Original subtitles

[narrator] Come rain, snow, hell or highwater,

these alphas are ready to throw down.

This is hard core brutal mother nature.

They've got protection from the elements...

It can cope with the worst Scottish weather,

endless rain.

The polar bear is essentially wearing nature's own wetsuit.

[narrator] And a nasty bag of battle tricks...

They're incredibly cunning, they're incredibly aggressive

and they're incredibly smart.

[narrator] When angry neighbours meet

or an apex alpha gets hungry--

Fur will fly.

[growling]

[narrator] Every day, everywhere, our planet is a battleground.

Turf wars,

food fights

and mating mayhem rage on

as animals outwit and outmanoeuvre their own kind

in Battle of the alphas.

This is wolverine territory.

Harsh and remote.

In a climate where few can survive, the wolverine thrives.

Part of what makes wolverine so successful is that fur.

There's an under layer that keeps them warm,

and then there's this outer layer that's oily and waterproof

that keeps the snow off of them,

keeps the frost off of them and makes sure

that they're able to function in those cold climates.

It is one of the toughest animals on the planet.

It can climb trees.

It's a really adept swimmer.

It can climb mountains.

The wolverine is an animal that spends its life

constantly on the move.

[narrator] Most people will never see one.

They're solitary creatures with an almost mythical status.

Wolverines are so aggressive, they're so legendary

that you could probably even make up a superhero based on them.

I'm just saying.

[narrator] They're not hospitable neighbours.

If one wolverine crosses another's path,

violence is almost guaranteed.

Males have a huge home range,

up to 1500 square kilometres.

To put that in perspective,

that's about the size of three million professional basketball courts or the size of the entire island of Maui.

That's like the size of a bear's home range

or a cougars home range.

It's just a little golden retriever size thing,

but it thinks it's big.

It's definitely punching above its weight.

[narrator] A male will share his vast territory

with three or more females.

Wolverines are polygamous,

which means they can mate with a number of females,

so females will have smaller home ranges

within the vast territory of the male.

[narrator] Defending their turf is a never-ending job.

One they take very seriously.

It's an animal that rarely encounters its own kin.

But if it does, there will be fireworks.

[narrator] Wolverines fight to protect their domain

and everything that comes with it.

These animals have everything they need to eat meat in cold places,

they can scavenge on things that have died by other means.

And when that doesn't work,

they'll kill the food - themselves. - If they have a territory that they live on

with a certain amount of prey in it,

they don't want other wolverines coming in

and getting some of the action.

[growling]

[narrator] This male is prepping for one of his busiest battle seasons.

Winter.

A lot of animals survive the winter by hibernating, but not wolverines, they don't hibernate at all.

They're active year-round looking for prey,

trying to find food in the middle of winter that's very hard to do.

That's when the animals get desperate.

They'll start to move into neighbours' territory

if their noses pick up a recent kill,

that's when they'll come to blows.

[narrator] He's got to beef up his security,

and nasty weather won't stop him.

The wolverine is able to cope with these sub-zero temperatures,

so it's ready for action at a moment's notice.

[narrator] He's laying a scent trail.

It's like building a fence or a moat but stinkier.

There are a few other nicknames for wolverines

like skunk bear or stink bear,

because they can produce these smells that are pretty pungent,

so they have anal glands. They have glands

next to their belly button. They have glands on their legs,

all these different glands producing smells

so they can tell other members of the species not to come in.

[narrator] This rival wolverine doesn't heed the warning.

These two may be neighbours,

but there is nothing friendly about this meet-up.

Wolverines are built to kill

and so when that weaponry shows up,

when those big, tough arms, those big, sharp teeth,

all of that comes together into a battle,

you can really see what these animals are made of.

[narrator] They're fighting on treacherous turf,

deep snow and ice,

their feet are perfectly adept to handle the terrain.

If they put their foot down on the snow,

they can spread it out to twice the area

that it would normally have in order to really distribute the weightacross a larger surface, just like a snowshoe.

They've got some formidable weapons, first and foremost,

they'll be slashing with those huge claws

on the end of very powerful limbs.

[narrator] They throw their full body weight into each swipe.

Males can weigh up to 18 kilograms,

and they work hard to stay in battle-ready form.

I like the Latin names of animals you always learn something,

and the Latin name for the wolverine is a perfect example of that.

It's called gulo and gulo means glutton.

And it's totally a glutton because they eat a ton of meat.

The wolverine's teeth, all 38 of them

are perfectly evolved for catching and killing prey.

The molars at the back are turned inward

and rotated 90 degrees,

and they have an amazing bite force for crushing bone

and biting through frozen meat from a carcass.

