In Superfish, Rick Rosenthal searches far and wide for the opportunity to swim with the greatest gamefish in the sea — billfish. Today, some marine ecosystems may be in jeopardy of disappearing. Tell the world what you think is worth preserving.

It may be unlikely that you’ve been lucky enough to come face-to-face with a “grander,” but we’re sure you have your own Super Sea Stories to share.

Do you have special memories of time you’ve spent at the ocean — or in it? Have you had a close encounter with marine life? NATURE wants to know about it.

Tell us your stories, and read those of other viewers, as we celebrate the world’s oceans and everything in them.

Read submitted stories — or submit your own in the comments field below.

Featured Viewer-Submitted Stories

“1985 I was the helicopter mechanic on a commercial tuna catching vessel sailing out of San Diego. We traveled the deep Pacific and the sights were incredible. I witnessed the fishing of all species of the ocean’s natural resources. Today we must try to stop the senseless slaughter of all the species in the ocean.”

– Gerard Shaughnessy, Nazareth, PA

“As a fishing guide in the East Cape region of the Baja peninsula, billfish, specifically striped marlin, play an integral role in the big-game fishing experience. I have always been captivated by how unique billfish are as an apex predator, enough so to chase them all over the world. My clients have always express their gratitude for having such an opportunity as to experience a billfish in its environment and the great satisfaction of releasing a healthy fish back into that environment…” Read more »

– Mark Daugherty, East Cape Guides, San Francisco, CA

“…Our tasks done we were getting ready to leave, suddenly … in the blink of an eye … there was a snap from an eerie deep green to pitch black. The lights were out! Mounds of herring pressed closely in on us. I was completely blind. No gauges, no buddy, not even my light was visible. I raised my light and pointed it straight toward my mask. The beam burst into a million mirrored reflections off the herrings’ scales. I took a slow deep breath and felt myself lift off the bottom and begin to ascend…” Read more »

– Phillip Stuart-Sharkey, Ocean View, HI

“Hi Bluewater Jon Schwartz here. I’m a big game kayak angler, and I travel all over the world to battle the ocean’s toghest predators — marlin, tuna, and shark- from kayaks. One story that may be of particular interest to you is that I caught and released 8 marlin from my kayak in 2 days this winter — with no help, other than getting a ride out to the fishing grounds…” Read more »

– Bluewater Jon Schwartz, Carlsbad, CA

“I work as a senior editor for Marlin magazine, which has taken me on journeys to various parts of the world in search of marlin and other billfish. Watching these creatures explode behind the boat, their power and grace, is just awe inspiring. What Rick and his team have done here, and the footage they’ve gotten from below, out of the fisherman’s viewpoint, only inspires me more. Fishermen are becoming more active on many fronts to conserve billfish stocks and help them expand to once-healthy levels. I hope that Rick’s project will get more anglers to release their catch. To Rick and your crew, well done!”

– Charlie Levine, Winter Park, FL

“My family spends a few weeks each summer in Provincetown, MA. Provincetown Harbor, which is filled with boats during the busy tourist season, is a wonderful place to kayak. Sea birds, horseshoe crabs, schools of small fish, big biting blue fish chasing thru the schools — everything.”

– BenInBrooklyn, Brooklyn, NY

“My story takes place a little over two years ago in the Bahamas. It was Mother’s Day weekend and my husband chartered a boat and captain to take us snorkeling. Within minutes of reaching the coastline, over thirty bottlenose dolphin surrounded our boat. I gently slipped into the water and I was encompassed by all but two very large guard dolphins who remained almost hidden. Almost immediately after I entered the water, I was approached by a dolphin that reminded me of…” Read more »

– Linda Carol, Weston, FL

“Congratulations to Rick and team on a wonderful project completed. I know you will all enjoy this film as it is not only truly honest in its approach but unique in its ability to bring together the distant trains of thought between fishermen and the general public. This is achieved through Rick’s great way with people and the natural world around him. The end result is a like-minded opinion on the need to protect our marine animals and enviroment. The footage is also first of its kind, unbelievable!! I’ll never forget working with the team from Superfish.”

