06x01 - Muck Diving in the Philippines + The Annual Alewife Run in Maine, USA

[bunniefuu]

- [Art] Today on Blue World,

Jonathan travels to
the Philippines to hunt

for a rare octopus in a
muck diving adventure.

Then he heads to Maine
to join the Alewife Run.

[upbeat music]

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.

Welcome to the Blue World.

[upbeat music continues]

[gentle music]

- The ocean can be a very
unforgiving place to live.

Every animal needs a strategy to survive.

A way to catch food, and a way
to keep from becoming food.

Different habitats require
different strategies.

Some animals live in the open ocean.

Some live around coral reefs.

But one of the most fascinating habitats

for cool critters is the sandy sea floor.

It seems like there should be nothing here

but, in fact, there are lots
of really interesting animals

that have adapted to
this unique environment.

Diving in these sandy featureless domains

has come to be known as muck diving,

even though there usually
isn't any actual muck.

I'm heading to the Philippines,
known for muck diving.

One of the most popular mucky
destinations is Dumaguete.

The muck of Dumaguete
is also known to be one

of the best places to
find one of the rarest

and most exotic octopuses
in the world, the wunderpus.

Yes, it's really called a wunderpus.

I arrive at Atlantis Resort
Dumaguete situated right

on the beach with five
days to find a wunderpus.

The muck that we're diving in here

in Dumaguete is actually just sand.

This sandy beach continues
out into the shallows

and that forms the sea floor
where all the critters live.

But this sand isn't ordinary sand,

it's what they call black sand.

You can see it's pretty dark in color.

It's not really black, it's really kind of

more a brown color and it's speckled

with little shiny minerals,
this is volcanic sand.

It comes from volcanic rock so it looks

a lot different from
those white sand beaches

in The Bahamas with the sugary white sand.

Still, this is the ultimate
muck diving substrate.

My first stop is at the dive
shop to get my gear set up.

I'm not sure they have enough
tanks to keep me going,

but this ought to work for today.

Next, I board the boat for
some muck diving adventures.

We only drive about five
minutes from the dock.

John Ellerbrock, the guy who builds

my awesome Gates housings
is on the trip too,

testing out some new prototypes.

Then it's time to suit up
and go look for critters.

[wind blowing]

- [Zach] Down there, I see something

and it doesn't have it [indistinct].

- [Jonathan] Cameraman,
Zach and I hit the water.

Grab our cameras and sink down
only 25 feet to the bottom.

Thank you.

It sure doesn't look like much.

I find a crinoid, sometimes
called a feather star.

This echinoderm is closely
related to the sea star,

but instead of a small number of fat arms,

this guy has dozens of thin arms

covered in sticky projections

to capture tiny organisms
from the water to eat.

Because the spiny sticky
crinoid is inedible

to most organisms, a small
fish perfectly camouflaged

to match its host lives within the safety

of the crinoids arms.

Because most of the muck
creatures are pretty small,

my camera is set up with a
special lens for doing closeups.

Each nudibranch,
basically a colorful snail

without a shell, is only an inch long.

[gentle music]

As I move in a tad shallower,

I come across an area of sea grass.

It's easy to look at
this and swim right over

without a second glance but
when you're muck diving,

you have to slow down and really look.

[water bubbling]

Camouflaged perfectly, a pair
of robust ghost pipe fish

look just like the sea
grass they're hiding in.

They even sway like grass.

[water bubbling]
[gentle music]

Nature doesn't produce
camouflage much better than this.

[water bubbling continues]
[gentle music continues]

A few meters away, I noticed
my friend Howard Hall

filming a clump of Halimeda algae.

He must have something good.

Halimeda is a type of algae made

of rigid calcified segments
that look like leaves.

This calcium makes the algae
almost inedible to herbivores,

so pretty much nothing eats it.

The Halimeda ghost pipe
fish gains protection

by looking like this inedible algae.

When it wanders away
from its Halimeda home,

this tiny ghost pipe fish
stands out like a sore thumb,

but predators still think
it's just a piece of algae

as it wiggles and flops its
way to its next hiding spot

as a piece of drifting algae wood.

[gentle music]

Another Halimeda, another fish.

Seahorses don't like to swim much.

They prefer to hang on to things
with their prehensile tail.

In this case, the Halimeda
provides a place to hang out

and wait for shrimp to
come within striking range.

By holding still, the seahorse allows

the food to come to it.

[gentle quirky music]

Speaking of shrimp,
there are clouds of them.

They're barely larger
than a grain of rice,

but they feed many of the
camouflaged hunters of the muck.

Living in a burrow in the sand,

a jaw fish rarely needs to leave his home.

He watches for passing
shrimp and jumps out

to grab them when they come close.

[gentle quirky music continues]

Few fish have perfected camouflage

to the degree of the flounder.

While the flounder
actually lying on its side,

in a bizarre twist of evolution,

both eyes are on one side of
its body, so it can look around

for food with both eyes
from this position.

The eyes are completely
independent from each other,

like periscopes operated
by two different people.

[gentle music]

[gentle music]

On a small coral outcropping, a frog fish

actually hunts for dinner by going fishing

with a lure attached to its head.

