Original subtitles

[James Cameron] The Ocean...

the last frontier on earth.

So much is unexplored and unexplained.

To change that...

a kickass team of insanely talented specialists is

setting out to push the frontiers of what we know

about our oceans.

[Zoleka Filander] Oh my gosh.

[James Cameron] Zoleka Filander, deep sea scientist.

[Zoleka Filander] Being a deep-sea researcher means

having front row tickets to the best movie that everybody

wants to watch.

[James Cameron] Melissa Márquez...

[Melissa Márquez] Straight ahead, 12:00.

[James Cameron] Shark biologist.

[Melissa Márquez] We just saw what no one has seen before.

[James Cameron] Eric Stackpole...

[Eric Stackpole] Scan now!

[James Cameron] Ocean tech innovator.

[Eric Stackpole] I love building tools that allow us

to see things in ways we've never seen before.

[gasps]

[James Cameron] And Aldo Kane...

[Aldo Kane] This is insane.

[James Cameron] Former Royal Marine; special ops.

[Aldo Kane] It doesn't get any more cutting-edge

exploration than this.

[James Cameron] Their secret weapon...

...the OceanXplorer .

The most technologically advanced research vessel

ever built.

There's never been a more urgent need to understand

our ocean and the animals that call it home...

Because their lives and ours depend on it.

This time...

we're on the trail of the Arctic's ultimate predator...

[Team] Go, go!

[James Cameron] The polar bear.

[grunting]

[theme music plays].

[birds cawing]

The OceanXplorer is deep inside the Arctic Circle...

in Svalbard.

400 miles North of Norway...

It's wild, remote, and frozen.

And Svalbard is home to around 300 polar bears.

[sniffing, grunting]

[Eric Stackpole] Polar bears are actually considered marine

mammals on account of how much time they spend on ice.

[skin slapping]

[Zoleka Filander] Yeah, extraordinary really.

[sniffing]

[James Cameron] Polar Bears have evolved to thrive on the ice,

searching for pretty much one thing...

[sniffing]

Seals.

In one of the coldest places on the planet,

calorie rich seal blubber...

is the difference between life and death for a polar bear.

[♪ intense music]

[splashing]

But bears can only hunt seals when the sea is frozen.

When the ice melts, seal season ends.

The team is here in late summer...

The sea ice is almost gone,

tough times for the polar bear.

But recently it's become a lot harder.

Their ice kingdom is in danger...

so the team needs to find out if they can survive.

[Zoleka Filander] The Arctic region is warming

four times faster than any part in the world

and this is a huge problem for the polar bears

because the summers are longer

and this means that there's not enough sea ice.

[Melissa Márquez] But that's just open water.

[Aldo Kane] Yeah.

[Eric Stackpole] He's just wandering.

[James Cameron] When there's no ice here, bears are forced to

search for food on land.

[Eric Stackpole] It's hard to go here without thinking about

change, and how these pieces of ice are dwindling away,

and specifically is going to affect the behavior of the

Polar bears.

[James Cameron] With this environment changing so rapidly,

the team's first mission is to find out if

Svalbard's bears still have enough to eat.

That means coming face to face with one of nature's

most dangerous predators.

[roaring]

Aldo leads the aerial team,

with two experts who survey the bears' health each year.

[Aldo Kane] Jon and Rolf are both working for the Norwegian

polar institute up here in Svalbard, so they've got this

study that's been going for over 20 years now.

What they're struggling to work out is, is how the

climate's changing is having an effect on polar bears.

[Jon Aars] Almost every year, you know they would have

continuous sea ice down to the islands here, and as that part

of the year gets shorter and shorter it gets harder and

harder to, to be a polar bear.

[helicopter whirring]

[James Cameron] Jon needs to sedate and examine as many

bears as possible.

[Jon Aars] Let's go over the fjord a bit.

[Aldo Kane] With the climate changing, with sea ice

retreating further north, does that mean there will be less

seals for the bears here to eat?

[Jon Aars] The main thing it's less seals that are

possible to catch.

[Aldo Kane] Right, right.

[James Cameron] They follow the coastline looking for bears

that are on the prowl for food.

[Jon Aars] Do you see the fresh tracks?

[Aldo Kane] Yeah, yeah.

Bear! There's a bear down there!

