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.
Voleo bih da podelim sa vama ovog jutra neke priče o okeanu kroz moj rad kao fotografa "National Geographic" magazina. Pretpostavljam da sam postao podvodni fotograf i fotoreporter zato što sam se zaljubio u more kao dete. I hteo sam da ispričam priče o svim divnim stvarima koja sam viđao pod vodom, neverovatnom divljem svetu i zanimljivim ponašanjima. I posle čak 30 godina ovog posla, posle 30 godina istraživanja okeana, nikada na prestajem biti oduševljen izvanrednim susretima koje imam dok sam u moru. Ali sve češće ovih dana takođe viđam užasne stvari pod vodom, stvari kojih mislim većina ljudi nije svesna. I bio sam primoran da uperim svoj aparat prema ovim pitanjima kako bih ispričao potpuniju priču. Želim da ljudi vide šta se dešava ispod vode, oboje, užas i čaroliju.
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 priča koju sam napravio za "National Geographic", gde sam prepoznao moć da uključim pitanja životne sredine u okvir priče o istoriji prirode, bila je priča o belim fokama. E sad, priča koju sam izvorno hteo da radim, bila je samo mali pogled na par nedelja svake godine kada se ovo životinje sele sa kanadskog arktika do St. Lawrence zaliva u Kanadi gde se udvaraju, pare i imaju mladunce. A sve ovo se odigrava na poleđini prelaznog leda koji se pomera sa vetrom i plimom. I zato što sam ja podvodni fotograf, hteo sam da uradim ovu priču sa obe strane, ispod i iznad, kako bih napravio slike poput ove koja prikazuje jedno od ovih malih mladunčadi koje prvi put pliva u ledenoj vodi. Ali što sam se više uplitao u ovu priču, shvatio sam da postoje dva velika problema životne sredine koja nisam mogao da ignorišem. Prvi je da se ove životinje i dalje love, ubijaju se hakapikom sa osam, 15 dana starosti. To je zapravo najveće klanje morskih sisara na planeti, sa stotinama i hiljadama ovih foki koje se ubijaju svake godine.
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.
Ali koliko god da je to uznemirujuće, mislim da je veći problem za bele foke gubitak morskog leda zbog globalnog zagrevanja. Ovo je fotografija iz vazduha koja prikazuje St. Lawrence zaliv za vreme lova na bele foke. I iako vidimo dosta leda na ovoj fotografiji, takođe ima i puno vode, koja nije bila tu istorijski gledano. A led je tu prilično tanak. Problem je što ova mladunčad trebaju stabilnu platformu čvrstog leda da bi se hranila kod svoje mame. Potrebno im je samo 12 dana od trenutka rođenja dok se ne osamostale. Ali ako ne dobiju 12 dana, mogu da upadnu u okean i umru. Ovo je fotografija koju sam napravio koja prikazuje jedno od ovih mladunčadi koje ima samo 5 ili 7 dana - još uvek ima malo pupčane vrpce na stomaku - koje je upalo zbog tankog leda, a majka se ludački bori da ga gurne gore da diše i da ga vrati na stabilnu podlogu. Ovaj problem nastavlja da raste svake godine otkad sam tamo. Pročitao sam da je, prošle godine, stopa smrtnosti mladunaca bila 100 posto u delovima zaliva St. Lawrence. Dakle, jasno je, ove vrste imaju mnogo problema u napredovanju. Ovo je završilo kao nasovna priča u "National Geographic". I dobila je poprilično pažnje.
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.
I sa tim, video sam potencijal da počnem da radim druge priče o problemima okeana. Predložio sam priču o globalnoj krizi ribe, delom zato što sam lično prisustvovao mnogim degradacijama u okeanu za proteklih 30 godina, ali takođe zato što sam pročitao naučni članak koji je tvrdio da je 90 odsto velike ribe u okeanu nestalo za poslednjih 50 ili 60 godina. To su tuna, sabljarka i ajkule. I kada sam to pročitao, bio sam zapanjen tim brojkama. Mislio sam da će biti udarna vest u svim medijima. Ali zapravo nije, tako da sam hteo da uradim priču koja bi bila prilično drugačija vrsta podvodne priče. Hteo sam da bude više poput ratne fotografije, gde sam pravio fotografije teške za uhvatiti koje su pokazale čitaocima šta se događa morskom divljem životu širom planete.
