unseen unknown mysterious
beautiful and existence city in the sea
the richest heart of our planet
it was paradise good evening what we
want to show tonight is basically a year
a year in photography and we will take
you on an on a journey mostly under seas
from the boiling hot tropics the volcano
laced tropics to the cold water to the
ice to the Arctic and I think I may
share a little bit about us we work as a
team we’re together 24/7 which is we are
married you know yes we are married but
it’s a good partnership
jennifer has always said that I have
this teenaged crush about Papua New
Guinea but eighteen years ago it’s now
18 years ago I was in a place called Kim
B Bay I was there for the total of six
days and in those six days I made some
very serious wonderful pictures and I
had to go back I had to go back but the
years passed and suddenly the phone rang
and it was it was the office and they
said to me you you have been selected to
participate to contribute in the hundred
and twenty-fifth anniversary issue the
photography issue of the National
Geographic magazine they said you can go
anywhere you want shoot anything you
want and I said to myself Kim B Bay Dean
and so we had an assignment but here’s a
problem that all of you share right now
and that problem is where the hell is
can be Bay
well kimby bay is in the Coral Triangle
and the Coral Triangle is where on this
planet the most biodiverse
most numbers of fish coral and of course
invertebrates live this was a perfect
assignment what could possibly go wrong
hmm the whole stories had a cloud over
it boiling dark cloud the monsoon is
still going on the wettest March and
April since 1970 the batteries are
smoldering and stinking and burning your
camera’s on fire it nearly burnt the
place down strobes flood a gopro floods
gone we lose another light the
electronics are scrambled torrential
rains and kaboom another $3,000 charger
blows up like this place has it in first
mosquitos are buzzing around our heads
you don’t have to worry about the bends
you have malaria and as of two days ago
a cyclone New Guinea is eating us up and
spit us out and this story was supposed
to be a gift an easy beautiful story
funny all these years all these stories
every place we’ve gone to we’re sort of
reluctant to leave but it’s over now so
say good night Buffalo Bob
good night bum the bus well the one
sunny day this is what this place looked
like it’s an absolute paradise deep
water with these wonderful sea mounds
rising from thousands of feet to almost
to the service and surrounded by
volcanoes and here’s this mysterious
lake called
Toa the Forbidden Lake no foreigners
nobody but tribesman can go to this lake
because it’s full of spirits and
crocodiles the offshore reefs like this
incredible place called Kim B balmy and
they were far offshore two and a half
hour boat rides have
day 125 feet down at the top of the reef
they were like absolute Gardens these
deep underwater volcanoes Bradford is
the most spectacular dive year as a sea
mount called Bradford Shoals it rises up
from the deep it is rounded steep
shouldered and has an immense school of
Chevron Barracuda which swim around in
great circles almost making funnel
shaped clouds round they go
spooling upwards
when fish move in a circular pattern
they create the rarest thing in the sea
which is a geometric pattern a place
that has no corners and no edges
geometry and a place of weightless chaos
and then the Barracudas would form these
immense circular tornado shaped towers
going from the basically the bottom of
the reef all the way to the surface
sometimes 70 80 feet high
look at this and here’s Jennifer on the
side of one of these towers the first
time we landed on this sea mount called
Joelle’s it was raining fish they were
isolated they were unfound they were
untouched and they were de facto marine
protected areas they just had no sense
of humans and one of the scariest things
and in-your-face conservation I have
ever seen was a group of fishermen in a
single what they call banana boat and
they had found Joelle’s reef and they
had anchored on it and they had been on
it all night fishing and the minute they
saw our boat coming they cut their line
and they sped off and it turns out when
we went down all we found were were
hooks and fishing line and half or more
of the fish were gone all of the pin
