PBS: Nature [Full Season 29] (2010-2011)

Documentary series exploring various global wildlife issues and subjects.

Director: Nigel Cole
Production land: USA
IMDb - 8.7 (138 votes)


Cuba may have been restricted politically and economically for the past 50 years, but its borders have remained open to wildlife for which Cuba’s undeveloped islands are an irresistible draw. While many islands in the Caribbean have poisoned or paved over their ecological riches on land and in the sea in pursuit of a growing tourist industry, Cuba’s wild landscapes have remained virtually untouched, creating a safe haven for rare and intriguing indigenous animals, as well as for hundreds of species of migrating birds and marine creatures. Coral reefs have benefited, too. Independent research has shown that Cuba’s corals are doing much better than others both in the Caribbean and around the world.






Echo, Africa’s most famous elephant, was the subject of many films and the matriarch of perhaps the most studied wild elephant herd in the world. In May of 2009, she died of natural causes. This film is a look back at this remarkable animal through extraordinary footage and interviews with the researchers that cared for and studied Echo and her family.






Although cultures around the world may regard the crow as a scavenger, bad omen, or simply a nuisance, this bad reputation might overshadow what could be regarded as the crow’s most striking characteristic – its intelligence. New research indicates that crows are among the brightest animals in the world. NATURE’s A Murder of Crows brings you these so-called feathered apes, as you have never seen them before.






In the 1990s, the Mesopotamian Marshes were virtually destroyed by Saddam Hussein in an attempt to eradicate the Marsh Arabs who lived there. Once the richest wildlife habitat in the Middle East, this “Garden of Eden” was reduced to mile after mile of scorched earth. But Azzam Alwash is making an extraordinary effort to return life to the green paradise he remembers from his childhood. Follow filmmakers David Johnson and Stephen Foote as they chronicle Azzam’s efforts — and navigate the inherent dangers of working in a dangerous and politically volatile region.






While legend paints the wolverine as a solitary, blood-thirsty killer, there is another, more complex image of the wolverine that is just beginning to emerge. This episode of NATURE takes viewers into the secretive world of the largest and least known member of the weasel family, revealing it to be one of the most efficient and resourceful carnivores on Earth.






Leopards are the ultimate cats. They are the most feline, the most intelligent, the most dangerous and, until recently, one of the least understood. They hunt from South Africa to Siberia, from Arabia to Sri Lanka, and are the most widespread predator of their size on land. A leopard is a cat that walks by itself, unseen and secretive. Leopards are the beautiful killers that live in the shadows. This film will accumulate the evidence and put together a psychological profile of this extraordinarily cunning cat.






2010 marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of “Born Free” – a book and then a film that changed forever the way we think about wildlife. What has happened to lions since this story? What has happened to the people featured in the film? And what has “Born Free” taught us?






Living on the island of New Guinea are birds of unimaginable color and beauty. When Europeans first saw the plumes of these fabulous creatures in the sixteenth century, they believed they had escaped from the garden of Eden and called them Birds of Paradise. The people of New Guinea treasure the birds’ feathers as religious relics. But to find these birds in the dense forest is a tough assignment, and to witness their extraordinary mating displays is even tougher. NATURE brings you a pair of New Guinean scientists who took on the challenge of filming these remarkable birds.






The Himalayas are defined by superlatives. They defy both description and comprehension while at the same time teaching us about the awesome power and grandeur of nature. Born during the ice ages, they form the highest mountain range in the world, and reach across Asia for two thousand miles. The mountains themselves are considered sacred. These are mountains that will take your breath away!






The tiger known as Broken Tail was born in Ranthambhore National Park in northern India, a vast, natural reserve for a wide variety of Indian wildlife, but especially famous for its Bengal tigers. Historically revered in Indian tradition, tigers in the area were once protected by maharajahs, and then by government sanctuaries and conservation projects. But poachers have proven to be nearly unstoppable over the years, and tigers have struggled to survive, even with the protection of the park. At one point, there were as few as 26 tigers left in the reserve, and today, the fate of each and every tiger is important to the species as a whole. Conservation efforts have been intensified in the face of the crisis, and the struggle continues. Broken Tail: A Tiger’s Last Journey is the story of the life and death of a tiger destined for greatness, who may still lead the way to a better future for those of his kind.






