"My Octopus Teacher" is a captivating documentary that tells the extraordinary story of a filmmaker's unique bond with an octopus in a South African kelp forest. This heartwarming film takes viewers on an emotional journey, highlighting the importance of connection with nature and the lessons we can learn from the creatures that inhabit our oceans. The filmmaker, Craig Foster, immerses himself in the underwater world, documenting his daily visits to observe the octopus as it navigates the challenges of its environment. Throughout the film, viewers witness the intelligence and adaptability of this remarkable cephalopod, as well as the profound impact of the natural world on our well-being.
In an educational yet natural tone, "My Octopus Teacher" invites us to reflect on our relationship with the environment and the importance of conservation. The film emphasizes the value of patience and respect in observing wildlife, encouraging audiences to appreciate the beauty of marine ecosystems. As Foster builds trust with the octopus, the film beautifully illustrates the emotional connections that can exist between humans and animals, reminding us of our shared existence on this planet.
In addition to its emotional depth, "My Octopus Teacher" also serves as a reminder of the pressing need to protect our oceans. The stunning cinematography and storytelling make this documentary a must-watch for nature lovers and anyone interested in the intricate connections between species.
**Hashtags:** #MyOctopusTeacher, #NatureDocumentary, #OceanConservation
**Keywords:** My Octopus Teacher, octopus bond, Craig Foster, nature documentary, marine life, emotional connection, ocean conservation, underwater exploration, wildlife film, kelp forest.
In an educational yet natural tone, "My Octopus Teacher" invites us to reflect on our relationship with the environment and the importance of conservation. The film emphasizes the value of patience and respect in observing wildlife, encouraging audiences to appreciate the beauty of marine ecosystems. As Foster builds trust with the octopus, the film beautifully illustrates the emotional connections that can exist between humans and animals, reminding us of our shared existence on this planet.
In addition to its emotional depth, "My Octopus Teacher" also serves as a reminder of the pressing need to protect our oceans. The stunning cinematography and storytelling make this documentary a must-watch for nature lovers and anyone interested in the intricate connections between species.
**Hashtags:** #MyOctopusTeacher, #NatureDocumentary, #OceanConservation
**Keywords:** My Octopus Teacher, octopus bond, Craig Foster, nature documentary, marine life, emotional connection, ocean conservation, underwater exploration, wildlife film, kelp forest.
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TVTranscript
00:00:30A lot of people say an octopus is like an alien, but the strange thing is, as you get
00:00:44closer to them, you realize that we're very similar in a lot of ways.
00:00:54You're stepping into this completely different world.
00:01:01It's such an incredible feeling, and you feel you're on the brink of something extraordinary.
00:01:17But you realize that there's a line that can't be crossed.
00:01:47It's quite a long time ago now, that day when it all started.
00:02:17This place, on the tip of Africa, is known as the Cape of Storms.
00:02:35My childhood memories were completely dominated by the rocky shore, the intertidal, and the
00:02:40kilt forest.
00:02:47We had this little wooden bungalow, literally below the high-water mark.
00:02:52So when those huge storms used to come in, the ocean used to smash the doors down and
00:02:58fill up the bottom of the house.
00:03:05So it was incredibly exciting as a child to literally live in the force of that giant
00:03:10Atlantic Ocean.
00:03:20Most of my childhood was spent in the rock pools, diving in the shallow kelp forest.
00:03:30That's what I most loved to do.
00:03:36As an adult, I'd been separated from that.
00:03:41And that was fine at first, until I went to the central Kalahari, about 20 years ago.
00:04:00I was making a film called The Great Dance with my brother, and then I met these men
00:04:06who were probably some of the best trackers in the world.
00:04:13To watch these men go into these incredible subtle signs in nature, things that my eye
00:04:21couldn't even see, and then follow them, sometimes for hours, and find hidden animals
00:04:28The landscape was just extraordinary to witness.
00:04:34I mean, they just were inside of the natural world.
00:04:41And I could feel I was outside.
00:04:46And I had this deep longing to be inside that world.
00:04:58I went through two years of absolute hell.
00:05:06I'd been working hard for a long time, and I'd just worn myself out.
00:05:13I hadn't slept properly for months.
00:05:17My family was suffering.
00:05:22I was getting sick from all the pressure.
00:05:28My mind couldn't deal with all that stuff.
00:05:33And I didn't want to see a camera or an edit suite ever again.
00:05:37I couldn't even face that.
00:05:43Your great purpose in life is now just in pieces.
00:05:52And you've got this young child that's growing up, Tom.
00:06:01I just couldn't, in that state, be a good father to my son.
00:06:10I had to have a radical change.
00:06:15And I took inspiration from my childhood, and I took inspiration from these master trackers
00:06:21that I'd worked with in the Kalahari.