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.
Prvi element priče za koji sam mislio da je najbitniji, bio je da dam čitaocima osećaj zahvalnosti za okeanske životinje koje su jeli. Znate, mislim da ljudi odlaze u restoran, i neko naruči odrezak, i svi znamo odakle odrezak dolazi, i neko naruči piletinu, i mi znamo šta je piletina, ali kada jedu suši, da li imaju bilo kakav osećaj o veličanstevnoj životinji koju jedu? Ovo su lavovi i tigrovi mora. U stvarnosti, ove životinje nemaju kopnene kolege, jedinstveni su na svetu. Ovo su životinje koje praktično mogu da plivaju od ekvatora do polova i mogu da preseku čitave okeane za godinu dana. Da nismo toliko efikasni u njihovom hvatanju, zato što rastu čitavog života, imali bismo tridesetogodišnje plave tune koje bi bile tonu teške. Ali istina je da smo suviše efikasni u njihovom hvatanju, i njihove zalihe su propale širom sveta.
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.
Ovo je svakodnevica na Cukiji ribljoj pijaci koju sam fotografisao pre par godina. I svakoga dana ova tuna, plava tuna poput ove, biva naslagana poput cepanica, skladište nakon skladišta. I dok sam tako lutao i pravio ove fotografije, nekako sam shvatio da okean nije prodavnica, znate. Ne možemo da nastavimo da uzimamo bez očekivanja ozbiljnih posledica kao rezultat.
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.
Takođe sam, pored priče, hteo da pokažem čitaocima kako se riba hvata, neke od načina na koji se riba hvata, poput mreže na dnu, koja je najčešći način hvatanja ribe na svetu. Ovo je mala mreža korišćena u Meksiku za hvatanje škampa, ali način na koji radi je u osnovi isti svuda na svetu. Imate veliku mrežu u sredini sa dvema čeličnim vratima na svakom kraju. I dok se ova konstrukcija vuče kroz vodu, vrata se susreću sa otporom okeana, i otvaraju se usta mreže, koja ima plovke na vrhu i olovo na dnu. I ovo se jednostavno vuče po dnu, u ovom slučaju da uhvati škampe. Ali kao što možete da zamislite, hvata takođe sve ostalo u svoju mrežu. I uništava tu dragocenu zajednicu na dnu, stvari poput sunđera i korala, kritično stanište za druge životinje.
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.
Ovu fotografju sam napravio dok ribar drži škampe koje je uhvatio nakon što je vukao svoju mrežu sat vremena. Dakle imao je šaku punu škampa, možda sedam ili osam komada, i sve te druge životinje na palubi broda su sporedni ulov. Ovo su životinje koje uginu tokom procesa, ali nemaju nikakvu komercijalnu vrednost. Dakle ovo je prava cena škampa za večeru, možda sedam ili osam škampa i 5 kg drugih životinja koje su morale da uginu u tom procesu. I da bih to još više naglasio, otplivao sam ispod broda za škampe i napravio fotografiju ovog momka koji baca ovaj ulov nazad u more kao otpad i fotografisao sam ovaj slap smrti, znate, životinje poput raža, ražopsa, list ribe, napuhača, koje su samo sat ranije, bile na dnu okeana, žive, a sada bačene nazad kao otpad.
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.
Takođe sam hteo da se fokusiram na industriju lova na ajkule jer, trenutno na palneti zemlji, ubijamo više od 100 miliona ajkula svake godine. Ali pre nego što sam otišao da fotografišem ovu komponentu, borio sam se sa idejom kako da napravim sliku mrtve ajkule koja će čitaocima ostati u pamćenju. Znate, mislim da još uvek ima mnogo ljudi tamo koji misle da je dobra ajkula jedino mrtva ajkula. I ovog jutra sam skočio u vodu i našao ovu morsku lisicu koja je nedavno uginula u ovoj ribarskoj mreži. I sa ogromnim bočnim perajima i vrlo vidnim očima, podsetilo me na neku vrstu raspeća. Ovo je završilo kao vodeća fotografija u globalnoj ribarskoj priči u "National Geographic". I nadam se da je pomogla čitaocima da primete ovaj problem od 100 miliona ajkula.
