Original subtitles

I've spent much of my working life

trying to film big cats.

I've watched them in the wild

and analyzed the footage in the editing room,

which has given me a real insight into their behavior.

Today, we can see these amazing predators on our screens

any time we choose.

(dramatic music)

(hooves beating)

But until quite recently,

we knew practically nothing about them.

(dramatic music)

(insects buzzing)

Big cats are normally shy, and very secretive.

(dramatic music)

Today, their populations are shrinking fast.

But now we have the means to view them

in more detail than ever,

(thunder crashing)

(dramatic music)

and learn the intricacies of their lives.

(dramatic music)

Which is just as well because we need to find ways

of living alongside them

before they disappear forever.

(bird chirping)

These are two young cheetah sisters.

Their mother left them recently,

and now, they're on their own.

They have the form and physique of adults,

but the sisters have little experience.

They'll chase anything that moves.

(fast-paced dramatic music)

In this case, an African hare.

(fast-paced dramatic music)

They display all of the cheetah skills,

speed, agility, and lightning-fast reactions.

They can grab the earth with their claws,

and match the hare's tight turning circle.

(fast-paced dramatic music)

They understand that at this speed

a light touch is all that is needed.

(rustling)

And the victim's own momentum will do the rest.

(birds chirping)

There's only one problem.

One hare between two of them is barely enough.

Running at the speed they do is dangerous,

and a hare is a meager reward.

(flesh tearing)

They need to work out how to catch something bigger.

(peaceful music)

Cheetahs are not your standard big cats.

They differ from the others in many ways.

Cheetahs are daytime hunters

with eyesight optimized for open landscape

and distant prey.

They're possibly the fastest land animals

that have ever lived,

which makes filming them a bit tricky

because the end of a run may well be

a kilometer away from the start.

(peaceful music)

(birds chirping)

It's a real challenge for a cameraman.

(birds chirping)

But cheetahs are actually surprisingly easy to read.

This cat is showing real intent,

and is definitely looking straight at a possible victim,

(suspenseful music)

one of these gazelles.

(suspenseful music)

The tautness of its body

suggests it's just waiting for a moment

when the group is distracted.

(suspenseful music)

If the distance is very great,

and she can get away with it,

she'll run to close the gap on the unwary animals,

(dramatic music)

(paws thumping)

(birds chirping)

before she unleashes full power

(paws thumping)

to get maximum surprise.

(gazelles honking)

(dramatic music)

At this stage, the cheetah is focused on just one animal.

One she had selected from the start.

(dramatic music)

But suddenly, a slower, closer gazelle

attracts her attention.

(fast-paced dramatic music)

(paws thumping)

(fast-paced dramatic music)

The cheetah anticipates the gazelle's turn,

(clattering)

and a simple trip does the rest.

(dramatic music)

Like most other cats,

cheetahs kill with a suffocating bite.

Because of the way they hunt, cheetahs have adapted

to live on the widest of wide-open spaces.

But these vast grasslands have now shrunk to almost nothing.

As a result, there are only 6,000 cheetahs left

in the world.

And yet, here in Kenya's Maasai Mara,

cheetahs are one of the easiest cats of all to see.

Male coalitions, such as these five,

are constantly on the move to find food and females.

(insects buzzing)

Because of the number of tourists,

these cats now regard cars as just part of the landscape.

In fact, they actively use the cars as cover

on these otherwise featureless steps.

(birds chirping)

But the males would be disappointed to know

that the only females within 15 miles are not ready to mate.

These two young sisters are only just beginning

to learn how to fend for themselves.

They're novices.

(insects buzzing)

When I was a filming novice myself,

I was lucky enough to spend a lot of time

with youngsters just like these.

For them, the boundary between play

and serious hunting was blurred.

They just seem to be having the time of their lives,

learning about hunting and their prey.

(peaceful music)

Millions of years of living with cheetahs

have given the prey animals

an incredible amount of speed too,

as well as agility, and an awareness of their predators.

(playful music)

It still seems to surprise the sisters

that animals run from the mere sight of a cheetah,

and prefer to stay in the open,

where they can keep an eye on things.

(hooves beating)

For the moment, these two will stick together

and help each other.

(hooves beating)

(insects buzzing)

They still have playful urges.

Not the most suitable behavior

if you're trying to sneak up on nervous animals.

