Animal oasis

A man-made waterhole rigged with cameras captures spectacular footage of African wildlife

- HANNAH DAVIES, IAN MACEWAN

Waterhole: Africa’s Animal Oasis

Friday, BBC2 HD, 9pm

As places where all the continent’s animals gather, Africa’s waterholes hold a great attraction for wildlife film-makers.

So when the BBC heard that a nature reserve in Tanzania in East Africa was constructing a brandnew, man-made waterhole from scratch, it seized the opportunity to rig up the oasis with lots of remote-controlled cameras, to capture all the action during three critical times of the year.

After more than 100 tonnes of soil had been removed, and 4km of fibre-optic cables were laid to connect up the weatherproof cameras, the two pools were filled with 60,000ltr of water.

Then, from their nearby base camp, Chris Packham and biologist Ella Al-Shamahi waited with bated breath to see what species would be drawn to this new resource – and they weren’t disappointed.