Season 5 Episode 3 Transcript Antarctica’s Apex Predators

[Let me take you on a journey. To the coldest place on earth, and its last and greatest wilderness. On a voyage to Antarctica…]

Hello and welcome to A Voyage to Antarctica, brought to you by the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust. I’m Alok Jha. 

Today, Dr Leigh Hickmott will be taking us up close and personal with Antarctica’s most fearsome resident – the killer whale, which Leigh calls ‘the apex and most adept predator on the planet’. 

 

Leigh is a research scientist, zoologist and wildlife presenter, who has co-authored and contributed to numerous scientific research papers. His killer whale research is featured in BBC documentaries including Expedition Killer Whale and Frozen Planet II. He has also acted as an ‘on location’ scientific adviser during the filming of natural history series including: Emmy award winning ‘Animals Up Close – Killer Waves’, ‘Our Oceans’ on Netflix, ‘Sentient’ on Disney+ 

Leigh’s Antarctic research journey began in 2017 and he has returned each austral summer since. His research includes studies of three ‘ecotypes’ of killer whale found along the Peninsula’s coast, with his core focus on ‘pack ice’ killer whales.

Alok: let's get something out of the way first, Lee. Orcas or killer whales? Which is it? What are we going to use today and what's the difference anyway? 

 

Leigh: yes, it's a great question.

 

Either are interchangeable, that's absolutely fine. Some people like to use the term orca. In my training and upbringing as a zoologist, I was always taught and used the term killer whale and so that is what I tend to continue to do. 

 

Alok: Well, killer whales or orcas undoubtedly are some incredible animals and I'm really excited to talk to you about them. They might well look the same to people, but can you just describe for me.

 

The different ecotypes. What is an ecotype and what does it mean in the context of a killer whale? 

 

Leigh: So the term ecotype refers to the different forms of killer whales that we find. They can be considered different species and or subspecies. Currently, we identify one species or sinus orca, but there's clear evidence of what we call sympatric population.

 

So in the same areas, different types of killer whales behaving in very different ways to one another. They can differ in their size, in their diet, in their behavior, in their vocal repertoire, and importantly, in their genetics. And so, actually, when colleagues have collected samples from these different, what we call, ecotypes of killer whales, and analyzed their genetics, we're able to see that there's been divergence between these different forms over many thousands of years.

 

up to 700, 000 years. So for some of them, it's only the trained eye that can tell them apart. 

 

Alok: So basically this is almost different species of animal, but not quite. What is it about them that would make them different?

 

Leigh: if we take Antarctic killer whales, as an example, we currently recognize five different ecotypes that live in the Southern Ocean, and they are termed type A, which is a large black and white form, very much like the typical killer whale people would consider and think of.

 

Then we've got two B forms, and they're B1, which is the Pack Ice Killer Whale, and B2, a smaller form that looks quite similar to the Pack Ice Killer Whale. A type C, that predominantly lives in the Ross Sea, they're the smallest form. And then another form called Type D, which really we sort of consider as a sub Antarctic form, and the best place to try and see them is off Cape Horn.

 

And for the forms that we typically see around the Antarctic Peninsula, which is the region of Antarctica where I work, so that sort of leg that comes up from the continent up towards South America, we have three forms. Type A, Type B1, the Pack Ice Killer Whales and B2s.

 

And they look different to one another. They eat different food, even though they live in the same body of water. They can pass by one another. In a narrow channel, for example, maybe that's only tens or hundreds of meters wide, and they have nothing to do with one another. They don't interact, as our understanding is they don't share any of the same vocal behavior.

 

So they conduct very, very separate lives, but within the same ecosystem. So those type A killer whales, they are more open water and are less associated with the ice down in Antarctica, and they specialize in eating minky whales and elephant seals. 

 

Then we've got the pack ice killer whales, and they're probably the most robust form.They're not necessarily the largest, their females are probably the largest, just over six and a half meters, but the male type A's are the largest that we've recorded in Antarctica. And pack ice killer whales, specialise in eating seals, and they typically do that with this specialised foraging technique that we call wave washing.

