National Geographic Channel Embarks On An Expedition To Reveal THE SECRET KINGDOM OF THE BLUE WHALE

Heart the size of a Mini Cooper. Mouth big enough to hold 100 people. Longer than a basketball court.  Weighing as much as 25 large elephants. It is the largest creature ever to inhabit the earth. But we know precious little about it.

Scientists Unravel Mysteries of Critically Endangered Blue Whales, and National Geographic is the First to Film an Infant Calf Underwater

Narrated by Emmy Award-Winning Actor Tom Selleck, Kingdom of the Blue Whale Premieres Sunday, March 8, at 8 p.m. ET/PT

They are the largest creatures ever to live on our planet - larger than any of the great dinosaurs - yet few people have seen one.  They are one of the loudest animals on land or sea - capable of making sounds equivalent to those of a jet engine - but we struggle to hear them.  They deliver the world's largest babies, but despite their immense size, most of the places where the great blue whales calve their young have been among the world's greatest mysteries.

Blue whales are so rare that even experts know little about them, but we do know their future is threatened.  Blue whales in the Eastern North Pacific once numbered close to 10,000, but more than a century of whaling took its toll.  Even though the hunting of blues has been banned since the 1960s, today only about 2,000 are left in what is thought to be the largest known population on earth.  In an effort to learn more about these behemoths and help to protect them, an international team of scientists supported by the National Geographic Society sets out on an expedition to unlock the secrets of the blue whale and investigate why more are dying than at any time since the era of whaling.  

Narrated by Emmy® award-winning actor Tom Selleck, on Sunday, March 8, 2009, at 8 p.m. ET/PT, National Geographic Channel's (NGC) Kingdom of the Blue Whale takes viewers on a journey with some of the world's preeminent experts to explore the little-known wintering grounds of these elusive gentle giants, chart their migratory paths and identify where this population produces their young - vital information if they are to be protected.  The team even hopes they will be the first ever to film an infant calf underwater.  National Geographic Magazine will also have coverage of this landmark expedition in its March 2009 issue.

Filmed during sea voyages off the coasts of California and Costa Rica, Kingdom of the Blue Whale follows a watery trail of clues over hundreds of nautical miles, as scientists unravel answers to ancient mysteries hidden in the darkest depths of the oceans.  Back closer to shore, we investigate the traumatic deaths of four blue whales in one season - far greater than the one expected every few years.  Is man to blame, and what can be done to prevent the loss of additional whales?

Stunning HD underwater cinematography, CGI of the developing whale fetus, satellite imaging and insight from experts all help tell this new chapter in the story of the blue whale.  Using National Geographic's cutting-edge Crittercam®, an integrated video-camcorder and data-logging system that attaches to the whale's back with suction, this special also features the exclusive footage of the blue whale gulping krill - from the whale's perspective.

Aboard Oregon State University's research vessel the Pacific Storm, scientists use state-of-the-art equipment to find, study and listen to the Eastern North Pacific blue whale population.  Beginning in California, Dr. Bruce Mate, director of the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University, places satellite tags on individual blues to track their location anywhere in the sea and collects skin samples to determine the sex of the whales.  Simultaneously, John Calambokidis of Cascadia Research in Olympia, WA, uses a camera to photo-ID blues and a crossbow to collect small skin samples for further study.

Employing a different type of tag, Dr. Erin Oleson, formerly of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography near San Diego, CA, decodes the whales' sounds - and what they might mean - by comparing the acoustic signals to the behavior they exhibit.  To their delight, the scientists are able to tag 15 blues.  But sadly, the team also comes across several dead blues off the coast of Santa Barbara, leaving the scientists distressed and elevating the urgency to find what is killing them.

Armed with technology and driven to solve the mysteries of these giants, the scientists next journey hundreds of miles through remote and dangerous seas searching for the wintering ground of these leviathans in the vast Costa Rica Dome, an area of the Pacific Ocean where cold water from the deep rises to just below the warm, tropical surface - an ideal blue whale habitat.  There the team faces the real challenge of finding and observing blues, which spend virtually all of their lives underwater and surface for only seconds at a time to fill their closet-sized lungs before diving again.

The team locates the whales in almost 1,000 square miles of remote ocean rarely visited by humans, and succeeds in their bold mission to confirm three whale behaviors never witnessed before at the Costa Rica Dome - courtship, calving and winter feeding.  By learning more about this secret spot, they win a huge victory toward protecting the creatures and their most vital habitat.  The team also confirms that calves are born at the Dome by documenting a mother blue whale traveling with an infant calf, the youngest ever photographed underwater and one of the rarest sights in nature.  And they confirm that blues feed all year round in this location - a behavior never before observed here.  Prior to this discovery, scientists had suspected that blue whales fed here during the winter months, but were never able to conclusively prove it.  In addition, the team verifies that blue whales interact with one another by singing, a behavior previously exhibited only by single males swimming alone.

Kingdom of the Blue Whale also opens a window into why these animals have become one of the most endangered species on earth.  Today, our oceans are busier and noisier, and resources the whales depend on are disappearing.  And while blue whale hunting is now illegal, they remain under assault by another killer - huge oceangoing cargo vessels that power through the sea day and night.  Blues have been known to become victims of ship strikes on occasion, but the numbers of fatalities have increased in recent years.  In fact, the four dead blue whales found during the making of this film were apparently killed by ship strikes.  Whale experts are exploring whether the amount of industrial noise in today's oceans might be a cause of confusion for blue whales, which can play a role in their tragic, but avoidable, deaths.

Join the National Geographic Channel as it unravels the web of mystery surrounding the elusive behemoths of the sea and uncovers the keys to the blue kingdom and its future.  As we witness the vitality of the whale's most critical behaviors, we now understand the complete life cycle of big blues and where science can concentrate its efforts to protect them.  As whale expert Steve Palumbi says, "It's probably harder to be a whale like that than it's ever, ever been before ... I think we have the power to protect them and let them have that chance."  To give them that chance, we must protect our seas over the years and decades to come ... for baby blue and for ourselves.

For more information on blue whales, visit www.natgeotv/bluewhale.com.

Kingdom of the Blue Whale is produced by National Geographic Television and Film.  Producer/director is Sue Houghton; head of the Natural History Unit is Keenan Smart; and director of photography is Ernie Kovacs.  For National Geographic Channel, executive producer is Howard Swartz; senior vice president, production and development is Juliet Blake; and executive vice president of content is Steve Burns.