Planet Earth 3 filming locations and animals – Episode 5 (Forests)

Here’s a list of the filming locations and animals featuring in the fifth episode of Planet Earth 3.

The new series of nature documentary with Sir David Attenborough continues this Sunday with episode five exploring Forests

Sir David Attenborough takes us on a fascinating exploration into the secret lives of forests, revealing how creatures within them interact in the most unexpected ways.

He travels from the temperate rainforests of Canada, home to the elusive ‘spirit bears’ that fish for salmon, to the teak forests of India, where wild dogs communicate through whistles to hunt prey much larger than themselves. These forests on Earth are a network of hidden connections.

In China’s misty, mountainous forests, male tragopan birds perform an amusing dance to attract mates, while in dense tropical rainforests, treehoppers form unlikely partnerships to defend against assassin bugs. Oriental pied hornbills, meanwhile, undertake extraordinary measures to safeguard their offspring.

Sir David Attenborough said: “Bird courtship is just one of the most dramatic sequences you can get because it’s designed to impress a female, and it impresses you! And the lengths to which a male will go in order to attract the attention of a female… The key is that in tropical circumstances there is a super abundance of food.

“The male doesn’t have to spend all that time gathering food, he’s got time to spare, and therefore what he does with it is to say, ‘oh, now can I show you something honey that you’ve never seen before’”.

Our understanding of the deep interconnectivity within forests is just beginning, but it’s evident that these connections are at risk due to deforestation.

Each tree represents a complex ecosystem, yet humans fell 15 billion trees annually. The Amazon is particularly impacted, with diverse forests being replaced by monoculture eucalyptus plantations, reducing rich habitats to barren ‘green deserts.’

In the dwindling patches of forest that remain, animals like chimpanzees, our closest kin, struggle to adapt to encroaching human environments.

Planet Earth III airs on Sunday nights on BBC One and iPlayer.