[Music]
so these are the five clans and I’m
going to introduce you to them
more specifically now the marsh pride
would probably the dominant force in
savuti very interesting pride they there
were ten of them three of them were
adult lionesses and the rest of them
were quite young cubs of different ages
so it always made for quite a lot of
entertainment they were fun to film fun
to be with they’re always up to no good
stealing bags from cars and doing
strange little things they were quite
happy go-lucky they rule by brawn and
power and owned the jewel of the whole
area the the great Marsh they were led
by a they were led by a lioness called
Matsu Matsu mee-mah a lot of my butt’s
one of people would know my mean mother
and summer being hunt and hunter so she
was mother hunter and that is something
she certainly was I remember when I
first did a recce into seviche in 2008
as the water was coming in there for the
first time after 30 years and I saw
Mutsumi as a cub she was about three
weeks old really small she was a little
part of a litter of four and her
brothers and sisters were also lying in
a big heap you know bellies up and they
were farting making noise and Mutsumi
was off to one side and she was actually
you know chasing a butterfly or trying
to kill her mother’s tail even at such a
young age I mean she was destined to be
a great line she was destined to be a
leader and she can have led this pride
right through the savage Kingdom period
an amazing individual but the marsh
pride had one advantage over the other
Lions in the area they’re competitors
they had that guy
now that is sec Akana and he was the
dominant male and his dominance out of a
coalition of two but he was the dominant
male the brute force
he was the muscle
that sort of ruled over that entire tire
area and I didn’t make up his name at
all
his name is SEC Akama you know not SEC
Akama Sega comer not after president but
he was the ruler of that entire of that
entire area and he kind of enabled them
to hold on to the jewel the the great
Marsh let’s meet the the marsh pride
[Music]
but zoomies young have a direct line to
the throne she must make them warriors
[Music]
she is scarred mother
and commander
[Music]
[Music]
your daughter shows promise
she has gifts your sons to mope she will
be your heir
there is more to leading than just
killing not zooming the provider must
hold this volatile gang together and
appease her brutal King SEC akarma
[Applause]
nobody eats before him least of all his
sons
even Matsui yields so for those of you
that end up watching this you’ll always
realize that in the savage Kingdom the
piggy always gets it just to introduce
you to the the next group of lions the
northern pride they’re a group of lions
that lived in the forests and the hills
that sort of overlooked the great Marsh
and the two prides were very similar in
many ways they instead of 10 these guys
were 9 and it was led by a lioness
called Satara and she kind of steered
with this pride went and her she was she
was one of two lionesses and the other
was her mother so it was quite a close
family the rest of that pride were Cubs
but unlike the marsh pride they were all
of the same age and they were already
about three years old they didn’t have
an adult male and that was the defining
difference between the two the two
prides in fact second Calma was actually
their father was part of their group and
once he’d had those Cubs he kind of just
abandoned them and headed down to the
south to the to the glory land and
joined Mutsumi and her pride in the
south and although they were young you
could see they were starting to get
quite big and seven six out of the seven
of those cubs were actually young males
so they started to pose a real threat to
SiC Acamas reign and that pride really
wanted to move down into the into the
Martian and take it for themselves and
you can start to see how the game of
Thrones narrative starts – starts to
push in let’s
let’s meet them on it let’s meet the
northern product sat out knows the
dangers of Buffalo
as six young sons and daughter do not
but this is the moment they have been
training for
work together
take this beast duh
the skillful defense by the old bull
sitar has yet to teach her young family
how to kill in water they will learn
they there were a very interesting pride
and very quickly fell under the wrath of
psychic OMA and the entire dynamic of
that pride shifted very quickly from the
sort of brawn and muscle of the lion
world around savuti it moved to a very
different type of character and possibly
my my favorite Sabah she is a mother
leopard whose territory was right at the
heart of where all of these predators
were being thrust
I had the dubious privilege of being in
charge of finding Sabah and working with
the leopard is totally different to
working with the lion
you track a rugby team through the bush
or you track a secret silent assassin
and it’s a lot harder to keep up with
her but the positive side of it is that
instead of dealing with the team you’re
dealing with an individual and I got to
know Sabah
incredibly well I had spent several
years with her did a film and part of
her life and it really was a privilege
