Animals with Cameras (2018–2021): Season 1, Episode 1 - Episode #1.1 - full transcript

As a wildlife cameraman,
I have travelled the world

trying to capture life's most
intimate and dramatic moments.

But wouldn't it be incredible
if we could see the world

from an animal's point of view?

Well, in this series, that is
exactly what we're going to do,

with the help of the
animals themselves.

They're going to be the ones
that are doing the filming.

They're going to take us to places
that a cameraman like me

simply cannot go,

and reveal a side of their lives
like we have never seen before.

Working with scientists, we're going
to design cameras small enough



to take us into their hidden world
for the first time.

We're heading in.
Wow. Some pups.

Our camera crew will be one of the
most diverse teams

to ever film a wildlife series.

From 30cm-tall meerkats...

..to 60mph cheetahs.

From free-diving fur seals...

..to nest-building chimps.

Our unconventional film crew
will reveal surprising behaviour

and give us a new insight into
how they live their lives.

Wow. That's really cool. Instantly,
you get a real chimp point of view.

This is their world...

..their footage.

Oh, yeah. Oh, wow.
..their stories.



And we're going to see it...
GROWLING

..through their eyes.

She's definitely got her
game face on.

In this programme, we'll see
what our cameras can reveal

about three of the world's
most iconic species.

In the forests of central Africa,
we'll climb with chimpanzees...

Good girl, Kimbang.

..and witness their secret
tree-top behaviour.

I want to be able
to climb like that.

In Argentina, we'll dive into the
fascinating world of penguins...

..and uncover their
extraordinary hunting techniques.

My journey starts here,
in South Africa.

Funny, because as soon as I told
people that I was coming here

to film meerkats,
everyone got excited.

The kids got excited,
my wife got excited.

Random people in the shop
got excited.

The Kalahari Desert
is the best place

to find these miniature mammals.

For the last 25 years,
scientists from Cambridge University

have been studying meerkats'
fascinating social lives.

But they still know virtually
nothing about

what they get up to
inside their burrow.

Our mission is to use many cameras
to reveal the extent

of their underground world -

where they sleep, how they navigate.

But most importantly, we want
to see newborn pups below ground.

Grab a pew. I think I might have
brought the wrong lens.

We're meeting a family of 21,

led by a dominant female
who's mother to the pups.

She wears a radio collar to help
the scientists track

the group's movements.

Project manager Laura Meldrum and
her team weigh each member

of the group daily
as part of their study.

This is our subordinate female,
our older subordinate female, Eve.

And is she a good camera candidate?

She is, yeah.
You can see she loves water...

..and is also very receptive.

I think, Eve, I could've gotten
a little camera on you

before you knew it.

Eve is the dominant female's
eldest daughter.

She's ideally placed
to film the pups.

We're also keen to get our cameras
on a carefree teenager.

Look at you.

It's like a job interview.

What are your qualifications?

You're a meerkat.
Are you nine months old?

No. No? This one's six months old.

OK, get out. Next in line.
Next, please. Come on. Yum, yum.

Thanks for coming. Sit down.

Just relax. How old?

Nine months. OK.

We'll get back to you.

Our cameras weigh less than
a meerkat's radio collar,

and it's over to the man who made
them, Chris Watts, to get them on.

First up is a lively teenager
called Fat Boy.

I think it's incredibly exciting
that we might just be able to get

one of our cameras right
at the heart of this family.

That is the goal, that's the dream.

Oh, come on.

Oh, well done, Chris.
He's got it on.

Next up is Eve.

Unlike Fat Boy, the camera slips on
the first time.

It's reassuring to see our film crew
so relaxed,

and the test footage gives us our
first glimpse of what it's like

to be a meerkat.

I just love how crazily big we look.

It's a tiny water bottle. Yeah.

Yeah. It just looks huge.

Immediately, the cameras
reveal remarkable behaviour.

Whoa. Oh, wow.

That's kind of like a grub
of some kind. Tasty.

Instead of wolfing it down,
she generously gives it

to one of the pups.

Now, that looked like quite
a good meal, didn't it? Yeah.

Fat Boy's camera has recorded his
favourite pastime -

play fighting.

So, I think we do enter their world.

