Natural World (1983) s22e10 Episode Script
Five Big Cats and a Camera
Owen, Owen, can you see her? Not, not yet, hold on.
I've got her Being as close to a leopard as this is all in a day's work for these two filmmakers They've spent the last 14 years trying to capture unique moments with 5 of Africa's greatest cats It's been an exceptional undertaking with all sorts of hurdles to overcome Some of the cats had been written off as impossible to film So what could Owen Newman and Amanda Barrett achieve with such tricky but charismatic creatures as these? Africa is a spectacular continent with herds of wildebeest so big that they defy description And for lovers of big cats, this stunning landscape is unbeatable Here is the highest density and the greatest variety of cats anywhere in the world 14 years ago, at the start of Amanda's and Owen's ambitious project they set out to document the life of a cheetah their base was Kenya's Masai Mara Until we started filming, we had no idea that the fastest animals on land had so many problems They're sleek and streamlined, so they're not as powerful as other animals That means scavengers make a beeline for them when they've got a kill Jackals are irritating, but hyenas are far worse There's nothing a cheetah can do they daren't risk getting bitten by jaws as powerful as these Cheetahs have another problem, there's only a couple of thousand left in the whole of east Africa and as more land is lost to agriculture their population just keeps dropping The last thing we wanted to do was to make life more difficult for them So, for instance, we didn't want to ruin their hunts by disturbing the antelope But I have to try and get the most exciting shots I can and that means filming the animals running straight at the camera It's tricky because I've got to leave the stalking cheetah and to so far away that all I can see is the antelope When the cheetah suddenly hurtles into view I've got a split second to find it in my lens and start filming Filming at normal speed showed how fast the cheetahs were running but not much else How could film reveal more about this wonderful animal? Owen decided to go big to shoot huge close-ups and slow motion the combination was fresh and exciting, poetry in motion The footage also revealed the superb running skills of both animals The gazelle's sharp pointed hooves help it change direction in a heartbeat the only cat to wear permanently spiked running shoes Owen didn't have many chances to film such a spectacular hunt Gazelles outmaneuver cheetahs more often then not so when the cheetahs were on top form, he had to make the most of it Hunts, however, were not the only dramatic cheetah behavior that the two of them filmed This is how some males set about wooing a female and it helps if they go around in pairs It looks tough, but aggression is often part of normal cheetah courtship These males are holding a female hostage and if they're the right ones and all goes well, she just might conceive And that's it for the males.
Afterwards, the cubs are the responsibility of the female alone We've filmed cheetah families often enough to see that it's a long hard job The cubs need something like 18 to 20 months of practice before they're even ready to try and look after themselves I've probably filmed 20 different cheetahs over the years and as long-distance runners, 2 or 3 stand head and shoulders above the rest Even if you had all the time in the world, the chance to film something like this happens only once in a lifetime Now imagine trying to film something like this but with a cat that's far harder to find, and at night That's the challenge with filming leopards Amanda and Owen travel to one of the premier places in Africa to find them Zambia's south Luangwa National Park When they finally spotted their first leopard, it wasn't doing much at all However, as the sun started to sink, the cat set off to hunt This is what they'd come here to film, and it was something that had never been done before The problem had always been that conventional cameras needed lots of light and these dazzle antelope Mesmerized like this, they're sitting targets and that gives leopards an unfair advantage Owen and Amanda wanted to film natural behavior they had a trick up their sleeve, a brand-new video camera that was so sensitive, it could record in little more than moonlight and almost at once they started to film behavior that had never been seen before Like us, baboons can't see well at night so they go to bed in the tallest trees But even up there, they aren't safe Leopards were one of the main predators of our ancestors 5 million years ago And as we filmed this scene, we could see why For baboons, like early humans, there's just nowhere to hide The cats rely on that first element of surprise and this one had blown it It wasn't long before Owen and Amanda realized that their new camera still left a lot to be desired They needed to be able to film leopards in the pitch dark and to do this, they had to come up with a completely different system They combined the latest security camera with infra-red lights that were invisible to everything but the camera and night-vision goggles One leopards couldn't wait to get into the film he was so relaxed with new equipment that he even jumped onto the car So we set off with high hopes to boldly go where no film crew had gone before