On Location with the BBC

Get up close and personal with the mesmerising Cape gannets as Dr Zanri Strydom shares their parenthood strategies while being filmed for a new BBC documentary. Silverback Films spent a few weeks with Zanri and her husband on Malgas Island to film the daily life of a dedicated gannet breeding pair while raising their chick. Once the chick was old enough to fledge from the island, the crew followed it to document its first-ever jump into the ocean.

This chick dodged the hungry seals, but not all the gannets were so lucky. The camera crew joined Zanri on her patrols around the island in search of the injured gannets washing ashore. After being stabilised, the injured gannets were sent to the seabird hospital, SANCCOB. Zanri and the film crew visited these patients in hospital and happily released the gannets out at sea, a surreal, full-circle moment knowing that the gannets were given a second chance at life. Join Zanri for a sneak peek of her on-location experience and the life story of the gannets.

Narrated by the 99-year-old Sir David Attenborough, the documentary is bound to be an extraordinary new release. 

Each session consists of 20-minute presentations, followed by a joint Q&A session of 15 minutes.

ABOUT DR ZANRI STRYDOM

Dr Zanri Strydom has been involved in seabird rehabilitation for the last decade and was inspired to research an endangered seabird, the Cape gannet. Having spent months with gannets on offshore islands, Zanri was contracted as an Ecological Control Officer for numerous documentaries. With the most recent gannet documentary, Zanri was the scientific advisor for the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) helping to fight the plight of the species.

Zanri and her husband currently manage Dunefields Private Nature Reserve located outside Wilderness where she continues to study this special species. Her life is devoted to helping the gannets.