Deep-dive with Chilean devil rays in the Azores, track brown bears’ diets in Turkey, and follow dogs protecting flocks of sheep from gray wolves in Southern France.
S36 Ep10
Animals with Cameras | Episode 3
Deep-dive with Chilean devil rays in the Azores, track brown bears’ diets in Turkey, and follow dogs protecting flocks of sheep from gray wolves in Southern France.
Features
Observing a Brown Bear’s Daily Routine with Cagan Sekercioglu
Clip | Behind the Lens | Diving Deep with Camera-Wearing Devil Rays
Clip | Wrangling Rays to Solve a Scientific Mystery
What Cameras Can Teach Us about Baboons with Leah Findlay
Hang with Meerkats in the Kalahari Desert | 360 Video
Caring for Orphaned Chimps with Mimi Swift
PRODUCTION CREDITS: EPISODE 3
ANIMALS WITH CAMERAS
EPISODE 3
PRESENTED BY
GORDON BUCHANAN
DIRECTORS
MATTHEW ANDREWS
CLARE DORNAN
HANNAH WARD
EDIT PRODUCER
CLARE DORNAN
PHOTOGRAPHY
RALPH BOWER
LOUIS LABROM
GRAHAM MACFARLANE
NUNO SA
MARK SHARMAN
ANIMAL CAMERAS
MARCUS SHIRLEY
CHRIS WATTS
CEIIA
SOUND RECORDISTS
PETER ELLIOT
MARK ROBERTS
FIELD ASSISTANT
NEIL GOODCHILD
RESEARCHERS
ESTER DE ROIJ
ISABEL ROGERS
REBECCA PAYNE
ALISTAIR TONES
ASSISTANT PRODUCER – FRANCE
CHLOE JUYON
PRODUCTION COORDINATORS
KATIE CUSS
LORNA NORTHAM
ISABELLE CORR
PRODUCTION MANAGERS
LYNN BARRY
J. RUTH STEVENS
UNIT MANAGER
MARIA NORMAN
ORIGINAL MUSIC COMPOSED BY
TIM GOALEN
DUBBING EDITOR
NICHOLAS ALLAN
DUBBING MIXER
JOE SIDDONS
EDIT ASSISTANT
GEORGE PILLAS
COLORIST
TIM BOLT
ONLINE EDITOR
JAMES BEYNON
GRAPHIC DESIGN
MICK CONNAIRE
DEVELOPMENT
GILES BADGER
FILM EDITORS
DOUG MAIN
CHRIS HALL
SPECIAL THANKS
JEAN-LUC BORELLI
FRED BUYLE
MARK CHYNOWETH
EMRAH COBAN
LUCY DAY
LINNAR EDESI
JORGE FONTES
ALEX JOHNSTON
JONATHAN KARLSSON
JOSIP KUSAK
BETTY LAGLBAUER
JEAN-MARC LANDRY
UNIVERSITY OF THE AZORES
CAGAN SEKERCIOGLU
NORBERTO SERPA
JONATHAN WATTS
COMMISSIONING EDITOR
CRAIG HUNTER
SERIES PRODUCER
DAN REES
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
TIM MARTIN
FOR NATURE
SERIES EDITOR
JANET HESS
SENIOR PRODUCER
LAURA METZGER LYNCH
COORDINATING PRODUCER
JAYNE JUN
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER
JAMES BURKE
LEGAL COUNSEL
BLANCHE ROBERTSON
DIGITAL PRODUCER
ERIC R. OLSON
SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR
WHITNEY MCGOWAN
AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT
NATASHA PADILLA
CHELSEY SAATKAMP
BUDGET CONTROLLER
JAYNE LISI
ONLINE EDITOR
STACEY DOUGLASS MOVERLEY
RE-RECORDING MIXER
ED CAMPBELL
ORIGINAL FUNDING PROVIDED IN PART BY
THE ARNHOLD FAMILY IN MEMORY OF CLARISSE ARNHOLD
THE HALMI FAMILY IN MEMORY OF ROBERT HALMI, SR.
