Rom Whitaker founded India’s first snake park in Madras in 1972. The park received early support from the World Wildlife Fund and other international organizations for its pioneering research and work in conservation. In 1976, Rom co-founded the Madras Crocodile Bank, after realizing that three Indian species of crocodiles were on the verge of extinction. The Crocodile Bank is now home to 3,000 crocodiles of 15 different species, and is also the base of a major freshwater turtle project supported by the Turtle Survival Alliance (USA), and a gharial conservation project, supported by the Gharial Conservation Alliance.

Whitaker has published widely and made dozens of films. Most recently, he set up India’s first rainforest research station in Agumbe, for which he was rewarded the Whitley Fund for Nature award in 2005, and a Rolex Award for Enterprise in November 2008.

Q: How did you become interested in reptiles?

A: I spent my childhood in northern New York State and like many kids, bugs and other critters fascinated me. My first encounter with a snake was one that was battered to death by my little friends. I took it home in a jar and remember how horrified my sister and mother were that the poor little guy was smashed. The next time I found a snake I brought it home alive, and my mother helped me fix up an old aquarium as my first terrarium — I was hooked. Luckily there were no venomous snakes around Hoosick, NY so I amassed quite a collection of milk snakes, garters, ribbons and ring-necked snakes. My mother bought me The Boy’s Book of Snakes and later Snakes of the World by Raymond Ditmars, took me to the NY Natural History Museum and in general, fostered an interest that grew into an obsession and, of course, eventually my occupation.

Could you describe your creation of Madras Snake Park in India?

When I returned to India in 1967 after two years in the US Army, my goal was to set up a snake park like the one I worked at in Miami: the Miami Serpentarium run by the famous, most snake-bitten man in the world, Bill Haast. I started out by producing and selling snake venom, the idea being to build up capital for the project. I was sourcing snakes, particularly kraits, all over India and came to know of this fantastic tribe of snake catchers, the Irulas, living near Madras in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. After seeing their artistry I just wanted to work with them, learn from them, and involve them in my developing ideas.

I moved to Madras and rented a piece of land with an old house on it quite far from the city. My brother Neel, sister Nina, and my Irula friends helped me make the first snake enclosures, put up a board and get some newspaper publicity. Thus was born India’s first snake park. This was in 1970, and two years later the Tamil Nadu Forest Department gave me a 25-year lease of a piece of lovely scrub jungle right in the heart of the city. The new Madras Snake Park was an overnight success and soon we were getting a million visitors a year!

Is it true that you used to wear a sand boa coiled through your hair in those days?

Yes, I guess I was a pretty strange sight, a wild-haired hippy snake man with a three-foot-long sand boa tangled in my hair as I rode around on my motorcycle; it was all good for publicity though, and there were a lot of good spin-offs, including early support from the World Wildlife Fund and a couple of local and international awards and recognition for pioneering work in the subject.

Could you describe your creation of the Madras Crocodile Bank and the work it does now?

In the early days of the Snake Park we collected a few crocodiles and, lo and behold, they started breeding in the small enclosures we had for them. By then we were doing herpetology surveys in different parts of the country and it became obvious that the three Indian species of crocs were going extinct. I was then married to Zai Whitaker, the daughter of one of India’s best-known conservationists Zafar Futehally, and together we started the Madras Crocodile Bank in 1976. Located on the main tourist route outside of Madras (now Chennai), it got a lot of publicity and visitors from the start. We had 14 mugger crocodiles, five saltwater crocodiles and two gharials, plus an American alligator at the start. Now, 30 years later we have 3,000 crocodiles of 15 different species. This was the only private crocodile-breeding center in the country, and the largest.

What was it like to swim in the cave, searching for the olm?

Swimming in that water, a mile beneath the earth’s surface was a bit unnerving, but I was more worried about freezing to death. I may have Viking genes, but I’m totally tropicalized and stripping down to put that wet suit on and slipping into that frigid water was not my idea of fun. The only thing that made it worth it was finding those olms. It didn’t take long to spot one, but the water kept getting murky from my clumsy movements so it took a very long time to finally bring one up in the hand net, and each minute I thought I would freeze to death. Just for fun we turned off all the lights for a while down there and that was a strange, unbalancing experience; we could just imagine how it might be to be early cave explorers with unreliable lights that might fail!

You have survived several venomous snakebites. How?

First, I’d like to make it very clear that getting bitten by a venomous snake is dumb, clumsy and nothing to be proud of. Each of my bites has been because I did something stupid, like the first, a water moccasin that I was pinning on a log in the Everglades; the log went under as I was reaching for the snake’s neck and it turned at the last moment and nailed me nicely. This one and the subsequent two rattlesnake bites out in Texas (during my US Army days) were painful and in the case of one, debilitating: my right forefinger is permanently stiffened and numb.

How did you discover you were allergic to modern antivenom?

When I received antivenom for my second bite I reacted very badly with itchy hives all over my body and spent a very uncomfortable two days recovering just from the treatment. If I get bitten now I can’t take the antivenom without a ‘cover’ of antihistamines. In 2006, on a film shoot involving crocodiles, I stupidly tried to help a snake get across a road full of traffic and in the melee got nailed on my thumb. Well, I had to chase the snake to figure out what it was and it turned out to be a black whip snake, venomous but not fatally so. A big swollen hand resulted, which is very embarrassing when you’re supposed to be catching crocs and presenting a film. I had to keep my hand hidden for a few days till the swelling subsided.

Had you been whipped by a water monitor tail before?

I’ve had lots of encounters with water monitors and lots of whips, that’s just par for the course when you work with these critters. You do have to be careful not to get whipped in the face; I reckon it could put an eye out if you’re unlucky.

Were you surprised when the Komodo dragon started chasing you?

I really had no idea that Komodos would actually chase a human, but then again, why not; we must be as tasty as a deer. This was truly a surprise, and I’m glad the local guides insisted that we carry a forked stick with us and that we shouldn’t walk around alone on the island.

Did you have a favorite or unexpected moment while shooting The Dragon Chronicles?

I think the most unexpected moment was being chased by the Komodo dragon. The other startling revelation was the dragon’s immense power and stamina. I’m used to crocodiles: they’re very powerful but they run out of steam very quickly when you are capturing and handling them. The dragon we caught for our saliva tests just didn’t tire and his recovery time after we released him was just seconds!

What was the most exciting location for you and why?

