National Geographic photographer's surprise encounter with deadly predator

So he's responsible for four days worth of dead penguins? :-)

Come on. The leopard seal was just trying to fatten you up before eating you.

Baert7D I completely agree with you. This "music" in particular is an unfortunate nuisance

@ 31 sec and onward there shows another guy filming the story. what im worry about is the narrator tells some horrific stories WITHOUT any shots from the person filming. though i cant say it's an add-on fake story but proofs of his further sayings should be accompanied by video or photo in journalistic style. :(

Awesomestory! Fascinating instinct behavior, great images.

(Just a footnote: Being a musician myself, I HATE it when producers abuse music to pump drama into their documentary material, up to a level where A) the music gets in the way of the voice-over, and B) the music consists of 'kitsch' material (in this case a kind of jungle blurb never ever to be heard in the arctic zone).
[/rant off] )

That is worth every micro second of it!

That is fascinating! I think I would've taken a bite out of the penguin, however, just to make the leopard seal happy. Better that than to have her angry and disgusted at you for refusing the free meal. :)

Many people don't give animals enough credit for their intelligence, and the fact that certain species can have individual personalities almost in the same way we do. I'm sure there are "a-hole" Leopard Seals, too.... this one just happened to be a "softy". Good for the diver and those of us who get to see the pics... not so good for the Penguins, as apparently even softy Seals like to eat them.

A female scientist was killed by a leapord seal several years ago. She was scuba diving while attacked. Leapord seals are extremely dangerous

Cool!

I'd like a girlfriend like that.

Congratulations to the photographer!

all I can say is....wow!

:(

So the headline here should be Nat Geo photographers cause penguin deaths for fun and proffit?

Unhappy Feet!

The seal is pretty stupid but not that stupid. What would you do if you had plenty of soft fluffy tasty little penguins everywhere ( so many you could give'em away to divers ! ) on one side and this diver with all sorts of rubber sheets and tubes and glass and metal on the other side? It is an easy option.

I wonder what the caring sharing animal would have done if there were no penguins about and if Nicklen was naked like the poor penguins.

Because Nicklen knows that sea leopards do not kill humans for fun. Nearly never.

Fascinating! A wild predator offering peaceful coexistence in its habitat. That's some intelligence there.

Must be a Nikon :)

wicked awesome! he must have a really good camera! ;) ;) ;)

Good thing - leopard seal probably thought that it was swimming with some oddly shaped black seal :)
Bad thing - sharks think in same way too..

Coooool! And the story just keeps getting better and better. Well not so much for the penguins being used as feeding examples...