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DAVID ATTENBOROUGH: Starting a family and raising young
are among life's greatest challenges.
In this special,
we reveal the most intimate and powerful moments
of family life.
And the strategies that animals use
to succeed as parents.
From the race to find the ideal mate,
to the struggle to find the perfect nursery.
From protecting your young,
to sending them off on their own.
There is much to learn to stay safe in a dangerous world.
(GROWLS)
And animals go to incredible lengths
to give their own particular family
the best start in life.
The high Arctic.
A landscape locked in ice
with temperatures that plunge
to minus 90 degrees Fahrenheit.
It's one of the most difficult places on Earth to survive,
let alone to raise young.
But as spring comes to this world,
a mother polar bear emerges from under the snow.
She has spent the entire winter in a den.
But she hasn't been only sleeping.
Two months ago, she gave birth to cubs.
And now she's bringing them out for the first time.
A polar bear will almost always give birth to twins
and it's a big investment for her.
For two months, she's been feeding them on milk.
And she will carry on feeding them
until they're nearly two years old.
During all that time,
she will look after them and teach them
everything they need to know to survive
in one of the harshest environments on Earth.
They have a challenge in time ahead of them.
But without this long-term commitment,
her family of cubs would not survive at all,
and she will have to bring them up
all on her own.
But although her dedication is extreme,
the urge to produce the next generation
is the most basic instinct
in the natural world.
To get it right,
to succeed as parents,
most animals put in a fair amount of effort.
It begins with the crucial task
of finding a partner.
And that is not always easy
no matter where you live.
The tropical rainforest of New Guinea.
It's a lush place, rich in fruiting trees.
Finding food here is relatively easy,
so it leaves plenty of time
to devote to impressing a mate.
(BIRDS CALLING)
And that has led to some truly flashy displays.
This is the male six-plumed bird-of-paradise.
He's preparing to put on a show
for any females that may be watching.
But first, he must tidy his display area.
Only when everything is in place
will his show begin.
It's all intended to display his full beauty,
which is also an indication of his strength and virility.
(TWEETS)
In the breeding season, males get so excited
that they will display
even when there are no females around to watch.
(CALLING)
There are nearly 40 different birds-of-paradise
in the forests of New Guinea.
-(HISSING) -Each has a unique style
when it comes to impressing the opposite sex.
(SQUAWKING)
The superb bird-of-paradise
has one of the most flamboyant displays.
(CLICKING)
(SQUAWKING)
He clicks his tail feathers on the ground as he dances.
His glossy good looks and the vigour of his dancing
all show his fitness
and the excellence of his genes.
He will take no part in raising the chicks.
Apparently, she's just not impressed.
When females are this choosy,
males will try all sorts of curious behaviour
to prove their strength.
The Amazon River.
At 4,000 miles long,
it is the world's super river.
-(SQUEALING) -It's so big and rich in fish
that dolphins can live here.
These are pink river dolphins.
And they've developed a most unusual way
of impressing potential mates.
Here, too, it's the breeding season,
and competition for females is fierce.
So the males have started to do something curious.
In his mouth, he's carrying
a carefully selected piece of rock.
It seems that a dolphin that can pick up a stone
is showing off how strong he is.
It's only the adult males that do it,
and only when the females are around.
Other dolphins have been seen throwing branches
and bits of clay.
As well as impressing the females,
the powerful splashing may also scare off rivals.
It can all get quite fierce.
The male that makes the loudest splash
gets the girl.
It's very rare for animals to carry objects
for display like this.
The river dolphins' technique is sophisticated,
but showing off is not unusual during the breeding season.
All across the world,
males use their strength to attract mates
and see off competitors.
And sometimes the fights can be very violent.
The rocky deserts of North Africa and the Middle East
are home to the Nubian Ibex.
For most of the year,
males and females live separate lives.
But when the breeding season begins,
the males move in among the female herds.
Only the biggest males with the longest horns
will ever get to mate.
Just a few will father all the offspring.
It's frustrating for the younger males.
For now, they have no chance.
But even among these young bucks,
there's a strict hierarchy
and they must fight their way to the top.
The clashes are brutal.
During the rut, the males don't feed,
and all their energy is channelled into fighting.
In sweltering temperatures, battles can last for an hour.
