WEBVTT

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[sil.]

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[music]

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Ravin the stories tell us called
this ancient rainforest into being.

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[music]

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Much of life here is hidden and secret.

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A mysterious micro cosmos.

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[music]

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On the remote coast of northern British
Columbia water links life and land together

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in one of the rarest
ecosystems on the planet.

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[music]

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But it\'s only recently

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that scientists have discovered how
the roots of these ancient forests

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extend far into the Pacific ocean.
Tonight we reveal

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for the first time some of the rainforests
hidden secrets using time-lapse,

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micro cinematography, and
night viewing scopes.

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Join us as we explore this mysterious place where
we are just beginning to understand the intricate

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and essential connection between
the salmon and the trees.

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[music]

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[sil.]

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The forest comes alive

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in late summer as one of the continents
great wildlife spectacles unfolds.

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[sil.]

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This is the time to welcome
the returning salmon home.

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Millions upon millions of salmon
are coming back to the rivers

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where they were born. This makes
the coast one of the world\'s

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best bear habitats.

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[sil.]

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There are more than 3000
different races of salmon here.

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Each one tested and shaped by slight
variations in stream creek and river ecology.

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As they struggle to make their way up the
river these male Chum men pink salmon

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are already looking a
little worse for wear.

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Once the return of the salmon was
as sure as the rain but today

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the future of wild salmon populations
is in question because of over fishing,

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industrial logging, and global warming.

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As the female lays her eggs

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in a series of gravel nests called
a red they\'re fertilized by a male

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who has been waiting nearby
for just this moment.

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[sil.]

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Of the more than a thousand eggs she lays

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only a handful will survive and
eventually return here to spawn.

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[sil.]

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The eggs are full of protein and
fat and these Bonaparte\'s gulls

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are experts at spotting them.

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[sil.]

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Here salmon make possible

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the incredible diversity
and abundance of life.

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On a gravel bed exposed by the low tide

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a two year old grizzly bear delicately
searches for the tiny eggs.

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[sil.]

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The changes in the water level offer
rewards to those with patience.

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[sil.]

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It can rain as much as four and
a half meters a year here.

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Trees shed it one drop at a time slowing the
rate at which it moves through the forest.

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[sil.]

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Grizzly bears are at
home in this wet world.

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Their fur easily sheds water.

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[sil.]

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Coastal bears grow bigger mature earlier

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and have larger litters more often
than those that live in the interior.

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[sil.]

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Until the 1960s federal fisheries
officers had to kill bears

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they found catching salmon
in spawning streams.

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Now we know that predators
like bears and eagles

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have little effect on the
reproductive success of the salmon.

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[music]

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After they\'re spawned out the salmon die and the
streams are full of the living and the dead.

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[music]

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Decomposing carcasses

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are soon covered in a thick woolly
coat of bacteria, fungus and algae.

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It\'s a huge influx of nutrients
that feeds dense populations of

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insect larvae like these catice flies.

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[music]

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They in turn will feed young salmon
hatchlings and a host of other species

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like this dipper.

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[music]

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The northern coast of British
Columbia is one of the last places

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where there are wild
salmon and wild rivers.

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Altogether the salmon will feed more
than 35 species of birds and mammals.

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That\'s why scientists call
them a keystone species.

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[sil.]

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For decades industrial
fishing nets have caught

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millions of salmon before they could
return to spawn. No one knows

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what impact this has had on the forests
that some called the Great Bear Rainforest.

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Later scavengers will come

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searching for overlooked morsels
but for now quiet returns

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and the air is filled with the rich
and pungent smell of rotting salmon.

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[music]

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Although these forests are mostly
known for their grizzly bears,

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there is also a healthy
population of black bears.

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Since 1992

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Tom Rankin, a biologist from the
University of Victoria has been on

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a fascinating journey of discovery. He wanted to
find out why there were so many salmon carcasses

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lying on the forest floor.

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Everyone knows black bears
eat salmon but no one knew

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just how many salmon they were eating.
So Tom decided to do some bear watching.

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[sil.]

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I initially went out during the daytime
and had limited success and what I found

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there was some bear feeding but
not nearly as much as I thought

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and yet when I went into the forest I found
all these carcasses that were accumulating

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at a far greater rate than I could see
during the daytime and it became clear that

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the bears in fact were feeding
at times other than daylight.

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In order to solve the mystery of

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where all the salmon carcasses were
coming from, Tom with some trepidation,

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decided to spy on the secret
lives of black bears at night.

