If you probably couldn’t tell from reading this blog, carnivoran evolution and natural history is one of my passions.
Where did all of this get started? I’d say sometime in the mid-90s. I used to watch A&E’s old Wildlife Mysteries series on Thursday nights. These were mostly very high quality wildlife documentaries and a lot of them were BBC productions.
Some of these films were shown in a series called “Carnivores.” It was about the evolution of the order Carnivora, minus the pinnipeds. And I loved it.
The series was based upon the work of David MacDonald, a carnivoran specialist and conservation biologist at Oxford.
In the UK, it was shown as “The Velvet Claw,” which is one reason I’ve had a few problems finding even clips of it online.
And for a long time, all that we could see are short clips, but now, well, it’s been uploaded in full. Here is the entire series on Youtube.
I don’t know how long it’s going to be up, so you’d better watch it soon.
Going to enjoy watching those again.
For those who don’t know, the bbc has a new series just starting called The Hunt.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0342dms/the-hunt-1-the-hardest-challenge