Galapagos (2006) - S01E02 - Islands That Changed the World
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00:00Born of fire from the depths of the earth.
00:23Baked by an infernal sun.
00:30Home to the strangest creatures imaginable.
00:38When people first came here, they thought they had found a hell on earth.
00:51But this is no hell.
00:54It is a vibrant crucible of life.
01:14In time, one man saw the truth and changed much more than just our view of these islands.
01:24His name was Charles Darwin.
01:35This is the story of how the lonely Galapagos Islands came from obscurity to change the
01:43world forever.
02:04Your sacred majesty, we had a six-day calm.
02:09The currents were so strong and engulfed us in such a way that on the 10th of March
02:14we were brought to some islands.
02:21Thomas de Berlanga, the Bishop of Panama, was sailing from Panama to Peru.
02:27But when winds failed him, strong currents took hold and he was carried wildly off course.
02:35Eventually, the Bishop and his men found land.
02:40But what a land.
02:47It seemed as though at some time, God had showered stones and the earth is like slag.
02:57Worthless.
02:59Both the land and its creatures seemed infernal.
03:06They dug a well but found water saltier than the sea.
03:12Two men died.
03:19They prayed for deliverance.
03:24The winds returned and the Bishop and his men got away to record their tale of a hell
03:30on earth.
03:32They had discovered the Galapagos.
03:48Six hundred miles off the coast of South America, right on the equator, the Galapagos
03:54are a small group of a dozen or so islands, alone in the vast Pacific Ocean.
04:06For millennia their lava-clad shores and great volcanic mountains remained unnoticed, uncharted,
04:14untainted, until fate brought the Bishop of Panama here nearly five hundred years ago.
04:36At first sight, it's easy to see why the Bishop was horrified by this place.
04:45From the sea come dragons, marine iguanas, slithering onto the land.
05:00As black as the lava itself, they seemed to spit a curse as they purged themselves of
05:06salt from drinking seawater.
05:13In the deserts behind, larger dragons.
05:19For five days, the Bishop was forced to survive on cactus pads.
05:29These land iguanas eat little else.
05:38They bite right through the needle-sharp spines to reach the surprisingly juicy flesh.
05:49And in the smouldering interior, there are giants.
06:08Tortoises as heavy as four grown men.
06:14In their huge bodies, they can store enough fat to go for a year without eating or drinking
06:21anything.
06:29To survive here, it seems you need to be a monster.
06:36Or is it just that you need to be different?
06:43A bird, phoenix-like, emerges from the ashes of this barren coast.
06:50A cormorant.
06:53But its wings are scruffy and small.
06:57It looks like it could never fly.
07:01It can't.
07:08But there is another world beneath the waves.
07:13The ocean is rich, and this is where the flightless cormorant has found its way of surviving,
07:20by trading flight for streamlining.
07:38With what's left of its wings tucked flat against its body, enlarged feet take over,
07:49propelling it on in search of octopuses, eels and small fish.
08:08A female is on the nest.
08:18She makes it from seaweed, expertly weaved into a comfortable bed, protection for her
08:24and her eggs from the razor-sharp larva.
08:36The male brings a gift for his mate, for the nest, and also to bond their relationship.
08:57Without the power of flight, these birds are marooned here.
09:03They have no predators, and on their doorstep is all the food they need.
09:11For the strange creatures that have made the Galapagos home, life is harsh, but not hell.
09:25If the Bishop of Panama had been luckier, he might have seen things differently.
09:32In January each year, the cold Humboldt current that makes Galapagos so dry loosens its grip,
09:41and gives way to warm water from the north.
09:47In good years, it brings a remarkable change to the islands.
10:17Suddenly, a very different Galapagos appears.
10:23From the ash, hidden seeds come to life.
10:27Palo Santo trees that seem long dead are resurrected, from black and white to colour.
10:47A Galapagos spring.
10:53But even spring here is different.
10:59The golden meadows are grazed by land iguanas, relishing a pleasant change from cactus pads.
11:11The golden meadows are grazed by land iguanas, relishing a pleasant change from cactus pads.
11:19And this female carpenter bee, also drawn to the new flush of flowers, visits many different kinds.