giallo snappers every pin giallo snapper
was gone this is one night on one small
piece of real estate in the ocean that
was wiped out and the next day when we
were in the kimby Bay Market there were
the pendulous and it shows you how
fragile it first off it shows us how
marine marine protected areas work and
function and then it shows us how
vulnerable these places are there’s
small things on this reef I have to tell
you
anemones and clownfish it’s one of the
most beautiful friendships in the sea
the anemones protect the clownfish as
eggs protect the clownfish at night with
its stinging tentacles the clownfish
protects the anemones from being nibbled
to death by butterfly fish but Joelle’s
has this wonderful collection of
anemones and toward the evening they
ball up like this and the clownfish
begin to burrow in their stomachs I also
managed to photograph
spawning here the big female clownfish
and the female is the dominant partner
in this relationship
if the female dies the largest male
turns into a female and begins to
produce eggs they’re producing eggs
right now and that purple curtain in the
background is the side of the anemone we
dove with sharks
we were amazed and shocked and pleased
to see sharks in kimby Bay they would
meet you when you rolled off the boat
and you’re like this is the way it is
supposed to be so it was just another
indicator another symbol that these
reefs had survived where other reefs
through art throughout the Coral
Triangle had not done as well we dove on
a place called father’s reef and we met
a Hawksbill turtle and she met us and
every dive we could swim with her as she
made her rounds past schools of
barracudas and schools of batfish I love
this picture because it looks like
turtle is flying and then she’d do this
amazing thing instead of going to the
surface and going back down to another
piece of bottom she would come and she
would rest on our tanks and she would do
this she take her flippers and put her
flippers around the tank and rest there
it was wonderful she really was magic
she met us on every dive and she would
follow you and when she was tired she
would rest on you and it was a magic
moment but it was also a terrifying
moment in terms of that makes this
particular animal very vulnerable the
local fisherman there they fished the
reefs that they can find and they
harvest anything they can find on the
reefs from from reef fish to Turtles and
we would be diving a local banana boat
comes up and with a group of people the
young man swims down the turtle how much
how much how much you buy you buy you
buy would you like to buy your gut
inclination is for a handful of dollars
is to buy that turtle take it to the
next coral sea mount and let it go but
you can’t do that because you’re setting
up a trade in an economy they’ll go
catch another turtle and they’ll come
back to you again or they’ll go catch
the same turtle and bring it back to you
we were in a tiny Empire a perfect tiny
coral Empire and we needed we needed to
have an image of coral a panorama a shot
that said this is this coral world built
of tiny polyps beautiful and existence
city in the sea this picture isn’t the
one we wanted and we kept looking and we
kept searching place called and Sophie
it’s a group violence at the tip of the
willingness peninsula and there’s one
little island a little island it’s not
even an island sand island with a bunch
of trees on it no sir the lone palm tree
that it has in one corner of it a field
and very much shallow water and less
than a foot there is a field beautiful
purple lace Carl intermingled with a
crop herb Carl and dust AG Hong Kong
that’s absolutely beautiful and we work
there photograph picture half and half
out of the water one of the things I
particularly like to do and as you’re
working
father and son came up and dug out they
were fishing there gave them one lunch
later on
like the chicken see antonin is Papa
again just catch a big fish
Oh
big fish
that’s cool like it was one of those
lovely days where everything worked out
we made it mother died and went home
boiling clouds complicated skies of a
windy and is tiny little island this
kind of pictures that you like to make
here’s the picture
we recently published a story in the
National Geographic magazine on the Gulf
of st. Lawrence it was a very
challenging story but very near and dear
to our hearts we live on the st.
