Two raccoons are perched on a white recycling bin in a grassy area, exploring their Miami wild surroundings. Sunlight highlights their fur, and the word RECYCLE is visible on the bin.
A green chameleon with a curled tail clings to a slender branch in the Miami wild, surrounded by lush green leaves. Its eye is turned towards the camera, and its body shows subtle color variations that blend seamlessly with the vibrant foliage.
Aerial view of a vibrant cityscape reminiscent of Miami, with a highway weaving through towering skyscrapers and residential buildings. The scene unfolds with a river, green spaces, and a partially cloudy sky, while the wild beauty of the ocean stretches into the distance.

Miami Wild

Nature & Wildlife·1 x 50 min·Completed

In Miami, animals from around the globe thrive – peafowls, monkeys, crabs, and more create a vibrant urban wildlife scene. Discover their unexpected journey!

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Genre
Nature & Wildlife
Duration
1 × 50 min
Definition
4K
Audio
5.1
Status
Completed
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Synopsis

The stories of American cities are inextricably linked with the tales of immigrants, making their lives there. And Miami is no exception – in the last century, it has become a melting pot of wildlife from around the globe.

South Florida’s buzzing metropolis has become a new home for Indian peafowls. We follow some chicks that just hatched into an urban world. They immediately run across some of Miami’s other animal immigrants. The most obvious are the anoles: small lizards with flashy colors on their throats, which they use to challenge rivals and attract mates.

The peafowl chicks were born at the start of the heavy summer rains. The first full moons after the summer storms begin trigger the mass migration of giant blue land crabs from their terrestrial burrows to the sea. Thousands of these crabs, whose claws can reach a foot across, march across busy roads, through manicured backyards, and into dense mangroves to reach the warm, shallow waters of Biscayne Bay, where males and females meet to spawn in the high tide.

The peafowl mother also leads her brood to water: to puddles after rainstorms, backyard swimming pools, and the intricate network of canals that cut through the city. These canals are full of animal immigrants, too: manatees, alligators, and crocodiles use the extensive canal system to move around the city. Tropical aquarium fish, released into the city’s waterways by owners weary of caring for them, thrive here. Colorful cichlids and Gambusia establish breeding territories in the shallows, with males displaying and fighting for the privilege of siring the next generation.

A troop of vervet monkeys – hailing originally from East Africa – has persisted for decades in the dense mangroves near Fort Lauderdale Airport, venturing out into the surrounding neighborhoods for human handouts.

In many ways, parrots are the peafowl’s polar opposite – where peafowl live hard and die young, parrots can live for many decades; and where peacocks compete to mate with as many peahens as they can, some parrots pair with the same mate for life. But both groups of birds have found a home in Miami, thanks to humans’ unquenchable desire to surround themselves with beautiful things.

And as dusk becomes dark in sunny Miami, bats emerge from roosts in attics to hunt for prey, and  terrestrial carnivores like the raccoon, gray fox, and coyote prowl for whatever prey they can find.

However their fortunes change, the animal immigrants of Miami have beaten the odds to gain a foothold on a new continent. But in a city that’s so intimately linked with the rest of the world, it won’t be long before a new generation of animal immigrants arrives, to create a new life for themselves… in Miami Wild.

Team

Written and directed by Neil Losin and Nathan Dappen
Executive producers Ivo Filatsch, Sabine Holzer
Production companies Produced by Day’s Edge Productions for Terra Mater Factual Studios and Smithsonian Channel

Awards & Recognitions

Pamhagen, Austria Jackson Wild Media Awards Winner (Category: Original Music Score) 2022
Cannes, France Cannes Corporate Media & TV Awards Finalist 2022
Darß, Germany Darßer NaturfilmFestival Official Selection 2022
Namur, Belgium FINN - Festival International Nature Namur Official Selection 2022
Eckernförde, Germany Green Screen - Internationales Naturfilmfestival Eckernförde Official Selection 2022
Ludwigsburg, Germany NaturVision Filmfestival Nomination (Category: NaturVision Film Music Award) 2022
Gödöllö, Hungary International Nature Film Festival Gödöllö Official Selection 2022
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