Vancouver Voyages Naomi's Nightmares of Nature

Welcome to my Nightmares Of Nature.

I'm Naomi Wilkinson...

SHE SCREAMS Oh, my goodness!

..and I'm coming face-to-face with the nightmares

of the animal world...

Oh!

..the ones that make your spine tingle...

SHE SQUEAKS

..your heart beat faster...

There it is, there it is!

..and your blood run cold.

Aren't they truly terrifying?

LIONS ROAR

Or is there a twist in the tale?

Come with me as I shine a light on wildlife's deepest, darkest secrets,

and see if you can guess which will be my worst nightmare.

Hey, there!

This time, Nightmares Of Nature has come to the great outdoors

of British Columbia in Canada.

With the city of Vancouver as my base, I'll be venturing out

to see what trouble I can find.

And with miles and miles of intricate coastline,

British Columbia has plenty of places where all manner

of nightmares may be lurking.

'From a toothy terror...'

This is the office.

'..to a slippery customer.'

They're mad!

'But first, I'm on the hunt for one of the most fearsome

'predators on Earth.'

There it is, there it is!

When you think of dolphins, you normally picture creatures

that are friendly and playful, even cute,

but there is one type of dolphin that lives in these waters

that strikes fear into many of the ocean's inhabitants,

and I'm on the hunt to track this killer down.

Orca - highly intelligent, extremely powerful predators,

who hunt in packs, making them the ultimate ocean nightmare.

Mercilessly devouring everything from seals to sharks.

Some people call them killer whales, but that's not because

they are whales, it's because they EAT them.

But do these wolves of the sea have a softer side?

It's time to find out.

The waters of British Columbia are a vast network

of inlets, waterways and islands, which makes finding the

black-and-white assassins a tricky task.

So I've recruited orca expert Jim and his supercharged boat

to help me.

Knowing how ruthless orca can be, if I'm honest,

I'm slightly nervous about seeing them.

But Jim has assured me that he's going to change my mind.

Spotting anything in the water, even a large pod of orca,

is a lot harder than you may think.

So it's all hands on deck.

But then...

-Over there!

-There!

-There!

NAOMI GASPS

There it is, there it is!

Two, two!

'With the orca nearby, we must cut our engines

'and be respectful of their space.'

Oh, my goodness! Oh, my goodness! Oh, my goodness!

Probably got about 15 animals up off our port side in that nice...

-15 animals here, are you saying?

-Yeah, in this nice smooth area.

If you watch, they're doing a big circle.

-We're surrounded.

-Yeah, pretty much.

They've never eaten a person, have they?

Not in the wild...yet.

'I'm sure if they wanted to,

'the orca could easily tip this boat.'

Luckily for me, I'm not on their menu.

In this area, orca eat fish, and fish like to hide under boats

and the orca know that.

So any fish hiding under us better watch out!

I'm going to drop the hydrophone down here

and see if we have any vocalising or hunting sounds.

Jim's got this very hi-tech piece of equipment,

a listening device, so whilst we can't always see the orca,

we can listen in on their calls, hopefully.

Eavesdrop on their conversations.

ORCAS WAIL

Basically, when they hunt, they can use their eyesight,

or they can echo locate. They'll make a click, like a...

HE MAKES CLICKING SOUND

Or, if they're chit-chatting, it's...

HE WHOOPS

..whistles, clicks, squawks.

So, right now, I'd be listening for clicks.

Oh!

-Sneaking right up on us.

-NAOMI GASPS

-This guy's coming right alongside.

-He's right next to us.

Oh-ho-ho!

See if we can hear him.

ORCA WHISTLES AND CLICKS

What do you think they're saying to each other?

Are you able to translate this for me?

Do you speak whale?

Nama... Nammy...

-Naomi?

-Naomi!

-Oh! They know my name!

-Yeah.

They like when you wave.

-Hey!

-Come on, buddy.

-He's come right down the middle.

-Is this just one?

-Yeah, this is a young one.

I think his mum was very close by.

Right here, right here.

NAOMI GASPS

Hey, little buddy!

Hi!

You're beautiful!

All on their own accord.

They tested us, tested us, tested us, we sat tight,

let them do what they want, and then they double back

and say, "Let's go see them."

Oh, they are so beautiful.

OK... Oh, right here!

Looked right at us!

-Totally checking us out!

