Tales of ice-bound wonderlands | Paul Nicklen

Summary

私の北極専門家としての旅は、幼少期に家族がカナダ南部からグリーンランド近くの北バフィン島に移住したことから始まりました。そこでイヌイットと共に生活し、雪と氷が私の遊び場となり、イヌイットが私の教師でした。この体験から北極圏に強い興味を持ち、将来その美しさと保護の重要性を広める仕事をすることを決意しました。今回はナショナルジオグラフィックの未公開のカバレッジから、精霊熊や北極の写真を紹介します。これらの写真は、氷が消失することによる北極圏の生態系への影響を伝えるためのものです。

Takeaways

• 😀 ポーラースペシャリストになる旅は、幼少期に北バフィン島への引っ越しから始まった。
• 🏔️ イヌイットと共に過ごし、雪と氷の中で遊ぶことで、極地への情熱が育まれた。
• 📸 写真家として、極地の魅力を伝え、保護の重要性を訴える使命を持つ。
• 🐻 カモデベア（スピリットベア）の写真撮影に成功したが、2ヶ月間待たなければならなかった。
• 🌍 海氷の減少が進行中で、北極の夏季の海氷は次の4〜10年で消える可能性がある。
• 🐾 海氷の消失により、ホッキョクグマなどの生態系が危機に瀕している。
• ❄️ 海氷は極地の生態系の基盤であり、溶けることで食物連鎖が崩壊する恐れがある。
• 🦭 ヒョウアザラシとの出会いは、特に感動的で忘れられない体験だった。
• 🐧 ヒョウアザラシは、ペンギンを捕まえて私に「贈る」行動を繰り返した。
• 🌊 北極や南極の環境を保護するために、極地の物語を広める重要性を強調。

Q & A

質問1: ポーラースペシャリストになる旅はいつ始まりましたか？

答え1: 家族が南カナダから北バフィン島に移り住んだ4歳の時に始まりました。

質問2: バフィン島での生活で特に印象的だったことは何ですか？

答え2: イヌイットの小さなコミュニティで、テレビやコンピュータ、ラジオ、電話もなく、外でイヌイットと遊んでいたことが特に印象的でした。

質問3: ナショナルジオグラフィックが特別に許可したことは何ですか？

答え3: 未公開のカバレッジからいくつかの画像を見せることを許可しました。

質問4: スピリットベアとは何ですか？

答え4: スピリットベアはグレートベアレインフォレストに住む純白の熊で、クマードベアとも呼ばれ、約200頭しか残っていません。

質問5: 氷が失われると何が起こる可能性がありますか？

答え5: 氷が失われると、極地の生態系全体が危険にさらされ、特にホッキョクグマが絶滅の危機に瀕する可能性があります。

質問6: ホッキョクグマの狩りの技術について教えてください。

答え6: ホッキョクグマは非常に優れたハンターで、氷がなくても、海に浮かぶ氷河の上でアザラシを捕まえることができます。

質問7: ナショナルジオグラフィックでのキャリアが終わるかもしれないと感じたのはなぜですか？

答え7: スピリットベアを2か月間見つけられなかったため、キャリアが終わるかもしれないと感じました。

質問8: レオパードシールに関する冒険の最も記憶に残るエピソードは何ですか？

答え8: レオパードシールが何度もペンギンを捕まえては解放し、最終的には私に食べさせようとする姿が最も記憶に残るエピソードです。

質問9: ナルワルについて教えてください。

答え9: ナルワルは8フィートの象牙の牙を持ち、氷の下にいるタラを捕まえるために小さな氷の穴に自らを追い込みます。

質問10: 氷の消失が北極の生態系に与える影響は何ですか？

答え10: 氷の消失は北極の生態系に壊滅的な影響を与え、微生物からホッキョクグマに至るまでの食物連鎖全体が危機に瀕します。

Outlines

00:00

🏞️ 幼少期の冒険と極地への情熱

パラグラフ1では、語り手が4歳の時に家族と共にカナダ南部からグリーンランド近くのバフィン島北部に移住し、イヌイットのコミュニティで育った経験を語ります。テレビや電話などの現代の便利さがない環境で、イヌイットと共に雪と氷を遊び場として過ごし、極地への情熱を育みました。特に、ナショナルジオグラフィックの未公開写真を特別に披露することへの興奮が述べられています。

