Summer The Polar Bear Family & Me

The polar bear -

the world's largest

and most dangerous carnivore.

That is great!

'I'm Gordon Buchanan'

and I've spent two decades filming predators in extreme locations.

Now, I've come to the Arctic

to get closer to polar bears than anyone before.

It is one of the most intimidating animals on the planet.

They're also one of the most loveable.

I have a unique opportunity to follow a polar bear family

over a year.

So I've been filming the fortunes of two cubs, Miki and Luca.

Their world is melting fast

and the odds are stacked against these young cubs.

The next few weeks will test my polar bear family, and me,

to the limits.

I've returned to Svalbard in the Arctic,

halfway between Norway and the North Pole.

I last saw Miki and Luca, and their mother Lyra, in April.

Now it's June and I'm hoping to reconnect with them.

In spring, I filmed these cubs as they emerged from their winter den.

Oh, look!

Miki was bold and adventurous.

Luca was smaller and had a harder time keeping up.

I want to know how they're doing now and whether they have survived.

Finding them in this vast wilderness is only possible

thanks to new technology.

In April, biologist Dr Jon Aars

fitted a revolutionary satellite-tracking collar on Lyra.

It should send one email every four hours.

Jon will be tracking Lyra from his base in Norway.

And I'll be his eyes on the ground, here with the bears.

Hey, cubs.

Hello.

Do you recognise me or just recognise my smell?

The new collar makes it possible to follow polar bear families

for the first time.

Previous collars only sent sporadic signals,

so it's an important advance.

Jon wants to understand how climate change is affecting polar bears.

This year, conditions in the Arctic are warmer than ever before.

My bear family live in the Thousand Islands -

an archipelago in the south of Svalbard.

They've done a long journey, that's true but...

'We've got a signal from Lyra's satellite collar.'

..and we'll take a straight line to our position but we also calculate

she's probably drifted south-east a little bit since the last position.

'It sends her location every four hours.

So the sooner we get there, the better chance

we have of finding Lyra, and seeing whether her cubs are still alive.

OK.

We are literally in uncharted territory here.

These islands aren't even on any of the maps or charts.

It's too shallow to get the big boat in so we're moving to the

smaller boat and we're going to work our way in

and see if we can see her.

Joining me is polar bear and Arctic survival expert, Jason Roberts.

If anyone can help me spot Lyra, it's Jason.

'I'm desperate to see Miki and Luca.

'If Lyra has lost her cubs, it would be a disaster for her'

and for our project.

We don't have an absolute location

every single minute of every single day.

We download the information and then we come to that area.

But in this time, 15 minutes,

she could be somewhere completely different.

So it is really just a case of coming to the approximate area

and keeping our eyes open, keep searching.

Finally, Jason spots a bear.

Between the snow bank and the Baltic rock, right on the top of the snow bank.

OK, yeah, yeah, yeah, got her, got her.

Well, I've got a polar bear.

That doesn't mean to say that it's Lyra.

The thing is they're just lying so still.

Yeah, Jason, it is her, it definitely is her.

She just lifted her head - I can see the collar.

The trouble is I can't actually see Miki or Luca.

The cubs could be tucked in underneath her,

but they are going to be much bigger than the last time I saw them.

That to me just looks like Lyra on her own.

Yes, there's a cub there! Definitely, definitely.

I've got one cub.

Oh, please can there be two?

Hopefully the other cub is nearby.

I need to get ashore to be certain.

'All we can do is watch and hope.

'Twenty minutes goes by and no other cub appears.'

Little Luca is gone.

That's really...

That is really sad.

We'll never know what's happened to Luca.

She's lost one of her cubs and that is terribly sad,

but I think it's just a testament to how incredible these

animals are that she's been able to keep this one cub alive.

For Lyra, since we last met, she's had to work every single day

to get enough to feed herself, enough to produce milk for her cub.

And my plan now that I've found her, is to stick with her

and actually try and figure out how she's been able to survive,

how do these animals exist in this landscape?

