Inside Noah’s Ark

Most of us think of African wildlife reserves as vast expanses of virgin land where wild animals live natural lives, safe from human interference.

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.

Just as the gods intended.

That’s how wildlife reserves want to be seen and how tourists want to see them.

That’s not the way they are.

Inside Noah’s Ark is a wildlife trilogy like you’ve never seen before.

These three 1-hour documentaries take viewers where tourists can never go — behind the scenes at two of the world’s great wildlife reserves, South Africa’s Pilanesberg National Park and Tswalu Kalahari Reserve.

In both reserves — because of human need, greed and ignorance — wild animals can no longer live truly wild. Instead, they have to be managed, just like cattle on a ranch. In effect, the animals live in huge zoos.

On location for Inside Noah’s Ark in the Tswalu Kalahari Reserve with tranquilized cheetah. Left to right: Executive Producer Tim Knight, Director of Photography Russell Belter, Tswalu General Manager Gus van Dyk.

Our guide is field biologist Gus van Dyk who moves from Head Ranger at Pilanesberg to manage the brand new Tswalu Reserve (motto: “Return the Kalahari to Itself”) owned by billionaire Nicky Oppenheimer, chairman of the De Beers diamond company.

Van Dyk is handsome, charismatic and caring, more like a rugged movie star than a scientist. His wildlife expertise combines modern science with traditional African knowledge as he builds twenty-first century Noah’s Arks in South Africa’s high-veldt and desert.

Inside Noah’s Ark is powerful reality storytelling, focusing on a man who must radically intervene in nature to save what little is left.

Inside Noah’s Ark was produced in 2008 by KnightHawk Communications Inc. and WildCam Television Productions for Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, PBS and 15 international broadcasters.