PURRING As a wildlife cameraman,
I've travelled the world, trying to capture life's most intimate and
dramatic moments.
But wouldn't it be incredible if we could see the world
from an animal's point of view?
Well, in this series, that is exactly what we're going to do -
with the help of the animals themselves.
They're going to be the ones that are doing the filming.
They're going to take us to places that a cameraman like me simply
cannot go, and reveal a side of
their lives like we have never seen before.
UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYS
Working with scientists,
we're designing cameras small enough to take us into their hidden world
for the first time.
We're heading in. Wow! Foraging for some pups.
Our camera crew is one of the most diverse teams
to ever film a wildlife series.
From 30cm tall meerkats...
..to 60mph cheetahs.
From free-diving fur seals...
..to nest-building chimps...
our unconventional film crew are revealing surprising behaviour and
giving us new insights into how they live their lives.
Wow! That's really cool.
Instantly, you get a real chimp point of view.
This is their world,
their footage....
Whoa! Oh, wow! Groovy.
..their story,
and we're going to see it.. GROWLING
..through their eyes.
She's definitely got her game face on.
In this programme, we'll reveal
the secrets of three spectacular animals.
In the mountains of Turkey,
we'll find out what happens when bears come face-to-face.
Oh! Oh, wow! Here's another bear!
Look at that, look at that! GROWLING
In France, we get to the heart of
the ancient conflict between sheep...
BARKING
..and wolf.
BARKING
But my first expedition is far out at sea.
We're setting sail from the Azores,
a group of islands in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
I've teamed up with Doctor Jorge Fontes,
an expert on the sea life here.
I'm travelling far out into the Atlantic Ocean.
Mainland Europe is 850 miles in that direction.
It's one of the wildest places on Earth,
and I've come here to hopefully try and answer some very important
questions about one of the world's most mysterious, majestic creatures.
Devil rays are fish with wing-like
fins that stretch to nearly four metres across.
Jorge and his team have recently discovered that, every summer,
the rays migrate thousands of miles to gather here.
GENTLE MUSIC PLAYS
It's one of the most dramatic animal spectacles on Earth.
But Jorge has no idea why it takes place.
The rays swim too fast and too deep for divers to follow, so his best
chance of solving the mystery is one of our onboard cameras.
This is one of our incredible camera systems,
ready for deployment, and it's just attached to the harness.
This is the bit that goes over the ray, kind of like a lasso,
and you think, "How do you get it off?"
Well, within eight hours in saltwater,
this little magnesium bolt will
erode and then that will snap
and the whole system will float back up to the surface,
and we get it back and we all rejoice.
Now all we need is a ray.
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Now it's a race against time to get cameras on
before the rays return to the depths.
It's my first glimpse of these awesome creatures.
There must be 40 devil rays in front of me.
The rays can swim at 13mph.
We couldn't get close enough carrying cumbersome scuba gear,
so we're freediving.
It means attaching the camera will
have to be done on just one breath of air.
Jorge makes it look easy.
It was straight down there.
Got it, got it first time.
Woohoo!
The rest of the team soon get more cameras on board.
UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYS
After a few hours, the cameras are back.
Oh, wow!
And just swimming into the barracuda. Yeah.
That's fantastic.
It is a real devil ray point of view.
It looks as if you're just another ray going with the group.
GENTLE MUSIC PLAYS
I think they're probably speeding very fast at this point.
Yeah. The great thing is that the camera's not having any impact.
This animal's keeping up with all the others, irrespective of
the camera, so it's really unobtrusive.
The cameras also give a clear view of the remora fish, which stick to
the rays, hitching a ride and feeding on scraps.
The rays are gathering at a sea mound -
an underwater mountain that rises over 1,000 metres from the sea bed.
The summit is just 30 metres from the surface.
They've been just hovering and flying around
the summit of the sea mount. It really attracts them.
But, suddenly, the rays start to head down.
These rays can dive to 2,000 metres,
one of the deepest diving of all animals.
The descent is so fast, it puts the camera in a spin.
Whoa! This is...it's flipping. Yeah. It must be a huge speed.
Oh, the bottom... There's ocean floor there.
