Learn how nuclear bomb detectors found a secret population of blue whales. Plus: what it takes to film sharks underwater. Dive deeper into all your favorite Shark Week shows with Shark Week’s Daily Bite Podcast hosted by Luke Tipple: Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/shark-weeks-daily-bite/id1527053422 Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0dfzM1ktSB1mSKD5z4Qujm?si=R8rNBksMRS-JrgMs9JIJ5g&dl_branch=1 Learn more: https://www.discovery.com/shark-week/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-daily-bite-podcast Nuclear bomb detectors found a secret population of blue whales by Briana Brownell Landow, S. (2021, June 8). New population of blue whales discovered with help of bomb detectors. Phys.org; Phys.org. https://phys.org/news/2021-06-population-blue-whales-detectors.html Baker, H. (2021, June 10). Nuclear bomb detectors uncover secret population of blue whales hiding in Indian Ocean. Livescience.com; Live Science. https://www.livescience.com/secret-blue-whale-population-discovered.html Leroy, E. C., Royer, J.-Y., Alling, A., Maslen, B., & Rogers, T. L. (2021). Multiple pygmy blue whale acoustic populations in the Indian Ocean: whale song identifies a possible new population. Scientific Reports, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-88062-5 More from Joe and Lauren Romeiro and Shark Week 2021: Start your 7-day free trial of discovery+ https://discoveryplus.com/curiosity Shark Week 2021 Full Schedule https://corporate.discovery.com/discovery-newsroom/discovery-channels-shark-week-2021-swims-off-with-jawsome-lineup-featuring-more-hours-of-shark-programming-than-ever-before/ Shark Week 2021 Visual Guide https://www.discovery.com/shark-week/your-guide-to-shark-week-2021-pictures Follow @laurenromeiro333 on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/laurenromeiro333 Follow @joeromeiro333 on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/joeromeiro333/ Learn about new Eli Roth film “Fin” https://www.discovery.com/dnews/New_Eli_Roth_Film_FIN_to_Premiere_During_Shark_Week_on_discovery Learn more about “Return to Shark Vortex” https://ew.com/tv/shark-week-2021-guide-all-32-specials/?slide=3a0bc578-6635-494f-93f0-6e214e673413#3a0bc578-6635-494f-93f0-6e214e673413 Learn more about “Ninja Shark 2: Mutants Rising” https://ew.com/tv/shark-week-2021-guide-all-32-specials/?slide=c08c41fe-90dc-46b3-8ce2-92c6a3f42d47#c08c41fe-90dc-46b3-8ce2-92c6a3f42d47 Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day withCody Gough andAshley Hamer. Still curious? Get exclusive science shows, nature documentaries, and more real-life entertainment on discovery+! Go to https://discoveryplus.com/curiosity to start your 7-day free trial. discovery+ is currently only available for US subscribers.
Learn how nuclear bomb detectors found a secret population of blue whales. Plus: what it takes to film sharks underwater.
Dive deeper into all your favorite Shark Week shows with Shark Week’s Daily Bite Podcast hosted by Luke Tipple:
Nuclear bomb detectors found a secret population of blue whales by Briana Brownell
More from Joe and Lauren Romeiro and Shark Week 2021:
Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day with Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer. Still curious? Get exclusive science shows, nature documentaries, and more real-life entertainment on discovery+! Go to https://discoveryplus.com/curiosity to start your 7-day free trial. discovery+ is currently only available for US subscribers.
Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/bomb-detected-whales-what-its-like-to-film-shark-week
CODY: Hi! You’re about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from curiosity-dot-com. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Today, you’ll learn how nuclear bomb detectors found a secret population of blue whales. Then, two of Shark Week’s veteran cinematographers will tell you what it takes to film sharks — and how camera footage can help save shark species around the world.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
How do you find blue whales? If you guessed “by using a nuclear bomb detector” you’re…. Absolutely right.
Sounds kinda weird, but that’s exactly what happened. Recently, scientists have located a new group of pygmy blue whales in the Indian Ocean using data that was originally collected to detect illegal nuclear bomb detonations.
How did they do that? Instead of looking, they listened.
That’s the thing about blue whales: they’re quite the crooners. Blue whales sing loud, complex songs that repeat themselves, like a refrain. They’re like an anthem for the group too -- each population of whales sings a unique kind of song. These songs vary in their style: their structure, key, and tempo all differ between population groups. Because they’re distinct, scientists can tell which population is swimming where by listening to their unique sounds.
But to find that, scientists need to listen. And unfortunately there are few scientific acoustic monitoring arrays in the Indian Ocean. Instead, they found a noise detector from an unlikely source: The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization. This international group listens for illegal nuclear bomb tests — and has acoustic data stretching back decades.
Jackpot.
When they went through the historical data, the scientists discovered a series of strong, regular signals. Even more exciting, there were thousands of instances of the same pattern. It was the evidence of a song belonging to a group of blue whales. The patterns didn’t match any of the songs from whale populations already known, so they concluded it must be a new group. And since scientists found so many examples of the song, they’re convinced that it’s a relatively large population.
Blue whales are the largest animals on Earth, so it might seem strange there has been a big group of them swimming out on the ocean that we didn’t know about. But unfortunately, that’s because blue whales are endangered and there just aren’t that many left, as a result of whaling. Today, there are about 5 to 10 thousand worldwide. Considering that there were 350,000 before whaling began, that’s a pretty huge decline.
But this newly discovered population is a positive for the endangered whales. It means that their small numbers are slightly larger than we thought. And that’s definitely something to sing about.
The best thing about Shark Week is...the sharks. I mean, you get to see them up close and personal from the comfort of your screen! But the people who film that footage? Yeah, they aren't so comfortable. To celebrate Shark Week 2021, we spoke to underwater cinematographers — and newlyweds — Joe and Lauren Romeiro about what it takes to film sharks. Joe Romeiro is an award-winning cinematographer who's spent more than a decade filming and interacting with sharks all over the world. Lauren Romeiro is a marine scientist and a well-respected photographer and cinematographer. And we asked them: what kind of challenges do cinematographers face behind the scenes?
[CLIP 5:00]
They told us that one of the ways they're trying to help keep sharks around in the future is by identifying the locations they use as mating grounds so that they can put regulations in place to prevent people from fishing there. Here's hoping that thanks to efforts like that, sharks have a long, bright future on this planet. Again, that was Joe and Lauren Romeiro, underwater cinematographers who have several shows on Shark Week 2021. "Ninja Sharks: Mutants Rising" airs Friday, July 16 at 8 PM, and Return to Shark Vortex premieres Saturday, July 17 at 8 PM on Discovery and Discovery+. And starting TODAY on discovery+, you can stream another special Joe and Lauren worked on: the new Eli Roth film “Fin,” which uncovers the truth behind the death of millions of sharks. You can start your 7-day free trial of discovery+ at discovery-plus-dot-com-slash-curiosity.
Let’s recap today’s takeaways
[ad lib optional]
ASHLEY: The writer for today’s first story was Briana Brownell.
CODY: Our managing editor is Ashley Hamer, who was also an audio editor on today’s episode.
ASHLEY: Our producer and audio editor is Cody Gough.
CODY: Join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes. Or, as a blue whale would say… [low groans]
ASHLEY: And until then, [low groans] ...and stay curious!