AUSTRALIA |Animal Planet| December   

ANIMAL BATTLEGROUNDS

Australian TV Premiere Series (13 parts): Wednesdays at 8.30pm from December 6

Deserts, rivers, forests and even cities are all natural battlefields on which hard-fought attacks are launched every day. 

This 13-part series looks at how the environment plays a key role in the life-and-death struggles of the wild, portraying each terrain as a protagonist in the battles that take place on its grounds. From the oceans where tactics include sonar tracking and sound stunning, to the grasslands where ambush and stealth are vital in the capture of prey, discover how animals utilise their environment to ensure their own survival.

PENGUIN BAYWATCH ANTARCTICA

Animal Planet Premiere: Sunday December 10 at 7.30pm (AEDST)

This beautiful French documentary charts the extraordinary lives of Chinstrap, Macaroni, Adelie, Gentoo, King and Queen – a group of penguins living on the icy volcanic islands of the vast Southern Ocean.  Follow these extraordinary creatures over the course of a year as they learn to catch waves, keep a safe distance from neighbouring penguins and well away from seals of all types (at all times) if they want to live to see another day in Antarctica. 

WILD AND THE WEST

Australian TV Premiere: Sunday December 17 at 7.30pm (AEDST)

In the mountains of Colorado lies the source of a river known as the Rio Bravo in Mexico and the Rio Grande in the USA. Historically this 3,000 kilometre band of water has served variously as a natural link, a source of devastation and a hotly disputed border.  The land of the Rio Bravo has been immortalised in some of the most famous Western movies including "Rio Bravo" by Howard Hawks, "Rio Grande" by John Ford and Sergio Leone’s "For a Fistful of Dollars". This Animal Planet documentary is a portrait of this mystifying river, which influences the mountains of Colorado, the Chihuahua Desert in Mexico, the Big Bend Mountains in Texas and all of the native creatures it supports including the howling coyote, the foreboding vulture and the deadly rattler.