The Largest Animal on the Planet: Blue Whale, Giant of Patagonia 🐋 Documentary in Spanish

A country of the sea More than 4000 kilometers of coastline where this land faces the vast Pacific Ocean Islands fjords beaches coastal cliffs Too many hidden spots still unknown to most Chileans Chile is the sea And also a lot of life A natural paradise for marine mammals From the largest to the smartest Even the smallest marine mammal in the world These animals survive thanks to the richness provided by the Humboldt Current Some even travel from other hemispheres in search of these nourishing waters Included some of us Passionate about the sea I came to Chile 10 years ago with the dream of recording the song of the whales In this adventure we set out on a mission to find the most colossal one of all This is the largest animal that has ever existed in the history of our planet And for centuries it was hunted by humans We are after the blue whale But first how does a marine ecosystem work It's like Susana's dream A lot of marine life This is a fauna sonograph device It's boiling Fish that are eaten and boiled And the sea wolves eating And the whales are circling It's a huge patch of krill You can see it boiling Everything is boiling everywhere And below the krill can be seen The school of krill is hunting the copepods It is pushing the school toward the surface That's why one sees it boiling on the surface On the other hand the sharpshooters arrive The whales are here All of this is an impressive boil Here is the little one that creates all this beautiful underwater commotion Krill is a small crustacean that enriches the ocean Especially in cold waters like those of Chile Thanks to the Humboldt current that comes directly from the Antarctic Crossing most of our sea Take the opportunity to see this with our own eyes Cureles are eating krill everywhere Seals being chased by sea lions and bottlenose dolphins It's amazing to see how everything is connected And that giant animals like whales depend on these smaller organisms Swallowed by blue whales the second largest animal in the world Which with their enormous mouths are capable of swallowing tons of microorganisms Here everyone benefits All take advantage of these feeding events Even some species that we rarely have the luck to see The ctenophore is a type of gelatinous plankton that also has bioluminescence Very cute It has light stripes on the sides A small bag with light stripes They also have two tentacles that hang down And throughout this krill patch was full of these gelatinous little creatures They catch the krill with their tentacles and then eat them And here one can clearly see two krill that were trapped inside the bell of the ctenophore He was full full of jellyfish That is everyone even the gelatinous zooplankton were eating the krill Wolves comb jellies birds seals and the beautiful fin whales Now we are a bit more prepared to travel to the southern seas south of Chiloé Looking for the blue whales that Susana has studied for the past ten years Come on go Is that part bioacoustics We have whales Of course the screams of the suba are unmistakable This is the signal we are looking for The jets create a huge column of more than ten meters of steam and water This is something very visible from a distance This is a very clear jet It appears as steam chimneys The animal is breathing and it's like breathing when it's very cold and you exhale as steam We need to get closer to confirm what species it is But anyway we have two whales here in the test We already have our first sighting here in the sea So we are happy How are we Excited We are heading in the direction What are the important protocols Enjoy Beyond the incredible experience of seeing whales there is an observation code of conduct that we must respect We can't charge the animal directly Always approach from behind and never cross in front of it Keep minimum distances We monitor their behavior to ensure they are not affected In this case we also turned off the ship's sonar as all cetaceans are very sensitive to sound And of course we have a special permit from the subfishery Since I was little I decided I was going to work with whales And that's exactly what happened I was completely stuck obsessed with this animal I find it a beautiful animal Beautiful grand fascinating because Look at how we are look at how he has us He drives me crazy And even though the Sub is doing her postdoctoral research on these topics she truly enjoys these moments Who said science isn't emotion How much is that in meters It's 500 jumps like this then Come here lower You can clearly see the difference in the water can't you It's about the size of a footprint It's no ordinary footprint It's the footprint of the largest animal in the history of our planet We are in a small zodiac on top of a blue whale's track That is big We will have another chance Hopefully with better conditions and fewer waves At least we now know the whales are here But why are they here The answer lies in a relationship no one can imagine A answer that is not in the sea But up there in the mountains We're about two to three kilometers in I mean Where this river meets the sea where we are watching the whales We are actually observing it right in front of the mouth of this river What people don't realize is how connected what happens in this river is What's happening on the hills