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To do this he equipped himself
with special night viewing gear.

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[music]

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These glasses that you have on
is like almost broad daylight

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and I found very quickly that 80 to 90% of all
the foraging by the bear occurs at nighttime.

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They\'re very successful at
capturing salmon at night.

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[sil.]

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Salmon are good at spotting

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potential predators but only in daylight.

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[sil.]

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Bears see very, very poorly at night.
I was expecting they…

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they would be very, very frightened of me because they couldn\'t see me
and they would hear me and smell me that they would might just run off

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into the distance but in turn
actually they ignored me

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and they would actually
walk right past me at night

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and they would acknowledge my presence in
terms of their sniffing but they largely

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paid no attention to me
and most interesting

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they largely paid no attention to each other
as well at nighttime. Many bears would forage

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in the same pool at night and in
the daytime I would never seen

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two bears feeding in the same pool.

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Black bears a highly territorial and invariably
a larger bear will chase the smaller bear.

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So you see them singularly but at night
time all these bears are feeding together

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and the reason being is that there\'s no visual cues
and even though they\'re cognizant of each other

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they\'re cognizant of me because there\'s no visual
cues they just go about doing their thing.

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[sil.]

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When I began following bears

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throughout the spawning season I discovered that
each bear on average takes approximately 700 salmon

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and I determined that most of the salmon that
they take are spawned out post-reproductive but

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what was particularly interesting is that the bear take
the majority of the salmon into the forest for feeding.

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[sil.]

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Many of the salmon were very close
to the stream but many other cases

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the bear had taken salmon 20 meters
50 meters, 100 meters into the forest

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and there were many Ravens. There were large
numbers of crows. Many gulls that would

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follow the bears and then
also consume the remnants of

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these carcasses that the bears left. In order
to determine just how much salmon found its way

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into the forest Tom measured and
weighed hundreds of rotting carcasses.

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Each bear he calculated ate about

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945 kilograms of salmon.

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[sil.]

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But often they didn\'t eat
all the fish they caught.

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Tom found in some of the watersheds
he studied that they left behind

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an amazing 4,000 kilograms of
salmon per hectare of forest.

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That was a lot of rotting salmon that would
have all disappeared except for the jaws

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by the next spring.

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[music]

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Frequently flies discover these carcasses

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and lay eggs and within a short
period of time several days

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the eggs hatch and fly maggots
begin to consume the carcass.

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Thousands of fly-in beetle maggots
it takes about seven days

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for everything to vanish
except for the bones.

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[music]

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Once they have finished feeding they
burrow into the moss and stay there

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until they hatch next spring.

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[music]

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No one knows what happens
to all the maggots

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but they are a potential feast for some.

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[music]

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The banquet attracts maggot loving
Rove beetles and ground beetles.

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[music]

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When I began looking at the
distribution of carcasses around

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some of these giant trees I thought that there
must be some utilization of these nutrients

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by the trees, by the vegetation

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and that was sort of the beginning of my recognition
that there was this major nutrient transfer

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from the ocean into the forests. Tom
looked for evidence of nitrogen

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from the carcasses in the trees by
searching for a nitrogen isotope

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number 15. It\'s fairly rare on land

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but it\'s found more commonly in the ocean.
It concentrates at higher and higher levels

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as it travels through each
tropic level in the food chain.

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Tom was able to trace it in the
forest by analyzing tree cores.

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[sil.]

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It turns out that salmon
that are in the ocean

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have very elevated levels of
this rare nitrogen isotope N15

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and it\'s because not only are
they found in the ocean but

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each tropic level that
you move up this rare

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isotope becomes amplified. So salmon
perhaps that the fourth tropic level

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has very elevated levels.

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[sil.]

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Tom has now taken more than
550 cores from Hemlock trees

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throughout the salmon forest.

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Commonly 10 to 20% of all the
nitrogen used by the trees

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have come from salmon but also
on some of these trees up to 55%

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I\'ve identified 55% of all the
nitrogen used by the tree have come

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directly from salmon carcasses.
A huge proportion

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and it\'s because nitrogen is so
limiting this salmon movement

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into the forest by the bear represents
the single pulse major yearly pulse of

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nutrients that the trees
are able to utilize.

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A tree writes its own life
history in its growth rings.

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One day Tom hopes that he
will be able to read in them

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the history of the fluctuations in salmon
populations in these ancient forests.

