All language subtitles for South.Pacific.E05.Strange.Islands.1080p.BluRay.DTS.x264-NaRB_track3_[eng]

Remote and isolated,

the islands of the South Pacific
have a life of their own.

Animals have been living
in seclusion for so long,

they've evolved in the most curious
and surprising ways.

But island living can carry a high price.

Recently, some dramatic changes have been
sweeping through these strange islands.

At the western limits
of the Pacific Ocean,

this is New Guinea,

the world's largest tropical island.

In these isolated jungles,

there are creatures only recently
discovered by Westerners...

...and mountains
that they have never visited.

This is the home of a mammal
first seen by scientists

as recently as 1994.

Even the locals rarely see it,

and it has never been filmed...

until now.

It lives in trees, but it's not a monkey.

Primates never made the jump
across the water to this island.

This is a rare glimpse
of an almost unknown island oddity...

...the dingiso.

About the size of a Labrador

and with bear-like features,
it is - amazingly - a type of kangaroo,

a tree kangaroo.

It lives at a higher altitude
than any other kangaroo,

hence the woolly coat.

Kangaroos usually feed on grass,

but here on New Guinea,
they've climbed into the trees

where the greenery is more abundant.

So the dingiso is a kangaroo

which lives high in the mountains
and climbs trees -

but then islands do have a habit
of producing rather unusual animals.

Why?

Because islands offer fresh opportunities

to the creatures
that find their way there.

With no monkeys in New Guinea,

the freedom to browse in the trees
has gone to the kangaroos.

New Guinea is a vast island nestled close
to the continental landmass of Australia.

As we move south and east,
to smaller, more distant islands,

the wildlife becomes even more unusual.

The little-known island of New Caledonia
is a small sliver of Australia

that was cast adrift
over 60 million years ago.

It's home to a creature that seems
to have evolved quite strangely.

It has wings, but it can't fly.

It is the kagu.

Kagu families stick together,

with young from previous years
helping to declare the family territory.

All intruders are chased away.

It's the breeding season,

when males rekindle the flame
with their life-long partners.

It's hard to know what the kagu
is related to -

a heron, a rail,

or maybe a pigeon.

Its closest relative may actually be
the sunbittern of South America,

7,000 miles to the east.

She may not seem too impressed,

but then, kagus always keep their feet
very firmly on the ground.

Their wings are too weak
to get them airborne,

but why fly when all the food you need
is on the ground?

And with no large predators
stalking this island,

there's not much cause to take flight.

But this life is not without its worries.

A newly hatched chick
is hiding among the leaves.

As with babies the world over, getting
food into mouth can be quite a challenge.

Perhaps slimy worms just don't appeal.

The chick's camouflage helps to hide it
from aerial predators

like the New Caledonian crow.

Fortunately, Dad's wings
still have a use...

...to help him look big
and intimidating.

The kagu may be an island oddity,

but with few prowling predators
reaching the Pacific's isolated islands,

flightless birds are more common here
than anywhere else on Earth.

Islands are a topsy-turvy world,

where evolution seems to follow
a different set of rules.

North of New Caledonia
lies the Solomon Islands archipelago,

a scattering
of a thousand tropical islands.

For the select few animals
that arrived here,

these were brave new worlds,
filled with possibilities.

And to make the most
of what they found here,

some adopted a whole new way of life.

Among the successful colonists
were skinks -

lizards that are usually small
with short legs.

Quite a variety live here
in the Solomons,

but there is one in these forests that's
unlike any other skink on the planet.

The monkey-tailed skink is up to
50 times heavier than your average skink,

and is the world's largest.

Most skinks spend their lives
on the ground, but not this monster.

This is the only skink to possess
a prehensile tail...

...and unlike nearly all other skinks
which dine on insects,

this gentle giant is entirely vegetarian.

As in New Guinea, there are no monkeys
on these islands,

so this skink simply filled
the gap in the market and branched out.

It even forms social bonds
with other monkey-tailed skinks,

a rare characteristic among reptiles
of any description.

This skink may be an oddity,
but that is exactly why it thrives here.

For a leaf-eater,
these islands are paradise.

For others, though,
life can be a little harder.

Islanders only succeed
by making the most of what's around them.

Even spiders have their uses.

On Santa Catalina Island in the Solomons,

a fisherman prepares to go fishing.

He seeks out a particular spider web,

one that is strong and intricately spun.

The fish he's after
can't be caught on hooks -

their mouths are too narrow.

