Source: National Geographic Channel
UNTAMED AMERICAS premieres every Wednesday, 9:00PM on the National Geographic Channel (StarHub TV Ch 411) in 4 episodes - Mountains (13 June), Coasts (20 June), Deserts (4 July) and Forests (11 July). Repeats of episodes are available at various times.
The landscapes and wildlife of the Americas are savage, shrewd and stunning. Soaring mountains, burning deserts, tangled forests and curvaceous coasts. A grizzly bear takedown of helpless elk calves in Yellowstone. Bighorn sheep going head-to-head in battle. Giant Humboldt squid cannibalizing their kin. Puma cubs hunting solo for the first time… Explore some of the Greatest Wildlife Spectacles and Against-the-Odds Fights for Survival in the Continents’ Mountains, Deserts, Coasts and Forests.
Spending almost two years in the field, travelling thousands of kilometres from Alaska to Patagonia, the Untamed Americas team has the grit and glory in the wild of North America, Central America and South America.
To film the rare moments, Untamed Americas cameramen and producers rappelled down Peruvian cliffs in sea lion territory with bruised shins and battered heads; endured jellyfish stings in California; slipped down mud paths and stumbled through dark, dense underbrush in the Ecuadorean cloud forest; faced subzero temperatures (-30°C) as well as extreme heat with 100 percent humidity; manoeuvred through freak out-of-season hurricanes; gasped for breath in high altitudes; lost sleeping bags (and sleep!) in 130 kilometres per hour winds in Chile; and were even stalked by a puma.
Episode Synopsis
| EPISODE 1 | MOUNTAINS |
| Date: | Wednesday 13 June |
| Time: | 9:00PM |
From the Arctic to the peaks of the Andes, survival at great heights takes real guts. On the Yellowstone plateau, in a rarely filmed event, see newly awakened black bears go on the hunt for newborn elk calves. Get a ringside seat at one of the toughest mating contests on the planet as male bighorn sheep in the Rocky Mountains literally go head-to-head in a bloody battle for breeding rights.
Fly over erupting volcanoes in Central America as fledgling parakeets test their wings above the 300-metre Nindirí Volcano in Nicaragua. At the equator, see a bat that, until recently, no one knew existed, and that boasts the highest tongue-to-body ratio of any mammal in the world. In the Chilean Andes, watch as puma cubs strike out as they learn to hunt. With a maximum speed of 80 kilometres per hour, a caribou can outpace the wolf, which tops out at 65 kilometres per hour, but the wolf will use sheer stamina to gain the advantage.
Watch Clip! - A younger ram instigates a fight with a bigger, stronger ram and they go head-to-head in the snow. Their double layer skulls allow them to fight for hours.
Watch Clip! - Most animals hibernate through Yellowstone National Park’s harsh winters, but bison are built to plow through the deep snow for what little grass remains.
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| EPISODE 2 | COASTS |
| Date: | Wednesday 20 June |
| Time: | 9:00PM |
At the frozen poles or the sultry tropics, the coasts of the Americas host some of the greatest spectacles on earth. At the Falkland Islands in the southern end of the Americas, watch male gentoo penguins perform mating jigs to attract females. Farther north, plunge into the Sea of Cortez off the coast of Mexico, where hordes of voracious giant Humboldt squid cannibalize their kin.
Swim alongside thousands of graceful mobula rays — each with a wingspan stretching more than two metres — as they glide through the water and then leap through the air in a dazzling display. Dive with striped marlin around slopes of underwater volcanoes in a stunning feeding frenzy captured on film. And feast with grizzly bears as they devour a stranded humpback whale along the shore. Polar bears wait for the ice to freeze to hunt — for mother and cubs, it means avoiding testy males.
Watch Clip! - Baby jellyfish pulse through the water and will soon grow almost five metres of stinging tentacles.
Watch Clip! - A mother polar bear and her cubs must wait on shore longer than normal for the sea to freeze so they can hunt. Violent, hungry males nearby pose a danger to the cubs’ lives.
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| EPISODE 3 | DESERTS |
| Date: | Wednesday 4 July |
| Time: | 9:00PM |
In the deserts of the Americas, an abundance of wildlife has developed an array of bizarre and baffling against-the-odds survival strategies. Race along with mustangs in the Great Basin desert as one outcast male fights to regain his place in the herd and secure his survival.
Go to the Atacama desert along the coast of northern Peru, where Humboldt penguins raise their families in the driest place on earth. Join father penguins as they descend a sheer cliff and run a gauntlet of hungry sea lions in order to feed their young offspring.
Filmed for the first time in high-speed infrared, see the tiger moth dodge millions of hungry bats emerging from caves in the Chihuahua Desert. In the Sonoran Desert, watch as a grasshopper mouse takes on a giant centipede twice its size. Witness a camouflaged lizard squirting foul-tasting blood at its predator — from its eye socket. See creatures of every stripe fight for survival at the driest point in the season and then literally sink or swim when the rains finally arrive.
And with the rains, witness the emergence of an unusual creature — the spade foot toad. After waiting underground for over a year, the toad emerges, has sex and lays eggs. It is an all-out race to develop or die.
Watch Clip! - An old leader must try to fight his way into a new group, but is not welcomed by the younger lead male.
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| EPISODE 4 | FORESTS |
| Date: | Wednesday 11 July |
| Time: | 9:00PM |
A journey through the forests of the Americas is one of extremes — flood, freeze and fire. The animals that live there not only endure, but adapt and thrive in surprising ways. As the flood season arrives in the Amazon rain forest, witness the mighty Amazon River burst its banks and transforms a lush rain forest into a watery world where river dolphins hunt along the forest floor and an elusive jaguar takes down a caiman crocodile with stunning expertise.
In twisted, tangled treetops, spider monkeys swing and leap, but they have to venture to the forest floor for a meal of mud. Farther north in the Great Bear Rainforest of Canada, see a subspecies of black bear with a white coat — known as the “spirit bear” — as it emerges during the fall to feast on salmon. We visit the boreal forests of the Americas in the depths of winter to see how creatures survive the big freeze.
And in the summer, witness the other extreme — massive fires that annihilate thousands of square kilometres of forest in a few hours. From salamanders to bears, animals have a choice: Run or take cover. The flames will consume anything that cannot escape in time.
Watch Clip! - A young spirit bear splashes in the river to catch a salmon, while an older, more experienced bear feasts on his catch. A salmon escapes the distracted young bear twice.
Watch Clip! - After spending the winter under ice, a mother beaver and her mate set right to work feeding her family and rebuilding their lodge.
Catch UNTAMED AMERICAS on National Geographic Channel (StarHub TV Ch 411).