Original subtitles

(inspirational music)

- [Announcer] Antarctica, a vast, icy desert.

In terms of rainfall, it's the driest place on Earth,

and yet the Antarctic holds more than two-thirds

of the planet's fresh water.

With plunging temperatures and powerful winds,

our southernmost landmass is an unrelenting habitat,

but life persists and thrives.

Once part of a connected southern supercontinent,

Antarctica is now isolated by a current

so powerful it creates undersea highways

back to each and every continent,

where extraordinary lifeforms answer the call of the seasons

on icy islands and on a land frozen by time.

This is the Wildest Antarctic.

- [Narrator] Antarctica is surrounded

by the strongest ocean current on the planet.

It's a force that extends right from the surface

all the way to the sea floor.

It's one of the many variables

that keeps this continent isolated

and the coldest place on Earth.

Antarctica spans the South Pole some 15 million kilometers,

roughly the size of the United States and Mexico combined.

Here temperatures can plummet

as low as 90 degrees celsius below zero.

It's also the windiest place on Earth.

Wind speed on one cape has been measured

at over 300 kilometers an hour.

(serene music)

Some valleys have not seen rain in some two million years.

Antarctica was once as warm as modern California,

covered in lush forest and roaming dinosaurs,

when it was still joined to Africa,

South America, and Australia

in the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana.

Since freezing over completely some 20 million years ago,

ice has locked in huge mountain ranges,

frozen lakes in time,

and created enormous glacial structures.

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current

perpetually moves eastward some 21,000 kilometers.

It carries 170 million cubic meters of water every second.

It's the equivalent of 68,000 Olympic swimming pools.

(empowering music)

The circumpolar current connects the world's oceans,

influencing currents to the north

and creating pathways for polar inhabitants

to travel to other shores.

Currents determine where this

extraordinary marine life will travel,

where they will mate, raise their young, and hunt.

These currents touch on the southern capes

of our continents, the countries where

lions share borders with penguins,

kangaroos overlook seal colonies,

and orcas stalk beaches under the South American sun.

Antarctica appears to have less animal diversity

than other regions, but the surprisingly varied terrains

force each group to adapt in different ways.

(walruses grunting)

(serene music)

Brown Bluff is on the Antarctic continent itself,

near the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.

The peninsula is a long arm of land and ice

that reaches out toward South America.

Excluding islands, it's Antarctica's

closest point to any other continent.

The bluff itself is a towering basalt and lava cliff

rising up from the beach.

The rock is a remnant of a massive ancient volcano

that erupted through ice over a million years ago.

The brown cliff is peppered with glass,

a result of the intense process of lava rising and cooling

so quickly in subglacial conditions.

It overlooks a three kilometer long bouldered beach.

Vegetation is sparse.

Lichen and moss cover rocks well up into the cliffs,

favoring areas of fresh water runoff

from the melting glaciers.

(water gurgling)

However, it's difficult to get a glimpse

of the terrain at Brown Bluff, as it's covered in these:

(penguins chattering)

(impish music)

Adelie penguins.

East Antarctica is home to six million Adelies.

The few kilometers of Brown Bluff

is one of the largest colonies,

around 20,000 breeding pairs.

At 70 centimeters tall,

the Adelie is precisely mid-range

when it comes to penguin sizes.

Adelies have white rings around their eyes.

There isn't much noticeable difference

between males and females.

There are almost 20 types of penguin worldwide,

but only four of them actually live

on the Antarctic continent itself.

Adelies have soft feet with sharp talons,

designed to walk across ice and rocks

and to scale the steep slopes of these beaches,

though the cliffs here are more difficult than most.

In October, the start of the Antarctic warming months,

male Adelies come ashore in droves.

The transition from porpoising in the sea

to stumbling on land is less than graceful,

but this is the last leg of a race

to reach the Bluff Beach as soon as possible.

(spirited music)

How quickly they can get to work

will have an important bearing

on their breeding season ahead.

