STEPHEN FRY: 'Filmed over three years...
'..in more than 60 locations...
'..making a series like A Year On Planet Earth
'would be impossible without the collaboration of scientists,
'conservationists and local people.
'They work in the world's most incredible locations.'
MAN: I get to see the mantas every day.
I am living the dream.
It's completely wild. It looks like something out of Jurassic Park.
'Using pioneering technology,
'they uncover behaviour never seen before.'
It's most surreal. I could see through the eyes of a penguin.
Oh, there's a hammer! Look at that.
MAN: The big hammerhead is trying to feed on these blacktips.
Every time I go up, I still love it.
'They use unconventional methods.'
MAN IN CHINESE:
'But they also bear witness
'to the pressures of human activity on the natural world.'
WOMAN: If the oceans carry on warming,
we might not have king penguins by the end of the century.
'Even putting their lives on the line...'
You have to pretend as if you are a criminal.
'..for future generations.'
MAN: I hope to pass on whatever knowledge I have
to generations that come
because they are wonderful creatures.
We should really care about them.
'Through their work, they experience first-hand
'the challenges of the changing seasons,
'the highs and lows of a year on planet Earth.
'These are their stories.
'Halfway between South Africa and the Antarctic,
'deep in the Southern Ocean,
'lies one of the most remote islands on the planet.
'Marion Island is one of the last true untouched havens for wildlife.
'And home to more than a million penguins.'
WOMAN: It really is absolutely breath-taking.
It's covered with the most incredible wildlife.
You can't not be amazed by this place.
MAN: The landscape is very beautiful.
It's an isolated place
where there's nobody
except the scientists that come to work here.
'The South African National Antarctic Programme
'runs a base with a small field team
'that studies the impacts of climate change.'
MAN: Besides the base,
there's no real structural development,
there's no fences, there's no walkways.
It's completely wild.
'The base has been manned 365 days a year
'for nearly 40 years.
'Enabling a study unmatched anywhere else in the world.
'But 2020 posed a problem.
'The global pandemic meant that, for the first time in decades,
'fieldwork ground to an abrupt halt.
'Until hope arrived from an unexpected direction.
'Marion Island caught the eye of the A Year On Planet Earth team.
'Because of the unique habitat, the island is protected...
'..and filming hadn't been allowed there for 20 years.
'But the pandemic presented an opportunity
'for the perfect partnership.
'The film crew chartered an Antarctic vessel,
'and by offering passage to key scientists,
'they were granted unprecedented filming access
'to one of the world's last true wildernesses.
'Following a gruelling eight days...
'..through the unforgiving Southern Ocean...
'..the team arrives and gets straight to work.'
I'm Danielle Keys.
I am a PhD student at the Nelson Mandela University.
I monitor and observe seabirds.
I absolutely love being hands-on with animals
that don't have this internal fear of humans.
You can get really close to them without scaring them off,
which is incredible.
'This allows the scientists
'to take regular health checks and measurements of the animals
'on the island.'
CRIES
'To assess the impact of climate change,
'the team needs to monitor what the animals are eating,
'and whether this is changing over time.'
My name is Frikkie van der Vyver, and I'm a field biologist
with Pretoria University's marine mammal research programme.
'Analysing the diet of a marine mammal
'used to be daunting task.
'But these days, there's a clever solution.
'For the fur seals of Marion,
'the answer is hiding in their whiskers.'
FRIKKIE: The whole whisker is a timeline
of the animal's diet.
If you think about it, we are what we eat,
so everything that a seal, for example, eats
gets laid down in its whiskers,
and scientists can study a number of years back
what the seal has been eating
through doing analysis on its whisker.
'Monitoring the diet of Marion's vast penguin population
'is done very differently.
'Penguins spend up to 75% of their time in the ocean,
'so, until recently, much of their lives
'remained a mystery.
'But thanks to a pioneering new project,
'the team has developed a way
'to follow Marion's four different penguin species
'far out at sea.'
DANIELLE KEYS: By putting cameras on their backs,
we can see what they do out in the open ocean.
We will put more than one device on them.
We will put a camera on their backs, as well as a GPS device.
It doesn't hurt their feathers,
and the devices are small enough to not impact how they swim.
We get a bird's-eye view
of what they actually see in the ocean.
'The footage reveals behaviour
'never seen before.
'Gentoo penguins wrestle over the largest squid
'every observed in their diet.
'While the cameras give us an intimate view,
'GPS data shows exactly where the penguins go on feeding trips.
