All language subtitles for The Hunt-7 Living With Predators_Track02

Predators give us a dramatic health
check on our planet's wild places.

They are the top of the food chain

and need an abundance of prey
and vast territories for hunting.

But as the human population grows,

the conflict between people
and wildlife is on the rise.

Over 75% of the world's top
predators are now declining.

Humans have created this crisis,

but we also have
the power to resolve it.

We meet the pioneers
at the front line,

searching for bold solutions.

The question is whether
we are prepared to allow room

for the natural world's
greatest hunters.

The world's forests cover
a third of its land surface,

and contain over 50%
of our wildlife.

In the jungles of India,
the top predator is the tiger.

Once on the point of extinction,

its numbers are now
steadily rising here

for the first time in over 50 years.

India is also home
to 1.2 billion people

and the fastest-growing
economy on the planet.

So, how is the tiger
making a comeback?

Tigers are the largest
of all big cats.

They need a territory of
up to 60 square miles

and must make a kill
every week to survive.

He's so perfectly camouflaged.

A deer could just come close to him
without knowing the tiger's there

and he'd just go for it.

Dr Ullas Karanth from the
Wildlife Conservation Society

is the world's leading
expert on tigers.

Watching a tiger hunt is a dream,
it's just spectacular.

You realise what a perfectly-designed
killing machine this animal is.

500 years ago, there were over
300,000 tigers in India.

But in the last century, their
numbers fell to just 2,000,

due to a combination of poaching and
the loss of half of their forest.

In the late 1970s,

tigers were almost on the
verge of extinction in India.

But strong measures by the Indian
government to create protected areas

and a strong law enforcement
effort led to a major recovery

better than anything else
the world has seen.

As a result, tigers have come back
big time in many places.

There are now around
2,500 tigers in India

and their numbers are
steadily rising.

The problem now is not so much
a shortage of tigers,

it's a lack of space for them.

India's human population has
doubled in the last 30 years.

With so many people
living in national parks,

conflict is inevitable.

These enclaves make a living out
of raising crops, raising livestock

and they're competing for space
and food with tigers directly.

So, this forces a conflict on them

and eventually the tigers lose out
and people lose out.

The government has come up
with a radical solution -

paying villagers to move out of
their homes, to make way for tigers.

Relocating local people out of the
forest is a highly emotive issue.

India has been strongly
criticised in the past

for carrying out forced
mass evictions.

It is extremely controversial,

because in some places,
it's been done badly,

where people who have moved out
were forcibly moved out.

But in many other places,
it's been done right.

Ullas' daughter Krithi also
works for the Wildlife
Conservation Society.

Her job is to manage
their village relocations

and make sure they're
done responsibly.

KRITHI SPEAKS INDIAN

Mani and his wife Jyothi

have volunteered to leave the forest
in return for compensation.

TRANSLATION:

They feel very strong ties
to this place,

even though they have a
very difficult life here.

And constantly living in fear of
elephants, leopards and tigers.

When you have little children,
those challenges are even greater.

Mani and Jyothi are leaving
their old way of life behind.

India is changing very rapidly
and you have to sometimes make

really hard choices and sometimes
that involves moving people.

And I'm very proud of the way
we've done it right,

helping them through
every step of the way.

But not everyone is happy
about being moved out.

HE SPEAKS INDIAN

It's the fear of the outside and
unknown that is keeping them here.

Once that fear is broken

and they know they are better off,
everybody wants out.

Mani and Jyothi are
the latest of 631 families

to leave Nagarhole National Park.

In total, almost 30,000 people
across India have been relocated.

As humans move out of the forest,
tigers move in.

A very strong proof that
relocation works is to look at

some of the tiger reserves
where it's been done well.

People have moved out,
prey numbers have multiplied

and in many cases, the tiger numbers
have doubled or tripled.

There are many,
many such cases in India.

Mani and Jyothi are coming to live
in a newly-built relocation centre.

Here, they will have to find jobs
and fend for themselves.

Each adult receives
the equivalent of £10,000 -

a huge sum in India.

This is paid part cash
and part in the form of a new house

and three acres of land.

TRANSLATION:

There is a widespread view
that forest-dwelling people

should live in remote locations,

cut-off from all signs
of civilisation,

eating fruits and nuts,
and that's far removed from reality.