The Adelie males make the opening courting overture

by building a nest.

Their goal is to woo a female

with the largest nest possible.

However these penguins aren't exactly

spoiled for choice when it comes to building materials.

The nest is simply a pile of small rocks

collected from the beach.

But it's where they stack their nests

that adds that little extra appeal.

The higher up the bluff, the drier the nest

and the more likely the female is

to choose that nest builder.

(penguins chattering)

The long march from shore to the higher sites

can quickly become crowded

with industrious males and appraising females.

These penguins are not above stealing

from their neighbor if the opportunity arises.

When Adelies have paired off and laid their eggs,

both parents take turns at egg sittings.

They need to remain vigilant.

The further the penguins are from shore,

the safer they are from sea predators like leopard seals,

but they are closer to threat from above:

the Antarctic's ultimate predator from the air, a Skua.

Skuas are a large south polar bird.

They can reach lengths of more than half a meter.

Ferocious anglers, they'll hunt

fish and crustaceans close to shore,

but in the penguin breeding months,

eggs are a seasonal bounty.

It only takes one parent to be fishing at sea

and the other to take a brief break from nest duty

for a Skua to seize opportunity.

The Adelie sees the Skua at work

as it returns uphill to its nest.

There's only time for the briefest of pauses.

Adelies usually lay two eggs,

and there's still time to get back to the other.

An heir and a spare is the breeding

strategy of these penguins.

(penguins chattering)

(serene music)

One chick will hatch just days ahead of the other,

but it will use the slim head start to full advantage.

The elder sibling dominates the nest.

It stands over the later arrival,

reaching in to the adult beak

for the best morsels of food.

It even maneuvers into position

to stay closest to the parent's warmth.

Often both chicks survive,

but if food is scarce the stronger one will be favored.

(penguins chattering)

(inquisitive music)

(penguins chattering)

It takes just a few weeks for the chicks

to put on weight and reach half the size of an adult.

When parents change the guard for fishing and feeding duty,

they do so with noise and celebration.

This serenading ceremony of welcome and farewell

is thought to strengthen the pair bond

of the dutiful parents.

The males are also showing how robust they are.

A penguin can lose weight faster

in these long days without food.

A fat penguin is a noisy and healthy one.

With the bulk of nesting left to the males,

they'll lose weight in the early days of parenting.

(penguins chattering)

By three or four weeks of age,

the Adelie chicks are large enough to be left on their own,

but their growing girth means they are ever hungry.

Both parents must go to sea now to hunt enough krill

and fish for themselves and their brood.

Warmed by thick brown jackets of down,

the chicks bide their time waiting for their next meal.

(penguins chattering)

When their parents are away, the chicks form

tight creches to deter predators.

This is the Antarctic equivalent of a daycare center,

complete with guardian adults

making sure wandering youngsters stay put.

A freshly returned adult with a beak full of food

is always welcomed, at times a little too heartily.

(lively music)

It's difficult to distinguish one Adelie chick from another,

even for an Adelie parent.

To ensure it's feeding the right chick, their own,

an adult fending off a feeding horde will move backwards.

Usually the impostor will back away.

Sometimes a parent knows best

and will berate the unrelated chick.

At other times, it's just too difficult to tell.

Running away entirely from the hungry mouths

is simply the easiest option.

(inspiring music)

As summer darkens and daylight hours dwindle,

the falling temperatures signal

it's time for the Adelies to move on.

The brown feathers of the youngsters

are replaced with the highly waterproof feathers

these birds will need to explore

the environment they were born to live in: the sea.

(penguins chattering)

After just seven weeks, the fledglings

are cautiously ready to join their colony

as they return to the ocean.

Their wings cannot fly, they've evolved to be short,

strong, and heavy to help propel them

through the water at speeds of up to 15 kilometers an hour.

It only takes a couple to brave the first plunge

before hundreds follow in a dense pack.

