"One hundred and fifty years ago the King of France had this obelisk brought from Egypt to grace the heart of Paris" "Three thousand years earlier it had been dedicated to the great pharaoh Ramses II with these words" ""So long as heaven exists your monuments shall exist and your name shall endure like the heaven."" "Through the 30 centuries that the pharaohs ruled Egypt the people of the Nile created the most glorious monuments the world has even seen among them the largest place of worship in the ancient world" "These miracles in stone were tributes to their gods and kings" "They believed that man, like the sun could die and be reborn" "They constructed elaborate tombs to protect the body and house the soul throughout eternity" "They created guides to the underworld" "Books of the Dead to insure immortality" "And on their monuments they left the testimony of their faith" "These inscriptions are keys with which we unlock the secrets of ancient Egypt" "Ladies and gentlemen now we are at the temple of the queen Hatshepsut..." "And, as they have since the days of Herodotus" "Antony and Cleopatra thousands journey here to see these wonders going down to the Green Valley for the holy visit of Amun-Re to the goddess Hathor once a year for 15 days..." "But today, having endured for 50 centuries these seemingly imperishable structures are threatened" "Their fate may be determined in our lifetime" "So, people of science, soul and conscience travel here from all over the globe to save the priceless monuments to decipher the meaning of the messages before they disappear forever" "This is the story of the land of Egypt and the quest for eternity" "The Nile" "Flowing through the endless miles of Egypt's desert sands its precious waters gave birth and breath to one of the greatest civilizations that has ever taken hold on our planet" ""Hail to you, Oh Nile!" went an ancient hymn" ""sprung from earth come to nourish Egypt" "Food provider, bounty maker who creates all that is good."" "The river's annual flooding left rich deposits of silt utilizing it, farmers developed a settled life" "Sustained by its abundant waters the land and crops prospered" "Even mud from the Nile's banks provided the people with material for everything from clay pots to the bricks with which they built their homes" "The Nile itself was Egypt's highway... boats sailed northward with the currents and south with the prevailing winds" "To predict the time when the river would overflow the ancients developed a calendar our own evolved from it" "Along the extended oasis of the Nile Valley a way of life emerged that still endures today virtually unchanged from the furthest reaches of recorded time" "And in the time of the Nile's annual flooding when the farmers could not till their fields they built the pyramids-tombs for their pharaohs" "All that remains of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World they were stairways to heaven" "For to all Egyptians their religion promised an afterlife" "The largest monument ever constructed the Great Pyramid contains more than two million immense limestone blocks each weighing over two tons" "One hundred thousand men toiled for 20 years without wheel, horse or iron tools to create it that their pharaoh might join the sun god and live in eternity" "This dedication to gods and kings was to sustain the Egypt of the pharaohs for 3,000 years" "From the beginning, the Nile was the soul of the land" "The lotus growing on the river banks symbolized the people of Upper Egypt the papyrus, shimmering in the marshes of the Delta was the symbol of Lower Egypt" "Immortalized on this table of slate a king known as Narmer wears the high-domed crown of Upper Egypt on one side the low-curled crown of Lower Egypt on the other" "It commemorates his unification of the two lands to create the nation of Egypt in 3100 B.C." "From that time, Egyptian kings would wear both crowns as rulers of the two kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt" "The two lands have remained linked from Narmer's time to the present" "Isolated from its neighbors protected by mountains, desert, and sea the Nile Valley was an ideal crucible in which a civilization could begin" "Traces of those beginnings can be found in the city of Nekhen" "The site, still populated today holds evidence of habitation stretching back 6,000 years" "Since 1967" "Dr. Walter Fairservis of Vassar College and the American Museum of Natural History has been excavating here in his continuing search for the roots of civilization" "It was here, just 90 years ago that the Narmer tablet was discovered" "It was here, 50 centuries before that King Narmer established the capital of the newly unified nation" "Here we have the walls of a princely complex that belonged to a king who lived here 5,000 years ago the very beginning of Egypt's unification" "He was a great king, a powerful monarch" "And we know from the size of the rooms and the way things are located that he was a very rich man a very wealthy person" "We know he had storerooms full of grain" "We know that he had perhaps a great hoard of copper and many other things of that order" "And yet, oddly enough, this powerful monarch he left the place" "He abandoned it" "And that's part of the reason we're exploring this area to find out why" "Why, at the very beginnings of Egypt's history do we have a place as important as this abandoned?" "Perhaps the secret still lies buried in these mud-brick walls" "Sifting through the debris of the centuries the Fairservis team continues to piece together the history of the site" "Many threads bind Egyptian prehistory and history" "But none is stronger than the belief in immortality" "But this one is interesting because..." "Equipped with objects necessary for the afterlife these bodies were buried before the first pharaoh built his palace here" "Right here, if I can just pull this up a little bit hair pins found at the roof of the skull" "Made of some quill-like or ivory, I guess" "Perhaps ivory" "Perhaps ivory, yes." "Put that back there" "In this capital, religion, tradition and political power fused foundations were laid on which the longest lasting of all ancient civilizations would rise" "Two thousand years later" "Egypt's religious capital was Thebes one of the richest most powerful cities on earth" "At its heart was the temple of Amun at Karnak the largest place of worship in the ancient world" "As dynasty followed dynasty the great complex was enlarged and embellished by a succession of pharaohs" "Tutankhamun whose fabulous tomb treasures dazzled the world a female pharaoh, Hatshepsut called "the first great woman in history"" "the heretic Akhenaten, first believer in one god." "and Ramses II, the greatest builder of all time" "Called Ramses the Great pharaoh while Egypt's power and prosperity flourished this warrior-king was to rule for 67 years bring peace to the empire, father nearly 200 children and leave his mark on fully half the monuments in Egypt" "Ramses was only about 20 when his father Seti I died in 1290 B.C." "Seti had ordered his funerary temple built at Abydos" "One of Ramses' first acts as pharaoh was to travel there to complete it" "To all Egyptians, this was the most sacred city on earth" "Here, drawn by some mystical identification with Abydos and the long-dead pharaoh an extraordinary woman known as Omm Seti was to come 3,000 years later" "With a group of fellow Egyptologists she celebrates her 77th birthday" "Well, thank you very much" "You certainly made it a happy birthday" "Make a speech" "Make a speech?" "Oh, how lovely, I am touched" "I'm afraid its a mass-produced one, but..." "Never mind, no matter" "My heart, my mother" "My heart, my mother" "My heart whereby I came into being" "Do not stand up and witness against me at the judgment" "I think that is the text." "It should be" "Yes, you've got it" "Oh, thank you very much" "To Omm Seti at her 77th, on her way to 110" "Thank you." "Let us drink to our dear old friend Ramses II" "Born Dorothy Eady in England she says something called her here from the time she was a child" "She came here 50 years ago, married an Egyptian and had a son whom she named Seti" "From then on, she was known as "Omm Seti,"" "which means "mother of Seti."" "She has devoted the last 30 years of her life to the study of Seti I's temple and become an expert on him and Ramses II" "Ramses tells that he came to Abydos alone, you see in the first year of his reign after his father was dead and he found that the decoration of this temple was incomplete" "In the inscription he says that" ""I ordered the work of my father to be completed and all the works which my father had started and were still incomplete" "I had them finished."" "And then he goes on as if he's speaking to the soul of his father you see, and telling him that all that Seti had wanted to do and died before completing and all his plans and ambitions" "Ramses would complete it" "And he said, "So long as I am ruling it will be as though you are still on the throne."" "He was a nice fellow, and he was a very good son" "When Omm Seti came here for the Egyptian Department of Antiquities the temple was in ruins." "Its reconstruction became her passion." "They confronted me with a pile of fragments of inscribed stone" "There were over 2,000" "Some were very small, some were very big" "My job was to copy the inscriptions on them catalog them, and, where possible, fit them together" "The temple is vibrant with carvings that look as fresh today as when they were painted 3,000 years ago" "Its walls tell the first known story of resurrection" "Osiris, a mythical ruler was killed and dismembered by his brother" "His wife, the goddess Isis, found the scattered pieces of his body bound them together, and Osiris arose from the dead" "Their son, the falcon-headed god Horus was to grow to manhood and avenge his father" "Anubis, jackal-headed god of embalming was sent by the sun god to help Osiris live eternally" "The Egyptians believed that because Osiris died and rose again they too could achieve immortality" "Worshipping Osiris, Seti assures his place in the afterlife" "Offering incense the pharaoh worships before the bark of the sun god, Amun-Re" "Just as Seti offers bread, ducks, figs and a pomegranate to Isis" "Omm Seti follows the ancient belief" "Oh yes, every year at the Great Feast and again on the birthday of the gods Osiris and Isis" "I come here with offerings of wine bread, and incense" "Oh, I love coming here" "It's the place I really do feel at home" "Three days after this filming was completed" "Omm Seti died" "She was buried in Abydos" "Egyptian city of resurrection" "In the time of Ramses the most powerful deity of the living was the sun god Amun-Re" "He was patron of the city of Thebes located on the Nile between the first capital Nekhen, and Abydos" "On the east bank, where the sun rises were temples dedicated to the sun god" "Karnak... and Luxor" "On the west bank, where the sun buries itself each day was a complex of tombs where royalty was buried the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens" "The Greek poet Homer was to immortalize Thebes as" ""the city of a hundred gates where 400 heroes with their horse and chariots pass through each of these great gates."" "While Ramses reigned" "Thebes was splendid" "He ordered beautiful additions made to Luxor temple gigantic statues, obelisks and courts dedicated to the glory of Amun-Re" "But having endured 3,000 years these monuments face destruction in our time from the effects of increased agriculture industrialization, changing weather conditions due in part to the Aswan High Dam and even the tourists themselves" "In 1924, in response to the impending crisis the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago established a permanent headquarters in Egypt" "Called Chicago House it was founded by Dr. James Henry Breasted father of American Egyptology who envisioned making a record of all the endangered monuments of ancient Egypt" "Today Chicago House is under the direction of Dr. Lanny Bell" "The scholars of Chicago House have undertaken a monumental labor called the Epigraphic Survey" "Over the past 50 years the Oriental Institute has published an epic series of volumes containing the results of the Survey" "Utilizing an ingenious combination of photography and draftsmanship the Chicago House Egyptologists create facsimile drawings of the monuments' carved and painted surfaces the only record that will remain when the hieroglyphs and decorations have disappeared forever from the temples" "As pharaoh succeeded pharaoh it was common for them to alter temples taking credit for the work of their predecessors" "By interpreting successive decorations the Chicago House team is decoding the history of Luxor temple" "As the glory of pharaonic Egypt faded people built houses inside the temple" "Their debris buried much of it for 2,000 years" "When excavation started a hundred years ago the stone walls were suddenly exposed to the air" "Since then, salts, leaching out of the stone combine with moisture in the air creating crystals that slough off taking the images with them." "The salt on the walls makes our work urgent" "The reliefs are being dissolved so that within a period of 200 years the temple will still stand but all of the decorated surface will have flaked off" "When they are gone we want there to be a record as accurate as humanly possible of the decoration so that scholars will be able to consult our drawings and be sure that the reliability is such that any questions they have about the decoration" "will be answered in our volumes" "When the gods were worshipped here no more great portions of the temples were dismantled" "Large blocks were broken into smaller pieces for reuse as building material" "Thousands of them have been collected over a 30-year period" "Chicago House is conducting a systematic search of the fragments to reconstruct a section called the "Lost Colonnade."" "Finding a fragment that may fit artist Ray Johnson makes notations and the block is carefully photographed" "An artist pencils, then inks in the lines of the photograph making corrections and replacing what time may have removed" "Then the artist fits the photograph into his rendering of the wall" "Only the areas within the inked lines have actually been found" "But from the salvaged fragments it is sometimes possible to reconstruct the entire design created by the original artists 3,000 years ago" "You support me going up" "On those exciting and rare occasions when a fragment that fits onto a standing wall is found it is replaced" "Toward me?" "So, piece by piece, the ancient temple of Amun-Re rises again" "The investigations of Chicago House have revealed that the colonnade of Luxor temple is the major standing monument of Tutankhamun" "To completely evaluate its architectural history the inscriptions at the top of the structure must be photographed" "Ladders reaching five stories high have been assembled" "This is the first time in 50 years that anyone has attempted the ascent" "On the 70-foot-high columns" "Dr. Bell studies the techniques used by the artisans of antiquity" "Here they inserted wooden blocks to stabilize the structure as they fitted it together" "A roof once covered the colonnade but it fell or was removed sometime before 1600 A.D." "Fragments of it found on the temple floor have been identified" "In assessing the temple's past" "Dr. Bell's thought inevitably turn to its future" "Paradoxically, the vibrations caused by the endless footsteps of the tourists who visit each year even the carbon dioxide they exhale are eroding the irreplaceable treasures they come to enjoy" "Chicago House studies have revealed that a hundred years after Tutankhamun built this structure" "Ramses II systematically erased his predecessor's and replace it with his own naively assuming he could deceive the gods and take credit for the colonnade's construction" "But Ramses also added to the majesty of Luxor temple" "He built a massive entrance- "The horizon from which the sun god goes forth."" "From reliefs we can reconstruct a dazzling annual festival" "The Feast of Opet" "With the Nile in full flood the golden statue of the god Amun Re has been brought to Luxor from Karnak in its boat-shrine" "Within the temple's innermost sanctuary" "Ramses offers incense, flowers and food to the linen-shrouded god" "The sacrifices and ceremonies concluded priests lead the procession out of the temple purifying the way before them" "Thousands of citizens crowd the waterfront to see musicians" "Nubian dancers, soldiers and priestesses accompany the procession along the Nile" "The shrine of the god is placed on its sacred and in great ceremony priests, god and pharaoh are towed back to Karnak temple" "Ramses' favorite queen, Nefertari and the royal princesses greet the procession as it arrives" "Concluding nearly a month of worship and revelry, the royal couple enters the great temple of Amun at Karnak" "Within the sacred precincts of the temple the shrine carrying the golden statue of the god is hidden from public view until the next year" "Symbolically renewed and reborn the divine king Ramses advances toward the innermost reaches of the temple where no common mortals are allowed to venture" "Begun by his father, Seti I this awesome hall was completed by Ramses" "A soaring forest of stone, it is created of 134 pillars some of them 80 feet high" "Ceilings and columns are ornamented with Ramses' cartouches-magical ropes that surround the king's name to protect him from evil" "In the hieroglyphs of his name is the message" ""it is Re, the sun god, who bore him."" "From the sun god the pharaohs drew their right to rule-their divinity their legitimacy, and crowns" "So they constructed this mighty City of God" "A hundred pharaohs enlarged and embellished it over a period of 2,000 years a creation that did not cease until the Christian era... that has resumed as modern archeologists restore this timeless testimony of faith" "Across the Nile stretches the Land of the Dead" "Here, in mystical imitation of the setting sun the bodies of the deceased were laid to rest that they might rise again as the sun did each day" "Cut into the heart of the mountain, the Theban necropolis is a vast labyrinth of tombs" "Here, Ramses' architects built his splendid mortuary temple, the Ramesseum" "In its forecourt lie huge fragments of his colossal statue 1,000 tons of granite that once rose 57 feet in height... that inspired Shelley's sonnet "Ozymandias" ""in which he called the pharaoh "king of kings."" "When Ramses died in 1224 B.C., the Ramesseum was magnificent" "Here, the magic of his name and images would keep him alive forever" "This was but a stopping point for the dead king and his funeral procession the sacred place where offerings would be made to him from this day throughout all time" "Though mourners wept, they knew that if properly provided for, one could live forever" "So they carried with them everything the dead might need for the voyage through eternity" "For a king there would be boats in which he could sail endlessly on the Nile..." "And a throne from which he could continue to reign" "Even magical figures would be provided to do his bidding in the afterlife" "In their tomb paintings the people of the Nile depicted the hereafter as a pleasant extension of their earthly lives... a place where they could amuse themselves hunting ducks... where rich crops would sustain them" "The deceased carried with them "Books of the Dead."" "They instructed the departed on how to avoid the gods and demons that would attempt to bar their way" "Her body painted with stars a goddess of the sky stretches over a reclining god who represents the earth" "Between them, a winged form of the sun god sails through the netherworld" "The divine, ibis-headed scribe, Thoth makes notes as the deeds of the deceased are weighed on the scale of justice" "In an address to the gods the departed will assert his innocence" ""I am pure of mouth and hands without sin, without guilt, without evil."" "Those who were judged to be without sin could join Osiris to dwell in the "happy land of the setting sun."" "But most important there must be a body to which the soul could return" "Anubis, god of embalming prepares the body for the life to come" "So Ramses' mummy would have gone to his tomb after a priest pronounced over it:" ""You will live again forever."" "The tomb of Ramses II" "In a state of dangerous disrepair its access is forbidden to almost everyone" "But a team headed by Dr. Kent Weeks of the University of California at Berkeley has recently mapped it" "In the dynasty following Ramses' the royal tombs were systematically plundered" "As a last resort, priests collected the surviving royal mummies and hid them" "In 1871, a grave robber found Ramses II where he had lain undisturbed for 3,000 years" "Reclaimed by the Egyptian Government the mummy of Ramses now reposes in the Cairo Museum far from the Valley of the Kings" "This is the West Valley" "It's part of the ancient necropolis of Thebes about nine square miles of some of the most important archeological monuments anywhere in the world" "The Valley of the Queens, Valley of the Kings" "Tutankhamun's tomb, they're all here" "But in spite of several centuries of interest in this area there still does not exist a detailed archeological map of what it contains" "That's the purpose of the Berkeley Theban Mapping Project to make as detailed an archeological map as modern technology will permit" "It's an important project" "It's going to make it possible for us to study the history of the necropolis" "But even more important it's going to help us to preserve it and protect it" "Surveying techniques are used to measure topographical features ...1.303" "Thank you." "At headquarters in a village below the necropolis the team reviews its findings" "It's okay" "Can you see "Q2" there above the temple at Deir el Medina?" "Aerial photographs are utilized to plan tomb mapping for the next day in the Valley of the Queens" "Right above the temple..." "Yeah, right there..." "Okay, that's the point we'll occupy tomorrow morning" "When surface measurements are combined with plans of the tombs they will create new and revolutionary three-dimensional maps" "These will make it easier to find correlations between the geography and the location of the known tombs and perhaps enable scientists to find tombs still undiscovered" "Let's drop everything here, Dave and then we can send it on down" "Why don't you and Jenny go on down" "We'll start passing stuff to you" "Dave, why don't you choose what we have to take down and we'll leave the rest up here" "I get the lantern, not you" "Let's finish that rear chamber today if we can, Dave" "I think we can." "It looks like a steep set of stairs" "Yeah." "Watch your step It isn't really." "I got it Okay." "Standard surveying techniques are used to obtain the dimensions of each chamber" "Every archeological detail will be drawn and recorded" "I think that's about it, Cathy" "Did you get those problems in the back chamber?" "It was customary to place the tombs of royal children in the Valley of the Queens" "This is the tomb of a young prince son of Ramses III." "Here, the pharaoh himself offers incense to the gods on the boy's behalf" "In these touching scenes the pharaoh leads his nine-year-old son into the presence of the divinities of the underworld" "Carrying the feather of truth, the boy obediently follows his father." "It is believed the ancient sculptors and painters lit the interiors of tombs and temples with polished metal reflectors used as mirrors." "And these scenes were filmed under the same conditions." "This is the tomb of Nefertari" "Though Ramses had at least four royal wives she remained his favorite" "Due to humidity caused by increased irrigation in nearby farmland the exquisite murals of her tomb are flaking off" "Unless scientists can halt the deterioration these may be the last moments of what was imagined as the endless ages in which Nefertari would live on these walls" "This was the woman with who Ramses believed he would go through eternity... to whom these words were written" ""The princess, rich in grace" "Lady of affection, Sweet with love" "Mistress of the Two Lands" "Songstress of the beautiful countenance" "Greatest in the harem of the lord of the palace" "All that you say, will be done for you" "Everything beautiful according to your wish" "All your words bring contentment to the face" "Wherefore men love to hear your voice."" "These tributes speak to us of love and hope a people and a civilization that soared brilliantly and then was eclipsed" "Here at the temple of Isis, built on an island in the Nile the religion of ancient Egypt had its last stronghold" "After 332 B.C., the Greek Ptolemies would reign as the last dynasty of pharaohs" "Embracing the Egyptian religion they built this temple dedicated to the worship of Isis divine symbol of motherhood her husband Osiris, and their son Horus" "There stories are told and retold on the temple walls" "But the story of another holy family was to sweep over Egypt" "The carvings, now considered pagan were chiseled away" "Christianity became the state religion and in the sixth century this temple became a Christian church" "The meaning of the hieroglyphs would be forgotten the ancient rites forbidden" "For 12 centuries the story of Egypt's ancient civilization would be lost" "In 640, Islam and the teachings of Mohammed swept over the country" "A succession of foreigners was to rule until 1952 when revolution restored full independence to Egypt after 2,000 years" "Cairo is the African Continent's largest city" "Vexed by 20th-century problems of explosive growth pollution, economic and political difficulties" "Cairo, like Egypt itself survives through the resilience humor and vigor of its people" "Facing an expanding population and an emerging nation's need for energy the Aswan High Dam was built in the 1960s" "With 17 times the material contained in the Great Pyramid the dam is a monument to the new nationalism and what some would call the 20th-century religion-technology" "Behind the dam, Nubia was flooded" "Much of this ancient land disappeared beneath the rising waters of the Nile" "And at Abu Simbel a magnificent temple hewn from a sandstone monolith the newly-forming lake licked at the feet of these colossal images of Ramses II" "A concerned world realized that the temple would soon be engulfed" "How could it and the temple of Nefertari which flanked it, be saved?" "At the 11th hour with funding from Egypt the United States, and UNESCO an international team swung into action racing the rising Nile" "Slab by slab in cuts no more than a quarter of an inch thick the temple was dismantled" "The work continued night and day as workmen cut 190 feet down through the cliffs" "Coded for storage the sections made a giant jigsaw puzzle" "Moved up 200 feet beyond the reach of the Nile the temple was reassembled" "The precision of watchmakers was applied to the colossi reconstructed to an accuracy of a tenth of an inch" "Ramses' temple was designed by ancient priest-astronomers so that the sun would penetrate deep within to bless a figure of the pharaoh on the jubilee that celebrated 30 years of his reign" "In our time, engineers have resituated the temple so that the sun still streams in on the pharaoh on each anniversary of that day 3,200 years ago" "Gilding the statue of the king seated among the gods the sun god Re bathes the figures in sacred light" "Why have people come here since the days of ancient Greece and Rome" "These works are expressions of the quest for the meaning of life itself a longing for connection with the gods a need for beauty, a hope for immortality" "They are worth knowing and worth saving because the record of the past tells up something of ourselves and hints of our future" "Here, Egyptians and travelers alike raise their eyes to Ramses speak of him, remember him as a leader who signed the world's first major peace treaty" "It reads" ""Beginning with this day in order to bring about good peace and good brotherhood between us forever... he is in peace with me and I am in brotherhood with him and I am in peace with him, forever."" "In the religion of the ancient Egyptians to speak of the dead is to make them live again" "For Ramses, the quest for eternity has been fulfilled" "Out of need or curiosity man has learned much about the Earth on which he is both guest and prisoner" "Often baffled in his brief journey through time he has found reassurance in the order revealed in nature the recurring sequence of the seasons the symmetry in storm" "Yet nothing has lessened his terror when nature seems to turn against him when the Earth shudders and explodes in fire making rubble of all he has built" ""Twenty thousand people dead;" "anywhere from fifty thousand to one hundred and fifty thousand injured..."" ""If that's it, there's a CCP there" "The communication may go bad but that's the angle they ought to go."" ""There's two more in there."" "Against the sudden blows of an adversary that often strikes without warning some have tried to create defenses" "Powerless to prevent eruption or earthquake they seek to diminish its toll" "Others light candles of faith seek safety in prayer" "Today new candles light the dark instruments whose beams are reflected from distant objects or catch signals from outer space to measure the smallest movements of the Earth's surface" "Now man has devised new concepts of the forces altering our planet" "forces that move the continents twist the globe's thin crust build vast mountain ranges even beneath the sea" "Like all living things Earth is in ceaseless change" "Born of fire, it too is being transformed day by day" "Once this was blank ocean the cold storm-swept Atlantic off the southern coast of Iceland" "Then, in fiery eruption during the winter of 1963 the island of Surtsey began to emerge from the sea" "Today its single square mile of ash and lava forms one of the newer additions to the land surface of the globe" "Yet this virgin terrain is no longer wasteland" "Already life has found it" "Already seeds borne by wind and wave have taken root in the ash and birds have begun to nest along the cliffs" "A closed preserve to casual visitors the island has become a living laboratory" "Here scientists from distant countries can study the ways by which life tests and gradually seizes a new domain" "Among them is Dr. Robert Ballard, geologist from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod" ""The story I often tell to try to get across the point that the Earth really is alive" "if you were to interview a butterfly standing on a branch of a sequoia tree" "Now, a butterfly lives for only a few days and a sequoia tree can live for over a thousand years" "And if you were to ask that butterfly" "Do you perceive the object on which you are standing as being alive?" "And the butterfly would say, of course not" "I've been here all my life five days and the tree hasn't done a thing" "Same problem with the human being" "If you were to ask a human being perhaps one that's lived a hundred years if they perceive the Earth which is over four and a half billion years in age as being alive they'd probably say" "Of course not." "I've been here all my life and it hasn't done a thing.'" "But the Earth really is a very dynamic object" "In fact, I think of it as a living organism."" "Like Surtsey, Earth too is an island not in the North Atlantic but in the vaster sea of space" "In time beyond the measure of man's brief experience it too is in slow and ceaseless change" "Some two hundred million years ago its landmasses formed a single continent scientists call Pangea" "Then slowly, Pangea's fracturing plates began to move apart like pieces of a vast jigsaw puzzle gradually assuming the shapes and arrangement we recognize on maps today" "Riding upon a semiplastic layer of Earth's fiery interior the ocean floors and continents that form its crust or lithosphere are in continuing motion" "Through the continents seem stationary to living populations they move an inch or more each year" "The friction occurring along the plate margins is often marked by earthquakes and volcanic eruption" "Sometimes, as in California's San Andreas Fault the opposing plates grind against each other in a sideways or lateral motion called translation" "It is when a section of the fault locks, builds up tension then abruptly releases that major earthquakes occur" "In other areas such as Japan in a movement known as subduction the edge of one crustal plate slowly slides beneath another causing volcanic activity and tremors" "Along the 46,000 mile Mid Ocean Ridge in an action called spreading molten rock or magma, emerges through fissures in the ocean floor soon congealing in new submerged crust" "Sometimes, as in Iceland and its offshore islands of Surtsey and Heimaey the action has created new land above the sea" "Barely two hundred miles south of the Arctic Circle on the fiery seam still building Iceland itself" "Heimaey is accustomed to change" "Port or the fleet that fishes the abundant waters nearby its only town of Vestmannaeyjar has seen many a storm take its toll of men and ships" "Hardy descendants of the Vikings who colonized the island more than a thousand years ago its people long have learned to live with uncertainty to meet risk and hazard with a cheerful face" "Each summer by long-standing tradition the entire population moves out of town on a three-day community holiday" "It is a gathering that harks back to Viking times when villagers assembled to review the spoken laws by which they lived" "On the grassy floor of an ancient volcanic crater they build a tent city where the people of the town rediscover each other in a quite different setting" "Side by side, they celebrate many things home rule won from Denmark more than a century ago the inheritance of their Viking past their survival of dangers that sometimes rise from the Earth itself" "At midnight young men set fire to a great wooden structure built on the hillside" "As the flames flare against the dark they summon varied emotions among the watchers" "To their Nordic forefathers fire brought warmth in the numbing cold" "It was a symbol of life, of rebirth" "But the people of Heimaey have long known that it also can bring destruction and death" "In the winter darkness of January 1973 it brought disaster" "Just beyond the town's edge a fissure cracked the earth abruptly spewing molten lava and ash hundreds of feet into the air" "Roused from their beds by the sudden threat most of the population was evacuated to the nearby mainland but volunteers would fight a five-month battle with the new volcano now called Eldfell, "Fire Mountain."" "Within a week Eldfell had raised a black smoldering cone six hundred feet high and covered the town in ash" "More than a hundred buildings had been burned or crushed under the advancing wall of lava" "In early February the lava threatened to block the entrance to the harbor" "Desperately, emergency teams fought to dam the flow by hardening the lava with great streams of cold seawater" "At last, by heroic effort the harbor was saved" "But as the eruption continued through ensuing months the lava would add almost one square mile to the island while much of the town lay buried under cinders and ash" "It would take years to dig out" "But at last the precincts of the dead are tidy again" "Elsewhere in Iceland life goes on" "Under the shadows of the volcanoes that remain a perpetual enigma farmers gather crops, prepare for the winter to come" "They are doing more" "Boldly, Icelanders are making use of the very forces that threaten them" "In the north of the mainland near the Krafla volcano they are attempting to harness the heat of a great geothermal field to power homes and industrial installations" "Recent eruptions have reminded Icelanders of the unpredictability of the powers they are trying to employ" "With Dr. Haraldur Sigurdsson vulcanologist from the University of Rhode Island" "Dr. Ballard visits a site where recent lava flow has threatened a newly-built electric power plant" ""There's the power plant below us here and if you look over this way..."" ""Yeah." "You can see the recent flows."" ""The entire caldera, recent lavas..."" ""Now the flows that were what earlier this year, are down there?"" ""Yes." "And you can see the steam defining the fissure that's been erupting during the last five years and the black lava flows that have been coming out."" ""So if, let's say, there were another eruption right along the caldera where we see the fissure opening up the lava could just come down this valley and go right around the corner to the power plant."" "Icelanders invested in the costly geothermal power plant because the field had lain dormant for over two hundred years" "Begun in 1975 as an alternative to a hydroelectric dam the plant was almost immediately threatened by a series of violent eruptions that brought the lava flow within a mile and a half" "Trying to discern a possible pattern in the Krafla volcanic activity scientists keep watch on the plant and the surrounding area for ominous signs" "Here one of the monitoring team checks for any ground tilt which could unbalance and destroy the turbines" "In a field near the plant he checks daily for signs of subterranean activity measures any possible change in the gap between two pipes planted on opposite sides of a fissure" "Like a serpent's back rising above the sea the steaming crest of the Mid-Ocean Ridge stretches across Iceland" "Here Ballard and Sigurdsson visit the site of the recent lava flow that is still cooling" ""We're in the fissure that erupted six months ago."" ""So everything we are walking on is less than six months in age?"" ""That's right." "And it's still cooling off here" "That's why it's still like a sauna bath."" ""It's about as fresh as you can get short of having it red."" ""Yes." "Let's take a look around here."" ""Now, if you can sit without cutting your pants" "It's even warm" "Now, I understand that when the eruption began to take place a tourist from Denmark was standing right where the fissure opened up and was..."" ""Quite close to the area where the crust split and rifted apart and the lava started to squirt up."" ""So he just took off."" ""Actually, I understand the lava was moving quite rapidly here."" ""How fast?"" ""Up to ten meters per second."" ""So you'd have to be a..." "Let's see the world's record for the 100-yard dash is..."" ""9.8."" ""So it's running about as fast as the world's record" "Hope the Dane was a fast runner."" ""He was." "He got away." "So far there have been no casualties."" ""Before this took place this area had been quiet for a long long time" "This is why they thought it was safe to build the power plant."" ""This area has been without volcanic activity for about 250 years" "And therefore, there was the general feeling that there wasn't an imminent danger and it was a worthwhile risk to take to start constructs of a geothermal power station in this central volcano."" ""And they've invested what?"" ""Oh, probably about 60 million dollars"" ""So 60 million dollars is really in peril then if another major eruption occurs here and this time it does go over that pass and down into the basin?"" ""Well, that's always a possibility" "But in Iceland there is..." "Iceland is a country where you have to live with the elements."" "In patient calm, Icelanders accept the gamble nature has imposed upon them the frigid climate the sweeping storms, the hidden threat beneath their feet" "Even as they keep a wary eye on the dangerous giant who has built the very island on which they live they use his heat to warm their cities and homes even their indoor gardens a kind of compensation for the risks they philosophically endure" "In winter darkness they take light from the subterranean depths" "Warmed by the hidden furnace of the Earth itself vegetables ripen in the arctic cold" "In the volcano's fiery breath flowers bloom" "Yet the risk remains" "Hardly a year after eruptions threatened the power installation" "Sigurdsson returned to Krafla as the restless giant stirred and became active" "Once more the lava flow approached within one-and-a-half miles of the electric turbines" "Though the fiery fountains gradually subsided the eruption raised the ground level to provide a slope for future lava flows to travel toward the power plant" "For the present the Krafla installation is secure" "But Icelanders know that eventually they many have to pay the price of living on the edge of creation" "Sometimes the action of the Mid-Ocean Ridge brings surprisingly opposite effects" "In Iceland its slow spreading process over millions of years has created the great island on which the people live" "Far southeastward along the nearly 3,000-mile furrow of Africa's Great Rift Valley the spreading action is slowly but inexorably opening the heart of a continent" "In measurable time to come eastern Africa will be detached from its mother continent and this dusty desert landscape will be an ocean floor" "Already, in the Afar Triangle at the Horn of Africa the process has begun the sea is invading the land" "At Djibouti's Ghoubet-Al-Kharab an inland extension of the Gulf of Aden the sea is temporarily delayed by a narrow barrier of small volcanic hills sealing off Lake Assal" "But as magma seeps through fissures in the Earth's crust and the seven-mile rift widens and sinks the sea inevitably will pour into the lowlands beyond" "Already seawater from Ghoubet-Al-Kharab has begun to work its way downward through cracks and subterranean channels undergoing substantial chemical change as it penetrates the heated rock layers below" "With Dr. Jean-Louis Cheminee of the French National Center for Scientific Research" "Ballard descend into a recently active fissure through which a small flow of seawater reaches the distant lake" ""So this is the sea coming in, right?"" ""Yes, by a system of fissures."" ""This is where the water that we see on the other side of the rift going into Lake Assal originates from?"" ""Yes."" ""So it comes in from the sea..."" ""...from the sea and crosses the rift by the fissures inside the mountain..."" ""...and out the other side."" ""Yes."" ""Now, was this fissure in existence in 1978?"" ""Yes, yes."" ""It just widened?"" ""Just widened."" ""Because a lot of these rocks are just perched as if they're ready to come down."" ""And the car here - just here..."" ""Yeah, well, we should move the car."" ""So we go like this."" ""So we'll go across the..."" ""Not across exactly like this." "No."" ""We go across this area, right?" "Now how long will it take us to get to Assal?" "If we went from here all the way across went across that flat desert-like area how long would it take to get there?"" ""Maybe six hours."" ""Six hours." "Yeah, six hours" "Terrible road." "Six, six and a half."" "In torrid heat that reaches more than 130 degrees Fahrenheit the water here and in the Rift Valley is often reduced to a caustic brine" ""I'm standing 500 feet below sea level near the shore of Lake Assal."" ""The ocean is only six miles away" "If it weren't for these young lava flows filling the valley floor" "I'd be under water right now" "In fact, the ocean is trying to do that" "As rifting develops in the valley these deep fissures start to form" "This lets water travel beneath the valley through the fissures and it can enter Lake Assal along this outlet" "In fact, there are several of them in the valley."" ""At the present moment it's so hot that most of the seawater that comes in evaporates leaving the salt behind" "But as rifting continues more and more water will pour through these fissure systems until the sea claims this entire area as the ocean penetrates deeper and deeper into the continent of Africa."" "Here, as in Iceland, the spreading action creates new crust" "Elsewhere, in compensation the distant edges of an expanding plate must be destroyed" "Outpost of Asia" "Japan's island chain bears the shock of the Philippine and Pacific Plates as they thrust beneath the Eurasian Plate in a massive subduction zone" "In the deep ocean trenches off Japan the aging plates plunge back into Earth's molten interior causing powerful disturbances" "The mists here are dragon's breath the hissing steam of Japan's 20,000 hot springs and forty active volcanoes" "With a long history of destructive earthquakes" "Japan has begun a massive effort to prepare for the future" "In Shizuoka Prefecture near Tokyo school children take lessons in reading, writing and catastrophe learning the skills that may save their lives" "In this temple to the victims of a great disaster memory and reality are like the mismatched faces of an earthquake fault" "Here survivors come to witness again the day a world ended search again for faces that exist only in old men's dreams" "Just before noon on Saturday September 1, 1923 an earthquake registering 7.9 on the Richter scale struck Tokyo shaking the earth for a full five minutes" "Ignited by hot coals thrown from stoves against paper walls and straw matting the city burst into flame" "As the people fled into the streets they converged on the river" "From opposite banks refugees started across the wooden bridges only to meet head on in midspan" "Surrounded by walls of fire with no escape the fleeing mass was locked in panic and chaos" "Next day two-thirds of Tokyo lay in smoldering black ash and more than 140,000 persons were dead" "Today the Japanese are building more than temples to the dead" "Fearful of a predicted recurrence of the great Kanto quake thirteen million persons in the Tokyo and nearby Tokai areas participate in a vast drill in which every citizen is learning to play a role" "Public communications center during a crisis" "NHK television relays information from the Japan Meteorological Agency, or JMA" "Here a vast warning system keeps constant watch through scores of seismic stations and a 125-mile line of seismic monitors along the floor of Suruga Bay probable epicenter of the expected quake" "At the first sign of unusual activity" "JMA instantly alerts the head of a six man committee of seismologists" "Known as the Hanteikai this team quickly evaluates the information and the prime minister is notified" "While police, firemen and other public employees take their posts to prevent general confusion or panic there is a delay of 30 minutes before a warning is broadcast" "Each of the Tokai region's cities and towns has a municipal disaster plan and through drills most people have learned the precise steps required after a warning" "Turning off gas and electricity citizens secure doors and cabinets then take up their earthquake kits and march off to join the general exodus through predetermined escape routes" "In the street a rope helps maintain unity and orderly wards off panic by providing a sense of common security within a group" "Guided and patrolled by emergency forces a swelling flood of people from home and factory moves toward assigned refuge areas" "To escape the giant sea wave or tsunami which often follows a quake the harbor fleet sets out to sea" "The drill has been a costly effort but the price seems small compared to the threatened loss of life in one of the most heavily populated areas on Earth" "Eastward across the sea this tree-shaded oasis near California's Mojave Desert offers deceptive sanctuary" "Like Japan's thermal caldrons it too is part of the Ring of Fire that circles the Pacific" "Here along the 700-mile San Andreas Fault the pacific plate grinds slowly northward against the North American plate sometimes locking building stress, then suddenly releasing in earthquake" "Whether exposed as a naked scar crossing the Carrizo Plain near Los Angeles or pleasantly disguised under grassy slopes and a chain of sag ponds near San Francisco the fault stretches like a taut line of danger between the state's two most heavily populated centers" "In times past each of the cities has felt its power" "Once the fabled gateway to the gold rush its hills crowned with ornate palaces of mining and railroad tycoons" "San Francisco today soars in a dazzling array of skyscrapers along its Embarcadero daring evidence of a city that refused to die" "Dr. Ballard recalls a fateful morning at the beginning of the century" ""On the 18th of April 1906 the San Andreas Fault suddenly snapped" "The city of SAN Francisco felt the brunt of the blow" "Some 700 people were killed and most of the city was destroyed by fire" ""Today, people think of it as an event found in history books" "Yet to geologists, the fault is very much alive" "We are monitoring the fault system attempting to understand its behavior predict its next move" "One thing we do know" "We will experience another earthquake like that of 1906" "It's just a matter of time" "At dawn February 9, 1971 an earthquake registering 6.4 on the Richter scale struck the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles" "Twisting railroad tracks shattering highway overpasses it strewed disaster across the city landscape as if by an angry giant's hand" "Like a silent accomplice flames leaped through the wreckage" "Great hospitals and other structures collapsed" "Everywhere the quake trapped its casual human victims" "When it had passed, the city counted the cost 64 dead 500 million dollars in property damage" "Because the water behind a weakened dam was quickly lowered thousands of lives were saved which otherwise might have been lost" "In it's aftermath alarmed public agencies radically expanded their earthquake preparations" "Today not only standard surveying methods but a wide array of new instruments are employed to monitor California's fractured landscape" "Using laser beams and radio waves from remote stars scientists can measure the state for crustal changes or plate movements as small as an inch" "Along the San Andreas a network of seismic devices reports local changes in the release of radioactive gas from rock strata sudden drops in the water level of wells variations in gravity or the Earth's magnetic field" "Other meters detect the slightest movement deep beneath the surface measure strain in a locked section of the fault" "the state of California also is checking its basement"" "above which 24 million people live" "From hundreds of instruments scattered across the length of the state continuous reports flow into separate computer centers for the southern and the northern sectors" "At the United States Geological Survey in Menlo park widely diverse in formation is correlated and condensed to provide a summary of seismic activity during each passing month" "Like scholars trying to break an enemy code or decipher a lost language scientists are trying to discern a consistent meaning in all the signals sent from the Earth" "Though the San Andreas remains an enigma a silent threat of havoc to come sophisticated technology is bringing closer the time when man may be able to predict earthquakes with reasonable accuracy and certainty" "Scientists know that in prediction lies a major defense against catastrophe" "Using an instrument no more complicated than a garden hoe one young geologist from the California Institute of Technology has shown that the key to the future may lie in the past" "At excavations along the fault at Pallett Creek near the Mojave" "Dr. Kerry Sieh has revealed a repeat pattern of California quakes hundreds of years before any recorded history of the region" ""We are on the main trace of the San Andreas Fault" "And the layer that I just scraped off has been radiocarbon dated at 1350 A.D." "The layer right above it which has the beautiful orange color here and here has a radiocarbon date near its top of about 1560 A. D or about the time Michelangelo was painting the Sistine Chapel" "This layer dates from about the birth of Benjamin Franklin 1700 and this layer about right here was the surface of the Earth at the time of the 1857 earthquake" ""Now, this is the main trace of the San Andreas Fault running up through these layers up though to about here."" ""Here's the 1353 A.D. layer broken by the fault trace coming up through the 1560 A.D. layer here" "So here we have the Pacific Plate and here we have the North American Plate broken only by this very narrow trace, or plane of the San Andreas Fault."" ""And it continues on up up through the 1700s level and stopping at this level the 1857 level" "In 1857 there occurred the great Fort Tejon earthquake which was the last great earthquake to break the San Andreas Fault in the southern part of the state."" ""Elsewhere at this site we have exposures a total of 11 prehistoric earthquakes and the great Fort Tejon earthquake of 1857" "The radiocarbon dates show that the earthquakes occur with frequency they occur about every 145 years" "It's been 125 years since the great Fort Tejon earthquake" "The chances are really quite good that within our lifetime we're going to see another great Fort Tejon earthquake."" ""Give me the number of dead you anticipate that you are estimating and I will try to work it out on the end."" ""Estimates of injured range from 50 to 80 thousand with an unknown number trapped in collapsed structures" "At this time the numbers of dead may be in excess of ten thousand."" "To train disaster agencies and to alert the public the state's Office of" "Emergency Services stages yearly drills" ""I would like to clarify what's turned out to be a rumor of a radioactive release problem at Cal Tech."" "Alex Cunninham director of the California Office of Emergency Services" ""The scenario for this exercise is that an earthquake occurred yesterday in Los Angeles actually about 30 miles northwest of San Bernardino along the San Andreas Fault" "Its magnitude, for exercise purposed 8.3."" ""And believe me we are very selective at this level on using Guard resources" "And I recommend strongly now" "I can't handle a delicate issue like this on the phone" "I recommend very strongly that if you want the Guard for this that you are going to have to come through bureaucratic channels."" ""We need to have an update as of this time on the number of injuries and deaths, please."" ""All the hospital beds in northern county appear be down" "Southern county looks like they're in pretty good shape" "But the Needs Assessment Team will be back half an hour and will give us all the figures."" ""Hold on a second." "We got to get this together."" ""The State of California is very well prepared to handle a moderate earthquake" "And the citizens who have been through these kind of quakes are reasonably well prepared" "But when we talk about a catastrophic earthquake something in the area of an 8 or an 8.3 no level of government and particularly the individual citizens are prepared for such an event" "It's no longer a question of if the big earthquake is coming" "It's simply a matter of when" "Scientists are telling us because of recent seismic activity and other phenomena other scientific data that the great earthquake will strike in southern California some time in the next 30 years" "Unfortunately, many people say well if it's 30 years away we don't have to worry about it" "It's not 30 years away" "It could happen tomorrow it could happen today;" "it could happen next month" "But sometime in the next 30 years we're going to have it and people damn well better prepare themselves for it."" "Distantly aware of threatened holocausts most Los Angeles residents remain caught in the traumas and traffic jams of daily life" "Too few know the mathematics of terror" "At the time of the 1857 quake 11,000 people lived in Los Angeles" "Today there are more than seven million" "Many remember the impact of the San Fernando tremor" "But the 8.3 earthquake which scientists now predict will be a shock 800 times as strong" "a natural disaster without precedent in American history" "Thirty-five hundred years ago on the Aegean island of Santorini these ruins too held a civilization" "Here, long before the Parthenon the maritime community of Akrotiri created a culture that rivaled the splendors of nearby Minoan Crete" "In frescoes artists painted the sunlit landscapes of man in his springtime the years in Eden when the Earth was filled with wonders" "Upon the walls were mirrored the ordinary tasks and pleasures of a small world in which the simplest acts of everyday life held meaning and even the gods often behaved like noisy neighbors" "Over the wide sea, returning seamen brought strange gifts and creatures from the shadowy lands beyond told of odysseys across a world still new" "Now they are gone abruptly vanished in a great catastrophe" "All that remain are a half-excavated civilization under glass a few amphoras in orderly array life and death filed on an index card" "One of the scientists trying to decipher the puzzle of the past" "Dr. Christos Doumas of the University of Athens leads Dr. Ballard through the remains of a city that died thirty-five centuries ago" ""This is an ancient street leading to the Triangle Square flanked on the left by the Building Delta and on the right by the West House."" ""Now here's where you found the frescoes."" ""Yes, we found frescoes and other things which show that we are discovering here a very highly civilized society of the Bronze Age."" ""The houses are individual surrounded by streets" "There are several stories as you see and we have indoor plumbing connected directly with the drainage system of the street."" ""So you had a society of individual families living together..."" ""Yes." "And every house was an entity by itself."" ""And here we can see how sophisticated these houses were" "The basement, as in many of the houses was used for storing goods a variety of crops like barley flour of barley lentils, various nuts like almonds."" ""So they had a pretty good diet" "I mean it was varied."" ""Yes." "And they were consuming also seafood because we found shells of sea urchins and remains of dried fish" ""The city was captured by the earthquakes and this staircase shows that it was broken before the eruption of the volcano" ""So this probably caused them to evacuate."" ""Yes." "It was a warning for the people."" ""And then after the earthquake the major eruption occurred."" ""Yes." "It destroyed almost everything as you sea and then the site was covered with volcanic ash."" "Before the great warning tremors" "Akrotiri lay on the flank of a steeply sloping island unaware that miles below the Earth's crust was in movement" "Soon after the quake the island exploded in one of historical prodigious volcanic eruptions" "Suddenly a mountain had disappeared its walls collapsed into a volcanic caldera now filled by the inrushing sea" "A vast searing cloud of pumice and ash buried Akrotiri and surged over the Mediterranean with an impact on history that still is being assessed" ""We're inside the caldera" "Behind me are the layered walls of the volcano which record its long history" "The black layers are basaltic lava flows;" "the red ones a tephra ejected from the volcanic vent."" ""These prehistoric layers once formed a great volcano over 5,000 feet high" "About 3,500 years ago the entire volcano erupted destroying over two-thirds of the island" "At the top today you can see a white layer of pumic and ash which records that great event" "That layer is over 100 feet thick."" "Human beings still cling to the narrow rim of cliffs that now surrounds emptiness" "Today several thousand islanders live on the heights and fish or search for sponges in the depths of the caldera" "Steep paths link them with the ports through which supplies much of their fresh water and occasional visitors arrive by sea" "Today the centers of Western civilization have moved far beyond Santorini" "Insulated from the rumors and alarms of a wider world it has settled into the ways of village life" "Upon the cliffs workmen build and repair structures using the very ash and pumice of the explosion that once destroyed their island" "In the fields around them farmers tend vineyards and reap grain planted in the volcano soil" "The pumice is even sold for profit was once exported for the building of the Suez Canal more than a century ago" "Intermittently strong tremors still shake the island but the widows of Santorini remain solitary symbols of the tenacity by which life endures" "Beneath them one plate slides under another in endless movement even the gods may change but prayer remains a step in the search for reassurance and certainty" "On Good Friday worshippers are surrounded by frescoes that describe not the joys of life but its tragic burdens" "Yet for the devout islanders faith holds a triumphant hope" "Out of death's darkness life returns a flame passed from candle to candle" "In the ritual of twenty centuries the villagers again find a ancient recognition" "In the Easter story of resurrection they tell their own" "After the resurrection joy the breaking of eggs to release the symbolic life within" "Across the island after forty days of fasting the villagers feast and dance" "The world has changed many time since this woman lived in Santorini" "Her gods have vanished" "The streets on which she walked now end in walls of ash" "Yet in these dancing rhythms of life she might hear echoes of another time the refrains of home" "Imperceptible to living generations the change goes on toward a future that science's computers already have begun to outline" "By its present drift" "Africa, in its clockwise movement will close the Mediterranean and collide with southern Europe raising great new mountain ranges like a rumpled rug" "In Africa itself the sea at last will flood the desert thorn trees isolate eastern Africa invade a domain once held by elephants and lions" "In the Americas, as elsewhere life will be radically altered" "Mecca for millions of fugitives from the wintry East" "Los Angeles may have to doctor its swimming pools with antifreeze" "Set at the edge of the Pacific Plate it is moving relentlessly toward Alaska at the rapid of two or three inches a year" "Ten million years from now" "San Francisco will find that for a time its scorned southern rival has become a suburb" "New York may become part of a vast volcanic range as the expanding Atlantic floor passes under the eastern coast" "Compared to Earth's history man's tenure has be dazzling and brief" "In ten thousand years he has created language built cathedrals, invented the means to destroy life one Earth" "His computers can project the destination of continents 200 million years from now" "But where man will be none can predict" "Millions of years ago, before man, before the ice ages, when the world was warm and humid, forests like these covered much of the earth." "And it was here, rough eons of geological time, that a profusion of life evolved." "The remnants of those primordial jungles are the rain forests of today." "They are home to half of all the animal species on earth." "Yet, in the shady depths of the forest, there is seldom more than a fleeting glimpse of this abundance." "When they are seen, the animals are often revealed as strange and splendid examples of natural perfection and adaptation." "Myriad in their diversity and sometimes bizarre in form, these creatures give the somber forest a special mystery and splendor." "Endless rains and high temperatures create the steamy atmosphere in which rain forests thrive." "These conditions occur now only in a narrow belt around the equator where forests blanket some three million square miles of the earth's tropics." "Within this belt lies the small Central American country of Costa Rica, which possesses one of the richest natural endowments on earth." "When Christopher Columbus landed here in 1502, he found a mountainous land of rivers and forests like those he'd seen ten years earlier in Hispaniola." "Then, in what is perhaps the first description ever of a rain forest," "Columbus wrote:" ""Its lands... are most beautiful... and filled with trees of a thousand kinds and tall, and they seem to touch the sky;" "and I am told that they never lose their foliage, as I can understand, for I saw them as green and as lovely as they are in Spain in May..."" "But it was partly from the early explorers that some popular misconceptions arose." "For many, the first glimpse of a rain forest was from the rivers that flowed through them." "The forests seemed impenetrable- a tangled mass of undergrowth through which a man could only hack a path with difficulty." "But in reality, the dim interior is more open and usually easy to move about in." "Little light penetrates the dense canopy and so undergrowth is sparse." "Only a thin layer of leaves covers the ground." "A coral snake searches for a place to drink and finds enough rainwater in a curled leaf." "The bright bands of color warn predators that it's poisonous." "Below this thin layer of leaves lies the forest soil and a paradox." "For the luxuriant vegetation of a rain forest is often based on impoverished soil." "The explanation lies in the way the forest recycles its nutrients." "Dead trees and fallen leaves rot quickly, and their nutrients are rapidly reabsorbed by fungi and tiny roots near the surface." "The entire system is so efficient that little is lost, and fully 95 percent of the rain forest's nutrients are held in the living vegetation, hardly any in the soil." "To shed its old skin, the coral snake rubs its body against rough surfaces in the leaf litter." "A male poison-arrow frog is courting a female." "With his monotonous song, he will try to entice her to follow him under a leaf where they'll mate." "The male leads the way." "She follows." "Within the shelter of a curled leaf, she'll lay her eggs, and the male will fertilize them." "She has produced five eggs in a cluster of jelly and will stay nearby until they're ready to hatch." "Workers from a colony of leaf-cutting ants are harvesting leaves to take back to their nests." "With their scissor like jaws, they easily cut the leaves to manageable size." "But some skill is needed for the next stage when the leaf is hoisted into position for the journey ahead." "For some, the problem may be too much help for others, just a sudden puff of wind." "But they're the exceptions." "For most ants, it's only the first step in the long trek back to the nest, which may be 100 yards or more away." "They follow a chemical trail laid down by the workers that first scouted this tree, so they seldom go astray." "The leaf fragments that they carry are not for eating." "Instead, they are employed by the ants in a remarkable system of farming." "The leaves are used to culture the fungus that is the only food source for the ants and their brood." "Here in the underground garden, the leaves are cut into much smaller pieces and carefully cleaned probably to remove any spores that might contaminate the pure culture." "The leaf edges are chewed to a wet pulp, and a clear droplet of body fluid is added to create the perfect foundation for the precious fungus that sustains the colony." "This is not the work of leaf-cutter ants." "The insects that create these patterns are seldom seen during the day." "In daylight, insects are more vulnerable to predators, so many feed only at night, leaving their mark everywhere in the understory of the forest." "But some insects are active by day, and this morpho butterfly is a brilliant target for a jacamar." "Before it can be swallowed, the wings must be removed." "Great agility and keen eyesight make this anole lizard a formidable predator on small insects." "Nearby, a female is shedding." "Her old skin is too nutritious to be wasted;" "she eats every bit of it." "The female is in his territory and by staying, she shows that she is willing to be courted." "He displays to her by flashing his brilliant dewlap." "A performance like this is both a signal to the female and proclaims his territory." "The female will remain here now, and they'll mate frequently over the next few days." "Its body blending perfectly with the leaves, a praying mantis settles in a patch of sunlight created by a fallen tree." "When a great tree falls, a gap is created in the forest canopy." "It is in these sunny spaces that the forest regenerates itself." "The seedlings of most forest trees cannot survive in shade;" "to flourish, they need light." "So the competition for space around a fallen tree is intense." "And for every sapling, there is a clinging vine competing for a place in the sun." "But in this gap, there's a tree that always has clear growing space around it." "This species of swollen-thorn acacia has evolved a remarkable system of defense." "For as soon as a sapling or vine touches it, ants that live on the acacia attack the intruder." "They cross onto the touching vine and cut through its leaf stems." "In a short time, their work is done, and the vine will lose its leaves, wither, and die." "Most forest trees have evolved poisonous chemicals in their leaves to stop insects from eating them." "But the acacia is edible, and would soon be destroyed were it not for the vigilance of the ants." "Any insect that lands on this acacia soon learns its error-for the ants bite and sting viciously." "In return for their protection, the tree completely supports the ants." "It secretes for them a sugar-rich solution, which they drink from little nectarines between the leaves." "On the tips of some leaves in each acacia, unique structures are grown especially for the ants." "They are rich in protein and vitamins, and are taken by the ants to feed their larvae." "It's here within the large hollow thorns of the acacia that the ants rear their brood." "Some of these larvae will mature into fertile adults with wings, and fly away to start another colony in a seedling tree." "These young basilisk lizards forage along the river's edge." "They live in the territory of this adult male who tolerates them and probably fathered them." "But he allows no other adult male to intrude here." "This female is exclusively his." "Flowers are attractive to the leaf-cutters as well, and many end up in the fungus gardens." "Spider monkeys move as easily through the canopy as the puma through the forest's understory." "Towering 100 feet above the forest floor, the canopy harbors more tree-dwelling creatures than any other habitat on earth." "The treetops mingle and interlock to create a self-contained world;" "many of its inhabitants never leave its sunny spaces to venture below." "A three-toed sloth feeds in the hot sun, while a mother carries her baby into the cool shade within the canopy." "A "lie-in-wait" lizard remains perfectly motionless." "It's a strategy that serves it well:" "by keeping still, the lizard is overlooked by both predator and prey." "And an unsuspecting victim can be pounced on from above." "Rain forests seldom get less than 100 inches of rain in a year." "Some even exceed 400 inches." "And so, most of the leaves in the humid understory of the forest are specially adapted to drain water from their surface as quickly as possible." "If water stays on them, the leaves may rot or become host to tiny plants that may do damage." "These drip tips ensure that the leaves will dry quickly." "The forest floor can usually absorb rain as it falls." "But when the rains are particularly heavy, the forest becomes saturated and the water runs off to flood the surrounding rivers flushing fallen trees and debris out to sea." "A tide line of rotting vegetation is left on the beach, and a shy agouti forages among it for fruits." "These paper wasps are drying their nest." "Constructed of wood pulp, it would soon soak up the rain if the wasps didn't drink the water and spit it over the edge." "The adults take so much care and trouble, because in each of the cells is a developing wasp, and their entire brood could be destroyed by a heavy downpour." "As each larva grows, the wasps enlarge its cell by adding another layer of pulp and saliva to the outside rim." "And when the nest begins to warm in the sun, they cool their brood by rapidly vibrating their wings to create a current of air." "The eggs of a poison-arrow frog have hatched, and the female carries two tiny tadpoles on her back." "While they are developing into frogs, they have to be in water." "She takes them up a tree to a site she has chosen in a bromeliad plant." "She will deposit them in rainwater held in the bromeliad." "She makes her way down a leaf to a small pool at its base." "And here, she submerges her tadpoles until they release their grip and leave her back." "The tadpoles will complete their development in this tiny pool." "In six to eight, weeks they'll emerge as frogs and return to the forest floor." "Army ants are on the move." "They build no permanent nests and constantly comb the forest for their prey." "This species preys only on the larvae of social insects and here they attack a nest of paper wasps." "there is nothing the wasps can do." "They abandon their brood to the voracious horde, which will soon strip the nest of all life." "They take their plunder to a bivouac on the underside of a fallen log." "Here, by linking special hooks at the ends of their legs, they form long, hanging chains." "Through sheer numbers, these strands mesh together to from the living fabric of the nest." "Within the nest, strands of workers interlock to create chambers for the queen and brood." "At night, the forest teems with a different life." "It's now that most of the leaf-eating insects emerge." "To survive the ravages of insects, most plants have evolved toxic compounds that protect their leaves." "But insects in turn have developed immunity to the chemicals." "So together they have evolved, insect and plant, until now most insects have become such specialized feeders that they can only eat the leaves of one particular plant, or only one family of plants." "This harlequin beetle spends most of its life as a larva concealed within dead wood." "But now as an adult, it emerges to find a mate." "The beetle is host to a resident colony of mites that finds refuge in the creases and folds of its back." "Also riding on the beetle are pseudoscorpions that prey on the mites." "help in the powerful job the creases is no chance in the Chigao seem see" "A stick spider suspends itself head down above a leaf on which its prey might walk." "Its web is held by the tips of its four front legs." "Green leaf-frogs gather near a forest pool to mate." "The males wait near the water to intercept the females as they arrive." "Clasping the much larger female, the male will stay with her now until she has laid her eggs." "She selects a leaf directly above the water, and as she lays her eggs, the male fertilizes them." "The cat-eyed snake isn't interested in the frogs." "He is after their eggs." "And as egg-laying has been going on for several days, he will easily find others." "Many snakes are attracted to the pool when the leaf-frogs are laying." "They eat almost all the eggs." "Glass frogs also lay their eggs above water, in this case a stream, and the male remains close to the eggs until they're ready to hatch." "His presence probably deters flies and other insects that would harm them." "On a rainy night about two weeks after the eggs are laid, the vigil of the male ends when the emerging tadpoles drop into the stream below." "But the frogs do not always manage to lay their eggs directly above the water." "However, the tadpoles are specially equipped with reflexes that help them cope with this situation." "The first rays of sun warm the forest and a mist rises up the great mountain mass that divides Costa Rica, separating the forests of the Atlantic coast from those of the Pacific." "High in these mountains, the forest receives moisture from direct contact with the clouds, and the vegetation changes imperceptibly." "Many of the creatures found here can live only at these cooler heights." "And it's here at the very top of the mountain that a rare mating ritual occurs." "It takes place only during the few days of the year when contact of cloud and forest is at its greatest when enough water has collected to form the few small pools in which golden toads lay their eggs." "These toads occupy an area of mountaintop no greater than one square mile." "They have been found nowhere else on earth." "The golden males gather at these pools and fight for possession of one of the drab females." "Once firmly established on her back, a male is usually secure in his conquest and can easily repel any further challenge." "Long strings of eggs are laid in the tiny pool, and if the misty weather persists long enough to maintain the pool, another generation of golden toads will be produced." "Bellbirds announce their territories from the tops of the tallest trees." "A pair of Resplendent Quetzals are digging out a nest in a dead tree." "The males are considered the most beautiful birds in the Western Hemisphere." "The ancient Mayas and Aztecs so revered the quetzal that only royalty and nobility were allowed to wear the magnificent feathers in their ceremonial costumes." "To kill the bird was a crime;" "they were simply caught and released after their long plumes had been plucked." "But the forests are going." "At the present rate of destruction, most countries will lose their rain forests within our lifetime." "And with the forests will go hundreds of thousands of unique and irreplaceable life forms that can survive nowhere else." "Many will become extinct even before they have been described by science." "Their importance to nature's balance and their possible contribution to human welfare will never be known." "But at last, some countries are beginning to realize that rain forests justify their existence simply by being there." "And tiny Costa Rica, by its example, has become a world leader in conservation." "One quarter of its land is given some measure of protection, and a full eight percent is permanently protected in national parks." "If other nations will follow Costa Rica's example, there is hope." "But it is a race against time, because in the hour it has taken to view this film, some 3,000 acres of the world's rain forest have been destroyed." "For centuries there were fearsome tales of a half human monster roaming the African forests" "Even in modern times, knowledge of the elusive creature the wild chimpanzee- was largely based on speculation" "Then, in 1960 a daring young Englishwoman set out to sort fiction from truth" "She had been warned" ""You'll never get near the chimpanzees,"" "but she was determined to try" "Her name, Jane Goodall" "She was 26 years old and destined to make scientific history" "Against odds many thought insurmountable she gradually earned the chimpanzees' trust" "The picture that has emerged is an awesome portrait of the animals most like man" "The similarities to humans are startling:" "the obvious physical resemblance;" "the discovery that they hunt and eat meat;" "the even more profound revelation that they are intelligent enough to make and use tools" "and in their nonverbal communication perhaps the most uncanny resemblance of all" "Meticulously documented on motion-picture film" "Jane Goodall's classic study stretches from 1960 to the present day" "A compelling chronicle that spans three generations of chimps it is the longest study of any wild animal group in the world" "Unexpectedly one of its recent chapters took a forbidding turn" "The usually gentle amiable chimps revealed a dark and sinister side" " puzzling, savage behavior as yet unexplained" "And so the saga goes on - the remarkable adventure of the wild chimpanzees and the dedicated woman who works among them still" "Growing up in Bournemouth, England, Jane Goodall was drawn to the world of animals almost from the start" "When her mother gave the infant a chimp doll outraged friends predicted nightmares" "They could not have been more wrong" ""Even when I was very tiny I was absolutely fascinated by animals" "I think I first began to dream of going to Africa after reading" "Dr. Doolittle and Tarzan when I was about eight" "I was absolutely fascinated with the idea of being out in the jungle out with the animals feeling a part of it all."" "Famed anthropologist Louis Leakey had long searched for someone to study wild chimpanzees for clues to the behavior of early man" ""I want someone unbiased by academic learning," he said" ""Someone with uncommon patience and dedication."" "His faith in Jane Goodall would lead to one of the most important scientific studies of our time" "Her journey would take Goodall to the East African country of Tanzania then known as Tanganyika" "The remote Gombe Stream Game Reserve stretches for about ten miles of rugged mountainous country along the shore of Lake Tanganyika" "And so on the 14th of July 1960 Jane Goodall was 4,000 miles from home a tiny boat her only link to the civilized world" ""When I arrived at the Gombe Stream Reserve" "I felt that at long last my childhood ambition was being realized" "But when I looked at the wild and rugged mountains where the chimpanzees lived" "I knew that my task was not going to be easy."" "Day-to-day life in this remote wilderness would be difficult at best" "The local authorities horrified at the thought of a young white woman alone in the wild at first refused Jane permission to come agreeing only when she said she would bring a companion" "Aside from her mother Vanne Goodall, and an African cook" "Jane would spend the next several months virtually alone" "It was already late afternoon when the tents were pitched and provisions stored" "But after 20 years of dreaming of this day" "Jane was eager to begin" "Unarmed and untrained she ventured into a strange, new world" "For most, this would be a lonely forbidding realm" "But for Jane Goodall it was where she most wanted to be" ""During my first days at Gombe I could hardly believe it was true" "At last I was out in the wild I didn't see many animals but I had the feeling they were there all around, watching me" "There were rustles in the undergrowth strange calls smells I could not identify."" "For months the objects of her search invariably fled at the mere sight of her" "Often she couldn't find them at all" "It was a steep rigorous climb to the open ridges above but perhaps, she hoped a way to pinpoint the nomadic apes below" ""I discovered not far from camp that there was a peak overlooking two valleys" "And from this vantage point I was able to gradually piece together the daily behavior of the chimps" "The major advantage of the Peak was that the chimps could see me sitting up there and gradually get used to my presence."" "Sitting quietly in the same spot day after day always dressed in the same neutral colors never attempting to follow the shy apes the figure on the Peak gradually became less of a threat" "It would be some time, however before Jane was accepted at closer range" "Though the chimps now recognized the intruder her intent was far from clear" "Jane had to accept the realization that for the being being at least much of her knowledge would be based on indirect evidence like an abandoned sleeping nest high in the trees" "Jane found the nest was not simply a pile of wadded leaves but a carefully interwoven platform created by dexterous hands and a reasoning brain" "But the intelligent creature who made it had long since moved on" "Impatient with her slow progress with the chimps" "Jane stretched each day to the final rays of the setting sun" "This would be her first meal in 12 hours" "It had been another long and frustrating day" ""As I am not a defeatist it only made my determination to succeed stronger" "I never had any thought of quitting" "I should forever have lost all self- respect if I had given up."" "And so days that began before dawn reached well past midnight" "And, for as long as it would take tomorrow would be the same" "Even when there were no chimps to be found there was always much to be done" "Samples of plants the chimps eat would be preserved for later identification" "There was a new language to learn tribal customs to absorb" "A makeshift clinic helped cement good relations with the local villagers" "With camp life settling into a comfortable routine" "Gombe increasingly became Jane Goodall's private world" "Though her staff was growing outsiders till now had not been welcome lest they frighten the chimps" "But at Louis Leakey's urging she agreed that a permanent film record of the chimps be made" "To shield herself and the cameraman she built a blind - a screen of leaves" "Hugo van Lawick is a specialist in wildlife" "Primarily funded by the National Geographic Society over the coming years he and Goodall would capture details of chimp behavior never before dreamed possible" "They found that chimpanzees are nomadic traveling in ever changing groups in the daily search for food wanderings that can take them two to six miles in a single day" "They are animals of dramatic extremes noisy and excitable one minute calm and gentle the next" "To satisfy their hunger on a diet that is largely vegetarian chimps eat up to seven hours a day" "Much of their diet is fruit but they also feed on leaves blossoms, seeds, and stems" "After congregating at a food source several individuals may rest and groom together then separate once again" "The only stable group within the community is a mother and her young" "Males take no part in child rearing" "Contrary to common belief chimps do not have fleas" "Mutual grooming does remove flakes of dried skin and grass seeds but physical contact for its own sake seems to be the primary goal" "Not much interested in quiet pursuits youngsters have better things to do" ""The chimps very gradually came to realize that I was not dangerous after all" "I shall never forget the day after about 18 months when for the first time a small group allowed me to approach and be near them" "Finally I had been accepted" "I think it was one of the proudest and most exciting moments of my whole life" "Chimpanzees are as distinct from one another as are human beings and Jane gave them names as she came to recognize them" "Old Flo, with her bulbous nose and ragged ears is matriarch of the family Jane would come to know best" "At seven weeks, infant Flint is still completely dependent on Flo" "Flo's adolescent son Figan plays with his younger sister Fifi" "Even fully mature Faben often stays with the family" "Ever since Flint's birth his sister Fifi has been fascinated by the baby" "Repeatedly she tries to touch and groom him" "The older chimps less interested in babies tend to ignore Flint" "But Fifi is persistent actually trying to take the infant from Flo" "Though protective of her newborn Flo is never rough with Fifi" "When she's had enough she simply walks off leaving Fifi looking rather frustrated" "Another group's arrival is signaled by a chorus of hooting calls" "Adult males dominate chimp society and are much preoccupied with their position in the hierarchy" "In an effort to better his rank the male puts on an awesome charging display" "With hair bristling and vegetation flying the male makes himself appear larger and more dangerous than he actually is" "Intended to intimidate rivals it is usually nothing more than superb bluff" "After displays of aggression the dominant chimp often reassures those who have been frightened or hurt and thus tension is defused harmony restored" "One male rose to the top of the hierarchy by intelligence rather than strength" "Mike discovered that rolling empty kerosene cans from Jane's camp made a horrifying noise" "Originally one of the lowest ranking males" "Mike was now number one" "Close to where they are feeding when dusk falls the chimpanzees will build sleeping nests for the night 30 to 40 feet up in the trees" "After choosing a suitable foundation such as a horizontal fork the chimp takes only three to five minutes to bend down branches then twigs, to create a comfortable, padded bed" "With creature comforts long since forsaken" "Jane found increasing pleasures in her wilderness world" "But, as she soon discovered human creature comforts were not without appeal to some" "A chimp had wandered into camp and found the supply tent where bananas were stored" "Because he had been to camp before when Jane was in the forest she had a prearranged signal to call her back" ""It was thrilling after all this time to find a chimp actually in my camp" "It was David Greybeard a male I had already come to know out in the forest."" "David's boldness marked a turning point for Jane" "After the endless months she had searched for them the chimps following David's lead mow came to her" "Gradually their inherent fear gave way and an offer of friendship was accepted with trust" "If she could lure the chimps into camp regularly" "Jane realized her observations would be far more consistent than chance encounters in the forest" "Bananas were the answer" "The scheme was not without its flaws as the local baboons quickly proved" "David Greybeard repeatedly ran to his friend the more powerful Goliath for protection" "Goliath came to David's defense but the baboon knew which chimp was afraid and it was David he went for every time" "Because of the trust established in camp tracking the chimps in the forest was now much easier for Jane" "She was able to follow and document in detail the development of" "Flo's infant son, Flint" "At six months" "Flint is learning to ride on his mother's back" "But sometimes he doesn't get it quite right" "At around the same age he takes his first tottering steps" "When he stumbles and whimpers Flo quickly rescues him" "Flo is a particularly affectionate tolerant and playful mother and because much maternal behavior is learned she is the role model for her daughter Fifi" "As Flint grows older" "Flo permits Fifi to take him for brief periods of time" "Such experiences provide important training for the future when young females mature and have offspring of their own" "About the time Flo begins to carry Flint on her back" "Fifi tries to imitate Flo" "Though unsuccessful the attempt marks an important milestone in her learning experience" "Mandy is a young female who has just had her first baby" "Fifi has never seen the baby before and is intrigued" "For the moment at least this is something more interesting than Flint" "As Mandy settles down" "Fifi comes for a closer look at this newest member of the community" "All youngsters at Gombe are interested in new babies but Jane had never seen one who showed more fascination than Fifi" "A study in concentration" "Mandy is not worried by Fifi's presence but when adolescent male Figan approaches she nervously moves off" "Both Fifi and Figan are fascinated by the smell of the new baby" "Fifi has followed Mandy up a tree and now attempts to touch the baby" "Mandy gently fends her off" "Meanwhile, even Flint is curious about another infant younger than he" "But Flo is ready to move on in search of food and she lets Flint know it is time to go" "Fifi, still engrossed with Mandy's baby does not notice that they leave" "When she finally looks for her mother" "Flo is out of sight" "At six, Fifi is still quite dependent on her mother and cries in distress" "She has no idea in what direction Flo has gone" "Normally Flo would come at Fifi's cries but apparently can't hear her above the growing storm" "Although chimps seem miserable in the rain surprisingly they make little effort to find shelter" "Even in a torrential downpour they just sit and wait it out" "Long committed to observing the chimps seven days a week" "Jane ignored the rain" "Searching for the lost Fifi she saw something remarkable instead the male Goliath performing a spectacular display" "Enthralled by the magnificent "rain dance,"" "Jane would later write:" ""With a display of strength and vigor such as this primitive man himself might have challenged the elements."" "Twenty minutes later the rain dance was over as suddenly as it had begun" "Among Goliath's audience Jane spotted Flo and Flint" "From her tall lookout Fifi saw them too" "Strong family ties temporarily broken by the storm were once again intact" "The rainy season brings the flight of fertile winged termites as they leave their nests to establish new colonies" "For chimp and baboon alike they are a tasty delicacy" "But baboons can only capture the termites outside the nest as the swarms emerge and fly" "When they have gone and worker termites have resealed the nest the baboons will move on" "But the chimps not only know termites are there hidden below the surface, they have learned how to get at them" "In defense of their nest the termites grip onto the grass and with utmost care the chimp gently draws them out" "As a stem becomes bent the chimp breaks off the end to make it work more efficiently" "Sometimes a leafy twig is selected but first it must be stripped of its leaves" "In these actions modifying natural objects for a specific purpose - the chimp is not only using but actually making tools" "It seems certain that this is a learned behavior passed from generation to generation by watching and imitation" "Flint does not yet know how to fish for termites but already he imitates part of Flo's technique" "Jane's proof that chimps make and use tools would rock the scientific world" ""Tool using always used to be considered a hallmark of the human species" "When Louis Leakey first heard about tool using at Gombe he got extremely excited and said "Now we have to redefine man redefine tool or include chimpanzees with humans."" "A chimpanzee brain will never design a computer nor even imagine a durable tool chipped from stone" "But his brain is more similar to our own than is that of any other living creature" "And surely it was thus that our distant human ancestors began learning to master the natural world in the constant struggle to survive" "To a thirsty chimp rainwater trapped in the hollow of a tree is inviting but not easily reached" "Once again the chimps have learned to solve a problem by fashioning a tool" "Wadded leaves act as a sponge" "Chewing makes them more absorbent" "Using the sponge the chimp can get as much as eight times more water than with fingers alone" "Inherently curious, youngsters like Fifi learn from older chimps and thus the technique is passed on" "Baboons at Gombe outnumber the chimps by about four to one" "For the most part the two species coexist peacefully" "But the baboon is a competitor for food and friction can arise" "Because he has the intelligence to use a weapon yet another type of tool even a youngster can intimidate a fully grown male" "The bluff works but as Jane would find out sometimes the aggression is very real" "A young baboon has been captured and killed by a group of chimps and they will feast on its remains" "Jane's discovery astounded the scientific world the chimp is not the gentle vegetarian we had thought but, like humans, a formidable predator" "Sometimes cooperating to hunt and stalk their prey they also kill young antelope bushpigs, and monkeys" "For the most part chimps eat meat only they themselves have killed" "Indeed, a dead animal is often a puzzling sight" "With Gombe's growing fame visiting students and scientists became a regular part of the scene" "One day, as part of a project to record chimpanzee calls" "Jane put out bananas in great quantities" "The result - an eruption of frenzied excitement desperate begging, and violent aggression" "Because of the excessive hostilities aroused" "Jane disapproved of such human intervention" "But the episode was not without value revealing the intricate patterns of chimpanzee dominance and submission and the chimps' intense need for reassurance by touch" "The sounds of the encounter were carefully analyzed by students specializing in chimp vocalization" "With the passing years" "Gombe drew students from around the world with interests ranging from biology to communication to psychology" "They came because of Jane and the unique opportunities of the living laboratory she created here" "To avoid future aggression over bananas" "Jane devised a system of rationing by remote control" "Now the chimps were fed only if they arrived alone or in small groups and then just once in ten days" "Apparently not happy with this new state of affairs the ever-creative chimps made their wishes known" "The chimps' presence in camp provided an opportunity for experiments not possible in the forest" "How would they react to something new?" "All chimpanzees are intensely curious but often afraid of the unfamiliar" "For the first time, Flint attempts the typical male intimidation display pulling vegetation and stamping" "Later Jane put out a mirror" "It was clearly a fascinating mystery" "In retrospect, Jane will say that had she known her study would continue indefinitely she would not have encouraged contact between herself and the chimps" "For one thing, they are stronger than humans and if they lose their fear, dangerous" "Indeed, in the future" "Jane would minimize all interaction with the chimps" "But for the moment after the long struggle for acceptance" "David's silent consent to be groomed was a prize beyond measure" "In 1966 tragedy strikes" "An epidemic spreads from a nearby village and Gombe awakes to the devastation of polio" ""Nothing that has happened at Gombe before or since has been as horrible nothing" "They were among the darkest days of my life; a living nightmare" "The worst tragedy was old Mr. McGregor" "He lost the use of both his legs and he could only move by pulling himself along the ground by his arms" "The other chimps were frightened by this strangeness and shunned old Gregor" "Only his close relative Humphrey, stayed nearby" "The mother, Olly has lost her month-old infant to the disease" "Though she knows he is not alive she carries his dead body for three days" "Polio vaccine is flown in and fed to the chimps in bananas but for many it is too late" "Flo's son, Faben, paralyzed in one arm protects it by walking long distances upright" "To get food Mr. McGregor had learned to pull himself into trees with the strength of his arms alone" "But he dislocated a shoulder while trying to climb and now can no longer move at all" "Jane knew she had but one choice" "Her longtime friend must be shot" "But 1967 would bring joy" "Married three years Hugo and Jane now had a son" "Little Hugo, nicknamed Grub would grown up in a world most children never even see" "Spending less time at work to be with Grub" "Jane modeled her behavior after the patient affectionate chimp mothers she had long observed" ""Gombe was the ideal place to raise a child," she said" ""You could focus on the important things in life: family unity with all living creatures being part of the natural world."" "As she watched her own son grow" "Jane continued to track the development of Flo's son" "Flint, who was now four and a half" "Pregnant with her fifth child" "Flo was increasing her attempts to wean Flint" "Typical of youngsters his age he resisted - still trying to suckle and demanding to ride on Flo despite his large size" "When denied his way" "Flint threw violent temper tantrums even hitting and biting his mother" ""Perhaps because she was too old to cope" "Flo often gave in and let Flint have his way" "Later, this would have grave consequences."" "Later that year, the baby was born and Jane named her Flame" "Still attached to the placenta" "Flame was just a few hours old" "Because females give birth only once every five to six years a newborn always stirs much curiosity among the youngsters" "Jane wondered what the birth would mean to Flint" "Flint's behavior would be expected to change with the new arrival but instead he was getting worse" ""Even after the birth of his sibling when most youngsters become more independent" "Flint continued to pester his mother for attention" "And, more often than not Flo gave in to his demands."" "Even with Flame at Flo's breast" "Flint sometimes tried to suckle" "Six months later while Flo was ill" "Flame disappeared never to be seen again" "With no baby to care for now" "Flo stopped even trying to encourage Flint's independence" "Jane wondered if he would remain an infant forever" "Life expectancy of a wild chimpanzee is guessed at forty to fifty years" "Flo, now well past 40, was feeble and worn spending most of her time resting quietly near Flint" ""Although I knew that Flo had become very old indeed it was still a sad day when I found her dead body lying in the stream" "For me it was like losing an old friend" "For Flint it was like losing his whole world" "Flint stayed by himself close to the place where Flo had died" "He ate very little" "He became increasingly lethargic and depressed" "And, finally, in this state of grieving he grew sick" "Three and a half weeks after losing his mother" "Flint died too."" "Today the name Jane Goodall is almost synonymous with animal research" "Accomplished author speaker, and now a Ph.D she is sought all over the world" "A rarity among scientists she has become a celebrity in her own right" ""... he wasn't having it at all" "He wanted to follow his adolescent brother."" "Wherever she goes on her annual lecture tours eager crowds gather to hear the latest chapter in the lives of the chimps" ""Any new, particular new developments new behavior of the chimps?"" ""Two quite interesting new developments" "One is concerned with territoriality..."" "Though she welcomes the opportunity to share her world" "Jane keeps her visits short" "Gombe is where she most wants to be" "With her on this trip are her mother returning for a nostalgic visit and Grub, now 15" "Though not even Jane could have predicted her study would last this long it is 22 years since she first set foot on Gombe's shores" "In that time the country has gone from British rule to independence;" "Gombe once a game reserve is now a national park" "But friendships that span more than two decades remain unchanged" "Today permanent structures have replaced Jane's lakeshore tent and a staff of ten Tanzanian field assistants has been trained to help observe the chimps" "The men work in teams of two and follow the animals seven days a week" "In recent years they, along with Jane witnessed a startling turn of events" "Like Gombe itself, the chimps, it seemed had changed too" ""If I'd left, as Louis Leakey predicted after ten years, we would have had a very different picture of the chimpanzees to that which we have today" "People's idea of the gentle noble savage would have been exemplified by the way of life of the chimps" "I started off studying one community and in 1972 that community divided into two and one part of it moved down into the south of the range that the whole community had shared" "Two years later a series of events began which were amongst the most horrifying we have seen at Gombe" "The males of the larger Kasakela community the one's that we are studying today systematically began to hunt down individuals of the smaller southern community to attack them when they found them on their own or in small groups and within a full year period every one" "of the seven males and at least one of the three females who had moved to the south had disappeared."" ""The sequence of events that occurred during this warfare were really shocking because these attacks were not over in one minute" "They lasted 20 minutes" "They were gang attacks where between three and six adult males together attacked one victim" "The victim was rendered senseless virtually crouching on the ground not even trying to fight back" "And yet they would pound him they would drag him they would bite him they would smash him" "One of them had a broken leg" "One of them had a great piece of skin ripped from his thigh" "And these were very very brutal attacks and I think it's a bit horrifying to consider that just because we now know how aggressive the chimpanzee can be this makes them even more like humans than I thought they were before."" "Only because Jane stayed on at Gombe was the warfare discovered" "Only because she remains there still may it one day be explained" "While the male gang violence was a profoundly dramatic event much of Jane's work continues to revolve around the subtle intricacies of day-to-day family life" "Her observations of Flo and Flint taught her just how powerful a mother's influence can be" "In the ten years since Flo died" "Jane has followed her family into its third generation" "Flo's daughter, Fifi is now a mother herself" "Like Flo, Fifi is an extremely playful and tolerant mother" "Her son, Frodo, bears a striking resemblance to his dead uncle Flint" "Young Fanni evokes images of Fifi herself as a child" "And in adolescent Freud a visible reminder of Figan as he matured" ""Gremlin now watches Frodo" "Getty much more active than he used to be."" "As she watches Getty the youngest member of the Gomber community secure in his mother's arms" "Jane reflects on ten other infants who over the course of four years met a gruesome fate" ""There was one extremely horrifying day" "I was in Dares Salaam and we were contacting Gombe by radio as we used to do every morning" "And this strange message came over that the adult female Passion and her adolescent daughter" "Pom, had seized a newborn infant from Gilka" "Gilka, one of the polio victims a chimp I'd known since she was one year old" "And that this mother Passion had killed the baby and she and her daughter and her son had shared the body between them" "And I found this almost impossible to believe" "But when I got to Gombe a week later it was indeed true" "And over the next four years Passion and her daughter Pom were known to kill and eat three newborn babies" "They were watched as they tried but failed to catch two more" "And we suspect that in that four years in fact, they were responsible for the deaths of ten newborn babies."" "Jane had always described Passion as "a somewhat unnatural mother"" "cold and indifferent, indeed often callous to her youngsters" "Yet Jane could not possibly have predicted that Passion would become a killer attacking with aggression so violent that she paid no attention to human observers even when they tried to intervene" ""Why did they do it?" "I really have no idea" "I suspect that it was an aberrant behavior shown first by the mother imitated by the daughter" "It was, perhaps, the hardest thing to understand and to accept that's ever happened at Gombe" "And the descriptions of the attacks on these mothers are some of the most moving and horrifying descriptions that have taken place in all the 22 years" "For instance, when passion, together with Pom two strong females, attacked Melissa with her three-week-old baby" "Melissa's daughter Gremlin much younger than Pom, ran over to the two field assistants who were watching this horrifying struggle stood upright, looked into their eyes looked back at the scene, and really seemed to be begging for help" "But Passion and Pom were strong stronger than Melissa, and they managed to seize the baby leaving Melissa terribly badly wounded" "The moment they had the baby and had killed it when Melissa went up to watch as they ate it" "Passion reached out embraced and kissed her as though" "I have no quarrel with you."" "I wanted your baby" "Now I'm content" "And as I say we just do not understand this behavior" "Hopefully now the behavior is finished" "Passion is dead" "Pom has shown no signs of doing this and, indeed on her own isn't capable of attacking another female and stealing her baby."" "For now the warfare is over the cannibalism has ceased" "Gombe is quiet again but for the eternal sounds of the African night" "Then on a summer evening in 1982 a joyous chorus of human voices pervades the dark an anniversary party celebrating 22 years of research at Gombe" "To share this night, some have come by boat others have walked for miles" "With traditional feasting and speeches they join together to toast the future and celebrate the past" ""Well, after 22 years I have many many fond memories of Gombe" "Perhaps the one that I like to think back on most was after having struggled crawled through the undergrowth climbed up to the Peak and down again and searched, and being rewarded yes by seeing chimps, but chimps that ran away every time I went up to them " "to have a chimpanzee just sit there and watch me and know that I was there and not mind" "That was a very, very wonderful moment" "It was a tremendous feeling of accomplishment and exhilaration and pride in the fact that I'd been accepted" "And then a rather different kind of memory was the first time that a wild chimpanzee mother came up to me and allowed her infant to reach out with that wondering expression in his eyes to touch me" "And that, of course, was Flo with her infant Flint" "And that's another moment I'll never forget."" "And though it often seems a lifetime ago she remembers them all three generations of chimps who allowed her the privilege of entering their private world" "Wild animals roaming free who permitted a human to live among them as a friend" "Today, the direction of the study lies uncharted ahead to be written by the chimps themselves" "It is a future Jane Goodall embraces with anticipation and a personal dream" ""I hope to stay at Gombe for as long as I can struggle around the mountains and even after that I would hope that I can train somebody to follow in my footsteps so that when I'm an old and doddering lady" "I can still hear about Melissa's grandchildren and Fifi's successors and be happy in my old age."" "When Louis Leakey told Jane her study might last ten years it sounded like a lifetime and privately she thought "three years at mos."" "Already into her third decade at Gombe the pioneer who dared to be accepted by wild animals and won has no intention of leaving now" "Return to Everest" "In the Himalayan foothills," "Kathmandu long has been a crossroads its streets and holy places filled with travelers enroute to a thousand destinations many may never reach." "Watched by the gods, some go to market to sell or buy, some seek to earn a higher form in their next reincarnation, some climb the steep steps to Nirvana, hoping to escape the tumult of daily life." "Sometimes the destinations are only disguised beginnings." "For sir Edmund Hillary, first conqueror of Mount Everest, his greatest journey would only begin at the summit." "It would traverse not only the great landforms of Earth, but a less visible geography the private landscapes of one man's passage through the years." "At last among the long isolated" "Sherpas of the Khumbu region south of Everest, it would bring a new challenge, a new adventure, hardly 20 miles from where his journey began." "Today Hillary is a folk hero in the Khumbu." "With ceremonial scarves or katas, the Sherpa children honor not the great sahib who climbs mountains but the friendly giant who has brought them their first glimpses of a world they never knew." "It has been a trade of sorts." "In changing their lives, Hillary has changed his own." "In the Khumbu highlands of Nepal each dawn is a discovery." "Again the peaks emerge" "Ama Dablam, Kantega, Thamserku, Everest silent sentinels of Earth's highest mountains, the Himalayas." "In the Sherpa villages of Kunde and Khumjung, less habit yaks and goats are sent to stony pas and the juniper smoke from a hundred scattered fires carries morning prayers to the gods." "At 13,000 feet the gods are never far away." "Formed forty million years ago by the collision of the Indian landmass and the Eurasian continent, Nepal is a country set on edge." "Here, near Everest," "Tibetan Sherpas long ago found sanctuary." "Here for centuries they lived in rigorous isolation, an island in time." "One man has become a major instrument of change, bringing both blessings and danger." "With his son, Peter," "Sir Edmund Hillary has returned this way many times, but this year holds a special meaning it is the 30th anniversary of the first conquest of Everest." ""I get quite a thrill every time" "I come back to these two main Sherpa villages." "There's so much here that's pleasantly familiar." "There's also the thought of soon being reunited with so many old friends."" "Again they walk the village lanes, welcomed by the greeting of clasped hands and murmured "Namaste!"" "Already fields are being prepared and planted with grains or potatoes for the short upland growing season." "Across a wall bounds an old and irrepressible friend," "Phudorje, Hillary's companion on many a climb." "Everywhere young life explores a world made new." "It is spring." "At last father and son enter the house that long ago became a second home." ""Oh, Ang Dooli!" "Namaste!"" ""Namaste!"" ""Very good to see you."" ""Yes, same." "Namaste!"" ""In this house I can always be sure of a warm welcome and a cup of Tibetan tea." "Over the years my family and I have spent much time here with Mingma Tsering and his wife Ang Dooli." "And they're still my closest Sherpa friends."" "In daily tasks, Ang Dooli endures." "Having lost eight of eleven children she eagerly welcomed the Hillary family as her own." "Upon the wall hang snapshots, fragments of life captured long ago..." "Hillary's daughters Belinda and Sarah... his wife, Louise, and the children..." "young Peter with protective god... playful Belinda the youngest child." ""Ah, thank you, Ang Dooli!"" "Now a painter, surviving son Temba remains a victim of iodine deficiency, once common in the Khumbu." ""Hey, Temba!"" ""Ah, what's that?" "What's that?"" ""Thyangboche."" ""Thyangboche."" ""There."" "Pivot on which so many destinies have turned, it was Everest that once joined the widely separated lives of Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, his Sherpa partner on their historic climb." "Now, amid the peaks on the trail to Everest, they meet again." "Still strong at 69," "Tenzing and his daughter Deki have come from Darjeeling to join the anniversary festivities." ""Oh, Tenzing!" "Good to see you."" ""..." "Deki."" ""Hi, Deki." "How are you?"" ""Fine."" ""Very nice to meet you."" ""Hi, Peter..."" ""Hi." "Long time, Tenzing." "It's good to see you again."" ""Yes, did you have a good walk up?"" ""Very well." "Very fine, thank you."" "In Britain today there will be a more formal celebration, but Hillary and Tenzing have chosen to come here, not only to be honored, but to honor the families of so many Sherpas who have risked and often lost their lives on many an expedition." ""Ah, that's good."" ""Yes."" ""Namaste, Tenzing."" ""Namaste."" "For a moment two aging heroes pause to honor each other, look back to the victory they shared." "Remote, seemingly beyond the reach of human effort, the towering mass of Everest at mid-century had defeated all attempts to reach the summit." "Then, as Nepal opened to foreigners, assaults at last were possible from the south." "In the British Expedition of 1953, guide Tenzing Norgay, already veteran of five failed attempts, would be teamed with Hillary, who earlier had sighted a possible route via the South Col." "With the return of the first assault team the challenge was passed to Hillary and Tenzing." "The earlier team had reached a point hardly 300 feet below the summit." "Now, exhausted and frozen, they were somber evidence of the tests that lay ahead." "But storm intervened." "Only after a night wracked by winds could Hillary and Tenzing at last climb the icy blade to the summit." "There they left in the snow a bar of chocolate and some biscuits." "At a lower camp, the main party waited in growing suspense while leader John Hunt scanned the ridges and icefalls above." "Then at last the returning climbers appeared, led by a teammate lifting his thumb in a sign of triumph." "Briefly the triumph was shared only with comrades." "Then word flashed to the world." ""This is the BBC Home Service." "Here is the news." "Mount Everest has been conquered by members of the British Expedition" "The news reached London in a message to the Times." "It said that Mr. E.P. Hillary, a New Zealander, and Tenzing Bhotia, a Sherpa, had reached the summit last Friday, May 29th." "The message added, 'All is well."'" "In London the coronation of the Queen now was marked by a fitting tribute." "For a new Queen Elizabeth, an obscure New Zealand beekeeper had set a flag in high, thin air, passed a boundary never crossed by man." "Quickly knighted by the Queen," "Sir Edmund soon pledged loyalty to another lady" " Louise, the young musician who became his wife." "Yet domestic bliss soon would be exchanged for the wintry wastes of Antarctica." "There, Hillary would lead a caravan of modified farm tractors to the South Pole, setting up supply depots for the first Antarctic crossing." "Hero to the world, symbol of high adventure, his life would become a continuing odyssey, seeking new challenges around the globe." "Sometimes, with the indomitable Louise on less spectacular expeditions in New Zealand or the Alaskan wilderness, he discovered the new adventure of watching his children grow." "But always Hillary came back to Nepal." "Long a forbidden kingdom locked from the world," "Nepal had barely 200 miles of road when at last opened to foreigners in 1949." "Its few vehicles, machines, and even grand pianos were brought over the southern ridges on the backs of men." "Its terraced uplands, built by the labor of centuries, were joined by a labyrinth of trails on which astonishing burdens were carried by the hardy hill folk or their caravans of yaks." "Later each return of the family would become a journey of discovery, particularly for Louise whose lighthearted accounts of their travels soon became best-selling books." "Learning the country by climbing it, the children were taken by their father to seethe great peak that changed his destiny and theirs" "For the first time 12-year-old Peter would glimpse the mountain that one day would draw him like an inescapable challenge." "With deepening regard for the warmhearted Sherpas, the Hillarys eagerly lent a hand wherever needed, opened the door to a culture distant from their own origins." "On a mountainside at Thami not far from the Tibetan border, they helped build a supporting wall for a Buddhist monastery." "Its new leader was a 12-year-old boy, believed to be the reincarnation of a previous head lama or rimpoche." ""When I first went to the Himalayas, my major interest really was in climbing mountains." "I got to know the local people, the Sherpas, and enjoyed them very much." "And by spending time in the villages, it became impossible for me not to realize that there were so many things lacking." "So many things that we took for granted in our society, they simply didn't have." "And because I was very fond of my Sherpa friends," "I had this sort of nagging worry all the time shouldn't we be trying to do something about the future of the Sherpas?" "And to help them to withstand the changes that were likely to take place?"" "Around Hillary, often watching, were the beautiful Sherpa children open, quick to laugh, endlessly inventive in play." "Yet untaught, their innocence one day could become a prison." "In all of the Khumbu there was not a school to help them grow." "He would always remember the words of a village leader:" ""Our children have eyes, but they are blind."" ""And it was then at that particular occasion that I decided that instead of sort of thinking about it for years and talking about it, maybe I should try and do something about it."" "Abruptly, Sir Edmund Hillary became a part-time carpenter." "Drawing help from contributors in New Zealand and the United States, he formed the Himalayan Trust to support the program." "Today, still building after more than two decades, he has completed and staffed no fewer than 22 schools across the Khumbu." ""We have a good, experienced team to do the job." "My brother, Rex, is a builder by trade back in New Zealand." "And he's come over here quite a few times to help on these projects." "But without Mingma's organization and authority amongst the Sherpas," "I could have done nothing."" "The patterns of construction have changed little since the building of the first school in 1961." "Some children help some children watch some children imitate." "For some, classes have already begun." ""...has entered."" ""He has entered."" ""His house."" ""His house."" ""The men are climbing the mountain."" ""The men are climbing the mountain."" ""The mountain."" ""The mountain."" ""The mountain."" ""The mountain."" ""The men have climbed the mountain."" ""The men have climbed the mountain."" ""This is the thing I've always liked about the Sherpas." "They always are prepared and know what they can do." "And they know that they don't have money, but they have the strength of their hands." "In days gone by, even my own children," "Peter, Sarah, and Belinda, used to work in with the local children, carrying rocks and carrying chunks of timber, and I really think they enjoyed it." "It is quite exciting to watch a school rise up from its foundations and to see the rock I used to climb being fashioned into schoolhouse walls."" "A rudimentary structure, unheated, dependent on natural light, the new school at Chaunrikarka is a center of village pride." "Quickly the people gather, bringing bottles of chang, the local spirits, for the celebration." ""I always feel a slight degree of apprehension about get-togethers like these." "Any Sherpa gathering tends to become a somewhat festive occasion with the local beer and spirits flowing rather freely and mostly in my direction." "And it's really quite a challenge to survive these functions in an upright position."" ""On behalf of the Himalayan Trust and all those who have helped build this school," "I have much pleasure now in declaring the school open."" "For the first time the children enter the still empty classroom." "Here, in this vacancy, each will embark on a new journey of discovery, find new mountains to climb." "Today across the Khumbu the school bells ring, many the empty oxygen flasks used by Hillary and other climbers." "Over the highland ridges more than a thousand Sherpa children hurry to class each day, some to schools more than a three-hour journey from home." ""Are you sleeping, are you sleeping?" "Brother John, Brother John." "Morning bell is ringing, morning bell is ringing." "Ding done ding, dong ding dong."" "At Khumjung, Hillary remains close to its day-to-day activities, still enjoys visiting the first school he ever built, watching children draw pictures of a wider world they have never seen outside a book." "Largest of Khumbu schools with an enrollment of nearly300," "Khumjung has a proud record of outstanding students, some already entering leadership roles in Nepal." "The soccer team, of course, remains invincible to lowland teams who quickly struggle for breath at 13,000 feet." "But schools are only part of a wider effort by Hillary and his associates." "Under his direction, three landing strips have been carved on the mountainsides, ending forever the centuries-long isolation of the Sherpas." "In the mysterious symbols printed on the cargo, passing children sometimes try to imagine the wonders of the world from which it came." "Built by Hillary, scattered clinics and two hospitals at last provide medical care and have brought a new awareness among the Sherpas that smoky dwellings and lack of sanitation cause many of their chronic maladies" "At Kunde even the local lama has found a new trust in modern medicine." "In a region where formerly half the youth died before twenty, there has been a dramatic improvement in the treatment of children's afflictions and a corresponding drop in the mortality rate." "For some, the cure seemed nearly miraculous." "Here, a boy, whose hearing has been severely impaired since birth, can hear the full wonder of sound for the first time." "But as Hillary learned during the building of Phaphlu hospital in 1975, preparations for errands of mercy are sometimes of little use." "Eagerly awaiting the arrival of his wife, Louise, and young Belinda from Kathmandu, he learned that both had been killed in the crash of their plane shortly after takeoff." "For Hillary that day was darkness, the beginning of a long journey across a private wasteland without compass or place to rest." ""I didn't really know what else to do apart from going on building the hospital, and then later we went back to Khumbu and spent time with Mingma and" "Ang Dooli and various other friends, and that was it." "And they, you know, they all helped a bit."" "Shaken, Hillary went back to work, building new classrooms, adding to others." ""Thin walls." "A bit bulgy."" ""Yeah."" ""Well, I think we had better do a proper job of it."" ""Uh, hum."" ""You'll have to put a lot of framework in, won't you?"" ""Yeah." "Let's measure."" "Now at Namche Bazar with his brother, Rex, he studies the damage of time and weather to a school built years ago, draws plans for needed repairs on its structure." ""Namaste."" ""I think we're going to..."" "Still Hillary's trusted sirdar or foreman," "Mingma Tsering jokes over the division of labor in providing the lumber who will cut and who will carry." ""...okay, carry."" ""Will they help you carry?"" ""Yes." "It's o. k?"" ""Yeah, that's good."" ""Big help."" ""Those are cutting..." "and they carry."" ""Yep."" "Drawn closer by tragedy," "Hillary and Peter each feel a renewed awareness of the risk that lies in every human attachment." "Now veteran climbers both, often in personal peril, each has seen close friends and companions lost on mountain walls." "Even Peter was nearly sacrificed on the soaring altar of Ama Dablam." "Struck by an avalanche high on its icy wall, severely injured and climbing equipment swept away," "Peter nearly died in the two days before he finally could be lowered to safety." "For Hillary himself the summits have anew and poignant meaning." "He can never again return to those icy heights." "Several times in recent years he has suffered critical attacks of cerebral edema or altitude sickness." "Twice in delirium he has had to be led or carried from the thin upper air to lower altitudes to save his life." "Today, the man who first climbed Everest must remain below 14,000 feet." "But today with Peter and Mingma he will press the barrier, view at a distance the summit on which he stood 30 years ago." "For at last Peter is ready to answer the summons he first felt as a 12-year-old boy staring in awe at the mountain his father had climbed." "Already Peter has made preparations for an attempt on Everest by its formidable West Ridge." "A geologic accident that became the highest point on Earth," "Everest has long been a challenge to Western man." "But to the Sherpas the peaks were something else." "Migrating from Tibet several centuries ago, the Sherpas found an endlessly changing world of mist and stone where peaks and trees and streams appeared and vanished with magical swiftness." "Quickly their imaginations populated the landscape with gods, demons, and spirits of every kind." "Even the trees were sometime believed to be the dwelling place of sacred beings." "In a continuing dialogue with the invisible or disguised powers around them, they have given prayer a thousand forms, a thousand means of transmission written on hand-turned cylinders and waterwheels," "printed on prayer flags and banners waving in the wind," "inscribed on shrines or chortens engraved on stone tablets or manis even on rocks in rivers and trailside boulders." "Committed to the elements, it is hoped that the prayers will reach their protective gods." "The sun diffuses the fading prayer, rain spreads it through the rivers, wind carries it to the heavens." "Surrounded by prayer in life," "Sherpa are followed by prayer even in death." "Into the ear of the dead, the dying, or those soon to die, a monk chants passages from the Tibetan Book of the Dead to guide the consciousness of the deceased in the interval between death and rebirth." "Yet prayers must be learned and preserved by the living." "At Thami Monastery, its greatest library of Buddhist scripture must be read and taught each year." "Once it was customary for one son in each family to become a monk." "But with the growth of tourism a young monk may well envy the Western clothing and wrist watch of brother who has become a trekking guide." "First encountered as a12-year-old boy, the head lama again welcomes an old friend." "With Peter and Mingma," "Hillary has come to help preparations for Mani Rimdu, a yearly Buddhist festival to protect the Khumbu." ""Ah, Namaste."" ""Namaste." "How are you?"" ""I'm very well, thank you!"" ""Namaste."" "In the courtyard of the monastery, helped by barelegged monks," "Rex and the rest of the Hillary construction team are swiftly completing improvements on the paved court and adjoining structures." "With time growing short," "Hillary and Peter also join the crew." "Soon the balcony and yard will be crowded with Sherpas and a few tourists who have made the pilgrimage over the steep mountain trails, some from villages many days' walk away." "With a sounding of horns the great cycle of dances begins." "As in the religious mystery plays of the Middle Ages, the Sherpas act out their myths, make theater out of faith." "Often using the symbols of ancient beliefs in magic, the dances again promise the victory of good over evil." "In the Khumbu every mountain has a spirit." "Mani Rimdu exorcises the demons that threaten it." "Backstage in the gompa or temple, another ritual is taking place." "Donning the sacred masks and costumes, decorated with an array of mythic symbols, men are becoming gods." "For a little while they will become the holy figures invented by human need." "Now, like a challenge, a crash of cymbals demands the attention of the threatening adversaries." "For it is in the dance of the so-called Eight Furies that the climactic struggle with the evil spirits occurs." "In it the benign gods rise in terrible wrath to defeat and drive away the demons." "Once again the protective gods disappear into the gompa." "Once again the villages are safe from demons for another year." "As always, the people form a line to pass the rimpoche, bring gifts wrapped in ceremonial katas." "One by one they are blessed, take a sip of tu or holy water with a sprinkle on the head, then taste a bit of torma, made of flour and butter - the ritual greatly similar to" "Christian communion with its wine and wafer." "Yet, watching the rimpoche bless the people," "Hillary remembers another visit when the head lama was a child and the Hillary family helped build a wall." "On the western ridge above Kunde," "Mingma's wife, Ang Dooli, also remembers." "In a more private ritual she brings juniper to the shrine she and other villagers built long ago for Louise and Belinda Hillary." "Yet even the Eight Furies cannot protect the Sherpa villagers from the risks of change." "Once reached only by an arduous two-week walk over mountain trails the distance from Kathmandu now can be covered by plane in less than an hour provided of course that the Lukla airstrip, which bears some resemblance to a ski jump," "can be found in the frequent overcast." "Speaking a dozen languages, tourists from Europe, Asia, and America disembark from the aircraft, pass through the villages alarming small dogs, awakening the merchants, and delighting the local children who have discovered the blessings of balloons and bubble gum." "Today the Khumbu is invaded yearly by thousands of trekkers and porters plodding the steep trails and spreading their bivouacs across the upper slopes like an occupying army." "More ambitious are the expeditions intent on conquest" "Since Hillary and Tenzing first reached the summit, nearly 150 men and women have stood on Everest." "In Kathmandu there is a growing list of other teams booking dates on which they too can attempt to climb Everest or a score of other peaks." "Everywhere the sound of the saw is heard." "Hillary tells of its impact." ""I believe the problem of conservation in the Khumbu area is a very serious one indeed." "There are literally dozens of small hotels being constructed with the view to supplying accommodation to walkers and trekkers and climbers." "This has put a very considerable pressure on the local timber resources." "In the old days the Sherpas used to have very strict rules about where they cut firewood, and how much they cut." "And the whole society was well balanced ecologically." "All that has changed." "Nowadays most of the upper valleys have been completely denuded and many of the forests have been thoroughly thinned out."" "As the Sherpas are learning, their mountain homeland is astonishingly fragile." "Not only in the Khumbu but throughout Nepal, trees are being cut at a devastating rate one third the nation's forest in the last decade." "Already ravished slopes are bringing disastrous penalties." "No longer held by trees, landslides are destroying terraces built by centuries of patient labor, have even swept away or buried entire villages." "With the help of Hillary's Himalayan Trust, at least one resident is being banished from the Khumbu parklands." "Relentless foragers of seedlings and low vegetation, goats long have threatened the slow-growing shrubs and trees of the high country." "Now Hillary, too, joins in a great goat roundup with Mingma Norbu, warden of the Sagarmatha National park on the flanks of Everest." "From the scattered slopes almost five hundred goats at last are gathered near Namche Bazar and driven to the less vulnerable lowlands in the south." "At park headquarters," "Warden Mingma Norbu leads an intensifying effort to save the Khumbu from calamity." "A student in the first school built at Khumjung over twenty years ago, he is a proud example of the education made possible by Hillary" "Now, speaking both Nepali and occasional English, he teaches a new generation of Sherpa children to recognize the evidence of damaged trees and erosion on the scarred landscape around them." "He stresses the critical importance of tree nurseries and the need for a wider program of reforestation protecting not only their fragile world, but Sherpa culture itself." "Celebrated in a museum photograph, the climbing of Everest by Hillary and Tenzing hastened the changes taking place in Nepal." "Now on the thirtieth anniversary of that historic event, the Khumbu is no longer an island lost in time." "Yet the past sends emissaries." "Announced by the beat of drums, ancient protectors of their Tibetan ancestors appear amid the villagers assembled at Khumjung School." "Believed to be the guardians of the four gates of Earth," ""snow lions" have come down from the icy summits to dance and cavort for the honored guests." "While the conquerors of Everest sample the home-brewed chang of the village women, the school staff prepares a lesson on how mountains really should be climbed." "As the guests should know, a little chang steadies the nerves, helps blur the dangers and difficulties that lie ahead." "A helping hand is always appreciated." "Pace yourself." "The steeper the slope, the more rest you need." "Try not to trip on a tangled rope." "The fall may be farther than you think." "When altitude sickness strikes, a whiff of oxygen can work wonders." "When lost, look for the summit." "That's where you're going." "In the final assault on the last gale-swept ridge, don't lose heart." ""I'm going to die." "I'm going to die."" ""Okay"" ""Thank you very much."" "Celebrating one journey, Hillary begins another." "From Khumjung School he leads a climb of children." "Bearing seedlings of fir and rhododendron from Sagarmatha's nurseries, the students of Khumjung school are bringing back growth to the blighted slopes below Everest." "Helped by Hillary as they commit roots to soil, they are part of a new children's crusade, not to seek redemption in heaven, but to renew life on Earth." "Around Hillary stand the silent witnesses of the journey he began long ago" "Ama Dablam, Kantega, Thamserku, Everest the summit where he and Tenzing once left a bit of chocolate and a few biscuits." "Today he has brought a richer gift the small beginnings of a new woodland, the little trees protect by the prayers of children." "But the answer to prayers often lies in those who pray." "In the opening minds of Khumbu's children lies a measure of their world