What these people want
is good education,

modern amenities and health.

And all of that is not available
in the remote jungle.

People want to live in cities

and you're going to see
this huge transition,

where India is going from 70%
of the country being rural

to 50% of the country being
urban in the next 20 years

and this is going to open up land.

And once you move people out,
the vegetation comes back,

the prey numbers rebound
and then tiger numbers come back.

So, ecological recovery takes time,

but I think nature knows
how to heal itself.

Relocation may be
an extreme solution,

but India's tigers are proof
that given enough space,

predators can bounce back.

The greatest tropical forest
on Earth is the Amazon.

It covers almost
half of South America

and is home to more species than
anywhere else on the planet.

In the jungles of Venezuela,
the canopy's deadliest hunter -

the harpy eagle.

This is the most powerful
bird of prey in the world.

It has a two-metre wing-span,

and it hunts silently, on the
lookout for monkeys and sloths.

HARPY EAGLE SCREECHES

The harpy eagle's territory
stretches over 30 square miles.

At the heart of it, the nest,
with a very hungry chick.

At two months old,
the chick is vulnerable

and is fiercely
guarded by her mother.

Down below on the forest floor,

others are also keeping
a close watch.

Dr Alexander Blanco monitors 20
different pairs of harpy eagles,

trying to police this area of forest

and keep the nest sites safe
from human encroachment.

Throughout the harpy eagle's range,
across Central and South America,

an area of forest
the size of Switzerland

is being cut down every year.

CHAINSAWS BUZZ

Alexander is studying the impacts
of this loss on the harpy eagle -

and to do that,
he must first get himself

35 metres up to the
nest in the canopy.

HARPY EAGLE CHIRPS

When the chick reaches
six months old, before she fledges,

Alexander must climb up
and bring her down.

He'll then fit a small radio
transmitter on the chick,

so he can keep track of her
after she's left the nest.

The mother eagle could attack,

so Alexander is wearing
a stab proof vest.

It's dangerous work,

but it's driven by a lifelong
passion for the harpy eagle.

As soon as he reaches the nest,

Alexander must secure the harpy
eagle's deadliest weapons -

its talons.

HARPY EAGLE SCREECHES

Today, the female is
keeping her distance,

but Alexander has been
attacked several times.

OK...

But as Alexander starts his descent,

he realises there's a problem
with his ropes.

DULL THUD
ALEXANDER SCREAMS

AMBULANCE SIREN

Amazingly, both Alexander
and the eagle survive the fall.

But Alexander breaks both
his wrist and his leg.

Alexander's assistant Don Blas

brings the young eagle back
to camp, to keep an eye on her.

Don Blas attaches
the radio as planned.

Very little is known
about these eagles,

so this transmitter will help
the scientists understand

how they survive in
a disappearing forest.

Finally, the team return
the young eagle to its nest,

under the watchful eye
of her anxious parents.

The adult eagles waste no time
bringing in more prey...

..and life at the nest
returns to normal.

The harpy eagle is now
18 months old.

Alexander is returning
to study her progress

for the first time since his fall.

The transmitter on the eagle
sends out a radio signal

and the scientists can now
track her through the forest

as she learns to hunt.

TRACKING APPARATUS BEEPS

She can now recognise her prey,

but she's doesn't expect it
to fight back.

But Alexander's studies show
the monkeys and sloths

that form the eagle's main prey

are disappearing as
the forest is cleared.

In the face of this crisis,

the harpy eagle has proved to be
remarkably resourceful.

The eagles are starting to hunt
ground-dwelling prey

in more broken areas.

There are now less than
50,000 harpy eagles left.

At the current
rate of deforestation,

their numbers will drop by a third
in the next 50 years.

The only hope is
that Alexander's data

will persuade governments
to protect their habitat,

even if he has to risk
his life in the process.

Nearly half of the
world's land surface

is covered by grasslands and deserts

and none are richer than
the plains of Africa.

This vast savanna is home

to some of the most celebrated
predators on the planet.

And the most celebrated
of them all is the lion.

The Ngorongoro crater in Tanzania

has the highest density
of lions on Earth.

There are four prides of lions here

and they're engaged in a constant
war with their human neighbours,

the Maasai people.

The Maasai rely on their
cattle for survival.

When the lions attack
their livestock,

the Maasai retaliate
by killing them.

This is an ancient conflict
between warrior and predator

that's been played out
for millennia.

The human population here has nearly
tripled in the last 20 years

and the conflict has now
reached crisis point.

Craig Packer is the
world's top lion expert.

He and assistant Ingela Jansson

are trying to stop the Maasai
from killing lions

and allow them to breed in peace.

Those animals have to run
the gauntlet of Maasai with spears.

And so, with that kind of armed guard
all the way round the crater,

it's very difficult for the males to
be able to come into the crater

from somewhere else to
rejuvenate this population.

Time is running out for
the lions of Ngorongoro.

Craig has roughly 100 of them

and the Maasai are killing
an average of ten a year.

The one with the scar, MG103 -

she had cubs in May and
two of hers were lost

and I didn't even see
what sex they were.

Whenever one of our
study lions is speared,

it's like right, that's just
one more nail in the coffin.

It's like one more example of
why something must be done

to address this problem.

The only way to solve
the conflict here

is by brokering peace between
these two ancient enemies.

Ingela and Craig have employed
a team of Maasai scouts

from within the community.

Their job is to
document lion attacks

and try and stop people
from retaliating.

So, I'm asking them
"Do you like lions?"

And yeah, there was some murmuring
"yes" but then she said,

"No, I don't like lions", because a
lion attacked her son last year.

SHE SPEAKS MAASAI DIALECT

Oh, he's like 22 years old.

He went then to defend
their livestock

and then he got into a
close fight with a lion.

After four years of Ingela's
incredible dedication

to slowly, gradually
build trust with people,

people are very much are more likely
to tell her what's happened.

They might even have speared
a lion in retaliation.

So, she can get a better picture
of what really happens here.

And therefore,
how best to improve circumstances.

TRANSLATION:

Craig, Ingela and their scouts
have their work cut out.

The war between people
and lions has been waged here

for over two million years.

And there is one deadly tradition

that's still widely
practised today -

the ritual killing of lions.

The team are travelling
to a remote settlement

on the edge of the Serengeti.

MAASAI SING

This is the front line
in the conflict with lions.

We've come out here today to
attend a Maasai wedding

in an area that's had
a lot of ritual lion killing

over the last decade.

One of the things that Ingela
has learnt in her research

is that these hunting parties often
assemble at an event like this.

So, as you can see,

everybody's getting worked up
and that level of excitement...

It's like they've got all this energy
and all that testosterone ready to go

and one of the things they
really get excited about doing
is going to hunt a lion.

Ingela is hoping that
the presence of her scouts

may be enough to deter the
warriors from hunting lions.

They know these guys,
they're friends, they're relatives

and everyone knows here that they
work for Lion Conservation,

so they kind of know that they can't
go hunting if that person is present.

Ingela's head scout, Roimen,
comes from this area.

He killed two lions by himself in
ritual hunts when he was younger,

and has the respect of
his fellow warriors.

ROIMEN SPEAKS MAASAI DIALECT

Today, no-one is going hunting
and the lions in this area are safe.

But it could take decades
to solve the conflict,

so Craig is proposing a highly
controversial solution -

putting up fences to keep people
and predators apart.

Our romantic visions of
Africa's unspoilt wilderness -

that's already out of date.

The human population now is
already one billion people.

It's expected to quadruple
by the end of this century.

So, it's time to consider erecting
fences between people and wildlife.

It's time to rethink the basic need

for the safety of the
people around these parks

and the safety of the
animals themselves.

Craig is calling for
fortress conservation -

protecting vast areas with hundreds
of miles of electric fencing.

In South Africa,

all the wildlife parks have already
been completely fenced in.

There are now 1,000 highly
protected game reserves here

and the number of top carnivores
is steadily rising.

But for wide-ranging
predators like cheetah,

being fenced in poses
a deadly problem.

Cheetahs need vast
territories to survive.

The world's fastest land animal
is mainly solitary

and must roam long
distances to find a mate.

But when they're trapped in behind
fences with their own families,

in-breeding becomes the biggest
threat to their survival.

The only way to prevent this is
by playing Cupid with cheetahs.

Vincent Van Der Merwe from
the Endangered Wildlife Trust

runs what could be described
as a cheetah dating agency.

These population are small

and inbreeding is a terrible thing,
in the long run.

So, it's not a natural thing,
you know?

