Africa (2013) s01e06 Episode Script

Africa.
In the four years of making this series, we've been to some astonishing places and seen animals behaving in ways that have never been filmed before.
But Africa has another story to tell.
The wildlife of this continent has seen more changes in the last 50 years than it has in the last two million.
Changing landscapes and changing climate.
Today's animals are facing unprecedented challenges.
Whilst around them, Africa's human population is growing at nearly double the global rate.
There is an increasing urgency to understand and, crucially, to conserve the wildlife of this great continent.
Today, there is a new generation of naturalists and scientists who are fighting to save the wild places and the animals that live in them.
One, two, three! This is the greatest wildlife continent on the planet and what happens here is relevant to us all.
So what is the future of wild Africa? Episode 6: The Future This animal has become the world's number-one target for poachers.
Its kind has been hunted almost to the point of extinction.
It's now so rare that this individual is watched over day and night.
This is the black rhinoceros.
And black rhinoceros are notorious for being rather grumpy and suddenly charging.
But he is in great danger, because he has on his nose that horn which is worth its weight in gold.
The demand for rhino horn has rocketed.
There has been a 3,000% increase in poaching just in the last five years.
Today, powdered rhino horn can fetch up to 65,000 a kilo.
Rhinos are a lucrative target for organised crime.
In Chinese medicine, it's believed that rhino horn can reduce fever and some Vietnamese sell it as a cure for everything, from cancer to hangovers.
It's made of keratin, the same substance as hair and nail, and it has no clinically proven medicinal value.
But it has made every black rhino in Africa a target.
They've all been killed in Uganda and Rwanda, and there are only around 600 left here in Kenya.
But these are not poachers.
These are protectors.
And that protection is overseen by rhino expert Dr.
Matthew Mutinda, one of the Kenya Wildlife Services' top vets.
"Black rhinos are critically endangered.
" That is what here, at Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, we're trying to do save the animal, provide a safe and secure sanctuary where the animal can breed and live freely.
There aren't many true wild rhinos left in Africa.
Most, like these, in Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, are under armed guard.
This young female has reached the age when Matthew must do some health checks, including taking blood samples.
This will help deter poachers and traffickers, as DNA in illegally traded rhino horn can be tracked back to its origin.
If you have to do anaesthesia in the wild, you will expect some degree of risk.
This female has reacted badly to the anaesthetic.
She's not breathing.
It's a rare and extremely serious situation.
He knows that the next few minutes are crucial.
And when an animal is this big, there's only one way to get the heart going again when you're out in the bush.
Thanks to Matthew's quick thinking, they can hear that she is breathing again.
They've got to get her back on her feet.
Not surprisingly, she is disorientated.
Mission accomplished.
It's been an ordeal, but now, this rhino can be tracked and protected for the rest of her life.
Within minutes, she's grazing peacefully again with her mother.
It may seem heartless to treat an animal like that, but we have to keep tabs on them and be able to identify individuals.
They're in great danger.
Even now, on average, one rhino is killed by poachers every day in Africa.
There are so few black rhino left in Kenya that we're getting to know each individual.
But this is still a creature that can surprise us.
Previously, it was widely believed that black rhinos were largely solitary creatures.
Here, in the Kalahari, a starlight camera reveals that they may be much more sociable than many thought.
This water-hole gathering is an enchanting window into the past.
Early explorers reported seeing a rhino behind every bush.
Before the invention of the gun, there were probably hundreds of thousands of rhinos across the continent.
The people protecting rhinos in Africa are striving to ensure that we'll still be able to witness wonderful scenes like this in 50 years' time.
Right across Africa, conservationists have realised that if we want to save our big animals, then now is the time.
The human population of the continent has just exceeded one billion and many wild animals are being hunted commercially for food.
Some, legally, but many, illegally.
Wildlife meat is often sold as goat or beef.
The amount is astonishing.
Millions of tonnes are eaten across Africa every year.
At this rate, some species are almost certainly heading for extinction.
But commercial hunting is not just affecting the grazers.
As the prey decreases, it's affecting the predators too.
50 years ago, there were about half a million lions in Africa.
Today, there are less than 30,000.
But in one particular part of Africa, things are improving in a quite extraordinary way.
These hunters have become part of a new and unlikely alliance.
In recent years, hungry lions have increasingly been killing livestock.
One group of traditional Maasai have reacted in a very untraditional way.
The Maasai are cattle herders who don't eat wild animals.
But when lions attack their herds, they've always retaliated.
Maasai and lions are ancient adversaries.