You're getting a big idea of what it
is like to be a meerkat. Yeah.

That was just the start.

We're now hoping to capture images
from deep within their burrow...

..and a side of meerkat life
no-one has ever seen before.

As the day draws to a close,
our group heads for home.

We need to deploy
a new set of cameras

just before the group
goes below ground.

It's the biggest crew that I've ever
worked with.

Chris has created an infrared camera
that will allow us to film

in total darkness.

The light's running, so that means
we're all good to go.

Eve's camera goes on first.

Hey, Fat Boy.

Easy does it. That's a good boy.

Nice one. All right, Fat Boy,
it's over to you.

As a cameraman, I kind of feel
like I'm giving over a lot -

not to someone else, but to
a completely different species.

I'm just putting all my faith in
technology and in a meerkat.

It looks great.

Just having a bit of fun
before going to bed.

Looks like we might be heading in.

Wow. Some pups.

In the pitch-black, Eve relies
entirely on her whiskers

and sense of smell
to find her way around the tunnels.

Wow, it feels quite grand in there.

Yeah. It looks like the tunnel's
dividing off, as well.

Meerkats aren't the only
lodgers here.

What's that? Dung beetles.
Oh, wow, is it?

Yeah. That's cool.

Meerkats don't eat dung beetles.

They help clean up
the meerkats' mess,

so the family welcomes
these helpful housemates.

We can see every grain
of sand down there, but the fact is

for those meerkats,
they can't see a single thing. Yeah.

Every time I've been able to inspect
a den or a tunnel system

of any animal, it's always been a
lot smaller than you'd ever expect.

Whereas this is a lot bigger than
I expected. Yeah!

Eve's navigating her way
through a labyrinth.

We've scanned the burrow
to create the first ever map

of this underground world.

There are over
100 metres of tunnels.

It's a vast interconnected system
with more than 20 entrances.

A seriously impressive piece
of engineering.

You can see some scratch marks
sort of even on the...

It looks like the roof
and the walls of the tunnel.

It's like the inside of
a polar bear's snow den.

It's just like claw marks where
they've been raking at the snow.

Eventually, Eve enters
a large chamber

and her camera reveals
something new.

Above ground, the feisty leader
often keeps lower ranking females,

like Eve, at a distance.

But down here, hierarchy is put to
one side...

..as the whole family shares
the same bedroom.

That is fantastic.

Yeah, it's really wonderful.

Our cameras have given us our
first fascinating look

inside a meerkat's burrow.

But there's something even more
remarkable we want to capture.

Newborn pups only emerge from the
burrow when they're

two to three weeks old.

Before that, they're hidden
below ground.

A stage of meerkat life
that scientists are desperate

to learn more about.

Over the coming weeks,
the research team continues

to deploy our cameras.

Until finally...

..a meerkat has given birth.

We're taken right into
the birthing chamber.

At the centre are five new arrivals.

These pups are less than a day old.

One pup still has
its umbilical cord attached.

Instinctively, the infants search
for their mother's milk.

Their eyes are still closed,

but, surprisingly,
they're already communicating.

In this maze of dark tunnels, their
chirps help the adults find them...

..and also help the family build
the strong bonds they'll need

to survive above ground.

These results are ground-breaking.

The whole scientific team gathers
to watch the family's footage.

For Laura, it's the film of the
newborn pups that's most exciting.

I would almost have expected them to
be a lot more wobbly

and it would take a while longer
for them to be able

to sort of be this active.

It's nice to be able to see that
they have this mobility about them

and they can walk around the burrow
and sort of find their way over

to the nipple that they want.

We know so much about their lives
above ground,

but it's then beginning to know
things about their lives

below ground that is really exciting
for the future.

The cameras have provided the
missing piece of the puzzle.

But miniature camera technology
isn't just making breakthroughs

below ground.

In another part of Africa,
it's helping scientists study

an endangered animal in the
very tops of the rainforest trees.

I've travelled deep into the jungles
of Cameroon.

The forests here are home to
an incredible variety of wildlife.

Including a species that
I've always been fascinated by.

I'm on my way to meet
a troop of chimpanzees,

who we hope will take our cameras
into their tree-top world.

We've set up camp at
Sanaga-Yong Rescue Center.

