THE PINNIPED ICEBERG【DOCUMENTARY FOR SLEEP】【NIJISANJI EN | Vox Akuma】

Added: 2026-05-08

[00:02:14]Good evening, all.

[00:02:15]Tonight, hopefully, you're interested in learning something, and maybe you're having a bit of trouble getting off to sleep. Well, what I'd like to do today is, perhaps you've been around on on the internet for a little while, and you might have come across these so-called documentaries for sleep, and most of them are made entirely with AI.

[00:02:37]I saw these, and I thought it might be fun to have a crack at making one for myself that's all person-made, not man-made, you know, but made nonetheless by someone with intentions.

[00:02:50]Recently, I've become very fascinated by ocean life. I never used to be particularly fascinated by it. I always found them to be interesting and funny, but usually didn't take much notice.

[00:03:03]But, it was only recently, earlier this year, perhaps late last year, that I started getting recommended a lot of YouTube shorts about seals and sea lions. And in seeing those, I became really fascinated by their behavior.

[00:03:19]You see, the interesting thing about seals, sea lions, and the broader family that they belong to, pinnipeds, is that they have a incredible fascination with humanity, and they are curious, intellectual creatures that potentially could be just as socially complex as you or I.

[00:03:41]We'll never know for sure unless we figure out some way of communicating with them in our own language, which I don't think is particularly on the cards, but it still shows us that there is so much more we have to learn.

[00:03:53]So, learn we will.

[00:03:55]Something I'd like to stress, I'm not an expert. Me, I'm just a guy who finds this all a little too interesting. I love to read, and I love to learn, and sometimes I get excited about sharing those things with other people.

[00:04:08]You're all a very captive audience, and I hopefully can share something with you all today, as well.

[00:04:15]But, bear in mind, I may not know the best about these animals, and there may be some details, hopefully I won't, but I might get some details wrong. Feel free to correct me, either down in the comments or in the chat if you're watching this live, and we can try our best to learn something together.

[00:04:31]All right? Good.

[00:04:33]So, to begin, let's start with the most famous of them all, the true seal.

[00:04:41]Now, true seal is an interesting term because a lot of the time, as you may notice if you're a particular fan of YouTube shorts like I am, a lot of people get seals and sea lions confused.

[00:04:52]Why is this?

[00:04:53]Well, they have a similar sort of role in the ocean. They're both predators that vaguely resemble dogs or bears with um hind flippers that can't really maneuver quite so well on land, but there are many differences between them.

[00:05:08]Now, the so-called true seal is what we're going to start off by talking about, and they're usually defined by having a long body that is nice and fat in the middle, and very short flippers on the front and on the sides, with flippers again at their back end. How do I say that?

[00:05:26]Flippers at their back end. They have back flippers that sort of wa- wave from side to side, and front flippers that allow them to steer quite gracefully underwater. They have no ear flaps, no visible ears on the outside.

[00:05:40]And they are, as you may have guessed, very, very cute and very interesting to an awful lot of people.

[00:05:47]Now, seals, and as you'll come to find out, pinnipeds in general, tend to be extremely social. This isn't always the case, but a lot of the time they like to spend a lot of time in big big groups.

[00:06:01]A lot of the time what you'll see if you go to anywhere with an active seal population, I'm lucky enough to live in the UK, and in the UK, there are some very populous places for seals. Gray seals, in fact, 40% of gray seals live in and around the United Kingdom, and hopefully at some point I'll get to see some for myself.

[00:06:20]What they like to do is to haul out, which means to beach themselves on the beach in order to spend some time around each other and to rest.

[00:06:30]Sometimes they might get along just fine. They might tolerate each other perfectly well, but sometimes they can tend to be a bit nippy and nasty with each other.

[00:06:40]An important thing to bear in mind is that seals might look very cute, and they do, but they're wild animals at the end of the day, and they are predators.

[00:06:53]So, as much as you may want so badly, and I know I do, too, to go over and pet one, and to see if it'll be your best friend, you just can't.

[00:07:04]Really, petting a seal is more dangerous for the seal than it is for you.

[00:07:10]Now, seals have a sort of a I'm not really sure what it's called.

[00:07:16]I might take a moment sometimes to quickly confirm some details.

[00:07:21]But, what was it that they had in their bite?

[00:07:26]It contains a sort of bacteria that causes degeneration, something called seal finger, which can often lead to amputation. If a seal bites you, you'd need to seek medical attention right away, and yes, that's very dangerous.

[00:07:39]But, we're fortunate enough to have access to medical attention, and seals, they just have to patch themselves up on their own.

[00:07:46]However, we are quite dangerous to seals because they suffer if, in general, they are too attached to human attention. And this is a theme you'll see for all the pinnipeds we look at today.

[00:08:02]In general, there are all kinds of stories about pinnipeds that have been shown plenty of attention and love and really mobbed by a lot of humans who just can't get enough of them, and it very rarely ends well.

[00:08:17]So, if you if you like these animals and you want them to be happy, healthy, and safe, observe them from a distance. We have our world, and they have theirs.

[00:08:27]They're going to be perfectly fine as long as we observe them from a respectable, safe distance.

[00:08:42]Now, a fun story about the so-called true seal.

[00:08:47]Many examples include the the gray seal that I just mentioned.

[00:08:52]Um they have been used in some instances by the US and Russian military for performing underwater tasks that would be very difficult either for a human being or for military equipment to perform.

[00:09:06]For example, something like equipment retrieval.

[00:09:09]An interesting fact is actually that dolphins were originally considered for this program, and dolphins being extremely intelligent animals themselves, were thought would they did do quite well at these tasks in the beginning. You see, dolphins are intelligent in a special way where they sort of have an ego, and they, in some in some instances, are able to outsmart any humans that might want to have dealings with them. What they found with dolphins is that when attempting to train them to perform military tasks, the dolphins were food motivated, and they would do the task very well until they were fed, at which point the dolphin is full, and then just sort of leaves. He's not really interested in doing the job anymore because he's not interested in any more food.

[00:09:57]Many um people involved in these training programs seem to say that seals and sea lions involved in military application were a lot more {quote} and {unquote} professional.

