Have you ever been trapped on the Antarctic ice for over a year with a radio that can only receive messages? I bet you haven’t but Sir Ernest Shackleton and his crew of 27 and one stowaway did. They were incredibly resourceful, making what they needed out of the little they had. They wouldn’t have survived without the animals of the Arctic. The animals fed and kept the men alive, they entertained them, and they kept them on their toes. This essay will give you more information on how the animals helped the crew of the Endurance endure their time imprisoned on the ice. What exactly were the animals Shackleton and his crew encountered and what were they like? One of the animals that played the largest part in the crew's story about the expedition …show more content…
At camp, Order-Lees was skiing and was ambushed by a leopard seal “Orde-Lees was near the edge of the pack when a 12-foot long-fanged leopard seal lunged out of the water.” (66). Leopard seals weren’t the only thing they were afraid would come out of the water, they also had the recurring fear of killer whales coming through the ice and picking off the men one by one. Terrifying wild animals weren’t the only animal to provide a danger because the men's sled dogs were worse. The dogs ate almost everything. In the time that the men were on the ice, there were shortages of food and the dogs didn’t help because “The dogs required a seal a day.” As you can imagine during a food shortage and you have a team of dogs that’s a lot of seals, and that’s not good now is it? A result of the dogs quickly eating all the meat the men had stored was that they were all shot. Even the food the men were eating started turning against them. Too much seal meat gave the men gas “The men suffered from a diet of that consisted of almost entirely meat. Constipation and flatulence (bad gas) made the men more uncomfortable.”(67). Generally, if you're uncomfortable your moral drops and when your moral drops you do less work and if you do less work in the arctic you