a bit edgy.

From Bruce's experience, it's best to get ahead of the whales

and then wait for them to pass by.

So it's time for me to head north too.

The challenge is really ahead of us,

which exactly mirrors that of the whales.

Once they've left the safety of the lagoons,

that's when things are going to get really sticky for them.

Today, we head to Tijuana, and then up the west coast.

So how on earth do the whales find their way?

Well, for a start grey whales hug the coastline on their migration,

which is really important for us trying to find them.

Staying so close to shore probably helps the whales to navigate.

You just keep the breaking surf on your right hand side

and they may remember the changing taste of different rivers,

which flow into the ocean along their route.

Swimming near the shore may help with navigation,

but it can be dangerous,

even fatal.

Fishermen's gill nets are an ever present threat in coastal waters.

Whales need to breathe air

and if they get tangled up below the surface - they'll drown.

The decaying body acts as a magnet

for the largest predatory fish in the ocean.

The great white.

They're not just scavengers -

great whites are opportunists and may target calves.

Soon the whales will be leaving Mexican waters

and moving on up into California.

Fortunately the whales have got diplomatic immunity, so they can

just cruise across the border between Mexico and the US.

Unfortunately, we don't have such privileges,

so we have to wade through all of this.

San Diego.

We're definitely in the United States of America now.

Look at that development. There isn't a part of that coastline that hasn't got a building on it.

There's so much traffic here, there's so much noise.

Who knows what the whales think when they reach this spot.

This is our whales' first major contact with the world of man

since leaving the lagoons and it's a rude awakening.

Boy, are we a noisy bunch!

ENGINE DRONES

Like other whales, sound is a key sense for the greys

and all this din must be very confusing,

even dangerous.

Calves could get separated from their mothers by boat traffic,

so more experienced mums

may guide their calves offshore, away from the noise of the city.

I've been travelling up the coast of California for about 500 miles now.

Time to check in with Bruce

and see where Shark Bite and Patch have got to.

Hi Bruce, it's Steve Leonard here.

-'Steve, how are you?'

-Not too bad.

How are the whales getting on?

'They're doing quite well actually.

-'One's all the way up into central Washington.

-Oh, wow.

'We've got only three whales that are south of you.

'One of them is 830, which you may recall is one of the animals

'we saw down in the lagoon together.

'Now there are two whales actually that are still down in Baja.'

-They still haven't left?

-'Indeed.'

What about our Shark Bite and Patch?

Do you have any news on them?

'Two of the animals that we aren't hearing from now regularly are those two.'

Right, is that likely to be that they've shed the transmitters, or?

'That's the most likely thing.

'A little tag like this that weighs less than a third of a pound,

-'I mean, they pull out pretty easily.'

-Yeah.

I am very disappointed that Shark Bite and Patch

have both gone off radar. Their transmitters...

stopping working has been a real blow to us

because we'd have loved to have known how they got on.

It has not been heard from for two days.

'I need to discuss our options with our production team.

'We are working at the front line of science, so I guess we're bound to get some setbacks.'

OK, that's fine. So, where do we stand for the next couple of days?

'It could be that Shark Bite and Patch's transmitters are faulty and they'll come back online.'

-He doesn't know whether she's online still.

-Right, OK.

-He'll try...

'Looking on the bright side, there are hundreds

'of mums and calves all travelling north up the coast.

'and Bruce managed to tag 15 other mothers in Mexico for the project.

'We're going to have to refocus.'

One door closes, but another one opens.

OK, so Shark Bite and Patch...

off the map.

But Bruce has told us that of the 15 other tagged whales that he's got,

there is one that is definitely worth checking up on and she's got a bit of an interesting history.

She's got a massive scar on her back.

Now, we can't be absolutely sure,

but it is most likely that this is from a harpoon.

So she's quite distinctive and we're going to call her Scar,

but actually her number is 830.

The one thing that we do know about this new whale

is that Bruce has seen her before and she's had a couple of calves already.

She's no youngster - this is an experienced mum that's done this trip many times before.

So we can only hope that she can do it again.