[00:10:07]Uh which I find uh quite funny to think about the idea of working alongside uh an animal like this.

[00:10:15]Really, something that's been so fascinating for me has been learning about their socialization and how emotionally and intellectually similar they are to human beings in in so many ways. I think it's a part of what leads us to be so drawn to these animals and what makes them so interesting to us.

[00:10:38]You see, it comes down really to their curiosity.

[00:10:45]If you'll take a moment at any point, maybe not now while you're trying to get some sleep, but I do this a lot. If you ever get the get the uh the urge to Google uh um what their temperament is like, what their personalities are like, the word that keeps popping up is curious. They are always described as curious.

[00:11:07]But why why would that be? What are they curious about?

[00:11:11]Well, we often wonder with animals, are they friendly? A lot of the time you'll see those questions pop up on Google, you know, the common questions where you you search something and then more questions are suggested. A lot of the time it will ask, are these animals friendly?

[00:11:28]And the answer is you is always, well, it depends.

[00:11:32]Some animals, and one of them is a non-pinniped that we'll talk about a little bit later, some are pretty much always friendly, but this is a rarity.

[00:11:41]Seals can have individual personalities.

[00:11:44]They can have histories that inform their behavior, and they can pass techniques and um strategies down to their young.

[00:11:53]You might have a family of seals that are very wary around humans. Or you might have a family of seals that are very keen on humans.

[00:12:02]Which is why without knowing, the best thing to do is to simply give them their space.

[00:12:07]Many divers who have uh the the luck and um interest able to dive down and spend some time in close proximity with seals have found them to be just that, curious.

[00:12:21]If you don't approach them first, if you allow them to approach you, what you'll often find is that they just want to figure you out. They'll kind of swim around and take a moment to wonder, what is this funny-looking mask doing?

[00:12:38]What is this? What is that? And often times they'll try to figure out human behavior as well. They'll try to work out all kinds of things, and sometimes even challenge themselves to see what they can do about helping you survive.

[00:12:53]Now, there's a particularly interesting story about a leopard seal that I'd like to share with you.

[00:12:59]Leopard seals are very dangerous.

[00:13:03]So, a true seal, like we've discussed, they can be dangerous. They are predators, and they can bite, and their bite can be deadly.

[00:13:10]But a leopard seal is particularly dangerous. They are the largest predator native to the um to the Antarctic. Uh and they own that uh for a reason. They are exceptionally deadly hunters, and they hunt penguins, they hunt other seals as well, and they can be distinguished by their much longer face that really does sort of have a little bit of a cat-like uh sort of sort of I'm not really sure how to describe it, but they have very vicious-looking teeth, and they're not nearly as as cute or sweet-looking or dog-looking um as a true seal that you might see elsewhere.

[00:13:49]Exactly. They um they they are they they love to eat penguins. There's a particularly good video you can see of um a group of penguins who have been swimming jump up onto a patch of ice and then notice that a leopard seal is sleeping on that ice, and then they all very quickly turn around and run away. The leopard seal is of course sleeping and just pops its head up, looks around a little bit, and then goes, oh, and just sort of goes back to sleep again. Wondering, could I have chased them? Could I have eaten them? Maybe.

[00:14:17]But the interesting thing about a leopard seal is that they have in the past killed human beings. There was a researcher, a woman in 2003 who uh unfortunately went swimming with leopard seals, was dragged down uh 80 ft into the water, and uh unfortunately lost her life. This is the only recorded leopard seal um kill on a human being, but there there may have been more that weren't recorded.

[00:14:43]So, this is a seal that we know to be quite dangerous.

[00:14:46]However, there's another story about people who were intent on studying leopard seal who did go and swim with it. And what they found was that it had this incredible fascination with them and wanted to try, much like other seals with their curiosity, wanted so much to figure out just what these things were.

[00:15:07]What are these human beings? What can I do with them? How can I help them survive? And so, what this leopard seal did, while it could very easily have completely demolished them and gone about go gone on its way, maybe even had an easy snack, it swam around and mainly tried to bring the humans food. It brought a live penguin and offered it as a piece as a catch, thinking, perhaps they're predator like me, perhaps this food will be good for them. But then of course, these humans aren't going to eat a penguin, so the leopard seal thinks, and then it goes away and comes back with a dead penguin, thinking, maybe they can't eat live prey. Or at least that's what we think that they were that they were sort of thinking.

[00:15:54]And what's fascinating is they describe how you can watch its eyes. You can watch and see how effortlessly it's thinking, it's wondering all of these different things about you, and it's reasoning um with itself.

[00:16:12]It's fascinating to wonder just what we might be able to learn if we could speak to them on our own terms, but until then, all we can do is observe that behavior.

[00:16:24]So, even a particularly dangerous seal, a leopard seal, one that is the terror of uh of the Antarctic and feared very much by even other seals, even they have the potential to slow down and really think about humans purely for their own amusement, purely so that they can learn something.

[00:16:50]But of course, getting obsessed with how similar animals are to us isn't always the best idea. Sometimes it can lead us to get a little bit too obsessed with the idea of anthropomorphizing them, which tends not to be a good idea. This term meaning to apply human characteristics uh to an animal. Um you might describe an anthropomorphic animal as one that stands on its hind legs and goes to work with a briefcase.

[00:17:17]It's important to talk about the more animalistic side of these animals as well. And I think the best way to do that is to talk about another very famous type of seal, the largest type of seal, in fact, the largest pinniped of them all, the elephant seal.

[00:17:35]The elephant seal is in many ways very similar, almost indistinguishable from another true seal, apart from how they are so unbelievably huge. I'm going to remind myself of the exact figures, um but a male elephant seal in particular can weigh how much?

[00:17:56]Up to 4,000 kg. That's eight That's That's more than 8,000 lb. They are enormous, uh and they can grow many, many tens of feet long, I believe. They are humongous.

[00:18:14]They in fact actually display some of the most sexual dimorphism between any animal or any mammal uh in in the animal kingdom.

[00:18:23]Male elephant seals are much, much larger than female elephant seals.