Jorge knew that the rays dived deep.
Now, for the first time, he can see why.
Amazing. This is amazing. This is... What I wanted to see.
..very different from what we've seen so far.
By the amount of light here, it looks like it's quite deep.
Very close to the sea floor.
These are unbelievably privileged views.
Did you see how close that was?
Yeah. That was, like, inches from the top of that rock.
I never expected...just going through this canyon,
why would they do this? Yeah.
We think of devil rays as oceanic animals that just bask the surface,
and here we see that that is not always the case.
Apparently, they like to explore very close to the bottom,
at the deep sea. That's very, very interesting, and it's a very new
look into their lives. Yeah.
And, soon, we see one reason why the rays are gathering here.
The camera shows hundreds of tiny floating animals - plankton -
clouding the water.
As the ray hits a patch of plankton,
the long fins on its head unfurl and funnel food into its huge mouth.
When it's finished feeding, the fins roll back up.
Seamounts are rich in food,
because deep ocean current full of nutrients
swell upwards when they hit the sides of the mountain,
driving huge blooms of plankton.
Rays are one of the few animals able to take advantage of
deep water prey.
They'll even eat fish up to a few inches long.
But it's cold in the depths.
At 1,000 metres, it's just six degrees Celsius,
so rays can't stay down for long.
After a deep dive, they head quickly back up.
You can see the surface.
That's amazing. They're really shallow right now.
Jorge thinks they're sunbathing.
And here we spot something new to science.
The rays seem to shiver, to help them warm up.
The abundance of food draws in these rays
but there are hundreds of seamounts around the Azores.
Why do they all gather at just one or two?
We need more footage to find the answer.
But the conditions have deteriorated,
and getting close to the rays is much tougher.
A bit of a waiting game at the moment.
We're waiting for the rays to come along, and there's absolutely
nothing around at the moment.
There is nothing easy about this whatsoever.
HE GASPS
Fortunately, by the next morning,
the sun is back out and the seas have calmed.
I think I'm ready to try and deploy one of the cameras myself.
I feel as able as I'm going to be, so I'll give it a go.
A group of rays is passing right under the boat.
It's the best chance I'm going to get.
I did it. Eventually HE LAUGHS
Quite tricky.
I managed to get the loop over one side and then the other,
come back to the surface and breathe.
That was great.
Well done. THEY CHEER AND LAUGH
As my camera ray swims off, Jorge and the team are successful, too.
Will we finally get a clue as to
why the rays are here in such numbers?
Whoa! Look at this lot coming in!
That's fantastic.
Soon we notice the gathering might not be as random as it first looked.
The formation can be really close,
almost like a jet fighter kind of formation.
The rays appear to be taking advantage of each other's
slipstream, to make swimming easier.
But each ray also seems to have its own place in the group.
So, this one has been lagging behind the first three, and it still is.
I wonder if there's some kind of hierarchy within these groups. Yeah.
Jorge is wondering if the males might be competing over the females.
We soon get a clue as to why.
A very pregnant female here. This thing is huge!
This looks like... A jumbo jet. A jumbo jet.
We then realise that lots of the rays are pregnant.
They each carry just one baby, known as a pup.
Pregnancy lasts for around a year, with the pup nourished
inside the mother with a form of milk.
What we see next has never been filmed before.
This unborn baby ray is doing its version of kicking.
Oh, wow! Oh, that's so cool! Wow!
This suggests that the pups will soon be born.
In most ray species,
mating happens soon after birth, so could this seamount be where these
rays gather to give birth and mate?
They spend most of their lives spread out in the open ocean,
so gathering to mate makes sense,
and the food-rich seamount is ideal for heavily pregnant mothers
and newborns.
More evidence is needed to confirm whether this is the reason
for the gathering. EVOCATIVE MUSIC PLAYS
But our cameras have given Jorge a remarkable new insight
into these animals' lives.
It's really a privilege to be able to have the perspective
of what a devil ray sees.
This is something that I would think impossible just a few years ago,
and, so, I'm really happy and really excited to be able to have this
perspective and be able to use this tool to learn more about this
mysterious species.
Time to prepare for our next mission.