They porpoise out toward the horizon,

leaping dolphin-like to take in air,

pacing themselves for the long voyage ahead.

Over the winter the Adelies will travel

hundreds of kilometers from the continent,

following open water, hunting fish and squid,

and resting on bergs.

They'll become part of an entire food web,

following a course set by the currents.

The current that circumnavigates the Antarctic continent

is the planet's strongest for several reasons,

but a significant one is that it can form a complete circle.

It isn't diverted by a landmass.

This became possible some 30 million years ago

when it finally separated from all other continents,

the last being the southernmost point of Australia.

The island of Tasmania is now more

than 3,000 kilometers away,

and roaring westerly through the strait

that separates the two accelerates the current.

In fact, Australia's small southern island

is the meeting point for four major ocean currents:

(serene music)

the Antarctic Circumpolar Current,

the East Australian Current,

it rounds the cape and heads westward,

becoming the Flinders Current.

Another, the Leeuwin, also arrives from that direction.

This unusual convergence of so many

warm and freezing waters has created

an astonishingly unique marine environment

and helped to shape the land above.

The island of Tasmania became separated

from mainland Australia around 85 million years ago.

Its vegetation includes some of the most

ancient plant species on Earth.

Large tracts of cool-temperate rainforest

cover 10% of the island.

It once shared rainforest with the southern continents,

Africa, South America, and Antarctica.

Plant fossils of these forests

can even be found within sandstones

and mudstones in the Antarctic today.

Tasmania's isolation as an island

has meant fewer introduced predators

and allowed lineages of animal species to continue,

including the world's largest

surviving carnivorous marsupial.

(Tasmanian devil groans)

The Tasmanian devil died out on the mainland

some 3,000 years ago, long before European settlers arrived,

but still lives in the dry eucalypt forests of this island.

Another of Tasmania's unique forests

is more difficult to access.

It's well below the waterline.

(inquisitive music)

The cold ocean off Tasmania's east coast

grows vast tracts of giant kelp forest.

Kelp is a type of seaweed,

and in the cold, nutrient-rich waters

where the southern and northern currents collide,

grows the biggest kelp in the world.

Giant kelp reaches more than 30 meters in height

and grows at an extraordinary rate,

up to half a meter a day.

The long plants are kept afloat

with small, gas-filled bulbs called pneumatocysts.

Like all seaweed, they don't sink roots into the seabed,

but anchor on rock and reef.

In these cool climes, the algae and coral

are deep yellow, rusty reds, and brown.

The dense forests create plenty of hiding spaces

and respite from the strong offshore currents,

and like most macroalgae gardens,

kelp forests have an accomplished resident mimic:

(inquisitive music)

the weedy seadragon.

A distant relative of the seahorse,

this elongated fish has a long snout

to suck up tiny shrimp for feeding.

It's covered in hard, bony plates rather than scales,

which does limit mobility.

The only way the seadragon can propel forward

is by rapidly flickering its tiny abdominal fins.

The slow, undulating pace works in this fish's favor.

The movements echo the gentle sway of kelp in current,

and it's grown additional features

to polish the mimicry act.

Elaborate, leaf-like appendages

extend from the head, body, and tail.

The camouflage is so effective

that once a weedy seadragon reaches

its full adult size of 40 centimeters,

it's rarely eaten by natural predators.

(inquisitive music)

The red velvet fish also relies

on mimicry to avoid being eaten.

It too is only found in these cold South Australian climes.

The velvet fish's fins fan and sway

like the seaweed around it,

and although it's not the strongest swimmer,

this fish will drop to the nearest plant

and begin its best imitation.

If the ruse doesn't work, its spines can deliver

a powerful shot of toxic venom.

(inquisitive music)

Near the kelp forest but in deeper water,

sponge gardens claim the rock faces.

Sponges are one of the most ancient lifeforms on Earth,

with fossils of ancestors dating back

more than 600 million years.