to come." "In them Sir Edmund Hillary long ago found something more satisfying, more enduring, than leaving a footprint on a mountaintop." "Though remarkably sensitive and accurate the human eye is an extremely limited device a surprisingly narrow window on our world" "In the fragile film of a soap bubble lies a normally unseen realm a miniature liquid kaleidoscope too small for our eyes to see" "Vivid detail is also hidden within an instant of time" "Many events are simply too fast to be seen with the unaided eye" "When time is compressed once motionless sights magically come to life" "A voracious army of fire ants devours a helpless cricket" "It is an awesome day long process too slow for us to notice" "Beyond the spectrum of visible light lie strange and extraordinary sights images created with forms of energy which elude the naked eye" "Today, as never before cameras and other instruments that see are radically expanding the of our vision and knowledge and altering forever our image of the world" "Join us now on a visual journey beyond the limits of the naked eye on a voyage into "The Invisible World"" "We are visual creatures reliant on our eyes as our primary link with the world" "Able at a glance to estimate size measure depth, register movement make sudden shifts in focus and instantly distinguish s million different colors, our eyes are the most highly developed of all living species" "Yet, despite our eyes' amazing powers and remarkable versatility there are infinite sights around us to which we are totally blind" "If our vision is expanded beyond its normal bounds a whole new world of experience suddenly unfolds" "Through the specialized eyes of cameras come new dimensions of seeing" "Fleeting movement hidden by time... details shrouded by distance and size are revealed as vivid images which our eyes alone could never discern" "The camera must often come to the aid of our blinkered sense of sight" "What thousands of eyes have witnessed firsthand we must rely on a camera to actually see" "Possessed with powers to reveal the world in myriad ways that our unaided eyes cannot cameras and other imaging tools are extending enormously the limited reach of our vision probing once distant and unimagined realms that lie hidden all around us" "We delight in exploring the world we can see" "But even up close our eyes can barely resolve objects that are one three hundredths of an inch in diameter a fraction the size of a tiny grain of sand" "What seems very small in human scale is but the threshold of a microcosm beyond the limits of our eyes" "In a tiny drop of water a bounty of life too small to see" "Like spaceships from an alien world delicate creatures called plankton silently maneuver through their seemingly boundless universe" "Completely unknown until the invention of the microscope some 400 years ago the discovery of plankton and other microlife provoked unparalleled wonder" "When seen for the first time it was difficult to believe that living things could be so small-that a single drop of water could contain a miniature world" "Indispensable tools of science modern microscopes fitted with cameras can now easily recapture the sights that were seen when man first glimpsed the microworld" "Bacteria." "Discovered in 1674 their tiny size and great abundance seemed nearly inconceivable" "A slice of leaf revealed a complex structure of tiny living cells which no one had dreamed existed" "Blood was seen to be composed of millions of free-floating corpuscles" "The sight of a cell dividing seemed a miracle of nature-another astounding discovery which would help to lay the foundations of modern biology and medicine" "With a microscope that filters the direction of incoming light the composition of the physical world can be vividly explored" "When a liquid transforms into a solid-as when water turns to ice-the tiny crystals that will form its structure organize into shape" "Recorded on film at actual speed we can witness the other invisible process known as crystallization" "Seeing with a beam of electrons rather than with light a powerful new instrument called the scanning electron microscope has penetrated an uncharged level of detail and size" "For David Scharf, a researcher and photographer it is a means to explore a whole new world of inner space" "Though we seem to be leaving some distant planet's surface our voyage, in fact, is much more contained" "The cratered terrain we have left behind is the surface of a moon rock the size of a grain of sand" "The fragile structure of an alyssum flower is barely visible to the eye" "In the vacuum chamber of the microscope a focused beam of electrons will be aimed across the flower's surface to form a magnified image" "Zap" "Through the microscope's probing eye the tiny flower reveals a delicate structure of unexpected complexity" "When magnified more than 20,000 times we can see single grains of pollen" "If we spy a little closer on the intimate places we know we might come to feel like strangers in our own familiar world" "Zigzags of rough-hewn channels gouged into a surface are a magnified view of the narrow grooves in an ordinary phonograph record" "This barren, rutted terrain is not as remote as it seems" "It is the porous surface of the tip of a ball-point pen" "A tangled network of sinuous fibers when enlarged 4,000 times hardly resembles what we usually see as a smooth sheet of writing paper" "In the sofas and beds of even our best kept homes microscopic dust mites quietly live their lives" "Like miniature dinosaurs from a long lost world their bodies rarely grow large enough for the naked eye to see" "Dependent on us for survival dust mites feed primarily on the flakes of dead which our bodies constantly shed" "What at first sight appears to be a crude medieval machine is actually a precision instrument nearly all of us depend on" "Its roughly chiseled surface offers little clue that this clumsy contraption is actually the complex movement of an ordinary wristwatch" "Our skin itself hides a miniature world from the normal view of our eyes" "When seen at high magnification an alien landscape appears" "Stubbles of hair grow like tree stumps in a terrain whose complex ecology supports a wide variety of life" "On almost any strand of hair tiny fungi can be found" "In numerous forms, their population on our hair and skin numbers in the tens of thousands" "Our intimate fellow travelers fungi have lived with us through evolution to establish a permanent niche in the habitat of our skin" "In the roots of everyone's eyelashes live tiny mites called Demodex folliculorum" "Apparently they cause us no harm" "But why they are there and exactly what they do have yet to be discovered" "The varied micro-landscapes on the surface of our bodies also fall prey to less desirable guests" "Meet Pediculus humanus capitis the head louse a tiny and bothersome pest which lives its life firmly attached to a single strand of hair" "Sarcoptes scabiei, the scabies mite is a microscopic creature that makes a comfortable home by burrowing directly into the skin" "On the warm, moist regions of our skin there is life in enormous abundance" "Bacteria the simplest form of free living life-are constantly with us" "A single bacterium can multiply to more than a million in about eight hours and mo matter how much we wash millions remain on our skin" "Each of us is the keeper of a huge invisible zoo" "In fact, at any given time there are as many creatures on our bodies as there are people on Earth" "If our numerous companions do not inspire our love at least we have the consolation of knowing that we are never completely alone" "At the Enrico Fermi Institute of the University of Chicago a new frontier of the microworld has recently been bridged" "Using a powerful electron microscope which took 14 years to develop" "Dr. Albert Crewe has captured on film what no one had ever seen" "You are looking at atoms-uranium atoms" "The smaller single specks are individual atoms each with a diameter of only a few billionths of an inch" "The larger masses are clusters of several atoms" "Colorized artificially to enhance our view atoms exhibit unpredicted movement revealing that solid objects when seen on an atomic scale are actually a sea of moving particles" "The level of magnification of the movies on the home TV screen is about ten million, maybe 20 million, depending on the size of your TV set" "That's about the equivalent to blowing a basketball up to the size of the Earth" "The ability to see single atoms to isolate them at that could have considerable importance" "Where it will lead is very difficult to except what we have is a new technology a new way of looking at materials in the world" "And every time you have a new way of looking at things you find out something new" "We are exiled from other worlds by time as well as by size" "In a world of motion there is infinite detail too fast for the unaided eye" "In the 1870s an ingenious photographer Eadweard Muybridge invented a way to record movements normally too quick to be seen" "A wager about the stride of a running horse brought Muybridge to the stock farm of a wealthy Californian" "With a battery of 24 cameras that were activated by threads stretched across a track" "Muybridge captured aspects of motion that had never been witnessed before" "Muybridge's patron had bet that all four legs of a running horse were sometimes simultaneously off the ground" "Stop-action photography proved him to be right" "By projecting his photographs in rapid succession the first motion pictures were born" "The movement of people as well as animals became for Muybridge a passionate subject of study" "Much more than just a technical curiosity" "Muybridge's pioneering work was the first photographic analysis of the dynamics of physical motion" "Today, modern high-speed cameras can record rapid motion with a clarity that Eadweard Muybridge could only have dreamed of" "Slow-motion film is now a commonplace tool in analyzing athletic performance" "For Dr. Gideon Ariel a physical education expert and a former discus thrower on the Israeli Olympic team slow-motion film is just the first in the scientific coaching of athletes" "Dr. Ariel has turned to the computer for aid in the analysis of movement" "Slow-motion film of an athlete is projected frame by frame onto a recording screen" "Each touch of a sonic pen transmits into the computer memory the dynamically changing positions of the athlete's joints and limbs" "Human movement is governed by the same laws of motion that apply to the entire physical world" "And from the visual information contained in the film the computer can rapidly calculate the interrelationship of force acceleration, and velocity in the athlete's movements" "Computer-created images combined with a mass of numerical data can pinpoint where athletic technique is hindering performance" "So, what coaches in the past thought they can see with eyes we are finding out you can not do" "You have to quantify." "With the advent of computers we can provide the coaches with much more objective reliable information on how the body moves" "Dr. Ariel's computer analysis of Olympic discus thrower Mac Wilkins revealed that useful energy which would effect his throw was being wasted on ground friction" "Additional force was being spent by not rigidly planting his forward leg at the moment of the throw" "Based on this analysis" "Wilkins altered his throwing technique" "Several months later in international competition he threw the discus over 13 feet farther than he ever had before and set a new world record" "In a remarkable laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology time and motion are dramatically dissected" "With the aid of a pulsating strobe light" "Dr. Harold Edgerton can freeze a flurry of movement onto a single plate of film" "Dr. Edgerton developed the strobe light in 1931" "Unable to see how electric motors behaved when they rotated at various speeds he designed a light which could flash so quickly and brightly that motion seemed to stop" "Now we're going to do an experiment here to take a picture of a bullet-a very high-velocity bullet as it cuts this playing card in two" "The playing card will be attached to this tape" "The bullet will come out of the gun at 2,800 feet per second" "If we aim it correctly it'll cut through the card" "And we want to turn on a light a very special strobe light that lasts less than a millionth of a second in order to stop the bullet effectively on film and make a sharp, clear photograph" "The sound of the bullet will trigger the strobe light which creates an image on film" "A first shot will test Dr. Edgerton's aim" "Here we go" "Now, the event as the strobe light reveals it" "Less than a millionth of a second is permanently frozen in time" "Another striking example of the strobe's revealing power is what Edgerton calls "making applesauce"" "Perhaps the most dramatic of Dr. Edgerton's visual techniques combines the powerful strobe light with a high-speed motion-picture camera" "There you go." "All set?" "Three, two, one, two" "Stretching events thousands of times reveals invisible detail that can be seen and studied in no other way" "The explosion of a firecracker now slowed down 1,200 times" "Examine the "plop" of a milkdrop 200 times slower than usual" "and it becomes a magical vision of hydrodynamic behavior" "Unbounded by our human sense of time specialized cameras can also record events much too slow to see" "For nature cinematographer Ken Middleham the technique of time-lapse photography provides a fascinating window on an otherwise hidden realm" "By taking single photographs at longer than normal intervals time and events are compressed into a dramatic new scale" "The two weeks it takes for an orange to spoil are telescoped into several seconds" "A bunch of unripened bananas mature before our eyes" "The natural world is alive in ways we cannot see-constantly in the process of incredible transformation" "Over a period of days tiny worms devour the leaf of a tree" "An apple provides a week-long meal for dozens of hungry grubs" "In only four days a dead field mouse is consumed by a mass of maggots" "From the unstoppable process of decay there inevitably springs new life in full and beautiful abundance" "Even the passage of years is not a barrier for the time-lapse camera" "In less than half a minute a boy can grow from four to 20 and then return again to childhood" "Our eyes perceive the world only in the language of light" "Yet light, visible light is but a narrow slice of energy contained within an infinite spectrum of electromagnetic waves that constantly vibrate all around us" "When scientists analyze light breaking it apart into its component wavelengths the familiar rainbow of colors from red to violet appears" "Colors are the brain's code for the wavelengths of light we can see" "Beyond this band of energy our naked eyes go blind" "The world around us hides numerous sights from our limited light-sensitive eyes" "By equipping a camera with a sensitive filter we can see the world reflected in ultraviolet light-the invisible wavelengths of energy beyond the color" "In the 1930s, scientists discovered that honeybees have a visual sensitivity that extends beyond our own" "On its daily search for nectar the bee can sense its surroundings in ultraviolet light" "Some flowers we see as solidly colored have a very different appearance to the bee" "When viewed in ultraviolet light new shadings and patterns appear" "Helping to guide the bee to nectar and pollen ultraviolet markings hidden from our eyes have been discovered on numerous flowers" "Unseen ultraviolet rays stream abundantly from the sun but they are only one kind of invisible light that we must rely on cameras to reveal" "We see the light of a burning match but an image of its heat eludes us" "If our eyes could see the part of the spectrum where red light turns to infrared or heat our view of the world would suddenly take on a new and expanded scope" "A technique called schlieren photography allows us to see heat energy that constantly flows all around us" "A valuable new tool in medicine super-sensitive infrared cameras can detect slight variations in skin temperature which often signal early warnings of cancerous tumors and other diseases" "Each color represents a one-half degree difference in temperature" "Red areas are the warmest blue the coolest" "To a doctor's trained eye the body's varied heat patterns show a wealth of vital diagnostic information once hidden from his view" "By photographing a subject with visible light only the outer surface details are recorded by the camera" "Using another form of energy invisible to the eye we can penetrate solid matter and create an image on film" "Discovered in 1895 x-rays were briefly considered by some to be a threat to feminine modesty" "However, fears were allayed at first sight of the image and the x-ray was quickly put to use as a valuable new tool of medicine" "Today, the power of the x-ray is expanding our knowledge of the past" "When fragile Egyptian mummies are subjected to modern x-ray analysis scientists gain new insight into their little-known culture and lives" "What time and wrappings have hidden x-rays can still reveal" "X-rays of Yuya, a royal adviser show obvious dental disease" "Thuya, his wife, suffered painfully from arthritis and a badly curved spine" "The infant Pediamon received a less than noble burial" "His arms were amputated and his legs were broken to fit an undersized coffin" "For an unidentified mummy a less desirable fate" "Legs are intact but the torso is mysteriously missing" "Pharaoh Amenhotep I" "X-raying directly through his beautifully preserved coffin reveals that his body had been damaged by ancient grave robbers and repaired by priests five centuries later" "Perhaps no pharaoh is better known that the young king Tutankhamun" "Penetrating rays show that his golden mask was constructed in several parts" "He beard was added last attached to the chin by a tapered peg" "The body of King Tut itself has undergone careful analysis in hopes of finding evidence as to the cause of the young pharaoh's death" "X-rays, however, show a young man in good health" "And unless there is evidence still to be discovered the reason for Tut's early death may remain forever a mystery" "Sound, like light, or heat, or x-rays radiates all around us in the form of vibrating waves" "This image of a human hand was made with high-frequency sound" "Using this technique doctors can now see soft internal tissue that was not safely accessible before" "Sensitive sound-imaging cameras are today revolutionizing prenatal care" "Okay, I'm just going to get one quick look" "A tiny developing fetus can be seen and monitored during growth in the womb" "Seen here in profile its head on the top right the fetus arches its back and stretches" "It hiccups... then moves its arm and slightly turns its head" "The baby's now sort of turned around and it's looking at us to see what we're doing" "I can take a picture of the baby for you" "I'll put this freeze frame which freezes the image for us" "Today, a mother's first baby picture is often made with sound before the child is born" "Pretty good See there the baby's head" "And everything else looks fine" "The baby's moving around a lot" "The baby's heart is beating fine and you have a normal amount of amniotic fluid for this time" "Who's it look like?" "You or Brad" "I think it looks like me" "A striking means of photography discovered at the turn of the century shows apparent fields of energy emanating from our bodies" "It is known as Kirlian or electrophotography and almost everything filmed with this technique shows an active surrounding aura" "Controversial and only partially understood" "Kirlian photography is now undergoing serious investigation as a possible diagnostic tool" "To make a Kirlian photograph a finger is placed over a sheet of unexposed film which receives a burst of electricity from a metal plate beneath it" "When the film is developed the Kirlian aura appears" "Dr. Thelma Moss has conducted research on Kirlian photography at UCLA" "People are always asking" ""What is this Kirlian photography all about?"" "And the answer is "Nobody really knows."" "But we've got some ideas that are intriguing to us because they are not the conventional ideas about what exists around the human body" "We believe that not only is there air surrounding us but that we are emanating something from ourselves that is energetic-bioenergetic if you like-and that tells us a great deal about what is going on inside the body" "Kirlian fingertip images taken over several hours vary their intensity as a depressant drug takes effect" "A mild stimulating drug seems to cause an activating pattern" "These Kirlian photographs record the sequence of a woman's monthly menstrual cycle" "A yogi's hands before and then during a state of deep concentration" "Though powerfully evocative the meaning and value of the Kirlian image still remains largely unknown" "With further research it may prove to be a new frontier of our knowledge" "At the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory near Chicago we are being brought ever closer to an ultimate frontier" "With huge, exotic equipment scientists are working to better see and understand the smallest possible particles of which all matter is made" "Only 25 years ago, atoms composed of protons neutrons, and electrons were regarded as the smallest basic objects" "Today it seems that atoms are built of even tinier things called quarks" "Fermilab is, in a sense the world's largest and most powerful microscope- an awesome collection of machinery designed to shatter atoms to pieces and see the objects within" "Buried underground a four-mile ring of powerful magnets guides a narrow beam of particles which is rapidly accelerated" "When fired at their target they will act like a powerful hammer to break an atom apart" "The process begins with a giant generator and a massive jolt of power" "Hurled within seconds to nearly the speed of light the beam of particles is aimed to strike the tiny nuclei of atoms" "The collision will be photographed by several sensitive cameras" "When projected onto an analyzing table the resulting pictures show the scattered tracks left by hundreds of liberated subatomic particles" "Each type of particle has its own distinguishing signature of curving or spinning lines" "By carefully recording and studying these trails we are gradually learning more about the now smallest and most elusive units of matter the still unseen entities called quarks" "Quarks, however, may well be composed of even smaller things" "We still do not know where, or if ever the world of the small will stop" "High above the Sonoran Desert near Tucson, Arizona the Kitt Peak National Observatory is focusing our vision onto the realm of the very large" "The world's biggest collection of astronomical" "Kitt Peak is dominated by the 19-story dome of the powerful Mayall telescope" "Like most modern optical telescopes it is really a colossal camera with which to photograph the sky" "Galaxies." "Only 60 years ago their existence was just a theory" "But with the construction of larger and larger telescopes thousands were seen and photographed" "Today astronomers estimate that the universe contains at least 100 billion galaxies each with 100 billion stars" "Powerful instruments like the Mayall telescope are now seeing the heavens more clearly than has ever been possible" "Its light-collecting mirror can photographically detect objects more than six million times fainter than the unaided eye can see" "Astronomers today rarely look through a telescope directly" "An array of computers and image intensifiers record and make visible objects that the eye alone is not sensitive enough to see" "Artificial colorizing shows subtle details that would otherwise be missed" "Revealed on the telescope's computer enhancement screen the world's first image of the surface of a star other than our sun" "Known as Betelgeuse it lies 600 light years from Earth" "The computer-colorized contrasts on its surface are believed to be huge regions of varying hot and cold" "Resolving this image through the telescope was like photographing a grain of sand from several miles away" "Probing ever deeper into the enormity of the sky the powerful eye of the telescope is extending our horizons toward the limits of space and time" "From this exploration new and astonishing sights are offering clues to such baffling questions as" "What are stars?" "How do galaxies form" "Does the universe have an end" "At the Salt Lake City campus of the University of Utah a frontier of vision that was once as remote as the darkness of outer space has now been dramatically entered" "Craig has been totally blind for 15 years" "But in a bold experiment doctors have surgically implanted on the visual cortex of his brain an array of 64 tiny electrodes" "This ingenious feat of medical engineering allows Craig to be literally "plugged in" to the outside world" "Bypassing his useless eyes and optic nerves doctors can send images in the form of electrical signals directly to the visual center of his brain" "Okay, Craig, that's fine" "For Craig, it is a strange new contact with his long lost sense of sight" "When Craig was linked to a television camera he reported "seeing" both vertical and horizontal lines" "In this experiment a computer system will generate patterns of dots representing the braille alphabet" "It is the same six-dot code used in touch braille" "The images that Craig sees will appear something like this" "Go." "First word" "I" "Okay, next word" "Okay. "H", "A", "D", had" "Next word" ""A", "C", "A", "T", cat, "A", "N", "D"" "Next word And" "Craig has little trouble "seeing" the letters that will form a sentence but scientists are working toward even more dramatic goals" "I had a cat and ball" "Researchers now foresee a day when a miniaturized system-including cameras for the eyes electronics in the glasses and electrodes on the brain-will provide artificial vision for the blind" "In the time it takes to blink an eye cameras can transport us to wondrous new realms" "Revealing once hidden places that span from the reaches of outer space to the inner depths of nature the magic eyes of cameras are dramatically transforming our knowledge and perception" "In coming years our vision of the world will be stretched to newer boundaries" "For today we have only begun to explore the invisible worlds all around us" "Arctic Kingdom:" "Life At the Edge" "In the far northern reaches of planet Earth lies an alien sea of ice its waves frozen in time in darkness, in uncompromising cold" "It's winter on the Arctic Ocean" "But a great power is returning to conquer this frozen sea" "The sun's rays touch the ice and like a living thing it responds" "As the ice surrenders to the rising sun it becomes a world in motion a shifting stage full of danger and drama" "Where creatures are trapped between moving sheets" "Stranded on the frozen waters" "Caught in the struggle to live in one of the harshest places on earth" "And where the ice meets the open sea the sun awakens a world of strange and glorious life" "This is the Arctic under the sun a short brilliant season of survival a miracle and a resurrection at the edge of the ice" "After three months of winter's hard darkness the first light of spring spreads a glow across the ice It's dawn in the Arctic in the season of eternal sun" "A lone predator stalks the ice in the early light" "A polar bear is on the prowl in different to the killing cold" "Even in temperatures of fifty below he doesn't hibernate" "The bear is the supreme master of winter on the ice" "He can grow to seventeen hundred pounds of hunting power but his life depends on just one creature" "The ringed seal takes a quick breath and returns to his world below the ice" "He, too, has endured all winter just beneath the feet of his mortal enemy" "It's April." "A female is also on the ice bringing her cubs out hunting for the first time" "They were born four long months ago and since then, their mother's had nothing to eat" "Her sense of smell is so keen that she can detect her prey through several feet of snow and half a mile away" "She seeks out ridges where drifting snow covers the breathing hole of a ringed seal" "Inside this protective snow cap a seal has dug al lair" "She catches his scent" "The seal rests but only sleeps a few seconds at a time its sharp hearing tuned to danger" "A tense contest of the senses begins" "Even the top predator on the ice misses 19 times out of 20" "And yet, the mother bear will need to kill at least two seals a week to keep her cubs alive" "The seal is safe for the moment but each new trip to the surface to breathe could end in another ambush" "It's an oversized game of cat and mouse" "The bear eats mostly the blubber licking bits of fat from the snow" "A stealthy white shadow has been following the bear" "An Arctic fox" "For days he has been tracking the great hunter crossing miles of ice in hopes of leftovers from a kill" "When hunting is good, the bear leaves a feast behind" "The fox finds a morsel and buries it a precaution against an unpredictable future" "The sun now skims the horizon and will not set again for four months" "Day by day it begins to take control of the ice in the seasonal tug of war between darkness and light" "But for nearly half the year the far north is angled away from the sun and sleeps in the dark shadow of winter" "Left in the deep-freeze of space the Arctic seas lie covered with six million square miles of ice" "As the year progresses the planet swings around the sun" "Light returns to the top of the world" "With 24-hour sunshine the polar ice begins to retreat" "By spring, the ice edge has receded to a tangle of islands in the high Canadian Arctic and to the entrance of Lancaster Sound" "An ice-breaker cuts the first breech of the year through six feet of solid ice" "It brings goods to and from villages and mining outposts 500 miles north of the Arctic Circle" "For the ship, the ice is an obstacle" "For some, it is home" "The Init have carved life from this place for 4,000 years" "The ice is their world and spring promises a rich season of hunting ahead" "The ice itself has been guarding a secret world" "But now the crystal fortress begins to crack its walls pierced by light" "In the shallows forty feet below the sun reveals a garden of unexpected color" "Golden sea anemones..." "bright orange starfish and small crustaceans awaken from a winter trance" "Overhead, the skylight of ice glows green with life" "A vast pasture of algae now blooms on its surface spreading across the sea for hundreds of miles" "Countless young fish and shrimp like creatures come here to graze" "These in turn become food for staggering numbers of Arctic cod" "Protected by the shield of ice some half million tons of cod flourish in Lancaster Sound" "All this abundance is solar powered" "As light floods the water, it sets off an explosion of life" "Great stores of food can now be reached where the ice meets open water" "It's May, and animals begin to gather for this annual feast of spring" "Thick-billed murres fly in from the North Atlantic to plunder the cold waters for cod" "They flock to Lancaster Sound in the hundreds of thousands" "Murres are uncertain aviators" "Their true medium is water" "Once beneath the waves they're the Arctic version of a penguin" "With short flipper like wings they dive nearly 300 feet for three minutes at a time" "On the way back up air trapped in their feathers expands" "They rocket to the surface in a jet trail of bubbles" "At the ice edge nearby a polar bear scents the shifting wind" "As though navigating by satellite he continues to hunt across the same range even as the ice turns into ocean" "Beneath his fur the white bear has jet black skin to absorb heat from the sun when he's on the surface" "In the near freezing water four inches of blubber keep him warm and afloat" "He's not above taking a bird or two" "But the murres take no notice and prepare to leave for they have an urgent appointment to keep" "Timing is everything here and the schedule is set by the sun" "The murres head for land" "The short breeding season has begun and for those who come late there'll be no second chance" "Their destination is a lonely outpost in Lancaster Sound ...the towering cliffs of Prince Leopold Island" "Half a million seabirds crowd onto these rocky ledges one thousand feet above the sea" "The murres alone number almost 200,000" "Vicious fighting breaks out as the murres battle for the safest nest sites" "They lay only a single egg pear shaped to prevent it from rolling off the narrow rock shelf" "The stronger, more aggressive birds win sites midway down the cliff leaving the weaker birds at the top where they're most vulnerable" "An Arctic fox has been stranded here as the ice retreated from the island" "His white winter fur has been replaced by a sleek, brown coat" "A castaway for the summer he hunts alone on an island of birds" "He heads for the cliffs the only place to find food on the island" "Faced with a dangerous thief the birds abandon their eggs" "And though they can lay another a late season chick will not survive" "The fox steals all the eggs he can reach but he'll need dozens each week to stay alive" "Some he stashes in the cold ground" "There will be lean days ahead" "It's June." "A hundred miles from the island a fleet of white whales has arrived at the ice edge" "belugas hunting for cod" "The sea is suddenly alive with sound" "This chirping white chorus emerges from feeding grounds beneath the frozen sea like a gathering of polar ghosts" "With no dorsal fin to impede their icy travels these are true Arctic whales" "The belugas' rich symphony of sounds hints at the complexity of their lives" "Their sonar may be the most sophisticated of any whale" "Navigating under miles of ice they bounce clicks off shifting floes using a kind of "sound imaging" to master their world" "Their melodies pulse from their rounded foreheads the frequencies fine tuned like a focused beam of light piercing the blue depths" "The bonds between them are strong" "A mother and calf will swim side by side for three years" "Shadowy gray at birth they only gradually turn as perfectly white as the surrounding ice" "The sun is riding high now" "Strong winds from the open sea unleash their power against the ice" "Beaten by wind and wave weakened by sun and current the ice fractures and begins to split apart" "Immense cracks open behind the leading edge of the ice" "These "leads" extend for miles opening up new feeding areas and hunting grounds" "The Inuit are experts at navigating the tricky ice fields of spring" "It's a skill born of necessity of the ancient need to hunt on this ever changing surface" "Olyuk knows how to read the ice" "Still men and machines are sometimes lost" "In the old days entire hunting parties could disappear without a trace" "They are now sixty miles from home" "They are hoping the trip will end in a successful hunt but it may take days" "Not far away, one of the most aggressive animals in the Arctic hauls out to rest adult walruses heavily armored with tusks and skin that is one inch thick" "Their skulls are massive and backed by a body weighing one ton they can bash through nine inches of ice" "Out of the water their only enemies are polar bears and human hunters" "The walrus feed on vast beds of clams buried 200 feet below in the muddy sea floor" "Each one can eat thousands of clams in a single meal" "And the mud harbors less obvious but just as deadly predators" "A carnivorous snail begins a slow methodical attack" "It smells the clam hiding in the mud and tries to penetrate the tightly closed shell" "But the clam can defend itself with a strong kick from its single foot" "Even stranger creatures patrol the dark ooze" "They thrive in the near freezing waters of the Arctic feeding on the remains of the dead" "...and on each other" "Overhead, the surface is warming up" "Frozen salt water melts first and from deep inside the ice salty brine begins to drain away" "Plumes of super cool salty liquid spill downward out of holes in the ice freezing the waters just beneath" "Hollow stalactites build up around the draining brine some reaching three feet in length" "The waves continue to hammer at the ice and the edge gives way under the relentless assault" "Wind and strong currents push ice floes together" "Massive blocks pile up and over each other building miniature mountain ranges" "In the wake of the shifting ice giants come to fee" "The bowhead whale is named for its great curving jaw" "A favorite target of whalers it has never recovered from two centuries of slaughter" "Numbering only in the hundreds bowheads in the eastern Arctic make their last stand" "Reaching 60 feet in length it's the largest animal in the Arctic seas" "Yet the bowhead comes to feed on the smallest" "Energized by the touch of the sun the depths now pulse with millions of minute animals" "They seem electrified their transparent bodies glimmer with iridescent light" "More liquid than solid these delicate drifters are miracles of survival wrapped in enchanting beauty" "But to live here, they must also kill" "A jelly trails its long tentacles snaring a copepod then reeling it in to its death" "These tiny hunters float in a world of their own unaware of the leviathan that could devour their entire universe" "The bowhead sweeps through the water like a living trawl net" "Between the cavernous jaws dark sheets called baleen filter the water collecting thousands of small creatures" "Its enormous white tongue will scrape the baleen clean harvesting the sea one giant mouthful at a time" "The sun is winning control of the ice and the surface pools with melt water" "Temperatures now reach a balmy 40 degrees" "Dripping water measures the fleeting season the sound of summer ticking away" "Fresh leads break into the remaining ice" "The Arctic's most intriguing creature moves in from the sea" "The narwhal - with its ivory tusk a living tooth up to ten feet long" "The whales converge along the narrow highway" "This is what Olyuk has been looking for" "Hunting is at the heart of Inuit culture a way of life and a skill still passed down from father to son" "It's a proud link to the past and the only way to live off the land in the Arctic" "Today, the Inuit are still allowed to hunt whales but their take is strictly controlled" "Yet Olyuk remembers the not so distant days when hunting meant the difference between life and death" "They have landed a female only males have a tusk" "Whale skin is especially nutritious high in vitamin C" "Without such a diet the Inuit would have suffered from the scurvy which plagued many Arctic expeditions" "Eaten raw, it's a delicacy called "muktuk."" "In the still twilight of midnight the narwhals joust a slow stately ritual of mythic beasts" "The purpose of their strange single tusk remains a mystery" "Like the peacock's tail and the lion's mane it may serve as a banner of male prowess" "It could be a weapon" "But it's the stuff of legend" "In the Middle Ages the tusks were sold as unicorn horns for ten times their weight in gold" "The sea ice is flooded now although beneath the water the ice is still several feet thick" "Out on the melting surface an abandoned ringed seal has lost her bearings" "She has wandered away from her breathing hole and cannot find her way back" "Now, she is trapped above the ice an easy target for a hungry polar bear" "And if she cannot return to the sea beneath her she will starve" "The young seal is now exhausted but luck finally leads her to a hole in the ice" "She is safe, but now she's in unknown territory a long way from her familiar network of breathing holes" "She won't stray far for a while" "All around her the ice is changing" "The pasture of algae that once blanketed the surface has sloughed off and joined together in flowing ribbons of green" "Long tendrils reach out to absorb light and nutrients from the passing currents" "A new lead has opened in the ice and a pod of narwhals comes streaming into the crack" "They usually travel in small numbers but when fishing is good hundreds may come together" "As they enter the crack these specialized hunters take a risk" "The opening unlocks a rich store of Arctic cod but the ice is still shifting" "Without warning, the lead closes off" "The whales are trapped" "The entire pod must surface to breathe in this small pool of open water" "They bob up and down in a crush of bodies careful not to wound each other with their tusks" "If the hole closes over completely the narwhals will have to make a run for open water if they don't find it they will suffocate and die" "Then suddenly, as unpredictably a it closed the lead reopens and the whales are free" "High off the cliffs of Prince Leopold Island fulmars and kittiwakes ride the wild winds" "Even gusts of 40 miles per hour present no problem for these aerial acrobats" "Landing is the tricky part" "There is new life in the murre colony" "The adult birds are busy plying back and forth to the sea returning with cod for their young" "The chick will need to triple its weight over the next three weeks and feeds round the clock in the constant daylight" "At the top of the cliff glaucous gull chicks are hungry too" "But gulls don't limit their diet to fish" "This one goes hunting closer to home looking for an unprotected chick" "It returns with a grisly catch" "For the fox, these are hungry times" "Egg laying is over and the chicks have hatched out of his reach" "He has only his store of buried eggs to see him through" "High summer finally reaches the Arctic" "The last remnants of ice swirl near the shores of Lancaster Sound" "The frozen sea is broken at last drifting in tattered pieces on the current" "Moving inshore are the gleaming white shapes of belugas" "They return by the hundreds to the same inlets they frequent each year" "Their smooth, white skin has turned yellow and wrinkled" "It's time to molt" "On the rocky bottom of the shallows the whales scrape off their old weathered skin with a rejuvenating rub" "Terns wheel overhead and dive for bits of molted skin" "As the tide turns, the whales retreat into deeper water" "But one young beluga has pushed too far inshore" "The benevolent sun now becomes his greatest enemy" "He could easily sunburn and out of the cold water he could overheat" "The others can do nothing" "The rocks have cut his sensitive skin" "All he can do is wait for the incoming tide" "With one last surge the young beluga recovers his freedom" "It's only August, but autumn is closing in on the murre colony" "The chicks are just three weeks old still unable to fly" "Yet the time has come to leave the island" "Escorted by its father a chick makes its way through a gauntlet of hostile adults still defending their ledges" "Driven by irresistible instinct the chick prepares to make an incredible leap from the thousand foot cliff" "With its father close behind he plummets to the waters below" "For the next eight weeks they'll drift southward as the young murres grow the feathers they need to finally take to the air" "The fox is left alone" "His stash of eggs is gone and he may starve before he can escape the island" "The moon now looks down on Lancaster Sound the cold pale face of the coming winter" "All across the Arctic, animals are on the move fleeing the coming freeze" "The cold is returning to claim these seas" "The great bowheads depart as their food supply begins to dwindle in the fading light" "Slowly, the surface begins to transform crystals congeal into grease ice then thicken into pancake ice" "The season of the sun is over" "Soon, winter and the white bear will stalk the ice once more" "Cold howls across the empty expanse of frozen sea" "Darkness deepens" "The bear settles in to stay and the Arctic turns once more toward the dark night of space" "Yellowstone:" "Realm of the Coyote" "It's a world forged by fire and ice... a wonderland with jagged edges." "Born of a cataclysmic eruption nearly two million years ago it's been exploding ever since Yellowstone." "This is the first national park on earth and perhaps still the greatest." "A primeval landscape of water, light - and extraordinary life." "Over the eons," "Yellowstone has become an American Serengeti home to one of the most diverse communities of large mammals on the continent home to the great Wyoming herds." "For thousands of years the call of one great predator has rung out across the wilderness." "The call of the coyote." "It's not the largest or fiercest of Yellowstone's creatures." "But it may well be the most cunning" "According to one proverb..." ""Next to God, the coyote is the smartest person on earth."" "If it seems almost human, that's because like us, the coyote is both cowardly and brave - a schemer and an opportunist." "Above all, the coyote is a survivor." "It was present at the birth of Yellowstone." "It has outlasted the Ice Age, the Stone Age, famines, floods;" "and still, it's going strong." "Nearly 1,000 coyotes live in Yellowstone." "This could be the story of almost any one." "Let's call this one Cain short for the coyote's Latin name," "Canis latrans the "talking dog."" "Over the next four seasons, he will face the greatest trials." "This is the story of that year, a year of perils a year of struggle... a year through the eyes of Yellowstone's coyote." "Wandering across the vast horizon, coyotes like Cain watch over Yellowstone." "At three years old, Cain weighs 35 pounds big for most of North America, but average in the park." "Like most coyotes here, Cain is a member of a pack not a leader, just an underling." "Usually, he hunts on his own." "But every day, he is pulled back to his home, his family the group that sustains him his pack." "A family of up to a dozen coyotes rules a territory of a few square miles." "The top dogs - the leaders are a single male and his lifelong mate." "The rest are usually their offspring a mob of siblings." "Packs are an uneasy blend of competition and cooperation, snarling and snuggling." "But for all the seeming affection, when it comes to food, there's always tension." "The young are the second-class citizens of coyote society." "They must wait to eat until after their parents have had their fill." "Cain should know he'll also have to wait his turn." "But sometimes the temptation, the hunger is too great." "He needs to eat now." "It won't happen without a fight." "There's no welcome home here." "Bared teeth and arched back show Cain's aggression." "But his tucked tail and other signs tell the true story." "He's scared." "Now he'll have to learn the hard way." "As in most coyote fights, no blood is shed." "But the outcome is very real:" "Cain will go hungry today." "Despite the conflict, Cain gathers with his pack his siblings, his rivals." "Life is more secure in a group than alone." "Coyotes have more calls than any other wild mammal of North America." "This group howl means they're all still buddies." "As coyotes rule the land in Yellowstone, another animal dominates the water." "It's the one creature that seems to enjoy this brutal season." "And it's having a blast, an Arctic blast." "For the otter, winter is a special playtime." "Any riverbank is an excuse for a slide." "From the hills to the valleys otters create their own highways." "For them, it's always rush hour." "Zipping along at about 15 miles an hour, it's clear they've raised commuting to a high art." "With their insulating fur, otters are as cozy beneath the ice as on top of it." "And since open water can always be found, even in winter... otters don't face starvation like most of Yellowstone's creatures." "Fish are abundant and sluggish from the cold." "But catching the fish is the easy part." "To eat it, the otters have to surface." "And that's exactly where the competition is waiting." "Cain's pack is on patrol." "Coyotes are patient hunters with a talent for snatching the prey of others." "But the feisty otters are no pushovers." "Coyotes are most successful working as a team." "The pack will stake out several holes." "But otters can usually find an emergency exit." "And when menaced, they can work as a team too." "Ever scheming, Cain sets his sights on a new prize." "But there's no honor among thieves." "Cain's pack runs him down." "The dominant male has claimed the meal as his own." "Once again, Cain is left frustrated." "Life in a pack can sometimes seem unfair." "Winter for coyotes is breeding time." "Junior members of the pack are supposed to spend this season on the sidelines." "But tentatively, gingerly," "Cain begins to show an interest in the top female." "The male leader won't put up with it." "This is his mate - and his alone." "He lays down the law." "The ruling male has a dilemma." "Should he stay to guard his mate?" "Should he head out after food?" "Hunger wins out." "Or does it?" "He can't make up his mind." "Cain sees an opportunity coming." "The leader has turned up a feast." "But Cain has turned up something equally enticing." "As an underling," "Cain is supposed to help raise the young, not sire them." "Cain has violated the laws of the pack, and now he's caught in a compromising position." "The leaders head off, but they're not through with Cain yet." "The pack's sentence, when it comes will be harsh." "The battered Cain will face the worst penalty: expulsion." "The top male leads the final charge." "Cain's companions have cast him out." "Now exiled and vulnerable," "Cain will be forced to wander the wilderness alone." "For a lone coyote, the odds are never good." "Cain's chances of dying this winter have just tripled." "All of Yellowstone's best turf has been claimed by one pack or another." "And so the outcast must now prowl the borderlands." "Without a territory, without partners, finding food will be a greater struggle." "In this winter's bleak landscape even the carcasses are picked to the bone." "Cain will have to take greater risks to get meals that might have come easily to the pack." "He is forced to go it alone against creatures like the golden eagle." "With a wingspan of nearly seven feet, the eagle is a formidable opponent." "And it's not frightened of a single coyote like Cain." "Cain's perils are, in fact, just beginning." "Lone coyotes are wanderers sometimes traveling 20 miles in a single night and Cain will have to travel far to find food in a land where he's not part of a pack." "His best hope is under the snow." "Rodents like the vole are a coyote specialty." "Enough of these appetizers and Cain will have a full meal." "Not that coyotes are finicky." "They'll eat almost anything from grasshoppers to cows." "It's been said," ""a coyote's favorite food is anything he can chew."" "When it comes to hunting voles, the coyote is a skilled performer." "But another wild dog is a real virtuoso the fox." "With its sharp ear, the fox pinpoints its prey." "And when it strikes, it strikes with style." "Foxes fight with style too." "It's a dance of dominance when foxes gather at an elk carcass." "Foxes, unlike coyotes, don't live in packs." "And encounters are usually testy." "In the lower valleys," "Cain is on the lookout for animals in trouble." "Once the buffalo roamed the West in the millions." "Then they were all but eradicated." "In the bison's most desperate hour," "Yellowstone sheltered the only wild herd in the United States." "Winter has always been hard on these great beasts." "But even in the lethal cold, one thing has always made Yellowstone a haven the geysers" "A single geyser like Old Faithful can erupt with enough energy to melt tons of ice." "Hot springs, mud pots, steam jets, and fumaroles these are the vents for the earth's great boiling energy." "Yellowstone has more geysers than anywhere else in the world." "In the depth of winter, when the subzero winds bite, the bison cluster around these oases of warmth." "Here, grass still grows, covered only by a thin layer of snow that the bison can plow with their heads." "But sometimes the snow hides ice kept thin by the hot springs." "Buffalo can weigh up to a ton." "But their legs are narrow and pointy." "On thin ice, that's a treacherous combination." "Every step may be a step toward disaster." "In Yellowstone, the things that give life can also claim it back." "There's nothing the herd can do no lifeline the can throw." "It will take the buffalo nearly four hours to drown." "Death is a long time coming on the high plateau." "Deep into the month of April, winter lashes the park one last time." "Yellowstone is chilled, frozen under a great white cloud." "Temperatures drop to 40 below." "This is beyond cold." "This is an assault on all things living." "If a coyote knows loneliness..." "this must be the loneliest time." "But a new season is on its way." "With every passing day, huge cracks rend the ice and shatter the crust of winter." "Cain has made it through a trying season." "But now he must do more than simply endure." "He needs a mate, a pack, a territory to call his own." "Sooner or later he must find these, for without them, his life will be desolate and brief." "With the coming of spring, food is emerging everywhere." "And Cain is on the prowl." "As the snow retreats, carcasses are revealed." "Among them, the bison that drowned in the winter." "Freezing waters have preserved the carcass, and with the thaw, it's reappeared just in time to catch Cain's eye." "The new season feeds on the remains of the old." "A bear emerges from hibernation." "It's time for breakfast." "Only this fast has been four months long." "And a solo coyote can figure the odds." "The grizzly settles down to enjoy Cain's meal." "As the thaw continues, white turns to gold, and then to green and the dance of spring goes on." "With great urgent leaps, the cutthroat trout migrate up the Yellowstone River." "Many will end up as food for predators along the banks." "Like the osprey the magnificent fish hawk." "In a land of hunters, the osprey is one of the greatest with feet that grasp like pincers... the perfect tool for holding on to a slippery fish." "Every morning, the river brings a new feast to the osprey's door." "And for Cain, for all those that dwell in Yellowstone the first murmur of spring has now turned into a full-throated roar." "With so much food in abundance, life is flourishing everywhere." "Newborns have also appeared at Cain's old pack." "Two months of gestation have led to this:" "Five new members of the pack, five potential partners, five potential rivals." "All around Cain, families are springing up." "But he has no pack, no mate, no young..." "His only companion: a badger." "In fact, the partnership of coyote and badger is legendary." "Native Americans spoke of an ancient bond between the two;" "they called them "cousins."" "What they are is something like hunting partners." "Cain's keen senses locate the prey." "The badger - a master digger flushes it from the earth." "Above ground, the coyote keeps watch for fleeing prey." "Cain gets the meal this time." "But his deeper hunger endures." "He needs a mate." "At Cain's old pack, the two leaders raise their pups." "But they have help:" "other pack members pitch in to watch over the pups" "to teach them" "to protect them from threats like the grizzly." "A half-ton beast with five-inch claws is an unwelcome visitor." "Led by the mother, the pack uproots, moving the pups to a standby den they've prepared for just such emergencies." "But nature holds other threats for the coyotes." "Each year the park must face a trial by fire." "The great inferno of 1988 was the most ferocious to scar the region in two centuries." "But almost every year, lightning sets Yellowstone aflame." "In the aftermath, Cain walks the smoldering earth." "His quest for a mate has led him far." "But he still has many difficult miles to go." "Fire is not only a destructive force." "It also kindles new life." "After a blaze, the grasslands send up new shoots." "As if in response to the killing flames, everything comes to life again." "Fire brings a second spring..." "It is a time of beginning for the pups too." "They have survived the blaze, and are growing rapidly." "Weaned in their second month, they're too big for the den now." "They've moved into a kind of fort tucked away under a tree." "This tug-of-war is just practice." "Today, it's a feather one day soon - it will be a bone." "In the early hours of a new day, a young pup sets out after a vole." "But he can barely handle a bee!" "Success." "It's the pup's first catch, a first taste of his new life." "The pups are becoming more assured." "But it's one thing to hunt on your own, another to work as a team." "And that's what they're setting out to do." "Their target - a badger." "The pups aren't old enough to know they're supposed to be partners." "They've still got a lot to learn." "But the pups seem to feel pretty good about themselves all the same." "Year after year, the drama of Yellowstone's seasons play out on a grand scale." "For this park spans the decades." "It spans the continental divide." "It spans 2.2 million acres." "Yet for all the enduring panoramic beauty of Yellowstone, there is another face to this park rougher, more unformed, almost otherworldly." "Yellowstone has been a national park for well over 100 years." "And yet in a sense it is built anew every day boiling up in great basins of sulfur and mud." "Those that roam Yellowstone day after day find that each day takes them over slightly different terrain." "Each day, they find the horizon is new again." "After six months alone," "Cain catches sight of a potential mate." "She was cast out from her pack during the food shortage last winter." "The lone female has been wandering the park like Cain." "The two coyotes offer something precious to each other a partnership the promise of a family." "Once paired, most coyotes will mate for life." "And this first date has gone very well." "Together they will hunt through the grasslands." "Together they will search for a home." "Finding one won't be easy." "In fact, it will be the challenge of their lives." "All the surrounding territories are held by large packs." "And turf won't be taken without a fight." "In Cain's former pack, the pups are six months old almost fully grown." "Working with the adults, they are now a well-coordinated killing team." "And their target is a sickly elk calf." "The mother does her best to defend her young one." "But it's no use." "The coyotes claim their prey." "Long after her battle is lost, the mother continues to fight." "But the coyotes won't be denied their meal." "In the cruel equation of Yellowstone, the death of the elk calf means life for the young coyotes." "The final days of summer turn cool." "As Cain and his mate wander, the buffalo go head-to-head in a violent mating contest the rut." "The males are well-dressed for battle; their heads and shoulders padded with extra wool to absorb the pounding." "And when it comes, the pounding is ferocious." "For the losers, the cost is sometimes death." "And there is no dignity to death in a land of scavengers." "The colors of fall herald the return of freezing temperatures." "For Cain and his mate, now comes a critical test." "They've hunted side by side, but now they must hunt as a team." "An injured mule deer seems an easy target." "But the coyotes are cautious." "A mule deer's hoof can slash like a knife." "The pair just can't get the job done." "Two coyotes can't surround their prey the way a pack can." "Their failure is a dangerous omen." "For a pair that can't make a kill, winter will be an ordeal a deadly ordeal." "With the first snows, begin the battles of winter." "The bighorn sheep are fighting for a chance to mate." "Now all of Yellowstone's creatures must once more fend off starvation." "The thermal springs offer respite for some but the season will still take its awful toll." "The odds against Cain and his partner grow with each passing week." "Without a pack, hunting is difficult, holding a territory even more so." "Without a pack, they stand less chance of surviving, or of raising young." "Rivers are natural turf boundaries." "And to cross the line into another pack's domain is to risk confrontation." "But for the hungry pair, now is the time for risk." "They can't resist the lure of a bison carcass." "The resident pack can't afford to share their food with trespassers." "A clash is coming..." "And for Cain, it will have a special significance." "This is his old pack." "These are his kin." "And Cain is still coyote non grata." "Vicious as it is, this battle won't go to the limit." "It will stop when one coyote proves strongest." "And one has." "It's Cain." "This is now his turf." "Defeated, the former leaders wander off into exile." "Old and tired, their prospects are poor." "Cain and his mate claim one of their rewards the right to eat first." "Confrontation becomes cooperation as Cain's brothers and sisters accept the takeover." "They all settle in for a banquet." "Cain will in time become a father." "And by helping raise his pups, his siblings will make sure the family line lives on." "Sibling rivalry turns to revelry of a sort." "And Cain's pack begins life anew." "More adversity will lie ahead this winter - lethal temperatures." "Punishing winds and the never ending struggle for food." "But the coyotes will survive." "They have survived fire and ice, survived the attacks of man and beast." "This too they will outlast." "There is an Indian tale that states the coyote will be the last animal on earth." "After the buffalo are gone, after man has disappeared, all that will be left is darkness." "And in the darkness will echo the call of the coyote." "It appears out of the dawn of time a creation of the sun, caldron of life." "This is the tropical forest nature at her most extravagant." "Sustained by the partnership of animal and plant, it has produced more than half the species on earth." "It is a sea of green... seemingly spellbound... changeless." "But look again." "Behind the green curtain are countless battles for survival." "Into this complex world has come a rare breed of adventurer." "Scientific knowledge is the treasure they seek, and to find it, they're not afraid to go out on a limb." "This is a place unlike any other in the world." "Panama's Barro Colorado Island, known as BCI to the scientists who journey here." "A protected realm in the middle of the Panama Canal," "BCI is home to the Smithsonian's Tropical Research Institute." "Scientists come to this island from all over the globe to unravel the mysteries of life in the tropical forest." "It is an adventure beyond the reach of one person, or one lifetime." "BCI's a very special place for me just because the more I come here, the more familiar I get with the island." "It's just home, it's comfortable, it's exciting." "I think Barro Colorado Island offers for me a lot of things that I would not find in any other place." "It's a really highly diverse forest, the research facilities are just fantastic, you come there, you go out and do the work, and Barro Colorado Island is protected so that your work is not destroyed at all." "I discover things." "In the tropics you may be a person who's discovered something that not a single human being in the history of the world has bothered to notice." "Here unfolds one of nature's great puzzles." "How does the tropical forest manage to support such a remarkable community of life and sustain itself at the same time?" "One thing is certain, at the heart of it all are the trees" "A single tree, as it drives towards the light, affects the lives of countless creatures." "But life is a struggle here for every creature and the odds that any one seed will grow into a Titan are astronomical." "It takes luck and strategy to make it to the top." "For people, getting to the top always requires some special precautions." "Biologist Deedra McClearn has learned to seek the forest's answers on its own terms." "Even if it means following her slingshot all the way up into the crown of one of the forest's giants." "This is a dipteryx, one of the great ones." "It rises head and shoulders above the ocean of leaves around it, more than a hundred feet tall." "From its majestic flowers will come fruit, and from the fruit, perhaps an offspring that will survive to take the place of its parent among a procession of giants." "Climbing has taught Deedra to respect trees as individuals." "Since I've started climbing I like dipteryx, because it's a beautiful tree, it's emergent, it comes above all the rest of the trees, they often have great views, and the wood is really hard and solid." "I feel safe climbing a dipteryx, chain saws won't cut down a dipteryx." "I have a lot of different emotions associated with actually climbing a tree." "One of them is familiarity." "If it's a tree that I've climbed before," "I feel comfortable, it's a very satisfying sort of feeling to make a good assent." "If it's a tree that" "I haven't climbed before or it's given me troubles, or I'm worried about a branch, then it can be very nerve-racking." "Deedra climbs into the canopy to release a coati a tropical cousin of the raccoon." "I know you." "She captures coatis just to let them go." "I have caught you 15 times and you always thrash around." "Just wait a second." "She's curious how an animal who isn't a born climber manages to survive ten stories up." "I think coatis are really interesting as climbing mammals because they're not perfect." "They're kind of clumsy, they're not graceful leapers, they can't hang by their tail, they don't have exclusively manipulative hands to grasp onto branches, but they do really well." "One of the things that really surprised me was that they actually will jump quite a far distance going down." "It'll launch itself into a tree and it doesn't really know where it's going to grab on, it just, I think, assumes that it'll be able to find something when it hits that..." "The coati has a lot of company up here with good reason." "The canopy is the forest's powerhouse." "This is where leaves transform light into the stuff of life itself." "The canopy creates its own world, with lands and waters, prey and predators." "It overflows with flowers, greenery, and fruit food for all who can live at these heights." "Earthbound for years, scientists could only guess what went on up here - until now." "The canopy is the last frontier on earth and it's only been the last 10 or 15 years that people have really gotten up into the trees and started looking at the insects and looking at the leaves, and actually there still hasn't" "been that much mammal work up in the canopy, but it's a different life zone." "It's like going to the bottom of the ocean." "You can't tell what's up here from working on the ground and it's different." "Bold researchers like Deedra are proving how different the tropical forest is from our preconceptions of the jungle." "For one thing, it is not always steamy and wet" "Like many tropical forests, BCI has a long dry season." "Food is now becoming scarce." "Even coatis, who will eat just about anything are hard pressed to fill their bellies." "They gather under the majestic dipteryx, waiting." "Now, when they need it most, the tree will bear its fruit." "For dipteryx this is the beginning of the long struggle to reproduce." "Howler monkeys gather in its crown." "Here is a banquet that will stave off hunger for many." "The timing is crucial." "By fruiting during the dry season, the dipteryx guarantees that many will gather for the feast." "Oddly enough, the tree wants its fruit to be eaten even though each fruit contains a seed that could bring forth the next generation." "But why?" "All these capuchin monkeys know is that food is nearly at hand." "And if enough of them arrive, they could drive the howlers from this nutritious meal." "What scientists have discovered is the fruit is actually an expensive bribe." "If animals take it, they may carry the seed locked inside far from the parent tree." "The further away the seed gets, the better its chance of surviving." "With ripening fruit all around them, the canopy animals can now afford to be finicky eaters." "Once they've had the ripest bit, they simply drop the fruit and move on to the next." "But this rain of half-eaten fruit is of no help to the tree in its quest to reproduce." "Its seedlings have little luck of thriving here in the shadow of the parent's crown." "Still for the animals waiting below, it's manna from heaven." "The coatis eat only the sweet flesh, they leave the seed intact." "But others are waiting in the wings." "Once the coatis have relieved their hunger, agoutis gingerly join the feast." "Agoutis are rodents;" "they have teeth and jaws designed to gnaw right through the tough shell and devour the seed within." "Squirrels, too, relish the giant seeds." "Instead of creating new dipteryx trees, the seeds simply feed a host of hungry visitors even peccaries." "Satiated, the coatis settle into some mutual grooming." "In evening's golden light, butterflies and ants gorge upon the remains of the feast." "It's been a good day for all the animals, but bad for the lordly dipteryx." "Its potential offspring lie where they would have fallen away;" "nothing has carried them away." "Has the tree's survival strategy failed?" "Is the next generation lost?" "Is there no help under the sun for the dipteryx?" "Perhaps the moon can shed some light on the mystery of the dipteryx." "Tropical nights weave their own magic and unveil a whole new cast of characters." "Everywhere, there are bats, conjured out of the dark." "Among the branches hunts a marsupial, a marmosa." "Its prey is pint-size, like itself a katydid camouflaged unsuccessfully as a leaf." "Even while enjoying its meal, the marmosa must be wary... if it doesn't want to end up as dinner itself." "Dipteryx seeds make a nutritious meal for a spiny rat, and a dangerous one as well." "Gnawing on the tough seed makes enough noise to attract the unwelcome eye of a passing margay." "The tiny forest cat enjoys its meal, until disturbed by yet another denizen of the dark." "Only at night does Elizabeth Kalko venture out on her own quest." "The Barro Colorado Island she knows is very different from the one most people see." "The night is a totally different world from the daytime." "We are just exposed to a wonderful orchestra of different sounds, of many insects and frogs, then you see the stars through the canopy and this is just an incredible atmosphere." "And occasionally there are bats fluttering by and even touching you with their wings." "The night holds no fear for Elizabeth." "She is in her element, and bats are her passion." "She hangs nets of fine mesh over small streams, fishing for bats." "She believes bats are the unsung heroes of the night, vital to the survival of dipteryx, and many other tropical giants." "That's a short-tailed fruit bat, and although they are relatively easy to get out of these nests, one has to be very careful about their sharp teeth." "Bats rely on forest trees for food and shelter, but they'll repay their hosts as they make their nightly rounds." "Legs are free, whoops, don't bite me, be nice, all right." "I don't think that bats are really ugly," "I think that the misconception that bats are ugly comes from our very limited knowledge about bats." "Most of the bats have very, very, very pretty faces and especially here we find bats with beautiful facial stripes, and colored ears, and they actually have large eyes and don't look ugly at all." "But a bat is much more than just a pretty face." "Sometimes when I set mesh nets and bats fly in, they bring a fruit with them and drop them in the mesh net and so I can tell what kind of bat has taken what kind of fruit." "I know what this bat had for dinner." "Let's get it out of the mesh net here." "This is a fruit of the dipteryx." "And the bat has carried the fruit in its mouth when it was hit into this net." "It turns out that the fate of our majestic dipteryx rests upon the soft wings of a little bat." "Drawn by the scent of ripe fruit, artibeus bats hover over the tree's canopy." "Yet death lies in wait among these boughs." "Luckily the bat's ability to "see" in the dark using sound not only pinpoints the fruit, it warns it of the hidden boa." "Another bat flies, locates fruit, carries fruit away it tears it off the stem and carries it away." "Still it's far too dangerous to eat it here." "Only when it arrives at a safe roost, usually tucked under the fronds of a palm tree, does it stop to eat." "Unknowingly, it has already performed a great service for our dipteryx." "The bat has carried the fruit away from the dipteryx, beyond the reach of any diseases or parasites that may plague the parent tree." "Once the bat gnaws off the sweet flesh, it lets the seed drop." "Every night when the fruit is ripe, artibeus bats make several visits to our tree." "And each time they return to the safety of the same feeding roost to enjoy their meal." "After each trip, another dipteryx seed joins the little mound forming just below." "Curiously enough, in this heap of discards lies the tree's best hope for a successor." "Morning's light has scarcely revealed the half-eaten fruit, when they are discovered by an agouti." "Have the precious seeds come this far, only to be wasted?" "But the agouti can't possibly eat all that it has found." "And what it does next adds another piece to the puzzle of how dipteryx manages to survive." "With the dry season continuing, the agouti stashes the remaining seeds for the hard times to come." "Much like a squirrel buries a nut, it carefully hides them, one by one." "Yet there will always be some it doesn't need or simply forgets." "Unwittingly, the agouti has now planted the next generation of a tropical giant." "As the dry season on the island gets worse, many canopy trees actually shed their leaves in a tropical version of autumn." "For months, streams have been draining water away." "And torrid heat continues to rob the forest of precious moisture." "The remaining water collects in ever shrinking pools." "More and more trees drop their leaves;" "it's a way to conserve water and cut their losses as the drought deepens." "As always in the forest, there's an animal that's found a way to take advantage of every situation." "It hides among the fallen leaves disappearing in plain sight." "A caterpillar masquerading as a dead leaf." "But there's no hiding from the army ants." "Since many small creatures disappear in the dry season, army ants are forced to tackle prey many times their own size." "They overwhelm them by sheer force of numbers." "Treehoppers suck the remaining sap out of plants." "But they're also under attack." "A mother defends her brood from a wasp trying to steal one of her larvae for food." "Each time the larvae wave their legs calling out an alarm, the mother treehopper strikes back at the wasp." "By April, the dry season has turned cruel." "Famine is only just kept at bay." "The buds from the balsa tree are eaten before they can ever bloom." "The whole forest seems to hold its breath waiting for the rains." "Over eight feet of rain may fall during the wet season." "The first good drenching triggers an avalanche of change." "This wet new world is paradise for creatures... water loving and waterlogged." "Stan Rand, renowned frog man, is used to working in a deluge, but it does have its drawbacks." "When you wear glasses such as I do, you don't see properly because your glasses get all wet from the rain on them and then they get all steamed up inside and you can't see anything." "Luckily, sight is not the primary sense Stan uses in his work." "To truly enter the frog's world, he must wait until dark and find his way through a landscape of sound." "What you hear are the voices of all these frogs and on a good night there can be" "14, 15, 17, different kinds of frogs all calling at the same time, all audible from the same place." "Only the males call, each in search of a mate." "To be heard and recognized above all this amorous bedlam is a challenge, challenging, too, for Stan and his students." "This is a young male pentadactylus like all frogs they eat live food, frogs and mice and insects and probably small birds, in fact, I know they eat small birds." "And he's got a dorsal secretion that is really quite nasty." "He got me." "One of their defenses is this skin secretion..." "Group walks away" "For 30 years, Stan has lived in Panama not far from BCI." "He's become totally attuned to the ups and down of a frog's life." "He even understands why frogs use different calls at different times." "There's a physalaemus male." "You can tell he's calling by himself because he's just giving a simple whine call... oow, oow." "If another male came in and began to call, he'd change his call adding chucks to his call, so he'd go, oow-chuck, oow-chuck- chuck." "I can sometimes get him to answer me as if I were another male..." "See?" "He went from going oow to oow-chuck, oow-chuck, and now that I've stopped talking to him, he's going back to the simple whines." "More frogs" "Male frogs make the added "chuck" sound to attract females." "The females can tell from the pitch which male is the biggest and strongest." "But male frogs have to think twice about sounding off." "Because females aren't the only ones out there listening to the chucks;" "predators are too." "So any male frog that wants to mate must gamble with his life." "And with other, bigger frogs nearby a call can be a fatal attraction." "But for those who survive long enough to mate, it's a gamble well worth taking." "The male locks onto the female in a mating embrace." "As he fertilizes the eggs, he whips the fluid released with the eggs into a meringue-like nest of bubbles." "These tiny frogs mate in very shallow pools at the foot of dipteryx and other trees." "The bubbles help keep the eggs moist and full of oxygen and beyond the reach of aquatic predators." "Sometimes several pairs will cooperate in creating a frothy nursery for their young." "Red-eyed tree frogs protect their brood differently." "They live high in the canopy, more at home on dipteryx's spreading branches than in a pond." "They come down only when it's time to mate." "Then they must get their young close to water." "The males descend to the lower eaves of the tree, where they call to the larger females." "After mounting the female, the male hangs on tight." "She's off on a search for just the right place to lay her eggs a leaf overhanging a small forest pool." "Location is critical if it's too low, her brood could be washed away by the next storm." "Sometimes the eggs are laid as high as 30 feet up." "The eggs are encased in a jelly-like mass a gooey aquarium in which they'll develop into tiny tadpoles." "Only then will they drop into the pool below." "The young frogs rush to develop." "And none too soon." "A vine snake... three feet of elegant death." "In just four days the eggs have become recognizable tadpoles, but they're not ready to take the plunge yet." "Even so, they may not have the luxury of waiting." "At this stage, the tadpoles can hatch." "But in just a few more days their tails will be much longer, allowing them to swim better." "And once they're in the pond, they'll need to be good swimmers." "Fish will find the premature tadpoles easy pickings." "It's a deadly dilemma risk the snake's bite... or leap into the waiting mouths of the fish below." "As if the fish weren't enough, the tadpoles must contend with this monster in miniature." "A dragonfly nymph, a youngster itself, is one of the fiercest creatures in this realm." "But there will always be some who sidestep instant death and live to return to the trees." "Despite all appearances to the contrary, even the dragonfly nymph will be transformed someday soon and take to the tropical air." "Waking to a misty morning is an island wrapped in enchantment." "The rains have cast their spell." "And in the soil, the seeds of our dipteryx await a rebirth." "But before that can happen, the forest must change once more." "A carpet of forest litter, preserved in the dry air now moisture melts it away." "In just a few days, the nutrients locked away in the dead leaves will be restored to the living." "Fungi and molds course over the withered remains." "Fungi are the middlemen, mining the bodies of the dead for riches which they supply to the living." "Here everything is recycled, as a new generation rises from the moist earth." "The seedlings respond in rhythm, spreading their leaves to catch the daylight, folding them at dark." "Young vines grope for support." "They've traded strength for length, and need help to climb towards the sky." "But wherever they grow, they can't escape the hordes of hungry mouths that surround them." "To protect themselves from being eaten, many tropical plants lace their foliage with poisons." "But these new leaves haven't had the time to mount their chemical defense." "Yet in the tropics, poison to one is a treat for another" "There's always some insect that can find an antidote to a plant's toxins." "And from then on, it will be the only one they eat." "Leafcutter ants have found another strategy." "An army of workers seeks out only nontoxic plants any and all they can find." "All herbivores are living recycling plants." "They absorb just a small fraction of what they eat." "The rest they return as manure rich fertilizer that feeds the growth of the forest." "Unless if gets hijacked by a pair of industrious dung beetles." "A monkey dropping is a mother lode for the dung beetles, who fashion it into a ball, a combination pantry and nursery for their young." "They roll their stash away, looking for a place to bury it among all the new growth." "A baby dipteryx enters this complex and competitive world." "It started life as a tiny flower in the canopy, where it was pollinated and ripened into fruit." "It was carried away in the claws of a bat, who ate its flesh, and discarded the seed." "It was buried alive by an agouti, and has lain in wait for the rains for months." "Now, its time has come!" "Only one in a thousand ever gets this far." "The huge seed stored enough energy to unfurl a giant among seedlings nine inch tall, with lots of green." "Lots of juicy green." "But it is not a delicacy." "Not even a food of first choice." "But when other juicy edibles become scarce baby dipteryx does end up on the menu." "The parent tree has spent centuries, growing hundreds of feet and preparing millions of fruit, so at least one offspring will survive to reach the canopy." "Yet all that effort can be gobbled up in seconds." "It will never survive being stripped bare." "And even those who remain intact need luck to prevail." "They must have light to live." "And light is hard to come by on the forest floor." "Each and every ray must penetrate layers of foliage to reach a seedling below." "Animals can search out light, but the seedlings, rooted in place, must wait for the sun." "They make do with sun specks that flicker over the forest floor, illuminating them for just minutes each day." "Even if it gets its moment in the sun the fall of a single leaf can seal a seedling's doom." "A new day in the forest sometimes brings disaster." "If a new tree is to thrive, another must fall." "For the plants that have struggled to survive in its shadow, perhaps for decades, this is a reprieve from a dark prison." "A light gap has been torn in the fabric of the canopy." "It has been centuries since this spot saw broad daylight." "For seedlings starved for the sun it is a chance to grow and flourish." "A race for the life-giving light has begun." "There will be winners and losers as each plant tries to crowd out its neighbors." "Into the new light comes another creature, biologist Phil Devries." "Phil studies the world of the light gap and he's discovered some astonishing relationships here." "Since I've been a small child" "I noticed plants and I noticed insects." "I like being in nature and I like forests a lot." "I can think of nothing more enjoyable than being surrounded completely on all sides and I literally mean up, down, any direction with life and that's what being in a tropical rain forest is all about." "His love for this forest world is neatly matched to his quick eye and insatiable curiosity." "I observe as much as I possibly can, and effectively what you're doing is you're asking," ""Hello organism, what are you doing for a living and who do you interact with while you're out here doing your duties as a butterfly or an ant or a lizard or a plant?"" "I can use butterflies literally to move around in the forest and tell me what the vegetation is like." "Phil has uncovered a light gap plant called a croton that's developed an unexpected relationship with two different insects, an ant and a butterfly caterpillar." "Croton provides sugar secretions which attracts ants to little nectaries, and the ants when they're on the plant deter herbivores, that is insects that eat leaves." "The plant actually uses ants to guard its vulnerable leaves bribing them with a sugary nectar." "The ants keep away any insect that might do their meal ticket harm." "However, this is really what I'm looking for." "It's an herbivore as well, but the ants don't bother it because it produces sugar secretions of its own." "The butterfly caterpillar uses its sugar secretions just as the plant does as a tasty bribe." "It keeps the ants well-fed in exchange for their protection." "Back to ants  caterpillar" "The funny thing about this butterfly caterpillar is that it bribes these ants with a sugar secretion and the ants act like guard dogs and help protect it from it's own predators." "In addition to producing sugar secretions for the ants, this caterpillar has another trick that's even more magic." "Phil has made another remarkable discovery." "These caterpillars can actually sing." "To capture this amazing talent Phil has designed special audio equipment to record its calls." "This gear I have here is an amplifier and a very, very sensitive microphone." "I use this to listen to well, basically, sounds that nobody else can hear, and I'm listening to this caterpillar singing at the moment." "And how these caterpillars produce their songs are pretty interesting in that on the top of their head there are long bridges, and right above the head there's a collar where there are two little rods, and the two rods beat up and down on top of the head," "and then the head moves in and out, and these little rods have little rings in them, and what they do is they hit the top of the head, and then it's rasping back and forth like a Latin American percussion instrument..." "Caterpillar on mic, Phil's fingers move it to branch" "I think it's fair to say, without gloating too much," "I have the world's largest collection of caterpillar calls." "Now let's see what happens when we reintroduce this caterpillar to the ants." "Upon its return, the caterpillar puts its musical ability to another surprising use mimicking the calls of ants." "The ants respond as we would, if we heard a cry for help." "They rush over immediately." "And help is always welcome." "Danger is never far away." "This guard ant earns its keep." "An assassin bug could skewer the caterpillar and suck it dry." "But it's no match for the ant." "A parasitic wasp fares no better." "In the tropical forest, every creature lives within an intricate web shifting always between harmony and struggle." "The lesson that I've learned is that it's probably just scratching the surface of the number of interactions that you have in any light gap in the tropics." "The picture that emerges from there is of staggering complexity when you think about how many species... there are of plants in the tropics, and insects in the tropics." "It's very humbling to realize that, even though I know a little bit within the context of a tropical rain forest," "I know absolutely nothing." "This little dipteryx, of course, also knows nothing of the complex network of relationships that have brought it into the light." "So far, it has beaten the odds." "And if its luck holds out, it may someday become a forest Titan itself." "Dipteryx, large and small, is at the heart of a glorious pattern of forest life." "Unveiling this grand design remains the quest of the scientists of Barro Colorado Island a labor of love, and a journey of many lifetimes." "Perhaps centuries from now, the forest will still be here and scientists will still be working in its green depths when our tiny seedling finally takes its place among the giants." "Australia's Great Barrier Reef" "In the liquid skin of planet Earth live creatures of unearthly beauty." "These tiny animals have crossed oceans of space and time in an epic bid for survival." "Wanderers through inner space, they carry the future of their species." "On their odyssey they have faced extinction and awesome planetary force." "Theirs is an evolutionary success story, made possible by a remarkable reproductive strategy." "Reefs are exotic interruptions in otherwise barren tropical seas." "They're oases of life, vibrant, colorful and competitive." "But this vast canvas of living art has not just materialized out of the blue." "Coral and its cohorts have arrived from somewhere." "Though they seem solid and unmoving, reefs have spread themselves throughout the tropical oceans." "How have they overcome their immobility?" "The answer has its origin in one of life's most fundamental acts - sex." "But the reproductive rites of coral communities are shrouded in mystery." "It's only in the last ten years that the reef has begun to reveal its private life." "For animals sex is a fact of life, but for the 'rocks' of the reef a sex life would seem out of the question." "But corals are not rocks, they're colonies of tiny animals." "Only the outer surface of these colonies is alive;" "a living skin populated by polyps." "Their structure is simple, a tube with a mouth surrounded by stinging tentacles." "These tiny animals a few millimeters across build reefs" "The beauty of the individual rivals that of the colony as a whole." "A single pioneering polyp clones or buds itself endlessly to produce a colony of hundreds, even thousands, of identical individuals." "In theory a polyp could live forever this way, unchanging and unmoving." "But change and mobility are essential to all species." "On the reef sex achieves both in one elegantly simple solution." "It's a brief extravaganza, cued by the summer moon, and for the rest of the year the priority is coping with life's demands." "Inside the reff's barrier, garden eels vie for tasty morsels." "They inspect drifting particles." "Some are food, some just broken parts of other reef creatures, but in the quiet lagoon every particle is inspected by somebody." "A goatfish snuffles industriously." "Within a self-made sandstorm it feasts on small worms and mollusks which it locates using sensitive barbells." "But the real heavy mover in the sand business are sea cucumbers." "The basic design is a long hollow tube that creeps around the lagoon floor." "They push sand in one end..." "and out the other." "Some sea cucumbers mop the reef with sticky feet, passing edible particles into their mouths." "Nature constantly tests and refines its designs the basic theme remains, only the detail varies." "With its body completely buried in sand another sea cucumber unfurls its feathery arms to net drifting debris." "Every particle of sand in the lagoon was once part of the animals and plants that make up the reef." "Sand production is aided by heavy-jawed grazers like the bumphead parrotfish." "Moving in herds like buffalo over the reef they bite off pieces of coral, crush it to powder and leave clouds of new sand in their wake." "The reef supports an endless variety of grazers, scrapers, and biters." "Many seem to bite at dead reef but are actually cropping back a fuzz of algae that grows by day." "The wastes of these schools of fishes act as fertilizer to the plants they crop." "The waters surrounding the reef are poor in nutrients, so recycling of its limited resources is essential." "It begins with the invisible haze of life called plankton," "It continually showers the reef." "Just as plankton gather nutrients from the ocean, fish like the spiny chromis gather plankton so nutrients from the ocean are imported into the reef's economy." "Poised like ghostly daggers, barracuda cruise the coral fringe;" "they are after more than planktonic prey." "These larger predators are drawn to the rich life of the reef." "Compared to the impoverished oceans the reef is a prosperous economy." "Built up from nothing by the labors of tiny animals and plants it attracts investment from thousands of other species." "It becomes a bank, or storehouse, of the ocean's resources." "But some creatures are a storehouse in themselves." "A sleek manta ray wings its way through the late afternoon." "It owes its huge bulk, and wingspan of five meters to the millions of minute plankton it sieves from tropical waters." "Mantas are free agents, opportunists." "They exploit the reef as and when it focuses their food supply." "They feed and then move on, leaving each reef a little poorer for their passing." "The blubber jelly voyages at the whim of wind and tide, feeding on plankton as it drifts." "Billowing in the currents its an occasional visitor to the reef." "Like all jellyfish it's a free-living relative of the unmoving corals on the reef below." "Building on the skeletons of others, hard corals extract calcium from sea water." "Tiny polyps toil in limestone to craft their biological works of art." "From the hard coral foundation has arisen a rambling architecture." "This ever expanding labyrinth has another dimension:" "it creates living space for related corals." "Bold against blue, lace-like Gorgonians strain against the current." "On the reef slope, soft corals sweep the same current." "Their flexible arms house polyps but, unlike hard corals, these are no reef builders." "Lacking a solid skeleton, they draw support from tiny limestone spines within their tissues." "When the soft coral dies it disappears, leaving no lasting monument." "Reef plants appear to be just as ephemeral but their role is fundamental," "All capture energy from sunlight some also contribute to the reef structure," "The brittle green Halimeda is mainly limestone." "It constantly sheds gritty lakes into the lagoon." "The stony skin of pink coralline algae glues the limestone blocks of the reef together." "Filamentous algae seems little more than a green fur on rocks." "But it's the pasture of the reef, and essential to all the reef grazers." "But the ties that bind algae and the reef together go deeper." "Like algae, hard corals also require sunlight to grow." "This is a clue to an intimate relationship that literally fuels the reef." "Corals are twin-engined." "They're animals that have harnessed the power of plants to build the vast and elaborate limestone structures we call the reef." "How have they done it?" "Somewhere in their evolutionary past coral struck a deal with microscopic single-celled algae called zooxanthellae." "The algae is sheltered inside the polyp tissue, producing sugars from sunlight and recycling coral waste products." "This partnership became a most powerful evolutionary achievement." "Between them they built reefs." "It's not until the sun sets that coral's second, animal, engine is revealed." "As darkness falls, plankton begins its nightly ascent into the waters surrounding the reef." "From their stony lairs emerge..." "the polyps." "Wreathed with stinging tentacles, each polyp is poised to reap a grisly harvest." "Other members of the night shift emerge to feed." "Feather stars take up strategic positions in the current." "They sieve plankton and particles with their arms." "Slender prey, a formation of razorfish expertly mimic the harp coral that hides their knifelike bodies." "A chaotic ball of eel-tailed catfish swarms in mid-water between feeding." "Lagoon sands below them are loaded with hidden delicacies." "These miniature catfish scout for their supper in rank and file, aided by sensitive chin whiskers." "Lagoon sediments provide dainty pickings for the feather-mouthed sea cucumber" "Little more than an elastic tube filled with water, it delicately wipes each feathered finger across its mouth, collecting food along with sand." "More robust sea cucumbers have rubbery bodies that make them unpalatable to predators." "They continue their slow work of shunting sediment day and night and have no need to hide... unlike the sophisticates of the night shift." "A hunter by night, an octopus is able to change both color and texture." "Hiding and bluffing... this stealthy camouflage expert is both actor and magician." "Its relative the cuttlefish shares the octopus's talent for lightning color change." "Shunning camouflage altogether, the flamboyant spanish dancer flounces through the night." "Its colorful costume is a signal to predators." "Like other nudibranchs, or sea slugs, the Spanish dancer looks much better than it tastes." "Overcome by darkness, parrotfish retire into the fabric of the reef." "Some of these daytime dandies sleep in a gossamer cocoon of their own weaving." "Perhaps this mucous bubble disguises their scent to unwelcome visitors." "A fast-moving vegetarian, the parrotfish grazes algae with its bird-like beak." "Clownfish may be left out in the dark when their protective anemone shuts up for the night." "This is the reef's best known example of shared lives" "The reef is a multi-layered organization and its inhabitants have perfected the art of living on and in each other." "Liaisons are everywhere but some may be hard to find." "An ornamented anemone harbors color-coordinated shrimp" "Competition for the reef's limited resources is tough." "When citizens live together there are winners and losers." "The blood-sucking fish louse has a one-way relationship with its suffering host." "Even corals are not exempt from exploitation by others." "Down among the valleys of the polyps lies another world." "A world that's never been seen." "Among the heaving tissues of the polyp, live flatworms the size of a pinhead." "Living on the thin veneer of the coral's mucous these tiny lodgers appear to do no harm, gliding like magic carpets in a world of altered reality." "On the reef every opportunity has been investigated." "Space is at a premium, and overcrowding a fact of life." "Invariably property disputes develop and borders are drawn." "Where two different species meet, encounters can be nasty." "Nightly 'space wars,' fought by special stinging tentacles, leave a conspicuous white saw of conflict." "Surrounded, this fatal siege may last months." "A plate coral spreads outward to meet itself." "Here the problem is resolved by a fence of self-recognition." "Over time this living evolves." "Territorial struggles shape the reef as a multitude of species vie for position." "Shading its competitors from light, the fast-growing plate corals borrow a strategy from the forest canopy." "Other inhabitants can neither outgrow nor out-sting their competitors." "For sponges chemical warfare is the way." "Their tissues are loaded with toxins, a kind of natural anti-fouling that preserves their space." "Just as space invaders are part of life, so too are space makers." "Sometimes an opening comes by chance." "Storms and ocean swells damage the reef, tearing long-lived corals from their foundations." "But not all space is created by the elements." "The crown of thorns starfish, a coral predator, opens up new territory with each meal." "And new settlers are in ready supply." "Out of the blue curtain of distance the currents propel a sea full of eager immigrants, a multitude of microscopic larvae." "This humble bean, covered with beating hairs, is the beginning of a new coral." "Equally disguised, a larval sea urchin is a long way from its final form," "Even the giant clam begins life microscopically." "All reef larvae are designed to voyage in the plankton." "To become citizens of a reef they will need to take on their adult form, but first they must find a safe place to settle." "Journeying day and night they may stumble upon a reef, a sentinel in the dark sea." "But their sanctuary is in fact a snare." "Night has unmasked the reef." "Poised and armed, it has become a waiting wall of mouths." "The graceful Gorgonian is now a web of death, its animal nature revealed." "Thousands of tiny polyps wait outstretched." "A feather star sways in the gathering storm." "A million mouths wait in silence for the microscopic voyagers to blunder their way into outstretched arms." "The weaponry of the reef is revealed, a sinister array of traps, sieves, harpoons and clutching tentacles" "The methods may vary but the final sentence will always be the same." "And night after night this random microscopic rain falls." "Millions of epic voyages end in tiny, but titanic, struggles." "Despite huge losses some larvae survive their perilous voyage and settle." "They grow to become solid citizens of the reef, joining the wall of mouths and waging space wars with each other." "This endless lottery of settlement and survival weaves a visual tapestry of species, color, pattern and form." "But beauty and harmony is a mask it hides chaos and competition." "Reef society is shaped in a war zone of relentless conflict." "The reef thrives in adversity, prospering despite its internal struggles." "But reefs have also endured struggles of planetary dimension over enormous geological time." "Through the millennia continents drift, climates change, sea levels rise and fall." "As the world moves around them coral reefs remain, as always, immobile." "They seem at the mercy of geology yet today's have somehow survived 214 million years of global upheaval." "Coral reefs rim continental shelves and cap volcanic sea mounts throughout tropical oceans." "But once, reefs lived in an ancient sea called the Tethys." "It lay between two supercontinents which split apart, causing Africa and India to drift northwards." "The broad Tethys Sea, evolutionary home of modern reef animals, was squeezed out of existence." "Over millions of years it became a war zone of continental collision, earthquakes and sea level change and the animals evolving here came under siege." "Amidst these shunting continents reef life had two choices:" "extinction or escape." "Today's reefs are built by immobile creatures that somehow dispersed and evolved from their ancestral communities in the Tethys." "But to escape the ravages of geology they had to play an evolutionary Ace." "This ace not only allowed them to move, but to change." "It was sex." "And every summer the age-old ritual unfolds." "Shoals of tiny fry appear, with their parents, the spiny chromis." "Their behavior is unusual among reef fish;" "they guard their growing offspring." "A female cuttlefish holds an egg daintily in her tentacles." "She chooses a nest with great care and places the fertile egg securely within." "But despite her plump maternalism this is the extent of her parenting." "From the time the egg is placed in its coral cradle the young cuttlefish will be on its own." "This careful handling of individual eggs requires more time and effort than most other reef dwellers invest." "The giant clam makes no attempt to nurture its young." "However it does invest enormous energy producing and broadcasting many millions of eggs and sperm." "With each mighty contraction the waters of the lagoon turn milky." "Fish dart closer, feasting on the seasonal delicacy." "Other, perhaps more prudent species will wait for dusk before they begin to spawn." "The male coral trout emerge in sober courting colors." "With his tail flagged black he patrols his territory." "Females are lying low on the reef, their swollen bellies heavy with eggs." "Concealed in the watery twilight they await the male's advances." "His elaborate dance is designed to tempt a female from her retreat." "Reluctantly she leaves the reef's protection, encouraged by the ardent male." "The climax of their courting ritual is a spawning rush..." "A split second when eggs and sperm are released near the surface leaving the future to chance, once again," "As summer waters warm other biological clocks are ticking." "The reef below begins to stir." "Cued by the full moon in November, countless coral polyps bulge." "They are ripe with packets of egg and sperm that have taken months to prepare." "Their time has come." "Others respond to an unseen urge." "Crown of Thorns starfish begin their slow creep to high points on the reef." "Even inert creatures are stirring." "Sea cucumbers scurry..." "at their own pace... away from the lagoon floor to the coral ledges above." "Here they begin a sinuous dance, swaying to an ancient evolutionary rhythm..." "Even the fragile feather mouth rises to the occasion." "This is an event too compelling to miss." "From within the bulging polyp comes an answering movement building to a slow spiral as each puts the finishing touches to its precious bundle of eggs and sperm." "This living jewel is the coral's passport to mobility." "While polyps turn in time, the hypnotic dance of the sea cucumbers has reached its silent climax." "Males begin exuding sperm from tiny pores on their heads." "They rear and sway to scatter their sperm throughout the lagoon, perhaps to meet the eggs released by females." "The Crown of Thorns smolders dramatically, releasing a misty cloud of sperm." "It drapes itself across coral that would normally be its food." "Now begins one of the most monumental and secret events in nature, mass spawning on the Great Barrier Reef." "In unison, polyps pucker and propel their fragile spheres into space." "Locked in limestone they cannot move to mate." "Instead they reach out to each other with tiny voyaging probes." "Their cue is exact;" "each year each species will spawn at the same time on the same day." "We are privileged to be spectators as the reef stages this unearthly performance." "Each night, for a week following the full moon, the intensity builds... new species adding to the growing curtain of new life." "Along 1200 kilometers of the northeast coast of Australia, countless millions of polyps spawn in unison." "Some corals are hermaphrodites while others have separate colonies of females and males..." "Whatever their sex, each has its own pace and style." "The synchronized spawning creates a web of drifting food for those with an appetite for it." "A hermit crab picks off eggs as they emerge." "But predators take only a fraction of the coral's output." "Most pass unhindered into the sea." "And still the outpouring continues." "For these few nights of the year, space wars seem insignificant." "Adversaries are united by powerful ancient forces." "The reef acts like a single organism... intent on securing its future." "Living rocks erupt in a frenzy of color and movement but the climax is yet to come." "Six nights after the full moon, silent and unheralded, there is a kaleidoscopic finale." "The giant plate corals, each with hundreds of thousands of polyps, explode into ascending galaxies of pink and white." "The sea is now a soup of colored eggs against the black depths, but the performance is not yet over." "Incredibly, there is one final encore." "The lagoon becomes laced with streamers, the reproductive segments of polychaete worms, seeming to bid bon voyage to the millions of new lives who set sail tonight," "As the frenzy of release subsidies, the tide plays its part in the completion of the night's magic." "The moon stills the restless sea as egg and sperm bundles rise to the surface." "Somehow, in this vast and chaotic scramble, the right egg and right sperm will meet, fertilize, and develop." "Each morning the sea bears witness to the night's toil as the future hopes of the reef community drift away." "Here is the solution to the reef's immobility." "From this floating slick the tiny developing larvae begin their odyssey." "Opportunists take advantage of the annual bounty, but against the overwhelming abundance they make little impression." "However, in the vast ocean this ribbon of new life will remain vulnerable." "As plankton blooms mound the spawning raft, more opportunists gather." "Larvae may end their journey on the stinging tentacles of a jellyfish or engulfed by the ballooning jaws of marauding manta rays." "Up here, invisible, could be the beginning of a new coral." "Out of the countless millions dispersed only a few will survive their journey." "Far fewer will evade the wall of mouths and find a safe place to settle." "But despite incredible odds the survival of just one coral larva is enough." "They cross the trackless oceans, minute in size, monumental in importance." "Time will see their strategy prevail." "Even the perilous flanks of an active volcano may be journey's end." "Having crossed ocean wastes as an invisible mist in the plankton, coral larvae settle to found a reef." "Its volcanic support will subside but, once established, a reef outpost will build and maintain itself, gathering the rare larval voyagers over time." "Each new atoll is a stepping stone to the next." "In this way corals have marched through time and great ocean distance." "They have established collections of living art in the galleries of empty oceans." "Reefs are portrayed as 'fragile ecosystems' with a 'delicate beauty', and yet they're robust enough to have survived millions of years of fierce competition and planetary upheaval." "They're exquisite, but they're also dynamic and adaptive communities." "They've adopted mass spawning and dispersal as their incredible solution to the problems of time, change and immobility." "The architects of the mighty atolls and the Great Barrier Reef are simple animals and plants." "The limestone fortresses they build are monuments to the evolutionary success of Sex on the Reef." "The red kangaroo powerful, comical engaging this is the desert dwelling symbol of Australia" "But kangaroos can be found almost anywhere down under" "They're up in trees ...on the forest floor" "...and can even be found on the rocks" "But all the kangaroos face danger" "This is the story of a mother and her Joey and how he comes into his own" "There is tenderness here in the desert and the harsh reality of survival" "Persecuted by some, revered by others the red kangaroo has astonishing tales to tell" "This is Australia, the driest inhabited continent on earth" "Sixty million years ago this land began its final break from the rest of the world evolving along a path all its own" "Today, its vast, open interior lies naked in the sun a land from another place in time" "It's unforgiving here, not for the faint of heart and survival means marching to a different beat" "But this dry, hostile landscape is not devoid of life it's home to one of the most astonishing creatures on earth" "Kangaroos live in New Guinea and Australia yet their name is known far and wide" "But while the world may know a 'roo when it sees one to science, they're still something of a riddle" "You might think nothing this big is supposed to hop" "But kangaroos do it with speed and agility" "Six-foot marvels of efficient locomotion they emerged from the rain forest then spread over a continent while adapting to desert heat" "This is the story of the red kangaroo an amazing tale from the land down under" "It's summertime in the outback" "And the 'roos can be found where there is food" "Most red kangaroos are red in name only the females and youngsters tend to be gray" "The 'roos look like they're congregating in groups but it's food, not the company that draws them together" "For kangaroos the most powerful social bond is between a mother and her young" "And like many of Australia's astonishing mammals joeys are raised in a pouch" "They spend the first eight months of their fascinating lives living in a built-in nursery" "This youngster needs a taste of life outside the pouch his mother's nearly bursting at the seams" "A wedgetailed eagle waits for his debut but it's not here to wish him good luck" "Joey doesn't care who's in attendance" "He's not in a hurry to come out" "His mother has other ideas" "She dumps him out in a tangled heap" "For the first time he sets foot in the world" "But the place is not to his liking" "The eagle watches his entrance and exit" "It's following the show with keen eyes" "A six-foot wingspan and powerful talons make the wedgetail a dangerous observer" "For young kangaroos that are clumsy or careless death can descend from the sky" "Shade is precious in the desert heat" "To cool themselves, kangaroos lick their skin where blood vessels run close to the surface" "Getting comfortable can be a bigger problem especially with a pouch full to the brim" "A joey's world revolves around its mother relationships don't get much closer than this" "The kangaroos languish" "It'll be nightfall before there's any relief from the heat" "This old male decides to lay down afternoon stakes he's digging a hollow to rest his giant hips" "For the joey, a tail in the face is worth the security of the pouch" "He's safe from predators and free to keep an eye on the goings on" "His mother's portable nursery the hallmark of most marsupials originated in the dinosaur age" "One hundred million years ago rain forest blanketed this land" "Only small slivers of green still remain lush shrinking Edens clinging to an island continent's edges" "In places no more than 30 miles wide these ancient rain forests are endangered" "But it was in places like these that tiny marsupials first made their Australian appearance" "Exactly how they lived in this isolated world is a subject for debate" "But there's no dispute that evidence of marsupial origins can still be found here today" "The kangaroo's ancestors started out in trees much like this mountain brushtailed possum which moves through the branches on all fours" "The first marsupials did raise their young in a pouch but a tree-bound existence made them different in many ways" "Kangaroo ancestors were probably good climbers with long toes sharp claws, and prehensile tails" "They may have started out as leaf-eaters but leaves are low in nutrition and difficult to digest" "So perhaps Joey's ancestors ventured out of the trees in search of sweeter stuff" "The dinosaurs were gone by then but other deadly reptiles remained" "This carpet python is looking for a meal" "And possums have long been a favorite" "The possum's keen hearing is no match for such stealth" "The possum escapes with little more than a good scare but next time, its luck may not hold" "It was 15 million years ago when the kangaroo's ancestors moved down to the forest floor" "Here beneath the canopy shaded from heat many animals are active all day" "And in this rich, green, jungle store there's something for everyone to eat" "The musky rat-kangaroo is the smallest and most primitive of Joey's living relatives" "Weighing in at only one pound it's the only kangaroo that doesn't hop" "Rat kangaroos live mainly on the ground" "They don't use those tails for climbing but for gathering nest-building materials" "And those long, grasping toes are great for handling a fruit and insect based diet" "Another ancient denizen of the forest arrives and the little rat kangaroo beats a hasty retreat" "The cassowary is an unusual animal that has changed little in millions of years" "These large, flightless birds can be over five feet tall and it's the males that look after the young" "Shy birds, these giants shrink from confrontation unless there's a threat to their young" "Using their huge claws cassowaries have been known to kill humans in defense of their chicks" "But this primeval world where kangaroos evolved has been disappearing from Australia for millennia" "And most kangaroos have long since adapted to harsher stuff" "Out in the bush, the days of high summer have passed" "The red kangaroos are more active during the day" "But our joey still spends most of his time in the pouch" "Older ones are venturing out to enjoy the cooler weather" "Red kangaroos are affectionate mothers" "She grooms him every day always keeping her eyes peeled for danger" "She knows he's still small enough to lure unwanted attention" "There is reason for her caution" "The wedgetailed eagle is nearby" "When the bird takes off mothers fold their joeys back into the pouch" "With no prospects in the offing the eagle returns to her nest to see to her own family business" "Her chicks are voracious eaters" "They love kangaroo meat" "But there's competition in the predatory arena" "Australia's wild dog, the dingo also lurks wherever kangaroos gather" "So the eagle must set out again" "Wedgetails are partial to young joeys but won't take on protective mothers to get at them" "Soon, he'll be as much of a handful as the other joey who's already out and about" "Once again, Joey's mother senses trouble" "And her instincts are usually on the mark" "Not far off, the eagle has claimed a young kangaroo and Joey's mother decides to depart" "But wedgetailed eagles have families to feed as well" "And these two are anxious to eat" "She brings them torn off slivers of meat gently feeding the chicks from a fearsome beak" "Nothing much has changed for the rest of the kangaroos" "The young males play" "the adults relax" "Many settle in for a regular daytime snooze" "But Joey's got other ideas" "He's up now, so his mother must rouse herself to stand guard" "Joey looks big enough to be weaned" "He has taken to sticking just his head in the pouch sometimes nursing sometimes only for comfort" "The kangaroos are having a quiet afternoon" "For the most part, they just sit around or dust-bathe" "For the first time" "Joey's mother allows him to wander more than an arm's length away" "He's always been a fine scratcher" "But he's still an uncertain walker at best" "Kangaroos are built for hopping" "They look ungainly moving at slower speeds" "Young males play-fight for hours each day" "This comical pair probably won't hurt each other but someday, they may fight in earnest for mating rights" "Though he's still nursing" "Joey wants to try a mouthful of grass and gets a thorn in the nose for his trouble" "It will be a while before he's tuned to this landscape but he just learned a valuable lesson" "He turns to a more familiar source" "But Mother isn't her usual welcoming self" "She controls her pouch with powerful muscles and easily ejects her joey" "His weaning has begun" "From now on, he'll do more of his feeding from outside" "In time, Joey will join these sparring matches" "Using their tails for balance the young kangaroos stand upright wrestling with forearms and pawing at heads and shoulders" "They throw their heads back protecting themselves from sharp claws" "A passing eagle, headed back to a recent kill stops to survey the scene" "Her arrival sends Joey diving head first into the pouch" "All the kangaroos are wary" "But with hungry chicks to feed the eagle returns to the dead joey" "Apart from human hunters only the eagle and the dingo now regularly pursue red kangaroos" "But huge lizards and even marsupial lions may have fed on Joey's ancestors" "Giants once roamed this landscape" "Their legacy today is a ferocious flesh-eating marsupial now found only on Australia's companion island Tasmania" "Not known for their table manners" "Tasmanian devils snarl and snap even when there's plenty to go around" "The devils are gorging on a mid-sized kangaroo usually called a wallaby" "And the ruckus alerts another kangaroo cousin that it's time to take cover" "This little hopper is a Tasmanian bettong" "Her youngster, too large for the pouch keeps to the nest when she forages" "The smaller devil, a female also has young who have grown too large for her pouch" "From the safety of a hollow log the young ones wait impatiently for their dinner" "As quiet settles on the forest the sprightly bettongs get back to business" "Hopping probably originated in kangaroos like these:" "Perhaps the motion confused predators giving the small 'roos a chance at escape" "But it was on the open plains that the kangaroos' singular way of getting about probably came into its own" "Scientists know that hopping can be far more efficient than running" "When a kangaroo hits the ground its hind legs store energy like compacted springs" "The energy helps propel the kangaroo upwards for the next hop" "The motion also accordions the 'roo's lungs in and out so the animal wastes no effort while breathing" "Scientists haven't solved the mystery of how kangaroos went from four legs to two" "But the Aborigines have long had their own explanations" "One ancient myth holds that while making its four legged way through the brush a kangaroo heard sounds it had never heard before" "It followed the enchanting music until it came upon human beings singing and dancing on two feet" "The kangaroo stood up on feet of its own then began to copy their movements" "It burst from hiding in a frenzy intending to join the ceremony around the fire" "But the people were angry" "They fell upon the proud animal determined that it should die" "Then a spirit voice boomed from the heavens telling them to release the kangaroo and cherish him as a brother" "While hopping earned kangaroos a special place in the Aboriginal Dreamtime it also propelled them into some of the most unlikely places" "This beautiful little kangaroo is a yellow footed rock wallaby" "They show off their mountaineering skills wherever cliffs jut out of Australia's vast desert land" "Living in large colonies the rock wallabies shelter in caves along the rocks" "Shady crevices harbor vegetation year-round" "But water can be a problem" "To get it, they sometimes descend to where rain collects below" "Wedgetailed eagles prey on rock wallabies, too" "Youngsters waiting on the cliffs sometimes wander into the open" "Only adults descend to drink" "Young ones too big for the pouch must stay behind" "In just a few minutes she'll drink a tenth of her weight in water" "Then she'll hurry back to her joey" "Thirsty joeys drink straight from mother's mouth" "Like their big red cousins on the plains young rock wallabies spend hours in mock battle" "And while the children play some adults engage in courtship" "But this male's gentle ardor is getting him nowhere" "The children, oblivious, play on" "He's nothing if not persistent" "But she'll have none of it" "Other adults bask lazily in the early morning light" "Long eyelashes my help screen out the harsh sun and discourage flies" "Before retreating into the cool caves for the day the wallabies sunbathe" "As the sun warms the cliff face they head for their midday hideouts" "The eagle will have no more chances at them today" "It wheels and heads for the plains and its larger kangaroo fare" "Joey's growing like a desert weed and sporting a much redder coat" "Each day he spends less time in the pouch and no longer clings to his mother when out" "This is a dangerous time for Joey" "He's too big for his mother to carry if she has to run away and reason to run is never far off" "A hungry dingo is slinking about while Joey's busy grooming himself" "His mother calls Joey to her side" "Neither one sees the dingo approaching through the brush" "For a moment, a young male freezes" "His panic proves contagious" "Mother and Joey make their getaway too" "The dingo's no slouch when it comes to speed but the 'roos reach 35 miles per hour" "Dingoes have better luck hunting in packs when they're after large kangaroos" "But when smaller game are plentiful they tend to hunt alone" "Safely away from the wild dog" "Mother lets Joey back into the comforting pouch" "Nearby, a big male paces nervously" "He's caught the scent of yet another danger" "Drifting smoke" "Again, the action of one kangaroo triggers the flight of others" "This time they've been frightened by fire and they're racing to get away" "But this is no wildfire." "It's a weapon" "The Aborigines have been using fire to hunt for thousands of years" "They are after a favorite delicacy a lizard called a goanna" "Some seek refuge from the flame in trees others go underground" "Here, women use sticks to locate escape tunnels then unearth the lizards using tin cans" "A goanna for the barbie is reason for celebration but these old ways are disappearing" "Today fewer Aborigines use fire to hunt and ironically, some kangaroos are paying the price" "The little rufus-hair wallaby depends on spinifex bushes that the Aborigines burn" "It needs their fires to thrive" "They use the old bushes for shelter" "But fire promotes the new growth that feeds the wallaby and these little spinifex mice" "The wallaby eats the bushes' young leaves" "The mice take the seeds" "The wallaby burrows into older bushes which bristle with spiky defenses" "But these thorny refuges have been no match against the upheaval of the last two centuries" "Since Europeans arrived in 1788 almost half of Australia's kangaroo species have been declared extinct endangered, or vulnerable" "The whites brought foreign animals by the boatload" "They converted vast areas of land to grazing changing the landscape forever" "Unlike the soft-footed kangaroos hard-hooved sheep and cattle wore away the desert scrub and soil" "Livestock paths quickly eroded into ravines pastures became wastelands" "Rabbits, introduced for the benefit of hunters bred out of control" "Miles of fences went up in a vain attempt to contain them" "Today, those same fences bewilder migrating herds of native animals like the emu" "Inevitably, rats and mice accompanied the Europeans as did the domestic cat ...which quickly developed a taste for small kangaroos" "So did the fox" "They continue to take a dreadful toll on the kangaroo" "Now many of the smaller species face uncertain futures" "But for some kangaroos, the Europeans provided a bonanza" "They dug water bores throughout the desert to supply their livestock and the red kangaroo has benefited ever since" "One 19th century naturalist spotted so few red kangaroos that he predicted their ultimate demise" "But thanks to the permanent water supply the population boomed" "When water is readily available to red kangaroos they breed like there's no tomorrow" "Joey's only been out of the pouch for two days but his mother is about to give birth again" "A pink embryo, the size of a bean makes its first appearance" "Blind and deaf it must somehow find its way to the mother's pouch or perish" "Its hind limbs, destined for enormity someday are now just useless buds" "It must use its tiny forelimbs to drag itself through the tangled forest of its mother's fur" "Instinct keeps it moving up against the pull of gravity" "The epic, six-inch journey takes over three minutes" "Once inside the pouch it searches out the nipples" "Joey's brother was actually conceived many months ago but remained in suspended animation while Mother tended to Joey himself" "It is a miraculous process the key to reproductive success" "While a mother raises one joey out of the pouch a tiny one grows inside it and a third waits on hold in the womb" "It's time for her to put yet another embryo in reserve" "Just two days after the birth the big reds start sniffing around again a sign she's already in heat" "Mother won't let Joey into the pouch anymore but she still nurses him occasionally" "Amazingly, she now produces two kinds of milk one for the embryo another for Joey" "Her condition sets some of the males to jousting" "A big newcomer collared by scientists to track his wanderings has thrown his hat into the ring" "He's over six feet tall and clearly dominates the contest" "By kangaroo Queensberry rules only the subdominant male kicks giving away his inferior position" "Mother, now eating for three and ready to make it four grazes continuously" "But fortunately, Joey increasingly fends for himself" "The very biggest of the males now finds Mother irresistible" "He's huge" "She appears to ignore his persistent attentions" "Then, her scent attracts another suitor" "But the dominant old male scoffs at competition" "From a distance" "Joey watches the proceedings" "The result of this mating will grow for a few days then become dormant until Joey's brother is out of the pouch" "With such an ingenious breeding scheme it is no wonder red kangaroo numbers exploded once humans supplied a permanent source of water" "Every year, survey teams take to the air to count the reds" "Their reports will determine the number of 'roos that can be hunted legally the following year" "Strewn over the vast harsh desert at the center of Australia red kangaroos now number close to ten million" "Out in the open" "Mother and Joey quickly recover from their fright at the plane" "Others inevitably encounter the thousands of miles of fencing that crisscross the desert..." "and sometimes these encounters are deadly" "Australia's kangaroo population is booming and several million are culled each year" "Mother and Joey freeze caught in the hunter's lights" "But they're not the quarry he seeks" "The hunter has his sights on huge red males" "Culling kangaroos strikes many people as cruel" "Others argue it's no crueler than slaughtering livestock" "Given Australia's delicate desert ecology the kangaroo harvest may prove more sustainable than raising sheep and cattle" "Aside from hunters' bullets kangaroos face another nighttime hazard thousands are killed each year on desert highways" "Mother and Joey are safe the next day but picking up dangerous habits" "Strips of green growth parallel Australia's roads places where the runoff from occasional rain nurtures fresh grasses" "Feeding along roadsides at night kangaroos often blunder into oncoming vehicles" "The sheer numbers of red kangaroos makes this an all too common sight" "But in a very different part of Australia there are still rare kangaroos that few people have ever seen" "Here, in one of the remaining slices of primeval forest the kangaroo story comes full circle" "This is Mount Finnigan a place of reverence for Aborigines and one of the last strongholds of one of Joey's most extraordinary relatives" "It takes patience to catch a glimpse of this elusive creature and a healthy measure of luck" "An experienced woodsman recognizes telltale claw marks leading up into the canopy" "There it is..." "Bennett's tree kangaroo" "Millions of years after kangaroos came down out of trees the Bennetts went back up" "In evolutionary terms, they haven't been up there very long" "And those big hind feet seem ill suited to life among the leaves" "While a mother forages her joey clings uncertainly to a nearby vine" "They look awkward and out of place up here but tree kangaroos are very acrobatic" "They can make spectacular leaps of 20 feet from limb to limb and can safely catapult 60 feet down if startled" "Remarkably, another kind of kangaroo has also taken to life in the treetops" "This is Lumholtz's tree kangaroo and like their ground-based cousins" "Mother and joey are quite affectionate" "As they walk, they move their hind legs independently something most 'roos don't do" "But nothing compares to big reds in the desert where the hop still reigns supreme" "Joey's quickly approaching his mother's size" "Her younger joey has recently started taking his first peak at the world and will soon outstrip his brother in the quest for Mother's attention" "Joey must now look after himself and begin mixing it up with other young males" "Right on schedule he has taken an interest in jousting" "Tentatively, he approaches the fray" "And while his mother looks on he gets into his first dust-up" "Joey is beginning to look the part" "He has all the makings of a big red" "Turning adversity into advantage the red kangaroo has flourished even as its kangaroo cousins have struggled or disappeared altogether" "This pouch-raised powerhouse is a marvel of natural engineering" "It inherited the harsh expanse of Australia's desert and made the landscape its own" "OKAVANGO:" "Africa's Wild Oasis" "Africa As it once was..." "Here in the heart the great Kalahari Desert lies a remarkable oasis an immense delta called the Okavango." "It's a sanctuary for a natural world unchanged in many ways since the dawn of humanity." "The Okavango is a place like nowhere else in Africa rich tapestry of wild life woven together by the life-giving waters of this vast Eden." "This is a world of tranquil beauty, but even so the eternal struggle for survival goes on continually." "Here too the rules of the hunt are ever changing subject to the capricious ebb and flow of the Okavango's floodwaters." "Some prey animals must be taken quickly before they reach deep water." "But nowhere is truly safe." "The wild dogs of Africa are superb predators, but their hunting skills are rigorously challenged during times of flood by species of antelope especially adapted to the wetlands." "Water defines this remarkable place and it often decides who will succeed and who will fail..." "Who will survive, and who will perish..." "Here in Africa's great waterland:" "the Okavango." "The heart of the Okavango is a permanent swamp a maze of lagoons and channels coursing through reeds and grasses and blankets of water lilies." "Filtered by vegetation and sand, these pure waters become crystal clear." "The existence of a watery refuge here in the midst of one of the world's great deserts is the result of a unique interplay between climate and geology." "Its source is the Okavango River, one of the longest in Southern Africa." "On reaching Botswana, it meanders between two geological faults." "Then the river spills out onto a vast floodplain." "It divides into a network of channels and wetlands, creating one of the largest inland deltas in the world." "The delta can be seen from space spreading like a giant hand across the face of southern Africa." "It's born of summer rains a thousand miles to the north in the highlands of Angola." "Fed by these rains, the Okavango River slowly winds through a long panhandle before entering the permanent swamp." "There it is further slowed by flat terrain and dense vegetation." "Over the next few months, the level of the permanent swamp rises almost imperceptibly." "When the new water finally reaches the floodplain, it arrives at the height of the dry season." "This is the miracle of the Okavango." "The delta's unique environment begins in the panhandle where the river meanders for some sixty miles." "Thousands of carmine bee-eaters migrate here to nest in the steep sandy banks." "These strikingly beautiful birds primarily live on honey bees and other flying insects caught on the wing." "They lay their eggs when the water is low in tunnels usually five to six feet long." "This is also the main breeding ground of one of the Okavango's more sinister creatures." "Baby crocodiles hatch as the river is rising it will provide them a convenient means of transport." "Many of the young crocs will drift with the current southeast into the heart of the Okavango delta." "This permanent swamp is a water wilderness of swamp grasses, ferns and lilies." "This tangled world seems half-liquid, half vegetation and it never dries." "Floodwaters - in years of abundant rain can double the area of the swamp to some 5,000square miles." "Elephants are among the few large mammals that venture into the heart of the permanent swamp." "They browse on the foliage while the young frolic in the Okavango shallows." "This is a sanctuary for the shy and elusive sitatunga, a water loving antelope that seldom ventures outside the permanent swamp." "And this is the only place in Africa where the slatey egret can be found in numbers." "It's one of the rarest herons in the world." "The inner swamp is a nesting haven for a rich variety of waterbirds and there are huge colonies." "Here the yellow billed stork can raise their hatchlings in isolated safety." "Other waterbirds are drawn to the swamp simply to hunt and feed." "This saddle bill haunts the shallows seeking fish and frogs." "The marabou storks nest by the thousands here in low spreading fig trees." "Stalking the waterways the marabou can sometimes bring a quick end to a young crocodile's journey." "After along night of grazing, hippos spend the day digesting and