A brand new collection of three quick movies titled Giants of the Massive Sur by documentary filmmaker Ross Thomas takes viewers into the world of the California Condor and the Ventana Wildlife Society biologists who work to guard it. Thomas accompanies Joe Burnett, a Ventana wildlife biologist, to a wild condor’s nest deep within the Massive Sur wilderness and watches as an grownup condor interacts with its younger chick within the crown of an enormous redwood tree. The 2 go to the Massive Sur Sanctuary, which was destroyed by the Dolan Hearth in 2020, and we see archival footage of the 2008 Basin Complicated Hearth that burned many of the Massive Sur wilderness. The movies present biologists climbing a burned redwood tree to avoid wasting a younger condor, Phoenix, and later, we meet Iniko, who captured the world’s coronary heart through the Dolan Hearth.
As Thomas learns, the best menace to condors just isn’t wildfire however, slightly, lead ammunition that condors ingest once they scavenge hunted animals. The movies conclude with a name to motion of how we will all assist these magnificent birds.
The movies can be found to observe totally free on YouTube and to stream on Ecoflix or Cinema Verde. Study extra at www.ventanaws.org/giantsofbigsur.html. The positioning features a information for educators to assist them use the movies to share the condor’s story with school rooms, civic teams, and others.
A Shared Imaginative and prescient for Grasslands
Throughout the U.S. Nice Plains, over half of native grass- lands have been completely misplaced to cropland, power and concrete improvement, and the encroachment of timber. This loss threatens human economies and cultures, in addition to wildlife communities, as land is claimed for different makes use of.
Cornell College’s Middle for Conservation Media has made a robust argument for grassland conservation with the discharge of 4 documentaries on numerous facets of the issue. The nine- to 12-minute movies, out there at birds.cornell.edu/conservation-media, cowl these matters: lowering the impacts of widespread fencing on migratory wildlife whereas assembly ranchers’ wants in Montana; combating the unfold of the jap redcedar in Nebraska; monitoring grassland birds in South Dakota to find out how adjustments in cattle grazing strategies are bettering ecosystem well being; and highlighting the cooperation and collaboration important to communities residing and dealing in Montana.
Our Planet II and Life on Our Planet
For many years, PBS, the BBC, and numerous cable networks have been major out- lets for nature documentaries, however now with the recognition of streaming companies, such movies arguably have a wider viewers than ever.
In 2019, Netflix debuted an eight-episode collection referred to as Our Planet, and the corporate says greater than 100 million households have tuned in to observe it since its launch. Birds, together with penguins, cormorants, albatrosses, and manakins, all make appearances.
Late final 12 months, Netflix introduced that it’s deepening “our dedication to landmark pure historical past documentaries with six new collection premier- ing over the subsequent few years.” The primary of the collection is Our Universe, which debuted in November and is narrated by Morgan Freeman. Later this 12 months, Netflix will drop Our Planet II, narrated by David Attenborough, and Life on Our Planet, narrated by Freeman. Our Planet II guarantees to unravel “the mysteries of how and why animals migrate to disclose among the most dramatic and compelling tales within the pure world.” In the meantime, Life on Our Planet will discover the rise and fall of wildlife which have existed over the eons on Earth. The collection “makes use of the newest know-how and science to carry lengthy extinct creatures again to life,” in response to Netflix.
Learn our e-newsletter!
Join our free e-newsletter to obtain information, images of birds, attracting and ID ideas, and extra delivered to your inbox.
