History TearJerker / PrehistoricPark

* Things get a little better in the next two episodes, since the two Sabretooths are nursed back to health, become mates, and have a litter of their own. Suzanne unfortunately learns that the mother can no longer produce milk for the new. This forces her to hand-rear them, since they would have died otherwise. Although all four cats end up completely fine, it's still a little upsetting that the mother and father couldn't raise their babies themselves.

** Later in the episode, when Martha refuses to eat, Nigel travels back further into the Ice Age to find the right kind of plants for her. He returns with some authentic Ice Age grasses (and an ''Elasmotherium''), but when she still refuses to eat, Nigel quickly realizes that the vegetation isn't the issue: Martha, a herd animal, is lonely. Fossil evidence shows that just like their modern relatives, only bull Mammoths lived solitary lives, while females lived in closely-related herds, as is shown in Nigel's second visit to the Ice Age. Not only does this make Martha's situation all the more upsetting, but it also explains why she was so [[HarsherInHindsight reluctant to leave her dead relative.]]

* In "A Mammoth Undertaking", Nigel travels to the very end of the Ice Age, where he spends quite some time looking for mammoths. After he finally finds what are heavily implied to be the last two mammoths on the continent, he sees that one of them is dead, stabbed to death by prehistoric human hunters. He soon realises that the second mammoth, who will go on to be named Martha, was brutally injured trying to protect her herdmate, stabbed with a spearhead that ultimately got stuck inside her thick skin, leaving her very sickly from the resultant infection. To make tings even worse, Martha either doesn't appear to understand, or refuses to accept, that her fellow mammoth is dead, as she keeps calling out to the dead one desperately searching for a reply or some other sign of life.

** Martha, the ''Elasmotherium'', the Terror Bird, and the Sabre-Toothed Cats are saved following massive climate change that wiped out '''all''' of the large animals of their era.

** This gets additionally upsetting when you remember that Terence and Matilda are not only siblings, but the only family they have left. As youngsters, the pair played and hung around each other all the time. In "Dinobirds", Matilda suddenly turned on Terrance and the pair started fighting whenever they were in contact with one another. This forced Bob and the parkkeepers to separate them with a dividing wall built through their enclosure, so the pair could no longer physically harm each other. As shown in "Bug House", despite the keepers' best efforts, it didn't work. Matilda was just ''that'' determined to kill her brother.

* In "A Mammoth Undertaking", Nigel travels to the very end of the Ice Age, where he spends quite some time looking for mammoths. After he finally finds what are heavily implied to be the last two mammoths on the continent, he sees that one of them is dead, stabbed to death by prehistoric human hunters. He soon realises that the second mammoth, who will go on to be named Martha, was brutally injured trying to protect her herdmate, stabbed with a spearhead that ultimately got stuck inside her thick skin, leaving her very sickly from the resultant infection.. To make tings even worse, Martha either doesn't appear to understand, or refuses to accept, that her fellow mammoth is dead, as she keeps calling out to the dead one desperately searching for a reply or some other sign of life.

* This series does not hold back on demonstrating just how cruel nature and extinction can be. Unlike what most people think, it is generally ''not'' an instantaneous thing.
** In the case of some of these animals, namely the late Cretaceous Dinosaurs and the Ice Age mammals, Nigel rescues them just before their species historically became extinct. Whilst this is awesome for some sci-fi fans as it demonstrates just how much thought went into this series, it also means that we as the audience get to witness some very harsh and unwanted spectacles.
** [[FridgeLogic They could travel through time, yet they couldn't arrive in time to save these animals?]]
*** It looked like they were taking the animals from the times they were becoming extinct to not have as big an effect on the timeline... maybe.
** What is worse is that if you ignore the artistic license and fictional setting, some of the hardships we witnessed more than likely ''really did happen'' during the said decline and eventual extinction of these species.
*** There's one crucial difference between what the show depicts and what actually happened that, while obvious on the surface, is downright ''sobering'' once it truly hits you: unlike in the show, no one was there in RealLife to save even a single individual of these species from their fate and (barring the unlikely development that we really do invent TimeTravel someday) no one ever will be. They're well and truly gone
* With the exception of the ''Deinosuchus'' in each episode Nigel rescue's the animals from an event that would have otherwise seen their species as a whole wiped out or at the very least completely destroyed the local populations.
** The ''T rex's'', ''Triceratops'' and ''Ornithomimus'' were saved from the cataclysmic K-T extinction event.
** The Ice Age creatures, i.e. the ''Mammoth'', ''Elasmotherium'', Terror Bird and Sabre-Toothed Cats were rescued following a number of massive climate changes that wiped out '''all''' of the large animals of their era.
** Lastly, the dinosaurs rescued within "Dino-Bird" and the giant insects of "The Bug House" would have otherwise been the victims of natural disasters, a volcanic eruption and forest fire respectively.

