Animals Unexpected

WOMAN: Oh, my goodness!

Where in the heck did the moose come from?

All over the world,

animals are turning up in strange and unexpected places.

It's happening more and more,

and millions of us are now sharing videos like these.

I'm Lucy Cooke,

and as a zoologist I want to understand what's going on.

Oooh, not too close now...

So, I'm turning detective.

I literally wouldn't have believed it unless I saw it with my own eyes.

I'll be tracking down animals

who are showing up thousands of miles

from their natural homes.

-Hold the tail?

-Hold the tail.

-Hold him, as hard as you can

-Seriously?

-Yeah.

-Oh, my God!

And other animals, who are showing up right on our doorsteps.

And I'll reveal new science

that uncovers how, as we change the world,

animals are starting to do the strangest things.

So, just what is it about these animal opportunists

that allows them to thrive in such unexpected places?

I'm going to start by investigating a bunch of animals

that have been moved around the planet by us,

but have somehow got loose where they don't belong.

Meet the escape artists.

First, I'm heading to Colombia,

200 miles from the capital, Bogota,

where I've heard about an escape so strange, I could barely believe it.

This remote, rural area is way off the beaten track.

Luckily, no expense has been spared on my transportation!

Bizarrely, I've come to South America

to find an iconic African animal.

Oh!

I can't believe it's a wild hippopotamus in Colombia,

10,000km from home!

Hippos are one of those iconic African animals,

like lions and wildebeest.

If you see them, then you know you must be in Africa.

But we're not in Africa.

We're in Colombia.

Hippos are supposed to be found throughout sub-Saharan Africa.

They can weigh up to three tonnes and are highly territorial.

Their aggressive nature and massive bulk

have led to a fearsome reputation as Africa's most dangerous mammal.

So, what on earth are they doing in South America?

Well, it's an unlikely story

involving one of the world's most infamous drug barons.

Pablo Escobar.

In the 1980s, it's said he controlled

80% of the world's cocaine trade

from this ranch, known as Hacienda Napoles.

This was his private playground.

It's now been turned into a most unconventional theme park

and ramshackle museum dedicated to his life.

This is totally surreal.

Escobar created a dinosaur park for his son,

with life-sized dinosaurs.

And he even built his very own private zoo,

in a way only a billionaire drug baron could.

So, legend has it that Pablo Escobar got his hands

on a massive Russian cargo plane,

which he then flew to Africa, filled with illegal wildlife.

He then had to get the plane and its contents back to Colombia

before they woke up,

and he landed it here at the Hacienda

and even had to extend the runway,

because the plane was so big it couldn't land.

Amongst his menagerie, Escobar imported four hippopotamus.

Three females and one very excitable male.

Nature took its course.

Soon, there were hippo babies.

One of them still lives in the Hacienda zoo.

I've been granted an audience with Vanessa,

who's one of the offspring of Pablo's original hippos.

She likes carrots and, apparently, she even responds to her own name,

she's that tame.

Vanessa!

Carrots!

Whilst Pablo Escobar was alive,

all the hippos were fenced into the grounds of his ranch.

But in the early 1990s, he was killed.

When Pablo was shot, all the animals in his menagerie were rehoused

to zoos around South America,

apart from the hippos,

because nobody really knew how to transport an animal

that weighs the same as a family car.

So, they stayed here.

With Escobar dead and the ranch abandoned,

many of the hippos broke loose.

And now these giant African mammals are running riot in rural Colombia.

Local cowboys tell me the hippos have trampled cows to death

and people have had to run for their lives.

Luckily, no-one's been injured.

But as these amateur videos from Africa show,

hippos are fast and dangerous.

If threatened, they can charge at 20mph.

So, the Colombian authorities are rightly worried

about their three-ton escape artists.

Wow, you can hear them.

Biologist David Lopez is taking me to see one

of the largest groups or pods.

-Look at them.

-There's so many of them!

