For years Susan Middleton photographed objects.
"I took pictures of rare artifacts in museums
...none of if was alive.
But the I began to want to show living things."
"There, that's beautiful, great."
At the same time,
David Littschwager worked as a commercial photographer.
"Smile with your eyes."
"It was, you Know, a glamorous life a New York City fashion photographer.
But, I always wanted to make pictures that the world had use for."
"Chin up just a little bit."
"Chin up, chin up."
One day, in 1986,
Susan and David took a photograph of an endangered creature.
It was the beginning of an obsession.
"Excuse me."
Ever since,
the two photographers have taken portraits of animals and plants
on the brink of extinction.
"These creatures are Known as statistics by most people.
But we're treating them as individuals, trying to capture
their personalities."
"We want to see them face to face, eye to eyemake them unavoidable."
"Oooh! Ah!"
This series now their mission in life their calling, and their passion.
"Oh, beautiful!"
"We fall in love with these creatures.
What 2042X we're trying to show is some of that wonder
that we experience."
"That's pretty funny..."
"I don't want him down here."
David and Susan's portraits have gazed at us from books,
magazine covers, museum exhibits. But does the popularity of their work
mean that these creatures will survive?
For the two photographers, it's an endless odyssey across America:
To show the faces of creatures we may never see again.
"These creatures are in danger. They're slipping away, but if
people can see them, maybe we can make the effort to keep
them with us here on earth."
"Okay, beak here."
"Great, great."
The first Europeans on this continent had a common enemy to conquer;
it was called... nature.
America seemed to be an endless expanse of hostile wilderness.
Bison wandered along the potomac,
grizzly bears strolled the beaches of California.
Human beings did not even Know it was possible for a species to go extinct...
but we learned.
Hundreds of creatures slipped into extinction.
Even our National symbol was disappearing before our eyes.
But then America did something no other country had ever done.
In 1973, we passed a law to save our wild creatures.
The Endangered Species Act protects the lives and habitats of
plants and animals in immediate danger of extinction.
Today, there are over a thousand species on the list.
David and Susan's quest to photograph the endangered species of America
has taken them over hundreds of thousands of miles
through all 50 states and every conceivable American landscape.
"We drive because we have thousands of pounds of equipment to take with us
and we can't plan too far ahead
because we have to adapt ourselves to nature's timing,
so we have to be in Texas when a plant blossoms or in California
when a butterfly emerges from its chrysalis and that means we drive."
This time, they're driving toward Laramie, Wyoming
and the prairies of the West.
Once the great plains were a song about freedom.
Ffalo roamed, prairie dogs ranged everywhere, but they
ngerous habit, they ate grass and so did a new animal
the prairie.
Cattle ranchers went to war in the end, the ranchers w
But it was another creature that suffered most. The
black footed ferret has a monotonous diet prairie dogs, and little else.
"It was an accident. People weren't trying to harm the ferret,
but when you kill off one creature, you turn around
and something else is gone."
The ferret disappeared from the prairie. We thought it was extinct,
until a tiny group suddenly turned up.
In 1987, all the black footed ferrets in the world,
just 18 animals, were brought to live in a single building.
Most biologists thought the animal was doomed:
Ferrets are highly susceptible to infectious diseases.
"Everything that goes in that possible will come in contact
with an animal or even in close proximity to the animals' cages
has to be wiped down. Um, so we could get you showered through and, uh,
then take a look at the equipment."
"We've never been in a situation where an animal was so
tightly quarantined and, of course, that's why we had to go through
the showering process and putting on the scrubs and then
all of our equipment had to be sterilized before we went in."
"It feels like we're in some kind of intensive care unit
devoted only to ferrets."
"We'll just need to rinse the bottoms of our shoes with a virucide.
Okay, now we can get you guys some surgical masks,
where anytime you're in contact or in a room
that has a black footed ferret in it.
You can just close that first set of doors there."
"It's not unlike the way you feel when you go into a hospital
and see a loved one all hooked up to life support system."
"This is the young of the year."
"Their very survival is so precarious hanging on by a thread."
"She's pretty inquisitive."
"If it weren't for a very rigorous captive breeding program,
there would no longer be any black footed ferrets in the world.
You Know it's a ferret "factory".
