British Columbia Deadly Pole to Pole

My name's Steve Backshall.

And this...is Deadly Pole To Pole.

Ohhh! From the top of the world to the bottom.

-Whoa!

-HE LAUGHS

Deadly places. Deadly adventures. And deadly animals.

And you're coming with me...every step of the way!

Argh!

This is Vancouver Island, way over on Canada's Pacific west coast.

It's a mystical, magical place that's saturated with wildlife

and much of it is found beneath these mirror-flat seas.

We're here to find a little-known deep sea shark.

Look at the size of it!

And bizarre alien-like oddities.

Wonderful stuff!

And using new Deadly technology to see raptors like never before.

Vancouver Island lies off Canada's mainland.

It's a wild, rugged landscape

where high mountains meet the cold North Pacific.

I've been here with Deadly before

and it's provided some of our most memorable moments.

Like this.

But this time we're in search of an animal

that's going to be a true challenge.

The main reason we've come here

is to search for a shark that has outlived the dinosaurs.

I've never seen one before and for very good reason.

They live in deep, deep seas

and only fleetingly come into shallower waters.

It's called...the sixgill shark.

They inhabit the darkest depths of our oceans,

over a mile below the surface.

We know little about their secret lives.

They certainly scavenge carcases like dead whales

that sink down from above.

They even eat each other.

The seas here are one of the only places in the world

where sixgills visit shallower waters.

No-one knows what attracts them and very few people ever see one.

But we've got a plan.

When we're working with sharks we have one thing that's thing

always on our side which is their exquisite sense of smell.

If you add some nice fish heads and blood to the water,

then any sharks that are within a couple of miles,

will scent that and come in to investigate.

The only problem is that sixgills don't swim on the surface,

they swim at the bottom, so we won't be able to see them.

But we've got this remarkable bit of Deadly technology.

Effectively what this is is an underwater CCTV camera.

It's going to sit on the bottom right next to our bait

and we can see what's going on at the surface using this tablet.

We can switch on the lights,

so even in the dead of night we'll still be able to film

and hopefully this will be triggered by a shark

coming in to check out our bait.

The sooner we get our CCTV in position the better.

Time to get wet.

These coldwater reefs are fed by nutrients

that well up from the deep ocean.

It's as colourful and diverse as any tropical reef.

Look at all these fish!

This abundance of prey could be one thing

that's tempting sixgills out of the depths.

My Deadly divers and I are installing the CCTV camera

at around 18 metres below the surface.

This is about as shallow as sixgills have been seen,

but with luck they'll be drawn in by our bait.

This is our bait here.

These crates are filled with old fish heads

and lots of blood is floating off into the water.

You can't see it, but the sharks can smell it.

Hopefully, this camera here is going to see them as they come in.

For the rest of the dive we decide to do a bit of exploring.

And you don't have to peer into too many holes

before something peers back at you.

This is the den of a giant Pacific octopus.

For most of the day they'll stay crammed into tiny cracks

and even an enormous animal can completely disappear.

What I need to do is try and entice it out into the open.

And the best way of doing that is using their favourite food - crab.

Oh!

-HE LAUGHS

-Well, that's what you call an attack strike.

It came out much, much quicker than I was expecting.

The suckers on the arms

have extended already to envelop the crab.

The largest giant Pacific octopus,

they can have 2,000 of those sucker cups.

Each one is lined with special cells which can taste items in the water.

It's an extraordinarily strong animal.

Wow! It's tearing the crab apart!

The record size giant Pacific octopus measured nine metres

from arm tip to arm tip. That's as long as a London bus.

They leave the safety of their den at night to go in search of crab,

which are digested with a venom-injecting beak

and literally torn apart.

Let's face it, crabs simply have no chance against the octopus.

Sadly, this one is showing no signs of coming out into the open

and I'm just about out of air.

But our CCTV camera is staying down here

to keep a 24-hour watch for sixgills.

RESPIRATOR NOISE

There's so much life down there.

Unbelievable colours, real animal oddities,

but, as yet, not quite the one we're looking for.

We dig in for a long wait.

We can monitor the camera on the surface,

but we'll need a dose of Deadly luck.

At the moment, all our bait's attracting are some small rockfish.

