Parenthood Life Story

So far in Life Story,

we have seen animals face the challenges of childhood...

..grow up...

..find their place in the adult world...

..and win a mate.

Now, in the final chapter of Life Story,

animals become parents.

Their offspring will be their legacy to the future,

if they can raise them successfully.

There is no stronger bond in nature

than that between some parents and their offspring.

Bonobos in the Congo rainforest.

They are our closest relatives.

This mother's youngster is a lifelong commitment.

He will be totally dependent on her until he's five years old.

And she will continue to support him for the rest of her life.

Their relationship may last 30 years.

Although the length of her commitment is longer

than for most animals,

she shares with many other parents the same great challenge -

keeping her offspring healthy and safe.

The bond between parents and young will be tested in many ways,

some minor, and some a matter of life or death.

And a parent's commitment may begin long before birth.

The remote northern tip of the Great Barrier Reef.

After over three decades at sea,

this female green turtle is returning to the island

where she hatched.

It's time for her to lay eggs...

..but they will only hatch on dry land.

She must leave the cool sea and enter an alien world.

Without the support of water,

she feels the full force of gravity.

Her flippers, so effective for swimming,

are almost useless on land.

But, nonetheless, she has to haul her great weight up the beach

and get beyond the reach of the tide.

Turtles time their arrival

so that their laborious journey up the beach

is made in the cool of darkness.

On any one night,

3,000 female turtles may crowd this island to dig their nests.

Now, her compulsion to leave offspring may cost her her life.

The receding tide has exposed the reef, a wall of jagged rock.

It looks an almost impassable barrier

for an already exhausted turtle.

But she can't wait for the tide to return,

because soon the island, under the blazing tropical sun,

will be intolerably hot.

Unless she can get over this rocky wall,

she will be baked in her shell.

This lethal obstacle course claims many victims every nesting season.

Just one slip could bring disaster.

She was so close.

But all may not be lost.

The tide is turning.

If she is completely wedged, she will drown.

But there is a chance that the rising water could lift her free.

For this breeding season,

her obligations as a mother are over.

She will never see her babies.

They won't hatch for another two months and, when they do,

they will have to survive without any help from her.

Other parents have to remain close to their young at all times,

to protect them from danger.

A mother bison in Alberta, Canada.

Her calf is little more than a week old.

Wolves, sensibly, select the easiest targets.

The calves.

So, bison mothers try to keep their young in the centre of the herd,

where they are safest.

But that is not always possible, when the herd is on the run.

The chase may continue for 20 miles or more,

as the wolves try to run their targets to exhaustion.

The wolves make their choice.

She is on her own, but she's fearless in protecting her calf.

By keeping her calf close,

she manages to hold off both of her attackers.

But another wolf joins in - and she can't fight three.

Now, the wolves work together to wear her down.

The forest is not far off.

If mother and calf can reach the trees,

they may be able to dodge the wolves for long enough to rejoin the herd.

But the attack is so unrelenting,

they can't make a dash for cover.

The wolves are beginning to tire.

She sees an opportunity to make a break for it.

Once again, she blocks the wolves' path...

..and the wolves lose them amongst the trees.

But the wolves remain an ever-present threat.

HOWLING

And this is unlikely to be the last time

that this mother will have to fight for her calf.

The duties of parenthood may seem to be instinctive,

but there are some skills that have to be learned.

A troop of Hanuman langurs, 50 strong, living on a cliff in India.

This is one huge family, with members of all ages.

But there is only one adult male.

His scarred face is evidence of his violent past.

He is the father of all these youngsters.

Fatherhood, for Scarface, has few duties and many perks.

He gets plenty of attention from the females...

..and takes a somewhat hands-off approach to parenting.

But his protection gives his family

the safety and the space they need

to grow and learn.

The newest addition to the troop.

The baby is totally dependent on his mother and she dotes on him.

But becoming a good mother takes practice.

And a young female, a future parent,

is learning by playing mum with someone else's baby.

She seems affectionate enough.

This is valuable experience for the baby-sitter.

But now, she starts to play with it.

And things get quickly out of hand.

BABY SQUEALS

She seems to want to shake off the baby.

Rescue, it seems, is at hand.

But this isn't the baby's mother,

it's another learner with even less of a clue than the last.

Eventually, the baby's real mother

decides that this game has gone on long enough.

She rescues her baby and gives it some proper motherly care.

Perhaps she tolerates the behaviour of these would-be baby-sitters

because they're close relatives.

So many females gathered together on this cliff

inevitably attract the attention of a rival adult male.

His aim is to defeat Scarface and take over his females.

He leads a group of outcast bachelors into battle.

Scarface spots them.

He has everything to lose, because if the bachelors defeat him,

they won't just take his females,

they will kill his babies.

The bachelors try to reach the high ground to launch their attack.