(cheetahs purring)

Concentration and focus are skills they'll develop in time.

(grass rustling)

For the moment, the impala herd is moving far away.

(grass rustling)

In a reserve like the Maasai Mara,

there's a bewildering array of possible prey.

At this time of year, the plains are full of wildebeest,

(wildebeest mooing)

a tempting idea for an inexperienced huntress.

Wildebeest weigh five or six times

as much as a 50 kilo cheetah.

They're armed with dangerous horns, and they're fast too.

Already, she's made a mistake.

The young cheetah didn't take into account

that most of her run would be over rocks.

And so she can't get her stride into a rhythm,

and loses the element of surprise.

The cheetah's most powerful weapon, speed,

only works properly if the prey is running too.

(hooves beating)

(dramatic music)

This wildebeest bull isn't going to take any cheek

from an animal almost a fifth of his weight.

But this isn't just a game of sheer strength.

It's as much about confidence.

The wildebeest detects her uncertainty,

and realizes he is in charge.

(suspenseful music)

The wildebeest could easily break her bones or gore her,

but he's not taking any chances.

(insects buzzing)

These two sisters need to find something

a bit easier to handle.

Smaller than the wildebeest is the kongoni.

It's certainly within their size range.

(dramatic music)

But unfortunately, the kongoni is one of the fastest,

most agile and alert of all the antelope.

(dramatic music)

This special gait, known as stotting,

is used by many antelope as a signal to the cheetahs,

not only that this animal has seen them,

but also that it is in peak condition,

and they shouldn't waste their time chasing it.

(dramatic music)

Impala, not much heavier than a cheetah,

would in principle be a perfect choice.

(dramatic music)

When there are plenty around, they drop their guard.

The sisters walk almost casually up to the antelope,

(dramatic music)

stopping at just the right time.

(birds chirping)

(insects buzzing)

They've understood hiding in plain sight

is one of the cheetah's greatest skills.

The antelope really don't seem to be expecting trouble.

For the cheetahs,

this seems to be almost too good to be true.

There has to be a catch.

(grass rustling)

(birds chirping)

(paws thumping)

She has the element of surprise.

(suspenseful music)

But of course, the impala make for the trees.

(suspenseful music)

(hooves beating)

While the cheetahs have the top speed to overtake them,

they won't be able to use it among the branches.

(suspenseful music)

(hooves beating)

The cheetahs are foiled by the woodland.

That's the catch.

(dramatic music)

The cheetah's technique works best in open country,

and the impala know it.

Hopefully these sisters have learned a lesson here too.

When impala are near trees, cheetahs don't have a chance.

The problem these cats face would seem to be simple enough,

but cheetahs should always

check their surroundings carefully

before they start a hunt.

(insects buzzing)

This sister is attracted to a herd of topi.

(grass rustling)

(birds chirping)

But she's too low to notice that in the background,

a few hyenas are wandering in this direction.

The cheetah is completely focused

on the two youngsters sparring.

(dramatic music)

(wildebeest mooing)

(dramatic music)

The other sister has seen the hyena.

(suspenseful music)

The first sister starts a run.

(suspenseful music)

The hyenas are watching the action with great interest.

Only now does the cheetah finally see the hyenas,

and realizes that perhaps it was a lucky miss.

Had she made a kill, she wouldn't have kept it for long.

(hooves beating)

(grass rustling)

(insects buzzing)

(hooves beating)

She needs to retreat.

One of the few things you can be sure of about predators

is that they really don't like each other.

Lions are particularly dangerous for cheetahs.

Not only do they steal kills,

but they'll kill cheetahs as and when they find them.

They're the cause of most cheetah mortality.

(grass rustling)

Their arrival is too much for the second cheetah.

Prudence is also a key skill for this delicate cat.

The lioness has cubs to look after,

so won't bother with the cheetah today.

As the sun rises in the sky, the ground begins to heat up.

These specialist cats are more thinly spread

than lions or hyenas,

but the cheetah has found her niche

that the other big predators can't exploit effectively.

Short grass plains in the middle of the day.

Lions need the cover of darkness

to hunt effectively without cover.

(insects buzzing)

Hyenas have difficulty keeping cool during a long chase,

which is why both these species mostly sleep during the day,

leaving the plains free for the cheetahs.

With no shade, it's 40 degrees.

