Imagine you are flying above the African savannah, swimming under Antarctic ice, climbing up Amazon trees and diving the Marianna abyss.

Imagine you can suddenly see in the night, hear ultra-sounds, decode radar waves and detect electric fields.

1,2,3… you are a lion or else a dolphin, a bear or a vulture!

Using the latest technologies of image treatment and stock footage from Saint Thomas Productions’ extensive film library, this wildlife series presents an insider’s view of the predators’ life and senses. Both spectacular and entertaining, the series gives a modern outlook on nature and its most spectacular ambassadors: predators.
Each episode depicts a predator and its hunting techniques in its natural habitat. Following the principles of a food chain, the programmes jump from one animal to the next, from hunter to prey.

Poles

Mirages are shaping over the immaculate ice shelf. Close up shot of a bear inhaling the frozen air. From the bear’s point of view, we understand that… he is smelling a seal. This odour is that of a young ringed seal hidden under a thin layer of snow. A few steps and paw swipes to clear the animal and uncover a young ringed seal snack. Under the ice shelf, protected from bears by several meters of frozen ice, belugas- the white whales- are hunting halibut. In their tridimensional environment, individuals can communicate the good hunting spots while kilometres apart. The chattering of these ghost hunters is continuous. At the South Pole, leopard seals hunt in silence. But they are nonetheless excellent tacticians. Their hunt is based on their excellent sight, experience and a perfect knowledge of their prey’s calendar. When do the parent penguins go off to feed at sea, when do they return, when are the young going to take their first bath and where exactly will they get into the water? The answers to these questions are all part of the leopard seal’s hunting culture. We follow his adventures under the surface of ice-covered bays. When his hunting season comes to an end at fall, the Northern spring wakes the polar bear which goes off to hunt. Our year in the lives of Pole predators comes to a close.

Author(s): Frédéric Bernadicou et Julien Naar
Director(s): Frédéric Bernadicou et Julien Naar
Year: 2006
Producer(s): Saint Thomas Productions
Running time: 2x52mn
Format: Digital Beta Super 16 mm
Distributor(s): Saint Thomas Productions — Follow us on social media:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/BestDocumentaryTV