Is this safe? Can we get this close?

See, until here, it's safe.

-Right, OK. Are you sure about that?

-Look at them.

Yes.

This is a female with a baby.

She's looking at us. Oh, she's looking at us.

I feel like I'm being eyeballed by a dozen hippos.

No-one's sure exactly how many hippos there are now in Colombia.

There could be up to 60.

This lush corner of South America is a far cry from their natural home.

In Africa, a hippo's life is tough.

They have to survive extreme droughts,

where water and food are really scarce.

There's fierce competition...

..and predators.

But for Colombian hippos, life's easier.

The climate here means there's year-round water

and all the vegetation they could possibly eat.

They must really like it here.

They don't have competitors. They don't have predators.

They don't have stress.

They've adapted well to new conditions

and now even changed their behaviour.

They've become very...

..randy.

In Africa, female hippos don't start breeding

until they're around ten years old.

But here, they're starting as young as three

and having babies much more frequently.

Now the population is growing fast, and spreading.

Hippos have been spotted 150 miles from the Hacienda.

Hippos are one of the most famous African animals,

but I reckon they might actually prefer this corner of South America.

Colombia, as unlikely as it is seems, is a hippo paradise.

And if these hefty escape artists continue to breed successfully,

they may, over time, change and become a distinct sub-species.

A seriously unexpected legacy for an infamous drug baron.

And as us humans move stuff around the planet more and more,

stories of escaped animals setting up home in foreign lands

are happening with increasing regularity.

In the UK alone,

ten new species arrive each year from around the world.

There are now Australian wallabies living on the Isle of Man,

after they bounced free from a local zoo.

And these wild scorpions live in southern England,

stowaways that arrived on a ship from the Mediterranean

over 100 years ago.

And we now have ring-necked parakeets from Asia and Africa.

One legend has it a pair originally escaped from a film set near London

and now there are more than 30,000,

and they're probably the UK's fastest-growing bird population.

These escape artists have brought a touch of the exotic

to British wildlife.

But in mainland Europe, another wild escapee

has recently sneaked into one of the busiest cities.

I'm travelling to Germany to investigate stories

of a curious-sounding creature

that's apparently living in Berlin in large numbers.

They're known locally as Waschbaren,

or wash bears.

There have been reports of these wash bears all over central Berlin,

including here at the Brandenburg Gate,

and they've even been spotted riding the subway.

I've never heard of a creature called a wash bear,

so I'm travelling to a nearby gardening college

in the district of Wedding,

where they've recently been spotted.

Teacher Helmut Kruger-Danielson has had a close encounter.

Then there was a hole in the ceiling

and some day there was a face and this...

..he or she, I don't know,

looked there and was like,

"Hello, Helmut. How are you?"

Helmut had come face-to-face with a wash bear.

So, I'm on the trail of these elusive escape artists.

I'm setting up a series of surveillance cameras

around the garden that I'm leaving to run overnight...

..and returning the following morning to check the cameras

with biologist Dr Frank Drygalla.

Here we go.

OK, let's have a look at this clip here...

-Oh!

-Oh, good.

We got something, but it was a badger.

Normally, I'd be really excited to see a badger, actually,

but not on this occasion.

-Yeah, I also.

-Oh!

That's a raccoon!

So, that's what a wash bear is.

I literally wouldn't have believed it unless I saw it with my own eyes.

-That's a nice shot.

-That's fantastic!

There really are raccoons in Berlin.

This is truly unexpected,

because these animals are at least 4,000 miles from home.

They should be in North America.

Raccoons are nocturnal mammals,

normally found in the forests across the United States.

Their bandit-like masks are believed to give them better night vision.

As our cameras show,

they certainly seem to be seeing their way around Helmut's garden

without any difficulty.

So, this is the camera trap that's down by the compost heap

-and there's a veritable raccoon party going on.

-Yeah.

There's...

There's three raccoons!

If there are eight or so raccoons just in this area,

how many do you think there are in Berlin?