 

Alok: Let’s talk about pack ice killer whales. You've mentioned them a few times and they're your topic of study. You've told us a little bit about how they behave. Give us your sort of pen portrait of these creatures and why you find them so fascinating and why you've dedicated so much of your time to them. 

 

Leigh: So I was drawn to them initially by seeing Frozen Planet.  And my colleagues, John Durbin and Bob Pittman, were the scientists involved in helping capture that footage, and it was seeing the wave washing action there that was a real draw for myself, and in collaborating with the team.

 

John and Bob and our colleague Holly Fernbeck, that's how I first began working with Antarctic Killer Whales.

 

 And interestingly for Packice's Killer Whales, their story for us historically actually begins with Shackleton and Scott. And so that's really interesting for us to know that there are these historic records of people encountering these Killer Whales.

 

Shackleton referred to seeing killer whales in Antarctica. But what was most fascinating, or is very fascinating, was that a chap called Herbert Ponting, who was the photographer and cinematographer on Captain Scott's expedition, he had a very close encounter with pack ice killer whales. And we can be pretty clear that they were pack ice killer whales and not one of the other forms, based on the really clear notes that Captain Scott kept in his diaries.

 

And 5th of January, 1911, they had this encounter with pack ice killer whales, they're on the Terra Nova expedition, and people were out on the ice, they were using the pack ice there and the fast ice around it to keep some of their equipment safe and the dogs are out on the ice.

 

And they saw some killer whales come to the area and the killer whales were spy hopping which is when they raise their body out of the water exposing their eyes and they can raise themselves up to two and a half meters out of the water so it's pretty imposing when they do spy hop next to you or next to some ice.

 

The killer whales were spy hopping the sled dogs. Scott mentioned this to Ponting, he shot over to the area close to the ice edge. ready to take some photographs or some film and In so doing, the killer whales then created what we would now consider a subsurface wave. So it's a wave that they create under the ice to fracture the ice from below.

 

So they can have a good look at whatever it is that's on the ice. So for them, their prey is on the ice. They want to get it into the water in order to eat it.

 

But first they need to have a good look at what it is to see if they want to eat said thing. And they're inquisitive creatures, so They would have seen that there was something on the ice. They have good eyesight in and out of the water. When they fracture the ice and it starts to break apart, then they blow bubbles, which then pushes the ice apart, and then they spy hop up through that ice so they can have a really good look to see what said thing is.

 

Now in this case, it was the dogs and Ponting, and perhaps fortunately for them, although they didn't know it at the time, so their accounts were probably with a level of fear and trepidation about what was happening, as it would be for us if it was happening to us. But the killer whales wanted to see what it was, and they're really creatures of habit, so in seeing that it wasn't their typical prey, they then moved off.

 

But, Scott found it really fascinating, so much so that he was impressed by how, and makes reference to how they worked in unison with what he terms a singular intelligence. And goes on to mention that During their future exploits, they'll treat the killer whales and the killer whales intelligence with a lot of respect.

 

So, you know, that one encounter really showed Scott just the power of these animals and their intelligence. And ironically. You know, that was back in 1911, and it wasn't until pretty much a hundred years later, colleagues were able to document that behavior well in Frozen Planet. 

 

MUSIC BREAK 1

Alok: So, you know, if you're in Antarctica and you see one of these pack ice killer whales, are they obvious from the way they look?

 

And in terms of hunting and this sort of cooperating behavior that you've talked about, you've talked about the spy hopping. How impressive are they as animals that can get the things they need when they want them? 

 

Leigh: They are incredibly adept predators. In fact, in terms of mammalian predators, when they're hunting Weddell seals, they're probably the most successful large mammalian predator on the planet.

 

We think of African hunting dogs or painted dogs as being very successful with hunt successes of over 80, maybe up to 90%. Pack Ice Killer Whales, when they find a Weddell seal, it's certainly over 90 percent success rate. They are very, very efficient at, when they find a Weddell seal, making that seal.

