Great Migrations (2010–…): Season 1, Episode 5 - Race to Survive - full transcript
Migrations are ticking clocks: every day, countless animals must move or die, driven by changing seasons, and a changing climate; they are racing to reach their destination, before it's too late, to breed, feed or simply stay alive. From the ever changing Arctic ice floes to the salt pans of Botswana, trillions of creatures are compelled to journey - for the sake of their own survival and their legacy. But for animals ranging from walruses to whale sharks, zebras to orangutans, pronghorn to plankton -- every day is a race against time.
NARRATOR; Migrations.
Mysterious feats of navigation...
endurance...
and courage.
Now, technology allows scientists
to go along for the ride...
MAN; Really diving down...
MAN; Yook, snap!
NARRATOR;...Iike never before.
MAN; It's an incredible thrill.
Stuff happens that you wouldn't
believe in your wildest dresms.
NARRATOR;...Iearning
where the animals go...
MAN; Cool! Wow.
That's perfect.
Look st thst!
NARRATOR;...why...
and how they survive.
MAN; This is really
cutting-edge stuff.
MAN; We are the first to find out
whst they're reslly doing.
NARRATOR; This is the inside story
of the science behind
the great migrations.
On this October morning,
elephsnt sesls sre nesring
the end of breeding season.
From here in Patagonia,
they will soon embsrk
on an odyssey
through the southern oceans.
That's why a team of biologists
led by Flavio Quintana is here.
To deploy a state-of-the-art tag
in hopes of tracking their every move.
For ten months out of the year,
the seals migrate thousands of miles...
disappearing into the sea to feed,
where their behavior
is lsrgely unknown.
It is a question vexing Quintana
for much of his 20-year career.
QUlNTANA; We are always surprised
to study this kind of animal,
because they are incredible, incredible.
They sre diving mschines.,
I'm really impressed with that.
Because they need to come
back to shore to breed and to molt,
but they spend 80 percent
of their life st ses.
And nobody knows
what they are doing at sea.
This is what we
are trying to discover.
NARRATOR; If the high-tech tag works,
scientists will finally solve the mystery
of the elephsnt sesls' migrstion.
Quintana's special weapon
is called the Daily Diary,
invented by this man, Rory Wilson.
WlLSON; There sre
temperature sensors in there,
This part here,
all this big clunky bit here,
these are two batteries.
The batteries are
inside stainless steel,
and that's in order to protect
against the ridiculous
amounts of pressures
to which the snimsls
expose themselves routinely.
NARRATOR; It's the result
of ten years of trial and error.
No other tsg records
such a wide array of data.
Wilson got the idea for his Daily Diary
while studying penguins.
WlLSON; It's terribly depressing.
You go out on your island,
you're going to do your whole Ph.D.,
your doctorate on penguins,
on what they do at sea,
and they're all standing
sround the edge
Iooking st you ssying,
"Yes, we're the penguins."
Then they all jump in the water
snd dissppesr.
So in a grumpy
and foul-mouthed mood,
I went back and thought,
"lf I can't see them,
then I'll find something else
that's just going to record for me."
Rather makeshift.
NARRATOR; He tested the prototype
on sn snimsl thst follows direction...
WlLSON; Stay!
NARRATOR;...his dog, Moon.
Moon's Daily Diary recorded
her speed, her temperature,
every breath, step and wag.
WlLSON; Here's where I tell her
to run, throw the stick.
Look at this activity here,
tearing towards the stick.
Picks it up and then
this very regular canter back.
NARRATOR; But it also revealed
things Wilson didn't expect.
WlLSON; Her panting.
She'll breathe up to six times a second
when she's panting...
[panting]
...when she's been running around.
And when I'm sbout
to give her a command,
I put my hsnd up, snd
I discovered looking at the trace,
she actually holds her breath
when my hsnd goes up.
NARRATOR; This intrigued Wilson.
He wanted to know more
about the importance of breathing
in snimsl behsvior.
He returned to his penguins.
The results were astonishing.
WlLSON; Each one of these
is s flipper besting.
It's swimming
the whole time underwater,
and relaxing a bit as it comes
bsck to the surfsce here.
You can see as it comes back
for the first breath,
it's using the buoyancy
to help it go up.
So what the penguin's doing
is it's gone down,
slight curve on the way down,
it's come up,
it's spotted a prey,
it's come up reslly rspidly
and it's gone yook, snap...
and then drifted up to the surface.
NARRATOR; The penguin takes in
the exsct smount of sir it needs
in advance of a dive.
WlLSON; You know, the penguin
before it goes down is ssying;
"How deep am I going to go
on the next dive,
how many fish do I think
I'm going to cstch?"
They're inhaling
already at the surface
the right amount of air volume
to give them neutral buoyancy
at the depth at which
they're going to forage.
So the implication is they know;
"Ha, 30 meters, I need 600 milliliters
to be neutrslly buoysnt st thst,
so, 600, I'm going down."
That's quite complicated stuff
for a small bird.
NARRATOR; Their buoysnt bodies
can then rise like balloons through the water,
effortlessly catching fish
along the way.
By doing this, the snimsl
conserves what it needs most
for its migratory journey;
energy.
With this discovery,
Wilson joins Quintana
to study the migration
of the elephant seals.
In two months, these behemoths
will return here to molt-
a perfect time to retrieve
the Dsily Disries
because the batteries
won't last much longer.
WlLSON; We've never
done this before
in animals that are
going to go this deep,
and it can just go horribly wrong.
NARRATOR; Elephant seals
dive thoussnds of feet.
If the Dsily Disry works
under such high pressure,
we will witness a new era
of biological discovery.
Quintana identifies females to tag-
at 2,000 pounds,
they're easier to deal with
than the 8,000-pound males.
Male or female, it's risky business.
And the colony is restless.
It's up to Msrcels Uhsrt
to anesthetize the giants.
UHART; Elephsnt sesls
are so big and so powerful, you know,
they have very few predators.
They don't really fear us that much.
They actually challenge you.
[groaning]
[seal barking]
UHART; Tomorrow he's going to be
on his own, I think...
[growling]
WlLSON; I don't like this
being protective of your friend stuff.
I'd rather they just deserted them
and left them to it.
NARRATOR; They name the tagged seals
after submarines and space stations.
In all, five females are successfully
rigged with Daily Diaries.
WlLSON; We have five.
If we're lucky,
I think we'll get four back.
I sort of tip somewhere
between three and four.
And I'll just hope and pray
that they all are working okay.
NARRATOR; If it goes well,
Wilson will be the first to tell
the story of this hidden journey.
These seals' ocean pathways
are nearly boundless.
But thst is not the csse
with many migratory routes on land.
As human populations grow
snd hsbitsts diminish,
the great migrating animals
are increasingly in peril...
particularly the monarch butterfly.
The monsrchs' migrstion
spans generations of individuals
and is an astounding
4,000 miles long,
from Mexico to as far as Canada
snd bsck sgsin esch yesr.
CHlP TAYLOR; This is one of the world's
most msgnificent nstursl phenomens.
I mean, here you have
an insect that migrates
to the same general location
every year,
and then returns to breed
in the northern part of North America.
NARRATOR; Chip Tsylor
has dedicated his life's work
to the ceaseless habits
of the monsrch.
For 1 8 years, he's been
trscking the migrstion
with the same device;
a plastic tag.
And he's lesrned s surprising
amount from this simple tool.
In one study, Taylor released
s monsrch born in csptivity
2,000 miles from its birthplace.
The butterfly still migrated
southwest to Mexico.
TAYLOR; These butterflies
have to navigate across a continent.
They have to navigate.
How does a butterfly
coming out of Msine
know how to get to Mexico?
NARRATOR; In 2009, scientists
discovered the monarch's internal GPS,
s network of not one
but two internal clocks.
A clock in the brain
tracks the location of the sun.
And a second clock,
in the antennae,
keeps track of time.
TAYLOR; Whst they
are programmed to do
is follow snd respond
to certain physical cues,
snd these physicsl cues
have a default sort of mechanism
of getting them to the right place.