05:04

❄️ 消えゆく氷とその影響

パラグラフ2では、地球温暖化による北極の氷の急速な減少について語ります。氷の減少が北極の生態系、特にホッキョクグマに与える深刻な影響が強調され、科学者たちが予測する氷の消失時期が急速に短縮されていることが述べられます。また、語り手がフィールドでの実体験を通じて、氷の消失がもたらす動物たちの苦境を写真で伝えようとする姿勢が描かれています。

10:05

🐋 北極の生態系とその脆弱さ

パラグラフ3では、語り手が北極圏で遭遇した様々な動物たちの写真を紹介します。特に、250年以上生きる可能性のあるホッキョククジラや、独特の牙を持つイッカクについて触れています。また、これらの動物たちが氷に依存して生活していることを強調し、氷の減少が生態系全体に与える影響について詳しく説明しています。

15:10

🐧 アザラシとの出会いと感動

パラグラフ4では、語り手が南極で出会ったヒョウアザラシとの驚くべき体験を語ります。ヒョウアザラシが語り手にペンギンを捕まえようとする試みや、コミュニケーションの断絶が描かれ、これが4日間にわたる感動的な出来事であったことが述べられています。最終的に、語り手はこれらの動物たちの驚くべき行動と知性に対する深い感銘を表し、極地への愛と保護の重要性を強調します。

Keywords

💡イヌイット

イヌイットは北極圏に住む先住民で、講演者の幼少期に彼らのコミュニティで育ったことが彼の極地への関心の出発点となった。彼らは講演者にとって教師であり、極地の自然との関わりを学ぶ存在だった。

💡極地

極地とは地球の北極や南極の地域を指し、講演者の専門分野であり、彼が写真家として活動する主要な舞台である。彼の仕事はこれらの地域の環境保護に焦点を当てている。

💡ナショナルジオグラフィック

ナショナルジオグラフィックは科学、地理、歴史に関するドキュメンタリーや出版物で知られる団体であり、講演者が頻繁に執筆・撮影を行っている雑誌。彼のキャリアにおいて重要なパートナーである。

💡精霊熊

精霊熊（ケルモデグマ）はカナダのグレートベアレインフォレストに生息する珍しい白い熊で、講演者が撮影することに成功した。非常に希少で、絶滅危惧種として保護が必要である。

💡氷

氷は極地の生態系の基盤であり、講演者の写真とメッセージの中心的なテーマである。氷が溶けると、極地の生態系全体が危機に瀕することを強調している。

💡ホッキョクグマ

ホッキョクグマは北極の象徴的な動物であり、氷の減少によって絶滅の危機に瀕している。講演者は彼らの狩猟行動を観察し、写真に収めることで、氷の重要性を伝えている。

💡アザラシ

アザラシはホッキョクグマの主な餌であり、氷の生態系において重要な役割を果たしている。講演者はアザラシが氷とどのように関わり、生き延びるかを描写している。

💡温暖化

温暖化は地球の気温が上昇し、極地の氷が急速に溶ける原因となっている現象。講演者のメッセージは、温暖化が極地の生態系に与える影響を訴え、その緊急性を強調するものである。

💡撮影技術

撮影技術は講演者が極地の過酷な環境で用いる特別なスキルや機材を指す。彼は氷の下や極寒の中での撮影経験を通じて、極地の美しさと脆弱さを世界に伝えている。

💡保護活動

保護活動は講演者の仕事の核心であり、極地の動物や環境を守るための努力を指す。彼の写真は一般の人々にこれらの問題への関心を喚起し、行動を促すためのものである。

Highlights

My journey to become a polar specialist began when I was four years old when my family moved from southern Canada to Northern Baffin Island.

Inuit community didn't have a television, computers, radio, or even a telephone. All my time was spent outside with the Inuit, playing in the snow and ice.

I knew someday I was going to do something related to sharing news about the polar regions and protecting them.

I'm excited to share unpublished images from National Geographic of a rare spirit bear, or Kermode bear, from the Great Bear Rainforest.

Spent two months waiting to photograph the spirit bear, fearing career failure, until an incredible big white male bear appeared.

