Estebane Rezkallah
The Whale’s Raft
Bears on a whale carcass, Greenland, 2024
Category - Polar Wonders
‘Misfortune for one brings joy for another.’ The saying is cruel, but is often true in the wild, and is the case here with these polar bears taking advantage of the death of a whale. Attracted by the smell, about thirty bears out of the roughly 68 recorded in the area gathered at the scene to share the carcass of a 14-metre whale (around 50 tonnes), near the mouth of Scoresby Sund in Greenland. Captured on film for the first time in this part of the world (East Greenland is inaccessible at this time of year, all the more so because of the accelerated melting of the ice), this behaviour is unusual in terms of current ethological data. Usually solitary predators, the bears found themselves in close proximity to their peers, apparently without feeling the need to fight or ward off competitors. In this extreme environment, such an opportunity allows each individual (male, female and cub) to start the summer with a full belly.
150-600 mm f/5-6.3 Lens - 1/2000 sec at f/9 ISO 400