The Last Grizzly of Paradise Valley Natural World


The Last Grizzly of Paradise Valley

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This is my home - the Cascade Mountains in western Canada.

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My name is Jeff Turner and I've spent the past 25 years

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making wildlife documentaries about wild animals and wild places.

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I spent my childhood roaming the forests, valleys and peaks of this range.

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It's what led me to my career as a wildlife filmmaker.

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I have photographed wildlife around the world but now I'm coming home

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to spend the next year filming the wildlife in these mountains.

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My home is not a national park or protected area.

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There have been many changes since I was a boy.

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But by seeking out the wildlife of my childhood -

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black bears,

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coyotes,

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mule deer -

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I hope to understand the state of the wild around my home today.

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And there is one animal I want to find that, for me,

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symbolizes Canada's wild lands more than any other.

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The grizzly bear.

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But I've never seen one in these mountains and I wonder

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are there any left?

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Though the nature here has to make its way alongside all the uses

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humans make of the land,

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my home is still one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.

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These woods where I live are on the edge of the world between humans

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and the wild. Beyond us, the forests stretch, uninhabited,

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for 30 miles through the mountains.

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When I was just a kid,

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I first saw the animal that was going to change my life.

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The only problem was that it was dead.

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In the early 70s, a local rancher friend discovered a grizzly bear

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was killing cows on their summer pasture up in the mountains.

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Eventually, he caught up with the bear and shot it.

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Years later, I discovered Aldo Leopold,

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one of the first American ecologists

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to write, more than 60 years ago, about protecting nature.

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In his book, A Sand County Almanac, he wrote about the death

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of the last grizzly bear in Arizona

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and it really struck a nerve with me.

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What I didn't know then was how much grizzly bears

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were going to play a role in my life.

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When I started out making wildlife documentaries,

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I seemed to be drawn to making films about bears.

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Over the past 25 years,

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I have met and filmed hundreds of grizzly bears.

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I now have such a close relationship with the grizzly,

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that on my last film I was even able to swim with them

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and film how they caught fish under water.

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To me, the grizzly has always been an indication

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of the state of nature in a place.

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Grizzlies are at the top of the food chain and a real challenge

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for man to get along with.

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Their presence in a natural community is no better sign

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that things are going well for the rest of the environment there.

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For years, the grizzly bear has been declining in numbers

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in the North Cascades.

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There's lots of human pressure on this landscape.

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But if I can still find one here

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it would give me hope for the rest of the wildlife in these mountains.

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It's mid-winter and bears are hibernating,

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so I'll see what other animals I can find.

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Temperatures can dip to minus 20 for a week or more.

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January is generally a quiet time of the year for all wildlife.

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But it's usually a different story around home.

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These Bohemian Waxwings are drawn in

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to feed on one of the crab apple trees.

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We put out seeds and attract all sorts

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of these wintering forest birds like the redpolls and chickadees.

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It's great having this little bit of wild so close to home.

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But because we feed them, it's not a very good indication of the true state of the natural community.

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I need to get out and spend more time getting a feel

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for these mountains again.

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My work has taken me away so much I haven't spent the time

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roaming these hills as I did when I was younger.

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So I decide it's time for a camping trip.

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Growing up here it was easy to take this place for granted.

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It wasn't until I left that I truly began to appreciate it.

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My 16-year-old son Logan is joining me.

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Logan has been coming on filming trips since he was just a baby

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but we haven't spent the time getting to know our own mountains

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as I did with my father.

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With his growing interest in photography,

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I'm looking forward to his help on this project.

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One of the things I enjoy about photography is the way

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taking pictures can sometimes change how you look at a familiar place.

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Time-lapse photography is a wonderful way to get a sense of the landscape

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and the processes that happen beyond the usual level of our awareness.

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It's easy to forget that the stars are not fixed

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and that we live on a world that is constantly moving.

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I'm surprised we could see the lights from the city of Vancouver,

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100 miles away.

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It's a reminder of how much the human influence

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extends around here now.

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100 years ago, there were still huge areas of wilderness

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that animals had all to themselves. Not any more.

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With our powerful machines, we can go anywhere.

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It means that wildlife and people are bumping into one another

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much more than ever before.

