The Big Cat People Podcast enterprise commenced in February with the essential encapsulation of the wild journey of Jonathan and Angela Scott in Africa, in the untamed paradise of Maasai Mara in Kenya. After a little more than one decade of the completion of the journey of BBC Natural History Unit's magnum opus, Big Cat Diary, Scott goes on to recapitulate the picturesque details of their orientation as photographers, writers, television presenters, and most importantly, as chroniclers of conservation. When one is engaged in ruminating his journey solely through the auditory wavelength, it turns out to be absolutely difficult to concentrate on the subjects in a unifocal way—harmonious coordination of words and memories so that they can be the reliable grapplings of anecdotes. Feeling really enchanted to chronicle the decapartite first series of The Big Cat People Podcast, entitled "Our Story: Becoming the Big Cat People."
EPISODE 1: IN SEARCH OF AFRICA
From the keynote of Jonathan Scott:
Welcome to The Big Cat People podcast! We're Jonathan and Angela Scott, award-winning wildlife photographers, authors and conservationists. We have made our name documenting the lives of lions, leopards and cheetahs in the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya. Today's episode will be the first in a ten-part series named "Our Story: Becoming the Big Cat People." This first episode is named "In Search of Africa," and we'll be sharing how a young English boy ended up in Africa realising his dream of working with wildlife.This podcast series is a continuing effort to educate and inspire our audience. If you'd like to learn more about us, or to check out our latest collection of educational ebooks, please visit our website: www.bigcatpeople.com
EPISODE 2: AFRICA, MY HOME
From the keynote of Jonathan Scott:
Welcome to The Big Cat People podcast! We're Jonathan and Angela Scott, award-winning wildlife photographers, authors and conservationists. We have made our name documenting the lives of lions, leopards and cheetahs in the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya. Today's episode will be the second in a ten-part series named "Our Story: Becoming the Big Cat People." This episode is named "Africa, My Home." Having arrived in Johannesburg at the end of my four-month-overland trip from London I was determined to stay. I sold my onward ticket by boat from Cape Town to Sydney in Australia but hated life in apartheid South Africa. I realized that there were three options for someone intent on doing something with wildlife. I could follow a scientific career in zoology. But that would ultimately resign me to teaching at university with less time in the field. Instead, I could train as a safari guide or run a camp or lodge to satisfy my urge to live in the bush. Or-and this seemed the most attractive-pursue my love of drawing, become a wildlife artist and nurture my interest in photography. That would allow me to spend time among big cats and earn a living. I dabbled in all three options at one time or another and after visiting with Tim and June Liversedge on their houseboat in the Okavango Delta in Botswana, I determined to make a living selling my pen and ink drawings and head back to East Africa - the savanna Africa that I had fallen in love with and where I wanted to make my home.This podcast series is a continuing effort to educate and inspire our audience. If you'd like to learn more about us, or to check out our latest collection of educational ebooks, please visit our website: www.bigcatpeople.com
EPISODE 3: THE MARSH LIONS
From the keynote of Jonathan Scott:
Welcome to The Big Cat People podcast! We're Jonathan and Angela Scott, award-winning wildlife photographers, authors and conservationists. We have made our name documenting the lives of lions, leopards and cheetahs in the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya. Today's episode will be the third in a ten-part series named "Our Story: Becoming the Big Cat People." This episode is named "The Marsh Lions." After two years in Botswana, I travel overland back to Kenya and meet up with an old friend from my university days, Paul Pavlides. Paul introduces me to Jock Anderson who manages Mara River Camp nestled along the Mara River just outside the boundary of the Maasai Mara National Reserve. In January 1977, I head for the Mara to realise my dream of living among Africa's spectacular wild creatures: after all the Mara is a predator's paradise. The deal is no pay but the free board and lodging and the chance to learn to become a safari guide accompanying visitors on daily game drives. I am overjoyed at this opportunity. My mentor