Original subtitles

This is the story of our America.

From Alaska to Patagonia, follow a great mountain spine

that spans two continents, born of fire, starved of water,

and beaten by two great oceans.

Life is an intense struggle with limitless opportunities.

The Americas are a stage for some of the greatest spectacles on Earth.

Our journey begins along the mountains and coasts of Alaska.

Many ocean giants migrate through the Gulf of Alaska in search of cooler

waters These

are critical feeding grounds

for countless ocean wonders

And

their faith can also affect the fortunes of those on land.

A hungry grizzly smells an unexpected opportunity.

Millions of calories have washed ashore.

A beached humpback whale.

Grizzlies are usually solitary.

But the smell draws them together from miles away.

They're not used to sharing.

Latecomers are especially unwelcome.

He settles for the short end of the whale, a safe distance from the others.

There's not much to eat on the tail, but all he has to do is

wait.

Soon, the other bears eat their fill, and then some.

It's like after a Thanksgiving feast.

With everyone else in a food coma the hungry male helps himself to stress-free

seconds This

unexpected

windfall helps sustain these Grizzlies through the long cold winter Not

everything comes this easy

In the Americas.

You need backbone to live here.

Inland, across Alaska's frozen north.

It's as if the ice age never ended.

In places.

Ice is almost a half mile thick.

And over a thousand miles to the south, the most iconic North American mountain

range of them all,

the Rockies.

They're some of the highest ranges in all of North America.

And there's one animal that's as hard as the rock that gives them their name.

Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep.

The arrival of fall is the cue for their annual battle to decide who among them

will get the females and father next spring's lambs.

The six-year-old is finally ready to compete.

His opponent is a bigger, stronger eight-year-old ram.

The challenger must provoke the fight.

With body kicks and tongue flicking he pulled his opponent

The

older Ram seems to walk away in submission

But his posture is known as the low stretch.

It means, you want a piece of me?

Come get it.

The force of the impact, delivered at over 20 miles per hour, is enough to

kill a human instantly.

Two layers of skull protect their brains.

The fight lasts for hours, each ram battering the other dozens of times.

By day's end, the young challenger concedes.

But he'll get another chance next year.

The fighting ensures only the toughest genes will be passed on.

Survival in the Rockies demands nothing less.

They say the Rockies have only three seasons because winter can last for six

months.

The animals of Yellowstone National Park live through the worst the Americas can

throw at them.

In this harsh climate, finding enough food is a daily battle.

This big wolf pack needs big prey.

In the Rocky Mountain forest, that means elk.

Over 700 pounds, adorned with lethal antlers, a bull elk presents a

daunting target.

But they have strength in numbers.

They flush him out of the forest, where the deep snow will tire him out.

They've made a bad choice.

He's too healthy too dangerous and he's ready to fight back

They

must

find a different target

The pack leaders focus on another big bull, perhaps sensing a weakness.

But he could still fatally injure any one of them.

Younger, faster rules set the pace.

Pushing the elk hard.

The older, bigger wolf catch up and help bring him down.

They'll need to hunt again in a couple of days, but right now, life's good.

Traveling southward.

toward the Colorado Plateau, a high-altitude wilderness shadowed by the

Rockies, where the elements twist and carve the rock.

A distant storm releases this canyon sculptor.

Each year, the Colorado River moves more than 4 trillion gallons of water.

The architect of America's most spectacular landmarks.

Including the grandest canyon of all.

But all this water does little to quench the desert's thirst.

Much of it drains down into a labyrinth of chasms, where an entirely different

world survives.

A colony of Mexican free-tailed bats waits for nightfall.

Their doorway opens to our world right in the heart of Texas.

Twice as many bats emerge from this one desert cave than there are people in New

York City.

Every summer night, 20 million predators are set loose to feast in the desert

skies.

From canyons formed by water,

to a coastline forged by volcanoes.

These cold currents off the coast of Central America

offer a gathering place for predator and prey.

Currents collide with volcanic islands, driving nutrients from the deep to the

surface.

fuel for one of the most spectacular food chains on Earth.

Rich waters draw in millions of sardines.

They are the feast.

Nearly all of this school will die.

Sea lions strike first.

Then sharks appear.

The sardines fall together.

Alone, they're easy targets.

But predators use it to their advantage.

Finally,

the

real Thor arrives.

Striped marlin travel more than 600 miles at speeds up to 50 miles per hour.

They're usually loners, but feeding events like this bring them together in

extraordinary numbers.

They use their swords not to skewer the sardines, but to knock them senseless.

They feast along this coast for just a few weeks, until the surviving sardines

move on.

From Central America, the Great Mountain Spine runs down to South America.

Here, it rises.

At the end.

Topped by a 23,000-foot peak, they're the highest mountain outside Asia.

In some places, they're an ice world of massive glaciers.

Another part, a desert wasteland.

And here, at the equator, tropical cloud forests full of astonishing creatures.