From Bruce's latest data, Scar should be passing nearby.

So early next morning over a snatched breakfast, I met up

with Craig and Ladd, part of Bruce's team, to try and find her.

The scientists are keen to find out not only how

her calf is getting on, but why some transmitters appear to be failing.

We need to find the highest point along the coast which will give us

the best chance of picking up the signal from Scar's transmitter.

But there's another problem.

To save battery power and last the whole migration,

the whales' transmitters are programmed to switch on

for only one hour, four times each day.

We've got a one hour period in which to catch this whale.

The transmitter's going to be on for the next 45 minutes now.

If we don't get it now, it's going to be this afternoon,

but it's going to have swum further up the coast.

We think we've found the perfect spot.

And this is the piece of kit that will help us find our whale,

which will bleep if it picks up Scar's signal.

After half an hour of listening...

absolutely nothing.

Our time is fast running out.

I really thought that Scar was going to do it for us.

Is her transmitter still on? Is she still alive? We don't know.

We can only just sit out and wait and hope that by the time

the next transmitter cycle comes on she bings back onto the screen.

Everyone's starting to get just a bit worried.

We should be doing better than this.

But of course, the whales have no idea there's a whole lot of us

running about after them scratching our heads.

They're just powering on, unstoppably piling on the miles

at a steady three miles an hour, both day and night.

So we just have to keep travelling north.

Although the calf is growing quickly and getting stronger,

it's still completely dependent on its mother for food and guidance.

The baby saves energy by swimming in the slipstream of its mum

and she'll keep her calf to the shoreward side for protection.

The whales have been travelling non-stop now for about two weeks

and have swum around 900 miles.

So far it's been pretty much plain sailing for most of them,

but all that's just about to change.

The whales are approaching an area of maximum danger.

Not all of them will escape with their lives.

This vast chasm is the largest underwater canyon on the west coast

of North America, plunging down over 6,000 feet.

Down in the shadows lurks one of the ocean's top predators.

They know the whales are coming

and every year they gather here and wait.

Every grey whale mother that migrates up this coast

will eventually find herself here.

This is Monterey Bay.

And out there is the biggest threat that our grey whales

are going to face in their entire journey.

Here they have a choice.

Either they dart across the mouth as fast as they can,

or they try and sneak around the coastline as quietly as possible

in the hope that they'll avoid detection.

If they get it wrong,

it could mean the death of their calves or even themselves.

So do you run,

or do you hide?

But what could possibly threaten an enormous 35 ton whale?

These could.

A fraction of the size of a grey whale,

but killer whales hunt in packs

and they're a proper carnivore.

These are the only predators the whales really have to fear.

Killer whales will often pursue mothers and calves for hours,

until they're exhausted.

But by taking the long way round,

our mothers and calves can hide in a vast underwater forest.

The water here is thick with kelp,

which grows in the shallows around the edge of the bay,

a place that the killer whales will not venture.

So by travelling through the kelp, mothers and calves can avoid attack.

That is incredible!

It doesn't look like much from the surface,

but when you get underneath there - it's huge.

It goes right down to the bottom -

that's about 30 feet and you can understand

how even a mammal as big as a whale could hide in amongst this stuff.

Older, more experienced mums, like Scar, will know this

and when she gets here she'll hide herself

and her calf away in the kelp forest.

Less experienced mothers may take the short cut,

with possibly fatal consequences.

The danger to the whales that try to dart across the mouth of the bay

was vividly brought home to me when one of our cameramen,

who's based here, was out in the Bay filming from his boat

just the day before we arrived.

Florian Graner witnessed a ferocious attack at very close quarters!

-So what happened?

-Well, basically we took the boat out from Monterey Harbour yesterday

and we met a group of whale watchers out there

and they had a large pod of killer whales, probably around 30.

We saw all the whales speeding up, they were leaping

all over the place,

we saw them flying through the air, big rooster tails

and we saw they were homing in onto a grey whale, a female with a calf.

And they were just pounding on those grey whales

and she was really protective, but she'd got so many whales on her

she was just with the fluke up through the air.

