James Brundige felt that the time was right to film his documentary “Wild Ways: Corridors to Life”, when he realized that the National Park System wasn’t sufficient to maintain wild species.
“If we want to have wildlife values into the distant future, we need to connect these areas and practice conservation on a larger scale.,” said Brundige. The film focuses on how populations of animals can be forced to inbreed or die out, because their natural habitats are being slowly downsized and isolated.
“There’s not really much time left to fix this situation.”
The problem is that isolating species first leads to inbreeding, but more urgently, incidents like droughts, fires or an epidemic, can wipe out a group of animals.
“If nature remains connected, that’s OK,” he said. “If it’s an isolated island of habitat, then there is no neighboring population that can re-inhabit that area, that species is gone forever.”
The documentary airs tonight on PBS.