The point is production make more ferrets."
"This is the perfect time during the breeding season
because we have almost every possible thing going on.
We have animals that have just been paired.
There's the male grabbing the female into the breeding box."
"Oh, yeah. Oh my God."
"If she's not interested she'll fight back,
they'll start hissing and chattering."
"What does the sound like"?
"It sound like a... And the then we Know,
like, they're fightin' and stuff... yeah."
"So it feels kinds of voyeuristic."
"It's little voyeuristic."
In the past ten years,
over a thousand ferrets have been born here.
"You'd think that an animal that slept for 20 hours a day
might be easy to photograph, but they never stop moving."
"You really need everything to be just right for about two minutes,
but two minutes is a long time to ask a ferret to stand still."
"Wow. So, there's no such thing as like calming down after a while."
"No."
"Yeah, Ah! Ah..."
"He's okay, Can you just take it on the floor."
"Do you want to try another older animal."
"Yeah, we'll start Gypsy."
"Let's try gypsy."
"Come out, Gypsy."
"Um, beautiful."
"Yeah. When she has her head up like that,
I think that's her best look"
In 1991, the first captive bread ferret was released;
the black footed ferret was a wild animal again.
But many of the released ferrets have died and there is
no way of Knowing whether the animals born in the factory
for ferrets will ultimately die out or live on to play in the
freedom of the wild.
"When you're driving across America, you understand why
so many plants and animals are endangered.
They're losing their homes.
We're building a human world and losing a wild one."
>From Wyoming the road goes East... to Cambridge, Massachusetts.
But they're not going to find an endangered creature,
they're meeting one of the greatest experts on why species go extinct
distinguished scientist, Edward o. Wilson.
"It's a sobering fact there is an extinction crisis.
They're have always been species going extinct, from time to time...
but now human activity's pushing it up a hundred to a thousand times,
we're in the midst of a biological catastrophe
that's the greatest since the end of the age of dinosaurs,
65 million years ago.
"What I hope you'll succeed in doing is to make endangered species
a vivid presence in the lives of people.
Make it clear to them that every endangered species has a name,
has a billion year history, has a place in the world.
Bring us face to face with each one of those species.
Make us Know that they're our companions in the biosphere.
They're not just something out there you look at once in a while,
but they're part of our existence, they're part of us.
Fifty million years ago an animal, related to the elephant,
crawled back into the sea. It was huge and gentle.
It had no enemies, so it had no fear. Now, after eons of tranquility,
the manatees of Florida should fear one creature.
Every year speedboats kill scores of manatees.
Over 90% of all manatees bear scars from propellers.
"What we're looking at right here is actually a, a huge wound
from a propeller that just gashed the whole side of Synco, here."
Biologist Ed Gerstein is working to find out why the collisions happen.
"And after they've been hit once or twice or three times,
why don't they learn to get out of the way?"
"Why don't they... yeah..." the subjects of Ed's research are
two captive born manatees Stormy and Dundee.
"The common perception was that these animals are dumb
and they're slow, but actually we've proven that the animals
are very intelligent."
"Hand signal given."
"Okay, this is run number six, series 99."
Ed's coworker is his wife, Laura.
"Run number six is a tone at negative..."
"Each animal has an individual personality and, with Stormy,
he's so crafty, he just is interested in entertaining himself
and then when he decides to work, he'll work when he's ready."
"Stormy had been trained to leave the hoop
after he sees the strobe light and go make a selection.
If he doesn't hear a sound he'll go over
and push the solid white panel.
If he hears it, he'll push the striped panel."
"Touch. That's correct."
"These animals have very good high frequency hearing.
The problem is boats put out low frequencies.
So, we hope, from our research, to come up with a device
to put on a boat to make boats audible to manatees so that
they can get out of the way."
Stormy and Dundee quiet in their quiet world
just do what they've always done, graze peacefully
and almost constantly.
"They eat 30, or I forget how many heads of romaine lettuce a day,
and how can these animals get so big like that eating a completely fat
free diet lettuce? I mean, I can't imagine it."
"Stormy likes to play tricks.
If he were a human he'd be a juvenile delinquent."
"There's no feeling quite like being gummed by a manatee."
"Here we go."
"Great."
"Wow! A little too close."