Here, orphaned chimps are taught
survival skills they need to join

a chimpanzee family.

The goal is to ultimately build
well-bonded groups

which can be released back
into the wild.

We're here to see if onboard
cameras can help monitor

and speed up that process.

This bundle of energy
is four-year-old Kimbang.

Like others here, she's had
a difficult start in life.

Weak and traumatised,
Kimbang arrived in a box.

Poachers had killed
her mother for food.

Mimi Swift has been preparing the
youngster for her first step

towards a new life.

As a surrogate mother, you want to
be able to teach them everything

that they need to know to be
with an actual chimp group,

because that's the end goal.

The big question is whether this
little one is ready

to join a family group.

Mimi can't see Kimbang
in the tree tops,

so she's built her a camera harness.

Don't stamp on me.

She's hoping we can improve
her design and help deliver

the footage she needs.

Easy now, easy now.

No.

What would you be most interested
in finding out?

I'd like to know how
she's moving through the forest,

because she may be able to climb
high, but she may not be confident.

Also, how she's choosing fruits.

So any footage that we get
from the cameras,

will that help you kind of
plan the next step for Kimbang?

Hopefully, if she's overcoming
those milestones, then I'll

feel more confident putting her
into a group that she'll be able

to protect herself.

Mimi's original design was built
with car tyres and nuts and bolts.

Now Chris is going
to try and make it even stronger.

So, I'm trying to chimp test this.

I'm nowhere near as strong as
a chimp, but if I can break it

then we know that they can.

So I'm just trying to break it!

We're ready to give the camera a go.

But we'll have to wait for Kimbang
to settle down first.

Hey, no.

What are you doing, you nutter?

No, that's not...

Do you need that?
It's my shopping list.

Kimbang's never seen
the camera before,

so a little encouragement is needed.

Kimbang.

This is what everyone's
wearing in London.

Yeah?

Kimbang. Kimbang.

Do you want it?

Come back.

Look! Whoa!

For safety, the harness has been
designed so Kimbang can remove it

any time she wants.

There we go.
Special girl, there you go.

Good girl, Kimbang.

Eventually, she agrees to wear
the camera like a belt.

Good girl.

But our success is short-lived.

Within minutes, Kimbang has pulled
the reinforced harness apart.

You've broken it, Kimbang.

We're going to have to
seriously rethink our approach.

Work is under way on an
even more industrial design.

So how many hours do you reckon
for one collar?

It's kind of a two-day process.

OK. So... OK.

But it is a lot of work.

To start with, you have
the scratching and the gluing,

then they get sent off
to be stitched.

But then these harnesses
need boiling.

And they get boiled, so they
actually push back in on themselves.

So it makes it easier for the
chimps to put them back on. Yeah.

Seeing how strong and
how destructive they are,

you realise actually it's
the only way it can be done.

Absolutely, it's that
deadly combination

of intelligence and strength. Yeah.

Two days later, the new chimp camera
is ready for action.

All right, finished.

Yeah, I'm really happy with that.

And everything is in place
for Kimbang's tree-top test.

The first test will be to see if
Kimbang can find her own food.

In the forest, young chimps need to
learn which fruits are safe to eat.

Sometimes, when she comes down from
the trees,

I can see around her mouth

the remnants of some wild fruits
that she's eaten,

or I can smell it on her breath,
something sweet, but...

You don't know what it is. ..I don't
know where she's got it, yeah.

The only way for us to monitor
Kimbang up there

is with our onboard camera.

Excellent.

Now that she's got the camera on,

I hope she'll keep it on and then
go off and find her own food.

And it'll be really interesting
to find out

if Kimbang has those skills.

Right, shall we have a look at this?
Yep.

What's she doing?

She's checking the camera.
Yeah, it's still there.

To begin with, we're getting a lot
of selfies.

Our camera's lens
is highly reflective.

So Kimbang is having a good long
look at herself

for the first time.

It's great.

Finally, she starts to focus
on the task at hand.

You actually get a real sense of how
fast she's moving on the ground.

Yeah.

Chimpanzees have the amazing
turn of speed.

I want to be able
to climb like that.

The strength in their limbs
is incredible.

Gosh, how high is she?