So he has to be creative.

No rod or reel, just a kite...

...and the spider silk, wound into a lure.

The spider-silk lure hangs below the kite,

flitting across the water like an insect.

Now he must steer the kite
to where he thinks the fish are gathered.

Somewhere, just beneath the surface,
shoals of needlefish lie in wait.

He keeps a close eye on the kite -
if it drops, a fish is snared.

No hook is needed.

The sharp teeth and rough scales of the
needlefish are tangled in the spider silk.

It's clever, it's effective...

...and many fish can be caught
in this way.

Their ability to adapt
and find food both on land and at sea

was crucial to the survival
of the Pacific's first human colonisers.

But it wasn't all plain sailing -

the Pacific's more remote islands

were some of the last places on Earth
to be discovered by humans.

And the island chain of Hawaii
is the remotest of them all.

These islands are so hard to reach
that before humans arrived,

only one new species of plant or animal
turned up here every 35,000 years.

For those lucky few that made it,
this was a land of milk and honey.

This bird's beak is perfect
for sipping nectar from tubular flowers.

It's an 'i'iwi -

a long-billed honey creeper
only found in Hawaii.

But when blown to these shores
four million years ago,

its ancestors looked very different.

Those first Hawaiian honey creepers
were finch-like,

with short bills, perhaps quite similar
to this modern honey creeper, the palila.

Its stout bill is perfect
for ripping open tough seed pods.

But once here, the honey creepers
made the most of it,

evolving into a variety of birds
with some very distinctive bills.

The Maui parrotbill
has a strong, hooked beak

for getting at the grubs inside dead wood.

And then there's the 'akiapola'au,

with one of the most remarkable beaks
of any bird.

Its lower mandible is straight
and chisel-like

and can puncture the bark
to drink the sap...

...while its upper mandible is long
and curved for winkling out grubs.

It's as close as a bill gets
to a Swiss Army penknife.

Amazingly, one single type of finch
evolved into 58 different species

and all because the birds
that normally fill these roles,

like hummingbirds and woodpeckers,
never made it to these islands.

Landfall in the Pacific
is a risky business.

Most islands are small,
low and rather uniform,

with few lifestyle choices on offer.

But there is an archipelago
that truly bucks the trend.

Two of the largest islands in the Pacific
have everything a castaway could dream of.

Here lives a greater diversity
of unique island creatures

than almost anywhere else
in the South Pacific.

Forested valleys, turbulent rivers
and glacier-topped peaks...

this is New Zealand.

A thousand miles long
and with a mountainous spine

rising one-and-a-half miles
above the ocean,

New Zealand offered
a world of possibilities

to creatures
that found their way here.

On these islands at the end of the world

live some unique animals.

Alpine parrots, called "kea",
after their calls.

Living higher than any other parrots,

these are possibly
the world's most playful birds.

But most of New Zealand's pioneering
creatures were drawn to the forests below.

And here, too, given the strange nature
of life on Pacific islands,

it pays to expect the unexpected.

And the last thing
you might expect to see here...

...is penguins.

These are Fiordland crested penguins,

named after this corner of south
New Zealand, and their funky hairdo.

They're on their daily trip to the sea.

Despite hanging out in the forest,
they haven't lost their taste for fish.

So why are these woodlands
so attractive to penguins?

Because there are
no large predators here,

it's a safe place for bringing up baby.

A freshwater stream through the forest
makes a handy highway

for a parent penguin heading home from
a fishing trip with a crop full of food.

Born in the forest,
they stay in the forest,

while Mum and Dad bring fresh meals
straight from the ocean.

They can hear the waves,
they can even smell the spray,

but they have no idea what it looks like.

These chicks won't have
their first splash in the ocean

until they're three months old,

when they'll finally set off
on their first fishing trip, alone.

1,500 miles from the nearest continent,

New Zealand is beyond
the reach of most mammals.

Marine mammals aside,
the only ones that did succeed,

before humans arrived, had wings.

Bats.

This is the short-tailed bat.

It roosts in tree cavities
and comes out at night to feed.

So far, so normal.

But these bats have been
living the island life far too long

not to have become
a little "different".

And they're not the only ones.

Wetas are primitive relatives
of the locust, but they can't fly.

Seeing an opportunity,
the bats pounced.

After all, why waste energy hawking
for insects in the sky,

when there is such a feast
on the forest floor?

New Zealand's night-time creepy-crawlies
are at the mercy of these bats.