11:27But strangely enough, she doesn't seem to care.
11:34And this female carpenter bee, also drawn to the new flush of flowers, visits many different kinds.
11:42But strangely, almost all of them are yellow.
11:48She is the only kind of bee in Galapagos.
11:52If she likes yellow, there's little point in a flower being anything else.
11:58There's little point in a flower being anything else.
12:12The rain has also brought out little birds.
12:16And all around, they start to sing.
12:20This male finch tries to entice the female to inspect his nest,
12:26carefully built in the protection of a spiny cactus pad.
12:42She likes it and settles in.
12:46But even these ordinary-looking birds are extraordinary.
12:52On the ground, in the trees, where you would expect to find many different birds,
12:58here one kind rules. These are all finches.
13:04In Galapagos, there are 13 different species of finch taking the place of the other birds.
13:10The key is that each has a different beak.
13:14Thicker, stronger for cracking seeds.
13:18Long and sharp for flowers.
13:22Delicate and pointed for winkling tiny creatures from cracks in rocks.
13:28There's even a woodpecker finch.
13:32But without a woodpecker's tongue, it can't reach grubs that are deep inside burrows.
13:38So it has to use all its cunning to get what it wants.
13:42It breaks off a twig.
13:46A tool for probing.
13:54Not quite right.
13:58Yes, just right.
14:22Another tool for another bird.
14:26Another tool for another burrow.
14:32Another fat grub.
14:38There's a lot more to this world than at first meets the eye.
14:48For many years, this brighter side to Galapagos remained completely hidden.
14:54Cursed by the Bishop of Panama, given no name, nobody came near.
15:02But then nobody was even sure the islands existed.
15:06Shifting currents, mists, like ghosts.
15:10Now you see them, now you don't.
15:14In the minds of mariners, the Galapagos were las encantadas, enchanted.
15:20Then, in the late 1500s, somebody put them on a map.
15:24Just 12 crude marks and a name.
15:28Islas de Galapagos.
15:32Islands of the tortoises.
15:36Put it on a map and it becomes real.
15:42The first to come were pirates.
15:46Galapagos was the perfect base for raids on Spanish galleons carrying gold from South America.
16:04But piracy is nothing new to Galapagos.
16:10Frigate birds, looking for plunder.
16:14In these cliffs are the nests of hundreds of thousands of seabirds.
16:20With so much traffic, it's not long before something gets into trouble.
16:27A storm petrol.
16:31But another frigate is in there like a shot.
16:35It's the Galapagos.
16:39It's the Galapagos.
16:43It's the Galapagos.
16:47It's the Galapagos.
16:51It's the Galapagos.
16:55It's the Galapagos.
16:59Another frigate is in there like a shot.
17:03And another.
17:05Two, three white-headed juveniles.
17:09They hound the all-black male.
17:13Forcing it to drop the petrol.
17:29Frigates have a fearsome reputation.
17:33But the odds are not all in their favour.
17:37If they ditch in the sea, their long wings can get critically waterlogged.
17:41With every swoop, they risk drowning.
17:45In the colony, the males inflate their extraordinary red throat perches.
17:51In the colony, the males inflate their extraordinary red throat perches.
18:21They are trying to be irresistible to females passing overhead.
18:51He's got one.
19:03She soon settles in and tidies up his nest.
19:07He watches over her very carefully.
19:11After all, he's surrounded by pirates.
19:21Another male tries to muscle in.
19:41Now she joins in.
19:45She's already made her choice and helps drive the newcomer away.
19:51Her partner wastes no more time.
20:05And when it's all over, she gets a rest on a comfortable pillow.
20:09Hidden away from the rest of the world,
20:13this is a place for pirates to find peace.
20:21The next wave of people came to Galapagos
20:25not to plunder passing ships,
20:29but for the riches of the islands themselves.
20:33In the far west, the deep Cromwell Current collides with the massive islands
20:37and rises, bringing nutrients from the abyssal deep.
20:41These are some of the richest seas on the equator.
20:53But it wasn't fish that drew people to these waters.
20:57It was the sea.
21:01It wasn't fish that drew people to these waters.
21:11A sperm whale.
21:15They dive to over 3,000 feet for squid.
21:19It's so deep,
21:23even the equatorial sun is completely shut out.
21:27So they find their food by echolocation.
21:31Today, they are protected.
21:35We see them as beautiful giants.
21:39But not so long ago, the view was very different.
21:47These were monsters to begin with.
21:51But now, they've become a family.
21:55These were monsters to be killed for profit.
22:07It was the rush for whale oil
22:11and stories of battles with Leviathans of the deep
22:15that brought the Galapagos to the attention of the world at large.
22:19But it wasn't just the whales that were paying the price of discovery.
22:35There was one thing that pirates and whalers all wanted.
22:39Fresh food.
22:43The rich fat, their giant size,
22:47made tortoises perfect for the ship's larder.
22:55In 200 years, over 200,000 were taken.
23:01On some islands, tortoises were completely wiped out.
23:09But out of the tragedy came some good.
23:13As more people came to Galapagos,
23:17a clearer picture of the islands began to appear.
23:21Each got its own name.
23:25Some parts were still deemed infernal.
23:31But others had sheltered places to anchor,
23:35or a few trees, vital timber for repairing ships.
23:43Though still enchanted,
23:47the islands took on more recognisable shapes,
23:51more accurately fixed on a map.
24:03It was the start of coming to understand them.
24:43When His Majesty's ship, Eagle,
24:47reached the Galapagos on 15 September 1835,
24:51it was a last-minute stop before a long journey home.
24:57She had been charting the coast of South America for more than three years.
25:01She now had just five weeks to make a modern and accurate map
25:05of this little-known outpost.
25:14But this was much more than just another landfall.
25:18It was to change the course of history.
25:27On board was naturalist Charles Darwin.
25:31Not the wise, grey-bearded Darwin we know so well,
25:35but young, impressionable, just 26.
25:44At first, he saw the place much as those before him.
25:50Nothing could be less inviting.
25:54Nothing more rough and horrid.
25:58The black rocks, heated by the rays of the vertical sun,
26:02give to the air a close and sultry feeling.
26:06Like a stove.
26:10But he soon began to see more.
26:16The very ground on which he was walking
26:20seemed solidified only yesterday.
26:24It looks like the sea.
26:28Petrified.
26:30In its most boisterous moments.
26:34On the Beagle, his head had been buried in a new and controversial book
26:38on the history of the island.
26:42It was a book about the history of the island.
26:46It was a book about the history of the island.
26:50On the Beagle, his head had been buried in a new and controversial book
26:54called Principles of Geology,
26:57which described a physical world constantly changing,
27:00moulded by nature's forces.
27:04And just weeks before, in South America,
27:07he had been caught in an earthquake.
27:12Inspired by what he had read and experienced,
27:16fired up by a young and fertile mind,
27:20he was opening his eyes to a very different Galapagos.
27:24Where others had seen it as hellish, ancient and unchanging,
27:28Charles Darwin saw a brand new land,
27:32made fresh from the depths of the ocean
27:37by forces still very alive today,
27:41right beneath him.
27:50He was right.
27:54In the west, right under the island of Fernandina,
27:58is a volcanic hotspot.
28:07Here, constantly, islands are being born.
28:14But what he couldn't see was that as each island is created,
28:18it is carried off that hotspot on shifting oceanic plates,
28:22as though on a conveyor belt.
28:28They move slowly, a couple of inches a year,
28:32but in geological terms, that is staggeringly fast.
28:38Since Darwin saw them,
28:40they have now moved about 30 feet further to the south-east.
28:45As HMS Beagle moved methodically through the archipelago,
28:49Darwin had no idea that the islands they were mapping were moving,
28:53or how important that movement was.
29:01But he was right.
29:05As the islands go on their journey, they change.
29:09They become a touch less infernal.
29:13Some turn green, others become flat and dry.
29:21Each is also carried into a slightly different mix of life and death.
29:25The result is that each island ends up with its own unique character.
29:29One of the most remote islands the Beagle passed
29:33is also the most unusual.
29:39The Beagle Pass is one of the most unique islands in the world.