[narrator] Molars are for crushing,

canines for puncturing, tearing and strategic attacks.

In this battle, the defender tries for a tactical advantage:

jumping on his opponents back.

There are two reasons to get on the back of your opponent if you're a wolverine. One,

you have access to all the tendons in their back and their neck.

That's a great place to be attacking, but I think, more importantly,

you're getting away from all their sharp parts.

[narrator] On rare occasions wolverines will fight to the death. But usually one admits defeat.

In this battle, it's the intruder that scampers off.

Wolverines aren't dumb, so they'll fight,

and when they reach the point where they realize

that they're probably not going to win, they're smart enough to cut and run.

[narrator] It's a sweet win.

But the triumphant wolverine doesn't have time to celebrate.

As the snow picks up...

he's off to scent mark his territory yet again,

at least this time it'll be a victory lap.

[♪]

[narrator] From fur to feathers ...

mallards are the most abundant duck on the planet.

Some might say they're ordinary maybe even boring,

but these little ducks are surprisingly gritty.

Mallards have a variety of very special adaptations

to help keep them warm in the winter.

They have really dense feathers.

This layer of fat under their feathers,

and also this amazing circulatory system

to help keep their feet from freezing.

[narrator] They're built to battle the weather

and each other.

[intense music]

For most people, when they're thinking of an alpha,

you're probably not thinking about the mallard.

But what people don't see is that they're not just the calm and docile duck,

they can actually be downright violent.

[narrator] These fights are dangerous

and so are the events that lead to them.

In the spring and summer

mother ducks sit dutifully on their eggs.

Once a pair forms and the female starts laying eggs,

the male doesn't linger.

[narrator] It's not because he's a deadbeat,

in fact, it's quite the opposite.

That nest is very susceptible to predation.

If that male is around, he's just going to give away

the nest location like, he has to get lost.

[narrator] She's got to stay if she want her offspring to survive.

Putting her life on the line for theirs.

They can spend up to 23 hours a day sitting on those nests.

There is no time in a female mallard's life

when she is more vulnerable than when she is incubating her eggs

and she's under constant threat from predators

like raccoons, foxes, weasels.

She is quite literally a sitting duck.

[narrator] The mortality rate of female mallards

more than doubles when they're incubating their eggs.

A lot of adult females don't survive.

And what you get in the end is that

there are generally more male mallards in the population

than female mallards.

[narrator] That imbalance becomes a problem during mating season.

Not every guy will get a girl and so,

the males battle for the right to pair up.

They are like little speedboats.

They go so fast on that water after one another.

[narrator] But the competition starts more like a pageant.

When a male mallard wants to court a female mallard,

he puts on a whole show with a number of different parts.

The females are the ones that pick out the males

which they deem as being good enough, strong enough,

having the best genes to pass on to the next generation.

[narrator] First, they try to impress her with their looks.

The males have this wonderful green, iridescent head.

They do lots of flapping to show off their wings.

But the best thing to see,

they like to stick their head up and their butt up at the same time,

much like cat cow in yoga.

And that's not the only talent they put on display.

[narrator] They serenade her too.

They do lots of grunt whistle noises.

They make really interesting sounds

as they're swimming around in circles.

All of those different things

are designed to try to show the female

that they are going to be the perfect father

of her offspring.

The whole reason for any animal's existence

is to be the best it can be.

So, it is all about passing on the strongest genes

in order to survive a life, and then to perpetuate.

[narrator] This female likes what she sees.

She lowers her head flat in the water,

it's her way of saying she's picked someone

and is ready to pair up.

But this male wasn't picked.

And he's not happy about it.

His testosterone is surging.

The only way he'll get access to a female now

is to steal her from another male

and that means he's got to fight.

He approaches his target and opens his mouth.

Tt's all about saying, "Listen, look how big I am,

look at me. Check me out!

If you want some of this, come on, let's have it!"

This bill is made of a really extraordinary substance,

keratin which is both hard and can be quite sharp

and is also a little bit flexible as well.

This is something that they use, you know, for finding food

and for gripping things, and also for fighting one another.

They'll try to actually pluck the feathers

out of another male, especially in their chest.

So if you pluck away all that beautiful plumage,

you are all of a sudden not going to be very appealing to a female.

You might not be able to find a mate the rest of that season.

[narrator] Losing feathers isn't just about losing mates,

that plumage keeps the ducks warm and waterproof.

If you've ever seen a mallard or any other kind of duck preening,

it looks like they're kind of dipping their head under their wing

and kind of moving things around. What they're really doing is

taking this particular oil from a special gland near their tail

and running it through their feathers to weatherproof them.