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I've come to north-east Turkey...
..in search of an animal I've never seen before...
..the Eurasian brown bear.
They're extinct through much of Europe.
Here, the forest is teeming with them,
but they're incredibly shy, making them hard to study.
Cagan Sekercioglu has been working on these
bears for ten years,
but his longest-ever sighting lasted just three minutes.
And that's where our cameras can help.
How close do you think the nearest bear is to us? Right now? Yeah.
Within a mile? Oh, God, easily. Half a mile. Really? Yeah. Yeah. LAUGHTER
I mean, the numbers we have are among the highest densities
on the planet. Wow! Yeah. They're everywhere.
And, what, is there a single aim?
What do you want to find out from these bears?
Well, a big goal was to find out how they manage to survive in this
relatively small forest.
I would love to see how they interact.
Are they tolerant of each other?
Is there a lot of fighting going on? Yeah.
This forest is small and hemmed in by people on all sides.
So, how do so many bears survive here?
What do they eat? Where do they sleep?
And what happens when they meet each other?
We're hoping our cameras will unlock the secret of these elusive animals.
Onboard camera expert Chris Watts has been hard at work.
He's added cameras to the radio collars that Cagan uses to track
bears for his ongoing study.
For several days,
Cagan's team have been trying to catch and collar bears,
and I've been hoping to see them in action.
We've just got some very exciting news.
The team are not far from our base, and they say that they have captured
a big bear - a bear big enough to take our camera.
Here we go.
WHISPERS: It is one huge bear!
This bear has already been tranquillised.
BEARS GROANS SOFTLY
While the vet checks it's healthy,
the scientists take measurements and fit the radio collar
with our camera attached.
We're ecstatic!
It's in prime condition,
so it's a perfect candidate for an animal cam.
I can't wait to see what we get on film.
The bear quickly comes round and disappears into the forest.
The camera will automatically drop off after a couple of days.
We've got footage in...
..from a four-year-old female, which Cagan has called Siha.
There it is.
The angle is great. It is.
It's just enough of the bear to know that it's still there. Yeah.
Ah, it's a complete bear's eye view of the world. Yeah.
Is that...? Oh, yeah. Having a proper drink.
It's drinking water, yeah. Wow!
The camera itself has to go through everything the bear goes through,
so, walking down into gullies,
climbing up trees, going into the water...
The camera reveals that this forest is rich in bear food.
She eats a wide range of nutritious plants,
and turns over rocks to reach insects underneath.
After her meal, she's walking into a cave.
Cagan didn't know that these bears use caves in the summertime.
Most brown bears only use caves in winter to hibernate.
They don't need a big space. They don't need this huge cave.
You know, you'd be surprised how little space they need.
The presence of lots of caves is another reason why
this is a good bear habitat. BEAR SNIFFS AND SNUFFLES
After a quick rest,
she steps back out into the night and straight into danger.
Just right there. Yeah. As if it just appears from nowhere.
Yeah. So, the road, basically,
it's called an Interstate highway, and this traffic is very fast.
Siha is walking down a dangerous road.
But, before long, we discover why.
She's on the lookout for rubbish thrown from passing cars.
This is worrying for Cagan.
If bears develop a taste for rubbish,
they can become dependent on it.
He says that's already happening at a place on the edge of the forest.
So, I've come to investigate at a local dump.
Oh, we've got a bear right here with a cub!
Wow! Whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop, stop. DOGS BARK
Mother bear with a cub. That is a big bear!
To get a better look,
I'm using a thermal camera which detects the bear's body heat.
Oh, wow, look at that!
My goodness!
Brown bears are normally solitary, yet here they tolerate each other,
because there's so much food.
It's quite something to see so many of them in one place.
But it's not healthy for them to be feeding on our rubbish.
bears digging in rubbish that is still alight.
It's raking through the coals!
There are bears eating plastic...
..chewing on metal wires.
This is not a pretty sight.
I'm told that there are plans to close this dump down,
but the scientists are worried that that could cause another problem.
If they get rid of this, this dump overnight, that food
source has gone, and what that's going to leave
is a lot of hungry bears.
