Big Cat Live: BBC launches multimedia wildlife project
Thursday, July 17th, 2008Paws for though
The BBC is to install cameras in the Kenyan Masai Mara desert which will follow leopards and cheetahs around the clock. The ambitious multimedia project aims to capture the “danger and exhilaration” in the lives of big cats and other African wildlife.
Big Cat Live will broadcast three weeks of live video streaming on their website, and use live footage in a week of nature programmes on BBC1. Dedicated children’s channel CBeebies will run the series Little Big Cat, with a cheetah, leopard or lion cub as the star of each show.
Neil Nightingale, head of the BBC Natural History Unit, said: “Big Cat Live is the BBC’s most ambitious ever live international wildlife event. Audiences will be transported into the heart of wild Africa to experience the action in one of the world’s most dramatic wildlife locations.”
Presenter Kate Silverton and local Masai guide Jackson Looseyia will join wildlife photographers Simon King and Jonathan Scott as they camp by the Mara river, surrounded by elephants, zebras, crocodiles and buffalos among others.
During the day the team will observe cheetahs and leopards as they go about their daily lives, as well as hyenas, baboons, elephants and aardvarks. Night-time images will come from remote cameras specifically designed to capture images in the dark. Sara Ford, executive producer of the show, said: “For the first time we invite the audience to feel part of the big cat operation as we share with them the logistics and fieldcraft required to launch such a bold live project.”
