Grizzlies of Alaska Natural World

Ever since I can remember, I've been drawn to wild places.

I guess it's really how my interest in bears started.

To me, bears, more than any other creature, represent wilderness.

And more than that - wildness itself.

Brown bears once roamed across Europe and North America

but today they're found

in just a few small pockets of really wild land.

Alaska is one of the bears' last strongholds.

My name is Chris Morgan.

I've dedicated half my life to the study and conservation of bears.

This remote stretch of coastal Alaska

is like nowhere else on Earth.

In most places, bears keep a healthy distance from each other

but these bears have somehow learned to live with one another.

Left alone, it has become a city of bears.

I'll follow these bears through an entire season.

From spring to autumn.

Piece together their complex social lives

and find out how these colossal giants manage to live together.

The first thing this young male does when the big fellow leaves,

starts putting on a show for the ladies!

You've got to be tough to survive here.

It's a land like no other.

It's grizzly country.

You know, I grew up in St Anne's in Lancashire

and to me, Alaska was this far-off wild place.

Somewhere at the ends of the Earth.

But the first time I took flight over this country

I was blown away by the size of the place.

To me, it takes an animal as wild as a bear to call Alaska home.

Just looks and feels like bear country out there.

Vast and wild.

No way! Oh, wow! Look at that!

Wow! Two bears. Play fighting.

It's early June and bears are beginning to gather

in the lush meadows.

You can imagine the sense of joy they must feel

after being cooped up in their dark den for the past six months.

I can't believe we're here. It's...

I love it, I love this place.

It feels just so right to be here

and I'm so dying to see what the bears are up to,

especially this early in the season.

I've never been here this early before so it's completely new to me.

'For the next several months, film-maker Joe Pontecorvo

'and I will be living among bears.'

Think we've got enough stuff?

Looks like we're going to be here for a year!

We are deep inside grizzly country,

in a place known to have

the largest concentrations of brown bears in the world.

BIRD CRIES

I've always wanted to spend a season living among brown bears.

Watching their daily lives unfold.

But it's also a somewhat unsettling feeling

to be surrounded by so many bears.

WE are the visitors here.

It's like we're rigging a demolition scene!

Some kinds of explosives!

Hey, that's not a bad idea!

I've got a much smaller camp than Joe.

He's got all the gear within his electric fence

so it's pretty sizeable.

Whereas mine, I just need a tent and a few of my personal belongings.

And of course, all the food goes in Joe's camp as well!

There is this complete sense of isolation in coastal Alaska.

You feel, genuinely, like you're the first person

to set foot right here.

The first person to sit on this log.

And, you know, there are tracks going off

down this ridge of rocks here.

And it looks like a human set of footprints but it's not.

It's bear tracks.

Every inch of this has been influenced by the bears

and the wolves that call it home.

The sun is up most of the time.

Even now, it's not that late yet, it's ten o'clock at night,

and we've got several hours of light to work in if we want to.

It's tough to go to bed

because there's something happening all the time.

Don't drop that camera, Joe.

Many thousands of years ago,

the whole of North America was wild enough for large carnivores.

This is the front right track of a large male.

But now we only find the huge carnivores

in small pockets of really wild land,

in places like Alaska.

Stop, stop.

(There's a sleeping bear.

(We don't want to surprise him. Back up.

(You know, these bears are very, very tolerant.)

But if you've got a sleeping bear like that,

you certainly don't want to surprise him.

If he was to wake up from a deep sleep surprised like that,

they could quickly turn.

It's like sleeping in your motel room

and someone breaking the door down and enter your room.

What would you do? You'd go into that fight response.

We'll cross the river and avoid him.

Hey there, bear.

The bears I normally see fattening up for winter

are at the beginning of their season.

And the salmon run is still months away.

Bears have lost nearly 50% of their body weight over the winter

and they are eager to get it back.

What they are looking for, smelling for actually, are tiny razor clams.

Once they find one, they start digging with those massive claws.

It's not much of a meal.

But this time of year, they'll take whatever they can get.

This is unbelievable. There's a female here with two tiny cubs.

They probably weigh less than 10 pounds.

I've never seen any this small before.

These cubs were only born in January in the den

and they've probably only been out of the den

for about three weeks since mid-May.

Can you imagine the sensory overload

these cubs are going through right now?

They're playing with things, discovering the world around them.

One of them is playing with a piece of grass there.

A year from now,

they'll start to wander a little bit further from her.

And right now they're sticking to her like glue.

They don't want to let her out of sight

and she doesn't want them out of sight.

