Hundreds of "mythical" fin whales have been filmed gathering in the biggest feeding frenzy ever caught on camera.
The footage is part of a Disney+ documentary, Epic Adventures with Bertie Gregory, which premiered on the streaming platform on September 8. In the show, Gregory—a National Geographic explorer, photographer and cinematographer—travels around the globe to capture wildlife phenomena on camera.
In this episode, Gregory heads to Antarctica, where he captured a huge congregation of fin whales on camera.
Fin whales are the second-largest whale species, after the blue whale, which is the biggest animal living on Earth today. Fin whales are an endangered species and there are only thought to be around 100,000 left in the world.
Gregory told Newsweek that this was his favorite episode to film. In the footage, more than 300 whales can be seen gathering in Antarctic waters to feed.
Thousands of penguins, albatross and seals were also gathering the feeding frenzy.
"The standout one for me has to be the Antarctica episode, when we went in search of these mythical whale gatherings. An enormous whale gathering in Antarctica really is a holy grail of wildlife film, and it was definitely the most ambitious challenge we set ourselves and the whole adventure to get there was amazing," he said.
When filming, Gregory said the crew were presented with the vision of big "jets of water" protruding from the horizon as the whales breathed out. It looked like "canons in a sea battle," Gregory said.
The comeback of these whales is a great conservation success story, according to Gregory. During the commercial whaling era—when whales were hunted for their meat and blubber—in the Southern Ocean, 750,000 fin whales were hunted. The overall population is 2 percent of what it used to be.
"[It was] an extraordinary number of animals to be lost. But thanks to the ban on commercial whaling and their protection in the 70s, these whales have started to make a comeback," Gregory said. "And these whales, have really long lives. And just like humans, their reproduction is slow. So that comeback takes a long time. And it's only now 50 years on from the [commercial whaling] ban that we're starting to see them really starting to come back in style."
The journey to capture the rare phenomenon on camera was not all smooth sailing.
"We spent a month on a 75-foot ice-strengthened sailboat. We sailed to Antarctica across the infamous Drake Passage which is known as one of the roughest areas of ocean on earth. And the Antarctic weather lived up to its reputation," Gregory said.
In the month the film crew spent aboard the boat, there were only six days where conditions were okay for them to film.
"It was pretty hairy. But yeah, our persistence paid off," he said.
The congregation of fin whales was filmed on one of the crews' last days in Antarctica.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Robyn White is a Newsweek Nature Reporter based in London, UK. Her focus is reporting on wildlife, science and the ... Read more
