- yesterday
https://t.me/TopFilmUSA1
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00So what, we're just going to jump in on these things?
00:05Yep, that's the way we do it.
00:07But do we have enough people?
00:09We've got a good crew, they know what they're doing.
00:12Everything's right.
00:14Should I have renewed my life insurance?
00:17No, all you have to do is follow up.
00:21You've got your fins, your goggles.
00:25We're on the hunt for a very big and mysterious creature,
00:32one I've never seen up close and personal before.
00:36Okay, when they surface,
00:38sometimes you'll see a brown back coming out of the water,
00:41sometimes you'll see their head,
00:43sometimes you'll only see their nostrils come out,
00:45so sometimes they can be quite secretive.
00:47Alright, well, what I'm imagining is a really fat Loch Ness monster.
00:53Yeah, I suppose you could say that.
00:56But it's not Nessie we're hot on the tail of.
00:59It's a dugong.
01:01We have dugongs ten metres in front of us.
01:04Is there one?
01:06I've joined an extraordinary week-long operation
01:09to catch, study and release this unique marine mammal.
01:13Sea World 1, Sea World 1, this is Sea World 2.
01:16Let's get it.
01:18We have a go.
01:19Catch requires a boatload of humans in rugby helmets.
01:22You'll be, mate. Thank you.
01:24Three decades of experience.
01:28And a half-tonne dugong who doesn't want to go to the vet.
01:32Oh, look, it's huge.
01:35It's insane.
01:36I can see this shadow moving under the water's surface.
01:39It hasn't even taken a breath yet.
01:42The team wait for him to take at least three breaths
01:45before they enter the water
01:47to make sure he's burnt off enough energy
01:49to be safely caught.
01:53Oh, wow.
01:55Look at that.
01:56Oh, my gosh.
01:58That is wild.
02:03Oh!
02:04With a third breath, it's go time.
02:07Oh, my God.
02:11You're on it! You're on it!
02:12As soon as I get my goggles on.
02:19As the dugong tries to dive
02:21and the jumpers try to stop him,
02:23we start gathering data.
02:25Five minutes ago, I'd never even seen a dugong.
02:34Now I'm the one holding the tape measure.
02:41Who's 75?
02:44Do one more.
02:48Turns out, I didn't need life insurance.
02:52It's huge.
02:53It's powerful but not manic.
02:57And it actually feels soothed with little droplets.
03:04And it's beautiful.
03:06And its breath smells like seaweed.
03:09The team's work is far from over.
03:12Oh, my God.
03:14If you thought the hard part was catching a half-ton dugong,
03:16wait until you see them hoist him onto a boat.
03:27As a nature journalist,
03:28I spend a lot of my time observing wildlife
03:31from behind my binoculars.
03:34But not this time.
03:36That's the heat.
03:37It's huge.
03:38In this series, I'm getting up close and personal.
03:41Oh, yeah.
03:42That's fantastic.
03:44No matter how deadly the animal.
03:48And it's not just for fun.
03:51Seeing animals like this is absolutely incredible.
03:55I'll be joining scientists on location as they try to gain a deeper understanding of animals.
04:02Three, two, one.
04:04We all think we know.
04:06So adorable.
04:08And this time, it's dugongs.
04:12They look like floating potatoes.
04:16And fishermen once mistook them for mermaids.
04:21But today, groundbreaking research is shedding new light on their secretive lives.
04:28And their precarious future.
04:32I'm Dr Anne Jones.
04:33And things are about to get wild.
04:37Every year, a team of researchers and volunteers from the University of Queensland
04:51and the SeaWorld Foundation
04:53Hello.
04:55Join forces to conduct a very special survey.
04:58All right.
04:59Glad I wore pants so you'd burn your biscuits on these seats.
05:02And it all starts in the sky.
05:08Go find some dugongs?
05:09Let's do it, yeah.