00:06:26And the only way I knew to do it was to be in this ocean.
00:06:36In the beginning, it's a hard thing to get in the water.
00:06:41It's one of the wildest, most scary places to swim on the planet.
00:06:52The water drops to as low as eight, nine degrees Celsius.
00:07:00The cold takes your breath away.
00:07:08And you just have to relax.
00:07:14And then you'll get this beautiful window of time of ten, fifteen minutes.
00:07:20Suddenly, everything feels okay.
00:07:33The cold upgrades the brain,
00:07:37because you're getting this flood of chemicals every time you immerse in that cold water.
00:07:45Your whole body comes alive.
00:07:50And then, as your body adapts, it just becomes easier and easier.
00:08:02And eventually, after about a year, you start to crave the cold.
00:08:20What's so amazing about this environment is you're in a three-dimensional forest,
00:08:26and you can jump off the top and go wherever you want.
00:08:31You're flying, basically.
00:08:37You might as well be on another planet.
00:08:42You might as well be on another planet.
00:08:50You naturally just get more relaxed in the water.
00:08:56You get to be able to hold your breath for longer.
00:09:04Having a scuba tank in a thick kelp forest is not optimal for me.
00:09:12I want to be more like an amphibious animal.
00:09:24Instinctively, I knew not to wear a wetsuit.
00:09:32If you really want to get close to an environment like this,
00:09:38it helps tremendously to have no barrier to that environment.
00:09:51And I suddenly realized I've got energy to take images and film again.
00:09:57And then picked up my camera again and started doing the thing I love and what I know.
00:10:08Animals are extremely exotic and strange.
00:10:27It's like much more extreme than our maddest science fiction.
00:10:38I remember that day when it all started.
00:10:46I found this very, very special area
00:10:50that is protected with a big piece of kelp forest.
00:10:54It's a very, very special area.
00:10:58It's a very, very special area.
00:11:03I found this very, very special area that is protected with a big piece of kelp forest.
00:11:09Because the forest itself actually dampens the swell.
00:11:22And the whole forest around there is absolutely murky and you can't see a thing.
00:11:26And in this little 200-meter patch, you can dive and observe.
00:11:32It's an incredible place.
00:11:42I remember there was this strange shape to my left.
00:11:46I'm just going down and seeing this really strange thing.
00:12:02I remember there was this strange shape to my left.
00:12:11The fish even seem to be confused.
00:12:23And then suddenly...
00:12:32At the time, I didn't know I'd witnessed something extraordinary.
00:12:36At the time, I didn't know I'd witnessed something extraordinary.
00:12:41I come in at the end of a whole drama.
00:12:49You think, what on earth is this animal doing?
00:12:55And I think she was a little bit afraid of me,
00:13:00because she had this incredibly slippery piece of algae that you can hardly hold with your hands.
00:13:04I just wrap it in this extraordinary cloak around her
00:13:08and then stare at me out of the little gap.
00:13:19And then, boom, you know, she was gone.
00:13:30And then, boom, you know, she was gone.
00:13:45It's a hard thing to explain, but sometimes you just get a feeling
00:13:50and you know there's something to this creature that's very unusual.
00:13:56There's something to learn here.
00:14:04There's something special about her.
00:14:17And then I had this crazy idea, what happens if I just went every day?
00:14:21What happens if I never missed a day?
00:14:26What happens if I never missed a day?
00:14:35And initially, she was clearly being affected by my presence.
00:14:39So I thought, oh, I'll just leave the camera there
00:14:42and then that will record her going about her business.
00:14:49She sees this shiny new thing in the forest.
00:14:56Coming at it with a shield, just in case it attacked and put up the shield.
00:15:07This is now something different, this is interesting.
00:15:12Touching it, feeling it, tasting it.
00:15:20Sometimes if you're in a playful mood, you couldn't leave it there for too long.
00:15:24And she'd just pull the thing over.
00:15:42It took going in every day to really get to know her environment better.
00:15:49Initially, it all just seems like much of the same thing.
00:15:55But then after a while, you see all the different types of the forest.
00:16:01You get the old growth forest.
00:16:06You get the forest with a lot of different algae growing in the bottom.
00:16:12You get the misty forest.
00:16:16And then you get the dry forest.
00:16:24As I started to map the environment around her den,
00:16:29it was shocking to see small caves really close to her, packed with pajama sharks.
00:16:37And they really are her most serious predator.
00:16:42Their skin is striped, that's what they call a pajama shark.
00:16:49They're not visual predators, but they have an incredible sense of smell.
00:16:59And they are particularly aggressive.
00:17:03They can shove their noses into a small crack.
00:17:09So they are deadly little octopus predators.
00:17:15And I was thinking, well, how long before something happens with these animals?
