Awesome Animals (2020) s01e07 Episode Script

1
Lumberjack.
Surveyor.
Builder.
Engineer.
It's all in a day's
work for a beaver.
They've got the tools and the
know-how to create a brand new
ecosystem one log at a time.
When they build, everyone
shares the reward.
A beaver pond is
a wildlife magnet.
It's the place to find a mate
and raise a family, to hunt,
or fight for survival.
In the center of the action,
the engineer keeps the
whole thing running.
Building a dam?
That's just part
of the job.
These guys will
face down predators,
voyage in to the
unknown, and battle the
full force of nature.
All to create their
little slice of paradise.
These are the Teton Mountains
in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
At their base lies a
large river valley,
a place the American
beaver calls home.
They're cousins of
mice and squirrels,
but your 12-pound cat wouldn't
want to chase down these
50-pound fur balls.
It's hard to find an animal
on Earth that resembles them.
They're a bit like an
oversized woodchuck that
borrowed spare parts
from other animals.
Their front paws are
five-fingered and nimble,
like a raccoon's, while
their back feet are webbed,
like a duck's, for swimming.
Their paddle tail could have
been borrowed from a platypus,
but without the fur.
And their teeth, their
most prized possession,
are like giant
rabbit incisors.
Put that all together,
and you have one mean,
engineering machine.
In just five years, these
beavers turned a small forest
stream into what's now called
Willow Pond, a vast,
deep, diverse, wetland.
All from a few
rocks, twigs and mud.
As spring arrives, the
water attracts an entire
cast of characters.
Year after year, they count
on the beaver pond like
they count on spring itself.
Sandhill cranes arrive
from Mexico along with
white pelicans.
Canada geese and goldeneye
ducks may have only traveled
a few miles.
They need quiet water and
good cover for nesting,
and this beaver
pond provides both.
For a cow moose, the willows
provide more than cover.
The early spring buds are a
welcome relief after a winter
eating nothing but dry twigs.
The beaver's pond is the most
happening place in the valley,
bringing about
animals of all types.
But with all the
hustle and bustle,
predators are eager to
join the party as well.
A mother grizzly and her three
cubs have just woken up from
a six-month slumber.
They're hungry.
And they'll eat anything
they can get their paws on,
including a plump,
North American beaver.
The father beaver senses
danger and heads straight for
the deepest, and safest,
part of the pond.
He can easily out-swim a bear.
Or hide in the murky water,
holding his breath for
up to 15 minutes.
But mother must stay in
the lodge with her young.
It's a dangerous move.
The bears know
there's a meal inside.
But even a 600-pound
predator doesn't crush this
brilliantly
engineered structure.
Maybe the bears thought the
beavers were too much work.
Or they're still groggy
from a long winter's nap.
Either way, mom settles
instead for the quick,
easy delicacy, of
a rotten trout.
Bear cubs learn to hunt
by watching their mothers.
And each little victory
deserves a celebration.
While they get valuable
training from mom,
there's still plenty
of time for play.
Believe it or not,
the grizzly bear,
one of the top
predators in the forest,
isn't the most serious threat
to the beavers in springtime.
It's the sudden,
unpredictable things.
Six months' worth of
snow melts in the
span of a few weeks.
Trickles of water
become torrents.
The tiny runoff stream that
feeds the Willow Pond swells
into a raging river.
And it smashes the
beaver dam to pieces.
It's washed downstream
in an instant.
The adults swim against
the raging current,
but young beavers
aren't nearly as strong.
One of the year-old kits has
strayed from the lodge at
the wrong time.
If he gets swept away, he
could be lost or injured in
the rocky stream.
Luckily, mom comes
to the rescue.
With the worst over, the
beavers assess the damage.
With the dam gone,
their pond is draining,
weeks of hard work washed
away in an instant.
It's not just the beavers
who are losing their home.
An entire community
is counting on them
to save this pond.
Luckily, this is what
beavers were born to do.
The sound of running water
triggers an obsessive
desire to build.
And once again, the
beavers spring into action.
Step one, gather supplies.
Armed with nothing more than
a great set of incisors,
Mother Beaver gets
to lumberjacking.
Those teeth of hers
never stop growing.
If she doesn't wear
them down every day,
they'd soon outgrow her head.
But when you spend as much
time chewing through wood as
she does, that's
not a problem.
There's no time for sitting
around on one's tail.
This is a whole
family affair.
