Interview: Camera assistant gets nightmares

Getting rid of a whale carcass is a disgusting affair. Earth Touch staffer Sarah Keartes bravely kept her lunch down to bring us this blow-by-blow account of how it gets done in Africa. Want to know more about how this whale ended up here? Get the full story:

Every December to January, fur seal colonies welcome their newest members...but for newborn seal pups, life is hard from the get-go. Our camera crew witnessed this baby being snatched from its mother by a neighboring female--before it was born!

At any moment in time, one in every 20 male giraffes can be found amorously necking with another male. Or so says one study into giraffe homosexual behaviour. You probably wouldn't have learned about it in biology class, but homosexual behaviour is very common all across the animal kingdom (some zoologists estimate that about 1,500 animal species are known to display some form of it). In giraffes, that behaviour involves necking, caressing and mounting … and it’s more common than heterosexual interactions!

It's not a behaviour often captured on film, but the Earth Touch crew recently got the chance to film African lions mating in the wild! When it comes lion mating rituals, it’s all about speed and stamina (and plenty of aggression). And monogamy is out of the window – females will mate with more than one suitor and since there’s no specific breeding period, lions mate several times a year – and a mating marathon can involve twenty to forty romps a day (the amorous pair often doesn’t even stop to eat!).

WARNING: This footage is extremely graphic and may offend sensitive viewers. In March 2013 Kruger National Park section ranger Richard Sowry captured the ugly face of South Africa's poaching pandemic when he discovered a mutilated female rhino clinging to life following an attack by poachers. A poignant and gruesome portrayal of the horrors of the horn trade, this footage reveals the grim fate that sadly awaits many of Africa's rhinos

It’s a horrific scene: a mother leopard watches helplessly over her paralysed cub before eventually eating it. In this video, Earth Touch’s Julie King, who was part of the camera crew that day, describes what it was like to watch the events unfold and attempts to explain the mother’s behaviour.

A member of the camera crew who witnessed this horrific lion attack on a baby elephant sheds some light on this unusual and disturbing incident. Lions do not usually prey on elephants – but some extraordinary circumstances had pushed this desperate pride to the brink.

This video of a baboon eating a newborn gazelle while it's still alive is one of the most disturbing scenes we’ve captured on film. Earth Touch cameraman Boris von Schoenebeck takes us back to the day it was filmed and explains what it was like to be behind the camera.

Powerful maternal instincts make it extremely difficult for this female baboon to let go of her dead baby. In a heartbreaking display of what might be interpreted as grief, she carries the tiny body with her for days – despite its increasingly deteriorated state. This behavior has been observed in many primate species, including gorillas, vervets and baboons.

This disturbing video of a young elephant calf being eaten alive by lions was filmed in Botswana. Lions do not usually prey on elephants, but an extreme drought had forced this pride to take on nature’s giants. The young calf had strayed too far from the rest of its herd, giving the lions the perfect opportunity to attack.