SUE AND EDGAR WACHENHEIM III
KATE W. CASSIDY FOUNDATION
LILLIAN GOLDMAN CHARITABLE TRUST
FILOMEN M. D’AGOSTINO FOUNDATION
ROSALIND P. WALTER
SANDRA ATLAS BASS
CORPORATION FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING
SERIES PRODUCER
BILL MURPHY
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
FRED KAUFMAN
A BBC STUDIOS PRODUCTION FOR PBS AND BBC WITH THIRTEEN PRODUCTIONS LLC
THIS PROGRAM WAS PRODUCED BY THIRTEEN PRODUCTIONS LLC, WHICH IS SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ITS CONTENT
© 2018 BBC
ANIMALS WITH CAMERAS ADDITIONAL MATERIALS © 2018 PBS AND
© 2018 THIRTEEN PRODUCTIONS LLC
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
TRANSCRIPT
♪ [ Cheetah purrs ] BUCHANAN: As a wildlife cameraman, I have traveled the world trying to capture life's most intimate and dramatic moments... ♪ But wouldn't it be incredible if we could see the world from an animal's point of view?
Well, in this series that is exactly what we're gonna do, with the help of the animals themselves.
They're gonna be the ones that are doing the filming.
They're going to take us to places that a cameraman like me simply cannot go, and reveal a side of their lives like we have never seen before.
♪ Working with scientists, we're going to design cameras small enough to take us into their hidden world.
[ Meerkat warbling ] Wow.
This is their footage.
-MELDRUM: Oh, yeah.
-BUCHANAN: Oh, wow.
Their story... And we're going to see it through their eyes.
♪ ♪ BUCHANAN: In this program we'll reveal the secrets of three spectacular animals.
♪ In the Azores we'll dive with giant devil rays and try to understand why they gather in spectacular numbers.
Whoa.
These are unbelievably privileged views.
In France we get to the heart of the ancient conflict between sheep... [ Barking ] and wolf.
♪ ♪ But for my first mission I've come to northeast Turkey... in search of an animal I have never seen before, the Eurasian brown bear.
They're extinct through much of Europe.
♪ Here, the forest is teeming with them, but they're incredibly shy, making them hard to study.
Cagan Sekercioglu has been working on these bears for 10 years, but his longest ever sighting lasted just 3 minutes... And that's where our cameras can help.
How close do you think the nearest bear is to us?
SEKERCIOGLU: Right now?
BUCHANAN: Yeah.
Within a mile?
SEKERCIOGLU: Oh that, oh God easily, half a mile.
-BUCHANAN: Really, really?
-SEKERCIOGLU: Yeah, yeah.
I mean the numbers we have are among the highest densities on the planet They are everywhere.
BUCHANAN: And what is there, is there a single aim, what do you want to find out from these bears?
SEKERCIOGLU: Well a big goal was to find out how they manage to survive in this relatively small forest.
I would love to see how they interact.
Are they tolerant of each other, is there a lot of fighting going on.
BUCHANAN: This forest is small and hemmed in by people on all sides -- so, how do so many bears survive here?
What do they eat?
Where do they sleep?
And what happens when they meet each other?
We're hoping our cameras will unlock the secrets of these elusive animals.
Mini camera expert Chris Watts has been attaching specially built cameras to the radio collars that Cagan and his team are using to study the bears.
-BUCHANAN: Hey Chris.
-WATTS: Hi, how's it going?
BUCHANAN: Good, how are you?
WATTS: Not bad, yeah this camera's nearly ready to go out.
BUCHANAN: Oh, I like it.
So this part, the collar, that's for the scientists to monitor the bear for a couple of years.
WATTS: That's right.
BUCHANAN: And this part, that's our camera system?
WATTS: Yeah, so after 4 days our camera, this bottom part will drop away and then it leaves this collar on for the scientists to continue their studies.
BUCHANAN: Let me see.
It's around the bear's neck.
It's yeah.
I think this is, this is one of the most exciting ones.
For several days Cagan's team have been trying to catch and collar bears and I've been hoping to see them in action.
We have just got some very exciting news.
The team are not far from our base and they say that they have captured a big bear, a bear big enough to take our camera.
Here we go.
♪ It is one huge bear!
This bear has already been tranquilized.
[ Bear growling ] While the vet checks it's healthy, the scientists take measurements and fit the radio collar with our camera attached.
SEKERCIOGLU: We're ecstatic.
It's in prime condition so it's a perfect candidate for an animal cam.
Can't wait to see what we get on film.
BUCHANAN: The bear quickly comes round and disappears into the forest.
The camera will automatically drop off after a couple of days.
♪ Chris has fitted each camera with a tiny transmitter, so we can find them after they drop off.
Getting a good, strong signal from the camera.
Er, and it seems to be leading in that direction.
