All over the world, wildlife populations are plummeting at a rate
not seen since the extinction of the dinosaurs...
..and it's being driven by human activity.
My name's Levison Wood.
There's a little baby there.
Quite dangerous situation.
I've walked the Nile and travelled to over a hundred countries.
Now, I'm exploring some of the world's last great wildernesses...
..to track down the most iconic but endangered animals on the planet...
That's a lion track.
..to get as close as possible to these majestic creatures,
in the last of their remaining natural habitats.
It's dusty. It's hot.
So this is all palm oil.
All of this, though, would have been primary rainforest.
I want to see for myself what is pushing these animals
to the brink of extinction.
These are baby sharks. Aren't they really endangered, though?
And understand what can be done to save them...
This thing is a monster. Huge!
..before it's too late.
This time I'm visiting the Borneo rainforest, one of the most diverse
ecological systems on the planet.
It's like something off Jurassic Park.
It's home to some of the rarest animals in the world
who are facing unprecedented challenges.
Oh, my God, that's horrific.
The people that did this are no better than animals themselves.
But there's one in particular I want to meet.
Look, it's an orangutang, he's right there, sitting watching.
Wow! Look at that. Whoo.
I'm off in search of Orangutans.
I've never seen an orangutan in the wild, so hopefully
this is the place to do it.
The only great ape in Asia,
orangutans once thrived throughout the region, but now they're only
found here in Borneo and the island of Sumatra.
Good morning! Morning.
They're a fascinating creature that we can relate to a lot.
You know, they are very, very humanlike.
Orangutan is Malay for person of the forest, but deforestation
and poaching have halved their population in the last 60 years,
and now they're in serious danger of going extinct.
So I'm going to go and find Dean. Hopefully he's around here.
He's, he's a local guide who knows a thing or two about orangutans.
Dean! Lev!
How are you doing? How are you? Yeah, good to meet you.
The population of Sandakan has doubled in the last decade
to over half a million.
Hello. Hello.
Hello, how are you guys?
The city is rapidly expanding into rural areas, increasing
the pressure on natural resources.
That's stingrays, taste good.
Stingrays? Stingrays. OK.
What is this one?
Is it Barracuda? Yeah. Barracuda. Barracuda, yeah.
So are these baby sharks?
It is our baby sharks.
They're taking the fins off there.
They're taking the fins off because it was believed
that the fins contains medicinal value.
Aren't they really endangered, though? They are very endangered.
But I mean, the local people here just try to make money, you know?
It's very sad, isn't it, though? Yeah.
We're aiming to travel through
the palm forest plantations and young secondary rainforest
to the village of Upak Ulu Segama,
then 80km upriver to
the Danum Valley,
an ancient primary rainforest,
twice as old as the Amazon
and the true home of the Bornean orangutan.
So one of these buses, then, yeah?
OK.
Yeah.
Hello. Hello.
We've bagged ourself a prime seat here.
The business class.
Borneo's primary rainforest has shrunk by over 30%
in the last 40 years.
And on leaving the city, we're immediately surrounded
by the reason.
It's all been replaced with palm oil plantations.
So this is all palm oil?
So all of this though would have been primary rainforest
until, what?
Yeah.
What kind of products need palm oil?
Really?
Yeah.
So they've just rebranded, remarketed,
they've called it vegetable oil instead of palm oil.
But this is where it comes from.
Right.
It's literally just palm trees as far as the eye can see.
Palm oil comes from the fruit of the oil palm tree.
And in 2020, this region produced around five million tonnes of it,
10% of the entire planet's supply.
OK. Thank you very much.
Just been dropped off here, right overlooking
the, erm, these palm oil plantations.
I'm going to show you this.
It's really, really shocking.
Just 30 years ago, this was ancient primary rainforest teeming
with orangutans and countless other species.
Now it's virtually devoid of wildlife and biodiversity.
Hey. How are you doing? Good, man.
How are you doing?
Let's jump up.
There are over 50,000 oil palm smallholdings in this region alone.
Dean's managed to get me inside one.
Comfortable, Dean. Nice and windy now.
It's nice to get a breeze.
Yeah, man.
Stop here. Here we go. Stop here.
Now it's time for me to help with the harvest.
And how do you do it? Using this.
Can you show me?
OK. Yeah.
Oh, wow.
Wow. So you have to chop off the palms first?
Yes. Yes.
You don't want that landing on your head.
Yeah.
Very sharp. Yeah.
Look at these teeth on these. Yeah.
That is lethal.
Can I have a go? Yeah, sure.
This is bloody hard work.
You're learning all the time.
How many can you take down in, like one hour?
Hundreds? Yeah. No!
How do I get this one off?
Come on, my friend. Where's he gone?
This is so hard.
Oh!
I'm going to show you how heavy this is.
Oh, that must be, what, like five kilograms? Ow.
Could be. Oh, careful, careful.
Quite sharp. Yeah, it's sharp.
It's like needles.
Look at that. I'm bleeding.
So it's a really dangerous job?
Very, yeah.
Do the orangutans ever come here?
These plantations might look green and lush, but because they're single
species, it's impossible for orangutans to live
here as they need to eat a variety of different fruits, plants
and insects to survive.
Well, we'll let you go and finish off your loading. Thank you so much.
My pleasure. Yeah.
It's clear the farmers themselves aren't the problem.
In this region alone,
tens of thousands have no choice but to toil away on the plantations
trying to provide for their families.
Our reliance on palm oil products is a huge driver of deforestation.
I'm just hoping that the further inland that I get into the secondary
and then the primary jungle, then hopefully there'll still be some
evidence of, of the habitat and therefore the orangutans.
But, you know, it doesn't look particularly hopeful when you see
scenes like this.
Deforestation creates another problem.
Many adult orangutans are killed,
leaving behind orphaned babies who can't survive on their own.
Nice to meet you. Hello.
Thank you. I'm Lev. What's your name?
Nabila.
The Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre
has been saving orphaned apes for over 50 years.
They're very susceptible to human diseases.
So full PPE is the order of the day.
Have got these very sexy boots on, mate.
THEY LAUGH
After the chaos of the city and the barren plantations,
I'm suddenly surrounded by adorable orangutans.
The centre aims to rehabilitate these vulnerable creatures
and release them back into the wild.
Hello, Gibree. Nice to meet you.
How are you? He's quite shy.
It's just like a human baby. Yeah.
Orangutans share 97% of their DNA with us.
And just like human babies, they need to be cared for to make
sure they grow into healthy adults.
Isn't that the cutest thing you've ever seen?
OK.
Sure, so where do I, where do I put...?
Just on the forehead?
Like that? Yeah.
36.6.
Is that OK?
In the training area. OK.
The sanctuary currently has eight orangutans under the age of five.
Aw.
It's a crucial stage when they must be taught the skills
they need to survive alone in the rainforest.
All these babies. All in this wheelbarrow.
Look at them all.
We'll see you at the training area, guys.
How do you train them?
Well, this one looks like she's very good at climbing.
Look! HE LAUGHS
So what's this one called?
So what's Nami's story, then?
Just by the roadside?
Wow. OK.
The centre has rehabilitated over a thousand
orangutans like Nami.
This small pocket of protected rainforest is the perfect place
for apes like her to adapt to life in the jungle.
At what age can you release them back into the wild?
Would you like some of this, my friend?
Oh, hey.
Oh, we'll put it back then.
They are amazing animals.
Just like humans, you know?
Hello.
Hey, we're talking about you.
Come on then, boys and girls.
HE LAUGHS
This is such good fun.
In you get, then.
Nice to meet you.
I've loved spending time with these mischievous baby apes,
but it's not the real world.
I need to see their reality and how they live in what's left
of their natural habitat.
It's made me really buzzing to actually get out into the jungle
and see these magnificent creatures in the wild.
Hey, guys. Nice to meet you.
What's your name? Akim.
Akim. Lev.
I'm in Borneo with local guy Dean,
who's introduced me to the elders of the ancient Sugpan tribe.
They've agreed to take us upstream into the primary rainforest...
..where I've got the best chance of a close encounter
with a wild orangutan.
But first, they're offering to take us to a secret cave.
Mind your head.
This is secondary forest, which means
that this had been cleared.
It had been logged at some point, but then it's been abandoned.
It's been left to regrow, rewild.
And as you can see, just in the space of a few decades,
it's back to being a proper forest again.
And you can hear the sounds of the jungle.
You can hear the crickets, the frogs, birds.
It's an Asian black hornbill.
It's funny, like whenever the Asian black hornbills are making a call,
it sounds like they're vomiting.
Really? Waa-hach.
BIRDS CALL
There's some movement up there.
Pig-tailed macaque.
Peaky Blinders of the forest.
The dark blob, you can see from here? Yeah.
That is actually a black eagle.
