thank you
since the time of Shackleton these seals
have had a bad reputation Shackleton in
fact used so the stories go he used to
use a man as bait he’d put him on the
ice and the leopard seal would lunge out
of the water at him and shoot it and
another guy would shoot it and then they
would keep it for dog food and I was
like no these seals aren’t that vicious
and and you hear all these stories and
tragically a scientist was killed by by
a leopard seal in 1994 in 2004 a very
very sad situation but I still wanted to
give this animal a fair Shake I wanted
to go down to Antarctica and get in the
water with as many leopard seals as I
could just to try and understand them
and so I worked with my friend Gora and
Elma from Sweden who who has a lot of
experience with leopard seals and
together we were going to go on this
little journey to try and solve the
mystery of these seals to see if they
were misunderstood if they really were a
vicious beasts
Why Leopard Seals
and they also eat Happy Feet you know
it’s we you know we’re very emotional
species you know we um we think penguins
are cute and we think leopard seals are
ugly therefore lepro seals are bad
penguins are good it doesn’t work like
that the seal doesn’t know he’s cute or
ugly leopards I mean the penguin doesn’t
know he’s cute I mean this is just how
the ecosystem unfolds this is just all
part of the food chain
Leopard Seal Size
and leopard seals are also big I mean
you’re thinking ring seals right you’re
thinking a hundred pound seal these guys
are over a thousand pounds and this was
a massive female leopard seal that that
gorons in the water with
Leopard Seal Story
so we arrived in Antarctica and and I
was so stressed about stressed out were
we going to find leopard seals to
photograph and Iran’s like you know
relax relax and so our first day there
we come around the corner we La we
anchor the sailboat get in our dinghy we
go around the corner and there’s this
massive female leopard seal and she’s
ripping the head off this penguin
shaking up from side to side these are
the feet here trailing behind she whips
it back and forth to turn it inside out
so she can eat the meat and it was
pretty horrific there was chunk there
were chunks of meat in the water she
came up underneath the boat she rammed
the penguin underneath the hull of the
boat almost knocked us in the water we
had to sit down she was longer than our
12 foot long Zodiac boat and that’s when
you’re on my guide said it’s time for
you to get in the water yeah and I said
and I and he’s just a big strong Burly
Swede and very strong guy and you know
he’s authoritative individual and I was
like you know forget that except I
probably uh used a different word
starting with the letter f
and he’s like look at you complaining
about your budget you complain about not
enough time blah blah blah now you shut
up and get in the water I present you a
bloody big beautiful leopard signal get
in the water and so I looked at him I
looked at the leopard seal and I’m
trembling my dry mouth and I part my
lips with my snorkel and roll over the
side of the zodiac into the water with
this seal terrified I mean this is a big
big animal and this is the first thing
she does she comes shooting right over
to me and she engulfs my camera and
inside her entire mouth and you know
again the photographer Instinct kicks in
well I mean here we are we might as well
shoot but Johan gave me great advice he
said if you get scared you close your
eyes and she’ll go away yeah so
he really did say that
and the other advice he gave me was stay
with the penguin yeah he kept yelling
that I could hear him you know I’m
breathing in my snorkel my adrenaline’s
going he’s yelling stay with the penguin
because this leopard seal was killing
penguins and he said if I stay with them
I’ll get my shots well the most amazing
thing happened she did this threat
display for a few minutes
and then she completely relaxed and I
didn’t know what was going to happen
next and she left I thought well the
show’s over and she came back and she
had a penguin by the feet and she held
it and it was flapping and she let it go
penguin swam towards me and took off she
went after it and caught it came back
and did it again she did this about 10
times and it dawned on me she’s trying
to feed me a penguin and I was like no I
can’t be but I thought well I’ll just
keep shooting I mean this picture here
was you know not a fluke I mean I had so
many chances to get this shot because
she kept trying to feed me this penguin
and I swear as she swam by me to get the
penguin that just swam away she had this
dejected look on her face and she’d look
over at me as she’d swim by grab the
Penguin and do it again and the
biologist in me doesn’t want to
anthropomorphize these situations but
that’s what it really appeared to be at
the time
and then that didn’t work I couldn’t
catch a swimming penguin so she grabbed
the Penguin and she made it really tired
wore it down got it nice and exhausted
and then she kind of bobbed towards me
in this vertical position and she gently
let the penguin go and it swam away and
she went and did this a few times that
didn’t work
so she did this other thing where she
got a penguin and she got extremely
tired now and she ate every penguin she
did this to you felt bad for the
Penguins but this is what she does they
play with her food anyways so here she
she’s on her back she’s sliding down an
iceberg in these really sort of sexy
ballet like poses where she’s sort of
twirling around with the Penguin and
then she’d come around like this and
then she’d present it to me like that
I like that and I would sit there
looking at this penguin like I don’t
know what to do with this penguin and
and that didn’t work so she was getting
frustrated so she got me dead penguin
she would drown them and she would just
swim right up to me and just give me
dead penguins
and then she just stopped sometimes with
a dead penguin floating there in front
of me and just stare at me like are you
for real
this is all happening in two days can
you imagine from this sheer Terror of
this animal and yodon in the Boko and I
told you so yeah and then this seal
staring at me I mean this is all
unfolding very quickly and that didn’t
work I didn’t touch the dead penguin so
she grabbed penguins and she’d flip them
on top of my head so now I have penguins
on top of my head and I’m sitting there
just photographing and you’ve got the
feet hanging in front and I’m just not
moving I’m just shooting you know this
is every photographer’s dream to have a
top predator like this trying to force
feed you I mean it’s
you know I thought we were going to fail
this story we ended up shooting this
entire story in two days
because of this and then she started to
show frustration and I started to get
worried she’d come up to me and she’d
blow bubbles which is a sign a threat
display in the wild world but she would
just blow bubbles and go back to trying
to feed me so I don’t know what she was
really trying to say and then this one
time she did this deep guttural
Jackhammer sound she rolled upside down
on her back and she did this
really deep and I could feel it vibrate
through my whole body and I was like oh
I’m about to get hit you know she’s
upset now and what had happened was
another leopard seal had snuck in behind
me and she did the threat display She
chased it away it was another big female
She chased it away and she grabbed its
penguin and brought its penguin back and
gave it to me
foreign