Some try to put up a fight...

...but they're no match
for THIS army of predators.

These bats have special sheaths
that protect their wings,

all the better to burrow
through the leaves.

So even worms aren't safe.

The very first bat

evolved from a mouse-like mammal
many millions of years ago.

Here on New Zealand, it seems
evolution has gone into reverse.

And if New Zealand's bats
have turned to mice,

what on earth has happened to the birds?

In these forests

lives a bird that is about as un-bird-like
as it is possible for a bird to be.

It's nocturnal, though it sometimes
wakes up before sunset.

It has whiskers
so it can feel its way in the dark.

It's a parrot, and weighing up to
four kilos, it's the world's heaviest.

And yes, you've guessed it - it can't fly.

Meet the kakapo.

Too heavy and short-winged
to get airborne,

it climbs trees instead.

Kakapo were once
one of the most successful

and abundant herbivores in New Zealand -
the Kiwi equivalent of our rabbit.

In 1899, explorer Charlie Douglas wrote,
"They could be caught in the moonlight

"by simply shaking the tree or bush

"until they tumbled to the ground...
like shaking down apples."

Its favourite food is up above -
the tiny seeds of the rimu tree.

This fruit fuels kakapo reproduction

and they only breed when the trees
produce a bumper crop,

so about once every four years.

Kakapo breed slower than any other bird,

but they also live longer,

sometimes more than a hundred years.

The male's "song"
is as peculiar as the bird itself.

More frog than parrot,
it can be heard up to three miles away.

In a breeding season, he will boom
non-stop for eight hours every night

for up to three months.

But a female will only respond
if there are plenty of rimu seeds about.

So while these birds may nest
in burrows like rabbits,

unfortunately, they don't breed like them.

And their numbers
have dwindled dramatically.

Today, fewer than a hundred
kakapo survive...

...and precious chicks
receive a helping hand.

Captive rearing has helped
raise the number of kakapo

from just 51 in 1995

to the 91 birds alive today.

They used to number
in the hundreds of thousands.

Today, their future is truly in our hands.

So is this now an empty forest?

Actually, the trees are under attack
like never before.

There's a menace
lurking amongst the foliage.

During the day, it slumbers.

But under cover of darkness,
an invader is revealed.

Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed,
the mammals have finally arrived in force.

Australian possums.

Imported for their fur
two centuries ago,

they soon reached plague proportions,
stripping trees of their vegetation.

A war is being waged against them -

traps set and poison scattered.

And yet they are now far more numerous
than the kakapo ever were.

A staggering 70 million possums
overrun New Zealand's forests.

Where a bird failed,
a mammal has succeeded.

But why? The possums
were unwitting immigrants,

while the kakapo
have lived here for millennia -

perfectly adapted to this forest.

It's an irony that is by no means unique
to the kakapo and the possum.

Right across the Pacific,
similar scenes have been unfolding.

Tiny islands off the coast of New Zealand

are the last refuge for a host of animals
now vanished from the two main islands.

This is Stephens Island -

one square mile of rock
protruding from the ocean.

It's home to a living fossil,

a relict, barely changed
for over 100 million years.

The tuatara.

And half the world's population
survive on this one island refuge.

During the reign of the dinosaurs,

the ancestors of the tuatara
were everywhere.

They survived the cataclysm
that killed off the dinosaurs,

but then couldn't compete
with the mammals

and died out...

everywhere, except on what was then
a mammal-free New Zealand.

Unlike mammals, tuatara
live life in the slow lane.

Days can pass

when they barely move a muscle...

...sometimes taking
just one breath an hour.

They feed on wetas,

beetles and other invertebrates...

...but don't appear very good
at catching them.

Even after millions of years of practice,

eye-mouth co-ordination
is not what it could be.

"Survival of the fittest"
just doesn't seem to apply here.

The tuatara's survival, first on
New Zealand, now on Stephens Island,

proves a point -

islands are pretty safe places to be,
at least until invaded.

Fortunately for
the Stephens Island tuatara,

it did survive a brief mammal invasion.

But for some of the other wildlife here,

the invasion was
rather more...catastrophic.

The island had been uninhabited
and largely ignored,

but that all changed with the construction
of this lighthouse back in 1894.

When the newly installed keeper,
a Mr Lyall,

found an unusual wren on the island,

he sent a specimen to London
for identification.

Like many island birds, it was flightless.

And perhaps that's why it wasn't
Mr Lyall who first discovered the bird,

but his four-legged companion.