[00:18:29]If you've done a any sort of research into um into the wild and into um animal culture, what animals do, um and particularly animal breeding cycles, many, many times, especially in mammals, the male's job is to assert his dominance and to fight for a female.

[00:18:48]We see this in all different uh mammals from the ocean to the land, particularly in gorillas. Uh a group of gorillas will have one silverback who has access to all the females, and any male gorilla growing up in the gorilla troop will eventually challenge the silverback for his title. And this is why if you run into a silverback gorilla in the wild, um if it's alone, it tends to be very angry and very dangerous because it feels defeated.

[00:19:14]Elephant seals might take the cake when it comes to the most high-testosterone um approach to breeding season that you can find anywhere on land.

[00:19:25]On a beach where elephant seals haul out, do we remember the definition of of hauling out? It's when a seal comes out of the water and rests on land.

[00:19:34]Elephant seals are social animals, and they all haul out onto a beach where there are very, very many of them.

[00:19:41]But most of these will be females because a male elephant seal will not tolerate the presence of another male elephant seal. They have a well, a harem essentially. A male elephant seal will want access to every single female on the beach and if he is physically strong enough to assert that sort of dominance, we call that elephant seal the beach master.

[00:20:09]Now, male elephant seals grow something on their nose called a proboscis. It's a huge flabby, flappy thing that extends their vocal cords and makes their roar much, much louder.

[00:20:25]An elephant seal's roar is very, very important and in indeed, it is incredibly loud.

[00:20:32]A male elephant seal needs to be able to assert itself as large and particularly scary to other elephant seals because when things come to a head, things can get very deadly.

[00:20:46]Let's say for example, there is a huge elephant seal watching over hundreds of female elephant seals, any of which he has access to at any time. His instinct is to spread his genes as far as possible to breed and to produce as much offspring as possible such that his DNA is absolute and such that his offspring are as strong grow up to become as strong as he will.

[00:21:16]In order to do that, he must be huge and strong enough to fight with other male elephant seals. So, he might be relaxing on the beach trying to get some rest after hunting and in and in in fact, uh elephant seals are known as some of the deepest diving uh pinnipeds and marine mammals out there. They will dive thousands of feet down into the water in search of food and so when they come up, they do need quite a lot of rest.

[00:21:42]But, if another male elephant seal comes upon the beach, they might choose to challenge the beach master for his title.

[00:21:53]It begins usually with a loud roar and it's very low. It's very sort of gruff and quite scary sounding.

[00:22:02]The big, flappy proboscis on the front of their face vibrates and waves around in the wind.

[00:22:10]And they can run quite fast on land.

[00:22:13]People have taken to calling it galumphing when a seal uses their front flippers to move forward on land and they can go quite fast, than you might think.

[00:22:24]So, the challenge begins.

[00:22:27]Elephant seals fight by rearing up.

[00:22:30]The back half of them stays on the ground and then their front half leans up and they can tower very, very high into the high into the air.

[00:22:38]They bring their teeth up into the air and they start bringing them down, biting into the blubber on their opponent's neck and around and all around their body and these fights can be very, very bloody and quite graphic.

[00:22:51]A lot of the time, the challenger elephant seal will back off because they can see that if they keep trying, they will most likely wind up dying.

[00:23:01]Uh but sometimes they will fight for so long that they both give up out of sheer exhaustion.

[00:23:07]And these cases, usually the challenging elephant seal will retreat into the ocean. However, if the beach master either dies or submits defeat to um uh to the challenger, then the challenger will simply assume control of the beach and will become the new beach master with access to all of the females for breeding and that is about as animalistic as a seal's life could become.

[00:23:35]There is, however, a very interesting story that I'm sure a lot of you are very, very well aware of if you've spent any time on the internet.

[00:23:46]And that would be the story of a young male elephant seal called Neil.

[00:23:53]Now, Neil the seal is a elephant seal who is just growing up. He's about, I believe, four or five years old.

[00:24:02]And having been born around Tasmania in Australia, many elephant seals when they haul out and attempt to breed during breeding season, do so where they were born.

[00:24:13]Neil does the same, but he goes back to a town in Tasmania or is or is Tasmania the name of the I'm not sure, but there is a town in Australia in Southern Australia where this elephant seal keeps coming back.

[00:24:29]Around about breeding season, he will just haul out onto land and start causing a load of mayhem for people.

[00:24:36]A particular story involves a woman who couldn't come to work because Neil had fallen asleep in front of her car. It's not It's not as though even though his safety is a high priority for conservationists, I think if you wanted to start your car and get to work even if you had a mind to move Neil by force, I don't think you could because he's huge.

[00:24:57]You can see all kinds of really hilarious videos of people getting to know Neil as a local. They've affectionately called him Neil the seal. And in particular, what you can see actually is Neil getting annoyed with traffic cones and using that typical elephant seal fighting technique of rearing up and biting to try and get these traffic cones out of the way.

[00:25:19]Sometimes he might fall asleep in the middle of the road and then they use these traffic cones to sort of lure him out and and get him to get him to exit the road so people can go about their lives. He's sort of a local legend and people have started coming from all around to see Neil.

[00:25:35]Hobart, that was it. Hobart.

[00:25:40]But, Neil is a very interesting story because he is It's It's It's both good and bad for a variety of reasons.

[00:25:50]The good really comes from what we're experiencing right now.

[00:25:55]Our ability to find out more about these animals. Many people will become fascinated with elephant seals and they'll become fascinated with marine life because they see videos of Neil and they think he's cute.

[00:26:08]This was my journey. I just started watching videos and started doing some reading and before you know it, I'm fascinated by these animals and I want to learn as much as I possibly can.

[00:26:20]This leads to conservation effort. It leads to people getting involved with more, like I say, conservation effort with a charity. Leads to people making donations to conservation and in many cases might lead to people saving these these seals' lives.

[00:26:36]However, unfortunately, what often happens when a wild animal becomes particularly famous and if they spend a lot of time around human beings, is that human beings tend not to be able to help themselves.

