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Nature

The 'Big 5' were trophy hunters' most prized kills. Now there's a 'New Big 5' to 'shoot.'

Photo by Mike Marrah on Unsplash

The "Big 5" is an old term from the colonial era, denoting the five wild animals in Africa that were the most sought-after kills for trophy hunters. Killing those five—lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, and Cape buffalo—meant ultimate success in the big-game hunting world.

Now there's a "New Big 5," but instead of a barbaric goal for trophy hunters, it's a beautiful goal for wildlife photographers.

The initiative was created by British wildlife photographer Graeme Green with the goal of raising awareness about threats to the world's animals including habitat loss, poaching, illegal animal trade, and climate change. In a global call for votes, 50,000 wildlife lovers shared which animals they most wanted to photograph or see in photos. And the winners are:

Elephant. Polar bear. Lion. Gorilla. Tiger.

These five animals will serve as global ambassadors for all the world's wildlife, including the one million species currently threatened with extinction.

The New Big 5 of Wildlife Photography - The Resultsyoutu.be

New Big 5 project founder Graeme Green said in a statement, "The 5 animals that wildlife lovers around the world have voted to include in the New Big 5 of Wildlife Photography — elephants, gorillas, tigers, lions, and polar bears — are not just some of the most beautiful, incredible animals on the planet. All 5 also face serious threats to their existence. The New Big 5 are the tip of the iceberg. They stand for all the creatures on the planet, so many of which are in danger. From bees to blue whales, all wildlife is essential to the balance of nature, to healthy ecosystems and to the future of our planet."

Jane Goodall has also praised the initiative, saying, "We now have the results of the New Big 5 project. These 5 animals — elephants, polar bears, gorillas, tigers, and lions — are such beautiful and remarkable species, and are wonderful ambassadors for the world's wildlife, from iconic species to little-known frogs, lizards, fish and birds. So many face threats to their survival from issues such as poaching, habitat loss and climate change. A million species are at risk of extinction. If we work together, we can stop this from happening. There is always hope. Change is possible if we each play our part."

The New Big 5 project encourages travelers to visit the places where these animals are found and support conservation efforts in those areas. Ultimately, it's a celebration of wildlife and nature photography and a call to action to save species under threat.

Humanity has learned a lot since the original Big 5 days, but trophy hunting still exists and there's much to be done to protect the world's wildlife. Hopefully the New Big 5 will inspire more people to work on conserving the environment and protect ecosystems so that animal life large and small can flourish.

From Your Site Articles

A scientist who has studied polar bears for 34 years is starting to get really worried.

Even after half a lifetime studying polar bears in some of Earth's least hospitable climates, Andrew Derocher still gets nervous trying to tag a 1,000-pound bear on a frozen slab of ice in the open water.

"[The bears] are not worried about being out there, but it’s just not good enough for us," he says.

Photo by Andrew Derocher.

To human researchers, sea ice may be a rickety death trap, but to polar bears, it's a little like a cross between a superhighway, a forest, and an old memory-foam mattress. It's the surface over which they travel, where they hunt, and occasionally, where they mate.

And increasingly, Derocher warns, there is less of it to go around:

"We can quibble amongst ourselves as scientists, but the overwhelming scientific consensus is absolutely clear: Polar bears are in trouble."

The ice that supports polar bear populations from Canada to Alaska to Russia to Norway is disappearing — rapidly.

Across the Arctic, the trouble signs are difficult to miss. The bears are getting smaller, they're reproducing less frequently, and very young and very old bears are dying at higher rates.

For the past two weeks, Derocher has been tweeting a series of alarming maps and images that illustrate what polar bears are up against.

Like this one that shows in dark red how much sea ice is missing:

Missing sea ice (red areas) in Hudson Bay will force @polarbears ashore soon. Loss relative to 1991-2010 when ice w… https://t.co/pJV7xQomcn
— Andrew Derocher (@Andrew Derocher) 1497472854

And this one that shows the decline of sea ice coverage:

Arctic sea ice matches record low of 2012. What does it mean for #polarbears? New studies all suggest conservation… https://t.co/rX9m6Mj6qW
— Andrew Derocher (@Andrew Derocher) 1497381530

And this one that shows the decreasing number of days with sea ice per year:

Chukchi Sea #polarbears were doing well but May 2017 shows a huge decline in sea ice. A single "bad" year not a big… https://t.co/3rFfcNaglM
— Andrew Derocher (@Andrew Derocher) 1496874938

Derocher and his colleagues at the University of Alberta use satellite radios to track the bears' movements.