wallowing." "A single hippo may transform a hundred and fifty pounds of vegetation into dung which in turn enriches the water and plant life." "En route to favored grasslands, the hippos trample pathways throughout the delta, creating channels in the waterways." "Now is the season when floodwaters from the Okavango River are slowly filling the permanent swamp." "But here on the floodplains, the water left from last year's flood is quickly evaporating." "Lechwe graze in the shallow." "They feed on grasses that sprout along the edge of the receding waters." "A pack of wild dogs appears." "These are the "painted wolves" of Africa." "The dogs are skilled tacticians, but the Okavango poses a special challenge." "Lechwe always race for the safety of water when threatened." "Lechwe have developed elongated hooves that allow them to race through the shallows." "The dogs are often no match for them." "As the lechwe escape into deepwater, the dogs choose to wait and watch." "The dog's instinct is confirmed crocodile is lurking nearby." "But the lechwe would rather take their chances with the crocodile, than face certain death with the dogs." "Throughout the Okavango, palm trees dot the landscape." "They provide shade and shelter and a plentiful supply of fruit." "Baboons scale the heights to feast in these vegetable ivory palms." "But they're not the only ones with a craving." "As night falls, the left-over palm fruits are not forgotten." "The African porcupine loves them too." "With their strong sharp incisors, the porcupine tears into the fibrous flesh, leaving the hard inner seed to become, perhaps, a future palm tree." "The rare and endangered pangolin has to pass on the fruit." "They are among the few mammals in the world without teeth." "In stead, this "walking artichoke" survives by raiding ant and termite colonies." "When a pangolin comes upon a termite mound, it uses powerful claws to tear into the rock-hard mud." "Within is a complex network of corridors and chambers, filled with ghostly white insects that shun daylight." "In a typical mound there are millions of termites." "And using its sticky tongue, the pangolin will feast on vast numbers of them." "Termite mounds provide hiding places for both predator and prey deal jackal dens, and observation posts for leopards." "Many of the mounds become the foundation for full-grown islands." "A sweeping view of the Okavango reveals them scattered over a wide band between the permanent swamp and the outer floodplain." "In this season, all the big game animals of the delta converge on the receding waters." "Beyond the swamp and the islands, the vast floodplains still are drying out." "Buffalo rumble far and wide in search of water." "With all the noise and dust, it almost seems that war has broken out in the Okavango." "It is the onset of the dry season the African winter." "For these wild dogs, it is the time for rearing pups." "Expectant females cleanout abandoned burrows where they can give birth in safety." "The wild dogs of Africa are a distinct species, only distantly related to domesticated dogs." "Contagious diseases and hunting by man have threatened them with extinction." "But here in the heart of the Okavango they're free to hunt and reproduce in relative safety." "When the females are about to give birth, there's little for the pack to do but wait." "Hooded vultures keep them company." "Only a few months ago, there was water here, now there are plains of grass dried to a golden brown." "During the dry season the open plains of the Okavango favor animals built for speed." "These cheetahs have only to lie in wait, as their prey appear in numbers." "The cheetah is the fastest cat on earth, and it will sometimes walk boldly up to its prey until it's within sprinting range." "The prey finds camouflage in the amber fields of grass." "But one false move can betray the reedbuck." "As the victim is hauled into the shade, silent witnesses pass by the scene." "In the dry season, herds of giraffes seek the last remaining water in the floodplains." "Back in the den of the wild dogs, there is much excitement." "Three weeks after birth, the pups are finally emerging into daylight." "Up until now the mothers have not allowed other dogs near their burrows." "But now everyone joins in, welcoming the new arrivals." "In this pack while several females have given birth, only the dominant female assumes the role of mother." "She even nurses the pups of the other females." "Still the dominant female has trouble keeping an eye on all twenty-one new arrivals." "One of the other females perhaps a new mother herself kidnaps a pup." "She and a cohort carry it back towards another burrow." "But it is a short-lived venture as the dominant female quickly drives them off." "She reclaims the pup as her own." "Millions of birds move in unison like a great school of fish, engulfing the air." "Swirling flocks of queleas converge on the diminishing water holes to quench their thirst." "The Okavango is now in the midst of a long dry winter." "All across the floodplains, dried-out game trails radiate from the shrinking waterholes." "Wildlife congregate around the few oases." "Here they'll wait out the dry season until the annual flood arrives, which is still working its way ever so slowly out of the permanent swamp." "Small groups of buffalo from across the plains now mass together into herds of thousands." "Water is their most critical need." "But the wild dogs obtain much of their water needs from the flesh of their prey." "The pups even seem to enjoy the dry weather as they frolic in the winter sun." "More and more they're playing at hunting." "Assuming the stance for stalking, this pup launches a mock attack on the others." "Out on the hunt, the adult dogs survey a herd of lechwe grazing on the plains." "Without water nearby, these lechwe are very vulnerable." "For this is the season of the wild dog." "Hunting in packs up to twenty or more, wild dogs are very successful hunters." "They have incredible stamina and blazing speed, at times second only to the cheetah." "Once in the jaws of predators, the victim's fate is sealed." "The lechwe ceases its struggling and appears to go into deep shock." "Within a few minutes the prey is dismembered." "The dogs gorge themselves to fill their bellies, because the pups and their guardians are awaiting them." "The pack returns from the hunt." "It's time of high excitement and celebration." "A guardian receives a piece of the kill, regurgitated by one of the hunters." "The pups clamor to receive their share." "They too are fed regurgitated meat." "The pups are becoming frisky and aggressive launching surprise attacks on their constant companions, the vultures." "Nearby are three male lions, a formidable coalition, that have roamed this area for years." "A lioness part of a pride of females awaits with anticipation for one of the males." "In the surrounding vegetation, the others mark the group's territory." "In a bizarre looking expression called flehmen, the male lion tests the air for the scent that indicates the female is in heat." "Lions have been known to copulate up to eighty times a day." "But the duration is brief from a minute to only six seconds." "This group of lions monopolizes several prides of females in their territory." "But still find ample time to rest." "The long, dry winter seems endless." "Day after day a remorseless sun arcs through a cloudless sky." "It warms the air after cool, even bitter cold nights." "This year's floodwaters are slow in coming." "Vital pools and waterholes have shrunk to mere puddles." "Catfish are now concentrated in the ooze." "Fish eagles swoop down to gorge on the fish." "They compete among themselves even in the midst of plenty." "The ponds are becoming crowded." "Large crocodiles have abandoned them and the constant presence of buffalo and other animals now force the smaller crocs to move on as well." "Every creature vies for its place in the comforting ooze." "Young crocs seek new hiding places in the shade of reeds." "There, they will lie dormant until the floodwaters return." "Rolling in the mud, the buffalo crushes a pool of catfish." "All the better for the marabou who now had only to pluck out the lifeless prey." "For the fish-disaster." "For the birds a season of plenty." "Once again, water or the lack of it determines who will survive in the Okavango." "The hippo pools are now more hippo than pool." "In the dry, enervating air, they wallow in the last of the cooling mud." "Catfish try to crawl away in search of other pools." "It's a futile effort and many pools are already a grisly mass of dying fish." "All over the plains there is a desperate need for water." "Then a rare and welcome sound at the height of the dry season." "In a cruel twist of fate this storm brings not rain but fire!" "Lightening has set off the dry grass and in moments the floodplains are a swirling inferno." "The frantic pangolin desperately tries to outrun the flames." "Many smaller creatures and insects will be consumed by the fire in seconds." "The wildfire races across the Okavango, setting palm and papyrus ablaze." "Burning tapers carried by the wind spread the fire everywhere." "He wild dogs know from experience not to run in panic." "The big game animals escape to the centers of large islands." "There the vegetation is sparse and there is little to feed the killing flames." "The fire rages for days." "It marches in a deadly procession north towards the permanent swamp." "Rivers and channels provide only temporary barriers." "The towering flames whipped by the wind leap across the waterways and into the swamp itself." "The fire is over." "It has scorched thousands of acres of floodplain and has stripped great areas of the permanent swamp of its vegetation." "All that remains is a charred landscape seemingly devoid of life." "Fire can be good for the delta, clearing away dead vegetation and prompting the growth of new grass." "But some fear that too many manmade fires could do irreversible damage to the Okavango." "The pangolin is a survivor, having found refuge in an underground burrow." "The larger animals have also escaped the flames only to face an even more arid and harsh environment than before." "But now, at last, the Okavango works its greatest magic as the new floodwaters finally arrive." "In surreal counterpoint, trickles of water create tendrils of dust as they advance across the plains." "They slowly percolate through the ashes, restoring life to the charred land." "Only inches deep in places, the new flood spreads out across the land." "Some creatures that survived the fire now perish in the rising waters." "The waters of the Okavango have come a thousand miles from the mountains of Angola they now end their journey on the vast floodplains of the Kalahari." "The water will slowly refill the dry channels and dusty lagoons." "It also courses through old hippo paths allowing many predators to infiltrate the plains." "Myriads of fish migrate with the new water to feed on the rich supply of insects it displaces." "Not far behind are the young crocodiles." "Waterbirds now search the edge of the flood, finding a rich concentration of prey." "The pelicans welcome this season of plenty, eagerly scooping up newly arrived catfish." "For the hippos, it's time at last to gather and bathe in deep water." "All the animals are now forced to cross the flooded areas." "Water is once again an element to contend with." "The wild dogs must negotiate amaze of waterways, infiltrated by stealthy crocodiles." "They're aware that for every croc they see, others may lurk unseen." "Hunting and escaping now depend on crossing ever deepening channels." "Cheetahs are creatures of the drier savannah, but those that live in the Okavango must cross the waters to hunt." "They do so after much hesitation and then with prudent speed." "After running down their prey, cheetahs go for the throat." "Then they patiently wait while life ebbs slowly from their victim." "Nightfall and spring rains have stirred a singular event as winged termites called alates take flight before mating underground." "The puff adder, too, responds to the spell of the season." "Now is its time to bear young." "With the rain, the Okavango glitters with moisture and the plains turn a vivid green." "The wild dog pups have been playing at hunting for weeks." "They're now old enough to witness the real thing." "They join the pack, now ranging far and wide in search of prey." "At every water crossing, the adults are cautious but the pups will learn only gradually about the enemy the water hides." "And when the chase begins in earnest, the pups must be left behind." "In the excitement and confusion comes a moment of extreme danger." "Urged on by the adults, the pups must cross to safety." "Once more, ancient adversaries have met and played out their predestined roles." "The drama of the wild favors neither predator nor prey." "The survival of all is insured in the natural world which gives no creature an absolute advantage." "All belong-and have their proper place in the great waterland called the Okavango." "No land on Earth possess more wonders than Egypt" "wonders long hidden but revealed occasionally in a glint of gold or a curious tale." "Our story begins with a death the death of an unusual boy." "Worshipped as the son of Re, the Sun god he was a pharaoh of Egypt 3,000 years ago." "We don't know how he died, only that his death was sudden and mysterious." "His body was preserved in the manner of other pharaohs and priests anointed his coffin to prepare him for his final journey into the world of the dead." "The rituals had to be finished before his father the Sun, descended into darkness." "So this young pharaoh was secured in his tomb surrounded by kingly treasures and his seal was pressed into its entrance." "From that time on it was to be a place of peace hidden and undisturbed throughout eternity." "This young King's name was Tutankhamen." "For 3,000 years," "King Tut and his tomb in the Valley of the Kings remained concealed beneath shifting sands." "Other tombs were discovered and completely pillaged but not his." "Believing he could find it, an Englishman named Howard Carter mounted five arduous expeditions but they yielded nothing." "In 1922, he returned to Egypt for a sixth attempt." "That year he brought a beautiful canary to brighten his spirits." "The workmen called it the Golden Bird and told Carter it would bring them good luck." "But as work began success seemed a remote prospect." "And time was running out." "Carter's benefactor," "Lord Canarvon was an English earl fascinated by Egypt but even he was losing faith... and had threatened to cut off the money." "Yet Carter persisted knowing that if found intact the tomb would be filled with amazing artifacts that would help us peer through the shadows of time to glimpse a world of human splendor long lost" "to glimpse our very beginnings." "That's a great story Grandpa but I want to know more." "You live here and" "I know you can tell me the real story." "About?" "Well, my friends want me to ask about the "curse"" "how anyone who entered King Tut's tomb will have some terrible things happen to them." "Yes, yes, I know." "I don't know if I believe it." "But will you tell me about it?" "So the pharaohs, the tombs the monuments the great civilization who built them you are not interested in?" "But the Mummy's curse you find..." "Exciting!" "Yes, I can see that." "All right then." "you shall hear all about it." "But first we must take a trip together." "Where will we start then?" "At the source, of course." "The source of the Nile." "It is the longest river on Earth, the greatest river in Africa crossing nearly half the continent." "It is born of two rivers the White Nile which rises near Lake Victoria and heads north through Uganda-and the Blue Nile which descends from the highlands of Ethiopia." "They meet in the desert of Sudan, forming the main trunk of the Nile." "By the time it drains into the Mediterranean Sea its waters have journeyed more than 4,000 miles." "To the outside world the source of the great river was an enduring mystery." "But to the ancient Egyptians, the source was clear:" "the Nile flowed from the realm of the gods." "But what has the Nile to do with mummies and curses?" "Everything." "There would be no mummies, no ancient Egypt-in fact, no Egypt at all without her." "You see," "Egypt without the Nile is a desert... suitable for camels and scorpions, but not great civilizations." "It's only here along the flood plain of the Nile that the desert's heat is softened... and arid sand is turned to rich farmland." "Nourished and irrigated by the Nile," "Egypt became the longest lived of all the great early civilizations." "In ancient times, so much water raced down from the lush valleys of Central Africa that the Nile overflowed its banks in seasonal floods." "Mineral-rich silt was carried toward the desert of Egypt from lands upstream, where wildlife flourished." "Rich land made possible a vast farming culture and a stable civilization able to turn from daily survival to works of the mind:" "science, mathematics, engineering and astronomy." "They studied the heavens and the seasons gave us the 24-hour day and the 365-day calendar." "Egypt, an old saying goes, was the gift of the Nile." "But the Egyptians believed there was one thing even mightier than the Nile:" "the sun-the God they called Re, the God who created everything." "Each morning with its rising the Sun God would be born." "Each night in setting he'd die." "But the next morning he would rise again never failing." "He was eternal." "When a king died, it was believed that he became one with Re:" "His son the new pharaoh became Horus the falcon, the living God on earth." "And so the Egyptians accorded their rulers absolute power which they used to build an extraordinary empire" "an empire of buildings so enormous and art so exquisite we are still trying to understand how such wonders were created" "how stones from the desert were turned into timeless monuments." "Some of the oldest buildings on earth are here preserved by the desert air and the skill of their creators." "Some are so old that they had already stood a thousand years when Tutankhamen was born." "The enormous obelisks of Karnak were carved from single blocks of granite, moved hundreds of miles by boat rolled on logs and perhaps levered up with huge timbers." "Giant statues of Ramses the Great carved at Abu Simbel are still some of the largest figures ever sculpted from solid stone." "We don't know how they did it, but we do know why to honor the pharaohs, both in life and after death." "Honor the pharaohs after death?" "Does that have anything to do with mummies?" "Yes." "Look at Tutankhamen for example." "When the young kind died, the priests sought to create a magical new body for him." "For 70 days they labored, drying and preserving the royal body with salts and ointments, then wrapping it in hundreds of feet of linen laden with protective jewels, charms and amulets." "And finally, crowning the mummy with an exquisite golden death mask." "Tutankhamen was ready for the afterlife." "Had the boy king lived and died a thousand years earlier, he would have been buried like pharaohs long before him in a monument of colossal proportions the man-made mountain of stone called pyramids." "They probably saw the pyramid's shape as a mystical link between earth and sky," "providing the pharaoh's soul with a stairway to the heavens." "Of the fabled Seven Wonders of the Ancient World only the pyramids of Giza remain-built more than 4,000 years ago." "Nearly 500 feet tall they contain some of the largest pieces of stone ever moved by humans-as much as 50 tons or more." "Yet this was accomplished without wheels or pulleys or even iron tools." "How in the world did they do it without modern machinery?" "The gods certainly didn't do it." "They used their minds." "Knowledge built these great great structures." "Highly sophisticated knowledge." "Look." "All of the Giza pyramids are built in perfect alignment with certain stars." "That takes a knowledge of astronomy." "The pyramids' foundations are laid out in perfect angles and dimensions, precisely correct for the height they wanted to reach." "Now that takes knowledge of geometry and mathematics." "And finally, you must get these big stones from down here to up there and you must make them all fit perfectly." "Now that takes knowledge an incredible knowledge of engineering and organization." "Organization?" "Absolutely." "You just said so yourself." "It wasn't the gods who built these great monuments." "It was people." "Thousands and thousands of people." "Imagine being one of these people living in a tiny village more than 4,000 years ago." "Life would be pretty much the same day in and day out-farming, herding cattle fishing in the Nile." "Then one day, you're selected to journey by boat down the Nile." "You're now part of the great national project to build the pharaoh's tomb." "But you have no idea what kind of tomb!" "And then you see a monument to the sun to life eternal." "How did they move such heavy stones to such great heights?" "There are many theories, but they probably pulled the blocks up mud-slickened ramps raising the ramps as the pyramid grew." "Masons then set the stones with such precision a postcard couldn't fit between them." "To create the Great Pyramid of Khufu, it took over 20 years... more than two million stone blocks... and some 20,000 people." "And they might have been slaves, but now we think they were mostly peasant farmers recruited to work here part of the year." "With their help, the early pharaohs built more than a hundred pyramids-80 of which survive today." "But what about the kings who came later?" "You told me King Tutankhamen wasn't buried in a pyramid?" "No, he wasn't." "They stopped building them." "And for good reason." "There were robbers who cared far more about heaps of gold than an eternal journey." "The pyramids, to these thieves, were like enormous billboards saying," ""We've buried the king in here and all his treasure with him."" "At any rate, a new plan had to be devised." "That's why 500 years after the last pyramids were built a new era of kings decided that instead of building tombs which everyone could see why not build tombs which no one could see." "Three hundred miles south of the great pyramids across the Nile from the modern city of Luxor is this barren maze of valleys in the shadow of a natural pyramid." "Here no thief could find the royal tombs." "Here the kings and queens of Egypt would remain immortal or so they thought." "But greed breeds ingenuity." "Cleverly hiding their devious enterprises, robbers scoured the Valley of the Kings." "Over time, each of the valley tombs was found broken into and completely plundered-except for one" "Except for the tomb of Tutankhamen" "That at least is what Howard Carter believed." "And, if he was right it would be the greatest archeological discovery of modern times" "But after five years he still hadn't found it, and the situation was becoming desperate." "Then, on the morning of" "November the 4th, 1922, a waterboy trying to secure his jug hit an unusual rock." "Carter sent a telegram to Lord Canarvon in England to come quickly and went to" "Cairo to meet his benefactor." "But while he was away something very strange happened." "The golden bird that had brought them luck was killed by a cobra." "Well, now the cobra was the protector of the pharaoh." "And the canary represents those who had entered the tomb." "So the cobra ate the canary because of the mummy's curse." "More likely he ate it because he was hungry." "I like the curse idea better!" "Well, certainly the workmen believed it was the curse." "The death of the golden bird was a bad omen to them." "It meant that someone close to the project would die within the year." "Rumors of a curse mattered little to Carter." "He hoped his dig would uncover a tomb like this one the tomb of a pharaoh named Ramses the 6th who ruled long after King Tut." "Carter wanted to find treasure." "But if not, something just as precious." "Pictures... hieroglyphs that would reveal priceless knowledge of how the ancients lived and what they believed." "These images are from the Egyptian Books of the Dead, passports to eternity which were buried with a mummy." "To help a dead king reach the afterlife, they supplied answers to questions he would be asked spells to deflect dangers along the way." "But preparation for the afterlife began long before death." "In grand temples once supported by these pillars-among the largest places of worship ever built the living pharaohs gave offerings as a way of communicating with the gods in the world beyond and courting their favor." "Both immense and colorful, temples like the great structure called Medinet Habut were the settings for magnificent rituals that proclaimed to all not only the pharaoh's power and wealth but his devotion to the gods he would one day join on a journey through eternity." "They sure seemed preoccupied with life after death." "Yes, and probably because no ancient people enjoyed life as much as they did." "There are picture stories of invention and adventure of board games and ball games, of dance and music... of acrobats and mechanical toys... of the affection between husbands and wives... and of family unity and love." "It was the most advanced civilization of its time... and it went on for 3,000 years." "But the empire they amassed attracted invaders." "Among the stories on temple walls are accounts of battles against outsiders who tried to conquer the kingdom of the pharaohs." "But, the invading empires became more powerful even more determined" "and so gradually, inevitably, the kingdom of Egypt began to crumble." "Well, how could a place as powerful as Egypt just collapse?" "Actually, many things happened, but mostly it was the weakening of the pharaohs' power through civil turmoil, making Egypt vulnerable to invaders." "Little by little much of the pharaohs' great empire-along with its secrets was reclaimed by the desert." "But even as the monuments of Egypt crumble, the stories are rediscovered by modern archeologists deciphering the distant past." "Scholars and artists are preserving the Great Sphinx for all humanity." "Research within the Giza pyramids has revealed the brilliance of ancient architects whose sophisticated designs prevented the collapse of these inner chambers and passageways." "DNA analysis is helping to identify family ties of the royal mummies and to give us clues about how they lived and died." "New excavations are uncovering the support system of settlements and facilities for the workers who built the Giza pyramids." "These new discoveries and many more-owe themselves at least in part, to one discovery not quite as modern of the tomb of a teenage pharaoh." "On November 26, 1922," "Howard Carter reached the wall outside the first chamber of Tutankhamen's tomb." "What can you see?" "Carter, please, can you see anything?" "Yes." "Yes." "Wonderful things Wonderful things" "And they were wonderful things... kept hidden for over 3,000 years in four chambers carved from solid rock." "They entered to find the only intact king's tomb ever discovered in modern times." "And in the burial chamber, four golden shrines." "Inside the fourth shrine, three golden coffins, one inside the other, and at the center... the mummy of the boy king Tutankhamen." "This was the greatest treasure ever found in Egypt well over 2,000 objects of gold alabaster lapis and precious jewels made thousands of years ago by master craftsmen." "They gave us a personal glimpse of a royal life in ancient Egypt-and fueled our drive to continue searching to continue learning." "So through discoveries like Howard Carter's and those of modern archeologists, the ruins of ancient Egypt means something to us." "The stone creations that still loom up from the desert are mute testaments of humanity's great stride forward from hunters and gatherers... to builders of majestic structures, to dreamers of grand dreams." "These stone wonders are the shape of our beginnings towering symbols of our rise to become thinkers artists, poets... and builders." "These great monuments keep us humble, too." "After all, they managed to survive for nearly 5,000 years." "How long has our modern civilization been around in comparison?" "Not very long." "Not very long." "Now as to the matter of the-the curse:" "Lord Canarvon died from an infected mosquito bite five months after King Tut's tomb was opened." "So it is true, after all." "Well, Lord Canarvon did die an untimely death, but Howard Carter lived to be 65 and the little waterboy who was one of the first into the tomb because of his size lived to a ripe old age," "as did most of the workers." "Clearly, there was no curse of death." "But beyond all of that, a curse, you see, flies in the face of everything the Egyptians believed in." "You mean life." "Yes, life." "Death, for them, wasn't an end, it was the beginning of a great journey through eternity, where their gods and kings sailed the morning ship across a lake of flames in the sky, rising in new life each day with the sun." "Two thousand years after Egypt's last pharaoh died a modern film crew has just 34 days to bring their ancient world alive." "But putting history on film is always a delicate business and tackling ancient Egypt may be the toughest filmmaking challenge of all." "Ancient Egypt began more than 5,000 years ago and its remarkable civilization lasted 3,000 years." "The magnificent remains of Egypt's glorious past include the pyramids... temples" "Tut's tomb and its treasures yet the people that created them were a mystery to us." "But today we know more than ever about life in ancient Egypt and director Bruce Neibaur is celebrating our knowledge in a larger-than-life film." "The thing that draws me to history is the fact that we are all part of the same human experience we're all linked together in some way." "What's happened in the past is bringing itself to bear on what's happening in the present." "Bruce is filming the "Mysteries of Egypt,"" "a giant-screen" "Imax feature for National Geographic and destination cinema." "It's a monumental undertaking there are hundreds of extras thousands of costumes and props and over eight tons of specialized equipment designed to shoot the biggest film stock in the world." "A standard 35mm frame is about this big 70mm is about this big," "Imax is about this big and it's thrown up on a screen six stories high... every detail shows up." "Authenticity is everything." "And the crew is under constant pressure to achieve perfection." "Costume designer Jackie Crier has been working since dawn." "Today, she must transform hundreds of extras into pyramid builders for a crucial scene." "Down river archeological advisor Zahi Hawass waits for shooting to start with producers Scott Swofford and Lisa Truitt." "I take full responsibility for everything bad in the film." "If anything goes wrong I will throw Lisa" "Scott and Bruce in the Nile." "Getting it right can be difficult, because just how the Egyptians did build the pyramids is still a mystery." "We know they devised a system for moving mammoth chunks of limestone." "We know the system was efficient one 5,000-pound stone could be added to a rising mound every two minutes." "But what we don't know is how they did it without wheels or cranes." "They simply do not show pyramid building anywhere and so what we are left with are surmises or inferences that we make from the stones the size of the stones." "But you know the rules of physics haven't changed." "We have found sledges." "We have found ropes or fragments of rope." "We have found ramps of pyramids." "The evidence has an interesting tale to tell but getting the story on film requires some distinctly modern tricks." "Production designer Michael Buchanan knows everything has to look just right." "I'm trying to make the plaster look like real stones." "So it doesn't look like what it is!" "The plaster stones weigh only a fraction of the real thing, but the actors' efforts are real." "As the camera rolls, 20-man teams haul the blocks on sledges up increasingly steep ramps." "It's a dazzling sight... and one not seen on the" "Giza plateau in over 4,000 years." "Until now" "I haven't seen any film that is done on ancient Egypt that is accurate." "All that we see is like 30% accurate, until now." "When I saw the stones going up the hill, it really looked like ancient Egypt." "So this is a huge pay off and to have Zahi's stamp of approval is a big, big relief." "But more than stone was moved to build the pyramids 20,000 laborers traveled to the isolated Giza plateau." "How they got here might surprise you." "Four thousand years ago, the pyramids weren't surrounded by desert." "The Egyptians built harbors and canals that brought the Nile deep into the Giza plateau." "We can imagine, back 4,600 years ago," "Cheops building his pyramid, what he did he cut this harbor, and the harbor was connecting with the Nile." "The harbor was used every morning when the workmen are coming." "Everyone is holding his lunch and coming, and coming in boats, and they work here and building the pyramid from the sunrise to the sunset." "Bringing that ancient harbor to life will be one of the most difficult tasks the crew undertakes but Bruce wants the scene on film." "All the modern tools are employed-extras across the river are cued by walkie-talkie... and even the sailboat has a motor hidden from view." "Duck out, man!" "Turnover!" "Roll it please turning, turning, turning." "But nothing goes as planned the wind won't cooperate and the Nile's current forces the boat backwards." "Oh, man-collision!" "What was done with ease over 4,000 years ago may be too much to accomplish this day." "We have a panic moment here." "See what I'm wondering... if we had some good lengths of rope that we could throw on shore and draw that in." "It's a last ditch attempt sail the boat anywhere near the shore and have the extras drag it in with ropes." "Throw the damn rope." "But the nightmare continues." "The light is going, and the shot with it." "I quit... the boat looks great... yeah all the physical elements are great... just, you know, we just want to get the boat to go up the river turn around and come back." "And we finally just we have to move on and do other things." "At least there were no casualties." "During the actual building of the pyramids, mistakes often resulted in serious injury and sometimes death." "Building the pyramid for sure there was many accidents we found about 12 skeletons." "At least ten of them had accidents on their hand two of them had accidents on their leg." "It means maybe a stone fell down on their leg." "Pyramid-building was dangerous work." "In the next scene, the crew will film a runaway column stone." "It's only a prop, but it weighs about 400 pounds." "Actors, extras, and an" "Egyptian stuntwoman must scramble out of the column's path at the last possible moment." "There is little room for error." "While the prop gets a last minute touch-up... the film crew shoots the stone's point of view." "She's quick!" "Thank God." "I've done things like this before but not as dangerous." "Finally, both camera and column are ready to roll." "Three, two, one, go!" "The shot comes off without a hitch and the crew now turns to their biggest challenge recreating the funeral procession of Egypt's most famous pharaoh." "Carter, please, can you see anything?" "Yes, wonderful things." "Wonderful things." "In 1922, an obscure English archeologist named Howard Carter unearthed the remains of an even more obscure pharaoh named Tutankhamen." "Carter had discovered what all others had despaired of ever finding a virtually unlooted pharaoh's tomb." "And the treasures of King Tut have never relinquished their grip on the world's imagination." "Now director Bruce Neibaur's crew wants to bury King Tut all over again." "High above a desert valley, the crew prepares to capture the boy king's funeral procession." "In Tut's time, the pharaohs no longer built pyramids for their tombs-instead they hid their treasure filled burial sites in the remote valley of the kings." "The valley can be a tricky place to shoot as the director of photography" "Reed Smoot, knows all too well." "It's tough because the sun hits the horizon, it's beautiful for about 30 seconds, and then, boom!" "It's midday." "But everyone feels the pressure and lining up extras can be the bane of any casting director's existence" "Meanwhile, costume designer Jackie Crier rushes to outfit them." "I'm not always calm." "I'm pretty calm." "Months of research, design and artistry have gone into the costumes." "And into the props as well." "Egypt's finest artisans have carved an exquisite replica of Tut's coffin." "Made of gold over plaster, it looks like the original." "And like the original, it's not easy to move." "How heavy is the coffin, Michael?" "It's a nightmare." "Advisor Nicholas Reeves has arrived." "The author of several books on Tut," "Reeves is here to make sure the boy king's last rites are performed according to ancient protocol." "His only reference source lies deep within the valley of the kings... on the walls of the tomb itself." "Reeves also thinks these walls contain shocking clues about how the young pharaoh died." "Why should he have died at 17?" "There's no trace of TB or any other illness." "Nothing at all." "He was healthy when he died." "And x-rays taken of Tut's skull suggest the possibility of foul play." "Certainly x-rays of the head show damage which might have been caused by a blow." "In fact, Reeves thinks Tut was murdered... and that his killer attended the funeral." "But as the sun creeps up over the horizon, the immediate concern is getting the procession underway... and on film." "But before they can start, another question-what sound should the funeral goers make?" "Taking their cues from modern Egyptian funerals, they decide on wailing." "And production designer Michael Buchanan demonstrates for the bemused extras." "But there's a last minute hitch." "Reeves is bothered by the golden staffs." "There's no time for scholarly debate." "They've got to go." "Action!" "Three thousand years after his death, golden light and mournful sounds fill the valley as the coffin of the 17-year-old boy-king once again makes its way to a final resting place." "From an Egyptologists point of view, what's quite striking is the colors... the contrast of the gold against the backgrounds... and the noise and the whole atmosphere of the thing." "I think it's captured very well." "A filmmaker's imagination brings back a lost moment in time." "At last it's time to rehearse the scene where Tut's advisor," "Ay, administers last rites... just as recorded on the tomb paintings." "But Reeves suspects Ay had more than a ceremonial role in the young pharaoh's death." "Ay may well have had a hand in Tutankhamen's downfall," "I suspect." "He had the most to gain." "It was Ay who took over the pharaoh's throne after Tut's death, but we may never know the truth." "With the sacred rites finished," "Tut's coffin was carried deep within a labyrinth designed to foil grave robbers" "sealed in for an eternity... which turned out to be a mere 3,000 years." "Tutankhamen in life was a minor pharaoh." "He's quickly forgotten by his successors and by the ancient Egyptians." "Now he's probably the most famous king Egypt has ever known." "I think if he's looking down on us, he's probably quite happy." "One of my hopes for this film is that people will see it, and they'll be stimulated enough to go to the library to learn more about the project." "I keep looking at this stuff and these beautiful scenes we're getting, because I do feel at times like I can really see what it was like." "Creating a sense of past is what they've pursued all these days under the desert sun... hoping to share the secrets of ancient Egypt." "Within these walls lies a mystical city... an ancient promise of peace so desired that man has warred over it for thousands of years." "Over the centuries its walls have been reddened by the blood of Jebusites and Jews," "Babylonians and Persians armies of Arabs, Crusaders," "Ottoman Turks, and the British Empire." "Sacred city of the soul for one third of the earth's people, through the millennia it has drawn mankind to itself like a magnet." "To all who live, work, and visit here, this is more than a city;" "it is a haven the fulfillment of some dream or prophecy the legacy of generations who have gone before." "For this man and his family, coming here was the consummation of a promise made," "2,000 years ago." "This man came here as an orphaned boy and found a miniature version of his lost nation." "The dark shadow of Hitler's armies advancing across Europe drove this man on a path that led to the discovery of his roots in the very earth beneath his home." "The magnetism of the city's Holy Places is so strong that this man risked losing his own family to come here." "Proud inheritor of a name that has lived in this city for 1,300 years, this man's life bridges past and future." "From near and far they have come, searching for refuge, for their pasts, and the meaning of the present." "Three thousand years of vibrant history, hope, and belief are rooted here within the walls of Jerusalem." "Jerusalem, within these walls in the tiny enclave that is the Old City, some of the greatest dramas in the history of mankind have been enacted." "This is a story of that city crucible of the world's three great monotheistic religions... symbol of peace in an area of turmoil and upheaval." "It is a story of peoples of profoundly different cultures who struggle to maintain those differences people who have fought each other, but now live side by side in sometimes uneasy coexistence." "Jews from around the world pray at the Western Wall vestige of the Second Temple... object of Jewish yearning and prayer for 2,000 years." "Here, built on the sites where tradition says Jesus spent His last moments on earth, was crucified and entombed, is the Church of the Holy Sepulcher." "Most holy of shrines in the Christian world, this church has attracted pilgrims since the time of Constantine the Great." "In the walls of their ancient quarter," "Armenians strive to preserve the heritage of a vanished kingdom... in their lives... and in the hearts and minds of their younger generation." "Consecrated under this Dome is the sacred rock where, tradition says," "Abraham prepared to sacrifice Isaac... over which the ancient temples of the Jews were built... from which, Muslims proclaim," "Muhammad journeyed to heaven." "This tumult of people and history intersects in the labyrinth of the ancient bazaars." "Wrapped around the venerable city like the setting for an exotic jewel are the walls retaining traces of the eras of King Herod, the Romans, and Crusaders... last rebuilt by Suleiman the Magnificent 400 years ago." "Outside the walls, there is the twentieth century, the new city of Jerusalem, and the administrative center of the nation of Israel." "Inside is a city believed by medieval man to be the center of the Universe, a city known to more people for a longer time than any other on earth." "Here, the heart of historic Jerusalem still beats." "Its ethnic-religious quarters cling to the sites that give them life:" "the Dome of the Rock:" "third holiest place of Islamic pilgrimage after Mecca and Medina and focal point of the Muslim Quarter... the Western Wall known as the Wailing Wall... symbol of the Jewish Quarter... the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, core of the Christian Quarter that has grown around it... the Cathedral of St. James," "spiritual center of the Armenian Quarter." "Twenty-six thousand souls make their home in the Old City, packed into an area of less than one square mile." "Their story began 3,000 years ago, when King David bought the threshing floor on this hill as the site for the temple of the Jew's one God." "Having subdued the Jebusites, he transformed their city into the capital of the United Kingdom of Israel and thrust Jerusalem center stage in a drama that continues to this day." "Once a royal center of impressive structures and massive fortifications, the City of David has begun to reveal its past to archeologists under the direction of Dr. Yigal Shiloh of the Hebrew University." ""David made this city more important than others by choosing this location to become the capital of Judea at the south and Israel at the north."" "The residential area of David's capital probably looked much like this village of today." "Urbanization undoubtedly began here because of the presence of the Spring of Gihon a constant source of water." "At the end of the eighth century B.C., anticipating an attack by the Assyrians," "King Hezekiah ordered this tunnel built." ""Why should the kings of Assyria come and find much water?"" "asks the Bible in Second Chronicles Cut deep underground, the tunnel carried the water nearly 1,800 feet from the spring outside the wall to a point inside the city." ""This system was done by king Hezekiah as it is described in the Bible and the inscription that was found at the southern end of the tunnel."" "The city survived the siege of the Assyrians." "But in 586 B.C., Babylonian forces burned Jerusalem, massacred thousands, and exiled the enslaved survivors." "Archeologists have uncovered poignant reminders of those who once lived here, including clay seals bearing names of people mentioned in the Bible." "The lament of the exiles echoes through history:" ""If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning... let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy!"" "A half century later, the Persians defeated the Babylonians and allowed the Jews to return." "The Second Temple rose on the site of the first." "This model depicts Jerusalem as it was when Jesus came here to celebrate the festival of Passover." "Although He knew the repressive Roman rulers had labeled Him a rebel," "He continued to preach brotherhood kindness, and charity." "In the last days before His Crucifixion," "Jesus left the temple by these steps." "They are on of the few remnants that remain for in 70 A.D., on the anniversary of the day the Babylonians had sacked the First Temple, the Romans burned the city butchered the people, and took the rest as slaves." "Thus was Jerusalem destroyed for a second time." "Six hundred years later according to Muslim belief," "Muhammad departed for the throne of God from the sacred rock of Jerusalem where the temple had stood." "Aware of the Holy Books of the Jews and Christians," "Muhammad had converted the idolatrous tribes of Arabia to the concept of one God." "Only six years after his death, an army of his followers stood at Jerusalem's gates, claiming the city as their own." "Muslims were to rule Jerusalem for the next 1,300 years." "Except for two interruptions when the Crusaders wrested the city from them." "In the 20th century, the flame of war again flared in the Holy Land." "World War I:" "The British march into Palestine to fight the Ottoman Turks." "As it has some 20 times in its recorded history, in 1917 Jerusalem falls." "The Holy City is surrendered to the British." "Mindful that Jesus had walked into Jerusalem," "General Sir Edmund Allenby humbly enters Jaffa Gate on foot." "There are renewed stirrings of Zionism, the concept of a modern Jewish nation" "In 1947, the United Nations votes to end the British Mandate and partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab states." "May 14, 1948:" "David Ben-Gurion citing"... the fulfillment of the dream of generations,"" "makes a proclamation Jews everywhere have long awaited:" ""The State of Israel has arisen."" "The next day, six neighboring Arab countries invade, determined to crush the infant nation before it is born." "With Jerusalem under siege and the Jewish Quarter ready to fall, the Holy Books are removed." "Jerusalem is a divided city." "For 19 years the Old City will be ruled by Jordan." "In 1967, as the Six Day War rages," "Israeli paratroopers storm through St. Stephen's Gate." "Defense Minister Moshe Dayan arrives at the Western Wall... in Jewish hands again for the first time in 2,000 years." "According to ancient custom," "General Dayan writes a prayer to place in the wall:" ""May peace come to the Jewish people."" "Today, a fragile peace reigns in the Walled City." "The Supreme Muslim Council has remained in charge of the Dome of the Rock the Israelis reclaimed the Western Wall, cherished relic of their lost temple." "Jews from more than one hundred cultural backgrounds have come to live in their ancient capital." "Many are Ashkenazi, from Europe and the Americas;" "the rest, Sephardic and Oriental Jews, are from Mediterranean regions, the Middle and Far East." "When the Jewish community in Yemen heard of the establishment of Israel," "Joseph Zadok and his family decided to emigrate immediately." "For them, the Biblical prophecy of the return to Zion was fulfilled." "His grandson, Shalom, explains:" ""My family knew from the Bible and from our tradition that Jerusalem was the Holy City." "When my family came from Yemen, they wanted to live only in Jerusalem." "We call it center of the world."" "Isolated in remote southern Arabia for some 2,000 years, persecuted by their Muslim rulers, the Jews of Yemen had long dreamed of redemption in the promised land." "They clung to their beliefs, and kept the ancient observances in their purest form." "Now, celebrating Passover, the Zadoks commemorate the Jew's deliverance from slavery in Egypt, just ad Jesus did at what has come to be known as "The Last Supper."" "The Bible promised "They that wait upon the Lord... shall mount up with wings as eagles."" "In 1949 the Zadoks joined the flood of Jews crossing hundred of miles of desert on foot, donkey back, and by truck to Aden." "Those who survived the torturous journey were flown to the Holy Land by an airlift dubbed "Operation Magic Carpet."" "Restricted to certain occupations in Yemen, many Jews were shoemakers weavers, jewelers." "Joseph Zadok was a court jeweler for the King of Yemen." ""Our family has been making jewelry for more than seven generations." "It is our heritage, our tradition." "When we came from Yemen, we tried to keep our traditions."" ""Most of the Yemenite brides in Jerusalem use our wedding dress and jewelry."" "The bride, of European ancestry, carries on her groom's family tradition." "She wears the elaborate jewelry and costume the Zakods lend to bridal parties for a ceremony called the "hineh"" "that accompanied every Jewish wedding in Yemen." "The henna from which the festivity derives its name has long been used as a talisman of good luck." "If the henna applied to the hands of the bride and groom remains in the morning, their wedding will take place." "Mr. Zadok, a relative of the groom, is here to bestow a blessing." "Beginning a life together, this young couple shares the rich heritage of their combined European," "Oriental, and Israeli cultures." "During the Jordanian occupation of the Old City, the Jewish Quarter had been nearly destroyed." "When reconstruction began after the War of '67," "Theo and Miriam Siebenberg were the third family to build here." ""It was my dream to come to Jerusalem." "Jews have been praying for Jerusalem throughout the centuries, for thousands of years, going back even to the time of the exile in Babylon."" ""The Jewish Quarter is full of our history from 3,000 years ago." "When we came, the Jewish Quarter was completely destroyed, and now everything is built and clean." "The changes were immense."" ""I was born in Antwerp, Belgium." "My family left Antwerp on May 11, 1940 that's one day after the Germans marched into Belgium."" "As the Nazi horror swept across Europe, the Siebenberg family fled..." "first by car, finally even crossing mountains on foot" "Always fearful and in hiding, for months the refugees traveled against the tide of invaders until they made their way to safety." "After the war, as the Jewish people struggled to create a homeland," "Theo joined the underground." "Eventually, he made his way here." "Like all Jews born in Israel," "Miriam is known as a "sabra."" ""My parents came from Warsaw, Poland." "I was born in Tel Aviv and I went to regular school and then the high school." "And after high school I went to the army, like all the sabras in Israel did." "I thought I'd never leave the army," "I liked it so much."" "Miriam and Theo met at a party 20 years ago." "Today they often entertain visiting dignitaries, drawn by the remarkable discoveries the Siebenbergs have unearthed." "When Theo and Miriam completed their house in 1970, archeologists were digging all around them in the Jewish Quarter." "Fired by the dramatic finds being made," "Siebenberg determined to build a museum beneath his home." "As workmen removed 3,000 years of accumulated debris, tangible links with those who had lived on this site through the millennia began to emerge." ""These stones here are each made out of one large block of stone." "They are sections actually of the aqueduct the passed here 2,000 years ago and which brought water into the city of Jerusalem."" ""Now this is a mikvah or Jewish ritual bath, which is 2,000 years old and belonged to the mansion which stood above here." "And of course that was a three-floor-high house."" "The home probably burned when the Romans sacked Jerusalem in 70 A.D." ""Now if you look down here, these rooms that you see down below..."" ""...they were hewn out of solid rock about 3,000 years ago." "That's roughly King Solomon's time." "The openings that you see here were called a nefesh, or the soul."" ""The soul would actually rise out of these openings, and there was on top of this a pyramid-shaped stone structure, which was the permanent abode of the soul."" "For Theo Siebenberg, each discovery provided palpable contact with the past and his people." ""Actually we're four floors under the house now." "I find this probably the most exciting part of the excavation." "Actually we're standing in a room which goes back thousands of years, and you can almost feel the presence of the people who lived here at that time you know," "King Solomon's time King David's time."" ""This is a machine gun which was used in the war of Independence in 1948."" ""The same week I found this I was excavating three floors lower at the other end of the site, and I found..." this arrowhead in the war against the Romans in the year 70 of the Common Era."" ""So you have this whole span of..."" ""Of wars." "Right."" "Absorbed by his passion," "Theo has spent fifteen years and three million dollars creating Siebenberg House, the museum he and Miriam will leave to the public." ""This was used 2,000 years ago for crucifixion." "When you think of it..." "Now take this inkwell." "You wonder what letters might have been written by the owner of the house..."" "These artifacts will enable future generations to experience their connections to ancient Jerusalem." ""This here actually is carbonized wood from the fire of this house 2,000 years ago when the house was destroyed."" ""Don't touch it too often." "I see your fingers peeling if off"" ""Traces of history"" "Fifty years after the armies of Islam burst like a thunderclap across the desert to claim Jerusalem, a Muslim caliph built a shrine over the holy rock from which Muhammad had ascended to the Celestial Spheres." "This magnificent legacy has drawn the faithful for more than a thousand years." "Now, during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting and atonement, thousands of pilgrims journey to the Old City for one of the Islamic world's most important religious observances." "When prayers are over, the throng disperses through the narrow alleyways of the Muslim Quarter." "The family of Khalil Khalidi has lived in the Holy Land since the day 1,300 years ago when his ancestor rode into Jerusalem at the head of a column of Islamic warriors." "Khalil has a shop in the Muslim Quarter where he repairs furniture and antiques." "He specializes in mother-of-pearl inlay." "His neighbor, a blind old player stops by to pick up the instrument that Khalil has repaired for him." "Through the centuries, his family has provided a succession of scholars to Jerusalem's Muslim community." "Among their proudest achievements and possessions is the Khalidi Library." "Founded in 1900, it consists of their combined private collections:" "6,000 book and manuscripts in Arabic," "Persian, English, French, and Turkish." "Khalil's uncle and cousin refer to one of the many volumes written by their ancestors." ""My family came to Jerusalem with the Islamic liberation in the year 636 B.C., 15 Hegira." "My family lived in Jerusalem all its time, but they were forced to Nablus for 88 years when the Crusaders occupied the city." ""They came back to Jerusalem with the famous Islamic leader," "Saladin al Ayubib." "They were the political and the religious rulers of Jerusalem."" "With his cousin he examines their remarkable family tree." "Each week Khalil goes to the historic Muslim cemetery outside the city walls." ""At the cemetery I go to pray for my ancestor Muhammad Ali Khalidi." "He was the governor of Jerusalem in the year 1808." "When I go to visit his tomb," "I feel that I am standing in front of a great man with deep roots in this country."" "During the month of Ramadan the Muslim Quarter pulse with activity after sundown." "Here, where ties are old deep, friend and family gather to commemorate their ancestors at a mawlid." "Songs celebrating the birth of the Prophet Muhammad are followed by a sumptuous meal, ending the fast they have observed since sunrise." "Within the walls of the Old City the ancient traditions resonate across the ages, binding the people of the present with their treasured past." "Ironically, it was a Roman emperor Constantine the Great, who adopted Christianity as the faith of his realm and assured the future of the religion." "His mother, the Empress Helena, journeyed here three centuries after Christ's death." "Over the sites where she believed Jesus had been crucified and buried," "Constantine erected the Church of the Holy Sepulcher." "Today the church is shared by six Christian sects:" "Greek, Armenian, Ethiopian and Syrian Orthodox," "Roman Catholic, and Coptic." "The Copts have a tiny chapel at the back of Christ's tomb;" "the front chapel belongs to the Greek Orthodox." "Among their holdings is the stone where Jesus is thought to have lain when He was taken from the cross." "Over the Rock of Calvary where Jesus was crucified the Greek Orthodox maintain a chapel." "Deep in the church near the base of the Rock of Cavalry is an Armenian Orthodox chapel dedicated to St. Helena." "Medieval pilgrims etched tiny crosses in the walls leading to the place where Helena found what she thought was the true Cross." "Painted on the bedrock is a ship with the Latin inscription" ""O Lord, we arrived."" "It indicates that long before this church was built pilgrims journeyed here, believing this to be the site of the Crucifixion." "A mud hut village atop the roof of the church is the only area which the Ethiopian Orthodox, one of the oldest Christian communities in the Holy Land, can claim." "Control of even this modest outpost is disputed in legal wrangles that began in Ottoman times." "Tense rivalries between sects have long raged over rights to this most sacred of Christian shrines." "Cloistered behind protective walls, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate grew up next to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher." "Its monasteries, chapels, and administrative offices form a body comparable to a miniature Vatican." "As a boy, Father Timothy felt irresistibly drawn to join the monks who serve here." ""I decided to join the brotherhood because I like the aims that the brothers have in front of them, to safeguard the Holy Places, to venerate them, to have them ready for every Christian to come also and venerate."" "Chief Secretary of the Patriarchate and private secretary to the Patriarch," "Father Timothy recalls the path that led him here." ""When I was 14 years old, a priest came once to preach about Jerusalem." "For me that was the turning point of my life." "I said," "'Jerusalem is the place I am going to be a priest.'" "My parents wouldn't even listen to that." "At last I said," "'If you are not going to help me," "I will never call you mother and father again.'" "Finally they decided to sign my passport." "Then I came here." "I said to myself that I should stay in Jerusalem for life." "I feel deeply every moment in Jerusalem that my life is connected with the life of Jesus."" "Timothy attended the seminary as a young man;" "like this generation of seminarians, he left his native land to dedicate his life to the holy shrines of Jerusalem." "Each of his days begins and ends in prayer his rededication to the compelling forces that induced him to come to the Holy City." ""Jerusalem is the city which fills my heart and should fill the hearts of all Christians with love and peace." "It would be easy to be a priest in my country, but here in Jerusalem I feel closer to God."" "Sequestered behind a huge gate that is unlocked each morning and locked again each night, the Armenian Quarter has existed for nearly a thousand years." "Life within still centers around the 12th-century Cathedral of Saint James." "A reminder of the days when the Muslim rulers forbade the ringing of church bells, the striking of this plank announces services." "Today the community gathers to commemorate a holocaust." "For the Armenians are a people whose ancient homeland has been ravaged, many of its citizens killed or scattered." "To Elia Kahavdjian, the service has special meaning, for he is a survivor of the holocaust." "For him, Jerusalem became a haven." "Sixty years ago, he arrived as an orphaned boy;" "now he is surrounded by his loving family." "Survivors lead the solemn procession to the Armenian cemetery." "They are living reminders of one million five hundred thousand who perished." "In 1915, part of what had once been the Armenian Christian kingdom was under Ottoman rule." "Labeling the Armenians "infidels"" "and "a dangerous foreign element", the government began to kill their intellectuals." "Life had little value, as this magazine caption illustrates:" ""Five Dollars Buys a Pretty Armenian Slave Girl."" "Describing their policy as the" ""displacement of the Armenian population", the Ottoman Turks drove them on forced marches into the Syrian Desert." "The road was the path of death by disease, massacre and starvation." "Elia Kahvedjian remembers:" ""They took us through the Syrian Desert to Mardin." "We walked I don't know how many weeks, how many months walked." "Near Mardin they bring us to a place where all around it was many hills." "My mother, she says, 'My darling they are going to kill us." "I want to give my son to that Kurd which is coming." "Maybe he will remain alive."" "The Kurdish family fed him cleaned him up, and sold him at an auction to a Syrian Christian family." "The husband was an ironsmith, and six-year-old Elia worked the bellows for him." "When the man remarried, young Elia was put on the streets." "He drifted, begging, for a year, until the American Near East Relief organization placed him in an orphanage and, eventually, brought him to Jerusalem." "A son and daughter and their families gather today to remember the victims... and rejoice in Elia's survival." "Kahavedjian learned photography in the orphanage;" "he owns a photo supply store, custom laboratory, and portrait studio." "Although the family now resides outside the Old City, its life still revolves around the Armenian Quarter." "Here, as their parents did," "Kahvedjian's grandchildren learn Armenian culture, language, history, and geography." "To prepare for life in Jerusalem the children are also taught Arabic," "Hebrew, and English." ""..." "I am opening toe door I am shutting the door." "I am opening the window I am shutting the window." "I am knocking on the door I am pointing to the wall."" "His family thriving," "Elia Kahvedjian remembers the orphans club he and nine boys formed when, at age 14 he began to work." "The quarters where the orphans lived have become the Armenian Cultural club." "For Elia, Jerusalem has provided a refuge of warmth, friendship and opportunity In his words," ""This is the happiest time of my life."" "The memory of Jesus and the miracle of" "His Resurrection live in Jerusalem every day." "Just as He joined the multitudes that journeyed to Jerusalem each year at Passover, throngs of pilgrims from around the globe come here at Holy Week to walk in His footsteps." "Following the path Jesus took from the Mount of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane they enter the Old City." "Carrying crosses along the "Way of Sorrows"" "where tradition says He struggled in His agony, they connect with the ancient passion and eternal mystery of Christ." "In the hours before dawn on Easter Saturday, the flames of the lamps that light the Church of the Holy Sepulcher are extinguished." "When the door is opened, thousand of pilgrims press in to experience an Oriental ritual that has been repeated each year for centuries:" "the Miracle of the Holy Fire." "The Greek Orthodox Patriarch arrives, escorted by Father Timothy and columns of monks." "The tomb of Christ has been sealed." "When the seal is removed, the Patriarch will enter to determine if the Holy Fire, said to be sent down by God will burst forth this year." "Symbol of Christ's Resurrection, the Holy Flame is passed to the exultant crowd." "It is said that here Jesus once stood flanked by two thieves." "Here He was crucified and rose again." "In the precincts of the church that commemorates those events, the hearts of the believers are illuminated by the flames of faith." "High on the wall of the Muslim Quarter in the Old City is a house where American pilgrims seeking a spiritual haven, settled one hundred years ago." "Their granddaughter, Anna Grace Lind still follows, the path their quest began." "Her grandmother, Anna Spafford, survived a shipwreck that took the lives of her four daughters." "Later, when a son also died her husband wrote:" ""Jerusalem is where my Lord lived, suffered and conquered, and I, too, wish to learn... especially to conquer."" "Like her mother and grandmother," "Mrs. Lind has dedicated her life to serving the needy of Jerusalem." "Since 1967, she has administered the Spafford Children's Center, which provides prenatal and baby clinics for mothers and children who might otherwise go without these services." "Mrs. Mary Franji the supervising nurse, has worked here for nearly forty years." "The grandmothers of some of these babies were children when she began." ""Dr. Amireh has quite a number of patients like the..."" ""The main goal of the Spafford Children's Center is to help improve the health of the children in the Old City." "They are mostly Moslems." "We have several Israeli specialists who come to our clinic." "And we feel that this is a very important phase of our work because they are helping in the reconciliation between the Jews and the Arabs." "It may be just a tiny seed but it is a seed that, we hope, brings forth fruit."" ""Okay, fine baby."" ""I live right on the city wall." "I feel it's important that quotation from Isaiah where it says," "'I have set watchmen on my walls O Jerusalem to pray day and night until I make Jerusalem a praise in the earth."'" ""..." "Make Jerusalem a praise in the earth." ""These timeless words from the Bible speak of an ideal Jerusalem a city of glory and peace." "In 1985 the City of David Archeological Garden is opened." "Amid tangible proof of its Biblical past," "Mayor Teddy Kollek has come to speak of Jerusalem in our time." "Aragmatic and sensitive to human needs, this remarkable man has retained his office through the combined votes of both Arabs and Jews." ""...when we are living in a time when people want evidence, they want to see, they want to touch what they believe in, and not only believe in the abstract."" ""Jerusalem is a place where meaning survive, when names survive." "In Jerusalem everybody has a religion." "That doesn't mean that everybody goes to synagogue, or church, or the mosques." "But people believe in things." "The people who come to Jerusalem because it has a special meaning for them." "It's not like coming to another city." "We try to give people a feeling they live in a city which belongs to everybody, where everybody has his particular past, and his particular history." "Everybody who lives in Jerusalem tries to link up with the past Jews, Christians Moslems."" ""The most important thing about Jerusalem is its people in their variety." "It should remain in that variety, one should protect that variety." "The people who live here, they are the factor that is most important."" "Through the generations, thousands of human beings have been thrust together to live out their lives in the vibrant microcosm that is the Old City of Jerusalem." "Bound by their fierce connection to the city, despite their differences, the pressures of the years, of violence and suffering, the resilience of these people and the city itself has preserved its timeless qualities." "Even in our ear of materialism and uncertainty, the concepts of love, rebirth brotherhood, and peace still shine forth from within the walls of Jerusalem." "It has been called Morning of the World" "Heaven on Earth and The Last Paradise" "Born of the fiery volcanic eruptions" "Bali is one of the chain of islands that stretches between Southeast of Asia and Australia" "On this isolated dot of land an extraordinary civilization developed which remains unique on earth" "Here, vibrant religious beliefs find expression in music dance, art and rituals created to please the gods and placate and demons of the spirit realm" "Admiring visitors have long feared this culture was doomed" "But the Balinese select what they desire from the outside world while clinging to their age-old ways" "Everything remains centered on a religion practiced only here... and life itself continues to be lived as a dance of devotion" "Rooted in cults of ancient magic fostered by rites of a mystical religion it is a pageant constantly recreated by its artists" "Bali, masterpiece of the gods" "In the beginning there was nothing" "All was emptiness" "Then, say the old manuscripts a turtle floating on the ocean was created" "and resting upon it the island of Bali" "High in the skies were the flaming heavens of the ancestors and over all, the realm of the gods" "The depths were inhabited by demons of the underworld" "In the middle world dwelt the people" "Early migrations added Malaysian and Polynesian bloodlines to the indigenous population" "As the centuries passed people and ideas swept in from India" "China, and Java" "Separated from Java by a strait of just two miles this speck of land 90 miles wide" "60 miles long is the only remaining stronghold of the Hindu faith in the Indonesian archipelago" "In Denpasar, the capital the traditional and the new collide head-on" "Unquestionably the city is changing as it attempts to deal with congestion pollution and overpopulation-problems common to urban areas everywhere" "But the people adapt skillfully" "While utilizing material objects and technology from the modern world they hold fast to the powerful traditions that give meaning to their lives" "Some 1200 years ago" "Hindu thought first fired the Balinese imagination" "The flames of belief were fanned as successive tides of Hindu influence washed over Bali from Java and India" "From its precepts the Balinese fashioned their unique religion Agama Hindu" "According to its teachings the priestly class is the highest of Bali's four castes" "The high priest of Kamenuh begins each day reciting magic formulas accompanied by ritual gestures to prepare holy water" "It is used in such profusion that the Balinese fondly call Agama Hindu "the religion of holy water."" "For the Balinese life is only apart of a never ending cycle of death and rebirth onto the same family one step in the soul's long process of evolution" "Every newborn comes into this world directly from heaven and is therefore, treated with the reverence due a god" "The high priest and his priestess wife officiate at the rite that marks the 105th day of a baby's life" "Until today the baby was still so close to heaven that she belonged to the deities" "She was not yet a human beings she did not even have a name" "A temple priest purifies her and magic symbols are inscribed on the petals of a flower to protect her" "While bound to the spiritual realm she was never allowed to touch the impure earth" "Now, her feet touch the ground for the first time" "Relatives take gifts symbolic of riches from a vessel filled with holy water and put them on her" "This ceremony symbolizes the beginning of the human struggle" "The baby is now her mother's child" "Rice is the divine gift that sustains life on earth" "About half the island's population make their livelihood farming the sculpted rice terraces they call "steps of the gods"" "Embraced by the ice fields are thousands of villages and hamlets where most of Bali's two-and-a-half million people live" "In these tightly-knit communities every married man is obliged to belong to the village ward or banjar, and work for the common good" "Like generations of their ancestors before them" "Ketut Kantor and his cousin" "Made Tubuh, were born in the village of Batuan" "They live and work side by side" "Mrs. Kantor was born here too she met her future husband when she was six years old" "When they married she moved into his family compound" "Behind its enclosing wall the compound is laid out according to a prescribed pattern" "By night its open pavilions are used for sleeping by day for family activities" "The villages of Batuan is renowned for its artists" "Mr. Kantor observes" ""In Batuan most people participate in the arts" "Without art, people would not be normal"" "Each person must have a feeling for art painting, dance, even working in the rice fields"" "Fifty years ago the renowned American anthropologist Margaret Mead noted that the arts are part and parcel of the daily life of the Balinese as much as the village community or the irrigation system" "The compound is a little universe complete with everything from a family shrine to a fruit and vegetable garden" "Bananas and other fruits, coffee and vanilla are grown here" "Little is wasted" "Long ago I studied weaving with my mother" "I began when I was about eight years old" "Some of the things I weave are given to my children to wear to the temple" "I very much enjoy making offerings because since I was a child" "I was attracted to the decorations" "Making them is not really work" "Our belief in God makes it pleasurable" "Mr. Tubuh's daughter, Deni has come from her home next door to help" "Soon she will move here she and the Kantors' eldest son plan to marry" "Everyday the woman place offerings throughout the compound to appease the gods and spirits" "These, made of rice dough are specially prepared for a temple celebration" "After school village boys congregate at the Kantors' home to learn to dance" "In Bali children dance like American youngsters play baseball" "Kantor has been dancing at religious festivals since he was a boy" "His sons are accomplished dancers, too" "But today they play gamelan the shimmering music of gongs metallophones, cymbals, and drums that accompanies all religious and theatrical events" "Mr. Kantor's father the late Nyoman Kakul was one of the most famous Balinese dancers of his day" "He also taught dance to many of the royal families" "Recalling historic battles the baris dance emulates the fierce poses and frightening expressions of the warrior" "Teaching dance" "Kantor fulfills his obligation to his community and his father's legacy" "A system of water temples high in the mountains coordinates rice farming for the entire island" "The farmers are organized into subaks age-old cooperatives that insure even the lowest terraces receive their share of water" "Mr. Kantor's father bought rice paddies with money he earned touring world capitals in a Balinese dance troupe" "My father taught me how to read the fields use the cows and the best time to plant" "When we work and prepare the land it unifies and makes us one with the land" "As with every major event in Balinese life a propitious day is selected for the seedlings to be planted" "Rituals will ensure protection by the deities and the rice will be watched as closely as a developing child" "Every morning and again when the day's work is done the Balinese baths in village or local streams" "For centuries the highly productive rice-growing system has freed the relentlessly creative Balinese to perfect the arts that serve their community" "On an auspicious night" "Mr. Kantor will present topeng a masked dance-drama for his ancestral gods" "With offerings he requests permission from the ancestors to perform and use the masks" "He says" "These are sacred masks that were used by my father gifts from priest and kings" "Some are 200 years old" "The first time I performed outside my village my father arranged for a special ceremony for my thoughts and feelings to become one with the masks" "When my father died" "I dreamed he asked me to dance at the temple" "I took this mean that he gave me permission to wear his masks" "The masks represent historic characters prime ministers and kings as well as clowns" "With them he enacts stories based on Balinese chronicles" "Before I perform" "I often dream of my father when I dance we dance together" "As stories of the past echo into the present the children learn the history of their island thus binding the generations together" "While pleasing the gods" "Kantor's dance provides him and the community with spiritual enrichment" "The success of human endeavor depends on continually keeping the worlds of men gods and demonic powers in balance" "Communion with divine is made possible through temple celebrations" "Traditionally art has not been created as the expression of the individual but as a group effort to serve the gods and society" "The Balinese have no word for art" "Yet entire villages are made up of families of rice farmers who are also brilliant sculptors dancers, musicians, and painters" "The villages of Mas has long been famous as a community of wood-carvers" "Ida Bagus Anom is a mask-maker as were his father and grandfather" "Anom himself is a masked dancer so he has a deep understanding of the qualities with which a good ritual mask must be endowed" "In Bali we can see two kinds of masks" "One mask is for decoration" "So when we start a mask like this ...and I finish it" "But the mask has no power no soul, no spirit" "That's one" "Another one is the mask that has a spiritual or in Bali we believe the mask has a soul" "So if I make a mask like that the first time cutting the wood" "I must find a good day like a full moon, new moon" "And then when the mask is finished we make an offering and then bring it to the temple and the priest calls the spirits" "So a lot of it is with the religion activity" "The most difficulty to make a mask is to keep character, spirit, soul" "If you want to make a minister you must keep the soul the character like a minister" "If you make a king you have to keep the soul to the mask like a king" "So you need to know the story behind the mask" "When I am making a mask when I am carving a mask" "I am already thinking about the movement and the music, the melody" "So, like music, Carving, and dancing you must have a connection with each other" "So when I'm carving a mask" "I be thinking about the movement" "Anom continues to create expressive masks for religious performances" "He also makes original and inventive masks for international art collectors who eagerly seek his craftsmanship" "As foreigners became more interested in Balinese creations art entered a new era in this century" "But the connection between art and religion endures" "In the village of Pengosekan headman Dewa Nyoman Batuan exhibits and sells his artworks and those of his villagers" "Batuan reflects on the nature of Balinese art" "Paintings start form religion because everything is coming from God" "Everything is coming from God" "Because when we make painting first we must think about God" "Painting makes men closer to God" "Bima is a character form the Mahabharata a 2000 year old Hindu narrative poem" "In this painting that illustrates the Balinese cosmos he stands on the turtle that balances the world" "Below, hell is full of demons mythical creatures and miserable humans" "Bima must rescue his father's soul from hell and secure its admission to heaven" "The painting mirrors the pervasive influence of Agama Hindu on the arts" "A thousand years ago the flickering movements of the wayang kulits or shadow play, were brought from Java" "Puppets cast their shadows on a screen as they are manipulated by a mystic storyteller" "The cinematic images he creates are a favorite entertainment comparable to our TV" "His assistants help set up the puppets noble character on the right evil characters on the left" "Based on Hindu epics this traditional form of spiritual education also incorporates issues of topical concern to the villagers" "Most of the play is presented in classical Javanese a language not understood by most of the audience" "Only the clowns the characters with movable mouths speaks Balinese" "They reinforce the story with the help of slapsticks humors" "The performance will last far into the night" "At the end, evil will be vanquished the cosmos restored to order" "At Pangarebongan Temple on the outskirts of the capital a festival links the worlds of men and spirits in one of the most mysterious of all Balinese rites" "A barong, mythical protector of mankind is escorted into the temple" "Within, scores of boys and men prepared to enter trance" "In her 1939 landmark film" "Margaret Mead documented this fascinating phenomenon" "Rangda the witch is the Balinese embodiment of evils" "Each of her followers carries a dagger called a kris" "After an altercation between Rangda and the Barong the Barong tries to revive his entranced followers" "When all have fallen into trance they turn their daggers on themselves" "The participants believe fully in trance and the protection of Rangda and the Barong" "The daggers will not pierce their skin no matter how hard they push" "Trance is an altered state like hypnosis in which the Balinese put aside their usual decorum" "It is genuine and still widely practiced" "Trance mediums pray for the spirits of gods and demons to enter them" "Once in trance they are believed to be in direct contact with the spirit world" "They are led outside the temple by warrior dancers who wear black and white symbolic of good and evil" "Rangda appears" "Simply putting on the spiritually powerful masks causes those who wear them to fall onto trance" "Through this communication between the gods and the living the deities demonstrate their presence and power" "Such rituals have kept the Balinese world in harmony for generations" "As foreign artist and anthropologists spread the word of Bali's splendors in the 1920's and '30s a few hundred foreigners came here each year" "In 1969 the government built a jet airstrip" "The next year, 24,000 people visited" "Two decades later the number had jumped to 400,000" "Fearful of uncontrolled growth the government has restricted large hotels to the southern tip of the island" "After a single highrise hotel was built a law was passed to regulate construction" "No new building can be higher than a coconut palm" "Some visit Bali just for the beaches" "At the same time many discriminating visitors come to Bali for what has been called cultural tourism" "They have become patrons of the arts" "Their interest in Balinese creations is a source of pride for local artists who have found a new source of income by simply continuing to do they have always done so well" "Since the 1920's, Balinese painters while retaining native subject matter have found inspiration in the works of visiting Western artists" "Experimentation in themes, materials and approach has resulted in a fusion of folk art and modern style" "Sanur Beach has been the site of invasions by the Dutch the Japanese, and more recently, tourist" "Despite inevitable change the people retain their village lifestyle" "Eleven- year-old Wayan Mastri and her schoolmates live in Sanur" "It was the Indonesian government that opened education to girls" "Today, education is compulsory for all with parents required to pay a small fee" "On Mondays school begins with the singing of the national anthem in the Indonesian language an important element in unifying the world's fifth largest nation made up of diverse cultures languages, and religions" "While other classes are taught in the Bahasa Indonesian language religion is taught in Balinese" "Just steps away from a popular beach yet worlds away" "Mastri and her family live in a simple compound" "They work together making kites to supplement the modest living her father earns as a fisherman" "It takes a full day to craft one kite" "They are sold to tourists for about $10 each" "The Balinese themselves are very fond of kites" "Mastri's younger brother and sister take their own gaily painted birds to dance in the wind above Sanur Beach" "At festivals celebrated on each temple's anniversary the gods are called down from their home above the mountains and greeted with elaborate offerings" "Mastir and her family join the stream of worshippers at the Temple of the Dead in Sanur" "By cleaning and decorating the temple" "As well as preparing offerings everyone has shared in creating the festival" "The gods will remain on earth for these days the temple alive with the prayers of the entire village" "When the festival ends the gods will depart until next year when they will be summoned again" "For most Balinese the sea is a terrifying place a realm inhabited by demons of the underworld" "Remarkably" "Bali is one of the new island societies oriented away from the water" "But when the tide is right" "Mastri's father and brother brave the danger" "They have no boat and only a minimum of equipment" "The boy is learning from his father how to catch the tropical fish that provide most of the family's income" "He will sell the fish to an exporter for a few cents each" "In the compound they prepare the fish for shipment to Australia" "The Bags are filled with oxygen for the flight" "The fish will be sold at high prices to shops that cater to tropical fish fanciers" "At the Tandjung Sari hotel on Sanur Beach" "Mastri and other local youngsters are taught traditional dances" "The management has created a foundation to preserve music and dance" "They believe that since hotels are replacing rice fields as the economic base here they have a responsibility to the villagers" "Every Saturday night Mastri and the others are transformed from school girls into court dancers" "Legong Kraton its story drawn from 13th century Java was once performed only in royal palaces" "Traditionally legong is danced by girls who have not yet reached the age of puberty" "Every performance is preceded by rituals to insure that the spirit world will be benevolent" "Contemporary anthropologist Philip McKean observes" "Often the "young find their identity as Balinese framed by the mirror that tourism holds up to them" "This has led many of them to celebrate their own traditions with continued vitality" "This legong portrays a kidnapped princes lost in the forest a heroic prince, and an omen-bearing bird" "Dances learned here are also performed in the banjar and village temples" "The dancers receive a small token payment" "But their deepest reward is in filling a spiritual need in themselves and their community" "There is growing awareness in the Balinese of the priceless value of their culture and its potential vulnerability" "ASTI, the performing arts college in the capital is under the direction of Dr. I. Made Bandem" "Son of a dance master he learned to dance and play gamelan instruments in his village" "Later he earned advanced degrees at UCLA and Wesleyan University" "ASTI has 400 students and 60 faculty members" "Dr. Bandem also invites dance master from the villages to share with students the diverse styles found throughout the island." "Dr. Bandem" "Dr. Bandem..." "Our curriculum in ASTI is really a combination between ideals of villages and also modern school" "ASTI is not separated from the society to which it belongs" "The subjects they learned at school is not only technique, music, and dance but also learning anthropology, history and other related cultural background so they can strengthen their appreciation of Balinese artist" "In the countryside the meticulously tended rice terraces yield their golden bounty as they have for centuries" "Working together the Kantor family gathers the stalks one by one" "Mr. Kantor says" "Rice is a very great gift from god" "Rice gives life to the Balinese people" "For the Kantors this marks the successful culmination of another cycle" "A ceremonial dish delivered throughout the banjar serves as the invitation to a unique rite of passage" "This is the tooth-filling ceremony a ritual that symbolically concludes the parent, child relationship" "The high priest has blessed his instruments to make the operation painless" "After death one may be denied entrance to the spirit world if his teeth have both been filled" "The priest files the points of the canine teeth to form a straight line" "This diminishes what the Balinese consider "animal qualities"" "greed, anger, and jealousy" "The fillings will be buried in the family temple" "Marriage is the final initiation into the community" "All Balinese know their most important duty is to raise a son who, one day, will perform the cremation ceremony for his parents" "From her home next door" "Deni walks to the Kantors' compound for the rite that will unite her with their eldest son" "A priest purifies the couple with holy water and prayer" "They walked in a circle three times" "Deni balances a market basket" "Wayan carries food to suggest how he will provide" "The moment when Deni breaks the string signals the end of their lives as individuals their entrance to a new world as a couple" "Age-old gestures insure fertility" "In the Kantors' family shrine" "Deni takes leave of her ancestral gods" "From this day forward she embraces those of her husband" "All over the island villagers gather at their banjars to prepare for a momentous event" "A fine cremation is the life long ambition of very Balinese" "But a grand send-off requires the work of many hands and much money" "Mass cremations for which the entire village shares expenses are the answer" "Teams of artisans fashion sarcophagi for the great celebrations" "In the Kantors' village the rhythm of the kulkul announces that cremation ceremonies will soon begin" "The people have spent years saving for this day" "In the graveyard villagers custom they may be buried for 25 years or even longer, before the all-important cremation" "Mr. Kantor reflects" "As we dig up our ancestors' remains we remember how they helped is and gave is a good life" "Now we are without them" "We are very saddened" "Mr. Kantor's mother in law died six years ago" "Now her bones are carefully arranged in a white cloth" "Village men and boys assemble to carry the bodies a symbol of their loyalty to the deceased" "The families carry wood for the cremation pyres" "Strict caste rules dictate the shape of the sarcophagus" "Because Mrs. Kantor's mother was a member of the Sudra caste her sarcophagus is shaped like a mythical elephant, fish" "The raucous, joyful journey to the cremation grounds begins" "The sarcophagus are turned in all directions to confuse the souls of the departed and ensure that that will not wander back to their homes" "Carrying holy water and offerings they have spent weeks preparing the Kantor join the other families at the cremation grounds" "Again, the remains are purified" "Offerings also serve as fuel" "Only when the body is destroyed is the soul free to be reunited with the Supreme Being" "This act is the most sacred duty of every Balinese" "Our greatest happiness occurs whenever we are successful in carrying out a good cremation and freeing our ancestors from the connection to earth" "This type of ceremony does not cause us sadness but creates a moment of happiness" "Cremations are a ceremony to free the souls of our ancestors a way of ending a long life and at the same time beginning a new one" "The ashes are taken to the sea the final act in the cremation that marks the passage from this life to the next" "And between incarnations the soul resides in a place just like Bali but devoid of all trouble and illness" "In the endless round of life by carefully discharging their sacred duties the Balinese have kept their world in balance for centuries" "The effects of modernization on contemporary Bali are profound Paradoxically tourists help preserve and renew the arts while propelling the Balinese toward a share of the wealth that all developing communities require" "Ever since they first arrived on these shores admiring outsiders have feared that foreign ideas might swamp this finely tuned society" "But while the 20th century has given the Balinese new ways of looking at their world it has also renewed their determination to preserve their ancient heritage" "As long as they remain bound together by ties of community, economics religious rituals, and ancestral loyalty" "Bali will remain an oasis of beauty and belief- the masterpiece of the gods" "In the courtyard of Madrid's Royal Palace the King's Guard recalls an era of regal splendor, privilege and might in Spain's past" "Viva!" "But the saga of Juan Carlos is distinctly modern" "When he became king in 1975 he took the reins of government from Europe's last fascist dictator" "He was to inherit a land touched by forces unlike the rest of Europe... a land chosen by destiny to become the greatest power on earth... then doomed to lapse into decades of decline and stagnation" "In the extraordinary reign of Juan Carlos" "Spain has leapt into the 20th century" "Un, dos, y..." "But as new ideas concepts, and values flood in the Spanish people cherish the ways that are uniquely theirs" "Mindful of the grandeur of their past even as they create a new unknown future they nurture and treasure the timeless traditions that illuminate the Soul of Spain" "Spain." "Dramatic, mysterious, complex" "Greatness and tragedy resonate in its soul" "It gave the world the essence of chivalry in Don Quixote... the quintessence of cruelty in the Inquisition" "Long after the rest of Europe industrialized" "Spain remained poor and agrarian" "Hereditary noblemen and wealthy families still owned much of the land controlled it by the laws and privileges of their class" "Inward looking the people proudly clung to their ancient heritage, customs, and beliefs" "Who are they?" "Where did they come from?" "What shaped the Spanish soul?" "Lying astride the Atlantic and Mediterranean on the Iberian Peninsula" "Spain has been called "that country ripped from hot Africa soldered crudely to inventive Europe" "First settled by wandering tribes from Europe and North Africa it would be colonized by Phoenicians" "Carthaginians, and Greeks" "By 19 B.C." "the triumphant Romans dominated the peninsula" "They would leave their indelible imprint of architecture, law, and language" "Later, Roman missionaries would introduce Christianity" "Led by Arab warriors in 711 Berbers from North Africa swept into Spain" "Soon their rule and Muslim religion gripped the land" "Working side by side" "Muslim, Christian and Jewish scholars relit the torch of learning that led Europe out of the Dark Ages" "Cordoba, capital of Muslim Spain became Europe's most cultured city boasting half a million inhabitants when London and Paris were only villages" "But through the eight centuries of Muslim rule the Christians waged war to reconquer the land until only Granada survived as a Muslim stronghold" "In 1492 the last Muslim king surrendered his crown to the Catholic sovereigns Ferdinand and Isabella" "Through war and Inquisition Spain would expel not only the Muslims but all Jews who refused to be baptized" "Seeking a westward route to the riches of India" "Ferdinand and Isabella would provide" "Christopher Columbus with financial support" "On the 33rd day of his voyage" "Columbus landed in the New World and claimed it in the name of the Spanish crown" "Spain would conquer huge empires in the Americas" "Gold wrested from native peoples would finance wars in faraway Europe... and Spain would become the world's mightiest power" "But two centuries later its navy defeated its empire in shambles" "Spain's era of supremacy was over" "A long eclipse had begun" "With the Second Republic torn by political turmoil" "Spain is plunged into bloody civil war" "An alliance of army officers, monarchists and the Catholic Church joins the fascists in rebellion" "They are supported by Hitler and Mussolini in a conflict that becomes a dress rehearsal for the Second World War" "The death toll from combat and executions will cost the nation half a million lives" "With the fall of Madrid" "General Francisco Franco commander of the victorious Nationalist troops assumes powers greater than those of any monarch in Spain's history" "Nationalist, rightist, and authoritarian the dictator Franco embarks on 36 years of repressive control" "When World War II rages across Europe the wily Franco manages to keep Spain out of the conflict" "The role of women remains static circumscribed by church tradition and male domination" "Physically shattered and spiritually crippled in the long aftermath of war the nation will need years to heal" "Franco orders construction of the Valley of the Fallen to commemorate the Civil War dead" "Although named E1 Caudillo" "The Leader for life he knows that someday he too will find his final resting place here" "Believing a monarchy would best serve Spain" "Franco selects as his successor the grandson of the last king" "Born in exile" "Juan Carlos first set foot on Spanish soil at age ten" "His father legitimate heir to the throne had acquiesced to Franco's desire to educate the boy" "The prince would spend four years in the Army, Navy and Air Force academies attend university and complete his studies at a number of government ministries" "The nation observes the end of an era" "For nearly four decades Franco had made all of Spain's important decisions" "Juan Carlos, rarely seen except in Franco's shadow was perceived to be molded in his image" "Would the nation again erupt in rebellion?" "Juan Carlos swore his allegiance to the constitution and the people" ""Desde la motion en el recuerdo Franco, viva elrey!"" "Viva!" "Viva Espagna!" "Viva!" "Perceptive and intelligent he had privately concluded Spain must embark on a new course secretly he had prepared himself for it" "To everyone's surprise he deftly led his people from dictatorship to democracy" "A king who pays taxes lives modestly and is an avid sports enthusiast he soon became the most popular man in the country" "His greatest test came in 1981 when parliament was invaded by Civil Guards commanded by a right-wing colonel" "As an amazed public watched on television the colonel called for a return to a Francoist regime" "Working through the night as parliament was held hostage the king obtained pledges of loyalty from his principal military leaders and quelled the attempted coup" "His reassuring address to the people included these words" "The Crow... cannot tolerate actions attempting to interrupt by force democratic process" "Under his leadership a vital and dynamic" "New Spain has become an economic success story" "The nation is an eager new member of the European Community" "Its thirty-nine million citizens have a higher standard of living than ever in their history" "And there is freedom of religion, of expression" "The repression of old has evaporated" "A burst of growth has transformed the nation" "Every year Spain attracts 50 million tourists more than the country's total population" "They bring billions of dollars new ideas and customs" "The Spaniards once Europe's poor relations have become conspicuous consumers" "But behind the facade of modern Spain echoes of an older way of life still resonate" "In the same year that Franco died so did Don Fernando de la Camara one of the wealthy landowners who had supported the dictator" "Camar's presence can still be felt in the Seville apartment where his heir, Rocio, lives" "She is now head of her family's agricultural business" "As her father did" "Rocio grows wheat and sunflowers and raises bulls to fight in the ring" "Every year the new calves are rounded up for branding" "In this tough and traditionally male-oriented atmosphere" "Rocio has found acceptance" "Of course it's harder being a woman but society is changing and nowadays there are no real problems, big problems" "If I were a man" "I'd wrestle those calves but as a woman, I can't" "But there are many important things to do on a ranch where being a woman makes no difference at all" "Diego Reina has been employed by the Camaras for more than 20 years" "He helped raised Rocio and when her father died continued as foreman" "He has had other job offers but he respects and admires Rocio" "He says he will never leave." "Unlike his peers of 25 years ago" "Diego receives an adequate income has his own house and can look forward to retirement with social security" "Today Diego has the right to vote but like many others still prefers the old ways" "Personally, I felt more at ease under Franco than now" "Nobody bothered anybody" "You could bed down in the fields anywhere" "Now you can't" "In the last few years before Franco died life was peaceful in the country" "We ate well in the country and we could save a peseta or two" "Who saves anything nowadays?" "Whether Juan, Pedro or Antonio is in charge the land is the same" "We live off the land and die for the land" "It's always the same, always the same" "Diego's land is Andalucia" "In this southernmost region of Spain under a brilliant sun and sky olive trees and vineyards have thrived for thousands of years" "Only here in all the world in a small area of chalky moisture-retaining soil is true sherry wine produced" "In 1730 a French farmer founded a sherry dynasty in the town of Jerez de la Frontera" "Today, the heirs of Pedro Domecq are the second largest producers of sherry in the world part of an elite referred to as "sherry barons"" "Still, even at age 77" "Jose Ignacio Domecq enjoys driving to work on a second-hand motorbike purchased from his chauffeur" "At the manor house that overlooks some of the Domecq vineyards he meets his eldest son" "The manor was built around an ancient tower used during the Middle Ages to send smoke signals to Africa only 65 miles away" "It provides a vantage point from which the Domecqs can confer about the 4,300 acres of vineyards they cultivate here" "One day the younger Jose Ignacio will take control of their wine and brandy empire is Spain and the Americas" "Domecq produces 10 million liters of sherry annually" "The most vital element in creating a distinctive sherry is the human factor... specifically, the human nose" "In the bodegas where sherry matures the Domecqs exercise the delicate skill which has made the family masters of the art of wine making for 250 years" "We maintain our standardization of quality throughout the different generations" "My father is known in the wine world for the nose not only because of the size of it that is you have seen rather big but because he's considered one of the most important specialists in Europe in the science of wine" "The unique quality of sherry derives from the solera system" "New sherry is blended with more mature sherry to take on its characteristics" "Fortified with grape brandy and repeatedly blended it ages in oak casks until it reaches maturity" "The most venerable bodega holds casks of rate sherry dedicated to the famous" "Among them is one once reserved for George IV" "King of England" "A cask was dedicated to Napoleon in 1812" "And after the battle of Trafalgar" "Admiral Lord Nelson's body was shipped to England perfectly preserved in a cask of brandy and sherry" "At his nearby estate one of the 500 relatives who are shareholders in the Domecq corporation indulges in another family passion" "For 20 years Alvaro Domecq like his father before him was famed for his prowess in the Spanish art of bullfighting on horseback" "Today, he raises fine Andalucian horses and hulls to fight in the ring" "Bullfighting was once the leisure pastime of gentlemen on horseback" "Farmhands assisted with their capes" "Modern bullfighting performed by professionals on foot began only two centuries ago" "Bullfights are the highlight of the annual April Fair in nearby Jerez" "For this special event six local breeders each enter a superior bull in the competition for Best of the Year" "Domecq is here sharing the crowd's anticipation and hoping his bull will bring honor to the family's reputation as breeders" "Victor Mendes the matador who will face that bull prepares for his test as he dons the traditional suit of lights" "The bullring manager and other well-wishers come bearing the only protection they can offer "Suerte" good luck" "As his sword handler makes final adjustments" "Mendes reflects on the trial ahead" "It's now a fight or game between the rational and the irrational if is possible to arrive to the death the death of the bull" "But sometimes, the death of the man" "To the Spaniard the bullfight is not a game but a revered ritual not a sport but an art" "Its origins can be traced to pagan sacrifices and to ancient Greek and Roman games" "In its beauty, glorification of bravery and disdain for death the bullfight embodies traditional values of Spanish life" "More than spectacle this is mythic theater in which the drama of life and death is reenacted culminating in the predictable but by no means certain death of a noble beast." "In recent years it has lost popularity and there is increasing disquiet among a minority of Spaniards about the morality of their "national fiesta" "But for some it remains an irreplaceable thread in the fabric of their heritage" "As the afternoon turns to evening crowds begin to gather at the fairgrounds" "In this weeklong celebration women wear traditional Andalucian dresses friends meet, sip sherry, make music, and dance" "The region of Extremadura in western Spain has always been harsh and ungiving" "For decades Azuaga like many small agricultural and mining towns has slowly but steadily lost its population" "The future looks bleak unless young people can be persuaded to stay" "Among the few professionals here is a husband-and-wife team of doctors assigned to the local clinic" "Their 16-year-old daughter, Alicia feels trapped in the stifling atmosphere" "This is a small town" "There isn't much for me to do" "I'm not sure whether so stay or leave" "I'll probably leave but I still haven't decided" "The lack of entertainment career opportunities even participation in sports all make teenagers yearn for greater freedom" "The old ways hold no allure for the young generation" "When Alicia's parents accept job offers in Seville she is thrilled to go with them" "She will become one of the thousands who seek new lives in big cities" "Spain's new constitution carefully spells out the equality of opportunity for men and women" "After high school" "Alicia hopes to join the growing ranks of working women" ""Then after a couple of years when I've mastered that job" "I'll study business management and after that join a big company" "I'd work my way to the top and eventually have my own company" "As a businesswoman I'd travel" "I'd like to travel a lot in my work" "Today, many women are entering the ranks of leadership in government politics, and commerce" "The unemployment rate of women is twice that of men" "But like Alicia they pursue an alluring dream" "Spain's greatest contemporary poet Garcia Lorca described flamenco as deeper than the heart of the one creating it and the voice singing it" "It comes from the first sob and the first kiss" "Flamenco was born in Andalucia when Arabic and Spanish music mingled with the songs of the Jews" "The gypsies were to adopt it and in their wanderings carry it throughout Spain" "Francisca Sadornil" "La Tati as she is known was born here in Madrid" "She learned flamenco dancing from gypsies married a gypsy in her youth and remains among the rare outsiders accepted by them artistically and socially" "A professional dancer from the age of 12" "La Tati has dedicated her life to flamenco" "And flamenco has taken La Tati from a working-class neighborhood to the concert stages of the world" "She reminisces" "I can't remember a time when I didn't dance" "I was born on Toledo Street and there all the neighbors were Andalucians and gypsies" "At No.5 of the Plaza de la Cascorro was Quica the dancing professor of Seville" "I went to Quica when I was about seven" "I never paid for a dancing class because there was not money in my family" "I slept at the academy on a mattress between chairs" "I helped Quica clean the academy and did the errands and this way I learned to dance" "Today, she passes her knowledge to a new generation" "She reflects on teaching" "With recording singers and movie actors can leave their way of singing and playing music but with dancing it's a little more difficult" "If you don't do it through teaching you can't leave a school of dance" "This is why I like teaching very much" "La Tati is highly sought as a teacher" "But as an artist she gets her deepest satisfaction from performance" "My life is shaped on the stage" "All that I feel or live for, everything all my suffering and all my glory all my life is on the stage" "She rehearses for a tour that will take her to France" "The quality of flamenco is to get out of a difficult situation of crying and of sorrow to get into an explosion of happiness and a feeling born in the soul and the heart" "Flamenco is an expression of the soul" "The guitar is the instrument of Spain" "In the working-class neighborhood where he grew up" "Arcangel Ferbabdez has hand-crafted guitars for 36 years" "I had my first job at 11 as a furniture maker" "Later I became fond of playing the guitar" "I started to play flamenco" "Then I met a great maestro of guitar making one of the best in the world" "Since I had found that the artistic environment was not much to my liking" "I found myself turning to guitar making" "Only fine imported woods are used to create the body of the guitar" "They are carefully heated and shaped as the craftsman gradually brings the instrument to life" "To make a good handcrafted guitar you need at least one month" "The difference between handcrafted and infactory guitars are many starting with materials" "The materials we use are quite expensive" "You must have knowledge of the trade and put live into your work" "For me that is the secret for making a good guitar" "Nothing else" "Signed and numbered by the craftsman a finished instrument may cost from two to ten thousand dollars" "Through this artist's expression the guitar gives voice to the Spanish soul" "During the decades of Franco's dictatorship the Catholic Church was able to legally enforce its rigid doctrines" "Even between engaged couples premarital contact was forbidden by the strictures of traditional courtship" "Among the middle and upper classes a single woman could not go out without a female chaperone to watch over her" "Today young woman go out alone and party at bars until 4 a. m" "Agatha Ruiz de la Prada is among the contemporary Spanish women who now define their own roles in society" "Agatha lives in a quiet Madrid suburb with her son" "Tristan, and the boy's father" "Her seemingly bourgeois home life is not quite what it appears" "My mother and father separate when I have more or less 12" "And my mother goes to live to Barcelona" "So for me it was very nice because I have two cities and two houses and I have always the liberty of choosing one or the other" "I have never believed in marriage" "Liberty is very important for me and marriage is something that I don't like" "Ruiz de la Prada is a designer and business woman" "These dolls, whose costumes she creates, sold over a million in Spain alone last year" "She also designs highly original clothing" "When I was little" "I wanted to be a painter" "One thing that I have ever hate is the big distance between a picture on a wall and the way that people live" "I think that you when you like some picture you must wear it." "No?" "And you must eat with it and you must sleep with it" "You must put it in your life No?" "Humorous and deliberately outrageous her design has brought her international recognition" "The impulse behind them in fact, springs from a traditionally Spanish attitude that of the rugged individualist" "Barcelona" "Spanish's largest seaport the nation's second city and industrial powerhouse" "Barcelona is also the center of a rich and highly original artistic tradition" "This legacy is evident everywhere... in a mosaic pavement created by the great Joan Miro..." "A design created by Picasso in his self-imposed exile during the Franco years... and the undulating curves of a facade by Antonio Gaudi" "A genius who used the sinuous forms of nature as the vocabulary for his architecture" "Gaudi was dubbed visionary-and madman" "Son of a coppersmith he was modest and self-effacing refused by the one woman to whom he proposed he would dedicate his life exclusively to architecture and God" "He maintained" "God continues creation through man" "In 1884 he began work in the Sagrada Familia the Expiatory Temple of the Holy Family" "It would be his masterpiece" "But in 1926 returning from evening church services to sleep in his workshop" "Gaudi was struck by a streetcar" "Three days later he died" "Thousands followed the funeral cortege to his final resting place the crypt of his unfurnished basilica" "Today, Gaudi's vision continues to take shape above him" "From the beginning construction has been funded by public donations" "Only some 50 artists and craftsmen are employed" "Architect Jordi Bonet like his father a specialist in the works of Gaudi has been entrusted with completion of the building" "As much a sculptor as an architect" "Gaudi preferred to make models rather than work from drawings" "Using them" "Bonet is able to continue according to Gaudi's concept" "A model of the nave the central part of the church reveals columns whose design was inspired by shapes found in nature" "They will support the ceiling of the nave filling the shell that has stood empty for over a century" "With all of these Gaudi original elements it is possible to continue it and to build in his place the nave" "But it is not so easy to continue it but I hope to have or to honor in the same spirit of Gaudi" "And for them we are working with all our forces to make the best" "Gaudi said the nave of this temple is a forest with the columns as the trees" "And then the light comes through this forest of columns little columns big columns" "It's a forest" "Gaudi's dream was that this church would be a beacon of the Christian faith" "Every year hundreds of thousands from throughout the world visit his unfinished poem in stone a structure one architectural historian has called the greatest ecclesiastical monument of the last one hundred years" "Holy week." "Across the nation cities and villages ready for a ritual of faith that occurs in few places outside Spain and nowhere with more passion that in Seville" "Manolo Acosta dresses in the garb of an ancient religious brotherhood" "For me, Holy Friday is one of the fundamental things of my life... so important that I am thinking about that day the whole year" "With his brotherhood he will accompany sacred figures form their neighborhood church to Seville's cathedral and back" "Thousands gather in anticipation of the moment when a priceless, handcarved image of the Virgin emerges from the cathedral" "Platforms called pasos support lavish figures of the sorrowing Virgin Mother" "Christ, and scenes of his passion" "From Palm Sunday until Easter processions retrace the Stations of the Cross" "Proceeding blindly under the directions of a guide 30-40 bearers support the pasos which may weigh up to two tons" "Marching with their brotherhoods thousands of penitents atone for sins committed through the year" "They wear masks and hoods designed centuries ago to conceal the sinners from all but God" "As the people of Spain approach the 21st century they seek to define their new identity strengthened by the timeless elements of Spanish life the ardor for spectacle and beauty the rich history, proud land and enduring traditions that are the soul of Spain" "India is a land of dreams" "Where images, however fleeting are remembered long after the journey's end" "The railway is her lifeline crossing not only distances" "But bridging the boundaries of her many cultures" "For over 900 million people the railway has become a great unifier" "over one-and-a-half million must work to keep it going" "The great Indian railway touches the lives of everyone" "For nothing is more a part of this country than the trains which are part of its soul" "Over a century ago the sound of the steam locomotive could be heard across the land as it rolled through the desert and the plains of India" "In those days villages and cities were isolated by vast distances and the coming of the train would change them forever" "Legends were told of the great fire eater that walked on lines of steel and breathed white clouds of smoke" "Those who did not fear it came to see it for themselves" "In remote outposts where there were no stations banyan trees often marked the train stop" "And people anticipated its arrival like the coming of a great ship" "There was always entertainment to greet the travelers celebrating the trip for the magical event that is was" "What had taken weeks by bullock cart could now be made in a matter of days" "The hero was the driver" "He was assigned one engine for life and cared for it as though it were a part of him making sure it was fed coal and watered" "It was like a living creature preparing for the long journey ahead" "If there ever was a heart and soul of the railway it began here with these locomotives" "They were the symbol of the British Empire and held the romance of an age when men and machines united the country for the first time" "But this era couldn't last forever" "Now, the super fast express trains command the rails and are moving India into a new century" "The railway is a living legacy of the British, who dominated the subcontinent for nearly two hundred years" "They laid down the first rails in 1850 and by Indian independence dozens of railways reached across hundreds of princely states and territories." "Today, all have been merged into one" "Stretching nearly 40,000 miles and connecting over 7,000 stations it is the largest railway under a single management in the world" "The frontier Mail, the Tamil-Nadu Express the Punjab Mail all long-distance trains, renowned in history" "But one of the oldest is the Grand Trunk Express and it travels nearly the length of the country" "Indians love to travel whether it be on a religious pilgrimage or to visit relatives far away" "They pack everything and bring everyone" "They can go anywhere in the country for less than seven dollars" "Space has a whole different meaning on an Indian train" "People like to sit next to each other talk and share stories" "And a stranger isn't a stranger for long" "More than 11,000 trains" "Travel through India everyday" "But it's in the three-tier second-class coaches that the real spirit of the country can be found" "If anyone wants to know what India is all about you could just travel in one of these trains and you could talk to people you see" "You'll actually meet people from different parts of the country and you can actually have a look into the various cultures you see, now there's a cultural diversity in India" "You can actually enjoy this cultural diversity traveling in such long trains say from which go from one end of the nation to the other end" "Such long trains you can enjoy if you are really interested you'll definitely you will experience it" "Every Indian train has ticketless passengers who are part of its character:" "gypsies, beggars, and sweeper boys who make their living earning tips between stations" "I meet every type of people here" "Maybe they are millionaires they are the poorest" "They are engineers, doctors, bankers" "Every type of persons I am meeting here" "And when I travel I talk" "I have an opportunity to talk to them make friendship with them" "We sometimes come closer to them and we become family friends for life" "For centuries explorers have been drawn to the east" "In the 1660's the British took possession of the strand of islands that curved into the Arabian Sea" "They would make them the great port city of Bombay" "Their Gateway of India still stands as a memory of their empire's former glory" "Bombay's now one of India's fastest-growing cities" "And the British presence seems unchanged at Victoria Terminus" "Opened in 1888 it was built on the site of the first railway station" "But now it's the headquarters of Central the busiest of nine zones in the Indian railway" "From this historic place one of the most important me in the railway oversees his domain" "This is the seat of power of the General Manager" "Every morning" "Birendra Vishnu calls upon his officers to account for every detail in a monumental system" "From major accidents to minor delays nothing escapes his attention" "It was from this same office that the British ran their railway" "And with independence in 1947 they turned it over to Indian leadership" "But now the G.M. controls a far more complex network with 200,000 men beneath him he runs 2,000 trains a day" "Ah Madhan" "What is happening today?" "What are your prospects of loading?" "Sir, yesterday, we made 8.5" "Alright, you just speak to C.M.E." "Your diesel utilization has slumped" "Your diesel utilization is slumped" "Your six-wagon balances in all the yards are heavy" "The stable loads are heavy Just speak to C.M.E." "Hello Madhan?" "Ah, Rambu Rao, Kutny shed for the last fifteen days it has been having very high failure rate" "Vishnu is more than a figurehead" "If something goes wrong he shoulders the full responsibility" "And every month he makes it a point to leave his office and visit his men in the field" "Like a present-day maharaja" "Vishnu holds court in his private inspection coach with full kitchen staff in attendance and all the ceremonies inherited from his predecessors" "The Indian Railways constitute the lifeline of India" "And it was given to us by the British" "They gave us two things" "The Indian railways and a very powerful administrative system run by the bureaucrats" "We are now going on an inspection trip" "And during this inspection trip we propose to go over the entire railway lines" "See what management techniques are there" "See how the cabins, the points and the people who manage these points look after themselves and look over the equipment" "Each one has his area of responsibility" "And a super-check has to be exercised" "So when we go out line our objective is to find out what deficiencies are there" "And take measures to overcome them" "No single person can possibly check on everything" "The system depends on workers whose dedication goes largely unseen" "Under the eyes of the cabinmen tens of thousand of coaches transport more than 12 million people a day" "And one mistake can cost thousands of lives" "For this is a human railway where the strength of a lever man means the safe passage of a train" "It is the largest employer in the world" "Officially, 1.6 million work for the railway" "But Vishnu estimates that nearly 80 million people depend on it for their livelihood" "The Grand Trunk Express continues southbound" "The trip from New Delhi to Mardras will last 38 hours" "But for many, the journey is an adventure" "And it doesn't matter how long it takes" "Long-distance trains have become temporary homes for village India" "And those on board are captive audiences for ticketless travelers who earn their keep providing everything from entertainment to food" "On a train, meals are a big event and passengers are constantly being solicited with different kinds of fare" "Twelve bearers run the length of 22 coaches waiting on as many as 2,000 people" "They serve up to 400 hot railway meals twice a day" "In the pantry car cooks prepare food to suit the religious mandates of an Indian train nonveg or vegetarian for Muslims, Hindus, Christians" "The hardest job may be in trying to satisfy the tastes of so many" "And tastes do change from north to south" "The food is for a man it is very sufficient" "It is comfortable yes exactly it is more than sufficient for one's capacity" "It is given to us because here you have rice and then dal" "We call it the grains and then vegetables" "Also, available then it is a full meal for us" "If there is a spirit of the railway it is found in the thousands of small stations which have become part of the fabric of Indian life" "They are centers where everyone gathers" "And those who can't afford to travel will come just to watch the trains" "The most impressive arrivals have always been the broad gauge steam locomotive lovingly called the "black Beauties"" "They ride on the widest rails and their wheels stand taller than a man" "But their presence is now becoming rare and those who grew up with them will miss them the most" "Black is beautiful" "Our steam locos are our black beauties" "We feel with the phasing out of steam locos as if we are doing away with one of our kit and kin with whom we have blood relations" "All throughout Eastern Railway loco sheds are busy preparing their engines for a Black Beauty Contest" "It is a competition like no other" "Only the best engines are entered and to win the Black Beauty is the highest honor a shed could have" "Dhanbad, Rampur Hat, Sahibganj" "Asansol, Jha Jha... five sheds hurry to add the finishing touches transforming these workhorses into the beauties that they really are" "This possibly should be the very last Black Beauty Contest of Indian Railways" "We mean to bring to you the effect of the steam locos when they were is their heydays" "To show how they looked How they worked" "And for just one more time perhaps lived and outlived the glory of those days when the steam locos bore the burnt of Indian Railways" "The reason behind a Black Beauty Contest remains very much valid today because perhaps this is the last time that we are going to be able to have such a contest anywhere on the Indian Railways perhaps in the rest of the world like China and other" "steam will continue" "But on Indian Railways the pressures of economics have forced us to give up the lovable old monster of steam" "With its lovable sound and unique visual pleasure which children loved and therefore aspired to become locomotive drivers when they grew up" "It helps people to remember that the steam has served a glorious era from the old days if you look back into the past" "There is intense competition amongst all those who have slaved on these locomotives these 10 competing locomotives and therefore each one wants to win the prize" "Therefore the judges are under intense scrutiny perhaps more than the judges are in real life" "And they have to therefore, make it as scientific as possible" "They have, therefore divided the system of grading into three distinct groups" "One is decoration for which they give 25 percent marks the functionality, which is we are giving as much as 50 percent marks and also the ceramic blanketing is being given 25 percent marks" "And I think that the judges will be totally fair and clear in their judgment and may the best loco win" "What is important when you see a when - the whole thing should be uniformly red" "The moment you see a black spot that's the time there when there's a hole and then the firebox can burn" "So when you are seeing the fire you have to see that it looks uniformly red that there's no localized black spot" "Plus the thickness, the firebox should be uniform..." "Those are things we have to look for how he is maintaining the fire very important" "Everybody wants to win and none more than Mr. Arora a shed foreman who has worked in steam since he was 17" "Onboard Rampur Hat's engine he is never at a loss for words" "explaining that even with all the hard work they had just run out a time" "Like all of the engines the judges take into account how efficiently she runs" "They put her through the paces while Arora hangs on like a doting father" "Those bosses, my examiners they have been very much pleased with the work which you boys with my staff, with my driver and the other fellows you know all the whole" "Rampur Hat has done in decorating this locomotive in making it fit mechanically sound and they have checked all the points and I think we have got if not 10 percent then at least 90 percent" "Now we should leave the results to Almighty God you know" "Almighty God is there" "They parade in all their glory and anticipation runs high" "Now it's up to the judges to reveal the last Black Beauty winner" "Nandini will claim the price" "For Nandini and her crew this is an occasion to remember" "But they know as they back her into the shed that their victory is bittersweet" "For despite the fact that the black beauties have proven themselves today another fate awaits them" "In northeast India a little toy train climbs the foothills of the Himalaya the tallest mountains in the world" "Every morning" "Buddhist monks look towards the East welcoming the sun to the remote mountain town of Darjiling" "Darjiling has always been a frontier town where an oriental look enters the faces of India" "But is also tells of another heritage" "The British loved the climate so much they mad it a hill station to escape the heat of the plains below" "And the sounds of the train they brought echo up from the valleys" "For the people of the mountain the train has always been a part of their lives" "In the days of the British raj it carried the famous Darjiling tea down from the plantations" "Eighteen little locomotives run back and forth on the Darjeeling-Himalayan line" "The youngest is 70-years-old and the oldest is a hundred-and-five" "Everyday, several trains climb from the plain of the Ganges in about the same amount of time it took Mark Twain when he came to Darjiling in 1896" "The beginning of every trip is a ritual for the six-man crew" "Each engine is an antique heirloom that's been entrusted to their care" "And they look after them like living breathing creatures feeding and watering them" "The fireman knows that only a good head of steam can carry the train up to 7,407 feet to reach the highest station in all of Asia" "With two men riding on front ready to throw sand on the rails for traction and a coal breaker riding on top the train finally sets out" "Each engine has its own distinct personality" "And no one understands his better than the driver, Mr. Gurung" "Like his father he was assigned this same loco for life" "And everyone along the way knows its him by the sound of his whistle" "For Sherab Tenduf one of many who have fought for its preservation it's a reminder that some things do stay the same" "And not to have it would be a great loss" "When I was young people really didn't travel that very much" "The airplane hadn't arrived" "And the train was an important image for all of us" "An escape to the outer world" "A chance to see something over the mountains" "You had this train which represented to us an opportunity for adventure" "We used to jump on and off the train" "Tickets weren't that important" "There was the chugging the sound of the movement of the train" "The energy of this train it was like a little Tibetan terrier" "The obstacles that the British overcame in 1881 are still impressive even now" "On the foothills of the Himalaya they had little room to maneuver and only by ingenious loops and switchbacks and the narrowest of tracks could the little "toy train" reach the top" "If the train does not run we do feel that there is something absent and we do feel it very strongly" "But as long as it is there yes it's a part of life" "And everyday if we don't see it we see that something is definitely is missing" "India is a country of villages" "More than 70 percent of its people live out their lives in a day-to-day existence where there is no hurry" "And only the changing seasons mark the passage of time" "This is where the railway is a lifeline bringing these remote areas in touch with the rest of the world." "In south India" "Palur is one of thousands of small way stations which haven't changed much since British colonial times" "It is a single line track off the main route to Madrasm and only four trains a day stop here" "Mr. Govindarajan is the stationmaster" "He took a demotion from a bigger station choosing Palur to be near his sick wife and to live out his days in the peaceful quiet of the country" "He shares his responsibilities with Kamakshi a railway widow who is officially the sweeper-porter" "Between the two of them they run the entire station" ""Palur" means "milk village"" "and for the last hundred years the villagers have relied on the milk train to carry their cans to the city markets" "But before the train arrives" "Govindarajan must coordinate with other stations to make sure that his line is clear for the coming train" "It is a time-honored system in place since the days of the British a ball token must be carried by the driver giving him the right-of-way on a single-line track" "At every station he must pass the token and pick up another only then will he have permission to continue on his way" "I am asking line clear" "The line is officially open and Kamakshi can change the signals that will indicate to the driver that the track ahead is safe" "She will pass the ball on to the driver and prepares the cane pouch" "She is one of the few women working directly with the trains but gained her job after a great loss" "Her husband had been a fireman on a steam engine and committed suicide when he didn't make driver" "It is the railway's custom to give a position to the widow" "And Kamakshi will have a job for life" "As the train comes in the ball token is handed over" "Now the driver can move safely into the next section" "Mr. Govindarajan has dedicated 33 years of his life to the Railway and understands better than anyone how much these trains mean to rural India" "But changes are coming and he has received word that with his retirement his post will not be filled and Palur station will be closed" "They tell him that with only a few trains a day there just isn't enough profit" "Soon the trains won't be stopping here and people will have to take the roads" "He will be the last station master of Palur" "On Southern Railway, south of Madras the Pondicherry Special makes her last journey." "Nothing evokes the romance of the railway like a steam engine" "Her arrival into Pondicherry station is a grand event and she will bring the platform to life for one last time" "This is one of the few holdouts of steam" "The locomotives were phased out of the big cities years ago and now even small stations are seeing them vanish" "But perhaps the greatest loss will be felt by those who have steam in their soul" "And Dhandapani is one who'll feel it the most" "A third-generation railwayman he became what his father a gatekeeper always hoped he would be a driver the pride of the line" "Now he's been given the honor of takin the Pondicherry Special on her final run" "His engine may be old and worn down by age but Dhandapani knows that what he is doing is something noble and historic" "And he's always been proud of his duty" "In India, the relationship between railwaymen has always been like family" "The firemen, guards, cabinmasters and gatekeepers all have developed a deep bond through the years" "Stationmasters on the single line tracks and the drivers of steam know that a time is coming to an end" "Now, the trading of the cane pouch marks the changing of the guard" "Both Govindarajan and Dhandapani have since been retired the Pondicherry Special has been condemned" "And little Palur station is now closed forever" "Varanasi, Madurai, Barddhaman these are some of the sheds where generations of workers were born to serve the locomotive with a craft held sacred" "And where it was always believed that a father's knowledge would one day be handed down to his son" "We'll be closing down this steam loco shed in a couple of months when the last of these Black Beauties would have move out" "This shed had something like 71 locomotives a few years back" "What we feel sad about the whole thing is that something which fascinated every railway traveler over many many years is dying out" "And what I feel personally sad about is that with the locomotives is dying out a breed of men who had nerves of steel they were men of muscle understood metal what it was all about" "What we get today in lieu is the diesels the electrics, which have really no muscle in them" "They're all technology" "There's no spirit behind them" "To us as old railway men they are really not comparables" "This shed where the epitaph is now being written will see a gloomy picture in a few months from now" "And we'll lose ever so slightly a part of our past something on which the railways all over the world have survived for the last hundred plus years" "With that a lot of our soul will be gone" "Everyday more and more black beauties are being pulled from the working lines" "The iron beasts are now easy prey to scavengers who will take even their last bits of precious coal" "The once busy sheds are becoming graveyards" "For loco foreman Mr. Arora returning is like visiting old friends" "You see this is a tragic part on my life" "I was born and brought up with this steam locomotives" "Now I feel as if I am left all alone and I am standing like a helpless man can do but this is the demand from my nation" "I feel as if a most loving member of my family is being cut into pieces in my presence an old man, who is looking after the children and he is standing and he cannot do anything for his children at this dying stage" "Feel so bad" "Really I feel like weeping" "I become helpless creature but as I've told you, a day one has to die" "Similarly, they have also to vanish one day or the other" "All across India steam sheds have turned into auction houses" "The locomotives await the highest bidder" "They are the businessmen who have waited for the sheds to close before making their move" "They buy the engines which are to them, worth only their weight in scrap metal" "Most of these men of steam will choose to stay with the railway" "Some will have to be retrained and others may have to relocate far from their homes" "But for all a way of life is over" "There will be one survivor of steam and by government ruling it will remain" "It is the Darjeeling-Haimalayan toy train the oldest mountain railway in India" "She is the symbol of the railway and evokes the emotional and spiritual ties which the country has for its trains" "The men who run her stand for the many who have devoted themselves to keeping the lifeline going" "And for all those whose lives it touches this will always be the great Indian railway" "There are still a few places left that you can't get to from here." "Places without phones or faxes or even roads." "There are still a few corners of the globe so remote they remain aloof from what we call the modern world." "This is the realm of the bush pilot." "Tom Clayton is leaving behind his family and friends for a two-year adventure around the world." "The 28-year-old Radnor resident checks out his single engine plane for the last time before taking a solo flight from wings Airport in Norristown." "The purpose is to try and go to seven continents in different parts of the world and live and work with bush pilots." "As a bush pilot" "Claytor will fly daredevil routes while delivering vital supplies to remote areas." "So before taking to the skies" "Claytor got his hugs and kisses while cameras recorded all the action." "And there was even a special goodbye." "Then as the crowd looked on the pilot closed the cockpit door and took off." "The day he left, he made the local TV news." "If he makes it back, he'll make history." "Tom Claytor hopes to be the first to fly around the world" "Stopping on all seven continents before returning home" "I had this tremendous desire inside to look at other places to look in places like" "Greenland and the Sahara Desert." "Things that I'd only seen on the map in high school." "So I think it's a desire to look at different parts of the world and to live with people on other parts of the world but maybe also it's a little challenge or test for myself as well." "Claytor is 31 years old." "When he was 12 he set foot in an airplane for the first time." "It was to be the start of an obsession" "When he was just 18 he earned a pilot's license." "By his early 20s he had begun working as a bush pilot in Africa." "Today, Claytor owns his own airplane named "Timmissartok"" "after one of Lindbergh's planes." "Outrigged with a special reserve tank the Cessna 180 Taildragger can fly about 14 hours without refueling." "The struggle to keep his gas tank full has shaped" "Claytor's journey from the very start." "I left home with $20,000." "And when I got to Greenland it cost me $1,000 to fill up my gas tank once." "So it became very obvious that I was going to have to find ways of getting money." "And my idea which was only an idea when I left was that I'd work the plane on the way." "And when I got to Niger" "I found a job doing a survey of a park which paid me $8,000." "So I've been able to find jobs for the plane on the way." "Besides working the plane as he goes," "Claytor's writing a book about his experience in the far corners of the world." "So far, he's logged 46,000miles three continents and 28 countries." "On December 2, 1990 he left Pennsylvania heading north through" "Canada to Greenland and then Iceland." "In the summer of '91, he arrived in Europe." "And early in '92 he began traveling through Africa." "The longest leg of Claytor's journey so far has been on the Africa continent." "His video journal is testimony to a rare and spontaneous adventure." "We're now in... market which is the largest market in West Africa" "We're now in... and Mr... has with him scorpions" "And now he's going to show me that he can use his so that the scorpions don't bite you" "we just did this once before" "I hope it's successful again." "Okay..." "It's starting to rain now." "Now in southwest Africa" "Claytor has spent the last few weeks exploring the country of Namibia." "Today, he plans to visit an area rich in African history a group of abandoned towns near the Namibian coast." "There's a town southwest of the Namib Desert called Kolmanskop and this town was founded because a railway worker working on the rail line found a very pretty stone." "And this lead to a diamond rush which caused this town to spring out of the desert" "and then as quickly as it started it disappeared." "Kolmanskop was followed by other boomtowns a sudden cluster of Diamond settlements that sprang up in the lifeless desert." "At the turn of the century," "Diamonds were so plentiful here, they say you could collect a jarful a night by just picking up whatever glistened in the moonlight." "In the saloons you could buy your whiskey and your woman with raw diamonds." "May 10th." "It's a ghost town, almost like the American west." "Casinos." "Hotels." "Houses." "There's something haunting and magical about this place." "I keep looking in the sand half expecting to find a diamond." "But there are none." "When the sand was picked clean, the people disappeared." "What they left behind is am eerie memento." "An empty museum." "A movie set." "I can almost imagine the sounds of music and laughter here." "Claytor's itinerary is deliberately unpredictable." "If he has enough money for gas he can simply scout around off the beaten path for material for his book." "What I'm trying to do is visit remote parts of the world places like this desert jungles ice caps and places which are basically the frontiers of civilization." "And the venue by which I do that is I look for bush pilots because bush pilots work in these areas and very often they're not just pilots but they're scientists they're businessman, they're researches they're missionaries and conservationists." "These pilots also teach me the particulars of these various areas and how to go through them safely." "Recently, another bush pilot told Claytor about an isolated shipwreck on the Namiban Beach." "One of the many skeletons along" "Africa's infamous Skeleton Coast." "Claytor is looking for a South African freighter called the Otavi which sank in 1945." "A mere footnote in history, the wreck is said to be extremely well preserved thanks to the tiny cove where it went aground." "Just beyond this swept area and that beach, there's a rock peninsula and one beyond it." "You'll see in between the two is the shipwreck." "Right here the ocean is just moving back off the Otavi." "There are seals just piled up around that wreck." "You can see the wreck jetting up out of the sand." "And part of it's been split off." "And those are seals they're just packed all around it." "May 15th." "I am on the edge of one of the oldest deserts in the world." "The skeleton coast where countless shipwrecked sailors lost their lives." "It feels like a place I was never meant to be." "Like a ghost, the Otavi looms before me rising three decks above the sand, something almost lost and forgotten." "I try to imagine the men who wrecked here half a century ago." "How did it feel to be marooned in such a place?" "The wreck of the Otavi is so inaccessible that" "Claytor is probably the lonely vessel's first visitor in decades." "His book promises to be a guided tour of the middle of nowhere." "May 16th" "Today is the 894th day since I left home." "Sometimes I worry that I will become to comfortable being alone." "Already," "I can't imagine what it would be like to be in a room full of people." "I miss the most unbelievably trivial things." "A bookstore." "A movie." "A long hot shower." "A pillow." "The only sound I hear is a hyena in the distance." "I wonder where it is." "But I relish the quite..." "the solitude." "May 17th." "I wake up at dawn and it's freezing." "I brush my teeth and break down camp." "And then, almost as though it were a part of myself" "I see to the plane." "What I'm doing." "But of course I think about it." "I check everything and the I check it again." "Three pilots I met in the Faroe Islands were recently killed when their helicopter crashed." "That makes 15 pilots... 