These birds of prey only inhabit rainforests with
high levels of cover.
So their presence here is a good sign of a healthy, rewilding jungle.
Given time, it's possible to regain lost natural habitat and give
populations of endangered species like the orangutan
a chance to recover.
It's hard to describe the humidity here.
It's so hot.
Within ten seconds, you're just drenched.
After four hours trekking, we finally reach our mystery cave.
Wow. Look. Look at this place.
Look at the size of it.
Huge.
We're following you.
What are these?
INDISTINCT REPLY
This is a coffin.
This is a coffin. Wow. OK.
All the details of coffin. It's beautiful, isn't it?
Yeah.
This one's got crocodiles on either end.
This one's got a cow underneath.
HE EXPLAINS
They believe that this belongs to a warrior. Right.
Yeah.
Look at this. I just found something here, which is quite amazing.
There's a carving of a, of a person.
Clearly a warrior.
Look what he's got there, in his hand. Somebody's head.
So this is one of the original Borneo head-hunters.
It's the stuff of myths and legends.
But here it's, it happened.
And there's the proof right there.
It's a real privilege to be shown such a sacred and historic part
of the Sugpan people's heritage.
Blown away by this.
Incredible that places like this still exist in the 21st century.
It's a piece of history down there. Isn't it just?
The day doesn't end here, though.
We're invited back to the Sugpan village to unwind
with our new friends.
Hey, how are you?
We've been roped into a little bit of a party.
It's a Friday night.
It's a full moon, some nice dancing, and the elders are all gathered
and they've given us lots of rice wine, and it's actually very tasty.
Cheers!
Cheers, chief.
Rice wine is good.
It is very good. You're right. Yeah.
What is this? This is called butod.
Sago worms. Sago worms.
And what are you, what are you doing with these things?
We want you to eat one of them.
You want me to eat one of them?
They're alive?
Yes!
Is this your favourite?
No. THEY LAUGH
No. Where's yours, Dean?
Hold on. Is there any more for my friend Dean?
If I'm doing it, you're doing it.
Mm...
Squishy. It's quite squishy.
It tastes like watermelon.
The taste is actually not bad. No, it's not, not bad.
No, it's just because it's still moving.
That's the unpleasant bit.
Well, cheers.
Fortified with wine and worms, we begin our long journey
up the Danum River to the ancient primary rainforest.
No shade, so...
..it's going to be a hot one, I think.
It'll take us two days to reach our destination.
You can see some of the, erm, the dangers of this river already.
It's not that deep and a lot of debris in the river.
We'll also have to be self-sufficient, eating whatever
we can find or catch along the way.
Oh!
Nice catch.
After three hours, we make our first stop off to collect some bamboo.
How many do we need?
A versatile plant, we'll need this for cooking later.
Back on the river,
it's a chance to take in the beauty of the jungle and look out
for some wildlife.
Keep our eyes peeled.
There might be some crocodiles in this river. Yeah.
See what we can see.
My God. God.
A dead orangutan.
Oh, my God. That's horrific.
Oh, my God.
Oh, it stinks.
Can we get a little bit closer
and see if there's any obvious sign of injury?
Oh, my God.
It's clearly been in the river for some time.
Yeah.
This is definitely an adult.
Large, dominant male.
Alpha male orangutans identified by their flange cheek pads are
sought out by females for mating.
They're a vital part of maintaining the population, making this find
an even bigger tragedy.
I think it's got, maybe got shot.
Oh.
Maybe they tried to act aggressively,
attacking maybe plantation workers
and then the plantation owner just shot it.
Poaching is the second biggest reason orangutans are in decline.
If they're not killed for their meat, it's usually
because they're seen as a threat to crops like oil palms.
It's just terrible.
Absolutely horrific.
I wanted to educate people on how important
it is to save the environment, save the orangutans.
But seeing something like this happen, actually,
it feels really angry.
Sad.
It's one of the most awful things I've seen.
The people that did this are no better than animals themselves.
It's an offence to harm critically endangered species and anyone found
guilty could face up to five years in a Malaysian prison.
OK. You're welcome.
Despite this, thousands of orangutans are killed
on plantations every year.
We've done our part. Yeah, well.
We'll send them the pictures, We'll send them the location,
and then they'll just have to do their investigation.
Indeed. Yeah.
It's sad that the journey has now been tainted by seeing that,
but it makes it all the more important to try and find some
hope, you know?
It's quite hard going.
I'm on the Danum River with my guide, Dean, searching
for wild orangutans.
We're still reeling from our discovery of a dead alpha male
orangutan in the river.
And now the further upstream we go, the more challenging
the conditions get.
Much lower water here.
So we've got to push the boat upriver, but at the same time
watching out for crocodiles.
The sights and sounds of the jungle are giving me hope that things
will take a turn for the better.
ANIMAL WHISTLES
Three hours later, we reached the edge of the primary rainforest,
the true home of the orangutan.
They don't call it a rainforest for nothing.
As you can see, it's a little bit damp, but it's actually lovely.
You know, the water's like having a nice warm bath.
Whoo!
It's 4:00 and this is where we're going to make camp
for the night.
After centuries hunting on this river, the Sugpan have no
problem catching plenty of fish for dinner.
And I've been asked to help with the cooking.
These are the bamboo shoots that we cut down earlier.
And now we need to chop this off.
So it's like a sort of a hollow tube so that they can cook.
It's not as neat as yours.
Split down the middle.
Is that BLEEP? I think it's OK.
No, it's BLEEP. BLEEP.
LAUGHTER Right, be done with it.
Fortunately, there's still a place for me in the kitchen.
We've got sweet potatoes, we've got garlic, onion and freshly caught
catfish, all brewed up in a bamboo pot.
Does it have a name, your dish?
"Nasi masak bamboo."
That means fish and soup.
Fish and bamboo.
LAUGHTER
Ha! I can speak Malay.
OK.
Everything.
Now...
..to the fire.
There we go. Look at that.
Amazing.
Yes? It's really, really good.
I was hoping for a nice post-dinner snooze, but we've been ordered back
to the water.
We've just been told that it's time for night fishing.
If we want to eat anything for breakfast,
this is what we're going to do.
The good thing about this is the net is really big holes.
So they only catch the full-size ones.
So they let the baby ones swim through.
And it's sustainable fishing.
Size of that one.
Very big fish. Very big fish.
Oh, good.
We've got the net up front, but you can also just...
..try and grab them.
A ninja...
Ah!
Whee!
Literally catch them with your hands. Oi!
That one's too small anyway.
I'm more concerned about the crocodiles, to be honest,
because this is prime hunting time.
I think that's probably enough, isn't it, boys?
Yeah. No, we've got to find our way back.
Very nice.
Next day, we're back on the river to finish our journey
into the primary rainforest.
There's about 45km to go.
Plenty of time for more wildlife spotting.
BIRDSONG
It's just gone 6am and as you can probably hear, the jungle
is very much alive with the sounds of wildlife, birds.
And this is the perfect time
to hopefully SEE some of the wildlife.
Get out again.
I mean, this is literally, you know, three, four inches deep
at this stage, so...
OK, let's get out and...
..pull it.
That's an orangutan, right there, sitting watching.
Wow! Look at that. Whoo.
Let's get a bit closer. Can we go over there?
Absolutely amazing.
Five minutes out of camp and just spotted
the orangutan right there.
Sat there on, like, the highest branch of the tree.
Clearly just woke up, a bit dozy.
Morning ablutions. Yep.
So we think it's actually an adult female.
Seeing them in their natural habitat
and looking at her being so relaxed.
She knows that she is in a very safe habitat.
It's incredible to finally see an adult orangutan in the wild,
swinging so effortlessly from branch to branch with her massive
two-metre arm span.
But it's a fleeting visit, and in moments, she's gone.
It's a great start to the day, wasn't it?
Incredible. Amazing.
All right. Let's get back to the boat. Get back to the boat.
Got a long journey. Yeah.
It's a relief to see an orangutan alive and well so soon
after yesterday's tragic discovery.
I hope we'll get even closer encounters deeper into the forest.
THUNDER CRACKS
After eight hours trekking through thunderstorms and rapids,
we finally reach our destination.
This'll do, Dennis, thank you.
The Danum Valley is the largest lowland rainforest
in Malaysian Borneo.
Well, it's a bit wobbly, this one. THEY LAUGH
You are actually inside one of the oldest rainforests
in the world, 130 million years old.
Wow.
And this area here is just filled with, like, big trees,
virgin rainforest, wildlife.
It's such a beautiful place, isn't it?
It's like something off Jurassic Park.
There were dinosaurs roaming around this valley once upon a time.
It's home to over a thousand species of animals, including the highest
reported concentration of orangutans in Borneo.
It is estimated there are about 500 individuals of orangutans.
But finding them won't be easy.
