With more than 30 million household views, the Netflix documentary series Our Planet has become the most-watched documentary series ever. To top it off, Our Planet earned 10 Emmy nominations last week.

The eight-part series has been hailed for recognizing the proverbial elephants in the room — the climate emergency and the extinction crisis — unlike its predecessors Blue Planet and Planet Earth.

In early May, a United Nations report warned that one million species are threatened with extinction and in April Environment and Climate Change Canada reported with “high confidence” that Canada is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world.

Amidst the stunning high-resolution footage of the planet’s natural bounty in the documentary, viewers also hear startling facts about the natural world from narrator David Attenborough. During a caribou scene in the first episode, for instance, Attenborough tells the audience: “The herd has lost nearly 70 per cent of its numbers in the last 20 years.”

Our Planet took four years to complete, with more than 600 crew members filming in 50 countries across the world. The caribou scene is one of at least two scenes in the series that were shot in Canada.

WWF-Canada assisted in helping filmmakers connect with “the right situations and the right people on the ground to collect the best footage possible,” Brandon Laforest, a senior specialist in Arctic species and ecosystems for WWF-Canada, told The Narwhal.

For the narwhal scene in the documentary, Laforest guided the filmmakers through the permitting process to film near Arctic Bay, Nunavut.

“But more importantly, my job was to help them culturally navigate what they wanted to do in order to be respectful of the local people who would ultimately be providing the opportunity to film wildlife in the north,” Laforest said.

Brandon Laforest lives in Iqaluit, Nunavut, and works as a senior specialist for Arctic species and ecosystems for WWF-Canada.

The challenges of shooting on melting sea ice

Netflix released a heart-pounding behind-the-scenes sequence from the narwhal shoot, during which an Inuit guide warns filmmakers a crack in the sea ice may strand them if they don’t move quickly.

“You’re sitting on a moving platform. That’s kind of the beauty of the ecosystem there,” Laforest said. “It’s creating those migratory paths for the narwhal.”

The resulting three-minute scene in episode two is some of the first footage ever caught of narwhals underwater.

“The scene really brought forward an interesting part of narwhal,” he said. “ It’s really underwater where you get to see the face of the animal, which is important for people to connect. You get to see their shape and playfulness and the gracefulness  — and to hear them as well.”

‘Narwhal are really having a moment’

Given there are no narwhals in aquariums, it’s an animal the vast majority of people — even those living in Canada — will never see.

“I think it’s important that we bring them to the screens of people so we get growing appreciation of the conservation of narwhals,” Laforest said.

“Narwhal are really having a moment in the last few years here in Canada. … They’re growing in our cultural awareness as Canadians as a species that’s within our national boundaries.”

In the summer months, 90 per cent of the world’s narwhal can be found within Canadian territory. Rough estimates put the world population of narwhals at 123,000.

“It’s a species that we as a nation have a very big responsibility for the proper management and conservation. It’s also culturally extremely important to Inuit communities.”

Narwhals waiting at the ice edge for a crack in the ice to appear, big enough for them to swim down to access their summering grounds in Nunavut. Photo: Sophie Lanfear / Silverback / Netflix

Narwhals have ‘lived in relative isolation’ … until now

Narwhal are almost entirely dependent on auditory cues for communication, navigation and accessing food. As a result, they’ve been identified as the Arctic marine mammal most threatened by Arctic shipping.

“There’s a really high overlap with critical narwhal habitat as shippers start to eye the Northwest Passage,” Laforest said.

“We’re talking about an animal that has lived in relative isolation from the effects of industrial development and they’re now going to be exposed to potentially regular shipping,” he added.

For a whole variety of reasons, narwhals have been identified as the most susceptible Arctic marine mammal to the climate emergency.

“They have a very limited range, they have a very low genetic diversity and very specific food habits that are passed down through generations. And they also rely on sea ice.”

Less sea ice, more killer whales

A reduction of sea ice is one of the most marked effects of climate change.

“The Arctic marine food web has its basis in the sea algae that lives under the ice,” Laforest said. “You have potential really big shifts in their food web ecology.”

Another big change for narwhals is an observed increase in the number of killer whales in their territory.

“If you notice the narwhal, they don’t have that really charismatic dorsal fin on their backs that we associate with whales and dolphins,” Laforest explained. “They use a bony ridge on their backs to break thin ice to breathe.”

With declining sea ice, killer whales (which do have dorsal fins) are exploiting this new territory.

“And they are a voracious predator of narwhals,” Laforest said. “There are many threats. And that’s not even getting to the potentiality of oil and gas development and seismic testing.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=177&v=UVwYygnGkPE

The mystery of narwhals

As the narwhal comes under multiple threats, we still know relatively little about the species.