15 friends who have died since I started flying." "There's so much of flying that's completely out of your control." "So I try to concentrate on what I can control." "Despite the dangers and perhaps also because of them Claytor loves to fly" "The whole world goes upside down." "And yet everything inside the airplane stays the same." "Kinda fun." "If you do it wrong you can really get into a lot of trouble." "You can really really scare yourself if you do it too fast or too slow or you stall the tail hour heart drops... so that's when I do it by myself to practice it." "Because you don't want to do it wrong when you're trying to show someone." "But the life of a bush pilot is not all barrel rolls and stunt flying." "With funds running low" "Claytor needs to start looking for his next paying job." "He decides to leave Namibia flying northeast to Botswana." "Here, he'll visit an old friend and fellow bush pilot..." "Perhaps, with a little luck he'll also get a line on some work." "Bush pilots everywhere seem to have an informal network for news and information." "In Africa, many are involved in wildlife management and conservation, like Lloyd Wilmot." "Just keep a nook out for breeding herds and any sign of vultures and hyenas." "Wilmot runs a safari camp in Chobe National Park." "In addition he uses his plane to help combat poaching in the immense refuge where he is an honorary game warden." "Today, Claytor has become along with Wilmot to track a herd of elephants just outside the park." "You've a huge herd underneath you right now." "Roger." "I'm turning to the right." "I want to have another look at that herd." "Okay, I'm in on your left." "Now that they've spotted the elephants from the air they'll continue the search on foot tomorrow." "Lloyd Wilmot is one of the few wildlife experts who routinely approaches elephant without the protection of a vehicle." "He and Clayton will wait at a watering hole for a close up view of the animals." "What do you do if you're surprised by an elephant?" "Is there a trick to not getting eaten?" "There's no real trick." "The thing is to try and keep the wind in your favor." "If you if you can see him before he sees you you can figure out which way the wind's going and then go down wind of him and keep clear of him but in the ultimate analysis if you are confronted" "you get to something like a big tree, like that." "If you can't climb it you just get behind it and you have a clot of earth like a lump over there or a piece of wood, and throwing that at them often turns them and distracts them." "In their sort of terms of reference nothing has ever thrown anything at them so they get a bit disconnected when you actually throw something at them." "Wow!" "There is" "Notice how they skim the top of the water because that's where it's cleanest and clearest." "The sediment sinks down and you have about half half an inch to an inch of clean water on top." "So they suck just on the top, much like you see them doing now... you have to look carefully, the ears are cocked." "Claytor approaches a bull shoot some video of him but the large make has no interest in posing for the camera." "What did you just do there?" "It's a bluff charge." "It's to get you to go." "Just call his bluff." "Stay put." "May 22nd." "I have just been charged by a wild elephant." "Lloyd laughs lightly, like he's seen it a thousand times." "Neither one of us says much." "There's really not much to say after an elephant charge." "After a while a large group emerges from the bush." "Its an extraordinary thing to be so close to these magnificent creatures." "It's so easy to feel small in the face of such splendid power." "Thanks to bush pilot grapevine," "Claytor has secured a job in an international park in Zimbabwe." "the two pilots part company in the Botswana sky" "Claytor's headed for Hwange National Park in Western Zimbabwe," "but first he'll make a slight detour to one of Africa's most spectacular natural wonders:" "Victoria Falls." "I'm now flying low over the Zambezi River approaching Victoria Falls and as you look ahead at the trees you just see this mist this towering mist rising" "our of the trees that are above the water." "And the Africans call it" ""Mosi-oa-Tunya."" "Which means the smoke that thunders." "The Zambezi River drops up to a million gallons of water a second over the 350-foot falls." "Even before it comes into sight, the roar of the plummeting water is deafening." "The rainbow everywhere." "You see the mist sailing the screen." "Look at that chasm, and there's a rainbow coming across it." "Wow, look at that" "right below the falls you can see there're gorges that just zig back and forth about five times." "And in these gorges it also drops down to this boiling black water below." "It's spectacular." "May 26th." "I can't resist flying down into the gorge even though it's risky." "Not only could I be killed" "I could probably get arrested." "As I corner the water explodes into a torrent if frothing white waves." "Sometimes flying is just a fast way to travel." "And sometimes it's the greatest thing in the world." "Leaving the falls behind" "Claytor reaches Hwange National Park." "Before he can land in a remote area" "Claytor has to clear the runway." "Collisions with animals are one of the greatest dangers bush pilots face in Africa." "Okay, are you feeling strong this morning." "On the ground," "Claytor gets some help refueling and prepares for his next assignment in the air." "Conservationist and researcher Janet Rachlow has hired Claytor to help track an injured rhinoceros in the park." "Rachlow is part of a controversial program designed to protect severely endangered rhinos." "Park officials in Zimbabwe have been removing the horns from dozens of rhinos in a desperate attempt to deter poachers." "Claytor was there during one of the dehorning operations and videotaped it." "The first time" "I saw rhinos getting their horns cut off it was in the southeast section of Zimbabwe." "This huge rhino was lying there sedated and this man pulled the started ripping the horn off its face." "And you start to ask yourself," ""why made clear tome was that there's nothing else that can do here." "The rhino Claytor and Rachlow are searching for is an adult female named Zola." "Even though she was dehorned, she was shot and badly wounded by poachers." "In the vast 5000 square mile park, the only way to locate individual animals is from the air." "Even then, it's no easy matter." "We're starting to get a signal." "Okay" "Once we get a little bit closer, we can listen out of both wings... and we wanna balance the volume that comes in on the two wings and that'll keep us going right towards it..." "Okey" "Geez, it's hard to see through this bush, isn't it?" "Okay, straight..." "Real close real close directly under us." "Nothing under us on the left." "It's quite possible that her collar has come off." "It's come off several of the other animals." "So what we'll need to do is just come in on foot and find the collar or find the animal." "But, you know, now we know the area." "With the help of expert trackers, the search for Zola continues on foot." "Dr. Michael Kock is the veterinarian for Zimbabwe's national park." "Once they find the rhino," "Dr. Kock will shoot her with a tranquilizer dart so he can treat her gunshot wounds." "I need..." "The hole is swollen here." "That's from a gunshot there?" "What I need is, I need an eye cover" "My shirt?" "She looks good." "You can see she's done some wearing here around the edges." "If Zola had died, the poachers would probably have cut off what was left of her horn to sell." "Still, dehorning does appear to reduce poaching overall." "It's easy to want to take an emotional stance to conserving these animals." "And if you take that stance, dehorning is hard to justify." "But I think we have to be realistic, and we have to look at what's happening." "And, I mean, I'd be really sad to tell my children or my grandchildren that, sorry, there used to be something as magnificent as a dinosaur, but we killed them all" "Strafed with machine gun fire the huge creature's legs are swollen with infection." "Once her wounds are treated" "Zola will be given an antidote to the tranquilizer and freed." "May 27th." "The immense animal awakes and rises to her feet but does not move." "Then, slowly she lowers her massive head to the ground and uses her chin as a crutch to limp off into the bush." "The doctor sounds optimistic but I am not." "She might survive these wounds but to a poacher, her life is worth far less than the sad stump at he end of her nose." "Four days later," "Claytor receives a wire from Janet Rachlow." "Despite all their efforts Zola has died." "Back on his way," "Claytor returns to the explorer's life." "He has decided to pay a visit to an orphanage for chimpanzees in Burundi." "Claytor heads north toward Burundi." "But first he'll cross Zambia, and an area called the Kafue Flats." "I'm now somewhere over the Kafue swamps, and as far as you can see in every direction, it's absolutely flat." "And it's this green patina over dark blue water." "If you didn't see the sun reflecting, you know that it's just a green patina of growth on top of this vast swamp." "I think if you lost your engine here" "I'm not sure how deep it is but you'd probably just mush into this green gunk and just sit on top of the wing and then try to call someone." "You just can't crash here." "If he did crash here," "Claytor's tiny plane would be almost impossible to spot from the air." "The orange stripes on the tail and wings are a safety measure." "If he goes down, the right color might make it easier to find him in the empty terrain he frequents" "Claytor hopes he'll never have to find out if it works." "And crashing isn't the only thing a pilot has to worry about." "I've had a couple of close calls." "When I got to Algeria, it was right after the military took over." "And they thought that a bush pilot was a pilot for George Bush." "And right after the gulf war," "George Bush was not a very popular person." "I tried to quickly explain that a bush pilot had nothing at all to do with George Bush." "Claytor decides to make a brief stop in Zambia to refuel and chart his course to Burundi." "Bueno Bungee." "How's everything here?" "I am from Ndola, but I needed to refuel." "Hello." "How are you?" "Nice to meet you." "I'm Claytor..." "We are just from around here." "The lanky American is an unusual sight wherever he lands and his grasp of African languages is often a crowd pleaser." "This is my first time ever to come here." "It's nice to meet you." "Oh, it's very nice to meet you." "When landing, you're suppose to pay something - a landing fee." "I can pay it." "How much should I pay you?" "I want to pay..." "How much?" "How many kilograms?" "It's one ton." "5-60 5-60." "How many U.S. dollars is that?" "It's about one U.S. dollar." "I understand that" "Can I pay you two U.S. dollars?" "So is that okay?" "This is more than okay." "Okay no but please the change is for you guys" "You can have it." "Because landing fees here are very reasonable... so it's one cent." "These are for you to do as you wish to improve your airport." "I think that's the cheapest airport" "I've ever landed at in my whole life." "When you fly in the day it's very bumpy, because the sun heats the surface of the African earth and it just gets these currents of air straight up." "At night, it's completely different." "The air is calm and still." "You can see the stars." "You can see fires on the ground." "You can see the moonlight reflecting off of lakes." "And it's very calm and peaceful and kind of reflective time." "You're suspended in space over this large black think that you can't see." "It's mysterious." "The chimpanzee orphanage in northern Burundi was founded by the Jane Goodall Institute in 1989." "Chimps confiscated from smugglers are brought here to be cared for by conservationists and volunteers." "Dean Anderson is the director of the refuge." "At the moment, it is home to 17 chimpanzees, and one baby gorilla." "How old is she?" "She's about three" "She was confiscated at the airport." "She was taken from her forest home as all the other chimps here..." "In Zaire... eastern Zaire, because she's an eastern lowland gorilla, by poachers and then she was brought to...;" "she was in transport... now what they were going to do with her there" "I don't know." "Probably a zoo or..." "Is that where they were mostly going to zoos at one point?" "Zoos probably." "A gorilla would probably go to a zoo." "'Cuz a private person would just..." "No..." "Not be so interested, right, because they get too big and too violent?" "Yes, well too big." "I mean, how do you keep a 300-pound gorilla or something." "June 4th." "There are baby chimpanzees everywhere." "They are affectionate and smart." "Each one has a distinct personality." "One has mastered the art of threading a shoelace." "If they were returned to the forest, they would be killed by wild chimps." "They can never go home." "My mind drifts back to a day" "I spent in Equatorial Guinea and that little chimp I found." "We just had something to eat at a restaurant and I came out." "And sitting here tied to this chair is this little baby chimpanzee." "I don't know how old it is." "He seems very cold." "He was hugging himself when I found him." "And it's, I'm shocked by it." "I don't know what to think." "He's just sitting here." "Oh my god." "I've got to go." "Most of the chimps in the orphanage were captured by poachers to be sold as pets." "Though they are extremely appealing as babies, growing chimpanzees are too smart and too destructive to make good pets." "Once the chimps become powerful adults, they must be confined in cages, a lonely place for these social primates, who quickly become bored and desperate for attention." "Soon," "Dean hopes the orphanage may be able to give some chimps a little more freedom." "This is a temporary situation." "We're hoping to get money together to out them into the sanctuary that we're talking about." "And there they'll be, they'll all be together." "They won't have cages, they won't have ropes." "They'll be on an open space where they can have a semi-natural social life." "Which is so important for chimpanzees." "Wildlife in Africa seems to be in direct conflict with people here because they need space and the animals need space and the animals end up losing..." "I was impressed that someone was trying to take these chimps that had already basically list so much, they were trying to in a way give them back to themselves and nature." "May be its not perfect." "Nut it was something." "Soon Claytor must leave Africa, and make the rest of his way around the globe." "But first, he wants to make one more stop." "For some time, he has wanted to visit Zaire." "But so far, he hasn't been granted clearance to land there." "Okay, this is Mike Oscar in southern Zaire." "Over." "Mike Oscar... is there any way for me to confirm a clearance from Ndola?" "Over" "That's very difficult because of the fact that there's no telephone communication between the two places." "Over" "Okay, roger." "If I arrive with my copy of my AFTN request, how easy is it to negotiate once on the ground?" "Over." "How much money do you have?" "Over" "I've got a fair amount." "How much do you think it would cost?" "Over." "At least $250 each." "Over" "Roger, I understand." "The turbulent political situation in Zaire makes it extremely difficult to get permission to enter the country." "Claytor decides to go in any way, without an official clearance." "He'll touch down at a small airstrip where he can refuel form his own supply." "If he's lucky, no one will ask him for his papers." "In Africa there's a rule an unwritten rule, and that is that it's easier to get pardoned than to get permission." "Because of communications and how difficult it is to get clearance and things, its sometimes easier just tot do them and afterwards, of course, you get in trouble." "But the Africans are very forgiving." "Good people, and very often they'll forgive you." "For Claytor, everyday is part of a grand-if solitary-adventure." "He's been away form home for nearly three years and it could be three more before he returns." "From Africa, he will head east to the four remaining continents between him a home." "Claytor has grown accustomed to being a stranger everywhere he goes" "but he is also changed by every place he visits and every person he meets." "I think there's a part of me that's become a little bit African, because the Africans have a saying which is when you ask them when they'll come back or what time something will be ready they'll smile and look at you" "and say anytime from now." "So when people ask me when I'm going to get home sometimes I just can only say anytime from now." "Eighty million years ago, disaster came to a world ruled by dinosaurs." "It came in waves of and and wind that buried every creature alive." "For eons, the dinosaurs lay entombed in a place that would one day be called the Gobi Desert in a country named Mongolia." "Among the dead was one of the strangest dinosaurs that ever lived." "It was called Oviraptor." "It was swift, smart, lethal." "Now, only bones tell us about its life." "And the vicious world it lived in." "The bones have given us a glimpse of those ancient times." "A dim reflection of life before history." "But there is more to the story... still hidden in the vast emptiness of the Gobi." "Now an ambitious expedition is traveling to that distant desert to uncover the secrets of the Oviraptor's world." "They don't exactly look like scientists." "Often, they're mistaken for each other." "But Mike Novacek leads the expedition, along with colleague Mark Norell." "They could be taken for surfers;" "but they're from the American Museum of Natural History - scientists piecing together an ancient jigsaw puzzle of evolution and extinction." "To me it's so obviously important," "I'm so emotionally bound up in this." "I can't imagine why a knowledge of our history of where we come from isn't important to human experience." "Could you imagine what it would be like to live in the late 20th century and not know that extinction actually existed?" "There's also just this sense of discovery." "I mean, every bone that we find tells us something about how the world was 80 millions years ago, which is... pretty neat." "Just having a sense of history of what the planet was like and what the planet has gone through," "I think, just increases our appreciation for our own existence." "Mike and Mark are about to journey to the sun scorched badlands of the Gobi." "It's a desolate area - a half million dusty square miles of sand, scrub, and redrock cliffs." "But it's a paleontologist's version of heaven." "For this is where the Oviraptors lived and died and lay untouched in the earth for millennia." "Then, in 1922, one of the most famous scientific expeditions in history wound its way toward" "Mongolia's dinosaur graveyard" "Its leader was a charismatic and..." "controversial explorer named Roy Chapman Andrews." "Like Mark and Mike, he came from the" "American Museum of Natural History." "But Andrews was an incurable publicity hound - and a scientific cowboy." "Where his paleontologist used a camel-hair brush," "Andrews hacked away with a pick ax." "But he found one of the richest dinosaur boneyards in the world." "He returned with a spectacular collection of fossils... and a library of stunning film images." "But in the 1920s," "Communists seized power in Mongolia." "The open door to the West slammed shut." "For the next 65 years, the fabulous fossil fields of the Gobi were forbidden territory." "Now, everything's changed." "Only token symbols of Russia's domination remain." "Finally, Western scientists can return." "We don't want those onions?" "They rot." "They rot in two days." "Mark and Mike were among the first scientists allowed in." "They're now back for their sixth expedition with the Mongolian Academy of Sciences." "Three kilos?" "Three kilos." "They have just enough supplies for a short month, and a long way to go..." "retracing Andrews' footsteps on their way to one of the richest concentrations of fossils in the world - a place called Ukhaa Tolgod." "Over a vast span of time," "Ukhaa Tolgod was ruled by dinosaurs." "Dinosaur history can be thought of as a great empire that lasted a few hundred million years." "That's a significant slice of the history of life." "Imagine that time, from the moment the dinosaurs appeared till now, is a single day." "At midnight, dinosaurs first walked earth." "They're flourishing at noon." "They don't go extinct until five in the afternoon." "Time passes." "The first modern man finally appears a minute and a half before midnight." "All of our recorded history takes three and a half seconds" "In the Gobi, time seems to have stood still." "The Gobi is such a big place and it basically has no life support system." "We really have to bring everything with us." "So all our food, all our fuel which we're carrying in a fuel tanker, all our supplies have to be treated like we're actually exploring a polar region." "In such a vast area, success is never certain." "Even getting there can be a nightmare." "Roy Chapman Andrews thought he'd solved the problem in the '20s, with a new piece of technology." "When it was announced that we were to attempt a scientific exploration of the Gobi Desert with a fleet of motor cars, men said that we were little less than fools." "Only camels had been used in that country." "We had 40 men, eight motor cars and 150 camels to carry supplies." "It was the biggest land scientific expedition ever to leave the United States." "Roy Chapman Andrews." "From China, Andrews headed northwest." "He left Peking, then crossed over the border and drove deep into the parched heart of outer Mongolia." "Mongolia, a land of painted deserts dancing in mirage." "Mongolia, a land of mystery, of paradox and promise!" "A thirsty land." "A land of desolation!" "Gazelles, wild asses, and wolves ranged the marching sands." "Few explorers had been there and they brought back tales of thirst, cold, and hunger." "But Andrews found one more thing... mud." "Our average speed was only four miles an hour." "Rocks, ravines, washouts, and ditches followed one another in rapid succession." "One might imagine that the roads have gotten better." "They have not." "And even modern jeeps aren't built for a desert like the Gobi." "We have an electrical problem and we don't know what it is." "It's not a very complicated wiring plan." "It's a Russian jeep." "It's not like a Japanese or an American car." "They're up and running." "But next, it's a truck's turn." "Piston, huh?" "We think it's piston number six." "A critical breakdown could have severe consequences." "End of the expedition, if not the end of our lives." "Maybe we'll make it." "Oh, God." "With the nearest gas station some 500 miles away, and time already getting tight, things will have to go smoothly from now on." "Oh, we're having some mechanical problems." "We think it's a fuel pump." "But we're not sure." "This could be way bad." "Seems to me I got this thing in there without doing the twisty deal." "Maybe we'll tow it or abandon it." "Abandon it." "Get on with it." "We can't stay here more than a day." "After more than 12 breakdowns, the vehicles all decide to run at the same time." "As they enter the dusty dinosaur fields of the Gobi, they're traveling a long way backwards in time." "Dinosaurs first appeared some 230 million years ago, in a world with a different face." "The creatures were thriving 100 million years later, as South America and Africa split apart." "About 75 million years ago, in the late Cretaceous period, dinosaurs began to disappear..." "leaving only bones behind." "Their bones were more motionless than the continents" "Then in the 1920s, Roy Chapman Andrews came to a remote place in the Gobi Desert he would name the Flaming Cliffs." "It was a likely- looking place." "There appear to be medieval castles with spires and turrets brick-red in the evening light, colossal gateways, walls and ramparts." "A labyrinth of ravines and gorges studded with fossil bones make a paradise for the paleontologist." "Without a doubt there were hundreds of bones lying just beneath the surface." "But where?" "If only my eyes could pierce that baffling surface and get a glimpse of what lay concealed!" "Within minutes, they were finding fossils." "Andrews and his team had stumbled onto the mother lode of dinosaur bones." "They discovered the remains of some 200 different animals, many of them completely new species." "The fossils revealed a world that Andrews found alien and terrifying." "Dinosaurs were the sort of creatures you might think of as inhabiting another planet or the kind you dream of in a bad nightmare." "It was an image our culture nourished for generations." "Dinosaurs were fierce, monstrous..." "and not all that bright." "Many of the new ideas about dinosaurs are coming from the amazing boneyard called Ukhaa Tolgod." "The team discovered the site three years ago." "Now, to get to the dinosaurs, all they have to do..." "is find it again." "The maps in general are pretty lousy for the Gobi Desert." "The towns on those maps are myths in many cases." "We don't even pay any attention to any of the roads marked on those maps." "They're completely wrong." "Even a satellite tracking system doesn't always help." "So the satellite may know where you are but the road you need may be in a completely different direction so the roads here are very confusing." "There are no signs and many of them lead nowhere." "We're gonna go like this." "We're a little off course." "We're not really lost." "We're just a bit off course." "So we've gotta go this-away and that-away." "At times, you have to go in circles to move forward." "Roy Chapman Andrews too spent more than a few days wandering the Gobi." "But in the end, he blundered into a discovery that stunned the world." "A member of his expedition literally stumbled across a critical link in the great chain of being." "On July 13, George Olsen reported that he had found some fossil eggs." "We did not take his story very seriously." "Nevertheless, we were all curious enough to go with him to inspect his find." "There could be no mistake." "Our paleontologist finally said," ""Gentlemen, there is no doubt about it." "You are looking at the first dinosaur egg ever found."" "The discovery made Roy Chapman Andrews a national hero." "But the eggs were not alone." "Lying above the nest was a bizarre skeleton - a bird-like dinosaur unknown to man." "It had apparently been caught in the act of murder - stealing the eggs." "So it was forever cursed with the name Oviraptor " "Latin for "egg thief."" "It would be years before we discovered the strange truth about the animal called Oviraptor." "In the late '20s, the winds of change blew fiercely over the great dinosaur fields of Mongolia." "That's when Roy Chapman Andrews was forced to leave the Gobi forever." "We are more than ever convinced that Central Asia was a paleontology Garden of Eden." "Still, we have shown the way, have broken trail as it were." "Later, others will reap a rich harvest." "Decades later," "Mark and Mike are hoping to find the treasures that Andrews left untouched in the sand." "After more than a week in the blistering Gobi, they finally reach their goal:" "the brown hills of Ukhaa Tolgod" "With all the delays, they've only got two weeks to work." "This is the place where they've pinned all their hopes." "With luck, a year of shifting sands has exposed more bones." "But even here, there are no guarantees." "It is possible to fail in the Gobi." "It's a huge area, a huge tract of land, there are lots of rocks." "But they don't all contain fossils." "You can drive to what looks like the most tantalizing set of badlands you could possibly imagine and not find one scrap of bone." "It's a treasure hunt in a way and it is sort of like finding a needle in a haystack." "But on this day," "Discovery and elation are immediate." "Oh, I see it." "Oh, wonderful." "Jeez." "That's nice." "Back to lizard" "The side of a skull here." "The teeth sticking out." "You can see these teeth, yeah." "Each one of these is a socket for a tooth." "Pretty big." "This is a hand claw." "Has this big thing right here on it... it's the hand of an Oviraptor." "About medium size." "They've hit the jackpot:" "among their first finds are Oviraptors - the creature Andrews knew as "egg thief."" "Considering that the Oviraptor is one of the rarest dinosaurs in the world and there's only been a handful of specimens found before we discovered this place where we've found 25." "I mean, today we found at least five just in the first 20 minutes." "This is really not what paleontology is like, most of the time." "You don't go finding 12 skeletons in a half an hour." "There's another one right there, too." "Yup." "Each one of these little mounds of little white flecks sticking out... that's the eroded rubble of parts of big dinosaur skeletons" "One, two, three, four four skeletons right here." "This is going to be a really good specimen." "This is part of a shoulder right here." "Let me see." "This looks, is looking like a tail." "That's the tail and part of the pelvic girdle here and the tail shooting straight out." "This is nice." "I mean, what we're seeing here is just awful." "I mean, all these poor dinosaurs and other creatures..." "mammals and vertebrates - buried alive possibly and skeletons littering the surface like some battlefield." "But it's great for us 'cause we thrive on carnage." "We don't have enough tape." "We oughta count everything here." "Once, scores of dinosaurs walked the sands of Ukhaa Tolgod moving toward a tragic destiny." "I think this was an oasis 80 million years ago." "Huge numbers of dinosaurs and other vertebrates congregating around maybe some water." "And on occasions, not just one event but on several occasions, these animals were buried in these sands." "We'd have to imagine an enormous sandstorm, an enormous force bearing down on these creatures for such a disaster." "Some of the dinosaurs almost look like they're trying to swim to the surface, much like a skier in an avalanche caught, in some cases, in their struggle to get out of this sand avalanche, or great wall of sand, that engulfed them." "Perhaps they suffocated in the sand." "Hey, I just swept there." "You've made it all dirty again." "I take pride in my work." "Next year we'll bring some dust busters." "The prehistoric sandstorms buried dinosaurs at every stage of life." "And on their first expedition here," "Mark and Mike made an unprecedented discovery:" "A nest with eggs and inside one was an embryo - the embryo of an Oviraptor, like a dinosaur on the half shell." "Here was the vicious carnivore, the "egg thief,"" "just a tiny baby about to hatch." "It was an important discovery - a secret moment in the very beginning of this strange dinosaur's life." "This year, they're hoping to find out more about the Oviraptor and its fate." "There's growing excitement on the far side of the ridge." "They think they've found a completely new kind of dinosaur, a relative of the Oviraptor, and it may shed light on what ultimately happened to the dinosaurs." "We have no idea what this is." "It's a really big animal." "It might be something new." "This specimen has a lot of important implications that go beyond just being a really beautiful object." "So it's exactly what we wanted to find..." "we hope." "The skeleton is what's important." "Mark and Mike believe that these bones may help prove an exciting theory - that some dinosaurs actually evolved." "They evolved into creatures that are still alive today." "The bones tell the story." "There are uncanny similarities in the skeletons of certain dinosaurs - like these and modern birds." "Almost without doubt, they shared a close common ancestor." "And each new find may help prove that dinosaurs did not really go extinct, that birds, in fact, are dinosaurs." "Dinosaurs need to be thought of as incredibly successful animals that exist with us today." "We just call them birds." "Our skies are filled with dinosaurs." "It's a bad metaphor to use to call something like dinosaur-like, you know... just because it's old, obsolete, ugly, stupid, and slow." "I mean, that's not what these animals are all about." "I mean, it's like the swifts flying around here and things" "I mean, they're a type of dinosaur." "And that they're still with us now." "And the closest relative to birds is these small carnivorous dinosaurs we've collected in these red rocks." "At day's end, hopes are high that this new find will help connect the dots between dinosaurs and birds." "The feeling of anticipation is palpable, if not always exactly in key." "First thing in the morning, they're back at the site." "So, we hope we got something we can identify eventually." "Mike, work on that." "Kill that beetle, while you're at it." "As they pry the rock open, they sense trouble." "Look at that." "Yeah." "I don't know what that is." "Bunch of... maybe." "I'm afraid to say." "Could it be a theropod, maybe?" "No." "Well, it could be, but..." "It's not known to science." "I think what we're lookin' at is that there's a dead theropod right there." "It's gone and we're excavating an ankylosaur." "And the ankylosaurs are among the most common dinosaurs around." "It's not a new dinosaur at all." "It's not even related to birds." "I'm sure that this is an ankylosaur." "You want us to just go away?" "What they want to do now is give up." "Today, the dinosaur hunters have tracked down approximately zilch." "Well, you win a few and you lose a few." "That's just..." "I don't feel too good right now" "I'm tired." "They've spent two fruitless days working in the blistering heat." "But tomorrow will be another day - with any luck, a better one." "Instead, nature decides to add insult to injury." "As Mongolian would say, "Ich boro." It's raining." "Sounds like I'm bored." "Yeah, it sounds like I'm bored." "The sun burns off the disappointment." "It's a new day and a new dig." "This find is not a new species." "It's not related to birds." "And it's not an Oviraptor." "But it probably was the Oviraptor's prey." "It's an animal called Protoceratops." "They called these guys the cows of the Cretaceous." "They were sort of everywhere." "They roamed around, they think, maybe in herds." "It's full of spikes." "We actually call it Spikey now." "We've sort of bonded with this one." "These are the eyes and the snout." "So we're looking at the skull from the top." "These are... cheek spikes and the frill covering the neck here." "Protoceratops was a bizarre dinosaur, a hog-sized animal with a beak like a parrot's, a strict vegetarian that grazed the ancient Gobi." "Around its head was an elaborate shield, but the shield didn't protect it from its enemies." "Enemies like the Oviraptor." "And that's exactly what the team digs up next..." "Oviraptors." "A pair of them lying so close together they seem to describe an ancient romance." "Yeah, we're kind of fond of them." "We're trying to figure out what names to give them." "Ozzie and Harriet." "Romeo and Juliet." "Batman and Robin." "Well, we have a hypothesis they were holding hands and they were sort of reaching for each other across the miles." "The star-crossed Oviraptors are given the permanent nicknames of Romeo and Juliet." "We have one hand just down here." "This is the other one." "Christa now is gluing another hand." "And this is, of course, the neck coming up and the head and the hip bone." "And over here we have a claw." "It's a long hard process to excavate the past." "But they've done it before." "Over the last few years, they've uncovered a world of almost preposterous beings." "Some are related to birds." "Others are even related to us." "Our tiny ancestors - mammals that lived alongside the Oviraptors." "Most of these mammals were small, like early mice and shrews." "But these insignificant creatures gradually evolved into all the mammals of our world - the cats, the aardvarks, the whales and even human beings." "But sometimes evolution... has to take a back seat to hygiene." "We don't have much water here, so it's kind of hard to get things clean." "I thought I packed more shorts." "For some reason, I messed up." "I've got these on delicate." "Yeah, personal grooming is a passion of the camp here." "The team spends a lot of time making sure that they're groomed, looking their best at all times, because you never know." "There may be some formal affairs in a nearby village that you might need to attend." "There are only a few days left." "It's time for the second act of Romeo and Juliet:" "the Oviraptors await a sheltering shroud of rags and plaster." "They're now in the skillful hands of preparator Amy Davidson." "I love skeletons." "I actually never was that into dinosaurs as a kid, but I've always loved bones." "And I have a background as a sculptor and I've always admired the skeleton that we all have inside us." "It's some of the most beautiful sculpture on earth." "And these fossil skeletons look almost as well preserved as yesterday's camel skeleton" "But they are a dinosaur." "These fossils are forever." "It almost lasted forever." "For 80 million years, Romeo and Juliet lay together reaching toward each other in death." "What were they like in life?" "Did they hunt together?" "Share food with each other?" "Fight with each other?" "Or was this love among the Oviraptors?" "Scientists may never know for certain if the bird-like Oviraptors fell in love." "But now there's a new find that digs even deeper into the private lives of the dinosaurs - a place paleontologists usually enter only in their best dreams." "Oh, yeah, it's farther down." "They've discovered another Oviraptor." "And then, in the dirt below the skeleton... eggs, an entire nest." "How many eggs now revealed?" "Uh, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine." "And then three over there... twelve." "Twelve eggs." "All right." "Another one coming out right here." "It's really a great fossil find because it's one of the rare instances where we can capture a little bit of behavior that's 80 million years old." "Here we have a sort of day in the life of or the death of a creature of a dinosaur... in association with something it did during its life." "This one was fossilized where it dropped and it happened to drop right on top of its own nest." "She didn't just drop there." "The good mother Oviraptor was sitting on the nest." "They probably brought food to their nest, as birds do." "And the good mother tended her eggs." "Like a bird, she prodded them into a circle" "The fearsome carnivore of the Gobi was parenting." "So the story of the dinosaur named "egg thief"" "has finally come full circle." "The Oviraptors watched over their eggs and took care of the nest." "Now, they will never be seen as simply nightmare creatures again." "The dig has been everything the team could hope for." "But to see what they've really got, they have to get all the fossils safely out of the ground, and then take them on a trip exactly halfway around the world." "She bathed in plaster, Romeo and Juliet are now heavy but dangerously delicate..." "like Rice Krispies wrapped in concrete." "No, no." "That way." "Okay, okay." "Sorry." "I thought you were going to push backwards." "Perfect." "It's beautiful, Amy." "More, more, more, more, more." "It's beautiful." "More, more, more, more." "Okay." "Nothing came out." "All right, Amy." "So far, so good." "Now they have to convince the good mother Oviraptor to come down from her hillside perch." "It's like moving a grand piano off a cliff." "Romeo and Juliet prove just as stubborn." "I'm happy." "Just drive slowly, please?" "It's not there yet." "It could get lost in the mail." "They do get lost in the mail." "The good mother Oviraptor and Romeo and Juliet are trucked east." "And then, they disappear..." "lost, somewhere in China." "After four months bound up in Chinese red tape, the dinosaur fossils finally make it to their destination... the American Museum of Natural History in New York." "The first arrival is Juliet." "She's headed for Amy's lab, where, if all goes well, they'll find out what ancient secrets lie beneath the recent coat of plaster." "I'm really glad this is here." "This is great" "From the summer in the Gobi to the winter in New York City." "Juliet is now a seasoned world traveler." "After 80 million years of repose" "She, s the new kid on the block." "There's a lot of questions at this point." "There could be anything in here." "I have a feeling that this one's going to be a nice skeleton - this is my guess - a nice skeleton, hopefully with a skull, all laid out." "It's pretty fun." "And it's all mine." "It's a tricky business..." "millimeters make all the difference." "Yeah, this is good." "I'm really glad" "I didn't saw through a bone in the process." "It's weird." "It's just opening this little window into this world I was living last summer." "Yeah, this looks good." "After all this work, they still don't know if Juliet is an important specimen, whether her skeleton is perfect or a total ruin." "This is great." "I'm really psyched, 'cause this is the skull." "It does have a skull." "We're really, really happy." "I like, you know, working late at night." "It's really hard to go home because..." "I just look at it and say, "I can't believe this."" "It's traveled 80 million years and halfway around the world and it's sitting here and, you know, it's a dinosaur." "Working late?" "Yeah." "And it's so beautiful." "The more I work on it, the more you see this natural sculpture." "My work just sort of disappears and this beautiful thing comes out of the rock." "The process takes weeks." "Finally, Juliet is revealed in all her splendor." "She's everything they've been hoping for, perhaps the most perfect specimen ever found - a dinosaur for the ages." "It's a beautiful fossil." "In fact, I mean, that I think that this is probably the best prepared and the best preserved" "Oviraptor that's yet been worked on from our expedition - or even anywhere in the world" "I think we're going to have the, to be able to relish in the fruits of last summer for many years to come." "It makes you wonder what's still out there." "She's more than a pretty face" "These bones will help us trace the evolution of dinosaurs into birds." "Meanwhile, Juliet makes a scientist dream about the world she left behind." "I think what fascinates me is the broad picture." "What was it like if you were flying in a little Piper Cub over that area, like some of the bush pilots do over the Serengeti?" "What would it look like then - all those dinosaurs and the mammals and the lizards..." "and the Gobi?" "After six long summers," "Mark and Mike have uncovered the hidden secrets of the Gobi... making Juliet's world feel almost real." "You could picture a lake perhaps and some cliffs and a bunch of Oviraptors on a cliff like a colony of seabirds, perhaps." "And a bunch of these tank like ankylosaurs lumbering around near the pond" "and perhaps a herd of Protoceratops wandering through." "And every once in a while a vicious Velociraptor coming over the hill to nab something." "And we can imagine the Oviraptors:" "Romeo and Juliet, hunting together, and the good mother, minding her eggs." "Unnoticed in its low station is our own ancestor, a tiny tense creature lost among the powerful beings of the ancient Gobi." "In the end, they would all disappear from the face of the earth - along with most of the creatures of their world." "From our perspective, of course, this mass extinction event is not a big problem because we're part of the group that survived and started evolving into bats and large hoofed animals and lions and tigers and bears... and ultimately humans." "Ultimately, humans, like the Oviraptors, and most of the dinosaur kingdom, may not be able to count on permanent residence on earth." "Every species that's ever lived" "Has become extinct or will become extinct." "And whether extinction is due to the total decimation of our population or whether it's due to the evolution of that species into another species, nevertheless, everybody becomes extinct eventually." "So in that view, we've had it." "Some species lived and then died out:" "a story like any other story." "Others evolved, changed and lived on." "So perhaps a message about our own future is encoded in these silent remnants of the past." "The only real knowledge we have of our distant biological past is from the fossil record." "And it gives us a sense of who we are and where we sit in the world and what that world might become." "Time is the hardest rock to pierce, and the story of life, with its infinite changes, is the greatest mystery we have." "But the expedition has been blessed with luck." "They've gazed into the past and brought the violent and tender world of the Oviraptor that much closer to our own." "And they all lived happily ever after." "G'night, sweetie." "In an ordinary house on an ordinary street..." "Kyle, are you in bed?" "...there lived a cat." "There's my kitty." "You're so sweet." "He had everything a kitty could want..." "Feed the gerbils, honey?" "Yeah, Mom." "...affection, food, shelter and a family who thought he was the sweetest kitty in the whole wide world." "But this is only half the story." "There is another side to this contented kitty- one his family knows nothing about." "Like his ancestors, he has the heart of a hunter." "Well fed and showered with affection, wildness still courses through his veins." "He may look domesticated, but look again." "This is a real life Jekyll and Hyde." "It is the paradox of the cat." "There are more than 100 million cats in the U.S. alone." "What goes on in their secret world?" "In the next hour you may learn more about cats than you ever wanted to know." "It's 8 p.m. Do you know where your kitty is?" "Magnificent, elusive and deadly, the cat family species boasts 38 species of feline ferocity- including the diminutive, wild cat." "Since prehistoric times, these cats have wandered Africa and Europe." "The presumed ancestor of our domestic cat, the wild cat might look like a tabby, but its canines and claws are as lethal as those of any tiger." "In its eyes, there's a haunting familiarity" "How did this ferocious feline jump the wild track and make its way to our milk bowls and our beds?" "Felis catus set out on the rocky road to domestication more than 3,000 years ago." "In ancient Egypt, this hunter extraordinaire kept rodents from the granaries" "In return, he was worshipped as a symbol of life." "But history would not always treat our feline friend so kindly." "Believed to be the devil's companion, more than a few were burned at the stake- for keeping wrong company." "Luckily, the cat would soon fall into grace once again, for his hunting skills proved invaluable on the open seas." "Cats kept the rat in check." "Near the end of the road, perhaps the most steadfast alliance was forged between the farmer and his beloved barn cat." "Now, what you got there?" "You are a good cat." "Ironically, the cat's very wildness was its ticket to domestication." "There's extra milk for you tonight." "Now to complete the journey." "...eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen... ready or not here I come." "What lay ahead was one of the most complex relationships nature has ever known- the remarkable bond between human and cat." "We were drawn to a creature we could never fully tame." "Wow!" "Hey guys look what I found." "We would overlook their wildness and welcome them into our lives." "When the dust of the eons finally settled, we found ourselves inexorably linked to the cat." "This extraordinary creature had found a permanent place in our hearts-and our homes." "Mama, Mama, Mama, Mom, Mama, look what I found." "Can I keep him, please, please?" "At last, the cat managed to dethrone the dog as the most popular pet in the Western world." "In the U.S. alone, house cats have doubled in number in just 20 years." "C'mon, chin up." "That a good boy." "Cat-mania is sweeping the country." "These are piddle pants for cats." "The Chaise lounges are a new add- on to our products that we're carrying." "The Litter Maid Electric Self- Cleaning Litter Box." "We probably spend about eight grand a year." "$10, $20, or $30,000 a year, just on one cat." "Yeah." "Throughout the world, cat shows pay homage to our feline companions in a fury of grooming, primping and keen competition." "Through the careful coupling of cats, humans have created nearly 50 breeds of domesticated felines" "Though some might look to the untrained eye like mistakes of nature... each coupling is carefully planned to make a winner." "But a cat needn't be a winner to be the object of affection." "Well, it's Rush's third birthday." "We have birthday cakes for us, so why shouldn't we have a birthday cake for our four-footed child?" "The Ross family has taken feline adoration to new heights" "They're very much our family." "Well, hi, Neut." "Hey, Rush, here's some food coming." "My husband spoils the cats." "Of course, I don't." "And so he always has the cats eating with us at the table." "One more bite, but don't let it spoil you." "You won't get the same thing tomorrow night." "They like to have the food that we're eating." "And they oftentimes will eat very peculiar things, things they would never eat if you would put it in their bowl." "As you can see, our cats are very well fed." "But well-fed cats still do hunt." "So we keep them inside." "And our cats are never bored." "Shirley May loves her cats." "But even she knows, there can be too much of a good thing." "When I was a child, there was a family down the street who had some cats." "And they didn't have them altered." "And there were kittens born all the time." "Well, of course, I thought that was great, because I loved kittens." "Super kitty flying through the air!" "There are more than 10,000 human babies born in this country each day- and more than twice that many kittens." "Sheltered and well-fed, cat numbers can soar if reproduction goes unchecked" "Cats are prolific." "One female can have as many as 30 kittens a year." "In just seven years, she and her offspring could produce over 300,000 kittens!" "Suddenly, sometimes, those kittens would disappear- and nobody seemed to be able to tell me where the kittens went." "With such feline fertility, unwanted cats are a sad byproduct of our domestic bond" "This scene may be an echo from the past, but the tragedy is still being played out today." "Even now, hundreds of cats are abandoned each day in the U.S. alone." "What's to become of a castaway?" "He is suddenly faced with the struggle to survive in an alien world." "But the cat holds a wild card- a gift from his ancestors." "He is one of the earth's most adept hunters." "Good news for the cat..." "but bad for the locals." "There's one more predator on the prowl." "And when push comes to shove, he's not a picky eater- another key to the cat's success." "In the face of adversity, the cat often has the advantage" "Armed with sharp claws, he's not restricted to terra firma." "The cat nearly always lands on his feet." "This diminutive creature seems to defy the odds." "With a flexible backbone like a cheetah, the cat can run up to 30 miles per hour." "His agile body is engineered for the chase." "But at times, the best strategy is to seek shelter..." "and wait." "For the tables will soon turn for felis catus." "Night belongs to the cat." "He is a creature designed for the nocturnal hunt:" "with night vision, whiskers to help navigate, a keen sense of smell, and ears tuned to signals that mere humans could never perceive." "The faintest squeak- even from a distance- allows him to pinpoint his prey... and launch his assault." "Only the fortunate manage to escape this master predator." "The cat is a marvel of engineering." "His supple spine allows acrobatics of which we could only dream." "His uncanny sense of balance almost always insures a safe landing." "With persistence and precision, the cat gets his mouse." "This is a creature designed to survive." "He has landed in the most outlandish of places and somehow managed to endure." "Near the Antarctic, temperatures can plunge to 50 below." "On a diet of seabirds and the occasional penguin carcass, the cats of Macquarie Island have persevered since they were dropped here by sealers over a century ago." "Half a world away, the volcanic Galapagos Islands offer little water or prey to its immigrant cats." "Though lean, the population persists." "Abandoned cats are struggling to survive throughout the world-even in the U.S., where there are an estimated 50 million." "Here in Miami, Florida, thousands of forsaken felines have landed in the middle of a raging controversy." "Though the dumping of pets is prohibited in Dade County parks, it's not uncommon to find colonies of up to 75 abandoned cats." "What are the consequences of so many predators?" "Don Chingquina of the Tropical Audubon Society is concerned about the wildlife." "You know parks like these are so important to migrating birds, because when you think about it, these birds fly from as far away as the Yucatan." "They come across the Gulf of Mexico, and they're tired, they're hungry." "They land in a small, confined place like this to replenish and they're greeted by 50 to 100 cats." "It's a recipe for disaster." "Through no fault of their own these felines have stirred a fiery debate." "Kate Rhubee is one of many volunteer feeders who have taken pity on these outcasts." "She, too, knows there's no easy solution." "A lot of people are really concerned about the impact that the homeless cats have on the small birds in the area." "In an ideal world, we wouldn't have people dumping their pets, and the cats wouldn't be outside, and they wouldn't be impacting the wildlife." "But in this cycle of human neglect, it's not just the wildlife that's in jeopardy." "These cats are at the mercy of world-class hurricanes, aggression within the colony and disease." "It's really upsetting to me when someone dumps their pets here, 'cause this is absolutely no life for a cat." "In the last three-and-a-half months, we've had 39 new cats dumped here." "With so many new arrivals, the population is exploding." "Spaying and neutering is critical." "But most of the strays have become so wild, it's impossible to even approach them." "Members of the Cat Network provide the traps, the ingenuity- and the sardines." "Still, there's no guarantee which cats will venture into the traps- if any at all." "Only tomorrow will tell." "Hey, you guys, we got one already." "The night's bounty has been good." "Kate?" "Is this the orange you were looking for?" "Yes, he is." "I'm concerned that he's really sick, looks like he's gonna have AIDS with all of those marks." "Off to the vet you go." "Dr. Ted Sanchez works with the Cat Network at a reduced rate caring for homeless cats." "The rest of the funds come from volunteers like Cindy Hewitt who contribute thousands of dollars each year." "We're going to be taking a little blood test and we're just gonna try to rule out a couple of viral diseases that they commonly get." "It's a male." "And these guys tend to be a little bit more prevalent in the males than the females because they tend to have more sexual contact." "We're just going to take a little blood." "Cats are vulnerable to two lethal viruses." "Feline leukemia and feline AIDS are both highly contagious- and deadly." "It's not a pretty death." "Cindy, I think we may have a positive here." "You can tell here." "We'll see what the test comes out." "But you see the gums?" "They're real, real red." "He's got a pretty good gingivitis here, which is one of the common things we see with feline... plus the fact that he's a male." "So we'll wait." "He's got a couple of variety of skin lesions as well, so he's not in the greatest shape." "He's been eating well, he's not too thin, but this is a bad sign." "It really makes me sad that the animals suffer." "And anytime I have to put a cat down, it really bothers me." "But, if you leave him, then he's gonna infect the others." "It's the right thing to do, unfortunately." "And he'll also have a really miserable death." "If they go through the course of this illness, it's not fair to them." "They suffer too much." "Cats that test negative for disease might be candidates for adoption." "But first they must be spayed or neutered." "I don't think it's the solution to the problem." "But at least we are controlling the population somewhat." "Thousands of cats are being put to sleep every year, needlessly, because owners are just not complying with spaying and neutering." "We have to tell these people that are abandoning cats, this isn't the way to do it." "Spayed and neutered cats have the tips of the ears clipped, to serve as a permanent record." "This kitten has become too wild for adoption." "Once she's recovered from surgery, she'll return to the colony- to face an uncertain future." "You doing alright?" "Alright." "It's a dismal solution for the cats and a precarious one for the wildlife." "Well-fed and spayed, a cat can still hunt." "But where are the thousands of homeless felines to go?" "Until an answer can be found, migrating birds may come face to face with yet another predator." "But it's not just the homeless that hunt." "There are more than 60 million house cats in the U.S. - and many are on the prowl night and day." "What is the impact of these unleashed predators?" "The answer is clear at the Wildlife Center of Virginia." "Dr. Gentz, cat attack coming in from Harrisonburg." "Many of the patients are casualties of ordinary house cats." "We have two injured bunnies." "Most are mangled beyond repair." "Cat attack coming in from..." "Each day brings new drama for Dr. Ned Gentz and his team, as they try to piece together the victims of cat attacks." "Well, I think this one's going to make it... although probably half don't." "Casualties pour into the Wildlife Center night and day." "Pet owners are often shocked to find that their well-fed cats are killers." "Though some have been de-clawed, the attack is often just as gruesome." "This one was injured on it's eye right here." "And it was bleeding this morning." "And this one was injured on his leg..." "...right there." "Oh, you better put it back in." "The hospital recovery room is filled with creatures that fell prey to the claw." "Most require intensive care." "But for every recovering patient... there are four others that didn't make it." "This represents two weeks of cat attack victims brought here to the Wildlife Center of Virginia- the non-survivors." "We probably have an equal number of animals in the intensive care unit still being treated now that we hope will do better than these, but statistically about 80 percent of the cat attack victims that we see here don't survive." "Cats are incredibly efficient hunters and predators." "This poor bunny was effectively disemboweled by the cat that caught it." "Creatures lucky enough to survive an attack face yet another peril." "Cat saliva is almost toxic by itself." "Getting bit by a cat is like injecting poison into a wild animal." "A wild animal with a cat bite that doesn't die from the trauma will die of an infection within 24 to 48 hours." "As a wildlife veterinarian, it's my job to take care of sick and injured wildlife and I like to do that, but this is a waste." "These animals didn't have to die." "If people would keep their pet cats indoors, these animals wouldn't end up in my wildlife hospital." "What's a cat owner to do?" "Just three hours from the Wildlife Center of Virginia, on 25 acres of rolling woodland, lives a cat named Ting Tang II." "Ironically, he lives with a biologist who's specialty is birds." "As a devoted cat owner," "Ruth Beck has been grappling with a personal dilemma." "I specialize in ornithology and I'm very interested in birds." "But I also love cats." "Ting Tang II is a hunter." "It is not the cat's fault, it's what he does and what he does successfully." "He has some basic equipment, just as every hunter would have:" "first of all, you can look at these nice teeth." "And then we have an excellent set of switchblades and they indeed can inflict quite a wound." "C'mon, breakfast." "Ting Tang II is a well-fed cat." "But breakfast never puts a damper on his favorite pastime." "He's an avid bird watcher- and hunter." "Each morning, after a full can of food," "Ting Tang is ready for his favorite sport." "But he has to comply with the rules of the house." "Most bird species feed early in the morning." "So just by not letting him out until 10 or 11 o'clock and for just a few hours mid-afternoon, when the birds are less active... will certainly help to prevent the cat from capturing the birds." "Ruth has found a compromise that gives the cat some freedom, but gives the birds some protection, as well." "Ting Tang II must make the most of his hours in feline paradise." "He is a cat with a curfew." "When day is done, he'll be called indoors." "I think that true cat lovers don't see their pet as killers" "I'd like to see us make everyone aware of the fact that our pets are also predators." "If we come to terms with the fact that our cats do hunt," "the question then becomes:" "How much are they hunting?" "That's just what the British Mammal Society set out to discover when they launched their survey called," ""Look What the Cat Brought In"" "...a bit ghoulish, really." "This is brilliant." "Yes, it's good, isn't it?" "Excellent..." "The Society has found itself buried beneath a mountain of responses." "For Michael Woods, processing the results has been daunting." "C'mon, I can't have you sitting on top of all my work." "Well, I have a very ambivalent relationship with cats." "I love the way that they move and I think they're beautiful animals, but I just hate what they do to the wildlife." "The Society invited the public to register their cats for a five-month period, detailing every creature their kitty dragged home." "The amazing thing is we've had the results from 750 cats, which is a huge amount- and much better than we'd expected." "We've got a lot of them analyzed and it's giving us some really good answers." "And some of them are real big killers, they're some big killer cats out there." "And they're causing quite a lot of mayhem." "Remarkably, almost as you'd expect, the traditional prey of the cat, the mouse, has come out much the highest." "If you extrapolate up to the number of cats we have in Britain, which is around about seven million- and that's just the tame ones the wild ones are on top of that- then we are looking at something around 200,000 mice" "are killed every year by cats." "And then we have voles, and then after that, shrews." "The mice are interesting, because a lot of people think we don't need mice, you know, because they can be a pest and a problem, particularly if they get into the house, but mice are very important," "along with the other small mammals, as prey species for natural predators." "Then, if we turn to the information we've got about cats, we find that a third of them, approximately, wear bells." "Wearing bells seems to make almost no difference at all to the amount of prey that they catch." "They still go out and catch just as much." "And color of cats seems to make a difference." "White cats appear to catch a lot less than some of the other more camouflaged cats, and I guess it's color that does that, particularly at night, if they're hunting at night." "The survey's certainly shown that however much you feed a cat, it makes no difference at all and the cat feeds and is just as likely to start hunting immediately." "Out of 750 cats, one of the biggest killers is Missy, a female cat who lives down in Dorset, and who has killed over seven pages worth of small mammals and birds for us to include in the survey." "So she's a real, you know, wicked thing to have out there." "Knowing her record," "I thought it would be interesting to enter her- and I was really surprised myself when I started to fill in the form and found out how many things she did bring in." "Hilary and Jim Pike have become accustomed to Missy's daily offerings." "For Jim, the rabbits are the worst." "They all start from the skull and eat the head first and all we get left are two ears and four little paws which is not a very nice thing when you come home and it's on the middle of the mat or stuck on the tiles." "There must be some sort of driving force that makes her do it all the time..." "...nothing to do with hunger." "They obviously just do it because they love it." "The spot you see along here, she lays in there in the summer time, and the swallows zip along, come down to along the top of the pond to drink, and she just leaps up and grabs them clean out of the air" "And, you know, just a big snatch, and they're just stunned the moment she's got them." "The two sucker fish that we bought specifically to take out all the algae, within two weeks of us buying them- and they were quite expensive..." "We paid 40 pound for the pair." "And in two weeks they're on the kitchen mat." "We found them on the grass." "So that was a waste of time and money." "Well, I've been collecting what Missy's brought in for the last two weeks, approximately." "So, would you like me" "To show you just a few of the items- or bodies, I should say?" "It was a little bird, I'm afraid." "Just looks to be asleep, but unfortunately, there's one gone." "And then this is one of the many mice we have around here." "This is what Missy's brought in in less than two weeks." "She's quite a hunter." "She's really surprised us on the amount of carnage." "I've got to say that it's really shocked me when we started counting them up." "In the last two weeks she's brought in maybe 30, 36... plus maybe a dozen or so that we've let go." "And I think that's a little bit too much, really." "Well, I'm quite proud to think that she was one of the top cats." "But knowing how much stuff I didn't write down" "Because I wasn't here to see it, um, I think she's actually the top cat." "For many a cat, such extraordinary hunting prowess at one time translated into a ticket to travel the world." "They kept stowaway rats at bay..." "But not all the cats that left port made the long journey home." "Some jumped ship and soon had a foothold in a new frontier" "New Zealand is a unique place." "Like many islands, its wildlife evolved with few natural predators." "Today, rare shore birds still lay their eggs on the sandy beaches- completely exposed." "Attentive parents tend to their chicks, but their nests are vulnerable." "Until recently, the system worked fine." "But today, New Zealand's shore birds are in trouble." "Here at Mangawhai Wildlife Refuge, the fairy tern is down to less than six breeding pairs." "Each chick represents the future of the species." "With the Department of Conservation," "Richard Parrish and Leigh Honnor are part of a team trying to save the last of the fairy terns- and Mangawhai's other threatened species." "Five years ago, they found themselves confronted with a mystery:" "Something was killing the chicks- and no one knew what." "The team had to do a little undercover work." "One year we lost a lot of nests of the fairy terns and we didn't know who was doing it, so we decided to set up an infrared camera" "24 hours a day on the nests- and try and work out who was taking the eggs and the chicks" "The new lens is good, isn't it?" "The wide-eyed angle lens..." "Oh, it is." "...taking in a much bigger field of view." "Well, those chicks will probably stay here another day." "You think so?" "Initially, we set it up on a Caspian tern colony, just to get used to the equipment and iron out the problems." "What they discovered was both alarming... . and macabre." "We ended up catching a cat on film, and over four nights, that cat took out 40 chicks." "The interesting thing for me was that the cat only ate the heads." "They left the bodies behind." "Over the next four years, they trained the camera on various nests and found more gruesome evidence against the alien predator." "As a result, feral cats are now being eradicated in Mangawhai Park." "New Zealand is just one example of what can happen when a cat comes to stay." "Here, in a land where temperatures can soar to 120 and there's often no water in sight, it's hard to imagine any creature surviving for long... but the cat has adapted once again." "In the middle of Australia's Outback, it must eat whatever it can find- be it road kill or Australia's endangered wildlife." "Bilbies, bandicoots, and other rare marsupials have been pushed to the edge of extinction by a barrage of pressures, including introduced species." "One of the culprits is the cat." "For at least a century, feral cats have roamed this harsh expanse." "And yet they remain elusive..." "...even to those whose ancestors were here long before them." "In an effort to unlock their secrets," "Parks and Wildlife biologist Rachel Paltridge has enlisted the help of experts." "Searching for a cat in the Outback is like looking for a needle in a haystack." "Yet these Aboriginal trackers are able to read even the most elusive signs in the shadows of the sand." "So the pussy cat, him sitting down, jumping here, jumped there, jumped there, and over there..." "With their extraordinary expertise," "Rachel has begun to unravel the secrets of the cat" "Where's that pussy cat now- long ways?" "Must be a long ways off." "With their greater insight, she hopes that, someday, cat numbers will be controlled." "They're a pretty amazing animal you have to respect them." "But they just don't belong out here." "They didn't evolve out here." "The native animals didn't evolve with them and just can't really tolerate their predation." "Hopefully, this work will lead to a better understanding of feral cats and eventually lead to better management." "To reveal the patterns of these elusive predators," "Rachel uses radio telemetry, tracking individual cats over time." "Finding them is only half the challenge." "Feral cats are as ferocious as any wild animal." "Before handling one," "Rachel must first anesthetize it." "Cat bites are not only dangerous to prey, they can infect humans as well." "We caught this cat about four months ago, using the Aboriginal trackers to catch it, and radio collared it, and we've been following its movement patterns in those last four months." "This cat normally only roams over about two or three kilometers a day and he has a fairly tight home range that he lives in." "He's lost about 300 grams in the last four months." "I don't know if its maybe times are getting a bit tough there may be a bit less food around." "I just wanted to check that his collar was still okay and not rubbing on his neck and just check his general condition." "But he's fine, so we'll just let him go here and continue tracking him." "Any cats that are not part of Rachel's study might find another fate awaits them." "It is a twist of irony:" "the cat has helped push much of the Aborigine's traditional food prey to near extinction." "In doing so, it now fills an important niche itself." "Like a game of cat and mouse- in this scenario, it is the cat that has become the mouse." "Going to cook this one up for supper tonight?" "Yeah." "Good meat." "These people have been eating cats all their lives and it's quite an important part of their diet" "So they'll probably cook it up on the fire tonight." "Good bush meat?" "Yeah." "Now that the bilbies, bandicoots and other medium-sized mammals have all but disappeared, the cat has taken a place in the food chain." "Back at camp," "Rachel collects as much information as possible before the cat becomes dinner for the trackers" "I'm trying to look at the predation pressure on all the wildlife out there in the Spinnefex Grasslands and I'm looking at gut contents as probably the best way of understanding what they eat." "This cat was obviously a very good hunter." "You can see quite plainly each object's quite intact still." "What's this one, snake?" "He's got a little snake in here." "Well, there's heaps in his stomach." "There's three different sorts of lizards, three of these military dragons, one quite large..." "and there's also some remains of some bird feathers." "So you can just see how much of an impact they're probably having on the native wildlife out there if just each cat eats that much in just one day." "Ideally, we'd like to get rid of them altogether and see the native animals that have declined severely returned to their original status out here." "Until the cat is better understood, it will remain a fixture in the Outback." "It has worked its way into the food chain, for better or worse." "There is a new order here in the heart of Australia and it's not a kind one for the wildlife or the cat." "The cat wars are raging throughout Australia." "Halfway across the continent, there's a new chapter unfolding" "On 160,000 acres of land, a wire fence stretches as far as the eye can see." "Why would anyone put up a 150-mile fence in the middle of the Australian Outback?" "The world has lost 40 species of mammal over the last 200 years;" "23 of those were Australian." "At present, about one a year we're losing and that's just not acceptable." "John Wamsley is a self- made millionaire- and rabid conservationist." "Considered controversial by many, his passion for native wildlife has fueled his ire against the cat." "Let's talk about cats." "This is a feral cat..." "they came to Australia about 500 years ago, probably with the early shipwrecks off the West Australian coast, but they couldn't cross" "Australia until the rabbit came." "The rabbit came late 1800s, and that allowed the cat to cross Australia, and that's when the devastation started." "I love Australia and I love the Australian wildlife." "I've taken on the job of saving them and I am going to save them." "It's as simple as that." "For over a decade," "Wamsley has bred endangered species in captivity to insure that Australia's unique creatures don't slip away." "We're an island." "We had no serious predators and all these incredible creatures evolved..." "little marsupials, most of them and they evolved to do wonderful things." "We've got banded anteaters with fluffy tails." "We've got kangaroos that burrow in the ground like rabbits." "And we're losing them." "We've got the bilbie that looks just like a cartoon character" "The world would love to see our animals, but they can't, because they're all going." "Wamsley's dream to create a safe haven for native creatures is getting closer all the time." "But fencing in habitat is only half the battle." "Before endangered wildlife can be released, the enclosure will have to be free of introduced species." "This fence is all about cats and rabbits." "It puts a pretty big boot in it." "It's a massive charge and it's like getting hit in the middle of the back with a sledge hammer." "When a cat touches that fence once, it doesn't come back." "On the other hand, we don't want to stop the big kangaroos, the wildlife that already live here, we don't want to stop them with this fence." "And this fence is designed to let them through." "The kangaroos just hop through." "What we're going to do here, is we're now watering the cats." "The cats have plenty of water here." "And on the hottest day in summer, when we get there in February when all the rabbits are gone we're gonna cut off their water." "There'll be water outside the fence." "They'll come over the fence to get the water." "They won't be able to get back in again." "For the cats and rabbits that don't take the bait," "Wamsley called in an expert." "I guess Adam O'Neil is the real live Crocodile Dundee." "He understands animals and the bush better than anybody else" "I've ever met." "He's probably the best shot that I've ever seen." "He can knock over a rabbit at 500 meters without any trouble." "Yeah, he's got the job of getting rid of the cats and the rabbits." "Well, I love the cat along with every other animal on this planet." "They're not exactly calculating and malicious with intent." "They're just out there acting on their instincts to survive." "It's just unfortunate the way things have panned out" "I suppose." "But they've obviously got to go from this environment." "Once again, the cat has been caught in the crossfire." "If you walk down the street with this cat hat on, then you are noticed." "I can guarantee you that." "Some people might try and ignore you, and they'll have different things to say to you, but you'll be noticed by everyone." "Here at CATS, Incorporated, we say, "No dead cats for hats."" "Right, Nippy?" "Not everyone approves of Wamsley's approach." "At the other end of the spectrum is Christine Pierson, the president of CATS, Incorporated." "She is dedicated to the care of strays and the control of cat numbers through sterilization." "Killing cats- or trying to get rid of the cats- is achieving nothing." "Christine Pierson has her own theories about the cat crisis." "If you leave the birds and the animals alone, they have a natural balance between them." "But the trouble is that people come along and they upset the natural balance and they stuff everything up." "And so the cat wars continue to rage." "Where does the solution lie?" "Perhaps it begins in our own backyards." "In the Adelaide Hills, there is a cat whose lifestyle changed a few years back." "Owner Christine Colyer is a bird lover who's found an unusual solution for her beloved cat." "Diddles is a happy cat." "The more comfortable she is, the happier she is the further out that tongue will hang." "She is the most beautiful cat in the world." "We just don't think that there's another one like her." "Nestled in this garden of Eden," "Diddles has the run of the house- and access to an open cat flap... 24 hours a day." "The world outside for Diddles is a labyrinth of bridges and tunnels- a playground for cats." "We have what we call a London Bridge, which Diddles just loves to run from one side to the other up and over and down." "It's not a cage." "And that's the beauty of it." "The garden is full of birds- be it the [...pigeons, the red finches, rosillas, the cockatoos] that fly in." "They will graze directly around the cat units." "It's lovely to see the birds coming around so close." "It certainly is peace of mind for me to know where Diddles is, that she is safe and that she can go outside and enjoy life just as normal, but she is protected." "And so are the birds." "Back in Virginia, another cat is yielding to domestication." "Ting Tang!" "Time to come in." "Ting Tang II's moment in the sun has come to an end." "You know the rules." "C'mon in now." "It's curfew time." "Good boy." "Yes, it's time to come on in." "Until tomorrow, there will be one less cat on the prowl." "Through the millennia, cats have found their way into our hearts and our homes." "Mama, Mama, Mama, Mom, Mama, look what I found." "Can I keep him, please, please?" "But has our passion for these creatures also blinded us to their natural instincts?" "Has domestication gone awry?" "With cat numbers on the rise," "Felis catus is getting away with murder." "Well-fed and sheltered, these predators are gaining a competitive edge- against which few creatures can contend." "Most simply can't compete with the extraordinary cat." "In the time it's taken to watch this film, cats in the U.S. have caught as many as 100,000 mammals and over 30,000 birds." "As for Missy, last month she caught five rabbits, 17 shrews, 11 mice and seven birds." "Nine more cats were dumped in the Miami Park." "Neut celebrated another birthday." "Diddles communed with the cockatoos." "And Ting Tang II broke his curfew twice." "It's 9 p.m." "Do you know where your kitty is?" "He gives us his all." "Speed." "Endurance." "Power." "Yet his wild spirit burns bright." "Spark of ancient myth... pride of king and conqueror he was the backbone of civilization." "History was forged to the beat of his hooves." "Even now, he still lays claim to the heart" " with all the bold beauty that is the horse." "Summer sets off fireworks in the mountains of southern Montana." "Spurred by heat and hunger, wild horses converge on the cool green heights, and sparks begin to fly." "Stallions spar and court young mares in a drama as old as the hills." "The mustang has become a symbol of the American West." "But some say he's a newcomer to these parts, even a trespasser." "The truth is tangled in the long and winding history of his kind." "It began some 60 million years ago, in the forests of North America." "Living on leaves, a creature the size of a fox walks the underbrush on padded toes." "In time, forests give way to grassy plains." "Legs grow long, and toes become nimble hooves in a body built for speed." "About a million years ago, the first true horses spread across land bridges to Asia and Europe." "Their numbers swell, then slowly decline perhaps due to climate change, or the impact of a two-legged predator." "To Ice Age hunters, the herds must have seemed inexhaustible." "But by 8,000 years ago, horses were extinct in the Americas and dwindling elsewhere into memory and myth." "Then somewhere on the steppes of Eurasia, at least 4,000 years ago, the horse inspired someone as more than just a meal." "It may have begun as a shaman's ritual, or a reckless teenage prank." "But some brave soul took a quantum leap and changed the world forever." "The horse utterly changed our sense of distance and speed." "He carried us forward in space and time, and made our world smaller." "Great equestrian cultures arose and thundered across antiquity" "Today, most have vanished." "But here on the steppes of Mongolia, little has changed since the time when the horse became a way of life." "Nomads still measure their wealth in livestock and move vast herds with the seasons." "Small but hardy," "Mongolian horses endure a harsh climate, and grow a thick winter coat." "When pasture is meager, they can survive on very little." "Mongolian nomads also herd sheep, goats and cows, but horses are their greatest pride." "Revered, they are largely reserved for riding and one other important role." "Mongolia's national drink, called airag, is fermented mare's milk." "Life in the saddle begins early in keeping with a local proverb:" ""A Mongolian without a horse is like a bird without wings."" "In July, thousands of nomads set up camp on the edge of the capital city," "Ulan Bator." "They come to celebrate Naadam, an ancient religious festival." "National competitions of traditional sports are held, including two days of horse racing." "One of the country's top horse breeders," "Khen Medekh traveled over a week to take part in what will be his 30th Naadam." "From a herd of 400 head, he has brought his 12 fastest horses." "Also in tow are his grandchildren for good reason." "Riders must be under 12 to compete at Naadam." "Training, however, is no child's play." "It's what Khen Medekh lives for" "Horse training is a passion." "My father was a great trainer and he passed that on to me." "It's the same for most Mongolian people." "We compete at Naadam to see who has the best horse, and because we're so proud of our horses." "A fine racehorse is a symbol of good luck and happiness." "On the day of the first race, preparations begin at dawn." "Hats and bright silks will help families spot their little jockeys at a distance." "The distinguishing mark of a racehorse is a leather tail wrap always wound clockwise." "Forelocks are also bound." "Khen Medekh enhances the look with a charm bearing Mongolia's national emblem." "He has high hopes for this young stallion." "With an offering of mare's milk" "Khen Medekh's wife invokes the sacred powers of nature to bless horses and riders." "A circle of incense purifies." "A drop of airag protects from harm." "An ancient Buddhist chant rings out for luck." "Some 500 riders will compete in the first race." "Parents on horseback swell their ranks." "By tradition, they circle clockwise at a staging area near the finish line." "But the running of the race is not yet at hand." "The starting point lies more than 15 miles away in the open steppe." "To reach that point at a walk will take the racers some three hours which leaves time to kill for everyone else." "Nomads like Khen Medekh take the moment to catch up with old friends and trading partners." "For people who live much of the year in relative isolation, there's also the irresistible allure of new faces." "For now, small talk belies the drama that's erupting miles away, as 500 horses reach the starting point and the race begins." "Long before they can see the racers, spectators crowd the finish line." "According to myth, the dust kicked up by winning horses showers happiness and prosperity on all those it touches." "Front-runners have been galloping for nearly 30 minutes" "By Western standards, this might qualify as an extreme sport but these are the descendants of Genghis Khan, who forged the largest land empire ever known on horseback." "The blue sash of victory goes to the first five horses" "A flash of green tells Khen Medekh his granddaughter has placed." "But a riderless horse sends him off in search of his youngest grandson." "After an initial flurry, racers trickle in for another hour." "Herd instinct alone will keep a horse going even one that lacks the fitness and conditioning required for a long-distance run." "For some, the strain is too much." "When a horse dies on the racetrack, the trainer is dishonored." "But the child who has lost a beloved pet reaps only heartbreak." "A fall near the starting point dashed the hopes of Khen Medekh's grandson." "His horse is safe, his bruises minor." "But his six-year-old pride will sting until the races are over." "Naadam concludes in the National Stadium, with a parade of champions." "Khen Medekh is twice a winner." "His grandchildren take two of his horses through their victory laps." "A herald sings the praises of the winning horses;" "medals and mare's milk do them honor." "But for each little rider, the highlight is a kiss from the President of Mongolia." "No other nation makes more of the horse." "Fiery steed, faithful servant, he is all good things to the Mongolian people." "In return, they may succeed in saving the last truly wild horse on earth" "Before the rise of civilization, his kind ranged throughout Asia and Europe." "Alert and aggressive, they were elusive prey with their camouflage of tawny coat, their upright, two-toned mane." "These horses were already rare in 1878, when Russian explorer" "Nikolai Przewalski returned from Mongolia." "He carried a skull and hide that would prompt the announcement of a new species." "In a race for specimens, stallions were slaughtered to subdue mares." "Mares were killed to secure foals." "Dozens died en route to zoos and animal collectors in the West." "Przewalski's horses were last sighted in the wild in the 1960s." "A decade later, fewer than 300 survived in captivity only." "This endangered species was declared extinct in the wild." "In 1992, 16 Przewalski's horses from European reserves touched down in Ulan Bator." "Their journey was the crowning achievement of Dutch conservationists and Mongolian authorities." "Transports were blessed with mare's milk as the horses arrived at a nature reserve established in their honor." "The homecoming delighted local people." "Their name for the horses is takhi." "The word also means spirit." "Today, some 80 free spirits roam 120,000 acres under watchful eyes." "Park rangers closely track the animals' health and behavior." "Breeding success is high:" "two generations have been born in the reserve." "To increase the gene pool, horses are still brought in from the west." "But prospects for self-sustaining population are promising." "Mongolia's preservation of the takhi seems a fitting tribute to an animal who has given us so much." "Domesticated, the horse revolutionized our world but in the process, he was also transformed." "The legendary Arab is just one of more than 150 breeds some honed for work, some for sport, others for sheer show." "The Spanish horse boasts one of the oldest pedigrees." "His speed and stamina were praised by the Romans." "The famous Spanish Riding School in Vienna was founded in his name." "A dancer's grace made him a favorite of monarchs, and earned him the title:" ""Royal Horse of Europe."" "Today, he inspires a new generation at the Royal Andulusian School of Equestrian Art in the town of Jerez, in southern Spain." "Few gain admission here:" "only first-rate horses, trainers and students." "A strict curriculum has produced several Olympic competitors." "The school also keeps tradition alive." "Once a week, the public is invited in, to enjoy the splendors of another age." "In 18th century costume, riders recreate the height of classical horsemanship, as it was practiced throughout the courts of Europe." "Most spectacular are the "airs above the ground."" "Horses naturally leap and kick when fighting." "Centuries ago, cavalry mounts were trained to perform these moves in battle." "Eventually each gesture became an end in itself as formal as ballet." "A supreme effort," "virtually in place" "Few can perform this exacting dance with the power and precision of the Spanish horse." "The purity of the breed is proudly protected in Spain, yet his bloodlines extend far and wide for this was the horse who once conquered a new world." "Some 500 years ago," "Spanish explorers rode upon the shores of the Americas." "Some native people mistook man and mount for a single fearsome creature" "But soon, they would make the horse their own." "Through stealth and trade," "Native Americans embraced the horse." "It was said" ""they came to each other like long lost brothers."" "Some called him "Sky Dog."" "He opened vast horizons in this life, and haunted their visions of the afterlife." "But this cult of the horse would not last." "By the 19th century," "Native Americans had been robbed of land and livelihood." "Their beloved Sky Dogs were shot, or simply set loose." "Scores of Indian ponies joined strays and runaways already thriving in the wilderness." "By 1900, over a million horses roamed the American West." "But not for long." "To make way for cattle and sheep, public lands were cleared of animals considered worthless pests." "They were slaughtered by the thousands for pet food, fertilizer, and mere sport." "In the 1950s, public outcry denounced the abuses." "Still, numbers had dropped below 20,000 by 1971, when a federal law was finally passed to protect the wild horse as a "living symbol of the pioneer spirit of the West."" "Today, the Bureau of Land Management oversees some 45,000 horses on public lands in 10 states." "On the Montana-Wyoming border, the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range is home to a herd of about 160" "Most live in small family groups of several mares, their foals and a single dominant stallion" "His role is to guard his "harem"" "and protect his growing offspring." "This stallion, known as Raven, is one of the most dominant on the range." "A heap of fresh droppings called a "stud pile"" "alerts him that potential rivals may be in the vicinity." "A band of young bachelor stallions prompts Raven to move his family to a safe distance." "Then he advances on the intruders and confrontation becomes inevitable." "Raven may be outnumbered, but at ten years old, his maturity and experience give him the advantage." "As he enters the fray, his band stays put on the sidelines." "Most clashes between stallions are more about asserting rank than inflicting harm, and serious injuries are rare." "In the end, the bachelors move on unscathed but chastened, and Raven returns to his mares" "Occasionally, even mature stallions form alliances." "A stud named Starman acts as a subordinate or "lieutenant stallion" to Flash, who has a mare and foal of his own." "Flash tolerates Starman's presence, but allows him no access to his lone mare." "In summer, a waterhole fed by melting snow banks attracts this small band." "The mare enjoys a soothing mud bath, while her three-month old foal plays with the idea." "But for now, the water holds no appeal for Flash's lieutenant stallion." "Starman picks up the scent of another mare, and sets off in hot pursuit." "The mare's yearling son tries to intercept Starman, but fails to impress such a mature stallion." "This mare's own stallion must be just out of sight a boon for Starman." "Still, she rejects his advances." "In the end, she gets away, and Starman can only observe the tactics of more successful suitor." "At times, the Pryor Mountains seem heaven-on-earth for horses." "Though much of the terrain is arid and winters are harsh, summer pastures can be glorious" "The horses have few predators to fear:" "most were eliminated by ranching and land development." "With high fertility rates, the horses' numbers can increase by 10, even 20 percent a year." "And that means trouble in paradise." "In the last three decades, the Bureau of Land Management has removed more than 100,000 wild horses from the range." "The round ups are intended to protect public lands from overgrazing and ensure the health of the herds." "Excess animals are placed in adoption programs, but supply far exceeds public demand." "Horses deemed "unadoptable"" "live out their days in holding pens." "Even now, the fate of America's wild horses remains an open-ended question" "Some 4,000 years of domestication have failed to deprive the horse of his wild instincts." "His natural impulse is to flee the company of humans." "Bryan Neubert makes a living, not "breaking"" "but-in his words- "starting" wild or green horses" "This two-year-old quarter horse stud, born on the open range, has never been handled." "On his ranch in northern California," "Bryan is about to make first contact." "Bryan will chase the horse until he turns to face his pursuer." "The goal is capture the animal's attention and keep it." "I'll ask again now." "Good." "Now let's see if he leaves with the hindquarters or if he leaves with the whole horse." "See, here's the... the first little part is gonna happen here in just a second, I think." "Subtle shifts of body language keep the horse focused on Bryan." "If his attention wanders," "I might see if I can get another step closer." "As long as he's doing that, I'll just let that soak in." "I'll take another step." "And I'll take another one here" "He's having trouble with it, but he's trying." "He's gonna have to leave here pretty soon." "And I'll try to direct him back" "There, he adjusted in the rear quarters, that's what I'm gonna need here." "Within about 15 minutes, the young stallion has mastered the maneuver." "Now Bryan presents a new challenge." "I might do just a little swinging here and see if he can stand that." "And I'll see about, see if I can put that on there without hitting him in the face" "And I'll just, as I come forward, just let that go." "And it's kinda scary." "You can see that it's troubling to him a little." "I'll just put just a little pressure till, till he finds his way toward me" "See, he keeps thinking his answer is out of here, but the answer's right there." "The horse turns to Bryan for reassurance a critical breakthrough." "Now he might reach for me." "Let's see if, he'll come in here." "I'll see if I can get another half a step without scaring him." "See how he's reaching for me?" "Now here's a spot where you want to watch their ears, 'cause some of them, they'll take a run at you." "Now, I'll just wait here till he reaches." "Like that." "See him smelling me?" "There's the first, second time he's ever been touched by a human or he touched a human, I guess" "Now, again, let's see if this head shaking will disappear." "I'll just keep a little tension there, and I'll see if he'll reach for me." "And pretty soon I'll reach for him, like right there." "We sorta met one another." "Little bit of touching there." "Little bit more here." "See, he's finding out he can touch me and reach for me now." "In a horse, there's a spot in there where they can just turn loose emotionally." "You can see in their eye and their face a change that comes over them and they'll begin to drop their head and their eyes'll soften and you can just see that they're beginning to trust you and then you can" "move right on and really advance then." "I'll get my weight shifted back" "He's feeling a whole lot better about things now, he's finding out I can touch him and he won't get hurt." "Less than half an hour after the first touch," "Bryan tests the saddle." "Very important to swing this on so that it doesn't hit him." "I'll just grab it, gradually just lays right over on their back like that." "I don't mind seeing one buck with the saddle, because being a prey animal, that's his responsibility to not let anything stay up there" "That's where the predator has the best advantage." "If he can get above and stay with him, then he can have himself a meal." "Pretty dreamy now, but we'll see what he's like when he feels that saddle on there" "I'd rather he test the saddle before I get on than after I got up there." "Now I'm gonna move him off, but ever so softly, if I can." "I'm not trying to make him buck." "Okay, maybe I'll give him a little consoling." "Did you get scared?" "It's been less than two hours since Bryan began work a fairly routine "first session"." "He'll leave the saddle in place for a few more hours, then give the young stallion a well-earned rest until morning." "Yesterday's fear gives way to recognition and trust." "Today will be another turning point." "Social animals feel safest in a group." "As a comfort to the young stallion," "Bryan has corralled several other horses." "See, if he wiggles," "I'll just wait here till he stands put." "Pet him over here as if it was my leg and maybe... get myself kinda set here before he gets untracked." "Might let him go right out that way." "And I'll just ask him to go." "If he gets upset, if he gets scared, wants to run, I'll just try to go with him." "People ask me about this new way of working with horses." "Far as I know, it's been around as long as there's been horses and men interacting with one another." "I don't know how the first man could ever get on the horse for the first time without having something working for him." "I'll get a little bolder as he gets a little more" "confidence." "I'll ask him here to come back to me with this rein a little, and he did." "The young stallion's first ride lasts no more than 15 minutes and prompts a simple reward." "Hey kid." "This just kinda soothes them sometimes, give them a little hugging." "This is a place where they, a lot of them just can't stand to have you that close." "And if you can show them that it's okay to be this close, why it's a real relaxing, soothing kind of thing." "They really have to trust ya." "By day three, it's time to abandon the security of the corral." "A whole new life is beginning for the young stallion." "He's gettin' so he trusts me a whole lot more today," "I see." "And Bryan is left to ponder an age-old mystery about the nature of horses." "I often wonder:" "How in the world would they allow somebody to get up on their back and guide them around?" "They'll take us miles and miles till they're totally, you know, tired." "Pull wagons and pack loads and all kinds of things, when actually they could kick us or hurt us or buck us off any time." "And yet they'll just work their hearts out for us, if it's presented to them in a way that they can understand" "Pretty special animal, really." "Special, indeed." "No more than 60 years before the first moon landing, the world was driven by horse power." "Every sector of the economy relied on him:" "transport and trade, industry and agriculture." "No creature served us better in the building of civilization or its occasional overthrow." "For millennia, the warhorse prevailed in battle." "If not for a horse, would Alexander have been great?" "Who can imagine Attila the Hun or Napoleon on foot?" "Over a million horses served in World War I." "Nearly a third died." "In World War II, tens of thousands perished in a battle of bullets and bombs." "The Age of Horsepower was over" "And yet there are more horses in the world today than during the 1800s some 62 million." "In an Age of Technology, perhaps we yearn all the more for the touch of something wild" "The horse is no longer changing our world." "But he can still change lives one at a time." "In central Georgia," "Carol Wooley has loved horses since she was a child." "In 1995, a friend told her about an old school horse who had seen better days as a fox hunter and jumper." "His name was Carousel, and he needed a home." "Carousel was in his mid to late 20s, a little lame, in fact,100 pounds over weight." "He was a little swayback, just a good quiet lesson pony" "Carol took good care of him." "Local children rode him." "Soon" "Carousel was a favorite." "In 1996, two weeks after the summer Olympic Games, the Paralympics came to Atlanta" "Some 3,500 athletes attended." "For the first time, equestrian events were included" "Sixteen nations sent teams." "It was up to event organizers to provide horses for 62 athletes with a wide range of disabilities." "Each would be judged on precision, smoothness, and harmony of horse and rider, while performing a set pattern in the arena." "A call went out to horse owners for calm, well-trained mounts." "Carol Wooley volunteered two of her younger horses, but Games Officials were desperate for more." "She thought twice then sent for old Carousel as well." "After a check-up, he was quickly put to the test" "And later in the day they called him for Denmark, and I met Brita Anderson who's a very small woman in a wheelchair, and I thought to myself," ""There's no way she is going to ride this pony."" "She spoke English quite well, and I asked her, "Have you ever fallen off a horse?"" "And she smiled and looked at me and says," ""Many times."" "Far from falling, on the day of competition," "Brita and Carousel took Carol by surprise." "Brita and Carousel made a connection." "He knew exactly what she wanted and she knew how to get the most out of him." "And he loved her." "I'm still not sure how she did it, but they just were a perfect match." "The judges agreed." "The pair took first place in their division, and received the highest score of all the competitors." "From Denmark," "Brita Anderson riding Midland's Carousel, owned by Carol Wooley." "When they won the gold medal, it was this little pony and a horse trainer from no where and a world-class rider, and the thought that they actually won that gold and they earned it, it was probably one of the high points in my life." "By the time she returned home," "Carol had decided to start a therapeutic riding school." "Horseback riding can improve balance and muscle tone, as well as a sense of independence and self-esteem in people with all sorts of disabilities." "For Carol there's no greater reward than to see someone like 13-year-old Sara take her first ride." "You're riding, kid!" "You're riding!" "When you take a child out of a wheelchair and put him on a horse, he's immediately taller." "The walk of a horse mimics the same movement you get to actually walk on your own legs, it gives them freedom of mobility, it gives them control over something that they may have never known before." "They can control where they're going." "Carol runs the school on grants, donations and volunteers." "And Carousel heads her fleet of gentle horses past their prime." "In August of 1998, at a regional show for riders with disabilities," "Carol decides to send Carousel into the arena one last time." "Nine-year-old Shawn Donalson, one of Carol's top students, has never competed before." "It's a breathless moment for his parents." "Make the old man proud." "He's got a good horse." "Knows what to do." "Young boy and old horse are picture-perfect, and take a blue ribbon." "In first place," "Shawn Donalson." "A first for Shawn, a final trophy for Carousel." "The competition concludes with a ceremony." "As a symbol of retirement," "Carol removes the saddle from a little horse of unknown breeding who has meant so much to so many." "To him go the full laurels of a champion." "He was quite calm and stood through everything." "He half way, I think, understood that we were doing an honor to him." "I was a little surprised that he didn't mind us putting flowers on him." "He acted like, well, those were his flowers." "This was fine." "I think, he enjoyed it really." "He wasn't just an old sway backed horse with a gray face." "He was everybody's dream of a horse." "He served everyone that's ever owned him, every place he's been." "He's done everything we've asked him to do all of his life." "To me, he symbolizes all the horses that have worked hard all their lives and have given us so much pleasure." "He's a fairly tale of a horse" "But there's probably thousands of them out there just like him." "I guess he's the poster child for all of them." "For all they have done for us, for all that they are, may they always have green pastures each and every one." "Once we saw them as gods these soaring spirits of the sea." "How else to explain their boundless grace and energy, the way they inspire our joy." "Today, dolphins seem like part of the family." "They enchant us with their willingness to please and perform." "But the dolphin's true home - the sea is an alien world and here a different side emerges." "Cunning, powerful and relentless, dolphins are consummate predators." "They are social creatures that communicate and cooperate for danger can strike from anywhere." "The quest for prey, the quest for mates, nothing comes easy out here." "For the ocean is as unforgiving as it is boundless." "Join us as we explore the world of dolphins in the wild." "In the salt marshes of South Carolina is a rich ocean estuary a nursery for fish and shellfish and a lure for all kinds of predators." "Every day as the tide ebbs, the broad mud banks become exposed." "It is then an extraordinary event occurs." "Seabirds vie for a front row position." "They have an intense interest in what is to come." "The predators regroup for another coordinated attack." "These are bottlenose dolphins among the most inventive and intelligent hunters in the sea." "Here they locate schools of small fish in the turbid channels." "Then in a stunning maneuver, they rush up the mudflats creating a bow wave that drives the fish ashore." "Using their excellent above-water vision, they snatch up the fish stranded on the banks." "How dolphins locate the schools of fish and coordinate their attack is not entirely known" "They may use either audible or visual signals" "For some reason the dolphins always rush up the banks on their right side" "Over time the teeth on that side will actually be worn down from chewing as much mud as fish" "Occasionally they will work themselves completely out of the water" "Being stranded up here could be fatal" "As they shimmy up the mud banks it's almost as if they're evolving into the land creatures they once were" "Some fifty million years ago the ancestors of these air-breathing mammals ventured into the seas" "To follow dolphins in the wild is to discover one of the most remarkable adaptations in the natural world" "They use their intelligence to survive changing or inventing strategies to suit their environment" "Spinner dolphins leap in what appears to a display of exuberance" "In fact, they may be signaling others to join them, or coordinating movements of the pod..." "A kind of long distance communication." "At close range, dolphins "speak" through clicks and whistles." "These signals can mean anything from" ""Food's over here" to "Watch out!" "There's danger!"" "They also communicate through touching." "Dolphins are notoriously affectionate and extremely sensuous." "When dolphins mate, they swim in rhythm with the female on top." "Sex is as frequent as it is casual." "It's not always for reproduction" "Often it's a social tool used to strengthen and maintain bonds" "Whether old or young male or female - all dolphins engage in caressing and petting" "But beneath this veneer of harmony lies a darker side..." "marked by conflict and violence" "Surprisingly the beloved bottlenose we know as "Flipper" may be the most aggressive dolphin species" "In the Bahamas two male bottlenose harass a male spotted dolphin" "At first the interaction seems harmless enough but it quickly escalates" "The bottlenose take turns assaulting the spotted perhaps to assert their dominance" "Next they turn on a spotted dolphin half their size" "It's only a calf" "Bottlenose are among the very few wild creatures that will kill for reasons other than hunger" "Swimming in formation a group of adult spotteds rush in to intercede" "In the flurry of threats the calf escapes to the surface" "Bottlenose are even more prone to clashing with members of their own species" "These males in the Bahamas bear many scars including those from fierce battles" "A first sign of impending trouble is "jaw clapping"" "a clear audible threat" "When fights break out they're marked by head ramming biting and blows from powerful flukes" "Many dolphins have evolved their own sometimes brutal aspects of society" "Shark Bay in Western Australia where vast sea grass beds support a large community of bottlenose dolphins" "Here an international team of scientists investigates dolphin aggression" "The waters of Shark Bay are in the throes of what appears to be a gang fight" "Groups of males are observed chasing down other males" "It can go on for hours and cover miles of territory" "The battles are over females part of an extremely complex social system only now being unraveled by Dr. Richard Connor from the University of Massachusetts" "He's spent his professional life studying dolphins in the wild" "And his work has changed our image of the dolphin" "I think in the 1960's the myth was generated that dolphins were all sweetness and light" "And almost incapable of aggression" "At least that was the public perception carried on a large part until today" "Dolphins are capable of a lot of aggression" "They can be quite nasty depending on the circumstance" "They are complex intelligent social mammals and that carries with it a range of behaviors from the nice to the not so nice" "Just like in our own species" "And like our own species dolphins are highly individualistic" "To study their relationships" "Connor needs to clearly recognize individuals" "He does this by their unique fin markings" "He's studied them in Shark Bay since 1982 and he knows over three hundred dolphins by name" "and Minnie right there between them." "And here comes Bad Ghost and Poltergeist." "There's Wow resting at the surface." "There's Myrtle, there's Hobo." "Xxx and Horton?" "Beautiful, look at that!" "All together." "Connor is especially intrigued by relationships between the males" "To him, it's like cracking the code of a secret society" "They follow a mature male with a jagged dorsal fin named "Bottom Hook"" "He's usually observed swimming with another male called "Pointer"" "They're almost inseparable forming what Connor calls an alliance" "Some of these alliances last for a dozen years or more" "Today a female is seen swimming between them as if she's being herded" "In fact, she is their captive" "They guard her night and day" "Very rarely do you see the female off to the side from the males" "They like to keep her between them" "That basically eliminates avenues of escape for her" "We've seen them keep females for over a month at a time" "Bottomhook and Pointer are vigilant" "Their strategy is to keep her from mating with other males" "To limit the female's choice to themselves" "We've often seen the males use a lot of aggression to keep the female with them." "Even so, it's likely that the female wants to mate with these males as well as other males in the bay" "The males are trying to sequester the female simply to increase the chance that they will be the father of the offspring" "Eventually, the hungry males must break formation to feed" "Pointer races off to chase a fish" "It's a risky move because in the confusion the female may try to escape" "One male will be close to the female for a while" "The other will be off foraging catching fish" "And then they'll switch." "And the one that was off chasing fish will come back and stay close to the female" "Now here Pointer is rushing back towards her now" "As Pointer resumes guard duty" "he warns the female with a popping sound" "It means: "stay close"" "For other male alliances are prowling the bay in search of females to capture and they'll kidnap them from rivals" "But not without help" "Connor found that different alliances will join forces to kidnap females or to defend against attacks" "Some of these groups have joined together to form a nearly invincible super-alliance" "It consists of fourteen males and their captive females" "Unique in the animal kingdom" "Connor calls them the "wow crowd"" "We suspect from what we can see the "wow crowd" seems to dominate interactions in this area" "Probably by being in such a large group they are able to defeat other alliances" "But we suspect that the way they're always changing partners is required to maintain friendly bonds within the group" "They have to take turns cooperating with each other to sort of keep things on a friendly basis between all the alliances" "Maintaining relations in such a large group is a delicate proposition" "But the pay-off is clear" "Like a fierce tribe the "wow crowd" dominates other alliances and can aggressively pursue its goal of capturing females" "It's easy to lose sight of the females' role in all this" "In fact, she is the motivating force behind much of this Machiavellian male behavior" "The females of most dolphin species have a mating strategy of their own" "And it calls for multiple sexual partners" "So in spite of the males' best efforts to restrict the females' choice it's not entirely successful" "This spotted dolphin female in the Bahamas mates with a number of eager males" "Any one of these partners may end up being the father of her calf" "In a surprising way this strategy may protect her future offspring" "A female dolphin will usually give birth to a single calf after a year long pregnancy" "It'll be a few years before this one becomes spotted like its mother" "After giving birth the female is unreceptive during the calf's first few years" "She will spurn the advances of courting males" "But young males can be dangerously persistent" "Adult male dolphins may do more than simply harass females" "They are strongly suspected of killing dolphin calves a possible strategy for making the female receptive again" "This time the mother fights them off" "In Shark Bay, a female, Nicky cruises the shallows with her calf" "She's being herded by Bottomhook and Pointer" "Like most female dolphins she's mated with a number of partners" "So the scientists are not sure who the father of the calf is" "But then neither are Bottomhook and Pointer" "And in their uncertainty, the calf is spared" "Finding food is the mother's top priority and here in Shark Bay she's discovered some surprising resources" "There's something enchanting about coming in contact with dolphins in the wild" "The activity is carefully monitored to avoid potential harm to dolphins or to humans" "Please, please don't reach out to her head, please" "That's Nicky;" "she will bite you" "Trust me" "She hasn't bitten anybody since yesterday..." "If you're lucky enough to be called out" "Just step out" "Hold the fish by the tail" "Not the dolphin..." "Place right down into the dolphins mouths" "Please do not be tempted to touch during the feeding that's when we can have accidents" "This kind of interaction between humans and wild dolphins occurs in very few places" "For some, it's a healing experience" "For others a kind of mystical, New Age encounter" "But to the hungry dolphins it's mostly about getting a fish" "If there's a lesson here for the calf it's that a dolphin must always be inventive in finding food" "For out in the wild it's no easy task" "Calves are dependent on their mothers for some three to six years" "During this period the young dolphin must learn how to fend for itself" "Like humans, dolphins are not born with the skills to survive" "The learning process may start through simple mimicry" "The calf will imitate its mother's every pose posture and action" "If she stands with her tail in the sand the calf will follow suit" "Even though it may not have an inkling of why she's doing so" "Dolphins are opportunistic feeders and the young must learn many extremely difficult and creative hunting techniques" "The mother is using sound in a way the calf may not be capable of just yet" "The buzzing sound is a series of rapid fire clicks part of a sophisticated sensory system called echolocation" "The sound signals penetrate the sands then echo back, giving a clear indication of what lies below" "It's like X-ray vision capable of seeing through almost any porous medium" "Dolphin calves can create sounds shortly after birth mostly whistles used for communication" "The clicks required for echolocation may take months to develop" "Like most intelligent predators dolphins learn to hunt by making a game out of it" "This trunkfish is not part of their diet but for the young dolphins it's a target to practice on" "It takes an adult to demonstrate proper form" "Calves often wander away from their mothers sometimes up to half a mile" "Though it can be dangerous taking risks is an important part of learning" "These young dolphins may not very adept but at least they're catching fish on their own" "The mortality rate for young dolphins is very high" "In Shark Bay fifty percent don't survive their first year" "Much depends on how quickly the calf can master new skills for survival" "A mother leads her calf on strenuous runs in the shallows" "The calf can barely keep up" "This is basic training for a difficult and dangerous fishing strategy" "It's a skill passed on from generation to generation" "The techniques that dolphin calves learn are often unique to where they live" "The steep cliffs of Cape Peron block the prevailing winds creating calm clear waters along the beach." "Shallows can be dangerous places for dolphins" "Strandings are not uncommon and here they can easily be cornered by predators" "But the shallow water is a hunting ground for a small group of specialists" "Here they practice a fishing technique other dolphins find too risky" "The shallows would seem to favor the smaller creature" "But the dolphin has mastered the art of hydroplaning skimming through mere inches of water" "Sometimes breathing air has its advantages" "The sea eagle who's watched the chase with intense interest times his swoop perfectly" "Of the four to five hundred dolphins in Shark Bay only a handful of females have mastered this technique" "Often dolphins play with their catch before eating it" "Just offshore a dolphin tosses a snake eel about like a ragdoll" "The others approach the tossed prey with great interest" "But they will not touch it observing some kind of protocol" "Scientists have speculated it's a way of confirming trust or simply avoiding a costly conflict" "When calves catch their tiny fish they too make a great show of it" "By five or six years old young dolphins no longer need their mother's guidance" "They will be part of a hunting culture that will forever be as challenging as it is perilous" "Dolphins have adapted to an alien world that is hostile to air-breathing mammals" "In the dark of night dolphins need to know what's out there" "Using their echolocation dolphins can detect the size shape- even the density of an object" "But it's only good for a hundred yards or so and is highly directional detecting nothing from behind" "It's so accurate they can clearly distinguish between different species of fish" "Even in daylight visibility is limited underwater" "But using sonar can be risky because the tell-tale clicks may reveal your presence to predators" "So dolphins rely more on their excellent hearing" "The best defense is to stay together keep silent - and listen" "Success in hunting is knowing when to use your sonar and when to turn it off" "With its own sonar turned off a killer whale moves silently through Alaskan waters - listening" "It can hear the slightest splashing the very breathing of distant prey" "A group of Dall's porpoises just up ahead" "These are among the fastest small cetaceans so quick and agile they can elude most predators" "They travel these icy waters in groups of two to ten" "But for this small herd there's little safety in numbers" "As quietly as possible the killer whales are closing in" "The slightest sound would betray their presence" "The porpoises detect something" "But it may be too late" "The killers are capable of speeds up to thirty miles per hour" "The porpoise zigzags for its life" "Killer whales are masters at cutting off the path of retreat" "This one dives below a harbor porpoise" "Like sharks killer whales don't always finish off their prey right away" "They'll often let the victim struggle until it's energy is spent or it simply bleeds to death" "Other members of the pod move in on a" "Dall's porpoise that's been hit" "It still has some life left and tries to make it to calmer inshore waters" "The males- like lions tend to leave the hunting to the females" "Now they join in for the kill" "Soon the restless seas are resonating with the eerie calls of the killers" "and the chilling sounds of teeth crushing bone" "The porpoise had the unhappy fate to be pursued by hunters with sensory capabilities as good as its own" "For killer whales are dolphins" "They are the largest member of the family and the only dolphins that habitually hunt their cousins" "Still, they're the most sociable of all dolphins living in highly stable family groups" "Most of the males never leave the group they are born in" "Some will even teach the calves how to hunt" "This unfortunate harbor seal is about to become a living training tool" "The killer whales circle the prey as if toying with it" "In fact they may be demonstrating to their young how to cut off a prey's retreat or how to confuse it" "More important the calves will learn how to coordinate their efforts with others in the pod" "Older males have been observed allowing calves to feed before they themselves begin to eat" "The young will grow into the ocean's top predators" "Like killer whales, pilot whales are misnamed and are true dolphins" "The second largest of the family they can weigh up to four tons" "Pilot whales dive to depths of a half mile in search of octopus and squid" "These pygmy killer whales may be every bit as fierce as their namesakes" "And like their bigger cousins, they're believed to kill marine mammals" "But pygmy killers are very rare and seldom observed in the wild" "There are over thirty species of dolphins and we know very little about most of them" "The northern right whale dolphin is a gregarious creature often found swimming with other species like white-sided dolphins." "Dolphins come in a variety of sizes and shapes" "What distinguishes them as a family are anatomical features like the shape of the jaws and teeth" "Dolphins are designed for the hunt" "This fifty ton monster is a grazer not a hunter" "And it's a true whale" "Southern right whales are filter feeders straining enormous quantities of water for tiny crustaceans" "The windswept shores of Patagonia in Argentina" "Once a year right whales migrate to breed in the warm shallow waters" "Here they are greeted by dusky dolphins" "Unlike their big lumbering cousins duskys are small fast, and agile" "In the summer months they leave the safety of coastal waters to hunt miles offshore" "In deep waters, locating pursuing and catching prey is exceptionally difficult" "But duskys have developed some extraordinary tactics" "In the morning, small search parties set out probing with their sonar" "There may be twenty to thirty groups patrolling these waters each pod separated by a mile or two" "The leaps give them a vantage point for sighting prey" "Seabirds have gathered up ahead a sign they've found something" "This time of year Southern anchovies are here in vast numbers" "For the penguins it's a feast" "It's up to the dolphins to bring some order to all this and they quickly do" "The dolphin's strategy is to circle the school and drive it into an ever tightening ball" "They guard the outside perimeter by blowing bubbles which frightens the fish" "This takes advantage of the fishes' natural defense to huddle together when attacked" "As the fish ball gets tighter the duskys take turns grabbing mouthfuls of fish then retreat to guard the perimeter" "Soon the ball is clustered so tightly the fishes' escape response breaks down" "Now it's simply a matter of the dolphins' nipping food off the edges" "As the feeding progresses