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This is especially true in my old home town of Princeton,

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about 12 miles downstream from where I live today.

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It's pretty much the same as when I was growing up

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but there have been some changes.

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CAR TOOTS HORN

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Mule deer have moved into these suburban neighbourhoods where I grew up.

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These deer have access to lawns, flowers and ornamental shrubs

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that are nurtured and pampered by the local residents.

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And there aren't any wild predators here.

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The town deer have also learned to exploit another source

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of human-created food.

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Although we don't like to see wild animals rummaging in our leftovers,

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to the deer, there's nothing wrong with this.

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But what I think is really interesting about having the deer in town now

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is how they're allowing us to re-think our ideas of community.

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Aldo Leopold wrote about the need to expand the human concept of community

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to include the non-human things

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like soil, water, plants and wildlife.

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It's been 60 years since Leopold's proposition but in my old home town

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I think we're beginning to grasp the concept.

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In late March, the winter melt begins.

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After the snow melts, the forests in the lower valley bloom with spring flowers.

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Now is the time to find bear families out of their winter dens.

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And not far from my home,

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I'm thrilled to find a mother black bear and her cubs.

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It looks like she has two, about three to four months old.

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They're still so tiny.

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But these cubs would have been only the size of a squirrel

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when they were born in the den in February.

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Mother bears can look a little ragged in the spring.

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This one's walked through a patch of burdock plants.

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She's covered in burrs.

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By feeding around these plants,

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bears help distribute their seeds throughout the forest.

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A bear's limbs are jointed very much like a human.

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Some of the things they do can look pretty funny.

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This cub looks like he's had one drink too many.

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It feels good to find a mother bear with her cubs.

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It makes me optimistic that, as the season moves on, I'll be able find a grizzly up in the mountains.

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May is when the balsam root -

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we call it wild sunflower - blooms in the forest meadows

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around my home.

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For me it's a sign that the mother deer will soon have their fawns.

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This is the time of the year when the forest grasses and flowers

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are at their peak nutritional value.

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For the wood's deer, it's a time to make up for the poor feed

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they've endured over winter, especially the mothers who have been pregnant.

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Even though it's June, there's still a lot of snow in the high country.

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But the long days of sun really begin to turn up the heat,

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and the rivers swell with meltwater.

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Water is one of the key components of life.

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Aldo Leopold often wrote about the importance of water

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to the landscape, especially in the dry American southwest.

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The east slopes of the Cascade Mountains

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are also dry so this meltwater is critical

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to the network of lakes and ponds

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which are a big attraction for the people that live here -

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as it is for some of the other members of this community.

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Every year a family of osprey returns to the lake near our home to nest.

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The increasing human presence on the lake so far doesn't seem to be bothering them much.

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But then I notice that the male osprey is flying elsewhere to fish, where there aren't any speedboats.

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The osprey is an ambush hunter.

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Flying above the lake, they look for the ripples

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of a fish's fin near the surface.

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They have to have incredible eyesight and impeccable timing.

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The osprey goes deep into the lake, even sinking below the tip of its upraised wings.

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It's a lot of work for the male osprey to get

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a fish back to his nest, and he has to do this several times a day.

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He needs his feathers dry to get the best lift.

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With power boats criss-crossing his nest site lake,

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the osprey will have a harder time feeding his family this summer.

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POWERBOAT ZOOMS PAST

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We're not used to thinking about the needs of wild animals around us.

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We can't just relegate wild nature to parks and nature preserves.

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There's not enough of them.

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We need to learn to share the land.

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And for many species, their needs are on a scale that makes it easy to share.

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Loons are one of the most ancient species of all modern birds.

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They've been around for millions of years.

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They're excellent swimmers...

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..but their feet are so far back on their bodies,

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they're awkward on land.

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It means their nests need to be very close to the shore, so you tend

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to only find loons on lakes that don't have powerboat activity.

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Loon numbers aren't what they once were, but they still do make

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a good living on these quiet lakes.

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The great blue heron is another species that does well

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around backwater ponds.

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But they also have to have a good healthy forest nearby for nesting.

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It can be a pretty tough life

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being the smallest heron chick on the nest.

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It seems that the smaller the animal,

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the easier it is to share our space with it.

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These small ponds represent a massive breeding ground for insects.

