Animals with Cameras (2018–2021): Season 1, Episode 3 - Episode #1.3 - full transcript
In Anatolia, jumbo-collar-cameras on black bears help investigate the dense population's interaction with humans, given the surrounding motorway and the garbage dump which became a last resort feeding round for undernourished surplus bears, so policy is improved by planning to expand the forest. In the French mountains, night-vision cameras on dog collars show how a diverse group of shepherd dogs is best to protect the sheep against roaming wolf packs. Colar don't take on manta rays, so cords are used to fix cameras on some giants to film how they massively converge on a single underwater mountain near the Azores, for breeding in extremely rich waters.
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.
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..
..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!
In France, we get to the heart of
the ancient conflict
between sheep...
..and wolf.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It is one huge bear!
This bear has already been
tranquillised.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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..
..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!
In France, we get to the heart of
the ancient conflict
between sheep...
..and wolf.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It is one huge bear!
This bear has already been
tranquillised.
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.
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.
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.