Television Fiona Rae
Big Cats flushes felines out of the shadows, including the Himalayan snow leopard and cryptic “Kronk”.
Cats! They rule the internet with their delightful behaviour. They could probably rule the world if they weren’t so busy demanding food and sleeping. They might be vicious torturers of small, furry animals and they might nearly kill you when you trip over them on the way to the loo in the middle of the night, but we love them anyway.
So, in theory, Big Cats (TVNZ 1, Sunday, 7.00pm) should be even more adorable. Well, in the case of the tiny rusty-spotted cat – the world’s smallest feline – that is certainly true. In the first episode of this twopart BBC documentary, there is terrific footage of this rare kitty in Sri Lanka. It weighs little more than 1kg and its eyes are six times more powerful than a human’s.
However, croc-hunting jaguars in Brazil or giraffe-dispatching lions in Tanzania are less adorable. Dangerous and magnificent, perhaps.
The series’ aim is to bring these elusive felines out of the shadows in order to better understand their behaviour. Some of them are listed as endangered or threatened and there is an illegal global pet trade for smaller breeds and poaching of larger ones for parts and skin.
One of the most ephemeral is the Himalayan snow leopard, the “world’s highest and most lonesome cat”, according to narrator Bertie Carvel. They hunt over huge areas, so filming was a challenge, especially in thick snow. “Hiking day after day at such altitude was gruelling,” says director Anna Place, “but seeing the snow leopard for the first time was heart-stopping.”
Another crew spent weeks in Mongolia searching for the rare Pallas’ cat, which has never been filmed in the wild before. “The technique to find Pallas’ cats is to climb a hill and sit still for hours on end, scanning the landscape with binoculars for the slightest
movement,” says producer Paul Williams. The cats are so well camouflaged on the Mongolian steppe, “It is like looking for a boulder in a field of boulders.”
Some of the cats, such as a Canada lynx known as “Kronk”, are seen with radio collars. “This is the only method available for us to regularly observe and study highly cryptic cats in the vast environments where they roam,” says the series’ scientific adviser, Alexander Sliwa.
His specialty is the blackfooted cat, Africa’s smallest feline, and he has discovered that, despite its size, its 60% hunting success rate makes it the most deadly cat of them all. Adorable.