POLAR BEARS

As a rule, the arctic is a more difficult area to photograph than the antarctic. The wildlife is less prolific and tends to be more skittish. This can be solely attributed to mankind. Nobody lives in antarctica, so the animals have no reason to fear humans. The arctic, however, has been conquered by many, from Vikings and Inuits to Jeremy Clarkson and the Top Gear lads. And this makes the animals understandably nervous of humans. This polar bear in Spitsbergen took one look at our ship and took off like a rocket.

In Churchill, Manitoba ("Polar bear capital of the world...") however, it's a different story. The bears here have learned to exist alongside humans- or maybe vice versa. The bears gather in Churchill each year, waiting for the pack ice to form before going off and hunting seals on it. They pass the time by wandering up and down main street, doing a bit of window shopping and hanging out at the local landfill site. Which means that when in Churchill, you need to listen out for the bear siren, and then get off the street while the largest and most dangerous land carnivore on earth saunters past your bedroom window...

Polar bears are deceptive. Like many iconic animals, exposure to polar bear imagery can make you feel that they are cuddly and rotund fluffballs that wouldn't really hurt a fly. The late lamented advertising guru John Webster had them selling Cresta soft drinks in sunglasses and uttering the catchy phrase 'Rimsky-Korsakov'. But sadly, I've never known one to actually do this.

Actually, they are very large and formidable hunters, and fast on their feet. It's easy to forget that bears can move as fast as horses when they want to. They are sensorially (is that a word?) acute, with excellent smell and vision. A polar bear can smell a seal from a couple of miles off. Anyone still thinking that these animals are cuddly would do well to check out the claws on the paw shown below. And then run away fast.

GLOBAL WARMING 2

Cruising the high arctic. As you get further towards the top of the world, the curvature of the earth gets more pronounced. The icebreaker was having no problems, as the ice was breaking up, and is continuing to do so year on year. This is causing big problems, however, for polar bears, as there are fewer floes that will support their weight without tipping. Polar bears are excellent swimmers, but in recent years more and more are becoming exhausted and drowning as a result of being unable to haul out.

GLOBAL WARMING- THE EVIDENCE

Believe what you hear....this shot was taken in Svalbard. The captain gingerly edged the ship right up to the ice shelf until it was actually nudging it, enabling the hardier amongst us to take a , shall we say, bracing shower in the run-off caused by the melting ice. It's not until you see the sheer volume of meltwater that's running off 24/7, that you can start to get an idea of just how global warming is affecting the arctic and antarctic. This run off is just one of dozens along a single ice shelf, this shelf being a relatively small one at, I would estimate, about a couple of miles long and maybe 50m high. Of course, it won't be that size any more....

CHEETAH

Cheetahs are cats with a problem. During the last ice age, numbers dropped to the point where a genetic bottleneck was formed, and resulted in a prolonged period of inbreeding. This means that their genetic variability is worryingly low, and they have problems with deformed sperm. In fact, the sperm count of the cheetah is so low that in other mammalian species it would be considered effectively infertile. The cheetah is actually a jaffah.

Namibia has the largest cheetah population in the world, and the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) is doing a great job in research and education to help give the cheetah a future. There are also efforts afoot to reintroduce this charismatic cat into India. The last known cheetahs there were shot in 1947 by the Maharajah of Surguja. He also holds the record for the largest number of tigers killed, incidentally- 1,360. So he must have been a fun chap to have around...

RESPECT THE MIGHTY HONEY BADGER

This is the mighty honey badger, one of my favourite animals, and ignored by most visitors to Africa. Which is a shame, because the nocturnal honey badger, or ratel, is a really interesting critter. This animal is seriously tough. I mean, special forces tough. Sharon Osbourne tough, even. Honey badgers, though only the size of a small dog, have been known to see off leopard, hyaena and even lion on occasion.

Honey badgers are highly intelligent, and have been known to use tools to gain access to food. They are highly accomplished snake killers, with an iron constitution that enables them to shrug off even the bite of the notorious puff adder. In Pakistan, they have the reputation of raiding graves and removing the bodies to eat. Honey badgers have a wealth of myth surrounding them. And deservedly so.

Utterly fearless, they have a badger's tenacity and ferocity, large claws and a powerful bite. Their modus operandi is reportedly to go straight for an opponents genitals, savaging them in the first seconds of action. But should they be compromised, the skin at the back of the neck is loose, enabling them to twist around and look eye to eye with whichever misguided creature has them by the scruff of the neck, before biting and clawing again. Some books have claimed that this neck skin is tough enough to withstand shotgun pellets, but this, like so much honey badger trivia, could be just rumour and legend.

If you catch them in a bad mood, they will attack pretty much anything. I first encountered one during a peaceful morning drive in Botswana. It strolled nonchalantly round a termite mound, saw my jeep, and froze for a second before barrelling over and attacking the large metal intruder. OK, the jeep won in the end, but the badger gave a good account of itself, leaving the vehicle with several nasty scars.

Notorious for raiding safari camp kitchens by night, the mighty honey badger is treated with justified fear and respect by all locals who come into contact with it.