Animals with Cameras

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Factual: Science & Nature: Nature & Environment

Gordon Buchanan puts cameras onto animals, revealing unique footage about their lives.

Cameraman Gordon Buchanan works with scientists to put cameras onto animals, revealing unique footage and amazing discoveries about their lives.

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Gordon Buchanan

Jo Shinner

Vanessa Coates

Clare Kingston

Natalie Cross

Animals with Cameras: Series 2: Episode 2

Episode 2

Series 2

BBC Two - Animals with Cameras, Series 2, Episode 2

State-of-the-art cameras offer a fresh look on some of Australia’s wild animals.

Wildlife cameraman Gordon Buchanan leads a team using specially designed on-board cameras to film groundbreaking new behaviour in some of Australia’s most iconic creatures.

Wildlife cameraman Gordon Buchanan fronts the team helping scientists to investigate the lives of some of Australia’s most iconic animals. Using state-of-the-art cameras to film groundbreaking new behaviour, the programme unveils the fascinating worlds that are often out of reach to regular camera crews.   

Care and consideration for the wildlife is a priority as discreet and lightweight on-board devices are deployed to film the animals. Wearing the cameras, these creatures give us a unique perspective, carrying out the detective work that will help scientists to answer vital questions about their lives.  

In this episode, the brains behind our tiny cameras, Chris Watts, works with biologists and researchers to develop bespoke cameras tough enough for the Australian landscape, withstanding the heat and the height that the animals have to live with. The results take us airborne and under the cover of night.   

In New South Wales, Gordon encounters a marsupial facing a complex set of challenges when he meets a population of kangaroos that are being pushed to the very brink by a coastal development boom. How are they surviving on the edge of this urban expansion? Gordon meets the scientists driven to find out more about what the roos are feeding on as they are pushed onto the coastal fringes. As we become immersed in their world, we get a better understanding of kangaroos' social lives and the impact of human encroachment on their diet. 

In southern Australia, we head to Adelaide, where one of the team’s toughest challenges yet is to create the lightest of cameras to find out what the lure of the big city is to a colony of newly arrived fruit bats. Their appearance is a bit of a puzzle. Are they a threat to the local commercial fruit crops or have they found other ways to adapt to city life? For the first time ever, the fruit bats take our cameras up above the cityscape, showing us a unique view of their nocturnal worlds while providing information crucial to their future. 

In Queensland, we help scientists find out if koalas really deserve their dozy daytime reputation when we join researchers at a reserve to discover some incredible revelations surrounding their night-time manoeuvres. The team’s tech allows us to shadow them after sundown, unveiling their remarkable agility and surprising navigational skills. Specially designed with tree-hugging in mind, koalacams offer an insight which could help koalas as we find out what they need to survive - not just here, but elsewhere in the country.

Animals with Cameras: Series 2

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Gordon Buchanan uses special cameras to gain an unprecedented insight into animals' lives.

Gordon Buchanan uses specially designed on-board animal cameras to gain an unprecedented insight into their secret lives and help scientists better protect wildlife in the future.

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