I would like to share with you this morning some stories about the ocean through my work as a still photographer for National Geographic magazine. I guess I became an underwater photographer and a photojournalist because I fell in love with the sea as a child. And I wanted to tell stories about all the amazing things I was seeing underwater, incredible wildlife and interesting behaviors. And after even 30 years of doing this, after 30 years of exploring the ocean, I never cease to be amazed at the extraordinary encounters that I have while I'm at sea. But more and more frequently these days I'm seeing terrible things underwater as well, things that I don't think most people realize. And I've been compelled to turn my camera towards these issues to tell a more complete story. I want people to see what's happening underwater, both the horror and the magic.
To jutro bi z vami rad delil, nekaj zgodb o morju skozi moje delo fotografa za revijo National Geographic. Domnevam, da sem postal podvodni fotograf postal, ker sem se že kot otrok zaljubil v morje. In hotel sem pripovedovati zgodbe o vseh osupljivih stvareh, ki sem jih videl pod vodo, o neverjetnih življenjskih oblikah in njihovem zanimivem obnašanju. In po tridesetih letih tega početja, po tridesetih letih raziskovanja oceanov, moje začudenje ob nenavadnih srečanjih, ki jih doživljam na morju, nikoli ne pojenja. Kljub temu pa v današnjem času vedno pogosteje pod vodo videvam tudi grozljive stvari, stvari, ki se jih po mojem mnenju ljudje niti ne zavedajo. Čutim se obvezanega, da v svoj objektiv ujamem tudi to problematiko in povem celotno zgodbo. Želim, da ljudje vidijo, kaj se dogaja pod vodo, tako tisto grozljivo, kot tisto magično.
The first story that I did for National Geographic, where I recognized the ability to include environmental issues within a natural history coverage, was a story I proposed on harp seals. The story I wanted to do initially was just a small focus to look at the few weeks each year where these animals migrate down from the Canadian arctic to the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada to engage in courtship, mating and to have their pups. And all of this is played out against the backdrop of transient pack ice that moves with wind and tide. And because I'm an underwater photographer, I wanted to do this story from both above and below, to make pictures like this that show one of these little pups making its very first swim in the icy 29-degree water. But as I got more involved in the story, I realized that there were two big environmental issues I couldn't ignore. The first was that these animals continue to be hunted, killed with hakapiks at about eight, 15 days old. It actually is the largest marine mammal slaughter on the planet, with hundreds of thousands of these seals being killed every year.
Prva reportaža, ki sem jo naredil za National Geographic in skozi katero sem spoznal kakšne so možnosti obravnave okoljskih vprašanj pri naravoslovnem poročanju, je bila zgodba o grendlandskih sedlastih tjulnjih. Zgodba, ki sem jo hotel povedati, je bila v začetku ozko fokusirana na nekaj tednov vsako leto, ko se omenjene živali selijo iz kanadske Arktike v zaliv Sv. Lovrenca v Kanadi. Tam si dvorijo, se parijo in imajo svoje mladiče. Vse to se odvija z minljivimi ledenimi ploščami v ozadju, ki se gibljejo z vetrom in plimo. In ker sem podovodni fotograf, sem hotel to zgodbo povedati tako od zgoraj kot od spodaj. Želel sem prikazati enega izmed teh tjulnjih mladičev, ki prvič zaplava v ledeno hladni vodi. Ko pa sem se v zgodbo bolj poglobil, sem ugotovil, da moram opozoriti na dve veliki okoljski vprašanji. Prvo je bilo vezano na dejstvo, da se omenjene živali še vedno lovi in ubija s koničastimi cepini (hakapiki), ko so stare le okoli 8, 15 dni. Dejansko gre za največji pokol morskih sesalcev na zemlji, ki na leto zahteva več sto tisoč žrtev.
But as disturbing as that is, I think the bigger problem for harp seals is the loss of sea ice due to global warming. This is an aerial picture that I made that shows the Gulf of St. Lawrence during harp seal season. And even though we see a lot of ice in this picture, there's a lot of water as well, which wasn't there historically. And the ice that is there is quite thin. The problem is that these pups need a stable platform of solid ice in order to nurse from their moms. They only need 12 days from the moment they're born until they're on their own. But if they don't get 12 days, they can fall into the ocean and die. This is a photo that I made showing one of these pups that's only about five or seven days old -- still has a little bit of the umbilical cord on its belly -- that has fallen in because of the thin ice, and the mother is frantically trying to push it up to breathe and to get it back to stable purchase. This problem has continued to grow each year since I was there. I read that last year the pup mortality rate was 100 percent in parts of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. So, clearly, this species has a lot of problems going forward. This ended up becoming a cover story at National Geographic. And it received quite a bit of attention.
