VIEWERS GET FIRST COMPREHENSIVE LOOK AT THE WILDLIFE OF
CASTRO'S ENCLAVE WHEN THIRTEEN/WNET'S NATURE PRESENTS
CUBA: WILD ISLAND OF THE CARIBBEAN, JAN. 30 ON PBS
Filmmaker Paul Reddish Given Full Access to Island's Preserves
The island of Cuba contains some of the strangest creatures on Earth, including the terrifying "high-jumping" Cuban crocodile, the world's tiniest bird, and land crabs that migrate by the millions across forests and fields to spawn in the sea. But Cuba's political and economic isolation has afforded the outside world little opportunity to see these indigenous animals...until now.
Recently, Cuban authorities lowered a significant cultural and science barrier, giving an outside film crew unrestricted access to the island's protected wildlife preserves for the first time since Fidel Castro took power nearly a half-century ago.
The intriguing results of this breakthrough are on display when Thirteen/WNET New York's NATURE series presents the premiere of Cuba: Wild Island of the Caribbean, Sunday, January 30 at 8 p.m. (ET) on PBS (check local listings).
"Cuba has a great variety of unique animals that are unknown to most of the world's population," observes Fred Kaufman, executive producer of NATURE. "We're very pleased to bring this first full-length documentary about the island's wildlife to American viewers."
Internationally acclaimed wildlife filmmaker Paul Reddish produced the film. Reddish's previous credits for NATURE include such noted miniseries as Land of the Eagle, Inside the Animal Mind, and Spirits of the Jaguar, about the natural history of the Caribbean and Central America.
Oddly, the story of Cuba's natural history begins not in the Caribbean Sea but in the Pacific Ocean, where the island was situated some 100 million years ago, before the forces of continental drift slowly brought it into the Caribbean. As the island migrated over the eons, an astonishing variety of life arrived by air, sea, and possibly even by land bridges that may have once existed. Amazingly, more than half of Cuba's plants and animals are found nowhere else on this planet, including more than 80% of its reptiles and amphibians.
Says Reddish: "The movement of the earth plates has meant that Cuba for part of its history has been an island ark, transporting its strange creatures as it moved eastward."
Among those creatures captured on film is the Cuban crocodile, the world's most aggressive croc, which has the fearsome ability to leap vertically as much as seven feet or more out of the water, snatching mammals that thought they had found refuge on tree branches.
Another highlight of the film is its coverage of the annual migration of red land crabs, considered to be one of the world's greatest natural spectacles. Although they live most of the time in forest shade to avoid dehydration, the gill-equipped crabs set out in the rainy season to spawn in the sea, marching inexorably like an army and heedless of any obstacles in their path, including busy highways.
Cuba has more than 20 species of birds found nowhere else, and among them is the bee hummingbird, the world's smallest bird and smallest warm-blooded animal, whose flight is powered by wings that beat 200 times per second.
Cameras also probe the island's vast network of caverns, which are home to huge numbers and many varieties of bats; the enigmatic creatures that inhabit the underground rivers of the caves, such as the Cuban blind cave fish; many types of indigenous lizards, reptiles and amphibians, and sea life unique to Cuba's largely undisturbed reefs.
Cuba: Wild Island of the Caribbean is an ORF Universum, Thirteen/WNET New York and Devillier Donegan Enterprises Co-Production.
NATURE, now in its 23rd season, is produced by Thirteen/WNET New York for PBS. Executive producer: Fred Kaufman. Executive-in-charge: William Grant.
The series has won more than 270 honors from the television industry, parents groups, the international wildlife film community, and environmental organizations, including many Emmys, the George Foster Peabody Award and the first award given to a television program by the Sierra Club.
NATURE is made possible in part by Park Foundation. Major corporate support is provided by Canon U.S.A., Inc., and Ford. Additional support is provided by the nation's public television stations.
The series is closed-captioned for the hearing-impaired and distributed with Descriptive Video Service (DVS) for the sight-impaired. For more information, visit www.thirteen.org or www.pbs.org. This web companion to the weekly series contains in-depth information and colorful graphics for each program.
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Thirteen/WNET New York is one of the key program providers for public television, bringing such acclaimed series as GREAT PERFORMANCES, NATURE, AMERICAN MASTERS, CHARLIE ROSE, RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, WIDE ANGLE, STAGE ON SCREEN, SECRETS OF THE DEAD, and CYBERCHASE - as well as the work of Bill Moyers - to audiences nationwide. As the flagship public broadcaster in the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut metro area, Thirteen reaches millions of viewers each week, airing the best of American public television along with its own local productions such as The Ethnic Heritage Specials, The Thirteen Walking Tours, NEW YORK VOICES, and REEL NEW YORK. With educational and community outreach projects that extend the impact of its television productions, Thirteen takes television "out of the box." And as broadcast and digital media converge, Thirteen is blazing trails in the creation of Web sites, enhanced television, CD-ROMs, DVD-ROMs, educational software, and other cutting-edge media products. More information about Thirteen can be found at: www.thirteen.org.