Nobody count them, but if you think about records in the last years,

I guess, rough estimation, 600 to 1,000 in Berlin.

Wow!

But how did they come to be in Germany in the first place?

They certainly couldn't have swum the Atlantic.

Well, just before the Second World War,

a handful of raccoons were imported to Germany

to be farmed for their fur.

Then this happened...

A Russian airstrike damaged the farm,

allowing the raccoons to break free

and make their very own great escape.

With the escaped raccoons on the run,

they needed to adapt quickly to this new and foreign land.

Raccoons are opportunists.

They'll eat almost anything they can get their paws on,

from eggs to insects.

Their excellent memories

allow them to map out where and when food is available.

And because they feed at night,

they rely on their deft and sensitive paws

to find food in pitch darkness.

So, memory and dexterity have given them an edge in their new home.

To show you what I mean, I'm meeting a tame raccoon with a fitting name.

So, this is Rascal the raccoon

and I've got a little test for Rascal

that's going to demonstrate how amazing she is at using her paws,

which are a bit like human hands,

in that they're very sensitive and very dextrous.

And that's the secret to their success.

So, I've got a test for you, Rascal. Are you up for a test?

This tunnel has three separate compartments,

each with a different type of lock

that Rascal must use her paws to open.

Each time she gets through,

there's a small vegetable-based treat for her.

This last gate is going to be Rascal's biggest challenge,

because she's going to have to stick her arm through the door

and unlock it, using only a sense of touch.

So, let's see how Rascal gets on.

Come on, Rascal, you can do it!

Ah, with ease.

Well done, Rascal. Through number two.

Now number three. Now, this one's tricky.

Problem-solving like this requires real brainpower.

But then, raccoons are as smart as some monkeys

and research has shown they can even remember

how to open different locks after more than a year.

But has this lock foxed Rascal?

Come on, Rascal, you can do it.

Gosh, it's amazing how they use those hands.

Yay!

Now, this final one, of course, she can't actually see.

So, she's relying purely on her sense of touch.

Raccoons' paws are packed full of sensory receptors

and the part of their brain that processes this information

is much larger than in most mammals.

Wow!

Rascal, take a bow!

That's seriously impressive.

It's this winning mix of dexterity and intelligence

that's enabled raccoons to find plenty of food,

even in a completely foreign land.

They can open bins, feed on rubbish

even break into our homes.

But one mystery remains.

Why do the Germans call raccoons wash bears?

This amateur footage reveals the answer.

These nimble-fingered mammals

are often seen washing their food in water.

This behaviour gave rise to the name wash bear.

And now raccoons and their fastidious habits

are spreading fast.

There could be up to a million in Germany,

with other populations springing up across the continent,

from France to Russia.

These sneaky north American mammals

are certainly taking Europe by storm.

Animal escape artists show that, as we move species around the world,

they can adapt and change.

But it's not just foreign creatures turning up in unexpected places.

Across the world, our towns and cities are ever-expanding,

encroaching into the wilderness.

That means many native animals

are starting to turn up on our doorsteps.

Meet the doorsteppers.

Home videos of wild animals in towns and gardens

are turning up more and more on the internet.

Oh, my goodness!

Fancy sharing a pool...

Oh, my goodness...!

..with a half-ton adult moose?

There are some wild animals that we've now accepted

as part of our new urban ecology,

like squirrels and foxes.

But in America, people are getting used to living alongside

a much bigger and potentially more dangerous doorstepper.

The black bear.

They'll stop at nothing to get their paws on food.

# Look for the bare necessities

# The simple bare necessities

# Forget about your worries and your strife

# I mean the bare necessities

# Old Mother Nature's recipes

# That bring the bare necessities of life. #

And once full up, they seem happy to just chill out.

They seem almost human.

But what's most amazing is how the new suburban lifestyle

is changing the black bear to be more like us.