'King penguin parents
'sometimes leave their chicks for months to find food.
'And the data reveals
'they are undertaking a journey of epic proportions.'
DANIELLE KEYS: We found that these birds
are travelling hundreds of kilometres south,
all the way to the South Antarctic polar front,
and they're foraging there
in this incredibly nutrient-rich environment.
'But the studies are also revealing
'an accelerating crisis.'
DANIELLE KEYS: As our oceans are warming,
this current is moving further south,
which means that these penguins need to forage a whole lot further
in order to catch their prey.
So their chicks are left on the beaches a lot longer,
and often their parents don't come back
with enough food for them.
If this carries on,
if the oceans carry on warming the way that they are,
there's a good chance that we might not have king penguins
by the end of the century.
'The scientists' observations over the past 40 years
'provide hard evidence
'that climate change is having an impact,
'and they show the importance of studying and protecting
'this unique, pristine environment.
'During these opening weeks of the year,
'the sun's most direct rays
'fall on the southern half of the planet.
'In the Northern Hemisphere, it's winter.
'Those that can have fled the cold to follow the sun south.'
'The arrival of one such migrant
'is eagerly anticipated in Southern Florida.'
MAN: My favourite time of year in South Florida
has to be the winter. That's when the sharks are here.
In the fall, as water temperatures start to drop,
these sharks will start moving south
to stay within their preferred water temperature.
My name is Stephen Kajiura. I'm a professor
in the Department of Biological Sciences
at Florida Atlantic University.
Ever since I was a little kid, like, four or five years old,
I thought sharks were really cool. I remember going to the library
and getting out as many shark books as I could.
And I was just fascinated.
I wanted to study sharks.
'Stephen's childhood obsession
'led him into a career in marine biology,
'specialising in the migration of blacktip sharks.'
STEPHEN K: When I first flew along the beach
and saw thousands of sharks in the shallows,
I was astounded. I had no idea that there were that many sharks here,
that close to the beach.
I realised we need to study this a bit more.
There's a big school.
That's well over a thousand sharks right there.
That's what we typically get this time of year.
We get these large aggregations of these sharks coming down here.
Look at 'em all.
That's a really good-sized school.
'This aerial perspective
'also reveals incredible behaviour
'that would go unnoticed down on the water.'
STEPHEN K: These sharks will funnel in
right up against the beach.
They don't wanna be in the deep water,
where the big predators are.
Oh, there's a hammer! Look at that.
There's a hammer, right there.
Larger sharks, like big, great hammerheads,
are trying to feed on these blacktips.
A hammerhead will come in from deeper water
and start to chase them.
And what's interesting is these blacktips are small enough
that they're able to dart in, right up against the beach,
into the shallow waters.
The big hammerhead is unable to follow into the shallow water,
so it has to peel off and go back into deep water again.
Looking at them from the plane is great,
but nothing beats actually being right beside the animal
and actually bringing one up beside the boat.
'It offers Stephen and his team
'the opportunity to track the sharks.'
STEPHEN K: This is our prime field season.
We've only got literally a few weeks while the sharks are here.
We have a lot of work to do in a short window.
And toss the float.
All right.
Let's see what we can catch.
So, we're going to tag one of the sharks
with a satellite tag on the fin. And what that allows us to do
is look at the movement of these sharks
as they're moving up and down the coast.
'First, the sharks are caught
'and carefully manoeuvred alongside the boat.'
STEPHEN K: When you've got a shark on the line,
you need to work it up quickly.
And once you have the shark secured,
then we're able to get this animal processed and released
as quickly as possible.
Dart tag, have you got the number on it? It's, um... 406856.
Any time that fin breaks the surface of the water,
that satellite tag sends a signal
and gives us a latitude and longitude,
so we're able to follow its movement.
And that tag will last for probably a year or so,
and then it will eventually fall out of the fin.
'By the end of winter,
'as spring warms the water further north,
'the sharks start to leave Southern Florida.
'But for Stephen, his work has only just begun.'
STEPHEN K: To me, one of the most interesting aspects
of this whole project is getting on the computer
and looking at the data, seeing what we've learned.
These sharks are going much farther north now
than they ever have historically.
All the way up to Long Island, New York.
And I think this is largely attributed to the fact
that the oceans are warming
and the sharks are encountering their preferred water temperatures
at higher and higher latitudes.
And so, as oceans continue to warm,
these sharks are probably gonna keep shifting their distribution
further and further north
and going places they never were previously.