[00:26:50]A lot of the time, unfortunately, what can happen is that humans just love to use love to get a good video for social media. They don't really understand the danger in petting an animal. When we most of the time spend our time with animals around pets that are happy to be petted. In fact, it's good to to to handle and pet your pets, you know, to reinforce your bond between them. Petting wild animals is rarely a good idea.

[00:27:22]And a lot of people have gone up to Neil and they've tried to pet him. They have tried to in some cases antagonize him.

[00:27:28]And the thing to remember about elephant seals, especially when hauled out, is that they can be very aggressive.

[00:27:35]If there were any female elephant seals nearby, Neil would certainly use that same aggression as his a an elephant seal would use with a rival male.

[00:27:44]But, many people won't really be aware of that. They would just view Neil as a cute oddity and want to put him on their Instagram story. This, like I've said earlier, is more of a danger to Neil than it is to any of us.

[00:27:58]Hopefully, conservationists can do their job and in an ideal world, Neil would be able to keep returning to Hobart and he would be able to continue hanging out with people and being a bit of a local legend, but unfortunately, human nature is always, much like pinnipeds, to be very curious.

[00:28:17]Hopefully, we can be curious from a distance and can avoid any sort of unfortunate stories like we'll talk about a little bit later on.

[00:28:41]There are some other stories about pinnipeds that have become beloved by local communities and a couple of them happen to be what the original idea for this stream was all about.

[00:28:52]Walruses. So, let's take a moment and let's double back and we'll talk about some of my favorite pinnipeds.

[00:29:02]Walruses are second to the elephant seal in being the biggest pinnipeds around.

[00:29:10]Near the top of the food chain in the Arctic, hunted only by polar bears and sometimes by orcas.

[00:29:17]Walrus are defined by their enormous amounts of blubber and the two huge tusks on their face.

[00:29:27]Walrus are able to survive in incredibly low temperatures, extremely frigid environments thanks to blubber. All pinnipeds have blubber and many non-pinnipeds have blubber as well.

[00:29:39]Blubber isn't just fat, it's especially designed or evolved layer of insulating fat that helps to keep them very, very warm in incredibly cold environments. A lot of them have very, very dense fur as well that helps to trap heat. And usually all they need to stay warm in incredibly cold environments is just to eat plenty. And eat plenty walruses do.

[00:30:02]Walruses main food source are clams off of the seabed. And in order to eat a lot of clams, walruses have very, very tactile and maneuverable maneuverable, is that the right word?

[00:30:16]Um easily moved. Uh easily very what's the right word for something that you can that you can move very easily? Something that's very um tactile? Tactile is sort of that you that you feel. Anyway, they have a lot of control over their lips.

[00:30:33]Almost. In fact, maybe just as much as human beings do. Maneuverable. Yes, maneuverable lips.

[00:30:40]They can whistle.

[00:30:42]Which is remarkable to watch.

[00:30:45]Some animals can produce a whistling like sound. Um orcas and and and dolphins in particular sort of make a type of whistle, but that's a completely different way of whistling.

[00:30:56]Prehensile, dextrous, something like that.

[00:30:59]Um walruses on the other hand, there is there's no two ways about it. It's not as though they're blowing air through their teeth. It's not as though they're finding some other way of doing it. They purse their lips like we do and they can whistle. They can make all kinds of interesting vocalizations.

[00:31:16]How do you teach a walrus to whistle? To be honest with you, I don't know. Um but you can see uh videos of walruses that have learned to whistle and they're very um you know, very intelligent animals that have been well trained and some of them can make these vast amounts of vocalizations on command.

[00:31:34]But by whistling, what they can do or really by having these uh prehensile lips is that they can slurp the clam meat out of the clams on the ocean floor. Uh and it's rare to see, but some documentary crews have managed to get footage of walruses diving all the way down and slurping clams off of the seafloor, just getting the meat out with their big fat lips and and that's usually how they would eat.

[00:31:59]It doesn't seem very glamorous, but they've evolved this for a reason.

[00:32:04]We've talked about walruses being social animals uh or pinnipeds being social animals, but walruses are some of the most social animals. In fact, the largest population of walruses that can be found is in the region of a hundred thousand all hold out onto the same beach. Uh there's a rocky beach. I'm not sure where it is actually. It should be somewhere north.

[00:32:32]Where is this beach?

[00:32:36]Northern Russia. In northern Russia, there is a gathering of uh a hundred thousand walrus or was. And they that's a lot of walruses. One of the largest gatherings really of any species of animal, even rivaling um human human gatherings in a lot of cases.

[00:32:53]And they they can they go out there to rest. Uh they go there to uh raise their young, uh to take care of them because walrus pups are completely helpless until they've been weaned off of the mother.

[00:33:08]And it's here that we can observe some of the um quite heartbreaking, but also part of the circle of life. The hunting cycle really, the food chain in action.

[00:33:21]Walruses are very, very tough animals.

[00:33:24]Uh we talked about their blubber a little bit ago. The blubber that they have uh not only insulates them from the cold, but is also a very thick, tough armor.

[00:33:34]They are incredibly difficult to hunt and much of the time even their natural predators won't um go for a fully grown walrus and will only target elderly or juvenile walrus uh in order to eat them.

[00:33:49]Their main predator on land is the polar bear.

[00:33:52]And what you can see, there's a a documentary where what you can get a good look at is a walrus is a polar bear attempting to hunt walrus. And in a huge group, the walruses are simply able to shrug it off. It takes a big bite right out of the blubber and tries to do something, tries to you know, make a a crucial injury, but the walrus just shakes its head and then uses those huge tusks on the front of its face to to bat the the polar bear away and then it thinks, "Oh well, I can't really do this." and give up. It's it you know, you would think it might be incredibly painful, but they're they're built for this sort of thing.

[00:34:32]What you'll come to understand about polar bears is that they can do all kinds of things and they're very um very hungry. And they'll often come back and try and figure out how else they can hunt their prey.

[00:34:45]So on this beach, what was observed is that a hundred thousand walrus is quite a lot of walruses. They're grumpy. Uh they can tell while they are very social, they tend to fight amongst themselves quite a lot. There's a lot of noise. And if you're looking to protect a baby, many, many of these huge, heavy, heavy, heavy animals wandering around might be a bit of a dangerous environment for your for your for your child.