to spend another chunk of time really
focused on that individual it’s a very
personal relationship
it’s very one-on-one it’s very hard to
stay impartial and and and you know
remember that you’re dealing with a
whole bunch of different families we all
had our favorites rich loved the marsh
pride and the fun of the marsh pride I I
loved
this cat I loved Sabah
she used to come right up to the truck
as explained before just lie down and
sleep next to you in fact one night I
used to I was downloading material that
I shot of her sitting at night in the
dark in front of my computer and I was
downloading material and you know I’d
feel this you know something on my foot
and I think like a beetle had flown into
my computer by the lights and fallen
down into my shoe and I kind of shook it
out and carried on and it carried on so
then I looked down and I leant down to
get it out of my shoe and it was
actually Saba smelling my shoe and her
whiskers were tickling the side of my
foot you know and it’s those kind of
scenarios that really endeared me to I
never felt that I was in danger I never
felt that I was threatened in any way by
her and you know if I had the thing all
over again
and I had an animal that I would go to
it would have been her
let’s meet some
there is one that rises above them all
Sabah the phantom assassin watches
everything living alone hunting alone
stealth is her greatest weapon
she can kill almost anything but birds
are her speciality
she is perfect but for a small Nick to
her ear remember I said how some
particularly individuals developed their
own unique set of skills and that’s what
kept me interested in these animals saba
was an example of that and I used to
follow her all around savuti and she
would go up to a tree and there’s a big
nest in the top of the tree and she
normally went to nests that were from
the bigger birds eagles or owls or
various things in this case a barn owl
nest and she would go up and she’d get
to the nest and look inside and they
were often eggs or small chicks in there
and I’d be waiting for her to just dive
in and kill them and eat them and very
often she actually just used to ignore
them and then she’d bounced back down
the tree and she’d move on and I was
like well you know you know eat while
you can and then two weeks later she
would try and kill an Impala and she’d
mess and she would try and kill a doctor
and she would mess and she’d be failing
and failing and failing and then she
would remember where that nest was and
she’d do an about-turn
and she would March and a beeline
straight to where there was she had
mapped out a pantry right across savuti
she knew where she had these little
emergency rations that she she could go
and access at any time and this is one
of them we had been with her at this
tree two weeks before this happened
Janet and Ashley who were with us in
Botswana witnessed her climbing up and
eating her little emergency ration and
you know that’s sort of mapping out I
mean just shows the level of
intelligence that they have and it
served her incredibly well she had two
cubs and when her back was against the
wall and she needed food to do to help
get the milk flowing she could always
turn back to
to finding something small to eat she
just was you know cut above the rest and
she had this air about her of a sort of
sense of royalty I mean she’s an
exceptional exceptional cat another one
of my favorite animals and the families
that were there were wild dogs now as
long as I can remember in savuti no pack
of wild dogs actually denned in that
area they make dens underground and
obviously the pups are incredibly
vulnerable so no pack of wild dog
actually den in savuti because there
were too many predators there’s too much
activity and the year that we started
savage Kingdom the small pack of dogs
came out of nowhere and they were just
determined to stay and live in civic e
this was now their home and they were
going to you know have a go at it they
were here to stay and it was a great
family to follow up to follow they were
there were only six dogs in the pack
which is particularly small for a wild
dog pack anyway they were outgunned
outnumbered there were the real
underdogs the sort of refugees as you
were of savuti and there really were
tenacious and wanted to really make a go
of it let’s meet the pet of the pack
the pale pack is new to the kingdom
Runaways from a barren wasteland
two formidable hunters lead the pack the
devoted Tamannah
wearing her distinctive white diamonds
and the heroic Millau with his golden
collar
these six dogs a splinter group from a
larger clan desperately need to increase
their ranks
if their pack gets any smaller they will
never survive
[Music]
they’re here to defy the odds with great
leaders like tamanna’ and Millau a small
pack can grow quickly but they need to
kill every day
endurance
you is what we have
run them into the ground so leopards
were difficult to work with because
they’re sneaky and hard to find dogs
we’re definitely the next hardest
character to keep up with they’re
incredibly fast and as soon as the hunt
kicks off if you want to be part of that
you’ve got to be driving through the
bush at 35 kilometres an hour just
