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4 Episodes 2009 - 2009
Episode 1
Chimpanzees are man's closest relatives, 95% DNA-compatible. Their social life is as complex as a human tribe's, with family and political aspects as well as widely differing individual characters. For the troop portrayed in Uganda's forest, that means lots of drama in the power struggle between the unpopular reigning alpha-male and his rivals. In between collecting food, nesting and grooming, they must also contend with a horrible poaching threat.
Episode 2
In Tanzania, observing a troop a baboons (monkeys, no apes) shows in how far they merit their reputation as daredevil pests. They are equally playful, inventive, eager to learn and quarrelsome. Thus they adapt rather well to changes, even man-made. The pecking-order among females is determined by birth, without primogeniture, but reflects on all family members. Males constantly fight for shifting superiority, even wandering over to other troops, but can't win harem-like exclusivity when females are in heat.
Episode 3
The orangutan is highly endangered, having lost nearly all its forests over Asia and rapidly still more to plantations. Conservation will only save it if programs are developed to reintroduce captivity-bred apes to the remaining wild tracts. Such a program in Sabah (northern Malaysian Borneo) shows how complex and hard to learn their lives are, requiring intricate knowledge of the forest, such as edible plants and when they bear fruit, while Charlotte demonstrates her utter ignorance.
Episode 4
Charlotte's team joins a German zoologist with a ludicrously large local escort to study mountain gorillas in an Uganda forest reserve, demonstrating her ignorance about that environment as well as poor practical planning. The apes prove rather elusive and the jungle weather a terrible spotting-spoilsport. The family of 17 has a rather strict hierarchy where only the youngsters enjoy exemption from the rule of the biggest. The system makes the silver-back their benign despot as well as protector, with two black-back males in waiting, yet the most enterprising one sneakily mates most females too. Nearly all their time is spend eating as their vegetable diet requires an incredible mass of food.