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Crossbows and eerie silences – following Antarctic whales for climate change clues

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2 days ago

By Victoria GillScience correspondent, BBC News@vic_gill • Kate StephensSenior science producer

Inside the bodies of humpback whales are clues about how climate change is transforming Antarctica. The BBC’s Victoria Gill and Kate Stephens crossed the Southern Ocean, with the researchers, on a mission to follow and study the giant whales of this remote, frozen wilderness.

At 03:00 in the morning there is an almighty crash. Every drawer in our cabin is flung open and contents hurled against the wall. We hit a 12-metre wave.

I’m not a seafarer; this is alarming, but apparently not unusual on the Drake Passage – the stretch of the notoriously rough Southern Ocean we are on. We’re aboard a 200-passenger tourist ship, with a team of wildlife scientists, on our way to the Antarctic Peninsula.

One of the researchers, Dr Natalia Botero-Acosta has an arresting piece of equipment in her hand luggage – a custom-made crossbow. “It’s not a weapon,” she explains. “It’s a scientific tool we use to collect whale skin and blubber samples.”

Using the crossbow and a drone, the researchers will carry out up-close health checks on every humpback whale they can find, to work out if these massive mammals are getting enough to eat.

Victoria Gill

It is an important question – not just for mighty, 40-tonne humpbacks that travel thousands of kilometres to gorge themselves in the cold seas – but for the health of the ocean and our planet.

In the rich, freezing seas off the peninsula, penguins, seals and many whales feed on Antarctic krill. <!–

The post Crossbows and eerie silences – following Antarctic whales for climate change clues first appeared on EnviroLink Network.


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