trying to keep up with them and you
don’t know who you’re going to stick
with and and who you’re going to move
with and they are the basically a 101 a
1 & 101 lesson on how to completely
wreck a filming track we which kept up
with them the best we could and we knew
that they were Denning in savuti we just
didn’t know where and we tried tracking
them but we couldn’t we couldn’t
consistently pick up a direction that
they were going in and we knew that we
had to find the denon the only way we
were going to find that then is to get
them on a kill they would whoop it down
now there’s five of them
the jimana was staying at the den into
babysitting look after her pups and they
would were four down and they’d have to
run back to the den to feed her and they
had to do that fairly quickly otherwise
sort of gesture would start setting in
and they wouldn’t would not be able to
regurgitate fur so the one day the pack
killed the pig piggy always gets it they
killed the pig out on the open Marsh and
I knew this was our moment to – there
were only five of them and this was the
moment that we were going to find the
den so I called in a few other vehicles
and we were hell-bent in making it to
the den this time typically they went
off the edge of the marsh straight into
the thick stuff and then they just
started running you know 25 cares an
hour right through the middle of the map
awning is really hard
scrubby environment and I went in after
them and we had another vehicle sitting
on the edge of the marsh you know just
sort of mirroring
movement song we kept in touch and you
know I you know I could just hear the
bush breaking out the wires the pipes
and everything underneath our car I mean
brakes were starting to fail and we just
had to do it we’re just smashing
smashing through the bush and at one
point we actually I actually ended up
jamming the car in between two trees we
got stuck in between two trees and I had
to call the other vehicle to cut ahead
and cut into the bush and pick them up
and keep on them while I got myself out
of the bush and trying to catch up again
and we followed them for about 25
minutes before we finally lost the pack
still running on adrenaline you know
panicking that we’d lost them we got out
and got on the ground and started
tracking and went through this clearing
and walked straight into the den arrived
in front of us and sorry we made it all
the way and finding that den was such a
a great moment for us it was one of the
big turning points for us within the dog
story itself jimana was living there she
had six pups and we got a really amazing
little window into the life of these
little dogs growing up and living in
this thing they were not that far from
the edge of the marsh they were right
under our nose all the time but they had
managed to conceal that den so
beautifully it just took us forever and
the wrecking of one of our costs just
actually fine find the den here last but
not least hi he knows everybody sort of
disregards hyenas they have bad
association with them they one of my
favorite of of all the animals they
incredibly successful I mean few people
realize that the hyena is actually the
most successful predator that we have in
Africa they really are ahead of most of
the others one of the one of the things
that worried us is that when we first
arrived in savuti we saw
probably three hyenas in the first year
and as time went on slowly but surely we
started seeing a few more and a few more
and they started coming out of the
woodwork and getting a bit more relaxed
around us but by the time we started
savage Kingdom these guys had already
built a small army again we knew that
the den was there and I was just a case
of finding a female who’s lactating and
just doing the hike in doing the time
and following our all the way back up
towards the sandwich
they always denned we found that once we
found it in that that a lot of the dens
were on the edge of the sandwich let’s
meet these guys a battle-hardened clan
of mothers The Sisterhood is raising an
army
growing their numbers is the only hope
against lions
[Music]
looms and a generation will starve
[Music]
armies need discipline zolly cos rule is
absolute aliens are really fascinating
to me the entire social structure is
governed by aggression they it’s a
matriarchal society and because that
aggression in these societies a lot of
the females have such high levels of
testosterone in their in their bodies
all the time and over years they’ve
developed these pseudo penises so
they’re quite odd in in a lot of ways
but that level of aggression and
actually manifests in the womb and you
actually get to sub-links fighting it
out in the womb and the level of
testosterone in a fetus inside the womb
is often much higher than an adult male
line so they’re very peculiar animals
and a hole in it for a lot of ways and
what what I really liked about them in
this particular show is that their path
was kind of the antithesis of all the
others while everybody else was fighting
to survive these guys were getting fat
on all the killing and everything that
was happening during their time so they
kind of countered the whole the whole
