"60 Minutes" Goes Into The Wilderness!
If you haven't had a summer vacation yet, let "60 Minutes" take you on a little trip around the world without having to leave your desk!
Over the past four decades, we have encountered some incredible animals, habitats, and people trying to protect both.
Below are some of the nature stories we've covered over the last few years.
We start with a trip to the Indonesian side of New Guinea where - hidden from the rest of the world - a sort of "Garden of Eden" is flourishing. In 2007, Bob Simon traveled to the Foja Mountains, where scientists had found a place still unspoiled by man.
While in the Foja Mountains, Simon encountered a Golden-fronted Bowerbird who was strutting his stuff in a elaborate (and rarely seen) mating dance. Aside from the dance, the male birds also build towers, decorating them with fruit, snails - anything they think will make it stand out.
Our next stop is the Democratic Republic of Congo, where in 2007 CNN's Anderson Cooper traveled to a jungle to report on the endangered mountain gorilla species. At the time of the report, there were only about 700 of them left, and conservationists genuinely fear the entire species might become extinct.
We stay in Africa to visit Dame Daphne Sheldrick, who runs one of the world's most unique orphanages. Outside Nairobi, Kenya, Dame Daphne cares for elephants left orphaned because poachers killed their parents. It's a mission she has been on for half a century.
Also in Africa - in this case in the Central African Republic - Simon met a scientist who is working on an interesting riddle: deciphering the secret language of elephants. Andrea Turkalo, who lives in a compound that she and a group of Pygmies built from scratch, has been working on this project for nearly 20 years. Take a look and listen!
Next, we go to Mozambique in East Africa. It's one of the poorest places on Earth, devastated by decades of war, by malaria and by HIV. But it's also the home of the spectacular Gorongosa National Park. Could the park be the solution to some of the country's problems? An American entrepreneur, Greg Carr, is trying to find out.
Last year, Scott Pelley visited Kenya, the site of the great wildebeest migration, and looked at the threats to this natural spectacle comprised of over a million animals. It might be one of the greatest (natural) shows on Earth!
Next, we go to India to see some of the world's last wild tigers. Belinda Wright, the first female National Geographic photographer, gave Scott Pelley, in 2006, a close-up introduction to the ferocious power of wild tigers.
And last but not least, we return to Africa, in this case South Africa, to meet a man who has spent more time up close with the ocean's most feared predator than anyone else. Mike Rutzen takes Anderson Cooper on an unprotected dive with great white sharks.