He's a big bear.

[James Cameron] Rolf is a vet...

his job is to dart the bear safely.

[dart shot]

The dart won't hurt the bear.

It should put it to sleep in minutes...

but it's not an exact science.

He looks out cold...

but they can't be sure.

If he isn't fully sedated,

he could easily kill Rolf and the team.

[tapping]

[Rolf-Arne Ølberg] Yeah he's fine.

If you want to bring the...

[Aldo Kane] Oxygen?

[Rolf-Arne Ølberg] Oxygen, yeah you bring that and you

bring that there yeah.

You want to put it on?

[Aldo Kane] Yep... wow.

[James Cameron] The blindfold protects its eyes and helps to

keep it sedated while Rolf takes its vitals.

[Rolf-Arne Ølberg] He's got deep, good breaths.

[Aldo Kane] Beautiful.

Just the muscle...

- Yeah. - In these shoulders.

[Rolf-Arne Ølberg] Try with your hands and compare with those.

[Aldo Kane] Yeah, you can see just how specialized these are

for the way they hunt.

[Rolf-Arne Ølberg] They're very specialized at waiting at

a breathing hole for a seal and it's got to catch it and

drag it away.

[James Cameron] Rolf thinks he's around 8 years old.

[Rolf-Arne Ølberg] Quite a lot of the adult males you see

their broken teeth, fighting a lot.

But this guy he's got really nice teeth.

[Jon Aars] He's in the prime of his life.

[Aldo Kane] He's in the prime of his life really.

[Jon Aars] Yeah.

Try to see, yeah.

[James Cameron] By this point in late summer, there's been very

little sea ice around Svalbard for almost four months.

[Rolf-Arne Ølberg] He's a little bit thin.

[Jon Aars] He's a bit below average I would say, yeah.

[Aldo Kane] Yeah.

[James Cameron] A blood sample will show whether this bear is

eating seals, or something else.

[Aldo Kane] Each one of these tubes will be tested for

something different?

[Jon Aars] Yeah, so you can get some indication about what

they have eaten, if he's eaten mostly seals or more

terrestrial food.

[Rolf-Arne Ølberg] Starvation is, is the biggest um cause of

death for Polar Bears.

[Jon Aars] But what we suspect might happen is that where

we've seen the effects of sea ice loss, when things suddenly

get worse, it will be the youngest and oldest bears

that will be affected first.

[♪ peaceful music]

[growling]

[Aldo Kane] There he is...

[growling]

so that's him back on his feet now, he was under for

just less than an hour, the guys have got all their

measurements done now, given him the antidote to the

anesthetic, so he's now back awake.

Um, he's standing there just for a few more minutes

probably just while he gets his bearings,

and then he'll head off.

[growling]

[grunting]

[♪ peaceful music]

[helicopter whirring]

[James Cameron] There's another bear that Jon is really

worried about.

A much older bear that he knows well.

She's called Lyra.

Jon first met her nine years ago,

as she emerged from her den with new cubs.

[squeaking]

[crashing]

He's been following her ever since.

But the GPS collar that he fitted to keep track of Lyra

stopped moving.

It's a worrying sign.

Her collar data shows that after a long summer with no

sea ice, she spent two months walking almost 600 miles

up and down the coastline.

Jon believes she was searching for food.

Then she stopped moving altogether.

That was almost a year ago.

[Jon Aars] Should be somewhere here, should be to the right

here, should be just underneath.

[helicopter whirring]

So it's 20 meters now, about here.

[Aldo Kane] Oh right.

There you go.

[James Cameron] Lyra didn't make it.

[Jon Aars] What's sad is that she had two small cubs when we

captured her last autumn.

[Aldo Kane] The cubs you think are dead also?

[Jon Aars] They, they are for sure dead.

[Aldo Kane] If she died then...

[Jon Aars] Because there's no, no way they could have

survived without her.

Hm.

[Aldo Kane] The mortality rate is quite high then?

[Jon Aars] It's pretty high among juveniles, so maybe

2 out of the 3 you know dies.

[Aldo Kane] Oh wow.

[Jon Aars] Within a bit more than a year.

Yeah.

[helicopter whirring]

[Aldo Kane] Seeing a polar bear that's starved to death

was really quite emotional for me.