“Outback Pelicans” looks into the mystery of a mass-migration of pelicans to the Australian outback, one of the driest places on the hottest and driest continent on the planet. In years of heavy rainfall, dried-up river beds fill with water and flow inland to create an oasis in the scorching heart of the desert. Abandoning the sea, pelicans leave their coastal homes and journey more than a thousand miles inland to Lake Eyre to feast on an abundance of fish and brine shrimp. The bounty of the lake provides a perfect place to breed and raise their families, even in the middle of one of the most inhospitable places on Earth. But much about their lives and their journey remains a mystery that researchers are only now beginning to unravel.






In February 2009, Victoria went up in flames; and raging fires engulfed everything in their path. By the time the fires subsided, 173 people had lost their lives, over one million acres of mountain ash forest had been destroyed, and countless animals had perished. The overwhelming firestorm was one of the worst in the country’s history, and came to be known as Black Saturday. Survivors of the Firestorm follows the phoenix-like story of Victoria’s wildlife, the fall and rise of the great mountain ash forests and all that dwell within them, and the extraordinary capacity of a damaged natural world to bounce back.






This film investigates the parallel stories of collapsing Pacific salmon populations and how biologists and engineers have become instruments in audacious experiments to replicate every stage of the fish’s life cycle. Each of our desperate efforts to save salmon has involved replacing their natural cycle of reproduction and death with a radically manipulated life history. Our once great runs of salmon are now conceived in laboratories, raised in tanks, driven in trucks, and farmed in pens. Here we go beyond the ongoing debate over how to save an endangered species. In its exposure of a wildly creative, hopelessly complex, and stunningly expensive approach to managing salmon, the film reveals one of the most ambitious plans ever conceived for taking the reins of the planet. Watch the full episode.






Chris Morgan and Joe Pontecorvo set up camp at a remote spot in the heart of Alaskan wilderness, alongside the largest concentration of grizzlies in the world. It is June in the Alaska Peninsula. The sun sets well into night and bears are taking advantage of the long days to feed, mate, and raise new cubs. Morgan tracks their progress as they feast on the riches of the season and re-establish the complex hierarchal social dynamics of bear society. Along the way, he experiences close encounters with bears, observing brutal battles among males during mating season as well as tender moments between a grizzly mom and her cubs. Watch full episode.






Chris Morgan explores the world of black bears caught in the crossroads of urban development in Anchorage and the wilderness. This is a new normal for bears and for their human neighbors. Some bears are so comfortable living in urban surroundings that their primary habitat is a golf course. In residential areas, bears frequently raid garbage bins and birdfeeders for easy snacks. But these behaviors are less than ideal for bears and residents alike. Morgan heads north out of Anchorage to Denali National Park, where the mountains loom over treeless plains and bears get by on a diet of thousands of berries a day. The grizzlies share the enormous park with foxes, wolves and moose — and with one intrepid bear biologist and his team. Morgan continues his journey north on a bone-shaking, 610-mile motorcycle journey from Denali to Prudhoe Bay along the only Alaskan highway to reach the Arctic. Prudhoe Bay, a once pristine area at the edge of the Arctic Ocean, has been changed forever by the oil industry.






Chris Morgan travels to the far north of Alaska, the tiny North Slope town of Kaktovik. It’s early November and winter is coming on. But each year, the polar bears struggle for extended periods on dwindling fat reserves, waiting for the opportunity to hunt on sea ice that takes longer to freeze. In early spring, Morgan joins local hunters in Barrow, the northernmost city in Alaska, as they go out on their own hunts, facing some of the same challenges as the bears. In late spring, Morgan travels to the North Slope of the Brooks Range, where countless thousands of caribou cover the ground for miles. The grizzlies are waiting for them, as they have for thousands of years.