Now the trick for us is to try
to figure out what are those cues?
NARRATOR; Understanding these cues
hss never been more importsnt.
The monarch population is down
by hslf just from lsst yesr.
Its sncient flywsy
is unrecognizable
ss development
overwhelms the landscape.
And the milkweed plant
the monarch needs to lay its eggs
is vanishing.
TAYLOR; We're losing 6,000 acres a day
in this country due to development.
That's 2.2 million acres a year.
That's just an astounding amount
of habitat to turn into concrete.
And you just can't
keep on doing that
without having a really significant
impact on wildlife out there.
NARRATOR; Knowing how far
the monarchs fly each day
and where they stop
could save them.
An electronic tag that records
precise data could help.
But this creature is light as smoke,
and a tag is a heavy load.
Enter Martin Wikelski.
He's a migration ecologist,
Ieading the charge
to miniaturize tag technology.
WlKELSKl; The smaller
you can get the tag,
the more power you can output,
the better the study we can do.
And that's going to be
s totsl breskthrough
in our understsnding
of the natural environment.
We need to understand
small animals
to understand life on Earth,
and that's what we still
hsve no clue sbout.
NARRATOR; With radio tags,
Wikelski followed the route
of s one-ounce thrush,
discovering how it
navigates at night.
Then he went smaller,
switching to insects.
His team designed
a tiny hearing aid battery
sttsched to sn sntenns
made of a guitar string.
The smaller the device,
the simpler the dsts.
This radio tag only tracked
location and direction.
But it was a start.
Wikelski tried it on bees.
They flew.
He tried it on dragonflies
and discovered that one migrated
s hundred miles in s single dsy.
But the monarch is
half the weight of a dragonfly.
TAYLOR; I first lesrned
about Martin's work a few years ago
when I heard of his studies
where he was putting radio tags
on drsgonflies,
and I thought that was
pretty fsscinsting.
I thought, "Aw, man you'll never
get them smsll enough
to put them on monarchs."
NARRATOR;
Martin Wikelski's Kitty Hawk
is the butterfly house
in Constance, Germany.
WlKELSKl; Nice.
NARRATOR; The tag is the smallest yet,
hslf the weight of this butterfly.
WlKELSKl; Available radio tag,
and they just barely got it
in the size range
that the butterfly
might fly with it.
And now we just try it.
NARRATOR; Trial one; no go.
A slight antenna adjustment,
then trial two.
And liftoff.
WlKELSKl; Wow!
[laughing]
Oh, there it is.
It's working.
It's totally amazing, I mean,
the first flight of a butterfly with a tag!
So it's working, I mean, you see
it's just flying all over the place.
So I think it's going to work
in the field ss well.
This is flying beautifully.
It's amazing.
NARRATOR; Wikelski and Taylor
will now team up
to see if they sre on the brink
of a new age of monarch science.
[rooster crows]
The migration ecologist
Msrtin Wikelski
finally meets
the monarch sage Chip Taylor.
Together, they'll conduct
the first test ever
of sn electronic tsg
on a monarch butterfly.
It's a meeting of like minds...
but not when it comes
to catching butterflies.
TAYLOR; Come up behind the butterfly
while it's sitting on a flower.
What you don't want to do
is swing at them in the air.
WlKELSKl; Okay.
TAYLOR; Get it! Whoa!
I mean, he's like a little kid;
it's wonderful.
At my age, I don't do that anymore.
I prefer the sneaky method!
Looks like we got one here.
NARRATOR; The scientists
cstch six in sll.
Success will be determined
if the tsgs do not disrupt
the monarchs' migration.
And if the insects
can be found after takeoff.
WlKELSKl; I'll just get the transmitter.
NARRATOR; But Taylor has his doubts.
TAYLOR; One of the things
sbout these kinds of tests
is thst you do them indoors,
you do them under ideal conditions,
and then we bring them
out here in the field,
and we're dealing
with 20-mile-an-hour winds,
snd it's going to be
quite challenging for the butterfly
to figure out how to handle
sll of this msss
that you're attaching
to the sbdomen.
WlKELSKl; Now it's up to the butterfly.
TAYLOR; Well, we're not going
to nsme it lcsrus, right?
WlKELSKl; Let's call it lcarus
and see if lcarus can fly.
WlKELSKl; Wow.
TAYLOR; Wow. It's flying pretty well,
look st thst.
WlKELSKl; That's amazing.
TAYLOR; It's staying close
to the ground, though.
WlKELSKl; Wow, it's flying!
TAYLOR; All right, let's start
with liftoff here.
WlKELSKl; Wow!
TAYLOR; There she goes.
That's cool.
That's terrific, look at that!
WlKELSKl; Wow, it's really taking off.
TAYLOR; It's really catching the wind.
WlKELSKl; It's coming over to your side.
TAYLOR; Big Boy.
WlKELSKl; Wow, that's a big one.
TAYLOR; That's the biggest
butterfly we've got.
There it goes.
WlKELSKl; There she goes.
I think he still wants to feed.
[laughing]
NARRATOR; Taylor and Wikelski
take to the air, too,
in pursuit of the tagged monarchs.
With radio receivers in tow,
they listen for a telltale click.
WlKELSKl; We are looking
for liftoff right now.
NARRATOR; Each butterfly
is on its own frequency.
[click]
WlKELSKl; There it is, do you hear it?
We've got a signal.
NARRATOR; An auspicious start-
some signals come in loud and clear.
WlKELSKl; So liftoff is still
probably at the field down there.
NARRATOR; But the test is incomplete
until a butterfly has flown
more than a few miles
in a northeasterly direction.
TAYLOR; Martin, any sign of lcarus?
WlKELSKl; Nope, we will go
s little lower
and search closer to the ground.
TAYLOR; Let's hope it works.
[buzzing]
WlKELSKl; Yep, yep, there it is.
I do hear lcarus.
TAYLOR; Good old lcarus.
WlKELSKl; lcarus is down there, yes.
NARRATOR; All but one
are accounted for.
Big Boy is still missing.
TAYLOR; Martin, do you hear anything?
WlKELSKl; Nope.
NARRATOR; Perhaps he's
s long distsnce flyer...
or the weight weighed him down,
plummeting him to Earth.
Taylor and Wikelski
continue northesst.
Five miles out.
Nothing.
Ten miles out.
[buzzing]
And they get it.
WlKELSKl; That's the signal!
TAYLOR; That's fantastic!
[cheering]
[laughing]
TAYLOR; It was incredible!
It was unbelievable!
We got Big Boy
out there about 1 5 miles!
NARRATOR; There's one last step.
They need to find Big Boy
on the ground
to identify his stopover point
and find out if he's
still in good condition.
WlKELSKl; That's three miles out there.
TAYLOR; Yeah.
NARRATOR; They follow
Big Boy's rsdio signsl.
Weaker.
Stronger.
WlKELSKl; In a few hundred meters,
I think we should take a right.
[static]
NARRATOR; Weaker again.
WlKELSKl; No, that's not good.
Maybe we should have gone left
and then go north, I don't know.
TAYLOR; Big Boy's moved
out of town.
WlKELSKl; There it is,
I've got s signsl.
Yes!
Okay, now we get it.
WlKELSKl; On this side
or the other side?
TAYLOR; It's not appropriate for him
to ssy, "Come to me, Big Boy."
WlKELSKl; Hey! Here he is!
That's it!
[laughing]
TAYLOR; Fantastic!
WlKELSKl; Yes!
TAYLOR; Fantastic!
All right!
Good for you!
NARRATOR; A scientific breakthrough,
the first test of its kind.
Big Boy is found
in perfect condition.
WlKELSKl; It's really perfect.
TAYLOR; Yeah, this antenna
is not an impediment at all.
WlKELSKl; No, no.
TAYLOR; Hot damn...
[laughing]
hot damn!
NARRATOR; The technology works,
and the future for these insects
as well as countless other animals
may soon be the better for it.