It's a real test of strength and stamina,
but injuries are rare.
The backward curve of their horns
means that they're less likely to stab each other,
and their skulls contain air pockets
that help cushion the blow.
The dominant male still reigns supreme.
For now, only he will get to mate
and pass on his genes to the next generation.
But sooner or later,
another larger male will topple him.
Throughout the natural world,
males strive to prove their qualities as potential mates.
(THUNDER CRACKING)
But once you fought your way past your rivals,
there is still a long way to go
before your efforts come to fruition.
(CROAKING)
It's the rainy season in the forests of Central America.
And for frogs, this is the time to mate.
The humid conditions are ideal
for laying and protecting eggs,
so the frogs must work quickly.
But there's a problem for this male tree frog.
He's up in the canopy
and the females are already way below
in the breeding area near the forest floor.
He needs to get down there quickly,
and the fastest way down is to jump.
To slow his descent,
he uses his large webbed feet as parachutes.
He's so adept at gliding
that he can alter his direction in mid-air
to ensure an accurate landing.
Now he must find a suitable spot
to start his serenading.
(CROAKING)
His call is loud and deep,
the sign of a strong, healthy mate.
And this female likes the sound of him.
She hurries towards his rasping call.
But first, she must run the gauntlet
of smaller males that have also gathered here.
They're all desperate to mate.
At last, she reaches her chosen male
and their efforts are rewarded.
The race to breed in the rainy season
allows the female to lay her eggs on leaves above forest pools.
Here, they're much safer from predators,
and in the humid conditions,
they will not dry out.
Choosing the right time to start a family
is a challenge facing animals across the world.
Often, there are only the briefest windows
when conditions are perfect.
But in the forests of the mid-western United States,
one animal takes its choice of timing to extremes.
It's spring, and during the night
the nymphs of the periodical cicada emerge.
For 17 years, they'd been living beneath the ground,
feeding on sap that they've sucked from the roots of trees.
Now, as the soil reaches a certain temperature,
they begin their march.
At first, there are thousands,
but soon, more than a billion swarm over the forest.
It's the biggest insect emergence on the planet.
The swarm has one single purpose.
To breed.
First, they must climb out of their external skeletons
and assume their adult winged form.
They start out white and soft,
but by dawn, they've completed their transformation
and taken to the skies.
(BUZZING)
After an absence of 17 years,
the forest is now overrun by cicadas.
They will only live a few weeks,
so there's a desperate rush to reproduce.
They seem oblivious to anything else.
For the forest predators, times have never been so good,
and they gorge themselves while they can.
But they can only eat so many insects,
and soon, they've had their fill.
With the predators satisfied,
the millions of survivors
can get on with what they came to do.
Mate and lay their eggs.
By only emerging every 17 years,
cicadas avoid a really overwhelming attack by predators
who are not able to predict this very irregular cycle.
So, enough cicadas will survive long enough
to start the next generation,
which will hatch, drop to the ground,
and dig in for the next 17 years.
All across the planet,
wherever animals gather in large numbers to breed,
predators take advantage of the seasonal feast.
Off the coast of South Africa,
great crowds of chokka squid gather.
They have travelled hundreds of miles
to reach these warm, shallow seas,
and they're here to pair up and mate.
Females lay strings of eggs on the sandy sea floor.
Each female moves down
to place her own precious bundle into the communal bed.
Large males swarm around,
each keen to fertilise their partner's eggs.
But there's competition.
Smaller males constantly attempt to sneak in and grab a mate.
Totally pre-occupied,
the squids seem unaware that danger lurks in the sand.
A short-tail stingray,
the largest of all the stingrays
and a voracious hunter.
But although it looks as though they're taking the eggs,
it's a larger meal they're after.
The squid are entirely focused on mating.
And the stingrays take advantage
and pick them off.
For the young chokka squid, all is not lost.
The adults play no part in raising their offspring.
And by laying vast numbers of eggs, they do their best
to ensure that some, at least, will survive to adulthood.
But other families have a very different approach.
Instead of raising hundreds of young
and hoping a few will make it,
they put all their efforts into raising one precious baby.
In the mountains of central China,
a giant panda feeds on bamboo.
This is the only food pandas have to eat up here.
