Wildest Africa [DVD]

The naturalist documentary Wildest Africa journeys to the continent of the title and offers an on-camera tour of the many animal families and species that inhabit the African wilderness, in all of their resplendent diversity. Throughout, producer Greg Grainger and his crew remind the audience that the sizes of African animal populations per se are shrinking, as different species compete with one another in a lethal fight for survival. The program commences with the perennial migration of the wildebeest, interspersed with systematic attacks from lions and crocodiles; it then moves into mating and hunting rituals of lions, as they fend off periodic invasions and intrusions by baboons; it concludes with the spectacle of baby elephants bathing in the Okavango Delta and communicating with one another in a secret language. Other beasts that turn up in this program include the black rhino, the hippopotamus, the serval cat, the aardwolf and the black jackal.