The cheetahs keep cool

by breathing rapidly through their mouths, like all cats,

but their slender build, and even their spots will help.

Cheetahs seem to be more comfortable in these temperatures

than their competition.

(insects buzzing)

They also have super sharp daylight vision,

enabling them to see far-off, tiny details,

like a small group of gazelles grazing a kilometer away.

From this distance,

the gazelle's stamina would easily beat a cheetah,

so the cat will need every ounce of patience

to get near enough for a strike.

(gazelles bleating)

(suspenseful music)

Over millennia, cheetahs have perfected the art

of short grass stalking.

(suspenseful music)

They even use heat haze as camouflage.

(suspenseful music)

From the gazelle's low position,

only the upper part of the cheetah is visible.

And the cat stops moving altogether

when the prey is looking up.

I've watched a cheetah spend an hour

getting within range by this method.

Cheetahs derive their enormous strength

from the very same fast twitch muscle possessed by all cats.

In a few seconds, it accelerates

to almost 100 kilometers an hour.

(dramatic music)

The cat has covered 50 meters

before the gazelle hears its paws thumping on the ground.

(dramatic music)

(paws thumping)

By the time the gazelle has reached its own full speed,

the gap is down to five meters.

(paws thumping)

Now the cheetah is practically flying,

getting lift from every eight meter bound.

(dramatic music)

In slow motion, it looks effortless,

but the cheetah is now using much of its strength

just to push through the air.

Its body is moving at 100 kilometers an hour,

but its legs have to move twice as fast

to overtake its body.

At 200 kilometers an hour,

the air pressure on the cheetah's legs is immense.

While the gazelle's tiny legs are much more streamlined.

(dramatic music)

The wind flattens the cheetah's ears onto its head.

But there is a time limit on the run.

(suspenseful music)

The cheetah is burning energy at a prodigious rate,

and only has seconds left before its reserves are exhausted.

(suspenseful music)

Fast twitch muscle delivers extra power,

but only for a short time.

(suspenseful music)

This is the kind of knife edge that drives evolution.

That has driven gazelles to become ever faster,

and cheetahs to try and keep up.

Today, the gazelle wins.

He has improved his chances of passing on his genes,

while the cheetah will have to plan

more carefully next time.

But the cheetah's biggest problem isn't being fit enough,

it's having sufficient habitat to sustain it.

The grasslands on which the cheetah's main prey depend

don't just make themselves.

All the grazers play their part.

The wildebeest, the zebras, the elephants.

This increasingly rare habitat is what cheetahs call home.

(grass rustling)

(birds chirping)

But all over Africa,

these delicate communities have been lost to scrap,

as prey species have been hunted out.

As elephant numbers have plummeted,

vast tracts have been plowed for wheat and corn.

Of all the cats, the cheetah is the only one

that is a true nomad,

(somber music)

which means it needs a far greater land area

than the others.

(somber music)

In the ice ages, these amazing hunters

could walk unhindered across continents, and they did.

(somber music)

In fact the cheetah's true home

is most likely the steps of Asia.

It walked from the Russian far east

to the southern tip of Africa.

(somber music)

But today, they've lost almost all of their range.

(somber music)

100 years ago, there were as many cheetahs here

on the Asian steps as there are in Africa today.

The Asiatic cheetah is almost identical

to the modern African version,

(dramatic music)

except that it is now perilously close to extinction.

(clattering)

(wings flapping)

They were once common here in the Iranian desert.

Now no more than 50 Asiatic cheetahs are thought to remain,

spread across an area as large as the British Isles.

(somber music)

Finding a cheetah here

is like finding a needle in a haystack.

But that's what this male is trying to do.

He leaves a marker he hopes a female will find and follow.

It's a system that allows all cats

to exist in incredibly low densities.

But here the distances really are vast,

and the prey animals are much more rare

than they used to be.

There's plenty of space for cheetahs,

but hunting has depleted gazelles and other wildlife

to almost nothing.

Worryingly, these extremely rare camera trap images reveal

that most of the surviving population are males,

desperately searching for one of the four or five

surviving, breeding females.

The situation is now so dire

that this image may well be the last image

of an Asiatic cheetah cub, ever recorded.

(somber music)

Let's hope this isn't going to be the fate

of African cheetahs, a century from now.

(hooves beating)

(dramatic music)