– Captain Tim Dean, Calypso Fishing Adventures, Australia

“My story takes place a little over two years ago in the Bahamas. It was Mother’s Day weekend and my husband chartered a boat and captain to take us snorkeling. Within minutes of reaching the coastline, over thirty bottlenose dolphin surrounded our boat. I gently slipped into the water and I was encompassed by all but two very large guard dolphins who remained almost hidden. Almost immediately after I entered the water, I was approached by a dolphin that reminded me of an old, grandfather type persona. He was so close that I held my arms out in front so that he would not accidently bump into me. He looked directly into my eyes and I felt safe. I projected all of my positive energy out and through my fingertips. We remained like this for several minutes. My husband entered the water and the dolphins scattered away. I asked him to get back on the boat and the dolphins returned. I guess they could sense his uneasiness. The entire pod was extremely playful. The baby dolphins seemed to be very curious of my human form as the mother dolphins watched closely with approval. I continued playing with the pod when I noticed something rather peculiar. We were in around forty feet of water when all of the dolphins began to gather together to form a spiral coil. They were all facing upwards resembling a chain of DNA. I was in awe of such an incredible sight when I realized I was directly floating above. One by one each dolphin blasted me with thier sonar and darted away at phenominal speeds. This experience lasted well over two hours, but somehow I had imagined thirty minutes or less. This was the best mothers day gift I could ever recieve.”

– Linda Carol, Weston, FL

“Hi Bluewater Jon Schwartz here. I’m a big game kayak angler, and I travel all over the world to battle the ocean’s toghest predators — marlin, tuna, and shark- from kayaks. One story that may be of particular interest to you is that I caught and released 8 marlin from my kayak in 2 days this winter — with no help, other than getting a ride out to the fishing grounds. It was filmed by a professional videographer in HDV on a pro camera- I have almost three hours of tape, and TONS of “money shots” where the fish are doing their mad aerial displays within feet of my tiny 14 foot plastic kayak. I am also a elementary teacher and teach my children about marine science and conservation, taking them on trips to the ocean and fishing outings. This past winter I took a third grade student out with me on a kayak, launching at 3:00 am in the pitch black, and using live squid, we scored a 27 pound yellowtail! Other times I go fishing on my kayak before work and bring in my catches, like white seasbass, for a day of hands on science.”

– Bluewater Jon Schwartz, Carlsbad, CA

“Underwater science is usually rather dull. Hours spent collecting data. Data that’s not particularly interesting in and of itself. Data that becomes interesting only when conjoined with similar data from other sites and times.

While the media stars of underwater science like Sylvia Earle and Bob Ballard reach out from the pages of a glossy book or beckon from a tightly edited video production, crisp and seductive images that intersect at a precise and meaningful conclusion right there on the last page or in the last minute. Real life is not like that, at least not very often. It’s repetitious … hour after hour, cold, uncomfortable, usually strenuous, occasionally dangerous. But every once in a while, every once in a long while, there’s magic in the water. The universe clicks just right and something really special happens that makes up for all that’s come before, something really special … really, really special. This was one of those times.

It had been a hectic and eventful trip so far. I’d staged a close escape from one of those classic binds, having to be two places at once. I had to go out to sea on a research cruise, the ship was leaving the dock with the morning tide, but on the same day I was scheduled to deliver a paper at the annual American Academy of Underwater Sciences meeting.

My Director, Jim Griffin, insisted that both things get done, he’s like that, used to be in charge of the Thor-Agena Booster Program for North American Rockwell and firmly believed in that NASA motto of, “the difficult we do immediately, the impossible takes only slightly longer” Our ship was leaving Woods Hole and transiting the Cape Cod Canal on its way to the Gulf of Maine. If my talk was moved to the first slot in the morning and there were no hitches, I could be back in time to meet the ship at the north end of the canal just after sundown. I were late … Plan B goes into effect, a night-time, “casualty evacuation drill” with a USCG helo a good friend flew out of Otis. That’d be the cover for my Plan-B ride out.

On Friday I stowed the last of my gear on the ship and I caught an oh-dark-thirty flight out of Boston down to Florida. A quick cab ride and I was at the podium going over the slides that illustrated a paper I’d coauthored with Rich Pyle of the University of Hawaii on the use of mixed gas, open circuit scuba down to five hundred feet. Twenty minutes of talk, ten minutes of questions, I shook the moderator’s hand as I shoved my Certificate of Appreciation into my case and scooted out the back to a waiting cab that took me back to the airport. I ran for a plane back to Boston and on the plane I switched my tan Sunday-go-to-meeting suit for a pair of 501s, a black U. C. Berkeley sweatshirt and my topsiders.