To think what she has gone through, losing her two cubs

and wandering hundreds of miles looking for food.

You hear about temperatures rising and ice melting,

but this really brings it home

when you see the fate of a family.

[♪ dramatic music]

[James Cameron] For the rest of the team, seeing the speed of

change here is equally shocking.

[Eric Stackpole] The amount of sea ice that we're losing just

from changes in the environment is greater than

the amount of rainforest we're losing in the last 50 years.

[James Cameron] Seeing this loss makes their mission

even more urgent.

[Zoleka Filander] Climate change is not really something

you can see...

but here in Svalbard, you actually get to see it

happening right in front of your eyes.

[helicopter whirring]

[James Cameron] Aldo and the helicopter team push on...

they need to find out if other polar bear cubs have survived

with so little sea ice.

[Chopper Pilot] There's a bear, yeah that's a bear.

[Aldo Kane] A mother and a cub.

[James Cameron] Both bears are safely darted;

the team has to work fast.

[Aldo Kane] All good? She's okay, she's fine?

[Jon Aars] Yeah she's fine.

[Aldo Kane] Good condition?

[Jon Aars] She's not too bad, given that she has a small cub.

[Aldo Kane] And the cub is?

[Jon Aars] Doing well.

[James Cameron] Jon's relieved to find a healthy family.

[Rolf-Arne muttering]

[Aldo Kane] Is it a male cub?

[Rolf-Arne Ølberg] Let's see...

That's a male yeah.

[Aldo Kane] Yeah, male cub.

[Rolf-Arne Ølberg] He will be 8 months, he was born about

new year's.

[James Cameron] Jon knows this mother bear too.

He first met her seven years ago when she was just a cub herself.

It's now her turn to try to keep her baby alive.

[Aldo Kane] This cub will, will still be breast feeding,

is that right?

[Rolf-Arne Ølberg] Yeah.

[Jon Aars] I just checked that she had milk, so it's like

white milk, so I just note that, which means she's

still doing ok.

Sometimes you know if they're really food stressed,

they stop giving milk.

[Aldo Kane] And that stress would come from the

environment and not being able to eat?

[Jon Aars] Yeah from too little food, too little to eat.

[Aldo Kane] And the cub is fine?

[Jon Aars] Yeah.

[James Cameron] In fact, he's on the heavy side.

[Rolf-Arne Ølberg] This guy is a little chubby.

[Aldo Kane] Yeah.

[Rolf-Arne Ølberg] There we go.

[James Cameron] Weighing mom requires all hands-on deck.

[Jon Aars] A bit more so she's almost on the back.

[grunting]

- There? - Yeah.

[Rolf-Arne Ølberg] Alright she's off the ground.

Okay.

[James Cameron] She's 385 pounds,

that means she's doing ok.

Jon can now keep track of both mum and cub with

her GPS collar.

[Aldo Kane] She's starting to have some twitching.

[Rolf-Arne Ølberg] Yeah, you gotta be careful, now is not

the time to put fingers in her mouth.

[James Cameron] Rolf clears her airway and makes sure she

can't bite her own tongue as she comes around.

[Aldo Kane] It's good to see them both back up and awake now.

[Jon Aars] Yeah.

[Aldo Kane] It's great to see a well-fed mum and cub

at this time of year...

but with no seals to hunt, what are they eating?

[helicopter whirring]

[James Cameron] The team's second mission is to investigate

if these bears are adapting to hunt new prey.

[Aldo Kane] So Polar bears have always been adaptive.

They're opportunistic, they always have been.

But there isn't much else in Svalbard and around Svalbard

for them to eat.

So we need to figure out if they're switching to eat

something else.

[James Cameron] Eric's up first.

He's on the trail of an animal

that could be filling the seal gap...

[grunting]

walrus.

[Eric Stackpole] So, walruses can weigh over 1,000 pounds

and they have this thick blubbery layer just like seals.

[grunting]

Could that be what the bears are eating?

That's what I want to find out.

[grunting]

[James Cameron] With wildlife cinematographer David...

and polar safety guide Tom,

Eric heads for the walrus haul out.

[Tom Lawton] If we do see a bear in the area, if either of

you see anything that looks like a bear, tell me straight away,

uh if I see a bear, I'll let you know, but the first thing

we're gonna do if there is a bear in the area is we're

gonna get back on the boat.

