Episode 2, Sunday 11th September, 6:30pm, BBC One
All over the world, species are on the brink of extinction. Springwatch presenter and wildlife TV producer Martin Hughes-Games, brings us a heart-warming series exploring their plight and meeting the babies born against the odds. For some species captive breeding is their only hope.
Episode 1 saw Martin begin his journey in China with the pin-up of the natural world, the giant panda. Without the extraordinary advances in reproductive science, it's possible that these bamboo chewing balls of fluff would be extinct. He also followed the story of the pied tamarin - a tiny and tenacious monkey teetering on the edge, and a chunky baby one-horned Asian rhino who's adult horns are still tempting prizes for poachers. The episode was a 60 minute cute-fest but more importantly it gave a real insight into the work of extraordinary people around the world who's dedication these babies depend on.
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Episode 1 saw Martin begin his journey in China with the pin-up of the natural world, the giant panda. Without the extraordinary advances in reproductive science, it's possible that these bamboo chewing balls of fluff would be extinct. He also followed the story of the pied tamarin - a tiny and tenacious monkey teetering on the edge, and a chunky baby one-horned Asian rhino who's adult horns are still tempting prizes for poachers. The episode was a 60 minute cute-fest but more importantly it gave a real insight into the work of extraordinary people around the world who's dedication these babies depend on.
WARNING - This video may cause men to vomit and women to go mushy.
Prepare for cuteness overload it's a bably animal montage.
Baby panda at the Chendu research base, China (Photo: BBC)
In episode two Martin meets arguably one of the most beautiful and rarest cats in the world - the amur leopard. There's estimated to
be less than thirty five surviving in the wild - a result of poaching and deforestation in their native eastern Russia. Martin visits the last place they can be found and discovers how zoos around the world are attempting to breed them in the hope that they can one day be safely released into the wild. Other cute miracles of human intervention featured in the episode are baby elephants
in an orphanage in Kenya, and
an incredibly rare
barbary lion, extinct in the wild, whose first breath could also have
been her
last.
Martin Hughes-Games meets captive bred amur leopard cub (photo: BBC)
Baby barbary lion (Photo: BBC)