We'd prefer natural dispersal,

natural migration between
the populations,

but South Africa is a
highly-developed country

compared to the rest of Africa.

And you know, we have to
move them artificially.

Vincent has come to Dinokeng
Game Reserve to remove two males.

They're 18 months old

and would normally have
left their mother by now.

So, these two males are
related to the two females

and they're reaching
sexual maturity now,

so there is the possibility that
inbreeding will take place.

So, it's important that
we remove these two males
to prevent inbreeding.

Before they can be moved,

the cheetah must be immobilised
by wildlife vet Shaun Beverley.

Let's just have a look and see.

I just want to check
what these two do.

Just reverse.

Stop here.

These animals are very
sensitive to drugs

and there's a high risk
of overdose or injury.

OK, I'm going to take it.

Just watch the female - she's not
happy at all about the vehicle.

She's quite intent in protecting
her... The young male.

CHEETAH HISSES

With an eye out
for the angry mother,

Shaun carefully removes
the first young male.

Ready. We're just going
to pop him in here.

By collecting DNA samples, Vincent
creates a profile for each cheetah

and matches them up with unrelated
females on other fenced reserves.

OK, got some blood vials over there.

A single population on a
small fenced reserve like this

is not viable in the long term.

But 53 small populations
on 53 reserves

are viable in the long term,
if managed as a single population.

So, we continuously have to
move these cheetah

between the 53 small fenced reserves

to ensure that they remain
genetically viable.

Just support his neck here.

You can put it in as deep as you can

and just grab him from the outside
and drag him through.

Just give him an antidote.

Far more comfortable,
once they're awake.

CHEETAH HISSES

OK, let's go.

ENGINE STARTS

Vincent has now moved 98 cheetah.

But alarmingly, one in five of them
have died in the process.

It's a terrible price to pay
for conservation.

A small box, it's a very, very
confined space for a cheetah.

We don't like to keep them
there too long.

Unfortunately, some of the reserves
are really far from each other

and we have to move them
over a day or two.

So, we really fear for them,

and we lose a lot of cheetah
because of chronic stress.

CHEETAH HISSES

The two brothers are travelling
100 miles to their new home,

Sable Ranch, where they will
stay for the rest of their lives.

Plenty of cheetah food over here.

These two young cheetah have
survived their journey unscathed.

They are doing 100%,
just a case of opening up now.

CHEETAH HISSES

Vincent will soon bring in a female,
so they can start a family.

When their offspring
have reached adulthood,

they'll need to be moved
to another reserve.

It's never-ending work.

There are now less than
10,000 cheetahs left.

South Africa is the only country
where the population is growing,

thanks to human intervention.

But at what cost?

Will all of Africa's wildlife end up
living on fenced private reserves?

I really think that this is going
to be the future of conservation,

because we're not going to find
wide open spaces in Africa any more.

There's just too many people,
too much development.

But we will find small
fragments of natural habitat

where we can reintroduce cheetah.

So this is really a way to
increase the range of cheetah,

to beef up their numbers,

because in the rest of Africa,
their numbers are going down.

There is at least one place
left in Africa

where you can still find
wide open spaces.

Zambia.

With over 100,000 square miles
of untamed wilderness,

Zambia is simply
too large to fence in.

One hunter needs this vast
landscape more than any other

and it's the most endangered of
all the predators on the plains.

The African wild dog.

Wild dogs are highly social animals.

Before hunting, they carry out
a greeting ritual,

reinforcing bonds within the pack.

They also care for
their old and injured,

making sure no dog goes
hungry or gets left behind.

But these greetings
are becoming a rarity.

Wild dogs have lost over 90%
of their former range

and there are now just 6,000
remaining in the whole of Africa.

Mike Bravo, go ahead.

Yeah, we have the hot springs
pack just upstream.

Copy that, going there right now.

It's five o'clock in the morning

and a team from the
Zambian Carnivore Programme

are tracking a pack of wild dogs.

Their study animals
are getting caught

in the crossfire of a war
with illegal poaching

and Thandive and Henry are
trying to keep watch over them.

It's a huge area and
to look for animals like that

is like looking for
a needle in a haystack

and worse still, these dogs are
moving at really high speeds.

They're heading out hunting, huh?

They're joined on their search
by air support.