05:11Marine researcher Dr Merrick Eakins has spent the last 15 years volunteering as part of the world's largest dugong health study.
05:20Oh, beautiful day for it.
05:21Oh, wow.
05:22Beautiful.
05:23But to study a dugong, first, you have to find it.
05:36We're flying off the coast of Queensland, around 30 kilometres east of Brisbane.
05:43Make a look out there.
05:44That is Quandamooka country.
05:47This is what you might know as Moreton Bay.
05:50Down there is a marine park that's about 3,400 kilometres square.
05:58But right underneath me are about 1,000 dugongs, apparently.
06:03A thousand of them live here, right next to the city.
06:07Dugongs are the most common marine mammal in northern Australia and spend up to 20 hours a day grazing in shallow waters.
06:19So you'd think that'd be easy to spot.
06:22What sort of thing am I looking for?
06:24We're looking for the dugong shape, sort of that bullet shape with the big tail.
06:29And sometimes what you can also do is you'll find a feeding trail where they've stirred up the mud and the seagrass.
06:35And hopefully we'll find a big herd of them, that's better.
06:38But we might see some solitaries first.
06:41I feel like we're searching for a contact lens in a swim pool.
06:46Well, we know where the seagrass beds are.
06:48So we're going to...
06:49Previously.
06:50So we'll just go straight for those ones.
06:52And then we'll search around, usually near the edge of the sandbag.
06:58Oh, right.
07:03Oh, look at that.
07:04Oh, look at that.
07:05We've got a herd here.
07:06Oh, that's fantastic.
07:07See that, Anne?
07:08Yeah.
07:091, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 individuals down there.
07:13That is wild.
07:14Mark this one.
07:16So we can come back.
07:17Oh, look.
07:18There's a car.
07:19Oh, my goodness.
07:20They're absolutely shaped like those fish-shaped biscuits.
07:26That's exactly what they look like from above.
07:29See, there's another.
07:31Oh, my goodness.
07:32There's like 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 maybe.
07:37About 40 in that.
07:38And there's another herd of about 20 next to it.
07:41Oh, you can see their pathways.
07:43They look like little snail trails.
07:45Yeah, that's it.
07:46So what they do is they sort of dive down and go along the bottom.
07:49Do a sort of lawn mower type run.
07:52See how rotund that one was.
07:54It just came up for a breath.
07:55Yeah, the big round one's probably a female.
07:57Probably a pregnant female then.
07:59It is so amazing.
08:01Why are we spotting them from the air?
08:03What's going to happen from here?
08:04Oh, from here, we've marked the location.
08:07And so then we can get in the boat and go to the GPS point and then try and find the herd.
08:11So what, they'll stay there?
08:12They tend to stay roughly in the same spot for a couple of weeks.
08:16The population here may seem healthy, but dugongs are in global decline.
08:24To find out more about what's been done to help them, I'm meeting lead investigator on the project, Dr. Janet Lanyon.
08:30So what number season is this for you then?
08:3416.
08:35It's been going for a while now.
08:37Janet has been studying dugongs for over 40 years, and for almost half that time, she's been pioneering a way of checking the health of their population here.
08:46Yeah, it's a pretty full-on program.
08:50It's an intensive week for the team, who are hoping to catch at least 20 dugongs and take over 200 samples and measurements from each one.
09:02Hi everyone, this is Anne.
09:04Oh, this is nerve-wracking.
09:07There's so many people.
09:09Hello.
09:10Hi, I'm Anne.
09:11I'm Chloe.
09:12To prepare the kit for the boats, three of the team, Lockie, Helen and Chloe, show me the methods behind this madness.
09:20Wow.
09:21Okay, this is looking medical.
09:22Yes, yep.
09:23So this is our two blood boxes.
09:25So taking blood on deck of the dugong is one of the main sampling types that we do.
09:29So what we've got in these bags are just all the blood tubes.
09:32There's quite a lot of tubes that we use.