They were just all streaming in from all sides.

So, all those killer whales were just picking up speed

and leaping all over the place.

It was so intense, it was a feast.

-Who was on the boat?

-Well, it was my wife, my two-and-a-half year old

and a neighbour who was out with me for the first time.

And what happened then is the grey whale, all of a sudden,

came across and homed into the boat and went under the boat.

'She's coming under the boat.'

She was diving for cover.

Course, she's longer than the boat, she's a fully grown female,

so she's about 13, 14 metres.

'Hold on to Jasmine!'

Then she started freaking

and she hit against the boat and we saw the tail fluke

come around here and it ripped up the entire swim step.

It's all gone, it's just way up in the air.

I was up there filming it and I saw the swim step flying right past me

up in the air and the wind picked it up and it went way off.

I caught myself just here, I had my camera up, whoa, up in the air,

I was almost about to fall over.

And she then gave us a real blow from the side,

she ripped off the entire out-drive - this bit here.

It's all snapped off, we lost our power.

I had to call the coastguard to get back in.

And the grey whale didn't leave, she still tried to hide

-under the boat, and the killer whales were still biting, with her calf.

-Did the calf survive?

I don't think so, I already saw blood

coming out of the mouth of the calf and by that time, we had about 30 killer whales coming in.

'She's coming underneath the boat.

'Hold on to Jasmine.'

For that mother, all the nurturing and investment in her calf

has come to nothing and she'll continue the migration on her own.

She won't have another calf for at least two years.

No-one knows how many whales are killed here on the migration,

but eye witness reports suggest at least a dozen attacks every year.

After all that blood and carnage, it's so lovely to be reminded

that most of the whales actually make it past.

And these mothers don't even seem to be in that big a hurry.

There's still time for playing

and bonding and just rolling around here.

I've been in touch with Bruce and happily Scar is still on the move.

She's cleared the danger zone.

The mother's urge to keep driving north is overwhelming.

Our whales will soon pass San Francisco.

They may be travelling relatively slowly,

but grey whales just don't stop.

I need to crack on and get ahead.

The best chance we have of finding tagged whales

is now well north of here at Newport, on the coast of Oregon,

which happens to be where Bruce and his team are based.

At this time of year along this entire stretch of coast,

you don't have to stare out to sea for long

to see grey whales out there plodding inexorably along

on this mammoth journey.

But we want to see our tagged whales

and know how they and their calves are getting along.

It just seems that the technology

isn't quite giving us the answers we need.

So next morning, I arranged to see Bruce at Oregon State University

where he's based to find out why he thinks so many of the tags have gone down.

You remember in the lagoon how the whales were sliding down mum,

lounging over her blowhole and back and forth?

Well, that kind of stuff is really hard. This tag weighs

only 150 grams and so when it comes to a one-ton calf moving about, it's easy to pull out.

That's something that's kind of gratifying for us to know, that if an animal

gets entangled in something this is not gonna be a means of debilitating the animal, that this will let go.

And is this what you'd expected at the start?

Because this has never been done before and I, I tend to be an optimist,

I thought it was gonna be a little easier actually than what it's turned out to be.

Course we're dealing with animals that are underwater more than 95% of the time

and that's difficult just to see them.

But finding the ports and the proximity and good weather and daylight

are compound probabilities that have had us having fewer opportunities to resight animals than I'd hoped.

But right now, 830 is off Vancouver Island, off British Columbia.

So making good progress and it will be really exciting to see

that get up hopefully on into the Bering Sea for the feeding season.

It's important for the scientists to go out

and physically find the tagged whales.

After all, it's the only way they can tell if the calf is still alive.

So far, making contact with an individual whale

has proved to be very difficult.

Scar is now out of reach,

but the data shows another tagged whale, number 839, is nearby.

So it's a great opportunity to go out and try and find her

and check on her calf.

Bruce has mustered the entire team and pulled out all the stops.

He's up spotting from a plane.

We've got people spotting from the cliffs

and there's a second boat too,

giving us our best chance of locating a tagged whale.

There are three whales up ahead.