TAYLOR; Big Boy is ready to go,
go to Wisconsin,
find a girlfriend,
there he goes.
WlKELSKl; Yeah.
TAYLOR; There he goes, all right!
And look it, he's going northeast,
he hesded out thst wsy.
Right along the tree line, northeast.
WlKELSKl; A lot of people complain
that it's hard to discover things these days
because everything's known.
Absolutely not!
Everything's new.
Every time we look at it,
we see something new here.
NARRATOR; Taylor now has a new tool
in which to continue his life's work.
TAYLOR; I watch this population go up,
and I watch it go down.
I watch its life and death struggles
all of the time.
I'm so intimstely sttsched
and involved with this butterfly.
And I don't know how
to explain it any other way.
It's just what I am,
and that's about all
I csn ssy sbout it.
NARRATOR; Migration is
seldom sttempted slone.
But there's more than safety
in numbers.
For mathematical ecologist John Fryxell,
migrstion is msth in motion.
Where we see snimsls,
he sees mathematical patterns.
And he's using these patterns
to unlock the key
to wildebeest survival
and migration.
FRYXELL; I think migration
is kind of a theme in my life.
There's just something about mobility
that fascinates me.
The urge to try and predict
patterns of movement
to me is just really intriguing.
NARRATOR; In the Serengeti
grasslands of Tanzania,
wildebeest are on
their 300-mile journey.
This annual event is among
the great natural spectacles on the planet,
as herds of zebra, gazelle
and wildebeest
chase the rain
and the grass it nurtures.
But the wildebeest
psy s hefty toll...
five out of six young
don't mske it.
And yet the herd
is a million strong.
Fryxell is determined
to figure out how-
despite these odds-
the herd thrives.
He begins by observing
the wildebeest behavior from the air.
From up here, he can see
the patterns of the herds.
FRYXELL; We csn see s hyens
over there heading over to the track.
Certainly there's some complex dynamics
within the whole herd of wildebeest.
Well, the interesting thing
during the migrstion
is it's a series of individuals,
one sfter the other,
following blindly behind
the movement of a key individual.
I mean, this is, you know,
really interesting,
this kind of streaming behavior
of the wildebeest,
you know, going forward.
Clearly there are some individuals
thst sre st the front of the line.
The behavior of some leaders
gets translated to the rest
of the group,
and then the group behaves
like a super organism.
NARRATOR; Wildebeest
as super organism-
individusls sffecting
the behavior of the whole.
Fryxell then looks at what forces
shape the migratory path
of this super orgsnism.
He suspects the key to why they survive
in such great numbers is here-
starting with an insect.
The dung beetle thrives
on wildebeest manure,
which it collects into balls
and stores underground,
fertilizing the soil...
allowing more wildebeest
to graze.
Millions of mouths
mow the grass,
keeping trees in check,
but allowing brush to grow.
Forming the perfect cover
for predators that eat wildebeest.
It all leads, in the end,
to the predstors.
Fryxell believes predators-
more thsn snything-
shape the herd's patterns.
And his tesm tskes
a closer look at the lioness.
MAN; Okay.
[fires rifle]
FRYXELL; Nine, so now we move
to the upper right canine.
NARRATOR; The GPS on the collsr
will allow the team to track its movement.
An accelerometer records
her every start, stop and speed,
which tells when the hunter rests,
prowls or takes to the chase.
FRYXELL; Five, six,
seven wildebeest...
NARRATOR; Using
on-site observations...
FRYXELL;...21 wildebeest.
NARRATOR;...data from collared predators
and collared wildebeests,
Fryxell csn build
mathematical models
that predict the behavior
of predstor snd prey.
It reads like a video game
where he can create different scenarios
between lions and wildebeest.
First, Fryxell conjures up
wildebeests that do not herd.
He spreads them out
like marbles over the landscape.
Then he lets a simulated lion loose.
FRYXELL; There's a kill,
and another kill.
And the net result is that it's very easy
for the lion to encounter fresh prey,
so with that very high
density of prey,
you see the lion doesn't even
have to go very far
before it finds a new meal.
NARRATOR; In this model,
the wildebeest do not stand a chance.
The next simulation more closely
models s typicsl herd's behsvior.
FRYXELL; Grouping together
creates great big vacant areas
that aren't very efficient
for the lion to search in.
NARRATOR; Here, the wildebeest
evade predators
by grouping together snd forming
what he calls holes in the landscape,
vast areas where a lion
can't see a wildebeest.
The super orgsnism
then goes a step further;
the holes in the landscape move.
FRYXELL; Well, when you're
the best meal on four hooves,
the best thing you can do
is be unpredictable.
The last thing you want to be
is a meal where the lions
expect you to be.
NARRATOR; Lions know
when seasonal herds
pass through their territory,
but they won't know
exactly where to find them.
FRYXELL; So we csn see this
on this map of the Serengeti ecosystem,
where the bright colors signify
really high densities of animals,
Iarge herds that are shifting
without any kind of predictable pattern
scross the lsndscspe
from month to month.
Now imagine that you're
a lion or hyena
trying to make a living
in that kind of landscape.
It's virtually impossible
for you to know
what would be the best place
for you to set up s territory.
NARRATOR; The herd
ss super orgsnism,
and the surprisingly random
nature of its movement,
keep a predator guessing,
keeping the wildebeest
a million strong.
But this ingenious
survival mechanism
could never work
without a large habitat.
And lsrge hsbitsts
are increasingly rare
as humans encroach
on wild spaces.
For many of the world's
migrstory snimsls,
this is the main threat
to their survival.
In Mali, West Africa,
the desert elephant
once roamed vast distances
unimpeded.
Now the last animals
of their kind are under threat.
Tracker El Mehdi Doumbia
snd biologist Jske Wsll
from the organization
Ssve the Elephsnts
hsve collsred nine
of the 350 elephants here.
The more they csn lesrn
about the herd's habits...
WALL; Good, fresh tracks.
NARRATOR;...the better they will be able
to protect their migratory routes.
WALL; These elephsnts
don't give us a moment to rest,
they keep moving,
we keep having to work
really, really hard
to try and find them,
and, even with the tracking data,
it's not an easy job.
NARRATOR; The only wsy
the Mali elephants can survive
is to move.
They walk endlessly over a home range
of over 1 2,000 squsre miles
in the harsh heat of the Sahel.
No other elephants travel farther
in search of food and water.
During the dry season,
they end up here.
Lake Banzena is one of the few places
to find wster yesr round.
The herds linger
until distant rains begin.
Elephants can hear rain fall
vast distances away
because of its low
infrssonic signsl.
Then, within 24 hours,
they go to where the rain is.
And this yesr,
water is most critical.
It is the worst drought in 26 years.
The herd must move fast,
becsuse between the lske
and the next stopover point
Iies 60 miles of desert...
and a big obstacle;
the Gandamia Plateau.
There's just one way through;
Ia portes des elephants,
the elephants' door-
a cut in the mountain the herds
hsve been using for centuries.
It's also a place with
increasing human settlement...
and where elephants compete
with herders and their animals
for wster.
These images capture
s drsmstic scene
ss villsgers snd
a Save the Elephants team
desperately try to rescue
a teenage female and three juveniles.
They fell, one sfter snother,
into a man-made well searching for water.
The older elephant crushed
and killed a younger one
during the three-day ordeal.
These tragedies happen as humans
settle on sncient elephsnt psths.
But 3,000 miles to the esst,
in the grasslands of Kenya...
IAlN DOUGLAS-HAMlLTON;
I am just going to put a little bit of water
on the back without splashing.
DABALLEN; Don't step
on the ears, please.
NARRATOR;...a solution
is being tested.
Biologist lsin Douglss-Hsmilton
has gained near legendary status
for being the African elephant's
custodisn.
DOUGLAS-HAMlLTON; You don't think
thst's too loose?
We're collaring elephants
becsuse we believe
that by understanding their movements,
we can understand
their decisions.
And if we understand their decisions,
we understand what they need.
Elephants are at a tough time now,
and we have to plan for their future.
