Fortress of the Bears filmmaker Shane Moore reveals some of the filming techniques he used during his shoot on Alaska’s Admiralty Island. A behind-the-scenes look at what goes into the making of a nature documentary.

After a spring and summer with no sign of salmon, a mother bear is desperate to catch fish to feed her famished cub. Watch video.

Alaska’s Admiralty Island is home to an estimated 1800 brown bears, the largest concentration of bears in the world. Nearly 100 miles long and 20 miles wide, it is half the size of Yellowstone National Park, yet it sustains four times more grizzlies. The native Tlingít people call this island “Kootznoowoo,” meaning “Fortress of the Bears.” It is a place where bears depend on fish, fish depend on trees, and the trees depend on fish-eating bears to spread the nitrogen rich bodies of salmon throughout the forest. Everything depends on the annual salmon run. When a change in the weather keeps the salmon from arriving, the entire ecosystem is affected.

A La Niña winter has cooled the water to two degrees below normal, keeping the salmon out of the streams and delaying the run. It’s the worst salmon season in the last 40 years. As the bears wait for the salmon, they hunt and scavenge for anything they can find to supplement their unsatisfying diet of grass. The receding tide offers unique opportunities, and one young bear demonstrates a remarkable talent for clamming. But the feast is short-lived. With the passing season showing no sign of fish, the bears become increasingly gaunt and desperate. Will the salmon finally make their way up the streams of Admiralty Island? And will the bears survive until they do?

Fortress of the Bears enters a world shaped by bears, trees, and salmon, and explores the delicate balance of their interconnected lives. Fortress of the Bears premieres Wednesday, January 25 at 8/7 c.

The Arctic is changing. As temperatures slowly rise and the ice recedes, the shore is getting further away. Food sources that the polar bear have come to rely on are becoming less plentiful. In this changing climate, the polar bear is already showing signs of distress.

While polar bears struggle, opportunistic grizzlies fare well, as they benefit from the melting Arctic’s effects on its ecosystem. While the grizzly moves into newly opened territories, the polar bear can only wait for the freezing of its one-time kingdom. If the changing world proclaims the grizzly the new king of the Arctic, what will become of the polar bear?

To order a copy of Arctic Bears, visit the NATURE Shop.

Online content for Arctic Bears was originally posted February 2008.

It’s finally here — time for us to share our incredible Alaskan adventure with the world through Bears of the Last Frontier. It has been quite the journey. The film has been nearly two years in the making, and for both of us it has become an unforgettable part of our lives. Over the course of a year and a half we traveled well over 3000 miles across Alaska and shot 500 hours of footage for this epic three-hour PBS Nature series. We spent many, many months in bear country – piecing together the lives of these fascinating animals by observing and filming them, and by living in bear country, among the animals and people that share bear habitat.

When Joe and I met nearly ten years ago (coincidentally in Alaska) our minds reeled with the possibilities for collaboration. A filmmaker and an ecologist, and a combined dream to have a huge impact for wildlife conservation through the magic of film. The opportunity to work with PBS Nature has been a dream, and has resulted in three beautiful episodes we hope you’ll love.

We’ve both worked all over the world for the last twenty plus years — Joe as an award-winning wildlife filmmaker, and me as a conservation ecologist. Joe has created dazzling films on an array of epic subjects — from tigers to Asian elephants, and my work has focused on wildlife research and environmental education — mostly about the bears of the world. I’ve also guided hundreds of people on expeditions to see polar bears and grizzly bears. We’ve both witnessed the powerful emotions that these animals can trigger in people, which is why they make such great representatives for conservation, and such great characters in film!

Alaska harbors all three of North America’s bear species, from three hundred pound black bears to polar and brown bears weighing well over half a ton. It is home to the highest mountain on the continent, vast glaciers, immense forests, and a level of isolation that can be found nowhere else in the United States.

And it’s big. This northernmost state is the same size as the next three largest states combined (California, Texas and Montana).

Alaska’s wilderness allowed us to step back in time on a journey that took us through five major ecosystems and the habitats of its three bear species. It was also a journey that put us to the test as we hiked, camped and lived among the biggest bears in the world, chased black bears through the streets of Anchorage, followed grizzlies on the prowl for immense caribou herds, and searched for polar bears miles out on the pack ice. In every one of these locations bears have adapted impressively to their surroundings.

We’re hoping that, as you wander through this website and sink yourself into the series, you will feel immersed in the world of the bear. It is a truly wondrous place.

We also hope that you might be inspired to learn more. Bears represent wildness more than any other species, but we cannot take that wildness for granted — it will take determination, passion, and imagination to ensure that future generations can enjoy a world that includes bear habitat.

Be sure to check out the wonderful organizations listed under resources for ways to learn more. We’re all in this together. And remember — what’s good for bears, is good for people!

We’re so glad you’re along for the adventure!

Chris Morgan, Ecologist
Joe Pontecorvo, Filmmaker

A grizzly in his prime is the undisputed master, able to take down prey as easily as he is able to dominate the fresh kills of other predators. The wolves of Yellowstone must use their numbers to their advantage, organizing to take down their prey and defend the spoils of their hunts from the bears. Together, a strong pack of wolves can challenge a solitary grizzly, and defeat it. As these two fierce competitors test their strategies for survival against each other, an entire food chain of scavengers survive in their wake. Crafty coyotes and cunning crows take advantage of the predators’ feuds to make the most of any felled feast.

It’s a test of skills and wills in the often harsh environment of Yellowstone as two of the continent’s greatest hunters take each other’s measure. Now, join NATURE and discover who will triumph in Clash: Encounters of Bears and Wolves.

Stretching across more than 2.2 million acres of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho is one of the greatest expanses of unspoiled nature and wildlife anywhere on Earth — Yellowstone National Park. Designated America’s first national park in 1872, Yellowstone now receives almost three million visitors each year. Yet only a small fraction of those who glimpse the park’s stunning vistas, geological wonders, and animal residents do so during the winter months, a time when nature’s inhospitality is matched only by its serenity.

NATURE follows in the snowy footprints of Yellowstone’s red foxes, spies on the predatory warfare of wolves and elk, and climbs into the den of a grizzly bear that gives birth to two cubs while deep in hibernation. In addition to mesmerizing footage of landscapes and wildlife, trail alongside author and photographer Tom Murphy, who has been coming to Yellowstone for the past 26 winters, camping and photographing amid the silence and solitude of the park. And go behind the scenes with filmmaker Shane Moore to find out how he kept up with Murphy during an at times harrowing trek, reminiscent of the legendary John Colter’s first journey into the park nearly two hundred years ago. Buy the DVD. This film premiered in November 2006.

Photo © Tom Murphy

After a decades-long comeback, the grizzly bears of Yellowstone National Park appear to be thriving. Should they now be removed from the protection of the Endangered Species Act? This question has provoked one of the most emotionally charged wildlife controversies in America today.

In the mid-20th century, Yellowstone’s grizzlies had been reduced to a relatively small number of bears that had stopped hunting and were living on trash intentionally left by the park’s attendants. In 1972, park officials reversed their policy, and the garbage dumps were closed.

Today, after 30 years of protection under the Endangered Species Act, grizzlies have learned to hunt once again, and have made a resounding return, with an estimated 600 thriving in the 17,000 square miles that comprise the Greater Yellowstone area.

With the rising bear population, however, comes conflict, as the grizzlies interact more and more with encroaching humanity — roaming in residential areas, raiding dumpsters, attacking livestock, and unknowingly inspiring tourists to take chances on roads and trails so they can glimpse the great bear.

In short, the success of grizzly restoration has spawned a complex web of social and environmental issues that many disagree upon. While some lawmakers argue that grizzlies should be delisted as an endangered species, others believe this would be a premature maneuver.

Discover the complex issue of grizzly bear management and conservation from ranchers, conservationists, and government officials who share their stories and insights on The Good, the Bad, and the Grizzly.

To order a copy of The Good, the Bad, and the Grizzly, visit the NATURE Shop.

Online content for The Good, the Bad, and the Grizzly was originally posted November, 2004.

Follow as he travels to a remote Canadian outpost on Hudson Bay, where he investigates the annual invasion of hungry polar bears.

Churchill, in the Canadian province of Manitoba, occupies a spit of land that provides the fastest access onto the ice, and the bears are in no mood for any detours once the waters of Hudson Bay begin to freeze. So they congregate near the town and prowl the landscape for appetizers before the main course becomes accessible.

Ewan McGregor puts himself in the middle of the action as town and wildlife authorities skillfully cope with both the would-be marauders of the furry variety, and the throngs of tourists who descend upon the town to see the bears, often at considerable risk to themselves.

Along with McGregor, viewers get a close-up look at how polar bears that wander into town are sedated, carted off to polar bear “jail,” and eventually hoisted by helicopter onto the frozen bay. It’s a dramatic reversal from years ago, when bears invading human space often were shot, sometimes after lethal encounters with people.

Online content for The Polar Bears of Churchill with Ewan McGregor was originally posted May 2002.

Bears and humans tread common ground in NATURE’s Walking with Giants: The Grizzlies of Siberia.

Jutting into the North Pacific from Siberia, Kamchatka is a rugged peninsula of volcanic craters and steep valleys. While its impenetrability once made Kamchatka the perfect home of a notorious Soviet prison camp, its isolation also has kept it a haven for one of Earth’s last giants, the grizzly bear.

In fact, there are more grizzlies per square mile there than anywhere else on the planet. The discovery of this bear sanctuary gave two naturalists, Charlie Russell and Maureen Enns, the opportunity they’d been looking for — to live among the grizzlies and study them in close proximity to understand their true nature.

To order a copy of Walking with Giants: The Grizzlies of Siberia, please visit the NATURE Shop.

Online content for Walking with Giants: The Grizzlies of Siberia was originally posted February 1999.