Bear mountain spirit

Young long-eared owls beg, darkness falls on the mountain valley, and suddenly there is a movement on the slope: a young Cantabrian brown bear descends into the valley. Joshi Nichell came here to make a film with the NGO wild-europe.org about the Spanish organization FAPAS (El Fondo para la Protección de los Animales Salvajes), whose work has contributed to the fact that the bear population in northern Spain has increased from 30 to more than 300 animals in the past 40 years.

An oasis for nature

Clouds reflect on the surface of a cut-off meander at the Danube wetlands in Slovakia's south-west. In the midst of an intensely used agricultural landscape, such areas are an oasis for wildlife: Water fowlfind habitat here, woodpeckers and other forest birds breed in the ancient trees along the banks, and the shrubbery offers an important refuge for roe deer and other animals that hardly find cover in the cleared cultural landscape.

Graveyard Shift

Cemeteries are important sites for wildlife especially in urban settings where continued development of land forces animals to find refuge in small pockets of green space. Highgate Cemetery in North London, famous as the burial site of Karl Marx, is managed with wildlife in mind and is home to foxes, sparrow hawks, kestrels and tawny owls.