Showcases images of the rare spirit bear and other work from the polar regions accompanied by Brandi Carlile's song 'Have You Ever.'

Discusses the rapid disappearance of sea ice and its critical impact on the polar ecosystem, predicting the potential extinction of polar bears within 50-100 years.

Polar bears are amazing hunters, and their survival is deeply connected to the availability of sea ice.

Increasing number of dead bears in the Arctic, highlighting the stress of disappearing ice.

Personal anecdote of photographing a polar bear hunting an 800 lb. bearded seal on a floating glacier.

Ringed seals, crucial to the polar bear diet, live their entire life cycle associated with sea ice, giving birth inside the ice and feeding on Arctic cod.

The importance of multi-year ice, which acts like soil in a garden, supporting a diverse range of microorganisms essential for the Arctic food chain.

Describes a challenging dive in the Beaufort Sea to photograph the underside of multi-year ice, despite extreme conditions and physical stress.

Bowhead whale could be over 250 years old, symbolizing the deep connection between Arctic wildlife and the changing climate.

Personal story of interacting with a leopard seal in Antarctica, which attempted to feed him penguins, challenging the animal's misunderstood reputation.

Transcripts

My journey to become a polar specialist,

photographing, specializing in the polar regions,

began when I was four years old,

when my family moved from southern Canada

to Northern Baffin Island, up by Greenland.

There we lived with the Inuit

in the tiny Inuit community of 200 Inuit people,

where [we] were one of three non-Inuit families.

And in this community, we didn't have a television;

we didn't have computers, obviously, radio.

We didn't even have a telephone.

All of my time was spent outside

with the Inuit, playing.

The snow and the ice were my sandbox,

and the Inuit were my teachers.

And that's where I became

truly obsessed with this polar realm.

And I knew someday that I was going to do something

that had to do with trying to share news about it

and protect it.

I'd like to share with you, for just two minutes only,

some images, a cross-section of my work,

to the beautiful music by Brandi Carlile, "Have You Ever."

I don't know why National Geographic has done this, they've never done this before,

but they're allowing me to show you a few images

from a coverage that I've just completed that is not published yet.

National Geographic doesn't do this,

so I'm very excited to be able to share this with you.

And what these images are --

you'll see them at the start of the slide show -- there's only about four images --

but it's of a little bear that lives in the Great Bear Rainforest.

It's pure white, but it's not a polar bear.

It's a spirit bear, or a Kermode bear.

There are only 200 of these bears left.

They're more rare than the panda bear.

I sat there on the river for two months without seeing one.

I thought, my career's over.

I proposed this stupid story to National Geographic.

What in the heck was I thinking?

So I had two months to sit there

and figure out different ways of what I was going to do in my next life,

after I was a photographer, because they were going to fire me.

Because National Geographic is a magazine; they remind us all the time:

they publish pictures, not excuses.

(Laughter)

And after two months of sitting there --

one day, thinking that it was all over,

this incredible big white male came down,

right beside me, three feet away from me,

and he went down and grabbed a fish and went off in the forest and ate it.

And then I spent the entire day living my childhood dream

of walking around with this bear through the forest.

He went through this old-growth forest

and sat up beside this 400-year-old culturally modified tree and went to sleep.

And I actually got to sleep within three feet of him,

just in the forest, and photograph him.

So I'm very excited to be able to show you those images

and a cross-section of my work that I've done on the polar regions.

Please enjoy.

(Music)

Brandi Carlile: ♫ Have you ever wandered lonely through the woods? ♫

♫ And everything there feels just as it should ♫

♫ You're part of the life there ♫

♫ You're part of something good ♫

♫ If you've ever wandered lonely through the woods ♫

♫ Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh ♫

♫ If you've ever wandered lonely through the woods ♫

♫ Have you ever stared into a starry sky? ♫

♫ Lying on your back, you're asking why ♫

♫ What's the purpose? ♫

♫ I wonder, who am I? ♫

♫ If you've ever stared into a starry sky ♫

♫ Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh ♫

♫ Aah, ah, aah ♫

♫ Ah, oh, oh, ah, ah, oh, oh ♫

♫ Have you ever stared into a starry sky? ♫

♫ Have you ever been out walking in the snow? ♫

♫ Tried to get back where you were before ♫

♫ You always end up ♫

♫ Not knowing where to go ♫

♫ If you've ever been out walking in the snow ♫

♫ Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh ♫

♫ Aah, ah, aah, ah, aah ♫

♫ Ah, ah, oh, ah, ah, oh, ah ♫

♫ Oh, ah, ah, ah ♫

♫ Ah, ah, oh, ah, ah, oh, oh ♫

♫ If you'd ever been out walking you would know ♫

(Applause)

Paul Nicklen: Thank you very much. The show's not over.

My clock is ticking. OK, let's stop.

Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

We're inundated with news all the time

that the sea ice is disappearing

and it's at its lowest level.

And in fact, scientists were originally saying

sea ice is going to disappear in the next hundred years, then they said 50 years.

Now they're saying the sea ice in the Arctic,

the summertime extent is going to be gone in the next four to 10 years.

And what does that mean?

After a while of reading this in the news, it just becomes news.

You glaze over with it.

And what I'm trying to do with my work is put faces to this.

And I want people to understand and get the concept

that, if we lose ice,

we stand to lose an entire ecosystem.

Projections are that we could lose polar bears, they could become extinct

in the next 50 to 100 years.

And there's no better, sexier,

more beautiful, charismatic megafauna species

for me to hang my campaign on.

Polar bears are amazing hunters.

This was a bear I sat with for a while on the shores.

There was no ice around.

But this glacier caved into the water and a seal got on it.

And this bear swam out to that seal --

800 lb. bearded seal --

grabbed it, swam back and ate it.

And he was so full, he was so happy and so fat eating this seal,

that, as I approached him --

about 20 feet away -- to get this picture,

his only defense was to keep eating more seal.

And as he ate, he was so full --

he probably had about 200 lbs of meat in his belly --

and as he ate inside one side of his mouth,

he was regurgitating out the other side of his mouth.

So as long as these bears have any bit of ice they will survive,

but it's the ice that's disappearing.

We're finding more and more dead bears in the Arctic.

When I worked on polar bears as a biologist 20 years ago,

we never found dead bears.

And in the last four or five years,

we're finding dead bears popping up all over the place.

We're seeing them in the Beaufort Sea,

floating in the open ocean where the ice has melted out.

I found a couple in Norway last year. We're seeing them on the ice.

These bears are already showing signs

of the stress of disappearing ice.

Here's a mother and her two year-old cub

were traveling on a ship a hundred miles offshore in the middle of nowhere,

and they're riding on this big piece of glacier ice,

which is great for them; they're safe at this point.

They're not going to die of hypothermia.

They're going to get to land.

But unfortunately, 95 percent of the glaciers in the Arctic

are also receding right now

to the point that the ice is ending up on land

and not injecting any ice back into the ecosystem.

These ringed seals, these are the "fatsicles" of the Arctic.

These little, fat dumplings,

150-pound bundles of blubber

are the mainstay of the polar bear.

And they're not like the harbor seals that you have here.

These ringed seals also live out their entire life cycle

associated and connected to sea ice.

They give birth inside the ice,

and they feed on the Arctic cod that live under the ice.

And here's a picture of sick ice.

This is a piece of multi-year ice that's 12 years old.

And what scientists didn't predict is that, as this ice melts,

these big pockets of black water are forming

and they're grabbing the sun's energy

and accelerating the melting process.

And here we are diving in the Beaufort Sea.

The visibility's 600 ft.; we're on our safety lines;

the ice is moving all over the place.

I wish I could spend half an hour telling you

about how we almost died on this dive.

But what's important in this picture is that you have a piece of multi-year ice,

that big chunk of ice up in the corner.

In that one single piece of ice,

you have 300 species of microorganisms.

And in the spring, when the sun returns to the ice,

it forms the phytoplankton, grows under that ice,

and then you get bigger sheets of seaweed,

and then you get the zooplankton feeding on all that life.

So really what the ice does

is it acts like a garden.

It acts like the soil in a garden. It's an inverted garden.

Losing that ice is like losing the soil in a garden.

Here's me in my office.

I hope you appreciate yours.

This is after an hour under the ice.

