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Wild Kingdom has been at the forefront of animal photography for over 60 years.
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In the early days, Marlon Perkins and Jim Fowler traveled with large, heavy film cameras and waited days or weeks to capture iconic moments.
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Decades later, our cameras are small and portable, capable of endless recording.
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OK, all right.
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Well, maybe.
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Maybe.
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Maybe.
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You never know.
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What these things.
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It's a kitten.
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That's a kitten.
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These technological advances are revolutionizing our understanding of wild animal behaviors and helping to protect our planet's most vulnerable species.
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Faded Promote underwater video station.
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I've never seen anybody record this kind of close up data about first.
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One such animal that has benefited from these new technologies is the vulnerable polar bear.
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We are heading out to Churchill, Manitoba to discover how new observation techniques have helped polar bear preservation and see if we can spot one in the wild.
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Oh, look at the sign.
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Oh, look, it says there's a curfew.
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A bear curfew.
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I guess he didn't want us to keep the bears up at night.
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Churchill is known as the polar bear capital of the world.
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To find out why, we joined forces with renowned polar bear tracker Dennis Campare.
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Welcome to Churchill.
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Have you got everything we do?
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Let's go find a bear.
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Let's go find some bears In the winter.
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Temperatures in Churchill can plunge to less than -15°F.
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Thanks for rock'n'roll.
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Luckily, we're here for a summer adventure and it's a balmy 50°.
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Why is Churchill the polar bear capital of the world?
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We have The influx of the Churchill River that empties into the Hudson Bay dilutes the salt water content in the Bay.
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Therefore it freezes quicker than anywhere else in the Bay.
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So the bears know that, so they travel to this spot.
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So they get an advantage of getting out hunting seal on us using ice as a platform.
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Most polar bear populations migrate N with the sea ice as it recedes.
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But in Churchill, where the summer ice naturally melts, they're forced to come ashore to rest, which hopefully gives us the opportunity to observe one for ourselves.
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We'll be observing polar bears using real time video from a drone.
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This technology has revolutionized animal conservation, especially for large mammals that you definitely want at a safe distance.
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Just keep your eyes open.
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Does that look like a bear to you?
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Yeah, that does.
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So you start very far away and high and get them used to the noise.
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You don't want to spook them.
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Look right over here.
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She's coming down to take a dip right down the water's hands.
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Look at this, waiting in that water and holding off her belly, getting her body temperature back down to something comfortable.
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So what's the best way to, you know, observe its behavior and kind of see what it's up to?
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If the bear's active on the rocks, we wouldn't want to go on land when he's roaming around.
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The boat's the best place to stay.
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One of the things that we're concerned about with polar bears is changing ecosystems, changing climates.
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You've lived here your whole life and you've seen so many of these changes take place.
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What's going on with bears now, and how do you think you're doing?
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The ice is disappearing.
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It's on a downward curve for sure.
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So and then that, there lies the problem.
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If the ice gets any thinner, it's a whole bunch of crazy things happens to the bears.
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The most common thing we're hearing is we talk to researchers and scientists is that we still have so much more to learn.
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Oh, man, a polar bear can teach you here.
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The newest thing every day if you had the opportunity to watch it.
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I mean, this alone is kind of like a peek into the secret world of a polar bear right here in and of itself.
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The technology that we have available allows us to just get to know these animals in a way that we've never been able to before.
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That's the foundation of science, is observation.
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Being able to be so darn close to polar bears and see them doing so well, that's the best kind of motivation for conservation.
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You want to see the animal thriving and just want to keep it that way.
