Great Bear Stakeout

Supporting Content

• Our bear experts

  • Find out more about Chris, Brad and Buck.

  

• Under surveillance — Episode 2

  Duration: 2:24

• Parsnip's first day fishing — Episode 2

  Duration: 1:38

• Escape to an island — Episode 1

  Duration: 2:16

• Web exclusive: A tour of the camp

  Duration: 2:52
  See all clips

• In pictures: Great Bear Stakeout

• Van

  Van is a giant male grizzly bear, possibly one of the biggest in Alaska. He is the undisputed king of the bay.
  
  Watch the clip: Meet Van and Alice 

  

• Alice

  Van's sidekick, Alice, is the femme fatale of the neighbourhood. She is very beautiful, but with a deeply sinister side.
  
  Watch the clip: Meet Van and Alice

  

• Parsnip

  Parsnip is a young inexperienced mother with young cubs, living in a dangerous part of the bay. Her challenge is to keep her cubs safe and find enough food for all of them. A big risk to the cubs is being killed by bears like Van or Alice. There are many times when it seems she is not going to make it – but her bravery and resourcefulness astonishes the team at every turn.
  
  Watch the clip: Meet Parsnip and her cubs

  

• Solo

  Grizzly bear Solo is an awkward 'teenager' and this is his last season with this mother Lucy. Soon, he will have to face up to life on his own.

  

• Kali and her three cubs

  At the Falls, we meet Kali and her three cubs. Here there are lots of fish, but also lots of males to contend with. Despite being surrounded by fish, she is starving. Will she outsmart the big males?

  
  

  Watch the clip: While the males sleep..

  

• Scrunch and her two cubs

  At the Valley we meet the very experienced mother Scrunch and her two cubs, who have a successful day fishing.

  
  

  Watch the clip: Meet Scrunch and her cubs

  

• A correction to episode 1

  Following the transmission of Great Bear Stakeout it has come to light that the first episode contained a scene which was misleading and so we have since taken steps to correct that scene. The scene in question is one where a mother bear Parsnip takes her two cubs Pushki and Wren into the ocean and Wren is presumed drowned; the bear guide is seen watching the events unfold and commenting on them.

  
  

  We discovered only after transmission that at the time the main film crew captured the wildlife footage for this sequence the guide was elsewhere and that his contribution to the sequence was picked up at a later time. While the wildlife sequence is accurate and faithfully portrays the real events that the crew witnessed, the inclusion of the bear guide is misleading and having identified this, we have now re-edited the sequence to remove the bear guide.

  
  

  All further BBC repeats will be of this updated version. As the Executive Producer, please accept my apologies for this mistake. The Natural History Unit is taking immediate steps to address the issues raised and to prevent similar issues occurring by providing additional training across the entire Unit.

  
  

  Gavin Henderson