EPISODE 06: Becoming the Big Cat People – 'Painted Wolves and The Great Migration'

Welcome to The Big Cat People podcast! We're Jonathan and Angela Scott, award-winning wildlife photographers, authors and conservationists. We've have made our name documenting the lives of lions, leopards and cheetahs in the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya.

Today's episode is a continuation of our ten part series named 'Our Story: Becoming the Big Cat People'.

This episode is named, "Painted Wolves and The Great Migration." By now I have written books on lions and leopards and spent nearly ten years living in the Maasai Mara. I decide to travel south to the great Serengeti National Park in Tanzania that borders the Mara to the south. I live in my vehicle for weeks at a time over the next three years as I gather material on the Painted Wolves - the African wild dogs, the most social of all the large carnivores in complete contrast to the solitary leopards I had been focusing on. I become one with the pack, living at the den where their puppies are hidden, rising when they do, sleeping in my car wherever they bed down for the night. I find solitude among the vastness of the endless plains to seek answers to the mental health issues that have cast a shadow over my life since childhood. I witness the extent of the bush meat trade - the poaching that kills tens of thousands of animals that are snared, speared, trapped or shot each year. I complete books on both the wild dogs and the great migration, meet Prince Charles (now King Charles III), and two of my childhood heroes Sir Peter Scott and David Attenborough who endorse my work. In 1987 I win the Overall Award in the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition with one of my wild dog photographs and begin to feel that I am stepping out of my father's giant shadow.

This podcast series is a continuing effort to educate and inspire our audience. If you'd like to learn more about us, or to check out our latest collection of educational ebooks, please visit our website: www.bigcatpeople.com