Čeprav je to zelo skrb vzbujajoče, pa menim, da se sedlasti tjulnji spopadajo še s hujšim problemom - izgubo ledu na morju kot posledico globalnega segrevanja. To je fotografija iz zraka,ki prikazuje zaliv Sv. Lovrenca v času, ko tam bivajo sedlasti tjulnji. In čeprav na fotografiji vidimo veliko ledu, vidimo tudi veliko vode, ki je v preteklosti tu ni bilo. In tudi led, ki ga vidimo, je precej tanek. Problem je, da mladiči v času hranjena pri materi, potrebujejo stabilnost, ki jo nudijo plošče iz trdnega ledu. Od trenutka, ko se rodijo pa do trenutka, ko se osamosvojijo, mladiči potrebujejo le 12 dni. A če si ne izborijo teh 12 dni, lahko padejo v morje in umrejo. To je ena izmed mojih fotografij, ki prikazuje enega izmed mladičev starega le okoli 5 do 7 dni - še vedno ima ostanek popkovine na trebuščku - ki je padel, ker je bil led pretanek. Mama ga mrzlično poskuša potisniti na površje, da bi vdihnil in se ponovno oprijel stabilne podlage. Problem od mojega prihoda vsako leto le narašča. Bral sem, da je bila lani smrtnost mladičev v nekaterih predelih zaliva Sv. Lovrenca 100 odstotna. Tako je jasno, da se vrsta spopada s številnimi problemi. Moja zgodba je na koncu postala naslovna zgodba National Geographica in prejela veliko pozornosti.
And with that, I saw the potential to begin doing other stories about ocean problems. So I proposed a story on the global fish crisis, in part because I had personally witnessed a lot of degradation in the ocean over the last 30 years, but also because I read a scientific paper that stated that 90 percent of the big fish in the ocean have disappeared in the last 50 or 60 years. These are the tuna, the billfish and the sharks. When I read that, I was blown away by those numbers. I thought this was going to be headline news in every media outlet, but it really wasn't, so I wanted to do a story that was a very different kind of underwater story. I wanted it to be more like war photography, where I was making harder-hitting pictures that showed readers what was happening to marine wildlife around the planet.
Tako sem prepoznal potencial in začel delati druge reportaže o problemih oceanov. Tako sem predlagal zgodbo o svetovni krizi ribištva, delno ker sem bil v preteklih tridesetih letih velikokrat sam priča propadanju oceanov, pa tudi zato, ker sem prebral znanstven članek, ki trdi, da je v zadnjih 50 ali 60 letih iz naših oceanov izginilo že 90 odstotkov velikih rib, To so tune, mečarice in morski psi. Ko sem to prebral, so me številke močno presenetile. Prepričan sem bil, da bo to glavna novica v vseh medijih. A na koncu res ni bila, zato sem hotel narediti reportažo, ki bo razkrila povsem drugačno podvodno zgodbo. Želel sem, da bi bila bolj podobna vojni fotografiji, zato sem snemal pretresljive fotografije z več teže, ki so bralcem pokazale kaj se dogaja morskim bitjem po svetu.
The first component of the story that I thought was essential, however, was to give readers a sense of appreciation for the ocean animals that they were eating. You know, I think people go into a restaurant, and somebody orders a steak, and we all know where steak comes from, and somebody orders a chicken, and we know what a chicken is, but when they're eating bluefin sushi, do they have any sense of the magnificent animal that they're consuming? These are the lions and tigers of the sea. In reality, these animals have no terrestrial counterpart; they're unique in the world. These are animals that can practically swim from the equator to the poles and can crisscross entire oceans in the course of a year. If we weren't so efficient at catching them, because they grow their entire life, would have 30-year-old bluefin out there that weigh a ton. But the truth is we're way too efficient at catching them, and their stocks have collapsed worldwide.
