04x06 - Belugas, Cousteau's Blue Hole, and Hawaiian Spinner Dolphins

[bunniefuu]

[lively music]

- [Narrator] Coming up next

on "Jonathan Bird's Blue World."

Jonathan explores a deep
and mysterious blue hole

in The Bahamas.

Then he plays with wild
spinner dolphins in Hawaii.

But first, belugas.

All of this today on
"Jonathan Bird's Blue World."

Meet Jonathan Bird,

one of the world's top underwater
nature cinematographers.

Traveling the world on assignment

for all the major networks,

he is an Emmy Award-winning authority

on the underwater world.

In freshwater or salt,
reefs, wrecks, or caves,

Jonathan documents the
world beneath the waves.

[bright music]

Welcome to the Blue World.

[water burbling]

Trivia question.

What's 2,000 pounds, bright
white, and lives in Connecticut?

Give up?

Yes, I'm talking about the beluga whale.

And while normally, one would need to go

all the way up to the arctic to see one,

today, I am going to be
hanging out with some belugas

at the Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut.

The Mystic Aquarium is known for a variety

of beautiful underwater exhibits,

including their sharks and rays,

coral, fish, invertebrates,

and even Maw-Ray eels.

The barracuda exhibit is really cool.

But in my opinion, the
best one is yet to come.

The beluga whale exhibit is outdoors.

This impressive lagoon

really feels like it's out in the wild.

It makes visitors almost feel

like they're in the water with the whales.

Today I am joining the
staff of beluga trainers

to learn what's involved in the care

of the four beluga whales that live here.

That's a lot of fish.

Well, I get the feeling
this is gonna take a while.

My day starts with food prep.

Why do segments like this
always start with raw fish?

I meet Kate McElroy,

one of the beluga trainers
who's going to show me

how they prepare the daily
meals for the whales.

- [Kate] All right, are you ready to start

carrying some fish in?

- [Jonathan] It all starts
with herring and squid.

Herring coming up.

- Yep.

You can put it right in there as well.

- A frozen block of cephalopods.

That's actually kind of gross.

[Jonathan laughs]

Look at this little flat eyeball.

- You can put that one
right up here for me.

And I'm gonna make four feeds for the day,

so this looks kind of complicated here.

- [Jonathan] Yeah.

- [Kate] But really all it is,

is each bucket that I weigh out for Juno

is gonna have 6.3 kilos in it.

And for Kela, 2.6.

Naku 5.3.

Naluark, 6.4.

- Okay, I can do this.

After the fish have been
washed and inspected

to be sure they're free of
any possible contamination,

I weigh out a bucket of fish

that will be breakfast
for a beluga named Juno.

I feel like I'm on dirty jobs.

- [Kate] It is kind of
a dirty job, isn't it?

- Weighing out the food
for all four whales

takes about half an hour.

Like, that's too much, already.

So wrong.

So wrong.

All right.

Once we finish the messy job
of weighing out the fish,

we can rinse off our gloves

and head out to the exhibit
for the next morning task.

[indistinct]

Outside, the staff is
already cleaning the exhibit,

and I'm going to help.

My first order of business
is cleaning the big windows

to get all the hand prints and dirt off

so people can see the belugas clearly.

Nice big windshield.

Or maybe so they can see us clearly.

I'm not actually sure.

I hope you appreciate this.

I'm doing this all for you, buddy.

As I work, Juno keeps an eye on me,

and I can't help but think
maybe he's not impressed.

Okay, I'm slow at the squeegee,

but you gotta admit that
that is clean, right?

Hey, what do you think
you're doing over there?

What the heck are you doing now?

- [Kate] So we're gonna
move on to the next window.

We still gotta get a lot more cleaned.

- Oh, you want me to actually work?

- [Kate] Yep.

[Jonathan sighs]

So this is a little bit bigger one here.

- [Jonathan] Big windows
mean lots of cleaning.

And for some reason, I feel
like I'm being watched.

It's hard to keep my eyes on my work.

The whales are incredibly captivating.

Next, it's time to scrub
the inside of the exhibit

to remove the algae that
grows on the bottom.

The trick, however, is keeping the whales

from grabbing the brush and
yanking it away from me.

Anything that goes into the water

becomes something
interesting to investigate

and possibly play with.

For the whale's safety,

it's important that I keep
them from getting ahold

of any of the tools.

- [Kate] Now, there's Juno.

So that's who we wanna pull
the pole out if we see.

[Jonathan laughs]

So we'll see.
- What are you doing?

Oh, dude.

- [Kate] He sensed that
you were new, I think.

- [Jonathan] Uh-oh.

Next, I joined trainer Lindsey Nelson

who's preparing to take a
weekly blood sample from Naku.

