Another giant has left us. The International Union for Conservation of Nature said that the Western Black Rhino of Africa was officially extinct, and two other subspecies were close to the same fate. Amazing to consider also that a quarter of all mammals are at risk of extinction. But there is also a ray of light: the IUCN said that the Southern White Rhino and Przewalski’s Horse have been saved from extinction. Why? Successful conservation programs.
This is why I believe that the battle to save Big Animals from extinction begins with experiencing them first hand. You need to be in the presence of a rhino, a lion, a gorilla or a whale to fully comprehend its power, grace and magnificence. Conservation measures are the answer, as Simon Stuart, chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission said: “In the case of both the Western Black Rhino and the Northern White Rhino, the situation could have had very different results if the suggested conservation measures had been implemented.” Getting people and governments to take those measures means they have to experience, appreciate and make an emotional connection to Big Animals. I’d like to offer you a way to do that, yourself, and have the experience of a lifetime.
Big 7 African Safari
Nobody ever said getting spectacular images of the world’s iconic animals was easy, but I want to offer you a way for your personal photos of lions, leopards, cheetahs, elephants, cape buffalo and mountain gorillas to be worthy of a spread in your favorite nature magazine. Come with me to Africa June 2 through 24, 2012 and I will be at your side to coach your camera work, show you how to work with various lenses and telling you about the best ways to shoot in natural light. On the expedition we’ll avoid the usual tourist destinations so you can get a sense of Africa at its most welcoming and magnificent. The grand finale is to strap on some scuba tanks and swim with Nile Crocodiles in the Okavango Delta. We’ll be in the Nxamaseri Lodge, a unique African experience on an island in the delta. We make the trip doing the best time to be in the water – June and July when the water is clear (visibility 15-20 feet) and cold (55-60 degrees F) which brings the crocs to the surface for great viewing and interaction.
There is hope for Big Animals. Sperm whales were among the world’s most hunted animals – almost driven to extinction. But how they have made the best comeback in the history of wildlife with almost as many now as there were a hundred years ago. Will you join me on our next adventure to Africa?
According to NBC News, a pair of 40-ton giants got dangerously close to a surfer in Santa Cruz, California. The US Coast Guard isn’t saying for sure, but there are many reports of more humpbacks coming closer to shore than ever. Some whale experts, like those at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, CA, say this is something to worry about. They’re concerned about people getting hurt.
NBC quoted Kera Mathes of the Aquarium as saying “Being that close to an 80,000-pound whale when it’s coming up and looking for food isn’t safe,” she said. “When these surfers and kayakers are so close, it definitely poses a danger to the whale and those in the water.”
She’s right… but I believe it’s possible to get close to this remarkable animals, and get close safely.
They belong to the same family as the blue whale, fin whale, Bryde’s whale, sei whale and minke whale.
The females are bigger than the males: from 45-50 feet to the males’ 40-48.
Humpbacks feed on krill, small shrimp-like animals, and small fish and eat up to 1.5 tons of food a day.
Baleen plates, not teeth, trap their food to be swallowed.
Humpbacks are acrobatic, breeching their 40 tons completely out of the water.
They sing, and their songs are complex with each population singing its own unique song.
Their songs are not inborn – they learn them from each other.
The are capable or migrating the globe, from Antartica to the Pacific.
They breed, give birth and care for their newborn calves in the warm waters of Tonga.
If you want the best pictures of them, you’ll need a wide angle lens and will need to learn how to safely swim close to them.
I’ve got dozens of years’ experience photographing Humpback whales, and I know the way to get the best photograph is to treat them respectfully and free dive close. I’ve trained adventurers to do this over 10-day expeditions that I lead, and I have picked the tropical paradise of Tonga for this. Not only is it the very definition of an island paradise, but it is prime territory for the Humpbacks during their breeding period. As you free dive among them on this adventure, you’ll see mother and calf interacting and the bulls tail-slapping and breeching. Would you like to join me? My next Humpback whale adventure departs August 20, 2012.
Coming up right away next year is my adventure in the Carribean to see the largest carnivore in the world – the Sperm whale. There are only a few spaces left, so get in touch with me to reserve yours. Sperm whales were among the world’s most hunted animals – almost driven to extinction. But how they have made the best comeback in the history of wildlife with almost as many now as there were a hundred years ago. Sperm whales are the easiest whales to approach – they are curious and friendly as they socialize in pods of five to thirty. For this encounter, Big Animals Expeditions has teamed with Andrew Armour, known in the diving commmunity as the ‘whale whisperer.’ We will be on his boat, the Domnik. Download the PDF flyer now.
