(dramatic music)
- We're in Greenland
where life has always been cold and tough.
But now, there's a new kind of threat.
Climate change is hitting these places the hardest.
The people and the wildlife here
are seeing the dramatic effects of a rapidly warming world.
For the Inuit people,
hunting is an important part of their culture and survival.
Though we may not always approve of it back home,
they have survived this way for thousands of years.
I'm with expert polar explorer Sarah McNair-Landry
and our guide Akaru.
He's got something remarkable to show us.
You told me I wasn't going to get hot water
for the entire month I was here.
(Steve and Sarah laugh)
- [Akaru] It is 61.
- [Steve] 61 degrees?
- [Akaru] Yeah.
- [Steve] Check this out.
These hot springs are used by local people
to clean the carcasses of the animals they hunt.
Oh no. - Oh.
- I can pull the tusk out.
Walrus is not very common around here, is it?
Do you see many walrus?
- [Akaru] Not many.
- Not many.
Oh, that smell is absolutely horrific.
(Sarah and Akaru laugh)
Yeah, I've got to show you this.
Akaru, what do you call this?
- [Akaru] Coco.
- Coco, coco.
So, that is a very distinct part of the walrus.
In science we call it a baculum,
and it's the penis bone of the walrus.
And um, they've actually been used as weapons, as clubs.
Oh, I am going to be stinking of this
for the whole of the rest of the trip.
I didn't think this through.
(Sarah laughs)
Hidden in the dark water is something
I never thought I'd get this close to.
(Steve gasps)
Oh, wow.
That's a polar bear jaw.
- [Akuru] Yeah.
- Is this the bear?
- [Steve] Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the other jaw.
- Oh, it's the under jaw.
Is this part of that one?
- It could be, well, it's definitely the lower jaw
of a bear, and that just fits there,
underneath the zygomatic arch.
And that's it, yeah, it really brings it home to you
quite how potent a predator these are in life
when you see the skull like this.
That's really, really intimidating.
When were these bears hunted?
- In winter.
- This winter? - Yeah.
- So, all of these bears were shot
in the last two months, three months?
- Yeah.
- And there's four of them.
- Yeah.
- There is a quota, there are permits
that people are given for a certain amount of polar bears
per season, per year.
And this season that was done very, very quickly.
The people here are allowed to kill 35 bears a year.
They use them for food and clothing,
and hunting has been the way of life for generations.
Seeing these bones is difficult.
As the ice breaks up more quickly and earlier,
more and more polar bears are going to be coming
into towns looking for food.
It's inevitable, and many of those bears
are going to end up like this.
It's a tricky moment for a naturalist
to see something like this.
You know, it's very hard to put into perspective
how I feel about polar bears,
and how scared I am for their future,
and the fact that people here are hunting them
and in such numbers, but
I guess what people here take
is insignificant to the effect
that we're having on polar bears by our actions.
But we have to remember
that hunting bears and other wildlife
is a huge part of the culture
in this part of the world.
The much bigger threat to everything up here
is climate change, and that's something
we should be able to see firsthand
as we continue on our expedition,
kayaking through an arctic fjord earlier in the year
than has ever before been possible.