Original subtitles

Ethiopia is a country of contrasts.

It has mountain highlands,

Lush swamps

And dry savannas.

And in the middle lies a land that contains

All of these in one small arena.

Awash national park

Is part desert

And part oasis.

One primate that thrives here is as multifaceted as its home.

The hamadryas baboon.

Under the leadership of their alphas

They move through the many faces of their habitat.

Confronting both the land and each other

On daily migrations through the park.

These are the hamadryas of awash.

11 million years ago,

Powerful geological ruptures tore apart

Africa's eastern plain.

Leaving a fissure running down the length of the continent.

The great rift valley.

Formed by violent tectonic movements

And volcanic eruptions,

It has created environments

That are both hostile and beautiful.

In its northeastern corner

Is a country that stands as a testament

To these opposing forces.

Ethiopia is a land of extremes.

It's home to mountainous highlands,

Vast river valleys

And arid deserts.

And for each of these environments,

A different primate can be found in its midst.

These animals

Are some of the world's most adaptable characters,

Able to survive in anything from desert

To swampland.

The changes between each habitat are reflected

In the makeup of the primate society that lives there.

And there's one area

Where this can be witnessed in a single consolidated space.

Awash national park

In the center of ethiopia,

Is both a wildlife haven

And a cruel desert.

In the dry season,

Less than a tenth of an inch of rain falls a month.

The land is dusty and sterile,

Relinquishing little for those who live there.

But hidden within the park

Is a lush oasis.

A natural utopia produced by the very same volcanic forces

That shaped the surrounding wasteland.

And it's here that one of ethiopia's

Most iconic primates thrives.

The hamadryas baboon.

Their home is both generous and severe.

They too exist as a delicate mix of tenderness

And hostility.

Theirs is a world balanced by both gentle cooperation

And brutal competition.

As soon as the sun breaks the horizon,

Daily proceedings commence.

The alpha males begin to gather and organize their harems.

Hamadryas clans comprise several families,

Each led by a dominant male

And everyone is responsible for looking after each other.

For the youngest members, the arrival of the new day

Means that they can resume their restless jostling,

Running and playing.

But for the elders

The pace is considerably slower.

The dominant males enjoy the attention of their family

And tolerate the presence of their neighbors.

Males share territory, but they do not share females.

They're notoriously possessive

And aggressive.

Each alpha is constantly pampered

By a collection of his prize females.

A powerful male

Can hold onto his harem for as long as 10 years

And it's strength alone

That determines the longevity of his reign.

If a female even dares to look at another male,

The consequences are dire.

They bear the scars of male discipline,

Which often comes in the form of a sharp bite to the ear.

Here, males are the kings.

And their realm is in many ways

As tough and exacting as they are.

In most baboon societies,

Related females stay together

And adolescent males disperse into other groups.

But the hamadryas are different.

Here males form brotherhoods from birth,

Which they continue to maintain.

The whole social structure

Is centered around groups of alphas.

They keep the group cohesion through their aggression.

But this simple act of affection

Is equally important for this complex society.

Grooming is an important indicator of dominance.

Superior clan members

Are shown more affection than others.

So being a female

Means that a lot of energy is spent trying to satisfy a male.

But this will pay off when they need protection.

The alphas will only defend their favorites in a fight.

Grooming is a deeply political act -

One that shapes the power structures of the entire clan.

For this young mother and her newborn

The group dynamic is a source of both security

And great stress.

There's little cooperative parenting in this society;

Once the infant is born

It's largely the mother's responsibility to raise it.

And she must always maintain her loyalty to its father.

Each morning the leaders move their families

From the cliff tops where they sleep and into the park below.

The hazardous journey down

Is one that the entire clan must make.

These cliffs are a safe haven,

Unlike the rest of awash's stark landscape;

And only the strongest hamadryas clans

Get to enjoy them.

The animals that inhabit the outer reaches of the park

Live a very different existence.

Surrounding the cliffs

Is a vast expanse of barren grassland and scrub.

Predators like lions and jackals

Travel through the harsh terrain.

And with fewer than 2 days of rainfall during the dry months,

The carnivores are not the only threat

That the residents have to face.

In the dry season

Temperatures push 104 degrees fahrenheit.

But even though little relief comes in the form of rain,

The land makes up for it in other ways.

The geological shifts and volcanic forces

That have shaped the course landscape,

Also created an unexpected by-product.

As lava continued to spill

And then cool over the land throughout the millennia,

It created a deeply porous igneous rock.

Underground spring water filters through all year round -

Creating an oasis at the foot of the awash cliffs.

No matter what time of the year,

This small pocket of the park remains lush.

Providing shelter,

Water

And food.

These mountains have many gems and the first meal of the day

On their descent from the cliffs

Is a favored delicacy for the resident clan.

Palm nuts.