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Salmon represent a very
significant portion of

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the total nitrogen cycling
that the forest is using.

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Previously we used to think of
the soil with its nutrients,

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the rainfall coming leaching these nutrients into
the rivers which then flowed into the estuaries.

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Now that certainly does occur but that\'s
sort of a one-way process. We now recognize

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that the movement, the major movement of
nitrogen from the middle of the ocean

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back into the estuaries and into the
streams and then into the forest

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represents a reverse part of that equation.

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Tom study has now expanded
to more than 60 rivers.

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It\'s ironic that just as we are
uncovering some of the secrets of

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this unparalleled interaction between land
and sea the warning bells are sounding

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about dramatic declines
in salmon populations.

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There\'s no question the long term
reduction in numbers of salmon

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that has occurred this century
will translate to reduced

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diversity in our coastal forests.

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Not to say that the species will disappear
but certainly the abundance of individuals

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within species will decline. In the same way
when you compare rivers with and without salmon

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you\'ll find the same numbers
of species in both but

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the overall abundance of individuals is dramatically
different and because salmon represents

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such an important nutrient source I would
say almost equivalent to the wildebeest of

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the Serengeti that clearly if the
wildebeest decline in abundance

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so do all the other species that
are dependent on the wildebeest.

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Because we know now that so many species are dependent
on salmon if you have an 80 or 90% reduction

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in the numbers of salmon returning
to our streams which has been

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suggested by a number of different
researchers this will translate to

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a corresponding reduction in the overall
lushness of our coastal forests

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and the species that live with it.

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[sil.]

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These coastal forests are called
ancient forests by many scientists

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because of their age and
structural diversity.

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[sil.]

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There is more biomass, the weight
of living material for hectare here

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than in the tropical rainforests.
The trees can reach immense sizes

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and can live for centuries because
fire and other disturbances are rare.

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[sil.]

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Most of our explanation is about

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how nature works are based on
the simple and the obvious.

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[sil.]

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The soil is only a thin
layer and it\'s covered with

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moisture loving mosses. Thousands
of tiny creatures call it home.

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Intricate associations have
evolved and are the driving force

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behind many of the basic biological
processes in the forest.

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This gaudy umbrella

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is the reproductive part of a fungus that
lives symbiotically with tree roots.

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Millipedes like many fungi

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live off decaying wood.
There is lots of it here.

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About 1/5 of the wood is
in some stage of decay.

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[music]

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All this wood attracts
lots of cellulose loving

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damp wood termites. They invade wood
that has been softened by fungi

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and the other decomposers.

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[sil.]

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Their guts contain cellulose digesting
protozoa as well as nitrogen-fixing bacteria.

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[sil.]

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There are a veritable
ecosystem on six legs.

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[sil.]

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Huge trunks lift the canopy more than
a hundred meters towards the sky.

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Much of life in these ancient
forests goes on up here unseen.

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It\'s Nirvana for slow growing
lichens like witch\'s beard.

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[music]

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Lichen are a symbiotic relationship between
a fungus and nitrogen-fixing algae.

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[music]

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The cyanobacteria that this lettuce lung
lichen farms is a source of nitrogen.

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[music]

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Diversity up here comes with age.
It can take more than 250 years.

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[music]

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And robed in thick def coats
trees send aerial roots

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to dine on the nitrogen in moss mats
that scientists call suspended soils.

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[music]

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It was in the high canopy
of an ancient forest

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on the west coast of Vancouver island
that Neville Winchester an entomologist

00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:24.999
at the University of Victoria found more
of the secrets of rainforest biodiversity.

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[sil.]

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The history of looking in the canopy
in northern temperate forests

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has really started for us in 1992. No one had done any work
and then we did a preliminary check in the Permian Valley

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and it just so happened that we looked up into the canopy
from the ground and saw numerous insects flying about

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and then just sort of said offhandedly
wouldn\'t it be nice to get in the canopy

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and then a week later some people had actually
rigged up one of the trees and put a platform in it

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and said well you want to go
into the canopy let\'s go.

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My first trip was an interesting one I don\'t remember too
much because I probably had my eyes closed the whole way up.

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[sil.]

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The most surprising discovery happens to be the suspended
soil mats. I mean they can range in depth between

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1 to 60 centimeters and it\'s within these soil mats which
nobody\'s really looked at before that several of the new species

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are found and it\'s not just surprising that
there are new species but it appears that

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several of these new species are complying strictly to
this type of habitat. So they\'re not found anywhere else

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in the forest system but
in these sticky moss mats.

