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GORDON BUCHANAN HAS a job that most of us would dream about. He’s a wildlife cameraman, so he gets to travel the world, see amazing animals, and make great TV shows about the process.
Hang out with polar bears all day and get paid? Colour us jealous (but a little scared, admittedly).
Buchanan is getting ready to head around Ireland for a few weeks of talks this month, when he will give Irish audiences a glimpse into his experiences working with some incredible animals.
Over a career already spanning 20 years, he has travelled to parts of the world we can only dream of. And it all started off by accident.
“I was working in a restaurant at the weekend on the summer holidays,” recalls Buchanan. It just so happened that the owner was a wildlife cameraman. “I’d never considered it as a job and I got to know him and I was absolutely fascinated by what he does.”
They got on well, and the cameraman offered Buchanan an opportunity to join him – so the young lad couldn’t say no.
Having “arsed around in school”, becoming a cameraman was a way of seeing the world.
Buchanan grew up on the Isle of Mull, which is a fairly remote part of Scotland. “There wasn’t much to do and I absolutely loved exploring the world about me and seeing the animals that lived alongside us,” he remembers.
Meeting the animals
This sense of curiosity is what must drive him to keep exploring the planet. What’s it like filming animals around the world? “A lot of the time you’re trying to hide,” he says.
“There are occasions when there’s animals that can completely ignore you and you are able to ignore the environment and watch them do what they do naturally,
and then occasionally animals cross the line and they want to engage with you some way… it’s a great privilege to get to spend time with animals.”
The one thing he had always wanted to do was film polar bears in the Arctic – but he didn’t get to achieve this lifetime’s aim until 2012. When he did get there, he met them at a critical time, after sea ice melted early, due to climate change. “When we got there we thought, ‘this isn’t a good time to film polar bears’, but really it was because it showed them what they faced.”
“I don’t even have to remind myself how lucky I am to be doing the job that I’m doing,” acknowledges Buchanan. “I think if you go complacent or tired of doing it, it would be time to give up. There are so many fascinating places and fascinating people that every time I go away I do feel completely blessed.”
Even when things like this happen…
Changing attitudes
In recent years, Buchanan has become hugely interested in the environment, and the human race’s impact on the world around it.
“In the beginning, the early days, when I was just starting to get my career going it was almost a selfish thing because it was a job I desperately wanted to do,” he says. It has made him realise that as individuals, we can all impact on the world, and he wants to make sure he treads lightly on it.
“What I care deeply about is raising the awareness of places or species that are in danger and I would love to get to the end of my career and end of my life and feel I’ve done everything to possible to help the natural world.”
He says you don’t have to go to the Arctic to see the effects of climate change. Earlier this year, thousands of seabirds washed up dead along the west coast of Scotland.
“That was caused by climate change, winter warming,” explains Buchanan. “There was a freak weather event where we had these storms that lasted much longer than the amount of days they normally do.”
Buchanan knows that a lot of the “big” decisions to help the environment are going to be made at big levels. But he also believes that we can all help save the world by making small changes.
“I think all of this attitude should start at a very basic level – if you walk out of a room, switch off the lights, don’t leave the taps running.”
He drills these tips into his own kids, to make sure they’re aware. “I just look at everything I do,” he says, adding that he’s not telling people to “knit their own onesies and live in a cabin”.
“If we can all make these small differences we can put pressure on government and politicians,” he said.
The past years have seen him sort out his life-work balance, which has given him more time for causes and conservation. So far, he’s teamed up with the likes of Greenpeace, Trees for life and Scottish Wildlife to help boost their work.
Life with the snow wolves
Buchanan’s next television show is The Snow Wolf Family and Me, where he spent time with Arctic wolves.
He found them fascinating – but realised that he shouldn’t lose sight of their natural instincts. “They are an animal that have killed people in the past. But that adds to the excitement of being with the animal. You can’t switch off.”
“We do have these preconceived ideas of what bears and wolves are like,” he says. “The programme really shows them as they really are.”
