“Seal Island”

I wish I’d watched this with my son. Partially because he would’ve made sounds inaudible to the human ear at the seal pups, you understand—his voice gets higher-pitched when he’s excited—but also because I would drive him crazy by referencing Birdemic: Shock and Terror, which has a line about “such as seals” that we’ve been joking about for years. That isn’t why I selected this for Year of the Month for this month; that was because I genuinely love a True-Life Adventure. But it was an added benefit.

The Pribilof Islands are in the middle of the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from anywhere. Since time immemorial, it has been the breeding grounds of northern fur seals. Oh, there are other animals on the island, but in the autumn, first the bulls arrive, claiming their territory and setting up their home section of the shore. Then, the cows arrive. The bulls claim them into harems of up to fifty cows—the short calls them “brides.” Some bulls will be unable to claim a cow, either because he is too old or because he is too young. The cows will give birth to last year’s pups, then they will be impregnated again. The pups will be raised until they are weaned and able to go to sea themselves.

In 1948, Alfred and Elma Milotte approached Walt with an idea for a film about the culture and ecology of Alaska, at the time not yet a state. Walt didn’t see much commercial potential, but he liked the footage of the seals and agreed to make a short with it. (Eventually, the Milottes would produce a short for Walt about Alaskan natives.) This became the first True-Life Adventure. RKO didn’t want to distribute it. Walt released the short in New York and LA, and it won the Oscar it was therefore eligible for—and, incidentally, the short was a commercial success and got its distribution.

The thing is, the True-Life Adventure series gets unfairly tarred because of its most infamous moment. Yes. It’s true. The lemming thing. But also, friends, this is mostly just footage of seals. Yes, there is the familiar, soothing narration by Winston Hibler, but a touch of anthropomorphization aside, it’s sound information. As always in the series, we are open about the fact that survival is not guaranteed. The line “there are no orphans on Seal Island” sounds nice out of context, but in context, it’s actually chilling.

No, this isn’t on Disney+. Maybe half the series is if that. Which is a shame. I do think that this is the sort of thing you can show your kids without worrying about what they’re absorbing. There are even cute seal pups, as mentioned. But there’s a wealth of material in the Disney Vault that can actually teach you things. You can learn about space and culture and animals. Such as seals.