around us with the rock and this water falling And then this river How does this relate to the whales That's what you study That's your specialty isn't it Yes this is my specialty Rivers are a key element of this entire estuarine system we have in Patagonia In reality Patagonia can be thought of as a vast estuary Estuaries are where river and land water mix with seawater At a global level they are always places where there is a lot of diversity and biological productivity Rivers bring a key nutrient for marine productivity That is silica Silica precisely From the rocks above all these waterfalls and streams something like that arrives and directly reaches the blue whale Exactly Well it's not that direct Okay there are several stages The thing is that this rainwater passes through this rock and gradually charges this silicate This dissolves the rocks and becomes charged with silicate Algae form on surfaces where there is light They need all these nutrients that come from the sea from the river that mix together There the phytoplankton and microalgae begin to bloom For example those beautiful diatoms What is the difference between phytoplankton and zooplankton Phytoplankton are simply very tiny plants And zooplankton are very tiny animals Pito zo Plant animals Blue whales that we have seen feed on krill which is a type of zooplankton And that krill feeds on diatoms These diatoms require precisely the silicate that comes from this river from this rock Does this only happen in Chile or does it happen elsewhere too It happens in other places too But it's very characteristic of the oceanographic environment of Patagonia If one were to change them due to climate change if these rivers dry up if one builds a dam on them It begins to cut off the nutrient flow to the diatom This means less krill and less food for the blue whale Then it's also a very delicate cycle If we want more whales we also have to ensure there are always nutrient-rich healthy rivers Biochemistry Biochemistry It sounds pretty intimidating for a high school junior doesn't it Bio the whales It's like three in one Geo the rock chemistry the silicate Biogeochemistry Federico let's play a game of soccer today No I can't because I have a global biochemistry test tomorrow Federico can't make the cimarra when he has biogeochemistry in the morning No of course Federico should be studying the silica cycle But doesn't it seem sad to look around you and realize that probably no human being has ever been on top of any of these mountains And yet arriving at the sea that's full of garbage I don't know what this is They are probably tons of feathers trash plastic and buoys that are no longer in use And all this crap is right in front of where the blue whales are Inside the Pacific you'll come across a lot of issues that are China's United States' The difference here is all local All local Everything made in Chile That is they had the salmon farms right here And they are clearly remnants of cages feeders structures These are the coasts that are exposed to the prevailing winds in that area Then the entire Corcovado coast which one expects to be perfect because there's no one there is completely full of trash This is a black mark on our humanity We are filling the sea with plastic and emptying it of fish If as human beings we are not able to do something about it it is truly a shame I am not against farming salmon in southern Chile But if this industry cannot handle it that is it is clearly not sustainable It's full it's full This then becomes fragmented it keeps fragmenting This gets introduced into the food chain It's really ugly And the same people end up eating it Carrying the ocean of garbage And the same people end up eating it People the fish organisms that are there in the supermarket in the city As the plastic breaks down it fragments and forms these microplastics They are finally the same size isn't that right zooplankton The fish are eating microplastics instead of zooplankton And from there we go eat the fish And that's how we're eating all these rich plastics that come to the beach here Rich baked plastic It tastes good Flat plastic Plastic with chimichurri With french fries or with mashed potatoes Here five kilometers away we have whales volcanoes and fjords The river we just saw When we have this it seems like a shame It seems like a shame What kind of environment what kind of planet are we leaving for our son our grandson How does this reflect on us right As humanity In some ways we also have to take care of the beauty we have here We return to the vessel with a bitter taste Understanding that human impact affects even these paradises Supposedly wild they are found far from any human activity Unfortunately there are other similar places severely affected by human negligence Clearly there are people and organizations that have not done their job well A new morning Instead of whale sounds we found animal that was very interesting and unique It's definitely worth taking some time to look a little more closely at these very special and also unknown creatures Kilometers We are in the middle of the Golfo Corcovado There is no land in sight We are in the middle of the Golfo Corcovado Look how it is A glass of milk Most of the time the weather is always bad here isn't it Generally the weather is always really bad Bad weather Terrible Background noise trip wind Those little birds