-Shall we go down there a little bit?

-Go for it, yeah.

-Let's go down a little bit.

'It's hard not to be totally mesmerised by these ocean giants.

'But the really extraordinary thing is -

'this is all one family.'

-Each pod is based around a female, a matriarch.

-Yeah.

And then she has her daughters and her daughters has her siblings

and youngsters.

And the males will stay together too?

-Yeah, they're mummy's boys.

-Aww!

Yeah, they always come back to Mum.

I don't just see whales, I see aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters.

Like they say, a floating village.

-This is a floating village.

-Oh, that's a lovely way of putting it.

Yeah. Long after their reproductive age,

the females stay with the pod and they teach the younger females

how to raise a calf, or to hunt, you know,

-baby-sit.

-So they'll stay together for years and years?

-They stay together for their entire lives.

-Their whole lives?

Yeah, yeah.

-Oh, how lovely.

-Yeah.

'It was almost time to leave.

'But the orca had other ideas.'

NAOMI GASPS

JIM GIGGLES

Well, I would say that is mission well and truly accomplished.

On the face of it, orca are ruthless killing machines,

marauding the oceans, a dead cert to take that

top spot of my worst nightmare list.

But today, look, we have had a simply magical experience.

I've witnessed families of orca who have spent

their entire lives together.

Just looking out for one another for years and years and years.

So my worst nightmare? At the moment, the jury is still

completely out.

'Safely back on dry land, it's time to head along the coast

'for a rendezvous with yet another nightmare contender.'

Here in Vancouver, everything is BIG -

the forests, the wildlife, the mountains...

ROARING

..and my next nightmare is no exception.

When something has lion in its name, you know it's not

going to be a pussycat.

Steller sea lions are the biggest sea lions in the world.

A male can be 22 times as heavy as me

and almost three times as long.

These fish-chomping, heavyweight predators

aren't afraid to throw their huge bulk around either.

So could they be Canada's carnivorous nightmare?

One man who knows all there is to know about Steller sea lions

is biologist Dave from British Columbia University.

I've been told that he's doing some pretty nifty research

about Steller sea lions.

Well, Dave, obviously, their name is sea lion, so they have

a pretty impressive set of jaws on them.

Yeah, they've got some really big, sharp teeth

-that are just there basically to grab fish...

-Yeah.

-..and swallow it whole.

-So you really wouldn't want to get

too close to those on a live sea lion, would you?

Well, actually, we thought maybe you'd want to get close

to one of our sea lions here.

This is Hazy.

-She's in the office?

-She's in the office and we thought

maybe we'd go and check out her teeth and all the things

she does for us here...

-Yeah...

-..and some of her friends as well.

-OK, yeah, let's...

-Come on, let's go outside and...

-It'll be OK.

-..go check out her teeth. Yeah.

'I'm not sure I'm ready for this.

'With jaws larger than a lion's, they could really do some damage,

'but it's too late to back out now.'

This is Bonnie and Sitka.

And this is Nigel.

Hello, Nigel.

-Nigel's one of our professional trainers.

-Right.

And he does all the hands-on work with the sea lions,

-so he's going to take you through the sea lion's paces...

-Yes.

..and you're going to help him with some of the stuff,

-and I'm going to stand over here, where it's safe.

-Yeah.

No, you're going to be perfectly safe with Nigel.

SEA LION GRUNTS

-Sitka!

-'And just like that, I'm doing a health check

'on a supersized sea lion!'

Huge, isn't she?

So when she's doing that little head bobbing,

she's just checking you out?

She's just excited. She's ready to get going with her day.

So, today, she weighs 231 kilos.

231 kilos!

'That's almost the same weight as a grizzly bear.'

You're heavy.

All right, now we're going to get her to lie down.

So from nose to tail...

-..224 centimetres.

-Yep.

So how often do you have to do these checks?

We'll check them from, essentially, nose to tail every day.

-Mm-hm.

-So we'll look in their eyes, make sure there's nothing

unusual in those, we look in their ears,

make sure we don't see anything weird,

-we take a look at the teeth.

-NAOMI GASPS

You can see it's a pretty good size jaw.

-There you go, Sitka.

-She's got, like, toenails on her...

SEA LION ROARS

-She has nails on her hind flippers.

-Yeah!

You can come down here, if you like.

They retain the three on the hind flipper, here.

