At its roots, The American Southwest, from Fin and Fur Films, is a natural history documentary. “I’m a wildlife guy,” says director Ben Masters, who founded Fin and Fur in 2012. His infatuation with nature comes through in the film’s exploration of the southwestern United States, traced along the path of the Colorado River from its headwaters in the Never Summer range of the Rocky Mountains to its delta in the Gulf of California. Along the way, we find a watershed teeming with life. In three years of filming, his team captured visually astounding sequences of bull elk (Cervus canadensis) clashing in battle, of beavers (Castor canadensis) toppling trees to tailor their habitat to their needs, and of a nail-biting struggle of a young California condor (Gymnogyps californianus) on a cliff at Navajo Bridge. The filmmakers manage to engage the audience in the stories of each species they spend time with, whether the deadly Mojave rattlesnake (Crotalus scutulatus) in California’s largest desert, Arizona’s life-supporting saguaro cacti (Carnegiea gigantea), or the humble salmonfly (Pteronarcys spp.) linking the aquatic environment with the terrestrial. Beavers build dams on snowmelt streams in the Colorado River Basin. Image courtesy of Fin and Fur Films. This biological vibrancy is a stark contrast to the images the filmmakers have also included of a river that’s worn down by the time it reaches its terminus. As the Colorado flows through Arizona, California and Nevada — three of the seven states it touches, in addition to Mexico — cities,…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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