In Tasmanian waters today,

they rely on the ocean currents to bring them food.

Unlike hard corals, these animals

don't harbor algae that photosynthesize sunlight.

Instead, these sponges and sea whips

flourish in depths past 30 meters, beyond the sun's rays,

filtering nutrients as they float by.

Other animals take shelter by day in the depths.

Some, like this cold water southern rock lobster

ascend to the kelp forests nightly on foraging excursions.

Cold water anemones also unfurl to feed at dusk.

Closely related to coral polyps and jellyfish,

these are animals that attach to a hard surface with a foot,

and have stinging tentacles to catch food

and pass down to a central mouth and gut.

This swimming anemone attaches to rocks but will often move

to the end of kelp fronds after sundown

to get in better range of the passing plankton.

A smooth ray glides up from the sea bed

and leaves a trail of sand over the kelp.

This is the largest stingray in the world,

but only uses the barb on its tail in defense.

To eat, it smothers and crushes shrimp and crabs.

As winter approaches, the smooth ray heads north

where an astonishing crab feast is about to come on offer.

The Great Australian Bight is bordered

by the Southern Ocean and the powerful force

of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.

Along the continent shelf,

a westward current called the Flinders,

a surface current called the Leeuwin,

travels eastward seasonally from the Indian Ocean.

(inspirational music)

These currents and countercurrents create upwellings,

a process where deep, cold water rises to the surface.

It replaces the warm surface water

and brings with it a rush of nutrients.

Single-celled plants called phytoplankton and zooplankton,

animal lifeforms, tiny marine eggs, and larvae.

These are the foundations that allow

entire ecosystems to build and bloom.

Cold water species thrive here,

lobsters and sardines, whales and sharks.

Its proximity to the South Pole

and isolation from other continents

has created spectacular underwater adaptations.

Over 90% of the plants and animals here

are found nowhere else on Earth.

The bight itself is home to enormous bays,

basins that have thousands of kilometers

of rivers and creeks pouring into it.

One such bay is Port Phillip.

It's north of the island of Tasmania

and happens to also be the backyard

of Australia's second largest city, Melbourne.

(inquisitive music)

As the water temperatures drop each winter,

visitors from the cold depths beyond

begin a steady march up the continental shelf

into the shallows of the bay.

Long encased legs move steadily with purpose

towards a central meeting point on the seabed.

These are giant spider crabs,

the largest crustacean on Earth.

They can live to 100 years old.

Each crab has a leg span of nearly half a meter.

Despite its size, a single crab is difficult to spot,

hiding amongst macroalgae and sponge gardens.

But once a year they undertake a massive undersea migration.

They come to Port Phillip Bay in the hundreds of thousands.

The water becomes clouded with sand

as giant spider crabs clamor over each other

without hierarchy or order,

sometimes as many as 10 crabs deep.

They're here for an annual event in their lifecycle,

and it's one that will require safety in numbers.

Giant spider crabs have exoskeleton shells

called carapaces to protect their soft insides.

However, the carapaces don't grow.

The crabs must shed their shells

in a process called molting.

For several weeks prior, it begins

growing a new, soft shell underneath.

A day before the crab is ready to molt,

it absorbs sea water and swells like a balloon.

The shell comes apart at the seams,

the old one popping up like a lid sitting atop.

Then it's time to change.

Over about 20 minutes, the spider crab

pushes backwards on all of its legs

slowly backing out of the shell.

Finally it pulls its long legs free

and it's a new, slightly larger crab.

The old skeleton is left sitting on the sea floor.

The new shell is very soft for a number of days

and it will take a month to fully harden.

Predators know this is a vulnerable time for the crab.

When it comes to molting, safety in numbers

is a necessary survival strategy.

They'll come back to this same place year after year.

When the molting season ends,

it's time to once again head south

to return to a solitary life 300 meters below.

A little further west along the Flinders Current,

the winter calling of the water

heralds the start of another extraordinary migration.