Gordon will give talks around the country from 11 November: 11 November: Lyric Theatre Belfast; 12 November: An Grianan Letterkenny; 13 November: Royal Theatre Castlebar; 14 November: Station House Clifden; 15 November: Town Hall Theatre Galway; 17 November: St Michael’s Theatre New Ross; 18 November: Theatre Royal Waterford; 19 November: Glór Ennis; 20 November: Triskel Christchurch Cork; 21 November: George Bernard Shaw Theatre Carlow; 22 November: Axis, Ballymun Dublin.
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I like how he changed his hair colour to white while in the polar conditions
Smart move
What a job.I’d do it for nothing
Class job!
Rte showed the polar bear series last month, the Saturday evening nature slot. Absolutely brilliant!! I’ll be calling triskel this afternoon to secure my tickets.
More man made climate change propaganda – even though sea Ice is increasing as is the polar bear population. You can’t win with these ideologues as every event is now blamed on Climate change and our carbon sins.
Your absolutely right Paul – also.. the world is flat and we all descend from Adam and Eve!!
Jaysus, and I was just coming to terms with evolution and the earth is a big ball. Then you hit me with this. Im off back to bed.
Arctic sea has been growing so strongly since the September minimum that it has now reached the highest extent for Nov 3rd since 2001. At 9.530 million sq km, it is 97% of the 1981-2010 average. At the other pole there is now so much sea ice that penguins are in trouble as the have to travel so far to feed.
And in other news the numbers of birds at our feeder as dwindled to almost nil. Is a Sparrow-hawk consider to be an indication of ‘climate change’ ?
@Paul Creedon, this climate business has produced many many ecoloons and alarmists but why do so many of them post comments on the journal? Why are they so abusive and ignorant?
@Jack Kelly – I recommend you read the following book – you might learn something, if that’s possible!
Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians by Jeffrey burton.
Well, those who record sea ice do believe it is declining rapidly, but sure what would they know!!! Also, I wonder why all those multi-nationals are lining up to exploit the resources of the Arctic precisely because the ice is melting and they will now be able to gain access to it… This is what the National Snow and Ice Data Center says:
“Through 2014, Arctic sea ice has now been declining at a rate of 13.3% per decade relative to the 1981 to 2010 average. The ten lowest September ice extents over the satellite record have all occurred in the last ten years.”
According to the data Arctic Sea Ice is now 97% of the 1981-2010 average. The data always confounds the models even if the ecoloons cling to the models as if they were fragments of the true Cross of Jesus
Read what the NSIDC actually reports and not an imaginary view http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
Low Arctic ice is not new as the historical record shows from reports from seamen fishermen and many others who depend on the sea for their livelihoods. It is ,like climate, infinitely variable.
Interesting book Paul – would be a nice read. I have a few books to get through though!
Anyway, people who thought the world was flat remind me of people like you who think humans aren`t having a detrimental affect on the planet. And with the way things are developing, its just going to accelerate.
@Jack Kelly – the point is that no educated person throughout history ever believed that the earth is flat….Even the bible refers to a round earth and an expanding universe. If not allowing myself to be carried away by climate high priest alarmism, and politically driven post normal science makes me a denier in you & Michelle’s book then so be it…..but it does not make people like me and Fognostical uneducated on the matter -
@Jack Kelly – no educated person throughout history ever believed that the earth is flat.
@ Paul Creedon I took an OU course nearly 50 years ago to while away the hours at sea, earth sciences as it was until the Club of Rome surfaced with its religious zeal and hijacked the topic with the results we see no. Thankfully we are seeing the collapse of the scam with it’s attendant abuse of science,pal review and downright criminality as shown by the CG2 emails.
“”The common enemy of humanity is man.
In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up
with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming,
water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these
dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through
changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome.
The real enemy then, is humanity itself.”
- Club of Rome, “
@Fog – Very interesting!
And 2 more with Irish and English Uni’s since then just for the hell of it, beats Michelle’s weird website education hands down :-)
Take a look through Leonardo DiCaprio’s Facebook page and then come back to me
@Jack Kelly – yes that should be really enlightening. Will he be starring in the sequel to Al hore’s science fiction movie? While I’m at it I think I’ll also have a look at Kate Winslet’s Facebook and see what she has to say on the matter. There may be some discussion on icebergs!