Savage Kingdom kind of program so those
are the five animals that we really
invested a lot of time and invested a
lot of emotion into we had the crews
around the clock working with them for
15 months and as we got to understand
their plight their different lives their
different directions
that in itself started to become a bit
of a problem for us in that we knew at
some point these clans were going to
clash and when they did you know whose
side were you going to be on did you
inadvertently try and support your
favorite or where you’re going to be
able to just stand back and know that
this is the process and this is what was
happening and we often had these debates
you know Richard nice to have arguments
over the radio saying well keep your
lines away from my guys I mean it’s it’s
a it’s not going to be fair you know you
got lines and one of the two of the main
characters that I felt with sort of the
lead heroines of the entire place the
ones that I got to know the most was
Mutsumi and Saba Mutsumi I’d known since
she was a cub I’d seen her become this
warrior cat who took on the biggest of
prey and Sabah who you know you could
see why I loved that cat there was one
particular incident in this whole
project that really brought home what
this entire project was about for me
basically Sabah used to leave her cap
she had two cubs
a male and a female and she used to
leave them on this big hill called
leopard Rock then that formed a sort of
nursery for her and she was out hunting
and of the two the daughter was much
bolder and more adventurous and probably
a little bit impatient and what she did
was lead her brother down off the side
of leopard Rock and this is
[Music]
Mutsumi the Huntress of the marsh pride
is looking for a den of her own
she heads towards Sabhas stronghold
[Music]
[Music]
Saba is finally home
but her calls go unanswered
Oh
I find them
[Music]
[Music]
where are you
[Music]
[Music]
Saba finds her cubs
[Music]
but it’s too late
[Music]
[Music]
you
[Music]
so as you can imagine this this
particularly event really shook me it
was really unfortunate that the two
females that I loved most in this in
this program came together in such a
devastating way it is one of the hardest
things that I had to witness let learn
film and but it was it made me realize
it was not for me to judge I couldn’t be
I couldn’t hate me to me for what she
had done I couldn’t be angry with Sabah
you know this was the natural process of
survival playing out and he had to just
accept that Sabah took her cub she took
it up to the tree and try to revive it
by licking it it was it was dead already
and eventually she ate it returning it
back to the body from where it came I
got sort of completely thrown out by
this and I actually had to leave savuti
I went home I needed to get some space
gather my thoughts and just step away
from it and contextualize what had
happened and this is the kind of thing
that happens when Africa’s apex
predators get squashed into a small
environment and then have all of their
resources withdrawn
it becomes brutal you know become savage
I mean it is it’s quite epic the first
season the first installment of savage
Kingdom hits our screens this next week
and since then they’ve been a number of
births
the marsh pride Mutsumi and her sister
both Cubs so sitar she you know her
pride was decimated
they have another ten Cubs who had
already a year old there are a lot of
new lives fighting away in Cebu TN and
making the new path the dogs have had
new pups and Saba’s son who survived is
growing strong learning very quickly
he’s actually slightly bigger than his
mother already as from my own family my
children are trying very hard to be
teenagers but I hope that I hope that in
their early years in the bush they it
has sort of installed a sense of the
environments and and nature in them that
they can sort of grow up loving the
animals and you know working to protect
the animals and you know continue what
we try to do going forward I believe
that as humans we are becoming less and
less in touch with nature we being
separated further further and further
away behind our cement walls and neon
lights some people only get to see some
of these animals in sanitized nature
films or cartoons or in a zoo some
people are fortunate enough fortunate
enough to come and visit us in Botswana
and go on a safari and see these animals
for themselves what we try to do with
the films that we make is try and take
people out of their offices out of their
homes and in some ways out of their own
heads and to try and get them to get
involved in a little moment in time
where they can emotionally relate to
these animals and let that sort of reach
out and sort of touch them and motivate
them to to really care about these
animals we want people to feel the
the thrill see the beauty except the the
savagery of it the brutality of it and
just really wake emotionally to to the
wonderful creatures that we live with
and as I said to them the way we do
while out in the field in Botswana we
have fun we do what we do because we
love it and because we love those
animals and it gives us much joy and
much pride
so thank
[Applause]
[Music]
[Music]
Oh
