Expedition

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Narrator

These trails are a good place for remote cameras but there's a downside. So the main challenge here in this forest are elephants because they simply get mad with the red lights of the cameras during the night. Sometimes you are not even able to find the cameras but just pieces all around. (pensive music) (camera clicking) -

Narrator

Alessandra will leave her cameras running for a month. If we're lucky, they'll capture images of chimpanzees. (pensive music) What we are doing here is really, really important because (indistinct) National Park was studied mainly in the northern parts of the park so this part of the park is completely unexplored. Nobody placed camera traps here, so each day, every day that we are collecting is unique, important and can be the first step for good conservation programs in that place in this area. (pensive music) While Alessandra rigs her remote cameras along the Elephant Trail, we make camp above the gorge by a jungle stream. These small tributaries are animal hotspots. They come here under the safety of darkness to drink. So Alessandra's camera traps are gonna be watching day and night to see what passes close to our camp. I'm gonna try do things the old-fashioned way. So me, Jismane and Roger are gonna head up this way and just see what we can find. (water splashing) The streambeds are a thoroughfare for everything, including flying insects. And spiders know this and will string their webs to completely cover the streambed. This one here stretches all the way out from the trees on one bank all the way to the other side. And it is exquisitely beautiful. Look at that. (pensive music) And as you're walking along down these streambeds, every few meters, you just walk face first into one. It's like (narrator grunting). Let's see if we can duck underneath that one. Oh yes. Just totally, totally fearless. It's my first rats, forest rats ever. I've been working in the jungle, no kidding, 17 years no but these are my first forest rats I've ever seen. That's amazing. This species of wood mouse is only found in pristine habitat. It's a sure sign this forest is healthy. (antelope barking) An antelope bark echoes around the tributary. (Roger imitating call) Roger calls back to attract it closer. Can you see it? Amazing. Is that blue duiker? -

Roger

Blue duiker. It's so, so rare that you get a view like that of a mammal here in the forest. (water splashing) They've very shy. When they see you, they will just... Do you think it's not so shy because it doesn't see people? Yeah, maybe we're the first humans that this duiker has seen ever. And to see one just wandering around in the forest, totally fearless, not fussed about us at all, that's about as strong a signal as you're ever gonna get that nobody ever comes here. How cool is that? I'm really happy to spot one tonight. Very, very cool. (pensive music) And Alessandra's camera traps have discovered the likely owner of the footprint I found earlier in the day. (elephant grunting) But as yet, no chimpanzees.