"They're very curious animals and whenever anything enters the water
they come over to inspect."
"Stormy come back oh, beautiful!"
"There's so much feeling behind what they do.
You can just see it and the playfulness that they have."
"Oh, no. Way too close. Ah!"
"The more you're around them,
eh, it's almost like you can hear them think"
"Somebody get it."
"You can get it."
"Looks like a big smile."
"Go for it."
All told, 415 manatees died in 1996. Today, some 24 hundred remain.
"When you look at the world, eh, you Know, the manatee's just a speck
It's just one other thing that's going
and so many things are going and the, the beauty of a manatee,
you Know, it'll be a shame."
Three thousand miles later, they're going to
the Sacramento River Delta to photograph an endangered insect.
But the Delta green ground beetle is almost invisible.
"Four times before we've gone out looking for this beetle,
never finding this thing."
"They have big eyes, they're sensitive to movement,
they're day active, so this is the time they would be active."
"Well, this time we are meeting five of the leading experts
and, uh, it's like bringing in the big guns.
"The best way to spot them is to sit in one place and become
very quiet and them just gaze."
"You look straight at it, you can't see it, she,
it's like it blends in so perfectly."
"I could see if David and I weren't able to find it, but when you go out
with experts and they can't find it, then you begin to wonder."
"Eureka."
"Wow."
"You can see it?"
"It's at four o'clock from... eh, see it?"
"Even when she was pointing it out, I still couldn't see it."
"How do you Know it's real?"
"Fifth try is a charm."
"Uh, toward his legs. Yep."
"Every color of the rainbow is in this beetle, but you have to
have a microscope to see it. And you stop and ask yourself,
"Why did nature do that?"
"It's very easy to dismiss the bugs and the weeds of the world,
but science is revealing, every year, just how important are
these little things on which we and other larger organisms depend.
They cleanse the water, they create the soil, they generate
the very air we breathe."
Ten thousand years ago, the last glacier raked over
the mountainsof California. When it receded it left one kind of
gold in splendid isolation high in the Sierras.
For over 30 years, this gold has been the object of one man's dreams.
David and Susan are headed for the Little Kern River Valley
the only place on earth where the gold can be found.
"Dan Christensen, here, pleased to meet you."
Dan Christensen is the man who saved a species.
"It was 1949. I was still in high school.
My brother and I would go up to the mountains and go fishing.
It was an incredible experience. We just feel in love with the place...
and with those beautiful fish the golden trout of the High Sierra.
Fifteen years later I started working for
the Department of Fish and Game and I came across old reports
buried in the files.
They said the golden trout in the Little Kern River might be extinct
so I had to go out and find 'em if there were any left alive."
Fishermen caused the problem.
They introduced other species of trout to improve the fishing.
Golden trout were soon overwhelmed by the aggressive newcomers.
"It was only a matter of five or six years before the golden trout
were gonethe just wiped 'em out."
"So what did it actually feel like when you discovered
a Little Kern golden trout still alive?
"Well, it, it felt like finding gold...
"pretty exciting?"
"Actually. Yeah, it was very exciting."
Dan spent many years removing all the non native fish from the streams.
Only then, could he restore the golden trout to their ancient habitat.
"We're almost to the creek so you want to be lookin' for a
spot that you can work
We'll go ahead and start collecting while you guys set up."
"And then we'll set up our aquarium."
"Great."
"David has to build an aquarium, it has to be custom built.
We have to worry about reflections, we have to worry about bubbles,
we have to worry about keeping the fish happy.
So it's really a kind of stage."
To find trout Dan goes electrofishing. Any fish in the area
will be stunned by electricity.
"There we go, oh, there he is, there he is, here it comes. Oop.
Got him. There you go.
Okay.
"Ready for fish, huh?"
"Yeah, I guess I could just put this down in there. Okay."
"Perfect, he looks really nice."
"Okay, stir 'em up and then I'll get out of your way."
"For me, the thrill of seeing these golden trout has never faded."
"Come on now, come on guys."
"These fish are special.
This is the only place in the world that they exist."
Dan's labors have brought success. The Little Kern Golden Trout
is about to be taken off the endangered species list.
"I'm happy I could bring these fish back-back to their past
in the Little Kern River and they've brought my past back to me."