Team leader Dr Matt Becker
is spotting from above,

trying to work out which direction
the dogs are heading.

Tango Mike, Tango Mike, Mike, Bravo.

Mike Bravo, go ahead.

Yeah, we have the hot springs pack -

got a visual, all 15 of them,
just upstream from the Kalousie.

Copy that, we'll head there right now
and try to keep up as best as we can.

OK, sounds good.

Wild dog territories stretch
over 600 square miles.

They're constantly on the move,

so the scientists track them
using radio collars.

If you don't follow them
on the ground for a couple of days,

you often have no idea
where they may be.

So the quickest, easiest thing to do
is get up in the air

and pick up the signal
from a long ways away,

and then, we'll radio those
locations to our ground teams,

who will come in with
their Land Rovers

and follow the dogs on the ground

and collect all sorts of
critical information on them.

Mike Bravo, I copy that.

Do you have the location right now?

Yeah, I've got them.
11 o'clock, moving in now.

Oh, that's great.

The team observe the pack
hunting almost every day.

Once they've selected their target,
it's all about teamwork.

When they actually encounter
wildebeest or other prey,

you'll see them reacting to where
the other dogs are running as well.

They are very aware
of what's going on

and what their other
pack members are doing.

You know, they take down wildebeest

that one dog can't
possibly do by itself,

so through working together
and helping each other out,

they're able to take down
big animals like that.

No matter how many times I see a
wild dog hunt, it's always amazing.

The grace and speed of
the dogs in a hunt

is something that you can't get
with any other species.

There's nothing like wild dogs

and if we lose them, there will
never be anything like them again.

The greatest threat to wild dogs
comes from humans.

The dogs are getting caught in
snares intended for other animals.

Zambia's growing population
is creating a huge

and increasing demand
for commercial bushmeat,

with poachers targeting
species like gazelles.

But snares are indiscriminate

and thousands of other animals
are caught by accident.

With the dogs in constant danger,

the team keeps an eye on them,
in case they get caught in snares.

To follow the dogs, they need
to collar only one animal,

as they normally stick
together as a pack.

WILD DOG YELPS

Once the dog is safely down,
the team can slowly move in.

A lot of them are getting snared.

And so, these radio collars
enable us to get an animal,

find it and de-snare it.

So, this collar may save
this dog's life,

it may save its brothers and
sisters and other pack members.

So, once the pack member is down,
the other dogs will stay in the area.

As you can see,
some in the background -

so that makes it easier for the
immobilised dog to join the group

after the drugs wear off.

When he comes round, the young male
is unsteady on his feet,

but he soon catches up
with the rest of the pack.

I think the best sight
of the whole darting

is when the dog gets up
and rejoins the pack.

It doesn't get any better than that.

The team are searching for a pair of
females that they're worried about.

It's not unusual for
females to leave the pack

to look for new males,

but these two sisters
have run into trouble.

A few weeks ago, we de-snared
one of the females -

she had a snare around her waist

and was actually one of
the worst we've ever seen.

If you look very closely, you can
also see just where the wire was.

Her sister's also got
an injured back leg.

We can't see any open
wounds at the moment,

but she's clearly not putting
any weight on it at all.

And that does not
bode well for them,

when it comes to hunting,
looking for food.

Looks like they have not
eaten for a while, now.

They look very thin.

I don't think they have
a good chance of survival.

We will keep monitoring them
and see how it goes.

It's going to be difficult.
We might just end up picking up

two empty collars
in the next few weeks.

Sadly, the snared female
doesn't make it

and is found dead a month later,

but her sister manages
to join another pack.

Matt's team works closely
with anti-poaching patrols

from the South Luangwa
Conservation Society

and the Zambian Wildlife Authority,

looking for snares and searching
vehicles for bushmeat and guns.

But as always, the greatest weapon
in the war against poaching

is the next generation.

HENRY SPEAKS AFRICAN DIALECT

This is conservation club.

Every week, Thandi and Henry
take children on safari,

so they can appreciate wildlife
and the opportunities it brings.

How many people have seen
wild dogs before?

They hunt in packs of course,

and they prefer to
chase the animal down.

Probably the most important
aspect of our work

is ensuring that the people that are
most responsible for conservation

of wild dogs and wild life in
general are the Zambians themselves.

