Gordon Buchanan had a terrifying near-death experience with a polar bear (Picture: Jason Roberts)
BBC cameraman, Gordon Buchanan, has revealed the terrifying moment a polar bear decided he was on the menu and launched an attack.
The wildlife filmmaker has worked in the industry for over 30 years, filming much for David Attenborough’s nature documentaries.
Sitting inches from predators never fazed Gordon, 52, until one day when a huge polar bear decided to launch an attack on him.
For the Daily Mail, Gordon recalled how she had been sniffing in his direction, eyes locked on him, preparing to pounce.
‘She wasn’t stalking a seal,’ he wrote. ‘She was stalking me. As far as she was concerned, I was lunch.’
The photographer captured shocking pictures during the attack from inside the relative safety of his metal cage, called the Ice Cube.
The polar bear almost broke his protective ‘ice cube’ (Picture: Gordon Buchanan)
He managed to remain calm during the attack (Picture: Gordon Buchanan)
Through the Perspex, reinforced with aluminium edges, the polar bear’s huge teeth and paws could be seen as she desperately snapped at Gordon.
Gordon continued: ‘The bear’s breath was steaming up the plastic sheet that stood between life and death. With each of her heavy blows, the cube rocked back and forth. But it held firm.’
At one point during the attack, the bear managed to pry open a gap in the ice cube, putting her nose in and then a rather sharp claw but was still unable to reach the photographer.
Other concerns such as the ice breaking and Gordon becoming trapped in the box, drowning in the Arctic waters, flashed before his eyes.
However, the bear’s onslaught remained the most imminent fear as her 7ft stature and 500kg (79st) weight continued to — pardon the pun — bear down on him.
She continued to shake the cube, use her teeth to bend panels and swipe at Gordon with her giant paws.
Gordon’s team looked on, unable to help (Picture: Jason Roberts)
He had been filming in Svalbard following a polar bear family (Picture: BBC)
Even more astonishingly, the wildlife photographer remained reasonably calm throughout the encounter — although his heartbeat was so loud his microphone picked up each individual beat.
He continued to film, narrating the experience as if he wasn’t faced with certain death should the bear succeed in her onslaught.
Eventually, just as Gordon was certain the cube would only withstand a few more blows from the heavy creature who was now on top of his shelter, the attack stopped.
The bear decided he wasn’t worth the calories she had to exert to break in and with one look back she simply walked away.
‘It had been too close for anyone to have felt in any way comfortable, and it was not something I would ever wish to repeat,’ he added. ‘Had that polar bear managed to break in – which she probably could have done eventually – I’m certain I wouldn’t have lived to tell this tale.’
This encounter stands apart from all his other close brushes with powerful animals, some of which are revealed in his new book In The Hide: How The Natural World Saved My Life.
Gordon explained that he has had tigers and bears go for him and even been chased by elephants, twice.
He’s been chased by everything from tigers to elephants (Picture: Graham Macfarlane Copyright/Gordon Buchanan)
Gordon has been a wildlife photographer for 30 years (Picture: Partick Evans Copyright/Gordon Buchanan)
However, these were just ‘performative’ displays to warn him away — this time the predator was hungry and willing to put in the work for her dinner.
Gordon’s near-death experience became part of the three-part documentary The Polar Bear Family & Me, which aired in 2013.
It followed one mother and her two cubs for a year across Svalbard, near Norway in the Arctic Circle.
The documentary, which ran on the BBC, shone a light on the climate crisis and its impact on polar bears who were struggling to find food as the ice sheets melted.
There are estimated to be around 26,000 polar bears worldwide, according to Polar Bears International, but accurate numbers are hard to gauge.
For the past 30 years, the species has been declining rapidly and was granted protective status under the Endangered Species Act in 2008.
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