"Okay, here we go. Brand new home, all to yourselves.
"The golden trout is going to be with us.
"There you go fella.
"Maybe some high school kid'll go upthere to the Sierras
and find these beautiful golden fish and they'll never forget
if for the rest of his life."
"Ah! Road burn. You Know, to motels, least expensive motel we can find.
Sometimes we just get really tired and then we go home.
It's a grind... and you never Know what the good restaurant is."
"The special today is chili.
"But, uh, I have done a lot of other things to make a living
and this is worth continuing."
"I want to stop."
"We're not going to get there on time."
"I Know, but why drive all night long."
"What is the situation from Flagstaff north to you?"
"Dave, ask them about the weather, if it's safe to get there."
"Ah, eh, he's not going to Know that."
"Yes, he is."
"Ah, we're already... heh..."
"Let me ask him."
"Let's find out from here."
"This is a big country and, eh, you Know, some days you don't notice
that it's beautiful. You just get to the next place."
The next place is costal North Carolina.
In those days we had never heard of passing up a chance to kill a wolf.
In a second, we were pumping lead into the pack
The old wolf was down. We reached the wolf in time to watch a fierce,
green fire dying in her eyes. Aldo Leopold.
The fire nearly died.
Only 17 true red wolves stood between the species and extinction.
But then, it was the first animal we attempted to save
with a recovery program.
Jennifer Gilbreath has worked with red wolves at the
Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge for six years.
"We don't really see the wolves ...all that terribly often, but,
we Know where most of the wolves are because of their radio collars.
"We can learn a lot by tracking the wolves and, as long as
the wolves have a place to live and are left alone, they can be fine."
When landowners allow it, wolves are often released onto private property,
but wolves don't Know about boundaries
where they're supposed to be ...and where they're not.
"It's just as much, if not more, about people than it is about wolves."
"The wolf was actually stalking our, our rams that were out in this pasture
because we keep the ewes tied up in the building."
"Our neighbor took a shot at him and he was moving on
down the field right that, at that time."
"But he was thinking about lamb chops this morning, that's what he was
thinking of. This would be a good little appetizer for him.
"It really would."
"And we've got nine of these on the ground right now and I
don't want them being hurt."
"Most people feel very strongly about the creature.
A lot of people don't pay any attention really to the facts."
"Well, I heard that you'd seen some wolves in the area."
"Yeah. See 'em, hear tell of 'em, and, uh, so far, they're not
bothering me, but they get off of their land and they come on my land,
and they start damaging my property, then I ain't got but one resort
now you Know what that is..."
"That's right."
"...we talked about that earlier. I don't like 'em. I ain't never
liked them. I ain't gonna lie about it."
"The wolf embodies the concept of wild nature.
All of us grew up with stories like "Little Red Riding Hood" and
"Three Little pigs" and it goes back into literally ancient times
when wolves represented Satan or the devil,
so, because of the myths, some people are afraid."
"The wolf is more frightened than I am, which is not
what I expected at all."
"And you can feel their fear."
"I'm just going to roll it out."
"Two frames."
"Is there a chance that the wolf could freak out and attack us?"
"We've never had that happen. We have never had it happen."
"The big bad wolf, just terrified, cowering in the corner."
For the wolves the news has been good.
"They've survived, they've bred, in the wild, and reared young
two or three generations."
"Come around this way."
"It's very near the breeding season so we hope that they'll stay together
and form a pair bond and do, do the right thing."
"Ready?"
"You wonder: Why are we doing this? Why make problems for ourselves
by putting wolves back in the world?
The answer is that we don't want our world to be just malls with trees
in neat little rows.
"We want wildness out there
becauseit puts the wonder of the world in you."
"We're going to be late to meet these guys."
"I, th, you Know, I think we must have past it or something.
It's not just...
"It's not fitting with what they were describing at all."
"Excuse me, can you tell me which way is to the Natches Trace?"
"Go back to the end of this road to the four way stop, turn left
and it'd be about seven miles, the three way stop will be right..."
"Get the, they call it the "Yellow Store" but it's
not yellow anymore, it used to be really yellow years ago,
but it's gray now, I think..."
"And you make a left... no, you make a right."
"Go to the stoplight."
