Levison Wood: Walking with…: Polar Bears (Channel 4 Sunday 20 August 2023)

Levison Wood: Walking with…: Polar Bears airs Sunday 20 August 2023 on Channel 4

What can we expect from this episode

Levison visits one of Earth’s most remote and physically challenging environments in search of one of the world’s most elusive populations of polar bears.

Entering their world as the locals do, to get as up close and personal as possible, Levison learns more about the unique lives of these apex predators, their environment and how they’re surviving against worsening odds caused by the increasing threat of human activity and climate change. The Arctic is expected to lose a third of its 30,000 polar bears by 2050 due to habitat loss, and small populations – like East Greenland’s – could be extinct by the end of the century.

Levison sets out for Sermilik fjord, part of a glacier system which connects to the largest ice sheet in the northern hemisphere and is also part of a popular migratory route for polar bears. After travelling for three days through mountainous terrain and minus 35 degrees Celsius temperatures, they give up their fruitless search, and with the changing season making sightings even more difficult, Levison reluctantly decides to leave Greenland and return when his chances are higher.

Returning in the summer, Levison spends seven days in a boat sailing towards Umivik, searching for areas where sea ice remains after the summer melt. After slow progress crashing through icefields, at Iddidinua glacier Levison gets his first sighting of the majestic polar bear and finally has the encounter he’s been dreaming of.

Levison Wood: Walking with… follows Levison to Borneo to encounter Orangutans; to Namibia to track down the last remaining Desert Lions; and to East Greenland to get as close as possible to Polar Bears.

Travelling into some of the most remote and physically challenging environments on Earth, Levison enters their worlds as the locals do, to get as up close and personal as possible. Learning more about the unique lives of the animals and their environment in the company of indigenous guides and naturalists, he gets a better understanding of how they are surviving, against worsening odds caused by the increasing threat of human activity and climate change.

Season 1 Episode 3

When can we see the episode

Levison Wood: Walking with…: Polar Bears airs Sunday 20 August 2023 at 19:00 on Channel 4

Featured image credit: Channel 4