An American shoots what he believes's a polar bear. Scientist discovers that this corpse's an animal they have never seen before.
In the heart of the American West the bodies of four Black Bears are discovered. Macabre scenes of severed heads, disarticulated remains and dismembered bodies turned inside-out. The investigation that follows these chilling discoveries changes the way Yellowstone bears are viewed forever.
Mothers Day, 2004 and boat-skipper Heidi Tiura, is boarding her excited whale-watching passengers for an excursion on Monterey Bay, California. How were they to know that they were shortly to become reluctant witnesses to an unexpected and shocking scene of carnage a heavyweight battle between thirty-five tons of maternal instinct and a highly organized group of killers? What they find is a huge Gray Whale and her calf locked in mortal combat with a super-aggressive pod of smaller orca (or killer) whales. Nature-loving families look on with horror as a titanic struggle unfolds before them. For three hours the unrelenting orcas repeatedly ram the mother gray whale while attempting to drown her calf. It was the day the sea turned red. But this was just the first of other similar attacks in Monterey Bay that Spring. What had happened to these killer whales? As the shock waves from the mothers day assault reverberate, local and national media pick up the story. Using actual video footage from eyewitnesses, Whale Attack recounts this rarely seen assault that changed our understanding of the secrets that lie beneath the waves.
The psychological effects of war are no longer considered just a human condition. Africa is cultivating gangs of juvenile delinquents, wreaking havoc in the wild. African elephants are becoming edgy 30 years of poaching and conservation management is beginning to backfire, resulting in abnormal violent behavior. In Kenya, elephants are targeting and killing the Maasai tribes cattle. In South Africa, 36 rhinos are killed in a single park over a period of two years. And in Western Uganda a village is being subjected to indiscriminate and violent attacks by local elephants - where, previously they had roamed peacefully. What is provoking Africas gentle giant to these violent outbursts? A group of scientists help to solve this unusual psychological mystery. As they go over individual elephant case histories, a picture builds. Here is an animal with extraordinary parallels to us; similar lifespan, childhood development, and complex functions of thought and feeling. If we accept that elephants are emotional, could they also have emotional problems? Armed with an understanding of their natural family history, we look at the way some conservationists have managed elephants in the last 30 years - sometimes wiping out entire older age structures. Has our meddling caused this violent behavior? Some scientists have recently labeled elephants with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. We talk to neurologists and psychiatrists to explore the science of stress and ask can we really compare elephants with people? We visit an elephant orphanage and ask - how would you treat an elephant with psychological damage, and more importantly what if we cant?
Lake Griffin, Florida. A killer is on the loose, striking some of the states oldest inhabitants. American Alligators, up to fifteen feet long and 1,000 pounds, thrash sporadically at the surface of the lake. Dozens swim around and around in circles, disoriented, while others clamber out of the lake dragging their back legs behind them. Still more float belly up, unable to right themselves. The unmistakable stench of death fills the air. A crack team of leading experts and scientists is hastily assembled but none of them expect what lies ahead.
In 2001 biologists in Australias island state of Tasmania found that the Tasmanian Devil, an iconic species unique to Tasmania, was afflicted with a new, fatal kind of cancer. The mystery was how thousands of Tasmanian Devils could have the same cancer at the same time. As the disease spread across the state and Tasmanian Devil population numbers fell alarmingly, the Tasmanian government launched a Save the Devil campaign to investigate the cause of the disease and prevent this unique species from becoming extinct. This investigation made history and turned the scientific world on its head.
High above the arctic circle, on a remote Canadian island, an American sports hunter shoots what he believes is a polar bear. He is mistaken. His Inuit guide has never seen an animal like this before. The killing unleashes an investigation by the Canadian authorities. But no-one can tell exactly what he has shot. The hunter is under threat of prosecution for a crime he says he didnt commit. Scientists pour over the only evidence they have the corpse of an animal theyve never seen before. With each new discovery the mystery deepens as they try to discover the exact species of this animal.
On the Southern coast of Taiwan a dead sperm whale weighing more than 50 tons is being transported on the back of a flat-bed truck by eminent whale biologist, Professor Wang. But early in the morning the journey turns into a disaster. As the city wakes up, it is greeted by an enormous explosion - intestines, blubber and blood blow out of the whale with the force of a bomb. Four years later, a team of international scientists investigate the mystery of the exploding whale and explain the cause of this enormous blast.
Tanzanians are under siege from a plague of man-eating lions. The East African republic is home to more than one quarter of the worlds lions, but until recently attacks on humans were far and few between. All of that has changed. Entire prides now consider humans fair game; over six hundred people have been killed by lions in Tanzania since 1990. This program explores how and why lion behaviour is changing to targeting human beings as a prey source, and joins a lion hunting team out to capture a man-eater who has been terrorizing the region for too long.
Biologists investigate the unsettling deaths of 300 hippos in a Ugandan wildlife park, with fears that Anthrax could be the culprit.
A family of five elephants is found dead in mysterious circumstances. These deaths left local people and wildlife officials baffled and frightened.
The great white shark and the killer whale are formidable predators. Animals so dangerous, would never challenge each other, or so we thought...
1700 people were killed, and the entire wilderness around them was left lifeless…
What could possibly link together the dead sealions, pelicans falling from the sky and Alfred Hitchcock? And what consequences does that have for us?
The war between leopards and the people of Mumbai has been steadily escalating for a decade.
The crocodile has existed for 200 million years, survived the extinction of the dinosaurs, what is decimating one of Africa's toughest animals today?
A horrific series of mutilated seal corpses are washed up on a remote Atlantic island because of the Greenland shark.