Using infra-red light is weird and wonderful We have to keep reminding ourselves none of the animals can see as much as us instead they rely on their ears The tiniest sound sings out at night so the antelope settle in the longest and driest of grasses and they're listening out for the slightest rustle Leopards really have their work cut out, trying to silently creep up on them Straight away, the new technology was helping them capture startling images The leopards were stalking right out in the open relying on the darkness to mask their movements This is one of the most memorable moments I've ever seen captured on camera I was amazed at how close leopards have to get to their prey before they could even try to pounce I remember filming one female that took two hours to stalk just 10m And then suddenly it was all over The antelope only needed to catch the faintest whiff of her scent but even though they knew she was there, it's obvious that they still couldn't see her And just when Owen and Amanda thought they were starting to really understand leopards one of their favorites, Kumi, proved them wrong Her behavior showed that leopards really do deserve their reputation for being the smartest and most adaptable of all the big cats It all begun one night when Kumi came across a tempting but tricky proposition The herd of antelope was bigger than normal and with so many ears on red alert, there was no way she could try and creep up on them Instead of keeping quiet, she stamped her paw, deliberately The antelope were shocked, the group splintered and broke up She ran around madly, trying to take advantage of all this confusion Without the new technology, dedication and a streak of stubborn determination Amanda and Owen would never have been able to unlock the secrets of the leopard's very special world But the next cat, the serval, tested this determination even more No one else had ever tried to film them Owen was only given a month to prove it could be done and he headed back to Tanzania Servals are more active during the day than leopards, but they're shy and small enough to disappear in long grass in the blink of an eye The first 3 weeks were a disaster I only caught glimpses of really timid servals I traveled miles and kept on searching, but it all seemed hopeless With only 3 days left, Owen decided to head for the Ngorongoro Crater And it was here, almost straight away, that his luck turned This is my very first shot of a serval I was really pleased to find one after all this time especially one that was so relaxed Within 2 days, he was coming right up to me I don't know why he was more confident than the others, but it was lucky for me He was busy hunting rodents but wasn't having much success After all these efforts, I thought he really deserved his meal of rat Servals generally catch rodents and birds but once or twice, people had seen them pouncing on gazelle fawns The gazelle was old and wise enough not to take any chances And she still wasn't satisfied I don't know who was more shocked, me or the serval but I was really pleased that he seemed okay Thanks to this serval's efforts in front of the camera the film was given the go-ahead But when Owen arrived back in the Ngorongoro Crater to continue the young serval was nowhere to be found This time, to Owen's sheer amazement, he found another serval after two days It was an adult female, and as luck would have it, she was also very approachable She was full of confidence and had bags of personality I soon found out that nothing fazed her certainly not side-striped jackals And even better, she'd got a family The kittens were only about a month old and still quite small Their size meant that the family's movements would be relatively restricted And with a cat that's notoriously hard to find that was just what I wanted Film started rolling through the camera far better footage than he'd ever imagined possible at the beginning Ten days later, strangers appeared out of the blue They're Abdim's storks that migrate up and down Africa on the hunt for beetles and other insects To the serval, they must have seemed like manna from heaven She went straight after them leaving the kittens on their own I didn't think she stood a chance.
There was just so much open ground between them I'd never seen anything like this before, it was incredible In a distance, Owen had noticed that the kittens weren't alone any more It was turning out to be a busy day The kittens were fully engrossed in catching insects Were they blind? or were they growing up to be as bold as their mother? I'd never seen an elephant chase a kitten before My filming day wasn't over yet, the female serval was still stalking those storks 'Struth! I thought cheetahs moved fast, but she was like quicksilver And then just as I thought that was enough excitement for the day, something completely unexpected turned up, another serval I think it was probably an adolescent from a previous litter Suddenly, servals were everywhere The older female wasn¡¯t going to give up her kill without a fight The youngster didn't stand a chance Despite the odds against him, Owen had been able to spend enough time with servals to film as much fascinating behavior as he had with their bigger relatives But could they now take this even further and document the secret life of another small cat that was even less well-known, the caracal.