00:17:20After visiting her more and more and more,
00:17:25there was a definite moment where I felt like I was going to die.
00:17:32I was going to die.
00:17:35I was going to die.
00:17:38I was going to die.
00:17:41I was going to die.
00:17:44I was going to die.
00:17:46There was a definite moment where that fear subsided tremendously.
00:17:59She'd see a big movement and she'd be slightly afraid, and then, look, oh, it's him.
00:18:04And she'd come out and be very curious.
00:18:09Very interested, very curious, but not taking stupid chances.
00:18:15Keeping all the other arms attached to the den and the suckers in place.
00:18:33And then it just happens.
00:18:35And then it just happens.
00:18:38I'd put my hand out a tiny bit.
00:19:05I'd put my hand out a tiny bit.
00:19:13Something happens when that animal makes contact.
00:19:29But at some point you're going to have to breathe.
00:19:34So you've got to very gently prise off those suckers without disturbing her
00:19:43so that you can actually go up and take a breath.
00:19:46By far the most powerful is when it comes out the den.
00:19:51Because that's when you know there's full trust.
00:19:55There's no holding the arms back just in case I have to pull back.
00:19:59It's like, I've got to pull back.
00:20:02I've got to pull back.
00:20:04I've got to pull back.
00:20:06I've got to pull back.
00:20:08I've got to pull back.
00:20:10I've got to pull back.
00:20:12I've got to pull back.
00:20:13In case I have to pull back.
00:20:15It's like, I totally trust this human.
00:20:18And I'm coming out of the den.
00:20:21And I'm going to go about my business.
00:20:35I started to see pretty extraordinary things.
00:20:40They can look spiky.
00:20:42They can look smooth.
00:20:46Grow horns on their heads.
00:20:53They can match colour, texture, pattern, skin.
00:20:57It's beautiful.
00:21:10Most of the time she's jetting or crawling or swimming.
00:21:17But occasionally two legs come out.
00:21:24She walks.
00:21:28And off she goes, striding away.
00:21:31Walking bipedally.
00:21:39She puts her body into this strange posture that kind of looks like a rock.
00:21:47And then two of those arms underneath, slowly moving.
00:21:52So the rock is just slowly moving away.
00:22:00And then she changes into this extraordinary, wobbly, flowy old lady in a dress.
00:22:09Perhaps she's trying to mimic kelp or algae moving in the swell.
00:22:16And at the same time, slowly moving away.
00:22:21And this is how she works.
00:22:23This incredible creativity to deceive.
00:22:30An octopus is essentially a snail that's lost its shell in evolution.
00:22:34A very fragile, liquid, soft animal that relies on tremendous intelligence.
00:22:42She's got no mother or father to teach her anything. She's alone.
00:22:47She's got all these different types of predators, all hunting her.
00:22:54So over millions of years, she's had to come up with the most incredible methods to deceive them.
00:23:05And she's got to learn fast, because she's only got just over a year to live.
00:23:24When you're diving alone, everything about my kit has to be perfect.
00:23:30And I've got to be prepared for all eventualities.
00:23:33I can't be fiddling around. It's got to be totally instinctive.
00:23:42But at that point, I was making a lot of mistakes.
00:23:50One day, she was following me.
00:23:52And that's the most incredible thing, is to be followed by an octopus.
00:23:55You know, you're just backing away, moving backwards.
00:23:58And this incredible animal is coming towards you.
00:24:01And you know, there's not a lot of fear in it at all.
00:24:03It's curious, and there's this trust.
00:24:05And it's like, this is a fantastic feeling.
00:24:18And then, ah!
00:24:20Dropped one of my lenses.
00:24:23Dropped one of my lenses.
00:24:25And that thing falling quickly just startles that animal.
00:24:29And then it turns and rushes, and it's got a huge fight.
00:24:39And you just, you want to kick yourself.
00:24:42Because it's, you know, that could have ended in the most incredible interaction and deep trust.
00:24:48And you've ruined it.
00:24:49And now, you know, have you ruined it forever?
00:24:53Is that animal ever going to trust you?
00:24:55Has that experience freaked it out too much?
00:25:01And then I approached her too fast.
00:25:04And that's when she left the den.
00:25:07And got a real fright.
00:25:11And didn't come back to that den.
00:25:16And I thought this was over.
00:25:19She was gone.
00:25:35I'd had this experience with these incredible sawn master trackers.
00:25:40I just thought, I wonder if anybody could ever track anything underwater.
00:25:50This animal has spent millions of years learning to be impossible to find.
00:26:05I had to learn what octopus tracks looked like.
00:26:10And that was very frustrating at first.
00:26:12It's so difficult to discern what's the difference between octopus tracks and heart urchin tracks.
00:26:19And fish tracks.
00:26:22And worm tracks.
00:26:26And the predation marks.