She looks really high. Yeah.

She should be able to go right
to the top of the canopy.

She's doing a great job actually
wearing it.

At any point, she could just rip it
off if she wants and throw it out of

the tree, so it is amazing actually
that she's cooperating like this.

I'm really encouraged
by her climbing,

how fast she's going through
the vines or the spiky trees

or the thicker trees.
She's not falling at all,

she's finding which branch she wants
to go to and going straight for it

and making those right decisions.

Yeah. That's really important.

Yeah, she's doing really well.

See, she grabbed something
to eat. Oh, yeah, yeah.

See that? Yeah. She just
grabbed it from the bush,

she's got it in her mouth.

What is that?

She smells it.

Nope. Nope, not good enough.
SHE LAUGHS

So are you encouraged
when you see this?

Yeah, that she's testing things,
smelling it and making that decision

that that's not something
she wants to eat.

It really kind of does build up
a picture of exactly

what's going on up there.

From her traumatic start in life,
Kimbang has come a very long way.

But before Mimi feels completely
confident about releasing her into a

family group, she wants to see if
Kimbang can recognise and respond

to danger.

So we've come up with an experiment
using a plastic predator.

I've never seen her see a snake,

so I hope that she doesn't get too
close and that she lets us know that

it's there. And will make a small
noise like, "Ooh, ooh,"

so that we know that there's
something she shouldn't go near. OK.

I'm really excited to find out
exactly how she reacts to this.

Good girl, Kimbang.

What's that? Good girl.

Can you figure out what
she's actually doing?

She's stopped,
so she must've seen it.

Is she looking at it? Yeah, she
definitely knows

something's not quite right.

Yeah, look, she's moved
right around. OK.

But she hasn't gone actually
near the snake,

she's just checking it
from every angle.

This response is entirely based
on instinct.

There's a lot of snakes
in this forest, so if she'd

just gone and grabbed it,
then it'd be really worrying. Yeah.

Did you see? She just touched the
bush to see if it'll move.

Yeah, yeah. Which is great.

Kimbang adopts a defensive strategy.

She's even using the bush to make
herself look even bigger.

Good girl.

She's improvising,
using every tool at her disposal.

Oh, that's good, she's trying
to hit it with the camera.

That's great.

But will she make an alarm call
to announce the danger?

Yes, that is brilliant.

It's great that she's let us know
that it's there.

That is good. So I think we should
make an alarm call

so she knows we've seen it,
and then she'll leave with us.

It's the perfect response.

One that could've saved her
in a real life snake encounter.

Come, come.

Take the camera with you.

Good girl.

Kimbang is proving with every task
that she's ready for the next step.

Like all chimps, Kimbang's
future survival depends

on being part of a family group.

Chimps are extremely social animals,
even more than humans.

They're so social and that's how
they learn, that's how they survive,

they help each other.
If there's a disabled chimp,

then sometimes the troop will carry
it through that time and make sure

that they look after it.

They need the support of each other.

They need it emotionally
and they need it physically.

They need to protect each other.

A lone chimp by itself, especially a
young one, is just so vulnerable,

they'd never survive.

Mimi thinks there's a suitable group
for Kimbang to join.

Like Kimbang,
they were once orphans.

Could our cameras reveal how this
newly formed family

is adapting to life
in the tree tops?

They live in a large patch
of rainforest, but they can

be lured to the perimeter fence
to pick up their cameras.

Guys!

Ordinarily in these housings,
there's a button that switches

the camera on and a button that
starts the recording,

stops the recording.
But these chimpanzees are so clever,

they will happily switch the
cameras off, start re-recording,

stop them recording.
So we've had to actually deactivate

all of the buttons,
wire them shut...

..and, hopefully, they'll just take
them off into the forest to explore.

We could get a whole new insight
into this family

and the secrets of
their life up in the trees.

But for that we'll have to wait

because, for now, we're leaving
the forests of Cameroon.

On the other side of the world,
in Argentina,

another animal camera team
is setting out

to solve a very different mystery.

Cabo Dos Bahias,
on the east coast of Patagonia,

is home to thousands
of Magellanic penguins.

For the last 20 years,
Dr Rory Wilson

from the University of Swansea
has been researching

these charismatic characters.

