Wildcat

- (BIRDS CALLING) - (INSECTS TRILLING)

HARRY TURNER (WHISPERING): It's a squirrel.

That squirrel's gonna go...

Get it. Get it.

Get it.

It's a squirrel.

Go. Go.

Don't play with it.

I'm gonna get it. I'm gonna get it.

Eat it.

We're wild animals, me and you.

We're wild.

- (TAPPING) - Come here.

Come here.

Okay, piggyback.

The reintroduction was always for one reason.

That was to put a wildcat back into the wild again.

But it's just hard.

It's hard to let go of something you love.

Especially when you're letting him go into, like,

one of the most dangerous environments in the world.

Private Harry Turner is just 18,

one of the youngest soldiers here.

He only finished training in March and is now on a six-month tour.

My mum was a little bit, like,

shocked because she thought I was only going to be out here

for two weeks, but nah, my mum, dad, they're all supportive about it.

I was medically discharged

with recurrent depression and PTSD.

After Afghanistan, I struggled so badly.

I felt that life wasn't worth living

and maybe I should just pack up all of my things

and just go where no one knows where I am,

no one knows if I'm alive, no one knows if I'm dead.

And then when I met Sam,

that's when my life really took a turn.

You know, when I came across Harry,

he was extremely misunderstood.

This, you know, boy who went to war instead of going to college,

which is what a lot of people see when they look at him.

But I obviously saw something super special in him.

He spent his time in the jungle

volunteering and helping me with, like, this greater cause.

Just carrying a sloth on my back through the jungle.

Gonna get him back, give him some food, put him back up a tree.

Sam could've easily stayed at home and just studied at university.

You know, the usual.

But she was out there in the jungle, physically doing it.

I started Hoja Nueva after I first came to Peru.

I came as a student to do wildlife research.

Yeah, look how big these are.

Huge ocelot.

Poop, poop, poop, poop.

And I stayed because I saw a need

not just for research but for being a part of the conservation efforts as a whole.

I'm saying I'm going to pay five dollars per sample collected of cat scat.

Now, that is how you motivate people.

Right? Am I right? (LAUGHS)

And it's just morphed and-and grown a lot since then.

We as an NGO

try very hard to prevent deforestation and hunting.

It's a Peruvian nonprofit, and it's a place that

animals that don't have another chance can come to.

Hi!

Hi! Hi!

Hi, I'm Samantha. I'm good, you?

Nice to meet you.

You have a family of animals. I like it a lot.

It's like my family. (LAUGHING)

I think it will take time to be wild again,

but little by little he can.

Let's see.

Banana. (GASPS)

Yeah? Okay.

- (MUTTERS) It's okay. - (SQUEALS)

We get animals because of things like logging, mining,

wildlife trafficking, people selling animals in markets.

And we have to do what we can to get the younger animals rehabilitated.

Their alternative is living in a cement box

or getting euthanized

or dying in a much worse way.

Billy!

They live, basically, in larger herds on the other side of the river from us,

but we're still gonna try to reintroduce him

because pigs are quite easy in that way.

He never had a mama. You can tell.

You can always tell when they've never had a mama.

He's a baby.

Baby paca-rana.

What are you doing?

What are you doing?

It's hard to describe, like,

the feeling of being in a place that still has beauty like this.

- (LAUGHING) - (MUTTERING)

Being around animals, being around nature,

not having that many people around.

Harry, what you looking at?

- Oh, you got a leaf in your hair. - Oh.

Oh, my God! (LAUGHS)

I've seen the jungle here change people.

Whoa!

: Harry, no.

- (SQUEALS) Oh, my God! - (LAUGHTER)

Three, two, one.

We became, you know, a team,

best friends and partners,

and when Khan came into our hands,

that's when my life really had a purpose.

Yesterday we rescued him

from some illegal loggers.

He was in a tree that they cut down.

We've named him Khan.

We're gonna try and do a reintroduction program with him.

It was an incredible feeling to know

that this animal wasn't gonna be going onto the black market,

to know that its claws weren't gonna be clipped

or its teeth weren't gonna be ground down.

No more biting of the face.

Good baby. Good baby!

Khan. (CLICKING TONGUE)

You want to go to Daddy? Khan. (CLICKING TONGUE)

Good boy. You got it.

The goal was always that Khan would be a wild ocelot.

That it was better than living a life in the zoo.

Good boy.

I started doing all the research possible

to come up with a reintroduction plan.

Come join Mummy up in the tree.

Good boy.

The biggest kind of challenge was

no one had done it before.

They've never actively spent time with a wildcat for a year,

a year and a half, two years, and then reintroduced it.

It's just never been done.

Mosquitoes are bad tonight, as you can tell.

But I just found this little dude.

Khan.

He's here. (HISSES PLAYFULLY)

Where is it?

Did you lose it?

Right, when you get something, you have to kill it.

You have to.

Otherwise, you're gonna die out here.

I didn't know if it was gonna be doable,

but Sam had a lot of faith in me.

I don't think there's anyone that's better-suited for this project.

It doesn't matter if you come from an academic background

or you have a master's or a PhD.

Most people couldn't survive here.

A lot of people come down and do research projects

that last three months and can't even usually last that long,

living day-to-day in the Amazon rain forest.

So, Harry's history and experience with being in harsh environments,

it makes him suited for this project.

He can smell something.

I'm gonna have to teach Khan that this caiman here can be food.

It's moving.

Okay.

Khan got bitten by him, so now he's a bit scared of...

He doesn't know what to do.

Khan, you've got to grab the neck.

I've got him.

Good boy.

Good boy. Good boy.

I'd like to say a huge thank-you for the amount of support that we've had

through the Khan ReWilding project.

Um, we would not be able to do this without you at all,

and he is growing up very, very quickly.

He's getting very, very boisterous.

And soon,

hopefully, he'll be off in the wild by himself.

Look how fat this little bugger is.

Look at your belly!