29:43It is the only island in the world where the Beagle Pass
29:47is the only island in the world where the Beagle Pass is the only island in the world
29:51One of the most remote islands the Beagle passed is also the most unusual.
29:57In the far north-east is Genovesa.
30:01Remote, barren, lava-clad,
30:05and home to a million seabirds.
30:09The birds forage far out in the Pacific Ocean,
30:13but every day, once they've run the gauntlet of frigatebirds,
30:17they bring this battered rock to their nests.
30:27Behind the cliff, just the right type of lava
30:31has cooled in just the right way
30:35to form a labyrinth of tiny tubes and cracks
30:39that are the perfect size for Galapagos storm petrels.
30:43Nobody knows how they find which crack is theirs,
30:47but as they swoop over the ground,
30:51they turn upwind, so it's thought they smell their way home.
31:03However they find their way,
31:07it's a miracle.
31:11Not a single tiny egg.
31:23But it's just now that they are most vulnerable.
31:31A short-eared owl.
31:35The petrels are too quick in the air
31:39and the owl too big to follow them deep inside their tiny tunnels,
31:43so its best chance is to grab a bird coming in or out.
32:05First, it uses its sharp eyesight to spot an entrance to an active burrow.
32:15It doesn't go for a petrel straight away,
32:19but positions itself just outside.
32:29It creeps closer.
32:33It's an owl.
32:39It listens.
33:03It gets away.
33:09But the petrel is stunned.
33:13The owl spots it trying to get back underground.
33:33A second owl is watching.
33:37It now makes a challenge.
33:49It'll have to hunt for itself.
34:03It can just squeeze into the entrance hall of one of the tunnels.
34:07Now it waits for a petrel coming in.
34:33There are short-eared owls on other islands,
34:37but only on Genovesa have they learned to hunt like this.
34:47And it seems that every island on the map
34:51has a similarly strange story to tell.
34:55It's not surprising the Galapagos are named after these lumbering giants.
34:59Their great domed shells look just like the islands they inhabit.
35:05Those islands high enough to catch rain can be surprisingly lush.
35:09Here, the round shells are perfect for barging through the undergrowth without getting snagged.
35:15But on other lower islands, there's almost no rain.
35:19And here, the tortoises look very different.
35:29They have shells with a curved arch at the front
35:33that looks just like a tortoise shell.
35:37They have shells with a curved arch at the front
35:41that looks just like a Spanish saddle, or Galapagos.
35:45The islands were actually named after these tortoises.
35:51Here, there's so little to eat on the ground
35:55that they need to stretch their necks to reach more succulent vegetation.
35:59The curved arch in their shells allows for that extra stretch.
36:13On different islands, Galapagos life is taking a different course.
36:21As yet, Darwin was unaware of it.
36:25But as the beagle hopped from island to island,
36:29he took any opportunity to go ashore.
36:33On the island of Floriana, he was met on the beach at Post Office Bay
36:37by the governor of the first ever settlement in the Galapagos,
36:41an Englishman called Lawson.
36:45Lawson's tales of the strange Galapagos life
36:49encouraged Darwin to go deep into the interior.
36:53And wherever he went, he collected.
37:23He saw the tortoises, though only the domed-shelled kind,
37:27so didn't see their secret.
37:31He saw the little birds with their different beaks,
37:35but didn't guess they were all finches.
37:39He called one a manatee,
37:43and called the other a manatee.
37:47The manatee was a manatee,
37:51and the manatee was a manatee,
37:55and the manatee was a manatee.
37:59He called one a manatee,
38:03and called the other a manatee.
38:07He called one a manatee,
38:11and called the other a manatee.
38:15He called one a blackbird,
38:19another a wren.
38:23There was another bird, too, the mockingbird.
38:27As he went further and further into the heart of the islands,
38:31he found a sight to Galapagos that no naturalist had seen before.
38:51In the highlands of Floriana and Santiago,
38:55he found a manatee.
39:09And in a handful of places, he found fresh water.
39:15The only fresh water for 600 miles.
39:21Ducks dabble as though in a park.
39:23Tortoises wallow in thick volcanic mud.
39:31Frigatebirds come from the harsh world outside to drink.
