Dolphins and Whales
Ute Margreff lives on the rough Atlantic coast of Ireland, while Florian Graner has settled in the fjord region in the north-west of the USA. Both originally from Germany, they have never met, but they are united by one thing: a passion for the sea and its inhabitants. It was over 10 years ago that Ute Margreff first met the female dolphin Mara along the Galway coast, and over the course of time an extraordinary relationship has developed between them. Mara is a solitary dolphin, a dolphin which has left its original group and prefers to live on its own. Since meeting Ute she has gone out of her way to seek out the German woman, and the encounter also changed Ute‘s life. She moved to Ireland, and now she devotes her life to studying the unusual behaviour of this marine mammal. Almost every day she and Mara meet in the cold water of the Atlantic, and on many occasions Ute pushes herself to the limits of her own physical endurance in order to maintain this amazing relationship. What she discovers about solitary dolphins on these dives seems to make all her efforts worthwhile. In fact Mara isn't the only solitary dolphin on the coast of Ireland, and we accompany the German dolphin expert as she visits other lone dolphins which have become well-known far beyond the borders of Ireland. In the north-west USA, near the Canadian border, high mountains surround a huge bay known as the Salish Sea, an American fjord landscape teeming with life. The biologist and wildlife film-maker Florian Graner has discovered his own personal paradise here at Puget Sound, making a home for himself and his family on one of the many islands. From his front door it is only a few steps to the water's edge. Shoals of herring swim up to the seagrass meadows on the shallow coast to lay their eggs, waterfowl dive for mussels, and sea lions bask sleepily on the swaying seagrass.
S1A3 48 min