the dolphin calves are nowhere to be seen" "For others drawn to the feast might prefer young dolphin to a mouthful of anchovies" "Mothers bring their calves to a sort of nursery away from the chaos of the feeding area" "For the rest of the group the feeding's over and it's time to celebrate" "The event is marked by exhilarating acrobatic displays" "Dolphin groups that usually travel apart now come together to socialize" "In the world of dolphins that means frequent sex with a variety of partners" "The males- swimming upside down follow the females" "They synchronize their movement with hers all for a brief moment of coupling" "Physical contact among these groups of dolphins strengthens communal bonds" "For cooperative hunters these bonds are essential" "The duskys are about to face a challenge that calls for teamwork on monumental scale" "Sixty feet below the surface, a monstrous swirl of life undulates like a strange super organism" "It's a mass of anchovies over a hundred feet in diameter" "For these duskys it's the mother lode" "Circling the fish with violent splashes the duskys corral them closer together" "A team of dolphins works below the school herding it towards the surface" "They must keep the enormous mass together" "If it splits into smaller schools they'll be hard to control" "Finally, they succeed in herding the great ball of fish to the surface" "It serves as a wall, closing off one avenue of escape" "Now sea lions are drawn to the scene" "The dolphins struggle to keep the school together but the sea lions are not team players" "They plunge into the mass of fish to feed" "The school is simply too large for the dolphins to control" "Now the leaps serve a different purpose" "High and acrobatic they're calls for help" "From miles away, other duskys rush to the feeding site" "They porpoise high in the air to keep sight of the action ahead" "By the time they reach the school there's a feeding frenzy going on" "Chaos reigns and the ball is in danger of splitting apart" "The new arrivals get right to work and quickly coordinate their efforts with the other duskys" "Now there are enough dolphins to guard the perimeter while they take turns feeding" "Finally all the dolphins' hard work pays off" "The fish have been packed together so long they've consumed too much oxygen" "There's little chance the ball will split apart" "For the dolphins who can now feed at will this hunt is over" "To ancient mariners the dolphins' mastery of the ocean world seemed magical" "They were cast as heroes in myth and legend" "Today we look for glimpses of ourselves in dolphins" "And we find them in their conflicts yes - but also in the ways they communicate and cooperate their sheer inventiveness." "But there's no need to romanticize or humanize dolphins to respect them for what they are" "Strong and intelligent hunters in a wilderness called the sea" "The English language contains dozens of words that describe the dog" "Yet none alone seems entirely adequate loving, loyal, devoted, amusing, spirited, tireless" "How they enchant us, delight us, brighten our days" "And how they work for us" "Down through history no other animal has served us in as many ways" "Called by one philosopher" ""the noblest beast God ever made," the dog is at work" "On farms and in pastures around the world..." "Across the forbidding reaches of the frozen North..." "As comrades on the battlefields of war..." "Seeking even the faintest scent of a buried victim" "Of disaster..." "Or a hiker who has lost his way" "And he is the devoted servant of he ill, elderly, and handicapped" "We will never know exactly how this unprecedented partnership came about or when" "But one story tells us:" ""In the beginning" "God created man, but seeing him so feeble" "He gave him the dog"" "Every year since 1877 a stylized ritual has been repeated in Manhattan the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show the world series of dogdom" "Some 2,600 dogs, all purebreds and prizewinners in other shows will compete." "Westminster now welcomes 130 breeds and varieties" "There are 52 million dogs in the United States" "While some romp in the yard or sleep by the fire others are being carefully primped and primed to take home ribbons" ""Oh, Rhye, Rhye, Rhye Oh, Rhye, Rhye, Rhye" "What do you think, huh?"" ""Give me another kiss Good boy!"" ""You're a sweetheart aren't you"" ""That's $50.00" "That's a show special normally $79.95"" ""Low sodium" "A diet for your dogs an all natural diet" "No added preservatives colorings, or flavorings"" ""Oh, that ought to be great"" ""Okay." "Try that out on him and if you live in Manhattan there's a store that delivers for you right on the bag"" "While most show dogs today perform no labor at all outside the arena historically their ancestors worked side by side with man" "In fact, our unique and splendid partnership with the dog began as a working relationship... as long as ten to fifteen thousand years ago" "Over the centuries many of their jobs became obsolete" "One that has continued is tending sheep" "In New Zealand, sheep outnumber people twenty to one and a saying goes:" ""No dog, no shepherd" "No shepherd, no sheep" "No sheep, no wool or meat"" "With dogs at their side" "New Zealand farmers now rank second in wool exports and are near the top in meat products" "Some of New Zealand's back country is so remote it is only accessible by helicopter" "The dogs may not like the ride but where the shepherd goes so goes his devoted dog" "Grant and Robyn Calder run a sheep station on New Zealand's South Island" "Grant is a champion breeder and trainer of sheepdogs in the tradition of his father and grandfather before him" "Much of New Zealand is mountainous country suitable only for grazing" "Without the sheepdog this would be wasteland." "Working their 13,000-acre property with no additional hands, the husband-and-wife team herd 7,500 sheep." ""It's really an unusual partnership that a husband and wife work a farm like this together" "But thanks to the dogs we can manage to do it" "Without them, we just couldn't do it" ""A useless farmer could come on to this place with my team of dogs and work out how to work them and actually make a living here" "But if you took my dogs away and left me on this place we would be broke in 12 months"" ""Here, pup, pup, pup, pup" "Come on, I have to give you a name"" "One of the two types of dogs the" "Calders breed is called a "huntaway"" "Grant begins training at about three months" "Huntaways work the sheep from behind facing away from the shepherd" ""That's the first signs of a pup starting to work is to go over there like that and chase those sheep" "If I put a string on that pup the noise would start coming and that's the makings of a huntaway dog" ""Two sheep over there" "Good boy, good boy"" "Even early in the training a simple tug of the string keeps this pup facing correctly" ""Good boy." "Good boy, good boy, good boy"" "This six-month-old pup is learning not only when to bark but when to stop once the sheep obey him or the shepherd commands him" ""Will a go, Danny" "Will a go" "Good boy, that's good." "Good boy"" "The second type working the" "Calders' sheep is called a "heading" dog" "They virtually never bark but control the sheep entirely with their eyes" ""She tries to mesmerize them" "She can introduce herself quietly looking straight into the sheep's eyes"" "Twice a year the Calders round up from the high country 2,500 of their sheep for shearing to send to market, or in this instance to be dipped to protect their wool" "Robyn works on a high ridge and Grant is lower down as they and their ten dogs begin to pull the flock together" "Because sheep in New Zealand have no natural enemies they have never developed a herding instinct and therefore spread far afield" "The dogs are tireless and would literally work until they drop" "It's not unusual in the course of a day for them to cover up to 50 miles" "Over the years, man has channeled the dog's ancient hunting instincts into herding and driving behavior" "Their shepherds command the dogs with words or by whistling" ""They're just basic commands" "A 'run' command (he whistles it)" "You want him to run slow, you can vary it..." ""(...he whistles)" "'Left hand' (he whistles)" "'Right hand' (he whistles)" "'Stop' (he whistles)"" ""When he's finished the job, you have two commands to call him off" "One's 'Well a go' and the other one is (he whistles)." "Well a go"" ""It's hard to believe how tough dogs are" "And on this property they work in extreme conditions in all types of weather" "Even with a dog in those sort of conditions everything might be against him" "He might have cut feet, he might have snowballs built up on him" "They will always try and run they will always try their best to do and complete the job that you've put in front of them"" "Like army sergeants on alert, the dogs keep the flock moving" "In one week's time the remarkable team of two people and their ten steadfast dogs have completed the roundup" ""A dog's work is never done" "And when he finishes on the hill he comes into the real hard work of slogging in the hot yards" "The hotter it gets, the more the sheep put their heads down and won't go" "And we tend to only work with one or two dogs in the yards so that we can alternate them so that each dog gets a turn because it is hot and dry dusty, dirty work"" "Because of the intense heat the tired sheep often don't want to move creating traffic jams in the tight confines of the pen" "To find the offenders the dogs simply make a sidewalk out of the backs of the sheep" "After a chemical dip for protection against external parasites the sheep will be set free to wander up to the high country again to graze until the next roundup" "And then, once more, when the shepherds head for the hills their canine partners will be by their sides" ""For us to spend a day on the hill horse and dogs the companionship and love and hard work that they give to us you could never receive from any other animal in the world"" "The New Zealand farmer and his dog have become a world-famous partnership" "Today, more than 200,000 such dogs are on the job across the country" "Probably the most photographed is this one a public tribute to the dogs that help keep the economy so vital and alive" "The origins of the domesticated dog lie shrouded in the distant past but it is generally agreed that the dog evolved from the wolf or that both share a common ancestor" "Wolves and dogs have the same basic anatomy physiology, and patterns of behavior and underneath the dog's domestic facade lie the instincts of a predatory hunter" "Wolves live and hunt in packs" "Unlike other meat-eaters such as members of the cat family that ambush their prey wolves stalk chase after, and run down prey" "However as the wolf quickly learns even with the cooperation of the pack he is no match for an animal as large as a bison" "The mainstay of the wolf's diet are animals the size of deer small moose, or elk" "Pack behavior is strictly regulated by a dominance hierarchy understood by all members" "In the dog, pack loyalty is basically unaltered even after thousands of years of domestication" "The main difference is the dog looks to man as leader of the pack" "Modern-da scientists have pondered why early man himself a flesh-eating hunter would have turned competitors like wolves or wild dogs into allies" "Animal behaviorist Dr. Michael Fox one of the world's leading experts on wolves and dogs has one explanation for how the partnership may have begun" ""I feel that dogs and humans came together because of their similarity in lifestyles to the degree that we hunted in small packs we were gatherer-hunters and the dog-wolf ancestor was like that too"" ""And it's quite probable that the early hunting societies found that dogs were pretty good allies if they were properly socialized to help locate and even ambush prey"" ""Dogs, in their long association with us have powers of manipulation"" ""In one sense we have domesticated them but they have domesticated us too" "We have the situation where the dog will come up and just look at you and look at you and you have to feed it" "The dog knows how to touch your heart" "They have a power in the eye"" ""Some people think that their dogs have ESP that they know what you're feeling and thinking" "But they are acute observers of our body language depressed happy or anxious and reading all that all the time..." ""...because that's how they communicate with each other too"" "In finding out about each other and the rest of the world smell is the dog's primary tool" "It is said their ability to smell is at least 500 times greater than our own" "Their hearing too, is better than ours but they see less well and are colorblind" "There are 350 recognized breeds of dogs in the world" "Regardless of outward differences they are all the same species, Canis familiaris" "Their wide diversity in appearance can often be explained by the work humans have bred dogs to do" "In the language of his native Germany dachshund means "badger dog"" "His short, stubby legs and narrow body made him ideal for squeezing into burrows after prey" "Terriers, too, were bred small and low to the ground so they could plunge into dark holes in pursuit of rats or foxes" "The name terrier comes from the Latin word terra, or earth" "Whippets and greyhounds are long-legged and sleek because they were bred for hunting and racing" "Firehouse mascots today" "Dalmatians were companions to charioteers in ancient times" "In Elizabethan England they gained fame as coach dogs with a calming effect on the horses" "The regal chow chow boasts a 2,000 year history in China as hunter and guard" "For centuries dogs have helped man hunt" "Today, we have made them highly specialized" "Pointers only point nose high, body frozen in place" "And retrievers only retrieve joyfully leaping into even frigid waters to bring back their quarry" "From predatory wild animals we have created regardless of breed the most adaptable and sociable of all domesticated animals" "It is not precisely known when we first put dogs to work as entertainers but one of the most famous adored by countless millions, is Lassie" "Bob Weatherwax, son of the original Lassie trainer is no preparing the seventh generation" "Lassie for an upcoming television series" "To get the seven dogs who have actually appeared on the screen" "Bob and Rudd Weatherwax had to breed more than 200 collies to get just the right coloration, intelligence and temperament" "On screen, the Lassie character has always been a female but in reality all Lassies have been male collies because males tend to have a more luxuriant coat and greater stamina" "The Lassie legend began in the 1940s with a dog named Pal" ""Originally Lassie..." "MGM had their own collie to do Lassie" "It was a female dog, which is what Eric Knight wrote the story around because it had to have puppies" "And my father's dog was hired as a double dog and it was a male collie called Pal" ""And I think he knew that the other dog couldn't do this performance..."" ""...and they had a spot where Lassie had just come from Scotland back to England" "And he had to cross a river, and it's a nice scene"" "The genius of Rudd Weatherwax came through in this scene in which he taught Lassie to look naturally exhausted as if it weren't a trick at all" ""Come on, crawl"" "The mind of the dog, no mater how bright he may be cannot conceptualize "look tired"" "But the dog can obey a series of off-screen commands given in a specific order that result in the tired look the audience sees" ""Speak." "Stay, stay." "That's the boy." "Stay"" "Compared to many dogs that bring a large measure of instinct to their work dog actors start out as a blank slate" "Because they are intelligent they are capable of learning" "The motivation to learn the willingness to behave in such un-doglike ways is based simply on the dog's desire for human praise" ""Dog is man's best friend' I figure the most domesticated of all animals and they want to please us" "They want to be with man" "It's like A for effort' they'll give you that effort" ""All right, come on!" "Up!" "up!" "All right come on over here, come on" "All right, take a bow"" "The earth's ice-locked polar regions could never have been explored without dogs" "In the early 1900s sled dog teams brought Peary to the North Pole and Amundsen to the South" "When northern regions were settled dogs became an essential part of life" "Until the advent of airplanes and snowmobiles dogs alone transported mail and supplies pulled sleds, took hunters in search of prey" "Today in Alaska, the pioneering spirit of that earlier times is celebrated in a grueling 1,100-mile race" "Beginning in Anchorage and ending in Nome it covers a distance roughly the same as from Seattle to Los Angeles" "Its name, Iditarod, is said to come from the trail that was once the lifeline linking far-flung villages in the interior" "Two-time champion of what is called the" ""last great race on earth" is 33-year-old Susan Butcher" "A world-class athlete and now a celebrity she is going for an unprecedented third consecutive win" "She hopes to beat her 11-day record and take home the $30,000 first prize" ""Five minutes until we drop?" "Yeah."" ""I've been racing in the Iditarod for ten years now" "And I think over all the years I've been basically in the top ten and I think that all comes from my training ability with the dogs and the time that I spend with them and the conditioning that I put on them" "And then the rest has to be up to the dogs" "I've got good dogs and I bred them and raised them purely for long-distance racing"" "Many observers feel that the time Susan spends with her dogs and the affection she lavishes on them are key elements of her success" "Fifty-three teams will leave at two-minute intervals" ""Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, go"" ""All right"" ""Over the years I've really seen that dogs love to race and know what it's all about" "When they see a team in front of them they'll pick up their pace and want to pass around them" "And what I found out is they know then when there's no other team in front of them because there's no dog scent on the trail"" "In 1975 when she moved to America's last frontier the adventuresome 20-year-old first lived in a tent then single-handedly built a log cabin" "She was 30 miles from her nearest neighbors 50 miles from the nearest road" "She started out with only three dogs and today has a breeding kennel with 130" "Susan raises only Alaskan Huskies a line bred from Eskimo and Indian dogs" ""Well, I changed the teams around today, David"" ""Susan runs Trail Breaker Kennel with her husband" "David Monson, himself a champion racer" ""I was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts but I've always felt I was born in the wrong century and in the wrong place" "And so I kept moving north and west" "And I've always loved animals and they've been the most important thing in my life" "And so I was looking to incorporate living in the wilderness and working with dogs and I found the perfect thing"" ""How's your baby." "How are they?" "Hi, guys." "Heigh-o"" "In the early days of sled-dog racing breeding was often a haphazard mater" "But Susan Butcher knows that good racing dogs don't just happen without careful planning" ""Every summer I raise a number of puppies-between 50 and 100 pups" "And I'll pick out two of my best dogs" "Usually if I have a very fast dog but maybe it doesn't have a good enough coat" "I'll breed it to one with a good coat" ""But the most important thing is that they have bred into them the desire to pull and the desire to travel"" "And travel they do every day, with either Susan or her dog handler" "These four-month-old pups are learning that running that running is fun and that being with people is fun" ""There's a lot of mushers that don't really like to make their dogs into pet dogs and feel that they have to keep them very separated to make them a working animal only" "But I feel that the best thing that you can do with a dog is to really bond them to yourself" "So we're just trying to teach them to respect us and trust us and vice versa" "I have to trust my life in their hands all the time and they should learn to trust me with their life" "And then when you're out there racing that trust is what's going to make you able to win"" ""Are you going to be my next all-time best leader?" "Are you going to be my all-time best leader?"" "Every night Susan and David bring a few dogs into the cabin for extra attention" "It's done as part of Susan's training strategy but also because she quite simply adores her dogs" ""Every fall is a really exciting time for me and for the dogs" "As the temperatures get colder we just develop a certain excitement towards winter" "When it starts to get cold the dogs just start making a lot of noise running around their chains;" "they're just antsy" "They want to get going" "They just show me in many ways that they're ready to roll ready for the racing season"" "All the adult dogs are run three to four times a week throughout the year" "As with all athletes conditioning is vital to their performance" "When snow cover is too thin to be safe for the sled the dogs pull an all-terrain vehicle left in neutral gear" "To some 200 miles of trails," "Susan adds new ones each year to keep the dogs from getting bored." ""A lot of people would look at my life and think it's a lot of hard work" "But for me, it's a labor of love" "I spend all day long with my dogs and work with them" "And I'm my own boss; there's no one telling me what to do or at what time to do" "I live way out here where I can go anywhere and do anything at any time of day" "And I love that freedom"" ""The best things for long-distance racing dogs are a fast trotting speed and then they have to have good feet and you just want them to have a good attitude" "Their heads are bent and they're just going for it and they're paying attention to you and you're paying attention to them and you just are working as a team"" "Like a coach with marathon runners" "Susan gradually increases the length of the runs" "Her goal is 50 miles without tiring" "The dogs, never more happy than when on the trail joyfully oblige" "Twelve to sixteen hours a day the routine seldom varies" "The culmination in March: the chance to compete in the most punishing race on earth" "The mushers, as sled-dog drivers are called brave temperatures that can drop to 40 below" "Except for one mandatory 24-hour rest stop they may sleep only an hour or so each day and only after the dogs are tended and fed" "The route can be potentially treacherous at every turn" "In 1985 a moose attacked Susan's dogs forcing her out of the race" "On the last leg of the race along the frozen Bering Sea mushers encounter the most severe weather" "It is Susan Butcher's tenth day out and she is trailing as she has for most of the race" "Now, a violent storm has forced temperatures to plunge and swirling snow has obliterated much of the trail" "Both Susan and the dogs are pushed to the limit of their endurance" "The storm has thwarted her nearest competitors who have stopped to wait it out" "Undaunted, Susan Butcher charges on" "In Nome expectant crowds gather" "The ham-radio operator at the last checkpoint has reported that the first musher might reach the finish line at any time" "In 11 days, 11 hours, and 42 minutes a jubilant but exhausted Susan Butcher becomes the first person ever to win the Iditarod three consecutive times" "Susan is a full 14 hours ahead of any other musher" "Some will not cross the finish line for several more days" "Amazingly, Susan could have made even better time than she did if she had wanted but she put the safety and well-being of the dogs above all else" ""It was a matter of either go for a record competing against only Father Time and no other musher and possibly take more out of the team than I like to or just to take good care of the team" "and be well satisfied with a victory" "And I thought that sounded a lot safer"" "Susan and racing enthusiasts everywhere know the real tribute belongs to the bravery love, and indomitable spirit of these magnificent dogs" "On an ordinary street in an ordinary California town a drama anything but ordinary is quietly unfolding" "Seventeen-year-old Mike Knowlton was born with spina bifida a disabling birth defect of the spine that occurs in one to two out of every thousand babies born in the United States." ""Good girl." "Hi, girl." "Yeah"" "Mike must be cared for by his parents" "Joy and Dale Knowlton for he is totally paralyzed from the chest down" "Mike walked on his own for many years" "Then, without warning, his condition worsened" ""The last time he was walking was right about here"" ""At that point in time he had to have support from one of us to move his legs"" ""When we were told he was paralyzed and a wheelchair was going to be with him the rest of his life..."" ""Michael went into a depression for about two years" "It was very hard for him to adjust"" "Now a dog has come into Mike's life and the depression has lifted" "Her name is Zest" ""Zest has made a major change" "If I didn't have her" "I don't know what I would do"" ""She just really helps me a lot"" "A unique organization called Canine Companions for Independence or CCI, brought Mike and Zest together" "Using dogs to guide the blind is a well known success story" "CCI pioneered the idea that dogs could also help the wheelchair-bound" "During an intensive two-week training program students master 89 commands" "For their safety as well as the dogs' and the public's they must gain total control over the animals' actions" "CCI instructors have spent six months training the dogs" ""All right." "Good boy." "Good girl." "Get happy everybody"" "One of the most important jobs is retrieving" ""Look." "Get it." "Bring it here." "Good girl"" "Keys are especially difficult because of their uneven edges and dogs dislike the taste of metal" ""All right!" "Good boy!"" "Because they will be going home to very diverse environments the teams are put into as many real-life situations as possible during the two-week course" "Today, on a college campus the dogs encounter some other dogs that at first they think are real" ""These are the kinds of things you guys need to anticipate know that it's going to come up" "These things happen all the time"" "Some in the class have driven in vans equipped with electronic lifts but none has had prior experience with a bus." "For the dogs too, this is a first" ""Remember, this is as new for her as it is for you" "And even though it's new for you you have to portray to her that you're confident"" ""Yeah." "Okay, Zest"" ""The most frustrating part was having them tell me to have the dog do something" "And the dog wouldn't do it and they wanted to tell me how to get the dog to do it" "But my biggest thing was would I be able to make it through the two weeks because I kind of had doubts"" ""No, Zest." "Zest." "Come on"" ""She should come to you not go around behind there" "She doesn't understand that concept"" ""Okay, Well, what do I do to get her to..."" ""You need to do what you need to take care of yourself and your dog"" ""I'll start over again"" "The sheer physical exertion would cause some to simply give up" "But Mike is determined" "Finally, he and Zest are successful" "Even for those with the use of their arms fatigue is a major factor that often keeps them housebound" "Dogs are a wonderful solution for they will pull tirelessly" "At the end of the two weeks, the last hurdle is the final exam" "Of the more than 300 teams that have gone through CCI since it began in 1975" "90% of dogs and humans have passed" "With well-deserved pride the class arrives for graduation threshold to their new independence" ""As you can see, this is quite a loving team" "And throughout their lives there's always going to be a lot of love and commitment on the part of these two" "Mike worked very hard in this class and so did Zest" "And congratulations to both of you"" ""Ladies and gentlemen, Mike and Ziggy"" "The diplomas, appropriately are inscribed with both names student and dog alike" ""Mike and Zest"" "Today Mike is a high-school senior" "Having Zest has helped Mike vastly broaden his horizons and now for the first time he is" "considering going on with his education a vocational school where he thinks he might study computer science" "Whenever Mike is working" "Zest has been trained to rest quietly by his side and not disrupt the classroom" "But at those moments when he needs her help" "Zest knows it's time to work" ""She does things like picks up papers or pens and makes me feel independent" "like I don't always have to ask somebody" "I can just go to Zest and tell her"" "All CCI graduates report a dramatic rise in self-esteem because of the dog's role as icebreaker" "People who normally feel awkward approaching a person in a wheelchair do not feel uncomfortable in the presence of the dog" ""I'm real shy and the last couple of months it seems like it's easier to go up to people because most of the time people come up to her" "And I kind of get into the conversation" "It helps me to get to know people"" ""We didn't realize that kind of a bond could be between a dog and a person" "It really gives us a different perspective"" ""We didn't realize that a dog could do as much for" "Michael's emotions as this dog has done"" ""Okay, Zest" "Come here" "Up switch, Zest" "Good dog" "That's it" "That's it" "Good girl" "Okay, Zest" "Come on" "Good dog" "A boy needing help and a loving canine at his side" "Perhaps nowhere is the age-old covenant between man and dog more poignantly felt than here" "In northern California one man remembers a partnership with dogs that many people have never even heard of" "For the 13 months he served in Europe during World War II" "Joe Simpson fought alongside a dog" ""Atta girl, heel"" "They were one of the earliest teams in what was known as the K-9 Corps" ""In 1942 the K-9 Corps was formed by a group of civilians from the New England Dog Training Club"" ""And Dogs for Defense was formed at the same time and they picked 14 Guys out of 5,000 volunteers" "And fortunately, I was one of the 14 picked not because I knew anything about dogs necessarily but because I was in the horse business" "And this is how I got started in the K-9 Corps"" "Patriotic families everywhere across America volunteered their dogs to help the war effort" "Rovers, Spots, and Fidos of al descriptions were sent off to an uncertain future in the Army, Marines or Coast Guard" "Like their human counterparts all dogs were examined for fitness" ""Any new man that came in got a new dog" "And they taught us to make the dog heel sit, and down, and stay and all the obedience commands" ""And these dogs then went through the training with the master" "And then when that was through certain ones that were fit for attack training if they had enough aggressiveness in them were put into attack classes" "And the dogs that were better for messenger work were trained for that" "Some dogs were trained for pack dogs" "So it was quite a course"" "In Europe dogs were used in World War I but this was our first use of them in combat" "Some 10,000 served in many of the bloodiest battles across Europe and the South Pacific" ""If you needed to send a message back to the forward outpost we had a messenger collar that we'd put the message in and put it around the dog" "And the dog had to learn that when this collar was on him he was to run as fast as he could back to the other master"" "Messenger dogs had to develop equal loyalty to two masters because they worked by going from one to the other" "To ignore the noise and flames from exploding shells was hardest to teach" ""The dogs didn't have to reach up and tap us on the shoulder to tell us that there were some Germans over there" "We knew by watching our dog and being able to read the dog this is very important with anyone working a dog if you can read the dog then you'll know what the dog is trying to tell you"" ""And I owe my life to my dog and I'm sure a lot of the other handlers would say the same thing."" "Joe Simpson was one of many who brought their dogs home after the war" "Intensive demilitarization programs retrained the animals before they were allowed to return to civilian life as the gentle and loving pets they had originally been" "One phase of training similar to that for war dogs is used in search and rescue work" "More than 70 such groups now exist across the United States" "All volunteers they work alongside law enforcement teams in wilderness rescues and the aftermath of disasters" ""Go through." "No, no, no." "No cheating"" "It takes hundreds of hours of training before a team can be sent on a mission" ""Go through"" "Early on a dog often needs to be coaxed" ""Okay" "Try that way again?" "Want to go through?"" "Go." "All the way" "Good girl!" "Good girl!"" "What handlers look for is not the breed itself many breeds are used but qualities like intelligence, curiosity, and self-confidence" "The dogs must be taught agility so they can safely negotiate boulders and other obstacles in the woods as well as piles of disaster rubble" ""Climb." "Good girl"" "Shirley Hammond is both a handler and a trainer" ""What we do is we start the dogs out very young if we can although we can start older dogs teaching them on an agility course" ""We do a lot of ladder climbing with the dogs" "And this teaches them to use their back feet" "Their back feet just normally follow their front feet and they do not develop a knowledge of back feet unless they're taught to do something feeling what they're putting it on and feeling for stability with it"" ""Good dog, Tasha" "Good girl!" "Good dog!"" "This 12-week-old puppy confronts a ladder for the first time" "In addition to the obstacle course they train on a rubble pile that simulates a disaster area" "The uniform and helmet signal to Shirley's dog" "Cinnamon that now they are working" "Trained not to follow her instincts to jump off the unstable boards" "Cinnamon zigzags across the rubble in what is known as air-scenting trying to pick up the victim's scent on the air currents" "She has been trained to cover the entire area thoroughly" "Once the victim, in this case a volunteer has been found the dog's job is to scratch and bark to alert the handler to the area with the most intense scent" ""Put that one back there" "Oh, look" "What did you find, Cin?"" "Finding the victim is the dog's primary reward" "It is essential that physical contact be made so the dog knows she's done her job well" ""Good girl, you found him" "You've got him where you want him now" "Yeah I've got him where I want him" "Did you find him, huh?"" "In 1985 Shirley and Cinnamon were one of 13 U. S search-dog teams that made a vital contribution in a real life disaster the devastating earthquake that wracked Mexico City" "The soft sub-soils underlying the city and inadequate building codes were blamed when hundreds of buildings collapsed" "Thousands were injured thousands more left homeless" "As many as 10,000 died" ""It was really hard to believe because there were buildings standing with glass and beautiful structures that were just..." ""...pancaked to the floor" "This is a building that was 11, 12, 14 stories" "Suddenly, it's down to 10, 20, 30 feet high because some of them actually sank down into their basements" "They went that far down"" ""Can you jump?" "Up, up." "In you go"" "Twelve hours a day for a week the teams searched through the twisted rubble" "Hundreds of people surely lay trapped but where?" "And could the dogs find any of them in time?" ""Cin, stay, stay"" ""They cock their head and listen with their ears as if maybe they might even be able to hear the victims after they would bark as if they were kind of calling to them by their barking"" ""And the other side of that coin, of course is when they did locate someone buried under the rubble that as gone, deceased it was a very low-key reaction" "Just a little pawing and a little whining"" "Amazingly, even at week's end victims were found still clinging to life" ""Agua, agua"" "Only hours old when the quake hit this baby was trapped for nine days" "Doctors cannot easily explain her survival" "Others see it simply as a gift from God" ""The Mexican people were just wonderful to us and it was a warm, warm feeling" "They were so..." ""...appreciative of our being there" "And it was really a very unique position to know that you were doing something that was helpful and that your dog was able to do it" "It's a feeling that says this is what we've done it for" "All the times we've been wet, we've been cold..." ""...we've been tired, we've been hot" "This is real and it's so exciting so exciting"" "Many thousands of years ago some long-forgotten caveman welcomed a wild animal into his home to share his fire and food" "Through the centuries the dogs that evolved have remained our enduring helpmates and unfaltering friends" "Our own success as a species is due in no small measure to the fact that a canine partner has been by our side" "Intelligent and loyal beyond measure dogs ask little from us in return for their unquestioning devotion" "In fact most dogs do not see work as work but thrive on serving us simply for the praise of a job well done" ""Give." "Good girl" "Yeah, good girl"" "In commenting on this age-old partnership one author has written:" ""We give them the love we can spare the time we can spare, the room we can spare" "In return dogs have given us their absolute all" "It is without a doubt the best deal man has ever made"" "In remote mountains of central China moisture borne on the monsoons nurtures a forest world of isolation... and mystery" "Across ages bamboo [Poaceae (family)] has flourished in the persistent mists erecting nearly impenetrable thickets" "barriers against time and the outside world" "For nearly a decade a Chinese scientist has searched the bamboo forest for one of the world's most elusive animals" "Though its image is known to millions the giant panda [Ailuropoda melanoleuca] has kept its life in the wild hidden from humans" "For Professor Pan Wenshi deciphering the panda's secret is an urgent matter" "The species clings precariously to existence" "Only about twelve hundred remain" "In captivity pandas have not reproduced enough to increase or even maintain their population" "If the species is to be saved we must understand and protect the secret life of pandas in the wild" "Now an unprecedented opportunity" "In a mountain cave a newborn panda is found... permitting the first comprehensive film record and the first long-term study of a young panda embarking on a remarkable life unlike that of any creature on earth" "The Qin Ling mountains... rugged divide between northern and southern China and one of the last retreats of the giant panda" "Concealed by dense foliage and its own distinctive color pattern the panda is literally hidden here" "In the panda's world nothing is quite what it seems" "The clown-like mask elicits instant human affection" "But it's probably seen as a threat by other animals... one of the panda's many subtle defenses" "Pandas are shy and seldom aggressive" "When one is seen, it is usually retreating" "They are solitary animals..." "rarely together" "But they are aware of each other... keeping in touch by sound..." "and especially scent" "Their social lives consist largely of reading and leaving scent marks" "Rubbing its scent glands on trees and rocks a panda says "here I am" or "there I was"" "By smell alone pandas can tell the identity and sexual mood of a neighbor who may go unseen for months" "Almost exclusively giant pandas eat bamboo" "Equipped with a unique sixth digit ideal for eating bamboo pandas have been shaped by evolution for this life-sustaining activity" "They consume up to eighty pounds of bamboo" "[Bashania fargesii and Fargesia spathacea] a day with great technique and efficiency" "But they're finicky about this monotonous diet" "They eat different parts of the bamboo in different seasons" "Sometimes they prefer the tender leaves and shoots while at other times it's the tough woody stems they crave" "It's a lot of word for little reward... only about 17 percent is digested" "So pandas must eat relentlessly up to 14 hours a day" "They eat till they're full then sleep wherever they are until they awaken... hungry again" "But young pandas are the exception" "To survive they must learn about the world... they must play" "Seemingly vulnerable the panda has endured while other more formidable mammals have become extinct" "Its margin of safety is narrow... but for millions of years it has been sufficient" "Yet an understanding of how the wild panda survives has been as elusive as the animal itself" "To unlock the panda's secrets a former logging camp called Shashuping now serves as a research station" "From this base, biology professor Pan Wenshi and his students monitor more than sixty pandas in the surrounding forest the first long-term study of wild pandas and their young" "With Lu Zhi, former student and now a research colleague" "Pan has long hoped to discover why panda young fragile in captivity seem to thrive in the wild..." "This knowledge could save the species" "After years of patient searching" "Pan and Lu Zhi now suspect a birth has occurred in a high den and set out on a September morning to investigate" "The treacherous slopes of Qin Ling are like fortress walls... and perhaps explain why the existence of giant pandas here was not confirmed until 1964" "A gentle approach..." "to glimpse without disturbing" "In a cramped cave an adult female they have tracked closely..." "Cradled in her paws a tiny pink body" "Pan will find that a panda mother devotes herself entirely to her newborn" "She holds and soothes the baby continuously... neither leaving the den nor feeding for 25 days" "Blind and helpless the newborn is dwarfed by its mother... at about four ounces it weighs only 1/900th as much" "Perhaps in part to prevent an accidental crushing the infant panda wields a voice out of all proportion to its body" "Professor Pan's hope is that by studying the baby's needs he can learn enough to help avoid misadventures of the past involving pandas and human beings" "A panda was not seen alive in the West until 1936 when a cub named Su Lin was carried to the United States" "Though Su Lin would survive only 18 months it was love at first sight" "The public craved more pandas and zoos responded" "The sudden fad was called "panda-monium"..." "The panda was immediately beloved but poorly understood... treated as if the living animal were itself a child's toy And the toy arrived without an instruction manual" "Keepers could only guess at its needs" "Nearly half died within five years" "As a result of our enchantment one in ten of the world's remaining pandas lives in captivity today... among the most popular and profitable of zoo animals" "The dream has been to breed pandas in captivity for release into the wild but arranged matings produce very few offspring" "The result has been a record of more deaths in captivity than births" "Even in a more natural enclosure in a Chinese panda reserve successful reproduction remains uncertain" "A female can conceive only during a few days each year" "In captivity males are mainly indifferent in part because they lack competition and often overweight" "Loud love songs frequently lead to no more than a wrestling match" "Even when young are produced their chances of survival are bleak" "In the past three decades nearly 60 percent have died within their first year" "Despite intense care this cub would live only five months" "So far, it has not been possible to breed a self-sustaining panda population in captivity" "For the species to survive protecting it in the wild is critical" "But time and habitat are running out" "A panda homeland that once stretched across southern Asia from Vietnam to present-day" "Beijing has shrunk under human pressure to only six small unconnected areas" "For about 240 wild pandas the slopes of the Qin Ling mountains are a last refuge" "By fitting pandas with radio collars and monitoring their signals professor Pan and Lu Zhi have been able to track the pandas in their study group from atar and locate them easily for closer observation" "Theirs is an unprecedented bond between human and panda" "Never before have wild pandas wild pandas become so accustomed to scientists and allowed them so close" ""For nine years in Qin Ling" "Lu Zhi and I have lived among giant pandas" "We drink water from the same small stream with them and we have stayed together with them almost everyday" "They are familiar with our scent" "These pandas know us very well" "Lone pandas are often very tolerant" "But will a mother be so trusting if they attempt to visit the newborn inside the den?" "Hoping to conduct a thorough examination of the panda cub" "Professor Pan and Lu Zhi approach while the mother feeds some distance away from the new den." "She has stayed away so long they now fear the cub may be dead erasing a scientific opportunity and another life in a lineage where each has become precious" "Their fears prove unfounded" "Pan knows his time to inspect the cub is limited" "Too long in the den and despite their efforts to gain her acceptance the mother could react violently to their presence here and attack them" "They usually observe from a distance but they must sometimes examine the infant panda closely to document its growth" "It's a female..." "an advantage for science" "In the years to come she may bear cubs of her own permitting study of a panda family across generations" "At seven weeks the baby weighs more than three pounds" "Her eyes are opening on the world" "Her expanding repertoire of sounds could alarm her mother still browsing nearby" "Pan is heartened by what he finds the cub appears normal and fit with a stomach full of mother's milk and a strong heartbeat" "Time is up" "The baby must be returned quickly to avoid a confrontation" "In the weeks to come" "Pan and Lu Zhi make an important observation" "When her cub is weeks old a wild mother leaves it to feed for hours at a time" "In the past this natural behavior was often though abandonment and many cubs were taken from their mothers only to die later in human care" "This all began with a boyhood dream of adventure in a far away exotic land..." ""When I was in high school" "I read Jack London's books" "Among the books, two greatly impressed me" ""White Fang" and "The Call of the Wild"" "Form then on" "I dreamed of living in remote areas like western America or Alaska or the Yukon River Valley..." "Living in the wild and among wild animals... that was my early dream and I hoped to make it my future" "The years have turned early fascination to enduring devotion" "Pan spends months of each year in primitive conditions paying some research expenses out of his own pocket working late hours to log and analyze data in a tiny cubicle that is both office and bedroom" "Pan's other world offers a stark contrast" "The rest of the year he spends in Beijing sprawling symbol of modern industrial China" "Here Pan is a biology professor at Beijing University" "His work was mainly in the laboratory until he and the panda had their first fateful encounter" ""Um, after graduating from college when I was 25years old," "I had the opportunity to um, to go visit um, the Beijing Zoo where they had the first captive-born baby panda" "And that was the first time that I was able to hold a panda and it was very interesting" "The baby panda climbed all over me and that was when I decided I wanted to devote my whole life to studying the pandas"" "At a zoo in the ancient capital city of Xi'an a visit to a friend..." "Her name is Dan-Dan... a reference to her reddish-brown and-white coloration" "She is one of only three such pandas they know of" "Pan and Lu Zhi think this color scheme may be a throwback to prehistoric times" "Pandas may have developed their black and-white coloration as camouflage during the ice ages" "Finding Dan-Dan ill in the wild" "Pan and Lu Zhi brought her here for temporary care hoping she would be released later" "Her confinement disturbed Pan who was himself held prisoner in the late" "Sixties during the Cultural Revolution" ""The Cultural Revolution was a big mess" "No one dared to speak the truth" "Because I told the truth they put me in jail beat me and pulled my hair" "I thought:" "the only thing I can do is to insist on seeking the truth..."" "After 56 days of beatings and confinement in darkness, Pan escaped" ""Overcoming this suffering has become the basis for my conviction as a scientist always to tell the truth"" "In a Beijing classroom" "Pan carries his campaign on behalf of pandas to a wildly receptive audience" "Using props made from the skins of pandas who died in captivity" "Pan teaches about the need to protect wild pandas" "His stories evoke surprise" "The children thought pandas lived only in zoos" "Pan wants to inspire understanding of wild pandas in the generation that will probably decide their fate" "In a country to nearly 1.2 billion people with urgent human needs he faces a long road" "Even some friends cannot understand why he leaves his home and family several times a year for the sake of a wild animal" "the trip south to the Qin Ling mountains is itself a test of resolve 22 hours by train then 14 hours by bus" "For Pan, this journey retraces the ancient retreat the panda before advancing waves of human settlements" "The last stands of wilderness like the last pandas survive only where food crops cannot... at the highest edges of existence" "For years, Professor Pan and Lu Zhi conducted a lonely enterprise" "But they have now attracted a following of students who staff the Qin Ling research station in seasonal shifts" "To Pan, they hold promise that the panda will not be forgotten" "And they have been staunch companions in an adventure that has sometimes been an ordeal" ""There were many difficulties when we started this research" "We always felt cold and clothes were always wet" "Lu Zhi got frostbite on her face and Ding Qian had frostbitten fingers" "Mid-December" "Four months have passed since the birthing season among Qin Ling pandas" "Cubs are now old enough to crawl from their dens and are sometimes found outside while their mothers browse nearby" "Face to face with humans, the cub seems by turns reticent and full of bravado" "To symbolize her importance for the future of pandas the two researchers have decided to name her Xi Wang-meaning "Hope"" "The christening is of no interest to a baby who may sleep 20 hours a day even when guests are present" "Easy slumber is a panda trait" "Nearby, her mother unwinds from the labors of eating bamboo" "Xi Wang seems vulnerable" "But animal predators pose less of a threat than humans" "A panda pelt can bring poachers more than $10,000 and dozens of panda cubs have been taken into captivity by well meaning "rescuers" who believed or wanted to believe that they had been abandoned." "Xi Wang is still nursing so bamboo which will dominate her life is for now just a plaything" "A surprise..." "The mother returns and decides to move" "Xi Wang to a new den a routine occurrence" "But for Pan and Lu Zhi it's a rare moment" "Despite years of observation they have seldom seen two pandas even mother and young together in the open" "Touched by her devotion they call the mother Jiao-Jiao or "Double Charming"" "In Pan's study area only one farm has persevered in the harsh altitudes of panda territory" "En route back the two scientists visit the Li family who count themselves protectors of the pandas" "Pan has heard reports that a panda has been sighted in the vicinity" "It behaved as though ill" "Have the Lis seen it?" "They have, by the river and were surprised to encounter one so far down the mountain" "In a chill are rain at one in the morning" "Professor Pan and his team are summoned on a special mission..." "Villagers have sent word that a wild panda has appeared on a doorstep" "Pan thinks it may be the animal seen by the Lis" "The scientists are puzzled by a tendency of wild pandas to come to human dwellings when ill... an enigma in a creature normally so withdrawn" "Though they are neighbors of wild pandas few in the village have ever seen one" "Beneath corn [Zea mays] dried for hog [Suidae (family)] feed the creature huddles as if seeking help" "The animal appears old" "Pan asks if the panda has been fed" "It has not" "The man discovered it whimpering..." "...and he was amazed" "Suspecting a digestive problem" "Pan decides to treat the panda back at camp" "It proves no easy task to relocate the 200-pound creature" "At Shashuping research station therapy begins with a breakfast of bamboo" "Weighing the old panda's good fortune at being rescued the students call him by a name that means "Lucky"" "Already, his appetite is returning..." "Antibiotics and vitamins mixed in honey meal quickly revive Lucky's spirit" "In ancient texts a creature believed to be the panda was known as "the iron-eating beast"" "...because it chewed up metal cooking utensils ...and it still tries to" "Lucky, it turns out, has an unruly curiosity and an indiscriminate palate" "Eventually the cautious researchers manage to retrieve this unusual delicacy" "In Shashuping's field lab" "Lu Zhi adds samples of Lucky's blood to a growing collection from pandas living in isolated groups" "Through genetic analysis she seeks to learn how much inbreeding has occurred" "In a hundred years, she fears all" "Qin Ling pandas could be first cousins" "This could cause extinction through harmful mutations and vulnerability to disease" ""There is a critical question:" "if this animal is inbreeding then how much and how bad the inbreeding could be" "This work, we hope will answer this question and then we'll find a way to help pandas"" "Recovered after a week of treatment" "Lucky is ready to be released..." "Pan is hopeful but the scientists know Lucky may be too old to survive in the wild" "Weeks later their fears will be confirmed" "Again ill" "Lucky will be taken to a feeding center where he will die" "In the bitter cold of early January while other Qin Ling animals hibernate the panda cannot" "Enslaved by the need to eat almost perpetually pandas continue to roam the frozen forest" "Pan and Lu Zhi have learned to respect the panda's tough constitution" "Thick, oily fur and bulky bodies insulate them and they seem immune to the cold" "For Xi Wang, snow is just a new terrain to explore" "Now a five-month-old toddler she seems dimly aware that trees are important" "In the months to come they will offer her only safety from predators in her mother's absence" "But to hide in a tree" "Xi Wang must first learn to climb it" "For now, baffled by the challenge she gives up" "For those who would study pandas winter in the Qin Ling mountains is a test of resolve..." "The cold is relentless..." "even inside" "Days and nights pass in the shared chores of a dwelling heated only by wood fire lit only by candle and lantern" "As winter drags on" "Jiao-Jiao begins to take Xi Wang with her while foraging" "The ancient Chinese may have found in such scenes of tranquility a symbol of peace" "According to one account retiring armies waved not a white flag but an image of a panda" "For Xi Wang another attempt to climb" "Success brings not only safety but a measure of youthful adventure" "As winter gives way to spring the panda's realm in the Qin Ling mountains reawakens with sound and color" "By may the new foliage intrigues Xi Wang" "At nine months she continues to nurse but like human babies she investigates the world with her mouth" "For Jiao-Jiao spring brings not only the bamboo shoots she treasures but the seasonal agony of ticks [Metastigmata (suborder)] and leeches [Hirudinea (class)]" "Xi Wang will watch her mother from the trees another four months until she's ready to join her foraging along the forest floor" "Once tentative, she now climbs about freely sometimes showing greater daring than judgment" "Jiao-Jiao seems concerned about a well-padded youngster especially when succulent bamboo shoots are abundant" "For both, life is serene" "They look awkward but pandas are deceptively agile their joints so flexible they can bite their own tails and perform gymnastic routines in suspenseful slow motion" "Clear-cut harvesting of the panda's forests is the paramount threat to their continued existence" "Food and cover dwindle" "Populations are further isolated" "Panda ranges have declined by half in only two decades..." "primarily from logging" "A billion people in China need wood for homes and heat" "In fifty years it could be almost two billion" "Over the years" "Professor Pan has watched timber companies invade 70 percent of Qin Ling's panda habitat" "He asks how far the loggers intend to go" "Next spring, they will cut all the way over the mountains the slopes now roamed by Jiao-Jiao and Xi Wang" "To penetrate the panda's forest new roads must be blasted out of the mountainside" "By most standards the operations are crude sometimes conducted with a casual daring that mixes gun powder with cigarettes" "Industrial safety is a recent development here but despite accidents the work goes on relentlessly" "Risking all" "Pan has pleaded with authorities to stop the logging of Qin Ling" "With stubborn insistence despite threats and harassment he has succeeded" "The government has halted the timber cutting in the 125-square-mile study area" "An excursion to check on Xi Wang now outfitted with a radio collar..." "It is mid-October" "At fourteen months" "Xi Wang is passing her second autumn" "Something is amiss" "The signals lead to a tangled clump of brush" "Expecting Xi Wang they find only her collar" "Pan believes Jiao-Jiao tore the collar from her youngster" "He suggests they search for Jiao-Jiao instead" "But Jiao-Jiao's signal is weak They will have to separate and scour the slopes" "Xi Wang is invaluable to science" "She has been monitored since birth and has provided unprecedented information" "But for Pan and his crew this panda has also become a friend" "Following his instincts" "Pan comes to a steep ravine..." "Barely visible among the foliage sitting casually in a tree the familiar shape of Xi Wang" "To re-establish contact they must sedate and re-collar Xi Wang" "They must act now before they lose her again" "But her perch above a cliff makes it a delicate operation" "The tranquilizing dart is necessary the pain to be inflicted slight" "But the moment is always disconcerting to those whose lives are dedicated to protecting wild things" "Several minutes pass as drowsiness sweeps across her" "They pray she won't fall" "Now docile" "Xi Wang stays in the tree enabling them to bring her down safely" "At 80 pounds she is a precious but awkward burden" "The professor who is her observer and defender a father of two daughters bears her as carefully as if she were a third" "Using radio collars" "Pan and Lu Zhi have been able to keep track of the whereabouts and activity of more than 30 pandas at Qin Ling" "Theirs is the first comprehensive study to document social and breeding behavior of wild pandas" "These periodic inspections are inconvenient for Xi Wang and rob her of dignity" "But she is contributing details of her development that can be obtained in no other way" "Xi Wang's story could affect her entire species revealing how to ensure their survival in the wild and to improve their care in captivity" "For Xi Wang it has been a day of curious events and a close encounter with another species..." "She returns to her mother and the life of endless simplicity now interested only in a drink of water and soon perhaps, a little bamboo" "At the Shashuping research station, a moment of farewell" "After months of work four of Pan's students must return to the university" "Assistants will come and go during the years ahead but Pan intends to stay here as long as it takes to understand the life of pandas in the wild and to keep them roaming freely through the surrounding forests" "In the ritual exercise called qigong" "Pan daily rekindles his determination" ""My friends in Beijing always ask:" "'Why do you continue to work..." ""...in the field year after year?" "When will it end?" "Your work has been published" "Why don't you stop?" "I tell them: "My goal is to protect the panda and to establish a refuge for them in the wild" "That is my mission but it will be difficult" "Achieving this goal may take my entire lifetime" "And even that may not be enough"" "So one man perseveres as solitary as his pandas a lonely figure in this island of wilderness" "One man and one panda" "Since these scenes were filmed" "Xi Wang has struck out on her own" "In the not too distant future she could have a cub herself" "As pandas have for millions of years she will feast on the forest drink from cold streams endure the chilly mists" "But her passage though life will be recorded for the ages because, like her name" "Xi Wang represents for all her species... a last fateful glimmer of hope" "Time..." "That relentless force that transports us from what was to what will be." "Though no one can say exactly what time is we do know what time it is." "5-4-3-2-1" "For Millennium, this is a landmark a special moment in time." "But far from all the commotion millions of others count their years very differently." "For Buddhists the year 2000 came and went more than five hundred years ago." "In the Muslim world it was only the year 1420." "While for many Jews it's the year the date was 5760." "Nevertheless the observance of this year 2000 is a singular opportunity... to listen to the heartbeat of the planet." "The National Geographic Society has long been capturing time:" "making it stop, slowing it down, and speeding it up..." "All to better comprehend the relentless flow from what was to what will be." "We invite you now to see the world through our eyes as we explore the epic adventure of life through time." "For Time is the measure of our universe... and only over time can we understand the natural world." "And it is our unique grasp of Time that helped give rise to science and culture... to civilization itself." "Take time, add exploration and the quest for knowledge and you have the human story." "A story of constant and accelerating change." "But now perhaps we are at a most critical point on the verge of controlling nature and on the brink of destroying it." "What kind of world will we leave to our children?" "Only Time will tell." "In a single, ferocious instant an explosion of heat and light" "Time, as we know it, began." "It was the big bang." "Some thirteen billion years later the cosmos defines our sense of wonder... strewn with things unimaginable like black holes and towering nebulae trillions of miles high spawning countless stars." "About two-thirds of the way through the history of time our own solar system was born." "A handful of planets and assorted debris orbiting an unremarkable star." "In this immense universe our own planet is like an insignificant blue ornament tenuously protected by a paper thin atmosphere." "But a closer look reveals that there's something wonderful going on here something rare perhaps or even unique." "Something called Life." "To see the origin of life we need only look beneath the waves." "Here, hundreds of millions of years ago the sea was a living soup of tiny organisms." "In this vast incubator life slowly evolved from the simple to the complex." "Then, about 540 million years ago there was an explosion of innovation." "Quite suddenly, entirely new forms of life began to emerge." "In the millions of years that followed armor plate and prickly spines appeared to protect creatures from a new threat:" "predators." "In time, deadly jaws appeared... and sinewy creatures who muscled their way into the arms race." "Some animals have changed very little over millions of years." "Among these living fossils are sharks:" "part time machine, part killing machine." "We still are trying to understand the elusive ways of these remarkably well-adapted predators." "On the windswept Farallon Islands off the coast of California researchers have spent years following the hunting patterns of individual great white sharks." "...this bite looks like it could be a seal or a sea lion, you know..." ""Over seven years up to forty great whites have been identified." "Some are observed in one season and then never seen again." "While others come back every year." "One of these is a massive eighteen-foot female named Stumpy - so called because the tip of her tail fin is missing."" ""We don't know where Stumpy is during most of the year, but we do know that she shows up here every Autumn at the Farallons."" "...so pretty consistent." "She's almost always in the same area."" ""What's more she appears to come each year to the same spot to hunt." "How do you know Stumpy is here?" "You set the board out..." "and she lets you know..." "This is how a great white kills an elephant seal in the first hit..." "In one precise torpedo-like blow the shark hits the prey from below." "The stunning impact of the first lightning strike may incapacitate the seal." "This strategy saves energy and may minimize the rise of injury to the shark."" "This surprising sequence of attack retreat and feast has served the shark well for a very long time." "But Nature was not content to have only the seas populated with living things." "After hundreds of millions of years of preparation out of the water crept life." "It took countless generations for gills to become lungs and flippers to evolve into wings or feet." "Eventually, a profusion of crawling flying and running creatures claimed the land for their own." "Reptiles began a one hundred and fifty million year sovereignty over the planet." "It was the age of the dinosaurs." "They were the biggest creatures ever to walk the earth." "Gone now some 65 million years... they live on in our collective imagination." "Among the departed was one of the strangest dinosaurs that ever lived." "It was called Ovirapto and it was swift, smart and lethal." "This expedition is traveling to a remote part of Mongolia to uncover the secrets of the Oviraptor's world." "Michael Novacek and Mark Norell of the American Museum of Natural History come to this desolate place to piece together a puzzle of evolution and extinction." ""One, two, three, four, five, six, seven eight, nine..."" ""...and then three over there... twelve." "Twelve eggs..." "All right."" "You know this is really a great fossil find because it's one of the rare instances where we can capture a little bit of behavior that's 80 million years old." "Here we have a- a sort of a day in the life or or the death of a- of a creature of a dinosaur in association with something it did during its life." "This one was fossilized where it dropped and it happened to drop right on top of its own nest." ""She didn't just drop there." "The good mother oviraptor was sitting on the nest." "They probably brought food to their nest as birds do." "And the good mother tended her eggs." "Like a bird, she prodded them into a circle." "The fearsome carnivore of the Gobi was parenting."" "Then, with remarkable swiftness the age of dinosaurs was over." "What happened exactly remains a mystery." "Many scientists believe an asteroid perhaps six miles wide slammed into Earth and helped snuff out the masters of the world." ""From our perspective, of course, this mass extinction event is not a big problem because we're part of the group that survived... and started evolving into bats and and large hoofed animals and lions and tigers and bears."" "With the great reptiles gone, smaller but more adaptable creatures took over." "Each learned to succeed in its own way." "Some rely on speed and powerful jaws." "Others, strength and a thick skin." "But no matter how adaptable a species may be - in the savage struggle between life and death, there is but one simple rule:" "Those who survive pass their traits to their young." "Those who die do not." "Every creature is a history book of genetic code." "These living ghosts are the product of all the life and death moments endured by all the generations before them." ""An ancient species related to both antelopes and pigs the water chevrotain has been feeding on flowers fruit and fungi here for over twenty million years." "All that time predator and prey have been evolving together" "Honing skills and strategies that make them well-matched in the game of survival..." "Under sharp-eyed surveillance the chevrotain submerges again." "She is completely at home here." "She doesn't swim but simply walks on the bottom just like a little hippo." "Her huge eyes are open wide but she sees rather poorly - probably much as a human does underwater..." "Keeping her belly close to the ground to avoid being lifted by the flow she simply walks away from danger..." "four feet below the surface."" "In the most extreme environments we find the most astonishing adaptations." "Forbidding deserts call for new tools for survival." "Out-maneuvered by a hungry coyote this creature seems ready to accept its fate." "But the horned lizard has evolved a surprising solution to a desperate dilemma." ""The swelling below his eye is not a wound it's the lizard's last defense." "Squirted from a specialized tear duct a stream of blood is aimed at the coyote's face." "The blood is laced with substances that are so distasteful the coyote wants nothing more to do with the lizard."" "Here on the barren ice floes of the Arctic it's hard to imagine any creature - much less a thousand pound brute - finding sustenance." "But the polar bear is a resourceful predator with infinite patience." ""The seal is safe for the moment but each new trip to the surface to breathe could end in another ambush." "It's an over-sized game of cat and mouse."" "Mammals thrive by capitalizing on a key innovation rarely found in reptiles: parental care." "They are capable of bonding mother to child, parent to parent to herd, pod or pack." "But as youth gives way to maturity animals demonstrate other important capabilities as well..." "Many of these battles are to seize the most critical moment in animal time:" "the moment their genes are passed to the next generation." "The next chapter in the Book of Life began with creatures that could grasp" " not only branches - but complex ideas as well." "It is here, among the primates, that we begin to see ourselves." ""We know that the earliest stage of human evolution happened in a habitat just like this, East African woodland that's got open areas... onto which our ancestors eventually moved and adapted to." "So to be able to study hunting here is the best way to give us some kind of window onto the earliest origins of meat eating in our own ancestors four or more million years ago." "As colobus monkeys are pursued by a band of chimpanzees we witness the terrifying tenacity of both predator and prey." ""As the chimps climb up the colobus retreat to the highest branches, too slender to bear the chimps' weight." "The male colobus stand their ground against chimps up to four times their size." "They will even take the offensive momentarily driving the chimps back." "Holding his tail out of the chimp's reach this male buys precious time for the escape of the females and young." "With chimps climbing everywhere one monkey leaps into the arms of death." "Even a rear attack by the defending colobus cannot save him."" "Resourceful, sociable, intelligent the chimpanzee has been content to remain in the forest for millions of years." "Only occasionally do they wander out into open areas." "But one related species - the ancestors of early humans - left the forest for good... and the world was changed forever." "Genetically, all humans, no matter what their heritage are 99.9% identical." "It is not what we are, but who we are, what we learn, believe and create that determines our group identity." "And that identity often determines our relationship with time." "In many places, time seems to have accelerated at a maddening pace." "In other societies, though time is like an easy traveling companion, as one moves through life in the eternal "now"." "In the highlands of Papua New Guinea, lives a remote society with their own understanding of time." ""For thousands of years, this Stone Age group had been hidden from the outside world." "As time and exposure worked their changes on most other peoples" "Hagahai culture remained more or less the same." "A living secret deep in the highlands of Papua New Guinea." "Possibly the last unknown group on earth."" "Carol Jenkins, a medical anthropologist, began working with the Hagahai helping them cope with malaria and other diseases that threatened their very existence." "She found their concept of time fascinating." ""Their sense of time is much more like what people say of the Australian aborigine time the dreaming that is it's always the same it goes over and over again it's a connection in an almost mystical sense" "between the ancestors and today." "Much of human culture is anchored in our traditions and often, these traditions are linked to our sense of time." "Everywhere, we commemorate rights of passage and shared beliefs that mark our voyage through life... and we celebrate them in the language of music and dance." "Like it or not, much of our precious time on this planet is consumed by work." "The sheer diversity of labor reflects the vast scale and scope of the human experience." "On the Indian subcontinent much work is still done by hand." "Here north of Mumbai mostly barefoot workers disassemble giant steel ships, reducing them to scrap." "The work is dangerous the rewards are meager but to make a living they persist." "But all work in India is not this punishing." "In sheer numbers India has the world's largest middle class." "The country's railways are a lifeline for all of India's one billion people crossing not only vast distances but bridging diverse cultures." "Over one and a half million workers keep the trains running on schedule." "In many ways, the railway has become the country's grand and reliable time keeper." ""At Borivli Station fifteen men have been meeting up for ten years." "They call themselves the '8:54 Group' and every morning they stake out strategic spots along the platform." "With speed and luck they can claim a few seats that they'll share between them." "They have only thirty seconds before the train pulls out again and consider their daily ritual like a workout at the gym."" "Very few of us choose to risk our lives on a regular basis." "For those who take up hazardous occupations the excitement, danger and rush of adrenaline can be addicting." ""When does a job become a mission?" "A career become a quest?" "How do you face each day at work when you know it could be your last?"" ""Who was Al?" "Al was our friend." "And I'm gonna miss him a hell of a lot."" "The way we live our lives is often shaped by our attitude towards death." "But few embrace the dead as wholeheartedly as the Ngaju Dayaks of central Borneo." "Anthropologist Anne Schiller has spent almost 15 years studying the death rites of the Dayak peoples." "She takes part in a ceremony called Tiwah during which the villagers dig up the bones of their dead parents spouses and children." "They do this so the spirit of their loved ones might go in the afterlife to what they call the prosperous village." ""If the head of a family hasn't been able to hold a Tiwah he is very troubled and unsettled in his mind." "He asks himself, how can I save my parents so they can go to the prosperous village?"" ""This is all about taking care of their parents" "I mean what these people are doing is they're- they're giving life to their parents in the way their parents gave life to them... so they're caring for them the way you care for a child." "You- you're washing it... and you're nurturing it and you're making sure it's comfortable."" "Now that the bones have been exhumed the Tiwah progresses to the ritual blood sacrifice." ""Blood protects you from illness it protects you from evil supernatural beings that might bother you and so sacrifices are held because you need that blood of the chicken or the pig or the cow or the water buffalo in order to anoint people" "and to anoint things to make sure that the people and the things remain safe." "From a culture that honors death to the death of cultures themselves..." "All over the world unique societies are under threat their cultures as vulnerable as endangered plants or animals." "According to some estimates nearly half of the world's six thousand languages will disappear in the next century." "The realities of an emerging global culture and economy often provide little incentive for preserving them." ""Good morning, sir."" ""Good morning children." "How do you do?"" ""How do you do?" "Thank you."" ""Sit down."" ""Thank you, sir."" "How does a people hold on to its own identity its own traditions and still remain open to the outside world?" "Disappearing cultures have much to tell us." "If only we can take the time to listen." "Long before maps and compasses those who ventured into unknown places would leave a sign for those who followed that said "We were here"." "The idea of being first of leaving one's mark in time and space inspires modern explorers as well." "They helped to define and describe our world." "The exploits of 20th century adventurers continue to fascinate and inspire." "Many indeed have achieved a measure of immortality." "Among them, Admiral Robert Peary and pioneering African-American explorer Matthew Henson - considered to be the first men to reach the top of the world." "Admiral Richard Byrd was credited as being the first to fly over both poles." "Hiram Bingham discovered the fabled lost city of Machu Picchu." "While William Beebe and Otis Barton were the first to probe the deep ocean." "In our own era, Jacques Cousteau allowed us all to be explorers of a wonderful new realm and championed our need to preserve it." "Today, being first is the passion of many." "But the goal is often not a place on the map." "For these brave souls it's not so much where they're going as how they get there." "Mount Everest, first conquered in 1953 has been climbed by the hundreds." "Still for every seven that reach the summit one climber will die." ""It's a mountain that you regard with considerable respect."" ""I don't know anybody who has a feeling of affection uh, for the mountain."" ""You could climb it... three times, five times, a hundred times you don't conquer it, you survive it."" ""If there is a cold day it's not twenty below, it's forty below." "Forty-five, fifty below say of Celsius... and this is hard for human beings." "If there is a storm coming it's much stronger because you're much higher up."" ""Windy... very cold." "Strong." "Really cold." "Is difficult."" ""It's really very difficult to do anything." "All you wanna do is lie down and even that's hard work."" ""Physically I experienced an awful lot of problems." "I had a- an ulcerated toe with the bone... showing, an intestinal parasite I lost thirty-five pounds in five days going to the summit."" ""I'm nearly at the summit." "Just a few more steps... not far now."" ""But this overwhelming feeling... incredible difficulty, pain, suffering is suddenly over."" ""Well I'm on top!" "I've made it!"" ""It's difficult to really understand how important it is to be there." "And I know instinctively I really wanted to stand... on the highest point of earth as I think most climbers do."" ""I'm on the summit."" ""You're both great heroes." "We're absolutely proud to death."" "If the roof of the world is becoming a little crowded much of the deep ocean remains a mystery to scientists like Dr. Robert Ballard." "His early expeditions included the first exploration of the mid-Atlantic ridge and the discovery in the eastern Pacific of hot water vents surrounded by incredible new life forms." "But Ballard is perhaps best known for exploring the most storied shipwreck of the 20th century." "And since Titanic he's been probing further and further back in time." ""We're sitting right now in- in ruins that are on the island of Sicily." "To travel from civilization to civilization here in the Mediterranean you must cross the Mediterranean and many of those ships didn't make it." "Many of those ships went to the bottom and many of them went into the deep sea." "Between ancient Carthage and Rome it's twelve thousand feet deep."" "Using the remotely operated vehicle Jason, and a U.S. Navy nuclear submarine" "Ballard has led a team of archeologists to the largest concentration of ancient shipwrecks ever found in the deep sea." "Almost a half a mile below an ancient trade route thousands of artifacts from eight ships were found strewn all over the sea bed." "Later they returned to the site and recovered Roman clay jars that once contained ancient trade goods like olive oil and wine." "There's glass." "I-I'm just..." "Among the bounty were glass cups traded by Arab merchants who sailed these same waters fifteen hundred years later." "What has surprised me the most is that uh we thought this was one event that this was a fleet of ships a group of ships that sank together and it's not at all." "We have... ships spanning over one thousand five hundred years of history." ""I feel very good, I-I feel that this really is a historic expedition." "This is the first major deep sea archeological expedition."" "The Age of Exploration is still far from over." "Ian Baker and Ken Storm are in search of a hidden waterfall that others claimed to have glimpsed from afar but none have ever mapped or measured." "They follow footsteps from the past." ""In 1924, British botanist Frank Kingdon" " Ward, led an expedition to Tibet searching for a waterfall as grand as Africa's Victoria Falls." "He pushed his way through much of the wild and forbidding Tsangpo gorges but never found what he was seeking." "On this expedition Ken and Ian are determined to finish" "Kingdon-Ward's journey."" ""It's a place that gives life but it's a place also of enormous danger that can take life at any moment."" "The Tsangpo gorge can plunge over sixteen thousand feet three times deeper than the Grand Canyon." "A single misstep could send a traveler a thousand feet to his death." "It was near here that Kingdon-Ward's exhausted guides insisted on turning back." "And sure enough this modern team had doubts as well." ""I think we all reached a point where we were suddenly questioning whether it was really going to be possible at all."" "Despite seventeen days of difficult trekking the expedition decides to press on." "Finally, they punch their way through a clearing." ""Oh, all of the Tsangpo is..." "pouring into that energy." "Can you imagine?" "!"" ""Incredible!" "Every drop... from the Kailas Mountain all the way past Mount Everest all the way to this point!"" "After a century of speculation the great falls has finally been placed on the map." "Named Hidden Falls of Dorje Phagmo it measures between a hundred and a hundred fifteen feet with an enormous volume of water that makes it so extraordinary." ""To actually come upon something new and undiscovered late in the 20th century is remarkable."" "Even in places that are mapped there are new worlds to explore like the lush rain forest canopy." ""I realized at that moment that first rope climb" "I knew where I was goin' for the rest of my life." "I was going up to the canopy."" ""It takes hard work and courage to conquer this new world." "But when they climb Nalini and other canopy researchers are also returning to a very old world."" ""We really felt like pioneers." "We felt like we were frontiersmen going to where no human had ever gone before and everything we picked up was something new and something different" " new species, new interactions."" "For aerialist Philippe Petit a life in balance is a challenge in itself." "Here he undertakes a daring walk over three hundred feet above the medieval Swiss village of Saillon." ""I am discovering, conquering uh a new world a world that is actually no-man's land." "It is dangerous - yes - if I miss the wire I am not here anymore but it's so simple, so beautifully simple the left or right, the center, the balance." "It's the essence of life..." "What I do is seemingly useless but actually is an inspiration." "Looking up is, is flying your own way." "People who don't have wing they can fly by looking up."" "The earth is some four and a half billion years old yet little time remains to undo the damage that we've wrought in our own brief moment on the planet." "The oil fields of Kuwait 1991... the aftermath of a brief but destructive war." "The fires have now raged for months." "The damage to the environment is nothing short of catastrophic." "But much sooner than anyone expected an international team of workers snuffed out the flames one by one." "Many of these people had never done such work before." ""We have proved so many things that we- nobody took a chance before to do it." "Nobody was daring before to do it." "We proved that yes, we can do it." "Once you have the will, you can do anything you'd like to do and we were given a chance to prove this and we did prove it."" "All over the globe concerned citizens have mobilized to preserve and protect endangered species and habitats." "The power of such dedicated people is proved today by the continued existence of creatures once nearly annihilated by man:" "the great whales." "Today, they are known and loved with such passion that the survival of most species of whales seems assured." "But for other creatures time is running out." "In central China, Professor Pan Wenshi dedicates his life to the imperiled population of giant pandas remaining in the wild." ""My friends in Beijing always ask why do you continue to work in the field year after year?" "When will it end?" "Your work has been published why don't you stop?" "I tell them my goal is to protect the panda and to establish a refuge for them in the wild." "That is my mission but it will be difficult." "Achieving this goal may take my entire lifetime and even that may not be enough."" "In suburban Atlanta Sue Barnard tries to overcome popular fears about a creature valuable to the ecosystem." ""We're gonna see some bats, okay?" "Are you ready?"" ""Yeah..." "Are you ready?" "All right." ""The children, the children are our future and they're marvelous." "They're open to learning." "They see and they form their own opinions by what they're seeing." "The bat's got friends but the bat's got to have more friends."" "From the suburbs to the inner city, conservationists are often where you least expect to find them." "Arthur Bonner, ex-gang member spent seven years in juvenile detention and prison." ""Good morning." "My name is uh, Arthur and uh you guys are out here to help us out to save an endangered species." "It's called a Palos Verdes..."" "When Arthur got out of jail he joined the LA Conservation Corps." "His life was soon turned around by a tiny 6-legged companion called the Palos Verdes Blue butterfly..." "Arthur is one of just three people who are permitted to gather the butterflies..." ""I'm very dedicated to coming down here." "I love to do what I'm doing I love my work."" ""He uses all his powers of persuasion to help his captives reproduce."" ""Okay girls, which one of you laid some eggs for me today?"" ""The uh, 5 females I collected out in the wild." "I bring them in I have to watch them lay their eggs..."" ""There you go, you gave me one..."" "The butterfly only has a five day life span... and it's up to me to keep her baby alive." ""For ten years the Palos Verdes Blue butterfly was thought to be extinct." "It is still considered one of the rarest butterflies in the world."" ""Those are my girls." "I love them all." "They actually kept me from being extinct as much as I'm saving them from being extinct." "They're saving me and I'm saving them."" ""It's very easy to dismiss... the bugs and the weeds of the world but science is revealing every year... just how important are these little things on which we and other larger organisms depend." "They cleanse the water they create the soil, they generate the very air we breathe."" "The case for protecting all life forms has been made powerfully by Dr. Jane Goodall." "She now speaks to the next generation for it is our children who must carry the message forward." ""It's terribly important I think that children should grow up not having this incredibly arrogant view that the world was made for us humans." "We all matter we all have a place in the world." "Each species whether it's human or non human has been evolved over countless thousands and thousands of years into a perfect organism and we should respect that."" "Our growing understanding and respect for all life is the key to a sustainable future for planet earth." "For it inevitably means that the human animal like all others must respect certain limits." "If we make the planet safe for every creature it will be safe for us." "Then, only the searing fire of a dying sun can put an end to us and that's not for billions of years." "If we make the planet safe for every creature there will be plenty of time." "Even as a little kid" "I was always curious you know what was the next yard like what was it like on the next street over the next neighborhood the next town" "It just snowballs" "Ever since I was a kid" "I was interested in animals" "I really liked to get up close and personal with animals" "I was a little boy who grew up on the shore lines of San Diego" "I wanted to be Captain Nemo" "I wanted to command the Nautilus" "Growing up in a small town in Alabama" "I never thought that I would do this" "Just amazing" "I think there is in all human begins this essence of exploration this desire to explore" "We all have this hidden two-year-old in us that wants to just kind of reach up and really feel the world around us" "I really think that there are too many places to explore too many things to discover to sit around" "If it is easy it would have been done before" "I think there are plenty of places to explore" "A lot of those places are going to be the most difficult to sustain yourself" "There's so much of the planet that is unexplored that I can't imagine we're gonna be out of work any time soon" "July 16, 1969" "Apollo Eleven escapes the earth's gravity and sets its course for the moon" "Our urge to explore has finally outgrown our small planet" "But as the people of the world look up the astronauts on board look back" "They marvel at earth" "It looks as strange as the place they're headed" "Below them is a planet still to be explored" "The spirit of exploration is as old as humanity itself" "Brave people have always ventured out into the darkness and come back to enlighten us" "And in the last century the pace of accomplishment has been astonishing" "Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay first to summit Mount Everest" "Robert Peary and Matthew Henson first to the North Pole" "Amelia Earhart?" "first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic" "That's one small step for man..." "And a thousand years from now they will still know the name Neil Armstrong" "But has everything been discovered?" "Is the age of exploration over?" "This is the story of ten explorers who believe that the spirit of exploration still thrives" "It is the story of what compels them to venture out time and again into the unknown" "Ian Baker believes that at the end of the millennium there are still places on earth that have never been named that have never been plotted on a map" "Somewhere in this vast Tibetan jungle he hopes to find a giant waterfall" "He's been searching for over a decade" "Ancient Buddhist prayer books hold that deep within a gorge is a cascade that shrouds the passageway to paradise" "I first heard about it from a very old lama who had spent much of his life meditating in these very remote valleys" "He had always told me the greatest of these was a place called Pemako in the far southeastern part of Tibet" "Baker made six expeditions in search of the falls" "He has never managed to reach them" "He is not the first to fail" "In 1924, British Botanist Frank Kingdon" "Ward tried to find the falls only to be defeated by the terrain" "Where he failed Baker hopes to succeed" "He knows Kingdon-Ward was unable to descend the sheer cliffs along more than five miles of the gorge" "Could the falls be located in this unexplored area?" "Baker and his expedition partner" "Ken Storm, have won the trust of local hunters who will lead them down paths that no Westerner has ever followed" "The gorge is a treacherous place teeming with leeches stinging nettles and deadly snakes" "Why do people like Baker risk so much to explore the unknown?" "I don't feel that I'm different from anybody else in the sense that I think the spirit of exploration is intrinsic to human nature" "Exploration is really one of the very very few things that makes us human" "Once you get a taste of it you can't go back to the simple life" "I did become tensely irritated at the endless rain being soaking wet never drying out" "Leeches all over your legs and just scratch marks all over your bodies and face just because half the time you're moving up through a pathless terrain" "But I think anybody who's given to a life of exploration has to feel some sense of embrace of this kind of wild existence where, you know the comforts of the civilized world are suddenly stripped from us" "As a young boy, Baker loved adventure" "He yearned to be the youngest to reach the top of famous mountains" "And he drew pictures revealing dreams of mystical places places with hidden waterfalls" "My more recent explorations in the Himalayas have been in that sense a continuation of my earliest childhood activities which was really to explore the forests and marshes behind the house" "There is still a first out there for Baker to claim" "But reaching the great falls of the Tsang-po is an epic journey away" "Now that the weather is clearing a little bit we're going to try to make our way down into this unknown section" "And for 75 years it has been believed to be an impenetrable wilderness" "Ian Baker's expedition to find the falls has been slowed to a mile a day" "In this terrain the difference between life and death can be a single careless step" "We had on previous expeditions seen from a long distance what appeared to be a waterfall" "But even when we were a thousand feet above it a year earlier we were still not able to determine whether in fact, this was the great falls of the Tsang-po that Kingdon-Ward had been looking for" "And there was the sense that unless you went down to the falls itself we would never be able to answer or resolve that question" "The jungle thickens" "The terrain gets even steeper" "Then, finally in the distance they hear the river falling" "All of the Tsang-po pouring into the energy" "Unbelievable" "A century of speculation is over" "They have filled in one of the last blank spots on the map" "These are, indeed, the great falls of the Tsang-po" "They name it the Hidden Falls of Dorje Phagmo?" "after the region's most powerful goddess" "What this discovery of the waterfall has done actually, is to evoke from people almost a subconscious need that we all have for magical places in the world for a sense that there are still places to be discovered" "I don't understand why people think that exploration is finished" "For me it's really just started" "I think there's plenty of places to explore" "A lot of those places are gonna be the most difficult places to really sustain yourself within and make a real contribution" "I love this expression:" "The last place on earth" "And that's what I'm really trying to bring back" "The best explorers have always brought back to us with their words with their pictures that last place on earth" "When the film Congorilla opened on Broadway in 1932, audiences flocked to the theater." "Most people had never seen moving pictures of such exotic animals" "You are going to see and hear the first pictures in natural sound ever made in the jungles of Central Africa" "There will be the roar of the lion herds of elephants millions of flamingos and rivers alive with the vicious crocodiles" "The film was made by Martin Johnson and his wife, Osa" "In 1917, they quit the Vaudeville Circuit left their New York home and began two decades of exploring and filmmaking" "When they began shooting Congorilla in 1929 wildlife was so plentiful they needed only to drive into the bush and turn on their cameras." "The abundance is long gone" "To capture what remains, it took" "National Geographic photographer Nick Nichols weeks of brutal trekking through the jungles of Central Africa" "I have no interest in wildlife photography for the sake of it" "It's just not justifiable in this time when we've got so many habitats and creatures that are endangered" "In our case, we're going out in an unexplored part of the African forest" "We really know what's out there but we want to come back and show everybody and say "Let's save it."" "The job that I do is considered one of the most romantic jobs on earth" "Everybody wants to do it" "But nobody sees it for what it really is being hot, insects diseases" "People see the glamour of the finished product or the glamour of the travel and they want to do it" "But they don't really want to do it" "Why do explorers subject themselves to such hardship?" "You've got to have something that drives you because you are getting into the suffering the hardships, being away from home" "So if you don't feel like you've got a mission" "I don't think you can put those feet in front of you when the going gets tough" "There's difficult cultures difficult political situations difficult physical circumstances and no guarantee of anything except that there's gonna be an endless number of hurdles that you're gonna have to pass over to pull something out and make it meaningful" "And that is enough to really deter any but the most hardened explorer" "There's fleas that burrow into your feet and lay eggs" "You gotta deal with those" "You may get 100 a night that you gotta deal with" "There's other animals that go into your privates and burrow away" "Shuffling in the mud, looking for animals" "There was heat and there is piranhas and there is caimans and there is crocodiles and killer bees" "Then there is the mosquitoes that bite you and cause all the different kinds of malaria" "Then there is flies biting that cause blindness and elephantitis" "It's just endless" "It's five a.m." "and I'm going out to photograph in the fig tree that [Neil] just rigged a tree platform in" "I'm trying to get pictures of monkeys and birds which are real elusive" "I have no assurance that they'll be there" "I just hope so" "I studied art as a young man" "I was a painter and I wasn't very good at it" "As soon as I picked up a camera and took my first photographs when I was 18 in college" "I decided at that moment that's what I was gonna do" "There's something in nature that is out of our realm of control" "I'm not sure what it is" "It's an essence" "That's what I have been looking for all my life" "Who knows how to get a frog to stand up?" "It is this word "wild" which means not controlled" "What's behind that is trying to find an essence that I can't define but we all know what it is" "We all know that there's something edgy out there that keeps us whole because we come from wildness, too" "In 1997, when Nichols was photographing tigers in India his journey embodied the new creed of exploration" "Unlike earlier explorers he is not driven by a desire to return with animals in cages or trophy heads... but with pictures?" "pictures he hopes will save these animals from extinction" "When I see an elephant in a zoo or a tiger in a zoo" "I'm looking at a specimen" "If we had five gazillion tigers in zoos we have no tigers" "If they're not out walking around in the forest that forest is not even whole" "Tigers are part of the package, the chain" "A tiger won't pose while Nick snaps its portrait" "So his crew rigs intricate camera traps to capture a tiger's image" "They hope one of the big cats will trigger the motion-sensors on the cameras" "We're trying to find a way to take pictures of tigers on their terms." "Actually, the tigers are taking their own pictures" "That's what it gets down to" "There's no humans here they come along whenever they want to" "We really wanted just to find a way to get into their world it's such a secret world" "Weeks pass?" "No tigers." "Go in!" "Oh, my God, yes!" "Yes!" "C'mon!" "Go in!" "My mission is definitely to look at the earth as a finite thing and say let's celebrate this thing" "Let's find a way to realize that it's so precious and so fragile" "The new edge to exploration is that we must know how the planet works" "Like Nichols, Sylvia Earle is driven by the desire to preserve what she finds" "What drives me to explore?" "It's the need to understand what we're doing so that we perhaps might be able to do better in the future" "Earle is the Chuck Yeager of oceanography a pioneer of undersea exploration" "Five species of marine life have been named after her" "Earle was raised on a farm in New Jersey in a time when girls weren't expected go grow up and have professions, let alone become explorers." "For me, my playground was the sea" "I knew from the moment" "I first saw a horseshoe crab sort of crawling up a beach in New Jersey that I had to know more about where it came from and how it lived and how it spent its days and nights" "And I've been intrigued with that ever since" "Seventy percent of the earth's surface is water but most of it remains as unexplored as the New World was to Columbus" "No place on the planet is more difficult to explore than the deep" "There's nothing more frustrating for a biologist a scientist such as I than to go down to 150 feet or even push the limits and go over to the edge of a drop-off into the sea and know that you just have to stop" "People have always dreamed of exploring the ocean" "But for centuries anything below a few hundred feet was impossible to reach until William Beebe and" "Otis Barton invented the bathysphere a steel ball they hoped would take them a half-mile below the surface" "It took four years of testing before the bathysphere was ready" "Finally in 1934," "Beebe and Barton jammed themselves in not knowing if it would be submarine or a coffin" "As they were slowly lowered into the depths the pressure built up to more than 1,300 pounds per square inch" "It was so cold, Beebe recalled it was like sitting on a cake of ice" "But they did it" "The bathysphere went a half-mile below the surface" "The record stood for 15 years" "Building on the accomplishments of Beebe and Barton" "Earle has pushed the limits of underwater exploration" "In 1979, untethered and alone she dove to over 1,200 feet" "It was as daring a feat as the early space walks" "Back in 1970, it was uncommon for women to do some of the sorts of things that I found myself hankering to do" "There were no women astronauts going to the moon" "In fact, there were no women astronauts at all at that point in time" "And aquanauts were also an iffy sort of enterprise" "Earle was one of five women selected to join a team of aquanauts who lived and studied in an underwater laboratory anchored in the Caribbean" "They called us aquabelles, they called us aquababes" "They had a hard time calling us aquanauts" "I didn't care what they called us as long as they let us go, and they did" "Earle has never let anything stop her" "Her passion for the ocean is too strong" "For me the lure of the deep is the lure of the unknown" "It's that curiosity that all children have but scientists never lose you just have to know what is going on" "In order to satisfy that curiosity" "Earle, like so many explorers is at the mercy of technology" "For years, she has teamed up with engineer Graham Hawkes." "Together, they have helped revolutionize underwater exploration" "You know, it's said that there're more footprints on the moon than in the deep ocean" "That's kind of literally true" "Once you step foot in the oceans you are just back where early man was you're back looking at a piece of the planet no one's seen before" "When Earle and Hawkes conceived of deep flight a new fast-moving submarine they had to build it themselves" "There is no NASA of the deep seas" "You know, I was born to be an engineer looking back" "I grew up with the nickname professor" "I apparently was always taking things apart" "Numerous rockets, numerous experiments, numerous little explosions" "My parents were both from London" "My father was postman" "And the small part of London Tootting the wrong side of the railway tracks went to the wrong schools" "Hawkes was the first in his family to go to college" "Over the past 20 years he has become one of the leading inventors of submersibles" "Hawkes's and Earle's dream is to literally swim with the fish" "It's the counterpart of flying you fly into that other atmosphere" "There's this moment of discovery that this is not just water this is water filled with life" "There are jellies, there are fish, there are eyes all around" "There you go as an explorer not alone for a moment... not even for an instant are you alone" "Oh, my God, it's coming right at me" "Oh, my gosh" "Oh!" "?" "Just so close." "He was just beautiful" "Funded in part by the National Geographic Society" "Earle is now diving in a remarkable new machine" "It is the tool for the next generation of deep sea exploration" "In July of 1969, four simple words expand forever the limits of human potential" "The eagle has landed" "The calmness of the voice masks the terror of the moment" "Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin have only seconds of fuel left when they land on the moon" "Armstrong's pulse races at 156 beats per minute" "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" "The triumph seemed complete but landing was the easier part" "NASA couldn't guarantee the safe return of the astronauts" "President Richard Nixon had prepared a eulogy in case the men were stranded on the moon's surface" "It read, in part:" ""These brave men know that there is no hope for their recovery" "But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice."" "Our greatest achievements are often balanced on the edge of catastrophe" "For 20 years, Robert Peary and his expedition partner" "Matthew Henson, had been risking their lives to walk to the North Pole" "On the fourth expedition temperatures dropped to minus 63 degrees" "They were forced to eat their dogs for food" "But the men relentlessly advanced and on April 6, 1909, they became the first to stand at the top of the world" ""The Pole at last, Peary wrote in his journal" ""The prize of three centuries Mine at last."" "As much as Peary and Henson dreamed of the North Pole and Armstrong the moon explorers have dreamed of climbing the world's highest mountain" "For decades, the slopes of Everest had claimed the life of one climber after another" "Then, in 1953..." "Mount Everest has been conquered by members of the British expedition ...Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary overcame the cold and the thin air to stand on the summit of Everest" "No one else will ever be able to claim the title:" ""First to the roof of the world."" "The drive to explore endures" "But have today's explorers been born too late?" "I'd love to have been an explorer in an earlier era where I could have been the first man to cross the Congo or the first man to penetrate the heart of Australia or climb Everest" "It would have been wonderful" "Exploration a century ago was about assigning names to places and I think it's become more about assigning meaning" "You really have to push yourself to the edge" "That's why it hasn't been done before" "I mean, if it was easy, it would have been done before" "An explorer is someone who pursues the epic journey a person who has a dream who prepares to fulfill that dream assembles a team, goes out into the ocean overcomes the tests of the mind and the heart attains the truth and" "returns to society to share the truth" "That's the epic journey and that's what the explorer does" "Deep sea explorer, Bob Ballard has spent a career in search of tragedy and disaster" "For years, he longed to find the Titanic" "It was the most elegant luxury liner of its time" "Titanic was built to last forever" "On April 10, 1912, she set sail on her maiden voyage" "Five days later she disappeared into the cold waters of the North Atlantic" "More than 1,500 perished" "People believed the ship was gone forever and that Ballard's quest to find her was futile" "But he proved them wrong" "In 13,000 feet of water, Ballard found the Titanic" "He made history come to life" "People could see the past floating before them a romantic era stolen away by an iceberg and now returned" "I don't go to sea unless I am really convinced I can succeed" "I have decided not to do a lot of expeditions" "People say," ""Why don't you find Amelia Earhart's airplane?"" "Fat chance." "I won't take on a job unless I have a good shot at it" "Ballard did not stop with the Titanic" "He found the Nazi battleship Bismarck explored the torpedoed luxury liner Lusitania..." "Contact." "That's a ship" "It's definitely you My only love ...and located the aircraft carrier Yorktown sunk in the World War II battle of Midway" "I have little boys come up to me and say they wish I would stop exploring because there isn't going to be anything left for them" "And I try to remind them that I've only seen one-tenth of one percent of the deep ocean so there's plenty there" "This time, Ballard is exploring further back in time than he has ever gone before... two thousand years ago when Roman ships criss-crossed the Mediterranean" "They were small vessels at the mercy of the sea" "Many of them never made it home" "To help him find the sunken ships" "Ballard has enlisted the help of a Navy submarine" "The NR-1 was used during the Cold War for missions so secret the Navy still won't talk about them" "Now the sub is hunting for a Roman galley that sank to the ocean floor 2,000 years ago" "Captain, ship's fit for dive" "You have permission to submerge ship" "Dive!" "Dive!" "40 feet." "Going down" "For hundreds of years scientists have looked in the ocean for our history" "And for most of that time they've only been able to look a very short distance" "And what we're trying to accomplish is something that has never been done before and that is to try and excavate a ship of antiquity that is thousands of feet beneath the sea" "The NR-1 hits thick mud" "The sub's arm is unable to dig below the surface" "Do the wooden hulls of Roman vessels still exist just beyond reach or has time stolen them away?" "Will this be Ballard's first failure?" "You can be lucky, but you work for it" "You know, you cannot just go and dig and discover something" "No!" "You have to stay day and night and work very hard" "And luck will come to you" "And that's why luck cannot come to a lazy explorer" "Like Robert Ballard," "Egyptologist Zahi Hawass is an explorer of deep time" "He has spent a career searching the sands of the Giza Plateau" "One of his most remarkable finds began with an accident when a horse, galloping past his excavation site plunged its hoof through the sand" "Below lay a vaulted tomb, sealed in the time of the pharaohs" "Inside, Hawass glimpsed eternity" "Because of the size of the tomb because of the unique shape of the vaulted ceiling and also because it was cased inside with plaster then I believe this is the man who was in charge of the whole administration of the workmen" "This is the man who wanted to be sure that all these people live in a good living and they go early in the morning to work and they come by the sunset and they live in the village, and at the same time" "when they die, there is a tomb for everyone" "Besides the foreman's tomb" "Hawass and his crews unearthed more than 250 graves an entire cemetery of workers" "For centuries, the pyramid builders were thought to be slaves a captive labor force cringing under the whip" "This discovery shattered that myth" "For explorers like Hawass the possibilities of discovery seem limitless" "The sands of the desert are constantly shifting" "Artifacts, hidden from one generation of archeologists can suddenly be revealed to the next" "In 1998, a team under Hawass's supervision made a startling find:" "A tomb, unseen untouched for thousands of years" "It is beautiful, the painting is so beautiful" "It is very rare" "We discover a lot of things every day, everywhere in Egypt" "But everything, almost 99 percent of what we discover, is robbed" "This is unique, and this is rare, because of one thing:" "This is intact" "Beneath a limestone lid, they discover a sarcophagus" "This is wonderful" "The symbol of resurrection" "Under the glare of television lights they struggle to remove the heavy lid" "Have the contents inside decayed and rotted?" "They crane forward, peer inside and a gift from the first millennium B.C.: a mummy dressed in a shroud of bead work portraying the gods of the afterlife" "Hieroglyphs around the coffin tell a story from the final glory days of ancient Egypt." "Buried here is a nobleman, a member of the pharaoh's court" "His name was Lufaa" "He is the director of the palace" "He was near to the king" "The king lives in the palace" "This is the man that is used everyday to know the throne is fine your majesty" "The ladies, or the wife, your main wife she's not coming today to see you" "You can meet this official today the dining room is set, wine is there we will make the party tonight" "That is the man that does all the arrangements at the palace" "He makes the palace life" "Hawass's explorations have given us a more detailed picture of the past of who we are and where we come from" "An explorer is someone's who trying to find answers to basic truths" "I think all of us want to know those answers" "Certainly, we want to know who we are and where we came from and where we're going" "And I think most people think about those questions but very few of them spend a career trying to find answers to those things" "For weeks," "Robert Ballard has been searching for history in the depths of the Mediterranean" "He has not been able to find the Roman ships he believes sank in these waters" "He cannot afford to fail" "A single expedition can cost millions of dollars" "Hold shipwreck" "Holy mackerel" "At last..." "Look at that!" "...3,000 feet beneath the waves... fragile amphora..." "jugs that held wine dried fish and olive oil" "Instead of finding the amphora sort of randomly scattered throughout this area they are, in fact, concentrated in very narrow lines one amphora after another, hundreds of them" "As Ballard and the captain of the NR-1 plot the find the final tragic moments for the Roman ship are revealed" "It must have been caught in a fierce storm" "They began to off-load their cargo as fast as they could throwing the amphoras off one side of the ship and off of the other" "This is probably the width of the ship the separation between these two rows" "Two miles of amphoras were being thrown over the side until finally the ship went under and ultimately sank here" "Ballard deploys a scavenger sub named Jason to bring the 2,000-year-old artifacts to the surface" "Robert Ballard has proven that we can dive into the deepest oceans and resurrect the sunken stories of the past" "The key is that you plug away you slug away, you slug away and then there's this moment of discovery" "And it's so exhilarating" "It's just the greatest natural high known to a human race" "And once you've experienced that you want to experience it again" "There is so much of the planet that's unexplored that I can't imagine we're going to be out of work anytime soon" "Exploration really has that element of discovering something new" "You make it a discipline to observe to document, to record what you see" "The old style of explorer it was about conquering something about, you know, putting your flag on it about getting control, to be the master of" "I think the real difference between adventure and exploration is that exploration is adventure with a purpose" "Michael Davie is just starting to explore our world" "In 1997, at the age of 22 he trekked from Cape Town," "South Africa, to Cairo Egypt a 5,000-mile journey that took him seven months" "Davie uses a video camera to explore more than geography he explores culture and people" "His journey epitomizes the explorer within us all" "Do you think life here in Botswana is difficult?" "Yes" "Why?" "There are no jobs" "But your future, does your future look good?" "Yes, I think so" "Peter Pan was my hero, you know" "I wanted to live a Peter Pan existence" "I wanted to fly away to Never-Never Land and run wild with the Lost Boys" "You know," "I think it's every kid's dream to get out there and bash his way through the jungle and have wild adventures and extreme encounters and get himself into as much trouble as possible" "And now I get paid to do that which is the greatest privilege of my life" "Man, this place is just amazing, just amazing" "An explorer is somebody who has to look deeper into things than things were looked into before" "It's about going into territory which geographically has been explored before but emotionally perhaps has not" "Mozambique at last" "I just hope I don't step on any land mines" "Red danger sign" "Danger!" "Mines!" "What kind of damage could a mine like this do?" "Take off a lower leg or take off a limb" "It's primarily a weapon that's designed to maim rather than kill, although there's every chance in the world that it would kill a small child or an elderly person" "One of the most inspiring people" "I've ever met in my life was a five-year-old girl named Isabel" "She was a land mine victim living in Mozambique" "And I think I forgot that I had the camera in my hand and suddenly I was looking at a five-year-old girl fighting to learn to walk again" "That was an incredibly potent and emotional moment for me and I don't think it's one that I will ever forget" "When I turned 21, my parents and I were on a camping trip and we were sitting around the campfire" "And we decided to count the number of times we'd moved in my 21 years" "And we had moved home 36 times" "And at that point I realized that although I wanted to become an explorer of some kind" "I had already spent my entire life doing that" "Danger certainly adds an element of spice to what I do and I love that" "I love the sense that there's something at stake" "Today is a hell of a lot tougher than yesterday was and it's been quite scary, actually" "We've been surrounded by a forest fire" "I need the adrenaline, yeah, I mean otherwise I'd still be at law school studying contracts" "Hello" "What's the problem?" "I don't have to quote this camera" "I know my rights" "I think the first time I got into real trouble" "I wasn't enjoying it all" "I was absolutely terrified" "But once I saw myself get through that situation" "I think that's probably when the addiction kicked in" "Okay, well you don't have to hassle me all the time" "I know I'm foolish and I know I'm reckless sometimes" "But, you know there is a certain amount of appeal in riding that edge" "You can't really understand life or appreciate it or understand it or the scope of it until you've flirted with death a little but understood the other side" "Exploration is often a solitary venture a journey to understand yourself and your place in the world" "Heidi Howkins craves dangerous places" "For her, risking death on a thin cornice of snow is how she explores life" "Who could have guessed that this little girl would grow up to be a high altitude mountaineer?" "There was one influence in her life that might have given you a clue?" "her father" "She describes him as an eccentric fitness fanatic" "He passed along his passion for ultra-long distance races" "But Howkins quickly got bored" "She wanted something more" "For me, those are just physical challenges" "They're not mental challenges" "Yes, sure, you get to the point where to continue running after 24 hours you've got to have some kind of mental urge" "But it's, there's no danger" "There's no risks, there's no fears" "But risk and fear are at the core of mountaineering" "While an earlier generation of climbers would have been satisfied with conquering one world-class peak in a year" "Howkins hopes to conquer two:" "Everest and K2 without the aid of supplemental oxygen" "It really doesn't matter that I'm female when I'm up there" "What matters is that I'm a good climber" "And that's a great feeling" "That's something that definitely gives me a charge" "It'd be nice to share that with other women" "It's just that there aren't that many of us" "My legs are saying, "No more up!"" "Howkins knows all too well that once she sets foot on a mountain she puts her life in peril" "While climbing Kanchenjunga in 1997 she was struck by a massive avalanche" "Although buried in deep snow she found the strength to claw her way to the surface" "In 1998, her expedition was hit by another avalanche" "The slabs of snow missed her but she was helpless as members of her team were swept away" "Two were killed" "Despite the danger" "Howkins returns year after year to these mountains" "You have to confront your own mortality like that every day on an expedition if not every hour, or every minute" "It becomes something that you know sort of like your fingers and your toes" "You're certain that it's there and you're fully aware of it" "You're catapulted into a totally different realm when you're facing that fear that terror, that mystery, the unknown" "Why do climbers like Howkins scour the earth for extreme vertical places?" "Why do they eagerly seek out life on the edge?" "Why do I do this if it's so cold and so uncomfortable and scary?" "Because I don't want life to be easy" "You know, I find greater meaning in my life when I go out and struggle to get something I want" "On Baffin Island, 300 miles north of the Arctic Circle there is a wall of granite more than twice as high as the Empire State building" "It's not the world's highest, it's hardly even famous" "But no one has climbed it" "For four world class climbers that's an irresistible challenge" "I think, to me personally true adventure requires an uncertain outcome" "It's gotta have this big question mark hanging over it" "It's probably the hardest piece of big wall climbing that I've done" "Maybe that's what it's all about pushing yourself so far out there that you can't really turn around" "You have to keep going" "Basically, a trip like this is a journey" "It's a journey of exploration into a beautiful wilderness like Baffin Island" "I don't have a death wish, I have a life wish" "And these trips bring you closer to life than anything I can imagine" "Howkins's journey is becoming increasingly difficult" "She is approaching the death zone" "Above 26,000 feet the air is so thin that the brain is deprived of oxygen" "It becomes hard to think straight" "Every fiber in your body is telling you to stop to sit down, to die, essentially" "You've moved beyond your survival instinct" "There has to be something beyond reason that's pushing you to continue moving especially to continue climbing up" "Howkins isn't the first woman to try climbing both Everest and K2 in a single year" "In 1995," "Alison Hargreaves had successfully climbed Everest and had reached the summit of K2" "But on her descent she was caught in a storm and died on the mountain" "Howkins herself is in trouble" "Illness and weather stop her ascent" "I can't describe how I really feel right now without using four-letter words" "I mean, I'm like, I've got a fever" "I'm sitting at 21,000 feet" "I slept for about one hour last night and the other 11 hours" "I hacked up all kinds of lung gunk" "I've got bronchitis or something" "She is forced to admit defeat give up the summit, and descend" "To deny that the summit is important isn't what I'm trying to do" "It's just that it's not as important as the way in which I climb" "The journey that happens on the way to the summit is more important" "It sounds cliché, but it's true" "It's not whether you reach the summit, it's how" "It's not what you do it's how you do it that matters" "The best explorers are always imagining the next journey, the next goal" "But what are the personal costs of such relentless?" "I'm on the road a lot" "It's very difficult to develop roots to put out roots in any one community because I'm not here for enough of the year to really get to know people" "I regret that I didn't have more time with my children when they were young because I chose to go out on expedition" "The negative side is obviously being away from home" "I love my family" "And I love land" "I think the most important thing" "I've learned about exploring the ocean is how much I love land" "You know, I have absolutely no regrets about it" "Whatever one might conventionally see as a sacrifice is not a sacrifice and that it really entails not seeking out security above all else" "I think my biggest sacrifices are the fact that I'm going to die real young because I've just been worn out from these tropical diseases" "That's my biggest sacrifice" "The Llanos, wild heart of Venezuela" "For the early explorers who dared enter this untamed place no creature loomed larger than South America's giant serpent..." "Look out, Jimmy!" "Hold the head, hold it!" "Explorers spun tales of 100-foot monsters intent on human flesh" "Jim is black in the face, almost done for" "Exploration now is very different than it used to be" "Early explorers would go and conquering things conquering people, many times even destroying the things that they were exploring" "Exploration now has a much more respectful meaning and taste to it" "A barefoot explorer," "Jesus Rivas is hunting the anaconda not for sport, but to understand this mysterious beast" "Rivas explores a dangerous landscape for the anaconda rules this swamp with lethal efficiency" "It's meal of choice is the capybara a giant rodent that can weigh in at over 140 pounds" "The snake kills with power, not poison" "It wraps its coils so tightly around the capybara that the animal cannot breathe so tightly that its blood can no longer circulate" "It will take the snake six hours to ingest this meal" "The anaconda is strong enough to overwhelm and kill a person" "Rivas, however, is obsessed with getting as close as he can to these creatures" "There's no telling how many hours of fruitless sun" "I got on my head and after six, eight hours looking for a snake in the swamp and nothing happens" "But if you're stubborn enough and if you go for it and you try and try and eventually you accomplish it" "The time comes when you step on something and your foot bounces back and there's this big animal underneath you" "Hurry, hurry" "Are you losing your grip?" "In a second, I will" "Oh, it's a big mama" "Come here and get a better grip" "It is a wonderful animal" "It is an animal that, if anything has to inspire admiration and awe more than any other thing" "Godzilla!" "?" "We are having a ball, aren't we?" "Rivas and his wife, biologist Rene Owens have captured and studied more than 800 snakes" "Their exploration funded in part by the National Geographic Society is a first" "People ask me why it has not been studied before" "And the reason is that" "I don't think anybody thought it was possible" "You can't find them, they are too hard to get around we can't subdue them they are a very hard animal to study and that is why they haven't been studied" "Wait, wait, wait here" "To crack the code of this strange beast" "Rivas searches for breeding balls massive coils of mating snakes" "He plants radio transmitters to track potential mothers" "Ever since I was a kid, I always loved the wild" "I had this urge of going out into the wild into the forest, into the sea, into the ocean into whatever was a good natural habitat" "Oh, you want to kiss me, don't you?" "I'm not your lover" "My mother, when I was a kid, called, had this word for me" "It was "pata caliente" which means hot feet because she couldn't stop me from going out and looking for interesting things to do" "Okay, I'm gonna pull the whole thing to see what's going on" "Rivas and Owens have struck anaconda gold a breeding ball" "This is their Everest, their North Pole" "To reproduce, as many as a dozen male anacondas will wrap themselves around a single female" "Rivas and Owens have just begun to unravel the secrets of this communal mating ritual" "The first time I laid hands on an anaconda it was a large female next to a bridge it was a massive animal" "When I put my hands around it and couldn't grip it my fingers could feel just pure muscle" "It was unbelievable" "It was the thing that really hooked me about the animal" "Nice female" "It's beautiful" "Look at those colors" "Out there, somewhere in the swamp" "Rivas believes there are giant anacondas beasts of monstrous proportions" "He dreams of discovering such a serpent one day" "I've thought a lot about what to do if I found this animal that is too big for me to catch but is too big for me to let it go" "I don't know what I'll do" "It will be some tough fight" "I don't know who's gonna win" "They're all my family" "Rivas is following in the footsteps of a noble tradition of naturalist as explorer people like Charles Darwin who set sail to the Galapagos Islands and saw birds in a whole new way" "He returned to England with the theory of evolution or Jane Goodall who lived for decades in the African wilderness and with a patient gaze explored the world and the mind of the chimpanzee" "She has revolutionized our understanding of animals" "She witnessed chimps doing things no one had seen before like making tools" "Her explorations have shown us how closely connected we are to the natural world" "Since Goodall began her studies 40 years ago the world's population has nearly doubled" "Blink and wild habitat vanishes" "Explorers, like herpetologist Brady Barr must act as emergency room surgeons and move quickly to save endangered species" "I would give anything to go back in time and see what the planet was like when it was more in balance before there were so many humans on the planet" "Something's wrong with the Everglades" "It's an ecosystem in peril" "It's dying" "And the alligator is a crucial component in that ecosystem" "In the Everglades, the 'gators breed less frequently their growth is stunted" "To find out why he's exploring the belly of the beast, literally" "You have to know what's important in the alligator's diet before you can get a handle on the bigger picture you know, what's really happening with these alligators out here" "To investigate their culinary habits" "Brady must first find and catch one of these swamp dwellers; no easy task" "Scary situations are just part of the job just the nature of the situation and what I do and where I go" "If you're gonna work on something that can eat you or bite you and kill you" "I mean that's just there's no way to get away from the danger" "It's just a part of the business" "Right there!" "Okay, try to keep the light right on it" "I'm gonna try to move up to it" "Oh yeah, I got him, I got him" "See that?" "Okay, now are you ready to give it a try?" "Now, when I tell you to move move fast" "Okay!" "It's always a little nerve-racking to tape the jaws up" "This alligator's not that big" "I've always been fascinated with alligators even as a small child" "But I grew up in the cornfields of southern Indiana" "There weren't many alligators there" "I went to graduate school in south Florida where there were a lot of alligators" "And I saw these large carnivores living in close contact with humans" "His explorations are proving that this close contact is toxic for the alligator" "Alligators in the Everglades grow very, very slowly" "A seven-foot animal 100 miles north of here on Lake Okeechobee might be eight years old" "A seven-foot alligator here in the Everglades this alligator?" "might be 20 years old" "Maybe it's mercury poisoning maybe it's quality of the diet" "That's what we're looking into" "Maybe it's pollution" "Changes in hydrology have changed what the alligator is eating" "It's a complicated picture and, you know hopefully we'll shed a little light on it with this stomach content data" "We're going to put this garden hose into the mouth of the alligator down into the stomach fill it with water and then May Lynn's going to give it the Heimlich maneuver just like a choking person" "Hit it hard." "Everything you got" "I'm gonna pull the hose this time" "One, two, three, go!" "I didn't feel anything come out" "Look at this" "There's a seven-foot alligator and here's the contents of its stomach" "One snail with the tissue still attached" "And here is two, three remains of four snails" "Before we started this research people said, "Oh, alligators eat birds and fish and you know, pull down deer."" "We're finding they eat a lot of snakes and believe it or not, they also eat snails" "That's how these alligators are making a living out here in the Everglades" "It's a tough place to live" "If I was an alligator" "I wouldn't want to live in the Everglades" "Paul Sereno is famous one of the most famous bone hunters in the world" "Just 41 years old he's already made more significant discoveries than most paleontologists make in a lifetime" "Time and again" "Sereno has headed out into the unknown and come back with the bones of dinosaurs that no one has seen before" "For Sereno, 1,000 years is a blip in time" "His finds allow us to imagine history on a geological scale history that is more than 100 million years old" "How many chances do you have to make a mark in the world to change the way we look at a continent the way the world was 130 million years ago" "With one expedition we really have the chance" "And the only way that we can do that is really, by performing beyond what we think we can do" "This time Sereno is on an expedition deep into the Sahara" "It's a harsh landscape" "Sand storms, relentless heat and gun-toting bandits will make the next four months a brutal experience" "Paleontology often finds the most remote places because they are places that are raw earth places difficult to live in places often unexplored" "And the more unexplored the better the better chance you have of finding something that nobody's ever seen before" "Just getting to the fossil beds is a grueling cross-country road trip" "The journey is not just arduous it's potentially lethal" "A civil war in this area ended recently" "Travelers were killed on this road the week before" "I have told you that we might require an armed guard before we left" "I didn't know the details of it" "I didn't know what happened last week" "That was in the future then" "We have items that people want items that they have killed people for" "It's a personal risk going out there" "There's no question about it" "If something happens or if people feel that whatever their obligations are whatever their personal feelings are that they've reached that point and want to go back" "I don't blame anybody for that circumstance" "I will help you leave, you know, in a timely fashion" "It's the classic explorer's dilemma:" "How much are you willing to risk to achieve your goal?" "Are you willing to risk your life?" "Although the team will need armed guards no one abandons the expedition no one wants to pass up the chance of making a major find" "After five days and 14 flat tires they finally reach their destination" "Okay, show me the money" "Where're the bones?" "Although the world Sereno explores vanished millions of years ago it still lives in his imagination" "You've got to look at something that doesn't look like a lake and imagine back to what it was like as a lake" "What this little fragment here is telling you is that there were fish there" "There were trees" "This was an area where there was a chance that your prize possession a dinosaur or a crocodile or whatever you're