[10] The premiere of Planet Earth II took place at Bristol's Cinema de Lux on 2 November 2016 with special guest appearance by Attenborough.

[21] The series debuted in Canada and the United States on 18 February 2017, with the Canadian broadcast on the local BBC Earth channel (which recently launched).

[31] The first episode gained 12.26 million viewers in the United Kingdom, which broke the record for the highest under the current system of viewing figures for a nature documentary.

At this crucial time for the natural world we will journey to every corner of the globe; to explore the greatest treasures of our living planet, and reveal the extreme lengths animals go to to survive.

"The first episode illustrates the wildlife settlement of coastal islands, in which thousands of them worldwide where animals struggle for survival reflects challenges for all life on Earth.

Somewhere on the island of Escudo off the coast of Panama, a male pygmy three-toed sloth heard the distant mating call as he swims across the shallow mangrove seas in search of a lone female.

At the Fernandina Island of the Galápagos, a newly hatched marine iguana miraculously escapes the onslaught of predatory Galapagos racers before climbing to the cliff top for safety.

From the sub-Antarctic of New Zealand inhabited by thousands of birds, Snares penguins perform their sub-breeding season, shearwaters fly off to collect food for their young, and a male Buller's albatross tries to find a female to mate.

A female white tern from Seychelles nestles her egg on a bare branch and incubates it while brown noddies settles their nest on a pisonia tree.

Across the steep sun-baked mountains of the Arabian Peninsula, Nubian ibexes settles on the steepest cliff to raise their young while avoiding predators.

Meanwhile, thousands of avalanches from the Rocky Mountains occur every year resulting in catastrophic effects of debris; grizzly bears make their dens for hibernation at 10,000 feet in the deep snow of leeward slope.

A bobcat leaves its territory to hunt and finds a suitable valley where the river doesn't freeze and volcanic hot springs where other animals have arrived to feed.

From the equator of Africa lies the snowy Mount Kenya which is 30 degrees colder than the African savanna, and is also the home of giant heathers, Lobelias, and groundsels growing on the upper slope as they adapt hot summer day and freezing night.

Human activities and climate changes start to affect the mountainous ecosystem, resulting in infrastructure buildings in the Alps, shortening hibernation seasons in the Rockies, and melting glaciers in the Andes, including snow decline in the Himalayas.

300 years ago, a giant hura tree began to grow taller as it races to absorb water and sunlight for survival, which it carries 1000 other plants within its branches.

Deep in the Amazon Rainforest of Brazil, the trees are suddenly submerged from flooding caused by seasonal rainfall while Araguaian river dolphins, a newly discovered species, use their sonars to hunt in the murky waters.

Even though the rainfall causes mass flooding, the jungle provides abundant food within a shallow margin for large animals that thrive through lush vegetation like the mighty jaguar, which ambushes and kills a caiman.

In south-west Madagascar, billion swarm of migratory locusts, affected by heavy rainfall, began to flourish from breeding as they savagely infest the entire area of farmlands and consume mass amounts of vegetation.

At the Mojave Desert during July, a herd of wild mustangs gather at a waterhole, in which the lead stallion tries to assert its dominance before his confrontation by his newly rival.

During the rainy season, thunderstorms occur rapidly in grassland which became more sporadic for forests to thrive allowing the grasses to grow annually for rainfall.

A female Eurasian harvest mouse leaves her nest as she treks across the meadows foraging for food until she escapes a barn owl's grasp before she returns home safely to her offspring.

In the African savannah, southern carmine bee-eaters struggle to catch insects hidden within grass while a kori bustard and ostriches provide lack of support.

While flying in front of a bull African bush elephant, the bee-eaters gain a perfect opportunity to grab their prizes before the dry season begins.

In the Serengeti, herds consisting of millions of blue wildebeest migrate across the savanna in pursuit of rain along with Jackson's widowbirds, not only to seek food but to mate.

A male widowbird tears off grasses to create an even surface and a centerpiece stage to attract females while facing competition with rivals.

As the caribous travel onward to find their feeding ground, the narrator speculates that the grassland provides a great gathering of wildlife on Earth.

Aftermath, they settle on the sacred temple garden which serves as a feeding ground for them and peaceful coexistence with Hindus resulting in increased breeding.

During the hot summer of Rome, a flock of one million common starlings gather in the evening after feeding as they return to their roosting tree while performing aerobatic murmurations.

At night, a clan of competitive spotted hyenas ventures into the walled city of Harar which they provide a traditional coexistence with the Harari people during their 400 years of feeding carcasses and leftovers.

[36][38][37] However, The Guardian's Martin Hughes-Games, while calling the series "spectacular and fascinating", accused programmes such as this of breeding complacency about the destruction of wildlife by painting a misleading picture of the planet.