 

Their meal. 

 

Alok: Yeah, I mean you can argue that I suppose they're much bigger than those things and better swimmers probably But there's something more going on isn't there that allows them to have such a successful kill rate? 

 

Leigh: Yeah, absolutely. And that's their culture. They're long lived animals The females are having a lifespan pretty much as similar as our own so possibly living into their 80s 90s males About half that.

 

Killer whales are what we call sexually dimorphic, so they appear different. Males are much larger than adult females. They have this large dorsal fin that's In the sort of six foot approaching two meter length, and same with their pectoral flippers, they have those grown as the males mature, and it's these tight family units that the killer whales live in, where they're passing on information to their offspring, long lived.

 

So when they experience and have knowledge of things, they then take a lot of time, whilst they're raising their offspring, to teach their calves how to undertake these different approaches. Give them the opportunity to watch, learn, repeat, follow mum, and sometimes these killer whales groups are in family units or pods or matrilines, so there may be one adult female and her adult daughters or sisters, for example.

 

Pack Ice killer whales are typically in quite small groups. In the sort of 7 to 11 animal range. And you asked, can you tell them apart? If you were to witness the wave washing behavior or the spy hopping whilst they're foraging. So whilst they're foraging, they spread out through the pack ice, and they spy hop as they swim along, looking onto the ice to see if they can find seals.

 

When they do, then there's likely some sort of contact call that happens that brings the other pod members to that particular ice flow.

 

Leigh: And what's so fascinating for us when we're working there that we're watching their behavior as they're solving the problems, we're able to witness that ourselves and see how their problem solving as different problems come up.

 

So, for example, if they find a seal that's on a large piece of ice, then the first thing they want to do is get closer to that seal to tell what type of seal it is. So the way they do that is to create a subsurface wave that will fracture the ice, then blow bubbles to push that ice apart.spy hop next to it., if it's a seal they want to go for, then they may push that piece of ice out into open water, where then they can coordinate themselves to swim and wave wash, which is when they approach the piece of ice, they turn on their sides, they raise their bodies closer to the surface, and that creates a wave that then  breaks pretty much straight on to the seal, so they're very, very targeted in what they're doing, and that wave is in the region of four to five feet high.

 

Alok: This is different to the other wave they're creating from underneath the ice floe to break it. 

 

Leigh: Absolutely. So, I mean, the way I consider it is that they're using water as a tool. You know, we talk about tool use in some animals and in some mammals and in some birds. Difficult when we think about it to do with killer whales because they're in this watery environment, but they're absolutely manipulating their environment.

 

They're manipulating the water to use as a tool to conduct what they want to do, which is to get that seal into the water. So, in way of washing the seal, they'll then wash the seal into the water. If it gets back out, or they allow it to get back out, because sometimes they want to tire the seal out before they end up consuming it, or dispatching it and consuming it, they'll then, for example, tip the piece of ice.

 

They may sometimes bite pieces of ice off. And then also if the seal goes under the ice, they'll go down and blow bubbles to try and disorient it and push it out so it'll come back up to the surface and onto the ice so they can wave wash it again. 

 

Alok: Why are they doing it multiple times? Why are they trying to do that?

 

Leigh: It's most likely a mixture of things, so partly to have the seal tire so that when it does come to the point where they want to kill it, it's in a physical state that's not going to put up as much of a fight to them. The other part of that is that we've got the learning, so the transmission of knowledge from the adults to the offspring.

 

So by repeatedly allowing the seal to get back out and repeating the wave washing process, it's That's giving the other POP members the opportunity to hone their skill and learn from the adults in the group.

 

And as a hunt progresses, sometimes some of the other adults might start to move off and start foraging elsewhere, but What's not uncommon, particularly when there are young calves around, is for the adults to remain there. And what they want to do is get hold of the hind flippers of the seal. They're looking to avoid the teeth and to a lesser extent the claws on the fore flippers, but certainly the teeth of the seal.

 

So once they do have the seal in the water, which may take a number of waves, then one killer whale will move in and flank the seal and as it turns, Towards that killer whale, it flips its hind flippers around and there'll be another killer whale waiting immediately there to try and take hold of those hind flippers.

 

And then we see it repeat. And then eventually at some point, one of them will get hold of those hind flippers and pull the seal down, again, starting the drowning process or tiring the seal out. And then again, that may be repeated. Once they have done that and they actually choose to dispatch the seal, then what's also really amazing about these animals is that As they don't have any thumbs, like us, that they're actually able to butcher the animal.

 

And so they'll often peel the seal, so they'll skin the seal, and they'll leave the pelt of the seal and eat the body and the internal organs of the seal inside. It's really fascinating, and to be able to be there and watch that problem solving happening is really amazing. 

 

Alok: Lee, it occurs to me that we should have put a trigger warning for people who like seals into this description of how brutal killer whales are when it comes to sort of tiring these poor things out and then Just sort of ripping them apart as a team. It's something else, isn't it? 

 

Leigh: It is phenomenal behavior, and I suppose the way we can try to soften it is if we think of the seals as sausages in this instance.

 

Alok: Sausages! 

 

Leigh: So the killer whales are accessing their sausage prey that's on the ice and, yes, taking advantage of this. Prey resource, which you know, which is amazing because they're taking a prey that is essentially is out of the water and out of their habitat. 

 

Alok: They deserve that name, killer whale, don't they?

 

Leigh: They do, absolutely. In a way it's giving respect to what it is that they do so incredibly efficiently. It's what they have evolved to do.

 

Alok: The descriptions you've given about the Pack ice Killer Whales, this is something you've filmed for a series of the BBC's Frozen Planet 2.

 

So, the one that followed the one that got you into Killer Whales in the first place, which must have been quite an interesting experience, to sort of get involved in that, and to film it all. And you talked about wave washing, and you filmed the wave washing, which became something quite popular on the internet.

 

People loved seeing these pictures and learning about them. First of all, how did you get involved with Frozen Planet 2? And then what was that experience like of filming and also doing science at the same time while you're doing that? 

 

Leigh: where I was very fortunate that I started working in Antarctica in 2017, I was invited to join a US led research team with my colleagues Holly Fernback and John Durbin and It was really in collaborating with them that I had the opportunity to become part of the Frozen Planet 2 team, as John had been involved in the first Frozen Planet series, and only a handful of us are able to identify this ecotype in the field when it's free swimming, let's say.

 

So I had the chance to go down, and what was amazing for myself is that we were able to spend a long period of time in one study site and so repeatedly find and follow and track and really document some particular pods and that gave a lot more insight into their success rate, the types of seals that they are hunting, what their foraging preferences were, who's leading the hunts and do different pods.

 

have different preferences for different types of seals and are their success rates different? All those sort of subtle questions. 

 

So when I've been able to go before, we're partnering with the cruise ship industry to get ourselves down there. And, well, that's a really great way to access lots of the peninsula because the ship is moving daily to different sites.

 

What that doesn't allow you to do is stay in one place. and do some very focused research to try and answer some of the perhaps more subtle questions.

 

So, Partnering with them, the first thing is that you end up going on a much smaller vessel to Antarctica than a cruise ship. It's in the region of 8,000 just over nautical mile trip, so from RAF Bryce Norton to Ascension Island. That's about eight hours on the plane, two hours on the tarmac there, then another 12 hours on to the Falkland Islands.

 

And then make passage in a 20 meter sailboat across the Drake, which, in a cruise ship, two days for us in that sort of five day region. And where we're heading is right down the peninsula to Adelaide Island and Marguerite Bay.

 

Alok: And just not to skip over Drake Passage for listeners, I mean, this is not a forgiving sailboat cruise across the Mediterranean Sea, is it? This is famously one of the most horrendous journeys that even the explorers of a hundred years ago, who were probably hard as nails, feared. 

