Mark Evans reflects on the live streaming event and watching the wild feast unfold in Zambia.
'It's over'. The last thing any of us wanted to hear just hours into our first night of live streaming online.
Five days earlier, 20 of us had arrived in Zambia, complete with two and a half tonnes of equipment. Our mission, to push the boundaries of conventional natural history broadcasting into unexplored territory. As, one by one, each of our four monitors flickered and died, it seemed we had pushed too hard.
That was just two weeks ago, and in Hippo: Nature's Wild Feast, you see a 90 minute documentary that tells the full story of our amazing adventure on the banks of the Luangwa River.
Thanks to the brilliance of our crew, a little ingenuity and a sprinkling of good luck we managed to revive our highly complex but heat-exhausted camera rig. And, despite ground temperatures well over 60 degrees Centigrade, vent clogging dust and gadget thieving hyenas, we nursed it through seven days and nights to monitor pretty much every mouthful of a two million Calorie wild feast.
Secretly watching any dramatic wildlife event unfold, in real time, is a very special experience. All of us who make wildlife TV programmes know how lucky we are. So that's why we all jumped at the chance Channel 4 gave us to try to share with you a unique opportunity to see, live, some of the world's iconic carnivores and scavengers in action.
Through the live event website, you were able to watch around the clock as they consumed and recycled a dead hippo, a tonne of flesh, fat, skin and bone, back into Africa's ecosystem. All of us on location in Zambia, including our team of experts and scientists, were mesmerised by what we saw. We witnessed things we have never seen before and it made it all the more special to know that you were watching with us.
None of us will forget the magic moment when a brave and hungry hyena bit a ravenous, big croc on the nose. That takes some nerve!
The images you have seen here have certainly been raw, but I hope you have also found them revealing. Hippos in the Luangwa valley have a hard time at the end of the dry season when there is precious little for them to eat and they become overcrowded as the river shrinks and the lagoons dry up. Many die. But, their deaths allow other animals in the food chain to survive. That's how life works.
As I write this, rain is falling on what remains of the wild feast. The long dry season has ended and, over the coming weeks, downpours will breathe new life in to the Luangwa valley. As the river level rises, any trace of what we have all witnessed will be washed away. Nature is the ultimate recycler.