Prva in zame najbolj ključna komponenta zgodbe je ciljati na bralce in prebuditi njihovo razumevanje morskih živali, ki jih jedo. Veste, sam smatram, da gremo ljudje v restavracijo in ko naročimo zrezek, vsi vemo od kod prihaja, in ko naročimo piščanca, vsi vemo kaj je piščanec. Ko pa uživamo v sušiju iz modroplavute tune, se sprašujem, koliko se nas zaveda kako veličastna je žival, ki jo jemo. Tune so namreč levi in tigri morja, čeprav v realnosti te živali sploh nimajo zemeljskega ustreznika; dejansko so edinstvene. Lahko plavajo od ekvatorja do tečajev in tekom leta prečkajo celotne oceane. Če pri lovu nanje ne bi bili tako učinkoviti, bi, ker celo svoje življenje rastejo, v morju živele 30-letne tono težke modroplavute tune. A resnica je, da smo pri lovu nanje več kot učinkoviti, zato je njihovo število po svetu padlo pod vse meje.
This is the daily auction at the Tsukiji Fish Market that I photographed a couple years ago. And every single day these tuna, bluefin like this, are stacked up like cordwood, just warehouse after warehouse. As I wandered around and made these pictures, it sort of occurred to me that the ocean's not a grocery store, you know. We can't keep taking without expecting serious consequences as a result.
To je dnevna dražba na ribji tržnici Tsukiji, ki sem jo posnel nekaj let nazaj. Prav vsak dan tune, modroplavute kot ta, zložijo kot sežnje drv v številna skladišča. In ko sem tako pohajkoval naokoli in fotografiral, se mi je posvetilo, da naši oceani niso supermarketi. Ne moremo kar jemati in pričakovati da naše početje ne bo imelo posledic.
I also, with the story, wanted to show readers how fish are caught, some of the methods that are used to catch fish, like a bottom trawler, which is one of the most common methods in the world. This was a small net that was being used in Mexico to catch shrimp, but the way it works is essentially the same everywhere in the world. You have a large net in the middle with two steel doors on either end. And as this assembly is towed through the water, the doors meet resistance with the ocean, and it opens the mouth of the net, and they place floats at the top and a lead line on the bottom. And this just drags over the bottom, in this case to catch shrimp. But as you can imagine, it's catching everything else in its path as well. And it's destroying that precious benthic community on the bottom, things like sponges and corals, that critical habitat for other animals.
S to zgodbo, sem bralcem želel pokazati tudi kako ribe dejansko lovijo in nekatere metode, ki jih pri tem uporabljajo, npr. vlečne mreže, ki sodijo med najbolj pogosto uporabljene metode lova. To je majhna mreža, ki jo v Mehiki uporabljajo za lovljenje škampov, njen način delovanja pa je v osnovi enak povsod po svetu. V sredini je v velika mreža ki jo na vsakem koncu pokrivajo železna vratca. Ko se naprava vleče skozi vodo se voda upre ob vratca, zaradi česar se ustje mreže odpre, zgoraj so pritrjeni plovci, spodaj pa svinčena žica. Vse skupaj ladja vleče po morskem dnu z namenom, da se (v tem primeru) v mrežo ujamejo škampi. Lahko pa si predstavljate, da se v mrežo ulovi prav vse, kar je na poti. Tako se uničujejo dragocene združbe organizmov na morskem dnu (bentos), kot so spužve in korale, ki so ključen življenski prostor tudi za druge živali.
This photograph I made of the fisherman holding the shrimp that he caught after towing his nets for one hour. So he had a handful of shrimp, maybe seven or eight shrimp, and all those other animals on the deck of the boat are bycatch. These are animals that died in the process, but have no commercial value. So this is the true cost of a shrimp dinner, maybe seven or eight shrimp and 10 pounds of other animals that had to die in the process. And to make that point even more visual, I swam under the shrimp boat and made this picture of the guy shoveling this bycatch into the sea as trash and photographed this cascade of death, you know, animals like guitarfish, bat rays, flounder, pufferfish, that only an hour before, were on the bottom of the ocean, alive, but now being thrown back as trash.
Ta fotografija prikazuje ribiča, ki v rokah drži škampe ujete med uro dolgo vleko mrež. Dejansko je poleg prgišča škampov, morda jih je ujel 7 ali 8, kot stranski ulov ujel še vse ostale živali na krovu. Gre za živali, ki so pri lovu poginile, čeprav nimajo tržne vrednosti. To je torej resnična cena večerje s škampi, sedem, morda osem škampov in 5 kg drugih živali, ki so pri tem morale umreti. Da bi ta nesmisel še bolje vizualno prikazal, sem se potopil pod ribiško ladjo in slikal moškega kako stranski ulov meče nazaj v morje kot smeti. Fotografiral sem to kaskado smrti, živali, kot so soslaši, skati, iverke, ribe napihovalke, ki so še uro pred tem živele na dnu morja, zdaj pa jih mečejo nazaj kot smeti.