09:35So that's for one animal?
09:36For one animal per bag.
09:37That's a lot of blood.
09:38So then it's just sort of a grab-and-go for each animal.
09:40When Janet's doing the sticking.
09:43And what sort of thing are you trying to find out with the blood?
09:45Oh, all sorts of things.
09:46So basic haematology, looking at red blood cell counts and white blood cells and that sort of thing.
09:53We can look at hormones.
09:54We also look at stress hormones too, so getting an insight into their stress physiology.
09:59Some of the samples also tell us about diseases and heavy metals and various contaminants.
10:05Is it possible to take the bloods when you're in the water?
10:09Oh, it's really difficult.
10:11We tried that in the early years and we were unsuccessful in getting decent volumes of blood that were uncontaminated by sea water.
10:19Because you have to hold the pectoral thing out of the water.
10:22So the bloods are critical and that's one of the main reasons that we take the animals out of water.
10:27See you out there.
10:28See you there.
10:29The team are always looking for ways to reduce the more invasive methods of sampling.
10:34Hello.
10:35Although some of the alternatives require a bit of Aussie ingenuity.
10:39Are you a Frisbee fan?
10:40The Frisbees, yes.
10:42The Frisbees are really important in this program because they're a urine and a faecal collector.
10:48And so they get placed under the dugong while it's on board the boat.
10:53What sort of thing are you going to find out from the scat or the urine?
10:57Hormones.
10:58You can find out if a dugong is pregnant.
11:00And we've got this Frisbee covered in alfoil to make sure that there's no plastic contamination.
11:06And that's mainly because we can look for microplastics in the faeces.
11:10It's incredible, isn't it?
11:11Like dugongs, they're so incredibly secretive and so many of their secrets are in their poos.
11:16Yes, that's right.
11:18That's right.
11:19Before we head out on the boat, long-time volunteer Lockie has another job in mind for me.
11:25We've got a few different types of swabs here.
11:27They've got a really thick kind of tear layer, a mucusy tear layer.
11:31So we're going to try and get a little sample of that.
11:33We're going to look at getting some samples in the mouth and the tongue as well.
11:37Okay.
11:38But Janet, why are you doing this when you've got the bloods?
11:40What is this going to tell you that's different?
11:42We're always interested in finding alternatives to blood sampling.
11:45So if we can sample saliva or the tears of the animals and we can still pick up hormones
11:51or other markers of health, that's preferable.
11:54Okay.
11:55All right.
11:56Well, can I carry something to take out to the boat?
11:58That'd be fantastic, yeah.
11:59If you want to carry this one out, maybe.
12:01I'll see you soon, Janet.
12:02Okay.
12:03All right.
12:04I feel like I got the easy job.
12:05With the volunteers in town for just a week and a shopping list of 20 dugongs, we're back
12:17out on the boat with a floating dugong clinic on our heels.
12:21And it's not long before we find our next customer.
12:33The jump team maneuver the dugong onto a stretcher slung between two boats, which they will use
12:40to transport the dugong towards the larger boat for his checkup.
12:55The dugong is settled, having left a trail of exhausted humans in its wake.
13:02This is wild.
13:03How'd you go?
13:04Good.
13:05How's it going?
13:06I...
13:07I...
13:08Yeah.
13:09That's amazing.
13:10You did well.
13:11It's so strong.
13:12Yeah, that's a big male, actually.
13:15Ah!
13:16Everybody on board?
13:19Um, nearly.
13:20Okay.
13:21So, that's what we do over and over.
13:25Merrick travels in the stretcher to keep a close eye on our new friend.
13:37All right, it's a bit too long.
13:39I think, collectively, we're checking it.
13:43Oh, yeah.
13:44We're getting washed out of the boat.
13:45We're both really pumped and really high adrenaline at the same time.
13:48Not getting past me.
13:50No, no, I mean...
