Primatologist Dr Julie Anderson and writer and adventurer Guy Grieve scale new heights as they explore one of the most inaccessible habitats on Earth in search of an elusive monkey.
Their home for six weeks is a specially constructed tree-house, high above Gabon's rainforest floor. It's a safe haven from the hippos, crocodiles, forest buffaloes and elephants who roam the forest.
From her precarious perch, Julie aims to study the rare, red-capped mangabey monkeys. Guy's task is to keep house by utilising all his survival experience - from digging the latrine to fishing for food and constructing a rainwater harvesting device.
Wildlife cameraman Gavin Thurston, a veteran of numerous David Attenborough series, is also on hand to capture the incredible variety of animal action and observe Julie and Guy as they adjust to their new treetop habitat.
They quickly discover that life in the jungle is a huge challenge when, on the first night, Guy discovers a huge, venomous centipede crawling beside his bed. And, on the forest floor, Gavin draws on all his filming experience when he is charged by an elephant.
Despite the hardships, Julie's dogged determination pays off. After days of tracking the mangabeys, she locates their main feeding zone and with a thermal imaging camera captures the first ever footage of the species sleeping in the wild.
What a thoroughly enjoyable entertaining programme. Loved everything about it especially the presenters, more from the same team PLEASE!!
June 13th, 2009 - 3:14amAnnasheril Richards said...
Fantastic I wish I could be out there with them. I had the rare opportunity to work with Red Capped Mangabeys in captivity for over 7 years and I successfully trained them and an adult male to accept insulin injections. I always wanted to study them in the wild since not much is known and I want to know about diabetes if it is in the wild too and so many other questions I hope to watch this video when it comes out I enjoyed the short clip I saw earlier. I would like to contact Julie Anderson and ask her some questions but I am having a difficult time locating contact information.
June 17th, 2009 - 2:09pmLaura Crickers said...
I absolutely loved it- a shame it was only on for two episodes, as I'd love to see a series. Apparently there is a dvd coming out in July though, if you missed it and its disappeared from iplayer! Wish BBC did more "case study" type programmes like this, it really was a real treat.
It's also made me fall in love with Sri Lanka. I've been googling, and there are a few companies who are now bringing out similar tours. I really like the look of the adventure company's www.adventurecompany.co.uk/news-article.aspx?productid=216317, but let me know if you see any others?
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