Two of Uganda’s wildlife destinations, Bwindi and Kibale national park have featured in the new season of Netflix’s nature documentary series, Animal.
The immersive series follows the world’s most magnificent creatures, capturing never-before-seen moments.
Episode 1 (titled Apes) of Season 2 opens in Uganda’s Kibale national park where a female chimp is tending to her two month-old baby.
Kibale national park, famed as the world’s primate capital, is home to 13 species of primates, including over 1,400 chimpanzees. The 296 square mile national park in western Uganda is a large moist evergreen rainforest containing a diverse array of landscapes.
Scenes in Animal capture different chimp families going about their daily routines in the pristine rain forest while bringing to light up-close moments that give a viewer a fine detail of the near-human mannerisms that chimpanzees possess.
The constant grunting and screeching, the playfulness and sometimes violence that characterizes power struggles for territory by different chimp families.
As in humans, chimpanzees also rely on alliances.
Directed by Adrian Seymour, the 47-minute-long episode explains the attributes shared by the different apes – chimpanzees, orangutans, gorillas, bonobos and humans.
It focuses on the unique features that all these have in similar; physical features that enable their movement; bigger brains; tender grooming; power struggles; companionship among others.
Narrated by actor, Andy Serkis, the documentary also explains the traits that set these different apes apart. Like the Bossou chimps in Guinea whose unique attributes of using tools and improvising have not been found in other chimpanzees.
In Kibale, the viewer follows the chimps as they hunt for food, and witnesses their predatory side while they pursue and kill red colobus monkeys for meat, a nutritious diet for chimps. It is a first-hand exhibition of what teamwork can achieve.
During this pursuit, some members of the group scale the trees to block the escape routes for the monkeys, one chimp launches the chase, another lays an ambush, while others stay on the ground. And the chase reaps fruits. A younger chimp (who is begging for a share) squeals at a smack by an adult who is feasting on the monkey’s torn carcass.
You will also get an immersive experience inside Bwindi impenetrable forest, home to the largest apes, mountain gorillas. Life in the thick jungle, is mirrored through the escapades of a silverback with a large family – four wives, three adolescents, two infants and a grand dad – to protect.
Uganda is home to over half of the world’s remaining mountain gorillas. They live in Bwindi and Mgahinga national parks. The large apes earn the highest foreign revenue of all Uganda’s wildlife.
Netflix’s docu lets you in on the balance between the vulnerability that comes with family and at the same time, the savagery that is required for a silverback to protect this same family.
As is the case with chimps, gorillas are in a constant struggle of maintaining their influence and fighting off those trespassing on their territories. It is a game of numbers, body size and intimidation.
In the Netflix show, Uganda is featured alongside other ape destinations like Indonesia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea and Thailand.
The other episodes of the show focus on birds, dogs, big cats, octopus, bears and dolphins.
Whereas Animal encapsulates the resilience that has helped these apes survive all these years, it also highlights their dwindling population, a making of the most dominant of all apes – humans.