The valley covers over 400 square km and with temperatures of 35 degrees
and up to 96% humidity,
trekking through the forest is a sweaty and intense experience.
Incredibly humid.
You gotta stay hydrated because if you don't, get a bit
too tired, very easy to slip over on a root or a branch.
And if you get injured out here, you're screwed because it's not
like you can fly a helicopter and land it out here.
So, whoo, don't slip over, Dean.
SPLASHING
I think I've heard some movement, I tried to find
where the movement comes from.
Long-tailed macaque.
One's got a baby. Right.
The presence of other primates is an encouraging sign
orangutans could be nearby.
But in the jungle, there's always something out for blood.
Well, just looking down and I can see a big red patch on my trousers.
So that only means one thing.
And there we go.
Clearly been had by a leech.
Oh, bugger.
You can't even feel them at the time because they put this anticoagulant
and analgesic so you can't feel the fact they're biting you.
There it is. It's dropped off. Look how fat he is.
He's full of my blood.
You enjoyed your supper?
Definitely has, hasn't he?
He definitely has. That's a lot of blood.
Well, I hope you enjoyed it. THEY LAUGH
Yeah. Joys of the jungle.
Yeah, man.
As the hours pass by, there's still no sign of orangutans.
But Dean's been tracking these creatures for over a decade,
and, finally, we get the break we've been looking for.
What have we found, Dean?
I saw a mother and baby orangutan.
It's right above us in the tree there.
Can't see the baby. Where's the baby?
Inches from where the mum is.
We go down to 6:00.
Just follow the branch straight and the baby is there. All right.
Cool, eh?
Yeah, very cool.
How old do you think baby is?
I would say probably around three years old, maybe.
They're quite self-sufficient already.
Quite self-sufficient already.
That's so cool.
Orangutans live up to 45 years in the wild.
This infant is already showing signs of independence, but it still needs
the occasional helping hand.
So we see this amazing thing where the baby is not heavy enough
to carry its weight to another tree.
The mother become a bridge to get it to another tree.
Then the mother release the other branch.
It is amazing that, like, it's so rare to see this and get
a glimpse into the lives of the orangutans.
But to do it so close is an amazing privilege.
Normally orangutans only give birth to one baby every 8 to 10 years.
The longest time between births of any animal.
It makes orangutans even more vulnerable to extinction.
And so the loss of any fertile alpha male is a major blow
to their survival.
I'm determined to find one before my journey ends.
We're going to look for some insects.
I'm deep in the ancient rainforests of Borneo.
My guide, Dean, wants to show me
how the jungle transforms after dark.
I'm not sure I like the idea of rummaging around the jungle
looking for insects, Dean.
THEY LAUGH
What is that?
Uh, that's a millipede.
It's quite a big one. Do they sting? They don't.
No? You actually can hold it onto your hand.
You can see just how calm it is walking on my hand.
Little waves going down the legs, isn't it?
That's beautiful.
It doesn't like me.
You put insect repellent on? Yeah. Ah, that probably is why.
THEY LAUGH
Ah. Wow.
Praying mantis. Praying mantis?
Yep.
All right.
I'm going to show you my disco torch.
UV light. Ah, right.
Wow! Look at that.
LAUGHTER Look at this.
That is nuts.
That's an Asian forest scorpion.
Look at the size of him.
Ooh, now he's trying to hide under the leaves.
That's incredible.
It's really gorgeous.
So fluorescent.
Yeah. Consider yourself hitting a jackpot.
Able to see one of these.
I'm gonna try and show you what happens if you touch
his tail like that. Ooh!
I don't want to disturb him.
He's obviously sort of, just in this pounce mode.
And the good thing about this scorpion and the reason
I'm getting so close is that actually,
they're not that poisonous.
The bigger the claws, it means they've got less venom in the tail
just because it's the claws that they use for attacking prey.
I think we'll let him go and play.
But what a privilege to see such an amazing animal.
Come on, Dean. All right, let's go.
I think that's quite enough rummaging around in the,
in the dark at night.
DEAN LAUGHS
At dawn, we continue deep into the primary rainforest in search
of a large alpha male orangutan.
Slippery rocks. Be careful.
This pool is beautiful.
Fresh? Yeah.
Needed that.
We've been trekking for four hours with no sign of life.
Then Dean gets a call from another tracker who's spotted
what I'm here to discover.
This is the thing that I'm most excited about.
They have the distinctive,
it's called a flange on their face, which shows
that they're the alpha male and they're incredibly rare.
In one particular habitat, there's usually only one.
Just meeting up with some of the Rangers here.
Where is he? Well done, buddy.
Almost to the top of that tree.
Can't see him. Only can see slight, slight movement.
Amazing, for an animal so big,
they're still incredibly well camouflaged, aren't they? Yeah.
Well, it's a bit of a waiting game now, till we can see him. Yeah.
SOUNDS OF BIRDS AND ANIMALS
If it's a flange male, then we're hitting a jackpot
because they cover a huge area.
It can be up to five square kilometres, so it can be anywhere.
If it really is a dominant flange male, we won't want this encounter
to get too close.
They're about seven times stronger than a human,
with a bite force twice as powerful as a leopard.
Can they be quite aggressive? Would they bite? Would they attack?
Well, if they attack, they would bite.
What could they do to a human?
Then might just going to break all bones, like breaking a stick.
Throw you around like a rag doll? Yeah.
I'm gonna have another view.
I think you can see a bit of his face.
No way.
That's incredible. We finally found one. Oh, yeah.
Its size and facial features confirm
that this is a rare alpha male orangutan.
Yeah, that's what we came here to see. Oh, man.
It's remarkable to see an animal that size
right at the top of that tree just chilling out.
It's unclear why some males develop flanges and others don't.
They also grow much larger than the others, and they're far
more likely to mate with females.
And big fellow, literally doesn't have to do anything.
He just sits there? He just have to wait there and female will come.
The wider the flange is, females are more attracted.
Yeah.
But their status as the most reproductive orangutans
in the jungle is only fleeting.
As it gets older, then if he knows that there is another dominant male
there, trying to take his territory... Yeah. ..and he knows
that he can't beat that male... It'll shrink? It'll shrink?
No way. Yeah. Just withers away? Just withers away.
Yeah. He knows that he's not the big boss any more.
For now, this big boss looks pretty content with his position
at the top of the tree.
Taking its time.
Don't have to worry about what's going to happen.
No traffic jam.
No.
No emails. No emails. No phone calls.
Must be thinking, "OK, where should I go next?" Yeah.
"Which tree can provide me like enough protein or enough
"nutrient for my body, which tree to provide more, more moisture?"
"Where's the ladies?"
"Where are the ladies?"
Simple life. Simple.
When you're the big boss, everything's easy.
Really makes this whole expedition worthwhile.
Particularly after seeing the poor dead male orangutan in the river.
Yeah. Goes to show that, here in the primary forest,
where nature has just been left alone and animals
are allowed to roam freely
and have access to the food
and the fruits they need, then nature prevails.
There he goes.
I think that's the last we're going to see of him.
We're heading home, knowing we've seen something special.
But before we leave the forest,
we break our journey by staying
at an isolated research centre.
It's such a magical place.
It's hard not to be enthused
and inspired by the people that are here working to try to conserve
the wildlife of the forests that they live in.
You know, seeing that poor dead orangutan in the river
was heartbreaking because it shows the daily reality of some
of the threats to these animals, the threats to the ecosystem
and the...
..the forest itself.
Because if we lose the forest, we lose the animals.
It's that simple.
Real change can happen, but it needs a global solution
to a regional problem.
We have to wean ourselves off our palm oil addiction and find
innovative ways to help farmers keep making a living without destroying
the orangutans' home.
Erm, we need to find a solution.
We need to find a way to be able to behave more sustainably
and to coexist with nature.
It's not an impossible task.
The rewilding of a former plantation into a sanctuary
for wildlife proves that.
It's really important that people do have some hope.
So, you know, that's what I want to do, is try and show people
just how incredible these animals are.
TRUMPETING
I mean, look at this place. It's absolutely stunning. It's wild.
I'm in Namibia searching for the elusive desert lion.
WHISPERS: Finally.
Staring right into the eyes of a fully-grown adult lioness.
She's coming straight towards me.
She's coming. She's coming.
CLATTERING
I'm flying over one of the most remarkable landscapes in the world.
The Namib, the oldest desert on earth.
It doesn't look like this landscape could host any form of life,
but it does.
Vast, hostile and extremely dry,
this wild frontier is the unlikely home of the desert lion.
These extreme predators are uniquely adapted to survive
where water and food are scarce.
They can only be found in Namibia...
And I'm on a mission to track them down.
The lioness is coming straight towards me.
She's coming, she's coming, she's coming, she's coming.
Guys, move!