But last year, 60% of chicks died.

This happens every few years, and
Rory is desperate to understand why.

He's hoping our cameras will
show him how these parents

are finding food far out at sea,
and reveal what they're catching

for their young.

It's the key to their
chicks' survival.

There's an interesting time of year
because the chicks, from being

small and eating rather little food,

have gotten bigger and suddenly both
the parents have to go off to sea to

get fish. They shuttle backwards and
forwards delivering fish to these

chicks that have to grow
as fast as they can.

They'll need a belly full of food
every couple of days

or they risk starvation.

Rory has already developed tech that
records the birds' movements

and calculates their diving depths.

This year, our cameras will reveal
the final piece of the puzzle,

allowing Rory to watch them hunt
far out in the Atlantic.

The team have perfected the art of
attaching their gadgets

over many years.

Our cameras have been streamlined
and are being placed

on the lower back.

OK. OK. Ready. Ready to roll?
Ready to roll.

Within a matter of minutes,

parents are returned to their
chicks, completely unfazed

by their mini backpacks.

One by one, our marine team set off
to film their hunting trips.

The complexity of the penguin life
at sea is inconceivable to us.

This is going to be critical
for conservation,

because you can't conserve anything
unless you understand it properly.

Rory is hoping the footage
will reveal why, in some years,

so few chicks survive.

Our parents bravely swim out
through the wild Atlantic surf.

To find a feeding ground,
they travel up to 300km

on a gruelling round trip
that can last three days.

Scientists suspect their
sense of smell might guide them

to areas that are rich in prey.

They fluff an insulating layer of
air into their feathers...

..before diving down to
the chilly depths.

Our parents will make up to
400 dives on a typical trip.

The longer they search,
the more energy they burn.

And with hungry chicks waiting
to be fed, the clock is ticking.

So what our cameras film next
is a real surprise.

Oh, what? Oh, my goodness, it's...
An inspection.

Do you see that? Just had a look at
it, said, "No, not for me."

After hours at sea,
our hungry penguins

are ignoring perfectly edible prey.

Whoa, straight past the shrimps.

Shrimp, squid and lobster krill
are all passed up.

The penguins are taking
a massive gamble.

Their chicks will starve if they
leave them for too long

without a meal.

But the penguin parents
keep searching

until they finally find what
they're after.

Oh, look at that! Is that a school?

Anchovies.

These oil-rich fish
are penguin superfood.

Our cameras first show the penguins
dropping beneath the fish.

The air in their feathers makes them
so buoyant

that they shoot up into the shoal.

Anchovies are the highest-quality
food these parents can feed

their chicks, and that can mean the
difference between life and death.

All the penguin activity attracts
other sea birds.

Long-winged shearwaters
join the feast.

But until a catch has been
swallowed, it's up for grabs.

Our camera captures
a gull snatching a fish

straight from a penguin's beak.

The footage has given Rory whole new
understanding and shown just

how important anchovies
are to this population.

This penguin's eye-view
puts everything else

we've got into perspective,

in terms of the difficulties
of finding food.

An anchovy shortage last year
may explain why

so many young penguins died.

When they're scarce, parents may
have to spend longer at sea

or return with food
which isn't nutritious enough.

Fortunately, our cameras indicate
an abundance of anchovies this year.

Good news for Patagonia's penguins.

I was always impressed
with penguins.

Seeing their amazing capabilities
on these cameras

has just blown it away.

I mean, they're more impressive than
I thought they possibly could be.

This is the start of an exciting
new era in penguin research.

The cameras will enable the team to
study this population

in a whole new way,

and could even help protect
this species in the future.

Back in the remote jungles
of Cameroon,

our cameras have played a key role
in helping orphaned Kimbang

on her journey to join a family.

Now we're about to discover what
they can teach us about the troop

Mimi hopes Kimbang will join.

We've built a set of extra strong
chimp cams.

And Mimi has persuaded the family
to take them deep

into their forested enclosure.

After a few hours of filming,
all the cameras have been dropped.

Fortunately, we fitted the harnesses
with a tracking device.

Back that way. Yes!

It's there. Nice one.

OK. Marvellous.

What will the footage reveal?