 

Leigh: Exactly. I think the best way I can describe it is the thought of putting yourself in a washing machine for five days and just toughing it out.

 

Alok: But just going back to the expedition then. So you made this journey, you watch these killer whales in action. And discovered this wavewashing behavior. Was it something that you knew happened already and just caught on film or was it something that sort of surprised you in the way that they were behaving?

 

I mean, how much did you learn about the behaviors of these pack eyes killer whales in that time filming that program? 

 

Leigh: it was known and documented and that first documentation happened in 2009 other than what had been sort of anecdotally seen prior to that. But for us, it was to then go and take. New tools.

 

So gyro stabilize cameras and drones to bring the sort of intimacy and the drama of the killer whale pods and their hunting techniques to audiences in a different way. And ironically for us. You know, bringing things like drones and those camera systems into our research has transformed what we can find out about the animals as well.

 

particularly when we're looking at how coordinated the hunts are, who's taking up what position when they're wave washing, which animals are involved, which animals hang back, 

which when I'm there as a scientist, I'm there. With my binoculars, trying to find the killer whales for the film team. I'm there with my camera ready to document the individuals. 

 

I've got my radio so that I'm coordinating the filming teams as well as liaising with the boat captain because it may be that we see the killer whales a mile or more ahead of us. through lots of pack and brash ice that we've got to then try and navigate our way through. So it's very slow progress for us and yet very rapid the killer whales breeze through it no problem at all.

 

And you know one of the tricks for us is that if we see a Weddell seal on ice say a couple of miles ahead. So part of the thing is learning what these different seals like just from their silhouette. So if you see a Weddell seal on ice, you know that the killer whales, if they're foraging, are very likely at some point to find that seal.

 

So you want to try and get yourself To that spot so that you're ready to document the behavior and invariably the killer whales make it there. The question is whether you've also made it there yourself. 

 

Alok: When you're doing this sort of triangulation to get to a seal, I mean, are you ever concerned that the killer whales are going to sort of accidentally knock your ships around because they're looking for food? How aware are they of you and the boats that you're on and other humans and things? Do they care? Do they try and avoid you? What happens?

 

Leigh: From our observations, I would say they absolutely don't care. So for us, typically, so we're in a 20 meter steel hull sailboat. because we can't be precious about our sailboats in Antarctica, you know, you're there to push ice, scrape your way through ice in order to get where you need to get.

 

mostly for your own safety, but also if we're following these animals, which may travel a hundred plus miles a day. We're lucky if we can move through some of that habitat at about four knots. 

 

and it may be, for example, that The ice is so thick that we see them, but we see them leave and we just can't get to them. 

So we're in the large vessel most of the time, and then when we get to an area where the killer whales are then foraging, Then we drop a small inflatable dinghy into the water, and then the film team, plus or minus me, normally I stay on the large ship coordinating what's happening.

 

I mentioned this gyro stabilized camera, so That's about half a million pounds worth of equipment that you're then handing down to one another Into a tiny zodiac and then asking that camera system and its operator to head on over to some whales who are very adept at making large waves and Splashing and all that thing and so mixing electronics with saltwater.

 

Alok: Not a good combo. Is it? 

 

Leigh: The first time that was happening for me I was definitely mindful of You know what exactly is going to happen here? 

 

What's great about taking that technology with us is that we've got really long lenses on those cameras, so we don't need to be up close and personal.

 

next to the animals in order to get very intimate shots of what they're doing because we can be further away. But some of the animals, typically the young ones, can be inquisitive around the boat and so you are mindful that their means of investigating something is to get it into the water so they can have a good look at it.

 

so we do have to keep our wits about us that, A, we don't affect the behavior that's happening, but also that some of the young animals in their play behavior, whilst adults are getting on with other things, don't start to spy hop around us a lot, show us a lot of interest.

 

So that's where it's my job as I read their behavior to make sure teams move away. 

 

MUSIC BREAK 2 

 

Alok: When you're examining and watching these whales, you talked about the markings around their eyes, the different shapes of their dorsal fins.

