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Explores the surprisingly vibrant seas that surround the British Isles. The vast watery wilderness is over three times the size of the land mass, and yet to many, the oceans remain a mystery....
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AnimalsTranscript
00:28Satsang with Mooji
00:33Here in Britain and Ireland, we have some of the richest seas in Europe.
00:40Our varied coastline, if you include all the many offshore islands, is over 22,000 miles long, and none of
00:49us live more than 70 miles away from the sea.
00:52Yet few of us have seen the wonders beyond the beach and beneath the waves.
00:58In this episode, we will take you from the most southerly point of the United Kingdom to the furthest north
01:06to explain why our seas can be so productive and reveal the threats that they face today.
01:28Every winter, a warm ocean current, the Gulf Stream, drives huge storms across the Atlantic.
01:38Away from the Caribbean and straight towards our shores.
01:48There, every winter, they batter the west coasts of our islands.
02:03Waves with energy built up across an entire ocean are hurled at our coasts.
02:13Walls of water more than 10 meters tall crash repeatedly onto the rocks.
02:32And as the water at depth is churned, it brings nutrients up towards the surface.
02:44These nutrients, combined with the warmth of the Gulf Stream, are the reason why marine life here proliferates with such
02:53extraordinary richness and variety.
03:22Each year in autumn, evidence exists.
03:25of this marine abundance appears on land.
03:3413,000 grey seals haul out on Blakely Point in Norfolk.
03:40It's the largest seal colony in England.
03:46Females, having spent most of the year feeding in our rich waters,
03:50are preparing to produce their young.
03:54Newly born, the pups are helpless.
03:59And for their first few weeks, entirely dependent on their mothers.
04:05The seal milk is more than 50% fat.
04:09And the pups put on two kilos a day.
04:16At first, parent and pup are inseparable.
04:24But then, after a few days, the youngsters start to explore.
04:31Other females don't tolerate the appearance of unrelated pups on their patch.
04:56Posing an even greater threat than the females, are the males.
05:09Three metres long and weighing 350 kilos,
05:15they have come here to mate.
05:21They know that soon after the pups are born,
05:25the females will become sexually receptive once again.
05:33This big male tries to control all the females on this stretch of the beach.
05:53The big male warns off the challenger.
05:57But the intruder takes no notice.
06:00The big male warns off the challenger.
06:11Violence.
06:24When the males fight, they take no notice of any pup that gets in their way.
06:33The pup's mother intervenes.
06:40Allowing her pup to wriggle away.
06:50Finally, the battle turns.
06:56The intruder starts to retreat towards the sea.
07:03Now, the smaller males join the chase.
07:20The big male has retained his right to mate.
07:29Despite these battles,
07:31Blakely Point still provides the pups with an excellent start in life.
07:36Five thousand are born here each year.
07:43A remarkable 40% of the world population of grey seals
07:48lives around the British Isles.
07:52Impressive evidence of the richness of our seas.
08:00Beneath the surface, that wealth is very evident.
08:15Cold, nutrient-rich currents from the north mingle with the warm waters of the Gulf Stream
08:21and support an astonishing variety of plants and animals.
08:30There are more than 10,000 different species here.
08:34Giulia.
08:34Lancia.
08:36Lancia.
09:09The effect of the Gulf Stream is felt most keenly at our southernmost point, around the Isles of Scilly.
09:21Here grows one of the biggest stretches of seagrass to be found anywhere in British and Irish waters.
09:30Seagrass is important globally because it collects carbon up to 35 times faster than a tropical rainforest.
09:42But we have lost nearly 90% of our seagrass mainly because of pollution and disturbance of the seabed.
09:53Nonetheless, these marine meadows are home to a wide variety of small animals, including this, perhaps somewhat surprising one.
10:11A spiny seahorse, one of just two species of seahorse that live in our waters.
10:23They thrive in the warmth brought by the Gulf Stream.
10:35The seagrass provides them with the seclusion they prefer for their courtship.
10:53A crucial part of their underwater dance involves a gentle entwining of their tails.
11:04Its behaviour, you might think, to be more typical of the warm balmy waters of the Mediterranean.
