On North America's east coast,
the raging rivers
pump life into the mainland.
Hungry cormorants feast on fish
swimming inland to spawn.
The circle of life and death
along the river.
On the jagged coast
of Canada's eastern shore,
a delicate and diverse ecosystem
thrives on the fringes of the continent.
Welcome to the Wild Wild East.
The rivers of Nova Scotia.
These channels carry water,
the source of all life,
through the province's mainland.
This is the Shubenacadie River.
It stretches inland
to connect to the Bay of Fundy and Grand Lake.
Millions of fish travel this route each year
as they swim upstream to spawn.
It's springtime in the Wild Wild East.
Animal life dives head first into the river.
Whether you're visiting for the season,
or just emerged from a winter nap,
the water's flow brings life to all.
But for predator species,
the river provides more than water.
A fact this muskrat knows all too well.
Animals live at different stops along the river,
but below the surface
another species is just passing by.
Meandering upstream is the American shad.
The fish are on a journey from the Atlantic Ocean
to the river's source, Grand Lake.
Shad spend most of their life in the ocean,
but once they mature they swim upstream
into freshwater lakes to spawn.
They're what's called an anadromous fish.
During this journey, the shad's body
goes through an incredible change.
Leaving the saltwater of the ocean,
their gills, lungs and kidneys
transform to allow them to breathe
in the freshwater of the river.
It is one of the most fantastic
and elaborate transformations
in the Wild Wild East.
Fish don't make this journey until they reach maturity,
which can take up to five years.
These big swimmers can grow
as long as a human arm.
The shad swim from the Atlantic waters of Florida
through the Bay of Fundy,
and then travel upriver to Grand Lake.
Once they've spawned, these shad
will turn around and head back to the ocean.
But there's more than one fish
along the river highway.
Further up the Shubenacadie,
a run of gaspereau.
They are the American shad's little cousin,
about a quarter of the size.
Outside of the Maritimes,
the fish is called an alewife.
But here in the Wild Wild East,
it still goes by the name the Acadian people gave it
over 400 years ago,
gaspereau.
Another anadromous fish,
these guys are traveling the same road upstream
to their ancestral spawning grounds.
Both the shad and the gaspereau
possess incredible honing abilities.
The fish spawning for the first time this spring
have not swum in fresh water
for as many as five years.
And still, their sense of smell
leads them up the same river
that first gave them life.
This is the gateway
into Nova Scotia's northwestern river system.
The gatekeepers,
a colony of double-crested cormorants
eagerly awaiting the fish
moving upstream to spawn.
Researchers estimate that there are close to
a thousand mature birds that return here each year.
That's about a third of the human population
on the other side of the harbor.
The cormorants flourish at the mouth of the river
thanks to this ample food supply.
They return each spring to breed
and raise their families.
Of the 40 different species of cormorants
across the world, the double-crested
is the most common in North America.
If it were breeding season,
you'd see two tufts of feathers
protruding from the bird's head, like horns.
Hence the name double-crested.
But the honeymoon period is over,
and in each nest there are mouths to feed.
By nesting in large colonies like this one,
any one of the thousand cormorants here
can raise the alarm bell
should a predator be seen.
Down in the water, a dutiful husband
collects seaweed to line the inside of his nest.
Above, his wife takes care of some repairs.
The unspoken compromise of a cormorant partnership.
Both mom and dad share the responsibility
of maintaining a nest and raising chicks.
The colony's nestlings
are between four and seven weeks old,
depending upon when the cormorant arrived,
and how soon they found a mate.
Most aren't ready to fly the coop yet.
Their fuzzy brown feathers
aren't equipped for flight.
Cormorants can live upwards of 20 years,
but the first is by far the most important.
To make it through year number one,
it will take a bit of luck,
escaping the grasp of unwanted predators.
Underneath these waters swim the main ingredient
in the cormorant's diet...
fish.
Fortunately, there's no shortage of those
at the mouth of the river.
When this causeway was built,
it dammed off the mouth of two of the three rivers
that empty into Pictou Harbor.
So, any migratory fish returning inland
have no choice but to swim right by the cormorants.
These man-made obstructions can cause some confusion
for the animals of the Wild Wild East.
This groundhog was just trying to track down
some berries and grubs
when he found himself halfway across the harbor.
And amongst the causeway's rocks,
a gull finds a crab.
The cormorants like those too,
but they prefer fish,
and spend a large portion of each day looking for them.
They propel themselves underwater
with their thick webbed feet.
When they reach striking distance,
the cormorant tries to pierce the fish
with its hooked bill.
Unsuccessful, this cormorant shakes off its defeat.
Unlike other aquatic birds,
the cormorant's feathers don't repel water.
So after a dip in the ocean,
this guy spreads its wings to dry off.
This pose is something of a trademark for the cormorant.
It's not just unique, it's useful too.
A soaking wet cormorant is heavier,
sinks faster and can dive deeper.
Stuck in their nest,
the chicks rely on their parents
to fish for them.
Like most birds, cormorants
feed their chicks through regurgitation.
There's a bit of a sibling rivalry
amongst the brothers and sisters.
The hungry chicks compete
for their parent's attention.
And as the saying goes,
the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
When the birds are very young,
they only feed out of the tip of the adult's bill.
It obviously doesn't take them long
to figure out there's a whole lot more
where that came from!
The parents partially digest the food
before vomiting it back up.
The chicks then feed out of the pouch
between the bird's bill and its neck.
The nestlings are just on the verge of fledging
and need lots to eat during this final stage
of rapid growth.
They're like hungry teenagers.
This time of year, mom and dad fish non-stop
to feed themselves and their growing family.
The cormorant isn't the only bird living off the fish
at the mouth of the river.
A bald eagle soars nearby.
The cormorants raise the alarm bell.
