Nature's Great Events

Nature’s Great Events is the lavishly illustrated counterpart to the Discovery Channel’s landmark wildlife documentary, Nature’s Most Amazing Events. Using groundbreaking filming techniques and state-of-the-art scientific technologies, the book and the documentary on which it is based are epic in every sense, charting six seasonal events that transform entire ecosystems and the life experiences of the thousands of animals within them, from the largest mammals to the smallest microorganisms. The six events include the flooding of the Okavango Delta in Botswana, which turns sprawling swaths of desert into an elaborate maze of lagoons and swamps; the melting of 10 million square kilometers of ice in the Arctic, which imperils polar bears across the region; the migration of the Serengeti, where life is on the edge for both predator and prey and where lions and wildebeest battle to survive; the great salmon run in British Columbia, where rivers teem with thousands of fish—and where grizzlies and wolves eagerly await them; the explosion of sea life in Alaska’s coastal waters, where countless animals from far and wide brave killer whales to feed; and the greatest marine spectacle on the planet, the annual tide of sardines along South Africa’s east coast, where the greatest concentration of predators—including sharks and dolphins—come to feast. These events are among the processes most important to the survival of life on the planet. Tracking them at every stage with over 400 remarkable photographs throughout, the book follows individual animals as they live and die during these events, often capturing the drama from their unique point of view. The result is an awe-inspiring and truly novel work that brings these events into more brilliant focus than ever before.