There's a lot of big, feisty, testosterone-driven males right now.

One of these cubs would make a very easy, tasty snack for them.

And I really hope that she keeps them safe.

Mating season lasts just two months.

But during that time, bears from all around

gather in the lush meadow below.

It's a dangerous time for a mum with young cubs.

But experience has taught her well.

The bluff provides both sanctuary and a view of her surroundings.

With this many big males around,

she's got to have her wits about her the whole time.

This swagger, we call it the cowboy walk.

He's really doing two things here, trying to impress the female...

..but it's trying to make themselves feel as big as possible

and look as big as possible to the other bears - their competitors.

Now, he's a real cowboy. A big, brutish-looking guy.

Everyone is keeping a close eye on Brutus.

Look at him salivating.

When these big males get worked up, they'll start salivating like this.

This unbelievable.

This big, brutish male - he's being super-aggressive.

BEAR GROWLS

It's a pretty gutsy move to walk up on a mating pair like this.

BEAR GROWLS

BEARS GROWL

Brutus pushed the older male right off the young female.

I don't think grandpa is willing to risk his life over this one female.

The look on the face on grandpa.

He just looks so forlorn.

Now Brutus is stomping his scent into the ground...

erasing all traces of grandpa from the meadow.

Stomping him out of existence.

The males here will try and mate with as many females as possible.

While the females are looking for the biggest,

the most dominant male around.

That'll give her cubs the best chance of survival.

There's another guy coming in from behind her.

He doesn't look big enough to take on the big guy.

Looks like he's going to give it a shot, though.

Wow, this female is getting a lot of attention.

Four males around her right now.

It's almost like she's insignificant, you know.

The males are fighting among themselves

and the winner gets to take her home.

LOUD GROWL

They are two feet away from these massive giants

and they're clashing in a big, aggressive fight.

These females are assessing the males.

He's definitely at the peak of his game right now.

All the other males can do is sit around watching.

Then the female goes home with the winner.

And that's why all of the males around here

are at least twice as big as the females.

That's because the big guys win the fights and they get to breed.

A quiet calm returns to the meadow.

And life resumes as if nothing had happened at all.

But these cubs are lucky. She knows how to rear them.

In a place where there are these threats for them to be aware of.

She's a good mum. I've decided to call her Nadie, which means "wise".

These cubs learn so much every day.

What's good to eat, what bears to avoid, how to be safe.

And by following mum,

they'll learn what it takes to survive in this busy city of bears.

WOLF HOWLS

I just came over the rise to go back into the tent

after being out on a walk and there's a bear right here.

He's about 30 feet from my tent right now.

A moment ago...

Oh, hello! Hey, bear, it's OK.

You are a big fella, I know.

You think you can go anywhere you like, don't you.

And you probably can!

He's right between Joe's tent, which is here, and my tent.

Our tents are about 30 yards apart and he's in-between them.

Joe was on the other side of the tent at the time.

I was afraid he might touch his nose to that electric fence

and bolt in the opposite direction and run Joe over in the process.

But so far so good. He's a big bear, he's a big male.

He walked past my tent a minute ago and its fur, I swear,

brushed on my electric fence and it didn't work!

This is unbelievable. He's erm...

He's eating an Angelica plant right now.

It's OK, buddy, yeah.

You keep going, I think.

Yeah, he's a pretty big male. It's OK.

Even a simple breakfast is an adventure in bear country.

With this many visitors around, you can never be too careful.

It's tough because these bears see their whole world through their nose.

You've got to look at their world

through their perspective, through their nose.

They can smell this from two miles down the valley here.

There's a certain tension in the air.

You're always looking over your shoulder.

Any one of these creatures can wipe you out in an instant.

But they choose not to.

They choose to allow you to be part of their habitat and landscape

and their home.

For as long as you want to be there.

Hi.

Wow, you beautiful thing.

It almost looks like the National Park Service maintains these.

But these are all bear trails.

Generation after generation after generation of brown bears

have created these trails as the most efficient route from A to B.

It's a perfect system.

We've been following it.

We're doing the same thing, except we're not eating the sedges.

There's a lot of traffic in these meadows during mating season.

In a population this large, with this much competition,

it's all about scent.

Any male coming up to this can smell the 10 previous males

that had come up to this and done the same thing.

Checking out who's on the meadow here,

who they're competing with tonight.

They know who's on this meadow long before they even see them.

Their noses are planted firmly in the sedge meadow all the time

and they're reading this landscape like a bar code.

Scent is powerful advertising in the bear world.