Since the early 1980s, Derocher has studied thousands of bears over thousands of miles. Some of the bears he tracks today are the great-great-grandchildren of the bears he began his career working with.

By monitoring when the bears walk onto the ice and when they return to shore, they can estimate the number of "ice-free" days the bears will see that year. 180 "ice-free" days is considered a danger zone for the species.

"Once we get beyond about 210 days, we probably no longer have sufficient ice to maintain a viable population," Derocher explains.

In Canada's Western Hudson Bay, the no-ice period is hovering around 150-160 days — but, thanks to climate change, that number is jumping up by an average of three to six weeks per decade.

A few extra weeks without access to the ice can mean the difference between life and death for animals that burn up to two pounds of energy every day they're on land.

Less sea ice means the bears have to travel more, which means they have to kill more seals while they can. Since most of their hunting is done on the ice, that window becomes shorter the later the seas freeze — creating a conundrum wherein the bears have less time in which they're forced to hunt more efficiently and productively.

Derocher working on the ice. Photo by Andrew Derocher.

If they fail to hunt enough, their body fat stores won't last the length of the ice-free season. With lower body fat stored, female bears stop producing milk earlier, leading to higher cub mortality.

Derocher's prognosis for the arctic ambassador species is dire.

Within the next few decades, he estimates, there will be significantly fewer polar bears. By the end of the 21st century, there may be such a reduction in the species' range that future populations may or may not be viable.

"Every time we look at a new study, there’s pretty much no good news for polar bears," he says.

With current planetary warming trends, Derocher fears the decline is not reversible in the short term.

Clear view of Hudson Bay sea ice. Fragmentation & low cover makes #polarbears head to land: each bears respond to t… https://t.co/oHa8KYfHuu
— Andrew Derocher (@Andrew Derocher) 1497460655

Long term, saving the species might mean making some sacrifices — financial, political, or otherwise.

"In our own house, we had to replace some windows, and we opted to pay the extra money for triple pane to save on energy," he says.

Any U.S. push to return to coal, he fears, would be a disaster for the species, although he does see some cause for optimism in recent business efforts to combat climate change.

Ultimately, he believes, polar bear fans simply need to understand what's going on if the species is going to continue surviving against heavy odds.

Photo by Andrew Derocher.

"There’s nothing in the scientific literature that supports anything but grave concern," he says.

The first step toward getting the bears back on track, he maintains, is getting the public to care about conserving sea ice.

The second is people "voting with their wallet" and rewarding companies that are reducing their carbon footprint.

The third is supporting politicians like those in his home province of Alberta who favor policies like higher carbon taxes — though he believes most could be doing much more.

That might be the species' best hope.

"It’s got to change," Derocher insists. "The way we live on this planet has got to change."

Heroes

Polar bears are stealing booze and candy from humans, and it's really not as funny as it sounds.

Polar bears are largely known as the poster-pets of environmentalism, and it's easy to see why.

They're like giant, adorable, white-but-not-actually-white teddy bears who could just as easily cuddle you as kill you.

Also they've spent the last half-century dwindling near extinction and are still considered threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

The new rap music video from Polar B. GIF via John Downer Productions/YouTube.

And that's exactly why we should be using mass surveillance to keep them safe.

After all, it works with people, right?

"Oh hello there Mr. Spy-Drone-Video-Camera-Thing Disguised as a Giant Snowball, how are you today?" — this polar bear, probably. GIF via John Downer Productions/YouTube.

See? Polar bears love being spied on — just like us!

...Oh wait.

GIF via John Downer Productions/YouTube.

OK, so they might not appreciate the snooping. But we have good reason for keeping tabs on our fuzzy Arctic friends.

