Bears Deadly 360

This is Deadly 360.

The show that pits three of the world's deadliest predators

against their prey.

Examining both their hunting strategies and their escape tactics

from every angle.

By delving beneath the fur and the feathers,

we'll find out why a hunt succeeds.

And why they sometimes fail.

One thing's certain, prey animals are anything but sitting ducks.

Their defensive strategies keep them alive.

And push predators to the limits.

Prepare for Deadly 360.

This is Deadly 360 mission control,

where all of today's action and analysis takes place.

From here, we have access to some of the most enthralling hunts

that have ever been caught on camera.

I've recreated three of the most exciting and analysed them

from different angles and perspectives

in true 360-degree style.

The predators we're looking at have to catch food

or they just won't make it.

In the wild world,

simply managing to survive is the greatest challenge of all.

I present to you, the bears.

The bear family contains the largest land carnivores in the world,

so these three all pack a mighty punch.

We'll head to Alaska, home of the most famous brown bear of all,

the grizzly.

And in the Indian forests, we'll see a stealthy sloth bear

use the cover of night to try a smash-and-grab raid.

And this bear is the world's largest terrestrial carnivore.

A master predator from a frozen world. The polar bear.

Three bears, three very different hunting strategies, all deadly.

They look invincible.

But there's a continual arms race going on in nature

which ensures that prey animals are always evolving

spectacular ways of taking care of themselves.

In this show, the three animals fighting for their lives

are the Pacific salmon, speedsters of the seas and rivers.

The ringed seal, a fast and agile underwater acrobat.

And finally, the termite.

A colony of hundreds of thousands of individuals with an army for defence.

Three prey with very different survival skills

to outsmart even the most accomplished killers.

So I've introduced you to all of our contenders.

Now it's time to meet our first deadly duo going head to head.

This bear is the world's largest terrestrial carnivore.

A master predator from a frozen world.

The polar bear.

Up against it is this.

The ringed seal.

But which animal has the edge in the race for life?

It's time to go Deadly 360.

We join the action at this knife-edge moment.

Just half a metre of snow and ice separates them.

The seal's been underwater for over 20 minutes.

It has to come up for breath soon,

but the polar bear is waiting to strike.

Even in a hunt like this, there are still a lot of factors in play,

and to find out whether the hunter succeeds or fails,

we need to wind back and build up the entire hunt right from the beginning.

So first, let's check out where this epic battle is taking place.

We're here, in the Arctic Circle.

This vast, barren land is where the polar bear has made its home.

Temperatures here can drop to minus 40 degrees,

making this one of the toughest places in the world to live.

And it might seem like there's nothing around

in these frozen ice fields, but take a closer look and you'll see

that scattered in amongst the snow,

various animals are eking out a tough existence.

This ringed seal can provide enough energy

to keep a polar bear going for five days.

I think it's fair to say this is a challenging environment for a hunt.

But what do our two animals have that's going to give them an edge

in such extreme conditions?

The polar bear is armed with some of the best paws in the animal world.

It's also built for endurance, with fantastic stamina.

And it possesses a superb sense of smell,

making it the top predator in the Arctic Circle.

All of that makes our predator a pretty scary prospect.

What does our prey have to counter?

In the water, seals are speedy swimmers.

Add to the mix some super senses

and the fact it can hold its breath for half an hour,

and the seal stands a fantastic chance of survival.

Right. Back to the hunt.

The seal's out of sight about a mile away, but despite this,

the polar bear is currently working out its precise location.

So how does it do it?

Well, that nose is perhaps the most highly-tuned weapon

in the polar bear's armoury.

It's so sensitive, it can detect a seal carcass from over 20 miles away.

So why does it need such an incredible sense of smell?

Well, this place is an icy, barren wilderness.

Life here is hard for any animal and prey is very few and far between.

But actually, anything like a seal is going to leave behind a scent trail

that can be detectable from far further away

than the polar bear could possible see.

All it has to do is move in towards the smell

and find itself a seal meal.

It's travelling the whole way over slippery ice and snow

and you know how dangerous that can be.

The polar bear is certainly very capable of taking care of itself.