Tibbles proved to be
a very efficient specimen collector.

So much so, in fact,

that one year later, when the bird
was officially declared a new species,

Mr Lyall had to regretfully inform
the scientific community at large

that the species was now extinct.

In truth, Tibbles
wasn't the only feline to blame,

but the ease with which the Stephens
Island wren had been dispatched

WAS alarming.

The cats were removed from Stephens
Island, but it was too late for the wren.

Now only known from a few
cat-chewed museum specimens,

evolving to be flightless
had proven fatal.

So it seems there is a trade-off.

The freedom of island life
allows a species to relax its guard,

but that can leave it defenceless.

On the main islands of New Zealand,

similar dramas have played out
time and time again.

Forests dominated by giant kauri trees
once covered the North Island.

The fragments that remain
look much like they have for millennia,

but looks can be deceiving.

A few centuries ago,

this forest echoed with the calls
of strange and wonderful birds.

Most famous was the giant moa,

which looked a bit like an ostrich,
but taller than an elephant.

And there are many more birds

whose haunting songs
now exist here only in memory.

The bird recordings
and recreated songs you hear now

are all of species that have disappeared

from these main-island forests.

We can't just blame Tibbles and his kin.
Humans have brought

a whole range of mammalian competitors
and predators to these shores.

Today, the people of New Zealand
are making amends.

This is New Zealand's most famous tree -

Tane Mahuta, Lord of the Forest.

There's more wood in this kauri tree than
in any other tropical tree in the world.

Conservationists are working hard to
protect and nurture these special forests.

By collecting kauri seeds, they ensure
that new trees can be cultivated

and the forest expanded
into its former range.

Meanwhile, the animal invaders
are being controlled,

and birds that only survived
on small outlying islands

are now being reintroduced
to these mighty forests.

Back in Hawaii,
being the remotest of all archipelagos,

you might expect the unique wildlife
to have fared rather better.

In the lowlands, there are lush
coastal rainforests teeming with life.

But not indigenous life.

None of the plants or animals
you see here is actually native.

Jackson's chameleons were brought
from East Africa as exotic pets.

The white-rumped shama from India and
the northern cardinal from North America

were both introduced to supplement
the native bird life,

while the red-billed leiothrix
was a cage bird imported from China.

And the Japanese white-eye was imported
in an attempt to control insect pests.

Before humans, only one new species
reached Hawaii every 35,000 years.

Now up to 50 new species
turn up every year.

Invaders are everywhere,

and some have had a significant impact.

In an attempt to control introduced rats,

humans brought
the Indian mongoose to Hawaii.

Unfortunately, no-one considered
the fact that rats are nocturnal,

while the mongoose hunts by day,

so the hungry mongoose
turned its attention

to decimating the island's
unique bird life instead.

Thousands of species have humans to thank

for bringing them to islands
throughout the Pacific.

But there's one animal that has been
a valued travelling companion

for as long as people
have sailed this ocean.

Wherever people went,

pigs went too.

In Vanuatu,
1,200 miles north of New Zealand,

the people of Tanna Island
have gathered for a festival.

Like an expensive car in Western culture,

here pigs are a symbol
of wealth and status.

The Toka festival celebrates
the end of warfare between rival clans,

and pigs are at the centre of it.

To attend, each village
must bring some to the party,

and that's a lot of pigs.

Some will be butchered for a feast,
others given away.

But to take one of these pigs home,

a family must agree
to one day repay the debt...

...and it's these pig debts

that help strengthen the bonds
between the different villages.

Major celebrations surround the giving
and receiving of these prized assets.

And since the Toka only occurs
once every three or four years,

everyone jumps at the chance to dress up.

The dancing goes on for three days.

Each village attempts
to out-dance its neighbours

in a display of friendly rivalry.

You could say this is
Strictly Come Dancing, Vanuatu-style.

In the past, tribal rivalry
was far more serious.

On this island, there were
precious few wild animals to hunt.

Pigs would have been essential protein,

but if they died, perhaps through disease,
what else did the islanders have to eat?

The great-grandparents
of these dancers were cannibals.

Life on an isolated Pacific island
is eternally poised on a knife-edge.

Nowhere is this more apparent

than on the single most remote island
in the Pacific -

Easter Island.

This tiny speck of land
has an extraordinary story to tell,

with new twists
turning up still to this day.