But it's so lacking in nutrients that a panda must consume
as much as 80 pounds of it a day, simply to stay alive.
Although it can cope well enough
by keeping to a low-energy lifestyle,
it makes things especially challenging
when it comes to raising a family.
In spring, in the darkness of a cave,
a giant panda mother nurses a tiny week-old baby.
It weighs little more than five ounces
and it's totally dependent on its mother.
For the first three weeks, she spends every waking moment
feeding and nurturing her helpless cub.
But the milk produced from the mother's bamboo diet
is not nutritious.
So, the baby grows incredibly slowly.
(BLEATS)
Only after three months can the cub fully open its eyes.
And its mother will care for it tirelessly
for a year and a half.
It's such a commitment that it's very rare for a panda
to raise more than one cub at a time.
(WHIMPERS)
And they can only start their family
where there's bamboo for them to eat.
(QUACKING)
Finding enough food to raise hungry young
is an enormous challenge that faces many parents.
And some go to extraordinary lengths
in their quest for the perfect nursery ground.
These are snow geese.
They spend the winter near the Gulf of Mexico,
and in spring, five million of them
fly the entire length of North America
to reach the Arctic tundra.
Their marathon migration is almost 3,000 miles long
and takes three months to complete.
But it's worth the trip.
In the northern summer, there will be plenty to eat
and long hours of daylight for feeding.
(QUACKING)
There's no time to rest.
With millions of geese arriving at once,
there is fierce competition for nesting sites.
Fights are vicious.
Only once a nest site has been won
can the female settle down to lay and incubate her eggs.
But, though this grassland offers all the food
this goose needs to start a family, it has its hazards.
An Arctic fox surveys the colony.
She's been waiting all winter for the geese to arrive.
There's no cover here,
so sneaking up unnoticed is impossible.
She must be bold in her attack.
(HONKS)
Both snow geese parents risk their lives
to protect their precious eggs.
(LOW ANGRY HONK)
For now, the geese have saved their future family.
But the fox isn't giving in that easily.
The geese aren't the only ones to start their families
in the brief Arctic summer.
The fox is also a mother
and she's raising hungry cubs all on her own.
Three weeks later, and the eggs have hatched.
(CHEEPING)
In their open nests,
the young all emerge within a day or two.
It's high summer on the Arctic tundra
and the mother goose is trying desperately to protect her young.
This time, she is beaten.
But one parent's loss is another's gain.
The gosling will make a welcome meal
for the young cubs.
The fox raises her young
at exactly the same time as the snow geese raise theirs.
She must give her cubs the best possible start in life,
and they need all the help they can get.
Only one in four
are likely to survive their first winter.
For the geese, the long migration
to breed on these northern grasslands has been worth it.
They still have five goslings to raise.
But the youngsters will have to grow up fast.
In just over a month,
they will all be making the 3,000-mile trip
back to the Gulf of Mexico before the Arctic winter closes in.
Many animals invest an enormous amount of effort
in keeping their vulnerable young safe from attack.
Caring parents can be found in the most unlikely places.
Lake Malawi in Eastern Africa.
These strange volcano-shaped craters on the lake floor
have been built by fish called cichlids.
They've been using these craters
as display areas for courting and laying their eggs.
This lake is enormous and it teems with life.
It will be full of dangers for any newly hatched fish.
So, some cichlids have an ingenious way of protecting their offspring.
They take them into their mouths.
In some species, both parents use this strange technique.
It keeps the young fry safe.
But with their mouths full, the adults can't eat as much
and they tend to lose weight.
It's unusual for the fish to have such a dedicated attitude.
In the harsher parts of the world,
the commitment of parenthood can be much more arduous.
The forests of Siberia, locked in the ice of winter.
An Amur leopard, the rarest cat in the world.
They only live in the forests of Siberia
and there are maybe only 40 of them left.
A mother keeps a watchful eye
over her one-year-old cub
as they struggle through a bitter winter.
(VULTURES SQUAWKING)
A squabble of vultures
means there may be something to eat nearby.
Finding food is so difficult in this frozen world
that these cats grow up far slower
than any leopard in Africa would.
The mother tears at the frozen meat, helping her cub to eat.
If she can find enough to feed him for the next few weeks,
spring will bring more prey.
