Documentary Description
Every year grizzly bear families in North America depend for their
survival on a spectacular natural event: the return of hundreds of
millions of salmon from the Pacific Ocean to the mountain streams where
they were born. The salmon travel thousands of miles to spawn and then
die. The great run not only provides food for bears, but for killer
whales, wolves, bald eagles, and even the forest itself. The question
is: will the salmon return in time to keep hungry bears alive?
A mother grizzly and her cubs emerge from their den high in snowy
Alaskan mountains. Filming from the air the team capture a TV first,
following the bears as they negotiate a near vertical slope on their
journey to the coast where they await the return of the salmon.
Meanwhile, the salmon are making their way to the to river mouths
where they must swim upstream and against the current. The programme
reveals how they tackle the torrents and leap over waterfalls, a feat
equivalent to a human jumping over a house.
Dozens of hungry bears eagerly await the salmon that make it up
river. In another TV first, underwater cameras record the ingenuity and
fancy footwork they use to collect dead salmon from the bottom of deep
pools.
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