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The Isle of Wight Zoo is proud to be home to ITV Meridian's 'Tiger Island'. The production team, Athena Films, began filming last summer time for this eclectic 'fly-on-the-wall' style series.
The 7 x 25 minute programmes are a flavoursome mix of wildlife and documentary filming; as the title suggests, the zoo's tiger collection is at the epicentre of the series although other animal residents are also featured along the way.
Daily, behind the scenes life at the zoo is the platform for Tiger Island, producing multi-dimensional programmes which highlight the complexities of caring for wild animals in human care environments.
All aspects of husbandry have been put under the magnifying glass from social integration of tigers and environmental enrichment work to veterinary procedures and primate hand-rearing. The dedicated zoo team were over the moon to be invited to transport crucial animal welfare, biology and conservation messages direct to Meridian viewers.
The Athena Films crew have been intermittently based at the zoo since August 2006. As the producers of Monkey World's highly acclaimed 'Monkey Business', Athena were no strangers to the unpredictable world of wildlife filming. During their time on-site, the crew remained ever respectful of the zoos welfare policies and of the animal stars themselves.
Despite the saying 'never work with animals or children', the zoo's animal residents were incredibly accommodating when it came to 'lights, camera, ACTION!'. In fact, they seemed to find the whole experience rather intriguing and stimulating. Needless to say though, some of the best moments were captured when the animals outsmarted the ever patient camera crew, chucking up some priceless images.
Aside from documenting 'on-site' activities, Athena also travelled 4000 miles to India with zoo staff to follow on-going conservation and education project development in Kanha National Park. Remarkable wildlife footage of tigers and cohabitants of Kanha was used in the series as a powerful visual tool to educate about the natural environment of these endangered predators and the role that zoos can play in the preservation game.
Tiger Island will be released to the ITV Meridian region from Sunday 20th May 2007. Filming is already underway for an expectant second series. Core storylines continue to be followed as do new happenings at the zoo. Confirmation of Tiger Island II will be announced by summer 2007. Athena are all set to accompany zoo staff to the USA to transport an ex-circus tiger from Florida to the zoo's Tiger Sanctuary. Watch this space…
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