A lion hunt is still a rite of passage for young Maasai warriors like Olubi Lairumbe.
For me and any Maasai, killing a lion is the ultimate fulfilment of a truly accomplished Maasai.
Nothing compares to that.
There is nobody who knows more about living alongside lions than the Maasai themselves.
I met Olubi and some of the other warriors in his village to find out about their relationship with the local pride.
How many lions are there around here? Around here, there are about 100.
So they all have names? Every single lion has a name.
A Maasai name.
And when you see a lion, do you know how it's going to behave? It depends on the lion.
For a Maasai warrior, lions are nothing to be scared of.
But if I saw a lion, a lion would be likely to attack me.
Only if you threaten it.
Mmm, well, I hope the next lion knows that.
Olubi killed his first lion when he was just 17, after it attacked his cattle.
Unfortunately, the lion turned out to be pregnant.
And that led to a remarkable turnaround.
The Maasai respect all living things.
And I began to feel guilty about the lion that I had killed.
In the end, I came to admire the lions.
Olubi had a dramatic change of heart.
He turned his back on hundreds of years of Maasai tradition.
Along with some other warriors, Olubi became a lion guardian.
Instead of hunting lions, Olubi will be protecting them.
He teamed up with Stephanie Dolrenry, who helped pioneer the project.
Just by respecting their traditions and also bringing in their ecological knowledge, it's been hugely successful.
They know their areas, they know how to track lions, they've been doing it for generation after generation.
They know how to track them, they know how to hunt them, they know how to find them.
This is only a small-scale project.
But with lion numbers as low as they are, they need all the help they can get.
Olubi is tracking radio-collared lions.
He's able to warn villages to move their cattle when the pride is in the area.
And so, they're avoiding conflict.
No lions have been killed in the immediate area since the project began.
By combining the science, both ancient and contemporary, they're beginning to make a real difference.
There's so much to be learned.
I feel I bring in modern technology, modern knowledge.
And, in return, they teach us about the environment and how things have changed in their environment.
And it's a really neat exchange.
You can't say we're the biologists or the teachers.
Or the guardians or the teachers.
We're both teachers and we're both students and I think that's that blend is amazing.
Critically, at the heart of this project is a huge attitude change by these Maasai warriors.
An animal that was once their sworn enemy, they now protect.
And their willingness to share knowledge with other communities means that projects like this could be repeated in other parts of Africa.
Traditionally, when a warrior killed a lion, He took the name of the lion.
Now, it's the other way round.
Now, the lion takes the name of the warrior who protects it.
The scheme is a huge success.
There are about 100 lions involved in the scheme in this neighbourhood.
This is 21st-century conservation in action.
Perhaps the biggest threat to wildlife is the competition for space with the rapidly-growing human population.
The Virunga volcanoes straddle the borders of Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The rich volcanic soils are extremely fertile.
It's one of the most intensively cultivated areas in Africa.
But the farmers also share this region with one of our closest relatives.
This is home to the last 800-or-so wild mountain gorillas left on Earth.
We know a great deal about these animals, they've been closely studied for 50 years.
One strong silverback male keeps everyone in order.
And gorilla family life is mostly peaceful.
Until a few generations ago, mountain gorillas, hidden in the seclusion of their forests were seldom seen by human beings.
But their habitat was steadily being carved away, and now these gorillas are marooned on the volcanic slopes in a sea of farmland.
The fact that gorillas now regularly come into contact with people not only means an increased threat of poaching, but also of disease.
Gorillas have little or no resistance to the bugs that we carry.
Numbers here once dropped to around 250.
They were facing extinction.
Action had to be taken.
The boundaries of the National Park were strictly enforced, halting the encroachment of farmland.
And it was decided that the only solution was to intensively manage the remaining gorillas.
Teams of scientists constantly monitor them.
Their forests are patrolled to cut poachers' snares.
And vets watch their health closely.
No, don't take it This is funded mostly through eco-tourism and donations from all over the world.
Mountain gorillas are now back from the brink.
This level of human intervention might not be ideal, but it's working.
Every year, there are a few more mountain gorillas and, possibly, just a little more optimism.
Intensive management within a protected area may represent the only future for many African species.
But for some animals, that is simply not possible.
What happens if the animal you're trying to protect is not suited to park life? Elephants require vast amounts of space to roam.
They have a range of up to 1,300 square miles.
Given the chance, they will even move between countries in search of the best food.
Particularly, if conditions get rough.
This was the scene in Amboseli National Park in 2009.