Frog fish, which resembles
sponges for camouflage,

are quite common around Dumaguete.

[gentle music continues]

Anemones also managed
to find a foothold out

in the sand, usually, attached to a rock.

And where there is an anemone,
there are anemone fish

taking advantage of a safe place to live.

The anemone may look like a lush carpet,

but every tentacle is covered
in microscopic stinging cells.

It will sting and eat soft
bodied animals like fish,

but not the anemone fish,

which have a special slime on their skin,

which fools the anemone
into not stinging them.

The toxin of the anemone is so effective

that it wards off moray eels,
known as voracious predators.

Frolicking only a foot from danger,

the anemone fish seems unconcerned.

Another anemone looks
more like a bath mat,

and it attracts a different species

of anemone fish called the saddleback.

This mated pair is engaged
in raising some children.

The female has laid hundreds of eggs,

attached to some rocks at
the base of the anemone.

Then the male takes over aerating

the eggs every few seconds
for one to two weeks.

In the anemone fish world, dads
are the primary caregivers.

Each egg is the size of a grain of rice,

and at this late stage of development,

the embryonic fish have beady little eyes

visible through the egg cases.

I wonder if they can see their dad working

so hard to bring them into the world.

[gentle music]

The anemone has another inhabitant,

a porcelain crab also gets
protection from the anemone.

It never needs to leave
the anemone for food.

Instead, the crab just hangs off the edge

and catches plankton from the water

with a pair of appendages
that look like baseball mitts.

[dramatic music]

While kneeling on the
sand to film a pipe fish,

I have that feeling
that I'm being watched.

Wouldn't you know it, only a few feet away

a wunderpus has poked its eyes

out of a hole to see what I'm up to.

It slowly emerges from
its den in the sand.

[ethereal music]

It's the weirdest, most
incredible octopus.

And unlike other octopods which typically,

make their den under a rock or in a reef,

the wunderpus only lives
in the muck environment

where it hunts, burrowing
straight into the sea floor.

[ethereal music continues]

The wunderpus tolerates
my camera and lights

as it slowly works its way across

the sand looking for something to eat.

[ethereal music continues]

Within seconds, it changes

from a brownish color to brightly striped.

This distinctive coloration
is the easiest way

to identify a wunderpus and
biologists have discovered

that no two wunderpuses have

the exact same spot pattern
on their body and head.

So individuals can be
identified in this way.

[ethereal music continues]

I watch as the octopus
hunts for a few minutes,

then it decides to burrow into a new spot.

It can drill its way into the
soft sand in very little time.

It uses an arm to pull
some loose substrate

in closer to camouflage
the position of the den.

[ethereal music continues]

And then, the octopus vanishes.

[ethereal music continues]

Soon it's time to head back to the boat.

[water splashing]

Thanks Joe.

- You're welcome.

- That was awesome, mission accomplished.

We found the wunderpus, yes!

It didn't do much, but it
was still amazing to see

just one of the rarest octopuses
in the world, really cool.

So my trip to Dumaguete is a huge success.

The more muck diving I
do, the more I enjoy it.

I'm a critter nerd, I love to find

the wild and weird animals

that thrive in this sandy habitat.

[gentle music]

It's another thing I love
about exploring the Blue World.

[gentle music continues]

- [Art] Don't go away, Jonathan is heading

to a river in Maine to meet an alewife.

[upbeat music]

- It's spring in New England
and I'm off on an adventure.

I'm driving to Pembroke, Maine

to witness an amazing spectacle of nature.

We pull off the road at a river,

a beautiful spot that looks
like many rivers in Maine.

[upbeat music continues]

This is the Pennamaquan.

In the 1950s, the Pennamaquan
River was damned up

to create nesting habitat for waterfowl.

So above the dam, it's a
wide slow flowing river.

Further up, is a lake.

[gentle music]

But just below the dam,
the Pennamaquan is quite

a bit more turbulent all the way

to the ocean, about a mile downstream.

[water rushing]

Every spring the river fills

with a type of fish called an alewife.

Alewives, a kind of herring,
are anadromous fish,

which means they live in the ocean,

but they migrate temporarily
into fresh water to spawn.

These fish are making their
way up the Pennamaquan River

all the way to Pennamaquan
Lake to lay their eggs.

It's only eight miles, but
the fish have some challenges.

First, they have to get
through all the rapids.

[gentle music]
[water rushing]

But getting around the
dam is only possible

because of a series of fish ladders,

sometimes called fishways.

I'm here to meet up with Chris Bartlett,

a marine extension associate

from Maine's Sea Grant who is here

to make sure that the fish
are making it upstream.

Hi Chris.
- [Chris] Hey there

- [Jonathan] How you doing?

- [Chris] Good, good to see you.

- [Jonathan] Good to see you too.

- [Chris] Welcome to
the Pennamaquan River.

- [Jonathan] Wow, it's
really flowing, man.

- [Chris] It is, yeah, we had about

an inch of rain so water levels are up.

- [Jonathan] So do we
have some fish in here?

- [Chris] We have lots of
fish, these are alewife.

- [Jonathan] During the spawning
run, Chris or volunteers

from the Down East Salmon
Federation are here

almost every day to check on the fish.

Get in there.

- [Chris] Perfect.
- Thank you.

Feisty.

- [Chris] They are, aren't they?

[both chuckling]

- [Jonathan] They're
bigger than I expected.

- [Chris] That's an alewife.
- [Jonathan] Wow.

These days alewives are
not widely eaten by people,

but they're an extremely
important part of the food chain,

both in the ocean and freshwater.

Alewives are food for everything

from seals to cod and even eagles.

[triumphant music]

But their numbers had been declining

for years due to overfishing, pollution

and especially dams in
their spawning waterways.

Something had to be done about it.

In 2014, the Maine Department
of Marine Resources

tasked Chris with getting a good count

of how many fish were making
it up to the lake to spawn.

Soon, he realized that the
fishway was in disrepair.

With a little effort
and some volunteer help,

the alewife had a clear
path up the fishway.

- We counted 70,000 fish
migrating upstream our first year.

Did repairs to the the fishway,

and last year we had over 245,000 fish.

- Wow, so they're making a comeback.

- They are, it's really great to see.

- [Jonathan] So how do
you count 245,000 fish?

with a clever electronic
fish counter placed

in a narrow section of the river

through which all the fish must pass.

- We are now using this resistive counter,

which is a electrical device
that counts fish swimming

through a series of PVC pipes.

And those pipes have hose clamps in them

that are weakly electrified,

and the the fish's own
electrical conductants

will get counted as it
swims through the pipe.

It's very cool technology.

So you can see, by looking in the box,

over the last 24 hour period.

- [Jonathan] Yeah.
- [Chris] How many fish

have swum through each pipe.

So what are you getting for numbers?

If you'd like to read 'em off to me

- [Jonathan] I'll read them off.

- [Chris] I'll record them here

- So number one is 82.

Number two is 61.

Number three is 143.

Number four is 61.

Number five is eight, I guess
they don't like number five.

Number six is one, they
really don't like number six.

Number seven is 85, number eight is 3,292.

They really like number eight.

- I think they do.

- [Jonathan] Number nine is 1076.

And the whole thing runs
on a couple car batteries.

- It does.

- So how long can it run
before you have to swap out

or charge it or charge it, or...?

- The manufacturer says it
can run up to two weeks.

We typically don't let it run that long.

We just want to ensure that
we don't lose any data.

So that's why we collect
it on a daily basis.

Once I've recorded the information,

I now just reset the
counter and it zeroes out.

And we start all over again.

- [Jonathan] How often do you read it?

- [Chris] Once a day.

- [Jonathan] Every day,
you gotta drive up here

and read that?

- Well, there's a few
of us that are doing it.

So I'm on the weekend shift.

[Jonathan chuckling]

- [Jonathan] Because of the dam,

the success of the entire spawning run

depends on the fishways.

So Chris, tell me about this fish ladder.

- So this is a Denil style fishway.

So you have a concrete trough

that is broken up with
these wooden baffles.

And you can't see the
bottom of the baffles,

but it's like a picture frame.

And so, there's wood on the
bottom as well as on the sides.

And the wood blocks the current

to give the fish a resting spot.

So even though it looks like the water

is moving very quickly at the bottom,

there's very little current

because the wood is blocking the current.

So the fish can swim up the fishway

one baffle at a time,
resting along their way.

And so, if you were to put your camera

into the bottom of the fishway,

you would see fish calmly
resting before they sh**t up

through the fast water
to take another rest.

So that's how the fishway works.

- As much fun as it is to
watch fish climb the fishway

and go through the fish counter,

I'm betting it will be more fun

to hop in the water with the fish.

[water rushing]

Just walking down the street
with a 50 pound camera housing,

nothing unusual, nothing to see here.

While carrying the camera
to the water is awkward

at least I don't need any scuba tanks.

I don't even need a mask.

First, a few quick camera adjustments.

And then, I join the fish in the river.

[gentle music]

I'm wading into the Pennamaquan River

to join the alewife run.

As long as I hold still
the fish get used to me

and they treat my camera
like just another rock.

They swim right up to the lens.

With the monitor mounted
on top of the camera,

I barely even have to get wet.

But that 58 degree water makes
me glad I put on a wetsuit.

It's weird being right in the middle

of so many fish that are not afraid.

It's not common for me to get
so close to a school of fish.

This is amazing!

Eventually, I settle down
into a deeper spot and relax.

The fish don't even mind my feet.

They have spawning to do and some guy

in a wetsuit isn't going to stop them.

[gentle music]

Due to the efforts of a
relatively small number of people

who set out to make a difference,
the spawning population

of alewife on just one river in Maine

has more than tripled in only four years.

It goes to show that
sometimes a little effort

can make a big difference.

And while sitting in a river in Maine

may not seem as exotic as many
of my filming expeditions,

I'm constantly amazed by the new things

I learn everywhere I go.

Even a small river in Down East Maine

can be a fantastic journey
into the Blue World.

[gentle music]

[upbeat music]

[dramatic clang]