Each location had its excitement and uniqueness. Certainly the Komodo dragon experiences were the most action-packed, but being down in those beautiful caves of Slovenia, slopping through the mangroves of Sri Lanka, getting within touching distance of wild Nile crocodiles in Ethiopia, climbing the Indian rain forest canopy looking for flying lizards, and watching the marvelous spitting cobra do its thing—I loved all of it!

Describe some of the more difficult or frustrating moments of shooting.

Typically, the most frustrating times were waiting for permissions from local authorities to allow us to get on with our work. But by and large both people and creatures were remarkably cooperative on this entire film shoot.

What are some of your favorite moments of handling snakes and crocodiles throughout your career?

I could be described as a very lucky puppy, having spent much of my life in this beautiful and sometimes surreal country of India, almost three years on the island of New Guinea, months in the depths of Borneo, Mozambique, Costa Rica, the American southeast and southwest, and always in pursuit of fantastic reptiles.

One of the most decisive moments in my life was finding my first king cobra at Agumbe, where we’ve just set up India’s first rainforest research station. I’ll never forget the feeling of facing that magnificent 12-foot-long snake all by my lonesome and the somewhat crazy maneuvers that it took to get it into a bag. Similarly, there are hundreds of fond and exciting memories of hunting rattlers in the hills of Arizona, moccasins in the Florida swamps, and saw-scaled vipers in the Rajasthan desert. I’m 65 years old and instincts (and some well-meaning friends) say I should slow down and maybe take it a little easier, but how can I?

What can humans learn from the “dragons” featured in the film?

Years ago it was pretty hard to get people to empathize even a little bit with scaly, cold-blooded critters; now, thanks a lot to good PR from television, it is easier to get the message of reptile conservation and tolerance across. We have a lot to be thankful to reptiles for, not the least of which is their control of rodents.

But besides their utility on the planet, our remaining dragons are needed to excite our senses, to fill every generation with renewed wonder, and to keep us alert for that predator lurking just around the corner!

Photo © saravanakumar/Icon Films Ltd.

Featured in Kilauea: Mountain of Fire, Milton Garces records infrasound in order to better understand what’s happening in Kilauea’s underground lava tubes. NATURE spoke with him in March 2009.

Q: Tell us a bit about ISLA, the Infrasound Laboratory, and its mission.

A: We are located on the western tip of the Big Island of Hawaii. The lab’s main function is to operate listening stations as part of the International Monitoring System of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. Beyond that we conduct research on volcanoes, ocean waves, storms, and have recently deployed a hydroacoustic station.

Can you give a brief description of what causes infrasonic tremor and where the infrasound is physically emitting from?

Numerous sources at Kilauea could be producing the tremor. As the magma rises to the surface, pressurized gas comes out of the magma. The release of this gas causes pressure fluctuations, or infrasound. Anywhere pressurized gas is being released is a possible source of infrasound. Halemaumau is currently the loudest source of infrasonic tremor at Kilauea. Gas bubbles, both large and small, are involved in producing the sound at Kilauea. They can even excite large underground cavities into resonance, just like blowing over a beverage bottle or ringing a bell.

How long have you been listening to Kilauea?

ISLA’s first deployment was in 2002. Since then we have had continuous recordings using numerous stations since 2006.

Has anyone else done this before—recorded the infrasounds of lava flow?

Volcano infrasound research actually began with the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883. However, the past 20 years has seen the majority of volcano infrasound studies. Numerous volcanoes all over the world have been found to produce a significant amount of infrasound. Kilauea, however, has its own unique voice and we have captured a wide variety of signals from it, from tremor, explosions, lava skylights, fissure eruptions, and bench collapses.

Humans can’t hear the sounds coming from the volcano because they are at such a low frequency, but are there any organisms you know of that can detect Kilauea’s infrasound waves?

I know many animals communicate and hear infrasound (such as elephants), but am not aware of any organisms on Hawaii that would be able to hear infrasound from Kilauea. With that said, the higher frequency audible sounds would be heard by many.

Milton Garces listens to infrasonic recordings on a computer

What do you think the future applications of volcanic infrasound research may be?

I think the continued integration of infrasound with other technologies (such as seismic and satellite observations) will greatly help us understand and monitor volcanoes in the future. For example, we have a project in Ecuador right now where we are using infrasound and satellite observations to identify ash-rich volcanic eruptions, in hopes of providing early warning to aircraft operations in the region.

Can infrasound research be used to predict future eruptions?

Rather than focus on prediction, infrasound can tell us what is going on at the volcano right now and whether an eruption is occurring at that moment. Volcanoes are such complex systems that prediction is difficult. Gaining a more complete understanding of what is happening right now and what has happened before probably gives us the best chance for mitigating hazards.

What was your process of setting the microphones and what problems if any did you encounter as you did so?

First we had to select a good location — this is key to obtain good infrasound recordings. The dense jungle forest around Kilauea provides a great location as it shelters us from the wind. Then we needed to find a way to send our data back to our lab in Kona in real-time. From there the installation of the microphones is fairly simple, as we have a set design for our portable deployments. Luckily we have had no major equipment or data problems. Part of this can be attributed to the fact that we are able to record from long distances. Placing microphones next to active volcanoes often increases the likelihood of them being destroyed by the volcano, which is a main reason why we prefer to record from five to ten miles away.

What can infrasound measurements tell us that seismic data cannot?

Seismic data can tell us about magma moving underground, while infrasound is produced when there is pressure released at the surface. This way infrasound can help distinguish between subsurface and surface activity. Lots of seismic activity does not necessarily translate to lava or gas at the surface, but infrasound does. Also we often put out an array of microphones, kind of like an antenna, to determine what direction the sound is coming from.

Does Pele ever stop chanting? Will she ever?

Pele takes short breaks now and again, but she has remained active. Even if she were to take a break at Kilauea, it is likely that she would begin again in the relatively short future. Also, don’t forget Mauna Loa volcano is right next to Kilauea and has erupted numerous times in recent history, and when it does, we will be ready to record its unique voice.

AUDIO

Listen to the recordings (will open in a new browser window):

• Spattering Vent at Pu’u O’o in June 2007
• Collapse and Shutdown of Pu’u O’o in June 2007
• Opening of the Halemaumau Gas Vent in March 2008

Go to the ISLA Web site for more information.

Lynne Richardson and her husband, Philip Richardson, directed and produced Drakensberg: Barrier of Spears. NATURE spoke with them in January 2009 about the making of the film.