The park is home to nearly 1,500 elephants.
And this was the worst drought for half a century.
60% of zebras and 95% of wildebeests were wiped out.
The seasonal rains had failed for the last two years.
And the elephants that lived here were slowly starving.
The park created to protect them is now surrounded by farmland.
The elephants had little choice of where else to go.
Caught up in this catastrophe, were three sisters.
They are the front line for elephant protection in the park.
And they know these animals better than anyone else.
Nora Njiraini and Katito and Soila Sayialel.
You know, all the elephants have been given names.
They are family to us.
Hello, Anastasia! The sisters have been following these elephants for over 25 years, trying to ensure their safety, particularly at times when life is tough for these animals.
It really was terrible.
There was nothing actually to feed on.
I even went and asked the old Maasai men whether they have ever experienced such a drought.
The only time it was close to what it was then, was in 1961.
In 2009 we lost quite a number of elephants.
I think we lost about 400 elephants.
And it started with the young ones.
Elephants usually escape drought by moving into other less affected areas.
But Africa's human population is growing at double the global rate.
And traditional migration routes have been cut by the development of towns, cities, farmland and roads, leaving these elephants stuck.
This young calf is starving and there is nothing they can do to help.
For the sisters, who know each elephant personally, this is a terrible moment.
It is something that we feel in our hearts.
You can imagine the kind of feelings that we get.
You know, knowing those elephants and seeing something like that happen.
It really touches us.
It was a tough year for all the young elephants in the region.
We lost all the calves that were born that year.
All of them, we lost them.
There was nothing the sisters could do to save the baby.
But they were determined to save any elephants they could, especially mothers who could breed again.
They found this female stuck in the mud, exhausted in a dried-up lake bed.
The elephant that got stuck in the mud was Kolida.
Poor thing, you know.
She was there for quite a long time.
A Maasai reported it to us and we had to combine efforts with the Kenya Wildlife Services people.
Weighing about three tonnes, Kolida is just too heavy to shift by hand.
She is weakening fast.
So the next morning, heavy machinery is brought in.
After two days stuck in the mud, Kolida is exhausted, but she's up on her feet again.
The rains did return to Amboseli.
And thanks in part to the work of those dedicated three women, elephant numbers are now beginning to rise again.
There's no doubt that this was an extremely severe event.
But is it an isolated incident or a developing pattern? They say that with global warming, we actually don't know what's going to happen.
But we just have to cross fingers and hope for a better future.
Given the opportunity, the numbers of elephants in East Africa will recover.
Especially, if they're given the freedom to range widely and so avoid the harshest conditions.
One solution to help elephants find the space they need is to link parks together and provide safe routes between them.
Elephants are great travellers and here, in this part of Kenya, they regularly moved from the lowlands up the side of the mountains to feed in the forests up there.
But then, the human population of Kenya grew and roads like this one were constructed, penning the elephants down in the lowland, where they created havoc amongst the farms.
Not only that, there were danger of collisions on the road.
And then someone suggested building an underpass.
Within 24 hours of it being completed, one elephant had passed through.
And now, all the elephants use that route to go up the mountain, often at night, to feed.
Simple ideas like this underpass are a lifeline for these elephants, especially in times of drought.
Africa's climate is certainly changing.
Some parts of the continent have become 3.
5 degrees centigrade hotter in the past 20 years.
At the summit of Africa's most famous mountain, Kilimanjaro, 80% of its permanent ice fields have disappeared.
Soon, it will be free of ice altogether.
All over Africa, the mountainous regions are often the first indicators of climate change.
Here, in the Ethiopian Highlands live very unusual-looking creatures.
Gelada baboons.
Climate change refugees.
Although this region of Ethiopia lies in the tropics, up at 4,000 metres, it doesn't feel like it.
Unlike most African animals, geladas are adapted to life in the cold.
They used to be one of Africa's most successful primates, found all over the continent.
At one stage, there were six different species.
Now, there is only one.
With the warming climate, their grazing is becoming more and more scarce, restricted to cooler and higher places.
These geladas are being forced higher into the mountains.
Soon, there will be nowhere left to go.
This is a species living on the edge.
Even though they're isolated on the mountain tops, they're not immune to our influence.
As a result of changing climate, these gelada baboons may soon be gone from our planet.
Africa is the world's hottest continent.
And there is no doubt it's getting warmer.
The Sahara is the largest hot desert in the world.
Very little can survive in these harsh conditions.
Along the desert edge, life clings on in the face of encroaching sands.