Conversely, in the winter,
they're not coming quite as far south.
Why swim all the way down to South Florida
if the water's just fine off Central Florida somewhere?
When I started the aerial survey project,
it was not uncommon to see in excess of 10,000 sharks on a single flight.
And now, I'm lucky to break a thousand.
And that's a dramatic change in no more than a decade.
That is powerful data to be able to share with the public,
to show a real, tangible effect of global climate change
on a top-level marine predator.
It's scary, because there's a dramatic shift
in a short period of time. But I'm comforted by the fact that
sharks, as a whole, have survived all five mass extinctions
on this planet, and they're still here.
And so I'm quite confident
that the sharks are gonna continue to be here.
They can adapt. They're gonna do just fine,
and they'll be here long after the humans go away.
'The warmth which draws the sharks north, back up the coast,
'is now felt right across the Northern Hemisphere.
'Winter finally gives way to spring.
'A time of growth.
'And new life.
'For many, the hardest working months
'of their lives lie ahead.
'And some will go to extraordinary lengths
'to raise the next generation.
'This female leatherback turtle
'reaches the end of a journey of more than 5,000km
'from Eastern Canada.
'Her destination is a remote fishing village
'in the Caribbean.
'Using the Earth's magnetic field to guide her,
'she returns to the very same beach where she was born
'nearly two decades ago.'
MAN: Wherever they were born,
they come back to the same beach to lay eggs.
After so long, I think that is amazing.
My name is Deon McEachnie
I am a fisherman,
and I work as a tour guide, touring people on the beach,
and also as a patrol to help protect leatherback turtles
that nest on the beach.
'In peak nesting season, there are more turtles on the beach
'than people in the village.
'But until recently,
'turtles have been under threat from the community.'
DEON: I grew up in Grande Riviere. I've spent my entire life here.
We used to poach turtles.
My grandparents, my parents, we ate leatherback turtles,
we ate turtle eggs.
I mean, I feel sorry about it that you actually did that,
but, I mean, you didn't know better.
It was just a normal custom that the villagers used to do.
'But these days, it's unlikely to be poachers
'walking the beaches at night.
'Following an alarming decrease
'in the global population of leatherbacks,
'the hunting and consumption of turtles was banned,
'and the villagers set up a conservation initiative.
'The Grande Riviere Nature Tour Guide Association
'monitors the turtles, and also runs night patrols.'
DEON: As soon as the protection started
and people began to patrol the beach,
the killing of leatherback turtles actually stopped.
The community did change.
They are more educated now about it, and they understand,
you know, the purpose and how important it is.
'As well as helping with night patrols,
'Deon runs educational tours during the daytime.'
Right now, she's finished laying the eggs.
She's doing a process we call camouflaging.
Camouflaging means she trying to hide exactly where she lay the eggs.
If you look at the front-left flipper,
you will see that there is a cut on the flipper.
Most likely, that will be from a machete.
Most likely, she's been caught in a fishing net.
The fisherman tried to, you know, chop the turtle
to get the turtle away from the net.
'Whilst leatherbacks are now well-protected on the beaches,
'out in the ocean, it's a very different story.'
'Many families rely on fishing for their livelihood.
'As the sun sets, fishermen head out to sea.
'They use large vertical panels of netting suspended in the water,
'called gill nets.
'As well as catching fish,
'the gill nets often entangle other wildlife,
'including turtles.
'As a fisherman himself,
'Deon uses his knowledge to engage with the locals.'
How many boats, other than you, do you see out there in the night?
There's, like, 12 of us. Could be probably more.
How many turtles do you believe would actually die
because of being entangled in the net?
It would be probably 40.
OK, so that's an average of, let me say,
between 30 to 40 turtles
that will die per night because of gill net fishing.
- Yeah. - OK.
You wouldn't always kill them.
You wouldn't always, like...
If we was fishing them, we wouldn't kill them.
It depends on the net.
Sometimes, the net can be brand-new.
And if the net is new,
they have to cut up the net to free the turtle.
And they don't want their net to be destroyed.
Destroyed, yeah.
I mean, all you can do is try to talk to fishermen.
But out there, in the night,
it's gonna be totally up to them
if they will take your advice or not.
'Scientists and NGOs
'are exploring alternative fishing methods
'that will help keep turtles safe in these waters.
'Deon hangs up his own gill nets
'for the entire turtle nesting season,
'and remains committed to winning over the hearts and minds
'of the community.'
DEON: She's heading back into the water now.
And most likely, she'll be back here in about ten to 15 days' time...
