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BBC Wildlife In A War Zone 2010

Sanjayan Muttulingam was forced to flee Sierra Leone when civil war erupted. Now a biologist in the United States, Sanjayan returns to his native land to find out what has happened to the animals which inspired him and the people he left behind.

It's been 15 years since scientist Sanjayan Muttulingam has been home to Sierra Leone - a country dubbed 'the worst place on Earth' by the UN.

Set on Africa's western coastline, Sierra Leone, now ravaged by civil war, was once a peaceful, vibrant, and lush country, famous for its wildlife and rare species revered by Scientists and Conservationists the world over.

Sanjayan makes an emotional and curious return to his homeland to discover whether natural beauty still remains, and whether, despite the hunting of animals, wildlife can still exist in a warzone.

The first stop is the country's capital Freetown, where Sanjayan discovers evidence of war everywhere he turns. Then, venturing deeper into the jungle, Sanjayan follows in the footsteps of his hero, British naturalist Gerald Durrell, who ventured on an animal-hunting safari in the country's tropical jungle in 1965.

Using Durrell's expedition records, Sanjayan goes in search of the wildlife that once populated the vast and mountainous landscape of Sierra Leone. Can he find the mythical pygmy hippopotamus, the many kinds of monkeys that call this country home, and the rare bird species that exist in no other place but here?