All over the world,
wildlife populations are plummeting at a rate
not seen since the extinction of the dinosaurs.
And it's being driven by human activity.
My name's Levison Wood.
There's a little baby there.
Quite a dangerous situation.
I've walked the Nile and travelled to over 100 countries.
Now I'm exploring some of the world's last great wildernesses...
..to track down the most iconic but endangered animals on the planet...
That's a lion track.
..to get as close as possible to these majestic creatures
in the last of their remaining natural habitats.
It's dusty, it's hot.
So this is all palm oil.
All of this, though, would have been primary rainforest.
I want to see for myself what is pushing these animals
to the brink of extinction...
These are baby sharks.
Aren't they really endangered, though?
..and understand what can be done to save them...
This thing is a monster, huge.
..before it's too late.
Argh!
I'm landing in Namibia on the southwest coast of Africa
on a journey to find lions.
Across Africa, lion populations have dwindled
to less than 25,000 individuals.
But in Namibia, the desert lions are battling extinction.
In recent years, Namibia has faced the worst drought on record,
and that has driven their population to less than 100 today.
All right, we're coming in to land.
Hold on tight.
To help me on this quest, I've enlisted my old friend
and Bushman guide, Kane.
He's from Botswana and has been tracking game all his life.
Hey, mate, woo.
Good to see you again. Nice to see you, nice to see you.
Good to see you, you're looking well.
I'm still strong, fit. Yeah?
Look at this.
Right then, let's go find some lions, shall we?
Let's go and find some lions.
We're starting at the granite cliffs of Spitzkoppe,
crossing the savannah to the banks of the Ugab River,
looking for lion tracks in the desert sands.
Our final destination is the seasonal oasis, the Hoanib,
a rare sanctuary for wildlife.
It's a very sort of wild landscape.
It's windy, it's dusty, it's hot.
We're trekking in winter.
And whilst it's not the scorching heat of summer,
the temperatures reach 25 degrees Celsius.
Ready for the adventure?
I'm really excited to go to a place where my ancestors used to live.
That's what all those mountains are up there, Spitzkoppe?
Spitzkoppe, yeah.
It's been a few years since we've done this, mate.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm 40 now.
Are you 40? Yeah, this year.
I'm older than you, then. Really?
Yeah.
I'm 43. 43?
The years are going, huh?
Kane has brought me to the granite peaks of Spitzkoppe
for an important personal reason.
OK.
Spitzkoppe was a sacred site for the ancient San,
who were the indigenous people of Namibia.
Woohoo!
THEY LAUGH
Done, we can go and have fun.
Let's go and have fun.
Before we leave Spitzkoppe, Kane wants to show me something
that will help us on our journey.
This is the place. Yeah.
So these would have been done by your ancestors, the San? Yeah.
Wow.
What is that, do you think?
Oh, wait, lion, lion, definitely, it's a lion.
That's a lion eating a human?
Yes. Well, that doesn't bode well, does it?
There's a person there. There's more people here, look, yeah.
More people.
They will use signs like this that if we come to a certain hill,
there is a rock painting there that will guide you from here,
you go to the next hill. Right. Then, you know, it gives you...
It's like a signpost. It is a signpost.
For the nomads to be able to find their way. Yes.
Yeah.
Kane's ancestors painted this rock art thousands of years ago
to help them hunt and find watering holes.
Right, shall we?
Using these ancient routes as a guide to help us find lions,
we're heading north to Ugab River.
Well, up here, it's like this...
..this sort of bushland,
so you'd expect to see antelope and duiker and dik-dik
and all sorts, even elephants.
This would be perfect territory, but nothing yet.
I can see there's these telephone wires heading in that direction.
So there must be a road around here somewhere.
Yeah. In fact, wait, there's a car coming along here, look.
Stop him.
Should we...? Let's see if we can hitch a lift.
Hey.
CAR HORN TOOTS
Hey, hey, what are you guys doing here?
Hi, how are you?
What's your name?
Basil. Basil?
Yes. Nice to meet you, Basil.
Hi. Where are you going?
I'm going down to the Ugab.
Ugab? Yeah? Can we jump in, can we get a lift?
Sure, you're welcome. Thank you. Great.
Ha, where are you guys from?
Oh, I'm from...I'm from England.
Where are you from, Basil?
I was born in Namibia.
Yeah. Made here, everything.
We're on a journey.
We're trying to find lions,
but we haven't really seen much wildlife.
No, the drought has been so bad, all the animals is gone.
That's why there's no lions, because there's no food for them.
Yeah.
With every step we take, it's becoming clear our quest
is facing huge challenges.
Droughts in Namibia are becoming longer and more persistent.
2009 was the worst on record, and over 90,000 animals died.
We had some good rain this year. OK.
So you can see all the grass is there, but no animals yet.
They must still breed and come back.
Oh, so this is where we get out?
This is where you get out.
Basil is dropping us off on the edge of the Ugab.
When the rains come, the desert's grassland is renewed.
Nutrient rich, it should entice the grazing animals and their predators.
There's life here, you can see lots of tracks.
There's a herd of something down there.
Springboks, yeah. Springboks? Yeah.
OK, it's quite a big herd, eh? Yeah.
That's the first sort of game we've seen.
Yeah, there's at least 100 there.
We're getting much closer than I suspected here.
Mm-hm. There they are.
They saw us coming and becoming more reluctant, but at a certain
distance, they will just take off.
Yeah, there they go, they're on the move now.
Yeah.
These springbok are the first wildlife we encounter.
It's an encouraging sighting because they are common prey animals
for the lions.
But they're not the only food source on this plain.
What have you found there, mate?
Desert... Desert melon.
Desert melon? Yeah.
Well, you can also call it tsamma. Tsamma melon. Tsamma. Yeah.
Is it nice?
You know, you don't have much choice.
It's a limited menu out here, isn't it?
Can tell you, it's very bitter.
It's going to stay on our tongue for the whole day.
Anything in the desert, you won't find sweet stuff.
It's a proper...
Want to try? Let's try.
Go on, then. Yeah. Come on, eat.
Oh, my goodness.
Urgh.
Oh, you absolute BLEEP.
That is disgusting.
Animals are eating, the springboks.
They're getting the moisture from here.
Yeah. Look, look at this.
Mm, true. Yeah, they're getting that moisture.
So we can survive at the very least, even if it does taste gross. Yeah.
Desert melons grow on vines that sprout from the ground
after it rains.
For ancient hunter gatherers, they were a lifeline.
Yeah, sometimes if you have no choice, you can even
drink your urine, you know?
So imagine the taste of a urine and what you're getting
from the urine, better to eat this.
I mean, look at this place, it's absolutely stunning.
It's wild and it's very empty.
By the afternoon, we reach the Ugab River.
There's, like, a lot of shrubs, these acacia trees...
..these little flowers, but no, no water in sight.
And obviously, you can see this baked dry riverbed, but clearly
there's water under the ground somewhere.
Even in the wet season,
this river flows for only a few days after it rains.
But pockets of water beneath the surface allow for vegetation
to grow all year round.
Tracks are very fresh and there's lots of them.
It's a breeding herd, but there's also some bulls
following the breeding herd.
That's a big one.
See how clean it is?
See the ridges?
Yeah, that means it's really fresh.
Yeah, the wind... The sand hasn't blown...
Yeah, it hasn't blown. No sand has fallen off.
How, like in the last hour, two hours?
The last hour or so.
These large footprints belong to elephants.
Look at this. Hmm?
Fresh, yeah.
Oh, they've torn that off.
Yeah, it's still fresh if you peel it off.
See how fresh it is?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're just very close to them.
OK, so they're around here somewhere.
In this landscape, elephants are incredibly well camouflaged.
So we move with caution.
There he is, look, right there.
Wow, wow, wow, wow!
So we're just going up this valley, following these trails
and suddenly there's an elephant right there.
And it's not alone.
We have to get back.
There's more. OK, there's more.
OK, There's a lot. How many are there? One, two...
There's a whole herd of elephants.
Kane is suddenly wary.
This is a breeding herd with young calves, and the matriarch
can quickly become protective and aggressive.
Probably about 15 elephants.
And...
Wow, they're getting very close.
And they're getting a little bit aggressive.
OK, this one's getting really close.
ELEPHANT ROARS
This is insane.
There's a huge herd here and the elephants are getting
really, really close.
Kane and I have reached Namib's Ugab River,
and we've been ambushed.
Kane is attempting to stand his ground with the matriarch.
Getting a little bit aggressive.
OK, this one's getting really close.
Thankfully, he's made peace with the herd.
Literally, like, three, four metres away.
That was close. Really close.
That was a big, big shot of adrenaline right there.
I mean, they can be really dangerous when they've got a baby.
And there was a little baby there.
Quite a dangerous situation.
THEY LAUGH
That's a big bull, isn't it?
