Easter TV: Paul O’Grady’s Great Elephant Adventure

Paul O’Grady’s Great Elephant Adventure starts Easter Sunday at 8pm on ITV1.

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Having honed their survival strategies over millennia, mammals have evolved to be masters of the cold. In this episode, we journey across the globe, exploring a frozen world, from icy seas to snow-capped mountains and meet the unique mammals that call them home. For most, the cold is a killer. But for mammals, with their unique physical traits like warm thick fur and rich nourishing milk, and remarkable behaviours like hibernation, conquering the cold is possible.

We begin our journey on the Arctic islands of Svalbard, where polar bears, synonymous with this cold archipelago, dominate this remote frozen world. But as their world warms, and the frozen seas that are their hunting grounds disappear, they are being forced to find new sources of food. For the first time, we follow a polar bear hunting on land as it heads high up into the mountains in a rarely seen long-distance pursuit of Svalbard’s reindeer.

Mammals have been forced to adapt to the cold for millions of years. Whereas other species avoided the series of thick ice sheets that once covered a quarter of all land, mammals were able to survive the freezing conditions, and by adapting their behaviour, many are now completely at home in these inhospitable lands.

One land that has little changed since the last ice age is the tundra of northern Alaska. In this remote, hostile landscape, a mythical and rarely seen mammal endures: the wolverine. They rely completely on snow to survive, providing them meat from animals that have succumbed to the cold and dens in which to raise their young. Whilst other animals either flee or hibernate to avoid the coldest time of year, they stay active all winter, traversing the vast landscape in search of food. This privileged view reveals a surprisingly caring side of a highly elusive animal.

Knowledge can play a huge role in surviving the cold. Rather than roaming huge distances, some smart mammals will return annually to places they know will provide them with food. In Canada’s northern Yukon, a unique community of bears has been passing knowledge down the generations of a special ice-free river. While most bears are already hibernating, this late flowing river allows chum salmon to spawn into the winter months, giving the bears an opportunity for one last feast before hibernation that they simply cannot resist.

Mammals’ ability to hibernate is a clever way to avoid winter, and deep underground in an abandoned mine, little and big brown bats are well into their hibernation. But not all stay asleep. One sneaky bat wakes in order to mate while the rest of the colony sleeps on.

Bringing newborns into a world of snow and ice has many challenges, but mammals’ unique ability to produce fat-rich milk allows harp seal mothers to have one of the shortest weening periods of all. In just 12 days, off the coast of Greenland, they race to fatten their pups to independence as the icy nursery melts around them.

Far above sea level, the remote Kluane Mountains of North America support the largest ice field outside the poles. In this rugged landscape of rock and ice, pika, a relative of the rabbit, patiently wait for summer. Having stayed awake all winter, surviving on food they collected last year, once summer does return, they will all have just a few weeks to harvest nearly a year’s worth of food before the winter lockdown begins again. But storing your hard-earnt supplies all in one place comes at a risk if you can’t trust your neighbour.

Averaging 4,000 meters above sea level, the thin air of the lofty mountains of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in China struggle to retain much heat at all. As a result, life here always feels cold. Snow leopards are the top predator and have lived here for millions of years, but recently their lives have become linked with humans and the domestic yak they herd. It’s too good an opportunity to ignore. But through a community initiative, they have found a way to live alongside each other, even when the yak are taken by the leopards.

Back at sea level, on the shores of Canada’s Hudson Bay, for mammals specialised for life in the cold, a warming world is now the biggest challenge. Here, arctic fox and polar bears wait together by open water where there should be ice. For arctic foxes living here, as food ashore runs out, they would normally move and follow the polar bears onto the ice in order to scavenge off the bears’ kills. But as the winter freeze, and arrival of the ice is delayed, the bears cannot hunt, and life becomes more and more desperate. This has led to the foxes resorting to cannibalism, desperately fighting with each other to feed on the unfortunate foxes that have succumbed to hunger.

This two-part series follows the late Paul O’Grady as he travels through Thailand and Laos to celebrate the wonderful work done by elephant conservation centres to rescue, rehabilitate and protect these most majestic, but vulnerable, of animals. Filmed in the months before his sudden and unexpected death, this was Paul’s final TV project and one that he was incredibly passionate about.

