Animal Park

Animal Park is a BBC television documentary series about the lives of keepers and animals at Longleat Safari and Adventure Park, Wiltshire, England. The show is presented by Kate Humble, Ben Fogle and Megan McCubbin, with appearances by members of Longleat staff and the landowners, the Thynn family.

This article is about the TV documentary. For the children's TV series, see Animal Park (1991 TV series). For animal parks in general, see Safari park and Zoo.

Animal Park
Title screen
Presented by
Theme music composerSimon May
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
No. of series
  • 18 (main series)
  • 2 (Wild in Africa)
  • 1 (Wild on the West Coast)
No. of episodes
  • 261 (main series)
  • 25 (Wild in Africa)
  • 10 (Wild on the West Coast)
Production
Production locationLongleat Safari Park
Running time15–60 minutes
Production companiesBBC, Endemol UK
Release
Original networkBBC One (2000–2002, 2016–present)
BBC Two (2004–2009)
Original releaseOriginal series:
10 July 2000 (2000-07-10) – 25 March 2009 (2009-03-25)
Revived series:
22 August 2016 (2016-08-22) –
present
Related
  • The Lions of Longleat
  • Lion Country

As of August 2022, there have been 18 series of the programme as well as three special series, usually shown during school holidays and broadcast on weekdays in the daytime as daily episodes.

Content

Programmes show the animals, keepers, and day-to-day running of the safari park. Some of the animals captured the hearts of the viewing public, including the tiger 'Kadu', rhinos 'Babs' and 'Winston', and Europe's oldest male silverback gorilla, 'Nico'.

Alexander Thynn, 7th Marquess of Bath, owner of the Longleat estate until his death on 4 April 2020, appeared regularly in the show. Animal Park also documents the running of Longleat House and the ongoing preservation of its historic contents.

History

Predecessors

The Lions of Longleat is a 1967 BBC One documentary about the newly opened safari park with commentary by Lord Bath and Jimmy Chipperfield.[1] Another series, Lion Country, aired between 1998 and 1999 with a total of 55 episodes.

Original series

The first series of Animal Park, originally broadcast in 2000 on BBC One, was presented by Kate Humble and Paul Heiney.[2] In series two, Heiney was replaced by Ben Fogle. Altogether, there were nine series and 150 episodes of Animal Park, with the last episode originally airing on 25 March 2009.

Spin-offs

There have been two spin-offs from the main series. Animal Park: Wild in Africa was originally broadcast in 2005 on BBC Two.[3] Set in Namibia, it documented the work of wildlife conservationists.

Another spin-off, Animal Park: Wild on the West Coast, had a similar format in California, and was originally broadcast in 2007 on BBC Two.[4]

2016 revival

In 2016, the BBC announced that Animal Park would return for a tenth series to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Longleat Safari Park.[5] This series aired for five episodes in August 2016 in a daytime slot. The show was renamed Animal Park: Summer Special and was presented by Kate Humble and Ben Fogle, with Jean Johansson as a reporter.

An eleventh series was broadcast in 2017. Five episodes aired during Easter, with a further ten airing during the summer.[6]

Animal Park: Summer Special, series twelve, was aired in August 2018.[7] Episode 3 celebrated the life of the gorilla 'Nico', who died in January 2018 at the age of 56.[8][9] Episode 7 featured wildlife photographer Will Burrard-Lucas, who used his remote-control BeetleCam to take a series of close-up photographs of the animals.[10]

Humble and Fogle continued as presenters for the 2019 and 2020 series.

Series fourteen, episode 4 (first aired in August 2020) celebrated the life of the former owner of the Longleat estate, Alexander Thynn, 7th Marquess of Bath, who died in April 2020.[11][12] His son Ceawlin Thynn, 8th Marquess and his wife Emma have since appeared on several episodes.