Just 13 miles long and 7 miles wide,

Easter Island rises like a fortress
from the waves,

surrounded by thousands of miles
of ocean in every direction.

People first arrived here
less than 1,000 years ago.

Most of what we know
about their civilisation

can only be pieced together
from the relics that remain.

It is a strange and desolate place.

The most striking features
in this bleak and windswept landscape

are the hundreds of giant
stone statues, known as moai,

thought to be carved in the likeness
of chiefs or ancestors.

It's difficult to believe
that an advanced culture

capable of carving and erecting
these monoliths

grew up in such a barren landscape.

The truth is,

it didn't.

When those first colonisers
discovered Easter Island,

this was a paradise.

These empty cliffs

were once home to the largest
seabird colonies in the South Pacific.

Rich volcanic soils
nourished a forest of giant palms

that was home to many unique species,

including Easter Island versions
of herons, parrots, rails and owls.

Today, they are all gone.

The people, ultimately,
didn't do much better.

The rise and tragic demise
of the Easter Islanders,

the Rapa Nui, is now legendary.

This quarry once occupied
the majority of the island's workforce,

thousands of people,

with each clan trying to carve
and raise a bigger, grander figure

than those of their neighbours.

Vast amounts of timber
would have been required

to transport and erect the giant moai,

and slowly but surely,
the forests vanished.

Eventually, there was no wood left
even to build boats.

Without fishing boats,

they would have been denied
their main source of food,

and their one means of escape.

As resources dwindled,

Easter Island society
descended into chaos and warfare.

The giant statues
were pulled to the ground -

possibly acts of sabotage
between rival clans.

Houses were abandoned
and the foundation stones used

to construct fortified dwellings
in caves underground.

Some evidence even suggests that once
everything edible had been consumed,

the starving were driven to that
most desperate of acts - cannibalism.

Understandably, this version of Easter
Island's history remains controversial,

because it suggests the Rapa Nui
were incredibly short-sighted.

As the trees dwindled,
why did they do nothing about it?

But a new theory suggests the Rapa Nui
were powerless to prevent their downfall,

for when they arrived on this island,

they were not alone.

Rats travelled with people
to every corner of the Pacific.

On Easter Island, their impact
may have been catastrophic.

Multiplying to plague proportions,
they would have devoured the wild fruits,

the seabirds,
even the nuts of the giant palms,

so that the trees
may have stopped reproducing

long before the last one was felled.

Perhaps the fate of Easter Island
was not sealed

by the human who felled that last tree,

but by the rat that ate the last palm nut.

Other South Pacific islands have
also seen civilisations rise and fall,

though none have left
such dramatic reminders of their passing

as the giant statues of the Rapa Nui.

Now re-erected,

they've come to symbolise how precarious
life can be on an isolated island.

For this island has not been abandoned.

A few Rapa Nui survived,
and now they're thriving once more,

entertaining visitors
from the outside world.

Trees have been planted,

though it's too late for the unique
creatures that once lived here.

Elsewhere, on islands throughout
the Pacific, there is still time.

People are working hard to remove
the creatures that don't belong here

and make space once again
for the curiosities,

from kagus to kakapo,

that make the South Pacific
such a uniquely wonderful world.

Of all the animals in this programme,

the dingiso
was the most difficult to film.

It is extremely rare, and only recently
discovered by Western science,

which is one of the reasons why the team
wanted to record it on camera.

Their quest took them to a forbidden land
guarded by a mountain tribe.

No-one knew what
an emotional journey lay ahead.

They flew to Pogapa, New Guinea -

a village of the Moni tribe,
guardians of the dingiso.

A meeting was called
to discuss the visitors' proposal.

To the Moni, the dingiso
is an ancestral spirit.

Hunting it is strictly forbidden.
But how would they feel about filming it?

Many of these people
have never visited Lake Wutidi,

the sacred area where the dingiso lives,

so letting our crew go there
was a big decision.

There were so many times that I thought,
"These people are gonna walk out the door

"and we're gonna have to go home."

But eventually, we got
everybody on board, and yeah,

I'm really glad we're over that
and now we can finally get going.

Pilemon is a village chief
who agreed to accompany the team.

The Moni were now really keen to help
the team track down a dingiso in the wild.

Good morning!

Everyone walked at their own pace.

The film crew had to take things
rather more slowly.

We've been left for dead

by the old ladies and the kids that are
carrying the generator and the cameras

and our tents and all the rest
of the stuff that we brought!

The team has reached the edge
of the sacred area of Wutidi.

From here on in, everything changes.

So from here, the trail gets
really slippery and really dangerous,

so we've got to go very slow.

From here on out,
some of the names we use change.

Wutidi is... We're not allowed
to use that - we use the sacred name.

Same for the dingiso. We have to use
the sacred name for the dingiso -

we're not allowed
to use the word "dingiso" any more.

The team continue to climb.

They are now over 3,000 metres
above sea level.

JAMES MAIR: It's madness.
The landscape's totally changed.

It's really dry and wiry and...sparse,

and I think this is the kind of habitat
where the animal lives,

kind of in the much more stunted trees.

Finally, they reach the sacred lake.
They must remember the sacred rules.

This is Lake Ezimoga,

which is the name they use
in the sacred area.

And this is a central point

from which it's a good area
to look for the manimomaga,

which is the other name
for the tree kangaroo we're looking for.

And everyone's...

everyone's pretty emotional to be here.

Even Chief Pilemon is deeply moved.

JOE YAGGI: This lake is one of the most
important parts of the Moni culture.

It's a really, really big deal for these
guys to come here, to see this place.

With base camp established, the search
for a dingiso begins in earnest,

and it's not long before Pilemon
announces he's found something.

Signs on the ground suggest a dingiso
was here, and the signs are fresh.

He's saying the creature filled a space
about this big, so he was quite large,

and he sticks his nose in there,
he's looking for worms,

so he sticks his nose in there

and he takes his claws,
and pushes the soil out of the way.

But dingiso are supposed
to eat leaves, not worms.

Perhaps these are the marks
of a spiny anteater, or echidna.

Pilemon's impression of the animal
reassures the team he wasn't mistaken -

echidnas don't climb trees.

It just shows how little is known
about the dingiso.

JAMES MAIR: It's really exciting to see
a kind of sign that this animal exists,

cos it was kinda feeling
a bit like a myth,

especially the last couple of weeks
where it's taken so much to get here

and the chances of filming it
have felt so slim,

but it feels like we're kind of
in with a chance now, which is great!

But the animal itself remains elusive.

A week has now passed,

and the trackers set out in different
directions to widen the search.

Only three of these men
have ever seen a dingiso before.

The chances of improving on that
are looking slim.

Village chief Pilemon has crossed
to the other side of the valley.

The crew are ready to follow
if he signals good news.

Next morning, bizarrely, the postman
calls. It's a letter from Pilemon.

But it's not the news they wanted.

He's just requesting fresh supplies.

The team have all but given up hope.

Late that night,

Chief Pilemon arrives back in camp
with a shocking surprise.

The guys from the other side
of the valley have just come in,

and we're not sure
what they're carrying yet.

They've just come in to...to the camp.

The crew fear the worst.

He appears to be carrying a live animal.

This was never part of the plan.

Throughout the trip,
the crew had tried to make it clear

they only wanted to film
a dingiso in the wild.

It is a dingiso.

This was the very last thing
any of the team wanted to witness,

and it was very distressing.

Now the team's only concern
is for the animal's welfare.

JAMES MAIR: We're gonna have to
take it back with them tomorrow.

We can't release it here - it needs
to be released in its home territory.

Um...so we're gonna have to
keep it like this overnight -

it's the only way
that it can be kept safe -

and then take it back
and release it tomorrow.

For Pilemon,
the dingiso is a sacred animal.

So he performs a ceremony
to the spirits for capturing it.

As soon as they can, the team set off
to return the dingiso to its forest home.

The dingiso
is so highly revered in Moni culture

that Pilemon wanted to share it
with the outside world.

Strange as it seems,
bringing it to the team

was his way of showing
great respect for the animal.

Filming it now depends on how
the dingiso behaves once it's released.

We're finally where
the manimomaga was found.

I think it was literally at the tree...
one of these trees just around us.

We're gonna release it in the jungle
and see what happens.

To the crew's great relief,

the dingiso doesn't appear
to be stressed or harmed in any way.

It bounds up a tree, and then acts
as if nothing unusual has happened.

OK, he's started to feed a little bit,
which is a great sign.

After all this trouble,
and walking and everything,

it's really great just to see him
chewing on a bit of food

and kind of half dozing
and looking a lot happier.

There he is,
where he should be, up in a tree.

Tree kangaroos!

This had been an emotional journey
for the whole team.

Finally,

intimate shots of the elusive,
almost mythical dingiso,

back home in a place
that is truly a world apart.