My work study student, Dave Sipperly, was waiting for me curbside at Logan. I threw my leather flight bag and black Halliburton, the one covered with dive stickers, on the back seat, jumped in front and off we sped; south toward the Cape. Down Highway 3 to 6a, over the bridge at Sagamore and left onto Tupper Road, left again to Town Neck Road and one more left onto Coast Guard Road. There, at the north end of the canal was a small U.S. Coast Guard station. We pulled in past the whitewashed rocks.

I got out, retrieving my Zero-Halliburton from the rear seat., pulled a set of CANDIVE coveralls from the top of my flight bag, which Dave would drop at my office. We’d made good time, the ship was not due for a good half hour and Plan-B could go by the board.

I pulled my ICOM M5 out, slid a charged battery pack on the bottom and keyed it to 16. “Whiskey, Victor, Foxtrot, Quebec.” I repeated the call ship’s call sign three times and then identified myself, “This is WVFQ Port one, come in.” No response yet. I had some time to kill and the heavy humid air was cooling now as the sun dipped below the land west of the canal. I shivered slightly and went into the Coast Guard station.

I found the O.D. and explained that I was meeting a boat out of the Hole, and that it would heave-to outside the north end of the canal and send a Zodiac for me. The Coasties seemed happy to have something to break their routine; they offered up a mug of hot coffee and asked if I wanted to use their longer range base station to call the ship. The O.D. offered to save us time and confusion by running me out in their rescue boat.

I could see the ship in the canal. I pulled on the bright orange coveralls that Jim English, CANDIVE’s Operations Supervisor gave me when we’d worked with the Deep Rover submersible at the Caribbean Marine Research Center during Sylvia Earle’s record dive the year before (but that’s a story for another time). We went down to the dock, hopped into an overpowered hard bottom inflatable and sped out toward the oncoming ship, blue lights flashing and sirens screaming. We screamed past the ship, starboard to starboard, headed in opposite directions, came about in a tight turn to port and then pulled up along side the moving and much larger vessel. At about eight knots our boat slid smoothly over to the Jacob’s ladder hanging amidships on the starboard rail. When the Coastguardsman shouted, “Go!” I leaped from the port gunwale of the RIB, out across the black chasm and grabbed on to the Jacob’s ladder. The small craft veered off to starboard, throttled back and then came back up along side of me. I gripped a treadle with my left hand and leaned out. A Coastguardsmen handed my case up to me. I passed the case up over the rail to a fellow Explorers Club member who was making the cruse with us and clambered aboard. Not exactly the way I usually start a cruise, I was really having fun with “action movie” aspects of the situation.

Supper was still on in the mess. I had a meal and then we all got to work. The compressor van had to be hooked to ship’s power and run. The air had to analyzed and the bank brought up to pressure. Filling whips needed to set up at the waist and a 10,000 PSI Kevlar line run from the compressor up on the O1 deck down to the filling station. All our gear for the next day’s dive needed to be unpacked and readied. Contact with Offshore Medical Services had to made and communications with our contingency helicopter evacuation facility needed to be tested. With everything done, I rolled into my rack about 22:00 hrs and was out like a light.

Eight bells. I got up, showered, pulled on my coveralls and went up to get some chow. No one else from the science party was up yet. I had a chance to spend some time with the ship’s folks. I went over the general dive procedures with the Captain, who had stayed up beyond his usual midwatch so that we could talk. The Coxswain set up the diving Zodiac and we went over the boat and all of its gear. By now it was seven bells in the morning watch and the science party was drifting into the mess, pouring coffee and sitting down in the library and the lab.

We were due on station at Ammen Rock in the Gulf of Maine at the start of the afternoon watch. We were planning our first dive about two hours after later. The science party spent the morning setting up their computers and laboratory equipment. Each of the divers got his or her gear unpacked and stowed in the wet lab that had been turned over to dive locker space. As I hung up my black NATO Viking suit one of the University of New Hampshire grad students was heard to exclaim, “Oh! No! It’s Darth’s wader’s.”

Dive procedure’s pretty straight forward. The Zodiac is on the deck. You assemble your rig and put it in the boat. You put your weight belt in the boat. Then you go and get your suit on. By the time you’re dressed in, the ship’s crane has put the loaded Zodiac and the Coxswain in the water and the crew had rigged a Jacob’s ladder over the rail. The water is about nine feet down that ladder. The Zodiac is held against the side of the ship with a bow painter and a stern line and you clamber down the ladder into the boat. You put your gear on in the boat while it motors to the site. On the way the you run through pre-dive checks and once there, back roll off the inflatable’s gunwale into the water.