Thailand has the largest number of elephant rescue centres in the world, while Laos is nicknamed the ‘land of a million elephants’, and in each episode, Paul travels across the region to roll up his sleeves and muck in to help out at a different rescue centre.  Along the way, Paul also heads out from the sanctuaries to grab a slice of local life by exploring nearby colourful markets, temples and apothecaries and trying local cuisine.  

The series highlights challenges faced by elephants in the region and as ever, Paul’s love for animals shines throughout. The tone is warm, playful and heartfelt and always characterised by his much-loved wit and humour.  

Episode 1

In this opening episode, Paul travels to the hills surrounding the ancient city of Chiang Mai, 400 miles north of Bangkok and known as the elephant capital of Thailand.

There are around 7000 elephants in Thailand, around half of which are domesticated and unable to live on their own in the wild. They often lead very tough lives working in the tourism industry and once they get injured or become too old to work, their futures can come under real theat.

Paul visits The Elephant Nature Park, which is the largest elephant rescue centre in Thailand, providing refuge and a retirement home for ex-working elephants since it was founded over 20 years ago by world renowned conservationist Lek Chailert.

The park currently provides sanctuary to 116 elephants who have escaped a hard life’s graft in the logging and tourism industries and Paul is overwhelmed:

“Aren’t they wonderful? This is heaven. I mean, I’m so privileged to get this close to an elephant, you don’t do this every day of your life.”

As she introduces Paul to some of the elephants, Lek explains: “When we rescue them, they are traumatised from their abuse. They (learn to) trust, because they receive love.”

Most of the elephants are over 65-years-old and many of the jungle OAPs have a similar story. They were often used for the logging industry before it was outlawed in 1989. Many were then forced to carry tourists around in riding camps, resulting in significant long-term injuries.

Despite becoming arthritic after years of hard work, female elephant Mae Sri was forced to continue carrying tourists which left her barely able to walk. Paul is horrified by the burns on her legs, where she was burnt with fire to get her to stand. To help ease her aches and pains, every day the vet team treat her wounds and Paul is more than happy to get stuck in to help soothe her arthritis with a Thai massage on her legs.

It’s not all oldies though, and Paul also enjoys helping one-year-old babies Chobah and Pyimee let off steam. The babies were rescued from the circus with their Mum, who had also been used for breeding. Paul enjoys a unique game of football with them, to help keep them stimulated:

“They are so cute, baby elephants. They are like puppies aren’t they? A big puppy. Look at that, not a care in the world. What I love is, they are safe, that’s the thing. No circus for this lot.”

Paul also meets 75-year-old elephant Dujdao, who needs a daily herbal scrub to soothe her badly inflamed skin and also has to follow a special diet.

The elephants munch through 150 kilos of food a day and when they lose their teeth from old age it’s a real issue for the elderly elephants. So the team have come up with a special soft food diet for them and Paul is on dinner duty, helping to wrap mashed bananas and rice into banana leaf parcels, which are then steamed.

Paul says: “It’s so beautiful here, it’s just a place of refuge for them, where they can come and live out the rest of their days…and the people who work here, they are just remarkable.”

While at the park Paul is also unable to resist paying a visit to the dog rescue centre, which is home to 650 of his beloved canines, most of which have disabilities after being hit by cars or motorbikes and needing special care.

Next, Paul heads to Sukhothai to meet extraordinary British expat Katherine who quit the rat-race in London to set up Boon Lotts Elephant sanctuary in rural Thailand 15 years ago.  This stunning 500-acre jungle playground is home to her nine elephants, and she takes on the challenge of teaching Paul how to become a mahout, an elephant handler.  

Charged with looking after three of Katherine’s elephants, aka the Gossip Girls who all have foot problems that need constant attention, Paul is also given a crash course on how to use a machete, as well as learning the unusual vocabulary that man and elephant share – to mixed results…

While in the area, Paul also pays a visit to the Friends of the Asian Elephant hospital, the world’s first ever elephant hospital.  Here he meets the extraordinary elephant Motala, who lost a leg after standing on a land mine.  Now recovered, Paul’s on hand to help take her out for a walk – with the use of an extraordinary prosthetic leg.