In 2004, it came to the British Broadcasting Association’s attention that there were several species of endangered animal which were close to being extinct—completely wiped off the face of the earth forever. When they initially learned of this, they put it to David Attenborough—one of their experts of the animal kingdom—to choose a species to help and ultimately set up a conservation program for them.

After some thought and deliberation, Attenborough consulted a few of his friends—people who were also experienced in the field of the animal kingdom, each with their own preferred animals and such—to help him decide. Eventually, it was whittled down to the Silverback Gorilla and the African Wild Dog, species that both Attenborough and his companions thought weren’t getting enough media attention.

The start of 2005 brought around funding from the BBC and an outline of Attenborough’s plan. Together with leading conversationalists, he was intending to raise a group of orphaned African Wild Dogs (of which plenty, he was assured, would be around, due to persecution by farmers and such) to maturity and then release them into the wild. In doing this, and making a documentary about it in the process, he was confident that the species would become better known to humans, and perhaps even popular with them.

Matters progressed slowly at first, but in January 2005, David and his crew were able to fly out to eastern Africa to see a selection of African Wild Dogs that had been rescued by a few small conservation parks. The dogs, in total, consisted of a few adults, adolescents and young pups—around twenty, from different parts of Africa, given to the parks by rangers who had found them. It was the perfect opportunity for both Attenborough and his idea, and so filming started a few weeks later.

As the months went on, more African Wild Dogs were given to the main park they were filming at. Some had been wounded by lions and managed to escape, whilst others had managed to avoid a conflict with humans, and had been injured in the process, yet most of them bore similar injuries and the need to be rehabilitated. The documentary progressed and the number of dogs in need grew and kept on increasing until the end of 2006, when filming finished.

It was in November of that year that the crew reached a decision to release the dogs into the wild. They’d done their best—along with the various volunteers, rangers and vets at the conservation parks—to raise them and teach them how to be wild again, and by releasing them, it would be a test of how well they’d done and how much the animals had learnt. Attenborough chose a fairly populated part of eastern Africa to release the African Wild Dogs, and in December, he did just that.

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Three months on and the African Wild Dogs are thriving. They face nature’s challenges every day—lions, hyenas, etcetera—as well as threats from humankind, mainly hunters and rangers who feel that the dogs are threatening their land. Unfortunately, this time, Attenborough won’t be there to help rehabilitate them again and give them yet another chance at life.

But, that is to be expected. This is, after all, Africa, and it is survival of the fittest at its best.