so these are the five clans and I’m
going to introduce you to them
more specifically now the marsh pride
would probably the dominant force in
savuti very interesting pride they there
were ten of them three of them were
adult lionesses and the rest of them
were quite young cubs of different ages
so it always made for quite a lot of
entertainment they were fun to film fun
to be with they’re always up to no good
stealing bags from cars and doing
strange little things they were quite
happy go-lucky they rule by brawn and
power and owned the jewel of the whole
area the the great Marsh they were led
by a they were led by a lioness called
Matsu Matsu mee-mah a lot of my butt’s
one of people would know my mean mother
and summer being hunt and hunter so she
was mother hunter and that is something
she certainly was I remember when I
first did a recce into seviche in 2008
as the water was coming in there for the
first time after 30 years and I saw
Mutsumi as a cub she was about three
weeks old really small she was a little
part of a litter of four and her
brothers and sisters were also lying in
a big heap you know bellies up and they
were farting making noise and Mutsumi
was off to one side and she was actually
you know chasing a butterfly or trying
to kill her mother’s tail even at such a
young age I mean she was destined to be
a great line she was destined to be a
leader and she can have led this pride
right through the savage Kingdom period
an amazing individual but the marsh
pride had one advantage over the other
Lions in the area they’re competitors
they had that guy
now that is sec Akana and he was the
dominant male and his dominance out of a
coalition of two but he was the dominant
male the brute force
he was the muscle
that sort of ruled over that entire tire
area and I didn’t make up his name at
all
his name is SEC Akama you know not SEC
Akama Sega comer not after president but
he was the ruler of that entire of that
entire area and he kind of enabled them
to hold on to the jewel the the great
Marsh let’s meet the the marsh pride
[Music]
but zoomies young have a direct line to
the throne she must make them warriors
[Music]
she is scarred mother
and commander
[Music]
[Music]
your daughter shows promise
she has gifts your sons to mope she will
be your heir
there is more to leading than just
killing not zooming the provider must
hold this volatile gang together and
appease her brutal King SEC akarma
[Applause]
nobody eats before him least of all his
sons
even Matsui yields so for those of you
that end up watching this you’ll always
realize that in the savage Kingdom the
piggy always gets it just to introduce
you to the the next group of lions the
northern pride they’re a group of lions
that lived in the forests and the hills
that sort of overlooked the great Marsh
and the two prides were very similar in
many ways they instead of 10 these guys
were 9 and it was led by a lioness
called Satara and she kind of steered
with this pride went and her she was she
was one of two lionesses and the other
was her mother so it was quite a close
family the rest of that pride were Cubs
but unlike the marsh pride they were all
of the same age and they were already
about three years old they didn’t have
an adult male and that was the defining
difference between the two the two
prides in fact second Calma was actually
their father was part of their group and
once he’d had those Cubs he kind of just
abandoned them and headed down to the
south to the to the glory land and
joined Mutsumi and her pride in the
south and although they were young you
could see they were starting to get
quite big and seven six out of the seven
of those cubs were actually young males
so they started to pose a real threat to
SiC Acamas reign and that pride really
wanted to move down into the into the
Martian and take it for themselves and
you can start to see how the game of
Thrones narrative starts – starts to
push in let’s
let’s meet them on it let’s meet the
northern product sat out knows the
dangers of Buffalo
as six young sons and daughter do not
but this is the moment they have been
training for
work together
take this beast duh
the skillful defense by the old bull
sitar has yet to teach her young family
how to kill in water they will learn
they there were a very interesting pride
and very quickly fell under the wrath of
psychic OMA and the entire dynamic of
that pride shifted very quickly from the
sort of brawn and muscle of the lion
world around savuti it moved to a very
different type of character and possibly
my my favorite Sabah she is a mother
leopard whose territory was right at the
heart of where all of these predators
were being thrust
I had the dubious privilege of being in
charge of finding Sabah and working with
the leopard is totally different to
working with the lion
you track a rugby team through the bush
or you track a secret silent assassin
and it’s a lot harder to keep up with
her but the positive side of it is that
instead of dealing with the team you’re
dealing with an individual and I got to
know Sabah
incredibly well I had spent several
years with her did a film and part of
her life and it really was a privilege