It works for both sexes.

The females will sit down, plant themselves in the meadow

and coyly look around to see which males might be eyeing them up.

The male will approach and she'll move away

and he plants his nose right in the grass

to smell whether she's going to be receptive.

It's almost like her placing a singles ad.

Single, hairy, brown female seeks massive, promiscuous male!

In a population this size, bears learn to watch their back.

Their eyes are looking left, right and centre,

trying to figure out who's there, who they can breed with

and who they need to avoid.

The sedges are a kind of distraction.

Competition is not limited to males.

Females will compete with other females

for access to the best males.

It's really unusual and something I haven't seen before.

Many of these bears have grown up together or are related in some way.

Spending season after season in these same meadows.

Brothers that come together and play as adults.

Or two teenagers that have grown up as neighbours.

These social complexities mean cubs here

have a whole lot more to learn than almost anywhere else.

Normally, brown bear cubs stay with their mum for about three years.

But here, cubs might stay with mum for even longer.

These guys have a good head start.

Nadie is definitely a dominating presence on the meadow.

-She's running towards him.

-She's charging. She's charging at him.

While mum grazes, the cubs are on high alert.

Smelling the air for danger.

Alarmed by anything unfamiliar...

which for them, is quite a lot.

They've only been in this grand outside world

for, maybe, six weeks now.

These cubs are facing so many different choices

and learning experiences every day.

It's nice to feel that we're an easy one.

Not quite sure how close to come, are you.

It's important they stay cautious, like their mum.

But they're cubs. The temptation to play is too great.

They are gladiators as tall as grass blades.

COUNTRY GUITAR MUSIC

CUBS SQUEAK

The scent of a large male is carried on the wind.

Mum can identify an individual from nearly 200 metres away

just by their scent.

She's obviously very cautious of this male, probably knows him...

and is keeping her distance.

It's really interesting

because there's this tolerance thing going on this time of year.

The rest of the year, these females avoid the males like the plague.

They don't want anything to do with them

and can be aggressive, so they keep apart.

These females know the males are more cautious than they are

when there's people around.

She might use us as a barrier for his advances.

He's getting hyper-focused on her right now.

This is going to be close, I think.

This big male is all worked up

so it's difficult to know what he might do.

We should be careful as well here, Joe.

It's best for us to stay put, stay low and don't move.

This is going to be close, Joe.

The male is coming up right behind you here, Joe.

OK, OK. It's OK.

It's OK. It's OK. We're not touching her.

It's OK.

It's all right. It's OK.

It's OK.

He's pretty wound up.

She clearly needs the protein that these sedges are providing.

But at the same time, she's got to keep the cubs safe

from these big males that are coming over.

Trying to pick up the weather forecast.

I want to know what we're letting themselves in for,

because the weather really seems to be coming in.

Seas, eight feet. We should probably make sure your gear is OK, actually.

Just get it inside the tent and figure things out.

Look at that. That's not my pillow.

I don't use pillows when I'm camping.

I usually sleep on a stake because I'm a real tough guy

and if I'm feeling like treating myself, maybe a boot,

but definitely not one of those pillows.

I don't know where that came from. Did you put that in here, Joe?

It's been a really stormy couple of days.

It's pouring with rain outside.

You can perhaps hear it on the tent here.

It's difficult just being holed up in the tent all this time.

I've rigged the tarp and I've got a bit of a porch here

and it's keeping a lot of the rain out, so fingers crossed,

but it's tiring.

It's tiring just dealing with it.

So, I'm going to try and get some sleep

and hope that my tent and tarp is all intact in the morning.

The seas are calm again.

But something is upsetting the flock.

This guy is headed straight for a puffin colony.

Brown bears don't normally hunt puffins

but bears are opportunistic and experimental animals,

especially when driven by hunger.

Even the puffins are surprised.

In this case, the bear is rewarded.

With the good weather comes carefree days.

The entire family is having a good time tonight.

She's even grown more relaxed. Look at that.

You can tell they've put a considerable amount of weight on

and probably three times further away

from the safety of the bluff than we've ever seen them before.

Where did she go? She's in the middle of the meadow there.

She's moving away.

This bear came out of the trees. See it to your right, Joe?

Nadie has settled down quite a bit over the last couple of weeks,

but still keeps a healthy distance.

And for good reason.

Mating season is winding down.

A quiet desperation hangs in the air

as the bears anticipate the arrival of the first salmon.

Lately, Nadie hardly gives me a glance.

I realise it's incumbent on me to respect her boundaries.

