This is Doctor Neil Burnie.
He lives in Bermuda, a stunning Atlantic Island six hundred and forty miles east of North
Carolina, USA.He’s spent the last thirty years practicing veterinary medicine, but
now he's transferring his veterinary skills to help save, protect, and learn more about
the incredible marine life of Bermuda’s Ocean.
This is a completely wild shark.
Alongside his dedicated Ocean Vet team, are a number of scientists,
Yeah, this and probably.
marine biologists, Just cut a little nick off the back fin.
and specialist master divers, helping to perform a number of unique and dangerous procedures,
in a bid to safeguard critically important marine species.Together, the team will be
fitting satellite tags to huge tiger sharks, saving precious green turtles, dissecting
giant blue marlin, and obtaining unique toxin samples from forty five tonne, migrating,
humpback whales.
Yay!
Woo hoo!
My knees are like jell-o.
Yes, man!
This is Bermuda!
Home to Doctor Neil Burnie, the Ocean Vet.
These glorious waters off the coast of Bermuda are home to one of the most coveted game fish
species in the world, the giant blue marlin!
The blue marlin is the largest of the Atlantic marlins and one of the biggest fish in the
world.
Native to tropical and temperate waters, the blue marlin is among some of the most recognisable
of all fish.
Choy’s gonna hold him up.
I’m gonna plant the tag.
In this incredible episode, Neil, and the Ocean Vet team are on a scientific mission
to satellite tag one of these powerful animals.
Their aim is to collect marlin movement data and provide the information to an international
bill fish conservation project.
We’ve decided although blue marlin fishing requires a great deal of patience, we haven’t
got quite enough.
After several gruelling hours at sea, the team’s luck changes when a sports fishing
boat decides to hand over a huge blue marlin for the tagging procedure.
This fish is gonna swim, man.
His dorsals up.
He’s gonna swim, I tell ya.
On occasions these monster fish are caught and killed in fishing competitions.
Utilising the body of one such fish, and Neil’s unique veterinary skills, the team will also
be dissecting and studying the anatomy of these incredible animals.
Five hundred and seventy three pounds of blue marlin.
What a magnificent fish this is!
Together with unique tracking data to support this animal’s conservation, and the body
of a marlin donated to the Ocean Vet team for research, this episode reveals the very
makeup of Bermuda’s famous blue marlin.
So the blue marlin is considered by many to be the ultimate sport fish, requires serious
gear because it’s powerful runs can strip a reel of line in no time.
This is a large bait that we use, we troll this behind the boat, and the reel here is
capable of exerting massive amounts of drag, so that we can tire the fish out.
Hopefully we tire the fish out, before we tire me out.
Catching one of these huge fish for tagging will not be easy.
Choy Aming, the series marine biologist; Andrew Kirkpatrick, the team’s underwater videographer;
Dylan Ward, the team’s fisherman; and Oscar Duess, the second boat captain will all be
working together to bring a blue marlin to the side of the boat.
So at first glance you may think that this is a fairly large lure, but you have to consider
that a one thousand pound blue marlin is entirely capable of eating a two hundred pound yellowfin
tuna in one bite.
The Atlantic blue marlin are under intense fishing pressure.
In the Caribbean alone, Japanese and Cuban fishermen annually take over a thousand tonnes
of this fish.
Alright, we’re on.
Just watch the tag on the floor!
Yep, I’ll be on this side.
Neil, and his team’s goal is to satellite tag a Bermuda blue marlin.
The tag data will be sent to the bill fish research project and shared with fishery policy
makers to help protect bill fish species like the blue marlin from over fishing.
There’s one thing about marlin fishing, we’ve always got to look at how these lures
are working, captains and mates will obsess about the action of these different lures
saying this lure works better in this condition, this lure works better in another sea state.
Personally I think as long as it throws bubbles and a marlin’s hungry he’s gonna eat it.
The team have been fishing the deep sides of Challenger Bank for several hours.
Several other large sports fishing boats are also fishing around Bermuda’s banks.
In an attempt to increase the team’s chances of tagging a blue marlin, Dylan, puts out
a radio message offering a thousand dollars to any boat that transfers a large blue to
the team.It looks like their plan may have worked.
We’ve decided although blue marlin fishing requires a great deal of patience, we haven’t
got quite enough.
Another boat has hooked up a blue, and we are going to go and take that blue, transfer
it to this boat, and put a PSAT tag in it.
So we’re pulling all our lines in and we’re heading over to the other boat, right now!