She's running through the bush.

That's good, that's great, though.
That is great.

You can just almost hear her think,
"Right, what am I going to do now?"

Yeah. "I can go left, go right,
go straight, climb a tree."

It is amazing, really. I love it.

We've got wild fruit. Oh, wow.

She's dropped the camera.

Fortunately, she's left
it pointing up.

What we call a static shot,
so she knows the lingo.

She might pick it up.
Come on, pick it up, Selma.

Oh, we barely got it.

Come on, come on, come on.
Is she climbing?

Yeah. She's got the camera
in her hand as she climbs up.

That's really cool.

Instantly, you get this...
a real chimp point of view.

Wow.

At the very tops of the trees,
we get to see their world

through her eyes.

She would be quite high.

And she's going higher.

The cameras give a real sense
of how confident the group are...

..30 metres above the ground.

See another chimp in the background.
Oh, yeah. See, now there are two.

Expert climbers, but how they're
able to navigate around

in the canopy...

..it's amazing.

I'm blown away by that.

The cameras have also captured
something surprising.

One of the females has mud
on her hand.

At first, she tries to wipe it off
with leaves.

But when that doesn't work, she does
something completely unexpected.

She's lapping water from a hole
in the tree trunk.

She climbs higher to take a seat,

then cleverly uses water held in her
mouth to wash her hands.

This family member is cleaning
its teeth with a twig.

Another camera has revealed a female
delicately weaving herself the

perfect tree-top nest.

It's a rare and privileged glimpse
into this family's world.

A view a cameraman like me
could never capture.

I think we're so used to just
looking up at animals in trees

and you don't really get a sense
of what it is truly like

for them up there. And this...
This gives you that sense.

You know, I think every single
frame, every second that we get,

is showing us something
that we've never seen before.

I think it's wonderful.

Being able to see tiny
little glimpses that you'd

never normally see has taught me
so much about chimps

that I didn't know
and what's going on up there.

The cameras have revealed
that the adults are thriving

in their forest home.

It's clear this family
has a strong bond.

It's exactly the sort of
nurturing environment

a young chimp like Kimbang needs.

I go to say my final farewells,

and this time Kimbang seems more
interested in exploring

her surroundings than
playing with us.

It's encouraging to see how
confident and free-spirited

she's become.

From everything that we've seen,
or everything that she's shown us,

do you think that Kimbang is ready
to join a group of chimps

in the forest?

Yeah, I'm confident.

I think she'll flourish,
actually, in a group.

So really exciting
next step for her.

Not only that she can get by,

but she can actually contribute to
chimpanzee society, doing all of

the things that chimpanzees
should be doing.

I'm really going to miss her.
I really am.

I've just absolutely loved spending
time with her in the forest,

and actually kind of watching her
do what she does

so, so wonderfully.

From the chimpanzees' extraordinary
tree-top world...

..to the meerkats' secret life
below ground...

..and our penguin's epic
underwater adventures...

..our cameras have revealed more
than we could ever have imagined.

Thank you very much.

You've all been wonderful.

To make Animals With Cameras,

we worked with the huge cast
of animals from around the world.

Good girl. Good girl.

Each required its own
custom-built camera system...

..carefully positioned so it didn't
affect its natural behaviour.

In this episode, it was
the smallest of animals

that presented
the biggest challenges.

We had to turn a family of meerkats
into a wildlife film crew

to reveal their underground secrets.

But how on earth do you make a
camera that's lightweight enough

for a meerkat to wear,
but capable of filming in the dark?

We turned to the person
with experience to take on this

seemingly impossible challenge -
Chris Watts -

an expert in building
miniature cameras.

Weeks before filming started,

Chris hit the workshop
to develop his first prototype,

using specialist software
and a 3D printer.

This is not something that has been
done, to my knowledge, before -

putting a camera on a meerkat.

There's a lot of unknowns going into
this, but luckily

we're not completely reinventing
the wheel,

because the meerkats
do already wear collars.

The scientists have VHF collars
on the meerkats.

As with any new design, it was
important to fully test it.

So Chris enlisted the help of
a body double.

Kosmima is a tamed meerkat used
to educate schoolchildren.