Q: You produced Murder in the Troop, which was broadcast on NATURE in 2006. What are some other film projects you’ve worked on since then?

A: One of our more recent films was Walking with Lions which was about us following a pride of lions whose territory was focused around a spring along the escarpment of the Zambezi valley.  Here the terrain was so rugged that we were forced to follow the lions on foot.

Our last film was about Namaqualand, about how in spring the desert along the southwest coast of Africa transforms to produce the most spectacular flower show on earth.  But the spring is short-lived and soon the rains dry up and temperatures soar to over 115 degrees F.   As the land dries out and the plants wither and produce seeds we look at the adaptations of the various birds, mammals, insects and reptiles to surviving in this boom or bust environment.

How did you become interested in the Drakensberg as a potential subject for a film?

The Drakensberg is possibly the single most dominant geographical feature of southern Africa and so it is a must do film if one lives here.   Furthermore it is a most unusual mountain range, sub-tropical at the bottom, alpine at the top, steep gorges and buttresses on one side, and flat-topped on the other.

The mountain range is a setting that seems to carry its history with it — from the ruts carved into the rock by ancient migratory paths to the rock art on cliff walls. What impression did these markings from the past leave on you?

When you climb this mountain you very quickly realize how small you are — both in time and space.  Everything here is so huge and ancient.  The animals and the people have been living here for millennia, so although one feels totally insignificant here, you also feel hugely privileged to be able to glance back in time and see the markings of history before your eyes.

Did the focus of the film change as the project evolved?

We spent a lot of time researching the film, so by the time we began shooting we had a pretty good idea of what we wanted to film.  Nevertheless, when you really start to live and feel the mountain, one’s perspective changes from being largely academic to being much more intimate.

How long and how often did you spend time in the field? What were conditions like?

We spent periods varying from about a month to a minimum of a week in the field.  We had a base camp at Giant’s Castle Nature Reserve, and here we were very fortunate to have the permanent use of a small thatch “bunk house” built next to some unused stables.  So here we were pretty comfortable and had electricity and mobile phone reception for emails, etc.   However, whenever we left camp for periods of a day or more, we could very quickly become vulnerable to the sudden changes of the weather.  The Drakensberg is renowned for its very changeable weather and it can snow any month of the year.   In summer one gets very heavy mists, it often rains for days on end, and in winter it can obviously get very cold.  So when you go out you have to be prepared for anything.

We went on a hiking trip about once every six weeks and this would last from about three to six days.   On the long trips, like when we camped above the Tugela Falls, or below the bearded vulture ossery, a field assistant went down once or twice to fetch extra provisions.

Could you tell us about some of the equipment you carried with you?

When operating out of Giant’s Castle on a daily basis, we were normally a team of two or three persons, carrying the camera with lens, the tripod and fluid head, and backpacks with long lenses, a matte box, filters, spare tapes, batteries, food, water, some warm clothes and sometimes extra sound recording gear as well.

On our camping trips we needed a team of at least four people.  Now we carried all of the above plus obviously a minimum amount of camping equipment but still sufficient to withstand freezing cold and very high winds.  This very quickly added up and we generally found ourselves carrying over 20 kg (about 44 lbs) per person.  On a trip to the top of the escarpment this would amount to a walk of about 7 to 10 km (about 4 to 6.2 mi) and a climb from about 1,500 m to 3,200 m (about 4,900 ft to 10,500 ft).   So on these trips conditions were pretty tough but always worth it.

How did you travel in such diverse terrain?

There are very few roads in these mountains, so virtually all the filming was done on foot.  One can travel to the main camps and reserves by vehicle, but once you get there you are on foot.

What was it like to work among the eland? How did you get close enough to capture some of the intimate scenes in the film?

The small groups of eland near camp were quite tolerant of people and if you approached slowly, or let them come towards you, you could get quite close.  But the large herds on the slopes below the escarpment were very frustrating.  Very often they would start running off when you were still over a kilometer (about 0.6 mi) away.  The only way we could get close to them was either in the mist when they could not see us (or vice versa) or by putting up our small portable hide along a route they were taking and to hope they would come past.

Was anyone bitten while filming the shots of the ou-hout bushes and the miniature ecosystem that thrives among the branches?

We got stung occasionally by the ants, but it was not that bad and is all part of the game.  The whole idea was to film them undisturbed, so like most animals in the bush if you leave them alone they will leave you alone.

Filming the veld fire

The fire scene is a very striking moment in the film. What was it like to be there when the fire broke out?

Dramatic and a little scary.  Veld fires are always dangerous, but we made sure we had an escape route before getting close to the fire.   Once the fire had burned for a while we stayed in the burned grass.  The wind swung around a lot so quite often we got a face full of hot smoke, but at least we knew that we could not be burned.   When the fire started we were close to hard rocky soil with sparse, short grass so we stayed there until we had a safe burned area we could move onto.

We were actually more concerned for the animals, particularly the eland, but they are such mobile and surprisingly agile animals that it would take quite some fire to corner them.

Are there any other exciting or interesting off-screen moments that you can share with our readers?

It is probably the structure and beauty of the Drakensberg that provides its most memorable moments.  Sitting on a mountain that is almost flat on top and then looking over the edge down a sheer 600-meter (nearly 2,000-foot) drop is a pretty awesome experience.   And then to fly over this area with its solid rock cathedral-like spires shooting up towards you is something you will never forget.

Another exciting moment was when we were filming ice rats in the mist one afternoon.  Suddenly it started snowing, then dark clouds rolled in and then lightning struck so close to us that we could actually smell it.  We headed for home pretty smartly after that.

Photos © AWF

This summer I was fortunate enough to work on White Falcon, White Wolf — the first show in NATURE’s Season 27 lineup. The film takes place on Ellesmere Island, which is so high up in the Arctic most people wouldn’t dream of traveling there, let alone haul film equipment, camp, and follow animals for weeks on end. But a group of people did just that, and I had the opportunity to interview four of them.

Shot during the brief Ellesmere Island summer, White Falcon, White Wolf captures a season when the cycles and connections of life are quite visible — light returns, babies are born, and vegetation flourishes. Following the lives of a family of gyrfalcons and a tight-knit pack of white wolves, the dramas that unfold in this show are not to be missed. So tune in on October 26, and when you find yourself wondering, “How did those filmmakers get that shot?” you can find out here. 