00:26:30The egg casings.
00:26:34I needed to learn everything.
00:26:37And then, you have to start thinking.
00:26:40Like an octopus.
00:26:48It's like being a detective.
00:26:50And you just slowly get all your clues together.
00:26:54And then you start thinking.
00:26:56Like an octopus.
00:26:59And then you start thinking.
00:27:01Like an octopus.
00:27:03And then you start thinking.
00:27:04And you get all your clues together.
00:27:35And then I started to make breakthroughs.
00:27:44Okay, those are the animals she's killing.
00:27:55So I'm looking at kills.
00:27:57I'm looking at little marks, diggings in the sand.
00:27:59Little changes in the algal patterns where she's been moving.
00:28:03And then knowing, okay, this animal is very close now.
00:28:07It's close, it's within one or two meters.
00:28:10And then focusing on that small space.
00:28:19And then, bang.
00:28:21She's there.
00:28:22She's there.
00:28:30Finally, after looking for her for a week, day after day.
00:28:35There she was.
00:28:42It's like a human friend waving and saying hi and excited to see you.
00:28:53And I could feel it.
00:28:55From one minute to the next.
00:28:57Okay, I trust you.
00:28:59I trust you, human.
00:29:01And now you can come into my octopus world.
00:29:13And she's moving towards me.
00:29:16And my natural instinct is to gently back away.
00:29:23And then I just wanted to keep still, so I held onto a rock.
00:29:33She just kept coming.
00:29:36And then covered my whole hand.
00:29:39And I'd been underwater for quite a long time.
00:29:42So I just gently pushed for the surface, thinking she would move off my hand.
00:29:48But she didn't.
00:29:50She just rode on my hand right to the surface.
00:30:10There I was, just staring into the eyes of this incredible creature.
00:30:20And I just wanted to hold her.
00:30:41It was very difficult to imagine at first that she was getting anything out of the relationship.
00:30:45Why would a wild animal doing its thing get anything out of this strange human creature visiting?
00:30:56And this is where it gets interesting.
00:31:04I think quite stimulating for that huge intelligence.
00:31:15Somehow she realizes this thing is not dangerous.
00:31:19So you go and you interact with this human.
00:31:25And perhaps it does give you some strange octopus level of joy.
00:31:46When you have that connection with that animal and have those experiences, it's absolutely mind-blowing.
00:31:59There's no greater feeling than that.
00:32:02And I think that's what it's all about.
00:32:05It's all about the experience.
00:32:07It's all about the experience.
00:32:09It's all about the experience.
00:32:11It's all about the experience.
00:32:14There's no greater feeling on earth.
00:32:24The boundaries between her and I seem to dissolve.
00:32:31Just the pure magnificence of her.
00:32:43Hmm.
00:33:05All I could do at the time was just think of her.
00:33:10In the water and on land.
00:33:13I mean, it just became a bit of an obsession.
00:33:18You just want to visit her every single day and see what's going on.
00:33:21You can't wait to get back in the water.
00:33:28What goes through her mind?
00:33:41What's she thinking?
00:33:44Does she dream?
00:33:45If she dreams, what does she dream about?
00:34:00She just ignited my curiosity in a way that I had not experienced before.
00:34:15It's very useful to come back home and try and read as many scientific papers as possible.
00:34:23She's a common octopus, Octopus vulgaris is the scientific name.
00:34:30Two-thirds of her cognition is actually outside of her brain, in her arms.
00:34:37Her entire being is thinking, feeling, exploring.
00:34:44She's got 2,000 suckers and she's using all of them independently.
00:34:50How do you do that?
00:34:51Imagine having 2,000 fingers.
00:34:56You can compare her intelligence to a cat or a dog or even to one of the lower primates.
00:35:02A mollusk shouldn't be this intelligent.
00:35:08So many times I'd go and search through the scientific papers looking for the strange
00:35:13thing I've seen.
00:35:15Then you just come up absolutely blank, there's nothing.
00:35:21You're going into a place that's understudied and almost on a weekly basis you can find
00:35:26out something new to science.
00:35:45According to the literature, octopus are supposed to be a nocturnal species.
00:36:00Now was she more active at night?
00:36:03It's a little bit scary in the dark.
00:36:16These incredible sounds of the humpback whales coming through the water.
00:36:28You're on hyper alert.
00:36:48I couldn't find her, she wasn't in her den.
00:36:53I'd kind of given up and was going back to the shore.
00:37:01Something just made me veer slightly to the left.
00:37:09And there she is, right in extremely shallow water.
00:37:17Can't see what she's doing.
00:37:23These lightning fast strikes.
00:37:33Using her arm like this strange weapon.
00:37:38Just rolling it up in this fraction of a second.
00:37:43And I saw her catch three fish like this.