We needed to service some instruments. The bottom’s about 110 feet. It was a great day, visibility was more than 100 feet. There were immense numbers of herring in the area for their late summer spawning. Down we went through the loosely organized school to the tide gauges. It took about ten minutes to dump the data and reset the gauges; the herring cast enough shadow that we needed our dive lights to see what we were doing.

Our tasks done we were getting ready to leave, suddenly … in the blink of an eye … there was a snap from an eerie deep green to pitch black. The lights were out! Mounds of herring pressed closely in on us. I was completely blind. No gauges, no buddy, not even my light was visible. I raised my light and pointed it straight toward my mask. The beam burst into a million mirrored reflections off the herrings’ scales. I took a slow deep breath and felt myself lift off the bottom and begin to ascend. Carefully I maintained slight positive buoyancy with my lungs. I could not see my gauges. I could not judge my upward progress. My field of vision was filled with the scintillations of my light reflecting off the herring that had closed tightly in upon me.

As fast as the dark had arrived it was gone. My eyes were momentarily dazzled. I exhaled sharply and sank back into the darkness below. Another breath started me up slowly. This time, just as my head broke out of the tightly packed herring school, I exhaled gently and transformed my ascent to a hover. From my chin down and out as far out as I could see, there was a black mass of squirming fish so closely packed that there was little room even for water.

I turned to my left through about three-quarters of a rotation. I could see one of my three comrades coming up out of the herring mass, perhaps twenty feet away. She ascended about ten feet and pitched back to horizontal, leveling out and smoothly neutralizing her buoyancy. A circular motion of her light indicated she was fine, had seen me and inquired as to my status with that unique economy of the underwater “okay.” I brought my seemingly detached left hand up out of the darkness and responded in kind.

Suddenly, she pointed sharply to her left, her arm stiff and outstretched. I swiveled my head right, and there is one of the most incredible sights I’ve ever witnessed. Six Giant Bluefin Tuna move toward us, in formation, they pass between us. Each fish, the size of a dinner table that would seat eight, moving fast, yet without apparent effort. They glide past, each with a huge left eye that stutters for a tiny moment as it find me for a fraction of a second and then moves on to seek it’s normal prey. We watch them almost disappear, circle to the right, and move to the other side of the herring school. They come right back by us and go left to the other side of the seamount.

The black shinny mass beneath us starts to break up, the herring resuming more normal individual distances and expanding their school upward and outward. Once again enveloping me in darkness that slowly lightens to the deep green we saw at the start of our dive. I swam up to my teammate and joined her in a hover. We moved to the down line and ascended to our deep stop. Being out of the lee of the seamount now, the current is rather stiff, we tied off with our Jon lines, waited a minute and then ascended to our 20 foot stop.

Decompression complete we signaled the Zodiac, the Coxswain waived us off as he was already heading to pick up our other two comrades at an alternate surface float. Once we were in the Zodiac everyone was talking excitedly about the Tuna, there had been a big school of them working the herring and every one of us had been blessed with a good long view.”

– Phillip Stuart-Sharkey, Ocean View, HI

“As a fishing guide in the East Cape region of the Baja peninsula, billfish, specifically striped marlin, play an integral role in the big-game fishing experience. I have always been captivated by how unique billfish are as an apex predator, enough so to chase them all over the world. My clients have always express their gratitude for having such an opportunity as to experience a billfish in its environment and the great satisfaction of releasing a healthy fish back into that environment. The tide is slowly turning in the sportfishing industry to the adoption of catch and release for all billfish. More tournaments are promoting no-kill formats and new terminal tackle techniques are greatly reducing mortality rates. Hopefully the intentional taking of a billfish from a sportfishing boat will someday be a thing of the past. But with that said, billfish are facing a pretty tough future. As a guide, it’s not only my obligation to be an active conservationist but also to educate my clients on how special these fish are and how they can play a role in fighting the entities that threaten their existence. I want to thank Rick and his team for bringing as much exposure as possible to the pressures faced by billfish worldwide. I also want to thank organizations such as The Billfish Foundation and SeaWatch.org for fighting the good fight.”

– Mark Daugherty, East Cape Guides, San Francisco, CA

MISSION: SUPERFISH

Marine biologist and award-winning filmmaker Rick Rosenthal set out to capture on film the biggest, fastest, most dangerous gamefish in the sea — the ancient creatures known as billfish.