Amanda and Owen had only seen one once in ten years They're only active at night so it was back to chasing their tails in the dark once again some said they were mad even to try Their previous experience with leopards and servals, however, had given them confidence only time would tell if it was misplaced Maybe we had been overconfident we knew the technology worked but after two months, we still hadn't even glimpsed a caracal We searched hundreds of acres of bush, and it was tough Searching for a caracal was worse than that proverbial needle in a haystack And then suddenly when we'd practically given up hope, there, right in front of us, was the cat of our dreams Luckily for them, the individual they found was exceptionally confident Owen and Amanda were soon busy filming And that night, the caracal's attention was focused on springhares They're nocturnal little creatures, only emerging from their burrows well after dark so, unlike the baboons or us, their night vision is excellent In order to remain undetected by them, the caracal had to use the lie of the land to keep hidden It was another of those extraordinary scenes As the minutes passed, I was getting more and more tense my worry was that if she suddenly ran I wouldn't be able to keep her in the frame When she did run, it was just so fast, it's pitch dark out there so if I lost her with the camera, I wouldn't have been able to find her again in time It's probably one of the hardest and luckiest bits of footage I've ever taken We'd had one stroke of luck already and here was another, she's got 3 young kittens as well After a night or two of filming them, the family ignored us completely In the end, I think our success or failure is all down to luck And it helps having enough time to strike lucky.
Because however experienced or skilled you might be you've got to find the right individual, the superstar of the animal world This family was perfect they were so approachable and the kittens spent a lot of time playing we were able to film much more than we'd ever been able to with the serval family These were the most enthusiastic jumpers of all the cats but we still had no idea of just how athletic caracals could be We were about to have a big surprise The catalyst was a white stork roosting in the middle of a pond It couldn't see her and it panicked at the sound of her footfalls The cat heard it land about 300 yards away and she went straight there She had to get closer, and like a leopard stalking antelope she had to be really, really quiet The leap must have been 10 feet high she'd even overtaken servals in the jumping stakes What an amazing little cat! None of us had any time to relax all too soon, we could hear the sound of something coming It was too far away to see what it was, but it sounded alarmingly big and the kittens weren't taking any chances We didn't know what was happening We couldn't see the stork or kittens anymore It was the worst thing: hyenas Cheetahs, leopards and even lionesses far bigger cats than caracals, run from an intimidating group of hyenas like this But the caracal had no choice but to try and stand her ground the lives of the kittens depended on her The skirmish went on for a very tense 20 minutes, and all that time we felt helpless The hyenas could find the kittens and there'd be nothing that we could do Then, the hyenas found the stork A meal like this would have lasted the caracal family two days The hyenas tore it to bits and ate it in just two minutes but then for some reason they just shot off they probably never realized the kittens were there It was such a relief to see them all together again We followed mother anxiously as she moved the kittens over a mile away from the hyenas to safety It turned out to be the last time we saw the family The kittens were growing up fast and ranging further afield, and they just slipped out of our lives as quickly as they'd come in Trying to film an animal for the first time is a very exciting challenge for any filmmaker But how do you get sensational footage of an animal that everyone thinks they already know? This was the problem Owen and Amanda faced when they turned their attention to lions, the cat that, for many people is synonymous with Africa Drama such as this was exciting to film but their interest lay in revealing that there was much more to lions than just being red in tooth and claw They wanted to show the complex family ties that bind a pride together For this, they had to get right inside a pride They decided to focus on the Tokitok pride in the Ngorongoro Crater The Serengeti lion project had kept records on every lion there so all the territories and relationships were known The Tokitok females had handed the territory down from mother to daughter for 3 generations But the two males were newcomers having fought and overthrown the previous male coalition a mere 10 months before When we started filming the pride, we noticed something strange going on this female wasn't accepted by the other three She hung around ghostlike on the edge of the Tokitok range The success of the pride rested on the shoulders of just three lionesses that's not