The crew and I came up with this method for finding sixgills,

including building the camera from scratch,

and have no idea if it'll work.

After five hours staring,

sleeping and snoring without any sign of sixgill,

we decide to leave the camera monitoring the sea floor

and check out a new location.

As sharks of the deep, dark parts of the ocean,

they're more likely to venture shallow at night,

so we'll be scouring the inky blackness for a shark-y shape.

Obviously, our primary aim on this dive

is to try and find a sixgill shark.

We're all hoping we'll get down there

and one will be cruising around,

but so much comes to life here on the sea bed after the lights go out.

I guess whatever happens, we're bound to see a few surprises.

This certainly gets the pulse racing.

Diving into darkness in search

of one of the world's largest predatory sharks.

I think the first thing to do is just swim around

and see if there's a shark around paying us some interest.

At night, the reefs have a totally different feel.

This is when the weird and bizarre come out to play.

Like these crazy-looking sea stars.

I guess most people think of starfish

as being almost like a fixture on the reef,

something that doesn't move very much, but that's far from the truth.

Certainly not when you look at a sunflower star like this.

They can have as many as 26 arms...

..and they can move at quite a pace.

Look at the size of it.

It is huge and on the underneath...

..are these thousands and thousands of tube feet.

They'll use these to pull its prey apart.

They'll eat almost anything in their path.

Sea stars detect prey by touch,

using sensitive tube feet on the underside of each arm.

Each of the tube feet is tipped with a suction cup

that's like the plunger you use to unblock your sink,

except they could have 15,000 of them.

They can tear apart the hard shells of clams, snails and urchins,

then they expel their stomachs out of their mouths

to digest the flesh before sucking it back up.

They may only move three metres a minute,

but sped up like this you can see them blaze a trail of destruction.

This reef is like a crazy nocturnal nightclub

where wild weirdoes come out to dance,

but although we're willing the dark shape

of a sixgill to loom into view,

I'm out of air and we're out of luck.

Well, we gave it a good go.

We searched as much as we could, but no sign of our sharks.

So for now, sixgills will have to remain unfinished business.

But this denizen of the deep, deep sea,

incredibly creepy looking, truly prehistoric,

there's no doubt that sixgill sharks are deadly.

I just haven't seen one, but one day, one day I will.

But before we admit defeat,

we still have to check the footage from our underwater CCTV camera.

Maybe it's beaten all the odds and struck sixgill gold.

So, let's have look and see what we've got.

Wow! There's so much activity.

Wow! Look at that!

It's a giant nudibranch, a kind of sea slug.

They usually shuffle around on the sea floor but this one is swimming.

This is something they do as a defence mechanism.

They do it to escape predators that are down on the sea bed.

That is beautiful!

This camera is set to automatically record

every time something swims by,

but it's being triggered almost constantly.

The whole place is buzzing with life, day and night.

The sunflower stars are out in force,

one using its tubed feet to taste our camera.

Rockfish by the dozen...all coming in to check out the bait box.

It really goes to show quite what's going on

in the darkness below us that we just don't see.

What was that?!

That was definitely a shark tail!

It's a sixgill! We've got a sixgill shark!

Fantastic!

It looks like quite a long animal, actually.

This is a really privileged glimpse into the life of an animal

that normally we would never have the opportunity to see.

This awesome animal that's been around since before the dinosaurs

is for me one of the most sinister, creepy,

but exciting animals on Earth.

And, I reckon, sixgills are deadly.

One of the largest predatory sharks on the planet

lives a mile down in the deep oceans.

A predator so perfect it outlived the dinosaurs.

This beast from the deep definitely gets my Deadly stamp of approval.

For my next mission we're moving inland

and looking up to Canada's big skies.

This part of the world is paradise for birds

and this being Deadly, we're going for birds of prey.

We'll show you them in a way you will have never seen before.

It's a raptor-off,

as I pit the fastest creature that is ever known to have lived

against a fish-grabbing, predatory powerhouse

in a contest of pace, punch and brute force.

Everything about this creature says pace,

from these long, thin, whippy wings

to the tail which is thin and streamlined,

to the fact that it's always ready for action, as you can see.