is a safari guide called Joseph Rotich, known to one and all as Bwana Chui - "Mr Leopard" in Swahili - due to his uncanny ability to find the most elusive of all the big cats. Joseph teaches me how to see - how to read the signs that can reveal where a predator might be hiding. He introduces me to the pride of lions that I later name the Marsh Lions and I begin to record every detail of their lives in notebooks filled with drawings and photographs.In 1982, five years after coming to live in the Maasai Mara, The Marsh Lions: Story of an African Pride (1982) is published, co-authored with the journalist Brian Jackman, illustrated with my pen and ink drawings and photographs and based on events recorded in my diaries. I make my first appearance on television when I am featured on Nature Watch hosted by Julian Pettifer. The Marsh Pride make headlines in the film Ambush at Maasai Mara in the series Wildlife on One for the BBC. This heralds the beginning of a forty-year relationship with the BBC Natural History Unit in Bristol.This podcast series is a continuing effort to educate and inspire our audience. If you'd like to learn more about us, or to check out our latest collection of educational ebooks, please visit our website: www.bigcatpeople.com
EPISODE 4: WILD KINGDOM
From the keynote of Jonathan Scott:
Welcome to The Big Cat People podcast! We're Jonathan and Angela Scott, award-winning wildlife photographers, authors and conservationists. We have made our name documenting the lives of lions, leopards and cheetahs in the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya. Today's episode will be the fourth in a ten-part series named "Our Story: Becoming the Big Cat People." This episode is named "Wild Kingdom." I reflect on two pivotal events that occurred in early 1977 just after I had come to live at Mara River Camp - Kenya banned trophy hunting and the sale of all wildlife products, and the President of Tanzania, Julius Nyerere, closed the border with Kenya that did not reopen until 1983. This would see the Maasai Mara become the jewel in Kenya's tourism industry, leading to the proliferation of camps and lodges that today has reached crisis point. There are now 200 tourism facilities in and around the Reserve.People often ask how I came to be a television presenter. It wasn't to become famous. It was because I was doing something that people found interesting; I was passionate about wildlife and spent every minute I could in the company of the lions, leopards and cheetahs that I came to know as individuals, each with their own character. I read everything I could about animal behaviour, followed the work of the scientists and contributed my own findings to their work wherever possible. Television sought me out because - in the simplest terms - I knew what I was talking about and could communicate easily with the general public. There is nothing like passion and enthusiasm allied to knowledge. I was soon to learn that filming wildlife had its dark side. My experiences working with the long-running American TV show Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom opened my eyes to the tendency of some publishers and filmmakers to portray a false impression of untamed wilderness, and how the use of captive animals and set-up scenes were once the industry standard.This podcast series is a continuing effort to educate and inspire our audience. If you'd like to learn more about us, or to check out our latest collection of educational ebooks, please visit our website: www.bigcatpeople.com
EPISODE 5: THE LEOPARD'S TALE
From the keynote of Jonathan Scott:
Welcome to The Big Cat People podcast! We're Jonathan and Angela Scott, award-winning wildlife photographers, authors and conservationists. We have made our name documenting the lives of lions, leopards and cheetahs in the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya. Today's episode will be the fifth in a ten-part series named "Our Story: Becoming the Big Cat People." This episode is named, "The Leopard's Tale." To this day the leopard is still my favourite wild creature, the most beautiful, secretive, illusive and enigmatic of big cats. It was the leopard that I most wanted to see when I first came to Africa but poaching in the 1960s and 1970s made that impossible. Those leopards that had survived knew well to keep hidden. But in time I came to know a female I named Chui meaning leopard in Swahili and when she gave birth in early 1983 to two male cubs that I named Dark and Light I hurry home to Kenya after surgery for a ruptured disk in my lower back. Finally, I was able to gather the photographs of a mother leopard and her cubs to illustrate Chui's story - a story that had taken six years to complete. That is how hard it was to find a leopard back then let alone photograph one.Unravelling the secret life of the leopards-Chui and her mother, the ghostlike Mara Buffalo Female, and their cubs was one of the most satisfying times of my life. It enabled me to immerse myself in their world and established my credentials as an author in my own right. People often ask how I came to be a television presenter. It wasn't to become famous. It was because I was doing something that people found interesting; I was passionate about wildlife and spent every minute I could in the company of the lions, leopards and cheetahs that I came to know as individuals, each with their own character. I read everything I could about animal behaviour, followed the work of the scientists and contributed my own findings to their work wherever possible. Television sought me out because in the simplest terms-I knew what I was talking about and could communicate easily with the general public. There is nothing like passion and enthusiasm allied to knowledge. I was soon to learn that filming wildlife had its dark side. My experiences working with the long-running American TV show Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom opened my eyes to the tendency of some publishers and filmmakers to portray a false impression of untamed wilderness, and how the use of captive animals and set-up scenes were once the industry standard.This podcast series is a continuing effort to educate and inspire our audience. If you'd like to learn more about us, or to check out our latest collection of educational ebooks, please visit our website: www.bigcatpeople.com
EPISODE 6: PAINTED WOLVES AND THE GREAT MIGRATION
From the keynote of Jonathan Scott:
Welcome to The Big Cat People podcast! We're Jonathan and Angela Scott, award-winning wildlife photographers, authors and conservationists. We have made our name documenting the lives of lions, leopards and cheetahs in the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya. Today's episode is a continuation of our ten-part series named "Our Story: Becoming the Big Cat People." This episode is named, "Painted Wolves and The Great Migration." By now I have written books on lions and leopards and spent nearly ten years living in the Maasai Mara. I decide to travel south to the great Serengeti National Park in Tanzania that borders the Mara to the south. I live in my vehicle for weeks at a time over the next three years as I gather material on the Painted Wolves - the African wild dogs, the most social of all the large carnivores in complete contrast to the solitary leopards I had been focusing on. I become one with the pack, living in the den where their puppies are hidden, rising when they do, sleeping in my car wherever they bed down for the night. I find solitude among the vastness of the endless plains to seek answers to the mental health issues that have cast a shadow over my life since childhood. I witness the extent of the bush meat trade - the poaching that kills tens of thousands of animals that are snared, speared, trapped or shot each year. I complete books on both the wild dogs and the great migration, meet Prince Charles (now King Charles III), and two of my childhood heroes Sir Peter Scott and David Attenborough who endorse my work. In 1987 I win the Overall Award in the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition with one of my wild dog photographs and begin to feel that I am stepping out of my father's giant shadow.This podcast series is a continuing effort to educate and inspire our audience. If you'd like to learn more about us, or to check out our latest collection of educational ebooks, please visit our website: www.bigcatpeople.com
EPISODE 7: ANGIE: GIRL WITH THE LONG BLONDE HAIR
From the keynote of Jonathan Scott:
Welcome to The Big Cat People podcast! We're Jonathan and Angela Scott, award-winning wildlife photographers, authors and conservationists. We have made our name documenting the lives of lions, leopards and cheetahs in the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya. Today's episode is a continuation of our ten-part series named "Our Story: Becoming the Big Cat People." This episode is named, "Angie: Girl with the Long Blonde Hair." Despite realising some of my most treasured dreams, I had suffered from a condition known as dissociation - a feeling of unreality - that would sweep over me for days, weeks, months even. It began in my final year at Christ's Hospital School in England, on through University in Northern Ireland well into my 30s in Kenya. A turning point for my mental health issues was meeting Angela Bellamy in the late 1980s, the girl with the long blonde hair and beloved children Alia and David. Not only was I to come to know the joy of becoming a Father, I had never met anyone like Angela before sublime in her beauty, the best listener and companion you could ever hope for, and the love of my life. Added to that was her upbringing. She was living my dream long before I set out overland from London in 1974 in search of a life amongst wild animals in savanna Africa. She was born in Alexandria in Egypt, and raised in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania with the Serengeti as her family's favourite safari destination. We both loved art and photography and spending time in nature. By good fortune, another extraordinary female appeared in my life at this time: a leopard I named the Paradise female who in 1996 was to become Half-Tail of Big Cat Diary fame. Angela and I married in March 1992 atop the Olololoo Escarpment, 300 meters above the Mara's animal-speckled plains. A year later we decided to buy a home of our own in a leafy suburb of Nairobi overlooking the Ngong Hills, the sublime view celebrated in Karen Blixen's evocative and poetic story Out of Africa.This podcast series is a continuing effort to educate and inspire our audience. If you'd like to learn more about us, or to check out our latest collection of educational ebooks, please visit our website: www.bigcatpeople.com
EPISODE 8: FROM AFRICA TO ANTARCTICA
From the keynote of Jonathan Scott:
Welcome to The Big Cat People podcast! We're Jonathan and Angela Scott, award-winning wildlife photographers, authors and conservationists. We have made our name documenting the lives of lions, leopards and cheetahs in the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya. Today's episode is a continuation of our ten-part series named "Our Story: Becoming the Big Cat People!" This episode is named, "From Africa to Antarctica." Opportunity beckons in 1989! I'm asked to co-present Africa Watch with Julian Pettifer, the first live outside broadcast from the Maasai Mara produced by the BBC/ Discovery Channel. For ten days we beamed breathtaking images around the world, starring the Marsh Pride and the great migration. Africa Watch proves a great success. There is talk of the BBC finding a TV series for me to present, but not yet. During filming, I meet Mitsuaki Iwago the legendary wildlife photographer who tells me to be more adventurous with my own photography. 1991 hails the beginning of our love affair with Antarctica, a land beyond reality, that would keep Angela and myself enthralled to this day. Our annual expeditions aboard Abercrombie and Kent's Little Red Ship, brought to life by tales of the heroic age of exploration when Scott, Amundsen and Shackleton battled the elements to be first to the South Pole, opened a whole new chapter in our lives "Out of Africa."En route, via South America, we go in search of Angela's Grandfather Hugo Salman Backhouse who bred polo ponies on an estancia in Cordoba, Argentina, where Angela's mother Joy and Uncle Jonny were born and homeschooled. Hugo, forever the charismatic adventurer, captained the Argentine Polo Team in 1936, spied for Britain in both World Wars, and rode with Laurence of Arabia. Back in Africa, we remember some close encounters with nature, from a 4.5-meter-long python, curled up under our son David's cot, to a bull elephant named Tyson who relished trashing the BBC's camera equipment while filming Elephant Diaries in Tsavo National Park. Yet one of our most frightening misadventures is not in Africa. A meeting on foot with a bull Hooker's Sea Lion on the remote Campbell Island off New Zealand during our semi-circumnavigation of Antarctica aboard Kapitan Khlebnikov proves a salutary tale. With a warning, we would all do well to heed.This podcast series is a continuing effort to educate and inspire our audience. If you'd like to learn more about us, or to check out our latest collection of educational ebooks, please visit our website: www.bigcatpeople.com
EPISODE 9: BIG CAT DIARY
From the keynote of Jonathan Scott:
Welcome to The Big Cat People podcast! We're Jonathan and Angela Scott, award-winning wildlife photographers, authors and conservationists. We have made our name documenting the lives of lions, leopards and cheetahs in the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya. Today's episode is a continuation of our ten-part series named "Our Story: Becoming the Big Cat People." This episode is named Big Cat Diary Jonathan's journey to becoming a television presenter takes a big step forward in 1995. He is asked to co-present a series of live programmes from Kenya's Rift Valley soda lakes called Flamingo Watch, hosted with Simon King and Chris Packham. The following year his big chance finally arrives. He is asked to present his own television series called Dawn to Dusk, six African adventures in iconic company: Alan Root (Wildlife Filmmaker, Richard Gross (Wildlife Filmmaker), Charlotte Uhlenbroek (Primatologist), Blyth and Rudi Louti (Save the Rhino), Randall Moore (Abu Elephant Camp), John Stevens (Safari Guide/Naturalist). A review of the series by journalist Christina Odone in the Daily Telegraph is scathing and could have heralded the end of Jonathan's presenting career before it had a chance to take off. Fortunately that same year the BBC announces the launch of a new prime-time wildlife television series called Big Cat Diary, to be presented by Jonathan and Simon King.Reality television was becoming increasingly popular with Animal Hospital hosted by Rolf Harris gaining rave reviews. Human/Animal stories that could deliver insights and emotion featuring individual characters were destined for huge success. Big Cat Diary's strength was built around having three strong animal characters to engage audiences' emotions. The emergence of a leopard called Half-Tail and her young daughter Zawadi (known as Shadow on Big Cat Diary), who Jonathan and Angela had followed for years and knew where to find, proves pivotal to the success of the series. In 1997 Jonathan and Angela are asked to present segments for Wild Things (Paramount TV), taking them around the world to India (tigers), Nepal (Asiatic rhino), Alaska (brown bears), Kenya (cheetahs), Uganda (mountain gorillas), Komodo Island (Komodo Dragons), and Kalimantan/Borneo (Orang Utan). Filming runs for two years and the experience gives Jonathan and Angela the confidence to deliver pieces to the camera with authority and passion.This podcast series is a continuing effort to educate and inspire our audience. If you'd like to learn more about us, or to check out our latest collection of educational ebooks, please visit our website: www.bigcatpeople.com
EPISODE 10: THE NATURE OF LIFE
From the introductory keynote of Jonathan Scott:
Welcome to The Big Cat People podcast! We're Jonathan and Angela Scott, award-winning wildlife photographers, authors and conservationists. We have made our name documenting the lives of lions, leopards and cheetahs in the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya. Today's episode is the final episode of our ten-part series named "Our Story: Becoming the Big Cat People." This episode is named "The Nature of Life." Big Cat Diary (1996-2008) was to become a worldwide success watched by millions of viewers, who to this day still ask when it is coming back. DVDs of the series soon sold out, and people are still watching repeats of the more than 70 episodes 25 years later. The BBC went in search of more animal Diaries: Elephant Diaries, Big Bear Diary, Chimpanzee Diaries, and Orang Utan Diaries. But none would rival Big Cat Diary with its three strong animal characters - the charismatic lions, leopards and cheetahs. In 2009 Jonathan narrates The Secret Leopard for BBC2. The following year he presents the two-part BBC2 series The Truth About Lions with Professor Craig Packer of the Serengeti Lion Project. Angela leads Jonathan on a spiritual journey, and encourages him to explore the wonders of the Blue Planet. They visit the Galapagos Islands, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, and the Maldives and take a yacht charter to the southern archipelago off Myanmar. In the process, Jonathan and Angela are reminded of the destructive impact of our species on the Planet.In 2003, the same year that Kike the cheetah jumps on the roof of his vehicle and poops and pees through the roof hatch, Jonathan is diagnosed with cancer of the bladder and undergoes surgery that is successful. Five years later Jonathan and Angela discover the reason for the bewildering array of symptoms that Angela has suffered from since 1995- Lupus, an incurable auto-immune disease with debilitating episodes of fatigue and flares. Worse is to follow when in 2012 a CatScan shows that Angela has a cranial aneurism requiring surgery. The operation is successful and the experience reaffirms the couple's love for each other and life. They founded the Sacred Nature Initiative in 2021 and are determined to continue their mission to help reconnect people to Nature.This podcast series is a continuing effort to educate and inspire our audience. If you'd like to learn more about us, or to check out our latest collection of educational ebooks, please visit our website: www.bigcatpeople.com