to spend another chunk of time really
focused on that individual it’s a very
personal relationship
it’s very one-on-one it’s very hard to
stay impartial and and and you know
remember that you’re dealing with a
whole bunch of different families we all
had our favorites rich loved the marsh
pride and the fun of the marsh pride I I
loved
this cat I loved Sabah
she used to come right up to the truck
as explained before just lie down and
sleep next to you in fact one night I
used to I was downloading material that
I shot of her sitting at night in the
dark in front of my computer and I was
downloading material and you know I’d
feel this you know something on my foot
and I think like a beetle had flown into
my computer by the lights and fallen
down into my shoe and I kind of shook it
out and carried on and it carried on so
then I looked down and I leant down to
get it out of my shoe and it was
actually Saba smelling my shoe and her
whiskers were tickling the side of my
foot you know and it’s those kind of
scenarios that really endeared me to I
never felt that I was in danger I never
felt that I was threatened in any way by
her and you know if I had the thing all
over again
and I had an animal that I would go to
it would have been her
let’s meet some
there is one that rises above them all
Sabah the phantom assassin watches
everything living alone hunting alone
stealth is her greatest weapon
she can kill almost anything but birds
are her speciality
she is perfect but for a small Nick to
her ear remember I said how some
particularly individuals developed their
own unique set of skills and that’s what
kept me interested in these animals saba
was an example of that and I used to
follow her all around savuti and she
would go up to a tree and there’s a big
nest in the top of the tree and she
normally went to nests that were from
the bigger birds eagles or owls or
various things in this case a barn owl
nest and she would go up and she’d get
to the nest and look inside and they
were often eggs or small chicks in there
and I’d be waiting for her to just dive
in and kill them and eat them and very
often she actually just used to ignore
them and then she’d bounced back down
the tree and she’d move on and I was
like well you know you know eat while
you can and then two weeks later she
would try and kill an Impala and she’d
mess and she would try and kill a doctor
and she would mess and she’d be failing
and failing and failing and then she
would remember where that nest was and
she’d do an about-turn
and she would March and a beeline
straight to where there was she had
mapped out a pantry right across savuti
she knew where she had these little
emergency rations that she she could go
and access at any time and this is one
of them we had been with her at this
tree two weeks before this happened
Janet and Ashley who were with us in
Botswana witnessed her climbing up and
eating her little emergency ration and
you know that’s sort of mapping out I
mean just shows the level of
intelligence that they have and it
served her incredibly well she had two
cubs and when her back was against the
wall and she needed food to do to help
get the milk flowing she could always
turn back to
to finding something small to eat she
just was you know cut above the rest and
she had this air about her of a sort of
sense of royalty I mean she’s an
exceptional exceptional cat another one
of my favorite animals and the families
that were there were wild dogs now as
long as I can remember in savuti no pack
of wild dogs actually denned in that
area they make dens underground and
obviously the pups are incredibly
vulnerable so no pack of wild dog
actually den in savuti because there
were too many predators there’s too much
activity and the year that we started
savage Kingdom the small pack of dogs
came out of nowhere and they were just
determined to stay and live in civic e
this was now their home and they were
going to you know have a go at it they
were here to stay and it was a great
family to follow up to follow they were
there were only six dogs in the pack
which is particularly small for a wild
dog pack anyway they were outgunned
outnumbered there were the real
underdogs the sort of refugees as you
were of savuti and there really were
tenacious and wanted to really make a go
of it let’s meet the pet of the pack
the pale pack is new to the kingdom
Runaways from a barren wasteland
two formidable hunters lead the pack the
devoted Tamannah
wearing her distinctive white diamonds
and the heroic Millau with his golden
collar
these six dogs a splinter group from a
larger clan desperately need to increase
their ranks
if their pack gets any smaller they will
never survive
[Music]
they’re here to defy the odds with great
leaders like tamanna’ and Millau a small
pack can grow quickly but they need to
kill every day
endurance
you is what we have
run them into the ground so leopards
were difficult to work with because
they’re sneaky and hard to find dogs
we’re definitely the next hardest
character to keep up with they’re
incredibly fast and as soon as the hunt
kicks off if you want to be part of that
you’ve got to be driving through the
bush at 35 kilometres an hour just
