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''Animal Park'' is a

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television documentary series about the lives of keepers and animals at

Longleat Safari Park Longleat Safari and Adventure Park in Wiltshire, England, was opened in 1966 as the world's first drive-through safari park outside Africa. History The park is situated in the grounds of Longleat House, an English stately home which is open t ...

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...

, England. The show is presented by

Kate Humble Katherine Mary Humble (born 12 December 1968) is an English television presenter and narrator, mainly working for the BBC, specialising in wildlife and science programmes. Humble served as President of the Royal Society for the Protection of Bi ...

Ben Fogle Benjamin Myer Fogle, (born 3 November 1973) is an English broadcaster, writer and adventurer, best known for his presenting roles with British television channels Channel 5, BBC and ITV. Early life Fogle is the son of English actress Juli ...

and

Megan McCubbin Megan McCubbin (born 1995) is an English zoologist, conservationist, photographer and television presenter. Biography McCubbin has dyslexia and took Environmental Studies at A-Level. A foundation year in Biological Science led her to study Z ...

, with appearances by members of Longleat staff and the landowners, the Thynn family. As of August 2022, the main series has aired 17 times, usually 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 Alexander George Thynn, 7th Marquess of Bath (6 May 1932 – 4 April 2020), styled Viscount Weymouth between 1946 and 1992, was an English peer and landowner, owner of the Longleat estate, who sat in the House of Lords from 1992 until 1999, an ...

, 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 Longleat is an English stately home and the seat of the Marquesses of Bath. A leading and early example of the Elizabethan prodigy house, it is adjacent to the village of Horningsham and near the towns of Warminster and Westbury in Wilts ...

and the ongoing preservation of its historic contents.

History

Original series

The first series of ''Animal Park'', originally broadcast in 2000 on

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, p ...

, was presented by

and

Paul Heiney Paul Heiney (born Paul Wisniewski; 20 April 1949) is a British radio broadcaster and television reporter most notable as a former presenter of ''That's Life!''. Early life He was born in Sheffield, Yorkshire, the son of Norbert Wisniewski and Ev ...

. In series two, Heiney was replaced by

. Altogether, there were nine series and 150 episodes of ''Animal Park'', with the last episode originally airing on 25 March 2009. The forerunner to ''Animal Park'' was a BBC One series called ''Lion Country'', also filmed at Longleat Safari Park, which aired in 1998 and 1999 with a total of 55 episodes.

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 BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream an ...

. Set in

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...

, it documented the work of wildlife conservationists. Another spin-off, ''Animal Park: Wild on the West Coast'', had a similar format in

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, and was originally broadcast in 2007 on BBC Two.

2016 revival

In 2016, the

...
announced that ''Animal Park'' would return for a tenth series to celebrate the 50th anniversary of

. 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

and

, with

Jean Johansson Jean may refer to: People * Jean (female given name) * Jean (male given name) * Jean (surname) Fictional characters * Jean Grey, a Marvel Comics character * Jean Valjean, fictional character in novel ''Les Misérables'' and its adaptations * J ...

as a reporter. An eleventh series was broadcast in 2017. Five episodes aired during Easter, with a further ten airing during the summer. ''Animal Park: Summer Special'', series twelve, was aired in August 2018. Episode 3 celebrated the life of the gorilla 'Nico', who died in January 2018 at the age of 56. Episode 7 featured wildlife photographer

Will Burrard-Lucas Will Burrard-Lucas (born 2 September 1983), is a British wildlife photographer and entrepreneur. He is known for developing devices, such as BeetleCam and camera traps, which enable him to capture close-up photographs of wildlife. Early life and ...

, who used his remote-control

BeetleCam The BeetleCam is a remote controlled buggy with a DSLR or mirrorless camera mounted on top which can be used to film and photograph wildlife at very close range. Created by Will Burrard-Lucas, its first shots were released in 2010 in a series call ...

to take a series of close-up photographs of the animals. 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,

, who died in April 2020. 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. In 2021, wildlife cameraman

Hamza Yassin Hamza Ahmed Yassin (born 22 February 1990) is a Sudanese-British wildlife cameraman and presenter, known for his role as Ranger Hamza on the children's television channel CBeebies and his work on shows such as ''Countryfile'' and '' Animal Par ...

joined the presenting team. Series seventeen aired in August 2022, with

replacing Johansson.

Transmissions

Main series

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''

''Animal Park: Wild on the West Coast''

References

External links

*{{BBC programme
''Animal Park''
at the

Internet Movie Database IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...

Longleat Safari Park's official website
(archived in 2009) BBC television documentaries 2000 British television series debuts 2000s British documentary television series 2010s British documentary television series 2020s British documentary television series Films set in zoos British television series revived after cancellation English-language television shows Television shows set in Wiltshire