Film-makers have spent two-and-a-half years using 40 hidden cameras to capture unique images of two of the world’s rarest big cats in the harshest possible terrain.
Documentary-makers for Frozen Planet II managed to film the Amur Leopard, the rarest big cat in the world, and the Siberian Tiger, the largest big cat on the globe, on cameras tracking each others footprints as they hunted for the same animals.
The pair were filmed by remote hidden cameras in Russia’s remote Land of the Leopard National Park, pre-pandemic.
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They appear on the BBC ‘s second to last episode of the programme – Frozen Lands – due to be shown on Sunday.
The film crew built specially housed cameras strong enough to deal with the sub-zero winter conditions, which could be left outside in the wild for months.
(Image: Sergey Gorshkov)
They also had to create software that could be triggered from a distance so they could catch more of the rarely seen animals, and worked with Russian park rangers to look after the cameras and move their locations when needed.
Producer Jane Atkins said: “We had a a bear chew one of the cameras and break it. We had a tree fall on another and we had cables just snap because of the minus 35 degree temperatures.
“There were also massive snowstorms. It really was a challenge. We also had to play detective, moving the cameras around each time we got a sighting to work out where they were most likely be next.”
(Image: Sergey Gorshkov)
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It took two years to capture a Siberian tiger covering the tracks of an Amur Leopard. Jane added: “When we showed that footage to David Attenborough he stopped and said, ‘congratulations. That’s extraordinary to get two big cats walking the same paths.’
“It felt really special – this idea that we’re seeing these really extraordinary, really rare big cats, sharing the same paths and same forest.
“They were avoiding each other but being within proximity so that you could see the leopard walking with footprint and then the Syberian Tiger later walking over them.”
Atttenborough said: “Hunting has brought it close to extinction. Only 120 are left in the wild and very few have ever been caught on film.
Yet thanks to rangers the populations have almost tripled in the last 10 years. The episode opens with a pack of 25 wolves taking on American bison in northern Canada to avoid starving to death in the winter.
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