At the heart of the new docu-soap lies the work of animal specialists with their adopted animal babies. The Context TV crews gathered such stories of “wildlife nannies” from across the world - Europe, Africa and Australia – to bring back the cutest and most heart-warming tales we could find. The result is an entertaining and informative family show that tells universal stories and combines them in 20 half hour episodes with 2 – 3 animal baby stories each show.
Besides its emotional and entertaining content, the series offers profound information about the animals and how to raise them. Each episode presents an entertainming mix of stories of exotic and domestic animals. Such as the story of “Rosie” the tiny baboon baby that is being raised by 76 year-old Rita Miljo on her primate sanctuary C.A.R.E. in South Africa and visits the baboon kindergarten for the first time.
Or the white tiger cub Pipo that lives with his wildlife nanny Regina Hamza in Germany. Regina has to say goodbye now as Pipo has grown too strong for her and is moving back to the zoo to live with fellow tigers – though it’s clear the cheeky tiger cub can no longer stay with his foster mum it is very hard for her to let him go. A small miracle is happening in Budapest, where we meet Layla, the first rhinoceros born following artificial insemination. Everybody loves the little
‘big’ baby but can she be re-united with her real family? In Austria, a Harzer foxhound named Janis is being trained to become a mountain rescue dog which needs a very special relationship with the owner. We also spend a day in Australia with wombat baby Mater and his foster “mom” Shaun Douglas, who carries him around in a fabric pouch all day and even takes him along to the shower and to bed.
“Wildlife Nannies” offers high production values using cutting-edge HD camera equipment on locations worldwide and a completely tapeless postproduction. The series is an international co-production with the German public TV channel ZDF. Worldwide distribution is handled by the Studio Hamburg.
Daniel Petry, co-owner of Context: “This series is one of the first ones worldwide with this new workflow. It enables us to produce high quality HD series for the international market quicker, more efficient and in a better quality than before. We’re very thrilled about that and are looking forward to using our unique experience on our next projects.”
The series will be accompanied by our web-portal as the animal baby stories of “Wildlife Nannies” are ideal for multi-platform use and can be told in many different ways. Besides the exciting “Wildlife Nannies” stories from the show the site will feature a “Nanny of the Month” who gives us insights into current activities at their station or sanctuary in an exclusive ‘blog’. Our users will also have the opportunity to participate by sending us their own animal stories and pictures. Along with the series should become a place to share the stories of the many passionate animal nannies who dedicate a great part of their lives to saving and raising animals in danger and to rally support for them.
Says H.W. Pausch, creator of the format and managing director at Context: ”We hope to establish a platform connecting all the amazing people we’ve met shooting over 150 stories around the world and to give them another forum to tell their own stories and put them online for all the other animal lovers out there to enjoy. This way we can help support those people and create more unique and universal content for the entire family.”