here are terns They are dancing doing a little cueca on the sea And it's no ordinary swallow It's the Pincoya swallow This oceanic swallow is a new species described just a few years ago And it's probably the first time anyone has managed to record it This much is true they have very little in common with swallows These are seabirds And they are amazingly adapted to life at sea What they're doing is hitting the water And on the toes the fingers have a more or less yellow color very noticeable When they hit the water tiny organisms that are like mini crustaceans mini shrimp It must be zooplankton I imagine right Zooplankton They approach thinking it is food for them They call their attention and that's when they eat Listen to how they jump Look partner Like they were walking on water I'd say this this is very elegant right This is truly elegant This is elegant like a vale It's easy to find food isn't it Don't just show up anywhere and expect to wait Of course in general birds do not have a good sense of smell But these species which are open-ocean fish have an excellent sense of smell And that is essential for their survival for finding food As you can see you don't have to be a huge whale to feed on microorganisms Many other animals do it Although these are the only ones that dance while eating Little is known about the others Because they are so elusive it is difficult to search for them find them or track them For example it is unknown where they nest It is unknown and its population cannot be estimated either You can tell by the distribution where they are because they are visible but beyond that You can't put a collar or something like that on it the way you would on an albatross You can't put any kind of transmitter on it because it directly affects the weight Too small Look they are vocalizing Yes They vocalize very little Marinas tend to not vocalize much they don't need to Communication does not come through vocalization What impresses me are precisely these birds that have adapted to the open ocean That is this is a difficult environment Sometimes with extremely scarce food And they have developed all these strategies to find food meet and group together And they named her Pincoya of course in honor of the pincoya myth Seriously It's time to resume the search for the blue whales Just one day is enough for them to move out of sight I think all these guys hate me now Why Blow There is another breath there Blow We set out at seven in the morning and immediately started seeing the spouts We have two in front and it seems another two behind Now it's good Beautiful light calm water and relaxed whales feeding in the area These are excellent conditions We will try to record them following all established protocols Even turning off the drone's sound to avoid affecting the navigation of the cetaceans The key is to wait for the whales to surface to breathe which they do every eight to ten minutes Look here we have everything So the zodiac the drone the whale you're done What's going on guys Speak up you can concentrate I see a whale Does it look good Perfect vision And I carry it crying The whale after ten years of field study had finally had the chance to see its favorite animal from the air A drone when used properly is an important scientific tool but also a powerful instrument to excite anyone And with whales the emotion is always on the surface It's animal that is 30 meters long and weighs more than 150 tons feeding and swimming calmly near us It gives us chills Just say that only that huge tail is almost as big as a professional football goal A perfect animal capable of communicating with others of its species over incredible distances The most powerful sound of any living being A very complex animal about which we still know very little It is truly a privilege to be surrounded by blue whales We have lost count We really don't know how many there are One two three there are supplies over there there are supplies over here Line another line I think look we're already talking about things behind us too But right now we're not talking about a chance meeting anymore No luck and no chance of encountering a whale simply moving around But we are talking about whales that are engaged in a type of activity which is feeding Surely right Mira this is a feeding event clearly Then all these animals we have here are feeding on a huge aggregation of krill It is located below in this sector This particular population feeds here and then moves northward near Galápagos Hello little one These animals consume up to two tons of krill per day That means it indicates there is a really impressive amount of krill down here All of this is precisely due to what we have seen of the rivers the nutrients in the seawater e phytoplankton This is a very very beautiful chain isn't it What is the call that needs to be made to the people Because it's easy to see this from a big city in Chile or another country and find it beautiful But what kind of awareness has to remain after seeing these images According to your point of view First I think one must always know That these are endangered animals This animal was heavily hunted for many centuries And so today we are fortunate to have a lot of blue whales around But at a global level very few remain The importance of this expedition which we are also doing together with WWF is to take images both video and photo Raise awareness about this animal and its environment Generate affection generate knowledge and let you know what is here next to the coast And these animals in addition are seen throughout Chile They come from the north there are sightings in the summer people see them I hope I really hope you like it that you get excited This is a natural heritage for all Chileans It is truly a unique thing that must be protected Currently there is a proposal led by WWF Chile and also by the Blue Whale Center another Chilean NGO which proposes a network of protected areas throughout this entire region particularly the critical habitat areas where we know that every year the blue whales return to feed That is the essence of the work Susana and other scientists do in our country They study the sound and communication of these mammals To learn about their migration routes and thus be able to protect them For four years Susana used this hydrophone to record the songs of blue whales and after analyzing all those recordings She made an incredible discovery In most of Latin America we speak the Spanish language but each country also has its own accent That's why we can distinguish an Argentine from a Chilean Do whales have accents Blue whale populations around the world have their own unique songs Then the question was whether they had their own song here in Chile And indeed I found that the singing here is different from other songs in the world A Chilean dialect The Chilean dialect Unlike the typical song people imagine when they think of a whale song there is a whale song that is more vocal-like As the blue whale does it is much lower It is much lower it is a pulsing sound a pulse They are low-frequency pulses It's not easy to record these sounds Just dropping the hydrophone and getting the prize isn't enough It's years of work and recordings It has a face like I just heard the Axel Rose of the whales However the sounds we do manage to hear are an important reminder of why Susana wants to and must understand the migration routes of these whales Water is heard The boat's engine The boat 's engine there When you see the large ships passing by I will listen to all of them That's what's impressive about hearing the engines Especially for the largest ships you hear them before you see them Because sound travels much faster through water than through air In fact one might think there is less noise under the sea but in reality there is much more You had an amazing dream This is the main threat to the conservation of the blue whale at this time and in general to large whales This is a monster An oceanic monster The engines it has are brutal Then the noise it makes in the water is impressive This is the cause of oceanic noise pollution And with that animals such as blue whales cannot communicate with each other Therefore it directly affects the species' reproduction Exactly It's like being constantly in an addiction With the background noise and you have to speak very very loudly And on top of that reggaeton With reggaeton on top It really doesn't let you listen For that scientists want to create marine protected areas free of traffic from these massive vessels The noise from these huge ships is a problem but collisions and strikes with whales also happen very frequently And of course radars and sonars that confuse the developed underwater navigation of whales Often resulting in strandings Something we have seen more and more frequently I don't know if it's good or bad luck to see a dead whale Amazing Amazing impressive and also quite oloroso Never are good news to see stranded whales especially in times like the ones we are living through What could have happened to this animal We have no idea Of course there have been a series of groundings in the last year And these In the summer of 2015 around 330 whales stranded in the Gulf of Penas So far the largest whale stranding record in all of our history The causes of these mass deaths are not clear but in general the reasons range from acoustic impact that disorients her to harmful algae that poison her But there are strandings that also occur for natural causes And a stranded whale is also a source of food It plays an important role in the survival of other species It is full of fox tracks There are young foxes here And the foxes are probably feeding and there is fox feces even on top of the whales There is also feces from different types of hounds Insects it's full of flies larvae That is life as you say the life that a dead animal of this size generates is important This has been going on for about four or five months Yes it stopped in December and in fact some samples were taken It was recorded and also reported to the National Fisheries Service It is also part of a natural cycle What happens is that at this moment we have seen a series of strandings That we cannot explain In only 50% of stranding cases is the cause known They are mysterious events truly What I find interesting is that we can see several things about the animal's anatomy that one generally doesn't see The largest and widest part when it spreads out on the earth is the mouth and throat Why is that Because it's animal that filters Then what it needs most is to have plenty of capacity to swallow plenty of water and filter it Water enters open this huge mou Then close Close and these whiskers on the upper jaw with the tongue will push all