For Chris, it was important to make
sure the collar fitted comfortably

and the cameras were in the
right position to film.

Yeah, great. Yeah?

Let me check it's not too tight.
Yeah.

I can freely move it
all the way around.

Oh, that's perfect.

It looks like it's hanging
really well.

I mean, one thing I was worried
about is the camera dragging

on the floor,
because they're so small,

but you want to get the camera as
far away from the chin as possible.

Yeah, I was worried
it would be scraping everywhere,

but there seems to be quite a lot
of room, which is good.

Kosmima seemed perfectly content.

But would wild meerkats
take to Chris' camera?

Our filming location was the
Cambridge University study site

in South Africa.

25 years of research have
made the meerkats here very relaxed.

I love how they're just
doing their own thing,

they're not really paying us
any attention.

They're just being meerkats.

This is the really good thing about
having such a long-term project,

is that the meerkats end up
so used to us, so you couldn't

call them domesticated because they
are still a wild animal. Yeah.

But they're habituated to us,
they're used to us being here,

which is really, really helpful.

But ultimately, the success
or failure of this mission

would boil down to getting
the technology just right.

The scientists advise the camera
should weigh less than 5%

of the meerkat's weight.

So Chris worked hard to shrink
the battery, camera,

and collar to
the smallest possible size.

His final version weighed in
at less than one fifth

of your average smartphone.

But I think it's astounding
that something as small as this...

Yeah, it's mad, isn't it?
..can get moving images.

It's minuscule.

But we soon had a problem.

Our test meerkat, Kosmima, had
been happy with the prototype,

but her wild cousins
were less impressed.

And Chris soon figured out why.

The way we've been doing it is
trying to get this around the back,

carefully like so,
and then just wrap that like that.

And that's great, it stays
on really well,

and it doesn't make any noise. But
when it comes to taking it off...

..it's quite loud. And obviously,
you can see how close

to the ears it is.
It's not very nice for the meerkats.

It turns out that the sound of
Velcro is the meerkat equivalent

of nails down a blackboard.

The new thought is,
we have these magnets.

We can keep the hands quite far away
and it's just a case of getting it

to there, and it clicks on
really nicely.

I think that could be
a real move forward.

Problem solved.

But the biggest test for Chris
was yet to come.

To film inside the meerkats' burrow,
we'd need lighting.

And we had no idea of the size
of the space to be lit.

So we asked geophysicist
Dr Adam Booth

to scan our family's home
with ground-penetrating radar.

Something he usually uses
on archaeological digs.

Here we go, ready?

Whoa.

So that's what the network
looks like.

I see something that resembles the
London Underground tube map,

you know - it's pretty
interconnected.

I think it's really exciting
that we've got our

meerkat camera operator
who can go down there

and give us their eye-view of it,

and we can check that against
what we see on the radar,

and I think that's
absolutely unique.

Yeah. It's brilliant.

One, I hope that the cameras
don't fall off down there,

because if they do, it's
very unlikely we're going to get

any of the cameras back.

The burrow was far bigger and
more complex than anyone expected.

Understanding the tunnel system
helped Chris come up

with the very best way to light it.

He added infrared lights
to the collar, pointing sideways.

They can't be seen by the naked eye,

but they'll still illuminate
the whole burrow system.

And we've got them on the collar,

so actually it'll bounce off the
walls around the meerkat's head.

We've got another...
one meerkat filming the other.

Yeah. Multi-camera shoot.

Oh, that's cool.
That's robo-meerkat! Yeah!

With the infrared lights working,

our camera cat was ready
to film his own home movie.

That is fantastic.

And after weeks of filming,

we finally got to see the
meerkats' best-kept secret...

..newborn pups.

Right at the start of this
whole project,

getting the pups underground
was the big dream.

And it's just really rewarding now
to just watch this stuff back

and see something which I think,
you know,

is a really privileged insight.

Our cameras had ended a 25-year wait
for the Kalahari research team.

But, of course, meerkats were
only the start.

Next time, our cameras reveal
the incredible hunting skills

of Australian fur seals.

Oh, wow. Goodness me.

We join a family of troublesome
baboons in the South African bush.

And in Namibia...

That's perfect, look at you.

..we hunt with the fastest mammal
on Earth.