Neil opens the throttles on each of the two hundred and fifty horse power engines, hurtling
the ocean vet boat over the ocean at fifty miles an hour, straight towards the sports
fishing boat, Marlin Fever.
En route, more information comes over the radio.
They might kill it.
They’ve already got it boat side.
They’ve already got it boat side.
It sounds like the animal may be killed as a contender for the Bermuda marlin world cup.
The marlin world cup is held in Bermuda each year, and has a ninety eight percent release
ratio.
But if a marlin is large enough, it may be killed for a top prize.
However, the world cup donates hundreds of thousands of dollars to conservation projects
established to ensure the numbers of these fish now, and in the future.
Now, look at his dorsal going up!
Alright!
In total, sport represents only one percent of blue marlin mortality.
And all fish killed, are eaten or donated for scientific research.
Snap swivel is coming.
Gabber painted bottle has a.
Back in the action, Neil, and the team have reached, Marlin Fever, and the fish is still
alive.
Alright, so, er, Marlin Fever is going to donate their blue to us.
We’re going to give them our snap swivel.
We’re going to take over the fish.
We are gonna land it on, Bones, and we’re gonna put a PSAT archival tag in it.
What would you like to call it?
We’ll, we’ll, call you back on the dock.
You can tell us what you want to call the fish and we’ll get your email so we can
send you guys the track and everything.
Choy, has now transferred, Neil’s, fishing line to, Marlin Fever, where their crew have
attached it to the leader hooked to the fish.
Good!
Let him go!
Neil, now has control of this blue marlin!
So we now have a blue marlin on the line.
We’re gonna bring him over to our boat.
We’re gonna lead him on our boat, and we’re gonna put a PSAT archival tag in this fish,
and we’re gonna track it around the ocean, and, she’s, he’s swimming right now, I
can feel him pulsing below me, right here!
In the background, the Ocean Vet team are scrambling to ready the boat and equipment
needed to handle this fish.
The blue marlin is under the boat, making slow circles, swimming strongly.
We’re just getting our team organised.
Ok, now, I want you to idle forwards, keeping the fish on the port side of the boat.
Once the animal is at the surface and within reach, Dylan, quickly inserts the water hoses
to pump oxygen over the animals gills.
I can see the colour returning to this fish as we’re pumping this oxygenated water over
his gills.
It really seems to be doing a great job at reviving him.
I’m gonna jump in the RIB, we’re gonna put the tag in this fish, and let him go.
Just watch the tag on the floor!
Yep, I’ll be on this side.
Time is now of the essence.
The welfare of this animal is, Neil, and the team’s top priority.
Stress can easily kill these gigantic fish.
I’ve got the tail, come on!
I’m ready to place the tag!
I’ve pre-made the hole.
You ready?
Bring him in a little closer.
Tag, is placed.
Check it!
Tag is placed, and firmly checked.
That’s it.
The tag is in.
PSAT tag, is deployed in this fish.
Good luck, buddy!
I'm gonna jump overboard.
Next, Neil, jumps in to prepare for the release.
Neil, what’s happening?
This fish is gonna swim, man.
His dorsals up.
He’s gonna swim, I tell ya.
Ok.
Let it go.
I think i’m gonna need to!
In six months the tag will drop off this fish and transmit it’s data to satellites hundreds
of miles above.
The tag on this fish, among others, is providing the data needed to legislate protection and
enhance conservation for this economically and ecologically important species.
So, that was it!
Yeah!
Yeah!
The Ocean Vet team has tagged and released a blue marlin, out here, on Bermuda’s, Challenger
Bank, exactly as we’d hoped to do so.
And the good news is, we didn’t have to spend six days ourselves fishing for it.
Woo!
Patience is a virtue, but sometimes the impatient, actually, can be better.
Yeah!
Next, the Ocean Vet team are preparing to dissect a five hundred and seventy three pound
blue marlin.
So it’s the morning of our dissection.
We’re here at the Spanish Point Boat Club.
We have a large blue marlin.
We’re going to open this fish up and see exactly the internal anatomy of this amazing
marine giant.
Choy Aming.
Hey.
Oscar Duess, and Dylan Ward are our team.
It’s gonna take all of us to cut this fish apart.
This marlin has been killed for sport in the Bermuda marlin world cup, an international
sports fishing competition.
Although initially concerning, it’s important to understand that sports fishermen donate
hundreds of thousands of dollars to major conservation and research projects.
Fortunately my wife is off Island at present, and does not realise that her favourite kitchen
knives are going to be used for cutting up this rather large fish.