Lyra and Miki's biggest challenge is hunger.

Finding enough to eat here is difficult, even in a good summer,

but this year is going to be the toughest ever.

2012 has seen unprecedented weather across the entire Arctic.

The warmest winter on record, was followed by the earliest melt.

Thirty years ago most of

the Arctic Ocean remained frozen through the summer,

but this year scientists observed less ice than ever before.

Polar bears like Lyra rely on sea ice to survive.

It's where they hunt, mate and how they get around.

Lyra is an experienced mother.

In the past, there's always been ice here,

and with it, her main food - seals.

Now, because of the lack of sea ice,

she and Miki are stranded on land where she can't hunt.

The decisions she makes over the next few weeks will determine

whether they survive.

It's midsummer in the Arctic. For four months, the sun won't set.

Days melt seamlessly into each other.

It's morning and Lyra has moved to another of the Thousand Islands.

There's some ice here, but not enough to support polar bears.

As we search for Lyra, we encounter a new bear.

Look at this. We have a polar bear swimming straight towards us.

And at first, I just assumed that it was Lyra,

but it's not and it's not the cub either.

That is interesting.

On this island where Lyra is,

we've got at least one other polar bear.

I suppose that's just a symptom of the conditions this year.

In a normal year, there would have been fast ice,

a huge sheet of ice, surrounding this island.

but now it's all broken up.

This is just pack ice, big lumps that are floating in from the north.

I wonder if she's actually going to come and check us out?

That's what it looks like.

It just shows how inquisitive they are.

The fact that they actually don't have any fear.

This bear is swimming towards this enormous boat,

she can see us on deck.

And not at all fazed.

She must have caught our scent and swum out here hoping to find a meal.

This behaviour makes me think that all bears here

are really struggling to find enough to eat.

Lyra's collar signal shows us she's swum to a new island.

When we do find her, there's great news.

We can see from the blood on her face that she's been feeding.

And it looks like something's caught Miki's attention.

If you're not tall enough and you want to see

what's over the next hill,

you do what Miki's doing which is standing up on his back legs.

He can smell something, something up there.

She's found something in that rotting kelp

and whatever it is, it's not going to be particularly nice,

but it just shows you that polar bears are opportunists -

they have to be.

Being marooned on an island like this,

OK, they could swim off but while they are here, it's worth just

checking out along the shoreline to see if there is anything to eat.

I don't know what it is, it could be a dead seal, dead fish...

..but they seem to be enjoying it.

'When they move off,

'I grab the chance to check out what they've been eating.'

Whoa. Holy mackerel!

Now,

there we go. A dead walrus.

Gee whiz, it is huge!

Ideally, a polar bear wants to catch live,

fresh prey, but they can't be picky.

Finding a meal like this is a really important lesson for Miki,

and what she's taught him here is that you don't have to catch live

prey, you don't have to do all that hard work, you can find a gigantic

meal just lying there, it just takes a little bit of looking for.

Just as we are looking at Lyra's dinner,

she appears and reminds us to mind our manners.

OK, there she is...

All that time that I was hunched over the dead walrus,

Lyra was working her way back and she's kind of,

still coming towards us.

A golden rule of following polar bears is never

take your eye off them.

Lyra has never been aggressive towards me,

but it's definitely not a good idea to come between a bear

and its dinner.

To safely get as close as I can to my polar bear family,

I've brought a special tool - the ice cube.

A bear-proof filming hide that I've used before.

Being this close made me

realise just how dangerous polar bears can be.

Last year on Svalbard, a bear killed one person

and injured four others in a single attack.

I'd love to use the ice cube to film Lyra eating close up.

We deploy the cube near her walrus carcass in the hope that

she'll return to feed.

There you go.

Pretty good.

It's a long wait.

After five hours, all I catch on camera is a curious seagull.

It's only once I leave, that Lyra returns to finish her meal.

Polar bears are nothing if not patient.

Back on the boat, I put in a call to biologist, Jon Aars.

He's keen for news of Lyra's cubs.

It's Gordon here.

We're just down in the Thousand Islands with Lyra

and she's looking good, but she's only got one cub with her.

She has lost one of her cubs.

'It's vital information for Jon.

'Lyra is struggling here in the south...'

Yep.

'..but Jon is keen for us to find out if bears further north are faring any better.'

Is there any bear that you'd like us to check on that's in this area?

'Yes, the one which is the collar 031308 that should have two cubs.

'If you are in that area.'

No, that'd be good.

It'd be good to find out if she's still got both cubs.

'The dead walrus will feed Lyra and Miki for a few days.

'It's an opportunity to see how this new bear,

'Ava, and her cubs are doing.'

I will do. Bye, bye, bye.

Lyra is Jon's most southerly collared bear.

And the further south we are, the less pack ice there is.

But further north there is Ava,

she's a female like Lyra that started the season with two cubs.

And what I really want to see is

whether she has both of those cubs with her.

I want to learn more about how polar bears are adapting to

the record warm temperatures.

Are conditions better for bears living further north?

As we steam towards Ava's signal, we begin to encounter sea ice.

This is exactly what a polar bear needs.

And sure enough, as soon as we hit the ice,

we start to see signs of bears.

To the south in Lyra's islands,

there was nowhere for seals to haul out.

But this place is seal heaven.

There are bears here, but where is Ava?

I saw a mother with two cubs.

Almost certain that it was Ava, I'm sure I saw a collar

and then to the right there, these three bears, a mother with

two cubs, she's not collared, just running along the ice.

In addition to that, we've got this big male up here so I am pretty

sure that Ava has come up here and she has bumped into this male.

That's amazing. We've got how many - three, six, seven bears!

The sea ice here has attracted bears for hundreds of miles

but we've yet to positively identify Ava.

From the crow's nest, Captain Bjorne spots a collared bear.

Yeah, I do see the female with two cubs.

-Yeah?

-Just on the other side of the island.

It is Ava!

The good news is she still has both of her cubs

and they are looking great.

And they are enjoying being in this water.

It's like, almost at freezing, maybe one degree above freezing.

Wow, here he goes, here he goes, big leap.

Splash!

That is wonderful.

These cubs are jumping into the water intentionally,

not out of necessity, but just for fun.

I suppose when you contrast the life of these two cubs with

the life of Miki, these cubs are healthy,

well-fed, just having the time of their lives.

They are not enduring life in the Arctic. They are enjoying it.

I spent days with Lyra and I never saw her with a fresh kill.

After just one hour with Ava, I see her eating a seal -

one she's scrounged from another bear.

Ava's moved towards a polar bear that was feeding on something

behind the ice and the other polar bear left straightaway.

It's still here, hasn't gone far.

When food is plentiful, polar bears will often leave

the remains of a kill.

They seem to be relaxed with each other,

if there's enough to go around.

The other one, I think, is another female

but it's quite a fat female so it could be pregnant.

It's very early in the year to tell that, though.

Jason's called this bear Frieda

and while Ava finishes the seal, Frieda comes to check us out.

This bear is not at all bothered by us,

paying more attention to us than it is to the food that it's left.

Polar bears are the most inquisitive of all bears.

In this harsh environment curiosity pays. Anything new could be a meal...

even us.

She's going to jump across there... testing the ice.

That was great! She's a nice looking bear, nice and clean.

We're a week into our trip

and I've started a new chapter with Ava's family.

I'd like to be able to film them

close up to compare their life with Lyra and Miki's.

The ice here is thick enough to break out the snowmobiles.

That should make it easier to catch up with Ava and her cubs.

OK. Stop! Done.

It doesn't look like it but my watch tells me

that it's four o'clock in the morning.

In the summer, bears can hunt 24 hours a day.

It is hot and what that creates is this sort of massive heat haze.

It makes it really difficult to get a sharp image of Ava

because of this heat shimmer.

What's happened today is quite interesting,

because yesterday Ava stole the leftovers from a large,

over-fat female on the ice and today, less than 24 hours later, the roles

have changed and the fat female has stolen some food from Ava.

So it's quite interesting that they are obviously not too

scared of each other.

We've got this seal here

and that's why all these polar bears are in this area.

Lots of seals! Way more seals here than I've seen anywhere else.

These seals have to keep their wits about them,

every time they come up for air there is a risk that they

are going to get caught and a polar bear will sit and wait for hours

and hours and hours, just patiently waiting for the moment that a seal

pops his head up to take a breath and they will be straight on them.

Frieda is on the hunt.

It's a rare chance to film a polar bear's stalking technique.

Head is really low.

The seal is looking at us.

It's just trying to kind of judge the distance.

She's one of the largest predators on earth,

yet she hunts with the agility of a house cat.

It's a bit of a cat and mouse game here at the moment.

The surface for the bear to run on is quite soft

so it can't get so much speed up.

Amazing to be so close to this bear in hunt mode.

No way, mate! No luck.

Oh, well, the next thing on the menu is the film crew.

If we need to go, who's going to go where?

'Frieda means business.

'And this time, we are away from the safety of the boat'.

If you get ready...

Where is Gordon going to be?

-On the back of mine...

-On the back of yours?

Just start it up, Oskar!

ENGINE STARTS

Starting the snowmobiles is enough to put Frieda off.

Trying to follow these bears

so closely would be impossible without Jason's experience.

That makes your heart beat a little bit faster.

Yeah. A little bit too close for comfort.

The next morning we wake to find sea ice closing in on our boat.

So what is the longest you've been stuck in the ice for?

-The longest is three weeks.

-Three weeks?

-Yeah.

I can't afford to be stuck here for weeks.

It's time to get back to Lyra and Miki in the Thousand Islands.

'A north wind is pushing the pack ice south

'and I'm hoping that this could be a lifeline for them.'

We lift anchor and steam south towards Lyra's last known position.

Her collar tells us she's moved to a new island.

Down in Lyra's Thousand Islands, the temperature has started to drop,

but the pack ice has not yet arrived.

Without ice, Lyra can't hunt seals.

She needs to draw on a lifetime's experience to keep Miki alive.

This island is teeming with life.

But is there anything here for Lyra and Miki?

As a summer snowstorm arrives,

I get a call that Jason has found Lyra in a nearby bay.

She does look amazing up there.

The trouble is, each time she comes ashore, she's just not going

to find enough food here.

There he is, he's facing off a seagull.

Oh, there you go. He showed that gull.

They are sniffing about in amongst the rocks and there's nesting birds

here so they may well be able to get a little snack, an egg or two,

but a tiny egg to a huge polar bear, that's like us eating a peanut.

What she needs is a big fresh substantial meal

and she's not going to find that on an island,

she's going to find that out on the sea ice.

Lyra is doing everything she can to make the best of a tough situation.

She is a great mother.

If she was less experienced,

I don't think Miki would have made it this far.

What keeps these two bears together is their love for each other.

They are entirely bonded and you can't stay bonded

if you are just constantly following each other.

There has to be that reinforcement and they'll do that every now

and again and just nuzzle up.

I see what she's doing.

She's dug a little pit there and she's allowing Miki to suckle.

The big difference between Lyra and Miki is that Miki always has

something to eat. So long as Lyra's producing milk, he can fuel up.

For Lyra, she is the one that's constantly thinking about how

she's going to feed herself.

I really wonder whether Miki makes that

connection between his food source and his mother's need to hunt?

If Lyra doesn't find a substantial meal soon, her milk will dry up.

The next day the pack ice blows in from the north.

Maybe Lyra will finally catch a seal.

This is where she is. Right here.

'Her collar signal tells me she's heading for the ice.

'She is a smart bear.'

There's always this compromise,

because ice is great for the bears, but it makes our job

of finding our way through the ice much more difficult.

'This iceberg should give me a better chance to spot Lyra.

'But it's not as solid as it looks.'

One foot.

That's the trouble with these icebergs

is that they are prone to tipping, they're constantly moving,

moving with the current, but they're constantly rolling as well.

Lots of birds out there.

'My icy dip pays off.'

There she is! There they both are.

Now that's more by luck than judgment.

I'd have thought the chances of finding her out here amongst

all this ice would be almost nil but here she is.

What she's doing is she's constantly sniffing.

She is looking for a seal that has hauled out on one of these

flat pieces of ice - a seal that she can hunt.

You can see how Miki is able to cross these huge

distances of open water.

He's clinging on with his paws onto Lyra's back.

And with her huge, powerful front paws

she is able to power through the water.

She just uses her back legs for steering.

OK, we'll just stay as still as we can.

We've got here and the boat's moving around a fair bit.

Where are you? Come on.

OK. There she is, just cruising along.

Miki, literally in tow.

He's clinging on to her big hairy rear end with his sharp claws.

Adult polar bears are superb swimmers,

but a small cub like Miki needs help.

Being towed by Mum makes it safer.

As the ice gets thicker,

it looks like Lyra has switched to hunting mode.

OK, there she is, up on the ice.

She's just crossed over the ice and back in the water.

OK, just in front of me we've got about five Greenland seals

and that may well be what Lyra is heading for.

It's when they are trying to hunt seals from the water that

polar bears become an ambush predator.

They try and get as close as they possibly can until the very

last minute and the seal spots them and tries to escape into the

water and then that's when she stands a chance of grabbing them.

But it is incredibly difficult.

I'd love to see Lyra catch a seal,

but I don't want to ruin her chances, so we decide to pull back.

Back on the boat, Captain Bjorne shows me

a video he filmed of a polar bear stalking a seal.

I didn't know what was going to happen.

Was it as male or a female?

A female. Yeah.

And did you know at this point what was going on?

No, not at this moment. I was just waiting for some action.

Oh, wow!

-It was that close?

-Yes.

-She didn't get it?

-No.

Oh. Can you play that back just to that moment?

How close is that?

So how many times do you think a polar bear has to hunt

a seal before it's successful?

I've seen them hunting many times, but only once I've seen them

being that close.

I've never had to worry where my next meal is coming from.

I hope Lyra and Miki are OK.

Next day, the wind has changed and the sea ice has blown far offshore.

Seals are now out of reach for Lyra.

-Oh. We've got a problem.

-What is it?

The bear's smarter than us.

Lyra's signal shows her swimming in open water, away from land.

It's worrying for Miki.

..and we can't get through this passage...

Adult bears are well insulated and can survive long swims.

Cubs can't.

I want to find them as soon as I can.

Keep going right.

Our bear. Where is she?

There she is, straight ahead in the water. Further to the right.

Oh, yeah, I see her now! Right out in the open water.

Now, what's she doing?

There isn't any substantial ice in sight.

What's her plan? Is she heading for that next island?

Maybe that would make sense.

She's been working down island to island,

just hoovering up what's here.

Not that much.

And it may well be that she's heading to that other island

over there.

But you can see that Miki is riding on her back,

just holding on with those sharp claws.

And she's doing all the hard work.

All that paddling with those big powerful front legs of hers.

As Lyra and Miki swim further out to sea, we lose sight of them.

Looks like we've lost her and it's these water crossings

that are the most dangerous time for these cubs.

Oh, gosh.

I'm beginning to think that it was on one of these water crossings

at this time of year with the lack of ice that she lost Luca.

But if she keeps on swimming like this, the risk of losing

Miki as well gets higher with every single crossing she takes.

We check the nearest island to see if she's come ashore.

There's no sign of Lyra

but there is a bear here - and he's a giant.

He's on his feet. Just look at the size of him.

He's enormous!

Which direction is he going towards?

He's was just... He got up and walked to the right

and then disappeared over the other side.

I don't think he's gone too far.

Can you see him at all, Jason?

Yeah. Should be fine!

Should be fine. Famous last words.

Jason!

He's there. Jesus, look at the size of him.

OK, let's wander back... He's quite large, isn't he?

Yeah, he's quite big. Gosh. Oh, my goodness.

That is quite something, being this close to an animal of that size.

Notice the size of the head and there is no neck,

the head is part of the shoulders, it's just massive.

He is huge.

This large male might be the reason that Lyra and Miki are out at sea.

It could well be that as Lyra was swimming towards this island

she smelt him from miles away and that's why she kept on going.

But if she was to come ashore with Miki, there is a very,

very high chance that he would have attacked, killed and eaten him.

He looks absolutely beautiful, but the chances are that

if I was to keep on walking just another 50 yards,

it would be the last moments I had on this earth.

He's got be at least twice the size of Lyra.

The reason the males are so big is that they have to compete

with one another for these females.

Beautiful.

Beautiful and very, very, very big.

Jason's flare gun can scare off a bear that gets too close.

But the best defence is deep respect.

This bear is seven times heavier than me.

On its hind legs, it would stand ten feet tall.

It's the most impressive animal I've ever seen.

We continue our search for Lyra, but there's a problem.

She's spent so much time in the water,

her collar isn't working any more.

We haven't had a signal for 24 hours and we can't find her anywhere.

There's no way to locate Lyra in this vast landscape

until her collar starts working again.

Reluctantly, we make the difficult decision to head north to

check up on Ava at the glacier.

It's my last chance to see how she and her cubs are getting on.

We arrive early in the morning.

As the summer melt continues,

this is one of the few places that still has sea ice.

So it's attracting even more bears.

I want to see how Ava and her cubs

are coping with this unusual situation.

Gordon!

Jason spots a bear with a collar.

There we go.

That is definitely Ava.

She's always been shy, so it's hard to get close.

One thing is obvious - her cubs are both fatter and healthier than Miki.

Something has spooked Ava.

Ah, she's going in the wrong direction.

She might be giving us the slip, unfortunately.

Around the corner comes another mother with even bigger cubs.

Unbelievable, unbelievable,

just amazing to see.

Looking at our female over there

and we've got another three polar bears right here, even closer.

Those are two healthy looking cubs.

Really nice looking cubs, big chunky things.

Or maybe it's just that I'm a lot closer to them

than I have been with the others, just an incredible place this.

Suddenly, we find ourselves surrounded by polar bears.

Another single bear just there...

Gosh!

So we've got Ava with her two cubs.

We've got the female with the two cubs that wasn't tagged.

Plus we've got a young bear just behind us here,

plus we've got the fat female over on the ice.

That's eight bears around us.

And this one is walking towards you, Gordon.

We really have to keep our radar going now,

so we've got eight bears around us.

OK, four of them are quite small cubs but...

But this one I can't believe that, Jason - she's just utterly unfazed.

So she's definitely got the scent of this young bear coming in here

and Ava is coming around the back.

She's a bit more sceptical...

Polar Bear Central, Jason.

The density of polar bears here is unbelievable, but it just

shows you how easy it would be to slip up somewhere like this.

You're concentrating on this lovely scene of mother

and two cubs behind you, and walking up over the ridge...

-Another single bear just there.

-..is another mother.

I'm getting the feeling that this isn't a good situation.

We've got 13 bears in this one area, which is incredible.

This is potentially very dangerous.

I'd be more concerned of the young bear that doesn't have cubs

than the female with the cubs...

Right, this one's quite... OK.

Gordon!

It's OK, just start, let the scooter run.

All good fun.

Another day in the office, Gordon.

Incredible!

It is amazing to see this many polar bears in one place.

It may be a vision of the future as temperatures in the Arctic rise

and bears are forced to congregate on the last of the sea ice.

Despite sharing the ice with so many other bears,

Ava and her cubs are doing amazingly well.

For now, they seem to be thriving.

Back at the boat, we have an encounter with one of the most

confident bears I've met.

Frieda has decided to pay us a visit.

It's an opportunity to film a bear from a safe vantage point.

See if I can get an eyeball to eyeball view.

I hope she doesn't rip out my hand.

I've got this camera at the end of a very long pole.