– Irene Tejaratchi Hess, NATURE Producer

Wildlife filmmaker Shane Moore has been documenting the natural world for nearly three decades, sometimes hauling his equipment halfway around the world. But NATURE’s A Mystery in Alaska marks the first time that Moore has played a leading role in one of his own films — in this case, leading viewers through the thicket of often conflicting explanations for why Alaska’s once booming Steller’s sea lion population has fallen on hard times. He stepped into the role only after the show’s planned host, a veteran biologist, died unexpectedly.

The experience, he says, gave him “a new appreciation of just how hard it is to decide what you want to say and be sure that what you are saying is correct. It was remarkably stressful … but we felt we needed someone to lead people through the story.”

In 2003, Moore spoke with NATURE from Wyoming, where he was working on a new film about grizzly bears.

Filmmaker Shane Moore came to Alaska to investigate the decline in sea lion populations.

How did you get interested in the sea lion mystery in Alaska?

Well, I had worked in Alaska a lot, and when I heard about the sea lion’s [decline], it was devastating. Something pretty drastic was going on.

My love of sea lions started when my wife Lybby and I made a film in Alaska in the early 1990s. We wanted to film sea lions in the water, but people up there try to avoid sea lions like the plague, because they can really scare you when you are underwater. They seek you out. So, I thought I was going to be torn to shreds. The animals were pulling on my [diving] fins, jostling me, pushing on my camera. But I was really taken with them. And after diving with them quite a lot, I got taken with them even more.

Eventually, I went out [with scientists] on several capture trips, where we would try to put instruments on sea lions. Once we went for three weeks and didn’t have much luck. So we started talking about how we could catch them relatively easily underwater. It took several years to get all the permissions, but now they can go out and catch a dozen sea lions in a day. [As a filmmaker] who feels like I pester scientists a lot, it was nice in this case to be able to help out a little.

Researchers have put forth a number of theories for the sea lion decline. How did you deal with that debate without getting sidetracked or leaving viewers confused?

It’s a huge challenge to treat the science fairly, but keep a foot rooted in the audience’s world. If we just did talking heads and scientific debate, that would turn off a lot of people. So we had to weave our way through that.

We had planned to have Walt Cunningham, who had worked as a biologist and a fisherman in Alaska, narrate the film, and lead us through all the complexity. But toward the end of our filming, Walt was killed in a diving accident. That was a real setback. We searched for other [narrators], but couldn’t find one. So that task fell to me. And we felt it important that at the end of the film that we offer an opinion of what was happening. We had looked through maybe 50 pounds of scientific papers, and traveled all around the state. So we made some conclusions at the end of the film.

When we started, I was fairly convinced that these huge [pollock] fisheries [caused the decline]. But as we went along, I realized it was pretty complicated. The bulk of the initial decline could have been a natural cause [such as climate change]. And these cycles may have been going on for thousands of years, and we’re just starting to look into them. Also, pollock stocks appear to be increasing all over the state so the pollock fishery doesn’t appear to be playing the major role. It looks like the herring populations play a bigger role.

Now, some people may not agree with my take that the pollock fishery isn’t responsible [for the sea lion declines]. But that explanation doesn’t seem to fit the evidence.

Alaska is a haven for wildlife.

Is working off Alaska difficult?

One of the first things we realized is that chartering boats in Alaska can cost upwards of $1,000 a day. So we knew we couldn’t afford to make a film that way. And the weather can get bad, so often you are stuck on an anchor for a week at a time. So we decided to buy our own boat — an old trawler — and live on it for a year. That was an adventure. I had never run a substantial boat before. But it allowed us a lot more time in the field. We sold it at the end.

What were some of the hardest shots to get?

The filming of the fish [and sea lions and birds feeding on fish] took months. We had a good depth sounder on the boat, but we would also take a lot of our cues from the wildlife, for instance looking for birds feeding. We spent many hours cruising around looking for the slightest signs, and a lot of time in the water. We had to use rebreathers [diving equipment that doesn't produce bubbles] because the fish are afraid of bubbles. Still, getting shots of [predators] feeding on the herring was really difficult. We’ve even donated some of our footage to scientists who are studying how sea lions and birds feed on herring.

Where do you enjoy working the most?

The High North is really my favorite place, Alaska and the Canadian Arctic. Most of the places we go to film, we’re working in a pocket of wildness in a sea of humanity. It’s a bit distressing to film isolated patches of wildlife that are often in trouble. We often crop out all the problems and show some idyllic bit of nature or some behavior. But Alaska is the opposite — it’s phenomenal wildness with pockets of humanity.

Will your film influence the debate over what to do about the sea lion decline in Alaska?

My hope is that, at the very least, we help create a general awareness about this issue. The bulk of the public doesn’t have clue that this problem exists. People know about [threats facing] the spotted owl or wolves. But this is a story that has gotten hardly any attention.

NATURE caught up with filmmaker Gordon Buchanan in April 2009 to discuss Eagles of Mull.

Q: When NATURE last spoke with you, we learned how your time working in a restaurant on Mull led to your first opportunity in wildlife filmmaking. Did your experience growing up on Mull shape your career in other ways?

A: I had the freedom to explore the wild parts of the island and surrounding water all through my childhood, so that definitely gave me a thirst for adventure, exploration and wildlife. There wasn’t much for kids to do back then so you had to make the most of your surroundings, and I think I did that. So no surprise that I ended up doing what I do. My career really just an extension of my childhood.

How did you make the decision to return to your childhood home for this project? How did the idea for this project originate?

I always knew I’d return to Mull to make a film. We had been living in London for six years and were looking for a good excuse to leave, so when our daughter Lola was born that was it. It was such a natural story, so we didn’t have much trouble getting it commissioned.

How was Mull different from your memories of it? Were there any surprises?

In many ways Mull hadn’t changed at all. I suppose the sense of community has lessened over the years as more people come and go from the island. As a boy, the main street of Tobermory was full of characters. They’ve all gone now and no one seems to have filled their shoes. The biggest surprise was that having traveled over the world filming wild animals and places, Mull is right at the top of the list. It has magic to it, simple as that.

You had previously filmed big cats for NATURE’s Leopards of Yala. What new challenges were presented by the wildlife on Mull?

The weather was the biggest challenge on Mull that year. We got fairly lucky with what we saw but there were days and weeks spent sheltering from rain. The big difficulty was trying to divide time between family and filming — both need 100 percent attention.