looking for could have gotten buried there" "I think I inspire in part by example in the field" "I wouldn't ask anybody to do anything that I wouldn't be doing myself" "I can take the heat so I'll work right through the middle of the day at 120 degrees out on the site the bone actually reaching 150 degrees really, really hot" "I really find that exploring back in time is one of the most fulfilling things because it forces you to imagine" "And at first, imagination sounds unscientific" "After all, we're observers of hard evidence" "But, in fact, imagination is what" "I think is the essence of science" "Dig by dig, explorers like Sereno have transformed pure imagination into scientific fact" "The team has been working 14-hour days in heat often over 120 degrees" "And beneath tons of rock... a revelation." "We have a couple of skeletons mixed at this site" "That's a conclusion we've drawn after a lot of work" "What we discovered when we first started peeling back the mound here is the hip region and back bone of a very large sauropod" "Here's the vertebrae here" "Sereno thinks the animals were the victims of a huge flood" "The surging water piled their multi-ton bodies in a stack and the river sediment buried their bones" "Although the sauropods are a significant find, Sereno is not satisfied" "He sets out deeper into the desert in search of more bones" "Go this way?" "Okay, go this way." "As hard-working and focused as he is now it wasn't always the case" "As a child, he broke school windows with rocks and even tried to derail trains" "The one thing that kept him on track was bones" "He's been fascinated with them since childhood" "At the new site, the team can't contain their excitement" "There are bones everywhere" "We've got an aranosaurus" "We got therasaur" "You've got a sauropod, and a therapod" "Five minutes" "They can leave their pick axes in the truck" "Fossils are scattered around on the surface of the desert" "No one has been here to scavenge the bones" "Wow!" "Look at those ribs!" "Beautiful!" "Bone by bone they uncover a predator some kind of high-spined dinosaur with a toothy jaw" "Yeah, this is a piece of aranosaurus" "And then Sereno and his team make another stunning discovery" "Wow, this is great, Dave" "That's a big ass claw!" "It's a foot-long thumb claw just laying there on the surface" "Anybody would have stopped to pick it up but no one was there" "That's a particularly exciting moment sort of a chilling feeling that reveals that there are many many places on the surface of the earth that have not been investigated" "And it's just the beginning" "Bones of the animal have been preserved in the sand and rock" "Sereno thinks they have discovered a new species of spinosaur" "Not until they haul over four tons of bones back to the lab will they know for sure" "The expedition is over but the journey of discovery has just begun" "Over the next year in this basement laboratory at the University of Chicago" "Sereno's team will painstakingly reconstruct the animal" "I had a vision of something" "I would like, I think to see this animal down low up front as if it were almost fishing with its hand you know, with the claws ready to grab something" "It's just like you say, to some extent interacting with something it's looking, it's ready to go after something" "We are literally resurrecting a world that once existed 130 million years ago" "When we set foot in Africa, in the desert there wasn't one skeleton or skull that was known well enough to reconstruct from the whole Cretaceous period" "That's the last half of dinosaur evolution" "We now can stand among six or seven of our recreations" "Wow!" "That is really big" "For the first time in 100 million years the spinosaur stands" "It gives the public a sense of a lost world a time without humans, something that's foreign, strange... a time when there were animals that weren't like us where we didn't influence and control the world like we do today" "That's critical, I think for understanding and also preserving our future" "The beast is 11 feet tall" "And from the tip of its tail to its fang-filled snout it measures more than 30 feet" "I think there is a point in an expedition when you feel like" ""We've done it!"" "Unconsciously, you realize there's tension that's gone a tension that drove you to spend months organizing and energizing a team to be able to accomplish that" "But there is a thrilling point when you say" ""We've done it again,"" "and you can walk out thinking we have made a difference" "In the face of such discoveries how can we say that exploration is finished that it has all been done?" "There are places on the planet that we still haven't seen" "There are ocean depths we haven't been to" "There are species yet to be discovered" "And there's always something new on the horizon" "We can never know everything" "To be an explorer today is to face the greatest era of exploration ever" "It's just beginning" "We're just beginning to open the doors to see how many more there are out there" "I think the ultimate goal really is not to ever fall into some false complacency and think that we've made whatever discoveries there are to be made and that we our whole life, continue to be this sense of" "informed by this spirit of discovery and exploration" "On the cusp of a new millennium we can pause and look back at what we have accomplished" "Exploration has remade how we see our planet" "But true explorers will never be satisfied with what they see now" "They will continue to rush head-long into the future ...pushing the limits of mind and body whether they are diving into the deepest oceans" "uncovering artifacts of antiquity or saving the habitats of endangered species" "Our limits will become the next generation's triumphs" "One of these children might walk on the surface of Mars" "Another might explore and solve the riddle of human consciousness" "The only guarantee is that in every generation there will be a daring few who continue to dream to be restless, and who are willing to risk it all to explore the unknown" "It began here in Ireland at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast." "Three thousand men would labor here for more than 2 years." "They were building a monster the largest ship the world had ever seen." "In the spring of 1909 a mountain of steel began to rise against the sky." "The ship would weigh 66,000 tons her hull would span 4 city blocks, each of her colossal steam engines was the size of a 3-story house." "The huge scale of these things was a source of delight." "It was a scene out of Gulliver's Travels when 20 draft horses were needed to haul the ship's anchor through the streets of Belfast." "Some few observers found this giant threatening and wrote of her nightmare scale." "But their forebodings fell short of the event, for the fate of this ship still fascinates the world and her name is a synonym for tragedy." "In 1910 the huge ship taking shape in Belfast was a supreme wonder in world accustomed to miracles." "Every day it seemed something bigger or better was invented." "Never had so many people been so prosperous, never had they taken such delight in showing off so this was called, "The Gilded Age."" "This was a time when horses still got most people around." "But things were rapidly changing thanks to the machines of a new age everything from rubber bands to radios from lightbulbs to automobiles." "Progress and prosperity money and machines, almost anything seemed possible and often it was." "May 31st, 1911, the Royal Mail Ship Titanic, slipped gracefully into Belfast harbor." "It was the largest moving object ever made by man." "The Titanic was designed for the rich passenger trade on the North Atlantic." "It was not only the biggest ocean liner it was by far the most luxurious." "Aboard Titanic it was hard to remember that this was indeed a ship." "Advertising the delights it offered the White Star Line called Titanic," ""a floating palace."" "So confident were Titanic's builders that her trial voyage lasted just 8 hours." "Almost as an afterthought she was said to be, "unsinkable."" "On April 10th, 1912, Titanic's maiden voyage began." "With their maids valets and chauffeurs their mountains of baggage the rich traveled in a style almost unknown today." "In an age that worshipped wealth the 325 first class passengers were an awesome assembly." "Titanic was like a time capsule laden with the splendors of the gilded Age." "In 1912 these films were shown in theaters to a public eager for any glimpse of Titanic in fact, this is actually Titanic's smaller sister ship the Olympic." "But the excitement and spectacle were true to the event and many people couldn't tell the difference." "Titanic sailed from Southampton at noon, she was expected to reach New York just 7days, with 2,228 people aboard her." "There are a few authentic pictures taken aboard Titanic on her first and last voyage." "A vacationing priest Father Francis Brown, caught these poignant snapshots of his fellow passengers." "Most of them on a voyage to eternity." "The next day Titanic made her last stop pausing off the coast at Queenstown, Ireland." "Here tenders brought out the last passengers, mostly Irish immigrants headed for new homes in America," "and here the lucky Father Brown disembarked, taking these pictures on his way." "Father Brown caught Captain Smith peering down from Titanic's bridge poised on the brink of destiny." "Then Titanic sailed into the twilight zone of legend she would not be photographed again for 73 years, vanished in all but human memory." "The event of Titanic's last hours have not faded with the passage of time." "The tragedy irony and sheer terror of this night still seize the imagination." "A British film, made in 1929 was one of the first of many Titanic movies:" "Full ahead." "Full ahead, sir." "Despite radioed warnings, Titanic struck an iceberg." "She carried only enough lifeboats for about 1.200 people and not even that many were saved." "In 1986 a new chapter in the Titanic's story began." "The men and machines involved did not even exist when Titanic went down." "From the Woods Hole Oceanographic institution came the research submarine Alvin and Dr. Robert Ballard a geologist and undersea explorer." "For decades Ballard had dreamed of being the man to explore the Titanic wreck." "Now, if all goes well he may succeed within a few days." "On July 9th, Ballard's expedition backed by the U.S. Navy and drawing on proven underwater technology puts to sea from Woods Hole." "One seven five." "One seven five." "The research vessel, Atlantis II heads for Titanic's resting place about 1,000 miles due east." "A rare alchemy of talent desire and circumstance, has led Ballard to this adventure." "Many led Ballard to this adventure." "Many have called it foolish and at any rate, impossible, it's been a hard sell." "No one person, no one organization on one shared my dream." "There was pieces of it the technology part, the ship part, the submarine part." "It's very much like Cinderella going to the ball." "So I had to go around and get the shoes from somebody and the dress from somebody and the coach and the coachman and then I knew everything by midnight," "I'd turn back into a big pumpkin so I had a sense of urgency to get it done before I ran out of time." "The year before a joint French American expedition with Ballard as co-leader sought to locate Titanic." "A 150 square mile area was searched by sonar devices and remote TV cameras towed along the bottom over 2 miles down." "But Titanic and not lie where she was thought to be." "TV pictures revealed only a monotonous plain of sediment sometimes enlivened by a sluggish fish or empty beer bottle." "Days of futile search dragged on." "It is 1 a.m., September 1st, 1985." "the search has been going on for 56 days." "#1:" "Wreckage." "Bingo." "Yeah!" "#2:" "Somebody ought to go get Bob." "#3:" "Bob's gone love this." "#4:" "This is it!" "Look at that thing." "All:" "Oh, alright!" "Yahoo!" "#1:" "What is it?" "#2:" "I don't know but it's manmade." "#3:" "There's more stuff coming." "#4:" "It's the boiler!" "#1:" "Yes, yes, that's fantastic!" "#1:" "I'll be goddam." "The sucker exists!" "Goddam!" "#2:" "Has Cathy got the champagne?" "There was an immediate outpouring of excitement a bunch of kids yelling and screaming and jumping up and down, very unprofessional." "And then the whole force of actually being at the very spot where this tragedy had taken place and seeing the ship, it was very... everyone just cracked." "Emotionally everyone just went down into a big trough." "And we had a simple quiet service on the fantail." "We felt better and it was that time realized that" "I was deeply affected by it." "When we came back I wouldn't talk about the Titanic for 4 months." "I just wouldn't talk about it with anybody." "I just went and hid." "But Ballard's Woods Hole laboratory soon recaptured the thrill of discovery." "Reviewing pictures taken by remote cameras," "Ballard was eager to get a closer look." "Ballard was confident that the submarine Alvin couldn't reach the wreck and the U.S. Navy agreed to sponsor an expedition." "They say the name of the ship is on one of the capstans." "Oh, it is?" "On the top, yeah." "It should be visible." "We'll have to go and take a look." "A tiny TV camera serves as the single eye of Jason Jr., a robot submarine developed for the navy in Ballard's lab." "Jason is ideal for exploring wrecks;" "getting TV pictures in places too confined and dangerous for manned submarines." "Preparing for the Titanic expedition Jason and his operator, Martin Bowen, go into intensive training." "Jason is powered by 4 electric motors." "He can venture as far as 200 feet away from Alvin, the manned submarine." "Jason is much like a dog on a long leash, moving on commands from his master." "Here in the lab it's easy to navigate but deep on the Titanic wreck, in pitch darkness it will be another matter." "Often Martin's only viewpoint will be Jason's electronic eye." "Now some 11months after Ballard discovered Titanic's resting place he is returning aboard Atlantis II." "It's clear by now that no one knew Titanic's precise location when she sank." "This original confusion explains why the wreck was so difficult to locate." "There are no landmarks the coast of Nova Scotia is some 350 miles away." "The sea tolerates no gravestones or monuments only the knowledge of what lies 21/2 miles below gives this place identity." "When you're out at sea it's just a big, monstrous thing." "It has no dimensions." "You tend to wander around in the ocean and not feel that you're any where at any on time." "Then when you find the Titanic it rivets you to that one spot." "You know exactly where you are and you know exactly what took place right where you are and that's eerie." "You want to see lifeboats or people in the water that you can take drowned right around you." "Yeah, you hear them, you feel it." "Very much so." "The grey down of April 15th,1912 revealed a scattered fleet of life boats." "Hundreds of bodies floated in the surrounding waters." "The boats contained just 705 survivors." "Aboard the liner Carpathia amazed passengers took these snapshots as the survivors were rescued." "Her compliment of passengers doubled Carpathia raced for New York." "Everything was quiet calm and orderly." "It was too soon to explain and too late to cry." "Tragically rumors and confusion kept hope alive that others might have been saved by other ships." "Slowly, as fragmented and conflicting radio reports came in the world began to realize what had happened overnight." "In London, silent crowds gathered at the offices of the White Star Line" "Here many of Titanic's passengers had bought their tickets and here a precious few were reported alive." "In Liverpool, homeport of Titanic the streets were full of dazed and grief-stricken families begging for news and reeling in shock when it came." "In New York wild rumors circulated one paper reported Titanic still afloat and everyone safe." "Anxious and incredulous crowds gathered in front of newspapers and offices of White Star." "Suspense and uncertainty grew for 4 days." "Finally, on the evening of April 18th, Carpathia arrived at last." "Then as night fell there followed a chilling pantomime which brought home the full impact of what had happened." "In the glare of photographers flashlights survivors lined Carpathia's rails but as thousands waited Carpathia first unloaded Titanic's lifeboats." "Seeing finally was believing 13 small boats, all that remained of the greatest ocean liner in the world." "By the next day survivors had dispersed." "Frustrated newsreel cameramen were left to film mere boys, young stewards who clowned and laughed even as the rest of the world mourned." "There remained the task of bringing in bodies only some 300 were found out of 1,523 people lost." "In fear and superstition" "Many ships avoided these waters for years afterward." "Brought ashore at Halifax some victims were claimed and shipped home" "For others the maiden voyage of Titanic ended here in Canada just a few miles from the North Atlantic shore." "Today these graves still are tended at the expense of the shipping line which took over from the owners of Titanic." "The disaster is memorialized like a great battle which changed the course of history." "But what was the meaning of it all?" "It caused only an instant's hesitation in the march of technology." "But, somehow, Titanic made people think and they are thinking still." "Every 5 years the valiant dwindling band of Titanic survivors is invited to attend a convention of the Titanic Historical Society." "Thank you very much." "You look pretty good." "Thank you." "There are only about 24 known survivors alive today." "But the number of people interested in Titanic is growing and this fascination reached a fever pitch when the wreck of Titanic was found." "July 13th, 1986." "The first attempt to reach Titanic by submarine is planned for this morning." "Bob Ballard and 2 companions will ride to the bottom in the research submarine, Alvin." "In his enthusiasm Bob Ballard has perhaps made things seem too easy." "This morning he has many promises to keep." "The crew compartment of Alvin is a sealed, 7-foot, titanium sphere jammed with equipment and 3 uncomfortable humans." "Alvin is a tried and trusted design." "It has mapped undersea mountains located a lost H-bomb, and now is poised over the most celebrated shipwreck of modern times." "Once launched Alvin is independent of its mothership." "The crew can communicate with the surface, but in the deep they are so far from help, they might as well be on the moon." "To conserve electrical power Alvin will fall to the ocean bottom only as fast as gravity allows." "The slow plunge will take 21/2 hours a time of tedium and growing suspense." "Alvin, this is A-two, over." "Go ahead." "Roger." "Ralph we have the tracking running well and the bow section should be a range of about 800 meters, bearing two three zero degrees, over" "Ballard reports that Alvin's batteries are leaking and its sonar system has failed." "He must rely on imprecise directions from above and he cannot stay down much longer." "Alvin, this is A-two." "According to tracking you just drove over the forward section." "Suggest you come to course 280 and travel for 200-300 meters, over." "I can't believe they can't see it." "I can't believe they cannot see it." "They can only see 30 or 30 feet." "It's... of water." "Atlantis II, Atlantis II this is Alvin." "We are at the Titanic, over." "Roger, Alvin, we understand you found the Titanic, over." "Roger, we're sitting at the base it appears be near the stern or the midsection." "We are deciding what to do next because we're running low on power." "No sooner is Titanic found than the dive must be abandoned." "It takes another 21/2 hours for Ballard to regain the surface." "We had problems with the submarine so we had to abort the dive and immediately head up." "So I saw it for 10 seconds and that was it." "So, well have to go back and do it tomorrow." "What happens next?" "Well, they're gonna be up all night." "They've got a sick puppy and they got to fix it, and it's gonna take them all night." "Alvin is quickly repaired but the mood next morning is uncertain." "Everyone has been reminded that technical problems, bad weather, or a combination of both could terminate the expedition." "This time everything goes according to plan" "Titanic, no longer lost, no longer legend." "There are people aboard the great ship once again after 74 dark and silent years." "Now, like astronauts newly arrived on a distant planet" "Alvin's crew is learning something new every second." "A disappointment;" "Titanic's decks thought to be intact have been consumed by wood-boring organisms." "What speared to be planks turns out to be ridges of caulking." "A revelation; standing all alone is the bronze pedestal where Titanic's wheel was mounted." "It gleams as if brand new." "What we thought was organic growth appears to be rust." "The ship looks like it's bleeding steel and it's rusting down its entire side." "All over it's draped in rust." "It's formed a river and little veins that flow down the side and out onto the sediment." "All right, let's terminate conversation." "We are losing our light energy and we'll see you on the surface, over" "On the return to the surface a near disaster the robot submarine Jason, is dislodged from its garage on the front of Alvin and almost lost." "Only quick word by divers saves the million dollar robot." "Well, that's one way to come home Jason-swimming." "That's right." "Repairs will go on all night as Ballard reports what he's seen and prepares for tomorrow's dive." "We come in on the debris field, right through here." "Titanic is a frightening place to explore." "Everywhere there are wires, rails and tubing which could trap." "Coming in along the mud line toward the ship should be fairly safe." "But the robot, Jason can get close to such hazards and venture inside the wreck without risking human lives." "Alvin's crew is skeptical about robots in general and Jason in particular." "But, Ballard ignores today's problems and plans to send" "Jason deep into Titanic's interior on the next dive." "The funnels are all gone." "We've never even seen one in the debris field." "The idea is to bring Alvin down in a vertical sense and land at certain places." "Naturally we'd like to enter the bridge and we'd like to go down the staircase and there's a nice landing pad right here." "That staircase goes down many many flights so it would be a question of how deep you wanted to go in." "But certainly at least 2 to 3 decks in" "On succeeding dives special cameras aboard Alvin pierce the darkness and reveal spectacular aerial views of the wreck;" "traveling aft, passing over the cargo holds and cranes... the bridge area where the wheel pedestal stands alone" "the hole where the first funnel once stood big enough to admit a locomotive." "Now on the third dive Alvin makes a landing at the edge of Titanic's grand staircase." "Make sure that that lip won't jam J. J so he can't get out." "Don't get too close." "Right." "Jason is launched with Martin Bowen at the controls." "Go forward." "Tethering out." "I'll be taking shots periodically." "Further out." "That lip is right in front of me." "Yeah okay." "If you can just head out over the edge" "Like a frightened puppy Jason seems to want to dive back into his garage and go home." "Gaining control and confidence Bowen sends Jason down into the grand staircase." "Seventy for years have taken their toll this is what Jason's camera sees this is what once was." "Seemingly there's nothing recognizable here but, then, pillars define a room." "One of these light fixtures still hangs from the ceiling suspended both in space and time." "The elaborate ornamental clock is gone leaving only its outline on the wall." "Jason bumps into something causing an avalanche of rust." "Alarmed, Ballard and Martin Bowen decide to withdraw." "Keep knocking that rust off." "Yeah" "Now, 2 miles down Jason salutes his creator." "For man and machine it's a moment of eerie victory." "In further tests" "Jason skims over the wreck like an inquisitive humming-bird." "He can move more safely and quickly than Alvin and get in close to capture small details." "Something door for use..." "This door for bridge..." "This door for use of crew only." "Napier Brothers Company Engineers, Glasgow." "Napier Brothers Limited." "Some parts of the ship seem almost new paint still clings to these window frames handles and hinges still turn, and the awesome steel anchors still hang from Titanic's bow." "Soon Baliard's work for the Navy may produce robots so sophisticated everything can be seen and controlled from the surface." "On some jobs manned submarines like Alvin may not be needed." "The success of Jason on Titanic is a major step toward that goal." "Bring it around A little more, there we go." "Okay, if we want to drop weights I'm happy." "Okay." "Success." "God, that was not easy." "In one spectacular dive Robert Ballard and Martin Bowen have accomplished all their major objectives." "We had a chandelier right there!" "We were taking pictures, of it." "We went dancing in the ballroom." "Now for 9 days Atlantis gather information on Titanic" "Deployed each night, an unmanned instrument package captures some 57,000 photos of the wreck site." "I want to go through regions, not specific targets." "There's only a couple targets left." "Ballard and his colleague Dr. Elizar Yuchupe, begin to create a detailed map of Titanic's remains." "That's it There's nothing else but that." "It reveals new information and sometimes contradicts accepted accounts of the disaster." "That's right down here, you see that's where it would be." "So south of the..." "South of the wine bottles." "Most strikingly the wreck lies in 2 major sections, 1,800 feet apart." "This supports some eye witnesses who said the ship broke in 2 as it went down." "Between the 2 sections of the wreck lies a vast field of debris and scattered throughout the wreckage are many common place objects;" "a bottle of champagne still corked and a cup, sitting on a 57 ton boiler where it gently came to rest 74 years ago." "Ballard brought nothing up from Titanic and had vowed not to interfere with the wreck." "But that was before Alvin came upon the assistant purser's safe" "The handle turns but the door won't open." "At any rate, experts say it was emptied by the crew before Titanic went down." "As the wreck is explored the Titanic story is relived and in some cases revised to suit new evidence." "It is 11:40 p.m., April 14th, 1912." "From the crow's nest an iceberg is spotted dead ahead by lookout, Fredrick Fleet." "Fleet immediately rings on alarm bell and calls the bridge where the First Officer William Murdoch, orders the wheel," ""Hard a starboard," and the engines, "Full astern."" "Titanic grazes the ice, possibly causing only a few crumpled hull plates but enough to tell Captain Edward Smith that his ship is doomed." "Captain Smith personally walks back from the bridge to the radio room where, soon after midnight the first distress call is sent." "Radio is its infancy and the newly adopted signal, S.O.S." "is a novelty to operator jack Phillips." "Orders are given that women and children must board lifeboats." "Near the boats some first class passengers gather here in the gymnasium." "One is multi-millionaire John Jacob Astor, on an extended honeymoon with his young second wife, Madeline." "Astor's wife boards a lifeboat here, on Titanic's port side." "But an officer refuses Astor and so, he meekly chooses to stand aside, and die." "Few yet realize that because of inadequate laws there are only enough boats for half the people aboard." "Distress rockets are fired from the starboard wing of the bridge." "To the north there is a ship, the British steamer, Califarnion" "Titanic's rockets are reported to her captain," "Stanley Lord, but he does nothing goes back to sleep and will spend the rest of his life trying to explain." "Many lifeboats are still being lowered half empty." "Few understand that Titanic is actually sinking." "The lifeboat davits are still extended here at boat station 2, where Second Officer C.H. Lietauer is in charge." "Lietauer sends half a dozen crewmen to open doors and help fill the boats from decks lower down." "The men were never seen again but one set of doors still hangs open." "Here a twisted davit once held boat number B and here stood an aging distinguished couple," "Mr. And Mrs. Isadore Strauss." "Offered a place on the boats Mr. Strauss refused it, then Mrs. Strauss refuse to leave him, and so, they perished together." "In a single first class cabin there was a wealthy woman traveling along." "She was a tough and earthy character, requiring no assistance." "She boarded a lifeboat boldly took over command and was known from then on as "the unsinkable Molly Brown."" "And now, at last, 1,500 people began to realize that soon they were going go die." "But on the boat deck near the entrance to the grand staircase the band played on." "No one could agree later what tunes were played and all the musicians drowned." "But Titanic's band, and its leader Wallace Harltey, became immortal heroes of this disaster on the sea." "Few honored Captain Smith who had ignored many warnings as he sailed boldly into history." "He went down with his ship his last words disputed." "Some said he told the crew "be British,"" "others, "it's every man for himself."" "When the Titanic expedition ended" "Bob Ballard left behind a plaque honoring those who died here." "Titanic is their monument more than 2 miles beneath the sea." "It's memorial to this period of time to that mistake of arrogance." "It's a whole bunch of things all bundled up and now, down at the bottom of the ocean it's a very peaceful place a very quiet place." "It's sitting upright on the bottom very nobly and at rest." "This is the most empty place on earth the place almost no one goes-Antarctica." "It's the last continent discovered by explorers, the last place to be charted and examined and understood, the last place to be inhabited." "Even the wildlife here knows this land is different, and perhaps it is a mark of how harsh this land can be that there is no creature here that cannot swim or fly away." "This is the last continent on earth a refuge of sorts for wilderness and for explorers." "Jerome and Sally Poncet are explorers and naturalists who live on a sheep farm in the Falkland Islands." "A half-dozen times in the last decade or so, they've sailed 900 miles south five days at sea, to the islands scattered along the famed Antarctic Penin" "Other expeditions come here with millions of dollars and the power of governments to support them." "Sally and Jerome sail by themselves in a small yacht, accompanied only by their children, three boys" "Dion-10, live... 8 and Diti-5." "They trek on remote, rocky islands trying to learn more about this once unknown and foreboding continent of rock and ice while there's still time to protect the unique balance of life that exists here." "As usual the Poncets are beginning this voyage in December high summer and vacation time for the boys, when some days might get as warm as 40 degrees." "This will not last long the Poncets know." "Winter and ice are never very distant here." "Now development is coming too." "As the Ponects will discover anew on this voyage, this last frontier is changing as never before." "The poncets have gradually come to concentrate on the odd and endearing birds that are native to this place." "They're concerned now that penguins may become threatened because many countries and claiming interests in the riches that may lie here." "The Poncets will use their boat-part research vessel, part home-to search out penguin colonies all along the Antarctic Peninsula." "The peninsula reaches up some 700 miles from the continent toward south America." "The poncets goal is to survey the size of penguin colonies, that is, to count them all the way to Marguerite Bay at the bottom of the peninsula even further if the ice will allow them." "In earlier voyages, they've found many colonies no one else has ever seen." "Deception Island-near the northern end of the peninsula, early stop for the Poncets, and the site of a big colony of one of the three penguin species dominant on the peninsula: chinstraps." "Scientists use penguins as a key indicator species to gauge the health of the entire delicate Antarctic ecosystem." "To do that, though, they must know how many penguins are actually here." "If the penguin population changes radically, the scientists will know something is wrong here." "That is why the poncets sail and climb to these remote places to count the birds." "You can do a rough estimate by just counting up groups of say 100 and then multiplying in groups of 100." "That's a very rough estimate." "If you want to do it properly, though, you've got to map out the area that the colony's occupying and then work up average density of the colony and multiply that ...a couple of days work to do it accurately." "But you can get a good estimate if you take your time." "In a couple of hours, you can get a pretty good estimate of it." "But we just compare it with colonies we know from elsewhere, like one in particular with 30 to 40,000 pairs in it." "It's a lot smaller than this." "This is huge." "Must be one of the biggest chinstrap penguin colonies down on the peninsula" "I think-this one It's gotta be, I think." "It's huge." "Chinstrap penguins seldom change mates and they prefer to return to the same nest sites each year to hatch the young." "The nests are rings of small stones set just out of pecking range of incubating neighbors." "The females usually take the first shift sitting on the eggs, fasting for up to 8 days." "Then, the males take over and the females can feed again." "Some of the small, shrimp-like krill they find at sea is regurgitated for the penguin chicks." "Sally does not spend much time with the colonies here on" "Deception Island, though." "This time her work lies further south." "Jerome is French;" "Sally is Australian." "They sail aboard the 50-foot steel hulled Damien II." "It can look like a frail ship in amid all the ice and rock, but the ship can take the poncets places that others cannot go, which helps them make a living:" "They charter the boat for scientists doing coastal surveys." "Indeed, Jerome knows his way along this coast, intimately." "He first came here almost 20 years ago accompanied by his friend, Gerard Janichon, who has rejoined him for this voyage." "It's unusual to sail in the Antarctic now, but it was truly extraordinary then." "Theirs was the first yacht to sail the peninsula coast." "The adventure made them heroes in France." "Fees from a book allowed each of them to build bigger and better versions of first vessel." "But new boats don't eliminate the four hour watches throughout this two-month journey or the sameness of stored food, or the confining conditions of life at sea." "These they simply get used to." "But anyone who's lived on a yacht or on a boat can tell you, you get used to shifts:" "four hours on, four hours off." "Or whatever you happen to do." "And it's just something you get used to." "You can't have exactly what you want to eat or drink when you feel like it." "Or you can't wash every day if you want to, or you can't go down to the nearest pub for a drink just to get away from it." "You just accept that." "It just, it might look difficult to people, but until you... it would be far more difficult for him to have to get into a car every morning and drive to work." "The Damien II averages 26 miles a day now, with stops along the way." "Working from cove to cove they arrive at Cuverville Island a breeding site for many many Gentoo penguins." "Their pelts are sleek as fur but like all penguins, these are true birds." "Short, thick feathers help insulate them from the cold, and at the same time lie close to the body to help the speedy swimmers in the water." "This will be the first egg because its dirtier, and this is the second." "The second egg is suppose to be a bit smaller that the first." "But they look about the same size really." "That one there, though-she's just about to get off that-you can really tell the difference there." "The Gentoos are apt to form life-long attachments among breeding pairs although they are not so particular about which nest site they use from season to season." "On the peninsula, it takes about five weeks for penguin eggs to hatch." "The parents watch over them for another month or so, and then leave the chicks in large groups while the parents are off gathering good." "One or two months later the young penguins begin to feed on their own." "What beautiful nests these ones are well made anyway, with the stones like that and they all seem to be just sitting right." "You remember the chinstraps at Deception- all mucky, all smelly in all directions?" "These are all nice and neat..." "I think these are probably the prettiest of the birds." "By now Sally and Jerome have witnessed this cycle of penguin life many times and still Antarctica fascinates them." "The first time we come... just well, put the foot ashore." "That was an achievement for us at least." "And we are very pleased with that." "We've been a bit scared we've been fighting to reach Antarctica... and after we come back a bit more confident and you go a bit further." "And that's what we've done just going farther and farther each time, knowing a bit more." "And when you start to know a place you-why, it starts to belong to you or you belong to this place." "And that's what's happened to us." "Often while Sally is counting penguins the children explore for themselves." "At the shore here, they've spotted a leopard seal coming close." "Penguins that survive to adulthood may live for 20 years." "They're safe on land with practically no predators." "But in sea there is danger from seals especially the leopard seal." "Diti is the youngest of the boys." "Live, the middle boy, finds that this summer, geology has captured his attention." "Dion is the oldest a budding artist with an interest in mechanical things also." "Some of this Antarctic exploration that the boys share can look dangerous to an outsider." "But plainly, Sally and Jerome see great benefits in bringing the children with them." "At home in the Falklands a traveling schoolmaster visits for a couple of weeks every other month or so with lessons from Sally in between." "On board the Damien II, the boys learn about earth science by splashing where boiling volcanic waters mix with the near frozen sea." "The boys bang away at rock looking for gold or fools gold even and making plans to get rich and buy firecrackers back at home." "You can just see the difference that it's made to them." "And coming down here for three months you can see how many people that meet and what they're introduced to and what they're capable of learning there are other ways of getting the same education or the same facts" "but this is a very good way of getting it, you see." "At Foyn Harbor on the peninsula the boys explore a site leftover from one of the first significant human impacts on the Antarctic." "It's an old whaler's anchorage where boats once filled casks with glacier water." "The whalers are long gone a whaling ship lies abandoned where it ran aground." "In the hold of the wreck the boys find dozens of the cone-shaped tips for harpoons that once took tens of thousands of whales in a season until some species were threatened with extinction." "At last, international protest put a stop to commercial whaling, and there are signs that the animals may be recovering in the southern oceans." "Three humpbacks approach the ship." "Their size and curiosity must have made them easy targets for the whalers" "But whale hunting was only among the first human endeavors to mark the Antarctic." "Near Palmer Station an American research site," "Dion joins a party of skin divers from the base who are going to see what remains of one of the biggest environmental threats the continent has seen." "Actually, we're... the wreck today to look for oil spills or oil leaks they've plugged up with wooden... and splash..." "last year." "The divers are protected as much as possible by their dry suits but the water is frigidly cold:" "33 degrees." "Early last year, an Argentine supply ship that doubled as a tourist boat ran aground." "Passengers used home video cameras to take these pictures." "Within hours they were rescued but four days later the ship had turned on its side." "The ship's cargo of diesel oil began to spill." "A Chilean navy ship arrived quickly to contain the damage, but it was a month before Argentine and American crews managed to seal the wreck." "It had about 250,000 gallons on board." "And they're estimating that about half of that 125,000 came out when it rolled." "It might have been worse if the ship had carried heavy, black crude oil instead of diesel fuel but still scientists worry that their research will be affected because the once pristine area is no longer so pure." "The wreck has gone through a single Antarctic winter, but the damage has been very severe." "It's kind of like a beer can has been totally crushed." "And there use to be two little copters there." "There's no sign of them at all now, other than two tires, and the highly deck is mostly crushed." "And there's no visible signs of oil leaking out anymore." "Any cleanup operation would be difficult here." "Indeed, all along the peninsula it's clear that very often no one bothers to clean the mess that is left behind." "The penguins hardly seem to notice but nevertheless many environmentalists are concerned that we may spoil the last really large wilderness left on earth;" "before we begin to understand it." "The Damien II has been at sea for about a month, with dozens of stops so far for penguin surveys." "Now Jerome has set course for Dream Island, about half way down the peninsula." "The island has a large colony of the third species of penguins the Poncets are counting:" "Adelies." "There are remarkable elephant seal colonies here also, and for the seals, too the Antarctic summer is the season of the young." "Well, it's a bit slippery in all this muck-especially where the penguins have been." "I don't want you to fall in that." "They've been fed by their mothers until they're sort of round and their mother's go off and leave them and they have to survive during the feeding time..." "And they lie around on the beaches in groups." "And they're really sweet..." "They're very beautiful to look at at that stage." "As they get a bit older they're not so nice." "It doesn't look as if they're any more chinstraps in this area." "They seem to be confined to that area back there." "So I think I'll go back..." "In the water by the beach young male seals play at combat." "They are too young now to really harm one another." "Later, when they develop the droopy noses that account for the elephant seals' name, they will fight seriously for groups of females." "All along the coast, the Poncets find sites of earlier explorers, many of them no longer in use." "This cabin was once a research station, but it's been deserted for a long time" "Inside, there are copies of letters and dispatches that are decades old." "...shall be returning home about June and anticipate finding civilization somewhat bewildering." "So would like to be considered for service as relief warden at a small hostile in the highlands." "It's the kind of thing, now over 30 years since it was put up, and it really is the kind of thing now you can say, it's part of the history of this place" "And it should, really should be preserved and looked after to keep it like this." "And all this food!" "You'll never get food like this again-these boxes." "No one eats this kind of stuff anymore" "But this is how a British base worked 30 years ago." "And it's really worthwhile keeping and doing something about." "The men who lived and worked in bases like these were taking part in an extraordinary study effort in the Antarctic led by a dozen countries during the International Geophysical Year, 1957." "The scientists paved the way for governments go to on cooperating, and eventually, there was an Antarctic Treaty." "It's worked ever since to hold Antarctica as a scientific reserve." "Today, tourist ships send groups like this one from New York's Museum of Natural History ashore to the sites where once only scientists went." "Antarctica's past and present meet here, and perhaps show the way to the future as well." "Some environmentalists want to see the entire continent now made into a world park no development or exploitation allowed the Antarctic to remain as it is a place for research, and for amateur naturalists to see the greatest unspoiled wilderness left." "Some of the old Geophysical Year stations are still operating." "The British base Faraday, for instance, plays a role in researching the periodic huge loss of ozone in the atmosphere over the southern polar region." "Further south another British base Rothera, serves as a headquarters for inland science projects that can only be reached by plane." "The flights take off from a runway cleared from the glacier, with a path well marked so the aircraft doesn't slide into one of the nearby crevasses that split the surface." "From the air, an observer easily sees the extent of one of the great treasures and paradoxes of Antarctica ice." "This is the driest continent." "Hardly any snow or rain ever falls." "But what does fall is frozen in place and remains." "So Antarctica is both the continent with the least precipitation and the one with the most water almost all of it locked up in ice" "Some estimates are that 70 percent of the world's freshwater is here." "The ice here on the plateau also provides an ancient atmospheric record that's key to studying new phenomenon such as the greenhouse effect." "These operations are just underway." "When full drilling begins the scientists will be able to plunge the drill bit through centuries to see what changes have occurred over time." "on board the Damien II again the Antarctic summer is progressing, although it is still not dark after midnight." "Indeed, Jerome calls this the planet of light." "There are only a few stops left for the travelers, one of them a special place for Sally and Jerome." "More than ten years ago on their first voyage to the Antarctic together, they decided to stay over in the long darkness of winter." "They had only the Damien II for a base frozen in a harbor here at Avian Island." "It was a really big surprise for us to see just how many penguins there were or how many birds there were on that island, but really surrounded by them." "They found extraordinary life including 70,000 Adelie penguins on the island." "Avian is located at the top of Marguerite Bay, and it's the breeding ground for much of the bird life that lives and hunts throughout the Bay region." "If something happened here it could seriously affect bird life in the entire Bay area." "Besides the Adelies's... every single bit of that island is covered in birds." "And you're surrounded by birds." "And you really do live part of that cycle of the summer season with them, completely." "But the poncets are disturbed to learn the birds may soon be sharing the island." "A Chilean scientist from a nearby base if examining Avian as a possible site for future studies." "Sally and Jerome are beginning to worry that the many scientists and bases could soon overwhelm the fragile wilderness they have come to study." "Jerome navigates the Damien II through the mouth of a narrow passage at Terra Firma Island." "They are very far south now nearly at the base of the peninsula where conditions are terribly harsh." "Some years, the sea is frozen solid here, the air is very cold." "Nonetheless, small patches of grass and pearlwort flourish here, unexceptional in any way except that these are the southernmost flowering plants known to exist anywhere-the furthest outpost of green in a world that is almost all grays and blacks and ice white." "It was the Poncets who made this discovery and reported it to the scientific world although they now realize this, too may draw others." "People have realize what this is and realize how they can damage it if they come too close, and how they can keep away and still enjoy it." "There's a bit of a compromise to doing it, and you can't just ban people from coming to certain places all over just because they might damage it." "They've got to be taught how not to damage it so that they can come in and enjoy it." "Many explorers must pause to wonder a little at what they do and at what will be done by those who inevitably will follow." "Not many will follow this far, however" "The Damien II is entering what is called pack ice, a great plain that's frozen not quite solid." "You can feel that-that you've very far south." "And there's no one else in the pack." "And you're nothing much more than another little bit of ice." "You can really feel it as a living thing." "You can feel it, you can see it moving up and down with the swell as though it's breathing." "And you see animals... the whales which come up to breathe just behind the boat because there's no other space for it, and penguins." "The steel hull of the ship allows it to smash its way through." "The ice will get worse soon as it gets colder, and then it will not be possible to get through at all." "Jerome must judge what is safe." "They have hone as far as they can;" "the Damien II must turn back toward King George Island." "From the air, the ice floes look almost impenetrable" "Once you've been through a really bad storm and just got out or you've had to go through a lot of ice and just managed to get through then the next day, it's beautiful weather-each time, it's really very gratifying," "each time, and very satisfying." "And you really feel as if you've earned what you've done." "It's the feeling of it being very difficult here and you've managed to wade through in spite of that." "But all along the peninsula it is clear that as with all frontiers this one is developing." "In the time since they left the British base at Rothera, perhaps the biggest cargo ship ever to come this far south has arrived and begum unloading bulldozers and rock crushers, and housing for construction workers." "The small landing strip on the snow field above Rothera is to be replaced by a gravel runway, so bigger planes can come and go regularly." "It will mean blasting away part of a hillside, but the scientists say it must be done if their work is to go on." "The Antarctic Treaty which has worked to protect the polar region for three decades may be reviewed next year." "Some countries are interested in exploring for oil here or for minerals." "Already there is an agreement for exploitation that the treaty nations are considering." "Some think offshore drilling for oil is certain, and that that is going to mean the greatest change yet for Antarctica." "Oh, we are next to the first area actually where oil will be exploited next to this... and maybe this one will die covered with oil, maybe not." "Or maybe he will be starving very hungry, because there will be no more food." "After that will be our children." "Meanwhile, building goes ahead especially on King George Island the Damien II's final destination." "If you look at what's happening at Rothera... what's happening here." "This is the first steps in opening the place up." "That's for sure." "To what, I don't know." "The rest of the world is still over the horizon, but it seems to get closer everyday." "Frontiers are wild places." "Once we thought they were all savage and needed conquering." "This one doesn't seem so savage anymore." "Before it's conquered it may be worth asking what the conquest would mean, and perhaps we should ask too, what will happen to the explorers indeed to all of us, when the frontiers are gone." "It all begins with water and rock." "As water seeks its level, it becomes acidic." "And when it flows over limestone, it etches a path into the rock." "Given eons of time, water will burrow and carve, with incredible force, the veins and arteries of planet Earth" "So the underworld of caves is born." "And after torrents have done their work, patient drops do more wonders in a million years or so." "Look now on a landscape no one dreamed existed just a few years ago." "Here are bizarre and fantastic treasures that stun the eye and strain the imagination." "Here is discovery and danger." "Here is adventure." "In New Mexico, members of a National Geographic Society expedition explore the world's newest and most exotic major cave." "They are following one of man's most ancient imperatives to see and understand the unknown." "Join us now as we embark on an extraordinary journey deep into the earth to confront MYSTERIES UNDERGROUND." "In the Guadalupe Mountains of southern New Mexico, an awesome giant has lain hidden for a million years." "Sometimes, in the desert silence, the monster could be heard breathing." "The sound came from a yawning chasm in the rocks." "In 1986 a trio of weekend explorers broke through a layer of rubble and discovered a new cave only a few miles from famous Carlsbad Cavern." "Although the cave entrance lay inside Carlsbad Caverns National Park, park officials allowed qualified cavers to explore it." "One of them was Rick Bridges, an oil and gas prospector." "Now Bridges leads a hand-picked team of experts, like rock climber Dave Jones, on the 25th expedition to Lechuguilla." "You got the survey gear, Anne?" "Research geologist Kiym Cunningham will handle the science studies for the expedition." "Nuclear test engineer Anne Strait is an expert in surveying and mapping caves." "And specialist cameraman from England, Sid Perou, will be the first to document Lechuguilla on motion picture film." "The journey begins with a deceptively ordinary hike." "The cave is named after a desert plant that grows in this harsh, dry environment-Lechuguilla-Spanish for little lettuce." "Forty people will support the venture, including two support teams to pack in supplies and batteries for photographic lights." "On high rope." "We tend to have this feeling that the surface of the earth is the life of the earth." "But we're just this small, thin little shell that we choose to call our world, and beneath it there's an entire realm that we know very little about." "And we can, if we choose, enter that realm and we can learn something from it." "I will never go to the moon, but I can go to a cave the nobody else has been to and have the same elation of exploration in the sense that I have gone where no one's gone before." "Bombs away." "I would like to think that had I lived in another time" "I would have been an explorer." "You know, had I lived in the late 1700s," "I would have wanted to know what was across the Appalachian Mountains." "If I'd been around when Lewis and Clark went to the coast," "I'd liked to have gone with them, you know." "And I think most people that cave at this level and do this kind of exploration feel that way." "Here, Bridges and his companions excavated to break into Lechuguilla for the first time." "Now the entrance is protected by a lockable hatchway." "Through this tiny aperture the cave breathes blowing air out or sucking it in to equalize with the barometric pressure above ground." "Winds up to 60 miles an hour howl out of here, hinting at the vast underworld below." "Today, this is Lechuguilla's only known entrance, and there may have never been another." "For a million years this place has lain undisturbed." "In a real sense, it is a primordial world, untouched by all but microscopic forms of life." "On rope!" "It's a long ways down." "See you guys on the bottom." "Dave Jones starts down the 150 foot pit called Boulder Falls" "It was here that the first explorers realized what a vast place they had discovered." "As you progress down, it gets steeper and steeper and pretty soon you're free hanging, but your feet are still against the rock" "And all of a sudden you rappel by this little ledge and there's no more rock." "There's nothing in any direction." "Beyond the base of the pit the cave branches off in all directions." "Only computer imagery can portray this labyrinth." "After the May 1986 exploration the cave was known to be 700 feet deep and more than half a mile long." "Today the system totals 60 miles and plummets more than 1,600 feet." "Twisting capillaries and veins pierce the earth in all directions." "This is a gigantic maze in three dimensions, defying conventional ideas of direction and scale." "Footprints remain forever in this fragile environment." "Plastic ribbons keep cavers on main trails." "Expeditions into Lechuguilla have been likened to exploring Everest only in reverse." "The team is headed for Base Camp still hours away." "The trail leads on into inky blackness" "Often they traverse chambers so vast the cave walls are barely discernible." "Gypsum crystals sparkle along the route." "Now, cavers encounter Lechuguilla's fantastic decorations for the first time." "Helictites and gypsum flowers extrude from the walls fragile gardens that have taken centuries to blossom, as minerals have been squeezed from the rocks like toothpaste from a tube." "Beauty abounds." "These jewels of the underground are exquisitely delicate needles of selenite." "With the constant maneuvering up down and through the cave's difficult terrain," "50 pound backpacks become painful burdens." "Always, in Lechuguills, danger is not far away." "Okay, on three." "One, two, three." "In 1991 seasoned caver Emily Mobley slipped and broke her leg while working on a surveying expedition in the cave's western sector." "A mile and a half from the entrance, 900 feet below the surface, this accident would trigger the largest and most publicized cave rescue in U.S. history." "A hundred experienced cavers summoned to the scene would labor four arduous days to bring her to safety." "The bond of comradeship that unites the caving community was seldom more evident than during this emergency." "Every caver knows and instinctively responds to the code of the underground that only cavers can save and protect each other." "After almost four hours, the expedition reaches Lake Lebarge, the first sizeable body of water to be discovered in this branch of Lechuguilla." "Beautiful!" "One of the greatest sights in caving, isn't it?" "Yes." "Fantastic." "Is this Lake Lebarge?" "Yeah." "Lebarge Borehole looks easier now." "Beautiful!" "On rope!" "the lake completely blocks the way ahead." "Cavers had to wade it until they found a detour tricky, but possible." "Well, I think of particular moves like dancing around the edge of Lebarge as almost a ballet, an underground ballet." "I know where my footholds are;" "I know where my handholds are." "I know if I hit them just right and move just right some of them are kind of dynamic in so much as you leave one handhold while you're going for the next foothold." "And if you do that just right and you have your pack balanced just right, you flow through it real smoothly." "And so I think it's very much like doing a dance, a very intricate dance." "And you want to do it perfectly, you know, and it's very beautiful when you do." "Deeper into the cave, mineral formations become more fantastic and delicate." "Cavers must move among them with great care." "Spikes of aragonite, one form of calcium carbonate, grow in fragile bushes." "The gentlest touch could damage them." "There is infinite contrast here." "The now famous Chandelier Ballroom is one of caving's classic beauty spots" "Plumes of gypsum sprout from the ceiling, some as long as 20 feet the most dazzling examples of their type ever found." "Utter silence pervades Lechuguilla." "The only sound is made by the intruder" "In the constant 68-degree temperature and high humidity, dehydration is always a threat." "Anybody else need any hot water?" "for some, the notion of life with almost a quarter mile of rock overhead can be oppressive, even terrifying." "But cavers like Bridges relish the experience." "It's almost like coming back to home after you've been gone for a while." "It's a very comfortable feeling to me, particularly in that particular cave." "And you know it's a sense of isolation" "The world becomes very simple" "Here there is no day or night." "If they ignore the time, cavers tend to stay awake, and sleep, for longer and longer periods." "In Lechuguilla Cave, there is little evidence of life." "But this is rare." "Many caves harbor a hidden kingdom of creatures, dominated by bats." "Bats thrive in darkness." "They navigate not by sight, but by subtle patterns of reflected sound." "Some caves are home to millions of bats, the greatest concentration of mammals anywhere." "Their nitrogen-rich droppings, or guano, are harvested as a fertilizer." "Large deposits produce a toxic gas, which can be lethal." "Mountains of bat guano support the intricate food chain underground." "Sometimes, an injured bat, or a baby, falls into the guano and itself becomes food." "Within minutes the bat is reduced to a skeleton." "Abundant underground, the cave cricket" "Crickets spend much of their time gathering food outside their caves, but inside they perform a vital role as scavengers." "In mute testament to their environment fish have evolved here without eyes." "The salamander has dispensed with eyes, too, and has no need of skin pigment in a world without sunlight." "People have probably always found shelter in caves." "Thousands of years ago, as much of the world still lay in the grip of the last Ice Age, prehistoric hunters left spectacular evidence behind them." "The human spirit was born and nurtured here, its expression etched on walls of stone." "By the early 20th century most people lived elsewhere." "But science and curiosity drove some to explore deeper underground." "Magnesium flares lit the way, filling dark voids with light." "Geologists squeezed into subterranean chambers seeking to understand their origin and structure." "And soon the ancient lure of caves turned to profit." "Tourists went underground." "Then and now, humans have been compelled to seek out caves, and to combat the gloom with gay defiance." "In the United States, New Mexico's Carlsbad Caverns was declared a national park in 1930." "But natural wonders were not enough." "Carlsbad and other caves promoted all sorts of attractions, some a bit farfetched." "The time will come when some master musician in the Carlsbad Cavern will be able to create s symphony in stone" "Many parts of the world are known for caves." "Because most lie on limestone bedrock, the soil is often thin and life is hard" "So it has often been in the remote uplands of Kentucky." "But the automobile brought a new source of wealth city folks, eager for amusement." "Everyone who owned a cave hung up a sign." "Each was touted as being bigger and better than the others." "The so-called Cave Wars spurred bitter feuds and even violence" "Crystal Cave belonged to the Collins family, but it was too far from the beaten path to prosper." "Thirty-seven-year-old Floyd, one of the Collins boys, was determined to find a cave closer to the highway." "He set off alone on a cold winter morning in January 1925 and squeezed into a narrow, twisting crack in the earth, never before explored." "A hundred feet or so into the tight passageway" "Floyd dislodges a rock that falls on his leg and pains his left foot." "Every detail of this fateful mishap will soon be known throughout the world" "Struggling to free himself, Floyed becomes more tightly wedged." "His arms are pinned at his sides." "He can do nothing but shout for help." "Twenty-four hours later Floyd's cries are heard." "A younger brother, Homer, manages to reach him." "Coffee and sandwiches revive Floyd, but no amount of tugging or pulling will set him free." "Would-be rescuers knock down more dirt and rocks." "Soon more help arrives, but rescue efforts are clumsy and disorganized." "Curious onlookers begin to gather." "They become restive and quarrelsome." "A week goes by." "Floyd is still alive and the crowed swells to thousand." "It becomes a carnival." "Souvenirs are sold and moonshiners arrive on the scene." "It's hard to maintain order and the National Guard is summoned." "Skeets Miller a 21-year-old newspaper reporter, braves the tortuous passage seven times to comfort Floyd and describe his plight." "Miller takes down food and drink and an electric light bulb to keep Floyd warm." "In bitter cold and rain, little more can be done for him." "When a cave-in blocks the passage, a rescue shaft is begun." "People all over the country join Floyd's family in prayer." "Floyd's brothers expect the worst." "Rescuers finally reach him on the 18th day." "It is too late." "Floyd has been dead for some time." "The crowd goes home." "The public is soon interested in other things." "It takes two months to recover the body." "The rock that trapped Floyd was not a boulder, but a mere 27-pound stone, shaped like a leg of lamb." "His death left a legacy of fear of the dark, mysterious underground that haunts many to this day." "Today, there are about 16,000 devotees of caving in the U.S." "Here, where Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia meet, the countryside is studded by deep pits vertical caves the delight of weekend enthusiasts." "Nine-year-old Leah Brown holds a world speed record for rope climbing." "Her partner, Avis Van Swearingen, also holds a climbing record for women over the age of 60." "With skill and courage they suspend their lives on a slender thread." "We call that rope the nylon highway because it takes us to wonderful places and new parts of the cave, and it's the only way you can get there" "If I'm the first one down a drop, and I have been the first, the very first person to ever go down a drop... if we can't really tell if the rope reaches the bottom," "the person who goes down first wears their climbing gear, too, so that you can put your climbing gear on the rope and come up." "Also, we put a knot at the bottom of that rope so we can't rappel off the end of it, which has happened to people." "I like the deep pits, because when they're deep, you get to go fast more." "That's why I like the deep pits, because the short ones you don't get to go fast very long." "The first time I did it in a pit, it was only a 90-foot pit and I didn't get scared." "I don't get scared very easily." "I like going fast." "When I go down fast, the floor is real tiny and then it starts getting bigger and bigger, and I like to watch that." "An unfettered commitment to their sport compels cavers to seek new thrills in undiscovered places." "For some, the quest for adventure knows no boundary." "The Austrian Alps." "A fifth of the world's deepest caves are located here, high in the mountains" "These ice caves are 5,000 feet above sea level." "They are natural deep freezes where ice remains, even in hot summers" "Here, geological time is condensed." "We can witness the growth of ice formations in short periods of months or years, which in their stone counterparts would take centuries." "From year to year these caves are never the same." "As they thaw and freeze again, the fantastic ice formations are ever changing." "Few places on earth are more beautiful or more treacherous, with perhaps one exception." "Some cavers have merged their love of the unknown with a passion for diving, venturing into a bizarre world underground and under water." "Originally formed above sea level, these caves became submerged about 10,000 years ago as the last Ice Age retreated." "They are now 70 feet beneath the surface." "Underwater caves are deathtraps for the inexperienced." "But, from time to time, tempting fate can have astounding rewards." "In 1990, when exploring a submerged tunnel off the Mediterranean coast of France, a professional diver surfaced in a hidden chamber." "He found a treasure chest of art, perhaps 18,000 years old." "Paintings and engravings depict animals that roamed southern Europe before the last great ice sheets melted" "Some experts question the authenticity of the art, but close examination is impossible." "Cosquer Cave is a place of haunting mystery." "To protect it, the cave is now sealed by order of the French government." "In time a new entrance may be built and the truth known." "An expanse of sinkholes and depressions pockmark south central Kentucky where, beneath the surface, the limestone is riddled with caves." "They are everywhere, an integral part of the landscape." "This is Floyd Collins country, and the contest to attract the tourist dollar still rages on." "The star attraction is Mammoth the world's longest cave." "A national park since 1941, the cave now draws more than half a million visitors a year." "Back in the 1800s tour guides here were often black slaves." "One of them, Stephen Bishop, became perhaps the greatest caver of them all." "On his own, with little more than a lamp, a rope, and a sketchbook," "Bishop explores the depths of Mammoth Cave." "He creates a surprisingly accurate map of this complex underground maze." "Deep in the cave" "Bishop is confronted by a gaping void that came to be known as Bottomless Pit." "Beyond, Bishop explores regions that had never been visited in his time" "But in these remote reaches he hinds evidence that someone has preceded him." "Some archeologists believe that Stephen Bishop may have also encountered one of Mammoth's most compelling mysteries" "Trapped under a boulder are the ancient remains of a human being." "Not for another century would the mummified body be rediscovered and then as the technology became available, removed from beneath the six-ton boulder." "A sensation in its time, the mysterious body would be on public display for years and given the name Lost John." "Two to three thousand years ago this man was digging around the base of a heavy rock when it dislodged and crushed him." "What was he doing here?" "How did he get here?" "No one believed that ancient humans could have ventured this far into the forbidding depths of Mammoth Cave." "Today, new evidence helps to answer these questions." "Archeologist Ken Tankersley has spent years investigating the traces of ancient humans in Mammoth." "Armed with cane reeds collected near the park," "Tankersley simulates the methods prehistoric explorers would have used here." "We have long known that human beings lived near the entrance of caves." "But Lost John suggested that prehistoric people had gone far into Mammoth perhaps two day's travel." "Was this possible?" "At first Tankersley himself had doubts" "I'm always amazed when I think about what it takes for us to go into a cave." "We wear a hard hat;" "we wear out caving lamp, whether it's electric or carbide;" "and we carry two sources of back-up light." "We wear enough clothing to ward off hypothermia." "These people wore virtually nothing loin cloths at best." "Probably most frequently, based on what we've seen in the cave in terms of human remains, these people were naked, carrying nothing but cane reed torches" "The reed torches were the only light source available to ancient humans." "They produce surprisingly efficient illumination and conjure ghosts from the heavy shadows." "Their daring was incredible." "For humans, light is life in a cave." "But these explorers traveled up to 12 miles with nothing but reed torches between them and a horrible fate." "Their pathway can be followed even now" "A trail of burned torch fragments leads Tankersley and his companions to a cavity in the rock face." "Digging marks and a crude implement are evidence of some kind of activity here." "That's magnificent." "Notice the cut edge." "A primitive tool, one of dozens found deep in the cave." "What was it used for?" "Another clue:" "a rich seam of selenite crystal courses through the rock face nearby." "These findings prove that prehistoric people were engaged in widespread mining of crystals throughout the cave." "The scale of the operation was staggering." "Tons of material were removed." "The mining continued without interruption for over a thousand years" "The ancient miners took selenite and other minerals from the cave." "But what they were used for remains a mystery as medicines, or ornaments, or for use in rituals?" "Perhaps all three." "Just as mysteriously, around the time of the birth of Christ the mining suddenly ceased." "As yet no one knows why." "All that remains is abundant evidence that they once were here, driven by needs and desires we may never understand." "To our right, down below, is the famous Bottomless Pit." "For many, many years lights were not sufficient to reach the bottom." "Visiting Mammoth today is a journey through time." "But as they are guided along comfortable tourist trails, few visitors can imagine the tortuous passageways that lie beyond them." "not knowing the true depth of the pit or what lay on the other side." "Reaching the other side, they were surprised to find an avenue over there and more cave." "This opened up the doorway to the vast unknown mileage that we all Mammoth Cave." "Mammoth Cave Ridge skirts the Houchins Valley." "On the other side, beneath Flint Ridge lies another cave network, once shrouded in mystery." "Here, 40 years ago, one of the great exploits of cave exploration began." "In the 1950s a group of weekend adventurers began an intensive probe into the secrets of Flint Ridge." "There had long been talk of a vast underground system that might link all the caves in the area." "It began as an exciting pastime." "It became a grueling obsession." "Over the years hundreds of men and women took part." "There were untold yards of muddy crawlways." "There were pits and crevices and mazes from which there seemed no escape." "Flint ridge developed its own colorful place names: the Corkscrew," "Shower Shaft, Agony Avenue." "But the cave grew, until Flint Ridge alone was pushed to nearly 90 miles." "And if it could be connected to Mammoth, then this was the underground Everest by far the longest cave in the world." "In the summer of 1972 a team entered Flint Ridge to probe a tantalizing passage that led toward Mammoth." "It took seven hours to reach the end of the known passage." "Then they tackled what would be called the Tight Spot." "It seemed impenetrable." "But one of the team had a knack for narrow places" "Pat Crowther a computer programmer and mother of two." "Well, it never occurred to anyone to try to go through that place." "It was a crazy place to even think that you could get your body into." "The Tight Sport was a very tiny, vertical crevice out the bottom of a small indentation in the floor." "And if you just casually looked down into the hole and saw that crack, you would say no one could possibly fit in there." "Somehow Crowther squirmed through." "Six weeks later, miles beyond where anyone had gone before, a chilling but significant discovery was made." "In a mud bank were the initials P.H., scratched there by Pete Hanson, a long-dead tour guide." "He could have come here only from the Mammoth Cave side." "Carpenter Richard Zopf was in the group and recalls the impact of the discovery." "We had the feeling that we had found ...the passage that was going to take us into Mammoth Cave, but we hadn't done it." "We seen virtually a mile of passage but we didn't know exactly where it went." "And we plugged along and we plodded along and we surveyed and we surveyed and we surveyed." "Ten days later the group tried again, reaching what they now called Hanson's Lost River in nine hours." "Excitement and exhaustion dominated the thoughts of leader John Wilcox." "The worst thing we feared was that the passage would descent so that the water would come clear to the ceiling, and it sure looked like that was what was happening." "The water was getting deeper and deeper and the ceiling was coming down." "We're getting bent over, scrunching our backs up against the ceiling, trying to keep from getting our chests wet." "And it was getting so wet that I told the rest of the party to wait here..." "I'm going to look ahead a little bit." "Because I know if I get completely wet" "I can get out of the cave, but I wasn't sure everybody else could" "And just go as far as I can and trying very carefully not to get my chest wet and not to put my light out and so forth." "I don't have a good sense of the time but John only went a few feet, went ahead for 30 seconds." "And then there was a pause and it's like:" "What's happening, John?" "And John says:" "You know the passage is opening up!" "And, well, you know:" "'Should we come ahead?" "'" "From that low point the passage just immediately opens into the huge Echo River passage... and eventually my eyes adjusted enough" "I could begin to see a wall clear across the passage, a hundred feet away perhaps." "And there was a bright, shining, horizontal line along the wall, which is something you don't see in a cave." "You don't see any straight lines." "And it had these vertical lines underneath and I realized that was a handrail." "We had come out on a tourist trail!" "All of sudden John shouted:" "I see a tourist trail!" "And those words just electrified the party." "It was kind of like someone yelling Fire!" "in a theater." "Everybody just surged forward and we realized that we had made the connection." "Achieving the dream of decades, they had connected two great subterranean systems." "Today, it is a cave with 340 miles of passageways." "It's one of these, you know, complete victories that you don't often achieve in life." "Usually things are shades of gray in your professional work or your personal relations with other people or whatever." "In climbing a mountain, sometimes you have a clear-cut victory" "Either you reached the top or you didn't." "And this was one clear-cut victory in my life where, by golly, we went in the Flint Ridge side and we came out the Mammoth Cave side" "It was a strange and lonely victory." "After a grim struggle in the dark, subterranean river, they emerged in Mammoth Cave at one in the morning." "Not even a watchman was there to greet them as they trudged into one of the most famous tourist landmarks underground the Snowball Dining Room." "And they would complete their historic trek with sublime ease riding to the surface in an elevator." "There was no fanfare, no waiting reporters." "But they were still overjoyed." "Like all cavers, in victory or defeat, they were used to being on their own." "Beneath the New Mexican desert, the National Geographic expedition to Lechuguilla" "Begins its second week underground." "The cave's beauty is now legendary, but there is more to discover here." "High on a hill deep within the heart of the cave, a mystery unfolds." "Sulfur is prevalent here and in other regions of the cave." "And tiny bacteria are found in these deposits along with fungi that feed on them." "In turn, the bacteria may feed on the sulfur, thriving in eternal darkness." "Evidence indicates an unusual genesis for Lechuguilla." "As hydrogen sulfide rose from below, it mixed with oxygen in water or air, forming sulfuric acid." "This potent chemistry gradually ate through the limestone, creating the cave from the bottom up." "Lechuguilla's vulnerability to human impact may preclude it from ever becoming a public show cave." "A profound respect for the cave is shared by most cavers and severely enforced." "Special shoes are worn for traversing formations where boots may mar exquisite flowstone." "Stalagmites of calcite line the shores of the Persian Gulf, so called because of the thousands of pearl-like formations found here." "Looking like fried eggs, this kind of cave pearl is built up from calcite in the water." "Another variety of cave pearl forms when a single grain of sand becomes coated with calcite." "Over time the relentless dripping of water swivels the grain and the coating becomes thicker, like the creation of a pearl in an oyster." "Lake Castrovalva guards a remote corner of the cave." "The only way across is to swim." "But the conservation creed demands that no dirty clothing soil its purity" "The air and water temperatures are the same year round 68 degrees." "Intricate stone formations border the edge of the lake, slowly deposited by waters rich in calcite." "For eons these exotic shores have been still and silent calm until now." "Light on the station." "The primary function of any expedition is to explore and survey the cave to produce a detailed map." "Keeping accurate records is virtually a religion for modern cavers." "Two thirty-nine, point five." "It's what separates them from earlier, less responsible explorers underground" "Plus four." "Plus four." "Finding something new is the first great thrill of caving." "The second comes later finding the way out." "Each night the latest survey date are typed into the computer to produce an updated map." "The ancient skeleton of a ring-tailed cat." "Kiym Cunningham examines one of the riddles of Lechuguilla." "It's a mystery." "I mean, altogether it's a mystery how he got down here." "We're a thousand feet below the surface." "Many vertical pits and long passages to get here." "So, he was a heck of a caver!" "He evidently died right on the margin of this old pool system here, so I would imagine possibly he was alive when he was down here, came to the pool to drink." "Only source of water he could find." "And maybe the mineral content was very high." "It was not a good pool to drink from and that may have been what killed him" "The amount of carbon dioxide in the cave atmosphere is measured." "If the level down here is the same as on the surface, it could indicate other openings yet to be discovered." "Somewhere within the cave's vast system the air is being disturbed." "There is noticeable movement." "Still, Lechuguilla refuses to yield its secrets easily." "It remains alien and strangely beautiful, a landscape from another world." "Lechugulla's wonder is a fragile thing" "What man can discover, he can easily destroy." "Most of us may never see these enchanting caverns and others that lie still undiscovered." "But perhaps it will be enough to know that they are there." "Lechuguilla now consists of almost 60 miles of breathtaking passageways." "New discoveries continue and there is no end in sight." "Sometimes is has seemed that railroads were doomed." "The Durango-Silverton railroad is one of the most spectacular rides in the world." "In 1960, it was nearly shut down." "In 1883, the Orient Express ran from Paris to Istanbul created the ultimate in luxury travel." "It was abandoned in 1977." "In 1887, rotary snow plows first fought the snow drifts in the High Sierras." "Looking like relics they seem improbable holdovers from the past." "Once this streamlined locomotive hauled passenger trains at 100 miles an hour." "But for 20 years, it sat outside a museum, its machinery rusting." "Yet today these trains still run the rails." "Now they evoke a more remote past when trains first bridged the continent," "Ferried recruits to war provided celebrities with an opportunity to be seen and a chic way to travel, gave a mobile campaign platform to politicians, and offered a refuge for hoboes." "Train tracks disfigure the countryside" "Trains assault the senses with brutal noise and begrime the air." "How then account for the multitude of people who love trains?" "When you're actually running a train, you just can't get enough." "I don't know." "Maybe I'm just a junkie for trains." "But that's about it." "I bought a caboose back in the '50s because I was busy riding trains in the '50s." "And suddenly I read in the paper one day where trains were going to go out." "All passenger trains would be taken off." "And I knew unless I got a piece of ride on the train again." "So that's when I bought my caboose and put it in my yard." "There are grown men who ride toy steam trains at a mountain retreat." "There are train buffs who choose to ride through South America's Andes on a baggage rack." "There's town in Iowa that honors hoboes, and there are thousands of young people competing for the chance to engineer a train." "There are people who harken to the lonesome whistle blowing and the clickety-clack of wheels on rails." "Theirs is a worldwide fraternity with no membership requirements beyond sharing in the love of trains." "You've got a sheet like this and it tells you who's sitting in every seat, and every seat is assigned, and..." "There are many people so enamored of trains that they take trains, not to go anywhere, but just for the pleasure of riding." "Each year the North Alabama Railroad Club sponsors an all-day excursion on a Norfolk Southern steam train." "Seats are always sold out and there's even competition for a chance to work on the engine." "Bill Hayslip is a deputy sheriff, and he loves trains so much that he volunteers on his day off for the dirtiest job in railroading-apprentice fireman." "I've studied steam engines just about all my life." "I guess I was born about 30 or 40 years too late." "There's something about a steam locomotive and railroad that's just romantic." "A steam engine kind of has its own personality." "It's like a lady." "You have to treat it just right." "Steam engines evoke a special affection." "Though inanimate objects of iron and steel, they seem to breathe with the fire of life." "This day the train will run to Chattanooga, Tennessee, evoking cherished memories of a popular song." "I've often wondered if I was maybe one of those people that had trains in my bolld or something." "Some people have alcohol, I have trains." "I have spent the whole day in Birmingham just to see the two trains go through town." "My wife thins that's crazy, but, you know, it's a thrill for me." "Part way through the trip, the train comes to a stop in an open field." "Now begins the prized ritual of the steam train excursion." "The train backs up, cameras are readied, and then a sweet symphony for every train-buff's ear." "The train station in Chattanooga has been transformed into an entertainment center." "When the train returns to Huntsville," "Dr. and Mrs. Lonie Lindsey stay on in Chattanooga for dinner in a refurbished diner." "They remember another train trip long ago." "We got on the train in Tuscumbia, Alabama and we went to Chattanooga." "Went up to the courthouse and we got married." "That was 55 years ago, and we've had a very lovely marriage so far." "And here 55 years later, we do the same start-over again." "The most popular rooms at the Choo-Choo Hilton Hotel are old train cars," "Nostalgic setting for recapturing fond memories." "For those who love to ride steam trains, each trip is a journey into the past." "In the beginning, steam engines were at the center of the Industrial Revolution which could not even begin until mankind learned one crucial trick how to transform heat energy into motion." "In the first century A.D., the Greek scholar, Hero of Alexandria, invented steam-jet propulsion." "Hero's ingenious device remained a toy until 1712 when Thomas Newcomen developed the first successful steam engine" "Newcomen's engine was used to pump water out of coal mines." "One hundred years passed before the first British-built steam locomotives took to the rails." "Soon the public everywhere crossed the threshold of a new age as horses were replaced by the latest locomotive invention." "Today, these early engines can usually be seen only at museums, where they seem as distant as dinosaurs." "The John Bull is the oldest operable steam engine in the world." "To mark the 150th anniversary of its first American trial, the Smithsonian Institution brought it out for a run along the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal." "People who love trains dressed up for the occasion and gathered from miles around." "Many had never heard the hoot of a steam whistle or the screech of brakes." "Nostalgia for those seemingly innocent days of American history is very much alive today." "For some, no doubt, steam engines are the attraction." "For others, perhaps, it is the appeal of travel." "Or could it be that so many share the romantic notion of growing up to be an engineer?" "These trains are called live steamers." "Seymour Johnson loves trains so much that he donated land and equipment for a miniature railroad at his home in Montecito, California." "I think in my case and in the case of a lot of people, you kind of grew up with them as toys and these are pretty big toys." "I started building this particular engine in 1947 and I completed it in 1951." "And that's why I have the numbers on the side-4751-to remind me of the time." "Johnson and the local members of the Goleta Valley Railroad Club spent 17 years building their line." "Today they test their engines on more than a mile of track." "There is something nostalgic about steam engines now, of course, but the thing is, a steam locomotive is live." "The engine talks to you when you're running it." "You can feel what it's doing." "It tells you I'm working too hard or I'm taking it easy." "You can hear it in the stack, you can hear it in the sound of the blower, the sound of the fire." "They've got steam engines that are over a hundred years old that continue to run." "Once a year, Johnson and the club host a three-day meet that attracts model owners from all over the country." "Each engine is custom-built, representing thousands of hours of meticulous machining." "And as in real life, the engineers discover that steam engines can be cantankerous beasts capable of fighting back." "Well, this is a 21/2-inch scale, narrow gauge locomotive built to run on 71/2-inch track." "We're trying to duplicate exactly the kind of engine that the Colorado  Southern used back in the years of 1890 through 1936." "Hey, John, you want to push the daylight car into the siding?" "The most popular daily event is the grand tour of the line for families and friends." "Three engines are coupled." "Together they are pulling six tons of engines, cars, and passengers." "We now have 14 cars." "Mostly they're freight-car type because people are way out of scale." "This train is one-eighth full size, but people aren't." "So if you put them in a passenger car, you can't put a roof on." "But if you put them in a freight car, the sky is the limit." "Many of those who build and enjoy riding live steamers can still recall the old days when steam engines ruled the rails." "The halcyon days of steam and rail began after World War 1." "The Big Boy of the 1940s was driven by four pistons that powered 16 drive wheels." "It was the largest steam engine ever built, and could pull a train five miles long" "And during World War II, steam engines transporting the freight, weapons, and troops to the seacoasts, made possible the fast buildup of America's war machine." "In the 1950s, steam gave way to diesel and rail companies, competing for passengers promoted streamliners as the chic way to travel." "But late in the decade, passengers shifted to automobiles and airplanes for long-distance travel and trucks took over much of the freight." "The low point came in the 1970s." "congress rescued six bankrupt railroad by creating Conrail." "Railroad lines were abandoned, and hundreds of stations closed for good." "Although Americans seemed to lose interest in passenger train travel, some countries maintained their trains as national treasures." "The narrow-gauge Guayaquil and Quito Railway in Ecuador plays a vital part in national life, and people here use the railroad like a party line." "It even serves as a food market on wheels." "Train buff and writer Carla Hunt has traveled throughout South America on trains." "The Guayaquil-to-Quito run draws her back as the most exciting in South America." "A train buff's dream an American-built Baldwin engine- a relic from 1900-begins a two-day climb from sea level to over 11,000 feet in the Andes." "Passengers have a choice of three classes." "Second class costs a dollar sixty." "First-class cars sport padded seats for two dollars ten cents, and local vendors offer lunch on brown paper." "The affluent, who ride deluxe, get reserved seats and meal service." "But some prefer the roof where conductors seldom collect tickets." "American engineers laid out the route in 1898." "It took ten years to cut the line from the sugar cane fields of the lowlands up over the Andes." "When the train going up fails to meet the train coming down at the appointed siding, there's an unscheduled stop for a phone call to find out what happened to the other train." "These trains, not only do they carry the people up and down, but they carry the mail." "Every once in a while you see them with a medical prescription, a telex that might have come into Guayaquil but can't make it up between the two points." "There is a telex facility at Tiobamba." "But between here and Riobamba there is absolutely nothing." "The train that's coming from Riobama has a problem in Huigra." "One of the wheels of the machine was falling down off the track." "And now we are going with this train to help the other train." "So, back to Huigra." "Ah, fantastico." "Derailments are common, but the speeds are slow and the accidents usually minor." "As a bonus, amateur supervisors get a chance to see how, with a minimum of equipment, a derailed car can be coaxed back onto its track." "After a change of engines, the train climbs into the mountains once again." "In the early days of the American west railroad builders often resorted to zigzagging switchbacks to gain altitude." "On this line, a famous switchback is still in use." "The train has proceeded as far as it can up the valley." "Now it switches to another track, and backs up the side of Devil's Nose, giving passengers on the rear platform a front-end view." "The train backs around the mountain, then switches again to climb higher." "Going forward again, the train has climbed 300 vertical feet up the side of the mountain." "At the end of the first day, the train stops at Riobamba." "For Carla Hunt, a visit to the market is a fascinating feature of the trip." "People come from miles around to sell and buy." "You see things in this market you won't see anywhere else in Latin America." "But more than anything else," "I like to wander around and look at all those beautiful faces." "From Riobamba to Quito, the train is really a bus on rails." "There are seats inside, but for hardy train buffs like Carla Hunt, there is a much more exciting vantage point." "The place I like to ride is up on the luggage rack on top." "That's the best sightseeing seat in South America." "To go through the mountains and to climb over the two ranges of the Andes to go through the beautiful upland villages with all the wild changes of weather on route, there's nothing in the world like it." "Clouds shroud the peaks of the Andes as the line climbs high through cuts in the mountains and then descends to Ecuador's capital, the Spanish colonial city of Quito, to bring to an end one of the world's most extraordinary train ride" "In the United States, another spectacular train ride inspired one train buff to take dramatic action." "The line from Durango to Silverton, Colorado was threatened with abandonment in 1960." "Charles Bradshaw Jr.," "Florida citrus grower, rescued it in 1981." "Like many a town in the old West, Durango was created by a railroad." "The Denver  Rio Grande chose the site laid out the streets, and sold lots around the depot." "Young people, who share Bradshaw's enthusiasm for trains, keep it running" "I love it." "I really love it." "I go home and tell my husband," "I learned all kinds of new things today." "I would like to be an engineer very much." "You have to go through all the training, which is pretty physical for a girl and then you have to also a fireman, which shovel six ton of coal a day." "I wouldn't want to get out of my limit I don't think that's right." "My father and my grandfather and my great-grandfather were all railroaders before me." "They worked for the Rio Grand." "Not this particular branch." "I'm the first one in the family to work for this branch of the railroad." "None of them were conductors." "They were all in different parts of the railroad, so I'm the first conductor in the family." "They have to be pretty responsible people." "They can't be irresponsible at all." "Aren't you pretty young to be an engineer?" "I hear that about 30 times a day." "If I couldn't handle the job, I wouldn't be here." "Silverton is only 45 miles from Durango, but to get there, the train must climb almost 3,000 feet" "In the 1870s, huge discoveries of ore were made in the mountains surrounding Silverton but there was no economical way to get the ore out." "The railroad made the mines profitable" "The ore is now removed by truck." "The traffic has changed, but the town still prospers-mining tourist dollars." "All aboard." "As soon as the route was completed, the drama of the train's traverse of the Animas River Canyon was recognized as one of the great sights of American railroading." "In the early 1880s, photographer William Henry Jackson lowered himself into the canyon to take this picture, published in Harper's Weekly magazine." "Today's passengers can still enjoy the same spectacle." "The ride is potentially just as dangerous now as it was then." "A derailment could topple the cars 200 feet into the gorge." "An extraordinary train run has been preserved because of the dedication of one man and the delight that more than 100,000 people a year take in supporting the line." "Boston has its marathon;" "New Orleans its Mardi Gras." "Britt, Iowa honors hoboes." "Once a year, this small town invites hoboes from all over the country to drop by for a visit." "The get-together largely attracts those who have retired from actively riding the rails and can now look back on their former rag-tag wanderings with nostalgia." "Hoboes were not always so honored." "Hoboing began during hard times after the Civil War." "And in the Great Depression, the desperate once again took to the rails." "Sometimes railroad police threw them off moving trains." "Others jumped rather than face the reception they received when caught crossing state lines." "If we are to protect the public of Southern California from the indigent transient class." "They are coming here at this time, not for the purpose of securing work, but for the purpose of living on relief, stealing, or begging." "Where is your home?" "Chicago." "You ride a freight all the way from Chicago?" "Yes, sir." "Well, you can ride, 'em back too, or any way you can to get back." "We're going to see you over the state line." "Don't come back to California until you can come in like a man." "Hobo camps are called jungles, and life in them has always been hard." "But in Britt, Iowa the jungle is a place to renew friendships and swap stories." "...in '78 Yes, yes." "Yeah, I remember you." "My memory that bad?" "Now wait a minute!" "Every year you get older, you have a special privilege." "Every year you will get a little bit better at forgetting." "Yes." "I am there already." "Hoboes are known most often by their nicknames." ""Steamtrain" was first elected hobo king in 1973." "Now we got a young goat here, and it's going to be some pretty tender eating when we get him all browned up here." "Yes, sir." "We'll have some of the best music and some of the best food you'll ever sit down to." "Time has reversed these hoboes' roles once they were outcasts." "Now Britt youngsters look up to them as knights of the open road who seem to have lived in a mythological age." "That's my name, see." "That's your name?" "Well, this is mine." "Mountain Dew." "I was talking to the hoboqueen and she says," "Would you like to be a hobo?" "and I said, "Sure."" "And I go, How do you be a hobo?" "and she said-well, she pulled out this kind of perfume stuff, whatever it is-and she goes, I acquire you prince, a hobo price." "And she put some on my forehead." "So I'm a hobo prince." "And my name is "Beer-Belly Bob."" "I started out when I was about 16, and had 12 years on and off, different places." "Working irrigation ditches up in Washington, or cutting pulp wood in New York, dong lifeguard work down in Miami Beach, working in a gypsum plant in Yuma, Arizona, washing dishes in California You know, different stuff like that." "Working in the coal mines, but they gave me a day shift." "When I went in, it was dark and when I come out, it was dark, and I worked there two weeks." "I told them when they put windows in there," "I'd come back to work." "How long did you hobo?" "From when to when?" "About, let's see, 1931 to '38." "Something like that." "What's the satisfaction?" "Of being free." "Being free." "In other words, not having to account to anybody for your actions." "As the sun sets, the hoboes gather around a fire, and balladeers recall the hard days of depression times." "...my wandering." "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust," "If the railroad doesn't get you, then the bread lines must," "And it looks like I'm never going to cease my wandering." "When most railroad buffs think of trains, they think of passenger trains." "But many of those most devoted to trains have found their life work with the railroads." "Whether they maintain the racks or work on the trains themselves, the big business for them is freight, moving everything from coal to lettuce." "And although much of the public thinks railroads are a dying industry, in fact they are thriving." "Deregulation has permitted them to abandon money-losing lines, and new techniques, like piggyback hauling of truck trailers and containers, attract new customers." "The mass-market shipping of fresh produce by rail enables farmers in California to sell lettuce to buyers 3,000 miles away." "Lettuce harvesting has become an assembly-line operation- cutter, packer, sprayer, box-closer." "Today's lettuce that we've got is probably the best we've had in about a week and a half." "It's 54 to 55 pounds absolutely clean." "Derek Derdivanis is Sales Manager of the Admiral Packing Company in Salinas." "He sells lettuce by the carload to buyers all over the country." "Just call us back with that order, will you?" "You know." "The one you got in your back pocket." "A refrigerator car holds 30,000 heads of lettuce." "This one is bound east for New York City." "The morning after the lettuce is picked, the Admiral lettuce car has been joined to a 50-car train called the "Salad Bowl Express."" "Five Southern Pacific engines are needed to pull the train over a 7,000-foot-high pass in the Sierra Nevada mountains." "The route climbs toward Donner Pass." "On average, 35 feet of snow fall here each winter, and avalanches have obstructed travelers as long as the pass has been used." "In November 1846, blizzards trapped the emigrant Donner party here." "Thirty-five died of starvation and exposure." "Some survivors resorted to cannibalism." "In the spring of 1982, ten feet of snow fell in 12 days in the High Sierras." "Southern Pacific stopped all trains across Donner Pass." "Diverting traffic cost $100,000 a day." "Snow fighters tried to keep the lines open with spreaders-snow plows that push the huge drifts to the side." "But when the snow drifts too deep, spreaders stall and the pushing wings collapse." "The nerve center of the railroad's fight is a community of houses and offices connected by tunnels so buried in snow that it is call "Mole Town."" "Here a hundred men and women work day and night." "Norden operator." "Everything's in the clear on the Number Two?" "How about the rotary?" "Rotary's in the clear on the Number Two..." "Management calls for its ultimate snow-fighting machines-rotary plows that can dig through almost any accumulation of snow." "...that engine's being held right now." "The rotary is going on down to the other end of the siding." "Throwing five tons of snow a minute, 150 feet from the line, the rotary can literally dig a trench deeper than itself." "As one rotary chews toward the top of the pass from the west, another struggles up from the east." "The first train comes through." "Beyond the Sierras, the "Salad Bowl Express" drops into the desert, and a new crew takes over." "On the long, straight runs, there's time for shared stories and for trainmen to enjoy the camaraderie which is part of the attraction they feel for their work." "I don't think it's dawned on me yet that I've had a kid." "I'm still in shock from it." "Went in Sunday night." "Had it Monday morning." "Last couple of days have been pretty busy for me." "I was lucky." "Generally the railroad doesn't allow you to be in town." "They keep you away from home quite often." "So I was pretty lucky to be home when it happened." "In 1950," "I was on a high-speed perishables train, and a passenger train come out of a side track in front of us." "We hit him head on about 52 mile an hour." "The engineer on the other train was killed." "I'm very lucky to be here." "Now that scared me." "By evening, the train is in eastern Nevada." "The next morning, now with a Union Pacific engine and crew, the "Salad Bowl Express" climbs toward the Continental Divide." "Around a curve, Castle Rock, a well-known American landmark, comes into view." "The famous photographer A.J. Russell captured this same scene when the transcontinental railroad was nearing completion." "In 1867, it took three months to cross by wagon from the railheads on the Missouri River to the Pacific Coast." "The new rail line cut that time to less than a week." "Irish immigrants living in railroad car dormitories built west." "Chinese coolies built east." "It was the most dramatic engineering accomplishment of the century." "Gorges were spanned, mountains cut through or tunneled under." "An army of workers fought summer heart and winter snow at a cost of uncounted lives." "There were no movie cameras to record the great undertaking, but once movies were invented, filmmakers recreated the drama in classic films;" "John Ford's the Iron Horse and Cecil B. DeMille's Union Pacific." "Crossing the mountains, the deserts, and plains," "Fighting the heat, the cold, and the rain," "Summer to autumn, winter to spring," "Bring 'em up, lay 'em down, make the hammers ring," "Building a new road under the wheel," "Bind up the earth in iron and steel," "Working east, working west, we're building our way," "On bad food, hard liquor, and a dollar a day." "It was a day of national celebration when the two lines met at Promontory, Utah." "A.J. Russell recorded the scene in what is perhaps the most famous photograph in American history." "And in 1924, when John Ford recreated the scene for his film, he based the action on the photographer to pose the crowd." "The joining of America's East and West by rail is even more important today." "The "Salad Bowl Express" is only one of 60 to 70 trains a day moving across the nation on this one line." "Now, near the end of its second day, the "Salad Bowl Express" comes under the traffic control of dispatchers at North Platte, Nebraska." "Here three men per shift control every train on the 245 miles of track diagrammed on the walls." "They decide which trains get priority on the lines." "The "Salad Bowl Express" is rushed along." "Midnight." "The "Salad Bowl Express" arrives at North Platte." "Some cars will be sent south and eastward on other lines." "Other cars will be added." "The freight cars are pushed up a hump and separated." "Gravity powers them down the slope." "The tracks divide again and again." "Automatic sensors weigh the cars and retarders brake them." "There are 221 miles of track in the yard." "And as many as 5,000 freight cars at a time." "By 4 a.m., a new train has been made up, a new crew comes aboard, and the train moves on." "In the afternoon, the train crosses the Missouri River." "Operated now by Chicago and North Western railroad, it traverses the rich farmlands of Iowa." "The next morning, the train is in Chicago." "Marshaling yards like this one are dangerous places." "You have to watch for cars coming from both directions." "There could be debris sticking out of the car." "Try not go get caught in a situation where you have trains moving at high speed in both directions on each side of you." "If you do have a tendency to feel dizzy, lay down on the ground." "You could reel under the car." "Despite railroad emphasis on safety, there is an average of 15 deaths and 6,700 injuries to American rail-yard workers each year." "Danger for railroaders comes not only from the trains themselves." "In the early days, desperadoes like Jesse James," "Butch Cassidy, and the Sundance kid held up trains in the lonely plains and mountains of the West." "Today, trains are most often attacked as they pass through depressed areas" "We had one conductor-they got him with a gun and robbed him at Park Manor." "It's just a few things that we go through out here." "Everybody thinks we've got such a swell job." "We have our ups and downs, too." "This is our most dangerous spot of the trip." "They put different articles on the tracks to derail us." "They put old truck tires so they'll break the air hoses in two." "They'll throw beer bottles, anything they can get their hands on." "We've been shot at." "They shot at me five times through the caboose windows." "I've got pictures of the holes." "It was either a.38 or a.45 because it put big holes." "Sometimes they do it to rob the train." "They break us in two to rob us, so they can take things off of us." "On the cabooses they have..." "No, I know all about it." "He's going to throw." "No, he's not either." "Oh, we go through this every day." "It's nothing new to us." "The many dedicated man and women who are drawn to railroad work also live with the danger that goes with the job." "The "Salad Bowl Express" rolls through the heartland of the industrial Middle West." "On the fifth morning, the train parallels the Mohawk River." "Now under Conrail control, it follows the same route taken in 1825 by the Erie Canal." "Early on the sixth morning, the "Salad Bowl Express" arrives at its destination in the Bronx." "Ten carloads of produce are unloaded at Hunts Point Terminal each day." "The carload of lettuce from Salinas has been bought by the Armata family, wholesalers who in turn sell to markets and restaurants." "Beautiful box of lettuce." "As my father would say, It talks to you." "As soon as you open up the box..." "It has been seven days since the lettuce was picked." "It took four railroads and the involvement of 1,000 men and women to move it across the country." "Half a million people work for the railroads in the United States." "In one sense, theirs is just a job, but it is an essential job, moving the grain, steel, coal, automobiles, perishables-even the lettuce for a PTA luncheon in Baldwin, Long Island." "Traditionally, little boys were given model trains for Christmas and, captured by a dream, many grew up wanting to become an engineer." "The reality today is not far different." "For a new class of 23 engineers, the Long Island Railroad had 2,000 applicants to choose from." "Now to get the train moving, you'll need to reverse." "You're in forward." "This position." "This is your throttle." "Now we'll go in eight notch." "Alright, blow the whistle." "Dave Decker, senior instructor, has been an engineer for 14 years." "Decker loves engineering and teaching, but the memory of train accidents in his past brings a special urgency to his teaching." "Engineering used to be a man's job, but Federal affirmative action guidelines give Vita Zamboli, a former secretary, and extraordinary opportunity to join an elite group of railroad employees." "I can teach an engineer how to make a proper brake application and accelerate, decelerate." "That's the easy part." "My most difficult responsibility is to instill into an upcoming engineer that they have monumental responsibilities." "The is no margin for error." "Not when you are dealing with 1,600 people behind you." "Hopefully, I can bring this across to these upcoming engineers." "Are you relaxed?" "A little damp." "Alright." "That's good." "That means you've got guts." "If you're not nervous in here, there is something wrong." "How do you feel?" "Are you coming in strong?" "As she brings the train into a station" "Vita must learn the right timing how strongly to apply the brakes so as not to stop too soon or overrun the station." "Okay." "Now what you want to do is bear off the last second." "No, no, not this." "Right, bear if off." "Super." "You want that feel of this thing charging into the station and making your initial application and then your final application." "You ever run a train before?" "Huh?" "Never?" "You did a heck of a job." "What do you think?" "What do you feel?" "You feel that this..." "It was exciting." "It was great is this going to be your occupation or what?" "Yes, it is." "Yes." "I'm sure it's going to take a while." "But I will get the feeling of bringing a train in." "There are going to be times in your career when you are going to run across a grade crossing accident." "You're traveling along at 65, and a car comes around a gate or through the gates." "There's not a thing you can do." "You hope you give pre-warning, that a warning whistle or warning bell before you get to that crossing are ample." "You'll search your soul to know whether you did it or not." "It's not just the glory of running over the road and to say," "I always wanted to be an engineer." "Now I have that." "It's that you have to take that responsibility." "If her engineering career follows the norm," "Vital will face 500,000 road crossings in the next 25 years." "If she is never involved in an accident, passengers who ride her trains will have no reason to learn her name." "There are many great train rides around the world, but not one can match the aura of elegance, mystery, and romance surrounding the name-Orient Express." "It ran for almost a century until its demise in 1977." "Now two men have revived the historic run to Istanbul." "Albert Glatt bought the 1920s-vintage cars and lovingly refurbished them." "Sometimes, you know, you have to do everything on the train" "T.C. Swartz chartered the cars for those who could afford to recapture the glory of rail travel in its heyday." "...and then how to surpass it." "People's idea of luxury is a little bit different than maybe what is actually was." "So we're trying to do now is to give them more luxury than they had in the past." "In fact, to make it the ultimate trip." "I can't believe it," "Oh, it's marvelous." "There will be 98 passengers on this trip, each paying a modest $5,000 one way." "I think the dogs are great." "...great, but they are..." "Yeah, but I can't see them sitting in the dining car." "Some passengers, like actor Hal Linden and his wife, stage an arrival in the grand tradition, harking back to the aura of a princely trip." "Original inlaid wood decorations and Lalique molded glass reliefs still decorate the cars." "Names of the countries the Orient Express passes through" "Austria, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria-ring with romance." "Memories of mysteries like Murder on the Orient Express surround the passengers with an atmosphere of champagne and dreams." "Well, my name is Otto." "And I'm supposed to play the piano all the way to Istanbul." "It seems like everything that's wonderful about the world is going away, and the trains are one of those things" "Kim Vosper and Kyle Collins advanced the date of their weeding so they could make this their first trip together as a married couple." "For bourgeois travelers, meals in an aristocratic French style the ultimate temptation for those who count calories." "I remember as a child we used to put people on the train in New Iberia." "And I was never sad because they were leaving." "I was always sad because I wasn't leaving too, but I wasn't standing on the back platform when I'm waving goodbye." "I think I was six or seven when I took my first train ride." "From that time on, I think I fell in love with trains." "And then I heard that you could spend four-and-a-half days on a train that sold me on this trip." "The train cruises Europe like an ocean liner." "Gypsies play as they did on the first run of the Orient Express." "In the evenings, there are gala seven-course dinners." "And occasionally the train waits as passengers are bused to the entertainment." "A champagne tasting at the 150-year-old cave of" "Mumm's winery in France." "And just as on its maiden voyage, there is a festive reception in Budapest." "On the first trip, no passengers on the Orient Express dined at the hunting lodge of the sultan." "It is an express journey to the sun, but the high point for many comes in Vienna where the Vienna Boys' Choir is only a part of the entertainment." "Protocol prevented the Austrian royal family from receiving plebian passengers of the first Orient Express" "Now the Pallavicini Palace is theirs for the evening." "And finally, the end of the line-Istanbul, Turkey- where passengers get the red-carpet treatment, Oriental style." "For the 98 passengers of the Orient Express, the trip will remain an extraordinary adventure into the romance of rails." "But the Orient Express has no monopoly on beauty." "There are grand adventures for everyone in a rediscovery of travel by train." "Amtrak's Crescent, with newly rebuilt equipment, races like a speeding ship across Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana." "The Great Plains offer the same sweeping vistas that challenged the pioneers so long age." "There are majestic views of the Rockies on the Canadian transcontinental route" "The San Diegan is a beachcomber from Los Angeles to San Diego." "In the future, new trains traveling 160 miles an hour are planned for the run between Los Angeles and San Diego, and that is only the beginning." "Extraordinary experimental trains may some day revolutionize land travel." "For those who love trains, whether as engineer, hobo, or passenger, there's an appreciation due for the song-writer's line:" "It's got to be the going and not the getting there that's good." "They were here thousands of years before Columbus." "While Paris was still a village, they were carving cities out of the jungle." "They played a ball game for life or death." "They planned their lives according to the heavens." "Their writing is a puzzle we're still learning to decipher." "Wow!" "Look at this." "Really something." "Now the pace of discovery is quickening." "We are finally finding out who they were." "Bone?" "There's a lot of bone." "Look." "It's a black kind of a..." "Oh, man!" "This is really a powerful work of art." "They are the people who say that the gods made them from corn." "They are the Maya." "The year is 1839." "The place-western Honduras." "An American explorer named John Lloyd Stephens is leading an expedition in search of an abandoned Maya city called Copan." "Almost nothing is knows about the Maya" "Stephens is about to learn more." "Draped with a thousand years of tropical growth, the brooding temples and tumbled stones sprawl for miles." "Stephens is overwhelmed by a sense of mystery." "Who built this place?" "What happened here?" "In the following days Stephens and English artist Frederick Catherwood record their impressions of the ruined city." "It lay before us like a shattered bark in the midst of the ocean, her masts gone, her crew perished." "And none to tell when she came, or what caused her destruction." "All was mystery, dark, impenetrable mystery." "During the next three years Stephens and Catherwood visit the better known Maya sites to the north." "In Yucatan they explore Uxmal and Chichen Itza." "In Chiapas they visit Palenque." "And still questions plague them." "Who built these cities?" "Why had they been abandoned?" "The land of the Maya spread from parts of Honduras," "El Salvador, and Guatemala in the south to Belize and Mexico in the north" "It was dotted with hundreds of small kingdoms, each with its own unique history." "The heartland of what scholars call the "Classic" Maya civilization lay in the southern lowlands." "It is there that our story takes place starting at the site where scientific excavations first began..." "Copan." "Today, this partially restored site still retains its air of mystery." "Bill Fash is the director of the Copan Acropolis Project." "Copan was one of the premiere Maya cities." "Now we can't say that in terms of its size." "Certainly there were other cities that were larger." "But while it was booming for about 400 years there, it was quite a place." "It had incredible artists, sculptors, architects, engineers, astronomers, scribes, and so forth." "So I suppose if you had to put it in our cultural terms ...if Tikal were like say New York, Copan was like Paris." "Every year of the past few decades, a handful of Maya specialists and hundreds of workers have been trying to piece Copan's history back together" "The story of what happened here is still unfolding, stone by stone." "There are over 30,000 fragments of stone sculpture that once adorned these buildings." "The problem is, for this particular puzzle, there is no box top." "There is no picture that enables us to know how they went back together." "We have to try and figure that out." "And the problem is made worse by things like this." "This is what we call a GOK piles and pull out the examples that are just like those we have dug up, and try and put the whole thing back together." "But in spite of the difficulties," "Fash's team of experts has reassembled thousands of sculptures and conserved dozens of buildings." "Every year the pictures of what Copan was like more that a thousand years ago becomes clearer." "Many clues still lie hidden in the temples where the Maya elite buried their dead" "The Classic Maya had virtually no interest in metal, so there is no gold buried here." "But sometimes something even more valuable is unearthed." "Watch the wire." "See this face." "All right." "It's repainted." "It's a stucco coating over..." "In 1992 Robert Sharer discovered the tomb of a royal family member." "Buried with him were some pots." "One glyph is there." "What makes these vessels especially significant are the painted designs and the hieroglyphic writing." "Well, those are fantastic vessels, although I don't know if I can say much about the glyphs on them." "Forty years ago we could read only a few Maya hieroglyphs." "Today we can read about half." "But it takes an expert." "There's another pot just like the one with the feet in the tomb." "David Stuart is the son of Maya scholars and one of the world's foremost epigraphers." "By being able to read the glyphs now, it makes the Maya a little bit more normal." "It makes them more human because we see that they did have history, that they were a people that had real concerns about themselves and the events in their lives." "One kind of Maya writing was almost lost forever." "When Spanish priests arrived in the 16th century, they found hundreds of folding books called codices, and promptly burned them." "Today, only parts of four codices remain, but they have helped to shape the way we think about the Maya." "The books are almanacs, filled with astrological information." "The men and women who wrote the almanacs were scribes, well versed in astronomy." "Using a sophisticated mathematics, they calculated the movements of the night sky thousands of years into the past and thousands of years into the future." "They knew that the universe moved in cycles, some very large, some very small." "They even predicted eclipses of the sun." "They seem to have been fascinated by the relationship between time and the events in their own lives." "The Maya also left a record in a medium much more permanent than paper." "And this writing contains much more than dates and numbers." "On these stone the Maya recorded the important events in the lives of their rulers." "This is the Hieroglyphic Stairway at Copan, the longest inscribed text in the New World." "But early archeologists reassembled it out of order, so today we can read it only in segments." "Sculpture specialist Barbara Fash is making a catalog of the 1,200 glyphs on the stairway." "Someday, these drawings may tell a more complete story of Copan's kings" "This means "to plant with a stick in the ground."" "Other hieroglyphs are more accessible, thanks to dramatic breakthroughs in the past few decades." "This is the date." "It's a..." "Epigrapher Linda Schele has done her share of the recent detective work" "This is a little tree-tey." "And on this side, facing the east, he's young." "But on the west side you can see..." "Look at the beard." "It is a rare thing when a people develop historical consciousness and make recorded history a part of what they do." "What we are participating in now is the recovery of lost history because American history does not begin in 1492 with Columbus." "It begins in 200 B.C." "with the first Maya king who wrote his name on a stone." "Long before the first king wrote his name on a stone, the Maya were living in the fertile Copan valley." "They were corn farmers." "Their lives were ruled by the rhythms of the natural world, planting and harvesting, birth and death." "But around A.D. 400, at about the time Rome was starting to collapse, a change swept through the valley." "On a lazy bend in the Copan River, buildings made from stone were rising from the jungle floor." "Brilliantly colored buildings surrounded a whitewashed central plaza where thousands of people could gather" "There was trade in shells and cacao beans, tobacco, jade, and feathers." "At the center of the city stood the ball court." "The object of the ball game seems to have been to keep the heavy rubber ball in motion, without using hands or feet." "Stone carvings at some sites show ballplayers with severed human heads dangling from their belts." "But no one knows if they depict what actually happened to the losers, or illustrate something more symbolic." "The ball was supposed to be a metaphor for the movement of the sun and by extension, also the moon and the stars." "And you wanted to make sure that there was regularity in that movement." "They thought that if they played the game in the right way, and honored the gods in the right way, that they would ensure the agricultural cycle and enable the sun to rise and the rains to come on time" "and for there to be a bountiful harvest." "In the secret world of the Maya the gods were the source of all life, and only the kings had the power to intervene with them." "The gods sustained the physical universe with sun and rain and expected humans to nourish them in return." "The supreme source of that nourishment was blood." "When the Maya wanted to acknowledge the sacredness of the moment or an important event, they would let blood." "Blood was the vehicle that carried a quality that they called chu'lel, which means their soul." "It was something that not only permeated human bodies, it permeated buildings, it permeated the trees, the sky." "It permeated all things sacred in the world." "And when they gave blood, what they were doing was they were activating the chu'lel." "It's like George Lucas's the "Force."" "If you can think of Obi-wan-Kenobi, you know, calling the "Force" out, or Luke, as he guides the plane in you know, in the final Death Star battle." "That's what the Maya were doing by these rituals." "They were touching what they considered to be the living force of the universe and it's still here." "On special occasions the king himself would give blood." "This was one of the most secret rituals in Maya life." "After days of fasting and spiritual preparation, the king would pierce his foreskin with a stingray spine and let the blood drip onto paper strips." "With this act of sacrifice a doorway to the gods was opened." "When the paper strips were burned, the Maya believed they could see their gods in the rising smoke." "Today, the descendants of the ancient Maya still live much like their ancestors did." "The myths they remember and the ceremonies they perform are all part of a tradition that the Maya say God gave them at the beginning of time." "Casimiro Sagajau is a Maya priest who blesses the fields at harvest time" "We are Cakchiquels, direct descendants of the ancient Maya." "Our religion is from a long time ago." "I learned as a child from the Maya priests." "In dreams we learned from the Maya gods when to plant and when to harvest, when to set the fires, and when to do the corn ceremony." "The Maya passion for ritual was one of the first things Spanish missionaries observed when they arrived in Yucatan almost 500 years ago." "When the Catholic Church banned traditional forms of worship, the old ways went underground." "Today the religion the Maya follow is a blend of these two ancient faiths" "The Maya have clung tenaciously to many aspects of the old culture." "In the highlands of Chiapas and Guatemala their unique dress not only defines them as Maya, but identifies the particular village where they live." "It is said that when a Maya woman puts on her traditional blouse, called a huipil, her head emerges at the very center of a world woven from dreams, just as the great tree of life emerges from the earth." "In the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico," "Chip Morris had been working with weavers for 20 years." "The weavers have always said that their designs come from the beginning of the world, meaning the beginning of their culture" "When I started looking at the archeology of the sculptures and the statues, the things that show what the weaving was like, there are a number that are all but identical to the weavings of today." "What's in the designs is a map of the Maya world, but not the surface of the earth, not where we are standing now, but it's the dream world." "It's that world where the gods are, where the beings that control rain, where Angel, the lightning bolt lives." "There are no trucks, there are no houses on a blouse." "It's all images of that sacred universe that creates rain, that creates life, that maintains the world." "In a world where the line between the secular and the sacred is almost imperceptible, everything is more than is seems." "Pyramids symbolize sacred mountains where the ancestors dwell." "Doors represent the mouths of caves passageways into the mountain's dangerous underworld." "The Maya believed they went to that underworld when they died." "They called it Xibalba." "It was the "place of fright"" "a watery realm of disease and decay that ordinary people had little hope of escaping." "How the Maya treated their dead is being investigated here at a site 130 miles north of Copan." "These are the ruins of a city called Caracol." "Once it was a prosperous administrative center." "Today it is remarkable for the scores of tombs discovered here." "I think we'll leave the rest of this until we move the rocks." "Okay." "Arlen Chase is a potter expert." "Diane Chase is an authority on human bones." "They're trying to understand how the Maya thought about death." "We tend to think of things in Westernized terms." "The Maya were not a Western society;" "they didn't do anything the way Europeans do." "It's so hard for our own society to understand how the Maya lived." "I mean we don't have dead living with us, you know, every day." "We don't put them in a room in our house and maintain them there." "Well, the Maya essentially did that in their living groups." "Okay." "Oh, this is nice." "Arlen." "This is real nice." "We've definitely got a royal tomb here" "Ordinary people were usually buried under the floors of their houses." "The vessels are nice and they're in good shape." "The elite were placed in tombs." "This polychrome over here is in better shape on the back than the front side." "What about the bone?" "Bone?" "There's a lot of bone." "There are at least two individuals whose heads are to the south." "They're in pretty good shape." "Someone else's legs are up in this corner." "It doesn't go with either one of the first two individuals." "It's not the man and the possible woman." "It's somebody different." "It wasn't uncommon for the Maya to bury more than one family member in the same space." "I like to think of it more like a family mausoleum where grandpa may have died and you place him inside first." "Grandma dies." "You put her inside too." "A number of years pass and maybe the son or daughter dies." "You might move grandpa to the side a little bit, grandma too, and stick the son in." "And a little bit further along a few more people in the family die and eventually the mausoleum has quite a lot of bone material inside." "This one's got a ring..." "For archeologists, tombs are like time capsules." "The objects buried with the dead sometimes yield precise dates and names." "These help to fill out our picture of how the ancient Maya lived." "...in the lab it should pop out." "And sometimes what they find is simply beautiful." "Like the tombs at Caracol, the buildings of Copan contain their share of buried history." "But finding it has often been an elusive undertaking." "Honduran archeologist Ricardo Agurcia has been working at Copan since 1978." "My primary interest was finding out what happened to these people." "It's something that's part of my heritage too." "It's something that's part of my country." "And I grew up I mean I wasn't very young when I came to these ruins the first time." "But it impacted me and it was a fascinating issue-question that you were always thinking about." "What happened to these people?" "Who were they?" "How did they do the things they did?" "For the past four years" "Agurcia has been excavating a temple pyramid that may tell us more about how the people of Copan lived." "Temple 16 is a typical royal structure in terms of its construction." "And there in lies the archeologists' challenge." "For the Maya, certain spaces were sacred, so they built their temples one on top of another." "Workers would collapse the upper levels of an existing structure, encase what was left with heavy fill, and build a new structure around it." "As Agurcia's crew remove the fill, they create a labyrinth of tunnels." "Working in tunnels tends to be very confusing." "You're working like in three dimensions." "You're going up, down, sideways, in between." "And oftentimes you get lost and you can't really understand what you're looking at." "The flat wall on the left used to be the outer wall of an older temple." "Only by following its walls to their ends can Agurcia determine building's original dimensions." "I only traveled a short distance and bingo, we hit another wall." "It still goes farther on towards the south." "So we then tried going up to see whether we had the bottom part of a substructure or the higher part of it and started going up." "And you can see here the terraces going up of what was a very large pyramid." "It goes up, as far as we've traced it, eight stories high and each one curving back and going further up." "What Agurcia found next was totally unexpected." "There was yet a third structure inside the first two, this one was different." "The building Agurcia calls Rosalila was perfectly preserved." "The loose dirt was removed, exposing a set of giant masks still tinged with traces of the original paint." "Most of the masks we found before were perhaps a meter or two tall and would extend as much as five, six meters." "But these masks just kept going and going and going and to this moment we still haven't found the end of them" "Hey, partner." "How's it going, boss?" "Wo-o-o." "You haven't been here in a while, have you?" "Wow!" "Whoa!" "Can you believe it?" "Red paint all over the place." "Yeah, we've got lots of good paint." "We're coming down below the molding and we've got two birds out." "We've got one over here on the left and he's facing north." "And I think we have another one." "You see, he's got his beak bent over his eye." "All the feathers behind him." "All the feathers radiating out and also it's higher up than anything else in the Acropolis." "So this thing shone out for miles around." "It's outrageous, it's just outrageous." "Adorned with brightly painted sculpture" "Rosalila once crowned the highest point in Copan." "Framing the central doorway, two giant birds face the setting sun." "Above them undulating serpents extend their bodies toward the sky." "For the archeologists, the careful treatment given Rosalila poses a question." "We're all just itching to know what Rosalil is all about." "Why was it left there for 150 years and nobody touched it other than to maintain it?" "Why was it buried intact?" "They didn't touch any of it when they buried it." "All the rest of them they smashed to pieces to build something bigger and better over it." "Why was it so revered that is had to be mummified when it was buried?" "And most of all, what's inside of it?" "What is that thing housing?" "And that's what we're hoping Ricardo will find." "But before any new discoveries are made the rainy season descends on Copan." "The archeologists return home and all excavations are suspended until it ends." "Nearly six months later the rain is over." "The weather clears." "At last the excavation of temple 16 can be resumed." "For another half year workers continue to peel away the dirt from Rosalila." "And just before the rains resume, the enigmatic temple yields one more surprise." "Froma smallcachefoundinadoorway," "Agurcia removes something buried 1,300 years ago." "Look at this." "It's a black kind of a..." "Oh, man!" "It doesn't fit." "It's close enough." "You would not believe how sharp the edges on these things are." "What they have found is a bundle of blades chipped from an especially sacred material flint, the firestone." "They were probably used on ceremonial occasions and the faces may depict royal ancestors, or sacrificial victims." "No one knows how long it took to create these delicately flaked blades since no one today has the skill to make one." "In all, nine flints were found in Rosalila perhaps corresponding to the nine Maya "Lords of the Night."" "It's been here for 1,300 years and it's unbelievable." "It's a beautiful piece of art." "I mean the finesse, the work in it is incredible." "And I just feel like incredibly privileged, you know." "You get caught up in the heat of the battle and you try not to forget to take your pictures, take your measurements." "And at times you forget to think about it and to think of the face that it's human beings that did this a long time ago and that when they did it, this was very important to them." "I'm touched by it, I really am." "And it's a special feeling." "It doesn't happen every day." "It is likely the flints Agurcia found in Rosalila were placed there sometime in the 7th century A.D." "when the classic Maya civilization was at its peak." "In many Maya kingdoms there was a boom in the construction of new buildings." "Some cities were even connected by roads, and trade among them flourished." "Copan lay on the southern frontier." "But to the north events had taken place in the Maya world that would eventually shake it to its core." "Tikal was one of their greatest Maya cities, a prosperous urban center that the envy of its neighbors." "It was probably inconceivable to the kings of Tikal that any other kingdom posed a threat, but in the spring of 562," "Caracol attacked Tikal and defeated it" "During the upheaval that followed in Tikal, members of the royal family moved away into the jungle and established their own city." "Today, a research base camp marks the spot." "What was once the great city of Dos Pilas has again been reclaimed by jungle." "The effort to piece together a picture of its dramatic rise to power is being led by Arthur Demarest." "What he has learned is changing the way we think about the Maya." "Forty or fifty years ago we thought of the Maya as this peace-loving, theocratic society, these scholarly kings who studied the movements of the planets and lived kind of in a world of their own." "Now we know, from the recent hieroglyphic decipherments and from excavations like these that have found fortifications;" "that the Maya were a very violent people, one of the most warlike peoples of the New World, and that they were constantly engaged in warfare, battles of dynastic succession, and earthly pursuits." "In 1990" "Demarest's team discovered concrete evidence to support this view." "It is a large, perfectly preserved hieroglyphic text, and on it it talks about a series of wars, battles, and conquests involving the big players-Tikal," "Dos Pilas battling each other." "And it records the outcomes." "It's tremendous piece of information, and its decipherment," "I think, is going to change the way we look at this very critical period in Maya history." "This is really amazing." "They're saying that he is the subordinate of this lord, presumably of Calakmul." "It's an incredible title." "It's saying we were competitive with Tikal." "Well, we have to think about it." "I mean is it subordination or..." "Epigraphers David Stuart and Steve Houston are called in to see how much of the text they can read." "...with references to Bonampak and Tonina." "And then after that-X." "And look, there it is." "Katun." "Yeah." "This, Arthur, refers to a kind of altar." "And here it refers to a dedication." "It's referring to the stair." "And look!" "It's a step." "It's a step!" "It's a pyramid." "Okay, what it's saying is that this event, this war event..." "And then over here you've got a new event involving Ruler A's father." "The skull glyph here is the name of the ruler of Tikal." "Initially, it seems that Maya warfare was to some extent ritualized." "It was more devoted to religious ends." "Literally, these guys dressed up in silly outfits, archaic costumes with big Paleolithic spears and went out there and met in some place and knocked each other around." "One of them was captured and brought back and sacrificed." "What the hieroglyphs on the stairway seem to confirm is that sometime in the 8th century A.D." "ritualized warfare gave way to campaigns of expansion." "The kings of Dos Pilas attacked town along the Pasion River, and thereby seized control of a vital trade route." "It looks like there was a change in warfare that led to an intensification and to a shifting to warfare for conquest, actually absorbing the territory of others." "This seems to have somehow gotten out of hand." "An arms race, in a way, started." "Attacking centers becomes acceptable." "Attacking population bases, burning temples, that kind of thing." "The new warfare would eventually come to Caracol as well." "The eighth century and ninth century at Caracol and throughout the Maya area was a time of tremendous change and a lot of warfare." "Caracol, up to that point in time, had been very successful in warfare." "What happens, we think at least, is that in this late time horizon, it's not just a question of defeating a neighboring civilization and taking them into your realm, but talking large numbers of captives to sacrifice." "I think people were really scared." "Picture yourself in a Maya city." "And here you're been having warfare and you say okay," "I'm going to be captured and I'm going to be put to work probably have to give three months out of the year to that foreign country over there." "But rather than that happening to you, you've got this marauding army that comes in, pulls all the men together, and rather than marching them off to work in the fields, they instead cut off their heads and mount them on sticks" "and make huge skull platforms." "Now that would strike terror into you." "That would be enough to say, "My god, let's get out of here!"" "Even Dos Pilas would finally face the terror." "On the Hieroglyphic Stairway itself lie the ruins of a hastily erected stockade." "Archeologically, this defensive wall is one of the most important and exciting features that we've found here." "One of the reasons why this masonry line is so neat and is placed so well is that it is made out of neatly carved blocks which were ripped off." "They're the facings from the palaces around you." "So they literally tore down the royal palace and built this, running it up against their hieroglyphic stairway to create this desperate defensive system." "A picture of the city in its final days begins to emerge." "In a frantic attempt to keep the invaders out, the citizens of Dos Pilas erect two defensive walls around the center of the city and move inside for protection." "These are low house platforms that held little huts that filled the central ceremonial plaza here at Dos Pilas at the time of the siege and the collapse." "And it indicates that again the desperation of those final moments of this great kingdom was so great and its fall had been so complete that, at this point, you had the population living within the ceremonial plaza," "below the towering temples, below the monuments of the strutting great kings." "It's almost as if you had a population squeezed in living on the White House lawn, holding out at the very end of the collapse of American civilization." "That's what you have here that moment in time." "Copan, meanwhile, is struggling with problems of a different sort." "When one of its most powerful rulers is captured and beheaded, faith in the divine authority of the kings wavers." "At the same time, the population in the Copan Valley continues to grow." "Basically, the Copanecs became the victims of their own success." "And as this city grew and became more vibrant and more attractive, eventually all this nice, fertile, alluvial bottomland was covered by houses, and they were basically cutting themselves off from their own food source." "As time went by, all of the forest was eliminated." "This caused wide scale erosion throughout the valley." "This eventually resulted in less rainfall, and people just weren't table to live here any more." "It is now the middle of the eighth century." "Throughout the southern Maya world the power of the kings is waning." "Disease and hunger are becoming commonplace." "People begin to drift away from the cities." "In Europe the Dark Ages are halfway over." "Here in the jungle, they are just beginning." "Slowly, one by one, the great southern cities are abandoned" "In 761 the king of Dos Pilas is captured and killed." "Fromthatpointonthereareno more hieroglyphic inscriptions here." "The last written date at Palenque is 799." "Twenty years later, Copan falls silent" "Caracol stops recording in 859." "The last inscription date at Tikal is written in 879." "Only a handful of Maya cities in the south survive beyond the first years of the tenth century." "The northern cities of the Yucatan Peninsula places like Uxmal and Chichen Itza will prosper for several hundred years longer." "But they are no longer ruled by divine kings, and gradually the old ways of building and writing, and worshiping slip away." "The Classic Maya civilization is at an end." "One of the thins, I think, that strikes the public consciousness about the Maya civilization is to see this sophisticated culture with its monuments and architecture and science and writing system in the jungle, covered, destroyed an area that's now abandoned today." "I think that there's an immediate impact when you see that." "It reminds us that we can fail, that civilization is a complex phenomenon, and we can screw up." "And the consequences can be totally catastrophic." "Yet, while the Classic Maya civilization may have disappeared, the Maya people have not." "For 3,000 years they have survived the ambitions of their own kings and those of foreign conquerors." "And once again they are under assault." "In Guatemala, during the past three decades, the Maya have been caught in a civil war they barely comprehend." "In that time, 100,000 Maya have been killed and another 40,000 have "disappeared."" "No one can count the number of widows and orphans." "And through it all, they endure." "They weave their huipils." "They farm their corn." "I feel that the Maya of today are very much in the same traditions as the Classic Maya." "What they've lost is that big covering that overlay of nobility, and they dropped it themselves." "They basically told the kings, that's it." "You're not working anymore." "And they went and they continued their own lives." "I don't like it when people talk about the Maya collapse, because they never collapsed." "They evolved." "They went through different hard times good times, bad times, but they're still with us." "They still maintain their customs;" "they still maintain their ways of organizing their societies." "And it's very exciting to see how much of the ancient" "Maya way of life is still alive and well." "What we're digging up or coming up with, it's part of our history." "And the men that lived here are some of the greatest men we've ever had." "And it's a fact that we're getting to know more and more and more about the life of these people more than I ever thought was possible." "I think if somebody had asked me as a graduate student whether we would know what we know today about the Maya at Copan, there's no way I would have believed him" "What is happening now is the people who made these places people like Yax Pak or Bird Jaguar or Pacal are getting back their voices" "They are becoming real to us and speaking to the people of the 20th century about who built this place and why, and what they felt, and what they thought about the world." "These are not anonymous people any more." "Skilled hands bring the faded past to life and reach back to rescue treasures lost in the wake of time." "Snatched from oblivion, aglow once more with original splendor priceless treasures from the past now live again." "The paths that lead to treasure are often found by those who follow a dream." "As a child, Ken Hyde's dream was to fly." "Today he is an airline pilot." "Ken Hyde lives in rural Virginia." "Here, with his wife and daughter he pursues a larger dream and each day that dream comes closer to fulfillment." "Nestled safely in its hangar an aeronautical wonder from another time is coming to life." "Bearing the colors of the U.S. Army Signal Corps, it is a Curtiss JN-4D, one of the famous Jennys that first took to the skies after the United States plunged into World War I." "With advanced designs, 6,000 Jennys were built to train young American fliers." "Though she never fought in combat the Jenny helped redefine the rules of war... she taught a generation of pilots the principles of air power." "After the War in the roaring 20th heats turned to the sky cause the bomb stormer roar across America" "Surplus Jennys were expendable prompts in the area Vaudevilles which sometimes ended in tragedy." "Today, only fragments remain." "From such meager clues" "Ken Hyde has learned how the plane was built." "It basically was a hand-built airplane." "They had some automation but most everything was done by hand." "I didn't see any reason why I couldn't do that if I followed the old procedures and did it pretty much as they did." "And it was a test." "Ken Hyde is returning his Jennys to the way she was when this man put her together in the Curtis Factory" "To recover a lost technology he's become a student of History" "Searching through manuals blueprints and old parts" "Here, he finds evidence hidden in a photograph to help him reconstruct a wild-shield" "Fifteen years ago, Ken Hyde found the pieces of a Jenny in a building set for demolition." "Before long he found the parts of two more." "And there was a time when we had three airplanes in the basement of this little 1500-square-foot house in a subdivision." "I just remember things everywhere and I didn't know..." "I knew it was an airplane but you know, when you're that small, you don't realize that all these little parts and pieces are really going to go into something that fantastic." "It almost seems like a dream." "J just remember it being a very slow process... something that you looked at." "You didn't touch." "You wanted to help, and you were politely told to go do something else." "Out of Ken Hyde's dream, the shape of a Jenny slowly emerged." "He has spent months on small details to ensure the historic accuracy of every nut and bolt, for the Jenny must be authentic to be true to his dream." "When I started the airplane 15 years ago, a lot of the workmanship at that time was geared to just being airworthy." "And over the years the antique movement has changed;" "it's getting more into museum quality" "And the value of the airplane is based on being as authentic as you possibly can make it." "It's very easy and it's a lot faster to do it with modern materials and modern techniques" "But more than anything else, if it's going to be preserved as a museum piece, it ought to be just the way it came from the factory." "Fifteen years of work now show in every detail." "To cover just one wing it took days to stitch the Irish linen by hand." "The family spent endless nights fraying the cloth tapes that cover the seams." "Even the varnish formula took months to develop." "All clear." "Okay, it's coming off the lip now." "To be authentic the Jenny must be airworthy." "Before she can fly, her engine has to be tested." "Real easy as it comes off." "Kenny, it's turning." "Okay, choke on." "Choke on." "The principle behind flying, and a lot of people say well, we shouldn't fly the airplane, because if you damage it, then all that work is for nothing." "But we've been fortunate in that we have most of the parts and pieces, and we can manufacture anything on the airplane with the exception of the engine, possibly." "So hopefully, knock on wood, we won't damage the airplane, but if we do, we can restore that." "So that's why we want to fly the airplane." "Contact." "Contact." "Choke off." "Choke off." "Contact." "Contact." "Throttle closed." "Throttle closed." "Way to go, baby!" "On a summer afternoon, family and friends gather to see her fly." "Okay, contact." "I did have stage fright that day with all those people because Murphy's Law says that if it's going to happen, it's going to happen right there in front of 230 people." "But it's really exciting to see it all come together." "It's just great when things start all flowing together." "It's been a long time, and it's been a lot of fun." "A lot of frustration sometimes, but it's been an awful lot of fun." "It really lifts off in a hurry, too." "There it goes!" "Isn't it beautiful?" "It's gotta be exciting." "It is really exciting for him." "It is really exciting for him." "At 65 miles an hour, she soars again, one of four airworthy Jennys in the world today." "Forgotten skills have been relearned, and in the skies over the Virginia countryside, a priceless treasure from our past now lives again." "In Auburn, Indiana, another treasure is up for sale, its value to be determined by the highest bidder." "You now have one of the rarest opportunities ever available in your lifetime to purchase one of the finest restored Duesenbergs in the history of the world..." "One of the greatest Duesenbergs ever created and one of the finest restoration ever sampled on the Duesenberg automobile right here in Auburn, Indiana." "How much do you want to bid?" "Who will give one million five hundred thousand?" "Who will give..." "A model J Duesenberg glitters on the auction block, and wealthy collectors who wish to possess it must pay the price." "I got 500, and now 750?" "Anybody wants to bid from 500 to now 750?" "I got 500 now, anybody wants to get 750?" "I got 600, and now 700." "Anybody wants to bid in?" "I got 600, anybody wants to bid 700?" "Lorance, you want to bid with the same two bidders?" "And 700." "Now we 800." "Anybody wants to bid in?" "Now 900." "There. 