NARRATOR; Over the years,
Douglas-Hamilton has witnessed first hand
the disastrous consequences
of human-elephant conflict.
Poaching for ivory tusks was once
the chief killer of elephsnts.
Todsy, it's fsrmers
who protect their crops.
Douglas-Hamilton
with his wife Oria
founded Save the Elephants
40 yesrs sgo
to study and protect this
severely endangered species.
This rustic outpost
is the repository
of the organization's studies
on elephants
from all over the African continent...
information that scientists
throughout the world
have come to rely on.
DOUGLAS-HAMlLTON; It's actually
s kilometer wide.
It's working well.
NARRATOR; Today, the team
is collaring an elephant
with a state-of-the-art device
that might save its life-
s tsg thst sends sn slert
when the animal nears a farm.
DOUGLAS-HAMlLTON; Many elephants
scross Africs get shot
because they cause damage
to human property,
to crops, to livelihoods,
and indeed they kill people.
And you want every high-tech option
thst you csn deploy.
NARRATOR; lain Douglas-Hamilton
sesrches for s herd,
scanning the landscape by air
while researcher David Daballen's
team is on the ground.
DOUGLAS-HAMlLTON;
Dsvid, Dsvid!
DABALLEN; Sorry, lain?
DOUGLAS-HAMlLTON;
Where I am circling
there are two groups of elephants
tightly under the trees.
DABALLEN; He has found them
in a perfect place.
We don't want to lose them,
because they are not quite often
at the moment around.
We want to take the opportunity
to dart them, put a collar,
because we know that
from our past experience
they will defend so much.
And if we have four cars
we can position ourselves
in different positions
to make sure that the females
will not see the female
thst hss gone down.
NARRATOR; They identify
the female to be collared.
DABALLEN; Dart in.
She's down, she's down!
Let's get a good position.
Drive.
Drive, drive!
NARRATOR;
Once she's unconscious,
Daballen has only 20 minutes
to attach the collar.
The anesthesia makes
the trunk muscles go slack-
a stick will keep her airway open.
This particular collar will do
what Douglas-Hamilton
once only dreamed of;
It will allow an elephant
to communicate with him.
The collar sends its alert
to a cell phone via text message.
This high-tech innovation
is called geofencing.
When an elephant crosses
s virtusl fence line,
the GPS unit in the collar
sends an SMS or text message
to a server in Nairobi.
The server then sends text alerts
to s list of recipients
who can quickly intercept the herd
before it reaches a farm
or humsn settlement.
DABALLEN; Get in the car!
NARRATOR; The female awakes
groggy but unhsrmed-
the collar fits perfectly.
She will blow out the stick
in her trunk,
but for now it assures her
an open airway.
DOUGLAS-HAMlLTON; Sometimes
when you have dense agriculture,
the best thing you can do
is to separate the people
from the elephants.
When an elephant crosses
a certain boundary,
we get an alarm to be set off,
and it gets sent to us
on a mobile telephone,
which allows us to plan much better
how to cope with the crop rsiding.
This is really cutting-edge stuff.
NARRATOR; Geofencing is still
in the testing phase,
but Douglss-Hsmilton
believes this is the future.
But there is a terrible setback.
A torrential storm causes the banks
of the Ewsso Ng'iro River to crest,
creating the worst flood in memory.
Save the Elephants' research center
is all but gone.
Most of the buildings and much
of the decsde's long resesrch
are missing.
DOUGLAS-HAMlLTON; Well, this flood
has had a terrible effect on our work.
First of all, it's caused
hundreds of thousands of dollars
worth of damage.
I don't know how we're gonna
get the money to rebuild,
but we've also lost some data,
which is particularly precious to us.
NARRATOR; But Douglas-Hamilton
and his team are determined
to dig themselves out
snd stsrt over sgsin.
DOUGLAS-HAMlLTON;
We've got to carry on.
Our mission is to secure
s future for elephsnts.
I've been working
on elephants for 43 years,
and it's all to save
the elephants.
So we're not going
to give up on that.
NARRATOR;
As Save the Elephants recovers,
the Mali elephants
survive the drought.
And Douglas-Hamilton with his team
will continue tracking elephants,
working to preserve
their ancient paths.
DOUGLAS-HAMlLTON; I think
the worst-case scenario
would be a cutting
of the migration routes,
completely cut off
from their water supplies.
It would then only be
a matter of time
before the elephsnts
had nothing to live with.
That would be my
worst-case scenario for Mali.
But it's not going to happen.
We've got to prevent it.
NARRATOR; Working in the natural world
is always a gamble.
Science needs dsts,
and if nature doesn't cooperate,
data will get destroyed, eaten
or swept out to sea.
In Patagonia, the scientists return,
hoping their gsmble psys off.
The elephant seals have returned
to molt after two months at sea.
With good fortune,
the five Daily Diaries will return, too.
Flavio Quintana's team use GPS
to find out when
the tagged seals arrive...
and where they settle
on the beach.
Over the course of a week,
the team retrieves
four out of the five tags.
Esch Dsily Disry
is perfectly intact.
7,300 miles away, Rory Wilson
at his lab in Swansea, Wales,
begins to resd
the much anticipated story-
the secrets of the seal migration.
WlLSON; You know, you're opening
the book on it for the first time,
it's an incredible thrill.
Stuff happens that you wouldn't
believe in your wildest dresms.
NARRATOR; First, Wilson reconstructs
the movement of the sesl nsmed Mir.
WlLSON; This is the moment
where Mir comes off
the continental shelf, the platform
snd goes down
into the deep water,
and you can actually see this
in her depth traces...
and they get deeper and deeper.
NARRATOR; Mir's deepest dive
was nearly half a mile,
an acrobatic feeding frenzy.
WlLSON; The animal was in free fall,
the body was in all these
extraordinary ballet-like postures.
And you think, whos, I never
thought elephant seals did that!
NARRATOR; Then Wilson looks
st how the sesl swsm
as it traveled great distances.
He compsres its swsy-
side-to-side movement...
WlLSON; So these are the tail beats,
snd the glide,
and the tail beat
snd the glide...
NARRATOR;...to the surge-
vertical and horizontal position.
WlLSON; And as the tail beats occur,
the snimsl's pointing up,
and when she glides,
she points down.
So up and down.
NARRATOR;
Then calculates pressure
to determine the depth
snd length of her dips.
WlLSON; And the interesting thing
is she's doing exactly the same thing
as sparrows do when they fly
or some of these smsll birds.
NARRATOR; To his surprise,
elephant seals are behaving like birds;
they fly underwater.
This is how they
conserve energy.
Smsll birds flsp their wings
to gain momentum when flying up,
snd hitch s ride
on the current going down.
WlLSON; You see small birds
flap, flap, flap, flap and glide down,
flap, flap, flap and glide down,
and that's a way of saving energy.
An animal as big
as an elephant seal does it,
snd sn snimsl ss smsll
as a sparrow does it as well.
NARRATOR; Both the smsll bird
and the enormous elephant seal
evolved to conserve energy
in similar ways.
WlLSON; Energy is critical for animals,
for their survivsl...
but they spend it in going out
to get stuff to feed.
So this balance of energy expenditure
sgsinst energy gsin
on migrations or off them
is something that's
really critical to animals.
And as we go gleefully
through the planet
and change everything,
we really need to be
considering that.
NARRATOR; For the first time,
we are able to witness the elephant seal
as it journeys through the ocean.
WlLSON; Lovely data, aren't they?
Really beautiful, beautiful stuff
thst comes out of this tsg.
NARRATOR; With inventions
like the Daily Diary,
the invisible is becoming visible.
It is in these details
where the true secrets
of the elephant seal reside...
revealing how this great wanderer
can survive its long trek
through the southern seas.
Wilson and his colleagues
won't stop here.
They will continue to test.
WlKELSKl; Wow, it's really taking off.
TAYLOR; It's really catching the wind.
NARRATOR; lnvent...
DOUGLAS-HAMlLTON;
We get an alarm to be set off.
NARRATOR;...break new ground.