The largest of all billfish is the marlin. They top speeds of 60 miles an hour on migrations that can span 9,000 miles. The largest, always female, weigh in at over 1,000 pounds, and are known as “granders.” Ernest Hemingway immortalized the grander in The Old Man and the Sea, the story of an elderly fisherman locked in a life and death struggle with this apex predator. To Hemingway’s great disappointment, he himself never landed a grander, although his novella captures the impact of this huge and graceful creature.

Rosenthal’s pursuit of these exotic fish unfolds in NATURE’s Superfish. Two years in the making, Rosenthal’s documentary travels to the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans as well as the Caribbean Sea in pursuit of these giants of the deep. In one extraordinary scene, off Australia’s Cape York Peninsula, Rosenthal is shown swimming with a stunning giant female marlin and two courting males.

Throughout his journey, Rosenthal encounters commercial fisherman, anglers, and researchers, who are also out looking for billfish. The search has become increasingly difficult for everyone due to over-fishing of billfish and their prey, as well as the environmental degradation of the oceans, which has resulted in a dramatic decline in their populations. The trajectory of population decline in all large fish has been precipitously steep, estimated at 90 percent within the last half century.

In the 1950’s, sports fishermen — like those who flocked to Cabo Blanco, Peru in the heyday of “Marlin Boulevard” — were known for testing themselves against marlin with rods and reels. Today, some fisherman are defending billfish against commercial fishing fleets that, while going after the seafood we eat, kill these increasingly rare sport fish in their nets as so called accidental by-catch. In major part because of the absence of regulations that limit such by-catch, marlin and other billfish populations continue to decline. In the case of marlin, some anglers, frustrated with governmental inaction, have pressed for local bans on the sale of such fish, and have sought commitments from local restaurants not to serve marlin.

Rosenthal’s difficult quest to encounter a giant marlin in the wild, rewarded by his exceptional footage of this fabulous creature, not only offers a rare aesthetic and learning experience for viewers but may serve to awaken people to the need to preserve these remarkable billfish in their native habitats. Buy the DVD. This film premiered May 2008.

On January 28, 1998, a monster weather system slammed into Oahu’s north shore. The Coast Guard called a Condition Black — all access to the water denied. It was every surfer’s dream and nightmare combined, playing and replaying on a seemingly endless loop, as colossal waves up to 40 feet high surged over the beaches of Oahu in a monstrous, unstoppable procession. The stunning footage, some recorded on IMAX film, the stories of the surfers, and the storm itself form the breathtaking core of Condition Black.

The surfers had a few days’ notice because a fierce storm forming off the coast of Japan was forecast to move eastward and toss huge waves ahead of it toward the Hawaiian Islands. Quickly, a buzz electrified the worldwide surfing network. It seemed like a perfect opportunity for the Eddie Aikau Memorial big-wave surfing competition, an event held on an ad hoc basis, when conditions warrant it, in honor of a local lifeguard who lost his life trying to rescue an endangered canoeing team in rough waters. But instead of the ideal, the surfers were confronted with the extreme. A combination of natural forces had intensified the effects of the storm, producing conditions that even the most experienced surfers had never seen before.

To order a copy of Condition Black, please visit the NATURE Shop.

Online content for Condition Black was originally posted January 2002.

In the Antarctic, krill, which means “whale food” in Norwegian, sustain not only whales, but also penguins, seals, squid, fish, albatross, and other seabirds. These small, shrimp-like creatures represent the very cornerstone of the Antarctic ecosystem — processing the energy of the sun stored in phytoplankton (microscopic free-floating plants) and breeding by the thousands to provide an abundant source of nourishment for higher-order predators. Virtually all the larger animals of the Antarctic are either directly or indirectly dependent on krill.

There are two families of krill: the Bentheuphausiidae family, which consists exclusively of a deep-water species called Bentheuphausia amblyops, and the Euphausiidae family, which consists of 89 known krill species, including — perhaps most commonly — Euphausia superba, or Antarctic krill. Unlike Bentheuphausiidae krill, the Euphausiidae family is bioluminescent. This means that Antarctic krill emit a yellow-green light that is thought to either camouflage the krill’s shadow or aid the krill in mating or schooling at night. Krill are invertebrates that grow to about two inches in length and live in large schools, or swarms, as dense as 10,000 krill per cubic meter of water.

