Natural World Season 27 Episodes

Episode 1

Titus: The Gorilla King

Abandoned as a baby and removed from normal gorilla family life as a youngster no gorilla scientist could have predicted his eventual rise to power. Titus' life story is pieced together here for the first time, based on archive film and the memories of field workers who have studied the mountain gorillas. At 33 years of age, Titus is not just one of the most powerful silverbacks in Rwanda's Virunga Mountains, he is possibly the most remarkable gorilla ever known.

Episode 2

Whale Sharks

Beginning at the fabulous coral reef of Ningaloo in Western Australia, intrepid marine biologist Mark Meakin attempts to unravel the mysterious wanderings of the biggest fish in the sea. Whale sharks grow to over 12 meters long but are gentle, filter-feeding giants; even Mark's five-year-old son can swim alongside them. Yet no-one knows where they go once they leave Ningaloo's turquoise lagoons. Using satellite tags and photo IDs, Mark tracks them to the white coral beaches of the Seychelles and the tropical jewel of Christmas Island, where bright-red land crabs begin their annual migration. It's hard work, taking in 20 failed satellite tags and countless frustrating dives, before Mark makes a breakthrough which doesn't just add to our understanding of these huge 'dinosaur fish' but offers crucial information about how the whale sharks of Ningaloo can be protected better.

Episode 3

Clever Monkeys

David Attenborough's entertaining romp through the world of monkeys has a serious side: for when we look at monkeys we can see ourselves. From memory to morality, from 'crying wolf' to politics, monkeys are our basic blueprint. Pygmy marmosets 'farm' tree sap; bearded capuchins in Brazil develop a production line for extracting palm nuts; white-faced capuchins in Costa Rica tenderly nurse the victims of battle; and in the Ethiopian highlands, a deposed gelada baboon has got the blues.

Episode 4

Crocodile Blues

The gharial, the world's oldest crocodilian, is on the very edge of extinction. These bizarre fish-eating reptiles that live in India's rivers have been decimated by a mystery die-off. Reptile expert Rom Whitaker has spent several decades battling to save the gharial. He and his team attempt to discover the cause of the die-off and ensure the future of the species through breeding in captivity.

Episode 5

Cork: Forest in a Bottle

Wildlife film. Every time we weigh up which bottle of wine to buy, we hold the fate of nightingales, rare black storks, secretive wild cats and one of the world's most remarkable trees in our hands. It has all to do with the stopper. If it is cork, it probably came from the bark of one of the ancient cork oak trees from the Montados, in the Alentejo region of Portugal. The cork oak is the only tree in the world whose bark can be periodically removed without killing it. But this tree is amazing in other ways. It survives in poor soil and searing heat, and provides not only nesting places for booted eagles, but also space for some of Europe's rarest wildflowers. This exquisitely-filmed portrait of the Montados reveals one of the last places in Europe where a sustainable local economy still dovetails harmoniously with nature. Cork producer and wildlife enthusiast Francisco Garrett explains what will be lost if cork stoppers are replaced by plastic or screw tops.

Episode 6

Great White Shark: A Living Legend

Wildlife film. South African naturalist Mike Rutzen is crazy about great white sharks. He never saw Jaws, so he doesn't share the terror that has made these sharks the world's most feared predator. For ten years Mike has been swimming with great whites, without the protection of a cage. He has spent so much time in their company that he has learned to read their body language and to think like a shark. It is this knowledge that keeps him safe. Mike's quest to understand them better now takes him into the heart of a seal ambush site where he hopes to witness their hunting behavior from underwater.

Episode 7

Cuckoo

Cambridge ornithology professor Nick Davies helps David Attenborough explain the parasitical brood-behavior of the cuckoo. It specifically targets 20 European species (4 British, including the warbler) and lays an egg (extremely similar to the other birds) in the nest. This hatches only to kill the hosts' own offspring and steal all of the food provided, possibly by producing a fast feeding call simulating a whole brood. The study intends to understand the sharply declining species.

Episode 8

The Mountains of the Monsoon

Wildlife documentary. Environmentalist and photographer, Sandesh Kadur, has traded a comfortable career in the family business to explore the natural wonders of the Western Ghats mountains. Just a few hours drive from the commercial bustle of his native Bangalore, Sandesh could be a world away. The monsoon pours six meters of rainfall each year on the remote peaks and isolated valleys of the Ghats. Alongside familiar Indian species like elephants, tigers and peacocks are more mysterious creatures that are found nowhere else: a purple frog with a face like a shrew and a monkey with a lion-like mane and tail. Most intriguing of all, a chance sighting of a gray big cat, unlike anything scientists have seen before. To find out whether this enigmatic cat-in-the-ghat really is a new species, Sandesh must climb to the summit of these mountains. His journey is a reminder that in fast-track, modern India, this cloud-wrapped wilderness is more precious than ever.

Episode 9

Polar Bears and Grizzlies: Bears on Top of the World

50 mins

Polar - and grizzly bears are rather similar, opportunist omnivore mammals and the largest land carnivores. However the polar bear gave up hibernating, and is forced south by the warming climate, which causes the vital ice to melt, and allows grizzlies to expand north. So now their diets and hunting grounds overlap, with each-other and with humans - they even roam in towns. Life has grown even harder for polar bears, especially in summer.

Episode 10

Man-eating Tigers of the Sundarbans

The Sundarbans mangrove forest, in Bangladesh near the Indian border, is a tidal jungle where Ganges and Brahmaputra enter the Indian Ocean. Its has some 400 Bengal tigers - the largest population in the world, and the only to be hardly scared of men. The downside is tigers kill up the 50 Bangladeshis a year, even from neighboring villages, so keeping them inside the reserve is key to long-term survival. A recent project tries to train local mongrels, not pets but fiercely self-reliant dogs, to spot and even scare off tigers from villages. An individual tiger can turn into a man-eater in order to survive - this process may occur due to an injury or old age (and so cannot hunt agile prey) or even accidentally tasting human flesh.

Episode 11

Elephants Without Borders

Botswana's elephants are doing very well, too well perhaps. People are worried that too many elephants will damage their fragile desert home and have suggested that up to 60,000 should be culled. Researcher Mike Chase studies ancient elephant migration routes - he has tracked them across vast deserts, desolate salt pans, and Angolan minefields. Now he thinks he has a plan that could safeguard their future.

Episode 12

Snow Monkeys of Japan

A Japanese biologist investigates why a single species of monkeys, who live in the icy high north of mountainous Hokkaido island, are treated so differently by people. In their natural habitat, their cheeky behavior and cleverly inventive self-teaching, such as taking warm baths in a sauna-effect, inspires awe and sympathy, even attracts tourists. Yet as their stressed habitat can hardly support the population any more, the farmers are merciless on their 'thieving' field raids.

Episode 13

Cassowaries

The rare primordial forest of NE Australian state Queensland's Coral Sea coast is home to the bright-colored southern cassowarie, of which only 1,500 remain. This flightless man-size bird is related to the open country ostrich and emu. Conservation is threatened by global warming intensifying cyclones and drought. Problems with the expanding human habitation, result in the cassowaries killed on the road and by dogs. They require relocation or rehabilitation at Mission Beach, where they are also studied. The males brood and raise the chicks till mating season.

Episode 14

A Farm for the Future

Wildlife film maker Rebecca Hosking investigates how to transform her family's farm in Devon into a low energy farm for the future, and discovers that nature holds the key. With her father close to retirement, Rebecca returns to her family's wildlife-friendly farm in Devon, to become the next generation to farm the land. But last year's high fuel prices were a wake-up call for Rebecca. Realising that all food production in the UK is completely dependent on abundant cheap fossil fuel, particularly oil, she sets out to discover just how secure this oil supply is. Alarmed by the answers, she explores ways of farming without using fossil fuel. With the help of pioneering farmers and growers, Rebecca learns that it is actually nature that holds the key to farming in a low-energy future.

Episode 15

Iron Curtain: Ribbon of Life

The physical, ruthlessly guarded Iron Curtain between the free West and Soviet block was a nightmare for people, but a sanctuary for wildlife, some of which thrived nowhere else. After the fall of the Berlin wall, biologists research how birds, and other species, fared in the former no man's land, first in Germany, then further south.

Episode 16

Uakari: Secrets of the English Monkey

British zoologist Mark Bower traveled to Peru to extensively study a rare monkey species in the Amazonian jungle: the mysterious uakari, about whom very little is known yet.