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Nature’s Cleanup Crew (2020)

Nature’s Cleanup Crew tells the story of the busy scavengers who live among us in our cities, recycling the mountains of waste our consumer society leaves behind. To us, it’s garbage. To them, it’s dinner.

WATCH NOW ON CBC GEM

FOR CBC’S THE NATURE OF THINGS AND ZDF ARTE

Nature’s Cleanup Crew aired in Canada on CBC’s The Nature of Things and in Europe on ZDF and ARTE. It’s currently streaming for free on CBC GEM and Arte.

With the help of thoughtful and passionate scientists who have come to understand and love them, we find out what makes scavengers tick. We debunk myths about them. We ask… What adaptations have they evolved to do their job? What benefits do they provide humanity? How can we humans work with them, so that they can do their job even better?

On Broadway in Manhattan, we see the tourist crowds from the ants’ point of view, as a team of young entomologists discover how important they are to keep the streets clean. In Berlin, we discover how scavenging foxes have adapted to survive in an urban environment – something they’ve had to do because they have nowhere else to go. In Toronto we hunt for the elusive opossum – the shyest scavenger of all – to find out how they help to make our cities healthier. In Addis Ababa, Ethiopia we track the city’s teaming population of vultures to find out how they protect people from deadly disease.

By the end, we may not see all of nature’s cleanup crew as beautiful creatures the way some scientists do. But we might be more willing to give them the respect they deserve.

A Kensington Communications production. Producer: Robert Lang, Director: Robin Bicknell, Editor: Bill Towgood, Writer: Allen Booth, DP: Derek Rogers

CREDITS

Produced by
ROBERT LANG

Directed by
ROBIN BICKNELL

Written by
ALLEN BOOTH

Additional Direction
ROBERT LANG

Editor
BILL TOWGOOD

Cinematographers
DEREK ROGERS
RUSSELL GIENAPP

Music Composed by
ERIC CADESKY
NICK DYER

Animation and graphics
JUNIOR LOPEZ

Researchers
JON SUFRIN
ALLEN BOOTH

Visual Researcher
GINA CALI

Production Manager
NICOLE McKECHNIE

Additional Camera
ROLAND GOCKEL
LORI LONGSTAFF
EVAN SECCOMBE
OWAIN PARRI
DOLORES ALVARADO

Drone Operators
EVAN SECCOMBE
IVAYLO KLISUROV

Sound Recordists
DANE KELLY
PETER SAWADE
JASON R MILLIGAN
LYUDMIL BOZHKOV
DANIEL TOMOV
MORITZ KERST

Location Fixers
ROSIE KOCH
TAMARA DAWIT
ASHU KERSMA

Post-Production Coordinator
VIKAS NAYAK

Sound Editor
GARY VAUGHN

Re-recording Mixer
RICHARD SPENCE-THOMAS

Assistant Editor
JAMIE MACKIDDIE

Conform Editor
VIKAS NAYAK

Colourist
IGOR PETROV

Production Accounting
LOIS DOU

Production Coordinator
RENA PILGRIM

Legal
DANNY WEBBER

Archival Material

Roland Gockel, Dillon M Cozzi via ViralHog, Vaughan King, US Coast Guard Air Station New Orleans, The Snow of Kilimanjaro, 20th Century Fox 1952, Shutterstock, Renato Henshaw, May Mei Freeman, Regenesis UK, Pond5, Overflightstock, Getty Images / BBC Motion Gallery, NOAA, Boiler Room TV, Q Films Inc, Kenneth Dale Jones DVM, Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research/Dr. Heinrich Lünsdorf, The Egyptian Vulture New LIFE project (LIFE16 NAT/BG/874), Dimitar Gradinarov, Dobromir Doberv, Emil Yordanov, Dawn VanDeman, Raviv Yatom, Melvin Zoopers, Andre Botha, Endangered Wildlife Trust,

Special Thanks to

EGYPTIAN VULTURE NEW LIFE” PROJECT (LIFE16 NAT/BG/000874), TechnoRem Incorporated, Toronto Wildlife Centre, York University Behavioural Sciences, Nature Research Center, NC Museum of Natural Science/ NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, Adrian Smith, Laboratories for scientific and technological innovation in environment (LISTE) du Centre INRS – Eau Terre Environnement, Stoyan Nikolov, Evan Buechley.

Produced in collaboration with
MARCO POLO FILM AG

Executive Producer, Marco Polo Film AG
ANNETTE SCHEURICH

Production Manager, Marco Polo Film AG
VERENA FEIGE

Commissioning Editor, ZDF/Arte
LINDE DEHNER

Produced with the participation of ZDF/Arte


Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit

produced in association with
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

Executive in Charge of Production, CBC
Sue Dando

Produced by Kensington

Executive Producer
ROBERT LANG