900." "Yes." "He." "And 900." "You'd better bid one million dollars." "Anybody else?" "And 900." "You'd better bid one million dollars to get you bid in." "And 900." "Anybody else?" "Would you get 950?" "maybe you can help me get the million" "Going once, 950." "going twice, 950,000." "Anybody else?" "At 950," "I close the bidding right here at 900,000 dollars." "In the presence of a Model J, people tend to get stirred up." "It's part of a legacy left by Fred and August Duesenberg, who grew up on a farm near Rockford, Iowa, just before the turn of the century." "Mechanically minded as young boys, they became innovators of engine technology." "But their first love was racing, the Indianapolis Speedway was the crucible where new designs were put to the test." "In the 1920s, their engineering genius brought the checkered flat tree times." "In 1928, at their Indianapolis plant, they created the ultimate passenger car." "The owner of a super-charged Model J could cruise in luxury at 115 miles an hour." "In Hollywood, the Duesenberg became the mark of a star." "Clark Gable owned two." "Gary Cooper's was goldenrod yellow with pale green fenders." "James Cagney smiled behind the wheel." "But the Depression finally caught up with the Duesenberg." "Less than 500 had been built when the assembly line shut down for good." "Duesenberg owners form an exclusive club." "In Auburn, Indiana, they gather every Labor Day weekend to parade their restored Model Js before an admiring crowd of automotive enthusiasts." "Owners love their Duesenbergs were further than enthusiasm." "Many obsessed to perfections." "Others simply enjoyed the status to come with ownership." "And pride, the showing off their treasures to the thousands who come to look." "Some restored their Duesenbergs not to drive them, but to compete." "Auburn native Phil Allison judges a restoration." "Growing up around classic cars, he restores them today for wealthy collectors." "One of the best descriptive terms I've ever heard, and it's not mine I get it from Gordon Buehrig's book." "And the title of his book is Rolling Sculptures." "Morning, Ron." "Have they brought the Murphy convertible in yet?" "Yes." "And I think that it so neatly defines the work on these cars, whether it be the Duesenberg or the Cord." "They were such unique cars, and they are truly works of art." "I know for years I was always hoping for the opportunity to get to do a Duesenberg." "Now we have three in our shop." "And so..." "Now we have arrived." "Today, let's get started on dismantling this car." "Once owned by movie actor Tyrone Power, Model J Number 391 has just been purchased for $610,000." "Spruced up for the cheap coat of paint by its most recent owner" "No.391 will now be restored to original condition of the grown up." "We will probably spend around two years on the car." "Maybe not quite that long, but it will be close." "And there is a lot of things uh... restoration." "but unsuggested can be hurried duro on that car" "Several missing parts and it don't go in logo-parts orderly." "go to find them and there be several lighten on the difficulty come up with." "and we can find them have to be fabricative." "and it all take times." "To do a total restoration, we're talking about dismantling the car completely." "Then the rear end, or differential-rear-axle assembly, will be totally gone through." "The engine and transmission will be totally rebuilt." "The exhaust manifolds will be reporcelained." "The Duesenberg engine has an excessive amount of aluminum on it, which has to be highly polished." "There's a lot of hours of just polishing and cleaning." "The chroming itself is a major process." "It's a triple plating." "You first cover it with copper and then it's buffed, then it's nickled, then it's buffed," "Then it's chromed, and then it's chrome-buffed." "A lot of times we like to have a car sit for four to six weeks just in primer." "Then it's blocked." "Then we put on maybe four to five coast of lacquer and let it set for another four to six weeks." "Once it's totally cured, then we'll sand off maybe three of four of those coats of paint and blocking it out." "And then we'll put on another four to five coats, let it set for another four to six weeks, and we'll probably end up sanding off two or three of those coats." "And that's how we get the high luster-high depth finish." "It takes obviously a fair amount of money to fund a project like this, and a lot of people are not in a financial position to do this until they're on in years." "And some customers express concern that they're not going to live long enough to see the finished product." "I think in most cases they are being a little facetious, but I can appreciate that when you look at a long-term project in your later years, it could be a concern." "Restored for the pleasure of those very few who can afford it, the Duesenberg lives on in Auburn, Indiana." "But in a city for away, heroic endeavors are recovering the treasures of a nation for all the world to see." "Through the heart of Leningrad flows the Neva River." "Along these banks nearly three centuries ago, one man created a great city" "St. Petersburg which became the capital of imperial Russia." "Today, Peter the Great still looks out over his city." "With watchful eye he gazes on wondrous visions grand and exuberant visions of a tsar who like his country, was strong and proud" "...fairy-tale places sprung up as if by magic country playgrounds for the imperial court of Peter and his successors designed by the great architects of Europe, created from exquisite materials by a multitude of craftsmen summoned from afar." "On long winter nights, these rooms were made brilliant by candlelight reflected a thousand fold in crystal mirrors." "Light danced on paintings overhead and set the walls ablaze with color." "Light burned in gilded faces, as costumed nobility danced into the night." "They waltzed on parquet floors of wood from the forests of Europe and Asia, designed in astonishing patterns." "Surrounded by their treasures, the stars and their court waltzed on into the 20th century." "The dance ended with the Russian Revolution in 1917, but the palaces lived on as museums." "Then distant rumblings in Europe suddenly exploded on their doorstep." "In 1941 Nazi forces surrounded Leningrad." "Hitler planned to level the city, but the Soviet Army would not yield." "During the siege, the Nazis occupied four palaces on the city outskirts." "After 900 days they withdrew, burning the palaces as they left." "When the fires died, a nation's treasures lay in ruin." "At the Catherine Palace, chimneys protruded from a roofless skeleton." "Statues-victims of bombshells and gunfire." "Stillness filled the Great Hall." "Parquet floors lay charred under a blanket of winter snow." "A soldier in the Soviet Army," "Alexander Kedrinsky remembers the siege." "After the Nazi retreat, he entered the Catherine Palace." "On this spot in the Great Hall, he looked up through broken rafters at the winter sky." "Inside the palace, the interiors that were not burned were looted." "Pictures had been viciously slashed out of their frames;" "only the outer edges remained." "Doors were broken away." "Paintings were on the floor, cut to pieces." "That's one thing." "The other thing is that there were land mines hidden everywhere, and the palace itself was set to blow up." "Beneath it was a series of one-ton bombs wired together to go up in a single blast." "It's a miracle that the first soldiers to enter the palace gates after the German retreat discovered this system and disarmed it." "The park around the palace was dug up everywhere with trenches and gun emplacements." "And in the middle lay the charred hulk of the palace." "The palace decorations were strewn about the park in pieces." "Sculpture marms, head, torsos lay all about." "The picture was so terrible and depressing that one's first impression was that resurrecting it would be impossible." "On the other hand, people could not reconcile themselves to blotting out a page of history, the glorious history of these monuments." "And so we decided to undertake the restoration." "Pieces of the ruined palaces were scattered everywhere, hastily hidden before the siege." "From fields, from secret vaults, from the hands of retreating Nazis, even from the Neva River, the missing pieces were returned." "Restoration could now begin." "A painter and engineer, Kedrinsky directed work at the Catherine Palace." "We long to re-create these monuments, he said at the time, but do we have the guts to do it?" "Under his direction, scores of artists and craftsmen began to rebuild the palace." "Today Alexander Kedrinsky works with a new generation of artisans who use original architectural drawings and prewar photographs that miraculously survived the destruction." "From an old black-and-white photograph, a painted ceiling comes to life." "The design is rendered in color, and figures are drawn to scale by artists trained in period styles and techniques." "Designs are modified and approved before the painting begins." "For hours at a time they reach overhead." "Standing so close to the ceiling, these artists are unable to see the entire painting at once." "Skill and planning guide them where their eyes cannot." "After three years of work, the ceiling is almost finished." "Parts of a statue were retrieved from the palace grounds." "From these shattered limbs a body is reformed." "A wood carver creates anew what fire and shrapnel destroyed." "With clay, he models a missing twin that he will later replicate in wood." "On the statue's chest, a fracture is mended, and a wound is healed." "Once again, carvings are adorned with gold." "Though each leaf weighs almost nothing, nearly 20 pounds of gold were needed to refurbish the Great Hall." "Guided into place by human breath and held there by rabbit-skin glue, the gold is burnished with an amber rod." "Gilded faces blaze again." "The palaces are reborn." "The glory that was imperial Russia radiates from every quarter once again but today it shines with new brilliance." "Reflected in the symmetry of crystal mirrors is the labor of modern craftsmen who have saved the treasures of a nation." "In 1944, Peter's portrait was found in shredded fragments, scattered in the snow." "Today, the scars are almost invisible." "We rebuild these palaces to celebrate those who built them long ago, says Kedrinsky, but we need another 20 years before our work is finished." "Today, from atop his horse," "Peter the Great gazes on a miracle." "Through heroic endeavors his vision lives on." "The farming country of eastern Colorado is far from Leningrad, but the passion to save a treasure can be found here as well." "Compared to the Russian court, life in Burlington, Colorado, is basic but on the county fairground stands a treasure that might well have delighted the Russian nobility." "How you doing?" "All right." "Local citizens brought this treasure here some 60 years ago, and today it is the pride of Kit Carson County." "In the morning light, fantastic animals awake on what many herald as the "Jewel of American Carousels."" "Because it was the sixth machine built by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company, it is known as PTC #6." "Caring for this unusual menagerie is an art conservator named Will Morton." "In recent years, he restored the animals from decades of deterioration and unveiled whimsical piece of American history." "PTC #6 was built in 1905 when carousels spun their magic the world over." "In 1928, it was bought second-hand for $1,250 by Kit Carson County." "At the fair that year, citizens paid five cents for a five-minute ride, but this frivolous purchase would cost the county commissioners their jobs." "Dust storms and the Depression brought hard times to Kit Carson County." "Homeless families lived on the fairground." "The carousel building was used to store feed and became infested with rats and snakes." "There was talk of burning it down." "Somehow PTC #6 survived, but it was never quite the same." "Its magic vanished, and as each year passed, neglect moved it ever closer to the edge of ruin." "In 1979 a group of concerned citizens brought Will Morton from Denver to preserve and restore it." "A lot of carousels have been refurbished, but this is the first one to my knowledge that was conserved and restored as a work of art might be;" "that is, Where we have made every possible effort to preserve the original material that we found here and to protect it as you would with a piece of fine art." "As he lifts the veil of time," "Morton finds traces of Victorian artisans whose pencil marks look as though they were drawn only moments ago." "Surrounded by their creations, will senses the spirit of those craftsmen lurking nearby." "I spend days here alone just working on the carousel." "Your mind is going a mile a minute even though your hand may not be or the project doesn't seem to be going all that fast." "Nevertheless, your mind is going." "And so you're picturing the people who made this carousel, what they were thinking." "I think part of doing a good job in restoration is discovering the people that made the thing trying to put yourself in their place." "And that's why I insist on doing things the way they did them." "Will Morton has preserved more than 90 percent of the paint on the animals" "Now he restores what has been worn away." "The Wallitzer monster military band organ is the heart and soul of the PTC #6" "Over the year" "Water damage, heat, humidity and hungry rats all play habit of this vital parts." "After 1200 hours of restoration the monster gets to check up." "Good afternoon and welcome to our third performance of the 1986" "Kit Carson County Fair and Rodeo." "Every year in early August, people come from all over Kit Carson County to ride PTC #6 once again." "Today a ride costs 25 cents, but it lasts a full seven minutes." "I would like to look down from some place beyond 50 years from now and feel that I'm being complimented by the restorer who's then at work, saying that the man who did this in the first place did a good job," "and I'm pleased with what he did." "On the plains of eastern Colorado another year passes." "On a summer night, the carousel spins dream that will not be forgotten in years to come" "The Age of Sail reached its height in the 19th century when global voyages were made in tall ships." "The forces of nature were harnessed by experienced hands, but when canvas was replaced by steam, the tall ships and a maritime tradition quietly vanished." "In the port of Athens the rusted hull of a once tall ship is destined for the scrapyard." "In her hundred-year life-span, she sailed under many names and many flags." "Now Elissa will be reborn." "She was launched in Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1877." "In 1979, her hull is made sound and she is towed across the Atlantic to the port city of Galveston, Texas, which has adopted Elissa to symbolize the heyday of its maritime past." "Long ago she sailed into Galveston, and it is here on Galveston's waterfront that Elissa's reconstruction begins." "And a course of America people come to rebuild her" "Since about 19 century commode life the absolutely skills are learned again." "A new deck is caulked with hemp and sealed with pitch." "Self-taught riveters add plates to her hull." "Tree trunks are turned into masts." "Costs rise into the millions, but funds are raised." "With a iron and wood renewed Ellisa will sail again." "and carried in her figure-head the spirit of those ever new her." "In 1986, Elissa is bound for New York to once again become a part of history" "Galveston's mayor being the group farewell." "terrigenous Ellisa project, David Brink." "and all of you to be vault with Ellisa." "your dream has truly grown to a miracle." "broaching the yellow rose to Texas." "Ellisa's figure head points away a prowl to go to Mexico." "100 years ago she was manned by 8 deckhands." "Today she is sailed by hard-working volunteers." "Let's go, guys." "Let's go to the sails." "Their footing is less sure, but perhaps more eager because they have helped to restore and maintain her." "Executive secretary and grandmother," "Judy Peters became a volunteer six years ago." "And I didn't know anything but I sure that I could help it so they like to teach me what I need to know." "I came down literally scared to death but I knew I wanted to help and I knew that they needed help." "And I was willing and I was able." "Some of the job that could be hard to do and I wouldn't." "but I'll do for free for cause of Ellisa for the future." "Steady it on 115." "OK." "That was sided to the left." "Fine, uh..." "Pier, what we do is that you always take it slight inside the long braces." "Overseeing Elissa's restoration has been the responsibility of Walter Rybka." "Why don't you always help Pierre with the slacking side of the braces." "I think the key idea of this restoration is that this ship is not so much an artifact as it is a process." "We're not so much concerned with her past as we are with our future." "What we're interested in is the values and the crafts and the skills and everything that gave the world this beauty." "We'd like to be a part of our lives now and carry it forward in the future." "So the Elissa is as much a process as it is a product." "Under gray skies," "Elissa sails north along the Atlantic coast." "Go as far as you can till you get where you want to stop." "John Elder, a business executive, summons the courage to go aloft with project director, David Brink." "Big step over to that little crane line there." "Grab the chain with your right hand." "Swing over." "That's it." "Good." "Now before you hit the foot ropes, say "laying on" just for practice." "All the way over to the yard." "Great." "Okay, I did it." "Okay." "It would help if I came over, wouldn't it?" "Just let that fall." "Okay." "Now pass that under." "Double back over." "No, no, don't pull." "No, no, don't pull it all the way through." "As she approaches New York, Elissa is not alone." "From all over the world, tall ships are coming to celebrate the restoration of the Statue of Liberty on her 100th birthday." "We've got the battleship Iowa overtaking us on the port." "Traffic." "Cars." "An urban world emerges through fog and mist." "The sight brings mixed emotions." "I think there is a sense of possibly letting go for the crew." "The crew thinks of Elissa as their own and rightfully so." "We're the folks that have maintained her and sailed her up till now." "We don't mind sharing her with everyone else, but there is a little bit of a feeling of letting her go." "After the rest of this weekend, particularly Friday, she's not going to belong to just us anymore." "She's going to belong to the world." "Elissa last entered New York Harbor in 1884, just two years before the Statue of Liberty was unveiled." "Today a crew of volunteers has brought her here once again, and after a century, two ladies greet each other for the very first time." "The moment is savored by the crew, but the celebration is about to begin." "The spectacle unfolds, and Elissa takes her place." "She is the oldest of the large square riggers in the parade." "Not long ago, Liberty welcomed tall ships from around the world to a flourishing America." "Today, one by one, tall ships return to salute her, as America renews her past." "Elissa has earned her place in history, and now her moment has come." "It's amazing just to think how it all comes down to one moment." "Here you are." "Everybody knows." "It's a great, great feeling." "She passes the reviewing stands that line the shore." "Everybody was so proud of her that she was there, she was volunteers had done it." "And it made everybody see that anybody can be a part of restoration." "You don't have to be a somebody." "It takes all the little people to do it." "Volunteers have brought life to a dying ship and have restored the knowledge that can renew her again and again." "Revived with the human spirit, fragments of our past become our treasures." "They mirror who we are." "They become living monuments to the achievements of out past and living testaments to our hopes for the future." "Passing though the hands of one crew to the next, a tall ship is on a journey through time." "Perhaps in years to come the sight of her sails will inspire others to voyage forth... to fulfill their destinies..." "to cherish their treasures as they cross new horizons to places that live today only in our dreams." "Mirages summon up strange liquid illusions here on a vast dry lake bed that has been called "the place of dry water."" "This is a region named Etosha in southwestern Africa." "For most of the year it may go without a drop of rain." "And in these times," "Etosha's water holes become like open-air stages." "Here, as perhaps nowhere else, the wildlife of Africa may be intimately observed." "Much of the Etosha region is grassy plain and bushland, and in this center lies the Etosha Pan a vast lake bed which is totally dry for most of the year." "Some 2,000 square miles in area, this great expanse of clay is one of the most barren landscapes on Earth." "But this is a place of illusion and paradox." "Because here in Namibia in southwestern Africa, the Etosha Pan is surrounded by one of the most spectacular displays of wildlife remaining on the continent" "For underground reservoirs feed permanent water holes along the edge of the pan and on the plains beyond, sustaining great numbers of animals the year round." "Our year in Etosha begins as the long dry season comes to an end." "The pan is baked and windswept, and a dusty haze fills the air." "But at last, one day, great clouds and shafts of cooling rain sweep across the plains." "Water begins to fill the pan, flowing into this natural depression from all directions." "As the rains continue for about three months," "A huge lake gradually forms." "Suddenly, millions of catfish appear in the lake." "They have been spawned by adults that have somehow survived the dry season buried deep in the mud." "But now these young fish become a feast for egrets and herons." "The rains transform Etosha." "The pan is now a vast, shallow lake, fifty miles across but barely two feet deep." "Rising water soaks the grassy plains along the edges of the pan." "A lush new season is announced by a chorus of giant bullfrogs calling females to mate." "The bullfrog males gather together on their mating grounds." "Here they attack each other, fighting savagely for the opportunity to mate." "This is something new for these young lions." "The small female bullfrogs take the initiative when it comes to mating." "Now two females vie for the attention of a male." "Hundreds of eggs are released by the female and fertilized by the male." "Soon vast numbers of tadpoles swarm in the shallows around the pan." "Most frog species have abandoned their young by this time," "But the male giant bullfrog is fiercely protective." "He vigorously defends them against predators like the monitor lizard." "A blaze of fresh color sweeps over the plains of Etosha." "Many animals find sufficient moisture in the succulent new growth they're feasting on." "Now the water holes appear abandoned and deceptively peaceful." "But turtle doves do come to drink every morning and evening." "These two are unwary intent on their courtship." "the victim is overwhelmed by hungry turtles and it's soon over." "Playing and foraging, but ever alert, ground squirrels rarely stray far from the safety of their burrows." "Like most animals here, the squirrels have their young in this bountiful rainy season." "On the plains, a wildebeest is giving birth." "The calf's infancy passes before this day is over in just a few hours he'll be running with the herd." "All across the plains newborn animals are first tasting life." "Easy targets for predators, many will not live more than a few days." "The zebra mother places herself between the cheetahs and her foal making good its escape." "The rainy season is not a total blessing for the squirrels." "They are plagued with fleas." "The squirrels use their fluffy tails as sunshades." "It's an unusual adaptation, helping them to forage in the hot sun." "The cheetah mother has four large cubs to feed." "They're almost a year old, but not yet skilled enough to hunt on their own." "The wildebeest mother is formidable." "She confronts the cheetah and helps her frantic calf to its feet." "An elusive animal of which little is known, a bat-eared fox tends her cubs." "She'll collect insects for them to eat and keeps their fur clean by constant grooming." "Baby springbuck are easy prey for the cheetahs." "They can easily eat four of these small fawns in a day." "In half an hour they'll be hunting again." "Her large, sensitive ears enable the fox to detect even the faint sounds made by insects underground." "This time she's found only a few termites." "Although considered the fastest-running animal, cheetahs are hard-pressed to catch the swift springbuck." "Cheetahs are often frustrated unless they can gain the advantage of surprise." "In this year of heavy rain and an abundant food supply" "Pelicans have come to nest on an island in the flooded pan." "Here, their clumsy black chicks are safe from predators." "Leaving the chicks, the adult pelicans often travel great distances to the nearest fishing grounds." "Here, they join other birds in pursuit of catfish." "The catfish have grown almost too big for this sacred ibis." "After three months the rains diminish and the pan begins to dry." "The surviving catfish are trapped in the shallows and picked off easily by the pelicans," "Ibis, and yellow-billed storks." "Newly-hatched dabchick ride along on their mother's back when she leaves the nest." "As the male dives for food, the dabchick mother tends her young and the unhatched eggs, which she carefully covers over when she's away from the nest." "Now she shades the eggs and fans them vigorously guarding against the hot sun." "Both adults must work constantly to keep up with the chicks' demands for food." "The rains have ended now, and pools along the edges of the pan are fast evaporating." "By the thousands, young bullfrogs emerge from the water." "They have voracious appetites and eat everything in sight." "Often there is no food but one another" "Many bullfrogs may reach maturity without eating anything but their own kind." "For the frogs that escape each other, there are other enemies." "This bushsnake recognizes prey only when it moves." "If the frogs remain still, they're safe." "Through the rains, most animals of Etosha enjoyed a bountiful time." "Strengthened and renewed, they are now prepared for the long, harsh season that lies ahead." "As the plains dry, the rutting season begins." "A wildebeest bull eagerly approaches a group of females." "But the bull is not entirely welcome." "Rival males will take full advantage when he drops his guard and attempts to mate." "A male springbuck courts a female by gently touching her flanks." "Only when ready will she allow him to mate." "This is called "pronking."" "Adult springbuck pronk after being chased by a predator," "Perhaps as a signal to regroup the herd." "But in these young, is seems simply a delightful form of play." "Daily it's growing drier." "The pan becomes a mire of soggy clay, and then hardens under the harsh Etosha sun." "High and dry, the pelican colony is no longer an island and no longer a sanctuary." "Jackals and hyenas raid each evening." "The flightless young pelicans soon are scattered across the pan, many dead or dying." "The new grass brought by the rains matures and dries." "The great herds that have flourished here on their breeding grounds now move on in search of fresh grazing." "Probably such migrations have continued for thousands of years triggered by the onset of the long dry season." "Some herds will travel 100 miles and more." "They must follow trails leading from one water hole to the next." "And at the water holes wait the predators..." "A zebra herd is halted in sight of water by two resting lions." "The lions have recently fed, but they will see that nothing drinks here today." "They're old companions, and have hunted together for years." "It would seem that nothing could come between them except perhaps, a lioness." "It's mostly noise and little damage is done." "The victor has established his right to the lioness." "The loser seems to accept his lit in life, and is ill prepared when a second lioness comes on the scene." "After three dry months the water holes become increasingly essential and perilous for the animals of Etosha" "More and more often, and more urgently they are impelled here to drink." "Elephant are among the few animals that come fearlessly to water." "These bull elephants normally keep to themselves." "But occasionally they join up with a breeding herd of cows and calves like this one." "When a very young calf is with the herd." "Even elephant can be edgy." "This calf is probably less than ten days old, and it seems the entire herd unites to protect it." "Kudu are infinitely cautions when coming to drink." "They are alert for the slightest scent or sound of danger." "A powerful lioness in the prime of life is accompanied by her three cubs." "Lions have a bad reputation as parents cubs are often neglected, or even savagely abused," "Because of conflicts within the pride." "But this lioness proves an attentive and careful mother, possibly because she has no female rivals and enjoys the attentions of the three male lions in the area." "The cubs are only about four months old." "and would be quite helpless on their own." "They'll continue to rely on their mother for the next two years." "A flock of queleas makes a hit and run raid on the water hole their safety lies in speed." "The lioness has caught a young warthog for her cubs." "Now she leads them to where she has left it." "But there's a surprise in store for the cubs." "The mother will not help." "Inept as they are, they must learn how to kill." "This is a rare and striking glimpse of how the means of survival are passed on in the wild." "It's growing hotter and drier by the day." "Though always aware of danger, animals are drawn more frequently to the water holes starting even in the cool of early morning." "They can probably smell the lioness, but they're also thirsty." "It's been six months now without a drop of rain." "Flocks of guinea fowl scratching for seeds add to the choking haze that hangs over Etosha." "It sometimes appears that the entire area is smoldering on the brink of bursting into flame." "Now comes the time of the "light rains"" "showers that may fall in scattered spots across the plains." "They're only a teasing foretaste of the real rainy season, still two or three months away." "Soon after the light rains, acacia trees blossom." "For kudu, giraffe, and other browsers, their fresh, new leaves offer some relief." "But for other animals the scanty rains bring little benefit the plains are still brown and bone-dry." "Now, the great grazing herds being to retrace their migration routes across the plains." "By the time the rains begin in earnest, they will have found their way back to the same breeding grounds they occupied the year before." "On the way, herds gather to drink at a water hole on the edge of the pan." "And so it goes on as it has for millions of years." "the ancient perpetual cycle of the seasons, the endless pursuit of predator and prey, of death and renewal." "All will have come full circle as thunder echoes across Etosha and the rains come again at last." "With the coming of each new dawn, shadows of an ancient past echo across Australia land of eternal mystery." "Alien and remote for countless centuries, it remains today an almost mystical land... a land only recently disturbed by the arrival of man." "Long before the time of man, there appeared here creatures among the most bizarre on Earth." "So unlike other animals are they that many early European explorers could hardly believe they were real." "Even today, three centuries later, many of the questions the animals pose to science remain unanswered." "Throughout Australia, investigators and scientists probe the secrets of this infinitely varied wildlife." "Animals once dubbed "living fossils" have been properly identified and categorized, their evolutionary relationships better understood." "Yet, inevitably, there remain more questions than answers haunting, ago-old mysteries that beckon all who behold the spectacle of life unique to Australian shores." "Washed by the South Pacific on the east and the Indian Ocean on the west," "Australia stretches for almost three million square miles." "It is the world's smallest continent, the largest island a self-contained biological laboratory unique in the world." "Science has long been puzzled by how and why this island-continent became home to what is probably the most distinctive assemblage of creatures found anywhere in the world." "Part of the answer lies in Australia's remoteness, its geographic separation from the rest of the world." "Cut off from the Earth's great landmasses," "Australia has evolved in seabound isolation for some 50 million years, its wildlife relatively undisturbed by influences from the outside." "But the world as we know it today does not hold all the answers to Australia's past." "We must look to a distant time in the Earth's geological history when the continents were joined." "Scientists believe that somewhere in the continents we know today as the Americas, Antarctica, and Australia, the earliest marsupials evolved and fanned out." "When the landmass split apart, the continents carried their life-forms with them." "However, in South America, predators and competitors for food eventually wiped out a great number of marsupial species." "In Antarctica they became frozen out of existence." "Only in Australia, safely cut off from competitors, could these unique creatures flourish." "And until the relatively late arrival of man, they evolved, for the most part, undisturbed for millions of years." "Even today, Australia's human population is only 141/2 million, and because much of the interior is a harsh, arid land, the large cosmopolitan centers cluster on the coasts." "A common myth about "Down Under" is that one can see kangaroos hopping down the streets of Sydney." "Yet it is quite likely that many of these people have never even seen one, and perhaps never will, outside a zoo." "Zoos and sanctuaries are popular attractions throughout Australia." "Here, tame animals provide the opportunity for an intimate look at some of the country's most treasured resources." "Most of the kangaroos at this sanctuary have been raised here as orphans... their mothers the victims of automobiles or a hunter's gun." "Under the watchful eye of a keeper, the joeys, as young kangaroos are called, can be cared for until old enough to be on their own in the park." "I'm going to put him in a bag." "A pillowcase is an ample substitute for the mother's pouch." "Good joey." "That's a baby." "Sit square on." "Put two hands one on top of the other." "Perhaps number one of any popularity poll is Australia's pride and joy, the cuddlesome koala." "...Straight over your shoulder towards the camera." "Chin up." "And thank you." "Okay miss, just watching me, please." "Oh, you've got a beautiful smile, dimples and all." "How about that, eh?" "Captured young, koalas come to accept humans." "Even in the wild, they are basically unaggressive if undisturbed." "Life for the wild koala revolves in and around forests of eucalyptus trees throughout eastern Australia." "On the ground just to move from tree to tree, the koala spends almost all its time high in the branches." "It has developed highly specialized adaptations for its arboreal life... long arms, well-padded paws, and opposable thumbs with a vice-like grip." "Not only home and shelter, eucalyptus trees provide the koala with its primary food." "It eats about two pounds of leaves a day." "Despite superficial resemblance, the so-called koala "bear" is not a bear at all, but a true marsupial a pouched animal like the kangaroo." "After birth the young will stay in the mother's pouch for about six months." "When strong enough to leave the pouch, it will do so only intermittently, and for the next few months will travel everywhere with its mother, clinging either to her back or chest." "The koala has inspired myriad reactions from observers over the centuries." "One author has written:" ""The koala's expression always reminds me of a Byzantine Madonna or some dowager duchess... rather bored, well-fed and well-bred..." "But many aborigines saw something quite different to them the koala represented the reincarnation of the spirits of lost children." "A research team from Queensland's National Parks and Wildlife Service is studying the koala's ecology and reproduction in the wild." "Their study area is roughly 600 acres where 30 to 40 koalas normally live." "He's got up higher than he was when we first saw him..." "Yeah." "Okay, let's go." "Led by Dr. Greg Gordon, the researchers have been capturing and tagging koalas since 1971." "It is by no means a simple task." "First they must get them down." "And, as the wary animal climbs even higher, the pole must be extended to reach it." "This is not going to be all that easy, Greg." "He's got to he's going to drop just near the edge of the embankment." "Yeah, I think you're right." "Experience has taught the scientists that the procedure is basically safe the koala its sturdy build and thickly padded rump seem to protect it against the fall." "That's it." "You're just below him now." "You're right below him." "Go on, drive him off." "Got him?" "See, doesn't hurt him at all." "Particularly when they come down on a branch like that." "It was a rude awakening, wasn't it." "Though easygoing by nature, a koala may become aggressive under stress." "The bag is a precaution against his powerful claws and tenacious bit." "Sought for its fur in the early decades of this century, the slow-moving koala was hunted to the very brink of extinction." "Today, thanks to government protection koalas are once again secure." "Recently, however, it this area of Queensland, there has been a puzzling decline in the birth rate." "By tagging the animals and studying them over a period of years, the scientists hope to pinpoint the cause." "In the meantime, thorough examinations expand their understanding of growth patterns and general states of health." "Color-coded tags make the animal easily identifiable even when high in the trees." "This one was tagged originally when still in his mother's pouch, and much about him is already known." "Tooth wear is about the most reliable indication of age." "This male is roughly three years old." "Now, we'll do his chest gland." "On their chests all male koalas have a scent gland which exudes a distinctive odor." "By rubbing the gland on tree trunks and branches, they announce their presence to others in the area." "Okay, we'll go out of the sun, over here." "That sound like a good idea." "Okay, fellow." "There we are." "Good as new." "He's not going to go to that tree again." "Go on." "...nasty, that one..." "Momentarily disoriented after his release from the bag, the young koala seems unsure of what to do next." "But within seconds he heads back quickly to the same tree from which he'd been captured." "Guess he proved me wrong." "He took that rather well." "Sensing only that he is safely back where he wants to be, the koala cannot possibly realize how today's encounter with strangers may well help determine the future of his kind." "Perhaps the very symbol of Australia, the kangaroo remains as fascinating today as when the first live specimen reached England in the 1700s." "A handbill announcing the event proclaimed that" ""to enumerate its extraordinary Qualities would far exceed the common Limits of a Public Notice"." "Now, almost two centuries later, a rare piece of film documents one of the kangaroo's most extraordinary qualities of all." "After a gestation period of about a month, this red kangaroo prepares to give birth." "Though scientists now understand the biology of marsupial birth, it is no less remarkable to behold." "All marsupials are born in an undeveloped state, their growth to be completed inside the pouch." "Defenseless and blind, the tiny newborn, completely unaided by the mother, must navigate through her thick fur toward the pouch." "If it loses its way, it will die." "Once inside the pouch, guided only by its sense of smell, the newborn finds one of the mother's nipples." "Here it will remain attached, suckling for more than six months." "Now the joey will be strong enough to leave the pouch intermittently." "But even when it is old enough to graze, it will return to the pouch to nurse for several months more." "Amazing in their adaptability, some kangaroos are as at home in the trees as others are bounding across rocky slopes." "There are about 50 species of kangaroos in Australia ranging from up to seven feet in height to the size of a common rat." "But one trait they all share is that they hop." "Though it may weigh as much as 200 pounds, the kangaroo is a picture of grace when it takes to flight." "It can reach speed up to 40 miles an hour, and cover as much as 25 feet in one leap." "Recently scientists were amazed to discover that, at certain speeds, the kangaroo actually uses less oxygen the faster it goes." "It was found that, like the spring in a pogo stick, the kangaroo's leg muscles and tendons store energy, which is then released without effort when the animal next pushes off." "Though the kangaroo is no doubt the most famous marsupial," "Australia boasts as many as 150 species of pouched animals." "The ferocious-looking Tasmanian Devil is one of the few that eat meat exclusively." "Once can only imagine the astonishment of early explorers when they saw a pouched animal take to the air." "These possums do not actually fly like birds, but their kite-like membrane enables them to glide for distances of 40 yards or more." "Only in small patches of Western Australia will one find the numbat, a small, gentle marsupial now extinct in other parts of the country." "With sharp claws the numbat roots out termites, its primary food." "Its long, sinuous, sticky tongue can capture thousands of the insects a day." "With its distinctive bands of white and its bottlebrush tail, the numbat is considered by many to be Australia's most beautifully marked marsupial." "The majestic Blue Mountains lie 40 miles west of Sydney." "Here, beneath the vivid blue haze which gave the mountains their name, areas of pristine wilderness abound." "Nestled in the hills, an historic estate called Yengo spreads across 25 acres." "For the past 12 years it has been a private reserve dedicated to breeding endangered animals." "He's really heavy, I'll tell you that." "The owner is businessman Peter Pigott, one of Australia's foremost conservationists." "With his wife and son, he is transferring a wombat injured in a fight to a safer enclosure." "Come here." "Come on." "Nice leg to bite." "Pigott's breeding success with wombats is considered phenomenal better than any zoo and is attributed to his concern for creating the most natural setting possible in a captive environment." "I guess that my first opportune at doing something very constructive in the field of conservation was the rediscovery of a wallaby that we thought was extinct." "The parma wallaby, a mall kangaroo only about 14 inches tall, was abundant until early settlers destroyed its habitat and introduced new predators." "Though thought to be extinct, a small colony was discovered in 1965." "Starting with only 18 animals," "Pigott has increased the population here to more than 200 in ten years." "A lot of people say to me, now why should we conserve wildlife?" "Why should we be really concerned?" "I mean, aren't people more important than wildlife?" "We are all part of the 600 million years of evolution and I suppose that one of the great things that separates mankind from the animals is our sense and appreciation of the esthetics our love of literature, our love of art and poetry, and of nature itself." "I often think that if we lose this we disregard the world that's around us and the animals that are here." "We might wake up one morning and find ourselves on the endangered list." "Her skies ablaze with color," "Australia has been called "the foremost land of birds"." "More than 300 species are unique to her shores." "One of Australia's most distinctive birds, the mallee fowl is a prodigious engineer." "To incubate their eggs in a harsh environment that is generally dry and subject to sharp temperature changes, they build mounds up to 15 feet across and several feet high." "Working together, male and female have laid down a bed of wet leaves and twigs." "To seal in the moisture and heat of the fermenting compost, they cover the mound with sand." "The egg chamber itself lies at the heart of the mound." "Beginning in the spring and continuing for three to four months, the female will come about once a week to lay a single egg." "The mallee regions are marked by sharp temperature fluctuations between day and night and as the seasons change, but the egg chamber must be kept at an almost constant 92 degrees." "Once the female has laid her egg, she will heave the tending of the mound to her mate." "To determine the temperature, he probes the sand." "With a sensitive spot either in his bill or tongue, he gets a reading as accurate as any thermometer." "Regulating the temperature by removing sand to release heat or adding sand to conserve it is an almost constant job for the bird, a consuming task to which he dedicates himself for up to nine months of the years." "Roughly every two months, a chick will work its way up through the thick soil and wander off, never to see its parents again." "Fromthedepthsoftheforestechoes  a haunting and memorable sound... the lyrebird, master of vocal mimicry." "Seemingly endless in its variety, the lyrebird's repertoire include other bird calls, as well as man-made sounds." "The mating ritual is highlighted by a shimmering display of the bird's immense fan-like tail." "In central Australia, heavy rains have flooded to desert." "But storms are few and short-lived in this harsh, arid country." "As the claypans begin to dry up the water-holding frog demonstrates a remarkable adaptation." "Increasing its body weight by as much as 50 percent with water absorbed through the skin, the frog burrows into the softened clay to a depth of more than three feet." "Once underground, it will enter a sleep-like state its active life essentially over until the desert once again sees rain." "Encased in a cocoon-like bag of dead skin, the frog will remain in its chamber, sealed beneath the now dry and hardened earth." "In times of drought, these amazing creatures have been known to stay buried for two years or more." "Only when the rains finally come and the earth begins to soften can the frog begin to emerge." "It must mate quickly so that his young will mature in time to soak up their own water supply and bury themselves until the next rains come." "In the forests of southeastern Queensland, a major scientific discovery was made in 1972." "Since that time, a bizarre animal unique in the world has been making history." "The first noteworthy fact was that it existed at all" "Australians had always believed that in their country there was no such thing as a frog that lived in water." "Since the time of the original discovery, captured animals have been sent to the Zoology Department at the University of Adelaide for study by Michael Tyler." "one of the countries foremost takes on ton-frog." "Spending their daylight hours hidden under rocks these frogs are the most light sensitive and shy of any Tyler has ever seen." "The only way he has been able to observe them successfully is to remove them from their regular aquarium." "In a specially built tank with one-way glass windows, the frogs will be unaware of Tyler's presence." "Because many have died in captivity and in recent years no more have been found in the wild, these two remain to unlock the mysteries of some of the most unusual animal behavior ever recorded." "But though action like this free-falling is bizarre and unexplained, it is the animal's reproduction that has most electrified the world." "What is so unusual about the gastric-brooding frog is the fact that it carries its young in its stomach." "Superimposed on an X ray, an artist's conception follows the growth of some two dozen tadpoles until, at roughly eight weeks, the female's stomach is completely distended with fully developed frogs ready to be born." "The mother opens her mouth and then she dilates her esophagus and the babies pop up from the stomach one or two at a time, and sit upon her tongue." "And then they sit and look around, look at the world outside, and then just very, very gently step out." "Tyler's rare photo of an actual birth has made headlines around the world." "Here we have an animal which can switch off acid being produced in the stomach." "An awareness that that would be an extremely novel way of being perhaps able to treat people who might need to be able to make use of that as an advantage." "For an example, during the treatment for peptic ulcers, it would be so useful to be able to switch off gastric acid secretion totally for a period of time and do it very, very readily." "I say it's a long, long way." "between what we've done so far and such a thing as a possibility." "But, I mean, in the matter of a few years ago no one would have dreamed that the existence of this frog with this habit could possibly occur and so, with that in mind, I don't think it's impossible" "or too far fetched to maintain hopes that is may have clinical application." "In the reptile world," "Australia stands out as the continent with the largest proportion of venomous snakes." "The death adder is one of the country's most poisonous snakes." "Without treatment, half of its human victims will die." "Like all snake, the death adder feeds primarily on small animals like lizards." "Its approach is neither timid nor aggressive, for in the end it relies on an extraordinary device for enticing the skink within range." "Wriggling its tail tip as a lure, the snake can lie quietly and wait." "Attracted by what must appear to be a squirming insect, the skink draws near." "The venom, five times more powerful than that of its cousin, the king cobra, paralyzes the muscles that control breathing, and the victim dies of asphyxiation." "The Australian reptile Park was founded by Eric Worrell, who has worked with snakes for more than 50 years." "People overseas always think of Australian animals as being koalas or kangaroos." "They don't think very much about our snakes, our other reptiles." "We have the deadliest reptiles in the world." "Robyn Worrell is an experienced snake handler." "With careful concentration combined with skill, she has been bitten only once in ten years." "Though her snake-milking demonstration may draw curious crowds, the primary goal of her work lies in the realm of science and medicine." "What I'm milking here is the mainland tiger snake." "There's probably about seven or eight different types of tiger snakes in Australia." "It's the third deadliest that we have in Australia." "What I'm actually doing now is just enticing the snake to bit over the rubber." "The fangs are penetrating through that rubber and the venom accumulates in the bottom of the beaker." "Generally we keep..." "Over the years, the venoms collected at the park have proved invaluable to laboratories developing snake-bite cures." "The work we do here is vital in that it has been estimated that we save one life a day from snake bite." "That's during the snakes' active season, which is to say from September until April." "And I think that works out to something around 20,000 lives that this organization has saved since we started." "Thanks largely to the Worrells' work, there are now antivenoms for all Australia's poisonous snakes." "In addition to snakes," "Australia's reptiles include some 400 species of lizards." "Lacking venom as protection against predators, they depend on an impressive array of defenses and bluff." "Looking like some creature from the Dinosaur Age, the Thorny Devil belongs to the group aptly called dragon lizards." "Actually a squat, slow-moving, ant-eating lizard, the devil is found throughout the arid regions of central and western Australia, and has adapted to some of the continent's harshest conditions." "But perhaps its most notable adaptation is its coat of spines a barricade of daggers warning all the might come near." "Lizards abound throughout Australia." "The most famous and perhaps the most spectacular roams the forests of the warmer northern regions." "Undisturbed, the frilled lizard looks harmless enough." "But in the face of an enemy, it performs with remarkable bluff." "If all else fails, it need only make a hasty retreat." "The entire range of Australian wildlife is the domain of these two naturalists" "Together they are known as Mantis Wildlife Films." "Individually they are Australian Jim Frazier and his British-born partner Densey Clyne." "For the past 12 years they have specialized in filming behaviors the naked eye can barely see." "Today the object of their search is one of the most fearsome ants on earth." "Yes." "They're coming out already." "This one is bringing something into the nest." "What is it?" "It looks like a bit of food..." "Food or..." "Debris." "I don't know what it is." "About an inch long," "They've seen us already." "the formidable bulldog ant inflicts a powerful and painful sting." "But to film their behavior," "Jim and Densey must collect the entire colony perhaps as many as 400 ants." "Even the larvae be taken, but Jim's film sequence to be completed." "There we are." "At Densey's home, the headquarters of Mantis films," "Jim has built a plaster model based on his knowledge of the nest in the wild." "There's quite a lot of them on the glass there..." "Yes, right." "They're coming out everywhere." "The slippery white coating at the top will prevent the ants from escaping." "It's amazing what a lot of noise they make, isn't it?" "Yeah." "Running around." "You can actually see the sting coming out and trying to sting the glass." "Going in between the sections of glass." "Look at this one here." "Look at the sting." "They're not happy are they?" "Well, if I had my home uprooted like that," "I wouldn't be very happy either." "Jim, I think although they're in a bit of a panic now, you know, as soon as the queen is settled in one of the chambers, they'll be alright." "Yes." "They're starting to slow down now." "They're not quite as frantic as they were." "No, they're not." "Some of them have found the larvae and pupae down below." "It will be three or four days before the ants settle down sufficiently for Jim to begin filming." "I worked at the Australian Museum for about seven years, and in that time I learned how to manipulate the environment, as it were, in making miniature dioramas, and it seemed a natural thing to combine photograph" "with the filming of small animals." "Colony life centers around the queen whose primary function is to lay eggs." "She may produce as few as one a day or as many as one every two hours." "Using her sharp mandibles, she gently picks up the egg and looks for a safe place to lay it down." "She must be careful that the voracious developing larvae do not steal it for food." "But indeed, this time it is a larva that wins out." "To complete their development into adult ants, the larvae will seal themselves inside a cocoon they make by spinning silk around debris from the tunnel floor." "Having adjusted to their man-made environment, the ants go about their routine." "An intruder into their silent, miniature world," "Jim Frazier feels privileged to have witnessed little known behavior of one of the most primitive ants on Earth." "Millions of years of isolation in Australia have protected a group of animals that today has no living relatives on Earth." "Sharing features of both ancestral reptiles and early mammals, they may offer a glimpse of how more modern mammals evolved." "One of these egg-laying mammals, or monotremes, is the echidna, the spiny anteater." "This small, unaggressive creature has only a tiny mouth at the end of its sticklike snout and no teeth." "In the daily search for ants, it relies solely on the long sticky tongue as its means of getting food." "The echidna's only defenses and very effective ones they are are needle sharp spines and the ability to sink out of sight in the face of danger." "Digging rapidly into the hard earth, the powerful echidna can disappear within minutes." "An almost impenetrable shield will be all that remains above ground." "The female echidna carries a singly leathery egg in a pouch that forms on her belly at the beginning of the breeding season." "In about ten days the egg will hatch." "The tiny baby nurses in the pouch for up to two months." "By definition, a mammal is a warm-blooded, haired animal that suckles its young." "The echidna qualifies in all respects." "But it retains the distinctly reptilian characteristic of laying eggs." "When and why other mammals stopped laying eggs and began to bear their young live remains a recurrent riddle of evolution yet to be solved." "In eastern Australia's streams, rivers, and lakes is found the echidna's only living relative on Earth." "Outwardly looking nothing whatever like its spiny cousin, the platypus does share its reptilian traits, including the laying of eggs." "Although it is often called the "duckbill" platypus, its bill is actually soft, pliable, and rubbery, quite unlike a duck's." "filled with sensitive nerves, it is a specialized adaptation for feeling out the insect larvae and crayfish on which the platypus feeds." "Lacking teeth, adults grind their food between large horny plates in the jaws." "Because the platypus spends much of the time burrowed in riverbanks, little of its life cycle is known." "So unlike other animals is the platypus, it was considered a hoax when discovered in the late 1700s." "Laymen still gaze quizzically at an animal that appears to be part mammal, part reptile, part bird." "At an early date it was named "paradoxus"." "So much of a paradox is the platypus that almost two centuries later it remains a creature shrouded in mystery." "One of Australia's foremost naturalists," "David Fleay has been studying the platypus for close to 50 years." "Today at his Fauna Reserve in Queensland visitors can enjoy an assortment of Australian exotica, but it is the platypus most tourists come especially to see." "Well, he's going through his ordinary routine now." "He's out feeding and swimming and when he's had enough of that, which goes on for about 10 hours, right into the night, he goes back into these tunnels, curls up, and goes to sleep." "It was almost 40 years ago that Fleay gained world-wide fame as the first person to breed a platypus in captivity." "It began in 1943 with a couple named Jack and Jill." "Taken from the wild, they adjusted well to captivity and became unusually tame." "Not long after mating had been observed," "Jill stopped eating and disappeared into her nesting burrow." "Fleay suspected she must be ready to lay eggs." "It was roughly eight weeks before we thought, as the information was at that time, that at eight weeks the baby should be able to crawl about and swim." "So we took the risk of opening up the tunnel at this point, and having looked." "I felt that somehow that we were doing the wrong thing." "And as it proved, it was the wrong thing." "We found that she had one solitary young." "Nice and fat and in good order, but it was blind and helpless and obviously couldn't either swim or walk." "We'd opened that up much too soon." "We left things alone and just watched carefully from that point on." "And then, at a further rate, about 16 weeks altogether, we opened the back of the tunnel again and found that the baby was alive and well." "It was a tremendous relief." "Well, it was relayed round the world and it was announced in New York and London." "The platypus, of course, is a fabulous animal." "It's always attracted a lot of attention." "It was considered impossible round about the 1930s for one to live in captivity for more than a few days." "After all the years of effort, it was a tremendous thrill." "We put the flag up that day." "Four decades later not even Fleay has managed to breed the platypus again." "With his assistants from the university of Queensland," "Dr. Frank Carrick works after dusk and at dawn when the platypus is most active." "He has been studying the animal's ecology since 1972." "At least with the water being high like this, there are fewer snags..." "An unweighted fishing net has been laid parallel to the riverbank." "The scientists check the net at regular interval guided by a light from shore." "Although the net is designed so the animal can surface and breathe, there is always the danger of entanglement." "Gary, I think there might be an animal in the net a bit further from us there." "Would you like to just put the sop on it?" "Excellent." "Yeah, he's gone under a bit." "Go out and get him out." "Okay, just ease it up here, Jim." "Here he is, you little beauty." "Get him out." "Into the boat you go." "It's male, too." "His spurs." "Because the male platypus has venomous spurs on his hind legs, he must be handled with extreme care." "Although it's not certain, scientists speculate the spurs are used against other males in competition for females at mating time." "You got the box alright." "Put him in. in you go, chief." "Bless you." "Now, in you go." "That's a boy." "That's got him." "There, check him." "Let's have a look at him." "Good boy." "Once the animal is lightly sedated," "Dr. Carrick can safely begin his examination." "Although the platypus has existed for millions of years, significant information on its ecology has been gathered only within the last decade." "And so even the most basic data on weights and measurements are invaluable." "21. 21 hundred..." "less the bag." "I think, really, the platypus is one of the most crucial animals of all the Australian animals that we need to know much more about." "Both for the interest of seeing how patterns in the modern mammals evolved and also of course, in helping us in a rational way to ensure the platypus does continue on into future as it has done for many millions of years." "It always happens, doesn't it." "It's Well, starting to rain." "Thanks, Jim." "Alright ol' mate, you'll never notice it." "Levels of hormones in the blood help the scientists determine when and how often the male platypus is sexually active." "In any wildlife study, many of the important findings come from animals that have been captured before and then followed over time." "Because platypuses, for the most part, remain in a relatively small home range," "Carrick hopes to entrap this animal again, a metal band identifying him as Number 89." "A bit of jewelry." "Now, marked and identified by his captors," "Number 89 is ready to be set free to return to his burrows, his secret ways." "We going down with you?" "No." "I'll put him in." "no sense everyone getting wet." "With the surge of scientific research in Australia over the past two decades a fascinating tableau of life has unfolded." "Unlike bewildered early explorers who saw only a topsy-turvy world of improbable-looking animals, scientists of today understand how isolation and geography helped shape the evolution of Australia's wildlife." "But the puzzle is far from complete." "And so it remains." "Haunting questions of an ancient past echo still across this remote, exotic land." "Perhaps someday, one small animal with its tiny metal band may help unlock some of the long-hidden secrets of Australia, a land that time forgot." "December." "It is winter in Kanha National Park in central India." "These very same grasslands and forests were the inspiration for Rudyard Kipling's immortal Jungle Book stories." "The spirit of wild India that he evoked still lives here." "Kanha National Park is prime tiger country." "Sixty years ago its 363 square miles were part of vast primordial forests." "Since then these forests have been denuded on a gigantic scale." "But Kanha has been preserved in its pristine state." "The tiger still roars here, still spreads his dread." "Just before dawn this male tiger killed a sambar stag." "Now, a few hours later, he drags his prize into deep cover to hide it from the prying eyes of vultures." "Like all of his kind he is solitary for most of his life a lone hunter who lives by stealth." "The night has been cold." "The gray langur monkeys, after their first meal of the day, rest and groom each other in the warmth of the early sun." "winter is the season of birth for most langurs." "This newborn, only a few hours old, is the center of attraction." "The new member of the troop is passed from one female to another as many as ten times in half an hour." "It is treated with great curiosity and affection." "This "aunt" behavior, as it is called, inducts the infant into the troop, makes it feel welcome and secure." "The monsoon rains ceased more than two months ago." "But along the streams the vegetation is still green." "Grass-shrouded water holes are perfect hiding places from which the tiger tries to ambush the chital." "Despite his power and camouflage the tiger often fails to make a kill." "Only about one hunt in twenty ends in success." "In mid-January, when winter is at its coldest, the rut of the barasingha reaches its peak." "During this season of courtship and mating, stages bugle and fight to establish who among them will mate with the does." "A tigress watches the combat from her cave where she is hiding newborn cubs." "Helpless young with great fierceness and devotion." "It will be some weeks before she will bring her cubs out into the open." "For the most part, Kanha's tigers remain elusive and mysterious, concealed by the dense undergrowth and the jungles of grass." "But in Ranthambhor National Park 370 miles to the northwest, the habitat is drier and more open." "In February, early spring in India," "Ranthambhor's 64 square miles are already parched." "The monsoon rains are only a vague memory." "But cradled in the hills is a chain of lakes, and it is because of this permanent water that wild animals flourish here." "Unlike pristine Kanha," "Ranthambhor has a long history of human occupation dating back to the 11th century." "Dominating the reserve is Ranthambhor fort." "Now deserted by man, the fort has become the haunt of animals." "Centuries ago it was the focal point of a vigorous city." "Battles raged back and forth over the hills." "In more recent times villages thrived deep inside Ranthambhor." "But their inhabitants have also gone." "They were encouraged to settle on better land outside the park." "Monuments to forgotten dramas dot the reserve." "This stone marks the spot where a widow committed suttee where she burned herself alive on her husband's funeral pyre." "Only the ruins remain." "Man has moved out of Ranthambhor after almost a thousand years and returned it to the wildlife." "On this cool spring morning it is not an ancient warrior who keeps vigil, but a tigress on the lookout for sambar, her favorite prey." "When the sambar lie down to chew their cud, they are still out of range" "The tigress waits patiently." "The deer's senses of smell and hearing are acute, but their vision is only moderate." "As long as he tigress moves very, very slowly or remains motionless she cannot be been by them, even when only 30 or 40 feet away." "Her camouflage hides her completely." "The wind shifts and the tigress is scented." "The hunt is over." "A tigress stakes her claim to her home range by spraying prominent trees and bushes" "Male tigers mark their territories in a symbolic fashion." "The size of a tiger's home range thus marked out varies widely." "On the average a female's territory is some ten square miles." "Males have much larger territories which overlap those of the females." "When one tiger smells the scent of another it grimaces in what is called a "flehmen" display." "By following scent markings and listening for roars, males and females find each other." "The pair stays together for two or three days and mates frequently for some periods as often as every 10 to 15 minutes." "The hills are almost devoid of nutritious grazing." "The sambar must come to the lake to feed on water plant." "The deer and the mugger crocodiles share the lake peaceably." "The sambar are nervous and uneasy ready to flee at the slightest sound or movement." "The constant and hidden menace of the tiger haunts their every move." "Though he failed to make a kill, as is so often the case, this exceptionally bold and athletic male specializes in hunting from ambush around the lakes." "Early the next morning this same tiger finally killed a sambar in the lake." "But to his fury the crocodiles have snatched it from him." "Intimidated by the crocodiles' strangely aggressive behavior, the tiger reluctantly retreats." "But like all of his kind he does not give up his quarry easily." "For nine hours the tiger waits." "When sambar come down to drink, he is not distracted from his purpose." "Finally he summons up enough courage to reclaim his kill." "The water is deep, and it takes a supreme feat of strength to swim through the water plants while dragging the 250-pound sambar." "The crocodiles' teeth are designed to seize and hold prey, not to cut through skin." "During all the hours the sambar lay in the water, they were unable to penetrate the deer's tough hide." "The crocodiles make a few token objections, but in the end give up without a struggle." "During the night a tigress has brought down a large sambar doe." "The ever present tree pies are already in attendance." "The birds eat only miniscule amounts, but the tigress resents any interference with her kill and relentlessly chases them off." "Her usual strategy for dealing with constantly pestering scavengers would be to drag the carcass to a hiding place." "But this kill is too heavy, the terrain too difficult." "Another ruse would be to cover it with dry grass or leaf litter." "But these are absent here, and the stones she tries to rake over her prize are ineffectual." "The only thing left to do is to guard her kill by virtually lying on top of it." "The kill is well worth protecting for she can expect to feed on it for four days or more." "The next morning the tigress in not at her kill." "During the night it has been wrested from her by a male." "She watches from a distance while the male feeds on her sambar." "Wisely the tigress does not stay to dispute the ownership of the kill." "She retreats to a spring deep in a ravine." "Another tigress did fight over a kill." "She came off second best." "Spring is the rutting season for the sambar in Ranthambhor." "The stages spray themselves with their male scent." "In this way they become more attractive to the does and more intimidating to other males." "In April, as spring changes to summer, it becomes drier and hotter." "For the sambar the squeeze between the need to drink and eat in the lakes and running the gauntlet of tigers in ambush becomes ever tighter." "The sambar, alert and cautious at all times, cannot see the tiger." "To them the tall grass is like a blank wall." "May is the height of summer in Ranthambhor." "Tigers stay close to the water holes." "Another six weeks of relentless heat must pass before the monsoon brings relief." "Kanha, in the meantime, has also dried out in the summer heat." "But because it is a less arid region, many trees and shrubs remain green." "The streams have ceased to flow." "Only sporadic water holes remain." "Moisture is at a premium." "Even a patch on wet sand is prized by a blizzard of thirsty butterflies." "The cubs of the cave-dwelling tigress have grown." "The two, a male and a female, are now five months old." "The cave has a commanding view, and the tigress keeps watch for possible prey and for anything that may be a threat to her cubs." "In late afternoon the tigress sets off to hunt." "The cubs follow her." "Before she has gone very far the tigress meets a real danger to her young, the resident male tiger." "She calls on all her ferocity to challenge the much larger animal." "Territorial males, which are known to kill cubs, are the main threat to the young tigers." "After the frightening confrontation, the female cub seeks reassurance." "The summer heat continues." "Every day it is 105 degrees or more in the shade." "The few water holes are shrinking." "Animals must travel long distances to drink." "As in Ranthambhor, there is a constant threat from the well camouflaged tigers" "A white-breasted kingfisher has taken up residence and bathes frequently to cool himself." "Langur monkeys spend hours licking salt and other minerals from the rocks that surround the pool." "The water hole attracts a multitude of birds." "Even the shy red junglefowl, the gaudy ancestor of the domestic chicken, must leave the protection of the forest to drink." "A lesser adjutant stork probes the water hole for fish and frogs." "The checkered keelback snake is an unwelcome visitor treated with circumspection by the other animals." "But the reptile is no threat to most of them." "It is non-venomous and a confirmed fish-eater." "The deserted water hole no longer has any interest for the tiger." "When the oppressive heat of the day abates, the barasingha emerge from the forest to drink." "It is a time too when the tigress and her cubs leave their cave." "Before she sets out to feed on the remains of a sambar she killed two nights ago, the tigress suckles her young during an interlude of extraordinary peace and tenderness." "This morning the tigress did not bring the cubs to her kill even though they are old enough to eat meat for themselves." "Danger in the form of the male tiger is still near." "When the male approaches, she hides the remains of her prey, covering it with leaves." "She will stay with in until the threat has passed." "Early June is the hottest, driest time of the year." "The shade temperature rises to 110 degrees." "Tigers suffer more than most animals in this heat." "Then one day in mid-June, as the koel and the brainfever bird scream for rain, a cool wind whips up;" "the air becomes humid." "The monsoon has finally arrived." "For four days it rains sometimes lightly, sometimes in torrents." "The temperature drops about 20 degrees" "The heat, the dry streams, the brittle bleached grasses, the aridity of eight virtually rainless months have disappeared at one stroke." "After the monsoon's first days of rain the sun briefly reappears." "Kanha has been transformed, has taken on a cloak of fresh new green." "Termites celebrate the onset on the monsoon with mating flights." "Velvet-textured mites erupt out of the ground and feast on the termites." "Male bullfrogs vie for the females in duels of sound." "Life has been liberated by the rain." "Plants explode into untrammeled growth" "The new lushness attracts hordes of leaf-eating insects, and when the caterpillars unleash their appetites on the monsoon's bounty, they are an effective restraint on the new leaves." "In July, when the monsoon is firmly established, the chital gather on the grassland, which soon reverberate with the sounds and energy of their rut." "A peacock unfurls his train a symbol for the renewal and exuberance of life" "A predator other than the tiger, and one feared by all the animals, moves down from the hills at this time of year, spreading disquiet in forest and grassland alike." "It is the Indian wild dog." "No animal is safe from these marauders and even the mighty tiger will usually avoid a direct confrontation." "The dogs move in packs that may number up to 30." "though an individual wild dog could never challenge the supremacy of the tiger, large packs have been known to attack him." "During such a fight the big cat can inflict heavy casualties." "Once a besieged tiger destroyed 12 dogs before he himself was killed and eaten" "As the younger dogs play, they are watched by a mob of near-hysterical chital." "The herd rushes into the forest where the pack will soon follow." "The incapacitated are left behind." "The lush grasses lure the reclusive gaur, or Indian bison, out of their forest strongholds." "These are the largest wild cattle in the world." "A large bull stands over six feet at the shoulder and may weight up to 2,000 pounds." "The adults have little to fear from the tiger." "It is the calves and yearlings that are vulnerable." "Whenever a tiger is detected, when the cows and bulls snort and toss their heads in threat the big cat has no chance of making a kill." "To the contrary, an alerted herd can be a danger to the tiger." "At the turn of the century some 40,000 tigers stalked India's jungles." "By 1972 they numbered fewer than 2000." "This grim fact was the signal for courageous and far-reaching conservation efforts." "These have been so effective that if the tiger is to survive in the wild its best chance is now probably in India, in reserves like Kanha and Ranthambhor where the tiger has already made an impressive comeback." "With Kanha's riches restored by the monsoon, the tiger is no longer tied to a few scant water holes." "It wanders widely and leaves the plains for the denser vegetation of the hills" "A green curtain is drawn over its presence, and the tiger becomes more elusive than ever, a hidden force that inspires even greater dread among all the animals that live under its tyranny." "This is a place of unseen danger and subtle beauty." "It is a mysterious swamp called "Okefenokee"... the realm of the Alligator." "Okefenokee... a forbidding place once thought to harbor deadly diseases." "It sheltered fugitives and inspired fear and superstition." "Today Okefenokee Swamp is a well-know wildlife refuge." "But even for people like biologist-photographer." "Dr. John Paling, it is not entirely welcoming." ""Whenever I go back to Okefenokee now, I've got mixed feelings about it"." "Fromtheairwhenyougoacross it, it looks just so beautiful and so serene and so natural and so appealing." "And yet it can be a place of such contrasts that it seems almost as if man was never intended to be there for long." "Okefenokee Swamp is a 438,000-acre natural basin." "A mosaic of islands, forest, marshes, and open water." "It's famed for its alligators and as the home of Pogo," "The comic-strip possum." "Although it overlaps the Florida state line, most of Okefenokee lies in southeastern Georgia." "Okefenokee's population of Seminole Indians was driven out in the 1830s." "It was soon infiltrated by white settlers called "swampers."" "By the 1930s the swampers were well established here," "Showing off alligator nests and eggs for visiting photographers." "The swampers were a breed apart." "Many had few needs or interests outside Okefenokee." "Those who knew them admired their simplicity and self-reliance." "Soon after the turn of the century, virgin stands of cypress brought an invasion to the swamp." "This and earlier schemes to build a ship canal through the swamp and even to drain it threatened to destroy Okefenokee." "But much of Okefenokee's prime timber was cleared in less than 20 years." "Soon the swampers were alone again." "In 1937, Okefenokee was declared a national wildlife refuge." "The human residents would eventually leave." "One old-timer said, we have the swamp and that's good." "But the swampers are all gone." "It's just a shame we can't have both." "More than fifty years after they were abandoned, relics of the old logging camps still can be found." "Now deep in regrowing forest, they're objects of curiosity for biologists like" "Kent Vliet and John Paling." "This is an old train." "Oh, this is?" "The engine was up front... and there would be water in this old cylinder." "After working here for several seasons Paling, born in England, has become intimately familiar with this Georgia swamp." "And there's something even more dramatic over here." "Come and have a guess sat this." "What do you make of this?" "That's some sort of a chassis." "Right." "Is that what they carried the logs on?" "Nope." "Try again." "Don't forget we're on an island in the middle of Okefenokee, so try again." "Some sort of swamp buggy or something like that?" "It's a car." "They had three cars on the island." "Really?" "That's a heavy..." "Heavy duty, isn't it?" "Heavy chassis..." "But look how well the metal's been preserved." "Yeah." "And there's another thing to pick out too." "You see why it's so good?" "It's British" "Right-hand drive." "It's Durant car that they brought over on the trains for three people." "Is that right?" "Yeah." "There were three cars that would chug up and down." "And this thing is preserved so well." "Many cars that are ten years old don't have a chassis as good as that." "that's a very heavy chassis." "Right." "I think it was just to take people up and down." "There's a big turpentine still at the end of the island too." "And there was a cinema, there was a barber ship." "All gone now." "It's amazing." "Yep." "Trains." "When the logging company finished up business, they just tried to get all the people off when the National Parks Fish and Wildlife took it in 1937." "Although parts of Okefenokee can be traversed on foot, it is better explored by boat." "The waters of Okefenokee look like polished ebony, dark but highly reflective." "It is a landscape of mirrors, fascinating and surreal." "Kent Vliet is from the University of Florida." "He's an expert on Okefenokee's most famous resident, the alligator." "You know there's one right in front of us, John?" "Yep." "I can see that one." "The ability to "call" alligators by making certain curious sounds is a valuable skill for inquisitive biologists." "It's coming." "Whoa, hey." "Do they have binocular vision?" "Can they see three dimensions?" "Only a little small fraction of their total visual field just in front of their nose is binocular Is he coming too close?" "No, he's fine." "Wow." "Why do they have the yellow ring around their eyes?" "Is there a function that's known for that?" "A number of aquatic animals have coloration around the eye like that hippopotamuses do." "It might have something to do with magnifying the light going into the eye" "Sort of the reverse of a football player putting black grease under the eye." "To make you see better in fact." "He's going to go down." "There he goes." "How long will they stay under water?" "They can stay under a good long time." "When they're resting in the afternoon, they go down for at least 15 minutes." "He's up again, look." "Yeah, there it is." "In the wintertime they may stay down for days." "Nobody knows." "For days and days?" "You mean they really..." "You mean they hibernate?" "Well, yeah, in the sense it is a hibernation." "Their metabolism slows down so much when they're that cold that they just require almost no oxygen." "And they don't eat, obviously, if they..." "No, they don't eat for several months during the winter." "I should think the average member of the public that comes to Okefenokee and sees an alligator thinks they have really arrived in prehistory" "Back in the Age of the Reptiles." "The study of alligator social behavior has occupied Kent Vliet for several years." "At his laboratory in Gainesville, Florida, he works with a wealth of accumulated data." "We've learned that alligator behavior is very, very complex." "It's much more complex and much more sophisticated than the behavior of other reptiles that have been studied." "And so our dealings with alligator behavior have been to try to document the types of behaviors they show and analyze these," "Not only in simple terms of alligator behavior, but as they might represent the primitive beginnings from which the more complex behaviors of birds and mammals have evolved." "Most of Kent's observations have been made at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm." "Several hundred alligators are on display here for the enlightenment of tourists." "The farm affords easy access to an otherwise elusive animal." "before that just to see if the place would work out." "Are there many differences between these gator-farm alligators and the ones you get in the wild?" "Well, captive animals look a lot different from wild animals." "The most noticeable difference..." "Is that the head of a captive animal is much broader." "You don't have this beautifully elongated snout." "That's because captive animals spend so much time on land basking, and at least in old animals like these the head weighs so much that is just tends to flatten itself out over the years." "It spreads out and becomes much broader" "Is that what squeezes the teeth out too Yeah... because they're all showing very obviously here?" "They're very toothy animals" "Also all the scales on their back are worn down... much more so than a wild animal would be." "And that's just because these animals live in very high densities on farms, and they crawl over each other." "they just kind of buff each other down all the time." "Since 1981 Kent Vliet has made a detailed study of alligator behavior in the mating season from April into June." "But Kent was not happy with his original vantage point." "It was secure, but didn't provide an accurate water-level view." "He decided to enter the lake a procedure not without certain risks." "It is possible, when you're in the lake that a big male will decide he doesn't want you there and actually come up and try to get you out of his territory." "We've had very few problems when I was swimming in the lake, but there's always the potential for an alligator getting hold of you and doing some real damage." "Kent has found that alligators here at the farm are fairly harmless especially during mating season." "And, to increase his knowledge, he puts this opinion to a highly meaningful test." "We learned early on in our research that we needed to get off the boardwalks and go down and look at alligators at an alligator's eye level." "Alligators communicate to each other visually by the way they hold their bodies out of the water." "And we got down into the water to better understand how alligators are talking to each other in a visual sense." "Kent has taken a lot of kidding about being up to his eyebrows in alligators and "seeing eye to eye" with his study subjects." "But he feels that because he can understand an alligator's body language he can ward off trouble before it becomes a real threat." "I look for animals that are obviously directing themselves toward me as aggressive animals." "The way they tilt their head and how high they hold their body out of the water are all indications if they're being aggressive or not." "Not all the animals that come towards me are aggressive." "Many are curious, but I still have to treat them all about the same." "I can't let them get too close to me." "I carry a large, about five-foot-long cypress pole with me," "And if an animal does get too close," "I just nudge it away and try to keep it out of strike range." "The meaning, if any, of an alligator's impressive yawn is not understood;" "But other behavior like this head-slapping display has been deciphered." "It is an assertive gesture, advertising an alligator's social position." "In courtship season the alligators stage" ""bellowing choruses" almost daily." "Both sexes bellow, but they make somewhat different sounds." "Just before a male bellows, he produces subsonic signals that make the water around him dance." "In the wild these signals may dram females from a great distance." "Courtship is a quiet and oddly tender process that Kent has sometimes been able to witness at close quarters." "Courtship is usually initiated by one animal swimming slowly up to another." "And this is a very important stage of courtship because they have to communicate to each animal that they have non-aggressive intentions." "And secondly, they go into a period of touching one another along the face and neck." "And they really orient to each other's head and neck." "in the third phase of courtship these touching behaviors become more exaggerated and the animals start pressing each other down under water." "And these are real tests of strength between the two animals." "And these will be accentuated until one animal is capable of pressing the other under water and ultimately circle around and mount on that animal and begin riding it around and ultimately roll over to one side and attempt to mate with that animal." "However they behave, alligators have reproduced quite successfully in Okefenokee." "Here, until the 1970s they were badly hit by poachers." "Now, stiff laws protect a population that has grown to about 12,000." "In summer, bubbling gases are like the heartbeat of Okefenokee." "Beneath the dark waters is a thick layer of decomposing vegetation called peat." "The gases it creates sometimes lift large patches of peat to float on the surface." "Old-timers called this a 'blow-up'." "Over time, the floating mats of peat are covered with vegetation." "Some sink again, but others become floating islands and eventually support bushes and even trees." "Ultimately, the trees take root and new land is created small wooded islands known locally as houses." "Okefenokee is an Indian word that means 'land of the trembling earth'" "John Paling shows how fitting the name is when he lands on a young floating island." "I actually enjoy walking on "trembling earth", if I admit it." "It's one of these strange experiences like walking on a bowl of jelly." "The waters of Okefenokee are highly acid, about as acidic as strong tea and much the same color." "Conditions favor the growth of insect-eating plants that are found here in great variety." "This pitcher plant lures insects to its hollow tubular leaf with nectar." "Once inside, few insects escape." "They're fooled by light from the translucent windows that line the back of the tube." "They exhaust themselves trying to get out." "Eventually the insects fall to the bottom of the tube." "There they are dissolved by acid secretions and the plant absorbs them." "Another deadly attraction is the sundew" "Its leaves are adorned with brightly colored stalks tipped with shiny droplets apparently a sweet meal for passing insects." "But hungry insects soon become entangled." "Escape is impossible when the plant finally closes to digest its victim." "Along the edges of islands and in shallow marshes insects are snared in such deadly traps." "When it's all over, there will be nothing left of them except their indigestible husks." "As night falls Okefenokee's gloom and its grandeur deepen." "One hundred million years ago the alligator's ancestors thrived in prehistoric swamps." "As far as we know, they looked much as they do today." "The eyes of the alligator are highly reflective." "They shine with an eerie glow in the night." "John Paling and Kent Vliet conduct a nighttime search for baby alligators" "Disturbing alligators here in the refuge is strictly outlawed." "Even scientists like Vliet need special permission just to touch one." "Let's cut off the engine for a minute and get some peace." "Okay." "Wow!" "That makes a difference, doesn't it?" "Let's pole from here." "It's beautiful in here." "Nice and quiet without that outboard." "Sure thing." "Do you see any gators yet, or not?" "I haven't seen any in this small stretch here." "I'll just flash the light around there" "Is that one over there?" "Yeah." "That's one back in the water lilies." "Let's try and get a bit closer to it, can we?" "I'll pole some more if you'll keep paddling on that side." "Unlike the closely related crocodile, alligators rarely attack man." "There are only about a half dozen fatalities on record, and there has never been a serious incident in the Okefenokee Refuge." "Even so, there's a certain tension whenever they're about." "Do you see one?" "I'll keep going." "Say when." "Okay, Just a little closer." "You got one?" "The captured baby gives a continuous cry of alarm." "John and Kent work quickly." "They want to minimize stress on the baby and avoid trouble with its mother who might be nearby." "Forty-two-and-a-half centimeters." "Forty-two?" "Uh huh." "Forty-two." "Good." "What's it reading?" "It's just at 200 grams." "Watch it, watch it, watch it, watch it" "My god!" "She's really cruising." "Is it the call of the baby?" "Yeah." "The baby's just continually calling." "Well, hang on." "Her jaws are open a bit" "Her teeth are showing." "Kent, are you sure it's okay?" "I don't think it's a good idea to stay here." "Do you want to put the baby back, or what?" "Probably what I should do is just tap her on the nose and see if it scares her." "They are often a little more brave at night than they are in the daytime." "Watch!" "She's coming, Kent." "Boy, she really concentrates on that..." "She just localizes right on the distress call." "I think I had better push her off." "Are you sure?" "She's a little too close." "This is not safe." "She's not safe?" "No." "How about just putting the baby back?" "Don't you think that's the best idea?" "Yeah." "We're definitely at a disadvantage." "So Kent builds a record of alligator growth in different areas." "Females grow to an average of seven to eight feet," "While males may be up to 14 feet and weigh 850 pounds." "Not all of Okefenokee's wonders are found in the marshes." "John Paling explores a pine forest in search of the red-cockaded woodpecker." "The birds are endangered and difficult to find." "They live in groups of three or more, and each of these so-called "clans"" "requires about 200 acres of home range" "This small woodpecker, only seven inches in length, has become famous for its finicky habits." "It will only make holes in old pine trees that are usually infected by a certain disease red heart fungus." "The fungus softens the tree's inner core, making the woodpecker's work easy." "When a clan of woodpeckers finds trees that suit them exactly," "They may remain here for life." "The woodpecker's keep busy, however, carrying out a fascinating scheme for survival." "They constantly make fresh holes in the trees, causing them to exude a thick coating of resin." "It's a sharp and smelly substance, the main ingredient of turpentine." "The woodpecker's nest hole is surrounded be resin." "And it's always located on the western side of the trunk where the heat of the sun will help keep the resin moist and fresh." "The reason for all this only becomes clear with the appearance of a predator like this corn snake." "Sometimes this snake can be an amazing tree climber." "It can climb straight up and reach bird nests 30 feet above the ground." "Eggs or baby birds inside the woodpecker's nest are seemingly easy prey." "But now the resin comes into play." "To the snake it's a powerful irritant." "Frequently is stops the snake entirely" "Even if the snake persists, it still tries to avoid contact with the resin." "Often the snake ends up retreating the hard way." "Such moments of threat and drama frequently interrupt the tranquility of Okefenokee." "The predator in one situation can become prey in the next." "A baby alligator in pursuit of a diving katydid." "Hiding underwater, the katydid is safe temporarily." "But after two minutes or so, it must come up for air." "It's midsummer." "John Paling and Kent Vliet search for alligator nests." "At this time of year dozens of nests are concealed in the swamp." "The best way to find one is to look for the trail the female alligator has made when coming and going from the nest." "They should be pretty clear." "If they're used often like a trail to a nest is, they're pretty obvious." "This looks like one right here." "Left?" "Right by these yellow flowers in this clump here." "Let's shove the nose of the boat in here." "Yeah, this is one." "Oh, I can see it." "Yeah." "It does look like it's used pretty frequently too." "That one looks really packed down." "I think it's probably one leading to a nest." "Alligator trails form a network of natural pathways through the swamp." "They were often followed by early explorers." "But there's a drawback." "Alligators like to lie submerged along the trails." "It's all to easy to step on one." "In the nesting season the female alligator is on the defensive." "She herself has nothing to fear, but her eggs are highly vulnerable." "Scavengers often attack the nest." "Wait a minute." "Here's the nest." "It's been attacked, hasn't it?" "No, I think they've been eaten." "Something's gotten into the nest and eaten the eggs." "Oh." "What would have eaten these then?" "Probably either raccoons or black bears" "Black bears eat a lot of alligator nests here." "But I mean raccoons and bears wouldn't swim and wade through this stuff?" "Well, there could be one living in this island, or he may have moved from island to island." "It's hard to say if it was a black bear or a raccoon though." "Sometimes black bears will pick off the end of an egg and just eat the insides out of it." "I don't know how they do it." "They may just use a claw and just pop the top off and eat it." "This is sort of like an island." "How does the mother make it?" "I think this nest is either sunk from its own weight after she built it or the water level in the swamp has risen some." "These things just scrape up all the dirt and vegetation around them." "You see there's peat in here and a lot of plant matter that holds it together." "And also the rotting plant matter heats the eggs." "It creates heat as it rots, and it actually keeps the eggs warmer than they would be just with the sun on them." "Could she still be around now these have been eaten?" "I think she probably came back and realized that it had been disturbed and just lost interest and left." "Let's find another one then." "Okay." "That's really too bad." "Often the female alligator is not far from the nest." "And when she discovers an intruder, she can be highly aggressive." "John Paling once faced such a confrontation unexpectedly when filming a nest." "This was, in Paling's understated words a moment "of surprise and serious concern"." "It ended only when he backed off, leaving the nest to its rightful owner" "The fierce protection given the nest plays a vital part in the life of the redbelly turtle." "The female turtle tries to lay her eggs in the alligator's nest." "If she succeeds, the mother alligator will unwittingly stand guard over the turtle eggs as well as her own." "Risking attack, the turtle invades the nest and lays her eggs taking advantage of the warmth and moisture." "Leaving her eggs behind, the turtle tries to get away." "It's just as risky as getting in." "Most adult turtles in Okefenokee bear the marks of encounters like this." "Often they are not harmed." "It's as if alligators recognize the turtle after one futile bite." "Finding it hard to crack, they then leave it alone." "The female turtle has done her part." "She leaves her eggs in the alligator's protection and will not return." "For otters, turtles are handy and long-suffering playthings." "Otters are perhaps the most entertaining inhabitants of Okefenokee" "And playfulness is believed to be one strong indication of animal intelligence." "Violent thunderstorms often rake Okefenokee in summer." "And during a dry period lightning can set the swamp ablaze." "Peat, when dry, is flammable." "It can burn slowly and steadily for months at a time." "So fire eats away the land in Okefenokee." "Scientists think such fires may serve to revitalize the swamp, creating hollows where new ponds and lakes form when the drought ends." "Recovery after a fire is swift." "Soon Okefenokee is once again resplendent with vibrant color." "By late summer the baby alligators are ready to hatch." "It has taken about nine weeks for the eggs to incubate." "A chorus of cries from the nest brings the mother alligator to assist her young." "The baby turtles may also be hatching at the same time." "The alligator baby." "Its cries have been loud enough to be heard even before the egg has broken open." "Interestingly enough, the sex of baby alligators is determined by the temperature surrounding the eggs" "Above 90 degrees Fahrenheit only males develop." "Below 87 degrees there are only females." "No one yet knows precisely how this serves the alligator's survival." "The mother alligator tries to seize the young in her mouth and carry them away." "The baby turtles aren't so fortunate." "In all the confusion they're on their own." "With ponderous care, the mother alligator carries her young away to water one by one." "The baby turtles seem to know instinctively to lie low when the mother alligator is near." "When the baby turtles make a break for it, they head unerringly for the nearest water." "When all this is over, a new generation of both turtles and alligators begins life in Okefenokee." "In 1960 a dam was built in the wildlife refuge on the Suwannee River that could change Okefenokee forever." "By holding water in the swamp, the dam is intended to prevent fires and loss of timber in nearby forests." "But it could also upset the balance of fire and regeneration that makes the makes the swamp what it is." "Experts disagree, and it could be decades before the full impact is known." "In the realm of the alligator, meanwhile, life continues according to an ancient pattern." "At this age the young alligators are vulnerable to many predators." "They will remain in their mother's protection for several months before going off on their own." "So the alligator has survived on earth long before the time of man." "And with sufficient human knowledge and concern, the alligator will remain an ancient and durable survivor of the distant past." "OK, there's the mother." "Now look at this might pull the skin to the side there." "Yeah." "This is a loft of." "Right, shall we look for a place to land?" "Today in Africa, a bitter war is being fought." "Both man and beast are dying... and the enemies are greed, corruption, and ignorance." "The battle is being waged over the black rhino, sought by poachers for its valuable horn" "In the past 15 years, over 95% of the animals have been slaughtered." "Each day, Ranger Dolf Sasseen patrols the Zambezi Valley," "But for this mother and calf, he was too late." "A lot of people would say," ""What does the rhino do to the bush?"" "As a bushman you could turn around and say," ""The rhino has been created by God as part of creation, we need it"." "To look at it, it's a beautiful animal and we can live side by side." "You do not want to show to your children one day," "How an elephant or a rhino look in a storybook." "That's not what life is all about." "Life is not a storybook It is a reality." "For 45 million years, one of the planet's most primitive mammals wandered the plains and forests of the world with little to fear." "The rhino has few natural enemies, but that role has now been filled by man." "More than 30 species of rhinoceros once existed." "Today, there are only five, all endangered." "In Asia, the Javan, Sumatran, and Indian rhinos are down to critical levels." "In Africa, the white rhino is somewhat more stable." "Closely confined in a few well guarded South African reserves" "But the black rhino is hurting towards extinction." "If, as we say, in the early 70s, there were 65,000 rhino on the continent," "We are down to 4,500 now." "That's an indictment upon somebody or a group of people or nations." "It's come down throughout" "Africa, this disease, this cancerous situation, plundering our wildlife of Africa." "Through the years, the black rhino had already been depleted through much of its range." "It is the recent wave of slaughter, though, which has devastated the animal." "Starting in the early 70s, poachers swept through East Africa, all but wiping out the populations of Kenya," "Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, and Mozambique." "Now, they have begun to threaten Zimbabwe." "In 1977, the situation took an even more severe turn for the worse in Kenya's Meru National Park." "In one three month period, the toll on the rhinos reached 53 and rangers began to be attacked and killed by armed Somali poachers." "Peter Jenkins was the park's warden during that time." "When I went to the Meru park we had a population of black rhino between 200 and 250, and then in the late 70s we were hit by a different type of poacher, this was the shifta poacher with his automatic." "And when I left Meru '81, the population was down to about 25." "Today, it's three." "The beginning of the rhino's decline can be traced back to the mid-nineteenth century." "Modern guns were introduced into Africa," "And killing became easy, efficient, and popular." "Some Europeans developed a taste for rhino meat... others hunted for the sheer sport of it." "When a rhino charges a man that's nothing." "But when a man charges a rhino, that's new." "So here you see the tables reversed." "We are now in a with rhinos." "Osa dislikes rhinos more than any animal on earth." "For years they have been chasing her and here was a chance to give them a taste of their won medicine." "Mr. Rhino is public enemy number one in Africa." "He's afraid of nothing." "If your first shot doesn't stop him, good night." "It is not hunting, however, that poses the great threat to the rhinoceros." "Instead, it is the demand for the horn" "Ironically, the very feature of the animal that evolved for its defense may bring about its extinction" "Though hard and strong like bone, the horn is made of keratin, like the human fingernail." "It grows throughout the rhinos life at a rate of about three inches a year." "On a full grown adult, it may reach over four feet." "For thousands of years, rhino horn powder has been a treasured commodity in the far east." "Ancient oriental tradition views it as an effective fever reducer and an indispensable cure all." "The use of rhino horn as an aphrodisiac has been greatly exaggerated, and is found only in parts of western India." "As early as the sixteenth century, rhino horn powder was recommended in a classic encyclopedia of Chinese medicine, tidily consulted today." "The best horn is from a freshly killed male." "Black is better than white." "The tip has the most virtue." "Pregnant women should not take the powder or they will miscarry." "Modern medicine considers the claims highly unlikely, and almost all far eastern countries have officially banned the importation of rhino horn." "Still, the local market flourishes." "In the back street of Taipei," "Bangkok, and other Asian cities," "African rhino horn retails for up to $7,000 per pound." "For the past decade the export of rhino horn has been banned in most African countries, but smuggling continues, to the dismay of conservationists." "Back in the 1970s when there was very little effort to control the trade, the outlets were very diffuse indeed-going out on aircraft or boats and perhaps over land as well." "But nowadays, I think that the routes have become rather more confined and most countries seem to point a finger at Burundi as the major exit point in Africa for rhino horn." "So I believe a very large proportion must be going out from this one country." "But we also know from countries like Zimbabwe and Tanzania that a certain amount of rhino horn has gone out in diplomatic pouches." "It's almost certainly an international illegal network, if you like, involving corrupt government officials, corrupt businessmen, and corrupt politicians, and it's this sort of triangular Mafia-like alliance which has made it so powerful." "It's not only affected rhinos, it's also affected elephants and ivory-the two are very closely linked." "Throughout history, the port of Mombasa, many kinds of illegal trade." "Rhino horn, leopard skins, gold, ivory each dealer has his specialty." "This pile of ivory, taken from 500 elephants, was hidden in falsely labeled spice crates." "It was seized by Kenyan customs officials while awaiting shipment to the Middle East." "The route is an old one, for thousands of year," "Arab dhows have sailed these waters, sometimes with valuable contraband aboard." "In this way, the horn of countless slaughtered rhino have made their way across the sea." "In recent years, the horn has often ended its journey in North Yemen." "It is here that one more damaging twist to the black rhino story has been added." "The oil boom of the early 70s created lucrative work for migrant Yemeni laborers in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states." "For the first time, the workers had ready cash to spend on luxuries, including the ultimate symbol of virility, the rhino horned dagger, or iambia." "The discovery of the new threat to the rhino was made by Kenyan-based geographer Esmond Bradley Martin." "I first came to North Yemem in 1978 when" "I was doing a general sort of survey of the country and discovered at that time that perhaps 50% of all the rhino horn in the world was coming up here so Sanaa for the making of dagger handles." "The rhino horn handle, once reserved for the aristocracy, is treasured far above alternatives like cow or water buffalo." "A fine antique may sell for $15,000." "When polished, the horn takes on an amber opalescence greatly admired for its subtle beauty." "Esmond Bradley Martin began an international camping to stop the rhino horn trade, encouraging the use of substitutes." "After some 10 years, his work is showing signs of success." "International trade has slowed in many eastern countries, and since 1985, the North Yemeni government has been enforcing a ban on importation." "But it's not early enough." "Where there is profit, men will trade." "The middleman, by transporting the horn from the smuggler to the dealer, keeps business going briskly." "I will buy for about $700 per kilo, and sell for about $1400 per kilogram, so I make a profit of about $700." "The diplomats who smuggle rhino horn come mostly from" "Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, South Korea." "I saw rhino in Nairobi." "I like it." "I like rhino." "Despite the rhino's size and fierce reputation, it is sadly easy to track, find, and kill." "Its thick hide offers no protection against bullets and its behavior patterns are too predictable to elude the determined poacher." "In its simple daily routine, the black rhino uses its prehensile lip to tear off the leaves of the prickly acacia bushes and other scrubby plants." "A solitary creature, it lives on a home range of from one to twelve square miles." "The rhino's territory may overlap with another of its species, but it is persistent in marking its range." "The animals spray urine or track their dung across the area, and so, spread their scent" "Contrary to appearances, the rhinoceros is a peaceful being, and only rarely takes exception to the occasional trespasser." "Although it can hear and smell acutely its eyesight is poor." "Help comes in the form of the oxpecker which serves as a lookout." "In Swahili the oxpecker is known as "askair wakifaru", the rhino's policeman." "When alerted by its tiny bodyguard, the rhino may panic and run." "But since it is both curious and nearsighted, it may be enticed from the bush, sometimes fatally, by the human voice mimicking its call." "The first man to devote his life to the study of rhino behavior was John Goddard." "While living in Tanzania's" "Ngorongoro crater during the 1960's, he developed a genuine affection for his lumbering, primitive subjects." "Goddard was deeply committed to his work, regardless of the hazards." "Even a tranquilized rhino can be dangerous." "Weighing up to one and a half tons, an adult bull represents a serious threat." "Dentine joined in P2 between cusps." "Watch it!" "Alright, P3 dentine almost joined between cusps." "For seven years, Goddard carried out exhaustive field work, recording each minute feature of the rhino's appearance and behavior." "Sixteen years after Goddard's own death at the age of 35, the number of rhino in his research area had plummeted from 108 to about 20." "Many were the victims of poachers." "In the vast expanse of East Africa's Savannah, protection of the rhino has proved impossible." "Bob Oguya, warden of Kenya's Meru Park since 1983, has one plane and 30 men to patrol 350 square miles." "The problem we are facing is that these fellows with their automatics, and our people with singly action 303s it is watch them and in most cases we lost them, because with their type of firearm and with our types of" "firearms they end up escaping our dragnet." "The rangers are at serious personal risk from the armed poachers." "Their camel patrols stay out for weeks at a time, in touch only by radio with park headquarters." "Despite the men's vulnerability and outdated equipment, they are dedicated and loyal-even in the face of tragedy." "In December we lost our sergeant to the poacher's bullets." "We saw him die." "Without adequate weapons we were helpless." "Too many of our men have fallen because we could not defend ourselves." "If we had automatics instead of 303s we wouldn't be losing our people." "With the rhino population at such critical levels throughout Africa, every animal is important." "In Kenya's Masia Mara Reserve, rangers mounted round the clock protection for this mother and calf, shooting several lions who came too close." "Worried, the rangers moved the family to safer ground." "The calf was better protected, but his mother kept trying to get back to her old territory, leaving her baby open to attack." "The lions seized their chance." "After the incident, the rangers turned to Daphne Sheldrick, who raises wounded and orphaned animals" "On one of the occasions that she was away the lions got in and they caught him and actually made a real mess of him." "Fortunately, they were young lions and they weren't very experienced." "But they certainly chewed him up very, very badly and he was dumped on my doorstep more dead than alive." "I must say he's fantastically plucky little rhino." "In fact, his mother's a very placid, dozy old cow so I expect this had made him have to be slightly more alert" "The first thing we had to do, of course was get a friend, because he'd been through tremendous trauma, so we got the sheep." "They've been good friends ever since and wherever Sam goes, so the sheep follows and they play together and wander around together and he'll just grow up here until he's weaned off milk, and then we'll have to send" "him somewhere to be a wild rhino." "Little Sam was lucky." "These rangers saved his life." "Other rhinos have been less fortunate, poached by the very men paid to protect them." "The shadow of corruption has fallen across much of Africa, and Kenya has had her share of officials who have cashed in on illegal rhino horn trade." "It became so bad during the late 1970s that a major international scandal, Centering on the president's wife, erupted and as a result of that," "The Kenyan government was so severely embarrassed that it closed trade in all wildlife products, and that did have a very needed effect on the revival of certain species." "But the two species which showed no revival whatsoever were the main trophy species, elephants and rhino, and by the early 1980s, it became clear once again that major elements within the Wildlife Department ex-Game Department people," "that is Perez Olindo, who was the former director of the National Park Service, and this has created a tremendous enthusiasm throughout Kenya, and we feel that this is just in time to revive what is our most important effort, and that is a major" "plan to save the rhinos in Kenya." "The problem of human beings is everywhere." "We have found people who are colluding with criminal elements." "They have been prosecuted, they have been imprisoned." "And I'm afraid that I cannot, and I will not, compromise with or collude with people who are out to do things that will harm conservation and wildlife in this country." "We cannot compromise with sin, I'm afraid." "The sin is not always hard to understand." "Within the poverty stricken rural communities of Africa, there is a powerful incentive to poach" "A family may be lucky to earn $20 a month." "Each member of a rhino poaching gang may earn $100 or $200 per raid a year's income." "Although the big money is made by the middlemen, dealers, and corrupt officials, the pay is bountiful by local standards." "One Kenyan who has fought against poaching in a very personal way is Michael Werikhe." "Known