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.
I zato što volim ajkule - ja sam na neki način njima opsednut - hteo sam da napravim još jednu priču o ajkulama, više slavljeničku, kao način da se govori o važnosti očuvanja ajkula. Tako sam otišao na Bahame jer postoji samo par mesta na svetu gde ajkulama ide dobro ovih dana, ali čini se da su Bahami mesto gde su zalihe razumno zdrave, uglavnom zbog činjenice da je vlada tamo zabranila ribolov parangalom pre nekoliko godina. I hteo sam da prikažem više vrsta koje nismo mnogo prikazali u časopisu radeći na više lokacija.
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.
Jedna od lokacija je bila ta plaža nazvana Tigar plaža, u severnom delu Bahama gde se tigar ajkule sakupljaju u plitkoj vodi. Ova fotografija sa male visine prikazuje naš ronilački brod sa oko desetak ovih velikih starih tigar ajkula koje jednostavno plivaju okolo. Ali jedna stvar koju svakako nisam hteo da uradim sa ovom pričom jeste da nastavim da prikazujem ajkule kao čudovišta, nisam hteo da budu previše opasne ili zastrašujuće. I sa ovom fotografijom prelepe 4,5 metra, verovatno 4 metra duge, pretpostavljam, ženke tigar ajkule, nekako mislim da sam ostvario cilj, gde ona pliva sa ovim ribama oko svoje njuške i moj strob je stvorio senku na njenoj glavi. I mislim da je to nežnija fotografija, manje preteća, malo više poštovanja za vrstu.
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.
Takođe sam radio na priči o izostanku velike čekić ajkule, životinje koja je retko bila fotografisana do pre nekih sedam ili 10 godina. To je vrlo usamljeno stvorenje. Ali ovo je životinja o kojoj nauka ima malo podataka kako na Floridi tako i na Bahamima. Znate, skoro da ništa ne znamo o njima. Ne znamo odakle ni kuda migriraju, gde se pare, gde dobijaju mladunce, i opet, populacija čekić ajkula u Atlantiku smanjila se za oko 80 posto u poslednjih 20, 30 godina. Znate, gubimo ih brže nego što možemo da ih nađemo.
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.
Ovo je okeanska bela ajkula, životinja koja se smatra četvrtom po redu najopasnijom vrstom, ako obraćate pažnju na takve liste. Ali to je životinja koja je za oko 98 odsto u opadanju kroz čitav svoj opseg. Zato što je ovo riba koja živi u dubokoj vodi, i zato što nismo radili na dnu, doneo sam kavez za ajkule sa sobom, i moj prijatelj, biolog za jakule Ves Prat je unutar kaveza. Videćete da fotograf, naravno, nije bio unutar kaveza ovde, očigledno je biolog malo pametniji od fotografa, mislim.
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.
I naposletku ove priče, hteo sam da se fokusiram na negu beba ajkula. I otišao sam na Bimini ostrvo, na Bahamima, da radim sa mladuncima limun ajkule. Ovo je fotografija mladunčeta limun ajkule koja prikazuje gde ove životinje žive prve dve tri godine svog života u ovom zaštitnom žbunju. Ovo je neka fotografija netipična za ajkule. To nije ono što biste tipično pomislili o fotografiji ajkule. Ali, znate, ovde vidimo ajkulu dugu oko 25 možda 27 centimetara kako pliva u vodi dubokoj oko 30 centimetara. Ali ovo je ključno stanište u kojem one provode prve dve tri godine svog života, dok ne budu dovoljno velike da odu u ostatak grebena. Nakon što sam napustio Bimini, shvatio sam ustvari da je ovo stanište bilo očišćeno za novi golf teren i letovalište.
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.
