exquisite narration from Sir David Attenborough<\/a> and sublime visual storytelling we\u2019ve come to expect from this kind of affair, charts the challenges of child-rearing for a broad breadth of species across the animal kingdom. Created by Silverback Films \u2013 the crack team behind Life on our Planet and The Secret Life of Orangutans \u2013 the show was painstakingly filmed over three years across six continents and 23 countries, from the grasslands of Botswana to the remote jungles of Bhutan.<\/p>\nBut it\u2019s not the sumptuous shots of a lowland gorilla cradling her newborn that have moved me, nor the sweeping aerial views of a killer whale clan led across midnight waters by their formidable grandmother. It\u2019s the plight of an unremarkable-looking seabird attempting to go it alone for the first time.<\/p>\n
Yes, the natural world can be ruthless and cruel; law of the jungle \u2013 or ocean \u2013 and all that. But the reason for my distress is that what\u2019s happening on screen isn\u2019t natural. David said so himself! \u201cGannets aren\u2019t usually taken by seals, but in this depleted ocean, prey of any kind is worth having,\u201d he explains in his distinctive, husky tone, which inexplicably cuts through to my conscience like a hot knife through butter.<\/p>\n
Human overfishing has driven these birds to fly further and further away from their South African colony to source sardines for their young. The seals are having the same problem; in a habitat where fish are no longer plentiful, they\u2019ve been forced to adapt by attacking endangered gannets instead.<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s the plight of the Californian kelp forests, where overfishing and ever-warming oceans have led to a \u201cplague\u201d of urchins ripping across the sea floor, while the sight of a pale octopus laying her eggs inside a discarded piece of piping prompts another stab of environmental guilt. \u201cIn their year-long lives, 13 million tonnes of plastic will have been dumped onto their ocean homes,\u201d Attenborough tells us sombrely, and I feel like weeping. Why are humans so awful?, comes the unwelcome thought on repeat. Why can\u2019t we just learn to share nicely?<\/p>\n
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open image in gallery<\/p>\n
A cape gannet parent flying over a breeding colony on Malgas Island, South Africa (BBC\/Silverback Films)<\/p>\n
Thankfully, the \u201cdiaries\u201d at the end of each episode reveal that some humans, at least, aren\u2019t so terrible. These 10-minute segments show the teams who worked tirelessly to obtain the footage, including native guides who\u2019ve spent years building relationships with the animals we see on screen. \u201cIt\u2019s a form of love, and love is at the centre of everything,\u201d as one gorilla tracker so poetically puts it.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, we\u2019re shown that parenting is no joke even without man-made obstacles. We journey all over the world in the first episode, following a pride of lionesses in Botswana\u2019s Kalahari Desert teaching their cubs to hunt, and a mother and baby hippo attempting to find food come nightfall in Tanzania\u2019s Ruaha National Park, the infrared camera rendering them luminescent and ethereal as spirits at a seance.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/508548-(1).jpeg\")
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open image in gallery<\/p>\n
A father lion patiently playing with his young cub (BBC\/Silverback Films)<\/p>\n
But the most exhilarating \u2013 OK, horrifying \u2013 storyline comes courtesy of Namibia\u2019s female African social spider, mother to a batch of spiderlings. She lives and hunts in a pack with her sisters, legs rustling in unison in truly nightmarish fashion. But soon enough, their 1,000-strong army of \u201cinsatiable\u201d young start hunting for themselves and… well, let\u2019s just say they give the phrase \u201ckeeping it in the family\u201d a whole new meaning.<\/p>\n
Nothing like some good old-fashioned matricide to make you grateful that, while our species may be slowly destroying the Earth, at least a human toddler\u2019s most toxic trait is throwing a tantrum in the middle aisle of Lidl.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-315373","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-united-states","9":"tag-us","10":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114966622627301410","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}