Fascinating feline family portrait
BBC film crews have captured many top cats in action – and they’re not all familiar species.
Big Cats
Due to start 11 January
Big cats enthrall us, arguably more so than any other animal on the planet. If you like these charismatic carnivores, you’ll love this new three-parter for BBC One, which aims to offer the ultimate, definitive celebration of the world’s feline family.
“Big cats are incredibly captivating – the tiger is the most popular animal on the planet,” says series producer Gavin Boyland. “But we wanted to give an overview of all wild cats, not just those we know the most. We also wanted to present familiar species with new perspectives – the last thing we wanted to do was just go and film the Marsh Pride in the Masai Mara.”
So, here be lions, tigers, pumas, lynx, cheetahs, jaguars and leopards (African, clouded and snow) but also servals, ocelots, Pallas’s cats, rusty-spotted cats, fishing cats, bobcats, black-footed cats and Borneo bay cats. Most are secretive and nocturnal; some have never been filmed before. “These smaller cats are the real stars of the series,” says Gavin. “They may look quite similar to each other, but their ecology and habitats are vastly different, and they are surprisingly characterful. Take the black-footed cat – butter wouldn’t melt, but this is a ferocious little predator that makes the same amount of kills in one night as a leopard does in a month.”
While episodes one and two offer a whisker-stop tour of cats and their adaptations and behaviour in different habitats across the globe, part three takes a different thread, focusing on current conservation stories and new science. The programme explores the latest on the Iberian lynx reintroduction project in Spain; showcases the servals carving out an unlikely niche around an enormous petrochemical plant in South Africa; and reveals how a successful education programme is changing attitudes towards leopards in the metropolis of Mumbai, India. There’s also a look at the increasingly fascinating finds turning up on camera-traps worldwide, and how these simple tools are revolutionising our knowledge of wild cats.
“We think we know our felines, but this is a group that can still surprise us,” says Gavin. “There are many sides to them that we’re only just starting to learn. We hope that this series will give a whole new perspective on this family.”
THE LAST THING WE WANTED TO DO WAS FILM THE MARSH PRIDE IN THE MASAI MARA.”