They live in the surface waters of the Southern Ocean, which extends north from the Antarctic continent to the polar front — an area where the cold water of the Antarctic submerges beneath the warmer waters of the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans. As this deep, cold water rises to the surface of the Southern Ocean, it brings nutrients from all the world’s oceans into the sunlight, making this area home to what is possibly the earth’s largest assemblage of phytoplankton. It is this massive gathering of phytoplankton that allows for such tremendous swarms of krill, which harvest the miniscule phytoplankton particles with a specially developed feeding basket that filters them out of the water. The krill also find nourishment by scraping ice algae off the underside of pack ice, particularly in spring. These are successful techniques, apparently, since the total biomass, or weight, of Antarctic krill — which is estimated to be between 100 and 800 million tons — may be the largest of any multi-cellular animal on the planet

These small, shrimp-like creatures represent the very cornerstone of the Antarctic ecosystem. This vast resource has long attracted the gaze of the commercial fishing industry, which began krill fishing in the early-1970s. Krill are presently harvested for human consumption, fish feed, and sport fishing bait by vessels from Japan, South Korea, Poland, and the Ukraine, yet the growth of the krill fishing industry has been relatively slow since krill are notoriously difficult to process: their powerful digestive enzymes spoil the catch soon after it is caught, and their shells are cumbersome to remove. Nevertheless, there are concerns about the potential for over fishing in the near future due to the growing demands of aquaculture. Krill are often used as fish feed and salmon farmers in particular find them attractive because they contain astaxanthin, a carotenoid that turns salmon flesh pink. The burgeoning biotechnology industry is also interested in krill since drug companies claim they contain substances that can be used to treat heart disease, premenstrual tension, and skin cancer. Meanwhile, as ocean temperatures rise and the Antarctic sea ice melts, research suggests that krill populations may decrease as the krill are out-competed by salps, barrel-shaped filter feeders that likewise eat phytoplankton and thrive in warmer water temperatures.

In the end, there is still a lot to learn about krill in order to accurately assess their abundance, and best determine how to preserve their population. Scientists, for instance, don’t yet know precisely how long they live or how they survive the long, dark winters. It is suspected that the krill actually shrink, using up the material of their own bodies until the return of the light, and photosynthesizing plants. Until the answers to such questions are found, however, it is difficult to gauge the potential impact of either commercial fishing or global warming on the krill population that is so vital for the sustenance of the entire Antarctic.

(Photo: MAR-ECO/Øystein Paulsen)

At first glance, they look harmless enough. Africa’s helmeted terrapins often sit motionless in grassland water holes, silently watching the herds of animals that come to sip from their muddy homes.

But as NATURE’s The Reptiles: Turtles and Tortoises shows in vivid detail, the helmeted terrapin can be also be a surprisingly quick and agile predator. Working in packs, like wolves, groups of terrapins can corner and devour birds that pause too long by the water’s edge. One early biologist watched, stunned, as a pack of seemingly sleepy terrapins suddenly attacked a wading bird, “dragging it underwater to devour it.”

Such coordinated cunning may seem surprising for a turtle. But the world’s nearly 300 species have a remarkable range of behaviors, from wood turtles that stomp on the ground to attract worms, to sea turtles that can travel thousands of miles to lay eggs on the very beaches where they were born. Then there are the cleverly deceptive snapping turtles, which can have body parts shaped like wriggling worms or finning fish — all designed to lure prey to their doom.

This diversity isn’t surprising. After all, these shelled reptiles have had some 200 million years to evolve into today’s dazzling array of shapes and sizes. They live on all the world’s continents and in all the world’s oceans — except the frigid polar regions.

In general, there are three groups of turtles: Tortoises, which live on land but sometimes take a dip in water; terrapins, which live mainly in water but lay their eggs on land; and sea turtles, which spend much of their lives paddling about the ocean, but lay their eggs on beaches. There are 8 species of sea turtles, about 180 kinds of terrapins, and nearly 100 varieties of tortoises. The biggest turtle, the leatherback sea turtle, can grow to 8 feet long and weigh 2,000 pounds. The smallest, the southern speckled padloper of Southern Africa, can be just 4 inches long and weigh only a few ounces.

Turtles have held great significance in many cultures. Whatever their size, however, turtles have long figured large in the human imagination. Some tribes say the world was born on the back of a turtle. Some Hindus picture the universe being held up by four elephants — all perched on a turtle’s shell. Other cultures hail the turtle as a symbol of resilience and practicality, since it carries its home on its back. Folk tales celebrate its determination — such as when the speedy but overconfident hare is beaten in a race by a plodding but persevering turtle.

