FIELD NOTES
Field director Lucy Wells on the Indonesian community helping the world’s biggest fish.
“I had not seen a whale shark in the wild before,” reflects Lucy Wells, “so, when I saw our first one, I was like a kid at Christmas.
They look beautiful from the surface, but underwater they were something else. I was as big as their tail fin – nobody can prepare you for that! They generally ignore you when in the water with them. With eight of these giants swimming around, you inevitably get bumped.
But it was not only the shark that made this film trip special. I spent some time on the bagans [sea fishing
platforms] getting to know the fishermen. They were incredibly gentle and lovely men of various ages, who spent almost their entire lives on these platforms. Though we didn’t share a language, most communication was by hand signals or through a translator, and from sitting side by side with them as they fed the sharks, to watching Bruce Lee films (in Chinese) together, and showing them the footage we’d just shot (to their great delight), it was a true privilege and one I’ll never forget.”
snow regularly accumulates on the Japanese Alps of Honshu Island, where a record-breaking 11.82m fell on the slopes of Mt Ibuki on 14 February 1927.
Brass monkeys
The world’s highest mountains, the Himalayas, form a natural barrier between the tundra, taiga and steppe to the north and the tropical and subtropical deserts, grasslands, forests and islands in the south, but it was the mountain forests of China’s Shennongjia National Park that attracted the Asia production team. Here, they encountered one of the world’s rarest primates – the golden snub-nosed monkey. It might seem odd that monkeys can survive in winter temperatures that drop regularly below zero, in a place that sees snow on at least five months of the year, but here they are living at altitudes up to 3,400m. Feeding on lichens and whatever the forest offers each season, they withstand the coldest average winter temperatures of any nonhuman primate. They wander about in family groups and, in summer, several groups might merge, so over 100 monkeys are on the move together. In winter, with scarce resources, harmony breaks down and males might even come to blows. Missing tails indicate these fights can be extremely violent. The odd thing, though, is that these monkeys hate to get their hands cold, so they walk upright in the snow, looking to all the world like abominable snowmen. Could they be the original yetis?
In the seriously hot parts of southwest Asia, the Asia team discovered a very unusual creature. Living in rocky outcrops in Iranian deserts is a snake – not unusual in itself, but this snake has the most bizarre adaptation. The spider-tailed horned viper has a tail that ends in a bulb bordered by appendage-like scales, that looks and moves just like a spider. The snake moves its tail so the bogus spider comes alive, and when a bird flies down to catch it, the snake’s lightning strike means goodbye bird.
Fishermen’s friends
In southeastern Asia, beyond the mainland, are the islands of Indonesia, and on the north coast of New Guinea is a very special place. Cenderawasih Bay is a 300km-wide bay with vast coral reefs. But it was not corals that the crew had come to see. It was the world’s biggest fish – the whale shark.
A conservation success story, the whale sharks, up to 10m long on average, visit the bay for a free food handout. They are gentle filter feeders with an appetite for plankton, krill and small fish, and the Cenderawasih sharks get their fish from local fishermen, who fish from platforms in the sea, known as bagans. They lower huge nets down to a depth of about 18m at dusk. Floodlights at the surface attract millions of an anchovy-like fish, the ikan puri, into the net.
But not all go to market. Some fish are left in, and the whale sharks suck them out through the mesh or are handfed by the fishermen. They believe the sharks bring them good luck. A spin-off, of course, is that the sharks are cherished and protected. In fact, the Indonesian government has given the bay protected status as a national park, a real and positive contribution to whale shark conservation.
With scarce resources, harmony breaks down and the monkeys come to blows. Missing tails show the fights can be extremely violent.