I mean, just look at the size of it standing up on its hind legs.

They can be over three metres tall.

In fact, the record was 3.7 metres tall.

An animal this size is also very heavy.

They can weigh as much as 800 kilograms,

which is ten times the weight of an adult human being.

But something that weighs this much and that lives on soft snow

and potentially brittle ice

is going to have tremendous problems in getting around.

So how does it manage that?

Let's have a look at the feet in more detail.

First off, this is life-size.

They can be as much as 30 centimetres across

and that massive size spreads out the weight of the polar bear.

It almost functions like a snow shoe.

If we flip the foot over, you can see that it has soft pads

that are covered with tiny bumps called papillae.

These increase the surface area of the foot

and function like the grips on a pair of trainers.

And then these long, hooked claws work almost like crampons.

They're the final way of keeping this animal sturdy on slippery ice.

And the combination of those incredible paws

and that superb sense of smell

has brought the polar bear close to the seal.

But it has hit a potential problem.

The ice has run out.

Those specially-adapted paws are perfect at all terrain navigation.

It's straight into the water.

The feet are webbed, meaning that when the ice runs out

and the water begins, the polar bear can carry on its hunt for food.

When it's in the water, the polar bear uses its front legs as paddles

and the back legs act like rudders.

They can swim for a very long way.

Believe it or not, recently a polar bear was spotted swimming

for nine days without coming to land and covered about 400 miles.

And the endurance doesn't end with swimming.

This is an animal that can cover as much as 100,000 square miles

in its lifetime.

But back in the hunt, it has broken cover at just the wrong moment.

The seal escapes, diving back underwater. A big problem.

While both can swim, the seal can hit speeds of 20 miles per hour,

five times faster than the polar bear.

The bear can only hunt on the surface so its chances are looking slim.

But the hunt isn't over.

Seals are sublime swimmers but they're mammals,

which means they have to come back up to the surface to breathe.

And when they do that, they leave themselves vulnerable to attack.

How does a seal know which breathing hole is safe and which isn't?

Well, this is when the seal's defensive tactics come into play.

The seal has incredible underwater hearing

and it's listening out for this.

THUDDING

As the polar bear walks across the ice,

it's travelling very quietly.

But an animal of that size creates vibrations

that travel down through the ice and into the water below.

Once the soundwaves are in the water, they travel four times faster

than they would do in air, which means the seal can detect them,

pick them up and move away from the source of the sounds.

But it doesn't pick them up using its ears.

Instead, it uses these whiskers.

Many mammals have whiskers in their faces.

They're connected to nerves which run straight into the brain

and are incredibly sensitive, but particularly so in seals.

They're said to be ten times more sensitive than a cat's whiskers.

Now that obviously can be a real advantage if it helps them

to locate the position of a polar bear.

They can simply hear where it is

and move away to a different breathing hole.

Let's see how this plays out.

The seal's busy moving away from the polar bear

as it walks around on the surface looking for a meal.

But the problems start when the bear stops.

With no movement, there's no sound

and the seal has no way of knowing where the polar bear is.

It's essentially now blind in its underwater world.

The bear has stopped beside a breathing hole.

Seals usually breathe once every ten minutes

but can hold off for 45 minutes in an emergency such as this.

Polar bears are one of the most patient predators

in the animal kingdom, able to lie in wait

by a seal's breathing hole in temperatures down to -40 for hours.

Sooner or later, the seal must come up for air.

Essentially, this is now just a deadly waiting game.

With no way of knowing where the bear is,

and running out of air, the seal is going to have to surface.

Once it starts surfacing, it's so buoyant it can't change direction.

This is now just a question of luck.

No! Don't do it! Oh!

On this occasion, the bear's chosen the wrong breathing hole

and the seal escapes with its life.

The polar bear had to cover a vast area of wild,

Arctic landscape just to narrow down its search.

Even when it had all those holes to choose from,

the odds were still in the seal's favour.

The polar bear followed its sense of smell, showed great stamina

and patience, and used its multi-purpose paws,

but the seal's eyesight, incredibly sensitive whiskers

and swimming skills meant it survived to see another day.