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What Neville and his colleagues discovered
was a fantastic new world in miniature.

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Most of the arthropods and
insects they have found

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are barely visible to the naked eye.

00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:54.999
[sil.]

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There are subtle differences in habitat and
microclimate when you move up the tree

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or further out on a branch. Up here a meter
can be equivalent to several kilometers

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on the ground and this makes the
canopy a hotspot of biodiversity.

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[sil.]

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In any one of these ancient forests
if you were to look at diversity

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across all the different groups most of the diversity
in terms of numbers of species for instance

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isn\'t with this sort of big fauna like bears. It\'s actually
with a little tiny things like insects and arthropods.

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[sil.]

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We cataloged to date about 3,000 species estimating that in one
valley alone we\'re dealing with seven to ten thousand species.

00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:54.999
[sil.]

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Many are thought to dine on the
bacterial scuzz living on the lichen.

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If we look at

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one group let\'s say beetle mites they\'re maybe
three and a half million beetle mites per tree

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and that\'s just one group. So if you want
to expand that to all the other groups

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the numbers are overwhelming. Lifestyles
for many of the organisms in the canopy

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are quite cryptic. In other words they mold
into the tree. They\'re difficult to see.

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They\'re rather small and they\'re sedentary and that\'s what
is a real key. They don\'t have good dispersal capabilities.

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They don\'t move more than half a
meter during their entire life

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and so they\'re really locked in for their
entire life to that particular tree.

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[music]

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Another of the many surprises was the ratio
of predators like spiders to their prey.

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It\'s much higher here than

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in any other ecosystem and nobody
knows why or even how it\'s possible.

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Just what do they all eat?

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[music]

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Life in the suspended soil
mats is only one part of

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this intricate puzzle. Neville and his
colleagues also collect flying insects

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in traps like this one.

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The science of identifying all these
tiny creatures is called taxonomy.

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It\'s a huge job and it\'s barely begun.

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These days taxonomy isn\'t
considered very sexy

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and there\'s little funding for it.

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Our variety of trapping techniques have come
up with 3.6 million individuals from one site.

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We\'ve got four sites that are on the go
so you can multiply that almost by four

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every single individual
provides important information.

00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:14.999
Dr. Lee Humble an entomologist with the
Canadian Forest Service has set up

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the only macro arthropod
reference collection in Canada.

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Identifying and naming new species is
just the first step to understanding

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the complex biodiversity of
the temperate rainforest

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and this step takes 45 specialists.
We\'re just at the basic stage of

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cataloguing what\'s there and so we haven\'t got to the next
step where we need to be and that\'s to look at process

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and the only way to do that is to have a good standard collection
and then start to it\'s like a puzzle put these pieces together

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and then answer questions about what these organisms are
actually doing, how that actually influences the tree itself

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and a bigger scale influences the forest.

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[music]

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We have only just begun to unravel the
mysterious ways these forests work

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and we have no plan that will
ensure their continued existence

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for another ten thousand years.

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[music]

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Running from the northern tip of
Vancouver island to the Alaskan border

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is a four hundred kilometer
long maze of islands and inlets

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that together make up one of the world\'s
largest intact tempered rainforests.

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[music]

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Once it stretched south all the way to
California already more than half has gone.

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There have been thousands of years of

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human history here but it is only
recently that its ecological integrity

00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:09.999
has been threatened.

00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:14.999
[sil.]

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This is the most biologically
diverse place in Canada.

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[sil.]

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(inaudible) We are here at (inaudible).

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This is the season to dry
seaweed and halibut.

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I am a woman of the (inaudible) people and this
is a food gathering camp of the (inaudible).

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This has always been where our grandfathers

00:34:50.000 --> 00:34:54.999
and grandmothers go at this time
to dry seaweed and halibut.

00:34:55.000 --> 00:35:03.000
[sil.]

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A life on the land and sea
is still cherished here.

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[sil.]

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This is (inaudible) one of the many
seasonal camps where coastal peoples

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have been coming for hundreds of
generations. More families are moving back.

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Helen Clifton is an elder.
Rebuilding of some of the houses

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are falling apart. So how\'s it looking? You think you\'re
going to get any fish today? It hasn\'t been so good so far.

00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:44.999
No. What\'s the most you\'ve
ever seen come in (inaudible)

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Sixty. Really.

