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‘Soul-Crushing’: Filmmaker Captures ‘Slow, Painful Death’ Of Starving Polar Bear

Sunday, December 10, 2017 13:25

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“‘Soul-Crushing’: Filmmaker Captures ‘Slow,

Painful Death’ Of Starving Polar Bear”

by RT

“Footage of a starving polar bear clinging to life in the Canadian Arctic has highlighted one of the most devastating effects of climate change. When photographer Paul Nicklen and filmmakers from conservation group Sea Legacy arrived in the Baffin Islands, they came across a heartbreaking sight: a starving polar bear on its deathbed.

Nicklen is no stranger to bears. From the time he was a child growing up in Canada’s far north the biologist turned wildlife photographer has seen over 3,000 bears in the wild. But the emaciated polar bear, featured in videos Nicklen published to social media on December 5, was one of the most gut-wrenching sights he’s ever seen. “We stood there crying – filming with tears rolling down our cheeks,” he said.

Video shows the polar bear clinging to life, its white hair limply covering its thin, bony frame. One of the bear’s back legs drags behind it as it walks, likely due to muscle atrophy. Looking for food, the polar bear slowly rummages through a nearby trashcan used seasonally by Inuit fishers. It finds nothing and resignedly collapses back down onto the ground.

In the days since Nicklen posted the footage, he’s been asked why he didn’t intervene. “Of course, that crossed my mind,” said Nicklen. “But it’s not like I walk around with a tranquilizer gun or 400 pounds of seal meat.” And even if he did, said Nicklen, he only would have been prolonging the bear’s misery. Plus, feeding wild polar bears is illegal in Canada.

The wildlife photographer says he filmed the bear’s slow, beleaguered death because he didn’t want it to die in vain. “When scientists say bears are going extinct, I want people to realize what it looks like. Bears are going to starve to death,” said Nicklen. “This is what a starving bear looks like.” The emaciated bear was filmed just “hours or days” from death as it searched for food on the barren and iceless Baffin Island – Canada’s largest and the fifth largest in the world. The heartbreaking footage was captured by the conservation group Sea Legacy while filming a documentary over the summer.

“My entire Sea Legacy team was pushing through their tears and emotions while documenting this dying polar bear,” wrote photographer Paul Nicklen in the lengthy caption accompanying the video, shared on Instagram. “This is what starvation looks like. The muscles atrophy. No energy. It’s a slow, painful death.”

“My entire @Sea_Legacy team was pushing through their tears and emotions while documenting this dying polar bear. It’s a soul-crushing scene that still haunts me, but I know we need to share both the beautiful and the heartbreaking if we are going to break down the walls of apathy. This is what starvation looks like. The muscles atrophy. No energy. It’s a slow, painful death. When scientists say polar bears will be extinct in the next 100 years, I think of the global population of 25,000 bears dying in this manner. There is no band aid solution. There was no saving this individual bear. People think that we can put platforms in the ocean or we can feed the odd starving bear. The simple truth is this – if the Earth continues to warm, we will lose bears and entire polar ecosystems. This large male bear was not old, and he certainly died within hours or days of this moment. But there are solutions. We must reduce our carbon footprint, eat the right food, stop cutting down our forests, and begin putting the Earth – our home – first. Please join us at @sea_legacy as we search for and implement solutions for the oceans and the animals that rely on them – including us humans.”

The heartbreaking footage shows the bear fruitlessly searching for food inside abandoned trash cans with little luck. Nicklen didn’t think the bear was old but said its condition was bad enough to expect it to die within hours of filming.

“As temperatures rise and sea ice melts, polar bears lose access to the main staple of their diets – seals,” Nicklen noted. “Starving, and running out of energy, they are forced to wander into human settlements for any source of food.”

Responding to criticism as to why the film crew didn’t come to the bear’s aid, Nicklen explained that the team were forced to choose between saving a single bear, or enlightening the world to the pain and suffering felt by the remaining 25,000 polar bears facing extinction within the next 100 years. “It’s a soul-crushing scene that still haunts me, but I know we need to share both the beautiful and the heartbreaking if we are going to break down the walls of apathy,” he wrote.

“There is no band aid solution. There was no saving this individual bear. People think that we can put platforms in the ocean or we can feed the odd starving bear. The simple truth is this – if the Earth continues to warm, we will lose bears and entire polar ecosystems.”

- https://www.rt.com/

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I vehemently disagree with the decision not to intervene and help this bear, laws be damned! No, you can’t save them all, but if you can save that one, or do everything possible to try to save it, you do it! It would have made a difference to that one… – CP

“The Legend of the Starfish”

Author Unknown

“A vacationing businessman was walking along a beach when he saw a young boy. Along the shore were many starfish that had been washed up by the tide and were sure to die before the tide returned. The boy was walking slowly along the shore and occasionally reached down and tossed the beached starfish back into the ocean.

The businessman, hoping to teach the boy a little lesson in common sense, walked up to the boy and said, “I have been watching what you are doing, son. You have a good heart, and I know you mean well, but do you realize how many beaches there are around here and how many starfish are dying on every beach every day. Surely such an industrious and kind hearted boy such as yourself could find something better to do with your time. Do you really think that what you are doing is going to make a difference?” The boy looked up at the man, and then he looked down at a starfish by his feet. He picked up the starfish, and as he gently tossed it back into the ocean, he said, “It makes a difference to that one.”

Source: http://coyoteprime-runningcauseicantfly.blogspot.com/2017/12/soul-crushing-filmmaker-captures-slow.html

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