11:21And there is another creature that is also more usually found in warmer waters.
11:32The common cuttlefish.
11:37It's the most northerly of all cuttlefish species.
11:43This pregnant female, about the size of a rugby football, is being guarded by a male as she prepares to
11:51lay her eggs.
11:55First, she cleans her chosen site by squirting jets of water over the seaweed.
12:05Several dozen black eggs are already here, having been laid the previous day.
12:21And now she adds more, one by one, until there are up to 3,000 or so.
12:30And now she adds more, one by one, one by one, until there are up to 3,000 or so.
12:43During the night, the eggs start to hatch.
12:54A perfectly formed baby cuttlefish, no larger than a pea.
13:06Within a few weeks, a male has grown to a length of around six centimetres and is already a stealthy
13:14hunter.
13:16Another one with a turtle.
13:26His eyesight is so sensitive that he's able to hunt by moonlight.
13:53But when the moon disappears even he cannot see
14:00And the darkness usually brings hunting to an end
14:09But on just a few nights each year something extraordinary happens
14:19Tiny light producing algae create vast clouds of bioluminescence
14:30They are stimulated to switch on by any sudden movement in the water
14:42Even the slight swirl produced by a tiny crab as it breathes has an effect
14:51The hunter must move very smoothly to avoid creating a light show of his own
15:26The light of the algae is a very strong
15:27has enabled it to see its prey
15:30and so hunt throughout the night.
15:39A year later,
15:42the cuttlefish are fully grown
15:44and this male is now looking for a female.
15:51But the traditional breeding site is empty.
16:03The cuttlefish that gathered here to mate
16:07have been caught in a fishing pot.
16:14They may be among the most intelligent animals in the sea
16:19but they've been fooled by a simple trap.
16:26And once in it, there is no escape.
16:46The male outside spots a possible mate.
16:59But he can't reach her.
17:15Our cuttlefish population can tolerate some loss to fishing.
17:20But surely, we shouldn't put pots where they habitually breed
17:24and prevent them from producing a next generation.
17:45Away from the coast,
17:47the seabed may seem barren and lifeless.
17:53But looks can be deceptive.
17:58This muddy sea floor is rich in bacteria and algae
18:03and provides food for one animal in particular.
18:09A slow-moving creature that can grow up to a length of six centimeters.
18:17The royal flush sea slug.
18:24Thousands graves the seafloor here.
18:32But with so much competition for the same food,
18:36supplies eventually run out.
18:39And the sea slugs have to move on in their own strange way.
18:50They flap their wing-like mantles and rise up from the seabed.
19:01Drifting on the slow current, they can travel for miles.
19:26This extraordinary mass migration has never been filmed before.
19:31This extraordinary mass migration has never been filmed before.
19:47Eventually, they reach new feeding grounds.
20:04And now, they can start hoovering the seabed once more.
20:18As spring turns to summer, another very different migration begins all along the south coast,
20:27and for a very different reason.
20:32A young female spider crab.
20:39She is searching these sandy plains for others of her own kind.
20:54Spider crabs are normally solitary, but now, in the summer, they start to assemble into
21:01groups.
21:05And then, when there are enough of them, they start to travel.
21:19Together, they journey for miles across the seabed, all heading in the same direction.
21:40Groups join together, and the travelers become one great horde, several thousands strong.
21:51They are about to face the most dangerous time of their lives.
22:01They have outgrown their hard shells, and must now escape from them.
22:11A new shell is expandable, but it remains soft for several hours.
22:17And until it hardens, its owner has no defense.
22:27That is why they've made this journey together.
22:34There is safety in numbers.
22:46Ocean currents are one reason why our waters are so rich.
22:50Another is the exceptional size of our tides.
22:56Vast amounts of water are continuously transported around our islands by these powerful currents.
23:06The third biggest tidal rise and fall on the planet occurs in the estuary of the River Seven.
23:17From low tide, the sea level rises by as much as the height of a five-story building, and then
23:24falls again, twice every day.
23:31These huge transformations turn up the nutrients and replenish the mudflats.
23:48Further north, on the west coast of Scotland, the power of our tides creates another great spectacle.
