Watch BBC HD: Yellowstone – 03 – Autumn (2009) Documentary Online
BBC Yellowstone, Autumn. Autumn is Yellowstone’s shortest season and a period of swift change. Conditions change from summer to winter in just two months, forcing animals to leave or prepare for winter. Bison rely on stored fat to see them through, but elk and pronghorn head for lower ground. Their only natural enemy is the wolf, but beyond the Park boundaries they must contend with different hazards: hunting, heavy industry and traffic.
Since their reintroduction to Yellowstone in the 1990s, wolves have expanded their range, bringing them into contact with people. Telemetry enables ranchers to track wolves fitted with radio collars and scare them off. The wolf’s return has restored the natural balance of Yellowstone: elk no longer graze along the river banks, leaving more willow saplings for beavers. In autumn, beavers are busy repairing their dams and harvesting saplings for their underwater larder. In the Beartooth Mountains, pine squirrels, grizzlies and Clark’s nutcrackers take advantage of a bumper crop of cones from the whitebark pines. The trees are under attack from beetle larvae, which now survive through the winter due to the warming climate.
By late September, bull elk are exhausted from six weeks of rutting and herding. As the females come into season, only those bulls who still have the strength to see off challengers will have the chance to mate. In Yellowstone’s mountains, male bighorn sheep clash horns as the first snows of winter arrive. Yellowstone People profiles sound recordist Mike Kasic, who swims in the Park’s rivers.
More about BBC Yellowstone (2009)
Yellowstone is a BBC nature documentary series broadcast from 15 March 2009. Narrated by Peter Firth, the series takes a look at a year in the life of Yellowstone National Park, examining how its wildlife adapts to living in one of the harshest wildernesses on Earth.
Yellowstone debuted on BBC Two at 8:00pm on Sunday 15 March 2009 and has three episodes. Each 50-minute episode was followed by a ten-minute film called Yellowstone People, featuring visitors to the Park and locals who had assisted the production team. The series was the channel’s highest-rated natural history documentary in over five years with audiences peaking at over four million.
In the USA, an edited version of the series was broadcast under the title Yellowstone: Battle for Life. It aired as a two-hour TV special, and premiered on Animal Planet on 22 March 2009. The series was one of the most popular titles at BBC Worldwide’s annual market for international clients with pre-sales to nine territories including Spain (Canal+), Germany (WDR), Russia (Channel 1) and Italy (RTI).
Enjoy BBC Yellowstone Episode 3, Autumn, in 720p HD.