really enough to secure a pride's future they needed to raise more female cubs The park authorities weren't able to give Owen and Amanda permission to film at night that's the time when lions are usually most active and this handicap made them feel a little more nervous than usual at the start of the film The Tokitok pride did us proud from the beginning and as we filmed their hunts, we were able to show the subtleties of their personalities Big animals like buffalo needed them working as a team The oldest female usually took the lead We filmed her risking life and limb many times The youngest lioness was still very nervous The combined weight of all of them was needed to bring down this, the largest of their prey Hunting buffalo was dangerous but an even greater problem lay just on the doorstep It was the Munge pride The more we filmed the Tokitoks, the more we realized that a pride is like a dynasty its power rises and falls over many years Our hope was that this pride was on the way up Where did the outcast lioness fit in? the youngest lioness didn't like her at all Maybe all this aggression was because the outcast had got a shady past only time will tell Now that Owen and Amanda had worked with this pride for 4 months the Tokitoks had become part of their lives and maybe it was easier to empathize with them because unlike all the other cats, lion society is all about family relationships We were filming a lion soap opera but not having a script, we had no idea of what was going to happen next One evening when we had stopped filming we noticed the outcast was close by watching the cubs with a peculiar intensity It looked as though the females were about to leave their cubs and go hunting We never saw the cubs again The next morning, we filmed the Tokitok mothers calling for them As the hours passed, we began to suspect that the cubs were dead The outcast was the only possible culprit, and as though to confirm our suspicions there was no sign of her for the first time in days No one had ever recorded such behavior before but it would certainly explain why the youngest female was so hostile maybe the outcast had once tried to kill her For the Tokitoks, things were about to get much worse A week later they found one of the males badly wounded with the four lions from the next door pride hot on his heels Although the two Tokitoks had been heavily outnumbered it was obvious from the look of the others that the pair had put up a brave fight It was gang warfare - lion style His brother had probably been killed For the first time in his life, this male was on his own and his injuries were fatal We found it heartbreaking to film our pride falling apart The 3 lionesses were in trouble, but even so, they continued to hunt together and once again, their characters came to the fore in the most spectacular way The youngest lioness was doing her best she was more confident with zebras and buffalo All 3 were hot on the zebra¡¯s heels but it was again the oldest lioness that was the most determined I had never been so close to such dramatic action the zebra was caught just a few yards away from me Now that the cubs and males had been killed, we knew that the future for the Tokitok pride was bleak A few days later, we found the oldest female still searching for her cubs It was 3 weeks after they'd been killed This sense of loss was as close to grief as anything we'd ever seen in the cat world We watched her with sinking hearts we knew she was 16, too old to be able to conceive again One day soon afterwards, the two of them saw hyenas looking at something hidden in the grass The Tokitok pride had lost their best and oldest hunter Now the pride was down to two and this meant catching food was extra risky And if you're a lion, the unwritten rules say that you don't hunt buffalo alone Owen's footage shows why in the most powerful way I can imagine The 20-year-old Tokitok dynasty was coming to an end in front of our eyes The last two lionesses were living on borrowed time There was no way they'd be able to stand up to the far stronger Munge pride that was waiting in the wings Their neighbors were eager to expand their territory and raise their cubs in the lands where the Tokitok pride had once flourished It was tough watching the new pride taking over from the lions we'd grown to know, and love Such a strong emotional pull had been entirely unexpected but if Owen and Amanda hadn't got to know the Tokitok lions as individuals they would never have been able to explore the real-life drama in a film that captured the imagination of millions As a result of this film and the others people all across the world have been able to appreciate cats as never before For filmmakers who care deeply about such magnificent animals pictures like these are worth 1000 words