And they're for exactly what you think they're for - scratching.

-Can you imagine having an itch and not being able to scratch it?

-Yeah!

So, Dave, why are they here in the first place?

Well, they're here so we can study them,

so we understand what's happening to the sea lions in the wild.

Eight out of ten sea lions have disappeared

-in the last few decades.

-Eight out of ten?

Absolutely. It's unprecedented, and what we want to do

is use these guys to figure out why animals in the wild

have been disappearing.

So we do things, like studying how they swim and how they dive

and how they forage in our laboratory, which is the

great outdoors, right here.

But they're free to just go as they choose to?

Yeah, if they wanted to, they could just say, "Bye-bye,"

but they don't.

We've been here almost 12 years, everyone's always

come back home.

Everyone's happy here, that's good.

Oh, I love Sitka!

SEA LION ROARS

'With the check-up done, it was now time to head outside

'with the sea lions and find out what they get up to.

'To understand more about how sea lions dive

'and how much energy they use when they swim,

'Dave has made a special floating raft out in the harbour,

'loaded with science tech the sea lions can use,

'and he's about to show me it in action.'

Sea lions come up into this dome and we collect

-all the gases and it tells us how much oxygen they've used...

-Mm-hm.

-..when they're diving.

-And how do you encourage them

to come back into this dome rather than anywhere else?

Well, partly it's training and, of course, the one thing

-we've learned is training equals food.

-Right!

So even though they're getting food at depth,

they also get reinforcement at the dome.

-Right, we'd better get our sea lion in, then.

-Right.

-Come on then, Bonnie.

-There you go, Bon.

'The sea lions wear special harnesses with hi-tech gadgets

'attached to them to record data, such as how fast they swim

'and how deep they dive.'

-There she is! Hello!

-Well done, girl!

See the little whiskers.

How deep can they dive?

-Well, in the wild, they can dive 250 or 300 metres...

-Whoa!

Why would they ever need to go that deep?

Well, that's an excellent question.

It could be to get certain types of fish,

-it could be some sort of predator avoidance.

-Uh-huh.

We don't really know.

Where is she? Where is she?

-Is she coming up? There she is!

-There she is.

-Yay, Bonnie!

OK, so if we sent her down for another dive,

I'm going to hold my breath and see if I can compete with her

and maybe you can tell me how she's doing it

-while she's underwater?

-OK.

-OK, are you ready?

Set...

start!

OK, what I should have probably told you,

this isn't very fair cos these guys can easily

dive for three to five minutes without even trying.

And they do that two ways - one, they have a lot of oxygen

in their bodies, way more than we have in our lungs,

in their blood and in their muscle.

Also, when they're diving, they actually decrease the amount

of energy they use while swimming. They slow their whole body down.

Between not using very much oxygen, having lots of oxygen,

they've got you beat no problem.

Yeah, she is way better than me.

Oh, no!

Steller sea lions - big jaws, amazing swimmers

that can dive to extreme depths and hold their breath for ages.

If you're on their menu, that's going to be frightening.

So despite Steller sea lions being pretty intimidating predators

in the wild, can I really put these gorgeous creatures

that I've met today on my list of worst nightmares?

SEA LION GRUNTS

OK, yeah, maybe I can.

It's time to quit the coast but stay with water,

as my next nightmare is found in the many rivers that run through

this part of the world.

Every year, something amazing happens here in British Columbia.

It's one of nature's most spectacular migrations,

the great salmon run, where hundreds if not millions of salmon swim to

the Pacific Ocean and return to the rivers they were born to spawn.

It's a nightmare journey for them.

They've got bears, eagles, waterfalls to overcome.

But for the fish on this river, there's an even greater problem.

Something very fishy is going on.

It turns out that the salmon migrating up the Seymour River

are having a total nightmare

as a giant rock fall has blocked the river,

preventing the fish from swimming upstream.

This is a catastrophe for the salmon.

If they don't get past the rock fall,

they can't reach their spawning grounds to breed

and the salmon will disappear from the river forever.

To find out more, I'm meeting up with local fish lover Brian.

-Hey, Brian.

-Hey, Naomi.

-Right, we've got lots of people here. What's going on?

-We sure do.

-We're going to try and sane the river for salmon today.

-Right, OK.

You're going to need a set of these if you want to stay dry.

I definitely do. Lovely.

-They look just my colour.

-Great.

Ready!

'To help the trapped salmon,

'fish loving volunteers are trying to catch the fish

'and move them to another location.

'And now they have one more volunteer.'

I'm coming in!

'And it's tough work.'

-Is this about as deep as it's going to get?

-Yes.

Good.

You hope.

-It's so slippery underfoot.

-Yeah!

SHE GROANS

'But there's something missing.'

Anyone seen any fish?

Nothing. Not one.

The only thing we could see in the net was our crew.

It looks like we're out of luck.

But our fishy fun isn't over.

Brian is taking me to his salmon sanctuary upriver.

-So these are the salmon that we didn't find earlier?

-That's right.

-There we go.

-They're massive!

Nobody gets to just stand around. I'm going to give you a net.

You know how to catch them? Sherry's going to try and help you.

-Any one in particular?

-Any one you can get.

-They're super fast, yeah?

-They are.

OK, so, Naomi, the reason we're doing this,

we have males and females both in this tub.

And what we have to do is we have to sort through them

and sort out the females from males,

and check the females to see if they're ready to give up their eggs.

-And you have one!

-I've got a really big one.

-You do.

So I'll hold the net and I'm going to get you to pull it out.

What?!

-How do you do that? What do I do?

-Grab the tail.

Grab the tail.

They do have teeth.

Oh, I'm nervous! Right.

-Grab the tail.

-Hold nice and tight.

Put your other hand under the belly.

SHE SHUDDERS

It's well slippy.

Right, sorry, mate.

It's hard, isn't it?

Come on.

You tell me if it's male or female.

Get it right, we'll hire you.

Sorry.

-What was it?

-I think it was a male.

How do you tell?

The males have a pointier nose and they don't have a big belly on them

-because they don't have any eggs in them.

-I can't pick that one up.

-Are you joking?

-This one is...

Oh, look how easy you make it look!

-You see the belly on her?

-She's full of eggs.

That's a female, she's full of eggs.

You may find bigger ones are easy to handle than the little ones.

Yeah? OK.

Sorry, lovely.

Female salmon are transferred to a special tank

so their eggs can be collected.

The eggs then hatch into baby fish called fry,

which are released into the river below the rock fall.

This clever plan means that while people figure out what to do

with the giant block in the river,

these salmon can continue to breed.

Very good.

SHE CHEERS

That's a few more vital fish that will provide salmon fry

for the future of the Seymour River.

Job done.

I may not be a massive fan of handling slippery, slimy fish,

but when you think you might be helping out an entire generation,

well, that feels pretty good.

It shows any-fin is possible.

SHE LAUGHS Any-fin!

SHE SIGHS Here they go,

spoiling my pun fun. "Salmon may make it look easy,

"but how hard is it to battle against a raging torrent?

"Your challenge is to swim like a salmon."

Better salmon up some energy for that, then!

Get it? Salmon, summon...

I'll get my goggles.

Right, I'm here at this flow pool which will apparently

simulate the river flow the salmon have to swim against.

So my mission is to get in here, complete my journey upstream,

and it's going to get harder and harder as I go.

Wish me luck.

It's hard just to stand up. Uh-oh!

Incredibly, salmon stop feeding when they get into the river

and they make their whole journey on an empty stomach,

whereas, I'm slightly regretting the soup,

sandwich and big bag of crisps I had for lunch.

This is getting harder and harder.

I need to take a little break.

Salmon actually have great energy-saving tactics

to take a break.

They'll hide just behind a rock or in slow-moving pools,

give themselves a rest before they head back

into the fast-moving rapids.

Having to work so hard now!

Whoa! And bearing in mind, I'm on the flat.

Salmon do not just have to fight the current -

they're also going uphill!

It's such a long, hard slog

that in some cases, only one in ten fish make it from start to finish.

I really don't think I can make it.

Oh, no.

Come on!

It is of-fish-ial -

the salmon's migration upstream is an almost never-ending

obstacle course that requires super strength, stamina and guts.

Is that enough to make this fishy swimathon my worst nightmare?

I'm heading away from the coast and up into the mountains.

It's a beautiful autumn day, but winter is just around the corner

and I've got a date with two animals that are making serious preparations

for the cold months ahead.

Up here, it's hard to see what could possibly be nightmarish.

The animals I've come to help are Cooler and Grinder,

two grizzly bears living in Grouse Mountain Wildlife Refuge.

Wildlife ranger Devin is on hand to show me the ropes.

So, Devin, you've got some pretty awesome bears right here.

-Mm-hm, this is Grinder and Cooler.

-Good names.

-Yes.

And they've been here a long time, have they?

Yeah, they've been here since 2001. They were both orphaned in the wild.

What have we got to help them with today?

Well, they're just getting ready for their big sleep,

for the hibernation period,

so we need to cut some branches off some trees.

We'll show you the right type that they prefer.

We're going to build a bed

-so that they can sleep through the winter.

-Great.

Well, sleeping through the winter,

that doesn't sound like a nightmare to me.

OK, I think there's some up here.

We can just probably hike up there and have a look.

-So what do they eat during hibernation, the bears?

-The bears?

They don't eat anything during the actual hibernation.

-Nothing at all?

-They don't eat or even drink.

-Not even drinking?

-No.

Do your bears cuddle up together?

Yeah! Quite often you see them on camera.

-They're wrapped around each other.

-Aw!

They've got legs in each other's faces.

Hibernation is important for bears

that live in places with cold winters,

such as grizzly bears, black bears and polar bears.

It allows them to sleep through periods when it's simply too chilly

to go outside and there's no food.

To get through this super sleep on an empty stomach,

they make sure they fatten up before bedding down.

-Do you think that's enough?

-Yeah, I think that should be good.

We'll give them all to the bears and then we can see what they think.

Good shout.

-So do you think it will be warm enough in there for them?

-Oh, yeah.

This is not a very big space, as you can see.

So with both Grinder and Cooler in here, it says quite warm.

And also, these branches help as well.

They'll continually let off moisture and keep it nice and warm,

and actually humid inside as well.

-How long will they stay like this?

-It can vary,

but our shortest was two months

and the longest was five months that they were in hibernation.

And how do they know when it's time to wake up again?

Well, in the front of their den here they can actually wander out

and go into this next section and have a look outside,

and see what the daylight's like and what the snow levels are like.

Basically if there's any food around.

Once they find those three things, then they just decide it's the end

and start to become more active every day.

-Do you think they'll be happy with that?

-Yeah, let's give them that

and see what they'll do with that.

-If they need more, we can give them more.

-Good. Job is done.

They are going to be as snug as a bug in a rug.

Well, actually, more like bears who share...tree branches.

Honestly, I think life as a bear would be quite lovely.

Spend all your time stuffing your face with food

and then you get to snuggle down

in a nice cosy den for the whole of winter.

Bring it on, I say...

"You think sleeping through the winter is easy?

"Think again as you must prepare, like a bear, for winter."

Uh-oh.

Grizzly bears eat a massive amount of food.

So they can live off body fat during the winter.

Female grizzlies need to increase their body weight by 70%

and much of their diet consists of nuts, berries, fruit and leaves.

To pile on the pounds,

they gorge themselves on 40kg of food every day.

That's the same weight as 800 chocolate bars,

or 100 pizzas.

Please can we stop? I feel sick!

Despite their impressive size, grizzlies are fast movers

and have been clocked at 30mph.

Even carrying all that weight,

they're still able to move swiftly when they need to.

Guys?

'Unlike me.'

Can you come and help me?

The deep sleep allows the grizzlies to save energy.

The heart rate slows down from 40 beats per minute to eight.

'Female grizzlies may hibernate for up to seven months

'with no food at all during this time of slumber.

'Rather than go to the toilet, they recycle their waste inside them.'

Urgh! I'm not doing that.

Hang about, no food until spring?

What about Christmas dinner?

Oh, Mitch, you shou...

No!

It turns out hibernating isn't the big doss

I thought it was going to be.

It's actually really hard work.

In fact, eating yourself silly and then starving yourself

for the whole winter is a complete nutritional nightmare.

Well, what a trip. What a place. What nightmares!

British Columbia has certainly come up trumps.

From the breathtaking...

Oh, they are so beautiful.

..to the unexpected.

She's in the office?

But my worst nightmare?

Being forced to pile on the pounds,

missing half the year through sleep

and ending up with no Christmas.

What could be worse than that?

Hibernation, my ultimate nightmare.

Sorry, sweet.

Are they truly terrifying?

Or is there a twist...

twist...

..twist in the tale?