Mark Seth Lender

Arctic & Antarctic Trips

Jan 302016

If you’re interested in visiting the Antarctic, the Arctic, or any of the other places where I’ve done fieldwork, send me an email,

The Wages of Fear

Mar 242016

Two Cubs-of-the-Year scrambling after their Mother

Akpatok is a closed island. Landing is prohibited and approach by boat is restricted to a distance of 500 meters! I was working from a Zodiac inflatable, which meant I did not have an entirely stable platform, and though I was shooting with a full sensor camera and and a 500 MM lens with a 1.4X extender on it (1.4 X 500 = 700 MM), a lot of it was guesswork. By which I mean, I could see my targets – in this case the cubs and their mother – but had no idea what they were doing. And I was using the camera hand-held and braced against the gunnel of the boat – near impossible conditions. Seconds after we sighted the mother and cubs moving down the beach, we spotted a large male polar bear off to the left.

Male Polar Bear ( middle left); Fleeing Female and her Cubs (lower right)

The reasonable assumption was that the female was not anxious to let him get too close, but in the instant, it was just an assumption. After a few minutes, with the pitch and yaw of the boat and the by now considerable distance, we lost sight of the mother and cubs.

Aboard the main ship that evening, I ran through what I’d shot. Which looked like a lot of nothing. It was not until several weeks later, at home and recovered from the trip, that I was able to revisit these frames. As it turned out, the male polar bear was much closer to the female and her cubs at the onset. She gained on him, then once again lost ground. Throughout, he was periodically roaring – mouth wide open – for the space of several steps, i.e. striding and roaring. However, he never left the upper part of the beach just below the cliffs.

Male Polar Bear Roaring

The female was moving at a good clip, as evidenced by the fact that the cubs were scrambling to keep up with her. Then, rather suddenly, the male was alone on the beach, continuing on his way, and the female and cubs had vanished.

Male Polar Bear Continues on his Way

Eventually, I found the female. When the male polar bear had closed again to about 70 meters the female had plunged into the water.

Female Polar Bear Smashes into the Surf

But there was no sign of the cubs.

My cameras shoot at 10 to 14 frames a second. There is always a certain amount of “blow-by” after the main action is captured and I began to review those frames. This meant searching no more than a few percent of the photo at a time. Pixels are visible at this magnification and I was looking more for light areas than resolvable forms. Whitecaps on the water added to the confusion.

Finally, I found the cubs, not far from where the female made her plunge: one head, then two, swimming the wrong way. There they were going with the current instead of against it, back towards the male. Multiplying the speed of the waves breaking on shore by the frame rate of the camera I was able to come up an estimate for the speed of the current: better than 8 knots.

Now, the female had a choice to make. Continue on her way, or go back for her cubs?

Bear-on-bear combat is no different that bar handed combat between humans. Throw weight trumps agility. This is why boxers are restricted to their own weight class. If it came to actual physical contact the female would have been injured or killed outright. This was why she was fleeing in the first place: But, she went back for them.

Female (center right) Swimming Toward Cubs (two light areas parallel to her) [Note: The small black dots are the female’s nose and eyes thus indicating her direction]

Somehow she communicated to the cubs that they needed to turn around. In an instant they did an about face. She turned also, the cubs following her against the current, presumably toward safety.

Cubs Following Their Mother

The camera lost sight of them after that, and as we saw, the male simply continued on his way never having descended toward the water. But at their closest, the female and her cubs could not have been more than 20 meters from the male bear.

It could be that all that big male bear wanted was for the female and her cubs to take their competition elsewhere. As one often sees in the summer, his hind quarters were stained – bear diarrhea – the result of too much protein and not enough fat. Summer is a meager time for bears and they are mostly living on reserves and luck. Akpatok is a (major) thick-billed murre nesting colony and he may have been catching birds, and the occasional egg. There is also the possibility of carrion washing ashore. When Inuit hunt beluga whales they strip only the fat and leave the what whalers called the “kreng” – a derogatory term for carcass – which is the bulk of the whale. It is a hugely wasteful practice occasioned, as one of my Inuit informants told me, by mercury in the meat. However, the toxic levels of PCB in the fat they ignore. The fat “tastes just like coconut.” And as to the steady decline of the whales? As another informant told me with considerable annoyance, “There are plenty of whales.” The idea that this can continue is nonsense. The idea that half a ton of polar bear can survive in an ice-free arctic on birds and eggs and carcasses is at best, wishful thinking. It is fat bears need to survive the cold; fat that provides the reserves required for female polar beats to nurse their young; fat and a great deal of it that polar bears need in order to continue being polar bears.

But what you have is what you defend, and the male would have been unlikely to want to share the little he had. Hence, at least one motive for the chase.

That said, this was in July. The male bear may not have closed on the female and cubs because he wasn’t up to it. The Arctic in July is not Miami but it’s comparatively warm and the males great bulk may have prevented him from going any faster without exceeding the limits of his thermal regulation. A meal of bear cub is not outside the behavioral limits of a male polar bear though in the past, the primary motive in such cases was likely to force the female to breed again. Given current conditions, hunger might play a more significant role relative to sex, but a nursing polar bear is a determined and ferocious creature. Above all, it was that female bear doing a thing we expect from the best part of ourselves, that saved them.

My prose essays, including the one on this encounter, are broadcast nationally on Public Radio International’s Living on Earth.

CREDITS: My visit to Akpatok was made possible by the generous support of Adventure Canada www.AdventureCanada.com. Special thanks are due to Mather James Swan, who made every effort to get me the best vantage for my photos and the acquisition of this story.

Stealing Dirt

Mar 092016

Gentoo Colony,

Stealing Dirt, my essay on Gentoo penguins, will be nationally broadcast on PRI’s Living on Earth for the week beginning March 11, 2016. From 3/12 on, you will also be able to listen online at LOE.org.

Gentoo Penguin colonies are raucous and contentious and the ones on Carcass Island, in the West Falklands, are no exception. That continuous uproar gives them a bad name. “Temperamental,” people say. “Nasty.” Not true. Penguins are delightful and the reputation that precedes them is simply wrong. They are endlessly entertaining to watch, harmless to us and by and large to each other. The noise and the short tempers are primarily the product of crowding. This despite the thin human population of the Falklands, and the fastness and expanse of South Georgia, the South Shetlands and the many small islands off the Antarctic Peninsula as well as the Peninsula itself. Suitable nesting sites for penguins of any species are few and Climate Destabilization only makes it worse. A tabular iceberg grounded in front of one of the most important colonies of Adele penguins in 2011 (picture Central Park, 120 feet high and made of ice). The giant berg blocked the Adele’s route to the sea and 150,000 penguins starved. The berg came from the massive and continuing breakup of the Ross Ice Shelf, in turn a direct result of increasing temperatures. Pray for the penguins.

I spent 3 weeks in the Antarctic with One Ocean Expeditions. The Falkland Islands was our ship’s first port of call. One Ocean is the most conscientious tour group I’ve ever had. They were invaluable to me, and made equally certain every passenger saw and experienced every wildlife and landscape viewing opportunity. At the Gentoo colony on Carcass Island in the West Falklands, I watched the penguins building nests. Penguins seem to have a well-developed sense of community and territoriality, but not the best sense of direction. They deliberately trespass when collecting mud for their nests (hence the title “Stealing Dirt”) – often getting away with it – and not so deliberately trespass when returning to their own turf. This they tend not to get away with. In the banner photo above, a trespassing penguin gets the treatment from his immediate neighbors. In the photos following, you can get an idea of how the conflicts develop their extent, and the very definite limits to how much damage penguins are willing to do (no much).

Thanks to One Ocean Expeditions (www.OneOceanExpeditions.com) , I was ably to spend many hours ashore and in kayaks, with plenty of quality penguin time. The Falklands alone were worth the trip. People are friendly, helpful, the birds close and plentiful (more about that in future columns), it is just a great place. When in Stanley in the East Falklands, be sure to grab lunch (and an Internet connection) at The Waterfront Hotel ( www.Waterfronthotel.co.fk ). For more information about visiting the Falklands, South Georgia and the Antarctic Peninsula send me an email. To see more photographs & hear my recording of the Gentoo colony visit www.MarkSethLender.com. You can also follow me on Twitter, @marksethlender.

A Gift of Dirt is a Gift of Love

A male Gentoo crossed over from his own local group to a nearby group, and comes back with a pellet of mud for their mate. She then adds it to the nest mound. Sometimes it’s a little more complicated:

Back in his local group, he makes a wrong turn and gets bitten!

It’s not much of a bite – just a mud spot on his feathers.

Finally, on the right street everyone notices him but no one minds his presence

Gentoo Penguins Mating

Penguins reward for all this effort is lovemaking. And I say that deliberately. Notice how the female reaches up to touch beaks with her mate. What is this if not the kisses of love?