Mother Nature, with some help from PBS Distribution, has two new hot NATURE titles: Nature: Shark Mountain and Nature: The World’s Most Wanted Animal on DVD and Digital HD. Both titles are also available now on Digital HD.
Nature: Shark Mountain
In the dead of the night, a team of filmmakers jump into the ocean to film hunting behavior on the reef. But first, they must make it through a pack of as many as 50 large and dangerous sharks gathering just below the surface. It is not a dive that many would make. But with Howard and Michele Hall, two of the world’s leading underwater filmmakers, something incredible is always just about to happen.
Thousands of sharks–silkies, white tips, black tips and hammerheads–hunt along the volcanic reefs of Cocos Island, so many that the island has also become known as Shark Mountain. But the waters around this tiny outpost in the Pacific are filled with ocean life so rich and diverse that the island and a twelve-mile zone all around it has been designated a Costa Rican National Park and World Heritage Site.
Shot in spectacular high definition video, the program takes viewers on the underwater journey of a lifetime, showing the wonders of Cocos. Yet it is a world that is disappearing as the years pass, for even places as remote and protected as Cocos are at risk in today’s world.
Nature: The World’s Most Wanted Animal
Pangolins are often described as “the most endangered animal you’ve never heard of.” The world’s only scaly mammal, pangolins are now trafficked at a higher rate than rhinos, elephants and tigers combined, for medicinal use in China, Thailand and Vietnam. Very little is known about even their most basic biology, and this is hampering conservation efforts–pangolins almost always die in captivity. In Namibia, conservationist Maria Diekmann found herself on the frontline of the battle to save these wanted animals after unexpectedly becoming a surrogate mother to an orphaned baby pangolin named Honey Bun.
On an emotional journey, Diekmann travels to Asia to better understand the global issues facing pangolins, before joining forces with a Chinese megastar to help build a campaign to bring awareness to the plight of these surprisingly charming creatures.