* The death of the mother ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' in "T-Rex Returns". Even Nigel seemed shaken by that.
** Just before she died, the mother Rex let out one last defiant roar at Nigel. Probably as a last-ditch attempt to [[MamaBear protect her babies]].
* In "Dino Birds" Nigel is able to save several dinosaurs as the volcano in prehistoric China erupts. Unfortunately, the ''Incisivosaurus'' he had encountered earlier was not among those dinosaurs saved.
* During "Saving the Sabretooth", the mother ''Ornithomimus'' rejects two of her eggs. They're retrieved and Bob tries to hatch them in an incubator. Soon all the other eggs hatch, but the two in the incubator don't, [[spoiler: thankfully they do hatch eventually]].
* Matilda attacks and nearly kills her brother Terence in "The Bug House". Terence receives a massive injury to his face as a result of the said incident, which later becomes infected, leaving him seriously ill. The vet staff are eventually forced to take desperate measures in an attempt to save his life. [[spoiler: Fortunately, it works!]]
** This is quite upsetting when you remember that Terence and Matilda are siblings and (quite literally) the only family they have left. As youngsters, the pair played and hung around together all the time. Then suddenly in "Dino-Bird" Matilda turned upon Terence and the two started fighting. This forced the keepers to intervene, separate them and build a dividing wall through their enclosure so that the pair could not physically harm each other. As shown in "The Bug House" despite the keepers best efforts, it ''didn't'' work. Matilda was just that determined to kill her brother!
** It's never fully understood why exactly Matilda became so hostile towards Terence either.
** A particularly jarring scene for anybody that is a fan of T rex happens about midway through the episode. When Suzanne goes to check up on Terence, he is clearly struggling to stand up. Terence's head is down, his eyes are half-open and he is groaning in pain, showing that he is clearly not well. ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' is usually portrayed as an invincible killing machine that fears nothing and can stand up to almost anything. This scene shows another side to this animal that is rarely considered and demonstrates that at the end of the day, T rex was just as vulnerable as any of us.

[[AC: The Ice Age Mammals]]

* Apart from the aforementioned Terence, the series seems to enjoy being [[TheWoobie particularly cruel to Martha the Mammoth and the Sabretooth cats.]]

Martha

* Travelling to the very end of the Ice Age in "A Mammoth Undertaking", Nigel spends quite some time looking for the creature in question. When he does finally find what are heavily implied to be the last two Mammoths on the continent, one of them is dead, the victim of human hunting. He soon realises that the second Mammoth, later named Martha, is sick and was probably injured when she tried to protect her herd mate. To make the scene even worse, Martha either doesn't appear to understand or refuses to accept that her fellow Mammoth is dead. She keeps calling out to her, desperately searching for a reply or some other sign of life.
** After Martha collapses, Nigel goes over to the dead Mammoth, who he suspects is Martha's sister. The close-up shots make it very clear that her death was not quick or painless.
** For anyone who is a conservationist or an animal lover, Nigel then delivers one of the series' most serious and gut-wrenching statements. He tells the audience that although Mammoths declined due to climate change, it was human hunting that ultimately finished them off. In spite of this, he indicates that Ice Age hunters can be forgiven, because they did not understand what they were doing and were ultimately just trying to survive in a harsh, cruel environment. Pointing at the dead Mammoth's body, he then says (almost angrily) that modern humans have [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters no such excuse]] for this behaviour. That's right, even after ten thousand years and with a better understanding of nature and the creatures within it, modern people ''still'' do this type of thing to endangered animals in the 21st century.
** Later in the episode, when Martha won't eat, Nigel travels back further into the Ice Age. He returns with some authentic Ice Age food (and a woolly rhino to boot) but quickly realises that the type of vegetation isn't the issue here. Martha is lonely! Fossil evidence has shown that just like their modern relatives, only the bull Mammoths lived solitary lives. The females meanwhile lived in closely related herds, which was shown in Nigel's second visit to the Ice Age. Not only does this make Martha's situation all the more upsetting, but it also explains why she was so [[HarsherInHindsight reluctant to leave her dead relative!]]
* At the end of the episode, the keepers appear to resolve the issue by getting Martha to join the park's elephant herd. For a time, all is well. Then suddenly, in the final episode of the series, "Supercroc" the matriarch who had initially accepted Martha starts to become aggressive towards the said Mammoth. As a result of this, Martha becomes isolated again and is not accepted by any of the other elephants, with the exception of the herd's baby. [[spoiler: The situation ends positively however, when following the mass breakout, Martha saves the said baby from Matilda, earning the herds appreciation and acceptance.]]