13:53On board the floating clinic, SeaWorld One, the team are standing by as they prepare to
14:00lift this giant sea creature onto their back deck.
14:06Oh, I never get sick of that spell.
14:19An adult dugong weighs around 500 kilograms and measures about three metres in length.
14:28So it takes a big winch and a big team to hoik this fella onto the boat.
14:36It's huge.
14:38It is so big.
14:41And it looks incredibly vulnerable when its soft nostrils come up and take a breath.
14:46It just, yeah, it's amazing.
14:50You know when you get a delicious toddler and they've got like little rolls?
14:56That's how tubby it is.
14:57It's just gorgeous.
15:00This is the first time the dugong has been out of the water, ever.
15:05So to encourage him to keep breathing, Janet pours water over his nostrils which mimics
15:09the sensation of surfacing for breath.
15:12Have we had a breath?
15:14Yeah.
15:16Once Janet is happy, the team aim to complete the health assessment in 30 minutes.
15:22It's a well-oiled machine.
15:28Keeping the dugong safe is paramount.
15:35As he is measured and photographed from nostril to tail fluke.
15:46Janet takes the blood samples from vessels deep under the dugong's pectoral fin.
15:59Are you ready for us to come in for swabs?
16:01Yep.
16:02And I gear up to help Lockie take the swabs.
16:05Just got a little checklist here.
16:08Everything we need to do the swabs on the animal.
16:10Yeah.
16:11So up the front end.
16:12And so...
16:13So it's all pre-labelled.
16:14We're ready.
16:15Exactly right.
16:16Yep.
16:17Tongue one, two, three, and four.
16:18Yep.
16:19Perfect.
16:20Yep.
16:21Tier right.
16:22Tier left.
16:23Yep.
16:24Perfect.
16:25Under strict supervision, I start collecting dugong tears.
16:28Great.
16:29That's how we can see that little teal layer there.
16:31So if you just pull it off right, yep, that's perfect.
16:34Yeah, it comes out like a bit of snot out of your nose.
16:36Exactly right.
16:37Yeah, that's great.
16:38So what you can do, just cap that one.
16:40Cap that one.
16:41And that's how we get the tears.
16:43Thank you for letting me look at your eyes, darling.
16:45We've got two lips.
16:46Yeah.
16:47Lockie also collects samples from the nostrils and saliva from inside the mouth.
16:52So it can be a little tricky to go up and access in the mouth and on the tongue.
16:56These samples will help piece together a picture of this dugong's health, along with what and
17:02where he's been grazing.
17:04You know, that's how we learn about this population here in Moong Bay.
17:07It also helps us get a baseline for these guys as well.
17:10So what a healthy dugong looks like compared to what a, you know, maybe a compromised dugong
17:14looks like.
17:15So it's all really good data to compare to all the other herd members as well.
17:19And with the advancing technology, you know, one day down the track, we might be able
17:22to use these same samples a different way.
17:24It's like a body.
17:26It excretes information.
17:27It's all biological information, right?
17:29How long have we been out of water?
17:32How long has it been, Helen?
17:3525%.
17:36So we're just about done, aren't we?
17:38Yep.
17:43With the sampling complete, all hands are on deck to return this dugong safely back
17:48to his herd.
18:16The samples that Janet's team collects are revealing that the dugongs rarely stray from
18:22home waters and have a very specific diet.
18:30So can the answer to their conservation be found on their dinner plate?
18:37The next morning, heavy rain and high winds makes it unsafe to catch dugongs.
18:52So, with the boats stuck in the harbour, I take advantage of the low tide to roam around
18:58their canteen.
19:04Is that a cone snail?
19:07Are you a cone snail?
19:10No, you're not.
19:11You're a hermit crab.
19:15Oh, what a cutie.
19:16I've been told that out here on the mudflats are a whole heap of seagrasses and that's
19:28what the dugongs eat.
19:29Whoa!
19:43It's really short.
19:46Really short, like someone's been over it with a mower.
