Wild Chronicles
Season 3, Episode 28 of 42

News from Nature - Although commercial whaling is banned, some countries continue to kill hundreds of whales a year in the name of scientific research. Loopholes in the ban then allow the meat of the dead whales to be sold in stores and restaurants. Now, as whale watching becomes a substantial international industry, a heated global debate is growing from this conflict of interests, with conservationists fighting to stop the killing by pointing to the many benefits of keeping whales in the water. Stories from the Wild - Kenya's Masai Mara is one of Africa's great natural wonders, but recent months of political unrest has scared away tourists and created an uncertain future for the wildlife that call the reserve home. Fewer tourist dollars means less money to fund the rangers who protect the park from poachers. In an effort to raise awareness and gain global support, local rangers are turning to the Internet to blog about their experiences, GeoCast - For the Inuit who call Canada's Baffin Island home, dogsledding remains an important mode of transportation. But the future of this tradition is in peril as climate change threatens the polar ice. Wild Chronicles host Boyd Matson heads out with an Inuit hunter and his dogsled and learns the hard way that he may have bitten off more than he can chew on this adventure. *In Japan, researchers find that chimpanzees can be more accurate that humans in some memory tasks. The researchers believe young chimps possess photographic memories that allow them to excel at memory games. But humans shouldn't feel too bad: scientists speculate that as humans lost photographic memory skills they gained something else - a complex language. National Geographic photographer Robert Clark takes Wild Chronicles behind the scenes of his photo-shoot for the April 2008 National Geographic magazine feature on biomimetics, a scientific field that takes the designs of nature and tries to apply them to modern inventions. From the Oakland Zoo to a watering hole in Namibia's Etosha National Park, elephants are picking up some good vibrations. A study by National Geographic grantee Caitlin O'Connell-Rodwell suggests that an elephant's big feet aren't just made for walking: they're good for listening with as well. In the ponds of Arizona, tadpoles are growing into toads. But hotter summers are causing the pond waters to evaporate more quickly, leaving less space and time for tadpoles to transform into adults. In the fight for survival, those that grow fastest are devouring the competition, literally.