I can't feel my lips; my face is frozen;

I can't feel my hands; I can't feel my feet.

And I've come up, and all I wanted to do was get out of the water.

After an hour in these conditions,

it's so extreme that, when I go down,

almost every dive I vomit into my regulator

because my body can't deal with the stress of the cold on my head.

And so I'm just so happy that the dive is over.

I get to hand my camera to my assistant,

and I'm looking up at him, and I'm going, "Woo. Woo. Woo."

Which means, "Take my camera."

And he thinks I'm saying, "Take my picture."

So we had this little communication breakdown.

(Laughter)

But it's worth it.

I'm going to show you pictures of beluga whales, bowhead whales,

and narwhals, and polar bears, and leopard seals today,

but this picture right here means more to me than any other I've ever made.

I dropped down in this ice hole, just through that hole that you just saw,

and I looked up under the underside of the ice,

and I was dizzy; I thought I had vertigo.

I got very nervous -- no rope, no safety line,

the whole world is moving around me --

and I thought, "I'm in trouble."

But what happened is that the entire underside

was full of these billions of amphipods and copepods

moving around and feeding on the underside of the ice,

giving birth and living out their entire life cycle.

This is the foundation of the whole food chain in the Arctic, right here.

And when you have low productivity in this, in ice,

the productivity in copepods go down.

This is a bowhead whale.

Supposedly, science is stating

that it could be the oldest living animal on earth right now.

This very whale right here could be over 250 years old.

This whale could have been born

around the start of the Industrial Revolution.

It could have survived 150 years of whaling.

And now its biggest threat is the disappearance of ice in the North

because of the lives that we're leading in the South.

Narwhals, these majestic narwhals

with their eight-foot long ivory tusks, don't have to be here;

they could be out on the open water.

But they're forcing themselves to come up in these tiny little ice holes

where they can breathe, catch a breath,

because right under that ice are all the swarms of cod.

And the cod are there

because they are feeding on all the copepods and amphipods.

Alright, my favorite part.

When I'm on my deathbed,

I'm going to remember one story more than any other.

Even though that spirit bear moment was powerful,

I don't think I'll ever have another experience

like I did with these leopard seals.

Leopard seals, since the time of Shackleton, have had a bad reputation.

They've got that wryly smile on their mouth.

They've got those black sinister eyes

and those spots on their body.

They look positively prehistoric and a bit scary.

And tragically in [2003],

a scientist was taken down and drowned,

and she was being consumed by a leopard seal.

And people were like, "We knew they were vicious. We knew they were."

And so people love to form their opinions.

And that's when I got a story idea:

I want to go to Antarctica,

get in the water with as many leopard seals as I possibly can

and give them a fair shake --

find out if they really are these vicious animals, or if they're misunderstood.

So this is that story.

Oh, and they also happen to eat Happy Feet.

(Laughter)

As a species, as humans, we like to say penguins are really cute,

therefore, leopard seals eat them, so leopard seals are ugly and bad.

It doesn't work that way.

The penguin doesn't know it's cute,

and the leopard seal doesn't know it's kind of big and monstrous.

This is just the food chain unfolding.

They're also big.

They're not these little harbor seals.

They are 12 ft. long, a thousand pounds.

And they're also curiously aggressive.

You get 12 tourists packed into a Zodiac,

floating in these icy waters,

and a leopard seal comes up and bites the pontoon.

The boat starts to sink, they race back to the ship

and get to go home and tell the stories of how they got attacked.

All the leopard seal was doing --

it's just biting a balloon.

It just sees this big balloon in the ocean -- it doesn't have hands --

it's going to take a little bite, the boat pops, and off they go.

(Laughter)

So after five days of crossing the Drake Passage --

isn't that beautiful --

after five days of crossing the Drake Passage,

we have finally arrived at Antarctica.

I'm with my Swedish assistant and guide.

His name is Goran Ehlme from Sweden -- Goran.

And he has a lot of experience with leopard seals. I have never seen one.

So we come around the cove in our little Zodiac boat,

and there's this monstrous leopard seal.

And even in his voice, he goes, "That's a bloody big seal, ya."

(Laughter)

And this seal is taking this penguin by the head,

and it's flipping it back and forth.