Unfortunately, turtles have also figured heavily in the human diet. Turtle soup and turtle meat are mainstays in some cultures, leading to the overhunting of some species. But just as big a threat comes from the destruction of turtle habitat, from the freshwater swamps that harbor many species, to the oceanside beaches where sea turtles must lay their eggs. Overall, nearly 3 dozen species are considered rare or endangered, including nearly all of the sea turtles.

Luckily, turtles have an increasing number of allies. Around the world, people are realizing that shells aren’t always enough to protect these remarkable reptiles, and are taking steps to save populations. Like Africa’s helmeted terrapins, these turtle protectors are learning that there is strength in numbers.

TOOTHWALKERS: GIANTS OF THE ARCTIC ICE presents extremely rare under-the-ice footage that reveals a complex and potentially dangerous side to this huge and often mysterious mammal.

Filmmakers Adam Ravetch and Sarah Robertson, who are husband and wife, have been studying the giant saber-toothed Arctic walrus for five years. To put his diving skills to use in learning about the walrus’s other existence — the one hidden deep below massive sheets of ice — Ravetch and Robertson accompany an Inuit hunting party in its arduous and hazardous quest for the food that will carry the Inuits and their dogs through the winter.

Clumsy as the walrus appears to be on land and ice, the animal is a majestic and extremely formidable creature in the water. The Inuits have learned this from experience — more than one hunter has been attacked in the water from below and dragged to his death in a crushing embrace.

Online content for Grand Canyon was originally posted November 2000.

Producer
RONNIE GODEANU

Art Director
SABINA DALEY

Designers
LENNY DROZNER
KAREN MATTSON
RADIK SHVARTS

Pagebuilding
BRIAN SANTALONE

Writer
KAREN DE SEVE

Production Artist
RUIYAN XU

Technical Director
BRIAN LEE

Scientific Consultant
GIANNA SAVOIE

Thirteen Online is a production of Thirteen/WNET New York’s Kravis Multimedia Education Center in New York City. Anthony Chapman, Director of Interactive & Broadband. Bob Adleman, Business Manager. Carmen DiRienzo, Vice President and Managing Director, Corporate Affairs.

Television Credits

Directed by
ADAM RAVETCH

Written & Produced by
SARAH ROBERTSON

Director of Photography
ROB GARRARD

Editor
LORENZO MASSA

Production Manager
CARRIE MADU

Additional Camera Operators
ALAIN SAINT HILAIRE
SARAH ROBERTSON

Remote Operating Vehicle Provided by
HARDSUITS INC.

Remote Operating Vehicle Technician
JEFF HEATON

Support Diver
MARIO CYR

Legal Affairs
LAURIE McINNES

Production Accountant
JANA LUMSDEN

Sound Editor
TONY LANCETT

Sound Mixer
MIKE LIOTTA

Post Production Facilities
MAGNETIC SOUTH
MAGNETIC NORTH
MASTERS WORKSHOP

Thanks to the Communities of
ARCTIC BAY, NWT
IGLOOLIK, NWT
CORAL HARBOR, NWT

Northern Consultants
FRANK MAY
BRAD PARKER
GLEN WILLIAMS

Outfitters
IGLOOLIK OUTDOOR EQUIPMENT RENTALS
KAJJAARNAQ ARCTIC TOURS
NIGLASUK CO. LTD

Scientific Advisors
HAROLD WELCH
CANADIAN DEPARTMENT OF FISHERIES & OCEAN
BECKY SJARE
SUE COZENS

Executive Producers
JONATHAN GRUPPER
ANDY THOMPSON
BERNARD MACLEOD

Thanks to:
ENERGY PRODUCTIONS
VINCE PACE
JERRY SHAPIRO
HYDROSPHERE
TAM AKKITTIRQ
COMPLETE FILM & VIDEO
TAM DIVE
TONY GASTON
FIRST AIR
CANADIAN AIRLINES
AMPHIBICO

Toothwalkers wishes to give Special Acknowledgment to:
NIKON INC.
ROLEX WATCHES USA
ALAIN SAINT HILAIRE
PADI FOUNDATION
PADI PROJECT AWARE
PACE TECHNOLOGY
DACOR
VIKING

