Animal Park

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This article is about the TV documentary. For the children's TV series, see Animal Park (1991 TV series). For animal parks in general, see Safari park and Zoo.

Animal Park
Animal Park.jpg
Title screen
Presented byKate Humble
Ben Fogle (2001—)
Paul Heiney (2000)
Starring (2016—)
Theme music composerSimon May
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
No. of series16
No. of episodes221
Production
Production locationLongleat Safari Park
Running time15–60 minutes
Production companiesBBC, Endemol UK
Release
Original networkBBC One, BBC Two
Original releaseOriginal series:
10 July 2000 (2000-07-10) – 25 March 2009 (2009-03-25)
Revived series:
22 August 2016 (2016-08-22) –
present
Chronology
Preceded byLion Country
Related showsAnimal Park: Wild in Africa
Animal Park: Wild on the West Coast
External links
Website

Animal Park is a BBC television documentary series about the lives of keepers and animals at Longleat Safari Park, Wiltshire, England. The show is currently presented by Kate Humble and Ben Fogle, who replaced Paul Heiney in 2001. has been a co-presenter since 2016.

2000 to 2009[]

The first series of Animal Park, originally broadcast in 2000 on BBC One, was presented by Kate Humble and Paul Heiney.[1] In series two, Heiney was replaced by Ben Fogle. Altogether, there were nine series and 150 episodes of Animal Park, with the last episode originally airing on 25 March 2009.

The forerunner to Animal Park was a BBC One series called Lion Country, also filmed at Longleat Safari Park, which aired in 1998 and 1999 with a total of 55 episodes.

Content[]

Programmes show the animals, keepers, and day-to-day running of the safari park. Some of the animals captured the hearts of the viewing public, including the tiger 'Kadu', rhinos 'Babs' and 'Winston', and Europe's oldest male silverback gorilla, 'Nico'.

Alexander Thynn, 7th Marquess of Bath, owner of the Longleat estate until his death on 4 April 2020, appeared regularly in the show. Animal Park also documents the running of Longleat House and the ongoing preservation of its historic contents.

Spin-offs[]

There have been two spin-offs from the main series. Animal Park: Wild in Africa was originally broadcast in 2005 on BBC Two.[2] Set in Namibia, it documented the work of wildlife conservationists.

Another spin-off, Animal Park: Wild on the West Coast, had a similar format in California, and was originally broadcast in 2007 on BBC Two.[3]

2016 revival[]

In 2016, the BBC announced that Animal Park would return for a tenth series to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Longleat Safari Park.[4] This series aired for five episodes in August 2016 in a daytime slot. The show was renamed Animal Park: Summer Special and was presented by Kate Humble and Ben Fogle, with as a reporter.

An eleventh series was broadcast in 2017. Five episodes aired during Easter, with a further ten airing during the summer.[5]

Animal Park: Summer Special, series twelve, was aired in August 2018.[6] Episode 3 celebrated the life of the gorilla 'Nico', who died in January 2018 at the age of 56.[7][8] Episode 7 featured wildlife photographer Will Burrard-Lucas, who used his remote-control BeetleCam to take a series of close-up photographs of the animals.[9]

Humble and Fogle continued as presenters for the 2019 and 2020 series.

Series fourteen, episode 4 (first aired in August 2020) celebrated the life of the former owner of the Longleat estate, Alexander Thynn, 7th Marquess of Bath, who died in April 2020.[10][11]

Series fifteen, aired in December 2020, had a Christmas theme.[12]

Transmissions[]

Main series[]

Series Start Date End Date Episodes Channel
1 10 July 2000 21 July 2000 10 BBC One
2 9 July 2001 20 July 2001 10
3 7 May 2002 26 August 2002 25
4 23 February 2004 26 March 2004 25 BBC Two
5 6 September 2004 13 October 2004 25
6 22 August 2005 9 September 2005 15
7 21 August 2006 8 September 2006 15
8 7 January 2008 20 January 2008 10
9 5 January 2009 25 March 2009 15
10 22 August 2016 26 August 2016 5 BBC One
11 10 April 2017 11 August 2017 15
12 6 August 2018 24 August 2018 15
13 5 August 2019 23 August 2019 15
14 17 August 2020 4 September 2020 15
15 14 December 2020 18 December 2020 6
16 9 August 2021 27 August 2021 15

Some episodes from series six and eight have been re-edited into 15, 25, 30 and 45 minute programmes to be repeated and used as schedule fillers.

Animal Park: Wild in Africa[]

Series[13] Start Date End Date Episodes Channel
1 unknown unknown 10 BBC Two

Animal Park: Wild on the West Coast[]

Series[14] Start Date End Date Episodes Channel
1 unknown unknown 10 BBC Two

References[]

  1. ^ "Animal Park - BBC One London - 20 July 2000". BBC Genome. Retrieved 7 November 2015.
  2. ^ "Animal Park - Wild in Africa - BBC Two England - 5 April 2005". BBC Genome.
  3. ^ "Animal Park: Wild on the West Coast - BBC Two England - 23 July 2007". BBC Genome.
  4. ^ "Take part in Animal Park series 10". BBC. Retrieved 9 May 2016.
  5. ^ Murray, Robin (3 March 2017). "Animal Park to return to Longleat with new major series". Wiltshire Times. Retrieved 27 June 2017.
  6. ^ Archer, Kate (5 August 2018). "When is Animal Park Summer Special on? Who are the presenters? Where is it filmed?". BT TV. Retrieved 8 August 2018.
  7. ^ "Animal Park Summer Special 2018 - episode 3" at BBC Online
  8. ^ "Nico the Gorilla". Longleat. 9 January 2018. Retrieved 9 August 2018.
  9. ^ "BeetleCam gets bug's eye view of Longleat's Big Four". Retrieved 31 August 2018.
  10. ^ "Lord Bath dies after contracting coronavirus". BBC News. 5 April 2020. Retrieved 20 August 2020.
  11. ^ Animal Park - Summer 2020: Episode 4, retrieved 20 August 2020
  12. ^ "BBC One - Animal Park, Christmas Special - Episode guide".
  13. ^ "BBC Two - Animal Park: Wild in Africa - Episode guide".
  14. ^ "BBC Two - Animal Park: Wild on the West Coast - Episode guide".

External links[]

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