Not sure if its quite long enough.

We've got this 300 tonne boat and not fazed in the slightest by it.

She is just interested.

She lives in this monochrome, fairly featureless landscape and this

huge blue boat arrives on the scene and of course she's curious.

She just wants to come and check it out.

You beautiful, big bear. Hello!

Are you just curious,

or do you think you can possibly get a snack here?

You can see she has been swimming, her coat's been recently damp

and it's gone all crimped.

Very beautiful.

And you see... Look, head right in the porthole!

Now, this isn't something...

You'd break a tooth on this and you need those teeth.

Wow!

I think she's got bored now. She is just wandering away.

She can't eat the boat.

Can't eat me, she can't eat the camera

and there's nothing really here to keep her attention.

Off she goes.

Lots of seals out there, that's a better meal for you.

It's been really great to see the bears here, but I can't help

thinking about how Lyra and Miki are doing down south.

We've been unable to get Lyra's position for days and I'm worried.

The satellite is supposed to send us a signal every four hours

and there's been nothing.

A few things could have happened.

She could be on a big, mammoth swim

and it won't transmit underwater, or she's resting up.

Or maybe she's lost the collar.

If she's lost the collar, we won't find her

and I suppose worst-case scenario is that

we've actually lost her entirely.

A call to Jon provides some good news.

We are hoping to go down and try and find Lyra again.

Can you see where she is, where Lyra is at the moment?

'Yes, I have a position, she is still in the general area

'and my guess is maybe that she is on one of the islands.'

Well, that is great, she's sort of still in that one area.

'Yeah. Yeah.'

Lovely. Thank you! Bye.

'OK, no problem. Bye.'

That's good news.

We hadn't had a signal from Lyra's collar for three days

and beginning to fear the worst,

but Jon got a signal from this morning and

she's almost exactly the same place, down among the Thousand Islands.

As we head south towards Lyra and Miki, we hit an Arctic storm.

I'm worried about them. Even adult bears drown in storms like this.

If they're caught in open water, Miki won't stand a chance.

We've got through the worst of the storm, the only problem is,

we've tried to do a download from Lyra's collar - nothing.

So I am beginning to fear the worst.

If she spent three days swimming in these conditions,

I just cannot believe that Miki is still with her.

We arrive at the spot her last signal came from.

Pea soup fog.

A lot of snow patches up there, they've cleared a bit, though.

'With her collar failing,

'finding Lyra now will be nothing short of a miracle.'

But then, a miracle happens.

There she is, there, there. Look!

On top of the rock.

I think it... Yes, it is. I don't believe it.

I mean, you can talk about a needle in a haystack or pea soup fog.

We did not even know that the needle was in the haystack.

It's her.

-There's a collar on her. There's a collar, yeah.

-It's her. Yeah. It's definitely her.

Yes!

It's fantastic to bump into polar bears,

but to meet a polar bear again that I've got to know,

it is completely different.

It does... It feels like I'm meeting an old friend.

Great. Amazingly sheltered in here, isn't it?

Yeah.

Lyra's OK, but what about little Miki?

So she was just over the other side of the rocks?

Yeah. So she's not too far away.

Right, let's see.

Oh, there's Miki.

It's amazing, Miki is safe and sound.

He is looking nice. He's just sniffing the air.

Against all the odds, Lyra has kept Miki alive.

In the most challenging summer she's ever known, Lyra has triumphed.

Over the last few months I've spent more time

with a wild polar bear family than anyone has ever done before.

I've grown to really care about Lyra and Miki.

They've allowed me to share their lives.

But they face an uncertain future.

Their world is changing as never before.

I just hope their powerful bond will help them

make it through the rest of the year.

When I return to Svalbard in the autumn, I find Lyra running

out of options as she struggles to keep Miki alive.

You can see how narrow she is around the rear end there, very, very slim.

The brutal Arctic pushes my bear family, and me, to the edge.

Oh, my God, oh, my God!

And I discover whether Lyra and Miki's story can help us

understand the future for all polar bears.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd