NARRATOR: Africa's turbulent tip,
where the mighty Atlantic unleashes its fury against a rocky shore...
and sets the stage for deep drama.
Cape fur seals call it home.
Protected from the elements by their thick coats, they've come to hunt.
Underwater, they're graceful and streamlined acrobats.
The nutrient-rich Benguela Current caters one of the biggest banquets on Earth.
As the tiny fish move like quicksilver, the seals keep up.
Their sensitive whiskers detect vibrations from their gills.
In the open ocean, they slice through the water at 30 kilometers per hour.
This small hunting party has traveled
up to 200 kilometers per day in search of food...
before returning home to feed their pups on South Africa's Seal Island.
But first, they must face one of Africa's deadliest.
The great white shark.
Six meters long and several tons of white death. And she's not alone.
The deep channel surrounding Seal Island is patrolled
by one of the largest populations of white sharks on Earth.
For an ancient creature, she's surprisingly sophisticated.
Jelly-filled sensors on her snout,
home in on electrical pulses from muscle movement.
Specialized blood vessels keep her core body temperature
warmer for cold-water hunting.
Seals have excellent vision and immense stamina.
But the great white has a killer strategy.
She dives deeper, hidden by her cryptic coloration.
At 40 kilometers per hour, her 300 dagger-like teeth seal the deal.
One place offers sanctuary from the sharks' reign of terror--
kelp forests.
White sharks avoid the swaying fronds...
which provide a tranquil oasis for the seals...
and a buffer against the pounding surf.
Here, the subadults hone their swimming skills,
and search for prey hidden in the kelp.
But they can't stay forever.
More than just brawn, great whites have a tremendous brain
that coordinates their keen senses.
Seals are clever, and the sharks need to outsmart them.
During the pupping season,
South Africa becomes the great white capital of the world.
And despite their reputation as loners,
these superpredators will hunt cooperatively.
While most seals avoid the sharks in the sea kelp forest,
a straggler lets its guard down for just a moment.
As one predator distracts the group, the other seeks its prize.
On the cold western shores dwells another gang of assassins-- Cape gannets.
These large seabirds breed on islands off the coast of Namibia and South Africa.
Each year, tens of thousands of Cape gannets
leave their rookeries in the south to fly over 1,000 kilometers northeast.
Each winter, a jet of cold water from the Southern Ocean travels up
South Africa's Wild Coast towards Mozambique.
And with it, comes one of the largest migrations on Earth...
the sardine run.
Driven by instinct, millions of tiny fish turn the waters dark
as they swarm along the warmer current.
The mighty African current pulls the cooler water along the coastline,
sweeping the cold-water-loving sardines with it.
(tense music)
As they soldier on, they use their sharp vision to find plankton to eat.
The gannets are on their way, but they have company.
Following the sardines is a far deadlier army.
A squadron of common dolphins closes in fast.
They slice through the water at 30 kilometers per hour
in a tight family formation.
Pinpointing the sardine run in the vast ocean is tricky business.
But the dolphins have an extraordinary tool:
Echolocation.
Their high-pitched clicking bounces off objects and back to the dolphins,
revealing the object's location, size, and shape.
Today, it sounds like a feast.
Other dolphin families join the fray...
creating a superpod, thousands strong.
They circle the shoal and corral their prey into a tight bait ball.
Relentlessly, the dolphins take turns driving through,
and gobbling up individual fish.
They create a bubble net to drive the sardines toward the surface...
to launch a surprise aerial attack.
The sea boils with the thrashing of fins and fish.
The Cape gannets arrive just in time...
and dive into action.
Like meter-long guided missiles,
they hit the water at up to 100 kilometers per hour,
and plunge nearly 20 meters deep.
Airbags around their skulls help cushion the shock.
Underwater, wings and webbed feet allow them to chase the speeding fish.
They can stay under for up to minute.
The dolphins trap the fish at the surface
as the bombardment continues from all sides.
Hours of relentless attack decimates the bait ball.
While the dolphins continue to chase the main shoals,
the gannets return to their rookeries to feed their chicks.
For many young gannets, this is their first experience of the sardine run.
For others, it is their last.
Caught in the feeding frenzy, the gannets risk breaking their necks,
from the wrong angle of impact.
The aftermath of the feeding frenzy
sends a tantalizing smell of blood and fish oils into the water.
For sharks, it's the dinner bell.
Sharks, the sea's most ancient predators,
have trolled every ocean on Earth for millions of years.
Along with highly developed vision and smell, a shark's refined senses
and the ability to detect electrical currents from their prey
make them a constant threat.
Tiger sharks, weighing up to a metric ton,
are one of the ocean's largest apex predators. But they're not picky eaters.
Whatever crosses their path, dead or alive, makes a suitable supper.
NARRATOR: Tiger sharks have some of the world's most powerful, bone-crushing jaws.
They make quick work of dead or injured gannets,
before re-joining the trail of the oil slick left by the sardine run.
Dusky sharks, which usually prowl near the ocean floor,
also rise to the occasion of the sardine run.
These heavyweight, highly skilled killers
have one of the strongest bites of all sharks.
An army of duskies starts rounding up the shoal of sardines again.