Why is the bull with this herd then?
You see, if you look on his gland, there's a temporal gland.
And look between his legs. He's in musth. Right.
So he might be mating with one of the females.
You see how he's pushed the young bulls away, so he's...
There might be one female on heat.
It might be this one. OK.
She's following, look. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
He's getting frisky. Yeah.
That's not going to move away from her.
Yeah, until the mating's over.
Once the bull has finished mating,
he will either join a bachelor herd or go it alone.
Never seen elephants in an environment like this before.
The Namib once supported over 3,000 of these magnificent creatures.
But poaching and droughts have devastated this number,
and there are now only around 150 today.
Seeing this breeding herd is a huge privilege.
They have survived the drought and that offers some hope.
That's pretty special.
Phew.
Yeah, amazing, isn't it?
They're such amazing animals.
As we leave the Ugab River and bid these elephants farewell,
we continue our journey north to Palmwag.
Kane is convinced that this is the perfect place for lions,
but we're yet to find any tracks.
A needle in a haystack, isn't it?
Hmm.
Undeterred, he wants to try an old Bushman trick.
IMITATES A SPRINGBOK CRY
It's a really good way of seeing where the lions are
and getting them to come to us.
We wait, but Kane's call goes unanswered.
We press on and Kane leads us to a watering hole.
Look here, lion track.
Is that a lion track? Yeah.
Huh, there we go.
Finally.
We've finally found some lion tracks.
There's a very clear one here.
Yeah, that's really clear, isn't it?
There you go, there's the back heel and there's the pads.
You can see even the claws as they go in.
How old is this, do you think?
I will say yesterday.
Yesterday? Yes.
The lion came to drink and it's also heading back,
the same way. The same way.
One, it has cubs... Mm-hm.
..that direction, going back to the cubs. Yeah.
Or two, it made a kill.
Right. It came to drink and then going back.
Female passed through here in the last 24 hours, which is great news.
Just need to catch up with her. Mm.
There she is.
We're close, we're getting closer.
After days of searching, we're finally on the chase.
I'm getting very excited.
We track all afternoon, and with just a few minutes of daylight left,
Kane spots something.
Yeah.
Before we have the chance to get closer,
they disappear into the valley.
Yeah.
He can certainly move.
Kane insists it's too dangerous to follow them at night
unless we want to become their supper.
Well, there we go.
The very elusive desert lions.
Namibia, there's not many left, but they are out there.
They're just really, really shy.
I'm in Namibia with my Bushman guide, Kane.
Let's go and see if they've seen some lions recently.
Yeah, we can ask.
We approach a settlement just a few miles from the pride
of lions we encountered.
There's no goats in there, so I'm guessing no people.
It looks like a ghost town.
Hello.
Hello? Hello.
Hi, what's your names? I'm Lev.
I'm Sagi. Sagi, Nice to meet you.
Yolanda. Yolanda, Nice to meet you, Yolanda.
This is your village?
Yes. Yes, yes, it's our village.
Sagi invites us into his home.
I'm surprised to see people living here.
It looks like the village was abandoned years ago.
Where are the people in these villages?
They've all gone to the cities?
You're not going anywhere?
We're on a journey. We're looking for lions.
Is there any lions around here?
Yeah?
When the lion comes here and at night,
how do you scare the lion? How do you chase them?
Yeah.
They ate all your cattle?
Really? All of them?
The donkeys?
Yes.
How many of the cattle did they kill? How many goats and...?
So they killed all of them, 25 animals?
Mm-hm.
You're, like, in a prison surrounded by all these wildlife.
If you kill a lion, what happens, they go and arrest you?
You can go to jail for killing a lion in Namibia.
But people like Sagi and Yolanda are desperate and are willing to risk
breaking the law to protect their livestock.
Thank you for sharing your story.
Last year, ten lions were killed by farmers and pastoralists.
Unless a lasting solution can be found
to solve the lion-human conflict,
the desert lions of Namibia will become extinct
at the direct hands of humans.
Yeah.
I think that's the problem with the conservation...
..across the continent, though, isn't it?
People need to see a direct benefit
to themselves, their communities, otherwise why should they...
..why should they care, particularly if the animals are destroying
their livelihoods or killing their cows?
As we trek across the Namib, we see clues of another iconic African
animal, the black rhino.
Seeing these in the desert is an opportunity
I don't want to miss.
Military boots there.
Kane has arranged for us to go on patrol with Rangers
from Save The Rhino Trust.
Lev, nice to meet you, what's your name?
Martin. Martin. Martin, I'm Kane.
Williams. Nice to meet you, Williams.
The Rangers track and record rhino sightings.
If anyone can find one, it's these guys.
We're hot on the tail of a rhino.
Or at least we're following some tracks.
It's quite tricky because, you know, this is a huge area
for these guys to patrol.
They spend up to three weeks in the field at a time
tracking rhino and walk up to 30km a day.
And their experience pays off quickly.
This is what fresh, fresh tracks?
How fresh? Very fresh.
We're just driving along, we'd almost given up,
but there's a rhino right ahead, maybe 400m away.
We approach with caution because rhinos can be unpredictable
and potentially very aggressive.
Rhinos have got terrible eyesight.
But they've got good hearing and good smell.
So when you're tracking a rhino...
..no sudden movements, you've got to be really steady,
really quiet.
There he is, can see him there.
He's got eyes on us.
This sub population of black rhinos have adapted to the unique
conditions of the desert.
These rhinos are solitary because of the scarcity
of food on offer.
Is it a male or a female?
It's a female.
They know all the rhinos by name.
It's amazing.
Every sighting is a valuable chance for the Trust to keep track
of their charges.
For now, they're succeeding.
And the rhino decline in Namibia has halted.
Yeah.
We've spotted Doslan just before her evening walkabout.
Remarkably, desert rhinos have adapted to survive
without water for up to three days.
To be so close on foot is just magical.
Here, in the middle of Namibia, the sunset...
..face-to-face with a rhino.
Off she goes.
Beautiful, hey?
After our exhilarating rhino encounter, we're back in search
of desert lions.
And with only fleeting glimpses so far, we're hoping that local NGO,
the Desert Lion Trust, can help.
They monitor and track a third of the lion population
using GPS collaring.
Hey, hey, Felix.
It's, it's Lev here.
We were wondering if you'd had any information on where the lions are?
Yes, yes, I am actually having a visual on them.
They are on the move, they are moving east.
So where is your location, Felix?
I will tell it to you now.
OK.
They give us the coordinates of a small pride
who have settled in the Hoanib River.
Let's go. Go.
It's about 30km north from here, and that's where we're going.
We're on the final leg of our journey to track down Namibia's
iconic desert lions.
Doing a good job, Kane. Yeah.
We're heading to the Hoanib River, where we hope the pride awaits.
Our route is taking us through the ancestral lands
of the Himba people.
Hello.
Nice to meet you.
The Himba are an indigenous tribe of semi-nomadic cattle farmers
who settled in Namibia 500 years ago.
Nice to meet you.
What's your name?
Watachuta.
Wakatuga? Yeah.
Watachuta insists I come into her house.
So what do you use on your hair?
What have we let ourselves in for, Kane?
This isn't the tribal initiation that I was expecting.
The okra!
Very nice.
Himba? I'm now a Himba!
The Himba women's distinctive red locks
reflect their marital status, wealth and rank.
Sit down, yeah.
The men also have their own unique traditions.
What do you do with your teeth?
So you do it like that.
Argh!
What? So how old are you when you do this?
15?
It sounds very, very painful.
Is it still part of the culture, the Himba culture,
to go hunting with spears?
And do you still do that in this day and age?
Wildlife numbers are so depleted, the government has banned hunting
to preserve what's left.
Now the Himba must rely solely on their livestock for meat.
So is it just goats you have, or cows as well?
All because of this drought?
They can't hunt any more and they've lost over
95% of their cattle.
This desert ecosystem exists on a knife edge with extreme drought
causing great hardship for people and wildlife.
Despite their struggles against the climate,
the Himba have generously slaughtered a goat.
They've taken the liver out and put it onto one side
and that's just cooking over the coals now.
And I think that's what we're getting for our supper.
It's ready now?
Can we try?
Very good.
It's a brilliant evening with the Himba,
who are wonderful hosts.
Tomorrow we're heading to the Hoanib River, where we hope to
track down a pride of desert lions to observe at close quarters.
20km west of the Himba village, we reach the dry river.
Stunning place, isn't it?
Yeah, beautiful.
And it looks like we've walked into Eden.
Up ahead, Kane spots movement on the river bank.
Yeah.
So we just spotted a female lion.
Lioness just over there
on the far side of the river bank.
She's sitting on a vantage point overlooking the dry wadi,
and she's obviously just seen us because she just looked up
very quickly, so she knows we're here.
We're maybe 100m away.
You think there's more, yeah?
Finally, we have the chance to closely observe
desert lion behaviour.
This is what we've been searching for.
Just relax. Yeah.
Looking straight at me.
Hey, there, lion...
Awesome.
In their search for food, they travel much further
than any other lions, with home ranges of up to 20,000 square km,
compared to just 80 for a lion on the Serengeti.
There's not much drinking water, so they get almost
all of their moisture that they need from the dew, the mist
and also the blood of the animals that they eat.
So they're not so reliant on watering holes.
But also, you know, there's such a scarcity of prey
for them to eat that, you know, they might only catch something
once every ten days.
This female here is sitting on this cliff overlooking the valley
so she can see anything that comes down.
So that's why we can't get any closer, because we might
become prey ourselves.
There's another one, there's two.
There's another male lion in the bushes.
Well done, mate, we found them.
This harsh environment forces desert lions to grow up quickly.
It's common for females to break away from their mothers to hunt
independently when they're as young as 18 months old.
Two years earlier than lions from the African plains.
As night falls, we observe their nocturnal behaviour.
She's coming, she's coming, she's coming straight towards me.
Straight towards us.
Wow!
BLEEP
The lioness is coming straight towards me.
Straight towards me.
This is incredible.
And she is literally crouched down, staring straight at me.
I mean, that is quite incredible.
She was 100m away.
Now she's...
..less than 50 and she's looking straight at me.
So I need to be ready to get in this car if she comes.
The other issue is there's two more lions...
..and we've lost sight of them.
What they tend to do... She's coming, she's coming... Move!
The charging lioness forces us to retreat to the Rangers' vehicle.
Phew! There we go.
Essentially stalking the car, that was nuts.
As soon as it's getting dark, now she becomes more confident.
She knows our weakness, we don't have much eyesight.
Know we don't see very well at night.
And, you know, lions, hungry lions are very opportunistic.
Now they're feeling comfortable
to move, to hunt.
That was a very close call and, you know, when you're this close
to a lion, it really brings it home they're not something
to be messed with, you know, they are...
They're the boss out here.
There's the other one, there, just coming across the...
..just coming across through the desert, there.
Let me see.
Are they fighting? Yeah. Or playing?
Oh, no, they're just playing.
They're there, all three together.
All three together now.
There we go, look at that.
So cute, look at them...
Just nuzzling.
Beautiful, beautiful.
Absolutely incredible. So magnificent.
Very playful and yet at the same time, very deadly.
And I think that is them.
Off they go into the desert.
Before we leave the Namib, Kane has arranged for us to visit
a nearby village where they are using innovative ways
to live with the desert lion.
All these kids have come out to say hello.
They want to play.
It's amazing to think they live right on the front line
of this human-wildlife conflict.
Harold shows me how this community protects their livestock from lions.
They see it as like a solid thing rather than something
they can get through.
And it's been effective? Yeah. It's working.
The village also has another unique protection measure.
The Desert Lion Trust have fitted trackers on a third of the lions
and have set up an early warning system to alert villagers
when lions are close by.
So it flashes, so once it flashes, it's just showing that white light.
Yeah. Very noisy.
When a lion is within 3km, an alarm goes off
and the villagers come outside, banging pots and pans
to scare the lions away.
BARKING
It makes sense, yeah.
Stay safe. Thank you.
It's the start of a new relationship between villagers and lions,
and it gives these magnificent creatures a fighting chance
of avoiding extinction.
SINGING
Bye-bye, kids, stay safe.
Yeah, bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Next time, I'm in Greenland
in search of the elusive polar bear.
Just use the power of the boat to just force these icebergs apart.
And we've all heard the story of the Titanic.
Polar bear.
What? Polar bear.
Wow, Look at that.
Couldn't get any more perfect than that.
I'm flying over the Arctic ice cap here in Greenland.
I've never been anywhere like this in my entire life.
It might look like a formidable environment
but it's also a very, very fragile ecosystem.
It's warming up four times faster than anywhere else on earth.
And somewhere down there is one of the most iconic species on earth.
And I want to see what the effects of climate change
are having on this amazing apex predator...
..the polar bear.
All over the world, wildlife populations are plummeting
at a rate not seen since the extinction of the dinosaurs.
And it's being driven by human activity.
My name's Levison Wood.
There's a little baby there.
Quite a dangerous situation.
I've walked the Nile and travelled to over 100 countries.
Now, I'm exploring some of the world's last great wildernesses...
..to track down the most iconic but endangered animals on the planet.
That's a lion track.
To get as close as possible to these majestic creatures,
in the last of their remaining natural habitats.
It's dusty. It's hot.
So this is all palm oil.
All of this, though, would have been primary rainforest.
I want to see for myself
what is pushing these animals to the brink of extinction...
These are baby sharks.
Aren't they really endangered though?
..and understand what can be done to save them...
This thing is a monster. Huge!
..before it's too late.
HE GRUNTS
Right, it's time to go find some polar bears.
I've landed in Tasiilaq on Greenland's east coast.
It's absolutely freezing.
It must be minus 15.
The Arctic is expected to lose a third
of its estimated 25,000 polar bears by 2050,
due to rising temperatures and melting sea ice.
It's unknown exactly how many polar bears
inhabit this stretch of coastline
but these isolated, small populations could be extinct
by the end of the century.
They're notoriously difficult to find,
and I only have ten days here.
Tobias! Hey. Hello.
So I need the help of local Inuit guides and hunters
Tobias and Bent.
How far is it?
I hope we can do it in maybe one hour.
One hour? Really? OK.
Yeah.
We're heading to Tobias's village of Tinit,
from where we'll travel into Sermilik Fjord.
One of the largest fjord systems on the eastern coast,
its name translates to "the place of glaciers"
and it's part of a migration route for polar bears.
In a country without roads, we are reliant on skidoos to cross
frozen lakes and fjords.
So that's Tinit. Oh!
So how many people live there?
100. 100 people?
So it's quite small.
And that's... What's that down there? That's the sea, is it?
Yes.
Sermilik's glaciers connect to the largest ice sheet
in the northern hemisphere,
covering over 900,000 square kilometres
and roughly 80% of the surface of Greenland.
How has it changed in your lifetime?
The last ten, 20 years,
everything is melting pretty quickly. Really?
There's more ice coming off the ice cap.
Right. All this area, it was... There was glacier.
So this glacier was much higher. Yeah, it was much higher.
And that's happened in 20 years? Yes, within 20 years. Wow.
It's changing very, very fast.
And a few years ago, they could go out to the ice
and set the nets for seals.
They don't do that any more
because the ice is broken all the time.
How much do you rely on hunting for your way of life?
That's our life.
We arrive at Tobias's house just in time for dinner
with the rest of the expedition team...
..Tobias's adopted son, Inos, and local hunter Mikkel.
Who did all the paintings?
MAN SPEAKS GREENLANDIC
On the menu is a locally caught Inuit favourite.
Oh, thank you.
Head of, er, catfish.
Oh, that is the head. I can see the teeth now.
Yeah.
So, day to day, how often will you go out hunting or fishing?
Do you fish every day or...?
All the time, when it's good weather.
Mm-hm.
Last year, he got a polar bear on the top of a mountain.
You came face-to-face?
Yeah, it was in a cave. Mm-hm.
It jumped at him. Really? What happened?
Look at that.
He's a big 'un. And how much do they weigh?
How much is a fully grown adult male?
HE SPEAKS GREENLANDIC
They can grow up to 600 to 700 kilos.
And they can swim quite far?
Yeah.
About 150km...
Seriously? ..in 24 hours.
Wow.
So what's the plan for the next few days?
We're going north.
We hope to find a polar bear.
I've arrived in early spring.
12 hours of daylight is thawing the ice,
and soon this landscape will transform.
It's an important time of year for bears, as this is prime hunting
season, and they can build up their fat reserves.
This is the village of Tinit.
I'll show you around.
There's the basketball court.
Covered in snow, of course, so not much basketball going on right now.
Morning.
Oh, and there's a drying rack, which I guess is for fish and skins.
And there's a particularly big skin over there.
And that, as you can probably guess, is a polar bear.
And the truth of the matter is that the Inuit people that live here
hunt pretty much whatever they can get their hands on,
including polar bears.
They eat them.
The government here allows locals, those who've got a hunting license,
to hunt polar bears.
Of course, I'm not here to hunt this majestic animal,
but I do need the wisdom and knowledge of the Inuit to track them
in this vast and challenging environment.
Tobias and Bent's ancestors arrived on the shores of Greenland
almost 1,000 years ago.
They survived the harsh conditions by living on the coast,
where they could fish and hunt mammals.
But now this centuries-old lifestyle is being disrupted.
Unusual rain patterns have caused the fjord to completely freeze
in March for the first time in living memory.
