Wild Morocco Monkeys and Snakes

Recently proclaimed a masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity, Jemaa el-Fna Square in Marrakesh is one of the most popular touristic spots in Morocco. That square is the stage for a long-established ritual in which shifting circles of onlookers gather around folk musicians, storytellers, acrobatic animals, and snake charmers. Among those workers, Barbary apes, cobras, horned desert vipers or Montpellier snakes have all been taken from their natural habitat and are exhibited by their masters for a handful of dirhams. Where do these animals come from? What are there specificities? How do they live in the wild? From the snowy forests of Atlas cedars to the hot desert of Southern Morocco, with the help of two renowned naturalists, we will discover these fascinating animals in their natural environment. For one whole year, we will share the lives of Morocco’s last free-roaming Barbary apes (a unique endangered primate species struggling to survive in the snow of the Ifrane National Park) and try to observe the rarest and most dangerous reptiles of the Western Sahara desert, on the border of Algeria and Mauritania.