00:37:47I've never seen her catching a fish during the day.
00:37:53Super dangerous out in the deeper forest at night.
00:37:58This incredibly clever animal retreats to the shallows where it's difficult for these
00:38:02sharks to get to and takes advantage of all the wonderful food and water that's around
00:38:07and takes advantage of all the wonderful food and water that's around
00:38:37The first instinct is to try and scare the sharks away.
00:38:48But then you realise that you'll be interfering with the whole process of the forest.
00:38:56She was out of the den, moving around near the edge of the forest.
00:39:11I noticed the shark.
00:39:16I noticed the shark.
00:39:26Body was slightly hunched forward and was following the scent trail.
00:39:32This is not good.
00:39:46I think, thank God, she's safe.
00:39:48She's right under the rock.
00:39:54These things are coming right into that crack.
00:40:05And the next minute the shark is actually clamped to the rock.
00:40:11And the next minute the shark is actually clamped down on one of her arms,
00:40:16doing this terrifying death roll.
00:40:30And I can clearly see her severed arm in its mouth.
00:40:41You get that terrible feeling in your stomach.
00:41:03And thank God she managed to get really deep in that crack.
00:41:10She was moving very badly, slowly, very weak.
00:41:15She was moving very badly, slowly, very weak.
00:41:31She's bleeding. That smell's in the water.
00:41:37She's bleeding.
00:41:40She's bleeding.
00:41:42That smell's in the water.
00:41:49That's quite a distance to the den.
00:41:59Are these sharks going to pitch up again?
00:42:13I thought about helping her back physically to the den.
00:42:26But luckily I didn't need to.
00:42:43I didn't know what was going to happen to her
00:42:48or if this would make her weak and vulnerable
00:42:51and they'd finish her off that night.
00:43:01And I couldn't help feeling, had I been responsible for this?
00:43:06Was she out because I was there?
00:43:09I felt very vulnerable,
00:43:12as if somehow what happened to her
00:43:15happened to me in some strange way.
00:43:25And then this almost felt psychologically
00:43:28like I was going through a type of mental breakdown.
00:43:36A type of dismembering.
00:43:38You start thinking about your own death
00:43:41and your own vulnerability,
00:43:43worried about your family or child.
00:43:47I hadn't been a person
00:43:49that was overly sentimental towards animals before.
00:43:53I realised I was changing.
00:43:57She was teaching me to become sensitised to the other,
00:44:02especially wild creatures.
00:44:06I realised I was changing.
00:44:28Scary feeling, going into the water early the next day.
00:44:37I was very relieved that she was alive, breathing.
00:44:45She's so weak that she can't make
00:44:48those vibrant colours of a healthy octopus
00:44:51and she's just dull and white.
00:45:07And now I'm worried, how's she getting food?
00:45:17You are crossing a line
00:45:19when you interfere in the lives of animals.
00:45:22But I was just too overcome with my feelings for her.
00:45:37I don't think it really helped.
00:45:41And she's right at the back of the den,
00:45:45you know, just not moving much.
00:45:50I was just checking every day to see if she was OK,
00:45:54wondering, is this the last day?
00:45:56Am I not going to see her?
00:46:07The big relief came a week or so later,
00:46:12and I could see that it sort of healed over pretty fast.
00:46:21And then the most amazing thing,
00:46:24to see this tiny little miniature,
00:46:28perfect miniature arm,
00:46:31tiny little miniature, perfect miniature arm
00:46:36starting to grow back.
00:46:45And it gave me a strange sort of confidence
00:46:49that she can get past this incredible difficulty.
00:46:54And I felt in my life I was getting past the difficulties I had.
00:47:01In the strange way our lives were mirroring each other.
00:47:12My relationship with people, with humans, was changing.
00:47:20My son at this stage was very interested in everything underwater.
00:47:32And every day I'd tell him the stories.
00:47:42He'd seen her, he'd met her.
00:47:44I'd taken him so many times.
00:47:50And he'd said to me,
00:47:52he'd said to me,
00:47:54he'd said to me,
00:47:56he'd said to me,
00:47:58he'd said to me,
00:48:01he'd said to me,
00:48:03he'd said to me,
00:48:05he'd said to me,
00:48:07he'd said to me,
00:48:09he'd said to me,
00:48:11he'd said to me,
00:48:13he'd said to me.
00:48:19The arm becomes pretty functional even when it's half grown.
00:48:30Eventually, about a hundred days later, that arm fully regrown.
00:48:46Amazing feeling to think that this animal is capable of that and can withstand such
00:48:51an attack and fully recover.
00:49:18After a while, she was just carrying on with her normal activities, so I then started
00:49:25a whole new development of seeing even deeper into her world.
00:49:33It was a nice, calm, clear day.
00:49:41She comes around a corner and spots a crab.