[00:35:14]So some walruses whether to protect their young or to simply get a bit of peace and quiet, have been observed climbing uh the nearby cliffs.

[00:35:23]They would scale hundreds of feet up just looking for a little bit more space.

[00:35:27]And it's while up here that some interesting behavior can be observed.

[00:35:32]Sometimes as the result of a um of a polar bear being nearby and them wanting to escape, but sometimes as a result of them simply trying to get back to the waters they could have a meal, they were shown to be trying to make their way back down the cliff by go walking straight off it. Uh and there is some quite heartbreaking footage of walruses falling hundreds of feet down these cliffs. And uh each year something like 200 walruses die um simply by misjudging quite how far it is to fall.

[00:36:05]But what I always like to say is that that is nature and natural selection in action. Walruses might in some million years evolve um better eyesight to better judge distances like that. Or they might evolve um gliding muscles or maybe we'll see flying walruses a few million years from now. Who knows, right?

[00:36:27]But really the answer is that walruses never should be going up on cliffs like that. And they never would be going up on cliffs like that uh were the polar ice caps not melting. The reduction in polar ice has led these walruses to need to find space elsewhere.

[00:36:44]Uh they're they're quite a healthy population. They were critically endangered at one point, near extinct actually, as uh hunters used to hunt them for their tusks and for their blubber, which is is a food um in some cultures. Although this I believe in most cultures now is illegal.

[00:37:02]As the ice caps have melted uh following uh climate change and global warming, these walruses have needed to find other space to haul out, to raise their young and to rest. And this has led them to places that they never really should have been going.

[00:37:16]Ultimately, what we'll come to understand is that our impact on these animals is always more than we uh than we might have previously imagined. And what I always like to think and what I think that is worth remembering for all of us, carbon emissions and global warming and climate change, it's easy to get riled up and scared about our impact and what we managed to do and what we unfortunately do to the beautiful animals on this planet.

[00:37:51]But until there is substantial change on a legislative level, there's not much that our own change can really do.

[00:38:00]You might choose not to fly a plane. You might choose to travel by trains instead of by car. But the real change comes from the laws. The real change comes from uh the top level.

[00:38:14]And the best thing to do, instead of trying to eke off the slightest fraction of a percent of your own impact on the world, the best thing to do is to get involved in trying to see some of those things changed.

[00:38:26]All I want you to do is to remember that you have the potential to do a lot of good, but it can be difficult to try and make that change all by yourself.

[00:38:37]Change will happen. And I believe that we will have an incredible world where this wildlife is able to thrive um in all kinds of beautiful ways. But it will take time. The worst thing that we can do is to start blaming ourselves and to begin to suffer because we keep limiting ourselves in ways that those who would seek to control us just don't care enough to do.

[00:39:00]But I'm getting ahead of myself. We're here to talk about animals, aren't we?

[00:39:06]And we'll do so after I have another nip of water.

[00:39:32]Right. Right then. What's that?

[00:39:37]Some penguin in my teeth.

[00:39:42]But we were talking about Neil the Seal and then I got onto the subject of the walrus.

[00:39:49]Now, the walrus um is also the subject of some human fascination because in recent years we have had some walruses haul out in very human-occupied areas.

[00:40:04]Two notable examples uh would be Wally and Freya the walruses. Now, Wally uh is is a success story. Wally uh was a walrus first spotted around Ireland and uh in the that they're usually nowhere to be found. Walruses are best off in colder parts of the world due to their very heavily insulated blubber and finding them further south like that and in Ireland things, you know, can get quite hot in the middle of the year.

[00:40:32]So, they wondered what on earth is this walrus doing here and immediately he was affectionately named uh Wally and uh he became sort of a local uh you know, a piece of local fascination.

[00:40:43]Um the unfortunate thing was that many sailors uh out on the coasts of Ireland would uh you know, they loved to see Wally but often times he would try to clamber onto their boats and being a very very heavy walrus would often uh capsize these boats. So, he was a bit of a menace much like Neil um but also like Neil very very well loved.

[00:41:05]It was difficult again for people to keep their distance.

[00:41:09]Uh but eventually, thanks to the efforts of some conservationists, he was uh returned to the sea and then suddenly started going even further south. Um he was spotted uh off the coast, I believe, of France and then finally off the coast of Spain which is much farther south uh than most walruses ever go.

[00:41:28]Uh he was eventually, however, thanks to uh the hard work of some conservationists, he was sent back in the right direction and they all all breathed a collective sigh of relief when they found that he had returned to Iceland uh which is a very normal place for walruses to be.

[00:41:45]As all we got out of that was that this walrus had an interesting life, saw lots of humans and uh eventually was returned to where he was supposed to be.

[00:41:55]Sadly, uh another walrus by the name of Freya uh didn't have quite so much luck.

[00:41:59]Uh she had the same story but instead of going all the way down to Spain uh for a little bit of a beach holiday, uh Freya was very popular in Norway uh and was often seen off the coasts of Norway in uh fishing communities and uh by harbors and was also clambering onto boats and causing a lot of general mayhem. They even uh at a certain point, I believe they did this for Wally as well, built a flotilla which was designed as a special sort of bed area specifically for uh these walruses to haul out onto without disturbing any human beings. And uh this worked for a while but often times what you come to realize is that when social animals are uh are struggling to find um socialization among themselves, they need to find it elsewhere.

[00:42:49]And human beings, unfortunately, never really left Freya alone and uh eventually because people just didn't really know where to stop um and she was put in a lot of danger, Freya sadly had to be put down uh a few years ago by the the Norwegian government made the decision to uh to euthanize her which is terribly sad that an independent creature can have that sort of decision made by, you know, a force that they could never possibly understand.

[00:43:17]But this is why it's really important to remember that when even if they act like humans and even if we see a certain level of similarity in their intellect and their curiosity, we must always try to keep our distance. Let them observe the world in their way as we observe their world in our way.

[00:43:37]They're not pets. You can if you want to pet an animal, you should get a pet.

[00:43:42]The sad thing is that much like walruses, we are social animals, too.