"Huh, huh."
"And take your first left."
"But we want to be right there."
"And we turned off here and we missed it."
"Well, maybe you took the wrong, the wrong, left. If you
took the first left the first time, try the second left this time."
"You turn at the 'Yellow Store' if you don't see a store
that's yellow, just turn left at the Fat Woman, you'll find it,
it won't be any problem."
Eventually, Susan and David reach Central Florida and 5,000 acres of
deep sand and scrub, called Archbold Biological Station.
"It doesn't look like much at first because the predominant plants is
kind of shrubby looking oak, but it was a, a kind of
magic garden we had no idea we were entering.
"Great, great"
"We've never been in a place that had so many endangered species.
All these unique creatures tangled together in web of life."
"There you go."
Eastern indigo snake.
Florida mouse
Tequesta grasshopper
Scrub mint
Blue tailed mole skink
Florida scrub jay
Gopher tortoise
"Somebody tell me where to stop."
But of all the unusual creatures in the scrub, David and Susan
soon discover one of the most intriguing.
"Two takes 20,000; third take 30,000."
When off his bike, Tom Eisner is a distinguished scientist.
The pioneer of a technique he calls chemical prospecting
He searches for chemicals in wild plants and animals.
He's found nerve drugs in millipedes, insect repellents in a
tiny mint plant, compounds for the human heart in fireflies.
"There's hidden value to nature. Nearly half the medicines
that we take are derived from nature. They're chemicals that are used
by plants, animals and microorganisms for their own survival.
This is unbelievably important. To lose that informations is as if
it were burning every book on our library shelves.
"What you want to be alert to is shining things in the dark"
often, Tom finds chemicals in nature by using the life...
and death of animals as his tool.
"Right there. That's at about 20 feet, there's a tiny little
spider there which I could spot just from the eye shine.
There it is. It's hungry. And I'm going to feed it a moth.
Okay, typical strike and rejection. You notice she backed away.
I mean, you can literally enlist the help of these spiders
in helping you do research. You can ask these spiders
a simple question what do you like?
What don't you like?
And now let's see if she's ready to take something edible.
"Oh, wow."
"Action."
"It eats some, it rejects others and the question is
why does it reject some? And the answer is because the defensive
chemicals in those items that are rejected, those chemicals
that protect an insect, could be chemicals that have medical uses.
So the spider becomes your partner and it does this free of charge.
"Tom, I'm just completely amazed at what we've seen here. I mean,
David and I have just been traveling around photographing
endangered species isolated from each other and here is the first place
where we've been in a habitat that's still intact.
"Well, in nature itself everything is connected, every species is
in some way dependent on others. So you have this fabric of life and,
to me, an endangered species is like a critical stitch in that fabric.
"The longer you study any one area, the more you realize that
if any one item becomes extinct, the whole fabric falls apart.
Everything depends on everything else."
Sixty years earlier, another scientist went in search of an
endangered species. Deep into the Louisiana swamps, trying to find
one of the rarest birds in America. He found it and he filmed it.
It was the first time anyone had ever filmed the ivory billed woodpecker...
and the last.
"The ivory billed has always had a special mystique. You hear rumors
that it's still alive, that it's been heard
in some deep dark part of the swamp."
"We're finally getting to photograph the ivory billed woodpecker
but it's not the way we had hoped."
The birds' habitat was decimated by development. In 1996,
the ivory billed woodpecker was finally declared extinct.
"It was rare and then it slipped away. The preserved
specimen is all that's left."
"Species do not die of old age, species are killed off and
when a species dies, with it dies this genetic history that can never
be recreated. Scientists even begun to think of how they might be
able to reassemble a species and the loss is permanent."
There's only one place in the wild where a certain endangered species
can live. A windy, foggy microclimate in the middle of San Francisco.
"There's endangered species in our backyard and just a few blocks
from where we work is this plant, the presidio manzanita."
"The manzanita so rare that its exact location has to be kept a secret,
for its own protection."
"Good morning."
"Hi."
"I'm, David."
"Mark"
Biologist Mark Albert will take them to the plant's hiding place.
"Because it is the last wild individual of this species,
it's very, very important that we use extreme caution
when we're walking around the plant. So I'd like to ask you if you could
very carefully watch where I walk and even how I walk,
just so that we're not disturbing anything that shouldn't be disturbed.