I've got her Being as close to a leopard as this is all in a day's work for these two filmmakers They've spent the last 14 years trying to capture unique moments with 5 of Africa's greatest cats It's been an exceptional undertaking with all sorts of hurdles to overcome Some of the cats had been written off as impossible to film So what could Owen Newman and Amanda Barrett achieve with such tricky but charismatic creatures as these? Africa is a spectacular continent with herds of wildebeest so big that they defy description And for lovers of big cats, this stunning landscape is unbeatable Here is the highest density and the greatest variety of cats anywhere in the world 14 years ago, at the start of Amanda's and Owen's ambitious project they set out to document the life of a cheetah their base was Kenya's Masai Mara Until we started filming, we had no idea that the fastest animals on land had so many problems They're sleek and streamlined, so they're not as powerful as other animals That means scavengers make a beeline for them when they've got a kill Jackals are irritating, but hyenas are far worse There's nothing a cheetah can do they daren't risk getting bitten by jaws as powerful as these Cheetahs have another problem, there's only a couple of thousand left in the whole of east Africa and as more land is lost to agriculture their population just keeps dropping The last thing we wanted to do was to make life more difficult for them So, for instance, we didn't want to ruin their hunts by disturbing the antelope But I have to try and get the most exciting shots I can and that means filming the animals running straight at the camera It's tricky because I've got to leave the stalking cheetah and to so far away that all I can see is the antelope When the cheetah suddenly hurtles into view I've got a split second to find it in my lens and start filming Filming at normal speed showed how fast the cheetahs were running but not much else How could film reveal more about this wonderful animal? Owen decided to go big to shoot huge close-ups and slow motion the combination was fresh and exciting, poetry in motion The footage also revealed the superb running skills of both animals The gazelle's sharp pointed hooves help it change direction in a heartbeat the only cat to wear permanently spiked running shoes Owen didn't have many chances to film such a spectacular hunt Gazelles outmaneuver cheetahs more often then not so when the cheetahs were on top form, he had to make the most of it Hunts, however, were not the only dramatic cheetah behavior that the two of them filmed This is how some males set about wooing a female and it helps if they go around in pairs It looks tough, but aggression is often part of normal cheetah courtship These males are holding a female hostage and if they're the right ones and all goes well, she just might conceive And that's it for the males.
Afterwards, the cubs are the responsibility of the female alone We've filmed cheetah families often enough to see that it's a long hard job The cubs need something like 18 to 20 months of practice before they're even ready to try and look after themselves I've probably filmed 20 different cheetahs over the years and as long-distance runners, 2 or 3 stand head and shoulders above the rest Even if you had all the time in the world, the chance to film something like this happens only once in a lifetime Now imagine trying to film something like this but with a cat that's far harder to find, and at night That's the challenge with filming leopards Amanda and Owen travel to one of the premier places in Africa to find them Zambia's south Luangwa National Park When they finally spotted their first leopard, it wasn't doing much at all However, as the sun started to sink, the cat set off to hunt This is what they'd come here to film, and it was something that had never been done before The problem had always been that conventional cameras needed lots of light and these dazzle antelope Mesmerized like this, they're sitting targets and that gives leopards an unfair advantage Owen and Amanda wanted to film natural behavior they had a trick up their sleeve, a brand-new video camera that was so sensitive, it could record in little more than moonlight and almost at once they started to film behavior that had never been seen before Like us, baboons can't see well at night so they go to bed in the tallest trees But even up there, they aren't safe Leopards were one of the main predators of our ancestors 5 million years ago And as we filmed this scene, we could see why For baboons, like early humans, there's just nowhere to hide The cats rely on that first element of surprise and this one had blown it It wasn't long before Owen and Amanda realized that their new camera still left a lot to be desired They needed to be able to film leopards in the pitch dark and to do this, they had to come up with a completely different system They combined the latest security camera with infra-red lights that were invisible to everything but the camera and night-vision goggles One leopards couldn't wait to get into the film he was so relaxed with new equipment that he even jumped onto the car So we set off with high hopes to boldly go where no film crew had gone before Using infra-red light is weird and wonderful We have to keep reminding ourselves none of the animals can see as much as us instead they rely on their ears The tiniest sound sings out at night so the antelope settle in the longest and