Wildlife

In the state of California, south of San Francisco is Monterey Bay. In this bay is a dense underwater forest of giant kelp - the largest on Earth. This forest of 60-meter long kelp provides an ideal habitat for sea otters. This program follows a family of sea otters living in close harmony with this environment, revealing not only how sea otters thrive amongst the kelp but how they also help protect the kelp in turn. The mother spends all of her time and energy raising her newborn. Her young pup learns how to crack open shellfish by imitating her. She desperately tries to protect her young from a seagull attack. These are just some of the amazing moments captured in this rare and intimate animal family portrait.

The Serengeti plain in East Africa is one of the world's most diverse and spectacular wildlife kingdoms. It's home to the bat-eared fox. They feed mainly on insects. With their long, big ears, they can detect the ultrasonic waves that insects emit. Ultrasonic waves usually travel in a straight line from their source, so a fox can determine the exact location the sound is coming from and strike, even if it's underground. During the rainy season, bat-eared foxes raise their young in underground dens. The parents work as a team to confront hyenas, honey badgers and other predators that single out their pups. Relying on their giant ears and tight bonds, bat-eared fox families survive in the Serengeti through their indomitable strength and will.

During the winter months, Kushiro Marshland in eastern Hokkaido, Japan, is home to the celebrated red-crowned crane or "tancho". As temperatures plunge, these cranes flock to the marshland where an underground spring provides warmth and prevents the water from freezing, and the local people provide food to nurture the birds back from the brink of extinction. These mass gatherings are fraught affairs with limited space and predators close by, but as winter progresses one of nature's most spectacular courtship rituals begins where courting birds mirror each other's movements in graceful, spellbinding displays that can last for days. Against the ever-changing backdrop of Japan's great marshland, a love story unfolds.

The forests of Yanbaru on the main Okinawa Island have been called "a time capsule of evolution". The forests' primal environment hosts no native carnivores. Although the environment has undergone changes in recent years, the Okinawa spiny rat, which was believed to be extinct, was rediscovered in 2009 for the first time in 30 years.

Japanese gardens are internationally famed for their beauty and core ideas. Recently they are noted for another function - an ecosystem for living nature. The garden at Honen-in Temple in Kyoto embraces many animals and plants living together in harmony, creating "a mandala of life in a limited space".

On equatorial Borneo Island, it's not only birds and insects that can fly. Using special methods, even reptiles, amphibians and mammals can soar through the air! Photographer Tadashi Shimada takes up the challenge of capturing them in flight.

The Chitwan National Park stretches along the base of the Himalayas. This vast expanse of wetland is home to the endangered Indian rhinoceros. Weighing up to 3 tons, these massive beasts look like they're wearing body armors. Because they spend most of their time hiding deep in the wetlands, sightings are rare. Recent studies, however, have revealed that at a specific time in the summer, they gather in great masses at a single large marsh. With the focus on a mother and her calf, this episode reveals amazing new truths about rhinoceroses, including the secret behind their mass gatherings.

In the Otway Forest, south of Melbourne, Australia, lives the koala. Here, their population density is extremely high, with up to 6 individuals living in a single tree. In this koala paradise, males are amazingly active as they grunt, chase each other on the ground, and engage in intense fights over females. In an interesting twist, on average, koalas are awake for a total of only 4 hours a day. Each day and each night, they repeat the cycle of spending an hour eating eucalyptus leaves and then sleeping for a few hours. Recent studies have led to an interesting discovery regarding the relationship between the eucalyptus trees and the sleepy lives of koalas. This episode features the surprising lives of koalas living in a pristine forest.

The waters of Australia are home to a variety of intriguing octopus and cuttlefish species. One is armed with a special weapon. It's an octopus measuring only 8 cm in length called the blue-ringed octopus. With venom powerful enough to kill humans, this octopus bites and kills prey several times its size. The blue rings on the body are a sign of its deadly poison and are effective to keep away even the most deadly of fish. For years, this octopus was considered invincible, but experts recently discovered it actually has a natural enemy. This episode takes an up-close and personal look at this little octopus cleverly surviving in the hostile sea environment.

The Okinawa woodpecker lives in Okinawa's Yambaru forest. Celebrated in Japan as a "special natural monument," this critically endangered bird is full of surprises. Scientists have discovered not only that Okinawa woodpeckers keep the same partner for life, but also that when it comes to feeding their chicks, females find food on trees and in the canopy whereas males forage for food on the ground. The survival of these woodpeckers depends on the choices they make, and nesting out in the open where sharp-eyed crows are on the prowl can have fatal consequences. For chicks that are preparing to leave the nest, their future depends on them watching and learning from their parents before they go it alone. Survival for the Okinawa woodpecker hangs in the balance.

The forest in Kenting, which extends across southern Taiwan, is a reservoir of tropical biodiversity. The Taiwanese squirrel has a unique behavior where it uses a specific call for each purpose. For example, if a monkey, eagle or snake approaches, they make different sounds to warn other members of the group which type of predator is approaching. Males also use a special sound when courting a female. This episode features Taiwanese squirrels using their diverse range of calls to overcome many challenges of life in the forest.

Mongolia's Altai Mountains are home to one of the world's most endangered animals, the snow leopard. The lives of these big cats are a mystery, but a team of conservationists and filmmakers are uncovering their secrets by following a female named Tenger and her two young cubs as they cover huge distances in purist of their prey. The cubs face a life and death struggle as they learn to navigate the perilous terrain and hunt for themselves. Revealed here are the dangers and drama of the breeding season as these normally reclusive animals come out of hiding and track each other down, and the tense relationship with the local nomads whose livestock often become the snow leopards' prey.