Henry and Thandi are fantastic
and are continuing

to help kids get engaged
in wildlife conservation.

For those of you that have
never seen a snare before,

this is what it looks like.

The mechanism is so that
it should tighten

as the animal struggles to get away.

The best thing that can come out
of this is a generation of people

that are interested in wildlife.

Regardless of what field
they join later on -

they could be teachers,
or bankers, or whatever -

but just environmentally-minded
people.

The animals are important, because
they are the sources of income

that can develop our
Zambia - our nation.

When I grow up, I just want to
teach people about wildlife.

Just like Mr Henry do.

Oceans cover over 70% of the planet.

This immense blue wilderness

is home to the largest predator
that's ever lived...

..the blue whale -

up to 30 metres long
and weighing 200 tonnes.

Since commercial whaling
was banned 30 years ago,

off the coast of California,

its numbers have almost
fully recovered.

But they face a new problem.

Here, blue whales
are feeding on krill,

in one of the world's
busiest shipping lanes.

Container ships plough through
these waters 24 hours a day,

heading in and out of Los Angeles.

When the bow strikes a whale,
it's usually fatal.

Some scientists have suggested
that this could be one reason

why the blue whale population
here is not increasing.

But proving it requires
very challenging research.

So, we'll go through the area
where we've had the sightings

and it looks like both
those whales moved last night

to the shipping lanes,
right in that zone...

On the MS Shearwater in LA harbour,

a team of marine biologists are
heading out to hunt for blue whales.

Their mission is to investigate
the impacts of ship strike.

I think we'll have
a chance at this angle -

it looks like he's back into

a little bit more of
a travelling mode.

John Calambokidis from
Cascadia Research

is the world's top expert
on blue whales

and has been studying them
for 29 years.

I first became aware of the
ship strike issue in 2007,

when we had at least four
blue whales that were struck

and killed by ships just in Southern
California in a few months' period.

The port of Los Angeles Long Beach

is the largest shipping complex
in the United States.

Container traffic here has increased
ten-fold in the last 30 years.

This spot right here probably has

some of the densest
concentration of ships

that will funnel through here,
coming into Los Angeles Long Beach.

This also, right here, is a canyon

that has quite a bit of krill
for blue whales to feed on.

And we've often got
concentrations of blue whales

right in this same area.

John is tagging a number of whales

to see how they respond
to the ships.

Right now, we have a whale
that's in the shipping lane,

so we're going to try
to take this opportunity

to put a tag on this whale,

monitor both what it's doing
and get the reaction of the whale.

Deploying a suction cup tag
requires precision timing.

This first critical point, till
you figure out what a whale's doing,

it's very easy to lose it.

Right now, there's a
little bit of pressure.

He may come up again here.

Yep, here he comes.

All right! Let's go.

Coming up.

OK, nice job there.

So, that's attached
with a suction cup.

We hope it will stay on

for something of the order
of a few hours.

These modern day whalers
with hi-tech harpoons

are hunting for new information
about the whales' behaviour

and why they don't simply
swim out of harm's way.

Blue whales don't seem to respond
very strongly to the ship presence.

You think about a long ship,

the engine of that ship
that's generating the noise

and the propeller are
all the way at the far end.

What might be of danger
to the blue whale

might be 300 metres
in front of that.

The tags reveal how much time the
whales spend in the shipping lanes,

especially at night.

The first thing that's
rather surprising

is that the whale crosses
the shipping lanes twice.

And we see that the
blue whales are spending

about twice as much of their time
at night near the surface,

where they will be vulnerable
to being struck by a ship,

compared to the day time.

John is now working
with the authorities

to try to divert the shipping lanes
and slow the vessels down.

All sides are keen
to find a solution

and allow the whales
to feed in peace.

The polar regions are
the least-inhabited

and the most remote
wildernesses on Earth.

Here in the Arctic,
the top predator is the polar bear.

Over almost half a million years,
these bears have adapted to

the Arctic's dramatic
annual changes of season.

They're the only predators
to hunt on sea ice

and they rely on it for
almost all of their prey.

But due to changes in the global
climate, the ice is getting thinner.

And their season for hunting
is getting shorter.

To prove this is happening,
you need hard evidence.

And there's one team of scientists

who've been collecting that
evidence for the last 30 years.

What is that?

It might be a swan.

Oh, just this side of the ridge?
Yeah.

