Hello, my name is Gavin Thurston.
I've spent over 30 years watching and filming wildlife,
for series such as Planet Earth, Blue Planet, Frozen Planet, etc..
My job has taken me all over the world, but there's one place that's drawn me back like a magnet time and time again.
And that's where this story takes place.
It's the Masai Mara in Kenya.
The event I'm going to tell you about took place almost 30 years ago, but it was so shocking that it stuck hard in my
memory. The Masai Mara is a national game reserve.
It's mainly rolling hills of open savanna dotted with trees,
and the Mara River flows through it west to east, dividing it from the Serengeti to the south.
This has to be in the top five places for abundant wildlife on this planet, and it's home to the usual top predators:
Lions, cheetah.
Leopard. You may also know of the Mara because of the annual wildebeest migration;
tens of thousands of animals follow the rains as the seasons swing north and south over the year, and this rain brings
fresh grass; which is food for the herbivores.
One such common herbivore is the Thompson's gazelle or Tommy.
It's a small goat sized gazelle with a white belly.
It has a white rump patch,
and he's got two distinctive horizontal black side stripes.
The males have quite substantial horns for rutting in defense.
The female horns are shorter, about yay big, but would still do some damage.
One morning, heading out to film, expert spotter driver Dave Breed saw a female Tommy out on
its own, and it was behaving really strangely.
He drove us a bit closer to have a look.
Looking through binoculars, we could see she was pregnant and it was soon clear she was going to give birth.
Herbivores time their births to coincide with the rains, as there's then much more lush grass to eat to raise their young.
By all giving birth around the same time, there's less chance of your offspring being the one to get eaten by a predator.
As a wildlife cameraman, I'm always on the lookout for interesting behaviours, even if they're not strictly on the script.
I readied my camera and Dave swung the car round into position for me to film.
She circled slightly and then knelt down on her front knees.
Within 30 seconds or so, a tiny head and feet appeared.
5 seconds later, the tiny baby flopped out onto the grass
and mum turned round and began to lick the tiny fawn.
It's a magical moment to witness.
The licking helps clear the baby's nose so it can breathe and creates a stronger bond between mum and baby.
It also helps suppress the smell of the birth fluids that could attract a predator.
A minute or so later and the baby was already trying to get up on its feet, but these newborns are vulnerable,
out on the plains of Africa, and so have evolved to get up and running quickly.
I was enjoying this tender moment between the mother and her newborn baby, when she started to look nervously into
the distance. David's sharp eyes soon picked it up.
There was something running in from almost a kilometre away.
A large male baboon.
Baboons are omnivores and opportunistic,
they'll eat pretty much anything.
They've got amazing eyesight
and clearly this baboon had seen the baby from way, way off.
Dave warned me about what might be about to happen, so I swung the camera around and focused.
The baboon was running at full tilt, pounding across the plains, making a beeline for the Tommy and her baby.
Closer to us, the young fawn was almost standing, its legs wobbling, taking its first steps.
But the baboon was closing in.
I really felt for the gazelle mother.
Her instinct knew what was coming,
and she desperately tried to nuzzle her new baby to walk.
Too late. The male baboon was soon on them and it grabbed the baby from under mum's nose.
Mum was not going to give up on her baby though, and she just charged and charged and jabbed the baboon with her
horns,
and the baboon leapt back and dropped the baby, and for a moment it looked like the mum might be able to defend it.
But these males are smart and quick, he darted in and grabbed the baby again.
This time he took it in his mouth and ran.
It happened so fast that the mum didn't see the baby go,
and she stayed looking in the grass and that was it.
The baboon just went off a few hundred metres and sat behind the nearest termite mound.
It's pretty grim, not the sort of thing you can show on any screen.
The baboon slowly ate the baby alive as it bleated for its mother, and that's the image and memory I
have.
In the space of maybe 5 minutes I witness the full, gruesome circle of life.
From being born and taking its first breath, its feet on the plains of Africa, to staring into the jaws
of death and taking its last breath.
Life can be harsh, and these brutal scenarios take place daily in the wild.
Thankfully, we aren't there to witness it all.