[Both] OK.

[David Reichert] Some sort of animal poop.

[Eric Stackpole] Oh yeah look at that.

Let's, you know what that is?

[Tom Lawton] Um. I mean it's sizable.

[David Reichert] I know, it's kind of a big animal.

- I mean it's not walrus poop... - No.

- And it's not fox poop. - No. It's too big for that.

[Tom Lawton] It has fur in it as well, I mean, so that means

it's a carnivore's poop.

I mean...

[Eric Stackpole] This could be polar bear poop?

[Tom Lawton] Yep.

[David Reichert] They've been here.

[Tom Lawton] Yeah okay.

[David Reichert] Something's been in this area.

[Eric Stackpole] Alright well the, uh, the evidence is, is

mounting that perhaps we've got bears.

[James Cameron] As they inch closer,

they get a polar bear's eye view

of the walrus colony.

They've been spotted.

[Tom Lawton] Get down.

[Eric Stackpole] Alright.

[walrus bellowing]

[Tom Lawton] Don't move.

[walrus bellowing]

[Eric Stackpole] Look at the size of them.

[walrus bellowing]

[James Cameron] They beat a hasty retreat.

[grunting]

By the time they reach the boat...

they're not alone.

[walrus bellowing]

[Tom Lawton] They're pretty curious...

you might actually wanna push off right now.

- Yeah? - Yeah.

[Eric Stackpole] All right.

[snorting, grunting]

[snorting, grunting]

They're sluggish on land, but in the water, that is their

turf and they know how to handle themselves in it,

so they can be very, very dangerous, especially to a

boat like this where you know if they got aggressive with

the boat, it could puncture the, the hull.

This is an inflatable boat...

so these are these moments where you don't really know

what nature's gonna do.

[Tom Lawton] We're done, we're gonna get out of here...

[Eric Stackpole] All right, we gotta go.

[motor rumbling]

One encounter is not definitive, but it seems very

unlikely to me that a bear of any size is going to be able

to attack a fully grown adult walrus.

[snorting, grunting]

[helicopter whirring]

[James Cameron] On the other side of Svalbard, the helicopter

team is also looking for clues.

[Aldo Kane] It really does boil life down into the

absolute basics of, of wandering around a barren

wilderness looking for your next meal.

[Jon Aars] Yes. Oh yeah absolutely.

[James Cameron] These bears are definitely eating

something substantial.

[Aldo Kane] He is fat.

[Jon Aars] Yeah, super fat.

[James Cameron] They spot a clue.

[Chopper Pilot] Oh is there some sort of carcass down there.

[Aldo Kane] Just in front of you, 12:00.

[Rolf-Arne Ølberg] Oh there is something here.

[♪ mysterious music]

[Jon Aars] That is a reindeer carcass.

[Aldo Kane] Look at that.

Ah, there's another carcass there, look?

[Jon Aars] Yeah.

This is uh interesting.

[James Cameron] Jon has only ever seen bears scavenge

dead reindeer.

[Chopper Pilot] Reindeer up here.

[Aldo Kane] Yeah, lot of reindeer here.

[James Cameron] It's not long before they see the evidence

they're looking for.

[Chopper Pilot] It's a bear.

On the hill right this side of the snow line.

[Aldo Kane] Oh yeah, yeah.

He's on the move.

Yeah he looks fat.

[Rolf-Arne Ølberg] He's very nice condition.

[Jon Aars] Yeah.

[Aldo Kane] He's sort of stalking up these little

valleys to where the reindeer are.

[Jon Aars] Perfect terrain for a reindeer ambush.

[Aldo Kane] That's the thing with the bears, they're not

really evolved for running or for that sort of predation,

but I guess if the terrain suits that's just like

classic ambush country.

[Jon Aars] Yup it is.

[Aldo Kane] It was thought that polar bears couldn't

outrun something as fast as a reindeer, but they're using

the terrain to their advantage.

As a sniper it's my job to close the distance to the

target using cover and that's exactly what the bear's doing,

before it uses a final burst of speed.

[James Cameron] It seems that some of Svalbard's polar bears

have found ways to hunt new species

in the long summer months...

a possible lifeline as their home gets warmer.

[camera shutter]

[camera shutter]

[Jon Aars] So that's very interesting.