♪ ♪ Yes!
Yes, yes, yes.
Fantastic.
A little bit steamed up.
But we have it back.
We've got our first footage in.
From a 4-year-old female which Cagan has called Seha.
SEKERCIOGLU: There it is.
BUCHANAN: The angle is great.
There's just enough of the bear to know that the bears are still there.
SEKERCIOGLU: Yeah.
Wow, it's a complete bear's eye view of the world.
BUCHANAN: Yeah.
SEKERCIOGLU: Is that -- oh, yeah, it's drinking water.
BUCHANAN: Having a proper drink.
Wow.
The camera itself has to go through everything that the bear goes through, so walking down into gullies, climbing up the trees, going into the water.
The camera reveals that this forest is rich in bear food.
She eats a wide range of nutritious plants and turns over rocks to reach insects underneath.
♪ After her meal she's walking into a cave.
Cagan didn't know that these bears use caves in the summertime.
Most brown bears only use caves in winter, to hibernate.
SEKERCIOGLU: They don't need a big space, they don't need this huge cave you know, you'd be surprised how little space they need.
♪ BUCHANAN: The presence of lots of caves is another reason why this is good bear habitat.
♪ ♪ She steps back out into the night and straight into danger.
Oh, it's just right there.
Some of it just appears from nowhere.
SEKERCIOGLU: Yeah.
Yeah.
So the road basically is the equivalent of an interstate highway and this traffic is very fast.
BUCHANAN: Seha is walking down a dangerous road and before long we discover why.
She's on the lookout for rubbish thrown from passing cars.
This is worrying for Cagan.
If bears develop a taste for rubbish they can become dependent on it.
♪ He says that's already happening at a place on the edge of the forest.
So I've come to investigate at the local dump.
Oh, we've got a bear right here with a cub.
Wow.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, stop, stop, stop.
A mother bear with a cub.
That is a big bear.
Yeah.
To get a better look I'm using a thermal camera which detects the bear's body heat.
Oh, wow, look at that.
My goodness.
Brown bears are normally solitary, yet here they tolerate each other because there's so much food.
It's quite something to see so many of them in one place.
But it's not healthy for them to be feeding on our rubbish.
The bear's digging in rubbish that is still alight.
It's raking through the coals.
There are bears eating plastic, chewing on metal wires.
This is not a pretty sight.
I'm told that there are plans to close this dump down, but the scientists are worried that that could cause another problem.
If they get rid of this, this dump overnight that food source has gone and what that's gonna leave is a lot of hungry bears.
These dump feeders will be pushed out into the forest, but is there room for any more bears out there?
Too many bears could lead to conflict and stress.
We're hoping that more footage will help us find out how much the forest bears are interacting.
♪ [ Birdsong ] Right, off we go.
Cagan's continuing to collar bears, and I've been giving him a hand.
My goodness, that's a big old head.
♪ ♪ SEKERCIOGLU: Should be good, I'm really excited to see what we get.
BUCHANAN: Yeah.
Me too.
He just needs to keep the camera clean.
♪ Our next footage is from a young adult male that Cagan has named Faruk.
SEKERCIOGLU: Ah, look at that beautiful morning light, look at that.
BUCHANAN: You can see the rain has caused a problem with the condensation.
SEKERCIOGLU: Well, May is the wettest month but I mean, here you can still follow the behavior pretty well.
Wait, is he feeding?
BUCHANAN: You can actually see the water beads on the back leg so maybe that's... SEKERCIOGLU: Yeah, yeah he is.
Yeah, he's licking the dew.
Just drinking water, licking the dew off the grass, yeah.
BUCHANAN: Sticking out that big tongue as he walks along just getting some nice fresh water.
SEKERCIOGLU: Wow.
BUCHANAN: But Faruk's peaceful morning doesn't last long.
SEKERCIOGLU: Oh!
Oh, wow!
There's another bear.
BUCHANAN: Faruk is being confronted, probably by another male.
SEKERCIOGLU: Oh, look at that.
Oh, oh, man!
Whoa!
BUCHANAN: After standing up to swipe at each other, Faruk continues to growl.
[ Growling ] The other bear slowly retreats.
Fights aren't unusual amongst male bears, but in a crowded forest they may be more common, and the risk of injury, higher.
As he lies down to recover we see that Faruk is bleeding.
He's broken his claw.
That'll be painful, but the claw will drop off and grow back eventually.
This time he got off lightly.
