CONTINENTAL STATS
BBC Wildlife December 2019 Seven Worlds, One Planet 7“ You could feel the tension on
the beach. The sound at the
moment the male elephant
seals clashed could be felt
through the ground.”
THESTATS
ANTARCTICA
To t a ll a n da r e a :14.2millionkm
Humanpopulation:nil
(nopermanentresidents)
Populationdensity:nil
(visitorschangewithseasons)
Numberofcountries:nil(8nations
withAntarcticaterritorialclaims
+ 5 subantarcticislandterritories
ordependencies)
Regionwiththemostthreatened
species:continent-wide,60*
Conservationthreats:climatechange,
over-fishing,illegalfishingandinvasive
alienspecies*IncludesIUCNRedListcategories:Critically
Endangered,EndangeredandVulnerable.2
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5
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bay,mixedwiththecries of hundreds
ofthousandsofkingpenguins.”
Thecrewwerethere to film the
epicbattlesbetweenbulls, and the
comingsandgoingsof penguin
parents.Marktookon the seals.Battleofthegiants
“Maleelephantsealsare huge,” Mark
recalls,“likenothingyou’ve ever seen
before.A massofblubber up to 5.8m
long and weighing 4,000kg. But they
are surprisingly fast for an animal
of that size.
“We were there to capture the
moment when large single males
try to take over the harems, and you
can feel the tension on the beach. I
wanted to get in amongst the fighting,
and the animals would tower above
me. The sound at the moment theyclashed could be felt through the
ground. It reminded me of that
moment in Jurassic Park when a
tramping T. rex made ripples in
the glass of water!”
The seals were not the only
giants to be featured in the
Antarctic episode. One of the
more encouraging stories, from a
conservation point of view, was the
return of the great whales. Humpback
whales are now bubblenet feeding in
large numbers and southern right
whales have returned to their former
breeding and feeding sites. But the
biggest surprise was the sight of
hundreds of fin whales – the world’s
second largest animal – feeding
on krill swarms in Drake Passage,
possibly the largest aggregation of
great whales ever filmed.ANTARCTICA In a nutshell
Inhospitable is the word. With
unrelenting winds and a mainland
that’s 98 per cent ice, little can live
in the bleakest southern reaches,
while species pack the (relatively)
mild island outposts.Leopard seal: BBC NHU; albatross: John Aitchison/BBC Studios; whale: Stephen Bradley/BBC Studios; filming: Fredi Devas/BBC Studios; underwater: BBC NHU
4 Mark films a clash
between two 4,000kg
bull elephant seals at
St Andrew’s Bay. Many
subantarctic islands
are free of pack ice
and host extraordinary
biodiversity.5 Beneath 3m-thick
ice in McMurdo
Sound, where
temperatures remain
above freezing all
year round, the
seabed teems with
kaleidoscopic life.