23:59The Corrie Wreckan Whirlpool.
24:03The Corrie Wreckan Whirlpool, 25 meters across.
24:11It's the third largest whirlpool in the world.
24:21These powerful tidal currents mix up the water, constantly bringing nutrients from the depths
24:27up to the surface layers.
24:35And the influence of the tides can extend right down to the sea floor.
24:44The animals down here thrive in these ever-moving currents.
24:49Every square inch is bursting with life.
24:59The flowing water brings a never-ending supply of food.
25:05Brittle stars and sea cucumbers compete to collect all they can.
25:19So many creatures inevitably attract predators.
25:32A seven-armed starfish, half a meter across.
25:39The brittle stars do their best to get out of their way.
25:49The huge starfish feel for their prey using hundreds of sensitive tube feet that line the underside of their arms.
26:00Yet, not every animal they encounter tries to escape.
26:08This hermit crab, with its powerful claws, is well able to defend itself.
26:24Finally, the persistent starfish find what they're looking for.
26:35A queen scallop.
26:40Its lines of simple black eyes are able to detect fast-moving threats.
26:49But the starfish moves quite slowly.
26:54And the scallop doesn't notice.
26:59Only when the scallop feels the predator's probing feet, does it react.
27:10It swims away by clapping together the two parts of its shell.
27:21It's a surprisingly effective technique.
27:24And with luck, will carry the scallop to safety.
27:32But scallops don't have a strong sense of direction.
27:39And the starfish just keep coming.
27:45The starfish first pulls the scallop's shell apart,
27:50and then inserts its extendable stomach to digest the scallop's flesh.
27:58The smell of the feast drifts through the water and attracts scavengers.
28:07Whelks.
28:09They are the clean-up crew.
28:18Tidal beds like these can easily be destroyed by bottom trawling.
28:25Protecting those that survive is essential if we are to preserve the richness of our seas.
28:37A hundred miles from mainland Scotland lies Shetland, the most northerly part of the British Isles.
28:47Because this archipelago is in the open ocean, it has some of our cleanest waters.
29:04This is one of the reasons why Shetland is our main stronghold for otters.
29:18More than a thousand live along its 1600 miles of undisturbed coastline.
29:34Shetland's isolation and its relative lack of pollution suits these animals very well.
29:43Elsewhere most live in or beside rivers.
29:46But here they spend much of their time in the sea.
29:59Each has its own territory and knows where its prey is likely to be hiding.
30:08But the waters in which they spend so much of their time are chilly.
30:13And otters need a lot of food to keep themselves warm.
30:24They can hold their breath for up to 90 seconds.
30:29And reach hunting grounds as deep as 10 meters.
30:45In summer, the waters teem with small fish such as eel pout.
30:51Which are easy to catch and are excellent food for the cubs.
31:07Little wonder that Shetland has the greatest density of otters anywhere in Europe.
31:21Otters are not the only stars in Shetland's natural history.
31:27Around its coast are habitats of global importance.
31:33Forests of kelp.
31:39They are among the thickest and most vigorous of their kind in Britain and Ireland.
31:43With individuals growing to over 2 meters tall.
31:51Like the sea grass, this underwater forest captures great quantities of carbon.
31:59And provides a home for a wide range of animals.
32:06One type of kelp here, the furbello, has an especially feisty resident.
32:14Its hollow base is the favorite home of cling fish.
32:26This minute 2 cm long male has been left by his female to look after the eggs.
32:35Hundreds of them are glued to the interior of a furbello's stem.
32:43And they're almost ready to hatch.
32:50It's quite a responsibility for him.
32:54All day long, he fans fresh, oxygen rich sea water across the eggs.
33:04He inspects them regularly and quickly removes any that are infertile or dead.
33:15But his nursery is under attack.
33:32The sea urchins are devouring the furbello.
33:41Their powerful jaws are destroying the cling fish's home.
33:49His babies are under threat, still stuck to the walls of their nursery.
33:58There is no escape.
34:04Their tiny father takes action.
34:10He tries to drive the urchins away by beating his tail.
34:17But it makes little difference.