trying to keep up with them and you
don’t know who you’re going to stick
with and and who you’re going to move
with and they are the basically a 101 a
1 & 101 lesson on how to completely
wreck a filming track we which kept up
with them the best we could and we knew
that they were Denning in savuti we just
didn’t know where and we tried tracking
them but we couldn’t we couldn’t
consistently pick up a direction that
they were going in and we knew that we
had to find the denon the only way we
were going to find that then is to get
them on a kill they would whoop it down
now there’s five of them
the jimana was staying at the den into
babysitting look after her pups and they
would were four down and they’d have to
run back to the den to feed her and they
had to do that fairly quickly otherwise
sort of gesture would start setting in
and they wouldn’t would not be able to
regurgitate fur so the one day the pack
killed the pig piggy always gets it they
killed the pig out on the open Marsh and
I knew this was our moment to – there
were only five of them and this was the
moment that we were going to find the
den so I called in a few other vehicles
and we were hell-bent in making it to
the den this time typically they went
off the edge of the marsh straight into
the thick stuff and then they just
started running you know 25 cares an
hour right through the middle of the map
awning is really hard
scrubby environment and I went in after
them and we had another vehicle sitting
on the edge of the marsh you know just
sort of mirroring
movement song we kept in touch and you
know I you know I could just hear the
bush breaking out the wires the pipes
and everything underneath our car I mean
brakes were starting to fail and we just
had to do it we’re just smashing
smashing through the bush and at one
point we actually I actually ended up
jamming the car in between two trees we
got stuck in between two trees and I had
to call the other vehicle to cut ahead
and cut into the bush and pick them up
and keep on them while I got myself out
of the bush and trying to catch up again
and we followed them for about 25
minutes before we finally lost the pack
still running on adrenaline you know
panicking that we’d lost them we got out
and got on the ground and started
tracking and went through this clearing
and walked straight into the den arrived
in front of us and sorry we made it all
the way and finding that den was such a
a great moment for us it was one of the
big turning points for us within the dog
story itself jimana was living there she
had six pups and we got a really amazing
little window into the life of these
little dogs growing up and living in
this thing they were not that far from
the edge of the marsh they were right
under our nose all the time but they had
managed to conceal that den so
beautifully it just took us forever and
the wrecking of one of our costs just
actually fine find the den here last but
not least hi he knows everybody sort of
disregards hyenas they have bad
association with them they one of my
favorite of of all the animals they
incredibly successful I mean few people
realize that the hyena is actually the
most successful predator that we have in
Africa they really are ahead of most of
the others one of the one of the things
that worried us is that when we first
arrived in savuti we saw
probably three hyenas in the first year
and as time went on slowly but surely we
started seeing a few more and a few more
and they started coming out of the
woodwork and getting a bit more relaxed
around us but by the time we started
savage Kingdom these guys had already
built a small army again we knew that
the den was there and I was just a case
of finding a female who’s lactating and
just doing the hike in doing the time
and following our all the way back up
towards the sandwich
they always denned we found that once we
found it in that that a lot of the dens
were on the edge of the sandwich let’s
meet these guys a battle-hardened clan
of mothers The Sisterhood is raising an
army
growing their numbers is the only hope
against lions
[Music]
looms and a generation will starve
[Music]
armies need discipline zolly cos rule is
absolute aliens are really fascinating
to me the entire social structure is
governed by aggression they it’s a
matriarchal society and because that
aggression in these societies a lot of
the females have such high levels of
testosterone in their in their bodies
all the time and over years they’ve
developed these pseudo penises so
they’re quite odd in in a lot of ways
but that level of aggression and
actually manifests in the womb and you
actually get to sub-links fighting it
out in the womb and the level of
testosterone in a fetus inside the womb
is often much higher than an adult male
line so they’re very peculiar animals
and a hole in it for a lot of ways and
what what I really liked about them in
this particular show is that their path
was kind of the antithesis of all the
others while everybody else was fighting
to survive these guys were getting fat
on all the killing and everything that
was happening during their time so they
kind of countered the whole the whole
Savage Kingdom kind of program so those