But for how long? Alongside the wildlife, 22 million people struggle to make a living on these desert margins.
Can anything be done to stop the sand overwhelming this fragile land? One idea is to build a green wall of trees across 11 countries.
The project has already started in Senegal.
But like all big ideas, it has big problems.
Getting 11 countries to work together is not easy and simply irrigating a 5,000-mile long belt of trees is an ambitious task.
But all over Africa, people are recognising how important it is to have trees as part of their local landscape.
This group of volunteers has planted nearly 100 million saplings.
They are just one of countless similar groups and individuals taking it upon themselves to reforest their own part of this great continent.
Trees are essential for the future of the continent and indeed, to the rest of the planet.
This is the Congo Basin.
It's one of the most biologically important forests on Earth and it's not just because of the concentration of plants and animals that live here.
It's because it's also one of the powerhouses behind the planet's wind and rain.
Each hectare of trees releases, as vapour, almost 190,000 litres of water a year.
This water passes into the atmosphere to be transported around the entire globe.
That means the heart of the world's weather lies in tropical forests.
Unfortunately, there's an almost insatiable demand in Europe and China for hardwood from these very forests.
And that is having an enormous impact.
As more tropical forest is felled, some scientists are seeing a correlation with changing storm patterns across Europe and America.
And it's likely to become more extreme.
Staggeringly, 50% of the Congo Basin forest has been allocated for logging.
The future of Africa's forest has never been more critical for us all.
But the consequences of global warming aren't limited to the land.
Africa is almost completely surrounded by oceans.
Here on the east coast, there are animals feeling the changing climate in a most surprising way.
This is a young female green turtle.
During her lifetime, she will travel thousands of miles through the ocean looking for food.
Turtles return to the same beach from which they hatched to lay their own eggs.
The eggs are buried in the sand and the hatchlings will emerge after about two months.
But there's a strange thing about turtle eggs.
And that is the temperature at which the eggs are kept will determine the sex of most of the hatchlings.
If the sand temperature is high, they will be female, if it's low, they will be male.
Global warming could have a crucial effect on turtle populations.
And this young female may find it very difficult in years to come to find a male with which to mate.
But a local conservation group recognised that the odds are stacking up against these little turtles.
There's not much they can do about climate change, but they have got together with the local fishermen to try and improve the turtles' chances of survival.
Every turtle counts.
So, each time one is found injured or accidentally caught in the nets, it's brought to Kahindi Changawa and his team.
So we began with only 16 fishermen altogether in 1998.
Now we have hundreds of fishermen working with us.
Grazing by turtles is essential for the health of the beds of seagrass and these are the home of shrimps and lobsters and that, of course, helps fishermen too.
The project has a turtle rehabilitation centre and for the last two years, it's become home to Shella.
She had an accident with a boat.
It was a hit from behind.
She lost three ribs and her spine was as well damaged.
It's now in the process of healing back together.
Shella's injuries have affected her buoyancy.
She's healed well and to encourage her to exercise her flippers properly, she has, every day, a little trip to the seaside.
We usually take Shella for a sea bath on a daily basis, and the reason for doing that is to give her enough room to get exercises.
She gets an opportunity to eat her natural food.
We believe it keeps her fit and the other thing is, she gets to use her rear flippers quite often.
For Kahindi, it's one of the rewards for all his hard work.
It's really enjoyable.
Very few people have the privilege like I do of swimming with the turtles and having that fun.
I do enjoy what I'm doing.
Shella certainly did get stronger, but the hope that some day she might swim out in the open was not to be fulfilled.
Unaccountably, she become weaker and eventually died.
This kind of work will inevitably have setbacks.
But there are always new turtles to be cared for.
- Is she healthy? - Yeah, this one is healthy.
She has a few bruises, could be from the fishing gear.
Like these ones here.
- Oh, yeah, but otherwise healthy.
- Otherwise the turtle's healthy.
Shall we have a go? Since 1998 till now, we've released over 8,200 turtles.
It makes me feel proud and privileged, we've done lots of work with the community and changing the attitudes and their behaviours.
I guess our job as an organisation was really successful.
A young turtle like that could lay 6,000-7,000 eggs in her lifetime.
So, the survival of just one could have huge consequences.
Saving just one individual requires huge effort and of course, saving a species requires even more.
But these heroic efforts are only ever going to be a partial solution.
Every individual animal is part of a much bigger story, part of an interconnected web of plants, animals and the landscape itself that make up an entire ecosystem.
Saving ecosystems is the key to Africa's wild future.