“We’re still trying to figure out what that darn tusk is for. There are a lot of theories and it’s not a one-stop answer,” Laforest said.

“There’s likely some sexual selection to it; it’s a display of health and virility as a male. But two per cent of females have a tusk, which is not typical for a sexually selected trait.”

There’s also evidence that indicates the tusk is used as a sensory organ that can sense salinity and temperature changes and recent footage showed a narwhal using its tusk to stun and eat fish at the surface of the water.

“Inuit had noted that, but it was the first time it was captured on video,” Laforest said.

Researchers are also still unsure of where exactly narwhal calve.

“We know where some of them calve, but sometimes they just show up with calves and people aren’t sure where that calf was born,” Laforest said.

“Last year, the narwhal just didn’t show up around Pond Inlet and nobody knows where they were. The community wasn’t able to harvest as many as they need.”

But of all the things we don’t know, there’s one that worries Laforest the most.

“The biggest thing we don’t know is how they’re going to react to all the changes that are being thrown at them.”

Are narwhals stressed out?

Narwhal populations seem to be relatively stabile, at least for now.

“They’re sustainably harvested by Inuit. There’s a quota system in place to ensure that harvest remains sustainable,” Laforest said.

That said, given how little we know about narwhal, keeping track of how many there are is not an exact science.

To help fill some of the knowledge gaps, Laforest is involved in a research project, in partnership with the University of Calgary and Pond Inlet Hunters and Trappers, looking at stress hormones in narwhal over time.

Using archives and harvest samples from the 1970s up until now, the researchers are trying to answer one question: are narwhals more stressed out?

Researchers are focusing on the narwhals living in close proximity to the Mary River iron ore mine on Baffin Island, which Laforest described as the largest industrial development happening in Nunavut.

The mine, one of the northernmost mines in the world, ships iron ore to markets in Europe and Asia.

“In the ice-free season, there are multiples ships every day,” Laforest said.  “What are the impacts of big industrial development on narwhal?”

Caribou herd reduced by 70%

The documentary series also showcased another charismatic Canadian species: caribou.

The caribou scenes in the first episode were filmed outside of Kuujaurpik, Quebec, and showed the Leaf River herd, one of two major herds of eastern migratory caribou in Quebec, being hunted by a pack of wolves.

The Leaf River herd has declined from a population of more than 600,000 animals in 2013 to fewer than 187,000 caribou today.

“Wherever there’s caribou, there are caribou people. We have a real duty as Canadians with this animal,” Laforest said.

Caribou in Quebec. Photo: Myloh Villaronga / Silverback / Netflix

While woodland caribou in B.C. and Alberta are in deep trouble — with Indigenous guardians resorting to penning the pregnant females in some cases — the migratory tundra caribou in the north are in slightly better shape.

“There’s still a chance to get it right with these caribou,” Larforest said.

“In the south, we created this huge fragmented landscape for caribou … and you’re left with isolated populations.”

Laforest said there’s a big opportunity to learn from the south, where landscapes have been fragmented to the extent that they create barriers to the movement of wildlife.

“No individual project is to blame. It’s the cumulative effects of multiple decisions over time. All of that together has created this irreversible effect,” Laforest said.

“We’re doomed to repeat the mistakes of the south if we don’t start looking at the landscape-level right now, rather than at the individual project level.”

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

The summer of 2017 was an extraordinarily deadly one for North Atlantic right whales, a species already hovering on the brink of extinction.

Investigations are ongoing into the cause of death of 15 right whales off the Atlantic Coast of Canada and the U.S., although it’s not too soon to point the finger at human activity, Megan Leslie, vice president of oceans for WWF-Canada, told DeSmog Canada.

“I’ve been frustrated by reports that we don’t know what’s killing these whales,” Leslie said.

“We do. We know it’s human activity. There haven’t been necropsies on all of the whales, but the ones where there have been it’s clearly been blunt force trauma from ship strikes and entanglement in fishing gear.”

As widely reported, a bizarre spat of ten whales were found dead in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in June and July. Since then another five whales have been found floating dead or washed ashore in Canada and the U.S.

There are an estimated 500 right whales, which can grow to be 50 feet long, left in the entire world.

That means the deaths represent three per cent of the global population killed in only one summer.

It’s completely unprecedented.

‘Immediate Measures’ Needed to Save Species

“It is hard to overstate how serious this problem is,” Leslie, who was the former federal NDP environment critic and MP for Halifax, said.

“People have been looking at how to rebuild this population and now with these deaths I’m quite worried that it’s no longer a discussion about how to rebuild the population, but even how to just save it.”

The federal government has introduced some new rules in response, including closing a snow crab fishery, continuing surveillance flights and implementing a temporary mandatory slow-down in the area by about one-third of average speeds.