Who knows, one might be ours!

-Did you get a good look at it, Ladd?

-Yeah, I didn't see anything.

They've got four more up where they are circling over there,

so I think we should head over there.

There are plenty of whales passing by, but the team need to check out

each one to see if it's got a tag.

There they go.

That's about the seventh whale we've been able to get up and close to,

so there's lots and lots of mothers here.

And they all seem to have calves, so far. I haven't seen any single mums.

-We got a pretty good look at that mum, right?

-Yeah.

Our tagged whale has to be here somewhere.

No tag, no tag, no tag...

If any of you are sitting at home and thinking, "I know,

"I'll pop along to the coast and follow a whale on its migration,"

a word of warning. It is very, very difficult.

In fact, this is possibly one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.

Even with Bruce up in his plane, two boats on the water,

somebody up on a cliff with a directional receiver,

we should have been right on top of that whale today, but we never saw her...

or so we thought.

I have in my hand a piece of paper.

Craig was taking photographs all day at the front of the boat

of any whale that popped up.

And this is one of his photographs.

This is 839!

And how do we know that?

This little yellow tag here.

It was the whale we were expecting to find and this confirms it.

And what's more, we know from Craig's notes that when we saw

this whale, there was a healthy calf swimming right alongside her, which is the best news of all.

Calves rely on mothers' milk for the first eight months of their lives.

But they need around 230 litres every single day.

To meet this huge demand,

mothers like Scar need to convert their fat reserves to milk.

On this migration she could lose ten tons,

that's one third of her body weight.

It's Mother's Day here in the States and I was thinking about it last night, mothers.

Mammals do make the best mothers.

They invest so much time and energy into one offspring. They're not like,

you know, reptiles or some of the invertebrates that dump thousands

of eggs into the sea in the hope that one will survive.

They really do invest all their time and energy into that one baby.

And our grey whale mothers,

you know, they deserve some sort of medal because not only do they carry them all the way down from Alaska

inside them and then give birth in these beautiful sort of nursery lagoons,

but then they move up the coast until they can fend and start to feed for themselves.

But I think my mum's just as special

and I thought I'd send my mother a text.

We've had no information from Scar for a few days and I was beginning

to think things were turning against us again and we might have lost her.

But then I got a message to call Bruce.

-'Hello, Bruce Mate.'

-Hi Bruce, it's Steve Leonard here.

-'Hi, Steve. How are you?'

-Yeah, great, good.

Now, what's the situation with the whales?

-'We're doing well, I think. Over the last five days we've heard from six animals.'

-Oh, OK.

'But given that we've heard in the last three days from one that's been

'off for five, one that's been off for six and one that's been off for seven,

'it's really kind of hard to say. Only time will tell, how many animals we still have active.'

I got your message, yeah, yesterday about 830.

'Yes, it looks like it's settling down at the north end

'of the island, it arrived at yesterday.

'The last three locations are within six miles, about 60 miles west of

'Prince Rupert and she's right at the tip of what looks

'to be almost a harbour like situation there.'

'That's great news.

'Scar's still going strong.

'But now, there's a mystery.

'After travelling non-stop for nearly six weeks,

'Scar has suddenly stopped.

'For some reason she's broken her journey.

'Why? What's so special about this particular place?

'Well, there's only one way to find out.

'The crew and I will just have to go there and investigate.'

From Mexico, up the USA and now into Canada.

By the time they pass Vancouver Island, mothers and babies

have swum non-stop for about 2,500 miles

and are not quite halfway.

They still have the equivalent of New York to London to go,

just 3,500 miles left.

It's taken a bit of time, but we're here - Canada.

This is where our whales are.

And I am sick to death of very small boats,

so we've got ourselves a proper boat.

We're on the south side of Vancouver Island at the moment

and we've got to motor for at least a day and a half

to get to where the whales were.

So I'd better get on board.

Steady as she goes.

I love the sound of the sea.

It's possibly the most relaxing sound I can think of.

It's amazing to think that there are grey whales out there not sleeping at the moment.

