Insel der Pinguine - Sudgeorgien's primary photo
  • Erlebnis Erde Insel der Pinguine - Sudgeorgien
  • TV Episode | Documentary, Adventure

Erlebnis Erde

Insel der Pinguine - Sudgeorgien
TV Episode | Documentary, Adventure
South Georgia rises out of the water like a mountain range in the middle of the Southern Ocean. The storms of the Antarctic Sea crash into 3,000-meter-high mountain ridges here. More than half of the island is covered in ice. Icebergs ...See moreSouth Georgia rises out of the water like a mountain range in the middle of the Southern Ocean. The storms of the Antarctic Sea crash into 3,000-meter-high mountain ridges here. More than half of the island is covered in ice. Icebergs drift off the coast. It seems inhospitable and hostile to life - but the opposite is the case: the waters of the archipelago are rich in species. In summer, the ocean currents bring numerous fish, squid and other sea creatures right up to the coast. They are the elixir of life for the large animal colonies of South Georgia: millions of king and yellow-crested penguins, thousands of elephant seals and more than three million fur seals crowd the beaches, populate abandoned whaling stations and shipwrecks. King penguins take advantage of the short summer and raise their chicks in huge colonies. The young penguin parents go through a tough school. The harsh climate, the competition and the appetite of the skuas take their toll. What was once the greatest enemy of South Georgia's animals left the area decades ago: at the beginning of the 20th century, 175,000 whales were processed into fat in just 60 years in six whaling stations. Penguins were used as "fuel" for the boilers of the blubber cookers. Today, all that remains of whaling are ruins and beaches covered in bones. The ghost towns are "adventure playgrounds" for hundreds of small fur seals and sought-after accommodation for elephant seals who endure their change of fur here, protected from wind and weather. Protected and well guarded by their parents, the king penguin chicks grow up quickly. When the first storms arrive in autumn, most of the animals leave South Georgia and follow their food to distant regions of the ocean. It is also time for the adult king penguins to leave. Their offspring, however, cannot yet go out to sea. The chicks still have their water-permeable juvenile plumage and have to spend the winter alone on the island. They feed on their thick layer of fat for months. The chicks are packed tightly together, waiting for their parents to return in the spring. They will not swim out to sea themselves until the following autumn. In the extreme weather and isolation of South Georgia, the animal filmmakers Roland Gockel and Rosie Koch worked to their limits. Even the high-tech cameras are hardly designed for such conditions. For five years, Roland Gockel and Rosie Koch collected unusual and touching images from the breeding colony of king penguins, filming from a helicopter, with mini cameras attached to drones and using complex crane operations to capture the magic of the island and its huge animal colonies on the edge of Antarctica. Written by ADR Das Erste See less
Read more: Plot summary
Directors
Roland Gockel (directed by) | Rosie Koch (directed by)
Writers
Roland Gockel (written by) | Rosie Koch (written by)
See all filmmakers & crew (2)
Status
Edit Released
Updated Mar 16, 2022
Release date
Mar 16, 2022 (Germany)
Awards
Series awards
2 wins

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