39:47This is no hell on earth,
39:51but the Garden of Eden.
39:59Darwin asked himself the crucial question.
40:05Why are these small islands blessed with such strange and unique life?
40:15But just a breath away from revelation,
40:19he set sail away, never to return.
40:25At sunset on the 20th of October, 1835,
40:29the Beagles set sail for Tahiti and then home.
40:37But all was not lost.
40:41The enchanted islands had cast their spell.
40:49No sooner had Darwin left the Galapagos
40:53than he began to see the truth.
41:01The truth of the Galapagos
41:05The truth of the Galapagos
41:09The truth of the Galapagos
41:13The truth of the Galapagos
41:17As he spent the long hours at sea sorting through his collections,
41:21one specimen suddenly caught his attention.
41:25Not tortoise, not finch, but mockingbird.
41:31I have specimens from four different islands.
41:35On two islands they appear the same,
41:39but on the other two they're different.
41:43Each island, each kind is exclusively found.
41:49Different islands, within sight of each other, had different mockingbirds,
41:53with slightly different feathers and, like the finches, slightly different beaks.
41:59Darwin now remembered something Governor Lawson had told him about tortoises.
42:03He claimed he could tell which island a tortoise came from
42:07just by the shape of its shell.
42:11Different island, different tortoise.
42:15Same thing.
42:19He had seen from the dramatic Galapagos landscape
42:23that the islands were constantly changing.
42:27Could living things be changing too?
42:31He began to see back through time.
42:35I fancied myself brought near to the very act of creation.
42:41The Galapagos had been born of fire, sterile, from the depths of the ocean.
42:45But life had then come from elsewhere.
42:53In isolation on the Galapagos,
42:57and then further isolation from island to island,
43:01it had changed one form into another.
43:11Darwin had caught a fleeting glimpse of Galapagos' great secret.
43:15New plants, new animals, new life
43:19was being made by the islands themselves.
43:27He looked for the same pattern in other species.
43:31One day the little finches would be named after him.
43:35But though he had the best collection to date,
43:39he hadn't thought to label which islands they came from.
43:43So for now, they couldn't help.
43:51And as for the tortoises,
43:5545 adults were brought aboard the beagle,
43:59but every one had been eaten,
44:03their shells thrown overboard, lost forever.
44:07Unable to return, Darwin would never know the true story
44:11of the finches' beaks and the tortoises' shells.
44:15But in the mockingbirds, he had caught a glimpse of evolution.
44:27In 1859, 24 years after leaving the Galapagos,
44:31Charles Darwin's Origin of Species was finally published.
44:35It changed the world forever.
44:39Until the end of his days, he always held on to one certainty,
44:43that the lonely Galapagos Islands
44:47were the origin of all his views,
44:51the origin of the Origin of Species.
45:05GALAPAGOS ISLANDS
45:21Giant tortoises so impressed the ancient mariners
45:25that they named these islands after them.
45:29Their fat flesh fuelled the pirates' plunder.
45:37In their shells is a clue to the greatest mystery on Earth.
45:45But for a tortoise, life is simple.
45:53The recent rain draws them to the greenery
45:57on the summit of Alcedo volcano,
46:01not just for the lush grazing, but to breed.
46:27He tries to seduce her.
46:43Everything in time.
46:47This age-old ritual
46:51may remind us of permanence.
46:55But that couldn't be further from the truth.
47:07The offspring of these tortoises
47:11may have a slightly different shell
47:15that gives them a slightly better chance
47:19of surviving on their island.
47:23Even these animals that move so slow
47:27and live so long are changing.
47:31Since people first came to these islands,
47:35our understanding of them has changed too.
47:39The Galapagos is not hell on Earth,
47:43but a vibrant, living demonstration
47:47of the evolution of life.
47:55Here, on this little world within itself,
47:59we seem to be brought somewhat closer to the great fact,
48:03that mystery of all mysteries,
48:07the first appearance of new beings on this Earth.
48:13In the next episode,
48:17we discover how life in Galapagos
48:21is driven by elemental forces of change,
48:25past, present and future.
48:43Subs by www.zeoranger.co.uk