 

It's possible to recognize individual whales, I'm assuming, like this. And given that they're long lived, and they're so smart, I wonder how you feel about going back to see them, you know, time after time. Do you recognize the same ones? Do you know them, in inverted commas? I mean, I don't want to start anthropomorphizing them, but when an animal is that smart and long lived, You can't help, surely, but to sort of feel for them in some way or get to know them in some way.

 

Leigh: Absolutely. Despite the coldness of our training and how careful we are to keep ourselves separate from, as you say, anthropomorphising these animals, you do end up recognising individuals. I mean, that's part of our job, you know, is that We need to recognize individuals and we do that by basically paying very close attention to who they are and taking photographs of their dorsal fins and particularly what's useful for us of pack ice killer whales, their eye patches.

 

And the reason that's quite critical for us is that sometimes we might move into an area of pack or brash ice, which is where perhaps a large iceberg is completely kind of imploded and broken up into small pieces. And as far as the eye can see is covered in ice. And what we've been able to show by the drone is that the killer whales moving through that will stop, blow some bubbles, so then the ice will part, and they'll come up, breathe, spy hop, go back down, and then carry on.

 

And they may not come up for a number of hundreds of meters or more. So we never see their dorsal fin. So it's important that we are taking pictures of their eye patches, which is unique to each individual. And it's just like taking photographs of you and I now. And if we came back in a year's time, you know, you and I may have changed a little bit.

 

We might have some new marks or a little bit different here, a little bit different there, but we would recognize that we are the same individuals. 

 

Alok: Do you name them as individuals? I mean, if you recognize them again and again, I wonder if you've got names for them. 

 

Leigh: So very typically, we use numbers.

 

Alok: Yeah, that would be the scientific way to do it. 

 

Leigh: Yeah, exactly. And then more recently, so we're also filming for the BBC expedition Killer Whale, And what's been interesting for myself from that First time going down partnering with the Frozen Planet 2 team.

 

Who did we find when we first got down there and started filming but a killer whale that I now call Gertie.She has a very distinct dorsal fin and she was in the first Frozen Planet filmed in 2009. So then we're then back in 2020 and who's the first pod that I find? Gertie and her offspring. 

 

Alok: So she's the matriarch of this pod?

 

Leigh Of that particular pod. So her patch, her area, really is that area around the gullet, around, actually very close to Rothera station as well, and forages in and around that area there, so actually close to Horseshoe Island where there's base Y, and also Blake Lock Island where there's a refuge there. So that's her patch. That's her area.

 

Alok: So we can claim Gertie as ours then in that case. As the keeper of those bases. 

 

Leigh: Very much so. That is her backyard where those bases are. And ironically, you know, for an animal that perhaps is in the region of, in her forties, for example, maybe, or hasn't quite got there yet. So when I first encountered her, she was accompanied by a larger animal that we thought was a daughter or potentially a sister and two calves.

 

So definitely understanding who's related to who and whose calves belong to who is something that comes together. after repeated encounters with the same or different pods. So when I went back after that first time in 2020 for Frozen Planet 2, when I went back the following year, it was apparent that Gertie was still with that same larger animal, but only one calf.

 

So we had lost a calf during that time. And then as the years have progressed to where we are now, and then when we were filming Expedition Killer Whale, It's apparent that that potential daughter, who I thought or sister had a calf, wasn't in fact a daughter, she became a he. And that animal, as killer whale males, as they reach their teenage years, they are what we call sprouters.

 

And that's when their dorsal fins suddenly starts to make a lot of rapid growth. And they're pectoral fins as well and that animal we call Kinzel because it has a sort of K shaped the back of its dorsal fin and Kinzel's named after some mountains on the Arowsmith Peninsula there after a Austrian glaciologist and that calf.

 

The surviving calf is called Georgie. Georgie is named after George Washington Gibbs, who was the first African American to set foot on the Antarctic continent in 1940. If we wanted to move away from numbers, we wanted to move to names. that had some sort of significance for the area there. And you might ask, well, how come one's called Gertie then?