But just when it looked like Faruk was in the clear, he spots another bear approaching.
♪ He makes a run for it.
♪ He's being chased.
♪ Running on an injured claw, the chase goes on for an exhausting 45 minutes before the pursuer finally gives up.
♪ Faruk climbs to high ground and checks all around before he can eventually relax.
The camera has shown how high bear numbers are, and how that can make life hard.
♪ And that's not the end of Faruk's excitement for the day.
SEKERCIOGLU: Oh -- oh, wow!
There's another bear.
Holy cow, look at that!
[ Growls ] BUCHANAN: The other bear's not acting aggressively towards him.
SEKERCIOGLU: No, no.
Oh, wow.
BUCHANAN: That's really interesting.
SEKERCIOGLU: He's relaxed, he's sitting down.
No they...
They know each other.
BUCHANAN: It appears that this is Faruk's partner.
He may have been staying close to this female for weeks, waiting for her to be ready to mate.
♪ But she make it clear, she's not ready just yet.
[ Low roar ] Faruk has had a very busy day, and we've seen how stressful that can be.
♪ From what the cameras have shown him, Cagan thinks this small patch of forest can't sustain many more bears.
♪ If you were to close the dump overnight there's gonna be trouble pretty quick on its heels.
SEKERCIOGLU: And it has to be done not just by closing the garbage dump but also by creating better quality habitat with more natural food and more connectivity.
BUCHANAN: Cagan's hoping he can use this footage to gain support for a plan to increase the size of the forest by planting 10 million trees then if the dump closes there will still be plenty of space and food for these threatened bears.
♪ ♪ Our next mission is in the Azores -- a group of islands in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
♪ Here, marine biologist Jorge Fontes is trying to solve a mystery about a giant of the ocean.
♪ Devil rays are fish with wing-like fins that stretch over 9 feet wide.
♪ These rays live in remote parts of the ocean and very little is known about their lives.
But Jorge and his team have recently discovered that every summer the rays migrate thousands of miles from the tropical Atlantic to gather at two sites near the Azores.
These sites are underwater mountains known as seamounts.
But the reason why they gather remains a mystery.
These graceful giants dive to great depths, so following them to find out what they're doing is impossible.
We're hoping that one of our on-board cameras could help solve the mystery.
But attaching a camera to a ray will not be easy.
FONTES: Any kind of sensors, any kind of equipment that you want to attach to a ray, in particular, is a huge challenge, because they dive very deep, the pressure is huge.
Their skin that is covered in mucus, so the amount of challenges that have to be overcome are immense.
BUCHANAN: One creature that has already overcome these challenges is the remora fish.
They hitch a ride around the ocean by sticking on to the devil rays.
Inspired by their technique we fitted our camera with four suction cups.
♪ It's time to test the design.
Jorge and his team are all trained free divers and can swim down to the rays without needing scuba gear.
♪ ♪ The camera takes us right into the heart of the gathering.
These first views are incredible, but our cameras don't have the suction power of a remora fish.
♪ And after only a couple of minutes the camera slides off the ray's back.
♪ FONTES: My feeling is that suction might not be the best method to attach cameras or the instruments to these rays.
BUCHANAN: We need another plan.
♪ So I joined the team equipped with a totally new design.
Good afternoon.
Hi.
-FONTES: Hey.
BUCHANAN: How you doing.
FONTES: Yeah, you're travelling light, huh?
BUCHANAN: Yeah.
Permission to come aboard?
FONTES: Yeah, sure, come on.
BUCHANAN: Great.
I'll be on board with the research team for the next week.
I like this a lot.
This is great.
But then it's, it's going to be pretty crowded.
FONTES: 7 of us, maybe 8.
Well we'll handle it.
-BUCHANAN: Perfect.
Cozy, cozy.
The seamount where the rays gather is 50 miles from shore, a full night's sail away.
♪ And, at first light we arrive at our destination.
♪ Oh, my word.
There is not much to see.
Apart from the... apart from the sea.
I always think there's something quite disconcerting about being out of sight of -- of land, even if I strain my eyes in every direction there's nothing.
Just below us is a huge mountain.
The Princess Alice seamount.
It rises over 1,000 meters up from the seabed.
Every summer the devil rays gather here in huge numbers and hopefully our on-board cameras will help us to discover why.
♪ Our new camera is designed to be towed behind the rays as they swim.
This is one of our incredible camera systems ready for deployment and it's just attached to the harness.