In the wild, they can feed for up to 20 hours a day on berries and shoots

to get the calories they need.

But our food scraps offer them

a high-calorie, fast-food alternative.

That means, just like us,

black bears are getting fat.

Bears in towns are up to 30% heavier

than those in the wild.

And as we know,

young cubs learn urban survival skills from their mums.

Over time, these black bears will become increasingly street smart.

But our towns and cities aren't just home to sneaky scavengers.

Incredibly, top predators

have recently been spotted hunting our streets.

Opportunistic leopards are drawn to cities to hunt goats and stray dogs.

But it's bringing them into conflict with people.

In America, a mountain lion has been spotted in LA!

This incredible photo looks like a scene from a Hollywood movie,

but it was recently taken by a remote camera.

But now I'm heading to New York City

in search of a more mysterious top predator.

Wolf-like creatures have been spotted on the streets of Manhattan,

sparking a major police chase.

Howls are haunting the night of one of the busiest cities on earth.

WOLF-LIKE HOWLING

So, what are these large predators that have found a place

amongst the eight million people in New York?

When you look at the footage, it's clear it's too small to be a wolf,

yet it's too big to be a fox or a coyote.

What it is, in fact, is a coywolf.

Which is a hybrid, a part-coyote, part-wolf.

HOWLING

Wolves are top predators.

They hunt in packs.

Long legs mean they run fast

and powerful jaws can crunch through bone.

Western coyotes are smaller and wilier opportunists,

scavenging everything from carcasses to fruit.

So, how did the hybrid coywolf come about?

Well, bizarrely, it's actually a species we humans helped to create.

Because, as we hunted grey wolves through much of the United States,

the smaller western coyote was able to venture north.

When they arrived in Canada in the 1930s,

they encountered another species of wolf,

and they bred.

This was the birth of the coywolf,

also known as the eastern coyote,

as they're found across the eastern United States.

Ah, it's fascinating.

She's a lot more wolfish than a regular coyote.

She's bigger and that face...

..that face is a lot broader.

And she's taller.

Generally, taller and a bit more imposing than a regular coyote.

It makes me wonder how much of an advantage this mixture gives them,

trying to survive in a place like New York.

HOWLING

Dr Mark Weckel has been tracking the coywolves' journey

and their recent arrival in the Big Apple,

doorstepping us in the heart of the city.

Latest reports are from the Bronx.

I mean, the Bronx is blessed with really big, beautiful parks.

But as soon as you step beyond that,

you're talking about huge apartment buildings, really dense streets,

a lot of people.

This is as urban as it gets.

It's those parks that have been crucial,

small patches of woodland amongst the urban sprawl.

And this is where the coywolves hide away.

Mark's cameras have captured rare footage of them.

This is from the Bronx?

This is all from the Bronx.

Wow!

So, what could a pack of coywolves be feeding on in this urban jungle?

A heat-sensing camera reveals a plentiful food source.

Well, there's what the coywolves are here for.

There's just loads of rats!

They say you're never more than

three feet away from a rat in New York.

And I'm only about three feet away from about 20 of them,

by the looks of things.

It's just alive with them!

New York's coywolves are also known to eat mice, squirrels and rabbits.

The wooded parks provide shelter during the day,

when New York is at its busiest.

It's after dark that coywolves usually hit the streets.

To do that, they have to be smart and opportunistic.

Intelligence is learning to live with us and avoid us at the same time.

These are the ones active at night.

These are the ones that, if they have to go out beyond the park,

are doing so when they know the streets are deserted.

-These ones in the Bronx here that we don't see...

-Right.

-..they're the successful ones.

-Exactly.

New York's coywolves show how even top predators

are adapting to live successfully alongside us.

It's another extraordinary example

of how city life is changing animals.

We've seen how bears are getting fatter,

and new evidence suggests some rodents

are evolving bigger brains to cope with this hectic new world.

Our fast-expanding cities seem to be driving rapid evolution

in those species that are able to thrive in them.

It is incredible to think that there are wild coywolves

living here in the heart of New York City

because, generally, humans and top predators do not get along.

But maybe it's this mixture of wolf and coyote

that have helped it survive.

And let's face it, if it can make it here, it can make it anywhere.

# It's up to you

# New York

# New York... #

HOWLING

# New York. #

But it's not just opportunistic doorsteppers

adapting to modern human landscapes.

Other super-specialist animals

are now using us for much more specific purposes.

To do this, they're taking over our buildings

in truly unexpected ways.

Meet the animal squatters.

The first animal squatter

is found deep in the mountains of northern Italy.

The location is so remote, I need a helicopter to get there.

But it sounds so bizarre,

I have to see it for myself.

This is the biggest wilderness area in the whole of the Alps,

but strangely, there is still a big man-made structure

hidden amongst all of this wild beauty.

And it's a truly unexpected place to find wild animals.

Whoo-hoo!

Cingino Dam. A vast hydroelectric power plant.

Wow! Ha-ha!

At more than 40 metres,

it's taller than a 12-storey building.

Its wall is near vertical, around 85 degrees at the top.

Surely nothing can scale this!

Wow! That's a mountain ibex...

..sort of stuck like a fly on fly paper to this dam. That's insane.

It's a mother and her four-month-old kid casually scaling the near-vertical wall.

They're famous for being really good climbers,

but that's something else.

That is really extraordinary.

These two aren't just lone daredevils.

There can be up to 20 alpine ibex plastered to the dam wall

at any one time.

But curiously, it's only ever mothers and their young.

For some reason, larger males don't make the climb.

So why are they doing it?

And why don't the males join them?

It can't be for food, because the wall is bare,

apart from a few sprigs of vegetation.

But there's a clue in their behaviour.

As bizarre as this might seem, it looks like they're licking the dam.

But why? Well, there's only one way to find out.

SHE SPLUTTERS

It's salty.

SHE LAUGHS AND SPLUTTERS

That's what they've come here for - they've come for the salt.

So the concrete used to make this giant dam strong enough

happens to have lots of salt in it.

And because the ibex's vegetarian diet is very low in salt,

they make these death-defying climbs to get their mineral-fix.

Well, that makes total sense, because all animals crave salt.

Without it, your nerves and muscles don't function properly and

it's especially important for mums when they're feeding their young,

so maybe that's why you only see females and their kids on this dam.

Other animals get their minerals from natural sources

known as saltlicks.

In Kenya, elephants travel deep into caves in pitch darkness

to excavate salt from the walls.

And in Peru, Scarlet macaws dig special minerals for indigestion relief.

But Italy's alpine ibex are scaling new heights.

And that's no mean feat.

There's just nothing, nothing to put your feet on.

SHE LAUGHS

But that's no problem for alpine ibex or other climbing goats...

..because they have evolved built-in climbing shoes.

Their split hooves act like pincers, enabling them grip on the narrowest of ledges.

Alpine ibex are so sure-footed,

no-one has ever seen one fall off the dam.

Their amazing hooves have allowed them access

to a completely unique source of salt.

This dam was built to provide power for the local people,

but it's also inadvertently provided the resident ibex with

the world's biggest man-made salt lick.

Strangely, ibex aren't the only animal squatters taking advantage

of our giant power facilities.

Way out in the oceans, oilrigs offer a welcome

stop-over for more than 200 species of migrating birds,

including short-eared owls travelling between Scandinavia and the UK.

And I've heard about a place in Florida where another giant

man-made building is helping to actually save a rare species.

This is a manatee -

a shy and endangered sea mammal, solitary for much of the year.

So why are hundreds of them

gathering around this power station near Miami?

This is just one of ten different coal-fuelled stations

that manatees visit around the Florida coastline.

West Indian manatees are mainly found in the tropics.

In winter their northerly limit is Florida.

They've been around for more than 45 million years

but loss of their natural habitat has now made them endangered in Florida.

I want to find out why these ancient creatures are flocking to power stations.

To do that, I need to see them close up

in more natural conditions.

So it's about six o'clock in the morning

and I'm looking for manatees - which is a lifetime ambition.

I love these animals so I am super-excited.

Oh! Look!

It's a mother and a calf!

At these springs, the manatees are used to humans

and I'm allowed to swim amongst them.

The first thing I notice is their vast size.

These are gentle giants.

But their massive bulk isn't because they're fat.

Manatees have an enormous gut that produces an excess of gas.

They use it to regulate their buoyancy

along with huge elongated lungs.

So unlike other large marine mammals,

manatees only have a very thin layer of insulating fat.

This means they really feel the cold.

It's so critical, if the water temperature drops below 17C,

they can die of hypothermia.

That was amazing.

They're like inflated seals.

They're just these massive buoyant blimps...

SHE LAUGHS

..that are incredibly serene.

So these chilly manatees have to find warm water in winter.

Historically, they'd all gather around natural hot springs

like these on the Crystal River.

The trouble is, as Florida's human population has expanded,

we've built over many of their old winter refuges.

They share this space with humans.

I kind of expected them to be living in the wilderness

in their natural home - but no,

there's loads of houses about.

So ironically, as our buildings have pushed manatees out of their natural homes,

they've found refuge in one of the most unnatural places on Earth.

Power stations.

The warm-water outflow from the cooling towers

keeps the temperature in this lagoon at a bath-like 24 degrees Celsius.

These great polluting carbuncles have thrown a lifeline to these endangered sea mammals.

Astonishingly, 80% of Florida's manatees now visit

power stations during the winter.

When they're eventually closed down, it's feared many manatees will die.

But for now power plants are a vital refuge.

So much so, rehabilitated manatees are even released here.

So this manatee was rescued a few months ago,

and after a lot of rehab, is now ready to be released again.

Her name is Corus,

and they're just doing some final checks before

she can go back into the water.

Corus was rescued because she'd lost lots of weight,

a result of cold water weakening her immune system and making her sick.

Now she's healthy and REALLY heavy.

So she's being released in the warm waters of the power station.

Keep going, keep going.

I feel quite emotional.

It's a very strange place to be releasing a wild animal.

Your brain is going,

"No, surely this isn't going to be good for the animal. Don't let it go there!"

But that is where they're going to be safest.

It is extraordinary. It's a completely unique situation.

These unlikely squatters show how animals

find benefits from structures we've built.

But they're only there in small numbers.

Sometimes creatures are introduced to unexpected places en masse

and turn out to be a serious problem.

These are alien invaders.

I'm travelling south, just a few hours' drive from the manatees,

into the Florida Everglades,

to investigate a story that sounds like it's straight from a horror movie.

In the last few years,

hundreds of giant snakes have suddenly appeared

in Florida's swamps.

In 2007 alone, 250 pythons were caught,

some more than 18 feet long.

One's even been photographed trying to eat a fully-grown alligator.

What's even more bizarre is these snakes are at least 9,000 miles from their natural home.

These are Burmese pythons, and they should be in Southeast Asia.

And yet, there could now be 100,000 of them in the Florida Everglades.

I want to find out how they got here.

Many people think it's down to exotic pet snakes that have escaped.

Burmese pythons have always been popular as pets, but the explosion

in numbers here can't be explained by a few escapees, so it's got to be

something more than that, and Miami has always been a major hub for

the exotic pet trade.

Snakes aren't just sold here - they're bred here.

I'm off to investigate.

I've been given access to a secret

and secure location where hundreds of snakes are housed under one roof.

Oh, it's like Fort Knox.

Well, we keep everything locked up tight in here.

We don't want anybody to get hurt.

'Greg Graziani breeds snakes for the pet trade.

'In this secure facility, he has ball pythons,

'a smaller relative of the Burmese species.

