Having started out presenting kids’ programming at RTÉ, Liz Bonnin will know all about thriving in bleak and inhospitable environments. Since flying free of Montrose and becoming established at the BBC, the Dubliner has gone on to a successful career as a potential heir to David Attenborough.
A qualified biochemist, she brings a lightly-worn scientific rigour to her natural history work. It’s that ability to tread softly while delivering a pretty dire message about the state of the planet that is perhaps her unique attribute. Bonnin has lots of stern things to say about climate change on shows such as Horizon – Should We Close Or Zoos? and Drowning In Plastic. Yet she does so without coming across as hectoring or preachy – a rare gift in an age when wildlife TV often feels obliged to come with an apocalyptic edge.
That said, Liz Bonnin’s Wild Caribbean (BBC Two, Sunday, 9pm), her new four-part nature travelogue, is underwhelming. Its mission to celebrate the natural wonder of the Caribbean is personal to Bonnin, whose mother is from Trinidad. “The Caribbean shaped my childhood,” she says in an opening voiceover. “There’s a relationship between life on land and sea you can find nowhere else on earth. There’s more to this place than meets the eye.”
It’s in Trinidad that the action starts, with Bonnin on the street for an annual parade where people party and splash paint with abandon. The floats that bob by are inspired by the island’s rich wildlife, and it is in search of these natural splendours that Bonnin then sets off for the Dominican Republic.
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There’s lots to see and do, yet for all Bonnin’s enthusiasm and command of the facts, the results fall short of gripping. Near the village of Los Limones, she watches volunteers climb a tree to rescue a Ridgeway’s Hawk chick at risk of parasites. Then, close to the border with Haiti, she tramps through the gloom on the trail of the solenodon, a primitive early mammal whose ancestors coexisted with the dinosaurs. It looks like a rodent – but far predates modern wildlife.
Best of all is an encounter with a saltwater crocodile at Lago Enriquillo in the southwest of the Dominican Republic. She helps researchers uncover a clutch of eggs so that they can be logged and measured. It’s important work: only 700 of these creatures live in the wild, so their breeding habits must be closely monitored. “Look at how stunning these animals are: primordial beasts, ancient creatures,” she gasps.
Then it’s back to dry land, where conservationists help liberate flamingos kept on hotel grounds, where they lose their distinctive pink colour and are forced into stressful interactions with passersby. Bonnin applauds with joy as the flamingos are set free and flap about uncertainly on a pristine shoreline.
It’s a feel-good ending to a show that, if well-made, lacks emotional moments. Perhaps audiences have been spoiled by all those megabudget David Attenborough films. Wild Caribbean is perfectly competent – yet the blockbuster grandeur we’ve come to expect of top-rank nature telly is thin on the ground.