Hamadryas baboons eat a variety of foods

And these treasured fruits

Are enjoyed by every member of the group.

The clan's daily movements are dictated by the search

For the right nutrition.

As soon as day breaks at the top of the cliffs

They begin their passage through awash

To find more food.

After their first meal of the day,

The youngsters are injected with new energy.

They explore their world by tumbling through it.

It's here that they discover

The extent of their physical abilities.

The clan is made up of multiple harems,

Each with their own infants.

And all of the youngsters band together to enjoy the fun.

They test their mobility against one another.

And this is also how they sharpen their climbing skills.

It's an education

Through revelry.

But play is cut short by the elders,

Who must now lead the clan onwards

To find other sources of food.

Although the cliffs are bountiful,

The hamadryas baboons cannot live on palm nuts alone.

To find the necessary grubs and roots to supplement their diet,

They must move to the dry center of the park.

Leaving the cliffs is a risky move;

Another clan may take the oasis if it's left undefended.

But they have no choice.

Every day they undergo a hurried morning forage,

Making sure that they leave their home

For as short a period as possible.

Led by the alphas,

They hastily comb through vast expanses of open space

For the little nourishment they can find.

But the baboons are not the only ones on the search for food.

Warthogs are grazers

That specialize in digging up roots that lie below the earth.

They are suited to plowing through arid areas

To find nutrients.

They're good at withstanding heat, which allows them

To waste less moisture when cooling themselves.

And this is what helps another awash species

To cope with the dry habitat.

Oryx can survive without needing to drink regularly.

But they need vegetation

That retains enough moisture to sustain them.

Though comfortable in the dry center of awash,

This herd cannot stay in one place for long.

They must move through the wasteland

To find enough moisture-rich plants to nourish them.

But it's not just the mammals on the search for moisture.

Leopard tortoises live in the dry region of awash,

But they can't survive long without fresh water,

So they must permanently quest through the sterile land

To find it .

But they do have a number of ingenious ways

To cope with their habitat.

Their high-domed shell

Provides extra protection from the sun's heat.

This allows them to spend more time in open habitats

Looking for food or water.

Sometimes the ethiopian heat can be too much,

Even for these well-adapted reptiles.

When they wedge themselves in thickets,

Seeds in their droppings germinate

Under shade and protection allowing new growth.

This regeneration of plant life

Is a valuable contribution

To all who move through this difficult landscape.

There are other baboon families battling in the dry.

Anubis baboons

Are some of the hardiest characters of the primate world.

Able to survive in almost any terrestrial habitat,

They're well equipped

To deal with the severity of awash's desert plains.

Their success as a species

Lies in their ability to live off almost anything

From thorns and shrubs to small mammals and reptiles.

Even when the dry and sterile landscape provides little,

They're able to sustain themselves.

There's very little that anubis baboons cannot,

And will not, eat.

Every day they join the other residents of awash,

Threading through its arid stretches

For whatever they can find.

A little further to the north, a different story unfolds.

Where the majority of awash is a coarse and severe landscape,

Ethiopia's simien mountains are lush and generous.

Cascades of cliff faces line the horizon,

Climbing 15,000 feet across the ethiopian highlands.

Moisture constantly moves

Through these high altitude buttresses.

Ensuring that they stay green and plentiful

All year round.

In between the vast peaks, a myriad of life prospers.

And the animals that live here

Enjoy a very different existence

To those in awash.

Here there are no dry deserts or scarce plains.

The heights provide water and food all year around

And every resident that lives among the peaks

Prospers because of this.

Walia ibex frequent the mountain between 8,000

And 15,000 feet.

The vegetation that an ibex needs to survive

Can only grow in this region of the simiens.

Ibex need a constant supply of water all year round.

They depend heavily

On the upper stretches of this natural cathedral to get this.

They share this section of ethiopia

With another of its iconic primates.

Geladas only live in the simien mountains

Above 5,000 feet.

This is where the high-protein grasses

That they depend on for survival grow.

Geladas are the only true grazers of all primates -

Their diet is more like a cattle's

Than a typical baboon's.

By shuffling forwards on their bottoms

And pinching at tufts of grass

With their highly opposable thumbs,

They spend their days

Plowing through the high altitude grazing pastures

Of ethiopia's highlands.

The daily routines of the gelada and the hamadryas

Are markedly different,

One relishes in the security of its plentiful mountain habitat,

While the other must face a constant daily battle

With its unremitting home.

But awash has two faces;

It's both desert and oasis.

These igneous rocks

Filter the spring water that supports the awash inhabitants

All year round.

These marshes generate river tracts

That feed into the park

Quenching the parched land.

And it's here that another,

Rather more mild tempered primate species

Can be found.

Grivet monkeys can only survive in lush woodlands

And areas with constant water supply.

