Direct Talk

Wildlife filming and the increase in
documentaries about the animal kingdom

have transformed our understanding of
the natural world over the last few decades.

It is partly due to the advancement
in camera technology.

As a result, we now know so much more
about animal habitats and behaviour.

Scottish filmmaker Gordon Buchanan is
one of the most famous cameraman in the UK

due to his 30 years filming of wildlife

in some of the remotest areas of the planet.

Such as Papua New Guinea and Alaska.

Gordon has contributed to
numerous award-winning

BBC wildlife series and documentaries.

Direct Talk met him at his home in Glasgow

to hear what his long career has taught him.

Wildlife documentaries have,

I think, kind of driven people's
connection and understanding of,

of the wild world and of other species.

Because wildlife filmmaking
started off as just

moving postcards.

This is a lion.
This is what it looks like when it walks.

This is a giraffe.

There was nothing about

the behaviour or the
kind of nuanced behaviour

or the sort of the symbiotic relationships
that some species have with others.

So that sort of has been driven by science,

but I suppose, it's been revealed
by wildlife documentaries.

So people can sit down and understand
the complexities of the natural world

and through watching wildlife documentaries.

And I think the aim
or the ambition always is,

if people care enough,
they'll want to protect the natural world.

So I think wildlife filmmaking
has been instrumental and,

you know, hopefully in helping
save the planet, and help protect species.

Gordon has been at the forefront
of a fresh perspective to filmmaking

with specially designed wildlife cameras

to gain an unprecedented insight
into their secret lives

and help scientists and conservationists
better protect wildlife in the future.

Technology has really revolutionised,

it's revolutionised the whole world.

But for wildlife filmmaking,

it has made the impossible, possible.

So when I first started working,
there were no thermal imaging cameras.

There were no camera traps,
there was no infrared,

so you had film cameras
that could work from sunrise to sunset.

And that was it.

And most of the interesting things
that happened in the animal kingdom

happen after dark.

For all of the animals
that lived in the rainforest

trying to film after dark was,
well, it was impossible.

So I think that's one simple,

piece of equipment

that has made a big difference
was being able to film at night time.

One family of animals that I've filmed
a lot over the years, are big cats

and my most recent project is following lions
in the Okavango Delta in Botswana.

And we're using

as much of the latest equipment
is as available to us,

to document the lives of these lions.

And so of course,
we can film during daylight hours,

but we've also got drones that
we can film them from the air.

We've got thermal imaging drones
so we can film from the air at night-time.

We've got

image intensifier cameras that we can film,

film these cats 24/7.

So that is really,
that is the ambition of the project

is to follow lines 24/7 and
reveal as much of their lives as possible.

This revolution in technology
has also led scientists

to gain a far greater understanding

about how animals
communicate with each other.

I think animal communication, that's the
next sort of great frontier in understanding

animals and different species

because I think, with wildlife films, we can

show how they look,
we can show their behaviour.

As human beings, we are quite arrogant,

we think we are the
world's elite communicators.

But for any animal that spends part of
its life with another member of its species,

they have to communicate.

And I think it's really interesting

just to kind of try,

even begin to understand
how elephants communicate with each other,

how killer whales communicate.

Even recently with lions,
I was watching them, and you think,

how can they all arrive within an hour
of each other at one spot?

But, you know, having sort of been,
you know, had the whole of the Okavango delta

to ramble about in

so that does interest me and,

yeah, it is fascinating.

Gordon grew up in the
Scottish town of Dunbarton.

At the age of seven, Gordon and his family,
moved to live on the Isle of Mull,

a wild and beautiful island
in the West of Scotland.

I always loved being outside
from the earliest of ages,

but we lived in a town not far from Glasgow,

so there wasn't that much outdoor space
or green space to explore.

So my family moved to Mull when I was seven.

That was, you know, the key
to the great outdoors of the Isle of Mull

is a very wild and rugged place,
and there's lots of places to explore.

So there's the mountains,
there is the lochs, there's a rivers,

there's the coasts of, yeah.

So for any child that has got
an interest in the outdoors,

that part of the west coast
of Scotland is paradise.

At the age of 17,
Gordon was working in a restaurant on the island,

wondering what to do with his life,

when the owner's husband
who was a wildlife cameraman,

offered Gordon a chance to accompany him

on an 18-month trip to Sierra Leone
to work as his assistant.

This trip proved to be life changing.

I think my career is all being
in the right place at the right time

and being extraordinarily lucky
to meet the right person at the right time.

Because when I was,

through my teens and I realised,

okay, I'm going to leave school,
what am I going to do?

And I knew that I was going to leave
without any qualifications

and I wasn't going to be able to
get into college or university.

And then I met a wildlife cameraman
and I just thought that was the perfect job.

And this is obviously a long time ago,
so it was pre-internet.

So you cannot Google
what is Sierra Leone like?

You know, I didn't know
anything really about,

you know, I'd never been on a plane,

I'd never been to any country
other than Scotland, maybe England once.