Neil, and the team will be dissecting this fish in an attempt to show how much of an
evolutionary miracle this species really is!
Rather than it being served up, the team are seizing an opportunity to educate and share
it’s impressive secrets.
Neil believes that by increasing the public’s understanding of this species, it’s possible
to inspire greater conservation.
Wow!
Check the size of this fish, man!
She is incredible!
Over five hundred, so, yeah, you’re right, it’s definitely a ‘she.’
Definitely a female.
Five hundred and seventy three pounds of blue marlin.
What a magnificent fish this is!
So, Choy, what do we think the function is of this massive bill on this fish?
Well these guys love to, erm, they go in in schools of, er, prey fish.
What they’ll do is, they’ll charge right in and they’ll actually slash back and fourth,
almost like a sword fighter with a sword, and they’re hoping to injure, damage, you
know, even kill the fish right there, and then they go ahead and eat it.
And not only that, they’ve, er, they’ve actually skewered fish in the past, and, in
fact, there’s one local fisherman, Ian Card, was transfixed by one, a bill on a fish bigger
than this, apparently, which took him right through under the collarbone and the fish
took him out of the boat, thirty feet down under the water, he was lucky to survive.
The fish never touched the boat.
Thirty feet through the air, six feet above water, took a one hundred and eighty pound
guy out of the boat.
Yeah, i’ve heard that story and, it’s, I can’t even imagine, I can’t even imagine.
The marlin’s agility and extraordinary power has evolved over thousands of years to ensure
that the animal can successfully hunt.
This agility and power is provided by massive muscle groups that run down each side of the
animal’s body.
These muscles are on the frontline of ensuring the animal’s survival.
Removing and revealing these muscle groups is the team’s first step to understanding
how this animal’s body functions.
So, Choy’s making his first cut along the lateral line of this fish.
We’re gonna try to remove the dorsal fillet, the main muscle group running down the back
of this fish, in one or two pieces.
I’m gonna join him.
I’m gonna cut from here, and my cut’s gonna join his, and we’re gonna remove this
muscle.
The animal has two types of muscle that have evolved to support different swimming behaviour.
Neil has taken a sample of the combined muscle to the inspection mat for a closer look.
So, here we have the loin of our marlin.
I’m gonna cut right through it, here, and show you the two different muscle masses.
This is his anaerobic, his fast twitch muscle, this is what gives him his huge amount of
power.
As this contracts, either side of his spine and flexes him, it generates a rear facing
wave of motion which powers him out of the water.
Tail walks, spectacular!
He can pull a twelve tonne fishing boat backwards through the water.
This, on the other hand, is his red muscle which allows this fish to travel thousands
of kilometres looking for food without burning any energy.
As we released our fish he swam away on this muscle, this was not tired.
This muscle, was shattered.
Blue marlin are able to recover from extreme spells of exhaustion and travel thousand of
miles by switching between their different muscle types.
Feeding both these muscle groups with vital oxygen is the job of the animal’s huge gills.
Choy, and Neil have removed the protective gill plate to take a closer look.
So yesterday we had a fish alongside the boat, and we put a tag in it.
What we were very careful to do, was when we slowed the boat down, we put two hoses
into the mouth of this fish, and we sent oxygenated water from our pumps straight over the gills
of this fish, and that mimicked, absolutely, the movement of a fish at several miles an
hour through the water.
These fish can ventilate enough for their slow twitch muscles when their moving at one
or two miles an hour, but when they’re moving fast they generate way more oxygenation and
that’s what we mimicked with our hoses.
Oxygen is actually pulled out of the water by the gills, and it actually transfers through
little filaments right into the blood stream, and these are very, very, fine structures.
Blood passes against sea water within about a millionth of a metre, one micron, so it’s
a very, very, tiny area.
And there’s actually about eight of them here, times two sides, that’s a huge amount
of surface area that it actually has in a compact space to pick up oxygen out of the
water.
So you can see, even though this is a small structure it is enough surface area to grab
oxygen for a fish this size.
Oxygen is the key to the animal’s overall function, but so is the energy created from
it’s food.
The marlin’s eyes are it’s secret weapon when it comes to finding this food.
The function of the eyes have an incredible secret, Neil, and Choy have removed the armour
plating around the organ to find out more.
So now that we've cut away the bony portion of the back of the orbit here, we can reveal
the muscles that attach to this tough eyeball.
Yeah, and right here, yeah, right where your finger is, I can see perfectly what’s referred
to as the thermogenic organ.
