Specials

Using the unique overhead heli-gimble camera the crew set out to film a pack of African wild dogs hunting in the Okavango Delta. It came down to the final hour of the final day of filming before they got the shot they wanted.

Over the course of three years the Planet Earth team tried to film the elusive Snow Leopard deep in the mountains of Pakistan. Their patience was eventually rewarded with the world's first footage of a Snow Leopard hunting.

Cameraman Peter Scoones is on a mission to film Piranha in the wetlands of Brazil. They are considered the most dangerous freshwater fish, but prove difficult to track down, until Peter finally finds himself immersed in a feeding frenzy.

The team spend a month amongst an enormous mound of bat guano in Gomantong Cave as they film the hundreds of thousands of cockroaches and other inhabitants that live there. The amazing Lechuguilla Cave of New Mexico provides a whole other set of challenges.

The Gobi desert is home to the last truly wild Bactrian camels and their fear of humans makes them extremely difficult to capture on film. After weeks of trying the crew were becoming frustrated, but their expert local tracker wouldn't let them down.

Cameraman Wade Fairley braved temperatures of minus 50C and near hurricane force winds as he filmed a breeding colony of 20,000 emperor penguins in the Antarctic. At the other end of the Earth on a Norwegian island, cameraman Doug Allan and assistant Jason Roberts get a bit closer to a polar bear than they bargained for.

Lions hunting elephants has only ever been seen by a handful of people, so the crew were up against it when trying to film this rare behaviour. Using infrared technology they were able to track a pride of lions through the African night, but when they finally got the shots they wanted it was a saddening experience for all.

It took the Planet Earth team over eight weeks in the field to film less than 15 minutes of footage of the beautiful but seldom seen Birds of Paradise in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. Behind the scenes cameraman Paul Stewart endured hundreds of hours alone cramped inside a small filming hide, going stir crazy when old songs come back to haunt him.

Great white sharks capture their slippery seal prey by rocketing out of the depths and delivering a massive hit at the surface. To record a breach like this in ultra slow motion, which in real-time lasts just a second, was a supreme challenge for cameraman Simon King.

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The camera team of Doug Anderson and Rick Rosenthal were determined to film oceanic whitetip sharks without a cage, relying only on observation, nerves and experience to dictate how long they stayed underwater in their company. The powerful sharks were initially shy of the dive team but, as more sharks arrived, they became bolder - their behaviour changing to that of the hunter.

Many of the animals featured in the Planet Earth series are endangered so do we face an extinction crisis? Saving Species asks the experts if there really is a problem, looks at the reasons behind the declining numbers of particular animals and questions how we choose which species we want to conserve.

Pollution, climate change and a growing human population are all putting pressure on Earth's wildernesses including the Bialowieza forest, the Gobi Desert and the Arctic tundra. So how much of the planet is still wilderness? And why should we care? Into the Wilderness explores why these uninhabited expanses are important for our survival as well as that of all creatures on the planet.

This history of conservation throws up some interesting ideas as we look to the future of an ever more populated planet. How can conservation fit into this new world driven by economics and development? Living Together looks at the challenges facing conservation in the 21st century and looks at the role of religion in piloting a moral and ethical approach to the world we live in.

The making of the sprawling, ambitious series is documented.

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Originally aired under BBC Natural World Collection. Many years ago lions thrived in the deserts of Namibia's Skeleton Coast, until they were exterminated by man. Six years ago maverick biologist Flip Stander discovered a tiny remnant population alive and well in nearby mountains, and started to study them. Their numbers have grown and they are now returning to the desert in increasing numbers. But if these lions are to continue roaming here, Flip will have to persuade local people that these lions are worth more alive than dead.

Originally aired under BBC Natural World Collection. The BBC Natural History Unit explores a secret cave deep in the mountains of Pakistan where generations of snow leopards return each year to raise their young.

The Planet Earth team reveal their most memorable moments from the making of the series. We'll discover their high points, and their not so high points. And they'll tell us which sequences they consider to be their great Planet Earth moments. From the

The freshwater pools that dot Mexico's Yucatan peninsula were believed by the Mayans to be portals to the underworld. For the first time ever, the BBC Natural History Unit explores this incredible, labyrinthine system of underground rivers.

Follow the struggle for survival of two female elephants trying to raise their young in one of the harshest climates on Earth.

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