A noble rhino, cruel poachers and a wildlife show to make you gasp
For 40 million years the herds of magnificent northern white rhino on the African plains had no real predators, and armour-plating like a Challenger tank. They were practically indestructible.
But in 100 years of hunting and poaching with guns, we’ve wiped them out. There are no northern whites left in the wild. Thousands upon thousands were killed for trophies, especially their horns, which in the Far East are believed to have magical medical properties.
Just three captive animals remain, the very last of their species — a male called Sudan and two females, Najin and Fatu. But the average lifespan of a zoo rhino, even with the best care, is 35 to 40 years. And Sudan is 42.
The saddest piece of television all week came at the end of Ingenious Animals (BBC1), as conservationist Giles Clark visited the ol Pejeta sanctuary in Kenya to meet Sudan.
Like an elderly pet, the placid old fellow is almost deaf and blind, and spends his days standing contentedly in his enclosure while his keeper, Zacharia Mutai, holds handfuls of hay up to his mouth.
Zacharia adores that animal. He pats his neck and strokes his ears, and tells him defiantly through tears that they have many years left together yet. ‘I feel very close to him,’ Zacharia says.
‘He’s my closest friend. We take care of him like an elderly person, we really love him very much.’
Sudan just blinks, and chews. And round the perimeter of the field, guards armed with automatic rifles watch for attacks by poachers. Sudan is the last male of his kind on earth, but incredibly there are gangs of organised criminals who are desperate to see him dead. ounce for ounce, rhino horn sells for more than diamonds.
Giles reported all this in a tone of stunned disbelief. He was bewildered that conservation could have failed this species so badly, and worried about the implications for other animals: his own work focuses on tigers — already there are said to be more tigers in American zoos than remain in the wild.
His instinctive rapport with big cats shone through in another segment, about clouded leopards. These beautiful creatures, also on the brink of extinction, are as agile as monkeys and, when Giles tried ‘chuffing’ (a tiger noise, between a cough and a purr), they leapt out of the branches to perch on his head and shoulders.
It must be tricky to talk to camera with two cats the size of labradors licking your scalp, but Giles looked thrilled. This London-born adventurer with an Australian accent makes an engaging presenter — so it is bizarre that the show is anchored by celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.
Hugh has wanted to be the next David Attenborough since he was six years old, apparently, and of course an old Etonian like him should always get everything he wants.
But it is a little strange, to have him talking earnestly to camera about the plight of animals in the wild, when for years his river Cottage menu featured grey squirrel stew. They call him ‘Hugh Fearlessly Eats-It-All’ for a reason.
Sir Trevor McDonald was also fronting a documentary series that didn’t really suit his skills, on Inside Scotland Yard (ITV1).
He’s at his best, as we’ve seen in his outstanding shows on the American mafia and high-security prisons, when he’s coaxing criminals to talk about their dangerous lives. Here he was simply running through the history of the Metropolitan Police, chatting to retired detectives and digging over some of the best-known cases.
Calling these ‘landmark investigations’ didn’t change the fact that the story of how mass murderer Dennis Nilsen was betrayed by the smell from his drains — or that DNA has transformed policing methods — is old news.
Probably the most interesting snippet came in a five-second snatch of Pathe newsreel from the late Forties, introducing the most murdered woman in the world — ‘Mary of Hendon’, a dummy used in training exercises for detectives.
Does Mary still exist? Is her plastic corpse in the Met’s ‘Black Museum’? We weren’t told.