If you’re a person who watched Walt Disney on TV as a kid, you probably remember one of the most epic wildlife films ever produced by Disney where a steady stream of lemmings was jumping over a cliff. This was attributed to lemmings just being stupid or having bad eyesight and has become a global meme ever since. The word “lemmings” has become synonymous with jumping over a cliff without thinking.
The problem however with the Disney film is that it wasn’t true; it was all staged by the producers and the camera people. This was found out years later by an investigation done by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
From the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game
The “pack of lemmings” reaches the final precipice. “This is the last chance to turn back,” Hibbler states. “Yet over they go, casting themselves out bodily into space.”
Lemmings are seen flying into the water. The final shot shows the sea awash with dying lemmings.
Certainly, some scenes in nature documentaries are staged. In Sir David Attenborough’s recent documentary, “The Life of Birds,” the close-up footage of a flying duck, filmed razor-sharp from the bird’s wingtip, was shot from a car using a mallard drake trained to fly alongside the car. But faking an entirely mythical event is something else.
Back to the present day, a television program by the name of Our Planet is produced by the BBC and stars Sir David Attenborough the same noted naturalist that staged the flying duck scene. On a recent program they showed walruses falling over a cliff and acting like lemmings themselves attributed this terrible thing to “climate change”, which has become the “universal boogeyman” for lemming like professional journalists.
There’s only one problem, like the Disney story it wasn’t true, and it wasn’t due to climate change.
From the Bishop Hill website, written by Andrew Montford:
My article on walruses appeared behind the paywall at the Spectator Coffee House blog earlier this week.
Over the weekend, social media and the newspapers were full of stories of Pacific walruses plunging over sea cliffs to their deaths. Heart-wrenching film of the corpses of these magnificent beasts piled up on the shore have been driving many to tears.
This all came about as the result of the latest episode of Our Planet, the new wildlife extravaganza from Netflix. As is normal for such programmes, the story that accompanies the animal eye-candy is told by Sir David Attenborough and, as is positively compulsory, it is spiced with multiple references to the horrors of global warming. In fact, we are told, it is us who should shoulder the blame for the slaughter of the walruses, because shrinking sea ice caused by climate change forces them to haulout – leaving the water to take refuge on the shore instead.
The programme ends with Attenborough directing viewers to a website run by WWF, the co-producers of the series. It is therefore, in essence, an eight-part, multi-million pound fundraiser.
Which is a pity, because there is now considerable evidence emerging that the story is not quite what it seems.
For a start, as the zoologist Susan Crockford has documented for the GWPF, walrus haul out behaviour may not be related to global warming. In her 2014 paper On the Beach, she cites examples as far back as the 1930s, long before global warming. She also explains that there doesn’t appear to be a strong correlation between sea-ice levels and haulout behaviour.
Nor is the phenomenon of walruses falling to their deaths from sea cliffs new. American TV recorded the same phenomenon in 1994 and the New York Times reported 60 deaths in a single incident in 1996. Attempts were made to install a fence at one site, while another employs rangers whose sole job is to keep the walruses away from the cliffs. At the time, scientists explained that the most likely explanation was overcrowding at the water’s edge.
Crockford thinks that the footage on the Netflix show comes from a well-documented incident that took place in the village of Ryrkaypiy, in eastern Siberia, in October 2017. September and October are the peak period for walrus haulouts, and there are numerous examples, which date back to the 1960s, of the cliff phenomenon taking place on Wrangel Island, a few hundred kilometres to the north.
However in 2017, as the Siberian Times reported, the colony attracted polar bears that frequent – and indeed at the time terrorise – the area. The bears drove several hundred walruses over the cliffs to their deaths, before feasting on the corpses. They continued to frequent the area right through into the winter.
I’ve been able to show that Crockford’s supposition about the geographical origin of the footage is correct: analysis of the rock shapes in the film and in a photo taken by the producer/director both match archive photos of Ryrkaypiy. The photo was taken on 19 September 2017, during the events described by the Siberian Times.
But whereas the Siberian Times and Gizmodo website, which also reported on the 2017 incident, were both quite clear that the walruses were driven over the cliffs by polar bears, Netflix makes no mention of their presence. Similarly, there is no mention of the fact that walrus haulouts are entirely normal. Instead, Attenborough tells his viewers that climate change is forcing the walruses on shore, where their poor eyesight leads them to plunge over the cliffs.
This is all very troubling as it raises the possibility that Netflix and the WWF are, innocently or otherwise, party to a deception of the public. Exactly who was aware of the presence of polar bears remains unclear, but it seems doubtful that no one at the WWF and the production team was unaware. And given that one of the prime objectives of the show seems to have been to raise funds for WWF, that seems… problematic.
Josh has his take on it:
And then there is this as a precedent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_jump I am not aware of any outcry.