And the thermogenic organ is effectively, erm, some extra ocular eye muscles that sit
in the back and over time, what has happened is, they have, er, evolved less in terms of
the, er, contractile myofilaments, and they’ve increased in the number of, er, mitochondria
producing more ATP.
So that generates a whole lot of heat.
So, basically, not very much elasticity or strength, but a whole lot of heat generating
behind this eyeball.
So we have central heating for this fish’s eyeball.
Exactly!
And not only that, but the blood also runs into the retina.
It’s warm, the eye works way better when the fish is down a mile deep in the cold,
cold, water of the deep abyss.
He can still see, the other fish can’t, so he’s got the upper hand.
Also, his brain is receiving a blood vessel from the same heater organ, so he’s got
a warm brain.
He doesn’t get cold.
He doesn’t get hypothermia.
He’s cooking.
The internal heating system, in this otherwise cold blooded animal, allows the fish to spot
prey effectively in cold deep water.
In order to reach this deep, cold, water, the marlin uses it’s swim bladder.
A special organ, that allows the animal to quickly move up and down through the vast
water column.
This is fascinating, man.
Look at this, we’ve got the swim bladder sitting here and I believe we’ve got the
rest of the organs located right down beneath it right here.
So here’s the swim bladder, we can actually remove it from the fish, this is filled in
a remarkable way.
Oxygen is drawn from the bloodstream, into the bladder, to increase the buoyancy and
bring the marlin up in the water column.
In fact, anglers have seen marlin with their dorsal and tail out of the water floating
right at the surface.
Then, when he needs to, oxygen can be returned to the depleted blood, here, at the rear of
the swim bladder, reducing it's buoyancy and allowing the fish to sink down.
Much in the same way that a diver would use a BCD, a buoyancy control device, to move
up and down in the water column.
Careful, mind your fingers.
Yeah, yeah, gotcha gotcha.
The main skeletal element inside the marlin is the vertebral column, similar to a human
spine, it’s composed of multiple vertebrae.
In the case of the marlin, their vertebrae are considerably different.
Good on this end.
It’s just that side that needs a little.
And here we have it.
And what you may be able to see here that’s difficult to see, but the actual vertebral
body is here, and here, and here, and yet the spinous processes are separated by some
two inches on either side.
So basically we’ve got an interlocking vertebral body system which gives this fish, this flexibility,
and, yet, this regility.
So when those big powerful muscles pull this fish from side to side it’s like a spring
driving him through the water and powering him into the air.
Neil, and Choy have revealed some of the blue marlin’s impressive anatomy and shared some
truly remarkable features, features that have enabled this fish to thrive throughout our
Planet’s oceans.
But one part of the marlin’s anatomy has evolved above all others, the blue marlin’s
tail!
So we’ve seen how the muscle and the vertebral column generate all power that goes to the
tail.
Here it is, the most efficient osculating propeller that we know.
This, when driven through the water can produce speeds of over forty miles an hour for this
fish, and throw it thirty feet through the air.
Guess what?
I have almost an exact replica, and this is the latest modern computer design foil for
my windsurfer.
Look how remarkably similar it is to what nature has achieved after natural evolution
has occurred over millions of years.
The marlin had it right all along, a variable aspect foil.
Brilliant in design.
Dissecting an animal like this has provided me with a unique opportunity to learn more
about this creature.
Like so many marine species they are often out of sight, out of mind.
This has reaffirmed to me why we work so hard to protect all marine species.
They deserve our attention.
They have developed into such remarkable creatures!
Neil and the team continue to work with the sports fishing community, and plan to tag
more blue marlin in the coming years.
I’m ready to place the tag!
The tag on this fish revealed the marlin travelled three hundred miles North of Bermuda.
It was likely following the Gulf Stream’s temperature gradient.This cold and warm water
meeting point tends to accumulate marine life.
It’s highly likely this blue marlin was in pursuit of food.
I think i’m gonna need to!
Sadly the tag malfunctioned and popped off just after this journey.
Consequently, no long-range migration was recorded.
Neil and the team will be continuing their work to gather more data, data that will ultimately
help protect this species long into the future.Next time on Ocean Vet, Neil, and the team join
the Bermuda Turtle Project, helping to collect vital data in a bid to improve the numbers
of green sea turtles around the world.
He actually looks in pretty good shape.
Neil will also be rescuing sick green sea turtles from Bermuda’s beaches to rehabilitate,
and release them back into the wild.
We wish this guy all the best.
He has a tough road ahead as he continues on his epic journey.
Good luck little one!
