Narrator Chris Packman says that the series, Primates, revolving around the species, captures the intimate moments of animal life, which are otherwise inaccessible to common people. By Team Viva

Primates are social animals. They can be fearsome but they can be equally emotional, thoughtful and caring. Focussing on this group of animals, which fascinates and captivates us more than any other — Gavin Boyland’s Primates is his next step in natural history storytelling. Narrator Chris Packman shares his anecdotes and tales between the species. Excerpts:

What made you say yes to the series?

I’ve known Gavin Boyland, the series producer, for some time. He has made some really intelligent, imaginative series and pushing the boat out to make them as creative as possible. He made a previous series about big cats and I stayed in touch with him whilst he was doing that. I loved the series so when he told me he was doing Primates, I was interested.

Primates, I feel, is beautifully shot. Often, when we’re watching blue-chip TV, we use our technology to follow those intimate moments of animal life, which otherwise would be inaccessible but we’re driven principally by our interest in the behaviour, the ecology, the physiology. But here, they’ve found a collection of camera people who have shot it so that we can immerse ourselves in the animals’ environment with beautiful photography as well as learning all those new and exciting aspects of their ecology and so forth.

The second reason was that I like to learn new things. If I’m watching a TV programme and I find myself already knowing 50-60 per cent of it, it’s boring. I don’t want to just see new things, I want to learn new things, and I’ve learned a lot watching this programme because the science is up-to-date, and that’s hard work getting up-to-date science.

Lastly, if you ask people about primates, they’ll talk about apes and monkeys. They’ll talk particularly about gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans and so on — the big flashy ‘t-shirt’ animals as I call them — are things that people easily engage with. I like the way the series covers the whole breadth of the primate family. They’ve got everything including the lemurs, the slow loris, the bush babies, spider monkeys and the gibbons to mention a few. There’s a great breadth there that I think will open people’s eyes to this really important group of animals which are, as programme three tells us, critically endangered in many cases.

What are the most surprising stories in the series?

There are a number of surprising stories and the first one pops up in our first programme. I think we’ve all grown up with the idea that male silverback gorillas are all about being big and immensely strong and it’s that that would give them their fitness in their social groups. But what we’ve learnt through new observations and science is that male gorillas’ fitness, in terms of how often they can reproduce successfully, has nothing to do directly with their size but with how they respond to the need of their youth, effectively how cuddly they are. It’s fantastic!

I love it when we turn stories on their head and we completely transpose what we think about something into something new. And we can do it with authority because the science says it’s true and is therefore trustworthy.

The other things I’ve enjoyed are the intimacies and the subtle bits of animal behaviour. The tool use is always interesting. I suppose we empathise with the cognitive abilities of these animals. A lot of the time when we’re watching them, we realise through their actions that they are really really smart.

The last story that I really liked was the one of the orangutans up the trees where they were learning to climb, and the carers were learning to climb because here you have got two species learning at the same time. The humans have learned that their previous practices weren’t massively efficient and now the primates are learning through their changes. This sort of cooperation is fantastic.

Why do you think a series like Primates is important?

I think that we can use animals we engage with instantaneously and easily as a medium to getting people to engage with things which they don’t perhaps necessarily have the ability for.

Gorillas, chimps and orangutans are easy-ins. Everyone loves them and knows that they are endangered and threatened. We all know that they are intelligent and humans share a lot of genes with them and a lot of similarities in terms of our species. Once you get people watching them, we can take them somewhere new and that’s what we do with the series. It’s not just about those big ‘t-shirt’ animals but it’s about the entire breadth of the primate group, including some small species, that people may not have even heard of. And yet we can show people how important, smart and fascinating they are.

What do you think will be viewers’ takeaways from the series?

A deepened affection for this group of animals, which is easy to love. I think people need to see that they are valuable not just because they are interesting but also because they play important roles in the ecosystem that we’re highly dependent upon. It is a pretty forthright plea for people to assist the conservation of these animals. Without that, we’ll lose a lot of them very quickly. And when we start losing species in masses, we’re making ourselves vulnerable.

We are still part of the ecosystem on planet Earth and if it collapses due to inappropriate human actions, unfortunately, we will collapse too. It is in our best interest to do that. I’m really hoping that people will love primates even more and contribute in some way to wildlife conservation.

A last thought on primates in the wild and their future...

I’d say they are a remarkable group of animals. I’m still learning more things each day. They are a very beautiful species, which is so similar to us and hence, makes it easier to engage with them.

But the big trouble from their point of view is down to us. I think this is a series which has to leave us with one or two questions about ourselves. We are a primate and a part of this group of species. The way we behave at this point in time will determine all of our collective future.

(The series premieres on December 14 at 9 pm on Sony BBC Earth.)