Be careful about libel when you talk about downright criminality and the CG2 emails – several independent inquiries found no wrong-doing whatsoever… amazing too that the dark forces who are illegally hacking into climate scientists’ emails could only find these paltry few emails, and those were shown to have been taken out of context and no wrong-doing found at all. I know you know this.
I have no idea why you keep going on about the Club of Rome – why not focus instead on the robust evidence of the scientific community of the whole world – or are they all too in some gigantic conspiracy – thousands of them – to make up all their huge body of observations and evidence with remarkable similarity – if so, then aliens walk among us!
@Michelle – Oh Please! ….and we are supposed to be the ‘deniers’ according to you lot.
I’m referring to the emails by the way.
The less polar bears there are in my life the safer and happier I feel.
Bad news Gumbridge, Polar Bear numbers have increased so much that they have become a problem for themselves as well as humans.
Fewer
Polar Bears International confront the myth that polar bears are increasing here:
http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/about-polar-bears/what-scientists-say/are-polar-bear-populations-booming
Good news is that, even though they are increasing in numbers, they are not white. They are see-through
“That means between 2001 and 2005, due to accounting and âupgradeâ changes only, a total of 1,200 bears was removed from the minimum portion of the global estimate and 3,200 removed from the maximum portion of the global estimate, changes that had nothing to do with documented declines in subpopulations. These changes were all the result of differences in the way the data was presented (or not).
Read the data, not the alarmist interpretations.
Where has our ice gone? Did you know that we had sea-ice around the North of Ireland in the early 1800′s? Well now you do and another item of interest is that Eskimos regularly turned in in the Shetland and Orkney islands due to the Arctic Ice reaching almost to Scotland from 1700 to 1740
The records of the Royal Society and the Geological Society plus the Board of Trade Journals, records of the Hudson Bay Company are all packed with details of the waxing and waning of Arctic Ice.
“The ice which has this year surrounded the northern coast of Ireland in unusual quantity and remained there unthawed till the middle of August”
Geological Society
Well, the Geological Society is of the opinion that arctic sea ice is declining. They are also of the opinion, along with EVERY reputable national and international scientific institution in the world, that recent dramatic global warming is manmade and is a huge crisis for mankind. You differ from the scientific view in all of your posts about climate change.
” They are also of the opinion, along with EVERY reputable national and international scientific institution in the world, that recent dramatic global warming is manmade and is a huge crisis for mankind”
Wishful thinking
Again let me point out that the records of the Royal Society and the Geological Society plus the Board of Trade Journals, records of the Hudson Bay Company are all packed with details of the waxing and waning of Arctic Ice. Not opinion, details. The opinions of alarmists are just that, opinions not backed up by data.
Stop the press, polar bear in acting like a polar bear shocker!
Taken as a whole, there is no significant Arctic-wide warming evident in recent decades. According to many station records there, the warmest period was around 1940, not the `warm’ 1990s.
However in August 2000, a Russian icebreaker, the Yamal, took a group of environmental scientists on an excursion into the Arctic Ocean. When they got to the North Pole they were greeted by an expanse of open water, photographs of which became the subject of sensationalist reporting in the media.Among the scientists on the cruise was Dr. James McCarthy, an oceanographer, director of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University and a lead author for the IPCC. “It was totally unexpected,” he said in a report to the media. In the end, the New York Times retracted the story. But we should not be too quick to blame them – it was IPCC scientists aboard the Yamal, particularly James McCarthy, who first started the scare story. So there we have the IPCC ‘scientists’ scaremongering.
HMS Superb, USS Billfish, and USS Sea Devil met at the North Pole in 1987 and photos of the meeting show vast expanses of open water. But then they were Naval Ships, not greenie ideologists.
Taken as a whole, your talking nonsense. Why don’t you take a look for yourself.
Take a look at Leonardo DiCaprio’s Facebook page
PS No global warming for 18 years and 1 month.
The world’s scientific community disagrees with you!
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