United States of Animals

Along the 15-mile Tamiami Trail in Florida, bikers find themselves just a few feet away from hundreds of American alligators. For two months of out of the year, the town of Kaktovik, Alaska, is home to the country's largest concentration of native polar bears. Gila monsters hide out underground in Arizona's Sonoran Desert, but come spring, residents get a rare glimpse of these venomous lizards.

Fall is rutting season and hundreds of elk descend on Estes Park, Colorado, looking for love. But the townsfolk don't mind they throw a festival to celebrate! On the California coast, an influx of krill draws blue whales close to the shores of Dana Point. In Staten Island, New York, wild turkeys are taking the borough by storm and these tough birds live, fight and love like no other breed in town.

New York City is being invaded by a new mutt called a coywolf. In eastern North Carolina, you can camp with the biggest black bears out there. The city of Cape Coral, Florida, throws a festival honoring its 20,000 eccentric, underground celebrities: the burrowing owls. And tide pools in Moss Beach, California, reveal the creatures of the Pacific up close.

Come hang with a tribe of feral monkeys in central Florida, as a renegade clan of rhesus monkeys take over the shores of Silver River. Then hold on tight for an extreme adventure dog sledding through Minnesota in the musher's stand. In San Francisco, a rowdy mob of sea lions has claimed Pier 39 as their own. And on Assateague Island, Maryland, gallop for the sea with a herd of wild ponies.

It's the biggest game day of the year as bighorn sheep clash head to head in Georgetown, Colorado. Olive the oiled sea otter is on the front lines fighting climate change in the kelp forests of Monterey Bay, California. In the Sky Islands of Arizona, the tiniest birds in the world refuel on their epic migration. And a pod of dolphins hunt on land in Captain Sam's Inlet, South Carolina.

Love is in the air all over the United States of Animals. Just a few feet from Highway 1 on the California coast, it's the ultimate prizefight for elephant seals. Meanwhile, Operation Migration is winding down after a flock of whooping cranes follow their "mom" to St. Marks, Florida. And it's a real fish-out-of-water story when grunions swarm the beaches of California.

Every March, the Platte River Valley in Nebraska is home to a colossal crane choir when thousands of sandhill cranes pull of the migration express to rest and refuel. Meanwhile, in Texas, a trail boss leads a cattle drive through town. And finally, witness a purple martin super-enthusiast who owns the world's largest purple martin apartment complex – with over 1,200 rooms!

Hit the beach with the blue bloods of the sea - horseshoe crabs. Then duck into the danger zone with some lethal birds in Tucson and soar with Monarch butterflies on the California coast. Finally, jump aboard a swamp buggy in the Everglades in search of a ghost cat…the Florida panther.

Visit the largest colony of bats on the planet in Texas, discover the surprising habits of South Florida's sharks and see Arizona's scorpions do fascinating things with ultraviolet light.

Bison thunder across America's plains during the world's largest bison round-up in South Dakota, while bald eagles fly high at a Maryland dam during a feeding frenzy. Meanwhile, step back in time to America's last fully operational mule train, and then head to a quirky town in Alaska to meet the quirky mayor – a cat named Stubbs.

Come winter, manatees gather by the hundreds in Florida's coastal waterways, and monk parakeets native to South America hang out in a Brooklyn cemetery. Honeybees are dying off in droves, but President Obama is taking them in and taking up their cause. Donkeys worked as pack animals in the gold mines of the Wild West, but these days they're ruling the streets of an Arizona town.

Comeback kids are staking out new turf all over the United States of Animals. Up in Alaska, 100 wild wood bison fly to their new home in the middle of the wilderness. In North Carolina, folks lend their voices to endangered red wolves on a moonlit call and response howling. California condors feast on carrion, and tiny island foxes have reclaimed their territory in the Channel Islands.