Series fifteen, aired in December 2020, had a Christmas theme.[13] In 2021, wildlife cameraman Hamza Yassin joined the presenting team.[14]

Series seventeen aired in August 2022, with Megan McCubbin replacing Johansson.[15]

Transmissions

Main series
SeriesStart dateEnd dateEpisodesChannel
110 July 200021 July 200010BBC One
29 July 200120 July 200110
37 May 200226 August 200225
423 February 200426 March 200425BBC Two
56 September 200413 October 200425
622 August 20059 September 200515
721 August 20068 September 200615
87 January 200820 January 200810
95 January 200925 March 200915
1022 August 201626 August 20165BBC One
1110 April 201711 August 201715
126 August 201824 August 201815
135 August 201923 August 201915
1417 August 20204 September 202015
1514 December 202018 December 20206
169 August 20219 September 202216
179 August 202218 September 20229
187 August 202325 August 202315

Some episodes from series six and eight have been re-edited into 15, 25, 30 and 45 minute programmes to be repeated and used as schedule fillers.

Animal Park: Wild in Africa
Series[16]Start dateEnd dateEpisodesChannel
14 April 20056 May 200510BBC Two
227 February 2006[17]17 March 2006[18]15

Animal Park: Wild on the West Coast
Series[19]Start dateEnd dateEpisodesChannel
123 July 20076 August 200710BBC Two

References
  1. "The Lions of Longleat – BBC One London – 12 November 1967". The Radio Times. BBC Genome (2296): 15. 9 November 1967. Retrieved 7 November 2015.
  2. "Animal Park - BBC One London - 20 July 2000". BBC Genome. Archived from the original on 9 February 2022. Retrieved 7 November 2015.
  3. "Animal Park - Wild in Africa - BBC Two England - 5 April 2005". BBC Genome. Archived from the original on 9 February 2022. Retrieved 7 November 2015.
  4. "Animal Park: Wild on the West Coast - BBC Two England - 23 July 2007". BBC Genome. Archived from the original on 19 September 2016. Retrieved 7 November 2015.
  5. "Take part in Animal Park series 10". BBC. Archived from the original on 5 April 2016. Retrieved 9 May 2016.
  6. Murray, Robin (3 March 2017). "Animal Park to return to Longleat with new major series". Wiltshire Times. Archived from the original on 3 March 2017. Retrieved 27 June 2017.
  7. Archer, Kate (5 August 2018). "When is Animal Park Summer Special on? Who are the presenters? Where is it filmed?". BT TV. Archived from the original on 8 August 2018. Retrieved 8 August 2018.
  8. "Animal Park Summer Special 2018 - episode 3". Animal Park. 8 August 2018. BBC One.
  9. "Nico the Gorilla". Longleat. 9 January 2018. Archived from the original on 8 August 2018. Retrieved 9 August 2018.
  10. "BeetleCam gets bug's eye view of Longleat's Big Four". Archived from the original on 1 September 2018. Retrieved 31 August 2018.
  11. "Lord Bath dies after contracting coronavirus". BBC News. 5 April 2020. Archived from the original on 5 April 2020. Retrieved 20 August 2020.
  12. Animal Park - Summer 2020: Episode 4, archived from the original on 9 February 2022, retrieved 20 August 2020
  13. "BBC One - Animal Park, Christmas Special - Episode guide". Archived from the original on 4 February 2021. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  14. "BBC One - Animal Park, Summer 2021, Episode 1". BBC. 25 July 2022. Retrieved 6 December 2022.
  15. "Zoologist Megan McCubbin joins BBC One's Animal Park presenting team". BBC Media Centre. 22 July 2022. Retrieved 6 December 2022.
  16. "BBC Two - Animal Park: Wild in Africa - Episode guide". Archived from the original on 2 June 2021. Retrieved 30 May 2021.
  17. "BBC Programme Index".
  18. "BBC Programme Index".
  19. "BBC Two - Animal Park: Wild on the West Coast - Episode guide". Archived from the original on 3 June 2021. Retrieved 30 May 2021.
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