So going to West Africa in 1990
or to Sierra Leone,

it was beyond culture shock
because everything was different.

Everybody was different to what I knew.

And that was part of the
excitement of being there.

I suppose I felt very exotic.

After this trip to Africa,

Gordon knew that he found his vocation,

and as his career progressed
he became fascinated in animals as individuals

rather than just as species.

I've been making wildlife documentaries
for over 30 years now,

and the one thing that maybe surprises me is

how my passion for the natural world

has grown and grown
and grown over those years.

When I first started
making wildlife documentaries

or working in wildlife documentaries,
I was interested in,

in all animals that would live
in a particular habitat.

But as time went on,
I became more and more interested in

animals as individuals,

because they are individuals like we all are.

And the more that you actually spend time
with a particular animal character,

the more you realise that
actually they've got their own,

you know, unique world outlook,
their own experiences.

And I think there's much more, it's more
compelling to get to know an individual.

If you were to look at humanity

and you say, oh, these are the things
that happen to human beings and their lives,

you don't really care that much
because you're talking about all of humanity.

But if you said, these are the things
that have happened to this one man or woman,

you care more because it is an individual.

And I think as individuals,
that resonates more with us.

We think, okay, just stick to one character.
And the same goes with animals.

With his interest in animals as individuals,

Gordon has sometimes found it challenging

to not intervene with nature
when he sees animals in distress.

I must be getting more, I don't know,

sentimental or more prepared
to bend the rules as I get older.

Because in the past, if it was a
manmade problem and an animal was suffering,

I think it is,
it's absolutely fine to intervene.

I remember there was a bear that
we'd found that had been hit by a vehicle.

So we called in a veterinary team
and monitored that bear because,

okay, people cause this
so people should solve it.

There's been situations with, I remember
watching turtles, sea turtles hatching,

and some of those turtles
were going the wrong way

and heading towards the lights of the town
rather than heading towards the ocean

where the moon was sparkling off the waves.

So I was turning these little turtles around
to point them in the right direction.

I think that is fine.

But just recently in Botswana,
there was a lion,

young lion, that was maybe two years old

and he'd been badly injured,
I don't know by what.

He was starving to death.

And I thought,

if I could have done something,
I would of because I thought:

this animal is going to

die a really unpleasant,
slow and unpleasant death.

And you think is that a manmade problem?
Is it? Well, that might not have been.

He might have been kicked by a buffalo.

Or been pushed out from, you know,
by his pride and he was living by himself.

But the fact that the lion numbers
across Africa are continuing to shrink,

you know, lions have been

exterminated from 90%
of their former world range.

So I think, you know,
it's not wrong to help an individual.

I didn't.
I just sort of let nature take its course.

But I think it is quite hard

to disconnect yourself emotionally
from the suffering of any animal.

From his 30 years of travel,

Gordon has witnessed
both positive and negative changes

to how endangered animals
are being protected.

In Asia, conservation efforts and monitoring

has led to a surprising rise
in numbers of wild tigers

I first filmed tigers in India in 1999.

If you'd asked me back then,

if I thought in 2023
there would be tigers in the wild

I would have thought there wouldn't be

because there was high levels of poaching.

Tigers living in these isolated pockets
in national parks.

There were no wildlife corridors
for them to roam around.

So their numbers
had been going down for 100 years.

All the way down, all the way down.

But over the last 30, 40 years,

their numbers have started to go up.

So there are more tigers in the wild
than there were in 1999 when I first saw them.

So that's a positive thing.

I think when it comes to the future
of our planet and other species,

I think if you don't have hope,
you know, we will lose everything.

And the future, our future on this planet
will be far less certain.

But I think it's amazing what small numbers
of people committed people can do.

The huge amount of change
that individuals can make.

So I find that really inspiring

that you will have one person
or a small group of people

that can transform wild places
or turn the fortunes of wild animals around.

Today Gordon is in huge demand
to give speeches about the environment,

and he does sell out
theatre tours across the UK.

He communicates his firsthand experiences

of the different threats
he sees affecting the natural world,

and why we all need to play
our part in protecting it.

This is obviously a career that's

taken me all over the world
to go to places that people,

you know, beyond people's wildest dreams.

And I think for the first sort
of half of my career,

it was very selfish
as a young man or as a teenager -

"I'm getting to go to Brazil, I'm getting to
go to West Africa, I'm going to Venezuela,"

and I'm sort of taking
these experiences from the world,

not thinking that I owe
the natural world anything back.

But as I've got older,
I realise that I do have a responsibility

to protect the thing
that has given me so much in my life.

And if with the programmes
I'm involved making,

whether it's photographs that I take,
whether it's speaking to people publicly,

if you've got this opportunity
to influence people in a positive way,

I feel honoured bound to do that
to kind of help protect the planet for

the generations, for the wildlife camera men
and women who sort of come after me.

Protect not only what we love,
but what we need.