throughout East Africa as "the rhino man", he has walked more than 1400 miles and raised over $60,000 on his crusade to inform Africans of the threat to the black rhino." "People are very hospitable, very concerned about my welfare not only my welfare alone, but even that of my snake, which is a very, very strange thing." "Africans are very scared of snakes, and to have people showing so much concern about an animal they fear so much is a very touching thing." "Local people are just as concerned about the wildlife and about the environment just like any other people." "And I think it is very important that wildlife awareness should be taken to the people, for it's they who have the final say and they are ready to cooperate, provided that they are given the right information," "the right encouragement." "Even with the work of dedicated men like Werikhe," "Kenya's war to save the wild rhino has essentially been lost" "Now, its best hope for salvation may be the fenced sanctuary." "Although critics view them as glorified zoos, they are far easier to manage than the huge reserves." "In some cases, it is private citizens who have taken up the cause." "Solio Ranch, in the foothills of Mount Kenya, is owned by Courtland and Claude Parfet" "In 1970, using their own funds they encircled 15,000 acres with a high cost, specially designed fence, creating a haven for Africa's embattled wildlife." "Over a ten year period, they introduced 23 black rhino and 16 whites." "Protected, the animals thrived" "In less than 20 years, the number of black rhino had quadrupled." "Now Solio had a most unusual problem overpopulation." "The Parfets gave 15 of the black rhino the Kenyan government's first enclosed sanctuary, at Nakuru National Park." "Transporting the animals to their new new home is a huge undertaking." "The selected rhino are located from the air." "Okay, dart is in." "Keep it in sight." "It's running south." "A vet walks to within 40 feet of the unsuspecting animal before using his tranquilizer gun." "A new, fast acting drug brings the rhinoceros down in minutes, but great care must be taken to prevent it from injuring itself." "A second injection of antibiotics prevents infections in the dart gun wound." "Though unceremonious, this rhino's awakening is the next step in his relocation." "The animals are kept in holding pens for about two weeks to overcome the stress of capture." "Soon, though, this young bull will be in stalled among the tourists and flamingos of Nakuru." "It has been a long and difficult journey for him, but it is here that he can do the most to help save his species." "Although the rhino may be well protected in fenced sanctuaries, the situation creates another problem-inbreeding." "Wildlife biologist Rob Brett lives and works in Kenya on a remote private reserve." "He is closely observing the animals in an effort to find a solution." "Although rhino have been known about, wondered at, admired, hated for such a long period, We know virtually nothing about their breeding." "Such basic things as what turns a rhino on, what makes them breed at optimum rates" "It's crucial that we find out as much about this sort of behavior of rhino in order to conserve them under the new conditions that exist." "Their favorite habitat is bush, they are generally nocturnal, they spend most of the day asleep." "And, to observe the nitty gritty of rhino sexual behavior takes first of all a lot of patience, and a great deal of interest." "It's really ploying the minimum of equipment a mixture between very low tech." "If you like, work, and very high tech." "I am out at dawn every morning looking for individual rhino from which to take data." "So well does Brett know this subjects that he can identify every rhino on the reserve from the lines and wrinkles of its footprint" "He takes urine samples left from each animal to determine their hormonal levels, identifying the pregnant females and dominant males." "While the black rhino is extremely secretive about its mating habits, the white rhino, like these on Solio Ranch, are less inhibited." "This dominant male has asserted his influence..." "And now begins his courtship, which may last for many days." "He approaches the female and rests his head on her rump." "His interest may not be initially returned." "But his persistence eventually pays off and mating occurs, sometimes lasting over an hour" "Although rhinos are not monogamous, the female usually mates with the dominant male in the area." "Afterwards, the pair go their separate ways." "If impregnated, the female will not give birth for approximately 16 to 18 months, delivering only one calf at a time." "A newborn rhino, which weighs up to 120 pounds, will stay close to its mother until she has a new calf for some two to four years." "The rhinoceros, slow to reproduce and quick to die, faces an uphill struggle." "In the wild, there are so few left that some never find a suitable mate." "In Kenya and elsewhere, the fight becomes increasingly grim and ever more complex." "It can be argued that the numbers of rhino are very low, but I think it would be negligence on behalf of the world to just turn their backs on this country now and say," ""All is lost." "There are only 400 rhino left, they're not worth saving."" "We have had long years of experience with poaching, which is what Zimbabwe's having now armed poachers." "Zimbabwe's getting it for the first time." "I wonder whether they're actually gong to be able to save their rhino by just having armed patrols and shootouts." "I know in Kenya that they're fighting armed gangs there, and there are contacts taking place." "But we have, right from the onset, taken on this task as a war and not a conservation exercise purely and simply." "The situation bears a more than passing resemblance to full fledged guerrilla combat..." "It is a deadly serious mission" "Glenn Tatham commands Operation Stronghold from a camp on the Zambezi River in Zimbabwe, where he protects the last large wild rhino population left in the world." "The project involved moving 250 rhino, one third of the valley's population, to safer ground." "The fight to protect the rest is a desperate one." "Rangers live year round in camp with their families." "who realize that some of the men may die in armed conflict." "What we're doing here is to fight the poachers." "Every day that a group of poachers are in here, they are potentially able to kill two or three or maybe even four rhino." "One group killed six rhino one morning here, here in the Zambezi Valley." "To our north is Zambia, and these poachers are crossing from there to here." "The river is the international boundary but there is no barrier as such." "There's two border posts on that section of the river." "We cannot cover 150 miles of river frontage every day of the year, It's an impossibility." "You'd need more than a division of men to do that." "Even then because of the bush warfare we'd be fighting, it's an impossibility." "As in Kenya, the odds are staggering, and the danger is real." "Operation Stronghold has just Many of the rangers are veterans from opposite sides" "of Zimbabwe's war of independence, now fighting together against a common enemy." "Facing heavily armed Zambian-based poachers, the rangers shoot to kill with the government's consent." "Since 1985, more than 30 poachers have been shot dead, and at least 20 taken prisoner" "In the same period, some 330 rhino have died." "Until the network of dealers and middlemen is broken," "Zimbabwe's rangers know they can do little more than stem the tide." "Privately, many wonder how long it can go on." "We've got people here who've been in the bush for two years, they go out for 20 days in a month, they occasionally have success, But it's very very... demanding on them physically, It's demanding on" "their families, its demanding of their well-being." "They are buoyed up with enthusiasm every time you have a successful contact, and perhaps this is a good enough reason to have a contact, is to boost enthusiasm, If no other reason." "You have captured, you have recovered one and what direction is the other poacher running to?" "No problem, as soon as the chopper arrives we will get into your..." "I guess the big thing is now, is to get all the others, if he's gonna be on the ground for too long I'll have to go fly over and pick him up..." "One down, one running." "Okay, can't we get them in and start leap-frogging them?" "The support units are on their way now and..." "401 is sending down..." "And the one, as I said, had been shot in the groin, was in fact bleeding." "I don't know how, in fact, he got as far as he had." "He scrabbled about 15 paces on his stomach and died there." "It all happened so very quickly." "One tends just to pick up little images of what was happening rather than as an overall thing." "You get images of rounds from the people behind you, the expended cartridge cases landing on your head." "The gang had killed four rhino in as many days." "Each poacher had risked his life for a few hundred dollars." "The rangers know that Zimbabwe is the last stand for the wild black rhino." "Still, the dilemma they face is a terrible one." "One often wonders about the human life for a rhino life," "And at this stage it's a human life for about 20 rhino lives." "The morality is perhaps secondary to the fact that there doesn't seem to be any other way in which we can in fact stop these blokes from getting away and getting back." "A group of poachers would come into the country, they'll start killing rhinos." "We've got to react to that, and one must never forget the central objective of this whole exercise, this whole operation, is save the rhino" "We are not manhunters, we're not mercenaries." "We are here as conservationists." "But desperate situations require desperate measures." "No, there's no joy in killing people, but it's a job, and quite obviously, we're just pawns on either side for men who are just exploiting people" "to make themselves rich." "Forty five million years of nature, unraveled by man in an evolutionary microsecond" "Still, the rhinoceros can still be saved." "If a major international effort were mounted to stop the poachers, the rhino would almost certainly bounce back." "But until the incentive to kill is removed the profit for the poachers, middlemen and dealers the battle will go on." "If the fight is lost, the rhino will be doomed to exist only as a drawing in a child's picture book of things that once were and are no more." "Less than 500 miles from the North Pole lies Canada's most distant frontier" "Ellesmere island." "It takes a special kind of animal to survive here." "This is one the arctic wolf." "These hunters of the high Arctic have little fear of man." "They roam this frozen wilderness beyond reach of the superstition, hatred and mistrust we have heaped upon their kind." "Now, these wolves and men have met and the encounter has revealed some of the truth about these animals' lives." "Unlike wolves in other parts of the world, these creatures live so far away from towns and cities that they have never been hunted or persecuted." "Ellesmere is an island surrounded by pack ice most of the year, a harsh land about the size of Nebraska." "Only someone with a passion for wolves would dream of tracking them into this desolate land." "One such person is photographer Jim Brandenburg." "He has been here before, on assignment for NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC magazine." "Now the wolves have lured him back." "Wolves have always been a favorite animal of mine." "And I suppose one of the reasons they're my favorite animals is because they're so intelligent that intelligence makes it nearly impossible to film them in a more conventional place, say in the forested areas." "And for some reason these Arctic wolves have got a quality about them where they tolerated us very well, and it became clear that it would make a wonderful story." "The spring sunlight illuminates a world released from the long months of high Arctic winter." "The polar bears patrol once again, but they are little threat to the wolves here, since they rarely move far from the sea." "The wolves are more likely to chase them, according to Dave Mech, a wolf biologist with 30 year's experience." "He came here with Jim Brandenburg to observe the pack and its den." "It was a dream come true for me to finally get to Ellesmere Island." "I had known about the wolves there for about 20 years." "But I never thought I'd ever have a chance to work with them." "Everywhere else in the world wolves have been so persecuted that they're extremely afraid of humans." "And once can't get close enough to them to watch them." "The area is so remote they're basically unafraid of humans." "For the first time, Mech can watch from close up as a wolf pays homage to its pack leaders, known as the Alpha Male and the Alpha Female." "The hierarchy of the group who dominates whom is reflected in body language and actions." "By observing and analyzing the wolves behavior, scientists like Mech and understand the social structure of the family unit." "To learn what I wanted I knew I had to find the den," "The shelter where the wolves have their pups for a couple of months of the year in the summer." "There's only one such den in about 1,000 square miles, so it took a long time to find it." "Actually, I spent a solid week searching for it and was elated when I finally was able to locate it." "There's very few such suitable dens around in this region because of the pervasive permafrost which prevents the wolves from digging." "Having found the den, it was really clear to me why the wolves had chosen the sight." "It was a beautiful rock cave at the end of a long ridge overlooking a wide valley with a stream flowing down the middle." "And the wolves could look out in every direction for many miles." "What Dave and Jim are about to observe and film in the short" "Arctic summer would give them a unique experience." "They knew they had the possibility of living in the midst of this wild pack, almost becoming part of it." "They found themselves amazingly close to "Mon", as they called her, as she took her pups out, probably fro the first time." "These were not the mindless killers of fiction and fable." "Finally, the men could begin to record the real story of these animals." "Film making is an involved process lots of equipment, lots of boxes of lenses and cameras." "In a remote location like this, especially, we need backup equipment." "So we need extra beyond the normal." "The wolves had picked the perfect den and we did try to find the perfect campsite." "We wanted to be close enough to the wolf den to keep an eye on it, yet not too close to put pressure on the pack and the daily activity of rearing the pups." "Again, one of the reasons I respect wolves so much is you can't fool them." "As a wildlife photographer you learn very quickly techniques that you can use to sneak up on animals." "Either using a hide or a blind, or long lenses." "In such difficult terrain, teamwork is essential." "We were able to work quite well together because of the fact that both of us needed the same thing." "To photograph wolves or to observe them you've got to get close." "The main thing we had to watch out for was just that we didn't disturb them." "With this kind of light, Dave," "I think we'll have to get a little closer." "It's awfully murky and heavy light." "Yeah, I think we can do it." "They don't show any sign of being disturbed now." "If Mom is like last year she'll be quite tolerant." "Yeah, but we can't take a chance." "It might not even be her." "Right." "Let's just go slowly at first." "There's nowhere to hide in this barren landscape, and the wolves see or sense anything that moves." "Mom knows the men are there but tolerates their careful, patient approach." "The pups were born in May;" "now five weeks old, they are constantly exploring." "For Dave Mech, this unusually intimate view provided important new information." "Already the benefits of watching the wolves so close up became apparent when I was able to see them nursing." "I could determine how long the pups nursed at each bout, how many bouts there were each day, and then watch this progress throughout the summer until finally weaning took place." "Although it's almost midsummer, the day is freezing cold" "A new experience for the pups." "They spent the first weeks of life in the den, sheltered by their mother's warmth." "Luckily, there are places to get away from the chilling wind." "The pups are a picture of quiet innocence, far removed from any image of wicked wolves howling for blood in the night." "Still, it's the howl that has always intrigued Jim Brandenburg." "Well, of all the sounds of nature I really believe that the wolf howl is the most evocative and the most mysterious." "I believe also that wolves have possibly gotten their bad reputation because of the howl." "To the wolves, howling is a very important part of communication their community spirit." "It's sort of like the glue that holds the family together." "I'd never been able to watch wild wolves while they were howling." "So!" "Wanted to look at howling very closely in all of its forms." "It's especially nice to be able to watch them while they're doing it." "You can't do that down in the forested areas but..." "That Alpha Male, to me, has the most distinctive voice for his..." "Halfway through the howl he changes an octave." "Wish I knew what it all meant though, you know, just like a lot of the sounds they make." "Um, you know that half bark." "There's a half bark that goes." "Yeah, that's perfect." "Yeah." "You know I sneezed today and the wolves all looked up." "And I was reminded that that probably means to them there's danger coming." "They didn't know if one of the wolves did it or..." "Yeah." "Then they realized it was me." "It's that staccato kind of a sound." "The mid-back, the one that's really dominant, came over to the pups and they all ran up to it," "And they started mobbing her like they do, and she was kind of upset in the process." "And she kind of barked at em." "And it was just a half bark, but instantly both Mom and Shaggy ran right up to her with tail between their legs and their rump was down and completely submissive." "It was a wonderful display, but it was all provoked by that one half bark." "So, you know, I wish we could understand these things more." "But it's sure intriguing to watch them all." "There are equally intriguing topics, such as the behavior of the pups." "As they've grown, their play has become more boisterous." "The pups play for hours on end." "It gives them exercise, allows them to develop muscle tone, and to practice various behavior patterns that they'll use for the rest of their lives like running, pouncing, stalking, and even submitting to each other." "Competing for food is a very important part of every wolf's life even amongst litter mates." "A pup grabs a feather and tries to hold onto it as long as he can." "This is similar to grabbing a piece of food and holding it." "In this respect learning tug-of-war becomes very important." "Today it's a feather, tomorrow it's a whole bird." "Now six weeks old, the pups have developed an urge to wander." "Their cautious parents attempt to control their exuberance." "Pups sometimes roam as far as half a mile from the den, but they are easily found and disciplined." "The young face little danger since there are no large predators around, such as the birds of prey that hunt young wolves elsewhere in the world." "Still, the parents keep the pups in line, carefully maintaining the pecking order or" ""dominance hierarchy" of the pack." "Mech is now investigating several areas of behavior, including the pups development and the reasons for the wolf's notorious howl." "When a pack wakes up they may begin to howl, and even the pups attempt to join in." "In the silence of the Arctic, the sound travels long distances." "To other wolves it means "stay away", "keep off our turf..."" "The pack is fiercely territorial." "Brandenburg noticed that the chorus often preceded a hunt, a useful cue for him to get ready to film." "It seems an unkind trick of nature that the arctic hares of" "Ellesmere keep their white coats in the summer." "Easy to spot, they are a favorite and nutritious food for wolves." "Although a hare can weigh eight pounds a wolf can down two in one day." "The hares must rely on their agility and speed to escape." "They can run and stand on their hind legs, which enables them to spot danger from a distance." "Unlike their parents, young hares blend in with the environment and stay perfectly still when wolves are nearby." "Among the most impressive beasts of the high Arctic are the musk oxen shaggy wanderers that graze in the wilderness a great challenge to the wolves." "How far off would you say that is, Dave?" "Oh, I'd guess a mile." "Close to a mile." "That's what I would say." "Well, I see at least five musk oxen." "They must have journeyed up from the valley below." "I don't know if they're trying to unnerve the musk oxen..." "Those animals can't eat now while they're all grouped up like that." "I wonder if there's a calf in there?" "There must be a calf in there somewhere." "Yeah, there is a calf, right in the middle there." "That's why they're so interested." "A standing circle of musk oxen present a formidable defense." "But it's part of the nature of wolves to attack and kill animals larger than themselves." "It's a skill that Mech and Brandenburg are eager to document." "Yeah, that male, that male wolf is heading away." "Looks like they've lost interest, huh?" "He's going right by them." "Yeah, they're probably going back to the den." "That's very defensible position those musk oxen are in." "Maybe if there were more wolves." "This is a usual situation if they don't make a kill." "The difficulties of filming a hunt begin to present Brandenburg with as much of a challenge as the wolves face in their quest for food." "In the perpetual light of summer, the Arctic can become surprisingly warm." "On these July days, huddling is no longer vital for the comfort of the pups, now two months old." "As summer races on, the heart of Ellesmere's tundra blossoms briefly." "Long-tailed jaegers raise their chicks among the dwarf willow and mosses." "Wolves often pass close to the nest on the ground but rarely take advantage of the easy prey." "They jaegers, nevertheless, are wary of both wolves and people." "The wolves appear surprisingly indifferent to these aggressive summer visitors." "They seem unwilling to compromise their dignity in battle with the jaegers." "They'll save their energy for catching a young musk ox." "Both the jaegers and the wolves have an eye on the human visitors, who've stopped for lunch." "As we lay there watching the wolves they'd often come up and check us out." "Of course, it was tempting to give them a little bit of our lunch and they welcomed any tidbit that they could find." "This helped develop a rapport between them and us that was very useful to our being able to observe them close up." "It's a remarkable moment an encounter between bird, wolf, and man." "Still, the boldness of the wolves created some anxiety." "Camping out right in the wolves back yard created a situation where I had the feeling at any time the wolves could have gone in and really torn the camp apart." "Because if they see something within their territory that's like a toy, a plaything they grab it and run around, tease each other with it." "And, of course, they seem to have a little more confidence." "And I think at times they felt we were intruding and they could do pretty much what they wanted." "At times it pays to "speak wolf"." "Every day, Jim Brandenburg is listening as well as watching, trying to anticipate the moment when the pack will set off to track down a musk ox herd." "This particular day they woke up and predictably after a long sleep, woke up with lots of excitement." "And I sensed very strongly that something big was about to happen." "Some days they would leave the den site and kind of wander casually and be gone for a couple hours and come right back." "But this particular day they took off in a straight line towards the east, single file, a very quick pace, the kind of pace that even with the advantage of machines it was very difficult to keep up." "The rough ground is no obstacle for an arctic wolf." "Each travels purposefully." "The pack has spread out but keeps in touch by howling from time to time." "While the wolves are within range of the den, their howls are heard by the pups and the female that watches over them." "Brandenburg, loaded with film stock and rations, is prepared to travel for days to film a major hunt." "One of the advantages of working in the high Arctic that you don't find in lower latitudes is you have 24 hours of daylight." "Here the wolves could never really get away from us and in the sense that they were always on stage with the lights full on." "And if we could simply keep up with them, and had enough time, eventually that scene could be played out in front of us." "There are anxious moments when the wolves are far ahead, out of sight." "Brandenburg has only their tracks and his intuition to follow." "The wolves have traveled 30 miles from the den, and Jim is still behind." "Finally, he catches up to the pack as they search for a place to cross a deep, fast-flowing river." "Again, his hopes of filming an attack on musk oxen are crushed." "It was quite a frustrating experience watching the wolves continue on in the distance out of sight, knowing that they were clearly going on to some fairly intense action." "With summer running out, Mech and Brandenburg decide that a change in plan is imperative." "Rather than follow the pack, they'll sit tight, following all that happens right here for the next 24 hours." "It made sense to commit a complete 24 hour documentation from one spot;" "Watch everything that happened, try to film the highlights of the behavior." "And I'd hoped to show an aspect of a day in the life of the wolf pack, near the den site, their coming and going, their interaction, their naps, their sleeps." "Anything that might happen within that 24 hour period." "Here comes one." "He's go hind feet" "or she does, it's a female." "It's interesting, usually they bring just the hind quarter back, or often they do." "But I mean I've never seen them bring the front quarters." "They may bring the whole hare." "The strategy begins to pay off almost at once." "A small drama of pack life unfolds within camera range another demonstration of the way a wolf's behavior indicates its rank in the family unit." "It appear that as part of their membership in the pack, the subordinates have to bring food home to the pups each day." "This probably helps maintain their status in the pack." "Even when hungry themselves the subordinates still will deliver food to the pups." "It seems that the dominant wolves need to show their subordinates that, even though the underlings have brought offerings of food, they must not forget who's boss." "As I watched them closely, I noticed that from time to time subordinates would actually steal food from the pups." "Most are young animals that are still learning how to hunt themselves so this surplus food forms an important part of their diet." "Wish I knew which male that was." "I think it's the one that limps." "Left shoulder's the one that's limping, though." "He's got a little limp in his left hind leg today as well as his left front." "Telling each of the pack members apart was always a challenge and a difficult thing to do." "However, we were aided by the fact that the Alpha Male usually dominated the other members of the pack." "And in doing so held his tail in the air." "To keep track of individual wolves." "Mech uses names like Shaggy, Scruffy, and Lone Ranger." "His observations show him that the Alpha Male has another recognition signal besides tail waiving." "The Alpha Male was also distinctive in that he raised his leg when he urinated." "The Alpha Female does that as well." "This raised-leg urination is a way of bonding the two together in a sexual tie." "That tie is recognized by all the other members of the pack." "It's quite warm today on Ellesmere Island, and the wolves, with their shaggy coats, may need some way of cooling down in the bright sunlight." "Below the surface of the tundra lies cooler soil." "The animals have little trouble reaching it." "The softest spots are the heathery hillsides." "I've actually watched wolves sleep there for as long as 18 hours at a time." "There's not much happening." "Jim, I think I'm gonna run a little test while the light it about the same and the wind," "And I'm also in the same position." "I'm gonna run down, get out of sight and howl." "And I'll go quite a ways." "I'm gonna imitate a strange wolf that's scared." "Sound good." "Yeah." "I'll record what time it was when I howled so if you get a response here you record the time that you get the response." "Yeah." "Yeah." "See you later." "Thanks." "I'll see you later." "Eventually, Dave's imitations seem to have another effect." "The pack is drawing together, though there may be some other cause for the excitement." "Two of the pack are waving their tails as signals of leadership, telling the others that they are in charge." "Mech, however, has seen nothing of this." "So what happened?" "Soon as you howled they listened, but no one moved." "And it was a very casual kind of response." "What, these other two came back..." "Yeah, it was the Alpha Male and Midback came back..." "OK." "With their tails up really high." "Clearly an expression of "we're in charge'." "They had a fight down on the draw here" "With one of the other females?" "Couldn't see them." "Then they ran up on the hillside here and there was a mass of wolves." "It was difficult to sort it out." "They were pinning each other." "They were growling, biting, tails in the air." "A mass and a swirl, a swirling of wolves right out here in the green, green area." "And it's hard to say what..." "Did the pups get in on any of that stuff?" "A little." "They were following around but it was the big kids." "The 24 hour vigil is paying off." "Despite some long periods of inactivity, there is also some intriguing behavior" "Another arctic hare has been brought in for the pups, their second of the day." "At 10 weeks old, the young wolves are highly competitive." "When a pup is lucky enough to get a large piece of prey he has to run as far away as he can to avoid having it stolen by his litter mates." "At this point I get the impression that no one pup dominates the others and that all tend to get their share of the food." "When a large chunk of meat is brought in by a subordinate," "The Alpha pair are the first to try and steal it." "But a tug of war develops that allows each member of the pack to get a portion of the food." "The hare was caught nearby." "When prey is killed too far away to be brought back in an animal's jaws," "There is an alternative "catch-and-carry system"." "As pups are weaned from nursing more and more of their food comes from regurgitation by the adults." "The adults feed perhaps miles from the pups, carry the food in their stomach and bring it back to the den." "As an adult approaches with a full stomach it's really exciting to watch the pups mob it," "Particularly licking around their mouths." "And this triggers the adult to regurgitate to them." "Several weeks of watching it at a distance was quite frustrating." "I had always hoped to be at close hand while that happened because it was a very important part of behavior to film." "The 24-hour watch gave an opportunity to see this happen close at hand." "The Alpha Female brought back a nice meal for the puppies." "She for some reason chose not to do it to my back this time." "She unloaded her precious cargo right in front of the camera." "And the pups quickly gobbled it up." "Remaining alert throughout the 24 hours is not easy," "But the plan's success makes it worthwhile." "Brandenburg can finally rest, but his dream of photographing a musk ox hunt is not forgotten." "During Mech's turn on watch, the wolves grow curious." "From the start, Mom was the friendliest and most tolerant of the group." "This visit from her is a sign of the increasing trust and rapport between wolf and man." "Curiosity satisfied for the time being she sets off across the valley," "Leaving behind two very contented observers." "Before this visit to Elsmere, the closest Dave Mech had managed to come to a wild wolf was 15 feet." "Now a wolf has come to him, and these 24 hours have been the most productive in his career." "As the wolves bed down and the team's vigil finally ends," "Mech decides on his next move to take advantage of this rare situation." "I really wanted to see just how close I could get to the pups." "If I could get close enough" "I could identify each one individually perhaps." "Or at least find a way of marking them so that I could." "And that would allow me then to see if there's any particular individual who was more aggressive than the others, or got more food, or perhaps was more exploratory." "But all this would require that I get close to them." "I also wanted to see just how Mom would regard me when I was that close to her pups." "It's three a.m. on a sunny but chilly night." "For whatever reason, Mom began to howl and the pups joined in." "I would have loved to have joined them as well," "But being so close to the den I thought perhaps my howl would have upset the entire pack." "Nevertheless, I couldn't resist at least going through the motions." "When he first arrived on Ellesmere, Mech could not be sure that the would ever get this close to the arctic wolves." "But the short summer season is almost over." "The men still dream of following the pack on a major hunt before the arrival of winter." "Time was running out, and I knew this hunt sequence was crucial to the success of the film." "In some ways the longer I waited the better the chances got." "As the pups get older they require more and more food." "And the pack becomes more and more intent upon finding that food." "The weather was right, we were well rested, the wolves were very intent, so this particular day all the signals were right." "I had my own reason for wanting to watch a kill up close." "In the past I've seen several from aircraft." "But each time it was only a swarm of wolves massing around the prey animal." "With the Ellesmere pack I may well be able to tell the role of each particular wolf in the entire hunting and killing process." "Catching a musk ox is not an easy job and the wolves must be careful and still avoid their hooves and their horns." "But when he wolves get close, the musk oxen must stop, group together, and face them." "They continue to harass the musk oxen until one begins to run." "When a herd panics it gives the wolves a chance to attack without so much fear of being injured." "Both predator and prey have to rest frequently and skirmishes like this may go on for hours." "If the herd is healthy a few such skirmished will tell the wolves that it's time to give up and go on to others." "The pack rested for 45 minutes and then took off for another five-mile jaunt." "We knew right away that the next encounter would be an interesting one." "This herd had at least three calves." "And it is the calves that the wolves seek out during the summer." "I could see that it was the Alpha pair that led the charge down to the herd." "One of the more interesting aspects was to see the different personalities of the wolves." "How I got to know them back at the den was one group of wolves, and what I saw in front of me seemed to be a different group of wolves." "They truly became killing machines." "The wolves separated out a calf from the herd and the calf's mother decided to go on in the safety of the group." "It's hard to know where to look cause the rest of the pack tried to separate out a second calf." "Meanwhile back with the first calf the Alpha Male clings to a hind leg." "Even with the whole pack on its head it took about five minutes for the calf to go down." "For three tense hours on the tundra plain," "Dave and Jim witness a scene older than mankind." "The Alpha pair takes possession of the carcass, even though the whole pack was in on the kill." "The wolf depends on meat for its survival." "Its ability to catch, kill and rapidly digest its prey has been honed over millions of years." "But this behavior after the kill was new to the photographer and even to the biologist," "Who had seen it elsewhere but was still surprised by its intensity." "What seems to be going on is that these subordinate animals are food begging just as they did as pups." "Although this was a strong scene to watch," "I was jubilant to have seen it close up." "And to have been able to confirm the dominant role of the Alpha animals." "The wolves consume as much as they can but the calf is large, and there's meat left over." "Chunks are carried off to be buried in the icy ground, a natural form of cold storage." "The wolves may return for the food when hunting is poor and the pups are hungry." "Their stomachs full of food to be regurgitated for the pups, the wolves are ready to begin the trek back to the den." "They've suffered some injuries, but all five are strong enough to make the journey." "By September the pups have grown considerably, thanks to successful hunting during the summer." "They'll need stamina and strength to make it through the coming season." "Already the sunshine is weakening into the twilight that precedes the long darkness of polar winter." "The arctic wolves coats are now long and thick enough to protect them from temperatures that will plunge far below zero." "Shrouded in snow and continual darkness," "The adults must still hunt and scavenge for their pups." "But no one knows what they do in winter;" "That remains an Arctic mystery, a five-month gap in a story that can only be continued when the men return next year." "It is the following spring." "Mech and Brandenburg have returned to Ellesmere to resume their work." "When I returned once again in the spring the pack had changed." "Three members were missing and there was a new Alpha Male, probably one of the subordinates that moved up into the old one's place" "What happened to the old Alpha Male I can't say, but three wolves were found dead in the area at the end of winter." "Getting to know the small, cuddly puppies, watching them grow and seeing all the energy that was invested in them by the adults, knowing they going into a very harsh winter I often wonder what'd ever become of them," "knowing that they all can't survive." "Most of the time the wolves go off and die in places that you'd never see" "But to be able to go over and actually touch and feel the ribs sticking out was a very poignant moment." "The mysteries of winter lead to more questions in the spring." "Did these animals die of starvation, disease, old age, or some other cause?" "When and why did the change in the social order of the pack occur?" "The more I watch these wolves the more questions come to mind." "As the pack composition changes from year to year, the social behavior changes," "Both in relation to each other and to the pups." "Seeing the wolves around the den again immediately told me that I was in store for another summer of good data collecting." "I was absolutely certain there was a litter when I saw the mother emerge begging food from one of the subordinates." "She really can't hunt much on her own during the first three weeks since she must stay in the den and keep the pups warm during this period." "In a remarkable display of tolerance," "Mon allows Brandenburg to enter the den to view her new litter." "It was a difficult decision whether to go into the den or not." "Once it was made it was very satisfying to know that they trusted me so much at this point that they allowed me with their young." "These pictures are courtesy of a wild arctic wolf." "Can we return its trust, or will we cling to our simplistic belief that these are nothing but vicious predators?" "In the high Arctic, man has now seen more of wolves than ever before." "Brandenburg and Mech have shown them to be tolerant, resilient creatures, bound to each other by their complex social rules, living and hunting together for the sake of survival." "Like the giant sea monsters that once stalked the ocean floors, an unlikely creature still roams the earth." "So much like the treasured whales of the seas, elephants are the precious last remnants of the largest land animals in the world." "Even a gigantic bull will play away the day, wallowing in the coolness of a life that ambles along at its won pace..." "A life as long as our own, but with so much more time" "to be simply what they are." "But this sense of calm and meditation can be deceptive." "For a whole year one small herd races against time and the drying water holes." "Often the battle over the precious water enrages them." "Two tiny calves are caught up in this struggle, coaxed through their early years that are fraught with dangers." "As large as they are, elephants are sensitive and gentle creatures." "Haunting discoveries of burial rituals, language, and understanding suggest intelligence and even emotions." "These are the last of a dying race." "Watching them, we can reflect, not only on their complex behavior, but on our own as well." "Join us for a few moments and Reflections on Elephants." "Africa seldom relaxes." "It always seems to be waiting for the gentler moments to pass." "Around rainwater pools strewn across the dry country of Botswana, doves and sandgrouse stir up the air in a frenzy to drink before the soft edges of the day burn off." "Elephants are is symbol of the African wilderness, woven into its fabric like the blazing skies and the endless savannas." "In the midst of a swirling dance of smaller creatures, huge males live separate lives usually ignoring any passing herds of females and calves." "Around these scattered water holes they live out their isolation, slowly drawing life from the earth's open wounds." "With a life-span of 60 years or longer elephants pursue the rhythms of life at a leisurely but determined pace." "Each movement is a calculated conservation of energy, each day a tiny investment in legend." "In the crisp morning a herd of females and calves pads in silently from the forest." "It is unusual for females like these to wander into the bull area," "But they are anxious." "It's been an eventful night." "A calf was born to the matriarch, the leader of this herd." "From the first day danger is every where." "The youngster is a female and she will be guided carefully through life by her mother and the other family members." "Because elephant societies are led by females and her mother is a matriarch," "It is likely that one day she too will have to carry on that tradition of leadership." "But for now she seems blissfully unaware of the dangers of life, more concerned with keeping close to her mother and balancing on her one-day-old legs." "For this young calf, lions will be a recurring threat to her life." "Towering giants block the way." "The determined opportunist is reluctant to go." "When the calf flounders in the unfamiliar muddy water, she panics." "But at this age, help is seldom far away." "They bunch together, protecting her within a wall of legs and trunks." "Even the females have tusks that lions must avoid." "Safe against the bank, the little female has to contend with another new challenge" "The first bowel movement, an unbalancing and alarming experience" "With the lions still menacing, the matriarch must soon move her calf out of the water hole" "With her front toenails she breaks away the edges, making a ramp for the short strides of the baby." "As she leads her family through the gauntlet of lions," "The matriarch's bloodstained legs are a testament to a stressful night and a new beginning" "The start of a long journey." "This journey takes place in southern Africa." "Once elephants roamed over most of this continent." "They still wander freely over all of their ancestral range in Botswana, one of the last havens for wild elephants." "These seasonal movements of following the water cover over forty thousand square miles" "The matriarch is guiding her herd along a network of ancient paths." "She has decided to visit an old site to supplement the diet of the herd." "They dig open the holes and turn the soil into fine, white powder." "Locked inside the dust are sodium and other valuable minerals that have leached into these soils." "These mineral digs are investigated, remembered, and used..." "A rudimentary form of self-medication." "It's not long before she gives the command to move on." "As they glide along they communicate gently in rumbles of very low frequencies." "These sounds, almost silent to us, drift over the herd... just vibrations floating in the dust." "Ahead, at the next water hole, a tragic drama is unfolding." "Another calf has been abandoned in the first few days of its life." "Sometimes sick or old females struggling to survive do leave infant calves to fend for themselves." "Innocent to the virtues of silence in the dark, the young elephant calls out to the shadows." "The cry in answered." "But the hyena is nervous, wary of the approaching elephants." "When the matriarch leads her herd into the water, they are drawn to the disturbance." "But with a long journey ahead, this abandoned calf could be a grave burden to the whole herd." "And he is rejected." "Perhaps the calls are too chilling, and the herd returns." "The calf is caught up in the swirl of running legs, and swept off into the dark." "Adoption is rare in most species, but by daybreak the rescued calf is part of the herd." "Now, however, he has even greater challenges to deal with." "It's an adoption, but by some strange twist of fate, his new mother is the matriarch," "Who already has her own newborn daughter." "He is immediately seen as a competitor for the rich-flavored milk." "Elephants rarely have two calves at a time, so usually there is no competition for milk." "Whether the matriarch adopted the calf or the calf found the only lactating female in the herd, is hard to tell." "But his rescue is no less than remarkable." "Now he faces a new threat... starvation by sibling rivalry." "Probing and testing like serpents coaxed out by a charmer's flute," "Sensitive trunks dance for a hidden delicacy." "Each shake is followed by a moment's silence, not in reverence, But to listen for the seed pods falling." "These pods are harvested annually." "The trees are seldom damaged... unlike the robust mopane trees that they smash down to get to the nutritious upper leaves" "A little bark from certain acacias yields fatty acids and minerals." "It is thought that the fiber in the bark has medicinal sues for elephants as it does for humans." "Herds all over northern Botswana are on the move now traversing the corridors of their memories..." "Ancient trails that run like long veins of life, spreading out, then converging on the scattered water holes." "The most vulnerable are the very young" "By the age of three, fewer than half the calves survive." "Some lions specialize in outmaneuvering the herds," "Waging a constant way of nerves." "Sometimes older calves become isolated separated because their mothers have new young to look after." "These newborn can be snatched up easily and must be well guarded." "Often the older calves must fend for themselves." "As harsh as it may seem, it is necessary." "With animals that live so long some deaths are important to regulate the population." "Only in paradise is death banned from claiming the weak." "At the water hole a lone male suddenly feels the awakenings in his body." "It is the time of his musth." "Like the new dawn, this feeling is fresh and vital." "He can take on anything." "Musth comes to males once a year," "But only begins halfway through their lives." "This is their breeding phase, when high levels of testosterone turn their thoughts to conquests." "Another bull has the same feelings of elation today and is also ready to confront the world." "When a breeding herd of females glides towards the combatants, the silence is deceptive." "This victorious bull has already heard the low rumbles from an eager female across the plain." "As he draws nearer, she coyly breaks away." "And the chase is on." "He hunts her down." "She knows she is being hunted, and with a smaller body weight" "She could easily outrun him as she has lesser suitors this week." "But this time she is willing and stops" "Elephant mating takes a lot of cooperation." "This coordinates sexual readiness of both male and female is quite unique in animals and for several days they will stay together." "By soliciting this musth bull, she has purposely chosen her mate, and wins as a prize his dominant genes for her offspring." "Her calf will be born nearly two years from now." "Waves of thirsty giants stampede the water holes." "Anything in the way is chased off." "But before rushing in, they stop and test the air." "Each family, under the leadership of their matriarch," "Maintains long-distance contact with other groups." "As the groups meet at the water holes, they melt together to become one clan again." "Here they congregate and reinforce bonds." "Even after short separations," "Greetings are very active and affectionate." "Screams of tension drive out non-clan members;" "Elephants tend to avoid strangers." "But the large water holes attract herds from all around," "Both wanderers and regulars on this route." "All mass together, but maintain their discrete groups around the water hole, hundreds or sometimes even thousands at a time." "These gentle animals appear to want to avoid stressful encounters." "With language skills of at least twenty-five different concepts," "A complex "stacking" system is at work at these water holes" "When incoming herds signal, the herd that was drinking vacates the water." "In all this activity, the matriarch has arrived." "Over the last two months the adopted," "Smaller calf seems to have worked out a way to survive." "The water is still an unfamiliar experience for both calves." "The adopted calf, possibly with less pleasant associations, is even more reluctant to venture in, despite the gentle coaxing." "Others are here for the water as well." "As hundreds of buffalo crowd in, stress rumbles through the elephant herds like an electric storm." "Boxed in by the huge herd of buffalo, the matriarch and her family are forced to use the steep side of the bank." "An older calf is jostled into the water." "With the buffalo still threatening, a quick rescue is mounted." "Displaying an intelligence of communication and astounding logic," "The elephants divide their efforts." "Some fend off the buffalo while others tend to the frantic calf." "Just a gentle stabilizer is needed and a well-placed trunk does the job." "And still the matriarch doesn't lead them away." "They need water before attempting the long journey ahead." "In their eagerness to drink, the smaller, adopted calf is shoved over the edge and into the mud." "Now the danger of a buffalo stampede is even greater than before." "The thick mud sucks at the calf's back legs." "Following the matriarch's lead they all climb into the mud to help." "Desperate attempts to break down the bank only make the problem worse." "The two females combine efforts, using tusks and trunks like shovels to keep the calf from drowning, while another digs a ramp." "Together the two females squeeze and push at the calf." "The suction underneath is suddenly released and the calf is free at last." "They tenderly reassure and smell the youngster, rescued for the second time in his life." "The concerned herd now bunches against the converging buffalo" "Outrage runs like wildfire among the herds, sparking explosions of aggression." "But the buffalo keep pouring out of the forest, and dust hangs like smoke on a battlefield." "The contest is finally resolved." "As the dust settles, the buffalo disperse." "Somewhere in the confusion, a young buffalo was struck heavily in the head and side." "The calf is doomed, injured beyond hope." "The two calves move off with the herd." "Having avoided a muddy death themselves." "The young buffalo's broken body is left behind." "It causes some concern to the departing elephants," "Suggesting an awareness of in jury and death, even of other species." "Like huge cathedrals or ancient monoliths," "The solid shapes block out the sun." "A long way from the congregating female herds, the bulls gently sway to a rhythmic dance of the giants" "A shuffle of constant adjustment in a display of dominance and submission." "Each one of these bulls has a rank each responds to the next one." "Every newcomer to the gathering provokes a reaction that flashes through the memories of all the contestants." "Anyone unsure of his status soon learns the rules of this tournament of giants." "Status is determined by body size, rage;" "tusks have little to do with it." "The contest is for water, as usual." "In a classic bull area like Savuti, up to 200 elephants compete for this one resource." "In this melee they must constantly be aware of who is around" "A sensitive tail is an advantage." "With their head used like huge medieval maces, bodies jostle and tusks joust for precious liquid." "This struggle may seem like a chaotic free-for-all." "But with each changing combination, the field plan of the hierarchy is reset in a surprisingly orderly fashion" "One ghostly form is excluded from the commotion." "His gaunt features and sagging skin are sure signs of his age and fading energy for life." "With his last set of grinding teeth nearly worn away, his days are numbered." "Too weak to join in, he can only watch the competing bulls, and wait." "By dusk his body cries out for the moisture leached from it by the heat." "He can no longer resist, and with fewer bulls around the water, he makes his move." "Drawing himself up to his full height, he forces himself into the circle." "At last the drinks." "When a mud-covered, dominant bull returns, the ghostly elephant should retreat." "But the water still beckons him." "It is a mistake." "A jagged tusk slices through the old skin into his neck." "The old bull goes down with barely a struggle, losing blood fast." "Even before the old bull dies, a young male carries out a bizarre mock-mating display." "This behavior can only be explained as an attempt to upgrade his own status with this show of domination." "The old bull dies quickly and silently in the night, though his fate was long since determined." "Companions defend the carcass against the hyenas, a useless endeavor." "His body must continue its usefulness to Africa, even after his death." "Like an ancient burial ritual, attention is paid to every detail." "We don't yet understand this behavior." "Is it a macabre fascination with the dead or perhaps a tribute to a fallen companion?" "And why is the ivory so often the focus of these haunting examinations?" "As a week passes, the carcass gradually relinquishes its form." "There is no mythological elephant graveyard, no common place where bones and tusks are taken... just the eventual scatterings in the dust." "As the last scavengers squabble over the scraps of the body," "A few bulls remain, perhaps still nurturing a special bond with the old elephant." "Before we could really understand his ways and the ways of his species," "The bull's spirit floats away." "Eight days and what was once a giant of the world is no more than just a memory, just a reflection of a time when elephants roamed Africa from sea to sea and ruled the continent." "Once again the clans are gathering, marching for the rivers." "Paths interlace, leaving behind a swath of flattened vegetation." "This constant ebb and flow of bodies affects some areas while resting others," "A balance that is forever changing." "The females head for the best feeding and good water, not only for the living, But for their unborn as well." "The final miles are covered on the run toward the rivers." "Here the matriarch and her calves will see out the next three months of the dry season." "Even in this chaotic clamor for water," "The elephants show a sensitivity and awareness of who is around them and where their other clan families are" "After a grueling six months, the calves, possibly sensing that their constant march is over take on a new playfulness and relax." "But now when the oppressive heat stings their dark bodies," "They can hide from its burning fingers" "Gradually the elephants drop down like weary puppets at the end of a show." "both young and old drifting into a rare sleepiness." "For them there are easy ways to shut out the world." "They seldom allow themselves to sleep for long." "Just a few minutes at a time are needed by animals with such long, slow lives." "Only when they are all up and ready will the matriarch lead them out of the shade, always keeping the herd together." "But sometimes things go wrong." "Occasionally calves are left behind and wander around lost," "Testing each herd they approach." "When he sees the matriarch and goes to greet the herd, this young male is turned away" "His best chance of being found is to keep searching." "Despite their good communication," "These separations are inevitable." "Newborn calves have begun to displace the older ones." "Unbeknown to him, his real family is across the plain heading into the forest." "Suddenly he finds himself among lions." "Before he can turn away, the juvenile is locked in a deadly game." "But this time innocence is matched by inexperience." "The lions are young and seem more intent on experimenting thank killing." "Lions often prey on the weak, but this calf is lost," "Not ailing... a determined opponent with a thick hide, not easy to penetrate." "But soon he tires and the lions close in for the kill." "Quite suddenly the experiment is over." "The lions are exhausted, and lose interest." "The calf responds, surprising the lions with his new zest for life." "As they watch, he slips away." "What emotions elephants feel during these struggles we do not know" "That they do feel something is quite apparent." "Back in the bull area, when old bones have all but turned to dust," "The mud relinquishes a precious last reminder of the old bull at the water hole." "Like a trophy, it is carried into the open, displayed, and fondled." "Like a memory, it is tasted and nurtured." "This haunting behavior is difficult to understand." "How can we ever know what elephants feel and what form these emotions take" "A mystery, forever." "When they attempt to destroy ivory by smashing it against rocks or try to crush tusks by standing on them, are they displaying a new behavior... a solemn response to the atrocities of our time?" "Or is this an ancient ritual and if so what does it mean?" "At the river the matriarch" "leads her herd on a final push for better feeding on the north bank." "Swimming is little problem for elephants." "They share an ancestry with seagoing mammals like dugongs and manatees." "Large, vacant, nasal and sinus cavities keep their heavy heads afloat, and their fat makes them buoyant." "On the south bank a timid young bull refuses to swim and watches the herd disappear" "By now the young bull has given up all attempts at swimming." "The herd's ancient knowledge has betrayed them this time." "For when they finally emerge on the north bank," "They have crossed into another country, Namibia." "The stranded young bull still calls to them in alarm." "The herd is now fair game for hunters poachers and traders" "A wave of communication flashes back and forth across the river." "Then, reacting as one, they plunge into the water so swim back to the young bull" "Although by now the exhausted young calves are at risk of drowning in the strong current," "A fatal conflict with man has been avoided." "On the south bank greetings and urgent reassurances flood from the herd," "But he will not be persuaded." "The herd gives up and remains on the familiar and safer soils of Botswana..." "The end of the restless journey for the matriarch and her calves, for this year." "This may be the last generation of elephants to traverse these ancestral ranges, the last truly free elephants." "As we succeed more and more as a species," "They seem to trickle further and further from our reach." "It has been said that we could do worse than mold our own lives on those of elephants..." "Lives filled with dignity and gentle bearing, and time." "Perhaps we need more time to understand those gentle celebrations of life and death that are like silent whispers in the moonlight... more time for reflections on elephants" "Dawn comes to the African plain." "And a lethal beauty comes stalking out of the shadows." "As they have for generations, the hunter confronts the hunted." "This is the story of two lives bound together in tooth and blood." "Leopard and warthog, predator and prey" "Ever opposed, ever entwined." "They share but one struggle to survive each new day in a harsh land." "The warthog has been called" ""the most astonishing object to ever disgrace nature."" "Yet for all its comic bumps and bulges it has managed to hold its own in the realm of the leopard." "The domain of the cat stretches across the eastern Transvaal of South Africa," "where the Sand River snakes through the Kruger National Park" "and the Mala Mala Game Reserve." "Here flourishes a remarkable community of animals... a world where day by day, the same individuals cross paths time and again." "Among them is a female leopard." "This is her home." "And she's not shy about letting others of her kind know it." "She is beautiful, elegant, and deadly." "The leopard comes cloaked in mystery, elusive and intense." "Even in mating, she is wound ever so tight." "Of all the great cats, this surely is the wildest." "By contrast, consider the courtship of the warthog." "Chin to rump, he pleads his case." "But even a suitor's best-laid plans can go awry." "The warthog's a plodder, a herbivore." "But one thing no warthog will stand for during this delicate time is an intruding male." "Night belongs to the leopard." "And with the sunset, the male and female come together once more to mate." "As mating, this is almost predatory." "In time, our leopard becomes a mother." "She has two newborn cubs... sisters." "Her offspring need her care and protection." "Here, the threats are all around." "One of the deadliest is the hyena." "Once hyenas become aware of the den site, she must take immediate action to safeguard her two little cubs." "Awaiting them is a less vulnerable home" "Nearby, in the remains of a termite mound, another birth is about to take place." "The infant warthogs come struggling out of the womb." "Barely five minutes into the world and he's already trying to stand." "From the outset, even at their first feeding, the warthogs' true character can be seen." "They may start off looking old before their time... but they are feisty, rambunctious, above all, tenacious." "And they will need to be, for daunting days lie ahead." "Both the newborn warthogs and month-old leopards are about to set off on parallel journeys through the seasons of the veld." "Slowly, tentatively, the cubs leave behind the safety of their refuge." "Outside, a new world awaits them." "And there are many dangers they know nothing about." "For two baby sisters, the lessons start small, like how to subdue their mother's tail" "This early roughhousing will teach the cubs crucial skills like how to pin down prey and deliver a killing bite." "And right from the start, it's clear the firstborn learns fast." "Shy and solitary, the leopard is a creature of the shadows." "Even upside down, the leopard won't let go of her prey." "Suffocation brings an end that's ruthless, but mercifully efficient." "But she'll never have a chance to enjoy this meal." "The jaws of a hyena can pulverize bone" "The mother leopard can't risk a battle not with two cubs relying on her." "Lightning is an awesome spectacle to the cubs seeing it for the first time." "Down in their burrow, the little piglets are just as scared of the crashing and the fire in the sky." "But nothing will stop the hungry hyenas from their feasting." "As the deluge intensifies, the mother warthog tries to shore up her burrow." "But it's a losing battle." "With the water seeping in, the young warthogs take refuge the only place they can on their mother's back." "For the bedraggled piglets, this is life threatening." "Because of their sparse hair covering, many young warthogs will die of exposure within the first weeks of life." "When finally the night clears, her firstborn cub ventures forth." "Unlike her warthog neighbors, she's hardly the worse for wear." "The mother leopard keeps her cubs close" "There's far more than rain to protect them from." "Still in the calm after the storm, there's always time for a nuzzle or two." "With sunrise, the terrors of the night drift away." "The warthog family is thriving now." "Unlike the leopards, the gregarious animals ban together." "It's an extended family, and it means more security for the young cousins and more fun too." "First some rivalries must be sorted out with a little bumping and pushing." "And then, it's playtime." "One warthog is a bit bolder and bouncier than the rest who follow in his wake." "But there's method in this apparent madness." "One day their lives will depend on their speed." "A little strenuous exercise deserves a good long drink, a pick-me-up of piglets, mother's milk" "Up a shady maroela tree, the mother leopard is on the lookout for prey." "As the heat of the day builds, the warthogs head down to the water hole for a real treat a good wallow." "But they're not the only ones going that way." "The mother warthog is alert, but she hasn't yet picked up the threat." "The water feels great." "The youngsters, including the bold and bouncy one, are caught up in their discoveries." "They're finding out how useful the mud can be for those hard to reach spots." "A few feet more and she'll be in range" "The predator must kill to survive." "The prey must escape." "Tails at full mast, the little warthog and his siblings stay close together." "They have just been given their first lesson in the virtues of speed." "It won't be their last." "Midday in the warmth of the African sun, the leopard cubs are mastering another lesson: the art of the ambush" "For the firstborn and her sister, these are crucial games." "As the day wears on, not everyone is playing." "The hyena pack is on the prowl." "Something has caught their eye a lioness with a broken leg." "She's unable to keep up with her pride" "Not only is she crippled, she's pregnant and close to giving birth." "The hyenas won't attack." "Not yet." "The lioness is still too strong." "But their time will come." "A long night is on its way." "The mother warthog and her piglets can retreat when the sun goes down to the refuge of their burrow." "But for many others, as night descends the plains are all too open, all too exposed." "Only the hunters walk without fear." "The mother leopard's stalk is triggered by a scent on the breeze... a scrub hare." "But the little hare has a few tricks too, and it'll try every one" "until it's overwhelmed." "But this hare isn't just a meal, it's a lesson in hunting." "Rather than kill her prey outright, the mother brings it back for her cubs." "The firstborn is eager to practice, unlike her timid sister." "She's not simply playing with her food she's learning about the fine line between life and death." "It's knowledge her sister won't get watching from the sidelines." "Too nervous to enter into the fray, she hangs back while her sister attacks" "If character is destiny, an intrepid spirit may make all the difference in the African night." "The precocious cub is rewarded with a meal." "Full moon on the African plain." "The cycle turns from death to fragile new life." "The crippled lioness has given birth." "But weak and wounded, she can never take care of this cub." "And at the first sound of danger, she limps away." "The baby's cries will attract the hyena pack." "With the terrible logic of survival, she's forced to leave her youngster to protect herself." "Still she can't shake off the hyenas." "Too weary to go on, she braces herself for the coming battle." "Her growl is stronger than she is." "It's just enough to keep the mob at bay." "There's easier prey around." "The plaintive cries of the abandoned lion cub echo through the night." "And they attract a deadly visitor." "Normally, the mother leopard would kill this cub without thinking twice." "But she hesitates." "Perhaps it has aroused her maternal feelings." "And now, with her old antagonists closing in, she's got a dilemma." "Should she take it?" "Should she stay?" "There is no choice." "She could never raise this baby." "With her goes the little one's last chance." "Unaware of her baby's fate, the lioness is calling for her pride." "But they are no where to be found." "Her roars are heard, not by the pride, but by rogue male lions, a pair of powerful nomads." "They come at a run." "Their intentions, like their movements a blur." "This behavior is highly unusual, but no less savage." "Their killer instinct is so strong, their urge to attack an injured animal so powerful, that they seemingly cannot stop." "In the dark hours, the young are more vulnerable than ever." "Left behind while their mother hunts, their instinct is to explore." "Yet each time they do, they face greater risks." "This is when death stalks the savannah" "The thieves are never far off." "Unlike the mother, the male leopard will stand his ground, especially with this young hyena." "And when the scavenger retreats, the male savors his feast." "The mother has a much bigger worry." "Her cubs." "They're not where she left them." "As her anxiety deepens, her mate, high above the ground, senses a new threat." "So do the persistent hyenas below." "One's got his foot caught." "Looking for a meal, he may soon turn into a meal himself." "It's now or never." "The male leopard too must avoid being trapped by the lions." "Mounting the tree with surprising ease a lioness claims the abandoned carcass" "Enticed, an adolescent male tries to follow." "But he's not much of a climber." "He's bitten off more than he can chew." "And right now, he's not chewing much of anything." "The smartest one's the female below." "Soon the inevitable happens." "And the lioness that did all the work is left to swing in the breeze." "Only the scraps are left." "A 20-foot drop barely fazes her." "Once more the leopards have provided a feast for their foes." "Although the lions might hear her, the mother leopard is still calling into the empty night." "She's now desperate to find her cubs." "She searches through the tall grass, seeking a familiar scent, a scent that might lead does lead to her cub." "It's the little shy one, killed by the lions." "She never learned to fend for herself." "Not even a mother's tender affection can make a difference now." "Still somewhere out there is her first-born." "And the culprits are still prowling nearby." "All she can do is call, over and over again." "Until... hidden in the grass is her cub." "Independent as ever, she has endured." "At last, mother and cub have found each other." "This must feel like joy." "One has died and one has survived." "The cub must now find other playmates, other playthings where she can." "She has made it through the toughest trial of her youth." "Soon enough, she will have to face the harsh world around her all by herself." "Death can't hold back the dawn." "In this hard land, the passing of one little leopard is barely noticed." "As hesitantly pugnacious as ever, the warthogs emerge into the light." "Tucked away in their burrow, they have weathered this, and many nights unlike the unfortunate little cub." "Even this small, dead body makes them nervous." "The upraised mane shows their wariness" "They can't quite be sure the little leopard won't suddenly spring to life." "After all, it would be their worst nightmare to run into this cub all grown up." "Yet a quick dig at an old enemy is just too good an opportunity to pass up." "Then again, sometimes they just scare themselves." "A year goes by." "Another spring comes to Mala Mala." "For the leopards, change is as inevitable as the turning of the seasons." "At 20 months, the cub is coming into her own." "There's a new tension between mother and daughter." "One day soon they will be competitors." "Where once there was affection, there is now indifference, even aggression." "It's a sad but inescapable moment as the mother forces her youngster off into the world." "She's now completely alone." "The coming of the rainy season mirrors the melancholy transformation." "For the new generation of leopard and warthog, zebra and hyena, the trials will be unending." "On the savannah, hunger must be faced each day, every day." "The first tests of a solo hunter start off simply enough." "But they're trickier than they look." "A hammerkop is simply the wrong prey." "And a turtle it may be slower... but it's not necessarily any easier." "How does this work?" "Where exactly are the teeth supposed to go?" "It's hard to believe that something so simple to catch could be so difficult to eat." "It's really better as a toy than a meal." "The leopard is still half a cub." "She's still playing." "But soon she'll have to put away her childish things and get down to the serious business of life." "You can only play so long." "What she needs is real prey like impala some as young as she." "This is what she's been training for." "She's stalking well." "She's forgotten just one thing" "a noisy tree squirrel." "The impala seem to mock her as they go" "There are many frustrations for the novice hunter." "The road to knowledge is a hungry one." "For the inexperienced leopard, everything must seem bigger and lonelier and scarier than ever before." "This evening, returning to their burrow, the young warthog and his siblings discover something's wrong." "Their mother is giving them a not-so-subtle hint" "It's time they were out on their own." "But being out on your own can be exhausting work." "Like the leopard, the warthog is now truly alone." "He needs to find a safe retreat for the evening." "But they're all taken." "And now the clock is ticking." "The warthog and the leopard have grown up side by side, yet always at a comfortable distance." "But that gap is closing." "Then suddenly the leopard is under attack." "An empty burrow is an unexpected chance for safety." "The young leopard has tasted warthog blood and she's not ready to quit." "As for the hyena, he'll never give up." "It's not in his nature." "And so they end the night leopard, hyena and warthog locked in a three-way standoff." "The skirmish has left its mark on the young leopard." "Down below the warthog is shaken too." "It's been a rough time for all of them" "But both animals can claim at least this victory" "They have made it through the long night." "Battered and scarred, the warthog is lucky to have survived the confrontation." "Like the ones that went before, each new generation must earn its place on the savannah." "Over the coming months, the leopard gets bigger, stronger." "Yet one achievement continues to elude her." "She's still unable to outwit the adult impala." "They're better at this than she is." "In the midst of the impalas are the warthog and his siblings." "They use the impalas as an early warning system protection against mutual enemies." "The leopard has arrived." "And this time she hasn't been detected." "The impalas sense danger, but they're not sure where." "The leopard zeroes in on the warthog." "Once more they stand just yards apart." "The impalas scatter in panic." "But this time she's tackled the biggest prey a full-grown male." "But can she hold on to it?" "Success." "And for the warthogs escape." "This is the leopard's grand moment her coming of age." "Over time, she will take many impalas into the trees." "Of course, her triumph brings two familiar foes." "But now she's learned to handle even them." "The hyenas are left to vent their frustration on each other." "Hunter and hunted side by side" "Each has mastered this world in its own way." "And each has but one reward to guide the next generation into the African dawn." "From deep in the earth come clues to mystery nearly 2,000 years old." "They died instantly, victims of a volcano's wrath." "But only now are we beginning to piece together the mosaic that tells of their tragic final hours." "Pulsing with an electric energy uniquely its own, southern Italy is also the intimate companion of destruction and death." "Active for 17,000 years," "Mount Vesuvius erupted most recently in 1944, devastating two towns." "Only a few miles from Vesuvius another town lives with yet a different threat." "Here, the sea appears to be boiling, the earth regularly grumbles and groans and sulfuric gases choke the air." ""Vesuvius slumbers", one scientist wrote," ""but his heart is still awake"." "A microcosm of our eternal battle with forces we cannot tame, this is life in the shadow of Vesuvius" "Washed by the placid waters of the Bay of Naples, the region of Campania has long attracted poets and travelers, emperors and kings." "Two thousand years ago writers described Campania as" ""the most blest land"," ""the fairest of all regions, not only in Italy but in all the world"," ""a place where the summers are cool and winters warm and where the sea dies away gently as it kisses the shore"." "The climate and extraordinarily rich soil enabled farmers then, as now, to grow grapes, olives, and up to four seed crops a year." "But 2,000 years ago few understood that the richness of the soil was a gift from the mountain in their midst that the mountain was in fact a volcano." "Today we know Mount Vesuvius as one of the most famous, and infamous, volcanoes in history." "The most active volcano on the mainland of Europe, it has erupted some 50 times since the Roman era." "Looming over a metropolis vastly expanded since Roman times," "Vesuvius, the "flaming mountain", is no less of a threat today." "Today, Vesuvius's shadow falls on some two million people in the greater Naples area one of the most densely populated urban areas in all of Europe." "Nowhere else in the Western world do such vast numbers dwell in the immediate vicinity of an active volcano." "Though most Neapolitans either don't know or refuse to believe that Vesuvius is an active volcano, local scientists are on 24-hour alert." "Seismic information from throughout the region is continually monitored." "With no practical civil defense plan possible caught unaware, the goal is to accumulate enough data to be able to develop an early warning system." "The science of plate tectonics tells us that the earth's outer shell is composed of about a dozen rigid plated that are in continuing motion." "The movements cause the plates to clash in several ways." "One is called subduction, in which one plate grinds beneath another." "As this happens, the heat of the earth's interior creates magma hot liquid rock." "In this way about 80% of the world's volcanoes are formed." "Along the coast of Italy subduction has created an entire string of volcanoes." "The most famous in Italy, and perhaps the world, is Mount Vesuvius." "Here, the power of nature's forces has been felt, at Pozzuoli," "Naples itself," "San Sebastiano, and two towns made famous when Vesuvius buried them in 79 A.D." "Herculaneum and Pompeii." "Lost and forgotten for more than 1,600 years," "Pompeii is one of the great archeological sites of the world, as much for its poignant story as for its historical significance." "Lying six miles from the foot of Vesuvius," "Pompeii was a thriving Roman commercial center of some 15000 people, specializing in the export of wine, fish sauce, and woolen cloth." "Its boundless prosperity was reflected in the name of its main road:" "Street of Abundance." "Kept safe from the ravages of time by the very volcanic debris that buried it." "Pompeii is the largest site of the ancient world so completely preserved." "In addition to homes and shops." "Pompeii had its own marketplaces, baths, and theaters." "More than a hundred taverns and inns catered to merchants and traders arriving by land and sea from the farthest reaches of the Roman Empire." "Bakers were among the busiest tradesmen" "Grain was ground into flour in stone mills turned by animals or slaves." "In the oldest known Roman amphitheater built 100 years before the Colosseum in Rome," "20,000 spectators thrilled to sporting events, gladiator contests, and battles with wild animals." "Soon after excavation was begun." "Pompeii's name swept the Western world and its art and architecture had a profound effect on European and American culture." "A "Pompeii fever" compelled painters and sculptors throughout Europe to make pilgrimages here." "Neoclassicism was fueled as a major art from and remained the standard for the 18th and 19th centuries." "Pompeiians depicted the wine god Bacchus clothed in grapes, as was the fertile Vesuvius itself." "With no record of eruption in living memory, they saw it as merely a mountain, beautiful and benign." "On that fateful August day in 79 A.D." "thousands fled the city at the mountain's outburst." "For those who tarried, the end was sudden and violent a painful, choking death from asphyxiation by gases and ash." "Their bodies were packed in the dry ash, which hardened over the years into hollow outlines of the dead." "When the forms were discovered in the 1860s, plaster was injected into them," "Creating these faithful images of the victims at their very moment of death." "Eight miles northwest of Pompeii is the modern-day town of Ercolano." "It is built atop a buried ancient town Herculaneum, which was silenced in the same eruption as Pompeii." "The earliest part of Herculaneum to be discovered still remains hidden underground because occupied homes and stores lie above it." "All traces of Herculaneum had been lost until 1709." "Even writings about the once elegant town had disappeared or been destroyed" "The rebirth of Herculaneum began with its accidental discovery by a well digger." "Searching for water, he struck instead what turned out to be a Roman theater." "Later, excavators knew they had found ancient Herculaneum when they uncovered marble inscribed with its name in Latin." "In one of the dark tunnels a haunting image from the past an impression left in the volcanic debris by a statue toppled from its pedestal." "Magnificent treasures were uncovered, and when word of them spread, the ruling nobility of Naples recklessly looted the theater." "Tunnels were ordered dug and searched." "And a massive hole was cut to haul out the exquisite marble and priceless bronze statues." "Then, except for sporadic digging," "Herculaneum was all but forgotten once again." "More than 100 years later excavating begins in earnest when the Fascist government allocates large sums to preserve Roman antiquities." "Ton after ton of volcanic debris is hauled away." "Only then does the ancient town begin to emerge." "Pompeii had been relatively easy to excavate;" "yet here at Herculaneum workers struggle through 40 to 60 feet of material as hard as cement." "Why this difference?" "Scientists puzzle" "Why was Pompeii covered by gravel and ash and Herculaneum by a rock-solid deposit when the two towns were buried in the same eruption?" "Unlike the commercial center of Pompeii," "Herculaneum was a residential and resort town." "Built on a low bluff overlooking the sea, it housed between four and five thousand wealthy retired citizens artisans, and fishermen." "The most notable gathering places in Herculaneum were the bath houses." "Heated by fires and tended by slaves, the baths drew residents almost daily." "With separate sections for women and men, the baths were a place to relax, socialize, and conduct business." "Now, bases on record from the past, with the help of an artist's hand," "Herculaneum is magically recaptured as it was in the glorious days of the Roman Empire." "They left us image magnificently cast in bronze, but where were the people themselves?" "Few human remains had ever been found, and scholars concluded that surely the people of Herculaneum had successfully escaped." "The extraordinary number of everyday objects provides an intimate look at Roman life." "A cloth press in a cleaner's shop." "The remains of a bed." "A baby's charred cradle." "A charred doll." "Magnificent jewelry, hand-hammered from the purest of gold." "And costume jewelry of beads, stones, and amber." "and perhaps most astounding of all food set on the table:" "walnuts, freshly baked bread, eggs, and figs preserved for nearly 2,000 years." "In 1980, more than 270 years after the initial discovery of Herculaneum, a skeleton was uncovered on the site of the ancient beach front." "Then three more were found there, igniting the archeological community." "The arched chambers facing the beach had never been excavated." "Now they cried out for attention." "Yet no one was prepared for the landmark discovery that would destroy scientific theory on Herculaneum's final hours." "Many Herculaneans had not escaped." "Huddled together in the dark recesses of the chambers, scores were overtaken by Vesuvius's indiscriminate rampage." "Perhaps members of the same family, one group died locked in embrace." "Some of the victims were found wearing valuables gold and shining gems." "Others, no doubt certain they would escape, gathered their treasure troves and carried them as they fled." "Today, the cataclysm that brought instant death has become an unparalleled legacy for modern scientists." "Analysis of the bone may answer some of history's riddles about Roman culture and daily life." "Physical anthropologist Dr. Sara Bisel has spent her career analyzing human bones, but this opportunity is unique." "The reason why the Herculaneum population is so important is that it may well be the only one we ever have from the Roman period in Italy because Roman burials were cremations and so aren't studiable." "And we've had artifacts before, we've had architectural remains, we've had literature, but this is the first time we've had real people." "I find it very moving." "Working with chief excavator Ciro Formicola," "Bisel uncovers treasures locked in the earth for nearly 2,000 years." "A magnificent bracelet is found alongside a woman's remains." "No doubt a person of wealth, she was found with much gold jewelry." "I think she must have had them in her purse since her arm is off in another direction." "Oh, this one has a little chain." "Her earrings, meant for pierced ears, were probably decorated with pearls." "And as she ran, she carried a bronze oil lamp futile protection against the dark." "I take them out of the ground because they talk to me then." "They don't talk to me as much in the ground as they do to other people." "But when I get them out, then they tell me what they did all their lives and what they did every day." "And they say whether they are male or female, their ages, what kind of work they did, whether they were abused when they were alive, what sort of nutrition they had, if they were sick." "Well, I can't see all the illnesses, but some of them." "They can tell me that." "Women can tell me how many babies they had." "They can't tell me whether they were happy or not." "This is noteworthy." "From a pelvic bone Bisel is able to tell the woman's approximate age and how many babies she had." "Twenty-seven years;" "two or three children." "She was roughly 27 years old and had two or three babies." "From that little bone, all that news." "In all, Bisel will analyze some 25,000 bones." "It is a monumental task." "After the bones are cleaned, dried, and dipped in an acrylic-resin solution to harden them," "Bisel begins the process of sorting and reconstruction." "In general I think they are pretty healthy." "I haven't seen some of the gross diseases that I might see." "Some of the people who, I presume, were slaves show signs of working very very hard and they're of course not nearly so healthy as some of the other people." "Ancient people have beautiful teeth, even at ages of 35, 40, 45." "They have very few cavities and very few abscesses and all the teeth just line up like piano keys." "With her trained eye, Bisel is able to unravel a tantalizing mystery about two people found lying together in one of the chambers." "This baby was in the first chamber that we excavated in the back part." "And actually before we started taking people out, all you could see was the top of the little head, and it was being held in the arms of a young girl." "So we didn't know we knew it was a baby but we didn't know too much about it." "The men that were working with me all said," "This is the baby and its mother and everything." "And I looked at the skeleton of the girl holding it and it was a prepubertal girl." "So I know it wasn't the mother." "So then they all said it must be the sister, but I'll show you that I really don't think it was." "This baby was the baby of a rich family because it had jewelry on it." "And I don't really think a child that's from a poor family would have jewelry." "Now here's the girl that was holding her." "And I'll show you why I don't think she was the sister." "Sort of a nice-looking person, isn't she?" "Nice regular features." "But if you look really closely here at these teeth, you can see the line, a really deep line, and the same here on the first molar." "Now this deep indentation into the enamel shows that when the tooth was forming, she just simply wasn't getting anything to eat." "That in itself does not point to a girl of a rich family." "This is even more telling the humerus." "You see these places here the attachment for the muscles here on the humerus that's the arm bone the attachment for the muscle here shows severe pulling of that muscle, which would really only happen in someone who was lifting things" "that were far too heavy for her to lift." "And no daughter of a rich family would have to work like that." "So I think she was a slave." "So you see that there really was a cross section of people found on that beach." "It wasn't just poor people;" "there were rich people." "You remember the lady with the gold bracelets." "So everybody was down there that didn't escape." "And they were all there together, and they all died together." "But the central mystery remains:" "why had they fled to the beach?" "By studying various levels of volcanic debris," "Dr. Haraldur Sigurdsson of the University of Rhode Island pieces together Herculaneum's final hours." "The eruption of Vesuvius occurred in two phases." "The first phase lasted for about 18 hours and resulted in ash fall over a wide area." "During that phase the wind was blowing from the north however, so that Herculaneum was spared most of the ash and here only about two inches of ash fell during the first 18 hours of activity." "Therefore, the population of Herculaneum was relatively unaware of the potential dangers for the city." "And so, many Herculaneans stayed." "But their good fortune did not last." "Sigurdsson finds evidence of a violent change of events that did not occur until many hours after the ash fall began." "These layers contain important lines of evidence." "First of all, carbonized wood, or charcoal, indicating temperatures of two to three hundred degrees Centigrade, as well as bricks and all their building materials, which indicate high force, perhaps of the order of one to two hundred kilometers per hour." "These layers, therefore, in our interpretation represent surges" "Now surges are the most deadly phases of volcanic eruptions." "One phase of the Mount St. Helens' eruption in 1980 was a surge." "Unlike slowly advancing lava flows," "Surges explode with the force and fury of a nuclear bomb blast." "Compared to Mount St. Helens, the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D. was ten times more powerful." "For 12 hours Vesuvius hurled into the sky a column of pumice and ash, at times as high as 20 miles." "When the column collapsed, it created a surge superheated avalanche that blasted through Herculaneum, killing its residents." "Immediately after the surge a slower-moving river of debris, called a pyroclastic flow, entombed and preserved them." "Of the five surges that followed, three reached Pompeii, but by now most people there had already fled." "Herculaneans were not as fortunate." "In the ruins of one of Herculaneum's bath houses the enormity of the mountain's fury is clear." "This heavy marble bowl was sitting here by the window before the eruption" "But when the surge blasted through the window, it picked up the bowl and the force of the surge threw it across the room where it left this impression in the volcanic deposit." "If you look closely, you'll see the impressions which were left by window glass thrown into the bowl when the surge blasted through the window." "As midnight approached, none could comprehend that their world would be snuffed out in one horrifying blow." "With the surge bearing down on their town at more than 60 miles an hour, the Herculaneans had less than five minutes to flee to the beach, no doubt hoping to escape by sea." "When escape became impossible, they ran into the chambers." "Scorched by the searing heat of the surge, they suffocated as the gases tore at their lungs." "Pyroclastic flows that followed sealed them where they lay frozen for nearly two millennia in the tortured postures of their final moments on this earth." "To date excavations along the ancient beach front have exposed ten chambers." "But Herculaneum is less than half excavated." "It seems certain other chambers, with other dead, remain hidden in the volcanic debris." "Because parts of Herculaneum lie buried below the homes and shops of Ercolano, they may never see the light of day, never reveal their ancient secrets to the modern world." "seven miles west of Naples is Pozzuoli the largest town in a region known as the Fiery Fields." "The entire region is a caldera formed about 35,000 years ago by a massive eruption." "The Fiery Fields are dotted with some two dozen vents of smaller volcanoes." "The only one still active is on the outskirts of Pozzouli itself." "It is called La Solfatara sulfur earth" "Unable to explain the constant steam and bubbling mud, the ancients thought surely this was an entrance to the underworld." "In more recent times Solfatara was reputedly a source of inspiration for Dante's "Inferno"." "Throughout its history Solfatara has drawn the attention of layman and scientist alike." "In the beginning it was pressure and steam and we cannot enter the area because it is dangerous because there is a corrosion by the steam of the crater." "So there is the possibility of collapse of the ground." "Today, scientists stand behind a wire fence, protected against ground collapse." "Seventy years ago they were able to work in this observatory right on the crater's floor." "Just beyond the trees at the edge of the crater one is not prepared for the unlikely sight of campers." "Here, for a few thousand line, a few American dollars, tourists from many countries come to vacation." "This unusual piece of real estate has been owned by the De Luca family for more than 100 years." "Eugenio de Luca." "Not so many people used to come here to see the volcano because they were afraid." "Now they come again." "But we, me personally, we have never been afraid." "I was sure, we were sure that nothing would happen." "I mean nothing volcanic, you know." "Tourists continue to come with fascination and awe, and no doubt a bit of daring." "But just beyond the ridge, thousands of people harbor only deep concern." "The uneasy of Pozzuoli live and work with Solfatara as a permanent neighbor" "Pozzuoli is a working-class fishing town." "Two thousand years ago, like Herculaneum and Ischia, it was a favorite holiday resort of Italian aristocracy." "In its heyday it was also one of the principal trading centers of the Roman Empire." "Now as then, hawkers pitch their wares" "They go about their business, but buyers and sellers alike are keenly aware of another potential danger this one under their feet." "Throughout recorded history Pozzuoli has been plagued by earthquakes triggered by the rise and fall of magma lying beneath the town." "As the magma has risen and fallen, so has the town." "As the ancient Roman marketplace the columns of the Temple of Serapis were above water level when the market was built 2,000 years ago." "Now they are marked with the burrows of marine mollusks, evidence that over the centuries Serapis has been periodically submerged" "As recently as 1976 it was largely flooded." "One period of startling uplift occurred in the early 1970s when the ground rose five-and-half feet in only three years." "Boats that once anchored alongside their docks must now be reached by ladder." "Were Pozzuoli not situated near water, the uplift would be more difficult to see." "In fact, it was fishermen who first noticed it, as well as the bubbles boiling up from steam vents on the sea floor." "If too much pressure builds, the threat is an explosion like the one that formed this mountain in 1538." "Preceded by a series of earthquakes, the eruption raised the earth more than 400 feet in just three days." "On October 4, 1983, after months of daily tremors, a four-point earthquake wracked Pozzuoli." "The older buildings fared the worst." "Already weakened by a period of renewed volcanic uplift, many, like this church, all but crumbled into ruin." "No one can say how many houses were damaged, but at least half the population moved out some in fear, others at government order." "With their economy collapsed and schools closed, an estimated 35,000 people were relocated to hotels and temporary camps hastily set up by the government." "A population already severely stressed by a year of continuous tremors was now uprooted from the only home most had ever known." "In 1985 the volcanic uplift mysteriously stopped and people began to return to Pozzuoli" "Some businesses, their buildings destroyed or deemed unsafe, set up temporary shops in the town's main park." "Scientists can neither explain the calm nor guarantee future safety." "Many residents still live elsewhere, returning to the town only by day." "For fishermen, the best catch is just after dawn." "So Raffaele Bucciero, and many others like him, must sleep in Pozzuoli or lose their livelihoods." "Working with his son Vincenzo every day but Sunday, he hauls in their mile-long net." "The bountiful water are famous for their shellfish, octopus, and squid." "Vincenzo has a full-time factory job during the day and has no desire to become a fisherman" "But he knows his father needs help with the physically demanding work." "Vincenzo has his own family now, but his ties to his parents remain strong." "Raffaele's wife works perhaps hardest of all to keep family ties intact, traveling daily to Pozzuoli by bus from where she now lives." "Annunziata Bucciero is too frightened to stay in the damaged apartment the family once shared." "Major efforts are underway to reinforce damages buildings by injecting new cement into them." "But for many people, the chaos and devastation keeps their fear of the quake palpably real." "Pozzuoli may be Mrs. Bucciero's birthplace and home, but surrounded by the rubble, she is simply too terrified to spend even one night." "To retain some semblance of the family's former life," "Mrs. Bucciero has made a ritual of the midday meal." "For two long years, since their apartment was judged unsafe, the routine has seldom varied." "They are fortunate to have inherited from her mother a small ground-level storage room where the family can gather." "Making do with a portable gas stove, she takes immense pride in being able to provide for her family as she has for more than 35 years." ""I was happy," she says." ""All I cared about was having my family around me." "But the earthquake divided us."" "In a few years retirement is the goal of Raffaele Bucciero, now 61." "Until that time his life remains tied to the rhythm of the sea." "He says:" "We have this cross to bear, my wife and I." "Our children are scattered all over." "We can't all be together, so we fixed up this little room." "My wife and I sacrifice." "I fish and she comes and cooks and cleans." "At one o'clock the family is united, the number of people varying from day to day." "With their parents today are one daughter and one son and their respective fiancés." "It is a time to talk and laugh, to eat and drink, and to reenter each other's world" "A time to pretend their family has not been torn apart and that in one short hour they won't again be forced to go their separate ways." "Before nightfall descends on Pozzuoli, jitneys crowd the marketplace to transport home those like Mrs. Bucciero who live a distance away." "My family is everything to me, she says." "Alone late at night, I sometimes cry." "After dark Pozzuoli becomes a veritable ghost town." "His net set out for the night," "Raffaele eats the evening meal his wife has left behind." "It's very hard, he says." "At my age where would I go?" "Pozzuoli has always been our home." "Home or not, many residents have been forced by authorities to leave." "About four miles northwest of Pozzuoli in a presumably safe zone, the government is building a new town for 20,000 people." "Acclaiming it the "new Pozzuoli", officials hope it will develop a vital social and economic life." "But many residents are doubtful." "Isolated from friends and loved ones, they stay only because there's nowhere else to go." "Perhaps none are more deeply affected by Pozzuoli's problems than some elderly who are separated from their families and their town." ""During the quake", she says, the walls were going like this," "and I called out to Jesus." "the ceiling was shaking and the smell of cracking plaster was everywhere." "It is a trauma for me when I think of when I used to live in Pozzuoli, and it hurts to see it so deserted and convulsed." "I miss everything in Pozzuoli, everything." "It is my home." "Generations have been shaken by fear." "A new generation waits and wonders when the quakes will strike again." "Until now the Fiery Fields' volcanic uplife has only been monitored on land" "But the Gulf of Pozzuoli is also part of the ancient caldera." "Prof. Lorenzo Mirabile believes a true picture of the phenomenon will only emerge by including a study of the sea floor." "His team of scientists from Naples' Institute of Oceanography will place instruments at four locations on the bottom of the gulf." "Surface buoys will mark their location" "The instruments will indicate any uplift of the sea floor by measuring the changes in the height of the water between the bottom and the surface." "They will also monitor water temperature and seismic activity, taking into account such variables as currents, tides, and storms." "Solar-powered radio transmitters relay the data to a centralized computer." "The signals from the gulf are received at five-minute intervals, 24 hours a day." "But Mirabile believes it will take at least a year to accumulate enough data to even determine what is critical uplift and what is not." "Then, he hopes, the information, in combination with the findings of geologists and volcanologists, can be used to develop an early warning system to alert Pozzuoli before disaster strikes." "The Fiery Fields are home to 200,000 people; grater Naples, to two million." "The evacuation of such numbers poses astronomical problems." "Yet, without doubt, Vesuvius is still active;" "it will erupt again." "The most recent eruption, in 1944, was filmed by the Allied troops that had recently liberated war-torn Naples" "Relentlessly for three days the lava rolled over farmlands and vineyards, moving ever close to the town of San Sebastiano." "Lying just three miles below Vesuvius's central crater," "San Sebastiano has historically been an easy target." "Nearly every generation living here since the early 19th century has seen their town destroyed." "Even their patron saint seemed helpless against the onslaught." "Miraculously, only two people died, but two thirds of the buildings were totally destroyed." "Most of the population was homeless." "Two hundred yards wide, the solidified lava flow remains today as a vivid reminder of San Sebastiano's perilous hours." "One man remember well." "Nineteen at the time of the eruption," "Raffaele Capasso would go on to become mayor of San Sebastiano, a position he has held for 31 years." "For his the-year-old niece he recalls the events of 1944 as the lave advanced and inundated the town." "Could it erupt again?" "She asks." "Yes, he replies." "The volcano has been sleeping now for 42 years." "We've never seen it sleep that long before." "But, he goes on, we must rely on scientists to alert us in time." "Under Mayor Capasso's leadership," "San Sebastiano today is a thriving, bustling town." "As a young man, it was he who urged the townspeople not to abandon their city, but to rebuild." "And rebuild they did right on top of the lava." "What might be an ominous reminder of past horrors stands as unofficial monument to a people's tenacity and pride." "Mayor Capasso, often quoted as saying," ""The power of man in greater than the power of the volcano", has turned San Sebastiano into a showcase city." "Before the eruption some 4,000 people lived here." "Today, that figure has more than doubled." "And San Sebastiano is but one of 14 towns that crowd the slopes of Vesuvius." "Twice every year, those living in Vesuvius's shadow throng to Naples' cathedral, the Duomo, in anticipation of an ages-old ritual the miracle of San Gennaro, their patron saint." "San Gennaro, martired in 305 A.D., is said to have saved the region from famines, plagues, and cholera." "But perhaps most importantly, he is its protector against the might of Vesuvius." "A small amount of his dried blood is stored in the Duomo." "The faithful believe it must turn to liquid today to ensure Naples' safety from Vesuvius for another year." "Occasionally, the miracle has not occurred for instance in 1979." "Then in 1980 the region suffered a devastating earthquake from which it is still recovering." "Nearly 3,000 died." "A hundred thousand were homeless." "The miracle has happened." "Vesuvius, the devout believe, will not harm them for another year." "They offer prayers of thanks." "This land holds their roots;" "it is their beloved home." "And once again San Gennaro has assured them it is safe." "With renewed faith on this bright and hopeful day, it is a time to reflect, to look to the future, and to celebrate." "Yet even as they rejoice, the faces of the present hauntingly evoke the faces of the past." "The faces of the living are reflected in the faces of the dead." "In 1632 the Viceroy of Naples warned:" "Children and children's children." "Hear" "I warn you now." "Sooner or later this mountain takes fire." "Flee so long as you can." "And yet people still return to the slopes of the mountain, even to build new town farther up its broad and fertile flanks." "In years to come, scientists will continue to be drawn to the towns of Vesuvius to probe more deeply the mysteries of the past, to ponder the fate of those whose lives were lost." "Perhaps today the power of man has become greater than the volcano." "Perhaps science does hold hope for a future when Nature can at last be tamed." "Ultimately, perhaps, it may be the indomitable human spirit that will prevail." "Those in the shadow of Vesuvius have been called courageous by some, foolhardy by others." "The judgment is history's to decide." "For now only this is sure:" "if holocaust is only dimly feared, its specter nevertheless remains." "Long after the sun has disappeared from the sky, a mountain's shadow continues to fall." "In Washington, D.C." "the Trustees of the National Geographic Society gather to have a formal portrait taken." "The picture will help commemorate the Society's Centennial." "In 1988 Geographic completes one hundred years of exploration, research, and education." "Everybody looking right at the lens." "Ready?" "All right." "Okay." "Fine." "Right here." "Nice big smile now." "Come on." "Here, in 1913, a similar photograph was taken." "Back then, the highest mountain had yet to be climbed, and no one knew the ocean deep, or what fire illuminates the stars." "All this lay in the future the greatest adventure mankind has ever known." "The explorers have left monuments all over the world." "One of the most meaningful, and at the same time little-known, is to be found high on a hilltop in Nova Scotia." "Here, alone with the sigh of the wind, are the graves of Alexander Graham Bell and his wife, Mabel." "Bell called their estate here Beinn Bhreagh, or "beautiful mountain"" "In the late 1800s Bell spent much of his time promoting the National Geographic Society." "It was the favorite preoccupations of a man whose boundless creativity changed everyone's life forever." "Inventing the telephone made Bell's fortune." "It also freed him to pursue his many interests and enjoy his growing family." "Enthusiastic, generous, and warmhearted," "Bell became a grandfather figure to the world." "When young Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor caught the eye of Bell's elder daughter, Elsie," "Bell offered him a job in Washington." "The couple was married in 1900." "They set up housekeeping not far from Grosvenor's office at 15th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue" "It was an exciting time to be alive." "Americans were thrilled by modern innovations and their growing political power." "Grosvenor became the first full-time employee of National Geographic," "Which was kept going mainly /be Bell's contributions." "In a tiny office sometimes piled high with unsold Magazines," "Grosvenor worked to realize Bell's hope that Geographic's journal could somehow pay the Society's way." "From its first issue the Magazine had been a liability." "It had been called "suitable for diffusing geographic knowledge among those who already had it, /and scaring off the rest"." "It often featured day, scholarly articles not meant for the general public." "But there were also pictures photographs of far-away people and places that stirred the imagination." "When be became Managing Editor in 1900" "Grosvenor started publishing more photographs, selected according to one of his favorite maxims:" ""The mind must see before it can believe"." "A famous Geographic tradition began in 1896 with this picture." "Grosvenor stoutly defended the policy of showing people dressed, or undressed, according to the customs in their land" "At the turn of the century the eye of the camera was capable of wondrous revelations." "In 1906 an entire issue of National Geographic was devoted to portraits of animals taken in the wild." "Photographer George Shiras sneaked up on his subjects at night with a camera and explosive flash powder." "His pictures astonished the world." "With a later technique Shiras startled animals with a blank gun shot and then captured them an instant later in ghostly flight." "Geographic and its Magazine soon prospered and more innovations followed" "Even before true color photography was practical, colored pictures were published by hand tinting black-and-white prints according to notes the photographer had made in the field." "Purists found these pictures artificial but readers loved them just the same." "From the beginning the most popular Geographic authors were explorers." "The Magazine made history in 1909 when it published Robert Peary's account of discovering the North Pole." "Peary once wrote:" "I shall not be satisfied that I have done my best until name is known from one end of the world to the other." "Peary's closest associate was the pioneering black explorer Mattew Henson." "In 1908 he and Peary set out together on their fourth polar expedition." "On March 1, 1909." "Peary set off for the pole." "According to plan, the rest of the party turned back as supplies ran down." "After a month only Peary, Henson, and four Eskimos were left to press on with the dogs." "Peary's account of the next few days remains controversial." "He reported good weather and excellent progress." "Later, some thought his story too good to be true." "In any event," "Peary reported he reached the pole on April 6, 1909." "Peary wrote in his diary:" ""The Pole at last!" "Linking hands with Roald Amundsen who reached the South Pole two years later," "Robert Peary found the fame he had sought so long." "In 1913 he and Amundsen met for the first time when being honored by the National Geographic." "Hardly less pleased were Dr. Bell and his son-in-law Gilbert Grosvenor." "National Geographic was a going concern and Bell was delighted to have it all in the family." "Grosvenor's decorum veiled his daring and ambition." "He took quite literally Bell's expansive admonition that" ""the world and all that is in it is our theme"." "Some four years after the sensation over Peary, another explorer became a household name." "Hiram Bingham was a professor of Latin American history at Yale." "In search of a fabled lost city, he traveled to Peru." "So he found Machu Picchu," "Abandoned by the Incas 450 years ago," "The first National Geographic archeological grant was made to help clear and map the colossal ruins." "It took more than $20,000 and months of labor to reveal them all." "In 1917 one of the first National Geographic expeditions to be documented in motion pictures explored a rare freak of nature the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes in Alaska." "This bizarre landscape was the aftermath of a gigantic volcanic explosion several years before." "In this nightmare world, superheated steam hissed from millions of vents and often, it seemed, the ground itself was alive" "Scientists attempted to explore the larger fissures, but barely escaped being boiled alive." "More than half a million members now shared in the exploration of such natural wonders." "And the home of Alexander Graham Bell had become the unofficial summer headquarter of the National Geographic" "On holidays the hard-pressed Grosvenor set up his office in a tent on the lawn of Beinn Bhreagh." "On these visits the Grosvenor children enchanted their legendary Grandfather Bell." "The great inventor was over 60, but still a bold explorer." "He astonished and sometimes alarmed his Nova Scotia neighbors with his odd inventions." "Giant kites made up of tetrahedral cells were Bell's obsession." "They taught him much about aeronautics and some were large enough to life a man." "Bell's avid interest in aviation culminated in 1909 with the first flight in Canada by a powered airplane." "One of Bell's last experiments was a hydrofoil speedboat called the HD-4." "It worked perfectly." "It went 71 miles an hour for years the fastest thing on water." "World War I was over." "And people who had fought to save the world for democracy were more curious about the world than ever." "Six-hundred-and-fifty-six thousand of them had joined National Geographic and received its Magazine, the pride of 400 employees." "Society headquarters was Hubbard Hall, named for Gardiner Greene Hubbard," "Bell's father-in-law and the Society's first president." "Geographic's Magazine combined education and adventure in the form of first-person reports from explorers in the field." "Some of the most colorful accounts came from a botanist, Joseph Rock." "Daring, arrogant, and difficult," "Rock had a talent for getting into trouble and living to tell the tale." "On his travels in China and Tibet." "He was often menaced by bandits and warlords." "Roch always escaped them and sometimes even got their pictures for the Magazine." "One of Rock's classic articles told of his visit to the tiny kingdom of Muli." "Deep in the mountains of Szechuan," "Muli was ruled by a king who had the power of life or death over his 22,000 subjects." "Like Shangri-la, Muli knew little of the outside world." "Rock was told he was the first American ever to come here." "Summoning Rock to his place, the King of Muli politely asked the explorer if the could ride horseback to Washington." "He treated Rock kindly, offering him delicacies like ancient yak cheese and mutton crawling with maggots." "By the 1920s the unexplored parts of the world were rapidly shrinking." "But man's past was like a hidden continent." "And in 1922 the entrance to a royal Egyptian tomb was found." "Archeologist Howard Carter and his sponsor, Lord Carnarvon," "Announced they would open the burial chamber officially on February 18, 1923" ""Can you see anything?" Lord Carnarvon had asked Carter when he first looked inside the tomb three months earlier." ""Yes", Carter had replied." ""I see wonderful things"." "It was the tomb of Tutahkhamun." "Nothing like it had been found before or since a time capsule 3300 years old." "By the end of the 1920s," "National Geographic was prepared to sponsor major expeditions." "It subscribed $50,000 toward Richard Byrd's attempt to fly to the South Pole." "Byrd's ship left New Zealand in December 1928, still summer in the Antarctic." "According to Byrd's elaborate plan, the party would land in Antarctica and dig in for the winter." "When weather improved in the spring, he'd attempt the 800mile flight to the pole over largely unknown territory." "An advance party prepared to travel overland more than halfway to the pole" "They would make geological studies and stand by to rescue Byrd if his plane was forced down." "The expedition not only survived the winter, it prospered." "There were nearly 100 dogs when the sun set in April." "By August there were many more." "The six men in the Geological Party departed." "They would be gone almost three months" "Byrd planned to drop an American flag to mark the spot when he reached the pole." "On November 28, 1929, a full year after leaving New Zealand, Byrd decided to go." "A film camera went along and months later audiences in Washington would see this movie of Byrd's adventure." "There they are at the South Pole." "The observations click." "It is 1:25 in the morning of November 29th, 1929." "Dick takes out the flag, weighted with a stone from Floyd Bennett's grave." "It is the symbol and the monument of a supreme accomplishment." "Through the trap door the flag and stone drop together." "There they go down, down forever at the very bottom of the world." "A nation plunging into the Great Depression still gave Richard Byrd a glorious welcome home." "He received his second National Geographic modal at the White house from President Herbert Hoover." "Your contribution to exploration and scientific research has done honor to this country." "Your daring and courage have thrilled each one of us individually because they have proved anew the worth and the glory of the qualities which we believe are latent in the American people." "Africa long regarded as the Dark Continent and the natural habitat of the great explorer." "Leading huge safaris deep into the bush," "Martin Johnson typified a new breed of showman-explorer." "His wife, Osa, was equally famous and equally skilled with guns and their many cameras." "Together the Johnson made a series of films that brought both the realities and the clichés of African adventure vividly to life on the screen." "Scenes of African wildlife thrilled standing-room-only audiences at the Johnson's early films and lectures." "Technology, it seemed, made anything possible." "Pioneering scientists like William Beebe were going where no one had ever been before." "Off Bermuda Beebe tried out his so-called bathysphere, lowering the two-ton steel ball-to a depth of 3,000 feet." "On one test dive the unoccupied sphere sprang a leak." "Water was trapped inside at deep-sea pressure." "Releasing it showed what could happen to a person trapped inside." "Unperturbed, Beebe and his companion, Otis Barton, made repairs and then committed themselves to fate." "Bolted in, dangling on the end of a steel cable less than an inch in diameter, they would be helpless if anything went wrong." "Descending past 2,000 feet," "Beebe peered out into the eternal darkness and glimpsed creatures no one had ever seen before." "Painted by an artist working from Beebe's descriptions, these were like creatures from another planet, alien and bizarre." "Another ocean lay above." "Earth's great canopy of air challenged the explorers." "In 1934, with a hydrogen-filled balloon" "National Geographic and the U.S. Army Air Corps joined forces to probe the stratosphere." "A launch site was readied near Rapid City, South Dakota." "The balloon was launched on July 28, 1934." "It carried three Air Corps officers and was called Explorer." "All went well as Explorer soared above 60,000 feet." "Then, the three men in the gondola heard ominous sounds and, seconds later, realized that the balloon was tearing open." "Fearing the thin air and cold at high altitude, the balloonists dared not use their parachutes until the last moment." "They escaped just in time." "Explorer shattered on impact." "Almost immediately it was decided to try again." "A second balloon, Explorer II, was constructed." "The largest balloon in the world, it would stand more than 300 feet high when fully inflated." "In November 1935 Explorer II soared into the stratosphere, reaching nearly 14 miles, a new world record." "After eight hours aloft, the balloon touched down in a farmer's pasture." "Casual heroes, wearing helmets borrowed from a local high-school football team" "The crew basked in the admiration of a crowd that appeared out of nowhere on the plains of South Dakota." "When World War II began," "Washington changed forever as it became a wartime boom town." "But the National Geographic remained much the same." "The Magazine had become a fixture in school libraries and doctor's offices." "Society members wrote to editors as if they were old friends." "And almost all collected the Magazine because they couldn't bear to throw it away." "Techniques of color reproduction were by now far advanced." "And no one published more or finer color photographs than National Geographic." "There could only be one subject for the first color cover, published the war." "But not until 1959 did a picture on the cover become a regular feature." "Wherever war did not reach, explorers carried on." "A number of expeditions to Mexico, led by Dr. Matthew Stirling, revealed a mysterious pre-Columbian culture called the Olmec." "A series of dramatic discoveries included the excavation of a gigantic stone head weighing 25 tons." "The work pushed the existence of pre-Columbian civilization in America further into antiquity and carried on a Geographic tradition of leadership in New World archeology." "The war had barely ended when, on the coast of France, a new species of man appeared." "Led by Jacques-Yves Cousteau, these creatures, awkward on land, were originally called "fish men"." "Co-inventor of the Aqua-Lung Cousteau revolutionized undersea exploration." "National Geographic photographer Luis Marden eagerly followed Cousteau into a dazzling new world." "Cousteau once remarked:" "when we are invited to live on this earth." "There is no reason we should not visit the basement." "But unlike some explorers before him, Cousteau sought not to conquer but to cherish the creatures of the sea." "By the 1950s there were few places on earth that did not bear the mark of man." "One of them was the summit of Mount Everest, 29,028 feet high, the last great prize of the classic explorer." "An era came to an end with this National Geographic article and when President Dwight Eisenhower gave the Society's Hubbard Medal to the British Everest Expedition leader," "Sir John Hunt, and climber Sir Edmund Hillary." "But there would be new adventures and new ways to share them." "The first National Geographic TV Special documented the" "American expedition to Everest, led by Norman Dyhrenfurth." "The climbing team of 19 Americans and 32 Nepaless Sherpas made the attempt." "And, on television, tens of millions would later share the adventure." "And on the morning of May 1st, the peak is boiling in its plume of snow." "Those below were sure that there would be no summit attempt that day." "But they were wrong." "Big Jim and Gombu decide to make their try, and for hour after hour inch up the battlements of the Southeast Ridge." "For a while Norman Dyhrenfurth and Ang Dawa climb after them." "But the cold is too bitter, the wind too fierce." "Filmmaking is all but impossible." "At last Norman and Ang Dawa turn back." "Jim and Gombu go on alone." "At last..." "They are there on top of the world." "Jim Whittaker and Nawang Gombu." "At one o'clock on the afternoon of May first," "Whittaker planted the American flag on the summit, and with it the flag of the National Geographic Society." "These are the first moving pictures ever taken from the summit of Everest." "Some one-and-a-half million photographs more than forty thousand rolls of film are turned in here in Washington each year." "It's a staggering task merely to catalog and store them." "All the elements are there." "Nice lady with her family." "The world, and all that is in it that was Alexander Graham Bell's modest description of the Society's mission." "So editors, writers, and researchers try valiantly to do the impossible in books and other publications, maps and films as well as the 12 annual issues of the Magazine." "A typical mind-boggling Geographic statistic:" "the press run of one Magazine issue would make a stack 53 miles high." "The original vision of Gilbert Grosvenor had been far exceeded by the time of his death in 1966." "Leadership has passed to his son, Melville Bell Grosvenor," "Editor of the Magazine for ten brilliant years." "Now Gilbert M. Grosvenor is President of the Society, continuing family traditions that have taken him all over the world, and even to the North Pole." "I think it all started when my grandfather flew over the North Pole." "And this was, I guess, in about maybe the 50s early 50s because I was still in college." "And he sent us a little postcard." "It had the North Pole and it had the lines of longitude and latitude and where they all met." "And he signed it and said, I flew over the footsteps of Robert E." "And then my father he flew over the North Pole, and he did the same thing." "He sent me a postcard." "And I was kind of getting tired of this." "Gilbert Grosvenor's visit the pole had a new twist." "Accompanied by underwater photographer Al Giddings and Canadian explorer Joe MacInnis, he would join the select few who have ventured under the ice at 90° North." "Under six feet of ice, in 29° water, human life hangs by the slenderest of threads." "As fragile as the flame of a single candle, the human spirit trembles here," "Even as it did in the time of Peary." "Have you ever?" "Have you ever?" "Seventy years ago this flag came to the North Pole with Robert E. Peary." "Terrific." "And it's a great pleasure to bring it back." "We say we have explored the earth." "But there are still regions almost as remote as the surface of the moon." "Most dramatically, seven-tenths of the earth's surface is covered with water, and we have only a hazy idea of what is hidden beneath the waves." "You ready for me?" "This is "Project Beebe", a pioneering study of life in the deep ocean." "The remarkable Dr. Eugenie Clark," "University of Maryland zoologist and shark expert, is the principal scientist." "I don't know about that laser the laser-sighted Canon on the front." "The project is the brainchild of Emory Kristof," "A National Geographic photographer who is an expert on deep-sea exploration and photography." "Aboard the research submersible Pisces VI," "Dr. Clark will descend several thousand feet to the ocean floor and remain there up to 12 hours." "She'll use the submersible as a deep-sea observation post, attracting marine animals with bait." "Here off Bermuda, William Beebe made his epic dives 50 years ago." "And the curiosity that drove him now inspires Dr. Clark." "Never though I'd be doing this." "You know, as a child, I worshipped Beebe and read all his books and wanted to go down in the bathysphere the way he did." "Never really though I'd do it, but I wanted to." "This one is huge." "This one is big." "Oh, my gosh!" "Within minutes deep-sea sharks appear." "Up to 20 feet long, these six gill sharks have only rarely been seen alive." "Yeah, it really is exciting." "Wow!" "You ought to see the size of this one." "We've got the biggest one so far." "He's right outside the window now." "It will take generations to fully explore this mysterious deep frontier." "And no one can say what strange creatures we may someday discover here." "Off the Mediterranean coast of Turkey," "National Geographic has helped explore an ancient ship that was wrecked here 3,400 years ago." "Now a word about what we're doing today." "We're working in the upper part of the wreck and finding it just thick with amphoras and ingots and so forth." "And so I want you to just to hand-fan down..." "George Bass is from Texas A  M University." "One of the world's leading nautical archeologists," "He has been completely absorbed by a small plot of seabed 50 yards from shore and some 150 feet down." "Slowly, the evidence mounts up." "Bass and his team have gained unprecedented knowledge of such an ancient ship." "It was about 50 feet long and carried goods of at least seven different cultures, including pottery, ivory, tin, and the oldest glass ingots ever found." "But the principal cargo was copper some 200 ingots, each weighing about 60 pounds." "When combined with tin, such ingots make bronze, and the wreck did prove to be of the Late Bronze Age the oldest shipwreck known." "In 1986 an expedition from Woods Hole, Massachusetts, sought to explore the most celebrated shipwreck of modern times" "A luxury liner that sank in 1912 with a loss of more than 1,500 lives." "For years the grave of the Titanic has fascinated Dr. Robert Ballard." "Now he has pinpointed the wreck and hear echoes of tragedy." "Here lies Titanic, seen again by human eyes after 74 dark and silent years." "Ballard leached Titanic with Alvin, a manned submersible designed for deep-sea research." "Knowing that Titanic could be desecrated by salvagers," "Dr. Ballard felt it necessary to leave a plaque here asking that she be left intact." "But only a year passed before a rival expedition reached the wreck and took objects from Titanic." "Someday we may see beneath the waves with godlike ease and penetrate countless mysteries." "There is a great void in the story of early man." "And this tantalized a scientist named Louis Leakey are lured him to a place in Africa called Olduvai Gorge." "And now I'm down at the bottom of the gorge." "My feet are resting on the black lava which formed the old land surface on which these lake beds formed." "And here behind me are the earliest part of the Olduvai series, deposits that were formed just nearly two million years ago." "It was here that, in 1931, we first found examples of simple tools like this," "Just a water-worn pebble with a jagged cutting edge stone tools that go back to a very, very remote past in time, nearly three times as old as anything previously found." "Who were the men who made these tools?" "Where did they live and how did they live?" "And that was the problem that Mary and I went out to look for." "We wanted the answer:" "Who these men?" "In 1959 Leakey and his wife, Mary, found the fossil jaw of Zinjanthropus, a primitive form of ape-man who lived one-and-three-quarter million years ago." "The find stunned the scientific world." "For 30 years the Leakeys had faced skepticism and ridicule." "Now at last they found support as National Geographic underwrote their research." "Melville Bell Grosvenor made a commitment to the Leakey's work that would endure for a quarter of a century." "Leakey's son Richard also became a leading scientist." "In 1984 a team led by Richard Leakey found the nearly complete skeleton of an early human one-and-a-half million years old." "The Leakey legacy endures the now accepted ideas that man evolved in Africa," "That he is far older than we once thought, and that more than one kind of man-like creature lived at the same time." "Louis Leakey's interest in human origins took fascinating turns." "As his urging Jane Goodall began her epic study of chimpanzee behavior in the wild." "Goodall's study led to a new appreciation of the similarities between chimpanzees and man." "The chimps form distinct family groups" "They use tools and sometimes even wage war." "And over the years Jane Goodall came to regard many of them as friends." "Another of Leakey's disciples sought to study the mountain gorilla in Rwanda." "With extraordinary patience, Dian Fossey at last succeeded in winning the trust of these powerful but extremely shy creatures." "At such moments of contact" "Dian was deeply moved by the gorillas gentleness and trust." "One of her favorites was "Digit", so-called because of his twisted, broken finger." "In December 1977 Digit was killed by poachers, probably to sell his hands as souvenirs." "Later, other mountain gorillas in Dian's study group were also slaughtered." "Finally, Dian herself was murdered by persons unknown, quite possibly poachers." "As much as any recent event, her death foreshadowed a desperate new era in the age of ecology." "We are led to ask:" "If we cannot protect wild creatures, can we save ourselves?" "In the remote highlands of Papua New Guinea there lives a group of endangered people." "They call themselves the "Hagahai"." "Until a few years ago no outsiders knew of their existence." "And they have been so isolated they have not developed antibodies to protect them against common diseases." "Dr. Carol Jenkins is a medical anthropologist." "She first came here to document the Hagahais decline." "She returned to try to save them." "As part of a medical team," "Jenkins is fighting a desperate battle against her own grim statistics" "This baby is special because it's the only one that's lived this year." "There have been eight babies born since '87 began." "There have been eight babies is about two months old and it's the only living baby." "The Hagahai are so vulnerable, only the most wrenching changes can help them." "Trained to observe such cultures," "Carol Jenkins finds herself helping to profoundly alter this one." "As tropical rain forests give way to human demands, there is danger on every hand." "This is the richest, most complex ecosystem on earth." "From it have come many of our drugs, our food plants, our useful chemicals." "Can we survive without this blessing of diversity?" "As the century of discovery comes to an end, a century of destruction could be beginning." "And of all living creatures only man has the power to decide what the future holds for the planet Earth." "Often quietly and in unspectacular ways, the task of discovery goes on." "And technology can make explorers of us all." "A few years ago Jean Mueller was a librarian." "Seeking a new challenge, she went to work for Palomar Observatory in California." "Jean works on the Second Palomar Sky Survey, a project partially sponsored by National Geographic." "Its goal is to make a photographic map of the heavens that shows more detail than we have ever seen before." "On a mountaintop in the dead of night," "Jean often sees what no one has ever seen before an image on a newly developed glass plate 14 inches square." "Each pinpoint on the plate is a star, possibly a galaxy worlds upon worlds so numerous that we cannot comprehend them." "The scale of this vision is staggering" "Every plate contains millions of pinpoints," "And it will take 894 separate plates to scan the skies over Palomar." "And this represents the Northern Hemisphere alone." "To explore this, much less understand it, seems incredible." "But what wonders have we seen in these last hundred years." "And in the next hundred, what more?"