EARTH A New Wild

Using ‘the claw’ that Richard Fitzpatrick designed with knowledge of tonic immobility, he manages to tag a dangerous man-eating tiger shark. Information from the tags in helping to create a better understanding of the annual movement of the predators.

Renowned shark scientist Doc Gruber is midwife to a 10-foot lemon shark female and helps her to deliver several shark pups.

Jeremy Jackson is a marine ecologist, paleontologist and a professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and a Senior Scientist Emeritus at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in the Republic of Panama. He has published over 150 scientific publications and has written seven books. He is behind the theories of the Rise of Slime in the oceans. Photos ©Monroe County Public Library, FL.

Tiger sharks feast on dead turtles at Raine Island, Australia. The sharks are drawn there by the abundance of dead turtles which have died due to sheer numbers by being buried or turned over in rock pools. The turtles return annually to lay eggs on the same beach they hatched from.

Doc Gruber is a shark biologist and founder of the American Elasmobranch Society. Doc Gruber is a recognized authority on shark science. He has specialized in shark behavior, anatomy, sensory systems and tracking. Gruber is perhaps best known for his studies on habitat selection and homing behavior of lemon sharks and eagle rays around the Bimini Shark Lab.

In Sumatra, elephant populations are rapidly decreasing. Their decline is primarily a result of deforestation, leaving only 29% of the island still habitable for elephants, leaving them in isolated patches close to humans. The relationship is tense and all — out war between human and elephant is becoming a regular occurrence, often ending in the loss of lives to both.

Over the course of the spring and summer, two of the most common trees in the northern forests of the planet, ‘breathe’ out oxygen into the atmosphere and ‘breathe’ in carbon dioxide. This clip shows the pulse of life in action as these plants bud.

The relationship between a mahout and their elephant is very personal. Often they know the elephant from when they were babies and have to train them and care for their everyday needs such as feeding and washing. In their job as elephant carers and trainers and will always put the elephant before themselves – it is more important that the elephants are fed than the mahouts are fed!

Satellite footage from NASA has revealed how the planet breathes in annual pulses in time with the seasons. And surprisingly the breathing isn’t driven by the tropical forests as would be expected; it’s the great northern forests that are the real lungs. Video courtesy of NASA, graphic ©NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Jordan Wilson, a man from Heiltsuk descent, reveals the traditional methods of harvesting herring eggs, using hemlock branches. The Heiltsuk sustainable herring fishery has used this traditional process, passed down from ancestors for generations to maximize the yield of herring eggs at spawning time.

Journey deep into the great forests of Earth for a new way of looking at these wild places and the animals that live there. Dr. M. Sanjayan travels to Sumatra and finds frightening elephant battles are exploding on the edge of the forest.

Traditional Maasai lifestyle centres around their cattle which constitute their primary source of food. They don’t kill the cattle but just bleed them to drink their blood and drink their milk. The measure of a man's wealth is in terms of cattle and children. A herd of 50 cattle is respectable, and the more children the better.