Testing Antarctic waters for whales and DNA
How do you figure out exactly what's living in these Antarctic waters?
Cold, remote and dangerous, it's not an easy place to work.
Ecologist Kirsten Thompson from the UK's Exeter University leads a team that's working to find a solution:
(SOUNDBITE) (English) DOCTOR KIRSTEN THOMPSON, ECOLOGIST, UNIVERSITY OF EXETER SAYING:
"It's very difficult to sample these waters because as you can see the conditions are fairly harsh at times. So if we were to try and do for instance a fish survey here it would take us a long time and it would probably be quite expensive."
Her team takes photographs of the tails of humpack whales and analyzes them to establish individuals.
The research allows them to say where an animal breeds and feeds over the course of a year.
The team also looks for smaller signs of life -- drawing DNA from the water to estimate the number of other species in the area.
(SOUNDBITE) (English) DOCTOR KIRSTEN THOMPSON, ECOLOGIST, UNIVERSITY OF EXETER SAYING:
"We were lucky in that one of the animals that we photographed in Paradise Harbour was spotted previously in Panama so it's like direct evidence for a linkage between those whales that are feeding there and some of the breeding grounds off Central America."
Thompson and her team traveled with a Greenpeace ship, which is calling on global governments to protect 30% of the world's oceans.
Such hopes are about to face their moment of truth.
The U.N. will meet from March 23 to try to agree a global ocean treaty.