Mother puts a stick in place,
while father patches holes
with debris gathered
from the bottom and
carried any way he can.
Within a week, they've got
the water back under control.
They've saved their pond.
Despite the scare, their
two-year-old son has gotten
crucial on-the-job training.
And he's going to need it.
His mother is about to
give birth to a new litter.
Their house might
be well constructed,
but it's no mansion.
The two year old is
about to get the boot.
He must set off and
build a pond of his own.
It's not as easy as
finding a place next door.
The closest real estate
is already claimed.
Other beavers, probably
his older siblings,
have already established
colonies nearby.
This beaver must venture
out even further,
into the unknown.
And it's dangerous.
There will be predators
and little protection.
When he finds an
unoccupied building site,
he'll have to engineer a pond
of his own, all from scratch,
and all before
winter comes again.
This is a journey that many
young beavers do not survive.
As summer approaches, the
valley erupts with life.
The beavers have created
the perfect place to raise a
family, and it attracts
all walks of life.
A mother moose brings her
two-week-old calf out of the
forest, to the pond's
edge for a drink.
While some swans use
the pond for nesting.
And a mother fox sees it as a
perfect hunting ground to help
feed her growing young.
The kits learn to hunt
by watching their mother,
and by simply
roughhousing around.
They don't seem to have
a worry in the world.
Others don't
have it so easy.
The two-year old is still
on a house-hunting mission.
He's only two miles from the
Willow Pond where he was born.
But to a beaver,
that's an epic journey.
Finally, he discovers a
promising piece of property.
And it just happens to have
a special smell about it.
There's a female
nearby, a single female.
He's hit the jackpot.
Beavers aren't
much for romance.
For this young couple,
attraction is a matter
of convenience.
She's the only
available female around,
and he's the only male.
That's good enough for them.
Now, it's time to
get back to work,
and do what beavers
do best, build a dam.
Starting the project
from scratch,
the pair musters
every skill.
Engineer, woodcutter,
carpenter.
Even stone mason.
First comes their foundation,
a bit of brush they lay on
the bottom of the stream.
And then, a few
thoughtfully placed stones
to anchor it in place.
Finally, they add layers
of debris and wood.
Holes are patched with
mud, bulldozed into place.
A basic dam takes shape,
with layers of
branches,
rocks,
logs, and debris.
Arranged in a triangle.
As the water level rises,
the beavers add more layers,
making the dam
higher and wider.
After a month, their 40-foot
dam is finally complete.
And their pond begins to grow.
The first trees are cleared,
the stream is blocked,
and the land floods.
They've single-handedly
transformed an entire
landscape, no cement, chainsaws
or bulldozers required.
They've just passed the first
big test of adulthood,
they built a dam
and filled a pond.
But a beavers'
work is never done.
Their next house project?
Their lake-side
beaver lodge.
Back at Willow Pond,
Mom and Dad are on
food-shuttling duty.
They gather up the family
favorites, alder, cottonwood,
aspen and willow, then float
branch after tasty branch down
the pond to the lodge.
The kits are impatient
eating machines,
waiting for their food
delivery and then squabbling
over the biggest twig.
Mom and Dad attempt to sneak
in a snack of their own.
They might only get the
small leftover twigs,
but nothing beats a little
crunchy bark, and some soft,
pulpy wood.
They have their
fast-food technique down.
Nimble forepaws spin a small
branch like corn on the cob,
while their sharp teeth
strip off the tasty bits.
As picky as they are, beavers
can pack away two pounds of
wood every day.
That's quite a
challenge for an animal
that lives under water,
but whose food grows on land.
And even worse, they've cut
down all of the trees around
them for their
building projects!
But leave it to the beavers to
get creative and use a little
animal awesomeness.
If you can't bring the
trees to the water's edge,
why not bring the
water to the trees?
The beavers, turned
hydro-engineers,
build an entire canal system.
Their short runs out of the
water have already worn paths
in the dirt.
Now all they have to do is
a little extra excavation.
And it fills with water.
Problem solved.
Mother and father beaver
continue to dredge their
channels, depositing the mud
on the banks, all summer long.
Their hard work pays off, they
create an entire network of
waterways that reach out like
fingers from the main pond.
They're the telltale mark
of an older beaver pond,
stretching as far as 750 feet
into the surrounding forest.
This way, they always have
a watery escape route.
And it's definitely easier
to move branches by floating
them, rather than dragging.
Especially when you need
to stockpile loads of
branches for winter.
And time is running out.
