Footage below shows members of an Ecuadorian tribe, along with presenter Gordon Buchanan, catching and releasing a 5-meter-long (17-foot-long) green anaconda in the Amazonian rainforest. This creature, found in forest environments across South America, is the heaviest and one of the longest known species of snake.
The video is a preview to the new BBC Two series "Tribes, Predators & Me," which broadcasts in the U.K. on March 20 at 9 p.m. GMT.
The Waorani are some of world’s greatest rainforest wildlife experts, whose culture is inseparably tied to their surrounding environment and its animals. According to the BBC, they believe that the man-eating anacondas that lurk by the Amazon river can be used as a source of spiritual power.
But there is also a scientific drive to catch these snakes. This part of the rainforest is facing a huge threat from the expanding oil industry upstream of the river. In order to track the effect of oil pollution on the local ecosystem, the Waorani people are working with scientists to record the Amazon’s wildlife by taking biological samples.
