Harsh reality behind nature’s beauty
YELLOWSTONE
BBC Two, Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday, 9pm
THE Yellowstone is one of the most remarkable places on the planet. It’s home to North America’s most iconic wildlife and every year these animals must survive “the Thaw” – one of the harshest seasonal changes on Earth.
Temperatures swing from minus 40 Celsius in the winter to approaching 40-plus in the summer months.
To understand how the animals cope and to witness the effects of our changing climate, this three-part series follows the Thaw during 2016, a year when it’s believed the unpredictable weather broke new records.
Presenters Kate Humble and Patrick Aryee are joined by a team of scientists and wildlife cameramen. They capture the wildlife dramas as they unfold and analyse the impact on individual animal families of wolves, grizzly bears, beavers and great grey owls.
In episode one, Patrick Aryee follows the grizzly bears, who are taking a risk with the weather by leaving their winter dens early.
Hungry wolves are struggling to bring down their elk prey in the unu- sually shallow snow. And for great grey owls, it’s the iciness of the weather that is hampering their hunts.
Yellowstone’s winter is always one of the most brutal on the planet. But 2016 saw weather records broken, and the wildlife was forced to adapt to survive.
Kate Humble gets to grips with the science behind this remarkable season, from understanding the importance of the snowpack’s structure as the melt begins, to uncovering why Yellowstone’s unique geology is posing problems for some grazers’ teeth.
In part two, winter turns to spring, tempera- tures rise and Yellowstone bursts into life.
Beavers feast on new green shoots, baby bison take their first faltering steps, and grizzly bear cubs emerge from dens to explore this new green world.
But spring is also a perilous time. Wolves are hungrier than usual after slim winter pickings, and rising temperatures melt the vast mountain snow pack, sending a million tons of water flooding into the rivers. Only the toughest will survive.
The concluding instalment sees the arrival of summer – and the Yellowstone beavers have a new challenge.
Will the young survive as the river dries up and the colony is forced to move home?
As food becomes scarce, wolves have a surprising strategy to keep their pups fed and grizzly bears are unexpected visitors on a cowboy ranch.
By midsummer the hot dry conditions create a new danger – deadly wildfires burn out of control and threaten to engulf a family of great grey owls.
Last year was the hottest on Earth since records began, and across Yellowstone scientists reveal the effects of rising temperatures on the animals that live here.