Professional reindeer hunter.

[Rolf-Arne Ølberg] Yup.

[James Cameron] Analysis of the blood Jon's taken from the

sedated bears tells him exactly what they've been eating.

Bears here are now consuming a higher proportion of

land-based prey than before.

[Aldo Kane] So, I guess with it becoming warmer up here

and less sea ice, they have to adapt their behavior and,

and their hunting strategy.

[Jon Aars] So there is a couple of things we've seen

studying these local Svalbard bears, is that bears use much

more time on land, and we also get evidence that reindeer

actually are taken by polar bears, like what we saw,

you know the reindeer carcass.

[James Cameron] Mission accomplished.

The team has witnessed the evidence for themselves,

that polar bears might be able to adapt and survive

in a warming climate.

It's a Hollywood ending...

but nature doesn't do Hollywood endings.

Polar bears in their prime might be able to switch

from seals to reindeer.

But for new-born cubs, that's just not an option.

[squeaking]

[James Cameron] Polar bear cubs are totally dependent on

their mother's milk.

Mom gives birth in winter and keeps her cubs in the den for

the first three months while she nurses them.

When they all emerge in spring,

she's running on empty and her cubs need solid food.

Her salvation comes in the form of a unique,

frozen hunting ground,

found at the base of Svalbard's massive glacial cliffs.

[Zoleka Filander] Glaciers are an accumulation of snowfall

over thousands of years, and this forms a huge ice sheet.

Where that ice meets the ocean, it gives the sea ice

a solid structure to latch onto.

And it's the sea-ice that's vital for

polar bear mum's in spring...

It's where the seals have their pup's.

For a starving polar bear mum,

these seals are the difference between life and death.

[splashing]

[James Cameron] These feeding grounds depend on

glaciers like this reaching the ocean...

and there's the problem...

Svalbard's glaciers are melting...

fast.

[rumbling]

[splashing]

[rumbling]

[splashing]

If glaciers retreat onto land, the sea-ice no longer has a

strong anchor, it breaks up and drifts away,

taking the seals with it.

Nearly a fifth of Svalbard's glaciers have now retreated

onto land.

If this trend continues, do polar bears even

have a future here?

For their final and most important mission,

the team wants to answer the question,

how fast are these glaciers retreating?

[James Cameron] The OceanXplorer has arrived at the largest

glacier in Svalbard.

Austfonna.

This 3,000 square mile slab of ice is ten times bigger than

New York City.

Every summer, meltwater pours off it...

and as the temperatures increase, these waterfalls are

expected to get bigger.

Are these uncontrolled rivers melting the glacier faster?

The team brings in top ice scientist Andreas Alexander.

[Andreas Alexander] Hello, nice to meet you...

[Eric Stackpole] Andreas Alexander is a glacial

scientist, he studies the way the glaciers are changing

over time, and he's been doing this for many years, so he's an

expert in all the subtle ways glacial movement may be

affecting the environment around it.

[James Cameron] Melissa Márquez will also be helping Andreas

on this mission.

[Andreas Alexander] Glaciers are changing up here very,

very fast, they're melting and every year we get more melt.

What is happening at the edge where the ice meets the ocean?

We don't know how much water actually is flowing through

this channel, how fast is the water flowing, at what

temperature is it?

And a big challenge that we are facing is,

we can't measure it.

Lucky number 7.

[James Cameron] But Andreas hopes to change that with a

new piece of tech...

[Eric Stackpole] Oh my gosh.

[James Cameron] This is a drifter.

[Andreas Alexander] Here we go.

[James Cameron] The plan is to drop it into a river 10 miles

inland on the glacier.

It will travel down the rapids, recording the water

speed and pressure on the ice.

Finally, if the drifter makes it to the front of the

glacier, it'll tell us how much these rivers and

waterfalls are influencing the rate of retreat.

[Eric Stackpole] For us to be able to gather any information

from these drifters, they have to be deployed upstream enough

so that they'll follow the stream for enough distance to

collect good data and then go over the waterfall

into the ocean.

[James Cameron] No easy task,

how do you get to the headwaters of a glacier?

You walk.

[♪ dramatic music]

[James Cameron] The rivers form a dangerous maze...

one wrong step and you risk broken bones, or worse.