34:21Time for another strategy.
34:24The urchins are covered in sharp spines.
34:28So the brave little father nips the urchins sensitive tube feet.
34:43Finally, the urchins give up.
34:46And go in search of easier meals.
34:51The little male cling fish has saved his young.
35:04He is part of a crucial community that maintains the balance in this marine rainforest.
35:24At the height of summer, the power of the sun combines with the stirring action of the tides and the
35:30waves.
35:31And the ocean blooms.
35:37The creators of these blooms are myriads of floating microscopic algae.
35:43They are the basis of the entire food chain in the open ocean.
35:49And when conditions are right, they multiply at an astonishing rate.
35:57Their repeated blooms are one of the main reasons why the seas around Britain and Ireland are so productive.
36:07The floating plants support a great community of tiny floating animals.
36:14The zooplankton.
36:17Tiny creatures that drift in great clouds driven by the ocean currents.
36:24Among them are copepods.
36:28Tiny crustaceans that feed on the microscopic algae floating alongside them.
36:35The rest are mainly predators.
36:42Many of these are also tiny.
36:45The larvae of bottom living animals like lobsters and crabs.
36:50Some only five millimeters long.
36:56There are also sea gooseberries, which propel themselves through the water with rows of pulsating bristles.
37:08They may look fragile, but they're surprisingly effective hunters.
37:18They extend long, thread-like tentacles.
37:25Other drifters that get entangled are reeled in and eaten.
37:36The sea gooseberries themselves, of course, are also prey for larger predators such as the melon-comb jelly.
38:15The sea who doesn't reach birds and unwanted creatures.
38:23When it opens it, the suction it creates pulls its prey straight into its stomach.
38:38Despite the richness of our seas, climate change is seriously reducing the amount of
38:44zooplankton.
38:47And this has an effect on the entire marine food chain, right up to real giants.
39:00The largest fish in our waters is as long as a double-decker bus.
39:09The basking shark.
39:14It uses special sieve-like structures on its gills to filter out the zooplankton.
39:23And they feed on nothing else.
39:29In summer, these giants come close to the coast, all around our isles.
39:47They are normally solitary, but when the plankton reaches the peak of its abundance, the sharks
39:55come together.
40:03They swim in formation.
40:05Plankton that escapes one mouth will be scooped up by the next.
40:17In just a few special places along the western coasts of Britain and Ireland, basking sharks
40:24gather in large numbers to feed and breed.
40:35Thousands find their way here each year, a major part of the global population.
40:53Plankton feeders come in all sizes.
41:01Sand eels are only 30 centimeters long, but they occur in vast shoals.
41:12Like so many species, overfishing and warming seas have drastically reduced their numbers.
41:20They are essential prey for a wide range of top predators.
41:32Dolphins scour vast areas of the open ocean to trap down the shoals.
41:40And following the dolphins comes an ocean legend, bluefin tuna.
41:51Weighing up to 700 kilos and with a top speed of more than 40 miles an hour, these powerful predators
41:59can make quick work of the shoal.
42:04Bluefin tuna.
42:05Bluefins have been absent from our waters for more than 50 years.
42:12And they have only recently returned.
42:18If they're to stay, the overfishing of our seas will have to be stopped.
42:26In the sky above, gannets, looking for fish such as mackerel and herring.
42:42They hit the water at over 60 miles an hour.
42:51The impact is enormous.
42:56To avoid breaking their wings, they fold them back and turn themselves into streamlined arrows.
43:2365% of the world's population of northern gannets find their food in our seas.
43:48But perhaps the bird that depends most on the still rich waters around Britain and Ireland is the Manx shearwater.
44:04Every year, our coasts are visited by almost the entire global population of this seabird.
44:15Here in Cardigan Bay off central Wales, they gather in their thousands, attracted by the richness of our seas.
44:35Each summer, 350,000 pears all return to this tiny island of Skoma off the Pembrokeshire coast.
44:44This is the largest breeding colony in the world, and most of the island is honeycombed with their burrows.
44:51Tonight, under the cover of darkness, their chicks are starting to leave these burrows for the very first time.
45:02Watching them do so is an unforgettable privilege.
