Wild
New World programme details
Programme 1
Wild
New World: Land of the Mammoth
 At
the end of the last Ice Age, in the far north-west of North America
there was a land that doesn't exist today - Beringia.
It was a land of giants, where woolly mammoths roamed alongside
musk oxen, giant short-faced bears challenged huge American lions,
and the snowy plains teemed with bison, wild horses and the bizarre
looking saiga antelope.
This was the region into which the first people to set foot on the
continent probably ventured about 14,000 years ago, the time of
the last great Ice Age.
Land
of the Mammoth sets the scene using clues found in the spectacular
landscape and wildlife of this rugged wilderness to piece together
a picture of what these first North Americans would have seen.
A
mummified bison carcass yields clues as to its prehistoric killer.
Could it have been a pack of wolves, a giant-short faced bear or
a huge American lion?
Using
the latest digital technology combined with classic natural history
photography, the dramatic chase and death struggle of the bison
is reconstructed.
Plus,
a giant short-faced bear encounters a herd of well-armed musk oxen,
a family of woolly mammoths defend their baby from American lions,
and two ageing bull mammoths battle it out in the snowy wastes.
"When you're facing a herd of prehistoric looking musk oxen
- their massive horns facing towards you - i'ts easy to imagine
that a woolly mammoth might appear over a snowy ridge alongside
them!" said Miles Barton, Series Producer.
Programme 2
Wild
New World: Canyonlands
Canyonlands takes us to the very heart of the American south-west
where the dramatic landscapes of the Grand Canyon, the Colorado
River and the giant cactus forests of the Arizona desert form the
backdrop to this next episode in the history of Ice Age North America.
This
region has not always been as arid and desolate as it is today.
It
had lakes and lush vegetation that was home to a menagerie of strange
beasts including the Columbian mammoth and other huge herbivores
such as ground sloths, bison and camels.
Giant
condors scavenged on the remains of prey killed by predators such
as the American lion and sabre-toothed cats.
These
might seem like creatures from another world - a very distant past
- but it really wasn't that long ago that these fantastical beasts
were alive and sharing the land with our own human ancestors.
Incredibly,
only 400 generations separate us from these first American explorers.
Evidence
of their lives litters the region. From California to Colorado the
dry desert air has preserved some remarkable clues to the lives
and deaths of these people and creatures.
These
ghosts of the past include skeletons, mammoth dungballs as big as
footballs, pellets from long-extinct mountain goats, skin and fur
from ground sloths, footprints from all manner of strange creatures,
and feathers and eggshells from long lost condors.
Canyonlands
uses all these sources of evidence to recreate its Ice Age dwellers.
"Inside
the caves here, you can virtually smell the dung of prehistoric
mammoths and ground sloths. These ancients beasts seem almost near
enough to reach out and touch." said Ian Gray, Producer.
A
unique element of Wild New World is the interaction of living animals
with extinct animals that have been recreated using computer-generated
imagery (CGI).
In
this episode a CGI sabre-toothed cat appears to stalk, ambush and
kill a real camel.
By
compressing thousands of years of vegetation changes into just a
few seconds viewers see habitats evolve before their eyes - lakes
turn into deserts, red-rock canyons fill with trees and forests
of strange cacti and Joshua trees spread across the arid desert
plains.
Aerial
shots - taken from a helicopter - include a series of high-speed,
low altitude, roller-coaster rides along the Green and Colorado
River Canyons. The results are incredible.
Programme 3
Wild
New World: Ice Age Oasis
 Today
the sunshine state of Florida seems a world away from any Ice Age.
It is here that Space Shuttles are launched 聳 a symbol of man's
unquenchable desire to explore and colonise taken to its astronomical
limits.
This
programme takes viewers back 13,000 years to when man was exploring
this area for the very first time.
Although
the massive ice sheets never actually reached the Florida region,
one of the most dramatic consequences of the ice occurred here.
In
sharp contrast to the Florida of today, the only water around was
at a few isolated waterholes. It was here that a profusion of life
was concentrated.