Lawrence River in a region called the
Thousand Islands and this is our
neighborhood this is not our house and
this is people ask us all the time we
live in an area that we’re surrounded by
1,800 islands storybook castles in an
amazing creature called the sturgeon
there are 27 species of sturgeon in the
world they’re all in the northern
hemisphere all 27 of them are falling
flat on their face because they are
long-lived they live to be over a
hundred sometimes 200 get this they
don’t spawn until they’re about 25 years
old and then not even every year after
that it’s every five years so 25 30 35
and you can see all of a sudden when you
put the pressure of Fisheries on a
species like this how these stocks are
collapsing and these sturgeon are very
shy they like deep water they’re very
rare to see underwater most of the year
except for one week in the month of June
thousands of them gather and they meet
on these spawning beds this particular
type of rock in very fast water this
water is like washing machine water it
is it’s about a four knot current right
now I am behind a big giant rock trying
to stay out of the current and these
girls these are all girls waiting to
spawn just ignoring me because they’re
all pumped up on hormones any other time
of the year I couldn’t get near them and
the sturgeon are a unique fish they are
so ugly I think they’re beautiful I’d
marry a sturgeon if I could marry a
sturgeon Harbor look at their mouth
look at these barbells you
various sturgeon oh my god you did these
barbels seeing these four things those
are those are called barbells and they
have all these chemosensory ability and
they go along the bottom and they brush
past something they say I can eat that
and the wolf down comes this mouth have
you ever seen a mouth like that past
Quebec the river becomes an estuary and
a little past there the saguenay River
joins the st. Lawrence and there’s a
population of beluga whales beluga
whales are the white whales the canary
whales they sing and they burble and
they make a lot of noise and this guy
came right up to me and kind of blew me
a kiss and when a little bubble came out
and then the whale did this marvelous
thing he tried to eat the camera there
used to be 10,000 beluga whales in the
st. Lawrence it can support up to 10,000
and then they were fished because all
the fish are they were killed because
all the fishermen thought that they were
competing for fish so they were
slaughtered and then it got down to a
handful of thousand and just the just
weeks ago a report came out and said no
no no no we are down to 800 and what is
happening is there’s high infant
mortality the problem is they don’t know
what is causing the infant mortality so
the Department of Fisheries and the
Canadian scientists are now in scramble
and panic mode to figure out how to
preserve these 800 belugas they are
precious and they are almost a symbol of
the st. Lawrence and don’t forget we are
in French Canada French Canada and I
photographed crabs crabs mating and in
French Canada it is not just mating but
is Lamoille
love
they do this for weeks and weeks at a
time you know when I play a playlist sex
after the sex comes early cigarette you
know give me that mm-hmm
oh my god the Gulf of st. Lawrence
freezes in the winter time and it
becomes the world of the harp seal
they are nursed by their mothers for
about 12 days then they’re abandoned
they’re left on the ice to figure out
how to become a heart seal how to feed
how to swim how to do anything and
everything in 2011 when this picture was
made it took us three days by boat to
get to the ice it kept moving there was
so little ice in the Gulf and we located
a patch in a field of ice and it had ten
thousand seals and this is what ten
thousand seals begins to look like and
we can give you an idea of what it’s
like in the world of the harp seal
that’s its umbilical there
a newborn three days old with the mother
in the back
a very nervous mother
still a very nervous mother
to me they’re one of the most beautiful
creatures on the planet for the first 12
days of their life when they’re called
the white coats they look almost like a
stuffed toy and once in a while you’ll
see a blind one and it’s very sad
because they’ll come up to you thinking
you’re their mother they’re desperate
without that particular sensory and
after 12 to 15 days they begin to mold
they begin to shed their white coat and
become what’s called a beater and at
this point they are also eligible to
enter the hunt the Canadian seal hunt
still goes on there’s a lower quota and
they cannot take the white coats but
they can take the beaters and david has
found a beater and I find a pup peering
through the ice looking for his mom he
sees me he’s like no mom is behind me
going a little crazy now because I’m
between her and her pup she rushes past
me and she greets her pup and she coaxes
him into the water they meet with this
underwater nose-to-nose I call it a kiss
of recognitions like are you my mom are
you my pup are you an imposter and while
we’re swimming the pup is very curious
what are you who are you what’s going on
who are you and he would try to swim
towards me he’d get a little close and
the the mother would come up and
literally hold him down no and
eventually she allowed him to get a
little closer and he gets so close that
he scrabbles begins to climb up on my
hear you come be the seal come to the
ceiling okay you’re there so he begins
to do this seal and then he climbs up on
to me I’m I’m the wrath I’m the ice and
now he’s on my chest
he’s tired he’s on my chest and he’s
nosing my mask like he did his my I’m
like I’m the imposter
I am the ax we swim along and we move
into this very open water and now we’re
resting we’re all stopped and then
something nips my left ankle then
something nips my right ankle and I look
down and there’s 30 or 40 male harp
seals circling below me a male comes up
over my back pushes me down his penis
gets caught in my mask taking it off
with him the mask drops were in 3,000
feet of water I see it I grab it got my
camera here and the male is going down
below me and the female sweeps past and
she goes down and the mother is beating
the crap out of this male
the mother services she surfaces and
she’s grunting and snorting and and she
comes back and I’m thinking I’m not sure
what’s gonna happen now but she comes
back and she uses her her head and her
flipper and her entire body and she kind
of scoops up her pup kind of using
everything she’s got and she kind of
gets him in front of her and then she
uses her flipper her nose her body and
she scoops me up now supermom the pup
and I were being propelled herded
through the water out of this open area
where we had all the males beneath us
I ducked underneath and I watched them I
watched the mother in the pup
disappeared I’m pumped up on adrenaline
I’m ecstatic I’m excited I go to the
edge of the ice and I throw my camera
and I’m taking off my weight belt and
just as I’m taking off my weight belt
right at the edge of the ice a male harp
seal comes under the edge of the ice and
he bites me square in the groin and he
lets go and then he bites me square in
the thigh wonk and he lets go and I have
a very very memorable scar from all of
that but it’s not the scar and it’s not
the male that I would ever or want to or
will dwell on it is the female and her
reaction and I will say the world of the
harp seal has been a changing world
David and I were on our way back to
shore a storm came up and the ice was so
bad so weak that when the storm came
through it wrecked the sea ice and
10,000 pups perished every one of them
died they had a hundred percent
mortality of the gulf seals in that
particular year this particular this
past year in 2014 was a big ice year
that’s a relief
we had a relief year because we had had
three to four almost full-on one
90% mortality year so it is a shifting
world for for our climate there and what
I want to close on is David and I go
back every year now we have become
addicted to the ice we feel
extraordinary place we go back every
year and what we’re trying to do is
create a shifting paradigm away from
hunting into a model of ecotourism now
we can take some people up and we take a
week out of the harp seal hunting boat
we buy a week we buy another week we buy
another week and hopefully we’ll show
them a different economy an eco-tourism
based economy where we can take the
pressure off the hunting and with that I
would like to thank you all for coming
you’ve been an incredible audience
you
Oh
beautiful and existence city in the sea
the richest heart of our planet
it was paradise good evening what we
want to show tonight is basically a year
a year in photography and we will take
you on an on a journey mostly under seas
from the boiling hot tropics the volcano
laced tropics to the cold water to the
ice to the Arctic and I think I may
share a little bit about us we work as a
team we’re together 24/7 which is we are
married you know yes we are married but
it’s a good partnership
jennifer has always said that I have
this teenaged crush about Papua New
Guinea but eighteen years ago it’s now
18 years ago I was in a place called Kim
B Bay I was there for the total of six
days and in those six days I made some
very serious wonderful pictures and I
had to go back I had to go back but the
years passed and suddenly the phone rang
and it was it was the office and they
said to me you you have been selected to
participate to contribute in the hundred
and twenty-fifth anniversary issue the
photography issue of the National
Geographic magazine they said you can go
anywhere you want shoot anything you
want and I said to myself Kim B Bay Dean
and so we had an assignment but here’s a
problem that all of you share right now
and that problem is where the hell is
can be Bay
well kimby bay is in the Coral Triangle
and the Coral Triangle is where on this
planet the most biodiverse
most numbers of fish coral and of course
invertebrates live this was a perfect
assignment what could possibly go wrong
hmm the whole stories had a cloud over
it boiling dark cloud the monsoon is
still going on the wettest March and
April since 1970 the batteries are
smoldering and stinking and burning your
camera’s on fire it nearly burnt the
place down strobes flood a gopro floods
gone we lose another light the
electronics are scrambled torrential
rains and kaboom another $3,000 charger
blows up like this place has it in first
mosquitos are buzzing around our heads
you don’t have to worry about the bends
you have malaria and as of two days ago
a cyclone New Guinea is eating us up and
spit us out and this story was supposed
to be a gift an easy beautiful story
funny all these years all these stories
every place we’ve gone to we’re sort of
reluctant to leave but it’s over now so
say good night Buffalo Bob
good night bum the bus well the one
sunny day this is what this place looked
like it’s an absolute paradise deep
water with these wonderful sea mounds
rising from thousands of feet to almost
to the service and surrounded by
volcanoes and here’s this mysterious
lake called
Toa the Forbidden Lake no foreigners
nobody but tribesman can go to this lake
because it’s full of spirits and
crocodiles the offshore reefs like this
incredible place called Kim B balmy and
they were far offshore two and a half
hour boat rides have
day 125 feet down at the top of the reef
they were like absolute Gardens these
deep underwater volcanoes Bradford is
