Best Polar Bear Moments | Part 1 | BBC Earth

something has spooked eva oh she's going in the wrong direction she might be giving us a slip unfortunately around the corner comes another mother with even bigger cubs unbelievable unbelievable just ye i mean amazing to see looking at our female over there and we've got another three polar bears right here even closer those are two healthy looking cubs really nice looking cup big chunky things or maybe it's just that i'm a lot closer to them i have been with the others just incredible place this suddenly we find ourselves surrounded by polar bears another single bear just there gosh so we got eva with her two cubs we got the female with the two cubs that wasn't tagged plus we got a young bear just behind us here plus we've got the fat female over on the ice that's eight bears around us and this one is walking towards you gordon [Music] we really have to keep our radar going now so we got eight bears around us yeah okay four of them are quite small cubs but this one okay i can't believe that jason she's just utterly unfazed so she's definitely got the scent of this young bear coming in here and eva is coming around the back she's a bit more skeptical polar bear central jason the density of polar bears here is unbelievable but it just shows you how easy it would be to slip up somewhere like this you're concentrating on this lovely scene of the mother and two cubs behind you and walking up over the ridge another single bear just there he's another mother i'm getting the feeling that this isn't a good situation we've got 13 bears in this one area which is incredible this is potentially very dangerous [Music] i'd be more concerned of the young bear who doesn't have cubs and a female of the cubs this one's let the scooter run [Music] hmm good oh good fun another day in the office gordon incredible it is amazing to see this many polar bears in one place it may be a vision of the future as temperatures in the arctic rise and bears are forced to congregate on the last of the sea ice despite sharing the ice with so many other bears ava and our cubs are doing amazingly well for now they seem to be thriving but on the way back our snowmobiles attract interest from a large male okay yeah justin he's coming he's coming he's coming he's coming this is a big confident beer this bear like every polar bear is intrinsically curious he's walked almost a whole kilometer straight towards us just to check us out all other species of bear mostly eat plants and insects polar bears eat meat and this one has his eye on me yeah we this is getting to a point where it's a little bit dodgy this male is paying attention to us and to us only and he's not stopping he's getting closer and closer look how close he is right there so we're gonna have to get ready to start the schedules and get out of here okay he's getting about what is he 10 meters not good okay drive drive drive drive drive drive go go go go go slight disaster it's here to pee has too much attention we just had to get out of it hang on not good but that just shows you [Music] the animals that you can't entirely trust look at that unbelievable he got way too close there and even starting up the scooter is something that would normally put a bear off hasn't bothered at all jason's just going to see if he can scare him off there you go there's a bear that was thinking about food and he saw us and we were on the menu in april this male should be hunting on the sea ice but behind him there's mostly open water it's no surprise that he meant business and he's still there still watching i am that was about as close to a polar bear as i want to get at this time of year polar bears on average succeed only once in 20 hunts if the hunter is skinny like this one that may not be often enough all she can do is keep trying [Music] to prevent her scent betraying her she makes a wide sweep to get downwind of the seal getting close she's now right behind the seal [Applause] [Applause] incredibly she caught the seal underwater [Applause] it's only small but even so its blubber alone will contain a hundred thousand calories enough to sustain this bear for a week [Music] and in that time she might even catch another [Music] but this can't go on forever as summer continues temperatures are rising each hunt requires more energy draining the bears of their reserves [Music] [Music] [Music] they're all safely ashore but they could still face months of hunger finding food is not so easy on this cold and barren coast the search may be a long one [Music] polar bears have an extraordinarily sensitive sense of smell and she has caught a faint whiff of something promising [Music] it's the immense carcass of a bowhead whale a whale carcass could provide more than any one family could eat but they're not the first here to find it by any means the smell has brought in bears some miles away [Music] bear families seldom get on with one another she's taking a risk bringing her cubs here male bears can and do kill and eat small cubs another family challenges her she must decide whether to compete for food or run away and go hungry [Music] she keeps her cubs close to her and stands her ground [Music] their mother's courage has won the cubs a meal [Music] there will be no easy meals on this island walruses are the largest seals in the world they weigh over a ton and are armed with tusks a meter long [Music] exhausted from his swim the bear must regain his strength the next day a sea fog shrouds the island the wallaces sense that they're in danger using the fog as cover the bear approaches the herd [Music] the adults close ranks around their young presenting a wall of blubber and hide he tests the banner but it stands firm it appears that the world's largest land carnivore has met his match [Music] there must be a in the armor somewhere [Music] not here [Music] this female walrus is shielding her pup if he can just prise her off [Music] the bear's claws and teeth can't penetrate her thick hide [Music] with the herd retreating to water the bear must move quickly [Music] having failed with one he heads straight for another [Music] the chance of his first meal in months is slipping away [Music] he seems increasingly desperate it's now or never he must avoid the stabbing tusks if he's the wind [Music] the flailing walrus is immensely powerful and drags the bear away from the shallows towards the safety of the herd [Music] it slips from his grasp [Music] you

Channel: BBC Earth

Views: 308,921

Keywords: bbc documentary, bbc, bbcearth, bbc earth, animals, animal documentary, polar bear, best of polar bears, nature

Id: nFsdaYuIJCU

Length: 16min 41sec (1001 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 17 2020