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(inaudible) what did he say. He has
caught quite a few. So I will be lucky.

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So I will be lucky. He shares with me.
So I\'ll be the lucky one.

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[sil.]

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Halibut like salmon are an important
part of traditional life on the coast.

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[sil.]

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Life here revolves around
the seasons of the sea.

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Everyone helps out when the
halibut are brought in.

00:36:45.000 --> 00:36:49.999
[sil.]

00:36:50.000 --> 00:36:54.999
(inaudible)

00:36:55.000 --> 00:37:03.000
[sil.]

00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:24.999
So you\'ll save all of this
they have everything yeah.

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I am trying to save as much as possible.
The head makes

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a nice chowder soup.

00:37:35.000 --> 00:37:39.999
(inaudible)

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from either side. Send the
remains down to where

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(inaudible) they get the running
(inaudible) they get the feed too.

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So is the cutting of the
halibut though what women do

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or do the men join with that too. (inaudible)
women\'s job. It\'s the women\'s job.

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Halibut is so previous that
they should be careful cutting.

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What\'s the most you have
ever done in the day?

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I guess 40 halibuts.

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40 halibut. So for your
people I guess the seasons

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are really determined by what\'s ready to be
harvested. Yeah what we have, that\'s right.

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We have now they won\'t reports on our clams

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and won\'t report (inaudible)
as if we\'re going to

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deplete the stock. People
have been using them for

00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:44.999
thousands of years without
(inaudible) That\'s right.

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So in the winter we don\'t send. We just
settle down, eat all our good food.

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People are still fortunate (inaudible)
we might get some of the land and sea

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everything that we need.

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Cedar trees are still valued and sacred.

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This pole will be used to make
drying racks for the halibut.

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With any luck it won\'t
rain and the fish will dry

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in a couple of days.

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[sil.]

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Each family has been using the same rocks
to dry their seaweed for generations.

00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:09.999
[sil.]

00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:14.999
The food we\'d get here is not only our
winter supply but we use it for trade.

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The women here dry the seaweed
on the rocks then it\'s

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the best seaweed on the coast.

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The halibut because we soften it so
much then that people really like that.

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We can trade for (inaudible) for berries,

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even the cash resource to get other foods that
we require. So the camp is very important.

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[sil.]

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(inaudible) is the elected chief
of the Hartley Bay people.

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Your people are people of the sea. I
mean the fish and seaweed camp is such

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an important part of your culture. The forest
though is also important with the cedar

00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:09.999
and the medicinal plant. So do you
see this all as a single thing;

00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:14.999
the ocean, the forest. It is. It is one

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cannot be without the other. We
just can\'t afford to take away

00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:24.999
any part that make it a
whole a single piece.

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That\'s what our people live on.
Everything is related to one another

00:41:30.000 --> 00:41:34.999
without the forest without the water
without the fish in the water

00:41:35.000 --> 00:41:39.999
and without the wildlife in the
forest we really don\'t have anything

00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:44.999
nothing as the people or
even as a human race.

00:41:45.000 --> 00:41:49.999
But will this way of life continue?
Less than 15% of

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the rain forests here are protected
from logging. All the rest

00:41:55.000 --> 00:41:59.999
is spoken for by six logging companies.
The government of British Columbia

00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:04.999
calls these ancient forests the mid and
North Coast timber management zone.

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Where will the salmon call home

00:42:10.000 --> 00:42:14.999
when the forests are gone?
Already some races are extinct

00:42:15.000 --> 00:42:19.999
and no one is sure why other
populations are declining.

00:42:20.000 --> 00:42:24.999
It\'s not always due to logging. Over
fishing and perhaps global warming

00:42:25.000 --> 00:42:29.999
are factors too. Whatever the
cause wild salmon need a home

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to come back to and we now know
that the forest needs them.

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[music]

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Today the southern tempered rainforests
are mere ghosts of their former selves.

00:42:50.000 --> 00:42:54.999
They\'ve been ravaged and built over.
This is one quarter of

00:42:55.000 --> 00:42:59.999
the world\'s remaining temperate rainforest.
With foresight it could be

00:43:00.000 --> 00:43:04.999
self-sustaining indefinitely.

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[music]

00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:39.999
This is a unique place where
complex interrelationships

00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:44.999
are still intact, where
the sky and the forest

00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:49.999
can still feed the wild fish
that in their turn will nourish

00:43:50.000 --> 00:43:54.999
these ancient living cathedrals.

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[music]