[narrator] The battle continues until one male swims or flies away.

And the other male mallard will continue to go after it

and vocalize at it to make sure it knows,

hey, this is my territory. This is my space.

You can't come back.

[narrator] In rare cases, neither male will retreat, and the fight can become deadly.

Mallards can occasionally kill each other,

and most often the way that they do this is by drowning,

just by flapping their wings

and putting their body weight on that of another duck

to the point that that duck can't breathe and they die.

They may even end up killing female ducks

that kind of get caught in the crossfire

of these sorts of arguments as well.

So the stakes can be incredibly high.

[narrator] From severe weather to fiercely competitive pageants

and mating brawls.

Mallard life isn't easy.

And it's definitely not boring.

Mallards may be mighty ducks,

but when it comes to cattle,

one rugged breed stands alone.

Highland cows are pretty different from your average cow.

They can cope with the worst Scottish weather,

gales, endless rain, really cold freezing conditions.

They have these two layers of fur.

There's a short layer underneath that you don't really see.

That's what keeps it warm.

But then there's this baggy outer coat that's waterproof. It's oily. And because they're built for those tough

they're tough animals, and that means

that when a conflict happens they're built for a tough fight.

[narrator] This is a leader.

An alpha male.

He rules over a kingdom in the Scottish highlands.

Right now, it's calm.

No one is testing his rank.

Most cows are in groups called herds,

but a highland's cow is in a group called a fold.

There is a strict hierarchy within this fold.

The older you are, the higher up you are in the hierarchy,

and males tend to outrank females.

Right at the top of that is the dominant male, the big bull.

Now he's the daddy, he's the head honcho,

he's the man in charge.

[mooing]

[narrator] The alpha gets dibs on food and mating. And his subordinates show him respect.

If you are a highland cow and a dominant animal

is coming towards you, you get out of their way.

And if you have the opportunity, you groom them,

you lick their head, you lick their neck

just to show that you respect their position in space.

Everybody knows where they are in line,

so you don't get a lot of conflict over territories and stuff like that because everyone knows what they're supposed to

And it's only really when a bull male

that's not the dominant male wants to become the top dog...

Or you might have a farmer that buys a bunch of new cows

and they have to figure out how they fit into societies that already exist.

That's when you'll say horns come together

and massive animals really getting down to

the business of fighting.

[narrator] This young male is near the bottom of the social heap.

And he's fed up.

He approaches the alpha, ready to fight for dominance. - You can tell there's a fight brewing, because what happens is

one of the animals will lower their horns it's saying,

"I'm going to get under you,

I'm going to push your centre of mass off centre,

I'm ready to go with you."

That initial phase where they're pushing against each other

and they're just getting a sense of how big one another are

is really important because that's when they decide

if they're going to really go for it.

[narrator] The alpha isn't backing down.

It's bristling with aggression.

It's full of testosterone.

It's ready for action.

You've got two 800 kilogram animals

that are angrily trying to knock one another off

of that hierarchy ladder.

So you see them pushing. You see them twisting,

really communicating to each other

just how much muscle there is on the other side.[grunts]

[narrator] Keeping bulked up for battle takes work.

Highland cattle eat up to 18 kilograms of vegetation every day.

They're feeding in an alpine environment

where food is hard to come by. They're using their horns

to pull down branches so they can get food that way.

They eat some of the most indigestible plant material

you could possibly imagine.

Rough, rush hard grasses.

I mean, life can be tough up in the north of Scotland,

and the food it's eating

requires a huge amount of digestion.

[narrator] It can take up to 100 hours for a highland cow

to fully digest its meal.

It's so important for their digestive system to be effective

because they're able to have that muscle

and they're ready for those conflicts.

[narrator] During battle, the bulls throw around their weight

and use their horns like weapons.

When you look at these wrestling matches between the cows,

it's more like hand-to-hand combat.

Those horns are extensions of bones

with blood vessels in them. That's part of their body.

It's not a weapon on top of their body.

It's part of their body.

If they can get those big horns into the flank

and gore the other animal.

Then there they're at distinct advantage,

and they could well be on their way to winning the battle.

The stakes are so high. If you lose this fight,

you lose your position in the hierarchy,

it really pays to be the alpha.

[narrator] The fight ends when one male can't take any more

and backs down.

This time, the defending alpha is triumphant.

The best part is that once the battle is over

everybody looks at the results and everybody says,

"Okay, we're good. We got this figured out."

And as soon as you have a winner,

a victor and a vanquished,

peace and tranquility will be restored.

