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Wild Caribbean

Wild Caribbean
Wild Caribbean title card
Series title card from UK broadcast
Genre Nature documentary
Narrated by Steve Toussaint
Composer(s) David Lowe
Country of origin United Kingdom
Original language(s) English
No. of episodes 4
Production
Executive producer(s) Fiona Pitcher
Producer(s) Scott Alexander
Karen Bass
Running time 50 minutes
Production company(s) BBC Natural History Unit
Release
Original network BBC Two
Picture format 576i (16:9)
Audio format Stereophonic
Original release 16 January (2007-01-16) – 6 February 2007 (2007-02-06)
Chronology
Preceded by Europe: A Natural History
Followed by Wild China

Wild Caribbean is a four-part BBC nature documentary series exploring the natural and cultural history of the Caribbean Islands and Sea. It was first transmitted in the UK on BBC Two in January 2007. The series was produced by the BBC Natural History Unit and narrated by actor Steve Toussaint. This series also aired in Australia on ABC1 each Sunday at 7:30pm from 15 February 2009.

The series forms part of the Natural History Unit's "Continents" strand. It was preceded by Europe: A Natural History in 2005 and followed by Wild China in 2008.

The first episode gives an overview of the variety of the Caribbean’s natural history, revealing the hidden wild side of the islands. Spotted and bottlenose dolphins cruise the shallow sand banks around the Bahamas. The mangrove forests of Barbuda’s shallow lagoons provide ideal nest sites for the Caribbean’s largest colony of frigatebirds. The birds are filmed jostling over the best locations and collecting floating sticks on the wing. The nearby islands of St Lucia, St Vincent and Dominica have a different character. The thickly forested slopes of their volcanic mountains harbour rare hummingbirds and parrots. Their fertile soils also attract people, but scenes of the Montserrat eruptions of recent years show the threat they live with. The deep waters off Dominica are breeding grounds for sperm whales, filmed engaging in tactile social behaviour at the surface. Caves are a feature of Cuba’s limestone geology, and provide homes for millions of bats as well as Cuban boas and secretive hutias, the latter filmed for the first time in the wild. The southerly ABC islands (Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao), swept by dry trade winds, are virtual deserts. Every year, 20,000 Caribbean flamingos arrive to breed on their salt pans. The clear waters around Bonaire have the greatest variety of reef fish anywhere in the Caribbean. The final island to be featured is Trinidad, cut off from South America by rising sea levels 2,000 years ago. Its island fauna include many mainland species such as red howler monkeys, capuchins and scarlet ibis.


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