Wild China

Wild China is a six-part

The musical score to accompany the series was composed by Barnaby Taylor and was performed by Cheng Yu and the UK Chinese Ensemble.[3]

The series was billed as the culmination of the BBC Natural History Unit's "Continents" programmes, a long-running strand of blue-chip wildlife documentaries which surveyed the natural history of each of the world's major land areas. It was preceded by Wild Caribbean in 2007, but with the broadcast of South Pacific in 2009 the BBC signalled a continuation of the strand.

Production details

The

"We want the Chinese to feel proud of their countryside and wildlife, to care about it and to seek to ensure its survival. We also hope to redress the negative view of China's environment propagated in western media."

— Series Producer Phil Chapman, writing in BBC Wildlife magazine

Filming for the series took place over 16 months, and involved half a million miles of travel on 57 separate filming trips to some of China's most inaccessible and spectacular locations. The production team shot over 500 hours of HD footage in 26 of China's 30 provinces.^[6]

Despite being granted unprecedented access to many remote and protected areas, one of the main challenges faced by the filmmakers was finding wildlife. Although 15% of China's territory has some form of protection, this is not a guarantee of safety for wildlife, as reserves were often found to be under-equipped and under-staffed. In addition, they encountered a lack of local expertise and specialist knowledge, as few of China's

Over 80% of the series was based on traditional observational techniques in the wild.[7] These were conducted in some of China's most remote areas:

• Apart from a handful of biologists, the Wild China team were the first to set foot in
  chiru in temperatures of -30°C at 5,000m above sea level. The sequence showing a duel between two rival males was successfully filmed after stalking the herds for seven days.^[8]
  Field producer Jeff Boedeker trained with his team for a month in various stealth techniques. On one occasion the field team lay under a white tarp for 32 hours waiting for a shot that never came. They burned yak dung to stay warm and melt drinking water, and the crew was specifically selected for its sensibility to cultures, mental and physical aptitude for high stress scenarios, and techniques in nonfiction filmmaking.
• After two unsuccessful attempts to film wild
  Qinling Mountains, the producers switched to a different part of the region, the little-visited Changqing Reserve. There they were able to track and film the creatures in winter, and also film courtship and mating activity, the first time such a complete sequence has been shot in the wild.^[9]
• Producer Kathryn Jeffs and cameraman Paul Stewart travelled to the remote
  lek was ruined when the birds were disturbed.^[10]

Certain sequences could only be filmed using special techniques:^[11]

• Pallas' pit viper
  on Shedao Island.
• A
  time-lapse
  sequence of a remote Tibetan gorge was filmed using still images taken at intervals after the main filming camera broke down.
• Francois langurs and bamboo bats
  covertly.
• Thermal imaging cameras were used to show how the elephant yam uses convection heating at night to distribute its distinctive smell, which attracts pollinating beetles.

In some circumstances behaviour was too difficult to obtain in the wild, and controlled conditions were required:^[12][13]

• Roborovski hamsters
  were filmed in burrows with glass side panels in a studio set.
• The producers negotiated an agreement to take Chinese alligator eggs from an incubator at the Xuancheng breeding centre and place them in an artificial nest to film them hatching.
• The courtship display of Temminck's tragopans was filmed using a captive pair of birds habituated to the presence of humans. Hunting pressure has made the wild birds in Yunnan too wary to approach.
• The slowed-down images of
  Everest
  could not be filmed in the wild due to the impracticality of transporting high-speed camera equipment to the remote location, so a closely related species was filmed in a studio set.

Episodes

No.	Title	Original air date	UK viewers (millions)
1	"Heart of the Dragon"	11 May 2008 (2008-05-11)	2.55 million viewers (11% audience share)[15]
The first programme in the series concentrates on South China, where the climate and terrain is ideal for migratory birds including tundra swans and Siberian cranes gather at Poyang Lake.[14]
2	"Shangri-La"	18 May 2008 (2008-05-18)	2.57M viewers (10.6% audience share)[15]
This episode profiles the rich Jino tribes, each of whom regard the forests as sacred and harvest them sustainably, but modern times are bringing new threats such as rubber plantations and tourism.[16]
3	"Tibet"	25 May 2008 (2008-05-25)	2.88M viewers (12% audience share)[15]
The Saga Dawa festival takes place at sacred Mount Kailash and draws pilgrims of many faiths. Tibet is a fragile ecosystem; its glaciers are melting, and this will have a profound effect on the future for billions of people who depend on waters flowing from the plateau.[17]
4	"Beyond the Great Wall"	1 June 2008 (2008-06-01)	3.23M viewers (13.7% audience share)[15]
The fourth episode looks at the lands north of China’s Harbin Ice Festival.[18]
5	"Land of the Panda"	8 June 2008 (2008-06-08)	3.19M viewers (13.3% audience share)[15]
The fifth installment features central China, home to the Jiuzhaigou, unique fish swim amongst forests preserved underwater.[19]
6	"Tides of Change"	15 June 2008 (2008-06-15)	2.52M viewers (10% audience share)[15]
The final programme features China’s 14,500 km coastline, home to 700 million people. Despite decades of rapid urban development, it is still an important migration route for birds. Endangered Chinese white dolphins. On Hainan island, macaques are shown jumping into a hotel swimming pool, epitomising the uneasy coexistence of wildlife and people in China, and the challenge of continuing its traditional harmonious relationship with nature.[20]

Merchandise

A

• The Blu-ray Disc (BBCBD0025), released on 5 August 2008, presents the series in full high-definition format.^[21] The series is also included in the BBC High Definition Natural History Collection Blu-ray box sets for Regions A and B (BBCBD0056).
• A Region 2, 2-disc DVD set (BBCDVD2146) featuring all six full-length episodes was released on 9 June 2008.^[22] The Region 4 version of the DVD and Blu-ray was released by ABC DVD/Village Roadshow on 1 July 2008.^[23]
• The accompanying paperback book, Wild China: The Hidden Wonders of the World's Most Enigmatic Land by series producer Phil Chapman, was published by
  ISBN 1-846-07233-6).^[24]

• Japan: Earth's Enchanted Islands

References