[Andreas Alexander] Some rapids there.

[Melissa Márquez] Yeah.

[Andreas Alexander] Uh-oh... that's big.

[Melissa Márquez] That's a big one.

[Guide] Whenever you're ready.

[Andreas Alexander] Three, two, one.

[Melissa Márquez] Yeah.

[Guide] Here we go.

[Andreas Alexander] And let's get out of this.

[Guide] Go, go.

[Andreas Alexander] Nice one.

Dig in the axe yeah.

[Guide] Stand on those toes...

there you go, good work.

[James Cameron] After ten miles of trekking they reach a

suitable deployment spot.

A river big enough to go all the way to the front of the glacier.

[Melissa Márquez] I'm just letting the boat know that

we've got these two drifters that we're about to send out

and I've gone ahead and sent the GPS coordinates.

[Andreas Alexander] Then we are ready to deploy yeah?

[Melissa Márquez] Alright.

[Andreas Alexander] And wish it the best.

Wish it good luck.

[Melissa Márquez] Good luck.

[Andreas Alexander] Ok and three, two, one, and off you go.

Three, two, one.

[James Cameron] Two drifters are away.

Waiting on the ocean, Eric and Zoleka have the difficult task

of finding the drifters...

if they've survived the rapids.

[Eric Stackpole] You can scan now...

we're just waiting for this terminal to show a signal.

I haven't heard anything yet, nothing yet.

[beeping]

Oh, we've got one we've got one.

Yeah, we got one.

It should be off our port bow somewhere;

I think it's closer to the glacier.

[Zoleka Filander] Oh my gosh, the swell is not helping!

I can see it...

my 12:00...

I've got eyes on it.

[James Cameron] Both devices have made it

out of the glacier...

but they've landed in dangerous waters.

[crashing]

[Zoleka Filander] Oh, calving just happened, oh, oh my gosh.

[crashing]

[Eric Stackpole] So, what is the plan here?

[OceanX Crew] We're gonna do a drive by and try and pick it up.

[Eric Stackpole] Got it.

I mean look at this the whole glacier is disintegrating as

we're up to it we really have to be careful here.

He's got it, he's got it, he's got it.

Great Job...

okay we're ready for number two if you're able to get that out.

Two of them in.

[James Cameron] For the very first time, Andreas's drifters

have been successfully retrieved from the ocean

after a glacier deployment.

In the ship's mixed reality lab, the team is eager to see

what secrets they reveal.

[Eric Stackpole] This basically shows what it looks

like just below the waterfall when it reaches the ocean.

[James Cameron] Glaciers with no waterfalls are insulated by a

layer of calm, cold water at their base,

so they melt very slowly.

But here on Austfonna, the drifter data reveals

a different picture altogether.

[Andreas Alexander] But what we see now is you have the

fresh water coming in and that fresh water destroys the

insulation layer of the cold water, and what that will do

is create heat, and that heat is what's melting,

what's driving the melt.

Well it's a combination of warmer ocean water and then

the freshwater hitting and creating the currents and

those currents are the ones that are driving the ice melt.

[James Cameron] Scientists had expected this glacier to

retreat at least 130 feet a year.

But from the new drifter data, Andreas has calculated,

around each waterfall, the rate of retreat could double.

And that's bad news for polar bear moms.

They need glaciers to reach the ocean so that sea-ice can

anchor to them and make a stable hunting platform.

This revelation is bittersweet for the team.

[Melissa Márquez] It's this really big sense of

achievement that we've got brand new data on how quickly

these glaciers are melting.

But what it's telling us,

well that makes me really worried for polar bears.

If the climate keeps warming, is there a limit to how much

more they can adapt?

[Aldo Kane] We've seen that some of them can adapt,

but is it enough with their world changing so quickly?

[sniffing]

[Eric Stackpole] This isn't just about polar bears.

So much of the Arctic is teeming with life.

It drives ocean currents, it moderates our climate...

So much depends on it.

[James Cameron] But the team has hope for the future.

[Zoleka Filander] If the world keeps to its promise and

limits temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius,

there should still be an ice kingdom for polar bears.

[James Cameron] Svalbard's polar bears are just about

hanging in there for now,

but for them to have a real future...

that's on us.

Captioned by Cotter Media Group.