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They support a network of creatures like this spotted sandpiper,

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and this dragonfly.

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Dragonflies are fierce predators but, being so small,

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they can slip between the cracks in our busy human world

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and find all the room they need to survive.

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We have lots of dragonflies that live in the small ponds

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in our front garden.

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This type of wildlife is easy to miss.

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So it can be difficult to appreciate all the nature around us using just our human senses.

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But with this camera I can take up to 2,000 pictures a second

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and open up a window into the world of nature

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that we couldn't see any other way.

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It's beautiful how these dragonflies move.

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Their two sets of wings work independently,

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giving them incredible manoeuvrability and speed.

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Watching the beauty and grace of these small creatures got me wondering

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what else there is in nature around us that we can't really see.

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Logan and I took the camera down to the river and I couldn't believe how

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beautiful even something as simple as the flow of water over the rocks

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could be when you slowed it down.

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You can see how clear the water is -

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a good indicator of the health of our mountain ecosystem.

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The smaller creatures can usually find enough space around us

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to meet their needs.

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But in these mountains, a grizzly needs about 100 square miles

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to find enough food to survive.

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Their just isn't enough true wilderness left in our world

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for them to live free from contact with humans.

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In America, the grizzly ran out of wilderness 100 years ago.

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Today, we're at that point in my home mountains.

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It's no wonder the grizzlies are so hard to find.

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However, I do have lots of experience finding grizzly bears.

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In the past, in most places where I filmed bears, like here in

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coastal Alaska, I've always had one really important thing going for me.

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The bears were coming out into the open looking for something - salmon.

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The salmon in the rivers are the bait that lures

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these normally shy animals out into the open, where I can film them.

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But finding the grizzly bear in my home mountains is going to be another story.

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Here there are no salmon.

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The rivers on this side of the Cascade Mountains drain east into waterways that have dams

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which prevent the salmon from getting up into these mountains.

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Most of the food for bears in this country is forest plants

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but it's very hard to spot them feeding under the trees.

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I know in other mountain ranges they go up into the high country in the summer to eat alpine plants.

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But after searching the area I hadn't seen a single bear.

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I thought I might be able to spot one or two and focus my search on the ground.

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But there's too much high country and the bears

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are too few and far between to make it practical to use the helicopter.

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I'll have to think of something else.

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After the helicopter trip, I wanted to go out and find the mother black bear and cubs again.

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I really needed a bear fix.

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I knew just where to find her.

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She was in exactly the same spot as before.

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Mother bears with young cubs will hang out in a very small area of forest if they feel safe.

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Young cubs are vulnerable.

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They can't run very far or fast.

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But they're excellent climbers.

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So as long as they're in the forest they're pretty safe.

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But watching them hanging from the branches in the top of this dead tree 25 metres above the ground,

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I wasn't sure how safe these little daredevils really were.

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It was then I noticed there were three cubs.

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I don't know where the third had been hiding when I saw them before.

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I also noticed that the mother bear had managed to rub off

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most of her burrs.

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She looked to be in much better shape than I remembered.

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She started calling the cubs to come down from the tree.

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But she looked a little nervous and agitated.

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Maybe my presence was starting to bother her.

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Then I heard something moving through the bush to my right.

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It was another mother bear with cubs.

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There were two bear families in the same spot.

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This mother bear that had just arrived was the one

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that I'd filmed last time.

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The one with the burrs and the two cubs.

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This was a different family.

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The mother of the three cubs was a bigger and older bear.

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I could see that now.

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I realised that the bear with the two cubs must be the daughter of the older looking mother

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because the two families were so relaxed with one another.

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In bear society, mothers will share their home territory with their female offspring.

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I'm always amazed by how animals I think I know so well can still surprise me.

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I wouldn't have thought that two mother bears with five cubs between them

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could have shared this little patch of forest for as long as they did.

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We could learn a lot from them.

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The problems we face in sharing the land with wildlife like bears resides more with us than with them.

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It's not that bears can't live near people,

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it's that people won't let them.

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There was one animal I remember seeing a lot of when I was growing up,

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but so far this year, I have yet to catch a glimpse of one.

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Then a friend found a family of them living in the woods.

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And this was something that I had never seen before.

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A coyote den.