This is the bit that goes over the ray, kind of like a lasso and you think, well, how do you get it off.
Well, within 8 hours in salt water this little magnesium bolt will erode and then that will snap and the whole system will float back up to the surface and we get it back and we all rejoice.
Now all we need is a ray.
♪ BUCHANAN: It's a race against time to get cameras on... before the rays return to the depths.
It's my first glimpse of these awesome creatures.
There must be 40 devil rays in front of me.
♪ The rays can swim at 13 miles per hour.
We couldn't get close enough carrying cumbersome scuba gear so we're freediving.
Attaching the camera will have to be done on just one breath of air.
Jorge swims down with the camera.
♪ He makes it looks so easy.
♪ He was straight down there, and got it -- got it first time.
Woo-hoo!
The rest of the team soon get more cameras on-board.
♪ ♪ After a few hours, the cameras are back.
♪ Oh, wow.
FONTES: They're just, they're swimming into the -- to the barracuda.
That's fantastic.
♪ BUCHANAN: It is a real devil ray point of view, it looks as if you're just another ray going with the group.
♪ FONTES: I think they are probably speeding very fast at this point.
BUCHANAN: Yeah, and the great thing is that the camera's not having any impact, this animal's keeping up with all the others who don't have the camera so it's, it's really unobtrusive.
FONTES: They've been just hovering and flying around the summit of the seamount, it really attracts them.
BUCHANAN: But suddenly the ray starts to head down.
These rays can dive to 2 thousand meters, one of the deepest diving of all animals.
The descent is so fast it puts the camera in a spin.
BOTH: Whoa.
FONTES: This is, it's flipping... BUCHANAN: Yeah, yeah.
FONTES: it must be at huge speed.
Oh, there's the ocean floor there.
♪ BUCHANAN: Jorge knew that the rays dive deep.
Now for the first time he can see why.
Amazing.
FONTES: That is, that's, this is amazing, this is... BUCHANAN: What I wanted to see.
FONTES: ...very different from what we've seen so far.
By the amount of light here it looks like it's quite deep.
It's very close to the sea floor.
BUCHANAN: These are unbelievably privileged views.
FONTES: Do you see how close that was?
BUCHANAN: Yeah.
FONTES: That was like inches from the top of that rock.
I never expected, just going through this canyon why would they do this?
-BUCHANAN: Yeah.
FONTES: We think of devil rays as oceanic animals that just bask the surface, and here we see that that is not always the case.
Apparently they like to explore very close to the bottom of the deep sea.
That's very, very interesting and it's a very new look into their lives.
BUCHANAN: Yeah.
♪ And soon we see one reason why the rays are gathering here.
The camera shows hundreds of tiny floating animals, plankton, clouding the water.
♪ ♪ As the ray hits a patch of plankton, the long fins on its head unfurl and funnel food into its huge mouth.
♪ When it's finished feeding the fins roll back up.
Seamounts are rich in food because deep ocean currents full of nutrients swirl upwards when they hit the sides of the mountain, driving huge blooms of plankton.
Rays are one of the few animals able to take advantage of deep water prey.
They'll even eat fish up to a few inches long.
♪ But it's cold in the depths.
At 1,000 meters it's just 43 degrees so the rays can't stay down for long.
After a deep dive they head quickly back up.
FONTES: You can see the surface.
That's amazing, they're really shallow right now BUCHANAN: Jorge thinks they're sunbathing.
♪ And here we spot something new to science.
The rays seem to shiver, to help them warm up.
♪ ♪ The abundance of food draws in these rays but there are seamounts all over the Azores, why do they all gather at just two of them?
We need more footage to find the answer.
But the conditions have deteriorated and below the surface our luck deploying the cameras seems to have run out.
It's a bit of a waiting game at the moment.
We're waiting for the rays to come along and there's absolutely nothing around at the moment.
There is nothing easy about this whatsoever.
Aye.
We're going to have to wait to reveal the rays' secrets.
Meanwhile, on the mainland of Europe, another "Animals With Cameras" team are taking on a very different mission.
In France we've come to a remote location to join a team of scientists working to protect one of Europe's most controversial carnivores.
The wolf.
Wolves were hunted to extinction in France less than a century ago, but in the '90s they started to cross over the border from Italy.
Their numbers have been slowly growing ever since, and there are now thought to be over 400 wolves living in the French countryside.
This good news for wolf conservation is bad news for some farmers.