You had a “low-tech” technique for filming the seals and basking sharks. Is there anything you can tell us about that?

We had a limited budget so we had to just make do with what we could afford for underwater images. Basically it was a glorified plastic bag with a handycam inside. If I were to do it again, I think I’d try to find the money to shoot the underwater properly!

Did you encounter any problems securing a license to film near the eagle nests?

It took a while for my license to come through — I’d already moved back to the island, and the film relied on being able to film at the nest. It had been over ten years since a license to film had been issued so I was very nervous for a while. I think being ‘a local’ helped.

Could you tell us more about those “dreaded Scottish midges”?

Only that they are the most infuriating, persistent, maddeningly ferocious insect I have ever encountered on the face of this planet.

Any interesting or unexpected moments that didn’t get caught on film?

I was desperate to film sea eagles predating on entire families of geese and ducks. I kept getting reports from people who had seen it — I just didn’t get lucky.

Where are you off to next?

I’ve had a really busy few years and have just got back from a six-week expedition in Papua New Guinea so going to spend a good amount of time at home with my wife, Wendy, and my two kids, Lola and Harris. Hope to head to the Himalayas at the end of the year and row to the North Pole next summer!

Photo © Iain Erskine c/o Carolyn Naylor

Allison Argo is an award-winning filmmaker and the writer, director, producer and narrator of Chimpanzees: An Unnatural History. Her previous film for NATURE, The Urban Elephant, won Emmy awards for Outstanding Cultural or Informational Program and Outstanding Achievement in Directing. Below, Argo shares some thoughts on the making of Chimpanzees: An Unnatural History.

Q: How did the idea for Chimpanzees: An Unnatural History come about?

A: The idea grew out of a prior film that I had made for NATURE called Wisdom of the Wild. One of the segments in that film dealt with chimpanzees being retired from a laboratory, but it was just the tip of the iceberg. Both Fred Kaufman [NATURE's executive producer] and I were very moved by the story of chimps that have been used in research and entertainment, and we realized it was a really rich and complex story. The contrast between chimpanzees in the wild using medicinal plants to self-medicate, as we showed in Wisdom of the Wild, and then living in a very unnatural situation was very dramatic.

I should say too that especially now, after having immersed myself for over two years in the world of captive chimpanzees, it is so moving to think back on my experiences of seeing chimps in the wild in Tanzania. It gave me such a sense of well-being to witness them living in family groups. I’ll never forget watching them on numerous afternoons, just lying in a little patch of sun on the forest floor, having a big group of adults and youngsters groom and watching them forage. They seemed very much at peace. And that was, again, such a contrast to what we’ve done with chimpanzees in our society

Q: You are the writer, director, producer and narrator of the film. Why did you choose to assume all those roles?

A: It’s a very personal choice that I participate in so many facets of the film. It’s a much richer, deeper experience for me. It gives me huge gratification. I love writing the script and I love reading the words that I’ve written. At the end of making the film, it’s very cathartic. I usually have a big cry. And yes, there are huge challenges also. It’s very lonely in some ways. But also one of the things that I absolutely love about documentary filmmaking is that we work as a team. It’s really one big creative effort. I really rely on the people that I work with – the wonderful cinematographers, my associate producer who is just the best researcher in the world. And of course the NATURE team. I have gotten such amazing support from them.

Q: Chimpanzees is a very poignant film, and also presents a strong point of view. Do you think a documentary should seek to sway public opinion, and is that something you aim for with your films?

A: What I sought to do with this film is to provoke thought, and encourage people to ask more questions, instead of just accept the status quo. If any documentary filmmaker is to be completely honest, everything’s subjective because you choose when to roll the camera, for example, and when to stop the camera. You choose where to point the lens. You choose which locations to go to. So it never can be completely objective, though we all want to be as objective as we can as documentary filmmakers.

My mantra throughout the whole film was “just the facts.” Just the facts, and don’t comment on it. Don’t say, “And isn’t this sad, or isn’t this terrible.” Because I think it’s more respectful of the audience if you can present the stories and just say, “You decide for yourself.” For example, I don’t say, “And Billy Jo [a chimpanzee] was tortured in the laboratory.” I never say something like that. But Gloria goes through his records. “Punch biopsy.” “Bone marrow transplant.” And you can decide if you think that that would be a positive or a negative experience for a chimpanzee. So I tried really hard not to comment emotionally, but I can’t hide the fact that in general I think we have treated chimpanzees very poorly in our society.

Q: Were you surprised by anything during the making of the film?

A: Definitely. I was amazed by how truly communicative chimpanzees are. Obviously with one another they’re extremely communicative. But what I mean is how easy it is for human beings, if you just open yourself a little bit, to communicate with them, and how they can so easily communicate with us. I guess it’s because we share so much genetic material, but also I think it’s a certain similar kind of intelligence that we share.

Q: Do you have any anecdotes from making the film you’d like to share?

A: Up at Fauna Foundation [outside Montreal], a female chimpanzee named Pepper was grooming my arm and she clearly wanted me to take my watch off because it was in the way. So I took my watch off and she had it so fast! It was in the cage, and I thought, “Oh well, that’s the end of the watch. I really liked that watch, too.” She grasped it in her foot, since they can use their feet like hands. So she held it in her foot and groomed me for about 10 minutes. And then when she was finished, she very gently took it out of her foot and handed it out to me. And I was just amazed. It was so considerate, sensitive. She understood that it was something that was mine, something that I liked.

Q: Did you have trouble getting people from the government to talk on camera for the film?

A: Yes. I tried to call a higher-up person at the NIH who deals with chimpanzee issues, and I was immediately blocked and sent to the P.R. department. I just wanted to get his point of view, to start there. But I was told “No, you have to go through us.” So I sent in some of my films and told them what the film was about. And about a month later, they basically said, “Sorry, we’re just too busy right now. No one can talk to you.” We also contacted all of the laboratories that are still actively using chimpanzees and were told that we couldn’t film within the labs. We’d then ask, “Can we interview one of your scientists?” And they all said no.

Q: Do you think the film suffered at all for their absence, or did you consciously try and make up for it in other ways?

A: It’s a good question. I was really upset that I wouldn’t have that balance. But then I realized, I’m making a documentary and that’s the reality of it. That is the balance. I couldn’t speak for them myself. We were allowed no information, and that became a statement in itself. I did present that there is an ongoing debate about the use of chimpanzees, and we hear from scientists on both sides of the fence.