In the upper reaches of the Spencer Gulf,

an enormous catchment for creeks and rivers,

another of the Southern Ocean giants

has come in from the deep.

(serene music)

The giant Australian cuttlefish

is the largest of its kind in the world.

They reach 60 centimeters in length

and weigh up to 10 kilograms.

In a small corner of the gulf is a flat rock ledge

where the water temperature remains fairly constant,

between 12 and 15 degrees.

It's the ideal place for females to deposit their eggs.

It's the only such place for hundreds of kilometers,

and so the oceanic giants come here yearly,

more than 100,000 of them.

This is the densest mass cuttlefish

aggregation in the world.

The male giant cuttlefish are here for one reason,

to impress the females.

The bulls are much larger than the females.

They flash colors to show off their size and health.

(tense music)

When they find a female who seems wiling to mate,

competition is fierce.

A large male bull will guard a female,

hovering over her, hiding her under rock ledges,

and fending off the constant attention of other males.

Scientists refer to these animals

as the rock stars of the marine world.

Closely related to octopus and squid,

cuttlefish live fast and die young.

They only live for 12 to 18 months

and each breeding season is their

one opportunity to continue their genes.

With such high stakes, the bull males

resort to physically blocking access to the females.

The males try their hardest

to get within arm's reach of the females.

One of their tentacles contains a packet of spermatophores.

If the female accepts the male's advances,

he'll need to reach into the cavity of her head

to deposit it into her oviduct.

That's if he can get close enough in the first place.

As well as the large dominant males,

there are smaller males in the water,

and they have their own strategy for mating.

They'll take on the coloration

of a female to seem unimposing.

The small male will then attempt

to sneak past the giant bull guard

and reach the female while the larger males fight it out.

Sometimes it works, but today this small male

has been denied access.

At times the female simply gets fed up.

She makes her escape, leaving the bulls

alone in each other's company.

The males don't have a great success rate,

only one in four attempts.

They continue to flash colors at each other.

This is the cuttlefish equivalent of flexing muscles

and showing they are strong competitors,

and every so often the swoop-in approach is timed perfectly.

A bull male hesitates for a moment.

The female is receptive and accepts,

and a successful mating ensues.

(serene music)

The giant cuttlefish will attempt

as many couplings as they can

in this one short window of time they have.

If they are lucky, they may survive

to see another breeding season,

but most of these giants will die off at winter's end,

not long after they have retreated

back to the deeper water of the Southern Ocean.

The area where the cold waters

of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current

mingle with the warmer waters of the north

is known as the Antarctic Convergence.

Here a higher concentration of nutrients

means a great abundance of marine life.

(spirited music)

Prion Island is a tiny outcrop that sits on the convergence,

midway between mainland South America

and the tip of the Antarctic continent.

Just under 2.5 kilometers long,

this rocky island is one of the world's

most important sanctuaries for seabirds and seals.

In the southern summer, temperatures rise

to a couple of degrees below zero

and Prion Island becomes almost ice-free.

Thick tufts of grass burst through the snow.

Unlike most Antarctic islands visited

by whaling ships in the past,

Prion Island remains free of rats.

That means eggs are save from the ubiquitous vermin

and the seabird population has flourished here as a result.

Prion Island is one of the few places you can see

the world's largest flying bird return to land,

the wandering albatross.

Albatross are renowned for their size

and this is the biggest of its kind.

The wanderer weighs up to 12 kilograms

and has a wingspan of three meters from tip to tip.

Wandering albatross are the most oceanic of all seabirds.

They can coast for several hundred kilometers

without a single wing flap.

The albatross do this utilizing the winds

generated above the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.

They spend most of their lives in the air,

following it around the southern continent.

Wanderers don't come ashore until they're ready to breed

at around five to 10 years of age.

Each summer the central plateau of Prion Island

becomes the stage for a season of courting.

