Parenthood is a journey like no other – full of risk and reward. Every habitat has a unique set of challenges and every parent has a unique strategy to overcome them. The stakes, however, couldn’t be higher. Success, for all parents, ensures the future of life on our planet.

Finding a suitable home is the first challenge. In the Kalahari, lion mothers survive by raising one another’s cubs in times of need – only these mothers have the added risk of having to teach their cubs to also become giant hunters. Elsewhere, in Texas, a pair of burrowing owls provide an underground nest for their chicks, giving their chicks protection whilst they work around the clock to supply food.

Food is vital to all parents’ success – but a mother hippo in Tanzania has to leave the safety of her pool every night to find grass for her and her calf, running a gauntlet of hungry lions hidden in the dark with her newborn calf.

Some parents take providing to extremes. In a sequence never seen in a documentary before, an African social spider regurgitates a “milk” made from dissolved body parts to feed her young. Once her spiderlings need something more substantial, however, she offers herself – and her spiderlings eat her alive. It is the ultimate parental sacrifice.

Animal parents are having to adapt to a world that is changing rapidly, and the recovery of the Iberian Lynx in southern Spain is a remarkable success story – showing how humans can help animal parents thrive in the face of enormous challenges.

Filming locations and species:

• Lions: Kalahari Desert, Botswana
• Burrowing owls: Phoenix, Arizona, USA
• Hippos: Ruaha National Park, Tanzania
• The African social spider: Tsumeb, Namibia
• Iberian Lynx: Andalusia, Southern Spain
• Boxer Crabs: Indonesia and specialist filming tank

Filming feats:

• The African social spider: The first time the full story of Matriphagy in African Social Spiders (where offspring consume their mother – these female spiders are known to vibrate their nests to trigger this process) has been captured in high resolution for a documentary.
• Burrowing owls: The intimate vocalisations between chicks and their parents inside the den was uniquely recorded by our cameras and supplied to scientists for further research.
• Hippos: We designed new ways of using Infra-Red technology inside gyro stabilised housing to allow to drive alongside the mother hippos as they journeyed with their calves through the dark. This technological breakthrough gave us unique behavioural footage.