I also wanted to focus on the shark fishing industry because, currently on planet Earth, we're killing over 100 million sharks every single year. But before I went out to photograph this component, I sort of wrestled with the notion of how do you make a picture of a dead shark that will resonate with readers You know, I think there's still a lot of people out there who think the only good shark is a dead shark. But this one morning I jumped in and found this thresher that had just recently died in the gill net. And with its huge pectoral fins and eyes still very visible, it struck me as sort of a crucifixion, if you will. This ended up being the lead picture in the global fishery story in National Geographic. And I hope that it helped readers to take notice of this problem of 100 million sharks.
Želel sem se osredotočiti tudi na lovljenje morskih psov, ker danes na Zemlji ubijemo več kot 100 milijonov morskih psov vsako leto. A preden sem slikal to, sem se nekako spoprijel z idejo, kako fotografirati mrtvega morskega psa, da bo fotografija pri bralcih vzbudila čustva. Verjamem namreč, da je na svetu še veliko ljudi, ki so mnenja, da je edini dober morski pes, mrtev morski pes. A nekega jutra sem skočil v vodo in našel morsko lisico, ki je nedolgo tega poginila v zabodni mreži. S svojimi velikimi prsnimi plavutmi in še vedno vidnimi očmi, me je nekako spominjala na križanje. Na koncu je bila to naslovna fotografija reportaže o svetovni ribiški industriji za National Geographic. In upam, da je pomagala bralcem uvideti problem 100 milijonov morskih psov.
And because I love sharks -- I'm somewhat obsessed with sharks -- I wanted to do another, more celebratory, story about sharks, as a way of talking about the need for shark conservation. So I went to the Bahamas because there're very few places in the world where sharks are doing well these days, but the Bahamas seem to be a place where stocks were reasonably healthy, largely due to the fact that the government there had outlawed longlining several years ago. And I wanted to show several species that we hadn't shown much in the magazine and worked in a number of locations.
Ker imam morske pse rad - v bistvu sem kar malo obseden z njimi - sem želel posneti še eno, bolj slavnostno reportažo o morskih psih, s katero sem želel prikazati kako nujna je njihova zaščita. Tako sem potoval na Bahame, saj je na svetu le malo področij kjer morski psi niso ogroženi. Na Bahamih pa se zdi, da je njihovo število še vedno precejšnje, predvsem zato ker je tamkajšnja vlada že leta nazaj prepovedala parangale. Delal sem na večih lokacijah, saj sem želel prokazati številne vrste, ki jih v reviji nismo pogosto objavljali.
One of the locations was this place called Tiger Beach, in the northern Bahamas where tiger sharks aggregate in shallow water. This is a low-altitude photograph that I made showing our dive boat with about a dozen of these big old tiger sharks sort of just swimming around behind. But the one thing I definitely didn't want to do with this coverage was to continue to portray sharks as something like monsters. I didn't want them to be overly threatening or scary. And with this photograph of a beautiful 15-feet, probably 14-feet, I guess, female tiger shark, I sort of think I got to that goal, where she was swimming with these little barjacks off her nose, and my strobe created a shadow on her face. And I think it's a gentler picture, a little less threatening, a little more respectful of the species.
Ena izmed lokacij se imenuje Tiger Beach (Plaža tigrov), in se nahaja v severnih Bahamih. Tam se v plitvih vodah zadržujejo tigrasti morski psi. To fotografijo sem posnel iz zraka in prikazuje naš potapljaški čoln in okoli ducat velikih tigrastih morskih psov, ki mirno plavajo naokoli. Ena izmed stvari, ki je prav gotovo nisem želel doseči pri tej reportaži, je prikaz morskih psov kot nekakšnih pošasti. Nisem želel, da bi izpadli preveč grozeči ali strašljivi. S to fotografijo lepe verjetno dobre 4 metre dolge samice tigrastega morskega psa, sem nekako ta cilj tudi dosegel. Plavala je s temi majhnimi ribicami, ki so se držale njenega nosa, moja luč pa je metala senco na njen obraz. Menim, da je slika nežnejša in nekoliko manj grozeča, morda nekoliko bolj spoštljiva do vrste.
I also searched on this story for the elusive great hammerhead, an animal that really hadn't been photographed much until maybe about seven or 10 years ago. It's a very solitary creature. But this is an animal that's considered data deficient by science in both Florida and in the Bahamas. You know, we know almost nothing about them. We don't know where they migrate to or from, where they mate, where they have their pups, and yet, hammerhead populations in the Atlantic have declined about 80 percent in the last 20 to 30 years. You know, we're losing them faster than we can possibly find them.
