Exploring Wild_Life and Celebrating Natural Wonder

On this edition of Saturdays Around the World, we head to the temperate rainforests of the Pacific Northwest on a phenomenal journey with a young National Geographic explorer, and wild_life photographer in search of some of North America’s most awesome creatures.
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Source: Mark Smith // Flickr

In wild_life, the incredible new web series from National Geographic, wildlife photographer and filmmaker Bertie Gregory takes to one of the planet’s most extraordinary habitats to film the elusive coastal wolves that call it home.
This series is not only an up close look at an awe-inspiring landscape but a behind the scenes view of the trials and tribulations that come with documenting nature.
Let’s start from be beginning with Episode One of wild_life, and get acquainted with Bertie, the landscape, and his mission.

Via: Nat Geo WILD 1
Capturing an Eagle Feast
This is a truly extraordinary series, and as of the publication of this article, it is still ongoing. Will Bertie finally find his wolves?
Along the way, though, he photographs and films the other creatures that call the Pacific Northwest home, including bears, eagles, sea lions, whales, salmon, and so much in between.
This next video is the third episode of the series and takes a look at bald eagles as they take to the sea for food. For those of you who struggle to get a photo in focus on your phone, fear not, the perfect photo is hardly ever the first shot for a National Geographic photographer too.

Via: Nat Geo WILD 2
Life in the Blind
Besides getting an up-close look at the animals of the Pacific Northwest, another great angle this series takes is to show what goes on behind the scenes to get the perfect shot that graces the cover of a magazine or winds up on your television.
The next episode in the series is a fun look at some of the realities of trying to document elusive species.

Via: Nat Geo WILD 3
Logging the Old Growth
Part of what makes wild_life so great is the diversity of its content. It’s not a hunt for amazing species, it is also an incredible way to start educated discussions about our own human impact on our planet’s ecosystems.
In episode 9, Bertie confronts the larger impacts of the legal logging of old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest. This topic could easily have been left out of this series with its beautiful sweeping shots of a seemingly “untouched” landscape, but they powerfully contextualize how close these ecosystems are to the impact of humans.

Via: Nat Geo WILD 4
Fish that Keep the Forest Alive
What I love about this series, beyond all of the reasons above (which are enough to get you hooked) is how it very often leaves me thinking to myself “I never thought of that!” or “Woah, I didn’t know that!” This episode, for me, epitomizes that spirit.
Most of us have seen the images and footage of the famous salmon runs that send millions of salmon swimming upstream to mate and eventually die. Behind those images, though, is a marvelous story of how these fish feed the entire forest, from bears, to trees, and everywhere in between.
Here’s that remarkable science!

Via: Nat Geo WILD 5
Up-Close with the Black Bear
No series documenting a salmon run would be complete without images of bears running through streams and fattening up for winter.
Here’s wild_life’s take on these iconic images with a little twist.

Via: Nat Geo WILD 6
Whale Tales
Finally, we here at EWC are huge whale lovers, so when we ran across this episode we, of course, had to share it with you!
We leave you today taking an up-close look at some of these incredible creatures!

Via: Nat Geo WILD 7
Continue the Adventure!
I hope you enjoy the rest of wild_life and I encourage you to watch the entire series from start to finish by checking out their YouTube playlist.
As I said earlier, as of the publication of this article, the series hasn’t come to a close yet and we have yet to be introduced to those elusive wolves! So, make sure to tune into the rest of the series and enjoy the many videos we didn’t include here.
I hope you enjoyed this little recommendation of the best of the web! We like to think of ourselves as curators of the internet’s best content, so you’ll find plenty of articles from National Geographic, TED, PBS, and so many others here to explore! So, go check it all out!
Stay beautiful & keep laughing!
-Liesl
“Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.”-Victor Borge
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