These sharks can devour a tenth of their body weight in one feeding.
One after the other, they torpedo into the swirling ball,
like a fish piñata, swooping up mouthfuls with jaws wide open.
Once the sardines pass, calm returns.
At first glance, the reefs seem quiet and peaceful.
But in this bright coral arena, daily battles for survival play out,
and reef sharks perform at their peak.
When these killers descend in African waters,
the vibrant reef becomes an aquatic Hunger Games.
As a pack, they stalk prey hiding in the coral,
aggressively, violently, and fast.
Grouper fish spend most of their time outside their hole,
ready to duck in at the hint of danger.
But there's no escaping the sharks' electromagnetic sensors.
And when a meal is served, the gladiators battle it out.
Reefs occupy less than one percent of the ocean floor,
but they are home to more than twenty-five percent of marine life.
The competition for food and territory is stiff...
and has produced some bizarre adaptations.
This peculiar looking bottom-dweller has mastered the art of the ambush.
He's a crocodile fish.
He lurks in the sand and debris.
His mottled coloring mimics the seabed,
practically invisible as his prey comes to him.
But sometimes, the hunter becomes the game.
Another pigment-changing predator, with remarkable high-contrast vision,
sees through the crocodile fish's camouflage.
Cuttlefish. With more than 20 million specialized pigment cells,
they can blend into almost any background.
That's not their only trick.
Their body cavity acts like a jet, propelling them at lightning speed.
Among the ocean's most intelligent creatures,
the cunning cuttlefish's tactics include hiding in plain sight to ambush prey...
and rapidly changing color to mesmerize their victim.
But does changing its color work on another with the same tactic?
The crocodile fish, like many others, never see him coming.
The cuttlefish isn't the only camouflaged assassin in the sea.
In the warm waters off Mozambique, coral reefs are plentiful and perilous.
The domain of a stone-cold killer.
Besides his invisibility cloak, the stonefish secretes powerful neurotoxins
from the base of his dorsal spine.
He's the deadliest fish on the planet,
capable of killing a human in less than an hour.
The trade-off for looking like a stone is that he's not a good swimmer.
But then, he doesn't have to be.
He can remain motionless for hours until opportunity strikes.
(suspense music)
When the prey is less than a body length away,
he snaps open his jaws to suck it in.
The stonefish shares the reef with his equally deadly relative--
the scorpionfish.
Like the stonefish, he vanishes among the coral.
But unlike his motionless cousin,
the scorpionfish will creep closer to his prey.
It uses its gill covers to seal its mouth.
Snapping them open creates powerful suction to deliver the kiss of death.
(suspense music)
While the scorpionfish boasts venom and camouflage as its superpowers,
the octopus tops it with camouflage,
venom, jet propulsion, eight super-sticky tentacles,
and a hunger for scorpionfish.
The octopus' shifting colors help her track prey in stealth mode.
Her superb vision sees straight through the scorpionfish's
own brilliant camouflage, even at a distance.
(intense music)
The hunt is on.
The octopus' jet propulsion gives her an edge.
But the scorpionfish lucks out, finding a tight hole to slip into,
cheating death, at least today.
Undaunted, the hungry octopus quickly spots her next victim--
a stonefish.
Its rock impression isn't fooling anyone, especially the octopus.
But there's the venom to consider.
She deftly grabs the stonefish, avoiding its poisonous fins,
and delivers her own paralyzing toxin.
She retreats to her lair to enjoy the feast.
On Africa's reefs, there's always a bigger fish in the sea...
and dropping your guard could be the last thing you do.
A nurse shark is on the prowl.
He's a slow-moving bottom-dweller,
but that's part of his unique hunting strategy.
Normally a night stalker, he's coaxed from his cave
at the promise of his favorite food: octopus.
Predator versus predator.
Thanks to highly sensitive, whisker-like barbels
in front of his nostrils, no nook or cranny is beyond his grasp.
The octopus flees for a bolt-hole.
Not fast enough.
The shark's narrow mouth sucks the octopus from his hiding place.
The octopus' venomous beak, like a knife at a gunfight,
is no match for the shark's deadly grip.
On Africa's southeastern coastline,
the ocean pounds against a rocky, jagged shoreline.
Sea and land wage a titanic war with each pounding wave.
And yet the most intricate and delicate relationships flourish here.
Brown mussels filter the minute organisms brought in on the tide.
Their strong glue affixes them to the rocks,
where the oystercatcher tries to pick them off.
When they fall into the surf, the rock lobsters take over...
cracking them like peanuts with their powerful mandibles.
Fast-growing juveniles consume up to four percent of their body weight each day.
They may never stop growing over their 20-year life-span.
When food is scarce, the lobsters get crabby.
Unlike their cold-water counterparts,
warm-water rock lobsters lack heavy pincers.
Instead, they march into battle waving their big front horns.
If threats don't work, they tangle.
Ultimately, the strongest lobster claims the mussel.
Its powerful mouthparts sever the threads that hold the mussel closed
and crush the thin edge of the shell,
selfishly devouring its sumptuous meal alone.
On the shoreline, the competition is just as stiff.
