It’s a creature from a bygone age, older than mankind itself. Greed and corruption, myth and superstition, had brought the rhino to the brink of extinction. For millenia its best protection, the rhino’s horn is now its worst enemy. If the killing doesn’t stop than the last rhino in the wild could disappear in just a few years.These days rhino poachers come by a helicopter armed with powerful
Giant Pandas were on the brink of extinction but now they are coming back, thanks to an extraordinary conservation project. The Chengdu Research Base in central China is at the heart of a project to breed 300 pandas, and then start introducing them back into the wild. It is the most ambitious and controversial conservation effort ever mounted.Shot over two years, this film follows the pandas and
Broadcast (1998) The Pacific Ocean is rimmed by a chain of active volcanoes, arranged in a series of graceful arcs and extending 30,000 kilometres from New Zealand through Fiji, New Guinea, the Philippines, Japan, the Aleutian Islands, and down the west coast of the Americas to Patagonia. This necklace of volcanoes, continually rocked by earthquakes, has been christened the ‘Ring of Fire’. Scienti
Broadcast (1998) A curious feature of our planet’s surface is that it has two distinct levels: the dry land on the continents, on average a few hundred metres above sea level, and the ocean floor, making up two thirds of the Earth’s surface, several kilometres below sea level. Only in the past fifty years have scientists begun to explore in detail this vast region, revealing beneath the waves a la
Have you ever wondered if you would survive in the wilderness, on your wits, alone? Heimo Korth did. Now, he’s the last man standing in an Alaskan wilderness. His neighbor is a polar bear. His other neighbor is a caribou. Say goodbye to civilization.Near the end of his Presidency, Jimmy Carter created the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: 20 million acres that were off limits to hunters and oil se
Although cultures around the world may regard the crow as a scavenger, bad omen, or 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. A Murder of Crows brings you these so-called feathered apes, as you have never seen them before.
The secret life of the cat, examining the Jekyll and Hyde nature of the feline, which is a ruthless predator in the wild.Filmed in several countries, the programme explains what place the creature has in history, asking why it’s the most popular domesticated pet in Britain and the USA.
When Mount Nyiragongo erupted in the Democratic Republic of Congo in January 2002 it seemed like a disaster.Molten lava plunged down the hillside and poured into nearby Lake Kivu.Many died, and much of the city of Goma was destroyed. In fact, the local people were lucky.Had the eruption spread to one of the many volcanic faults under Lake Kivu, it could have unleashed one of the most terri
Episode 1: Island of Marvels Madagascar, the world’s oldest island, broke off from Africa and India and has been on its own for more than 70 million years. In splendid isolation, it has evolved its very own wildlife – more than 80 per cent of it is found nowhere else. And that wildlife is quite extraordinary. In this episode, we reveal the island’s most bizarre and dramatic places, and the unique