I druge nedavne priče ukazuju na jednu, vodeću vrstu, ako hoćete, koja je u opasnosti u okeanu, kao način da se govori o drugim opasnostima. Jednu takvu priču sam dokumentovao o sedmoprugoj kornjači. Ovo je najveća, najšireg raspona, najstarija vrsta kornjače u najdubljim vodama. Ovde vidimo ženku koja gmiže iz okeana po mesečini na ostrvu Trinidad. To su životinje čije poreklo datira 100 miliona godina unazad. I postojalo je vreme u njihovom veku kada su izlazeći iz vode da se gnezde videle tiranosaurus reksa kako trči. A danas, gmižu napolje i vide zgrade. Ali, uprkos ovoj čudesnoj dugovečnosti, one se sada smatraju kritično ugroženima. U pacifiku, gde sam napravio ovu fotografiju, njihov broj se smanjio za oko 90 posto u poslednjih 15 godina.
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.
Ovo je fotografija koja prikazuje novorođenče koje će probati slanu vodu po prvi put i početi ovo dugo i opasno putovanje. Samo jedno od hiljadu mladunčadi ovih kornjača će dostići zrelost. Ali to je zbog prirodnih predatora poput lešinara koji ih kupe sa plaže ili riba predatora koje ih čekaju u blizini obale. Priroda je naučila da to nadomesti, i ženke imaju više jaja kao bi prevazišle te nejednakosti. Ali ono sa čime ne mogu da se bore su antropogeni stresovi, ljudske stvari, poput ove fotografije koja prikazuje sedmoprugu kornjaču uhvaćenu tokom noći u ribarsku mrežu. Ja sam zapravo skočio u vodu i fotografisao ovo, i sa ribarevom dozvolom, oslobodio sam kornjaču i ona je mogla da pliva slobodna. Ali, znate, hiljade sedmoprugih kornjača svake godine nemaju toliko sreće, i budućnost vrste je u velikoj opasnosti.
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.
Još jedna harizmatična velika vrsta životinje sa kojom sam radio je priča o crnom glatkom kitu. I suštinski, priča o glatkim kitovima je sledeća, pre oko milion godina, postojala je jedna vrsta glatkih kitova na planeti, ali kako se kopnena masa kretala i okeani postali izolovani, vrsta se na neki način razdvojila, i danas imamo dve suštinski različite zalihe. Imamo Južnog glatkog kita kojeg vidimo ovde i Crnog glatkog kita kojeg vidimo ovde sa majkom i mladunčetom na obali Floride. Sada, obe vrste su bile lovljene do tačke istrebljenja ranim brodovima za lov, ali Južni glatki kitovi su se oporavili bolje jer se nalaze u mestima udaljenim od ljudskih 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.
Crni glatki kit je klasifikovan kao najugroženija vrsta na planeti danas jer su to urbani kitovi; žive uzduž istočne obale Severne Amerike, Sjedinjenih Država i Kanade, i moraju da se bore sa modernim bolestima. Ova fotografija prikazuje životinju koja izranja glavom u sumrak na obali Floride. Možete da vidite fabriku ugljena koja gori u pozadini. Moraju da se bore sa stvarima poput otrova i lekova koji se otpuštaju u okean, i koji možda utiču na njihovu reprodukciju. Takođe bivaju upetljani u ribarske mreže. Ovo je fotografija koja prikazuje rep glatkog kita. I ovi ožiljci nisu prirodni ožiljci. To su ožiljci od uplitanja. 72 procenta populacije ima ovakve ožiljke, ali većina ne rastura opremu, poput zamki za jastoge ili krabe. Oni se drže za njih i na kraju ih to ubije. A drugi problem je da oni bivaju udareni brodovima. Ovo je životinja koja je udarena brodom u Novoj Škotskoj, Kanada, koja je odvučena da se uradi autopsija da se utvrdi uzrok smrti, koji zaista jeste udar broda. Dakle sve ove bolesti napadaju ove životinje i drže njihov broj vrlo niskim.
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.
