BBC One Commissions Wild Alaska Live

Charlotte Moore, Director of BBC Content and Tom McDonald, BBC Head of Commissioning, Natural History and Specialist Factual, has announced Wild Alaska Live, a major three-part live television event for BBC One, produced by BBC Studios' Natural History Unit and co-produced by PBS.

The three part series, to be broadcast live across a week in July 2017 from the makers of 2015's BAFTA award winning Big Blue Live, will broadcast one of the greatest wildlife spectacles from one of the remotest corners of Earth.

Viewers will be taken on a live adventure, as the crew broadcasts from across the vast wildernesses of Alaska, one of the last and best places in the world to see these spectacular animals in all their glory.

Steve Backshall, Matt Baker and Liz Bonnin will be there at the most crucial time of year for Alaskan wildlife; the annual salmon run triggers the start of a remarkable summer feast as black bears, brown bears, Kodiak bears, orca, humpback whales, salmon, beavers, salmon sharks, walrus, wolves and many others gather for a summer feast like no other on the planet.

Steve Backshall said: "Alaska is the last frontier of the continent, with forgotten forests the size of nations, cut through with glaciers, mountains and raging rivers. In July an unparalleled explosion of life transforms the wilderness, creating one of the greatest wildlife events on the planet, and we're going to be there… live."

Matt Baker added: "Two years ago we set off for Monterey Bay with a wealth of expertise and the technology to show all of you back home one of the greatest wildlife spectacles on earth as it happened. Big Blue Live was live family television at its best. Now we're all heading back into the wilds, this time to Alaska with one simple aim - to show you what bears, wolves, whales and many others get up to in one of the most remote parts of the world, while you go about your everyday life in the UK.

"Alaska is, of course, one of those dream places of wonder, from glaciers to rainforests, now we can experience it together as it happens."

Liz Bonnin also said: "Getting the chance to observe the natural behaviours of brown bears and wolves in one of the last remaining true wildernesses on earth is going to be a thrilling experience.

"I'll be based at Katmai National Park - pretty much as remote and pristine a place as you can get - exploring the challenges of conserving these precious species and their habitats, telling the stories of individual animals and capturing all the live action as the salmon run plays out. I'm so excited to be part of the adventure, and to bring all of this to our BBC One audience as the week unfolds."

Wild Alaska Live will be a thrilling celebration of one of the biggest conservation success stories on the planet. Almost all of America's brown bears are in Alaska, there are more wolves in here than almost anywhere else in the world and the orca population is booming. Every animal we encounter is part of this inspirational story.

Matt Baker will be presenting live from the world's largest temperate rainforest, the stunning Tongass National Forest where black bears and bald eagles await the end point of the epic salmon migration.

Liz will be living in one of the remotest areas of Alaskan wilderness, Katmai National Park, amongst some of the largest brown bears in the world. She'll also be on the trail of the ultimate symbol of wilderness, the iconic wolf.

Each show will see Steve Backshall undertake a daring live expedition to a new remote location. He'll attempt a helicopter landing on a moving glacier and an abseil right underneath the ice, to where this whole natural event started, before heading off-shore to seek out the biggest predators of them all - orcas and humpback whales.

bbc.co.uk