It's important a wandering albatross

takes the time to size up and settle on a good match.

The partner they leave the island with at the end of summer

will be their mate for life, some 50 years.

Females usually initiate the meetings,

which lead to a long, intricate ritual.

(uplifting music)

It begins with a clacking of beaks,

bouts of preening, and a noise

that almost sounds like a throaty purr.

(albatross purring)

It soon progresses to a dance.

For minutes, sometimes hours, at a time,

these birds will circle each other

with wings fully extended, showing off

the impressive full gamut of their greatest asset.

About a quarter of the time,

the dance ends with the female and male nesting together.

However, it's a long summer.

Although wanderers pair for life, they are not monogamous.

(albatross purring)

At times courting pairs divert their attention to others.

It's not unusual for a third albatross to join the dance.

(albatrosses calling)

Females will often mate with multiple partners

and produce eggs sired by a mix of fathers

over their lifetimes.

It's a way of maximizing a very limited breeding pattern.

The wanderers lay just one egg every two years.

Their chosen life partner will help

incubate the egg regardless of paternity.

The albatross chicks remain on Prion Island

for about nine months, strengthening their wings

in preparation for the long journey ahead.

When they leave, they'll have attained

the full length of their remarkable wingspan.

The young wanderers will remain at sea alone for years.

They'll drink salt water for hydration,

fish from the air, and follow the polar currents.

It will be nearly a decade before they return to Prion

to find their own mate to spend

the remainder of their lives wandering with.

(intriguing music) (seal chirping)

Below this hills on Prion Island's only shingle beach,

another breeding seeding gets underway

with the start of summer.

Antarctic fur seals are the smallest of the seal family.

Rather than relying on a generous

inner tubing of fat for warmth,

these seals are covered in very thick brown fur.

Females usually weigh about 40 kilograms,

but the big males can weigh up to 200.

(seals squealing)

These large bulls are usually first to the beach.

They have to find the most inviting areas

and establish their territory.

In places further north, fur seal bulls fight one another

to establish their right to groups

of breeding females called harems.

On Prion Island, the beach is a relatively small space.

The females move about more freely,

but the males will try to herd them into their territories.

Once there, they will try to block them from leaving.

(seal squeals) (somber music)

More than three times the female's size

and full of testosterone,

this bull is too difficult to negotiate a path around.

The female fur seal collapses from sheer exhaustion.

She needs a rest before trying again

in hope the bull's attention

will soon be diverted elsewhere.

For some females, the attention is relentless.

A prized female may have a number of bulls

clashing while trying to herd her.

The males are so determined to defend their domain

some won't even eat for several weeks.

Feeding means a return to the ocean,

and they'd rather starve

than relinquish their hard-won territory.

(baby seal whimpering)

Many of the females arrive on Prion's beach

already pregnant from the previous breeding season.

The summer begins with a series of births,

freeing the females to mate again soon after.

But first a newborn needs attention.

The small pups are very vulnerable in their first hours

before they've learned to walk on their front flippers.

Mother and pup bond through nuzzling and vocalizing.

(seals chattering)

This pup needs to nurse.

Exhausted, the mother rolls on her back

to help show the way.

(seals chattering)

After a week, the pup will be left on the beach

alone for hours at a time.

The mothers must return to the sea to feed on krill.

(lighthearted music)

(baby seal chirping)

The next four months are a demanding time for these mothers.

They continue a cycle of weaning, feeding,

and mating in between pup rearing.

(seals chattering)

The pups put on weight quickly.

The first snow will signal it's time to leave the island.

At summer's end, these fledgling fur seals

will take their first plunge into the Antarctic Ocean.

It will be many years before they return to this beach

to begin the cycle anew as breeding adults.

Beyond the Antarctic Convergence,

Drake's Passage is the narrowest squeeze point

for the Circumpolar Current.

It's just 800 kilometers between

the continents of Antarctica and South America.