We could sail from here on the area and find polar bears easily by boat.
It's the first time ever...
..in the wintertime, it's rained so much for so long time.
So it's the first time.
And what does that mean for us going on this journey?
I mean, is it gonna make it more difficult finding polar bears?
When the weather gets bad, the travelling of polar bear starts.
They begin to travel everywhere, walk everywhere.
Very difficult to find.
What are the chances?
50/50.
Tobias receives a tip off from an Inuit hunter who is tracking
a lone bear on the frozen fjord.
Are we ready?
Let's do it.
It's a 50-kilometre ride over mountainous terrain.
But, despite the harsh conditions, it's astonishingly beautiful.
After two hours of riding, we reach a remote hunter's cabin
where we'll spend the night.
Tobias immediately scans the fjord...
..and spots something of interest.
They are a favourite food source for bears
and a staple for the Inuit, too,
in a country where barely anything grows.
With the sun setting, and temperature about to drop to -15,
Tobias marches onto the frozen fjord...
..whilst Mikkel rides in the opposite direction.
Tobias spotted one seal.
Ice provides seals with protection from predators.
When they feel threatened, they dive underwater,
where they can hold their breath for up to 45 minutes.
I think the noise of us just walking down scared the seal away.
Tobias waits at the breathing hole for a seal to emerge.
Polar bears employ the same tactics, sometimes waiting for days.
What are you looking for?
Polar bears.
You see all the ice and you think polar bear is white.
It's not.
It's more yellow.
Underneath their translucent fur,
they have black skin to help them absorb the sun's warming rays.
It does feel very exposed, doesn't it, standing here?
Yeah.
And the polar bears could be lurking behind any of this pack ice.
And the thing is, when you're out here, there's nowhere to run.
He's on the move. I think he's giving up.
After two hours on the ice, we returned to the hunter's cabin
empty-handed and wait for Mikkel to return.
You got one.
Well done.
We've got some dinner, then, tonight.
Yeah?
Well done. Yeah.
With no time to waste, Mikkel must prepare the seal before it freezes.
What's he doing now?
He's cutting the skin off.
Then the skin, with blubber, will be dog food.
Oh, OK.
What kind of seal is this?
That's a ringed seal.
And this is also what the polar bears feed on. Yes.
Mostly.
They are the smallest of the seal species, but their high-fat blubber
makes them highly desirable to not only bears but killer whales
and the Inuit, too.
And they're very common?
Yes.
So they're not in any danger or...?
No, no. Plenty of them.
Would you like to taste?
Well, since we're here.
Mmm.
Right. OK.
Mmm. Mmm.
How does it taste?
No, it tastes...it tastes like liver.
Mm-hm. Yeah.
As Tobias and Bent tuck into a dinner of stewed seal...
..Mother Nature offers up a spectacular surprise.
Wow. Isn't that one of the most amazing things in the world?
That's the Northern Lights, and it's absolutely insane.
It's like the whole sky is dancing and singing all at once.
And it's just beautiful.
I mean, it looks like there's ghosts and spirits in the sky.
I am completely and utterly blown away.
Wow.
The real difficulty in finding anything out here is just the sheer
scale of it all.
I'm now halfway through my time in Greenland, and so far,
the polar bears I've come to see have been stubbornly elusive.
So what's the plan for us now?
Where will we go next?
We can go to high point... Yeah. ..today and look.
We're riding further into Sermilik Fjord after receiving reports
of bear activity.
At this speed, wind chill has caused the temperature to drop
to -30 degrees.
But Tobias' trained eye spots something below the ridgeline.
Yeah.
Over there. I can see. Yeah.
Over there, there's the new tracks from polar bear.
Which direction? Are they going up or are they coming this way?
It's going that direction.
Over the ridgeline?
Yes.
Hot on the trail, we ride straight up the mountain.
How big is it? This one?
Big one. Big one?
Yeah. They're huge, aren't they?
Male. Male?
How old are these, do we think?
They are from yesterday morning.
Finally found some fresh tracks.
It's going right up over this ridgeline.
Yeah, I'm excited. This is as close as we've got.
So, um, go and find him. Yeah.
After five days in the Arctic wilderness, we're getting closer
to a bear.
And Tobias believes it's a big one.
A steep slope like this,
he'll just sit on its backside and slide down.
You can see the marks that he's making here.
This is amazing. It's a proper polar bear search.
Let's do it.
Their agility allows them to move over these mountains with ease.
Put my hand there. You can see the scale of it.
This thing is a monster.
Huge.
The prints are leading us to the mouth of the fjord
through tight gullies, just wide enough for our skidoos.
We go back? Yeah.
Pure ice down there, so we have to go back.
The skidoos are not nearly as nimble as the polar bear, though,
who's given us the slip.
Well, it's the best plan we've got, isn't it?
Yeah, for now.
We'll see if we can find them a different way.
Careful.
Oh.
OK. BLEEP.
It's quite slippery.
He's gonna start the motor first.
OK.
What happens if it gets stuck in the middle of the sea?
Yeah. If the boat sinks, we're BLEEP, basically.
I reckon five minutes in that water, it's all over.
All right. Ready for a swim?
I'm not. No?
Looks cold.
What does that mean for the wildlife, for the animals?
More different fish.
So these are new species that are coming here? Yes.
I guess if there's more fish, then there's
more opportunity for fishing? Yes.
And that should bring more seals as well?
Yeah, it should. Yes.
So things are changing quite quickly?
Yeah.
Polar bear needs the ice to hunt the seals.
Last year there was no ice at this time, so it's changing
all the time.
If we don't want to starve, we have to adapt with the weather. Yeah.
I guess there's not much choice.
You've just gotta find a way to survive.
We've spent almost a week looking for polar bears,
but the trail has run ice cold.
We've only got a few days left before we have to leave,
and I'm getting worried we might never see one.
No polar bears last night.
So, uh...
..today is a new day.
Let's go and see if we can find some.
Yeah, it looks pretty cold.
So I left my long johns, my thermals, out in the entrance to my tent
last night, and they're a little bit...
..a bit wet, and, um, well, they've just frozen solid.
HE SINGS
For the next three days, we stick to the boat
hoping to spot a polar bear coming in from the sea ice.
But after 72 hours, everything looks the same.
It feels like we're driving around in circles.
And to add to our woes, there's no sign of a polar bear at all.
OO Bent!
We're heading to his favourite spot, where he recently encountered a male
polar bear hunting on an ice floe.
But these sorts of scenes are becoming increasingly rare.
As the Arctic waters warm up and more ice melts, polar bears
are having to swim ever greater distances to catch seals.
Suddenly, something on the shoreline has caught Bent's eye.
What's that? Some tracks?
Yeah, they're tracks from polar bear on...
..on land here...
Yeah. ..at the edge.
Can you tell which direction they're going, Bent?
It looks like it's that way.
Let's see if we can track this bear down.
Changing weather has disrupted the polar bear's behaviour
and endangered their habitat, making finding them much more difficult.
The tracks are covered.
It could be two days.
As we run out of time,
it seems like my mission has been a failure.
Haven't seen any this time, have we?
No, we are kind of unlucky to see them.
Well, I think that's it.
No bears.
Needle in a haystack out there.
To spend ten days roaming around in search of them and not find any
is obviously disappointing.
We've tried and, uh...
..there comes a point where you just have to call it a day.
HE SIGHS
Back in Greenland,
it's been three months and there's a lot less snow on the ground.
It's late June and the landscape has transformed.
The pack ice has now broken up and, uh,
boats are able to go out to sea.
So I'm gonna go and meet the team again, and we're gonna go and spend
the next week out looking for polar bears.
So fingers crossed second time lucky.
Welcome back. Hey, come here.
Good to see you again, man.
You all right? Yeah.
Yeah? Good.
Hey, mate. Good to see you, Tobias.
All right?
so we're gonna find some bears this time, do we think?
Yes, we hope. Yeah? We hope.
How far are we gonna be travelling?
It's going to be about 150km.
Just today?
Just today. OK. Which direction are we going?
South. South.
There's no other boats sailing around that area.
There should be better chance to see polar bears.
And now the hunting season is finished as well? Yes.
Yes, the quota is finished so...
So the bears are a bit more relaxed in your company. Yes.
So we only shoot them by camera.
Right. Good. OK.
Well, let's go and see if we can find some bears then, shall we?
We'll do that. OK.
So have you seen any polar bears since I've been away?
Yes. Yeah?
We have seen some.
Where? Right here.
Are you joking? I'm not joking.
So we just had bad luck then...
Yes. ..back in April? Yes.
For the next week, we're sailing south towards Umivik,
where some sea ice remains.
Tobias and Bent believe this is my only chance to find bears
before the summer, when they disperse.
But it isn't long before we encounter our first hurdle.