[♪]

[narrator] All species fight their own kind,

but for the top of every food chain there is no contest

this is an apex alpha.

This bloody face means it's been a good day.

Proof of a successful hunt.

A well-fed polar bear is covered in red.

It lives in the harshest environments.

It really is up there

with the top apex predators ever on planet earth.

It hunts prey that spends 90 % of its time in the ocean.

[narrator] To find that elusive meal,

it searches far and wide, crossing land and sea.

And it's equipped for the journey.

The polar bear is essentially wearing nature's own wetsuit.

When it gets wet, it can whisk that water away very quickly.

[narrator] But it's no secret that climate change

is melting the polar bear's hunting grounds,

making it harder for them to catch their favourite food:

seals.

Forcing them to embark on far more dangerous hunting missions - You don't need to go to the Arctic to know

that it isn't exactly stock full of food.

[narrator] Finding prey in this barren landscape

takes patience and stamina.

While it's making these huge trudges across the ice,

it's burning around about 12,000 calories a day.

So give or take, it can go about 10 days without feeding .

But as it gets closer and closer and closer to that deadline,

it will get more and more desperate.

[narrator] But it can't eat just anything.

To survive the bitter cold of the arctic,

polar bears need a thick layer of blubber

and they don't get that by eating light.

You might think that a polar bear could take down

maybe a reindeer and yes, it certainly can.

But that lean meat is no good.

Polar bear can't get enough energy for it.

The perfect meal is blubber.

This guy loves fat.

[narrator] He uses his nose to sniff it out.

They have an amazing sense of smell.

And by having that little bit of moisture on the tip of the nose,

it actually helps magnify whatever odours that it's smelling.

[narrator] Polar bears use crosswinds to hunt.

When a bear moves perpendicular to the wind,

new streams of air are constantly hitting its nose,

giving it information about what's upwind.

An animal can hide under snow

but its scent will still be carried

right to the nose of a hungry bear.

When the wind is blowing by,

they can do a type of calculus to help them calculate

where that prey item is potentially coming from.

This just further demonstrates how this apex predator

earned this title.

It uses all the tools available to it in its environment to its advantage.

[narrator] His super sniffer leads him to this herd of walruses. He scopes the scene, looking for an ideal target.

They're looking for weak and injured animals.

They're looking for young ones. They're looking for calves.

Anything that indicates to the polar bear

that this prey will be relatively easier to take out.

[narrator] Hunting a walrus is a gutsy move.

Walruses are like tanks of the ocean.

They are ton, ton and a half, two-ton animals.

It has those characteristic teeth,

those long incisors that are like ice picks.

They could be up to a meter long.

Just ice picks.

They're not to be messed with and they're not the usual prey

of the polar bear. But drastic times call for drastic measures.

And that's where the polar bear ends up.

[narrator] The walrus is a formidable opponent,

but the polar bear doesn't retreat.

It's bold and fearless,

with its own set of battle weaponry.

When it comes to apex predators,

the polar bear really does take the cake.

[narrator] Polar bears are the largest land carnivore.

Males can weigh up to 650 kilograms.

Their giant paws are equipped with thick, curved claws.

And their canine teeth are five centimetres long,

designed for grasping prey and tearing through hides.

This bear will rely on all his weaponry for what comes next.

The polar bear rises up on those hind feet

and comes crashing down.

It usually tries to attack it from its back.

It tries to stay away from what I call

the business end of the walrus.

[narrator] A good plan, but it doesn't work.

He backs off.

He may be down, but he's not out.

He goes for a smaller target.

This one's tusks aren't nearly as brutal,

but its thick hide is hard to penetrate.

It's four centimetres thick and then underneath that,

is thicker layers of blubber.

This is an armour-plated machine.

[narrator] That calorie-rich blubber is exactly what the bear is after.

But his target gets help from a friend.

Thwarted again.

If a walrus is cornered, it's going to fight.

And if a walrus doesn't like the fact that a bear is eating its friend,

it's going to have something to say about it as well.

[narrator] The bear is exhausted

but hunger drives him back to the battle ground.

And there's some serious, serious risk involved with this.

You know, they're wasting a lot of energy in these fights.

[narrator] Against all odds, third time's the charm.

If a polar bear is in fact successful enough

to collar a walrus,

they can't kill it on land,

they will drag it into the water and drown it.

And this is hard-core, brutal Mother Nature.

[narrator] It may be brutal, but it's also powerful and clever,

true traits of the mighty apex alpha.

No matter the conditions...

these weatherproof alphas fight to stay on top.

Defending territory,

attacking for survival,

competing for love

and claiming respect.