Groundbreaking documentary showcases the wildlife of remote UAE

Shot between 2011 and 2013, BBC's Wild Arabia series has been a huge hit in the UK, where it aired last year. It is due to be shown in the UAE later this year.

Television audiences have been captivated by the BBC series Wild Arabia and now viewers in the UAE will have the chance to see what all the fuss is about. Courtesy BBC

DUBAI // Melting cameras and keeping up with wild dugongs off the coast of Abu Dhabi were just some of the challenges faced by producers capturing shots of nature in the UAE during the BBC's filming of Wild Arabia.

Shot between 2011 and 2013, the series has been a huge hit in the UK, where it aired last year. It is due to be shown in the UAE later this year.

With few places on Earth evoking more mystery and romance than Arabia, the series shed light on corners of the region that many will not have seen before.

The cast of characters included the snow-white oryx that inspired the myth of the unicorn, and the long-legged jerboa, capable of leaping 10 times its own body length.

Horned vipers were shot hunting glow-in-the-dark scorpions, and Bedouin nomads were filmed racing their camels across the largest desert in the world.

The connection between man and nature was also a major part of the series. It helped illustrate the huge changes in the region since the discovery of oil and how technology is used to protect nature.

Australian filmmaker Chadden Hunter, who produced the series, has been working for the BBC for 10 years and, before that, he was a wildlife biologist.

“It is a part of the world where not many people had filmed wildlife before,” he said.

“For us, it was a new challenge as we couldn’t ask others about how they had done it as we were the first.

“We were filming oryx in the deep desert reserves in the south-east corner of the UAE, near to the Saudi border.

“It is such an important species, iconic for the region and an almost mythical creature in Arabian history.

“It was important to get that deep iconography of Arabian wildlife but also focus on species that showed how difficult it is to survive in the desert.”

The team of two producers, two directors and a camera crew of 10 were used throughout the project. Pillow cases and linen cloth was used in true Bedouin style to protect the equipment from baking heat in high summer. “A lot of the filming took patience,” Mr Hunter added.

“The desert is a difficult place to film and there are not many places to hide. Often we are dealing with forest or bush, so this was about trying to get into position, stay low, outwit the animals and wait for them to come past.

“People thought we were crazy to film out there as people wrongly thought there was nothing there. What was remarkable for us was that every shoot was surprising, with new animals that hadn’t been filmed before.

“It felt like we were showing many people a part of the world they had not seen before. We travel the world and it is rare that we can lift the lid on a place where there are beautiful surprises.”