00:49:49The problem when you're a crab, you're being now hunted by a liquid animal.
00:49:56She can pour herself through a tiny little crack.
00:50:08And the crab seems to sense her and goes and hides underneath a big poisonous anemone.
00:50:20And then she waits and hides.
00:50:47And then the crab thinks, okay, everything's all right, and makes the mistake of leaving
00:51:24And then the crab thinks, okay, everything's all right, and makes the mistake of leaving
00:51:25a poisonous anemone.
00:51:26And then the crab thinks, okay, everything's all right, and makes the mistake of leaving
00:51:27a poisonous anemone.
00:51:28And then the crab thinks, okay, everything's all right, and makes the mistake of leaving
00:51:29a poisonous anemone.
00:51:30And then the crab thinks, okay, everything's all right, and makes the mistake of leaving
00:51:31a poisonous anemone.
00:51:32And then the crab thinks, okay, everything's all right, and makes the mistake of leaving
00:51:33a poisonous anemone.
00:51:34And then the crab thinks, okay, everything's all right, and makes the mistake of leaving
00:51:35a poisonous anemone.
00:51:36And then the crab thinks, okay, everything's all right, and makes the mistake of leaving
00:51:37a poisonous anemone.
00:51:38And then the crab thinks, okay, everything's all right, and makes the mistake of leaving
00:51:39a poisonous anemone.
00:51:40And then the crab thinks, okay, everything's all right, and makes the mistake of leaving
00:51:41a poisonous anemone.
00:51:42And then the crab thinks, okay, everything's all right, and makes the mistake of leaving
00:51:43a poisonous anemone.
00:51:44And then the crab thinks, okay, everything's all right, and makes the mistake of leaving
00:51:45a poisonous anemone.
00:51:46And then the crab thinks, okay, everything's all right, and makes the mistake of leaving
00:51:47a poisonous anemone.
00:51:48And then the crab thinks, okay, everything's all right, and makes the mistake of leaving
00:51:49a poisonous anemone.
00:51:50And then the crab thinks, okay, everything's all right, and makes the mistake of leaving
00:51:51a poisonous anemone.
00:51:52And then the crab thinks, okay, everything's all right, and makes the mistake of leaving
00:51:53a poisonous anemone.
00:51:54And then the crab thinks, okay, everything's all right, and makes the mistake of leaving
00:51:55a poisonous anemone.
00:51:56And then the crab thinks, okay, everything's all right, and makes the mistake of leaving
00:51:57a poisonous anemone.
00:51:58And then the crab thinks, okay, everything's all right, and makes the mistake of leaving
00:51:59a poisonous anemone.
00:52:00And then the crab thinks, okay, everything's all right, and makes the mistake of leaving
00:52:01a poisonous anemone.
00:52:02And then the crab thinks, okay, everything's all right, and makes the mistake of leaving
00:52:03a poisonous anemone.
00:52:04And then the crab thinks, okay, everything's all right, and makes the mistake of leaving
00:52:05a poisonous anemone.
00:52:06And then the crab thinks, okay, everything's all right, and makes the mistake of leaving
00:52:36a poisonous anemone.
00:52:37And then the crab thinks, okay, everything's all right, and makes the mistake of leaving
00:52:38a poisonous anemone.
00:52:39And then the crab thinks, okay, everything's all right, and makes the mistake of leaving
00:52:40a poisonous anemone.
00:52:41And then the crab thinks, okay, everything's all right, and makes the mistake of leaving
00:52:42a poisonous anemone.
00:52:43And then the crab thinks, okay, everything's all right, and makes the mistake of leaving
00:52:44a poisonous anemone.
00:52:45And then the crab thinks, okay, everything's all right, and makes the mistake of leaving
00:52:46a poisonous anemone.
00:52:47And then the crab thinks, okay, everything's all right, and makes the mistake of leaving
00:52:48a poisonous anemone.
00:52:49And then the crab thinks, okay, everything's all right, and makes the mistake of leaving
00:52:50a poisonous anemone.
00:52:51Just a mass of them sort of overwhelm her, and she doesn't seem sure of what to do, how
00:53:00to deal with them.
00:53:04So I thought, yeah, this is like a real problem now.
00:53:07She's always going to have this problem of brittle stars taking all her food.
00:53:16But not that long in the future, she's thought, okay, brittle stars stealing my food, and
00:53:24has this amazing method of just picking them up with her suckers and gently just throwing
00:53:28them out the den.
00:53:32Now she's completely the boss.
00:53:44She initially adopted the same method to crab hunting with lobster.
00:53:50You just suddenly see lobsters just shooting out of the reef.
00:54:04And I'm thinking now, oh, she's definitely going to catch this one.
00:54:31Time and time again, they just evade her.