But she will continue to look after him
for at least another year.
Finding enough food for a growing family
is a challenge facing all parents raising young
in harsh landscapes.
But in the High Arctic, the summer thaw brings real urgency.
The sea ice has started to melt.
It's 10 days since the cubs emerged from their den,
but their mother has not eaten in months.
There is no food here.
To hunt, she must venture down onto the sea ice
before it retreats too far.
But it's a treacherous trip and the cubs must be ready.
They've grown enormously in confidence
but they seem in no hurry to get going.
(BLEATS)
The family sets off at last.
And just in time.
The summer thaw is beginning.
The polar bear family sets off across the Arctic sea ice
in search of a place to hunt seals.
As the ice begins to break up, it's a dangerous time.
But the mother must teach her cubs
the skills they will need to fend for themselves.
This is their first step towards a life on their own.
But it will be another two years
before she finally leaves them.
For other animals, the move towards independence
happens rather more dramatically.
It's spring,
and the northern forests are bursting with life.
Fifty feet up a tree,
a mandarin duck emerges from a nest hole.
Behind her, her young family hatched only the day before.
(CHEEPING)
The tree top hollow she chose has kept them safe until now.
But now they must head to water,
and there's no alternative but to make the leap.
They can't fly yet
and their mother can't do anything to help them,
except encourage them to take the plunge.
And their faith in her is total.
Luckily, the leafy forest floor cushions the landing.
Eventually, all of them make it down unscathed.
But they won't be safe until they reach water,
and the forest pool is almost a mile away.
There are potential predators among the trees.
The ducklings certainly shouldn't linger.
At last, the relative safety of the water.
It seems like a challenging start to growing up.
But how much more daunting to be faced with getting down
from the tallest tree in the world.
In the redwood forests of North America,
a great gray owl pair are bringing up a family.
(SCREECHES)
Their chicks fledge early.
They're less than a month old,
but the smell of their nest means it attracts predators.
They have to leave before they can even fly.
And so they get down any way they can.
It's not particularly elegant but it's a start.
The great gray owl chicks are finding their feet.
(SCREECHES)
They may not be able to fly but they are able to climb.
It will be two weeks or more before they can fly properly.
So, in the meantime, they practice
by scrambling up low trees and launching themselves off.
All throughout, the owls' parents keep an eye on them,
and will continue to feed them for several more months
until they can finally take off with confidence.
Most animals abandon their young at a very early age.
But for some, the children never really leave.
Staying together as a group can bring real dividends.
In the rivers of Southern Asia,
smooth-coated otters form family groups,
including the offspring from previous seasons.
(SQUEAKING)
If the fishing is good, several families will live together.
This communal living has the most tremendous advantages.
A group fishing together can drive fish into a trap
and then everyone gets a share of the prey.
But there are even greater benefits.
Mugger crocodiles, 14-feet long,
stalk these rivers.
They take prey as big as a buffalo.
And they also eat river otters.
(SQUEAKING)
An otter on its own wouldn't stand a chance.
But these otters have strength in numbers.
Confident in their gang,
they will actively harass these great predators.
(ROARS)
They may be trying to drive the crocodile away...
(GROWLS)
...but otters are intelligent and inquisitive.
They may simply be testing the boundaries.
(SQUEAKING)
With the danger past,
they can return to their group feeding.
Their cooperation brings them safety
and all the benefits of working together.
Family groups vary hugely in the natural world.
Not many stay together like this.
The need to find their own resources and space
means most families break up
as soon as the young have the skills they need
to survive on their own.
In the Arctic, the two polar bear cubs
have parted company from their mother.
Apart from brief moments
when their paths cross on the ice,
most of their lives will now be spent alone.
It's unusual for both twins to survive the first year,
but thanks to their mother's dedication and care,
these two have defied the odds.
She's taught them all the skills they need to survive
in one of the world's most hostile places.
And now, they're on their own.
Within a few years, they will each start searching for a mate
and the whole process will begin all over again.
The investment that parents make
to give their young the best possible start in life is huge.
The strategies are many and varied.
From producing hundreds of babies,
to nurturing one precious cub.
From teaching them independence,
to protecting them with your life.
It's all for the sake of the next generation
and the survival of the species.