45:11This young bird has just emerged from its nest hole.
45:16Maybe for the first time, it's about to make the most important journey of its life, and it needs to
45:26get every inch of altitude before it takes off.
45:31I just see beyond me.
45:34There are more of them.
45:37One, two, three, four.
45:40One, two, three, four.
45:44One, three, four, three, four, three.
45:45It's of course having its flow.
45:45And it's beautiful, just exercising its wings in preparation for this extraordinary flight,
45:52which will take it 6,000 miles across the oceans to South America, to Brazil and Argentina.
46:02And then after some four years, once again, it will set out on a long oceanic journey,
46:10a further 6,000 miles back to this one small island of Skoma.
46:17Are you going to go?
46:20It's hesitating, and who can blame it?
46:24An enormous journey awaits it once it takes off from here.
46:30This is the headquarters of this astonishing species, and we are its custodians.
46:40Come along. Come along. Come along.
46:45Are you about to take off?
46:50Good luck.
46:55What an astonishment.
47:10A lot has changed in my lifetime, and today the wildlife we still have faces greater threats than ever before.
47:20Our seabirds remind us that here in Britain and Ireland, we are very fortunate to have some of nature's greatest
47:27spectacles right on our doorstep.
47:30Because this is our home, it can only be our responsibility to restore and protect our wildlife.
47:37Perhaps you can be the first to pass these wild isles onto the next generation in better shape than you
47:47inherited them.
47:48If you are a popularised by the next generation in better它, we will be our natural and to prevent our
48:02lives in the East, we are one of the most common things, we are known to be our life in
48:08the East, and we are the most common things, and we are one of the most common things.
48:10It can only be the most common things we have Notice.
48:11We areages with the most common things in the east to our world, and we are the most common things
48:12in the east, but of course we are as a common, but of course we are all about the 60
48:15-meter environment.
48:19From the Isles of Scilly in the south to Shetland in the north, the ocean team spent 300 days filming
48:28the marine wildlife of the British Isles as never before.
48:32They captured new behaviors, experienced the worst of the Atlantic weather, and witnessed intimate moments in the lives of our
48:42ocean wildlife.
48:44Doug Anderson is one of the world's leading underwater camera operators. He's worked all over the planet filming some of
48:52the ocean's greatest spectacles and largest inhabitants.
48:57And for this series, he filmed the majority of the ocean episode. His passion for the underwater world began on
49:06the Isle of Arran off the west coast of Scotland.
49:08My first underwater experience was in Lamlash Bay, in front of my grandparents' house, and it is burnt into my
49:17memory.
49:18My dad had made me a wetsuit and I remember putting my face underwater and just being blown away by
49:26the wildness of it.
49:28You know, there was crabs and little fish and it felt like a wild place. I remember lifting my head
49:35up and looking over my shoulder and back at the village.
49:38There was like the policeman doing his rant and people going to the shop and I was like, oh, the
49:44ocean is a wild place and behind me is what people do. And I never recovered.
49:53After learning to dive, Doug's passion for the underwater world took him on a journey far from home.
50:01Eventually got a job in a series called The Blue Planet back in the mid-90s and then just found
50:07myself on a plane out to the Azores.
50:08Yeah, and I was like 27 years old and that was the start.
50:14Until now, he's never had the chance to show what the British Isles has to offer.
50:19And the Wild Isles project, it just felt like an amazing opportunity and responsibility to take everything I've learned in
50:2625 years of working all over the planet and just applying all of that to here.
50:33Although they might be easier to reach, our waters have their own challenges.
50:40This project in many ways has been the hardest professional experience of my life.
50:45Everything that you do on the ocean in the North Atlantic is tough. We can have four seasons in a
50:50day.
50:52This unpredictability makes filming in our seas a matter of boom or bust.
50:58The team must be on constant standby to mobilize quickly when conditions are right.
51:05In Shetland, they're heading for the seabed.
51:10To record life down here, Doug has designed and built his own bespoke underwater tripod.
51:18High-powered lights illuminate the sea floor and weights stabilize the rig, allowing Doug to film a time-lapse of
51:28these slow-moving creatures, revealing a world that few people will ever see in actuality.