And
so today, it provides one of the richest Ice Age fossil records
in the world. Scientists have found that, in some places, bones
are literally piled on top of each other. They reveal that this
was truly a land of giants.
Huge
ground-sloths roamed the land with fearsome claws the size of a
man聮s forearm. They could rear up as tall as a giraffe.
Perhaps
even more bizarre were the glyptodonts. These huge armoured beasts
are related to armadillos, were built like a tank and grew to the
size of a small car!
Impressive
defences perhaps, but this episode shows that they were no match
against the Ice Age American jaguar.
"It's
not until you actually get the bones in your hands that you really
start to appreciate how huge these beasts really were." said
Adam White, Director.
Again, perhaps the most remarkable fact about this time and all
its fantastic creatures is that it really wasn't that long ago.
It wasn't the distant age of the dinosaurs.
It is recent history - so recent, that people very similar to us
were sharing the land with and hunting these beasts; so recent,
that many of the bones of these animals are not even fossilised.
With just a little local knowledge, the legacies of its prehistoric
wildlife and people can be found throughout Florida.
The detective story continues by diving into the Florida's stunningly
beautiful springs. These graveyards are full of the remains of long
extinct animals and provide a window to the past.
Clues from bones tell a remarkable story of an Ice Age drought,
where mastodons (relatives of the mammoths) undertook huge migrations
just to survive the seasons.
Programme
4
Wild
New World: Edge of the Ice
This episode reveals that America can boast one of the world's biggest
ever waterfalls. The only thing is that it no longer exists! But
it did 12,000 years ago and using the latest digital technology,
Edge of the Ice spectacularly brings it back to life.
At the end of the last Ice Age, an ice dam that held back water
in a lake 180 miles long suddenly collapsed.
It
released a tower of water that, at its peak, was 2,000 feet high.
The water rushed across the north-west region of America, scouring
300 feet into bedrock.
It
ultimately created one of the world's largest waterfalls as it tumbled
over cliffs that were twice the height of Niagara Falls and several
miles across.In
just 48 hours the entire lake was emptied.
Today
the landscape of Washington State still bears visible scars from
the flood. The land undulates with huge ripple marks, but the
desert-like canyon walls of Dry Falls are all that now remains of
the once, and briefly, impressive waterfall.
Millions
of animals would have perished in the flood. And some of the latest
research suggests people may well have been present too.
Human
hairs dated to 12,000 years old have been recovered from deep underground,
beneath the streets of Woodburn in Oregon.
The
dating of the hairs is controversial, but if correct then they are
some of the oldest human relics for the whole continent. But where
did these people come from and how did they get here?
A
new theory suggests the first people may have entered the continent
not on foot but by boat. In south-east Alaska the fossilised remains
of a man in his twenties have been found on Prince of Wales Island.
Dating
back to the close of the Ice Age it suggests people were using ice-free
islands, travelling between them on boats and surviving mainly on
a marine diet.
Researchers believe the ancestors of these seafarers may have originated
in north-eastern Asia.
These
people were also hunters as an unearthed mastodon skeleton has what
seems to be a human-made spearpoint embedded in one of its ribs.
Remarkably,
scientists believe the animal survived as new bone had healed around
the injury.
Other
clues in the skeleton tell us that the mastodon lived to old age
and probably died a natural death subsequently being scavenged and
then butchered by people.
Programme
5
Wild
New World: American Serengeti
At
the end of the last Ice Age the Great Plains of North America were
perhaps the richest grasslands to have ever existed, rivalling the
East African plains in both the diversity and abundance of animals
- a true American Serengeti.
It's still possible to catch glimpses of this rich past as a few
large herds of bison still roam the plains and millions of birds
still follow ancient migration routes over it. American
Serengeti recreates it in its entirety.
Using the latest in computer animation and digital image manipulation
technology it recreates the Great Plains as they would have been
seen by the first people to explore the region some 13,000 years
ago.