A red tide delivers rock lobsters to kelp gulls by the hundreds.
As more birds arrive, a fight is brewing.
A feeding frenzy erupts as kelp gulls scramble to snatch rock lobster,
crabs, and anything else washed ashore on the red tide.
The deadly tide occurs when powerful winds churn the waters,
stirring up algae from the deep ocean.
In warmer water, the algae blooms, sucking oxygen from the water
and suffocating sea creatures.
The scavenging kelp gulls couldn't be happier.
With sharp eyes and sharper bills,
they spot their prey and greedily crack it open.
Without the gulls, the stranded lobsters would rot under the African sun...
so the gulls are performing a public service by cleaning up the beach.
While kelp gulls fill the air with riotous squawking,
along the reefs of Aliwal Shoal, a hunter lurks as silent as death.
For a shark, he's extremely slow-moving,
but at three meters long and 160 kilograms, he's every inch a shark.
The ragged-tooth shark's name says it all.
Those choppers are adapted for gripping, not tearing.
It often swallows food whole.
He's just as dangerous as he looks,
secretive, unpredictable, and aggressive.
Its long, muscular tail can propel him in an instant, with powerful force.
Raggies spend the day biding their time,
hanging out at reefs and shipwrecks.
Most sharks must keep moving to breathe. Raggies are the only sharks that gulp air.
Pumping water over their gills gives them a killer advantage-- stealth.
They gather along their northern migration route
towards Mozambique's warmer waters...
stopping to rest at Aliwal Shoal, where the caves provide shelter...
and plenty of prey.
Smaller schools of fish swim close to the shark for protection.
These sharks use the art of surprise to capture any unsuspecting victim.
With a quick sideways swipe of his head, it snaps up its meal in one quick gulp.
Like bustling cities, the reefs of Africa's deadly oceans
display a world of wonder.
Within multicolored formations, gullies, and caves,
thousands of species of fish thrive.
And when a streamlined predator slinks around for dining opportunities,
that's "a moray."
Slithering through the reef,
the moray eel worms its way deep into crevices, looking for fish.
Its sharp, jagged, backwardly curving teeth
and two sets of jaws offer no escape.
But as predators go, there's more here than morays.
Whitetip reef sharks and gray reef sharks hunt the eels.
While the whitetip reef sharks patrol the bottom,
gray reef sharks cruise above the reefs...
leaving this moray eel no place to hide.
What's worse than being chased by a hungry shark?
Being pursued by a pack of them.
The gang of whitetip sharks claims the prize...
(intense music)
while the gray reef sharks can only watch from afar.
This time, they have to be satisfied with leftovers.
As the sun sets, the ocean grows agitated.
Some large Cape fur seals head back to colder waters after the sardine run.
However, these bulls are about to join one last hunt...
courtesy of one of the fastest predators in the ocean.
The striped marlin can be as deadly as any shark.
Weighing over 200 kilograms,
it can reach an impressive 110 kilometers per hour.
Armed to the teeth, it uses its sword-like bill
to slash through shoals of fish,
then returns to eat its stunned and wounded victims.
When another streamlined assassin joins the hunt, the deadliness doubles.
With a spectacular dorsal fin,
stretching nearly the length of its three-meter body,
the sailfish is the marlin's faster cousin, the fastest fish in the sea.
And it doesn't mind teaming up to secure a meal.
The risk of injury is always high in a feeding frenzy...
especially with multiple predators involved.
Seal bulls try to stay clear of the marlin's bill.
The hunt ends as quickly as it started.
Tonight, as a full moon shines a spotlight on the sea,
night stalkers take the stage-- silvertip sharks.
Large, dominant, and easily angered.
A silvertip shark is so broadly ferocious,
it would attack a fellow silvertip, even one larger than itself.
A formidable predator, with keen hearing and smell...
and exceptionally large eyes that pierce dark, murky waters.
Its long, broad snout hides dozens of rows
of deadly serrated teeth it uses to saw through prey.
Its skin is like armor, constructed of hard,
sharp, tooth-like denticles instead of scales.
Silvertips make sudden, unpredictable moves to confuse their prey.
And by sensing vibrations in the water, no prey or threat goes unnoticed.
The shoal of fish creates a doughnut-shaped ball,
with rings of clear water, trying to evade the attackers.
But the silvertips can't be stopped.
At the bottom of the ocean, an ambush predator
closely related to the shark seemingly flies through the water.
A stingray uses electro-sensors, not eyes, to find its meals.
Its serrated tail is tipped with a deadly, venomous point to thwart predators.
(tense music)
And here comes one now.
The rare broadnose, sevengill cow shark slowly patrols the bottom.
The stingray desperately looks to hide on the sandy ocean floor.
But the broadnose isn't fooled.
The shark is surprisingly agile as it slips around crevices.
And when its senses lock onto potential prey,
it moves in a flash...
foiling the stingray's plan.
Now it swims for its life...
but not fast enough.
Africa's oceans, vast and treacherous.
While it teems with life, it's a cauldron of death,
where hunter and hunted stir the waters, just as they have done for millennia.
Bloodshed brings balance to this ancient ecosystem,
where, despite its size, there is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.