The Alaskan wilderness is one of the most remote places on the planet. It is the land of snowy mountains, winding rivers, dense forests, and more grizzly bears than anywhere else on earth. Each year hordes of grizzlies come out of hibernation and are thrust together in a life and death frenzy of feeding, fighting and mating. Their drama culminates with the annual salmon run. Each grizzly bear must double their body weight in less than 6 months in order to survive the looming winter.
These vulnerable grizzly bears face many obstacles on the road to survival, and in a unique and highly ambitious project,
Discovery Channel and BBC set out to cover this remarkable season in an unprecedented way. The breathtaking footage, airing on
Discovery Channel tonight, May 12 from 9pm ET/PT to 11pm ET/PT, will bring viewers closer to the lives of these bears than anyone thought possible.
In order to capture the spectacle on film, a team of expert guides and wildlife filmmakers set out to live alongside the bears for the full five months that they are out of hibernation. With them they brought along years of experience and a profound respect for the bears. Specially designed camera gear filmed the bears in a new way and spy cams were rigged throughout a vast area lending an intimacy rarely seen. Team member ecologist and conservationist Chris Morgan said, "When you're working with the creators and cameramen from
Frozen Planet and Planet Earth, you know you're going to come away with something special. Throw in a few bear specialists, the densest population of giant brown bears in the world, and a mass of different cameras, and what you get is a mind-blowing play-by-play of these bears' lives." And throughout the team's experience living within mere yards of the bear population, they got the chance to closely monitor and understand each individual bear's quirks and habits. "We're going to be a part of this
Community for the whole season and it will give us an opportunity to see these bears not just as one group of bears, but as a series of individuals each with their own strategy for getting through life. It's really exciting to me," said naturalist Buck Wilde.
Throughout one extraordinary season, the team was able to intimately witness the stories, personalities and struggles of the grizzly bears. They got to know Parsnip, a tenacious first-time mother of two small cubs. They were awed by the power of Van, a dominant male standing over 8 feet tall and weighing in at over a thousand pounds. And they were shocked by Alice, the flirtatious female bully with a strong temper and a penchant for aggression. There were tense moments and shockingly close encounters. Each of the bears had an incredible story to tell. "Having lived among these great bears for twenty three summers, I thought I had seen it all. But the grizzly stories we were able to deliver on-camera for GREAT BEAR STAKEOUT are the most dramatic, touching and revealing I have ever seen on screen. People won't ever think of bears in the same way again," said Buck Wilde.
Tonight, May 12 at 9pm ET/PT,
Discovery Channel invites viewers to connect with the lives,
Community and survival of Alaskan grizzly bears like never before.
GREAT BEAR STAKEOUT is a Discovery Channel/BBC co-production. For BBC, Gavin Henderson and Vanessa Berlowitz are executive producers; Mary Summerill is series producer. For Discovery Channel, Robert Zakin is executive producer with John Cavanagh as coordinating producer.
Christine Weber is
Vice president of production and
Andrew Jackson is executive
Vice president of production.
About Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel is dedicated to creating the highest quality non-fiction content that informs and entertains its consumers about the world in all its wonder, diversity and amazement. The network, which is distributed to 100.1 million U.S. homes, can be seen in over 180 countries, offering a signature mix of compelling, high-end production values and vivid cinematography across genres including, science and technology, exploration, adventure, history and in-depth, behind-the-scenes glimpses at the people, places and organizations that shape and share our world. For more information, visit www.discovery.com.
About Discovery Communications
Discovery Communications (Nasdaq: DISCA, DISCB, DISCK) is the world's #1 nonfiction media company reaching more than 1.8 billion cumulative subscribers in 209 countries -more- and territories. Discovery is dedicated to satisfying
Curiosity through 149 worldwide television networks, led by Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, Science and Investigation Discovery, as well as US joint venture networks OWN:
Oprah Winfrey Network, The
HUB and 3net, the first 24-hour 3D network. Discovery also is a leading provider of educational products and services to schools and owns and operates a diversified portfolio of digital media services, including Revision3. For more information, visit www.discoverycommunications.com.
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