I’ve owned and used an Apple computer for 25 years now, more than quarter of my life. Little did I know, learning how to type on my Mac SE in the early days of business life in the USA, it would become such an amazing tool and flourish as it has. It just seemed a better & cooler way to get work done, process images, and edit video to share with all of you.
I remember when Jobs created, upon his exile from Apple, the NeXT computer. It was used by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN (“the man who invented the internet”) and became the world’s first web server. I remember when Jobs got rid of the floppy disc port with NeXT, and I thought, is he crazy?? And he was, like a fox, as this email streams to you over WiFi, the internet ‘ether’, and maybe into your Mac, iPad or iPhone as well.
I recall the days Apple was almost gone as a company and PC was king, when the ex-Pepsi Cola CEO took over the company, the Macintosh was introduced and the visionary Jobs booted out, only later to bring Pixar alive and create Toy Story — and that was still in the mid 90′s.’
But then the prodigal son came back to the fold, sold Apple his NeXT operating program, than created iMac and in 2000 he took the company again .. in 2001 he brought us the iPod, in 2003, iTunes…in 2007, the iPhone…2010, the iPad. As they say, he made history.
Here’s my favorite Apple ad, the famous famous Think Different commercial, featuring Einstein, Gandhi and Amelia Earhart.
I have been leading expeditions to the Canadian Arctic for years. It’s an incredible trip that I would like to share with you and – according to some scientists – time is of the essence for you to come along.
Polar Bears in Danger
Arecent polar bear study says that polar bear mothers and cubs are now being forced to swim hundreds of miles to reach food sources.
Why? Because the ice they use to walk across is melting.
We time our trips perfectly so that we can see the moment when polar bear mothers lead their cubs out of hibernation and into the bright sunshine for the first time. You get close to the action. It’s an amazing time for photographs or simply enjoying Biganimals in nature.
Scientists are saying that the ice melt is causing problems for the cubs. They have to swim farther for food and long swims like that are tough for little bodies. They don’t yet have the strength or the body fat to sustain long periods of exercise in the frigid waters of the Arctic.
Polar bears are not naturally aquatic creatures – they hunt, eat, sleep, and give birth on land. Their food sources, however, are aquatic – mostly seals. A mother bear will eat the vegetation surrounding the den while her cubs grow big enough to swim in the early spring, but that’s not enough calories for a polar bear, much less a nursing polar bear. So they must swim to find food and with water levels dropping steadily, that means a long journey for the mother and her baby.
Want to know more? On myicetrekkingandwildlifephotographyexpeditions, we travel by snowmobile and dog sled across the magnificent Canadian Arctic. Our guides are Inuits and our goal is to photograph polar bear families as they emerge from their snow dens.
This trip is filled with endless white landscapes topped by the purest of blue skies. We enjoy and photograph the breathtaking Aurora Borealis as you’ve never seen it before – so close, you’ll feel you can reach out and touch it. And of course, we get unforgettable portraits of polar bear adults and cubs. Visit the expedition page on my website to reserve your spot. I look forward to seeing you there!
The 1975 Steven Spielberg movie Jaws had a universally chilling effect on the human perception of sharks and, unfortunately, firmly stamped the Hollywood version of vicious shark behavior in our memories. A more recent Hollywood effort, Soul Surfer, based on the true story of 19-year-old champion surfer who lost her arm in a shark attack, left the shark out of the story, for the most part.
Sharks get a lot of bad press. But who will defend their reputation? At TEDx Conejo, I talked to an enthusiastic audience about how Jaws is a complete fabrication. Nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to the real nature of sharks.
End the ‘killer’ shark stereotype
Still, the misinformation and hysteria around sharks remains, and biologists, scientists, and others like myself have been working to counteract the negative shark reputation ever since.
You want the truth? The National Aquarium in Baltimore says that more people die of bee stings every year than shark attacks. And remember this: Humans are not a normal or even preferred part of the shark diet.
A number of world-famous divers, including William Winram (also known as the Shark Publicist) and Fred Buyle have been working to fight the myths around sharks and eliminate the ‘killer’ reputation of these Biganimals. These divers are known for diving with sharks and taking only their cameras – no weapons.
We recently had a well-attended scouting mission diving with the Okavango River Crocodiles, another Biganimalof seven to 12 feet in length who also comes with a sinister reputation. Our direct, personal experience – and the experiences of my crew and guests – with these river crocodiles was very different than the current public perception that labels these magnificent creatures as terrors along the river.
The Great White shark’s reputation as a nasty predator is also highly undeserved. Certainly, yes, they’re big ‒ as long as 16 feet and as heavy as two thousand pounds ‒ and they’ve got loads of teeth ‒ as many as 300 ‒ and they are powerful, but the truth is most sharks are actually quite shy and prefer to stay away from humans. Plus, they are some of the most fascinating animals you will ever encounter and some of the most rare.
Humans kill over a million sharks each year – some for their meat, cartilage and skin, some for their fins. Many are killed as bycatch by industrial fishing operations. The bottom line is that sharks have a lot more to fear from humans than the other way around. It’s not hard to figure out who the hunter is in this scenario.
What is shark finning? It means you capture a shark, slice off their dorsal fin, and then tossing the shark, who is now unable to swim, back into the water, where it dies a slow death. Brutal. But people do it, because the shark’s fins are considered more valuable than the remainder of the shark. This wasteful and destructive practice contributes to loss of thousands of these amazing creatures each year.
Here is how sharks are meant to be seen, free and wild.
In the last 15 years people – not just divers and conservationists, but a broad group of people who care about the ocean – have been campaigning against finning. Shark finning has been banned in many countries and in many international waters. Recently, the Toronto City Council voted to support a ban on the sale and consumption of shark fin and Californiainitiatedabanonsharkfinning.
Will these new laws change anything? Well, the first thing they have to change is the way people behave, and that starts with how they think about the ocean’s creatures.
You probably know that shark fin soup is considered a delicacy of the affluent in Asian culture, and it’s often served at wedding ceremonies and at restaurants as a symbol of status. The U.S. accounts for a very minor amount of shark fin sales, and so making the practice of shark finning illegal here might not change anything. Some people think it might push shark finning even further into the “black market” – raising prices and causing more of these animals to be slaughtered every year because of potential higher profit.
To help change behavior and make people more aware of the damage of shark finning, celebrities such as basketball star Yao Ming have come out on the anti-shark soup side. Fashionable restaurants are now offering soups with shark fin alternatives. Anti-shark fin soup billboards now display in bus stations in Beijing and China with the funds collected being rolled into additional anti-shark fin media campaigns. But there’s a still a lot to be done. Shark fin soup is not only fashionable among the wealthy classes of Hong Kong and China. Nevada – with a large Asian tourist trade in Las Vegas – has so far resisted a ban on shark finning.
As BrianWalsh, senior writer at TIME, recently wrote: “If we’re going to save sharks, we need to start treating them as animals worth saving.”
I just posted a Blue Whale Album on Facebook – take a look. You’ll see that I’ve found an innovative way to get close to shy Blue whales by using a kayak. The kayak permits us to get face to face with the Blues, even some that are 60 feet long simply pass before my eyes (and lens.) Blue whales are the largest animal ever to live on our planet. I hope you enjoy the album.
I’ve posted a Facebook album of croc images from my recent expedition to the Okavango Delta in Botswana. We saw crocs every day, four to five times a day, anywhere from seven feet long and up to 12 feet long. I had a great experience with my ace guide Brad Bestelink, who is also an extraordinary filmmaker. The expedition was such a great success that Brad and I have created two new croc adventures – the first of their kind anywhere in the world.
Croc Expedition Departures
The initial departure, during the third week of July 2012, will be seven days of croc encounters for just two diver/photographers. The second departure, during the last week of July 2012, will combine five days of croc expedition with an eight-day Big Cat Safari (encountering lions, cheetah and leopards), and is also for only two diver/photographers.
If you are interested, contact me right away, because these spots will fill up fast.
“Of all mankind’s impacts on nature, perhaps none is more pervasive than the systematic elimination of large animals.”
That’s what Brandon Keim wrote recently in Wired. His point is simple. Extinction of animals is inevitable; in fact, many of those who lived 20,000 years ago are gone now, and others are nearly gone: like the rinoceros and South China tiger.
But recent research has shown that when and if the world’s big animals are gone, the world will be profoundly affected. The facts are the same whether you study a coral reef where fishing has eliminated large fish, or study lakes where researchers have experimented with removing all the largemouth bass from a certain area. When the big animals were gone from those places and others, the ecosystems became instable. It seems that large animals keep things balanced in nature, and if we lose them it the world will be different place. Nature will “go on,” scientists agree. But it will be vastly different from what we know. If we lose the big animals, the Earth we live on now will not be a place we would recognize.
Amos gave a presentation about ocean conservation as part of the well-known TEDx talks. His passion for the Ocean Giants is clear, and the value of talks like this are in education – the more people come to appreciate a planet that includes big animals, the more likely we will have an Earth that our children will be able to inhabit.
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