51:36Below the kelp, Doug takes his design a step further, a motion-controlled slider for tracking time-lapses.
51:45Now he can move the camera with pinpoint accuracy, revealing how urchins travel through this marine forest.
51:53A shot that's taken months of preparation.
51:59But not everything in our oceans is as slow-moving.
52:03Off the coast of Cornwall, the team are chasing one of the ocean's fastest inhabitants, bluefin tuna.
52:11They have only returned to our waters in the last few years.
52:16We've got all the ingredients that we need here. We've got dolphins, we've got tuna, there's gannets here in shearwaters.
52:22But we needed to come together into something that we can film, and that's a bait ball.
52:27So it has to be a patch of fish jammed up against the surface in reasonable visibility to make it
52:33work.
52:33So, fingers crossed.
52:38Bait balls don't last long. They can be over in a matter of minutes.
52:43So, to film tuna hunting, speed is everything.
52:48A radio call from one of our contacts, so we screamed down there, only to discover we were just a
52:55few moments too late.
52:57Which is really frustrating. We've got a really fast boat.
53:06This is so new. This set up here. These bait fish coming here, it's five years, so we're just...
53:13Everyone's just working out of it. It seems like we're not alone, because it's like the dolphin and the tuna
53:17are just beginning to find out and exploit the resource as well.
53:22The team use a drone to help locate the tuna before the bait balls disappear.
53:30The exciting thing is, this is England. You know, we've got literally Falmouth right there, and we've got these crazy
53:36pods of common dolphins rolling through,
53:39and there's bluefin showing every now and then. It's amazing kind of ocean scene.
53:44Although it looks good from the air, poor visibility underwater prevents Doug from getting a clear shot.
53:51Yeah, a total glimpse. Just like at the briefest moment, just pretty green water.
53:57We just get in and just come through and just roll through.
54:02In the hope of finding clearer water, the team changed location.
54:07We're further down the coast. We're going to be working further offshore and we're going to be trying to join
54:12the blue water with the bluefin.
54:15We've got a big patch of pilchers on the surface, so a mackerel comes together, then come away with what
54:20we want from this.
54:22We have tuna. They're all over the place just now.
54:25We just need to wait for this sort of pot to boil, you know, so for the bait to come
54:29together into a lump for long enough for it to go static so that we can get it and film
54:34it.
54:35The plan works. The team finally get the conditions they've been seeking for so long.
54:41To actually see a bluefin tuna underwater in England is just unbelievable.
54:49The return of bluefin tuna to our waters is a sign that their population is recovering.
54:56But it's still a fraction of what their numbers could be.
55:02Since Doug left Arran over two decades ago, the coastal community, including his family, created Scotland's first marine no-take
55:13zone.
55:16Since its creation in Lamlash Bay, biodiversity has increased fourfold.
55:24But it's one of just a handful of no-take zones around our wild isles.
55:29That, combined, cover less than 1% of our sea.
55:33The abundance of life within them spills out into the surrounding waters, enriching and strengthening the wider marine environment.
55:41The way to get British seas back is to allow large areas to return to a natural state and maintain
55:49those very highly protected areas for a long time.
55:54For Doug, celebrating the beauty of British waters has been a chance for him to give something back.
56:02If I can play a tiny part about providing the visuals to allow that conversation to happen in a meaningful
56:09way,
56:10for people on all sides of the argument to imagine what lies beneath those grey waves,
56:17that I think would be an extraordinary thing.
56:29The Open University has produced a free poster exploring our wild isles and their diverse habitats and species.
56:37Order your copy by calling 0300 303 0265 or go to bbc.co.uk forward slash wild isles and follow
56:49the links to the Open University.
56:52If you'd like to play your part in restoring our wild isles and learn more about what you can do
56:58to help,
56:59just search wild isles on the BBC website.
57:07You can meet some of the people working to restore British nature in a special program inspired by wild isles.
57:14Saving our wild isles is on BBC iPlayer now.
57:18Well that is complete with bullet holes, the book and pocket watch that saved lives on the Antiques Roadshow.