Original subtitles

(MUSIC PLAYING)

[Narrator] The Pyrenees is a mountain range full of secrets,

a high barrier which extends for 400 kilometers

with dry, arid land on its Southern side,

a huge mountainous area of steep climbs,

forests, and waterfalls.

In these arduous valleys, some of the rarest species

can be found.

They've taken refuge far from the disruption,

the ravaging and the spoiling of human activity.

This is where season upon season,

a whole world of discrete and fragile fauna survives.

You think you know about nature,

and then all of a sudden, something unexpected

comes along.

You hear the call of the wild.

You set out on a path.

You listen and you observe.

You come across an initial trace,

and you realize that you're going

to have to start from scratch.

In the mountain foothills, a small, little known mammal,

the common genet, slinks away.

No bigger than a cat, the Genet has the coat of a panther.

The common genet is a small nocturnal carnivore.

It lives fairly close to humans,

but it's rarely spotted.

It fades into the night shadows as it seeks out its prey.

Difficult to know if it's there,

it's on the lookout for your slightest movement.

(BARKING)

Its territory is the Pyrenean Piedmont, where it

lives alongside other species.

(INSECTS CHIRPING)

You might be trying to spot it yet

you're the one being watched.

And when day breaks and humans start getting up,

the genet returns to its home.

Leaving the beaten track is like crossing a border.

You enter into another dimension.

The foothills, less than 800 meters up, shared

by humans and animals alike.

If you cannot spot the genet here,

you'll find it somewhere else, in a field, in the forest,

or even down by a river.

And if you still cannot find it, you'll come across

other surprising animals.

At the foot of the cliffs, the paths narrow

and there are fewer of them.

Animal tracks are easier to spot.

(FALCON CAWS)

The peregrine falcon sounds the alarm.

It fleeced a thrush only a few hours ago.

The falcon is a fearsome hunter.

When it spots its prey, it swoops down at 400 kilometers

an hour to snatch it up.

This bird of prey is the fastest

dive bomber in the world.

And to think that it almost became

extinct in the 1950s because of the DDT

pesticides used in farming.

When they ingested their prey, the pesticide

weakened the bird's eggshells.

Gestation was often aborted.

This is a genet latrine site.

A cat must have come by this way not long ago.

The genet has complex habits.

It has several resting places.

If you can find one of its niches,

you might get a chance to see the cat.

You'll have to go further up into the forest.

The genet likes to hide high up.

Older trees with brittle trunks are suitable for it

to use as shelter.

This is one of the lessons of the forest.

An untidy forest weathered by rain, wind, and sun

is good for wildlife.

Old decomposing trunks feed larvae and insects,

which in turn are essential food for most inhabitants here.

The genet is not the only creature who likes

the camouflage of the trees.

Every year, the presence of woodpeckers

signals the end of winter.

Some birds mark their territory,

others dig out their nests.

The genet's territory is huge.

It can extend to 100 hectares.

A vast world of nooks and crannies.

Here we go.

Five fingers, a palm, it's here,

the genet, hiding somewhere in this part of the forest.

In fact, no, it's not the genet, but a close neighbor,

the weasel.

In French, the name Boulet translates

as little beauty, which shows how much the creature

was admired in the past.

They were even tamed to chase rodents from their dwellings.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

In the Pyrenean Piedmont, the animals

cross different environments to find food.

Sometimes, the genet leaves the forest to hunt

small mammals in the fields.

(BIRD CHIRPS)

No, this is not a genet.

This is the last feline of the Pyrenees,

with a white patch under its chin

and a bushy, black ringed tail, the forest cat

hunts in plain view.

(RAIN PATTERING)

When it rains, the tracks are wiped out.

Footprints fade away.

You have to come back another day and start again.

It's spring, the ideal moment for observing the genet.

The nights are shorter and the creature

starts hunting before dusk.

The days are getting warmer.

Nature is stirring.

Family life is in full swing.

There is a hive of activity, feeding, playing,

and the first (INDISTINCT).

(MUSIC PLAYING)

In the case of the sparrowhawk, it's a well-rehearsed dance.

The male hunts for the family.