Just follow my footsteps very carefully here.
So you want to walk right along the edge of this plant here."
"The pressure of our feet and our equipment really endangers
the actual plant itself."
"So there's some rocks here that we should step on when we're near
the plant because there are no roots growing under..."
"Is this one okay?"
"Yep."
"I mean, is this like the only place we can stand?"
"Uh, for any length of time, yes."
"There it is right there."
"So this whole green expanse that we're seeing is it."
"This is it."
"Oh, my God."
"This is the only wild individual that we Know exists at this point."
"I'd like to get a, eh, a good look at it.
Can I just walk in, or..."
"If you have to step off the rock a little bit just don't, you Know,
try to keep your foot planted in one spot."
"I mean, it's just not, you Know, initially, that spectacular."
"It looks like ground cover, it just doesn't look like anything
you could make of photograph of that anyone would want to look at."
"I don't Know how we're going to pull this off."
"Be careful with your left hand, David, on the foliage."
"But we're not choosing our subjects based on what they look like,
we're choosing them because they're threatened with extinction."
"Do you think we could do this with one leaf?"
"Sure. In the small scale, it's actually really extraordinary."
"All living things are amazingly complex and beautiful if you can
figure out a way to reveal it."
This plant can't reproduce by itself, but it's the last one left
in the wild, so the manzanita is what some call the "living dead."
"Plants get ignored. Almost two thirds of the species
on the endangered list are plants. They're not big and flashy like the
giant panda or the rhino, but they're equally as important in
how life works. Without plants the animals wouldn't be here;
we wouldn't be here."
"Americans are increasingly absorbed with the artificial, the plastic,
with the world of virtual reality. But we're going to come to realize
that the real eagle and the rest of nature are vastly more interesting
and satisfying than the artificial replicasthat there's a sense of
the touch and smell and sight and hearing and experience that
the real world of nature can never be duplicated.
"As nature slips away we will have created a world in which
we will be deprived and lonely."
Arthur Bonner is from South Central Los Angeles.
"We don't have trees, we don't have flowers, we don't have
insects, butterflies, spiders.
The only thing we have growing is buildings."
What did thrive in South Central was gangs.
"It was full of violence.
We would beat people with bats, hit 'em in the head with bottles."
When he was 18 Arthur shot a man in the face. He spent over seven years
in juvenile detention and jail.
"Good morning."
"My name is, uh, Arthur and, uh, you guys are out here to help us out
to save an endangered species. It's called the palos Verdes blue..."
When Arthur got out ofjail, he joined the L.A. Conservation Corps
his life was soon turned around by a tiny six legged companion, called
the palos Verdes blue butterfly.
"It's only, little small, 300 acres lift for these butterflies."
"Go ahead."
"So we all needs to help maintain it. Nature deserves to be everywhere."
"It's a catapillar. It won't bite you,
it won't even hard you, you could hold it with your bare hand,
it wouldn't do anything to you."
"Does it turn into a butterfly or a moth."
"A moth."
"Yeah."
"When they come out here and they see the stuff, they find the insects,
the butterflies, the lizards, you Know, all of it, it's something
that they put in their head and they take it back to the city and
they tell their friends, 'Well, home, we was at a habitat today."'
"Take him out gently."
Arthur is one ofjust three people who are permitted to gather
the butterflies.
"I'm very dedicated to coming down here. I love to do what I'm doing.
I love my work
He uses all his powers of persuasion to help his captives reproduce.
"Okay girls, which one of you laid some eggs for me today?"
"The, uh, five females that's actually collected out in the wild,
you Know, I bring them in, I have to watch 'em lay their eggs."
"There you go, you gave me one."
"The butterfly only has a five day life span and it's up to me
to keep her baby alive."
"You're not hungry right now, huh?"
"But they don't have to go up and get their food, they have somebody
to bring it to 'em, I bring it to 'em, you Know, they get their food
in bed, you Know everybody loves to get breakfast in bed."
"Doesn't want to eat it. That's okay, you're going to eat it
before the day is over with."
Like all creatures, the butterfly needs a place to live.