Just a few kilometres from Tasiilaq, we reach an impasse.
Tobias is having to, like, just use the power of the boat
and the engine to just force these icebergs apart.
And lots of icebergs to contend with.
So, you know, we've all heard the story of the Titanic!
Well, here we are on... What's this boat called?
Dopiatse. Dopiatse! You named it after yourself.
Good.
We progress slowly through the ice field.
Strong currents are forcing the pack ice to surround the boat.
We've kind of beached ourselves on top of this big lump of ice,
which is at least a foot thick.
And Tobias is revving the engine, but we've kind of like
landed on top of the ice and now we can't move.
This boat is only 20ft long and made of fibreglass.
If we're not careful, we could get stuck.
This does not feel safe at all.
Woo! We're finally clear.
After five hours crashing through the ice field, we reach
the village of Ikkatteq.
Once a permanent fishing village, it was abandoned in 1994,
as people sought comfort in larger settlements.
How's progress, guys?
At the moment, the ice is drifting inward.
That's not good.
So, but slowly.
But it doesn't seem to be today.
Not Today? Maybe tomorrow morning. Right.
So we're going to stay here.
Well, it looks like we're staying in this abandoned village
for the night because the ice is just too tightly packed
to be able to move very far.
So I think I'm just going to go and get in one of these buildings here.
Bent, is this a church? It looks like it.
It's the church and school.
Church and school?
Yes. Shall we have a look inside?
Yeah, we could do that.
It's very eerie and quiet here.
When was this last used?
Er, the '90s.
In the '90s.
HE PLAYS THE ORGAN
Still working.
There's no wine left, though.
No. That's all gone. Yeah.
Time to get some rest, it's 7:30.
It's not dark because it doesn't go dark at this time of year.
It stays light all day and all night.
So I may as well go to sleep now.
The next morning, the pack ice has cleared and we travel
the remaining 120km in just a few hours.
Bent, this is a really beautiful place, isn't it?
Yes, fantastic.
Magical, does it have a name?
HE SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY
Yeah, some Danish guy named it.
Look, there's some seals on the ice, look.
Yes.
One, two, three, big one over there, four.
The big one is a bearded seal.
Bearded seal.
What do these seals eat then, fish?
Shellfish.
OK.
Shrimps.
What are they doing when they're just lounging
on the ice like that, is it just bathing?
They are getting fat, eating and relaxing.
OK.
Do the polar bears hunt these big ones?
Yes. Yeah? Do they eat anything else?
They eat plants.
They do, OK? What, like the moss?
Grass and... Yes, during summertime.
Yeah. Scavenging for anything.
I guess they'll eat anything they can get their hands on, really,
if there's nothing? Yes.
If there's seals, there should be some polar bears around, hopefully.
Yes.
All of this area is normally polar bear land.
Sometimes it's very easy to see them and other days it's very difficult.
You can sail three metres from it.
You don't even see it.
They are floating out there somewhere.
After four hours of searching, Tobias leads us to the mouth
of a nearby fjord, where a colony of seals live year round.
We climb a hill to get a better view.
Polar bear!
What? Really?
Polar bear!
Where?
He's lying down? Yes.
He just raised and lay down again. No way.
Hundreds of metres over there are dotted hundreds of seals.
And right in the middle, a polar bear.
There it is, our first polar bear.
Finally, I've seen one.
Yeah, maybe it will walk towards here.
This is the moment that I've been waiting for,
is to see a polar bear in the wild.
Absolute dream come true.
Here.
Where?
There. Yeah.
Polar bear is there.
CONTENTED LAUGHTER
Absolutely phenomenal.
How old do you think it is?
This youngster is yet to reach maturity, but can expect to live
to between 15 and 20 years.
And how heavy is it, do you think?
400 kilos, that's a big bear, right?
Oh, wow. OK, so that was quite small, that was quite a small bear.
So we think that's a young male.
Yes.
He'll begin to breed between the age of eight and ten when he reaches
his physical peak and becomes attractive to females.
It's sniffing. Sniffing, yes.
It smelt us right away when we came around the corner.
A keen sense of smell allows them to sniff out a seal from 30km away.
But less than 2% of their hunts are successful.
How often will a polar bear eat a seal?
Whenever they hunt, they can be days, 14 days, a month.
Without eating? Wow, it's amazing. Yeah.
Just laying around on the ice, cooling down.
Why are the seals so relaxed?
It lives among the seals.
So the seals are...
..used to it around.
The fat that polar bears put on now is critical for their survival
in late summer, when most of the sea ice has melted
and they're unable to hunt.
During the summer, they start moving on the ice cap and going north.
Right, so they will travel on the ice cap?
Yes. They will, OK.
It's colder. And they like it cold?
Yeah.
He's smelt us and he's just disappeared off
straight through that colony of seals over there.
Well, that was an incredible first encounter.
Seeing the bear yesterday was a real highlight for me.
It was... Even though it was quite far away,
to finally see a bear in the wild -
that's got to be one of life's real highlights.
So I'm really, really lucky.
Obviously, I'd love to get a little bit closer.
It's totally hit and miss whether or not you get to see
any wildlife out here, because it's such a vast landscape.
But, fingers crossed.
If it was easy, then...it wouldn't be worth doing, would it?
I only have a few days left,
and I want to spend as much time as I can with these majestic animals.
So, the best chance to see polar bears is where we saw... Before.
Yes.
Polar bear is here. The polar bear's here.
And where are we now? We're... We're here. ..here now. OK.
I think that sounds like the best.
Yeah. The best plan.
HE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE
When he was a kid, the ice cap was all the way out here.
Really? Yes. It was up to this point? Yes.
So how far back has it disappeared?
Five kilometres? No, more.
So it's retreated... Yeah. ..more than 5km.
20, 25... 20?!
So, the ice has gone back 20km since, since you were...
Yeah, at least. ..a kid.
Tobias was saying that when he was a kid,
the ice cap, which is sort of way behind that hill behind me there,
actually used to come all the way to this fjord
that I'm in right now.
And it, in fact, covered that hill in its entirety.
Very, very shocking to see just how quickly the landscape,
the environment, is changing in this part of the world.
Greenland's ice cap is shrinking seven times faster
than it was in the early '90s.
Well, this is very much the front line of climate change,
a lot of it caused by, you know, human impact.
There was a staggering loss of 166 billion tonnes
of ice in 2021 alone.
And it's the main reason for rising sea levels around the world.
60,000 people live in Greenland.
50,000 Inuit, and they're not the ones causing the problem.
But they're very much the ones who are dealing with the consequences.
We're heading back to where we saw yesterday's bear
to see if he's returned.
HE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE
Oh, wow! Polar bear on the ice.
Wow. Look at that - right on top of an iceberg.
Just as you can imagine, it couldn't get any more perfect than that.
And it's the same bear as before.
It's the same. Yeah, it's the same one.
SHUTTER CLICKS
Absolutely phenomenal.
That bear's right on the crest of that iceberg, just watching us.
Stunning.
HE LAUGHS
Always very special.
Oh, no, he's running away.
Now it will go to the other side of the ice.
We're going to see how close we can get on the boat.
We should be able to get much closer this way.
Hopefully, when we get around this bend here,
we should get a pretty good view.
It's up there.
Oh, there he is. Look at that.
Absolutely incredible.
Probably 50 metres away,
bounding straight towards us,
and obviously very curious.
That, for me, is a lifelong dream.
I've always wanted to see one in the wild,
and it doesn't get better than that.
Utterly remarkable.
It moves so quickly. Yes. It's so fast.
Straight up over that as if it's nothing.
Wow. Absolutely incredible encounter with a polar bear.
Happy? Yes. Yeah, very happy.
Yes. Exciting.
After two expeditions and over three weeks of roughing it
in this brutal and spectacular wilderness,
I finally have the encounter I dreamed of.
Well, mate, thank you so much.
Tobias.
Thank you.
Mikkel.
Thank you, my friend.
Thank you.
Safe travels.
Bye.
Well, that is the end of...
..an incredible adventure.
Greenland has been an utterly fascinating place.
It's been probably one of the most challenging environments
I've ever been on an expedition in.
The extreme cold.
This is obviously a place that's under threat.
You know, the landscape, the environment is changing.
If global temperatures continue to rise as expected,
it's predicted that we'll lose a third of the polar bear population
by 2050.
But, as the Inuit and the polar bears both show,
people are adapting, and people are very resilient,
and the wildlife is resilient, too,
so there is lots of reason to be optimistic.
Scientists have recently discovered an isolated population
of polar bears in a remote area of south Greenland
who have quickly adapted to hunt seals
from glaciers at the edge of the sea.
If the rest of the Arctic's polar bears learn to adapt,
then they do have a fighting chance.
This is one of the last great wildernesses on Earth.
And I just hope it stays that way.