the most spectacular dive year as a sea
mount called Bradford Shoals it rises up
from the deep it is rounded steep
shouldered and has an immense school of
Chevron Barracuda which swim around in
great circles almost making funnel
shaped clouds round they go
spooling upwards
when fish move in a circular pattern
they create the rarest thing in the sea
which is a geometric pattern a place
that has no corners and no edges
geometry and a place of weightless chaos
and then the Barracudas would form these
immense circular tornado shaped towers
going from the basically the bottom of
the reef all the way to the surface
sometimes 70 80 feet high
look at this and here’s Jennifer on the
side of one of these towers the first
time we landed on this sea mount called
Joelle’s it was raining fish they were
isolated they were unfound they were
untouched and they were de facto marine
protected areas they just had no sense
of humans and one of the scariest things
and in-your-face conservation I have
ever seen was a group of fishermen in a
single what they call banana boat and
they had found Joelle’s reef and they
had anchored on it and they had been on
it all night fishing and the minute they
saw our boat coming they cut their line
and they sped off and it turns out when
we went down all we found were were
hooks and fishing line and half or more
of the fish were gone all of the pin
giallo snappers every pin giallo snapper
was gone this is one night on one small
piece of real estate in the ocean that
was wiped out and the next day when we
were in the kimby Bay Market there were
the pendulous and it shows you how
fragile it first off it shows us how
marine marine protected areas work and
function and then it shows us how
vulnerable these places are there’s
small things on this reef I have to tell
you
anemones and clownfish it’s one of the
most beautiful friendships in the sea
the anemones protect the clownfish as
eggs protect the clownfish at night with
its stinging tentacles the clownfish
protects the anemones from being nibbled
to death by butterfly fish but Joelle’s
has this wonderful collection of
anemones and toward the evening they
ball up like this and the clownfish
begin to burrow in their stomachs I also
managed to photograph
spawning here the big female clownfish
and the female is the dominant partner
in this relationship
if the female dies the largest male
turns into a female and begins to
produce eggs they’re producing eggs
right now and that purple curtain in the
background is the side of the anemone we
dove with sharks
we were amazed and shocked and pleased
to see sharks in kimby Bay they would
meet you when you rolled off the boat
and you’re like this is the way it is
supposed to be so it was just another
indicator another symbol that these
reefs had survived where other reefs
through art throughout the Coral
Triangle had not done as well we dove on
a place called father’s reef and we met
a Hawksbill turtle and she met us and
every dive we could swim with her as she
made her rounds past schools of
barracudas and schools of batfish I love
this picture because it looks like
turtle is flying and then she’d do this
amazing thing instead of going to the
surface and going back down to another
piece of bottom she would come and she
would rest on our tanks and she would do
this she take her flippers and put her
flippers around the tank and rest there
it was wonderful she really was magic
she met us on every dive and she would
follow you and when she was tired she
would rest on you and it was a magic
moment but it was also a terrifying
moment in terms of that makes this
particular animal very vulnerable the
local fisherman there they fished the
reefs that they can find and they
harvest anything they can find on the
reefs from from reef fish to Turtles and
we would be diving a local banana boat
comes up and with a group of people the
young man swims down the turtle how much
how much how much you buy you buy you
buy would you like to buy your gut
inclination is for a handful of dollars
is to buy that turtle take it to the
next coral sea mount and let it go but
you can’t do that because you’re setting
up a trade in an economy they’ll go
catch another turtle and they’ll come
back to you again or they’ll go catch
the same turtle and bring it back to you
we were in a tiny Empire a perfect tiny
coral Empire and we needed we needed to
have an image of coral a panorama a shot
that said this is this coral world built
of tiny polyps beautiful and existence
city in the sea this picture isn’t the
one we wanted and we kept looking and we
kept searching place called and Sophie
it’s a group violence at the tip of the
willingness peninsula and there’s one
little island a little island it’s not
even an island sand island with a bunch
of trees on it no sir the lone palm tree
that it has in one corner of it a field
and very much shallow water and less
than a foot there is a field beautiful
purple lace Carl intermingled with a
crop herb Carl and dust AG Hong Kong
that’s absolutely beautiful and we work
there photograph picture half and half
out of the water one of the things I
particularly like to do and as you’re
working
father and son came up and dug out they
were fishing there gave them one lunch
later on
like the chicken see antonin is Papa
again just catch a big fish
Oh
big fish
that’s cool like it was one of those
lovely days where everything worked out
we made it mother died and went home
boiling clouds complicated skies of a
windy and is tiny little island this
kind of pictures that you like to make
here’s the picture
we recently published a story in the
National Geographic magazine on the Gulf
of st. Lawrence it was a very
challenging story but very near and dear
to our hearts we live on the st.