driest of grasses and they're listening out for the slightest rustle Leopards really have their work cut out, trying to silently creep up on them Straight away, the new technology was helping them capture startling images The leopards were stalking right out in the open relying on the darkness to mask their movements This is one of the most memorable moments I've ever seen captured on camera I was amazed at how close leopards have to get to their prey before they could even try to pounce I remember filming one female that took two hours to stalk just 10m And then suddenly it was all over The antelope only needed to catch the faintest whiff of her scent but even though they knew she was there, it's obvious that they still couldn't see her And just when Owen and Amanda thought they were starting to really understand leopards one of their favorites, Kumi, proved them wrong Her behavior showed that leopards really do deserve their reputation for being the smartest and most adaptable of all the big cats It all begun one night when Kumi came across a tempting but tricky proposition The herd of antelope was bigger than normal and with so many ears on red alert, there was no way she could try and creep up on them Instead of keeping quiet, she stamped her paw, deliberately The antelope were shocked, the group splintered and broke up She ran around madly, trying to take advantage of all this confusion Without the new technology, dedication and a streak of stubborn determination Amanda and Owen would never have been able to unlock the secrets of the leopard's very special world But the next cat, the serval, tested this determination even more No one else had ever tried to film them Owen was only given a month to prove it could be done and he headed back to Tanzania Servals are more active during the day than leopards, but they're shy and small enough to disappear in long grass in the blink of an eye The first 3 weeks were a disaster I only caught glimpses of really timid servals I traveled miles and kept on searching, but it all seemed hopeless With only 3 days left, Owen decided to head for the Ngorongoro Crater And it was here, almost straight away, that his luck turned This is my very first shot of a serval I was really pleased to find one after all this time especially one that was so relaxed Within 2 days, he was coming right up to me I don't know why he was more confident than the others, but it was lucky for me He was busy hunting rodents but wasn't having much success After all these efforts, I thought he really deserved his meal of rat Servals generally catch rodents and birds but once or twice, people had seen them pouncing on gazelle fawns The gazelle was old and wise enough not to take any chances And she still wasn't satisfied I don't know who was more shocked, me or the serval but I was really pleased that he seemed okay Thanks to this serval's efforts in front of the camera the film was given the go-ahead But when Owen arrived back in the Ngorongoro Crater to continue the young serval was nowhere to be found This time, to Owen's sheer amazement, he found another serval after two days It was an adult female, and as luck would have it, she was also very approachable She was full of confidence and had bags of personality I soon found out that nothing fazed her certainly not side-striped jackals And even better, she'd got a family The kittens were only about a month old and still quite small Their size meant that the family's movements would be relatively restricted And with a cat that's notoriously hard to find that was just what I wanted Film started rolling through the camera far better footage than he'd ever imagined possible at the beginning Ten days later, strangers appeared out of the blue They're Abdim's storks that migrate up and down Africa on the hunt for beetles and other insects To the serval, they must have seemed like manna from heaven She went straight after them leaving the kittens on their own I didn't think she stood a chance.
There was just so much open ground between them I'd never seen anything like this before, it was incredible In a distance, Owen had noticed that the kittens weren't alone any more It was turning out to be a busy day The kittens were fully engrossed in catching insects Were they blind? or were they growing up to be as bold as their mother? I'd never seen an elephant chase a kitten before My filming day wasn't over yet, the female serval was still stalking those storks 'Struth! I thought cheetahs moved fast, but she was like quicksilver And then just as I thought that was enough excitement for the day, something completely unexpected turned up, another serval I think it was probably an adolescent from a previous litter Suddenly, servals were everywhere The older female wasn¡¯t going to give up her kill without a fight The youngster didn't stand a chance Despite the odds against him, Owen had been able to spend enough time with servals to film as much fascinating behavior as he had with their bigger relatives But could they now take this even further and document the secret life of another small cat that was even less well-known, the caracal.
