The sights, smells, and sounds of the deep jungle; a giant moth with a foot-long tonque, an oversized tarantula that feast on chickens, and a band of chimpanzees capable of murder are just some of the headline acts viewers can look forward to in the upcoming PBS "Nature" mini-series

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), March, 2005 by Fred Kaufman

AS EXECUTIVE PRODUCER of "Nature," public television's longest-running natural history series. I weed through hundreds of documentary proposals each year. Some, like the idea for a film on "homicidal animals," merit an instant pass--at least for our series. For me, the best ideas are the ones that grab me from the get-go. That's how it was with the proposal for a mini-series on the jungle. It immediately conjured up all kinds of intriguing images. As series producer David Allen says, "'Unusual' and 'elusive' are the second names of almost all the creatures in the jungle, and our show is full of these moments." There is the first-ever clear image of a Sumatran tiger; as well as an infamous, giant moth with a tongue over 12 inches long; a bird that does the Michael Jackson moonwalk in the forests of Central America; a new species of tarantula fabled to eat chickens; a 10-ton killer tree; the first-ever monkeys to be discovered using tools; and chimps that murder. These are just some of the headline acts.

The world's jungles (which many people now refer to as the rain forest) are the Earth's most complex, diverse, and, quite possibly, valuable ecosystems. Although vain forests occupy less than seven percent of the planet's land surface, they contain at least half, and perhaps as much as two-thirds, of all species. Intriguingly, the forest canopy--virtually unknown until a few years ago--remains largely unsurveyed, despite the fact that the so-called "high frontier" is home to 40% of all plant species. Despite my enthusiasm, I did not merely want to tell the story of an ecosystem. What truly sold me--what I am sure really will grab viewers--is the story of research scientists at work, hacking their way through the undergrowth, flying through the forest canopy, and observing the behavior of such animals as gorillas and orangutans in a way that never has been done before. At its heart, Thirteen/WNET's "Deep Jungle," which airs April 17 and 24 and May 1 on PBS, is a classic adventure story.

This project, easily our most ambitious to date, presented enormous challenges--and resulted in startling new information. "Deep Jungle" producers tackled questions scientists have pondered for decades, from the origins of evolution to the search for new drugs to fight AIDS. Getting answers--while tracking elusive tigers, rarely-seen elephants, and very shy gorillas--took a core team of about seven people, as well as a flexible crew of cameramen, location fixers, soundmen, rope-riggers, balloonists, and scientists all working on different shoots, depending upon their individual expertise. All told, "Deep Jungle" involved more than 20 filming trips to 15 different countries, with each excursion lasting at least four weeks. The largest of the rain forests is in the Amazon basin of South America, which contains roughly two-thirds of the world's surviving tropical rain forests. Over half of all the world's species, including mammals, birds, lizards, and reptiles, live in the forest canopy, which is home to everything from jaguars, sloths, and monkeys to tree frogs and eagles. As you can imagine, just getting to some of these places, never mind finding and filming the animals that call them home, required enormous dedication--and luck.

Picture your last big family vacation. Remember how much luggage everyone brought, and what a nightmare it was getting through the airport--and then all the way to the hotel? Consider this: Each shoot for "Deep Jungle" meant hauling around more than 1,000 pounds of gear through a rain forest, with nary a skycap in sight. Filming the tigers in Sumatra involved a 10-hour trek into the forest, during which time crew members crossed the same river seven times and maneuvered several miles of precipitous jungle gorge. Today, only about 500 Sumatran tigers survive in the wild. Poachers sell their pelts for $3,000 and even their penises for $150. On that shoot, the task of finding and filming these endangered animals fell to researcher Jeremy Holden--who has been studying tigers for more than 10 years but who never has gotten but a glimpse of one--and wildlife cameraman Gavin Thurston. Together, the two men had the technology and the forest know-how to film the tiger once and for all. To increase the odds, the team set up six different motion sensitive cameras, each one triggered to record when the animal passes in front of an infrared beam. The cameras were primed to operate for weeks at a time, and to record anything that moved, day or night. While each had a range of about 10 meters, a single tiger's territory is about half the size of New York City, making this shoot one of the most ambitious projects ever attempted with this type of technology.

High-tech equipment increasingly is being used by jungle researchers to open new windows on hidden worlds. Even so, when Holden and Thurston attempted the first clear images of a Sumatran Tiger, they knew success was highly unlikely. There was one ray of light--the small chance the tiger would follow their tracks to check out their movements, and that is exactly what happened. A large male (judging by the paw prints) walked right in front of the camera the very first night, but the camera failed to work. Six traps and six weeks later, near the last day of filming, it happened again, and this time Thurston got the shots.