..where she's gonna deposit another 80 to 100 eggs.
'Deon's daughter often joins him on his tours.'
See, she's gonna now swim. Watch her swim.
Watch, watch, watch. What speed!
What speed, what speed! Yay!
Ooh, see her over there?
DEON: I hope to pass on whatever knowledge I have
to generations that come,
because they are wonderful creatures.
To come so far and to do what they do,
you know, there's so much to learn from them.
We should really care about them.
Ooh!
She gone... far away.
'After nesting, leatherbacks return to the sea
'to make the long journey to their feeding grounds
'in the north.
'As our planet continues on its journey around the sun,
'its heat intensifies over the Northern Hemisphere
'and the equatorial rain belt is drawn north.'
THUNDER RUMBLES
'The summer months see some of the highest rainfall
'across the globe.
'All around the world,
'animals follow this movement of water...
'..in search of fresh food.'
TWEETING
'This seasonal shift of weather also changes ocean currents.
'In summer, a blizzard of nutritious plankton
'flows towards the Maldives.'
MAN: In the wet season, the winds are usually stronger
and we get a lot more rain.
There is what we call the manta weather.
'Enormous reef mantas
'gather here in their hundreds to feed on the plankton.'
My name is Yaniu.
I work with the Manta Trust as a research and education officer.
The best part of my job
is that I get to see the mantas almost every day.
I am living the dream.
'Yaniu was born and brought up on these islands.
'But throughout his childhood, he had no idea
'of the incredible spectacle just offshore.'
YANIU: I learned swimming and snorkelling
when I was really young.
I was really interested in the natural world,
but I didn't see a manta ray until I was 18.
When I first saw the mantas,
I was swimming with 200 mantas.
I was so excited.
And at the same time, I was not really believing
it's happening for real.
From then, I wanted to learn more about these creatures
and why they show up here.
'The unique geography of the funnel-shaped bay
'traps huge amounts of plankton.
'And the mantas know exactly where to come year after year.
'This annual feeding event
'allows Yaniu to gather data on the population.
'Every summer, he spends his days taking photographs of the manta rays
'for one of the biggest photo ID projects ever undertaken.
'15 years of data have been gathered by the Manta Trust.'
YANIU: Every individual manta
have their unique spot patterns on their belly,
which we can use to identify them.
The same way we can use our fingerprints to identify us.
'The photographs are also used
'to track individual mantas' movements.'
YANIU: We can identify almost any manta
that is seen in the Maldives.
And when we can't identify it,
we usually count it as a new individual
that can go into our database.
'The results surprised everyone.
'They have identified more than 5,000 individual mantas
'visiting the Maldives.
'Over ten times the size of any other known population.
'Making it the manta capital of the world.
'But news of a gathering on this scale travels fast.'
YANIU: In Maldives, the economy depends on the tourism.
The manta tourism is a big part of this.
With the increase in the tourism, we also have other impacts.
There will be more boat traffic, more pollution,
more people here.
'Despite this, Yaniu understands
'the importance of tourism to his work.'
YANIU: The tourism and tourism establishments
have funded us for our researchers to be here
and to go out to where the mantas are.
So the tourism also have ups,
and, at the same time, downs
for the environment and for the researchers.
'It's a delicate balance,
'and one the Manta Trust are working hard to get right.'
YANIU: I hope to see a future
where the mantas and the other marine organisms
are in no threat,
and they are safe from the human impact.
They are one of the most exotic creatures
in the sea world.
I love them all.
'Summer trade winds
'pick up evaporated water from the Indian Ocean...
'..and carry it north.
'The warm air meets the Himalayas, where it condenses.
'Clouds build
'for the biggest weather event of the year.'
THUNDER RUMBLES
'The South Asian monsoon.
'In China, the mix of monsoon showers
'and warm sunshine
'provides the perfect conditions for bamboo to grow.
'These tender new leaves and shoots
'provide one forest dweller with the resource she needs
'to raise her youngster.'
MAN IN CHINESE:
'Pandas have long been
'the global symbol of endangered species.
'In the 1980s, there were fewer than 1,000 pandas in the wild.
'But their fortunes are slowly changing,
'thanks, in part, to 40 years of dedication
'of one extraordinary man.'
IN CHINESE:
'When Zhang first joined the panda team,
'the focus was on building panda numbers
'by breeding them in captivity.
'But it nearly always resulted in failure.'