More than a decade ago, Wallace J. Nichols had the idea to satellite-tag an adult female loggerhead sea turtle named Adelita. Over the course of about a year, Adelita, Nichols and a great many internet onlookers made a 9,000-mile voyage from Mexico across the Pacific to nesting grounds in Japan. Adelita was the first animal ever tracked across an ocean basin, turtle or otherwise. Her story was also the first discovery that loggerheads make such a long journey to nest. NATURE spoke with Nichols on the ten-year anniversary of the trip.

Q: WHO WAS ADELITA?

A: Adelita was a loggerhead sea turtle who was caught by a fisherman in the Gulf of California. She was raised in captivity. We weren’t quite sure how old she was. We think she was just a few years old based on her size. She was as big as a large plate. Mexican researchers eventually got a hold of Adelita and decided to put her in captivity. People were still-hunting and eating turtles so they felt that would be safer for her. She became part of genetic studies for a few years.

WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO RELEASE HER AND FOLLOW HER JOURNEY?

I was a graduate student studying these turtles in Baja. We started asking where all of these loggerheads in Baja were coming from, so we started searching for a loggerhead-nesting beach. We knew there was a nesting beach in Japan but thought that was way too far for loggerheads to journey to. So we had a big mystery on our hands. How did they make that trip?

Adelita had been facing a life in a tank in a research facility. As she grew, we knew we were not prepared to hold a growing loggerhead. So we had very few options. We could hold her indefinitely in captivity or release her. We decided it would be great to get Adelita out.

At the time, people were starting to use satellite telemetry but the early efforts were not so successful. Transmitters are expensive but I had a recycled transmitter and decided to try using it for Adelita’s journey. A fisherman helped me figure out how to attach this transmitter to a turtle shell. But we had no idea if this would work if the transmitter would fall off or the batteries would go dead.

Adelita

WHAT DID YOU THINK WOULD HAPPEN? WHERE WOULD SHE GO?

There were lots of unknowns. First of all, she had lived most of her life in captivity so she could just have revealed that captive turtles do odd things. We didn’t know if she could survive in the wild. But we knew she was healthy. She would eat anything dead or alive. If your sunglasses fell in the tank, she would eat those. Basically, she would eat whatever she found. Turtles are not particularly social animals. There’s no pod she would have to join. There’s no parental care. They are somewhat carnivorous. They’re also highly instinctual. She was very healthy in terms of fat storage. And we knew she was sexually mature because she was big enough. My concern was: was she in good enough shape for it?

WHAT WERE THE FIRST MOMENTS OF THE JOURNEY THAT YOU WITNESSED LIKE?

It was pretty amazing. This turtle spent all of her time in tanks 10 feet in diameter across. When she first got out of the tank, she kept swimming around the outside of the tank and stopping as if she was planning on hitting a wall. But there was no wall. I took a video of her swimming away. It’s pretty interesting. At one point, when she realized nothing was holding her in, she just took off. She went out into the Pacific Ocean and just swam across it; she swam continuously for 368 days. What was interesting was that in captivity she was always hanging out on the west side of the tank-the direction of Japan.

HOW DID THE INTERNET PLAY A ROLE IN HER JOURNEY?

At the time, the internet was new so it was a new tool we had of letting people know what Adelita was doing along her journey. It was one of the only live shows on the web at the time. But it’s pretty amazing to think about people stopping their day and thinking about what Adelita was doing. It’s pretty mind-blowing. It changes people’s perspective and helps them understand how big the Pacific Ocean is.

Also, I needed to share the data I was getting. I could sit there and accumulate data on my hard drive or share it. It became my responsibility to share the information and to answer questions. So for about a year, I had 50 students a day emailing me questions about Adelita.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM ADELITA?

The East Pacific Barrier between Japan and Mexico is known as the East Pacific Desert. It’s an unproductive clearwater. It was thought that animals couldn¹t cross because it was so unproductive. The idea was that this was a barrier. Turns out to be completely wrong. Adelita was the first piece of the puzzle proving that was wrong. Now we know lots of species do the same thing. And now, all kinds are being tracked through the Pacific. It’s revolutionary in terms of the number of animals being tracked and what we know about the ocean today.

WHAT EFFECT HAS ADELITA HAD ON TURTLE CONSERVATION?

Adelita has raised this idea that all of these places are connected in the life history of a turtle. This was not something people knew about so much. Now it¹s just standard but back then it was a big lesson.

Adelita changed the way people in Baja and Mexico and Japan thought about sea turtle conservation. This turtle has opened up all kinds of connections between Japanese, Mexican, American people. We need to collaborate with people at the other side of the planet. Protecting nests in Japan only will get us poor results if the turtles are not safe in Baja.

What we learned from Adelita has also changed the way fishermen think about sea turtles. The animals themselves are more interesting to them. Given the opportunity to leave them alive rather than cut them open, take out their liver and throw them back in ocean, they might leave them alive now.

HOW MUCH DID YOU KNOW ABOUT WHERE ADELITA VENTURED ALONG HER JOURNEY?

We didn’t know exactly what Adelita was doing but we were pretty sure about where she was. The satellite tracking of the locations were really accurate — up to 150 meters. You could draw a circle and she’d be in it-about as large as a football field. This is pretty tight when you think in terms of the entire Pacific Ocean. Most of the time, Adelita was in very deep water, not close to the bottom. When she was closer to the coasts, it was a bit different. We knew she would encounter females or rest in caves.

DID YOU WORRY ABOUT HER SAFETY?

Once Adelita started swimming to Japan, I was worried about her daily. She’s trying to swim home and all sorts of threats face her. I experienced hope and fear imagining where she’s going. Every day, not knowing if that would be her last day, was emotional. Maybe the transmitter would fall off. Or the battery could go dead. But unbeknownst to her, millions of kids were hovering over their computers to track her journey. It felt like we were all on her back.

HOW DID YOU LEARN OF THE END OF HER JOURNEY?

Finally Adelita made it to Japan and the hope was that she would find a mate and lay eggs that would become hatchlings. But that’s not the way it worked out. At the time, I wasn’t sure what had happened. The data was erratic. Eventually I went to Japan and went to the last location where she was recorded. It was a fishing port with squid fishing boats. The fishermen told me that summer they had caught a lot of loggerheads so Adelita could have been caught by a fisherman. But it was still fuzzy. Maybe she was caught and the transmitter pulled off. Maybe she was thrown back in. I didn’t want to come out and say Adelita is dead.