I have to constantly remind myself what they're capable of.

I wish I could join them with this little tussle.

Wouldn't that be fun?

Just jump in and roll around there with them.

It's impossible not to get caught up in how adorable all this play is.

But all this play has a purpose.

The sticks and driftwood

they pretend are the salmon they've never tasted.

All the affection they show mum...

..the sparring...

..it all has a purpose.

The environment these cubs grow up in is dangerous...

highly competitive...

..and often unpredictable.

We're all cool, it's OK.

We're OK. It's all right. It's OK.

Nadie is so comfortable with us that she's grazed very close to us now.

In this situation, it's best to remain as still as possible

and let her pass.

It's all right, everybody. Just chill.

It's all right. Don't you come any closer though, you guys.

You'll get us into trouble here.

It's OK. Yes.

It's OK. No, don't come any closer.

It's all right. Yeah, I know.

That was intense. She was closer than any bear has been to me before.

I just sat here in the meadow to start with.

I was probably 80 yards away from her

and she grazed to within five, six feet away from me.

No way, not in a million years would I ever approach this situation.

It was her choice to come to me and it's intense, though.

I'm exhausted from just having her that close

and staring at me in the eyes.

It's a prehistoric feeling.

It's really raw, that's for sure.

She's 30 feet away right now

and she might as well be the other end of the football field.

She seems like a long way, I think.

Life for these little guys, like us all,

is never going to be more carefree than this.

In these still moments, it's easy to forget the season is racing by.

Two months have gone by since I first arrived.

It's this in-between time that's toughest of all.

The wolves, with a new litter, are desperate for a hunt.

The fields are drying up and pushing the bears towards the water.

But their feast is yet to arrive.

Females gather at the river mouth

with the anticipation of an early run.

BEARS GROWL

This early, there are more bears than fish.

It's still unclear

whether there's anything worth eating in the shallow tide.

That's just a flounder.

No salmon yet.

The competition is becoming fierce.

The early females are suddenly being boxed out of their spot.

All this splashing around,

it's hard to tell whether they're onto something

or simply chasing ghosts.

Wow, she's got it! She's got it! It's a salmon.

The feast has begun.

The salmon are coming home.

It feels as if the river itself has been anticipating this moment.

For a short time, salmon will be the lifeblood of this place.

Now, the clock has started on this narrow window for the bears.

This is a pretty mature female

and she really knows what she's doing

and she's got this really healthy, fat, cuddly looking cub.

He's never more than ten feet behind his mum.

She shares nearly every fish she catches with her young cub.

He'll grow fast and her determination will pay off

in how quickly he learns how to live here.

With all his needs met, he's relaxed to hone his skills.

Look, he's snorkelling.

He's got his head right underwater, so he can see the fish.

It's incredible. Time after time, she's catching female fish.

And it's important that she catches the female fish

because they're full of fat, in the form of eggs

that the cub can really benefit from.

That's why he's so chunky looking.

I think I'll call him Fatso.

This young male has been closely watching her and now she's resting,

he's decided to test out her fishing spot.

Probably in his first year of life without mum.

He's suitably overwhelmed by the environment

and the number of bears here.

But he doesn't have much time to fumble.

The salmon run is brief and unpredictable.

It's vital to him for surviving the winter.

But so far, he's unable to pull the trigger.

The river is so densely packed right now,

the bears need to employ a number of strategies to catch salmon

and keep a safe distance from each other.

The bears that are forced into the deeper water have to snorkel

to track their prey.

The salmon hide in these deep pockets, out of reach.

Even as some of the bears are struggling to catch anything,

others are becoming much more selective,

and giving some lucky salmon a second chance.

The salmon pack the dense channels,

trying to reach the spawning ground, the completion of their journey.

But first, they have to get through this gauntlet of bears.

Still, many will make it far, far up river,

where they will spawn and end their journey.

Life is good. They've even got time to play.

She's only got one cub, so she'll tend to play more with that one cub.

I don't think there's any bond stronger in nature

than a female bear and her cub.

Just imagine his surprise four years from now

when she turns around and doesn't want to know him any more.

She'll want to move on.

And he'll be on his own.

Life is not so easy for the wolves.

The salmon taunt them.

But the chase is more an act of desperation than anything.

The salmon are still too deep for the wolves to catch.

I haven't seen Nadie or her cubs for weeks now. I hope they're OK.

But Fatso and his mum have become regular visitors

along this busy stretch of river.

Fatso is quickly becoming a serious hunter.

As he tags along with the expert,

he takes every opportunity to flaunt his kung fu moves.