19:48There's a fair amount of what I think is seagrass here, but it's all a bit underwhelming.
20:01For some reason I thought that it would have to be really big plants because it's a really
20:05big animal.
20:08These plants are tiny.
20:10Like tiny, tiny.
20:12Less than a centimetre tall, some of them.
20:16Now how much of this seagrass would a dugong have to eat?
20:22Like they weigh up to 500 kilograms, right?
20:25They'd have to eat so much of this grass.
20:31It doesn't seem very effective.
20:32All this talk of eating has made me hungry.
20:38I'm off to find cake.
20:40And answers.
20:45I'm sort of glad we're not out on the boat today.
20:47That would be a bit miserable.
20:48Oh, I know.
20:54Great, thank you very much.
20:55Thank you, thank you.
20:57I went out for a walk on the mudflats.
20:58And in my head I had thought that seagrass meadows would be like waving, like almost like tiny, you know, forests.
21:06It doesn't seem logical to me that an animal that big could rely on plants this big.
21:12I know. Yeah.
21:13So although it looks like there's not much seagrass there, most of the seagrass plant is underneath the sediment.
21:18So there are underground stems or rhizomes and also roots.
21:22And that stuff is really good food for dugongs.
21:25So it's full of sugars and starch and all sorts of goodies.
21:30So the leaves are really important for the dugongs because they're high in protein, but you've got all the goodness in the rest of the plant too.
21:37So do they sort of like hoover that up like a linguine?
21:39Like how do they actually get that into their mouth?
21:41Okay, so they feed in different ways depending on what they're feeding on.
21:44So for seagrasses that have upright shoots, they'll actually grasp those and pull them.
21:50And pull it out?
21:51Yep.
21:52And then the other seagrasses, they excavate.
21:54So for the really small stuff, they'll actually dig it up.
21:57These hoover-bulldozer hybrids have poor eyesight and among the smallest teeth of any mammal relative to their size.
22:06But they have such sensitive muzzle bristles that they can detect even the tiniest scrap of seagrass.
22:14So how much of that grass do they take in per day?
22:17Oh, huge amount.
22:18If they feed on that little round halophila species that they really like, they may need about 65 kilos fresh weight per day in order to survive.
22:27And then if they breathe, they need even more.
22:31So when a dugong comes along and eats 65 kilograms of grass in one day, how does the grass respond?
22:39Yeah, well, remember that they're not taking 100% of the seagrass in the feeding trails.
22:44So there are remnants left and those rhizomes are able to send up new shoots.
22:48And so the way the seagrass responds is fairly rapid.
22:52But also because they grow fast, they don't lay down that high level of fibre.
22:58And so it ends up being perfect food for dugongs.
23:00So they just keep regenerating it.
23:02So could you call them then an ecosystem engineer?
23:04Yeah, absolutely.
23:06This ecosystem is not just critical for dugongs.
23:09The seagrass is a valuable carbon store.
23:13And the beds act like an anchor, stabilising sediment along the coast and dampening wave action.
23:20But the seagrass is fragile.
23:23Here in Northern Australia, some of the biggest threats to seagrasses at the moment are these extreme climate events that we're having.
23:29We know that with every flood effect or cyclone, there's direct damage to seagrass beds.
23:34Do you see that reflected in the dugongs?
23:37We do.
23:38And in fact, every time there's been a major rainfall event that's led to coastal flooding, they're having fewer carbs.
23:44And after some of the really major cyclones and floods, there have been zero carbs in the population.
23:50So their growth rates, their reproductive rates, how healthy they are, everything, their whole life history is determined by their food.
23:58Janet's work has revealed a really important secret that yes, there are dugongs out there in the bay that are healthy, but that it might not always be like that.
24:09Because at this stage, we don't actually know how many extreme weather events the seagrass meadows are going to be able to absorb.
24:17And along with that, it means that the dugongs' future remains uncertain.