And what it's trying to do is turn that penguin inside-out,

so it can eat the meat off the bones,

and then it goes off and gets another one.

And so this leopard seal grabbed another penguin,

came under the boat, the Zodiac,

starting hitting the hull of the boat.

And we're trying to not fall in the water.

And we sit down, and that's when Goran said to me,

"This is a good seal, ya.

It's time for you to get in the water."

(Laughter)

And I looked at Goran, and I said to him, "Forget that."

But I think I probably used a different word starting with the letter "F."

But he was right.

He scolded me out, and said, "This is why we're here.

And you purposed this stupid story to National Geographic.

And now you've got to deliver.

And you can't publish excuses."

So I had such dry mouth --

probably not as bad as now --

but I had such, such dry mouth.

And my legs were just trembling. I couldn't feel my legs.

I put my flippers on. I could barely part my lips.

I put my snorkel in my mouth,

and I rolled over the side of the Zodiac into the water.

And this was the first thing she did.

She came racing up to me, engulfed my whole camera --

and her teeth are up here and down here --

but Goran, before I had gotten in the water, had given me amazing advice.

He said, "If you get scared, you close your eyes, ya, and she'll go away."

(Laughter)

So that's all I had to work with at that point.

But I just started to shoot these pictures.

So she did this threat display for a few minutes,

and then the most amazing thing happened -- she totally relaxed.

She went off, she got a penguin.

She stopped about 10 feet away from me,

and she sat there with this penguin, the penguin's flapping, and she let's it go.

The penguin swims toward me, takes off.

She grabs another one. She does this over and over.

And it dawned on me that she's trying to feed me a penguin.

Why else would she release these penguins at me?

And after she did this four or five times,

she swam by me with this dejected look on her face.

You don't want to be too anthropomorphic, but I swear that she looked at me

like, "This useless predator's going to starve in my ocean."

(Laughter)

So realizing I couldn't catch swimming penguins,

she'd get these other penguins and bring them slowly towards me,

bobbing like this, and she'd let them go.

This didn't work.

I was laughing so hard and so emotional

that my mask was flooding, because I was crying underwater,

just because it was so amazing.

And so that didn't work.

So then she'd get another penguin and try this ballet-like sexy display

sliding down this iceberg like this. (Laughter)

And she would sort of bring them over to me and offer it to me.

This went on for four days.

This just didn't happen a couple of times.

And then so she realized I couldn't catch live ones,

so she brought me dead penguins.

(Laughter)

Now I've got four or five penguins floating around my head,

and I'm just sitting there shooting away.

And she would often stop and have this dejected look on her face

like, "Are you for real?"

Because she can't believe I can't eat this penguin.

Because in her world, you're either breeding or you're eating --

and I'm not breeding, so ...

(Laughter)

And then that wasn't enough; she started to flip penguins onto my head.

She was trying to force-feed me. She's pushing me around.

She's trying to force-feed my camera,

which is every photographer's dream.

And she would get frustrated; she'd blow bubbles in my face.

She would, I think, let me know that I was going to starve.

But yet she didn't stop.

She would not stop trying to feed me penguins.

And on the last day with this female

where I thought I had pushed her too far,

I got nervous because she came up to me,

she rolled over on her back,

and she did this deep, guttural jackhammer sound, this gok-gok-gok-gok.

And I thought, she's about to bite.

She's about to let me know she's too frustrated with me.

What had happened was another seal had snuck in behind me,

and she did that to threat display.

She chased that big seal away, went and got its penguin

and brought it to me.

(Laughter)

That wasn't the only seal I got in the water with.

I got in the water with 30 other leopard seals,

and I never once had a scary encounter.

They are the most remarkable animals I've ever worked with,

and the same with polar bears.

And just like the polar bears,

these animals depend on an icy environment.

I get emotional. Sorry.

It's a story that lives deep in my heart,

and I'm proud to share this with you.

And I'm so passionate about it.

Anybody want to come with me to Antarctica or the Arctic, I'll take you; let's go.

We've got to get the story out now. Thank you very much.

(Applause)

Thank you.

(Applause)

Thank you.

(Applause)

Thank you. Thanks very much.

(Applause)

Thank you.

(Applause)