Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Island Of The Sea Wolves’ On Netflix, A Docuseries About Sea Wolves And The Rest Of The Ecosystem On Vancouver Island

Some nature docuseries go all over the place, trying to adhere to themes. But when a show focuses on one geographic area, it becomes more interesting, at leas to us. Why? Because you see how the ecosystem operates throughout the seasons, and the full cycle of life that has made for such a tightly knit environment. A new Netflix series focuses its lens on Vancouver Island.

ISLAND OF THE SEA WOLVES: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A sea wolf walks along a beach, a thick rainforest in the background.

The Gist: Island Of The Sea Wolf is a three-part docuseries, narrated by Will Arnett and produced/directed by Jeff Turner, that examines the ecosystem on Vancouver Island, in British Columbia. Despite its Pacific Northwest location its climate is usually mild and its combination of seaside and rainforest ecosystems make it the home for a wide variety of species.

Some, like the sea wolf, are unique to the island; the sea wolf can swim great distances in order to find food, and we see that with a pregnant wolf named Cedar. She’s not the alpha female of her pack, so she’s on her own to find food to make sure her litter is healthy. So if there’s a rotting carcass on a rocky island a half-mile away, she has the capacity to swim to it.

The series is split by season, starting with spring, and other members of the ecosystem get the episode’s focus. There’s a male bald eagle who needs to impress his companion with his fish-catching abilities in order for them to mate. A sea otter mom has to leave her baby to float in the cold water in order to find food to help her nurse. Sea lions feed on a massive swarm of egg-laying herring until grey whales show up. Then killer whales show up to pursue a lunch of now well-fed sea lions. Cedar has to cede meat from a dead otter to the pack’s alpha male, who grabs the carcass and takes it to the alpha female.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Island Of The Sea Wolves would have fit in nicely as an episode or two of Our Great National Parks.

Our Take: Even though Vancouver Island itself is quite large, it’s a relatively small area when it comes to what nature documentaries cover. But that focus makes the show more interesting, because we can see one area, and one group of species, weather different seasons. Surprisingly, the summer is the toughest season on the island because of vanishing food sources, and that second episode starts with a surprise involving Cedar and the alpha female in her pack.

That surprise does show us how much crafting goes into creating a storyline out of raw nature footage. We suspected as such: We don’t even know if the filmmakers ever follow an individual member of a species around or follow different members and clip it together. But without some storylines, and Arnett’s ability to go from serious deep-voice narration to some sly stuff about the funnier moments — like a crab attaching itself to a bald eagle’s face — the spectacular scenery shot for the series likely wouldn’t be able to stand on its own.

But that’s every nature series. What makes this one good is the focus. We’re not going all over the world; we’re showing exactly how tightly integrated one species is with another on Vancouver Island. Arnett’s narration clearly illustrates how the different species help each other, even the ones that are predators of the others. And by focusing on such an interesting environment, with marine life and rainforest within a short distance from each other, the viewer can really see how much of a delicate balance that ecosystem really is.

Sex and Skin: There’s some eagle mating. That’s about it.

Parting Shot: Looking for food, Cedar invades the den of the alpha female of the pack. The alpha female finds her, but the two of them are calmer around each other than you might think.

Sleeper Star: As with most of these shows, the cinematography is spectacular and takes advantage of 4K HDR video.

Most Pilot-y Line: In a scene where a mama sea otter and her baby call out to each other after they’re separated is a bit manipulative, but it does seem that the baby’s “meeps” are recorded live from the scene. Those “meeps” make your heart melt.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Island Of The Sea Wolves does what a lot of nature docuseries should do, which is focus on one geographical area and follow its inhabitants through the different seasons. It makes for a fascinating show.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.