ANIMALS WITH CAMERAS, A NATURE MINISERIES: Season 2

Encore Thursdays, Aug. 3 and 10, 2023 at 7 p.m. on KPBS TV / Stream now with KPBS Passport! 

To discover the secret lives of animals, sometimes the animals must show us themselves. Go where no human cameraperson can go in Season 2 of ANIMALS WITH CAMERAS, A NATURE MINISERIES.

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Host Gordon Buchanan meets the Eastern Grey Kangaroos surviving on the Queensland coastline.

Courtesy of © Gordon Buchanan / BBC

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Eastern Grey Kangaroo with specially designed collar camera.

Courtesy of © Gordon Buchanan / BBC

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Scientists have helped design this animal friendly camera for an Eastern Grey Kangaroo.

Courtesy of © Gordon Buchanan / BBC

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Flying Fox (Fruit Bat). A single Flying Fox can disperse up to 60,000 seeds across the landscape every night.

Courtesy of © Craig Dingle / Shutterstock

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Koala with fitted camera, specially designed with tree hugging in mind.

Courtesy of © Paul Freimanis / BBC

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Host Gordon Buchanan films a loggerhead sea turtle.

Courtesy of Sam Rowley / © BBC

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A loggerhead sea turtle is ready to take its camera out to sea.

Credit: Courtesy of Sam Rowley / © BBC

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Elephant Seal pup. The pups’ blubber helps them survive while learning how to forage and makes them buoyant in water.

Courtesy of © Devin Powers / Shutterstock

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Caribbean Reef Shark fitted with Sharkcam, a hydrodynamic camera.

Courtesy of © Eddy Raphael / BBC

Wildlife cameraman Gordon Buchanan and a team of pioneering animal scientists join forces to explore stories of animal lives “told” by the animals themselves. The cameras are custom-built to fit on the animals unobtrusively and to be easily removed at a later point.

Do female turtles feed in the ocean when they are nesting? Why are gannet populations thriving, while other seabird species are declining? How do kangaroos survive when pushed out of their environments by urban development? The unique vantage point given by these state-of-the-art cameras reveal answers to these questions alongside the scientists studying these species. By better understanding the private lives of endangered animals, conservationists can improve efforts to save them.

One-of-a-kind sequences captured by the animals include several on-camera firsts. A male koala bellows at night to assert territory, the first time this behavior has been recorded in such close proximity. Soar above an Australian cityscape from a fruit bat’s perspective. Elephant seal pups play with their peers in the ocean, countering previous beliefs they are solitary creatures. Tiger sharks dive 500 feet in the coral reef to hide and search for prey.

EPISODE GUIDE:

Episode 1: "Ocean" Encore Thursday, Aug. 3 at 7 p.m. on KPBS TV - Wildlife cameraman Gordon Buchanan leads a team using state of the art cameras, offering a fresh look at the lives of some of the animals in our oceans such as sharks, elephant seals, turtles and gannets.

Episode 2: "Australia" Encore Thursday, Aug. 10 at 7 p.m. on KPBS TV - Wildlife cameraman Gordon Buchanan fronts the team helping scientists investigate the lives of some of Australia’s most iconic animals. Koalas, fruit bats and kangaroos take the cameras into their secret worlds.

Watch On Your Schedule:

This series is currently available to stream on demand with KPBS Passport, a benefit for members supporting KPBS at $60 or more yearly, using your computer, smartphone, tablet, Roku, AppleTV, Amazon Fire or Chromecast. Learn how to activate your benefit now.

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Credits:

NATURE is a production of The WNET Group. For NATURE: Fred Kaufman is executive producer. Bill Murphy is series producer. Janet Hess is series editor. Danielle Broza is digital content & strategy lead. A BBC Studios production for PBS and BBC with The WNET Group. For BBC, Jo Shinner is executive producer and Vanessa Coates is series producer. The miniseries is produced and directed by Simon Baxter and Clare Kingston. Presented by Gordon Buchanan.