[00:43:50]If we're alone, we seek companionship in all kinds of ways. Even, and I know there are lots of you, even those of you who say, "I weeks." You're seeking companionship now, aren't you? You're you're struggling to sleep and seeking the sound of someone else's voice.

[00:44:09]And that's just what these walruses were doing.

[00:44:12]That's just what they were doing. They conservationists believe that the reason they had strayed so far from where they would normally be found was simply that they were desperately seeking companionship and they found that because human beings would never leave them alone. People would bond with them and I trust that most people who wanted to hang out with Wally and and with Freya would did so out of out of glee and joy and wanted to um you know, treat them kindly in their way of their sort of how they imagined they would treat a walrus kindly.

[00:44:48]But sometimes it's not what you would imagine that needs to be done for these animals. What needs to be done is for them to be left alone.

[00:45:02]Let's double back a little bit.

[00:45:04]There are some other breeds of seal I'd like to talk about.

[00:45:08]One of my favorites is the Weddell seal and they are some of the only mammals that can survive purely in the Antarctic.

[00:45:18]They have a particularly high level of blubber and they can survive in some very very cold conditions.

[00:45:26]The Weddell seal is famous for having some of the most hilarious vocalizations that you can hear coming out of a seal such as egg f f f f f pluh wha and other such noises that you can look up. So, if you get time and if you remember after you wake up, go ahead and search for Weddell seal noises and you'll have a great time. They really are brilliant.

[00:45:52]A particularly interesting finding uh from a documentary I saw recently that I'd love to share with you um is how Weddell seal mothers uh help to raise their pups.

[00:46:03]Weddell seal pups are very very cute. Uh they're born with white fur and they are um and they're given birth to in um underground dens.

[00:46:14]These dens are formed within the ice uh and they help to keep the pups safe from vicious uh snowstorms which are too cold even for the Weddell seal to survive.

[00:46:24]The fact is the Weddell seal um is safer diving into the ice-cold water below the ice than they are staying on land while these storms are kicking off.

[00:46:35]But eventually, that baby seal needs to move along. Uh it needs to learn A how to swim uh and it also needs to get away from the uh to get away from that ice den if potentially predators are nearby or if um if the climate's are changing and the mother needs to move it anywhere else for any reason, perhaps to help it learn how to find food on its own.

[00:47:00]The only way to do that through the ice storm is to go beneath the ice.

[00:47:06]Seals are mammals and what a lot of people might not know, I mean, I'm sure this is a very basic fact but just in case, fish breathe underwater. They have gills that allow them to extract oxygen from water and so they never need to come up for air. Seals do, however, need to breathe oxygen just like you or I do.

[00:47:24]They have the benefit, though, of being able to hold their breath for a very very long period of time.

[00:47:30]I think some can can hold their breath for as long as 30 minutes or some even longer, some for hours.

[00:47:38]However, when growing up, baby seals aren't quite so good at it. They need a lot more time to practice and their lungs, their little lungs uh don't have quite the same capacity as their parents' lungs do.

[00:47:52]So, the mother seal is faced with an interesting challenge. What she has to do is guide her child all the way underneath the ice sheet and to find somewhere to emerge for air or find somewhere that they can construct a new den or to find food so on and so forth.

[00:48:11]Now, the mother can hold her breath for a long time in order to find either a hole in the ice or the other end of the ice to emerge into open water but the little seal is not quite so lucky.

[00:48:25]The little seal um is holding its can only hold its breath for so long, not long enough to reach the other end of the ice.

[00:48:34]So, what does the mother seal do?

[00:48:37]Well, of course, they go down into the water and they start swimming together. And when the little seal would be about to run out of breath, we've observed the mother seal blowing an air bubble onto the roof of the ice sheet that the little pup is able to then breathe from.

[00:48:56]It almost seems like it shouldn't work.

[00:48:59]It seems like it's, you know, it's too too almost like a video game.

[00:49:05]It's too good to be true but it we have seen it. They blow a little bit of air onto the roof of the of the ice sheet and watch as and we can see as the little seal pecks away at it and gets a couple more minutes of air and then they keep moving.

[00:49:21]It's almost yeah, I say it's like a video game. It's almost like when you're playing a platformer and you find a bubble in an underwater level and you refresh your breath meter. It seems ridiculous but this is this is what these animals are doing in order to survive.

[00:49:38]So, that's the Weddell seal.

[00:49:41]What other seals do I like? There's a few of them.

[00:49:47]Oh, yes.

[00:49:48]Another particular breed of pinniped that is extremely famous right now is the sea lion. I'm going to level with you guys. I've tried researching this, but I don't really understand it.

[00:50:00]Sea lions look a lot like fur seals.

[00:50:06]And fur seals are seals, but seal but sea lions are not seals.

[00:50:11]I still don't really know what the difference is. I believe fur seals are slightly smaller, but fur seals look a lot more like sea lions than seals to me.

[00:50:20]So, we talked about true seals earlier.

[00:50:22]True seals have those very big round bodies, and they have no ear flaps, and they have those tiny little front flippers.

[00:50:31]Sea lions on the other hand do have little flappy ears, and they have much longer, stronger front flippers, which allow them to be a lot more agile on land. There's no need for them to galumph by shuffling forward on their bellies. They can actually run at a decent speed.

[00:50:48]They can actually run at a decent speed on land, although of course they are much more agile in the water.

[00:50:53]What I find particularly interesting about sea lions is of course I gave you guys a YouTube short a little while ago about how at one point they were believed to be a bad omen by sailors.

[00:51:04]There was a a ship in the 1800s, I believe, where their captain heard a sea lion making those big loud noises for three straight hours and believed that it was a mother sea lion that must have been separated from its child.

[00:51:19]Ever since returning back, and ever since that ship was 1 week later hit by an enormous wave, the sailors passed this story on that sea lions were an ill omen and that they were, you know, the animal form of a witch or some other mythological creature that had cursed them.

[00:51:35]But nowadays we know that that just these lovely creatures.

[00:51:38]In the wild, sea lions can be aggressive, but much like other pinnipeds they are mostly just curious.