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I've seen lots of coyotes over the years

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but I've never seen pups at a den.

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They're only a few weeks old and just starting to explore the world outside the den.

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Coyote pups are the same size as wolf pups when they're born but they mature much faster.

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In a couple of weeks these guys will be weaned and eating meat.

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It looks like six pups, which is average.

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But Coyotes can have up to 19.

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It must make for a crowded den so it's no surprise they're coming out here to spread out and sleep.

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But pup mortality is high.

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Three out of four won't survive to adulthood.

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Now that it's mid-July and most of the snow has melted from the high country,

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I can get out to look for bears again.

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This remote mountain pass is one place I know grizzlies have been seen in the past.

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Aldo Leopold wrote that a place was only true wilderness

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if you could ride a horse across it for two weeks without seeing any sign of man.

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Those days are long gone here in these mountains but there's still

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enough space for me to feel the wildness of this place.

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I wonder if it feels that way to a grizzly, though.

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We haven't found any bears yet but we are seeing some animals that like this high, open country.

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A mountain goat's hooves have a soft inner pad which gives them excellent grip on these rocky slopes.

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Further down the valley we find a herd of mothers and young.

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Mountain goats don't like to stray too far from the rocky cliffs

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as this is their main protection from predators.

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But sometimes they're forced to come down off the cliff to find fresh green feed.

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Mountain goats are actually not true goats at all.

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They're more closely related to antelopes.

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Not all of the country where I need to look for animals is wilderness.

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Much of the valley where I live is ranch land.

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Agriculture is an important part of the community around here.

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Although agriculture seems a gentle use of the land, throughout history

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it has probably been the single biggest source of conflict between humans and the natural world.

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During Aldo Leopold's era, the sweeping changes to the landscape he witnessed in the American west

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were largely the result of the cattle industry's war on predators.

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I have filmed wolves hunting in packs, bringing down large prey.

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Like the grizzly bear, they are formidable predators.

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Ranchers found it so challenging to live with these animals

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that they were systematically exterminated across their entire range in America.

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The wolves are long gone from these mountains where I live.

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Although there are signs that they're making a tentative comeback.

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But there is one predator left around here the ranchers find easier to get along with -

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the coyote, which doesn't hunt in large packs and whose prey is often much smaller.

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Like grasshoppers.

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Though this youngster still needs a bit of practice getting the technique right.

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Sometimes you just have to slow down and focus.

0:36:170:36:21

As August draws to a close the shrinking day length

0:36:340:36:37

begins to turn the leaves on the aspen trees from green to gold.

0:36:370:36:42

River levels drop as all the snow in the mountains has melted by the end of summer.

0:36:560:37:01

Autumn is my favourite time of the year.

0:37:070:37:10

I love the clear days and crisp, cold nights.

0:37:100:37:14

And the colours are beautiful.

0:37:160:37:19

But the vast majority of the forest in our part of the world is evergreen.

0:37:210:37:26

These trees are adapted to the colder northern climates.

0:37:260:37:30

Their leaves have a thin needle shape which reduces their exposure to cold.

0:37:300:37:36

In recent years there's been a problem in the forest around our home.

0:37:400:37:44

Some evergreen trees are changing colour now, but it's not due to the season.

0:37:450:37:51

These trees are dying.

0:37:510:37:53

I wanted to see the creature that is causing all this destruction.

0:37:570:38:01

I was surprised at how many bugs we caught in just one night.

0:38:040:38:08

They seem to be so small to be causing such destruction.

0:38:080:38:14

These insects have always been a part of this forest ecosystem

0:38:140:38:18

but their numbers have been rising and no-one is quite sure why,

0:38:180:38:22

although global warming is probably having an effect.

0:38:220:38:26

These tiny bugs are mountain pine beetles.

0:38:300:38:33

They burrow under the bark and lay eggs which hatch into larvae

0:38:330:38:38

that chew their way around the tree girdling it,

0:38:380:38:41

cutting off the flow of nutrients and water between the roots and crown, eventually killing the tree.

0:38:410:38:48

The scale at which this is impacting the landscape is huge.

0:38:510:38:55

Thousands of acres of forest are dead or dying across the eastern slopes of the Cascade mountains.