Basking in the warmth of the tropics, mountain life can luxuriate a little.

and even show off.

Hummingbirds abound in these forests.

Some 50 species.

Their names are as pretty as they are.

The violet-tailed sylph.

The booted racquet tail.

The tawny-bellied hermit.

Many have evolved Longville to get to the sweet nectar that powers their

flight.

Descending from the high altitude, a new forest appears.

A different ecosystem.

A different world.

This is the Amazon.

The largest rainforest on Earth.

A perfect assassin stalks the jungle floor.

Silent.

Almost invisible.

The jaguar.

The biggest big cat in the Americas.

In the forests of Brazil, the jaguar must navigate two worlds.

On land, it's the undisputed king.

But not necessarily in the water.

Living here means crossing dangerous waters.

Despite the abundance of animals, a jaguar can sometimes spend days looking

for prey.

If an opportunity arises, he must take it.

Even if it's another top predator.

To even see a jaguar requires a lot of luck. To film one killing a caiman

is like winning the lottery.

The jaguar has very powerful jaws.

And bite force is key to its signature killing technique.

A bite through the skull to the brain.

Everything here lived in fear of the jaguar.

Across the continent to the east, the Atlantic Ocean fuels an entirely

different world.

One animal truly thrives in paradise.

The dolphin.

And nowhere more than here, Brazil's Fernando de Noronha National Marine

Park. Home to one of the

largest resident groups of dolphins in the world.

This young female has recently come of age.

She's one of an extended family, numbering in the thousands.

Known as spinners, for good reason.

Eat splash.

It's thought to mean something different.

Anything from let's move to danger to let's get it on.

This communication is key to their social lives.

as is sex.

Spinners' penises are pencil-thin and only an inch long.

Lucky for female spinners, it's not about size, but frequency and variety.

She could mate with several different males today alone.

Mothers keep a strong bond with their calves but don't know who the father is.

Because males don't know which calves are theirs they protect them all.

It's an unconventional family, but it works for them.

Some 1,500 miles south of the tropics, between Chile and Bolivia, the Andes

completely change.

It's called the altiplano, or high plains, a place of extremes

and extreme contrast,

where deserts freeze and

waters boil.

More like Mars than Earth, it seems just as hostile to life.

But even here, a few animals tough it out.

And into this barren world comes the Altiplano's most surprising residence.

Flamingos.

They spend their lives commuting from lake to lake, looking for their favorite

foods.

Algae and tiny shrimp that thrive in the briny water.

But as showy as they are, the flamingos pale in comparison to the real stars of

the Altiplano stage.

the stars themselves.

At about 12,000 feet, the dry, thin air makes for perfect stargazing.

Some of the world's astronomers have telescopes nearby.

But just looking up with the naked eye, you really don't need one.

At about 12,000 feet, the great mountain spine of the Americas finally ends

here, in Patagonia.

Torres del Paine National Park, Chile.

Millions of years, ice, rain, wind.

have conspired to create one of the most beautiful places on Earth.

A top hunter lives here, known by many names.

Mountain lion.

Cougar.

Puma.

From Alaska to California, from Brazil to Patagonia,

this big cat is the ultimate icon of the American mountain.

Although it's the most widespread big predator in the Western Hemisphere, it's

rare to ever see one.

To see a family in broad daylight is extraordinary.

Three cubs and their mother.

They're not quite cubs anymore, and that's the problem.

Time to see if they can make it on their own.

Fortunately for Patagonia's young mountain lions, they're leaving home at

the best possible time.

It's spring in Patagonia.

Wanako calving season.

They may seem like easy prey, but catching them is a lot harder than it

looks, especially for these beginners.

They need the cover of darkness.

For novice predators, sometimes it's hard to figure out what's prey and

what's not.

The puma can't seem to decide if this skunk would make a good meal.

And the skunk is in no mood to be eaten.

Sometimes it's better to stick with what you know.

Tonight.

The full moon hands a critical advantage to the prey.

The young hunters will have to work very hard to remain unseen.

But as the night goes on the change in the weather begins to tip the balance

back in their favor They

have the darkness they need

They pass a vital tact, proving they can make it without their mother.

Soon, they will have to go their separate ways.

But now, they're ready.

Nearly 600 miles from Antarctica,

The Falkland Islands sit at the southern edge of the Atlantic Ocean, one of the

most isolated places on Earth.

Swells build to over 30 feet.

The water feels freezing cold.

Gale horse winds are common.

A paradise for penguins.

When gentoo hunt, they're all in.

At sea, They're in their element.

But they're not alone.

A southern sea lion hunts.

For penguins, there's safety in numbers.

For all but one.

However, some are lucky.

Mated pairs will raise over a dozen chicks in their lifetime.

in the frigid waters of the Southern Atlantic.

Across our continent, even the most hostile land can offer hidden

opportunities. The animals here endure incredible extremes, yet they

triumph and make the Americas their home.