Liz Bonnin and remote camera crews shadow three herds as they gamble everything on seasonal movement. In Kenya, GPS collars reveal how 250 elephants time their arrival at the Amboseli swamps with the first monsoon. The second film rides shotgun with 400,000 caribou calves on the 5,000-kilometre trek across Arctic Canada, where drones quantify how many survive wolf packs and river crossings. The final episode tails Botswana’s zebra on a 240-kilometre push to Nxai Pan’s short-lived grass, a detour that doubled after veterinary fences blocked traditional routes.
Each 60-minute instalment was shot over 18 months, using 4K shoulder rigs, gyrostabilised Cineflex mounts and collar-transmitted coordinates to anticipate arrival points rather than chase animals. Executive producer Kiri Cashell adopted the BBC’s “race” format, originally developed for The Great Race, letting the journey itself drive the narrative. The score alternates orchestral swells with regional recordings: Maasai chanting in Amboseli, Gwich’in fiddle in the Arctic, Tswana thumb piano in the Kalahari.
First transmitted on BBC One from 11–25 May 2016 under the title Nature’s Epic Journeys, the series reached American audiences a year later on PBS, rebranded Nature’s Great Race. BBC Earth rolled it out across 46 territories, making it the unit’s most-travelled limited-series commission of 2016.
Production Details
BBC One / 1 Season / 3 Episodes / 2017
Producer(s): Kiri Cashell
Main Cast
Liz Bonnin as Self
Saba Douglas-Hamilton as Self
Nigel Barber as Narrator
