Every year three million caribou
migrate across the Arctic tundra.
The immensity of the herd can only
be properly appreciated from the air.
Some herds travel over 2,000 miles
a year in search of fresh pastures.
This is the longest overland
migration made by any animal.
They're constantly on the move.
Newborn calves have to be
up and running the day they are born.
But the vast herds
do not travel alone.
Wolves.
Packs of them, eight to ten strong,
shadow the migration.
And they are hungry.
It's the newly born calves
that they are after.
Running directly at the herd
is a ploy to generate panic.
The herd breaks up
and now it's easier
to target an individual.
In the chaos a calf is
separated from its mother.
The calf is young,
but it can outrun the wolf
if only it manages to keep its footing.
At this stage
the odds are even -
either the caribou
will make a mistake
or after a mile
the wolf will give up.
Midsummer on the tundra
and the sun does not set.
At these latitudes
the sun's rays are glancing
and not enough of their energy reaches the ground
to enable trees to grow.
You'll need to travel
500 miles south from here
before that is possible.
These stunted shrubs
mark the tree line -
the beginning of the boreal forest -
the taiga.
The needle-shaped leaves
of the conifers are virtually inedible
so this forest supports
very little animal life.
It's a silent place
where the snow is unmarked
by footprints.
In the Arctic winter
snow forms a continuous blanket
across the land.
But as spring creeps up
from the south
the taiga is unveiled.
This vast forest circling the globe
contains a third
of all the trees on Earth
and produces so much oxygen
it changes the composition
of the atmosphere.
As we travel south
so the sun's influence
grows stronger
and at 50 degrees of latitude
a radical transformation begins.
Summers here are long enough for
broadleaf trees to replace conifers.
Broadleaves are much easier
to eat and digest
so now animals can collect
their share of the energy
that has come from the sun.
It's summer
and these forests
are bustling with life.
But the good times
will not last.
Broad leaves must be shed in winter
for their damage by frost.
As they disappear,
so the land becomes barren
with little for animals to eat.
The inhabitants must migrate,
hibernate,
or face months of near starvation.
The Amur leopard -
the rarest cat in the world.
Here, in the deciduous forests of eastern Russia
the winter makes hunting
very difficult.
Pray animals are scarce,
and there's no concealing vegetation.
The cub is a year old
and still dependent on its mother.
Deer are frequent casualties
of the harsh winter
and these leopards are not above
scavenging from a corpse.
African leopards could
never survive here,
but the Russian cats have thick fur
to shield them from the cold.
There are only forty
Amur leopards left in the wild
and that number is falling.
Like so many creatures,
the cats have been pushed
to the very edge of extinction
by hunting and the destruction
of their habitat.
The Amur leopard symbolizes
the fragility of our natural heritage.
The future of an entire species
hangs on survival
of a tiny number of mothers
like this one.
All animals, rare or common,
ultimately depend
for their energy on the sun.
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