This is just a tad more complicated

than getting a blood sample from a human.

Using a hand signal as a cue,

Lindsey instructs Naku to turn around

and place her tail up on dry land.

- And then I'm gonna pull her tail up

onto the beach for me on this towel here.

- [Jonathan] This takes a lot of trust

between trainer and beluga

because Naku is extremely
vulnerable in this position,

completely unable to swim.

- [Lindsey] Right into her vein there.

And as you can see, the blood's coming up.

- [Jonathan] These blood
tests are conducted regularly,

both for research

and also to ensure the
health of the animals.

- After she's done, I'm
gonna blow my whistle

and give her a double tap on her tail,

and that tells her she did a great job.

And then she knows when she comes back,

she'll get that fish reinforcement.

[whistle whistling]

And then she knows,

she's coming back for a big fish reward.

- [Jonathan] Yummy.

Is that yummy?

- So we do have some capelin.

- Yeah.

I was weighing it this morning.

- Oh, that's right, yes.
- That was part of my job.

Yes.

- So you probably are-

- [Jonathan] Later in the
day, the trainers provide

what's called enrichment.

You see, belugas are smart,

and they get bored.

To keep them happy,

they need to be mentally stimulated.

- We can also do audio enrichment.

So, she has a tambourine.

You have a tambourine.

And then I also have a drum.

So different noises for them to hear.

- So the idea behind enrichment

is basically to do weird and wacky stuff

to entertain the whales.

All right, Juno.

Here we go.

Ready?

♪ Tana tananana tata ♪

♪ Tana tananana ta ♪

With my enrichment hat in place,

I put a pole cam in the water

to sh**t some underwater video.

Since divers are not allowed
in the water with the belugas,

this is my only opportunity

for some fish eye views of the whales.

The most important part,
of course, is to make sure

that none of the belugas grab my camera.

Although I'm not allowed to go diving,

I can go in the water

in a pair of hip waders, like a fisherman.

- Do you have questions before we get in?

- No, let's go.

This is my element, baby.

- [Kate] Okay.

- [Jonathan] Kate takes me

into the shallow part of the exhibit

where I will learn a few hand signals.

The whales know about
a hundred hand signals.

They've been trained to do everything,

from a raspberry.

[Juno blowing raspberries]
- There you go.

[Jonathan laughs]
[Juno squeals]

- [Jonathan] To a breach.

Oh, really?

Again?

- That's a lot of weight.
- You're k*lling me.

Yahoo!

[Jonathan laughs]

Nice.
- Yay!

- [Jonathan] The reward,
a fish, of course.

- Very nice job.

- [Jonathan] I learned a little
bit about Naku's anatomy.

She uses her melon, the
rounded top of her head,

to direct the sound waves
for her echolocation system.

This is how belugas find food in the wild.

Of course, in the wild,

she would live in the
arctic around sea ice,

which is why belugas are bright white.

And if there's one thing to
remember, never splash a beluga.

They have excellent aim.

[whistle whistling]

- There we go.

There we go.
- Thank you.

- I wanted to make sure you got...

- [Jonathan] But I did get a kiss.

- [Kate] There we go.

She's up at you already.

- [Jonathan] And it only cost a fish.

That's a great kiss.

He's like I only get it for the fish.

So I spend a day learning a little bit

about beluga whales.

They're curious, clever,
and full of personality.

They're the only whales
that can bend their necks

to look around without
moving their whole body.

These are amazing animals,

and I feel like I've
made some new friends.

[birds chirping]

[bright music]

- [Narrator] Next on
"Jonathan Bird's Blue World,"

Jonathan gets up close and
personal with wild dolphins.

But first, a mysterious
blue hole in The Bahamas.

- The Bahamas are famous
in the diving world

for their natural formations
called blue holes.

A blue hole is typically a
somewhat round hole in the ground

filled with water.

They're often quite deep.

Many Bahamian islands are covered

in hundreds of these blue holes.

Blue holes were formed
during the last ice age

when sea levels were much
lower than they are today.

Rain, combining with carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere,

creates a mild acid called carbonic acid,

otherwise known as acid rain.

When rainwater collects
in a small depression,

it slowly starts eating
away the soft limestone

of which The Bahamas
islands are mostly made.

Over tens of thousands of years,

the hole gets bigger and deeper.

At the end of the last ice age,

as the earth warmed, the sea levels rose.

And with it, the water table.

The blue holes filled with water.

I've come to Andros in The Bahamas

to dive a little known blue hole

called Cousteau's Blue Hole.

It's called that because Jacques
Cousteau himself dove here.

My adventure begins at Small
Hope Bay Lodge in North Andros.

Today, I won't be using their dive boats

because we get to this
dive site with a truck.

Small Hope Bay Lodge Dive
master, Dennis Burrows,

is taking me on an adventure
to a remote area of Andros.

We drive through the mangroves
to the local highway.

[lively music]

Then it's into the forest on a road,

which appears to be
barely more than a trail.

A rainstorm passes through,
making our journey a little wet,

but it just adds to the adventure.

[lively music]

Small Hope Bay Lodge owner, Jeff Birch,

has come along to tell me a little bit

about Cousteau's Blue Hole.

What do we know about
Cousteau's Blue Hole here?

- Well, all we know is is
that Cousteau's Blue Hole

is one of the very unique blue holes

of what I call the round
swimming type blue holes

because it's safe to dive from
a recreational perspective,

not only from a cave
structure perspective.

- Huh?

- And that is very, very unique.

- I finally get my first
look at Cousteau's Blue Hole.

It looks like a small circular pond.

But this is no ordinary pond.

Some of these blue holes are so deep

that before scuba divers
started exploring them,

they thought they were bottomless.

Cousteau's Blue Hole does have a bottom,

but it's about 400 feet below,

so it's about four times
deeper than it is wide.

The shore around the blue
hole is mostly limestone,

but there are a few muddy places,

and cameraman, Tim, just found one.

[Tim groans]

[group laughs]

- Ah.
- Oh, nice.

[group laughs]

- Get a shot of that.

Get a shot of that, Bird Man.

Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you about that.

[Jonathan laughs]

- [Jonathan] Hello.

- Unbelievable.

- Once Tim has been
extricated from the mud,

it's time to carry our gear
down the path from the road.

It's a lot of work, but
at least the sun came out.

[bright music]

In the golden light of late afternoon,

our team suits up and
prepares to make a dive

before the sun gets too low.

That's good.

That's good.

This is good.

That's good.

Todd takes a powerful set of video lights

to help lighting the wall and overhangs.

Then it's my turn to get in.

[water splashes]

Next, cameraman, Tim, joins us.

Dennis will be our dive master.

He's done this dive many times

and knows where to find
lots of interesting stuff.

The water at the surface is quite green.

Sunlight near the surface
allows plankton to grow,

making the water murky.

And the water is fresh.

As we sink deeper, the
sunlight drops off quickly

and we turn on our video lights.

By 50 feet, there is very little light.

By 70 feet, there's almost
no ambient light at all.

Dennis leads our team
along the vertical wall

with Todd close behind
lighting the place up.

We've reached a layer called a halocline,

where the fresh water above

meets the salt water from the ocean below.

In this layer where
oxygen-rich water from above

meets oxygen poor water from below,

microbial action creates
clouds of fine minerals

that float in the water.

Dennis leads us to allege with a deposit

that looks like rusty sediment.

Above it on the wall
are rusty-looking stains

made by iron oxidizing bacteria.

They break down iron
from the rock into rust,

which falls down and
collects on the shelf below.

This is the same kind of bacteria

that makes rusty stains
in sinks and toilets.

The deeper we go, the
clearer the water gets.

At 90 feet, the walls are
clean white limestone.

At 100 feet, we come
across a layer of sediment

that looks a little bit
like a chocolate layer cake.

It's called a microbial mat,

and it's made of sulfate
reducing bacteria.

These bacteria consume organic material

like leaves that fall into the blue hole.

They operate in anaerobic conditions,

meaning where there is
very little to no oxygen.

In a sense, this type of bacteria

essentially breeds sulfate,

which it gets from the calcium sulfate

that naturally occurs in sea water.

The result is toxic hydrogen sulfide

and this thick mat of
decomposed organic material.

The oxygen level in the water
at this depth is very low

because it's all consumed
by other forms of bacteria

that require oxygen to decompose

the organic matter in the water.

Between that and the hydrogen
sulfide in the water,

fish just can't survive down here.

Soon, we start making our way
up towards the surface again.

In the shallows, algae can
live because there's sunlight

and no hydrogen sulfide.

The algae make oxygen, and
fish can live here too,

although there aren't many.

I managed to find a single
fish sitting on a ledge.

You have to wonder how fish

ever got here in the first place.

Because the limestone
walls of the blue hole

are being slowly but constantly
dissolved by the water,

it has become quite porous.

In fact, if I touch it,

it crumbles in my hand like
a piece of dried toast.

It's hard to believe that solid
rock can become so fragile.

Just under the surface of the
water less than 10 feet deep,

the bottom is completely covered

in what looks like an encrusting sponge.

But it's not sponge at all.

When I touch it, bubbles are released,

potentially indicating
that there's some type

of decomposition going on within it.

It appears to be some
type of microbial mat

that has yet to be
identified by scientists.

It's hard to believe, but
even here in shallow water,

there are scientific
discoveries to be made.

We end the dive at sunset.

We've seen some amazing
and weird phenomena

in Cousteau's Blue Hole.

I would've never guessed
there was so much going on

in a small blue hole like this one.

It just goes to show there's no limit

to the amazing things to
be seen in the blue world.

- [Narrator] Don't go away.

Jonathan is about to test
his free diving skills

with a pod of Hawaiian spinner dolphins.

- [Jonathan] Dolphins are among

the ocean's most exhilarating animals,

excitable, playful ambassadors of the sea.

Whenever a pod of dolphins appears,

I always stop what I'm doing
and see if they want to play.

Dolphin encounters aren't
always easy to plan,

but there are places in the world

where dolphins are regularly seen.

And this is one of those places,

the big island of Hawaii.

Surrounded by the warm Pacific Ocean,

the big island is an amazing place

full of breathtaking views,

[wave crashing]

exotic animals, and volcanic activity.

[wind whistling]

But I've come to meet a pod of dolphins.

[upbeat music]

It's 8:00 AM,

and Big Island Divers is
putting one of their boats

in the water at the marina.

Cameraman, Todd, and I grab
our and head to the boat

where we meet Captain Mike.

- And we're gonna go look around.

I got some spies out right
now looking for dolphins,

and we'll see what
feedback I get from them

in the next few minutes.

- [Jonathan] I listen
as Captain Mike explains

how he will hopefully
find us some dolphins,

and then we shove off for the open ocean.

[lively music]

Soon, we're half a mile off shore,

cruising in search of dolphins.

Ryan Leinbach, or as we call
her, The Dolphin Whisperer,

is telling us about the
Hawaiian spinner dolphins

were hopefully going to meet.

- Hawaiian spinner dolphins

live here in the Hawaiian Islands.

And at the nighttime, they go offshore

to hunt and feed in the scattering layer.

And so they feed on squid,
opelu, that kind of stuff.

And then as the sun rises in the morning,

the dolphins come back to the shoreline

to rest and socialize along
our Hawaiian shorelines.

What we're probably gonna find today

is they're either gonna be
traveling from point A to point B

or they're gonna be in a rest estuary.

- [Jonathan] So we're
cruising just offshore

looking for Hawaiian spinner dolphins.

And since they tend to
rest during the day,

they're moving slowly.

But they may not be very playful.

Soon, we spot the dorsal fins of dolphins

and we circle closer to
see what they're up to.

- Okay, so with you guys,
timing is gonna be critical.

Like, when we say go, you go.

These guys are turning around right here.

That's what we want.

We want them to stay here.

- The dolphins look pretty active,

so now is my chance to suit up
and see how close I can get.

I'm ready to go.

Ryan slips silently into the water

with me and Todd close behind.

At first, we don't see anything,

but then the dolphins come into view.

[bright music]

They make a fairly close
pass to have a look at us.

Then they turn and swim away.

I swim along behind
them for a few minutes,

but eventually, they give me the slip.

But that's okay.

If there's one thing I've learned

about interacting with
dolphins over the years,

it's that you need to be patient.

Ooh.

Well, that wasn't bad for our first try.

It was interesting to
see 'em in the water,

but they just weren't
interested in playing.

We pull the ladder and head off

to find a more cooperative pod.

[lively music]

Captain Mike has found another pod.

Behind the boat, they're doing
what spinners are known for.

Spinning!

So we slow down and
get ready to try again.

Hopefully, this is gonna be it.

Once again, I drop into
the water with my camera

and fin my way over towards the dolphins.

[bright inspirational music]

Soon, Todd and I are in the
middle of a big pod of spinners.

[bright inspirational music]

I do my best dolphin impersonation

free diving down to
them as they pass below.

But they make my breath
holding skills look pathetic.

This group is going slowly
'cause they're actually resting.

They hunt at night in deep water,

so during the day, they rest.

[bright inspirational music]

Dolphins don't rest the way we do.

If they fall asleep, they'll drown.

When a dolphin sleeps,

it shuts down half of its brain

while the other half stays awake,

controlling a slow swim
and periodic breathing.

After a while, the dolphins swap sides

letting the other half of its brain sleep.

The result is a slow swimming animal

that appears fully awake, but not really.

Spinner dolphins are
not particularly large.

They grow to be about
the same size and weight

as an adult human.

But they don't live as long.

Estimates are that they only live

to be about 20 or so years old.

So after a short but exciting encounter

with these majestic and beautiful animals,

I watch them swim off into the blue.

They need their sleep for tonight,

hunting somewhere out there
in the deep blue world.

[lively music]