Big Pacific

Science and Nature Series / 1 Season

Plunge into the Pacific with researchers and cinematographers and see the ocean’s rare and dazzling creatures in a way never before seen on television. The show examines an ocean that covers a third of the Earth’s surface.

Get Cascade PBS Passport to watch

Olive Ridley Sea Turtle Arribada

2m 38s / TV-PG

Olive ridley sea turtles live most of their lives in the open ocean. But each year female sea turtles return en masse to their natal beach to synchronously lay eggs. Ostional, Costa Rica is one of their nesting locations. How half a million sea turtles find this same shore is a mystery.

Episode 5 Extended Preview | Behind the Scenes

1m 31s / TV-PG

With the best crews and the latest technology, the Big Pacific series travels to 20 countries, 77 different locations, filming an ocean that covers one third of our planet. Find out how the crews made this ambitious project possible.

Snake Island

3m 26s / TV-PG

The Big Pacific crew travel to Shedeo, or Snake Island, to film pit vipers preying on migrating songbirds. The essential shot for the story, or money shot, is the moment a pit viper captures a bird. Cameraman Scott Snider searches for that moment among 20,000 snakes. While under the concealment of a hide, cameraman John Betz captures an unexpected encounter instead.

Filming Pufferfish

3m 38s / TV-PG

Follow behind the scenes with the Big Pacific film crew to Amami Oshima, off the coast of Japan. Cameramen Peter Kragh and Ernie Kovacs set out to film a mysterious pufferfish. They must find creative ways to film without destroying the pufferfish’s delicate sand circles.

Supported by