If its habitat goes, it goes and the palos Verdes Blue Butterfly has
a precarious homea postage stamp habitat surrounded by oil refineries.
"So that's the one that you think is probably going to go first?"
"And this is going to be the one that's gonna actually hatch
due to the fact that it has a, a better wing formation than
any of the, uh, other pupas that you actually see on the, um, format here."
"It's been an egg, it's been a catapillar, and it's been a pupa
for a whole year."
"It emerges in this one inch butterfly; this bright jewel comes
out of a little tiny brown package."
"It comes out; it exists in the world as a butterfly for five days,
it finds another of its kind; they made, the female lays the eggs
and the whole process starts over again."
"Now, do you think she's going to open her wings soon?"
"Yes, she will. She's gonna open 'em up."
"Oop, look at that."
"Yeah, see, their wings are dried now. The wings are actually dried now."
"Look at that. It's taking a little walk"
"If you'd been in pupation for over a year, it's going to take
a little time for you to actually, um, get out and fly away."
"Oh, there we go, there we go."
"Ah see, what it is, she Knows, everybody's watching."
For ten years, the palos Verdes blue butterfly was thought
to be extinct. It is still considered one of the rarest butterflies
in the world.
"Come here, come here."
"Those are my girls. I love 'em all. They actually kept me from
being extinct just as much I'm, I'm saving them from being extinct.
They're saving me and I'm saving them."
Less than 30 miles away from Arthur's quiet butterflies,
a more prominent air borne creature is at risk
Catalina Island, just west of Los Angeles, is home to 12 bald eagles.
But the eagles have an unseen enemy DDT. The pesticide,
long outlawed, still lingers in the surrounding water,
drastically weakening the eagles' eggs.
Dave Garcelon has come to Catalina to fool eagles.
The eggs in his box are dummies.
Dave's mission is to switch
the contaminated eggs with the fake ones.
Human beings are now the indispensable caretakers for
our national symbol.
The creature that is supposed to stand for strength and independence.
The egg's new home is the San Francisco Zoo, where John Aiken
runs the Avian Conservation Center.
"These eggs that come from Catalina Island are in bad shape.
We've got to help them every step of the way. We check them for cracks
and repair those and then put them in very humid incubators.
Unfortunately, most of the eggs die."
"And, you, you are actually going to make it out of there, look at this."
"All right. Gotta get ya out of there."
"This is the first egg in five years from Catalina that's hatched."
"Yes, look at that, you are a healthy little chick"
Twelve days later, the eaglet is on her way home. In a few hours,
she'll be placed in her nest again. The question is:
Will her parents except her ...or leave her to die.
"I'm really happy we've gotten this far.
The eaglet's odds were not good. She was a contaminated egg.
She definitely would have died if we'd left her in the nest,
But she survived and she seems like a survivor and we just hope
she's going to make it from here."
"You look great."
"Is that your mark"
"oh, very nice."
"Beautiful, wonderful!"
"That's great."
"Oh, that's ideal."
"We don't Know if this is the beginning or the end
for this little eaglet. We don't Know if her parents will come
and feed her and take care of her."
"Beak up."
"Hey, you."
"It's tough to, to watch 'em go. You Know, it's like sending your kids
away to college or something, you Know.
"People ask, 'Why do you take your precious babies back to
a contaminated environment?" The answer, to me, is simple.
The eagles belong here and maybe in 20 years they'll be able
to breed without us, but, for now, they can't do it unless we help them."
"We've led to the decline and extinction of a lot of species
and now we Know better.
"We're the only ones that can make a difference because all these animals
and plants can't do it on their own."
The biologists end the last leg of the human part of the effort.
Now, it's up to the eagles.
"Seeing that little eagle on that giant cliff face, it seemed
so fragile, eh, and our hope is that this eagle and all endangered species
that they survive and we carry them with us into the future."
An hour after the climbers have left, the mother accepts the chick
"It's really a symbol of hope to see this little eaglet put back
into the nest and the parents coming back to nurture it."
"It's a gesture of hope for not only the eagle,
but for the human species, too."
"Human beings are the masters of this world now. We can take these animals
and plants with us as we travel into the future
or we can say goodbye and send them into the night.
But whether we realize it or not, we depend utterly on other creatures
for our very survival. They are part of our existence
they are part of us."