The Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia, on Canada’s West Coast, is the largest intact, unprotected, coastal temperate rainforest left in the world.
It is a land of wolves and bears: Grey Wolves and Grizzly Bears, Black Bears and the mysterious Kermode Bear, a white variety of the black bear that is rarely seen.
This documentary follows the Coho pack of Gray (or Grey) Wolves, also known as North American Timber Wolves, and the different bears that live in this wilderness. Through two scientists, and their field studies and treks through the rainforest, we learn about the wide range of species living in this unusual environment and its amazing ecosystem.
The forest itself is unique and represents a quarter of what remains of coastal temperate rain forests in the world. It is known as the ‘Amazon of the North’.
Because 15 feet of rain can fall in a year, the Great Bear has never suffered a major forest fire. That has allowed some of the tallest and oldest trees on earth to thrive, including cedars more than a thousand years old.
An estimated 20 percent of the world’s remaining wild salmon swim through the forest’s fjords, including coho and sockeye, whose spawning grounds were threatened by erosion caused by past logging.
Largely intact because of its remoteness, the forest contains an abundance of wolverines, bats, peregrine falcons, marbled murrelet sea birds and coastal tailed frogs.
The area has served as a scientist ‘laboratory’ for more than a decade because it has populations of wolves, grizzlies and black bears, including the genetic combination that produces the cream-colored Kermode, or Spirit Bear. These bears have a rare, recessive gene that makes them white as snow - they are a black bear, but 10 percent of the population is white.
They’re geographically limited to just a few islands in this area. There are white black bears that appear elsewhere, but not with this consistency - maybe one in every 100 generations.
Scientists abide by the wishes of the local First Nations peoples and forego trapping and collaring in favour of a less intrusive method: the collection of DNA from hairs and scat. From this DNA they can identify the individual animal and tell much about its life and its diet.
The wolves, in particular, here are turning out to be genetically unique. They have retained their genetic diversity; they have a lot of genes that have not been lost over the years because of persecution and they do not show any effects of inbreeding.
Narrated by Keith David. Produced for National Geographic.
Review:
“Stunning! Terrific filming by National Geographic. Only a few hundred of the white spirit bears exist – that’s more rare than the Giant Panda! My favourite scene is where the wolves attach a grizzly bear. The wolf pups are real cute and must have taken lots of effort to film at such short range. Seeing a huge grizzly bear eat grass (and lots of it!) is seriously funny. This film was produced in 2004 and the quality is 5-star. A ‘must have’ for all wolf fans and bear lovers.”
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