EARTH A New Wild

Science and Nature Series / 1 Season

Dr. M. Sanjayan takes viewers on a stunning visual journey to explore how humans are woven into every aspect of Earth's natural systems. EARTH A New Wild features footage from the most striking places on Earth and encounters between wild animals and the people who live and work with them.

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Tuna Is Tagged in Papua New Guinea

2m 10s

On a month-long mission in the Solomon Sea, a team aims to tag as many Skipjack Tuna as possible to find out where they go and various unknown elements of Tuna life history. All the data will help to know where in the ocean to protect.

Vultures Scavenge a Carcass (GRAPHIC)

38s

GRAPHIC WARNING: Not suitable for all audiences. Vultures are the ultimate scavengers. Always working in groups they can scavenge a carcass to the bone in 30 minutes. Their featherless heads and necks mean they can get neck deep in the carcass without getting their feathers caught on bones or soaked in blood. They can gorge on 20% of their body weight in one meal too.

An Interview About the Sami Way of Life

3m 37s

Host Sanjayan interviews a a woman belonging to the Sami tribe. She describes how they follow the reindeer herds on their annual migration and how they know when to go. The Sami people embraces modern conveniences but still has traditional (and warm) clothes.

How the Village Tiger Response Team Scares a Tiger

25s

WildTeam is a conservation organisation in Bangladesh. Their aim is to reconnect people with forest. Wild Team have developed local Village Tiger Response Teams (VTRT) that will get together and scare a tiger away from a village before it has a chance to kill anyone or people have a chance to kill a tiger. These are local volunteers who will respond to human- tiger conflicts in villages.

Meet the Man Who Flies with Vultures

3m 56s

While conservationists have rallied to the aid of the vultures, generating public sympathy for the birds has not been easy. British man Scott Mason has a unique way of trying to get people to love the vulture like he does.

Student Scientists Tag a Baby Lemon Shark

2m 31s

Just after birth, the newborn lemon sharks are measured, tagged and a DNA sample is taken before the young sharks are returned to the mangroves. This provides information to an ongoing database to back up theories that lemon sharks return to the same location they were born to give birth themselves.

Traditional Heiltsuk Herring Egg Harvest Using Hemlock

2m 45s

Jordan Wilson, a man from Heiltsuk descent, reveals the traditional methods of harvesting herring eggs, using hemlock branches. The Heiltsuk sustainable herring fishery has used this traditional process, passed down from ancestors for generations to maximize the yield of herring eggs at spawning time.

The Film Crew Gets Stuck in Tiger Territory

3m 16s

When the tide goes out on one day of filming, the crew find themselves stuck in extremely sticky mud. This is a problem in itself but in this situation was particularly terrifying as they were right in the heart of man-eating tiger territory and night was falling!

Why Cows Are Important

3m 25s

Renowned conservationist Jonah Western believes that Maasai grazing their herds of cattle is essential for a healthy functioning savannah and therefore increases populations of endangered lions. In an interview with Jonah, Sanjayan learns how man and lion can not only co-exist but thrive.

A Natural History Detective Story: A Shallow Water Problem

1m 11s

Bilharzia is a parasite transmitted to people via a water snail found in Lake Malawi. Normally these snails are not found in the shallows where people who lived by the lake bathed and washed but something had changed. Expert scientist, Jay Stauffer found the shallows were infested with the snails and the snails were infested with the Bilharzia parasite. And the ultimate problem was over fishing.

Wonderful Cichlids: Mouth Breeders

32s

Lake Malawi has an incredible 850 endemic species of fish found nowhere else on earth, almost all of them some kind of Cichlid. Cichlids have evolved into thousands of different species far quicker than it took apes to evolve into just three species. This particular species has learned to hold all of its’ young in its’ mouth to keep them safe.

Wonderful Cichlids: A Cichlid's Shell Is His Castle

24s

It’s not just for feeding that cichlids have evolved some bizarre behavior, it’s also for the business of reproduction! During breeding and mating cichlids also display some unusual adaptations, they build arenas out of sand that males will dance in or other species will use a shell as a home. Sanjayan comes across one individual who has made his home in a shell.

Maasai and Their Relationship with Their Cows

1m 19s

Traditional Maasai lifestyle centres around their cattle which constitute their primary source of food. They don’t kill the cattle but just bleed them to drink their blood and drink their milk. The measure of a man's wealth is in terms of cattle and children. A herd of 50 cattle is respectable, and the more children the better.

Sanjayan Gets Snapped

1m 3s

Filming the Singing Wells sequence of the Water episode of the series was done in the dry season in Kenya. While Sanjayan was waiting between takes, a local Samburu tribesman used his mobile phone to photograph Sanjayan. He contemplates how the Samburu's tradition of digging wells is for good reason and that it’s not because the tribesmen are not aware of other options to water their cattle.

Our Breathing Planet

44s

Satellite footage from NASA has revealed how the planet breathes in annual pulses in time with the seasons. And surprisingly the breathing isn’t driven by the tropical forests as would be expected; it’s the great northern forests that are the real lungs. Video courtesy of NASA, graphic ©NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Timelapse of Budding Sitka and Hemlock Plants

1m 25s

Over the course of the spring and summer, two of the most common trees in the northern forests of the planet, ‘breathe’ out oxygen into the atmosphere and ‘breathe’ in carbon dioxide. This clip shows the pulse of life in action as these plants bud.

Shark Scientist Richard Fitzpatrick Tags a Tiger Shark

2m 15s

Using ‘the claw’ that Richard Fitzpatrick designed with knowledge of tonic immobility, he manages to tag a dangerous man-eating tiger shark. Information from the tags in helping to create a better understanding of the annual movement of the predators.

Human and Elephant Conflict in Sumatra

1m 50s

In Sumatra, elephant populations are rapidly decreasing. Their decline is primarily a result of deforestation, leaving only 29% of the island still habitable for elephants, leaving them in isolated patches close to humans. The relationship is tense and all — out war between human and elephant is becoming a regular occurrence, often ending in the loss of lives to both.

Reindeer Castration — Does It Still Happen?

1m 51s

Large males of a reindeer herd are important for a healthy tundra. Using large antlers they dig up the most snow to expose the ground for other reindeer to graze. However, during the annual rut males fight and mate rather than dig for grass and lichen. This is why castrating males is still practiced.The old technique of biting is being brought back because it is less severe than modern methods.

How to Be a Mahout

1m 48s

The relationship between a mahout and their elephant is very personal. Often they know the elephant from when they were babies and have to train them and care for their everyday needs such as feeding and washing. In their job as elephant carers and trainers and will always put the elephant before themselves – it is more important that the elephants are fed than the mahouts are fed!

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