Wild heroes
Going wild with
Hamza Yassin
Find out about his favourite places, wildlife wishlist and an otterly amazing visitor!
Meet Hamza! He’s a wildlife cameraman and TV presenter who travels the world filming amazing wildlife. He says it’s the best job in the world!
There’s no place like home
I love nature in the UK – there’s so much variety. And you’re never further than 72 miles from the sea. This means you can be at the top of a mountain that’s similar to the Alps, and in just a few hours you could travel to beaches with white sand like they have in Jamaica. Here in the UK you’ve got everything – coasts, mountains, rivers, forests – and it’s all within a short distance.
I live near the coast in Scotland! It's beautiful - just look at the colour of that sea below!
The best job in the world
The best thing about being a wildlife cameraman is that I get to travel the world and see wildlife. I get to be the closest person to that wildlife. The worst thing is definitely all the midges and mosquito bites. Camera crews are constantly outdoors, waiting to get the best footage – and waiting to get bitten!
Otterly awesome!
I once spent a few weeks raising an otter kit. I called it Uisge (prounced ‘uuzh-gah’). It was injured, so I looked after it before it went to an otter sanctuary. I ran it a bath every day so it could swim and clean its fur. And fishermen gave me some of their fish to feed it.
A world of wildlife
I’d love to go to Hokkaido. It’s a wildlife park on an island in Japan. They have Steller’s sea eagles there, and white-tailed eagles too. I want to go back to lots of places like the Canadian Arctic, Australia and Antarctica again. And I’d like to film Andean condors in the Peruvian mountains. There’s a lot I want to do!
Make friends with nature
Being outdoors is fun, and the best way to get in touch with nature. When you get outside, you can learn that everything is connected. You can see an osprey here, but it’ll soon be off to west Africa, where people will look after it for six months before it returns to the UK. We’re important guardians for creatures before they migrate to another country.
Fill up on fab facts!
Hamza’s Wild World, written by Hamza and illustrated by Louisa Forshaw, is out now from Macmillan Children’s Books. The paperback will be out in July.