ZHANG IN CHINESE:
HIGH-PITCHED BARKING
'Zhang decided that the key
'to tackling the panda's notoriously low libido
'was to improve their overall happiness,
'which meant caring for them 24-7 and building strong bonds.
'His unconventional methods
'soon started to improve their rate of conception.
'Now the challenge was to keep the new-born cubs alive.
'But success didn't come easily.'
IN CHINESE:
'Gradually, through better understanding
'and improvements to their diet and immunity,
'the survival rate of cubs was transformed.'
ZHANG IN CHINESE:
'This incredible success
'brought Zhang worldwide acclaim as the father of pandas.
'But his ambitions didn't stop there.'
IN CHINESE:
'Growing up with lots of human interaction
'didn't help prepare the cubs for life in the forest.
'So, Papa Panda and his team invented a unique approach.'
ZHANG IN CHINESE:
'For two years, keepers help raise the pandas
'until they're ready to be released into the wild.
'Getting to this moment
'has taken decades of hard work.
'But for Zhang, it has come at a great personal cost.'
ZHANG IN CHINESE:
'The incredible dedication of Zhang,
'and the centre's scientists, keepers and rangers
'has given hope for the long-term future of the species.
'After 30 years, panda numbers have almost doubled
'with nearly 2,000 living in the wild.
'As summer draws to a close,
'the north begins to cool,
'dramatically transforming an entire landscape.
'The sun's most direct rays track south,
'drawing with them the tropical rains.
'But on the parched plains of Zimbabwe,
'the skies are still cloudless...
'..and it hasn't rained here for many months.
'Now is the toughest time
'for Hwange National Park's most famous residents.
'Elephants concentrate around the few remaining water holes.
'Providing an opportunity for predators.
'But lions aren't the only ones taking advantage.'
GRUNTING
MAN: During the dry season,
it is easy to poach animals.
Instead of hunting for the animals,
the poacher can just go to the water hole,
wait for the animals,
shoot them to get ivory.
GUNSHOT
My name is Amos Gwema.
I am the Principal Investigation and Intelligence Officer
for Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority.
My aim is to protect the elephant in Hwange.
'Amos and his team
'look after 35,000 elephants.
'To do this, they must cover more than 14,500 square kilometres,
'nearly twice the size of Yellowstone National Park,
'and yet they have fewer than 50 rangers...
'..only one vehicle,
'and they're up against a formidable foe.'
AMOS: The poachers use rifles, AK-47,
and even cyanide to poison the elephant for their tusk.
In 2013, over 200 elephants were poisoned.
Imagine a crime site
where you discover over 60 elephant carcasses.
That was the most sorrowful...
..and painful experience of my career.
I nearly cried.
It was a dark year.
'In an area as vast as Hwange,
'keeping track of the poachers is a near-impossible task.
'But with his limited resources,
'Amos has had to find a way to crack the problem.'
AMOS: What we usually do to track down poachers
is we get intelligence from the community.
They are the ones who know who the poachers are.
'To gather evidence,
'Amos then goes undercover as a potential buyer of ivory
'and contacts the poacher.'
PHONE RINGS
AMOS: We start communicating...
Hello?
..develop a trust in each other.
You have to pretend as if you are a criminal
because they are also intelligent.
They will attempt to find out
whether you are a serious buyer or not.
Then we will agree on when to do the transaction.
'Once he's built up trust, he lays his trap.'
AMOS: We will team up with the police.
The moment the poacher brings the ivory...
..he or she will be arrested.
I've facilitated arrests
of over 350 poachers
since 2007.
And I have got a 95% conviction rate.
'Amos and his committed team of rangers
'take huge risks in carrying out this work.'
AMOS: Anti-poaching is a dangerous job.
There are some rangers who have been shot dead by the poachers.
'But the results are extraordinary.
'The number of elephants killed by poachers
'declined from 260 in 2013
'to none in 2020.
'And now, there have been two successive years
'with no poaching at all.
'By using his network of informants,
'Amos has revolutionised the way poaching activity
'can be controlled.
'In this area, at least, elephants are safe for now.'
AMOS: We don't own this wildlife.
We owe it to our children, our grandchildren
to look after those elephants.
If we love them, we should keep those animals
for them to enjoy also in their lifetime.
'Amos puts his life on the line
'for the benefit of future generations.
'Across the planet...
'..extraordinary teams of scientists,
'conservationists and local people
'dedicate their lives
'to understanding and protecting wildlife.
'Thanks to these passionate custodians of planet Earth,
'there is some hope for the animals
'that share our precious home.'
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