These dump feeders will be pushed out into the forest, but is there
room for any more bears out there?
Too many bears could lead to conflict and stress.
We're hoping that more footage will help us find out
how much the forest bears are interacting.
Right, off we go.
Cagan's continuing to collar bears, and I've been giving him a hand.
My goodness, that's a big old head.
Should be good. I'm really excited to see what we get.
Yeah, me too.
He just needs to keep the camera clean. Yeah. LAUGHTER
Our next footage is from a young adult male that Cagan
has named Farouk.
Oh, look at that beautiful morning light!
Look at that.
You can see the rain has caused a problem with the condensation.
Well, May is the wettest month.
I mean, you can still follow the behaviour pretty well.
Hey, is he feeding? You can actually see the water beater backlit,
so maybe that. Yeah, he is, yeah. He's licking the dew.
Wow! Just drinking water, licking the dew off the grass, yeah.
Sticking out that big tongue as he walks along,
just getting some nice, fresh water. Wow!
But Farouk's peaceful morning doesn't last long.
Oh! Oh, wow! Oh, wow! There's another bear!
Farouk is being confronted, probably by another male. GROWLING AND SNARLING
Oh, look at that!
Oh, man! HEAVY THUDDING
After standing up to swipe at each other, Farouk continues to growl.
The other bear slowly retreats.
Bites aren't unusual amongst male bears, but, in a crowded forest,
they may be more common and the risk of injury much higher.
As he lies down to recover, we see that Farouk is bleeding.
He's broken his claw. That'll be painful,
but the claw will drop off and grow back eventually.
This time, he got off lightly.
But, just when it looked like Farouk was in the clear,
he spots another bear approaching.
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He makes a run for it.
He's being chased.
Running on an injured claw, the chase goes on for an exhausting
45 minutes before the pursuer finally gives up.
Farouk climbs to high ground and checks all around
before he can eventually relax.
The camera has shown how high bear numbers are,
and how that can make life hard.
And that's not the end of Farouk's excitement for the day.
Oh! Oh, wow!
There's another bear! Holy cow, look at that!
The other bear's not acting aggressively towards him.
No, no. That's really interesting.
He's relaxed. He's sitting down.
No, they...they know each other.
It appears that this is Farouk's partner.
JAZZ MUSIC PLAYS
He may have been staying close to this female for weeks,
waiting for her to be ready to mate.
But she makes it clear... GROWLING
..she's not ready just yet.
Farouk has had a very busy day,
and we've seen how stressful that can be.
From what the cameras have shown him, Cagan thinks this
small patch of forest can't sustain many more bears.
If you were to close the dump overnight,
there's going to be trouble pretty quick on its heels.
And it has to be done, not just by closing the garbage dump, but also
by creating better quality habitat
with more natural food and more connectivity.
Cagan's hoping he can use this footage to gain support for a plan
to increase the size of the forest by planting 10 million trees.
Then, if the dump closes,
there will still be plenty of space and food for these threatened bears.
In another wild corner of Europe,
another Animals With Cameras team is starting a new adventure.
We've come to the hills of southern France...
..to see if we can help scientists protect one of Europe's most
controversial carnivores...
..the wolf.
Wolves were hunted to extinction in France less than a century ago, but
in the '90s they started to cross over the border from Italy. BARKING
Their numbers have been slowly growing ever since,
and there are now thought to be over 400 wolves
living in the French countryside.
This good news for wolf conservation is bad news for some farmers.
Thousands of sheep roam these hills, and, every night,
an age-old conflict plays out.
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In the dark, wolves venture out to hunt...
..and sheep are often in their sights.
This flock can't sense the danger they're in
until it's too late.
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A sheep stands no chance against a hungry adult wolf.
BELLS RING
Farmers blame wolves for the deaths of thousands of sheep every year.
Some shoot wolves, even though they're legally protected.
Wolf biologist Jean-Marc Landry
wants to find a solution to this problem.
The presence of the wolf in France brings a lot of conflicts.
You have extremes. Some people are pro and some are against.
What we try is to be in the middle, to show a new way of coexistence.
Jean-Marc thinks one answer is to give the flocks their very own
security guards - a team of dogs.