As a result, they're restricted to the park's swamplands,

Unable to expand their range to the center of awash.

They spend most of their time in the trees,

Only coming down to the water to drink.

The river is not without its dangers.

The riverbanks on which the grivet monkeys live

Are also the hunting grounds for a far larger,

Primordial predator.

The nile crocodile.

The monkeys' small size makes them easy prey.

So they're dependent on their acute senses

To survive the dangers of the waterfront.

By remaining in a state of hyper awareness,

They notice the predator

Well before it manages to get close enough.

Allowing them to retreat to the safety of the overhanging trees.

Once the resident hamadryas have had their fill,

They cease their morning forage

And return hastily to the cliffs.

For the clan, their return is cause for celebration.

They find the cliffs unoccupied by other baboons.

Now that they've lead the group safely back home,

The alphas can relax.

The mothers may now spend more time tending to their offspring.

Females tend to give birth every 24 months

And they dedicate the period in between

To protecting and raising their young.

When 2 years have passed,

The little ones start to move around independently.

For all of the clan's youngsters,

The return to the cliffs just means more fun.

Their tireless playing reaches explosive levels

As they enjoy the return to their safe haven.

These seemingly innocuous jostles

Are a precursor to a far more vicious tendency.

Fighting ability and aggression are the biggest determinants

In male social standing.

This makes play fighting an important skill to master

Early on.

Only the strongest will eventually hold a harem.

For weaker, peripheral males

Finding a mate is a hard task.

Female loyalty to the alpha is not a matter of choice,

But rather of force.

And other males must respect the alphas and their harems.

If they don't, a fierce dominance battle may ensue.

The only way that peripheral males are able to mate

Is in secret,

Away from the gaze of the alphas,

Or by successfully defeating a dominant male in a fight.

Their home is difficult and sparse,

And this often places the hamadryas in conflict

With one another.

Any aggression in their social structure

Is born from necessity.

Their northerly neighbors

The geladas

Inhabit a polar opposite environment,

A place of plenty,

And this has caused an entirely different approach

To the way that they socialize.

Where hamadryas coalesce in conflict,

The geladas have chosen another method

To keep their group cohesion.

Here it's less often violence that guides the families,

But rather affection.

In the world of the gelada, females own the throne.

Females make the mating decisions

That shape the whole group's power dynamics.

They choose whether or not to empower the alpha males.

As a result it's the male that has to impress the female.

Here the alpha is not the strongest fighter,

But the gentlest groomer.

2 million years ago

The most common baboon species

Were the ancestors of the gelada,

Adapted to eat the verdant grasses of sub-saharan africa.

As the climate dried over the course of the millennia,

These grasses became restricted

To the top of the ethiopian mountains.

And were replaced lower down

By the much drier grasslands of today's african savanna.

With the advance of the savanna came the hamadryas baboons.

They replaced geladas everywhere

Except for the uppermost regions

Of an ethiopian stronghold in the mountains.

Today they exist as two opposing mirror image societies.

One protected by a generous mountain habitat,

The other restricted to the unyielding savanna.

The first guided by females,

The next dominated by males.

One centered around peace,

And the other maintained by violence.

Nowhere is this violence more evident,

Than when two hamadryas clans have to share a space.

A rival group has arrived at the foot of the awash cliffs.

The resident alphas band together

To form an offensive.

The strongest members will be called on in battle.

Tensions run high

And the battle breaks out.

Hamadryas scuffles can be violent.

But the fight is short lived.

The stronger resident clan

Has fended off the rivals.

Peace returns to the cliffs.

Their battle won,

Their oasis secure,

The hamadryas families begin their ascent

To the sleeping sites.

Their territory is secure.

Fighting side by side to protect this small haven of awash

Strengthens the bonds of the hamadryas alphas.

Each day they rely on one another

To defeat the challenges of the park.

But the rewards are always worth the battle.

The harems may now rest easy,

Confident in the fact

That their sleeping sites have been successfully defended.

And so they settle down for the evening,

Retreating to the safety of their mountainous fortress.

Drawing the curtain on another day in awash.

Ethiopia supports an array of wildlife kingdoms.

These house some of the natural world's

Most striking and iconic species.

The primates that exist here

Are as diverse as the habitats they live in.

In awash national park

This variety is contained within a single consolidated arena.

And the oasis at the cliffs is a fiercely contested prize.

One that only the most dominant hamadryas clans may procure.

The resident alphas are responsible

For providing for their families.

To do this successfully,

They have to roam the park in its entirety,

Threading through each of its habitats to find the right food.

Unable to live in one landscape alone,

Their existence is split between two domains.

Theirs is a union composed of tenderness and hostility,

Making them the bastions

Of a world that is both generous and harsh.

Their daily battles with the land, and with each other,

Reveal a fascinating society,

Full of the struggle, triumph -

And paradoxes of their home.

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