00:54:40And then a couple of weeks later, watching her coming around the side, corralling me
00:54:49so that she can then get between the lobster and myself, using me as part of her hunting
00:54:55strategy.
00:55:01Instead of that messy lunge, throwing her web over the top of me.
00:55:10And then there's nowhere for it to go.
00:55:16This is an animal that is strategizing and working out very quickly how best to hunt
00:55:27a very tricky prey.
00:55:37A lot of her intelligence is built from the sheer number of prey that she has to catch,
00:55:43all sorts of animals.
00:55:46All the mollusks she's capturing, they're quite easy to catch, but they've got these
00:55:51incredibly hard shells.
00:55:55Now, how the hell does she kill and eat them?
00:56:06At the base of all those arms, there's a drill that can drill through hard shell, and then
00:56:14drop venom in there like a snake, and see how that mollusk reacts.
00:56:23But some of these mollusks will only relax if that drill is precisely in the apex of
00:56:30the shell, the abductor muscle.
00:56:36She basically has to do geometry to work out exactly the precise spot where she needs to
00:56:42drill that shell in order to get her food.
00:56:49This is high-level invertebrate intelligence, her ability to learn and remember details.
00:57:01And it hit me how she was teaching me so much.
00:57:11I just can't wait to get up in the morning, because there's so much to do to understand
00:57:17every little tiny mark, every little behavior, every species, what they're doing, how they're
00:57:24interacting.
00:57:25People ask, why are you going to the same place every day?
00:57:37But that's when you see the subtle differences.
00:57:40And that's when you get to know the wild.
00:57:45So we know there's thousands of threads going off from the octopus to all the other animals,
00:57:51predator and prey, and then this incredible forest just nurturing all of this.
00:58:02And now I know how the helmet shell is connected to the urchin, and how the octopus is connected
00:58:07to the helmet shell.
00:58:08And as I draw all these lines, all these stories are just being thrown up.
00:58:28It's almost like the forest mind really could feel it, that big creature that was thousands
00:58:38of times more awake and intelligent than I am.
00:58:41It's like a giant underwater brain operating over millions of years.
00:58:49And it just keeps everything in balance.
00:59:05Everything seemed, at this point, sort of perfect in the forest.
00:59:16And of course, you know, you've forgotten those predators are ever-present.
01:00:05I just have this burnt-in-my-memory, this huge shark just suddenly approaching her.
01:00:21She kept still and tried to hide.
01:00:30And you just saw the shark swimming on the periphery, picking up a scent.
01:00:42And I thought, oh no, it's all nightmare happening again.
01:01:30She jets up in the canopy, and she's wrapping many leaves of kelp tightly around her body,
01:01:54and then just peering out.
01:02:21All the smells on the kelp.
01:02:23So the shark's now biting and snapping at the kelp.
01:02:45And she's shot out the back.
01:03:00She just climbs out of a rock, leaves the water, and is like...
01:03:09I just, you know, almost can't believe my eyes.
01:03:17But the problem is, of course, she's got to come back.
01:03:29On the other side, the shark picks up a scent again.
01:03:33And this crazy chase is on.
01:03:59And then I see her, in a very quick movement, picking up maybe close to a hundred shells
01:04:17and stone.
01:04:21And then folding her arms over her vulnerable head.
01:04:25And in that moment, I realized, this is this crazy thing I saw so long ago.
01:04:56Next minute, the shark grabs her.
01:05:02But I had to breathe, rush to the surface as fast as you can.
01:05:31And straight back down again.
01:05:32And it's like, okay, no, this is too crazy.
01:05:42Somehow she's managed to maneuver herself into the least dangerous place, and that's
01:05:48on the shark's back.
01:05:56And the shark tries to take her off and is swimming away.
01:06:05It takes a few seconds to figure out what the hell's going on here.
01:06:10But you can immediately tell she's now got the upper hand.
01:06:26As the shark goes near some of the thick kelp, she just pushes off the back, drops the remaining
01:06:47shells, and jets away.
01:06:54And the shark, it's just been completely outwitted.
01:07:18The shark comes, does one pass, but she's completely safe.
01:07:37There's nothing it can do.
01:07:39And it leaves.
01:07:45How she can think that quickly and make those life and death decisions, it's just pretty
01:07:53incredible.
01:08:16I was around for a good 80% of her life.
01:08:24Each moment is so precious because it's so short.
01:08:31There was this one incredible day.
01:08:34Big shoal of dream fish.
01:08:37Fairly shallow water.
01:08:41Suddenly she's reaching up for the surface like that.
01:08:51Initially I thought she's hunting the fish.
01:09:01Then I was like, hold on.
01:09:04When she hunts, she's strategic and she's focused.
01:09:14This behavior doesn't feel predatory to me.