(serene music)

Argentina's incredibly diverse terrain

hosts equally unique species, from the Andean condor

to guanacos, close relatives of llamas and camels.

But the icy fingers of polar currents

reach far along the Argentinian coastline,

courtesy of the Malvinas or Falklands Current.

It flows north along the Atlantic coast

and meets a warmer current coming south from Brazil.

Southern species travel the cold path to this hot spot,

following nutrients in the summer.

Peninsula Valdes juts out from the mainland

more than 100 kilometers eastward.

The mushroom-shaped peninsula

has large gulfs that offer shelter

from the harsh wind and large waves of the South Atlantic.

These protected areas have become

huge maternity wards for cold water animals.

The shores are thick with breeding colonies of seabirds,

like migratory snowy sheathbills

and resident steamer ducks.

It's home to tens of thousands of South America's

own burrowing penguin, the Magellanic.

Southern right whales stop over

in the bay's north and south to breed and calf.

Peninsula Valdes beaches are dark

with sand and silt from nearby mudflats.

(inquisitive music)

Each summer around 20,000 southern elephant seals

come ashore to mate, give birth,

and strengthen their young before returning to the sea.

By late December they're joined

by large colonies of Patagonian sea lions.

(sea lions chattering)

The sea lions are also here

to raise their pups on the beaches.

Sea lions have stronger front flippers than seals.

They walk on all fours on the beach.

Seals have strong back flippers and wriggle about on land.

Unlike the elephant seal mothers,

the female sea lions will keep entering the sea

to hunt small fish and squid

while their young are still nursing.

The sea lion pups wait in the shore break.

They take their first dips into the salt water,

strengthening their flippers

with practice swims in the shallows.

But another marine mammal also

brings their young to these coastlines.

They know the pups are vulnerable

and this is an easy place to hunt.

(tense music)

Orcas are the ultimate ocean predator.

Highly intelligent, they have

sophisticated pack hunting techniques.

They're the only marine animals

known to kill and eat great white sharks.

On these Argentinian beaches,

their targets are much smaller.

The sea lion pups are only just learning

to venture into the water,

and are not yet aware of the enormous danger within it,

or the fact that this particular danger

has the ability to lunge out.

Orcas have been hunting this beach for years.

They know where the channels are in the shallows

that will grant them just enough depth

to surge and push forward onto the beach.

This is a massive six ton animal.

When it throws its heavy body ashore,

the orca then has to thrash about

and inch itself back into the deep.

The whales watch the juvenile sea lions

from the deeper drop off and time their ambush.

This one misses, but incredibly the sea lion pup

turns around and heads straight back into the sea.

It's been practicing swimming enough

to be faster in water than on land.

It tries to reach the protection of adults

but the pup has to stay shallow enough

to avoid a second attack.

The water is still too shallow

for the huge mammal to get an accurate launch.

It misses once again and this time,

the pup heads straight for land.

However these orcas need to catch and eat

about three sea lion pups a day

to get enough fuel to sustain their massive bodies.

They know this shoreline well.

When a small group of pups catches a small shore break in,

they realize too late.

The next wave comes with a massive dorsal fin.

The orca grasps its catch with small conical teeth.

Others nearby soon join the hunt.

The orcas here at Peninsula Valdes

are thought to have passed this

particular beach attack technique

down to their young for generations.

Around the world orca will

target prey specific to locations.

Family groups adapt new hunting methods accordingly

and pass those onto their young as well.

It's thought in this way unique cultures are formed

depending on where the orcas live.

(inquisitive music)

The season's end will cue a return

to Antarctic waters for some of these pods.

Many other species from around the world

will travel these underwater current highways

to spend a part of their year near the southern continent.

They're nearly all seasonal visitors and world travelers.

In every corner of the south,

these animals find places to call home for a short while.

They return to the same areas time and time again,

handing down dances, greetings,

and strategies for surviving the wildest Antarctic.

(empowering music)