Calling B.S. on Planet Earth

Another entry in my series of writing about stuff I know absolutely nothing about:

I love nature photography (see Althouse, Ann), so, naturally, I adore the Planet Earth series - absolutely stunning. But I was watching an episode today, and my liberal b.s. detector went off. In an episode on the oceans, the narrator introduces us to the blue whale, the largest creature ever. He explains that because of the oceans' vastness, we know almost nothing about the movements of these huge whales, and we have no idea where they go to breed. Then, maybe five minutes later, as the episode is wrappping up with some final shots of the whales, the narrator goes into earnestness mode and explains that because of climate change, the whales' habitat has been endangered, and their numbers are dwindling. Where there used to be hundreds of thousands, there remain now just a few hundred. So my question is: if they can't track the whales, have no idea where they go, don't have a clue where they breed, how on God's green and exquisitely photogenic earth do they know how many of them there are? And know with such precision that they can make apocalyptic claims about there being an extinction rate of 97 percent? Maybe the whales just moved, or are just smart enough to stay away from British people.

Anyway, I don't care about this at all, I just thought it was a bizarre statement for them to make. And screw the whales. As long as there are enough baby seals around for our natives to club every day, I'm happy!