Because marine mammals, most of them, are conscious breathers,

that means they have to stay awake to breathe.

So if you look at their nostrils, you can see that the relaxed state is shut,

which makes sense if you spend most of your time under the water

and it actually takes muscular effort to pull them open and hold them open to actually breathe.

We do know for sure that they don't nod off in the same way that we do,

which is pretty unlucky for them because they don't know what they're missing. Sleep's great!

Next morning, we finally arrive just north of Vancouver Island

at the exact co-ordinates where Scar stayed for six days.

She's now moved on.

But why after all her hard work to get this far did she just stop?

There's got to be something special about these waters.

The answer's immediately clear.

The sea is like pea soup -

it's rammed with tiny shrimp-like creatures, they're called mysids.

It's so thick I can hardly see my dive buddy.

These swarms of mysids are the reason she stayed.

For the first time in months, Scar could find something to eat.

Just look how thick that is.

That is amazing.

Who'd think that a huge animal like a grey whale

could live off such tiny, tiny creatures?

And then imagine a grey whale comes swooping by

and wallop, they're all gone.

It's only when you see them like this that you really get

an understanding of how a whale can feed off these things.

Condense this down into one mouthful -

it's actually quite a bit of food.

I've brought some of the mysids back to the surface for a better look.

Every mouthful of these creatures is important for the mothers

because they still have a very long way to go.

We keep saying they haven't eaten anything for over five months

and it kind of loses sense after a while. And then you really think about it

and it's that, "What must that first mouthful be like?"

OK, they might have grabbed little snacks here and there,

but that first big swarm that they hit and they just zoom in

and just spend the entire day just hoovering these things up.

What that must feel like... you know, the rush of glucose

through their system, the rush of energy they must get

out of that must be so intense.

It's not a proper feed for Scar,

it's more like a snack, but it's the first place

since she left Mexico that she's had anything to help keep her going.

And by now the mums are running out of fuel on this immense journey.

All the way up, the mothers will be teaching their calves the route

and it's information like this -

where to find food on the way, that they really need to know.

These things are crucial for the calf to remember

because the next time it makes this journey, it will be all alone.

-PHONE RINGS

-Time to check in with Bruce again.

-Hi Bruce,

-'Hi Steve, how are you?'

Not too bad, not too bad at all.

-'Good, I've just logged on and got information from six of our whales today.'

-Oh, wow!

'There's one that's just turned the corner at Unimak Pass,

'and there's one all the way over south west of the Gulf of Anadyr,

'along the Russian coast.

'There's one that's just gone through the Bering Straits

'and is now in the high Arctic basically.

-'Wow, that far north?

-Yeah.

'And what about Scar, 830?

'Has she made it to the Arctic?

'Um, that animal is on the east side of Bering Strait.

-'This is really exciting.

-Yeah, you must be over the moon.

'That is absolutely fantastic.

'Well, I am. Nobody's ever seen this kind of information about how whales move about.'

Incredible. I wonder how their calves are doing?

'I do too. Wouldn't that be wonderful, to be able to drop in on

'them and know that their calves were still safe and sound and doing well?

'Let me know if I can help. I'd be delighted to have you spot some of these whales.'

-Yeah, now that's awesome.

-'All right.'

-Bye!

It seems that there's just been a flush of data in the last week or so

and the whales have been going great guns.

No wonder Bruce is pleased.

For a while, I thought none of our tags would make the distance.

But we've got loads of whales online

and the best news for us is that Scar is amongst them.

But now we're heading into unknown scientific territory.

No-one realised they roamed so widely.

That means we've got to completely change all our plans again

if we've got any chance of catching up with Scar and hopefully her calf.

Just seeing if I've got Alaska Airlines number.

Those are on Alaskan and they have availability for five people?

At last we can search for an answer to the question.

Why on earth do the whales travel all the way up to the Arctic?

We've come to Nome in Alaska.

Now we've got settled into the hotel, it's time to check out the sights of Nome

before we run out of sunlight.

Actually, we're not going to run out of sunlight.

It's just gone past midnight and the sun is still well above the horizon.