Lawrence River in a region called the
Thousand Islands and this is our
neighborhood this is not our house and
this is people ask us all the time we
live in an area that we’re surrounded by
1,800 islands storybook castles in an
amazing creature called the sturgeon
there are 27 species of sturgeon in the
world they’re all in the northern
hemisphere all 27 of them are falling
flat on their face because they are
long-lived they live to be over a
hundred sometimes 200 get this they
don’t spawn until they’re about 25 years
old and then not even every year after
that it’s every five years so 25 30 35
and you can see all of a sudden when you
put the pressure of Fisheries on a
species like this how these stocks are
collapsing and these sturgeon are very
shy they like deep water they’re very
rare to see underwater most of the year
except for one week in the month of June
thousands of them gather and they meet
on these spawning beds this particular
type of rock in very fast water this
water is like washing machine water it
is it’s about a four knot current right
now I am behind a big giant rock trying
to stay out of the current and these
girls these are all girls waiting to
spawn just ignoring me because they’re
all pumped up on hormones any other time
of the year I couldn’t get near them and
the sturgeon are a unique fish they are
so ugly I think they’re beautiful I’d
marry a sturgeon if I could marry a
sturgeon Harbor look at their mouth
look at these barbells you
various sturgeon oh my god you did these
barbels seeing these four things those
are those are called barbells and they
have all these chemosensory ability and
they go along the bottom and they brush
past something they say I can eat that
and the wolf down comes this mouth have
you ever seen a mouth like that past
Quebec the river becomes an estuary and
a little past there the saguenay River
joins the st. Lawrence and there’s a
population of beluga whales beluga
whales are the white whales the canary
whales they sing and they burble and
they make a lot of noise and this guy
came right up to me and kind of blew me
a kiss and when a little bubble came out
and then the whale did this marvelous
thing he tried to eat the camera there
used to be 10,000 beluga whales in the
st. Lawrence it can support up to 10,000
and then they were fished because all
the fish are they were killed because
all the fishermen thought that they were
competing for fish so they were
slaughtered and then it got down to a
handful of thousand and just the just
weeks ago a report came out and said no
no no no we are down to 800 and what is
happening is there’s high infant
mortality the problem is they don’t know
what is causing the infant mortality so
the Department of Fisheries and the
Canadian scientists are now in scramble
and panic mode to figure out how to
preserve these 800 belugas they are
precious and they are almost a symbol of
the st. Lawrence and don’t forget we are
in French Canada French Canada and I
photographed crabs crabs mating and in
French Canada it is not just mating but
is Lamoille
love
they do this for weeks and weeks at a
time you know when I play a playlist sex
after the sex comes early cigarette you
know give me that mm-hmm
oh my god the Gulf of st. Lawrence
freezes in the winter time and it
becomes the world of the harp seal
they are nursed by their mothers for
about 12 days then they’re abandoned
they’re left on the ice to figure out
how to become a heart seal how to feed
how to swim how to do anything and
everything in 2011 when this picture was
made it took us three days by boat to
get to the ice it kept moving there was
so little ice in the Gulf and we located
a patch in a field of ice and it had ten
thousand seals and this is what ten
thousand seals begins to look like and
we can give you an idea of what it’s
like in the world of the harp seal
that’s its umbilical there
a newborn three days old with the mother
in the back
a very nervous mother
still a very nervous mother
to me they’re one of the most beautiful
creatures on the planet for the first 12
days of their life when they’re called
the white coats they look almost like a
stuffed toy and once in a while you’ll
see a blind one and it’s very sad
because they’ll come up to you thinking
you’re their mother they’re desperate
without that particular sensory and
after 12 to 15 days they begin to mold
they begin to shed their white coat and
become what’s called a beater and at
this point they are also eligible to
enter the hunt the Canadian seal hunt
still goes on there’s a lower quota and
they cannot take the white coats but
they can take the beaters and david has
found a beater and I find a pup peering
through the ice looking for his mom he
sees me he’s like no mom is behind me
going a little crazy now because I’m
between her and her pup she rushes past
me and she greets her pup and she coaxes
him into the water they meet with this
underwater nose-to-nose I call it a kiss
of recognitions like are you my mom are
you my pup are you an imposter and while
we’re swimming the pup is very curious
what are you who are you what’s going on
who are you and he would try to swim
towards me he’d get a little close and
the the mother would come up and
literally hold him down no and
eventually she allowed him to get a
little closer and he gets so close that
he scrabbles begins to climb up on my
hear you come be the seal come to the
ceiling okay you’re there so he begins
to do this seal and then he climbs up on
to me I’m I’m the wrath I’m the ice and
now he’s on my chest
he’s tired he’s on my chest and he’s
nosing my mask like he did his my I’m
like I’m the imposter
I am the ax we swim along and we move
into this very open water and now we’re
resting we’re all stopped and then
something nips my left ankle then
something nips my right ankle and I look
down and there’s 30 or 40 male harp
seals circling below me a male comes up
over my back pushes me down his penis
gets caught in my mask taking it off
with him the mask drops were in 3,000
feet of water I see it I grab it got my
camera here and the male is going down
below me and the female sweeps past and
she goes down and the mother is beating
the crap out of this male
the mother services she surfaces and
she’s grunting and snorting and and she
comes back and I’m thinking I’m not sure
what’s gonna happen now but she comes
back and she uses her her head and her
flipper and her entire body and she kind
of scoops up her pup kind of using
everything she’s got and she kind of
gets him in front of her and then she
uses her flipper her nose her body and
she scoops me up now supermom the pup
and I were being propelled herded
through the water out of this open area
where we had all the males beneath us
I ducked underneath and I watched them I
watched the mother in the pup
disappeared I’m pumped up on adrenaline
I’m ecstatic I’m excited I go to the
edge of the ice and I throw my camera
and I’m taking off my weight belt and
just as I’m taking off my weight belt
right at the edge of the ice a male harp
seal comes under the edge of the ice and
he bites me square in the groin and he
lets go and then he bites me square in
the thigh wonk and he lets go and I have
a very very memorable scar from all of
that but it’s not the scar and it’s not
the male that I would ever or want to or
will dwell on it is the female and her
reaction and I will say the world of the
harp seal has been a changing world
David and I were on our way back to
shore a storm came up and the ice was so
bad so weak that when the storm came
through it wrecked the sea ice and
10,000 pups perished every one of them
died they had a hundred percent
mortality of the gulf seals in that
particular year this particular this
past year in 2014 was a big ice year
that’s a relief
we had a relief year because we had had
three to four almost full-on one
90% mortality year so it is a shifting
world for for our climate there and what
I want to close on is David and I go
back every year now we have become
addicted to the ice we feel
extraordinary place we go back every
year and what we’re trying to do is
create a shifting paradigm away from
hunting into a model of ecotourism now
we can take some people up and we take a
week out of the harp seal hunting boat
we buy a week we buy another week we buy
another week and hopefully we’ll show
them a different economy an eco-tourism
based economy where we can take the
pressure off the hunting and with that I
would like to thank you all for coming
you’ve been an incredible audience
you
Oh
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