The whole problem with many initially well-meaning environmentalists and others is they get trapped an “Ends vs. Means” issue. I wrote a brief article on the subject and got it published in our local “People’s Paper” here in the Mat-Su Valley in South Central Alaska. You can read it in the link below:
http://www.makeasceneak.com/midnovember-2018/2018/11/5/does-the-end-justify-the-means?rq=Doug%20Ferguson
Doug Ferguson
But, the Polar Bears will have plenty to eat.
What is the best kept secret in Climate Science? (Part 2)
========================================
Climate scientists want people to know how much they have warmed by.
But they don’t want people to know what real absolute temperature they live at.
Why would that be?
Real absolute temperatures are more fundamental than temperature anomalies.
Climate scientists have to use real absolute temperatures, to calculate temperature anomalies.
But the real absolute temperatures are never shown to the public.
Why would that be?
Could it be, that real absolute temperatures make global warming look less catastrophic?
Will many people discover that they actually live in cold countries? And that global warming might make their country nicer?
That couldn’t possibly be true, could it?
There is only one way to find out. Read the second part of my series of articles on RATS – Real Absolute Temperatures:
https://agree-to-disagree.com/rats-north-winter-south-summer
“Walrus on the verge of a nervous breakdown over the claim that the world will end in 12 years decide to take matters into their own hands , or flippers, preferring to end AOC’s un -Bearable psychological trauma .
http://siberiantimes.com/ecology/others/news/village-besieged-by-polar-bears-as-hundreds-of-terrorised-walruses-fall-38-metres-to-their-deaths/
Here is the Russian newspaper (in English) reporting on this very story in 2017.
I was unable to watch the film because of the certainty that at some stage I would be ambushed by a reference to climate change . Sad for the old walrus Attenborough.
The pdf report only makes a couple of passing references to ‘substantial changes in the seasonal availability of sea-ice’. It makes it quite clear that mass haulouts are a longstanding phenomenon and that stampeding has always been a risk. The only difference is that when sea ice is reduced the females and young are more likely to come ashore and to become more vulnerable.
Let me get this straight. There is absolutely no evidence that polar bears were present. All that there is is
an unsubstantiated claim that the incident on film might be the same as one in 2017 where polar bears
caused walruses to stampede and fall to their deaths. As I understand it the producers have not stated where
or when the incident took place. If the people here were as critical about skeptic’s claims as they are about
global warming this article would be widely panned as an unsubstantial attack piece.
And the fact that the programme lied about this walrus activity being new and unusual.
That is the key point.
The programme said this was a new thing that must be related to climate change and loss of ice. When it is an old thing for which climate change and ice changes are not implicated.
The documentary is fraudulent. The dialogue at least was a distortion of the truth.
I think it is unfortunate to focus on the bears. It is clear that walruses have been dying at this location – due to the unfortunate, probably unique, geography – for a long time. There was clearly an incident where bears were involved, but it happens anyway. It’s nothing to do with climate change/sea ice levels. Just a walrus navigable slope leading to a cliff – they are very dumb animals. In summer the males have formed enormous shore haul outs here since ‘records began’. There were reports of mass ‘suicides’ from 1994 and 1996 when summer sea ice minimums were high. These deaths in no way threaten the species survival, indeed the fact that there are 100,000+ male walruses in one location (after the severe decline mid last century) is an enormous conservation (hunting restrictions) success story. The numbers are limited by what the clam beds can support and it is likely there are/have been too many in recent years.
I probably have more field experience of walrus than you have. They don’t stampede unless they have been frightened by something.
If Polar Bears weren’t present, then they were probably frightened by humans. There really isn’t much else that they need to be afraid of. They have very bad sight and hearing out of water but a very keen sense of smell, so they can be spooked by humans or bears quite far off if they are upwind.
In some of their come backs the production team has both denied and admitted the presence of bears.
On a short clip ‘behind the scenes’ on youtube they have an aerial panning shot directly over and approaching from the landward side of the cliff that could only be from a drone or helicopter.
But again, it’s all pretty irrelevant, it is clearly just one of natures freak occurrences, they fall off regardless.
In connection with “disappearing ice” it might be worth mentioning that Ryrkapyi was formerly known as Mys Shmidta, and that the only reason the town exists is that the airfield there was once a major staging base for Soviet strategic bombers. It was actually so important that the very first successful satellite photograph ever taken on August 18 1960 by Discoverer 14 covered Mys Shmidta. It shows that the area was completely ice-free:
So the there is nowhere in the World where “the satellite record” is as long as there. The cliff is on the seaward side of the small island off the cape.
“Walrus on the verge of a nervous breakdown over” troll army activity, from 2015.
https://thewalrus.ca/me-against-the-troll-army/
Not true. The town and airbase called Cape Schmidt are on the Eastern side, South of the headland and narrow spit that leads to the haulout location. Ryrkaypii is to the West on Northerly facing coast. The name is old, and much older than the airbase. Best translation is walrus rookery.