According to a new study in the scientific journal PLOS ONE, human-polar bear interactions are on the rise, now that the bears' homes and food sources are melting away.

Or, as they put it in the abstract:

"Polar bears are increasingly using land habitats in some parts of their range, where they have minimal access to their preferred prey, likely in response to loss of their sea ice habitat associated with climatic warming. [...] Projections of continued sea ice loss suggest that polar bears in the Chukchi Sea and other parts of the Arctic may increasingly use land habitats in the future, which has the potential to increase nutritional stress and human-polar bear interactions."

For all we've done to cut down on hunting all across the globe, polar bears must still contend with threats of starvation and a rapidly shrinking habitat — both of which are symptoms of the larger issues of climate change.

As a result, polar bears are wandering from their natural habitats and walking right into our backyards — with alarming frequency.

It's like when an ant shows up and ruins your picnic. Except in this case, that ant can kill you with one swipe of its massive claw.

"Draw me like one of your French girls. Then let me claw your face off." GIF via John Downer Productions/YouTube.

For example, there's the polar bear who stole a steak and wine dinner from a BBC film crew in Norway.

After a long day shooting on location for an episode of David Attenborough's "The Hunt," Sophie Lanfear and her team came home to their rented cabin in Svalbard to find a drunken polar bear passed out on the lawn, having gorged himself on their stash of wine and the 55 pounds of meat they brought along for their trip.

The polar bear returned three more times over the course of two days — but of course, there wasn't any more food for him to eat.

"Huh? What? I'm awake. You guys wanna do shots?" GIF via BBC Earth Unplugged/YouTube.

All kidding aside, the idea of a drunk polar bear stumbling through your home is pretty horrifying, to say the least.

Meanwhile, in Manitoba, Canada, polar bear wrangling is a full-time job.

Authorities actually have to police the streets on Halloween to stop polar bears from beating up little kids and stealing all their candy. There's even a dedicated bear cell at the local precinct house.

"Give us all your Kit-Kat Bars and no one gets hurt." Photo by Payton Chung/Flickr.

(Other polar bears have recently been caught trying on human pants and disco-dancing with a whale carcass, but I'm not including those photos here because they both make me uncomfortable.)

So as much as it pains me to say — maybe spying on polar bears isn't such a bad thing?

That snowball-lookin' drone in the GIFs above was one of five specially-designed spycams created as part of a BBC program called "Polar Bear: A Spy on the Ice" — until the polar bear came along and gleefully crushed it, anyway.

These spycams allow filmmakers and researchers to get up-close-and-personal with polar bears, and gather information on their movements, habits, and behaviors.

As the show's director, John Downer, explains in an interview with Mongabay:

"Some of our small Snowcams were designed to operate autonomously, they would power up and record once a bear came within 20 metre range of it. These could be left for up to one week in the extreme cold. They even contained a satellite phone that would automatically call us on sensing a bear. [...] They were strengthened to withstand the bears' crushing body weight and powerful jaws. Icebergcam was able to follow bears hunting on the sea ice and track alongside them from just a paw swipe away. The close proximity of the cameras provided viewers with an engaging and fresh experience of polar bears that was far removed from the solitary cold killers as they have been traditionally portrayed."

Data collection alone won't help us stop climate change any more than it helps stop terrorism (which is not at all). But if we're not going to pay attention to the damage that we're doing to the planet — and we really should — then we're going to need to figure out how to coexist with our furry new neighbors.

"Do you have a moment to talk about your Lord and Savior — hey wait come back!" GIF via John Downer Productions/YouTube.

But despite their increasingly erratic behavior, things are (mostly) looking up for the polar bear population.

It's hard to get an exact count, but the general consensus is that the polar bear population has at least doubled since its lowest point in the late-1960s. And thanks to those handy polar bear wranglers, no one in Manitoba has been mauled by a bear in more than 30 years. That's a win on both sides, right?

But none of that changes the fact that they're still in danger — and so are we, as long as their homes continue to melt away.

So let's demand that our world leaders take action now to protect our planet's climate, or else we'll have to deal with a lot worse than polar bears drinking all our booze and ruining Halloween.