In West Hudson Bay
in Northern Canada,

Government biologists
are carrying out

the world's longest
study on polar bears.

Oh, there's a bear, right below me -
holy smokes.

I think if I was going to do this
guy, I'd try to get on his left

and just push up onto
this ridge here.

If we get him on this ridge,
I think we're laughing.

The scientists are like
health visitors for bears,

checking the pulse of
the local population.

For Dr Evan Richardson,
summer is the perfect time to call.

As the bears are resting
on land right now,

living off their stored fat
reserves, waiting for the sea ice

to come back in the fall,
in November and December,

it really gives us
a good opportunity

to come and study this
particular population of bears.

The bears need to be immobilised

before the biologists can
get to work.

I'll just keep pushing him in
the direction he's headed now, OK?

Dr Nick Lunn's team has
darted over 5,000 bears

since the project first started.

That bear's going into the water.

It's a place they consider safe,
they head out to sea.

And we don't want to be
darting him in the water,

so we need to move him back out
where we can get a safe shot

and have him go down on the land.

Though it's stressful for the
individuals in the short-term,

this research could help save
the entire species in the long-term.

Once the dart is in,

the crew wait at a safe distance
until the bear is down.

They must be extremely cautious
when leaving the helicopter.

Working around polar bear country,
one always has to be vigilant

and aware that there are
other bears around -

they're curious,
they're going to come in.

We have firearms, as a protective
measure, just in case of an incident.

Let's see if we can reposition him -
which might be easier said than done.

The team have to work fast.

Once the anaesthetic wears off,

this bear will quickly
become very dangerous.

This bear was first caught
back in 2003

and he's got about another
ten capture histories.

We collect hair samples,
we'll take fat samples,

we'll take a few
standard measurements.

Head length - 343.

So now, we're going to get a straight
line body length of this bear.

233.

His canines are one.
Tooth wear is one.

By updating their health
records each year,

the team can keep an eye
on this bear's condition.

The number is 016.

Typically, male bears would be

10% larger than this
particular individual,

so the bears are actually shorter,

smaller than they used to be
in the 1980s and 1990s.

We believe it's probably related
to nutritional stress

and the population and
reduced access to food.

The bears are going hungry

because the winters here have
become warmer and shorter

and the summers longer and hotter.

The bears need to see ice as
a platform to hunt their prey,

to travel, they mate
out on the sea ice,

but we see sea ice breaking up

around two and a half
to three weeks earlier

and forming around two and a half
to three weeks later,

so the bears have less time to feed.

They're thinner, they don't have the
same amount of fat on their bodies.

We're seeing fewer cubs being
produced, declines in cubs' survival,

bears coming ashore
in poor condition,

weighing a lot less now
than they did 30 years ago.

The scientists can now prove
that these bears are, on average,

20% smaller than when
their study first started.

If the loss of ice continues,

the polar bear will
gradually become extinct.

Climate change is
happening fairly rapidly,

so even though these bears
are really good at fasting

and living off their body reserves
and going long periods without food,

what we're seeing is,
we're starting to push these bears

to their physiological limits,

and as they're pushed to the
limits of their body reserves,

obviously, that has implications
for their survival.

More than any other predator,

the polar bear has evolved to cope

with dramatic changes
in the Arctic seasons.

But with the current pace
of climate change,

the bears simply cannot
adapt fast enough.

If polar bears are to survive,

we will all have to play our part.

DR ULLAS KARANTH: If people
do smart things,

like different ways
of producing energy,

I think we will have
room for large predators

as well as people
living really well.

JOHN CALAMBOKIDIS: If humans are
going to survive on this Earth

and do so in harmony
with other species,

we're going to have to find a more
sustainable way to live than we do,

and a lot of that is
going to have to involve

lower levels of consumption.

We have to accept the fact that

we can't just blindly go on the
trajectory we're currently on

and expect things to work out well.

We've got to make changes.

CRAIG PACKER: We need to start
thinking about the ways

the whole world can contribute.

These precious animals
belong to all of us.

These are a world resource

and the world as a whole should
guard these animals against poachers,

habitat loss and protect them
into the future.

If we can't save the planet's
most charismatic predators,

what hope is there for the
rest of the natural world?

Wildlife has the power to recover

and people have the power to change.

What happens next depends on us.

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