EPISODE 08: Becoming the Big Cat People – 'From Africa to Antarctica'

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, 'From Africa to Antarctica.' Opportunity beckons in 1989! I’m asked to co-present Africa Watch with Julian Pettifer, the first live outside broadcast from the Maasai Mara produced by the BBC/Discovery Channel. For ten days we beamed breathtaking images around the world, starring the Marsh Pride and the great migration. Africa Watch proves a great success. There is talk of the BBC finding a TV series for me to present, but not yet. During filming I meet Mitsuaki Iwago the legendary wildlife photographer who tells me to be more adventurous with my own photography. 1991 hails the beginning of our love affair with Antarctica, a land beyond reality, that would keep Angela and myself enthralled to this day. Our annual expeditions aboard Abercrombie and Kent’s Little Red Ship, brought to life by tales of the heroic age of exploration when Scott, Amundsen and Shackleton battled the elements to be first to the South Pole, opened a whole new chapter in our lives “Out of Africa”.

En route, via South America, we go in search of Angela’s Grandfather Hugo Salman Backhouse who bred polo ponies on an estancia in Cordoba, Argentina, where Angela’s mother Joy and Uncle Jonny were born and home schooled. Hugo, forever the charismatic adventurer, captained the Argentine Polo Team in 1936, spied for Britain in both World Wars, and rode with Laurence of Arabia. Back in Africa we remember some close encounters with nature, from a 4.5 meter long python curled up under our son David’s cot, to a bull elephant named Tyson who relished trashing the BBC’s camera equipment while filming Elephant Diaries in Tsavo National Park. Yet one of our most frightening misadventures is not in Africa. A meeting on foot with a bull Hooker’s Sea Lion on the remote Campbell Island off New Zealand during our semi-circumnavigation of Antarctica aboard Kapitan Khlebnikov proves a salutary tale. With a warning we would all do well to heed.

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