'This is just one of around 500 large reptile breeding centres in Florida.'

There seems to be an awful lot of snakes in here.

How many snakes have you got?

Er, right now we're probably between 700 and 800.

We just finished our hatching season. These are all the hatchlings.

-One of these racks right here holds 108 babies.

-Wow.

'Greg believes Florida's giant python problem all hails from one

'much more ramshackle breeding unit more than two decades ago.'

Back in 1992, there was a facility that was simply just a greenhouse

with shade cloth over it

and they had these pythons in these containers just like this, um, stacked up.

And there was about 900 baby pythons in that facility.

'At the same time, this happened.'

Hurricane Andrew -

one of the most devastating storms ever to hit the United States.

Winds of up to 175mph wiped out much of Southern Florida,

including the python-breeding unit.

When the hurricane went through, the facility itself was gone -

they couldn't find a single snake.

And the thought process at the time was fish and wildlife - well, they died in the hurricane,

but nobody realised what a perfect little protective container this is.

In a wind storm, it's basically a Frisbee.

This could go anywhere from a couple of miles to 100 miles in the wind.

If you wanted to disperse thousands of snakes into the environment,

-you know, a massive, big storm and then a container like this would be...

-It would be perfect.

-..would be ideal- you couldn't have designed it better, could you?

-No.

Snakes escape. Have people let them loose? Of course,

but when I weigh the actual data of 900 snakes on one day being

injected into the Florida Everglades, versus years and years

of just a pet release here or there making it to the glades,

I mean, I don't see how it could be anything else.

An alien invasion that happened almost overnight,

and it even involved flying saucers!

It turns out the subtropical conditions in Florida

are perfect for pythons.

Burmese pythons are ambush predators.

They grab prey with their sharp teeth and then crush them.

Their sudden arrival in the Everglades

has caught the local wildlife off-guard.

A few endangered species are even being pushed

to the brink of extinction.

But why are such giant snakes proving so difficult to stop?

Well, apparently, these stealthy hunters

are masters of staying hidden.

I want to see just how difficult it is to find them...

..so a 13ft wild-caught python

has been released in a secure five-acre site.

And I've got to track it down.

But I have some assistance.

Ruben Ramirez, a champion python hunter.

He's caught over 100 wild pythons.

Can you teach anybody, can anybody learn?

-Yes, absolutely, anybody can learn.

-Really?

-Yeah.

There's no special skills required? I find that hard to believe.

You got to focus.

I try to become an actual python or snake itself.

Where would it hide, where would it be?

I get into, like, a zone.

I reckon if anybody can teach me, Ruben, you can.

Just make sure I come back with all my fingers, please, yeah.

The reason these snakes are so hard to find, even in this small area,

is down to their brilliant camouflage.

-It could be anywhere, couldn't it?

-Exactly, it could be anywhere.

You see, this is perfect for them to be in, right here.

-Look, there it is.

-Oh!

-Come here, come here.

-No way!

Look at his head right here.

Oh, my goodness!

Come.

-You hold the tail.

-Hold the tail?!

-Hold the tail, hold him as hard as you can.

-Seriously?

-Oh, my God!

-Hold it.

Oh, my word.

Just hold.

Yeah.

High five.

-Oh, my God!

-And this...

This must weigh, how much? Same as me, I'm thinking.

This one... HE GROANS

-Grab it.

-Yep.

-Let's go.

-Oh, my God!

-Can you feel the weight?

-You tell me.

-This is really heavy!

Oh!

Other than you, they don't have a natural predator.

You are the predator. They've arrived on the scene

and there's nothing that eats them.

At this size, there's no natural predator for them.

-Yep, other than you.

-Other than me, right.

-Yeah.

-Look, I'm actually being constricted!

-Yeah.

It's trying to.

-That's a unique experience.

-You feel the strength?

-Can you feel it?

-Yeah, I can really feel the strength on that.