0:38:550:39:03

With warmer winters and drier summers, the beetle has been gaining ground.

0:39:030:39:09

But what has been a bane for the forest has been a boon for the logging industry.

0:39:130:39:17

More forests are being cut now to keep up with the beetle kill then ever before.

0:39:200:39:25

And the speed with which we can cut down the trees is much faster than ever.

0:39:280:39:32

Our powerful machines can rip through the forest at an alarming rate.

0:39:320:39:36

What used to take a team of men a week can now be done in a day or less.

0:39:380:39:43

All of these dead trees end up at the local sawmill, which keeps the economy of the town rolling.

0:39:530:40:00

Our machines are so powerful we can go anywhere and do anything we want to the land.

0:40:080:40:13

We are chewing up the forest and spitting it out.

0:40:160:40:19

The scale at which we are changing the landscape now is unprecedented.

0:40:270:40:33

It's never been more critical to show respect to the land and its inhabitants.

0:40:330:40:38

Although the actual logging can be destructive, it is in some ways the least damaging of the impacts.

0:40:410:40:47

The forest can grow back.

0:40:470:40:50

Wildlife can and does live in these areas as the trees re-grow.

0:40:500:40:54

The bigger impact I think is the access that the logging creates.

0:40:570:41:01

Roads into previously pristine valleys.

0:41:010:41:05

There is virtually no place left in this entire mountain range that can't be reached by road.

0:41:110:41:17

And everywhere there are roads, there are people.

0:41:190:41:22

Today our human world overlays the natural habitat of wildlife

0:41:280:41:31

so completely that they cannot escape our presence.

0:41:310:41:36

They have nowhere left to hide.

0:41:360:41:39

But seeing this little black bear feeding on these rosehips beside the road

0:41:450:41:49

is the sign I've been waiting for.

0:41:490:41:52

The fall berry season is going to give me my best chance to find a grizzly.

0:41:520:41:56

It's September and time for me to get back into the mountains.

0:42:020:42:06

Still, finding any grizzly in this massive landscape is going to be huge challenge.

0:42:100:42:15

Especially since there are so few of them left.

0:42:150:42:19

As well, our window is short.

0:42:190:42:21

Snow will start to bury this high country next month.

0:42:210:42:24

The North Cascade Mountains are a steep, rugged range.

0:42:330:42:36

It's a lot of work getting around.

0:42:360:42:39

But the bears' main source of food to fatten them up for winter is here.

0:42:390:42:44

These are blueberries and huckleberries and they only grow up high in the mountains.

0:42:470:42:52

They are full of sugar and excellent eating.

0:42:520:42:55

Logan is the fourth generation of the family coming up

0:42:560:42:59

into these mountains to pick berries in the fall.

0:42:590:43:02

The strategy is to scan these open berry slopes looking for bears.

0:43:100:43:16

I remember years ago when I could sit in a spot like this

0:43:220:43:26

and count up to a dozen or more black bears at one time.

0:43:260:43:29

After looking for hours, Logan and I only see one.

0:43:330:43:37

It's a little black bear.

0:43:370:43:39

This little bear seemed a bit nervous of us

0:43:470:43:49

so standing up and rubbing on this tree is his way of showing off a bit,

0:43:490:43:55

making sure we understand how big he is.

0:43:550:43:58

I really enjoy it when wild animals treat me like a natural part of their world.

0:44:090:44:13

Fall is a critical time for bears.

0:44:180:44:21

These tiny berries are all these mountain bears have available to them to fatten up for winter.

0:44:210:44:26

This guy seems to be doing well.

0:44:330:44:34

His coat is rich and black.

0:44:340:44:37

Despite everything I've seen this year, I'm still optimistic.

0:44:420:44:48

Spending time with Logan,

0:44:480:44:50

I realise each generation seems to be more aware of conservation.

0:44:500:44:56

When I was growing up we never thought we'd run out of the wild.

0:44:560:45:00

But Logan's generation is developing a strong ethic,

0:45:000:45:04

a personal responsibility to the natural world.

0:45:040:45:07

Time is running out for me and my search for the grizzly bear in my home mountains.

0:45:170:45:22

Fall is coming to an end and I still haven't found any sign of them.