01:09:21It took a long time to actually process it.
01:09:26But I couldn't help thinking she's playing with the fish.
01:09:44You see play often in social animals.
01:09:47Here's a highly antisocial animal playing with fish.
01:09:55It takes that animal to a different level.
01:10:10Then she completely lost interest in the fish.
01:10:13Rushed over.
01:10:17Grabbed hold of me.
01:10:30And that was the last time we had physical contact.
01:11:01If I think back, and I remember it was a very rough day,
01:11:07very turbulent.
01:11:15Sediment everywhere.
01:11:20Go down and whoa, there's another big octopus right next to her.
01:11:30It's very, very rare to see two octopuses close together.
01:11:39Oh my God, what's going on?
01:11:47And then seeing that both animals are pretty relaxed
01:11:51and realizing, okay, and the mating is beginning.
01:12:06By this stage, I knew quite well the stages of an octopus's life.
01:12:12So while I was very excited that this mating was beginning,
01:12:17there was this sort of, this dread in the bottom of my stomach.
01:12:31She wasn't coming out of that den.
01:12:33There was no more feeding, no more hunting.
01:12:39A huge part of her body is actually given to those eggs.
01:12:43She drops in weight and she loses an enormous amount of strength.
01:12:53The eggs are laid right in the back in the dark.
01:12:56It's impossible to see them.
01:13:04I just keep going every day and just check.
01:13:09She's oxygenating the eggs with her siphon, looking after them.
01:13:14She's just slowly dying and timing her death
01:13:18exactly for the hatching of those eggs.
01:13:27I mean, it struck home so hard for me.
01:13:32Here's an invertebrate, essentially a mollusk,
01:13:36taking her own life for her young.
01:13:52All those eggs hatched, they're tiny and they go into the water column,
01:13:59hundreds of thousands of them.
01:14:07And the next thing I saw, she's washed out the den, barely alive.
01:14:18And the fish, you know, feeding on her
01:14:20and a lot of the scavengers coming to feed on her.
01:14:27It was just heartbreaking.
01:14:35A part of me just wanted to hold her and chase them away,
01:14:40but I didn't do that.
01:14:55The next day, a big shark came
01:15:11and just took her away into the misty forest.
01:15:30Often I go to the place of her main den
01:15:39and I just float above it and feel her there.
01:15:44Of course I miss her.
01:15:58But, I mean, in some crazy way it was a relief.
01:16:10It was a relief because the intensity of going every day
01:16:14and tracking her and trying to capture it was tough in a way.
01:16:23I sort of slept, dreamt this animal.
01:16:29I was in my mind thinking like an octopus.
01:16:35It was also taxing in a way.
01:16:51But underneath that, this incredible pride for this animal
01:16:56that's been through impossible odds to get to this place.
01:17:03An unimaginable life.
01:17:30One of the most exciting things ever in my life,
01:17:34taking my son, walking along the shore
01:17:38and just showing him the wonders of nature
01:17:42and the details and the intricacies.
01:17:50I was getting so much from the wild
01:17:52and I could actually now give.
01:17:56I had so much energy to give back.
01:18:06He's like a little marine biologist now.
01:18:09He knows so much.
01:18:16A very powerful swimmer.
01:18:21And as he gets older, he seems to want to do it more and more.
01:18:35To see that develop a strong sense of himself,
01:18:45an incredible confidence,
01:18:49and the most important thing, a gentleness.
01:18:54And I think that's a thing that thousands of hours in nature can teach a child.
01:19:09He actually found this tiny little octopus.
01:19:19It's very rare to see an animal that small.
01:19:26They have up to half a million young.
01:19:29A handful survive.
01:19:31So it's a pretty tough road they have to walk.
01:19:35But that's their strategy.
01:19:37Live fast and die young.
01:19:44We kind of imagined that it might be one of her young.
01:19:49It's kind of the right size, the right time.
01:19:56And it was joyous.
01:19:57It was like, well, there she is.
01:20:25She made me realize just how precious wild places are.
01:20:40You go into that water and it's extremely liberating.
01:20:46All your worries and problems and life drama just dissolve.
01:21:02You slowly start to care about all the animals, even the tiniest little animals.
01:21:13You realize that everyone is very important.
01:21:21To sense how vulnerable these wild animals' lives are,
01:21:26and actually then how vulnerable all our lives on this planet are.
01:21:36That relationship with the sea forest and its creatures deepens
01:21:44week after month after year after year.
01:21:52You're in touch with this wild place and it's speaking to you.
01:21:57Its language is visible.
01:22:13I fell in love with her, but also with that amazing wildness that she represented
01:22:20and how that changed me.
01:22:37What she taught me was to feel that you're part of this place, not a visitor.
01:22:44That's a huge difference.
01:23:44© transcript Emily Beynon