For NATURE

Narration Written by
SUSANE LEE

Science Editor
JANET HESS

Original Music by
MICHAEL WHALEN

Coordinating Producer
JANICE YOUNG

Producer
JESSICA SIEGEL

Associate Producer
JILL CLARKE

Researcher
HILDY RUBIN

Production Assistants
KEVIN DOYLE
PATTY JACOBSON

Manager
EILEEN FRAHER

Production Manager
JOHN SCHWALLY

Videotape Editors
BARRY GLINER
CHRISTOPHER SEWARD

Audio Mix
ED CAMPBELL

Supervising Producer
BILL MURPHY

Executive Editor
GEORGE PAGE

Executive Producer
FRED KAUFMAN

A SARAH ROBERTSON & GREAT NORTH PRODUCTIONS INC. PRODUCTION in association with Thirteen/WNET New York, Discovery Channel Canada, Docstar, and Canal D with the assistance of The Canada Television & Cable Production Fund and The Government of Canada — Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit Program

This program was produced by Thirteen/WNET New York,
which is solely responsible for its content.

NATURE: Arctic Oasis: Eco-Explorer
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/arcticoasis/ecoexplorer.html
Explore Nunavut, the Canadian Arctic territory where “Toothwalkers” was filmed.

Arctic Adventure
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/fun/arctic_check.html
Discover the marine mamals of the region.

Ravetch Underwater Films
http://members.aol.com/ravetch/
The filmmaker’s home page, with several clips from his wildlife documentaries.

OneWorld Magazine: Nanook of the North
http://www.oneworldmagazine.org/seek/nanook/
A hyperlinked article about the film.

Arctic Circle
http://arcticcircle.uconn.edu/
Large, varied site dedicated to the region, with articles, links, and maps.

Walrus
http://www.seaworld.org/infobooks/Walrus/home.html
Basic information about the walrus with links and activities.

Books

———- “Feature Creature: The Walrus.” WILDLIFE CONSERVATION, September/October 1997, p. 60.

Chivers, C. J. “The Hunt is On.” WILDLIFE CONSERVATION, September/October 1997, p. 36.

Reijnders, Peter J.H. SEALS, FUR SEALS, SEA LIONS, AND WALRUSES.  Cambridge, England: IUCN/SSC Seal Specialist Group, 1993.

Riedman, Marianne. THE PINNIPEDS: SEALS, SEA LIONS, AND WALRUSES. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.

Sage, Bryan. THE ARCTIC AND ITS WILDLIFE. New York: Facts on File Publications, 1986.

On an individual basis, rescuing orphaned walrus calves from the wild is a good way for biologists to learn more about this species. Five such orphans live at New York’s Aquarium for Wildlife Conservation. The oldest, named Nuka, which means “little sister” in the Inuit language, is 15 years old. She was found near the town of Barrow on the northern tip of Alaska. Ten years later, from the same region, the Aquarium adopted another young walrus, Tiipaq, or “little girl who came from the country to the city.” Three more youngsters, Ayveq, Uupa, and Kulusiq, were all orphaned as infants when their mothers were killed during an annual hunt in 1994. “If the mother dies, the orphan can’t be fed, and the baby dies,” explained Dr. Hans Walters, Animal Department Supervisor at the Aquarium.

Uncontrolled oil exploration may endanger walrus habitats.

Uncontrolled oil exploration may endanger walrus habitats. According to Walters, these calves were 120-pound wrinkly puppies when they arrived. They needed 24-hour care, and had to be bottle-fed for two years. Now these walruses weigh nearly 1,000 pounds each and eat between 40 and 60 pounds of food a day. Besides providing the right diet for these large carnivores, Walters said the biggest challenge is keeping the animals mentally stimulated. “In the wild, they would spend almost their entire waking time looking for food,” he explained. The keepers train the walruses to fetch and wave, which are fun activities, but which also serve a purpose. “The presenting of the foot and open mouth is basically a veterinary exam,” said Walters. “It’s a simple way of looking at the animal to make sure its mouth is okay and the flipper is okay.” However, Walters admitted that the walrus wave is a real crowd-pleaser as well.

Besides the occasional polar bear or killer whale preying on young or injured walruses, humans are their most common predators. While the Eskimos, Indians, and Aleuts hunt these marine mammals, they are allowed to do so on a subsistence level, although the allowed catch varies internationally. Commercial hunting of walruses was outlawed by Canada in 1930. Later, as wild populations declined dramatically, the United States, Greenland, and Russia joined in. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) listed the Pacific walrus in its Appendix III in 1975. However, hunting is not the main threat to wild walrus populations: uncontrolled oil exploration in the Arctic region may have farther-reaching effects on their habitat.