Za to reportažo sem iskal tudi čudovito in težko ulovljivo kladvenico, žival, ki do sedem, deset let nazaj skoraj ni bila fotografirana. Je zelo samotarsko bitje. Če vprašamo znanstvenike, pa je to žival, o kateri, tako na Floridi kot na Bahamih, praktično ni podatkov. Veste, o njej vemo zelo malo. Ne vemo od kod in kam potuje, ne vemo kje se pari in kje koti mladiče. Kljub temu pa je populacija kladvenic v Atlantiku v zadnjih 20 do 30 letih padla za okoli 80 odstotkov. Izgubljamo jih hitreje kot jih lahko sploh najdemo.
This is the oceanic whitetip shark, an animal that is considered the fourth most dangerous species, if you pay attention to such lists. But it's an animal that's about 98 percent in decline throughout most of its range. Because this is a pelagic animal and it lives out in the deeper water, and because we weren't working on the bottom, I brought along a shark cage here, and my friend, shark biologist Wes Pratt is inside the cage. You'll see that the photographer, of course, was not inside the cage here, so clearly the biologist is a little smarter than the photographer I guess.
To je oceanski beloplavuti morski pes, žival, ki jo smatramo za četrto najnevarnejšo vrsto, če vas že zanimajo takšni seznami. Gre za žival, katere populacija je upadla za 98 odstotkov na večjem delu svojega življenskega prostora. Ker gre za pelagično žival, ki živi v globljih vodah, in ker nismo delali na morskem dnu, sem imel s seboj kletko, v kateri je moj prijatelj, poznavalec morskih psov biolog Wes Pratt. Kot boste videli, fotograf seveda ni bil v kletki, tako da je biolog verjetno pametnejši od fotografa.
And lastly with this story, I also wanted to focus on baby sharks, shark nurseries. And I went to the island of Bimini, in the Bahamas, to work with lemon shark pups. This is a photo of a lemon shark pup, and it shows these animals where they live for the first two to three years of their lives in these protective mangroves. This is a very sort of un-shark-like photograph. It's not what you typically might think of as a shark picture. But, you know, here we see a shark that's maybe 10 or 11 inches long swimming in about a foot of water. But this is crucial habitat and it's where they spend the first two, three years of their lives, until they're big enough to go out on the rest of the reef. After I left Bimini, I actually learned that this habitat was being bulldozed to create a new golf course and resort.
S to reportažo sem se želel osredotočiti še na jasli za mlade morske pse. Tako sem potoval na Bimini, otok v Bahamskem otočju, da bi delal z mladiči citronastega morskega psa. To je fotografija mladiča citronastega morskega psa, ki prikazuje žival v njenem naravnem okolju prve 2 do 3 leta njenega življenja - v objemu zaščitniških mangrov. To je zelo netipična fotografija morskega psa. Ni, kar bi si ponavadi predstavljali kot fotografijo morskega psa. Vidimo namreč morskega psa, ki v dolžino meri 25 - 27,5 cm, in plava v cca 30 cm globoki vodi. A gre za ključni življenjski prostor, kjer žival preživi prve 2, 3 leta svojega življenja, dokler ni dovolj velik, da odplava ven na koralni greben. Ob mojem odhodu iz Biminija, sem izvedel, da bodo ta predel zravnali z zemljo in tam zgradili letovišče z golf igriščem.
And other recent stories have looked at single, flagship species, if you will, that are at risk in the ocean as a way of talking about other threats. One such story I did documented the leatherback sea turtle. This is the largest, widest-ranging, deepest-diving and oldest of all turtle species. Here we see a female crawling out of the ocean under moonlight on the island of Trinidad. These are animals whose lineage dates back about 100 million years. And there was a time in their lifespan where they were coming out of the water to nest and saw Tyrannosaurus rex running by. And today, they crawl out and see condominiums. But despite this amazing longevity, they're now considered critically endangered. In the Pacific, where I made this photograph, their stocks have declined about 90 percent in the last 15 years.
Veliko reportaž se danes dotika posameznih in predvsem zelo pomembnih vrst, ki so v morju ogrožene, z namenom ozaveščanja o grožnjah, ki jim pretijo. Eno izmed njih sem pripravil tudi sam, govori pa o usnjači. To je največja, najbolj razširjena, najstarejša in najbolj globoko živeča vrsta želve. Tukaj vidimo samico na otoku Trinidad, ki se v soju mesečine plazi na kopno. Gre za žival, katere rod sega 100 milijonov let v preteklost. Tekom svojega obstoja je bil čas, ko so želve prihajale iz vode gnezdit, in videle tiranozaver reksa kako teče mimo njih. Danes pa prilezejo iz morja in vidijo blokovska naselja. In tako, kljub njihovi izjemno dolgi zgodovini, danes smatramo, da so kritično ogrožena vrsta. V Tihem oceanu, kjer sem posnel to fotografijo, je njihovo število upadlo za okoli 90 odstotkov v zadnjih 15 letih.
This is a photograph that shows a hatchling about to taste saltwater for the very first time beginning this long and perilous journey. Only one in a thousand leatherback hatchlings will reach maturity. But that's due to natural predators like vultures that pick them off on a beach or predatory fish that are waiting offshore. Nature has learned to compensate with that, and females have multiple clutches of eggs to overcome those odds. But what they can't deal with is anthropogenic stresses, human things, like this picture that shows a leatherback caught at night in a gill net. I actually jumped in and photographed this, and with the fisherman's permission, I cut the turtle out, and it was able to swim free. But, you know, thousands of other leatherbacks each year are not so fortunate, and the species' future is in great danger.
Ta fotografija prikazuje pravkar izvaljenega mladiča, ki bo prvič v življenju okusil morsko vodo in s tem začel svojo dolgo in nevarno pot. Le ena izmed tisočih mladih usnjač bo dosegla zrelost. Ampak to je zaradi naravnih sovražnikov kot so mrhovinarji, ki jih ujamejo na plaži, ali rib roparic, ki jih čakajo blizu obale. Narava se je naučila nadomestiti izgube, zato samice izvalijo več sklopov jajčec in tako premagajo omenjene ovire. Ne morejo pa se želve spopadati z antropogenimi pritiski in človeškimi proizvodi, kot prikazuje slika usnjače, ki se je ponoči ujela v zabodno mrežo. Dejansko sem skočil notri in jo fotografiral, z ribičevim dovoljenjem pa sem želvo tudi izrezal iz mreže, da je ponovno lahko prosto zaplavala. Ampak veste, na tisoče usnjač vsako leto pa nima takšne sreče, zato je prihodnost njihove vrste v veliki nevarnosti.
Another charismatic megafauna species that I worked with is the story I did on the right whale. And essentially, the story is this with right whales, that about a million years ago, there was one species of right whale on the planet, but as land masses moved around and oceans became isolated, the species sort of separated, and today we have essentially two distinct stocks. We have the Southern right whale that we see here and the North Atlantic right whale that we see here with a mom and calf off the coast of Florida. Now, both species were hunted to the brink of extinction by the early whalers, but the Southern right whales have rebounded a lot better because they're located in places farther away from human activity.
Še en karizmatični predstavnik megafavne s katerim sem delal in on njem napisal reportažo, je gladki kit. V osnovi gre zgodba o gladkih kitih takole. Milijon let nazaj, je na svetu obstajala ena vrsta gladkega kita. S premiki zemeljskih plošč pa so oceani postali izolirani, vrste so se ločile in tako imamo danes v bistvu dve različni populaciji. Tukaj vidimo južnomorskega ali kapskega kita tukaj pa lednega ali biskajskega - mamo in mladiča ob obali Floride. Obe vrsti sta bili zaradi lova prvih kitolovcev, na robu izumrtja. Število južnomorskih kitov je bistveno bolj porastlo, saj živijo na bolj odročnih območjih, daleč stran od človeške aktivnosti.
The North Atlantic right whale is listed as the most endangered species on the planet today because they are urban whales; they live along the east coast of North America, United States and Canada, and they have to deal with all these urban ills. This photo shows an animal popping its head out at sunset off the coast of Florida. You can see the coal burning plant in the background. They have to deal with things like toxins and pharmaceuticals that are flushed out into the ocean, and maybe even affecting their reproduction. They also get entangled in fishing gear. This is a picture that shows the tail of a right whale. And those white markings are not natural markings. These are entanglement scars. 72 percent of the population has such scars, but most don't shed the gear, things like lobster traps and crab pots. They hold on to them, and it eventually kills them. And the other problem is they get hit by ships. And this was an animal that was struck by a ship in Nova Scotia, Canada being towed in, where they did a necropsy to confirm the cause of death, which was indeed a ship strike. So all of these ills are stacking up against these animals and keeping their numbers very low.
Ledni kit pa je danes na seznamu najbolj ogroženih vrst, saj gre za urbanega kita, ki živi na vzhodni obali Severne Amerike, Združenih držav in Kanade, in se mora soočati z vsemi nadlogami poseljenih območij. Fotografija prikazuje žival v obalnih vodah Floride , ki je ob sončnem zahodu prišla na površje. V ozadju lahko vidite termoelektrarno. Živali se morajo spopadati z različnimi strupi in farmacevtskimi izdelki, ki se izlivajo v morje, in lahko vplivajo tudi na njihovo razmnoževanje. Poleg tega se zapletajo v ribiško opremo. Slika prikazuje rep gladkega kita. Vidne bele lise niso naravnega izvora, ampak gre za brazgotine zapleta v mrežo. 72 odstotkov populacije ima takšne brazgotine, večina pa se opreme, kot so pasti za jastoge in rakovice, sploh ne znebi. Ta se jih drži in jih prej ali slej ubije. Drug problem pa je, da jih povozijo ladje. To je ena izmed živali, ki jo je zadela ladja, na Novi Škotski v Kanadi. Vlečejo jo v zaliv, kjer so kasneje naredili nekropsijo in potrdili razlog smrti, ki je dejansko bil udarec ladje. Vse tegobe se torej kopičijo na plečih teh živali, zaradi česar je njihovo število še vedno nizko.
And to draw a contrast with that beleaguered North Atlantic population, I went to a new pristine population of Southern right whales that had only been discovered about 10 years ago in the sub-Antarctic of New Zealand, a place called the Auckland Islands. I went down there in the winter time. And these are animals that had never seen humans before, and I was one of the first people they probably had ever seen. And I got in the water with them, and I was amazed at how curious they were. This photograph shows my assistant standing on the bottom at about 70 feet and one of these amazingly beautiful, 45-foot, 70-ton whales, like a city bus just swimming up, you know. They were in perfect condition, very fat and healthy, robust, no entanglement scars, the way they're supposed to look. You know, I read that the pilgrims, when they landed at Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts in 1620, wrote that you could walk across Cape Cod Bay on the backs of right whales. And we can't go back and see that today, but maybe we can preserve what we have left.
Da bi pokazal kontrast z oblegano severnoatlantsko populacijo, sem obiskal novo nedotaknjeno populacijo južnomorskih kitov, ki so jo odkrili šele pred kakšnim desetletjem v subantarktičnem delu Nove Zelandije na Auklandskem otočju Tja sem šel pozimi. Gre za živali, ki še nikoli niso videle človeka. In verjetno sem bil med prvimi ljudmi, ki so jih kdajkoli videle. Skočil sem v vodo k njim in bil presenečen nad njihovo radovednostjo. Na tej fotografiji vidite mojega asistenta, kako stoji na morskem dnu nekje na globini 21 m in eno izmed teh neverjetno lepih 14-metrskih, 70-tonskih kitov, ki kot avtobus priplavajo do tebe. Bili so v odlični formi, zelo debeli in zdravi, krepki in brez brazgotin - takšni kot morajo biti. Bral sem, da so angleški puritanci (Pilgrimi) ob pristanku pri Plymouth Rocku v Massachusettsu leta 1620, pisali, da lahko čez zaliv Cape Coda hodijo na hrbtih gladkih kitov. Sicer ne moremo potovati v času, da bi to videli, lahko pa ohranimo tisto, kar je še ostalo.
And I wanted to close this program with a story of hope, a story I did on marine reserves as sort of a solution to the problem of overfishing, the global fish crisis story. I settled on working in the country of New Zealand because New Zealand was rather progressive, and is rather progressive in terms of protecting their ocean. And I really wanted this story to be about three things: I wanted it to be about abundance, about diversity and about resilience. And one of the first places I worked was a reserve called Goat Island in Leigh of New Zealand. What the scientists there told me was that when protected this first marine reserve in 1975, they hoped and expected that certain things might happen.
Ta prispevek želim zaključiti z zgodbo o upanju, reportažo, ki sem jo delal o morskih rezervatih, kot rešitvi za problem čezmernega ribolova in svetovne krize ribištva. Nastanil sem se na Novi Zelandiji, ker je to dokaj napredna država, tudi v smislu varovanja svojega morja. In res sem želel povedati zgodbo o treh stvareh. Želel sem, da govori o izobilju, raznolikosti in vzdržljivosti. Ena izmed lokacij, kjer sem delal, je bil rezervat Goat Island v Leighu na Novi Zelandiji. Tam so mi znanstveniki povedali, da so z zaščito tega prvega morskega rezervata leta 1975 upali in pričakovali, da se morda zgodijo določene stvari.