The Sabretooths

The second half of "Saving the Sabretooth" is arguably the biggest demonstration of just how cruel nature and extinction can be. It is not a pleasant sequence to watch. More than a few fans have admitted that even rewatching it can be very difficult.
* When they finally track down their quarry, Nigel and popular big cat expert Saba Douglas-Hamilton mourn the state that the Sabretooth cat family is in. Namely, they and the rest of their species are dying of starvation.
** In fact, one of the first discoveries they make, which confirms that Sabretooth's are living in the area, is a freshly dead cub. Saba finds it first and is clearly devastated. When Nigel arrives soon afterwards, the pair reluctantly acknowledge that physically at least there is nothing wrong with the cub, except that it is very thin. Despite her best efforts, the cub's mother just couldn't save it.
*** The thing to remember is that as naturalists who have worked/studied alongside many animals, including big cats, Nigel and Saba have probably witnessed scenes like this in real life.
* The contrast between the Sabretooth living one million years ago to those living ten-thousand years ago is really upsetting. In the first incident, food is plentiful and the big cats have little trouble finding it. After one cat makes a kill, the rest of its family arrive to join the buffet. When the group finally leaves, they all have full bellies and there is still plenty of meat on the carcass (which they can also return to) for other animals to eat. Skipping forward to the end of the Ice Age, we find that the relic population of Sabretooth cats are barely able to find any food. The large creatures they hunted are all gone, leaving behind smaller, nimbler species that the cats simply cannot catch. Such was the impact of this food shortage, that the groups they once lived in no longer exist and Sabretooths now live solitary existences.
** This plight is demonstrated in the later sequence when Saba and Nigel witness the dead cub's mother stalking a deer. Their comments serve to demonstrate that this attack is one of pure desperation in an attempt to avoid starvation. As Nigel points out, the mother is simply not built to catch a fleet-footed animal like this and Saba also points out that the cat in question has paid no attention to her surroundings or wind direction. Despite this probably being one of the few times we were routing for the carnivore when the deer inevitably realizes the mother's presence it ''easily'' outruns her.
* Following the hunt, the pair follow the female back to her den, where they find that she has ''another'' cub. The two cats however are clearly at death's door. As Nigel and Saba watch on, both mother and child groan audibly, clearly in agony. Knowing they don't have any time to waste the two conservationists rush to fetch their supplies and save them ...
* However, [[OhCrap a male sabretooth shows up]]. Knowing that he could attack and [[OffingTheOffspring kill the cub]], Nigel and Saba tranquilize and capture him first. Once this is done, the pair rush back to the den. Only then do they discover that this delay [[UnwittingInstigatorofDoom sealed the surviving cub's fate.]]
** Just like Martha previously did with her herd mate, the mother sabretooth desperately nuzzles her dead baby, trying to get some sort of response from it. Nothing happens. By the time Saba darts the grieving mother, she herself is virtually in tears.

---> '''Narrator''': Starvation has killed her cubs and it's killing her too.
* Things get a little better in the next two episodes. The male and female Sabretooths are nursed back to health, become mates and then have a litter of their own. Only then does, Suzanne the vet learn that the mother cannot produce milk for her babies. This forces her to hand-rear the cubs, who would have died otherwise. Although all four cats emerge out of the episode completely fine and happy, it is still a little upsetting that the mother and father could not raise their babies themselves.
** It is more or less confirmed that the female sabretooth herself is a very good and affectionate mother. She is only separated from her second litter due to circumstances completely beyond her control. As the narrator points out however, if Suzanne or any of the other keepers tried to put Mum and her babies back together again, she would no longer recognise them as her own and kill them.

** The Ice Age creatures, i.e. the ''Mammoth'', ''Elasmopherium'', Terror Bird and Sabre-Toothed Cats were rescued following a number of massive climate changes that wiped out '''all''' of the large animals of their era.