24:27It's my final day in Moreton Bay, and I'm heading out on one last trip with the team.
24:35Hey, can you guys get a big female this time, please?
24:40Dugongs can live for up to 70 years and are slow breeders, so with the population in decline, scientists need to know more about how they reproduce.
24:52You've got one?
24:53Oh, wow.
24:55That can only happen if they find a female.
24:59Janet has assessed over 250 dugongs out of the water.
25:18You happy to go on three?
25:19OK, three, two.
25:21And while launching yourself at a dugong seems completely bonkers, it's been shown to have minimal impact on their stress physiology.
25:33Not the case for the jump team, who are put through the wringer by this powerful female.
25:46The team measure her substantial girth, before sliding her onto the taxi stretcher.
25:55My main priority remains not drowning.
26:05I think this is what kids are talking about when they say they want to be a marine scientist.
26:15I'm pretty sure that this is exactly what they're talking about.
26:20This is the good part of it, but most of the time you just cull them in.
26:24OK, this is the big female.
26:31Preparations are made as the team get this female over onto the boat.
26:39And everyone gets to work as the 30-minute countdown begins.
26:43Right, right.
26:4468.
26:4568.
26:46Taking measurements.
26:47Yep, yep, staying on 68.
26:49Taking bloods.
26:50And placing an identification tag on her tail fluke.
26:55Can we have some hands too?
26:59We're just going to roll slightly towards Mary.
27:01Ready when you are.
27:03One of the most useful tools on the boat is an ultrasound machine.
27:08Vet, Claire Madden, uses it to take measurements such as blubber thickness.
27:14But it's also used to check whether a female dugong has a calf on board.
27:19And Claire confirms that this one is pregnant.
27:23So with the ultrasound we were able to see the fetus.
27:26Oh my goodness.
27:27Yeah.
27:28That is amazing.
27:29So when we measured her in water she had all the dimensions of a pregnant animal.
27:33So that gives us a clue and then we come up through the ultrasound.
27:36And then the other thing we do is from the poo sample we then measure progesterone and that will confirm the pregnancy test.
27:42The pregnancy test.
27:43Yeah.
27:44But we've seen the fetus so we know.
27:45Ah!
27:47That is so exciting.
27:49A baby dugong!
27:50Dugongs breed once every three to five years and carry a single calf which they may nurse until they have another.
28:01It's a huge energetic investment and for a home body that relies on a vanishingly specific diet, protecting the seagrass may be the key to protecting the dugong.
28:18This population of dugongs is incredibly special, not least of all because it is the most studied population in all of the world.
28:29More than that, the studies that are going on here right now, the techniques that they're developing are going to be key to the conservation of the dugong worldwide.
28:39They're going to be able to apply this Australian research to wherever the dugongs live.
28:44And hopefully that means that we're going to have many, many more decades to find out the secret lives of dugongs.
28:55Next time.
28:56It's the Sunda Pangolin.
28:58Look at that.
28:59Oh, yeah, yeah.
29:00The camera trap just got triggered.
29:09Molly Wall показ credentials.
29:10Yeah.
29:11You're right.
29:12And put.
29:13It's a look at the Bernabeu.
29:14The county gius mles.
29:15You have a built around use of qua-shop,elijkerties are of supplement courses.
29:19It's a book that's been of yours.
29:21Have you ever been a brought over in the Навamente?
29:22We're for six months of time.
29:23The bruising is enjoyed the world.
29:24It is focused on thecessors.
29:25We've been really focused on themas.
29:26It's discovered yes.
29:27It's true that you're out on some point.
29:28Or are73 commentingaccinwards.
29:29You're welcome from there and wonder if you're there.
29:32...
Recommended
40:22
|
Up next
46:16
1:11:30
47:09
41:06
1:02:23
27:42
28:43
47:55
41:28
36:51
1:08:01
1:12:22
35:59
31:08
33:59