Amanda and Owen had only seen one once in ten years They're only active at night so it was back to chasing their tails in the dark once again some said they were mad even to try Their previous experience with leopards and servals, however, had given them confidence only time would tell if it was misplaced Maybe we had been overconfident we knew the technology worked but after two months, we still hadn't even glimpsed a caracal We searched hundreds of acres of bush, and it was tough Searching for a caracal was worse than that proverbial needle in a haystack And then suddenly when we'd practically given up hope, there, right in front of us, was the cat of our dreams Luckily for them, the individual they found was exceptionally confident Owen and Amanda were soon busy filming And that night, the caracal's attention was focused on springhares They're nocturnal little creatures, only emerging from their burrows well after dark so, unlike the baboons or us, their night vision is excellent In order to remain undetected by them, the caracal had to use the lie of the land to keep hidden It was another of those extraordinary scenes As the minutes passed, I was getting more and more tense my worry was that if she suddenly ran I wouldn't be able to keep her in the frame When she did run, it was just so fast, it's pitch dark out there so if I lost her with the camera, I wouldn't have been able to find her again in time It's probably one of the hardest and luckiest bits of footage I've ever taken We'd had one stroke of luck already and here was another, she's got 3 young kittens as well After a night or two of filming them, the family ignored us completely In the end, I think our success or failure is all down to luck And it helps having enough time to strike lucky.
Because however experienced or skilled you might be you've got to find the right individual, the superstar of the animal world This family was perfect they were so approachable and the kittens spent a lot of time playing we were able to film much more than we'd ever been able to with the serval family These were the most enthusiastic jumpers of all the cats but we still had no idea of just how athletic caracals could be We were about to have a big surprise The catalyst was a white stork roosting in the middle of a pond It couldn't see her and it panicked at the sound of her footfalls The cat heard it land about 300 yards away and she went straight there She had to get closer, and like a leopard stalking antelope she had to be really, really quiet The leap must have been 10 feet high she'd even overtaken servals in the jumping stakes What an amazing little cat! None of us had any time to relax all too soon, we could hear the sound of something coming It was too far away to see what it was, but it sounded alarmingly big and the kittens weren't taking any chances We didn't know what was happening We couldn't see the stork or kittens anymore It was the worst thing: hyenas Cheetahs, leopards and even lionesses far bigger cats than caracals, run from an intimidating group of hyenas like this But the caracal had no choice but to try and stand her ground the lives of the kittens depended on her The skirmish went on for a very tense 20 minutes, and all that time we felt helpless The hyenas could find the kittens and there'd be nothing that we could do Then, the hyenas found the stork A meal like this would have lasted the caracal family two days The hyenas tore it to bits and ate it in just two minutes but then for some reason they just shot off they probably never realized the kittens were there It was such a relief to see them all together again We followed mother anxiously as she moved the kittens over a mile away from the hyenas to safety It turned out to be the last time we saw the family The kittens were growing up fast and ranging further afield, and they just slipped out of our lives as quickly as they'd come in Trying to film an animal for the first time is a very exciting challenge for any filmmaker But how do you get sensational footage of an animal that everyone thinks they already know? This was the problem Owen and Amanda faced when they turned their attention to lions, the cat that, for many people is synonymous with Africa Drama such as this was exciting to film but their interest lay in revealing that there was much more to lions than just being red in tooth and claw They wanted to show the complex family ties that bind a pride together For this, they had to get right inside a pride They decided to focus on the Tokitok pride in the Ngorongoro Crater The Serengeti lion project had kept records on every lion there so all the territories and relationships were known The Tokitok females had handed the territory down from mother to daughter for 3 generations But the two males were newcomers having fought and overthrown the previous male coalition a mere 10 months before When we started filming the pride, we noticed something strange going on this female