Wow, anyway, thank God that's just my wrist and not my neck.

That's all I can say.

The python's crushing coils and camouflage

have allowed this alien invader to conquer the Everglades.

The final twist in this serpent's tale

is that in their native South East Asia,

Burmese pythons are increasingly endangered,

whilst here in Florida,

they're thriving.

Across the world, we're transporting animals to new lands

and many are wreaking havoc.

Huge and toxic cane toads are marching their way across Australia,

poisoning native animals en route.

And feral goats have been munching their way

through the Galapagos Islands,

leaving the endangered giant tortoises without shade and water.

Finally, I'm heading closer to home, to southern France,

on the trail of one of the smallest,

but actually the scariest invaders of all.

Asian hornets - large, highly aggressive wasps

that swarm together to defend their nests.

They've killed six people in France in recent years.

So unlike France's native hornet,

Asian hornet nests have to be destroyed.

I'm joining Manu Martinez,

a pest controller who is about to stir up a hornet's nest.

They're famously aggressive.

Yeah, I've got on a really fully protective suit,

but I'm still a bit nervous.

A nest can grow as large as a rubbish bin

and hold more than 1,000 hornets.

-OK, bon chance, Manu.

-Merci!

When disturbed, they vigorously defend their nest.

They're attacking his hands right now.

LOUD BUZZING

Too stressful, even down here.

So stressful, in fact, I've steamed up my suit.

They're spitting venom in his eyes.

My God, this is just terrifying, this is the nest coming down,

and I've been told it's still very active.

I'm holding in my hand thousands of angry hornets in their nest.

Oh!

Oh, my God!

I'll be happy never to have to handle another Asian hornets' nest

in my life.

But for Manu, there are now so many of these foreign hornets

in this part of France, he's busy risking his life most nights.

So how did Asian hornets come to be in France?

They arrived accidentally, in a consignment of plant pots from China

ten years ago and have spread across Europe at an alarming pace.

But the real threat from these hornets isn't just to us.

Asian hornets hunt one of our most vital

and commercially important insects...

..honeybees.

And they do it in a gruesomely efficient way.

The hornets hover outside the hive,

waiting to pick off tired bees as they return from foraging.

He caught one mid-air, that's extraordinary!

That is an incredible act of predation.

Once they catch a bee,

they use their powerful jaws to rip their heads off.

The hornets then fly the headless bee bodies back to their nests

to feed to their young.

European bees have no effective defence to this,

so just a few Asian hornets can polish off hundreds of them

in a few hours.

It could be the last straw for bee populations already in crisis.

And with honeybees worth billions of pounds to the European economy,

this invasion of foreign hornets is coming at a great cost,

and their next stop could be the UK.

The Asian hornet is every bee's nightmare

and the fact that it would only take a single fertilised queen

to create such a devastating effect in the UK

is a chilling example of how even the smallest of stowaways

can have a massive impact on the delicate balance of nature.

On my journey, I've met some truly unexpected animals

and been amazed at how nature is responding to the ways

we humans are changing the world.

It's been really fascinating to see how,

when you take an animal out of its natural home

and place it somewhere different,

it behaves differently, it's almost a different animal.

Escape artists like Colombia's amorous hippos...

..and Germany's light-fingered raccoons

show how animals are adapting their natural skills

to thrive in completely new places.

Our towns and cities are taking things one step further.

They're actually physically changing the animals

that are turning up on our doorsteps.

The coywolves in New York and the bears

are showing that we're not just reshaping the planet,

but also the animals on it, we're fast-tracking evolution.

And whilst there's no doubt

our actions come at huge cost for many creatures,

it's been incredible to see how some animals have found refuge

in the most unexpected human situations.

I've been genuinely surprised and actually quite heartened

by animals' extraordinary ability

to adapt to this new world.

Nowadays, animals are more and more likely to crop up

unexpectedly in our human world,

heralding a new and curiously unnatural history.

HOWLING