NATURE returns for its 41st Season, featuring new documentaries about the Great East African Migration, wild dogs, woodpeckers, ocelots, shorebirds and more.
The WNET Group’s Emmy- and Peabody Award-winning series NATURE announced its upcoming season with new episodes Wednesdays at 8 p.m. beginning October 19 on PBS (check local listings), pbs.org/nature and the PBS Video app.
RUNNING WITH THE BEEST | Wednesday, October 20
The Great Migration in East Africa is a spectacle that can be seen from space and is one of the most impressive mass movements of land animals on Earth. Over a million wildebeest, alongside zebra, gazelle and elands journey in a quest to find fresh grass. Two Maasai guides, Derrick Nabaala and Evalyn Sintoya, have spent the last 10 years tracking the wildebeest as they migrate through Kenya’s Mara ecosystem. The great migration is part of their cultural heritage, and they expose the modern-day conflict between people and wildlife and share new ideas for co-existence in a changing world.
CANADA: SURVIVING THE WILD NORTH | Wednesday, October 26
Canada is a vast country, with the largest intact forest on the planet, more than two million lakes and rivers, and the longest coastline on Earth. This wild and rugged outpost is home to some of the world’s most astonishing wildlife, such as polar bears, coastal wolves, Canada lynx and harp seals. Journey from the high arctic and tundra and to the boreal forests, to discover how life manages to survive in the Wild North, where getting the timing right and seizing seasonal opportunities can make the difference between life and death.
WOODPECKERS: THE HOLE STORY | November 2
239 species of woodpeckers live on every continent except Antarctica and Australia, playing a powerful role in every ecosystem they inhabit. Woodpeckers come in all shapes and sizes, each uniquely engineered for their particular lifestyles. Filmmaker Ann Johnson Prum (Nature: Super Hummingbirds) pecks away at what makes woodpeckers so special.
AMERICAN OCELOT | November 9
Wildlife filmmaker Ben Masters follows one of the United States’ most endangered wild cats: the ocelot. Go on a brush dive into the deep South Texas chaparral to meet the biologists studying the rare cats, the ranchers with the habitat and the cats themselves. Through camera trap cinematography, witness a never-before-seen glimpse into the struggle, love and determination required of a mother ocelot to raise her young successfully.
WILDHEART (working title) | Premieres Winter/Spring 2023
Resilient, strong and proud – the Scots pine tree is a symbol of Scotland. Standing firm against the assaults of a fickle climate, the Scots pine is at the center of a complex ecosystem offering a home to hundreds of other wildlife, from the iconic golden eagle to the feisty red squirrel. But as one of Scotland’s longest living species, it’s also been witness to the island’s history where a wild highland landscape and its people have changed beyond recognition.
SOUL OF THE OCEAN | Premieres Winter/Spring 2023
In ocean waters lies a complex world. Acclaimed underwater filmmaker Howard Hall (Nature: Shark Mountain) returns to Nature with a never-before-seen look at how life underwater co-exists in a marriage of necessity. Take a deep breath and discover the soul of the ocean.
COSTA RICA: A GLIMMER IN GREEN (working title) | Premieres Winter/Spring 2023
By some measures, Costa Rica is tiny – just 0.03% of the Earth’s landmass. But inside its borders, Costa Rica is an ecological giant, bursting with 5% of the planet’s total biodiversity. The landscape stretches from Caribbean lowlands to Pacific rainforests, volcanic mountain ranges and dense cloud forests. At the heart of this towering diversity are the tiny architects and caretakers that keep the forests in flower and the ecosystems running: the hummingbirds.
FLYWAYS (working title) | Premieres Winter/Spring 2023
Shorebirds fly thousands of miles each year along ancient and largely unknown migratory routes called Flyways. Species travel from feeding grounds in the southern hemisphere to breeding grounds in the Arctic regions and back again, flying up to nine days non-stop without food or water. But now, their populations are crashing. Follow a conservation movement of bird-loving experts and citizen scientists as they mobilize to the challenge of understanding and saving these birds.
NIAGARA FALLS (working title) | Premieres Winter/Spring 2023
Niagara Falls is a geological wonder, one of the most famous waterfalls in the world and an epic sight for tourists who have been visiting the attraction for 200 years. The area around Niagara Falls is home to a wide variety of wildlife, including mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians. Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Joe Pontecorvo (Nature: Yosemite, Snow Monkeys) showcases this iconic North American natural resource over the course of a year.
DOGS IN THE WILD, A NATURE MINISERIES (3-part special) | Premieres Winter/Spring 2023
An ambitious miniseries that travels the globe with an eye toward revealing the secrets of the most successful carnivore on the planet: the canids. From the recognizable and familiar like foxes, wolves, African wild dogs and coyotes to the lesser-known ones like the Japanese raccoon dog, New Guinea singing dog, dholes and dingoes, canids have conquered every continent except Antarctica.
THE SECRET CROWN (working title) | Premieres Winter/Spring 2023
In 2013, a fisherman in Guatemala, who is struggling to feed his family, is forced further offshore in a search for food. In an act of desperation, he guns his small boat straight out to sea and into dangerous waters. With no land in sight, the sun blazing, the fisherman cuts his engine and peers over the side of his boat. His expression transforms to utter disbelief. He is sitting atop a coral reef, five times the size of Manhattan and teeming with life, that no one knew existed. It is like a window back in time when Caribbean corals were thriving. The discovery is part of an even bigger story, marking an exciting new chapter in understanding corals, the fish that need them and the battle to save coral reefs all over the world.
SPY IN THE OCEAN, A NATURE MINISERIES (4-part special) | Premieres Winter/Spring 2023
The latest installment of the popular Spy in the Wild series takes place in the ocean, the largest ecosystem on Earth. This four-part NATURE miniseries employs animatronic spy cameras disguised as marine animals to secretly record behavior in the wild. When these robotic, uncanny look-alikes infiltrate the natural world to film wildlife, they capture rarely seen behavior that reveals how ocean animals possess emotions and behavior similar to humans – including the capacity to love, grieve, deceive, and invent.
*Dates and information subject to change.
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