wasn't accepted by the other three She hung around ghostlike on the edge of the Tokitok range The success of the pride rested on the shoulders of just three lionesses that's not really enough to secure a pride's future they needed to raise more female cubs The park authorities weren't able to give Owen and Amanda permission to film at night that's the time when lions are usually most active and this handicap made them feel a little more nervous than usual at the start of the film The Tokitok pride did us proud from the beginning and as we filmed their hunts, we were able to show the subtleties of their personalities Big animals like buffalo needed them working as a team The oldest female usually took the lead We filmed her risking life and limb many times The youngest lioness was still very nervous The combined weight of all of them was needed to bring down this, the largest of their prey Hunting buffalo was dangerous but an even greater problem lay just on the doorstep It was the Munge pride The more we filmed the Tokitoks, the more we realized that a pride is like a dynasty its power rises and falls over many years Our hope was that this pride was on the way up Where did the outcast lioness fit in? the youngest lioness didn't like her at all Maybe all this aggression was because the outcast had got a shady past only time will tell Now that Owen and Amanda had worked with this pride for 4 months the Tokitoks had become part of their lives and maybe it was easier to empathize with them because unlike all the other cats, lion society is all about family relationships We were filming a lion soap opera but not having a script, we had no idea of what was going to happen next One evening when we had stopped filming we noticed the outcast was close by watching the cubs with a peculiar intensity It looked as though the females were about to leave their cubs and go hunting We never saw the cubs again The next morning, we filmed the Tokitok mothers calling for them As the hours passed, we began to suspect that the cubs were dead The outcast was the only possible culprit, and as though to confirm our suspicions there was no sign of her for the first time in days No one had ever recorded such behavior before but it would certainly explain why the youngest female was so hostile maybe the outcast had once tried to kill her For the Tokitoks, things were about to get much worse A week later they found one of the males badly wounded with the four lions from the next door pride hot on his heels Although the two Tokitoks had been heavily outnumbered it was obvious from the look of the others that the pair had put up a brave fight It was gang warfare - lion style His brother had probably been killed For the first time in his life, this male was on his own and his injuries were fatal We found it heartbreaking to film our pride falling apart The 3 lionesses were in trouble, but even so, they continued to hunt together and once again, their characters came to the fore in the most spectacular way The youngest lioness was doing her best she was more confident with zebras and buffalo All 3 were hot on the zebra¡¯s heels but it was again the oldest lioness that was the most determined I had never been so close to such dramatic action the zebra was caught just a few yards away from me Now that the cubs and males had been killed, we knew that the future for the Tokitok pride was bleak A few days later, we found the oldest female still searching for her cubs It was 3 weeks after they'd been killed This sense of loss was as close to grief as anything we'd ever seen in the cat world We watched her with sinking hearts we knew she was 16, too old to be able to conceive again One day soon afterwards, the two of them saw hyenas looking at something hidden in the grass The Tokitok pride had lost their best and oldest hunter Now the pride was down to two and this meant catching food was extra risky And if you're a lion, the unwritten rules say that you don't hunt buffalo alone Owen's footage shows why in the most powerful way I can imagine The 20-year-old Tokitok dynasty was coming to an end in front of our eyes The last two lionesses were living on borrowed time There was no way they'd be able to stand up to the far stronger Munge pride that was waiting in the wings Their neighbors were eager to expand their territory and raise their cubs in the lands where the Tokitok pride had once flourished It was tough watching the new pride taking over from the lions we'd grown to know, and love Such a strong emotional pull had been entirely unexpected but if Owen and Amanda hadn't got to know the Tokitok lions as individuals they would never have been able to explore the real-life drama in a film that captured the imagination of millions As a result of this film and the others people all across the world have been able to appreciate cats as never before For filmmakers who care deeply about such magnificent animals pictures like these are worth 1000 words