A Neolithic site of ancient marine hunters was found on the shore of Cape Schmidt. There are remains of ancient huts at the foot of the cliffs on the western side and there was an ancient Chukchi fortification at the top.[3]
The local name of the landhead was Il-Kappeya, meaning “Walrus constipation” in the Chukchi language. James Cook named the headland “Cape North” in 1778 when he sailed through the Bering Strait and into the Chukchi Sea,[4] demonstrating to people in Europe and North America that Russia and Alaska were separated.[5] The cape was renamed after Soviet scientist and first head of the Chief Directorate of the Northern Sea Route, Otto Schmidt in 1934.
I assume the observations of this going back to the 60s, does not mean they just began a ”new craze” like rock ‘n roll, and in fact, it is something they probably have always done.
An easy solution would be to randomly set up some fake Polar bears, near the cliffs, to scare off the Walruses . Not a new idea. We’ve done it with Crows in the corn fields etc. for years.
Those fake Polar bears would have to smell like bears for that to work. Walrus have very bad eyesight out of water.
This is nonsense from Attenborough.
There is plenty of video of hungry polar bears at walrus haulouts nowhere near cliffs, with the polar bears engaging in mayhem to get a meal while the walruses of all sizes, ages and sexes do the best they can to get into the water away from the bears.
Now I wonder if Attenborough thinks “Jurassic Park” was real.
It’s about time to divest from Netflix and any other organization that peddles mush-brained propaganda.
I’m going to cut Attenborough a little slack seeing as how he’s got to be at least 1/1024th walrus himself. Gotta be tough for him to see walrii perish, whatever the cause.
Hmm. It’s not the just the polar bears or Disney filming the killing to tell lucrative tall tales. Before the age of oil and the pale face, the Indians, er noble Native Americans drove buffalo herds off cliffs for food also. Probably to stock up on meat before the weather changed and a winter of teepee living and telling tall tales under warm fresh buffalo robes with running bare forked tongue teepee squaw Pokelot. There’s even a ski resort still named Squaw Valley in honor of those steamy tepid times with the culturally appropriating pale face mountain men, which probably should be renamed Vagina Valley for today’s sensitive ones still hotdogging those moguls, nooks, and crannies.
Attenborough is a global warming advocate from the time when his peer, David Bellamy, was sacked by the BBC for calling AGM bunkum. Attenborough saw where the money laid and gave up any appearance of being scientific to keep his job and get invited to the big gigs like Davos. The photography is beautiful but the meme is duplicitous.
to prevent being suprized in their sleep they always appoint one as a sentinall and place it in the middle to keep watch over them… As we approached them with the ships they would lie very quiet till we came within two cables length of them, when the one that had the watch would make a great noise to allarm the rest upon which they all began by degrees to raise their heads and shoulders and look around them and then crawl to the edge of the Ice and plunge head foremost into the water, so that by the time we had got within a ½ a cable length of them there would not be one remaining; the noise they make is a mean betwixt the barking of a dog and the bellowing of an Ox… unless we fired at them upon the Ice it was twenty to one that we could hit them in the water, as they dive immediately… After we had got them onboard they were skinned and cut up by the butcher. The hides we preserved for the Rigging, the Blubber or fat we put into casks to melt down into train oil for our lamps; and the flesh disgustfull as it was we eat thro’ extreme hunger, caused by the badness of our provisions and short allowance, which were but just enough to exist upon and were now reduced on account of this supply.
Capt Gilbert, Cook voyage through Chukchi/Bering Seas, Aug/Sep 1778
The Canadian alarmist CBC has gone the narrative that the Walrus’s haul out on land in record numbers because of climate-change-loss-of-ice. The alarmist-CBC didn’t mention once that the polar bears are spooking the Walrus’s over the edge to get a good meal !!
Meanwhile, back at the polar bears, a frequent television advert begins with a child’s voiceover pleading, “I want to live in a world with polar bears” and, after extensive imagery including windmills and butterflies, tries to sell us…smart meters. The “polar bear extinction” meme is still strong in the UK. https://www.smartenergygb.org/-/media/SmartEnergy/website-terms-and-conditions/ad-claims/I-want-a-smart-meter-TV-ad-claims.ashx
I put this comment on pour Canadian state/liberal broadcaster web site that had an all emotion play on the Walrus’s, the comment was quickly disable
. . . Regarding the segment on Walruses jumping of the cliff’s in the April 15 show that isn’t allowing any comments. Polar bears love to stalk and spook the Walrus’s of the cliff’s for a good meal !! There is absolutely nothing abnormal with this Walrus behaviour & it has nothing to do with the climate-change-fear-narrative or sea ice !!!
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-april-15-2019-1.5098114