Now onto our next pair of hunters locked in a battle for survival.

This is the sloth bear, a secretive but nonetheless deadly hunter.

And up against it is this, a teeming colony of termites.

Which has the edge in the race for life? It's time to go Deadly 360.

The sloth bear has arrived at the termite mound,

home to up to a million individuals all ruled by a single queen.

If she dies, the whole colony will die,

so her loyal subjects will fight to the death to defend her.

At only a fraction of the bear's size, how can they possibly win?

Well, based on size alone,

you'd have to say it looks like the prey is done for.

Don't give up hope just yet. It's rarely as simple as that.

Let's rewind to the start of the hunt and begin our investigation.

We're heading over to India for this one,

to a forest in the south-west of the country.

This wooded world is vastly different to the ice fields

where the polar bear lives.

It's hot, humid and bursting with life.

These trees provide all the food the vegetarian termites could want,

but it's so warm during the day that the furry sloth bear has to rest up

in these trees and wait for the cool of the night to carry out its hunt.

Only once it's dark can it start searching for food

using its impressive weapons.

Smell is vitally important for the sloth bear,

and check out its incredibly powerful front legs,

with large claws designed for a smash-and-grab lifestyle.

So I think it's clear we're dealing with another well-equipped predator.

But how's our prey going to try to neutralise the threat?

One-on-one, they don't stand a chance, but they have numbers.

There can be almost a million of them in just one colony.

They are also able to build a clay castle to protect themselves.

Add to that an army of powerful biting jaws

to deter an attacker, and you've got a valiant and worthy opponent.

We have two very different animals,

but which one's going to come out on top in this hunt?

Let's find out. The Indian nights may be cool enough for the sloth bear to hunt in,

but there are disadvantages to finding food in the dark.

Let's look at how the bear has adapted its senses to hunt at night.

First up, its eyesight.

Its eyes are quite small and the eyesight isn't that well-developed,

but it's a nocturnal species, it's out at night.

It could either have night vision or it could rely on other senses.

That's exactly what the sloth bear does.

Actually, its main weapon is that incredible nose.

But while the sloth bear is sniffing out its supper,

let's have a look at the termite colony.

This vast structure is the termites' home, and has been constructed

by millions upon millions of termites over many generations.

In the depths lies the royal chamber, the queen's home.

She's ten times bigger than the other termites

but is so large that she can't move and is totally defenceless.

She therefore gives birth to hundreds of thousands

of workers, whose job it is to build this fortress around her.

These solid walls provide a real,

physical barrier to the outside world, and it's a great way

of making sure that predators can't get to the inside of the mound.

The termites look as though they're really safe

inside their hard-baked clay home.

Let's find out what our sloth bear is up to.

The sloth bear has sniffed out the termite mound,

but is faced with a seemingly impenetrable fortress.

Undeterred, it starts sniffing around the mound whilst testing

different areas, checking to see if there are any weaker points.

Once it has found one,

it starts tearing into it with those incredibly powerful front legs.

To help it, each paw is armed with monstrous claws.

Each one is seven centimetres long

and curved, a perfect shape for dismantling a termite mound.

The termites' first line of defence has been breached,

leaving them exposed to a predator

around 4m times their weight.

If the bear gets deeper inside the mound and eats the queen,

the whole colony will die.

Look at the way the bear's eating them.

The trick to becoming

an expert termite muncher is all down to the design of its mouth.

Let's tell the tale of the bones beneath those rubbery lips.

This is a sloth bear skull.

The interesting thing about it, really, is that it has a long snout,

perfect for getting inside the nooks and crannies of termite mounds.

This normally, as a young bear,

would be completely filled in with teeth. It has 42 in total.

But when it loses its milk teeth and gains its adult set,

the top two in the middle never grow back.

Essentially what it's done is turned its whole head

into a straw for sucking up termites.

The amount of suction it can get,

just hoovering up those insects, is incredible.

Let's see all of this in action.

The sloth bear is hoovering up the termites with that

incredible mouth, and can eat hundreds per minute.

The fortress built by the worker termites has been breached,

leaving the colony open to attack.

The worker termites are construction workers, with no weapons.