Many
of the Plains' animals alive today - bison, pronghorn antelope,
prairie dogs and coyotes - lived alongside the fantastic beasts
of the last Ice Age - huge Columbian mammoths standing over four
metres tall, giant short-faced bears twice the size of a grizzly
bear, and American lions much larger than their African cousins.
Not
surprisingly given this abundance, some of the most significant
and telling evidence about the last Ice Age comes from this region.
There's
a pond filled with the bodies of over 50 dead Columbian mammoths;
a cave that trapped hundreds of creatures; the entangled skulls
of two giant male mammoths locked together whilst sparring with
each other; and footprints of the largest lion ever to walk the
Earth preserved in the mud of a deep cave.
Some
of the animals still alive today can tell us alot about the past.
For example, at full flow, a pronghorn antelope can run at 60 mph,
making it one of the fastest animals on earth.
But,
no modern predator can run this fast. The pronghorn's speed is a
throwback to a time when it was hunted by a speedier predator than
that which it faces today, namely the American cheetah.
In
order to record a scene no longer common on the prairies - a large
bison herd running at full tilt across the Plains - it was necessary
to visit the annual bison round-up in Custer State Park, South Dakota.
Every
year the entire herd in the park, numbering some 3,000 animals,
is rounded-up and stampeded into a series of corrals for veterinary
checks and branding.
The
bison pour through a gap in the hills and are in the corrals in
just a few minutes. To capture this great spectacle, cameras were
placed in every conceivable position to record each moment. The
only place it was impossible to put a camera was on a bison.
During
the filming, in classic Western style, a low rumbling on the horizon
was heard, a single bison appeared over a hill and within seconds
the entire scene was filled with thousands of bison, dust, noise
and chaos.
The
ground shook as they poured past in just a single minute, and then
they were gone. Fortunately, all the equipment had worked perfectly
聳 the resulting footage is truly amazing.
Programme
6
Wild
New World: Mammoths to Manhattan
Mammoths to Manhattan travels through time, from the end of the
Ice Age to the present day, to see how North America's ildlife has
adapted to living alongside people.
Back
then, it was a land dominated by giant beasts, today it is a land
of towering skyscrapers.
The episode starts with the extinction of its biggest mammals, some
two thirds of which disappeared soon after the first people arrived.
A
reconstructed mammoth hunt shows that these people had advanced
Stone Age weaponry. But did they really hunt the animals to extinction?
The
latest research on mammoth tusks shows that young male mammoths
were being forced out of family groups much earlier than normal.
This
may have been the result of heavy hunting, although massive climate
changes also played a part, turning grasslands to deserts and open
tundra to forests.
The
end of the Ice Age was certainly no picnic for the wildlife of North
America. The animals that did survive had to adapt to the changing
landscape and the small populations of people living alongside them.
After
the upheaval of the end of the Ice Age, the wildlife and landscape
of North America remained relatively unchanged for thousands of
years until a significant new arrival - Europeans - who discovered
North America 500 years ago. Since then, the wildlife has faced
changes as dramatic as those at the end of the Ice Age.
In
time, the expansion of the European settlers into the continent
led to the creation of an entirely new habitat in North America.
It is one that the wildlife continues to adapt to.
The
city was born and around it the industrial infrastructure that keeps
modern North America ticking.
Mammoths
to Manhattan looks at the variety of animals that have adapted to
living in cities and/or close to industry.
It
reveals one the largest gatherings of manatees in the world. Off
the coast of Riviera Beach in Florida, winter sea temperatures can
be too cool for manatees.
So,
more than 300 gather together around a water outlet pumping hot,
clean water from a local power station.
In
Austin Texas, a million bats cram into gaps under the main bridge
that runs into the city, while in Anchorage, Alaska, moose wander
the streets eating the garden plants of local residents.
The
programme ends in New York 聳 the ultimate city 聳 and shows
the red-tailed hawks that have taken to living in one of the most
expensive areas of Manhattan. They nest on top of a high rise mid-town
apartment block overlooking Central Park.
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