But I started to see this as an opportunity to tell a real story. Once they’ve reached maturity, they’re out of reach of predators except for sharks and their biggest threats are hooks, nets and plastic bags. The reality is that turtles die in nets and on hooks. So here was this opportunity to tell that part of the story.

WHAT DOES YOUR RESEARCH FOCUS ON NOW?

We’re still tracking turtles. Right now, we’re tracking over 50 turtles of various species.

The focus is on protection for the key areas of their life cycle. Over the years, people have concentrated on nesting beaches and I think we need to couple that with protecting feeding areas because by-catch rates in Mexico in these places are really high. So we’re working on getting a federal-reserve designation for a Baja feeding hotspot. We¹re working with the Mexican government to declare it a marine conservation environment. And we’re working with the fishermen, who are actually really in favor of it. One thing we’re doing is we’re working on ecotourism opportunities: if fishing opportunities are taken from the fishermen, we can work on other financial incentives, like whale-watching tours.

THE FILM WASN’T ABOUT ADELITA BUT IT WAS BASED ON HER VOYAGE, WHAT DID YOU THINK ABOUT THAT?

Adelita’s journey is a really inspiring story. Her story connects Asia, Latin America, and the US. It gets into people’s hearts and minds. But what’s compelling about it is that it’s a real story; not a Hollywood story. The trend in nature filmmaking is to show the edgy, dangerous situations. I’ve been asked, “Can you show me turtles getting eaten by a shark or turtles gone bad.” But this film is just the voyage of a lonely turtle. It’s just that. It’s not about being edgy. It’s a peaceful story. It isn’t trying to be MTV. At the same time, this feels fresh. It’s an epic, transoceanic story with incredible footage.

Adelita was really just the beginning. We’re in the middle of this. She was by no means just a one-off.

NATURE spoke with Victoria Falls producer and cameraman Jamie McPherson in April 2009. Here’s what he had to say about the making of the film.

Q: What inspired you to do a film on Victoria Falls and the Zambezi River?

A: Victoria Falls is such an iconic place. I had been there as a tourist, and knew it’d be an amazing place to do a film on wildlife – the falls and the Zambezi.

Can you tell us about research for the film, and how much time you spent on it?

We did our initial research by talking to people, and reading books. Once I made contact with a few people, through friends and through lodges, I headed out there for two weeks. I drove around and met as many people as I could and checked out as many locations as possible — to see what the wildlife was like out there. We needed to work things out ahead of time — looking in books for when the rainy season is, talking to local bird experts, etc. We timed everything out.

Books say there are lions and buffalo out there, but not whether it’s always possible to see them. It’s not a place many have filmed in before. We had to get a lot of permissions from different officials to film. We contacted the national parks authorities, tourism authorities and other conservation commissions in advance.

Altogether, Charlie (co-cameraman, Charlie Hamilton James) and I filmed for four months. We went back and forth. I went in March for a shoot at the end of the rainy season, then June; then Charlie went in July. I went back in September when the water level is lowest.

We rented a house in Livingstone, the closest big town. And we had a boat that we moored there.

How did you find Mr. White? Can you tell me more about him?

Initially, I met a few different fishermen out there, but the hardest thing to find is someone who is truly a knowledgeable fisherman. Mr. White was the only name that kept coming up. A Norwegian rafting guide told me, “You have to talk with him!” He thought Mr. White lived in a cave because most of the time he was by the falls and he often slept by the river.

Then I spoke to guys in the village who also recommended Mr. White. We wanted to do something different, and he was a perfect voice – a perfect story to tell, with wisdom and knowledge.

In an email you wrote a very moving account about Mr. White and the last days of your shoot. If you don’t mind, I’d like to include that here.

Sure.

Everyone said I should go and see this old guy at rapid number nine. He was the oldest fisherman in the area and the most respected. And sure enough, when I went to rapid number nine, there he was. His English wasn’t great, but he was very excited about a film being made about his river and he was happy to be involved.

He was born in Zimbabwe in 1934. He is known as Mr. White, but White is his first name. His family name is Matukanyuni. (He showed me his ID card.) His mother was Zambian and his father Zimbabwean. His mother took him to Zambia when he was four years old. He lived in the village of Songwe, near Livingstone. He worked as a gardener for a local hotel when he was young, but had always been a fisherman. He described himself as a fisherman. He was very well respected in his village and around Livingstone. Most people in the area knew who he was. He taught the kids in the village how to fish and had fished the same rapids in the gorge since 1947.

We had planned to film two more sequences with him in the last week of our shoot, but days before he asked me if I could take him to the hospital because he wasn’t feeling well. He was diagnosed with cancer in the hospital in Livingstone.

The shots of him on the cliff above the gorge at the start and end of the film show the last time he saw the gorge. I was visiting him in the hospital in Livingstone and he said he wanted to get out of the hospital and see his river again as he was waiting for an appointment in Lusaka for further tests. He knew that we had wanted to film him looking down at the river and insisted we at least film that last shot. So with the nurse’s permission we went to the gorge for the last time.

I then sent him and his family to a specialist in Lusaka. The cancer was too far advanced for the treatment to work. He passed away in December 2008. He had three wives, eight daughters and seven sons.

He was a great man and I am very proud to have met him.

Victoria Falls is gorgeously filmed, just stunning. I know you filmed the falls and the Zambezi along with Charlie Hamilton James and Simon Werry. Can you tell us a bit more about how you got such dramatic visuals – your approach? Equipment?

We were trying to find new views of Victoria Falls and new ways of looking at it — from sunset to sunrise. We used local knowledge on the best places to film, and spent four months out there picking locations.

We used long lenses, high definition, and had a high-speed digital camera called a Photron, which films 5,000 frames a second. We used the Photron for the pied kingfisher and fish eagle footage. The camera is a lot of work; it’s not a camera you can pick up and run around with, it’s very complicated. We had to hook it up to a computer and a generator, and bring it by the river.

Simon Werry shot the aerials with a Cineflex. It’s great to see the falls from that perspective; it gives a sense of scale. A falls that is a mile wide is hard to comprehend but if you see it from the air, from above…

Can you tell us about filming the lunar rainbows?

Well, there are lunar rainbow tours, and the rainbows are visible to the naked eye, but with long exposure photography they really stand out. We used SLR still cameras to capture series of long exposure shots which are then stitched together to create the time-lapse shots.