This mum has just arrived with three cubs,

the first triplets we've seen this year.

It's unusual for her to still have all three cubs

this far into the season.

It's probably her first trip down to the river

and they will take whatever they can get.

It's certainly a different situation than Fatso is used to.

The river definitely shows off the diversity of bears here.

But even poaching scraps around this many bears

is more than she's comfortable with.

So they'll eat this meal on the road.

She's found a quieter stretch of the river.

It seems that for a couple of them, these are their first litters,

so first time they've experienced looking after their young cubs.

And there is this incredible, almost panic, more than urgency,

it's just a panic to feed right now.

The anticipation of denning for the whole winter

without enough fat, just is this innate fear that they have.

The density of bears here

makes things tense for these larger families.

She is just frantic.

She senses that if she doesn't catch something fresh,

they won't last very long.

The cubs aren't comfortable yet

with mum thrashing off into the deep without them.

She tries to reassure them

and guide them to a safe beach to wait for her.

But they aren't so easily convinced.

You can definitely tell that she senses the pressure

to catch fish right now.

She's just arrived, later than the other bears,

and it's just a matter of time before these fish dry up here.

And so, she's got a lot of work on her hands.

All this company, there's no chance to catch anything.

A quiet window of opportunity has gone.

And it's back to leftovers for the family.

Even during salmon season, there are waves.

The fish come in with the tides,

but that doesn't mean every tide has fish.

I thought I'd scout down to the mouth of this river

and see what was happening downstream.

If there's any action to be had, that's where it would be.

Well, that's a familiar face. I almost didn't recognise her.

But that's definitely Nadie and her two cubs.

Hardly recognisable from the tiny little cubs we saw a few weeks ago.

They're not only larger and healthier and fatter than they were

a few weeks ago when I last saw them, but they've grown up as well.

They've got this different attitude now.

This is such an important time of year for her and her cubs.

I'm so relieved to see that she's got both of them,

neither of them have been killed,

and that's really common with young cubs.

Not only that, they look in great shape as well.

See she's yawning like that?

That's a sign of anxiety, when they yawn like she's doing now.

Look how well trained the cubs are. They're butterballs right now!

And I think the other bears have noticed that she's a little feisty

and potentially aggressive, so they don't mess with her at all.

Using mum as a barricade there! That's priceless!

She's gone off to fish and left them behind.

They know not to disturb mum when she's fishing.

They've got a few weeks until they den, but the urgency is on now.

Her senses are definitely tuned in.

That's all she's thinking about right now is fish.

Every movement in the water, every scent on the air,

and she's focused on it.

And her senses are tuned to any intruder,

especially any male that might threaten her cubs.

She has two precious things to look after here.

And she'll fight to the death to protect those cubs.

For the moment, it looks like she's got the river to herself.

But this male won't give up

trying to carve out a small fishing hole for himself.

It only takes a moment to run down this salmon, but does he have time?

This may be the last I see of them this year.

Joe's gone ahead to check out the salmon,

as they make their final push up the falls.

It looks like Fatso and mum are there, waiting for them.

There is an electricity to this place.

An energy that comes from the urgency of life here.

It's late September. For these bears,

this is the last chance to pack on the pounds for winter.

Fatso has landed his first fish.

Oh, my gosh! That is so great!

He looks so proud!

Look, Ma! I did it!

It's a good start for this little cub.

We normally think of bears as solitary animals.

But in this dense population, in this city of bears,

they've learned how to be social,

how to get along with each other.

Never before have I lived among these bears

for such a long period of time, basically being their neighbour,

and really, watching their lives unfold on a daily basis.

I've seen another side of these bears,

a tenderness and a complexity that's really been eye-opening.

It's the first bear I've seen in a few hours.

Those that I have seen are along the riverbank.

They're kind of looking out hopefully into the water to see

if there's any more fish.

The salmon run's coming to an end here.

And I'm sure the bears are anticipating that long winter ahead.

'You know, I've really come to know these bears.

'Nadie and her cubs, Fatso and his mum.'

I'm a little bit lost for words, to be honest.

I just feel like I've had this intimate... intimate relationship.

I feel very at home here.

Argh!

What makes this place really wild is knowing the tracks

I leave today will be bear tracks, or wolf tracks, tomorrow.

Wilderness isn't the wide open spaces,

but the wild things that fill it.

Alaska is the last stronghold

for some of the Earth's wildest creatures.

This may be the end of my journey, but Alaska's wilderness

and its wildest creatures will always call me back.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd