Channel 4 has many of the key life events covered in its factual TV output. Birth (One Born Every Minute), childhood and school (The Secret Life of 4-year-olds; Educating Yorkshire), dating (First Dates) and work (The Job Interview). It looks like Sex Tape – expected some time this year – will cover the revenge-porn side of things. All it needs is a good death show then that’s it: everything important will be seen to.
The Secret Life of the Zoo attempts to do pretty much all of the above, except with captive animals. Not as interesting as proper in-the-wild natural history, because it’s basically Big Brother, rather than the real world. But it’s easier – and much cheaper – to make. Chester Zoo is not so hard to get to.
Procreation is the name of the game in this series opener. Orangutan sisters Emma and Subis are both pregnant, both by Puluh. That could get a bit tricky later. And will the babies be half siblings, cousins or what?
In the tropical realm of Chester, there are three new two-horned chameleons from Cameroon. They came from a customs seizure after they were imported illegally with the wrong paperwork and now they are being encouraged to make babies, too. It is a complicated business, though, chameleon sex, about which little is known, even at Chester. It seems to require fights and colour changes before any actual copulation can occur. This female has changed colour, but into the wrong one: black, which means she is not up for it, the reason for which will become clear later.
It is a similar story with the vampire crabs. No interest, no action, so another male is introduced to spice things up a little, which may lead to brutal combat, we are warned, with limbs and claws getting ripped off. That sounds exciting … The fight doesn’t happen, though, and if there is any mating it is not caught on camera. No crabby sex tapes here.
At least we can rely upon the meerkats to do the business; normally, they breed like rabbits, as well as living like them, in burrows. But, for some reason, the staff at Chester have put a pair of aadvarks in with them. The thing about aadvarks – the other thing, the first being that they come early alphabetically – is that they are loud and messy and disruptive and not at all conducive to love-making. Aardvarks are like the opposite of putting a Barry White record on. And they snore very loudly. Actually it is slightly suspect, the sound of aardvarks snoring. Likewise the loud crunch of a cricket being munched by a chameleon; it sounds like a nut being cracked. And the plinkety-plonky be-amused-by-this-bit music is annoying.
Things do happen, it is just that “the latest camera technology” fails to capture it. Some of the secrets of the zoo remain secret. Emma the orangutan sneaks off to have her baby (like One Born Every Minute minus the birth scenes, and actually I am OK with that). It is orange and fluffy and very cute. Also very human – about 97% so, DNA-wise.
One morning, in the crab tank, there are six or seven tiny baby vampire crabs, although we don’t get to see any of the behaviour that led to them. And they need to be got out of there, fast. Cronos crabs would be a better name for them. A bit like Cromer crabs, except these ones eat their children.
Plus there are three baby two-horned chameleons as well, each the size of a fingernail. It seems that it probably wasn’t to do with the efforts to breed them, but that the mother was pregnant when she arrived. That is why she turned black; it’s chameleon for: “Back off, I’m knocked up already.” She was seized by customs, remember? An illegal immigrant, the wrong paperwork. The staff at Chester need to sort that out – the paperwork – for the babies quickly, before they are put on a plane to Cameroon, even though Chester is the only place they have lived and known. In case the Home Office is watching.
Finally, some excitement, in the form of a proper story. Subis, the other orangutan, who has been unwell, is examined to see how her baby is doing. Nothing there! She has had it! It is the one Emma has been carrying around. An act of extreme 97%-human empathy, coming to the rescue of a poorly sister in need?
Or a wicked crime: nick her baby while she is down. They do share a boyfriend, don’t forget; that can lead to jealousy. I think that’s it. Enough of this cheap Channel 4 social experiment nonsense, they are saying. We’re swinging off out of here, to have some proper fun, with Jeremy Kyle on the other side.