DOG BARKS
These guardian dogs live with the sheep all their lives
and have a strong bond with them.
Using dogs in this way is an old idea.
But not everyone thinks it's effective.
Jean-Marc wants to convince people that it is and reveal
how the dogs operate.
But most wolf attacks are after dark.
Can our night-vision collar cams
take us to the heart of the conflict?
For us, for my team, it's very, very exciting.
Our goal now is to observe the interaction from the dogs,
to be able to observe how the dog will chase off the wolf.
Jean-Marc also hopes that the cameras could reveal if some dogs
make better guardians than others.
It's very important with these dogs that they are able to fight wolves,
but they are very nice with people, and we need such a dog.
This is stealing my sausages!
HE SPEAKS IN FRENCH
The cameras give an immediate insight into life amongst the flock.
The dogs are a mixture of traditional mountain dog breeds.
They don't herd the sheep,
they just travel as part of the flock.
They're not trained to protect the sheep.
They should do it instinctively.
But, if a wolf attacks, are the dogs
really attached enough to the sheep to put THEIR lives on the line?
HOWLING
The collar cams have switched into night-vision mode.
We can see exactly what each dog is doing.
And our human camera team are in night-vision mode, too.
They're looking out for any wolves approaching over the hillsides.
It's midsummer, and the sheep are
more active at night when it's cooler.
The flock is moving in search of fresh grazing,
and the dogs go with them.
The onboard cameras reveal something unexpected.
Different dogs are taking up
different positions around the flock.
SHEEP BLEAT
Some of the dogs stay right in the middle...
..while others prefer to hang out around the edge.
What role will these different dogs play when wolves attack?
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There's plenty of other prey out here for wolves -
rabbits and deer -
but these vast flocks of sheep are a tempting target.
A wolf begins to creep close...
..and it's one of the dogs on the edge of the flock
that's the first to sense danger.
BARKING
This wolf thinks better of attacking.
Jean-Marc thinks that these outlying dogs play a vital role as sentries.
BARKING
Barking alone can be enough to see off a single wolf
attempting a sneaky attack.
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BARKING
But what will happen if a whole pack of wolves attacks?
It's three o'clock in the morning.
Out on the hillside, the dogs in the centre of the flock look relaxed...
BARKING
..while the others are pacing around the edge.
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They seem nervous.
There's something out there.
La! La, la! The wolf is there.
A group of wolves is heading straight for the flock.
SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYS
BARKING The alarm goes off...
..and other dogs rise to the challenge.
One from the middle charges out to help see off the attack.
The leading wolf flees.
BARKING
Now all four wolves are in retreat.
It's a great result for Jean-Marc.
We have seen the dogs chasing the wolves off, so it's very successful,
and no sheep were killed, so I'm very happy again. HE LAUGHS
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Our collar cams have shown Jean-Marc the importance of selecting a good
mix of dogs.
We have different personalities in dogs, and this is just amazing,
yeah. We have some dogs who are, you know, they are very strong, they are
bold, and they will go and they will run after the wolf.
And you have also those who are very shy and they are afraid by
everything, you know, so we are observing now a team of dogs,
how they are working. And, of course, if a dog is a little afraid,
he will bark and maybe give the alarm.
So, in a pack of dogs now,
you need different personalities, not only one.
Jean-Marc shows the shepherds his evidence of what a good job the
guardian dogs can do.
These shepherds seem to be on board.
With the use of guardian dogs, perhaps it will be possible for
wolves and sheep to coexist in the hills of southern France.
In this series, we travelled the world, from deserts to jungles
to oceans... UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYS
..helping scientists make ground-breaking discoveries.
With the use of new camera technologies,
we have been able to increase our understanding and knowledge of the
most fantastic, most amazing wild animals,
and we've revealed a side of their lives that has previously been a
complete mystery.
We captured the very first images of day-old meerkats,
deep underground. Wow! Foraging for some pups.
We discovered how seals track down their prey, far out at sea.
Look, dolphins! Oh, wow! They're playful. Oh, wow, wow!
And revealed how young cheetahs develop their hunting skills.
Oh, so close! Big fall! Oh, my goodness me!
It's been the animals that have taken us into their world...
and hopefully what they've shown us will help to better protect them in
the future.
MID TEMPO BLUES MUSIC PLAYS
In this episode, our biggest tech challenge was designing a camera for
one of the deepest diving animals on Earth.
Our first inspiration came from the remora fish,
which stick to the devil rays.
The work began in a shed in Devon.
Camera engineers Jonathan Watts and Marcus Shirley tested their idea on
a skate from the fishmonger.
We're going to try putting suction cups on a piece of fish to see what
the adhesion is like. Rays are, by their nature, quite slippery.
They're not the sort of thing that you necessarily would be able to
stick something to, so this is, this is something else.
Oh, yeah, that's sticking reasonably well.
But the rays would be in seawater...
and with water and salt added, the suckers didn't stick.
So Marcus came up with a new plan.
So we have been told that some scientists have used peanut butter
successfully on rays before.
OK, there you go. Lovely. Right, here we go. In it goes.
You know what? That's not bad. I wouldn't say it was perfect.
I think the legend may be true, may have something in it.
Next stop, real Mobula ray. Yeah, I think so.
The team join the scientists in the Azores,
armed with their newly built sucker cam and the tub of peanut butter.
It's always nice to have some energy food on board! LAUGHTER
No-one told Gonzalo that that was used on dead fish before!
Good stuff.
FUNKY MUSIC PLAYS
But despite the encouraging lab test, the suction power of the
humble peanut was no match for the thick slime on the ray's back.
Enter plan B...
The Towcam - a revolutionary new design.
Jorge tested the camera in the harbour.
By the way that it's moving underwater, it looks quite stable.
I'm very confident that we'll be happy with the quality of the
footage from these tests.
But the rays can dive to more than 1,000m.
Jorge had to be sure that the camera would work at these crushing depths.
So now we're going to test how it behaves at depth.
OK, moment of truth.
A diving weight pulled the Towcam down.
By 150 metres, the light was starting to fade.
That's it, OK. HE SPEAKS IN OWN LANGUAGE
The camera reached the end of Jorge's line and it was still
working. But had the foam housing survived the pressure?
I can see some white.
Well, structurally, it seems OK.
So we just have to check if it still floats as we expect.
It's negative.
Unfortunately, it looks like the
foam took, indeed, a lot of water in.
If we deploy this, it will just go down to the bottom after it's
released from the animal and this
would cause us to lose all the system.
We needed much tougher foam.
FUNKY MUSIC PLAYS One month later, and Towcam Mark II was ready to make its debut.
We just got the new system,
rebuilt these in the right foam, the right material.
Hopefully this one will behave as we expect in terms of flotation and
resistance to pressure.
After another depth test...
Yes. It's floating. It is still OK.
..Towcam II was ready for action.
But it's a 24-hour boat ride out to the devil rays,
so first we wanted to test the camera on an animal closer to port.
So we come here to the sheltered north shore, and
hopefully we'll be able to attract a couple of blue sharks,
and deploy our cameras, just to see how they look when they're being
towed by an actual animal.
Jorge's team used fish scraps to entice the sharks.
Yeah! Yeah!
Blue sharks can grow to nearly four metres.
Jorge has been studying them in the Azores for years,
and he knew that they could comfortably tow a camera.
He slipped a noose over the shark's nose with the Towcam attached.
Ooh!
Yes! Oh! Yeah! Well done.
This, I believe, the first camera on a blue shark, ever.
The camera would detach after eight hours.
But it's good. Perfect position. Yes! Woo! Yeah.
UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYS
It was time to hand filming duties over to our shark.
Look at that! Oh! Oh! He's going fast.
Oh, very good.
There's a lot more movement on the shark than on the camera.
It's actually...it's perfect.
Success. The camera captured a steady, clear shot.
A very nice perspective of the pilot fish, just taking advantage of the
wake of the shark, so saving energy.
It's very amazing. Look at that.
I'm very, very happy with these first results.
We can only hope that this new tool opens a new frontier.
Now, confident in our camera,
we could finally enter the devil ray's underwater world.
EVOCATIVE MUSIC PLAYS