the water against the whiskers And all these beards will then expel the water and all the krill or sardines or amphipods they are eating He will stay inside and there also with the tongue We clearly understand how a whale feeds Although this filtering mechanism is also used by many animals Like the leopard seal for example known for being a great penguin hunter When in fact 70% of their food is krill Completely different one of the most attractive birds is also a filter feeder And this directly affects its amazing color We carefully approached a patch of grass on the edge of this salt flat Accompanied by a CONAF park ranger We tried to approach this flamingo colony without scaring any of them We are 15 meters from the targe But it's hard to get close to the flamingos What do you like most about flamenco The color I love that color I'm amazed by that color The pink Sure because it's like a flow it's like a ticket seller And you doctor Do you know why you have that kind of color Do you work with zooplankton and phytoplankton and with microorganisms right The theory is that these animals turn pink because they eat a small crustacean What size They are very very small They are smaller than the krill that whales eat This crustacean is gray in color but when it is metabolized The animal's pink plumage is returning That is why what they are doing now is feeding How do they eat such small animals They hold their heads underwater collect a bunch of mud organisms and everything else and filter it They have a beak with some small filtering holes and with their tongue they expel all the material and keep the small crustaceans And so they swallow That's why they constantly put their heads underwater lifting them up making a certain movement and there they are with their tongues Pressing filtering It is not very different from feeding how your favorite animal eats Of course the whale also filters crustaceans The blue whale Tiny yes And that's the thing they have to be eating constantly because they feed on very very small organisms Filtering filtering filtering to meet your needs And with the tongue Push Push it out There Exactly That's what it does with the tongue it pushes That's why it's a tubal demonstration Right I've actually had to do that for school kids Oh have you done it To show them how the whale works I swallowed it This is a flamenco head which shows something very similar to what we saw with the stranded whale Behind us there is plenty of Andean flamenco And this unfortunate specimen is evidence that there was probably a hunt here We found him right here He still had some whiskers that apparently are from a fox And this is really nice meaning the filtration mechanism looks really good Here it kind of looks like a beard right Like whales Like whales in fact there are some whales like the right whale The Alaskan bowhead which also has that kind of blue lower jaw but super big like that upwards Flamenco like the whale needs to swallow water and through these small cells They are not teeth they expel the mud with their tongue retaining their food Small organisms that give it that special color Is there anything more graphic than this Then wait wait let me do it This guy brought water half a stick It's water inside but with organisms you want to keep for food Because you have to get rid of the water and you have to get rid of another material Then I don't know the tongue is pushed forward Who is that This tourism is somewhat clumsy it seems That is the beginning of flamenco of the whales Something like that very good We return to the sea We have traveled from north to south in search of whales And before finishing this beautiful adventure we want to take our last opportunity We are having an ideal day Little wind little wave and we have already been looking from above for a while watching the whales They are feeding so let's try to get close with the Zodiac to have a better experience to take back home And now we really don't get wet and we stick to the little one like the other day Now we are super comfortable Happy day We are happy look Despite all the technology we have all the equipment that is developed every day around the world We have been able to reach the Moon supposedly and yet this animal the largest that has ever existed on the planet It is animal that is still very little known The whale is almost here generally it takes eight to twelve minutes We have a draft there We have a draft there but the one that sank here is another one and we've been down here for about six minutes Then we now have to be watchful stay alert We have seen extremely unethical approaches not only with whales but with a lot of wildlife And it's not only dangerous for people but also if you do it wrong The same animal is unnecessary stress that affects its behavior and furthermore Ready How far are we here How much will that be 150 meters 150 maximum And here it's perfect because exactly the animal is moving that way we are behind Then we are not preventing any of his steps are we Well you scoundrel Of happiness Are we okay Completely Martins For moments like this I fell in love with Chile and its whales It is the responsibility of everyone to make these encounters happen Do not disappear We must take care of our seas know the wildlife that lives there and live respectfully and in balance with nature The smile I fall in love more and more each time