 

Because I'm not sure of any Antarctic explorers or things who are named Gertie. And Gertie is the exception to that. And she actually is named after my grandmother, who was a mother of 10 and most definitely a very competent and skilled matriarch. 

 

As part of this series we've spoken to, Leilani Henry, who is the daughter of George Washington Gibbs Jr. And I wonder if she knows that one of the killer whales is named after her father. 

 

She absolutely will not know. 

 

Alok: Before I let you go, I'd just like to know, I mean, you clearly love killer whales and we can talk for hours about their behaviours. I'm just curious why you study them. What is it about killer whales that you're learning that kind of tells you about the ecosystem or the environment of Antarctica? What is it about that place that you learn from studying these animals?

 

Leigh: So the reason we study killer whales, the reason why they're a great study species for us for Antarctica is that they are apex predators. So they sit right at the top. of the food chain in Antarctica. So by studying them, we get a sense of the health and wellbeing of the entire ecosystem and the food chain and food web that exists beneath them.

 

So by studying these animals, getting a sense of what their population structure is and whether that population is changing, studying their body condition, for example. So we can look at how healthy they are. So if they're nice. Fat healthy whales, that gives us a sense that the carrying capacity of the ecosystem is doing well for themselves and the animals beneath them in the food web.

 

If we see signs of nutritional stress in these killer whales, which we do see, then it gives us a sense of, okay, something's going on, where else do we need to look in and around that food chain to understand where that might be happening, why it might be happening, and then what the larger implications are.

 

for killer whales who sit right at the top of the food chain, all the way down to the building blocks, for example, the krill. 

 

Alok: And what have you noticed over your various expeditions in terms of the health of that ecosystem from studying these killer whales? 

 

Leigh: for pack ice killer whales, we were able to pull together 10 years of data.

 

And again, my colleague Holly led that analysis. And unfortunately. The trend that we see is a decline for the pack ice killer whale population around the peninsula. So the peninsular population is around 100 individuals, and that population seems to be in decline at around 5 percent per year. Now when we think about these killer whales as we talk about different ecotypes, when we really dig down into that and we acknowledge them as separate, at the very least subspecies, if not species, Then we're talking about a critically endangered animal and a critically endangered animal that has one of the most developed and honed hunting techniques on the planet.

 

So allowing that to go is something that's unimaginable to me. 

So one of our issues of course, is climate change and the influence that it's having on the ice and the quality of the ice. So we would typically go in January, that sort of mid January to mid February time.

 

Well, in more recent years, we've had to shift that to going in November. And that's because we see the pack ice so the Fast ice, so the ice that's frozen during the winter, year on year, for almost the last 10 years, that summer, sea ice extent has been decreasing. 

 

So for something like a Weddell seal, who finds it actually quite hard to get out onto ice, when you expose a beach or an island, Because of glacial retreat, actually you provide a nice habitat for that seal to haul out on either to molt or between foraging trips.

 

And that means that these killer whales don't have access to the prey in the same way as they had historically. 

 

 And just finally, Lee, can I ask you, why does Antarctica matter to you? 

 

Leigh: Antarctica matters to me perhaps for two main reasons.

Firstly, because we're aware that Antarctica influences the world's ocean currents and climate and is therefore critical to the planet's well being and, you know, I'm in awe of the incredible human endeavors, both historic and current, that have taught us about Antarctica's importance. And then secondly, for me personally, I'm constantly blown away by the sheer majesty of the place.

It's breathtakingly beautiful, harsh and fragile at the same time. It's just such a privilege to visit and work there. And the land and seascapes change constantly and are otherworldly. And as you can tell from the way we've spoken, you know, I find the wildlife absolutely captivating. And Antarctica just gets under your skin and, dare I say, into your soul like no other place.

Alok: Lee, thank you so much for your time. It's been really wonderful talking to you. 

Leigh: Thank you, Alok. Pleasure to chat with you.