He is then expected to deliver his prey to the female, whose

job is to feed her young.

(BIRDS CHIRPING)

As the light fades, the slightest movement is a signal.

The cat might be nearby watching us.

If we attributed human behavior to the cat,

we would say it was taunting us.

You think you've spotted a shape, but before you know,

it has vanished like all creatures

who operate in the dark to protect themselves from humans.

(OWL HOOTS)

The eagle owl rules the night.

It is a fearsome creature capable of attacking a fox.

In former times, the genet was domesticated.

It is said that it lost its pet status because of its smell.

Ultimately, people preferred cats.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

The forest is a maze teeming with clues.

A deer has come this way.

And here, another trace.

At last, the trail is clear.

The genet is here, close by.

This hole could well be its refuge.

It's better to wait a few days so as not to disturb it.

The waltz of the birds of prey has begun.

(KITES CAW)

Kites are opportunists, taking advantage

of the freshly mown fields to catch exposed rodents.

It's horrible to think that the way we look at things

depends on the words we use.

Some species are protected like the genet.

Others are considered as pests.

Where do these classifications come from?

Even though foxes save farmland from greedy rodents,

over a million of them are killed in France every year.

Life in the wild is not as anarchic as people claim.

On the contrary, it's made up of balance,

ingenuity, and arrangements.

Where does our blindness come from?

From our desire to possess, from our greed,

or from our tendency to domesticate everything.

(CHAINSAW WHIRRING)

The tree in which the genet was sheltering

has just been cut down.

Cutting down, sheltering trees in spring makes no sense.

Their cavities are vital for the development of wildlife.

The genet will have to seek refuge elsewhere.

We will have to start our search all over again.

Summer has arrived and like all animals,

the genet looks for refreshing running

water to help it cool down.

The little egret is the champion of pecking.

The viper and water snake, hard to spot amongst the rocks,

is equally as skillful.

The genets trace has not been lost.

It clearly came this way, maybe yesterday,

maybe even last night.

The otter is cleaning itself up.

It's rare to come across one.

The riverbank predator has suffered constantly

from human activity.

Its numbers have been divided by 10 in the last 100 years.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

As autumn approaches, the days get shorter,

and the genet only comes out in the middle of the night.

Gray crowned cranes fly over the Pyrenean Piedmont.

The genet can certainly hear them.

Maybe the passage of the migratory birds

is a sign of the change of season for the cat as well.

(BIRDS CAW)

Autumn has unearthed no trail.

And yet, the genet always roams the area around the cliffs.

This is definitely its territory between the forest,

the fields, and the river.

It's very good at hiding, no doubt about it.

The search goes on regardless, even during winter.

Paw prints could well be spotted in the snow.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

Red kites swoop above the Piedmont.

Spending so much energy in the middle of winter

must mean that the birds of prey have found enough to eat.

The genet remained invisible all winter long,

impossible to work out where it had been sheltering.

The return of spring is the right time

to set out on the trail again.

The clues are tenuous and difficult to pick up.

There are a few chestnut trees on the edge of the forest,

and the genet might be up in one of the big ones.

Or maybe it prefers one of the 100-year-old oak trees,

the ones that have survived human

avidity because they've grown far away, deep into the woods.

Look very carefully at these old trunks,

one after the other, the bark eaten away by time,

smoothed by the elements.

The genet must be lurking around here somewhere.

Here are some new tracks.

Here are some new tracks.

And flies buzzing around a hole could mean that an animal

has found refuge here.

Let's wait and see.

There it is, a few meters away.

It looks like it's just waking up.

Now, it will be possible to come back and visit.

It's not here all the time.

Today, there are two of them.

Is this the mating season?

Two youngsters ready to leave the nest,

or Is it rather a mother and her young?

It's time to go home and leave them to their own world.

You leave having learned something with a small part

of the Pyrenees within you.

Nature has spoken in its universal language, a language,

which we were born with, but which has escaped us.

Nature is a whole universe, a world of wildlife

where our own humanity is challenged,

the raw world from which our freedom springs.

And you know that tomorrow, once again, you will

set out into the mountains.

(MUSIC PLAYING)