Cold weather is
coming in a hurry.
A chilly wind sweeps
down from the mountains,
setting the aspens and
cottonwoods ablaze.
At their brand
new beaver pond,
the young couple can
sense the change.
They have their dam, but they
quickly need to build their
safe, warm shelter,
their beaver lodge.
It's time to move
some timber, ASAP.
Beavers' teeth make
remarkable chainsaws.
This male can gnaw his way
through a six-inch tree trunk
in under an hour.
But lumberjacking
is dangerous work.
Every now and then, a beaver
will get crushed by a falling
tree, so this is
a one-beaver job.
His mate knows to stay
clear until he's through.
It's round-the-clock work.
Beavers are mostly nocturnal,
so working the night shift is
no problem, the young male
just keeps on chomping.
Every few bites, he pauses and
listens for creaks and snaps.
That way, he knows
when to dive for cover.
Now the female joins in to
help cut up the tree in to
logs, like a mobile sawmill.
The two lumberjacks
strip off the branches,
and float the logs down
the pond to the job site.
Morning comes and
they're still working.
You could coin their
style "eco-friendly chic,"
piling sticks and brush
high into a free-form mound.
Then, they gnaw and dig
out the inside into an
earthen cavern,
complete with
rooms and even entryways.
A layer of mud mortar
is the finishing touch,
to hold it together
and seal out the cold.
Over the course of a week,
they've built a cozy home,
four feet high, with
walls two feet thick,
and a plush interior any
beaver would long for.
The entrances sit
below water level.
They open into an entryway
for drying off and eating.
Above that sits the
main living room,
vented with a chimney to
keep it from overheating.
It's a castle built for a
beaver, and just in time.
Winter has arrived.
When snow comes
to Jackson Hole,
it blankets the
valley for six months.
Much of the Willow
Pond freezes solid.
But in the beaver lodge,
things are pretty cozy.
Thick walls keep out the cold.
And a layer of body
fat, especially in
their bare tails,
does the rest.
Mostly, they sleep.
When hunger strikes, they can
swim to their pantry and back
in a few seconds.
They never need to
set foot outside.
Except that is, if you're a
young beaver trying to make it
through your first
winter on your own.
Outside, blizzards
whip the snow into
ten-foot drifts and
temperatures can plunge
to 40 degrees below zero.
Most animals just
have to tough it out.
Bison use their heads like
plows to reach clumps of grass
buried under the snow.
Moose try to get by on
the dry twigs of willow
and other trees.
And elk root up plant shoots
by pawing through the snow
with their hooves.
But a certain young and
inexperienced beaver couple
didn't store enough
food for the winter.
Their pantry is empty.
Holes in the deep snow mean
someone has snuck out of the
lodge, when he shouldn't have.
It's the young male.
Hunger drives him out to face
the full blast of winter.
All of a beaver's hard work
and preparation is to avoid
a moment like this.
He's more of a swimmer
than a snowplow.
But lucky for him, he
stumbles on a small sapling.
It'll hold them over
for another day,
but spring is a long way
off, and he must continue
the brutal hunt.
The wind just gets colder,
and the snow deeper.
Each day he must
travel further from
home into the forest.
This time he stumbles upon a
tree he had tried to cut down
in the fall, but it got
hung up on a pine tree.
Now, it might be
his only hope.
He's a good lumberjack,
but no climber.
He tries to skate across
the frozen trunk to reach
the edible twigs.
Ten feet up,
success slips away.
But determined, his
perseverance finally pays off.
Now, it's a waiting game.
With a few sticks a day, and
their fat reserves vanishing,
the pair must hang on until
the end of winter comes.
At long last, there's
a sign of relief.
Sunshine and warmth
arrive at last.
The snow won't
vanish overnight,
but the worst is over.
The beaver family at
Willow Pond gets
back to the grind,
making repairs,
building additions,
and saying goodbye to another
set of young ones as they set
off into the world.
The pond will empty, the large
aspens and cottonwoods will
grow back, and the
cycle can begin again.
Upstream at the new pond, the
young couple finally ventures
into an unfrozen world
after surviving their
first winter alone.
On a chilly March
morning, they reaffirm
their special bond.
This year, they'll be ready
to have kits of their own.
Continuing to be the
busy beavers they are,
and awesome animal engineers,
they'll build upon the work
they began last year.
Creating an entire
ecosystem, for a whole
river valley of creatures.
Captioned by
Cotter Captioning Services.