At the top of the food chain,
the bald eagle will eat anything it can kill.
Right now, it's looking for a cormorant nestling.
Mature cormorants can fly,
and have a better chance to evade this predator.
But their young are confined to the nest
and at serious risk.
Their only protection is their parents hiding them
from the eagle's sharp eye.
With the predator flying away,
the cormorants can leave their nests
and return to the water.
This was a scouting mission for the eagle,
and a close call for the cormorants.
The eagle is an opportunistic hunter,
and with so many nestlings at the colony right now,
he won't fly far.
Still, for now at least,
the nestlings are safe.
The mouth of the Shubenacadie,
where the river ends and the ocean begins.
The shad and the gaspereau
begin their journey upstream here.
Each year 5 to 10 million fish
pass through the muddy waters
of the Bay of Fundy.
At its eastern tip the world's highest tide
empties into the Shubenacadie.
The collision of water
alters the flow of the river.
This unique phenomenon is called a tidal bore.
At low tide, you can stand waist deep
in the middle of the river.
But within an hour
of the Bay of Fundy's tide turning,
the water would be two stories
over your head.
As they move upriver,
the fish cross a passenger
heading in the opposite direction.
A harbor seal
trying to catch its next meal.
The path upstream is never as simple
as Point A to Point B,
and soon the fish hit a fork in the road.
When these fish were just born,
the smell of their original river
left an imprint on them.
Using this sensory memory
they chart their course home.
Some shad and gaspereau
continue down the Shubenacadie,
while others exit onto Stewiacke River.
But it isn't long before the Stewiacke swimmers
run into one of their most common predators.
The angler.
Here, along the Stewiacke River,
they compete in what's known as a Shad Derby.
Each angler is trying to catch the largest shad possible.
The bigger,
the better.
The fish will serve a purpose.
Nearby there's an Eagle Rehabilitation Centre
and all the shad caught today
will be fed to the eagle's in recovery.
The annual community event
has been going on for 20 years now.
The river always finds a way
to bring living things together,
above, and below the water.
Eagles usually catch their own fish,
but the injured birds in recovery
will be happy to receive a helping hand
from the human world.
Meanwhile, the shad along the Shubenacadie are facing
a different challenge.
This trap is called a fishing weir.
It's set here annually to harvest the spring runs
of gaspereau and shad.
Fishing weirs have been set along tidal rivers
across the world for at least 10,000 years,
though it's likely they've existed even longer.
The trap works by blocking off a section of the river.
The weir forces the fish
to swim into nets placed underwater.
At its peak in the 20th century,
over half a million shad were fished annually
in the Wild Wild East.
But the bony fish is difficult to prepare,
and it has fallen out of favor with the general public.
These fish will be used to bait lobsters.
But, some fish sneak through.
The fishermen can't catch them all.
Angling and fishing weirs are carefully regulated
in the Wild Wild East.
This ensures the shad and gaspereau
can make it back to spawn.
If they don't, it will disrupt
the delicate balance of the river.
In less than six weeks,
the cormorant nestlings along Pictou Harbor
will be able to fly.
Confined to the nest
they rely completely on their parents.
Flight brings them independence,
but also a defense.
The eagle has re-emerged
to stalk the cormorant colony.
And the parents do their best
to shield the nestlings.
The eagle takes off.
Circling back,
it snatches a baby cormorant.
The cormorant species are built to sustain loss.
The death of one nestling
will not destroy the colony.
There's strength in numbers.
And here in the Wild Wild East,
the future is strong
for the double-crested cormorant.
Back along the Shubenacadie,
the gaspereau have almost reached
the river's source,
Grand Lake.
The lake takes them all the way
into Nova Scotia's mainland.
It is the end of the journey,
and it's just around the river's bend.
The fish have fought their way upriver,
found luck where others haven't.
When they arrive home they will spawn,
and welcome the next generation of gaspereau.
But man has placed one final obstacle
in their path.
A pair of metal culverts.
The water, tunneled through these two holes,
rushes against the frantic gaspereau,
bubbling,
churning,
spinning.
But on the other side,
calm.
The ancestral spawning grounds
of the gaspereau.
And so the fish fight the culvert's frenzied flow.
It's not easy for the little guys,
and it takes a lot of gumption.
But they swim.
Just when it seems they've made it into the tunnel,
the waters force pushes them back.
One by one the fish make it into the tunnel.
The journey upstream is a marathon
and this is the final sprint.
On the other side of the culvert,
the gaspereau have arrived at the source
of the Shubenacadie River to spawn.
A single female gaspereau
may release anywhere between 60,000
and 200,000 eggs during spawning.
Of course, not all of these become little fish.
Once born, things like water temperature,
presence of predators and food availability,
all influence whether or not larval gaspereau
will grow big enough to make the long trip
back to the ocean.
When they travel downriver for the first time,
they'll go through their own transformation,
preparing their internal organs for salt water.
The time this transformation takes
is genetically programmed
to be the same amount of time
as their journey downstream to the ocean.
And so, at the beginning of that next journey,
this one ends.
The gaspereau and shad
have ensured the future of their species
for another year.
Rivers are the bloodline of the natural world,
pumping life through the Wild Wild East.
In their natural form, they flow and churn
in relation to the formation of the earth.
They bring together
humans,
birds,
fish.
All living creatures.
In a few months the gaspereau and shad born this spring,
will need to make their first journey down the river,
to the Atlantic Ocean.
It will be years
before they'll swim in the Shubenacadie again.
The cormorants in Pictou Harbor
will fly south again this winter.
But you can be sure they'll return again next year.
They've made these waters their home.
Life in the wild can seem like
a cruel numbers game
for species low on the food chain.
But such is the delicate balance
of the natural world.
A river runs through
the Wild Wild East.
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