Wildlife cameraman Gordon Buchanan leads a team of animal camera experts as they join forces with scientists to put cameras on animals.
In Namibia, Gordon joins a cheetah conservationist who wants to see if three orphaned cheetahs, who she has raised from a day old, can learn to hunt effectively in the thick vegetation. The on-board cameras, the first to ever be worn by cheetahs hunting in Africa, give the team an amazing first-hand view. The cheetahs initially struggle to choose the right prey, almost getting skewered by a bull gemsbok, but eventually the team sees the cheetahs use the thick cover to their advantage as they stalk and bring down their prey.
In Australia, the team puts cameras on fur seals to try to see how they hunt their prey and avoid attacks by great white sharks. The footage reveals the seals diving straight to the bottom as they enter the water to avoid detection, and spinning to give a 360-degree view when near the surface. We see the first ever images of the seals eating cuttlefish and following dolphins to take advantage of their fish-herding behaviour to get an easy meal.
In South Africa, we deploy the first ever cameras on wild baboons in an effort to understand why these clever monkeys sometimes raid farmers' crops. The cameras give a remarkable insight into the shy baboons' lives, showing intimate scenes of sunbathing and grooming. Crucially, the cameras also show that the baboons will choose wild fruits over crops if they're available, suggesting that the planting of wild fruit trees near farms could help solve this tricky conflict.
