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Heres a program from our archives.Ambience, SealsWe're listening to the sounds of seals, just one of many different kinds of wildlife that make their home in the Antarctic. I'm Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet.Wilkniss: The Antarctic is surprisingly rich in wildlife. The more northerly you go, there is a place called the Antarctic peninsula that is kind of the banana belt of the Antarctic. It is incredibly rich. You have the huge whales, you have penguins, you have seals, you have an incredible variety of sea birds. Of course they're so tame, they're not scared by human beings. You can almost touch, if you wanted to, the birds, or you can almost touch the whales. They're very curious. They come very close, say to the rubber boats. They play and they come out and look, and it is fantastic.Dr. Peter Wilkniss is director of the division of Polar Programs at the National Science Foundation.Wilkniss: It is a unique laboratory in which we study things that we can study nowhere on earth. For instance, we can study how penguins adapt to the incredible harshness of the climate, and have their young hatch in the winter and see them through. We can study how small animals called, krill, they've kind of shrimp-like features, in huge amounts - suffice to feed the biggest creatures on earth, the whales. That can only be done there. Then we can study how the whole biological system, from the whales to the krills to very small organisms called algae, that live at the top of the southern ocean and that even live in the ice, how they all live together and make part of what we call the biological system of the earth.This archival program is part of our thirtieth anniversary celebration. If you want hear more, check out our podcast.