Because there's no night up here in the summer,

everything's growing and feeding flat out, the whole 24 hours.

It's an explosion of productivity.

It's not just 24 hour daylight that makes this an ideal

feeding ground for the grey whales - it's also the water temperature.

It's absolutely freezing.

Cold water holds a lot more oxygen than warm water,

making the Bering Sea some of the most productive waters on the planet.

There are over 450 species of fish out there.

And tons and tons of grey whale food

because this is what the migration is all about.

After travelling non-stop for nearly three months and swimming

over 6,000 miles, the whales can finally get a square meal.

They'll spend the next four months

of the Arctic summer here, just feasting.

Grey whales have a very unusual way of feeding.

Their food, millions of little crustaceans is buried in the seabed,

so to get at it they scoop up huge mouthfuls of mud.

Then they squeeze the sediment through fine filters in their mouth

to sift out the tiny creatures.

No other whale feeds like this.

An adult will swallow around 130 tons of food over the summer.

At last, they can start to replace all the weight they've lost

on the long trip north.

It's easy to spot feeding grey whales

by the gigantic plumes of mud they leave behind.

No-one had any idea the whales would range so far

during their feeding season, but fortunately Scar's latest position

is still within air range of Nome

and we're going to set out in one of her transmission periods to try and find her.

But, we only have that crucial one-hour time window,

when her transmitter's switched on, to make contact with Scar.

OK, this is it, moment of truth.

We're right over where her last fix was.

If we hear a beep, it could be our whale.

Anything could happen in the next hour.

We're just gonna slowly circle and hopefully we're gonna pick her up.

Oh, wow, yes. Yeah, we've got one whale.

-We've got two of 'em.

-There's two, there's one feeding here.

Oh, look at that!

Yeah, the muddy blooms are from when it's feeding.

Oh, that's great. Well, that's a good start. Oh, big fluke up.

There goes the fluke.

I can't believe it. I can't believe we've got whales feeding.

We've come all this way.

This is obviously just the right sort of sea bottom for them -

it's shallow enough and it's obviously rich in food.

Here's another one. 11 o'clock here, it will be coming down the left side.

Oh, yes, yeah, yep.

Come on, give us a beep.

Nothing yet.

There's another one right underneath us.

I'll try and hook round, catch that one.

We're about a half way through the period that the whales' transmitters

are switched on now and so far nothing...no bleeps.

Time's running out.

There's a mother and calf.

It's good to see some calves.

We've been seeing a lot of whales and not many calves, but now we've just come across a few.

Three of them all in a row here again.

Yeah.

Well, we've got about ten minutes left to go

and we haven't heard a peep from 830, but we have seen

so many whales - this place is absolutely hoaching with them

at the moment and they're all feeding.

And that's all they're gonna be doing

until it's time to go south yet again.

That, my friend, is two whales right next to each other.

That's mother and calf, yeah.

We've got two whales beneath us - one of them's definitely a calf.

Unfortunately, we're outside of our transmission time.

That one has got a big marking on its back.

There's a massive marking on its back. That could be Scar.

Well, here is a mother and calf finally.

It would be nice to think it was Scar.

-There's something on her back.

-Yeah.

There's definitely something.

That could be Scar's scar.

Well, we've got a mother and calf, it's not definitely Scar.

I'd like to think it is, but we're outside of the transmission period,

so we can't definitely say it is, but it's incredible.

That calf has swum 6,000 miles to get here.

Started when it was only a few months old,

or maybe even a matter of weeks old.

And it's made it all the way up here.

That's a pretty heart-warming sight to see.

The mother's work is almost done.

By late October, winter will return and the sea will freeze over.

All the whales must escape south

and begin their voyage back to the breeding lagoons in Mexico.

The young grey whales have had the best possible start in life,

nurtured and protected by their mums

every moment of their epic journey north.

The calf has had just this one opportunity,

this one shared journey to learn all it can from its mum.

Soon Scar and her calf will part and go their separate ways.

But, as with all the animals in Incredible Journeys,

these whales are still writing their own story.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media 2006

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