0:45:250:45:29

From that first dead bear I saw as a boy,

0:45:400:45:43

through my long career filming bears,

0:45:430:45:45

the grizzly has been a major part of my life.

0:45:450:45:49

In the relationship I have with bears, it seems though,

0:45:500:45:54

that I'm the one that is benefiting the most.

0:45:540:45:57

What are the bears getting from me?

0:45:570:46:00

What can I give them?

0:46:000:46:02

We get so much from nature and we give so little back.

0:46:110:46:15

Aldo Leopold wrote more than 60 years ago that the way

0:46:180:46:22

to saving the natural ecosystems of this planet,

0:46:220:46:25

and ultimately ourselves,

0:46:250:46:27

was by developing a personal relationship to the land and its myriad inhabitants.

0:46:270:46:34

It was only by walking this path

0:46:340:46:37

that we would ever be able to learn to love the wild

0:46:370:46:40

enough to want to save it.

0:46:400:46:42

For me the doorway to that path has been through the grizzly bear.

0:46:440:46:49

It was October, and the first snows were beginning to dust the peaks.

0:46:560:47:01

I knew this was my last chance to find a grizzly in my home mountains.

0:47:010:47:06

On this late autumn day

0:47:130:47:15

I finally found my grizzly.

0:47:150:47:17

Even though it was a long way away,

0:47:200:47:22

as soon as I spotted it I knew right away what it was.

0:47:220:47:26

The size and shape of its head and body,

0:47:260:47:29

the colour of its back and hump.

0:47:290:47:32

Even though I couldn't get any closer, it didn't really matter.

0:47:340:47:38

Just knowing that they're here is all the proof I need.

0:47:380:47:42

We need to learn to love the wild,

0:47:520:47:55

and I think there is no better place to start than with the grizzly.

0:47:550:47:59

100 years ago Aldo Leopold saw the last grizzly in Arizona.

0:48:040:48:08

The fact that today, I can still find a grizzly bear in my home mountains,

0:48:100:48:14

despite the impact of our use on the land,

0:48:140:48:17

gives me hope for the future.

0:48:170:48:19

One of my inspirations for making this film was a short story

0:48:400:48:43

written by Aldo Leopold, from his famous book, A Sand County Almanac.

0:48:430:48:47

It's a story of a grizzly in the mountains of Arizona.

0:48:470:48:50

And although it happened 100 years ago, Leopold's insights still ring true today.

0:48:500:48:56

In 1909, Aldo Leopold came to work in eastern Arizona

0:49:010:49:05

at a time when the American Wild West was coming to an end.

0:49:050:49:09

Leopold was a man who enjoyed nature and the outdoors.

0:49:110:49:16

He revelled in the raw wildness of this new country.

0:49:160:49:19

His love for this wilderness was captured in his story called Escudilla,

0:49:220:49:28

which was about a mountain and the grizzly bear that lived upon it.

0:49:280:49:32

The mountain was the symbol of the foundation of wild nature

0:49:320:49:37

that was present and visible in all aspects of his life in Arizona.

0:49:370:49:41

After graduating from the Yale School of Forestry,

0:49:460:49:51

Leopold got a job in the Apache National Forest measuring the areas of virgin timber,

0:49:510:49:57

to determine the extent of the lumber that could be removed.

0:49:570:50:00

He wrote about his mixed feelings in converting these beautiful trees

0:50:020:50:06

into remote notebook figures, representing hypothetical lumber piles.

0:50:060:50:11

But he could always emerge from a long and tiring day in the woods

0:50:140:50:18

to be refreshed by the sight of the great mountain hanging on the horizon.

0:50:180:50:23

As he wrote it, "But on the next ridge a cold wind

0:50:230:50:28

"roaring across a sea of pines blew his doubts away..."

0:50:280:50:33

MAN: On the far shore hung Escudilla.

0:50:330:50:36

MAN: There was in fact only one place from which

0:50:400:50:43

you did not see Escudilla on the skyline.

0:50:430:50:46

That was the top of Escudilla itself.

0:50:460:50:49

Up there, you could not see the mountain but you could feel it.

0:50:490:50:55

The reason was the big bear.

0:50:550:50:58

Old Big Foot was a robber bear, and Escudilla was his castle.