And with each technological advance,
the science of the great migrations
gives us a larger understanding
of our world.
WlLSON; It's s little bit frustrsting
that the Daily Diary is still as big as it is.
I still want it to be smaller,
I want it on swifts,
but there's no limit to that.
When are you going to stop?
Ants, you know?
Mysterious feats of navigation...
endurance...
and courage.
Now, technology allows scientists
to go along for the ride...
MAN; Really diving down...
MAN; Yook, snap!
NARRATOR;...Iike never before.
MAN; It's an incredible thrill.
Stuff happens that you wouldn't
believe in your wildest dresms.
NARRATOR;...Iearning
where the animals go...
MAN; Cool! Wow.
That's perfect.
Look st thst!
NARRATOR;...why...
and how they survive.
MAN; This is really
cutting-edge stuff.
MAN; We are the first to find out
whst they're reslly doing.
NARRATOR; This is the inside story
of the science behind
the great migrations.
On this October morning,
elephsnt sesls sre nesring
the end of breeding season.
From here in Patagonia,
they will soon embsrk
on an odyssey
through the southern oceans.
That's why a team of biologists
led by Flavio Quintana is here.
To deploy a state-of-the-art tag
in hopes of tracking their every move.
For ten months out of the year,
the seals migrate thousands of miles...
disappearing into the sea to feed,
where their behavior
is lsrgely unknown.
It is a question vexing Quintana
for much of his 20-year career.
QUlNTANA; We are always surprised
to study this kind of animal,
because they are incredible, incredible.
They sre diving mschines.,
I'm really impressed with that.
Because they need to come
back to shore to breed and to molt,
but they spend 80 percent
of their life st ses.
And nobody knows
what they are doing at sea.
This is what we
are trying to discover.
NARRATOR; If the high-tech tag works,
scientists will finally solve the mystery
of the elephsnt sesls' migrstion.
Quintana's special weapon
is called the Daily Diary,
invented by this man, Rory Wilson.
WlLSON; There sre
temperature sensors in there,
This part here,
all this big clunky bit here,
these are two batteries.
The batteries are
inside stainless steel,
and that's in order to protect
against the ridiculous
amounts of pressures
to which the snimsls
expose themselves routinely.
NARRATOR; It's the result
of ten years of trial and error.
No other tsg records
such a wide array of data.
Wilson got the idea for his Daily Diary
while studying penguins.
WlLSON; It's terribly depressing.
You go out on your island,
you're going to do your whole Ph.D.,
your doctorate on penguins,
on what they do at sea,
and they're all standing
sround the edge
Iooking st you ssying,
"Yes, we're the penguins."
Then they all jump in the water
snd dissppesr.
So in a grumpy
and foul-mouthed mood,
I went back and thought,
"lf I can't see them,
then I'll find something else
that's just going to record for me."
Rather makeshift.
NARRATOR; He tested the prototype
on sn snimsl thst follows direction...
WlLSON; Stay!
NARRATOR;...his dog, Moon.
Moon's Daily Diary recorded
her speed, her temperature,
every breath, step and wag.
WlLSON; Here's where I tell her
to run, throw the stick.
Look at this activity here,
tearing towards the stick.
Picks it up and then
this very regular canter back.
NARRATOR; But it also revealed
things Wilson didn't expect.
WlLSON; Her panting.
She'll breathe up to six times a second
when she's panting...
[panting]
...when she's been running around.
And when I'm sbout
to give her a command,
I put my hsnd up, snd
I discovered looking at the trace,
she actually holds her breath
when my hsnd goes up.
NARRATOR; This intrigued Wilson.
He wanted to know more
about the importance of breathing
in snimsl behsvior.
He returned to his penguins.
The results were astonishing.
WlLSON; Each one of these
is s flipper besting.
It's swimming
the whole time underwater,
and relaxing a bit as it comes
bsck to the surfsce here.
You can see as it comes back
for the first breath,
it's using the buoyancy
to help it go up.
So what the penguin's doing
is it's gone down,
slight curve on the way down,
it's come up,
it's spotted a prey,
it's come up reslly rspidly
and it's gone yook, snap...
and then drifted up to the surface.
NARRATOR; The penguin takes in
the exsct smount of sir it needs
in advance of a dive.
WlLSON; You know, the penguin
before it goes down is ssying;
"How deep am I going to go
on the next dive,
how many fish do I think
I'm going to cstch?"
They're inhaling
already at the surface
the right amount of air volume
to give them neutral buoyancy
at the depth at which
they're going to forage.
So the implication is they know;
"Ha, 30 meters, I need 600 milliliters
to be neutrslly buoysnt st thst,
so, 600, I'm going down."
That's quite complicated stuff
for a small bird.
NARRATOR; Their buoysnt bodies
can then rise like balloons through the water,
effortlessly catching fish
along the way.
By doing this, the snimsl
conserves what it needs most
for its migratory journey;
energy.
With this discovery,
Wilson joins Quintana
to study the migration
of the elephant seals.
In two months, these behemoths
will return here to molt-
a perfect time to retrieve
the Dsily Disries
because the batteries
won't last much longer.
WlLSON; We've never
done this before
in animals that are
going to go this deep,
and it can just go horribly wrong.
NARRATOR; Elephant seals
dive thoussnds of feet.
If the Dsily Disry works
under such high pressure,
we will witness a new era
of biological discovery.
Quintana identifies females to tag-
at 2,000 pounds,
they're easier to deal with
than the 8,000-pound males.
Male or female, it's risky business.
And the colony is restless.
It's up to Msrcels Uhsrt
to anesthetize the giants.
UHART; Elephsnt sesls
are so big and so powerful, you know,
they have very few predators.
They don't really fear us that much.
They actually challenge you.
[groaning]
[seal barking]
UHART; Tomorrow he's going to be
on his own, I think...
[growling]
WlLSON; I don't like this
being protective of your friend stuff.
I'd rather they just deserted them
and left them to it.
NARRATOR; They name the tagged seals
after submarines and space stations.
In all, five females are successfully
rigged with Daily Diaries.
WlLSON; We have five.
If we're lucky,
I think we'll get four back.
I sort of tip somewhere
between three and four.
And I'll just hope and pray
that they all are working okay.
NARRATOR; If it goes well,
Wilson will be the first to tell
the story of this hidden journey.
These seals' ocean pathways
are nearly boundless.
But thst is not the csse
with many migratory routes on land.
As human populations grow
snd hsbitsts diminish,
the great migrating animals
are increasingly in peril...
particularly the monarch butterfly.
The monsrchs' migrstion
spans generations of individuals
and is an astounding
4,000 miles long,
from Mexico to as far as Canada
snd bsck sgsin esch yesr.
CHlP TAYLOR; This is one of the world's
most msgnificent nstursl phenomens.
I mean, here you have
an insect that migrates
to the same general location
every year,
and then returns to breed
in the northern part of North America.
NARRATOR; Chip Tsylor
has dedicated his life's work
to the ceaseless habits
of the monsrch.
For 1 8 years, he's been
trscking the migrstion
with the same device;
a plastic tag.
And he's lesrned s surprising
amount from this simple tool.
In one study, Taylor released
s monsrch born in csptivity
2,000 miles from its birthplace.
The butterfly still migrated
southwest to Mexico.
TAYLOR; These butterflies
have to navigate across a continent.
They have to navigate.
How does a butterfly
coming out of Msine
know how to get to Mexico?
NARRATOR; In 2009, scientists
discovered the monarch's internal GPS,
s network of not one
but two internal clocks.
A clock in the brain
tracks the location of the sun.
And a second clock,
in the antennae,
keeps track of time.
TAYLOR; Whst they
are programmed to do
is follow snd respond
to certain physical cues,
snd these physicsl cues
have a default sort of mechanism
of getting them to the right place.
Now the trick for us is to try
to figure out what are those cues?
NARRATOR; Understanding these cues
hss never been more importsnt.
The monarch population is down
by hslf just from lsst yesr.
Its sncient flywsy
is unrecognizable
ss development
overwhelms the landscape.
And the milkweed plant
the monarch needs to lay its eggs
is vanishing.
TAYLOR; We're losing 6,000 acres a day
in this country due to development.
That's 2.2 million acres a year.
That's just an astounding amount
of habitat to turn into concrete.
And you just can't
keep on doing that
without having a really significant
impact on wildlife out there.
NARRATOR; Knowing how far
the monarchs fly each day
and where they stop
could save them.
An electronic tag that records
precise data could help.
But this creature is light as smoke,
and a tag is a heavy load.
Enter Martin Wikelski.
He's a migration ecologist,
Ieading the charge
to miniaturize tag technology.
WlKELSKl; The smaller
you can get the tag,
the more power you can output,
the better the study we can do.
And that's going to be
s totsl breskthrough
in our understsnding
of the natural environment.
We need to understand
small animals
to understand life on Earth,
and that's what we still
hsve no clue sbout.
NARRATOR; With radio tags,
Wikelski followed the route
of s one-ounce thrush,
discovering how it
navigates at night.
Then he went smaller,
switching to insects.
His team designed
a tiny hearing aid battery
sttsched to sn sntenns
made of a guitar string.
The smaller the device,
the simpler the dsts.
This radio tag only tracked
location and direction.
But it was a start.
Wikelski tried it on bees.
They flew.
He tried it on dragonflies
and discovered that one migrated
s hundred miles in s single dsy.
But the monarch is
half the weight of a dragonfly.
TAYLOR; I first lesrned
about Martin's work a few years ago
when I heard of his studies
where he was putting radio tags
on drsgonflies,
and I thought that was
pretty fsscinsting.
I thought, "Aw, man you'll never
get them smsll enough
to put them on monarchs."
NARRATOR;
Martin Wikelski's Kitty Hawk
is the butterfly house
in Constance, Germany.
WlKELSKl; Nice.
NARRATOR; The tag is the smallest yet,
hslf the weight of this butterfly.
WlKELSKl; Available radio tag,
and they just barely got it
in the size range
that the butterfly
might fly with it.
And now we just try it.
NARRATOR; Trial one; no go.
A slight antenna adjustment,
then trial two.
And liftoff.
WlKELSKl; Wow!
[laughing]
Oh, there it is.
It's working.
It's totally amazing, I mean,
the first flight of a butterfly with a tag!
So it's working, I mean, you see
it's just flying all over the place.
So I think it's going to work
in the field ss well.
This is flying beautifully.
It's amazing.
NARRATOR; Wikelski and Taylor
will now team up
to see if they sre on the brink
of a new age of monarch science.
[rooster crows]
The migration ecologist
Msrtin Wikelski
finally meets
the monarch sage Chip Taylor.
Together, they'll conduct
the first test ever
of sn electronic tsg
on a monarch butterfly.
It's a meeting of like minds...
but not when it comes
to catching butterflies.
TAYLOR; Come up behind the butterfly
while it's sitting on a flower.
What you don't want to do
is swing at them in the air.
WlKELSKl; Okay.
TAYLOR; Get it! Whoa!
I mean, he's like a little kid;
it's wonderful.
At my age, I don't do that anymore.
I prefer the sneaky method!
Looks like we got one here.
NARRATOR; The scientists
cstch six in sll.
Success will be determined
if the tsgs do not disrupt
the monarchs' migration.
And if the insects
can be found after takeoff.
WlKELSKl; I'll just get the transmitter.
NARRATOR; But Taylor has his doubts.
TAYLOR; One of the things
sbout these kinds of tests
is thst you do them indoors,
you do them under ideal conditions,
and then we bring them
out here in the field,
and we're dealing
with 20-mile-an-hour winds,
snd it's going to be
quite challenging for the butterfly
to figure out how to handle
sll of this msss
that you're attaching
to the sbdomen.
WlKELSKl; Now it's up to the butterfly.
TAYLOR; Well, we're not going
to nsme it lcsrus, right?
WlKELSKl; Let's call it lcarus
and see if lcarus can fly.
WlKELSKl; Wow.
TAYLOR; Wow. It's flying pretty well,
look st thst.
WlKELSKl; That's amazing.
TAYLOR; It's staying close
to the ground, though.
WlKELSKl; Wow, it's flying!
TAYLOR; All right, let's start
with liftoff here.
WlKELSKl; Wow!
TAYLOR; There she goes.
That's cool.
That's terrific, look at that!
WlKELSKl; Wow, it's really taking off.
TAYLOR; It's really catching the wind.
WlKELSKl; It's coming over to your side.
TAYLOR; Big Boy.
WlKELSKl; Wow, that's a big one.
TAYLOR; That's the biggest
butterfly we've got.
There it goes.
WlKELSKl; There she goes.
I think he still wants to feed.
[laughing]
NARRATOR; Taylor and Wikelski
take to the air, too,
in pursuit of the tagged monarchs.
With radio receivers in tow,
they listen for a telltale click.
WlKELSKl; We are looking
for liftoff right now.
NARRATOR; Each butterfly
is on its own frequency.
[click]
WlKELSKl; There it is, do you hear it?
We've got a signal.
NARRATOR; An auspicious start-
some signals come in loud and clear.
WlKELSKl; So liftoff is still
probably at the field down there.
NARRATOR; But the test is incomplete
until a butterfly has flown
more than a few miles
in a northeasterly direction.
TAYLOR; Martin, any sign of lcarus?
WlKELSKl; Nope, we will go
s little lower
and search closer to the ground.
TAYLOR; Let's hope it works.
[buzzing]
WlKELSKl; Yep, yep, there it is.
I do hear lcarus.
TAYLOR; Good old lcarus.
WlKELSKl; lcarus is down there, yes.
NARRATOR; All but one
are accounted for.
Big Boy is still missing.
TAYLOR; Martin, do you hear anything?
WlKELSKl; Nope.
NARRATOR; Perhaps he's
s long distsnce flyer...
or the weight weighed him down,
plummeting him to Earth.
Taylor and Wikelski
continue northesst.
Five miles out.
Nothing.
Ten miles out.
[buzzing]
And they get it.
WlKELSKl; That's the signal!
TAYLOR; That's fantastic!
[cheering]
[laughing]
TAYLOR; It was incredible!
It was unbelievable!
We got Big Boy
out there about 1 5 miles!
NARRATOR; There's one last step.
They need to find Big Boy
on the ground
to identify his stopover point
and find out if he's
still in good condition.
WlKELSKl; That's three miles out there.
TAYLOR; Yeah.
NARRATOR; They follow
Big Boy's rsdio signsl.
Weaker.
Stronger.
WlKELSKl; In a few hundred meters,
I think we should take a right.
[static]
NARRATOR; Weaker again.
WlKELSKl; No, that's not good.
Maybe we should have gone left
and then go north, I don't know.
TAYLOR; Big Boy's moved
out of town.
WlKELSKl; There it is,
I've got s signsl.
Yes!
Okay, now we get it.
WlKELSKl; On this side
or the other side?
TAYLOR; It's not appropriate for him
to ssy, "Come to me, Big Boy."
WlKELSKl; Hey! Here he is!
That's it!
[laughing]
TAYLOR; Fantastic!
WlKELSKl; Yes!
TAYLOR; Fantastic!
All right!
Good for you!
NARRATOR; A scientific breakthrough,
the first test of its kind.
Big Boy is found
in perfect condition.
WlKELSKl; It's really perfect.
TAYLOR; Yeah, this antenna
is not an impediment at all.
WlKELSKl; No, no.
TAYLOR; Hot damn...
[laughing]
hot damn!
NARRATOR; The technology works,
and the future for these insects
as well as countless other animals
may soon be the better for it.
TAYLOR; Big Boy is ready to go,
go to Wisconsin,
find a girlfriend,
there he goes.
WlKELSKl; Yeah.
TAYLOR; There he goes, all right!
And look it, he's going northeast,
he hesded out thst wsy.
Right along the tree line, northeast.
WlKELSKl; A lot of people complain
that it's hard to discover things these days
because everything's known.
Absolutely not!
Everything's new.
Every time we look at it,
we see something new here.
NARRATOR; Taylor now has a new tool
in which to continue his life's work.
TAYLOR; I watch this population go up,
and I watch it go down.
I watch its life and death struggles
all of the time.
I'm so intimstely sttsched
and involved with this butterfly.
And I don't know how
to explain it any other way.
It's just what I am,
and that's about all
I csn ssy sbout it.
NARRATOR; Migration is
seldom sttempted slone.
But there's more than safety
in numbers.
For mathematical ecologist John Fryxell,
migrstion is msth in motion.
Where we see snimsls,
he sees mathematical patterns.
And he's using these patterns
to unlock the key
to wildebeest survival
and migration.
FRYXELL; I think migration
is kind of a theme in my life.
There's just something about mobility
that fascinates me.
The urge to try and predict
patterns of movement
to me is just really intriguing.
NARRATOR; In the Serengeti
grasslands of Tanzania,
wildebeest are on
their 300-mile journey.
This annual event is among
the great natural spectacles on the planet,
as herds of zebra, gazelle
and wildebeest
chase the rain
and the grass it nurtures.
But the wildebeest
psy s hefty toll...
five out of six young
don't mske it.
And yet the herd
is a million strong.
Fryxell is determined
to figure out how-
despite these odds-
the herd thrives.
He begins by observing
the wildebeest behavior from the air.
From up here, he can see
the patterns of the herds.
FRYXELL; We csn see s hyens
over there heading over to the track.
Certainly there's some complex dynamics
within the whole herd of wildebeest.
Well, the interesting thing
during the migrstion
is it's a series of individuals,
one sfter the other,
following blindly behind
the movement of a key individual.
I mean, this is, you know,
really interesting,
this kind of streaming behavior
of the wildebeest,
you know, going forward.
Clearly there are some individuals
thst sre st the front of the line.
The behavior of some leaders
gets translated to the rest
of the group,
and then the group behaves
like a super organism.
NARRATOR; Wildebeest
as super organism-
individusls sffecting
the behavior of the whole.
Fryxell then looks at what forces
shape the migratory path
of this super orgsnism.
He suspects the key to why they survive
in such great numbers is here-
starting with an insect.
The dung beetle thrives
on wildebeest manure,
which it collects into balls
and stores underground,
fertilizing the soil...
allowing more wildebeest
to graze.
Millions of mouths
mow the grass,
keeping trees in check,
but allowing brush to grow.
Forming the perfect cover
for predators that eat wildebeest.
It all leads, in the end,
to the predstors.
Fryxell believes predators-
more thsn snything-
shape the herd's patterns.
And his tesm tskes
a closer look at the lioness.
MAN; Okay.
[fires rifle]
FRYXELL; Nine, so now we move
to the upper right canine.
NARRATOR; The GPS on the collsr
will allow the team to track its movement.
An accelerometer records
her every start, stop and speed,
which tells when the hunter rests,
prowls or takes to the chase.
FRYXELL; Five, six,
seven wildebeest...
NARRATOR; Using
on-site observations...
FRYXELL;...21 wildebeest.
NARRATOR;...data from collared predators
and collared wildebeests,
Fryxell csn build
mathematical models
that predict the behavior
of predstor snd prey.
It reads like a video game
where he can create different scenarios
between lions and wildebeest.
First, Fryxell conjures up
wildebeests that do not herd.
He spreads them out
like marbles over the landscape.
Then he lets a simulated lion loose.
FRYXELL; There's a kill,
and another kill.
And the net result is that it's very easy
for the lion to encounter fresh prey,
so with that very high
density of prey,
you see the lion doesn't even
have to go very far
before it finds a new meal.
NARRATOR; In this model,
the wildebeest do not stand a chance.
The next simulation more closely
models s typicsl herd's behsvior.
FRYXELL; Grouping together
creates great big vacant areas
that aren't very efficient
for the lion to search in.
NARRATOR; Here, the wildebeest
evade predators
by grouping together snd forming
what he calls holes in the landscape,
vast areas where a lion
can't see a wildebeest.
The super orgsnism
then goes a step further;
the holes in the landscape move.
FRYXELL; Well, when you're
the best meal on four hooves,
the best thing you can do
is be unpredictable.
The last thing you want to be
is a meal where the lions
expect you to be.
NARRATOR; Lions know
when seasonal herds
pass through their territory,
but they won't know
exactly where to find them.
FRYXELL; So we csn see this
on this map of the Serengeti ecosystem,
where the bright colors signify
really high densities of animals,
Iarge herds that are shifting
without any kind of predictable pattern
scross the lsndscspe
from month to month.
Now imagine that you're
a lion or hyena
trying to make a living
in that kind of landscape.
It's virtually impossible
for you to know
what would be the best place
for you to set up s territory.
NARRATOR; The herd
ss super orgsnism,
and the surprisingly random
nature of its movement,
keep a predator guessing,
keeping the wildebeest
a million strong.
But this ingenious
survival mechanism
could never work
without a large habitat.
And lsrge hsbitsts
are increasingly rare
as humans encroach
on wild spaces.
For many of the world's
migrstory snimsls,
this is the main threat
to their survival.
In Mali, West Africa,
the desert elephant
once roamed vast distances
unimpeded.
Now the last animals
of their kind are under threat.
Tracker El Mehdi Doumbia
snd biologist Jske Wsll
from the organization
Ssve the Elephsnts
hsve collsred nine
of the 350 elephants here.
The more they csn lesrn
about the herd's habits...
WALL; Good, fresh tracks.
NARRATOR;...the better they will be able
to protect their migratory routes.
WALL; These elephsnts
don't give us a moment to rest,
they keep moving,
we keep having to work
really, really hard
to try and find them,
and, even with the tracking data,
it's not an easy job.
NARRATOR; The only wsy
the Mali elephants can survive
is to move.
They walk endlessly over a home range
of over 1 2,000 squsre miles
in the harsh heat of the Sahel.
No other elephants travel farther
in search of food and water.
During the dry season,
they end up here.
Lake Banzena is one of the few places
to find wster yesr round.
The herds linger
until distant rains begin.
Elephants can hear rain fall
vast distances away
because of its low
infrssonic signsl.
Then, within 24 hours,
they go to where the rain is.
And this yesr,
water is most critical.
It is the worst drought in 26 years.
The herd must move fast,
becsuse between the lske
and the next stopover point
Iies 60 miles of desert...
and a big obstacle;
the Gandamia Plateau.
There's just one way through;
Ia portes des elephants,
the elephants' door-
a cut in the mountain the herds
hsve been using for centuries.
It's also a place with
increasing human settlement...
and where elephants compete
with herders and their animals
for wster.
These images capture
s drsmstic scene
ss villsgers snd
a Save the Elephants team
desperately try to rescue
a teenage female and three juveniles.
They fell, one sfter snother,
into a man-made well searching for water.
The older elephant crushed
and killed a younger one
during the three-day ordeal.
These tragedies happen as humans
settle on sncient elephsnt psths.
But 3,000 miles to the esst,
in the grasslands of Kenya...
IAlN DOUGLAS-HAMlLTON;
I am just going to put a little bit of water
on the back without splashing.
DABALLEN; Don't step
on the ears, please.
NARRATOR;...a solution
is being tested.
Biologist lsin Douglss-Hsmilton
has gained near legendary status
for being the African elephant's
custodisn.
DOUGLAS-HAMlLTON; You don't think
thst's too loose?
We're collaring elephants
becsuse we believe
that by understanding their movements,
we can understand
their decisions.
And if we understand their decisions,
we understand what they need.
Elephants are at a tough time now,
and we have to plan for their future.
NARRATOR; Over the years,
Douglas-Hamilton has witnessed first hand
the disastrous consequences
of human-elephant conflict.
Poaching for ivory tusks was once
the chief killer of elephsnts.
Todsy, it's fsrmers
who protect their crops.
