Series Thoughts: Island of the Sea Wolves (Full Series)

 

• Released: October 11, 2022
  
• Amount of seasons: 1
• Seasons watched: 1
• Rating: 3.5/5

Synopsis

A look into the wildlife of Canada's Vancouver Island throughout the seasons.

My Thoughts

Yes, I am still reviewing documentaries on here occasionally. The thing with me reviewing documentaries is that I really have to be in the mood to watch one in order to enjoy them. If I'm not in a documentary mood my interest for the thing I'm watching often falters quite quickly.

That said, this is definitely a very solid documentary mini-series. Despite the name, it focuses on a wider range of animals than just wolves. We do follow the titular sea wolves (a distinct subspecies), but animals such as eagles, black bears, marmots and otters are also featured. In most cases we follow one or a few individuals of each species as they try to survive throughout the seasons. Most of them also have an offspring to look after, and it's a quest for survival as it's not always easy keeping your young one fed and safe.

The documentary was beautifully shot and I appreciated how it featured a wide range of animals. I love wolves the most (of course, I mean look at what I mostly review on this blog) but I was also thoroughly invested in the lives of the other animals here. Each of them has a unique story to tell and it was quite harrowing seeing the difficulties in life they had to go through, especially the younger critters. 

One thing I'm not so sure I liked was them naming every single animal that is heavily featured. I don't know, when documentaries feature animals I'm usually okay with one or two main players being named so we can distinguish them from the rest, but here pretty much the entire animal cast is named, including some more minor "characters". Which just isn't necessary if you ask me. I like it when animal documentaries are a bit more sparse with naming their animals because it really keeps the focus where it's needed. Right now I kept having trouble trying to recognize each animal and what name belonged to them. When I really think that only the main players should've had names, one-off animals don't need one and it makes the documentary lose focus a bit.

I also personally wish the documentary would've gone a little more in-depth on the sea wolves and what makes them a unique subspecies. Right now we mostly just follow their lives and while that's interesting, sea wolves are quite unique among wolves (mostly for their diet being composed of a lot more fish than is usual for wolves). They're not "just" another North American gray wolf subspecies, they're a rather distinct subspecies with their own unique traits. That's what gives them the name "sea wolves". Not just the fact that they live by the sea, but their diet, their great swimming skills and them being genetically different from other North American gray wolf subspecies. So if you have a documentary named after them I think featuring some things that makes them unique would've been nice. 

Just to be clear, I am not asking for the sea wolf segments to overshadow those of the other animals, not at all. But I did wish we were given a little bit more information about what makes them a unique subspecies. There's been entire books written about how they're different from other wolves (some wolf researchers even consider them to be the last truly "wild" wolves on the planet), so to see them being just featured as generally any other wolf in a wolf documentary was a little disappointing when you have such an unique and interesting subject matter. 

Overall this was still a great documentary, though. Beautifully shot, good narration by Will Arnett, a wide array of species featured and tense and informative scenes. I've also been to Vancouver Island myself in 2015 and even seen some of the featured animals (marmots, black bears, bald eagles, whales) in the wild there so it was pretty cool to see these locations/critters again in this documentary.