The queen isn't done for yet.

As well as the workers,

she lays another type of termite crucial in termite society.

Soldiers.

The function of soldier termites is given away by their name.

Their only function is to defend the termite mound.

Looking at the body shape of the termite,

the first thing you notice is that the head takes up an enormous

percentage of the whole animal.

There's a reason for that,

and it's not because it has a large brain or big eyes or anything.

It's all about powerful muscles driving those fearsome weapons.

These jaws close with the fastest strike of any

in the whole animal kingdom.

When it comes to taking the role of defending its home,

they are second-to-none.

Let's see how all of this functions

against a large predator like a bear.

The holes in the termite mound walls cause a sudden change

in the constant internal atmosphere.

This is a sign the soldier termites had been waiting for.

The soldiers drum their heads against the walls,

a battle cry to the rest of the soldier termites.

Alert to the danger, the other soldiers rush

to where their castle walls have been breached.

Their jaws are primed and ready to nip

and cut at anything in their way.

Termite bites may be small in comparison,

but nonetheless irritating. The bear is doing its best to avoid being bitten

with that incredible hoovering mouth.

But the termites' strength in numbers and defence is beginning to take effect.

Many lost their lives, but with so many soldiers in the colony,

the sloth bear is finding the bites too uncomfortable

and it leaves the termite mound with the queen still alive.

The soldier termites have done their job.

The sloth bear appeared to have all the weaponry on its side,

but actually, even though it managed to get itself a meal,

it was really such a tiny fraction of the termite colony that was eaten

that I think I'm going to call this one a victory for the insects.

The sloth bear's sensitive nose, destructive front legs

and specially adapted mouth meant it launched a full-on attack.

The termites' strength in numbers, home and aggressive soldiers eventually subdued the bear.

This is our last deadly duo, locked in a battle for life or death.

This is the grizzly bear, an expert fisherman.

Up against it is this. The Pacific salmon.

Which has the edge in the race for life? This is Deadly 360.

We join the action before the moment of impact.

And this has to be every salmon's nightmare.

It has to run the gauntlet against an army of hungry

grizzly bear mouths.

To add to the problem, a raging waterfall is forcing it back.

It has strength in numbers but with a fast river and the expert

fishing skills of the grizzlies, has it got the skills to survive?

If we freeze the action at this crucial moment,

who do you think the odds favour, the predator or the prey?

To find out, let's take it back to the start

and build up the entire hunt right from the beginning.

This hunt takes place here, in Alaska,

and more specifically the Yukon river,

which leads from the salmon's home in the ocean

to their breeding-grounds at the top of the river.

This is the epic last trip in the salmon's lifetime.

It, along with all the others, is making its way back

to breed in the same river that it hatched in several years ago,

where it will then die, if it makes it past the bears.

The grizzly is trying to catch it before it gets too far upstream,

with a nose capable of smelling fish that are underwater,

lightening-fast reactions

and claws that can stop a fish dead in its tracks.

So with all that to help it hunt,

you'd think that our predator would have no trouble making a kill.

But our prey also has some pretty nifty means of defence.

Salmon are hugely impressive fish, capable of out-manoeuvring their foe.

With a burst of speed that can launch it through the air,

together with sheer numbers, and some super senses,

the salmon has all the necessary skills to survive.

Let's join the action at the start of the day as the grizzly bear

begins its search for some fishy food.

The glut of salmon is known as the salmon run

and is vitally important for the grizzly as it needs to feast

on these energy-packed fish in order to fatten up for winter.

If it doesn't put on another 50% of its bodyweight over the next

few months, it won't have enough fat reserves

to survive the harsh winter.

So the bear starts the hunt when the salmon starts the run.

The bear's using a combination of sight and smell to pick up its meal.

Look at the way it's dropping its nose down

to the surface of the water.

Believe it or not, it can scent the oils left by the fish as they swim.

With this many salmon around, it looks sure to pick up a meal.

The salmon's tactic of shoaling together

is its first line of defence.

By congregating in such a large group,

it means the odds of individual survival are far greater

than if it tried to go it alone.

You'd think with this much salmon around,

it would be time for an easy meal.