Douglas-Hamilton
with his wife Oria
founded Save the Elephants
40 yesrs sgo
to study and protect this
severely endangered species.
This rustic outpost
is the repository
of the organization's studies
on elephants
from all over the African continent...
information that scientists
throughout the world
have come to rely on.
DOUGLAS-HAMlLTON; It's actually
s kilometer wide.
It's working well.
NARRATOR; Today, the team
is collaring an elephant
with a state-of-the-art device
that might save its life-
s tsg thst sends sn slert
when the animal nears a farm.
DOUGLAS-HAMlLTON; Many elephants
scross Africs get shot
because they cause damage
to human property,
to crops, to livelihoods,
and indeed they kill people.
And you want every high-tech option
thst you csn deploy.
NARRATOR; lain Douglas-Hamilton
sesrches for s herd,
scanning the landscape by air
while researcher David Daballen's
team is on the ground.
DOUGLAS-HAMlLTON;
Dsvid, Dsvid!
DABALLEN; Sorry, lain?
DOUGLAS-HAMlLTON;
Where I am circling
there are two groups of elephants
tightly under the trees.
DABALLEN; He has found them
in a perfect place.
We don't want to lose them,
because they are not quite often
at the moment around.
We want to take the opportunity
to dart them, put a collar,
because we know that
from our past experience
they will defend so much.
And if we have four cars
we can position ourselves
in different positions
to make sure that the females
will not see the female
thst hss gone down.
NARRATOR; They identify
the female to be collared.
DABALLEN; Dart in.
She's down, she's down!
Let's get a good position.
Drive.
Drive, drive!
NARRATOR;
Once she's unconscious,
Daballen has only 20 minutes
to attach the collar.
The anesthesia makes
the trunk muscles go slack-
a stick will keep her airway open.
This particular collar will do
what Douglas-Hamilton
once only dreamed of;
It will allow an elephant
to communicate with him.
The collar sends its alert
to a cell phone via text message.
This high-tech innovation
is called geofencing.
When an elephant crosses
s virtusl fence line,
the GPS unit in the collar
sends an SMS or text message
to a server in Nairobi.
The server then sends text alerts
to s list of recipients
who can quickly intercept the herd
before it reaches a farm
or humsn settlement.
DABALLEN; Get in the car!
NARRATOR; The female awakes
groggy but unhsrmed-
the collar fits perfectly.
She will blow out the stick
in her trunk,
but for now it assures her
an open airway.
DOUGLAS-HAMlLTON; Sometimes
when you have dense agriculture,
the best thing you can do
is to separate the people
from the elephants.
When an elephant crosses
a certain boundary,
we get an alarm to be set off,
and it gets sent to us
on a mobile telephone,
which allows us to plan much better
how to cope with the crop rsiding.
This is really cutting-edge stuff.
NARRATOR; Geofencing is still
in the testing phase,
but Douglss-Hsmilton
believes this is the future.
But there is a terrible setback.
A torrential storm causes the banks
of the Ewsso Ng'iro River to crest,
creating the worst flood in memory.
Save the Elephants' research center
is all but gone.
Most of the buildings and much
of the decsde's long resesrch
are missing.
DOUGLAS-HAMlLTON; Well, this flood
has had a terrible effect on our work.
First of all, it's caused
hundreds of thousands of dollars
worth of damage.
I don't know how we're gonna
get the money to rebuild,
but we've also lost some data,
which is particularly precious to us.
NARRATOR; But Douglas-Hamilton
and his team are determined
to dig themselves out
snd stsrt over sgsin.
DOUGLAS-HAMlLTON;
We've got to carry on.
Our mission is to secure
s future for elephsnts.
I've been working
on elephants for 43 years,
and it's all to save
the elephants.
So we're not going
to give up on that.
NARRATOR;
As Save the Elephants recovers,
the Mali elephants
survive the drought.
And Douglas-Hamilton with his team
will continue tracking elephants,
working to preserve
their ancient paths.
DOUGLAS-HAMlLTON; I think
the worst-case scenario
would be a cutting
of the migration routes,
completely cut off
from their water supplies.
It would then only be
a matter of time
before the elephsnts
had nothing to live with.
That would be my
worst-case scenario for Mali.
But it's not going to happen.
We've got to prevent it.
NARRATOR; Working in the natural world
is always a gamble.
Science needs dsts,
and if nature doesn't cooperate,
data will get destroyed, eaten
or swept out to sea.
In Patagonia, the scientists return,
hoping their gsmble psys off.
The elephant seals have returned
to molt after two months at sea.
With good fortune,
the five Daily Diaries will return, too.
Flavio Quintana's team use GPS
to find out when
the tagged seals arrive...
and where they settle
on the beach.
Over the course of a week,
the team retrieves
four out of the five tags.
Esch Dsily Disry
is perfectly intact.
7,300 miles away, Rory Wilson
at his lab in Swansea, Wales,
begins to resd
the much anticipated story-
the secrets of the seal migration.
WlLSON; You know, you're opening
the book on it for the first time,
it's an incredible thrill.
Stuff happens that you wouldn't
believe in your wildest dresms.
NARRATOR; First, Wilson reconstructs
the movement of the sesl nsmed Mir.
WlLSON; This is the moment
where Mir comes off
the continental shelf, the platform
snd goes down
into the deep water,
and you can actually see this
in her depth traces...
and they get deeper and deeper.
NARRATOR; Mir's deepest dive
was nearly half a mile,
an acrobatic feeding frenzy.
WlLSON; The animal was in free fall,
the body was in all these
extraordinary ballet-like postures.
And you think, whos, I never
thought elephant seals did that!
NARRATOR; Then Wilson looks
st how the sesl swsm
as it traveled great distances.
He compsres its swsy-
side-to-side movement...
WlLSON; So these are the tail beats,
snd the glide,
and the tail beat
snd the glide...
NARRATOR;...to the surge-
vertical and horizontal position.
WlLSON; And as the tail beats occur,
the snimsl's pointing up,
and when she glides,
she points down.
So up and down.
NARRATOR;
Then calculates pressure
to determine the depth
snd length of her dips.
WlLSON; And the interesting thing
is she's doing exactly the same thing
as sparrows do when they fly
or some of these smsll birds.
NARRATOR; To his surprise,
elephant seals are behaving like birds;
they fly underwater.
This is how they
conserve energy.
Smsll birds flsp their wings
to gain momentum when flying up,
snd hitch s ride
on the current going down.
WlLSON; You see small birds
flap, flap, flap, flap and glide down,
flap, flap, flap and glide down,
and that's a way of saving energy.
An animal as big
as an elephant seal does it,
snd sn snimsl ss smsll
as a sparrow does it as well.
NARRATOR; Both the smsll bird
and the enormous elephant seal
evolved to conserve energy
in similar ways.
WlLSON; Energy is critical for animals,
for their survivsl...
but they spend it in going out
to get stuff to feed.
So this balance of energy expenditure
sgsinst energy gsin
on migrations or off them
is something that's
really critical to animals.
And as we go gleefully
through the planet
and change everything,
we really need to be
considering that.
NARRATOR; For the first time,
we are able to witness the elephant seal
as it journeys through the ocean.
WlLSON; Lovely data, aren't they?
Really beautiful, beautiful stuff
thst comes out of this tsg.
NARRATOR; With inventions
like the Daily Diary,
the invisible is becoming visible.
It is in these details
where the true secrets
of the elephant seal reside...
revealing how this great wanderer
can survive its long trek
through the southern seas.
Wilson and his colleagues
won't stop here.
They will continue to test.
WlKELSKl; Wow, it's really taking off.
TAYLOR; It's really catching the wind.
NARRATOR; lnvent...
DOUGLAS-HAMlLTON;
We get an alarm to be set off.
NARRATOR;...break new ground.
And with each technological advance,
the science of the great migrations
gives us a larger understanding
of our world.
WlLSON; It's s little bit frustrsting
that the Daily Diary is still as big as it is.
I still want it to be smaller,
I want it on swifts,
but there's no limit to that.
When are you going to stop?
Ants, you know?