[00:51:44]If you show that you're not a threat to them, it's very unlikely that they will attack you.

[00:51:49]But of course, like we've always said, keep your distance and don't do anything stupid.

[00:51:55]Um but what we have seen is what's what's really interesting to bear in mind is that some animals do a lot better in captivity than others.

[00:52:04]Walrus, for example, don't do very well in captivity as as I found out recently.

[00:52:10]There were there have been all sorts of examples of walrus that have been very depressed in captivity. Sometimes in rescue efforts, they can be put in a good environment, and if a lot of time and effort is put into their care, then sometimes they can be have a decent quality of life.

[00:52:28]Um but sometimes they can display a lot of behavior indicative of depression in their in their species.

[00:52:36]A particular quite quite disgusting one is after eating they go up to the the glass on their tank, and they start spitting out their food and then eating it back up again because they're just bored. They sort of shove their face all over the glass, and it's it's really gross, but that's what they do. Sea lions, on the other hand, do quite well in captivity as long as they're given positive reinforcement and lots and lots of fish.

[00:52:58]If they have plenty of space, and if they're trained well, and if they are if they have a positive relationship with their trainers, then they can have a pretty high quality of life and can live just as long if not longer than they could in the wild. And this is why they've seen application in the military.

[00:53:15]A particular story I heard recently was about how there is a job posting for making video games for sea lions to play. They're so intelligent, and they learn so well that what you can teach them to do is to use a very simple set of controls to navigate a reticle around a screen, and that they can target and press a button essentially to play a very primitive shooter game almost.

[00:53:40]And of obviously, whenever they beat this game, they're rewarded with loads of yummy fish. And this is usually done for military sea lions or captive sea lions in order to enrich their lives and give them something fun to do.

[00:53:55]I'm not really an expert on the on the ethics of of sea lion captivity. I've done enough research to know that a lot of them have quite a high quality of life, and this is a part of that. It's entertaining and fun for them, and then of course when they win, they get rewarded with loads and loads of food.

[00:54:11]Which of course they would, you know, obviously have access to anyway.

[00:54:17]Um they in particular, something we we've talked so much about vocalization, and we've talked about walruses being able to whistle, seals making where and air and all of those sorts of noises, and sea lions might have some of the most famous vocalizations of all because they're very very noisy.

[00:54:37]They sort of have this they have this almost it's kind of kind of like a dog barking, but not really. It's this you know, the sort of er er er er.

[00:54:48]They're very they they just they they they seem like they have a great sense of humor.

[00:54:54]But funnily enough, I think that ever since learning about sea lions through all of these funny videos online and then doing so much research on the internet, I feel like I know less about sea lions than I do about all the other pinnipeds, and there's so much left that I really really want to be able to learn.

[00:55:12]They have these fascinating lives, and the fact that they can display so much curiosity and interest in human beings, and can in some instances be so gentle with us, is really really brilliant to me. And it's part of what makes me feel so interested in them.

[00:55:40]Ethically ambiguous, I think, is a good way of describing it cuz they might be perfectly happy in captivity when given loads of food, but do we know that they wouldn't necessarily be doing better in the wild? We really have no way of knowing.

[00:55:54]Now, there's another animal I'd really like to talk about, but it's not a pinniped.

[00:56:00]So, you'll have to forgive me for that.

[00:56:01]But in my mind, when I see these two animals side by I see these family of animals and then this one side by side, I feel like they look similar enough.

[00:56:09]So, I always think of them in the same um in the same sort of What is it? This is the in this in the same breath they always feel the need to bring them up.

[00:56:19]So, these animals are not pinnipeds.

[00:56:21]They're part of another member another line called um Oh, and I've lost it. I've lost it. Hang on a minute.

[00:56:39]What are they called?

[00:56:41]What is the line that they're a part of?

[00:56:44]Sirenia.

[00:56:45]Sirenians, known as manatees.

[00:56:49]Manatees aren't pinnipeds. They're actually closer related to elephants, but they have the same sort of fun vibe, you know? They're fat-looking even though they don't have a lot of blubber.

[00:57:02]They are actually quite lean even though they look very fat. They don't have hind flippers and instead have one huge back fin that they use to move around the swamps. They're known affectionately as the sea cow because all they do is run along the bottom of the seabed, and they eat loads and loads of seagrass and seaweed and other plants that you might find on the on the ocean floor.

[00:57:28]They are native to parts of South America, Florida, and Africa, and the and the manatee is fascinating to me for the fact that they, as a species, are some of the least dangerous and most friendly animals that you could possibly meet.

[00:57:46]In history, usually you would imagine that a wild animal would have some recorded example of them hurting someone or fighting someone or maybe even killing or hunting someone, but the manatee has never been recorded.

[00:58:05]Oh, we have them in the Philippines, too. That's very interesting. Um I didn't know that, but there you go.

[00:58:10]We're all learning something today.

[00:58:12]Now, manatees have never in history been recorded harming a human being in any way, shape, or form. In fact, what we believe is that manatees have no concept of hostility whatsoever.

[00:58:29]They simply don't understand what it means to feel threatened. They have no natural predators. They have no no nothing to watch out for. The only real danger to them is making sure that they can make their way to somewhere warm in the water for the winter so that they can stay warm and protect their young and human beings.

[00:58:51]Now, human beings are usually very friendly with manatees, and they're very friendly with us. But there's a reason why it's completely illegal to pet them because if you pet a manatee, they tend to get they they love it, and they really want to seek out more affection like that. This unfortunately leads them to places that humans like to exist and places where humans like to pilot their boats, and boats are the main thing that threatens the manatee population. Most manatees that you'll see will have large scars from boat propellers that they've sadly bumped into.

[00:59:26]And many of them die from having these unfortunate interactions with human beings. So, if you do run into a manatee in the wild, it's very important, once again, that you observe them from a distance. But, I do love seeing uh videos and photos of divers who go to interact with manatees, and the manatees come up sometimes and they hug you. They will hug your leg, and you can't pet them back, but sometimes they're just these huge, very, very gentle creatures that have no idea about what um you know, messing with you would ever possibly be like. Seals, sea lions, walrus, all of it, they might be curious about humans, they might want to check you out, they might want to figure out what's going on, but they are predators at the end of the day. They have every ability to cause you harm, and if you threaten them, if you cause them any harm yourself, then they could defend themselves. Manatees, not so much. They Their teeth are only really capable of grinding um herbs and uh not herbs, but you know, herbivorous matter, sea plants down so that they can eat them. Their teeth couldn't really do any damage to you even if they tried. The only way that they could possibly hurt you is if you somehow got one on land and it fell on you, but they're not you know, they're they're not really wanting to come out of the come out of the ground uh come out of the water, rather.

[01:00:44]You know, I'm feeling very thirsty while I'm talking about all of this, interestingly enough.

[01:00:49]And the fun part about that is that manatees are also very thirsty.

[01:00:53]You see, they spend a lot of time in um I believe they spend a lot of time in salt water environments, and yet they can only drink fresh water. So, you have some videos that you can find of manatees um lying on their backs and then popping their mouths open and people giving them a drink of water out of their water bottle because these manatees are getting really thirsty. They're surrounded by water, uh and yet water, water everywhere, not a drop for them to drink. Um but, it's quite sweet to think that that's uh you know, probably one of the best ways, if you had to interact with a manatee, just giving it a little drink is probably the best thing that you could that you could do. Although, always consult with an expert first.

[01:01:40]I don't believe it'd be more I don't believe it'd be um as dangerous as petting them, but you're better you're better check your facts to make sure.

[01:01:50]The sea is filled with all kinds of really fascinating life forms. There is so much that we don't know, so much that I wish we could know, so much research that is difficult for us to even think of doing.

[01:02:05]Something that will always stick with me is the fact that the oceans uh still unexplored relative to outer space. We know more about the solar system than we do about our own ocean.

[01:02:20]Uh we can scan it, uh we can understand how deep it goes, but in terms of ocean life, there is so much that we don't know, and there are most likely millions of animal species that we have never encountered before.

[01:02:36]And I I think about this, and I wonder why why can't we just send some probes down and really really try to figure out what's down there and really map the bottom of the ocean floor, but apparently it would be too costly and uh too big of an undertaking. We just don't have the technology for it yet. Which is fascinating, which is brilliant to me because I I've been around long enough to have seen uh so much new technology be invented, and now it just sort of feels like what we're inventing is on par with um everything we've always had.

[01:03:08]It sort of feels like we're inventing stuff for our own sake now, just uh for the sake of inventing it.

[01:03:15]But, the idea that there could be a major discovery and that could reveal the secrets of the ocean to us, maybe in our lifetimes, most likely in mine, it makes me very excited.

[01:03:27]But, I hope that it um that it doesn't take too long. And I hope that when we do discover what else is down there, that potentially we have the um the wherewithal and the knowledge and the really the self-awareness to take a step back and remember that we share the Earth with these animals.

[01:03:50]Even if we don't understand them, even if they might be something even if they might be cute to us, even if we might see ourselves in them.

[01:04:02]The biggest thing that we can learn, that you human beings can learn as a species, is how to coexist with something that you don't get to own.

[01:04:14]There's no way that you could ever have one of these animals as a pet.

[01:04:19]You should never, even if you had some insane, huge indoor swimming pool that you could put a pet sea lion in.

[01:04:28]There's no way that you could manage to keep one as a pet.

[01:04:34]The fascination we have comes from being able to share a space with these animals even for a little while.

[01:04:42]It's a dream of mine to swim not just with seals, but also with whales as well.

[01:04:49]And I would never want for an animal like that to be stuck somewhere that it would be taken away from its own kind.

[01:04:57]But, oftentimes going to pets is the first thing that we think of.

[01:05:02]There's no such thing to many people as having a relationship or a friendship with a wild animal. Um they must be owned, and that's something that needs to change.

[01:05:15]It's perfectly possible to befriend animals. A lot of them tend to respond very, very well um to human companionship. In particularly, um they're not a marine animal at all, but it makes me think about uh crows and how if you're friendly with a crow, they will remember your face, and they might even bring you little gifts, and you can teach them to bring you other people's money and all kinds of things like that. There are plenty of animals out there that are more than intelligent enough not only to survive in the wild, but also to have a strenuous and fascinating learning relationship with human beings. We just have to give them the space and to remember that we have our own lives, and they have theirs.

[01:05:57]We might have to go to work the next day, and they have to look for food the next day.

[01:06:03]It's something that I've sort of come to think.

[01:06:06]I truly don't believe, even though you and I have such a remarkably complex way of communicating with our languages, I truly don't believe that in terms of raw intelligence that these animals are any less capable of forming a grand civilization than we are.

[01:06:27]If any of these animals could communicate on the level that we can, and if they had opposable thumbs, I think that we might be sharing the planet with something a lot more capable of fighting back. So, why don't we take a while to think about what we've done, to think about our place on the planet, and to learn how to better share it, rather than take it all for ourselves.

[01:06:51]That's about all uh that I've managed to learn about pinnipeds in recent years, and there's an awful lot more that I have to learn.

[01:07:00]I'm not an expert, but maybe I'd like to be. Life is long, and there's an awful lot of learning that I might be able to do.

[01:07:08]So, maybe one day I'll I will be able to come in and say, I am an expert, and maybe you can trust everything I say.

[01:07:15]But, for now, I'm just a guy who likes to read facts off the internet and share them with people that he loves.

[01:07:24]And I hope that that's something that you've been able to learn a little bit from.

[01:07:27]To those of you who are still awake, I hope that you have had um a wonderful time learning with me. Uh and to those of you that are asleep, I hope that you have nodded off, and maybe you're having dreams of swimming with some of our closest friends in the ocean.

[01:07:46]But, remember, even if you get to swim with them in your in your dreams, and even if maybe in your dreams, you're keeping them as a pet, all you have to do is observe these animals from a distance, give them their space, give them their place to roam free and to be among their own kind, and we can learn just as much from them as they can from us.

[01:08:09]Good night now.

[01:08:10]I'll see you all very soon, and hopefully, we'll get a chance to learn a little more together next time.