On Aug. 30, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Dominic LeBlanc announced the government is developing a new set of rules for commercial fishing gear and practices to help prevent deadly entanglements.

But conservationists fear it might not be enough.

ICYMI: Industry Sways Feds to Allow Offshore Drilling in Laurentian Channel Marine Protected Area

“These immediate measures are desperately needed,” said Alexandra Barron, an ocean conservation manager for the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, in an interview with DeSmog Canada.

“However, our position is we need to start managing these waters much more proactively and considering the needs of endangered whales.”

North Atlantic right whale entangled in fishing ropes. Photo: NOAA News Archive 123110 via Flickr

Over 70 Per Cent of Right Whales Bear Scars from Fishing Entanglements

Right whales have been killed before in Canadian waters, but the average number of deaths was only 3.8 per year prior to 2017.

That means there’s been a potential tripling of whale casualties in a single year, a huge blow for a population that only recently rebounded from a dangerous low of under 300 whales in the 1990s.

A spokesperson for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) wrote in an e-mail that it takes scientists between six and eight weeks to receive complete results on cause of death for the whales following the necropsies and samples.

Leslie said one of the whales had been caught in fishing gear for two weeks before it died.

More than 70 per cent of North Atlantic right whales actually bear scars from such encounters.

However, due to the tragic death of a member of the Campobello Whale Rescue Team in July 2017 during a disentanglement, the DFO has temporarily suspended all disentanglement operations.

The WWF notes that between 1970 and 2006, humans were responsible of 48 per cent of the deaths of right whales, mostly due to ship strikes or entanglements.

Many Critical Habitats Still Unexplored

However, it’s less known why the whales have moved from the Bay of Fundy or off the coast of Nova Scotia to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where there’s considerably higher shipping traffic and more fishing gear.

There are some hypotheses around impacts of climate change and water temperatures, with the whales potentially following food sources. However, Barron said that right whales have been in the area and used the Gulf of St. Lawrence prior to this season. It’s difficult to draw any real conclusions without comprehensive coast-wide surveying, she said, in order to find out exactly where the whales might go.

Currently, Canada only has two designated areas of critical right whale habitat: the Grand Manan Basin and Roseway Basin. Barron said that by contrast, the U.S. has effectively designated their entire shelf waters throughout Maine and other northern states as critical habitat.

“We’re likely to see shifts in their movements in future years,” she said. “And we need to start mapping these areas of use and planning for that in the future.”

Between August 23 and 30, an expedition led by Oceana Canada used advanced exploration technology to survey much of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Robert Rangeley, director of science at Oceana Canada and key planner of the expedition, said in an interview with DeSmog Canada that much of the region is still fairly uncharted, pointing to the American Bank (located just off the Gaspé Peninsula in the Quebec portion of the Gulf of St. Lawrence).

“It’s got this official designation as an area of interest for a Marine Protected Area,” he said. “But it’s never been explored. None of these areas have been explored with cameras. We don’t really know what’s down there.”

Such a current lack of knowledge obviously impedes the ability for the federal government to craft appropriate regulations to ensure the survival of right whales and other marine mammals.

3% of World’s #Endangered #RightWhales Died This Summer, Mostly in Canada’s Unprotected Waters https://t.co/duH3p5vLHv #cdnpoli @DLeblancNB

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) September 1, 2017

Network of Marine Protected Areas Could Help Save Right Whales

And that’s where marine protected areas (MPAs) are supposed to come in.

As previously reported by DeSmog Canada, the federal government is aiming to protect 10 per cent of marine areas by 2020. However, proposed regulations for the Laurentian Channel MPA in the Gulf of St. Lawrence are under serious fire as they currently allow for potential offshore oil and gas exploration and drilling.

Conservationists suggest that a critical way to protect right whales is via the MPA network.

ICYMI: Canada Has Three Years to Increase Protected Areas by 60% And, Um, It’s Not Going to Be Easy

“These processes have been to this point very, very slow,” Barron said. “We need to start moving more quickly on these processes and identifying those potential areas where we may see whales: even if we’re not seeing them this year, that might be where they go next year, and we need to start making sure those sites are properly protected for the whales long into the future.”

Allowing oil and gas activities in the region would result in a series of catastrophic impacts, including increased marine traffic and chances of ship strikes, destruction of zooplankton and other food sources, contamination of food webs with toxic waste and a much higher chance of oil spills.

Unless the federal government protects such areas with strict regulations, there’s no real guarantee that this year’s death toll will be anomalous in the future.

“The deck is stacked against these whales,” Leslie concluded. “There’s so much coming at them, we’ve just got to figure out a way to help them survive.”

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.