Scarface warns them to keep their distance,

but the bachelors continue their advance.

HARSH BARKS

Scarface grinds his teeth, to show he means business.

But the bachelor leader reaches the cliff top

and grinds his teeth in response.

If Scarface loses this battle, he will lose his legacy.

Time to strike.

He targets the bachelor leader.

SCREECHING

Scarface has won.

And he returns to a hero's welcome.

But it's only a temporary respite.

For a male langur like Scarface,

parenthood is simple, but dangerous.

He has banished the bachelors and saved his offspring -

for now, at least.

Success for other parents requires total dedication.

An African drongo.

She has to shade her three eggs from the scorching heat of the sun.

As soon as the chicks hatch,

she will form an immediate bond with them that is unbreakable,

whatever happens.

After hundreds of hours of incubation...

..her first chick.

Now, the hard work really begins,

because the newly-hatched chick needs food.

It won't be long before one mouth is joined by two more

and this chick will then have to share what the female brings back.

Or will it?

The chick is getting rid of any competition.

It wants its mother's sole attention.

Feeding time.

Something has changed. But what?

FRANTIC CHIRRUPING

The sight of her chick's bright orange mouth

demands that she brings more food.

The egg weighs almost as much as the chick.

It's like pushing a boulder uphill.

The chick has a hollow in its back that helps it manoeuvre its load.

The mother's brood has been reduced to just this one chick

and it now has her total attention.

When she's not away gathering food, she shades the chick.

And she responds instantly whenever it demands to be fed.

Every day for over three weeks,

she brings it dozens of meals.

Her chick never seems to stop eating, or stop growing.

There is another drongo's nest nearby

and that has three chicks in it.

But they don't look quite the same as hers.

That is because she is raising an alien -

the chick of a cuckoo.

Cuckoos lay their eggs in the nests of other birds

and leave the hard labour of rearing the chick to someone else.

The cuckoo's egg matched the drongo's egg so perfectly

that this foster mother has been completely deceived.

Over at the other drongo nest, the chicks are now fledging.

Their parents have succeeded

in producing their very own next generation,

while she has raised a monster.

Her love is blind.

Back in the Congo,

the mother bonobo's long-term commitment to her baby continues.

Today, she's demonstrating

the tricky art of making a bed 30 feet above the ground,

in preparation for a midday siesta.

Lesson over, she puts her handiwork to good use.

For a busy mother, an extra nap is always welcome.

But Baby seems bored.

His mother is still the centre of his world

and his favourite playmate.

She tries to ignore him, but he won't be put off.

Eventually, she gives in.

The whole family is on the move.

In bonobo society,

knowledge is passed down from one generation to the next.

The mothers are going to show their youngsters

one of the most important places in the forest.

A special pool, where water lilies grow.

Water lilies contain minerals important for health,

and the bonobos can't get them anywhere else.

Baby learns what to eat by watching Mum.

And she shares the lily stalks with him.

She's shown him where to get an important supplement to his diet...

..and he didn't even have to get his feet wet.

She will continue to help him to learn about the forest

for another five years,

within the protection of his family.

But few youngsters are raised in such a secure environment.

The land where this young zebra was born is drying out.

Its mother must lead it across the river to reach fresh grazing.

She faces a critical decision.

Where to cross?

The life of her six-week-old foal hangs on her decision.

It's not just crocodiles that pose a threat.

Crossing here is too dangerous.

Further downstream. Perhaps this is a better place to cross?

There are fewer predators, but the river is fast

and has treacherous rapids.

It's a difficult decision.

Once a mother commits herself, she commits her foal,

and there will be nothing she can do to help it.

The current is so strong, it carries them downstream,

through the territory of ill-tempered hippos...

..and towards the rapids.

STACCATO BARKING

The decision to cross here has proved to be a good one,

but only just.

This mother has led her foal

through the most dangerous moment of its young life.

By keeping her foal safe,

she has passed this critical test of motherhood.

Dawn in Amboseli, East Africa.

A family of elephants.

The young are sleeping peacefully,

surrounded by a protective wall of mothers and grandmothers.

Each morning brings the calves a little closer to independence.

They may be successful parents,

but they still have trouble getting the youngsters up in the morning.

There are three generations in this herd, proof of the family's success.

They have found the bones of an old female.

Even the babies are intrigued by these relics of their ancestors.

We can't, of course, know what they're thinking...

..but there is a delicacy in the way they touch these bones,

which suggests that they have some special relevance.

Perhaps elephants have a sense of a shared history.

The experience seems to bring them even closer together.

Every animal in the herd belongs to a family line

that stretches back through numberless generations.

And each is here

because their ancestors were all winners in the game of life.

An individual animal's chance of success

varies according to its kind,

and to the care lavished upon it by its parents.

Most young bonobos survive childhood.

But, eventually, each will have to find its own way in the world.

It may need allies to face up to danger.

It will have to find its own place in society.

It will play the mating game...

..become a parent...

..and eventually achieve a form of immortality

by leaving its own offspring.

No two journeys through life are ever the same...

..each is as unique as a fingerprint.

This mother's life has been a success.

But for each new generation, the journey will begin all over again.

It's life's great story.

Bonobos live in the most impenetrable forest on Earth -

the Congo.

Cameraman, Rolf Steinmann,

has worked in some of the world's great open landscapes,

but never anywhere like this.

His hope is to film scenes of the bonobos' lives

that have never been captured before

and perhaps gain a glimpse into our own past.

Accompanied by camera assistant, Ed Anderson,

they journey deep into the African rainforest.

Despite a 16-mile walk to the research camp,

Rolf's spirits are high.

It's really exciting and I think...

it's definitely the most remote location I have ever walked to.

The LuiKotale research camp will be their home for the next seven weeks.

They head out into the forest

wearing facemasks to protect the bonobos from human diseases.

They hike over 12 miles, following the bonobos

and eventually, Rolf gets his first view.

It was a pretty special day, I would say.

That was my first bonobo day.

It was absolutely breathtaking,

looking into their faces, seeing the babies.

I mean, you can really feel that they're close relatives to us.

I mean, it feels like you are surrounded by very little humans.

But he quickly discovers that such a good day isn't typical.

HE SIGHS HEAVILY

There is so much vegetation, I can't get a clear view,

it's totally impossible.

And the very density of this forest creates other filming problems.

We're walking back to camp from the forest,

it's 3.30pm, this is not a camera effect, it really is this dark.

When the sun isn't out,

it feels like the middle of the night sometimes.

Ed and Rolf's difficulties just continue to mount.

The bonobos went into the deepest, densest part of the forest,

it's really hard to follow them.

The 90% humidity is causing trouble for the camera.

And worse, they soon encounter some of the other forest inhabitants.

It's all full of ants here.

I can't get through there with the big backpack.

Ants are everywhere!

Ah, they're biting me everywhere.

They always want to get to the flesh.

No, you don't get in there.

BLEEP! They are biting everywhere!

Ah, BLEEP! It's not really fun, it's really painful. Go away. Ah. Oh, God.

I just have to get out of this.

Wow.

How should we get rid of all these termites?

I mean, that is serious.

The heat and humidity,

the trekking and the insects are worse than Rolf had feared.

But causing him most distress

is hardly ever being able to film the bonobos.

90% of the things you see, you can't film.

It's so dark, there's so much vegetation

and the animals are always in the wrong spot.

It is pretty much as frustrating as it gets, I think.

You really have to learn to deal with all the frustration

and become some kind of Zen master and suppress your emotions.

Otherwise, you face a high risk here to get insane.

I am the lucky cameraman. I am the lucky cameraman.

I am the lucky cameraman.

Three weeks of trekking

and finally, the bonobo family appear, briefly, in the open.

(There the bonobos are, on a log, totally relaxed.

(I've got my best shots so far, it's amazing!)

But the bonobos soon disappear again

and it's back to the daily grind of forest life.

BUZZING

Ah, these sweat bees make me crazy.

The optimism with which they began this shoot is long gone.

Today, we've already walked 25km

through some of the densest, thickest jungle so far.

We didn't get a single shot of the bonobos.

Yeah, it sometimes feels like a boot camp here.

Some days...you just want to forget.

The experience is simply exhausting.

Finally, the perfect moment.

Right when we get our first nesting in the daytime,

really beautiful angle, perfect position,

the camera stopped working

and now we have to go back to camp, leaving the bonobos,

and hope that we can make the camera work again.

Yeah, don't know really what to say.

By the time they've got a new camera,

the bonobos have completely disappeared.

Paul, Paul, Paul, this is Ed. Paul, Paul, this is Ed.

Come in, Paul.

We can't hear them,

we can't find any tracks,

so it doesn't look very promising.

Rolf is hardened to tough conditions,

but not the frustration of so rarely getting a clear shot.

Four days later,

the bonobos have been located,

but they're on the move.

They're heading north,

so there's a good chance that they go into the swamps

and so, we just speculate and run towards the swamps

and perhaps we find them there.

After so much disappointment,

Rolf and Ed are determined to find them.

Quite against the odds, their determination pays off.

Rolf captures the first-ever images

of a family of bonobos harvesting lilies.

A scene that feels much like a glimpse into our own past.

It's everything Rolf had hoped for.

In this terrain, it's ridiculous that we made it, that is ridiculous!

It's impossible to film that,

it's simply impossible and we filmed it!

I can't believe it, it's so good!

Our lives may seem very different from those of our closest relatives,

but beneath the surface, we still share the same challenges

that every animal faces in its own Life Story.