Used primarily for communication and camouflage, color is one of nature’s most dependable defenses. White lions lose the ability to blend in to their surroundings, exposing them to other predators as well as jeopardizing their own ability to hunt. Overcoming their heightened visibility may be the greatest challenge young white cubs face. Often mistaken for albinos, white lions actually do have some pigmentation and dark eyes. They are leucistic animals, produced by the mating of two tawny lions that both carry a recessive gene for white coat color. Their ghostly white color is both a blessing and a curse, earning them a mythical status and a unique vulnerability.

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Only three white cubs have reached adulthood in the wilds of South Africa since white lions were first documented there in 1975. Now, two white cubs, sisters, have beaten the odds, surviving all the challenges of their youth with the help of two remarkable lionesses—their mother, Matimba, and their aunt, Khanya. Without an adult male lion to protect their small pride, Matimba and Khanya must rely solely on their own knowledge, strength and courage to protect their family.
 
Follow Nature as it tracks these two white cubs as they struggle to survive the dangers they are faced with in South Africa’s Kruger National Park. The White Lions premieres May 9, 2012.

Working with the Nez Perce Tribe in Central Idaho, wolf biologist Isaac Babcock spent 13 years participating in the wolf reintroduction program organized in the area. Wanting to share the raw beauty of the land and the wolves with his new wife, Bjornen, Isaac proposes spending a year there as an unconventional honeymoon, documenting their days as they go along. River of No Return tells their story, the story of a couple that took on the wilderness and all its challenges. The two have come to treasure their experience in an untamed place that, for a period of time, they called home. River of No Return premieres April 18, 2012.

Whales and dolphins conjure a deep sense of wonder in us that’s hard to explain. From the Arctic to the Amazon, this groundbreaking three-part series goes on a global expedition with world-renowned underwater cameramen, Doug Allen (Planet Earth) and Didier Noirot (Jacques Cousteau’s cameraman), as they capture spellbinding footage of these marine mammals. Ocean Giants looks at how cetaceans hunt, mate, and communicate, and follows scientists as they strive to uncover new insights about these animals.

The first hour, Giant Lives, enters the world of the great whales. In the Arctic, giant bowhead whales survive the freezing cold wrapped in fifty tons of insulating blubber two-feet thick, making them the fattest animals on the planet. But the biggest animal on the planet is the blue whale. Measuring a hundred feet long, and weighing in at 200 tons, it is double the size of the largest dinosaur.

The second hour, Deep Thinkers, explores the cognitive and emotional lives of dolphins and whales. Like us, cetaceans have special brain cells, spindle cells, that are associated with communication, emotion, and heightened social sensitivity. These cells were once thought to be unique to us, but research is now showing that whales and dolphins may have up to three times more spindle cells than humans.

Marine mammals’ extrasensory perceptions and communication skills are the focus of Voices of the Sea, the final hour of the series. Whales and dolphins depend on sound to function in their ocean home. They use ultrasound to see inside other creatures, clicks and whistles to speak, and echolocation to navigate and hunt in the pitch-black depths.

Join PBS Nature, as it dives into the world of whales and dolphins, and reveals the secrets of their intimate lives like never before. Ocean Giants premieres on Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 8/7 c (check local listings).

Watch a scene from Ocean Giants on our Facebook Page.

When the lights go down in cities across North America, another world is revealed, populated by shady little characters that live alongside us, but exist in the margins. These pint-size problem solvers are smart, adaptable and omnivorous, and they love a good challenge. Welcome to the world of urban raccoons. With their busy little hands, they can do what other would-be urban animals can’t — open doors, get into attics, and raid secured trash cans. And they are especially fond of big cities, like Chicago, New York, and Toronto — the raccoon capital of the world. In cities everywhere, wherever they’ve been introduced, they have done very, very well.

Following a family of urban raccoons over the course of six months, and using high-definition cameras and intensive GPS tracking systems, “Raccoon Nation” reveals new insights about a species that is far more elusive and wily than most people ever imagined, and more destructive.

It seems that the more obstacles you throw in their way, the smarter they get. In an effort to outwit raccoons, we may be pushing their brain development and perhaps even sending them down a new evolutionary path. One biologist who has been studying raccoons for 25 years believes the city life is in fact cultivating “über-raccoons,” ready to take over the world. Only time will tell just how advanced this “nation” of urban raccoons will become. Raccoon Nation premieres Wednesday, February 8 at 8/7 c.

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.

In the past 50 years, the eastern gray kangaroo population around Canberra, Australia’s capital city, has exploded from a few hundred to tens of thousands. Forced from the surrounding drought-stricken hills, hungry kangaroos have done their best to adapt to city life, dining on city parks and suburban lawns—though they do pay a price for their meals. Each year, thousands of kangaroos lose their lives in collisions with cars on busy roads, causing injuries and property damage of more than a million dollars in the process. Overgrazing by large numbers of kangaroos has also created stress on the environment. It’s all led to a government policy of culling, and an emotional public dispute between those who support reducing kangaroo numbers, and those who are appalled by the prospect of killing this beloved Australian icon. The government’s culling “solution” has led some Canberra residents to seek out new, innovative, and kangaroo-friendly ways to regulate the surging population. Can they be relocated, or can their numbers be controlled through forced contraception?

