This is London Magazine New Year Edition 2026 - Flipbook - Page 6
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GORDON BUCHANAN AT THE
GILLIAN LYNNE THEATRE
‘We’ve got a primal fear of Lions and
Tigers and Bears... But we welcome
them into our homes’ says wildlife
filmmaker Gordon Buchanan ahead of a
2026 tour. Wildlife filmmaker and
photographer Gordon Buchanan has had
more cause than most to exclaim ‘Oh
my!’ in a career that’s charted the lives of
some of nature’s most charismatic
beasts, who have in turn inspired his
latest live tour Lions and Tigers and
Bears, which comes to the Gillian Lynne
Theatre on Monday 2 February.
Hailed as Scotland’s own David
Attenborough, Gordon Buchanan is due
back on screens soon in BBC One’s Big
Cats 24/7 where he tracks lions,
leopards and cheetahs in Botswana.
‘I’m really excited about doing the
tour again!’ he said. ‘I’m very spoilt
seeing lions and tigers and bears in the
wild – so it’s exciting to have the
opportunity to tour the country and
share these stories with thousands of
people, being able to give them a sense
of what it is like to get up close to polars
in the Arctic, how fast you need to run to
escape a sloth bear and what it’s like to
bottle feed grizzlies.
And he’s got a theory as to why
people continue to be fascinated by big
cats and bears: ‘These iconic creatures
are seen as these predators who are out
to get us,’ Gordon explains. ‘And with
that comes a primal fear which dates
back to the caveman – when our biggest
fears weren’t job security and mortgage
repayments, but actually surviving those
big animals with teeth and claws.
‘But funnily, these animals are now
welcomed into our homes. Go into any
family home and there will be a number
of bears... We still have a big box of
teddies from when the kids were small,
and there are lions and tigers among
them as well.
‘Bears have infiltrated our lives –
think Paddington, Rupert, Fozzie! Even
Gentle Ben way back on TV – not that
that featured the job as such, but I
remember watching and thinking that’s
what I want to be, up close with the bear,
and it represented wild parts of the world
for me.’
In 30-plus years with a camera in
hand – with TV series Big Cat Diary,
Lost Land Of The..., the Family & Me
series, and Our Changing Planet on his
resumé, both filmmaking and the planet
have changed hand-in-hand under
Gordon’s watchful gaze.
‘Wildlife documentaries used to be
about pointing at a lion, and saying
‘that’s a lion’,’ he said. ‘Now they are
about their behaviour; how they live and
interact in a modern world, some with
humans, some in a fully wild
environment. Lions and tigers and bears
are all very much animals which have
been shaped by the landscape and
climate of where they are living.’
For more information and to purchase
tickets for Lions and Tigers and Bears
with Gordon Buchanan go to
www.gordon-buchanan.co.uk
LONDON ZOO’S ANNUAL STOCKTAKE
Humboldt penguins, Asiatic lions,
corals, Seychelles millipedes and
capybaras were some of the 8,000
animals being counted as part of
London Zoo’s Annual Stocktake, kicking
off ZSL’s 200-year anniversary.
Zookeepers recorded 75 Humboldt
penguins including the 16 chicks
hatched in 2025. This was a big
conservation win for the species,
as Humboldt penguins, originally from
Chile and Peru, are classified as
vulnerable on the IUCN Red List of
Threatened Species and their numbers
are declining in the wild.
ZSL, the charity which runs London
Zoo, has been contributing to the global
understanding of wildlife for 200 years –
having been founded to advance
scientific understanding of animals.
The annual animal count at London Zoo
is not just a requirement of its license,
but the data from the annual count is
shared with other zoos around the world
via a global database called ZIMS
Species360, where it is used to help
manage worldwide conservation
breeding programmes for endangered
animals.
www.zsl.org/200
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