are the five animals that we really
invested a lot of time and invested a
lot of emotion into we had the crews
around the clock working with them for
15 months and as we got to understand
their plight their different lives their
different directions
that in itself started to become a bit
of a problem for us in that we knew at
some point these clans were going to
clash and when they did you know whose
side were you going to be on did you
inadvertently try and support your
favorite or where you’re going to be
able to just stand back and know that
this is the process and this is what was
happening and we often had these debates
you know Richard nice to have arguments
over the radio saying well keep your
lines away from my guys I mean it’s it’s
a it’s not going to be fair you know you
got lines and one of the two of the main
characters that I felt with sort of the
lead heroines of the entire place the
ones that I got to know the most was
Mutsumi and Saba Mutsumi I’d known since
she was a cub I’d seen her become this
warrior cat who took on the biggest of
prey and Sabah who you know you could
see why I loved that cat there was one
particular incident in this whole
project that really brought home what
this entire project was about for me
basically Sabah used to leave her cap
she had two cubs
a male and a female and she used to
leave them on this big hill called
leopard Rock then that formed a sort of
nursery for her and she was out hunting
and of the two the daughter was much
bolder and more adventurous and probably
a little bit impatient and what she did
was lead her brother down off the side
of leopard Rock and this is
[Music]
Mutsumi the Huntress of the marsh pride
is looking for a den of her own
she heads towards Sabhas stronghold
[Music]
[Music]
Saba is finally home
but her calls go unanswered
Oh
I find them
[Music]
[Music]
where are you
[Music]
[Music]
Saba finds her cubs
[Music]
but it’s too late
[Music]
[Music]
you
[Music]
so as you can imagine this this
particularly event really shook me it
was really unfortunate that the two
females that I loved most in this in
this program came together in such a
devastating way it is one of the hardest
things that I had to witness let learn
film and but it was it made me realize
it was not for me to judge I couldn’t be
I couldn’t hate me to me for what she
had done I couldn’t be angry with Sabah
you know this was the natural process of
survival playing out and he had to just
accept that Sabah took her cub she took
it up to the tree and try to revive it
by licking it it was it was dead already
and eventually she ate it returning it
back to the body from where it came I
got sort of completely thrown out by
this and I actually had to leave savuti
I went home I needed to get some space
gather my thoughts and just step away
from it and contextualize what had
happened and this is the kind of thing
that happens when Africa’s apex
predators get squashed into a small
environment and then have all of their
resources withdrawn
it becomes brutal you know become savage
I mean it is it’s quite epic the first
season the first installment of savage
Kingdom hits our screens this next week
and since then they’ve been a number of
births
the marsh pride Mutsumi and her sister
both Cubs so sitar she you know her
pride was decimated
they have another ten Cubs who had
already a year old there are a lot of
new lives fighting away in Cebu TN and
making the new path the dogs have had
new pups and Saba’s son who survived is
growing strong learning very quickly
he’s actually slightly bigger than his
mother already as from my own family my
children are trying very hard to be
teenagers but I hope that I hope that in
their early years in the bush they it
has sort of installed a sense of the
environments and and nature in them that
they can sort of grow up loving the
animals and you know working to protect
the animals and you know continue what
we try to do going forward I believe
that as humans we are becoming less and
less in touch with nature we being
separated further further and further
away behind our cement walls and neon
lights some people only get to see some
of these animals in sanitized nature
films or cartoons or in a zoo some
people are fortunate enough fortunate
enough to come and visit us in Botswana
and go on a safari and see these animals
for themselves what we try to do with
the films that we make is try and take
people out of their offices out of their
homes and in some ways out of their own
heads and to try and get them to get
involved in a little moment in time
where they can emotionally relate to
these animals and let that sort of reach
out and sort of touch them and motivate
them to to really care about these
animals we want people to feel the
the thrill see the beauty except the the
savagery of it the brutality of it and
just really wake emotionally to to the
wonderful creatures that we live with
and as I said to them the way we do
while out in the field in Botswana we
have fun we do what we do because we
love it and because we love those
animals and it gives us much joy and
much pride
so thank
[Applause]
[Music]
[Music]
Oh
Please follow and like us: