EarthxTV - Genius Sea Hunters (2021)
Chapter 1 Unity is Strength
Whales in Alaska organise previously unseen co-operative hunting forays, while others fight orcas for herring along the Norwegian coastline. The same orcas unite to loop around shoals of fish and invent underwater boxing. When competition between species is rife, you need to be more intelligent and know how to work together!
In Alaska, in the waters of the Chatham Strait, Fred Sharpe, head of the Alaska Whale Foundation, is seeing new co-operative hunting techniques – including the bubble trap tactic – that humpback whales have developed.
Assisted by a team of biologists and bio-acousticians, Fred tries to gain an in-depth understanding of these exceptional behaviours in order to grasp how these whales communicate with each other to co-ordinate hunting.
At the beginning of every winter on his sailboat, the Barba, biologist Andreas Heide and his crew sail the Fjords of Skjervoy, to the north of Norway, searching for orcas and humpback whales in order to learn more about the unique hunting techniques they use here. Because when 3,000 whales and 2,000 orcas share the same hunting territory, strategy and domination become major stakes.
In the high seas, only the orcas practise a collective technique known as 'carousel' hunting. But along the shore and near the fishing boats, orcas also use surprising co-operative hunting techniques to catch herring.
Chapter 2 Hunters in Hostile Waters
Orcas that come out of the water, birds that dive to depths of over 20m - some animals don't hesitate to enter unfamiliar environments. In Argentina, in the bay off Puerto Madryn, Jorge Cazenave explains the orca beaching technique. Thanks to aerial images, we discover how the whales in a pod teach this technique to the young who don't yet hunt.
In Lambert’s bay in South Africa, marine biologist Lorien Picehegru studies the hunting techniques used by the Cape gannet, which can dive as far down as 20m into the water to reach shoals of sardine. We learn this hunting method is the result of inter-species co-operation between birds and dolphins.
Chapter 3 Adapt or Perish
Orcas that come out of the water, birds that dive to depths of over 20m - some animals don't hesitate to enter unfamiliar environments. In Argentina, in the bay off Puerto Madryn, Jorge Cazenave explains the orca beaching technique. Thanks to aerial images, we discover how the whales in a pod teach this technique to the young who don't yet hunt.
In Lambert’s bay in South Africa, marine biologist Lorien Picehegru studies the hunting techniques used by the Cape gannet, which can dive as far down as 20m into the water to reach shoals of sardine. We learn this hunting method is the result of inter-species co-operation between birds and dolphins.
Chapter 3 Adapt or Perish Seagulls attacking whales, hyenas hunting sea lions… Climate change and the environmental upheavals it brings mean that animals, which never met before, now have to share territory. If they wish to survive, predators have to rapidly invent new hunting strategies!
For the past 20 years in Golfo Nuovo Bay in Argentina, Mariano Sironi has seen the hostile relationship that has developed between seagulls and whales. The seagulls have become a veritable scourge for the whales and their young. How can these birds be a threat to these marine giants?
Biologist Ingrid Wissel has spent 20 years travelling around Skeleton Coast in Namibia where local sea lion populations have turned to a sedentary lifestyle. Ingrid has become the unique and privileged witness of an extremely rare phenomenon the slow learning process of hunting or defence techniques of three animal species that thousands of years of evolution had not yet brought face to face hyenas, jackals, and sea lions.
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