That couldn't be further from the truth.

In fact, if anything, there's just too much salmon here.

Every time the bear gets fixed on one salmon, she goes for it,

sees another and goes for that one instead.

Actually, it's just being overwhelmed.

It's like a computer going through information overload.

Because the water's deep, there's plenty ways for the salmon to escape.

If the bear stays here for much longer,

she's simply going to get tired and then hungry.

The only way this bear's going to get a meal is by heading further inland.

The bears move further upstream and find a pool packed

with resting salmon after a tiring first leg of their journey.

The bear can see the salmon from the surface

but can also stick its head underwater to take a better look.

It's as if it's got built-in swimming goggles.

The salmon haven't decided to rest in any old part of the river,

this pool is like the river mouth,

sufficiently deep enough to allow them to get away.

As the bear closes in, look at the way the fish peel apart,

swimming away from it easily in shoals.

They have special sensors running down their bodies,

they can sense the bear

long before it can get anywhere close to them.

Bears are massive, heavy, powerful animals.

The shape of their paws reflects that.

You might think, looking at the size of it,

that it's clumsy, but that couldn't be further from the truth.

Those long claws can be used to tear off bark to find insects,

even to open up shellfish

and definitely as a tool for tearing apart fish.

Our bear is heading upstream to see if it can find itself a decent meal.

Back in the hunt, the bear is further upstream,

looking for fresh fish.

The salmon's way is blocked

by grizzly bears and a two-metre waterfall.

They appear to be trapped in a dead end.

The odds now appear to be in the grizzly's favour.

She joins the others for a chance to feast on the cornered fish.

The salmon wouldn't get very far if they gave up every time

they got near a waterfall.

They do have one particular twist in the tale. Look at this.

That is an incredible leap. How on Earth do the salmon manage it?

A salmon is essentially one big swimming muscle.

It's shaped kind of like a torpedo, narrowing towards the back,

where the tail is.

Then this extended tail is fantastic at driving it along at great speeds.

The way they achieve that is by having a body shape

which is extremely hydro-dynamic.

That means it has very little drag in water.

When it leaps, it is also extraordinarily capable.

They can travel at eight metres per second through the air

and leap up to three-and-a-half metres in height.

This is an animal that's almost like a high-velocity underwater bullet.

Right, let's see it in action against our bear.

Armed with those impressive muscles, the salmon joins up with the others

as it works out the best line of attack to safely get up the river.

The grizzly is looking to outsmart it with lightning-fast reactions.

The first salmon tries to get past the bear

and launches forward using those muscles.

Just look at the way it spears through the air.

The bear is too far and the salmon makes it.

Sometimes you have to be persistent to successfully catch a meal.

There are so many fish that the bear just has to be patient

and hope that one of them makes the mistake of jumping close to danger.

The next salmon tries its luck,

but it's on a collision-course with the bear.

This should be game over.

But it catches the bear out

and safely falls back into the water, lucky to still be alive.

Another salmon decides it's now or never. Oh! That was extraordinary!

Let's see that again.

OK, the fish is powering its way through heavily aerated water.

It makes its leap but the bear has clocked it.

You can see she's zeroing in on the fish.

Opens its mouth and swings in for about the most perfect catch

you will ever see.

She's going to take the fish to a safer place,

away from the waterfall, to enjoy her well-earned meal.

For such a large animal,

this is a challenging way of hunting.

She's standing in a waterfall, trying to catch a leaping,

slippery fish in her mouth.

At this time of year,

the salmon protein is absolutely essential

for her survival, so it's just as well that she succeeded.

The salmon has strength in numbers, a torpedo-shaped body

and powerful leaping muscles.

But the grizzly's sensitive nose, nifty paws

and biting jaws were simply too good for the salmon on this occasion.

The bear family contains the largest land carnivores found on Earth.

They have a sense of smell that can challenge any animal,

size, strength, incredible teeth.

But their diet varies from almost 100% meat in some species

to plant matter and termites in others.

They are adaptable and resourceful.

That's all we've got time for.

Join us next time as three more pairs of animals

go head-to-head and we analyse the action, Deadly 360 style.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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