0:51:020:51:08

No-one ever saw the old bear,

0:51:190:51:22

but in the muddy springs around the base of the cliffs

0:51:220:51:26

you saw his incredible tracks.

0:51:260:51:28

Seeing them made the most hard-bitten cowboys aware of bear.

0:51:320:51:36

Wherever they rode they saw the mountain,

0:51:380:51:42

and when they saw the mountain they thought of bear.

0:51:420:51:45

Campfire conversation ran to beef, bails and bear.

0:51:500:51:55

Big Foot claimed for his own only a cow a year,

0:51:590:52:02

and a few square miles of useless rock.

0:52:020:52:05

But his personality pervaded the county.

0:52:050:52:10

Leopold lived in the American west at a time when it was undergoing massive change.

0:52:150:52:21

Progress was coming to cattle country.

0:52:210:52:24

And progress had various emissaries.

0:52:240:52:27

One was the first transcontinental automobilist.

0:52:270:52:31

Automobiles were just beginning to replace the horse as the main means of transport.

0:52:310:52:36

Another was a member of the women's suffrage movement

0:52:360:52:40

that travelled the land promoting the new and radical idea

0:52:400:52:44

that women should have the same rights to vote as men.

0:52:440:52:47

Another change saw the stringing of the first telephone lines through the wilderness.

0:52:490:52:54

Now even the far flung corners of the land were being connected

0:52:540:52:59

by wires that could transmit instantaneous messages.

0:52:590:53:02

And Leopold also wrote about another emissary of progress,

0:53:050:53:09

but one with a much darker mission.

0:53:090:53:11

LEOPOLD: A government trapper, a sort of St George in overalls...

0:53:140:53:18

..seeking dragons to slay at government expense.

0:53:190:53:22

"Were there", he asked, "any destructive animals in need of slaying?"

0:53:280:53:35

Yes, there was the big bear.

0:53:350:53:40

The trapper packed his mule and headed for Escudilla.

0:53:470:53:51

In a month he was back...

0:54:020:54:05

..his mule staggering under a heavy hide.

0:54:060:54:09

There was only one barn in town big enough to dry it on.

0:54:160:54:20

He had tried traps, poison and all his usual wiles to no avail.

0:54:270:54:34

He had erected a set-gun in a defile,

0:54:370:54:41

through which only the bear could pass, and waited.

0:54:410:54:44

The last grizzly walked into the string

0:55:180:55:22

and shot himself.

0:55:220:55:25

GUNSHOT

0:55:250:55:26

It was June.

0:55:290:55:31

The pelt was foul.

0:55:310:55:33

Patchy and worthless.

0:55:330:55:36

It seemed to us rather an insult to deny the last grizzly

0:55:380:55:42

the chance to leave a good pelt as a memorial to his race.

0:55:420:55:47

It was only after we pondered on these things that

0:55:480:55:51

we began to wonder who wrote the rules for progress.

0:55:510:55:56

Since the beginning, time had gnawed at the basaltic hulk of Escudilla,

0:55:590:56:05

wasting, waiting and building.

0:56:050:56:09

Time built three things on the old mountain.

0:56:110:56:14

A venerable aspect, a community of minor animals and plants,

0:56:140:56:20

and a grizzly.

0:56:200:56:23

The government trapper who took the grizzly

0:56:250:56:27

knew he had made Escudilla safe for cows.

0:56:270:56:31

He did not know he had toppled the spire off an edifice,

0:56:310:56:34

a building since the morning stars sang together.

0:56:340:56:39

We forest officers who acquiesced in the extinguishment of the bear

0:56:480:56:54

knew a local rancher who had ploughed up a dagger

0:56:540:56:57

engraved with the name of one of Coronado's captains.

0:56:570:57:01

We spoke harshly of the Spaniards who, in their zeal for gold and converts,

0:57:050:57:10

had needlessly extinguished the native Indians.

0:57:100:57:14

It did not occur to us that we, too, were the captains of an invasion

0:57:210:57:27

too sure of its own righteousness.

0:57:270:57:30

Escudilla still hangs on the horizon.

0:57:330:57:36

But when you see it, you no longer think of bear.

0:57:390:57:44

It's only a mountain now.

0:57:460:57:48

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

0:58:120:58:16

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0:58:160:58:19

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