There’s a new series starting on BBC1 on 31st March 2024 at 7pm – Mammals.

Composer Thomas Farnon and The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra rework Coldplay’s track for the BBC Studios Natural History Unit.

The new series starts of with Dark, as so many of the world’s mammals only come out at night.  Why is this?  Well, the BBC website for the programme explains that mammals first emerged during the time of the dinosaurs (200 million years ago) and stayed small and active at night to avoid competition with them.  So today, over two thirds of mammals are nocturnal.  They have developed incredible strategies to survive.

The programme focuses on foxes in the Sahara, the Etruscan shrew, cape buffalo and hyenas working together in Tanzania, the Damaraland mole rat in Kalahari’s desert, greater bull dog bats off the Trinidad coast – and the annual gathering of one and a half million bats in Texas.  And did you know that 4,000 coyotes have made Chicago their home?

The second episode is called The New Wild.  The world has always changed, but at a pace where mammals have been able to keep up.  Now that human activity is changing earth so much and at such a pace, some animals are finding it easier to keep up than others – there are many species who need a helping hand.

We see sea lions in Chilean markets, otters in Singapore, elephants in town, hippos competing with people for water in Tanzania, Indian wolves living in abandoned minefields after the war between Israel and Syria, American buffalo and bison, and the blue whale battling for position in the oceans against thousands of cargo ships.

Visit the programme's website here.

You could also visit the Mammal Society here.  It's a British charity working to help mammals in the UK and give them a future.