Gorongosa in Mozambique is a modern day Jurassic Park.
It's ruled by some of the world's biggest crocodiles.
Some of these monsters are six metres long and close to 50 years old.
Somehow they managed to escape a civil war lasting nearly 20 years, which swept through Gorongosa.
95% of all the other large animals were wiped out.
But 50 years ago, the scene was very different.
This was a thriving tourist attraction.
A wild paradise.
Visitors flocked from around the world, drawn by the vast range and abundance of the wildlife.
The most popular spot for tourists was an old restaurant, a look-out post for the local lions.
The restaurant has long gone.
Along with the lions.
Gorongosa looked empty and beyond rescue.
But not to everyone.
A brave and ambitious project began to try and restore the park to its former richness and splendour.
The first stage is to find out which animals as well as crocodiles are still here.
So the team is mapping and counting all the big animals they see in the park.
But it soon became clear that these big animals were only part of the story.
Perhaps even more important might be the little ones hidden underfoot.
It's understanding these creatures that is attracting some of the best minds in the scientific world.
- You were going to show me something? - Yep, something new.
Professor Ed Wilson is a world expert on biodiversity and at a mere 83, he's still pursuing his passion ants.
- You see there's a big nest - Wow.
Let me just get one specimen.
If you look down at your feet, you may see them.
Walking by here and there, an ant, a little beetle They're what I like to call the little things that run the Earth.
It's the rich diversity of insect life here that gives Gorongosa the prospect of a future.
These creatures form the basis of life in the park.
This is so much fun.
These little invertebrate creatures.
The creatures that do most of the work, turn most of the energy, save most of the material and allow us to reinsert big animals with some confidence.
- Have you got it in the vial yet? Oh, good.
- Yeah.
I've got three of them.
Professor Wilson was one of the first scientists to explore this area together with local wildlife biologist Tonga Tortuda.
If you could gather them all up, all these little invertebrate creatures, and weigh them, they would weigh far more than all of the big animals put together, even in a fully restored park.
It's these little creatures, together with the plants and trees, that still make this place a viable option for reintroducing bigger animals.
I can't be sure that's a new species, but this is the kind of thing that might be.
This park came that close to vanishing and I'm happy to report it is coming back.
And this is one of the great stories.
It's inspirational, I think.
It's a fine, shining example of what to do with all our parks, even those that have been damaged by human activity.
But there's another reason why Gorongosa is important for the future of Africa and perhaps for us all.
It is here, in this park, that people come to see, not just the big animals that thrill us, but they will see Earth as it looked and felt before the coming of humanity.
Saving big animals is important, but to do that with any real success, we have to start understanding and preserving the plants and insects that support an ecosystem.
It's this that will allow the larger animals to thrive.
Gorongosa is a real success story.
The government and the management team have pledged themselves to a plan to restore the land to what it was.
While it can never be exactly the same as it was before the war, it can still become a rich and thriving ecosystem.
The scale of the challenge across Africa is enormous.
After all, it's a huge continent.
The United Kingdom, China, the United States of America, India, Japan and most of the rest of Europe would all fit within its borders.
Africa still retains 45% of the Earth's uncultivated land.
It's still the greatest wilderness on Earth and that is why it's important.
Human beings have lived alongside wildlife here longer than anywhere else.
But now in the 21st century, animal numbers are at a critical level.
Like it or not, this generation is responsible for handing on the world's wildlife to the next.
That means taking care of the animals and lands where they live, so there is still space for us all to coexist.
Nobody knows what the future has in store for this little calf.
Or indeed, how the changes that inevitably are going to take place in Africa will affect the rest of the world and this little animal.
But one thing is certain.
What happens here is more important than it has ever been and that the relationship of the rest of the world to this great continent and the creatures that live in it is more important than ever before.
On whichever part of the planet we live, we all have a part to play in what sort of future this wild continent has.
Africa, the final shoot.
It's one of our most ambitious trips with lots of locations to visit - and many technical hurdles to overcome.
- Five, take one.
To the west are vast rainforests the size of India.
Helicopters enable us to go to extraordinary landscapes We're heading off to do the very first visit, the opening of the whole Africa series with David.
How do you like the view from my office? And attempt air-to-air filming.
Stand by, David, and action! I'm flying over the Great Rift Valley in East Africa.
But perhaps the most ambitious task for this shoot is the filming with black rhinoceros.
They have a reputation for being aggressive and with poor eyesight, they're likely to charge objects or people they don't recognise.
But the plight of the rhino is such an important story that we want to get as close to them as possible.
We also want to meet the people who are working to protect them.
So our team have come to assess the viability of filming up close with a rhino called Elvis who's been reared by humans.
He should be safer than a wild rhino, but there's still a risk he could be unpredictable with strangers.
Wildlife ranger, Tonga Kaseyo has brought up Elvis by hand and knows that tickling him gently with a stick keeps him calm.
But if anything were to go seriously wrong, there would be little he could do against a one-tonne Elvis.
And this fact hasn't escaped cameraman Mike Fox.
He knows we're here.
We're here on his terms.
If he decided to bat us all into the next world he would do.
Director Kate Broome checks with Tonga that it's safe for the crew to get closer.
Normally, we have to stay in the Land Rovers.
They're saying it's okay to go in.
This is such an extraordinary opportunity, to be this close to a black rhino.
The trial goes well with Elvis and the stage is set for future filming.
Several weeks later, the team are back and this time I've joined them.
But Elvis's mood has changed.
He seems more wilful.
Now, I've stood by many wild animals in my time, but I'm not as fast on my pins as I used to be.
We don't want to test Elvis's patience, so we get on with filming.
A horn that is worth its weight in gold.
And one way of protecting him would be to cut that horn off the nose.
- How is it? - It looks great.
The team check that they have what they need and Elvis lets us know that he's had enough.
- Just watch out, everybody.
Yeah.
- I'll get out of the way.
But actually, it's a positive sign that Elvis is not as friendly this time.
Tonga and his colleagues want Elvis to live more like a wild rhino and develop a wariness of humans that may offer him some protection from poachers.
Good luck to you, Elvis.
Whilst filming, we're lucky enough to have a very well equipped camp.
It's in the bush and there's no escaping the wild animals.
One of the great, wonderful things about camping out in the middle of the open is the animals.
But it can also be one of the dangerous/annoying things.
Absolutely.
In the annoying category, vervet monkeys.
Vervet monkeys have stolen my Ferrero Rocher and one of my glow sticks from our medical supplies.
So, if we see a luminous-faced monkey in the night, I'll identify the naughty one that's been stealing our stuff.
And they leave little presents for us when they've been in, just as a calling card.
But camp manager Andres finds more worrying animal signs.
Well, the lions were quite close, just behind the tents.
Some must have come in and I don't know You can see a few scratches.
I think maybe he was wanting to look at himself in the mirror.
Lions in camp are worrying enough, but there I was reading my book when - Uh-oh.
- Whoa! .
.
a Cape buffalo arrives.
The most grumpy and dangerous of the big five African animals.
Mike! Stay in your tent.
Shall we get David to get in the tent? Buffalo usually move in herds, so there's something odd about him.
It may be that it was brought up as a calf and is humanised.
Or it may be that he's an outcast from the herd in some way and that he's rather grumpy and fed up with life.
But I think it's just hot and he's just plodding around and wondering where he might get a drink and a decent sandwich.
I feel the same way myself, actually.
The team's filming has coincided with the newest arrival at Lewa, a baby rhino in need of 24-hour care.
This little chap was born blind and is guided everywhere by his keepers.
They took him away from his mother a few weeks ago, because she couldn't protect him any more.
He's very vulnerable so he would have been killed by predators.
It's like filling up a petrol tank.
Every rhino is precious and so it seems a fitting end for the final scene of the series.
No-one knows what the future holds for this little creature, nor indeed what changes will take place on the great continent on which he lives.
David, I found that - Oh, gosh.
There's ants everywhere.
- That's what it is.
Yeah, hang on.
Ants.
Ant attack! I just found that extraordinarily moving, actually.
- What I said was all right? Are you sure? - Yes.
And how you did it, it made me cry, I'm afraid, so David Attenborough's made me cry.
But just as we think we're finishing, someone won't let us go.
Hello, little fellow.
He starts to squeak and we're able to have a little chat.
Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh.
Oh.
Mm.
Oh! Think about it, he's got a black world, hasn't he? And he's got smell and he's got sound, so he's more likely to be responding to sound if he hasn't got the vision.
He's just inquisitive, I suppose.
Are you coming back? Oh! There is hope for this little fellow.
He's due to have an operation on his eyes which may mean that as an adult he can be returned to the wild just like Elvis.
I do hope he gets a cataract operation.
It would be marvellous if he did.
Enchanting creature.
If you'd like to see some of my earlier encounters, from Africa to Far East to Australia, go online to my collection on bbc.
co.
uk/bbcfour