Thousands of sheep roam these hills and every night an age-old conflict plays out.
♪ In the dark, wolves venture out to hunt... And sheep are often in their sights.
This flock can't sense the danger they're in until it's too late.
♪ A sheep stands no chance against a hungry adult wolf.
♪ [ Collar bells ringing ] Farmers blame wolves for the deaths of thousands of sheep every year.
Some shoot wolves, even though they're legally protected.
Wolf biologist Jean-Marc Landry wants to find a solution to this problem.
LANDRY: The presence of the wolf in France brings a lot of conflicts, you have extremes, some people are pro and some are against you know and what we try is to be is in the middle, to show a new way of coexistence.
BUCHANAN: Jean-Marc thinks one answer is to give the flocks their very own security guards, a team of dogs.
[ Barking ] These guardian dogs live with the sheep all their lives and have a strong bond with them.
Using dogs in this way is an old idea, but not everyone thinks it's effective.
Jean-Marc wants to convince people that it is, and reveal how the dogs operate.
But most wolf attacks are after dark.
Can our night vision collar cams take us to the heart of the conflict?
♪ LANDRY: For us, for my team it's very, very exciting.
Our goal now is to observe the interaction from the dogs, to be able to observe how the dog will chase off the wolf.
BUCHANAN: Jean-Marc also hopes that the cameras could reveal if some dogs make better guardians than others.
LANDRY: It is very important with these dogs is they are able to fight wolves but they are very nice with people and we need such a dog.
This is stealing my sausages!
Y-allez.
C'est fini.
BUCHANAN: The cameras give an immediate insight into life amongst the flock.
The dogs are a mixture of traditional mountain dog breeds.
♪ They don't herd the sheep, they just travel as part of the flock.
♪ They're not trained to protect the sheep, they should do it instinctively.
But if a wolf attacks, are the dogs really attached enough to the sheep to put their lives on the line?
♪ ♪ The collar cams have switched into night vision mode, we can see exactly what each dog is doing... And our human camera team are in night vision mode too.
They're looking out for any wolves approaching over the hillsides.
♪ ♪ It's midsummer and the sheep are more active at night, when it's cooler.
The flock is moving in search of fresh grazing and the dogs go with them.
♪ The on board cameras reveal something unexpected.
[ Dog growls ] It looks like there's trouble brewing in the pack.
A dog is being singled out by the others in the pack.
Her tail is tucked under her body to show she's no threat but the other dogs are still surrounding her.
We switch cameras to see from her point of view.
She heads off into the bushes trying to make her escape.
[ Barking, yelping ] It might look vicious to us but this is the way dogs sort out the natural pecking order in the pack.
Eventually she gets away.
Retreating to the edge of the pack, where she can avoid the others.
The footage reveals two important discoveries for the team.
Firstly, some of the dogs are more timid than the others.
And secondly, the fights taking place amongst the dogs are causing them to spread out across the hillside.
Some stay amongst the sheep.
While others keep to the edges.
But what impact might these group dynamics have on the pack's ability to protect the flock?
♪ ♪ There's plenty of other prey out here for wolves -- rabbits and deer -- but these vast flocks of sheep are a tempting target.
♪ ♪ A wolf begins to creep close... And it's one of the dogs out on the edge that's the first to sense danger.
[ Barking ] This wolf thinks better of attacking.
Jean-Marc thinks that these nervous dogs are useful in protecting the sheep as they will quickly raise the alarm.
[ Barking ] Barking alone can be enough to see off a single wolf attempting a sneaky attack.
[ Barking ] But what will happen if a whole pack of wolves attacks?
♪ It's 3 o'clock in the morning.
On the hillside once again the dogs are spread out.
Some dogs are in the middle of the flock.
♪ While others are pacing around the edge.
♪ ♪ They seem nervous -- there's something out there.
LANDRY: La, la la, the wolf is there.
BUCHANAN: A group of wolves is heading straight for the flock.
But as the pack is spread out around the flock the wolves cannot creep close without being detected.
The alarm goes off... [ Barking ] And the other dogs rise to the challenge.
One from the middle charges out to help see off the attack.
The leading wolf flees.
♪ ♪ [ Barking ] Now all 4 wolves are in retreat.
It's a great result for Jean-Marc.
LANDRY: We have seen the dogs chasing the wolf off, so it's, it's very successful and no sheep were killed so I'm very happy again.