For example, they hoped that certain species of fish like the New Zealand snapper would return because they had been fished to the brink of commercial extinction. And they did come back. What they couldn't predict was that other things would happen. For example, these fish predate on sea urchins, and when the fish were all gone, all anyone ever saw underwater was just acres and acres of sea urchins. But when the fish came back and began predating and controlling the urchin population, low and behold, kelp forests emerged in shallow water. And that's because the urchins eat kelp. So when the fish control the urchin population, the ocean was restored to its natural equilibrium. You know, this is probably how the ocean looked here one or 200 years ago, but nobody was around to tell us.
Upali so, na primer, da se bodo določene vrste rib, kot je novozelnadski hlastač, potem, ko so jih s pretiranim ulovom pripeljali na rob izumrtja, vrnile. In res so se. Niso pa mogli predvideti drugih dogodkov, do katerih je prišlo. Te ribe se namreč hranijo z morskimi ježki. In ko rib ni bilo, si pod vodo videl le na tisoče morskih ježkov. Ko pa so se ribe vrnile, in se začele hraniti z ježki, s tem pa tudi omejevati njihovo število, so se v nizkih vodah začeli širiti gozdovi halug. Ježki se namreč prehranjujejo s halugami. Ko so ribe uravnale populacijo ježkov, se je v ocean vrnilo naravno ravnovesje. Tak je bil verjetno namreč izgled morja na tej lokaciji pred sto ali dvesto leti, a nihče se tega več ni mogel spomniti.
I worked in other parts of New Zealand as well, in beautiful, fragile, protected areas like in Fiordland, where this sea pen colony was found. Little blue cod swimming in for a dash of color. In the northern part of New Zealand, I dove in the blue water, where the water's a little warmer, and photographed animals like this giant sting ray swimming through an underwater canyon. Every part of the ecosystem in this place seems very healthy, from tiny, little animals like a nudibrank crawling over encrusting sponge or a leatherjacket that is a very important animal in this ecosystem because it grazes on the bottom and allows new life to take hold.
Delal sem tudi v drugih delih Nove Zelandije, na lepih, krhkih in zaščitenih območjih, kot je Fiordland, kjer so našli kolonijo morskih peres. Majhen peščeni ostriž, ki s svojim prihodom doda kanček barve. Na severnem delu Nove Zelandije, sem skočil v modro vodo, ki je na tem koncu nekoliko toplejša, in fotografiral živali, kot je ogromni morski bič, ki plava skozi podvodni kanjon. Vsak delček ekosistema na tem območju je očitno zelo zdrav, od majcenih živalic, kot so morski goli polži ki se plazi čez morsko gobo, do gofov, ki so za ekosistem izjemnega pomena, saj se pasejo na morskem dnu in tako omogočajo razvoj novega življenja.
And I wanted to finish with this photograph, a picture I made on a very stormy day in New Zealand when I just laid on the bottom amidst a school of fish swirling around me. And I was in a place that had only been protected about 20 years ago. And I talked to divers that had been diving there for many years, and they said that the marine life was better here today than it was in the 1960s. And that's because it's been protected, that it has come back.
Želel bi zaključiti s to fotografijo, ki sem jo na Novi Zelandiji posnel na zelo nevihten dan, ko sem tako ležal na dnu morja med jato rib, ki so se podile okoli mene. Bil sem na območju, ki je zaščiteno le okoli 20 let. Govoril sem s potapljači, ki so se tam potapljali leta. Zagotovili so mi, da je življenja v morju danes več kot ga je bilo v šestdesetih letih prejšnjega stoletja. In ker je območje zaščiteno se je obnovilo.
So I think the message is clear. The ocean is, indeed, resilient and tolerant to a point, but we must be good custodians. I became an underwater photographer because I fell in love with the sea, and I make pictures of it today because I want to protect it, and I don't think it's too late.
Tako menim, da je sporočilo jasno. Morje je prav gotovo odporno in strpno, a le do določene mere, zato moramo zanj dobro skrbeti. Podvodni fotograf sem postal, ker sem se zaljubil v morje. Danes morje fotografiram, ker ga želim zaščititi, in menim, da ni prepozno.
Thank you very much.
Najlepša hvala.