How did you feel about safety?

We felt completely safe, the only thing was the hippos. The bull hippos are protecting their territory, and when the water drops they have to move. A local boat guy helped us negotiate around hippo bull territory. We just made sure to be careful.

In the film you show two different worlds – the one above the falls and the one below. Can you elaborate?

The world below is Mr. White’s world — very bleak, not many trees, but good fishing. And no hippos or crocodiles, so it’s safer. The world above is full of life because of the geography and shallows and sandy islands. They’re very different worlds, and in the film it’s more of Mr. White’s perspective. The Zambezi provides for him, even though it can be harsh.

There are so many lovely songs in the show. Can you tell us more about the music? Do the lyrics match picture in any way?

All our films have a musical style, something that suits the film. We avoided western songs, and chose music/musicians from Africa, like Rokia Traore. And we tried to avoid clichés.

I have to admit we didn’t choose music based on lyrics, but rather for the mood that the songs conveyed.

Award-winning filmmaker, Martyn Colbeck, has filmed wildlife for over 20 years, capturing our planet’s most incredible species with his lens. But it was Echo and her family of elephants that inspired Martyn to devote, not one, but three films to them. NATURE had the opportunity to find out how exactly this family captured his heart.

What were your first impressions among the elephants?

It was an amazing moment as I had never seen an African elephant before. In 1989, I went to Amboseli for the first time to film a segment for David Attenborough’s Trials of Life. The producer I was working with for that segment had known Cynthia Moss for some time and she had always wanted to go out with Cynthia to see her elephants.

So Cynthia took us out in the car into the park. In the middle of this herd of elephants, she stopped her car, turned off the engine and she just started to talk about this family of elephants. This was not Echo’s family by the way. But Cynthia just started describing each of these elephants. She knew each one. She just started talking to us about them as individuals. It was almost as if we were at a party and she was describing everyone to us.

What was most amazing was that we were in the middle of Amboseli National Park. We were surrounded by Kilimanjaro. It was a stunning environment. But the individual personalities of the elephants were what stood out. It was quite a revelation to me.

How was Echo selected?

The producer’s idea was to do a film like an elephant soap opera. It would be a long-term project and was actually based on the documentary Seven up! The idea was that because elephants are so long-lived, we could follow them as the years passed.

Of course the next step was deciding who to follow. That was up to Cynthia. She was studying 53 elephant families in Amboseli. But Echo’s family came up at the top of the list, mainly because Echo was the first elephant who had been darted and radio collared back in 1972. So she was one of the first elephants studied. Also, Echo and her family were relatively predictable. And she was quite a homebody, which was a good thing. We didn’t want a family who would constantly be on the move and disappear on us through the filming. We couldn’t follow along with their life events if we lost them.

How crucial did it turn out that Cynthia had chosen Echo?

Echo is a remarkable elephant. She was an extremely good choice. She was around on a regular basis virtually every day. In order for the film to work, you just can’t go off and film a replacement family. Echo’s story is the main thread of the series.

But she was also a good choice because, over the years, the most extraordinary things happened to her and her family. For instance, in 1990, I had started to film in January and very little was happening with Echo’s family. But by February, the most incredible thing happened to Echo. She gave birth to a crippled calf. It was truly an extraordinary, very rare event. And this was the only time such a birth had been documented. And then we were able to film the most incredible events after that. We filmed them sleeping. We filmed the kidnapping.

What was Echo and her family’s perception of you?

It’s hard to know. I think there may have been an element of knowing that if we were around, there was a safety aspect. I think they accepted us as part of the family. Elephants have this extraordinary and complicated greeting display — they use this to greet each other when they’ve been apart. And occasionally, Echo actually greeted our car when we arrived. She would make a terrific greeting with the car. We spent so much time with her in that car; she must have recognized the style of the car.

Why are there misconceptions of elephants being raging creatures?

I think there is a misconception about elephants. And the incidents of elephant rage come from elephants in a disturbed population or in conflict with people. I’ve found that if you give them the benefit of the doubt, they are not generally an aggressive species. They are naturally gentle and trusting. When you betray that trust, they get aggressive. I’ve seen that with tourists. They drive fast. They rev up their engines. They act inappropriately. Some of this is to get a reaction from the elephants. And basically it just irritates the animals. Elephants are not aggressive animals. They have been made to be aggressive. Even if they are irritated with you, they will give you some warning. They are not like rhinos who just charge without warning and flatten you. If they do, there’s a historical reason — or a serious threat.

Do you think elephants can recognize people and understand their intentions?

I think they identify individuals. It is so hard to quantify though. Some scientists might be cynical. They would say you need real data. If you spend a lot of time with a particular animal — like I do with elephants — you will get a sense of what they’re thinking. There is a level of understanding with spending so much time with animals.

One of the things with filming elephants is you have to be able to anticipate behavior. You have to understand what they’re going to do. Not just acting on instinct. They are actually making a decision. I’ve seen instances of elephants having a discussion and clearly two elephants are disagreeing. And then one makes a decision and the other follows that. It is very interesting to watch. In order to know that, you have to know the individual. You have to have spent a lot of time with them.

How long are you out there shooting to document the life of an elephant family?

Each of the three Echo films took eight months to shoot. During those eight months, I would be out from dawn to dusk every day. Ideally one would film longer but budgets and other restrictions limit you. But of course, the longer amount of time you spend out there, the more likely you will capture unique events because we are actually distilling small bits of their behavior.

What was it like to be a character in this film?

It gave me the opportunity to tell people how I felt about elephants. Usually when you make a film, you have a narrator who is not involved in the film telling the story to the audience. But with this film, I had the chance to tell the story. It was quite nice to tell audiences that I’ve been with these elephants for 20 years. I’ve spent a lot of time with them. I know these animals. And this is how I feel about them. Of course it is slightly unnerving to put yourself on the line. But I had the benefit of expressing sentiments that scientists can’t.

Will there be another Echo film?

It’s an ongoing story. I don’t feel like I’ve completed the filming because these animals are so complex. I still look forward to spending time with them. We’re learning more about them all the time. They communicate on such complex levels, and we’re only scratching the surface. We’re sure to discover so much more. The more people understand about elephants, the more people understand how much they’re worth conserving.

Are elephants your favorite animals?

No doubt. They would have to be. I’ve done a lot of filming of primates as well. But elephants continue to surprise me. There is just so much more to learn.