These birds fly, depending on who you believe,

as much as 200 mph when they're stooping

and that's way too fast for the human eye to see.

So it's time to switch to Deadly technology.

We're using a super-slow-motion camera

to slow down the action 60 times.

Peregrines gain elevation till they're well above other birds,

then they plummet towards them in a death strike known as a stoop.

To get Jet to perform a mid-air strike,

I'm using a lure shaped like a pigeon.

OK, Jet.

So at the moment he's really working hard to get up high,

but once he is high, that's when he can use momentum and gravity

to bring him down towards me at speed.

Fantastic!

Banked right away at the last second and...

Ooh, he nearly caught it there! Ever so close!

Launching an attack, Jet scorches past me

with just millimetres to spare.

Tiny adjustments in the wing and tail feathers give trim,

just like a fighter jet adjusting its rudders.

Quite often peregrines will use the sun to their advantage.

So they'll get up high, they'll get the sun behind them,

so that food like pigeons are totally blinded

and can't see them coming in.

Look at that, coming straight in from the sun.

So fast! Just coming searing past me!

Eyes, five times sharper than our own,

allow for split-second adjustments, even when travelling at 200 mph.

OK, Jet. Jet.

We are witnessing one of the greatest animal icons in action.

Finally, Jet stops toying with me

and, in the ultimate demonstration of skill and timing,

moves in for the kill.

Surely the peregrine falcon is Canada's top gun.

Well, the vote's not in yet,

because my next contender is the iconic North American heavyweight,

the bald eagle.

With a wing span longer than me,

they may not match the peregrine for pace,

but their strength is legendary.

It's the eagle with the heavyweight hit.

It is one of the most spectacular birds you'll see in the whole world

and one of the most powerful birds of prey.

And most of the power is down here, in the talons.

They're strong, curved and perfect

for catching a hold of things like fish.

He also has... I'll come in quite carefully,

cos he's not entirely used to me yet.

Now he's showing off one of his primary weapons, that beak,

and I'm trying to keep it as far away from my face as possible.

And the cutting edge of the beak

is seriously as sharp as a carving knife.

Now these birds can kill prey as large as geese,

but far more often they'll just steal food,

even off other bald eagles.

Now, I could... Now, I could talk about this bird all day long,

but I think it'd be much better if we showed you him in action.

So, to see a bald eagle at their best,

we've got a bit of Deadly technology.

This, it's a paddling pool,

but a paddling pool with a very special addition.

Running all the way round the outside

we've got a circle of very small cameras

and they're focused on a sweet spot around about here.

We're going to put in this, it kind of looks like a little flip-flop,

but this is a lure and it has here some salmon.

When our bald eagle takes the lure, all our cameras will fire off

and we'll be able to analyse its strike from every angle.

OK, so the lure has gone in, it's right slap bang in the sweet spot.

HANDLER WHISTLES

Yes, he's gone! Look at that! No, he's really gone.

HE LAUGHS

Erm... Let's try again.

HANDLER WHISTLES

There he goes!

Yes!

The eagle snatched the lure,

but it wasn't quite in the sweet spot for the time-slice cameras.

Right, we've got pretty good results so far,

but I am absolutely convinced we can go even better.

So...man away.

Just going to wait until I can see I've got his attention.

Right, he's seen it.

Yes!

Fantastic! That could not have been more perfect.

That was exactly the pounce I was hoping for.

Our slow-motion camera shows the eagle hit the lure bang on.

So, let's view back the time slice.

It's been a long day, but we've got all the results finished here,

downloaded and we can start to watch them properly.

So this is our bald eagle skimming just over the top of those cameras.

Absolutely incredible!

For the first time ever, we can see an eagle striking from 360 degrees.

It arches its wings upwards like a parachute to slow its approach.

The legs thrust forward, talons as long as my thumbs extend,

aimed like daggers into the fish.

And if that was a fish, even a really big fish like a salmon,

it would all be over in a millisecond.

This is happening so quickly.

In slow motion you can see that as the eagle approaches,

its head steadies, eyes lock on to the target

and never leave it until the talons are engaged.

Once the target's caught, the eagle needs to get airborne immediately

to avoid crashing into the water.

And it's carrying extra weight.

The broad wings drive down, giving instant lift.

Front talons grip the prize, rear talons stab in for the kill.

I've never seen anything like this before.

This is just out of this world.

This is a true first for Deadly,

showing the bald eagle's attack from every angle.

It's breathtaking and demonstrates great precision for such a big bird.

The bald eagle takes today's raptor-off in style.

The bald eagle, one of the most iconic animals

and one of the most powerful birds in the whole world.

Dazzling, dramatic, deadly.

Beak like a carving knife.

Long, stabbing talons.

Massively powerful strike.

The bald eagle is an all-round deadly raptor.

We're not yet done with Vancouver Island's cold, rich seas.

These chilly reefs have some truly bizarre animals

and we're going to encourage one to make an appearance.

Our target animal is a real mighty mouth with a face full of teeth

that have to be seen to be believed and it's called...the wolf eel.

Wolf eels are actually fish and can grow over two metres long.

They're a fearsome predator because, well, that would be telling.

Let's try and see one in action.

Down here it's a totally unfamiliar world,

festooned with the weirdest wonders.

Like this garden of white shapes.

These white palm trees...are plumose anemones.

They're sucking tiny organisms out of the water column.

But they just look so bizarre,

they make everything look like the surface of an alien world.

But what I spot next is even stranger still.

Oh, this is brilliant! Come over and look at this!

In front of me now is a magical example of murder in miniature.

It's a giant nudibranch.

It's actually a kind of sea snail or sea slug.

It's quite closely related to the slugs and snails

you find in your back garden, but could not be more different.

It's absolutely dazzling, incredibly flamboyant!

There are more than 3,000 different species of nudibranch

and they come in every colour and shape imaginable.

But there's even more to the giant nudibranch

we found than meets the eye.

They move quite slowly, but they are actually predatory.

These nudibranch hunt sea anemones on the sea floor.

It's as if a flame-haired dragon rises up...

then nose dives into the sea bed.

Predators really don't get any stranger than this.

It's so easy to get distracted down here, but the next strange creature

is a strong sign because it's the wolf eels' favourite food.

These are slightly crazy looking animals.

They just look like big hedgehogs.

They're sea urchins and these spines

are one of the best defences you'll find anywhere underwater.

One of the best defences that is, except against wolf eels.

Oh, wow! Yes, yes, yes! I see it!

Underneath this ledge

is the massive, imposing head of a wolf eel,

the animal we've come here to try and find.

And in this bag, I've got some nice stinky chicken

to try and entice it out into the open.

Ideally, I'd have some kind of tongs or tweezers or something,

because...I really don't want to be having my fingers snapped.

OK, it's interested.

Come on out, big fella.

No! It's been stolen!

But, hopefully, that's got his attention enough

to come out into the open,

because this is one of the most magnificent creatures

of these Pacific seas.

There he is! Oh, fantastic!

Completely out in the open!

Wonderful stuff!

OK, he's not going too fast,

so hopefully I can keep up with him

without making him feel like I'm chasing him.

With its bulbous face and forehead,

attached to a long, flowing streamer of a body,

it's yet another marine weirdo.

But the deadly part is in the mouth.

The wolf eel's huge jaws work like nutcrackers,

crunching straight through a sea urchin's spiny shell

to unlock the gooey goodness inside.

I'm going to have one last try

to get a wolf eel to show me its monster munch.

Look at the size of its head!

The wolf eel really is one of the mightiest mouths on the reef.

They have teeth at the front of the mouth

that are long, thin and pointed for grabbing hold of sea urchins,

but on the roof of the mouth and at the back

it's much more like human molars.

Big, flat-ended teeth for crunching up hard-bodied animals.

And with that incredible face,

they look like a kind of weird evil troll.

Go on! Yes!

The wolf eel...feasting on some of the spikiest

and hardest-bodied creatures on the sea bed.

They're kind of grumpy looking and they've got massive heads,

therefore I reckon they're deadly.

Sturdy, crunching jaws.

Can grow to over two metres long.

Two types of teeth to rip through spiny sea urchin shells.

The wolf eel is a bizarre, big-headed beast and...

Join me next time on Deadly Pole To Pole.

Look at the size of it!

Wonderful stuff!

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd