Liz Bonnin's Wild Caribbean | Preview (BBC Two)

Liz Bonnin explores the extraordinary natural wonders of the Greater Antilles.

The peculiar geology of the Greater Antilles has created a stretch of islands with hidden natural treasures – from salt lakes, to deserts and forested peaks – where people are learning to forge a new relationship with the animals that inhabit this wild terrain.

In the Dominican Republic, on the island of Hispaniola, Liz helps the residents of a tiny village called Los Limones to scale a 60-foot palm tree to retrieve a Ridgeway’s Hawk chick, at risk of a deadly parasitic infection.

Their efforts are helping this endangered species, found nowhere else on the world, bounce back from the brink of extinction.

Travelling to the forest that borders Haiti, Liz searches for the planet’s greatest survivor – the solenodon. A bizarre rodent-like animal with a nose like a trunk, it survived the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs. Almost impossible to find, she joins a local man “born in the bush” and runs through dense forest in the dead of night to track one down.

Liz then joins local scientists in the driest and lowest place in the Caribbean. 40m below sea-level, on Lago Enriquillo, she encounters enormous American Crocodiles and monitors their eggs, as the scientists prepare for a new project that should see the croc population soar.

Finally, Liz joins a heroic team, in the all-inclusive holiday resorts on the east side of the island. Here, flamingos are often kept on hotel lawns: an attraction for holiday-makers. Liz helps the team liberate flamingos from over 20 years of captivity, witnessing their flight to freedom.

Liz Bonnin's Wild Carribean begins Sunday 5th November on BBC Two.