Following the stories of several urban kangaroos, Kangaroo Mob reveals how these metropolitan marsupials manage to survive the city, and documents the ongoing debate on how best to manage them.

“Had I known what was in store—the difficult nature of the study and the time I was about to invest—I would have been hard pressed to justify such an intense involvement. But, fortunately, I naively allowed myself to blunder into a two-year commitment that was at once exhausting, often overwhelming, enlightening, and one of the most inspiring and satisfying experiences of my life.”

–Joe Hutto, Illumination in the Flatwoods

 
 
After a local farmer left a bowl of eggs on Joe Hutto’s front porch, his life was forever changed. Hutto, possessing a broad background in the natural sciences and an interest in imprinting young animals, incubated the eggs and waited for them to hatch. As the chicks emerged from their shells, they locked eyes with an unusual but dedicated mother.

Deep in the wilds of Florida’s Flatlands, Hutto spent each day living as a turkey mother, taking on the full-time job of raising sixteen turkey chicks. Hutto dutifully cared for his family around the clock, roosting with them, taking them foraging, and immersing himself in their world. In the process, they revealed their charming curiosity and surprising intellect. There was little he could teach them that they did not already know, but he showed them the lay of the land and protected them from the dangers of the forest as best he could. In return, they taught him how to see the world through their eyes.

Based on his true story, My Life as a Turkey chronicles Hutto’s remarkable and moving experience of raising a group of wild turkey hatchlings to adulthood. My Life as a Turkey premiered Wednesday, November 16, 2011.

Harpy eagles are the most powerful birds of prey in the world. Standing three feet tall, with a six-foot wingspan and razor-sharp talons the size of bear claws, these birds are the heavyweight hunters of the South American rainforest. They are the top predators in the jungle canopy, feeding regularly on tree-dwelling mammals like monkeys and sloths. But scientists know very little about harpy eagles because their numbers are few and their habitat is large. Hidden in the branches of the canopy, they are rarely seen, let alone filmed.

After locating a nest 130 feet above ground in an enormous Ceiba tree, wildlife filmmaker Fergus Beeley and his team of cameramen install a “nest cam” to monitor a harpy family. Over the course of a year, they struggle to document the lives of these elusive birds in Venezuela’s Orinoco River jungle. The team comes dangerously close to the notoriously aggressive birds, risking serious injury for the chance to gain new insight into these Jurassic-like creatures.

NATURE enters the secret world of the harpy, and provides a treasure trove of new information about this majestic species.

Skyscrapers towering over major cities or spectacularly-designed bridges often come to mind when we think of great feats in architecture and engineering. However, some of the most amazing, creative, and innovative structures on earth are not man-made or urban at all, but residences built by animals in the natural world.

Termites across Africa’s plains build ten-foot-high mounds, temperature-controlled high-rises maintained by solar power and complete with flood contingency plans. Leaf and grass cutter ants move 40 tons of earth to create subterranean cities with highways, homes, farms, trash pits, and nurseries for 12 million residents. Army ants create living houses made entirely of their own bodies. Cave swiflets mold crystal nests from their gluey saliva. New Guinea’s male Vogelkop bowerbirds, meticulous interior decorators, use their artistic visions to woo. Beavers build enormous dams, changing the landscape to create a safe environment for their lodges. And hummingbirds delicately weave tiny camouflaged cradles out of cobwebs, grass, twigs, and leaves. Guided by instinct, animal architects build an remarkable variety of elaborate dwellings with their simple supplies. Every house suits the needs of its owner, to shelter and protect.

NATURE investigates what goes into making a home when you’re wild and cost is not a factor. They may be single-use, multi-generational, or multi-purpose; they may be anything from a small depression in the sand to a many-chambered tunnel, a nest, a burrow, or a mound, but for animals big and small, these dwellings are always impressive home sweet homes. The Animal House premieres November 2, 2011.

What happens to nature after a nuclear accident? And how does wildlife deal with the world it inherits after human inhabitants have fled?

In 1986 a nuclear meltdown at the infamous Chernobyl power plant in present-day Ukraine left miles of land in radioactive ruins. Residents living in areas most contaminated by the disaster were evacuated and relocated by government order, and a no-man’s land of our own making was left to its own devices. In the ensuing 25 years, forests, marshes, fields and rivers reclaimed the land, reversing the effects of hundreds of years of human development. And surprisingly, this exclusion zone, or “dead zone,” has become a kind of post-nuclear Eden, populated by beaver and bison, horses and birds, fish and falcons – and ruled by wolves.

Access to the zone is now permitted, at least on a limited basis, and scientists are monitoring the surviving wildlife in the area, trying to learn how the various species are coping with the invisible blight of radiation. As the top predators in this new wilderness, wolves best reflect the condition of the entire ecosystem because if the wolves are doing well, the populations of their prey must also be doing well. Accordingly, a key long-term study of the wolves has been initiated to determine their health, their range, and their numbers.

Radioactive Wolves examines the state of wildlife populations in Chernobyl’s exclusion zone, an area that, to this day, remains too radioactive for human habitation.

Radioactive Wolves premiered Wednesday, October 19 at 8/7 c.