I da napravim kontrast sa tom opkoljenom populacijom u Severnom Atlantiku, otišao sam do prastare populacije Južnih glatkih kitova, koji su otkriveni tek pre nekih 10 godina u pod-Antarktiku na Novom Zelandu, u mestu zvanom Ouklandska ostrva. Otišao sam dole u zimskom periodu. I ovo su životinje koje nikada ranije nisu videle čoveka. I ja sam verovatno bio jedan od prvih ljudi koje su one ikada videle. Ušao sam u vodu sa njima, i bio sam zapanjen koliko su bile radoznale. Ova fotografija prikazuje mog asistenta kako stoji na dnu na oko 20 metara i jednog od ovih zadivljujućih prelepih, 13 metara dugih, 70 tona teških kitova, poput gradskog autobusa koji pliva, znate. Oni su u savršenoj formi, debeli i zdravi, kršni, bez ožiljaka, onako kako treba da izgledaju. Znate, pročitao sam da su Pilgrimi, kada su dospeli na Plimut Rok u Masačusetsu 1620., napisali da su mogli da šetaju do Kejp Kod zaliva na leđima glatkih kitova. I ne možemo da se vratimo i da vidimo to danas, ali možda možemo da očuvamo ono što je 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.
I hteo sam da završim ovaj program sa pričom nade, pričom koju sam uradio o morskim rezervama kao vrsti rešenja za problem preteranog ribolova, čitave priče o krizi ribe. Smestio sam se da radim na Novom Zelandu jer je Novi Zeland prilično napredan, prilično napredan u smisli očuvanja okeana. I stvarno sam hteo da ova priča bude o tri stvari. Hteo sam da bude o bogatstvu, različitosti i otpornosti. I jedno od prvih mesta gde sam radio bio je rezervat nazvan ostrvo Gout u Lejgu na Novom Zelandu. Ono što su mi naučnici tamo rekli je da kada su prvi put zaštitili morske rezerve 1975., nadali su se i očekivali da mogu da se dese određene 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.
Na primer, nadali su se da će se određene vrste ribe poput novozelandske grabljivice vratiti, jer su lovljene u komercijalne svrhe do ivice istrebljenja. I jesu se vratile. Ono što nisu mogli da predvide jesu koje druge stvari mogu da se dese. Na primer, ove ribe jedu morske ježeve. I kada je sva riba nestala, sve što je neko mogao da vidi pod vodom jesu hektari i hektari morskih ježeva. Ali kada se riba vratila i počela da se hrani i kontroliše populaciju ježeva, na dnu, šuma morskih algi pojavila se u plitkoj vodi. A to je zato što ježevi jedu alge. Tako da kada je riba kontrolisala populaciju ježeva, okean se vratio na svoju prirodnu ravnotežu. Znate, verovatno je okean ovako izgledao pre sto ili 200 godina, ali nikoga nije bilo tu da nam kaže.
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.
Radio sam i u drugim delovima Novog Zelanda, u prelepim, krhkim, zaštićenim područjima poput Fjordlanda, gde je ova kolonija morskih žarnjaka pronađena. Mali plavi bakalar pliva za dašak boje. U severnom delu Novog Zelanda, zaronio sam u plavu vodu, gde je voda malo toplija, i fotografisao životinje poput ove ogromne raže koja pliva kroz podvodni kanjon. Svaki deo ekosistema na ovom mestu izgleda vrlo zdravo, od sićušnih, malih životinja poput nudibranka koji puza preko obloženog sunđera ili ove ribe koja je iz porodice šnjureva koja je vrlo važna životinja u ekosistemu jer pase dno i omogućava novom životu da se održi.
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.
I želim da završim sa ovom fotografijom, napravljenom vrlo olujnog dana na Novom Zelandu tek što sam dospeo na dno usred jata ribe koja se kovitlala oko mene. A bio sam na mestu koje je zaštićeno pre samo nekih 20 godina. I razgovarao sam sa roniocima koji tamo rone već godinama, i oni su rekli da je pomorski život ovde bolji danas nego što je bio 1960-ih godina. I to je zato što je zaštićen, zato se oporavio.
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.
Mislim da je poruka jasna. Okean je, zaista, otporan i tolerantan do jedne mere, ali moramo biti dobri čuvari. Postao sam podvodni fotograf jer sam se zaljubio u more, i danas pravim fotografije jer želim da ga zaštitim, i ne mislim da je prekasno.
Thank you very much.
Mnogo vam hvala.