BABY STEPS

Biologist Patrick Aryee on how his new series shows the highs and lows of parenting in the animal kingdom

- STEVEN PERKINS

WILD ANIMAL BABIES

NEW SUN / SKY NATURE / 8PM / EP 1 of 3 / NATURE

Few things in life are more likely to make you go ‘aww’ than footage of adorable baby animals. But it’s easy to overlook just how difficult it is to be a parent in the wild – whether you have to teach your kids to fly, or keep them away from predators until they’re old enough to defend themselves.

In Wild Animal Babies, a new three-part documentary starting on Sky Nature this week, biologist Patrick Aryee travels around the world to show us just how all kinds of species handle the ever-challenging job of raising their offspring.

Here, Patrick chats to TV Times about what we can expect from his latest series…

What can you tell us about Wild Animal Babies?

Each of the different species that we film has a bunch of different challenges to overcome. It might be their environment – take sea otters, for example. They live up in Alaska, in freezing cold waters. How does a very small mammal survive out in the cold? In other cases, it’s trying to avoid predators – like olive ridley sea turtles, trying to avoid being snatched up by birds as soon as they hatch.

Episode one focuses on single offspring in the animal kingdom – what specific challenges do they face?