♪ BUCHANAN: Our collar cams have shown Jean-Marc the importance of selecting a good mix of dogs.
LANDRY: We have different personalities in dogs, and this is just amazing, yeah.
We have some dogs who are, you know, they're very strong, they are bold, and they will go and they will run after the wolf, and you have other dogs who are very shy and they are afraid by everything you know.
So we are observing now a team of dogs, how they are working and of course if a dog is a little afraid he will bark and maybe give the alarm So, in a pack of dogs now, you need different personalities, not only one.
BUCHANAN: Jean-Marc shows the shepherds his evidence of what a good job the guardian dogs can do.
BUCHANAN: These shepherds seem to be on board.
BUCHANAN: The knowledge Jean Marc has gained can help him create the most effective guardian dog pack.
If shepherds across France all used guardian dogs then perhaps wolves and sheep might be able to co-exist in the future in the French hills.
♪ ♪ Back in the Azores, the sea has finally calmed.
♪ Our cameras have already revealed the amount of food here for the devil rays, but Jorge is still hoping to discover why they gather at just two seamounts rather than any of the others in the Azores.
I think I am ready to try and deploy one of the cameras myself.
I feel as able as I'm gonna be, so I'll give it a go.
A group of rays is passing right under the boat.
It's the best chance I'm going to get.
♪ ♪ I did it, eventually.
Quite tricky.
I managed to get the loop over one side and then the other then back to the surface and breathe.
That was great.
FONTES: Well done!
Whoop whoop!
BUCHANAN: As my camera ray swims off, Jorge and the team are successful too.
♪ ♪ Will we finally get a clue as to why the rays are here in such numbers?
Whoa, look at this lot coming in.
FONTES: That's fantastic.
BUCHANAN: Soon we notice the gathering might not be as random as it first looked.
♪ FONTES: The formation can be really close, almost like a jet fighter kind of formation.
BUCHANAN: The rays appear to be taking advantage of each other's slipstream to make swimming easier.
♪ But each ray also seems to have its own place in the group.
♪ FONTES: So this one has been lagging behind the first three and it still is.
I wonder if there is some kind of hierarchy within these groups.
♪ BUCHANAN: Jorge is wondering if the males might be competing over the females.
We soon get a clue as to why.
FONTES: Oh, a very pregnant female here.
BUCHANAN: This thing is huge.
-FONTES: This looks like... -BUCHANAN: A jumbo jet.
FONTES: A jumbo jet.
BUCHANAN: We then realize that lots of the rays are pregnant.
♪ They each carry just one baby, known as a pup.
Pregnancy lasts for around a year, with the pup nourished inside the mother with a form of milk.
What we see next has never been filmed before.
This unborn baby ray is doing its version of kicking.
Oh, wow!
FONTES: Oh, that's so cool.
BUCHANAN: Wow.
This suggests that the pups will soon be born.
In most ray species mating happens soon after birth, so could this seamount be where these rays gather to give birth and mate?
♪ ♪ They spend most of their lives spread out in the open ocean, so gathering to mate makes sense, and the food rich seamount is ideal for heavily pregnant mothers and newborns.
♪ ♪ More evidence is needed to confirm whether this is the reason for the gathering... ♪ But our cameras have given Jorge a remarkable new insight into these animals lives.
♪ ♪ FONTES: It's really a privilege to be able to have the perspective of what the devil ray sees, this is something that I would think impossible just a few years ago and so I'm really happy and really excited to be able to have this perspective and be able to use this tool to learn more about this mysterious species.
BUCHANAN: Using new technology, we have been able to shed light on one of the greatest mysteries of the natural world.
BUCHANAN: In this series we travelled the world, from deserts to jungles to oceans... helping scientists make ground breaking discoveries.
With the use of new camera technologies we have been able to increase our understanding and knowledge of the most fantastic, most amazing wild animals and we've revealed a side of their lives that has previously been a complete mystery.
We captured the very first images of day old meerkats deep underground.
Wow.
MELDRUM: Barging past some pups.
BUCHANAN: We discovered how seals track down their prey far out at sea... Whoa, wow!
Oh, wow, wow.
ARNOLD: That bait ball.
BUCHANAN: And revealed how young cheetahs develop their hunting skills.
Oh, so close.
Oh, my goodness, me.
It's been the animals that have taken us into their world and hopefully what they've shown us will help to better protect them in the future.
♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ To learn more about what you've seen on this "Nature" program, visit pbs.org.
♪ ♪